National Library of Scotland
*6000673063*
.
•>
ENCYCLOPAEDIA BID TANNIC A.
EIGHTH EDITION.
ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA
OK
DICTIONARY
AKTS. SCIENCES, AND GENERAL LITERATURE.
EIGHTH EDITION.
WITH EXTENSIVE IMPROVEMENTS AND ADDITIONS;
AND NUMEROUS ENGRAVINGS.
VOLUME XVI.
ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK, EDINBURGH.
MDCCCLVIII.
[The Proprietors of this Work give notice that they reserve the right of Translating it.\
NEILL AND CO., PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.
ENCYCLOPEDIA BKITANNICA
NAYIGATIOK
History. Navigation is the art of conducting a ship from one port
v-*-' or place to another.
HISTORY.
The profane poets refer the invention of the art of na¬
vigation to their heathen deities, though historians ascribe
it to the Aginetes, the Phoenicians, the Tyrians, and the
ancient inhabitants of Britain. Scripture refers the origin
of so useful an invention to God himself, who gave the first
specimen of navigation in the ark built by Noah under his
direction.
The earliest record of the practice of the art of navigation
is that of the Egyptians, who at a very remote period are said
to have established commercial relations with India. This
traffic was carried on between the Arabian Gulf and the
western coast of India, across the Indian Ocean. It would
appear, however, that this intercourse was of no long dura¬
tion, and that the Egyptians soon confined themselves to
overland traffic with their neighbours, even excluding from
all access to their country those foreigners who would have
traded with them by the Mediterranean Sea.
The Phoenicians were the most distinguished of the early
navigators; their commercial relations with other nations were
the most widely spread ; and their capital, Tyre, was for ages
the centre of ancient commerce and the “ mart of nations.”
The narrowness and poverty of the little slip of ground
they possessed along the coast, and the convenience of two
or three good ports, naturally drove an enterprising and
industrious people, stimulated by a genius for commerce, to
seek by sea those riches which were denied them by land.
Accordingly, Lebanon and the other neighbouring moun¬
tains furnishing them with excellent wood for ship-build¬
ing, they in a short time became masters of a numerous
fleet; and constantly hazarding new navigations, and settl¬
ing new trades, they soon arrived at an incredible pitch
of opulence and populousness, insomuch as to be in a con¬
dition to send out colonies. 1 he principal of these was
Carthage, which, keeping up the Phoenician spirit of com-
meice, in time not only equalled Tyre itself^ but vastly
surpassed it, sending its merchant fleets through the Straits
of Gibraltar, along the western coasts of Africa and Europe,
and even, if we may believe some authors, to America
itself.
At an early period of their history, although long subse¬
quently to the rise of the Phoenician navigators, the Greeks
learned and practised the art of navigating the adjacent seas,
although they seem to have trusted almost entirely to the
oar as the instrument of propulsion. The celebrated voy¬
age of the Argonauts belongs to a very early period; and
in later times the Corinthians and Corcyraeans disputed with
Athens the empire of the Greek seas. At length Tyre,
whose immense riches and power are represented in such
lofty terms both by sacred and profane authors, was de¬
stroyed by Alexander the Great, upon which its navigation
and commerce were transferred by the conqueror to Alex¬
andria, a new city, admirably situated for these purposes,
and intended to form the capital of the empire of Asia,
of which Alexander then meditated the conquest. And
thus arose the great navigation of the Egyptians, which was
afterwards so much cultivated by the Ptolemies, that Tyre
and Carthage were quite forgotten.
Egypt being reduced to a Roman province after the
battle of Actium, its trade and navigation fell into the
hands of Augustus, in whose time Alexandria was only
inferior to Rome; and the magazines of the capital of the
world were wholly supplied with merchandise from the
commercial capital of Egypt.
At length Alexandria itself underwent the fate of Tyre
and Carthage, being surprised by the Saracens, who, in
spite of the Emperor Heraclius, overspread the northern
coast of Africa. By them the merchants were expelled, and
Alexandria was, until lately, in a languishing state; though
it always had a considerable share of the commerce of the
Christian merchants trading to the Levant. A fresh im¬
pulse, however, has been given of late years to the trade
of Alexandria by its having Become an important post in
the overland route to India.
The fall of Rome and its empire drew along with it not
only the overthrow of learning and thepolite arts, but also that
2
NAVIGATION.
History, of navigation; the barbarians, into whose hands it fell, con-
tenting themselves with the spoils of the industry of their
predecessors. But no sooner were the braver amongst
those nations well settled in their new provinces,—some in
Gaul, as the Franks; others in Spain, as the Goths; and
others in Italy, as the Lombards,—than they began to learn
the advantages of navigation and commerce, and the me¬
thods of managing them, from the people they had sub¬
dued ; and this with so much success, that in a little time
some of them became able to give new lessons, and set on
foot new institutions for its advantage. Thus it is to the
Lombards that we usually ascribe the invention and use of
banks, book-keeping, exchanges, rechanges, &c.
It does not appear which of the European people, after
the settlement of their new masters, first betook themselves
to navigation and commerce. Some think it began with
the French, although the Italians seem to have the fairest
title to this distinction, and are accordingly regarded as
the restorers of navigation, as well as of the polite arts,
which had been banished together from the time the
empire was torn asunder. It is the people of Italy, then,
and particularly those of Venice and Genoa, who have
the merit of this restoration; and it is to their advan¬
tageous situation for navigation that they in great mea¬
sure owe their glory. In the bottom of the Adriatic were
a great number of marshy islands, only separated by nar¬
row channels, but these well screened, and almost inac¬
cessible, the residence of some fishermen, w'ho here sup¬
ported themselves by a little trade in fish and salt, which
they found in some of these islands. Thither the Veneti,
a people inhabiting that part of Italy which stretches along
the coasts of the gulf, retired, when Alaric, King of the
Goths, and afterwards Attila, King of the Huns, ravaged
Italy.
These new islanders, little imagining that this was to be
their fixed residence, did not think of composing any body
politic; but each of the seventy-two islands of this little
archipelago continued a long time under its separate mas¬
ter, and each formed a distinct commonwealth. When
their commerce had become considerable enough to occa¬
sion jealousy to their neighbours, they began to think of
uniting into a body; and it was this union, first begun in
the sixth century, but not completed till the eighth, that
laid the sure foundation of the future grandeur of the state
of Venice. From the time of this union, their fleets of mer¬
chantmen were sent to all the ports of the Mediterranean ;
and at last to those of Egypt, particularly Cairo, a new
city built by the Saracen princes, on the eastern bank of
the Nile, where they traded for the spices and other pro¬
ducts of the Indies. Thus they flourished and increased
their commerce, their navigation, and their conquests, till
the league of Cambray in 1508, when a number of jeaious
princes conspired to bring about their ruin. This was the
more easily effected by the diminution of their East India
commerce, of which the Portuguese had got one part and
the French another.
Genoa, which had applied itself to navigation at the same
time with Venice, and that with equal success, was a long
time its dangerous rival, disputed with it the empire of
the sea, and shared with it the trade of Egypt and other
parts, both of the East and West. But jealousy soon broke
out; and the two republics coming to an open rupture,
there was almost continual war for three centuries. To¬
wards the end of the fourteenth century, the battle of
Chioza ended the strife. The Genoese, who till then had
usually the advantage, now lost all; and the Venetians, re¬
duced almost to despair, secured to themselves, by one
happy and unexpected blow, the foremost place in com¬
merce and the sole empire of the sea.
About the same time that navigation was retrieved in
the southern parts of Europe, a new society of merchants
was formed in the north, which not only carried commerce
to the greatest perfection of which it was capable till the
discovery of the East and West Indies, but also formed a
new scheme of laws for its regulation, which still obtain
under the name of Uses and Customs of the Sea.
This society is that famous league of the Hanse Towns,
commonly supposed to have been instituted about the year
1164. (See Hanseatic League, and Commerce. For
the present state of navigation in the various countries of
the world, see under the name of each.)
We shall only add, that in examining the causes of com¬
merce passing successively from the Venetians, Genoese,
and Hanse Towns, to the Portuguese and Spaniards, and
from these again to the English and Dutch, it may be
established as a maxim, that the relation between com¬
merce and navigation, or their union, is so intimate, that
the fall of the one inevitably draws after it that of the
other; and that they will always either flourish or decline
together. Hence so many laws, ordinances, statutes, and
edicts for its regulation; and hence particularly that cele¬
brated act of navigation, which an eminent foreign author
calls the palladium or tutelar deity of the commerce of Eng¬
land, which was long considered as the standing rule, not
only of the British amongst themselves, but also as that
of other nations with whom they trafficked.
The progress of political and commercial science, which
gradually opened men’s eyes to the great principle that all
trade is most healthy and prosperous when subjected to the
fewest possible, and those only the most necessary, restric¬
tions, resulted in the total repeal of these famous navigation
laws in 1846, since which period trade with England has
been free and open to all the world ; but so far from British
shipping and commerce being injured or diminished, they
have been more prosperous since that repeal than they were
at any former period, when most carefully fostered by
History.
protective laws.
The art of navigation has been exceedingly improved
in modern times, both with regard to the form of the ves¬
sels themselves, and also with respect to the methods of
working them. The use of rowers is now entirely super¬
seded by the improvements made in the formation of the
sails, rigging, &c.; by which means ships can not only sail
much faster than formerly, but can tack in any direction with
the greatest facility; and of late years the extensive and
still growing employment of steam as the propelling power,
whether applied to paddle-wheels or screws, has still further
placed the mariner beyond the adverse retarding influence
of calm and contrary winds, and has introduced an element
of certainty and punctuality in commercial intercourse un¬
known at any previous period, and invaluable as it affects
the interests of commerce. It is also very certain that
the ancients were neither so well skilled in finding the
latitudes, nor in steering their vessels in places of difficult
navigation, as the moderns. But the greatest advantage
which the moderns possess over the ancients consists in the
mariner’s compass, by which they are enabled to find their
way with more facility in the midst of an immeasurable
ocean, than the ancients could have done by creeping along
the coast, and never going out of sight of land. Some
people indeed contend that this is no new invention, but
that the ancients were acquainted with it. They say, that
it was impossible for Solomon to have sent ships to Ophir,
Tarshish, and Parvaim, which last they imagine to have
been Peru, without this useful instrument. They insist,
that it was impossible for the ancients to be acquainted
with the attractive virtue of the magnet, and to be igno¬
rant of its polarity; nay, they affirm that this property of
the magnet is plainly mentioned in the book of Job, where
the loadstone is mentioned by the name of topaz, or the stone
that turns itself. But it is certain that the Romans who
conquered Judsea were ignorant of this instrument; and
N AY IG
History, it is very improbable that such a useful invention, if
it had once been commonly known to any nation, would
have been forgotten, or perfectly concealed from such a
prudent people as the Romans, who were so deeply inter¬
ested in the discovery of it.
Amongst those who admit that the mariner’s compass is
a modern invention, it has been much disputed who was
the inventor. Some attribute the honour of the discovery
to Flavio Gioia of Amalfi in Campania, who lived about
the beginning of the fourteenth century; whilst others con¬
tend that it came from the East, and was earlier known in
Europe. But at whatever time it was invented, it is cer¬
tain that the mariners compass was not commonly used
in navigation before the year 1420. In that year the
science was considerably improved under the auspices of
Henry, Duke of Visco, brother to the King of Portugal. In
the year 1485, Roderick and Joseph, physicians to John
II., King of Portugal, together with one Martin de Bohe¬
mia, a Portuguese native of the island of Fayal, and scholar
of Regiomontanus, calculated tables of the sun’s declina¬
tion for the use of sailors, and recommended the astrolabe
for taking observations at sea. Of the instructions of Mar¬
tin the celebrated Christopher Columbus is said to have
availed himself, and to have improved the Spaniards in
the knowledge of the art; for the farther progress of which
a lecture was afterwards founded at Seville by the Em¬
peror Charles V.
The discovery of the variation is claimed both by Colum¬
bus and by Sebastian Cabot. The former certainly did ob¬
serve the variation, without having heard of it from any
other person, on the 14th of September 1492, and it is very
probable that Cabot might have done the same. At that
time it was found that there was no variation at the Azores,
where some geographers have thought proper to place the
first meridian, though it has since been observed that the
variation alters in time. The use of the cross staff now
began to be introduced amongst sailors. This ancient in¬
strument is described by John Werner of Nuremberg, in
his annotations on the first book of Ptolemy’s Geography,
printed in the year 1514. He recommends it for observ¬
ing the distance between the moon and some star, in order
thence to determine the longitude.
At this time the art of navigation was very imperfect,
on account of the inaccuracies of the plane chart, which
was the only one then known, and which, by its gross er¬
rors, must have greatly misled the mariner, especially in
voyages far distant from the equator. Its precepts were
probably at first only set down on the sea-charts, as is the
custom at this day; but at length two Spanish treatises
were published in the year 1545,—one by Pedro de Medina,
and the other by Martin Cortes,—which contained a com¬
plete system of the art, as far as it was then known. These
seem to have been the oldest writers who fully handled the
art; for Medina, in his dedication to Philip, Prince of Spain,
laments that multitudes of ships daily perished at sea, be¬
cause there were neither teachers of the art, nor books by
which it might be learned; and Cortes, in his dedication,
boasts to the emperor that he was the first who had re¬
duced navigation into a compendium, valuing himself much
on what he had performed. Medina defended the plane
chart; but he was opposed by Cortes, who showed its er¬
rors, and endeavoured to account for the variation of the
compass by supposing the needle to be influenced by a
magnetic pole (which he called the •point attractive), dif¬
ferent from that of the world, which notion has been far¬
ther prosecuted by others, and is now generally accepted
as true in the scientific world. Medina’s book was soon
translated into Italian, French, and Flemish, and for along
time served as a guide to foreign navigators. Cortes, how¬
ever, was the favourite author of the English nation, and
was translated in the year 1561 ; whilst Medina’s work
A T I 0 N. 3
was entirely neglected, though translated also within a History,
short time of the other. At that time the system of
navigation consisted of an account of the Ptolemaic hypo¬
thesis, and the circles of the sphere ; of the roundness of
the earth, the longitudes, latitudes, climates, &c., and
eclipses of the luminaries ; a calendar ; the method of
finding the prime, epact, moon’s age, and tides; a de¬
scription of the compass, an account of its variation, for
the discovery of which Cortes said that an instrument
might easily be contrived ; tables of the sun’s declination
for four years, in order to find the latitude from his
meridian altitude; directions to find the same by certain
stars; of the course of the sun and moon ; the length
of the days ; of time and its divisions ; the method of find¬
ing the hour of the day and night; and, lastly, a description
of the sea chart, on which, in order to discover where the
ship was, they made use of a small table, which showed,
upon an alteration of one degree of the latitude, how many
leagues were run in each rhumb, together with the departure
from the meridian. Some other instruments were also
described, especially by Cortes; such as one to find the
place and declination of the sun, with the days and place
of the moon ; certain dials, the astrolabe, and cross staff;
together with a complex machine to discover the hour and
latitude at once.
About the same time proposals were made for finding
the longitude by observations of the moon. In 1530
Gemma Frisius advised the keeping of time by means of
small clocks or watches, which were then, as he says, newly
invented. He also contrived a new sort of cross staff, and
an instrument called the nautical quadrant, which last was
much praised by William Cunningham in his Astronomical
Glass, printed in the year 1559.
In the year 1537, Pedro Nunez, or Nonius, published a
book in the Portuguese language, to explain a difficulty in
navigation proposed to him by the commander Don Martin
Alphonso de Susa. In this he exposed the errors of the
plane chart, and likewise gave the solution of several curi¬
ous astronomical problems, amongst which was that of
determining the latitude from two observations of the sun’s
altitude and the intermediate azimuth. He observed, that
although the rhumbs are spiral lines, yet the direct course
of a ship will always be in the arc of a great circle, where¬
by the angle with the meridians will continually change;
and hence all that the steersman can here do for the pre¬
serving of the original rhumb, is to correct these devia¬
tions as soon as they appear sensible. But in reality the
ship will thus describe a course without the rhumb line in¬
tended; and therefore his calculations for assigning the
latitude, where any rhumb line crosses the several meri¬
dians, will be in some measure erroneous. He invented a
method of dividing a quadrant by means of concentric circles,
which, after having been much improved by Dr Halley, is
used at present, and is called a nonius.
In the year 1577, William Bourne published a treatise
in which, by considering the irregularities in the moon’s
motion, he showed the error of the sailors in finding her age
by the epact, and also in determining the hour from ob¬
serving on what point of the compass the sun and moon
appeared. He advised, in sailing towards high latitudes,
to keep the reckoning by the globe, as there the plane
chart was most erroneous. He despaired of our ever being
able to find the longitude, unless the variation of the com¬
pass should be occasioned by some such attractive point
as Cortes had imagined, of which, however, he doubted;
but as he had shown how to find the variation at all times,
he recommended to keep an account of the observations, as
useful for finding the place of the ship ; and this advice was
prosecuted at large by Simon Stevin, in a treatise published
at Leyden in 1599, the substance of which was the same
year printed at London in English by Edward Wright,
4
NAVIGATION.
History, entitled the Haven-finding Art. In this ancient tract is
also described the method by which our sailors estimate
the rate of a ship in her course, by an instrument called
the log. This was so named from the piece of wood or log
which floats in the water, whilst the time is reckoned during
which the line that is fastened to it is veering out. The
inventor of this contrivance is not known ; but it was first
described in an account of an East India voyage published
by Purchas in 1607, from which time it became famous, and
was much taken notice of by almost all writers on naviga¬
tion in every country. It still continues to be used as at first,
although many attempts have been made to improve it, and
contrivances proposed to supply its place, many of which
have succeeded in quiet water, but proved useless in a
stormy sea.
In the year 1581 Michael Coignet, a native of Antwerp,
published a treatise, in which he animadverted on Medina.
In this he showed, that as the rhumbs are spirals, making
endless revolutions about the poles, numerous errors must
arise from their being represented by straight lines on the
sea charts; but although he hoped to find a remedy for
these errors, he was of opinion that the proposals of Nonius
were scarcely practicable, and therefore in a great measure
useless. In treating of the sun’s declination, he took notice
of the gradual decrease in the obliquity of the ecliptic; he
also described the cross staff with three transverse pieces,
which he admitted were then in common use amongst the
sailors. He likewise described some instruments of his
own invention ; but all of them are now laid aside, except¬
ing perhaps his nocturnal. He constructed a sea table to
be used by such as sailed beyond the sixtieth degree of
latitude; and at the end of the book is delivered a method
of sailing upon a parallel of latitude by means of a ring dial
and a twenty-four hour glass. The same year the discovery
of the dipping-needle was made by Robert Norman.
In his publication on that subject he maintains, in opposition
to Cortes, that the variation of the compass was caused by
some point on the surface of the earth, and not in the hea¬
vens ; and he also made considerable improvements on the
construction of compasses themselves, showing especially
the danger of not fixing, on account of the variation, the
wire directly under the fieur de lis, as compasses made in
different countries have it placed differently. To this per¬
formance of Norman’s is prefixed a discourse on the varia¬
tion of the magnetical needle, by William Burrough, in
which he shows how to determine the variation in many
different ways, and also points out many errors in the prac¬
tice of navigation at that time, speaking in very severe
terms concerning those who had published upon it.
During this time the Spaniards continued to publish trea¬
tises on the art. In 1585 an excellent Compendium was
published by Roderico Zamorano, and contributed greatly
towards the improvement of the art, particularly in the sea
charts. Globes of an improved kind, and of a much larger
size than those formerly used, were now constructed, and
many improvements were made in other instruments; never¬
theless, the plane chart continued still to be followed, though
its errors were frequently complained of. Methods of re¬
moving these errors had indeed been sought after; and
Gerard Mercator seems to have been the first who found
the true method of effecting this, so as to answer the pur¬
poses of seamen. He represented the degrees both of lati¬
tude and longitude by parallel straight lines, but gradually
augmented the space between the former as they approached
the pole. Thus the rhumbs, which otherwise ought to have
been curves, were now also extended into straight lines;
and thus a straight line drawn between any two places
marked upon the chart formed an angle with the meridians,
expressing the rhumb leading from the one to the other.
But although in 1569 Mercator published a universal map
constructed in this manner, it does not appear that he was
acquainted with the principles upon which this proceeded;
and it is now generally believed, that the true principles on
which the construction of what is called Mercator's Chart
depends, were first discovered by Edward Wright, an
Englishman.
Wright supposed, but, according to the general opi¬
nion, without sufficient grounds, that this enlargement of
the degrees of latitude was known and mentioned by Pto¬
lemy, and that the same thing had also been spoken of by
Cortes. The expressions of Ptolemy alluded to relate, in¬
deed, to the proportion between the distances of the paral¬
lels and meridians; but instead of proposing any gradual
widening between the parallels of latitude in a general chart,
he speaks only of particular maps, and advises not to con¬
fine a system of such maps to one and the same scale, but
to plan them out by a different measure, as occasion might
require; with this precaution, however, that the degrees of
longitude in each should bear some proportion to those of
latitude, and this proportion was to be deduced from that
which the magnitude of the respective parallels bore to a
great circle of the sphere. He added, that, in particular
maps, if this proportion be observed with regard to the
middle parallel, the inconvenience will not be great, al¬
though the meridians should be straight lines parallel to
each other. But here he is understood only to mean, that
the maps should in some measure represent the figures of
the countries for which they are drawn. In this sense
Mercator, who drew maps for Ptolemy’s tables, understood
him; thinking it, however, an improvement not to regu¬
late the meridians by one parallel, but by two, one distant
from the northern, the other from the southern extremity
of the map, by a fourth part of the whole depth; by which
means, in his maps, although the meridians are straight
lines, yet they are generally drawn inclining to each other
towards the poles. With regard to Cortes, he speaks only
of the number of degrees of latitude, and not of the extent
of them; nay, he gives express directions that they should
all be laid down by equal measurement in a scale of
leagues adapted to the map.
For some time after the appearance of Mercator’s map
it was not rightly understood, and it was even thought to
be entirely useless, if not detrimental. However, about
the year 1592 its utility began to be perceived; and seven
years afterwards Wright printed his famous treatise en¬
titled The Correction of certain Errors in Navigation,
where he fully explained the reason of extending the length
of the parallels of latitude, and the uses thereof to navi¬
gators. In 1610 a second edition of Wright’s book was
published, with improvements. An excellent method was
proposed of determining the magnitude of the earth; and at
the same time it was judiciously proposed to make our com¬
mon measures in some proportion to a degree on its surface,
that they might not depend on the uncertain length of a
barleycorn. Amongst his other improvements may be men¬
tioned the Table of Latitudes for Dividing the Meridian
computed to Minutes, whereas it had been only divided to
every tenth minute. He also published a description of an
instrument which he calls the sea rings, by which the vari¬
ation of the compass, the altitude of the sun, and the time
of the day, may at once I’eadily be determined in any place,
provided the latitude is known. Fie also showed how to
correct the errors arising from the eccentricity of the eye in
observing by the cross staff. In the years 1594, 1595,
1596, and 1597, he amended the tables of the declinations
and places of the sun and stars from his own observations
made with a six-feet quadrant, a sea quadrant to take alti¬
tudes by a forward or backward observation, and likewise
with a contrivance for the ready finding of the latitude by
the height of the pole-star, when not upon the meridian.
To this edition was subjoined a translation of Zamorano’s
Compendium, above mentioned, in which he corrected some
History.
N A YIG
History, mistakes in the original, adding a large table of the varia-
tion of the compass observed in different parts of the
world, in order to show that it was not occasioned by any
magnetical pole.
These improvements soon became known abroad. In
1608 a treatise, entitled Hypornnemata Mathematica, was
published by Simon Stevin for the use of Prince Maurice.
In the portion of the work relating to navigation, the au¬
thor treated of sailing on a great circle, and showed how
to draw the rhumbs on a globe mechanically; he also set
down Wright’s two tables of latitudes and of rhumbs, in
order to describe these lines more accurately; and even
pretended to have discovered an error in Wright’s table.
But Stevin’s objections were fully answered by the author
himself, who showed that they arose from the rude method
of calculating made use of by the former.
In 1624 the learned Willebrordus Snellius, professor of
mathematics at Leyden, published a treatise of naviga¬
tion on Wright’s plan, but somewhat obscurely; and as he
did not particularly mention all the discoveries of Wright,
the latter was thought by some to have taken the hint of all
his discoveries from Snellius. But this supposition has been
long ago refuted; and Wright’s title to the honour of those
discoveries remains unchallenged.
Having shown how to find the place of the ship upon
his chart, Wright observed that the same might be per¬
formed more accurately by calculation ; but considering,
as he says, that the latitudes, and especially the courses
at sea, could not be determined so precisely, he forbore
setting down particular examples; as the mariner may be
allowed to save himself this trouble, and only to mark out
upon his chart the ship’s way, after the manner then usually
practised. However, in 1614, Raphe Handson, amongst
the nautical questions which he subjoined to a translation
of Pitiscus’s Trigonometry, solved very distinctly every
case of navigation, by applying arithmetical calculations to
Wright’s Tables of Latitudes, or of Meridional Parts, as it
has since been called. Although the method discovered by
Wright for finding the change of longitude by a ship sail¬
ing on a rhumb is the proper way of performing it, Hand-
son also proposes two methods of approximation without
the assistance of Wright’s division of the meridian line.
The first was computed by the arithmetical mean between
the cosines of both latitudes; and the other by the same
mean between the secants, as an alternative when Wright’s
book was not at hand; although this latter is wider of the
truth than the former. By the same calculations also he
showed how much each of these compends deviates from
the truth, and also how widely the computations on the
erroneous principles of the plane chart differ from them
all. The method generally used by our sailors, however,
is commonly called the middle latitude, which, although it
errs more than that by the arithmetical mean between the
two cosines, is preferred on account of its being less oper-
ose ; yet in high latitudes it is more eligible to use that
of the arithmetical mean between the logarithmic cosines,
equivalent to the geometrical mean between the cosines
themselves—a method since proposed by John Bassat.
The computation by the middle latitude will always fall
short of the true change of longitude, that by the geome¬
trical mean will always exceed ; but that by the arithme¬
tical mean falls short in latitudes of about 45°, and exceeds
in lesser latitudes. However, none of these methods will
differ much from the truth when the change of latitude is
sufficiently small.
About this period logarithms were invented by John
Napier, Baron of Merchiston in Scotland, and proved of
the utmost service to the art of navigation. From these
Edmund Gunter constructed a table of logarithmic sines
A T I 0 N. 5
and tangents to every minute of the quadrant, which he History,
published in 1620. In this work he applied to navigation, v—^
and other branches of mathematics, his admirable ruler
known by the name of Gunter’s Scale,1 on which are de¬
scribed lines of logarithms, of logarithmic sines and tan¬
gents, of meridional parts, &c.; and he greatly improved
the sector for the same purposes. He also showed how to
take a back observation by the cross staff, by which the
error arising from the eccentricity of the eye is avoided.
He likewise described another instrument, of his own in¬
vention, called the cross bow, for taking altitudes of the
sun or stars, with some contrivances for more readily find¬
ing the latitude from the observation. The discoveries
concerning logarithms were carried into France in 1624 by
Edmund Wingate, who published two small tracts in that
year at Paris. In one of these he taught the use of Gunter’s
scale ; and in the other, that of the tables of artificial sines
and tangents, as modelled according to Napier’s last form,
erroneously attributed by Wingate to Briggs.
Gunter’s scale was projected into a circular arch by the
Reverend William Oughtred in 1633 ; and its uses were
fully shown in a pamphlet entitled the Circles of Propor¬
tion, where, in an appendix, several important points in
navigation are well treated. It has also been made in the
form of a sliding ruler.
The logarithmic tables were first applied to the different
cases of sailing, by Thomas Addison, in his treatise en¬
titled Arithmetical Navigation, printed in the year 1625.
He also gave two traverse tables, with their uses; the one
to quarter points of the compass, and the other to degrees.
Henry Gellibrand published his discovery of the changes
of the variation of the compass, in a small quarto pamphlet,
entitled A Discourse Mathematical on the Variation of the
Magnetical Needle, printed in 1635. This extraordinary
phenomenon he found out by comparing the observations
which had been made at different times near the same
place by Burrough, Gunter, and himself, all persons of
great skill and experience in these matters. This discovery
was likewise soon known abroad; for Athanasius Kircher,
in his treatise entitled Magnes, first printed at Rome in
the year 1641, informs us that he had been told of it by
John Greaves, and then gives a letter of the famous
Marinus Mersennus, containing a very distinct account of
the same.
As altitudes of the sun are taken on shipboard by ob¬
serving his elevation above the visible horizon, to obtain
from these the sun’s true altitude with correctness, Wright
observed it to be necessary that the dip of the visible hori¬
zon below the horizontal plane passing through the ob¬
server’s eye should be brought into the account, which
cannot be calculated without knowing the magnitude of the
earth. Hence he was induced to propose different methods
for finding this ; but he complains that the most effectual
was out of his power to execute, and therefore he contented
himself with a rude attempt, in some measure sufficient for
his purpose. The dimensions of the earth deduced by him
corresponded very well with the usual divisions of the log¬
line ; nevertheless, as he did not write an express treatise
on navigation, but only for correcting such errors as pre¬
vailed in general practice, the log-line did not fall under
his notice. Richard Norwood, however, put in execution
the method recommended by Wright as the most perfect
for measuring the dimensions of the earth, with the true
length of the degrees of a great circle upon it; and in
1635 he actually measured the distance between London
and York; from which measurement, and the summer sol¬
stitial altitudes of the sun observed on the meridian at both
places, he found a degree on a great circle of the earth
to contain 367,196 English feet, equal to 57,300 French
1 See Gunter’s Scale.
NAVIGATION.
6
History, fathoms or toises; which is very exact, as appears from
many measurements that have been made since that time.
Of all this Norwood gave a full account in his treatise
called the Seaman's Practice, published in 1657. He
there showed the reason why Snellius had failed in his
attempt; and he also pointed out various uses of his dis¬
covery, particularly for correcting the gross errors hitherto
committed in the divisions of the log-line. But necessary
amendments have been little attended to by sailors, whose
obstinacy in adhering to established errors has been com¬
plained of by the best writers on navigation. This im¬
provement, however, has at length made its way into prac¬
tice ; and few navigators of reputation now make use of the
old measure of forty-two feet to a knot. In this treatise
Norwood also describes his own excellent method of set¬
ting down and perfecting a sea reckoning, by using a tra¬
verse table, which method he had followed and taught for
many years. He likewise shows how to rectify the course,
by taking into consideration the variation of the compass ;
as also how to discover currents, and to make proper allow¬
ance on their account. This treatise, and another on
Trigonometry, were continually reprinted, as the principal
books for learning scientifically the art of navigation. What
he had delivered, especially in the latter of them, concerning
this subject, was abridged as a manual for sailors, in a very
small work called an Epitome; which useful performance
has gone through a great number of editions. No alterations
were ever made in the Seaman's Practice till the twelfth
edition in 1676, when the following paragraph was inserted
in a smaller character :—“ About the year 1672, Monsieur
Picart has published an account in French concerning the
measure of the earth, a breviate whereof may be seen in
the Philosophical Transactions, No. 112, wherein he con¬
cludes one degree to contain 365,184 English feet, nearly
agreeing with Mr Norwood’s experimentand this adver¬
tisement is continued through the subsequent editions as
late as the year 1732.
About the year 1645, Bond published, in Norwood’s
Epitome, a very great improvement of Wright’s method,
from a property in his meridian line, whereby the divisions
are more scientifically assigned than the author himself
was able to effect. It resulted from this theorem, that
these divisions are analogous to the excesses of the loga¬
rithmic tangents of half the respective latitudes aug¬
mented by 45° above the logarithm of the radius. This
he afterwards explained more fully in the third edition of
Gunter’s works, printed in 1653, where he observed that
the logarithmic tangents from 45° upwards increase in the
same manner as the secants do added together, if every
half degree be accounted as a whole degree of Mercator’s
meridional line. His rule for computing the meridional
parts belonging to any two latitudes, supposed to be on
the same side of the equator, is to the following effect:—
“ Take the logarithmic tangent, rejecting the radius, of half
each latitude, augmented by 45° ; divide the difference
of those numbers by the logarithmic tangent of 45° 30',
the radius being likewise rejected, and the quotient will be
the meridional parts required, expressed in degrees.” This
rule is the immediate consequence of the general theorem,
that the degrees of latitude bear to one degree (or sixty
minutes, which in Wright’s table stand for the meridional
parts of one degree) the same proportion as the logarithmic
tangent of half any latitude augmented by 45°, and the
radius neglected, to the like tangent of half a degree aug¬
mented by 45°, with the radius likewise rejected. But
here there was still wanting the demonstration of this
general theorem, which was at length supplied by James
Gregory of Aberdeen, in his Exercitationes Geometrical,
printed at London in 1668; and afterwards more con¬
cisely demonstrated, together with a scientific determi¬
nation of the divisor, by Dr Halley, in the Philosophical
Transactions for 1695 (No. 219), from the consideration Histor
of the spirals into which the rhumbs are transformed in the v y'
steieographic projection of the sphere upon the plane of
the equinoctial, and which is rendered still more simple
by Roger Cotes, in his Logometria, first published in the
Philosophical Transactions for 1714 (No. 388). It is,
moreover, added in Gunter’s book, that if divi¬
sion, which does not sensibly differ from the logarithmic
tangent of 45° 1' 30", with the radius subtracted from it,
be used, the quotient will exhibit the meridional parts ex¬
pressed in leagues ; and this is the divisor set down in
Norwood’s Epitome. After the same manner, the meridi¬
onal parts will be found in minutes, if the like logarithmic
tangent of 45° 1' 30", diminished by the radius, be taken;
that is, the number used by others being 12633, when the
logarithmic tables consist of eight places of figures besides
the index.
In an edition of a book called the Seaman's Kalendar,
Bond declared that he had discovered the longitude by
having found out the true theory of the magnetic variation ;
and to gain credit to his assertion, he foretold, that at Lon¬
don in 1657 there would be no variation of the compass,
and from that time it would gradually increase the other
way; which happened accordingly. Again, in the Philo¬
sophical Transactions for 1668 (No. 40), he published a
table of the variation for forty-nine years to come. Thus
he acquired such reputation, that his treatise entitled The
Longitude Found, was, in the year 1676, published by the
special command of Charles II., and approved by many ce¬
lebrated mathematicians. It was not long, however, before
it met with opposition ; and in the year 1678 another trea¬
tise, entitled The Longitude not Found, made its appear¬
ance ; and as Bond’s hypothesis did not answer its author’s
sanguine expectations, the solution of the difficulty was un¬
dertaken by Dr Halley. The result of his speculation was,
that the magnetic needle is influenced by four poles ; but
this wonderful phenomenon seems hitherto to have eluded
all our researches. (See Magnetism.) In 1700, however,
Dr Llalley published a general map, with curve lines ex¬
pressing the paths where the magnetic needle had the same
variation ; which was received with universal applause.
But as the positions of these curves vary from time to
time, they should frequently be corrected by skilful persons,
as was done in 1644 and 1756, by Mountain and Dodson.
In the Philosophical Transactions for 1690, Dr Halley
also gave a dissertation on the monsoons, containing many
very useful observations for such as sail to places subject to
these winds.
After the true principles of the art were settled by
Wright, Bond, and Norwood, new improvements were
daily made, and everything relative to it was settled with
an accuracy not only unknown to former ages, but which
would have been reckoned utterly impossible. The earth
being found to be, not a perfect sphere, but a spheroid,
with the shortest diameter passing through the poles, a
tract was published in 1741 by the Reverend Dr Patrick
Murdoch, wherein he accommodated Wright’s sailing to
such a figure ; and the same year Colin Maclaurin, in the
Philosophical Transactions (No. 461), gave a rule for
determining the meridional parts of a spheroid; which
speculation is farther treated of in his book of Fluxions,
printed at Edinburgh in 1742, and in Delambre’s Astro¬
nomy (t. iii., ch. xxxvi.).
Amongst the later discoveries in navigation, that of find¬
ing the longitude, both by lunar observations and by time¬
keepers, is the principal. It is owing chiefly to the rewards
offered by the British Parliament that this has attained the
present degree of perfection. We are indebted to Dr
Maskelyne for putting the first of these methods in prac¬
tice, and for other important improvements in navigation.
The time-keepers constructed by Harrison for this express
NAVIGATION.
Practice of purpose were found to answer so well that he obtained the
Naviga- parliamentary reward. These have been improved by Ar-
tion. noi(]) Earnshaw, and many others, so as now to be almost
in common use.
The works which have latterly appeared on navigation are Prelimin-
those on the longitude and navigation by Mackay, Inman, ary Prin-
Riddle, Norie, Jeans, and others ; and these contain every clPles-
necessary requisite to form the practical navigator.
PRACTICE OF NAVIGATION.
BOOK i.
CONTAINING THE VARIOUS METHODS OF SAILING.
The art of navigation depends upon mathematical and
astronomical principles. The problems in the various
modes of sailing are resolved either by trigonometrical cal¬
culations, or by tables or rules formed by the assistance of
plane and spherical trigonometry. By mathematics the
necessary tables are constructed and rules investigated for
performing the more difficult parts of navigation.
The places of the sun, moon, and planets, and fixed
stars, are deduced from observation and calculation, and
arranged in tables, the use of which is absolutely necessary
in reducing observations taken at sea for the purpose of
ascertaining the latitude and longitude of the ship and the
variation of the compass. The investigation of the rules
required for this purpose belongs properly to the science
of Astronomy, to which the reader is referred. A few tables
are given at the end of this article, but as the other tables
necessary for the practice of navigation-are to be found in
almost every treatise on this subject, it seems unnecessary
to insert them in this place. The subject naturally divides
itself under two heads:—First, The methods of conductinga
ship from one port to another by help of rules, in which the
log-line and compass are alone required, which is Naviga¬
tion properly so called. Second, The method of ascertain¬
ing the ship’s latitude and longitude, and variation of com¬
pass, by means of observations on the heavenly bodies ; and
the rules for that purpose deduced from astronomy, in order
to correct the ship’s place, and the courses derived from
the former method, to which the name of Nautical Astro¬
nomy is generally applied. Although the reader is referred
to the respective articles on the sciences on which naviga¬
tion is founded in this work for complete information, we
shall, nevertheless, endeavour to make our explanation of the
several rules as complete as possible, even at the risk of re¬
peating somewhat the substance of portions of our other
articles.
Hemispheres, according as the North or the South Pole
lies within them.
The latitude of a place is its distance from the equator,
reckoned on a meridian in degrees, minutes, and seconds,
and decimal parts of seconds (if necessary), being either
north or south, according as it is the Northern or Southern
Hemisphere. Hence it appears that the latitudes of all
places are comprised within the limits 0° and 90° N., and
0° and 90° S.
The first meridian, which is a great circle passing
through the poles, also divides the earth into two equal
portions, called the Eastern and Western Hemispheres, ac¬
cording as they lie to the right or left of the first meridian ;
the spectator being supposed to be looking towards the
north.
The longitude of a place is the arc of the equator inter¬
cepted between the first meridian and the meridian of the
given place reckoned in degrees, minutes, and seconds;
and is either east or west as the place lies in the Eastern or
Western Hemisphere respectively to the first meridian. The
longitude of all places on the earth’s surface is comprised
within the limits of 0° and 180° E., and 0° and 180° W.
On the supposition that the earth is a sphere, the length
of all arcs of great circles upon it subtending an angle of
1° at the centre are equal; hence T of latitude or longi¬
tude is equal to one geographical or nautical mile, of which a
degree contains 60. Hence intervals of latitude and longi¬
tude, reduced to minutes and parts of minutes, also repre¬
sent the same number of nautical miles and parts of a
nautical mile.
In the practice of navigation, the latitude and longitude
of the place which a ship leaves, are called the latitude and
longitude/roni ; and the latitude and longitude of the place
at which it has arrived, are called the latitude and longitude in.
p
2. Definitions of Terms used in Navigation, and
Explanations.
Let QR ...V be a portion of the equator, P the pole, and
PAQ, PBR, PCS PFV be meridians supposed very
near to one another, passing through points A, B, C,D,E,F,
the line AF being the path traced out by a vessel in pass¬
ing from A to F, such that it makes equal angles with
every meridian over which it passes. From B, C, D, &c.,
let BH, Cl, DK, EL, &c., be drawn perpendicular to the
Chap. I.—PRELIMINARY PRINCIPLES.
SECT I. ON LATITUDE AND LONGITUDE ; DEFINITION OF
TERMS USED IN NAVIGATION ; AND GENERAL EXPLANA¬
TIONS.
1. Latitude and Longitude.
The situation of a place, or any object on the earth’s
surface, is estimated by its distance from two imaginary
lines on that surface intersecting each other at right angles.
The one of these is called the Equator, and the other the
First Meridian. The situation of the equator is fixed;
but that of the first meridian is arbitrary, and therefore
different nations assume different first meridians. In Great
Britain we assume that to be the first meridian which passes
through the Royal Observatory at Greenwich.
I he equator is a great circle on the earth’s surface, every
point of which is equally distant from the two poles or the
extremities of the imaginary axis about which the earth
makes her diurnal rotation. It therefore divides the earth
into two equal parts, called the Northern and the Southern
8
NAVIGATION.
Frelimin- two meridians between which they respectively lie; or, in
ary Prin- other words, be arcs of small circles or parallels of latitude
dples. through the points B, C, &c. These are consequently all
parallel to one another, and to FG the whole arc of the
parallel at F included between the extreme meridians
FAQ and PFV.
The constant angle at which the line AF is inclined to
the successive meridians, viz., BAP, CBP, DCP, &c., is
called the course. Also, if the small circles or parallels at
B, C, &c., be continued to the meridian PAQ, the portion
of this meridian intercepted between any two consecutive
parallels, as erf, will be equal to CK, the distance between
the parallels through C and D ; and so on for all. Hence
the sum of these distances, AH + BI + CK + DL + EM =
AG ; which is called the true difference of latitude, or true
diff. lat. from A to F.
The corresponding arcs of parallels at different latitudes
intercepted between the same meridians are not equal, but
gradually decrease from the equator to the poles. Hence
the sum of the arcs BH -f Cl + DK + EL + FM is less than
QV, the intercepted arc of the equator, but greater than
FG, the arc of the highest parallel intercepted between
PAQ and PFV.
BH + CI + DK + EL + FM is called the departure;
the arc QV of the equator is the difference of longitude ;
and AF, the curve described by the vessel in passing from
A to F, is called the distance.
In navigation, each of the triangles ABH, BCI, &c., is
considered as a plane triangle; and as each of them is
right-angled, and contains, besides, one constant angle, viz.,
the course, the other angle in each must also be constant;
and all the triangles will be equiangular and similar.
Hence we have
Or in logarithms,
log. true diff. lat. = log. dist. + L cos course — 10,
where L means tabular logarithm, i.e., logarithm increased
by 10 ; and log. dep. = log. dist. + L sin course — 10.
Prelimin.
ary Prin¬
ciples.
2. Given course (BAC) and true difference of latitude
(AB), to find distance and departure.
AC = AB x sec BAC
BC = AB x tan BAC;
or dist. = true diff. lat. x sec course .... (in.)
dep. = true diff. lat. x tan course .... (iv.).
3. Given course and departure, to find distance and true
difference of latitude.
AC = BC x cosec BAC
AB = BC x cot BAC ;
or dist. = dep. x cosec course . . . (v.)
and true diff. lat. = dep. x cot course . . . . (vi.)
4. Given distance and true difference of latitude, to find
course and departure.
Cos BAC=^;
or cosine course = true diff. lat.dist. (vn.)
And the course having been found, we get
dep. = dist. x sin course by (n.)
5. Given the distance and departure, to find the course
and true difference of latitude.
SinBAC=—;
AO
or sin course = dep.-f-distance . (vm.)
And then we have
AH:BH:AB::AH:BH:AB
BI : Cl : BC : : AH : BH : AB
CK : DK : CD : : AH : BH : AB
&c. &c. &c.
EM : FM : EF : : AH : BLI : AB.
And since, when any number of quantities are in con¬
tinued proportion, as the first consequent is to its antece¬
dent, so are all the consequents to all the antecedents;
we have
AH + BI + CK+ &c.: BH + CI + DK+ &c. : AB + BC + CD+ &c.
:: AH : BH : AB.
But AH + BI +CK + &c. = AG the true diff. lat.
BH q- Cl + DK + &c. = the departure.
AB + BC + CD-i-&c. = AF or the distance.
Hence the true difference of latitude, departure, and dis¬
tance, may be considered as the sides of a right-angled
triangle, similar to each of the small triangles; the angle
of which, therefore, between the true B  c
difference of latitude and distance, is /
the course. /
Take AB (fig. 2) = the true diff. lat. /
Draw BC at right angles to it = de- /
parture. Join AC. Then AC is the /
distance, and BAC is the course. /
From this it appears, that when any /
two of the four quantities, true difference /
of latitude, departure, distance, and /
course are given, the remaining two /
can be found by solving the right- a
angled triangle ABC.
1. Given course (BAC) and distance (AC), to find true
difference of latitude (AB), and departure (BC).
AB = AC cos BAC
BC = AC sin BAC,
i.e., true diff. lat. (in miles) = dist. x cos course . (i.)
and departure = dist. x sin course . (h.)
true diff. lat. = dist. x cos course.
6. Given the true difference of latitude and departure,
to find the course and distance.
rp T} A n B ^
lan BAC = -£g ;
or tan course = departure -f- true diff. lat. . . (ix.)
And having found the course, we have
dist. = true diff. lat. x sec course by (m.) ;
or dist. = dep. x cosec course by (v.)
Length of Arc of 1° of Parallels of Latitude.
We have already stated that the lengths of the parallels
of latitude diminish as the lati¬
tude increases. In fact, it de¬
creases in the ratio of cosine la¬
titude to unity.
Let EQ be the equator, PCP'
the polar diameter of the earth ^ |
passing through C,and LML'any
parallel of latitude. Let the angle
ECL, or the latitude, be l, and let
LM and EF be the arcs of the
parallel and of the equator in¬
tercepted between the meridians
PEP' and PFP'. Then angle ECF = angle LOM, because
they both measure the angle between the planes of the tw’u
meridians. Hence
arc LM : arc EF :: OL : CE
or arc LM = arc EF x
:: OL: CL, because CE —CL;
= arc EF x sin OCL
= arc EF x cos LCE=arc EF x cos /.
Hence if FE be the length of an arc 1° of longitude at the
equator, or 60 miles, LM the length of an arc 1° of longitude
in latitude /=60 x cos /.
Prelimin¬
ary prin¬
ciples.
NAVIGATION.
9
-* Middle Latitude.
The departure is less than VQ (fig. 1), the intercepted arc
of the equator, or than the intercepted arc of the parallel
through A ; but it is greater than FG. But since the arc of
the parallel gradually decreases from A to F, there is some
point intermediate in position between A and F (//), the in¬
tercepted arc of the parallel of which will be exactly equal to
the departure. The exact determination of this point is not
very easy. Various methods have been proposed to deter¬
mine this latitude nearly, with as little trouble as possible:
first, by taking the arithmetical mean of the two latitudes
for that of the mean latitude ; secondly, by using the arith¬
metical mean of the cosines of the latitudes; thirdly, by
using the geometrical mean of these cosines; and, lastly,
by employing the latitude deduced from the mean of the
meridional parts of the two latitudes. The first of these
methods is the one usually employed. It has the merit of
great simplicity; and as all the rules in navigation are ap¬
proximate only, it may perhaps be depended on as much
as any of these. Hence y may be considered as the middle
point between A and F ; and dep. = xyz.
But xyz=\Ql cos lat. of y;
or dep. = ditf. long, x cos y, where y is the arithmetical mean
of the latitudes of A and F= (/+/ ), if
l = latitude of A,
/' = latitude of F.
This is commonly called the middle latitude. Hence we have
dep. = diff. long, x cos middle latitude.
By equation (i.) we have
true diff. lat. = dist. x cos course.
Whence it appears that if the middle latitude be consid¬
ered as a course, and the departure as a true difference of
latitude, the corresponding distance will be the difference of
longitude. And conversely, treating the middle latitude as a
course, and the difference of longitude as a distance, the cor¬
responding true difference of latitude will be the departure.
Mercator's Chart—Meridional Parts.
The chart used at sea for tracing the ship’s track exhibits
the surface of the earth on a plane, in which the meridians
are parallel, and consequently the distance between them
throughout their length equal to the equatorial distance,
instead of gradually decreasing as the latitude increases.
In other words, FG is increased so as to become equal to
VQ. Now, in order that on this chart all points may oc¬
cupy the same relative position with respect to each other
that the points corresponding to them do on the surface of
the globe, the distance AF and the distance AG must be
increased in the same proportion that BH + CI + DK + &c.,
i.e., the departure has been increased.
The distance AG so increased is called the meridional
difference of latitude, or mer. diff. lat.; and the chart con¬
structed on this principle is called Mercator’s Chart. If for
any latitude the meridional difference of latitude between
this point and the equator be expressed in miles or minutes,
the number of miles so expressed is called the meridional
parts for that latitude. A table of meridional parts for
every minute of latitude from 0° up to 90°, is given in
every collection of nautical tables.
Construction of Table of Meridional Parts.
This table may be constructed approximately, by divid¬
ing the whole meridian from 0° to 90° into intervals of 1',
and supposing the increase of the arc of the parallel of lati¬
tude, and consequently that of the arc of latitude, to take
place at the end of the successive minutes.
Now we have seen that an arc of any parallel = correspond¬
ing arc of equator x cos lat.; and since the arcs of the suc¬
cessive parallels have all become equal to the correspond-
VOL. XVI.
ing arc of the equator, they have all been increased in
the ratio of sec lat. to 1.
Hence, if the length of 1'of the meridian be 1, and a, b,
c, d, the corresponding increased lengths between 0 and 1',
between 1' and 2', 2' and 3', &c.,
a = 1 x sec 1'
J = 1 x sec 2'
c = 1 x sec 3
d— 1 x sec 3
&c. &c.
And a + b + c, &c. = sec I' + sec 2'+ sec 3'+ &c.; or the
meridional parts in any arc of the meridian is equal to
the sum of the secants of all the successive angles, differing
by 1', from 1' up to the given latitude.
The true investigation is as follows:—Let m = the cir¬
cular measure of the angle subtended at the centre by the
meridional parts in the arc between the latitudes 0 and l;
and let l become /+<$/, and let 3m be the corresponding in¬
crease of m. Then 8m is proportional to the secant of /+S/;
8m .. '
or -^= sec (i + o/).
And ultimately taking the limit
dm ,
= sec l;
Prelimin¬
ary prin¬
ciples.
Let 45 - ^ ^, or 90 - /= /j;
« + i=90-§;
h
cos 2
and m=log „ _ log e
sin
cot f
2
Now m-
= 2'3025851 log10 cot
arc (in minutes)’
radius (in miles)
radius
meridional parts for lat. I
= 57*29577 x 60
.*. meridional parts for lat. I
= 57-29577 x 60 x 2-3025881 x log10 cot
In logarithms—
log mer.parts for lat. 7= 3-8984895 +log10(Lcot^colat. — 10).
Whence we deduce the following
Rule for Finding the Meridional Parts.
Diminish the tabular logarithm of the cotangent of one-
half the colatitude by 10. Find the logarithm of the re¬
mainder, and add to it the constant logarithm 3-898489o.
The result is the logarithm of the meridional parts for the
given latitude.
10
NAVIGATION.
Prelimin¬
ary prin- 65
cipies.
Ex.—Required the meridional parts for latitude 65
0 20'.
(1.)
L cot 12° 30' - 10 = 0-6542448
O
and
Log. 0-6542448
Constant log.
Meridional parts,
(2.)
L cot 12° 20' - 10
Log. 0-6602609
Constant log.
Meridional parts,
= 1-8157403
= 3-8984895
3-7142298
= 5178-80
= 0-6602609
= 1-8197155
= 3-8984895
3-7182050
= 5226-43
Relations between Meridional Difference of Latitude and
Difference of Longitude, Course, &c.
It appears that on Mercator’s chart the difference of
longitude, meridional difference of latitude, and increased
distance, form the sides of a right-angled triangle, and are
proportional to the departure, true difference of latitude, and
distance, in the triangle ABC. The two triangles are there¬
fore similar.
If, then, in AB produced (fig. 4) AB' be taken equal to
mer. difference of latitude, and B'C' ,
be drawn parallel to BC, meeting ~7°
AC produced in C'; the sides of the :b yc
triangle AB'C' will be the meridional /
difference of latitude, difference of /
longitude, and increased distance. /
Hence, in equations (i.), (il.), /
(m.), (iv.), (v.), (vi.), (vix.), and /
(vm.), we may substitute meridional /
difference of latitude for true differ- /
ence of latitude, difference of longi- /
tude for departure, and increased dis- j£
tance for distance; and the equations Fig.4.
will still hold.
The relation principally required is that which connects
the meridional difference of latitude, difference of longi¬
tude, and course ;
or, diff. long. = mer. diff. lat. x tan course.
Parallel Sailing.
When the course is 90°, or the ship sails in a parallel of
latitude, the equations (i.), &c., give no result when ap¬
plied to find the distance.
In this case we must apply the formula,
arc of parallel = corresponding arc of equator x cos lat.
Here the arc of the parallel corresponds to the distance,
and the arc of equator is difference of longitude, and we
have for parallel sailing
dist. = diff. long, x cosine lat.,
from which, any two of the quantities being given, the third
may be found. Also, if d and d! be distances corresponding
to the same difference of longitude in parallels l and /',
we have d — diff. long, cos l
cT=diff. long, cos
J J, cos l
or d =d . T,
cos
whicn enables ug to find the distance on one parallel corre¬
sponding to a given distance on another, the difference of
longitude being the same.
Middle-Latitude Sailing.
Since departure == diff. of longitude x cos. mid. latitude, if
in equations (ii.)., (iv.), (vi.), (vm.), we substitute this value
for departure, we. shall obtain the following equations:—
diff. long, x cos mid. lat.=dist. X sin course . . • (xi.) prelimin-
diff. long, x cos mid. lat.=true diff. lat. x tan course. (xil.) ary prjn_
true diff. lat.=diff. long, x cos mid. lat. x cot course . (xm.) cipies.
sin course =diff. long, x cos mid. lat.-j-dist. . . . (xiv.) _ji ^
from which all the rules for middle-latitude sailing may be
derived.
Traverse Tables.
A table in which the true difference of latitude and
departure, corresponding to certain distances for every
course, expressed in points and degrees, are laid down, is
called a traverse table. It is very useful to enable the
seaman to solve the several problems which occur in navi¬
gation by simple inspection. It must of course be cal¬
culated on some of the principles laid down in this chapter.
It is evident that as this table contains the relations of the
sides and angles of a right-angled triangle, the solution of any
right-angled triangle, whose sides represent any other quan¬
tities, will be given by it, by making the requisite changes.
Thus, the course remaining the same, if, for difference
of latitude we look out in the table the meridional difference
of latitude, the corresponding departure will be the differ¬
ence of longitude; also, the difference of longitude can be
found from the departure by these tables, by looking out
the middle latitude as a course, and the departure as a true
difference of latitude; then the corresponding distance is the
difference of longitude.
SECT. II.—LONGITUDE AND LATITUDE.
Prob. I.—Given latitude from, and latitude in; to find
the true difference of latitude.
Rule.—Under latitude in, with its proper name, i.e., N.
or S., place latitude from. Subtract the greater from the less,
if of the same name, and reduce to minutes. The result is
the true difference of latitude required, and is of the same
or different name with latitude in, according as latitude in
is greater or less than latitude from. If they are of dif¬
ferent names, add and affect with the name of latitude in.
Ex. 1.—A vessel sails from the Lizard, Lat. 49° 58' N., to Cape
St Vincent, Lat. 37° 3' N.; what is the true diff. of latitude ?
Latitude in  37° 3' N.
Latitude from  49 58 N.
True diff. latitude  12 55 S.=775 miles S.
Ex. 2.—A vessel sails from New York, Lat. 40° 42' N., to Liver¬
pool, Lat. 53° 25' N.; find the true diff. of latitude.
Latitude in 53° 25' N.
Latitude from  40 42 N.
True diff. latitude  12 43 N.=763milesN.
fix. 3.—A ship sailed from Funchal, Lat. 32° 38' N., to the Cape
of Good Hope, Lat. 34° 29' S.; Avhat is the true diff. of latitude ?
Latitude in  34° 29' S.
Latitude from  . 32 38 N.
True diff. latitude..,  67 7 S.=4027 miles S.
Prob. 2.—Given the latitude from, and true difference
of latitude ; to find latitude in.
Rule.—If the latitude from and true difference be of the
same name, add them (the true difference of latitude being
turned, if necessary, into degrees and minutes) ; the sum is
the latitude in of the same name. If of unlike names, under
latitude from place the true difference of latitude, subtract
the less from the greater ; the result, with the name of the
greater, is the latitude in.
Ex. 1.—A ship sailed from the Lizard, 49° 58' N., and made good,
in a northerly direction, 207 miles; what is the latitude in ?
Latitude from  49° 58' N.
True diff. latitude  3 27 N.
Latitude in    53 25 N.
Ex. 2.—A ship in Lat. 57° 18' N. sailed due S. 3789 miles; what
is the latitude in ?
Latitude from  57° 18' N.
True diff. latitude  63 9 S.
t. Latitude in   .... 5 51 S.
NAVIGATION.
11
Prelimin- Prob. 3.—To find the meridional difference of latitude;
ary prin- having given latitude from, and latitude in. lake the me-
cipics. ridional parts for the two latitudes from the table for me-
^ ridional parts ; subtract if the names be alike, and add if the
names be unlike. The result is the meridional difference of
latitude, and is N. or S. according as the latitude in is N.
or S. of latitude from.
Ex. 1.—Required the meridional diff. of latitude in sailing from
Cape Finisterre, Lat. 42° 52' N., to Port Praya, in the island of
Santiago, Lat. 14° 54/ N.
Latitude in  14° 54' F. Mer. parts  904 K.
Latitude from  42 52 IT. Mer. parts  2852 IT.
Mer. diff. lat.... 1948 S.
Ex. 2.—To find the meridional diff. of latitude in sailing from
Lat. 5° 35' IT. to 8° 17' S.
Latitude in  8° 17' S. Mer. parts  499 S.
Latitude from  5 35 IT. Mer. parts  335 IT. 1 ^
Mer. diff. lat.... 834 S.
Prob. 4.—To find the difference of longitude; having
given longitude in, and longitude from.
Rule.—Under longitude in place longitude from; sub¬
tract, if of like name ; reduce the result to minutes, and call
it E. or W., according as longitude in is E. or W. of longi¬
tude from. Add, if of unlike names, and attach the name
E. or W., according as the longitude in is E. or W. of
longitude from. If the longitude found by this rule exceed
180° it must be subtracted from 360°, and affected with the
contrary name.
Ex. 1.—A ship sails from Liverpool, Long. 2° 59' W., to New
York, Long. 73° 59' W.; required the diff. of longitude.
Longitude in  73° 59'W.
Longitude from  2 59 W.
Diff. Longitude  71 0 W.=4260 miles W.
Ex. 2.—A ship sails from Maskelyne’s Isles, in Long. 167° 59' E.,
to Olinda, in Long. 35° 54' W.; find the diff. of longitude.
Longitude in    35° 54' W.
Longitude from 167 59 E.
203 53 W.
360 0
Diff. longitude 156 7 E. = 9367 miles E.
Prob. 5.—To find the longitude in; having given lon¬
gitude from, and difference of longitude.
Rule.—Under longitude from place difference of lon¬
gitude. If of like names, add, and the result is the longitude
in of the same name as the longitude from; if of unlike
names, subtract the less from the greater. The result, with
the name of the greater, is the longitude in.
Ex. 1.—A ship from Long. 9° 54' E. sailed westerly till the dif¬
ference of longitude was 1398 miles; what is the longitude in ?
Longitude from  9° 54' E.
Diff. longitude 23 18 W.
Longitude in 13 24 W.
Ex. 2.—The longitude sailed from is 25° 9' W., and diff. of lon¬
gitude 112° 6' W.; find longitude in.
Longitude from  25° 9' W.
Diff. longitude  18 46 W.
Longitude in  43 55 W.
SECT. Ill,—OF MEASURING A SHIP’S RUN IN A GIVEN TIME.
The method commonly used at sea to find the distance
sailed in a given time is by means of a log-line and half¬
minute glass. (A description of these is given under the
articles Log, and Log-Line, which see.)
1 he interval between two consecutive knots on the line
—also technically called a /mot—is supposed to be the same
fraction of a nautical mile (6080 feet) that half a minute is
of an hour. Hence the proper length of a knot is ^q”
= 51 feet nearly. But although the line and glass be at
any time perfectly adjusted to each other, yet as the line
shrinks after being wet, and as the weather has a consider¬
able effect on the glass, it will be necessary to examine them
from time to time; and the distance given by them must
be corrected accordingly. The distance sailed, therefore,
may be affected by an error in the glass or in the line, or
in both. The true distance may, however, be found as
follows:—
Prob. 1.—The distance sailed by the log, and the seconds
run by the glass, being given ; to find the true distance run,
the line being supposed right.
Let the number of seconds in which the glass runs out
be n, and let d and d' be the true distance and distance by
log respectively. Then evidently the longer the time the
glass is running, the less is the distance by log compared
with the true distance, and conversely. Hence we have
the proportion—
d : d' :: 30” : n ;
or true dist.: dist. by log :: 30”: number of seconds the glass
is running
6080 Prelimin-
or d=
o >
d’ x 30
ary prin¬
ciples.
Rule.—Multiply the distance given by log by 30, and
divide by the number of seconds the glass is running; the
result is the true distance run.
Ex. 1.—The hourly rate of sailing by the log is 9 knots, and the
glass is found to run out in 35"; required the true rate of sailing.
9
30
35)270(7,7=true rate of sailing.
Ex. 2.—The distance sailed by the log is 73 miles, and the glass
runs out in 26"; required the true distance.
73
30
26)2190(84,2=the true distance.
Prob. 2.—Given the distance sailed by the log, and the
measured interval between two adjacent knots on the line;
to find the true distance, the glass running exactly 30".
Here evidently the true distance is greater or less than
the distance by log, as the measured interval is greater or
less than 51 feet.
Let a be the measured interval between the knots in
feet, and d and d! the true, and measure distances as before.
Then 5\ : a d!: d,
or 51 feet : measured distance in feet :: distance by
log : true distance
m .. , , measured distance.
.\ True distance = distance by log.-i — 
o I
Rule.—Multiply the distance given by log by the mea¬
sured length of a knot, and divide by 51; the quotient is the
true distance.
Ex. 1.—The hourly rate of sailing by the log is 5 knots, and the
interval between knot and knot measures 53 feet; reauired the
true rate of sailing.
53
_5
51)265(5’19=true rate of sailing.
Ex. 2.—The distance sailed is 85 miles, by a log line which
measures 42 feet to a knot; required the true distance run.
85
42
iTO
340
51)3570(70=true distance run.
3570
Prob. 3.—Given the length of a knot, the number ot
seconds run by the glass in half a minute, and the distance
12
N AVIG
Prelimin- sailed by the log. To find the true distance we must evi-
arypnn- Gently compound the ratios given in problems 1 and 2
v ^ ant^ We llaVe
^ w x 51 : 30 x a : : d! : d'.
or d~d' x
30a
5hi
d'. 10a
\ln '
Rule.—Multiply the distance given by the log by 10
times the measured distance between the knots, and divide
by 17 times the number of seconds the glass is running.
distance sailed by the log is 159 miles, the measured
length of a knot is 42 feet, and the glass runs out in 33"; re¬
quired the true distance.
Distance hy the log  159
10 times length of a knot  420
3180
17 times number of seconds
run by the glass ....561)66780(H9-037=true distance-
SECT. IV—-ON COURSES AND CORRECTIONS OF COURSES.
Mariner's Compass.
A ship is enabled to keep her course at sea by means
of an instrument called the mariner’s compass. It consists
of a magnetic steel bar attached to the under side of a
card, divided into points and quarter points, and supported
by a fine pin, on which it turns freely within a box covered
with glass. By reason of the directive property of the
magnet, the north point, which is commonly denoted by
a. Jieur de Us, is readily known. The circumference of
the card is generally divided into thirty-two points, which,
in the best compasses, are again subdivided into half points
and quarters. These are reckoned sufficient for nautical
purposes. On the inside of the box is drawn a dark ver¬
tical line called lubber’s point. This point, or rather line,
and the pin on which the card turns, are in the same line
or plane with the keel of the ship; and hence the point on
the circumference of the card opposite to lubber’s point
shows the angle which the ship’s course makes with the
magnetic meridian, called the course of the ship.
The annexed diagram (fig. 5) gives a general view of
the compass. (For a full explanation of its magnetic pro¬
perties, see Magnetism.) The names of the points, and
the angles which they form with the meridian, are given in
fig. 6, and as thus represented the instrument is called the
steering compass.
The azimuth compass is the same instrument more nicely
made. The circumference of the card is divided into de¬
grees and parts by a vernier, and is fitted up with sight-
vanes to take amplitudes and azimuths, for the purpose of
determining the variation of the compass by observation.
The variation is then applied to the magnetic course shown
by the steering compass, whence the true course, with re¬
spect to the meridian, becomes known,
A t i o N.
Besides the variation, the needle is also affected by the Prelimi^-
dip, which is likewise fully explained in the article Mag- aryprin-
Fig. 6.
effects of local attraction, arising from the effects of the
iron, guns, &c., in the vessel itself.
The compass course generally differs from the true
course on account of three causes:—1. The variation of
the compass; 2. The deviation of the compass; 3. The
leeway. We shall now explain how these errors are to be
applied.
1. The Variation of the Compass.—This is fully ex¬
plained under the article Magnetism, which see. The
mode of ascertaining its amount will be given hereafter.
Prob. I.—To find the true course, having given com¬
pass course.
Rule 1.—Allow easterly variation to the right, and allow
westerly variation to the left.
Ex. 1.—The compass course is W.N.W., and variation 3J pts.
W.; find the true course.
Pts. qrs.
Compass course  6 0 left of N.
Variation  3 1 left of N.
True course 9 1 left of N., or W. by S.|8.
Ex. 2.—The compass course is S.W.f W-, and variation 2J E.;
find the course.
Pts. qrs.
Compass course  4 3 right of S.
Variation  2 2 right of S.
True course  7 1 right of S., or W. by S.}W.
Ex. 3.—The compass course is N.W., the variation is 3| E.; re¬
quired the true course.
Pts. qrs.
Compass course 4 0 left of N.
Variation 3 1 right of N.
True course 0 3 left of N., or NfW.
Prob. II.—Given the true course, to find the compass
course.
Rule 2.—Allow easterly variation to the left, and westerly
to the right.
Ex. 1.—The true course is N.N.E.JE., and variation "W.;
find the compass course.
Pts. qrs.
True course 2 2 right of N.
Variation  1 2 right of N.
Compass course ... 4 0 right of If., or N.E.
Ex. 2.—The true course is N.fE., the variation 3J E.; required
the compass course.
NAVIGATION.
13
Pts. qrs.
True course  0 3 right of N.
Variation ’3 1 left of N.
Compass course .... 2 2 left of N., or N.N.W.JW.
2. The Deviation of the Compass.—This error arises
from the effects of local attraction,, and varies with every
different position of the ship’s head. Several methods
are employed in order to ascertain its amount. That
most commonly adopted is to place a compass on shore,
out of reach of the ship’s attraction, and to take the
bearing of the ship’s compass, or some other object in
the same direction with it; while at the same time the
bearing of the compass on shore is taken on board. If now
180° be added to the bearing of the shore compass, so as
to bring it round to the opposite point, the difference be¬
tween this augmented bearing and the bearing at the ship’s
compass will be the amount of deviation for that position
of the ship’s head.
Suppose the ship’s head is N., and that the reading
off at the shore compass is S. 17° 15' W., and that the
reading off at the ship’s compass is N. 20° E. Adding
180' to the bearing of the shore compass, we get S. 197°
15' W., or N. 17° 15' E.; and subtracting this from the
bearing of the ship’s compass, N. 20° E., we get the devia¬
tion equal to 2° 45' E., when the ship’s head is N. The
ship is now turned round, so that the head points succes¬
sively to every point of the compass, and the deviation for
each position found as before.
A table is then made, showing the deviation for every
point of the compass. The deviation so found is treated
exactly as the variation,—i.e., in correcting the compass
course to find the true course, easterly deviation is al¬
lowed to the right, and westerly deviation to the left;
and conversely, to find the compass course from the true
course, easterly deviation is allowed to the left, and westerly
deviation to the right. Hence it appears, that when both
variation and deviation are given, we may consider the latter
as a correction of the former—to be added to it if of the
same name, and to be subtracted from it if of the opposite
name.
Prelimin¬
ary Prin¬
ciples.
Em. 1.—The compass course is S.W.fW., variation If K., and
deviation ^W.; what is the true course ?
Compass course 
Pt. qrs.
Variation   1 3 right
Deviation  2 left
True course
Pts. qrs.
. 4 3 right of S.
1 1 right.
..6 0 right of S., or W.S.W.
Ex. 2.—The compass course is W.^N., the variation W., and
deviation f W.; what is the true course ?
Pts. qrs.
Compass course   7 2 left of N.
Pts. qrs.
Variation  2 2 left
Deviation 0 3 left ^ l l ft
True course   10 3 leftof N.,or S.W.by W.fW.
Ex. 3.—The true course is N.N.W.fW., variation If E., and
deviation f W.; required the compass course.
Pts. qrs.
True course   2 3 left of N.
Pt. qrs.
Variation  1 3 left.
Deviation 0 1 right. 1 2 ^
Compass course   4 1 left of N., or N.W.fW.
The following table is taken from the monthly ex¬
amination-papers at the Royal Naval College, Portsmouth,
and will serve as a specimen of the tables which ought to
be made for all ships :—
Deviation of the Compass of H.M.S. Vesuvius for different Prelimin-
positions of the Ship’s Head. ary Prin¬
ciples.
Direction of
Ship’s Head.
N.
N. by E.
N.N.E.
N.E. by N.
N.E.
N.E. by E.
E.N.E.
E. by N.
E.
E. by S.
E.S.E,
S.E. by E.
S.E.
S.E. by S.
S. S.E.
S. by E.
Deviation of
Compass.
2° 45/ E.
4 57
7 30
9 0
10 0
10 55
10 40
9 55
8 50
7 15
5 35
3 40
1 50
0 20 E.
0 56 W.
2 20
Direction of
Ship’s Head.
s.
S. by W.
S.S.W.
S.W. by S.
S.W.
S.W. by W.
W.S.W
W. by S.
W.
W. by N.
W.N.W.
N.W. by W.
N.W.
N.W. by N.
•N.N.W.
N. by W.
Deviation of
Compass.
O' w.
20
0
7
0
27
50
8 20
8 50
8 10
6 50
40
50
20
40 W.
10 E.
¥
3. Leeway. —The effect of the action of the wind upon the
sails and hull of a ship is sometimes to produce a motion of
the ship in a direction at right angles to that of the head or
apparent course, as well as in this latter direction. I he true
course, therefore, is not that given by the compass, but that
which is due to the composition of the two velocities of the
ship,—viz., that in the direction of its head, and that at right
angles to this direction. To obtain the true course from
the compass course, therefore, we must add or subtract the
angle of leeway, which is the angle between the compass
course and the true course.
If the wind be on the right of a person on board ship
who is looking towards the head, the real course is then evi¬
dently to the left of the direction of the ship’s head,—i.e.,
of the apparent course. If the wind be on his left hand, the
true course is to the right. In the former case the ship is
said to be on the starboard tack, and in the latter on the
port tack. Whence is derived the rule for obtaining the
true course from the compass course.
Rule.—If the ship is on the starboard tack, allow lee¬
way to the left; if on the port tack, allow leeway to the right.
Conversely, to obtain the compass course from the true
course on the starboard tack, allow leeway to the right; if
on the port tack, allow it to the left.
There are many circumstances which prevent laying
down accurate rules for the allowance of leeway. 1 he
construction of different vessels, their trim with regard to
the nature and quantity of cargo, the position and area of
sail set, the velocity of the ship and the swell of the sea,
are all susceptible of great variation, and very much affect
the leeway.
The following rules are usually given for the purpose:—
1. When a ship is close-hauled under all sail, the water
smooth, and with a light breeze, allow no leeway.
2. When the top-gallant sails are handed, allow one point.
3. Under close-reefed topsails allow two points.
4. When one topsail is handed, allow two points and a
half.
5. When both topsails are handed, allow three points.
6. When the fore-course is handed, allow four points.
7. When under mainsail only, allow five points.
8. Under balanced mizen, allow six points.
9. Under bare poles, alloio seven points.
These rules, however, are not much to be depended up¬
on. A very good method of estimating the leeway is to
observe the bearing of the ship’s wake as frequently as may
be judged necessary, which may be conveniently enough
done by drawing a small semicircle on the tafferel, with its
diameter at right angles to the ship’s length, and dividing
its circumference into points and quarters. I he angle con¬
tained between the semi-diameter which points right aft,
14
Plane
Sailing.
NAVIGATION.
and that which points in the direction of the wake, is the lee¬
way. But the best and most rational way of finding the leeway
is to have a compass or semicircle on the tafferel, as before
described, with a low crutch or swivel in its centre; after
heaving the log, the line may be slipped into the crutch
just before it is drawn in, and the angle it makes on the
limb with the line drawn right aft, will show the leeway
very accurately.
Ex. 1.—A ship’s apparent course is S.S.W.fW., leeway
points, the wind being S.E.^E.; required the true course. In this
case the wind is on the left of the vessel, or it is on the port tack,
and leeway must he allowed to the right.
Pts. qrs.
Apparent course 2 3 right of S.
Leeway 2 2 right of S.
True course 5 1 right of S., or S.W. by W.^W.
Ex. 2.—The apparent course is N.N.W., leeway points, and
wind E.N.E. Here the vessel is on the starboard tack.
Pts. qrs.
Apparent course 2 0 left of N.
Leeway   1 2 left of N.
True course 3 2 left of N., or N.W. by N. JW.
Ex. 3-—The true course of a ship is S.E.JS., leeway 2£ points,
and wind N.N.E.; required the compass course. Here the ship is
on the port tack.
Pts. qrs.
True course 3 2 left of S.
Leeway 2 2 right of S.
Compass course  1 0 left of S., or S. by E.
Chap. II.—ON PLANE SAILING.
Plane sailing is the art of navigating a ship upon prin¬
ciples deduced from the notion of the earth’s being an ex¬
tended plane. On this supposition, the meridians are con¬
sidered parallel lines. The parallels of latitude are at right
angles to the meridians; the lengths of the degrees on the
meridians, equator, and parallels of latitude are everywhere
equal; and the degrees of longitude are reckoned on the
parallels of latitude as well as on the equator; and conse¬
quently the departure and difference of longitude are
equal. In fact, in the right-angled
triangle ABC (fig. 7), where AB is
the true difference of latitude, BAG
the course, AC the distance, and BC
the departure, which is assumed equal
to the difference of longitude; all
the problems in sailing are solved
by the relations of the sides and
angles of the single right-angled tri¬
angle ABC. Except, however, for
a small portion of the earth’s surface
near the equator, the departure can¬
not be assumed equal to the difference
of longitude without very considerable error; and the
longitude in cannot be at all depended on when found by
this method. If, however, the departure be an element,
this method is correct.
In fig. 7, A is the place from which the ship sails; AB
the meridian, and equal to the true difference of latitude- BC
perpendicular to the meridian, and equal to the departure.
It is always possible and easy to construct a right-ano-led
triangle when two parts, of which one is a side, beside°the
right angle, are given. Consequently problems in naviga¬
tion may always be solved by construction, with the aid of
the rule and compasses. In making constructions for this
purpose, it is only necessary to attend to the following con¬
vention Let the upper part of the paper or plan on which
the drawing is to be made represent the north ; then the
lower part will be south, the right-hand side east, and the
Pig. 7.
left-hand side west. This convention we have already plane
tacitly assumed in treating of the corrections of the courses. Sailing.
To mahe a Construction.
A north and south line is to be drawn, to represent the
meridian of the place from which the ship sailed ; and the
upper or lower end of this line is to be marked as the posi¬
tion of the place, according as the course is southerly or
northerly. From this point as centre, with the chord of 60°
(on the rule), an arc of a circle is to be described from the
meridian, towards the right or left, according as the course
is easterly or westerly ; and the course, taken from the line
of chords if given in degrees, but from the line of rhumbs
if expressed in points of the compass, is to be laid on this
arc, beginning from the meridian. A straight line drawn
through this point and the point sailed from is the direc¬
tion of the distance, which, if given, must be laid down on
this line, beginning at the point sailed from. A straight line
is to be drawn from the extremity of the distance perpen¬
dicular to the meridian; and hence the true difference of
latitude and the departure will be found.
If the true difference of latitude be given, it is to be laid
down on the meridian, beginning at the point from which
the ship sailed; and a straight line drawn through the ex¬
tremity of the difference of latitude, perpendicular to the
meridian, to meet the distance produced, will limit the
figure, and enable us to find the parts required.
If the departure be given, it is to be laid off on a parallel,
and the line drawn through its extremity will limitthe distance.
If the distance and true difference of latitude be given,
through the extremity of the true difference of latitude
draw a straight line perpendicular to the meridian; extend
a pair of compasses to the given distance, place one of its
points at the place from which the ship sailed, and let the
other point be in the perpendicular line first drawn; join
this point with the point from, and the triangle is deter¬
mined, and the course and departure found.
If the departure and distance are given, with the point
from as centre and‘the distance as radius, describe an arc
of a circle. Let the departure be laid off on a parallel, so
that one point is in the meridian and the other in the circle
just described. Join this latter point with the point from,
and the triangle is formed. The general mode of solving
problems in plane sailing has already been given in chap, i.,
sect. 2. The following examples will show how the formulae
are to be applied:—
Obs. It is to be distinctly understood that the above
method cannot be applied to obtain the difference of longi¬
tude without very sensible error.
Ex. 1.—A ship from St Helena, in Lat.
15° 55' S. sailed S.W. by S. 158 miles;
required the latitude in, and departure.
By Construction.—Draw the meridian
AB (fig. 8), and with the chord of 60° de¬
scribe the arc mn, and make it equal to the
rhumb of three points, and through n draw
AC equal to 158 miles; from C draw CB
perpendicular to AB; then AB applied to
the scale from which AC was taken will be
found to measure 131-4, and BC 87-8.
Tig. 8.
By Calculation.—To find the true difference of latitude.
L cosine of course  3 pts. = 9-91985
Log. distance  158 m. = 2-19866
-10
Log. true diff. lat  = 2-11851
Hence, true diff. lat  = 131-4 g.
To find departure.
L sin course   3 pts. — 9-74474
Log. distance  153 m. = 2-19866
-10
Log. departure    87-8 = 1-94340
NAVIGATION.
Plane
Sailing.
By Inspection.—In the traverse table, the difference of latitude
answering to the course 3 points, and distance 158 miles, in a dis¬
tance column, is 131'4, and departure 87-8.
By Gunter’s Scale.—The extent from 8 points to 5 points, the
complement of the course on the line of sine rhumbs (marked S. R.)
will reach from the distance 158 to 131-4, the difference of latitude
on the line of numbers; and the extent from 8 points to 3 points
on sine rhumbs will reach from 158 to 87-8, the departure on
numbers.1
Latitude St Helena 15° 55' S.
Diff. latitude   2 11 S.
Latitude in 18 6 S.
Ex. 2.—A ship from St George’s, in Lat. 38° 45' N., sailed
S.E.^S., and the latitude by observation was 35° 7' ; required
the distance run, and departure.
Latitude St George’s   38° 45' N.
Latitude in  35 7 N.
Diff. latitude  3 38=218 miles S.
By Construction.—Draw the portion of
the meridian AB (fig.9) equal to 218 miles;
from the centre A, with the chord of 60°,
describe the arc mn, which make equal to
the rhumb of 3J points; through An
draw the line AC, and from B draw
BC perpendicular to AB, and let it be
produced till it meets AC in C. Then
the distance AC being applied to the
scale will measure 282 miles, and the de¬
parture BC 179 miles.
By Calculation.—To find the distance.
L sec of the course  3 J pts.
Log. true diff. latitude 218 m.
Log. distance 
Or distance  = 282
To find departure.
L tan of the course   3J pts.
Log. true diff. latitude  218 m.
Fig. 9.
= 1011181
= 233846
-10
= 2-45027
9-91417
2-33846
■ 10
Log. departure   = 2-25263
Or departure   = 178-9
By Inspection.—Find the given difference of latitude 218 miles in
latitude column, under the course of 3J points ; opposite to which,
in distance column, is 282 miles; in departure column 178-9 m.;
the distance and departure required.
By Gunters Scale.—Extend the compass from 4J points, the
complement of the course, to 8 points on sine rhumbs; that extent
will reach from the difference of latitude 218 miles to the distance
282 miles on numbers ; and the extent from 4 points to the course
3£ points on the line of tangent rhumbs (marked T. R.) will reach
from 218 miles to 178-9, the departure on numbers.
Ex. 3.—A ship from Palma, in Lat. 28° 37' N., sailed N.W. by
W., and made 192 miles of departure ; required the distance run,
and the latitude come to.
By Construction.—Make the departure BC (fig. 10) equal to 192
miles, draw BA perpendicular to
BC, and from the centre C, with the
chord of 60°, describe the arc mn,
which make equal to the rhumb of
3 points, the complement of the
course; draw a line through Cm,
which produce till it meet BA in
A. Then the distance AC being
measured, will be equal to 231 m.,
and the difference of latitude AB
will be 128-3 miles. Fig. io
By Calculation.—To find the distance.
L cos of course  5 pts. = 10-08015
Log. departure   192 m. = 2-28330
-10
Log. distance 230-9 = 2-36345
To find the true difference of latitude.
L cot of course  5 pts = 9-82489
Log. departure  192 m. = 2-28330
-10
Log. true diff. latitude 128-3 = 2-10819
By Inspection.—Find the departure 192 miles in its proper column
above the given course 5 points; and opposite thereto is the dis¬
tance 231 miles, and difference of latitude 128-3, in their respective
columns.
By Gunter’s Scale.—The extent from 5 points to 8 points on the
line of sine rhumbs, being laid from the departure 192 on numbers,
will reach to the distance 231 on the same line; and the extent
from 5 points to 4 points on the line of tangent rhumbs will reach
from the departure 192, to the difference of latitude 128-3 on num¬
bers.
Latitude of Palma 28° 37' N.
Diff. latitude  2 8 N.
Latitude in   30 45 N.
Ex. 4.—A ship from a place in Lat. 43° 13' N., sails between
the north and east 285 miles, and is then by observation
found to be in Lat. 46° 31' N.; required the course and de¬
parture.
Latitude sailed from  43° 13/ N.
Latitude by observation 46 31 N.
Diff. of latitude  3 18=198 miles.
By Construction.—Draw the portion of the meridian AB (fig. 11)
equal to 198 miles ; from B draw BC
perpendicular to AB ; then take the
distance 285 miles from the scale, and
with one foot of the compass in A de¬
scribe an arc intersecting BC in C, and
join AC. With the chord of 60° de¬
scribe the arc mn, the portion of which
contained between the distance and
difference of latitude, applied to the
line of chords, will measure 46°, the
course; and the departure BC being
measured on the line of equal parts,
will be found equal to 205 miles.
Fig. II.
By Calculation.—To find the course.
Log. true diff. latitude  (128) + 10 = 12-29660
Log. distance  285 — 2-45484
L cos course    46° = 9-84176
Or course is N.46° O' E.
To find the departure.
L sin course   46°
Log. distance    285
= 9-85693
= 2-45484
-10
Log. departure 205 = 2-31177
By Inspection.—Find the given distance in the table in its
proper column ; and if the difference of latitude answering thereto
is the same as that given, namely, 198, then the departure will be
found in its proper column, and the course at the top or bottom of
the page, according as the difference of latitude is found in a
column marked lat. at top or bottom. If the difference of latitude
thus found does not agree with that given, turn over till the nearest
thereto is found to answer to the given distance. This is in the
page marked 46 degrees at the bottom, which is the course, and the
corresponding departure is 205 miles.
By Gunter’s Scale.—The extent from the distance 285 to the
difference of latitude 198 on numbers, will reach from 90° to 44°,
the complement of the course on sines; and the extent from 90° to
the course 46° on the line of sines being laid from the distance 285,
will reach to the departure 205 on the line of numbers.
Ex. 5.—A ship from Fort-Royal, in the island of Grenada,
in Lat. 12° 9' N., sailed 260 miles between the south and west, and
made 190 miles of departure; required the course and latitude
come to.
1 For the method of resolving the various problems in navigation by the Sliding Gunter, the reader is referred to Dr Mackay’s Treatise
on the Description and Use of that instrument.
16
Plane
Sailing.
NAVIGATION.
By Construction.—Draw BO perpendicular to AB, and equal to
the given departure 190 miles; then
from the centre C, with the distance A
260 miles, sweep an arc intersecting
AB in A, and join AC. Now describe
an arc from the centre A with the
chord of 60°, and the portion mn of
this arc, contained between the dis¬
tance and difference of latitude, mea¬
sured on the line of chords, will be 47°,
the course; and the difference of lati¬
tude AB, applied to the scale of equal
parts, measures 177£ miles. F'S- !2.
By Calculation.—To find the course.
Log. departure 190 + 10 = 12-27875
Log. distance  200 =—2-41497
L sin course  46° 57' = 9-86378
Or course is S. 46° 57' W.
To find the true difference of latitude.
L cos course  46° 57' = 9-83419
Log. distance    260 = 2-41497
-10
Log. true diff. latitude  177-3 = 2-24916
By Inspection.—Seek in the traverse table until the nearest to
the given departure is found in the same line with the given dis¬
tance 260. This is found to be in the page marked 47° at the
bottom, which is the course; and the corresponding difference of
latitude is 177-3.
By Gunter's Scale.—The extent of the compass, from the distance
260 to the departure 190 on the line of numbers, will reach from
90° to 47°, the course on the line of sines; and the extent from 90°
to 43°, the complement of the course on sines, will reach from the
distance 260 to the difference of latitude 177J on the line of
numbers.
Latitude Fort-Royal  12° 9' N.
Difference of latitude 177= 2 57 S.
Latitude in     9 12 N.
Ex. 6.—A ship from a port in Lat. 7° 56' S. sailed between the
south and east till her departure was 132 miles, and was then, by
observation, found to be in Lat. 12° 3' S.; required the course and
distance.
Latitude sailed from   7° 56' S.
Latitude in, by observation 12 3 S.
Difference of latitude...4 7 = 247
By Construction.—Draw the portion of the
meridian AB equal to the difference of latitude
247 miles; from B draw BC perpendicular to
AB, and equal to the given departure 132
miles, and join AC; then with the chord of 60°
describe an arc from the centre A ; and the
portion mn of this arc, being applied to the
line of chords, will measure about 28°; and the
distance AC, measured on the line of equal parts,
will be 280 miles. ’
By Calculation.—To find the course.
Log. departure  132 + 10
Log. true diff. latitude 247
L tan course   28° 7' == 9-72787
Or course is g. 28° 7' E
To find the distance.
L sec course   >7'   monAei
Log. true diff. latitude  247 = 2-39270
-10
Log. distance 280 = 2-44724
By lnspection.-Seek in the table till the given difference of
latitude and departure, or the nearest thereto, are found together
in their respective columns, which will be under 28°, the required
course ; and the distance answering thereto is 280 miles.
By Gunter's Neale.—The extent from the given difference of
latitude 247 to the departure 132 on the line of numbers, will
reach from 45° to 28°, the course on the line of tangents; and the
extent from 62 , the complement of the course, to 90° on the sines
will reach from the difference of latitude 247 to the distance 280 on
numbers.
The six problems whose solutions are illustrated above
Fig. 13.
12-12057
2-39270
are all that occur in the solution of the right-angled triangle* Mercator’s
whose sides represent the true difference of latitude, de- Sailing,
parture, and distance, and one of whose angles is the course,
Chap. III.—ON MERCATOR’S SAILING.
We have already explained the principle of Mercator’s
Chart, and have shown that in every problem of navigation
there is a second right-angled triangle similar to that whose
solutions formed the subject of investigation in chapter ii.;
and the sides of which, corresponding to the true difference
of latitude and departure, are the meridional difference of
latitude and difference oflongitude.
We have already given a rule for finding the meridional
parts for any given latitude, on the supposition that the
earth is a perfect sphere. If the earth’s oblateness be taken
into account, and the compression, i.e., the ratio of the
difference of the equatorial and polar semi-diameters to the
equatorial semi-diameter, be taken as 3^, which it is very
nearly, the meridional parts for latitude l will be given by
the formula—
Mer. parts = 7915,705log. tan. ^45° + ^ — 22‘88sin l
— O'OSOS sin 3l — 8cc.
Let AD (fig. 14) be the meridian,
BAG the course, AB the true differ¬
ence of latitude, AD the meridional
difference of latitude ; then
DE is the diff. long., and
ED = DA x tan BAG; or,
diff. long . = mer. diff. lat. x tan course ;
or log. diff. long. = log. mer. diff. lat. +
L tan course — 10.
Also, by similar triangles, ADE and
ABC, we have
DE : BC : : DA : BA; or, e
DE = BC x DA
BA
.•. diff. long. = dep. x mer. diff. lat. _ ’
true diff. lat. ’ °r’
log.diff. long. = log. dep. + log. mer. diff. lat. — log. true diff. lat.
Whence, from the departure and true and meridional differ¬
ences of latitude, the difference of longitude may be found.
The following examples will illustrate the mode of using
these formulae:—
Ex. 1. A ship sails from Cape Finisterre, Lat. 42° 52' N., Long.
9° 17' W., to Port Praya, in the island of Santiago, Lat. 14° 54' N.,
and Long. 23° 29' W.; required the course and distance.
Lat. from  42° 52' N. Mer. parts ... 2852
Lat. in  14 54 N. Mer. parts... 904
Diff. of lat  27 58 S. Mer. diff. lat. 1948 S.
1678 S.
Long, from   9° 17' W.
Long, in 23 29 W.
Fig. 14.
Diff. long  14 12 = 852 W.
By Construction.—Draw the straight line AD
(fig. 15), to represent the meridian of Cape
Finisterre, upon which lay off AB, AD, equal
to 1678 and 1948, the true and meridional
differences of latitude. From D draw DE
perpendicular to AD, and equal to the dif¬
ference of longitude 852; join AE, and draw
BC parallel to DE; then the distance AC
will measure 1831 miles, and the course
BAG 23° 37'. ‘
By Calculation.—To find the course.
Log. diff. long 852 + 10 = 12-93044
Log. mer. diff. lat   1948 = 3-28959
L tan course   23° 37' = 9-64085
Or course is S. 23° 27' W.
NAVIGATION.
17
Mercator’s
Sailing.
To find the distance.
L sec. course  23° 27' — lO'OSTQS
Log. true diff. lat  1678 miles = 3’22479
-10
Log. distance  1831
= 3-26277
2.—A ship from Cape Henlopen in Virginia, in Lat. 38° 47'
N., Long. 75° 4' W., sailed 267 miles KB. by K; required the
ship’s present place.
By Construction.—With the course, and
distance sailed, construct the triangle
ABC (fig. 16), and the difference of lati¬
tude AB being measured, is 222 miles;
hence the latitude in is 42° 29' K, and
the meridional difference of latitude 293.
Make AD equal to 293, and draw DE
perpendicular to AD, and meeting AC
produced in E; then the difference of
longitude DE being applied to the scale
of equal parts, will measure 196 ; longi¬
tude in is therefore 71° 48' W. Fig. ie.
By Calculation.—find the true difference of latitude.
L cos course   3 points = 9-91985
Log. distance  267 miles = 2-42651
-10
Lat. Port Canso   45° 20' K
Lat. in, by observation 41 14 K
Diff. lat  4 6=246
Mer. parts...3058
Mer. parts...2720
Mer. diff. lat. 338
By Construction.—With
the course and departure
construct the triangle ABC
(fig. 18); now AC and AB
being measured, will be
found to be equal to 476
and 224 respectively ; hence
the latitude in is 37° 42'K,
and meridional difference
of latitude 276. Make AD
equal to 276, and draw DE
Mercator’s
Sailing.
Fig. 18.
perpendicular thereto, meeting the distance produced in E.; then
DE applied to the scale will be found to measure 516. The
longitude in is therefore 14° 56' W.
By Calculation.—To find the distance.
L cos course  5J points = 10-05457
Log. dep 420 miles = 2-62325
-10 
Log. dist 476-2 = 2-67782
To find true difference of latitude.
L cot course  5£ points = 9-72796
Log. dep 420 miles = 2-62325
-10
Log. true diff. latitude  222 K = 2-34636
Lat. from  = 38° 47' K Mer. parts...2528
True diff. lat  = 3 42 K
Lat. in  = 42 29 K Mer. parts...2821
Mer. diff. lat. 293
To find the difference of longitude.
L tan course  3 points = 9-82489
Log. mer. diff. lat  293 miles = 2 46687
-10 
Log. diff. long 195-8 E. = 2-29176
Long, from  75° 4' W.
Diff. long    3 16 E.
Long, in    71 48 W.
Ex. 3.—A ship from Port Canso in Nova Scotia, in Lat. 45° 20'
K, Long. 60° 55' W., sailed S E.JS., and, by observation, was
found to be in Lat. 41° 14' K; required the distance sailed, and
longitude come to.
By Construction.—Make AB (fig. 17)
equal to 246, and AD equal to 338;
draw AE, making an angle with AD
equal to 3f points, and draw BC, DE
perpendicular to AD. Now AC being
applied to the scale, will measure 332,
and DE, 306.
By Calculation.—To find the distance.
L sec course  3f points = 10-13021
Log. true diff. lat  246 miles = 2-39093
-10
Log. distance   332 = 2-52114
To find the difference of longitude.
L tan course  3f points = 9-95729
Log. mer. diff. lat  338 miles = 2-52892
• ' -10
Log. diff. long  306-3 E. = 2-48621
Long. Port Canso from ... 60° 55' W.
Diff. long  5 6 E.
i Long, in  55 49 W.
'Ex. 4.—A ship sailed from Sallee, in Lat. 33° 58' N., Long.
6° 20' W., the corrected course was N.W. by W. JW., and departure
420 miles; required the distance run, and the latitude and
longitude in.
VOL. XVI.
Log. diff. latitude 224-5 = 2-35121
Latitude Sallee from.... 33° 58 N. Mer. parts 2169
Diff. latitude  3 44 N.
Latitude in  37 42 N. Mer. parts  2445
Mer. diff. lat... 276
To find the difference of longitude.
L tan course  5J points = 10-27204
Log. mer. diff. latitude  276 miles = 2-44091
-10
= 2-71295
= 2-62325
= 2-44091
5-06416
= 2-35121
= 2-71295
Log. diff. longitude 516 3
Or—
Log. dep 420
Log. mer. diff. latitude  276
Log. true diff. latitude 
Log. diff. longitude 516-3
Ex. 5.—A ship from St Mary’s, in Lat. 36° 57' N., Long. 25° 9'
W., sailed on a direct course between the north and east 1162
miles, and was then, by observation, in Lat. 49° 57' N.; required
the course steered, and longitude come to.
Latitude of St Mary’s... 36° 57' N. Mer. parts 2389
Latitude in 49 57 N. Mer. parts  3470
Diff. latitude  13 0 N. Mer. diff. lat... 1081 N.
780 N.
By Construction.—Make AB equal to
780, and AD equal to 1081; draw BC,
DE, perpendicular to AD ; make AC
equal to 1162, and through A and C
draw ACE. Then the course or angle
A being measured, will be found equal
47“ 50', and the difference of longitude
DE will be 1194.
Fig. 19.
By Calculation.—To find the course.
Log. true diff. latitude  780 + 10 = 12-89209
Log. dist 1162 = 3-06521
L cos course  47° 50' = 9-82688
To find difference of longitude.
L tan course   47° 50' = 10 04302
Log mer. diff. latitude 1081 miles = 3-03383
-10
Log. diff. longitude  1194 = 3-07685
Longitude from  25° 9' W.
Diff. longitude  19 54 E.
Longitude in  5 15 W.
Ex. 6.—From Aberdeen, in Lat. 57° 9' N., Long. 2° 8' W., a
ship sailed between the south and east till her departure was 146
miles, and Lat. in 53° 32' N.; required the course and distance
run, and longitude in.
C
18
NAVIGATION.
Mercator's
Sailing.
Latitude Aberdeen 57° 9' 17. Mer. parts 4199
Latitude in  53 32 N. Mer. parts 3817
DifF. latitude  3 37=217 S. Mer. diff. lat... 382
By Construction.—With the difference of
latitude 217 miles, and departure 146 miles,
construct the triangle ABC; make AD equal
to 382, draw DE parallel to BC, and produce
AC to E; then the course BAC will measure
33“ 56', the distance AC, 261, and the differ¬
ence of longitude DE, 257.
By Calculation.—To find the course.
Log. dep.   146 + 10= 12-16435
Log. true diff. lat... 217 = 2-33646
L tan course... 33° 56' = 9-82789
A
To find the distance. rig. 20.
L sec course  33° 56' = 10-08109
Log. true diff. latitude  217 miles = 2-33646
— 10 
Log. dist   261-5 = 2-41755
To find the difference of longitude.
Log. mer. diff. latitude 382
Log. dep   146
Log. true diff. latitude 217
Log. diff. longitude 257
2-58206
2-16435
4-74641
2-33646
2-40995
Longitude from 2° 8' W.
Diff. longitude 4 17 E.
Longitude in 2 9 E.
and is found, by observation, to be in Long. 18° 24' W.; required
the latitude come to, and distance sailed.
Longitude of Terceira 27° 6' W.
Longitude in 18 24 W.
Diff. longitude  8 42 = 522
By Construction.—Make the right-angled
triangle ADE, having the angle A equal to
the course 32°, and the side DE equal to the
difference of longitude 522 ; then AD will
measure 835, which, added to the meridional
parts of the latitude left, will give those of the
latitude come to, 48° 46'; hence the difference
of latitude is 601. Make AB equal thereto, to
which let BC be drawn perpendicular; then
AC applied to the scale will measure 708 miles.
D E
Fig. 22.
Traverse
Sailing, or
Compound
Courses.
By Calculation.—To find meridional difference of latitude.
L cot course 32° 0' = 10.20421
Log. diff. longitude  522 miles = 2-71767
-10 
Log. mer. diff. latitude  835-2 N. = 2-92188
Latitude from Tercera 38° 45' 17. Mer. parts... 2526
Mer. diff. lat. 835
Latitude in 48 46 17. 3361
True diff. latitude .... 10 1 17.=601 miles 17.
To find the distance.
L sec course 320 0' = 10-07158
Log. true diff. latitude 601 miles = 2-77887
-10
Log. dist 707-1 = 2-85045
Ex. 7.— A ship from Naples, in Lat. 40° 51' N., Long. 14° 14' E.,
sailed 252 miles on a direct course between the south and west, and
made 173 miles of westing; required the course made good, and
the latitude and longitude in.
By Construction.—With the distance
and departure make the triangle ABC as
formerly. Now the course BAC being
measured by means of a line of chords, will
be found equal to 43° 21', and the differ¬
ence of latitude applied to the scale of
equal parts will measure 183; hence the
latitude in is 37° 48' N., and meridional
difference of latitude 237. Make AD
equal to 237, and complete the figure, and
the difference of longitude DE will mea¬
sure 224; hence the longitude in is 10°
30' E.
By Calculation.—To find the course.
Log. dep    173 + 10= 12-23805
Log. dist 252 = 2-40140
L sin course 43° 21' = 9 83665
To find the true difference of latitude.
L cos course 430 21' = 9-86164
Log. dist   252miles = 2-40140
-10 
Log. true diff. latitude  183-2 = 2-26304
Latitude from (Naples).... 40° 51' N. Mer. parts... 2690
True diff. latitude     3 3 S.
Latitude in 37 48 N. Mer. parts... 2453
Mer. diff. lat. 237
To find the difference of longitude.
L tan course 43° 21' = 9-97497
Log. mer. diff. latitude 237miles = 2-37475
— 10 
Log. diff. longitude   223-7 = 2 34972
Longitude from 14° 14' E.
Diff. longitude  3 44 W.
Longitude in 10 30 E.
Ex. 8.—A ship from Terceira, in Lat. 38° 45' N., Long. 27° 6'
W., sailed on a direct course, which, when corrected, was N. 32° E.,
Chap. IV.—ON TRAVERSE SAILING, OR COMPOUND
COURSES.
It is the first business of the navigator, when he is about
to conduct a ship from one port to another, to calculate be¬
forehand the course on which the vessel is to be steered, and
the distance she must run on that course. If the sea is
perfectly free from obstruction between the two ports, one
course and one distance will suffice for this purpose. It
very seldom happens, however, that the sea is free from
obstruction; but rocks or shoals, islands or some part ot
a mainland, intervenes, and a change of course is thus ren¬
dered necessary. In this case, the course and distance ot
the vessel, supposing the navigation unobstructed, having
been taken from the chart, the mariner will determine how
many changes of course are necessary, and will proceed to
calculate the several courses and distances which shall be
equivalent to the one course and distance on which the
vessel would sail if unobstructed. This calculation, it must
be remarked, is very different from that of the course and
distance actually made good on a given day, when, by rea¬
son of variation of winds and other causes, the course re¬
quires to be altered; although naturally the modes of making
these calculations are similar. In the former case, however,
the distances to be dealt with are very much greater, and the
changes of course less frequent, than in the latter.
The investigations of this chapter are intended to guide
the navigator in making his preliminary calculation; the
mode of correcting the course and calculating the distance
run in each day will form the subject of a subsequent in¬
vestigation.
If a ship sail on two or more courses in a given time,
the irregular track she describes is called a traverse ; and
to resolve a traverse is the method of reducing these several
courses and distances run into a single course and distance.
Rule 1.—Make a table sufficiently large to contain the
several courses, &c. Divide this table into six columns ;
the courses are to be put in the first, and the corresponding
distances in the second column ; the third and fourth co¬
lumns are to contain the differences of latitude, and the two
last the departures.
A
Traverse
Sailing, or
Compound
Courses.
N A V I G
The several courses and their corresponding distances
being properly arranged in the table, find the tiue difference
of latitude and departure answering to each in the traverse
table, remembering that the true difference of latitude is to
be put into a N. or S. column according as the course is
in a northern or southern direction, and that the departure
is to be put in E. or W. column according as the course is
easterly or westerly. Add together these several quantities
in each of the columns, and set the sum down at the bot¬
tom. The difference between the sums in the N. and S.
columns will be the true difference of latitude made good,
of the same name with the greater ; and the difference be¬
tween the sums of the E. and W. columns is the departure
made good, of the same name with the greater sum.
Look in the traverse table for a true difference of latitude
and departure agreeing as nearly as possible with those
above; then the distance will be found on the same line,
and the course at the top or bottom of the page, according
as the true difference of latitude is greater or less than the
departure, since in the former case the course is less than
45° or 4 points, and in the latter case greater.
Having found the latitude, find also the meridional dif¬
ference of latitude ; and to the course and meridional dif¬
ference of latitude in a latitude column, the corresponding
departure will be the difference of longitude, which, applied
to the longitude from, will give the longitude in.
It is also easy to resolve a traverse by construction ; and
we now show how this may be done, although it is scarcely
ever practised at sea.
Describe a circle with the chord of 60° as radius, and
in it draw two diameters at right angles to each other, at
whose extremities are to be marked the initials of the car¬
dinal points, N. being uppermost.
Lay off each course on the circumference, reckoned from
its proper meridian ; and from the centre to each point
draw lines, which are to be marked with the proper number
of the course.
On the first radius lay off the first distance from the
centre, and through its extremity, and parallel to the second
radius, draw the second distance of its proper length ;
through the extremity of the second distance, and parallel
to the third radius, draw the third distance of the proper
length ; and so on until all the distances are drawn.
A line drawn from the extremity of the last distance to
the centre of the circle will represent the distance made
good; and a line drawn from the same point perpendicular
to the meridian, produced if necessary, will represent the
departure ; and the portion of the meridian intercepted
between the centre and departure will be the difference of
latitude made good.
To construct for the difference of longitude we must find
by the table the meridional difference of latitude, and lay
it off on the meridian, and then complete the triangle simi¬
lar to that whose sides represent the true difference of lati¬
tude ; distance and departure as usual.
A T I 0 N.
Latitude from 38° 32' N.
True diff. latitude..... 3 30 S.
Latitude in   35 2 N.
Mer. parts  2509
Mer. parts 2247
Mer. diff. lat...~~262
Now to course 41J°, and opposite 131, half the meridional
difference of latitude in latitude column, stands 115 in a departure
column, which doubled gives 230 for difference of longitude.
Longitude from 28° 36' W.
Diff. longitude   3 50 E.
Longitude in    24 46 W.
By Construction.—With chord of 60° describe the circle NESW
(fig. 23), the centre of which represents the place the ship sailed
from. Draw two diameters NS,
EW, at right angles to each other,
the one representing the meri¬
dian, and the other the parallel
of latitude of the place sailed ,
from. Take each course from the j
line of rhumbs, lay it off on the W J-
circumference from its proper
meridian, and number it in order, '
1, 2, 3, 4. Upon the tirst rhumb
Cl, lay off the first distance 163
miles from C to A; through it
draw the second distance All
parallel to C2, and equal to 110
miles; through B draw BD equal
to 180 miles, and parallel to 03 ; 23,
and draw DE parallel to C4, and equal to 68 miles. Now CE being
joined, will represent the distance made good, which, applied to the
scale, will measure 281 miles. The arc Sn, which represents the
course, being measured on the line of chords, will be found equal
to 41£°. From E draw EF perpendicular to CS produced j then
CF will be the difference of latitude, and FE the departure made
good, which, applied to the scale, will be found to measure 210 and
186 miles respectively. On CF produced lay off to the scale CGf
equal to 262, the meridional difference of latitude; and through G-
draw GH parallel to FE, meeting CE produced in H. Then GH is
the difference of longitude ; and, when applied to the scale, will be
found to measure 230 miles.
19
Traverse
Sailing, or
Compound
Courses.
Although the above method is that usually employed at
sea to find the difference of longitude, yet, as it has been
already observed, it is not to be depended on, especially
in high latitudes, long distances, and a considerable varia¬
tion in the courses; in which case the following method be¬
comes necessary :—
Rule 2.—Complete the traverse table as before, to
which annex five columns. Now, with the latitude from,
and the several differences of latitude, find the suc¬
cessive latitudes, which are to be placed in the first of the
annexed columns ; in the second, the meridional parts cor¬
responding to each latitude are to be put; and in the third,
the meridional differences of latitude.
Then to each course, and corresponding meridional dif¬
ference of latitude, find the difference of longitude by Ex. 4,
chap, iii., which place in the fourth or fifth columns, ac¬
cording as the course is easterly or westerly; and the dif¬
ference between the sums of these columns will be the dif¬
ference of longitude made good upon the whole, of the
same name with the greater.
Ex. 1.—A ship from Fayal, in Lat. 38° 32' N., and Long. 28°
36' W\, sailed as follows :—E.S.E., 163 miles ; S.W.^W., 110 miles ;
S.E.fS., 180 miles ; and N. by E. 68 miles : required the latitude
and longitude in, the course, and distance made good.
Remarks.
1. When the course is north or south, there is no differ¬
ence of longitude.
2. When the course is east or west, the difference of
longitude cannot be found by Mercator’s Sailing; in this
case the following rule is to be used:—
To the nearest degree to the given latitude taken as a
course, find the distance answering to the departure in a
latitude column ; this distance will be the difference of
longitude.
Ex. 2.—A ship from Lat. 78° 15' N., Long. 28° 14' E., sailed the
following courses and distances, viz. :—W.N.W. 154 miles, S.\Yr.
96, N.W4W. 89, N. by E. 110, N.W.fN. 56, S. by E.fE. 78. The
latitude in is required, and the longitude, by both methods; the
bearing and distance of Hacluit’s headland, in Lat. 79° 55 N.,
Long. 11° 55' E., is also required.
20
Parallel
Sailing.
NAVIGATION.
Traverse Table.
Courses.
W.N.W  154
S.W  9 6
H.W4W  89
N. by E  110
N.W.fN  56
S. 6y E.|E  78
biff.
of Latitude
Dist.
58-9
56-4
107-9
45-0
268-2
141-3
126-9
67-9
73-4
Departure.
21-5
26-3
141-3 | 47-8
142-3
67- 9
68- 8
33-4
312-4
47-8
264-6
By Rule I.
Lat. from 78° 15' N.
Diff. lat  2 7 N.
Lat. in 80 22 H.
Mer. parts 7817
Mer. parts 8504
Mer. diff. lat    ggy
Log. mer. diff. lat  687 = 2-83696
Log. dep  264-6 = 2-42256
5-25952
= 2-10346
Log. true diff. lat.   126-2
Log. diff. long  143-2 = 3-15606
23° 52' W.
Long, from   28 14 E.
Long, in  4 22 E.
The error of this method, in above example, is therefore 1° 23'.
Longitude Table.
Successive
Latitudes.
Merid. Parts.
78° 15'
79 14
78 6
79 2
80 50
81 35
80 22
7817
8120
7774
8056
8676
8970
8504
Meridional
Diff. of Lat.
303
346
282
620
294
466
Diff. of Longitude.
123 6
166-7
731-7
346-0
343-6
218-0
290-3 1639-3
! 290-3
| 1349-0
Long, from  28° 14' E.
Diff. long  22 29 W.
Long, in  5 45 E.
To find the hearing and distance of Hacluit’s headland—
Lat. H. H. = 79° 55' N\
Lat. ship = 80 22 N.
M. P. 8347
M. P. 8504
Long. 11° 55' E.
Long. 5 45 E.
Diff. lat. = 0 27 S. M. D. L. 157 Diff. long. 6 10 E.
370
Now, opposite to 78-5, half the meridional difference of latitude,
and 185-0, half the difference of longitude, stands the course 67° :
and opposite to the difference of latitude 27, the distance is 69
miles. Hence Hacluit’s headland bears S. 67° E., distant 69
miles.
Parallel
Sailing.
Chap. V.—OF PARALLEL SAILING.
When the course is 8 points or 90° from the meridian,
—i.e., due E. or W.,—the true difference of latitude be¬
comes = 0, and the rules we have investigated in chaps,
iii. and iv. fail to give any result. In this case the ship
sails on a parallel of latitude. We have already proved in
chap, i., that, neglecting the earth’s oblateness, the arc of
a parallel, in any given latitude, intercepted between two
meridians, is equal to the corresponding arc of the equator,
in other words, the difference of longitude, multiplied by the
cosine of the latitude.
Whence we derive these three formulae for parallel sail¬
ing :—
Distance =diff. longitude x cos latitude;
Cos latitude = distance -7-diff. longitude;
Diff. longitude = distance x sec latitude.
Problems in parallel sailing may be solved by construc¬
tion ; foi it is evident that we have only to construct a right-
angled triangle whose hypothenuse is the difference of lon¬
gitude, one of the sides the distance, and the angle between
this side and the hypothenuse the latitude. Also it is evi¬
dent, that in a traverse table, if we consider the latitude
a course, and the difference of longitude a distance, the
distance will be a true difference of latitude.
Ex. 1.—Required the number of miles contained in a degree of
longitude in latitude 55° 58'.
By Construction.—Draw the in¬
definite right line AB (fig. 24);
make the angle BAG equal to the
given latitude 55° 58', and AC
equal to the number of miles con¬
tained in a degree of longitude at
the equator, namely, 60; from C
draw CB perpendicular to AB;
and AB being measured on the pig. 24.
line of equal parts, will be found equal to 33-5, the miles required.
By calculation—
L cos lat  55° 58' = 9-7479360
Log. miles in a degree  60 r= 1-7781513
-10
Log. miles in a deg. in lat. 55° 58'...33-58 = 1-5260873
By Inspection.—To 56°, the nearest degree to the given latitude,
and distance 60 miles, the corresponding difference of latitude is
33-6, which is the miles required.
By Gunter's Scale.—The extent from 90° to 34°, the complement
of the given latitude on the line of sines, will reach from 60 to 33-6
on the line of numbers.
There are two lines on the other side of the scale, with respect
to Gunter’s line, adapted to this particular purpose, one of which
is entitled chords, and contains the several degrees of latitude ; the
other, marked M. L., signifying miles of longitude, is the line of lon¬
gitudes, and shows the number of miles in a degree of longitude in
each parallel. The use of these lines is therefore obvious.
Ex. 2.—Required the compass course and distance from A to B.
Given lat. A=17° 30' S. Long. A= 9° 12' E.
lat. B =17 30 S. Long. B=10 42 E.
Variation If E., and deviation as in the table on p. 13.
The true course is due E.
Also, long. A = 19° 12' E.
long. B = 10 42 E.
Diff. long. = 1 30 =90 E.
Log. diff. long  90 = 1-954243
L cos lat  17° 30' = 9-979419
-10
Log. dist  85-8 m. = 1-933662
To find compass course.
Pts. qrs.
  8 0 right of N.
  1 3 left of N.
6 1 right of N., or E.N.E.JE.
Deviation by table 9° 55' E., or 0 3 left of N.
Compass course  5 2 r. of N., or N.E. by E.JE.
True course.
Variation...
Parallel Ex. 3.—A
Sailing, to Gaspey Bay
required the distance run
Longitude from 
Longitude in  
NAVIGATION.
ship sails from Treguier in France, Long. 3° 14' W.,
j, Long. 64° 27' W., the common Lat. being 48° 47' N.;
. 3° 14' W.
.64 27 W.
By Calculation, as under:—
L cos lat. from   66° O' =
Log. distance on required parallel 232 miles =
61 13=3673 W.
L cos latitude  48° 47' = 9-8188250
Log. diff. longitude   3673 —^3:5650209
Log. distance run    2420 — 3-3838459
Ex. 4.—A ship from Cape Finisterre, Lat. 42° 52' N., Long.
9° 17' W., sailed due W. 342 miles; required the longitude in.
By Construction.—Draw the straight line AB (fig. 25), equal to
the given distance 342 miles, and make the
angle BAG equal to 42° 52', the given lati¬
tude ; from B draw BC perpendicular to AB,
meeting AC in C; then AC applied to the
scale will measure 466J, the difference of lon¬
gitude required.
By Calculation—
L cosec lat  42° 52' = 10-13493
Log. distance  342 = 2-53403
-10
) Log. diff. long. 466-6 = 2-66896'"' Fig. 25.
Long. Cape Finisterre  9° 17' W.
Diff. longitude   7 47 W.
Longitude in 47 4 W.
Ex. 5.—A ship sailed due E. 358 miles, and was found by obser¬
vation to have differed her longitude 8° 42'; required the parallel
of latitude.
By Construction.—Make the line AB (fig. 26) equal to the give®
distance; to which let BC be drawn per-
pendicular, with an extent equal to 522',
the difference of longitude; describe an
arc from the centre A, cutting BC in C;
then the angle BAC, being measured by
means of the line of chords, will be found
equal to 46|°, the required latitude.
By Calculation—
Log. dist 358+10 =12-55388
Log. diff. long. 512 = 2-71767
'42'
Fig. 26.
L cos lat....46° 42' = 9-83621
Ex. 6.—From two ports in Lat. 33° 58' N., distance 348 miles,
two ships sail directly N. till they are in Lat. 48° 23' N.; re¬
quired their distance.
By Construction.—Draw the lines CB, CE
(fig. 27), making angles with CP equal to
the complements of the given latitudes,
namely, 56° 2' and 41° 37' respectively.
Make BD equal to the given distance 348
miles, and perpendicular to CP. Now from
the centre C, with the radius CB, describe
an arc intersecting CE in E; then EF
drawn from the point E, perpendicular to
CP, will represent the distance required ;
which being applied to the scale, will
measure 278^ miles.
By Calculation, as under:—
Log. given distance   348 miles = 2-54158
L cos lat. in 48° 23' = 9-82226
L cos lat. from  33° 58
12-36384
= 9-91874
Log. distance on known parallel... 180
L cos latitude in  43° 53'
9-74756
2-36549
12-11305
2-25527
9-85778
21
Middle-
Latitude
Sailing.
Log. distance required  278-6 miles = 2-44510
Ex. 7.—Two ships, in Lat. 56° 0' N., distant 180 miles, sail due
S.; and having come to the same parallel, are now 232 miles
distant. The latitude of that parallel is required.
By Construction.—Make DB (fig 28)   
equal to the first distance 180 miles, DM
equal to the second 232, and the angle
DBC equal to the given latitude 56°. From
the centre C, with the radius CB, describe
the arc BE; and through M draw ME
parallel to CD, intersecting the arc BE in
E. Join EC, and draw EF perpendicular to
CD ; then the angle FEC will be the lati¬
tude required ; which, being measured, will
be found equal to 43° 53'.
Chap. VI.—OF MIDDLE-LATITUDE SAILING.
It has been already explained in chap. ii. that the
departure is greater than the intercepted arc of the
parallel of the higher latitude, and less than that of the
parallel of the lower of two places between which a ship
sails; but that there is an intermediate parallel, the arc of
which is exactly equal to the departure. This parallel is
supposed to pass through the middle point between the ex¬
treme latitudes; and hence the latitude of this point is
called the middle latitude. The relations between course,
distance, departure, and true difference of latitude are to be
found as in chap. iii.; and the relation between the de¬
parture and difference of longitude is given by the above
considerations, viz.,—
Departure = diff. long, x cos mid. latitude.
But departure = true diff. lat. x tan course.
Hence we get
True diff. lat. x tan course = diff. long, x cos mid. lat. (a.)
also departure = distance x sin course.
Whence also
Distance x sin course = diff. long, x cos mid. lat. (b.)
If ABC (fig. 29) be the triangle for plane
sailing, where AB is the true difference
of latitude, AC the distance, BAC the
course, and BC the departure ; at C make
BCD equal to the middle latitude, and
produce CD to meet AB produced in
D ; then CD is evidently the true dif¬
ference of longitude, and all the problems
may be resolved and constructed by the
two triangles which have a common side,
—viz., the departure BC.
Also problems in middle-latitude sailing
may be solved by the traverse table ; for
the relations between middle latitude, difference of longi¬
tude, and departure, are the same as those between course,
distance, and true difference of latitude, and may therefore
be found at once by inspection from the table.
Ex. 1.—Required the compass course and distance from the Island
of May, in Lat. 56° 12' N. and Long. 2° 37' W., to the Naze of Nor¬
way, in Lat. 57° 50' N., and Long. 7° 27' E.; variation 2J W.
Latitude Isle of May  56° 12' N. 56° 12'
Latitude Naze of Norway  57 50 N. 57 50
Difference of latitude  1 38=98'N. 114 2
Middle latitude 1
Longitude Isle of May  2° 37' W.
Longitude Naze of Norway .7 27 E.
Difference of longitude 10 4=604' E.
By Construction.—Draw the right line A
represent the meridian of the May; with
the chord of 60° describe the arc mn, upon
which lay off the chord of 32° 59', the
complement of the middle latitude from m to
n. From D through n draw the line DC equal
to 604', the difference of longitude ; and from m
C draw CB perpendicular to AD; make BA,
equal to 98', the difference of latitude, and
join AC; which, applied to the scale, will
measure 343 miles, the distance sought; and
the angle A being measured by means of the
line of chords, will be found equal to 73° 24',
the required course.
Fig. 29.
Fig. 30,
22
Middle-
Latitude
Sailing.
NAVIGATION.
By Calculation.—To find the course.
L cos mid. latitude  57° 1' 9,73591
Log. diff. longitude  604 miles = 2-78104
T ~12'51695
Log. true difif. latitude   98 ~ 1-99123
L tan course  73° 24' = 10-52572
Or course = N. 73° 24' E.
To find the distance.
L sec course  73° 24' = 10-54411
Log. diff. latitude  98 miles = 1-99123
-10
Log. distance   343 = 2 53534
The true course is N. 73° 24' E.3 or E.N.E.fE. nearly.
Pts. qrs.
True course  6 3 right of N.
Variation   2 2 right of N.
9
Or   6
Deviation  0
Compass course 7
1 right of N., or E.S.E.f E.
3 left of S.
_2_left of S.
1 or E.lS.
Jfo. 2.—A ship from Brest, in Lat. 48° 23'
N., and Long. 4° 30' W., sailed S.W.fW.
238 miles; required the latitude and longi¬
tude in.
By Construction.—With the course and
distance construct the triangle ABC (fig. 31),
and the difference of latitude AB being
measured will be found equal to 142 miles;
hence the latitude in is 46° 1' N., and the
middle latitude 47° 12'. Now make the
angle DCB equal to 47° 12'; and DC being
measured will be 281, the difference of longi¬
tude ; hence the longitude in is 9° 11' W.
Pig. 31.
By Calculation.—To find the difference of latitude.
L cos course    4f pts. = 9-77503
Log. distance   238 miles = 2-37658
-10
Log. true diff. latitude   141-8 = 2-15161
Lat. Brest  48° 23' N. 48° 23' N.
Diff. latitude  2 22 S. Half. 1 11 S.'
Latitude in   46 IN. Mid. lat. 47 12 N.
2-37658
9-90483
12-28141
9-83215
2-44926
Diff. of latitude   11 34=694'
Middle latitude .
By Construction.—Construct the triangle
ABC (fig. 32), with the given course and
difference of latitude, and make the angle
BCD equal to the middle latitude. Now
the distance AC and difference of longitude
DC being measured, will be found equal to
864 and 558 respectively.
By Calculation.—To find the distance.
L sec course  3£ pts. = 10-09517
Log. diff. latitude .... 694 miles = 2-84136
-10
Log. distance 864 = 2-93653
45 34 N.
22 47 N.
To find the difference of longitude.
L tan course  3£ pts. =
Log. diff. latitude   694 miles =
9-87020
2-84136
Middle-
Latitude
Sailing.
12-71156
9-96472
=: 2-74684
To find the difference of longitude.
Log. distance  238 =
L sin course   43 ptSt —
Log. cos mid. latitude  470 12' =
Log. diff. longitude   281-3 =
Long. Brest   4° 30' W.
Diff. longitude  4 41
Longitude in  9 H w.
Ex. 3.—A ship from St Antonio, in Lat. 17° 0' N. and Long.
24° 25' W., sailed N.W.JN., till, by observation, her latitude was
found to be 28° 34' N.; required the distance sailed, and longitude
come to.
Latitude St Antonio  17° 0' N. 17° 0' N.
Latitude by observation  28 34 N. 28 34 n!
L cos mid. latitude   22° 47' =
Log. diff. longitude  558-3
Long. St Antonio  24° 25' W.
Diff. longitude  9 18 W.
Longitude in  33 43 W.
Ex. 4.—A ship from Lat. 26° 30' N., and Long. 45° 30' W.
sailed N.E.'N. till her departure is 216 miles; required the
distance run, and latitude and longitude come to. D
By Construction.—With the course and de¬
parture construct the triangle ABC (fig. 33) ;
and the distance and difference of latitude
being measured will be found equal to 340
and 263 respectively. Hence the latitude in
is 30° 53', and middle latitude 28° 42'. Now
make the angle BCD equal to the middle
latitude, and the difference of longitude DC
applied to the scale will measure 246',
By Calculation.—To find the distance. jjg 33
L cosec course  31 pts. — 10-19764
Log. departure  216 miles = 2-33445
-10
Log. distance   340-5 = 2-53109
To find the true difference of latitude.
L cot course  3^ pts. = 10-08583
Log. departure  216 miles = 2-33445
-10
Log. true diff. latitude  263-2 = 2-42028
Latitude from  26° 30' N. 26° 30'
Diff. latitude   4 23 N. Half  2 12 N.
Latitude in... 30 55 N. Mid. lat. 28 42 N.
To find the difference of longitude.
L sec mid. latitude  28° 42' = 10-05693
Log. departure  216 miles = 2-33445
-10
Log. diff. longitude   246-2 = 2-39138
Longitude from  45° 30' W.
Diff. longitude   4 6 E.
Longitude in   41 24 W.
Ex. 5.—From Cape Sable, in Lat. 43° 24' N., and Long. 65° 39'
W., a ship sailed 246 miles on a direct course between the S.
and E., and was then by observation in Lat. 40° 48' N. • re¬
quired the course, and longitude in.
Latitude Cape Sable 43° 24' N. 43° 24' N.
Latitude by observation...40 48 N. 40 48 N.
Diff. of latitude  2 36=156 S. Sum 84 12 N.
Middle latitude  42 6 N.
By Construction.—Make AB (fig. 34) equal to 156 miles,
draw BC perpendicular to AB, and make AC ^
equal to 246 miles; draw CD, making with
CB an angle of 42° 6', the middle latitude.
Now DC will be found to measure 256, and
the course or angle A will measure 50° 39'.
By Calculation.—To find the course.
Log. diff. latitude 156 +10 = 12-19312
Log. dist 246 = 2-39093
L cos course.. .50° 39' = 9-80219
Pig. 34.
Pig. 32.
To find the difference of longitude.
Log. dist 246 =
L sin course 50° 39'  
_ . 12-27927
L cos mid. latitude  420 6' = 9-87039
Log. diff. longitude  256-4 = 2 40 88
2-39093
9-88834
NAVIGATION.
Middle-
Latitude
Sailing.
Longitude from 65° 39' W.
Diff. longitude   4 16 E.
Longitude in 61 23 W.
Ex. 6. A ship from Cape St Vincent, in Lat. 37° 2' N., Long.
9° 2' W., sails between the S. and W.; the latitude in is 18° 16'
N., and departure 838 miles ; required the course and distance
run, and longitude in.
Latitude Cape St Vincent 37° 2'N.
Latitude in 18 16 N.
37° 2'N.
18 16 N.
Difference of latitude 18 46=1126 S. Sum 55 18 N.
Middle latitude...27 39 N.
By Construction.—Make AB (fig. 35) equal to the difference of
latitude 1126 miles, and BO equal to the
departure 838, and join AC ; draw CD so as
to make an angle with CB equal to the middle
latitude 27° 39'. Then the course being mea¬
sured on chords is about 36|°, and the dis¬
tance and difference of longitude, measured on
the line of equal parts, will be found to be
1403 and 946 respectively,
By Calculation.—To find the course.
Log. departure 838+10=: 12-92324
Log. diff.latitude 1126 = 3-05154
L tan course 36° 39' = 9-87170
To find the distance.
L sec course  36° 39'
Log. diff. latitude  1126
Fig. 35.
= 10-09566
= 305154
-10 
= _ 3-14720
Log. dist 1403
To find the difference of longitude.
Log. departure 838 = 2-92324
L sec mid. latitude 27° 39' — 10-05266
-10
Log. diff. longitude 946 = 2-97590
Longitude from  9° 2' W.
Diff. longitude  15 46 W.
Longitude in 24 48
W.
Ex. 7.—A ship from Bordeaux, in Lat. 44° 50' N., and Long.
0° 35' W., sailed between the N. and W.
374 miles, and made 210 miles of westing; re¬
quired the course, and the latitude and longi¬
tude in.
By Construction.—With the given distance
and departure make the triangle ABC (fig. 36).
Now the course, being measured on the line of
chords, is about 34^°, and the difference of lati¬
tude on the line of numbers is 309 miles ; hence
the latitude in is 49° 59' N., and middle latitude
47° 25'. Then make the angle BCD equal to
47° 25', and DC being measured, will be 310
miles, the difference of longitude. Fig. sc.
By Calculation.—To find the course.
Log. departure   210 + 10= 12-32222
Log. distance 374 = 2'57287
L sin course 34° 10' = 9-74935
To find the true difference of latitude.
L cos course 34° 10' = 9-91772
Log. distance   374 = 2-57287
-10 
Log. diff. latitude 309*4 = 2-49059
Latitude from  44° 50' N.
True diff. latitude  5 9 N. Half..
44° 50' N.
. 2 35 N.
Longitude from  .0° 35' W.
Diff. longitude 5 10 W.
Longitude in  5 45 W.
Ex. 8.—A ship from Lat. 54° 56' N., Long. 1° 10' W., sailed
between the N. and E. till, by observation, she was found to be
in Long. 5° 26' E., and has made 220 .miles of easting; required
the latitude in, course, and distance run.
Longitude from  1° 10' W.
Longitude in  5 26 E.
Difference of longitude 6 36=396 E.
By Construction.—Make BC (fig. 37) equal to
the departure 220, and CD equal to the differ¬
ence of longitude 396; then the middle latitude
BCD being measured, will be found equal to
56° 15'; hence the latitude come to is 57° 34',
and difference of latitude 158'. Now make AB
equal to 158, and join AC, which, applied to the
scale, will measure 271 miles. Also the course
BAC, being measured on chords, will be found
equal to 54J°.
By Calculation.—To find the middle latitude.
23
Oblique
Sailing.
Fig. 37.
Log. diff. of longitude ..396 + 10= 12-59769
Log. departure 220 = 2-34242
L sec mid. latitude 56° 15' = 10-25527
Double middle latitude 112° 30' N.
Latitude from ,54 56 N.
Latitude in  57 34 N.
True diff. latitude  2 38=158 miles N.
To find the course.
Log. departure 220 + 10= 12-34242
Log. diff. latitude 158
= 2-19866
L tan course  54° 19' — 10-14376
To find distance.
L sec course 54° 19' = 10-23410
Log. diff. latitude   158 = 2-19866
6 -10
Log. distance 270-9 — 2-43276
Ex. 9.—A ship from a port in N. Lat., sailed S.E.JS. 438
miles, and differed her Long. 7° 28'; required A
the latitudes from and in.
By Construction.—With the course and dis¬
tance construct the triangle ABC (fig. 38), and
make DC equal to 448, the given difference of
longitude. Now the middle latitude BCD will B
measure 48° 58', and the difference of latitude
AB 324 miles; hence the latitude from is 51° 40',
and latitude in 46° 16'.
By Calculation.—To find the true difference of
latitude.
L cos course  pts.
Log. distance  438 miles
1)
Fig. 38.
= 9-86979
= 2-64147
-10
Latitude in   49 59 N. Mid. lat. 47 25 N.
Log. true diff.latitude 324-5 = 2'51126
To find middle latitude.
Log. distance  438 ms. = 2-64147
L sin course   3f pts. = 9-82708
12-46855
Log. diff. longitude   448 = 2-65128
L cos mid. latitude  48° 58' = 9-81727
Mid. latitude  48° 58' N.
Half diff. latitude   2 42 S.
Latitude from 51 40 N.
Latitude in .46 16 N.
To find the difference of longitude.
L sec mid. latitude 47° 25' = 10-16963 Chap. VII.—OF OBLIQUE SAILING.
Log. departure  210 = 2-32222
— 10  Oblique sailing is the application of oblique-angled plane
Log. diff. longitude  310-3 = 2-49185 triangles to the solution of problems at sea. I his sailing
.
24
NAVIGATION.
Oblique will be found particularly useful m going along shore, and
Sailing, in surveying coasts and harbours.
Ex. 1.-—At 11 a.m. the Girdle Ness bore 'W.N.'W., and at 2 p.m.
it bore NAY. by N.; the course during the interval S. by W. five
knots an hour; required the distance of the ship from the Ness at
each station.
By Construction.—Describe the circle NESW(fig. 39), and draw the
diameters NS, E\V at right angles to each
other. From the centre C, which repre¬
sents the first station, draw the YY.N.W.
line OF ; and from the same point draw ^
CH, S. by W., and equal to 15 miles, the
distance sailed. From II draw l(F in a
N.VY. by N. direction, and the point F
will represent the Girdle Ness. Then
the distances CF, HF will measure 19‘1
and 26'5 miles respectively.
— iE
By Calculation.—In the triangle FCH are given the distance CH
15 miles, the angle FCH equal to 9 points, the interval between
the S. by W. and W.N.W. points, and the angle CHF equal to 4
points, being the supplement of the angle contained between the
S. by \V. and N.W. by N. points. Hence CFH is 3 points; to find
the distances CF, HF.
To find the distance CF.
Log. CH ,r  15 m.
L sin CHF   4 pts.
1-17609
9-84948
4 02557
9-74474
L sin CFH   3 pts.
Log. CF 19-07 m. = 1-28083
To find the distance FH.
Log. CH  ,.... 15 m. = 1-17609
L sin FCH..    9 pts. j _ q.99157
99 1
= L sin 7
11-16766
L sin CFH  3 pts. =-9-74474
Log. FH  26-48 m. = 1-42292
To find BC.
Log. CD....   25 m.
L sin BDC  7f pts.
L sin CBD  4J pts.
= 1-39794
= 9-99948
11-39742
= -9-88818
Log. BC  32-30 m. = 1-50924
To find BAG.
BC-AC  - 8-44
BC + AC  = 56-16
Log. (BC-AC)   8-44 m.= 0-92634
L cot JACB ....'  2 pts. = 10-38278
11-30912
Log. (BC + AC)     56T6 =-1-74943
L tan $(BAC —ABC)   19° 56'= 1-55969
£(BAC +ABC) = 67 30
.-. BAG = 87 26
ABC = 47 34
Hence BAF = BAG —CAF
= 87° 26'-1* pts.
= 87° 26'-14° 4'
= 73° 22'=73i° nearly.
To find AB, or the distance.
Log. BC  32-30m.
L sin ACB    4 pts.
1-50924
9-84948
L sin CAB 87° 26'
Log, AB    22-9 m.
11-35972
9-99956
= 1-36016
Windward
Sailing.
Many other examples might be given. These and all other cases
which can occur in practice are to be resolved by plane trigo¬
nometry, from calculating the triangles which the data of the
given case afford.
Chap. VIII.—OF WINDWARD SAILING.
Ex. 2.—Running up Channel E. by S. per compass at the rate of
5 knots an hour. At 11 a.m. the Eddystone Lighthouse bore N. by
E.JE., and the Start Point N.E. by E.JE.; and at 4 p.m. the Eddy-
stone bore N.W. by N., and the Start N.f E.; required the distance
and bearing of the Start from the Eddystone, the variation being
2J points W.
By Construction.—Let the point C (fig. 40) represent the first sta¬
tion, from which draw the N. by E.^E. line
CA, the N.E. byE.JE. line CB, and the
E. by S. line CD, which make equal to 25
miles, the distance run in the elapsed N
time. Then from D draw the N.W. by N.
line DA, intersecting CA in A, which re¬
presents the Eddystone ; and from the
same point draw the N.fE. line DB, cut¬
ting CB in B, which therefore represents
the Start. Now the distance A B applied to
the scale will measure 22-9, and the bear¬
ing per compass BAF will measure 73£°.
Tig. 40.
By Calculation—
The angle ACD=ACE + ECD=NCE—NCA+ECD
:=:8 — 1J +1 pt.=7J pts.
BCD=NCE - NCB + ECD=8 - 5 J +1 pt.=3l pts.
ACB=ACD — BCD  r £ts
ADC=N'DC — N'DA =7 — 3 pts.=4 ?ts'
and CDB=N'DC + N'DB  =7| pts‘
Also, CAD=16 pts.-ACD-ADC   ^
=16 —7| —4pts... =44 pts.
and CBD=16 - BCD — CDB... =16 - 3f -7|=4£ pts.
To find AC.
Log. CD   25 m. = 1-39794
L sin ADC  4 pts. = 9-84948
. 11-24742
L sin CAD  4£ pts. = — 9-86979
Log. AC    23-86 m. = 1-37763
Windward sailing is when a ship by reason of a contrary
wind is obliged to sail on different tacks in order to gain
her intended port; and the object of this sailing is to find
the proper course and distance to be run on each tack.
Ex.—The wind at N.W., a ship bound to a port 64 miles to the
windward proposes to reach it on three boards,—two on the star¬
board and one on the larboard tack, and each within 5 points of the
wind; required the course and distance
of each tack.
By Construction.—Draw the N.W. line
CA (fig. 41) equal to 64 miles; from C
draw CB W. by S., and from A draw AD
parallel thereto and in an opposite direc¬
tion. Bisect AC in E, and draw BED
parallel to the N. by E. rhumb, meeting
CB, AD in the points B and D. Then
CB=AD applied to the scale will mea¬
sure 36| miles, and BD = 2CB = 72J-
miles.
D
Fig. 41.
Chap. IX.—OF CURRENT SAILING.
The computations in the preceding chapters have been
performed upon the assumption that the water has no mo¬
tion. 1 his may no doubt answer tolerably well in those
places where the ebbings and flowings are regular, as then
the effect of the tide will be nearly counterbalanced. But
in places where there is a constant current or setting of the
sea towards the same point, an allowance for the change of
the ship’s place arising therefrom must be made. And the
method of resolving these problems in which the effect of
a current or heave of the sea is taken into consideration is
called current sailing
N A V I G
Current In a calm, it is evident a ship will be carried in the direc-
Sailing. tion and with the velocity of the current. Hence if a ship
sails in the direction of the current, her rate will be aug¬
mented by the rate of the current; but if sailing directly
against it, the distance made good will be equal to the dif¬
ference between the ship’s rate as given by the log and that
of the current. And the absolute motion of the ship will
be ahead if her rate exceeds that of the current; but if less,
the ship will make sternway. If the ship’s course be oblique
to the current, the distance made good in a given time will
be represented by the third side of a triangle, whereof the
distance given by the log, and the drift of the current in
the same time, are the other sides ; and the true course will
be the angle contained between the meridian and the line
actually described by the ship.
It is evident from the above observations that we may
consider the direction of the current in the light of a
separate course; and by multiplying the rate of the current
per hour by the number of hours it has been running, and
treating this as a distance, we may estimate the ship’s real
place by any of the rules for compound courses.
Ex. 1.—A ship sailed N.N.E. at the rate of 8 knots an hour dur¬
ing 18 hours, in a current setting N.W. by W.
2J miles an hour; required the course and dis¬
tance made good.
By Construction.—Draw the N.N.E., line CA
(fig. 42) equal to 18 x 8r=144 miles ; and from A
draw AB parallel to the N.W. by W. rhumb, and
equal to 18 x 2Jr=45 miles ; now BC being joined
will be the distance, and NOB the course. The
first of these will measure 159 miles, and the
second 6° 23'.
By Calculation—
The angle CAB 
CA.
AB 
CA+AB.
CA-AB.,
= 9 pts.
=144 m.
= 45 m.
=189 m.
= 99 m.
Fig. 42.
Log. (CA-AB)  99 m. = L995635
L cot £CAB  4£ pts. = 9-914173
11-909808
Log. CA + CB   185 m. =-2-276462
L tan J (ABC - ACB)  23° 15'=
i (ABC + ACB)  = 39 22
.*. ACB=16° 7' and ABC   = 62 37
NCA  = 22 30
.-. NCB the course  = 6 23
Log- AB  45 m. =
L sin CAB  9 pts. =
L sin ACB  16° 7' =
Log. BC   159 m. =
9-633346
1- 653212
9-991574
11-644786
-9-443410
2- 201376
Or, ^
For first course we have course N.N.E., or 2 points.
And distance 144 Whence, from traverse table,
True diff. latitude 133-0 N. Departure 55-1 E.
For secend course we have course KW. by W., or 5 points.
And distance 45 And from traverse table,
True diff. latitude 25 N. Departure 37-4 W.
For last course—
True diff. latitude..  158 N.
Departure  17.7
Log. departure   17-7 + 10= 11-24797
Log. true diff. latitude   158 = — 2-19866
L tan course  N. 6° 23' E. = 9 04931
L sec course go 23/ _ 10=: .00271
Log true diff. latitude  158 m. = 2-19866
Log. distance   159 _ 2-20137
Ex. 2.-A ship from Lat. 38° 20' 2L sailed 24 hours in a
VOL. XVI.
A T I O N.
current setting jST.W. by IST., and by account is in latitude 38° 42' N.
having made 44 miles of easting; ’’
but the latitude by observation is
38° 58' N.; required the course and
distance made good, and the drift of
the current.
25
Day’s
Work and
Ship’s
Journal.
By Construction.—Make CE (fig.
43) equal to 22 miles, the difference /
of latitude by dead reckoning, and /
EA=44 miles, the departure, and ^ c
join CA; make CD=38 miles, the Fig.43.
difference of latitude by observation. Draw the parallel of latitude
DB, and from A draw the N.W. by JS". line AB, intersecting DB in
B, and AB will be the drift of the current in 24 hours; CB being
joined, will be the distance made good, and the angle DCB the true
course. Now AB and CB applied to the scale will measure 19-2
and 50-5 respectively, and the angle DCB will be 41^°.
By Calculation—
ABF.....    — 3 pts.
BF=CD —CE.    = 16 miles.
To find AB.
Log. BF    16 m. = 1-20412
L sec ABF  3 pts. -10= 0-08015
Log. AB  19-2 m. = 1-28427
Or drift of current  19-2 miles.
To find AF.
Log. BF   16 m. = 1-20412
L tan ABF.....v.  3 pts. -10= 9 82489
Log. AF   10-7 m. 1-02901
Hence BDz=AE — AF=44-10-7=33-4.
To find the course.
Log. BD   33-4 +10=11-52244
Log. CD  38 = 1-57978
L tan course N.41014'E. = 9-94266
To find the distance.
Log. sec course 41° 14'E. —10= 0-12376
Log. CD 38 = 1-57978
Log. distance  50-5 m. = -70354
By Traverse Table.—Taking the current course first, true differ¬
ence of latitude 16, and course N.W. by N„ we find in the traverse
table the corresponding distance 19-3, and departure 10-7.
Again, for second course, we have true difference of latitude 38,
and departure 44 — 10-7=33-3 E.
Points.
3
N. 41° E,
Course
N.W. by N.
Dis¬
tance.
19-3
51
DifE of Latitude.
N.
16
38
Departure.
E.
33-3
W.
10-7
Whence the course and distance are found as above.
Or, from the traverse table to nearest degree and minute, we
find in the columns of distance and angle, opposite to difference of
latitude 38-5, and departure 35"5—distance 51, and angle 41°.
Chap. X.—OF THE DAY’S WORK AND SHIPS *
JOURNAL.
The most usual application of the principles laid down
in the preceding chapters, is to ascertain from the several
courses and distances run by a ship in the interval between
the noons of two successive days, the ship’s place at the
noon of the latter day,—i.e., its latitude and longitude ; its
latitude and longitude being given for the noon of the pre¬
ceding day. This constitutes a day’s work; and the ship’s
place deduced therefrom is called her place by account or
dead reckoning. The day aboard ship, like the astronomi¬
cal day, commences at noon ; and the ship’s position is always
calculated at every noon. In the Royal Navy, the log is
hove once in every hour; but in most trading-vessels only
once in every two hours. A record of the knots, and tenths
of knots, run every hour or every two hours, the course, the
direction of the wind, the leeway, and everything which
affects the ship’s place, is kept in the journal, which,
for this purpose, is usually divided into six or seven co¬
lumns. The first column on the left hand contains the houra
D
26
NAVIGATION.
Day’s from noon to noon ; the second and third, the knots and
Work and tenths of knots sailed every hour, or every two hours; the
Journal ^ourt^ contains the courses steered ; the fifth, the direction
^ ourna . * o£. wjn j . an(j when there are seven columns,
contains the leeway; and the last contains general remarks,
including phenomena, variation, &c., &c.
The mode of forming a table showing the deviation of
the compass for the several positions of the ship’s head, has
already been given.
The courses steered, as entered in the log-book, must be
corrected for variation, deviation, and leeway. The setting
and drift of current, and the heave of the sea, are to be
marked down. These are to be corrected for variation
only. In the day’s work, it is usual to treat a current as
an independent course and distance. If the ship does not
sail from a place whose latitude and longitude are known
(which rarely happens), the bearing of some known place
is to be observed, and its distance found, which is usually
done by estimation. The ship is then supposed to have
taken her departure from this place, in a course exactly op¬
posite to the observed bearing, and to have run the esti¬
mated distance on it. If there be any reason to suspect
the correctness of the estimated distance, it will be easy to
obtain the true distance as follows:—Let the bearing be
observed of the place from which the departure is to be
taken; and the ship having run a certain distance on a di¬
rect course, the bearing of the same place is again to be
observed. We shall then have a triangle, all of whose
angles are known from the observed bearings, and one of its
sides, viz., the distance the ship has sailed. The other two
sides, viz., the distance of the ship from the place of de¬
parture at each of the observations, can be immediately
found, as in problem 1 on “Oblique Sailing.” The distances
for each course may be obtained by adding together the
hourly distances. The courses being thus corrected, and
the distances found, the latitude and longitude in may be
found by any of the methods explained in chap. iv. As
the differences of latitude are not usually great, the traverse
table may generally be made use of for finding the latitude
in; and having found the middle latitude, the longitude may
be obtained by the middle latitude method.
The following example will enable the reader to apply
the directions we have just given :—
Ex.—September 12,1857, at noon, a point of land in Lat. 64° 20'
S., and Long. 59° 40' E., bore by compass S.E., distant 15 miles (ship’s
head being E.), afterwards sailed as by the following log-account;
find the latitude and longitude in, on September 13, at noon.
Departure course, N.W. being the opposite to S.E.
Compass course  4 pts. 0 qrs. left of N.
Variation  12 „
Deviation  0 3^ right, or
True course  4 3 N.W.fW.
Dist 15.
First course, W. by N.
Compass course  7 pts. 0 qrs. left of N.
Variation  12 „
Deviation  0 3 ,,
Leeway (wind N.E. on starboard
tack)  2 0 „
11 1 left of N.
Or true course  4 3 right of S., or
Dist  46-2 S.W.fW.
Second course, N.N.E.
Compass course  2 pts. 0 qrs. right of N.
Variation  1 2 left.
Deviation  0 3 right.
Leeway (wind N.W. on port
tack)  1 3
True course  3 0
Dist  34*7.
Third course, S.E.
Compass course  4 pts. 0 qrs. left of S.
right.
right of N., or
N.E. by N.
Variation  1
Deviation  0
Leeway (wind E.N.E. on port
tack).   2
left.
right.
True course    3 0 left of S. or
Dist  31-4. S.E. by S.
Fourth course, S. by W.
Compass course  1 pt. 0 qrs. right of S.
Variation  1 2 left.
Deviation  0 2 „
Leeway (wind W. starboard
tack)  2 2
left.
left of S., or
S.E. by S.JE.
True course  3 2
Dist 20-8.
Current N.W.
Compass course   4 pts. 0 qrs. left of N.
Variation  12 „
Deviation  0 0 „
Dist 
Enter these in a table as under:
14.
Points.
4f
4f
3
3
Course.
N.W.fW.
S.W.fW.
N.E.6N.
S.E.6S.
S.E. by S JE.
N.W.byW.JN.
Distance.
15
46-2
34-7
31-4
20-8
14
N.
8-9
29-1
6-6
44-6
27-4
25-8
16-2
68-4
44'6
Departure.
E.
19-4
17-2
133
49-9
w.
12'0
36-9
12-3
61-2
49'9
True diff. lat. S. 23-8 . Dep. W. 11-3
Lat. from 64° 20' S.
T. D. Lat  0 23 S.
Lat. from 64° 20' S.
Half.  0 12 S.
Lat. in 64 43 S. Mid. Lat 64 32 S.
Log. departure  ll-3 = I’OSSOS
L sec mid. lat 64° 32' —10 — 0-36654
Log. diff. long 26’2 = 1,41962
Long, from 59° 40' E.
Diff. long  0 26 W.
Long, in 59 14 E.
Day’s
Work and
Ship’s
Journal.
left of N. or
N.W. by W.£W.
In this example the true differences of latitude and de¬
partures are taken by inspection from the traverse table.
When a ship is bound for a distant port, the bearing and
distance of the port must be found. This may be done by
calculation or by a chart. If islands, capes, or headlands
intervene, it will be necessary to find the several courses
and distances between each successively. The true course
between the places must be reduced to the compass course
NAVIGATION.
Sea Charts. bY making the requisite allowances for variation and devia-
v ; tion, as already explained.
In hard blowing weather, with a contrary wind and a
high sea, it is impossible to gain any advantage by sailing.
In such cases, therefore, the object is to avoid as much as
possible being driven back. With this intention it is usual
to lie to under no more sail than is sufficient to prevent the
violent rolling to which the vessel would be otherwise sub¬
jected, to the endangering of her masts and straining her
timbers, &c. When a ship is brought to, the tiller or wheel is
put down over to the leeward, which brings her head round
to the wind. The wind having then little power over the
sails, the ship loses her way through the water; and the
action of the water on the rudder ceasing, her head falls off
from the wind, the sail which she has set fills, and gives
her fresh way through the water, which, acting on the rud¬
der, brings her head again to the wind. Thus the ship has
a kind of oscillating motion, coming up to the wind and
falling off from it again alternately. The middle point be¬
tween those upon which she comes up and falls off is taken
for her apparent course ; and the leeway, variation, and devi¬
ation are to be allowed from this to find the true course.
It is generally found that the latitude by account does
not agree with that by observation. On considering the
imperfections of the common log-line, and the uncertainty
with regard to variation, an exact agreement of latitudes
cannot be expected. When the difference of longitude is
to be found by dead reckoning, and the latitudes by account
and observation disagree, several writers on navigation have
proposed to apply a conjectural correction to the departure
or difference of longitude. Thus, if the course is near the
meridian, the error is wholly attributed to the distance, and
the departure is to be increased or diminished accordingly;
if near the parallel, the course only is supposed to be erro¬
neous ; and if the course is towards the middle of the
quadrant, the course and distance are both assumed to be
in error. This last correction will, according to different
authors, place the ship upon opposite sides of her meridian
by account. As these corrections, therefore, are no better
than guessing, they should be absolutely rejected.
If the latitudes do not agree, the navigator should ex¬
amine his log-line and half-minute glass, and correct the
distance accordingly. He is then to consider if the variation
and leeway have been properly ascertained ; if not, the
courses are to be again corrected, and no other alteration
whatever is to be made in them. He is next to observe if
the ship’s place has been affected by a current or heave of
the sea, and to allow for them according to the best of his
judgment. By applying these corrections, the latitudes
will generally be found to agree tolerably well; and the
longitude may be corrected in the same way.
It will be proper for the navigator to determine the
longitude of the ship by observation as often as possible,
and the reckoning is to be carried forward in the usual
manner from the last good observation ; yet it will perhaps
be very satisfactory to keep a separate account of the lon¬
gitude by dead reckoning. The modes of finding the lati¬
tude and longitude of a ship by observation, and the variation
of the compass, will be given in the next book.
Chap. XL—OF SEA CHARTS.
The charts usually employed in the practice of naviga¬
tion are the Plane and Mercator’s charts. The former of
these is adapted to represent a portion of the earth’s surface
near the equator, where the change in the lengths of cor¬
responding arcs of the parallel is very small; and the other
for all portions of the earth’s surface. (Fora particular de¬
scription of these, see the articles Chart and Geography.)
We shall here only describe their use.
27
Use of the Plane Chart. s.»Cl»rt».
Prob. I.—To find the latitude and longitude of a place
on the chart.
Pule.—Take the least distance of the given place from
the nearest parallel of latitude ; this distance applied to the
graduated meridian from the extremity of the parallel will
give the latitude of the place. In the same way the longi¬
tude is found by taking the least distance from the nearest
meridian, and applying it to the graduated parallel.
Thus the distance between Bonavista and the parallel of
15° being laid from that parallel on the graduated meridian,
will reach to 16° 5', the latitude required.
Prob. II.—To find the course and distance between two
given places on the chart.
Pule.—Lay a ruler over the given places; if a pa¬
rallel ruler be used, keeping the edge of one ruler passing
through the places fixed, move the other until it passes
through the centre of one of the compasses on the chart;
the point of the compass through which this edge passes
will show the course.
Or, generally, let a line on the edge of another ruler be
placed so as to be parallel to the first ruler, and to pass
through the centre of a compass; it will cut the circum¬
ference in a point which will determine the course.
The interval between the places being applied to the
scale will give the distance.
Thus the course from Palmas to St Vincent will be
found to be about S.S.W.fW., and the distance 13^° or
795 miles.
Prob. III.—The course and distance sailed from a
known place being given, to find the ship’s place on the chart.
Pule.—Lay a ruler over the given place parallel to
another ruler laid over one of the compasses, with one edge
passing through the centre, and the other the point on the
circumference which shows the course, and lay off on it the
distance taken from the scale ; it will give the point repre¬
senting the ship’s present place.
Thus, supposing a ship has sailed S.W. by W. 160 miles
from Cape Palmas ; then by proceeding as above, it will be
found that she is in Lat. 2° ST' N.
The reader will have no difficulty in solving various other
problems by means of this chart, being, in fact, only the
construction of the various problems in plane sailing on
this chart.
Use of Mercator’s Chart.
The method of finding the latitude and longitude of a
place, and the course or bearing between two given places,
is the same as in the plane chart, which see.
Prob. I.—To find the distance between two given
places on the chart.
Case 1.—When the given places are under the same
meridian.
Pule.—The difference or sum of their latitudes, accord¬
ing as they are on the same or on opposite sides of the
equator, will be the distance required.
Case 2.—When the given places are under the same
parallel.
Pule.—If that parallel be the equator, the difference or
sum of their longitudes, according as they are on the same
or on opposite sides of the first meridian, is the distance ;
otherwise take the distance between the places, lay it off
upwards and downwards from the given parallel, and the
intercepted degrees will be the distance between the places.
Or take an equal extent of a few degrees on the meridian
on each side of the parallel; and the number of extents
and parts of an extent contained between the places, mul¬
tiplied by the length of an extent, will give the required
distance.
NAVIGATION.
28
Observa- Case 3.—When the given places differ both in latitude
tion Instru- longitude.
v meD ^ j Rule.—Find the difference of latitude between the given
v ^ places, and take it from the equator or graduated parallel;
then lay a ruler over the places, and move one point of the
compass opened to the difference of latitude just found
along the edge of the ruler till the other just touches a
parallel; then the distance from the point of the compass
on the ruler to the point of intersection of the ruler and the
parallel, applied to the equator, will give the distance be¬
tween the places in degrees and parts of a degree, which,
multiplied by 60, will give it in miles.
Prob. II.—Given the latitude and longitude in ; to find
the ship’s place by the chart.
Rule.—Lay a ruler over the given latitude, and lay off
the given longitude from the first meridian by the edge of
the ruler, and the ship’s present place will be obtained.
Prob. III.-^-Given the course sailed from the given
place, and the latitude in; to find the ship’s present place on
the chart.
Rule.—Lay a ruler over the place sailed from, in the
direction of the given course; its intersection with the pa¬
rallel of latitude in, will give the ship’s present place.
Prob. IV.—Given the latitude and longitude of the
place left, and the course and distance sailed; to find the
ship’s present place on the chart.
Rule.—Lay a ruler over the given place, in the direction
of the given course, take the distance sailed from the
equator, and put one point of the compass opened to this
distance at the intersection of the ruler with any parallel,
and the other point will reach to a certain place by the edge
of the ruler. This point being kept fixed, draw in the other
point of the compass until it just touch the above parallel
when swept round ; apply this extent to the equator, and it
will give the difference of latitude. Hence the latitude in
is known ; and the intersection of the edge of the ruler with
the parallel of this latitude will give the ship’s present place.
The above problems sufficiently illustrate the use of
Mercator’s Chart. The reader will have no difficulty in
solving other problems by means of it.
BOOK II.
CONTAINING THE METHODS OF FINDING THE LATITUDE AND
LONGITUDE OF THE SHIP AT SEA, THE VARIATION OF THE
COMPASS, AND TIME OF HIGH WATER.
Chap. I.—DESCRIPTION AND USE OF INSTRU¬
MENTS USED IN OBSERVATIONS.
sect. i.—of hadley’s sextant and quadrant.
The principal difference between these instruments is in
the extent of the angle which can be observed by them;
and in the more elaborate and careful workmanship of the
latter of the two. Indeed the quadrant is only available
for taking observations which determine the latitude. The
distances of the moon from the sun or other heavenly body,
which are frequently used for the determination of the longi¬
tude, can only be observed by the help of the sextant.
Allowing for these differences, the 'principle on which the
quadrant and sextant are constructed is the same. In the
Royal Navy sextants are almost exclusively in use, although
quadrants are still employed for the observation of altitudes
in many trading vessels. The sextant, therefore, will first
be described, and afterwards those points in which the
quadrant differs from the sextant will be explained.
The reader is supposed to be aware of the ordinary laws
with regard to the propagation and reflection of light, viz.,—
that m the same medium, light is propagated in straight Observa-
lines, the smallest conceivable quantity of which that can tion In-
be stopped or propagated alone is called a ray; and that struments.
when a ray of light is incident on a plane reflecting surface, ^
it is bent or reflected after incidence in such manner,
that the incident and reflected rays and the straight line
perpendicular to the mirror at the point of incidence (called
the normal to the surface) lie all in one plane; and that
the incident and reflected rays make equal angles with the
normal or the surface.
Let MO (fig. 44) be an arc of a circle, CO and CM two
radii, and Cl be a moveable radius carrying a plane mirror,
silvered through its whole extent, firmly fixed toil; EFG
another mirror, the lower part of which FG only is silvered,
while the upper part EF is unsilvered, so that a ray reflected
from the lower portion FG in direction FH, and a direct ray
PFH through the unsilvered part EF, may be seen together
by an eye at K. This mirror is fixed to the radius CM in
such a manner that when the moveable radius occupies the
position AGO, the two mirrors ACB and EFG are both
perpendicular to the plane of the instrument, and parallel to
one another.
Let now S and P be two distant objects whose angular
distance is required to be found. Let the instrument be
placed so that its plane passes through S and P, and that a
ray from P, passing through the unsilvered glass EF, may
be seen directly by an eye at K; and while in this position
let the bar be moved round C, Cl carrying the mirror with
it until a ray from S, falling on ACB, is reflected in the
direction CF, and again reflected by FG in the direction
FH; so that to the eye at K the images of the two objects
S and P are seen together, or coincide.
Produce SA to meet PFH in H ; then SHP is the angle
through which the ray SA has been deflected, and is also
the angular distance between S and P. Let A'B' be the
new position of the mirror AB ; then ACA' is the angle
through which the mirror has turned, and consequently also
the angle through which Cl has moved.
Now angle of deflection
SHP = SCF - CFH
= 180° — 2 FCB' — (180° -2 EFC)
because by law of reflection,
SCA' = FCB'; and therefore
SCF = 180° — SCA' — FCB'
= 180°-2 FCB',
and EFC = GFH; and therefore
CFH = 180°-EFC-GFH
= 180° -2 EFC;
.*. SHP = 2 EFC -2 FCB'.
But EFC = FCB, because EFG is parallel to ACB ;
or SHP = 2 FCB -2 FCB' = 2 ACA'
= twice the angle through which Cl has moved.
Hence if the arc OM be divided into degrees, and each
degree marked as two degrees, the reading off of the arc
01 will be the angle between the distant objects S and P.
NAVIGATION.
Observa- An instrument constructed on this principle, whose
tion Instru- circular arc or limb is a sixth part of a circle, and therefore
merits. capable of measuring angles up to 120°, is called a sextant;
if the limb contain only an eighth part of a circle, it is a
quadrant, and can only measure angles up to 90°.
The Sextant.
(1.) PLM (fig. 45) is the frame of the sextant.
(2.) A A the graduated arc or limb.
(3.) N the index, carrying the vernier OQ.
(4.) I the index-glass.
(5.) F the horizon-glass.
(6.) D the coloured or dark glasses between the index-
glass and horizon-glass.
(7.) E the coloured glasses behind the horizon-glass.
(8.) K the tube or collar in which the telescope is
inserted.
The frame The frame of the sextant consists of an arc AA, firmly
of the sex- attached to the two radii LP, MP, which are bound together
tant. by braces, as shown in the figure, to prevent warping and
liability to bend.
The index. The index N is a flat bar of brass, and turns on the centre
of the sextant; at the lower end of the index there is an
oblong opening; to one side of this opening the vernier
scale is attached to subdivide the divisions ot the arc; at
the end of the index there is a piece of brass which bends
under the arc, carrying a spring to make the vernier
scale lie close to the divisions. It is furnished with a finger-
screw C, by which the index is fixed in any position to the
limb of the instrument. There is also an adjusting-screw
13 attached to the index, capable of moving it with greater
accuracy than the hand ; this screw does not act until the
index is fixed by the finger-screw C. Care must be taken
not to force the adjusting-screw when it arrives at either
extremity of its adjustment. When any considerable move¬
ment is required to be given to the index, the screw C at
the back of the sextant must be set free; but where the
index is brought nearly to the divisions required, this back
screw should be tightened, and then the index gradually
moved by the adjusting-screw.
The index- Upon the index, and near its axis of motion, is fixed a
glass. plane speculum or mirror of glass I, quicksilvered. It is set in
a brass frame, which is firmly fixed by a strong cock to the
centre plate of the index, with its face perpendicular to the
plane of the instrument. This mirror being fixed to the
index, moves along with it, and has its direction changed by
the motion thereof. As has already been observed, this glass
29
is to receive the rays from the sun or other object, and reflect Observa-
them upon the horizon-glass. It is furnished with screwstion Instru-
at its back, the object of which is to replace it in a perpen- ments-
dicular position, if by any accident it has been deranged.
To the radius PL is attached a small speculum F, whose The hori-
surface is parallel to the index-glass when zero on the zon-glass.
index coincides with zero on the limb. The under part
only of this speculum is silvered, the upper half being left
transparent, and the back part of the frame cut away, that
nothing may impede the sight through the unsilvered part
of the glass. The edge of the foil of this glass is nearly
parallel to the plane of the instrument, and ought to be
very sharp, and without a flaw. It is set in a brass frame,
which turns on axes and pivots which move in an exterior
frame; the holes in which the pivots move may be tightened
by four screws in the exterior frame. G is a screw by
which the horizon-glass may be set perpendicular to the
plane of the instrument. Should this screw become loose,
or move too easy, it may be easily tightened by turning the
capstan-headed screw H which is on one side of the socket
through which the stem of the finger-screw passes; this
screw G is in some instruments under the glass, in others
behind it, and in others at the side.
There are four coloured glasses at D, tinged red and The colour-
green, each of which is set on a separate frame that ed glasses
turns on a centre. They are used to defend the eye from D anti E>
the brightness of the solar image and the glare of the moon,
and may be used separately or together as occasion may
require. There are three more such glases placed be¬
hind the horizon-glass at E, to weaken the rays of the sun
or moon when viewed directly through the horizon-glass.
The paler glass is sometimes used in observing altitudes at
sea to take off the strong glare of the horizon.
The sextant is furnished with a plane tube K ; and in The tele¬
order to render objects distinct, it has two telescopes—one a scopes.
Galileo’s telescope, representing the objects erect in their
natural position ; the longer one, an astronomical telescope,
shews them inverted. It has a large field of view ; and has
parallel wires placed in the principal focus, where a true
image of the object viewed by it is seen; thus rendering
the position of the image more exact and more easy to
be read off, and is that which should be used in taking
observations at sea when great accuracy is required. A
little use will soon accustom the observer to the inverted
position, and to manage the instrument with ease. By
a telescope the contact of the images is more perfectly
distinguished; and by the place of the images in the field
of view, it is easy to perceive whether the sextant is held
in the proper position for observation. By sliding the tube
that contains the eye-glasses in the inside of the other tube,
the object is suited to different eyes, and made to appear
perfectly distinct and well-defined.
The telescopes are to be screwed into a circular ring at
K ; this ring rests on two points against an exterior ring,
and is held to it by two screws; by turning one of
these screws, and tightening the other, the axis of the tele¬
scope may be set parallel to the plane of the sextant. I he
exterior ring is fixed on a triangular brass stem which
slides in a socket, and, by means of a screw at the back of
the sextant, may be raised or lowered so as to move the
centre of the telescope to that part of the horizon-glass
which shall be deemed most fit for observation. Tinged
glasses are provided to screw on the eye-end of either of
the telescopes or the plane tube.
The limb of the sextant is divided from right to left into Readingoff
120 primary divisions, which are to be considered as divisions
degrees; the degree is subdivided in some cases *n*-0
equal parts, each of which is 30' ; in others into three
equal parts, each of which is 20' ; and in others again into
six equal parts, each of which is 10. If the zeto of tie
index stand exactly at one of the divisions of the limb, the
30 N A V I G
Observa- reading off in that case is immediately known. If, how-
txon Instru- ever, the zero of the index do not stand exactly at one of
- men S|‘ / ^ie divisions, but distant from it by a small space, the value
of this space is known by means of the divisions of the
vernier-plate to the left of 0.
Reading off The vernier contains a space equal to nineteen divisions
divisions on of the limb, and is divided into twenty equal parts ; hence
the vernier, the difference between a division on the vernier and a
division on the limb is one-twentieth of a division of the
limb, or 1, if the interval between divisions on the limb is
equal to 20'. Or supposing the limb divided into intervals
of 10', and that fifty-nine divisions of the limb correspond
to sixty divisions of the vernier ; it is then evident that the
difference between a division of the instrument and of the
vernier is -g^th part of 10', i.e., 10". This is the most usual
kind of division.
To find the actual reading off in any particular case, we
must observe which division of the vernier coincides with a
division of the limb ; the number denoting this, multiplied
by the value of the difference between a division of the
limb and of the vernier, will give the additional reading.
Suppose, for instance, the nearest division of the limb to the
zero of the vernier to be 25° 30', and the eighth division of
the vernier to be coincident with a division of the limb,
the additional angle will be 80" or T 20", and the reading
off will be 25° 31' 20''.
Adjust- The adjustments of the sextant are to set the mirrors per-
ments of pendicular to the plane of the instrument, and parallel to
thesextant. one another when the index is at zero ; and to set the axis
of the telescope parallel to the plane of the instrument.
Adjustment 1.—To set the index-glass perpendicular to
the plane of the sextant.
Set the index towards the middle of the limb, and hold
the sextant so that its plane is nearly parallel to the horizon ;
then look into the index-glass, and if the portion of the
limb seen by reflection appears in the same plane with the
limb seen directly, the speculum is perpendicular to the
plane of the instrument. If they do not appear in the same
plane, i.e., if the image be seen above or below the arc itself,
its position must be gradually and carefully changed by
means of the screws at its back until the error is rectified.
Adjustment 2.—To set the horizon-glass perpendicular
to the plane of the instrument.
Place the instrument horizontal, and direct the sight to
a distant well-defined object, as the sun, so as to view
it directly; then move the index until the image of the
object seen by reflection is on the field of view, and move
the index backwards and forwards so as to make the image
pass over the object. If it pass exactly over the object, the
fixed mirror is perpendicular to the plane of the instrument;
if not, move the screw G until their exact coincidence
takes place.
Adjustment 3.—To set the horizon-glass parallel to the
index-glass when the zero of the index or vernier-plate co¬
incides with the zero of the graduations of the limb.
Set 0 on the index exactly to 0 on the limb, and fix it
in that position by the screw on the under side of it; hold
the sextant with its plane vertical, and direct the sight to a
well-defined part of the horizon; then if the horizon seen
on the silvered part coincides with that seen through the
transparent part, the horizon-glass is adjusted; but if the
horizons do not coincide, the position of the glass must be
altered by moving a screw placed near the fixed reflector,
which gives it a motion about an axis perpendicular to the
plane of the instrument.
This adjustment is seldom made, as turning the adjusting-
screw too often renders this part of the instrument very
apt to get out of order. It is usual, therefore, to deter¬
mine the error in the reading called the Index Error.
To do this, direct the sight to the horizon, and move the
index until the reflected horizon coincides with that seen
A T I O N.
by direct vision; then the difference between 0 on the limb Observa-
and 0 on the vernier-plate will be the index error, which is tion In¬
to be added when 0 of the vernier is to the right of 0 on strunwnts.
the limb ; otherwise subtracted.
A more accurate method than the above is to measure the
sun’s apparent diameter twice with the index placed alter¬
nately on the right and on the left of the zero point of the
graduated limb. Half the difference of these two measures
will be the index error, which must be added to, or sub¬
tracted from, all observations, according as the diameter
measured with the index to the left of 0 is less or greater
than the diameter measured with the index to the right of
the beginning of the divisions. Care must be taken to
measure the sun’s horizontal diameter, as the vertical dia¬
meter is often affected with refraction. This must be done
by keeping the plane of the instrument at right-angles to
the vertical diameter of the sun.
For example, on January 2, 1857, the sun’s diameter,
measured with the index first to the right and secondly to
the left of the zero point of division, was 33' and 32' 20"
respectively, and the index error obtained by taking the
semidifference is — 20".
Adjustment 4.—To set the axis of the telescope pa¬
rallel to the plane of the instrument.
Turn the eye-end of the telescope until the two wires are
parallel to the plane of the instrument; and let two distant
objects, or two stars of the first magnitude, be selected,
whose distance is not less than 90° or 100u; make the con¬
tact of these as perfect as possible at the wire nearest the
plane of the instrument; fix the index in this position;
move the sextant until the objects are seen at the other wire,
and if the same points are in contact, the axis of the tele¬
scope is parallel to the plane of the sextant. If, however,
the objects are apparently separated, or overlap one another,
correct half the error by the screws in the circular part of
the supporter, one of which is above, and the other between
the telescope and sextant; turn the adjusting-screw at the
end of the index till the limbs are in contact; then bring
the objects to the wire next the instrument, and if the
limbs are in contact, the axis of the telescope is adjusted;
if not, proceed as at the other wire, and continue till no
error remains. In practice, this adjustment is usually made
by means of the sun and moon. The mode of bringing the
limbs of the sun and moon into contact will be explained
when the use of the sextant is treated of. It is sometimes
necessary to know the angular distance between the wires
of the telescope ; to find which, place the wires perpendi¬
cular to the plane of the sextant, hold the instrument ver¬
tical, direct the sight to the horizon, and move the sextant
in its own plane till the horizon and upper wire coincide;
keep the sextant in this position, and move the index till
the reflected horizon is covered by the lower wire, and the
difference of readings off in these two positions will be the
angular distance between the wires. Other and better
methods will readily occur to the observer on land.
The Quadrant.
It has been already observed, that this instrument differs
from a sextant in the extent of the divided limb and in
its rougher manufacture. It is only calculated for observing
altitudes. Fig. 46 represents a quadrant of the common
construction.
I he frame, index, index-glass, and F the fore horizon-
glass, are much the same as in the sextant. There is,
besides, another horizon-glass G, called the back horizon-
glass attached to the same radius as F. Instead of a tube
or telescope, the quadrant is furnished with vanes or sights
H and I. I here are but three coloured glasses, two of
which are red and the other green. They are fixed at K,
as shown in the figure, when the fore horizon-glass is used.
Observa¬
tion Instru¬
ments.
Adjust¬
ments of
Hadley’s
quadrant,
Use of
Hadley’s
sextant
and quad¬
rant.
NAVIGATION.
31
If the back horizon-glass be used, they are transferred to N.
The back horizon-glass is silvered at both ends, but has a
transparent slit in the middle through which the horizon may
be seen. Each of the horizon-glasses is set in a brass frame,
to which there is an axis passing through the wood-work,
and is fitted to a lever on the under side of the quadrant, by
which the glass may be turned a few degrees on its axis, in
order to set it parallel or perpendicular, according as it is the
fore or back horizon-glass, to the index-glass. The lever
has a contrivance to turn it slowly, and a button to fix it.
To set the glasses perpendicular to the plane of the instru¬
ment, there are two sunk screws, one before and the other
behind each glass ; these screws pass through the plate on
which the frame is fixed into another plate; so that by
loosening one and tightening the other of these screws, the
direction of the frame, with its mirror, may be altered, and
set perpendicular to the plane of the instrument.
The sight-vanes H and I are perforated pieces of brass,
designed to direct the sight parallel to the plane of the
quadrant. The vane I has two holes, one exactly at the
height of the silvered part of the horizon-glass, the other a
little higher, to direct the sight to the middle of the trans¬
parent part of the mirror.
The limb is divided into ninety primary divisions, which
are considered as degrees, and each degree subdivided into
three equal parts, which are therefore of 20' each. The
vernier-plate is generally so divided as to enable the ob¬
server to read off accurately to minutes.
These consist in setting the mirrors perpendicular to the
plane of the instrument, and the fore horizon-glass parallel,
and the back horizon-glass perpendicular to the index-glass,
when the zero of the index or vernier-plate coincides with
zero of the graduations on the limb.
The adjustments for the index-glass and fore horizon-glass
are performed nearly in the same way as for the sextant.
The index error, however, must be ascertained by bringing
the horizon by reflection into the same line with the horizon
seen directly. The method by taking the distance of two
stars of the first magnitude, or the sun and moon, is in¬
applicable here.
The back horizon-glass is so seldom used, that for its
adjustments and the mode of taking observations with it,
the reader is referred to Norie’s Navigation, and other
works in which this subject is treated.
Ihe altitude of an object may be determined by either
instrument, and is the reading off on the limb, with the
proper index error applied, when by reflection that object
appears to be in contact with the horizon. The distance
between the sun and moon, or other heavenly bodies, may
be observed by the sextant when the limbs of the bodies observa-
whose distance is required appear to be in contact. If the tion Instru-
quadrant be used for taking the altitude of the sun, when meats,
it is so bright that its image may be seen in the transparent ^
part of the fore horizon-glass, the eye is to be applied to the
upper hole in the sight-vane, otherwise to the lower hole ;
and in this case the quadrant is to be held so that the sun
be bisected by the line of separation of the silvered and
transparent parts of the glass. The moon is to be kept as
nearly as possible in the same position, and the image of the
star is to be observed on the silvered part of the glass ad¬
jacent to the line of separation of the two parts.
With the quadrant two different methods of taking ob¬
servations may be employed. In the first, the observer
faces the sun, and looks to that part of the horizon which
is immediately under the sun, and the observation is there¬
fore called the fore observation. In the other method, the
observer’s back is towards the sun, and he looks to the part
of the horizon opposite to that which is under the sun;
and this is consequently called the back observation. It is
not to be employed exceptwhen the horizon under the sun is
obscured, or rendered indistinct by fog or other impediment.
In all cases of taking altitudes, it must be considered
that it is necessary to be quite sure that the distance of
the sun or other body from the horizon is the least pos¬
sible, otherwise it would not be the altitude that is ob¬
served. Consequently, after the instrument has been placed
as nearly as possible in a vertical position, and a contact
made, a motion about the line of sight of the sun must be
communicated to the instrument, so as to keep the image
always in the same part of the silvered mirror, the plane of
the instrument being inclined. In this way we keep the
angular distance of the sun from the line through the eye
by which it is viewed the same, and the sun’s image de¬
scribes a small circle, whose angular radius is this distance.
The horizon being fixed and viewed directly, will always
occupy the same position. If, then, on giving this vibratory
motion to the instrument, the arc described by the sun
touches the horizon, the angular distance observed is
the altitude. If it should cut the horizon, so that a portion
of the sun’s image goes below it, the index must be moved
back until this arc simply touches the horizon. In the
back observation with the quadrant, and in observing with
the sextant furnished with the inverting telescope, the
images are inverted, and the arc described by the sun’s
image lies below the horizon, to which line it is convex.
The motion must be given round the axis passing through
the observer’s eye and the sun. To do this, a motion about
the axis of vision must be given to the instrument, and at
the same time the observer must turn himself about upon
his heel; for the motion about the line of sight of the sun
may be resolved into these two motions; and the observer
has no means of giving the requisite motion directly by one
movement. When the sun is near the horizon, the line
from the eye to the sun will not be far removed from the
axis of vision, and the principal motion of the instrument
will be performed on this axis ; while that part of the motion
made about the vertical axis will be small. On the con¬
trary, if the sun be near the zenith, the line from the eye
to the sun is nearly vertical and perpendicular to the axis
of vision ; hence the motion about the vertical axis is the
greatest, and that about the axis of vision very trifling.
In intermediate positions of the sun the motions of the in¬
strument about these two axes will be more equally divided.
When the distance between the moon and sun, a planet or
a star, is to be observed, the sextant must be so held that its
plane may pass through the eye of the observer and both
objects ; and the reflected image of the brighter of the two
is to be brought into contact with the other seen directly.
To effect this, therefore, it is evident that when the brighter
object is to the right of the other, the face of the sextant
32 NAVIGATION.
Observa- must be held upwards, and if to the left, downwards. When
tion Instru- the face of the sextant is held upwards, the instrument
ments. should be supported with the right hand, and the index
moved with the left hand. But when the face of the sex¬
tant is from the observer, it should be held with the left
hand, and the motion of the index regulated with the right
hand. Sometimes a sitting posture will be found conve¬
nient for the observer, particularly when the reflected object
is to the right of the direct one. In this case the instru¬
ment is supported by the right hand; the elbow may rest
on the right knee ; the right leg at the same time resting on
the left knee. If the sextant be provided with a ball and
socket, and a staff, one of whose ends is attached thereto,
and the other rests in a belt fastened round the observer’s
body, the greater part of the weight of the instrument
will be supported by his body. In all cases where the
sextant is used, when the contact is nearly made, the
index should be fixed by the under screw, and the re¬
maining small motion given by the adjusting screw.
Causes of Error may arise from two kinds of causes : one inherent
error in the jn tjle construction of the instrument—as defect of parallel-
tant°orSeX" ^sm or Perfect planeness in the fore and back surfaces of the
quadrant, mirrors, as also of the coloured glasses, and of the true cir¬
cular form of the arc, and true centring, for which no
remedy can be provided ; and the other arising from the
bending and elasticity of the index or moveable radius.
The parallelism of the two surfaces of the mirrors may
be tested by viewing through them obliquely a distant dis¬
tinct object. If the image is perfect and well defined, the
surfaces are parallel; otherwise not.
To ascertain whether the surfaces of the mirrors are
plane, observe the angle between two distant objects which
are nearly of the same altitude, the image of the left-hand
object being brought into contact with the right-hand object
viewed directly; then move the instrument in its own
'plane so as to bring the image of the right-hand object
into contact with the left-hand object viewed directly. If
they continue in contact, the surfaces are plane; otherwise not.
To test the form of the dark glasses, measure the sun’s
diameter to the right and to the left of the zero point with
different combinations of the glasses. If the sum of the
diameters so measured be nearly equal to four times the
semidiameter given in the Nautical Almanac, the form of
the glasses is satisfactory. For the true centering of the
arc, and its truly circular form and correct graduation, the
navigator must trust entirely to the skill of the maker.
By reason of the bending and elasticity of the index, and
the resistance it meets with in turning round the centre, its
extremity, on being pushed round the arc, will sensibly ad¬
vance before the index-glass begins to move, and may be
seen to recoil when the force acting on it is removed.
Mr Hadley, in order to remedy this defect, which he seems
to have apprehended, gave special directions that the index
be made broad at the end next the centre, and the centre
or axis itself have as easy a motion as is consistent with
steadiness; that is, an entire freedom from looseness or
shake, as the workmen term it. By strictly complying
with these directions, the error in question may indeed be
greatly diminished, so as to be nearly insensible, when the
index is made strong, and the proper medium between the
two extremes of a shake at the centre on the one hand, and
too much stiffness there on the other, is nicely hit; but it
cannot be entirely corrected, for to more or less of bending
the index will always be subject, and some degree of resist¬
ance will remain at the centre, unless the friction there could
be totally removed, which is impossible.
Of the reality of the error to which he is liable from this
cause, the observer, if he is provided with an instrument
furnished with an adjusting screw for the index, may thus
satisfy himself:—After finishing the observation, lay the
instrument on a table, and note the angle } then cautiously
loosen the screw which fastens the index, and it will Observa-
immediately, if the instrument is not remarkably w'ell tion instru-
constructed, be seen to start from its former situation, ments.
more or less according to the perfection of the joint and
strength of the index. This starting, which is due to the
index recoiling after being released from the confined
state it was in during the observation, will sometimes
amount to several minutes ; and its direction will be oppo¬
site to that in which the index was moved by the screw at
the time of finishing the observation. But how far it
affects the truth of the observation depends on the manner
in which the index was moved in setting it to 0, for
adjusting the instrument, or in finishing the observations
necessary for finding the index error.
The easiest and best rule to avoid these errors seems to
be this :—In all observations made by Hadley’s quadrant
or sextant, let the observer take notice constantly to finish
his observations by moving the index in the same direction
which was used in setting it to 0 for adjusting, or in the
observations necessary for finding the index error. If this
rule is observed, the error arising from the spring of the
index will be obviated. For as the index was bent the
same way, and in the same degree, in adjusting as in ob¬
serving, the truth of the observations will not be affected
by this bending.
To Observe the Sun’s Altitude at Sea.
T urn down one of the dark glasses before the horizon-glass
(if the instrument be the quadrant, the fore horizon-glass
is to be used) according to the sun’s brightness ; direct the
sight to that part of the horizon which is under the sun, and
move the index until the coloured image of the sun appears
in the horizon-glass. Then give the instrument a slow
vibratory motion about the axis of vision, as already de¬
scribed ; move the index until the upper or lower limb of
the sun is nearly in contact with the horizon at the lowest
or highest part of the arc (according as the image is seen
erect or inverted) described by this motion ; and complete
the contact by the tangent-screw, if the sextant be used—
if not, by moving the index. The reading off of the limb
will be the altitude of the sun.
To Observe the Moon’s Altitude at Sea.
Turn down the green glass, and observe the moon
in the silvered part of the horizon-glass, the eye being
directed towards the horizon ; move the index gradually,
and proceed as already described in the case of the sun,
until the enlightened limb is in contact with the horizon at
the lowest or highest point of the arc described by the vi¬
bratory motion. The reading off will be the altitude of
the moon’s observed limb. If the lower limb be observed,
the moon’s semidiameter must be added ; and if the Tipper
limb be observed, it must be subtracted from the observed
altitude, in order to obtain the altitude of the moon’s centre.
If the observation is made in the day-time, the coloured
glass is not to be used. .
To Observe the Altitude of a Star or Planet.
Put the index to zero ; then direct the sight to the star
so as to see it through the unsilvered part of the horizon-
glass ; turn the instrument a little to the left, and the image
of the star will be seen in the silvered part of the glass.
Now move the index, and the image will be seen to descend ;
continue to move the index gradually, until the star is
in contact with the horizon at the lowest point of the
arc described by the vibratory motion ; in the case of
the sextant, clamping the index when the contact is nearly
made, and completing it with the adjusting or tangent
screw.
NAVIGATION.
33
Observa- To find the Altitude of the Sun on Shore with an Artificial
tion Instru- Horizon.
ments.
A flat dish, containing a small quantity of mercury, is
generally used for this purpose. The surface of the mer¬
cury is horizontal, and is a good reflector of the sun’s rays.
Let the observer so stand that he may receive on his eye
rays from the sun which have been reflected from the sur¬
face of the mercury. He will then, according to the prin¬
ciples cf optics, see the reflected image of the sun as much
below the surface of the mercury as the sun is above it.
If, then, he looks at the image through the unsilvered part
of the horizon-glass, instead of at the horizon, and brings
the image of the sun reflected at the index-glass and
horizon-glass into contact with this, it is evident that the
angle observed will be double of the sun’s altitude. The
details of this process are the same as have been already
explained. Having read off the angle when the contact
has been made, it must be corrected for the index error;
and the result, divided by 2, will be the apparent altitude
of that limb of the sun which has been observed.
To Observe the Distance between the Moon and any
Celestial Object with the Sextant.
1. Between the Sun and Moon.—Put the telescope in
its place, and the wires parallel to the plane of the instru¬
ment ; and if the sun is very bright, raise the plate before
the silvered part of the speculum; direct the telescope to
the transparent part of the horizon-glass, or to the line of
separation of the silvered and transparent parts, according
to the brightness of the sun; and turn down one of the
coloured glasses. Then hold the sextant so that its plane
produced may pass through the sun and moon, having its
face upwards or downwards, according as the sun is to the
right or left of the moon ; direct the sight through the
telescope to the moon, and move the index till the limb of
the sun is nearly in contact with the illumined limb of the
moon ; now clamp the index, and, by a gentle motion of
the instrument, make the image of the sun move alternately
to one side and the other of the moon ; and when in that
position, where the limbs are nearest each other, make the
contact of the limbs perfect by the tangent-screw ; this
being effected, read off the degrees and parts of a degree
shown by the index on the limb, using the magnifying-glass ;
and thus the angular distance between the nearest limbs of
the sun and moon is obtained.
2. Distance between the Moon and a Planet or Star.—
Direct the middle of the field of the telescope to the line
of separation of the silvered and transparent parts of the
horizon-glass; if the moon is very bright, turn down the
lightest-coloured glass, and hold the sextant so that its plane
may be parallel to that passing through the eye of the ob¬
server and both objects ; its face being upwards if the moon
is to the right of the star, but downwards if it be to the
left. Now direct the sight through the telescope to the
star, and move the index till the moon appears by the re¬
flection to be nearly in contact with the star; clamp the
index, and turn the adjusting or tangent screw till the co¬
incidence of the star and the enlightened limb of the moon
is perfect; and the reading off of the limb at the index will
be the observed distance between the moon’s enlightened
limb and the star.
1 he contact of the limbs must always be observed in the
middle, between the parallel wires.
It is sometimes difficult for those not much accustomed
to observations of this kind, to find the reflected image in
the horizon-glass; it will perhaps, in this case, be found
more convenient to look directly to the object, and, by
moving the index, to make its image coincide with that seen
directly. *
VOL. XVI.
SECT. II. OF THE CORRECTIONS TO BE APPLIED TO
OBSERVED ALTITUDES AND DISTANCES.
1. Parallax.
Observa¬
tion Instru¬
ments.
In order that the place of a heavenly body may be fixed
in space, it is necessary to suppose that all observations are
taken from one point. This point is the centre of the
earth. Consequently the places of the sun, moon, and
planets, whose distances from the earth are measurable, as
observed, must be reduced to what they would be if seen
from the centre. The correction for this object is called
parallax. The fixed stars are at so great a distance from
the earth that they have no sensible parallax, and this cor¬
rection is not to be applied to them.
Let C (fig. 47) be the centre of the earth, P the place of
the observer on its surface, and Z his zenith ; and let S be
a heavenly body whose position is observed. Then ZPS
is the observed zenith distance, or complement of the ob¬
served altitude, and ZCS z
the true zenith distance,
—i.e., the zenith distance
as observed at the earth’s
centre.
Then clearly the angle
ZPS is greater than the
angle ZCS by the angle
PSC, which is also in the
plane of the vertical circle
through S. It is evident
from the figure that a
heavenly body \s depress¬
ed by parallax ; and the
observed altitude is less
than the true altitude by
a certain amount depend¬
ing on the altitude, which Fig. 47.
is called the correction of parallax. The correction of
parallax, therefore, must always be applied with the positive
sign. Its amount may be easily found ; for, let ZPS = 2,
and ZCS = z, and PSC the parallax = o; then, in triangle
PSC, 8
Sin PSC = —T sin SPC = ^sin SPZ.
Let PC = r, the radius of the earth, and SC = R, the dis¬
tance of the heavenly body from C ; also PSC is always
very small, and sin PSC = PSC=/> very nearly.
Hence P — ^ sin z.
r and R being invariable, p is greatest when 2' —90°, or
when S is in the horizon. Let P be the value of p in this
position; then
and jo = P sin 2 = P cos a',
if d be the observed altitude.
This will illustrate the principle on which tables of cor¬
rection for parallax for different heavenly bodies, as sun,
moon, &c., for different angles of altitude, are calculated.
2. Refraction.
Refraction is a correction to be applied in consequence
of the rays from every heavenly body being bent or re¬
fracted as they pass through the successive layers of the
earth’s atmosphere, in consequence of which they describe
curvilinear paths, having their convexity turned towards the
zenith of the observer. The tangent to this curve at the
eye of the observer is the direction in which he sees the
object, and is evidently, from what has been said, bent
toviards the zenith. Hence the effect of refraction is to
raise the heavenly bodies in the heavens above their true
E
34
NAVIGATION.
Observa- places; and the correction must therefore be applied to the
^merits™ 0^erve(^ altitudes of all bodies with a negative sign.
i t j _ law which this correction follows is very complex ;
it is very great when the body is near the horizon, and
vanishes when it is in the zenith. The best position of
heavenly bodies for observation, so far as this correction is
concerned, is near the zenith.
A table of this correction for every 5' of altitude is cal¬
culated, and is to be found in all nautical tables.
Hence ACH' in seconds
= 57'29577 x 60 x 60 x
2d  *
6120 x 3958
Hence, putting d=l, 2, 3, &c., feet respectively, we can
find the dip when the eye is 1, 2, 3, &c., feet respectively
above the surface.
Whence tables for the dip at different elevations may be
calculated.
3. Correction for Semidiameter.
When tne sun or moon, or a planet, is observed, the altitude
of one of the limbs is the observed altitude, the altitude of
the centre must be obtained by adding or subtracting the
semidiameter of the observed body according as the lower
or upper limb is observed. The semidiameters of the sun
and moon are continyally changing; and tables are given
in the Nautical Almanac of their values at noon of every
day at Greenwich, and in the case of the moon at mid¬
night also. Their values at any intermediate hour may be
calculated from these, as will be more fully shown here¬
after.
This correction is not to be applied when a fixed s ar is
the object observed.
5. Index Error.
This error has already been explained.
It wall be observed that all observed altitudes are
affected with refraction and dip, of which the first is
always subtractive, and the second is subtractive in all ob¬
servations, except when the back horizon-glass of the
quadrant is made use of, when it is additive.
Parallax and semidiameter affect only those bodies
whose distance from the earth is not very great, and which
have a sensible diameter, as the sun and moon ; but no fixed
stars. Parallax is always additive; and the semidiameter
is to be added or subtracted according as the lower or
upper limb of the heavenly body is observed.
4. Correction for Dip.
The altitude is supposed to be observed from the true
horizon—i.e., from a horizontal plane through the place of
the observer. This, however, is never the case, for the
observer’s eye must then be on the earth’s surface. It is
in fact, always elevated above it, and the apparent horizon
is depressed in consequence below the true horizon.
The nature of this correction will be easily seen from
fig. 48. B the place of
observation at a distance
AB = <7 feet above the
surface, BH' touching the
surface at H' ; then BH'
is the plane of the sensible
horizon; S a heavenly
body to be observed.
Draw B/i parallel to AH,
the true horizon of A,
and let BH'and AH in¬
tersect in J. Then,
since AB is very small
compared with BS and
AS, the ^2 ABS may
be considered as equal
to HAS. Also letR =
earth’s radius, CA or
CH'. Hence observed
altitude of S
ti t)!5 = ABSH-/zBH
„ .. =ABS-t-AJB = ABS +ACH',
Ur true altitude = observed altitude - ACH'
Now tan ACH' = BH
'CH'
V(2 ir+rf] d
R
_/2d (p
V ^nearly, because may be ne¬
glected in comparison of
IT
Also ACH —tan ACH' nearly;
ACH' = a/??
A R
Now R in feet = 6120 x 3958.
Chap. II.—PRELIMINARY PROBLEMS IN NAUTI¬
CAL ASTRONOMY, AND USE OF NAUTICAL AL¬
MANAC AND TABLES.
SECT. I.—OF TIME.
A day is the interval between two successive transits of
a heavenly body over the meridian, and derives its name
from the body whose motion is observed; and of whatever
denomination it be, it is divided into 24 hours, each hour
into 60 minutes, and each minute into 60 seconds. The
interval between two successive transits of the sun is a
solar day ; of the moon, a lunar day; of a fixed star, a
sidereal day. The earth’s revolution about her axis is per¬
formed always in the same time ; hence if all the heavenly
bodies retained the same position with regard to one
another, all days of whatever name would be of the same
length. The sun (or, more strictly speaking, the earth),
the moon, and planets are always varying their position
w'ith respect to one another and the fixed stars ; and they
move with velocities not only different from each other,
but variable in different parts of their own orbits. The
length of the day, therefore, determined by these bodies is
variable. In order to obtain a definite and uniform
measure of time, the mean solar dap, which is the average
of all the apparent solar days in the year, is employed. An
imaginary body, called the mean sun, is supposed to de¬
scribe the equator uniformly with the true sun’s average
or mean daily motion, and the interval between two suc¬
cessive transits of this imaginary sun is a mean solar day.
Clocks and chronometers are adapted to mean solar
time; so that a complete revolution through twenty-four
hours of the hour-hand of one of these instruments would
exactly correspond with the revolution of the earth about
her axis with regard to the mean sun. Time reckoned in
mean solar days and parts of mean solar days is called
mean solar time.
I he true sun sometimes passes the meridian before and
sometimes after the mean sun ; the difference in time of
the transits of the true and mean suns is called the equation
of time, and is sometimes to be added and sometimes to be
subtracted from the one of these times to obtain the other,
as is pointed out in the Nautical Almanac.
As the earth revolves about her axis from E. to W.,
different meridians successively come under the mean sun ;
and since, after the lapse of twenty-four mean solar hours,
Nautical
Astrono¬
my, &c.
N A Y I G
Nautical the same meridian again comes under the sun ; it follows
Astronomy that for every 15° of longitude between the places, there is
a difference of lh of mean time; and that mean noon is
lh earlier for every 15° of E. longitude, and lh later for
every 15° of W. longitude.
A sidereal day is the interval between two successive
transits over the same meridian of the vernal equinox, or
the first point of Aries. This is not strictly a uniform
measure because of the change of the position of this point
of Aries in consequence of precession and nutation. Time,
therefore, so reckoned, ought strictly to be called apparent
sidereal time ; and mean sidereal time to be reckoned from
the transit not of the true but of the mean equinoctial point.
1 he smallness of the fluctuations to which a clock regulated
to apparent sidereal time, compared with one regulated to
mean sidereal time, is subject, amounting at the utmost to
28'3 in 19 years, has prevented the practical inconvenience
of this being felt; no clock being sufficiently perfect to go
for so long a period without requiring frequently to be re¬
adjusted.
The sun’s apparent revolution in his orbit round the
earth takes place in 365-242218 mean solar days; the
mean sun, therefore, describes an angle of 59' 8"-33 in a
mean solar day; hence, in the interval between two suc¬
cessive transits of the mean sun over the same meridian,
the earth revolves through 360° 59' 8"-33; but in a
sidereal day the earth revolves through 360°. Whence we
obtain the proportion—
A sidereal day: a mean solar day :: 360° : 360° 59' 8"-33.
Whence also it is evident that, if the same interval of
absolute time be expressed in mean solar and also in
sidereal time, it will be greater in the latter denomination
than in the former.
Tables are calculated for the acceleration of sidereal on
mean solar time, and, conversely, for the retardation of
mean solar on sidereal time, which are useful for convert¬
ing intervals of sidereal into mean solar time, and con¬
versely. These are to be found at page 516 of the Nau¬
tical Almanac.
Astronomical mean time always begins at noon, and goes
on to the succeeding noon through 24 hours; so that a clock
which shows astronomical mean time, set for any place (as
Greenwich), shows 0h CP 08 when the mean sun is on the
meridian, and shows 24 hours, or 0h (P 08, when the mean
sun is again on the meridian.
A clock set to show sidereal time shows 0h (P 0s when
the mean equinoctial point is on the meridian, and shows
24 hours, or 0h (P 0a, again when this point is next on the
meridian.
Sidereal Time, in the Nautical Almanac, is the sidereal
time at mean noon for the meridian of Greenwich; or, in
other words, the hour angle of the equinoctial point when
the mean sun is on this meridian ; and is very useful in all
cases where mean time is to be deduced from observations
of heavenly bodies.
The civil day is reckoned from midnight to midnight,
and is divided into 12 hours, from midnight to noon, called
a.m. ; and into 12 hours, from noon to midnight, called p.ai.
Evidently time p.m., and astronomical mean time up to
midnight, are the same. But for time a.m., add 12 hours,
and date the day one back.
Thus, June 3, 7h 5m 27s p.m. is, June 3, 7h 5m 27s
astronomical time; but, June 3, 5h 12ra378 a.m. is, June
2, I7h 12m 378 a.m.
Conversely, if the astronomical time is given, and the
corresponding civil time is required, if under 12 hours, the
given time is the same time p.m. for the same date; if
above 12 hours, subtract 12 hours from it, and date the day
one forward, and the result is civil time a.m.
Thus, September 18, 7h 1(P 15* is, September 18,
A T I O N.
7h 1(P 15s p.m. ; but September 18, 22h 13m 45s astro¬
nomical is, September 19, 10u 13m 458 a.m.
Prop. 1.—To convert degrees, or parts of the equator,
into time.
Hide.—Divide the degrees by 15; the result gives
hours. Multiply the remaining degrees, if any, by 4 ; the
result is minutes. Divide the number of minutes by 15
for minutes, and then multiply the remaining minutes*by4
for seconds. Divide the seconds by 15 for seconds, and
decimals of seconds, if necessary.
Ex. 1.—Reduce 26° 46' to time.
Divide 26 by 15, the quotient is 1, with remainder 11. Hence,
by the rule—
26° = P 44“
45' = 0 3
or 26° 45' = 1 47.
Ex. 2.—Reduce 139° 48' 18" to time,
139° = 9^ 16m 0*
48' = 0 3 12
18" =0 0 1-2
or 139° 48'18"= 9 19 13-2.
Prop. 2.—To convert time into degrees, minutes, and
seconds.
Rule.—Multiply the given time by 10, and add to the
result half of the product. The result will be the corre¬
sponding degrees, minutes, and seconds.
Ex.—Convert 3h 4m 28* into degrees, &c.
3h 4m 28*
10
30 44 40
One half = 15 22 20
46 7 0
Answer 46° 7'.
Prop. 3.—Given the time under any known meridian, to
find the corresponding time at Greenwich.
Rule.—Let the given time be reckoned from the pre¬
ceding noon to turn it into astronomical time ; convert the
longitude of the known meridian into time, which add to
the given time if the place be W. of Greenwich, and sub¬
tract from the given time if it be E.; and, if necessary,
increase the time by 24 hours, reckoning the day one back.
If the resulting time exceed 24 hours, put the date one day
forward, and subtract 24 hours.
Ex. 1.-—It is 61115m p.m., June 23, in a ship whose longitude is
76° 45' W.
76° 45' = 5!l 7m.
Given time, June 23...  611 15m
Longitude    5 7 W.
Time at Greenwich   ll 22 June23.
Ex. 2.—The time at a ship in longitude 139° 48' 15" E. is, July
24, 5h 25m 20“ P.M.; required the Greenwich time.
139° = 9fc 16m 0*
48' = 0 3 12
15" = 0 0 1
9 19 13
This being greater than the given time, we next add 24h to the
latter, and we have—
29h 25m 20®
9 19 13
Time at Greenwich.,....20 6 7 July 23,
Or civil time   8 6 7 a.m. July 24.
Ex. S.—The time at a ship in longitude 175° 45; W. is, June
28, 4h IS81 12* a.m. ; what is the Greenwich time ?
175° = ll11 40“
45' = 0 3
Longitude =11 43 W.-
Time at ship Is, June 27 16h 18141 12*
Longitude..., .11 43 0 W.
Time..,,.   28 1 12 Jut \e 27.
Or..    4 1 12 Jut >e 28.
35
Nautical
Astronomy
I
36
Nautical
Astronomy
NAVIGATION.
Ex. 4.—The time at a ship in longitude 178° E. is, October 14,
3h 15m a.m. ; what is the time at Greenwich ?
3h 15m a.m. on Oct. 14... = Oct. 13, IS1 lom 0s
Longitude 178° = 11 52 0 E.
Time at Greenwich. = Oct. 13, 3 23 0
Prob. 4.—To find the Greenwich time by a chronome¬
ter whose error on Greenwich mean time is known.
Rule'—Add or subtract the error of the chronometer
to the time shown by it, according as it is slow or fast; the
result is Greenwich time. Sometimes 12 hours must be
added to this result, and the day reckoned one back. The
best way to obviate this error, is to obtain Greenwich time
approximately, by Problem 3, by help of the ships mean
time and longitude by account; if the difference between
the two (Greenwich) dates, so found in these two ways, is
nearly 12 hours, then the date by chronometer must be
increased by 12 hours, and the day reckoned one back if
necessary, so as to make the two dates agree in the day and
hour nearly.
Ex. 1.—June 15, 1857, at 7h 45m p.m. mean time nearly, in
longitude 45° W., a chronometer showed 1011 53“ 12*, being 3m 15*
fast; required the Greenwich time.
By Chronometer.
June 15, Chronometer 10h 53m
Error on Greenwich 1 q 3
mean time (fast) .... J 
Greenwich time  10 49
Ex. 2.—October 12, 1857, at
35' W., a chronometer showed 7l
quired the Greenwich date.
J3y Chronometer.
Oct. 12  7h 0” 40*
Error (slow)  0 9 5
7 9 45
12 0 0
Greenwich, Oct. 12,19 9 45
By Rule 3.
12* Ship, June 15.... 7h 45m
15 Longitude  3 0 W.
57 Greenwich time, 10 45
llh 45m p.m., in longitude 110°
1 0“ 40*, being 9m 5* slow ; re-
By Rule 3.
Ship, Oct. 12  II11 45“ 0*
Longitude  7 22 20
Greenw., Oct. 12... 19 7 20
Prob. 5.—Given the Greenwich date, to find the date
under a given meridian.
Rule.—The Greenwich date being reduced to the pre¬
ceding noon, reduce the longitude to time, and subtract
it from Greenwich date, increased by 24 hours, and put one
day back if necessary, if the longitude be W.; and add
if the longitude be E.
tity to be applied to the value at the preceding noon, which Nautical
must be added if the quantity is increasing, and subtracted Astronomy
if it be decreasing. As the values of the quantities are
given for Greenwich noon, it is necessary to 1 educe the
ship’s time to Greenwich time, in order to obtain theii pio-
per value.
This process may be materially shortened by the use of
proportional logarithms, which are given in nautical tables,
and to which the reader is referred for an explanation. For
example, to take out the sun s declination at a given time
in a <uven place, get a Greenwich date, as already ex¬
plained ; take out from the Nautical Almanac the decli¬
nation at two successive noons between which the date.lies ;
take their difference; take out from the tables the loga¬
rithm of the Greenwich date of the sun ; add to it the pro¬
portional logarithm for the change in 24 hours ;—the result
is the proportional logarithm of the change of declination
for the given time. This will be found from the table, and
added or subtracted, according as the declination is increasing
or decreasing. Sometimes the declination at two succes¬
sive noons will be of different names; the difference must
then be found by adding them.
The very same mode applies to finding the equation of
time, and also the sun’s apparent right ascension.
The sun’s semidiameter may always be taken to be that
corresponding to the nearest noon.
The right ascension of the mean sun, called in the Nau¬
tical Almanac the sidereal time, may be found for any
other meridian than Greenwich in the same way. Since,
however, the motion of the mean sun is uniform throughout
the year, the change in any given number of hours, minutes,
and seconds is the same for all days, and can be found at
once from the “ Table of Time Equivalents” given in the
Nautical Almanac.
Opposite to each of these quantities in the Nautical Al¬
manac is given the difference for one hour, which enables
us to find the quantity for any other hour than noon, by
multiplying this hourly difference by the number of hours
in the date from noon, and adding to it the proportional
parts for the additional minutes and seconds, and applying
this difference to the value for the preceding noon, with a
positive or negative sign, according as the quantity is in¬
creasing or decreasing.
The following examples will illustrate these directions:—
Ex. 1.—An eclipse of the moon commenced at Greenwich, De¬
cember 25, 1852, at 22h 14“ 36*; at what time did it begin at
a place in longitude 175° E. ?
Greenwich time, Dec. 25  22h 14“ 36*
Longitude  11 40 E.
33 54
(i.e.) December 26  9 54
Ex. 2.—On the 6th of December 1857, at 9h at Greenwich, the
distance of the moon from the sun was 106° 44' 34" ; at what time
will the distance be the same in longitude 168° 15' 43" W. ?
Long. = ll*1 13“ 2*-86 W. Greenwich, Dec. 5 33h 0“ 0*
Add 24 to Greenwich time. Longitude  11 13 2’86 W.
Date required, Dec. 5  21 46 57-14.
Ex. 1.—October 11, 1857, in Long. 36° 45' E., at 7h 45“ a.m.;
required the sun’s declination, right ascension, equation of time,
and sidereal time, i.e., the right ascension of the mean sun when
crossing the meridian of observer.
October 11, 7h 45“ a.m. civil is, October 10... 19h 45“
Longitude  2 27 E.
Greenwich date, Oct. 10  17 18
To find Declination.—(1.) By proportional logarithms, from
Nautical Almanac.
Declination, Oct. 10  6° 44' 0"-9 S.
„ „ 11  7 6 43-5 S.
Diff. for 24h   0 22 42-6
SECT. II.—OP THE SUN’S DECLINATION, RIGHT ASCENSION,
EQUATION OF TIME, AND SEMIDIAMETER AND SIDEREAL
TIME.
All of these quantities are given in the Nautical Almanac
for the noon of every day. They all vary, and consequently
their value at any time intermediate between two successive
noons is different from that at either noon. For ordi¬
nary purposes, it is sufficient to suppose that the change
of these quantities is proportional to the time from the pre¬
ceding noon. Hence, if the difference of the value between
the preceding and succeeding noon is taken from the
Nautical Almanac, a simple proportion will give the quan-
Greenwich date, logarithm of Q  — -14217
Proportional logarithm for 22' 42"-6  1 = *89925
Prop. log. for 16' 22"  1-04142
Declination at noon, October 10.. 6° 44' 0"-9 S.
Increase in 171* 18“    0 16 22 
Declination required  7 0 22-9 S.
(2.) By hourly differences.
Difference for lh, October 10, 56"-77 from Nautical Almanac.
171*
39739
5677
965 09
NAVIGATION.
37
Nautical
Astronomy
965-09  =16' difference for 17h.
15m is i   14T9
3m is J   2-83
16 2211
Declination, October 10.. 6° 44 0-9
Declination required... 7 0 23-01
To find right ascension.
Right ascension, Greenwich, October 10
11
13h 3“ 8«-80
13 6 5002
0 3 41-22
= -14217
Greenwich date logarithm of (•) 
Prop. log. for 3m 41‘  = 1-68903
Prop. log. for 2m 39*  1-83120
Sun’s right ascension at noon, October 10 ... 13h 3m 8*'80
Increase in 1711 18m   0 2 39
Sun’s right ascension required   13 5 47-80
Or, from Nautical Almanac—
Difference for lh 9"216
17
64512
9216
156-672
15“ is   2-304
3 is \  -461
159-437 or 2™ 39* nearly.
Sun’s right ascension, October 10, noon .... 13h 3m 8*-80
Increase for 171* 18m    0 2 39
Right ascension required   13 5 47
To find equation of time.
Equation of time, October 10  12m 59*-81
„ „ 11  13 15-15
0 15-34
Greenwich date log. of (£)  = "14217
Prop. log. for 15*-3  = 2-84873
Prop. log. for 11*   2-99090
Equation of time, October 10  12m 59*-81
Increase in 17h IS”1  0 11
13 10-81
Or, from Nautical Almanac—
Increase for l11  0,/-639
 17_
4473
639
Greenwich date logarithm (•)  = -36808
Prop. log. for 23' 41"  = -88083
Prop. log. for 10m 9’  1-24891
Declination 6' 33"-5 N.
Or, by hourly difference,
Difference for l11, March 20  59'/-23
10
Nautical
Astronomy
10-863
15m is £  129
3 is £  25
11017 or 11* nearly,
which, added to the equation of time at mean noon of October 10,
gives 13m 10*-81 for equation of time required.
Right ascension mean sun, October 10 ... 13h 16m 8*-61
„ „ „ 11 - 13 20 5-17
Difference   0 3 56 -56
Greenwich date of (•)   — T4217
Prop. log. for 3m 56*  =: 1-66051
Prop. log. for 2m 50*  1-80268
October 10 13h 16m 8*"61
Increase    0 2 50
Mean sun’s r. ascen. or sidereal time, 13 18 58"61
Or, by table of time equivalents,
Mean sun’s right ascension, October 10 ... 1311 16m 8*-61
Correction for 1711   0 2 47
Correction for 18m  0 0 3
Mean sun’s right ascension required.. 13 18 58-61
Ex. 2.—To find the sun’s declination at a place in Long. 97° 45'
W., at 311 46m p.m., on 20th March 1857,—Greenwich date, March
20, 1011 17-”.
Sun’s declination, March 20 0° 3' 35"-5 S.
„ „ 21 0 20 6-1 N.
Difference   0 23 41-6
Difference for 10h  592-30
15m is 1   14-80
2m is tjV  1-97
609-07
Correction 10m 9*
And the declination, subtracting from this  3 35-5
Gives, as before   6' 33"-5 N.
SECT. III.—OF TAKING OCT MOON S DECLINATION, RIGHT
ASCENSION, SEMIDIAMETER, AND HORIZONTAL PARALLAX.
The moon’s declination and right ascension are given for
every hour in the Nautical Almanac ; and the difference
for 10m at the beginning of every hour is recorded. From
these data, the moon’s declination and right ascension at
any hour can be readily obtained ; for by multiplying
the difference for 10m by the number of intervals of 10m in
the given time since the last hour, and taking parts for the
additional minutes and seconds, and adding the result if the
declination be increasing, and subtracting if decreasing, to
the declination at the last preceding hour, we shall find the
declination. The difference must always be added to the
right ascension. Or they may be found by a table of
logistic logarithms: thus, add together the logistic loga¬
rithms of the minutes and seconds in the Greenwich date,
and the proportional logarithms of the difference ; the result
will be the proportional logarithm of the correction to be
applied.
The moon’s semidiameter and horizontal parallax are
given in the Nautical Almanac for every 12h,—viz., from
mean noon to mean midnight, and mean midnight to mean
noon, of every day at Greenwich. Hence we may proceed
as for the sun’s right ascension and declination, except that
we must always take out of the table the declination or
right ascension for the mean noon or mean midnight, ac¬
cording as the time lies between noon and midnight or
midnight and noon ; and if the Greenwich date exceed
12h, we must subtract 12h from it, and reckon the difference
from the preceding midnight.
Ex. 1.—August 10,1857, in Long. 84°30' E., at 7h 44m 15* p.m.;
required the moon’s right ascension and declination.
Ship, August 10 7h 44m 15*
Longitude   5 38 0 E.
Greenwich date, August 10, 2 6 15
Moon’s r. ascen., Aug. 10,2h, l* 81” 43*-49 Decl., 9° 22' 48"-7 N
„ „ 3 1 10 50-91 „ 9 38 55-1 N.
Difference   0
Log. log 6m 15* = -98227
P. log. for.. 2 7 = 1 92962
P. log. for.. 0 13 2-91189
2 7-42 0 16 6-4
Log.log.... 6m 15* = -78227
P. log. for.. 16
P. log. for.. 1
6 = 1-04845
41 2-03072
Moon's r. ascen., Aug. 10, 2h, lh 8m 43*-49 Decl., 12h, 9° 22' 48"-7
Correction 0 0 13 Cor 0 1 41
Moon’s right ascen. required, 1 8
Or for right ascension—
Difference for lh ... 2m 7*-42
6m is TV  12-742
15* is ^   530
13-272
Or correction is 13*, as before.
56-49 Decl. req., 9 24 29-7
Or for declination—
Difference for 10m ... = 161-05
5m is ^  80-52
1 is l  16-10
15* is 1  4 02
100-62
Or correction is lm 41*, as before.
Ex. 2.—September 12, 1857, in Long. 149° 18' W., at 5h 36m
P.M.; required the moon’s semidiameter and horizontal parallax.
Ship, September 12  5h 36m 0*
Longitude  9 57 12 W.
Greenwich, September 12... 15 33 12
38
NAVIGATION.
Moon’s Horizoni al Parallax.
Sept. 12, midnight .... 58' 10"
Sept. 13, noon  57 55-9
Difference  0 14-1
And both are decreasing.
Greenwich date iog]) 1 .52895 Greenwich date ] = .52895
o11 35m  J log j)   J
Prop. log. for 3"-7 = 3-46522 Propi.log.for 14"-1= 2-88420
Prop. log. for 1"-1.. 3 99417 Prop. log. for 4"-2 3-41315
Moon’s semidiameter 1   iz/zoi/i Horiz. parallax l   „,/Q
at 15t 33m 12s, ... } — 15 1 atl5t 33” 12s ) “ 5b 0 b
These problems may also be solved by simply taking the proper*
tional parts. Thus, for the horizontal parallax—
Difference for 1211 14"-1
Nautical Moon’s Semidiameter.
Astronomy Sept. 12, midnight.... 15' 53"-2
Sept. 13, noon   15 49-3
Difference  0 3-7
nearest to the approximate interval, we find 3s the correction, which Nautical
is to be added, as the proportional logarithms are decreasing. Hence Astronomy
the Greenwich time is lh 54m 27s. ^ ^ y
SECT. V.—OF MEAN AND APPARENT SOLAR TIME, AND
SIDEREAL TIME.
Prob. 1.—Given mean solar time at any given place,
to find apparent solar time; and, conversely, given apparent,
to find mean solar time.
Find the time at Greenwich, and correct the equation
of time for this date. The equation of time so corrected
applied to the given time, with the proper sign (as shown
in the Nautical Almanac), will give the time required.
3h is p   3-5
30m is £  -58
4-08
Or the correction is 4".
And for semidiameter—
Difference for 12h  3"-7
3h is |  -92
30m is £  -15
1 -07
Or the correction is l"-07.
SECT. IV.—OF LUNAR DISTANCES.
Prob.—Having given a lunar distance, to find its
Greenwich date.
Rule.—Lunar distances are found for every third hour
of Greenwich mean time, and are recorded in the Nautical
Almanac, as also the proportional logarithms of the differ¬
ences of the distances at intervals of every three hours.
To find, then, the Greenwich date corresponding to a given
distance, find in the table the nearest distance preceding
in order of time the given distance, and take the difference
between it and the given distance; from the proportional
logarithm of this difference subtract the proportional lo¬
garithm of the said nearest distance; the remainder will
be the proportional logarithm of the correction to be applied
to the Greenwich date answering to the nearest distance
in order to obtain the approximate Greenwich time.
The distances are here supposed to increase uniformly,
which is not the case. It is therefore necessary to apply'a
correction to the time above obtained, if great accuracy is
required. This may be found by help of a “ Table showing
the Corrections required on account of Second Differences/’
in the Nautical Almanac, as follows:—(1.) Find the ap¬
proximate interval by the preceding rule. (2.) Take the
difference between the pi'oportional logarithms which stand
opposite to the distances which include the given distance.
(3.) Look down the column in the table at the head of
which is this difference of proportional logarithms, and along
the column at the left hand side of which stands the ap"-
proximate interval; the number so found is the correc¬
tion, which is to be added to the approximate time if the
proportional logarithms are decreasing, and subtracted if
they are increasing.
Ex.—Required the time at Greenwich at which the reduced dis¬
tance of the moon from Jupiter will be 42° 55' 18" on the 23d De¬
cember 1857.
From the table, it appears this will be between noon and 3h.
The nearest distance preceding therefore is,—
Distance at noon  43° 58' 19" Fropor. log  ’2590
Reduced distance  42 55 18
Difference  13 1 Proper, log   *4558
Approximate interval lh 54m 24s „   .jggg
The difference of proportional logarithms at noon and 311 is 12;
and oh looking in the table for second differences down the column
headed ("), and along the column on the left of which is 2h, the
Ex. 1.—June 16,1857, mean solar time 8h 15m r.M., in longitude
25° W.; to find the apparent time.
Ship, June 16    8h 15™
Longitude  1 40 W.
Greenwich, June 16  9 55
Equation of time (p. 11, Nautical Almanac) subtractive—
June 16  19s-43
„ 17  32s-34
Difference  12s-91
Greenwich date, log. Q   = -38385
Propor. log. for 12s,9   = 2-92283
Propor. log. for 5S,3  3-30668
Equation of time  — 0U 0™ 24s-73
Ship, June 16  8 15 0
Apparent time, ship  8 14 35-27
Ex. 2.—Oct. 15, 1857, at 6h 51™ p.m., apparent time, in Long.
113° 45' E.; find mean time.
Ship, Oct. 15  6h 51™
Longitude  7 35 E.
Greenwich, Oct. 14 23 16
Equation of time (p. 1, Nautical Almanac)—
Oct. 14  -13™ 57s-92
„ 15   14 11 -12
Difference     0 13 -20
Difference for lh,
•550
 23
1650
1100
Difference for 23h  12-650
15” is i  -137
1™ is   -009
12-796
Or 12s-8 nearly.
Hence mean time at ship, 611 50™ 47s-2 F.M., Oct. 15.
Prob. 2.—Given solar time, to find sidereal time.
Rule.—If the given time be mean solar, find the Green¬
wich date ; correct the right ascension of mean sun for this
date, and add to the mean time at ship; the result is side¬
real time.
If the given time is apparent solar, convert it into mean
solar time, as in Problem 1, and proceed as before.
Ex.—Nov. 18, 1857, at 9h 35™ 30s a.m., mean time, in Long.
18° 7' W. ; required the sidereal time.
Ship. Nov. 17    21h 35™ 30s
Longitude      1 12 28 W.
Greenwich, Nov. 17th  22 47 58
Right ascension of mean sun, Nov. 17  15 45 57-72
Correction for 22h  0 3 36-84
„ 47™   0 0 7-72
„ 58s  0 0 0-16
Right ascension of mean sun  15 49 42-44
Ship mean time    21 35 30
Sidereal time     13 25 12-44
Rejecting 24h in the result.
N A V I G A T I O N.
39
Nautical Byhelpof tbelast problem, we may find wliat bright starsin
Astronomy the catalogue of the Nautical Almanac will be on the meri-
dian of a given place next after any time, mean or apparent.
For, having found the sidereal time at a ship, it is evident
that the star whose right ascension is next greater, is the
first that will pass the meridian in question.
It is sometimes required to find all the bright stars that
will pass a given meridian between two specified hours.
We must in that case find the sidereal time for both hours,
and all the bright stars in the catalogue whose right ascen¬
sions lie between these limits will pass the given meridian
between the specified hours.
Ex. 1.—To find what bright star will pass the meridian in Long.
18° T W., on November 18, 1857 ; next after 9h 35m 30s a.m.
(See Example to Problem 2.)
Looking in the catalogue of bright stars in the Nautical Almanac,
we find that the bright star whose right ascension is the next
greater than 13h 25m 12s,44, is /3 Corvi, which is the star required.
Ex. 2.—What bright stars in the Nautical Almanac passed the
meridian of a place in Long. 64° E., between the hours of 6 and 9,
on March 10, 1857 ?
Ship, March 10  6'1 0m 03
Longitude  4 16 0 E.
Oh om 0s
4 16 0 E.
4 44 0
Greenwich, March 10  1 44 0
(1.) Right ascension of mean sun—
Greenwich, March 10  23h 12m25s-64
Correction for lh 0m  0 0 9-8565
„ 0 44   0 0 7-2281
23" 12 42-726
Ship, March 10    6 0 0
Sidereal time  5 12 42-7246 (l.)
(2.) Right ascension of mean sun—
Greenwich, March 10 23^ 12m 253,64
Correction for 4h 0m  0 0 39-4259
„ 0 44    0 0 7-2281
23 13 12-2940
Ship    9
Sidereal time    8 13 12-2940 (it.)
On looking at the catalogue, we find that the stars whose
right ascensions lie between these limits are from [3 Tauri
to 15 Argus, which are the stars required.
Prob. 3.—Given sidereal, to find mean solar time.
Rule.—Take out of the Nautical Almanac the right
ascension of the mean sun for noon of the given day. Sub¬
tract this from the sidereal time, increased, if necessary, by
24 hours ; the remainder is mean time nearly. By help of
the table which gives the relation of mean solar and sidereal
time already referred to, correct this approximate time, and
the result will be the mean time required.
Ex.—July 21, 1857, when a sidereal clock showed 6h 45m 35s
find the mean time.
Sidereal time '  611 45m 35s
Right ascension mean sun at mean noon. 7 56 47-66
Mean time nearly  22 48 47-34
Correction for 22h  3m 46s,69
„ 48”  0 7-88
„ 47s  0 0-13
0
Mean time  22
54-60
52-74
By means of the above we can find the error of a clock or chro¬
nometer by comparing the time shown by it with that of a sidereal
clock in an observatory. Thus, Greenwich, November 4, 1857,
a sidereal clock showed 18h 15m 30s, and a chronometer showed
3h 28™ 15s, the sidereal clock being 3™ 13s-5 slow; required the
error of the chronometer.
Sidereal clock  
Error (slow) 
Sidereal time 
R. ascen. of mean sun at mean noon..
Mean time nearly 
Correction for 3h 29s-57
» 24”  3-94
» Is  0
Mean time 
Chronometer 
Error (fast) 
18h 15” 30s
0 3 13-5
18 18 43-5~
14 54 42-49
3 24 Fbl
0 0 33-51
3 23 27-50
3 28 15-0
0 4 48-5
I bob. 4. I o find at what time any heavenly body will Nautical
pass the meridian of a given place on a given day. Astronomy
Rule.—From the right ascension of the given star taken >s'—v—^
out of the Nautical Almanac, increased, if necessary, by 24
hours, subtract the right ascension of the mean sun at mean
noon (or sidereal time, as it is called in the Nautical Alma¬
nac). This gives the mean time at the ship approximately.
Apply the longitude to this, and thus get a Greenwich date,
and by this date correct the right ascension of the mean
sun, and subtract the quantity so found from the star’s right
ascension ; this will be the time required.
Ex.—At what time will /3 Corvi pass the meridian of a place in
Long. 62° 20' E., on July 24, 1857 ?
Right ascension jS Corvi, July 24  1211 26” 53s-88
Right ascension of mean sun at mean noon
(sidereal time, Naut. Almanac)  8 8 37-33
Sidereal time ship, approximate  4 18 16-55
Longitude   4 9 20-0 E.
Greenwich date, July 24  0h 8” 56a-55
Right ascension of mean sun at mean noon 8 8 37-33
Correction for 8”  0 0 1-31
„ 56“     0 0 0-15
Eight ascension of mean sun   8 8 38-79
„ /3 Corvi  12 26 53 88
Time of star’s passing the meridian. 4 18 15-09
SECT. VI.—OF THE MOON’S AUGMENTATION—CORRECTION OF
SEMIDIAMETER ON ACCOUNT OF REFRACTION—THE MOONS
MERIDIAN PASSAGE, &c., &c.
1. Of the Moon’s Augmentation.—The moon’s semidiame¬
ter given in the Nautical Almanac is calculated as if seen
from the earth’s centre. Moreover, on account of the com¬
paratively moderate distance of the moon from the earth,
the moon’s semidiameter subtends an angle at the earth’s
surface which sensibly varies with the altitude,being greatest
when the moon is in the zenith, and least when in the horizon
of the observer. The correction to be applied to the semi¬
diameter from this cause is called the augmentation. It is
computed for every degree of altitude, and is to be found
in all nautical tables.
2. Contraction of Moon’s Semidiameter on account of
Refraction.—The correction for refraction varies very ra¬
pidly near the horizon, and consequently the moon’s lower
limb is sensibly more raised than the upper; and the
moon’s apparent form is that of an ellipse instead of a
circle. Hence, in taking a lunar distance when the moon
is near the horizon, the moon’s semidiameter to be added to
the observed distance, as taken from the tables, is greater
than it ought to be; and a correction must be applied in con¬
sequence of the moon’s diameter being an oblique diameter
of the elliptic face, and not the horizontal or greatest diame¬
ter. rI his correction is always subtractive, and is given in
nautical tables.
3. Of the Moon’s Meridian Passage.—In west longitude
the moon crosses the meridian later with regard to the sun
than at Greenwich, and in east longitude earlier; because
the moon’s distance from the sun in right ascension is con¬
stantly changing. Hence to the Greenwich meridian pas¬
sage of the moon must be applied a correction for every
other place, depending on the longitude. All nautical
tables contain this correction.
The corrections to be applied to the observed altitudes
and distances of the heavenly bodies have been now suffi¬
ciently explained, and the reader will, with a little expe¬
rience, easily understand how the several corrections are to
be taken out of the tables. Index error, dip, and refrac¬
tion are common to all observed altitudes, and must be
applied in the order in which they are here set down. If
the body observed be a star, this is all that is required.
40
NAVIGATION.
Finding If a planet, the parallax for the given altitude, taken fiom
the Lati- proper table, must be added. If the observed body be
the sun, after the dip apply the sun’s semidiametei, and
then correct for refraction and parallax. I hese two cor-
tude.
The process will differ in detail, according to the nature
of the body observed.
(1.) If it be a fixed star, the altitude must be corrected
only for index correction, dip, and refraction; and the de¬
letions are frequently given together, under the name of clmation is given at once by the tab es.
correction in a/L*/which is always subtractive, because (2.) If it be a planet, the declination must be corrected
correction in aituuae, wmc . ’ Ifthe by getting a Greenwich date, applying the proportional in¬
crease or decrease for this date. If great accuracy is re¬
quired, the semidiameter and horizontal parallax must also
be found, and the altitude corrected for these.
(3.) If it be the sun, the Greenwich date must be got,
and the declination corrected for this; the altitude must be
corrected for index, dip, semidiameter, refraction, and
parallax.
(4.) If it be the moon, a Greenwich date must be got. If
it be only known that the observed altitude is a meridian
altitude, the meridian passage at Greenwich must be cor¬
rected for the longitude, and the Greenwich date obtained
by applying the longitude in time as already shown. Th
moon’s semidiameter, horizontal parallax, and declination,
must be corrected for the Greenwich date, and the true
altitude and declination thus found. When the true alti¬
tude and declination are found, the remainder of the process
is according to the rule given above, and is the same for all.
Ex. 1.—May 20, 1857, the observed meridian altitude of Castor
was 49° 20' 30w (zenith N. of star), the index correction was — 3' 40",
and the height of the eye above the sea was 18 feet; required the
latitude.
the refraction is always greater than the parallax,
observed body be the moon, the semidiameter and hoiizon-
tal parallax cannot be considered as invariable for 24houis;
they must therefore be corrected for the proper Gieen-
wich date, as already pointed out. 1 o the semidiametei
thus corrected must be added the augmentation, fiom the
proper table. The rest of the process is exactly the same
as for the sun.
Ex. 1—Feb. 1, 1857, at 2^ 40m P.M , in Lat. 53° 20' N., and
Lon<r. 13° 20' E., the observed altitude of the sun’s lower limb was
13° 35', the index error was +1'20", and the height of the eye above
the sea 18 feet; to find the sun’s true altitude.
Observed altitude ^
Index correction  4- 0
Dip
13
- 0
35'
1
~3Q
3
0"
20
20
33
13
Sun’s apparent diameter 4-_0.
1 ^
Apparent altitude 
Correction in altitude   ^
47
15
49
3
Sun’s true altitude   13 45 17
Ex. 2.—August 24, 1857, in Long. 18° 20' W the observed
meridian altitude of the moon’s lower limb was 54 30 20 , the
index correction was + 2' 20", and height of the eye above the sea
20 feet; required the moon s true altitude.
August 24. Time at ship   ^ 0“ 90V
Longitude   1 13 20 W.
Greenwich date, August 24  1 13 20
Moon’s horizontal parallax,
24th, Noon 54' 34"'7
Midnight 54 25-9
Observed altitude  49°
Index error  — 0
30"
40
Dip.
49
- 0
Correction for refraction
Moon’s semidiameter,
24th, Noon 14' 54"’4
Midnight 14 52-0
49 12 39
  - 0 0 50
True altitude....   49 11 49
90 0 0
0 2-4
Greenwich date, log. moon -99401
Prop. log. for 2"-4 3-65321
4-64722
Part 0" 3
Hence moon’s semidiameter
Moon
horizontal parallax  = 54
Augmentation  — ^
Hence semidiameter  = 15
Observed altitude 54° 30' 20"
Index correction  + 0 2 20
0 8-8
Log. moon -99401
Prop. log. for 8"’8....3-08894
4 08295
Part 0"-9
  = 14' 54"-1
33-8
11-3
5-4
Zenith distance  40 48 11 N.
From Nautical Almanac, declin. of Castor
a2 Geminorum on May 20   32 12 D7 N.
Latitude  73 0 12 N.
Ex. 2.—October 10, 1857, the observed meridian altitude of
« Ophiuchi was 54° 20' 30" (zenith, N. of the star), the index cor¬
rection was — 3' 20", and the height of the eye above the sea was
16 feet; required the latitude.
Observed altitude  54° 20 30"
Index correction  — 0 3 20
Dip.
54
.- 0
40
24
Dip.
54
- 0
54
Semidiameter   0
Apparent altitude  54
Correction in altitude  0
0
16
5-4
Correction in altitude
54 13
_00
43 21-4
30 30
0 19
True altitude 55 14 10 4
12
0
Zenith distance  35 47 28 N.
Declination of « Ophiuchi  12 40 2-4 N.
Latitude  43 27 30-4 N.
Chap. III.—ON FINDING THE LATITUDE.
SECT. I.—OF FINDING THE LATITUDE BY MERIDIAN
ALTITUDES.
1. By a single Meridian Altitude above the Pole.
Subtract the true meridian altitude (corrected from ob¬
served meridian altitude) from 90°; the result is the zenith
distance—which mark N. or S., according as the zenith is
north or south of the observed heavenly body : find also
the declination, which must be marked N. or S. If the
zenith distance and the declination have the same name,
their sum will be the latitude, with the name of either. If
they be of different names, take their difference, which will
be tbs latitude, with the name of the greater.
Ex. 3. January 6, in Long. 59° 30' E., the observed meridian
altitude of the sun’s lower limb was 60° 20' 30" (zenith N. of the
sun), the index correction was +4' 10", and the height of the eye
above the sea was 10 feet; required the latitude.
January 6, ship  0h 0m 0s
Longitude  3 58 0 E.
Greenwich, January 5 20 2 0
Sun's declination, Jan. 5  22° 35' 43"-6 S.
3) 6 22 28 35 9
Diff.  0 7 7-7
•07846
1-40300
1-48146 Part  0 6 6
True declination 22 29 37-6 S.
Sun’s «c-midiameter...........    16' 18"-2
NAVIGATION.
41
Finding
the Lati¬
tude.
Observed altitude   60° 20 SO"
Index + ° 4 10
60
.-0
Dip 
60 21
Semidiameter  0 16
60 37
Correction in altitude  —0 0
40
_7
33
18-2
51-2
28
37
0
232
0
Zenith distance    29 22
Declination  22 29
36- 8 ]S\
37- 6 S.
Latitude  6 52 59'2 N.
tion was +1' 20" and the height of the eye above the sea 20 feet;
required the latitude.
Observed altitude   31° 40' 20"
Index  +0- 1 20
31 41 40
Dip   -0 4 24
31 37 16
Correction in altitude   — 0 134
True altitude  31 35 42
90 0 0
121 35 42 N.
Declination « Draconis, Nov. 10  61 50 9 N.
Latitude  59 45 33 N.
Finding
the Lati¬
tude.
Ex. 4.—April 4, in Long. 55° 20' E., the observed meridian
altitude of the moon’s lower limb was 58° 40' 10" (zenith S. of the
moon), the index correction was +3' 20", and height of the eye
above the sea was 9 feet; required the latitude.
Moon’s meridian passage, April 4 9h 0m-5
Correction  
Meridian passage (ship),
Longitude 
Ship, April 4  
8 134
0
0
47-1
7-0
63-5 = 811 53m SO*
  3 41 20 E.
5 12 10
Moon’s
Semidiameter.
Ap. 4, Noon..15' 14"-9
Mid...15 10-4
Diff.... 0 45
•36318
3-38021
3-74339
Part  0 2
Semi  15 12-9
Augmentn.. 0 12-9
Semidiam... 15 25-8
Horizontal
Parallax.
Noon 55' 49"-7
Mid  55 33-4
Diff  0 16-3
•36318
2- 82124
3- 18442
Part 0 7T
H.P.55 42 6
Declination.
S'*...17° 25' 42"-6 N.
6 ...17 13 19-4
O 12 23-2
•69298
1-16243
1 85541
Part... 0 0 2-31
Decln. 17 23 11-6 N.
Observed altitude,
Index 
Dip 
Semidiameter 
Correction 
Declination...
Latitude.
, 58° 40' 10"
+ 0 3 20
58 43 30
0 2 57
58 40 33
,. 0 15 25-8
58 55 48-8
. 0 27 49
0 0 21
59 23 58-8
90 0 0
30 36 1-2 S.
17 23 11-6 N.
13 12 49-6 S.
2. By a single Observed Altitude below the Pole.
Rule.—Correct the altitude, and to it add 90°, and from
this sum subtract the declination; the remainder is the
latitude.
Ex. 1.—June 4, 1857, the observed meridian altitude of /2
Chamadeontis, under the S. pole, was 29° 56' 40", the index
correction was —2' 40", and the height of the eye above the sea was
15 feet; required the latitude.
Observed altitude   1  29° 56' 40"
Index correction  —0 2 40
29 54 0
DiP  -0 3 49
29 50 11
Correction in altitude  —0 1 41
True altitude  29 48 30
90 0 0
119 48 30 S.
Declination of /} Chamaeleontis  78 31 30 S.
Latitude  41 17 O^Si
Ex. 2.—Nov. 20, 1857, the observed meridian altitude of »
Draconis under the N. pole, was 31° 40' 20", the index correc-
YOL. XVI.
In the following example, the altitude is observed by means of
an artificial horizon.
June 8, 1857, in Long. 1° 6' W., the observed altitude of the
sun’s lower limb (in quicksilver horizon) was 121° 9' 4", index
correction 1' 20"; required the latitude.
Ship, June 8  0h 0m 011
Longitude  0 4 24 W.
Greenwich, June 8  0 4 24
Sun’s declination, June 8,
2-5 5630
1-54487
4-09117
Sun’s declination.
22° 52' 43" N.
22 57 50-8
A) 0 7-8
0 0 0-9
22 52 43-9 N.
Semidiameter  15' 47"-3
Observed altitude.
Index 
Semidiameter 
Correction in altitude,
True altitude  
Zenith distance 
Declination 
Latitude 
121° 9' 40"
-0 1 20
2)121 8 20
60 34 10
015 47-3
60 49 57-3
-0 0 28
60 49 29-3
90 0 0
29 10 30 7 N.
22 52 43-9 N.
"52 3 14-6 N.
SECT. II.—BY OBSERVED ALTITUDES OUT OP THE MERIDIAN.
1. By Observations of the Altitude of the Pole-Star
(a Polaris).
The tables for this purpose are given in the Nautical
Almanac, pp. 513 to 515.
Rule.—From the observed altitude, corrected for the
error of‘ the instrument, refraction, and dip of the horizon,
subtract 2/.
Reduce the mean time of observation at the place to the
corresponding sidereal time.
With the sidereal time found, take out the first correc¬
tion with its proper sign. If the sign be + , the correction
must be added to the reduced altitude; but it it be — ,
it must be subtracted; in either case the result will give
an approximate latitude.
With the altitude and sidereal time of observation, take
out the second correction ; and with the day of the month
and the same sidereal time, take out the third correction.
These two corrections, added to the approximate latitude,
will give the latitude of the place.
Ex.—January 20,1857, at 9*1 40“ p.m. (mean time nearly), in
Long. 30° 20' E., the observed altitude of Polaris was 31° 40 20 ,
the index correction was —2' 20", and height of the eye above t e
sea, 10 feet; required the latitude.
Ship, Jan. 20 
Longitude  
Greenwich, Jan. 20
9i> 40” 0*
2 1 20 E.
7^38 40
P
42
NAVIGATION.
linding Sidereal time at mean noon, Greenwich,
the Lati- Jan, 20  
tude. i Acceleration for 7h 39m  
s—Mean time at place 
Sidereal time 
Observed altitude  
Index 
19h 59m 14s,42
0 1 15
9 40 0
5 40 29-42
31° 40'20"
- 0 2 20
Dip.
31 38
0 3
Correction in altitude ..
True altitude of Polaris.
Deduced altitude 
With argument 5* 40m (first cor.)-
Approximate latitude  
Arguments ( _.3®° I second ) .
} 5h 40m [ cor. j
Arguments, Jan. 20,1857,5h 40m {third cor.)
Latitude  
31 34 53
0 1 34
31 33 19
0 2 0
31 31 19
0 32 13
30 59 6
0 31
2 16
31 1 53 N.
3. By Observed Altitudes of a Heavenly Body very near
the Meridian.
Or     19-837225
Hour angle 41m 305-61, log. haversine  7-912484
Constant log  6-301030
Natural number, 1124  3-050739
Or  19-837225
Half-hour angle, 20m 45"-3, 2 log. sin  17-912484
Constant log  6-301030
Natural number, 1124  3-050739
Observed altitude  36° 35'20"
Index correction — 0 2 20
36 33 0
Dip   0 3 56
36 29 4
Semidiameter   0 16 4
36 45 8
Correction in altitude 0 111
36 43 57 Nat. sine  597080
1124
Mer. zen. dist  53° 16' 11" N. Nat. cosine  598204
Declination  6 59 OS.
True lat  46 16 11 N.
Finding
the Lati¬
tude.
1 he sun is the body most usually observed for the purpose.
The apparent time from noon or hour angle is supposed
to be known ; as also the latitude by account, which is
supposed to differ from the true latitude only by a small
quantity.
Buie. Add together the tabular logs, of cosines of the
latitude by account, and of the declination of the observed
body. To these add log. rising, if a table of log. rising
be used ; or, 6’301030-flog, haversine hour angle, if a table
of haversines be used; or twice the log. sine of half the
hour angle with the same constant log., if a table of loo-,
sines only be used.
In all cases cast out the tens from the result, and the
remainder is the logarithm of a natural number, which,
added to the natural sine of the true altitude, will give the
natural cosine of the meridian zenith distance. The de¬
clination applied to this—as already pointed out in pre¬
ceding problems—will give the latitude. The hour an<de
in this rule must be found by applying to the mean time°at
the ship the equation of time corrected for the Green¬
wich date.
If the latitude thus found differ much from the latitude
by account, the work must be repeated, using the latitude
found instead of latitude by account.
i V’180m Long-114 E-’ and Lat- acc0
4b 10 _ N. the chronometer showed 4>> 38™ 10», being slow
Greenwich 14™ 10*. The altitude of the sun’s lower limb
observed to be 36 35' 20", the index error was -2' 20", and
height of the eye above the sea 16 feet; required the latitude.
Chronometer  411 38™ 10s
Error (slow)  0 14 10
4 52 20
12 0 0
Green., Oct. 10.... 16 52 20
Sun’s declination,
October 10.... 6° 44' 0"-9
» 11.... 6 43-5
T5318 0 21 42-6
•91843
107166 0 14 59
Declination S  6 58 59-9
Semidiameter ... 0 16 4
Lat. by acct 46 10 0
Declination  6 58 57-9
Equation of time,
October 10.... + O’1 12™ 59-81
»> 11  0 13 15-15
o o’T^sS
•15318
2- 84873
3- 00191 0 0 10-8
Equa. of time  O 13 10-61
Chron. showed .... 4 38 10
Error (slow)  0 14 10
Greenw. m. t. 12 + 4 52 2cT
Longitude ......... 7 36 0 E.
24 28 2cT
Equation of time 0 13 10-61
Hour angle  0 41 Sim
L cosine  9-840459
cosine  9-996766
T9 837225
'= Eog. rising  3-213724
3050949
L°g  0 41 30-61.
Nat. number by table of log. rising,
4. By two Observed Altitudes of the Sun, and the Time
between ; having given also the Latitude by Account
(Douwe’s Method).
Rule.—To find the hour angle corresponding to the
greater meridian altitude—i.e., the hour from apparent
noon, at which the greater altitude is observed.
To the log. secant of the latitude by account, add the
log. secant of the sun’s declination (the mean between
the declinations at the first and second observation); this,
rejecting 20, is called the logarithm ratio. To this add the
log. of the difference of the natural sines of the two alti¬
tudes, and the logarithm of the half-elapsed time from the
proper column (taken from nautical tables, which are fur¬
nished with special tables for this purpose).
Find this sum in the column of middle times, and take
out the time answering thereto ; the difference between
this and the half-elapsed time will be the time from noon,
when the greater altitude was observed.
Or from any table :—
Find the logarithm ratio as before.
Subtract each of the true altitudes from 90°, to get the
true zenith distances, and take half their sum and half their
difference ; and to the logarithm ratio add the sum of .the
log. of the sines of this semi-sum and semi-difference, and
from this sum subtract the log. sine of the half-elapsed
time; the remainder is the log. sine of middle time, which
find from a table of log. sines, and the difference of the
middle time and half-elapsed time is the time from noon,
at which the greater altitude is observed.
We have now an observed altitude and the time from
noon or hour angle corresponding; the remainder of the
solution is therefore the same as in the last case, except
that the log. ratio, being the sum of the logarithms of the
secants, may be used instead of the sum of the logarithms
of the cosines, with the negative sign. If the latitude so
found differs much from the latitude by account, the work
must be repeated, using the computed latitude for the
latitude by account.
I his rule is only approximate, and must be used under the
following restrictions :—1. The observations must be taken
between nine in the forenoon and three in the afternoon.
2. It both the observations be made in the forenoon, or both
in the afternoon, the interval must not be less than the dis¬
tance of the time of observation of the greatest altitude from
noon. 3. If one observation be in the forenoon and the
other in the afternoon, the interval must not exceed 4-|-h;
and in all instances the nearer to noon the greater altitude is
observed the better. 4. If the sun’s meridian zenith distance
be less than the latitude, the limitations are still more con-
Finding
the Lati¬
tude.
NAVIGATION.
tracted. If the latitude be double the meridian zenith dis¬
tance, the observations must be taken between half-past nine
in the morning and half-past two in the afternoon ; and the
interval must not exceed 3|-h. The observations must be
taken still nearer to noon if the latitude exceed the zenith
distance in a greater proportion.1
As the ship is generally in motion between the two obser¬
vations, it is necessary to apply to the first altitude a correc¬
tion for its run in the interval, so as to obtain what the altitude
would have been if observed at the same time as the second.
If 6 be the angle between the course of the ship and the
bearing of the sun, the correction for run is y = ^k:m cos 6,
where m is the number of minutes in the angle subtended by
the ship’s run,—i.e., number of miles run,—and 0 the angle
between the bearing of the sun and the course; and the
sign + or — is to be used according as the ship is moving
towards or from the heavenly body : in the former case 6
is less than 90°, and in the latter greater. It is evident,
from the form of the expression, that this correction may be
found in a traverse table by looking out the difference be¬
tween the course and bearing, or what it wants of 8 points
for a course, and the ship’s run as a distance ; the correspond¬
ing difference of latitude, multiplied by 60, will then be the
number of seconds in the correction for run, which is to be
added or subtracted according as the angle is less or greater
than 8 points or 90°. Thus, the bearing of the sun was
S.E., the run was S.S.E. 18 miles ; required the correction
for run. Here the angle between the bearing and the
course is 2 points, and the distance 18 miles ; on entering
a traverse table with these, we find the true difference of
latitude 16‘6. Hence the correction for run is + 16' 12 ".
Ux.—April 20, 1857, in Lat. 44° 20' N., Long. 35° 50' E., the
following double altitude of the sun was observed :—
Mean Time, nearly. Chronometer. Obs. Alt. Sun’s L.L. True Bearing.
10h 40“ a.m. 8k 30“ 20* 53° 5' 457 S.E. by S.
2 40 p.m. 0 29 40 41 0 30 S.W. by W.
The run of the ship in the interval was S.S.E. 25 miles, the index
correction was — 4' 40", and the height of the eye above the sea 15
feet; required the true latitude at the last observation.
The angle between the true bearing at first observation and ship’s
course is 1 point; the true difference of latitude, corresponding to
distance 25 and course 1 point in traverse table, is 24/-5. Hence
correction for run to be applied to the greater altitude is + 24' 30".
First observation— Second observation—
Ship, April 19, 2211 40“ 0* Ship, April 20, 2h 40“ 0*
Longitude  2 23 20 E. Longitude  2 23 20 E.
Greenw.,Ap. 19,20 16 40
Sun’s Declin.
April 19 11° 15' 16"-7 15' 56"-9
. 11 35 53-8
20.
•07319
•94105
1-01424
True decl.,
Greenw., Ap. 20,0
Semidiam. Sun’s Declin.
11° 35' 53"-8
11 56 19-6
16 40
Semidiam.
15' 56"-6
0 20 37-1
0 17 25
32 41-9
36 7-9
1- 93668
•94849
2- 88517
True decl.,
0 20 15-8
0 0 14-1
11 36 7 9
2)23 8 49-6
11
First obs. alt... 53°
Index - 0
34 24-8 mean declination.
5' 45"
4 40
Dip,
53
.-0
1 5
3 49
Semidiameter
Cor.in alt...
52
• + 0
57 16
15 56-9
Second obs. alt. 41°
Index — 0
40
   0
40
Semidiameter.. 0
0' 30"
4 40
Dip.
55 50
3 49
52 1
15 56-6
53
.-0
13 12-9
0 38
41
57-6
0
53
Cor. for run ... + 0
12 34-9
24 30
True alt... 53 37 4-9
Cor. in alt  0
True alt.... 41 6 57-6
Lat. by acct. N. 44° 20' 0"
Mean declin. S. 11 34 24
Log. secant  -145520
Log. secant  -008947
Log. ratio  -154467~
Greater alt., 53° 37' 4"-9
Less alt  41 6 57-6
Nat. sine, 80508
„ 65758
Diff.  14850
Chronometer.... 1211 29“ 40*
  8 30 20
Nat. number  3298
Nat. sine gr. alt.. 80508
83806 Nat. cos...
33c
11
Approx, lat. 44 36 9
Latitude 44° 36' 9"
Declination  11 34 24-8
Log. secant  -147522
Log. secant  -008947
Log. ratio  -156469
Difif. nat. sine... •14850 Log   4-171726
Log. ratio   -156469
Half-elapsed time .... ‘30213
lh 59“ 40*
0 49 18
1 10 22
Nat. number...
N. sinegr. alt...
3269
80508
83777
Nat. cosine... 33° 5'
11 32
True lat., 44 38 21 N.
Or, if a table of logarithmic sines, &c., only be used, we have—
1st true corrected alt.
4"-9
0
53° 37'
90 0
Zenith dist.    36 22 55-1
48 53 2-4
2d true alt... 41°
90
6' 57"-6
0 0
48 53 2-4
2)85 15 57-5
Semi-sum zenith dist.... 42 37 58-7 Log. sine Q’SSOSIS
2)12° 30' 7"-3
Semi-difference  6 15 36
Half-elapsed time   lh 59“ 40*
0 48 44
2)1 10 56
Half-hour angle... 0 35 28
Nat. number  3314
Nat. sine gr. alt... 80508
83822
Log. sine   9-036953
Log. ratio  •154467
19022233
Log. sine  9-697874
9-324359
2 log. sine  18-375806
Constant log.... 6-301030
24-676836
Log. ratio  -15647
4-520366
Nat. cosine.. 33° 2' 48" mer. zen. dist.
Decl  11 32 41
Approx, lat. 44 35 29
Similarly, by taking this approximate latitude, we shall get the
true latitude, 44° 38' nearly, as before.
1 See Mackay’s Treatises on Longitude and Navigation. &c.
Treatises on Navigation, &c.
Requisite Tables, 3d edition | Mendoza Rios’s Tables; Node’s and Riddle’s
43
Finding
the Lati¬
tude.
Dog 4-171726
Log. ratio, 0-154467
2)3 59 20 Elapsed time.
1 59 40 Half elapsed time  0-30213
0 49 4 Middle time  4-62832
1 10 36 Time from noon at which greater
altitude is observed.
Log. rising  3-67277
Log. ratio  -154467
3-518303
3' 48" N. mer. zen. dist.
32 41 decl. at greater
alt.
Middle time  4-63032
Time from noon at which greater
altitude is observed.
Log. rising ...... 3-67196
Log. ratio  *15647
3-51449
40" N. mer. zen. dist.
41 sun’s decl.
44
NAVIGATION.
Finding
the Lati¬
tude.
o. Hy any Two Altitudes of the same or different Heavenly
Bodies, and the Polar Angle between them.
In this case the declinations of the heavenly body or bodies
at the two observations are supposed to be known.
If the same body be observed at different times, the polar
angle is the elapsed time measured sidereally, if necessary.
If different bodies be observed at the same time, this angle
is the difference of their right ascensions.
If different bodies be observed, but not at the same time,
to the right ascension of the first observed body, add the
elapsed time measured sidereally, and the difference be¬
tween this sum and the right ascension of the second ob¬
served body is the polar angle required.
The polar angle being given, the following rule will give
the latitude :—-
(1.) If the sun be the body observed: from the decli¬
nation find the polar distance by subtracting it from 90°,
if of the same name with the latitude ; and adding it, if of an
opposite name.
Add together log. sine polar distance at the greater bear¬
ing, log. sine polar distance at lesser bearing, and log. haver-
sine of polar angle ; reject 10 from the index ; the result is
the haversine of an arc, which look out, and call arc (1).
(2.) If two stars be observed : find the polar distances ;
add together log. sine polar distance at greater bearing, log.
sine polar distance at lesser bearing, and log. haversine of the
polar angle ; the result is the haversine of an arc, which
find from the table, and add its versed sine to the versed
sine of the difference of the polar distances ; the result is the
versed sine of an arc, which is arc (1), as before.
Find the difference of the polar distances, and take the
difference and the sum of this quantity and of arc (1). Add
together log. cosecants of the arc (f) and of polar distance
at greater bearing, and the halves of the log. haversines of
the two arcs just obtained; the sum, rejecting 10 in the
index, is the log. haversine of an arc, which take from
tables, and call arc (2).
Again, take the difference of arc (1) and the zenith dis¬
tance at greater bearing, and take the sum and difference of
this arc and the zenith distance at less bearing. Add to¬
gether log. cosecants of arc (1) and of zenith distance at
greater bearing, and the halves of the log. haversines of the
arcs just found; and the result, rejecting 10 in the index,
is the log. haversine of an arc, which call arc (3).
Arc (4) is the difference between arc (2) and arc (3) ;
or the sum if the arc joining the heavenly bodies at the
two observations passes between the zenith and the pole.
Add together log. sine polar distance at greater bearing,
log. sine zenith distance at greater bearing, and log. haver¬
sine arc (4) ; the sum, rejecting 10 in the index, is the log.
haversine of an arc, which call arc (5).
Add together versed sine of the difference of the zenith
distance and polar distance at greater bearing, and the versed
sine of arc (o). The result is the versed sine of the co¬
latitude. Find this from the tables, subtract it from 90°;
and the result is the latitude.
This method of finding the latitude, which is at once the
most general and accurate, is due to the Rev. Dr Inman,
to whose excellent work on Navigation the reader is referred
for further information respecting it.
Ex. 1.— March 25, 1857, in Lat. 54° 47' N., and Long. 98° E.,
the following double altitude of the sun was observed:—
Mean time, nearly. Chronometer. Obs. Alt. L. L. Bearing.
911 30ra A.M. IQh 26m 26° O' 40v S.E.
1 45 p.m. 2 39 84 6 20 S.W. by S.
The run of the ship in the interval was S.S.E. 18 miles, the index
correction was +2' 10", and the height of the eye above the sea was
18 feet; required the latitude at the last observation.
Ship, March 24 2111 30m Ship, March 25  lh 45m
Longitude  6 32 E. Long  6 32 E.
Greenwich, Mar. 24, 14 58 Greenwich, Mar. 24, 19 13
Sun’s declination,
March 24  1° 30' 57"-2
„ 25   1 54 32 9
Diff.  0 23 35-7
•20509
•88236
1-08745 Part. 0 14 43
Sun’s declination,
March 24  1° 30' 57"-2
„ 25  1 54 32-9
Diff  0 23 35-7
■09653
•88236
•95889 Part. 0 18 54
Dec. less bear.
51-2
0
26 2 50
Dip  -0 4 11
25 58 39
Semidiameter... 0 16 4
34 8 30
-0 4 11
Dip 
^4 4 19
Semidiameter... 0 16 4
26 14 43
Cor. in alt. for refr.
and parallax —0 1 50
26 12 53
Cor. for run  +0 16 36
True altitude... 26 29 29
90 0 0
34 20 23
Cor. in altitude —0 1 18
True altitude.... 34 19 5
90 0 0
Zen. dis. less. bear. 55 40 55
Zen. dis. gr. bear. 63 30 31
To find arc (1).
P. dist. gr. bearing 88° 14' 19"'3 L sin 9*999794
P. dist. less. bear. 88 10 8 ’8 L sin 9 999778
Chronometer 1011 26m
14 39
4 PS Elapsed time or polar angle.
L haversine 9,439255
L haversine arc (1)...9'438827
Arc (1) 63° 12' 52"
To find arc (2).
Arc (1) 63° 12' 52" Log. cosec '049296
P. dist. gr. bear 88 14 19'3 Log. cosec '000206
Difference  25 1 26'7
P. dist. less, bear.,..88 10 8 8
Sum  113 11 35'5
Difference   63 8 42'1
£ log. haversine.... 4-921590
$ log. haversine 4‘718970
Log. haversine arc (2)... 9'690062
Arc (2) 88° 50' 12"
To find arc (3).
Arc (1) 63° 12' 52" Log. cosec •049296
Zen. dist. gr. bear. 63 30 31 Log. cosec ‘OISDO
Difference  0 17 39
Zen. dist. less. bear. 55 40 55
Sum   55 58 34
Difference   55 23 16
$ haversine 4‘671438
 4'667217
Log. haversine arc (3) 9,436127
Arc (3) 62° 59' 48"
To find arc (4).
Arc (2)  88° 50' 12"
Arc (3)  62 59 48
Arc (4)  25 50 24
To find arc (5).
P. dist. gr. bearing...88° 14' 19"-3 L sin 9'999794
Zen. dist. „ ...63 30 31 L sin 9 951824
Difference 24 43 48-3 Log. haversine 8'698906
Log. haversine arc (5) 8'650524
Arc (5) 24° 9' 12"
Nat. ver. sine 24° 9' 19" = 0089450
Nat. ver. sine 24 43 48‘3 = 0091710
Nat. vers, colatitude     = 0181160
Colatitude  35° 1' 16"
90 0 0
Latitude  54 58 44
Finding
the Lati-
tude.
T. dec. gr.bearing 1 45 40'7 N. Dec. less bear. 1 49
90 0 0 90 0 
P. dis.gr.bearing 88 14 19 3 P. dis. less. bear. 88 10 8 8
Sun’s semidiameter  16' 14"
Sun’s altitude at gr. bearing. Sun’s altitude at lesser bearing.
Obs. alt 26° 0' 40" Obs. altitude 34° 6' 20"
Index correction + 0 2 10 Index correction+0 2 10
NAVIGATIO N.
45
Finding
the Longi¬
tude.
Ex. 2.—Nov. 30, 1857, in Lat. by account 30° N., the following
altitudes of stars were taken at the same time; required the true
latitude.
True alt. /3 Orionis. Bearing. True alt. « Hydras. Bearing.
42° 45' 15". S.W. 39° 35' 15" S.S.E.
From Nautical Almanac we find—
/3 Orionis, It.A. S'* 7m 44* Declination, S  8° 21" oT"
90 0 0
N. P. D. at G. B  98 21 57
a Hydras, H. A. 9 20 36 Declinations  8 2 30
Polar angle ... 4 12 52 90 0 0
N. P. D. at L. B  98 2 30
P.D. at G. B....98 21 57 L sine  9-995353
„ L. B....98 2 30 L sine  9-995708
„ Diff..... 0 19 17 Haversine polar angle .... 9-438871
Haversine   9-429932
Arc 62° 29' 58".
Nat. ver. sine 62° 29' 58" = 0537993
248
Nat. ver. sine  0 19 17 =0000015
Nat. ver. sine arc (1)  0538256
Arc (1)  62° 30' 1".
To find arc (2).
Arc (1)  62° 30' 1" Dog. cosec  *052069
P. D.atG. B  98 21 57 .,   -004646
Diff  35 51 56
P. D. at L. B  98 2 30
Sum  133 54 26 J haversine.... 4-963876
Diff.  62 10 34 „ ... 4-712946
Ilaversine arc (2)  9733537
Arc (2) 94° 45' 8"
To find arc (3).
True alt. at G. B 42° 45' 15"
90 0 0
Z. D. at G. B  47 14 45
True alt. at L. B  39 35 15
90 0 0
Z. D. at L. B  50 24 45
Arc (1)  62° 30' 1"
Z. D. at G. B.... 47 14 45
Diff 15 15 16
Z. D. at L. B.... 50 24 45
Log. cosec  *052069
„   *134142
^ Haversine... 4-734159
„ ... 4-480037
Sum  65 40 1
Diff  35 9 29
Ilaversine arc (3)  9‘4U0407
Arc (3) 60° 11' 18".
To find arc (4).
Arc 2  94° 45' 8"
Arc 3  60 11 18
Arc (4)   34 33 50
To find arc (5).
P. D. at G.B. 98° 21' 57" L sine  9 995354
Z. D. at G.B. 47 14 45    9 865858
Diff  51 7 12 Haversine arc (4).. 8-945729
Log. haversine arc (5)  8-806941
Arc (5) 29° 20' 4".
Nat. ver. sine  51° 7' 12"=0372263
45
„   29 20 4 =0128226
Nat. ver. sine, colatitude    0500534
Colat  60° 2' 7"
90 0 0
Lat. N  29 57 53
together with the altitude of each. The planets used in Finding
the Nautical Almanac for this purpose are the followingthe Longi-
Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. The stars are, a Arietis, tude.
Aldebaran, Pollux, Regulus, Spica Virginia, Antares, v'—
a Aquilce, Fomalhaut, and a Pegasi; and the distances of
the moon’s centre from the sun, and from one or more of
these planets and stars, are contained in the xiii. to xviii.
pages of the month, at the beginning of every third hour
mean time by the meridian of Greenwich. The distance
between the moon and one of these objects is observed with
a sextant; and the altitudes of the objects are taken as
usual with a sextant or a Hadley’s quadrant.
In the practice of this method it will be found conve¬
nient to be provided with three assistants. Two of these
are to take the altitudes of the sun and moon, or moon and
star, at the same time that the principal observer is taking
the distance between the objects ; and the third assistant is
to observe the time, and write down the observations. In
order to obtain accuracy, it will be necessary to observe
several distances, and the corresponding altitudes, the in¬
tervals of time between them being as short as possible ;
and the sum of each divided by the number will give the
mean distance and mean altitudes ; from which the time of
observation at Greenwich is to be computed by the rules to
be explained.
If the sun or star from which the moon’s distance is ob¬
served, be at a proper distance from the meridian, the time
at the ship may be inferred from the altitude observed at
the same time with the distance. In this case the chrono¬
meter is not necessary ; but if that object be near the me¬
ridian, the chronometer is absolutely necessary, in order to
connect the observations for ascertaining the mean time at
the ship and at Greenwich with each other.
An observer without any assistants may very easily take
all the observations, by first taking the altitudes of the ob¬
jects, then the distance, and again their altitudes, and re¬
duce the altitudes to the time of observation of the dis¬
tance ; or, by a single observation of the distance, the time
being known from which the altitudes of the bodies may be
computed, the longitude may be determined.
A set of observations of the distance between the moon
and a star or planet, and their altitudes, may be taken with
accuracy during the time of the evening or morning twi¬
light ; and the observer, though not much acquainted with
the stars, will not find it difficult to distinguish the star
from which the moon’s distance is to be observed. For
the time of observation nearly, and the ship’s longitude by
account being known, the estimated time at Greenwich may
be found ; and by entering the Nautical Almanac w'wh. the
reduced time, the distance between the moon and given
star will be found nearly. Now set the index of the sex¬
tant to this distance, and hold the plane of the instrument
so as to be nearly at right angles to the line joining the
moon’s cusps, direct the sight to the moon, and, by giving
the sextant a slow vibratory motion, the axis of which being
that of vision, the star, which is usually one of the bright¬
est in that part of the heavens, will be seen in the transpa¬
rent part of the horizon-glass.
SECT. II.—TO FIND MEAN TIME BY A SINGLE OBSERVATION
OF THE SUN OR MOON, OR OTHER HEAVENLY BODY.
Chap. IV.—ON FINDING THE LONGITUDE BY
OBSERVATION.
SECT. I.—INTRODUCTION.
The observations necessary to determine the longitude
by this method are the altitudes of the sun or other heavenly
body, or the distance between the sun and moon, the moon
and a planet, or the moon and a fixed star near the ecliptic,
Prob. 1.—Given the latitude of a place, the altitude, and
declination of the sun, to find the true time and the error of
the chronometer.
Rule.—If the latitude and declination are of different
signs, take their sum; otherwise take their difference.
From the natural cosine of this sum or difference, take the
natural sine of the altitude (corrected) ; find the logarithm
of the remainder, and to it add the log. secants of the lati-
46
NAVIGATION.
Finding tude and declination ; the sum will be the log. rising of the
"tude^* horary ^'stance the sun from the meridian, and hence
j the apparent time will be known; by applying to it the
” equation of time, the mean time may be found, and the
error of the chronometer.
Or, if a table of log. haversines be used, take the differ¬
ence or sum of the latitude and declination as before. Un¬
der this difference place the zenith distance of the sun,
and take their sum and difference.
Take the sum of half of the log. haversines of these
quantities and of the log. secants of the latitude and de¬
clination ; the result, rejecting the tens, is the log. haver-
sine of the hour angle.
Or, if a table of sines only be used, add together one-
half of the log. sines of half the arcs above found, of the
log. secants of latitude and declination ; the result is the
log. sine of one-half the hour angle.
Ex.—March 25, 1857, at 3h 30m P.M. nearly, in Lat. 53° N., and
Long. 35° 20' W., when a chronometer showed 511 46m 20s, the ob¬
served altitude of the sun’s lower limb was 23° 12' 10", and the index
correction was —4' 20", and the height of the eye above the sea 20
feet; required the true time, and error of chronometer.
Ship, March 25 3h 30m 0*
Longitude 2 21 20
Greenwich, March 25  5 51 20
Sun’s declination,
March 25  1° 54' 32",9 N. Sun’s semidiam... 16' 3"*7
„ 26  2 18 6 Equation of time +6m 3S'20
Diff.  0 23 331 DifF. for lh  0-767
5
•61334
•88328
1-49662 0 5 44
Sun’s dec.... 2 0 16-9
3- 835
Diff. for 30m is \ -383
„ 20 is £ '256
,, 1 is if-j  "013
„ 20s is y  -004
4- 4§i
Equation, 5m 58s,703
Sun’s obs. altitude  23° 12' 10"
Index correction  — 0 4 20
“23 7 50
  - 0 4 24
Dip
Semidiameter.
23 3 26
+ 0 16 3-7
23 19 29-7
- 0 2 13
Correction in altitude 
True altitude   23 17 16-7
90 0 0
Zenith distance  66 42 43-3
Lat. N  53° 0' 0" Log. sec  -220537
Declin. N. ....... 2 0 16-9 „   -000266
Diff  50 59 43-1
Nat. cosine   0629380
Nat. sin. 23° 17' 16", 0395349
0234031 Log  4-369272
Log. rising, 4-590075
Hour angle  3h 29m 24"
Equation of time  +0 5 59
Ship’s mean time  3 35 2jf
Longitude  2 21 20
Greenwich mean time.....  5 55 43
Chronometer showed  5 46 20
0 10 23
Or error of chronometer is 10m 23s slow on Greenwich.
Or—
Lat  53° 0' 0"N. Log. sec -220537
Declination.... 2 0 16-9 N. Log. sec -000266
50 59 43-1
Zenith dist  66 42 43-2
ihaversine.... 4-932397
„ 4-135845
Sum  117 42 26-3
Diff.  15 43 0-1
Log. haversine hour angle Ih289045
Hour angle 311 29m 24s, as before.
By taking another observation at the interval of a few
days, the daily rate of the chronometer may be found.
Prob. 2.—Given the latitude of a place, and the altitude Finding
of a known fixed star, to find the mean time of observation the Longi-
and error of chronometer. tude-
The right ascension of the mean sun or sidereal time
must be corrected for the Greenwich date of observation.
The star’s hour angle must then be found as in the last
problem. To the hour angle thus found add the star’s
right ascension, and from the sum (increased, if necessary,
by twenty-four hours) subtract the right ascension of the
mean sun; the remainder is the mean time at the place at
the instant of observation.
Ex.—January 16, 1857, at 8h p.m. (mean time, nearly), in Lat.
49° 57' N., and Long. 32° 10' W., when a chronometer showed
1011 23“ 30s, the observed altitude of Regulus E. of meridian was
8° 20' 30", the index correction was — 5' 20", and the height of the
eye above the sea, 20 feet; required the mean time, and error of
chronometer on Greenwich mean time.
Ship, Jan. 16  811 0“ 0s
Longitude  2 8 40 W.
Greenwich, Jan 16  10 8 40
^ Observed altitude  8° 20' 30"
' Index correction — 0 5 20
8 15 10
 -0 4 24
8 10 46
Refraction — 0 6 27
Dip.
True altitude    8
90
4 19
0 0
True zenith distance  81 55 41
Star’s right ascension I0i> 0“ 46*
Star's declination 12° 39' 50"
Right ascension of mean sun 19k 43m £8*
Correction for 10h  0 1 38-6
„ 8“  0 0 1-3
„ 40s  0 0 0-1
True right ascension of mean sun, 19 45 8
Latitude  49° 37' 0"N. Log. sec  -188493
Declination.... 12 39 50 N. Log. sec  -010696
Diff.  36 57 10
Zenith dist  81 55 41
Sum Tib 52 51
Half  59 26 25-5 Log. sin  9 935054
Difference  44 58 31
Half.  22 29 15 Log. sin  9-582611
2)19-716854
Log. sin... 9-858427
Hence half hour angle  3h 4“ 49*
6 9 38
24 0 0
Star’s hour angle  17 50 22
„ right ascension    10 0 46
27 51 8
Sun’s right ascension  19 45 8
Ship’s mean time ”8 6 CT
Longitude  2 8 40 W.
Greenwich mean time 10 14 40
Chronometer 10 23 30
Error (fast on Greenwich)  0 8 50
SECT. III.—TO FIND THE LONGITUDE BY MEANS OF A CHRO¬
NOMETER.
In order to find the jongitude at sea by means of a chro¬
nometer, its daily rate in mean solar or sidereal time must
be established by observations made at some particular
place, and its error ascertained for the meridian of that or
of any other known place.
An observatory is the most proper and convenient place
for this purpose, as there the rate and error may be both
determined with the utmost accuracy by equal altitudes, or
transits over the meridian of the sun or stars. But if an
observatory is not adjacent, the rate and error of the chro¬
nometer may be found by altitudes taken daily for several
NAVIGATION.
47
Finding days from the horizon of the sea, or by the method of re-
the Long!-flection from an artificial horizon.
tiide. If fly these observations the daily rate is found to be
nearly the same,—that is, if the chronometer gains or loses
nearly the same portion of absolute time daily,—it may be
depended on for finding the longitude; but if its rate is
unequal, it must be rejected, as the longitude inferred from
it cannot be expected to be accurate.
It would be proper to have two chronometers, and that
they should be wound up at different stated times of the day,
so that if one should be found stopt, either through neglect
in winding up or otherwise, it may be set by the other,
observing to apply the former interval of time between them,
and the change in their rates of going in that interval.
Prob.—To find the longitude of a ship at sea by a chro¬
nometer.
Let several altitudes of the sun or a fixed star or planet be
observed, and find the true mean altitude ; with which, and
the ship’s latitude, and declination of observed body, com¬
pute the mean time of observation as in sect. ii.
To the mean of the times of observation, as shown by
the chronometer, apply the error and accumulated rate.
Hence the mean time under the meridian of the place
where the error and rate were established will be known ;
to which apply the difference of longitude in time between
that place and Greenwich, and the mean time of observa¬
tion under the meridian of Greenwich will be obtained.
The difference between the time at the place of observa¬
tion and that at Greenwich will be the longitude of the ship
in time ; and it is east or west according as the time is later
or earlier than the Greenwich time.
Ex. 1.—May 30, 1857, at 3h p.m. (mean time nearly), in Lat. 30°
20' S., and Long, by account 155° 10' E., when a chronometer
showed 4h 40m 50s, the observed altitude of the sun’s L.L. was
22° 10', the index correction was —7' 10", and the height of the eye
above the sea was 20 feet; required the longitude.
On May 20 the chronometer was fast on Greenwich mean time
4“ 50s, and its daily rate was 2S,5 losing.
Ship, May 30  3h 0m 0s
Longitude   10 20 40 E.
Greenwich, May 29 .’  16 39 30
Chronometer daily rate  2s-5 losing
9
22-5
12k ;s £  i-2
411 is £  -4
30m is j-  -05
9m 36s is £ nearly... ‘0166
Accumulated rate 24-1666
Chronometer showed  4h 40™ 50s
4 41
Original error (fast)   0 4
14166
50
4
12
36
0
24-17
0
Greenwich mean time    16 36 24-17
Sun’s declination, Equation of time, subtractive—
May 29, N.... 21° 39' 43"-9 3™ ls-73
30  21 48 46-1 2 54-19
0 7-54
0
2-2
0-15967
1-25383
1-41350
0 6 57
0-15967
3-15836
3-31803
0 5-2
Sun’s decl. at obs. 21 46 40-9 Equation of time, 2 56-53
Sun’s semidiameter, 15' 48"-5.
Observed altitude 22° 10' 0"
Index correction  0 7 10 —
22
0
2 50
4 24
Dip 
21- 58 26“
Semidiameter..  0 15 48-5
22 14 14-5
Correction in altitude  0 2 14-
22 12 0-5
Latitude... 30° 20' 0" S.
Declin 21 45 18-2 N.
Log. secant  -063938
  -029140
52
Nat. cosine 52
Nat. sine... 22
5 18-2
5 18-2 = 61434-7
12 0-5 = 37784-1
Finding
the Longi¬
tude.
23650-6 Log  4-373831
Log. rising ."4-466909
Hour angle 3h 0™ 3*
Equation of time 0
2 56
Ship’s mean time 24
57
0
26 57
Chronometer   16 36
7
0
7
24-17
Longitude 155‘
10 20 42-83
10' 42"-45 E.
Ex. 2.—August 20, 1857, at 0h 30™ a.m. (mean time nearly), in
Lat. 50° 20' N., and Long. 142° 15' E., when a chronometer showed
2h 41™ 13s, the observed altitude of a Aquilae, west of meridian,
was 36° 59' 50", the index correction was + 6' 20", and height of the
eye above the sea 20 feet; required the longitude.
On August 4, at noon, the chronometer was slow on Greenwich
mean time 17™ 50s, and its daily rate was 4s-5 losing.
Ship, August 19  12h 30™ 0s
Longitude   9 29 0 E.
Greenwich August 19 3 10
Interval 15d 3k Daily rate  4-5
15
~225
45
67-5 '
  -5
3h is i  
Accumulated rate  1 8
Chronometer showed 2 41 13
2 42 21
Original error 0 17 50
Greenwich mean time 3 011
Observed altitude   36° 59' 50
Index  0 6 20 +
37
0
10
24-
Dip  0 4 24.
37 1 46
Refraction  0 1 17 —
True altitude    37 0 29
90 0 0
True zenith distance  52 59 31
Right ascension of mean sun (sidereal time)—
Aug. 19  9k 51™ 7s-80
Part for 3h  0 0 29-57
11s  0 0 0 03
9 51 37-4
Star’s right ascension  19h 43™ 51s-33
Star’s declination  8° 29' 43"N.
Latitude 50° 20' 0" N.
Declination... 8 29 43 N.
41 50 17
Zenith dist... 52 59 31
Sum  94 49 48
Half  47 24 54
Difference.... 11 9 14
Half  5 34 37
Log. secant...
Log. secant...
•194962
•004791
Log. sine  9-867039
Log. sine  8-987594
2)19-054386
Log. sine half-hour angle..,
Half-hour angle 
9-527193
lkl8™41s-6
2
Hour angle 
Star’s right ascension
2
19
37
43
23-2
51-33
Right ascension of mean
Ship, mean time 
Greenwich   
22
9
21
51
14-53
37-4
12
3
29
0
37-13
11
9 29 26-13
Longitude   142° 21' 31" E.
48
NAVIGATION.
Finding SECT. IV.—TO FIND THE LONGITUDE BY MEANS OF A LUNAR
the Longi- DISTANCE.
v tude' , Prob. 1.—Given the apparent distance between the
moon and sun, or a fixed star or planet, and the apparent
and true altitudes of these bodies, to find the true distance,
or, as it is called, to clear the distance.
Rule 1. (Borda’s method).—Add together the logarithmic
cosines of the true altitudes, the logarithmic secants of the
apparent altitudes, the logarithmic cosines of one-halt the
sum of the apparent altitudes and apparent distance, and ot
this last arc, less the apparent distance. From one-half of
this sum subtract the logarithmic cosine ofone-halfof the true
altitudes ; the result, rejecting 10 in the index, is the logar¬
ithmic sine of an arc. Find the logarithmic cosine of this arc,
and add to it the logarithmic cosines of one-hall of the true
altitudes ; the result, rejecting 10 in the index, is the logar¬
ithmic sine of one-half of the true distance required. Or,—
Rule 2.—Find the auxiliary angle A (which is given in
the nautical tables of Inman, Norie, Riddle, and others).
Take the versed sine of the difference of the true alti¬
tudes. To it add the versed sines of the sum and differ¬
ence of the auxiliary angle A and the apparent distance ;
under the difference of the apparent altitudes place the
auxiliary angle A, and take their sum and difference ; add
together the versed sines of these two arcs, and subtract
from the former quantity ; the result is the versed sine of
the true distance.
Ex.—Required the true distance of the moon from the sun, hav¬
ing given—
App. alt. sun ... 34° 2V 32" True alt. sun ... 34° 20' 14"
App. alt. moon.. 57 11 25 True alt. moon.. 57 40 11
App. distance of centres 35° 47' 24"
By Rule 1 —
True ait. moon ... 57° 40' 11"
True alt. sun  34 20 14
App. alt. moon ... 57 11 25
,, sun.  34 21 32
91 32 57
App. distance ... 35 47 24
2)127 20 21
63 40
35 47
10
24
L cos  9-728227
L cos  9-916839
L sec  -266131
L sec  -083267
L cos    9-646941
27 52 46 L cos  9-946353
2)39-587758
Sum of true alt.... 92° 0' 25"
Half  46 0 12
19-793879
L cos  9-841746
Diff.   23 19 57
A   60 25 16
App. distance  35 47 24
Sum   96 12 40
Diff  24 37 52
App. alt. sun  34 21 32
„ moon... 57 11 25
Diff  22 49 53
A   60 25 16
Vers  0081777
Vers  1108192
Vers  0090990
1280969
Sum  83 15 9
Diff.   37 35 23
True dist. 35° £9' 18".
Vers. 0882506 1
Vers. 0207601 j
1090107
Prob. 2.—To find the longitude by a lunar observation. Finding
Get a Greenwich date, and to this date take out the moon’s the Longi-
horizontal parallax and semidiameter. Increase the tu<le.
semidiameter for the augumentation corresponding to the 's—
moon’s altitude.
Find the apparent and true altitudes of the centre of the
moon and of the sun or star which is observed, and the
apparent central distance. From these elements compute
the true distance as in the last problem, and find the mean
time at Greenwich corresponding to it, as shown in chap, ii.,
sect, iv., p. 38.
If the sun or star be not too near the meridian at the
time of observation, compute the mean time at the ship
from its altitude; if it be too near, compute the mean time
from the moon’s altitude. The difference between the
mean times of observation at the ship and Greenwich will
be the longitude of the ship in time, which is E. or W.
according as the time at the ship is later or earlier than the
Greenwich mean time.
Ex. 1.—January 3, 1857, at 2h 30m p.m., in Lat. 49° 20' N.,
and Long. 15° 40' E., the following lunar was taken :—■
Obs. alt. Obs. alt. .. , .T t
Sun’s L. L. Moon’s L. L. 0bs- dlst- N- L-
24° 40' 10" 21° 36'40" 90° 28' 10"
Index error...+ 0 1 20 —0 1 10 0 1 20
Height of eye above the sea, 18 feet; required the longitude.
Ship, Jan. 3  211 30m O’
Longitude  1 2 40 E.
Greenwich, Jan. 3... 1 27 20
Sun’s declination.
Jan. 3, S. 22° 48' 38"-6
„ 4, S. 22 42 24-6
1-21885
1-46055
2767940
0 6 14
0 0 22-6
22 48 16
1- 21885
2- 59726
3- 81611
Sun’s
Semidiameter.
16' 18"-2
Equation of
time.
+ 4“54»-03
5 21-38
0 27-35
1-7
4 55-73
Moon’s semi., 3, noon 16' 9"-2
„ mid. 16 10-7
0 1-5
L sin   9-952133
Arc  63° 35' 10"
L cos 63° 35' 10"  9-648216
L cos 46 0 12     9-841746
L sin half true dist  9’489962
Half true distance... 17° 59' 37"
 2
True distance... 35 59 14
Rule 2.—Auxiliary angle A (taken from the tables) beino-
60° 25' 16".
Moon’s true alt... 57° 40' 11"
Sun's true alt. ... 34 20 14
•91782
3- 85733
4- 77515
Sun’s Alt.
Obs. alt. 24° 40' 10"
Ind. cor.+ 0 1 20
24 41 30
0 4 11-
24 37 19
Semi  0 16 18
Moon hor. par
•91782
3-30915
59'
59
8"-9
14-2
0 0-1
4-22697
16
Aug. 0
9-3
6
0 5-3
0 0-7
59 9-6
16 15-3
Moon’s Alt.
21° 36' 40"
- 0 1 10
Dip.
21 35 30
- 0 4 11
24 53 37
Cor. in alt. 0 1 57-
True alt. 24 51 40
90 0 0
21 31 19
0 16 15
21 47 34
+ 0 52 23
 8
Tr. alt. 22 40 5
Lunar Dis.
90° 28'10"
+ 0 1 20
90 29 30
Sun’s semi... 0 16 18
Moon’s semi.. 0 16 15
App. dis... 91 2 3
65 8 20 true zenith distance.
Aux. angle A 60° 11' 46"
0 0 2
0 0 0
60 11 is
To find ship’s mean time.
Sun’s decl  22° 48'16" S. Sec  0 035348
Latitude   49 20 0 N. Sec  0-185981
72
65
8 16
8 20
Sun’s zen. dist.
Sum  137~ 16 36
Half   68 38 18
Diff.   6 59 56
Half   3 29 58
Nat. vers. ... 0190862
Sin  9-969039
Sin  8-785604
2jl8-976022
9-488011
N A VIG
Finding
the Longi¬
tude.
Half-hour angle lh ll“39“-6
2
A T I 0 N.
Auxiliary angle A.
Hour angle 2
Equation of time  0^
Ship mean time 2
23
4
19
53-7 +
28 12-7
To find Greenwich mean time.
Sun’s true alt 24° 51' 40"
Moon’s true alt 22 40 5
Diff. 
  2 11 35
Apparent dist 91 2 3
Auxiliary angle 60 11 48
Sum 
.151 13 51
Difference 30 50 15
Sun’s appar. alt 24 53 37
Moon’s do 21 47 34
Difference 3 6 3
Auxiliary angle 60 11 48
Sum 63 17 51
Difference 57 5 45
Vers 0000726
6
Vers 1876447
120
Vers ..0141338
 37
2018674
Vers. ..0550421
220
Vers. ..0456581
183
1007405
1011269
054
215
•59000
•26508
•32492
(1.) True distance 90° 38' 44"
(2.) Distance at noon 89 52 28
(3.) Distance at 3 P.M 91 30 14
Diff. (1.) and (2.), 0° 46’ 16" Prop, log 
„ (2.) and (3.), 1 37 46 „  
Interval  I*1 25m 11s
.•. Greenwich mean time  1 25 11
Ship mean time   2 28 13
Longitude  13 2
Or  15° 45' 30" E.
Ex. 2.—February 28, 1857, at 7h 40' P.M., in Lat. 55°, and
Long. 57° 20' W., the following star lunar was taken :—
60'
Index error — 0
Obs. Alt. Pollux
E. of Her.
10' 0"
2 10
Obs. Alt. Moon
Lower Limb.
46° 10' 0"
+ 0 1 20
Obs. Dist. Further
Limb.
70° 40' 20"
-0 3 10
The height of the eye above the sea was 20 feet; required the
longitude.
Ship, Feb. 28  7h 40“ 0»
Longitude   3 49 20 W.
Greenwich, Feb. 28 11 29 20
Eight ascension of mean sun,
Feb. 28  22h 33“0* 09
Part for llh ... 0 148-42
„ 29m... 0 0 476
„ 20s ... 0 0 -05
22 34 53-32
Moon’s semi. 28, noon... 16' 23"-2
„ mid... 16 20-0
Star’s R. A.... 7h36m35s
Declination....28 22 10 N.
•01911
3-52827
354738
0 3-2
Part 0 3-l
Hor.par. noon... 59'59"‘8
„ mid... 59 48’3
(Tll-5
•01911
2-97273
2-99184
16 201
Aug. 0 12-5
16 32-6
Part 0 11-0
59 48-8
Star’s Altitude.
Obs. alt. 60° 10' 0"
Inx. cor. —0 2 10
60
...-0
Dip
App. alt. 60 3 26
Kefr. ... — 0 0 34
Moon’s Altitude.
Obs. alt. 46° 10' 0"
+ 0 1 20
46 11 20
-0 4 24
Apparent Distance.
Obs  70° 40'20"
-0 3 10
70 37 10
Semi — 0 16 32-6
Semi.
46 6 56 App. dis.JO 20 37 4
0 16 32-6
True alt. 60 2 52 App. alt. 46 23 28-6
90 0 0 Cor. alt. 0 39 48
33
T. Z. dis.29 57
VOL. XVI.
8
60° 23' 38"
21
 0^
60 23 59
To find ship’s mean time.
Star’s dec  28° 22'10N. Sec  0-055565
Latitude   55 0 ON. Sec   0-241409
Diff   26 37 50
Star’s zen. dis. 29 57 8
Sum   56 34 58
Diff.   3 19 18
Hour angle (E. M.)
Half havers... 4-675736
Half havers... 3'462142
Hav. hour angle 8-434852
  22h 44m Is
Star’s R. A  7 36 35
30 20 36
R. A. mean sun  22 34 53
Ship mean time  7 45 43
To find Greenwich mean time.
Star’s true altitude   60° 2' 52"
Moon’s „   47 3 49-6
Diff  12 59 2-4
App. distance   70 20 37
A  60 23 59
Sum 130 44 36
Diff  9 56 38
Star’s app. altitude  60 3 26
Moon’s „    46 23 28-6
13 39 57-4
A  60 23 59
Sum  74 3 56-4
Diff.  46 44 1-6
Vers  0025564
-2
Vers  1652539
133
Vers  0014991
30
1693259
Vers. 0725202
261
Vers. 0314605
7
49
Variation
of the
Compass.
1040075
Vers, true distance  0653184
True distance   69° 42' 13"
Distance at 9h  71 16 1
„ midnight  69 27 42
First diff  1° 33' 48" Prop, log  *28307
Second  1 48 19 Prop, log  -22058
•06149
Time from 9h   2h 36“ 14>
9 0 0
Greenwich mean time  11 36 14
Ship mean time    7 45 43
3 50 31
Longitude...57° 37' 45" W.
Chap. V.—OP THE VARIATION OF THE COMPASS.
The variation of the compass is the deviation of the points
of the mariner’s compass from the corresponding points of
the horizon, and is denominated east or west variation, ac¬
cording as the north point of the compass is to the east or
west of the true north point of the horizon.
(A particular account of the variation, and of the several
instruments used for determining it from observation, may
be seen under the article Magnetism, where the method
of communicating magnetism to compass-needles is also
fully described.
Besides the variation, there is also the deviation of the
compass arising from the local attraction of the iron on
board ship, of which we have already given an account in
the former part of this article. This deviation is always
taken into account in ships of the Royal Navy, but not
G
True alt. 47 3 49 6
50
NAVIGATION.
of the
Compass
anation alWays in ships belonging to the mercantile navy. In the
latter case the variation is the whole difference between
the observed bearing of the sun and the compass bearing;
in the former, allowance must be made for deviation. We
shall take deviation into account, as it is easy to omit it
when it is not required.
To correct the variation for deviation, it will be sufficient
to place under the variation, when determined by observa¬
tion with its proper name, the deviation with a name oppo¬
site to its true name. Add these when the names are alike,
and subtract the less from the greater if the names are dif¬
ferent; and the remainder, with the name of the greater, is
the true variation.
Prob. 1.—Given the latitude of a place, and the sun’s
declination, and the sun’s magnetic amplitude, to find the de¬
viation. [ Obs.—The amplitude is the distance from the east
point at which it rises, or from the west point at which it
sets.]
Rule.—To the log. secant of latitude add log. sine of sun’s
declination; the sum, rejecting 10 from the index, will be
the log. sine amplitude, which is east if the body is rising,
and west if it be setting. The variation is the difference
between the true and magnetic amplitudes if these be of the
same name, and their sum if of different names. Also the
variation is east if the true bearing is to the right of the
compass bearing, west if the true bearing is to the left of
the compass.
Ex.—May 18, 1857, about 5h 25m A.M., in Lat. 51° 5' N.,
Long, 143° W., the sun rose by compass E. 6° 40' S., the ship’s
head being E.; required the variation.
Ship, Atay 17   1711 25m 0s
Longitude  9 32 0 W.
26
24
57
0
Greenwich, May 18    2 57
Sun’s declin., 18... 19° 36' 18"-0 N.
„ 19... 19 49 36-1
0-91039 0 12 58-1
1-14244 0 0 0
2-05283
0 1 36
19
Latitude  51
37 44
5 ON.
Sin  9-526303
Sec  0-201909
Sin amplitude. 9-728212
True bearing E. 32° 20' 0" N.
Compass E. 6 40 0 S.
39 0
Deviation    g 50
0 W.
0 W.
ing haversines is used, to the log. secants as before add the The Tides,
log. sines of half the arcs obtained as before ; one-half of the i /
result is the log. sine of half the true bearing. Double the
arc taken out of the table is the true bearing.
Mark the true bearing N. or S., according as the latitude
is N. or S., and E. or W., according as the observed body is
E. or W. of the meridian. The variation then can be
found as before.
Ex.—On Afay 5, 1857, about 8h 10m 0s a.m., mean time, in Lat.
51° 10' N., Long. 140° W., the sun bore by compass S. 65° 25'
E., and the observed altitude of the sun’s lower limb at the same
time was 28° 30' 10", the index correction was +1' 20", and the
height of the eye above the sea 15 feet, the ship’s head being N.W.;
required the variation of the compass.
Ship, Atay 4  20h 10m 0s
Longitude     9 20 0
Greenwich, May 5  5 30
Sun’s semidiameter   0° 15' 53"
0
Sun’s declination, May 5..  16° 19' 13"-2 N.
„ „ 6    16 36 8
0-63985
1-02696
1-66681
0 16 55
0 3 53
16 23
90 0
N.P.D 73 36 54
Sun’s altitude—■
Obs. altitude  28° 30' 10"
Index correction   + 0 1 20
28 31 30
0 3 49
Dip 
28 27 41
Semidiameter    0 15 53
28 43 34
 - 0 1 38
Correction in altitude.
True altitude  28 41 56
Latitude 51° 10' 0"
Altitude 28 41 56
Sec.
Sec.
•202693
•056923
Diff 22 28 4
Polar dist 73 36 54
Sum .
Diff.
96
51
4 58
8 50
Half havers... 4-871355
Half havers... 4-635130
9-766101
True bearing N. 99° 37' 22 E.
Magnetic bearing N. 114 35 0 E.
14 57 38 E.
Deviation  4 50 0 E.
Variation   19 47 38 E.
Variation    ,.47 50 0 W.
It may be remarked, that the sun’s amplitude ought to be
observed at the instant the altitude of its lower limb is equal
to the sum of fifteen minutes and the dip of the horizon.
Thus, if an observer be elevated 18 feet above the level of
the sea, the amplitude should be taken at the instant the
altitude of the sun’s lower limb is 19’ 11".
Prob. 2.—Given the magnetic azimuth, the altitude
and declination of the sun, together with the latitude of the
place of observation, to find the variation of the compass.
Rule.—-Find the polar distance by adding 90° to the de¬
clination if the altitude and declination have unlike names,
and subtracting the declination from 90° if they have the
same name.
Take the difference of the latitude and altitude, and ob¬
tain the sum and difference of this quantity and the polar
distance.
To the log. secants of the altitude and declination add the
halves of the log. haversines of the last two arcs; the result,
rejecting 10 in the index, is the haversine of the true bear¬
ing, which take from the table. Or if a table not contain-
Chaf. VI.—OF THE TIDES.
The theory of the tides has already been explained under
the article Astronomy, and will again be further illustrated
under that of Tides. In this place, therefore, it remains
only to explain the method of calculating the time of high
water at a given place.
As the tides depend upon the joint actions of the sun and
moon, and therefore upon the distance of these objects from
the earth and from each other; and as, in the method gene¬
rally employed to find the time of high-water, whether by
the mean time of new moon, or by the epacts, or tables de¬
duced therefrom, the moon is supposed to be the sole agent,
and to have a uniform motion in the periphery of a circle
whose centre is that of the earth ; it is hence obvious that
this method cannot be accurate, and by observation the
error is sometimes found to exceed two hours. This me¬
thod is therefore rejected, and another given, in which the
error will seldom exceed a few minutes, unless the tides
are greatly influenced by the winds.
The Tides.
Moon’s
Transit.
h. m.
0 0
10
20
30
40
50
0
10
20
30
40
50
2 0
10
20
30
40
50
3 0
10
20
30
40
50
4 0
10
20
30
40
50
NAVIGATION.
Table I.—For Determining the Time of High Water.
Moon’s Horizontal Parallax.
60'
59'
60
60
60
59
58
57
- 56
58'
45
47
49
52
54
55
57
58
60
61
62
62
- 58
16
19
22
25
28
31
47
49
51
54
56
57
57'
56'
49
51
53
56
58
60
60
62
63
65
66
67
67
68
68
68
67
65
65
- 62
65
66
68
69
70
70
71
72
71
70
68
68
- 65
55'
69
70
72
73
74
75
- 69
kaj Moon’s Moon’s
Transit. Transit.
72
73
75
76
78
79
79
80
80
78
76
74
- 72
h. m.
12 0
10
20
30
40
50
13 0
10
20
30
40
50
14 0
10
20
30
40
50
15 0
10
20
30
40
50
16 0
10
20
30
40
50
17 0
10
20
30
40
50
18 0
h. m.
6 0
10
20
30
40
50
7 0
10
20
30
40
50
9 0
10
.20
30
40
50
10 0
10
20
30
40
50
11 0
10
20
30
40
50
12 0
- 56
52
49
46
43
38
1
+ 2
5
8
11
13
- 1
59'
58'
+ 1
4
7
10
13
16
- 1
+ 2
5
9
12
16
18
+ 0
57'
+ 3
7
11
15
18
20
21
23
25
24
24
23
+ o
56'
55'
+ 5
9
14
18
21
23
24
26
28
27
27
27
+ 2
+ 7
12
16
21
25
27
30
29
27
26
25
22
+ 4
54'
- 72
68
63
58
53
45
37
30
22
14
6
+ 1
+ 9
14
19
24
28
30
32
34
36
35
35
34
34
32
31
30
28
25
23
20
17
14
11
8
+ 6
Moon’s
Transit
h. m
18 0
10
20
30
40
50
19 0
10
20
30
40
50
20 0
10
. 20
30
40
50
21 0
10
20
30
40
50
22 0
10
20
30
40
50
23 0
10
20
30
40
50
24 0
Table II.—For finding the Height of the Tide.
Time of Transit.
(PART I.)
Moon’s Hor. Par. 60'. Moon’s Hor. Par. 57'
Multipliers.
Multipliers.
Moon’s Hor. Par. 54'.
Multipliers.
(PART II.)
Time
fromH. W.
Time
fromH. W.
h. m.
0 0
40
20
0
40
20
0
40
5 20
6 0
6 40
7 20
8 0
8 40
9 20
10 0
10 40
11 20
12 0
h. m.
12 0
12 40
13 20
14 0
14 40
15 20
16 0
16 40
17 20
18 0
0'995a+0-1495
l-104a + 0-0385
l-138a +0-0005
l-104a+0-0385
0-995a +0-1495
0-853a +0-3195
0-668a +0-5275
0-460a +0'7495
0-284a +0-9585
0-133a +1-1275
0-883a +0-1175
0-970a +0-0305
l-000a +0-0005
0-970a +0-0305
0-883a + 0-ll75
0-750a 4-0-2505
0-587a + 0-4135
0-413ct +0-5875
0-250a, +0-7505
0-117a +0-8835
0-795a + 0-0825
0-874a +0-0215
0-901a +0-0005
0-874ct +0-0215
0-795a +0-0825
0-676a + 0-1765
0-529a +0-2905
0-372a +0-4125
0-225a4-0-5275
0-105a +0-6215
18 40
19 20
20 0
20 40
21 20
22 0
22 40
23 20
24 0
0-034a +1-2385
0-000a+1-2775
0-034a +1-2385
0-133a+1-1275
0-284a +0-9585
0-460a +0-7495
0-668a + 0-5275
0-853a + 0-3195
0-995a + 0-1495
0-030a +0-9705
0-000a +1-0005
0-030a +0-9705
0-117a + 0-8835
0-250a +0-7505
0-413a +0-5875
0-587a+0-4135
0-750a +0-2505
0-883a +0-1175
0-027a+ 0-6826
0-000a +0-7036
0-027a +0-6826
0-105a + 0-6216
0-225a +0-5276
0-372a +0-4126
0-529a +0-2906
0-676a + 0-1765
0-795a + 0-0826
h. m.
0 0
0 10
0 20
0 30
0 40
0 50
1 0
1 10
1 20
1 30
40
50
0
10
20
30
40
50
0
1-000
0-998
0-993
0-985
0-974
0 959
0-941
0-921
0-897
0-871
0-843
0-812
0-779
0-774
0-708
0-670
0-631
0-591
0-551
0-510
0-460
0-429
0-389
0-349
0-311
0-274
0-238
0-204
0-173
52
NAVIGATION.
The Tides.
TO FIND THE TIME OF HIGH-WATER.
Rule.—Let the approximate time of high-water be found,
by taking the corrections for the moon’s horizontal parallax
for the nearest noon or midnight from Table I. Again, to
this time and the given longitude take from the Nautical
Almanac the moon’s horizontal parallax. Also to the time
of the moon’s transit over the meridian of Greenwich apply
the variation answering to the longitude and daily variation
between the given and preceding day if the longitude is E.
Subtract this from the transit over the meridian of Green¬
wich, and the remainder will be the time of transit over the
meridian of the given place. But if the longitude be W., the
correction answering to the longitude and daily variation of
transit between the given and following day must be added
to the time of transit over the meridian of Greenwich, to ob¬
tain the time of transit over the meridian of the given place.
To the time of high-water, if new and full moon at the
given place, add the reduced time of transit over the meri¬
dian of the same place, and to the sum apply the equation
from the table answering to the time of transit and hori¬
zontal parallax formerly found ; the result will be the true
mean time of high-water required. The apparent time
may be found by applying the equation of time, with its
proper sign.
Ex. 1.—Required the time of high-water at Leith on Wednesday
the 10th of May 1837, in Long. 3° ll' W.
By the rule, the time of high-water will he about six o’clock in
the evening. In this case, the moon’s horizontal parallax will he
54' 167, and the time of transit 4h 50m mean time, or 4h 54m ap¬
parent time by applying the equation of time 3'n 50s by addition.
Apparent time of transit of upper meridian... 4h 54m
Equation from the table to horizontal parallax
54' 16v, and transit 4h 54m, subtract  —1 18
Remainder   3 36
Time of high-water at new and full moon  +2 20
Apparent time of high-water  5 56
Equation of time  —0 4
Mean time of high-water  5 52
If the sum exceed 12h 25m, subtract this number from
it; if it exceed 24h 50m, subtract as before, and the re¬
mainder will be the time of high-water in the afternoon of
the given day nearly. The time of high-water of the tide
preceding may be found nearly by subtracting 25m from it,
and the succeeding tide by adding 25m to it. In cases of
great accuracy, however, a computation should be made for
each tide in a manner similar to that above.
Ex. 2.—Required the time of high-water at Aberdeen on the 21st
of June 1837, in Long. 2° 6' W.
As before, the time of high-water will readily be found to be
about three o’clock.
Here the horizontal parallax of the moon will be 60' 30", and
the mean time of transit on the given day 1511 32™. But as this
transit exceeds 1211, it will he necessary to take the time of transit
over the under meridian, or, what comes to the same thing, half the
sum of the transits on the given and preceding days, or, £ (14h quio Tides
32m + 15h 32™)  =15* —
Correction from the table  — 0
Remainder  14 18
High-water at new and full moon   + 1 10
Sum exceeding 12h  15 28
By rule, subtract   12 25
Apparent time of high water   3 3
Equation of time  + 0 1
Mean time  3 4
Ex. 3.—Required the depth at Aberdeen at the same time, the
rise of spring tides being 19 feet, denoted by a in Table II., part 1,
and that of the neap 14 feet, by b.
How, by Table II., part 1, to transit 15* 2™, and horizontal pa¬
rallax 60' 30", will be obtained 0-917 x 194-0-242 x 14=20-8 feet.
Ex. 4.—Required the height of the tide at 3* 15™ after high-
water.
By part 2, 20-8 x 0-5 = 10-4 feet.
In this manner, the time and rise of the tide may be
readily obtained nearly, unless both are much influenced by
the strength and direction of the wind.
In the preceding pages we have not considered it our pro¬
vince to supply the reader with the tables which have been
made use of in the solution of the several problems—e.</., tra¬
verse tables, tables of meridional parts, corrections for dip,
parallax, refraction, and log. haversines, log. rising, middle
time, half-elapsed time, &c. For these, and for further infor¬
mation, we refer him to the works on Navigation already
mentioned. Some of the rules we have given will be found
to differ in some respects from those given in these works.
These discrepancies, however, arise entirely from the slightly
different form in which the formulae on which the rules are
based are made to appear, but not at all on any difference
of principle. We have generally retained the forms of the
formulae which are best known to astronomical students.
For example, we have retained Borda’s method of clearing
the distance, in lieu of the slight deviations from it which
are frequently employed, not merely as being equally correct
with the latter, but as possessing some historical interest.
In clearing the distance by natural versed sines, it is not
difficult to put the formulae in such a form that the s?/m
only of the versed sines may be taken. We have retained
the formula in which two of the versed sines appear with
a negative sign, as being that with which the readers of
Hymer’s Astronomy are already acquainted. Whenever the
reader is familiar with astronomical formulae, we recommend
him to study the rules given in these pages with the appro¬
priate formulae before him; these he will find in any work
on astronomy treated mathematically. In all cases, how¬
ever, it is believed that, by a careful study of the rules and
directions contained in this article, the reader will find
himself possessed of all the information which will enable
him to navigate a ship. (j. w—r.)
53
NAVIGATION, INLAND.
Introduc- The mariner’s compass, it is believed, was first used at the
tl0n- commencement of the fourteenth century. Its introduction
gave a new character to commercial enterprise, as it afforded
Origin of the means of promoting to an almost unlimited degree the
navigation, progress of maritime discovery. Since that early period
the pursuit of Navigation has not only been the grand object
to which the labours of Columbus and of all subsequent
explorers of the world have been directed; but the researches
of the philosopher, the astronomer, the geographer, the
mechanician, and the engineer, have all been instrumental
in bringing to maturity and perfection the various branches
which constitute the system of Navigation as it now exists.
Its division That system, though made up of many subsidiary parts,
into two may conveniently and naturally be divided into two great
depart- departments. One of these is treated of in a separate ar-
ments. tide under the head of Navigation ; the other, which forms
the subject of the present treatise, is termed Inland Navi-
What in- gation. It may shortly be defined as that branch of navi-
land navi- gation which extends from the sea to the land, and affords
gation is. the means of transport throughout the intei’ior of a coun¬
try. To form a correct estimate of the importance of
this subject, it must be viewed in connection with the
entire system of which it forms a part. For, how can we
fully enjoy the benefits of those mighty results of science
and of art, by which sailing vessels of all classes are now
enabled to transport their cargoes from shore to shore, with
comparative ease and safety, and gigantic steamers to tra¬
verse the ocean with certainty and despatch, if we do not,
in addition to exhibiting the beacon light to welcome the
approach of ships to our coasts, afford the means of with¬
drawing them from the ocean billows into sheltered havens,
where their lading may be discharged, and cargoes of our
country’s produce may be shipped for foreign lands. It
should be borne in mind, that it is only when the mariner
approaches his destined port that the dangers caused by
rocks, shoals, sand-banks, tides, and currents, beset his
course; and the means of securing shelter for his vessel, and
of opening up a passage into the interior of the country,
may be held as embraced under the extensive subject of
Inland Navigation.
Harbours. The article Harbours fully discusses the construction of
piers and breakwaters; and our present treatise will there¬
fore be confined to Canal and River Navigation.
Topics to Under these general heads we propose to give a brief
be discuss- account 0f canals, as applied to the purpose of transport by
sent ar-'6" means of boats, and also on the larger scale, as affording to
tide. sea-borne vessels a sheltered and direct route to their des¬
tined ports. Our notice of rivers will embrace the navi¬
gation of their upper or landward streams, and also the varied
means employed in opening up and rendering navigable
their seaward or tidal compartments, which will necessarily
lead us to consider the conservation of estuaries and the
formation of bars. Viewed even in this restricted light, it
will be found that inland navigation forms an extensive and
intricate department of hydraulic engineering.
It is proper in the outset to state, that it is not our inten¬
tion to explain the nature or principles of the varied class
of works which the engineer finds it necessary to adopt
in carrying out such operations as those to which we have
alluded. At the present time, when so much is written
on all branches of engineering, such a course would be
uncalled for, and would indeed extend the present treatise
greatly beyond the limits to which it must necessarily be
restricted. Lor information as to such details, we must
therefore direct the reader to the different books to which
we shall have to refer, as containing full information on the Canals,
subjects of which they treat. Our aim is rather to present v t -■
the reader with a general resume of the state of our knowledge
respecting the practice of engineering, as applicable to in¬
land navigation in all its branches, and to confine such
detailed remarks as we may have to offer, to those parts of
the subjects only, which are not fully treated in works al¬
ready published; and here we must express our regret, that
although we have many treatises expounding the principles
of engineering, nevertheless the engineers of the present
day have given comparatively few accounts of the effects
that have followed the application of these principles in
particular cases. In drawing up the following pages, the
writer has found great difficulty in obtaining authentic in¬
formation on applied engineering; and this must be his
excuse for having in some of the sections been obliged to
apply, it may be thought too largely, to his own experience
for illustrations of his subject.
SECT. I.—CANALS.
It must be obvious to all, that railways, from which we Canals,
have of late years derived such inestimable advantages,
have now in a very great measure superseded, and certainly
for the future must prevent, the general extension of canals.
The great objections to relying on canals as the medium of
regular and uninterrupted internal communication in this
country, are the difficulty of obtaining a sufficient supply of
water to prevent stoppages during dry seasons, the interrup¬
tion to which they are exposed from ice during winter, and
above all, in these days of express railway trains and elec¬
tric telegraphs, the very limited speed at which the boats
which navigate them can be propelled. Sir John Rennie,
in speaking of the successful attempts made to introduce
swift boats on canals, and the great improvement that was
thereby effected in canal transport, says,—“ All this, how¬
ever, came too late; for although it would have been readily
acknowledged at an earlier period, and might perhaps for
a while have retarded the railway system, yet when once the
latter was established, its superiority became manifest, and
its progress irresistible.”1 These truly are considerations
which make canals, when compared to railways as a means
of transport and communication, appear so very disadvan¬
tageous, that it may at first sight be considered as uncalled-
for to describe, even briefly, a class of works which, in the
present day, may be regarded by some readers as almost
entirely superseded. But although this remark may perhaps
be justly considered applicable to those canals which effect a
purely inland communication from town to town, it does not,
in any degree, apply to that larger class of works called ship
canals, which afford to sea-borne vessels an inland course,
and enable them to avoid the dangers of a lengthened
coasting voyage—an object of the highest importance to
navigation, and one which it is obvious cannot be super¬
seded by a railway. But, independently of this reserva¬
tion on behalf of these peculiar works, it appears to us that
the simple consideration of the great antiquity of navigable
canals, their wide-spread introduction throughout the world,
the important place which they have so long occupied in
the commercial history of every country, and above all, the
noble specimens which they afford of hydraulic engineering,
should lead us naturally and imperatively to give some notice
of their origin and subsequent progress ; and this we shall do
as briefly as possible, not so much from any feeling that the
subject is superseded, or is unimportant, but because it will
1 Transactions of Inst, of Civil Engineers, vol. v., p. 78.
54
NAVIGATION, INLAND.
Canals, be found fully and ably treated in the works to which we
shall have occasion to refer.
Their ear- From the writings of Herodotus, Aristotle, Pliny, and
ly history, other ancient historians, we learn that canals existed in
Egypt before the Christian era; and there is reason to
believe that, at the same early period, artificial inland navi¬
gation also existed in China. Almost nothing, however, save
their existence, has been recorded with reference to these
very early works ; but soon after the commencement of the
Christian era, canals were introduced, and gradually ex¬
tended throughout Europe, particularly in Greece, Italy,
Spain, Russia, Sweden, Holland, and France.1
In speaking, however, of the earliest of these works, it is
not to be supposed that thej' resembled the modern canals
as now constructed in our own and other countries. Early
as inland navigation was introduced, it was not until the in¬
vention of canal-locks, by which boats could be transferred
from one level to another, that the system was rendered
generally applicable and useful; and it has been truly re¬
marked, “ that to us, living in an age of steam-engines and
daguerreotypes, it might appear strange that an invention so
simple in itself as the canal-lock, and founded on properties
of fluids little recondite, should have escaped the acuteness
of Egypt, Greece, and Rome.”2 Not only, however, had
the invention escaped the notice of the ancients, but what
is more striking, the several gradations made towards the
attainment of that simple but valuable improvement appear
to have been so gradual that, like many discoveries of im¬
portance, great doubts exist as to the 'person and even the
nation, by whom canal-locks were first introduced. One
class of writers attributes the discovery to the Dutch ; and
Messrs Telford and Nimmo, who are understood to have
written the article on Inland Navigation in Brewster’s
Edinburgh Enclyclopcedia, adopt the conclusion that locks
were used in Holland nearly a century before their applica¬
tion in Italy: while, on the other hand, the invention has been
strongly and not unreasonably claimed for engineers of the
Italian school, and, in particular, for Leonardo da Vinci, the
celebrated engineer and painter. Without, however, enter¬
ing into a discussion of this question, which it is now pro¬
bably impossible to solve, we may safely state, that during
the fourteenth century the introduction of locks, whether
of Dutch or Italian origin, gave a new character to inland
navigation, and laid the basis of its rapid and successful ex¬
tension. And here it may be proper to remark, that the
early canals of China and Egypt, although destitute of
locks, do not appear to have been on that account formed
on a uniformly level line unadapted to varying heights. It
is very doubtful, indeed, if the use of locks has even yet
been introduced into China, intersected as it is by many
canals of great antiquity and extent ;3 and in order to pass
boats from one level to another, the Chinese have, from a
very early period, employed stop-gates and inclined planes
of rude construction. Nevertheless, the invention oflocks
was, as already noticed, a most important step in the history
of canals ; and that mode of surmounting elevations may be
said to be almost universally adopted throughout Europe
and America. Inclined planes and perpendicular lifts have,
it is true, been employed in these countries, as will be no¬
ticed hereafter ; but the instances of their application are
undoubtedly rare.
Languedoc But in proceeding to illustrate the progress of canals, we
Canal. may, without tracing their gradual introduction from country
to country, remark at once, that we find the French, at the
end of the seventeenth century, in the reign of Louis XIV.,
forming the Languedoc Canal, designed by Riquet, between
the Bay of Biscay and the Mediterranean, a gigantic work Canals,
which was finished in 1681. It is 148 miles in length, and
the summit level is 600 feet above the sea ; while the works
on its line embrace upwards of one hundred locks and about
fifty aqueducts,—the whole forming an undertaking which is
a lasting monument to the skill and enterprise of its pro¬
jectors ; and with this work as a model, it seems strange that
Britain should not, till nearly a century after its execution,
have been engaged in vigorously following so laudable an
example. This seems the more extraordinary, as the Ro¬
mans in early times had executed works in England, which,
whatever might have been their original use, whether
for the purposes of navigation or drainage, were ultimately,
and that even at an early period, converted into navigable
canals. Of these works, we particularly specify the Caer Ancient
Dyke and Foss Dyke cuts in Lincolnshire, which are by
general consent admitted to have been of Roman origin. England.
The former extends from Peterborough to the River Wi-
tham, near the city of Lincoln, a distance of about 40 miles ;
and the latter extends from Lincoln to the River Trent,
near Torksey, a distance of 11 miles. The Caer Dyke
exists now only in name ; but the Foss Dyke is at this mo¬
ment an efficient and flourishing navigation; and having
been lately professionally engaged in its improvement,
the writer had occasion to inquire somewhat minutely into
its history. Regarding this oldest British canal, Camden, in Foss Dyke
his Britannia, states that the Foss Dyke was a cut originally Ganah
made by the Romans, and that it was deepened in the year
1121 by Henry I.; but to what extent it was deepened
does not appear. In 1762 it was reported on by Smeaton
and Grundy, who found the navigable depth at that time to
be 2 feet 8 inches, and recommended several works for its
improvement, which appear, however, not to have been
executed. In 1782 Smeaton was again employed, and
deepened the navigation to 3 feet 6 inches; but it does not
appear that its width was increased ;4 and from that period
it remained in a very imperfect state till 1840, when Messrs
Stevenson of Edinburgh were employed to design works
for assimilating the Foss Dyke, both as regarded the breadth
and depth of the navigable channel, to the Rivers Witham
and Trent, with which it communicated. Upon examina¬
tion, the depth of the Foss was found to be 3 feet 10 inches,
and its breadth in many places was insufficient for the pas¬
sage of boats, for the convenience of which occasional
passing places had been provided; and it was resolved to
increase its dimensions, and otherwise repair the whole work.
Accordingly, the canal was widened to the minimum breadth
of 45 feet, and deepened to the extent of 6 feet throughout;
alterations which were accomplished without stopping the
traffic. The entrance-lock was renewed, and a pumping-
engine was erected for supplying water from the River
Trent during dry seasons ; and that ancient canal, which is
quoted by Telford and Nimmo “ as the oldest artificial
canal in Britain,” is now in a state of perfect efficiency,
forming an important connecting link between the Trent
and Witham navigations.
Notwithstanding the existence of this early work, how- Bridge-
ever, and of some others in the country, particularly the ^er
Sankey Brook navigation, opened in 1760, it is generally
admitted that the formation of the Bridgewater Canal in
Lancashire, the act for which was obtained in 1759, was the
commencement of British canal navigation ; and that
Francis, Duke of Bridgewater, and Brindley the engineer,
who were its projectors, were the first to give a practical
impulse to a class of works which, under the guidance
mainly of Smeaton, Watt, Jessop, Nimmo, Rennie, and Tel-
1 Fulton On Canal Navigation, London, 1796; Vallancey’s Treatise on Inland Navigation, Dublin, 1763; Tatham’s Political Economy
of Inland Navigation, London, 1799 ; “ Inland Navigation,” Brewster’s Edinburgh Encyclopaedia.
2 Quarterly Review, No. cxlvi., p. 281; Treatise on Navigable Canals, by Paul Frisi.
3 The imperial canal of China is about 1000 miles in length. 4 Smeaton’s Reports, vol. i., p. 55, London, 1786.
NAVIGATION,
Canals, ford, has been very generally adopted throughout the
country, and has undoubtedly been of vast importance in
promoting its commercial prosperity.1 It is believed that
the canals which have been constructed in Britain exceed
in the aggregate 4713 miles, and the system has been ex¬
tensively carried out both in Europe and America.
INLAND.
55
Canals.
Ship
canals
It must be obvious that, in successfully carrying out
works of such a nature, and on so gigantic a scale, no ^
ordinary amount of engineering skill is requisite. Vast Difficulties
reservoirs must in some cases be formed for storing the in con-
water necessary to supply during dry seasons the loss structmg
by lockage, leakage, and evaporation. Feeders must i3ecanals*
North
Holland
Canal.
Caledonian
Canal.
1 he introduction of canals adapted for the passage of made to lead this water to the canal; hills must be pierced
boats was soon followed by a larger class of works, suited by tunnels; valleys must be crossed on lofty embank-
for the accommodation of sea-borne vessels. Thus the ments, or spanned by spacious aqueducts ; and above all,
Forth and Clyde Canal, projected by Smeaton in 1766, and the whole must be conceived and laid out with scru-
the Crinan Canal, executed by Rennie, are examples of pulous regard to the all-important object of securing the
navigations to enable sea-borne vessels of small size to pass works against injury from an overflow of water during floods,
from opposite coasts of the country, and escape long, and it
may be hazardous, sea voyages. But these works are com¬
pletely surpassed by others which have been formed on a
scale of much greater magnitude, to admit vessels of heavy
burden and large draught of water. Of these we may men¬
tion the Great North Flolland Canal, designed and con¬
structed by M. Blanken.2 That canal, which extends
from Amsterdam to the Fielder, a distance of 51 miles, was
finished in 1825. It is about 125 feet in breadth at the
water surface, 31 feet at the bottom, and no less than 20
feet in depth of water ; and what is most worthy of notice,
and is indeed a characteristic of all Dutch engineering
works, the greater part of it is protected from the German
Ocean by embankments faced with wicker-work, the sur¬
face of the water in the canal being below the level of
the sea at high water. At the time the writer inspected
this work the sea was several feet higher than the surface
of the water in the canal, and the vessels were actually
and a consequent inundation of the surrounding country.
Moreover, the necessity of laying out the canal in level
stretches, and surmounting elevations by means of locks or
inclined planes, occurring at intervals, often occasions much
difficulty, and greatly restricts the resources of the engineer.
Taking, then, all these circumstances into consideration,
and bearing in mind that canals were the pioneers of
railways, we think it may safely be affirmed that the canal
engineers of former days had much more serious physical
difficulties to contend with than are experienced in carrying
out the railways in modern times ; if we except such works
as the Britannia Bridge, the high-level bridge of New¬
castle, the Boxhill Tunnel, and some other kindred works.
But, indeed, their mechanical difficulties were also greater;
for the introduction of steam, and its wide-spread applica¬
tion to all engineering operations, affords facilities to the
engineers of modern times which Smeaton at the Eddystone,
Stevenson at the Bell Rock, and Rennie and Telford in
being locked doivn from the ocean into the fertile plains of their early navigation works, did not enjoy. We therefore
Holland. The object of this canal is to enable vessels gladly embrace this opportunity of acknowledging the dis-
tradmg from Amsterdam to avoid the islands and sand
banks of the dangerous Zuider Zee, the passage through
which in former times often occupied as many weeks as
the transit through the canal now occupies hours.3
But our own country furnishes us with a similar work of
great magnitude and boldness ; we allude to the Caledonian
Canal, originally projected by Watt and Jessop, and ulti¬
mately executed by Telford, which forms an inland naviga¬
tion, composed partly of natural lakes, and partly of artificial
canal, extending from Inverness to Fort-William, a distance
of 60 miles. The artificial part of it is 120 feet in width
at the top-water level, 50 feet at the bottom, and affords
20 feet of maximum depth. By means of this inland com¬
munication vessels are enabled to avoid the dangers of the
Pentland Firth, and also in some measure the intricate na¬
vigation of the Western Islands; and while the Dutch in
their great canal had to encounter the difficulties occasioned
by the proverbialof their country, Telford, in con- _       
stiucting the Caledonian Canal, had to deal with the rugged- water ; that their offlets are at such an elevation as to admit
tinguished merits of the engineers who practised at the
end of the former and the commencement of the present
century.
We have already said that we cannot in this treatise General
enter into details as to the construction of the various works principles
adopted in executing canal navigations ; and we shall here of caiin^
close our short historical notice of these works by sub- tio^StrUC*
mitting the following digest of the general principles which
should guide the engineer in selecting the route and design¬
ing the construction of a line of canal: —
1. The first object to which attention ought to be di-Supply of
rected is the supply of water, on which the efficiency of a water-
canal mainly depends. If there be no natural lake in the
district available for storage, the engineer must select such
situations as are suitable for the construction of artificial re¬
servoirs. The conditions to be attended to in selecting the
positions for these works are, that they command a suffi¬
cient area of drainage to supply the necessary amount of
ness of a succession of Highland glens, and to surmount
the summit-level of Loch Oich, which is about 80 feet
above the level of the sea. Accordingly, in addition to
many heavy works which occur in its course, there is at
one point on the Caledonian Canal a succession of eight
locks, by means of which a vessel of nearly the largest class
of merchantmen can be raised or lowered through a height
of 60 perpendicular feet. The locks, which are in
close succession, rise one above another like a series
of gigantic steps; and this unique and extensive marine
of water being conveyed to the summit-level of the canal;
and that the embankments for retaining the water be erected
on sites affording a favourable foundation, and so situated
with reference to the valley above them that they shall, with
the minimum height and breadth of embankment, dam up
the maximum amount of water. It is further necessary to
consider whether the subsoil of the valley forming the re¬
servoirs is throughout of so retentive a nature as to prevent
leakage ; and it is also essential to provide, by means of waste
weirs, for the discharge of floods. The Caledonian Canal
ladder has^ not inappropriately been termed “ Neptune’s is, in this respect, very favourably situated; no artificial
Staircase. reservoir having been required. Nearly the whole supply is
1 History of Inland Navigation, particularly those of the Duke of Bridgewater, London, 1788 Hughes’ “Memoir of Brindley,” Weale’s
Quarterly Paper, London, 1843. * Transactions of Inst, of Civil Engineers, vol. vi., p. 81.
" as lei"e la^ Lakker, a Burgomaster of Amsterdam in 1688, introduced his “ camel ” for floating large vessels over the shoals of
^ frhm^)US’ y mearis which, according to Sir John Leslie, an Indiaman which drew 15 feet water had its draught reduced to 11 feet.
h f f connec ion of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans by means of a navigable canal has long been under consideration, and the question
ias o a e years assumed a more practical aspect. (For a review of the various schemes which have been proposed for carrying out this
uesirable object, the reader is referred to communications by Mr Joseph Glynn and Lieut.-Col. Lloyd, in the Trans, of the Society of Civil
Engineers, vol. ix., p. 58, and vol. vi., p. 399.) j r j j > j » j
56
Canals.
Reaches
and locks.
NAVIGATION, INLAND.
derived from Lochs Ness, Oich, and Lochy, which, indeed,
constitute the greater part of the navigation ; they afford
ample depth of water, and though on different levels, they
extend in an almost continuous line through the country.
In other cases, such as the Union, Forth and Clyde, Crinan,
Birmingham, and other canals, it has been found necessary
to construct large artificial reservoirs, from which the water
is led in feeders to points convenient for forming a junction
with the canal. The water in these reservoirs, whether
artificial or natural, is stored up in winter, and let off as re¬
quired during the droughts of summer. In situations
where the canal communicates with the sea or a tidal
river, and where the natural supply is small, as in the case
of the Foss Dyke, the water may be raised by pumping-
engines.
2. In determining the direction of a canal, it is of im¬
portance to consider the levels of the country through
which it passes, and to lay out the work in a succession
of level reaches, so as to overcome elevations in cumulo
at those places where it can be most advantageously
effected. This arrangement not only leads to a saving of
attendance and expense in working the canal, but is also
more convenient as presenting fewer stoppages to the
traffic. The means of overcoming the difference of level
between the various level reaches must depend very much
on circumstances. With few exceptions, the change of
level is effected by means of locks, which generally have a
lift of from 8 to 10 feet, though in some cases it is some¬
what greater. The dimensions of the locks ought to be
regulated by the traffic; but they should, in order to save
water, be as near as possible the size of the craft to be
passed through them. The smallest class of canals have
locks about 8 feet in breadth,and from 70 to 80 feet long;
those on the Forth and Clyde are 20 feet in breadth, and 74
feet long; on the Caledonian Canal they are 40 feet br-oad,
and 180 feet long, and on the great Holland ship-canal they
are 51 feet broad, and 297 feet long. The water is gradually
admitted into and flows from each lock by sluices formed in
the gates. Sir William Cubitt, in carrying out the improve¬
ments of the Severn navigation, introduced the water through
a culvert parallel to the side wall of the lock, and opening
in the centre by means of a tunnel, which admits 16,000
cubic feet of water to flow into or out of the lock in 1£
minute ; and in little more than that time loaded vessels can
be passed through.1 Inclined planes and perpendicular
lifts, which have the great advantage of saving water, have
also been adopted in a few cases. In 1837 the writer in¬
spected the Morris Canal in the United States, constructed
by Mr Douglas of New York, on the line of which there
are no fewer than 23 inclined planes, having gradients of
about 1 in 10, and an average lift of 58 feet each. The
boats weighed, when loaded, 50 tons, and after being
grounded on a carriage, were raised by water-power up the
inclines with great ease and expedition. The length of
the Morris Canal, which connects the Rivers Hudson and
Delaware, and is a most interesting work, is 101 miles,
and the whole rise and fall is 1557 feet, of which 223 are
overcome by locks, and the remaining 1334 by inclined
planes.2 But inclined planes were used on the Ketling
Canal in Shropshire in 1789, and afterwards on the Duke
of Bridgewater’s Canal. Mr Green introduced on the
Great Western Canal a perpendicular lift of 46 feet; and
more recently Mr Leslie, of Edinburgh, and Mr Bateman,
constructed an inclined plane on the Monkland Canal,
wrought by two high-pressure steam-engines of 25 horse¬
power each. The height from surface to surface is 96
feet, and the gradient is 1 in 10. The boats are not wholly
grounded on the carriage, but are transported in a caisson
of boiler-plate, containing 2 feet of water. The maximum Canals,
weight raised is from 70 to 80 tons, and the whole transit
is accomplished in about 10 minutes. For the five years
previous to the end of 1856, the average number of boats
that passed over the incline each year was 7500. Sir Wil¬
liam Cubitt has also introduced three inclined planes, having
gradients of 1 in 8, on the Chard Canal, Somersetshire.
One of these inclines overcomes a rise of 86 feet, and
they are said to act very satisfactorily.3
3. An essential adjunct to a canal is a sufficient num- Waste
her of waste weirs to admit of the discharge of the surplus weirSi
water which accumulates during floods, and which may, if
not provided with an exit, rise to such a height as to overflow
the tow-path, and cause a breach in the banks, producing
stoppage of the traffic and damage to the adjoining lands.
In determining the number and positions of these waste
weirs, the engineer must be guided entirely by the nature
of the country through which the canal passes. Whenever
an opportunity occurs of discharging surplus water into a
stream crossed by the canal, a waste weir may safely be
introduced; but, independently of this natural facility, the
engineer must consider from what quarters, and at what
points, the greatest influx of water may be apprehended,
and must at such places not only form waste weirs of suf¬
ficient size to void the surplus, but prepare artificial
courses for their discharge into the nearest streams. These
waste weirs are overflows placed at the top water-level
of the canal, so that in the event of a flood occurring, the
water flows over them, and thus relieves the banks.
The want of sufficient escape for flood-water has occasioned
overflows of canal banks which were attended with very
serious injury to the works, and lengthened suspension of
the traffic; and attention to this particular part of canal
construction is of essential importance.
4. Another very necessary precaution is the introduc- Stop-gates,
tion of stop-gates at short intervals of a few miles, for the
purpose of dividing the canal into isolated reaches, so
that in the event of a breach occurring, the stop-gates may
be shut, and the discharge of water confined to the small
reach intercepted between them, instead of extending
throughout the whole line of canal. In large works these
stop-gates may be most advantageously formed in the same
manner as the upper gates of locks, two pairs of gates being
made to shut in opposite directions. In small works they
may be made of thick planks, which are slipped into grooves
formed at those narrow parts of the canal which occur
under road bridges, or at contractions made with grooves at
intermediate points to receive them. Self-acting stop-gates
have been tried, but their success has not been such as to
lead to their general introduction. Stop-gates are further
found to be very useful in cases of repairs, as they admit of
the water being run off from a short reach, when the re¬
pairs can be made, and the water restored, with compara¬
tively little interruption to the traffic. Their value in
obviating serious accidents was well exemplified on one
occasion in the experience of the writer, when the water
during a heavy flood flowed over the towing-path at the
end of an aqueduct adjoining a high embankment, and the
uncontrolled current carried away the embankment, and the
soil on which it rested, to the depth of 80 feet, as mea¬
sured from the top water-level. The stop-gates were, on
the occasion referred to, promptly applied, and the discharge
confined to a short reach of a few miles, otherwise the in¬
jury (which was, even in its modified form, very consider¬
able) would have been enormous.
5. For the purpose of draining off the water to admit ®®et3,
of repairs after the stop-gates have been closed, it is ne¬
cessary to introduce, at convenient situations, a series of
1 Transactions of Institution of Civil Engineers.
3 Transactions of Institution of Civil Engineers, vol. xiii., p. 205.
2 Stevenson’s Sketch of Civil Engineering in North America.
NAVIGATION, INLAND.
57
Rivers.
Drainage
of tow-
paths.
Puddling.
exits called offlets, consisting of pipes placed at the level
of the bottom of the canal, and fitted with sluices which
can be opened and shut when required. These offlets are
generally formed at aqueducts or bridges crossing rivers
where the contents of the canal can be run off directly
into the bed of the stream, the stop-gates on either side
being closed so as to isolate the part of the canal from
which the water is withdrawn.
(6.) In executing the work, provision must be made for
the proper drainage of the tow-paths, especially in cuttings.
The drainage of the tow-paths should be carried to a sky
drain at the bottom of the cutting, and at intervals passed
below the tow-path into the canal. The preservation of
the banks at the water-line is also a matter of importance.
“Pitching” with stones and “facing” with brushwood are
employed, and, in the writer’s experience, the latter, if well
executed, forms an economical and effectual protection.
(7.) In forming the alveus or bed of the canal, care
must be taken, particularly on embankments, and also in
cuttings, if the soil is porous, to provide against leakage by
the application of puddle. And here it is proper to re¬
mark, that an all-important matter, as affecting the construc¬
tion of the works, is the possibility of getting clay in the
district, or such other soil as may be worked into puddle,
on the good quality of which the stability of the reservoir
embankments, and the imperviousness of the beds and
banks of the canal, mainly depend.
These are the only points of general application in the
construction of canals to which we can advantageously
direct attention in the present communication. In carry¬
ing them into practice, the engineer must be guided partly
by the valuable details to be found in the works to which
reference is made in this article, but mainly by that expe¬
rience which can be gained only by the study of works in
actual operation.
We do not propose to extend our remarks to the means
of conducting traffic on canals and rivers, and have to
refer the reader for information on that subject to observa¬
tions and works on Traction and Steam Navigation. On the
former subject the reader may consult the observations, by
Mr Walker and Mr George Rennie, in the Transactions of
the Royal Society and of the Institution of Civil Engineers ;
and especially the very valuable researches on Hydrody¬
namics, by Mr Scott Russell, in the Edinburgh Philosophi¬
cal Transactions. On the latter he is referred to the arti¬
cles Steam-Engine, and Steam Navigation.1
SECT. II.—RIVERS, THEIR PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS.
Difference From what has been said, it will be seen that a canal
between may be described as a work by which water is diverted
canal and from its natural course, and made to occupy a channel pre-
eationiaVi' Pare^ ^or reception, extending through the country for
the transport of boats and vessels. Canal navigation is thus
entirely artificial in its character. In this respect it differs
from river navigation, which may be described as the art of
using, for the purposes of inland communication, rivers flow¬
ing in their natural courses, and of applying means to ren¬
der them subservient to the purposes of navigation incases
where the depth is limited, or where rapid currents exist.
Our consideration of rivers must therefore necessarily com¬
prehend a general sketch of their physical characteristics,
and the laws of their motion, as a necessary introduction to
the more practical part of the subject, embracing the engi¬
neering works required for their improvement, with which
we have chiefly to deal in this treatise.
As introductory, therefore, to the remarks which are to Rivers,
follow, it seems desirable to premise, as described by the v—
writer in a communication to the Royal Society of Edin- The com-
burgh,2 that in all rivers affected by tidal influence, two physi- partments
cal boundaries, more or less apparent, are invariably found to described
exist, caused by the influx of the tidal wave through firths a? oc^ur'
or bays, and the modification it receives in its passage up the m
gradually rising inclination or slope of a river’s bed. These
boundaries again produce three compartments. The seaward,
or lowest of these, the writer termed the “sea proper;” the
next, or intermediate one, into which the sea ascends, and
from which it again withdraws itself, was termed the “ tidal
compartment of the river;” and the highest, or that which
is above the influence of the sea, the “ river proper.” Their
relative extent in different situations is influenced not only
by the circumstances under which the great tidal wave of
the ocean enters the river, but by the size of its stream, the
configuration and the slope of its bed, and, in short, by every
natural or artificial obstruction which is presented to the
free flow of the tidal currents along its channel.
These three compartments possess very different physi- Their phy-
cal characteristics. The presence of unimpaired tidalsical char-
phenomena in the lowest, the modified, flow of the tide, pro- acterist,cs*
duced by the inclination of the river’s bed in the interme¬
diate, and the absence of all tidal influence in the highest
compartment, may be shortly stated as the phenomena by
which these spaces are to be recognised. The tides in the
“ sea proper” compartment of an estuary, for example
(although the place of observation be several miles embayed
from what in strictness could be called the “sea” or “ocean”),
will be found to resemble those of the adjoining sea with
which it communicates,—\st, in the identity of the levels of
low water ; 2d, in the shortness of the time which elapses
between the cessation of ebbing and the commencement
of flowing, or, in other words, the absence of any protracted
period of low water, during which the surface appears to
remain stationary at the same level ; 3cZ, in the symmetri¬
cal form traced by the passage of the tidal wave ; and Ath,
in the range of tide, so far as that is not influenced by the
formation of the shores in narrow seas or channels. In
ascending into the intermediate compartment, however, the
level of the low water is no longer the same; the range of
tide, excepting in peculiar cases, becomes less, and is gra¬
dually decreased as the bed of the river rises, and at length
a point is reached where its influence is not perceptible. In
this intermediate section the phenomena of ebbing and flow¬
ing are still found to take place, but the times of ebb and
flow do not remain constant, that of ebb gradually gaining
the ascendency ; the duration of low water being gradually
protracted as we proceed upwards, until the influence of
tide is unknown. This forms the boundary line of the
upper compartment, the characteristic of which is the total
absence of ebbing and flowing ; the river at all times pur¬
suing its downward course in an uninterrupted stream, and
at an unvarying level, except in so far as may result from the
changes due to land floods.
In the investigation of these different characteristics, the
variable nature of the elements to be dealt with must be
kept in view. The river, for example, is liable to be affected
by floods, and the state of the tides by winds and other
causes ; and therefore a great degree of precision in defining
these spaces cannot in all cases be expected, nor indeed is
it necessary for the purpose of the present inquiry. But
it is satisfactory to know that the termination of the low-
water level at the separation of the seaward and intermediate
spaces, as laid down by marine surveyors, simply from ob-
tn °n from Transactions of Royal Society of Edinburgh, 1837, by J. S. Russell; “ On the Resistance of Fluids
to Bodies passing through them” (Philosophical Transactions, 1828), by James Walker, C.E
2 Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, vol. ii., p 26.
TOL. XVI.
II
58
NAVIGATION, INLAND.
Rivers.
Tidal phe¬
nomena of
Dornoch
Firth.
Low water
line practi¬
cally level
from Port-
mahomac
to Bonar
Quarry.
servation of the tidal phenomena, has in several situations
been found to agree exactly with the position of that
boundary as determined by engineers by means of accurate
levelling, combined with careful tidal observations.
But an example in actual practice will best illustrate
what is meant, and for this purpose we shall refer to the
investigation of the tidal phenomena, made by the writer in
1842, of the Firth of Dornoch and Kyles of Sutherland in
Cromartyshire. By referring to the small chart of the
Dornoch Firth in Plate I., the reader will be better able
to follow the illustrations to be given. The harbour of Port-
mahomac, marked A on the chart, about 3 miles from Tar-
betness Lighthouse, was selected as the place at which to
observe the ocean or sea tvave. The second station at
which it was found convenient to institute observations
was within the Firth at Meikleferry, marked B, about 3
miles above the town of Tain, and 11 miles distant from
Portmahomac. The third station was at Bonar Quarry,
marked C, situated on the north shore of the Firth, and 8
miles inland from Meikleferry; and the fourth station was at
Bonar Bridge, marked D, one mile from the Bonar Quarry.
Beyond Bonar Bridge the observations were also extended
as far as the junction of the Rivers Oykell and Cassley,
marked E, a distance of 12-|- miles; so that the whole dis¬
tance embraced in the investigation was 33|- miles. Gra¬
duated tide-gauges were fixed at Portmahomac, Meikleferry,
Bonar Quarry, and Bonar Bridge; and by means of two
distinct sets of observations, the levels of these gauges, in re¬
lation to each other, were accurately determined, so that all
the tidal observations made at them could be reduced to
the same datum line. The result of the observations was,
that the low-water of each tide is, ’practically speaking, on
the same level at Portmahomac, Meikleferry, and Bonar
Quarry. We use the word practically, because the level of
the sea is more or less affected by every breeze of wind,
which necessarily must pen up and elevate some portions of
its surface, and cause corresponding depression, at other
places, so that an unvarying low-water line will not be found
to exist throughout a series of tides on any part even of the
ocean itself, however limited the number of low-waters
embraced may be. Accordingly, deviations from a truly
level line of a few inches occasionally occurred in the
observations made at the Dornoch Firth; but these were
not of greater extent than could reasonably be traced to
the effect of wind, and were found to vary, not only in their
amount, but also in their value, being sometimes plus and
sometimes minus quantities, causing corresponding varia¬
tions in the results deduced from the different series of
tidal observations that were made. Some of these showed
the low-water within a fraction of an inch of being level;
while others gave a notable elevation at some of the sta¬
tions; and others, again, gave a depression below the level
line at the very stations where previously there had been
a rise.
To illustrate this more fully, we shall give a few examples :
Thus, on the 23d of June (on which day the weather hap¬
pened to be very calm), the level of low-water at Meikle¬
ferry was three-quarters of an inch above that at Portma¬
homac ; and on the next day, the wind blowing fresh from
the S.E., the level of low-water at Meikleferry was 3f inches
above that at Portmahomac. Again, a succeeding observa¬
tion gave the level of Meikleferry three-quarters of an inch
belovj Portmahomac. In the same way, and in similar small
degrees, the level between the low-water at Bonar Quarry
tide-gauge and at Portmahomac was found to varv. The
average of all the observations made, gave the level of low-
water at Meikleferry 2‘2 inches above that at Portmahomac,
and the level of low-water at Bonar Quarry 1'1 inch below
the low-water at Portmahomac. Whether these average Rivers,
differences of level be traceable to the effects of prevailing
winds, which may be supposed to have exerted a greater
influence on the water at the more exposed stations, or to
any inaccuracy in the levels, must evidently, from the ex¬
amples given of the extent and nature of the daily devia¬
tions, be a point which we cannot determine ; but the result
of a lengthened train of observations, notwithstanding the
average difference above stated, may fairly be held to be, that
the low-water of each tide is practically on the same level
at Portmahomac, Meikleferry, and Bonar Quarry; and there¬
fore that the low-water tidal phenomena, throughout the
whole extent of the firth, correspond with those of the sea.
But when the results of the observations at Bonar Bridge Low-water
come to be compared with those made at the seaward station, ^ses from
a very marked difference presents itself; for, while the low- ^^7 t0
water line is found to be practically level from Portmahomac Bridge,
to Bonar Quarry, a distance of 20 miles, throughout a
narrow firth, varying from 1|- mile to 550 feet in breadth
at low-water, we find that between the Quarry and Bonar
Bridge, a distance of only one mile, there is a rise in the low-
water line of spring-tides of no less than 6 feet 6 inches.
It was therefore concluded that, in the Dornoch Firth, the
point at which the low-water level of spring-tides met the
descending current of fresh water, lay somewhere between
the Quarry and Bonar Bridge. A different series of obser¬
vations was made to ascertain the exact point at which this
junction takes place, and the result of these observations
was, that at low-water of an ordinary spring-tide, rising 14
feet at Meikleferry, the low-water level of the sea meets or
intersects the descending fresh-water stream from the Kyle
of Sutherland, at a point 1700 yards below Bonar Bridge, or
nearly opposite Kincardine Church, and within 60 yards of
the Quarry station. Between this point and the bridge, a
distance of 1700 yards, there is a rise of 6 feet 6 inches,
giving an average slope on the bed of the river of 1 in 784,
or 6'7 feet per mile.
In addition to this uniformity in the level of low-water,
it was further found that the tidal phenomena of the firth
corresponded to that of the adjoining sea, in the outline
traced by the passage of the tidal wave, as deduced from
observations made at the different stations on the rise and fall
of the tide-level between the periods of low and high water.
During the period between each low-water or high-water
the level of the surface was ever varying, there being no
lengthened cessation of ebbing and flowing, the tide-wave
being fully developed at the whole of the stations up to
Bonar Quarry. The range of tide was indeed increased
in the inner part of the firth to the extent of 9 inches at
Meikleferry, and 12 inches at Bonar Quarry ; that is, when
the rise of tide was 12 feet 8 inches at Portmahomac, it
was 13 feet 5 inches at Meikleferry, and 13 feet 8 inches at
Bonar Quarry—an increase which is due to the momentum
of the tidal wave when obstructed by the contracting shores
of the firth, and is accounted for by the principle of the
conservation of forces.1
But if we inquire into the tides at Bonar Bridge, we find that Rise of tide
they do not correspond with those of the adjoining sea or of at Bonar
the firth; for taking the tide to which we have already alluded, Bridge,
which rose 13 feet 8 inches at Bonar Quarry, it was found on
the same day to rise only one-half of that amount, or 6 feet
10 inches at Bonar Bridge ; the difference between the two
results being occasioned by the rise on the low-water line
of the channel between these two places. The tide on the
particular day alluded to rose no less than 6 feet 10 inches
at Bonar Quarry before it attained the level of the low-
water at Bonar Bridge, when it began to rise at that place
also, and afterwards continued to flow nearly uniformly at
1 Essay towards a First Approximation to a Map of Co-tidal Lines, by the Rev. W. Whewell, Philosophical Transactions, 1833.
NAVIGATION, INLAND.
Rivers, both places. Fig. 1 is a diagram illustrative of the form
of the tide-wave at Meikleferry and Bonar Bridge, the hard
line represents the curve formed by the passage of the tidal
wave at Meikleferry, and the dotted line shows that at Bonar
59
Rivers.
Fig. 1.
Bridge. In both cases the vertical space represents the
rise of tide, and the horizontal space the elapsed time.
From this diagram it will be seen, that while the tide at
Meikleferry is symmetrical, and presents a constantly rising
or falling outline, the tide at Bonar Bridge represents a long
period, extending on some occasions by actual observation
to several hours at low-water, nearly unaffected by tidal in¬
fluence, during which period the water stood almost at the
same level. The tidal water admitted into the upper part
of the estuary above Bonar Bridge took a considerable time
to drain off through the narrow water-way at that place, and
hence the water did not attain a permanent low-water level,
even long after the tide had ceased to operate in affecting its
surface. The observations made to ascertain how far the
tidal influence extended up the Kyles of Sutherland were
conducted with the same care, and proved that the highest
point influenced by the tide was at the junction of the
Rivers Oykell and Cassley, 12£ miles above Bonar Bridge.
Mean sea- A further test of the “sea proper” will, it is believed, be
level. found in the existence, at any place of observation within
that compartment, of a central point in the vertical range
of tide from which the high and low water levels of
every tide are very nearly equidistant. The existence of
such a point was, it is believed, first determined by Mr
James Jardine at the Tay in 1810,1 and has been ob¬
served in the firths of Forth and Dornoch, at the Skerry-
vore Rocks on the west of Scotland, at the Isle of Man,
and in the Mersey. These different series of observations,
made at points so far distant from each other, seem to prove
the universality of the phenomenon, at least on the shores
of this country. But in ascending into the tidal compart¬
ment, the rise on the low-water level, which has already been
described, destroys at once the symmetry of the tide-wave,
as shown in fig. 1, and the existence of any such central
point equidistant from the high and low water level of
each tide.
The case we have adduced will serve to illustrate the
definition we have given of the compartments of rivers.
From Portmahomac to Kincardine, near Bonar Quarry, we
have all the evidences of what we have termed the “ sea
properthe line traced through the low-water mark at
different parts of the firth is practically level; the curve
formed by the rise and fall of the tide is symmetrical; there
is no lengthened cessation of ebbing and flowing at the
period of low water; and the range of tide is unmodified
save by the additional rise due to the narrow frith through
which the tide-wave passes. From Kincardine to the junc¬
tion of the Oykell and Cassley, we have proofs no less
evident of the modified flow of the tide peculiar to the
“ tidal compartment.” Even at Bonar Bridge, one mile
above the quarry, the low-water level is 6 feet 6 inches
higher than at the station below. At low-water the tide
remains within a few inches of the same level for several
hours, and its maximum range is reduced to about one-half
of what it is further seaward, while at the junction of the
Oykell and Cassley it disappears altogether. Above this _
point no tide is known to affect the flow of the stream, which
being free from all tidal influence, may be
termed the “ river proper.”
We must here warn the reader not to These
suppose that the boundaries we have traced boundaries
as existing in the Dornoch Firth, and many not equally
other places which the writer has inves- distinct in
tigated, may be determined with the same cases*
precision under all circumstances and
in every case. The observations to which
we have alluded, are supposed to be made
at periods when the river is free from floods and the sea
unaffected by heavy gales ; moreover, the configuration of
the bottom and shores of a river and estuary may, in
certain cases, render the accurate determination of the
boundaries very difficult. All that we assert is, that these
compartments do in some measure, more or less defined,
exist in all cases; and although not determined with the
same careful precision as explained in the case of the Dor¬
noch Firth, we have made observations of a more general
character, and with complete success, to define approxi¬
mately the tidal compartments in many estuaries and rivers
in Britain and Ireland.
But there are other data with which the engineer must Data re_
be furnished before he can advantageously consider the qUired by
improvement of any part of a river. These data include the en¬
tile determination of its slope, velocity, and discharge, the gineer.
nature of its bed and banks, and many other particulars.
For full details as to the character and extent of such in¬
formation, and the means of obtaining it, we can only refer
the reader to works on the subject of River and Marine
Surveying.2 Neither do we include in the present treatise
any sketch or digest, however brief, of the interesting
and gradual progress made by philosophers and engi¬
neers of the early Italian and French schools, in the theo¬
retical and experimental investigations of the laws which
regulate the flow of water in natural and artificial channels,
which investigations form the basis of all our practice in
hydraulic engineering. These lengthened and laborious
experimental researches will be found to be most fully dis¬
cussed—historically, theoretically, and practically—in the
valuable article by Dr Robison on the Theory of Rivers,
in this Encyclopaedia (see River), and also in the report
made by Mr George Rennie to the British Association on
the progress and present state of our knowledge of hydraulics
as a branch of engineering.3
While we do not therefore propose to advert at length
either to the theoretical or practical details of the subject,
still the whole of river engineering is so connected with,
and dependent on, those physical characteristics of rivers
which are termed the slope, the hydraulic mean depth, the
velocity, and the discharge, that it seems to be indispensable
to a proper understanding of the subject that these elements
should be defined, and that the relations which subsist be¬
tween them should be considered. The following defini¬
tions will suffice to answer the purpose in view :—
1. The slope is the fall on the surface of the river, which pefini_
is generally expressed in feet or inches per mile. tions.
2. The hydraulic mean depth is the quotient arising from
dividing the sectional area of the channel in square feet by
the wetted border or perimeter in lineal feet.
3. The mean velocity is that velocity which is common
to the whole cross section of a stream, and is represented
by the discharge divided by the area of that section.
1 Report by James Jardine, O.E.
2 Treatise on the Application of Marine Surveying and Hydrometry to the Practice of Civil Engineering, by David Stevenson, C.E. Edin-
burgh, 1842. 3 Pcport of the British Association for the Advancement of Science for 1834.
60
Rivers.
NAVIGATION, INLAND.
Method of
ascertain¬
ing dis-
4. The discharge is the quantity of water yielded by the
stream in a given time, and is generally stated in cubic feet.
In the practice of engineering it is frequently necessary
to consider questions involving the relations which subsist
—a — between these different elements, and many formulae have
charge by been pr0p0seci t0 facilitate this operation. The Chevalier
rnpnt^re” Dubuat was the first investigator who, by discovering the
effects of the friction of fluids on their own particles, and
on the bed along which they move, was enabled to apply
his theoretical knowledge of hydraulics to practical purposes,
and his views and formulae will be found fully discussed in
the article River alreadv alluded to. 1 he writer of this
article has, however, found that such formulae are not gene-
rally applicable, and it seems desirable to lay before the
practical engineer the various results given by different for¬
mulae when applied under the same circumstances, in order
that he may be cautioned as to relying on such a means
of computation in cases where great exactness is requi¬
site. In order to ascertain the discharge of a stream or
river the writer has therefore in practice resorted to actual
measurement. For this purpose, a situation was selected
where the bed was tolerably uniform in its longitudinal
and transverse outline. A correct transverse section of
the bed or channel was made, and the section was di¬
vided into compartments. The surface velocity in the
centre of each compartment was then taken by means of
floats, or the instrument called the tachometer. These
surface velocities were reduced to mean velocities for each
compartment by Dubuat’s formula : ■
m=(VV-1)!±V
or more simply, in cases wdiere great accuracy is not re*
quired,
M=0-8V
where V = the observed surface velocity in inches per
second.
M = the mean velocity in inches per second.
We have found by means of the tachometer, used at
different depths, that this formula expresses accurately the
mean velocity of any vertical section of the stream to which
the observed surface velocity is applicable. But as the surface
velocity on the same cross section is not uniform throughout
the width of the stream, it becomes necessary, as already
stated, to divide the section into compartments, so as to em¬
brace the maximum and minimum speeds. The areas of the
different sections being then multiplied by the corresponding
mean velocities obtained by either of the above formulae,
the sum of the discharge due to the different compartments
is held to give the total discharge of the stream or river.
It is obvious that the accuracy of the result obtained by
this process depends on the judgment with which the cross-
sectional area is subdivided, and on the care with which the
observations are made. The operation is, in many cases,
attended with difficulties, and in all with a considerable con¬
sumption of time; and many formulae have been proposed
to shorten it. The writer has compared the computed dis¬
charge given by several of these formulae with the dis¬
charge as ascertained by careful observations made in the
manner described, and the following result is submitted for
the information of engineers.
The formulae subjected to trial were :—
and by f0r- I. Formula given by Dr Robison, founded on Dubuat’s
mulae. investigations :x
M= _ 307 (vV-O-l) __0,3
VS —Hyp. log. of VS + 1‘6
in which M = the mean velocity in inches per second,
d=the hydraulic mean depth in inches,
S = the reciprocal of the slope of the surface
which is the denominator of the fraction
expressing the slope, the numerator being
always unity (a slope of 1 foot a mile is
therefore 5280 = reciprocal for that slope),
Hvn loff. = the common log. of the number to which it
is attached, multiplied by 2-3026.
II. Formula given by Sir John Leslie:2
in which M = the mean velocity in miles per hour,
a = the hydraulic mean depth in feet,
y= the fall on the surface in feet per mile.
III. Formula given by Mr Ellet for calculating discharge
of the Mississippi :3
V”10 ^ 20
M = 0-8V
in which V = the surface velocity in feet per second,
rf=the maximum depth of the river in teet,
f— the fall on the surface in feet per mile,
M = the mean velocity in feet per second.
IV. Formula given in Mr_Beardmore’s tables :4
M = Va 2/x 55
in which M = mean velocity in feet per mile,
« = hydraulic mean depth in feet,
y= fall per mile in feet.
V. In addition to these formulae, the writer also sub¬
jected to trial the formula:
M_ (W-iy + V
2
in which M = the mean velocity in inches per second,
V = the maximum surface velocity in the axis ot
the stream in inches per second.
In order to compare these different formulae, a very
favourable situation was selected for ascertaining the dis¬
charge of a stream by careful measurements of its sectional
area and of the velocities at different parts of its surface
from the centre to either side, and the result gave a dis¬
charge of 1653 cubic feet per minute, which, from various
measurements, the writer believes to be a very near approxi¬
mation to the actual discharge. _ The slope was alsojiccu-
rately ascertained, and the following are the results.
Cubic feet.
Discharge from measurement as above, 1653 per minute.
Rivers.
   221.
1st. By Robison’s formula 
2d. By Leslie’s do 
2d. By Ellet’s do 
4tA. By Beardmore’s do  .
bth. By formula assuming the mean de¬
duced from the centre surface velocity
as the mean for the whole section ... 1950
do.
do.
do.
do.
do.
It will be seen from this statement, that none of the for
mulae afford a near approximation to the discharge of the
small stream to which they were apphe .
Again, it was ascertained by the late Dr Anderson, after
most carefully dividing the cross section into compartments
that the discharge of the main branch of the aY ^
was 147,391 cubic feet per minute.5 The writer has also
ascertained the discharges, as calculated by the different
mulse as above, and the following are the results.
1 See article River ; also A System of Mechanical Philosophy, by John Robison, vol. ii., p. 453.
2 Elements of Natural Philosophy, by Professor Leslie, Edinburgh, 1829, vol. i., p. 423.
3 The Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, by Charles Ellet, Philadelphia, 1853. . _TT.,, , ,1.. T,’„rn
* Hydraulic Tables, by Nathaniel Beardmore, C.E., London, 1852. 6 This does not include the Willowgate, nor tbe Ra .
Bivers.
Formula
generally
applicable,
but afford¬
ing only
an approxi¬
mation.
Result of
formula
destroyed
where
under-cur¬
rents exist.
NAVIGATION, INLAND.
Cubic feet.
Discharge per measurement 147,391 per minute.
1st by Robison’s formula 153,632 do.
2ci „ Leslie’s   166,134 do.
3ci „ Ellet’s  122,002 do.
4fA. ,, Formula in Beardmore’s tables  156,569 do.
5tA „ Formula assuming the mean deduced
from the centre surface velocity as the
mean for the whole section   179,237 do.
The result of these trials, and others which the writer
has had occasion to make, is, that none of the formulae that
have been proposed will be found generally applicable. As
it is often convenient, however, to be able to approximate
to the velocity or discharge due to a given area and fall,
the following formula may be applied, and will, in most
cases, give a pretty near approximative result, viz.:—
x = yjaf
x x 5280
S ~ 60
D —sz
in which x — the mean velocity of the whole section of
the stream in miles per hour,
y = a, quotient which is found to vary from 0-65
tor small streams under 2000 cubic feet
per minute, to 0'9 for large rivers, such as
the Clyde or the Tay,
a = the hydraulic mean depth in feet,
f — the fall on the surface in feet per mile,
2 = the mean velocity of the whole section of
the stream in feet per minute,
s = the sectional area of the stream in feet; and
D = the discharge in cubic feet per minute.
It must still be kept in view that the application of any
known formula to the determination of the mean velocity
and discharge of a river is shown, by experimental inquiry, to
afford only a rough approximation ; and that if a near ap¬
proximation is required, it must be obtained by means of
observations embracing the velocities at different parts of the
cross-sectional area, made in the manner already described.
We must offer the further caution, that those rules
whereby the mean velocity is deduced from, or is assumed
as bearing any constant ratio to, the surface velocity, do not
apply in many situations which are within the influence of
the tide. As will be explained more fully hereafter, the
fresh water of the river being specifically lighter, is to a
certain extent borne up by and floats upon the denser water
of the sea. In surveying the Dee at Aberdeen in 1810,
Mr Robert Stevenson found that, while there was an out¬
ward upper-current of fresh water, there was an inward
under-current of salt water; so that, although the upper
stratum was constantly running toward the sea, there was a
regular rise and fall of the surface produced by the influx of
the tidal waters below. Another instance of such an un¬
der-current, though not occasioned by the presence of a
river, was found to exist in a marked degree at the Cro¬
marty Firth by Mr Alan Stevenson in 1837- The waters
of the Cromarty Firth pass to and from the sea through the
narrow gorge between the Suters of Cromarty, where the
width is about 4500 feet, and the depth about 150 feet.
The mean velocity due to the column of water passing
this gorge, as deduced from the observed surface velocity,
was not sufficient to account for the quantity of water ac¬
tually passed during each tide, as determined by measuring
the cubical capacity of the basin of the firth. This led
to the observation of the under-currents through the gorge
by means of submerged floats, and it was found that dur¬
ing flood-tides the surface velocity was T8 mile per
hour; while at the depth of 50 feet the velocity was not
less than 4 miles per hour, being an increase of 2’2 miles
per hour. During ebb-tide the surface velocity was 2‘7
miles per hour, and at 50 feet it was not less than 4'5
61
miles per hour, being an increase of 1-8 mile per hour. Rivers.
The existence of these under-currents is due to some ob-
scure causes connected no doubt with the configuration of
the bottom, and the circumstances under which the tidal
wave approaches and recedes from the shore. The existence
of a powerful oceanic under-current during the flood-tide
may account for the increased under-velocity of the tide
flowing into the Cromarty Firth ; and if we suppose a similar
rapid under-current to sweep along the coast during the
ebb-tide, the tendency would be to draw off' the water more
quickly from the lower part of the channel between the Suters
which forms the mouth of the firth, and thus to increase the
velocity at and near the bottom during the ebb-tide, as also
indicated by the observations to which we have alluded. It
is evident that in all such situations the application of a
common or mean velocity, deduced from the observed sur¬
face velocity, cannot be relied on as correct.
As the slopes, velocities, and discharges of rivers are
so important in all matters connected with the flow of
streams, and may be useful for comparison in considering
questions of river engineering, we give at the end of this
article, in a tabular form, the physical characteristics of
different rivers, embracing all the information we have been
able to collect, with the sources from whence that infor¬
mation was obtained.
We have considered it necessary to enter thus far into
detail, to prepare the way for what is to follow,—First,
Because it is quite impossible to consider and design with
advantage the improvements of a river without a correct
knowledge of its physical characteristics, as developed in
the course of such investigations as we have described.
Such information cannot in every case be procured with
an equal amount of precision, but the more complete
and detailed it is, the more confidently and advantageously
will the engineer proceed to form his design. Secondly,
We have been particular in defining the physical boundaries
of rivers, because the remedial means which call for the engi¬
neer’s consideration in designing improvements on the three
compartments which they include, are not less distinct than
the different phenomena which have been described as
their peculiar characteristics. In proof of this, it may be
stated generally, that the works on the “ river proper”
section consist chiefly in the erection of weirs, by means
of which the water is dammed up so as to form stretches of
canal in the river’s bed, with cuts and locks between the
different reaches. The “tidal compartment” embraces a
more varied range, including the straightening, widening,
or deepening of the courses and beds of rivers, the forma¬
tion of new cuts, the erection of walls for the guidance of
tidal currents, and in some cases the shutting up of sub¬
sidiary channels; while the “ seaward compartment” em¬
braces all works connected with the improvements or re¬
moval of bars and shoals.
On these subjects we shall have to enter at some length;
and in treating of them it may be most convenient to con¬
sider the question of river navigation under the three fol¬
lowing sections, viz.:—
1^. The upper compartment, or “ river proper.”
2d. The intermediate compartment, or “tidal river;” and
3(7. The lower compartment, or “sea proper.”
SECT. III.—THE “ RIVER PROPER” DEPARTMENT.
The magnitude of a river is, under certain conditions, g;zes 0f
proportional to the extent of country which is drained, rivers pro¬
as will be seen by reference to the table at the end of thisportional
article, and all our ideas regarding rivers, as affording thet0 extent of
means of inland navigation, must necessarily be to some(jraineji
extent varied to meet the different physical characteristics of
different countries. Thus, in continents we find riversof great
magnitude, fed by the drainage of vast tracts of surrounding
land, rolling their contents in a broad, deep current to the
62 NAVIGATION, INLAND.
Rivers, ocean, and affording a highway for vessels of the largest
''—■V**-''' class to pursue their course for hundreds of miles into the
interior of the country. Of such is the Mississippi, which,
according to Mr Ellet, maintains, for a distance of nearly 1200
miles above New Orleans, an average breadth of 3300 feet,
and a depth 6f 115 feet. The Ohio, which joins it at this
place, is navigable to Pittsburgh, where the writer of this
a tide has seen from thirty to forty large-sized steamers
lying at the quays of that truly inland port, which were all
engaged in trading to New Orleans, on the Gulf of Mexico,1
being a river navigation of upwards of 2000 miles.
In considering the improvement or maintenance of such
a navigation as this, the engineer has to deal chiefly with
the control of the discharge due to the rains of the district
through which the river flows. His difficulty does not so
much consist in deficient depth or breadth of navigable
channel, as in the magnitude of the floods with which he
has to contend, and the provision he has to make for retain¬
ing them within such limits as to secure the safety of the
surrounding district.
In less extended tracts of country the rivers are propor¬
tionally smaller; and when we come to consider our own
island, we find that its area and drainage are altogether in¬
sufficient to afford depth and breadth of water for extended
inland navigation. This will readily be understood when
the areas of the basins and the discharges of some of our
largest rivers are compared with the Mississippi, to which
we have alluded. For example, according to the table to
which we have already referred, the Tay drains 2283 square
miles, and discharges 274,000 cubic feet per minute; the
Clyde drains 945 square miles, and discharges 48,000
cubic feet per minute; the Mississippi drains 1,226,600
square miles, and discharges 76,800,000 cubic feet per
minute.
The Mis- It will not, we believe, be considered inappropriate to
sissippi. the subject wre are discussing, to offer a short sketch of
what is undoubtedly the most gigantic river navigation in
the world, taken from the elaborate work by Mr Charles
Ellet, on the Mississippi and the Ohio. It appears, from
the information given in that work, that the Mississippi
varies from 2200 to 5000 feet in width, the average width
being assumed as 3300 feet. It is from 70 to 180 feet in
depth, the average being 115 feet. The area of the cross
section varies from 105.544 square feet to 268,646 square
feet, the average being 200,000 square feet. The length,
from its junction with the Ohio to the Gulf of Mexico, is
1178 miles, and its average descent at full water is 3J inches
per mile, and in absence of floods (or during summer and
autumn) 2^ inches per mile. The length of the Ohio,
from its junction with the Mississippi to Pittsburgh (the
head of the navigation for large vessels), is 975 miles, and
the average inclination is about 5\ inches per mile. From
Pittsburgh to Olean Point the distance is 250 miles, and
the inclination 2 feet 10 inches per mile. When the water
is high, steamboats have ascended to Olean Point, which is
2400 miles from the Gulf of Mexico ; and in doing so, have
had to overcome a current which at some places runs with
a velocity of 5 miles per hour. This, however, is chiefly
in the upper part of the river. Generally speaking, vessels
have no difficulty, in the lower or more open part of the
stream, in avoiding the strength of the currents by keep¬
ing in-shore. But in the Ohio much inconvenience is
felt during dry seasons from the currents at certain parts
of the river; and the writer has seen a steamer, when deeply
loaded, unable to overcome them until assisted by a warp
attached to an anchor dropped ahead of the vessel, in the
middle of the channel, by which, after considerable deten¬
tion, she was “ warped through the rapid.” The discharge
of the Mississippi is computed by Mr Ellet, at high
water, at 1,280,000 cubic feet per second; and its drain- Rivers,
age he estimates at 1,226,600 square miles. When the
autumnal rains set in, the river rises above its summer level
to the enormous extent of about 40 feet at the mouth of
the Ohio, and 20 feet at New Orleans. In investigating
the physical characteristics of this mighty stream, Mr Ellet
found—UC, That the average surface velocity in the centre
of the river was 5 miles per hour, and occasionally the
speed reached 7 miles per hour; 2d, By using under¬
current floats, he found that the speed of a float, supporting
a line of 50 feet long, was always greater than that of the
surface float—the average increase of velocity being 2 per
cent.; 3c?, The results of the experiments made, lead him
to conclude that the mean velocity of the Mississippi is
about 2 per cent, greater than the mean surface velocity;
4th, In coming to this conclusion, no account is taken of
such observations as show remarkable under-currents, the ve¬
locity of which were in some places found to be 17 per cent.,
and 20^- per cent, greater than the surface velocities ; 5th,
While the mass of water which the channel of the Mississippi
bears is running downwards with a central velocity, the
current next the shore is sometimes found to be running
upwards, or in the opposite direction, at the rate of 1 to 2
miles per hour; 6th, While the water is running down¬
wards in the one side of the river, it is often found with an
appreciable slope, and visible current running upwards on
the other side of the river; 7th, The surface of the river
is therefore not a plane, but a peculiarly complicated warped
surface, varying from point to point, and inclining alternately
from side to side. After considering all the conflicting results
derived fi’om his investigations, Mr Ellet, in order to obtain
the mean velocity and discharge of the river, employed
the formula as already noticed,—
8 df
V 10^ df+20
M = 0*8 V
and Ma = D
where V = the velocity of central surface current in feet
per second,
<?= maximum depth of river in feet at place of
observation,
/= slope of surface in feet per mile,
M = the mean velocity in feet per second,
a = area of cross section of river in feet,
D = discharge of river in cubic feet per second.
In discussing the various formulae for velocities and dis¬
charges, we have seen that the formula applied to the Mis¬
sissippi by Mr Ellet does not apply to such rivers as the
Tay, or to smaller water-courses; and until the result which
he has given has been compared with the discharge ob¬
tained by actual measurement of the velocities at different
parts of the cross section, wre do not think that the discharge
of the Mississippi, which has been calculated by Mr Ellet,
can be relied on as accurate.
The chief object of the investigations made by Mr Ellet
was the prevention of floods, which have recently increased
both in number and extent. This he attributes—
First, To extended cultivation, by which evaporation is
supposed to be diminished, the drainage increased, and the
floods hurried forward more rapidly into the country below.
Secondly, To the extension of the embankments along
the banks of the Mississippi and its tributaries, by which
water that Vvas formerly allowed to spread is now confined
to the channel of the river.
Thirdly, To what are termed cut-offs, or straight cuts, by
which the distance is shortened, and the slope and velocity
increased, so that the water is brought down more rapidly
from the country above.
1 Sketch of Civil Engineering of North America, by David Stevenson, C.E.
Rivers.
Danube.
Circum¬
stances of
the Missis¬
sippi not
applicable
to this
country.
Means of
rendering
our rivers
navigable.
Old
stanches.
NAVIGATION, INLAND.
63
Fourthly, To the gradual extension of the delta into the
sea, so as to lengthen the lower course of the river, to
diminish the slope and velocity, and thus to throw back the
water on the land above.
The works suggested for protecting the country against
floods are—
First, More sufficient embankments.
Second, The prevention of further cut-offs, or works for
straightening the upper parts of the tributaries of the river.
Third, The enlargement of the seaward channels or out¬
lets ; and
Fourth, The creation of large artificial reservoirs, by plac¬
ing dams across the outlets of the lakes or distant tributa¬
ries, so as to compensate for the loss of the natural overflow
of the water, which is checked by the embankments for
protecting the country in the lower part of the river.
An interesting account has been given by Mr Shepherd1
of certain improvements on the Danube, to which we
shall very shortly refer. The navigation of that river was
greatly impeded by the constant shifting of its course after
every flood. Its channel was divided into numerous
branches, and the main object of the improvements was to
shut off these lateral branches, and to cause the river to flow
in one central channel. This was effected by means of a
series of spurs or jetties, made of bundles of brushwood, and
thrown out from either side of the river. The bruslwood
was laid down in its green state, and, taking root, each spur
or jetty, after a few years, formed a thick massive hedge,
which now prevents the stream from making further ravages
on the banks, and confines it to one central channel, scour¬
ing out a depth sufficient for navigation. This system of
embanking with faggots has been, according to Mr
Shepherd, the means of rescuing thousands of acres of
land on the Danube, at a cost of not Is. per acre. These
improvements have, it appears, been effected in what were
the most dangerous parts of the river, and have, it is stated,
in connection with an improved organization of pilotage,
been of great benefit to the traffic of the Danube, which is
now carried on almost uninterruptedly, it being a very rare
occurrence to hear of any of the steamers getting aground.
Although it has been considered proper to allude thus
briefly to the large continental rivers, yet it will be obvious
that the magnitude of such a river as the Mississippi, for
example, prevents us from applying the special results and
observations of Mr Ellet to rivers in this country. Indeed,
the fresh-water or upper compartments of our rivers are so
small, and their navigation is so limited, that we have little
to say under that head which can be applicable to the
British Isles.
Our streams cannot, like the Mississippi or other large
rivers, be advantageously navigated in their natural state;
and the means employed to render them navigable may be
said to consist in throwing dams across their beds, so as to
convert them into a succession of narrow lakes or pools, in
which the water is dammed up to such a height as to afford
sufficient depth for small boats.
In early times this was effected by means of what were
called “stanches.” Sir William Cubitt states that when
he undertook the improvement of the Stour in Essex, there
were thirteen stanches along the course of the river. These
stanches consisted of two substantial posts, which were fixed
in the bed of the river, at a sufficient distance apart to per¬
mit a boat to pass easily between them, and connected at
the bottom by a cross cill. Upon one of these posts was a
beam turning on a hinge or joint, and long enough to span
the opening. When the “ stanch ” was used, the boatmen
turned the beam (which was above the level of the water)
across the opening, and placed vertically in the stream a
number of narrow planks resting against the bottom cill and Rivers,
the swinging beam, thus forming a weir which raised the
water in the stream about 5 feet high. The boards were
then rapidly withdrawn, the swinging beam was turned
back, and all the boats which had been collected above
were carried by the flow of water over the shallow below.
By repeating this operation at given intervals, the boats
were enabled to proceed a distance of about 23 miles in
two or three days.
This primitive system, which was at one period very Damg an(j
common in England, has been superseded by throwing per- locks,
manent dams across the river, so as to convert its channel
into a series of deep-water reaches, and the boats pass from
one reach to the other by means of side-cuts with locks.
The same plan has been extensively carried out in many
of the smaller rivers in America, and is there called “ still-
water navigation.” It has been executed on a pretty large
scale by Sir William Cubitt on the upper part of the Severn,
where the river has been divided into four reaches, having a
depth of 6 feet, with side-cuts and locks having a lift of 8
feet each. The difficulty attending such an operation is
the impediment which the weirs present to the passage of
the river during floods; but in the case of the Severn this
difficulty seems to have been overcome. Sir William
Cubitt says the object of these weirs was to raise the water,
and to retain it at a proper height for the navigation of the
shallow parts of the river, without opposing such barriers as
should prevent the free discharge of flood-water; and that
this end has been completely answered, there being a
depth of 6 feet of water at all times where there was for¬
merly only a depth of 18 inches, and during floods the back¬
water does not rise higher than before the establishment of
the weirs. A similar result may, he believes, be always at¬
tained by making the obliquity of the weirs sufficiently
great.2 The same system has also been adopted by the late
Mr Rendel and Mr Beardmore, for the improvement of the
navigation of the River Rea, an account of which has been
communicated by Mr Beardmore to the Institution of Civil
Engineers.3
The arguments, however, against canals, in consequence
of the greater facilities afforded by railways, seem to apply
with equal force to the upper compartments of rivers with
their dams and locks; and as it is not likely that such a
system of inland navigation will receive much extension, we
shall, without further detail, proceed to consider tidal navi¬
gations which are more intimately connected with the com¬
mercial interests of the British Isles, and consequently
occupy a more important position in the hydraulic engineer¬
ing of this country.
SECT. IV.—TIDAL COMPARTMENTS OF RIVERS.
It is perhaps necessary to preface our observations on this
branch of the subject by explaining what is implied by a
“tidal navigation,” as distinguished from such large fresh¬
water streams as the Mississippi, or those smaller streams
forming the upper compartments of our own rivers, both of
which we have been considering. In the former case we
saw that the art of navigation is most successfully and ex¬
tensively practised on the fresh-water streams of the large
continental rivers ; 'while in the latter case it was shown that
even by the aid of artificial weirs and locks, the largest rivers
of this country could only be made navigable for vessels of
the smallest class. We learn from this, as has also been
stated, that the comparatively limited extent of our isolated
country does not afford sufficient area for the collection of
so large an amount of rain and spring water as to render
our fresh-water streams available for the purposes of navi-
What is
meant by
the term
“ tidal.”
1 Civil Engineers’ and Architects’ Journal, vol. xii., p. 321.
2 Transactions of Institution of Civil Engineers, vol. v.
8 Ibid., vol. xiii., p. 241.
(}4
Rivers.
Its im¬
portance.
Its extent
modified
l>y circum¬
stances.
The object
of all im¬
prove¬
ments is to
increase it.
The tidal
wave.
NAVIGATION, INLAND.
gation. The amount of fresh water which they discharge
varies as the river floods rise and fall; and even at its maxi¬
mum its effects in the lower portion of our estuaries is but
feebly felt, as more fully explained hereafter in section vi.,
under the head of “ Bars.” Our rivers, indeed, may be re¬
garded simply as creeks or inlets, formed and kept open,
not by the fresh-water stream alone, but mainly by the
action of the tide; and may be said to be navigable only
when their channels are filled by the influx of water from
the ocean. The great agent, therefore, in keeping open
and deepening our navigations is to be found in the tidal
flow, which not only scours and maintains the sea channels
of our rivers, but also increases their depth of water. Nor
is this all: another most important advantage derived from
the tides is that upward current due to the tidal rise, which,
at first checking and ultimately overpowering and reversing
the flow of the ebb-stream, carries vessels to their port, far,
it may be, into the interior, without the aid of either steam or
wind. This is a view of the subject which cannot fail to
strike even the most superficial observer, when he sees, on
the Thames or Mersey, for example, a vast fleet of vessels
of all sizes, and from all countries, hurried on by the silent
but powerful energy of the flowing tide. How invaluable
is such an agent to the commercial interests of this country !
If, indeed, the action of our river-tides were suspended, it
might truly be said of the steam power employed on our
railways, that its occupation would be gone. Nor need we
do more to enforce the wide-spread interests of the subject
than remind the reader that the ports of London, Liverpool,
and Glasgow, not to name less important places, are entirely
dependent on tidal navigation for their existence.
From what has been said as to the physical boundaries
of rivers, it will be apparent that the extent to which this
tidal influence is felt varies in different situations. Where
the slope of the river is gentle, and the channel is com¬
paratively clear and unobstructed, it is felt far up the river,
as in the case of the Thames, where it reaches Teddington
Weir, 65 miles from the Nore; and in the Tay, where it
reaches its junction with the Almond, 35 miles from the
bar. In other cases, such as the Lune in Lancashire, or
the Dee in Cheshire, the tidal flow is suddenly checked by
artificial weirs erected in the bed of the river for the supply
of mills. In a third class of rivers the upward flow of the
tide is almost neutralized by the existence of natural ob¬
structions, as in the case of the Erne at Ballyshannon, where
it flows only about 3, and the Ness, where it flows only
about 6 miles up the river.
Now, the great object of the engineer, in dealing with
what we have termed the “ tidal compartment of a river,”
is to increase the tidal influence, or, in other words, to
facilitate the propagation of the tidal wave through the
estuary or river for which he has to design works, and it
will be found in the examples we have hereafter to offer
that, with proper management, this desirable improvement
may be surely accomplished, and its amount accurately de¬
termined. But that the subject may be fully understood,
it is necessary that we should in the outset explain the na¬
ture and laws of “ tidal propagation” and “ tidal currents”—
phenomena attending the tides of our rivers and estuaries
which must be duly recognised and estimated in all de¬
signs for improvements which are based on sound principles
of river engineering.
The tidal wave which enters an estuary is a branch of
the great tidal wave of the ocean. Mr Scott Russell was
the first experimental inquirer who conducted investigations
on the tide wave of estuaries. Mr Russell’s observations
were made on the Dee in Cheshire, and the Clyde, and
the results which he obtained may be briefly stated as
follows:—
1. The great primary wave of translation differs from Rivers,
every other species of wave in its origin, its phenomena,
and its laws. ' _ Laws of
2. The tide wave is identical with the great primary its propa-
wave of translation. gation.
3. In a rectangular channel, the velocity with which the
tidal wave is propagated is equal to the velocity acquired by
a heavy body falling freely by gravity through a height
equal to half the depth of the fluid, reckoned from the top
of the wave to the bottom of the channel. In a sloping or
triangular channel the velocity is that of a gravitating body
due to ^d of tbe greatest depth. In a parabolic channel
the velocity is that due to fths or -^ths of the greatest
depth, according as the channel is convex or concave. And
generally the velocity is that due to gravity, acting through
a height equal to the depth of the centre of gravity of the
transverse section of the channel below the surface of the
fluid.
4. The velocity in channels of uniform depth is inde¬
pendent of their breadth.
5. A tidal bore is formed when the water is so shallow
that the first waves of flood move with a velocity so much
less than that due to the succeeding parts of the tidal wave
as to be overtaken by the subsequent parts, or whenever
the tide rises so rapidly that the height of the first wave of
the tide exceeds the depth of water at that place.
6. A wave of high-water of spring tides travels faster
than a wave of high-water of neap tides.
These laws are supposed to apply to the passage of the
wave through channels having a pretty uniform depth and
form of cross section ; but the very irregular outline of the
beds of most of our tidal channels renders it almost always
difficult, and in many cases impossible, to apply them rigidly
to cases which occur in actual practice. The writer may,
however, state generally, in corroboration of the correctness
of Mr Russell’s deductions, that after investigating the
tidal phenomena of many estuaries and rivers, he has found
that in all cases the quickest propagation of the tidal wave
occurs at those places where there is the greatest average
depth ; but the varying outline of the cross section renders
it almost impossible, in most cases, to determine what is
the ruling depth for calculating the rates of propagation in
any particular section of the river. In the Dornoch Firth,
to which we have already alluded, the writer found that the
distance of 11 miles between Portmahomac and Meikle-
ferry is traversed by the tide-wave in thirty minutes, giv¬
ing a velocity of 22 miles per hour. The depth of the water
of that part of the firth varies from 9 to 50 feet. Between
Meikleferry, again, and the Quarry, a distance of 8 miles,
where the depth is much less, varying from 6 to 20 feet,
the transit of the wave occupies 65 minutes, giving a
speed of 6-4 miles per hour.1 Between the Quarry and Bonar
Bridge, a distance of 1 mile, the water is comparatively
shallow, varying from 1 to 3 feet, and the rise on the
bed of the river is very rapid. In consequence of these ob¬
structions, the tide does not appear at Bonar Bridge for an
hour and a half after it has appeared at the Quarry, giving
a rate of propagation of only two-thirds of a mile per hour.
From observations made by the writer at the Dornoch Firth
and elsewhere, it appears evident that, in addition to the
elements on which the laws of propagation as quoted are
based, the slope on the surface of the stream in tidal rivers
affects to some extent the rate of propagation, independently
either of the depth or cross-sectional lorm of the channel;
but it will be more convenient to notice this at a subse¬
quent part of this treatise.
Now, the obstructions which are most frequently found Obstacles
to operate as retarding influences are, the circuitous routes which
of the channels of rivers, inequalities in their beds, the pro- operate in
       retarding
tidal wave.
1 The times are the intervals which elapse between the first appearance of the tide at the different stations.
NAVIGATION, INLAND.
65
Rivers, jection of obstacles from their banks, and in certain circum-
stances the slopes of their surfaces. The combined effect
of these obstructions is such as in all rivers to check the
propagation of the tide-wave ; and in situations where there
is a great and rapid rise of tide, to heap up the wrater in the
lower part of the river, and so to occasion what are termed
“ bores,” and other apparent anomalies. In the Dee, for
example, there is at low-water a fall of 11 feet from Chester
to Flint, a distance of 12 miles ; and on one occasion the
writer found that after the tide had risen 18 feet 4 inches
at Flint, it had not commenced to flow at Chester. While,
therefore, at low-water there is a fall seawards of 11 feet
from Chester to Flint, there was at the time alluded to a
fall from the sea downwards, so to speak, of no less than 7
feet 4 inches from Flint to Chester. Fig. 2 is a diagram
Fig. 2.
of these tide lines, which will illustrate more clearly the
effect of this heaping up of water in the seaward part of
the river. The lower line represents the surface of low-
water, and the upper line shows the surface at the period of
flood-tide to which we have alluded.1 In this case the
small depth of water, and tortuous and unequal channel,
retarded the early waves of flood-tide so much, that they
were overtaken by the succeeding w’aves ; and, in accord¬
ance with Mr Russel’s theory, a tidal bore was the result,
or, in other words, the water was heaped up so high, and
the slope was consequently so great, as to cause the water
• H f::
» '•! c. ■
• '%■
i)
a
Fig. 3.
to tumble over, and ascend the river in the form of a break¬
ing wave.
The manner in which such tides flow up an estuary may Rivers,
be explained by a simple illustration. In fig. 3 the letters ^
«, b, c, d represent a partof the low-water channel of the River Example
Dee, at a place where the estuary is about 3 miles wide, and °f a tidal
consists of extensive sand-banks. In examining minutely bore on
the windings of the stream in reference to certain investi-the Dee-
gations, it was necessary to walk down the right bank of
the river at low-water, close to the edge of the channel.
While so engaged, the writer crossed at the point b, a hol¬
low in the sand-bank, which, though depressed below the
general height of the surrounding surface, was nevertheless
quite dry, the lowest part of the track being considerably
above the level of the water of the river. Crossing this
hollow, the noise of the approaching tide was heard; and
expecting to meet the flood forcing its way up the river,
he continued to walk on ; but seeing no appearance of its
approach by the proper channel, and still hearing the noise
gradually increasing, and apparently coming from behind,
he turned round and perceived a rapid run of water flowing
(in the direction shown by the arrow) through the hollow
deb, which had just been crossed, and emptying itself into
the river at b. He immediately hastened back, and after
having waded through the newly-formed stream at b, which
had attained a depth of 6 or 8 inches, he remained on its
upper side to see the result of this unexpected inroad. The
water continued to rush through the hollow, rapidly gain¬
ing breadth and depth, and at last, after an interval of 2 or
2J minutes from the time at which the noise was first heard,
the tide appeared forcing its way up the proper channel of
the river with a head or bore of 6 or 8 inches in height.
In this case it is clear, from what has been said as to the
slope on the river from Flint to Chester during the early
periods of tide, that the level of the wrater at d in the dia¬
gram would be above that at b. The tide, on arriving at
the point d, would be naturally divided into two branches or
currents, one proceeding up the natural channel towards c,
and the other flowing into the hollow in the sand-bank at d
towards e; and as the level of the water at d rose, the stream
which flowed into the hollow in the sand-bank would gra¬
dually rise higher until it surmounted the summit-level at
e, after which it w'ould rush from e to b without obstruc¬
tion. The other branch of the tide would in the meantime
be forcing its way along the circuitous channel deb, which
was about a mile in length; and before it reached b, the
water at d had attained a much higher level than at b, and
having surmounted the summit-level of the sand-bank at e,
continued to flow without obstruction into the channel of
the river in the manner represented. Thus in all places
where the retarding influences which exist in the regular
channel of the river exceed the obstructions in any back
lake or swash-way, the tide will flow sooner through the
latter than the former, and give rise to an apparent ano¬
maly such as has been described.
The late Admiral Beechey, in his Remarks on the Tidal Bore on
Phenomena of the River Severn, published in 1851, gives the Severn.
1 The writer has found, that in all cases the heaping up of the water increases with the rise of tide, being greatest in spring and
least in neap tides ; as will be seen from the following tabular views of the maximum difference of level between the surface of the water
at Flint and Chester on the Dee, and (to offer another example) at Glasson and Lancaster on the Lune, during the flow of tides of vanous
amounts of vertical range.
Date.
1839.
May 21
„ 23
„ 25
„ 29
June 10
Rise of tide at
Flint.
Ft. in.
14 0
15 6
16 4
18 0
19 8
Maximum fall
from Flint to
Chester.
Ft. in.
3 8
4 5
5 8
6 6
7 10
River Lune.
1838.
Aug. 29
„ 31
Sept. 1
„ 3
„ 5
„ 6
Rise of tide at
Glasson.
12
12
15 4
19 8
23
23
Maximum fall
from Glasson to
Lancaster.
Ft. in.
1 1
1 6
2 0
2 10
3 2
4 4
VOL. XVI.
I
66 NAVIGATION, INLAND.
Rivers, the following interesting account of the bore on that river:
—“ The bore,” he says, “ is not dangerous to boats if afloat
in the middle of the river; and it is the common practice
up the Severn to row the boats out to the centre of the
stream on the approach of the bore, and put their head to
the wave; but if this precaution be not taken, and the
boats are allowed to remain at the edge of the shore, they
are liable to be swamped or stove, as the waves break with
great violence along the banks as it proceeds; but towards
the centre of the river, if the water be not very shallow,
the wave is smooth and unbroken. Before the arrival of
the bore, the stream runs down the river, and the altitude
of the water at a distance from the sea is quite stationary;
but on the arrival of the bore, the water instantly rises ac¬
cording to the height of the breast of the wave, and the
stream turns and follows the wave up the river, although
it had but a few minutes before been running down at a
rapid rate; and this change of stream is effected without
any breaking wave. When there is a heavy fresh down
the river, and the stream is running at the rate of four or
more miles an hour, the upward stream hangs for several
minutes after the bore has passed, not being able to over¬
come at the moment the impetus of the ebbing water; but
when it has once turned upwards, it attains its maximum
speed in the first half hour of the tide. When the reaches
of the river are straight, the bore travels evenly up the
river, but at the turnings it is thrown off towards the fur¬
ther side, where it rises higher than in the straight reaches;
thence it recoils and impinges upon the opposite shore,
and so, like a disturbed pendulum, it oscillates from side to
side, and only regains its steady course when the reaches
lengthen. The highest tide of the year rolled up the Se¬
vern on the 1st of December. There was about 2 feet of
water above the ordinary summer-level in the river, and
the morning was calm and favourable to the phenomenon.
The stream at low-water ran down at the rate of 2£ miles
(geographical) per hour, until the time when the bore came
rolling up the river with a breast from 5 to 6 feet high at
the sides, and 3 feet 6 inches in the centre. The wave
was glassy smooth ; and as it advanced towards a spectator
stationed at Stonebench, a singular effect was produced by
the distorted surface of the wave reflecting the rising sun,
and brilliantly illuminating the stems and branches of the
wood skirting the river as the bore passed along—an effect
which greatly enhanced the interest of the phenomenon,
which is at all times an object of curiosity. The stream
turned up the instant after the bore passed, and ran at the
rate of 3£ miles per hour, which was about half the average
rate of the bore, the speed of which varied from 12 to 7
miles per hour, averaging 8 between Stonebench and Glou¬
cester.” Admiral Beechey further says, “ that the effect of
a fresh, or a certain depth of water in the river, upon the
advance of the bore is remarkable. At dry periods the
great obstruction to the progress of the bore lies between
Sharpness and Bollowpool, and at such times the many
dry sand-banks prevent the bore attaining a rate greater
than about 4 miles an hour; but when the river is under
the influence of freshes, and the water raised and covering
some of the banks, it appears to roll on at a rate of 10 miles
an hour in opposition to the stream, which runs down at
the rate of upwards of 4 miles an hour.”
Tide cur- But the passage of the tidal-wave through an estuary
rents. or river, must not be mistaken for what is called the
“ tide current,” which is a totally different phenomenon.
The tidal-wave which we have been describing as passing
through the lower part of the Dornoch Firth, for example,
at the rate of 22 miles per hour, is not the current due to
the flowing tide by which vessels are carried across the
bar, and borne onward to their destination. 4 hat current Rivers,
flows with a velocity which at the Dornoch Firth does not
exceed 4 or o miles per hour ; a velocity which, indeed, is
not often exceeded, excepting in such rapid tideways as the
Severn, at the New Passage, where the velocity is said to
reach 9 miles per hour and in the Pentland Firth, where
Captain Otter measured a velocity during ebb-tide of no
less than 10Tyh nautical miles per hour,1 2 being, so far as we
know, the greatest tide velocity on record. The laws of
the propagation of the tidal wave, to which we first alluded,
depend, as explained, on circumstances somewhat obscure;
but the velocity of the tide current, or that current which
flows into our rivers, and affects the transit of shipping, is
due entirely to the slope or fall on the surface of the water.
The amount of this slope has been shown to be dependent
on the rapidity with which the tide rises, and the amount
of obstruction presented to its propagation up the river.
The more rapid the rise of tide, and the greater the ob¬
struction to its flow, the higher will the tide-wave at cer¬
tain parts of a river or estuary be heaped up. A head of
water is thus formed whose height is due to the rapidity of
the rise of the tide and the obstruction to its progress ; and
a flow of water having a velocity due to that head is gene¬
rated up the river or estuary, and this flow of water is what
we term the tide current.
This is probably the most convenient place to notice By increas-
some facts of great importance in river engineering, winching the rate
we deduce from these considerations, as to the nature ofof tidalPro-
the tidal propagation and tide currents. The obstructions Paeg^lon
to which we have alluded retard the rate of propagation, ^rease the
but by raising the head, they increase the velocity of the velocity of
tide currents. Now, as the aim, and, if successful, the the tidal
effect of all engineering works, is to increase the rate of currents,
tidal propagation, no less certainly will they tend to lessen
the heaping up of water in the lower reaches, and at the
same time to decrease the velocity of the tide currents. In
cases where these currents are found to act prejudicially
by producing a bore, or by bringing up sand from the lower
parts of the estuary, or where they are inconveniently
rapid for navigation, we are thus, while increasing the pro¬
pagation of the tidal wave, enabled to check their energy,
and thus to effect an important improvement.
Another important circumstance is worthy of notice at The level
this place. It is well known that the momentum of the of high-
column of water, flowing up the gradually contracting and w»ter not
rising channel of a river, causes the level of high-water to
stand higher than in the open ocean or in the lower reaches. t^al' pro-
This is accounted for, as already stated, on the prm-pagation.
ciple of the conservation of forces. The height to which
the water is thus raised depends on the quantity of water
thrown in by the tide during a given time, the elevation
being greatest at spring, and smallest at neap tides. At
the Dee, for example, the writer found that the high-water
of spring tides at Chester was 14 inches higher than that
at Connah’s Quay; while at neap tides the difference of
level was only 4 inches. Now, the effect of engineering
works, as will be more fully detailed hereafter, is not only
to produce a free propagation of the tide, but to admit a
larger body of tidal water; and it has been contended that
such operations must necessarily cause the tide to rise
higher, and it has been attempted to be shown that they
might in some situations occasion inconvenience, and even
injury to property, in consequence of the overflowing of the
river’s banks. After the most careful observation, however,
the writer has not been able to detect that such operations
have in any case had the effect of appreciably raising the
level of the high-water line. Although the tide in improved
rivers begins to flow earlier, and a much larger body of
1 Report to the Admiralty on the Severn Improvement Bill, 1849, by Captain Vetch.
2 Admiralty Survey of Pentland Firth, by Captain Otter, Admiralty coasting pilot.
NAVIGATION, INLAND.
67
Rivers, water is thrown up the river, still, in conformity with the
views already stated, the velocity with which the water
flows is decreased, so that the momentum of the column
of water remains nearly the same, or at least is not so notably
altered as sensibly to increase the height to which the
high-water rises ; and by this fortunate compensative action
our rivers, though their beds are opened up and improved,
do not inundate our towns or even overflow our quays, but
quietly keep within their original limits.
Removal The removal of all obstacles to the flow of the tide is the
of obstruc- object, as already stated, to which the engineer has chiefly
tidal flow *° t^rect attention in designing improvements in the
department of navigation now under consideration ; and it
may be stated, that in order to form a satisfactory opinion
on this matter, it is essential to have an accurate survey,
showing the depths of water and the breadths of channel
throughout the whole extent of the river, and also to as¬
certain the amount of tidal range, the velocity of the cur¬
rents, the rise on the bed, and the nature of the materials
of which the bottom and banks are composed. Possessed
of this information, he is in a position to consider to what
extent the bed of the river may with advantage be deep¬
ened and widened, and the currents directed by means of
walls ; also if subsidiary channels may with safety be shut
up, or new cuts be made for the passage of the river, or
whether or not irregularities in the width which injuriously
affect the currents may be corrected. In all these matters
the engineer must, in each particular case, be guided by
experience. While it is therefore impossible, in such cir¬
cumstances to specify works which shall be of universal
application, it is nevertheless quite within the range of
sound engineering advice to point out generally the
works which are most likely to effect improvements,
and to direct the reader to cases in which such works
have proved successful; and this is all that we propose
to do in the remarks we have to offer on this part of our
subject.
With reference to these operations, then, it may be stated,
that all obstructions which prevent the extension of the
tidal influence up the river may safely be taken away, and
their removal may confidently be expected to be followed
by highly beneficial effects. It is necessary to remark,
however, that the removal of artificial weirs erected for the
purposes of manufacture is, in many cases, attended with
difficulty, arising from the value of the interests involved,
which are sometimes so great that the abolition of such erec¬
tions cannot be effected without large compensation. The
weirs on the Dee in Cheshire, and the Lune in Lancashire,
are instances of this, being productive of much injury; while
in both cases the interests affected are so important, and the
consequences so serious, as hitherto to have operated as an
effectual barrier to their removal. The removal of existing
quays and other works of long standing, as in the case of
the Thames, the Tyne, and the Wear, is also for the same
reason difficult, and works must therefore be designed for
such localities which shall not injuriously affect existing
interests. But all natural weirs or shoals, consisting of fixed
rock or hard gravel, which cannot be disturbed by the action
of the current, as well as all projections into the stream,
where unattended by the difficulties alluded to, should at
once be removed. Whenever it is possible, divided cur¬
rents should be united into one stream. The channel,
where it is necessary, should be guided by longitudinal walls,
and the river’s bed should be deepened to the full extent
compatible with a due amount of slope being left on the
surface.
I hese may be said to be the safest and most beneficial
W’orks which can be adopted in designing river improvements,
their effect being to cause the currents of flood and ebb
tide to flow always in one channel, and thus to exert their
full and combined power in keeping open one navigable
track. The manner in which they are executed demands
a few remarks; and we shall treat the different works under
the heads of:—
1. Removal of lateral obstructions.
„ 2. Closing subsidiary channels.
3. Dredging.
4. Excavation.
5. River walls; and
6. Scouring.
Rivers.
1. Removal of Lateral Obstructions.
Under the “Removal of Lateral Obstructions” maybe
classed all those works which have for their object the forma¬
tion of proper outlines for the banks or sides of the river.
In the early history of river engineering it was not uncommon jettjes ob.
to construct jetties or groins projecting from the banks on jectionabll
either side, with the view of narrowing the stream and pro¬
ducing a greater scouring power to operate on the bottom.
It is no doubt true, that such projections have the effect of
producing a local acceleration of the currents, and in soft
bottoms a corresponding increase of depth in their imme¬
diate vicinity. But this increase of velocity and depth
being due entirely to the obstruction and consequent rais¬
ing of the level of the water caused by the jetty, is strictly
local. Whenever the water passes the head of the jetty, it
expands into the greater width of bed, the head is reduced,
a stagnation or eddy takes places, and a bank or shoal is
formed,—a result which invariably follows the projection of
any obstruction or foreign body into a stream having a soft
bottom. As an aggravated instance of the effect of such
obstructions, we may refer to the case of a vessel of about
170 tons, which, in consequence of the breaking of a tow-
line, grounded at the side of the River Tay when there was
some flood in the river. The effect g
is shown in fig. 4, where the ves- 1
sel is represented at a as lying in a 1
pool which was scoured to the depth
of about 10 feet in the course of a i
few tides ; and the gravel thus ex- )
cavated by the current, acting on |j|
the grounded vessel, and amount- Ml
ing to upwards of 1000 tons, was #
deposited in the form of a bank, 5 ^
feet above low-water, immediately |
below the pool, as shown in hatch- H
ed lines. A similar effect, though m
varying in degree, occurs in all =
rivers confined by jetties. The beds Tig. 4.
of rivers so treated consist of an alternation of shoals nearly
dry at low-water, and pools of a depth far greater than is ac¬
tually requisite, instead of presenting, as they ought to do,
a regular bottom and a uniform depth of water available
for the purposes of navigation. Examples of the prejudicial
effect of jetties are to be met with in the history of the
Clyde, the Ribble, the Dee in Cheshire, the Tay, and, the
writer believes, with little or no exception, in every situation
where the system of contracting, or even directing the cur¬
rents by means of such works, has been generally adopted.
From the Clyde, the Ribble, and the Tay they have been
entirely removed. The writer has invariably found, that
whenever jetties existed, their entire or partial removal
formed one of the first steps towards an improvement of
the navigation, and this course has, in all cases which have
come within his experience, been followed by good results.
In some instances, where the river is contracted by the
projection of quays or by the natural formation of the banks,
it is desirable, where it can be done consistently with ex¬
isting interests, to enlarge the cross-sectional area, in order
to reduce the velocity of the currents and prevent disturb¬
ance of the tidal flow.
68
NAVIGATION, INLAND.
Rivers,
2. Closing Subsidiary Channels.
The next work to be noticed is the closing of what v e
term subsidiary channels. These are channels, or, as they
are sometimes called, back lakes, caused by islands which
divide the stream and reduce its scouring power. Ihe
consequence is, that instead of flowing in one broad, deep,
navigable bed, kept open by the whole available scouring
power, the river is divided into two shallow channels, neither
of them affording a good navigation, while frequently a
ford or shallow is occasioned both above and below the^
island by the disturbance which occurs at the junction of
the divided currents. On the Tay and the Lune several
such secondary channels were, with much advantage to tlm
navigation, closed up by means of embankments formed of
gravel dredged from the river, while the other or principal
channel was enlarged and deepened, so as fully to com¬
pensate for the closing of the smaller channel, and assimi¬
late its cross-sectional area to the rest of the navigable
track.
3. Dredging.
The introduction of mechanical appliances for the pur¬
pose of excavating materials under water, raising them to
the surface, and depositing them in barges, was an im¬
portant era in canal and river engineering. The first em¬
ployment of machinery to effect this important object
is, like the discovery of the canal lock, claimed alike for
Holland and Italy, in both of which countries dredging is
believed to have been practised before it was introduced
into Britain. The moving power at first employed in con¬
ducting the process was manual labour, but in all large works
dredging is now performed by steam, and is probably the
most effective and generally applicable means of improve¬
ment at the command of the engineer. I he Dutch, at a
very early period, employed what is termed the “ bag and
spoon” dredge for cleaning their canals. It consisted of a
ring of iron about 2 feet in diameter, flattened and steeled
for about one-third of its circumference;, to this ring a
bag of strong leather was attached by means of thongs, and
the whole apparatus was fixed to a long pole, which, on
being used, was lowered to the bottom from the end of a
barge moored in the canal or river. A rope made fast to
the iron ring was then wound up by a windlass placed at
the other end of the barge, and the spoon was thus dragged
along the bottom, and was guided in its progress by a man^
who held the pole. When the spoon reached the end of
the barge where the windlass was placed, the winding was
still continued, and it was raised to the surface, bringing
with it the stuff excavated, and deposited in the bag during
its progress along the bottom. The windlass being still
wrought, the whole was raised to the gunwale of the barge,
and the bag being emptied, was again lowered and bauled
back to the opposite end of the barge for another supply.
This system is slow, and only adapted to a limited depth
of water and a soft bottom. It has, however, been gene¬
rally employed in canals, and was much used in the Thames;
and the writer, in one situation where, from want of space
and other peculiarities, more perfect mechanical means
could not be employed, used it to a pretty large extent,
the quantity raised being about 135,000 tons. The pro¬
cess, although tedious, was very convenient, and the
cost of raising the materials did not exceed 7^d. per ton.
Another plan practised at an early period was to moor
two large barges, one on either side of the river; be-
tveen them was slung an iron bucket or box, attached to
both bargts by chains wound round the bands of a power- ^
ful crab-windi in one barge, and round a capstan in the
other. The bucket was lowered at the side of the barge
in which was the capstan, and being drawn across the
bottom by the crab in the opposite barge, was raised and
emptied; after which it was again lowered, and hauled across
by the capstan for a repetition of the process. But in all
laro-e operations these and other primitive appliances have,
as "already stated, been superseded by the steam-dredge,
which was first employed, it is believed, in deepening the
Wear at Sunderland, about the year 1796. This machine
was made for Mr Grimshaw by Bolton and Watt.1 Re¬
ceiving improvements from Mr Hughes, Mr Rennie, Mi
Jessop, and others, the steam-dredge, as now generally con¬
structed, is a most efficient machine, excavating and raising
materials from the depths of 15 to 20 feet of water, at a
cost not very different from that at which the same work
could be performed on dry land.
For details as to the construction of steam-dredges, we
have to refer to the articles in Wealds Quarterly Papers,
already quoted. As to the nature and extent of work per¬
formed by them, we may state generally, that almost all
materials, excepting rock or very large boulders, may be
dredged with ease. Loose gravel is probably the most
favourable material to work in ; but a powerful dredge will
readily break up and raise indurated beds of gravel, clay,
and boulders. In such cases it is usual to alternate on the
bucket-frame, a bucket of sheet-iron for raising the stuff,
with a rake or pronged instrument for disturbing the bot¬
tom. Hand-dredges have been used by Messrs Stevenson
at several harbours, by means of which, even disintegrated
or rotten rock has been easily raised; and the writer be¬
lieves, that in very many cases the surfaces of submerged
rocks near the mouths of harbours may, by means of such
machines, be broken up and removed, so as to obtain in cer¬
tain situations a considerable increase of depth, without re¬
course to coffer-dams, which, on exposed coasts, involve
great expense and sea risk, as well as interruption to the
trade. These small dredges are worked by eight or ten
men, and cost about L.350.
A well-constructed steam-dredge of 16 horse-power will,
under favourable circumstances, raise about 140 tons of
stuff per hour. The excavated materials are first dis¬
charged into lighters or barges, and then deposited in any
convenient position, where they are sufficiently icmoved
from the risk of being carried oft' by floods, and again
thrown into the bed of the river.
In some cases the discharge is made into hopper punts
or barges, which are floated out to sea, and the stuff is
dropped in deep water. The cost of steam-dredging va¬
ries according to the nature of the materials and the circum¬
stances of working, as regulated by the tides and the dis¬
tance of deposit. It has, in the writer’s own experience, va¬
ried from 4d. to 6d. per ton, or from 5Jd. to 8d. pei cubic
yard, including all expenses.2 3 We believe that in no place
has steam-dredging been more extensively used than in the
Clyde, where the navigable depth has been increased and
is maintained mainly by that process. I he following details
as to the dredging on that river are given in a communica¬
tion made to the Institute of France by the late Mr \\ illiam
Bald, who acted as resident engineer on the Clyde.2 Mr Bald
says, that annual dredging to the amount of from 160,000
to 180,000 tons was necessary at the time he wrote, in
order to maintain the navigable depth of water in the
Clyde in the 18 miles from Glasgow seawards. In execut-
Rivers.
1 Encyclopaedia of Civil Engineering, by Edward Cresy, London, 1847 ; “ The Dredging Machine,’' Weale's Quarterly Papers, part i.,
London, 1843; The Improvement of the Port of London, by R. Dodd, Engineer, 1798.
3 It was found on the Tay that 18 cubic feet of gravel weighed 1 ton.
3 Civil Engineers’ and Architects' Journal for August 1845.
NAVIGATION, INLAND.
69
Rivers, ing this work, the river trustees employed 5 dredges, a
steam-tug, 2 diving-bells, and 160 punts; the whole value
of the working machinery being about L.39,000. The fol¬
lowing table gives the details of the dredging-machines : 
Rivers.
No. of
Dredge.
When
she com¬
menced to
work.
1824
1826
1830
1836
1841
Greatest
depth of
Working.
Ft.
10
14
14
15
in.
6
0
0
6
17 to 19 ft.
Least
depth of
Working.
Ft. in.
3 9
Diameter
of
Cylinder.
Inches.
21
24
24
26
27 J
Length
of
Stroke.
Ft. in.
2 6
Number
of
Backets.
31
33
33
34
34
Length of
Bucket-
frame.
Ft. in.
47 9
52 11
52 11
54
58
Nominal
Power of
Engine.
Ho.-power.
12
16
16
20
22
All these dredges had governors, which regulated the
speed to about 28 strokes per minute in ordinary work¬
ing stuff. The average pressure in boilers was about 3^- lb.
per square inch. In general, 14 buckets were discharged
per minute. The speed of the buckets on the frames of
dredges Nos. 1, 2, 3, and 4, was 48 feet 5 inches per
minute, and that on No. 5, 49 feet 8 inches per minute.
They consumed from 15£ to 18 lb. of coal per horse¬
power per hour. The following is a statement of the
amount of work which was performed by these dredges,
and the expense of the process :—
Cross¬
dredging.
Tabular View of the Dredging of the Wear at Sunderland in 1842-46.
1842
1843
1844
1845
1846
Total Quantity
Raised per Annum.
Tons.
128,245
141,325
90,980
101,075
140,350
Expenditure in
Labour for Rais¬
ing and Depositing
per Annum.
L. s.
922 1 2
879 16 0
567 13 4
721 9 0
724 5 4
d.
Expense of Fuel
per Annum.
Expenditure in
Labour for Repairs
per Annum.
L. s. d.
Ill 0 0
70 0 0
66 5 9
66 7 6
58 2 5
L. s. d.
754 16 0
503 13 4
259 2 1
336 8 0
500 17 2
Expenditure in
Materials for Re
pairs per Annum.
Total Expenditure
per Annum.
L. s. d.
704 17 11
786 13 11
563 9 10
527 7 10
520 3 2
L. s. d.
2492 15 1
2240 3 3
1456 11 0
1651 12 4
1803 8 1
Average cost per
Ton on the Tear’s
Expenditure.
Pence.
4-665
3-804
3-842
3-921
3-083
1842
to
1846
Hence the average cost per ton on five years’ work-
For raising and depositing at sea  
For fuel   
For labour in repairs  
For materials to ditto  
Average total Expenditure......
1-528
0-149
0-943
1-243
= 3-863
Mr Murray gives the above tabular view of the dredging
of the Wear at Sunderland, which is also an interesting
record of the quantity and cost of material raised by a
dredging-machine; but this view is not given by way of
comparison with the preceding, as there is little analogy
between the cases. The contracted state of the Clyde,
the frequent interruptions to which the work was subject
by the constant passage of vessels, and the expense of
removing and depositing the stuff, necessarily increased the
cost of executing the work in that situation.
In river-dredging two systems are pursued ; one plan
consists in excavating a series of longitudinal furrows pa¬
rallel to the axis of the stream, the other in dredging cross
furrows from side to side of the river. It is found that in¬
equalities are left between the longitudinal furrows, when
that system is practised, which do not occur to the same
extent in side or cross-dredging ; and the writer has inva¬
riably found cross-dredging to leave the most uniform bot¬
tom. To explain the difference between the two systems
of dredging, it may be stated, that in either case the dredge
is moored from the head and stern by chains about 250
fathoms in length. These chains in improved dredges are
wound round windlasses worked by the engine, so that the
vessel can be moved ahead or astern, by simply throwing
them into or out of gear. In longitudinal dredging, the
vessel is worked forward by the head chain, while the
buckets are at the same time performing the excavation ;
so that a longitudinal trench is made in the bottom of the
river. When the dredge has proceeded a certain length,
it is stopped and permitted to drop down and commence a
new longitudinal furrow parallel to the former one. In
cross-dredging, on the other hand, the vessel is supplied
with two additional moorings, one at either side, and these
chains are, like the head and stern chains, wound round
barrels wrought by the engine. In commencing to work
by cross-dredging, we may suppose the vessel to be at one
side of the channel to be excavated. The bucket-frame is
set in motion, but instead of the dredge being drawn for¬
ward by the head chain, she is drawn to the opposite side
of the river by the side chain, and having reached the ex¬
tent of her work in that direction, she is then drawn a few
feet forward by the head chain ; and the bucket-frame
being yet in motion, the vessel is hauled back again by
the opposite side chains to the side from whence she
started. By means of this transverse motion of the dredge,
a series of cross furrows is made ; she takes out the whole
excavation from side to side as she goes on, and leaves no
protuberances such as are found to exist between the
furrows of longitudinal dredging, even where it is executed
with great care. The two systems will be best explained
by reference to the annexed cut (fig. 5), where AB repre¬
sents the head and stern moorings, and DC the side moor¬
ings ; the arc ef represents the course of the vessel in cross¬
dredging ; while in longitudinal dredging, as already ex-
NAVIGATIO
plained, she is drawn forward towards A, and again dropped
down to commence a new longitudinal furrow.
In some cases, however, the bottom is found to be too
hard to be dredged until it has been to some extent loos¬
ened and broken up. Thus at Newry, Mr Rennie, after
blasting the bottom in a depth of from 6 to 8 feet at low-
water, then removed the material by dredging, at an ex¬
pense of from 4s. to 5s. per cubic yard. The same pro¬
cess was adopted by Messrs Stevenson at the bar of the
Erne at Ballyshannon, where, in a situation exposed to a
heavy sea, large quantities of boulder stones were blasted,
and afterwards raised by a dredger worked by hand, at a
cost of about 10s. 6d. per cubic yard. But the most exten¬
sive application of blasting, preparatory to dredging, of which
the writer is aware, was that on the works for improving the
Severn, by Sir William Cubitt, of which an interesting and
instructive account is given by Mr George Edwards, in a
paper addressed to the Institution of Civil Engineers, from
which the following particulars are taken:1—
“ It appears that a succession of marl beds, varying from
100 yards to half a mile in length, were found in the chan¬
nel of the Severn, which proved too hard for being
dredged, the whole quantity that could be raised being
only 50 or 60 tons per day; while the machinery of the
dredges employed was constantly giving way. Attempts
were first made to drive iron rods into the marl bed,
and to break it up ; a second attempt was made to loosen
it by dragging across its surface an instrument like a
strong plough. But these plans proving unsuccessful, it
was determined to blast the whole surface to be operated
on. The marl was very dense, its weight being 146 lb.
per cubic foot;2 and it was determined to drill perpendi¬
cular bores, 6 feet apart, to the depth of 2 feet below the
level of the bottom to be dredged out. The bores were
made in the following manner, from floating rafts moored
in the river:—Pipes of A -inch wrought-iron, 3|- inches
diameter, were driven a few inches into the marl. Through
these pipes holes were bored, first with a 1^-inch jumper,
and then with an auger. The holes were bored 2 feet
below the proposed bottom of the dredging, as it was
expected that each shot would dislocate or break in pieces
a mass of marl of a conical form, of which the bore-hole
would be the centre and its bottom the apex; so that the
adjoining shots would leave between them a pyramidal
piece of marl, where the powder would have produced
little or no effect. By carrying the shot-holes lower than
the intended dredging, the apex only of this pyramid was
left to be removed; and in practice this was found to
form but a small impediment. Fig. 6 is a section, and
Watei’ Level
-Surface of Rock   
Fig. 6.
fig. 7 a plan of the bore-holes ; the inner dotted circles
represent the diameters of the broken spaces at the level
of the bottom of dredging. The cartridges were formed
N, INLAND.
in the ordinary way, with canvas, and fired with Pickford’s
fuse. The weight of powder used for bore-holes of 4 feet, 4
feet 6 inches, and 5 feet, were respectively 2 lb., 3 lb., and 4
lb. The effect of the shot was generally to lift the pipes a few
Rivers.
Fig. 7.
inches, which were secured by ropes to the rafts. Mr Ed*
wards says that not one in a hundred shots missed fire,
and these shots were generally saved by the following sin¬
gular expedient:—The pointed end of an iron bar, f-inch
diameter, was made red-hot, and being put quickly through
the water, and driven through the tamping as rapidly as
possible, was in nine cases out of ten sufficiently hot to
ignite the gunpowder and fire the shot.
“ The cost of each shot is calculated as follows :—
Use of material   £0 1 0
Labour  0 3 3
Pitched bag for charge  0 0 3
3 lb. of powder at 5£d  0 1
15 feet of patent fuse at -^ths of a penny  0 0 9
Pitch, tallow, twine, coals, &c  0 0 41-
Cost per shot £0 7 0
Each shot loosened and prepared for dredging about 4
cubic yards ; so that the cost for blasting was Is. 9d. per
yard. The cost of dredging the material, after it had
been thus prepared, was 2s. 3d.; making the whole charge
for removing the marl 4s. per cubic yard.”
4. Excavation.
But there are cases where the bottom cannot be advan¬
tageously operated on by any of the means we have men¬
tioned, and where it is necessary to have recourse to other
appliances for its removal, such as the diving-bell or diving-
helmet, and coffer-dams. The diving-bell has, in conjunc- By diving-
tion with dredging, been much used on the Clyde, and Mr bell.
Bald gives the following account of the operation as con¬
ducted on that river :—
“Between Erskine Ferry and the New Shot Isle the
bed of the Clyde, for a distance of 2000 yards, was
greatly encumbered with stones and stone boulders, which
were highly injurious to vessels if they grounded there ;
and frequently large ships, in being tugged through this
part of the river-channel, had their copper bottoms in¬
jured when they touched the rocky channel-bed. In deep¬
ening and clearing this part of the river, two diving-bells
were employed, and one, and sometimes two, steam-dredgers.
The clearing and deepening of this channel was exceed¬
ingly severe on the machinery and working-gear of the
steam-dredgers; the speed of the engines was therefore
governed by the nature of the material in the bottom ;
and although the iron-work frequently gave way, yet spare
links and buckets being always ready to replace those
1 “ Account of Blasting on the Severn,” by George Edwards, C.E. {Trans, of Institution of Civil Engineers, vol. iv., p. 361).
2 Clay weighs about 109 lb., and sandstone about 155 lb. per cubic foot.
NAVIGATION, INLAND.
Rivers, which broke, there was little interruption to the contin-
uous working of the dredgers. When the dredgers had
cleared away the material which covered the boulders in
the bottom of the channel, the diving-bell boats were
worked over the ground so cleared, removing all the
larger boulders ; and when that part of the channel had
been cleared of them, the dredgers went again over the
same bottom, removing all the lighter material from the
heads of the lower boulders, preparatory to the bells com¬
mencing again ; and these operations were continued until
the necessary depth was attained.
“ The buckets of the steam-dredgers, in working along
the bottom, always slipped over the head of the large
boulders, which the diving-bells alone could lift and re¬
move. Some of these masses of trap or whinstone were
4 and 5 tons in weight, and from their rounded forms and
smooth surfaces, it was evident that they had been brought
from some distance. Some of them were of sandstone, but
they were more angular than the trap boulders. Quanti¬
ties of these boulders, lifted from the bed of the channel,
might be seen lying along the sides of the river; and
many of them had since been split and broken up by gun¬
powder for repairing the river dykes. The tops of some
of the large stone boulders lifted from the bed of the chan¬
nel were found grooved to a depth of about an inch or
more, by the ship’s keels having been rubbing over them ;
and metallic particles were distinctly to be seen upon their
surface. In removing these stone boulders from the bed
of the channel, the diving-bell men found numerous frag¬
ments of copper and iron which had been torn off the
ship’s bottoms and keels by the large stones; but latterly
this had not been the case, as great progress had been made
in the removal of the boulders, and the deepening of the
channel.”
71
Large isolated masses of stone have also been removed Rivers.
en masse from many rivers by fixing Ionises in them, and v
raising them by floatation. On the Tay this was done to
some extent, and one boulder of 50 tons was raised from
the river by that means. Where a large area and consi¬
derable depth of solid rock has to be removed, coffer-dams
are doubtless the best means of executing the work; but
the chief difficulty in employing dams in the narrow chan¬
nels of rivers is the obstruction which they necessarily pre¬
sent to the passage of floods and also to shipping. It is
therefore a matter of high importance to reduce their bulk
to the smallest possible limits. With this view the writer1 By coffer-
designed a coffer-dam for the works of the River Kibble, dams,
which consisted of two rows of iron rods, 3 feet apart,
jumped into the rocky bottom, and supporting two linings
of planking, the intermediate space being filled with clay,
and the whole structure being stayed from the inside, so as
to present no obstruction beyond the outer line of the dam.
Three dams of this construction were formed in the Kib¬
ble ; and by means of them, a bed of rock, 300 yards in
length, and of a maximum depth of 13 feet 6 inches, was
successfully excavated. The maximum depth of water at
high-water against the dam was 16 feet, but in very high
floods of the river the whole dam was sometimes com¬
pletely submerged; but on the water subsiding, it was
found that the iron rods, on which alone its stability de¬
pended, although only jumped 15 inches into the rock, were
not drawn from their fixtures. As this construction of
dam completely overcomes the difficulty of fixtures in a
hard bottom, where piles cannot be driven, and offers very
little obstruction to the navigation ; and moreover, as it has
been successfully used on a large scale, and seems to fulfil
all the conditions demanded in such a situation, it may be
perhaps considered generally applicable to situations where
ELEVATION SECTION
there is a hard bottom and limited space. The sketch (fig. 8)
shows, by an elevation, section, and plan, the manner in
which it was constructed.
5. River-Walls.
In open estuaries filled with sand-banks, the courses of
rivers are liable to constant alteration, due to every change
in the tides or winds. The accompanying woodcut (fig. 9)
of the River Lune illustrates this remark; the several dotted
lines represent the variation of the channel during the period
of a few years. This tendency to wander is common to all
rivers when left undirected to work their way through a
1 “ Description of a Coffer-Dam adapted to a Hard Bottom,” by David Stevenson, C.E. {Trans, of Inst, of Civil Engineers, vol. iii., p. 377).
72 N A VI G A T I O N, IN L A N D.
Fig. 9.
which is constantly shifting its course never remains suffi¬
ciently long in one position to form for itself a properly
defined bed, but is in fact always in a transition state ; the
sand which is worn from the concave being thrown to the
convex side of the stream, while some portion of the floaty
ing materials, carried to and fro during this process of
perpetual change, is often deposited, and forms shoals in
the middle of the fairway. A river left in this state of
nature cannot possibly attain the maximum depth due to
the natural scour of the tidal currents, as their power is
expended in abrading and removing the sand-banks through
which the stream flows, and not, as it ought to be, in deep¬
ening and scouring its bed. In such cases what is wanted
is to secure a permanent channel, by guiding the first of the
flood and the last of the ebb tide by means of walls, so
that the strength of the currents may constantly operate on
the same line of channel. In this way, it is obvious that
not only will the advantage of a permanent navigable track
be obtained, but the constant action of the currents of flood
and ebb tide flowing in the same channel, will secure a
much greater permanent depth than they could possibly
do if permitted to wander at random through the estuary,
sometimes operating in the same channel, and at other
times directly opposed to each other.
Questions have been raised as to the comparative advan¬
tages of straight and curved walls for directing a channel,
antages of It is believed that, in most cases, the direction of such walls
straight is necessarily determined, not by any abstract consideration
and curved ^   as to the superiority of straight
"a 8’      or curved walls, but chiefly
by the relative positions of the
points between which the
stream is to be conducted, and
the outline and geological
formation of the shores and
banks of the estuary that inter¬
vene between those points.
The consideration of such
matters may render it expe¬
dient, according to the special
circumstances of the locality,
to adopt walls having concave,
straight, or convex outlines, as shown in figs. 10, 11, and 12.
Viewed as a purely abstract question, it may, we think,
be safely affirmed, that a stream is most likely to follow a
permanent course when directed by a concave wall, as
Compara
tive ad-
P.IVER
Fig. 10.
Fig. 11.
rig. 12.
shown in fig. 10, in which the axis of the stream is repre¬
sented by the dotted line. Dr Young observes that the
centrifugal force in curved channels has a tendency to draw
the greater portion of the water to the concave side, and
thus the greatest scouring power, and consequently the
greatest depth of the stream, will be found upon that side.
In a channel directed by straight walls (fig. 11), the current
has no such decided bias for either wall, and is consequently
easily thrown across from side to side. A wall, on the other
hand, having a convex outline, as shown in fig. 12, is (espe¬
cially if the radius of curvature be small) still less suitable
as a guide, as the line of wall diverges from the direction
of the axis of the current. These remarks are not hypo-
theticai, as the writer has found that their correctness has
been verified by cases in actual practice. There is doubt¬
less some disadvantage in the deep water being on one side
of the channel, as more particularly shown in the cross
section, fig. 13. It would be more convenient for naviga-
Fig. 13.
tion were the deep water in the centre ; but it is found that
the current invariably adheres to one or other of the walls,
and it is better that the channel should keep constantly to
one wall, than that it should alternate from side to side, as
is more apt to be the case in absolutely straight channels.
The direction and extent of river-walls must, however,
be carefully considered by the engineer with reference to
existing circumstances, and every case must be judged per
se. But we think it will be found safe, in executing such
works, to adhere as closely as possible to the following
general rules :—
First, The channel through open estuaries should, in all
cases where funds will admit of it, be guided by double
walls. In cases, however, where the estuary is bounded by
a hard beach, presenting a favourable line of direction, a
single wall may occasionally be found sufficient. All curves
which it may be necessary to introduce should be of as
large a radius as possible, and should, if practicable, be
tangential to each other, or to the straight parts of the line
with which they are connected.
Second, The w’alls should not be raised to a higher level
above the low-water line than is absolutely necessary for the
purpose of conducting the early and late currents of the
NAVIGATION, INLAND.
Rivers, tide; and their direction should be marked by occasional aries, as executed under the direction of Messrs Stevenson
perches. They are raised from 3 to 5 feet above the low-water line
Fig. 14 represents the disposition of such walls in estu- so that, while they guide the low-water channel, they do
not prevent the tide at high-water from flowing on either
side of them and filling the estuary.
Third, River-walls should, during their erection, be
pushed forward with vigour, and not in a desultory, timid
manner; the effect of such a course being to increase the
depth of water in which the wall has to be made, and the
amount of stone required for its construction.
Fourth, It will be found that such walls as we have been
describing will be most advantageously formed of rough
rubble stones, backed with clay and gravel, in the manner
shown in fig. 15.
It was found by Mr Park, under whose immediate direc¬
tions, as local engineer, the walls on the River Ribble,
which are about 12 miles in length, were constructed, that
their foundations, with few exceptions, did not sink more
than a few feet below the sand. He found that it was
advantageous to mix clay in the internal core of the wall;
and after the materials were deposited, it was necessary
from time to time, in certain places, to add additional stones
to make tip slips, before attempting to pitch the top or
the face of the slope. Walls somewhat similar have also
been largely introduced on the Clyde by Mr Walker.
6. Scouring.
The removal of hard portions of the bed of a river by
dredging or coffer-dams, and the direction of the channel
by low walls, are operations which are in themselves im¬
provements; but they further operate beneficially in causing
the currents to scour the softer parts of the river’s bed, so that
it sometimes happens that by dredging a few hundred yards
of hard material from a river’s bed, or erecting a short wall,
thousands of tons of soft materials are scoured away by the
action of the current. In all river improvements this is an
effect which should be fully taken into consideration by the
engineer, especially in forming estimates; and its import¬
ance will be apparent on inspecting the section of the River
Lune(Plate II.) By dredg ing the upper shoals of that river,
which are marked in hatched lines in the section, the whole
lower part of the river was deepened by the natural scour,
without entailing any expense in its removal. To facilitate
this scour, a species of harrow has sometimes been applied,
which is drawn to and fro by a tug-steamer across the bank
to be removed. This system was extensively employed by
Captain Denham in opening the Victoria Channel at the
Mersey ; it was also employed by Messrs Stevenson at the
Tay; but it is obvious that it can only be advantageously
used where there is deep water in the immediate neighbour¬
hood of the bank to be removed, in which the sand and mud
disturbed by the harrow, and carried off by the current,
may be deposited. The process of scowring has, in some
situations, to the knowledge of the writer', continued in
operation for many years after the completion of the ori¬
ginal work, the low-water level of the river continuing gra¬
dually to sink; and as this process goes on, it sometimes
happens that hard portions of the bottom originally covered
become gradually exposed.1 Such obstructions are, in fact,
hard portions of the bed brought to light, in consequence
of the improvement of the river, and must not be mistaken
for accumulations due to ill-regulated currents. It is neces¬
sary, however, that such hard portions should be removed
as soon as they appear, otherwise they disturb the currents
and occasion shoals. Whenever the depth due to the
currents acting in their improved direction has been reached,
such obstructions will cease to present themselves.2
The effect of works executed according to the principles
indicated is,—First, to fix the navigable track in a defined
course; second, to deepen the bed of the river; third, to
reduce the slope, and lower the low-water level; a.ndi,fourth,
to increase the duration of tidal influence and the quantity
of tidal water in the river. The benefits to navigation are
threefold :—First, greater depth of water ; second, a pro¬
perly defined channel; and, third, a greater length of time
during which, in consequence of the presence of the tide,
the river is navigable.
The writer has, before leaving this part of the subject, to
state that the works specified are believed to be those most
generally applicable. All of them may not be applicable
in every case ; and there may be special cases which render
it expedient to adopt works of a somewhat different, and,
in some respects, apparently antagonistic character,—such,
for example, as the contraction of channels by means of
quay-walls.
SECT. V.—APPLICATION OF THESE WORKS IN PRACTICE.
Me come now to give a sketch of' navigation improve- -Apphca-
ments, executed in accordance with these general views,tio11
and to show their application in practice, and the effect pro- in
duced by them. The first example to which we shall allude practice,
is the River Tay, improved under the advice and direction of
Messrs Stevenson of Edinburgh; as we know of no instance
in which the improvements effected by particular works are
more fully and satisfactorily demonstrated by a comparison
. , . J7 .en ? ’ 111 ^r's a(idress as president of the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1852, says,—“ At the present moment changes ai
in0 P ace in tie Thames and most of the principal rivers, which afford invaluable opportunity for observations on the effects rivei
motion0” UCe ^ ^ e*r °Wn ac^onJ an<^ also on what is done by the passage of steam-vessels in keeping the lighter silt constantly i
Admiral Beechey, in his Observations on the Tides of the River Severn, mentions a fact which it is proper to record. He says, lt WhiJ
pon e su jec o the low-water line, it may here be remarked, that the inverse of the ordinary effect of the spring-tide occurs in th
er a o\ e ji ney. 10m Lidney downwards to the sea, the low-water at springs follows the general rule of being lower at sue
nondm]hfn' a e neaP8, hut above Lidney the reverse takes place, the low-water at the springs being higher than at the neaps. This
, is occasione y the tide at springs throwing more water into the river than can escape before the return of the following tide.
VOL. XVI. r
K
74
NAVIGATION, INLAND.
Rivers, of observations made previously and subsequently to their
execution, than in the case of that navigation ; where the
changes were brought about in so short a time, and were so
marked as to leave no doubt, even to superficial observers,
of their attainment, and no difficulty, by the use of proper
means, in ascertaining their amount.
River Tay. The River Tay, with its numerous tributaries, as stated
in the table at the end of this treatise, receives the drainage-
water of a district of Scotland amounting to 2283 square
miles, as measured on Arrowsmith’sMap. Its mean discharge
has been ascertained to be 274,000 cubic feet, or 7645
tons of water per minute. It is navigable as far as Perth,
which is 22 miles from Dundee, and 32 from the German
Ocean. The different points on the river, hereafter to be
referred to, will be seen in the small chart given in Plate
II.; and we propose, in this particular case, to enter some¬
what into detail as to the nature of the obstructions to the
navigation, the means employed for their removal, and the
effects produced by the works on the tidal currents; as the
remarks made will, it is believed, serve to illustrate the sub¬
ject of river improvement generally.
Before the commencement of the works, certain ridges,
called “fords,” stretched across the bed of the river at
different points between Perth and Newburgh, and ob¬
structed the passage to such a degree, that vessels drawing
from 10 to 11 feet could not, during the highest tides, make
their way up to Perth without great difficulty. The depth
of water on these fords, the most objectionable of which
were six in number, varied from 1 foot 9 inches to 2 feet 6
inches at low, and 11 feet 9 inches to 14 feet at high water
of spring tides; so that the regulating navigable depth, under
the most favourable circumstances, could not be reckoned
at more than 11 feet. In addition to the shallowness of the
water, many detached boulder stones lay scattered over the
bottom. Numerous “fishing cairns,” or collections of stones
and gravel, had also been laid down, without regard to any
object but the special one in which the salmon-fishers were
interested, and in many cases they formed very prominent
and dangerous obstructions to vessels. The chief disad¬
vantages experienced by vessels in the unimproved state of
the river was the risk of their being detained by ground¬
ing, or being otherwise obstructed at these defective places,
so as to lose the tide at Perth,—a misfortune which, at times
when the tides were falling from springs to neaps, often led
to the necessity either of lightening the vessel, or of de¬
taining her till the succeeding springs afforded sufficient
depth for passing the fords. The great object aimed at,
therefore, was to remove every cause of detention, and
facilitate the propagation of the tidal wave in the upper
part of the river, so that inward-bound vessels might take
the first of the flood to enable them to reach Perth in one
tide. Nor was it, indeed, less important to remove every
obstacle that might prevent outward-bound vessels from
reaching Newburgh, and the more open and deep parts of
the navigation, before low-water of the tide with which they
left Perth.
The works undertaken by the harbour commissioners of
Perth for the purpose of remedying the evils alluded to,
and which extended over six working seasons, may be
briefly described as follows :—
Isf. The fords, and many intermediate shallows, were
deepened by steam-dredging; and the system of harrowing
was employed in some of the softer banks in the lower
part of the river. The large detached boulders and “ fish¬
ing cairns,” which obstructed the passage of vessels, were
also removed.
2d. Three subsidiary channels, or offshoots from the main
stream, at Sleepless, Darry, and Balhepburn islands, the
positions of which will be seen on the plan, were shut up
by embankments formed of the produce of the dredging, so
as to confine the whole of the water to the navigable channel.
3d. In some places the banks on either side of the river Rivers,
beyond low-water mark, where much contracted, were
excavated, in order to equalize the currents, by allowing
sufficient space for the free passage ot the water; and this
was more especially done on the shores opposite Sleepless
and Darry islands, where the shutting up of the secondary
channels rendered it more necessary.
The benefit to the navigation in consequence of the
completion of these works has been of a twofold kind; for
not only has the depth of water been materially increased
by actual deepening of the water-way, and the removal of
numerous obstructions from the bed of the river, but a
clearer and freer passage has been made for the flow of the
tide, which now begins to rise at Perth much sooner than
before; and as the time of high-water is unaltered, the ad¬
vantages of increased depth due to the presence of the tide
is proportionally increased throughout the whole range of
the navigation; or, in other words, the duration of tidal in¬
fluence has been prolonged.
The depths at the shallowest places are now pretty nearly
equalized, being o feet at low and 15 feet at high water, of
ordinary spring tides, instead, as formerly, of 1 foot 9 inches
at low and 11 feet at high water. Steamers of small draught
of water can now therefore ply at low-water, and vessels
drawing 14 feet can now come up to Perth in one tide
with ease and safety.
In obtaining the requisite data, both as to the design and
execution of these works, minute tidal observations were
made at various times during a period of ten years, from
1833 to 1844 inclusive, throughout the River and Firth of
Tay, at the following stations,—viz., Dundee, which is
marked No. 1 on the plan, Plate II.; Balmerino, No. 2;
Flisk Point, No. 3; Balmbreich Castle, No. 4; Newburgh,
No. 5; Carpow, No. 6; Kinfauns, No. 7; and Perth tide
harbour, No. 8. The general results deduced from these
observations are given in the following tables, and show,
by the favourable change which has been effected in the tidal
phenomena of the estuary, that the works executed fully
answered the intended end:—
1. Propagation of Tidal Wave.
The following table of elapsed times, between arrival of
the tide-wave, or commencement of the tidal flow, at the
following stations, during spring tides in 1833 and 1834,
shows the rate of its propagation :—
tv» i.__ _ Kate of Tide-
Time. Distance in Wave in Mileg
Miles.
5-00
2-93
2- 04
3- 42
per Hour.
1875
6-06
4-69
3-86
3-42
Dundee to Balmerino  0 16
Balmerino to Flisk Point  0 29
Flisk Point to Balmbreich  0 26
Balmbreich to Newburgh  0 53
Newburgh to Perth (tide 1 2 30 8-56
harbour)   J
The result of observations made in 1842, 1843, and 1844,
on spring tides, give the same velocity, as above stated,
between Dundee and Newburgh, and the following rates
between Newburgh and Perth :—
Time.
• Rate of Tide-
^MUes6 in ^Vave in Miles
Newburgh to Carpow  0 25
Carpow to Kinfauns  0 55
Kinfauns to Perth (tide har.).. 0 20
1- 33
4-92
2- 32
per Hour.
3-17
5- 36
6- 93
8-56
8-56
5-13
3-42
Giving, as a mean for the
whole distance from New-( 1 40
burgh to Perth in 1844... J
Time from Newburgh to ) 9 of.
Perth in 1833 j ~
Thus showing an increase in the velocity of the tide-wave
in the upper part of the river, which was improved, of more
than If mile per hour as the result of the improvements.
The difference of the time in neap tides between New¬
burgh and Perth in 1844, was 1 h. 53 m.
NAVIGATION, INLAND.
75
Rivers.
2. High-Water Level.
The levels of the surface of high-water at different sta¬
tions throughout the river have been found to be unchanged,
and the following results refer to the years 1833 and 1844:—•
From Flisk Point to Balmbreich there is a fall of 5 in.
... Balmbreich to Newburgh there is a rise of 7y „ 1 Spring
... Newburgh to Perth (tide harbour) there | Tides,
is a rise of.  18 ,, j
From Flisk to Balmbreich there is a fall of  ,, v
... Balmbreich to Newburgh there is a rise of 6 „ I Neap
... Newburgh to Perth (tide harbour) there j Tides,
is a rise of.  12 „ '
3. Lore- Water Level.
Rise on the Surface of Low-water (Spring Tides) in 1833.
Flisk to Balmbreich there
was a rise of. 
Ft. in.
J 0 4
RateofSlope RateofTide
Distance !n Mi]e ^ in Miles
Mlles- Inches. per Hour.
204
1-95
4-69
3-42 9-35 3 88
Newburgh to Perth (tide \ .
harbour), a rise of. ] 4 0 8 56 5 06 3 42
Rise on the Low-water of Spring Tides in 1844.
Newburgh to Carpow,)
thereisariseof...;..... j° 5 133 3/5 3,17
Carpow to Perth there is 1 , - - n
a rise of J17 ?'63
Hence from Newburgh to ) 9 „
Perth, 1844, the rise is.. J
8-56
2-80
513
The result of the observations of 1844 thus gives a
depression on the level of the low-water mark on the gauge
of two feet at Perth tide harbour.
4. Duration of Flood and Ebb.
The results of observations in 1833 and 1844 at New¬
burgh show that the duration of flpod and ebb tides at thgt
place are unchanged. The times are as follows:—
n. m.
Spring Tides flow  4 20
ebb  7 20
Neap Tides flow        4 30
... ebb   6 45
At Perth in 1833 :— Rivers.
Spring Tides flowed  2 20
... ebbed  7 q
Neap Tides flowed  3 15
... ebbed  7 0
At Perth in 1844:—
Spring Tides flowed  3 10
... ebbed  7 0
Neap Tides flowed  3 10
... ebbed  7 0
Increase of duration of Flood in springs at Perth 0 50
It will be observed from these tables that important
changes have taken place :—
First, The fall on the surface of the river from the tide
basin at Perth to Newburgh in the year 1833 was 4 feet,
but after the works were executed it was only 2 feet.
Second, In 1833 the passage of the tidal wave from New¬
burgh to Perth (8*56 miles) occupied 2 hours 30 minutes,
being at the rate of 3’42 miles per hour; but it is now pro¬
pagated between the same places in 1 hour 40 minutes,
being at the rate of 5T3 miles per hour,—giving a decrease
in the time of 50 minutes, and an increase in the speed of
the first wave of flood of more than If mile per hour, since
the commencement of the works.
Third, The spring tides in 1833 at Perth flowed 2 hours
20 minutes, and ebbed 7 hours; but now the tide flows 3
hours 10 minutes, and ebbs 7 hours,—being an increase in
the duration of flood of 50 minutes.
The works on the Forth, also executed under the direc- River
tion of Messrs Stevenson, produced changes on the tidal Forth,
phenomena, which, in connection with those described on
the Tay, are interesting and instructive as regards the pro¬
pagation of the tide, and therefore we shall briefly allude to
them. The river between Stirling and Alloa is very cir¬
cuitous, the distance by the navigation being lOf miles,
while in the direct line it measures only 5 miles. The navi¬
gation was found to be impeded by seven fords or shallows
which occur between Alloa and Stirling, and are composed
of boulder stones, varying from a few pounds to several
tons in weight, embedded in clay.
It was determined, in the first instance, to remove two of
these obstructions, viz., the “ Town” and the “Abbey”
fords, which lie nearest to Stirling, and having the smallest
depth pf water, form the greatest obstruction to the free
STIRLING SHORE
passage of vessels. The works were commenced at the
lower end of the Abbey ford, and were carried regularly
upwards. The new channel excavated through this ford
was about 500 yards in length and 75 feet in breadth, and
was deepened in some places about 3 feet 6 inches.
Previous to the commencement of the work, tide-gauges
were erected in the positions marked 1, 2, 3, and 4, in fig.
16, on which a series of observations was made for the pur¬
pose of establishing the original tidal phenomena of the
river. After the Abbey ford was cut through, farther obr
servations were made on the same gauges; and it is to a
comparison of these two sets of observations that we desire
specially to refer. It is necessary to explain that gauge
No. 1 is at Stirling quay, No. 2 about 500 yards farther
down, No. 3 at the top of the Abbey ford, and No. 4 im¬
mediately below it. It will therefore be understood that
the Abbey ford, through which a channel was cut, lies
between gauges Nos. 3 and 4. The whole of the gauges
were placed on the same level, so that their readings might
be more easily compared 5 and the following are the results
obtained with reference to the level of the low-water
line:—
Levels of Low-water Line.
In 1847 tke low-water line was
found to stand at the following
levels 
In 1840  
Depression.
Gauge
No. 4.
Ft. in.
2 0
2 0
0 0
Gauge
No. 3.
Ft. in.
5 0
3 6
1 6
Gauge
No. ■>.
Ft. in.
5 3
4 6
0 9
Gauge
No. 1.
Ft. in.
5 6
5 0
0 6
From this tabular statement, we find that the low-water
level at No. 4, which is below the site of the works, remains
unaltered, but that it has fallen 1 foot Gin. at the top of the
Abbey ford (through which the cut has been made). It
further appears that the formation of this cut has drained off
the water, and lowered the surface 9 inches at gauge No. 2,
and 6 inches at gauge No. 1, which is at Stirling. The
76
N A VIG A T ION, IN L A N D.
Rivers, former and present low-water lines and bed of the river are
represented in fig. 16, in which is also shown the amount
of excavation on the Abbey Ford by hatched lines. This
general depression of the level has of course altered the
slopes or inclinations formed by the surface of low-water;
the slope between 4 and 3 being decreased, while the in¬
clinations between 3 and 2, and between 2 and 1, have been
increased in the following ratios:—
1550
3050
1400
122-5
5-19
11-31
Inches
per
Mile.
61-3
20-77
22-62
Differ¬
ence in
1848.
-61-2
+ 15-58
+ 11-31
Inclinations.
Inclination between 4 and 3.
Do. do. 3 and 2.
Do. do. 2 and 1.,
Again, these changes on the low-water line have pro¬
duced corresponding alterations on the velocities of the first
wave of flood, which are found to be as follows:—
Velocities.
1847.
Minutes.
i1ime occupied by first wave of tide
in passing between gauges Nos.
4 and 3  
Do. do. Nos. 3 and 2...
Do. do. Nos. 2 and 1...
Do.
do. Nos. 4 and 1...
24
6
6
36
1H
28
-16
+
+ n
From this it appears that between Nos. 4 and 3 there is
an acceleration of 16 minutes, while between 3 and 1 there
is a retardation of 8 minutes, leaving the difference, or 8
minutes, as the actual amount of acceleration at Stirling, due
to the removal of the ford and the lowering of the low-water
level 6 inches at that place. The rates of propagation in
miles per hour are as follows:—
Rates of Propagation.
Rates of propagation between Nos.
4 and 3 
Do. do. Nos. 3 and 2...
Do. do. Nos. 2 and 1...
•65
5-77
2-65
Miles per
hour.
2-2
3-0
1-87
+ 1-55
-2-77
-0-78
Relations
of the
slopes and
rates of
tidal pro¬
pagation.
These observations and results seem to throw some addi¬
tional light on the circumstances which modify the propa¬
gation of the tidal wave. The table of the results obtained
at the lay shows that the decreased inclination of the low-
water lines of that river was attended by an acceleration of
the velocity of the tidal wave; and the above observations
further show that a retardation has attended an ^creased
inclination of the low-water line of the upper part of the
Forth. From the foregoing tabular statements, it will be
seen that between gauges 4 and 3, where the slope has
been decreased, the propagation has been accelerated; while
between 3 and 2, where, from the state of the works when
the observations were made, it is found to have been in¬
creased, the rate of propagation had been sensibly retarded.
It is worthy of remark, however, that the rates of propagation
do not, either at the Tay or Forth, bear any constant rela¬
tion to the slopes, but are modified by other circumstances ;
in proof of which, it will be found that the rate of propaga¬
tion at the Forth between gauges 4 and 3, where the slope
is 6F3 inches per mile, is actually greater than between
gauges 2 and 1, where it is only 22-62 inches per mile.
The circumstances of the Forth at this particular place are
somewhat peculiar. Before the Abbey ford was cut through,
it acted as a dam extending across the river, and had the
effect of increasing the depth at low-water all the way up Rivers,
to Stirling. By cutting the channel through the ford, how-
ever, not only has the water been drained off and rendered
shallow, but its surface has been broken by the projection
of boulders from the bottom, which formerly were entirely
covered; and while this effect has taken place in the upper
part of the river, a comparatively smooth cut, with regular
sides and bottom, has been formed in the Abbey ford,
through which the river flows at low-water in a body of
considerable depth. The writer therefore attributes the
slow propagation of the tide between 2 and 1 to the shallow¬
ness of the water and the very rugged state of the bottom,
which is in many places completely studded with boulders,
rising some above the surface at low-water, and others to
within a few inches of it; while the high velocity up the
steep slope of the ford is to be attributed—ls<, To the depth
of water caused by the whole river being made to pass
through a comparatively narrow channel; 2d, To the rect¬
angular cross section of the cut; and 3c?, To the smooth¬
ness of the sides and bottom. At the Firth of Dornoch,
again, as already noticed, between the Quarry and Bonar
Bridge, a distance of 1 mile, although the water is shallow
and the bottom rough, it is not, on the whole, more so than
between gauges 1 and 2 on the Forth; but at the Dornoch
the slope on that mile is no less than 6 feet 6 inches, and
the rate of propagation is only two-thirds of a mile per
hour. Moreover, it was found that the tide did not begin
to show at Bonar until it had risen 6 feet 6 inches on the
gauge at the Quarry, being the exact difference of level
between the two points of observation.
These various results as to slopes and rates of propagation,
as well as others which have come under the writer’s notice,
seem to justify the following deductions as to the propaga¬
tion of the tide-wave in rivers with sloping surfaces and
irregular bottoms:—1st, That a decrease of slope is fol¬
lowed by an acceleration of the rate of propagation of the
tidal wave. 2d, That an increase of slope is followed by
a retardation of the rate of propagation. 3c?, That the rate
of propagation does not bear any constant relation to the
amount of slope, although it is to some extent modified by
it. Ath, That while the rate of propagation in rivers is in
some measure due to the depth of water, it is nevertheless
influenced by the slope of the surface, the form of the
channel, and the obstructions protruding from the sides or
bottom. 5th, That if not in all cases, at least when there
are steep slopes and shallow water, as at the Dornoch Firth,
the level of the crest of the wave must rise to the level of
the surface of the water (or perhaps the bed of the river)
above it, before a progressive motion takes place ; and, Qth,
That, from the difficulty of dealing with so many variable
elements, it is impossible in most rivers to determine the
ruling circumstances which can be held as regulating the
rate of tidal propagation.
The Clyde affords a striking proof of the extent to which Clyde,
river improvements may be carried. So insignificant was
the stream in its natural state, that Smeaton, in 1775, pro¬
posed to erect a dam with locks in the lower part of the
river, and to convert it into a tidal canal. In 1775, how¬
ever, Golburne surveyed the river, and although he found
that as far down as Kilpatrick the depth of water was only
2 feet, he nevertheless recommended the construction of a
series of jetties from either side, for the purpose of narrowing
and deepening the stream; and this may be held as the
commencement of the improvement of the River Clyde,
which originally barely afforded depth of water for larger
craft than flat boats, but which now, as our readers know,
admits vessels of large draught up to Glasgow Bridge. The
reader must be cautioned from supposing, however, that
this result has been attained by means of the jetties which
were erected under the advice of Golburne. It was soon
discovered that the object could not be gained by such
NAVIGATION, INLAND.
77
Rivers.
River
Kibble.
River
Lune.
works. It was not until the ends of the jetties were con¬
nected by longitudinal walls, and until dredging-machines
were extensively employed, that the Clyde improvements
began to assume an importance commensurate with the vast
commercial interests of the city of Glasgow and surround¬
ing districts. The works on the Clyde have latterly been
under the direction of Mr Walker, and have mainly con¬
sisted in forming longitudinal walls, dredging, and increasing
the width of certain parts of the channel, which had in the
early stage of the improvements been contracted to an in¬
jurious extent.
The Ribble in Lancashire, the improvements of which
were designed by Messrs Stevenson, presents an example
of a great amount of additional depth having been obtained
in a comparatively short space of time. That river, accord¬
ing to Mr Park, who conducted, as resident engineer, the
greater part of the works, has a course of 82 miles, and
drains 900 square miles of the counties of York and
Lancaster. The formation of the bed in which it flow's
rendered the state of the tidal compartment previous to the
improvements very defective. The bottom in the lower
part of the river consists of loose sand ; while that of the
upper reach is alternately compact gravel and sandstone
rock. About half a mile below Preston, in particular, it
was found that a solid ridge of sandstone, extending to
300 yards in length, stretched quite across the channel.
Its surface was from 3 to 5 feet higher than the general
bed of the river both above and below it, and so prominent
an obstruction did it form, that the higher parts of the
rock were occasionally left dry during the long droughts of
summer. The propagation of the tidal wave, and free flow
of the currents, were checked on approaching it; while the
pow er of the tidal and fresh-water scours was in a great mea¬
sure neutralized and rendered almost unavailable in keeping
open the upper and lower stretches of the navigation ; so
that its influence in obstructing the river resembled that
of a great artificial weir stretching across the stream. In
proof of this, it may be stated that the ordinary rise of
spring tides at Lytham, which is 12 miles seaward of Pres¬
ton, is about 19 feet,1 and that of neap tides is 14 feet,
while at Preston, prior to the operations, the rise of spring-
tides did not exceed 6 feet, and neap tides of 13 or 14 feet
rise at Lytham did not reach Preston at all. The re¬
moval of the rock which encumbered the bed, was natu¬
rally viewed as the most urgent and important work for ef¬
fecting an improvement in the tidal phenomena and general
depth of water. To this, therefore, the Navigation Company
first directed its attention, and in the course of eighteen
months, succeeded in excavating a channel through the
solid rock 300 yards in length, and in some places 13 feet 6
inches in depth. This operation was successfully accom¬
plished, at an expense not exceeding L. 10,000, by means of
a coffer-dam of the construction already shown in fig. 8.
In addition to this work, about 480,000 tons of gravel and
sand have been removed from the upper part of the river
by dredging; and 9 miles of low rubble walling (formed, in
so far as it was available for the purpose, of the rock exca¬
vated from the bed of the river) have been constructed in
accordance with the sketch shown in fig. 15, for guiding
the current in the lower channel.
I he effect of the different works that have been executed
has been to increase the tidal range at Preston about 5 feet,
and to accelerate the propagation of the tidal wave nearly
an hour; and vessels, to which the navigation may be said
to have been previously closed, now come up to the quays
of Preston with comparative ease and safety.
1 he works on the Lune in Lancashire were executed by
Messrs Stevenson, under the direction of the Admiralty. Rivers
They extended over a period of four years, and consisted in
removing fords by dredging, shutting up subsidiary chan-
nels, and erecting river walls; the whole operation cost¬
ing under L.10,000. The sketch of the Lune in fig. 9
shows the varying state of the channel in its original condi¬
tion, which was regulated by means of a single rubble wall,
as the funds did not admit of a double wall being erected.
It was necessary also, from the configuration of the shores,
that the channel should follow the convex side of the wall
which should, if possible, be avoided, as some difficulty oc¬
curs in maintaining the channel always close to the wall,
—a difficulty which can only be removed by the formation
of a second wall ; and we mention this as an example of
the desirableness, as already stated, of forming double w'alls
in all cases when the funds at disposal will admit of it.
Fig. 17 represents the gradual depression of the tidal lines
GLASSON HEATON PT LANCASTER.
Fig. 17.
since the w'orks commenced: the upper line shows the sur¬
face of the river in 1838, the intermediate line in 1848, and
the lower line in 1851. The effect of the works has been
to increase the depth of water up to the quays at Lancaster
about 4 feet, and to prolong the duration of the tidal influence
at that place thirty minutes in neap, and one hour and a
half in spring tides; so that vessels can approach and leave
Lancaster much earlier than formerly, while the improved
channel is navigated with much greater ease.
It is unnecessary to give farther examples of navigations
which have been benefited by means of works constructed
on the principles which we have indicated. We doubt not
that such cases could be quoted, although we do not possess
sufficient details to enable us to do so ; and we close this part
of our subject by stating that the further extension of these
works in such rivers as the Tay, the Kibble, or the Lune,
and their application in many other cases, would be followed
by a greatly increased improvement of their navigation.
Instances might be referred to where a course of treat¬
ment opposed to that which w'e have recommended has not
been fbllow'ed by similar favourable results ; but we deem
it sufficient to confine this treatise to an exposition of the
correct principles of river improvement, without discussing
erroneous practice or its baneful results; the more so as
these have been most fully and ably treated by Mr E. K.
Calver, 11.N., whose investigations into the former and pre¬
sent state of some of our tidal rivers are of great value to
the hydraulic engineer.2
SECT. VI.—SITUATIONS WHERE THE PRINCIPLES OF IMPROVE¬
MENT RECOMMENDED ARE NOT APPLICABLE.
V
We have further to state, that in some situations the
principles of improvement which we have advanced will be
found to be of very limited application. Such cases indeed
are rarely to be met with, but still it is necessary to notice
them. We allude to rivers the tidal or intermediate com¬
partments of which are, from natural causes, of very small
extent. In illustration of what we mean, we may refer to
1 Captain Sir Edward Belcher, while engaged in making the Admiralty survey of the Ribhle. found that on one occasion the tide at
Lytham rose 25 feet 7J inches.
2 The Conservation and Improvement of Tidal Rivers, by E. K. Calver, R.N., London, Weale, 1853.
78
NAVIGATION, INLAND.
Rivers.
The Erne.
The Ness.
Back¬
water.
the Erne in Donegal, which has a tidal capacity of only
2^ miles, extending from the bar up to the town of Bally-
shannon, where the tidal flow is terminated by the “ Salmon
Leap,” a perpendicular rise in the bed of the river of about
15 feet in height. This waterfall forms the limit of the tidal
flow, beyond which it could not, without works of a gigantic
character, be extended.
Another case is the Ness, which has a short course of
about 2 miles, from a little above the town of Inverness
to the Beauly Firth, at Kessock Roads. The difficulties
attending the navigation of this river are mainly the pre¬
vailing outward currents due to the physical conforma¬
tion of the bed of the Ness, which may be shortly de¬
scribed, as it illustrates generally a class ot rivers which
are very difficult to improve:—ls£, I he rise of ordinary
spring tides at the mouth of the river is 14 feet. 2d, Ihe
distance to which the influence of such tides extends is
only about 2 miles, which includes the whole tidal com¬
partment of the river. 3rf, The slope or inclination of the
low-water line of this tidal compartment is no less than
7 feet per mile, and the tide takes from two to three hours
to make its way up the first mile. ±th, The natural result
of such a state of matters is, that no tidal current is gene¬
rated at the mouth and propagated up the stream, and
consequently the phenomenon of a current due to flood-
tide may be said to be almost unknown.
Under these circumstances, the barrier to the free navi¬
gation of the River Ness is the absence of a tidal current
or in-draught, to aid the entrance of vessels from Kessock
Roads, and assist their progress up to the quays. This is
at present effected by help of men and horses against the
nearly constant downward current, which varies in strength
with the amount of water discharged by the River Ness,
during its frequent heavy floods.1
This absence of sufficient internal capacity and gentle¬
ness of inclination to admit of the generation of tidal cur¬
rents is strikingly exemplified in the two rivers to which we
have alluded, and naturally leads us to offer some gene¬
ral remarks in passing on the subject of the “backwater”
and the “ slopes” of rivers. In most, if not in all cases, it
will be found (as more particularly noticed hereafter in sec¬
tion 8, in treating of bars) that it is of the highest import¬
ance to maintain unimpaired the full tidal capacity, and to
be careful to make no reduction of its amount without ob¬
taining an equivalent in the low-water section, to compen¬
sate for any reduction which it may be found advisable to
make at or near the high-water line.
The subject of the reduction of backwater has given rise
to various questions, which have occupied the attention
of the engineer; but as every case must be judged on its
own merits, and no two situations are exactly alike, it would
be unprofitable to enter upon the discussion of the various
arguments that have been adduced with reference to parti- Rivers,
cular localities. All we can do is to lay down the general prin-
ciple, that the more the tidal influence can be extended, and
the larger the amount of backwater that can be obtained, the
greater will be the benefit conferred on the navigation from
the bar upwards; provided always that such increased scour¬
ing power is, by judicious works, placed under proper regu¬
lation. The question as to the possibility of excluding the
tide from any part of an estuary, without injury to the outer
channels, is a wide subject, as will be seen from our merely
stating some of the considerations which may be held to de¬
termine the peculiar circumstances in which the exclusion
of water may be compensated. These are, the configura¬
tion of the banks and bed of the estuary, the simultaneous
levels of the surface of the water at different periods of the
tide throughout the estuary, the velocities of the surface
and under-currents at different periods of tide, and the
times of ebbing and flowing, together with many other
more minute data peculiar to each case, which it is not
possible to specify in a general summary.
The existence of a moderate amount of fall or slope on Slopes of
the low-water line of a river is a hopeful feature in its capa- rivers,
bilities for improvement; while on the other hand, such a
slope as that on the Ness proves a great barrier to its ex¬
tended improvement as a tidal river; for it is obvious, that
to obtain on that river a slope sufficiently gentle for easy
navigation, it would be necessary to lower its bed to so great
an extent, and to execute works of such magnitude, as to
render it inexpedient to entertain such a project.
The consideration of the proper slope is important in
river engineering. Dubuat considers 1 in 500,000 to be
the smallest possible inclination that can be given to a canal
to produce sensible motion. It will be found, on inspecting
the table at the end of this treatise, that the slopes of tidal
rivers vary from a few inches to several feet per mile.2 As
a general rule, we should say that the engineer may cal¬
culate on reducing the slopes of tidal navigations to 4 inches
per mile ant^ ^iat ^iey should not, if possible,
exceed 10 inches per mile
Directly connected with the slope is the velocity of streams, Velocities
—an important matter as affecting navigation, for it cannotof river
be conducted with advantage in situations where the velo- currents*
city of the currents is very great. The velocities of tidal
currents in some places are very great; as, for example, in
the Pentland Firth, where Captain Otter measured a velo¬
city of 10-8 miles per hour, and in the Severn, where it was
found to be 9 miles per hour. From 2 to 3 miles per hour
is, however, a very common velocity on many of the rivers
in this country, and it is found to present no inconvenience
to the navigation of vessels. The following are the velo¬
cities of the currents in different rivers, with their authorities.
The whole of them are surface velocities:—
Mississippi  
Clyde,between Glasgow and
junction of Cart, during \
ebb J
Do., flood   
Do., from junction of Cart to 1
Dumbarton, ebb J
Do., flood 
Do. during high floods below l
Glasgow harbour, ebb .... J
Do. at narrow places during 1
floods J
Severn, near Stonebench, 1
flood, spring tide   |
Mia. yds.
5 0
0 1576
0 771
1 1069
0 1561
2 1613
3 1148
4 950
Authority.
Ellet.
W. Bald.
Do.
Do.
Do,
Do,
Do.
Admiral Beechy.
Name.
Severn, near Stonebench,
ebb 
Wear, spring tide, ebb 
Po., neap tides, „ 
Do., flood tides 
Tay at Buddonness, sp. tides.
Do. at Perth 
Willowgate at Perth,
Dornoch Firth, Meikleferry
flood  
Do. do. ebb
Tay at Mugdrum, flood and ebb
Thames 
Per Hour.
Miles.
3-12
1J to 2J
1 to If
1 to 2
Knots.
2 to 2£
Miles.
3-09
1-55
2 63
255
2 to 21
2 to 2f
Authority.
Admiral Beechy.
J. Murray, C.E.
Do. '
Do.
North Sea Pilot.
Messrs Stevenson.
Do.
Do.
Do.
Do.
G. Rennie.
1 See Report of Tidal Harbour Commission, by D. Stevenson, C.E., and Joseph Maynard, R.N., in Admiralty Reports for 9th March, 1847.
2 The slope of the river Niagara at the rapids, immediately above the far-famed “ Falls,” is said to be 50 feet in half a mile, or 1
in 52-8.
NAVIGATION, INLAND.
79
Rivers.
Tide-
basins.
Docks.
River
quays or
wharves.
SECT. VII.—WORKS FOR ACCOMMODATION OF VESSELS.
The works we have described are for facilitating the in¬
gress and egress of vessels. In addition to this, it is neces¬
sary to provide for their accommodation. For this purpose
it is desirable, where local circumstances admit of it, that it
should be possible to withdraw them from the action of the
river currents which, during heavy floods accompanied by
ice, are often very destructive to shipping.
This is accomplished in a simple manner by forming what
are termed tide-basins, which are artificial cuts retiring from
the stream having their sides bounded by quays or wharves,
into which vessels may be withdrawn, but where they are
still liable to take the ground at low-water. The object
is accomplished more effectually by means of wet docks, for
details of which the reader is referred to the article on that
subject. In many situations, however, especially where the
river is wide, and affords ample room, as in the case of the
Foyle at Londonderry, for example,the berthage forvessels is
afforded by means of lines of quays formed along the shore.
Such quays constitute an important part of all harbours
which are formed in tidal rivers ; and in illustration of some
of the various methods of construction adopted in such
cases we submit the following cross sections. Fig. 18 shows
the timber wharfage constructed by Mr Smith at Belfast,
SECTION
Fig. 18.
which is composed of a facing of timber-work secured by
iron ties fixed to piles, the space behind the face-work being
filled up, and the roadway formed at the top. Fig. 19 is
Fig. 19.
by Messrs Stevenson. At this place the ground is very soft, Rivers.
and in order as much
as possible to reduce
the weight, the front
compartment of the
wharf next the river
is left open. Figs. 22
and 23, again, are sec¬
tions of the stone
wharves now being
constructed from a de¬
sign by Mr Walker,
at Glasgow, under the
superintendence of
Mr Ure. Fig. 22 is
the section adapted
to a clay bottom ; and
fig. 23 is that which
Found\Covrse
.vrr Concrete
I I I U I M M 1
Fig 22.
a plan showing the positions of the piles and ties. Some¬
times a similar face-work is employed, backed by a wall of
concrete ; and iron plates have also been used for the facing,
I ' ' ' i I l : l l I
Fig. 23.
SECT. VIII.—‘
is adopted when the
bottom consists of
sand. In both cases
the depth of water in
'°f1- front of the quays is
20 feet at low-water,
and is intended to
accommodate mer¬
chant vessels of the
: largest class. These
examples furnish an
illustration of the
means employed for
jiroviding wharfage on
tidal rivers; the de¬
tails of their construc-
‘ tion must be studied
in treatises on such
] branches of engineer-
; ing construction as
Carpentry, Masonry,
; Piling, Foundations,
Mortar, and Quay
'. Walls.
The engineer is
often called on to con¬
struct swing-bridges
in connection with
navigations, but for
particulars as to such
°F- works, reference is
made to the article
Iron Bridge.
Swing-
bridges.
SEA PROPER
OF RIVERS.
DEPARTMENT
Figs. 20 and 21.
instead of planking. Figs. 20 and 21 are a section and ele¬
vation of the quays of Londonderry, designed and executed
Having considered the treatment of
rivers from their source to the ocean em¬
bracing the upper or “ river proper,” and
the intermediate or “ tidal compartment,”
we have now to direct attention to what we
have termed the “sea proper” compart¬
ment, which, in the sense we have at¬
tached to it, may be said to embrace the
phenomena connected with the flow of
rivers or bodies of tidal water into the sea.
In some instances, such, for example, as Barg.
the Forth, the junction of the river with the
sea occurs without giving rise to any very
perceptible or marked phenomena; the one seems to
glide naturally into and be mingled with the other, without
producing any apparent disturbance of the currents or
80
Rivers.
Theories
to account
for forma¬
tion of
bars.
NAVIGATION, INLAND.
change on the bed of the channel. But such cases are ex¬
ceptions ; and, generally speaking, we may safely affirm that
the junction of a river with the sea gives rise to what is
termed a “ bar,”—the most difficult subject with which the
hydraulic engineer has to grapple, and the nature and cause
of which we have now to discuss.
A bar, then, is the name applied to that shallow part of a
channel which occurs at the junction of a river or estuary
with the sea. On either side of it—that is, both seaward
and landward of it—there may be ample depth of water for
all purposes of navigation, but the bar forms the regulating
navigable depth, and no passage over it can be obtained
until the tide has risen sufficiently high to enable vessels to
cross it. The depth at low-water on the bars of some ot our
rivers is as follows :—
The Mersey has a depth of from 9 to 10 feet at low-water.
„ Tyne  6 to 7 do.
„ Wear  3 to 4 do.
„ Kibble  7 to 8 do.
„ Tay 16 to 18 do.
And while these limited depths exist on the bar, there is in
all of these cases ample depth within, or landward, for ves¬
sels of the largest class to lie afloat at all times of: tide.
Many theories have been propounded to account for
the phenomenon of the bar. Some have advocated the
idea that bars are composed of materials held in suspen¬
sion by the river, and deposited so soon as its current is
checked by meeting the still water of the ocean. But
this theory, at all events as regards sea bars, of which
we are now treating, is disproved by the facts of the Dor¬
noch Firth, to which we have already alluded. I he bar
at that place occurs at a point 14 miles seaward of the
point at which the river enters the sea. The idea that a
bar of such magnitude as that at the Dornoch Firth, could
be formed by the detritus brought down by the small rivers
Oykell and Cassily, is wholly untenable, and is indeed con¬
tradicted by the fact that the bar and adjoining banks are
composed of pure sand ; and hence the writer attributed its
formation, when he examined the firth in 1842, entirely to
the action of the sea. We find that Mr Ellet, though found¬
ing his opinion on totally different premises, also comes to
the conclusion that the bars of the Mississippi were not
due to materials deposited by the outgoing stream. In
explaining his views, he writes as follows:—“ The velocity
of the river is not destroyed, nor very sensibly diminished,
at the bai-s. When the river was rising, but still far from
being at full height, I measured the velocity of the current
on tire bar of the Passala Loutre, and found it to vary, at
different times and places, from 3 feet to 3-J feet per
second, or from 2 miles to 2-j,54h miles per hour. I mea¬
sured it also repeatedly on the south-west bar, and found it
there 3 feet per second, or about 2 miles per hour. But there
are many parts of the river where the speed of the current
does not exceed 2^ miles, or even 2 miles per hour, in times
of flood, and where it is, notwithstanding, more than 100 feet
deep. In fact, on testing the velocity of the south-west pass,
4 miles above the bar, and in 5 fathoms water, I found
the current to be but 2 miles per hour,—precisely the same
as it was under like circumstances of wind and tide on the
bar. The current of the Mississippi sweeps over the bars
at the mouths of the passes, and at periods of flood many
miles out into the gulf, with a velocity almost undiminished
by its contact with the waters of the gulf.” He therefore
concludes that there is in the Mississippi no retardation of
the river’s velocity on the bar to account for any deposit due
to such a cause. Another theory attributes bars to the want
of sufficient scouring power; but when we find bars existing
at the mouths of such rivers as the Mississippi, we cannot Rivers,
attach much importance to such a suggestion. Another
theory attributes the absence of a bar to the piesence of a
nearly ecjual duration ol the period of the ebb and flow in the
lower reach of the river accompanied by an extremely gentle
inclination of its surface at low water. 1 lo refer again to
the Dornoch Firth, we have an equal duration of the ebb
and flow throughout the firth, and a surface practically
level, and yet we have as perfect a specimen of a bar at
the Gizzen Briggs, at the mouth of the firth, as can pos-
sibly be imagined. We cannot, therefore, in endeavouring
to account for the existence of bars, or the exemption from
them, accept the explanations to which we have alluded.
The bars with which we have to do in this country may
be said to be of two kinds; one class of bars is due to the hard
formation of the bottom, which occurs in some situations;
the other class is due to the action of certain elements, on
the soft matters of which the bottom in other places is
composed. Of the first class are such bars as that at
Ballyshannon in Ireland, or at the entrance of Loch Fleet in
Sutherlandshire, both of which the writer has had occasion
professionally to examine. The bar at Loch Fleet, for
example, is composed of boulder stones firmly imbedded
in a mass of indurated gravel, and is obviously a continua¬
tion of a bed of similar lormation which seems to traverse
the coast at that place. The consequence is, that no scour¬
ing power can prove available in deepening the channel.
Such bars being entirely due to the hardness of the bottom,
are generally comparatively easily treated by the engineer,
and an encouraging prospect is held out that their removal
will be attended with permanent benefit, since, by excavat¬
ing a channel through them, the engineer at the same time
removes the evil and its cause.
In the other class are comprehended those sand-bars
which occur at the mouths of the firths of Dornoch and
Tay, and of the Tyne, Wear, Mersey, Ribble, and other
tidal rivers and estuaries ; and it is to the formation of these
capricious and troublesome accumulations that the theories
to which we have alluded apply. The true source of all
such bars is to be found, as already stated, in the action of
the sea. The natural effect of the sea is to throw up
sand, and form a continuous line of beach across the mouths
of all our tidal rivers and inlets; while, again, the flow of the
tidal and fresh-water currents tends to maintain an open
channel through the beach. In this way the antagonistic
action of the waves of the sea on the one hand, and the
currents of the estuary or river on the other, produce the
well-known feature of a submerged beach or sand-bank,
extending from shore to shore across our inlets, having a
deeper channel through them, which channel is termed the
“ bar.” This explanation is due to the Abbot Castelli, who,
in his work on the Mensuration of Running Waters, written in
the beginning of the seventeenth century, gives the following
clear announcement of his views :2—“ As to the other point
of the great stoppage of ports, I hold that all proceedeth
from the violence of the sea, which being sometimes dis¬
turbed by winds, especially at the time of the waters flowing,
doth continually raise from its bottom immense heaps of sand,
carrying them by the tide and force of the waves into the
lake; it not having on its part any strength of current that
may raise and carry them away, they sink to the bottom,
and so choke up the ports. And that this effect happeneth
in this manner, we have most frequent experience thereof
along the sea-coasts; and I have observed in Tuscany, on
the Roman shores, and in the kingdom of Naples, that when
a river falleth into the sea, there is always seen in the sea
itselfj at the place of the river’s outlet, the resemblance, as
1 Treatise on the Improvement of the Navigation of Rivers, by W. A. Brooks.
2 The Mensuration of Running Waters, by Don Benedetto Castelli, Abbot of St Benedetto Aloysio, and professor of the mathematics to
Pope Urban VIII. in Rome; translated by Thomas Salusbury, Esq., London, 1661.
NAVIGATION, INLAND.
Rivers, it were, of a half-moon, or a great shelf of settled sand under
water, much higher than the rest of the shore, and it is
called in Tuscany il cavallo, and here, in Venice, lo seanto;
the which cometh to be cut by the current of the river,
one while on the right side, another while on the left, and
sometimes in the midst, according as the wind fits. And
a like effect I have observed in certain little rillets of
water along the Lake of Bolsena, with no other difference
save that of small and great.
“ Now whoso well considereth this effect, plainly seeth
that it proceeds from no other than from the contrariety of
the stream of the river to the impetus of the sea-waves ;
seeing that great abundance of sand, which the sea con¬
tinually throws upon the shore, cometh to be driven into
the sea by the stream of the river, and in that place where
these two impediments meet with equal force, the sand
settleth under water, and thereupon is made that same shelf
or cavallo; the which, if the river carry water, and that any
considerable store of it shall be thereby cut and broken,
one while in one place, and the other while in another, as
hath been said, according as the wind blows; and through
that channel it is that vessels fall down into the sea, and
again make to the river, as into a port. But if the water of
the river shall not be continual, or shall be weak, in that
case the force of the sea wind shall drive such a quantity
ot sand into the mouth of the port and of the river as shall
wholly choke it up. And hereupon there are seen along
the sea-side very many lakes and meers which at certain
times of the year abound with waters, and the lakes bear
down that inclosure, and run into the sea.
“ Now it is necessary to make the like reflections on
our ports of Venice, Malamocco, Bandolo, and Chiozza,
which in a certain sense are no other than creeks, mouths,
and openings of the shore that parts the lake from the main
sea; and therefore I hold that if the waters in the lake
were plentiful, they would have strength to scour the
mouths of the ports thoroughly and with great force; but
the water in the lake failing, the sea will, without any
opposal, bring such a drift of sand into the ports, that if it
doth not wholly choke them up, it shall render them at least
unprofitable and impassible for barks and great vessels.”
Conditions Ihe conditions under which such accumulations are
under formed the writer holds to be,—1^, The presence of sand
which bars or shingie) or other easily moved material; 2d, Water of
aie orme >a g0 as admit of the waves during storms
acting on the bottom ; and 3</, Such an exposure as shall
allow of waves being generated of sufficient size to operate
on the submerged materials.
In confirmation of this opinion, we may once more refer
to the Dornoch Firth. The Oykell joins it at a point about
a mile below Bonar Bridge, but we find no indication of
what may be termed a bar throughout the whole of the
sheltered part of the firth, which extends for 12 miles sea¬
ward of that point, until we reach the outer portion which is
exposed to the unbroken sea of the Moray Firth, and
there we find an extensive sand-bank, forming as it were,
a continuation of the shore on either side, and stretching
quite across the mouth of the firth, with the bar in the
centre ot it. But the fact, that in all such bar-rivers and
estuaries the depth is often found to be seriously diminished
after heavy seas, is beyond doubt, and serves as a further
confirmation of the correctness of the theory for which we
are contending.
The same reasoning may explain why, in such a case as
the Firth of Forth, for example, no bar exists. The Firth of
r orth is an inlet or arm of the sea, of great width and depth,
the seas entering it do not act on the bottom, so as to
cause a heaping up of the material of which it is composed, Rivers,
in the same manner as in a shallow sea.- This great natural ^
depth continues as the Forth gradually contracts; and before
the necessary conditions for the formation of a bar occur 
namel}', sufficiently shallow water and presence of sand the
sea is so land-locked that waves of sufficient size to produce
the necessary effect cannot be generated. There is, in fact
in the Forth that gradual diminution of depth, and increase
of shelter, which combine to produce the phenomenon of a
river without a bar.
We must also notice a cause for the formation of bars
advanced by Mr Ellet. Although it is not applicable to the
rivers in this country, still, from the observations he has
made, we think it likely that his theory may be held to
account for the bar of the Mississippi. It is founded on Relative
the fact, that at the junction of a river with the sea the specific
fresh water flows in a stratum above, and distinct from, the gravities of
salt water, for some distance after entering the ocean. This fregjfnd
is occasioned by the higher specific gravity of salt water, the Jater.
weight of fresh water being 1000, while that of salt is 1026.
Before noticing Mr Ellet’s theory, however, we may state, Experi-
that so far as we are aware, the first observations made on this ments at
subject were those instituted by the late Mr Robert Steven- the Dee‘
son, of Edinburgh, on the River Dee in Aberdeenshire, in
the summer of the year 1812, while engaged in surveying
that river with reference to a disputed right of salmon¬
fishing. Mr Stevenson, in his report on that subject, states
that, by means of an instrument devised for that purpose,
he ascertained that the salt or tidal water of the ocean flowed
up the channel of the River Dee, and also up Footdee and
Torryburn, in a distinct stratum, next to the bottom and
under the fresh water of the river, which, owing to the spe¬
cific gravity being less, floated upon it, continuing perfectly
fresh, and flowing in its usual course towards the sea, the
only change discoverable being in its level, which was
raised by the salt water forcing its way under it. The
tidal water so forced up continued salt; and when the spe¬
cific gravities of specimens from the bottom were tried,
they were found to possess the greater degree of specific
gravity due to salt water, while the surface specimens were
found to be specifically unaltered.
Similar observations have been made by the writer of this
article in several places, with the same results. The
appearance of fresh water floating on the surface of the
sea is no doubt familiar to most persons. It occurs at the
mouths of many of our rivers, and is most apparent when
they are in flood, from the brown tinge given to the water,
which is easily discoverable for many miles at sea. It is
well known on our coasts to the crews of the welled smacks
employed in cod-fishing, who invariably lose a great portion
of their live stock if they happen to encounter what they
term “ a fresh,” which is believed by them to be a brackish
portion of the sea, caused by the imperfect admixture of
fresh water discharged from rivers in flood. On this sub¬
ject the following passage from the work1 of Father Manuel
Rodriguez, a Spanish Jesuit, is interesting, and its correct¬
ness, as regards the extent to which the influence of large
rivers is felt, has since been corroborated by the investiga¬
tions of Colonel Sabine.2 “ This river,” says Rodriguez,
speaking of the Amazon, “ is like a tree ; its roots enter as
far into the sea as into the land. It communicates to it a
flavour, so that at 80 leagues within the sea its waters are
seen, and taste sweet, and in a semicircle of 100 leagues in
circumference they form a gulf not the least degree brack¬
ish, so that sailors call it the fresh sea.”
But to return to the Mississippi: Mr Ellet, in the follow¬
ing extract, says :—“ The river water does not mix suddenly
1 El Maranam y Amazonas, Madrid, 1684, p. 18.
„ f -A11 -Account of Experiments to determine the Figure of the Earth
Edward Sabine, London, 1835, p. 445.
VOL. XYT.
as well as on various other subjects of Philosophical Engineering, by
L
ft
NAVIGATION, INLAND.
82
Rivers, with the sea, but rises upon it, floats over it, and rushes far
out into the gulf on the top of the dense sea water, by
which it is buoyed up. I tested this repeatedly, and found
uniformly a column of fresh water, nearly 7 feet deep, in the
gulf, entirely outside of the land, and salt water at a depth
of 8 feet from *the surface, and extending thence to the
bottom. The river does not come down with a certain
normal depth and speed, and encounter the gulf at the bar.
No such process takes place. There is no sudden destruc¬
tion of velocity, or consequent deposit of suspended silt.
But the water of the Mississippi does not move over the
surface of the gulf at a speed of 3 feet per second without
imparting a portion of its motion to the sea.1 rI he fresh
water and the salt water take the same direction towards the
sea, and with nearly the same velocity, but yet keep separ¬
ate. This state of things clearly cannot exist at the bottom ;
for as the river water is for ever coming forward, if the
salt water all flowed towards the gulf, it would all be carried
out, and river water would take its place. Salt water must
come in from some quarter, to supply the current of sea
water that is for ever setting towards the gulf, beneath
the water discharged by the river. This salt water can
only come from the sea, and can only come in along the
bottom. It is, in fact, an eddy that is here at work, the
movements being in a vertical instead of a hoi'izontal plane.
Now, the question is, How does this account for the ex¬
istence of the bar ? The fresh water running out cannot
produce deposit, for it has velocity enough to sweep away
a foundation of coarse gravel. The outpouring salt water,
immediately beneath the fresh, cannot produce deposit,
because it also has a velocity seaward strong enough to
remove anything that is brought down the Mississippi.
The salt water that is coming in might produce, and I
doubt not does produce, a deposit, for it passes over, the
soft muddy bottom of the gulf, and moves into the river,
and along the bar, at a very slow rate. According to these
facts, and this reasoning, there must be usually on the
bar three distinct strata : 1st, Fresh water, running out
at top, found by experiment on the S.W. bar to have
a velocity of 3 feet per second. 2d, Salt water below the
fresh, also running out with nearly the same velocity as at
top; and 3d, Salt water coming in slowly along the bottom,
and apparently a sheet of salt water between that running
out and that coming in, which will be without motion.
“ But as already said, and as is obvious, all the sea water
that comes in must go out again. It comes in along the
bottom, and it must go out between the column of salt
water coming in and that of the fresh water going out.
Each particle of salt water, therefore, must change its
direction and position in elevation. It must pass from an
inward-bound lower stratum to an outward-bound upper
stratum. But in passing through this change of motion, its
velocity up stream must be neutralized. It passes, to use
a technical term, the dead point. At this point it may
cease to bear its whole burden of mud, which it has brought
from the gulf further forward. It leaves it, or a portion of it,
at the turning-point. This turning-point is the place where
the bar for the time being is in process of formation. But
as the upper and lower strata are moving in opposite direc¬
tions, the intermediate column must of necessity have a
rotatory motion; that motion must be shared by the lower
column of salt water, and this turning-point must there¬
fore be found at the same time at different places along
the bar.”
Mr Ellet gives an interesting detail of his experiments
on the saltness and freshness of the water, as taken from
different depths, and also of the means he took to ascertain
the strength and directions of the two under-currents re¬
ferred to in his ingenious theory of the formation of the Rivers,
bar; but the details are too long to give in this sketch of
his researches.
We have seen that bars, in some situations, aie formed
by the hard strata of which the bottom is composed ; that
in other places they are due to the waves of the sea; and
that in the case of the Mississippi Mr Ellet attiibutes the
phenomenon entirely to the eddy caused by an under¬
current inwards.
The removal of hard bars is, as already noticed, likely
in most cases to result in a successful issue j but the treat¬
ment of those bars which are due to the waves of the sea,
with which class of phenomena we have chiefly to do in
this country, is an operation not only more difficult to deal
with, but far more uncertain in its results.
From what has been said, the reader will see that we be- Depth of
lieve the depth of water, on such bars as are caused by the
waves of the sea, to be in some degree proportional to the o°f ^c°ku_“
scour produced by the tidal currents, which cross them four water.
times in every twenty-four hours. If this assumption be
correct, it is obvious that the principle which should guide
us in all our considerations as to increasing, or even main¬
taining the depth upon sea-bars, is the preservation of a
sufficient amount of tidal water to counteract the tendency
of the sea to heap up detritus at the mouths of our harbours.
These two agents, the waves and the tidal scour, are con¬
stantly opposed the one to the other : a storm from the sea,
or a heavy flood from the land, occasionally causes the one
or the other to have the ascendancy ; but this is only tem¬
porary. A variation in the depth of water on the bars of
our harbours, caused by such temporary disturbances, may
occasionally occur ; but nevertheless, unless some work of
magnitude is formed, so as to alter permanently the natural
disposition of matters, no pilot has any difficulty in fairly
estimating what is the general navigable depth over the bar
of any of our seaports.
That the beds of the upper parts of rivers are scoured, Compari-
and their depth maintained by the flow of the fresh-water
stream, is not to be questioned; and it is also beyond doubt, ^e^n(1
that in many situations the upper portions of the tidal com- water
partments of rivers are kept open in a great measure by in firths
the fresh-water stream; but it is no less certain that the and estu-
opinions which would assign the depth of water in the lower anes.
parts of tidal rivers, and also through estuaries and across
bars, to any other cause than the action of tidal water as
the chief agent, are erroneous. We think this will be ap¬
parent by a reference to some of the investigations which
have from time to time been made to ascertain the amount
of the river or fresh water, as compared to the volume of
the tidal water of some of our firths and estuaries.
By means of a series of careful observations and measure- Cromarty
ments made at the Cromarty Firth in 1837, to which re_ River^Do-
ference has already been made, Mr Alan Stevenson found noni
that the River Conon, when highly flooded (a state of
matters which of course occurs only occasionally), dis¬
charges during twelve hours a quantity which is only equal
to ■g'yth part of the water which passes out of the firth at
every ordinary spring tide, and of that which passes
out at neap tides. While in its summer-water state, the
produce of the river is reduced to of the discharge of
the firth in spring, and T^T of the discharge in neap tides;
a quantity too small to affect appreciably either the velocity
of the currents of the firth or their scouring power. It has
often been argued, that in situations where the velocity of
the ebb exceeds that of the flood tide, the excess is due to
the increased quantity of water passing out with the ebb,
the volume of the ebbing waters being assumed to be aug¬
mented by the amount discharged by the river. But this
1 This is in harmony with Venturi’s well-known experiments, from which he found, that a body of water in motion leads or drags
with it the particles of water at rest with which it may be in contact.
NAVIGATION, INLAND.
83
Rivers.
The Tay.
Works re¬
commend¬
ed favour¬
able for
bars.
Piers for
entrance
to rivers.
Groynes.
is wholly disproved in the case of the Cromarty Firth; for
while the increased quantity due to the river is seen to be
only from Ti-r to -x-gVr, average velocity at the flood-
tide at that place was found to be 2l9 miles per hour, while
that of the ebb was S’fl; an increase which is in all proba¬
bility due to the tide beyond the Suters falling more rapidly
than it rises, and thus producing a greater head and more
rapid current on the ebb, but is assuredly not due to any
augmentation of water from the discharge of the Conon.
The Tay presents another example of the disproportion be¬
tween the tidal and river waters. That river, as gauged by
Mr Leslie when in flood, was found, including the Earn,
to discharge 969,340 cubic feet per minute. Mr Walker,
in his report to the trustees of Dundee harbour, assumes
the discharge in round numbers at one million cubic feet
per minute, or 240,000,000 during four hours, and arrives
at the following conclusion :—“ To compare the above with
the effect of the tidal water at Dundee, I assume 15,000
acres as the average area (above Dundee) of the reservoir
or estuary during the first four hours of the ebbing tide,
and the vertical fall of tide during these four hours to be
11 feet. This will give 7,187,400,000 cubic feet, or thirty
times the 240 millions of river water. To compare the
effect upon the 5ar, the area of the river between Dundee
and the bar must be added; and the tidal water upon the
bar will then be upwards of forty times the river water.”
It will be apparent that an important question is suggested
as to the manner in which such works as we have recom¬
mended for improving the upper parts of rivers may operate
in assisting or retarding the scour of the bar. We have
no hesitation in replying, that if executed in the manner we
have indicated, they will improve the higher part of the
river without prejudicially affecting the bar, and in certain
cases they will operate beneficially on the bar also.
The construction of piers for improving the entrances of
rivers, as in the case, for example, of the W ear at Sunderland,
is more properly included in the subject of harbours. Such
works seem to us to act beneficially, not so much by increas¬
ing the depth on the bar, as by limiting the extent of shoal
water at the entrance to the river. In its natural state such
a river as the Wear flows across the beach from high to low
water in a broad and shallow channel, the direction of which
is ever changing. It thus forms a long bar or shoal, with
broken water throughout its whole extent. But the projec¬
tion of piers across the beach affords shelter from the waves,
and admits of a navigable channel being excavated and
maintained ; and after a vessel crosses the short bar, which
occurs at or near the pierheads, she not only gets into deeper
water, but has the additional advantage arising from the
shelter afforded by the piers. To this extent piers in such
situations are highly advantageous. They further act bene¬
ficially in directing the flow of the tidal currents in a fixed
channel across the beach and bar, and, in connection with
an increase of tidal capacity in the interior, such as we have
mentioned as the result of the works on some rivers, they
cannot fail, if judiciously designed, to operate beneficially
by maintaining an increased depth of water on the bar.
In certain situations where the coasts are faced with
gravel or shingle beaches, accumulations or bars may be
lessened by means of groynes, so formed as to intercept
the gravel, and either retain it, or lead it past the harbour’s
mouth into an adjoining bay. The writer has in several
situations recommended the adoption of such works; and
Mr Walker has applied them with success at the harbour
of Newhaven in Kent, where, in conjunction with increased
backwater, due to deepening and removal of obstructions,
the depth on the bar has been materially increased.
SECT. IX.—FORMATION AND RECLAMATION OF LAND.
Rivers.
Such twofold schemes as have for their ostensible object Schemes
the improvement of rivers and the formation of land, have for gaining
generally been unsuccessful in benefiting navigation. Weland ar,d
do not affirm that river-works, constructed on the principle imPr°ving
which we have advocated, have not the effect of ^ot ^en100
land, in the particular sense in which we shall afterwards rally com-
explain it; but we do state that land-making is no part ofpatible.
sound river engineering. Judiciously designed works may,
as we shall presently explain, have the effect of reclaiming
and protecting land, while at the same time they, as their
primary object, benefit navigation ; but we know of no case
where the interests of navigation have been promoted by
any measure which has for its object the conversion of large
tracts of tide-covered sands into cultivated fields.
We refer to the Dee in Cheshire, as an aggravated in- River Dee.
stance of the incompatibility of the two interests.1 The
outline of this river is shown in Plate I., from a survey by
Messrs Stevenson, made in 1838. The River Dee Com¬
pany, incorporated by act of Parliament in 1732, have from
time to time reclaimed from the upper part of the estuary
a large tract of land, extending to about 4000 acres, which
is now in full cultivation; and alongside of this gradually
gained territory the river has been conducted from Chester
to near Flint, in a narrow canal of about 8 miles in length,
and 400 feet in width. A considerable portion of land has
also been reclaimed on the Flintshire side of the estuary,
though not by the proprietors of the Dee Company ; and it
is believed that the aggregate amount which has from first
to last been gained from the sea is about 7000 acres. Now
it is well authenticated, that previous to the commencement
of the land-making operations on that river, there was a
depth of not less than a fathom at low water of spring tides
up as far as Burtonhead, and that there was an anchorage
for vessels of the largest size opposite to Parkgate, the
positions of which places are marked on the plan. But
when the writer surveyed the Dee in 1838, the depth of
6 feet was not found for more than 6 miles below Burton-
head, the low-water features of the estuary having been
forced to that extent further seawards by the extensive
reclamation of land in the upper part of the estuary, and
the consequent diminution of the tidal scour. It cannot,
we think, be disputed, that the effect of the works executed
on the River Dee, whatever may have been the anticipa¬
tions of their projectors, has been to shut out the sea, and
form land at the expense of the navigation. They are
designed, in fact, in direct opposition to the general prin¬
ciple laid down in the present treatise, which provides for
the admission of the greatest possible quantity of tidal water.
It seems also equally clear that an increase of tidal water increase of
must inevitably attend the execution of such works as we tidal water
have proposed; but in proof of this assumption, and in contrast produced
to the case of the Dee, it may be well for the reader’s in- ^
formation to cite examples which have occurred in practice. Tay an(j
Proceeding on actual calculations of comparative sections Lune.
of the River Tay before and after the operations, the writer
found that by the lowering of the low-water line, consequent
on the improved state of the river, an additional quantity of
sea water, amounting on an average to not less than
1,000,000 cubic yards, or 760,560 tons, is during every
tide propelled into and again withdrawn from that part of
the river which lies above Newburgh. This quantity is
equal to two hours’ discharge of the Tay in its ordinary state ;
and it therefore follows that the additional tidal discharge
for one year is equal to two months’ constant ordinary flow
of the River Tay. In the same way it was found by
1 Great Britain Coasting Pilot, by Captain Greenville Collins, hydrographer in ordinary to the King’s most excellent Majesty, Lon¬
don, 1767; Reports to the Admiralty, by Captain Washington; Report of Tidal Harbour Commissioners ; Report by Messrs Stevenson,
1839.
NAVIGATION, INLAND.
84
Rivers, calculation that the additional amount of tidal water admitted
v nr every tide into the Lune above Heaton, in consequence of
the operations, was 736,278 cubic yards.1 To estimate truly
the beneficial effects of these important changes on the
scouring power of the Tay and the Lune, it must be kept
in view, that in both cases the increased volume of tidal
water, being obtained by the enlargement of the low-water
channel, operates during every tide, and thus may be held
to produce the maximum amount of benefit; for it is obvious
that a cubic yard of low-water area, gained in the low-water
channel, and filled by every tide, is very much more valuable
than a similar amount of space gained at or near high-water
of spring tides, which is filled only at remote intervals.
Depression The tendency, then, of the whole system df works re-
of low- commended in this treatise is to lower the low-water line,
water line ai)(j to ac]m;t an increased amount of tidal water to act on
leaY0 miS" ^ie l°w'water channel. But the depression of the low-
water line, particularly when the river is confined by walls
in the lower part of an estuary, conveys the impression that
a great rise has taken place in the level of the adjoining
sand-banks, and it has consequently been thought that the
erection of river walls is inconsistent with the principles
of non-exclusion of tide-water which we have recom¬
mended ; but we are enabled to show that this is not the
case. In its natural state, the channel of such an estuary as
the Lune or the Kibble, as already explained in section iv., is
subject to constant change of position. The writer has seen
many acres of marsh or grass land in such estuaries carried
oft’ by the waves, and the solid matter of which they were
composed scattered over the shores and sand-banks. Now,
the effect of fixing the channel by means of walls, in the man¬
ner which has been recommended, is to form one permanent
navigable track; and the banks on either side, being no longer
subject to the periodical inroads of the river or tides, gradu¬
ally rise in elevation until they are capable of producing
vegetation, and ultimately become what are termed marsh
lands. When a river channel has been thus fixed and Rivers,
confined by walls, it has been ascertained by repeated ob- v/-*-
servation that the tidal water comes up the channel in a
comparatively pure state, instead of being loaded with par¬
ticles abraded from the sand-banks and marshes. It has
also been found that the process of deposit at the sides of an
estuary so improved goes on very slowly after it has reached
a certain stage ; for the materials deposited on the upper
parts of the banks are, as afterwards more particularly de¬
scribed, exceedingly fine, and are carried only by the
highest tides, which seldom reach those elevated portions
of the shores. From all these considerations we infer that
the effect of river-walls upon an estuary is to prevent
the constant disturbance of the materials of which the
banks are composed, but not to occasion additional ac¬
cumulations.
The writer had an opportunity, in the case of the Lune, As tested
of testing by actual measurement in how far the raising ofin the
the banks, caused by the erection of walls, was due merely Lune*
to a new disposition of the materials which originally filled
the bed of the estuary, or to additional foreign matters
deposited in consequence of the operations; and the fol¬
lowing results are instructive, being, it is believed, the
only observations that have been made to determine the
state of the sand-banks of an estuary after the river has
been improved, as compared with their former condition.
The rubble walls and other works constructed on the
Lune caused, as might have been expected, a very consid¬
erable alteration in the position and form of the sand¬
banks in the estuary; and this alteration, in connection
with the depression of from 2 to 3 feet in the low-water
level of the river, was apt to lead a casual observer to
suppose that a great accumulation of sand had taken place,
and consequently that a corresponding amount of back¬
water had been excluded. The writer was authorized by
the Admiralty to make such observations as were neces-
Fig. 24.
sary to determine the true state of the case. Figure 24
represents the changes that were produced by the works.
Over the whole area which is represented as covered by
sand a deposit had taken place, the banks being higher
than formerly ; whereas the whole area included in hatched
lines had been scoured, the banks having been lowered. A
careful calculation was made, founded on numerous sec¬
tions taken in 1838, before the works commenced, and in
1851, after their completion. The result of this investi¬
gation was, that after the completion of the works, the
amount of deposit on the space shown as sand in the cut
was 3,070,146 cubic yards; while the amount of scour on the
1 The mere cubic contents dredged from a ford or shoal often form no measure of the gain of tidal water due to the operations, be¬
cause the removal of such an obstruction has the effect of lowering the low-water line for a considerable distance up the river, the ex¬
tent to which the influence of the works extends depending on the amount of fall; and the whole of the wedge-shaped space included
between the old and new low-water lines is a clear gain of tide-water, and the cubic contents of this space generally greatly exceed the
cubic quantity of materials removed from the ford by dredging.
NAVIGATION, INLAND.
85
Rivers, space shown by hatched lines was 2,810,449 cubic yards;
' giving an excess of deposit of 259,697 cubic yards. But
the amount stated as having been scoured does not include
what has been taken away.below Glasson and Basil points;
and which has doubtless been deposited in the bank above.
The survey of 1838 did not afford data for ascertaining the
amount of what had been scoured from below Glasson with
sufficient accuracy to admit of its being included in the fore¬
going calculations. But an amount of scouring was ascer¬
tained to have actually occurred at that place, which was
amply sufficient to counterbalance the surplus of 259,697
cubic yards of deposit, as given in the above statement.
Such a result, we think, may indeed be expected; for
it is difficult to conceive in what way parallel walls formed
in an estuary can operate either in bringing down addi¬
tional alluvial matters from the river above, or in bringing
up additional detritus from without the bar.
Holding these views, and supported by the actual obser¬
vations made in the case of the Lune, we therefore con¬
clude— 1st, That works executed in accordance with the
principles laid down do not necessarily produce addi¬
tional accumulation of matter, but simply alter the dispo¬
sition of the existing materials of which the bed of the
estuary ivas originally composed. 2d, By deepening the
navigable track they admit of a large accession of water
to act upon the low-water channel during all tides, and at
the most favourable period of the tide. 2>d, That the
depth of water on such bars as are produced by the ac¬
tion of the waves may be maintained, and even increased,
by means of the works which have been described as appli¬
cable to the intermediate or tidal compartments of rivers.
Size of While treating of deposits, this is probably the proper
particles place to observe, that the size of detrital particles which
transport- can carriecj by a current depends on the velocity
tional°tor* ^le stream> ^ie nature the bottom along which the
velocity of ^et:i'itus is moved, as well as the shape of the particles of
stream. which the detritus itself is composed, and is altogether a
subject so dependent on special circumstances, that there
is great difficulty in laying down rules which can be ge¬
nerally applicable. The following are the results of expe¬
riments made by Bossut, Dubuat, and others, on the size
of detrital particles which streams flowing with different
velocities are said to be capable of carrying :—
3 in. per
6
8
12
24
M
))
»
»
)>
»
3 ft.
sec. = 0-170 mile per hour will just begin to work on
fine clay.
= 0-340 do., will lift fine sand.
= 0'4545 do., will lift sand as coarse as linseed.
= 0-6819 do., will sweep along fine gravel.
rrl-SGSS do., will roll along rounded pebbles 1 inch
in diameter.
=2-045 do., will sweep along slippery angular
stones of the size of an egg.
The only recent experiments made on this subject are
those of Mr T. Login, C.E., given in the Proceedings of
the Royal Society of Edinburgh, vol. iii., p. 475, which
were made with a stream seldom exceeding half an inch
in depth ; and are as follows :—
Nature of Materials.
Rate of sink¬
ing in water.
Current required
to move.
Brick-clay when mixed with 'j
water, and allowed to settle i
for half an hour J
Fresh-water sand 
Sea sand 
Rounded pebbles about the 1
size of peas  f
Vegetable soil  
Feet per
minute.
•566
10
11-707
60
Feet per
minute.
15
40
66-22
120
50
Mile per
hour.
•170
•454
•752
1-37
•56
Brick-clay in its natural state was not moved by a current of 12S
feet per minute, or 1-45 mile per hour.
We give these results as they have been stated by their Rivers,
authors; at the same time it is necessary to say that, for the
reason above mentioned, we consider their application in
practice to be very uncertain. Regarding the subject in a
general point of view, however, certain laws as to the trans¬
mission and deposition of detritus will be found applicable
to certain situations. On this subject Sir H. De la Beche
says—“ Where the velocity of a river is sufficient to pro¬
duce attrition of the substances which it has either torn up, ^ ’’lvers»
collected by undermining its banks, or which have fallen matters
into it, they gradually become more easy of transport, and found next
would, if the force of the current continued always the the sea.
same, be forced forward until the river delivered" itself
into the sea; but as the velocity of a current greatly de¬
pends on the fall of the river, the transport is regulated by
the inclination of the river’s bed. Now it is well known that
this inclination varies materially even in the same river; so
that it may be able to carry detritus to one situation, but
may be unable to transport it further under ordinary cir¬
cumstances, in consequence of diminished velocity. As a
general fact, it may be fairly stated that rivers, where their
courses are short and rapid, bear down pebbles to the seas
near them, as in the case of the Maritime Alps, &c.; but that
where their courses are long, and change from rapid to slow,
they deposit the pebbles where the force of the stream dimi¬
nishes, and finally transport mere sand or mud to their mouths,
as is the case with the Rhone, Po, Danube, Ganges, &c.”
This holds true in the case of such rivers as those to The re-
which Sir H. De la Beche refers ; but it will be found that verse of
the case is exactly reversed in tidal estuaries. There the this the
heavier sands and deposits are found at the mouth of the c.ase in
estuary, and the particles are lighter as we recede inwards. til!al estu"
The writer has tested this on several occasions, more partial- arieS‘
larly in the Dee, the Ribble, the Lune, the Wear, the Forth,
and the Tay, by agitating equal quantities of sand and de¬
posit (taken from different parts of the tidal estuary) in equal
quantities of water, and observing the time which elapsed in
each case before the materials were deposited and the water
assumed a state of purity. The result of these observations
proved that the sand of outer or seaward banks was com¬
posed of large particles, which were held in suspension only
a few seconds, and that in the inner parts of the estuary
the deposit decreased in weight, and that generally it de¬
creased from low to high water, where the silt was exceed¬
ingly fine, and remained in suspension in some cases even
for hours after the agitation of the water. The following
statement by Mr William Bald of experiments made on
materials taken from different parts of the bed of the Clyde,
shows the variety of materials found in the same stream,
and is a valuable record of the weight of the deposits which
form the beds of our tidal rivers :2—
Deposits.
Fine sand and a few pebbles laid in the box, 1
loose, not pressed, nearly dry J
Do. do. pressed 
Mud at White Inch, dry, and firmly packed ; 1
contained very fine sand and mica J
Wet mud, rather compact and firm, well pressed j
into the box J
Wet, fine sharp gravel, well pressed 
Wet running mud 
Sharp dry sand deposit in harbour 
Port-Glasgow Bank (sand)wet, pressed into a box
Sand opposite Erskine House, wet, pressed 
Alluvial earth, pressed 
,, ,, loose 
Lbs. to
cubic
feet.
87
92
97
115
124
122J
92
120*
116
93
67
No. of
cubic ft.
to the
Ton.
26
24
23
19
18
18-1
24-3
18-6
19-3
24
33
The writer of this article found the gravel of the Tay to be 18
feet to the ton.
1 De la Beche’s Geological Manual.
2 Trans, of Institution of Civil Engineers, vol. v., p. 330.
86
NAVIGATION, INLAND.
Rivers. The quantity of solid matter carried or held in suspen-
sion by rivers has also been made the subject of observa-
Quantity tion ; but the different observers whose remarks have come
of matters under our notice have stated their results in different ways,
in suspen- some giving the weight and others the hulk of detritus.
But assuming 18 cubic feet of solid matter to weigh a ton,
we think the following table presents a fair view of the cubic
measure of solid matter, and the ratios of volume and weight
in each case. In submitting this table, we must observe
that the discrepancies in the statements are so great, that
further observations are necessary before any satisfactory
conclusion can be arrived at; but we give the results as
they have been stated by their respective authorities:—
Formation
of deltas.
Name of River.
Cubic inches of
solid matter in
every cubic yard
of water.
Mississippi, mean..,
Irrawaddy, in flood.
Do., ordinary state
Rhine, in flood ...
Do., ordinary state
Do., mean  
Mersey, flood-tide..
Do., ebb-tide 
15-5
11-71
4-1
1-87
1-13
1-5
29-
33-
Ratios of volumeiRatios of weight
of solid matter of solid matter
to volume of to weight of
water. water.
TT© HIT
TTimj
TT-2fB'-g‘
1TCTUT
T7> TT
TTtny
ytVt
T32"57TTF
Tl>1
■jrlT
H-
TSS )
From this table it will be seen that the Rhine, as compared
to the others, is exceedingly pure ; while the waters of the
Mersey, on the other hand, hold in suspension a very large
amount. It must be kept in view, however, that the source
from whence the sedimentary matter in the Mersey is de¬
rived is very different from any of the other cases men¬
tioned in the table. The main part of the solid matter in
suspension in the Mersey, and indeed in all our tidal rivers,
is sand, stirred up by the flowing tide, which is deposited
again during the ebb-tide. The sedimentary matters in
such rivers as the Mississippi or the Irrawaddy, on the other
hand, are borne down from the low tracts of alluvial coun¬
try through which it flows, and form a constant and conse¬
quently increasing deposit at the mouth of the river.-
In all cases where the tidal currents across the mouths
of such rivers are languid or altogether absent, as in the
Mississippi, the Nile, the Danube, and other continental
rivers, the deposits brought down are not carried away, but
form deltas, which collect with greater or less rapidity in
proportion to the quantity of material brought down and
the depth of water in which it is deposited. Mr Ellet com¬
putes the delta of the Mississippi at 40,000 square miles in ex¬
tent, its average length from north to south being 500 miles.
Assuming the sedimentary matter brought down at so'o(fth
of the volume of water, and the discharge of the river at
21,000,000,000,000 cubic feet per annum, he estimates that
this vast accretion of deposited stuff must have formed at
an average rate of 1 mile in 99 years, giving a period for its
entire formation of something like 45,000 years ! Sir H. De
la Beche has, however, with reason, suggested that deltas
would increase most rapidly at the first period of their forma¬
tion, on account of the greater declivity of the river, and the
supposition that the detritus from the interior would become Rivers,
gradually less, from the equalization of levels and the fewer
asperities that agents have to act on ; and thus it seems
impossible to calculate from the present rate of accretion
the time which the whole mass has taken to accumulate.
In concluding this treatise, we have to point out in what Adjoining
way, and to what extent, river improvements conducted on
the principles advocated benefit adjoining property ; for it ^ rjver
is obviously highly important if the two objects of river and improve-
land improvement can be carried on simultaneously, and ments.
we think that to a certain extent this is perfectly practi¬
cable. The attempts of proprietors to protect the fore¬
shores of their lands from the encroachments of rivers in
tidal estuaries are often attended with great expense ; and
if those efforts prove for some time effectual in warding off
the approach of the channel, the land speedily takes on vege¬
tation, and is fit for pasturage. But the tenure by which
such propertyTs held is very slight; and the spot which to¬
day affords grazing for cattle may in a few tides become the
navigable channel of the river. Now, it is obvious that the
perfect protection from such encroachments afforded by the
training and guiding of the low-water channel by longitu¬
dinal walls, adds materially to the value of the adjoining
property; for not only is the land beyond high-water mark
completely protected from encroachment, but the marsh
lands bordering the estuary become in fact permanent pro¬
perty, and not an ever-changing benefit held for one year
and probably lost the next. Marsh lands so protected from
waste are still, it is true, liable to be flooded by high tides, a
circumstance, however, which is considered by some persons
not injurious, but rather beneficial, for marsh pasture lands.
The process of reclamation in all such cases goes on very
slowly after it has reached a certain stage, because, as the on Inargjl
banks rise, they are more seldom covered by the tide, and ian(is>
the materials deposited on the inner and higher parts of the
banks are, as already stated, exceedingly fine, and are car¬
ried only by the highest tides, which seldom reach them.
Mr Park has found on the Kibble that the first indications of
vegetation appear when the banks are elevated 12 feet above
the ordnance datum-line, which is the mean level of the sea.
This height corresponds at the Ribble to about the level of
high-water of neap tides. Mr Gordon2 also found, that in
the Norfolk estuary “ the samphire began to settle on the
sands, which the neap tides just cover,” and that “ grass be¬
gan to grow about one foot above the samphire level.” Such
marsh lands, if left unprotected, must remain for ever liable
to be covered during high floods or tides, and therefore
cannot be said to be available as arable lands, without the
erection of considerable works for the purpose of protecting
them from floods, and providing for their effectual drainage.
As the erection of such works, however, forms no part of
river improvement, we allude to them in this place only for
the purpose of remarking, that in all cases they should be
erected with caution. There are situations in which the erec¬
tion of embankments for protecting land may be injurious to
the interests of navigation ; there are others in which such
works, if judiciously laid out, may be harmless ; but their
1 Mr Ellet says that the sedimentary matter transported by the Mississippi forms Part °f t'le volume discharged by the river.
(Ellet, On the Ohio and Mississippi.)—Mr T. Login, C.E., in Pegu, states in a paper on the Delta of the Irrawaddy, read before the Royal
Society of Edinburgh, session 1857, that the waters of the Irrawaddy contained TTVjth part of their weight of sediment during floods,
and ■sTV'jth part of their weight when the river was in a low state, and gives the mean deposit at 8 inches per cubic yard.—Mr Leonard
Horner found that the water of the Rhine at Bonn contained from TT?i^th part of its weight during floods to ^yuith part of its weight
in a low state. {Arcana of Science and Art, 1835.)—Captain Denham found that the tidal water of the Mersey contained 29 cubic inches
of solid matter in every cubic yard during flood-tide, and 33 cubic inches in every cubic yard during ebb-tide. {Observations on the Mer¬
sey, by Captain H. M. Denham, R.N., Liverpool, 1840.)—Mr Lyell says:—“ Hartsaeker computed the Rhine to contain, when most
flooded, 1 part in 100 of mud in suspension. By several observations of Sir George Staunton, it appeared that the water of the Yellow
River in China contained earthy matter in the proportion of 1 to 200. Manfredi, the celebrated Italian hydrographer, conceived the
average proportion of sediment in all running water to be if^th. Some writers, on the contrary, as De Maillet, have declared the most
turbid waters to contain far less sediment than any of the above estimates would import; and there is so much contradiction and incon¬
sistency in the facts and speculations hitherto promulgated on the subject, that we must wait for additional experiments before we can
form any opinion on the subject.” {Principles of Geology, by Charles Lyell, F.R.S., London, 1830, vol. i., p. 247.)
2 Report on Norfolk Estuary, by L. D. B. Gordon, C.E., Glasgow, 1856.
NAVIGATION, INLAND.
87
Rivers, effect in any case can only be determined by a careful
consideration of the special circumstances of the locality in
which they are erected. We know many cases where the
interests of navigation have been sacrificed by unwarrant¬
able encroachment; and, on the other hand, instances are
not wanting where even important works have been em¬
barrassed and crippled by an over-cautious regard to the
principle of non-encroachment on the high-water line.
With reference more particularly to the operations of
landowners, it is notorious that in many cases attempts to
reclaim or protect property have led to serious and costly
legal proceedings between landowners and the local con¬
servators of navigations; and this we are sensible has in
some instances arisen from a feeling, on the part of the
landowners, that their operations could not be regarded as
prejudicial. The local conservators, on the other hand,
have generally no means of knowing what the ultimate in¬
tentions of the landowners are until their operations have
proceeded so far as to render it impossible, if the interest of
navigation require it, to stop or to remove the works with¬
out considerable loss. A difference of opinion has thus
been raised, which has too often ended in an expensive law¬
suit. We have long held the opinion that it would in many,
if not in all, of our estuaries, be most desirable to have a
line of conservation marked out by the Admiralty (without
whose authority no encroachment can be made within high-
water mark) for the regulation of all works for the protec¬
tion of land. Were such a line defined, the landowners
could then with confidence, and without risk of challenge,
enter on such works within the line of conservation as they
considered necessary for the protection of their property,
and a source of much difference of opinion and expensive
litigation would be at once removed. We had hoped that
the Tidal Harbour Commission, who have been enabled,
through the exertions of Captain Washington, the hydro-
grapher of the Admiralty, who was one of the commission,
to give in their printed reports so valuable a fund of infor- Rivers,
mation on our tidal harbours, would have terminated their
labours by pointing out and recommending some such sys¬
tem as we have suggested of defining lines of conservation
for all the important rivers and estuaries of the country.
It is obvious, however, that were such a duty to be per¬
formed, it must be committed to a duly qualified commis¬
sion, acting most naturally under the Admiralty, and so
composed that the protection of navigation, and the in¬
terests of landowners or trustees for public works, should
be fully represented, the whole of its members being actu¬
ated by one common desire to do what is best for the
community at large.
The following is a statement of ratios between the dis- Discharges
charges of certain rivers during low-water and when in of Rivers,
flood; but it must be kept in view, as stated in treating of
the formulae for calculating the discharge, that its deter¬
mination is a difficult problem; so that the results stated
with reference to the discharge of different rivers must be
received with this caution as to their accuracy.
Mean Discharge. .
Cubic ft, per min. * ooc1,
Clyde  48,000 194,000 1 to 4-0
Conon  7,969 216,589 1 „ 27-2
Earn  54,000 215,600 1 „ 3-9
Ganges  12,420,000 29,652,480 1 „ 2'4
Irrawaddy  4,500,000 45,000,000 1 ,, 10-0
Mississippi  39,954,000 76,800,000 1 ,, l-9
Nile  1,386,000 13,200,000 1 „ 9-5
Tay  218,000 753,740 1 „ 3-4
Thames  80,220 475,000 1 „ 5-9
The high ratio on the Conon may be due to the steep¬
ness of its bed, and the absence of any natural lake or
reservoir on its course to act as a regulator.
The quantities in the following table represent the dis¬
charges of the rivers in their ordinary state.
Physical Characteristics of Rivers.
Name of
River.
Amazon
Annan...
Boyne ...
Clyde ...
Conon  
Coquet .y.
Dee, Aberdeen..
Dee, Chester..
Forth r
Before works<
wereexecut. I
Foyle  
Ganges
Irrawaddy
Lune 
Before works'!
were execut. j
Mersey
lississippi... |
Mississippi....
Ness.
Nile.,
Nith
gs
^1
4000
35
60
98
/ 35
44
87
85
63
above
Alloa.
55
1680
50
70
4400
includ,
Missouri
2240
45
Area of
drainage in
square
miles.
700
945
399
"‘765
620
452
1100
432,480
1,748
Jl,226,600
700
520,200
Ordinary
discharge
per minute
180,000
48,000
7969
10,675
29,385
31,500
12,420,000
4,500,000
39,954,000
1,386,000
ifs g
257
65
19-9
75'7
28-6
28-7
32-5
2-6
c
° a 3
_© s p<
2'34
66
60
81
11
11
13
1-25
3-37
1-6
3-8
26-76
20-
24-
2-8
3-25
96
55
3-25
20
Part of River
where slope occurs.
{ Annan Waterfoot to Annan
Bridge, 2 miles 
Broomielaw to Port-Glas-
gow, 18 miles 
Lower part 
Chester to Flint.
Black Dub to Stirling
Stirling to Alloa  
Londonderry to Culmore Ft
j Rajmahal to Mirzapore 1
t Creek  j
in summer )
in flood J
Glasson to Heaton, 3i miles ~i
Heaton to Lancaster, 2J ... I
( Average slope between j
( Glasson and Lancaster... J
ordinary ( from Ohio to Gulf )
flood I of Mexico j
Loch Dochfour to Kessock..
when high t Cairo to Medi- )
when low.. | terranean... j
Dumfries to Burron Point...
Length of
River
affected
by tide, in
miles.
Depth on
bar at
lowwater,
in feet,
400
2
22
above Port-
Glasgow,
32
15
aboveAlloa
23
above Lon¬
donderry.
105
no bar
East, W-est,
9 12
no bar
9 to 10
Authority.
N. Beardmore’s Hyd. Tables.
Messrs Stevenson, C.E.,Edin.
A. Nimmo, C.E.
J. Ure, C.E.. Glasgow.
Messrs Stevenson, Edin.
E. K. Calver, R.N.
J. Gibb.
(Messrs Stevenson, Edin.
< and Admiralty Report,by
l Captain Washington.
Messrs Stevenson.
Messrs Stevenson.
( Johnston’s Physical Atlas.
( Beardmore’s Tables.
(. Rev. Mr Everest.
T. Login, C.E.
Messrs Stevenson.
Captain Denham, R.N.
C. Ellet.
Messrs Stevenson.
N. Beardmore.
Johnston’s Physical Atlas.
Messrs Stevenson.
NAY
88
Naviga¬
tion Laws
II
Naviga¬
tor’s
Islands.
NAY
Physical Characteristics of Rivers—Continued.
Name of
River
Rhine
Rhone.
Ribble, before
works 
Severn 
works }
Tees 
Thames  {
Tweed.
Tyne..
Wear.
oj; rj
e a
700
560
80
180
160
100
204£
navigab,
100
Area of
drainage in
square
miles.
88,853
38,329
880
8,580
2,283
680
5,000
1,870
1,100
437
Ordinary
discharge
per minute
in
cubic feet.
3,960,000
139,935
274,000
102,000
"’9500
44-5
159
120
204
22
c-g V
^ e"
0 c 5
o g p.
(2119
119
63
20-7
V 77
24'18
47-8
4-5
2
3
2
0-75
5
10-5
75
15
20-5
23-25
V 7
( 1-95
7 9-35
{ 5-06
20
•92
109
116
49
16
Part of River
where slope occurs.
Source to Reichenau 
Reichenau to Constance ...
Constance to Basle 
Basle to Cologne  
Cologne to sea  
Besan^on to Mediterranean
Lower 22J miles 
DiglisWeir to Upton Bridge^
Upton Bridge to Mythe Br.
Mythe Bridge to Haw Br.
Haw Bridge to Stonebench
Stonebench to Rosemary Pt.
Rosemary Pt. to Framilode
Framilode to Newnham ...
Newnham to Awre Point...
Awre Point to Sharpness...
Sharpness to Guscar 
Guscar to Inward Point ...
Inward Pt. to AustHead...,
Flisk to Balmbreich 
Balmbreich to Newburgh
Newburgh to Perth  
Lechdale to Teddington ... f
Teddington toYanlet Creek |
Confluence of Gala Water ,
to Leader Water   I
Leader to Kelso  (
Kelso to sea   J
Length of
River
affected
by tide,
in miles.
Depth on
bar at
lowwater,
in feet.
New Bridge to sea.
22J
68
35
22
66
from Note,
18
10
54
18
6
no bar
6
2 to 4§
Authority.
{Johnston’s Physical Atlas.
Beardmore’s Tables.
Falls and Discharge, from
L. Horner, Esq.
Johnston’s Physical Atlas.
Beardmore’s Tables.
P. Park, C.E. Preston.
{Remarks on the Tidal
Phenomena of the River
Severn, by Capt, F. W.
Beechey, R.N.
Messrs Stevenson.
John Murray, C.E.
.Messrs Rennie, C.E.
A. Peterman, F.G.S.
E. K. Calver, R.N.
Thos. Meik,C.E., Sunderland.
Naviga¬
tor’s
Islands.
(d. S—N.)
NAVIGATION LAWS, The, of which some notice
has been given under the articles Commerce and Eng¬
land, and which were considered obnoxious to the inter¬
ests of commercial enterprise, were in effect repealed in
18o4. An act to admit foreign ships to the coasting trade
of this country (17th Viet., cap. 5) was passed March 23,
1854; and an act to amend and consolidate the acts relat¬
ing to merchant shipping (17th and 18th Viet., cap. 104)
on the 10th August 1854. The latter act received some
amendment, particularly with regard to the erection and
maintenance of colonial lighthouses (18th and 19th Viet.,
cap. 91) in 1855.
NAVIGATOR’S ISLANDS, or Samoan Islands, a
group in the Pacific, lying to the N.E. of the Friendly Islands,
between S. Lat. 13. 30. and 14. 30., and W. Long. 168. and
173. They are eight in number, and three of them are of
considerable size. The largest of the group is Savaii, which
is upwards of 200 miles in circuit, and the principal others
are Maoona, Pala, and Oyalava. They are for the most
part mountainous and of volcanic formation. The soil is
very rich and fertile, and the mountains are thickly covered
with wood to their very summits. The trees are chiefly
evergreens, and are remarkable for the beauty and variety
of their appearance. Palms, cocoa-nut trees, breadfruit
trees, banyans, sugar-canes, pine-apples, potatoes, coffee,
yams, and tobacco are among the productions of these
islands. The climate is variable, and heavy rains fall during
the winter. No indigenous quadrupeds are found; but
horses, cattle, and swine, which have been introduced from
other places, thrive well and increase largely. Fowls are
numerous, and the surrounding parts of the ocean abound
in fish. The inhabitants are superior in appearance to most
of the tribes of the South Sea Islands. They are stout,
well-proportioned, and of a dark-brown complexion, and
the men are in general better looking than the women. In
character, they are generally good-natured, hospitable, and
affectionate, and they show great respect for the aged.
They are intelligent, and display considerable ingenuity in
making their canoes and houses ; but they are indolent, fond
of pleasure, covetous, and deceitful. Their language is
smooth and liquid, and in it alone of Polynesian tongues the
sibilant sound occurs. The Navigator’s Islands were first
visited by missionaries in 1830 from Otaheite; and since
1836 missionaries have been sent out directly from Europe,
by whose means a great number of the inhabitants have been
converted to Christianity. They are also beginning to
pursue the employments of trade, and to learn the use of
money. Cocoa-nut oil is the principal article of export, and
the imports are cotton, calicoes, fire-arms, ammunition, &c.,
supplied chiefly by American whalers. The whole area of
the islands is 2650 square miles ; and the estimates of the
population vary from 50,000 to 160,000.
89
N A
Navy. An insular empire, like that of the united kingdom of
—Great Britain and Ireland, which is so much indebted, and
always must be, for that power, prosperity, and renown
which she enjoys, to the glorious deeds of her navy, can¬
not but take a peculiar degree of interest in every thing
that concerns it. This vast machine, indeed, has at all
times been the pride and boast of Great Britain, the ter¬
ror of its enemies, and the admiration of the wrorld. It is
under the impression of its vast importance that we have
been induced to give, under their proper heads, such de¬
tails of the civil and military branches of the naval de¬
partments as may afford, without entering into too mi¬
nute details, a comprehensive sketch of this great nation¬
al bulwark, of which it is now proposed to take a general
view.
The term Navy is generally intended to express all
ships of commerce as well as those of war, the mercantile
as well as the military marine ; but the observations con¬
tained in the present article are meant to relate only to
the latter, excepting that, in speaking of the progressive
enlargement of ships, and improvements in naval architec¬
ture, the remarks may sometimes equally apply to ships of
commerce and of war.
Navy composed of Materiel and Personnel.
The composition of a navy may be considered under the
two distinct heads into which it naturally divides itself,
and under which the French generally distinguish an army,
the materiel, and the personnel; the former embracing every
thing that appertains to the ships, their capacity, con¬
struction, armament, and equipment; the latter all that
concerns the rank, the appointment, the various duties, &c.
of the officers, seamen, and marines.
I. MATERIEL OF THE NAVY.
History. It would occupy too large a space to give even a short
sketch of the origin and the progress of naval architecture,
from a bundle of branches, or the hollow trunk of a tree—
the rude raft and the frail canoe—to the more perfect co¬
racle, or the wicker-boats of the ancient Britons, covered
with hides. For many centuries after the expulsion of
the Romans from, or their abandonment of, the British
Islands, very little progress appears to have been made by
us in the art of navigation or ship building: the natives
would appear, for many centuries afterwards, to have acted
merely on the defensive against naval invasions.
“ The whole of our naval history,” say the commis¬
sioners for revising the civil affairs of the navy, “ may be
divided into three periods; the first comprehending all
that preceded the reign of Henry VIII.; the second end¬
ing with the restoration of Charles II.; and the third
coming down from the Restoration to the present day.”
First r° what size, and to what extent, the amount of the
period. English ships or vessels were carried, which supported so
many contests with the invading Danes in the ninth cen¬
tury, our naval history has not preserved any record. We
are told, however, that Alfred increased the size of his
galleys, and that some of them were capable of rowing
thirty pair of oars. These galleys were chiefly employed
in clearing the Channel of the nests of pirates by which it
was infested. It is also said, as a proof of his attention to
naval matters, that, under his auspices, one Ochter under-
VOL. XVI.
V Y.
took a voyage into the arctic regions, made a survey of Matdri 1
the coasts of Lapland and Norway, and brought to Alfred ^ f
an account of the mode pursued by the inhabitants of those
countries to catch whales. It is, moreover, on record, that
his two sons, Edward and Athelstan, fought many bloody
actions with the Danes, in which several kings and chiefs
were slain ; and that Edgar had from three to five thousand
ships, divided into three fleets, stationed on three several
parts of the coast, with which, passing from one fleet or
squadron to the other, he circumnavigated the island ; that
after this he called himself “ Monarch of all Albion, and
Sovereign over all the adjacent Isles.” Some notion, how¬
ever, may be formed of the size of the vessels which com¬
posed his fleets, from the imposition of a land-tax, which
required certain proprietors to furnish a stout galley of
three rows of oars, to protect the coast from the Danish
pirates. The more effectually to check these marauders,
and protect the coasts of the kingdom, William the Con¬
queror, in 1066, established the Cinque Ports, and gave
them certain privileges, on condition of their furnishing
fifty-two ships, with twenty-four men in each, for fifteen
days, in cases of emergency. We should not, perhaps, be
far amiss in dating the period of our naval architecture
from the Conquest. “ The Normans,” says Sir Walter
Raleigh, “ grew better shipwrights than either the Danes
or Saxons, and made the last conquest of this land; a land
which can never be conquered whilst the kings thereof
keep the dominion of the seas.” But Raleigh does not de¬
scribe what the ships were which the Normans taught us to
build ; nor can it now be known in what kind of vessels Wil¬
liam transported his army across the Channel, or what was
the description of the hundred large ships and fifty galleys
of which the naval armament of Richard I. consisted on his
expedition to the Holy Land. We are told, however, that
having increased his fleet at Cyprus to two hundred and
fifty ships and sixty galleys, he fell in with a ship belong¬
ing to the Saracens, of such an extraordinary size that she
was defended by 1500 men, all of whom, with the excep¬
tion of 200, Richard, after taking possession of her, ordered
to be thrown overboard and drowned.
There can be no doubt that the nations of the Mediter¬
ranean, particularly the Genoese and Venetians, introduced
many improvements as to the capacity and stability of their
ships, in consequence of the crusades, and the demands for
warlike stores and provisions which such vast and ill-pro¬
vided armies necessarily created ; but these improvements
would seem not to have reached, or, at least, to have made
but a tardy progress in, Great Britain. King John, it is
true, stoutly claimed for England the sovereignty of the
sea, and decreed that all ships belonging to foreign na¬
tions, the masters of which should refuse to strike to the
British flag, should be seized and deemed good and lawful
prize. And this monarch is said to have fitted out no less
than five hundred sail of ships, under the Earl of Salisbury,
in the year 1213, against a fleet of three times that num¬
ber, prepared by Philip of France for the invasion of Eng¬
land ; of which the English took three hundred sail, and
drove a hundred on shore, Philip being under the neces¬
sity of destroying the remainder, to prevent their falling
also into the hands of the English. Of the kinds of ships
of which his fleet consisted, some notion may be formed by
the account that is related of an action fought in the fol¬
lowing reign with the French, who, with “ eighty stout
ships,” threatened the coast of Kent. This fleet being dis¬
covered by Hubert de Burgh, governor of Dover Castle,
he put to sea with forty English ships, and having got to
M
90
NAVY.
Materiel, the windward of the enemy, and run down many of the
^ smaller ships, he closed with the rest, and threw on board
them a quantity of quicklime, which blinded them so effec¬
tually that all their ships were either taken or sunk.
Whatever the size and the armaments of our ships were,
the empire of the sea was bravely maintained by the Ed¬
wards and the Henrys in many a gallant and glorious sea-
fight with the fleets of France, against which they were
generally opposed with inferior numbers. The temper of
the times, and the public feeling, were strongly exemplified
in the reign of Edward I. by the following circumstance:
An English sailor was killed in a Norman port, in conse¬
quence of which a war commenced, and the two nations
agreed to decide the dispute on a certain day, with the
whole of their respective naval forces. The spot of battle
was to be the middle of the Channel, marked out by an¬
choring there an empty ship. The two fleets met on the
14th April 1293; the English obtained the victory, and
carried off above two hundred and fifty sail.
In an action with the French fleet off the harbour of
Sluys, Edward III. is said to have slain 30,000 of the ene¬
my, and to have taken two hundred great ships, “ in one of
which only, there were four hundred dead bodies.” This
is no doubt an exaggeration. The same monarch, at the
siege of Calais, is stated to have blockaded that port with
seven hundred and thirty sail, having on board 14,956
mariners ; twenty-five only of which were of the royal navy,
bearing four hundred and nineteen mariners, or about se¬
venteen men each. In various other sea actions did this
great sovereign nobly support the honour of the British
flag. But though we then, and ever after, claimed the
'‘dominion of the seas,” that dominion, says Raleigh, “ was
never absolute until the time of Henry the Eighth.” It
was a maxim of this great statesman, that “ whosoever
commands the sea, commands the trade of the world;
whosoever commands the trade, commands the riches of
the world, and consequently the world itself.”
The reign of Henry V., however, was most glorious
in maintaining the naval superiority over the fleets of
France. From a letter of this sovereign to his lord chan¬
cellor, dated 12th August 1417, discovered by Samuel Ly-
sons among the records in the Tower, and of which the
following is a copy, it would appear that there was some¬
thing like an established royal navy in his reign, indepen¬
dently of the shipping furnished by the Cinque Ports and
the merchants, for the king’s own use, on occasion of any
particular expedition. The letter appears to have been writ¬
ten nine days after the surrender of the castle of Touque
in Normandy, from whence it is dated.
“ Au reverend pere en Dieu VEvesque de Duresme Tire
Chanceller d!Engleterre.
“ Worshipful fader yn God We sende you closed within
this letter a cedule conteyning the names of certein Mais-
tres for owr owne grete Shippes Carrakes Barges and Ba-
lyngers to the whiche Maistres We have granted annui-
tees such as is appointed upon eche of hem in the same
Cedule to take yerely of owre grante while that us lust at
owr Exchequer of Westmr. at the termes of Michelmasse
and Ester by even porcions. Wherefore We wol and charge
yow that unto eche of the said Maistres ye do make under
owr grete seel beyng in yowre warde owr letters patentes
severales in due forme after th’effect and pourport of owr
said grante. Yeven under owr signet atte owr Castle of
Touque the xij. day of August.”
Extract from the Schedule contained in the preceding Letter.
vj. li. xiijs. iiijd. La Grande Nief ap-1 vj. Mariners por la
pelle the dont John William >- sauf garde deink
est Maistre ) Hamult.
vj. li. xiijs. iiijd. La Trinate Royale | •
dont Steph’ Thomas est Maistre / ^
vj. li. xiijs. iiijd. La Holy Gost dontT •
Jordan Brownyng est Maistre J
vj. li. xiijs. iiijd. La Carrake appel- I
lee le Petre dont John Gerard /-vj.
est Maistre J
vj. li. xiijs. iiijd, La Carrake appellee )
le Paul dont William Payne vj.
est Maistre )
vj. li. xiijs. iiijd. La Carrak appellel
le Andrewe dont John Thor- > vj.
nyng est Maistr’ )
vj.li. xiijs. iiijd. La Carrak appellee le { .
Xpofre dont Tendrell est Maistr’ J VJ’
vj. li. xiijs. iiijd. La Carrak appelle 4
le Marie dont William Riche- v vj.
man est Maistr’ j
vj. li. xiijs. iiijd. La Carrak appellee \
le Marie dont William Hethe kvj.
est Maistre j
vj. li. xiijs. iiijd. La Carrak appelle 1
le George dont John Mersh > vj.
est Maistr’
Mariners.
Mariners.
Mariners.
Mariners.
Mariners.
Mariners.
Mariners.
Mariners.
Mariners.
The remainder, to the masters of which pensions were thus
granted, consist of seventeen “ niefs, barges, and ballyn-
gers,” some with three, and others two mariners only. But
history informs us, that about this time Henry embarked
an army of 25,000 men at Dover on board of 1500 sail of
ships, two of which carried purple sails, embroidered with
the arms of England and France; one styled the King’s
Chamber, the other his Saloon, as typical of his keeping
his court at sea, which he considered as a part of his domi¬
nions. Still we are left in the dark as to the real dimen¬
sions of his ships, and the nature of their armament; they
were probably used only as transports for his army. It
would appear, however, from a very curious poem, writ¬
ten in the early part of the reign of King Henry VI. that
the navy of his predecessor was considerable, but that, by
neglect, it was then reduced to the same state in which it
had been during the preceding reigns. The poem here
alluded to is entitled “ The English Policie, exhorting all
England to keep the Sea, and namely the Narrow Sea;
showing what profit cometh thereof, and also what worship
and salvation to England and to all Englishmen;” and is
printed in the first volume of Hackluyt’s Collection of Voy¬
ages. It was evidently written before the year 1438, when
the Emperor Sigismond died, as appears by the following
passage in the prologue :
For Sigismond, the great Emperour,
Which yet reigneth, when he was in this land,
With King Henry the Fifth, Prince of Honour,
Here much glory, as him thought, he found
A mightie land, which had take in hand
To werre with France, and make mortalitie,
And ever well kept round about the sea.
The part of the poem which alludes to the navy of King
Henry V. is entitled “ Another incident of keeping the Sea,
in the time of marveilous werriour and victorious Prince,
King Henrie the Fifth, and of his great Shippes.”
The following are the most remarkable passages :
And if I should conclude all by the King
Henrie the Fift, what was his purposing,
Whan at Hampton he made the great dromons.
Which passed other great ships of the Commons;
The Trinitie, the Grace de Dieu, the Holy Ghost,
And other moe, which as nowe be lost.
What hope ye was the Kings great intent
Of thoo shippes, and what in mind he meant:
It was not ellis, but that he cast to bee
.Lorde round about environ of the see.
And if he had to this time lived here,
He had been Prince named withouten pere :
Materiel.
His great ships should have been put in preefe,
Unto the ende that he ment of in chiefe.
For doubt it not but that he would have bee
Lord and master about the round see:
And kept it sure, to stoppe our ennemies hence,
And wonne us good, and wisely brought it thence,
That no passage should be without danger,
And his licence on see to move and sterre.
Shortly after the time when this poem must have been
written, it appears from the parliament roll (20th Henry
VI. 1442), that an armed naval force, consisting only of
eight large ships, with smaller vessels to attend them,
was to be collected from the ports of London, Bristol,
Dartmouth, Hull, Newcastle, Winchelsea, Plymouth, Fal¬
mouth, &c.; and, of course, the royal ships of 1417, the
names of which are contained in the foregoing schedule,
were then either gone to decay or dispersed. We are not
to judge of the size of these ships from the few mariners
appointed to each. These were merely the ship-keepers,
or harbour-duty men, placed on permanent pay, to keep
the ships in a condition fit for the sea when wanted.
It is very probable that, until our merchants engaged in
the Mediterranean trade, and that the attention of the go¬
vernment was turned, in the reign of Henry VII. (about
1496), to imitate Portugal in making foreign discovery,
under the skilful seaman Sebastian Cabot, very little was
added to the capacity or the power of British ships of war.
It is said, however, that on the accession of Henry VII. to
the throne in 1485, he caused his marine, which had been
neglected in the preceding reign, to be put into a condi¬
tion to protect the coasts against all foreign invasions ; and
that, in the midst of profound peace, he always kept up a
fleet ready to act. In his reign was built a ship called the
Great Harry, the first on record that deserved the name of
a ship of war, if it was not the first exclusively appropriated
to the service of the state. This is the same ship which
Camden has miscalled the Henry Grace de Dieu, and
which was not built till twenty years afterwards, under the
reign of Henry VIII. The Great Harry is stated to have
cost L.14,000, and was burned by accident at Woolwich
in the year 1553.
Second We now come to that period of our naval history in
Period. which England might be truly said to possess a military
marine, and of which some curious details have been left
us by that extraordinary man of business Mr Pepys, a com¬
missioner of the navy, and afterwards secretary to Charles
II., at a time when the king executed in person the office
of lord high admiral, and also to James II. until his ab¬
dication. His minutes and miscellanies relative to the
navy are contained in a great number of manuscript vo¬
lumes, which are deposited in the Pepysian Library in
Magdalene College, Cambridge. From these papers it
appears, that in the thirteenth year of Henry VIII. the
following were the names and the tonnage of the royal
navy :
Tons.
Henry Grace de Dieu 1500
Gabriel Royal  650
Mary Rose  600
Barbara  400
Mary George  250
Henry Hampton  120
The Great Galley  800
Sovereign  800
Catherine Forteleza  550
John Baptist  400
Great Nicholas    400
Mary James  240
Great Bark  250
Less Bark  180
Add to these two row-barges of sixty tons each, making,
in the whole, sixteen ships and vessels, measuring 7260 Materiel,
tons. ^
The Henry Grace de Dieu is stated in all other accounts,
and with more probability, to have been only 1000 tons ; the
rule for ascertaining the measurement of ships being still
vague, and liable to great error, was probably much more
so at this early period. This ship was built in 1515, at Erith,
in the river Thames, to replace the Regent, of the same ton¬
nage, which was burned in August 1512, in action with the
French fleet, when carrying the flag of the lord high ad¬
miral. There is a drawing in the Pepysian papers of the
Henry Grace de Dieu, from which a print in the Archse-
ologia has been engraved, and of which a copy has been
taken as a frontispiece to C. Derrick’s Memoirs of the Rise
and Progress of the Royal Navy. From these papers it ap¬
pears that she carried fourteen guns on the lower deck,
twelve on the main deck, eighteen on the quarter-deck and
poop, eighteen on the lofty forecastle, and ten in her stern-
ports, making altogether seventy-two guns. Her regular
establishment of men is said to have consisted of 349 sol¬
diers, 301 mariners, and fifty gunners, making altogether
700 men. Some idea may be formed of the awkwardness
in manoeuvring ships built on her construction, or similar
to her, when it is stated that, on the appearance of the
French fleet at St Helens, the Great Harry, built in the
former reign, and the first ship built with two decks, had
nearly been sunk; and that the Mary Rose, of 600 tons,
with 500 or 600 men on board, was actually sunk at Spit-
head, occasioned, as Raleigh informs us, “ by a little sway
in casting the ship about, her ports being within sixteen
inches of the water.” On this occasion the fleets cannon¬
aded each other for two hours; and it is remarked as
something extraordinary, that not less than three hundred
cannon-shot were fired on both sides in the course of this
action. From the prints above mentioned, which agree
very closely with the curious painting of Henry crossing
the Channel in his fleet to meet Francis on the Champ
de Drap d’Or, near Calais, and now in the great room
where the Society of Antiquaries hold their meetings in
Somerset House, it is quite surprising how they could be
trusted on the sea at all, their enormous poops and fore¬
castles making them appear loftier and more awkward than
the large Chinese junks, to which, indeed, they bear a
strong resemblance. It is worth remarking that, in the year
1840, the position of the Mary Rose, .near Spithead, was
pointed out to that extraordinary diver Mr Deane, who
went down several times, and brought up some beautiful
pieces of brass ordnance, as perfect and as fine specimens
as any we have at the present day.
Henry VIII. may justly be said to have laid the foun¬
dation of the British navy. He established the dock-yards
at Deptford, Woolwich, and Portsmouth; he appointed
certain commissioners to superintend the civil affairs of the
navy, and settled the rank and pay of admirals, vice-admi¬
rals, and inferior officers; thus creating a national navy,
and raising the officers to a separate and distinct profes¬
sion. The great officers of the navy then w'ere, the vice-
admiral of England, the master of the ordnance, the sur¬
veyor of the marine causes, the treasurer, comptroller, ge¬
neral surveyor of the victualling, clerk of the ships, and
clerk of the stores. Each of these officers had their par¬
ticular duties, but they met together at their office on
Tower Hill once a week, to consult, and make their re¬
ports to the lord high admiral. He also established the
fraternity of the Trinity House, for the improvement of
navigation and the encouragement of commerce ; and built
the castles of Deal, Walmer, Sandgate, Hurst Castle, &c.
for the protection of his fleet and of the coast.
At the death of Henry VIII. in 1547, the royal navy
consisted of about fifty ships and vessels of different sizes,
the former from 1000 to 150 tons, and the latter down to
Materiel.
92
NAVY.
Materiel, twenty tons, making in the whole about 12,000 tons, and
' manned by about 8000 mariners, soldiers, gunners, &c. In
the short reign of his son Edward, little alteration seems
to have taken place in the state and condition of the royal
navy. But the regulations which had been made in the
reign of his father, for the civil government of naval affairs,
were revised, arranged, and turned into ordinances, which
form the basis of all the subsequent instructions given to
the commissioners for the management of the civil affairs
of the navy. In the reign of Mary the tonnage of the
navy was reduced to about 7000 tons ; but her lord high
admiral nobly maintained tbe title assumed by England of
Sovereign of the Seas, by compelling Philip of Spain to
strike his flag that was flying at the main-top-mast head,
though on his way to England to marry Queen Mary, by
firing a shot at the Spanish admiral. He also demanded
that his whole fleet, consisting of 160 sail, should strike
their colours and lower their top-sails, as an homage to the
English flag, before he would permit his squadron to sa¬
lute the Spanish monarch.
The reign of Elizabeth was the proudest period of our
naval history, perhaps surpassed by none previously to the
Revolution. She not only increased the numerical force
of the regular navy, but established many wise regulations
for its preservation, and for securing adequate supplies of
timber and other naval stores. She placed her naval offi¬
cers on a more respectable footing, and encouraged fo¬
reign trade and geographical discoveries, so that she ac¬
quired justly the title of the Restorer of Naval Power,
and Sovereign of the Northern Seas. The greatest naval
force that had at any previous period been called together
was that which was assembled to oppose the Invincible
Armada, and which, according to the notes of Mr Secre¬
tary Pepys, consisted of 17G ships, with 14,992 men ; but
these were not all “ Shippes Royall,” but were partly com¬
posed of the contributions of the Cinque Ports and others.
The number actually belonging to the navy is variously
stated, but they would appear to have been somewhere
about forty sail of ships, manned with about 6000 men.
At the end of her reign, however, the navy had greatly
increased, the list in 1603 consisting of forty-two ships of
various descriptions, amounting to 17,000 tons, and man¬
ned with 8346 men. Of these, two were of the burden of
1000 tons each, three of 900 tons, and ten from 600 to
800 tons.
James I. was not inattentive to his navy. He warmly
patronised Mr Phineas Pett, the most able and scientific
shipwright that this country ever boasted, and to whom
we undoubtedly owe the first essential improvements in
the form and construction of ships. The cumbrous top-
works were first got rid of under his superintendence.
“ In my owne time,” says Raleigh, “ the shape of our
English ships hath been greatly bettered; in extremity
we carry our ordnance better than we were wont; we
have added crosse pillars in our royall shippes, to strength¬
en them ; we have given longer floors to our shippes than
in older times,” &c. Jhe young Prince Henry was so fond
of naval affairs, that Phineas Pett was ordered by the
lord high admiral to build a vessel at Chatham in 1604,
with all possible speed, for the young Prince Henry to dis¬
port himself in, above London Bridge ; the length of her
keel was twenty-eight feet, and her breadth twelve feet.
In 1610 Pett laid down the largest ship that had hitherto
been built. She was named the Prince Royal; her bur¬
den was 1400 tons, her keel 114 feet, and she was armed with
sixty-four pieces of great ordnance, “ being in all respects,”
says Stowe, “ the greatest and goodliest ship that was ever
built in England.” He adds, “ the great workmaster in
building this ship was Mr Phineas Pett, gentleman, some
time master of arts, of Emanuel College, in Cambridge.”
This excellent man, as appears from a manuscript ac¬
count of his life in the British Museum, written by him- Materiel
self, was regarded by the shipwrights of the dock-yards,
who had no science themselves, with an eye of jealousy ;
and a complaint was laid against him before the king, of
ignorance in laying off a ship, and of a wasteful expendi¬
ture of timber and other matters. The king attended at
Woolwich with his court, to inquire in person into the
charges brought forward, and, after a painful investiga¬
tion, pronounced in favour of Mr Pett. One of the charges
was, that he had -caused the wood to be cut across the
grain ; but the king observed, that, as it appeared to him,
“ it was not the wood, but those who had preferred the
charges, that were cross-grained.”
The state of the navy at the king’s death is variously
given by different writers; but on this subject the memo¬
randa left by Mr Secretary Pepys are most likely to be
correct. From them it appears that, in 1618, certain com¬
missioners were appointed to examine into the state of the
navy, and by their report it appears there were then only
thirty-nine ships and vessels, whose tonnage amounted to
14,700 tons ; but in 1624, on the same authority, the num¬
bers had decreased to thirty-two or thirty-three ships and
vessels, but the tonnage increased to about 19,400 tons.
The commissioners had, in fact, recommended many of the
small craft to be broken up or sold, and more ships of the
higher rates to be kept up.
The navy was not neglected in the troublesome reign
of Charles I. This unfortunate monarch added upwards
of twenty sail to the list, generally of the smaller kind;
but one of them, built by Pett, was of a description, both as
to form and dimensions, far superior to any that had yet
been launched. This ship was the celebrated Sovereign
of the Seas, which was launched at Woolwich in 1637.
The length of her keel was 128 feet, the main breadth
forty-eight feet, and from stem to stern 232 feet. In the
description of this ship by Thomas Heywood, she is said
to have “ bore five lanthorns, the biggest of which would
hold ten persons upright; had three flush-decks, a fore¬
castle, half-deck, quarter-deck, and round-house. Her
lower tier had thirty ports for cannon and demi-cannon ;
middle tier, thirty for culverins and demi-culverins ; third
tier, twenty-six for other ordnance ; forecastle, twelve;
and two half-decks, thirteen or fourteen ports more within
board, for murthering pieces ; besides ten pieces of chace
ordnance forward, and ten right aft, and many loop-holes
in the cabins for musquet-shot. She had eleven anchors,
one of 4400 pounds weight. She was of the burden of
1637 tons.” It appears, however, that she was found, on
trial, to be too high for a good serviceable ship in all wea¬
thers, and was therefore cut down to a deck less. After
this she became an excellent ship, and was in almost all
the great actions with the Dutch ; she was rebuilt in 1684,
when the name was changed to that of Royal Sovereign ;
and was about to be rebuilt a second time at Chatham in
1696, when she accidentally took fire, and was totally con¬
sumed. In this reign the ships of the navy were first
classed, or divided into six rates, the first being from 100
to sixty guns, the second from fifty-four to thirty-six, &c.
In 1642 the management of the navy was taken out of
the king’s hands, and in 1648 Prince Rupert carried away
twenty-five ships, none of which ever returned ; and such,
indeed, was the reduced state of the navy, that at the be¬
ginning of Cromwell’s usurped government, he had only
fourteen ships of war of two decks, and some of these car¬
ried only forty guns ; but, under the careful management
of very able men, in different commissions which he ap¬
pointed, such vigorous measures were pursued, that, in five
years, though engaged within that time in war with the
greatest naval power in Europe, the fleet was increased to
150 sail, of which more than a third part had two decks,
and many of which were captured from the Dutch, and
N A V Y. 93
Materiel, upwards of 20,000 seamen were employed in the navy,
v—Our military marine was, indeed, raised by Cromwell to a
height which it had never before reached ; but from which
it soon declined under the short and feeble administration
of his son.
Though Cromwell found the navy divided into six rates
or classes, it was under his government that these ratings
were defined and established in the manner nearly in which
they now are ; and it may also be remarked, that, under
his government, the first frigate, called the Constant War¬
wick, was built in England. “ She was built,” says Mr
Pepys, “ in 1649, by Mr Peter Pett (son of Phineas), for
a privateer for the Earl of Warwick, and was sold by him
to the state. Mr Pett took his model of this ship from a
French frigate which he had seen in the Thames.”
During the first period of our naval history, we know
nothing of the nature of the armament of the ships. From
the time of Edward III. they might have been armed with
cannon, but no mention is made of this being the case.
According to Lord Herbert, brass ordnance were first cast
in England in the year 1535. They had various names,
such as cannon, demi-cannon, culverins, demi-culverins,
sakers, mynions, falcons, falconets, &c. What the calibre
of each of these was is not accurately known, but the
cannon is supposed to have been about sixty-pounders, the
demi-cannon thirty-two, the culverin eighteen, falcon two,
mynion four, saker five, &c. Many of these pieces, of dif¬
ferent calibres, were mounted on the same deck, which
must have occasioned great confusion in action in finding
for each its proper shot.
Third pe- ^ie restoration of Charles II. the Duke of York
riod. was immediately appointed lord high admiral, and by his
advice a committee was named to consider a plan, pro¬
posed by himself, for the future regulation of the affairs of
the navy, at which the duke himself presided. By the
advice and able assistance of Mr Pepys, great progress was
speedily made in the reparation and increase of the fleet.
The duke remained lord high admiral till 1673, when,
in consequence of the test required by parliament, to
which he could not submit, he resigned, and that office
was in part put in commission, and the rest retained by
the king. Prince Rupert was put at the head of this com¬
mission, and Mr Pepys appointed secretary to the king in
all naval affairs, and of the admiralty; and by his able and
judicious management there were in sea-pay, in the year
1679, and in excellent condition, seventy-six ships of the
line, all furnished with stores for six months, eight fire¬
ships, besides a numerous train of ketches, smacks, yachts,
&c. with more than 12,000 seamen ; and also thirty new
ships building, and a good supply of stores in the dock¬
yards. But this flourishing condition of the navy did not
last long. In consequence of the dissipation of the king,
and his pecuniary difficulties, he neglected the navy on
account of the expenses ; the duke was sent abroad, and
Mr Pepys to the Tower. A new set of commissioners were
appointed, without experience, ability, or industry ; and
the consequence was, as stated by the commissioners of
revision, tliat “ all the wise regulations formed during the
administration of the Duke of York were neglected; and
such supineness and waste appear to have prevailed, that,
at the end of not more than five years, when he was re¬
called to the office of lord high admiral, only twenty-
two ships, none larger than a fourth rate, with two fire¬
ships, were at sea; those in harbour were quite unfit for
service ; even the thirty new ships which he had left
building had been suffered to fall into a state of great de¬
cay, and hardly any stores were found to remain in the
dock-yards.”
The first act on the duke’s return was the re-appoint¬
ment ol Mr Pepys as secretary of the admiralty. Finding
the present commissioners unequal to the duties required
of them, he recommended others. Sir Anthony Deane, the Materiel,
most experienced of the shipbuilders then in England, was ~y-—•
joined with the new commissioner-s. To him, it has been
said, we owe the first essential improvement in the form
and qualities of ships of the line, having taken the model
of the Superbe, a French ship of seventy-four guns, which
anchored at Spithead, and from which he built the Har¬
wich in 1664. Others, however, are of opinion that no
improvement had at this time been made on the model of
the Sovereign of the Seas after she was cut down. The
new commissioners undertook, in three years, to complete
the repair of the fleet, and furnish the dock-yards with a
proper supply of stores, on an estimate of L.400,000 a year,
to be issued in weekly payments ; and in two years and a
half they finished their task, to the satisfaction of the king
and the whole nation ; the number of ships repaired and
under repair being 108 sail of the line, besides a consider¬
able number of vessels of smaller size. The same year the
king abdicated the throne, at which time the list of the
navy amounted to 173 sail, containing 101,892 tons, car¬
rying 6930 guns, and 42,000 seamen.
The naval regulations were wisely left unaltered at the
Revolution, and the business of thfe admiralty continued
to be carried on chiefly, for some time, under the imme¬
diate direction of King William, by Mr Pepys, till the ar¬
rival of Admiral Herbert and Captain Russell from the
fleet, into whose hands, he says, “ he silently let it fall.”
Upon the general principles of that system, thus esta¬
blished with his aid by the Duke of York, the civil go¬
vernment of our navy has ever since been carried on.
In the second year of King William (1690), no less
than thirty ships were ordered to be built, of sixty, se¬
venty, and eighty guns each ; and in 1697 the king, in
his speech to parliament, stated that the naval force of the
kingdom was increased to nearly double what he found it
at his accession. It was now partly composed of various
classes of French ships which had been captured in the
course of the war, amounting in number to more than
sixty, and in guns to 2300 ; the losses by storms and cap¬
tures on our side being about half the tonnage and half
the guns we had acquired. At the commencement of this
reign, the navy, as we have stated, consisted of 173 ships,
measuring 101,892 tons ; at his death, it had been ex¬
tended to 272 ships, measuring 159,020 tons, being an in¬
crease of ninety-nine ships and 57,128 tons, or more than
one half both in number and in tonnage.
The accession of Queen Anne was immediately follow¬
ed by a war with France and Spain, and in the second
year of her reign she had the misfortune of losing a vast
number of her ships, by one of the most tremendous storms
that was ever known ; but every energy was used to re¬
pair this national calamity. In an address of the House
of Lords, in March 1707, it is declared as “ a most un¬
doubted maxim, that the honour, security, and wealth of
this kingdom does depend upon the protection and encour¬
agement of trade, and the improving and right encourag¬
ing its naval strength therefore we do in the most ear¬
nest manner beseech your majesty, that the sea affairs may
always be your first and most peculiar care.” In the course
of this war were taken or destroyed about fifty ships of
war, mounting 3000 cannon ; and we lost about half the
number. At the death of the queen, in 1714, the list of
the navy was reduced in number to 247 ships, measuring
167,219 tons, being an increase in tonnage of 8199 tons.
George I. left the navy pretty nearly in the same state
in which he found it. At his death, in 1727, the list con¬
sisted of 233 ships, measuring 170,862 tons, being a de¬
crease in number of fourteen, but an increase in tonnage
of 3643 tons.
George II. was engaged in a war with Spain in 1739,
in consequence of which the size of our ships of the line
94
NAVY.
MaMrieL ordered to be built was considerably increased. In 1744,
France declared against us ; but on the restoration of peace
in 1748, it was found that our naval strength had prodi¬
giously increased. Our loss had been little or nothing,
whilst we had taken and destroyed, of the French twenty,
and of the Spanish fifteen sail of the line, besides smaller
vessels. The war with France of 1755 added considerably
to the list, so that, at the king’s decease, in 1760, it con¬
sisted of 412 ships, measuring 321,104 tons.
In the short war of 1762, George III. added no less than
twenty sail of the line to our navy. At the conclusion of
the American war in 1782, the list of the navy was in¬
creased to 600 sail; and at the signing of the prelimina¬
ries in 1783 it amounted to 617 sail, measuring upwards
of 500,000 tons; being an increase of 185 ships and 157,000
tons and upwards since the year 1762. At the peace of
Amiens the list of the fleet amounted to upwards of 700
sail, of which 144 were of the line. The number taken
from the enemy, or destroyed, amounted nearly to 600, of
which ninety were of the line, including fifty-gun ships,
and upwards of two hundred were frigates ; and our loss
amounted to about sixty, of which six were of the line and
twelve frigates. *
The recommencement and long continuance of the re¬
volutionary war, and the glorious successes of our naval
actions; the protection required for our extended com¬
merce, of which, in fact, we might be said to enjoy a mo¬
nopoly, and for the security of our numerous colonies; con¬
tributed to raise the British navy to a magnitude to which
the accumulated navies of the whole world bore but a small
proportion. From 1808 to 1813, there were seldom less than
from 100 to 106 sail of the line in commission, and from
130 to 160 frigates, and upwards of 200 sloops, besides
bombs, gun-brigs, cutters, schooners, &c. amounting in the
whole to about 500 sail of effective ships and vessels; to
which may be added 500 more in the ordinary, and as pri¬
son, hospital, and receiving ships; making at least 1000
pendants, and measuring from 800,000 to 900,000 tons.
The commissioners appointed to inquire into the state and
condition of the woods, forests, and land revenues of the
crown, state, in their report to parliament, in the year 1792,
that, “ at the accession of his majesty (Geo. III.) to the
throne, the tonnage of the royal navy was 321,104 tons,
and at the end of the year 1788 it had risen to no less
than 413,467 tons.” In 1808 it had amounted to the en¬
ormous extent of 800,000 tons, having nearly doubled it¬
self in twenty years.
It must not, however, be supposed that the effective navy
consisted of more than half this amount of tonnage. Since
the conclusion of the war with France, it would appear that
at least one-half of the number of ships then in existence had
been sold or broken up as unfit for service; and as, by the
list of the navy at the beginning of the year 1821, the
number of ships and vessels of every description, in com¬
mission, in ordinary, building, repairing, and ordered to be
built, had been reduced to 609 sail, we may take the greatest
extent of the tonnage at 500,000 tons; but the greater part,
if not the whole, of this tonnage was efficient, and in a state
of progressive efficiency.
According to the printed list of the 1st January 182],
the 609 sail of ships and vessels appear to be as under: 
1st rates from 120 to 100 guns ...
2d „ „ ss „ so   
3d „ „ 78 „ 74 „  
4th „ „ 60 „ 60 „  
3th ,, „ 48 ,, 22 ,,    
3th „ „ 34 ,, 24 ,,    ...
Sloops „ 22 „ 10 „  
Making a total of. 
To which being added, gun-brigs, cutters, schooners,
tenders, bombs, troop-ships, store-ships, yachts, &c,,
Grand total  
23
16
90
20
107
40
136
 432
177
609
In the year 1836 the total number of ships of war, in- Materiel,
eluding every description mentioned in the above list,
amounted to about 560 sail; of which 95 wrere ships of the
line in a state of efficiency for any service, or capable of
being speedily put into a fit state for sea; and many of them
were of a very superior class to any employed in the war.
In the year 1846 there were 671 ships, including every
description ; and there are now (1857) on the list of the
royal navy 735 ships, exclusive of those appropriated to
harbour service, and of the coast-guard cruisers; making a
grand total of 888 ships and vessels of all classes.
The increase in the size of our ships of war was unavoid¬
able ; France and Spain had increased theirs, and we were
compelled, in order to meet them on fair terms, to increase
the dimensions of ours ; many of theirs were, besides, added
to the list of our navy. The following sketch will show
the progressive rate at which ships of the first order, or of
100 guns and upwards, were enlarged in their dimensions.
In 1677 the first-rates were from 1500 to 1600 tons. In
1720 they were increased to 1800 tons. In 1745 we find
them advanced to 2000 tons. During the American war
they were raised to 2200 tons. In 1795 the Ville de Paris,
of 110 guns, measured 2350 tons. In 1804 the Hibernia, of
110 guns, was extended to 2500 tons; and in 1808 the
Caledonia, carrying 120 guns, measured 2616 tons, and
here we stopped; but since then the Nelson, the Howe,
the St Vincent, the Britannia, the Prince Regent, the Royal
George, and the Neptune, have been built, all nearly of the
same dimensions, and from the same draught—nine such
ships as the whole world could not at the time produce.
The French had one ship larger than any of these, called
the Commerce de Marseilles. She was taken by us in
Toulon, but broke her back in a gale of wind.
The following were the comparative dimensions of the
Caledonia and the Commerce de Marseilles:—
Ships.
Length of
Gun-deck.
Length of
Keel.
Extreme
Breadth.
Depth of
Hold.
Tons.
Caledonia 
Commerce de 1
Marseilles J
feet. in.
205 0
208 4
feet. in.
170 9
172 0
feet. in.
53 8
54 9*
feet. in.
23 2
25 0}
2617
2747
The armament of the Caledonia was as follows:—On the
gun-deck she carried 32 guns, 32-pounders; middle-deck 34
24-pounders, upper-deck 34 24-pounders, carronades ; quar¬
ter-deck 10 32-pounders, and 6 12-pounders, carronades ;
forecastle, 2 32-pounders, and 2 ] 2-pounders, carronades.
Her complement of men was 875.
At the commencement of the tfiird period, we have a
somewhat more precise account of the armament of our
ships of war. On the 16th of May 1677, a committee of
the Navy Board, Ordnance, and certain naval officers, re¬
commended to his Majesty the following scheme for arm¬
ing and manning the thirty new ships of the line ordered
to be built by act of Parliament.
Guns.
Cannon (supposed 42 prs.).
Demi-cannon (32 prs.) 
Culverins (18 prs.)  
Twelve-pounders 
Sakers, upper-deck 
„ Forecastle 
„ Quarter-deck  
Three-pounders  
Total.
1st Kates.
No. 26
28
28
4
12
2
100
2d Kates,
26
26
26
io
2
90
3d Kates.
26
26
4
10
4
For the 1st rate  780 men
For the 2d do    660 do.
For the 3d do  470 do.
The rates of ships immediately after the revolution were
reduced, the first being turned to second-rates, the second-
NAVY.
95
Materiel, rates to third, &c., and the size of each class more equal¬
ized. But from this time forward it was found impossible
to preserve anything like uniformity in the several classes.
So many ships captured from the French, Dutch, and
Spaniards, were added to our navy, and so many new ones
built after the models of ships taken from these maritime
powers, that the various descriptions of ships of which our
navy was composed became a very serious evil.
In the year 1745, a committee, composed of all flag-offi¬
cers unemployed, of the commissioners of the navy who
were sea-officers, under the presidency of Sir John Norris,
and assisted by the master shipwrights, were ordered to
meet, to consider and propose proper establishments of
guns, men, masts, yards, &c.,for each class of his Majesty’s
ships; and, according to their recommendation, the rates,
armaments, and complements of his Majesty’s ships were to
be as follows :—
1st rates.
2d „ .
3d „ .
4th „ .
5th „ .
6th „ .
100 guns  850 or 750 men.
90 „   750 „ 660 „
80    650 „ 600 „
70 „   520 „ 460 „
60 „   420 „ 380 „
50 „   350 „ 280 „
44   280 „ 220 „
24    160 „ 140 „
But this establishment was very soon departed from ;
for on the 3d of February 1747 the Board of Admiralty
acquainted his Majesty, that the French ship Invincible,
lately captured, was found to be larger than his Majesty’s
ships of 90 guns and 750 men; and suggested that this
ship, and all other prizes of the like class, and also his Ma¬
jesty’s ships of 90 guns, when reduced to two decks and
a-half, and 74 guns, should be allowed a complement of 700
men. And it further appears that at the latter end of the
reign of George II. the rates of ships had undergone a
very material alteration, for they consisted as under:—
1st rates 100 guns.
2d „   90 „
3d „   80 „ 74—70 — 64 guns.
4th „   60 „ 50 „
5th „   44 ,, 38—-36—32 ,,
6th „   30 „ 28-24—20 „
The scales for measuring the ships were as various as
their rates; and the evil was further increased by the va¬
rieties which it was found necessary to introduce in the
rigging and arming of the ships of war. The masts, yards,
rigging, and stores, were of so many and various dimen¬
sions, as to be not only highly inconvenient, but extremely
expensive. When Lord Nelson was off Cadiz with 17 or
18 sail of the line, he had no less than seven different classes
of 74-gun ships, each requiring different-sized masts, sails,
yards, &c., so that in the event of one of these being dis¬
abled, the others could not supply her with such stores as
could be appropriated to her wants.
To remedy the many inconveniences resulting from the
irregularities above mentioned, the lords of the Admiralty
suggested, by their memorial to the Prince Regent, which,
by his order in Council, of the 25th November 1816, was
ordered to be carried into effect, that the ships of the navy
should for the future be rated as under:—
The first rate to include all three-deckers, in as much as
all sea-going ships of that description carry a hundred guns
and upwards.
The second rate to include all ships of 80 guns and
upwards, on two decks.
The third rate to include all ships of 70 guns and up¬
wards, but less than 80 guns.
The fourth rate to include all ships of 50 and upwards,
but less than 70 guns.
The fifth rate to include all ships from 36 to 50 guns.
The sixth rate to include all ships from 24 to 36 guns.
And that the complements of men be established as Materiel.
1st rates  900 — 850 or 800 men.
2d „     700 or 650 „
3d    650 „ 600
4th „     450 „ 350 „
5th „   300 „ 280 „
6th „   175 — 145 or 125 „
Of sloops, the complements established according to their
size were to consist of 135, 125, 95, or 75 men ; of brigs
(not sloops), cutters, schooners, and bombs, 60 or 50 men.
4 Thus at that time stood the rating and manning of the
navy ; but it is now as follows, viz i-
Present Rating of the Navy.
Classes and Denominations of Her Majesty’s Ships.
1. Rated ships, that is to say, ships registered on the list of the
royal navy, under one of the six following rates :—
First-rates, to comprise all ships carrying 110 guns and upwards,
or whose complements consist of 950 men or more.
Second-rates, to comprise one of her Majesty’s yachts, and all
ships carrying under 110 guns, and not less than 80 guns, or whose
complements are under 950, and not less than 720 men.
Third-rates, to comprise her Majesty’s other yachts, and all such
vessels as may hear the flag or pennant of any admiral, superin¬
tendent, or captain superintendent of one of her Majesty’s dock¬
yards ; and all ships carrying under 80 guns, and not less than 70;
or whose complements are under 720, and not less than 600 men.
Fourth-rates, to comprise all ships carrying under 70 guns, and
not less than 50, or whose complements are under 600, and not less
than 440 men.
Fifth-rates, to comprise all ships under 50 guns, and not less than
30; or whose complements are under 440, and not less than 300
men ; and
Sixth-rates, to consist of all other ships hearing a captain.
2. Sloops,—to comprise homb-ships and all other vessels com¬
manded by commanders.
3. All other ships commanded by lieutenants, and having com¬
plements of not less than 60 men.
Smaller vessels, not classed as above, to have such smaller com¬
plements as the lords commissioners of the Admiralty may from
time to time direct.
The following is the present complement of ships :—
It is of the utmost importance, with a view to convenience
and economy, that the size and dimensions of the several
rates should be kept as nearly as possible equal, in order
that one description of stores may be applicable to every
ship of the same rate. To this end the commissioners of
naval revision have recommended, “ that the ships of each
class or rate should be constructed, in every particular,
according to the form of the best ship in the same class in
our navy; of the same length, breadth, and depth; the
masts of the same dimensions, and placed in the same parts
of the ship, with the same form and size of the sails.” A
complete classification of masts, yards, and sails, has since
been established.
The nine line-of-battle ships previously alluded to as
“ the largest the world could produce,” are now far ex¬
ceeded by the screw steam-ships recently built, and in
course of construction,—viz., the Victoria, and Howe, each
of 121 guns and 1000 horse-power; the Royal Sovereign,
Prince of Wales, and Marlborough, each of 131 guns
and 800 horse-power; and the Duke of Wellington, of 131
guns and 700 horse-power. Besides these, we have the
Royal Albert, 121 guns, 500 horse*power; the Trafalgar,
120 guns ; the Donegal, 101 guns, 800 horse-power; the
Revenge, 91 guns, 800 horse-power; the St Jean d’Acre,
101 guns, 600 horse-power; the James Watt, Agamem¬
non, and Orion, each of 91 guns and 600 horse-power;
the Princess Royal, 91 guns, 400 horse-power; the Shan¬
non steam frigate, 51 guns, 600 horse-power ; the Terrible
(paddle), 21 guns, 800 horse-power; the Doris, 32 guns,
800 horse-power; and many other screw ships (including
the Mersey and Orlando, both of the lai'gest class frigates
with an armament of 40 and 50 guns respectively). The
large line-of-battle ships, however, are generally considered
ill adapted for the ordinary purposes of war, and will pro¬
bably be discontinued. The rapid increase of steam-ships
in the Royal Navy has of late years been surprising, and
probably ere long there will be no other class of ships
or vessels afloat. Indeed this is nearly the case now.
Steam corvettes and steam gun-boats supply the place of
all the smaller class of vessels. There are at present 160
gun-boats on the list of the Royal Navy, of 20, 40, 60, and
80 horse-power.
Improvements in Construction.
If we look back to the days of Elizabeth, when the
chain-pump, the capstan, the striking of the top-masts, the
studding-sails, top-gallant-sails, sprit-sails, &c., were first
introduced into the navy, one can scarcely conceive how
they contrived to keep the sea for any length of time; but
these improvements, important as they were, are trifling
when compared with those aids and conveniences which
have gradually been introduced since her reign, and which
a ship of war now enjoys. When Sir Anthony Deane, in
1664, raised the lower ports of a two-decker four and a
half feet out of the water, which had before been scarcely
three feet, and made a ship of this class to stow six months’
provisions instead of three, it was justly considered as a
most important improvement; not less so, when the breadth
of a ship of this class was carried to 45 feet. “ The
builders of England,” says Pepys, “before 1673, had not
well considered that breadth only will make a stiff ship.”
It must be confessed, however, that, as far as the form of
a ship’s bottom depends on scientific principles, we have
copied our best models from the French, sometimes with
capricious variations, which more frequently turned out to
be an injurious alteration than an improvement.
The first essential alteration in the form of our ships of
the line was taken from the Superbe, a French ship of
seventy-four guns, which anchored at Spithead, on the
model of which, as already stated, the Harwich was built
by Sir Anthony Deane in 1674; since which time we have
constantly been copying from French models, improving
or spoiling, as chance might determine. “ Where we have
built exactly after the form of the best of the French ships
that we have taken,” say the commissioners of naval revi¬
sion, “ thus adding our dexterity in building to their know¬
ledge in theory, the ships, it is generally allowed, have
proved the best in our navy; but whenever our builders
have been so far misled by their little attainments in the
science of naval architecture as to depart from the model
before them in any material degree, and attempt improve¬
ments, the true principles on which ships ought to be con¬
structed (being imperfectly known to them) have been
mistaken or counteracted, and the alterations, according to
the information given to us, have in many cases done harm.”
Whilst, therefore, they add, “ our rivals in naval power were
employing men of the greatest talents and most extensive
acquirements to call in the aid of science for improving the
construction of ships, we have contented ourselves with
groping on in the dark in quest of such discoveries as
chance might bring in our way.”
Upon these grounds, and by the recommendation of the
commissioners, a school for a superior class of shipwright
apprentices was established in Portsmouth dockyard. It
consisted of twenty-five young men of liberal education,
whose mornings were passed in the study of mathematics
and mechanics, and in their application to naval architec¬
ture, and the remainder of the day under the master ship¬
wright in the mould-loft, and in all the various kinds of
manual labour connected with ship-building, as well as in
the management and conversion of timber, so as to make
them, at the same time, fully acquainted with all the duties
in detail of a practical shipwright. After producing more
officers than could be provided for, it was deemed expedient
to break up the establishment.
If, however, we had hitherto been inferior to the French
in the scientific principles of ship-building, in the construc¬
tive part we left them behind beyond all comparison ; and
notwithstanding the narrow prejudices which have been
more remarkably adhered to among shipwrights than among
almost any other class of artizans, various alterations and
improvements have from time to time been introduced into
the mechanical part of naval architecture, which have added
to the strength, the stability, the comfort, and convenience
of our ships of war, and rendered them, in every point of
view, superior to those of any other nation. The applica¬
tion of iron where wood was formerly used, and of copper
for iron, has added considerably to the durability of ships;
and the sheathing of their bottoms with copper, to their
celerity, giving them at the same time a protection against
the worm and those marine insects which were wont to
adhere to them; yet it is remarkable how strong the preju¬
dice was against this practice before it obtained a due de¬
gree of credit. In the fleet of Sir Edward Hughes in India
there was but one coppered ship, and Rodney’s squadron in
the West Indies had but four that were coppered in the
year 1782 ; but these were enough so completely to establish
their superiority over the others with wooden sheathing, that
in the year 1782 the whole British navy was coppered.
But the greatest of all improvements in the construc¬
tion of ships of war, as tending to their strength and
durability, is the system of diagonal bracing, first intro¬
duced by Mr (afterwards Sir Robert) Seppings, surveyor of
the navy, and now universally adopted in all ships of the
line and frigates,—a system that may be said to have estab¬
lished a new era in naval architecture. Of all large ma¬
chines destined to undergo severe shocks, a ship is perhaps
the least skilfully and artificially contrived. Her several
parts are put together on a principle so much opposed to
that which constitutes strength, that if a ship on the old
construction should be put upon wheels, and drawn over a
rough pavement, the action of a day would shake her in
pieces; but being destined to move in an element that
closes upon her, and presses her equally on all sides, she
is prevented from falling in pieces outwards, and her beams
and decks preserve her from tumbling inwards. Whoever
has observed a ship in frame, as it is called, on the stocks—
that is, with only her timbers erected—must be forcibly re¬
minded of the skeleton of some large quadruped, as of a
horse or ox, laid on its back; the keel resembling the back¬
bone, and the curved timbers the ribs, which is, in fact, the
name by which they sometimes go. These ribs, issuing at
right angles from the keel, consist, in a seventy-four gun
ship, of about 800 different pieces, the space between each
rib seldom exceeding five inches. These ribs are covered
with a skin or planks of different thicknesses within and
without, also at right angles to the ribs, and fixed to them
by means of wooden pins or tree-nails. In the inside three
or four tiers of beams cross the skeleton from side to side,
at right angles to both planks and ribs. These beams sup¬
port the decks. At right angles to the beams are pieces
of wood called carlings, and at right angles to these other
pieces called ledges, and upon these the planks of the deck
N A
Materiel, are laid in a direction at right angles to the beams, and pa-
rallel to the planking of the sides. From this sketch it will
be perceived that all the parts of a ship are either parallel
or at right angles to each other. The ribs form a right
angle with the keel, the planks inside and out are at right
angles to the ribs, the beams at right angles to these, the
carlings to the beams, the ledges to the carlings, and the
planks of the decks to the ledges, the beams, and the ribs.
Now, it is well known to every common carpenter that
this disposition of materials
is the weakest that can be
adopted. Thus, if five pieces
of wood be pinned together
in the shape of a parallelo¬
gram, it will require but
little force to move them
from the rectangular to the oblique or rhomboidal shape.
But place a cross-bar, as in the
figure Z, as carpenters are accus¬
tomed to do on a common gate,
and it is no longer moveable on
the points of fastening.
The strongest proof of a ship’s
partaking of this weakness in the
old construction is afforded on
her being first launched into the water, when it is invaria"
bly found that the two extremities, being less water-borne
than the middle, drop, and give to the ship a convex cur¬
vature upwards, an effect which, from its resemblance to
the shape of a hog’s back, is usually called hogging. In
very weak or old ships this effect may be discovered in all
the port-holes of the upper-deck, by their having taken the
shape of lozenges, declining different ways from the centre
of the ship to each extremity.
To obviate this great defect, Seppings tried the expe¬
riment of applying to the ribs or timbers of the ship, from
one extremity to the other, and from the orlop-deck down¬
wards to the kelson, that well-known principle in carpen¬
try, called trussing; being, in fact, a series of diagonal
braces disposing themselves into triangles, the sides of
which give to each other a mutual support and counter¬
action. These triangles were firmly bolted to the frame;
and in order to give a continuity of strength to the whole
machine, and leave no possible room for play, he filled the
spaces between the frames with old-seasoned timber cut
into the shape of wedges; but afterwards with a prepared
cement, thus rendering the lower part of the ship or floor
one solid complete mass, possessing the strength and firm¬
ness of a rock; but a few years have proved that this
cement has injured the timber.
The same principle of trussing is carried from the gun-
deck upwards, from whence, between every port, is in¬
troduced a diagonal brace, which completely prevents the
tendency of ships to stretch, or draw asunder their upper
works. The decks, too, are made subservient to the more
firmly securing of the beams to the sides of the ship, by
the planks being laid diagonally in contrary directions,
from the midships to the sides, and at an angle of forty-five
degrees with the beams, and at right angles with the ledges.
In frigates and smaller vessels, iron plates, lying at an angle
of forty-five degrees with the direction of the trusses, are
substituted for the diagonal frame of wood in ships of the line.
By this mode of construction, the ceiling or internal
planking is wholly dispensed with, and a very consider¬
able saving of the finest oak timber thereby effected; and,
what is more important, those receptacles of filth and ver¬
min between the timbers, which were before closed up by
the planking, are entirely got rid of. This is not the least
important part of the improvement, either as it concerns
the soundness of the ship or the health of the crew. It is
stated that a ship which had been three years in India, on
YOL. XVI.
V Y.
97
being laid open, exhibited a mass of filth, mixed up with Materiel,
dead rats, mice, cockroaches, and other vermin, which was ^
taken out in cakes, not unlike in appearance the oil-cake
with which certain animals are fed; that the stench was
abominable, and the timbers with which it was in contact
rotten. No such filth can find a lodgment in ships of war
as they are now built.
It has been a subject of discussion amongst ship-build- Fasten¬
ers, whether tree-nails or metallic fastenings are to beinSs-
preferred. The objection to iron bolts is their rapid cor¬
rosion, from the gallic acid of the wood, the sea-water,
and perhaps by a combination of both; in consequence of
which the fibres of the wood around them become in¬
jured, the bolts wear away, the water oozes through, and
the whole fabric is shaken and disarranged. This corro¬
sion of iron fastenings was most remarkable when the
practice of sheathing ships with copper became general,
and when iron nails were made use of to fix it; for, by the
contact of the two metals in the sea-water a galvanic
action took place, and both were immediately corroded.
Mixed metal nails are now used for this purpose; and cop¬
per bolts are universally employed below the line of
flotation, though it is found that in these also oxidation
takes place to a certain degree, and causes partial leaks.
Various mixtures of metals have been tried, but all of them
are considered as liable to greater objections than pure
copper. It would appear, then, that tree-nails, if properly
made, well seasoned, and driven tight, are the least objec¬
tionable, being seldom found to occasion leaks, or to injure
the plank or timbers through which they pass. This spe¬
cies of fastening has at all times been used by all the
maritime nations of Europe. The Dutch were in the habit
of importing them from Ireland, it being supposed that
the oak grown in that country was tougher and stronger
than any which could be procured on the Continent, and
in all respects best adapted for the purpose. “ Under
all circumstances,” says Mr Knowles, “ it appears that the
present method of fastening ships generally with tough,
well-seasoned tree-nails, with their ends split, and caulked
after being driven, and securing the buts of each plank
with copper bolts well clenched, is liable to fewer objections,
and more conducive to the durability of the timber, than any
other which has been tried or proposed to be established.”
Rounding the form of the bow in ships of the line is Round
considered by nautical men as of great utility and import- to.ws t0
ance. The plan was first proposed by Seppings in 1807,
and has since been generally adopted. The removal of
the head railing, and the continuing of the rounded form,
give not only great additional strength to the ship, but
also much more comfort and convenience to the crew, and
security in that part of the ship when in action.
The scarcity of compass or crooked timber was, forScarphing
some time, attended with serious injury to those ships ofasubstitut0
war while on the stocks, into which it was considered
necessary to be introduced. The difficulty with which it^s im
was procured, the length of time which a ship sometimes
remained on the stocks waiting for a few pieces of com¬
pass timber, the green wood, when found, being imme¬
diately added to the seasoned timber in other parts of the
frame, gave to the ship different periods of durability;
though, in the long run, the seasoned parts became af¬
fected by the green wood with which they were in con¬
tact, and a premature decay of the whole fabric was the
consequence. Seppings, therefore, proposed a plan in
1806, which, by uniting short timbers according to a me¬
thod called scarphing, enabled him to obtain every spe¬
cies of compass-form that could be required from straight
timber. Since that period, the whole tfame of a ship can
be prepared at once, without waiting for particular pieces,
and thus every part of it can be made to undergo an equal .
degree of seasoning.
N*
98
Materiel.
Plan for
rendering
frigate
timber ap¬
plicable to
ships of
the line.
Use of
chocks abo¬
lished.
NAVY.
By the same ingenious and indefatigable surveyor of
the navy, a plan was proposed and adopted in the year
1813, by which ships of the line were built with timber
hitherto considered as applicable only to the building of
frigates, and that which had been deemed only fit for in¬
ferior uses was appropriated to principal purposes. The
Talavera was the first ship built on this principle, and
the expense of her hull is stated to have been about
L.1000 less than that of the Black Prince, a ship of
similar dimensions built upon the old principle. The method
by which the timbers were united was found, on trial of
the Talavera with the Black Prince, whilst in frame, to
give so much additional strength to the former, that it
furnished the groundwork of the present mode of framing
the British navy, by the introduction of the same union of
materials in the application of the large as was practised
in that of the small timber, and from which both strength
and economy have been united.
The building of the Talavera, and the great strength
of her frame, led to the practice of putting together the
frames of ships of the line from timbers ot reduced lengths,
and dispensing altogether with the chocks used for uniting
their extremities, or, as they are technically called, their
heads and heels. These chocks are of the form of an
obtuse wedge, as A, and they are used to unite the two
pieces of timber, as B and C, by firmly bolting the piece
A to the two timbers B and C.
It generally happened, however, that in the operation
of thus fixing this chock its two extremities split, and the
surfaces of the chock and timbers not being in perfect
contact, the moisture and the air were admitted, and occa¬
sioned, as they always do, the dry rot to a greater degree
in those parts of the ship than in most others ; and as there
were from 400 to 500 of these chocks in a 74-gun ship,
it will readily be conceived what mischief was done to the
whole fabric, if the greatest care was not taken by the work¬
men to prevent their splitting, and to bring their surfaces
immediately into contact. It is obvious, also, that a great
deal of timber must have been cut to waste in making
these chocks; and, in fact, they consumed timber in each
ship, when it was at a high price, to the value of from L.1500
to L.2000, besides a considerable expense in workmanship;
and when the ship came to be repaired, not one chock in
six was found to be in a fit state to be used again. It is
not easy to conceive how this practice of uniting the tim¬
bers of a ship’s frame came to be introduced so generally into
the British navy, more especially as it is unknown in any
other nation. It was probably first adopted to preserve the
length of some particular timber, one of the ends of which
being defective, the unsound part may have been cut away
in the manner represented, and the sound chock introduced
to fill up the vacuity. But it is quite surprising how a practice
should have become general which creates a waste of timber,
an increase of workmanship, and sows the seeds of premature
decay. To obviate these disadvantages, Sir Robert Sep-
pings brought the butt ends of the timbers together thus—
3E
and kept them together by means of a round dowal or
coak, as C, just as the fellies of a carriage-wheel are fas¬
tened together. He justly observes, that the simplicity of
the workmanship, the economy in the conversion of timber,
and the greater strength and durability, although of con¬
siderable moment, are of but trifling importance when com¬
pared with the advantage of rendering timber generally
more applicable to the frames of ships which had heretofore
but been partially so.
t Another great improvement in the construction of ships
of war, introduced by Seppings, is the round stern, which, Materiel,
however unsightly it may at first appear, from our being ac- v*
customed to view the square stern, with its grotesque carved Round
work, is even in appearance more consistent with the ter- stern,
mination of the sweeping lines of a ship’s bottom than the
cutting them off abruptly with a square stern. But the ad¬
ditional strength which is thus given to a ship in that part
which was hitherto the weakest, is alone sufficient to re¬
commend the adoption of the plan in our ships of war, par¬
ticularly in those of the larger classes. The advantages
gained by circular sterns are thus enumerated by Sir Robert
Seppings:—
1. They give additional strength to the whole fabric of
a ship.
2. They afford additional force in point of defence.
3. They admit of the guns being run out in a similar way
to those in the sides.
4. From the circular form, and mode of carrying up the
timbers, an additional protection against shot is obtained if
the ship should be raked.
5. The stern being equally strong as the bow, no serious
injury can accrue in the event of the ship being pooped;
and the ship may be moored, if so required, by the stern.
6. A ship will sail better upon a wind, from the removal
of the projections of the quarter galleries.
7. Ships of the line have now a stern-walk, protected by a
veranda, and so contrived that the officers can walk all round,
can observe the set of the sails, and the fleet in all directions.
8. The compass-timber heretofore expended for transoms
is replaced with straight timber, and worked nearly to a
right angle, which affords a considerable saving in the con¬
sumption of timber.
9. The counter being done away by the circular stern,
the danger from boats being caught under it is obviated.
In fact, the circular stern possesses many other advan¬
tages not necessary to be enumerated in this place.
Another important improvement in the interior construe- Iron knees,
tion of ships has been the substitution of iron in lieu of
the clumsy wooden knees for the support of the decks.
Sir William Symonds, who was many years surveyor of Classifica-
the navy, and who greatly improved the build of ships oftion of
all classes, assisted by Mr Edie, was the first to reduce to a an<1
system and classify the masts and yards, the advantage of^ar s‘
which cannot be overrated.
In the same way the armament of a ship is now brought Armament,
more into a system, and it is no longer necessary to alter
the fittings of the ports to allow of elevating and depressing
the guns. These, and many other similar systematic ar¬
rangements—simple enough, it must be admitted—are of
very recent introduction into the service.
The names of Oliver Lang, his son Oliver W. Lang,
(who has built the fastest steam-vessels afloat), Fincham,
and Roberts, master-shipwrights of the several yards, are
also closely connected with various important improve¬
ments in ship-building in the Royal Navy.
Improvements in the Preservation of the Navy.
Not only is the new mode of construction highly favour¬
able to the duration of ships, but the ravages of the disease
which is known by the name of the dry rot, occasioned
principally by the hurry in which ships were built in the
course of the French war, and the unseasoned state of the
timber made use of (see Dry Rot), led to such measures
as tend most effectually to the preservation of the fleet.
In the first place, various modes were put in practice for By pre-
assorting and seasoning the timber, and for protecting it vention of
from the vicissitudes of the weather. The oak and fir ot dry r0 ’
Canada, which had been introduced to a great extent into
our dockyards during the time the Baltic was shut against
this country, are now excluded ; these woods having been
NAVY.
99
Materiel, found not only to possess little durability, but to be so friendly
to the growth of fungi that they communicated the baneful
disease to all other descriptions of timber with which they
came in contact. The practice of building ships under
cover, introduced into our dockyards in the course of the
said war, and carried to an extent so as to have roofed over
almost every dock and slip in all the yards, has been pre¬
ventive of the progress of dry rot. (See Dockyards.)
By pre- A ship now placed in ordinary, whether new or newly
cautions in repaired, is carefully housed over, so that no rain can reach
ordinary. ]ier lower decks; several streaks of planks are removed
from her sides and decks to admit a thorough draft of air,
which is sent down by wind-sails, and which pervades every
part of the ship : and these, with the addition of two small
airing-stoves, in which a few cinders are burned, render her
perfectly dry and comfortable on all the decks and store¬
rooms. All the shingle ballast is removed out of the hold,
which is thoroughly cleaned and re-stowed with iron ballast.
The former practice of mooring two ships together, by
which the two sides next to each other, deprived of the sun
and a free circulation of air, were generally found to be de¬
cayed, is discontinued. The lower masts are left standing,
and their tops housed over; the gun-carriages and several
of the stores are left on board; and such, in short, is the
state of a ship in ordinary, that she may be fitted in all re¬
spects for proceeding to sea in half the usual time. “ The
ships,” says Mr Knowles, “ are frequently pumped to clear
them of bilge-water, and cleanliness in every respect is at¬
tended to; the lower decks are rubbed with dry stones,
commonly called holly-stones, and with sand, the use of
water upon them being strictly forbidden.” But that which
most of all is likely to insure the preservation of the fleet
whilst in the state of ordinary, is the recent regulation which
places the ordinary under the immediate superintendence of
a captain at each port, with other commissioned officers
under his orders, who take care that the warrant-officers and
ship-keepers attend to the proper airing, ventilating, and
keeping clean and dry their respective ships.
By immer- A practice had been introduced into the dockyards of
sion of steeping oak timber in salt water for several months, and
timber in t|ien stacking it till it became perfectly dry, which is said
sa water. to jiave entire]y pUt a st0p to the progress of dry rot where
it had already commenced, and to have acted as a preventive
to that disease. Some doubts, however, were entertained
on this point, and the practice has been discontinued. The
Americans seem to place little confidence in the good effects
which are said to have been experienced from the immer¬
sion of timber. Rodgers, the commissioner of their navy,
stated in an official report addressed to the secretary, that
“ experiments have been made to arrest the dry rot in ships,
by sinking them for months in salt water, but without suc¬
cess. The texture of the wood was found to be essentially
injured by being thus water-soaked, and it became more
subject to this disease than before it was sunk. The ships
were also injured in their fastenings, and the atmosphere
within them was kept in a constant state of humidity,
whence, among other ill effects, proceeded injury to pro¬
visions and stores, and sickness to the crews.” The truth
is, the American timber, with the single exception, per¬
haps, of the live-oak, is remarkably subject to dry rot, of
which, during the war with France, we had fatal experience.
Mr Rodgers, however, accounts for the condition in which
the oak and pine were received in England from Canada by
their immersion in water. “ The Canada timber,” he ob¬
serves, “ is brought down the St Lawrence in large rafts,
continues months in water, and in that saturated state is
landed and exposed to frost; every attempt to season it
under cover is unavailing; its pores never close again, and
when used as ship-timber dry rot ensues, which, when once
commenced, can never be arrested but by taking out all the
pieces in any degree affected.” The Russians, he says, are
so fully aware of the injurious effects of soaking ship-timber Materiel
in water, that it is brought from great distances down the ^ ^)
rivers in crafts instead of rafts. The Russian ships, how¬
ever, with all this precaution, are not remarkable for dura¬
bility. The ships built at Antwerp by the French were in
a state of rottenness before they were launched; but whether
this was owing to the bad quality of the timber of the Ger¬
man forests, or to its being water-soaked in rafting down the
Rhine, remains doubtful. But we can have no doubt that
porous timber is injured by moisture, though the solid Bri¬
tish oak may be improved by the dissolution of its sap
juices, to the fermentation of which the disease known by
name of dry rot may perhaps be chiefly owing. “ Water,”
says Lescalier, a French writer of considerable merit on
the subject, “ seems to be favourable to the decomposition
of the sap of timber when immersed ; but it substitutes in
its place another kind of moisture not less destructive, of
which the timber, though afterwards exposed to the air,
will not easily get rid ; besides, it weakens and destroys
the grain of the wood.” “The best means,” he adds, “of
preserving timber, appears to be that of keeping it in well-
constructed and airy sheds, in a vertical position, so that the
moisture which remains in the interior of the logs, by
running along the fibres of the wood, may be enabled to
issue from the lower extremity. Timber thus kept dry,
under shelter, will preserve itself for ages.” Mr Knowles,
secretary to the committee of surveyors of his Majesty’s
navy, in his treatise on the Means of Preserving the British
Navy, is led to conclude, from a variety of experiments,
“ that timber is better seasoned when kept for two years
and a half under cover, than when placed for six months in
water, and then for two years in the air, protected from the
rain and sun; that it loses more in seasoning by having
been, during the six months of immersion, alternately wet
and dry, than the whole time under water ; and that the loss
in moisture is greater in all cases in a given time when the
butt ends are placed downwards.” And he adds, as a general
principle, “ that no timber should be brought into use in
this country until it has been felled at least three years.”
Sir William Burnett, many years physician of the navy, pro¬
duced a solution for the preservation of timber and canvas,
which has been found in many cases efficacious.
Next to the system of diagonal braces, the roofing thrown By roofing
over them whilst building and in ordinary may be con-tlie ships,
sidered as the greatest of all improvements for the preserva¬
tion of the navy. The utility of it is so obvious, that it is
quite extraordinary such a practice should not have been
earlier adopted; more especially as at Venice, at Carlscrona,
and at Cronstadt, ships of war had long been built, re¬
paired, and protected under covered roofs. It was strongly
recommended to the English ship-builders sixty or seventy
years ago, but without effect; and had it not been for the
extraordinary ravages of the dry rot in the unseasoned
timber-built ships of the navy, we should still have been
without roofs to our docks and slips.
If the dockyards were of sufficient capacity, there can be By other
no doubt that the efficient plan to accomplish their dura- means,
bility would be that of keeping them on the slip, when built,
under cover. A large frigate, the Worcester, remained on
the slip and under cover for six or seven years, and there
was not a flaw in her of any kind. It was stated by Mr
Strange, when examined by the commissioners for land re¬
venue, that in the year 1790 there were twenty-two ships
of the line under roofs in the port of Venice, some of which
had remained in that situation fifty-nine years. Since, how¬
ever, it is utterly impracticable to keep our navy on slips
or in dry docks, the next important consideration is, how
best to preserve them afloat in a state of ordinary. Various
expedients have been at different times resorted to in order
to prevent the premature decay of ships laid up in this state
during peace. The two great requisites for their preserva-
100
Materiel.
Principal
naval
stores.
Hemp.
Pitch and
tar.
NAVY.
tion are ventilation and cleanliness. To promote the for¬
mer, wind-sails were in general use ; though, if not attended
to, so as to oppose the open part to the quarter from whence
the wind blows, or if the weather be calm, they are of little
benefit. Pneumatic machines of various kinds, as pumps
and bellows, have been applied to force out the foul air,
and introduce atmospherical air into the lower parts of a
ship’s hold. Heated air from stoves, placed in various parts
of the ship, and conducted through tubes, was thought at
one time to be efficacious in the preservation of the navy;
but experience soon showed that the heat thus circulated was
so far objectionable, as it tended to encourage the growth
of fungus where there was any moisture lodged, and in the
timber which had not been thoroughly seasoned. Perhaps
no better means can be suggested than those we have de¬
scribed to be in practice,—namely, to keep them clean, to ad¬
mit as much dry air as possible, and to exclude all moisture.
Finally, if we take into consideration the numerous im¬
provements which a war, unparalleled in its duration, had
been the means of introducing into the materiel of the
navy, whether it regards the economy of its application, the
construction of the ships, or their mode of preservation,
we may safely say, that at no former period was this country
in possession of such a navy as after the close of the war
with France, in respect of the number, size, and good con¬
dition of the ships which compose a fleet superior to those
of the whole world besides ; and it is gratifying to find that,
with all the enormous consumption of the military and mer¬
cantile navy, it does not appear that the naval resources of
Great Britain were at that time at all impaired. The pre¬
sent state of the navy, at the close of another great war,
in which its resources were in some respects severely tried,
is no less satisfactory.
Naval Resources.
It is of essential importance that the supply of stores for
the use of the fleet should not only be adequate to the de¬
mand, but that a sufficient stock should be kept on hand to
answer any sudden emergency. This is the more neces¬
sary with regard to those species of stores which are derived
from foreign nations.
The principal articles of consumption required for build¬
ing and equipping a fleet are,—hemp, canvas, pitch, tar,
iron, copper, and timber. All these articles might un¬
questionably be produced in sufficient quantities in the
united kingdom and her colonies, if necessity absolutely
required it. Hemp, for instance, might be grown to any
extent in Great Britain and Ireland, were not the land
more advantageously employed in raising other articles of
consumption, and if it could not be cheaper imported from
Russia. In the East Indies, the Sunn hemp (inferior, it is
true, to Russian hemp) might be procured to any extent;
and other plants, both there and at home, might be substi¬
tuted for the making of cordage and canvas. For pitch
and tar recourse might be had to the pitch-lake on the
island of Trinidad, and the coal-tar, of which an inexhaust¬
ible supply may be had at home. The lake is about four
miles in circumference, and many feet in depth, of solid
pitch; and it is stated that, when mixed with oil or tallow,
it is rendered fit for all the purposes to which pitch and tar
are usually applied. It has the advantage of securing ships’
bottoms against the attack of the worm, which is very
active in the neighbouring gulf of Para; and it does not
corrode iron. The coal-tar of home manufacture, from
some prejudice or other, was refused a fair trial till very
lately, and it is now deemed not inferior for many purposes
to the common tar. For painting or tarring over wood¬
work of every kind, it is said to stand exposure to the
weather even better than the common tar ; and it is used
for injecting, in large quantities, between the timbers of
ships, as a preservative from the dry rot; its powerful
smell having also the good effect of driving rats and other Materiel,
vermin out of the ships in which it is employed.
In the two important articles of copper and iron, our own Copper and
resources may be considered as inexhaustible. Formerly iron,
it was deemed indispensable that certain articles should be
made of Swedish iron ; but of late years our own has been
manufactured in every respect equally good; and the exten¬
sive application of this metal in bridges, barges, dock-gates,
roofs, rafters, floors, &c., has been equally progressive in
most naval purposes. Iron knees, and other modes of bind¬
ing the beams to the side timbers of ships, are now substi¬
tuted for those large and crooked pieces of timber, as al¬
ready stated, which were once deemed absolutely neces¬
sary. Our cables, rigging, buoys, and tanks for holding
water, are also now of iron. A few steam-vessels have also iron ships,
been constructed of iron ; but from experiments made by
firing at them, they have been found wholly unsuited for
purposes of war, the shot passing through their side, and leav¬
ing frightful rents, which, if struck between wind and water,
would speedily cause them to fill and sink. It is therefore
assumed that they will be discontinued in the Royal Navy.
But the most important article of demand for the use of Timber,
the navy is timber, principally oak, concerning the supply
of which from our own territories different opinions have
been entertained. A deficiency in other articles may
readily be supplied. A failure in the importation of hemp,
for instance, in any one year, might be remedied the next,
by an extended cultivation of that article ; but it requires a
whole century to repair any defalcation of oak timber, and
to render us independent of other nations. Nor has the
subject been sufficiently elucidated, so as to form a just
opinion, by the several committees of the House of Com¬
mons, the evidence produced being almost always loose,
and generally contradictory. The committee of 1771,
which was directed to inquire into the state of oak timber
throughout the kingdom, either from a disagreement of
opinion, or defect of evidence, or a wish to avoid giving
alarm, prayed the House to discharge that part of its order
which required them to report their opinion. The Commis¬
sioners of Woods and Forests, however, in their report laid
before Parliament in 1792, appeared to establish the fact of
an alarming scarcity of oak timber in general, but more
particularly of large naval timber, both in the royal forests
and on private estates. And if such was really the fact in
1792, it will readily be conceived what the state of timber
fit for naval purposes must have been at the conclusion of
the revolutionary war, when the amount of private shipping
had increased from 1,300,000 tons to 2,500,000 tons, or
nearly doubled; that of the East India Company, in the
same period, from 79,900 tons to 115,000 tons ; and that of
the navy from 400,000 to 800,000 tons: to say nothing of
the vast consumption of oak timber in all kinds of mill-work
and other machinery ; in the barrack and ordnance depart¬
ments ; in mines, collieries, and agriculture; in docks and
dock-gates ; in piers, locks, and sluices; in boats, barges,
lighters, bridges, and a great many other purposes to
which this timber is applied. From these and many other
causes, the diminution of oak timber was infinitely greater
than the commissioners had calculated upon, and yet they
recommended that 100,000 acres belonging to the crown
should be set apart and planted for the future supply of the
navy. A bill to this effect, relating to the New Forest,
passed the Commons, but was thrown out by the Lords.
On the departments of the surveyor-general of the land Report of
revenue and the surveyor-general of the woods and forests the Com-
being united, the board of commissioners made their
report, which was printed, by order of the House of Com- jievenue
mons, in June 1812. In this report, it is stated that, taking reSpectii)g
the tonnage of the navy in 1806 at 776,087 tons, it would timber,
require, at one load and a half to a ton, 1,164,085 loads to
build such a navy; and supposing the average duration of
Materiel.
Quantity
of timber
required
for the
navy.
N A
a ship to be fourteen years, the annual quantity of timber
required would be 83,149 loads, exclusive of repairs, which
they calculate would be about 27,000 loads, making in the
whole about 110,000 loads ; of which, however, the com¬
missioners reckon, may be furnished 21,341 loads as the
annual average of prizes; and of the remaining 88,659 loads,
they think it not unreasonable to calculate on 28,659 from
other sources than British oak. “ This,” they observe,
“ leaves 60,000 loads of such oak as the quantity which
would be sufficient annually to support, at its present unex¬
ampled magnitude, the whole British navy, including ships
of war of all sorts, but which may be taken as equivalent
together to 20 74-gun ships, each of which, one with an¬
other, contains about 2000 tons, or would require, at the
rate of a load and a half to the ton, 3000 loads, making
just 60,000 loads for 20 such ships.”
Now it has been supposed that not more than forty oak
trees can stand on an acre of ground, so as to grow to a
full size, fit for ships of the line, or to contain each a load
and a half of timber; 50 acres, therefore, would be required
to produce a sufficient quantity of timber to build a 74-gun
ship, and 1000 acres for 20 such ships; and as the oak
requires at least 100 years to arrive at maturity, 100,000
acres would be required to keep up a successive supply for
maintaining a navy of 700,000 or 800,000 tons. The com¬
missioners further observe, that as there are 20,000,000 of
acres of waste lands in the kingdom, a two-hundredth part
set aside for planting would at once furnish the whole
quantity wanted for the use of the navy.
This calculation, we suspect, is overrated by about one-
half. In the first place, it supposes a state of perpetual
war, during which the tonnage of the whole navy is con¬
sidered as more than double of what it is in time of peace ;
and in the second place, it reckons the average duration
of the navy at fourteen years only, which, from the im¬
provements that have taken place in the construction and
preservation of ships of war, with the resources of teak ships,
built in India, we should not hesitate in assuming at an
average of twice that number of years; and if so, the quan¬
tity of oak required for the navy will be nothing like that
which the commissioners have stated. This, we think, will
appear from a statement made (apparently on good autho¬
rity) in the midst of the war, when the ships of the line
built in merchants’ yards were falling to decay after a
service of five or six years.
“ Assuming 400,000 tons as the amount of tonnage to
he kept in commission, and the average duration of a ship
of war at the moderate period of twelve and a half years,
there would be required an annual supply of tonnage, to
preserve the navy in an effective state, of 32,000 tons ;
and as a load and a half of timber is employed for every
ton, the annual demand will be 48,000 loads. The build¬
ing of a 74-gun ship consumes about 2000 oak trees,
or 3000 loads of timber; so that 48,000 loads will build
eight sail of the line and sixteen frigates. Allowing one-
fourth part more for casualties, the annual consumption
will be about 60,000 loads, or 40,000 full-grown trees, of
which thirty-five will stand upon an acre of ground. The
quantity of timber, therefore, necessary for the construc¬
tion of a 74-gun ship will occupy fifty-seven acres of land,
and the annual demand will be the produce of 1140 acres.
Allowing only ninety years for the oak to arrive at perfec¬
tion, there ought to be now standing 102,600 acres of oak
plantations, and an annual felling and planting, in perpetual
rotation, of 1140 acres, to meet the consumption of the
navy alone. Large as this may seem, it is little more than
twenty-one acres for each county in England and Wales,
which is not equal to the belt which surrounds the park and
pleasure-grounds of many estates.”
The above calculation proceeds upon the principle that
every acre is covered with trees fit for naval purposes, or
v Y. ioi
that it contains thirty-five trees, with a load and a half of Materiel,
timber in each. It may be doubted, however, if on the ■>
average of plantations we shall find more than one-tenth
of that number on an acre ; and as the same writer endea¬
vours to show that the quantity of oak timber consumed
in the navy is only about one-tenth part of the whole con¬
sumption of the country, instead of 102,600 acres being
sufficient for a perpetual supply, there would be required
some ten or twelve millions of acres, in plantations similar
to those at present existing, to supply the demand for oak
timber. Whether such a quantity exists or not, the fact
is certain, that, before the conclusion of the long war, a
scarcity began to be felt, especially of the larger kind of
timber, fit for building ships of the line ; and so great was
this scarcity, that if Sir Robert Seppings had not contrived
the means of substituting straight timber for those of a
certain form and dimension, before considered as indispensa¬
ble, the building of new ships must have entirely ceased.
If, however, the growth of oak for ship-timber was greatly
diminished during the war, so as to threaten an alarming
scarcity, there is little doubt that, from the increased atten¬
tion paid by individuals to their young plantations, and the
great extension of those plantations, as well as from the
measure of allotting off portions of the royal forests to those
who had claims on them, and inclosing the remainder for
the use of the public, this country will, in future times, be
fully adequate to the production of oak timber equal to the
demand for the naval and mercantile marine. It will require,
however, large and successive plantations, on account of
the slow growth of the oak. But there is another tree, of
late years very generally planted on rising grounds, which
bids fair to become an object of great national importance,
as furnishing the best, and perhaps the only substitute for
oak timber. We mean the larch, which thrives well and Value of
grows rapidly in bad soils and exposed situations, the timber larch for
of which has been found to be durable, and, from several
experiments, not inferior in strength, toughness, and elas-in®’
ticity to oak. So rapid is its growth, that the Duke of
Atholl received twelve guineas for a single larch fifty years
old ; the timber was valued at two shillings a foot. A larch
of seventy years’ growth produces timber fit for all naval
purposes, and may be considered as equal in size to an oak of
double that age. The dimensions of a larch tree cut down
at Blair Atholl in 1817, and then seventy-nine years of age,
were as follows, viz.:—Stem, 82 feet; top, 20 feet; total
height, 102 feet; girth at the ground, 12 feet ; at 19
feet, 8 feet 3|- inches; and at 57 feet, 4 feet 10 inches:
solid contents, 252’8 cubic feet. Another larch, growing at
Dunkeld, measured, in the year 1819, when it was eighty
years old, and in full vigour, as follows, viz.:—Height of
stem, 75 feet; top, 14 feet; total height, 90 feet; at 1
foot from the ground, 17 feet 8 inches in girth ; at 10
feet, 10 feet 4 inches ; and at 70 feet, 3 feet 2 inches : its
contents, 300 cubic feet, or six loads. For all kinds of
mill-work, as wheels, axle-trees, &c., the utility of the
large larch wood is unquestionable ; and the thinnings are
excellent for paling, rails, and hurdles. The value of its
application for naval purposes has been put to the test of
experiment ; two frigates of 28 guns, one built entirely of
larch from the Duke of Atholl’s plantations, the other of Riga
fir (which was considered inferior only to oak), having been
intended to go through the same service, precisely in the same
parts ofthe world, in order to ascertain their comparative dura¬
bility. What was the result of the experiment we are not
aware, beyond the fact that the Atholl, which was one of
the frigates, is still a good, sound ship, in commission at
Greenock, though built, we believe, some forty years ago.
In addition to our resources of naval timber at home, we Indian
have wisely availed ourselves of those which India affords forteal1,
building ships of war at Bombay, of teak, a wood far superior
in every respect to oak, and many times more durable, not
102
Personnel.
Commis¬
sioned offi¬
cers.
Warrant-
officers.
Petty offi¬
cers.
NAVY.
liable to corrode iron or other metallic fastenings, not suscep¬
tible of the dry rot, nor subject to the attack of the worm.
II.—PERSONNEL OF THE NAVY.
"Wie personnel of the navy is composed of two different
bodies of men, the seamen and the marines, each of whom
have their appropriate officers.
The officers of the navy are divided into two distinct
branches—the military and the civil. The military, or exe¬
cutive branch, consists of flag-officers, commodores, captains,
commanders, lieutenants, masters of the fleet, masters,
mates, second masters, midshipmen, masters’ assistants,
naval cadets, gunners, boatswains, carpenters.
Flag-officers are divided into three ranks, and each rank
into three squadrons, distinguished by the colours red, white,
and blue : as admiral of the red, white, or blue; vice-
admiral of the red, white, or blue ; rear-admiral of the red,
white, or blue : the admiral wearing his colour at the main,
the vice-admiral at the fore, and the rear-admiral at the
mizen mast head. There is also an admiral of the fleet, who,
if in command, would carry the union flag at the main.
There are, besides, flag-officers on reserved half-pay, divided
into three ranks, to which they rise by seniority; and super¬
annuated rear-admirals, enjoying the rank and pay of a
rear-admiral, but incapable of rising to a higher rank on the
list, which is considered a grievance. The rank of com¬
modore is temporary : he is generally an old captain, and is
distinguished by wearing a broad pennant. He ranks next
to the junior rear-admiral, and above all captains, except
where the captain of the fleet shall be a captain who, in
that situation, takes rank next to the junior rear-admiral.
The commissioned officers of the navy take rank with
Army.
Field-Marshal.
General.
Lieutenant-General.
Major-General.
Brigadier-General.
Colonel.
Lieutenant-Colonel.
Major.
Captain.
Lieutenant.
Ensign.
command according to
the priority of their commissions, or, having commissions of
the same date, according to the order in which they stand
on the list of the officers of the navy; except in the case of
lieutenants of flag-ships, who take precedence according as
the flag-officer shall think fit to appoint them.
The civil branch consists of the director-general of the
medical department of the navy (who ranks with a brigadier-
general), medical inspectors of hospitals and fleets, and de¬
puty-medical inspectors (who rank with lieutenant-colonels
and majors), chaplains, secretaries to commanders-in-chief
and commodores of first class, surgeons, paymasters (for¬
merly pursers), assistant surgeons, assistant paymasters, naval
instructors, clerks, clerks’ assistants, inspectors of machinery,
chief engineers, and assistant engineers of 1st, 2d, and 3d
class.
The warrant-officers of the navy may be compared with
the non-commissioned officers of the army. They take rank
as follows, viz.:—Gunner, boatswain, carpenter.
The petty officers are very numerous; they consist of
chief petty officer, and 1st and 2d class working petty
officers. Their names or ratings will be seen in the table
of the establishment of the ratings and pay in the several
classes of ships of war.
By the Queen’s order in Council, the following regulations
those ot the army as follows :—
Navy.
Admiral of the fleet 
Admiral 
Vice-admiral 
Rear-admiral 
Commodore (1st and 2d class)...
Captain of three years 
Captain under ditto 
Commander.... 
Lieutenant 1
Master J
Mate 
Second Master. 1
Midshipmen. J  
And all officers of the same rank
are established for the promotion of commissioned officers Personnel,
of the navy. Midshipmen are required to serve five years
on board some of Her Majesty’s ships, three years and six Order of
months of which they must have been rated as midshipmen, promotion,
to render them eligible to the rank and situation of lieu¬
tenant; and they must be nineteen years of age. They
enter the navy between the age of thirteen and fifteen as
naval cadets, in which rank they are required to serve
eighteen months, the first three of which in a training ship ;
and at the end of the five years they are rated mates, and so
continue till promoted. There are several intermediate ex¬
aminations required to be passed by them.
No lieutenant can be promoted to the rank of commander
until he has been on the list of lieutenants during two years,
and has served that period at sea; and no commander to the
rank of captain until he has been on the list, and has served
at sea one year. Captains become admirals in succession
according to their seniority on the list, provided they shall
have commanded four years in a rated ship during war, or
six years during peace, or five years in war and peace
combined.
No person can be appointed to serve as master of one
of Her Majesty’s ships who shall not have served as second
master; and no person can be appointed as second master
until he has passed such examination as may from time to
time be directed.
No person can be appointed gunner unless he shall have
served seven years, one of which as gunner’s mate or other
petty officer, or seaman gunner, on board one or more of Her
Majesty’s ships; and he must produce certificates of his good
conduct, and undergo the necessary examination.
No person can be appointed boatswain unless he shall
have served seven years,—one complete year with the rating,
and actually doing the duty of a petty officer in Her Majesty’s
navy; and he must produce certificates of good conduct, and
undergo the necessary examination.
No person can be appointed carpenter unless he shall
have served an apprenticeship to a shipwright, and been six
months a carpenter’s mate or caulker, or twelve months
with the rating of carpenter, on board one or more of Her
Majesty’s ships.
No person can be appointed chaplain to one of Her Ma¬
jesty’s ships until he has received priest’s orders; but he
may be appointed to act whilst in deacon’s orders.
No person can be appointed paymaster unless he shall
have been rated, and have discharged the duties of a cap¬
tain’s clerk for three complete years; or two years as cap¬
tain’s clerk, and one year clerk to a secretary of a flag-officer;
and been employed in the office of the secretary to a flag-
officer for one other year; and shall produce good certificates,
and find such security for the honest and faithful discharge
of his duty as shall be required.
No person can be appointed surgeon to one of Her Ma¬
jesty’s ships until he has discharged the duties of assistant-
surgeon for three years, one of which at sea; and all persons
applying for the situation of assistant-surgeon must undergo
an examination touching their qualifications before the
medical director-general of the navy.
The Royal Marines, recently made light infantry, consist Royal Ma-
of four great divisions; the first stationed at Chatham, the rines.
second at Portsmouth, the third at Plymouth, and the
fourth at Woolwich. They are composed of 104 companies
besides fourteen companies of Royal Marine artillery, whose
head-quarters are at Portsmouth. The first division has
twenty-five companies, the second twenty-seven companies,
the third twenty-seven companies, and the fourth twenty-
five companies. The officers of Royal Marines take rank
with the officers of the line in the army.
The deputy adjutant-general, who is a major-general,
and the assistant adjutant-general, who is a lieutenant-
colonel in the corps, are resident in London; and to each
N A
Personnel, of the divisions is attached a colonel-commandant and a co-
V—lonel and second commandant, a proper number of lieutenant-
colonels, captains, and subaltern officers. Whilst on shore
the marines are subject to the same regulations as the army;
but when embarked they are liable to the naval articles of
war, and to the Marine Mutiny Act.
Each division has two or more adjutants; two quarter¬
masters, who are all first lieutenants; a paymaster, who is a
captain in the corps; and barrackmaster, also a captain ;
and to each division is a deputy-inspector of hospitals,
or staff-surgeon and two assistant-surgeons. There is also
a retired list of officers, who, in consideration of wounds,
infirmities, and long and meritorious services, are permitted
to receive their full pay, and also a reserved half-pay list.
The commissions of officers of every rank in the marine
corps are signed by the sovereign; but all commissions of
officers of the navy are signed by two or more of the lords
commissioners of the Admiralty. But the marines, whether
ashore or afloat, are, as well as the officers of the navy, under
the immediate direction and control of the lords commis¬
sioners of the Admiralty. All the appointments of com¬
missioned and warrant officers to ships are made exclusively
by the lords of the Admiralty, or made subject to their con¬
firmation, unless in cases of the death or dismissal of officers
by sentence of court-martial on foreign stations, when the
admiral commanding has the power to fill up the vacancies.
And the duties of each rank are pointed out in a code of
instructions emanating from that board, and sanctioned by
the sovereign’s order in Council.
Military The civil powers and duties of the Lord High Admiral,
duties of or lords commissioners of the Admiralty, are treated of under
meh Ad- the ?rticle 4r)MIRAL' Their mihtary powers are more ex-
miral. tensive and important. By their orders all ships are built,
repaired, fitted for sea, or laid up in ordinary, broken up, or
sold; put in commission or out of commission, armed,
stored, and provisioned; and employed on the home or
foreign stations, or on voyages of discovery. All appoint¬
ments or removals of commission and warrant officers are
made by them, and all instructions issued for the guid¬
ance of their commanders; all promotion in the several
ranks emanates from them; all honours bestowed for bril¬
liant ^services, and all pensions, gratuities, and superan¬
nuations for wounds, infirmities, and long services, are
granted on their recommendation. All returns from the
fleet are sent to the Board of Admiralty, and everything
that relates to the discipline and good order of every
ship. All orders for the payment of naval monies are
issued to the accountant-general of the navy by the lords
commissioners of the Admiralty; and the annual estimate
of the expenses of the navy is prepared by them, and
laid before Parliament for its sanction. All new inven¬
tions and experiments are tried by their orders before be¬
ing introduced into the service; all draughts of ships must
be approved by them ; all repairs, alterations, and improve¬
ments in the dockyards, and all new buildings of every
description, must be submitted for their decision before
they are undertaken.
Comman- flag-officers, commanders-in-chief, are considered as
der-in- responsible for the conduct of the fleet or squadron under
chief. their command. They are bound to keep them in perfect
condition for service; to exercise them frequently in form¬
ing orders of sailing and lines of battle, and in performing
all such evolutions as may occur in the presence of an ene-
my; to direct the commanders of squadrons and divisions
to inspect the state of each ship under their command; to
see that the established rules for good order, discipline,
and cleanliness, are observed; and occasionally to inquire
into these and other matters themselves. They are re¬
quired to correspond with the secretary of the Admiralty,
and report to him all their proceedings.
If a commander-in-chief should be killed in battle, his
V Y.
103
flag is to be continued flying, and intelligence conveyed Personnel,
by signal or otherwise, to the next in command, who is
immediately to repair on board, leaving his own flag (if a
flag-officer) flying, and direct the operations of the fleet
until the battle be ended, or the enemy out of sight.
Every flag-officer serving in a fleet, but not commandino- Other flag-
it, is required to superintend all the ships of the squadron officers,
or division placed under his orders ; to see that their crews
are properly disciplined ; that all orders are punctually at¬
tended to; that the stores, provisions, and water, are kept
as complete as circumstances will admit; that the seamen
and marines are frequently exercised; and that every pre¬
caution is taken for preserving the health of their crews;
for all which he is responsible to the commander-in-chief.
When at sea, he is to take care that every ship in his di¬
vision preserve her station, in whatever line or order of
sailing the fleet may be formed; and in battle he is to ob¬
serve attentively the conduct of every ship near him,
whether of the squadron or division under his immediate
command or not; and at the end of the battle he is to re¬
port it to the commander-in-chief, in order that commen¬
dation or censure may be passed, as the case may appear
to merit; and he is empowered to send an officer to super¬
sede any captain who may misbehave in battle, or whose
ship is evidently avoiding the engagement. If any flag-
officer be killed in battle, his flag is to be kept flying, and
signals to be repeated, in the same manner as if he were
still alive, until the battle shall be ended; but the death
of a flag-officer, or his being rendered incapable of attend¬
ing to his duty, is to be conveyed as expeditiously as pos¬
sible to the commander-in-chief.
The captain of the fleet is a temporary rank, where a Captain of
commander-in-chief has ten or more ships of the line un-tlie fleet‘
der his command ; it may be compared with that of adju¬
tant-general in the army. He may either be a flag-officer,
or one of the senior captains; in the former case, he takes
his rank with the flag-officers of the fleet; in the latter, he
ranks next to the junior rear-admiral, and is entitled to
the pay and compensation of a rear-admiral. All orders
of the commander-in-chief are issued through him, all
returns of the fleet are made through him to the com-
mander-in-chief, and he keeps a journal of the proceedings
of the fleet, which he transmits every three months to the
Admiralty. He is appointed and can be removed from his
situation only by the lords commissioners of the Admiralty.
A commodore is a temporary rank, and of two kinds; Commo-
the one having a captain under him in the same ship, and ^ore*
the other without a captain. The former has the rank, pay,
and allowances of a rear-admiral, the latter such additional
pay as the lords of the Admiralty may direct. They both
carry distinguishing pennants.
When a captain is appointed to command a ship of war, Captain,
he commissions the ship by hoisting his pennant; and if
fresh out of the dock, and from the hands of the dock¬
yard officers, he proceeds immediately to prepare her for
sea, by demanding her stores, provisions, guns, and ammu¬
nition, from the respective departments, according to her
establishment. He enters such men as may volunteer and
be fit for the service (in time of peace), or who may be
sent to him from some rendezvous for raising men ; and he
gives them the several ratings of petty officers, leading sea¬
men, able seamen, ordinary, or landsmen, as their apparent
qualifications may entitle them to. If he be appointed to suc¬
ceed the captain of a ship already in commission, he passes
a receipt to the said captain for the ship’s books, papers, and
stores, and becomes responsible and accountable for the
whole ot the remaining stores and provisions ; and, to en¬
able him to keep the ship’s accounts, he is allowed one or
more clerks or clerks’ assistants.
The duty of the captain of a ship, with regard to the se¬
veral books and accounts, pay-books, entry, musters, dis-
104
Personnel.
Lieu¬
tenant.
Master.
N A
charges, &c., is regulated by various acts of Parliament;
but the state of the internal discipline, the order, regularity,
cleanliness, and the health of the crews, will depend mainly
on himself and his officers. In all these respects the general
printed orders for his guidance, contained in the present
edition of the Queen’s regulations and Admiralty instruc¬
tions, prepared by Sir George Cockburn (aided by Mr Bar-
row), and issued to the fleet in 1844, are particularly precise
and minute. And, for the information of the ship’s com¬
pany, he is directed to cause the articles of war, and abstracts
of all acts of Parliament for the encouragement of seamen,
and all such orders and regulations for discipline as may be
established, to be hung up in some public part of the ship,
to which the men may at all times have access. He is
also to direct that they be read to the ship’s company, all
the officers being present, once at least in every month.
In every ship where there is a chaplain, he is desired to be
particularly careful that the attention and respect due to his
sacred office be shown to him by all the officers and men,
and that divine service be performed, and a sermon preached,
every Sunday. He is not authorized to inflict any corporal
punishment on any commissioned or warrant officer, but he
may place them under arrest, and suspend any officer who
shall misbehave, until an opportunity shall offer of trying
such officer by a court-martial. He is enjoined to be very
careful not to suffer the inferior officers or men to be
treated with cruelty and oppression by their superiors.
He alone is to order punishment to be inflicted, which
he is never to do without sufficient cause, nor ever with
greater severity than the offence may really deserve,
nor until twenty-four hours after the crime has been com¬
mitted, which must be specified in the warrant ordering
the punishment; and all the officers and the whole ship’s
company are to be present at every punishment, which
must be inserted in the log-book, and an abstract at the
end of every quarter made out and sent to the Admiralty ;
a regulation which has been attended with infinite benefit
to the strict and just discipline of the naval service. The
greatest number of lashes he can inflict is 48. The total
abolition of flogging, so often advocated, can never, in the
opinion of any officer, be advantageously carried into effect;
but it would seem desirable to reduce the number of lashes
to 24, considering the extreme severity of the punishment
and pain inflicted, which often renders the man totally unfit
for duty for some days. The disgrace attending the punish¬
ment is more likely to deter others than the pain inflicted.
In a few well-regulated ships corporal punishments are quite
unknown during the whole period of their commission. It
was never found necessary in any ship employed in the
Arctic squadron, owing to the great regularity observed on
board, to daily prayers being read, and to there being little
or no drunkenness. With a view to checking the flogging
in the navy, a return is annually called for by Parliament,
and a column inserted showing the number of lashes sen¬
tenced, and the numbers inflicted, together with the highest
number of lashes given in any one case, and the lowest, to¬
gether with a sum total.
The lieutenants take the watch by turns, and are at
such times intrusted, in the absence of the captain, with
the command of the ship. The one on duty is to inform
the captain of all occurrences which take place during
his watch ; as strange sails that may be in sight, signals
from other ships in company, change of wind, &c. He is
to see that the ship be properly steered, the log hove, and
the course and distance entered on the log-board ; and, in
short, he is to see that the whole of the duties of the ship
are carried on with the same punctuality as if the captain
himself were present. In the absence of the captain, the
senior lieutenant is responsible for everything done on board.
The master receives his orders from the captain or any
of the lieutenants. His more immediate duties are those
V Y.
of stowing the ship’s hold, and of attending to her sailing Personnel,
qualities; of receiving and placing the provisions in the
ship, so as most conveniently to come at those which may
be wanted. He is to take care that the cables are pro¬
perly coiled in the tiers. The keys of the spirit-room are
in his custody, and he is directed to intrust them only to the
master’s assistants. He has the charge of the store-rooms
of the warrant-officers, which he is ordered frequently to
visit; in short, the whole of the ship’s provisions, water,
fbel, and stores of every description, are under the super¬
intendence of the master; and he is also intrusted, under
the command of the captain, with the charge of navigating
the ship, bringing her to anchor, ascertaining the latitude
and longitude of her place at sea, surveying harbours, and
making such nautical remarks and observations as may be
useful and interesting to navigation in general. He keeps the
ship’s log-book and remark-book. For distinguished conduct
masters are eligible for promotion to the rank of lieutenant;
but few would accept it, except with a certain prospect of
rising to the higher grades, of which there are instances.
The warrant-officers are charged with the duty of re¬
ceiving on board from the dockyards, and examining, the
various stores of their respective departments, and keeping
an account of the expenditure ot them.
The gunner has the charge of the ship’s artillery and of Gunner,
the powder magazine. He is to see that the locks and car¬
riages are kept in good order, and that the powder is pre¬
served from damp; he is frequently to examine the mus¬
ketry and small arms, and to see that they are kept clean
and fit for service; and, in preparing for battle, it is his
duty to take care that all the quarters are supplied with
everything necessary for the service of the guns, and,
during the action, that there be no want of ammunition
served out. He is frequently to exercise the men at the
guns, and to see that they perform this part of their duty
with correctness, explaining and enforcing the necessity
of their pointing the guns before they fire them, spunging
them well, and close-stopping the touch-hole immediately
after firing. The armourer and his mates are under the
immediate orders of the gunner in everything that relates
to the great guns and small arms.
The boatswain is charged with the duty of receiving and Boatswain,
examining all the stores belonging to his department, con¬
sisting chiefly of the ropes and rigging, the latter of which
he is ordered to inspect daily, in order that any part of it
chafed or likely to give way may be repaired without loss
of time. He is always required to be on deck at such times
as all hands are employed; he is bound to see that the
men, when called, move quickly upon deck, and when
there, that they perform their duty with alacrity, and with¬
out noise or contusion. The sailmaker and the ropemaker
are under his immediate orders.
The carpenter, when appointed to a ship, is carefully to Carpenter,
inspect the state of the masts and the yards, whether in
the dockyard or on board of the ship, to see that they are
perfectly sound and in good order. He is to examine every
part of the ship’s hull, magazine, store-rooms, and cabins.
He is every day when at sea carefully to examine into the
state of the masts and yards, and to report to the officer of
the watch if any appear to be sprung, or in any way defect¬
ive. He is to see that the ports are secure and properly
lined, and that the pumps are kept in good order, as also
the boats, ladders, and gratings. The caulker is placed
under his immediate orders, and he is to see that the former
performs his duty in a workmanlike manner, in stopping
immediately any leaks that may be discovered.
The engineer, when first appointed to a steam-vessel, Engineer,
carefully examines the engines, paddles (or screw), and the
boilers, and reports to the commanding officer any defects
he discovers. He takes charge of all the engineers’ stores
and tools, and keeps account of receipts and expenditure.
Personnel.
Paymaster,
Other
officers.
Midship¬
men and
naval
cadets.
Marines.
Number of
commis¬
sioned offi¬
cers.
N A
He is never to quit the engine-room during his watch, and
visits it frequently at all times day and night. The leading
stoker and stokers are under his immediate control.
' The paymaster (formerly purser) has the charge of all the
ship’s provisions, and of the serving them out for the use of the
crew. His charge is, therefore, of a most important matter;
and, accordingly, he must not only produce good certificates
of his conduct whilst serving in the capacity of clerk, but
must also find two sureties for the due discharge of his trust,
who are required to give bond in a penal sum, according
to the rate or class of ship to which he may be appointed.
The regulations and instructions for his guidance are mi¬
nutely detailed in the general printed instructions, with all
the various forms established for the keeping of his ac¬
counts with the accountant-general and comptroller of vic¬
tualling, to whom he is immediately responsible. To assist
him in the performance of his arduous duties, he is allowed
to employ the clerk, with the sanction of the captain, who
is responsible for the strict performance of the duties of all
the officers under his orders, and acts, as it were, as a check
on the paymaster in many parts of his duty, regarding the
slop-books, muster-books, &c. He has also a steward under
his immediate orders.
The duties of the medical inspectors of hospitals and
fleets, the surgeon of a ship and his assistants, the secretary
to the commander-in-chief, the chaplain, the naval instructor,
and inspectors of machinery afloat, are too obvious to require
any specification.
The midshipmen are considered as the principal petty
officers, but have no specific duties assigned to them. In
the smaller vessels, some of the senior ones are intrusted
with the watch ; they attend parties of men sent on shore;
pass the word of command on board, and see that the orders
of their superiors are carried into effect; in short, are
exercised in all the duties of their profession, so as, after five
years’ service (eighteen months as cadet, and three years
and six months as midshipmen), to qualify them to become
lieutenants; and are then rated mates, provided they have
passed the requisite examination, and are nineteen years of
age.
Every ship, according to her class, has a certain number
of marines as part of her complement. They are commanded
by a captain or brevet-major, in from first to fourth rates
inclusive, with three or two subalterns under them, and
an established number of non-commissioned officers ; but
the party on board fifth rates and under is commanded
by a subaltern, and in small vessels by a sergeant or cor¬
poral.
All marine officers, of whatsoever rank, when embarked,
are to obey the orders of the captain or the commanding
officer of the watch. The marines are exercised by their
officers in the use of their arms; they are employed as sen¬
tinels, and in all other duties on board of which they are
capable, with the exception of going aloft. The officer
commanding has the charge of the arms, accoutrements,
and drums; and he is to inspect, weekly at least, the state
of the clothing of his party. The marines are in every
respect treated as part of the ship’s company.
The long continuance of the revolutionary war neces¬
sarily created a prodigious increase of the commissioned
officers of the navy. Their numbers in the five following
years of peace were,—
Admirals  
Vice-admirals.
Rear-admirals.
Captains 
Commanders...
Lieutenants....
1793.
11
19
19
444
160
1408
1803.
45
36
51
666
410
2461
1815.
70
73
77
824
762
3211
1821.
63
59
68
828
776
3797
1836.
43
59
63
755
823
2976
y y.
105
In the year 1857 there were on the active list of the Personnel,
navy 371 captains, 530 commanders, 1122 lieutenants; and
on the retired and reserved list 129 captains, 243 com¬
manders with rank of captain (besides 113 command¬
ers on reserved half-pay), 254 lieutenants with rank of re¬
tired commanders (besides 618 on reserved half-pay). The
total number ofcaptains was therefore 743; commanders, 897;
lieutenants, 1740; being a diminution of considerably up¬
wards of 1000 officers of the foregoing ranks, as compared
with the list in 1836.
The warrant-officers have increased from the average of
about 400 in 1793 and 700 in 1821, to upwards of 1000
in 1857. They are divided into two classes,—viz., those
who are fit for sea service, and those who are fit for harbour
duty. The latter consist of about 150 gunners, boatswains,
and carpenters. The total number of officers of the Royal
Navy and Royal Marines in 1857 was upwards of 7300,
excluding mates and midshipmen, clerks, warrant-officers,
and engineers. These may be computed at 3000; making
a grand total of 10,300 officers of all ranks.
The number of seamen and marines voted in 1792 was
16,000 (but never reduced to that number); in 1822 it
was 21,000; in 1836, 32,000; 1840-1, 35,165; 1850-1,
39,000; 1853-4, 45,500; and in 1854-5, 48,000. The
greatest number of seamen and marines voted in any one
year during the French war was 150,000, and during the
war with Russia, 76,000.
All officers of the navy wear a uniform, which is estab¬
lished in pursuance of the pleasure of the sovereign. It
consists of blue cloth, with white collars and cuffs to the coats,
and various embroidery and epaulets. The epaulets of the
officers of the civil branch of the service are embroidered in
gold and silver. The full dress, with cocked hats, is worn,
on state occasions and at courts-martial, by all naval
officers. The first naval uniform (blue and white) was
established in 1748. The identical patterns then issued may
now be seen in the United Service Institution. They were
obtained a few years since from Plymouth, where they had
been carefully preserved. In the reign of William IV. the
facings were for a short time changed to red. The last
alteration of the uniform was in 1856. The petty officers,
seamen, and boys also wear certain regulated articles of
dress; the former with marks of distinction on the left
sleeve of their jackets. The seamen, too, wear good-con¬
duct badges.
The crew of a ship of war consists of leading seamen, Ship’s
able seamen, ordinary seamen, landsmen, leading stokers, company,
stokers, coal-trimmers, boys, and marines. The lands¬
men, boys, and marines, are always entered voluntarily, the
latter in the same manner as soldiers, by enlisting into the
corps, the two former at some rendezvous or on board particu¬
lar ships. A supply of boys for the navy is also regularly sent
from the Asylum at Greenwich and the Marine Society.
Able and ordinary seamen also very commonly volunteer to
serve during the war, and always in time of peace ; but the
high wages given by the merchant ships to seamen in time of
war hold out such encouragement as to induce them to give
the preference to that service, though in all other respects
their treatment is far superior on board a Queen’s ship, having
better provisions, being subject to much less fatigue and
exposure to the weather, well taken care of in sickness, and
being entitled to pensions after twenty-one years’ service, or
when disabled. Indeed, the excellent regulations now rigidly
adhered to on board H.M.’s ships, and the attention that is
paid to the health and comfort of the crew, have overcome
much of that reluctance which formerly was felt to the ser¬
vice of a ship of war.
The state of health on board of a Queen’s ship is, generally Health of
speaking, not exceeded in the most favoured spot on shore ; the crew,
and that horrible disease, the sea-scurvy, may now be con¬
sidered as unknown in the British navy, since the universal
O
YOL. XVI.
106
NAVY.
Personnel, introduction of lemon juice, or the citric acid, without an
ample supply of which no ship is permitted to sail on a
foreign voyage. It appears to have been known as a remedy
for the scurvy, far superior to all others, two hundred years
ago, but seems to have been utterly neglected, till Dr
Lind, more than a hundred years afterwards, revived and
stated clearly its singular powers. In 1600 Commodore
Lancaster sailed from England with three other ships on
the 2d of April, and arrived in Saldanha Bay on the 1st of
August. The commodore’s crew, having each had three
table-spoonfuls of lemon juice every morning, arrived there
in perfect health; whereas the other ships were so sickly,
that they were unmanageable for want of hands. We have
all felt the commiseration and horror which the perusal
of the narrative of Anson’s voyage produces. His ship,
the Centurion, left England with 400 men, of whom 200
were surviving on his arrival at Juan Fernandez, and of
these eight only were capable of duty, from scurvy. Yet
even this horrible catastrophe seems to have failed in rous¬
ing the nation to have recourse to a remedy so certain and
efficacious. Cook was well supplied with vinegar and other
acids, and found the good effects of them; but the first
general supply of lemon juice to the navy was established
only in the year 1795, in consequence of a trial which had
been made of it the preceding year in the Suffolk, of 74
guns. This ship left England, and arrived at Madras in
September, without touching at any land. With every
man’s grog there were daily mixed two-thirds of a liquid
ounce of lemon juice and two ounces of sugar. She lost
not a man ; and though the disease made its appearance in
a few, an increased dose of lemon juice immediately removed
it. Thus the Suffolk, after a voyage of 162 days, arrived
without losing a man, or having a man sick of the scurvy ;
whereas the Centurion, in 143 days from the last place of
her refreshment, lost half of her crew, whilst the other
half were so feeble and emaciated as to be utterly help¬
less. Many instances not less remarkable might be men¬
tioned.
The abundant supply of lime juice to the squadrons em¬
ployed on Arctic service was the means of averting this
dreadful malady, very few cases having occurred, except in
the Investigator (Sir Robert M'Clure), after being four years
in the ice. The issue of preserved meats and vegetables to
all ships in the Royal Navy has also doubtless tended to
the health of the crews.
Progres- From the official returns collected by Sir Gilbert Blane,
sive dimi- ]yj Dupin, a French author well versed in naval subjects,
sickness^ ^ias ^rawn out ^ie following table, which exhibits at one
view the progressive diminution of sickness, death, and
desertion in the British navy, calculated on 100,000
men :—
Tears.
Sick sent to
Hospital.
Deaths.
1779
1782
1794
1804
1813
40,815
31,617
25,027
11,978
9,336
2654
2222
1164
1606
698
1424
993
662
214
10
Hence it would appear, that the diminution of sickness
and of deaths has been in the proportion of 4 to 1
nearly between the years 1799 and 1813. The diminution
of desertions from the hospital in the same period is not
the less remarkable; and it affords, at the same time, the
strongest proof of the progressive amelioration of the con¬
dition of seamen on board British ships of war. Indeed,
whether on board of ship, or in any of those noble institu¬
tions the naval hospitals, which are established at all the
principal ports at home, and in the colonies abroad, the
attention which is paid to the sick sailor is above all
praise.
The following returns, of more recent date,
advance of medical science in this department:
show the Personnel.
Years.
1820
1830
1840
1850
1855
Sick Sent to
Hospitals.
3,564
3,137
6,589
9,743
11,748
Dead in
Hospitals.
362
187
225
309
384
Run from
Hospitals.
No wonder that 214 men should have run away from the
doctors in 1804, when upwards of 1600 died in hospital out
of 11 978. In 1855, out of the same number, there were
only 384 deaths and 2 deserters. Can anything show more
strongly the wonderful progress made in the medical de¬
partment of the Royal Navy of late years ?
The speedy manning of the fleet, on the first breaking Manning
out of a war, is one of the most important objects thatthe fleet>
can devolve on the naval administration, as on it alone must
depend the safety of our commerce and our colonies. This
has been felt at all times; and accordingly a variety of
schemes have been brought forward for this purpose, but all
of them have heretofore tailed of success, except the compul¬
sory mode of raising men, under the authority of press-
warrants, issued by the lords commissioners of the Admiralty,
by virtue of the Queen’s order in Council, renewed from year
to year. On the occasion of the late war with Russia, how¬
ever, the fleet was manned, for the first time, without re¬
course to impressment. There likewise issues, on the break¬
ing out of awar, a proclamation from the sovereign, recalling
all British seamen out of the service of foreign princes or
states; and commanders of all ships of war are directed to
search foreign vessels for such seamen.
The impressment of seafaring men, however anomalous Impress-
under a free constitution like that of Great Britain, is de- ment*
fensible on state necessity, until it can be shown that the
fleet, on an emergency, is capable of being manned with¬
out resorting to that measure. In consequence of some
doubts being raised on the legality of the subject in the
year 1676, when the affairs of the Admiralty were managed
immediately under the direction of the King and the great
officers of state, a discussion was held on this point, when
it was decided by the judges and crown-lawyers, that the
King had an indefeasible right to the services of his sub¬
jects when the state required them, and that the power of
impressing seamen was indispensably inherent in the crown,
without which the trade and safety of the nation could not
be secured. The first instance of impressing men in Ire¬
land seems to have been in the year 1678, when the lord-
lieutenant received directions from the Privy Council to
raise 1000 seamen for the fleet. In 1690 the lords-jus-
tices of Ireland were directed to assist the officers of the
navy in impressing men in that kingdom. In 1697 a re¬
gister was taken of all the seafaring men in Ireland, which
amounted to 4424 men, of whom it is noted 2654 were
Catholics. On several occasions, during Queen Anne’s
reign, the lords-justices of Ireland received directions to
raise men to serve in the fleet.
In Scotland the mode of raising men by impressment
was unknown before the Union ; but in various instances
the Council of Scotland was directed to raise volunteers for
the fleet, each man to have 40s. as bounty.
In 1706 an experiment was tried for the speedy man¬
ning of the fleet, by virtue of an act of Parliament, which
required the civil magistrates of all the counties to make
diligent search for all seafaring men, and 20s. were
allowed to the constables for each man taken up; the
seamen to have pay from the day of delivery to the naval
officers stationed to receive them; and if they deserted
after that, they were to be considered as guilty of felony.
By the same act, insolvent debtors, fit for the service, and
NAVY.
Discipline.
Personnel, willing to enter it, were released, provided the debt did notex-
's—>ceed L.30 ; and no seaman in the fleet was to be arrested for
any debt not exceeding L.20. The whole proceeding under
this act incurred a very heavy expense, and totally failed.
In the same year, the Queen referred to the Prince of
Denmark, then lord high admiral, an address from the
House of Lords, relating to the three following points:—
1^, The most effectual means for manning the fleet; 2c?,
The encouragement and increase of the number of seamen ;
3c?, The restoring and preserving the discipline of the navy.
His Koyal Highness submitted these points to such of the
flag-officers and other commanders as could be assembled,
who made a report, of which the substance was to the fol¬
lowing effect:—\st, To cause a general register to be kept
of all seafaring men in England and Ireland, for which
they presented the draft of a bill; 2d, That all marines
qualified to act as seamen should be discharged from the
army, the officers to have levy money and the men’s cloth¬
ing returned; 3o?, That not fewer than 20,000 seamen should
be kept in employ in time of peace. But they observe,
that as to restoring and preserving the discipline of the
navy, no particular defect being specified, they could pro¬
nounce no opinion on that head.
I he discipline of the navy, or the government of Her
Majesty’s ships, vessels, and forces by sea, is regulated by
the act 22d Geo. II., usually known by the name of the
Articles of War. By this act, the lords commissioners of
the Admiralty are empowered to order courts-martial for all
offences mentioned therein, and committed by any person
in and belonging to the fleet and in full pay; and also to
delegate the same power to admirals commanding in chief
on foreign stations, which power also may devolve on his
successor in case of death or recall, provided that no com¬
mander-in-chief of any fleet or squadron, or detachment
thereof, consisting of more than five ships, shall preside at
any court-martial in foreign parts, the officer next in com¬
mand being ordered to preside thereat.
By this act no court-martial can consist of more than
thirteen or of less than five persons, to be composed of such
flag-officers, captains, or commanders, then and there pre¬
sent, as are next in seniority to the officer who presides at
the court-martial. And when there are but three officers
of the rank of captains, the president is to call in as many
commanders under that rank as will make up five in all.
This code of laws for the government of the fleet con¬
sists of thirty-six articles, of which nine award the punish¬
ment of death, and eleven death or such other punishment
as the court-martial shall deem the offence to deserve.
Those which incur the former penalty are,—the holding
illegal correspondence with an enemy; cowardice or neglect
of duty in time of action ; not pursuing the enemy ; deser¬
tion to the enemy ; making mutinous assemblies ; striking a
superior officer ; burning magazines, vessels, &c., not belong¬
ing to an enemy; murder ; sodomy. The penalty of death
for cowardice, or other neglect of duty, in time of action
(art. 12), and of not pursuing the enemy (art. 13), was, by
the 19th George III., so far mitigated as to authorize the
court-martial “ to pronounce sentence of death, or to in¬
flict such other punishment as the nature and degree of
the offence shall be found to deserve.” Under these articles
thus mitigated, Admiral Byng would probably not have
been condemned to death. The other eleven articles, which
leave the punishment to the discretion of the court, are,—not
preparing for fight, or not encouraging the men in time of
action; suppression of any letter or message sent from an
enemy; spies delivering letters, &c., from an enemy; re¬
lieving an enemy ; disobedience of orders in time of action;
discouraging the men on various pretences ; not taking care
of and defending ships under convoy ; quarrelling with and
disobeying a superior officer in the execution of his office ;
wilfully neglecting the steering of ships; sleeping on watch,
107
Courts-
martial.
Articles of
War.
and forsaking his station ; robbery. The remaining sixteen Personnel,
articles incur the penalty of dismission from the service or
from the ship, degradation of rank, or such other punish¬
ment as the court may judge the nature and degree of the
offence to deserve.
The discipline of the navy is also maintained, and greatly Queen’s
depends upon the strict carrying out, on the part of the Regula-
commanding officers, and the observance by all others, oftionsand
the regulations and instructions issued from time to time ^dmiralty
by the lords of the Admiralty, under sanction of the Queen tions*10"
in Council, for the government of Her Majesty’s forces at sea. 10nS’
The first regular code of printed instructions would ap¬
pear to be that known as the Duke of York’s Sailing and
Fighting Instructions, bearing date about 1660, which
formed the basis of all the subsequent ones. There have been
various editions from time to time; but by far the most
comprehensive, while at the same time clear and as concise
as the nature of the work would admit, is that now in use,
which was prepared, as we have said, in 1844, with great skill
and labour, by Admiral Sir George Cockburn, than whom
there never was an officer before nor'since so intimately
acquainted with all the duties and professional details of
the service, or more anxious for its welfare. In the com¬
pilation of this important and laborious work, known as the
Queen's Regulations and Admiralty Instructions, he was
assisted by Mr Barrow. Fourteen years have now elapsed,
and it is quite time,—but unhappily Sir George Cockburn
is no more,—that there should be a new edition brought
out, embodying all the new orders and regulations, and con¬
sequent alterations and additions. There are upwards of
800 printed circulars alone, we believe, which have been
subsequently issued, independently of written orders.
Much, however, of the internal discipline of a ship of Petty pun-
war depends upon the captain, who, being empowered to ishment.
punish the men for minor offences, according to the usage
of the service, courts-martial on seamen are rarely found
necessary to be resorted to in well-regulated ships. In 1853
a more uniform system, defining the nature and duration of
minor punishments, was promulgated by the Board of Admi¬
ralty. The principal circumstance which formerly militated
against the perfect good order of the crew, was the great
allowance of grog served out daily to the men, as established
by order in Council, and which frequently led to drunkenness,
and this again to insubordination. Perhaps half the punish¬
ments in the navy were, and still are, for this offence, which
it requires the utmost vigilance and precautions on the part
of the officers to prevent; but since the recent report of
the committee of flag officers, which assembled in 1850,
upon the question of the issue of spirits to the Royal Navy,
and the diminution of the supply to one-half the quantity,—
viz., from one gill to half a gill daily, with compensation-
payment in money for the remainder,—-the non-issue of raw
spirits (the allowance of which is now mixed with three
times its quantity of water), the stoppage of it altogether to
boys of second class, and the issue of it at the discretion of
the captain to boys of first class,—consequent upon the
report of the committee,—there has been less drunkenness
in the navy and less necessity for punishment. Great credit
is mainly due to Admiral Sir James Deans Dundas, for his
anxiety and humane exertions in endeavouring to suppress
the punishment in the fleet, in which he has thus so happily
succeeded.
I he greatest desire has been evinced by many boards of
Admiralty, of late years (more particularly those of Sir James
Graham, the Earls of Minto, Haddington, and Auckland, and
of Sir PVancis Baring), to improve all branches of the ser¬
vice, and to render the Royal Navy as attractive as possible
both to officers and men. One of the most material improve¬
ments is the attention which has been paid to the education
both of boys and men. Seamen’s libraries have been estab¬
lished on a large scale, and boys’ schools; and rated ships
108
NAVY.
Personnel, have all got chaplains, naval instructors, and seamen’s school-
master appointed to them. Why sloops and small vessels
should be without one or the other it is not easy to compre¬
hend. One thing, however, yet remains to be carried out,
viz., daily prayers on board every ship in the service. They
are read in a few well-regulated men-of-war on some sta¬
tions, and were never omitted in any one of the ships en¬
gaged in the Arctic squadron. It is not too much to say,
that owing principally to this, and to there being little or
no opportunity for drunkenness, no corporal punishment
was ever inflicted. The practice of daily prayers on board
men-of-war is of ancient date, and the omission compara¬
tively modern. In all the earlier editions of the regula¬
tions, till that of 1810, an order for daily service will be
found.
Effects of In other respects the discipline of a well-organized ship
discipline, of war is perfect; and to this discipline M. Dupin, a trench
writer of great sagacity, mainly ascribes the brilliant suc¬
cesses of the British navy, and to the want of it the ruin
of that of France. “ We have already cited,” says he,
“ as a model, the management of the materiel of the Eng¬
lish ships. In the preservation of this materiel, in the
stowing it away, in the arrangement of whatever may be
necessary either for manoeuvres or for action, the most
perfect regularity is observed. At the same time, what be¬
coming austerity is maintained by the commanding officer;
what obedience amongst the subalterns; and, in a space so
limited, considering the number of men on board, and the
multiplicity of movements they have to make in obeying so
many different orders, what imposing silence! It is the calm¬
ness of strength, the presiding influence of wisdom. In the
midst of the most complicated operations, and even in the
heat and transport of battle, one hears only the words of
command, pronounced and repeated from rank to rank, with
a measured tone and perfect sang froid. No unseasonable
advices, no murmurs, no tumult. The commanders medi¬
tate in silence; the word is given, and the men act without
either speaking or thinking.” This is remarkably so in
the day of battle. Every officer and man knows pre¬
cisely his place, and the duty he has to perform, on that
day. By the general printed instructions, the captains
of Her Majesty’s ships are required to accustom the men
to assemble at their proper quarters, to exercise them
at the great guns, to teach them to point, fire, &c., under
all circumstances of sea and weather. Indeed, it is
well known that the preservation of the high character of
the British navy essentially depends on the proper training
of the seamen to the expert management of the guns, so as
to be duly prepared in the day of battle, the issue of which
so mainly depends on the cool, steady, and regular manner
in which the ship’s ordnance is loaded, pointed, and fired.
Practice in these respects is much more necessary on board
ships than on shore, as it can never happen that the ship is
entirely steady, and has most frequently a rolling or pitch¬
ing motion, for which allowances must be made, and which
can only be made with effect by long practice.
Since 1830, when the Excellent was first established,
much attention has been paid to the practice of gun¬
nery in the Royal Navy; and all mates have to pass
an examination on board that ship, which is stationed at
Portsmouth for the practice of gunnery, where officers and
men are instructed. They, too, pass examinations, and are
appointed gunnery lieutenants and mates in the several sea¬
going ships; and the men are appointed seamen-gun-
ners,—a rating of comparatively recent date. The training
of seamen for landing in brigades with field-pieces has lately
been adopted with great success.
Naval tac- If the management of the great guns of a ship of war is
tics. more difficult than the artillery of a fort, so likewise are
naval tactics more difficult than those of an army; inasmuch
as there is more difficulty and less dependence in placing
and directing the movements of an inanimate than an ani- Personnel,
mate machine; although the recent introduction of auxiliary
steam-engines in all the line-of-battle ships and frigates,
and in many of the corvettes and sloops, has placed them
under greater control. The general principles, however,
are the same; the object of both being that of bringing
the greatest possible force to bear on that point which is
likely to produce the greatest possible injury to the enemy.
With this view, as well as to keep a fleet together in com¬
pact order, so that straggling ships may not be cut off by
the enemy, it has been found necessary to preserve a cer¬
tain order of sailing, whether out of sight of an enemy or
in his presence; and such an order as, according to the
state of the wind and weather, and the point of bearing of
the enemy’s fleet, may most conveniently and expeditiously
be changed into such a line of battle as the commander-in¬
chief may deem it most expedient to adopt in the attack to be
made on his opponent. In order to do this, it is obvious that
every individual captain must be able to know, under all cir¬
cumstances, what the ship he commands will be able to do, in
order to preserve her station in the fleet; for it is with ships
as with horses, no two perhaps performing the same evolu¬
tion with the same tightness of rein, or the same pressure of
sail or steam. This shows the absolute necessity of a com¬
mander-in-chief frequently exercising his fleet in naval
tactics, and to observe how such and such a ship will be¬
have under a certain quantity of canvas and steam-power,
and to assign her station in the line where she may ap¬
pear calculated to act with the greatest efficiency. To
facilitate these movements, the admirals commanding
squadrons are considered as responsible for the movement
of the ships in their respective divisions. They are
to see that each captain strictly obeys the general order;
and if any one is perceived to neglect his duty, whether
belonging to his proper division or not, if in action, he has
the power to send immediately another officer to suspend
him. And in order that no confusion may arise, if, in time
of battle, the admiral commanding in chief, or any of the
admirals commanding squadrons, should be killed, his or
their flags remain flying till the battle is decided. If the
commander-in-chief be killed or severely wounded, a pri¬
vate signal is made to the second in command; or if a
junior admiral be killed or wounded, the commander-in¬
chief is also acquainted by signal.
Since the introduction of steam, the system of naval tac- steam tac¬
tics has undergone a great change, and some well-planned, tics,
well-tried scheme of naval steam tactics is yet a desidera¬
tum. Admiral Moorsom was the first to turn attention to
this subject. Happily no two steam fleets have hitherto been
engaged in action, or brought into hostile collision ; neither
has there been any separate action with single steam-ships.
The silent method of communicating what is going on c0(je of
is the perfection of naval tactics; indeed it is very difficult naval sig-
to conceive how our ancestors contrived to manage a fleet nals.
without a code of signals. For great and important occa¬
sions, the exhibition of a flag or flags, in some particular
part of the ship, might be generally understood to imply
that the fleet should anchor, or tack, or form the order of
sailing in two lines, or the line of battle, or some other great
movement. The hoisting of a cask at the yard-arm might
be understood to imply a want of water; or a hatchet, of
wood; or an empty bag, of bread ; and the table-cloth was
a very significant invitation to dinner; but they had no
means of interchanging freely their wants or intentions, or
of conveying detailed intelligence. Even so late as the
American war there was no established code of signals in the
navy. “If an admiral,” saysDr Beatson in his db\eMemoirs,
“ cannot command all the necessary movements of his
ships by signal in the day of battle, he is not upon a foot¬
ing with an enemy who possesses that advantage; and,
even with better ships and better men, and more expe-
N A
Personnel, rienced commanders, he may be foiled in his expectations
of victory, if not defeated, from his want of means to direct
and to perform the necessary evolutions of his fleet.” “ In
no fight,” he adds, “ was the insufficiency of the present
system of naval signals more conspicuous than in this
(Keppel’s unfortunate action); and it is to be hoped that
if ever a new code be adopted for the use of the Royal Navy,
it may be so clear and comprehensive, that such fatal errors
as those which have been pointed out will in future be pre¬
vented.” This, we may now say, has been accomplished
on a plan of Sir Home Popham, which (together with
Marryatt’s) has rendered signals by flags as nearly perfect
Boat sig- as they probably ever will be. Boat signals are also of
nals. the utmost importance; and the navy is indebted to Cap¬
tain Wilmot for an admirable code which has recently been
introduced by him, and is now in general use.
Improve- The encouragement afforded by government to every
ment in branch of science connected with the navy, and navigation
navigation. in general, has been carried much farther by England than
by any other European nation, and has produced the hap¬
piest results for commercial enterprise, by determining
with accuracy the precise position of ships, by shortening
long voyages, and by the discovery of new lands and un¬
explored regions. The name of Admiral Sir Francis Beau¬
fort, who was for many years hydrographer of the Admi¬
ralty, and has recently departed this life, will ever hold a
prominent position in the naval annals of England as one
who, in his generation, rendered the utmost service, not
only to his profession, but to the navy and marine of all
nations, by the extreme care and accuracy with which the
numerous charts published under his immediate superin¬
tendence have been issued to the world, embracing elaborate
surveys in all parts of the globe. From the commencement
of the eighteenth century, when a national reward was first
offered to the man of science, or the artist, who should dis¬
cover a method sufficiently exact to determine the longitude
of a ship’s place at sea, to the present time, the improvements
V Y.
in the construction and division of all kinds of instruments Personnel,
for measuring angles, in the calculations of lunar and other
tables, and, above all, in the manufacture and adjustments
of chronometers, have continued in gradual progression
and may now be considered as having arrived a? such a*
degree of perfection, more especially the chronometers, that
the discovery of the longitude can scarcely be said to re¬
main a desideratum. We may form an idea what the pro¬
gress in the improvement of chronometers has been, when
a reward was offered by Parliament in the year 1814, to the
first w'ho should determine the longitude at sea within a de¬
gree ; and in 1820, three chronometers, after remaining in
the arctic regions for 18 months, returned to England with¬
out altering their rates more than a few seconds of time.
1 he officers of the Royal Navy are now much more gene¬
rally versed in the sciences than they were in former years.
In fact, it is now necessary for a young man to be well
acquainted with a certain portion of mathematical and
astronomical knowledge to enable him to pass an exami¬
nation, without which he cannot be qualified for the com¬
mission of a lieutenant. Lord Auckland, desirous of en¬
couraging a taste for scientific pursuits, caused a valuable
scientific manual to be drawn up in the year 1847, and
issued to the fleet. The examinations also of the several
warrant-officers, and their qualifications for their respec¬
tive stations, are more strictly attended to than formerly.
The encouragement given to the navy from its first re- Pay and
gular establishment has marked it as a favourite service emofu*
in the minds of the public. The sea-pay, the half-pay, and ment8*
other emoluments, have generally been superior to those
enjoyed by the army, but subject to great fluctuations in
every reign, and to frequent changes in the same reign.
1 he following table will exhibit, at one view, the com¬
plete war establishment of officers and non-commissioned
officers, seamen, and marines, on board every class of Her
Majesty’s ships, with the rate of pay now granted to each,
as established by order in Council:—
Full Pay of the Royal Navy.
FLAG OFFICERS AND THEIR RETINUE.
Admiral of the Fleet  
Admiral ,...., 
Vice-Admiral  
Rear-Admiral    ■)
Commodore of the First Class    ' j
Table Money to all the above, in addition, u hen Commanding in Chief, and whilst their Flag )
is flying within the limits of their Station    f
Captain of the Fleet. (For pay, see Captains.)
Commodore of the Second Class, n If Commanding in Chief
in addition to his Pay as Cap¬
tain, if so ordered by the Ad¬
miralty  ) If not Commanding in Chief
Flag-Lieutenant. (For pay, see Lieutenants.)
Master of the Fleet. (For pay, see Masters.)
/ To the Admiral of the Fleet 
Secretary  j To a Flag Officer, Commander-in-Chief 
^   j To all other Flag Officers and Commodores of the 1st Class
\ To a Commodore of the 2d Class 
Clerk to the Secretary ( ^ a CTomraa"d]er-i^hief--”   -••••••••••••’—
J ( To a Junior Flag Officer or Commodore of the 1st Class...
Coxswain   To a Flag Officer  
Steward ^  
Cook   I Ditto  j
Domestic  j   >
Secretary’s Servant  I
Captain of the Fleet  
f 1st Class.
Captain 3 ;d Class.
* ] 3d Class.
COMMISSION OFFICERS.
Commander
To the first 70, when employed 
To the next 100, ■when employed 
To all other Captains, when employed, below j
the first 170  j
Year.
L. s. d.
2190 0 0
1825 0 0
1460 0 0
1095 0 0
1095 0 0
365 0 0
182 10 0
500 7 1
401 10 0
301 2 6
150 11 3
66 18 4
54 15 0
36 10 0
450
301
24 6 8
1095 0 0
701 2 1
574 17 6
3 4
2 6
Month
of 31 Days.
L. s. d.
186 0 0
155 0 0
124 0 0
93 0 0
93 0 0
31 0 0
15 10 0
38 7 8
30 16 0
25 11 6
12 15 9
5 13 8
4 13 0
3 2 0
2 14
93 0 0
59 10 11
48 16 6
38 4
25 11
Day.
L. s. d.
6 0 0
5 0 0
4 0 0
3 0 0
3 0 0
10 0
0 10 0
1 7
1 2
0 16
0 8
0 3
0 1 10
3 0 0
1 18 5
1 11 6
14 8
0 16 6
110
Personnel
NAVY.
Full Pay of the Royal Navy—Continued.
COMMISSION OFFICERS—Continued.
Lieutenant.
Master.
I In Command of any Ship or Tender other than those on the
Packet or Surveying Establishment 
I Senior of a sea-going rated Ship 
Ditto of a Flag Ship at the Home Ports 
Ditto of a rated Surveying Vessel, if he re¬
ceive no additional Pay as Assistant Sur¬
veyor  
Ditto of a Troop Ship  
'An      * 
Of the Fleet 
1st and 2d (if 20 Years’ Service, &c.)   
„ (if 15 Years’ Service, &c.) 
( 1st, 2d, and 3d Rates...
( Store Allowance when in Charge •! 4th, 5th, and 6th Rates
[ Sloops, &c 
( (If 10 Years’ Service, &c.) 
In all other Ships 1 (If 6 Years’ Service, &c.) 
(, (Less than 6 Years’ Service)  
f Above 10 Years’ Service Afloat 
Chaplain < Under 10 „ „ „    
I >) 3 ,, „ „   
(Above 10 Years’ Service as Naval Instructor 
” I ” ” ” ”
Under 3 ’/, ” ” ”,
Tuition allowance for each young Gentleman Instructed...
Medical Inspector of Hospitals f Above 5 Years’ Service as such  
and Fleets \ Under 5 Years’ Service as such     
Deputy Medical Inspector of Hospitals and Fleets    
With such further allowance when employed in Hospitals on Shore, as their Lordships
may think proper.
If employed on the
1st July 1840, or
on the completion
of 3 Years’ Ser¬
vice from 1st
January 1838.
Surgeon.
Paymaster.
Assistant Paymaster in Charge.
Assistant Paymaster, 1st Class .
„ 2d Class .
Clerk 
Of an Hospital Ship  
Above 20 Years’ Full Pay Service, in¬
cluding Service as Assistant Sur¬
geon   
Above 10 Years’ ditto 
» 6 „  
Under 6 „  
If unemployed on Above 20 Years’ Full Pay Service,
the 1st July 1840, including 3 Years’ service only as
until the comple- Assistant Surgeon 
tion of 3 Years’! Above 10 Years’ ditto 
Service from 1st I ,, 6 „  
January 1838. ^ Under 6 „    
(1st Class, 30 in number       
2d Class, 60 „  
^ 3d Class, 80 „  
1 4th Class, 130 „    
Assistant Clerk      
Mate         
fin Ships in which! Aboye 10 Years, Full P Service...
) nojurgenn „
1 In Ships in which a f ^^ove ” ”
\ Surgeon is borne. | ^ 3 ’’ ”
{In all Rates if qualified for Master 
If not qualified for Master, but above 4 Years’ Full Pay
Service..    
If not qualified for Master, and under 4 Years’ Service....
Store allowance when in Charge 
If in ships hearing a Master, and from his absence or other cause, the stores should be placed under
charge of a Second Master, the same store allowance is to be made to the latter as regulated for the
former ; or when a Second Master or other officer shall have charge of the stores in a tender, the Lords
Commissioners of the Admiralty will decide, according to the circumstances of the case, whether any or
what portion of the store allowance shall be granted to such officer.
Assistant Surgeon
Second Master
SUBORDINATE AND WARRANT OFFICERS.
"Above 10 Years’ Service on Full Pay as such 
» 7 » ,,  
Naval Instructor ( „ 3 „ „  
Under 3 ,, ,,   
Tuition allowance for each young Gentleman Instructed 
Midshipman   .'.In all Rates 
Year.
L. s. d.
200 15 0
Month
of 31 Days.
L. s. d.
182 10
365 0
328 10
273 15
73 0
48 13
38 0
219 0
200 15
182 10
200 15
182 10
161 4
136 17
115 11
104 18
95 16
5 0
766 10
574 17
365 0
328 10 0
255 10 0
219 0 0
200 15 0
328 10 0
255 10
200 15
182 10
600 14
474 10
349 15 10
249 8 4
155 2
127 15
91 5
73 0
45 12
66 18
184 0
165 15
174 17 11
156 12 11
147 10 5
91 0 5
73 0 0
66 18 4
27 7 6
L. s. d.
17 1 0 0 11 0
15 10 0
31 0 0
27 18 0
23 5 0
6 4 0
4 2 8
3 4 7
18 12 0
17 1 0
15 10 0
17 1 0
15 10 0
13 13 10
11 12 6
9 16
8 18
8 2
0 8
65 2
48 16
21 14
17 1
15 10
51 0
40 6
29 14
21 3
13 3
10 17
7 15
6 4
3 17
5 13
15 12
14 1
14 17
16 6
12 10
182 10 6
155 2 6
136 17 6
127 15 0
5 0 0
31 18 9
31 0 0
27 18 0
21 14 0
18 12 0
17 1 0
27 18 0
7 15 0
6 4 0
5 13 8
2 6 6
15 10 0
13 3 6
11 12 6
10 17 6
0 8 5
2 14 3
0 10 0
10 0
0 18 0
0 15 0
0 4 0
0 2 8
0 2 1
0 12 0
0 11 0
0 10 0
0 11 0
0 10 0
0 8 10
0 7 6
0 6 4
0 5 9
0 5 3
0 0 3
2 2 0
1 11
1 0
0 18 0
0 14 0
0 12 0
0 11 0
0 18 0
0 14 0
0 11 0
0 10 0
1 12 11
16 0
0 19 2
0 13 8
0 8 0
0 7
0 5
0 4
0 2
0 3
0 10 1
0 9 1
0 9
0 8
0 8
0 5
0 4 0
0 3 8
0 16
0 10 0
0 8 6
0 7 6
0 7 0
0 0 3
0 19
Personnel.
Personnel.
N A V Y.
Full Pay of the Royal Navy—Continued.
SUBORDINATE AND WARRANT OFFICERS.
Master’s Assistant.
Kaval Cadet 
.In all Rates.
Gunner ^
Boatswain l
Carpenter J
Inspectors of Machinery and
Chief Engineers   
Assistant Engineers (on New
Establishment) 
(1st Class 
Sea Pay < 2d Class   
V 3d Class  
Tool Money to Carpenter on Sea Pay 
TT , d • f 1st Class   
Harbour Service I 2d Clasg 
Pay  I 3d Class.. 
Inspectors of Machinery, when appointed to take charge I
of the Machinery of a Fleet or Squadron   J
Inspectors of Machinery 
Chief Engineers above 20 Years’ Service as Chief Engineers, 1
if qualified for 1st or 2d rates  |
Chief Engineers, 15 Years’ Service as Chief Engineers, if 1
qualified for 1st or 2d rates    J
Chief Engineers, 10 Years’ Service as Chief Engineers 
Chief Engineers, 6 Years’ Service „  
Chief Engineers, less tha» 6 Years’ Service, ,,  
Engineers qualified for Charge, with an increase of Is. 1
a day after 6 years’ Sea Service as Engineers in Charge J
Sea Pay and when \ ( 1st Class  
employed in Dock- V Assistant Engineer-i 2d Class  
yards J ( 3d Class  
Harbour Service J Assistant Engineer 12d Class
t 3d Class
Year.
L.
47
16 14
120
103
86 13
4 11
s. d.
2 11
2 11
8 4
101 17 11
79 1
63 17
365 0
328 10
328 10 0
282 17 6
237 5 0
209 17 6
182 10 0
182 10 0
158
126
106
88
69 19
56 5
Month
of 31 Days.
L. s. d.
4 0 1
18 5
10 4 1
8 15 8
7 7 3
0 7 9
8 13 1
6 14 4
5 8 6
31 0 0
27 18 0
27 18 0
24 0 6
20 3
17 16
15 10 0
15 10 0
13 8 8
10 14 5
9 0 10
7 9 10
5 18 10
4 15 7
Day.
L- s. d
0 2 7
0 0 11
0 6 7
5
4
0
5
4
3
10 0
0 18 0
0 18 0
0 15 6
0 13
0 11
0 10
0 10 0
Table of Pay of Petty Officers, Seamen, and Boys, in the Royal Navy.
Rate of Pay for Men
entering under the Old
System, in all Rates.
31 Days.
L. s. d.
3 2 036 10 0
2 14 3,31 18 9
Chief Petty Officers.
Master at Arms   
Chief Gunner’s Mate 
Chief Boatswain’s Mate 
Chief Captain of the Fore¬
castle   
Admiral’s Coxswain 
Chief Quarter Master 
*Chief Carpenter’s Mate  '
Seamen’s Schoolmaster 
Ship’s Steward :—•
1 ° 1 a
New Rate of Pay for
Continuous-Service
Men, in all Rates.
31 Days. Year.
8. d.
2 0
2 0
. d. s. d.
3 65 6
3 05 0
2 02 64 6
2 02 04 0
1st Rates
2d Rates
3d Rates ,
4th Rates
5th Rates 2 01 6|3 6
6th Rates ;20 1 lj3 1
Sloops, &c.,
with a com- . . .
plementof 100 > 2 OiO 8 2 8
men and up- I
wards. ?
Smallervessels[2 o|o 4,2
1st Class Working Petty Officers.
 \
Ship’s Corporal 
Gunner’s Mate 
Boatswain’s Mate 
Captain’s Coxswain 
Captain of the Forecastle ....
Quarter-Master 
Coxswain of the Launch 
Captain of the Main-Top 
Captain of the Fore-Top 
Captain of the Afterguard...
Captain of the Hold 
3 9 9
41 17 0
3 2 0
100 7 6
91 5 0
82 2 6
73 0 0
63 17 6
56 5 5
48 13 4
42 11 8
36 10 0
Rate of Pay for Men
entering under the Old
System, in all Rates.
31 Days.
3 2 0
2 9 1
36 10 0j
2 11 8
2 9 1
2 11 8
2 9 1
28 17 11v
EATINGS.
1st Class Working Petty Officers-
Continued.
Sailmaker  
Ropemaker 
*Carpenter’s Mate 
*Caulker 
Blacksmith 
Leading Stoker 
30 8 4
28 17 11
30 8 4
28 17 11
2d, Class Working Petty Officers.
Coxswain of the Barge \
Coxswain of the Pinnace 
Captain of the Mast 
Second Captain of the Fore¬
castle   
Second Captain of the Main¬
top 
Second Captain of the Fore¬
top  
Yeoman of the Signals 
Second Captain of the After¬
guard  
Captain of the Mizen-top 
Sailmaker’s Mate  
Coxswain of the Cutter !
f Cooper 
Armourer 
^Caulker’s Mate 
Musician   
Head Krooman 
New Rate of Pay for
Continuous-Service
Men, in all Rat s.
3 9 9,41 1 3
2 6 627 7 6
2 9 128 17 11
2 3 11
25 17 1
2 14 331 18 9
2 1 4,24 6 8
2 16 10
2 19 5
2 16 10
2 19 5
33 9 2
34 19
33 9
Leading Seaman 2 14 3
^Shipwright 2 16 10
Yeoman of the Store-Room...
Second Captain of the Hold..
Painter 
Sailmaker’s Crew 
Blacksmith’s Mate 
Armourer’s Crew 
*Carpenter’s Crew 
fCooper’s Crew 
Stoker and Coal Trimmer ....
Able Seaman 
2 11 8
34 19 7
31 18
33 9
30 8 4
0 36 10 0
128 17 11
NAVY.
Table of Pay of Petty Officers, Seamen, and Boys, in the Royal Navy—Continued.
Personnel.
Fate of Pay for Men
entering under the Old
System, in all Rates.
31 Days.
L. *. d.
2 6 6
2 14
L. «. d.
27 7 6
24 6 8
Sick Berth Attendant  ^
Bandman 
Tailor   
Butcher   
Second Head Krooman 
Flag Officer’s and Superin¬
tendent’s Domestics.,.. 
Captain’s Steward  
Captain’s Cook 
Ward, or Gun-Room Steward
Ward, or Gun-Room Cook ...
Secretary’s Servant   J
New Rate of Pay for
Continuous-Service
Men, in all Rates.
31 Days.
L. 8. d,
L. 8. d.
Rate of Pav for Men
entering unaer the Old
System, in all Rates.
31 Days.
Year.
R. s. d.!L. 8, d.
2 1 4 24 6 8 <
1 13 719 15 6
I
1 8 516 14 7<j
018 110 12 11{
0 15 6 9 2 6
New Rate of Pay for
Continuous-Service
Men, in all Rates.
Subordinate Officer’s Steward 1
Subordinate Officer’s Cook... >
Ship Steward’s Assistant )
Ordinary Seaman..... 1 18 9
Cook’s Mate   
Barber 
Second-Class Ordinary Seaman 1 11 0
Commander’s Servant 
Kroomen 
Ship’s Steward’s Boy 
Boy of the First Class.... |0 18 1
Boy of the Second Class 0 15 6
31 Days. Year.
16 3
"5 0
12 11
2 6
Seamen Gunners to receive Id. a day in the 2d Class, and 2d..a day in the 1st Class, in addition to all other pay of their ratings.
Divers to receive Id. a day in addition to all other pay of their ratings. . .. ,
Men with these ratings (*), who have a complete set of tools, to receive 3d. a day for tool money, in addition to all other pay of their ratings.
Men with
Seamen’s
Steward’s
Rate of Full Pay, Half Pay, and Retirement of Medical Officers serving in Hospitals, §c.
FULL PAY.
Medical Inspector of Hospitals—
On first appointment  
After 5 years’ service    
Deputy Med. Inspect, of Hospitals, on appointment.
Per Diem.
L. S. d.
1 13
2 2
1 7
FULL PAY.
Surgeons of Hospitals—
On appointment with less than 20 years’ ser¬
vice      
Above 20 years’ service 
Per Diem.
L. *. d.
0 16 6
10 6
Scale of Retirement for Inspectors, Deputy-Inspectors, &c., on the principle of allowing all Service to count in
claims for Retirement, as recommended by the Naval and Military Commission.
ACTIVE SERVICE.
Inspectors, from date of promotion to the
rank (unless entitled to a higher
rate by previous service) 
„ after 20 years’ service, including 3
years as Inspector of Hospitals...
„ after 25 years’ service 
„ after 30 „  
„ after 35 „   
„ after 40 „  
Retirement.
Per Diem. Per Annum.
L. *. d.
0 17 6
l 1
1 4
1 7
1 9
1 12
L. s. d.
319 7 6
392 7 6
442 11 3
492 15 0
541 8 4
593 2 6
ACTIVE SERVICE.
Deputy-Insp’tors, from date of promotion
to the rank (unless entitled to a
higher rate by previous service
„ after 20 years’ service, including 3
years as Deputy-Inspector 
„ after 25 years’ service 
„ after 30 „  
„ after 35 „  
,, after 40 „  
Retirement.
Per Diem. Per Annum.
L. j. d.
0 15 0
0 17 6
0 19 9
12 0
14 3
16 6
L. s . d.
273 15 0
319 7 6
360 8 9
401 10 0
442 11 3
483 12 6
Pay of Royal Marines.
RANKS, &c.
First Colonel-Commandant 
Second do.  
Lieutenant-Colonel     
Captain, having higher rank by Brevet
Captain
First
T. . , f Above 7 years’
JjieutGnant yt a i ?
( Under 7 years
service
service
Year.
Adjutant (in addition to his pay as First Lieutenant).
Quartermaster do. do.
Second Lieutenant  
Cadet 
Serjeant-Major 
Colour-Serjeant 
Quartermaster’s Serjeant.
Serjeant 
Corporal  
*Fifer or Drummer.
Private   
1st Class
3d Class
Good Conduct or Badge Pay.
Gratuities to Serjeants and Corporals. (See Petty Officers.)
( 1st Class ,
{ 3d Class ,
t 1 badge ..
2 badges
3 badges
4 badges
5 badges
6 badges
L. ». d.
702 12 6
365 0 0
310 5 0
247 17 11
211 7 11
136 17 6
118 12
118 12
85 3
95 16
66 18
54 15
42 11
45 12
33 9
27 7
24 6
20 18
21
18
1 10
3 0 10
4 11 3
6 18
7 12 1
9 2 6
6
6
4
3
4
0
8
6
2
6
8
2f
5 10
5 0
5
Month
of 31 Days.
L. s.
59 13
31 0
26 7
21 1
17 19
11 12
d.
6
0
0
1
1
6
6
6
8
9
8
0
4
3 17 6
2 16 10
6 6
1 4
8 2
5 13
4 13
3 12
2
2
1 15
1 16
1 11
0 2
2
0
7
0 5 2
0 7 9
0 10 4
0 12 11
0 15 6
L. s. d.
1 18 6
10 0
0 17 0
0 13 7
0 11
0 7
0 6
6
4
5
3
1 10
0 0
0 0
0 0
0 0
NAVY.
Pay of Royal Marine Artillery.
113
Personnel.
RANKS, &c.
Second Colonel-Commandant 
Lieutenant-Colonel   
Captain, having higher rank hy Brevet.
Capta
Captain superintending the Laboratory   
First Lieutenant   { ^ve \ serv|ce
| Under 7 years’ service
Second Lieutenant          
Serjeant-Major 
Serjeant attending the Laboratory 
Colour-Serjeant 
Serjeant   
Corporal   {  
Fifer or Drummer.,..,     
Bombardier   /  
\ 3d Class 
Gunner    | 1st Class 
\ 3d Class 
N-B-—Corporals, Fifers, or Drummers, Bombardiers and Gunners, who obtain Good
Conduct Badges, are allowed additional pay according to the regulated scale.
Yeab.
L. s.
479 1
326 19
257 0
220 10
220 10
142 19
124 14
101 17 11
74 18
63 17
53 12
44 9
42 11
39 10 10
26 4 8J
39 10 10
36 10 0
26 4 8jr
23 3 10J
Month
of 31 Days.
L. s.
40 13
27 15
21 16
18 14
18 14
12 2 10
10 11 10
8 13 1
6 7 2
5 8 6
4 11
3 15
3 12
3 7
4
2
6f
2
0
1 19 4|
Personnel.
Day.
L. s. d.
16 3
0 17 11
0 14 1
0 12 1
0 12 1
0 7 10
0 6 10
0 5 7
0 4 1£
0 3 6
0 2 11J
0 2 5£
2
2
1
2
2
1
1
4
2
5i
2
0
5i
3*
Establish¬
ment of
half-pay.
Though the navy, as we have seen, was put upon a re¬
gular establishment under the reign of Henry VIII., nei¬
ther officers nor seamen received any pay or emolument
in time of peace until the reign of Charles II., when in
1668 certain allowances were made to flag-officers and
their captains out of the L.200,000 a year voted for the
whole naval service; and in 1674 certain other allowances
were granted, by order in Council, to captains who had
commanded ships of the first and second rates, and to the
second captains to flag-officers, on the ground, as assigned
in the preamble, that they had undergone the brunt of
the war, without sharing in the incident advantages of it,
as prizes, convoys, and such like, which the commanders
of the smaller classes of ships had enjoyed. But the first
regular establishment of half-pay for all flag-officers, cap¬
tains, first-lieutenants, and masters, was by King William,
in the year 1693, provided they had served a year in their
respective qualities, or had been in a general engagement
with the enemy. A regularly-established half-pay was fur¬
ther sanctioned by an order in Council of Queen Anne in
1700, the conditions of which were, that no officer should
enjoy the benefit thereof who had absented himself without
permission of the Lord High Admiral or lords commissioners
of the Admiralty, or who had been dismissed for any mis¬
demeanour, or by court-martial, or who had not behaved
himself to the satisfaction of the Lord High Admiral, or who
should have leisure to go out of his Majesty’s dominions, if
employed in the merchant service or otherwise, or who en¬
joyed the benefit of any public employment. Since the
above period the rate of half-pay to the several officers of
the navy has undergone various modifications. At present
it stands thus:—
Rates of Half-Pay at present established for the Navy and Marines.
FLAG OFFICERS.
Per Annum.
Admirals of the Fleet L.1149 15 0
Admirals   766 10 0
Vice-Admirals  593 2 6
Rear ditto  456 5 0
Flag Officers on reserved half-pay  456 5 0
Retired Rear-Admirals (under order in
Council of 1846)  456 5 0
CAPTAINS.
To each of the first 70 as they stand on the
active list of officers in seniority  L.264 12
To each of the next 100  228 2
To the rest  191 12
Retired (under order in Council of 1846).... 365 0
Do. do.   328 10
♦Retired Captain of 1840, and Aug. 1851... 191 12
Reserved half-pay (order (in Council, 25th
June 1851)  191 12
COMMANDERS.
To each of the first 150 in seniority on the
active and reserved lists combined  L.182 10
To the remainder  155 2
Reserved half-pay (order in Council, 25th
June 1851)    155 2
♦Retired Commander of 1816  155 2
* Do. do. 1830  127 15
* Do. do. 1846 (From the
Master's List)  228 2
* Do- do- do. ’ " (do.)”"” 191 12
Per Diem.
L.3 3 0
2 2 0
1 12 6
15 0
15 0
All lieutenants promoted to that rank after 1st July 1840 to receive
4s. a day, or L.73 per annum, to be increased to 5s. a day after three
years’ service as lieutenants in sea-going ships, and to advance by senior¬
ity to the rates of 6s. and 7s. a day; hut may be placed on the 5s. list if,
through illness contracted in the service, they shall have been unable
to serve three years at sea in that rank.
15 0
L.O 14 6
0 12 6
0 10 6
10 0
0 18 0
0 10 6
0 10 6
L.O 10 0
0 8 6
0 8
0 8
0 7
0 12
0 10
LIEUTENANTS.
To each of the first 300 on the list in senior¬
ity on the active and reserved lists com¬
bined  L.127 15 0
To each of the next 700 do., do  109 10 0
To the remainder    91 6 0
VOL. XVT.
L.O 7 0
0 6 0
0 5 0
ROYAL MARINES.
Per Annum. Per Diem.
Colonels  L.264 12 6 L.O 14 6
Lieutenant-Colonels  200 15 0 0 11 0
Captains  127 15 0 0 7 0
First Lieutenants of 7 years’ standing  82 2 6 0 4 6
The rest   73 0 0 0 4 0
Second Lieutenants  54 15 0 0 3 0
Above 20 years’ service in the rank of Mas¬
ter, if qualified for 1st and 2d rates  L.237 5 0 L.O 13 0
Above 15 years’ service in the rank of Mas¬
ter, if qualified for 1st and 2d rates  182 10 0 0 10 0
Above 10 years’service in the rank of Master 146 0 0 0 8 0
Above 5 do. do  109 10 0 0 6 0
Under 5 do. do  91 5 0 0 5 0
INSPECTORS OF MACHINERY AFLOAT AND CHIEF ENGINEERS.
Above 20 years’ service as Inspectors and
Chief Engineers, or as Chief Engineers, if
qualified for 1st or 2d rates  L.237 5 0 L.O 13 0
Above 15 years’ service as Inspectors and
Chief Engineers, or Chief Engineers, if
qualified for 1st or 2d rates  182 10 0 0 10 0
Above 10 years’ service as Inspectors and
Chief Engineers, or as Chief Engineers.... 146 0 0 0 8 0
Above 5 years’ service as Inspectors and
Chief Engineers, or as Chief Engineers.... 109 10 0 0 6 0
Under 5 years’ service as Inspectors and
Chief Engineers, or as Chief Engineers,,.. 91 5 0 0 5 0
114
Personnel.
NAVY.
MEDICAL OFFICESS.
Per Annum:
Medical Inspectors of Hospitals and Fleets L.319 7 6
After 5 years’ service as such  383 5 0
Physicians—After 10 years’ service  383 5 0
„ 3 years   273 15 0
Under that time.....   ,•••••  191 12 6
Deputy Medical Inspectors of Hospitals and
Fleets from date of promotion, unless en¬
titled to a higher rate by previous service
After 7 years’ service as such      
SURGEONS.
Surgeons     ^ ^
Above 6 years service    , if , ^
1A    IZi 10
273 15
319 7
Per Diem.
L.O 17 6
1 1 0
1 1 0
0 15 0
0 10 6
0 15
0 17
10
15
20
25
30
(with leave to retire),
do 
146 0
182 10
237 5
273 15
ASSISTANT-SURGEONS.
Assistant-Surgeons.....     I'-** W
Above 3 years’service ••••■ ^
„ 10 „     J
91
91
L.O
0
0
5 0
6 0
7 0
0 8 0
0 10 0
0 13 0
0 15 0
L.O
0
0
0
0
(i 20 j,    
Dispensers i     -
All medical officers below the rank of deputy medical inspector who
may hereafter be appointed to hospitals, and who may be superseded or
retire therefrom, shall, according to their respective ranks, receive the
rate of half-pay to which they may be entitled according to length of
service, all time included.
PAYMASTERS.
On the retired list    if n 7 n
To each of the next 200  a a f n
To the remainder......      91 5 0 0 5 u
Such Paymasters as shall serve three years under the new system will
receive half-pay at the following rates:—
If with 12 years’service as a Paymaster, 3 of ^ T ^ „
which in a 1st or 2d rate  L.191 12 6 L.O 10 6
If with 9 years’service as Paymaster, 3 of
which in a 3d or 4th rate    164 5 0 0 9 0
If with 6 years’ service as Paymaster, 3 of .
which in a 5th or 6th rate  136 17 6 ^ n
If with 3 years’ service as Paymaster  109 10 0 0 6 5
To the remainder   •••• 91 5 0 0 5 0
RATES OF PENSION TO BE GRANTED TO INSPECTORS OF MACHINERY
AFLOAT, AND TO ENGINEERS OF THE ROYAL NAVY.
{Under Her Majesty’s Order in Council of 13t/t June 1853.)
To an inspector of machinery afloat, provided he shall have served
upwards of five years in that rank, a pension of from L.160 to L.180 per
annum.
If an inspector of machinery afloat be found unfit prior to completing
five years’ service in that rank, the time so served shall be added to his
service as chief engineer, and he shall be pensioned on the scale for chief
engineers.
To a chief engineer, having served twelve years as a chief engineer,
and being in the first class, a pension of L.110 to L.130 per annum;
having served six years as a chief engineer, and being in the first or
second class, a pension of from L.85 to L.105 per annum ; having served
five years as an engineer in the Royal Navy, three of which as a chief
engineer, a pension of from L.75 to L.90 per annum.
If a chief engineer be found unfit prior to completing three years in
that rank, the time so served shall be added to his service as assistant-
engineer, and he shall be pensioned on the scale for an assistant-engineer.
To an assistant-engineer, having served as such twenty years in the
Royal Navy, and being in the first class, a pension of from L.65 to L.75
per annum; having served as such ten years in the Royal Navy, and being
in the first or second class, a pension of from L.50 to L.6ti per annum;
having served as such three years in the Royal Navy, a pension of from
L.40 to L.50 per annum.
The time served by assistant-engineers as engineers on the old estab¬
lishment shall be reckoned as if the same had been served as assistant-
engineers.
CHAPLAINS.
After 8 years’service at sea  L.91 5 0 L.O 5 0
After 10 „ ,, under New Regulations 91 5 0 0 5 0
For each year’s longer service than 8 at sea,
6d. per diem additional till it reach  182 10 0 0 10 0
CHAPLAINS AND NAVAL INSTRUCTORS.
After 15 years’ service, one half of the highest rate of half-pay of
naval instructors, in addition to the half-pay to which they may be en¬
titled as chaplains.
NAVAL INSTRUCTORS.
After their first entry  L.36 10 0 L.O 2 0
After 3 years’ service on full pay  54 15 0 0 3 0
„ 10 „ „    82 2 6 0 4 6
„ 15 „ „   91 5 0 0 5 0
„ 20 „ „   127 15 0 0 7 0
{Payable Quarterly.)
SE0MTAE,ES- p.,*,™,.   
After 12 years’ actual service as Secretaries L.219 0 0
MATES.
2s. 6d. a day, or L.45,12s. 6d. per annum, after three years’ actual
sea service as mates, and when unable to obtain employment in Her
Majesty’s service, provided their conduct during service shall have been
satisfactory, and provided they do not decline or avoid service when
called upon.
The lords commissioners of the Admiralty are empowered to allow
any mate to retire from the service, with a pension of 2s. 6d. a day, after
twenty years’actual Service, during ten years of which he must have
held the rating of mate.
SECOND MASTERS.
2s. 6d. a day, or L.45,12s. 6d. per annum, after three years’ sea ser¬
vice as second masters, provided they cannot obtain employment in the
navy, and do not decline or avoid service when it is offered to them.
The period of three years’ service may be dispensed with in the case
of officers who shall have been invalided for sickness or injuries caused
by the service, and which shall render them permanently disqualified for
further employment.
In no case will half-pay be allowed to second masters unless the con¬
duct of the officer whilst serving shall have been in all respects satisfac¬
tory.. „
ASSISTANT PAYMASTERS—as Mates.
The boatswains, gunners, and carpenters of the navy
have pensions or superannuations, in lieu of half-pay, ac¬
cording to the following scale, formed on a consideration
of the total length of service as warrant officers, with the
length of service in commission.
Total Commis.
Service. Service.
20 yrs  5 yrs.
15 .15 ..
15 ..
Total
Service.
30 yrs.,
30 ..
Commis.
Service.
,. 20 yrs.,
..15 ..
10
, 5
20
15
10
Pension.
..L.85
....75
.... 65
.... 55
....75
.... 65
....55
15
10
10
10
5
10
, 5
Pension.
....L.45
 60
 50
 40
 45
 35
By proclamation, bearing date 9th March 1854, the fol-Prize
lowing regulations were adopted for the distribution of money,
prize money, viz.:—
The flag-officer or officers shall have one-twentieth part of
the whole net proceeds arising from prizes captured from the
enemy by any of the ships or vessels under his or their com¬
mand* and of the rewards conferred for the same, according
to the following conditions and modifications, save and ex¬
cept as hereinafter provided and directed; that is to say:—
When there is but one flag-officer he shall have the entire
one-twentieth part; when two flag-officers shall be sharing
together, the chief shall have two-thirds, and the other flag-
officer shall have the remaining one-third of the one-twen¬
tieth part; and when there shall be more than two flag-
officers, the chief shall have one-half of the said one-twen¬
tieth part, and the remaining half shall be equally divided
among the junior flag-officers ; commodores of the first class
and captains of the fleet to share as flag-officers: Provided
always, That no flag-officer, unless actually on board any
ship or vessels of war, and at the actual taking, sinking,
burning, or otherwise destroying any ship or ships of war,
privateer or privateers, belonging to the enemy, shall share
in the distribution of any head money or bounty money
granted as a reward for taking, sinking, burning, or other¬
wise destroying any such ship or vessel of the enemy.
No flag-officer commanding in any port in the United King¬
dom shall share in the proceeds of any prize captured from
the enemy by any ship or vessel which shall sail from or leave
such port by order of the Lord High Admiral, or of the com¬
missioners for executing the office of Lord High Admiral.
When ships or vessels under the command of several flag-
officers belonging to separate stations shall be joint captors,
each flag-officer shall receive a proportion of the one-twen¬
tieth part, according to the number of officers and men
present under the command of each such flag-officer; and
when any ship or vessel under orders from the Lord High
Admiral, or from the commissioners for executing the office
of Lord High Admiral, are joint captors with other ships or
N A
Personnel, vessels under a flag or flags, the like regulations as to the
apportionment of the flag share to the flag-officer or officers
are to be observed.
With reference to flag-officers it is to be noted:—
That when an inferior flag-officer is sent to reinforce a
superior officer on any station, the superior flag-officer shall
not share in any prize taken by the inferior flag-officer be¬
fore he has arrived within the limits of that station, unless
the inferior officer shall have received some order directly
from, and shall be acting in execution of, some order issued
by, such superior flag-officer.
No chief flag-officer quitting any station, except upon
some definite urgent service, and with the intention of re¬
turning to the station as soon as such service is performed,
shall share in any prize taken by H.M.’s ships or vessels left
behind after he has passed the limits of the station, or after he
has surrendered the command to another flag-officer appointed
by the Admiralty to command in chief upon such station.
An inferior flag-officer quitting any station (except when
detached by orders from his commander-in-chief upon a
special service, accompanied with orders to return to such
station as soon as the service has been performed) shall have
no share in prizes taken by the ships and vessels remaining
on the station after he has passed the limits thereof.
In like manner flag-officers remaining on such station
shall not share in the prizes taken by such inferior officer,
or by ships or vessels under his immediate command, after
he has quitted the limits of the station, except he has been
detached as aforesaid.
A commander-in-chief or other flag-officer belonging to
any station shall not share in any prize or prizes taken out
of the limits of that station by any ship or vessel under the
command of a flag-officer of any other station, or under
orders from the commissioners of the Admiralty, unless
such commander-in-chief or flag-officer is expressly autho¬
rized by the said commissioners to take the command of
that station in which the prize or prizes is or are taken, and
shall actually have taken upon him such command.
Every commodore having a captain under him shall be
esteemed a flag-officer with respect to the twentieth part of
prizes taken, whether he be commanding in chief or serving
under command.
The first captain to the admiral and commander-in-chief
of the fleet, and also the first captain to any flag-officer
appointed to command a fleet of ten ships of the line or
upwards, shall be deemed to be a flag-officer for the purpose
of sharing in prize, and shall be entitled to share therein as
the junior flag-officer of such fleet.
Any officer on board any ships of war at the time of
capturing any prize or prizes who shall have more com¬
missions than one, shall be entitled only to share in such
prize or prizes according to the share allotted to him by the
above-mentioned distribution, in respect to his superior
commission or office.
^ And with reference to other officers it is to be noted,—
1 hat a captain, commander, or other commanding officer
of a ship or vessel, shall be deemed to be under the com¬
mand of a flag when he shall have received some order
from, or be acting in the execution of some order issued by,
a flag-officer, whether he be or be not within the limits of
the station of such flag-officer; and in the event of his being
directed to join a flag-officer on any station, he shall be
deemed to be under the command of such flag-officer from
the time when he arrives within the limits of the station,
which circumstance is always to be carefully noted in the
og-book 5 3-ud it shall be considered that he continues under
t ic flag-officer of such station until he shall have received
some order directly from, or be acting in the execution of
some order issued by some other flag-officer, duly autho¬
rized, or by the Lord High Admiral, or the commissioners
tor executing the office of Lord High Admiral
vy. ns
The captain, commander, lieutenant commanding, master Personnel,
commanding, or any other officer duly commanding, any
ship, sloop, or vessel of war, singly taking any prize from
the enemy,—that is to say, the officer actually in command
at the time,—shall have one-eighth of the remainder, or if
there is no flag, one-eighth of the entire net proceeds; ex¬
cept that, if the single capturing ship be a rated ship, having
a commander under the captain, the commander shall take
a portion of the one-eighth part, as if he were commander
of a sloop, according to the proportion hereinafter set forth;
and if more than one commanding officer of the same rank
of command shall be entitled to share as joint captors, the
one-eighth shall be equally divided between them; but when
captains, commanders, lieutenants commanding, and mas¬
ters commanding, respectively, H.M.’s ships and vessels of
war, and commanders under captains in rated ships, shall
share together, in whatever variety of combination, the one-
eighth shall be so divided into parts for a graduated appor¬
tionment as to provide for each captain receiving six parts,
each commander of a sloop, or commander under a captain
in a rated ship, three parts, and each lieutenant command¬
ing, or master commanding, or other officer actually com¬
manding, a small vessel of wTar, two parts; commodores of
the second class, and field-officers of marines, or of land
forces serving as marines, doing duty as field officers, above
the rank of major, to share as captains; and field officers of
marines, or of land forces serving as marines, and doing duty
in the rank of major, to share as commanders of sloops.
After provision shall thus have been made for the flag
share (if any), and for the portion of the commanding officer
or officers, and others as above specified, the remainder of
the net proceeds shall be distributed in ten classes, so that
each officer, man, and boy, composing the rest of the com¬
plements of H.M.’s ships, sloops, and vessels of war, and
actually on board at the time of any such capture, and every
person present and assisting, shall receive shares, or a share,
according to his class, as set forth in the following scale :—
First Class.—Master of the fleet, inspector of steam
machinery afloat, when embarked with a fleet, medical in¬
spector, or deputy medical inspector, when embarked with
a fleet, forty-five shares each.
Second Class.—Senior lieutenant of a rated ship, not
bearing a commander under the captain, secretary to the
admiral of the fleet, or admiral commanding in chief, thirty-
five shares each.
Third Class.—Sez lieutenant, master, captain of ma¬
rines, of marine artillery, or of land forces doing duty as
marines, whether having higher brevet rank or not, secretary
to an admiral or to a commodore of the first class not com¬
manding in chief, chief engineer, twenty-eight shares each.
Fourth Class.—Lieutenant or quarter-master of marines,
lieutenant of marine artillery, lieutenant, quartermaster, or
ensign of land forces doing duty as marines, secretary to a
commodore of the second class, chaplain, surgeon, pay¬
master, naval instructor, mate, assistant-surgeon, second
master, assistant-paymaster in charge, assistant-engineer,
gunnex*, boatswain, carpenter, eighteen shares each.
Fifth Class.—Midshipman, master’s assistant, pilot, clerk
(not passed), master-at-arms, chief gunner’s mate, chief
boatswain’s mate, chief carpenter’s mate, chief captain of the
forecastle, admiral’s coxswain, chief quartermaster, seamen’s
schoolmaster, ship’s steward, ship’s cook, ten shares each.
Sixth Class.—NaVal cadet, clerk’s assistant, captain’s
coxswain, ship’s corporal, quartermaster, gunner’s mate,
boatswain’s mate, captain of the forecastle, captain of the
after-guard, captain of the hold, captain of the maintop,
captain of the foretop, coxswain of the launch, sailmaker,
ropemaker, caulker, leading stoker, blacksmith, serjeant oi
marines, of marine artillery, or of land forces doing duty as
marines, nine shares each.
Seventh LYass.—-Captain of the mast, captain of the
116
NAVY.
Personnel, mizen-top, yeoman of the signals, coxswain of the barge,
coxswain of the pinnace, coxswain of the cutter, second cap¬
tain of the forecastle, second captain of the maintop, second
captain of the foretop, second captain of the afterguard, sail-
maker’s mate, caulker’s mate, musician, cooper, armourer, cor¬
poral of marinesor of land forces doing duty as marines, bom¬
bardier of marine artillery, head krooman, six shares each.
Eighth Class.—Leading seaman, shipwright, second cap¬
tain of the hold, able seaman, carpenter’s crew, sailmaker’s
crew, cooper’s crew, armourer’s crew, yeoman of the store¬
rooms, steward’s assistant, ordinary seaman, blacksmith’s
mate, private and fifer of marines, or of land forces doing
duty as marines, gunner of marine artillery, painter, stoker,
coal trimmer, second head krooman, sick-berth attendant,
bandsman, tailor, butcher, three shares each.
Ninth Class.—Cook’s mate, ship’s steward’s boy, ad¬
miral’s domestic, superintendent’s domestic, admiral’s steward
and cook, captain’s steward and cook, ward-room and gun¬
room steward and cook, subordinate officer’s steward and
cook, commander’s servant, secretary’s servant; second
class ordinary seaman, assistant stoker, barber, boy of the
first class, first and second class krooman, supernumeraries,
except as hereinafter provided, persons borne merely as
passengers, and not declining to render assistance on occa¬
sion of capture, two shares each.
Tenth Class.—Boy below the first class, one share.
All supernumeraries holding ranks in the service above
the ranks or ratings specified in the fifth class, who have
been ordered to do duty in any of H.M.’s ships or vessels
by the Lord High Admiral, or by the commissioners for
executing the office of Lord High Admiral, by the senior
officer of the fleet or squadron; or, if none senior, then by
the captain or commanding officer of the capturing ship or
vessel, if not by special authority employed in higher capa¬
cities, shall share according to the rank which they respec¬
tively hold in the service ; but in all cases to qualify them for
so sharing, and not merely as supernumeraries in the ninth
class, due notation of their being thus respectively ordered
to do duty must have been made on the muster-books.
With respect to supernumeraries of ratings in the service
below the denominations of those specified in the fourth
class, who, at full victuals, are engaged in the ordinary duties
of the ship, they shall share according to their ratings.
When any capture is made from the enemy, the captains
or commanding officers of H.M.’s ships or vessels of war
making the same shall transmit, or cause to be transmitted,
as soon as may be, to the secretary of the Admiralty a true
and perfect list of all the officers, seamen, marines, soldiers,
and others, who were actually on board on the occasion,
accompanied by a separate list, containing the names of
those belonging to the crew who were absent on duty or
otherwise at the time, specifying the cause of such absence,
each list to contain the quality ot the service of each person.
Conveyance of Treasure.—Scale of Bates.
Between any two ports, the navi->
gable distance between which I
shall not exceed six hundred!
leagues   )
Between any two ports, the navi-"!
gable distance between which
shall exceed six hundred!
leagues, and shall be less than
two thousand leagues J
For any distance of two thousand 1
leagues and upwards J
For Crown
Treasure.
Per cent.
For Treasure belong¬
ing to other Parties.
Peace and War.
Gold or
Jewels.
H
Silver.
Per cent.
1
4
The above rates are payable clear of all deduction what- Personnel
soever; and it is to be stipulated in the bill of lading that the
captains and commanding officers of H.M.’s ships and ves¬
sels shall not be liable to any expenses attending the ship¬
ment of such treasure, or other articles, until the same shall
be safe alongside of their respective ships or vessels, and
that their liability shall cease from the moment they shall
have landed the treasure at the port to which the ships car¬
rying the treasure shall be destined.
Another great encouragement for young men to enter Honours
the naval service arises from the honours bestowed by the and re'
sovereign for any brilliant exploit. Thus, in consequence wards>
of the skill and bravery which were exhibited in the great
and glorious action of the 1st of June 1794, his Majesty
was graciously pleased to confer on Earl Howe the order
of the garter; Admirals Graves and Sir Alexander Hood
were made barons of the kingdom of Ireland; and Rear-
admirals Bowyer, Gardner, and Pasley, together with Sir
Roger Curtis, captain of the Queen Charlotte, were created
baronets. Gold medals and chains were also distributed
to such admirals, and gold medals to such captains, as
were particularized in Lord Howe’s despatches. The first
lieutenants of each ship were promoted to the rank of com¬
manders ; and pensions of L. 1000 per annum were granted
to Rear-admirals Bowyer and Pasley, in consideration of
the loss of limbs.
For the action of the 14th of February 1797, Lord St Vin¬
cent was advanced to the dignity of an earl, and a pension
was granted to him of L.3000 a-year; Vice-admirals
Thompson and Parker were created baronets ; Commodore
Nelson received the order of the bath, and Captain Calder
of the Victory the honour of knighthood; and gold medals
were distributed to the admirals and captains.
For the action of the 11th of October 1797, Admiral
Duncan was created a viscount, with a pension of L.2000
a-year ; Vice-admiral Onslow was made a baronet ;
and Captain Fairfax had the honour of knighthood.
Gold medals were also distributed to the admirals and
captains.
For the action of the 1st of August 1798, his Majesty
was pleased to testify his sense of the importance of this
brilliant achievement by raising Sir Horatio Nelson to the
dignity of the peerage, by the title of Baron Nelson of the
Nile, and by directing medals to be distributed to the cap¬
tains. The first lieutenant of the Majestic was made a
captain, and the first lieutenants of the other ships were
promoted to the rank of commanders; and for the attack
of the Danish fleet at Copenhagen, Lord Nelson was raised
to the dignity of a viscount, and the order of the bath was
conferred on Admiral Graves.
For the ever memorable action of Trafalgar, in which
Lord Nelson fell in the arms of victory, his Majesty was
pleased to confer upon his brother the rank of earl, with a
pension of L.5000 a-year, and the sum of L.120,000 was
voted by Parliament for the purchase of an estate to be an¬
nexed to the title; Admiral Collingwood was raised to the
dignity of baron, Lord Northesk was honoured with the
order of the bath, and Captain Hardy was created a baronet;
the captains received medals, five lieutenants were made
captains, and twenty-four commanders; twenty-two mid¬
shipmen were made lieutenants, and the senior captain of
marines was made brevet-major.
By this last act of Lord Nelson’s life was annihilated the
only remaining hope of the combined navies of France and
Spain, and a blow given to the naval power of the enemies
ot Great Britain, which they never recovered during the
remainder of the war.
In the secondary victories of Sir John Warren, Sir John
Duckworth, Sir Robert Calder, Sir Richard Strachan, Lord
Gambier, and Lord Exmouth, and even for brilliant actions
of single ships, appropriate distinctions have never been with-
NAVY.
Personnel, held. Exclusive of peerages and baronetcies, the honours
bestowed for gallant conduct in the naval service at present
consist of six knights grand crosses of the military Order of
the Bath, thirty-three knights commanders, and 114 com¬
panions of the Bath. In addition to these, there are of the
civil Order of the Bath one cross, two knights commanders,
and three companions.
Medals have also been granted of late years by the Queen
for various naval services, and distributed alike to the
officers, seamen, and marines. These consist of the war
medal for actions in ships and boats from 1793 to 1815 ;
the medal for Algiers, Navarino, Acre, and Syria; the Bur¬
mese, China, and Kafir medal; and, lastly, the medal for
services performed in the Arctic seas, which have greatly
added to the renown of the British navy, have led to vast
discoveries in that interesting portion of the globe, solving
the problem of the N.W. passage, which for three cen¬
turies engaged the attention of the maritime nations of
Europe, and rendering illustrious the names of many officers.
Conspicuous among these in our naval annals will ever
stand the names of Franklin, Parry, Ross, Collinson, and
M‘Clure, while those of Scoresby and Penny will be scarcely
less conspicuous in the mercantile marine. The institution
of the Order of Valour will be another incentive to the offi¬
cers and men of the Royal Navy in the performance of heroic
deeds in their country’s service. There are at present
twenty-five officers, seamen, and marines, recipients of the
Victoria Cross. In addition to the foregoing there are many
officers and seamen authorized to wear foreign orders—the
Legion of Honour, the Royal Hanoverian Guelphic Order,
the orders of St Michael, St George, the Tower and Sword,
Redeemer of Greece, the Medjedic, &c.
Naval Amongst the honours bestowed by the sovereign upon
aides-de- officers of the navy and Royal Marines is the appointment
n.™Lt0 the °* ai(ies-de-camp to the Queen. Of these there are twelve :
one of them, the first and principal, is an admiral, ten are
captains, and two colonels of marines.
Good-service pensions are also awarded to a certain
number of flag-officers, captains, and field-officers of marines.
These are selected according to their standing, length and
nature of services, a statement of which is given, in each
case, in the annual naval estimates presented to Parliament.
There are at present seven flag-officers and twenty-one
captains of the Royal Navy, and three field-officers of the
Marines, in receipt of the good-service pension.
The provision which is made for officers, in the event of
for wounds, losing a limb, or being so severely wounded in the service
that the prejudice to the habit of body is equal to the loss
of a limb, is another encouragement for entering the naval
service. There are at present 173 officers to whom pen¬
sions for wounds have been granted.
For an admiral, from L.300 to L.700 per annum.
A.captain, wounds .... 250 0 ; loss of a limb, L.300 0
Commander   150 0;   200 0
Lieutenant   91 5;   91 5
Marine officers the same as in the army.
A provision is likewise made for the widows of the com¬
mission and warrant officers of the royal navy, and voted
annually on the navy estimates. The pensions are allowed
according to the annexed scale, being similar, in most cases,
to the widows of officers in the army of corresponding
ranks. I he latter are also provided for by an annual vote
of Parliament.
Hides and Orders for granting Pensions to the Widoios of
Commission and Warrant Officers of the Royal Navy.
Art. 1. idows of commission and warrant officers of the
Royal Navy may be allowed pensions as hereinafter directed, and
subject to the following restrictions, provided they shall appear to
the lords commissioners of the Admiralty to be proper and de-
117
Queen.
Good-ser¬
vice pen-
Pensions
Widows’
pensions.
c7mScS.“ls of the p“blic ’,oun‘:^■and not left in w“lthy
Art. 2.—The rates of pensions shall be as follows, viz.'s—
Rank of Officer.
Flag officers.
Captains retired under
O. C. 1846 
Captains of 3 years
standingand upwards
Captains under 3 years
standing 
Captains retired under
O. C.1840 
Commanders 
Commanders retired
under O. C. of 1846...
Commanders retired
under 0. C. of 1816...
Commanders retired
under 0. C. of 1830...
Lieutenants 
Masters of the fleet 
Masters 
Mates 
Second Masters 
Gunners warranted
prior to 1830  
G unners not warranted
prior to 1830  
Boatswains warranted
prior to 1830 
Boatswains not war¬
ranted prior to 1830..
Carpenters warranted
prior to 1830  
Carpenters not war¬
ranted prior to 1830..
Masters of naval vessels
warranted prior to
1830   
Masters of naval vessels
not warranted prior
to 1830 
£ c3 O
O Gw
I? 5
ROYAL MARINES.
General officers 
Colonels.... 
Lieutenant-colonels....
Majors  
Captains 
1st Lieutenants 
2d Lieutenants 
CIVIL BRANCH.
Medical inspectors of
hospitals and fleets 
Secretaries to com-
manders-in-chief  
Deputy inspectors of
hospitals and fleets...
Paymasters-in-chief....
Inspectors of machi¬
nery afloat 
Chaplains 
Secretaries to junior
flag-officers 
Surgeons 
Paymasters 
Naval instructors  
Chief engineers 
Assistant-surgeons 
Assistant-engineers ....
L.
120
110
90
80
75
70
60
60
50
50
60
50
25
25
25
25
120
90
80
70
50
40
36
80
70
leo
J
50
40
Special Pension in
lien of Ordinary
Pension.*
According to
circumstances
200
200
&
120
80
90
80
60
60
35
According to
circumstances.
200
200
120
80
60
50
200
120
Special Pension in
lieu of Ordinary
Pension.f
L.
According to
circumstances.
150
140
100
65
80
65
50
50
30
90
80
65
35
According to
circumstances.
150
140
100
65
50
40
140
100
80
65
50
30
* If the officer was killed in action, or died within six months of wounds
received in action.
t If the officer was drowned, or suffered other violent death in an imme¬
diate act of duty, or if it shall be proved to the satisfaction of the lords com¬
missioners of the Admiralty that he has died from the effects of any injury
or disease caused by extraordinary exposure or exertion on service within
six months after his being first certified to be ill.
118
Personnel.
Compas¬
sionate
Fund.
NAVY.
PENSIONS TO THE MOTHERS AND SISTERS OF OFFICERS
KILLED IN ACTION.
Mothers.—Where an officer is killed in action, and leaves no
widow nor legitimate child, but leaves a mother who is a widow in
distressed circumstances, and who was dependent upon him, the
mother shall receive a pension equal to the ordinary rate of widowJs
pension attached to the rank which her son held at the time of his
death; but if such mother shall herself he in receipt of a pension as
an officer’s widow, or shall have any other provision of any kind
from the public, in that case no allowance will be made to her on
account of her son, unless she gives up the other pension or allow¬
ance ; and the pension given to a mother on account of her son will
be forfeited on re-marriage.
Sisters.—The allowance made to the sisters of officers is not to
exceed that which would be given to a mother, and will not be given
in any case unless the officer shall have fallen in action, or shall die
of wounds received in action, within six months after being
wounded, and shall have left no widow, legitimate child, nor mother,
nor unless the sister shall be ai^brphan, having no surviving bro¬
ther, and shall have been dependent for support upon the officer
killed. Every pension so granted will cease when the person re¬
ceiving it shall marry, or be otherwise sufficiently provided for.
The widows of boatswains, gunners, and carpenters of the royal
navy, and masters of naval vessels, appointed prior to the 30th of
June 1830, will, if otherwise qualified, be entitled to a pension of
L.25. Widows of the above warrant-officers, and the widows of
engineers who shall have been warranted subsequently to the 30th
June 1830, are not entitled to pensions unless their husbands shall
have suffered a violent death, and provided they shall be otherwise
entitled to the same, in which case the following pensions will be
allowed:—
Art. 1.—To the widow of a gunner, boatswain, carpenter, or
engineer, whose husband shall have been killed in action, a pen¬
sion of L.35 a year.
Art. 2.—To the widow of any of the above-named warrant-officers,
whose husband shall have been drowned on duty, or suffered a
violent death in an immediate act of duty, a pension of L.30 a year.
Art. 3.—The pensions of all widows shall commence from the first
day of the month following that in which their husbands died, pro¬
vided application be made by the widow within twelve months from
the same, otherwise from the time only of such application; and all
applications for pensions must be addressed to the Secretary of the
Admiralty.
Art. 4.—The widows of officers (except chaplains) who shall have
married after the 31st of December 1830, are only entitled to the
pensions of their respective classes in the event of their husbands
having been on the list of commission or warrant officers, or on the
list of naval instructors, ten complete years, except the husband be
killed in action, or lose his life in the execution of the service.
Art. 5.—No widow shall receive a pension as a chaplain’s widow,
unless her husband shall have been in priest’s orders, nor unless his
name was on the list at the time of his death, nor unless she shall
have been married during, or prior to, her husband’s service in the
navy, and unless her husband shall have served three years on full
pay subsequent to their marriage, and shall have served the length
of time to entitle him to his half-pay.
Art. 6.—No widow shall be entitled to the pension who has not
been married twelve months to the officer by whose right she claims
the same, unless the said officer was killed or drowned in the sea
service; but the lords commissioners of the Admiralty may grant
the pension, in such cases as they think proper, when officers die
before the expiration of twelve months from the time of their mar¬
riage.
Art. 7.—If any officer shall marry after the age of sixty years,
his widow shall not be entitled to receive the pension; or, if being
capable of service, he should, at his own solicitation, be excused
from it, being at the time warned that his widow would thereby
forfeit the pension.
Art. 8.—The above pensions shall not be received by any widow
together with any other pension from the government.
Art. 9.—Widows who shall have re-married after the 31st De¬
cember 1830 shall forfeit their pensions.
Art. 10.—The pensions of widows who shall have re-married
prior to the 31st of December 1830 shall be paid to themselves, and
their receipts shall, notwithstanding their coverture, be deemed a
sufficient discharge for the payment of their pension.
Besides these pensions, there has been established a
Compassionate Fund, for the relief of such widows and
orphan children as may appear to be proper objects of com¬
passion. The sums annually required are voted by Parlia¬
ment, and at present are limited to L.16,000 a year. One
of the greatest benefits that could be conferred upon the
Royal Navy would be to double the vote for the Compas- Personnel.
sionateFund, which is quite inadequate for the object in-
tended, and admits of very little compassion being shown
to the orphan children of officers who have faithfully served
their country.
Pensions to petty officers and seamen are granted by the
Board of Admiralty for wounds, infirmities, and length of
service; and the sum required for this purpose is voted an¬
nually on the navy estimates.
In addition, however, to the pensions granted for wounds,
and the pensions and compassionate allowances secured to
the widows and children of officers,’ there are happily other
provisions made for them by charitable institutions,—for
instance,
Naval Knights of Windsor, formerly called Poor Knights. Naval
—There is an asylum afforded at Windsor, by the will of Knigbts of
the late Samuel Travers, Esq., for seven “ superannuated or " inds°r-
disabled lieutenants of English men-of-war, who are to be
single men, without children, inclined to lead a virtuous,
studious, and devout life; and to be removed if they give
occasion for scandal.” One of these, the senior officer, is
appointed governor of the institution.
Queen Adelaide's College at Penge was established by Queen
her late Majesty for the widows of twelve officers of the Adelaide’s
ranks of lieutenant, master, surgeon, and paymaster. Each College,
widow is allowed L.30 per annum, with coals and candles.
The nominations are in the gift of the First Lord of the
Admiralty.
The Royal Naval Benevolent Society, established in The Royal
1739. It affords relief to officers (being subscribers) of Naval Be-
and above ward-room rank, and to their widows and fami- nevolent
lies under misfortune and distress. The scale of subscrip- SocietV
tion entitling to relief is so small that all officers would do
well to support it. The following is the scale, viz.:—Flag-
officers—annual, 1, 2, and 3 guineas; life, L.20. Captains,
commanders, inspectors of hospitals and fleets, and secre¬
taries—annual, 10s. 6d.; life, L.10. Chief engineers—
annual, 6s.; life, L.6. Ward-room officers (including as¬
sistant-surgeons who are entitled to ward-room rank, and
naval instructors)—annual, 5s.; life, L.5. It appears by
the report that many cases have occurred where the widows,
orphans, or other relatives entitled, have received hundreds
of pounds for the husband’s subscription of as many shillings.
Thus, the sister of a deceased captain, for four years’ sub¬
scription of L.l, Is., received for his L.4, 4s. the sum of
L.530. The orphans of a master, for six years’ subscrip¬
tion of 5s., received for his L.l, 10s. the sum of L.l82, 8s.
A lieutenant, with eight children, for twenty years’ sub¬
scription of 5s., received prior to his death L.l 70; and sub¬
sequently his widow the sum of L.88; and many other
similar cases might be mentioned.
Queen Adelaide's Naval Fund.—This fund was estab- Queen
lished in 1850 for the relief of the orphan daughters of Adelaide’s
officers of the Royal Navy and Marines. The dividends Naval
arising from donations and subscriptions are entirely appro- Fund,
priated to the relief of orphans, who are assisted by pecu¬
niary grants bestowed at the discretion of the committee,
nw/-l r»11 ■fViv tinn of tlio
maintenance of the aged, or the casual assistance of those
in temporary difficulty.
The Royal Naval School at New Cross, Kent, incor-The Royal
porated by Act of Parliament 1840, has been established a Naval
quarter of a century. The annual charge for board and School,
education of the sons of naval and marine officers of ward¬
room rank is L.30, some are admitted at L.25, a limited
number gratuitously, and at L.15 a year, according to the
necessitous circumstances of the parents, a preference be¬
ing given to orphans of those who may have fallen in the
service of the country. A limited number of pupils, not
being sons of naval or marine officers, are admitted on
payment of L.50 per annum. Several young officers who
NAVY.
Personnel
Royal
Naval
Female
School.
Orphan
schools for
seamen’s
children.
Sailors’
homes.
Greenwich
Hospital.
, were educated ai this school distinguished themselves in
’ the late war with Russia, and particularly so in the recent
Arctic expeditions in search of Sir John Franklin and the
crews of H.M. ships Erebus and Terror.
The Royal Naval Female School, formerly at Rich¬
mond, and now St Margaret’s, Isleworth, was established in
1840, for the purpose of bestowing upon the daughters of
necessitous naval and marine officers, of and above the rank
of ward-room officers, a good, virtuous, and religious educa¬
tion at the lowest possible cost. It owes its origin to the
late Admiral Sir Thomas Williams, G.C.B., who invested
L.1000 in trust; and by an additional contribution of L.100
per annum for seven years, arranged payments of the rents
for that period. The Patriotic Fund made last year (1857)
a grant of L.5000 to the institution. There are now 87
daughters of officers in the school; of these 26 are received
at the annual payment of L.40; 56 (all daughters of neces¬
sitous officers) are boarded and educated at the entire cost
to the parents or guardians of L.12 per annum ; and 5 are
nominees of the Patriotic Fund, whose fathers died during
the late war with Russia, the establishment defraying the
larger amount of actual cost through the means of voluntary
contributions. Of the number of pupils on the reduced scale
of payment, 5 have lost both parents, and 35 others have
lost their fathers.
Neither are there wanting charitable institutions for the
orphan children of seamen and marines at the several ports ;
and the recent establishment of sailors’homes for men-of-war’s
men and merchant seamen, at most of the ports throughout
the United Kingdom, is one of the greatest boons that could
have been conferred. It is impossible to speak too highly of
those zealous and humane officers through whose exertions
they have been established, more especially the late Cap¬
tain Robert Elliot, who devoted the whole of his time
and private resources on the first sailors’ home that was
opened in Wells Street, London; and the present Captain
William H. Flail, C.B., who has been most indefatigable at
every port in the kingdom. The late Sir Edward Parry was
another zealous supporter of the sailors’ homes, and of all
institutions which had for their object the eternal as well as
the temporal welfare of the British seaman. To his illus¬
trious name must be added those of Admiral Bowles, the
late Sir Francis Beaufort, the Hon. F. Maude, of Captain
Gambier, and of many other well-known officers, who have
also zealously devoted themselves to the object.
These various institutions are now countenanced, and
in some cases aided, by the government, by whom annual
grants are made both to the orphan schools and sailors’
homes. It would be well if these grants were made upon
a more liberal scale.
The establishment of Greenivich Hospital embraces
much more extensive objects than any of the foregoing.
The first idea of this noble institution,—the glory and orna¬
ment of the kingdom, which it is to be hoped that the rest¬
less spirit of innovation will leave untouched,—has been as¬
cribed, with every appearance of justice, to Mary, the consort
of William III. Being desirous that our gallant seamen,
worn down by age or infirmities, as well as suffering from
wounds, should not be left destitute, she made a grant, jointly
with King William, of the palace of Greenwich, and of cer¬
tain lands adjoining, to be appropriated to this purpose, in
order, as stated in the king’s commission, to “ the making
some competent provision, that seamen who, by age, wounds,
or other accidents, shall become disabled for further service
at sea, and shall not be in a condition to maintain themselves
comfortably, may not fall under hardships and miseries, but
may be supported at the public charge, and that the children
of such disabled seamen, and also the widows and children of
such seamen as shall happen to be slain in sea service, may,
in some reasonable manner, be provided for and educated.”
In 1695 the committee appointed to examine and report
119
on the premises recommended an additional wino- to Kino-
Charles’s building, which being approved by the king, Sir verson°el;
Christopher Wren undertook to superintend the new erec-
tions without any pay or reward. Since that time various
additions and improvements have been made to this mag¬
nificent pile of building, which was completed, very nearly
as it now appears, in the year 1778.
The king granted L.2000 a year towards the carrying
on, perfecting, and endowing of this hospital. The great
officers of state and wealthy individuals also subscribed
liberally to the undertaking. It was at the same time en¬
acted by Parliament, that a deduction of sixpence per man
per month should be made out of the wages of all mariners
for the use of the hospital; and power was given to the
Lord High Admiral to appoint commissioners for receiving
the said duty, whose office is situated on Tower Hill. These
deductions no longer exist, and the establishment has been
broken up. In 1699 his Majesty contributed the sum of
L.19,500, being fines laid by the House of Lords on cer¬
tain merchants convicted of smuggling. In 1705 Queen
Anne assigned to the use of the hospital the effects of Kid
the pirate, amounting to upwards of L.6000. In 1707
Robert Osbaldiston, Esq., devised by will half of his estate,
which was valued at L.20,000. In the same year Anthony
Bowyer gave the reversion of a considerable estate for the
use of the hospital. By several statutes the forfeited and
unclaimed shares of prize-money were given to the hos¬
pital, and various grants from time to time continued to
be made by Parliament. But the most substantial grant
was that made by the Commons of the rents and profits of
the forfeited estates of the Earl of Derwentwater, amount¬
ing at that time to about L.6000 a year, and at present to
the gross rental of L.60,000, of which, after payment of all
expenses for improvements, repairs, collections, and incum¬
brances, the annual receipt may be estimated at from
L.30,000 to L.40,000.
At present the permanent revenues of the hospital con-
sist Of the following heads Permanent
o revenues
1. The duties arising from the North and South Fore¬
land lighthouses.
2. The rents and profits of the Derwentwater estates,
including the lead mines.
3. Rents of the market of Greenwich, and of certain
houses there and in London.
4. Interest of money invested in the public funds.
5. Forfeited and unclaimed shares of prize-money
6. Fines for various offences.
It is evident that the funds of the establishment must
vary considerably in times of war and peace; being lowest
in the latter period, when the demands are heaviest upon
it, especially for a certain number of years after the close
of a war.
The rental of the estates belonging to the hospital in
the counties of Northumberland, Cumberland, and Dur¬
ham, rose from L.23,000, in 1805, to L.43,000, in 1816.
The present gross rental of these estates and the lead
mines, as above stated, amounts to about L.60,000; the
North and South Foreland lights to L.7000; and the in¬
terest of funded property to L.50,000; making, with other
contingencies, an annual revenue of about L.150,000, the
whole of which is expended on the household establish¬
ment, the clothing, maintenance, and allowances to pen¬
sioners and other attendants, with repairs, taxes, and con¬
tingencies.
Hie establishment of this noble institution consists of .
military and civil department. In the former there is a establLsh-
governor, who is a flag-officer in the navy, lieutenant- ment.
governor, who is also a flag-officer, four captains, four com¬
manders, eight lieutenants, and two masters ; two chap¬
lains, two physicians, five surgeons, and two dispensers,
—all resident within the hospital. In the latter there are
120
NAVY.
Personnel, five civil commissioners, two of whom are now naval
officers; a secretary and his assistant, a cashier, steward,
clerk of the check,—each of whom has his chief clerk; an
architect, and two inspectors of works, with their clerk.
The number of in-pensioners is about 3000, and the num¬
ber of nurses 180, all of whom must be the widows of sea¬
men of the navy, and under the age of forty-five years at
the time of admission.
Pensioned Under the naval administration of Earl Grey the follow-
officers on ing officers were added to the out-pensions of Greenwich
Greenwich H0Spita]( to selected by the Admiralty according to their
^ ' respective claims on the service:—
Per Year.
10 Captains at L.80
15 Commanders at  60
50 Lieutenants at  50
In addition to their half-pay.
Out-pen- The out-pensions to seamen were first established in the
sioned sea- year 1763, fiy act of 3d Geo. III., c. 16, in consequence of
men‘ which 1400 out-pensioners were appointed at L.7 per an¬
num each, after undergoing an examination at the Admi¬
ralty as to their claims.
At the close of the long revolutionary war the applica¬
tions became so numerous, and the claims of the seamen
who had been wounded or worn out in the service so
strongly grounded in humanity and justice, that it became
necessary to adopt a scale of pensions, and to establish
certain rules and regulations, by which seamen of Her Ma¬
jesty’s fleet and Royal Marines should be remunerated for
wounds or hurts, debility, and length of service. The fol¬
lowing are the present regulations:—
For Wounds, Hurts, or Debility.
Every seaman, landman, boy, or royal marine, wounded
or hurt in Her Majesty’s service, is entitled to a pension
proportioned to his wounds or hurts, of not less than six¬
pence a day, and not more than one shilling and sixpence or
two shillings a day. For sickness or debility, after seven years’
service, and under special circumstances before that period,
of not less than fivepence a day, nor more than tenpence,
according as he may appear capable of assisting himself. Be¬
yond fourteen, and less than twenty-one years’ service, not
less than eightpence, nor more than one shilling and three¬
pence. And after twenty-one years’ service, one shilling
and sixpence a day. But the rates are altered from time
to time.
All the above-mentioned pensions may be forfeited by
misconduct, by desertion, and by sentence of a court-mar¬
tial ; also by neglecting or omitting to attend at such port
or place, and at such time, as shall, in time of war or in
prospect of a war, be appointed for the assembling of the
pensioners, by the lords commissioners of the Admiralty.
In 1853 a committee of naval officers was appointed to
consider the whole subject of manning the navy and grant¬
ing pensions to seamen. Upon their recommendation, all
boys entering the navy are now required to engage for ten
years’ “ continuous service,” from the age of eighteen, and
are allowed to count time for pension from that age, instead
of from the age of twenty, as heretofore. All men volun¬
teering for ten years’ continuous service are also allowed
pensions after twenty years’ service, instead of twenty-one.
In order to insure a certain number of trained seamen, in
the event of an armament, in addition to those borne on the
peace establishment, seamen who have served ten years
continuously in the navy, reckoning from the age of eighteen,
are eligible, at the discretion of the Board of Admiralty, to
be granted pensions of 6d. a day each, and men with fifteen
years’ service, pensions of eightpence a day each,—both
classes being liable to give further service, if called upon,
in the event of an armament. All men and boys, upon
entering the service for the first time, and who may be
granted pensions for twenty or twenty-one years’ service, Personnel,
are held liable, under the pension stipulation, to give further
service, if required, to meet the exigencies of an armament
or of war.
To the noble institution of Greenwich Hospital is ap- Naval
pended an asylum for the maintenance and education of Asylum,
the children of officers and seamen of the royal naval
service.
The Naval Asylum was originally instituted by the
Patriotic Fund and private subscriptions, and afterwards
established at Greenwich, by warrant under the king’s
sign-manual, dated in January 1818, appointing the lords
commissioners of the Admiralty to be commissioners and
governors, who, with twenty-four directors, were to super¬
intend and manage the same. The object was, the main¬
tenance and education of a certain number of orphans and
other children of the non-commissioned officers, seamen,
and marines of the Royal Navy. As it was manifest, how¬
ever, that this establishment, so contiguous to the hospital
of Greenwich, could be managed without inconvenience
by the commissioners and directors of that hospital, under
a more effective and economical system, His Majesty was
pleased, by his warrant of January 1821, to annul the for¬
mer warrant, and to vest the superintendence and internal
management of the said asylum in the commissioners and
governors of Greenwich Hospital.
The two schools of Greenwich Hospital and the Naval Greenwich
Asylum, and the funds thereof, are now therefore incorpo- schools,
rated. The internal management is confided to the board
of directors, and one of the captains of the hospital is in¬
trusted with the general superintendence. The schools
consist of the Nautical School and of the Upper and Lower
School. A chaplain, and proper schoolmasters, matron, and
inferior assistants, with moderate salaries, reside in the
building. The number of children maintained and educated
in the institution are,—
In the Boys’ Upper School 400
... Lower School 400
In the whole...800
The Upper School is divided into two classes. 100 are
the sons of commissioned and ward-room warrant-officers of
the Royal Navy and Marines; and 300 are the sons of officers
of the above or inferior rank, and of private seamen or
marines of the navy, and of officers and seamen of the mer¬
chant service. The whole 400 are subject to the same
regulations as to education, diet, clothing, discipline, and
destination. None are admitted unless they can read
fluently, write small text, and perform the first three rules
of arithmetic. They must be free from infirmity of every
description. The age of admission is from ten to eleven ;
and at fifteen, or sooner if qualified, the whole are sent to
sea, either in the navy or merchant service, or are other¬
wise disposed of. Presentations by the directors in rotation.
The boys of the Lower School are the children of war¬
rant and petty officers and seamen of the naval service,
and non-commissioned officers and privates of the Royal
Marines, admitted by the board of directors, giving a
preference to orphans. The age of admission is from nine
to eleven years inclusive; but none are retained beyond
the age of fifteen. The boys are sent into the navy or
merchant service, if situations can be provided for them ; it
not, they are to be taken away by their parents or guardians
at the age of fifteen.
Thus all the classes of officers, seamen, and marines, who
have faithfully served in the navy, are provided for by
the state; and the children of such as may be in indigent
circumstances receive an education at the public expense,
suited to their condition in life.
The total expense of the navy, including every branch
Of the service, civil and military, for one whole year, about
NAY
Navy Bay the middle of the war with France, was estimated at about
II L.18,000,000. In the year 1822, according to the esti-
a*08' j mates which were laid before Parliament, it amounted to
about L.5,000,000; and in the year 1837, L.4,663,000; but
it would be perhaps better to give a comparison between
the year 1835-6 and the year 1856-7, an interval of 21
years. When at peace at the former period, the estimates
amounted to L.4,245,723, with a vote for 20,000 men,
2000 boys, and 9000 marines. When at war with Russia
during the latter period, the navy estimates amounted to
L. 16,298,155, with a vote for 71,000 men, being more
than three times the number of seamen voted for 1835-6,
and very nearly four times the amount.
Some idea may be formed of the prodigious increase of
correspondence consequently conducted at Whitehall, by
comparing the letters received and registered in the record
department of the Admiralty at the same periods. In 1835-6,
when Mr (now Sir Charles) Wood was secretary, and Mr
Bedford held the office of keeper of the records, 25,973
letters were registered. In 1855-6, when Mr Osborne was
secretary, and Mr Barrow (with one additional clerk) was
in charge of the department, 49,181 letters were registered :
the letters in the previous year having amounted to no less
than 53,194, occasioning considerably more than double
the amount of work in 1855-6, as compared to the period
when Mr Wood was secretary.
N A X
The following table will show the increase in
estimates since the introduction of steam : 
the
navy
Year.
1810.
1820.
1830.
1840-1
Men voted.
Not given L.1,508,451
Supplement  2,624
j- Sum voted.
0 0
 ^.1,511,075 15 11
0 0
Not given L.2,229,904
For conveying and
victualling settlers
to the Cape of Good
H°pe   86,760 5 4
on non * ~ 2,316,664
29,000 men   5,595,855
1850- 1.33,446 zzrr:=:::: S6
1851- 2. 33,610     Yw okk
1854- 5. 50,907 (5000 seamen for 6 months.) 10 417’309
1855- 6. 65.000   11,857,506
1856- 7. 71,000     16 298 155
1857- 8. 39,000  ...I::; sliosilos . .
cl°Se °f the war with Russia> the navy estimates
(18o7-8) were cut down from over 16 millions (as above)
to L.8,109,168. They now stand (1858-9) at L.9,140 127 •
and it is to be hoped that they may not be reduced, if the
Royal Navy is to remain in that state of efficiency, both in
its personnel and materiel, which must be the ardent desire
of every true lover of his country. (j. b—w.)
NAVY BAY, or Limon Bay, an inlet of the Caribbean
Sea, indenting the N. coast of the isthmus of Panama, in
the republic of New Granada; N. Lat. 9. 21., W. Long.
80. It is about 5 miles wide at its mouth, stretches 4
miles into the land, gradually diminishing in depth, and
can afford safe and convenient anchorage for many large
vessels. On the western side there are several projecting
headlands, which afford protection to vessels moored be¬
hind them, and which might be rendered still more secure
by the construction of breakwaters. On the eastern side
of the bay lies the island of Manzanilla, a mile and a half
long by a mile in breadth ; and between it and the mainland
is a channel, with excellent anchorage and good shelter for
small vessels under repair. This anchorage is capable of
accommodating 300 ships, and has a depth of 6 or 7 fathoms
in the centre. On the island of Manzanilla stands the
town of Aspinwall, near which there is a railway across
the isthmus to Panama.
NAXOS, or Naxia, an island in the Grecian Archi¬
pelago, lying to the E. of Paros, the northern extremity
being in N. Lat. 37. 12., E. Long. 25. 33. It is about
18 miles in length, by 12 in breadth, and has an area of
170 square miles. It bore the same name in ancient times;
but was also called Slrongyle, from its round shape; Diony¬
sius, in consequence of the worship of Dionysus or Bac¬
chus; and by the poets, Dia, in honour of Jupiter. In this
island, according to ancient legends, Bacchus found Ariadne,
who had been brought from Crete and left here by The¬
seus. It is said that the earliest inhabitants were Thra¬
cians ; and that a colony of Carians afterwards settled here
under a chieftain named Naxos, who gave his name to the
island. It was afterwards colonized by lonians from Attica;
and from its size and fertility rose to great power and pros¬
perity among the Cyclades. The original government of
Naxos seems to have been oligarchical, but a tvranny was
established by Lygdamis, who, after being expelled, was re¬
stored to power by Pisistratus of Athens, whom he had as¬
sisted to reinstate in the supreme power over Attica. This
state of affairs, however, did not last long; and the aristocra-
tical party again obtained for a time the upper hand; but
laving been expelled by the people, they applied for assist¬
ance to Anstagoras of Miletus, wlw induced the Persian king
VOL. XVI. b
to undertake an expedition against the island. This expedi¬
tion, sent against Naxos in 501 b.c., proved unsuccessful;
but in 490 the island was reduced to subjection by the
Persians under Datis and Artaphernes. At the battle of
Salamis the Naxian contingent of four vessels deserted the
I ersians, and fought on the side of the Greeks. After the
Persian war they joined the league of which Athens was at
the head ; but in 471 B.c., having revolted, they were re¬
duced by the Athenians to a state of subjection. After
this time few important events happened in connection
with Naxos, till 1207 a.d., when a Venetian, named Marco
Sanudo, took possession of this and some of the other islands,
and founded a state, under the name of the Duchy of the
jEgean Sea. This duchy, after a duration of 360 years,
was destroyed by the Turks in 1566, under whom the island
continued till the Greek insurrection, after which it formed
pai t of the kingdom of Greece. The island is very fertile
and picturesque; and produces vines, olives, oranges, pome¬
granates, figs, and other fruits. In the centre rises a
mountain 3000 feet high, anciently called Drius, and now
Zia or Dia; and there is also another eminence called
Coronon, the name of which is probably derived from the
nymph Coionis, the nurse of Bacchus. The rocks of
Naxos consist principally of marble and granite, of which
there are quarries; and the marble is hardly inferior to
that of I aros. Iron ore is also found. The higher ground
affords good pasturage for cattle. The resinous substance
called ladanum is obtained here in modern as in ancient
times. Near the north end of the island is a marble quarry,
containing an ancient colossal statue, said to be one of
Apollo, in an unfinished state. The principal town in the
island is that of Naxos, which stands on the site of the an¬
cient capital, on the west coast. It is irregularly built; and
though it presents a fine appearance from the sea, the
streets are narrow and dirty. It contains the remains of
an ancient temple of Bacchus, and of the palace of the
Venetian dukes, which was plundered by Barbarossa; and
two moles, one ancient and the other modern, built by
Marco Sanudo. 1 he population of the town is about
4000. The island is the see of a Greek bishop and
of a Roman Catholic archbishop, and has convents of
both religions. 'I here are numerous small towns and
Q
;/
122 NAY
Naylor villages; and the entire population is estimated at
II 20,000.
Nazareth. NAYLOR, Nayler, or Nailer, James, an unfortunate
fanatic, was the son of a farmer, and was born at Ardsley in
Yorkshire about 1616. When the civil war broke out in
1641, he was living with his wife and family in the parish of
Wakefield, and was probably engaged in agriculture. He
took up arms for the Parliament, and during eight or nine
years fought successively under Fairfax and Lambert. It
seems to have been about this period that he first began to
be seized with sudden religious impulses. He was converted
from Presbyterianism to Independency. Then in 1651, two
years after he had quitted the army and returned to the plough,
the preaching of Geoige Fox drew him into the community
of the Quakers. An apostolic zeal immediately fired the
new convert, and he abandoned his family and his occupa¬
tion to become an itinerant preacher. His fevered imagina¬
tion, untempered by a cool judgment, began to vent itself
in the most fanatical opinions. The Quakers, as a body,
disowned him; but a few silly men and women accepted
his fluent ravings as inspired prophecies ; recognised in his
constant use of scriptural phraseology a sign of divine
sanctity; and at length inferred from his habit of talking
about “ Christ being in him,” that he was the very Son of
God. It was no uncommon practice with these devoted
disciples to leave their homes in different parts of the
country, and to attend their prophet in his wanderings from
city to city. Such enthusiastic worship quite overturned
the previously tottering judgment of Naylor; so that he
appears to have believed himself to be possessed of every
supernatural attribute that was ascribed to him. His wor¬
shippers, encouraged by his acquiescence, soon brought
their fanaticism to a crisis. They knelt before him and
kissed his feet as he lay in Exeter jail in 1656, a sufferer
for his extravagant zeal. On his release they celebrated
his approach to Bristol by singing hosannas and by spread¬
ing their garments before his horse’s path, in irreverent
imitation of our Saviour’s entrance into Jerusalem. At this
point the government interfered, and apprehended Naylor,
with six of his votaries, on the charge of blasphemy. His
trial occupied the Parliament for several days. A few days
afterwards their sentence was inflicted upon him. His head
was fixed in the pillory for two hours, he was whipped at
the cart-tail from the Palace-yard to the Old Exchange,
his tongue was bored with a red-hot iron, and the stigma
of a blasphemer was branded on his forehead. After a
short respite, he was conveyed to Bristol, and whipped through
the streets of that town. He was then brought back to
bridewell, and doomed to an imprisonment of two years.
These severe chastisements tamed the delirium and the
spiritual pride of the fanatic. He recanted his heinous errors
in several small books, and was re-admitted into the com¬
munion of the Quakers. In 1660, two years after his release,
Naylor set out northward, to visit his long-forsaken family,
but died by the way, in Huntingdonshire. A collection of
his books, epistles, and papers was printed in 8vo, 1716.
Memoirs of the Life, Ministry, Trial, and Sufferings of
James Naylor appeared in 8vo, London, 1719.
NAZARETH, a town of Galilee in Palestine, stands
on the western side of a narrow oblong valley, about 6
miles W.N.W. from Mount Tabor. Before the Chris¬
tian era it seems to have been a paltry uninteresting vil¬
lage. It is not mentioned even once either in the Old
Testament or in Josephus ; and it is probable that it was the
insignificance of the town itself, rather than the bad repute
of its inhabitants, that prompted the exclamation of Natha¬
nael, “ Can there any good tiling come out of Nazareth ?”
But the fact that our Saviour passed his youth and early
manhood within its humble precincts, invested it with an
interest which it has ever since retained, and which it will
still retain as long as a single trace of its existence re-
N E A
mains. It is now a well-built town, consisting of flat-roofed Nazarite
stone houses, and standing conspicuous amid a neighbour-
hood fertile with fig-trees, olive-trees, vineyards, and corn- ^gh.
fields. The chief objects of interest in the town are the ^
localities which are pointed out as the scenes of some of
the events in our Lord’s history, and the richly-decorated
church of the monastery erected over a grotto which is
supposed to contain the kitchen and fire-place of the Virgin.
There is also shown the synagogue in which our Saviour
expounded the Scriptures. About 2 miles from Nazareth
stands the “ Mount of Precipitation,” which, as its name
implies, is supposed to be the height from which he was
about to be thrown by his fellow-townsmen. But how the
credulous monks identify this precipice with the hill men¬
tioned in Scripture as that “ whereon the city was built,”
it is difficult to understand. The population of Nazareth
is about 3000, of whom the majority are Christians of va¬
rious denominations, and the rest are Mohammedans.
NAZARITE, or Nazarene, a term which signifies one
who is of Nazareth, or any native of the city of Nazareth.
It was given to Jesus Christ and his disciples, and is com¬
monly employed in a sense of derision and contempt by
those authors who have written against Christianity. It
has also been applied to a sect of heretics called Nazarenes,
who sprung up during the second century in Palestine.
Their main peculiarity consisted in the imagined necessity
of combining the Jewish ceremonial with the religion of
Jesus Christ. They refer to a Hebrew Gospel of St Mat¬
thew ; and the Christian fathers make frequent allusion in
their writings to the Gospel of the Nazarenes. This gospel
was preserved by them in its primitive purity; but the
Ebionites, a contemporary sect which they intimately re¬
sembled, and with which they have been often confounded,
afterwards corrupted this scripture to suit their own here¬
tical opinions. Both sects seem to have died out before the
fifth century. Sometimes Nazarite means one who has laid
himself under the obligation of a vow to observe the rules
of Nazariteship, whether it be for his whole life, as Samson
and John the Baptist, or only for a time, as in the case of
those mentioned in Numbers vi. 18, 19, 20 ; and Amos ii.
11, 12. Lastly, the name Nazarite denotes, according to
some, a man of particular distinction and great dignity in
the court of some prince. Nazir is the Hebrew word em¬
ployed to designate the dignity of the patriarch Joseph
(Gen. xlix. 26; Deut. xxxiii. 16); and Calmet mentions
that this word is still applied to the chief minister of the
crown in Persia. (See Carpzov, Appar., p. 151, sq., p. 799,
sq.; Reland, Antiq. Sacr. ii. 10; Meinhard, De Nasirms,
Jen., 1676; Zorn, in Miscell Lips. Nov. iv., 426, sq.;
Spencer, De Leg. Heb. Rit. iii. 6; Dongtaei. Analect. i.
37; Lucian, De Dea. *Syr., c. 60 ; Mishna, AWr.)
NEAGH, Lough, a lake of Ireland, province of Ulster,
bounded N. and E. by Antrim county, W. by Tyrone, and
S. by Armagh. It is the most extensive lake in the United
Kingdom, and one of the largest in Europe, measuring 18
miles in length by 11 in breadth, and covering an area of
98,255 acres. The height of its surface above the level of
the sea at low water is 48 feet, and its greatest depth is 102
feet. The lake is far from picturesque, and contrasts un¬
favourably with the other loughs ol Ireland. Its shoies
are low and flat, and frequently become flooded after heavy
rains. There are several islets, one of which, Ram’s Island,
is 6 acres in extent, and contains the remains of a round
tower. The principal streams which flow into the lake are
the Blackwater, the Upper Bann, and the Six-Mile Water;
and its only outlet is the Lower Bann, which leaves the lough
at its N.W. corner, and after flowing through Lough Beg,
enters the sea near Coleraine. It is connected by canals with
Belfast, Newry, and Lough Erne. It is navigated by small
vessels; and one or two commodious ports or harbours are
stationed along its coasts. The waters of the lough have
N E A
Neal
strong petrifying qualities, and the petrifaction is sili-
VonirW C1°US and suscePtible of a beautiful polish. The fish most
a.bundant are the pollan (Coregonus pollan), a bright
silvery fish, resembling the herring; and the dollaghern,
a species of trout. Numbers of aquatic birds, such as the
heron, widgeon, &c., frequent the shores.
NEAL, Daniel, the author of an able History of
the Puritans, was born in London in December 1678.
After receiving his elementary education first at Merchant
Tailors’ School, and subsequently at a dissenting academy,
he spent three years on the Continent, studying successively
at Utrecht and Leyden. On his return in 1703 he com¬
menced to preach. His learning and abilities recommended
him in the following year to the office of assistant to Dr
Singleton, the minister of an Independent congregation in
Aldersgate Street. The Doctor died in 1706, and Neal
was chosen his successor. He now appeared as a most
aithful pastor, and at the same time as an assiduous culti¬
vator of polite letters, especially of history. The History of
New England, published in 1720, introduced him to the
iterary public. Meanwhile several of his sermons, preached
loi charitable purposes or on special occasions, were printed
by request, and gained for him considerable fame as a pulpit
orator. About 1729 he had risen so high in the estima¬
tion of his co-religionists, that he was requested to un-
ertake an historical account of the Nonconformists. Ac¬
cordingly, the first volume of The History of the Puritans,
commencing at the Reformation in England, was published
VioJ mithr SeC°nd fol,owed in 1733, and the third in
1116 fourth, bringing the narrative down to the Act
of I oleration of 1689, was published in 1738. This history,
though written in a calm and judicious spirit, was accused
of being one-sided, and was attacked by Bishop Maddox
and Dr Zachary Grey. Neal answered the former, and
would m all probability have answered the latter also, had
his declining health prevented him. He died in April
1743. Neal s History of the Puritans, accompanied with
fr, *e afobor> was edited by Toulmin in 6 vols., 1793.
rhe same edition was reprinted in 3 vols. 8vo, London,
loo7 •
NEALCES, an ancient Greek painter, flourished in the
time of Aratus of Sicyon, about the middle of the third
century b.c. Little is known regarding either his life or his
works. A Venus, and a painting of the naval battle on the
Nne between the Egyptians and Persians, are mentioned
by Pliny as two of his masterpieces. In the latter of these
he very happily indicated the country in which the scene
was laid, by representing a crocodile on the eve of seizing
an ass that was drinking at the river. Nealces had a daugh¬
ter named Anaxandra, who became an artist. The painter
Engonus was once his colour-grinder.
NEANDER, one of the most distinguished and influen¬
tial of the modern theologians of Germany, was born at
Gottingen in the beginning of 1789 of Jewish parents.
His father Emmanuel Mendel, is said to have been a com¬
mon Jewish pedlar; but little seems to be really known of
his circumstances and character. His mother was a woman
of tender and noble disposition; and from the maternal side,
as in so many other cases, the virtues and talents of the son
TnS hT SLrUn?* WhiIe sti11 y°ung’ he removed with
Tnfmn ^ 0 ^amburg 5 and in the grammar school, or
Thprp nTl’ °f ^ Clt,y he rece!ved his classical education.
’ r°T0U‘ !fe’ t^le simPlicity of his personal ap-
but stfll morP hd 0ddnty °f his manners> attracted notice,
t more, under all outward peculiarities, his great in¬
dustry and mental power. His teacher, Gurlitt, took pride
in is progress; and to the countenance and encouragement
he thus received he owed much, which he always remem-
ere with gratitude. FromtheJohanneum young Mendel
passed to the gymnasium, where he attended for a year the
pre ections in philology, philosophy, and theology. The
N E A
123
study of Plato appears especially to have engrossed him ^
this time. One of his young friends, Wilhelm Neumann
writes of him in 1806,—“Plato is his idol—his constant
watchword. He sits day and night over him; and there
are few who have so thoroughly, and in such purity, imbibed
his wisdom. It is wonderful how entirely he has done this
without any foreign impulse, merely through his own reflec¬
tion and downright study.”
Consitlerable interest attaches to his early companionship
with the writer of this letter, and certain others, among
whom were the afterwards well-known writer Varnhao-en
Von Ense and the poet Chamisso. This young band of
students, strongly devoted to the romantic school of Tieck
and Schlegel, had started a poetical periodical, in connection
with which they formed themselves into a literary union,
under the symbol of the Pole Star. The Star of the North,
the region of enlightenment, was meant to signify their
aspiring cultivation of the true and the beautiful. Varn-
hagen and Neumann having come to Hamburg, were at¬
tracted by the kindred spirit of the young Jewish student,
and enrolled him in the brotherhood. He adopted the
common symbol, and in virtue of his new connection opened
up a correspondence with Chamisso, which was fortunately
preserved by the latter, and gives us the deepest insight
which we possess into his views and character at this period.
The letters are singularly interesting. They breathe
throughout the most simple and glowing enthusiasm ; while
the picture of a pure and affectionate nature, and the
struggling comprehensiveness of a great spirit, are im¬
pressed on every page of them.
These letters enable us to understand with some degree
of clearness the great change which now took place in
Neander s convictions. 1 hey reveal a course of spiritual
training very much analogous to that which he has described
in many cases, with such remarkable power, in his Church
History. He reached the gospel through Platonism. In
that philosophy which, he continued to think, addresses itself
more directly than any other to the divine instincts in man,
and which, he has expressly said, “ contains so much that
really or seemingly harmonizes with Christian truth,” he
found those points of contact with Christianity which always
attracted him more closely to it as a source of spiritual life,
and the satisfaction of all his inward necessities. The ideals
which in Plato “ ravished his intellectual vision,” and were
at first worshipped with that intense devotion which leaves
no room for any other worship in the heart of the student,
he found in the gospel transmuted into realities, fitted not
only to dazzle his intellect, but to pacify his heart and
quicken and ennoble his whole being. Plato was thus his
schoolmaster to bring him to Christ. And while he never
ceased his admiration of the philosopher, he yet always came
to embrace more and more, in its depth and purity, the
“ truth as it is in Jesus.” The influence of his teacher’s
idealism may be visibly traced in some of his conceptions of
Christian doctrine; but the divine simplicity and practical
power of the gospel asserted themselves always more strongly
in him. He was baptized on the 25th February 1806, and
on this occasion adopted, instead of his Jewish name of
David Mendel, that, under which he was always afterwards
known, of Augustus Neander (veos avrjp).
In the same year he went to Halle to study divinity.
He had matriculated at the gymnasium in Hamburg as
juris studiosus; but with his new views, and the earnest
spirit which animated him, he could now only serve the
church. At Halle, Schleiermacher was then lecturing in the
first height of his fame as a teacher. Neander met in him
the very impulse which he needed, while Schleiermacher found
a pupil of thoroughly congenial feeling, and one destined
to carry out his views in a higher and more effective Chris¬
tian form than he himself was capable of imparting to them.
From this period we are to date Neander’s devotion to
124 N E A
Neander. church history. Catching the enthusiasm and higher ap-
preciation of his teacher, he began to live in studious com¬
munion with the fathers, and to amass those stores of divine
wisdom and lore which he drew so copiously from their
writings. His repose at Halle, however, was soon dis¬
turbed. The French having taken possession of the town
after the battle of Jena, the university was suspended, and
the professors and students scattered abroad. Neander
had the misfortune, along with some other students, to be
robbed by the French soldiers; and, friendless and ill from
the fatigue of the journey on foot, he at length found refuge
in his native city. Here he continued his studies with
ardour, made himself yet more master of Plato and Plutarch,
and especially advanced in sacred learning under the vener¬
able Planck. The impulse communicated by Schleiermacher
was confirmed by Planck, and he seems now to have real¬
ized that the original investigation of Christian history was
to form the great work of his life.
Having finished his university course, he returned to
Hamburg, and passed his examination for the Christian
ministry with great distinction. He was not fitted, how¬
ever, for the pulpit, and never seems to have commenced
preaching. He betook himself to an academic career, and
the study of Christian history, in Heidelberg, where two
vacancies had occurred in the theological faculty of the
university, from the removal of Mahreineke and De Wette
to Berlin. He entered upon his work here as a theo¬
logical teacher in 1811, commencing with a Latin disser¬
tation on a subject which never ceased to attract him (Z)e
jidei gnoseosque idea secundum Clementum Alexi)', and
in the year following an extraordinary professorship re¬
warded his learning and industry. In the same year (1812)
he first appeared as an author by the publication of his
monograph on the Emperor Julian. The fresh insight into
the history of the church, and the vivid and striking power
of delineation evinced by this work,—vague and sketchy,
perhaps, as it now seems in the light of his maturer produc¬
tions,—at once drew attention to its author, and marked him
as a rising theologian of the first rank. Accordingly, even
before he had terminated the first year of his academical
labours at Heidelberg, he was called to Berlin as the asso¬
ciate of De Wette and Schleiermacher—an illustrious band,
whose labours have left an ineffaceable impress upon Ger¬
man theology.
In Berlin, Neander settled at once to those laborious
habits of study and of earnest faithfulness in the discharge
of his professorial duty which distinguished all his future
career. His life was only varied by the successive publi¬
cations which appeared in such fertility from his pen.
In the year following his appointment he published a
second monograph on St Bernard and his Age; then in
1818 his work on Gnosticism. A still more extended and
elaborate monograph than either of the preceding followed
on Chrysostom ; and again, in 1825, another on Tertullian.
He had in the meantime, however, begun his great work,
to which these several efforts were only preparatory studies.
The first part of his General History of the Christian Reli¬
gion and Church made its appearance in 1825, embracing
the history of the first three centuries. The remaining
parts have appeared at successive intervals,—the last volume
since his death, bringing down the narrative to the eve of
the Reformation. Besides this great work, he published
in 1832 his History of the Planting and Training of the
Christian Church by the Apostles ; and in 1837 his Life of
Jesus Christ, in its Historical Connection and Development,
called forth by the famous Life of Strauss. In addition to
all these labours, he gave to the public many miscellaneous
sketches from the history of the church and of theological
opinion ; as, for example, his Memorabilia from the History
of the Christian Life, his volume under the title of the
Unity and Variety of the Christian LAfe, and his papers
N E A
on Plotinus, Thomas Aquinas, Theobald Thamer, Pascal, Neapolls
Newman, Blanco White, and Arnold, &c. Several brief ||
works of a mixed exegetical and historical character have ^rchus.
also come from his pen ; and since his death a succession -t ' 1
of volumes, representing his various courses of lectures,
have been promised, of which two, containing his Lectures
Qyi Dogmengeschichte, admirable in spirit and execution,
appeared last year (1857).
The life of Neander, as may be gathered from this mere
enumeration, was one of unwearied work in his study and
in his lecture-room. He lectured usually three times a
day, his lectures embracing almost every branch of theo¬
logy, exegetics, dogmatics, and ethics, as well as church
history. He cherished the most warm and affectionate
interest in his students, his ungrudging self-denial and
benefactions in their behalf forming one of the most kindly
traditions which surround his name. It is difficult to con¬
ceive a more child-like and yet more aspiring nature; at
once so simple and so subtle—so lovely in affectionateness,
and yet so grand and comprehensive in capacity and views.
He died in 1850, worn out, and nearly blind, with incessant
study. Germany mourned him as one of the greatest of
her sons.
Our space will not permit us to enter into any full ap¬
preciation of Neander’s theological and historical labours.
This could only be done by showing at length his relation
to the previous theology of Germany, and especially his
connection with Schleiermacher, and the manner in which,
while adopting, he modified and carried out the principles
of this great thinker. With a mind less restlessly specu¬
lative, less versatile, discriminating, and logical, he possessed,
in higher union than Schleiermacher, depth of spiritual
insight and purity of moral perception with profound
philosophical capacity. Characteristically meditative, while
Schleiermacher was characteristically dialectical, he rested
with a more secure footing on the great central truths of
Christianity, and recognised more thoroughly their essen¬
tial reasonableness and harmony. Strongly alive to the
claims of criticism, he no less strongly asserted the rights
of Christian feeling. “ Without it,” he emphatically says,
“there can be no theology ; it can only thrive in the calm¬
ness of a soul consecrated to God.” And exactly in the
same spirit, and proceeding from the same strong recog¬
nition of the absolute necessity of this Christian element in
all theology, was his favourite motto,—“Pectus est quod
theologum facit.”
His Church History remains the greatest monument of
his genius; and, upon the whole, the greatest work that
has yet attempted to embrace so wide a field. Defective
in graphic personal details and in a clear exhibition of the
political relations of the church, somewhat heavy in style,
with a certain vagueness and want of pictorial life through¬
out, it is yet unrivalled in its union of vast learning and
profound philosophic penetration; its varied comprehen¬
siveness and abundant store of materials ; its insight into the
living connection of historical events, but especially into
the still more living and subtle nexus which binds together
the growth and development of human opinion ; in its dis¬
play of such qualities, with the most simple-hearted Chris¬
tian piety, the most lively appreciative interest in the ever-
varying fortunes of the church, the finest discernment^ of
all the manifold phases of the Christian life, the most genuine
liberality, and the most catholic sympathy. (j. t h.)
NEAPOLIS. (See Naples.)
NEARCHUS, a distinguished ancient admiral, was the
son of Adrotimus, and was born in Crete in the former half
of the fourth century B.C. Obtaining a high position at the
court of Macedon, he became a devoted friend of the young
Alexander, and was banished on that account by the sus¬
picious Philip. Alexander, on succeeding to the throne,
recalled him ; and Nearchus in 335 n.c. set out with the
N E A
Neath, king on his career of conquest. He was left behind in the
following year to govern Lycia and Pamphylia. Five years
afterwards, however, he joined the conquering prince once
more in the far-distant province of Bactriana. But it was not
until 325 b.c. that a high command was conferred upon him.
A fleet was then launched upon the Hydaspes, and Near-
chus was appointed to conduct it to the sea. This was ef¬
fected in safety ; but the more difficult task of leading the
ships through the unexplored Indian waters to the Persian
Gulf remained to be accomplished. Nearchus volun¬
teered his services, which were gladly accepted. He set
sail from the mouths of the Indus about the end of Septem¬
ber 325 b.c. On approaching nearly opposite the western
border of the Indians, the ships were obliged to tarry for
twenty-four days in a port, afterwards called Alexander,
until the north-east monsoon had set in. From this point
the inexperienced mariners began to be encompassed with
perils and objects of terror. A storm met them, and de¬
stroyed three of the galleys; they were under a per¬
petual dread of running upon rocks and shoals ; huge sea-
monsters rose upon the surface of the water, and threatened
to overwhelm them ; when they drew close to the land,
ferocious savages, covered entirely with shaggy hair, and
armed with nails like those of wild beasts, glared upon
them from the shore. When at length, they arrived oppo¬
site the country of the Ichthyophagi, Leonnatus, who at
the head of a land army had hitherto supplied them with
provisions, could no longer attend them; and the barren
sandy plain that extended for hundreds of miles along the
shore could afford them no sustenance. The crews, appalled
at the inevitable famine and the weary stretch of unknown
sea that lay before them, became faint-hearted and refrac¬
tory. At this crisis the indomitable energy of the admiral
saved all from destruction. Overbearing the spirit of dis¬
obedience by his commanding firmness, he steered right
onwards for many days, in spite of hunger, and danger, and
discontent, until he landed his famished sailors on the fer¬
tile shores of Carmania. The remainder of the voyage
was comparatively easy; and on the 9th December he
brought his ships to anchor at the mouth of the River An-
amis near the town of Harmozia. He then hastened to
the camp of Alexander, which was pitched at a short dis¬
tance in the interior, to announce his arrival. “ By the
Grecian Zeus and the Lybian Ammon !” exclaimed the
king, “ I swear to you I am more happy in receiving this
intelligence than at being the conqueror of all Asia.” From
this date the facts known concerning Nearchus are compa¬
ratively unimportant. In the beginning of the following
year (324 b.c.) he conducted his fleet to Susa. When
the empire of Alexander was divided, his old provinces
of Lycia and Pamphylia fell to his lot. He became an
attached friend of King Antigonus. The latest mention
of him in history is in 314 B.c., when he was appointed one
of the counsellors of Demetrius, the son of the above-named
monarch.
A narrative of the famous voyage of Nearchus is said to
have been written by the navigator himself, and to have
furnished the materials of Arrian’s Indica. This opinion
has been contested by Dodwell and other critics; but has
been upheld by the generality of authorities, and especially
by Dr Vincent in his Commerce and Navigation of the
Ancients in the Indian Seas. The work just mentioned
also gives a full account of the voyage.
NEATH, or Nedd (anc. Nidum), a parliamentary
and municipal borough and market-town of South Wales,
in the county of Glamorgan, on the left bank of the river
of the same name, 7 miles E.N.E. of Swansea, 35 W.N.W.
ot Cardiff, and 208 W. by N. of London by railway. It
extends along the edge of the river ; and though neither
well nor regularly built, it has some broad, well-paved
streets. In the middle of the market-place stands a town-
NEB 125
hall, built in 1837. The parish church is a large and Nebraska,
ancient structure, with a square embattled tower ; and there 'w
are several other churches. The town has a philosophical
society, mechanics’ institution, library, museum, and several
almshouses. There are extensive copper and iron works
and the trade is considerable. The River Neath, which is
here crossed by a bridge, is navigable for vessels of 300
or 400 tons up to the town, where there is a harbour
with convenient docks. The principal articles exported
are coal, iron, copper, tin, oak, and bricks; while copper
and iron ore, corn, flour, timber, and other goods, are im¬
ported from foreign countries. Near the town are the re¬
mains of an old castle; and about a mile off, on the road
to Swansea, are those of Neath Abbey ; but very few traces
now remain of the former splendour of either of these edi¬
fices. The borough is governed by a mayor, 4 aldermen,
and 12 councillors ; and unites with Swansea in returning
a member to Parliament. The market-day is Wednesday ;
and three annual fairs are held. Pop. (1851) 5841.
NEBRASKA, a territory of the United States of North
America, bounded N. by British America; W. by the
Rocky Mountains, which separate it from Washington, Ore¬
gon, and Utah ; S. by Kansas ; and E. by Iowa and Min¬
nesota. It lies between N. Lat. 40. and 49., and W. Long.
95. and 113.; and has an estimated area of 335,882 square
miles. The country is still in its wild, primitive condition, and
little is known of its topography, except in the neighbour¬
hood of the Missouri and Platte rivers. The greater por¬
tion is an immense plain, sloping gradually from the Rocky
Mountains in the W. to the Missouri in the E. Little of
it is mountainous, except that part contiguous to the Rocky
range. The principal rivers are the Missouri and its afflu¬
ents the Platte, or Nebraska, and the Yellowstone. The
country on both sides of the former tributary, as far up as
the Elkhorn, is described as an undulating plain, here and
there broken by ravines of considerable abruptness. But
farther up the quality of the land deteriorates, and, except
in the immediate vicinity of the river, is unfit for cultiva¬
tion. The section of the territory at the head of Platte
River, called the Black Hill district, is more elevated and is
well watered. Many of the hills are covered with pine and
cedar, and the valleys are said to be luxuriantly clothed with
grass. From Fort Laramie, on the same river, there extends,
for a distance of about 90 miles, a remarkable tract of land
called “ the Bad Lands,” on account of its great sterility
and forbidding aspect. It is studded with a number of co¬
lumnar masses of sandstone from 100 to 200 feet high, which
give it all the appearance of a vast, though quaint old town
entirely deserted by its inhabitants. An interest of another
kind has also been imparted to this place by a number of
fossil skeletons of various tribes of animals now extinct, par¬
ticularly of the Pachi/dermata, being found here, among
which the skeleton of a Palceotherium was discovered 18
feet in length. The Platte valley forms one of the highways
for overland emigrants to Utah and California. The river
is from one to three miles broad, but yet so shallow, that, ex¬
cepting at high flood, it is fordable at almost any part. The
course of the stream is obstructed by numerous islands co¬
vered with cotton-wood, willows, and shrubs; while the shift¬
ing sand-banks and the rapidity of the current effectually pre¬
vent navigation. It rises among the Great River Moun¬
tains, and, under the name of the North Fork, flows E. by S.,
till joined by the South Fork, when it assumes the name of
Platte or Nebraska River. It discharges its water into the
Missouri near Platteville, after a course of about 1200 miles.
The Yellowstone River, which waters the northern part of
Nebraska, though not so long as the Platte, has a greater
volume of water. It rises in Sublette’s Lake, N. Lat. 43.
40., and W. Long. 110., and after a north-easterly course
of about 1000 miles, joins the Missouri at Fort Union.
From the condition of the soil and surface of Nebraska,
126 NEB
Nebuchad- it will in all likelihood become an agricultural country of
nezzar. some importance. The climate is warmer than in the same
latitude east of the great lakes. Owing, however, to the
vast extent of prairie land, the temperature is subject to
sudden changes, and the country is exposed to the north
and west winds, which sweep over the plains with great
violence. It is reported that minerals exist to a consider¬
able extent, and coal is said to have been lately discovered
here. Emigrants have not as yet flowed into the territory
in large numbers; and hence it is that here the Indians are
found in greater numbers, and in a less civilized state, than
in any other part of the Union. The government have
assented to the construction of several roads through Ne¬
braska, which, when completed, will no doubt tend greatly
to the increase of its population. The territory formed a
part of the Louisiana purchase, and came into the posses¬
sion of the Union in 1803. It then comprehended the
territory of Kansas, which was separated from it and organ¬
ized a territory of the Union in 1854. Nebraska, as it now
stands, received a like privilege in the same year. The
capital town is Omaha city, situated on the west side of the
Missouri. The entire white population was estimated in
1854 at 6000.
NEBUCHADNEZZAR, Nebuchadrezzar, or Nabo-
pouassar, a great Chaldean king of Babylon. The account
of his life given in the sacred narrative has received con¬
siderable elucidation from the canon of Ptolemy the mathe¬
matician, and from an extract preserved by Josephus out of
a history by Berosus, a priest of the temple of Bel. From the
combined import of these three narratives, we gather that
Nebuchadnezzar, having virtually received the sovereign
power from his infirm father Nabopolassar, set out at the head
of a mighty army to chastise Necho, King of Egypt. The
Egyptian monarch, after subduing the kingdom of Judaea,
had advanced as far as the banks of the Euphrates, and had
seized upon Carchemish (Circesiuni). There the youthful
Chaldean prince met him, routed his army, and retook the
captured city. The Jews, deprived of the support of their
allies, yielded to the conqueror; their king Jehoiakim be¬
came a tributary of Babylon; and within two years the
Egyptian influence in Syria was completely crushed. At
this time (605 b.c.) Nebuchadnezzar received intelligence of
his father’s death. Leaving his army to conduct the cap¬
tives and the spoils to Babylonia, he hastened home with a
slender escort to assume the sole sovereignty. To con¬
solidate his throne by an alliance, the young king married
Amytis, the daughter of the King of Media. About the
same time his great and splendid genius, unoccupied by
schemes of conquest, began to find a congenial exercise in
expensive improvements and gorgeous architecture. He
decorated the temple of Belus to a superb magnificence
with the treasures and the sacred vessels from Jerusalem ;
he planned stupendous canals, rivalling in depth and breadth
the river Euphrates; and he laid the foundations of that
massive and lofty palace, whose terrace-gardens, hanging
from its sides like woods from the brow of a mountain cliff,
became the wonder of the world. These peaceful occupa¬
tions were interrupted by the intelligence that the Jews,
instigated by Necho, King of Egypt, had rebelled. In the
eighth year of his reign Nebuchadnezzar was besieging
Jerusalem in person. The city was soon forced to surren¬
der ; the newly-appointed king Jehoiachim was deposed;
the temple and the palace were plundered ; no less than
50,000 captives, including Ezekiel the prophet, the nobles
of Judah, and the craftsmen, followed in the train of the
conqueror to Babylon; and Zedekiah, the brother of the
late monarch, was left to govern the remnant. But no
sooner had the Chaldean monarch departed to his distant
capital, than his old enemies the Egyptians began to plot
against him. They had induced Zedekiah to renounce his
allegiance to Babylon, and had sent an army under their
NEC
king Hophra to support him in his rebellion, when Nebu- Neckar
chadnezzar, at the head of all the forces of his empire, re- ||
appeared in Palestine. After driving the Egyptians back decker,
into their own country, he sat down before Jerusalem in v'—V^''
590 b.c. A hot siege of two years ended in the complete
surrender of the city to his merciless vengeance. As a
summary punishment upon the refractory Jews, he con¬
demned their capital city to be first plundered of all its brass
and gold, and then reduced to ashes, and their entire nation
to be carried into captivity. The plunder of this expedi¬
tion, like that of former expeditions, was devoted to the
adorning of the royal seat of the conqueror with specimens
of art and enterprise. One of these was the gigantic golden
image which is mentioned by the prophet Daniel. Nebu¬
chadnezzar was yet destined to be the minister of Divine
vengeance upon the idolatrous Tyrians and Egyptians. At
the end of an arduous siege of thirteen years, he took the
city of Tyre, and levelled it with the dust. The Egyptians,
who had added to their former provocations by sending
succours to the besieged Tyrians, then became the object
of his attack. Invading Egypt he marched from Migdol to
Syene, overwhelming all resistance, taking numerous cap¬
tives, and filling the entire length and breadth of the land
with burning cities and slaughtered citizens. This cam¬
paign seems to have closed the military career of the Baby¬
lonian conqueror. He returned home to enjoy in peace
the sway of that wide empire which had been won by his
sword, and the splendour of that metropolis which had be¬
come under him the queen of the cities of the earth. His
pride, pampered by the remembrance of an uninterrupted
series of successes, swelled to a monstrous height. Walking
one day in his palace, and looking down upon the imposing
scene of magnificent houses around him, he burst out into
an apostrophe of self-exultation. Immediately a voice fell
from heaven, dooming him to live like a beast of the field
until he should learn “ that the Most High ruleth in the
kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will.” In
the same hour the arrogant, self-elated monarch was changed
into a bewildered monomaniac that fancied himself an ox,
and fled from the abodes of men to eat grass in the wilder¬
ness. At the close of seven years, he was restored to his
reason and to his kingdom ; and it is probable that the rest
of his days were passed in that humility of spirit which be¬
comes a creature. He died in 562 b.c. and was succeeded
by his son Uouaroudamos, or Evil-Merodach.
NECKAR, a river of Germany, rises in Wiirtemberg,
near the borders of Baden, in the Black Forest, not far
from the source of the Danube. It flows in an irregular
course, first N.E., traversing the N.W. corner of Hohen-
zollern, then N. through Wiirtemberg, and finally nearly
W. through Baden, to the Rhine, which it joins at Mann¬
heim. Its principal affluents are the Enz, on the left side,
and the Kocher and Jagst, on the right. The towns of
Rothenberg, Tubingen, Esslingen, Heilbronn, and Heidel¬
berg stand on its banks ; and those of Stuttgardt and Louis-
burg are in its vicinity. The whole length of the river is
about 270 miles, and it is navigable as far up as Cannstadt,
120 miles from its union with the Rhine.
NECKER, Jacques, a statesman and financier of France,
was born at Geneva on the 30th of September 1732. He
was descended from a respectable family, originally from
North Germany, and his father was a professor of law in
Geneva. At the age of fifteen he quitted Geneva, and
proceeding to Paris, entered first into the banking-house of
Vernet, and afterwards into that of Thelluson, of which he
became the cashier, and at length a partner. On the death of
Thelluson, he established a bank on his own account, by
which he accumulated a very large fortune. After twenty
years of unremitting attention to his profession, he married
a Protestant lady of respectable family, and having retired
from business, was shortly afterwards named minister of the
NEC
Necker. republic of Geneva at Paris. In accepting of this employ-
ment, he refused the emoluments which were attached to it;
a degree of forbearance not very usual in public men, but
in which he resolutely persisted during the whole course of
his political life. In 1769 he published the Compagnie des
Indes ; and the Essai sur la Legislation et le Commerce des
Grains, as well as the Eloge de Colbert, which was crowned
by the French Academy, greatly extended the reputation
of his political talents.
The disorder in the state of the French finances had
become so alarming, that it was found necessary to break
through the routine of official promotion, and to choose able
men for the public service wherever they could be found.
M. Necker, although a foreigner and a Protestant, was ac¬
cordingly appointed in the year 1776 director of the royal
treasury, and in the following year director-general of the
finances. The great object of M. Necker was to introduce
order and economy in the public management. With this
view, he found himself compelled either to suppress useless
offices, or to diminish emoluments ; and his retrenchments
drew upon him the enmity of all those who suffered by his
economical reforms. He published in 1781 the well-known
piece on the state of the finances entitled Le Compte Rendu
au Roi, which had not the effect of lessening the number
or violent hostility of his enemies. In order the better to
struggle with his opponents, he made a demand for a seat in
the Council, but was objected to on the ground of his religion.
Being persuaded that this scruple would be abandoned, he
persisted, and offered his resignation, which was accepted ;
and in this manner, as is alleged, he became the dupe of his
own presumption.
He now retired to Switzerland, tvhere he purchased the
barony of Coppet. In 1784 he published an able work en¬
titled De VAdministration des Finances, in 3 vols. 8vo,
of which 80,000 copies were speedily sold. In 1787 M.
Necker sent a memorial to the king, for the purpose of
proving the correctness of his calculations in the Compte
Rendu. His Majesty having read these documents, re¬
quested that they might not be published, a proposition in
which Necker did not acquiesce, and for this offence he was
exiled, by a lettre de cachet, 40 leagues from Paris.
Calonne, however, and the Archbishop of Toulouse were
found unequal to the task of regulating the French fin¬
ances, and were successively obliged to resign and make
way for Necker, the favourite of the people, who wras rein¬
stated in his former post in August 1788.
At this period the French government was assailed
by a complication of difficulties, the chief of which was
the impracticability of raising the necessary supplies, and
the danger of an immediate bankruptcy. A great scarcity
also prevailed at Paris, which rendered the populace un¬
usually discontented and tumultuous. Louis XVI. and his
advisers pursued a weak and vacillating policy ; and, when
it was too late, desperately meditated even the most violent
measures for the recovery of their authority. Troops were
drawn from the most distant parts and encamped around
Paris, intended to overawe the deliberations of the As¬
sembly, or perhaps to dissolve it at once at the point of
the bayonet. These violent courses M. Necker opposed,
and he accordingly, at his own suggestion, was dismissed
on the 11th July 1789, and requested to quit the king¬
dom in tw'enty-four hours. It is impossible to describe
the consternation and wild confusion which prevailed in the
capital when the dismissal and exile of this favourite minis¬
ter was made known. His recall was demanded by the
enraged populace, and a letter was written to Necker at
Basle, requesting him to return. This popularity, how¬
ever, was not of long duration. Being alarmed by the ex¬
cesses which had already taken place, Necker became de-
siious to support the authority of the sovereign ; and,
without conciliating the confidence of the king’s friends,
NEE
127
Nectar
he lost that of the popular party. His personal safety
being now in danger from the violence of the people, he 11
quitted Paris in the most private manner in the month Needles,
of December 1790. v. l
After the loss of his power and popularity, Necker seems
to have sunk into the greatest dejection. “ I could have
wished,” says Gibbon, who passed some days with him
about this period, “ to have exhibited him as a warning to
any aspiring youth possessed with the demon of ambition.
With all the means of private happiness in his power, he
is the most miserable of human beings; the past, the pre¬
sent, and the future, are equally odious to him. When I
suggested some domestic amusements, he answered with a
deep tone of despair, ‘ In the state in which I am, I can
feel nothing but the blast which has overthrown me.’ ” He
had recourse to writing to divert his melancholy; and
several works which he published were the fruits of his
labours during this period. He died at Coppet on the 9th
of April 1804, after a short but painful illness.
His writings, besides those already mentioned, are,—
Memoire sur les Administrations Provinciates, 1781; De
VImportance des Opinions Religieuses, 1788; Sur l’Ad¬
ministration de Necker, par lui-meme, 1791; Du Pouvoir
Executif dans les Grands Etats, 1792 ; De la Revolution
Frangaise, 1797. (See his Memoires by his illustrious
daughter, Madame de Stael. A complete edition of
Necker’s (Euvres was published in 15 vols. 8vo, Paris,
1821.)
NECTAR, among the early Greek and Roman poets,
was the drink of the gods {ambrosia being their food),
and was fabled to have the power of imparting health,
vigour, youth, and beauty to all who drank of it.
NEDJED, a district of Arabia. (See Arabia.)
NEEDHAM, John Tuberyille, was born at London
on the 10th September 1713, and was descended from an
ancient and noble family. He studied and taught rhe¬
toric at the English college at Douay, conducted a Roman
Catholic school near Winchester, and in 1744 was ap¬
pointed professor of philosophy in the English college at
Lisbon. Ill health soon compelled him to leave Portugal,
and he passed several years at London and Paris, which
were principally employed in microscopical observations,
and in other branches of experimental philosophy. The
results were published in the Philosophical Transactions
of the Royal Society of London, of which he was a mem¬
ber, in 1749, and at Paris in 1750, in 1 vol. 12mo. An
account of them was also given by his friend Buffbn in the
first volumes of his Natural History. From 1751 to 1767
he wras chiefly employed as a travelling tutor, and in 1768
he retired to the English seminary at Paris. He after¬
wards received the appointment of chief director of the
Imperial Academy, then instituted in the Austrian Nether¬
lands, where he remained till his death, on 30th Decem¬
ber 1781.
The papers of Needham inserted in the Philosophical
Transactions are contained in vols. xlii., xliv., xlv., and
li. He also wrote a curious pamphlet in connection with
the controversy then in agitation respecting the origin
of the Chinese, entitled De Inscriptione quadam AEgyp-
tiaca Taurini inventa, et characteribus, Egyptiis olim
et Sinis communibus exarata, 1761, in 8vo.
NEEDLES. These useful articles are made of steel
wire, which may be mill-drawn or hand-drawn. The
latter is preferred for the best needles, because, as in that
case there is only one wire running at a time, the drawer
can feel when the surface rips or tears, and can stop the
process, so as to re-adjust the draw-plate and remove the
damaged wire. In cleaning the wire after it has been
softened, the scale is not removed by pickling in dilute
sulphuric acid, but by the friction of rubbers smeared with
emery and oil. The needle-maker obtains his wire in
128 NEE
Needles, coils of various sizes and weights, and his first operation
is to cut it into lengths, each of which is sufficient for two
needles. The curved pieces thus cut from the coils are
straightened by inclosing many thousand lengths within a
couple of rings, and rubbing them with an iron instru¬
ment called a smooth file ; the friction of the pieces of wire
upon each other producing the intended effect. Before
this operation the wires are sometimes softened by being
raised to a red heat, and allowed to cool gradually. The
next process is to point both ends of the wires, which is
done on small grit-stones; the grinder holding a number
of wires in his left hand, and by a peculiar motion of the
right hand making them roll upon the stone, so as to pro¬
duce an accurate point. This dry grinding loads the air
with particles of grit and of steel, which, entering the lungs,
produce a fatal disease, known as grinder's asthma. The
remedy for this is to attach to each wheel a ventilating ap¬
paratus capable of carrying off the dust as fast as it is
formed. After the wires have been pointed, the centre of
each is stamped or flattened out, and a groove is sunk on
each side, together with a small cavity for the eye, by
means of dies. One of the dies is contained in a block of iron
resting on wood, and the other is attached to the bottom of
a hammer, so connected with a lever as to be worked by
the foot of the stamper; by which means the centre of
each wire is flattened out, and the shape of the two eyes
given. If it were attempted to form the eyes at one punch¬
ing, the wire would probably be torn. In the next opera¬
tion, called eyeing, a couple of steel points or cutters are
brought down to punch out the eye. The wires are now
threaded by their eyes upon a couple of wires, and the bur
formed by stamping out the blank eyes is filed oft’. The
lengths are next divided, by bending the wires backwards
and forwards between the two wire spits; and shape is given
to the heads of each row of needles by grasping the points
in a hand-vice, and filing the heads upon a raised piece of
metal. The needles are now said to be headed or made,
and this completes the processes known as soft work, from
the soft state of the wire. Before the finishing processes
known as bright ivork are entered on, the needles are
straightened by rolling them on a flat steel plate with the
convex face of a curved smooth steel file. The next process
is hardening: the needles being raised to a red heat are sud¬
denly quenched in cold water or oil, after which they are
tempered by a more gentle heating on an iron plate, the
proper temper being judged of by the formation of a blue
film upon the surface. In this operation the needles be¬
come more or less distorted, and they are straightened by
being tapped upon an anvil with a small hammer: this is
called hard or hammer straightening. The needles are ex¬
amined by rolling with the finger on a smooth plate of steel,
and such as do not roll truly are corrected with the ham¬
mer. The needles are now made up with canvas, in
bundles of from 40,000 to 50,000, with emery, oil, and soft
soap, each bundle being about 2 feet in length, and 3 or 4
inches in diameter. These rolls are placed in a scouring
machine, resembling an ordinary mangle, and the bundles
being made to roll backwards and forwards during many
hours, such an amount of friction is produced on the needles
as to make them bright and smooth. After about eight
hours’ friction the bundles are taken out and re-made, with
the addition of putty-powder and oil. For the best
needles the scouring or cleaning and polishing is continued
for seven or eight days. 1 he heads of the needles are now
softened by placing them in rows upon metal strips, with
the eyes projecting over the edge, and bringing a red-hot
plate sufficiently near to produce the deposit of a dark blue
film on the heads. This indicates the proper temper for the
next operation, which is the very delicate one of removing
sharp or jagged portions from the interior of the eye.
This is done by drilling, the drills being minute three-sided
NEE
tools attached to a wheel, and revolving rapidly. The Needles,
operator brings each eye up to the drill, first on one side
and then on the other; first countersinking, as it is called, jfeei|[Ucj,
or converting the sharp edge of the eye, where it commu- v muc \
nicates with the groove, into a curved one; after which
the drill is made to pass round the rest of the eye in
such a way as to produce the kind of curve seen in the bow
of a pair of scissors. The points are next finished upon a
small revolving stone, after which they are polished on
wheels of wood coated with buff leather and polishing
paste. The needles are lastly counted into quarters of
hundreds, folded up in papers, and labelled. Recently
they have been sold in cases, containing several small
tubes, each tube holding a different size of needle.
The needle-making district of England includes the
villages of Redditch, Feckenham, Beoley, Studley, Cough-
ton, Alcester, Astwood Bank, Crabb’s Cross, &c.; all of
which lie near together. It should be noticed that the ma¬
nufacture differs somewhat for the heavier kinds of needles,
such as packing, sail, upholsterers’, stay, mattress, book¬
binding, surgeons’, harness,and collar needles; knitting, net¬
ting, tambour, and crochet needles ; and meshes. (c. t.)
NEEDLES, The, a name given to five remarkable rocks
lying immediately off the western extremity of the Isle
of Wight, in N. Lat. 50. 39., and W. Long. 1. 34. Their
origin is attributable to the sea beating on the sharp cliffs
which form the W. point of the island, and the same influence
is gradually wasting them away; the largest of them, which
was 120 feet in height, having been submerged in 1764.
They are white, but black at their bases, and curiously
streaked throughout with black strata of flints. A light¬
house standing on this extremity of the island rises 715
feet above the sea.
NEEFS, Peter, surnamed “ the Elder,” an eminent
Flemish painter, was born at Antwerp in 1570. He studied
under Steenwyck the Elder, and like his master, directed his
attention to the painting of the interior of churches and
convents. His delicate finish, exquisite colouring, and
correct execution of perspective, soon placed his pictures
among the best of their class. The figures which he em¬
ployed Jan Breughel, Teniers, or other eminent artists,
to introduce into his churches, added much to the effect.
Neefs died about 1650. His son, called Peter Neefs “the
Younger,” imitated him both in the selection of subjects
and in style, but with no great success.
NEEMUCH, in Hindustan, a town with a British can¬
tonment, in the territory of Gwalior, or possessions of Scin-
dia, situated on the N.W. border of Malwa, at a short
distance from the boundary which separates that tract of
countgv from Mewar. Bishop Heber describes the can¬
tonment as a stationary camp of thatched bungalows and
other buildings, open on all sides, and surrounded by a
fine plain for the performance of military evolutions. Wal-
lich, a later traveller, gives the following account of it:—
“ The cantonment extends on a slightly elevated ridge,
running about N.W. and S.E.; its extreme length is 2^
miles, and the extreme breadth 1 mile. The lines are
placed in front, facing to the northward; the regimental
officers’ quarters behind these; and the Sudder Bazaar and
staff to the rear of all. Lines have at various periods been
built capable of containing one regiment of native cavalry,
one troop of native horse artillery, four regiments of native
infantry, and a regiment of irregular horse.” A small fort
has been constructed by the British as a place of refuge for
the families of the military, when called to a distance on
duty. The native troops stationed at this place participated
in the general mutiny of the Bengal army. The rising
took place on the night of the 3d June 1857, when a
general massacre of Europeans took place. The work of
slaughter was commenced by the artillery, and all the na¬
tive troops joined heartily in it. A native officer opened
Neer
II
Neff.
NEE
the gate of the fort, and gave entrance to the rebels.
Having committed the most frightful enormities, and out-
raged every law of humanity, a large body of the mis¬
creants marched in the direction of Agra. (Some account
of their subsequent proceedings will be found under the
article North-Western Provinces of Bengal.) Nee-
much is distant 312 miles from Agra, and 371 from Delhi;
N. Lat. 24. 27., E. Long. 74. 54.
NEER, Arnould, or Aart Vander, “ the prince of
moonlight painters,” was born at Amsterdam in 1619. His
paintings soon became remarkable for their fidelity to na¬
ture, and for their calm poetical tone. He excelled in
representing winter scenes; but his favourite subject was
the moon shedding down her silver light upon a sleeping
hamlet, in the midst of a few trees on the bank of a smooth¬
flowing river. These moonlight pieces are found all over
Europe, and are marked by a monogram, consisting of
A. V. D. N. Neer died in 1683.
Neer, hglon Hendrick Vander. an eminent artist, was
the son of the preceding, and was born at Amsterdam in
1643. His first lessons in painting were received from his
father. He then became the pupil of Jacob Yanloo, and
about the age of twenty followed his teacher to Paris. His
principal studies, however, seem to have been the mas¬
terpieces of Gaspar Netscher, William Mieris, and Ter-
burg. It was soon apparent that he had caught some of
the several excellencies of these famous artists, A more
striking feature of his pictures, however, was an elaborate¬
ness in detail. On every kind of subject which he painted
he employed the careful and minute attention of one who
strives to build his reputation on a few highly-finished
masterpieces. His pictures of conversational parties are
crowded with the most splendid accessories; and owing to
the excessive finish of his trees and flowers, his historical
pieces ought to be called landscapes, and his landscapes
ought to be called garden pieces. Neer died in 1703, at
the court of the elector-palatine at Diisseldorf. Specimens
of his paintings are to be seen in the Bridgewater collec¬
tion, and in the collections of Mr Hope and the Marquis
of Bute.
NEIF, Felix, a devoted Swiss missionary, was born at
Geneva on the 8th of October 1798. He received his
early education chiefly from his widowed mother, who was
distinguished for her piety ; and occasionally had the bene¬
fit of a lesson from some kind pastor of his native canton.
I he favourite authors of his boyish years were Plutarch
and Rousseau; and he took great interest in the study of
natural history and mathematics. He was placed at an
early age with a florist-gardener in the environs of Geneva,
and at the age of seventeen entered the army, that he
might no longer be a burden to his poor mother. Here
his patient industry and excellent character soon raised him
to the rank of serjeant; but his earnest, thoughtful nature
becoming greatly impressed with the truths of religion, he
was induced in 1819 to exchange the life of a soldier in
the garrison of Geneva for that of a Protestant missionary
in the wild glens of the High Alps. The first years of
his missionary life were spent as a proposant or catechist
in the cantons of Geneva, Neufchatel, Berne, and the Pays
de Vaud. In 1821 he turned his attention to the desti¬
tute district of Grenoble in France, and subsequently to
t lat of Mens in Isere, with the hope of making “ recruits,”
too*? was1wo.nt to ph^se it. He went to England in April
18-3, and after obtaining clerical ordination from the In-
ependents there, he returned to the scene of his former
abours at Mens. A short time afterwards, we find him
among the High Alps, pursuing his noble undertaking with
great courage and zeal among the descendants of the Vau-
. in the wild picturesque valleys of Queyras and Freys-
simeres. Here he dedicated temples, organized schools,
and laboured incessantly, “ by day and night, through wind,
vol. xvi. 45 ’
N E G
129
snow, and ice, among those lonely glens and savage moun-
tains, until he broke his health. The baths of pfombieres S f
were visited without any permanent effect, and he returned Negropont.
to native Geneva only to die. Small companies of the
poor people of the distant Alpine valleys made lonp- jour¬
neys on foot through the snow to see their dying pastor •
but the spring of 1829 put an end to his sufferings, and
sent these devoted ones back to their native wilds in tears
{The Life of Felix Neff, by A. Bost, London, 1855.)
NEGAPATAM, a considerable seaport in the south of
India, and province of Tanjore. It was formerly well for¬
tified, and had a citadel of a pentagonal form, with wet
ditches. It has no considerable trade, but is frequently
touched at by ships for refreshments, which are plentiful.
The town lies at the north side of the citadel, near which is
the mouth of a small river, capable of receiving vessels which
draw little water. At the mouth of the river there is a bar,
over which the surf breaks with great violence in bad wea¬
ther, and renders the entrance dangerous. The anchoring
place is about 3 miles from the shore, opposite the town,
where there is very little current; and to the S.E. of the
town, at the distance of 5 miles, there is a shoal about 5
miles in length, having from 3 to 6 fathoms water on it. It
was originally a small village, but was fortified and improved
by the Portuguese. In 1660 it was taken from them by the
Dutch, who strengthened its fortifications, and made it the
capital of their settlements on the Coromandel coast, where
they established a mint. Under their rule it enjoyed a long
period of tranquillity; its trade increased, and it became a
very flourishing city. In 1781 it was besieged and taken
by the British with about 4000 troops, and was finally
ceded to them at the peace of 1783; since which period
the fortifications have been neglected, and the trade has
been transferred to other places. E. Long. 79. 55., N.
Lat.. 10. 46.
NEGRAIS, an island, harbour, and cape of the Eastern
Peninsula, is situated at the S.W. extremity of the kingdom
of Pegu, in N. Lat. 16. 1., E. Long. 94. 12. The island
is small, and is now deserted and overgrown with jungle;
but the harbour is one of the safest in the Bay of Bengal.
In 1687 a settlement was founded here by the British
government of Madras, but it was soon after abandoned.
In 1751 it was again for a short time occupied by the Bri¬
tish ; and in 1757 was ceded to them by the Burman em¬
peror ; but two years afterwards, the Burmese attacked it,
and put to death all the inhabitants who did not succeed in
effecting their escape.
NEGROES. See Ethnology, and Africa.
NEGROPONT , or Chalcis, a town of Greece, capital
of Euboea, is situated on the Euripus, which separates that
island from the mainland, and is here at its narrowest point
only 40 yards in breadth. It is built in the form of a cres¬
cent, touching the sea at each extremity, and surrounding
the citadel, or castro, as it is termed, which stands on a lofty
rock overlooking the straits. The fortifications of the cita¬
del are partly of Venetian and partly of Turkish construc¬
tion ; while the outer walls of the town, which are now in
a state of great dilapidation, are Venetian. The streets
are narrow, but there are many good houses, especially
those built by the Venetians. There is also a Gothic
church with square towers; and, as a few Mohammedans
still remain in Negropont, one of the mosques is used by
them in its former capacity, while the others have been
converted into Christian churches. The gate of the citadel
is surmounted by the lion of St Mark. In the middle of
the straits is a small rocky islet, on which stands a tower;
and this is connected with the mainland by a stone bridge
about 70 feet long, and with the island by one of wood 35
feet long, with a drawbridge at each end, to allow the pas¬
sage of ships. The ancient name of the town was Chalcis;
and it was a place of great importance in antiquity. Strabo
130 N E G
^egro> informs us that it was twice colonized by lonians from At-
. tica in early times. It soon became one of the greatest
commercial towns of Greece, and sent out a large number
of colonies to various parts of the world. The peninsula of
Chalcidice in Macedonia obtained its name from the num¬
ber of Chalcidian colonies founded there. Cumae and
Rhegium in Italy, and Naxos, Zancle, and Taurorpenium
in Sicily, are among the cities which owed their origin to
Chalcis. The government was originally in the hands of
an aristocracy, called hippobotce, who were in all proba¬
bility the proprietors of the rich plain of Lelantum, between
Chalcis and Eretria. This plain was claimed by both of
these cities; and at an early period a war took place be¬
tween them, in which Miletus and Samos took part. After
the expulsion of the Pisistratidae from Athens, the Chalci-
dians joined the Boeotians in a war against that city ; but
the Athenians, in 506 B.C., invaded the island with a large
force, and after a complete victory, divided the lands of
the nobles among 4000 Athenian settlers. These, how¬
ever, retired from the island on its invasion by the Per¬
sians in 490 B.c. After the Persian war, Euboea joined
the Athenian confederacy, and continued in that alliance
till 445 b.c., when a general insurrection took place in
the island against Athens. It was, however, soon re-con¬
quered and reduced to subjection by Pericles, and the
aristocracy of Chalcis were deprived of their power. In
411 b.c., after the disastrous end of the Athenian expedi¬
tion to Sicily, the whole of Euboea again threw off the
Athenian yoke, and the bridge across the straits was then
first built, in order to secure the communication with Bceo-
tia. The island continued independent for some time, and
joined the Theban confederacy against Sparta; but when
the Athenian power was again in the ascendant, the cities
of Euboea became once more subject to her supremacy,
and were governed by tyrants. About 350 B.c., Callias
and Taurosthenes, joint tyrants of Chalcis, wishing to ob¬
tain the sovereignty of the whole island, asked the as¬
sistance of Philip of Macedon, who readily acceded to
their request; but Plutarch, tyrant of Eretria, having ap¬
plied to the Athenians for aid against this attempt, they
sent an army under Phocion, by whom the Chalcidians
were defeated. The Macedonian party, however, still re¬
tained their power in Chalcis; and soon the influence of
Philip was predominant throughout the island. Owing to
its strength and position, Chalcis was a place of much im¬
portance in the contest for the dominion of Greece which
took place after the death of Alexander, and it was fre¬
quently taken in these wars. In later times it fell succes¬
sively into the hands of Antiochus and Mithridates and was
finally taken and destroyed by the Romans, by whom Euboea
was included in the province of Achaia. From this time the
island continued undisturbed under the power of Rome,
and under that of Constantinople after the division of the
empire, until the Latin conquest of the East in 1204 a.d.
At that time the island came into the hands of the Vene¬
tians, who retained possession of it till 1470, when the city
of Negropont, as it was then called, was taken by the
Turks, and the inhabitants cruelly massacred. In 1688
the Venetians made an unsuccessful attempt to retake the
town. Since the Greek revolution, Eubcea has formed
part of the modern kingdom of Greece ; and as the ancient
appellations have been by law restored, Eubcea and Chalcis
are now the names by which the island and town are most
commonly known. Pop. of the island (1852), 65,299; of
the town, 5000.
NEGRO, Rio, a river of South America, forming the
boundary between Patagonia and the Argentine Confeder¬
ation, takes its rise in the Andes by two head-streams,
one from the north and the other from the south, and flows
eastward to the Atlantic, into which it falls in S. Lat. 41.,
W. Long. 62. 50., after a course of from 500 to 600 miles.
N E H
It is full of small islands and sand-banks; and about the Negro,
middle of its course it separates into two branches, which
inclose an island of considerable size. The river is sub- .
ject to two annual floods, one of which, in December and ^ ^ em^a ^
January, is occasioned by the melting of the snows of the ^
Andes ; and the other, in June and July, by the heavy rains
in the interior. The river is about 2 miles broad at its
mouth ; but at the town of Carmen, about 16 miles from
the sea, it does not exceed 300 yards in width. Near its
entrance is a bar, over which there are several channels,
some of which may be crossed by vessels drawing 11 feet
of water. The climate of the district is healthy ; and though
very warm in summer, ice is frequently formed between the
months of April and July. The winds are very variable,
and frequently violent. The principal town on the river
is Carmen, on the north bank, with a population exceed¬
ing 1000.
Negro, Rio, one of the principal tributaries of the
Amazon, rises in New Granada by two head streams, and
flows eastwards till it falls into the Amazon, in S. Lat. 3.
16., W. Long. 59. Its principal affluents are the Cassi-
quiare, by which it is connected with the Orinoco, the Ca-
babure, Padaviri, and Branco, from the N.; and the Tomo,
Zie, Haupes, &c., from the S. and W. In the lower part
of its course the river flows through a succession of lakes
from 15 to 20 miles broad : at its junction with the Amazon
it is about 1£ mile in breadth. The river is flooded during
the months of August and September, when it rises about 30
feet above its lowest level. The length is about 1000 miles.
NEGROS, one of the Philippine Islands, lies between
N. Lat. 9. 3. and 10. 58., and between E. Long. 122. 28.
and 123. 29.; being separated by narrow' channels from
the islands of Panay on the N.W., and Zebu on the E.
It is about 140 miles in length, with an average breadth of
25 miles, and an area estimated at 3827 square miles. A
range of mountains traverses the island from N. to S., and
it is watered by numerous rivers. The interior is little
known ; it contains large forests abounding in beautiful and
valuable timber. Coffee, tobacco, and rice are cultivated ;
and palms and cocoa-nut trees also grow on the island.
Wax, honey, palm oil, rock-crystal, pearls, sulphur, &c., are
among the productions of Negros. The climate is gene¬
rally healthy; but the island is subject to earthquakes.
The inhabitants of the interior are rude and uncivilized ;
and there are few Spanish settlers. The governor resides
at Timamailan, where there is a church and a small har¬
bour. Pop. of the island, 35,622.
NEHEMlAH, a distinguished Jew'ish patriot, and author
of the book of Scripture which bears his name, was the son
of Hachaliah (Neh. i. 1), and brother of Hanani (vii. 2).
His genealogy is unknown. Some think, however, that he
wras of priestly descent, because his name appears at the head
of a list of priests in chap. x. 1-8 ; but it is obvious, from
chap. ix. 38, that he stands there as a prince, and not as a
priest. Others with some probability infer, from his station
at the Persian court, and the high commission he received,
that he w'as, like Zerubbabel, of the tribe of Judah and of
the house of David (Carpzov, Introductio, See., p. i. 339).
While Nehemiah was cup-bearer to Artaxerxes Longima-
nus in the royal palace of Shushan, 444 b.c., he learned
the mournful and desolate condition of the colony returned
to Judaea. This filled him with such deep concern, that
his sad countenance revealed to the king his sorrow of
heart, which induced the monarch to send him with full
powers to rebuild the wall of Jerusalem, and “to seek the
welfare of the children of Israel.” Nehemiah reached Je¬
rusalem b.c. 444, and remained there till B.c. 432 (v.
14). The principal work then accomplished by him was
the repairing of the city wall, which was done “ in fifty
and two days” (vi. 15), notwithstanding many discour¬
agements and difficulties, caused chiefly by Sanballat, a
N E H
Nehemiah. Moabite of Horonaim, and Tobiah, an Ammonite, who were
leading men in the rival and unfriendly colony of Samaria
(iv. 1-3), as well as by certain of the Jewish people them¬
selves. Nehemiah, however, displayed great firmness, saga¬
city, and zeal; and the completion of the wall was most
joyously celebrated by a solemn dedication under his own
direction (xii. 27-43).
Having succeeded in fortifying the city, he turned his
attention to other measures, in order to secure its good
government and prosperity (vii. 1-3; xii. 44-47; viii.
1-12; viii. 13-18; ix.; x.; vii. 4; also xi. 1-19). In
these important public proceedings, Nehemiah enjoyed
the assistance of Ezra, who had gone up to Jerusalem a
number of years previously. (See Ezra.)
At the close of his successful administration Nehemiah
returned to Babylon in the year 432 B.C., and resumed, as
some think, his duties as royal cup-bearer. He returned,
however, to Jerusalem, probably about 424 B.C., where
his services became again requisite, in consequence of
abuses that had crept in during his absence. (See Prideaux,
i. 520; Jahn, Emleitung ins A. Test. ii. 288; Winer, Real-
worterbuch; also, Havernick, Einleitung ins A. Test. ii.
324.) The duration of this second administration, during
which he effected many important reforms, both social and re¬
ligious, cannot be accurately determined, but it probably
lasted ten years, namely, from 424 to 413 b.c. It is not
unlikely that he remained at his post till about the year
405 B.c., towards the close of the reign of Darius Nothus,
who is mentioned in chap. xii. 22. At this time Nehe¬
miah would be between sixty and seventy years old, if we
suppose him (as most do) to have been only between
twenty and thirty when he first went to Jerusalem. That
he lived to be an old man is thus quite probable from the
sacred history. Josephus {Antiq. xi. 5, 6) states that he
died at an advanced age ; but of the place and year of his
death nothing is known. Besides the account in Josephus,
there are some honourable notices of Nehemiah in the
Apocrypha.
Nehemiah, The Book of, was anciently connected with
Ezra, as if it formed part of the same work (Eichhorn,
Einleitung, ii. 627) (See Ezra.) From this circumstance
some ancient writers were led to call this book the 2d book of
Ezra, and even to regard that learned scribe as the author
of it (Carpzov, Introductio, &c., p. 336). There can, how¬
ever, be no reasonable doubt that it proceeded from Nehe¬
miah, for its style and spirit, except in one portion, are
wholly unlike Ezra’s.
The canonical character of Nehemiah’s work is established
by very ancient testimony. It is not expressly named, how¬
ever, by Melito of Sardis (a.d. 170) in his account of the
sacred writings; but this creates no difficulty, since he
mentions Ezra, of which, as we have seen, Nehemiah was
then considered a part. The work is properly a collection
of notices of some important transactions that happened
during the first year of Nehemiah’s government, with a few
scraps from his later history. The contents appear to be
arranged in chronological order, with the exception perhaps
of ch. xii. 27—43, where the account of the dedication of the
wall seems out of its proper place: we might expect it ra¬
ther after ch. vii. 1-4, where the completion of the wall is
mentioned. While the book as a whole is considered to
have come from Nehemiah, it consists in part of compilation.
He doubtless wrote the greater part himself, but some por¬
tions he evidently took from other works. It is allowed by
all that he is, in the strictest sense, the author of the nar-
uitive from ch. i. to ch. vii. 5 (Havernick, Einleitung, ii.
o04). lire account in ch. vii. 6—73 is avowedly compiled,
for he says in ver. 5, ‘I found a register,’ &c. This re¬
gister we actually find also in Ezra ii. 1—70 : hence it might
be thought that our author borrowed this part from Ezra ;
but it is more likely, from their obvious discrepancies, that
N E I
they both copied from public documents, such as “ the book
of the chronicles” mentioned in Neh. xii. 23, which were
not themselves harmonious. The exegetical helps for the
explanation of this book are chiefly Poole’s Synopsis, Lond.
1669-76; Jo. Clerici, Comm, in Lib. Historicos V. T
Amst. 1708; Maurer, Comment. Crit. Grammat. in V. T
vol. i., Lips. 1833; Strigelii, Scholia inNehem., Lips. 1575 •
and Rambach, Annotationes in Librum Nehemice, Hal re'
1751.
NEHRUNG, Curische, a long strip of land in Prussia,
in the province of East Prussia, about 60 miles in length’
and nowhere above 3 in breadth, separating the lagoon
called the Curische Haff from the Baltic. It consists of
sand, and is entirely barren. Several villages have been
buried by the gradual accumulation of the sand.
Nehrung, Frische, a similar sandy strip in West Prussia,
between the Frische HafF and the Baltic.
NEILGHERRIES, in Hindustan, a range of mountains
in the presidency of Madras, situated between N. Lat. 11.10.
and 11. 35., E. Long. 76. 30. and 77. 10. This remarkable
range is connected on its western side, where its summits bear
the name of the Koondahs, with the Siadri branch of the
Western Ghauts, here terminating in a southern face of lofty
and perpendicular precipices, and forming the north side of
the great Palghat valley or depression, which, extending
east and west with a breadth of about 20 miles, affords an
easy communication between the Carnatic and Malabar.
I he general outline of the Neilgherry group approaches to
a triangle, having the side which may be regarded as the
base extending nearly from N. to S., and facing Malabar;
its north side extending E. and W. facing Mysore; and the
remaining side extending from N.E. to S.W., towards the
British district of Coimbatore. From the last-mentioned
district, the Neilgherries rise in a vast precipitous mass to
the height of from 5000 to 7000 feet, and the aggregate
of the group is popularly divided into three ranges,—the
Neddimullah on the N., the Koondah on the S., and the
central or principal range, rising to the summit of Doda-
betta, the highest in the group, and having an elevation of
8^60 feet above the level of the sea, being the greatest in
India south of the Himalaya. Owing to the great eleva¬
tion of the various summits, and the consequent rarefaction
of its atmosphere, the district, although distant only 11°
from the equator, enjoys a climate famed for its salubrity,
and the remarkable evenness of its seasons. The tempera¬
ture, which falls in the coldest month of the year to the
freezing point, seldom in the hottest reaches 75° in the
shade. The great importance of this group lies in its sana¬
tory stations for the re-establishment of health in those who
have suffered from the heat of the climate in less elevated
regions. The principal of these stations is Ootacamund,
the two minor ones Coonoor and Kotageri. This tract of
territory was transferred to the British on the downfall of
lippoo Sultan in 1799. (R. Baikie’s JVeilgherries.')
NEILSTON, a village and parish of Scotland, in the
county of Renfrew, is situated on the Levern, 4 miles S. of
Paisley, and 9 W.S.W. of Glasgow. It has an Established,
a Free, and a United Presbyterian church, several schools,
and a mechanics’ institute. There are here also cotton-
mills and bleachfields; and four fairs are held annually.
Pop. (1851) of village, 2075 ; of parish, 12,233.
NEISSE, a town of Prussia, province of Silesia, on both
sides of a river of the same name, 47 miles S.S.E. of Bres¬
lau. It is well built, surrounded by walls, and strongly
fortified. There are three gates ; and the town contains
several fine public buildings. The episcopal palace is an
ancient edifice, and is memorable for the meeting between
Frederic II. and the Emperor Joseph II., which took place
here in 1/69. There are also two Protestant and several
Roman Catholic churches, a grammar school, an industrial
school, two hospitals, an establishment for superannuated
131
Nehrung
Neisse.
132 N E J
Nejin Roman Catholic priests, large powder-mills, barracks, and
il arsenals. Cotton is manufactured here, and a considerable
Nelson. tracJe is carried on in yarn and building stone. A weekly
market for yarn, and an annual fair, are held here. Pop.
(1849), 17,164.
NEJIN, or Nieshin, a town of Russia, in the govern¬
ment of Tchernigov, stands on the Oster, 49 miles S.E. of
Tchernigov, and 475 S.W. of Moscow. It is well built, and
surrounded by earthen ramparts; and contains a castle,
a cathedral, numerous other churches, a convent, a
school, and an hospital. There are manufactures of soap,
leather, silks, perfumes, confectionary, liqueurs, See. The
town has also a considerable trade, the intercourse between
the ports on the Baltic and Moldavia, Wallachia, and the
Crimea being carried on through it. Three annual fairs are
held here, and largely attended. Pop. (1849) 17,981.
NEKO, or Necho, a king of Egypt who flourished in
the fifth century b.c. (See Egypt.)
NELL ORE, in Hindustan, a town within the presi¬
dency of Madras, on the right bank of the River Penna, 18
miles from the spot where it falls into the Bay of Bengal.
The town is irregularly built, and in places rather crowded
and confined; but there are some good streets occupied by
the better classes, and on the whole, for a native town, it is
tolerably clean and airy. The population is estimated at
20,000; distant N. from Madras 100 miles; N. Lat. 14.
27., E. Long. 80. 2. The British district, of which this town
is the chief place, is bounded on the N. by Guntoor, on the
E. by the Bay of Bengal, on the S. by Arcot, and on the
W. by Cuddapah. It lies between N. Lat. 13. 55. and 16.,
E. Long. 79. 8. and 80. 21. The area, according to official
return, is 7930 square miles, and the population 935,690.
NELSON, Horatio, Lord Viscount, the son of Ed¬
mund and Catherine Nelson, was born on the 29th of
September 1758, at the parsonage-house of Burnham-
Thorpe, a village in the county of Norfolk, of which his
father was rector. The maiden name of his mother was
, Suckling; her grandmother was an elder sister of Sir
Robert Walpole, and the subject of this notice was named
after the first Earl of Orford. Mrs Nelson died in 1767,
leaving eight out of eleven children. Upon this occasion
her brother, Captain Maurice Suckling, of the navy, visited
Mr Nelson, and promised to take care of one of the boys.
Three years afterwards, when Horatio was only twelve
years of age, and with a constitution naturally weak, he
applied to his father for permission to go to sea with his
uncle, recently appointed to the Raisonnable of sixty-four
guns. The uncle was accordingly written to, and gave a
reluctant consent to the proposal. “ What,” said he, in
reply, “ has poor Horatio done, who is so weak, that he
should be sent to rough it out at sea? But let him come;
and the first time we go into action a cannon-ball may
knock off his head, and provide for him at once.” The
Raisonnable, on board of which he was now placed as a
midshipman, was soon afterwards paid off, and Captain
Suckling removed to the Triumph, of seventy-four guns, then
stationed as a guard-ship in the Thames. This, however,
was considered as too inactive a life for a boy, and Nelson
was therefore sent a voyage to the West Indies in a mer¬
chant ship. “ From this voyage I returned,” he tells us in
his Sketch of my Life, “ to the Triumph at Chatham in July
1772; and if I did not improve in my education, I returned a
practical seaman, with a horror of the royal navy, and with
a saying then constant with the seamen, ‘ Aft, the most
honour ; forward, the better man.’ ” While in connection
with this guardship, he had the opportunity of becoming
a skilful pilot, an acquirement which he afterwards had
frequent occasion to turn to account.
Not many months after his return, his inherent love of
enterprise was excited by hearing that two ships were fit¬
ting out for a voyage of discovery towards the North Pole.
N E L
From the difficulties expected on such service, these vessels Nelson,
were to take out none but effective men, instead of the
usual number of boys. This, however, did not deter Nel¬
son from soliciting to be received, and by his uncle’s in¬
terest he was admitted as cockswain under Captain Lut-
widge, the second in command. The voyage was under¬
taken in consequence of an application from the Royal
Society; and the Honourable Captain John C. Phipps,
eldest son of Lord Mulgrave, volunteered his services to
command the expedition. The Racehorse and Carcass,
bombs, were selected as the strongest ships, and the expedi¬
tion sailed from the Nore on the 4th of June 1773, and re¬
turned to England in October. During this voyage Nel¬
son gave several indications of that daring and fearless
spirit which ever afterwards distinguished him.
The ships were paid oft' shortly after their return, and
the youth was then placed by his uncle with Captain Far¬
mer in the Seahorse, of twenty guns, which was about
to sail for the East Indies in the squadron of Sir Ed¬
ward Hughes. In this ship he was rated as a midshipman,
and attracted attention by his general good conduct.
But when he had been about eighteen months in India,
he felt the effects of the climate of that country, so peril¬
ous to European constitutions, and became so enfeebled
by disease that he lost for a time the use of his limbs,
and was brought almost to the brink of the grave. He
embarked for England in the Dolphin, Captain Pigot,
with a body broken down by sickness, and spirits which
had sunk with his strength. But his health materially
improved during the voyage, and his native air speedily
repaired the injury it had sustained. On the 8th of April
1777 he passed, with much credit to himself, his examina¬
tion for a lieutenancy, and next day received his commission
as second lieutenant of the Lowestofte, of thirty-two guns,
then fitting out for Jamaica. In this frigate he cruised
against the American and French privateers which were at
that time harassing our trade in the West Indies; distin¬
guished himself on various occasions by his activity and
enterprise ; and formed a friendship with his captain, Locker,
of the Lowestoffe, which continued during his life. Having
been warmly recommended to Sir Peter Parker, the com¬
mander-in-chief upon that station, he was removed into the
Bristol flag-ship, and soon afterwards became first lieuten¬
ant. On the 8th of December 1788 he was appointed
commander of the Badger brig, in which he rendered im¬
portant assistance in rescuing the crew of the Glasgow,
when that ship was accidentally set on fire in Montego Bay,
Jamaica. On the 11th of June 1799 he obtained the rank
of post-captain, and with it the command of the Hinchin-
brook of twenty-eight guns. As Count d’Estaing, with a
fleet of 125 sail, men-of-war and transports, and a reputed
force of 25,000 men, now threatened Jamaica from St Do¬
mingo, Nelson offered his services to the admiral and
governor-general, Dalling, and was appointed to command
the batteries of Fort-Charles at Port-Royal, the most im¬
portant post in the island. D’Estaing, however, attempted
nothing with this formidable armament, and the British
general was thus left to execute a design which he had
formed against the Spanish colonies. This project was to
take Fort San Juan, situated upon the river of that name,
which flows from Lake Nicaragua into the Gulf of Mexico ;
to make himself master of the lake itself, and of the cities
of Granada and Leon; and thus to cut oft' the communi¬
cation between the northern and southern possessions of
Spain in America. Nelson was appointed to the command
of the naval department, and distinguished himself greatly
in the siege of Fort San Juan and in taking the island of
St Bartolomeo. Pestilence, however, decimated the crew of
the Hinchinbrook ; and her gallant young commander, pros¬
trated by sickness, was compelled to return to England.
He was taken home in the Lyon, by Captain, afterwards
NELSON.
Nelson. Admiral, Cornwallis, to whose care and kindness he believed
himself indebted for the preservation of his life. In three
months, however, his health was so far re-established that
he applied for employment; and being appointed to the
Albemarle, of twenty-eight guns, he was sent to the North
Seas, and kept there cruising during the whole winter,
which he did not at all relish. In this cruise, however, he
gained a considerable knowledge of the Danish coast and
its soundings. On his return he was ordered to Quebec,
and during the voyage the Albemarle had a narrow escape
from four French sail of the line and a frigate, which, having
come out of Boston, gave chase to her. Confiding in his
own skill and pilotage, Nelson, perceiving that they gained
on him, boldly ran among the numerous shoals of St
George’s Bank, and thus escaped. In October 1782 he
sailed from Quebec with a convoy of transports for New
York, where he joined Lord Hood, and accompanied him to
the West Indies. At the peace of 1783, the Albemarle
returned to England, and was paid off.
After his arrival in England, Nelson, finding it prudent
to economize his half-pay during the peace, went to St
Omer, where he remained till the spring of the following
year. On his return, he was appointed to the Boreas, of
twenty-eight guns, which had been ordered to the Leeward
Islands as a cruiser. Whilst on this station, w'here he found
himself senior captain, and consequently second in com¬
mand, he evinced the utmost zeal and activity in protecting
British interests, and in causing the Navigation Act to be
respected, especially by the Americans, who had attempted,
under various pretences, to establish an independent com¬
merce with the West India Islands ; a line of conduct which
involved him in much trouble, without procuring him re¬
ward or even acknowledgment—the thanks of the Treasury
having been transmitted to the commander-in-chief, who
had thwarted instead of encouraging him in the discharge
of an arduous and important duty. On the 11th of March
1787, Nelson married the widow of Dr Nisbet, a physician,
and daughter of Herbert, the president of the island of
Nevis. The Boreas returned to England in June, but was
not paid oft till the end of November, having been kept
nearly five months at the Nore as a slop and receiving ship.
Nelson was still in a very precarious state of health ; and
this treatment, whether proceeding from intention or ne¬
glect, excited in his mind the strongest indignation. His
resentment, however, was appeased by the favourable re¬
ception which he met with at court, when presented to his
Majesty by Lord Howe ; and having fully explained to that
nobleman the grounds upon which he had acted, he retired
to enjoy the pleasures of domestic happiness at the parson¬
age-house at Burnham-Thorpe, which his father had given
him as a residence. But the vexatious affair of the Ame¬
rican captures was not yet terminated. He was harassed
with threats of prosecution, and, in his absence on some
business, a writ or notification was served on his wife, upon
the part of the American captains, who now laid their dam¬
ages at L.20,000. -When presented with this paper, his
indignation was excessive; and he immediately wrote to
the ireasury, that unless he was supported by government
he would leave the country. “ If sixpence would save me
from prosecution,” said he, “ I would not give it.” The
answer he received, however, quieted his fears ; he was told
to be under no apprehension, for he would assuredly be
supported ; and here his disquietude upon this subject seems
to have ended.
At the commencement of the French war, it was judged
expedient again to employ Nelson; and on the 30th of
January 1793 he was appointed to the Agamemnon, ofsixtv-
four guns, and placed under the orders of Lord Hood then
holding the chief command in the Mediterranean ’fleet
Being sent to Corsica with a small squadron, to co-operate
with Paoli and the party opposed to France, he undertook
the siege of Bastia, and in a short time reduced it. The
place capitulated on the 19th of May 1794. He next pro¬
ceeded in the Agamemnon to co-operate with General Sir
Charles Stuart in the siege of Calvi. Here Nelson had
less responsibility than at Bastia; he was acting with a man
after his own heart, who slept every night in the advanced
battery. Here Nelson received a serious injury. A shot
having struck the ground near him, drove the sand and small
gravel into one of his eyes. He spoke of it lightly at the
time, and in fact suffered it to confine him only one day ;
but the sight of the eye was nevertheless lost. After the
fall of Calvi his services were, by a strange omission, alto¬
gether overlooked, and his name was not even mentioned in
the list of wounded. Nelson felt himself not only ne¬
glected, but wronged. “ They have not done me justice,”
said he ; “ but never mind, I’ll have a gazette of my own.”
And on another occasion the same second-sight of glory
led him to predict that one day or other he would have a
long gazette to himself. “ I feel,” said he, “ that such an
opportunity will be given me. If I am in the field of glory,
I cannot be kept out of sight.”
Lord Hood now returned to England, and the command
devolved upon Admiral Hotham. Tuscany had now con¬
cluded peace with France ; Corsica was in danger ; Genoa
was threatened ; and the French, who had not yet been
taught to feel their inferiority upon the seas, openly braved
us on that element. Having a superior fleet in the Medi¬
terranean, they now sent it out with express orders to seek
the English and engage them. In the action which fol¬
lowed between the English fleet under Admiral Hotham,
and that which had come out from Toulon, Nelson greatly
distinguished himself, manoeuvring and fighting his ship
with equal ability and determination ; and when the action
was renewed the following day, he had the honour of hoist¬
ing the English colours on board of the Ca Ira and the
Censeur, which both struck to him, and were the only ships
of the enemy taken on that occasion.1 About this time
Nelson was made colonel of marines, a mark of approba¬
tion which he had rather wished for than expected; and
soon afterwards the Agamemnon was ordered to Genoa to
co-operate with the Austrian and Sardinian forces. This
was indeed a new line of service, imposing multifarious
duties, and involving great responsibility; yet it was also
one for which Nelson had already evinced a singular apti¬
tude, and in which, had he been at all seconded by the land
forces, his assistance would have led to important results.
Through the gross misconduct, however, of the Austrian
general, Devins, the allies were completely defeated by an
army of boys, and the French obtained possession of the
Genoese coast from Savona to Yoltri, thus intercepting the
direct communication between the Austrian army and the
English fleet. After this disgraceful affair, the Agamem¬
non was recalled, and sailed for Leghorn to refit, being
literally riddled with shot, and having all her masts and
yards seriously damaged.
Sir John Jervis having arrived to take the command in
the Mediterranean, Nelson sailed from Leghorn in the Aga¬
memnon, which had now been repaired, and joined the
admiral in St Fiorenzo Bay. When the French took pos¬
session of Leghorn, he blockaded that port, and landed a
force in the Isle of Elba to secure Porto Ferrajo. Soon
confpnfpH • ° PUf,Sue the enemy> and ap his advantage to the utmost; but the latter replied, “ We must be
snil ” onOiTo “ ,.T,a n VfrT We,1L The caPtain of the Agamemnon did not understand such timid reasoning. “Had we taken ten
Hp if h- tlle eleventh to escape when it had been possible to have got at her, I could never have called it well done.”
He adds, that if his advice had been followed, they would have had such a day as the annals of England never produced.
134 N E L
Nelson, afterwards he took the island of Capraja : and the British
cabinet having resolved to evacuate Corsica, he ably per¬
formed this humiliating service. He was then ordered to
hoist his broad pennant on board of the Minerve frigate,
Captain George Cockburn, and to proceed with the Blanche
to Porto Ferrajo, and bring away the troops and stores left
at that place. On his way thither he fell in with two Span¬
ish frigates, the Sabina and Ceres, the former of which,
after an action of three hours, during which the Spaniards
lost 164 men, struck to the Minerve. The Ceres, however,
had got off from the Blanche ; and as the prisoners had
hardly been conveyed on board of the Minerve when ano¬
ther enemy’s frigate came up, Nelson was compelled to
cast off the prize and go a second time into action. But
after a short trial of strength, this new antagonist wore and
hauled off; and as a Spanish squadron of two sail of the
line and two frigates now came in sight, the commodore
made all sail for Porto Ferrajo, whence he soon returned
with a convoy to Gibraltar. Off the mouth of the Straits
he fell in with the Spanish fleet, and reaching the station
off Cape St Vincent on the 13th of February 1797, he
communicated this intelligence to Sir John Jervis, by whom
he was now directed to shift his broad pennant on board
the Captain, of seventy-four guns. Before sunset the signal
was made to prepare for action, and to keep in close order
during the night; and at daybreak on the 14th the enemy
were in sight. The British force consisted of two ships of
100 guns, two of 98, two of 90, eight of 74, and one of 64,
with four frigates, a sloop, and a cutter ; the Spaniards had
one ship of 136 guns, six of 112 guns each, two of 84, and
eighteen of 74, with ten frigates and a brig. The admiral,
Sir John Jervis, made signal to tack in succession. Nel¬
son, whose station was in the rear of the British line, per¬
ceiving that the Spaniards were bearing up before the wind,
with an intention of forming line and joining their separated
ships, or of avoiding an engagement, disobeyed the signal
without a moment’s hesitation, and ordered his ship to be
wore. This at once brought him into action with seven of
the enemy’s ships, four of which were first-rates. After a
desperate conflict, in which Nelson was nobly supported
by Troubridge in the Culloden and by Collingwood in
the Excellent, the Salvador del Mundo and San Isidro
dropped astern, and the San Josef fell on board the San
Nicolas. The Captain being now incapable of further
service, either in the line or in chase, Nelson directed
the helm to be put a-starboard, and calling the boarders,
ordered them to board. The San Nicolas was carried after
a short struggle, Nelson himself boarding her through the
cabin windows. The San Josef was instantly boarded from
the San Nicolas, the gallant little commodore leading the
way, and exclaiming, “Westminster Abbey or victory!”
This was the work of an instant; but before Nelson could
reach the quarter-deck of the Spanish ship, an officer looked
over the rail and said they surrendered. This daring
achievement was effected with comparatively small loss,
and Nelson himself received only a few bruises. The
Captain, however, had suffered severely in the action. She
had lost her fore-topmast; not a sail, shroud, nor rope was
left; her wheel had been shot away ; and a fourth part of
the loss sustained by the whole squadron had fallen upon
that single ship. As soon as the action was discontinued,
Nelson went on board the admiral’s ship. Sir John Jervis
S 0 N.
received him with open arms, and said he could not suffi- Nelson,
ciently thank him. For this victory the commander-in-chief
was rewarded with a peerage and the title of Earl St Vin¬
cent ; whilst Nelson, who, before the action was known in
England, had been advanced to the rank of rear-admiral,
was knighted, and received the insignia of the Bath, and a
gold medal from his sovereign.
In April 1797 Sir Horatio Nelson, having hoisted his
fla" as rear-admiral of the blue, was sent to bring away the
troops from Porto Ferrajo ; and having performed this ser¬
vice, he shifted his flag to the Theseus, a ship which had
taken part in the mutiny in England. Whilst in the The¬
seus he was employed in the command of the inner
squadron at the blockade of Cadiz. During this service
his personal courage was eminently signalized. In a night
attack upon the Spanish gun-boats (3d July 1797), his
barge was assailed by an armed launch, carrying twenty-
six men, whilst he had with him only the usual comple¬
ment of ten men and the cockswain, besides Captain
Freemantle. After a severe conflict, hand to hand, eigh¬
teen of the enemy were killed, all the rest wounded, and
the launch taken. Twelve days after this rencontre, Nel¬
son sailed at the head of an expedition against Teneriffe.
It having been ascertained that a homeward-bound Ma¬
nilla ship had recently put into Santa Cruz, the expedition
was undertaken in the hope of capturing this rich prize.
But it was not fitted out upon the scale which Nelson had
proposed; no troops were embarked; and although the
attack was made with great intrepidity, the attempt failed.
The boats of the squadron being manned, a landing was
effected early in the night, and Santa Cruz taken and occu¬
pied for about seven hours; but the assailants, finding it
impracticable to storm the citadel, were obliged to prepare
for retreat, which they effected without molestation, agree¬
ably to stipulations which had been made with the Spanish
governor by Captain Troubridge, whose firmness and pre¬
sence of mind were conspicuously displayed on this
occasion. The total loss of the English in killed, wounded,
and drowned, amounted to 250. Nelson himself was
amongst the wounded, having, in stepping out of the boat to
land, received a shot through the right elbow, which
shattered the whole arm, and rendered amputation neces¬
sary. Nelson was nowr obliged to return to England, where
honours awaited him sufficient to cheer his mind amidst
the sufferings occasioned by the loss of his arm. Letters
were addressed to him by the first lord of the Admiralty
and the Duke of Clarence; the freedom of the cities of
London and Bristol was transmitted to him ; he was in¬
vested with the Order of the Bath ; and he also received a
pension of L.1000 a year.1 His sufferings from the lost
limb, however, were long and painful. In April 1798 he
had so far recovered, however, as to hoist his flag on board
the Vanguard, and was ordered to rejoin Earl St Vincent.
Immediately on his arrival, he was despatched to the Me¬
diterranean with a small squadron, to ascertain, if possible,
the object of the great expedition which w as then fitting
out at Toulon. He sailed from Gibraltar on the 9th of
May for the Mediterranean, with three seventy-fours, four
frigates, and a sloop of war. On the 19th the squadron
reached the Gulf of Lyons ; and on the 22d a violent storm
inflicted very serious injury on the Vanguard; but after
extraordinary exertions, the Vanguard was refitted in four
1 The memorial which, as a matter of course, he was called upon to present on this occasion, exhibited an extraordinary catalogue of
services performed during the war. It is dated “ October 1797,” and addressed “ to the King’s most excellent Majesty.” It stated, that
he had been in four actions with the fleets of the enemy, and in three actions with frigates, in six engagements against batteries, in ten
actions in boats employed in cutting vessels out of harbour or in destroying them, and in taking three towns; that he had served on
shore with the army four months, and commanded the batteries at the sieges of Bastia and Calvi; that he had assisted at the capture of
seven sail of the line, six frigates, four corvettes, and eleven privateers of different sizes; that he had taken and destroyed nearly fifty
sail of merchant-vessels, and had actually been engaged against the enemy upwards of one hundred and twenty times; in which ser¬
vices he had lost his right eye and right arm, and had been severely wounded and bruised in his body. This memorial alone, apart
from the splendid additions which he afterwards made to it, is perhaps without a parallel in our naval history.
N E L
Nelson, days, and he received a reinforcement of ten ships of the
line and one of fifty guns, under the command of Commodore
Troubridge. Baffled in his attempts to get sight of the
French fleet, he kept scouring the Mediterranean waters
under a press of sail night and day for nearly two months,
till, on the 1st of August 1798, he came in sight of Alex¬
andria, and at four in the afternoon descried the French
fleet. For several days previous to this the admiral had
scarcely taken either food or sleep. He now ordered his
dinner to be served, whilst preparations were making for
battle; and when his officers rose from table to repair
to their several stations, he said to them, “ Before this
time to-morrow I shall have gained a peerage, or West¬
minster Abbey.”
Brueys, the admiral of the French fleet, had moored his
ships in Aboukir Bay, in a strong and compact line of
battle ; the headmost vessel being close to a shoal on the
north-west, and the rest of the fleet forming a kind of curve
along the line of deep water, so as not to be turned by any
means on the south-west. The advantage of numbers,
both in ships, guns, and men, was in favour of the French.
1 hey had thirteen ships of the line and four frigates, car-
rying 1196 guns, and 11,230 men. The English had the
same number of ships of the line, and one 50-gun ship,
carrying in all 1012 guns and 8068 men. The English
ships were all seventy-fours; the French had three 80-gun
ships, and one three-decker of 120 guns. Nelson, accord¬
ing to the preconceived plan of attack, resolved to keep
entirely on the outer side of the French line, and to station
his ships, as far as he was able, one on the outer bow, and
another on the outer quarter, of each of the enemy’s, thus
doubling on a certain portion of their line.1 The battle
commenced at half-past six o’clock, a little before sunset.
As the squadron advanced, the enemy opened a steady fire
from the starboard side of their line into the bows of the
leading British ships. It was received in silence, whilst the
men on board of each ship were employed aloft in furling
the sails, and below in tending the braces and making
ready for anchoring ; a proceeding which told the enemy
that escape was impossible. Four ships of the British
squadron, having been detached previously to the discovery
of the French fleet, were at a considerable distance when
the battle commenced, and on coming up, the Culloden,
the foremost of these ships, suddenly grounded in the dark¬
ness, and, notwithstanding the greatest exertions, could
not be got off in time to bear a part in the action. The
first two ships of the French line had been dismasted
within a quarter of an hour after the commencement of the
action ; and the others had suffered so severely that victory
was already certain. At half-past eight o’clock the third,
fourth, and fifth were taken possession of. In the mean¬
time Nelson had received a severe wound on the head from
a langridge shot, which cut a large flap of skin from the
forehead, and occasioned such an effusion of blood that the
injury was at first believed to be mortal. But when the
surgeon came to examine the wound, he found that the
hurt was merely superficial, and requested that the admiral
would remain quiet. Nelson, however, could not rest,
and having called for his secretary, had begun to dictate his
despatches, when suddenly a cry was heard upon deck
that L Orient was on fire. In the confusion, he found his
way up unassisted and unnoticed, and having appeared
on the quarter-deck, immediately gave orders that boats
should be sent to the relief of the enemy. It was about
SON.
ten minutes after nine o’clock when the fire broke out in
L Orient. Brueys was dead. He had received three
wounds, yet would not leave his post; and when a fourth
cut him almost in two, he desired to be left to die upon deck.
In the meanwhile the flames soon mastered the devoted
ship, and by the light of the conflagration, the situation of
both fleets could be perceived, their colours beino- clearly
distinguishable. About ten o’clock the ship blew°up with
a tremendous explosion, which was followed by a pause
not less awful. The firing immediately ceased; and the
first sound which broke the silence was the dash of her
shattered masts and yards falling into the water from the
vast height to which they had been projected by the explo¬
sion.2 The combat recommenced with the ships to lee¬
ward of the centre, and continued till about three in the
morning. Of thirteen sail of the line, nine were taken, twTo
burnt, and two escaped; and of four frigates, one was
burnt and another sunk. In short, it was a conquest rather
than a victory. The French fleet had been annihi¬
lated ; and if the English admiral had been provided with
small craft, nothing could have prevented the destruc¬
tion of the store-ships and transports in the harbour of
Alexandria.
Nelson was now at the very summit of glory. Congra¬
tulations, rewards, and honours were showered upon him
by all the foreign states and powers to which his victory
promised a respite from French aggression. In his own
country he was created Baron Nelson of the Nile and of
Burnham-Thorpe, with a pension of E.2000 a year for his
own life and those of his two immediate successors. A
grant of L.10,000 was voted to Nelson by the East India
Company; the Turkish company presented him with a
piece of plate; the city of London bestowed honorary
swords on the admiral and his captains; and the thanks of
the Parliament and gold medals were voted to him and to
all the captains engaged in the action. In the distribution
of rewards he was particularly anxious that the captain
and first lieutenant of the Culloden should not be passed
over because of their misfortune. “ It was Troubridge,”
said he, in addressing the Admiralty, “ who equipped the
squadron so soon at Syracuse; it was Troubridge wdio ex¬
erted himself for me, after the action; it was Troubridge
who saved the Culloden, where none that I know in the
service would have attempted it.”
Having made the necessary arrangements in regard to the
prizes, and left a squadron before Alexandria, Nelson stood
out to sea on the seventeenth day after the battle, and early
on the 22d of September appeared in sight of Naples, where
the Culloden and Alexander had preceded him, and given
notice of his approach. Here he was received with every
demonstration of joy and triumph, both by the royal family
and the people ; and it was here he formed that unfortunate
connection with Lady Hamilton which exercised so baneful
an influence on the rest of his life. The state of Naples
at this period was deplorable. The king, like the rest of
his race, was passionately fond of field sports, and cared for
almost nothing else. The queen had all the vices of the
House of Austria, with little to mitigate and nothing to
ennoble them. I he people were sunk in ignorance, and
debased by misgovernment; at once turbulent and cowardly,
ferocious and indolent, irreligious and fanatical. Nelson was
fully sensible of the depravity and weakness of all by whom
he was surrounded ; yet, seduced by the blandishments of
the queen, the flatteries of the court, and the pernicious
135
Nelson.
G C B ) as™ 7 ^ PUt °n *ehalf °f Captain °f the Goliath (aft™ds Admiral Sir Thomas Foley,
of this claim SirgN H^rrisN? Sagge.Stlllg this mode of attack ; hut after carefully examining the evidence brought forward in support
* To remTnd the sei W 5 w ’ ^ ^ edltl°n °f Kels0n S ^patches, vol. iii., p. 62, &c., is inclined to think that it is unfounded!
an eccentric idea occurred^ rhlSf“0ri,alny a,T1ld^he torrents °f V™'™ and adulation which were poured upon him after the victory,
mast. Nelson set ureat sW WP^-n IIallov'e11 °/ the Swiftsure, of presenting his chief with a coffin made of part of L’Orient’s main-
own trophies ” (Nelson's 7W. Present> a.nd''as actually buried, as the gallant captain of the Swiftsure desired, “in one of his
own tropmes. (Nelson s Ihipatches, &c., by Sir N. H. Nicolas, vol. iii., p. 88, &c.)
136 N E L
Nelson, influence which Lady Hamilton now began to exercise over
his mind, he suffered himself to be implicated in transac¬
tions which, to say the least of it, were not calculated to
bring honour to his country, or to heighten his own fame.
The defeat of Mack at Castellana, and the advance of the
French towards Naples, were followed by the flight of the
royal family, who were conveyed by Nelson to Palermo.
After this an armistice was signed (10th of January 1799),
by which the greater part of the kingdom was given up to
the enemy ; and this cession necessarily led to the loss of the
whole. Naples was occupied by the French under Cham-
pionnet, and the short-lived Parthenopean republic soon
afterwards established. But the successes of the allies in
Italy speedily changed the face of affairs, and prepared the
way for the restoration of the exiled monarch.
Relying on the diminished numbers of the enemy, whose
force had been greatly reduced, the royalists took the field,
and Cardinal Ruffo appeared at the head of an armed rab¬
ble, which he called the Christian army. Captain Foote,
in the Seahorse, with some Neapolitan frigates, and a few
smaller vessels, was ordered to co-operate with this force,
and to give it all the assistance in his power. Ruffo, ad¬
vancing without any plan, but ready to take advantage of
any accident which might occur, now approached Naples.
Fort St Elmo, which commands the city, was garrisoned by
French troops ; but the castles of Uovo and Nuovo, com¬
manding the anchorage, were chiefly defended by the
Neapolitan “ patriots,” the leading men amongst them
having taken shelter there. As the possession of these
castles would greatly facilitate the reduction of Fort St
Elmo, Ruffb proposed to the garrison to capitulate, on con¬
dition that their persons and property should be respected,
and that they should at their own option, either be sent to
Toulon or remain at Naples, without being molested in their
persons. These terms were accepted, and the capitulation
was signed by the cardinal, the Russian and Turkish com¬
manders, and also by Captain Foote as commanding the
British force. But Nelson, who soon afterwards arrived in
the bay with a large fleet, made a signal to annul the treaty,
declaring that he would grant to rebels no other terms than
those of unconditional submission ; and notwithstanding
the strenuous opposition of the cardinal, the garrisons of
the castles were delivered over as rebels to the vengeance
of the Sicilian court. This questionable transaction was
followed by the execution of Caraccioli. This aged prince,
a man who hitherto had borne a high character, and who
was a commodore in the Neapolitan navy, had, from some
motive or other, joined the enemy; and after being tried
by a court-martial of Neapolitan officers assembled on
board the British flag-ship, was found guilty, and sen¬
tenced to death. This sentence Lord Nelson ordered to be
carried into execution the same evening, on board of the
Sicilian frigate La Minerva. As a reward for these services,
which have, in the judgment of many, left a blot on the
scutcheon of the great admiral, Nelson received from the
Sicilian court a sword splendidly enriched with diamonds,
SON.
in addition to the dukedom of Bronte, with a domain Nelson,
worth about L.3000 a year.1
After the appointment of Lord Keith to the chief com¬
mand of the fleet in the Mediterranean, Nelson was so
deeply mortified that he made preparations for his return
to England ; and, as a ship could not be spared to convey
him thither, he travelled through Germany to Hamburg,
in company with Sir William and Lady Hamilton, and
having embarked at Cuxhaven, landed at Yarmouth on
the 6th of November 1800, after an absence of three years
from his native country. He was welcomed in England
with every mark of popular respect and admiration ; in the
towns through which he passed the people came out to
meet him, and in London he was feasted by the city, drawn
by the populace, thanked for his victory by the Common
Council, and presented with a gold-hilted sword studded
with diamonds. He had now every earthly blessing except
domestic happiness, which, in consequence of his infatuated
attachment to Lady Hamilton, he had forfeited for ever.
Before he had been three months in England he separated
from Lady Nelson, after much uneasiness and recrimina¬
tion on both sides. On taking final leave of her, on 13th
January 1801, he emphatically said “ I call God to witness
there is nothing in you or your conduct I wish otherwise.”
His best friends remonstrated against this causeless and
cruel desertion ; but their expostulations produced no other
effect than to make him displeased with them, and dissatis¬
fied with himself.
The three northern courts of Denmark, Sweden, and
Russia, had now formed a confederacy for the purpose of
setting limits to the naval pretensions of Great Britain;
and as such a combination, under the influence of France,
would soon have become formidable, the British cabinet
instantly prepared to crush it. With this view a formidable
fleet was fitted out for the North Seas, and the chief com¬
mand of it given to Sir Hyde Parker; under whom Nelson,
who had recently been made vice-admiral of the blue, con¬
sented to serve as second in command. The fleet sailed
from Yarmouth on the 12th of March 1801 ; and on the
30th of the same month, Lord Nelson, having shifted his
flag from the St George to the Elephant, led the way through
the Sound, which was passed without any loss. The Danes
had made every preparation for a determined resistance.
Besides, the navigation was little known and extremely
intricate ; all the buoys had been removed; the channel was
considered as impracticable for so large a fleet; and in a
council of war, held on board of the flag-ship, considerable
diversity of opinion prevailed. Nelson, however, cut short
the discussion by offering his services for the attack, requir¬
ing only ten sail of the line and the whole of the smaller
craft. Sir Hyde Parker assented, but gave him two more
line-of-battle ships than he had asked, and left everything
to his own judgment. On the morning of the 1st of April,
the whole fleet moved to an anchorage within two leagues of
the town ; and about one o’clock Nelson, having completed
his last examination of the ground, made the signal to weigh,
1 In connection with this whole matter, the heaviest accusations have been again and again brought against Nelson. He has been
accused of “ treachery, ' in annulling the treaty of capitulation, and of “ murder ” in the execution of Franceso Caraccioli. The entire
question has been subjected to a minute and careful examination by Sir N. Harris Nicolas, in an Appendix to the third volume of his
edition of Nelson’s Dispatches, where he endeavours to mitigate or remove the weighty charges brought against the brave admiral. The
impression left upon the mind of the reader by the vast amount of evidence therein accumulated is, that while Nelson was possibly
wrong in suspending the capitulation, even although its conditions were not executed, nevertheless, “ the intentions and motives,” to
use the words of Lord Spencer, then first lord of the Admiralty, and a statesman of great humanity of character, “by which all his
measures were governed, were as pure and good as their success was complete.” Nelson believed at the time that he acted correctly, and
retained the same opinion to the end of his life. It must, however, continue to be deeply regretted that he should have seen it his duty
to suspend the treaty, as often as the dark consequences are contemplated which ensued after the rebels were handed over to the Neapo¬
litan authorities. \\ ith respect, again, to the execution of the old Neapolitan commodore, who commanded the republican gunboats, and
fired upon the Neapolitan frigate, Sir Harris pronounces it as his deliberate opinion, in view of all the evidence of the case, that “it is
indisputable that t araccioli, and the other Neapolitans whc fought against those forces, had, according io the law of every nation in
Europe, committed high treason of a flagrant description, and that they were consequently relels.” The justice of the sentence was
therefore unquestionable; and the question of humanity could only be fairly pronounced upon by those who know the entire circumstances
in which Nelson was placed.
N E L
Nelson, which was received with a shout throughout the whole divi-
sion destined for the attack. They weighed with a light
and favourable wind, the small craft pointing out the course
to be followed ; and the whole division, having coasted along
the shoal called the Middle Ground, doubled its farther
extremity, and anchored there just as the darkness closed,
the signal to prepare for action having been made early in
the evening. As his anchor dropped, Nelson exclaimed,
“ I wdll fight them the moment I have a fair wind.”
On the following morning, at half-past nine, the signal
was made for the ships to weigh in succession ; at ten
minutes after ten the action commenced, at the distance of
about half a cable length from the enemy ; and by half-past
eleven the battle became general. The plan of attack had
been complete; but seldom had any project of the kind
been disconcerted by more untoward accidents. Three of
the ships had grounded, and only one gun-brig and two
bomb-vessels could be got fairly into action. Nelson’s agita¬
tion was extreme when he found himself, before the action
began, deprived of a fourth part of his force ; but no sooner
was he in action than the wild music of the fight seemed to
drive away all anxious thoughts; his countenance bright¬
ened, and his conversation became joyous, animated, and
delightful. At one o’clock the enemy’s fire continued un¬
slackened ; and the commander-in-chief, despairing of suc¬
cess, made the signal for discontinuing the action. At this
moment, whilst Nelson was pacing the quarter-deck in all the
excitement of battle, a shot passing through the main-mast,
knocked the splinters about. “ It is warm work,” said he,
“ and this day may be the last to any of us at a moment;
but, mark you,” he added, “ I would not be elsewhere for
thousands.” The signal-lieutenant now called out that the
signal for discontinuing the action had been thrown out by
the commander-in-chief. Nelson continued to walk the
deck, and appeared not to notice it. At the next turn, the
lieutenant asked if he should repeat the signal. “ No,”
replied Nelson ; “ acknowledge it.” He then called to
know if the signal for close action was still hoisted ; and
being answered in the affirmative, said, “ Mind you keep it
so.” A little after, “ I have a right to be blind sometimes,
Foley,” added he, addressing the captain ; then putting the
glass to his blind eye, in a mood of sportive bitterness, which
gives an inexpressible interest to the scene, I really do not
see the signal,” he exclaimed ; and after a pause, “ Keep
mine for closer battle flying ; that’s the way I answer such
signals ; nail mine to the mast.”
Between one and two o’clock, however, the fire of the
Danes slackened : by half-past two the action had ceased,
except with the Crown batteries, and one or two ships which
had renewed their fire, though with but little effect. At
this critical moment, Nelson, with his accustomed presence
of mind, resolved to secure the advantage he had gained,
and to open a negotiation. He retired into the stern gal¬
lery, and wrote to the Crown Prince thus : “ Vice-Ad¬
miral Lord Nelson has been commanded to spare Denmark
when she no longer resists. The line of defence which
covered her shores has struck to the British flag;—but
if the firing is continued on the part of Denmark, he
must set on fire all the prizes he has taken, without having
the power of saving the men who have so nobly defended
them. The brave Danes are the brothers, and should never
)e the enemies, of the English.” This, after an interchange
of communications, led to an interview between Nelson and
the Crown Prince, at which the preliminaries of negotia¬
tions were adjusted ; and a treaty was at length concluded,
by which the northern confederacy was dissolved, and the
maritime superiority of Britain unequivocally recognised.
For the battle of Copenhagen, Nelson was raised to the
rank of viscount, and, on the recall of Sir Hyde Parker,
appointed to the chief command in the North Sea. His
complaints in his correspondence (vol. iv. of Dispatches and
VOL. XVI.
SON. 137
Letters') are loud and indignant, however, that the gallantry Nelson,
of his captains had not, as after other great battles, been re- V.. v ^
warded with medals, and that the city of London had with¬
held its thanks from those who won that brilliant victory.
“ I long to have the medal for Copenhagen,” he said,
“ which I wmuld not give up to be made an English duke.”
But the medal never came.
Having settled affairs in the Baltic, Lord Nelson returned
in a frigate to England. But he had not been many weeks
ashore when he was called upon to attack the flotilla which
had been prepared at Boulogne for the threatened invasion
of England. The enemy were fully prepared, however,
and though nothing could exceed the gallantry with which
they were assailed, the enterprise proved unsuccessful.
He now desired to be relieved from this boat-service,
thinking it an unsuitable employment for a vice-admiral;
and his wishes were speedily gratified by the signature of
the preliminaries of peace.
He had purchased a house and an estate at Merton in
Surrey, meaning to pass there the remainder of his days,
in the society of Sir William and Lady Hamilton. But
the happiness which he had promised himself was not of
long continuance. Sir William Hamilton died early in
1803. A few weeks subsequent to this event the war was
renewed ; and the day after his Majesty’s message to Par¬
liament, announcing the recommencement of hostilities,
Lord Nelson departed to assume the command of the fleet
in the Mediterranean.
On the 20th of May 1803, he hoisted his flag on board
the Victory, and having taken his station immediately off
Toulon, he there waited with incessant watchfulness for the
coming out of the enemy. This blockade proved one of the
longest and most persevering that have been recorded in
our naval annals ; yet notwithstanding all his vigilance, the
Toulon fleet put to sea on the 18th of January 1805, and
shortly afterwards formed a junction with the Spanish
squadron at Cadiz; Sir John Orde, who commanded off that
port, having retired at their approach. Nelson had formed
his own judgment of their destination, when Donald Camp¬
bell, then an admiral in the Portuguese service, went on
board of the Victory, and communicated his certain know¬
ledge that the combined French and Spanish fleets were
bound for the West Indies. The enemy had five and thirty
days’start; but Nelson calculated that he should gain eight
or ten days by his exertions. To the West Indies there¬
fore he bent all sail with his ten ships, in eager pursuit of
eighteen, and on the 4th of June reached Barbadoes,
whither he had sent despatches before him. Deceived by
false intelligence, he then stood to the southward in quest
of the enemy; but advices having met him by the way that
the combined fleets were at Martinique, he immediately
sailed for that island, where he arrived on the 9th, and
received certain'intelligence that they had passed to the
leeward of Antigua the preceding day, and taken a home¬
ward-bound convoy. It was now clear that the enemy,
having accomplished the object of their cruise, were flying
back to Europe; and accordingly, on the 13th, he steered
for Europe in pursuit of them. On the 17th July he came
in sight of Cape St Vincent, and directed his course towards
Gibraltar, where he soon afterwards anchored, and went
on shore for the first time since the 16th of June 1803.
The combined fleet having thus eluded his pursuit, he
returned almost inconsolable to England, to reinforce the
Channel fleet with his squadron, lest the enemy should
bear down upon Brest with their whole collected force.
Having landed at Portsmouth, Lord Nelson at length
received news of the enemy’s fleet. After an inconclusive
action, in which they had run the gauntlet through Sir
Robert Calder’s squadron on the 22d of July, about 60
leagues west of Cape Finisterre, they had proceeded to
Ferrol, brought out the squadron which there awaited their
4
138 N E L
Nelson, arrival, and with it entered Cadiz in safety. Upon receiving
this intelligence, Nelson again offered his services, which
were willingly accepted; and Lord Barham, then at the
head of the Admiralty, gave him a list of the navy, desiring
him to choose his own officers. No appointment could be
more in unison with the feelings and judgment of the nation.
The Victory, destined once more to bear his flag, was re¬
fitted with incredible despatch; and such was his impa¬
tience to be at the scene of action, that although the wind
proved adverse, he worked down the Channel, and, after a
rough passage, arrived off Cadiz on the 29th of September,
the day on which the French admiral, Villeneuve, had re¬
ceived peremptory orders to put to sea the very first oppor¬
tunity. Fearing that the enemy, if they knew his force,
might be deterred from venturing to sea, he kept out of
sight of land; desired Collingwood to hoist no colours, and
fire no salute; and wrote to Gibraltar to request that the
force of the fleet might not be inserted in the gazette pub¬
lished there. The station which he chose was some 50 or
60 miles to the westward of Cadiz, off Cape St Mary’s.
On the 9th of October Lord Nelson communicated to
Admiral Collingwood his plan of attack. The order of
sailing was to be the order of battle. His object he de¬
clared to be close and decisive action. “ In case signals
cannot be seen or clearly understood,” said he, “ no captain
can do wrong if he place his ship alongside that of an
enemy.” This was what he called the Nelson-touch. It
was a mode of attack equally new and simple. Every one
comprehended it in a moment, and was convinced that it
would succeed. In fact, it proved irresistible.
Villeneuve, relying upon the information he had received,
put to sea on the 19tb? and at daybreak, on the 21st of
October 1805, the combined fleets were distinctly seen from
the deck of the Victory, formed in a close line ahead, about
12 miles to the leeward, and standing to the southward, off
Cape Trafalgar. The British fleet consisted of 27 sail of
the line and 4 frigates ; the enemy’s fleet of 33 sail of the
line and 7 frigates. But their superiority was greater in
size and in weight of metal than in numbers; they had
4000 troops on board ; and the best riflemen who could be
procured, many of them Tyrolese, were dispersed through¬
out the ships. Soon after daylight Nelson came on deck,
and the signal was made to bear down on the enemy in two
lines, upon which the fleet set all sail; Collingwood, in the
Royal Sovereign, leading the lee line of 13 ships, and
Nelson, in the Victory, leading the weather line of 14.
Having seen that all was right, he retired to his cabin, and
wrote a devout prayer, in which, after beseeching the Al-
mighty to grant a great and glorious victory, he committed
his life to the God of Battles ; and in another writing which
he annexed in the same diary, he bequeathed Lady Hamil¬
ton as a legacy to his king and country, and commended
to the public beneficence his adopted daughter, Horatia,
desiring that in future she would use the name of Nelson
only. Blackwood went on board the Victory about six,
and found him in good spirits, but very calm, and with
none of that exhilaration which he had displayed on enter¬
ing into battle at Aboukir and at Copenhagen. With a
prophetic anticipation, he seems to have looked for death
with almost as certain a conviction as for victory. His
whole attention was fixed upon the enemy, who now formed
their line with much skill on the larboard tack. Then ap¬
peared that signal—Nelson’s last signal—which will be re¬
membered as long as the language or even the memory of
England shall endure :—u England expects every man to
do his duty. ’ It was received throughout the fleet with a
responsive burst of acclamation, rendered sublime by the
spirit which it breathed, and the determination it expressed.
“ Now,” said Nelson, “ I can do no more. We must trust to
the great disposer of all events, and the justice of our cause.
I thank God for this great opportunity of doing my duty.”
SON.
On this memorable day Nelson wore, as usual, his admi- Nelson,
ral’s frock-coat, bearing upon the left breast the various
orders with which he had at different times been invested.
Decorations which rendered him so conspicuous a mark to
the enemy were beheld with ominous apprehension by his
officers, especially as it was known that there were rifle¬
men on board the French ships, and it could not be doubted
that his life would be particularly aimed at. This was
a point, however, on which it was hopeless to reason
or remonstrate with him. “ In honour I gained them,”
said he, when allusion was made to the insignia he wore,
“ and in honour I will die with them.” Nevertheless,
Captain Blackwood, and his own captain, Hardy, having
represented to him how advantageous it would be to
the fleet were he to keep out of action as long as pos¬
sible, he consented that the Temeraire and the Levia¬
than, which were sailing abreast of the Victory should be
ordered to pass ahead. But the order was unavailing; for
these ships could not pass ahead if the Victory continued
to carry all her sail; yet, so far from shortening sail, Nelson
took an evident pleasure in pressing on, and rendering it
impossible for them to obey his own order. As the enemy
showed no colours till late in the action, the Santissima
Trinidad was distinguishable only by her four decks; and
to the bow of his old opponent in the action off Cape St
Vincent he ordered the Victory to be steered. In the mean¬
time, an incessant raking fire was kept up on the Victory ;
and as the ship approached, Nelson remarked, “ This is too
warm work to last long.” She had not yet returned a
single gun, though by this time fifty of her men had been
killed or wounded, and her main-top-mast, with all her stud¬
ding-sails and booms, shot away. A few minutes after 12,
however, she opened her fire from both sides of her deck,
and soon afterwards ran on board the Redoubtable, just as
her tiller ropes were shot away. Captain Harvey, in the
Temeraire, fell on board the Redoubtable on the other
side; and another enemy’s ship, the Fougueux, fell on
board the Temeraire ; so that these four ships formed as
compact a tier as if they had been moored together, their
heads lying all the same way. The lieutenants of the Vic¬
tory now depressed their guns, and fired with a diminished
charge, lest the shot should pass through and injure the
Temeraire; and as there was danger that the Redoubtable
might take fire from the lower-deck guns, the muzzles of
which, when run out, touched her sides, the fireman of
each gun stood ready with a bucket of water, which, as
soon as the gun had been discharged, he dashed into the
hole made by the shot. In this situation, the Victory kept
up an incessant fire from both sides, directing her larboard
guns on the Bucentaur and Santissima Trinidad.
But Nelson’s hour was now come. It had been part of
his prayer that the British fleet might be as distinguished
for humanity in victory as for bravery in battle. Setting
an example himself, he twice gave orders to cease firing
upon the Redoubtable, supposing she had struck, because
her great guns were silent; for as she carried no flag, it
was impossible instantly to ascertain the fact. From the
ship which he had thus twice spared he received his death-
wound. In the heat of the action, about a quarter after one
o’clock, a musket-ball from the mizen-top of the Redoubt¬
able struck the epaulette on his left shoulder; and he fell
upon his face on the spot covered with the blood of his
secretary, Mr Scott, who had been killed a short time be¬
fore. “ They have done for me at last, Hardy,” said he,
as a serjeant of marines and two seamen raised him from
the deck. “ I hope not,” replied Captain Hardy. “ Yes,”
he rejoined ; “ my back bone is shot through.” But, though
mortally wounded, he did not for a moment lose that pre¬
sence of mind for which he was ever distinguished. As
they were carrying him down the ladder to the cockpit, he
observed that the tiller ropes, which had been shot away
Nelson.
N E L
early in the action, were not yet replaced, and ordered that
new ones should be immediately rove. He was laid upon
a pallet in the midshipman’s berth, and the surgeon being
called, it was soon perceived that the wound he had re¬
ceived would speedily prove mortal; but this was concealed
from all except Captain Hardy, the chaplain, and the me¬
dical attendants. Being certain, however, from the sensa¬
tion which he felt in his back, and the gush of blood within
his breast, that no human aid could avail him, he insisted
that the surgeon should leave him, and attend to those to
whom he might be useful. “ You can do nothing for me,”
said he. Suffering from intense thirst, and in great pain,
he expressed much anxiety as to the fate of the action ; and
his countenance brightened with a gleam of joy as often as
the hurrah of the crew of the Victory announced that an
enemy’s ship had struck.
At length he became very impatient to see Captain
Hardy, whom he repeatedly sent for; but that officer could
not leave the deck, and upwards of an hour elapsed before
he could quit his station. When they met, they shook
hands in silence, Hardy struggling to suppress his emo¬
tions. ‘ Well, Hardy, ’ said Nelson, “ how goes the day
with us?” “ Very well,” replied the captain; “ten ships
have struck, but five of the enemy’s van have tacked, and
show an intention of bearing down on the Victory. I have
called two or three of our fresh ships round, and have no
doubt of giving them a drubbing ” “ I hope,” said Nelson,
none of our ships have struck.” “ There is no fear of
that,” answered Hardy; upon which the dying hero said,
“ I am a dead man: I am going fast; it will soon be all
over with me ; my back is shot through.” Hardy, unable
any longer to suppress his feelings, hastened upon deck;
but in some fifty minutes, returned, and taking the hand of
his dying commander, congratulated him on having gained
a complete victory. He did not know how many of the
enemy had struck, as it was impossible to perceive them
distinctly; but fourteen or fifteen at least had surrendered.
“ That’s well,” answered Nelson; “ but I had bargained
for twenty.” Then, in a stronger voice, he said, “ Anchor,
Hardy,^ anchor;” and again, most earnestly, “ Do you
anchor.” Next to his country, Lady Hamilton occupied
his thoughts. “ Take care of my dear Lady Hamilton,
Hardy; take care of poor Lady Hamilton ;” and, a few
minutes before he expired, he said to the chaplain, “ Re¬
member that I leave Lady Hamilton and my daughter Ho-
ratia as a legacy to my country.” The last words he was
heat d to utter distinctly were, “ I thank God, I have done
my duty.” He expired at half-past four o’clock, three
hours and a quarter after he had received his fatal wound.
The total loss of the British in the battle of Trafalgar
amounted to 1587. Twenty of the enemy struck, and of
the ships which escaped, four were afterwards taken by Sir
Richard Strahan. But unhappily the fleet did not anchor,
as Lord Nelson with his dying breath had enjoined; a
heavy gale came on from the S.W.; some of the prizes
went down, some were driven on the shore, one effected
its escape into Cadiz, others were destroyed, and four only
were, by the greatest exertions, saved. Still, by this mighty
N E L
achievement the navies of France and Spain received a
blow from which they were not destined soon to recover
the gigantic combinations of Napoleon, with a view to a
descent upon England, were completely baffled ; and the
success of his campaign of Austerlitz was in a great mea
sure neutralized. The remains of Lord Nelson were buried
at St Paul’s, on the 9th of January 1806. It is needless to
add, that all the honours which a grateful country could
bestow were heaped on the memory of the man who had
achieved this unequalled victory.1
In Lord Nelson’s professional character were united all
the highest qualities of a great commander,—wonderful fore¬
sight, prompt judgment, never-failing presence of mind,
ardent zeal, unbounded confidence in the resources of his
own mind, and that intuitive decision in the midst of diffi¬
culty and peril which is the distinguishing attribute of
great military or naval genius. His daring was without
rashness, and his enterprise founded upon the most skilful
calculation ; his ardour never outran his understanding, nor
his love of glory a due consideration of the material and
moral means by which alone success can be obtained. His
talents for command were of the highest order, and he
knew the invaluable secret of inspiring other men with con¬
fidence in him, as well as with confidence in themselves.
But the best character which can be drawn of him is
the history of his achievements, all stamped with the im¬
pression of his genius ; and, that nothing might be wanting
to the consummation of his renown, he departed in a bright
blaze of glory, leaving to his country a name which is her
pride and boast, and an example which will continue to be
her shield and her strength. (See, in particular, the Dis¬
patches and Letters of Vice-Admiral Lord Viscount Nelson,
by Sir Nicholas Harris Nicolas, 7 vols., Lond. 1844-46;
also Southey’s Life of Nelson, in 2 vols. 12mo ; Life by
Clarke and M‘Arthur, 8vo; Ekins’ Naval History, 4to ; and
James’s Naval History, 6 vols. 8vo.) (j. b e.)
Nelson, Robert, the author of several works on practi¬
cal religion, was the son of a wealthy London merchant,
and was born in 1656. After attending St Paul’s School,
he studied at Cambridge as a fellow-commoner of Trinity
College. On his entrance into active life, his worth and
accomplishments raised him to a high place in the estima¬
tion of the learned. He became the bosom-friend of Tillot-
son ; and in 1680 was elected a fellow of the Royal Society.
But not until 1691, at the conclusion of a series of visits to
the Continent, did his character as an earnest friend of re¬
ligion and philanthropy begin to appear in its full excel¬
lence. He became a liberal patron of charity-schools;
and there was not a scheme for propagating religion, either
at home or abroad, to which he did not afford substantial
encouragement; while at the same time his pen was perse-
veringly employed in advocating practical religion. It was
while engaged in performing the pious task of writing the
life of his old tutor, Bishop Bull, that he contracted his last
illness. His death took place in 1715. Nelson’s best-
known works are,—A Companion for the Festivals and
Fasts of the Church of England, 8vo, 1704; The Great
Duty of Frequenting the Christian Sacrifice, 8vo, 1707;
139
Nelson,
Robert.
1805J<wUh^anSannual°prant ^fe^son’ D D- was seated Earl Nelson of Trafalgar and of Merton on the 20th November
Besides L 100,000 forth e purchase of a&n esla e TwZT ^ his, de.ceased brother’s Sicilian dukedom of Bronte.
Hamilton and his “ adopterdauarter Net "" I ^ ^of the hero 8 sisters. His dying request in behalf of Lady
codicil to his will, written a Sw Ws beXe MsTh + t ^ Utterly disreSard. The one he left, in a
country.” •< These ” continues the a? b ? , f J ’ a,lefCy t0 kln£ and country;” and the other “ to the beneficence of my
fight their battle;” yet i anneals from pTtt’ fa';oar?s 1 ask of my king and country at this moment, when I am going to
reverend brother until the partTamenta^v ^ ’ 7 7’ ^ thiS, Codicil Was virtuously concealed by the hero’s
ton’s life one had rather pass Ter She dTedIt nT comPleted- Tke ^sequent years of the unfortunate Lady Hamil-
daughter, Horatia —resoecW ! Cal?1S ™ extreme poverty and great distress on the 6th January 1814. Nelson’s
(Nelson’s Dispatches, &c., vol^vii pn fi?h-11" 'NlColaS ha® dlllgently collected so much unsatisfactory information
point,-was married in February ig^^o the R^ Pbrn77 generally re<*ived and ™st obvious opinion on the
seems, to assist her children in enterin^non l ^ ^ cl5rg/man-. S0™ endeavour has recently been made, it
dying request of the hero of Trafalgar^ ^ ’ 6 desi£n» probably, of atoning in some measure for the neglect shown to the
140
N E M
Nemesi-
Nemausus The Practice of True Devotion, 8vo, 170(8 ; and The JMiole
Duty of a Christian, 8vo, 1718. They have all passed
through several editions. r1 ir
NEMAUSUS (the modern Nimes), a city ot ualha
Narbonensis, was the capital of the Volcse Arecomici, an
was situated on the road between Italy and Iberia. As
early as the reign of Augustus it was a coloma; and in
the days of Strabo it possessed the Jus Lain, and was on
that account independent of the Roman governors. 1 e
territory of Nemausus comprised twenty-four populous vil¬
lages. Its most notable product was cheese, which was
exported to Rome. There are still remaining many strik¬
ing monuments of the splendour of the ancient city of
Nemausus. The principal of these are a spacious amphi¬
theatre, a temple called the Matson Caree, a structure
known as the Tour Magne, and the famous Roman aque¬
duct, named the Pont du Card. (See Nimes.)
NEMEAN GAMES, The, constituted one of the four
great national festivals of the Greeks. The ordinary ac¬
count of their institution is the legend that follows. As
Hypsipyle, the nurse of Opheltes or Archemorus, the in¬
fant son of Lycurgus and Eurydice, was sauntering one
day with her young charge through the valley of Nemed,
near the city of Cleonse. she met the seven champions on
their way to attack Thebes. They asked her to conduct
them to the nearest fountain, where they might slake their
thirst. She left her child lying on the ground, and hastened
away to comply with their request. On her retuin, she
found that Opheltes had been devoured by a dragon. I he
seven champions, after destroying the monster, celebrated
funeral games in honour of the child. T. hese games fall-
in «• into disuse, were revived by Hercules after he had
slain the Nemean lion, and were then for the first time
consecrated to Jupiter. They derived their name from the
grove Nemea, in which they were held. Ihere a temple,
a theatre, and a stadium were in course of time erected ;
and thither, twice every Olympiad, in summer and winter
alternately, athletes of every kind, and even musicians, were
wont to flock from all parts of Greece. I he judges were
chosen by turns from Cleonse, Corinth, and Argos, and, in
commemoration of the funereal origin of the festival, they
were arrayed in sable garments. A chaplet, foimed of
olive branches, and afterwards of green parsley, was the re¬
ward of the victors. The last time at which the celebra¬
tion of the Nemean games is mentioned in history is in the
reign of Hadrian. They seem to have been finally discon¬
tinued shortly afterwards. The ruined temple of Jupiter
Nemesius still indicates the scene of this great biennial
festival. .
NEMESIANUS, Marcus Aurelius Olympius, a Latin
bucolic poet, flourished at the court of the Emperor Cams
towards the close of the third century, and is supposed,
from the epithet “ Carthaginiensis” generally attached to
his name, to have been a native of Africa. In the poetical
contests of that day he owned no superior except the young
prince Numerianus. “He shone out,” says Vopiscus,
“ adorned with all the crowns of victory.” His bucolic
poems were three; and under the several names of Cyne-
getica, Halieutica, and Nautica, treated of hunting, fishing,
and aquatics. A fragment of the first of these, amounting
to 325 hexameter verses, is the only authenticated produc¬
tion of Nemesianus that is extant. It contains instructions
for the rearing of dogs and horses, and the forming of nets
and other hunting apparatus. The best edition is that of
Stern, 8vo, Halle, 1832.
Wernsdorf, in his Latince Poetce Minores, argues, on
grounds somewhat plausible, that the piece entitled Laudes
Herculis, usually printed among the works of Claudian,
belongs to Nemesianus. Four of the eclogues generally
ascribed to T. Calpurnius Siculus are sometimes erroneously
attributed to the same author.
Nemours.
N E M
NEMESIS is generally represented in Grecian mytho- Nemesis
logy as the daughter of Night. The ideas regarding her 11
character seem to have been gradually developed. In the
days of Hesiod she was regarded as the impersonation of
the upbraiding of conscience, of the natural dread of punish¬
ment that springs up in the human heart after a sin has
been committed. But as the feeling ol remorse may be
considered the vengeance of the offended moral law, Ne¬
mesis came to be held, especially among the tragic poets,
as the goddess of retribution, relentlessly pursuing the guilty
until she has driven them into irretrievable woe and ruin.
In performing this function, however, she often suddenly
cast the minions of fortune from the summits of prosperity
down into the lowest depths of misery. By this circum¬
stance a new phase of her character was developed. She
came to be regarded as the personification of that supposed
divine jealousy that is kindled at the sight of gieat human
felicity, never rests until it has brought a serenely happy
life to a gloomy and tragical close, and thus acts as the
impartial distributor of happiness and unhappiness among
the sons of men. Nemesis had several surnames. She was
called Rhamnusia or Rhamnusis, from Rhamnus, a town of
Attica, where she was worshipped; and Adrasteia, from
Adrastus, King of Argos, who first built a temple to her on
the River Asopus (Asopo). The ancients generally re¬
presented Nemesis as a crowned virgin, majestic in. her
bearing, and closely resembling Venus in the grace of her
person and the beauty of her countenance, with a whip in
one hand and a pair of scales in the other.
NEMESIUS, one of the ablest of the ancient Christian
philosophers, and the author of a Greek treatise On the
Nature of Man, flourished, as bishop of Emesa in Syria,
probably about the end of the fourth century. His book
is the only record that remains of his existence. It seems
to be little else than a synopsis of the orthodox philosophy
of that day, written in a style generally clear, easy, and
elegant. Man is considered as a complex being, composed^
of a body and a soul. It is while discussing the former of
these divisions that Nemesius displays his learning and his
power of theorizing to the best advantage. His remarks
on the spleen, the nerves, the glands, and other organs of
the body, prove him to have been a thorough adept in all
the physiological lore of that age; and his curious specula¬
tions touching the motion of the pulse, and the use of the
bile, have led Fell, Brucker, and others of his indiscriminate
admirers, to suppose that he was acquainted with the circu¬
lation of the blood and the functions of the liver; an opinion,
however, which Freind, in his History of Physic, and Haller,
in his Bibliotheca Anatomica, contest. Treating of the
other great division of his subject, Nemesius considers the
soul as composed of two parts, the rational part consisting
of thought, memory, and especially will, and the irrational
part consisting of the desires and the passions. On the
liberty of the human will, and other kindred subjects, his
views are just and profound. He holds, however, the
Platonic doctrine of the pre-existence of the soul..
An edition of the work of Nemesius in the original was
given to the world by Nicasius Ellebodius, 8vo, Antwerp,
1565 ; and by Fell, 8vo, Oxford, 1671. The latest and the
best edition is that of F. Matthaei, 8vo, Halle, 1802. t
was translated into English by George Wither, 12mo, Lon¬
don, 1636; into German by Osterhammer, 8vo, Salzburg,
1819 ; and into French by J. B. Thibault, 8vo, Paris, 1844.
NEMOURS, a town of France, department of Seine-
et-Marne, on the Loing, nearly surrounded by that river
and by the canal which joins the Seine and Loire, 10 mi es
S. of Fontainebleau. It is well built, and has broad streets.
The old castle, formerly the residence of the dukes of . e"
mours, contains a public library and several other establish¬
ments. There is a handsome parish church, an hospital,
and a theatre. Leather, beer, vinegar, marble, earthenware,
N E N
N E P
141
Nenagh &c., are manufactured here; and an active trade is carried
|| on in the produce of the country. Pop. 3782.
Neoptole- NENAGH, a town of Ireland, province of Munster, and
mus* county of Tipperary, occupies a beautiful situation on a
hill near the River Nenagh, 23 miles N.E. of Limerick, and
82 miles W.S.W. of Dublin. It is well built, and contains
one principal street, which is crossed at right angles by
four others. There is an Episcopal, a Roman Catholic, a
Methodist, and an Independent church ; several schools ; a
fever hospital; dispensary; and barracks. Nenagh has also
an ancient castle of Norman architecture, and the remains
of a Franciscan monastery. Woollen cloth, tobacco, soap,
and candles, are manufactured here; and a considerable
trade is carried on in corn, cattle, bacon, butter, and eggs.
Several fairs are held yearly here. Pop. 9292.
NENE, or Nen, a river of England, Northamptonshire,
is formed by two branches, one from the north, rising at
Naseby, and the other from the west, rising near Staverton,
a village S.W. of Daventry. These streams unite at
Northampton, and thence the river flows towards the N.E.
through a beautiful valley, and falls into the Wash. The
Nene receives many tributaries, though of small size, from
the left; but none from the right, as the hills present a steep
side to it, and send their streams to the Ouse. Northamp¬
ton and Peterborough are the principal towns on its course.
NENNIUS, the reputed author of an ancient history of
the Britons, entitled Historia Britonum, is said to have
been abbot of Bangor at the beginning of the seventh cen¬
tury. The book which is ascribed to him commences
with a fabulous account of the colonization of the island,
and brings the narrative down to the year 655. Its chro¬
nological blunders, and the many other proofs of its want
of authenticity, render it a very unsafe historical authority.
It is chiefly valuable on account of its containing those
stories of King Arthur, Merlin, and other legendary heroes,
which became such favourite themes among the authors of
succeeding ages. The latest editions of the Historia Bri¬
tonum are those by the Rev. W. Gunn, B.D., 8vo, London,
1819; and Mr Joseph Stevenson, 8vo, London, 1838.
(Wright’s Biographia Britannica Literaria.)
NEOPHYTES, a name given by the ancient Christians
to those heathens who had newly embraced the faith ; such
persons being considered as regenerated, or born anew.
The term neophytes has also been used for new priests, or
those just admitted into orders; and sometimes for the
novices in monasteries or convents. It is still applied by
Roman Catholic missionaries to converts made among the
heathen.
NEO-PLATONISTS. See Alexandrian School.
NEOPTOLEMUS, the son of Achilles and Deidameia,
daughter of Lycomedes, King of the Dolopians, was born
shortly before the Trojan war. When it was prophesied,
towards the close of the siege of Troy, that the city could
not be taken without the son of Achilles, Ulysses and Dio¬
mede were despatched to bring the young man, and found
him in the house of his maternal grandfather, in the island
of Scyros. He was then called Pyrrhus, on account of his
fair hair; but after his arrival at the scene of war, he was
generally known by the name of Neoptolemus, i.e., “ the
young warrior.” The son of Achilles soon proved himself
worthy of his brave, savage, and vindictive father. On the
night of the sacking of Troy his deeds were bold and atro¬
cious beyond those of all the other Greeks ; and it was his
sword that was most fatal to the royal house of Priam. He
was among the foremost to leap from the wooden horse
upon the devoted and unsuspecting city : he dashed down
the little Astyanax, the child of Hector, from the top of a
tower; he sacrificed the Princess Polyxena upon the tomb
of Achilles ; and he slew Priam and Polites, father and son,
together, at the altar of Jupiter, before the eyes of Queen
Hecuba and her daughters. On the distribution of the
captives, Andromache, the widow of Hector, fell to his lot, Neots, St
and became his wife. After this date the various accounts II
of the life of Neoptolemus are very contradictory. Accord- NePaul*
ing to some authors, he returned to his hereditary kingdom '
of Phthia; while, according to others, he fixed his abode
permanently at Epirus. It is generally agreed, however,
that Menelaus and Helen bestowed upon him the hand of
their daughter Hermione. Shortly after this he was slain,
during a visit to Delphi, by some vindictive foe, about
whom ancient writers are not agreed. His remains were
interred within the temple; and long afterwards, when the
Gauls attacked the city, his spirit rose, it is said, to defend
the sacred place.
NEOTS, St, a market-town of England, Huntingdon¬
shire, stands on the right bank of the Ouse, 9 miles S.W.
of Huntingdon, and 56 N. by W. of London. It has
several well built streets, and a market-place ; but from
the lowness of its situation, the town is exposed to the
danger of being flooded by the river. The church of St
Neot’s, which is considered the finest in the county, is in
the perpendicular English style, and has a handsome tower
150 feet high. There are other churches in the town, be¬
longing to the Baptists and Methodists, and several schools.
The Ouse is here crossed by a bridge of eleven arches, six
of which are on the low ground near the river. The prin¬
cipal manufacture in St Neot’s is paper, which gives employ¬
ment to many of the inhabitants. A large retail trade is
carried on. Pop. (1851) 2951.
NEPAUL, or Nipal, an extensive country of Hindu¬
stan, long and narrow in its form, and, although somewhat
curtailed in its dimensions by the progress of British con¬
quest, still one of the largest and most compact independent
kingdoms in the country. To the N. it is bounded by the
great mountain-wall of the Himalayas, which separates it
from Thibet; to the S. the Nepaul territory reaches about
20 miles beyond the base of the mountains into the plains,
being bounded by the provinces of Purneah, Tirhoot, Sarun,
and Goruckpore ; to the E. by the British territory of Dar¬
jeeling and the native principality of Sikkim, which extends
to the Chinese frontier. The kingdom of Oude, the terri¬
tories of which have been recently annexed to the British
dominions, forms the boundary on the S.W. Previously to
the war with Britain in 1814-16, the conquests of the Ghoork-
has or Nepaulese extended to the banks of the Sutlege, the
eastern river of the Punjab; but the boundary is now the
River Cali, or the western branch of the Goggra, which
separates the Ghoorkha territory from the British province
of Kumaon. The above limits, however, include a terri¬
tory much larger than that to which the peculiar name of
Nepaul proper belongs, and made up of conquests gained
by the Ghoorkhas within the last eighty years from a variety
of petty hill states. This extended dominion is mostly in¬
cluded between the twenty-seventh and thirty-first degrees
of N. latitude, and in extreme length may be estimated at
460 miles, by 150 miles in breadth. The following are the
modern districts into which this territory is divided :—
1. Nepaul proper.
2. Country of the 24 rajahs.
3. Country of the 22 rajahs.
4. Muckwanpoor.
5. Kirauts.
6. Khatang.
7. Chayenpoor.
8. Saptari.
9. Morung.
Nepaul is extremely diversified in its surface. Among its Aspect of
lofty summits is Mount Everest, the highest peak in the the coun¬
world (29,002 feet), while the whole range which forms its try'
northern boundary rises to the level of perpetual snow.
These high mountains generally decline into lower hills, from
which they are separated by fine valleys, still considerably
above the level of the plains, and the lowest belt of the Nepaul
dominions forms part of the great plain of Hindustan. Imme¬
diately to the N. of this flat country there is a region of nearly
the same width, consisting of small hills, which rise gra-
142
N E P A U L.
v , dually towards the north, and are watered by many streams
irom the loftier mountains to which these hills gradually
unite. The hills are covered with forests: on the lower
lulls are found the said forests, which, with the pines, are
not surpassed in any country, either for straightness or size,
as well as for strength and durability. Higher up there is
a variety of other trees, and amongst the northern hills many
pines, and an abundance of mimosa, from which the catechu
oi India is obtained; also oaks, walnut and chestnut trees,
hornbeam, Weymouth pine, and common spruce, for the
rnost part of but very little value, owing to the inacces¬
sible nature of the country. The breadth of this moun¬
tainous belt immediately north and east of Catmandoo is es¬
timated at from thirty to forty miles. This is a very ele¬
vated region, consisting of one mountain heaped upon an¬
other rising to a great height, so that in winter their sum¬
mits are for a short time covered with snow, and it even falls
sometimes in the valley below. A hoar frost also very often
covers the ground ; but although the cold is occasionally for
three or four months severe enough to freeze the tanks and
pools of standing water, the rivers are never frozen. Between
the mountains are narrow valleys of from 3000 to 6000 feet
above the plains of Bengal. The height of the valley of
Nepaul, measured by the barometer, is about 4000 feet. It
is nearly of an oval figure ; its greatest extent from north
to south is twelve miles, and it stretches east and west nine
miles ; and though it scarcely lies in a higher latitude than
twenty-seven and a half degrees, yet it enjoys nearly the
same climate as the southern countries of Europe.
Climate. Lying near a region buried in snow, its climate must no
doubt be somewhat modified by such a vicinity. Still Kirk¬
patrick mentions, that in summer the thermometer rose
once to eighty-seven degrees during his residence in the
valley ; and its usual height about noon varied from eighty-
one to eighty-four degrees. At sun-rise it was commonly
between fifty and fifty-four, and at nine in the evening it
geneially fluctuated from sixty-two to sixty-six degrees.
Fifty-one observations, from the 17th to the 25th March,
gave an average of sixty-seven degrees. The seasons are
nearly the same with those in Upper Hindustan. The
rains commence a little earlier, and set in from the south¬
east quarter; they continue for days without intermission,
and are generally very violent. The mountain-torrents
rush down in consequence with great impetuosity, over¬
flowing their banks, and spreading over all the adjacent
country. By these violent inundations, the plain is cut into
numerous and deep ravines. The temperature varies neces¬
sarily with the elevation of the ground ; so that by ascend¬
ing the adjacent mountains, the heat of Bengal may in the
course of a few days be exchanged for the cold of Russia.
ihe produce also varies along with the climate. In
some paits rattans and bamboos, both of enormous dimen¬
sions, are seen, and others produce only oaks and pines.
In several parts the pine-apple and sugar-cane ripen,
whilst others yield only barley, millet, and similar grains.
Ihe mulberry grows luxuriantly all over the hills ; and
they cut its young and tender shoots annually, whilst full of
leaves, and, having dried them, stack them for fodder
which is said to be both nutritious and agreeable to the
animals. In this comparatively cold and elevated climate,
the periodical rains are not favourable for the ripening
of fruits, which everywhere abound, but never come to
perfection, the heat of the climate not being sufficient to
bring them to maturity before the approach of the rains.
Peaches grow wild on every hill; but one side of them is
rotted by the damp, whilst the other side is green • and
the grapes, which grow without shelter from the rains
are always bad. Kirkpatrick, however, from the spon¬
taneous productions which he saw on the spot, namely,
the peach, the raspberry, the walnut, the mulberry, and
others, thought that all the fruits and esculent vegetables
Produce
of England might with proper attention be successfully Nepaul.
raised in the mountainous valleys of Nepaul. In the
warmer valleys, the pine-apple is uncommonly fine; as also
the orange, which ripens in winter. The abundant rains, if
they spoil the fruits, are, however, very favourable to the
produce of grain ; and wherever the land can be levelled
into terraces, however narrow, it is well adapted for trans¬
planted rice, which ripens after the rains have ceased. The
least rocky faces of the hills are generally cut into these
terraces, which are seen everywhere rising above each
other. This operation produces numerous strips of level
ground, more or less narrow, according to the steepness
of the hills. Great labour and care are bestowed upon this
operation, and it is often necessary to build a retaining
wall to support the edge of the small strip of ground.
Much attention is also paid to the levelling of its surface*
to fit it for irrigation, as every rivulet is first conducted by
drains to the higher cultivated spots, and then, after satu¬
rating them, to the lower range ot fields. In some parts the
same land gives a winter crop of wheat and barley. Where
the land is too steep for terraces, it is generally cultivated
after fallow with the hoe, and produces rice sown broad¬
cast, maize, cotton, three kinds of pulse, a kind of mus¬
tard, manjeet or Indian madder, wheat, barley, and sugar¬
cane. Tobacco is an article of general cultivation in these
hills, and it is considered as of a fine quality. It is export¬
ed in considerable quantities both to the plains and to
Bootan. One of the great staples of agriculture in these
mountainous countries is a large species of cardamom ;
and ginger is likewise a valuable production in the country
between Nepaul Proper and the Cali, though rice is still
the main dependence of the farmer. Various dry rices are
cultivated in Nepaul, under the general name of ghya, some
of which, so far from needing hot weather to bring them
to maturity, are actually raised in situations very much
exposed to falls of snow; whilst others do not require, as
in Bengal, to be flooded, but flourish in the driest and lof¬
tiest spots. I here are also amongst the spontaneous pro¬
ductions of this fertile soil several edible roots and herbs,
which form a considerable part of the sustenance of the
poorer inhabitants. Of these there are a species of yam,
and a kind of wild asparagus, as well as various other plants
well deserving the attention of travellers. There are also
medicinal plants, and a rich variety of dyeing drugs pro¬
cured from bitter or aromatic woods, which grow natural¬
ly in the country, and which are held in great estimation.
The jeea is a very curious plant, from the expressed leaves
of which is produced a juice called cherris, which is a po¬
tent nai colic, and possesses very valuable qualities, burn¬
ing with a flame as bright as that of the purest resin. Its
leaves are fabricated into a species of hemp, from which
the Newars manufacture some coarse linen, and likewise a
v ery strong kind of sackcloth. Though the soil seems well
adapted to the growth ofkitchen vegetables, yet the inhabi¬
tants are either too indolent or too unskilful to raise them.
The only kitchen vegetables which Colonel Kirkpatrick met
with were cabbages and pease of the worst kind. They
have the Thibet turnip, but cannot raise it, any more than
the potato, without renewing the seed annually. Amono-gt
these mountains are found the common nettle and a plant
resembling wormwood ; also a curious shrub called khaksi.
the leaf of which answers the purpose of emery or sand¬
paper, giving a fine polish to the harder woods.
Ihe mountain pasture, though not so good as that in the Animals,
low country, yet supports numerous flocks of sheep, which
migrate with the seasons, in winter to the lower valleys, and
in summer to the alpine regions, where they feed upon the
herbage of those extensive tracts which lie in the neigh-
bom hood of perpetual snow. The sheep in these altitudes
are of considerable size, and have fine wool; the larger are
the same as in the lower countries, but are not numerous.
N E P
Nepaul. Buffaloes are not reared by the natives, neither are hogs
nor goats, though the country is admirably adapted for both.
Horses are brought from Thibet and from Kattywar, Sinde,
and Guzerat; also the large ox of Thibet, or the Bos
grunniens, described by Turner, the beautiful tail of which
forms one of the exports from Nepaul; and the goat which
produces the shawl wool. The kustoora or musk-deer is
a native of Lower Thibet, though it is not very abundant
anywhere. It is usually caught by means of a snare made
of a particular kind of mountain bamboo. It is difficult to
obtain the musk pure, even at Catmandoo; and Colonel
Kirkpatrick mentions, that it is even usual to adulterate it
whilst it is yet in the bag on the body of the animal. In the
great forest which skirts the Nepaul territories through¬
out their whole extent, from Serinagur to the Teesta, wild
animals abound. Elephants are found here in great num¬
bers, and are a source of revenue to the Nepaul govern¬
ment. About 200 or 300 of these animals are caught an¬
nually ; but most of them being very young, and not being
above seven feet and a half in height, they are not of great
value. They are extremely mischievous, and two or three
of them sometimes take possession of the road, and ob¬
struct tbe progress of travellers for a considerable time.
A large herd of them assaulted the camp of the Nepaul
deputies when they were on their way to Patna, and were
with great difficulty driven away. They sometimes issue from
the forest in droves, and overrun the cultivated country
on its borders, penetrating sometimes a considerable space
within the company’s territories. The rhinoceros, the
tiger, the leopard, and other ferocious animals, find shelter
in the depths of the forests. The animal known in Ben¬
gal by the name of the Nepaul dog is brought from Upper
and Lower Thibet, of which it is a native. It is a fierce,
surly creature, about the size of an English bull-dog, and
covered with thick long hair. Several very fine birds are
found in these mountainous countries, as the manal (Me-
leagris satyra), and the damphya (Phasiarms impeyanus).
They are a species of pheasants, the damphya being of
the golden, and the manal or moonal of the spotted sort.
They are both extremely beautiful birds. The chakoor
is well known to the Europeans of India under the name
of the fire-eater. It is a species of partridge, and derives
its name from its reputed power of swallowing fire. The
fact is, that in the breeding season this bird is remarka¬
bly fond of red pepper, after eating two or three cap¬
sules of which, it will bite at a red coal if presented to it.
The khaledge is met with in the thickets which overrun
the gorges of the mountains near Noakote. The sarus,
wild goose, wild duck, and several others of the feathered
species common to Bengal and the rest of the countries
to the southward of Nepaul, are occasionally seen in this
and the adjacent valleys; where, however, they merely ap¬
pear as birds of passage, making Nepaul only a stage in
their flight from Hindustan to Thibet,
linerals. Ihe stones and ores collected in the country indicate
the existence of a variety of minerals in the mountains of
Nepaul, such as iron, lead, copper, &c. It was formerly a
prevalent idea amongst the Hindus, from whom it was re¬
ceived by the British, that the country contained mines
of gold. . I he only foundation for this notion appears to
be, that in the course of commerce the gold of Thibet
passed into Bengal and Bahar through Nepaul; or that a
few grains of gold were occasionally collected in the sands
of the rivers, or found in the consecrated pebbles of Gun-
duck , or sometimes that specimens of gold ore have been
sent t0 governor-general by w^ay of presents or curio¬
sities. Other accounts of gold mines may also be referred
to the circumstance of scanty particles of gold being found
in the beds of torrents from the mountains. With regard
to silver, it is said that some veins of it have been disco¬
vered to the westward of Noakote. But Kirkpatrick, in
A u L. 14:
his account of Nepaul, suspects that it has no better foun- Nepaul.
dation than that silver has lately been found in certain ores''—C—
which were very rich in lead ; whilst others appeared to be
a species of galena, well worth the working for the sake of
the silver which they contained. Several attempts had
been made to extract the silver, but by such an unskilful
process, that most part of the baser metal was sacrificed,
in consequence of which the return scarcely repaid the ex¬
pense. The copper is found quite near the surface of the
earth, the ore being dug from trenches open above, so that
the work is entirely interrupted by the rainy season.
Those ores are found in several varieties, and are said to
be rich and of an excellent kind. The mine is shared
amongst certain families along with the rajah, who, there is
every reason to believe, claims the lion’s share, and, as in
all other parts of Hindustan, leaves the workmen a bare
subsistence. Oude was formerly supplied with copper from
Nepaul; but of late years it has been superseded by Euro¬
pean copper, owing to the difficulties and expense of trans¬
ferring it to the market through a mountainous country
without navigable rivers. The iron ore is also found near
the surface, and is not surpassed in excellence by that of
any other country. Sulphur is likewise abundant, and pro¬
cured in great quantities. There is no good authority for
believing that either the ores of antimony or mercury are
found in the territories of Nepaul; but the western parts
abound in arsenic and pyrites, though these sulphureous
ores are no longer worked, on account of the deleterious ef¬
fects occasioned by the operation. Stone is found in abun¬
dance and variety, particularly jasper and marble ; but the
houses are universally built of brick, because the use of
stone, though abounding everywhere, is prevented by the
expense of carriage in a country where the roads do not
admit of wheel-carriages, and where there is no navigation.
There is said to be a considerable mass of rock crystal near
Ghoorkha, and limestone as well as slate abounds every¬
where ; yet there are no limekilns in the country, the only
cement employed being mud, which, the natives pretend,
answers better in their humid climate than mortar.
The alpine region belonging to Nepaul is about the same Moun-
breadth of thirty or forty miles from north to south. Scat- tains. "
tered peaks are here seen covered with perpetual snow,
until, in advancing to the boundaries of Thibet, everlasting
winter reigns. 'I his inhospitable region consists chiefly of
immense rocks rising into sharp peaks and tremendous pre¬
cipices, covered with snow, and almost constantly involved
in clouds. Some of these mountains are estimated to rise
25,000 feet above the valley of Nepaul. The rains here
are periodical, as in the plains of Hindustan, and fall in
the hottest season of the year. The snowy ridge of the
Himalaya Mountains, though it has a winding course, has
few interruptions, and is in most places impassable. Seve¬
ral rivers which take their rise in Thibet make their
way through the mountainous ridges, but by such narrow
chasms, and amidst such enormous precipices, that these
openings afford no practicable communication between the
mountains and the plains. In the mountain passes no sort
of baggage or merchandise is transportable, except on the
shoulders of hill porters. ’Ihe price of this carriage is re¬
gulated by the government.
I he numerous valleys which are interspersed through- p i
out the mountains of Nepaul are inhabited by a variety of'S.
mixed races. The aboriginal inhabitants appear, from their
physiognomy, to have been of Tartar or of Chinese origin,
and to have had no resemblance to the Hindus either in
features, religion, or manners. Before their arrival they
had no idea of caste. Ihe period when these mountainous
regions were first invaded by the Hindus is uncertain ; but,
according to the most authentic traditions, it is supposed
to have taken place about the fourteenth century. The
Hindus who now inhabit these mountains were about this
144
N E P A U L.
Nepaul. period driven from their country by the invasion of the
■“•"V'—' Mahommedan sovereign of Delhi, who made proposals to
marry a daughter of the rajah of Chitore, celebrated for her
beauty. This offer was refused, and the consequence was
that his city was captured and destroyed ; and, to avoid the
hated yoke of the conqueror, great numbers of the inhabi¬
tants fled to the mountains. Many of the chiefs amongst
the mountain tribes, accordingly, claim descent from these
Chitore princes, although on doubtful grounds. There are
a few rajpoots whose claims to a pure descent from the Chi¬
tore family are allowed ; and the families of the mountain
chiefs who have adopted the Hindu rules of purity, and
some even who have neglected this, are now admitted to
be rajpoots ; whilst, on the other hand, the purity of the
Chitore blood has been so often contaminated by alliances
with the Tartar and Chinese races, that several of the
Chitore family have acquired the Tartar countenance, and
some of the mountain tribes, by intermarriages with pure
rajpoots in a low station, have acquired the oval faces and
high noses of that remarkable race. The original purity
of the rajpoot blood having been thus lost by indiscrimi¬
nate alliances, all the hill chiefs, whether their descent
from the Chitore family be real or pretended, are now call¬
ed rajpoots, and hold the principal offices, civil and mili¬
tary, of the petty states into which the country was subdi¬
vided before Nepaul was subdued by the reigning family of
the Ghoorkhas. In the eastern parts of the country the abo¬
riginal tribes still remain ; and, until the predominance of
the Ghoorkhas, they enjoyed unmolested their customs and
religion. But west of the Cali the case is different, almost
all the inhabitants claiming a descent from the Hindu co¬
lony. They accordingly consist principally of the two su¬
perior classes of Hindus, or brahmins and chetrees, with
their various subdivisions.
East of the Cali the tribes which possessed the country
were chiefly, 1. Magars, who occupied the lower hills in the
western parts, and were very soon converted to the brahmin
doctrine of abstaining from beef. They are at present enlist¬
ed by the Ghoorkha sovereigns, and compose a great majo¬
rity of their troops. 2. The Gurungs, a pastoral tribe, shift
their abode between the mountains and the valleys with
the summer and the winter. They still adhere to the lama
priesthood and the Buddhist religion. They cultivate with
the hoe, are diligent miners and traders, and employ the nu¬
merous flocks which they possess in conveying their goods
to market. 3. The Jariyas form a numerous tribe, and inha¬
bit the lower hilly region between the Cali and the Nepaul
valley, and are now nearly all converted to the brahminical
doctrines. 4. The Newars are an industrious people, fol¬
lowing agriculture and commerce, and are more advanced
in the mechanical arts than the mountain tribes. The
greater part of them adhere to the teuetfi of the Buddhists:
though they have adopted the distinctions of caste, they
do not acknowledge the lamaa, and have a priesthood of
their own. The more fertile part of what is called Nepaul
Proper was chiefly occupied by the Newars, a race addict¬
ed to agriculture and commerce, and far more advanced in
the arts than any other of the mountain tribes. Their
style of building, and most of their arts, appear to have
been introduced from Thibet. All the Newars burn their
dead; they eat buffaloes, sheep, goats, fowls, and ducks, and
are addicted to the immoderate use of spirituous liquors.
They live in towns or villages, in houses built of brick ce¬
mented with clay, and covered with tiles; these houses are
three stories high, the ground-floor being allotted to the
cattle and poultry, the second to the servants, and the third
to the family of the owner. Their rooms are low, and have
a mean and dirty appearance, and, besides, are infested with
vermin, which, in addition to the filth, the offals of the
shambles, and the blood of their sacrifices collected in the
streets, give their towns an exceedingly offensive aspect
to Europeans. The Newar women are never confined to Nepauk
the house. At the early age of eight years they are car- v va¬
ried to a temple, and married, with the usual ceremonies
of the Hindus, to a fruit called ull j and when they arrive
at puberty they are betrothed to a man of the same caste,
and the parents give a dower to the husband, or rather
her paramour, their manners being extremely licentious.
Like the women amongst the Nairs, they may in fact have
as many husbands as they choose, being at liberty to di¬
vorce them as often as they please, and upon the slightest
pretences. The Newars are peaceable, industrious, and
even ingenious; much attached to the superstition which
they profess, and now reconciled to the chains imposed on
them by their Ghoorkha conquerors. Their occupations
are chiefly those of agriculture ; and they are, besides, al¬
most exclusively employed in the arts and manufactures
of the country. They are generally of the middle size,
possessed of great corporeal strength, with broad shoulders
and chest, very stout limbs, round and rather flat faces,
small eyes, low and somewhat spreading noses, and open
and cheerful countenances, with little or no resemblance,
according to Kirkpatrick, to the Chinese countenance. The
complexion of the women is somewhat between a sallow
and a copper colour. 5. The Dhenwars and Mhanjees are
the husbandmen and fishers of the western districts. 6.
The Bhootias. Though some families of this race are plant¬
ed in the lower lands, they occupy, generally speaking,
such parts of the mountainous country as are included in
the Nepaul territories. They shave their heads, and ob¬
serve many idolatrous rites and customs. 7. The Bhanras
are a sort of separatists from the Newars, and are suppos¬
ed to amount to 5000. They observe many of the customs
of the Bhootias. To the eastward some districts of the
Nepaul dominions are inhabited by tribes, such as the Lim-
booas, Nuggerkootees, and others, of whom little more is
known than the names.
With regard to the number of inhabitants within the
bounds of Nepaul, we have no data to form any thing like
an accurate estimate. The wild and rugged nature of the
country gives no ground to suppose that the population is
considerable. It is in the valleys that the population is
collected; and these, says Kirkpatrick, with the exception
of Nepaul and two or three others, are little better than
mountainous cavities. Even the Terriani, or low belt of
land which runs along the southern frontier, is but indif¬
ferently peopled, the villages being, according to the tra¬
veller already mentioned, very thinly scattered, and mean
both in their appearance and in their size. The Nepaulese
themselves give the most exaggerated account of their
numbers. They reckon their population by houses; and
to Patan, their largest town, they assign 24,000 houses,
to Bhatgong 22,000, and to Catmandoo 18,000. This
would give a population of 640,000. There are, besides,
many large villages and towns scattered around Kirtee-
poor, containing 12,000 houses; Theamee, Buneba, Phar-
ping, Punonlee, Dhulkill, Chappagang, all containing from
6000 to 7000 houses; and, besides these, there are reck¬
oned between twenty and thirty smaller, of from 1000 to
4000 houses, all within the valley of Nepaul. But this
gives a population that sets probability at defiance, and is
considered, both by Frazer and Kirkpatrick, as a glaring
fallacy. According to the latest accounts, the population of
Nepaul is estimated at nearly two millions.
The lands are held by various tenures. Those consti- State of
tuting crown-lands, or the rajah’s immediate estates, are property,
chiefly situated in the Ghoorkha territory, though there is
hardly any portion of the Ghoorkha conquests in which
the prince has not appropriated land to his own use. Some
of these lands are cultivated by husbandmen, who receive
a share of the produce ; others are tilled by the neighbour¬
ing husbandmen, who are obliged to dedicate a certain
N E P A U L.
Nepaul. number of days in the year to this service. From such lands
v—the rajah draws all the supplies necessary for the support
of his household. The brahmins also possess lands, the
title to which they receive by royal investiture. These
lands are rent free, saleable, and hereditary; but they may
nevertheless be alienated for certain crimes. Their pro¬
prietors are bound to the reigning prince for nothing beyond
their prayers, though they sometimes consider it as prudent
to conciliate him by more substantial gifts. Another tenure
by which land is possessed by the Newars, is the payment
of a considerable fine when the original titles are con¬
firmed, which must be renewed on the accession of each
prince. Other lands pay a rent to the crown, or to the jag-
hiredar (proprietor), in proportion to their produce. The
khyra and barilands are those which are destitute of
springs or running water, and which, requiring consider¬
able labour, yield, after all, no very profitable return.
These pay a rent according to their produce, which is es¬
timated by the number of spades or ploughs employed.
Widows may cultivate as much of this land as they can,
without paying any rent at all. The kaith or plantation-
lands, which are well supplied with water, and, being situ¬
ated in the valleys, are fruitful, and yield all the superior
kinds of grain, pay the half of their produce to the culti¬
vator, who in return defrays all the charges of tillage, with
the exception of the seed. These lands are reckoned to
yield from twenty to thirty fold; and they pay different rates
to the proprietor, according to the value of their produce.
Military The whole population of Nepaul are liable to military
force. service in times of public danger, though they are not re¬
gularly trained to arms. But there is a standing army
dispersed over the country, besides a large force always in
the capital, amounting to 30,000 or 35,000 troops. These
troops are regularly trained, disciplined, and officered after
the manner of European troops ; and they likewise affect
the European exercise, dress, and arms. The regular
force of Nepaul has so long been accustomed to active
service and to constant victory, that they have acquired
all the qualities of veteran soldiers, a fearlessness of dan¬
ger, and a contempt of any foe opposed to them. “ They
have,” says Frazer, “ much of the true and high spirit of
a soldier, that setting of life at nought in comparison of
the performance of duty, and that high sense of honour
which forms his most attractive ornament, and raises his
character to the highest.” These qualities were frequently
displayed in the course of the campaign with the British,
against whose overwhelming attacks fortresses were de¬
fended with a determined bravery, and a patient endu¬
rance of famine and misery, that were truly exemplary.
And when they at length surrendered a fort which was no
longer tenable, they deplored their hard fate, called them¬
selves wretched men that ought rather to have died, and
refused to return to their native country ; whilst the courte¬
sy they showed to the British, and the reciprocal good offi¬
ces received and returned, resembled more the generous
spirit of European warfare, .than the cruel practices of the
East. The expenses of the military establishment are most¬
ly defrayed by assignments of land, though in some in¬
stances the soldier receives his pay from the treasury, and
occasionally from the public granary ; others are paid partly
in money, and partly in land ; but the most usual mode, and
the one most agreeable to the troops, is by putting them in
possession of tracts of land, on which they generally settle
their families, whom they can maintain better in this man¬
ner than by any pecuniary stipend. There seems no fixed
rate of reward for different ranks, a good deal depending on
the interest of the parties, and other incidental circumstan¬
ces. One of the captains of the rajah’s company of guards
informed Colonel Kirkpatrick, that the lands which he held
yielded him 180 rupees a year, and that he received an ad¬
ditional sum in money of 280 rupees; but added, that he was
VOL. XVI.
145
better off when he belonged to a private company. It may Nepaul.
be added, that government evinces great consideration for ' v-'—'
its military and public servants, being particularly indulgent
to their widows, orphans, and other destitute branches of
their families. The soldiers are in general stout, thick,
and well-built men. They are very brave, and prefer close
fighting, giving an onset with a loud shout. During the
war with the British they attacked with great valour and
impetuosity, advancing to the very muzzles of the cannon.
They understand the use of the sabre ; and each man
wears, besides, a n cookree,” or long crooked heavy knife,
which may be used in war, but is also of great use in all
common operations where a knife or hatchet is required.
The soldiers also carry a long sort of matchlocks or mus¬
kets. The officers, besides the sword and shield and
“ cookree,” carry bows and arrows, which they use very
dexterously. The sword which they use has the edge
curved inwards like a reaping hook, but far more straight,
and very heavy, particularly at the point, where it is very
broad, and ends abruptly square. A few small guns are
used ; but they are confined to the walls of forts, and never
carried into the field.
The government of Nepaul is essentially a despotism, Govern,
and is good or bad according to the character or temporary ment.
views of the reigning prince. It is no doubt slightly ame¬
liorated by the authority of immemorial customs, and the
influence of religion, which no prince, however despotic,
can safely disregard; as well as by the occasional opposi¬
tion of the aristocracy or chiefs. But the great body of
the people derive little benefit from the struggle for power
between the prince and his nobles. They seem to possess
no civil rights, and are at the mercy of their rulers for
whatever treatment the latter think proper to give them.
It was observed by Kirkpatrick, in the course of his jour¬
ney into the country, that the carriers were pressed, with¬
out. ceremony, into the service of government, and com¬
pelled to work without any promise of pay; and in the
war with the British, a detachment of troops, because they
yielded a post to the enemy which they could no longer
hold, were punished with extraordinary cruelty, being mu¬
tilated in their faces in the most shocking manner. In Eu¬
rope the progress of improvement has modified the rigour
of the most absolute governments; but in Nepaul, as in
all the Asiatic states, despotism grows up to the most
frightful maturity in the congenial soil of ignorance; and
although the arbitrary will of the prince may be opposed
by the force of circumstances, yet there is no permanent
security for life and property, such as is derived from the
authority of fixed laws. The administration of public af¬
fairs is carried on by various officers. The first of these is
the choutra or prime minister to the rajah, to whom he is
invariably akin. His business is to receive and examine
all written and verbal communications regarding public
business, and to act as a sort of comptroller-general over
the inferior departments of administration. He holds his
office during the pleasure of the prince, to whom he sub¬
mits all his reports on matters of state ; and the former, if
he see proper, refers them for further investigation to a
court of inspection appointed for the purpose. He is paid
by a commission or fine on every rice plantation, with the
exception of those of the Thurgai’s or nobles and the mili¬
tary. Secondly, the kajees are four commissaries who
superintend all civil and military affairs, and are employed
in the collection of the revenue, and in the management
of the Jaghire lands. They are paid by a tax of one rupee
on all taxable lands. Thirdly, the sirdars command the
armies of the state, and likewise participate in the ma¬
nagement of civil business. Fourthly, the kurdars act as
secretaries, preparing all communications from the rajah to
foreign powers, or to the officers of state. Fifthly, the kup-
perdar and the Kuzanchee have the charge, the one of the
T
146
Revenue
Trade
^epauL^ rajah spnvate wardrobe, jewels, and kitchen; and the
o ler ot the public wardrobe, from which honorary dresses
are issued. All these officers are paid by a moderate duty
upon all taxable lands. Sixthly, the ticksali or superin¬
tendent of the mint is paid by a commission on the im¬
port duties from Thibet, and on a tax payable by all na¬
tives of Nepaul who return to their country from Lehassa,
iggercheh, or other parts of Thibet. This tax is exact-
-a g00<^ .^ea^ r*g°ur* Seventhly, the dhurma-
udmkar is the chief criminal judge, who commissions all the
interior judges, excepting those who officiate in the farmed
districts. The fees in this department are very great;
and as most crimes are punishable by fine, the penalties
constitute a large source of emolument, which does not
by any means favour the pure administration of justice.
Civil questions regarding property are decided by ano¬
ther tribunal, the members of which are usually brahmins.
Over this court the criminal judge sometimes presides.
Intricate questions are occasionally referred to a supersti¬
tious ordeal, in which chance decides; and this barbarous
process is a sure index to the manners of the people, and
to the low state of their civil institutions. There is, be¬
sides, a superintendent of the police, a minister who is em¬
ployed in complimentary embassies to foreign powers, or
in carrying orders to public officers. The soubahs are go¬
vernors of districts, or farmers, and government collectors,
acting as officers of revenue, of justice, and of police; and
the omrahs are commanders of military posts.
' „ ^ie Pubhc revenue is derived from land-rents, customs,
fines of various sorts, and from mines. Annual presents
are made by the soubahs, and by every one who approach¬
es the court; and a sort of arbitrary income-tax is besides
levied from all ranks, even the sacred order, who possess
free lands, not being exempted. An officer is often em¬
ployed for the express purpose of collecting this tax, which
is rated according to the exigencies of the state, and which
mounts up in many districts to more than the regular re¬
venue. According to Colonel Kirkpatrick, who visited the
country in 1/92, and who derived his information from
good authority, the revenue actually remitted to Catman-
doo never exceeded thirty lacs of rupees (L.300,000), but it
sometimes fell to twenty-five lacs. The subsequent con¬
quests by the Ghoorkha sovereigns were not productive of
a gieat increase of income ; and the reduction of territory
by the last war would of course occasion a corresponding
diminution. The export duties, and the profits on the sale
of elephants, bring in from three to four lacs of revenue.
The import duties levied on the trade from Thibet, included
under the mint, as the returns consist chiefly in silver bul¬
lion, amount to about seven or eight lacs. The duties on
salt, the profits on saltpetre, which appears to be a mono¬
poly, on copper and iron mines, and the produce of the
land-tax, may be estimated at from fifteen to eighteen lacs,
r oimeily the inhabitants of Thibet were supplied with a
silver currency from the mint of Nepaul, on which the
treasury gained a profit of a lac of rupees.
•Ju!ei!;ra-(le-of -^P*1111 is by no means so extensive as it
might be if it were conducted under proper regulations ;
being shackled by monopolies for the benefit of govern¬
ment, or of a few favoured merchants, who labour to pre¬
serve their privileges by the most invidious and corrupt
means m their power, and by other injudicious restraints.
13ut, at the same time, the surplus produce of so poor a
country could scarcely afford the basis of an extensive
trade; and it was accordingly rather the medium of com-
Kiumcation between other countries, than remarkable for
the extent of its own commerce. Formerly merchants
from Cashmere carried their manufactures to Kutti and
other towns m Thibet, and received in return the wool
produced in these countries from the shawl goat. Such
portions of these manufactures as are not used in Thibet
NEPAUL.
were exported by the way of Teshoo Loomboo and Lassa, Nepaul.
to Siling or Sining on the frontiers of China, and partly
sent to Catmandoo by way of Patna. The principal goods
imported in return to answer the demand of Cashmere and
Nepaul were teas and silks ; and from Patna, it is said, they
exported otters’ skins to a great amount, procured from
the neighbourhood of Dacca. The articles imported into
Nepaul from Thibet are coarse woollen cloths, paper, horses,
sheep, shawl goats, chowry bullocks, chowries or cow-tails*
musk-deer, dogs, falcons, pheasants, salt, sal-ammoniac’
hurtal or yellow arsenic, borax, quicksilver from China,
gold in grains and in small lumps, antimony, rugs or coarse
blankets, munijheet or Indian madder, cherris or extract
of hemp, besides various medicinal drugs and preserved
fruits, such as almonds, walnuts, raisins, dates. Of these
articles, the greater part of the musk, chowries, hurtal,
borax, and bullion still find their way to Patna; whenc® in
return are sent north, buffaloes, goats, broad cloth, cutlery,
glass ware, and other European commodities, Indian cotton
manufactures, mother of pearl, pearls, coral, beads, spices,
pepper, betel nut and leaf, camphor, tobacco, tin, lead, zinc,
and phajoo, the red powder thrown by the Hindus during
the hooly. Besides these articles, utensils in wrought cop¬
per, brass, bell-metal, and iron, are sold to the merchants of
Thibet. The borax and salt are said to be brought from
a lake which is situated nearly north from Catmandoo, about
fifteen days’ journey beyond the Brahmaputra. The car¬
riers of these articles are a large kind of sheep, with four
horns, which appear to be the common beasts of burden in
all countries towards the sources of the Indus, Ganges,
and Brahmaputra. Formerly the lamas of Lassa and Te¬
shoo Loomboo sent a large sum in bullion to be coined at
the mint of Catmandoo, on which an allowance of foui
per cent, was made for the coinage. But the rapacity of
the rajah induced him to alloy the rupee to the amount of
eight per cent., which had the effect of putting an entire
stop to this source of revenue.
Fhe Newars are almost the only artisans in Nepaul; Manufac-
and they appear to be acquainted with and to exercise tures.
most of the handicraft occupations of their neighbours.
The Newar women of all ranks, as well as the men, of the
hill-tribe of Mugar, weave two sorts of cotton cloth, partly
for home use and partly for exportation. These cloths are
the dresses of the middling and lower classes, although
woollens would be much better fitted for the cold climate
of a Nepaul winter. Those, accordingly, who are not very
pool, wear woollen blankets, which tare manufactured by
the Bhooteas, who wear nothing else. The dress of the
higher ranks is not manufactured at home, but is import¬
ed, consisting of Chinese silks, shawls, low country mus¬
lins, and calicoes. European broad cloth is worn by the
military alone. Ihey work very well in iron, copper, brass,
&c.; and in Lalita, Fatan, and Bhatgong, there are consi¬
derable manufactories of these articles, and also of a spe¬
cies of bell-metal. One bell which was manufactured at
that place measured five feet in diameter. The Thibet
bells are superior to those of Nepaul, though a great many
bell-metal vessels are made by the Newars, and exported to
Thibet, along with those of brass and copper. They are
likewise particularly ingenious in carpentry; but it is re¬
markable that they never use a saw, dividing their wood,
of whatever size, by a chisel and mallet. They are skilful in
gilding ; and they manufacture at Bhatgong, from the bark
of a shrub, a very strong paper, remarkably well suited for
packages. They distil spirits from rice and other grains,
and also prepare a fermented liquor from wheat, munooa,
rice, &c. which they call jhaur. It is made somewhat in
the manner of malt liquors, but is more intoxicating. The
Newar peasants use it in the same manner, and consider
it as necessary for their comfort as the labouring people of
Britain do porter.
N E P A U L.
Nepaul. The early history of Nepaul, like that of most of the
'“'■'v'"—'' eastern countries, is buried under a mass of fable. The in-
13 or^‘ habitants exhibit a list of princes for several thousand years
back, which is given in Colonel Kirkpatrick’s work, but
without any evidence of their authenticity. It is doubtful
whether such persons ever existed. We know, however,
that Nepaul was the scene of important revolutions, though
it never was subjected to the Delhi emperors, or to any of
the other great Asiatic powers. It is said to have been
completely subdued in a. d. 1323, by Hurr Singh, one of
the princes of Oude, who was driven out of his own pos¬
sessions by the Patans. But from that period there exists
no accurate information respecting the dynasties which
ruled during the interval, or the race of princes who go¬
verned Nepaul at the time of the Ghoorkha conquest. Run-
jeet Mull was the last of the Surya Bansi race, or children
of the sun, that reigned in Nepaul. He formed an alliance
with Purthi Nirain, which ended in the loss of his domi¬
nions, of which he was stript by his ally in the Newar year
890 or 888, corresponding to a. d. 1768. He possessed
great courage and insatiable ambition, and was indebted
for his success in war to his introduction of firelocks and
European discipline amongst his troops. It was in his reign
that Captain Kinloch, with a British force, endeavoured to
penetrate into Nepaul. But, from the sickness of the troops,
and the difficulty of the country, the enterprise was aban¬
doned. Purthi Nirain died about three years after the
final conquest of Nepaul, that is, in the year 1771. He
left two sons, Singh Pertaub and Behadur Shah, the former
of whom succeeded to the throne, and, conceiving a jealousy
of his brother, threw him into prison, whence he was with
difficulty released by the interference of one of the spiritual
guides of the Ghoorkha family, on condition that he should
live in exile. Singh Pertaub, after having extended his
father’s conquests, died in 1775, leaving one son, who was
an infant. Behadur Shah, on the death of his brother, re¬
turned from his exile to Catmandoo, and, having placed his
nephew on the throne, assumed the office of regent. But
the mother of the infant prince, Rajender Letchemi, con¬
trived to supplant Behadur Shah in his office, and even to
secure the person of her rival. Through the mediation,
however, of one of the priests, an accommodation took place,
and Behadur Shah was thus enabled to seize and confine
the ranee in his turn. Neglecting, however, to conciliate
the chief men of the state, he was again driven into banish¬
ment, from which he did not return till the death of the
princess, when he re-assumed the regency without opposi¬
tion. In the course of his administration, Palpa, and many
other petty states to the westward, Bhote to the north,
and Sikkim to the east, were compelled to submit to the
rule of the Ghoorkhas.
lowards the close of the administration of Mr Hastings
in India the Ghoorkha sovereigns were involved in hostili¬
ties with Thibet, and finally with China. The Teshoo Lama
of Thibet having proceeded to Pekin, died soon after his
arrival in that city. His brother, Sumhur Lama, taking
advantage of his absence, fled from Lassa to the rajah of
Nepaul, carrying along with him a considerable quantity
of treasure; and he made such representations to the Ne-
paul government that their avarice was inflamed, and hav¬
ing marched a body of troops to Lassa, they extorted from
the lama a tribute of three lacs of rupees. In 1790 they
despatched to Teshoo Loomboo, the residence of another
sacied lama, a second body of troops, amounting to 7000
men, who pillaged the place and the sacred temples, and
succeeded in carrying oft a large booty, though closely pur¬
sued by a Chinese army, and though, from the severity of
t le weather, they lost 2000 men in their retreat. The em¬
peror of China, as the terrestrial superior of the lamas, and
their worshipper and protector, incensed by these unpro¬
voked aggressions, despatched an army of 70,000 men
against the Nepaulese, who were overthrown in repeated
battles ; and the Chinese army advanced to Noakote, within
twenty-six miles of Catmandoo, and sixty of the British
territory of Bengal. A peace was at last concluded, though
on terms ignominious to the Nepaulese, who were com¬
pelled to become tributaries to the Chinese, and to refund
the spoil which they had taken from the Thibet lamas. It
does not appear, however, that this tribute was ever ex¬
acted. It was about this period that Lord Cornwallis at¬
tempted to conclude a treaty of commerce with the Ne¬
paulese ; but every proposition of this nature was frustrat¬
ed by their extreme jealousy.
The queen-regent died in 1786, when the care of the
young rajah devolved entirely on his uncle Bahadur Shah,
who was accused of having, from disgraceful motives, en¬
couraged the rajah in his debaucheries, in hopes of bring¬
ing him into contempt, and of thus securing to himself the
reins of authority. In this expectation, however, he was
deceived, as the rajah, in 1795, when he had entered into
his twentieth year, suddenly announced to his uncle that
he had now resolved to assume the reins of government,
and being supported by a large proportion of the nobles,
Bahadur Shah, making a virtue of necessity, forbore all
resistance, and received in return assurances of the most
distinguished favour. The young rajah rendered himself
extremely popular during the first year of his reign. But
this fair prospect was speedily overcast, and the youth plun¬
ged into all the excesses of the most furious despotism and
cruelty. His first act was to arrest his uncle, and, loading
him with chains, to throw him into prison, where he was
starved to death. He daily tortured and mutilated his
subjects, and beheld their sufferings with savage joy. In
his outrages he made no distinction of age or sex. Wo¬
men of all castes, even those belonging to the sacred or¬
ders, were seized, and subjected to abuse from the vilest
characters. In 1797, he had a son by a brahmin widow,
who being taken seriously ill next year, and finding her
end approaching, reminded the rajah of the prediction of
astrologers, that he would never complete his twenty-fourth
year, and entreated that he would provide for the unpro¬
tected orphan they were about to leave. The rajah, rely¬
ing implicitly on the superstitious prophecy, immediately,
and in the most solemn manner, before all the chiefs, ab¬
dicated the throne in favour of his son, though illegitimate,
and an administration was then appointed, over which one
of his ranees or queens was appointed to preside. The ab¬
dicated monarch now devoted his whole time to attendance
on his favourite widow, who, notwithstanding all his atten¬
tion, and rich offerings at the different temples,'Soon after¬
wards expired. In his affliction he became quite frantic,
and perpetrated atrocities, the bare mention of which
causes the Nepaulese still to shudder, and which are too
shocking to be narrated. Amongst various enormities, he
directed the sacred temple of Bahvani to be demolished,
and the golden idol, which was a venerated object of wor¬
ship, to be ground to dust; and when the soldiers to whom
he had issued the orders demurred at such an act of sacri-
lege, he commanded boiling oil to be poured on their naked
bodies. Nor were any exempt from his rage. Neither
rank nor caste afforded any protection from his violence.
Even the first members of the government were scourged
without mercy, and otherwise tortured. A confederacy
was at last formed against the tyrant, who finding himself
abandoned, absconded during the night, and fled to Be¬
nares, which he reached in May 1800.
A close connection with Nepaul had always been a fa¬
vourite object with the British rulers of India, and the
flight of the rajah to Benares appeared to present a fair
opportunity for bringing it about. A treaty of alliance
was accordingly concluded between the two states, by
Captain W. D. Knox, who was appointed ambassador,
148 N E P A U L.
Nepaul. and who proceeded to Catraandoo for the purpose in 1802.
'■""‘Y"""*'' The terms of the treaty were considered as favourable to the
British interests; the Nepaulese being anxious to secure
the influence of such powerful neighbours against the fac¬
tion of the abdicated rajah, who still contended for his re¬
storation. But whatever advantages were attained by this
treaty, were ultimately rendered nugatory by the jealous op¬
position of the subordinate officers amongst the Nepaulese,
who were probably instigated by their chiefs, the latter be¬
ing entirely unable to fulfil the obligations which they had
entered into.
The residency at Catmandoo was accordingly withdrawn
in the year 1804. About this time the abdicated monarch,
Run Bahadur, by the able management of his queen, whom
he had always ill treated, was restored to his former au¬
thority. But as he continued to rule with his former bar¬
barity, his reign was of short duration; in 1805 a conspi¬
racy was formed against him, which terminated in his as¬
sassination. His death was succeeded by the most violent
conflicts between the adverse parties in the state, and did
not terminate until nearly the whole of the nobles at Cat¬
mandoo had perished. The surviving adherents of the
late rajah having at length secured the person of his son,
seized on the reins of government, putting to death such
of the opposite party as still remained.
But during all these intestine commotions, it is remark¬
able that the Nepaulese still extended their conquests on
every side. To the west of Catmandoo, and towards the
Sutlege, the hill-chiefs were distracted by mutual jeal¬
ousies, and by no means in a condition to form a league for
their mutual defence. They were accordingly subdued
one after another by the armies of the Ghoorkhas, who very
soon made themselves masters, without the aid of artil¬
lery, of every hill-fort, from the Ganges to the Sutlege.
When their movements first attracted the notice of the
British government, their chief was vigorously prosecuting
the conquests of these states; and as he advanced west¬
ward, he erected strong forts and stockades at convenient
positions, namely, Almorah, Serinagur, and Malowa. The
Sikh frontier was also guarded by a strong line of fortified
posts ; and thus the consolidation of the Ghoorkha empire
proceeded with a slow but sure progress. The extensive
tract which lies between Catmandoo and the Sutlege was
held in firm subjection by a strong military force, whilst to
the east the Sikkim rajah was deprived of half his territo¬
ries, and compelled to pay a tribute for the remainder.
To the north the progress of conquest was restrained by
the Chinese power, with which the Ghoorkha chiefs had al¬
ready found themselves unable to cope, and also by a lofty
range of barren mountains. But the fertile and low situat¬
ed plains of the south presented a more alluring prospect,
and greater probabilities of success in a contest with a new
and untried power. The consequence was a series of en¬
croachments along the whole northern frontier of the Bri¬
tish possessions, especially in the district of Gorruckpoor
and Sarun. The British remonstrated against these pro¬
ceedings, and an investigation into the respective claims
of the two powers was commenced by commissioners joint¬
ly chosen, the result of which being entirely favourable to
the British, a detachment of regulars was ordered to take
possession of the debateable ground. But these being
withdrawn during the rainy season, the chief police sta¬
tion upon the frontier was attacked by large bodies of Ne¬
paulese, and the officers were compelled to fly, with a loss of
eighteen killed and six wounded. Shortly afterwards a se¬
cond attack was made on another police station, and several
persons were killed, after which the whole body was with¬
drawn ; and, in 1814, the war commenced. A brief account
of the operations of this war will be found under the article
Hindustan ; and it is only necessary here to state gene¬
rally, that the invasion of the Nepaulese dominions was
commenced on the western frontier, beyond the Jumna NepauL
and near the Sutlege, the country there being considered' v—
as of easier access than the mountainous barrier which
bounds the Nepaulese dominions on the side of Bengal. But
the British troops, in attempting to storm the stockades
and hill-forts, were repeatedly driven back with severe
loss, and suffered reverses to which they had been wholly
unused in the wars of India. Here it was that the brave
General Gillespie was slain, whilst he was encouraging his
troops, who had been repulsed, to renew the attack. In
1815, Sir David Ochterlony assumed the chief command,
and by a series of skilful operations, in which he dislodged
the Ghoorkha troops from the fortified heights of Malowa,
and ultimately so hemmed in their renowned commander
Ameer Singh, and his son, that they were forced to sign a
capitulation, by which they agreed, on being permitted to
retreat with their remaining troops, to abandon the whole
territory west of the Cali branch of the Goggra. In Ku-
maon also the British troops succeeded in driving the ene¬
my before them; and, in consequence of these successes, a
definitive treaty of peace was signed on the 28th of Novem¬
ber 1815. But the signature of the rajah being withheld,
it was determined to renew the war, and to strike a deci¬
sive blow directly at the capital of the country. Prepara¬
tions for this arduous enterprise were made on a great
scale, a force being assembled at Sarun amounting to about
13,000 men, of whom .3000 were Europeans, besides a
large body of irregulars, amounting in all to above 46,000
troops. This formidable force took the field in the end of
January 1816, and advanced from the Bettiah district di¬
rectly on Catmandoo. The greatest difficulties were en¬
countered, from the ruggedness of the country, in march¬
ing along the dry beds of torrents, through ravines, and
in the face of precipices. But all these obstacles were
overcome by the patience of the troops, and the consum¬
mate skill and science of their commander. The Ghoorkhas
made a brave resistance, but they were overthrown in
several severe encounters; and the British force had now
approached within three days’ march of their capital, Cat¬
mandoo. Deeming all further resistance vain, an ambassa¬
dor was sent to the British head-quarters, to sue for peace ;
and the unratified treaty of the year 1815 was accordingly
duly signed. By this treaty the Nepaulese renounced all
claims to the territory in dispute. They also ceded all the
conquests which they had made to the west of the Cali
branch of the Goggra, and which, with the exception of
Kumaon, the Deyrah Doon, and some other portions of ter¬
ritory annexed to the British dominions, were restored to
the families of the chiefs who had reigned there prior to the
Ghoorkha invasion, and who were now to rule as vassals of
the British j it being understood, however, that the latter
were not to interfere in the internal administration, but
were merely to act as arbiters between rival chiefs.
In the course of this contest with the British, the Ne¬
paulese had earnestly entreated the aid of the Chinese
against the Europeans, whom their ambassadors represent¬
ed as desirous of acquiring Nepaul merely to serve as an
intervening point in their progress to China. Their appli¬
cation being transmitted by the grand lama to Pekin, an
answer was received, in which the emperor expressed his
conviction that the Ghoorkhas had themselves been the
cause of the war by their unjust encroachments, and de¬
clined all interference. After peace was concluded, the
Chinese emperor expressed deep offence against the rulers
of Nepaul, who, being merely tributaries, had presumed to
make war or peace with the British, without the sanction
of their superior; and, to back those lofty pretensions, an
army of 15,000 men, commanded by five generals, and at¬
tended by Chinese functionaries of superior rank, usually
stationed at Lassa, actually advanced towards the Nepau¬
lese territories. At the request of the Nepaul ministers,
N E P
Nepos. the British consented to act as mediators. But in the
meantime they themselves despatched to the Chinese camp
agents, who having reached it early in September 1816,
succeeded in bringing about the restoration of peace, and
of all the ancient relations between the two powers. In
1816 Ameer Sing Thappa, one of the most distinguished
Ghoorkha commanders, who had so gallantly disputed the
field with Sir David Ochterlony, died at the age of sixty-
eight. To the last day of his life he was endeavouring, by
negotiation and by every art, to excite amongst the differ¬
ent states a spirit of hostility against the British, as the
common enemies of Indian independence. Two of his
widows devoted themselves to death along with him ; one
sacrificed herself on the spot, and the other was at the same
time preparing for the fatal pile at the temple of Pushpoo-
nath, within the valley of Khatmandu. In November 1816
the young rajah died of the small-pox, at the age of twenty-
one years. One of his queens and one of his concubines,
together with five female attendants, devoted themselves to
the funeral pile along with the corpse. He left one son,
three years of age, named Rajindra Bickram Shah, who
succeeded quietly to the throne, under the guardianship of
the minister Bheem Singh Thappa; a very unusual circum¬
stance in the annals of Nepaul. From this time the history
of Nepaul presents little that can excite interest in a European
mind. Intrigue, and occasional resort to rougher means,
identify its character with that of most Asiatic courts. At in¬
tervals, however, events have occurred which, by their un¬
usual atrocity, relieve the tameness of the surrounding inci¬
dents. Such events have marked the career of the present
prime minister, Jung Bahadoor, whose name is well known
in England, which country he visited some years since.
Jung Bahadoor was the nephew of a man who had ele¬
vated himself to a high position in the administration of
affairs. Upon the murder of his uncle, which was perpe¬
trated at the instigation of the queen, a new ministry was
formed, and Jung was appointed to the command of the
army. Shortly afterwards, the new premier was assassin¬
ated, and the queen, with whom he was a prime favourite,
demanded vengeance. Jung Bahadoor undertook the task,
and executed it with alacrity. An assembly of chiefs and
nobles being convened within the palace, Jung, backed by
a small force on which he could depend, suddenly appeared
among them, and a general massacre raged throughout the
building. Fourteen of the hostile chiefs fell by the hand
of the commander-in-chief; but the bodies of his victims
were for Jung the stepping-stones to power. Before the
dawn of the succeeding day Jung Bahadoor w^as invested
with the office of prime minister. His future career was
not inconsistent with its commencement. A conspiracy
was formed for his destruction ; but Jung not only escaped,
but seized and beheaded all the adherents of the chief con¬
spirator. The queen was banished with her two younger
sons, and the king having accompanied them, the heir-ap¬
parent was raised to the throne. A feeble attempt was
made by the monarch to regain his throne, but the energy
of Jung baffled it, and the king was made prisoner. Jung
Bahadoor has always professed a friendly feeling towards
the British ; and at the commencement of the great mili¬
tary revolt in 1857 (the particulars of which will be found
under the article North-Western Provinces of Ben¬
gal), he proved the sincerity of his friendship by rein¬
forcing the British army with a contingent of Ghoorkha
tr0PP®* (d. B N.) (k. T.)
NEPOS, Cornelius, a Latin writer, who was the friend
of Cicero, Atticus, and the poet Catullus, and flourished
b.c. 40. It is uncertain where he was born, but Pliny (iii.
22, 2) calls him Padi accola ; and his friendship with Ca¬
tullus makes it not improbable that Hostilia, near Verona,
where that poet was born, was also his birth-place. We pos¬
sess no information respecting his private life; but many of
N E P
his works are cited by later writers. 1st. His Chronicles
or Annals, probably in three books, of which the fragments
do not enable us to decide whether they were confined to
the history of Rome, or included that of all nations. Some
have asserted that this was a mere translation of the work
of Apollodorus on the same subject; but they have no suf¬
ficient grounds for so believing. 2d. The Exemplorum
Lihri, of which the fifth book is cited by Aulus Gellius
(vii. 18), and which seems to have been a work containing
remarkable transactions selected from history ; but this may
have been only another title for his work. %d. The Lives
of Illustrious Men, of which the sixteenth book is cited,
and the lives we now possess, no doubt formed a part. 4th.
The Lives of Historians (Nep. Dion, iii.), which included
both Greek and Latin. It seems not unlikely that the bio¬
graphical sketch still remaining of Atticus, and the longer
one of Porcius Cato, which he mentions (Cato, iii.), be¬
longed to this collection, loth. The Letters to Cicero, which
must have been published, as some of them are quoted by
Lactantius {Inst. iii. 15). It would appear that he had also
made successful attempts in poetry (Plin., Ep. v. 3). We
possess a work under the name of Nepos, Vita: Excellen-
tium Imperatorum, which is not mentioned by any an¬
cient writer under this title. It contains short biographical
sketches oftwenty commanders, mostly Greek ; an essay, De
Regibus, which is little else than the mere names of Greek
and Persian kings ; and the lives of Hamilcar and Hannibal.
I here are also two other biographical sketches of Atticus
and Cato, which used to be separated from the rest, because
they were not found in all the manuscripts, or, when found,
were entitled Ex libro Corn. Nepotis de Latinis Historicis;
whilst the others used to be considered as the work of a
certain JEmilius Probus, whose name was found in all the
manuscripts. This Almilius Probus was long considered as
a contemporary of Nepos; but he is now generally believed
to be the prafectus prcetorius to whom Ausonius addresses
his sixteenth epistle, and is supposed to have lived in the
reign of I heodosius, a.d. 370. At first, however, this work
appeared under the name of Probus, and was thus published
in 1471, and in the following editions, till 1563. Gifanius,
in 1566, first directed the attention of the literary world to
Nepos as the author; and subsequent investigation has
nearly set the question at rest. Attempts have, however,
been made to revive the old opinion, on the authority of
the manuscripts and of the poetical address or dedication,
on the silence of ancient writers to whom these lives seem
to have been unknown, on several mistakes in history and
chronology which appear in the work, and on the language,
which is alleged to be unwmrthy of the golden age of
Roman literature. (See the dissertations on this contro¬
versy prefixed to the editions of Lambinus (1569), Titze
(1813), Bardili (1820), Dahne (1827), Roth (1841), and
Benecke (1843). The most useful editions are those of
Van Staveren (1773), Tzschucke (1804), Bremi(1820), and
particularly Lemaire (1820). These biographies have al¬
ways been exceedingly popular as a school-book; and the
translations of them into various languages are numberless.
The first English version was executed by “ various gen¬
tlemen of the university of Oxford,” London, 1684.)
Nepos, Julius, a Roman emperor of the West, was in¬
vested with the purple by Leo I. in 473, was expelled from
the throne by Orestes in 475, and was assassinated near
Salona by two of his own officers in 480. (See Roman
History.)
NEPTUNE (in Lat. Neptunus or Neptumnus, in Gr.
Poseidon), the god of the sea, was the son of Kronos
and Rhea, and the brother of Jupiter and Juno. The
etymology of the Greek as well as of the Latin form of his
name is very obscure and doubtful. The ancient Dorians
wrote the w ord Poteidan, in which some scholars find the
same root as in Potos and Potamos, and the verb pino.
A
150 N E R
Nerbuddah Cicero derives the Latin name of the deity from the Greek
I! t nao, the Latin nato ; Varro, with still less show of proba-
v en‘ y bility, from nubo or obnubo, on the ground that the god
“ v—y covers or surrounds the earth with his waters. The most
feasible explanation seems to be that which connects the
name Neptunus with the root nip, as found in the Greek
nipto. When the dominions of Kronos were divided among
his sons, the sea fell to Neptune as his share. He was
therefore worshipped with peculiar solemnity by all mari¬
time nations; from the earliest ages by the adventurous
lonians, and at a later period by the Dorian Greeks. His
favourite abode was said to be a splendid submarine palace
at iEgae. Among the principal seats of his worship may
be mentioned Cyrene, JUgina, Corinth, and Troezen, whence
it was transferred to the Italian peninsula, first to Sybaris,
and afterwards to Posidonia or Psestum. The Isthmian
games, held in his honour at Corinth, ranked among the four
national festivals of the Greeks. (See Isthmia.) Neptune
plays an important part in some of the ancient myths. He
helped Apollo in building the walls of Troy for Laomedon.
In his contest with Minerva for the honour of giving name
to the city of Athens, he produced the horse. On this
account he was regarded both by Romans and Greeks as a
kind of equestrian as well as marine deity. The Romans
had horse-races in the circus during his festival, when all
other horses were crowned with wreaths and allowed a
short respite from labour. The animals most commonly sa¬
crificed in his honour were bulls, rams, and boars. Besides
his favourite Amphytrite, by whom he had his son Triton,
Neptune had two other wives, Salasia and Yenilia. His
statues represent him as a heavy and powerful figure, with
tangled hair, and inferior in dignity of expression to his
brother Jove. In his right hand he holds the trident, and
with his left guides the horses yoked to the shell which
serves him for a car. A long train of tritons and sea-nymphs
follows in his wake.
NERBUDDAH, a large river of Hindustan, rising in the
province of Gundwana, which, after a course of 750 miles,
falls into the Gulf of Cambay. This river has its source
close to that of the Soane, on the elevated plateau of Ama-
rakantak, or Omercuntuc, at an elevation of between 3000
and 4000 feet above the sea. A Hindu temple is found in
the centre of the table-land at Omercuntuc; and here the
Nerbuddah rises from a small well, and flows easterly in a
smooth stream until it is precipitated from the brow of the
table-land. From this point its course is due W., with the
straightest course of any river perhaps in the world. It
passes through Gundwana, Khandesh, Madwah,and Guzerat,
and after passing the city of Broach, falls into the Gulf of
Cambay, in Lat. 21. 35., Long. 72. 35. This river was in
former times the boundary between Hindustan proper and
the Deccan or southern peninsula. Ships of burthen can
proceed up the river to Broach, where it is a noble sheet
of water 2 miles wide, even when the tide is out; but skil¬
ful pilotage is necessary in consequence of numerous sand¬
banks. The practicability of improving the navigation by
artificial means has been considered, and some years since
instructions were sent out for a survey by a competent
officer with a view to this end.
NEREIDS. See Nymphs.
NEREUS, a sea-god, son of Pontus and Ge, and father
of the Nereids, the marine nymphs of the Mediterranean.
His wife was Doris, the daughter of Oceanus. He is de¬
scribed as a wise and kindly deity, and especially skilled in
divining the future. (Hor., lib. i., carm. 15.) His favourite
haunt was the Aegean Sea, in which he lived with his daugh¬
ters. The number of these nymphs is variously given as
fifty or a hundred. (See Nymphs.)
NERI, Filippo de, the founder of the congregation of
the “ Priests of the Oratory,” was born of a noble family
in Florence in 1515. From his childhood he was noted for a
N E R
kind and pious disposition. This trait in his character began Nerja
to appear in greater distinctness when he had completed his II
elementary education, and removed to Rome at the age of ^ero*
nineteen. But it was not until his twenty-fourth year that
his religious charity assumed the form of active Christian
philanthropy. At that time he abandoned his classical and
theological studies, sold his books that he might give the
money to the poor, and resolved to devote the rest of his
life to doing good to the bodies and souls of his fellow-men.
A deep sense of sin would not permit him to enter into
holy orders. He was therefore content, in the unconse¬
crated garb of a layman, to relieve the needy, to console
the sick and the dying, to visit the prisoners in their cells,
to plead the cause of the oppressed in the courts of jus¬
tice, and to instruct the ignorant in the street and by the
wayside. The most notable of his many benevolent deeds
at this time was the erection of an asylum for sick and
destitute strangers. In 1551 Neri, being persuaded at
length to enter the church, saw the circle of his influence
beginning to widen. Several young ecclesiastics, including
Baronius and others, who were afterwards celebrated, be¬
gan to gather around him, and to aid him in his philan¬
thropic labours. These he formed, in 1564, into an order,
which, from the Italian name for a chapel, was called the
“ Congregation of the Priests of the Oratory.” He laid upon
them no monastic vows, but trusted that the common spirit
of charity by which they were animated would be a living
bond of union between them. The new order soon became
distinguished for its Christian zeal and enterprise. In 1575
Pope Gregory XIII. recognised its usefulness by formally
bestowing upon it his sanction. Its founder had the satis¬
faction in his old age of seeing it established in the prin¬
cipal Italian towns. In 1593 he resigned the generalship of
the Oratory in favour of Baronius. He died in May 1595.
Filippo de Neri was canonized by Gregory XV. in 1622.
His Life has been written in Latin by Gallonio, 8vo, Rome,
1602; and by Bacci, 4to, Rome, 1645. His letters were
published in 8vo, Padua, 1751; and his treatise called
Ricordi, and several of his poems, appeared in the Rime
Oneste.
NERJA, a town of Spain, province of Malaga, on the
Mediterranean, 13 miles E. of Malaga. It is well and re¬
gularly built, with broad paved streets and three squares;
and has a parish church, a town-hall, and three schools.
Manufactures of flour, sugar, linen, and paper, are carried
on ; and there is some trade in corn, oil, sugar, and fish.
Pop. 4595.
NERO, a cognomen of the gens Claudia, one of the most
illustrious patrician families of ancient Rome. The word,
according to Suetonius, is of Sabine origin, and signifies
“ fortis” and <£ strenuus.” Thus, Nerio, Neria, or Neriens,
personified “ Bravery,” was the name of the companion and
wife of Mars; and in the Umbrian language, the often-
recurring Nerf or Nervs is explained princcps. The most
distinguished persons who bore this name were,—
1. C. Claudius Nero, who signalized himself in the second
Punic war by his successes against Hannibal, and, above all,
by his splendid victory at the Metaurus (b.c. 207) over
Hasdrubal, which completely broke the Carthaginian power
in Italy.
2. Claudius Drusus Nero, the stepson of Augustus, and
younger brother of the Emperor Tiberius. In the year
b.c. 15, Drusus Nero, then only in his twenty-third year,
subdued the Rhaeti and Vindelici, and during his consul¬
ship, six years later, commanded the Roman armies in Ger¬
many, where he died. His wife was Antonia, the daughter
of Mark Antony the triumvir, and by her he had three chil¬
dren, Caesar Germanicus, the Emperor Claudius, and Livilla.
(Hor., lib. iv., carm. 4.)
3. Claudius Ccesar Nero, the sixth of the Roman em¬
perors. His original name was Lucius Domitius. His father
NEE
t<crtshmsk was Domitius Ahenobarbus, and his mother Agrippina, the
Neston. daug,1ter of Germanicus. He was born at Antium in Latium
A-D' o7, succeeded Claudius as emperor a.d. 54, and died
a.d. 68, in the thirty-second year of his age and fourteenth
of his reign. (See Roman History.)
NER1SHINSK, a town of Siberia, in the Transbaika-
' umi territory, at the confluence of the Nertsha and the
blulka, 540 miles E. by S. of Irkutsk, and about 400 E.N.E.
of Kiachta. It is wretchedly built of wood, and consists
or an old and a new town, at some distance from each other.
I here are several churches ; and some trade is carried on
in furs. I he district of Nertshinsk is rich in mines of
go d, silver, and lead, in which a great number of men are
employed. It also affords good pasturage. Pop. of the
town (1851) 4993.
NERVA, Marcus Cocceius, the thirteenth emperor of
Rome, was born at Narnia in Umbria a.d. 27, or, according
to other authorities, in a.d. 32. He succeeded to the pur-
ple on the assassination of Domitian, September 18, a.d.
9b, and, after a mild and equitable reign of sixteen months
and nine days, died early in the spring of a.d. 98. Before
his death he had adopted Trajan as his successor. (See
Roman History.)
See Anatomy, and Physiology.
NER VII, a nation of Belgica, whose territory was
situated N. of the Ambiani, are first mentioned by Csesar
at the date 57 b.c. At that time they were a simple-livino-,
warlike, and patriotic people, abjuring all commerce with
other nations, prohibiting wine and other luxuries from being
jmported into their territory, and zealously stirring up their
neighbours to resist the coming invasion of the Romans.
On receiving intelligence that Caesar was advancing into
their country, they sent away their old men, women, and
children to a place of refuge among the marshes by the
sea-shore, and posted themselves in ambush on the banks
of the Sabis Sambre). The invaders had approached close
to the place of concealment, and, unsuspicious of any dan¬
ger, were engaged in forming a camp, when they suddenly
found themselves attacked by 60,000 fierce barbarians,
ihe Romans would have been immediately routed, had not
the invincible genius of Caesar been there to sway and turn
the tide of battle. After a hard-fought contest, the Ner-
vian forces were almost annihilated ; but the Nervii were
not yet subdued. They are found, in 54 b.c., assisting the
Eburones in the unsuccessful attack upon the camp of
Guintus Cicero; and it was not until the following year
that they finally submitted to the Romans. The Nervii
possessed two important towns,—Bagacum (Bavai), their
capital; and Camaracum (Cambrai).
NESS, Loch, a lake of Scotland, in the county of In¬
verness, stretching from S.W. to N.E. for nearly 24 miles
with an average breadth of a mile and a quarter. It is fed
by the River Oich, from Loch Oich, and by several other
streams, of which the largest are the Moriston, the Foyers,
and the Fangag. The depth of the loch near the centre
is tiom 100 to 130 fathoms, its bottom being below the level
of the sea; and owing to its great depth the water never
ireezes. I he mountains on either side of the loch are lofty,
rugged, and steep, rising to the height of 1200 or 1500 feet
fi °Ve t,1e ,!ea'T,.r^le waters of the loch are conveyed to
t o sea by the River Ness, which falls into the Moray Firth
at Inverness. Loch Ness is connected bv the Caledonian
the S.W InVemesS on the N-E*> and with Loch Oich on
NFS I ON Great, a town of England, county of Ches-
ter near the shore of the estuary of the Dee, 11 miles N.W.
ot uiiester. It has an ancient church with a handsome front
Ca ho iTrF 5 ! d'1’ IndePendent, Calvinist, and Roman
Cathohc churches; and several schools. The town depends
chiefly for lts prosperity on the summer visitors, who resort
ithei for the sake of the sea-bathing. Pop. (1851) 1524.
N E S
151
NESTORIUS, the founder of the sect of the Nestorians n * •
was born at German,cia in Syria towards the close oTthe ^l !^
fourth century. After receiving his education in a con ^ 
vent, he was ordained a presbyter of Antioch. It was
there that he imbibed the doctrine of the Syrian church
winch held, in opposition to the Egyptian church, that the
two natures of Christ were distinctly separate, and were
united into one person by a certain relation. His simple
and austere babits, his devotion to the cause of the church
and his fervid and winning eloquence, marked him out in no
long time as a fit champion of the tenets he had adopted.
An opportunity soon occurred for the exercise of his zeal
and mfluence. In 428 he was promoted to the patriarchate
of Constantmople. “ Help me to subdue the heretics, and
I will help you to subdue the Persians,” was the fanatical
boast by which he indicated to the emperor his intention of
immediately commencing a vigorous course of proselytizing.
Not content with persecuting the Arians, Novatians, and
Cjuartodecimamans, he soon discovered in the current s
speech of the city an expression which savoured of the
peculiar doctrine of the Egyptian church. That was the
epithet s the Mother ot God,” a phrase which he alleged
to imply the deification of the human nature of Christ, and
which he therefore condemned. From this incident arose
the famous Nestorian quarrels. The Constantinopolitan
patriarch forthwith found himself engaged in hot contro¬
versy with several of his monks and clergy. They accused
him of Photinianism; he accused them of Manicheism.
I hey preached against him in the churches, and renounced
t^eir ecclesiastical allegiance; he turned them out of the
churches, and deposed them. At this crisis, Cyril, the
meddling and arrogant Patriarch of Alexandria, eager for
an opportunity to bring down a powerful brother-bishop, in¬
sinuated himself into the contest, and changed it from a
mere local squabble about a name of the Virgin Mary
mto a serious controversy touching the respective doctrines
of the Syrian and Egyptian churches. After solemnly pro¬
fessing to be actuated solely by love for the true faith,
and after employing the most gross deceits to maintain this
profession, he organized a strong opposition against Nesto-
nus, and at length, by artful flattery, he obtained from
1 ope Ccelestine I. the power of dealing with the alleged
heresiarch. Convening a council at Alexandria in 430, die
Egyptian patriarch launched twelve anathemas at the head
of Nestorius. Nestorius hurled back twelve other anathe¬
mas. This rupture was fast growing into a schism, when
the emperor, Theodosius II., anxious to restore the peace
of the church, summoned the third oecumenical council to
meet at Ephesus in 431. Nestorius repaired thither, trust-
mg to the justice of his cause ; but that, he soon found, was
a frail offset against the shameless machinations and power¬
ful influence of his adversary. He was summoned to the
bar before his friends the Antiochian bishops had arrived •
he was deposed on the charge of blasphemy before he
bad pled his cause; his appeal to the emperor was coun¬
teracted by misrepresentations; those who were favourable
to him at court were overawed by a fanatical mob artfully
raised by his indefatigable foes ; and at length he was glad
to escape from the ever-thickening broil by retiring to the
cloister of Euprepius near Antioch. There the heresiarch
enjoyed peace for four years. But by that time some of
his former friends had taken up the cry against him, and,
atraid lest he should communicate the taint of heresy to
those around him, they resolved to cast him, like a pestilen¬
tial carcass, beyond the pale of civilized society. He was
accordingly banished to the Greater Oasis in Upper E-ypt.
1 ut even in that solitary retreat no rest was to be found.
He was soon obliged to flee before the invasions of the barba¬
ric Blemmyes, and to take refuge in the Thebaid. Then the
o d man, at the command of the Roman governor of that dis-
trict, was dragged about by a savage soldiery from one place to
152 N E S
Nestorius. another, until death closed his long career of troubles.
The date of his demise is unknown.
Meanwhile, the favourers of Nestorius, or, as they were
• called, the Nestoriam, were becoming numerous in the
provinces of the East. The writings of the exiled patriarch,
and of Theodore of Mopsuestia, translated into Syriac, were
already circulating through Assyria and Persia, and making
many converts. As early as 435 the celebrated school of
Edessahad become the seminary of Nestorianism, and was
sending forth numerous disciples zealous for the new doc¬
trine. The most famous of these was Barsumas, the in¬
defatigable and politic Bishop of Nisibis. In conjunction
with Maanes, Bishop of Ardaschir, he prevailed upon the
Persian king Pherozes to establish the Nestorians as the
national church of Persia. A great stimulus was thus given
to the sect. Patronized by the state, they made Seleueia
the seat of their patriarch, and established an excellent
seminary at Nisibis. Isolated from other Christians, and
therefore forced to maintain a distinct and real individu¬
ality, they began to make their peculiar creed something^
more than a mere repudiation of the epithet “ Mother ot
God.” Accordingly, at a synod convened by the Patriarch
Babaeus at Seleucia in 496, a system of doctrine was framed
and adopted. The characteristic dogmas of this system
were, that in Christ there were two persons, the Divine
Logos and the man Jesus; that these two persons were
united together by no other connection than that of will
and affection ; that Christ, on that account, ought to be
clearly distinguished from God ; and that these tenets had
not been derived from Nestorius, but had been held by^
the church from her infancy. Another peculiar opinion was,
that it was lawful for bishops and presbyters to marry.
Having thus obtained a constitution of its own, Nestorian¬
ism started on a long career of prosperity and activity.
It was regarded with favour, or at least with toleration,
under the Saracens, Arabs, and Tartars, the successive
masters of Persia. Its missionaries travelled over all
Northern Asia, and as far west as China, evangelizing the
heathen, and planting numerous churches. At length, in
1551, it received a severe check, and its members were di-
? vided into two factions, by a dispute regarding the election
of a patriarch. One party elected Sulaka, placed them-
: selves under the jurisdiction of the Roman pontiff, and
were afterwards known by the name of Chaldean Christians.
The other party have continued till the present day to be
the true representatives of the primitive Nestorian church in
Persia. They are at present a simple, poor, illiterate, yet
f independent people, amounting to about 140,000, and living
* around Diz, the seat of their patriarchate, among the moun¬
tainous ranges of Kurdistan. Subjected for many ages to
the proselytizing influence and persecution of Papists and
Mohammedans, they he-e not escaped the infection of
superstition. Their patriarch and their eighteen bishops
are doomed to celibacy and perpetual abstinence from ani¬
mal food ; many fasts are observed; a peculiar religious
festival in commemoration of the dead is held annually ;
and charms and talismans are often distributed by the clergy
among their flocks. Yet their system of doctrine is free
from all the more gross and deadly errors of the church of
Rome. The Bible is recognised as the supreme and sole
canon of faith ; the inferior clergy are permitted to marry ;
and auricular confession, image-worship, and the belief in
purgatory, are abjured. There is also a body of Nestorians
existing in India, under the name of Syrian Christians, and
acknowledging the jurisdiction of a patriarch. They abound
to the number of 100,000 in Travancore, and are also nu¬
merous in the neighbourhood of that state. Although igno¬
rant and superstitious, they are said to be essentially ortho¬
dox, and are on terms of friendly intercourse with the
English prelates of India.
Several sermons, epistles, and fragmentary writings of
N E U
Nestorius, and other papers relating to the Nestorian quar- Nesvish
rels, are published in the works of Marius Mercator by ||
Baluze, 8vo, Paris, 1684. The most recent treatises on the ^euburg.
subject are,—Perkins's I'Jujht Yeavs spent cunoncf the Nesto- "“v 1 1
rian Christians, New York, 1843 ; Badger’s Nestorians
and their Rituals, in 2 vols. 8vo, London, 1852 ; and Mars-
den’s Christian Churches and Sects, in 2 vols., London,
1856.
NESVISH, a town of European Russia, in the govern¬
ment of Minsk, on the Usha, 60 miles S. W. of Minsk. It is
protected by fortifications, which, however, are in a very dila¬
pidated state ; and it has a Benedictine abbey. Pop. 4230.
NETHERLANDS. See Holland.
NETSCHER, Gaspar, an eminent painter, was born,
according to one account, at Heidelberg in 1639, but ac¬
cording to another, at Prague, in 1636. His father died
when he was two years of age; and his widowed mother,
fleeing from the dangers of a civil war, carried him to Arn-
heim. There the young orphan was adopted and educated
by a benevolent physician named Tullekens. At first he was
destined for the profession of his patron ; but his great apti¬
tude for painting soon caused the plan of his future career
to be altered, and he was placed under an artist named De
Koster. After a short time spent in painting birds and
objects of still life, the pupil had exhausted all his master’s
instructions, and set out for Italy to complete his education
there. Happening, however, to get married at Liege, and
being compelled to practise his art for the support of his
household, he could proceed no farther. He settled at
Bordeaux, and toiled hard to earn a livelihood by painting
fancy subjects. But those small cabinet pictures, which
are now so highly valued on account of their exquisite
finish, brought but a small remuneration; and after re¬
moving to the Hague, he turned his attention to portrait¬
painting. In this branch of his art he was more success¬
ful. His earnings soon became so considerable, that he was
enabled at times to gratify his own taste and fancy by
depicting musical and conversational pieces. It was in
these that Netscher’s genius was first fully displayed. The
choice of the subjects, and the habit of introducing female
figures, dressed in rich, glossy satins, were imitated from
Terburg ; but the.easy yet delicate pencilling, the brilliant
yet correct colouring, and the complete mastery over light
and shade were all his own. He soon attracted notice, and
was rapidly gaining both fame and wealth, when he was cut
off at the premature age of forty-one. Many of Netscher’s
pictures may be found in the galleries of the Louvre, Hesse-
Cassel, Berlin, Dresden, Munich, and Florence; at the
Hermitage in St Petersburg, and in the English collections
of Sir Robert Peel, Mr Hope, Lord Ashburton, and the
Earl of Bridgewater. The style of Netscher was imitated
by his two sons Theodore and Constantine; but these,
though meritorious painters, were far inferior to their father.
NEU-BRANDENBURG, a town in the duchy of
Mecklenburg-Strelitz,on the shore of Lake Tollen, 55 miles
W.N.W. of Stettin. It is regularly built, and surrounded
by walls, through which entrance is obtained by four gates.
The principal buildings are the palace of the grand duke,
a long, low building in the market-place ; and the church of
St Mary, a fine Gothic edifice, lately restored, which con¬
tains some good paintings. This town contains two other
churches, several schools, a town-hall, and a theatre.
It has manufactures of tobacco, paper, cards, leather, &c.;
and carries on a considerable trade in these articles, and in
horses and hides. An annual fair for wool is held here,
and there are also horse races. Pop. 6145.
NEUBURG, a town of Bavaria, in the circle of Suabia,
stands on the right bank of the Danube, 33 miles N.N.E.
of Augsburg, and 45 N.N.W. of Munich. It is an old
town, picturesquely situated on a wooded hill that rises
from the river’s side. Besides the town itself, which con-
N E U
Neuch&tel. sistsof an old and a new part, and is partly walled, there are
V*-'' two suburbs. The ancient castle, formerly the residence
of the dukes-palatine of Neuburg, is surrounded by a fine
garden, and contains a collection of portraits, old armour,
tapestry, &c. There are in the town three churches, a con¬
vent, a college (which formerly belonged to the Jesuits),
several schools, a public library, museum, town-hall, bar¬
racks, arsenal, infirmary, and orphan hospital. Beer, brandy,
earthenware, cloth, and saltpetre are the principal articles
manufactured here; and fishing is also carried on to some
extent. On an island in the river are the ruins of the
ancient castle of Altenburg; and in the neighbourhood of
the town are two residences of the King of Bavaria. The
Danube is here crossed by two bridges, under which
steamers pass by lowering their funnels. Pop. 6350.
NEUCHATEL, or Neufciiatel (Germ. Neuenburg),
a canton of Switzerland, lying on the N.W. shore of the
lake of the same name, between N. Eat. 46. 50. and 47. 10.,
and E. Long. 6. 25. and 7. 5. It is bounded on the N.E.
and E. by the canton of Bern; S.E. by the Lake of Neu-
chatel, which separates it from Fribourg and Vaud ; S. by
Vaud; W. and N.W. by France. Its length is about 30
miles, average breadth 11 miles; area 280 square miles.
I he surface of the canton is mountainous, being traversed
through its whole length by the Jura Mountains. It con¬
sists of three different regions, distinct from each other in
nature and appearance. The lowest part of the canton is
that which extends along the shores of the lake, and is
known by the name of Vignobles. This tract of country
is for the most part planted with vines, and has an eleva¬
tion of 1400 feet above the sea. The centre of the canton
comprises a tract of land inclosed between two parallel
ridges of the Jura, and is elevated from 2000 to 2400 feet
above the sea. This region is known by the name of
Vallon, and includes the Val de Travers and the Val de
Ruz. Corn, pulse, grass, and fruits are grown here. That
part of Neuchatel which lies on the borders of France is
called the Montagnes, and consists of the lofty ridges of the
Jura and the high-lying valleys by which they are separated.
These valleys are called La Chaux de Fond, Locle, La
Chaux du Milieu, La Brevine, and La Sagne, respectively.
I he highest peak of the Jura within this canton is that of
Chasseral, which has an elevation of 5285 feet. The can¬
ton contains numerous small streams, each of the valleys
having at least one, to which it gives name ; and, besides
these, Neuchatel is partly bounded by the Doubs on the
French frontier, and by the Thielle, which joins the lakes of
Bienne and Neuchatel on the frontier of Bern. The cli¬
mate of the different parts varies very considerably,—in the
lower regions it is mild enough for the growth of the vine,
but in the uplands it is very cold and bleak, the snow lying
on some of the heights for seven or eight months in the
year. The geological structure of the country is almost en¬
tirely calcareous, consisting of a kind of rock known by the
name ot Jura limestone. I he only valuable mineral that
is obtained in Neuchatel is iron. The corn produced in the
canton is not sufficient to supply the wants of the inhabit¬
ants, and a considerable amount has to be imported from the
cantons ot Bern and Basle. Potatoes are largely culti¬
vated, even at great elevations among the mountains; and
in the lower regions the cultivation of the vine is extensive,
and the wines produced are highly esteemed. Of the whole
Ao^n6 °* t^le canton’ has been calculated that about
co are mountain pasture-land, 28,500 forests,
62,000 arable land, 37,000 meadows, and 2480 vineyards.
t- coo11 i er °* ^orne(^ eattle in the canton in 1848 was
1 • ~ioo?rSe™ 2589; sheeP’ 5113; goats, 2105; and
swine, 4284. Bears and wolves, as well as deer and other
inds of game, are found in the forests; and the rivers and
lakes abound in fish. The manufactures are of consider-
a e importance ; and among these that of watches occupies
VOL. XYI.
N E U
153
the first place, and has contributed most effectively to the v .
prosperity of the country. This branch of ind 'sVy „s UCl“te,•
first introduced here in 1665 ; and after it had been a cen
tury in operation, 12,000 gold and silver watches were an¬
nually produced. In 1848 the canton contained 9067
watchmakers, by whom upwards of 100,000 watches were
yearly produced. The chief seats of this manufacture were
the villages of Locle and Chaux de Fonds, in the bleak
uplands of the Jura. The manufacture of lace is also
carried on to a considerable extent, but it has declined con-
sidei ably from its former importance. There were in 1848
only 1475 hands employed in this branch of industry, of
which the chief seat is in the Val de Travers. Manu¬
factures of linen, cotton, paper, &c., are also carried on.
The trade of Neuchatel is not very extensive, and consists
principally in the export of the various articles manufactured
here. The established religion is Protestant and Calvin-
istic, and this is professed by the majority of the people, the
proportion of Protestants to Roman Catholics being nearly
twelve to one. There are also a small number of Jews.
The constitution of the canton is very anomalous; for
though the King of Prussia claims the title of Prince of
Neuchatel, he has resigned all right of sovereignty over it;
and the constitution, as established April 30, 1848, is
entirely republican. The legislative body consists of 80
members, chosen by the people, one for every 500 in¬
habitants. Their term of office is for six years, and
one-third of the number go out every two years. The
executive power is confided to a council of seven, chosen
by the members of the legislature, and presiding each
over one of the seven departments of the canton. Neu¬
chatel sends four members to the National Council of
Switzerland, and two members to the Council of States.
The canton of Neuchatel was formerly a part of the German
empire, but afterwards was bestowed on the House of
Chalons, with the title of Count of Neuchatel. These
counts were subject to the feudal rights of the princes of
Orange. In 1398 Neuchatel was admitted into the Swiss
Confederation; and in 1579 the county ofValendis having
been joined to that of Neuchatel, the title of Count was ex¬
changed for that of Prince of Neuchatel. The line of
Chalons having become extinct, it passed to William III.
of Great Britain as Prince of Orange ; and on his death in
1702, his nephew Frederic I. of Prussia took possession of
the principality. In 1805 it was ceded by the treaty of
Tilsit to France, and given by Napoleon to Marshal Ber-
thier; but it was restored to Prussia in 1814, though still
recognised as holding the twenty-first place in the Swiss
confederacy. After this it continued under the government
°f Prussia* and a constitution was granted by Frederick
William III.; but in 1848 this state of things came to an
end ; a republican constitution was established ; and since
that time the authority of the King of Prussia has been
merely nominal. On the 2d of September 1856 an at¬
tempt was made by a party of royalists to re-establish the
authority of the Prussian monarch in Neuchatel; but this
proved unsuccessful, and they were taken prisoners, and
arraigned for high treason. The Prussian ambassador de¬
manded that the prisoners should be released, and the rights
of Prussia recognised. This demand was rejected by the
Swiss government, and the King of Prussia refused to enter
into any negotiations about the canton of Neuchatel until
the prisoners were released. At last it was settled by a
treaty at Paris, May 26th 1857, that an amnesty thould be
granted to the insurgents of Neuchatel, and that the King
of Prussia should resign all claim of sovereignty over the
canton, reserving only the right to bear the title of Prince
of Neuchatel. Pop. (1850) 70,753.
Neuchatel, the capital of the above canton, stands
at the mouth of the Seyon, partly on the level ground
on the shore of the lake, and party on the slope of the
v
154 ' N E U
Neuchatel. Jura Mountains. It is well built, and contains several
il handsome streets, some of which stand on the alluvial
Neuhoff. groun(i gained from the lake. The castle, which is situated
on'an eminence, is an ancient building of some size, and was
formerly the residence of the princes of Neuchatel, but is
now occupied by the government offices. Near the castle
stands the church, a Gothic edifice of the twelfth century,
with some parts of still more ancient date. The town-
hall, a handsome building in the Grecian style, stands in
the lower part of the town. The town contains also a
public school, with a museum of natural history, a ladies’
school, and two hospitals. A considerable trade is carried
on through Neuchatel in the manufactures and agricul¬
tural produce of the canton. Pop. (1850) 7727.
Neuchatel, Lake, forms the S.E. boundary of the can¬
ton of the same name, and is about 24 miles in length
by 4 in breadth. The surface is 1320 feet above the
sea, and the greatest depth is 400 feet. It is fed by the
Orbe from the S.W., by the rivers of Neuchatel from the
N.W., and by the Broye from Lake Morat; and it dis¬
charges its waters by the Thielle into the Lake of Bienne,
and thence into the Aar. The scenery of the lake is fine,
but inferior in grandeur to that of some of the other Swiss
lakes. A considerable trade is carried on on this lake ; and
it is navigated by a steamer, which touches at the principal
places on its banks.
NEUDORF (Hungarian, Iglo), a town of Hungary,
county of Zips, in a beautiful plain on the Hernad, 5 miles
S. by W. of Leutshau, and 136 N.E. of Pesth. It is well
built, and has one principal street and square. The parish
church is a fine building with a lofty tower. There are
also a Protestant church, a high school, court-house, town-
hall, theatre, and hospital. The manufacture of linen and
paper, and the forging of iron, are carried on here; and
iron and copper mines are worked, and flax cultivated, in
the vicinity. Pop. 5900.
NEUHAUS, a town of Bohemia, circle of Tabor, stands
on the Nezarka, 26 miles N.E. of Budweis. It has an
old castle, now in ruins, a handsome parish church, five other
churches, a Franciscan convent, town-hall, barracks, and
theatre. Manufactures of linen, cotton, and woollen fabrics
are carried on. Pop. 7604.
NEUHAUSEL, a market-town of Hungary, in the county
of Neutra, on the river, and 22 miles S.S.E. of the town
of that name. It was formerly a fortress of some import¬
ance; and has a church, a Franciscan monastery, two schools,
and a town-hall. Some trade is carried on in corn, wine,
and cattle. Pop. 6780.
NEUHOFF, Theodor, Baron yon, a noted military
adventurer, was descended from a noble Westphalian family,
and was born at Metz toward the close of the seventeenth
century. His father, an officer in the French service,
died when he was still young, and left him exposed to
the attacks of poverty and the freaks of fortune. He ob¬
tained a lieutenancy in the regiment of Alsace ; but a
habit of falling into debt, and of never getting out of it, did
not suffer him to remain long at this post. He then shifted
about from one country to another, trusting to his titles,
Address, and good luck for a livelihood. At length he
seemed to have gained a permanent footing in Spain. The
two famous statesmen Alberoni and Ripperda patronized
him in succession; a colonel’s commission was conferred
upon him ; and a lady of honour to the Spanish queen gave
him her hand in marriage. But no sooner did the German
fortune-hunter find that his wife’s dowry fell far short of
his expectations, than he seized upon her jewels, bade adieu
to the land of his adoption, and escaped over the border
into France. His plunder was soon squandered, and his
favourite character of wandering impostor was resumed.
For several years he continued to skulk from one European
city to another, changing his name to suit his circumstances,
N E U
and fleeing from old debts only to fall into new ones. Neuhoff.
At last fortune began to smile upon him once more. Hap-
pening, in the course of his wanderings, to meet some of
those Corsican patriots who were then asserting their
country’s independence against the Genoese, he commenced,
with his usual ready hypocrisy, to profess a deep interest in
their cause, and to proffer his counsel. He advised them
to elect some noble and influential personage for their king,
who should lead their armies, form their government, and
lay the foundation of their independence; and he hinted
that he, a German baron, and a favourite with the princes
of Europe, was a suitable object for their choice. The
hint was taken; and the Corsicans agreed to support his
ambitious scheme, on condition that he should furnish some
substantial proof of his devotion to their cause. Neuhoff
was immediately on foot, using all his arts and address to
obtain assistance from several European courts for the pa¬
triotic Corsicans. His efforts were unsuccessful. He then
posted to Africa, and by dint of enormous promises, received
a ship-load of supplies and ammunition from the Dey of
Tunis. With these he landed at Corsica in March 1736, and
was received with enthusiasm by the islanders. The game
of ambition thus successfully begun was now played out
with consummate tact and dexterity. He kept up a show
of possessing great wealth; added to his name the honour¬
able titles of most of the courts in Christendom; feigned
to be constantly receiving despatches from the principal
powers of Europe and Africa ; and at length declared him¬
self a candidate for the crown, and obtained it in the fol¬
lowing April. The same system of display which had
raised the foreign adventurer to the throne was now found
necessary to keep him there. Accordingly, he surrounded
himself with 400 body-guards, distributed among his fol¬
lowers many brevets of nobility, instituted a new order of
knighthood under the name of the Order of Deliverance,
and asserted his sovereign power and majesty by hanging
up three persons of high birth. But these arts, though
successful at first, could not long defend the impostor
against the disclosures of advancing time. The great pro¬
mises he had held out of foreign assistance continued to
be unfulfilled ; rumours concerning his real character began
to reach the island; and the failure of his attempt to take
the town of Bastia from the Genoese proved his incapacity
to vindicate the freedom of his new subjects. His popu¬
larity was waning fast when, at the end of a reign of eight
months, he entrusted the government to a council of regency,
and repaired to Europe to procure the reinforcements
which he had promised. Here ended the reign of Theo¬
dore I. of Corsica. Happening, in his vain search for sup¬
plies, to repair to Amsterdam, he was pounced upon by
some of his old creditors, and was cast into prison. When
by mortgaging two of the Corsican towns to a Jewish mer¬
chant, he had received a large sum of money, and had been
enabled in 1738 to release himself from prison, and to repair
to Corsica with three merchant vessels and a frigate, he
found that the island was entirely under the power of the
French, the allies of the Genoese, and that the islanders were
unable to receive him. Affairs wei’e not more favourable,
even after the French had departed in 1741. On present¬
ing himself once more before his subjects in 1742, Neuhoft
found that there was a strong faction of the Corsicans
against him, and that the Genoese had set a price upon his
head. He immediately abandoned his forlorn hopes, and
fled to England. The reverses, however, of this poor
puppet of fortune were not yet at an end. His Dutch
creditors soon ferreted him out, and for seven years he lay
in the King’s Bench Prison. Through the interference of
Horace Walpole, he obtained his release in 1756, under the
act of insolvency, and was enabled to make an agreement with
his creditors by mortgaging Corsica. But grief and poverty
brought his life to a close in December of the same year.
N E U
Neuilly- NEUILLY-SUR-SEINE, a town of France, department
sur-Seme 0p geinej on t]le right bank of that river, about 1^ mile
Neuss N.W. of Paris, on the road to St Germain. Here are the
i ruins of the palace of Neuilly, which was a favourite resi-
/ dence of Louis Philippe, but which was destroyed in 1848.
The park of Neuilly, which extends for some distance down
the river, is a favourite holiday resort of the Parisians. The
river is here crossed by a handsome bridge of five arches,
each 120 feet wide. Manufactures of porcelain, starch,
and chemical substances are carried on. Pop. 15,897.
NEUMARKT, a town of Prussia, in the government
of Breslau, 16 miles W.N.W. of the town of that name.
It has Protestant and Roman Catholic churches, and several
courts of law. Manufactures of tobacco, tiles, woollen and
linen stuffs, and paper, are carried on here; and there is a
market for corn. Pop. 4320.
NEUMUNSTER, a town of Denmark, in the duchy of
Holstein, 17 miles S.S.W. of Kiel. It is large and well
built, and has a church in the Italian style of architecture.
The manufactures are considerable, consisting principally of
cloth and metal buttons. Pop. 4700.
NEUSATZ (Hung. Uj-Videk), a town of Hungary,
county of Bacs, on the left bank of the Danube, opposite to
Peterwardein, and 46 miles N.W. of Belgrade. It is sur¬
rounded by walls ; and has several Greek, Roman Catholic,
and Armenian churches; a synagogue ; and several schools.
A considerable trade is carried on here, for which the
position of the town on the Danube, and not far from the
Drave, the Save, and the Theiss, gives it great advantages.
The Danube is here crossed by a bridge of boats. Com¬
mercial intercourse is carried on through Neusatz between
Vienna, Leipsic, &c., on the one hand, and Salonika and
other Turkish ports on the other. Pop. 19,700.
NEUSIEDL, Lake of (Hung. Ferto Tavd), a lake of
Hungary, extends between the counties of Gidenburg and
Weiselburg. It is about 23 miles in length and 7 in
breadth, and varies from 9 to 13 feet in depth; area
about 120 square miles. Its waters are not potable, from
containing much sulphate of soda, with some muriate of
soda and carbonate of soda. (See Bright’s Travels in Hun¬
gary?) It is fed by the River Vulka. The principal towns
on its shores are Rusth and Neusiedl.
NEUSOHL, or Beszterczebanya, a town of Hungary,
capital of the county of Sold, in the territory of Presburg,
is situated on the right bank of the Gran, about 80 miles
N. of Buda. It is pretty well built, and has wide streets,
and a market-place near the centre. It contains the ruins
of an old castle; several churches, one of which has a bell
weighing upwards of 5 tons; an episcopal palace; Roman
Catholic and Protestant schools; a theatre; court-house;
and infirmary. Neusohl is situated in the middle of a
mining district, whence copper, gold, silver, iron, &c., are
obtained; and the annual produce of the mines of Her-
rengrund, which are at some distance from the town,
amounts to 100 tons of copper and 400 lb. of silver. Neu¬
sohl contains one of the largest smelting houses in Hungary;
and the manufacture of sword-blades, cloth, leather, paper,
earthenware, sugar, &c., is carried on here. Pop. 6500;
but including the suburbs, upwards of 10,000.
NEUSS, a town of Prussia, in the province of Diissel-
dorf, near the union of the Erft and the Rhine, 21 miles
N.W. of Cologne. It is surrounded by walls, and protected
by towers and ditches. The principal building is the church
ot St Quirinus, which was built in the thirteenth century,
and exhibits a curious specimen of the transition from the
round to the pointed style in architecture. The town has
also two other churches, a synagogue, a school, a lunatic
asylum, orphan’s hospital, &c. Manufactures of cotton and
woollen cloth are carried on here ; and there is a consider¬
able trade, especially in corn, for which Neuss is the prin¬
cipal market in Rhenish Prussia. This town, under the
N E U - 155
name of Novesium, was founded by the Romans under Xeustadt
Drusus, and is frequently mentioned by Tacitus. Pop.9567.
NEUSTADT (Polish, Prudnitz), a town of Prussia, in Neu'
the province of Silesia, on the Prudnitz, 29 miles S.W. of Strelitz>
Oppeln, and 18 S.E. of Neisse. It is well built, and con-
tains Roman Catholic and Protestant churches, a convent,
synagogue, two hospitals, courts of law, and a penitentiary.
The manufactures consist of cloth, leather, paper, tiles, &c.
Pop. 6797.
Neustadt, or Wiener-Neustadt, a town of Austria, 26
miles S. of Vienna. It is built with some regularity, in the
form of a square, and surrounded by fortifications. The
streets are broad and well paved. The ancient castle,
which is now used as a military academy for the education
of officers for the Austrian army, is a square building with
a tower ; and in the chapel attached to it the Emperor
Maximilian I. is buried. This academy, the only one of
the kind in the empire, is attended by 468 pupils, who re¬
ceive their appointments, some from the emperor, and some
from the provincial estates. Many of the public buildings
of Neustadt were destroyed by a dreadful fire in 1834,
which laid nearly the whole of the town in ashes. There
is here a Cistercian convent, which has a museum and a
library of 20,000 volumes. The manufactures are consi¬
derable, consisting of silk and velvet cloth, paper, porcelain,
&c.; and an active transit trade in wine, hardware, leather,
sugar, &c., is carried on. Neustadt, which is as old as the
twelfth century, has obtained, on account of its constant
fidelity to the Austrian princes, the designation of “ Ever
Faithful.” Pop. 12,346.
Neustadt-an-der-Haardt, a town of Bavaria, circle of
Palatinate, on the Spirebach, 14 miles W. of Spires, and 16
E.S.E. of Kaiserslautern. The principal church is a building
of the tenth century, and contains monuments of many of
the electors and counts palatine. There are also to be seen
here the remains of an old castle, to which the town pro¬
bably owed its origin. Neustadt has a court of law, a school,
and an hospital. Its manufactures are cloth, paper, che¬
mical substances, gunpowder, &c. Some trade is carried on
in wine and timber. Pop. 6088.
Neustadt-an-der-Orla, a town of Saxe-Weimar, ca¬
pital of a circle of the same name, 24 miles S.E. of Weimar.
It has an ancient castle, two churches, a savings-bank, and
an hospital. Manufactures of cloth, leather, &c., are car¬
ried on ; and there is some trade in books. Pop. 4250.
Neustadt-Eberswalde, a town of Prussia, in the
province of Brandenburg, on the Schwartz, 28 miles N.E.
of Berlin. It is surrounded by walls, and consists of three
parts, an upper and lower town, and a suburb. It has
mineral baths; and manufactures of hardware, cloth,
earthenware, &c. There is some trade in manufactured
goods, and also in wool and cattle. Pop. 5581.
NEUSTADTL-AN-DER-WAAG, or Vagh-Ujhely,
a town of Hungary, county of Neutra, on the Waag, 52
miles N.N.E. of Presburg. The cultivation of the vine is
largely carried on here ; and there is a considerable trade
in corn, wool, &c. Pop. 5500.
NEU-STRELITZ, the capital of the grand duchy of
Mecklenburg-Strelitz, is situated on Lake Zierker, 5^7
miles N. of Berlin. It is regularly built, in the form of an
octagon, has several handsome streets and squares, and is
surrounded by walls and fortifications. The palace of the
grand duke is a building partly in the Grecian, partly in
the Italian style, and contains an extensive library and a
collection of antiquities. In the town there are various
churches, a college, several hospitals, schools, a theatre,
&c. Most of the inhabitants find employment in connec¬
tion with the court or the army ; but some are engaged in
the manufacture of beer, soap, tobacco, &c. Neu-Strelitz^
is the seat of the legislature and of the supreme courts ol
law, as well as of the government of the duchy. It was
156 N E U
Neutits- founded by Adolph Frederic, who fixed upon this as his
chein residence, after the destruction by fire, in 1712, of the
Neutralit ^ormer Pa^ace at Alt-Strelitz, some miles distant. The
i ^ town thus rose up round the new palace ; but the intention
of their founder to connect by buildings the old and new
towns has not been carried into effect. Pop. 6484.
NEUTITSCHEIN, or Nowy-Gycin, a town of Aus¬
tria, in Moravia, stands on the Titsch, 26 miles E. of 01-
niiitz. It is well built; and has an old castle, three churches
(one of which is ancient, and in the Byzantine style), a
town-hall, and several schools and hospitals. The inha¬
bitants are principally employed in the manufacture of
woollen stuffs, in which some trade is carried on. Pop. 9000.
NEUTRA, or Nyitra, a town of Hungary, capital of
a county of the same name, stands on the River Neutra,
about 50 miles E.N.E. of Presburg, and 70 N.W. of Buda.
It has a castle, which stands on an eminence, and contains
within its precincts a cathedral, an episcopal palace, and a
county-hall. Neutra has also a theological seminary, a
high school, an inferior school, and a charity school belong¬
ing to the order of the Piarists. The inhabitants are
chiefly employed in agriculture, but partly also in weaving;
and an active trade is carried on in the wines of the adjacent
country. Pop. 4490.
Definition. NEUTRALITY (Fr. Neutralite), in politics is the term
employed to indicate the state of those nations who, when
a war is being carried on, take no part in the contest, and
evince no peculiar friendship for, or hostility to, any of the
belligerent powers.
Neutrality Many volumes have been written in regard to the rights
in general. and duties of neutral nations. But it is easy to see that
these cannot be exactly defined; that, with the exception
of a few leading principles, they are necessarily subject
to much alteration; and that a line of conduct which a
neutral power might very properly follow at one time and
under one set of circumstances, might be very improper at
another time and under a different set of circumstances. This
arises from the fact, that the rights and duties of neutrals
are not absolute, but relative only. They are in all cases
affected by, and mixed up with, the rights of belligerents.
And as the latter vary with the varying nature of different
contests, so must the former, or the rights of neutrals.
In general it may be laid down that it is the duty of
neutrals to conduct themselves in a spirit of perfect impar¬
tiality, and to do nothing that can be fairly considered as
being peculiarly favourable or hostile to either of the parties
engaged in hostilities. And this is about the only principle
that can be said to be universally applicable to neutrals.
We do not mean, in the few remarks we have to offer on
this subject, to enter into any inquiries with regard to the
conduct of neutrals on land. The questions to which such
conduct may give rise are for the most part easy of solu¬
tion, and have comparatively little interest. But it is other¬
wise with those questions which arise out of the proceed¬
ings of neutrals at sea. These give birth to questions in
regard to which there is much diversity of opinion; and
which, from our being a great maritime power and their
direct bearing on our interests, have always been justly
looked upon in this country as of paramount importance.
Articles E When two nations are engaged in war, if there be any
contraband foreign article or articles necessary for the defence or sub-
of war. sistence of either of them, and without which it would be
difficult for it to carry on the contest, the other may legiti¬
mately exert every means in its power to prevent its opponent
being supplied with such article or articles. All writers of
authority on international law admit this principle; and lay
it down, that a nation which should furnish a belligerent
with articles contraband of war—that is, with supplies of
N E U
warlike stores, or of any article required for the prosecution Neutrality,
of the war—would forfeit her neutral character, and that
the other belligerent would be warranted in preventing
such succours from being sent, and confiscating them as
lawful prize. And besides being consistent with the most
obvious principles, approved by jurists, and enforced in every
contest, this doctrine has been sanctioned by repeated
treaties. The only difficulty, indeed, that has ever arisen
in regard to this matter has been with respect to the articles
which should be reckoned contraband of war; and in the
view of obviating such difficulty, these articles have some¬
times been specified in treaties and conventions. (See the
references in Lampredi del Commercio de' Popoli Neutrali,
§ 9.) But this classification has not always been respected
during hostilities. And it is sufficiently evident that an
article which may not be contraband at one time, or under
certain circumstances, may become contraband at another
time, or under different circumstances. It is admitted on
all hands, even by Hubner, the great advocate for the free¬
dom of neutral commerce,1 that everything that may be
made directly available for hostile purposes is contraband,
as arms, ammunition, horses, timber for ship-building, and
all sorts of naval stores. The greatest difficulty has occurred
in deciding as to provisions {munitions de bouche), which
have sometimes been held to be contraband, and sometimes
not. Lord Stowell has shown that the character of the port
to which the provisions are destined, is a principal circum¬
stance to be attended to in deciding whether they are to be
looked upon as contraband. A cargo of provisions intended
for an enemy’s port, in which it was known that a warlike
armament was in preparation, would be liable to arrest and
confiscation ; while, if the same cargo were intended for a
port where none but merchantmen were fitted out, the most
that could be done, according to his lordship, would be to
detain it, paying the neutral the same price for it he would
have got from the enemy.
By the ancient law of Europe, a ship conveying any con¬
traband article was liable to confiscation as well as the
article. But in the modern practice of the courts of admi¬
ralty of this and other countries, a milder rule has been
adopted, and the carriage of contraband articles is attended
only with the loss of freight and expenses, unless when the
ship belongs to the owner of the contraband cargo, or when
the simple misconduct of conveying such cargo has been
connected with other malignant and aggravating circum¬
stances. Of these, a false destination and lalse papers are
justly held to be the worst.
It appears pretty evident that the principle on which the
doctrine of goods contraband of war has been established
may justify, or rather require, its extension to various im¬
portant articles not hitherto or usually reckoned as contra¬
band. The rights of belligerents to hinder neutrals from sup¬
plying their enemies with articles necessary to enable them
to carry on the contest, is alike clear and undoubted. But a
foreign article, indispensable or highly useful to a nation en¬
gaged in war, may not be of the class called munitions de
guerre, and may not be directly available in the prosecution
of hostilities. That, however, is really immaterial. It is
enough to warrant the prevention of its importation, that
without it the importers would be unable to continue the
contest, or that the inconveniences resulting from the want
of it would be so very considerable as to dispose them to sue
lor peace, or to accept reasonable terms if offered. The
distinctive peculiarity of articles declared to be contraband
of war is not that they belong to one class of products or
another, but that the want of them would inflict serious
injury on the party by whom they are imported.
Considered in this, its true light, the term “contraband
of war ” becomes of the highest importance; and there are
1 De la Saisie des Bdtimens Neutres, tom. i., p. 193.
N E U T R
Neutrality, but few products which may not be fairly brought, at one
period or another, within the list of contraband articles.
Thus, supposing that we had the misfortune to be engaged
in a contest either with a single power or a combination of
powers which had means to intercept, cut off, or materially
obstruct our supplies of corn, cotton, and tea: can any one
doubt that our enemies would be justified, or that they
would hesitate, in availing themselves of so powerful a means
of annoyance ? Neutrals might join us in protesting against
such a proceeding, on the ground that the articles referred to
had not hitherto been reckoned contraband of war, and they
might also allege that their trade would be seriously preju¬
diced by so unusual and so illegal a proceeding. But these
representations, supposing them to be made, would not go for
much. Our enemies would say, that in defining contraband
of war, everything depended on circumstances; and that as
the want of- the articles referred to would lay us under very
• considerable difficulties, they were, from that very circum¬
stance, properly included in the prohibited list. They
would no doubt express at the same time their regret that
this conduct of theirs should be productive of injury or in¬
convenience to neutrals. That was not its purpose. They
had resorted to it in the exercise of their undoubted rights
as belligerents j1 and it was only indirectly and by accident
that it affected neutrals. When great nations are at war,
such contingencies can seldom be avoided ; and when they
occur, they should be ascribed to the necessity of the case,
and afford no reasonable ground of complaint.
Nations engaged in hostilities may not always have acted
on these principles; but if so, it will be found that their
forbearance was not dictated by a want of right or of will,
but of power. Supposing that we w'ere unhappily again
engaged in a struggle with France, we could not employ
our navy in any way more likely to accelerate the return of
peace than in preventing the importation of cotton, colonial
produce, and naval stores, into that country; and the expor¬
tation of her silks, wines, and other products. This would
be a very likely way to distress our enemy ; and the more
he is distressed, the sooner will the struggle terminate.
In the following Declaration in regard to maritime law,
signed by the principal European powers in 1856, the dis¬
putes to which its uncertainty has led are justly deplored :—
rclaration “ Declaration respecting Maritime Law, signed by the
1856 in Plenipotentiaries of Great Britain, Austria, France,
adtime Prussia, Russia, Sardinia, and Turkey, assembled in
w_ Congress at Paris, April 16, 1856.
“ The Plenipotentiaries who signed the Treaty of Paris
of the 30th of March 1856, assembled in Conference,—
“ Considering:
“ That maritime law, in time of war, has long been the
subject of deplorable disputes;
“ f hat the uncertainty of the law, and of the duties in such
a matter, gives rise to differences of opinion between neutrals
and belligerents which may occasion serious difficulties, and
even conflicts;
“ That it is consequently advantageous to establish a uni¬
form doctrine on so important a point;
“ That the Plenipotentaries assembled in Congress at
1 aris cannot better respond to the intentions by which their
Governments are animated, than by seeking to introduce
A L I T Y.
157
into international relations fixed principles in this re- Neutrality
spect ;
“The above-mentioned Plenipotentiaries, being duly
authorized, resolved to concert among themselves as to the
means of attaining this object; and, having come to an
agreement, have adopted the following solemn Declara¬
tion :—
“ 1. Privateering is, and remains, abolished ;
“2. The neutral flag covers enemy’s goods, with the
exception of contraband of war;
“ 3. Neutral goods, with the exception of contraband of
war, are not liable to capture under enemy’s flag;
“4. Blockades, in order to be binding, must be effective,
that is to say, maintained by a force sufficient really to
prevent access to the coast of the enemy.
“ The Governments of the undersigned Plenipotentiaries
engage to bring the present Declaration to the knowledge
of the States which have not taken part in the Congress of
Paris, and to invite them to accede to it.
“ Convinced that the maxims which they now proclaim
cannot but be received with gratitude by the whole world,
the undersigned Plenipotentiaries doubt not that the efforts
of their Governments to obtain the general adoption thereof
will be crowned with full success.
“ The present Declaration is not and shall not be binding,
except between those Powers who have acceded, or shall
accede, to it.
“Done at Paris, the 16th April, 1856.
(Signed) “ Buol-Schauenstein.
“ Walewski.
“ Clarendon, &c.”
But the “ uncertainty ” complained of in the above De¬
claration is not of a kind that can be got rid of. It is
inherent in the subject. Maritime laws of the class now
under consideration do not rest on any fixed or immutable
principles. They necessarily vary with the varying condi¬
tion and exigencies of society. And those rules and regu¬
lations that may in the estimation of one country appear
to be alike just and expedient, may in that of another be
held, on quite as good grounds, to have exactly the opposite
qualities.* The above Declaration expressly excepts articles
contraband of war from the privileges conceded to goods
on board neutral ships; but it does not specify the articles
which are to be considered contraband. And it was quite
as well that this vexed, or rather insoluble question was left
open ; for it is most probable that the plenipotentiaries who
subscribed the Declaration would not have agreed on any
definition. And supposing they had subjoined a list of
contraband articles to the Declaration, it would very speedily
have ceased to be of any weight. Whether an article should
or should not be deemed to be contraband depends on cir¬
cumstances which it is impossible to foresee or appreciate
beforehand. And such being the case, it is futile to attempt
to prevent further disputes by making out lists of contra¬
band articles. We have seen that this has been frequently
attempted, and it has as frequently failed. Such lists may
be respected for a while; but as soon as any contracting
party or great power conceives that it would be for her in¬
terest or advantage to exclude some articles from, and to
include others in, the list, there is an end of its influence and
authority.
NEUTRALITY.
158
Neutrality. The principle that free ships make free goods, or that the
flag covers the cargo {que le pavilion couvre la marchan-
dise), and that consequently enemies’ goods, not contra¬
band of war, may be safely conveyed in neutral bottoms,
after being long resisted by this and most other maritime
states, has been assented to in the Declaration referred to.
In judging of the wisdom of this concession, everything
depends on the interpretation of the phrase “contraband of
war.” If it were restricted, as has usually been the case, to
warlike stores {munitions de guerre), or articles directly
available for warlike purposes, it would be in many respects
justly censurable. For it is plain, that under the limita¬
tion now supposed, the trade of a belligerent power, with its
colonies or other countries beyond sea, might be prosecuted
in neutral ships nearly to the same extent, and with as much
security, during war as during peace. But it is not easy to
imagine that a principle having such consequences should
be acted upon by any power having a preponderating naval
force, in the event of her engaging in hostilities. Such power
must then do one of two things: she must either consent
to relinquish some of the most important advantages to be
derived from her naval ascendancy, or she must reject the
principle in question. And there is little doubt that she would
adopt the latter alternative; and she might do this directly,
by resorting to her natural and indefeasible right to seize
enemies’ goods wherever they are to be met with ; or indi¬
rectly, by extending the list of contraband articles, so as to
make it include all those of any importance carried by sea into
or from the enemy’s ports. Either way would answer the pur¬
pose; and we may be pretty well assured, that under the sup¬
posed circumstances one or other of them would be followed.
Blockade, II. But it may perhaps be said, that though the right to
influence carry enemies’ goods not contraband of war be conceded to
of' neutrals by the Declaration of Paris, that right is restricted
and confined within proper limits by the maintenance of
the system of blockade. But we take leave to doubt whether
this restriction be good for much. It is distinctly laid down
in the Declaration, that to be binding or legal, a blockade
must be effective; that is, it must be “ maintained by a
force sufficient really to prevent access to the coast of the
enemy.” But though the blockade of one or of a few ports
may perhaps be made effective, it is abundantly certain
that no such blockade can ever be made to apply to an
extensive coast. Though our navy were doubled or trebled,
it would not suffice to make an effective blockade of the
coasts of France, of Spain, or of the United States. And
why should a country with a powerful naval force bind
herself beforehand to employ it only in one way? Why not
employ it in any way, whatever it may be, which happens to
be at the time most conducive to the ends she has in view?
But supposing that an impossibility may be realized, or
that an extensive coast may be effectually blockaded, the
circumstance would be of much less consequence now than
formerly, or than is generally imagined. Suppose, for ex¬
ample, that we are at war with France, and that we effec¬
tively blockade every portion of her coast, whether on the
ocean or the Mediterranean : the result would be, that the
over-sea produce suitable to her wants would be imported
into the contiguous ports of Belgium, Spain, and Piedmont,
and that it would be carried from them by railways and
otherwise to every part of France.
It is plain, therefore, that these are not matters in which
much dependence can be placed on the resource of block¬
ades. These may be advantageously resorted to when the
object is to reduce a town, to obstruct the trade of a port
or a river, to prevent the sailing of a squadron, and so forth ;
but as measures directed against the trade of any great
country, they must be nearly, if not wholly, impotent. In
the case of France, it is quite clear that the strictest possible
blockade could not inflict half the injury on her that its
maintenance would entail upon ourselves. If the trade of Neutrality,
neutrals in war is to be influenced by nothing but effective
blockades, it may be held to be practically free from all
obstruction. But it cannot be supposed that when the evil
day comes it will be so dealt with. When the existence of
nations are at stake, they will not be withheld by declara¬
tions like the above from availing themselves of every means
by which they may hope either to promote their own secu¬
rity or to injure their enemies.
III. It is further obvious, were the rules laid down in Influence
the Declaration of 1856 to be carried into effect without of the new
large additions being made to the list of contraband articles, system over
that neutrals would engross almost the entire over-sea trade^)ej1|ia^eot
of countries engaged in war. Comparatively few of therentf
articles which we export come under the description of
warlike stores; and supposing we were to be engaged in
hostilities, neutral ships which did not take on board contra¬
band articles would navigate with perfect security, while
our ships would be exposed to the risk of capture. The
magnitude of this risk would depend on various contin¬
gencies, and would be measured by the higher premium of
insurance that would have to be paid on them and on articles
embarked in them. But considering the close competition
to which our shipowners are already exposed, the additional
premium they would have to pay, even though it were not
very considerable, would most probably turn the scale in
favour of the neutrals; and if they were once introduced
and employed for any considerable period, it might not be
an easy matter for our ship-owners to regain the ground
they had lost, or to recover their former position, on hostili¬
ties being terminated. But in whatever way it may be
defeated or eluded, it is not to be supposed that we should
abide, in periods of war and difficulty, by a rule that would
tie up our hands and consign the entire over-sea trade of
the empire to foreigners. This would be a degree of liber¬
ality to which we can hardly be expected ever to arrive,
and which, were it realized, would be more injurious to our
best interests than the most intense selfishness.
IV. Some of the more recent opponents of the old system Project for
of maritime law do not deny these statements. But they exempting
allege that they are founded on false principles. Private Prlvate ^
property, say they, is now respected in all contests carried gcTfror/at-
on by land; and it would be for the advantage of all tack during
nations, whether belligerent or neutral, were the same war. Inex-
humane and generous policy extended to private property pediency of
at sea. But this sort of reasoning is more specious than ?uch Pr0'
solid. On a little examination it will be found that theject’
cases have no real analogy. Private property on land, and
the treasures of art and learning, are respected so far, that
they are sometimes unconditionally, but frequently also on
the payment of a contribution or ransom, exempted from
injury. This is done because experience has shown that,
while the destruction of the articles referred to may be pro¬
ductive of much misery and loss, it has little or no influence
over the decision of the contest. But we are not hence to
infer that the destruction of private property at sea will be
equally ineffectual. In our unfortunate contest with the
United States in 1814, the destruction of the Capitol at
Washington was an act disgraceful to our arms, and which
had no effect except to inflame the hostile feelings of the
Americans. But the severe check which the contest gave
to the trade of the Union made the citizens generally averse
to the war; and was, indeed, the main cause of its being so
speedily terminated. No such result could, however, have
happened had American merchant ships been exempted
from capture or molestation.
Suppose we are at war, and that our enemy, having
succeeded in landing a force in some part of the kingdom,
such as Kent or Connaught, inflicts on the peasantry out-
NEUTRALITY.
159
Neutrality, rages similar to those which the troops of Louis XIV. in-
flicted on the defenceless inhabitants of the Palatinate;
such proceedings, by not sensibly affecting either our wealth
or the sources of our power, would in no wise accelerate the
termination of hostilities. On the contrary, they would tend
to their prolongation, by inspiring us with a strong desire
to avenge such wanton and unnecessary cruelty. But it
would be quite another matter were our enemy able seri¬
ously to obstruct our trade, to prevent our exports, or to sink,
burn and destroy the ships that were conveying to us sup¬
plies of necessary articles. Such proceedings might lay us
under the greatest difficulties, and would be the most likely
means to make us listen to proposals for an accommodation.
Everybody knows that the unpopularity of the French
rule in Germany and other parts of the Continent, in the
latter part of the war against Napoleon, was in great mea¬
sure occasioned by the destruction of their trade, which, on
the one hand, rendered their corn and other disposable pro¬
duce a mere drug, while, on the other, it added enormously
to the prices of cotton, sugar, coffee, and most foreign
articles. But had the rules and regulations embodied in
the Declaration of 1856 been then in force, no such result
would have happened. We should have had the singular
'combination of maritime peace and territorial war. And the
trade of Prussia, Holland, and the other countries subject
to France, and, indeed, of France herself, would have been
as securely and cheaply carried on in neutral bottoms as it
would have been in a period of universal tranquillity. No¬
thing, therefore, can be more contradictory and illogical
than to contend that we are bound to extend the same
immunity during war to private property at sea that is ex¬
tended to private property on land. The cases are in no
degree parallel. In the one, private property is respected
because its destruction is seldom injurious except to the
individuals immediately interested, and has little or no
general influence; in the other case, private property is
seized or destroyed because those from whom it is taken,
being the carriers or purveyors of necessary articles for the
community, their loss must seriously affect the latter, and
may reduce them to the greatest straits.
Abolition V. The abolition of privateering by the Declaration of
of priva- Paris is of the highest importance, and should give general
teering. satisfaction. This practice appears to be a remnant of that
system of private war which is universally waged by indi¬
viduals in early or barbarous ages, but which gradually dis¬
appears as society advances. Privateers rarely attack ships
of war. They do not act in concert, or with any object in
view other than their own private gains. They are, in truth,
a sort of legalized robbers ;x and while they occasion much
individual suffering, they have little or no influence over
the result of the war. But their employment is principally
objectionable from its having been found that, despite every
precaution, it is not possible to hinder them from committing
the greatest excesses. The desire to amass plunder is the
ruling passion by which they are actuated ; and being so, it
would be childish to suppose that they should be scrupulous
in their proceedings, or that they should endeavour to keep
within the pale of the law when they think that their objects
will be likely to be promoted by overstepping its limits.
And hence their injurious treatment of the ships of neutral
and friendly powers. A system of this sort may perhaps
be useful to a nation which has little trade, and may hope
to acquire riches by fitting out privateers, without being ex¬
posed to the risk of retaliation. But except under very
peculiar circumstances, it is difficult to suppose that it should
be advantageous to a nation with an extensive over-sea ^^rality.
trade. A notion has, indeed, been long entertained, that
while the interests of humanity would be promoted, the
rights of belligerents would not be injuriously affected bv
the abolition of privateering. It was stipulated, for instance,
in the treaty between Sweden and the United Provinces in
1675, that neither party should in any future war grant
letters of marque against the other; and stipulations to
the like effect have since been embodied in various treaties.
These, however, being only isolated efforts, were insufficient
materially to abate the nuisance, which could not be put down
without an agreement to that effect by the great powers,
such as has been announced in the Declaration of 1856.
The United States, however, though possessed of a most
extensive mercantile marine, have refused to consent to
the abolition of privateering. But they have not done this
capriciously ; nor is it to be denied that there is a great deal
of weight in the reasons given by the American govern¬
ment for their refusal.1 2 They grow out of circumstances
peculiar to the United States,—that is, of their warlike navy
bearing but a very small proportion to their mercantile navy,
which is the largest in the world. And they contend,
that were they to abolish privateering, their merchant ships
would be captured in vast numbers by the numerous cruisers
of their enemies; while the merchant ships of the latter,
owing to the fewness of their own ships of war, would be
comparatively little affected ; and that to restore the balance,
to place themselves on a level with their opponents, they have
no resource but to appeal to the patriotism (selfishness) of
their citizens by licensing privateers.
The Americans have, however, intimated their willing¬
ness to assent to the abolition of privateering, provided the
other powers agree not to attack or molest private ships
at sea during war. Such an agreement would no doubt
be very much for their advantage; but we have already
seen that it is not one to which we can consent with¬
out at the same time, and by the same act, consenting to
forego the use of some of the most powerful of our means
of defence and attack. This, however, is about the very
last thing that we either should or will do. No British
statesman will ever agree to an arrangement that would
diminish our powers and paralyze our energies at the very
moment when, perhaps, our independence and security may
depend on these being exerted to the utmost.
VI. Nothing is said in the Declaration of 1856 in regard 0
to the right of visitation and search, probably because it is
obviously inherent in belligerents; for it would be absurd
to allow that they had a right to prevent the conveyance
of contraband goods to an enemy, and to deny them the
use of the only means by which such right can be made
available. The object of the search is twofold: first,
to ascertain whether the ship is neutral or an enemy, for
everybody knows that the circumstance of its hoisting a
neutral flag affords no security that it is really such; and,
secondly, to ascertain whether it has contraband articles or
enemies’ property on board. All neutral ships that would
navigate securely during war must consequently heave-to
when summoned by the cruisers of either belligerent, and
be provided with passports from their government, and with
all the papers or documents necessary to prove the property
of the ship and cargo; and they must carefully avoid taking
any contraband articles, and perhaps also belligerent property,
on board. And hence it has been generally admitted that a
merchant ship which seeks to avoid a search by crowding sail
or by open force, may be justly captured and confiscated.
1 L’armateur indifferent au sort de la guerre et souvent de sa patrie, n’a d’autre amorce que I’avidite du gain, d’autre recompense que
ses prises et les prix attaches par I’etat a ses pirateries privilegiees. (Martens, Essai sur les Armateurs, cap. L, § 8.) This essay, which
was translated into English, and published in 1801, contains the fullest details in regard to privateering. Valin, who defends and even
eulogizes privateering, admits that it is very apt degencrer en abus et en brigandage. (Traite des Prises, i., cap. i., § 7.)
8 See Letters of Mr Marcy to the Count de Sartiges, 28th July 1856.
160 W E U
Neuwied. One of the most cliicult questions in regard to the right
of search has reference to merchantmen sailing under con¬
voy. Is the allegation of the officer commanding the vessel
of war convoying the merchantmen, that the latter have no
contraband articles or belligerent property on board, to be
held to be sufficient to nullify the right of search ? or may
the exercise of that right be notwithstanding insisted upon ?
A case of this sort occurred in the early part of 1798,
when a fleet of merchantmen belonging to Sweden, a
neutral power, and sailing under convoy of a frigate, were
detained by a British squadron. The Swedish captain, on
the question being put to him, answered that the ships were
destined for different ports of the Mediterranean, and that
they were laden with hemp, iron, pitch, and tar. These
articles were the produce of Sweden but as they have most
commonly been reckoned contraband of war, and as France
and her allies had many ports on the Mediterranean, there
can be little or no doubt that we were warranted, despite
the threatened but unattempted opposition of the Swedish
captain, in detaining the ships. But besides being detained,
they were condemned with their cargo as lawful prize; a
proceeding which gave rise to a great deal of discussion at
the time, and which it is not easy to justify.2
In the event of the captain of a vessel convoying
neutral merchantmen distinctly declaring that they have no
contraband articles or enemy’s property on board, their
detention or search would be a very strong measure. It
would, in truth, be an insult to the flag and honour of the
neutral power. And unless the presumptions that the cap¬
tain had emitted a false declaration were exceedingly strong,
to question his veracity would be an act contrary to the
comity of nations, and one that a high-spirited people would
be sure to resent. But except in the case of a limited
number of vessels sailing to specified ports under convoy,
and when there is a clear and explicit declaration by the
officer in command that they have neither contraband arti¬
cles nor belligerent property on board, the right of search,
supposing it to be exercised without any unnecessary vio¬
lence, is one that is essential to belligerents, and cannot be
justly objected to. (j. r. m.)
NEUWIED, a town of Prussia, government of Cob-
lentz, on the right bank of the Rhine, here crossed by a
suspension-bridge, 7 miles N.N.W. of Coblentz. It is re¬
gularly built, in the form of a square; and the streets,
which are broad and straight, intersect one another at right
angles. At the west end, near the Rhine, stands the
palace of the Prince of Wied, a fine building surrounded
by gardens, and containing an extensive library and col¬
lections of Roman antiquities and of natural history ; the
latter of which was made by Prince Maximilian of Wied
in North America and Brazil. Neuwied has one Roman
Catholic and three Protestant churches, a synagogue,
several schools, infirmaries, &c. The manufactures of
the place are considerable, and consist of silk, cotton,
wool, leather, hats, carpets, tobacco, chicory, hardware,
beer, brandy, vinegar, &c. A large trade is carried on in
manufactured articles, and also in pipe-clay, timber, iron,
lead, corn, wine, and other products of the neighbouring
country. The town was founded in the first half of the
eighteenth century, upon the principle of affording com¬
plete toleration to every religious sect; and it rapidly rose
to a flourishing condition, being peopled by Protestants,
Roman Catholics, Jews, Moravians, &c. The principality
N E V
of Wied was for a long time independent, but was an¬
nexed to Prussia in 1814. Pop. 6659.
NEVA, a river of Russia, flows from Lake Ladoga to
the Baltic, into which it discharges itself by several mouths
at St Petersburg, after a course of about 40 miles. It forms
the only outlet of the four lakes of Onega, Ilmen, Saima,
and Ladoga ; and owing to the vast extent of these sheets
of water, that of Ladoga being the largest in Europe, it
conveys an immense quantity of water to the sea. Its
average breadth is 1500 feet, its depth about 50 feet; and,
flowing with a velocity of 37 inches per second, it has been
calculated to carry to the Gulf of Finland 116,000 cubic
feet of water in a second. Such a body of water, moving
at such a rate, would be exempt from the influences of
frost, were it not for the long continuance of the winter,
and the quantities of ice which are drifted down from
the lakes by the violent storms to which they are subject.
Owing to the combination of these circumstances, the river
is generally frozen for four or five months in the year.
The following are the dates of the opening and closing of
the river by ice for each year from 1851 to 1856 :—
Closing.
December 4th
October 29th
November 30th
November 21st
November 23d
November 10th
Duration of
freezing.
158 days.
181 „
147 „
149 „
159 „
Year.
1851.
1852.
1853.
1854.
1855.
1856.
Opening.
April 18th
May 10th
April 28th
April 26th
April 19th
April 30th
NEVADA SIERRA. See Spain.
NEVERS, a town of France, capital of the department
of Nievre, stands on the right bank of the Loire, at its
confluence with the Nievre, 153 miles S.S.E. of Paris.
It is built on the slope of a hill, and has a fine appearance
when seen from the opposite side of the river; but the
streets are narrow, steep, irregular, and dirty. Of the
walls and towers that formerly defended the town some re¬
mains are still to be seen, and one of the old gates, called
the Porte du Croux, still remains. The cathedral, a build¬
ing of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries,
stands at the top of the hill. It has a heavy appearance
outside, but the interior is richly carved; and the choir
contains some fine painted glass and old tapestry. The
Romanesque church of St Stephen, built in 1063, is the
oldest in Nevers. There are two other old churches, one
of which is now used as a warehouse, and the other as a
brewery. The former palace of the dukes of Nevers is
now the town-hall, and the park behind it has been con¬
verted into a public garden. The town is entered from
Paris by a triumphal arch, erected to commemorate the
victory of the French at Fontenoy in 1745. Nevers also*
contains an arsenal, barracks, a college, several schools, a
public library, and a society of agriculture, science, and
art. It is the seat of a prefecture, of a bishopric, of a court
of first resort, and of a court of commerce. The manu¬
factures of Nevers are very considerable ; that of pottery
has been carried on here for eight centuries, and employs
about 700 hands. Cannon and shot, chain-cables, anchors,
massive machinery, implements of husbandry, violin-strings,
glue, candles, beer, vinegar, ropes, and other articles are
also made here. The trade of the place is also consi¬
derable ; and there is a good harbour here on the river.
1 Articles which form a considerable part of the produce of a country, though contraband of war, have sometimes been allowed to be
conveyed in neutral ships. But even in that case belligerents have been accustomed to detain them, not for confiscation, but for pre-emp¬
tion. (Robinson’s Admiralty Reports, i. 244.)
2 For an account of this famous case, see Robinson’s Admiralty Reports, i., pp. 340-379. In an elaborate argument, Sir William
Scott (afterwards Lord Stowell) states, with his usual ability, but with too sensible a bias, the reasons for his judgment. Its legality was
questioned in a tract by Mr J. F. W. Schlegel, professor at Copenhagen, translated into English, and published in London in 1801.
Schlegel was answered by Dr Croke in a tract entitled Remarks on Mr SchlegeVs Work on the Visitation of Neutral Vessels under Convoy,
published in the course of the same year.
N E V
Kevin Timber, iron, steel, coal, wool, leather, wine, cattle, and
II manufactured goods form the chief articles of commerce.
Nevis, 'pj^g town js arfcient, and is mentioned by Caesar, under the
name of Noviodunum. Here that general, in 52 B.C., fixed
his head-quarters, and here he left his hostages, supplies,
baggage, and military chest. After his defeat at Gergovia,
the people of Noviodunum rose against the Romans,
massacred all of them who were in the town, and plundered
the stores. The place was afterwards called Nevirnum,
whence the modern name is derived. It was formerly the
capital of a county, which was raised by Francis I. to the
rank of a duchy. It was united to the crown of France
by Charles III. of Gonzaga, the last duke, who sold the
duchy in 1665 to Cardinal Mazarin. It then formed the
province of Nivernais. Pop. (1856) 16,082.
NEVIN, or Nef?;, a town of Wales, Carnarvonshire, on
the shore of Carnarvon Bay, 20 miles S.S.W. of the town of
Carnarvon. The town is ill built. It has a parish church,
several chapels, and a number of schools. Some trade
is carried on by steam navigation with Liverpool in agri¬
cultural produce. Edward I. held a festival and tourna¬
ment here, soon after his conquest of Wales ; and the posi¬
tion of the lists can still be traced. Pop. (1851) 1854.
NEVIS, one of the Leeward Islands, in the West Indies,
is situated in N. Lat. 17. 10., W. Long. 62. 42. It has an
area of about 20 square miles; and consists of a single
conical mountain, rising to the height of 2500 feet above
the sea, and surrounded by a tract of flat, fertile, and well-
cultivated land. Nevis is well watered by streams and rivu¬
lets. It was formerly thickly wooded, and even now timber
is plentiful on the island, especially on the higher parts of
the mountain. The surface, from the shore to a consider¬
able height, is occupied by sugar plantations; and though
the soil of the higher districts is less fertile, the climate is
not so warm, and many European vegetables are success¬
fully cultivated. The island has no harbours, but there are
three roadsteads, the best of which is that of Charlestown,
the capital, which stands on the shore of a large bay.
Nevis contained in 1850, 380 horses, 2110 horned cattle,
1605 sheep, and 351 mules. Sugar, molasses, and rum are
the chief articles of produce; and these, along with live
stock, furnish the principal exports of the island. The value
of the exports in 1854 was L.32,794, and of imports in the
same year L.20,933. Beef, pork, meal, flour, and cotton and
linen stuffs are the principal articles imported. The number
of vessels that entered in 1854 was 86, and their tonnage
4921; of those that cleared 85, and their tonnage 4518. The
government is in the hands of a president, who i^ subject
to the governor-in-chief of Antigua; and there is a council
of seven, and a representative assembly of nine members.
For ecclesiastical purposes, the island is divided into five
parishes; and there is a Wesleyan mission, which has been
in operation here since 1789. There were in 1854 fourteen
schools, attended by 1707 scholars; but though the state of
education is thus far satisfactory, the instruction is of a some¬
what superficial and unpractical character. No government
aid is given to the schools. There is an hospital on the island
for the poor and infirm, which receives an annual grant of
L.150. Ihe revenue in 1854 amounted to L.3875, and
the expenditure to L.4123.
1 his island was discovered by Columbus, and named by
him after the mountain Nieves in Spain, to which it bore
some resemblance. It was first settled by the British in
1628 from the neighbouring island of St Kitt’s, and soon
rose to a high pitch of prosperity and importance; but in
the end of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth
century it suffered severely from the ravages of an epidemic,
the hostilities of the French, and the devastation of a hurri¬
cane. Nevis afterwards gradually regained its prosperity ;
but since the emancipation of the slaves it has been gra¬
dually declining ; the proprietors, from their aversion to
VOL. xvi .
N E 161
that measure, having endeavoured W preserve as much as Nevyle
possible of the old system, which had ceased to be appli- II
cable or beneficial in the present state of society, instead Newark-
of adopting a system suitable to the changed state of affairs uPon-Trent
The absence of any law respecting the relations of master and
servant produces mutual distrust; and the acquisition of
wealth by the Negroes is still discouraged by their employers.
The white population does not exceed 60 adult males ; while
the whole population is estimated at more than 10,000.
NEVYLE, or Nevile, Alexander, an old English
author, was born in Kent in 1544. He is best known by
an elegant and spirited metrical version, or rather paraphrase,
of Seneca’s (Edipus. It was written as early as his six¬
teenth year; and was printed in 1581 in a collection en¬
titled Seneca his Tenne Tragedies translated into English.
Nevyle is also known as the secretary to the famous Parker,
Archbishop of Canterbury, and as the author of a Latin
narrative of Kett’s Norfolk insurrection, printed in 1575; #
and the Cambridge verses on the death of Sir Philip Sidney
printed in 1587. His death took place in 1614.
NEW ALBANY, a town of the United States, North
America, Indiana, is situated on the right bank of the Ohio,
3 miles below Louisville, and about 100 S. by E. of Indiana¬
polis. It is one of the largest and most commercial places
in the state ; and has broad and handsome streets regularly'
laid out. There are about twelve churches, several schools’,
a theological seminary, a court-house, and a jail. Two news¬
papers are published here. Ship-building, especially that of
steamers, is carried on here; and there are also machine-
works, flour-mills, saw-mills, &c. It forms the southern
terminus of the New Albany and Salem Railway, which
extends as far N. as Michigan citv. Pop. (1850) 8181 ;
(1853) about 12,000.
NEWARK, a town of the United States of North
America, state of New Jersey, is situated on the Passaic,
4 miles from its mouth, and 9 miles W. of New York. It
is regularly laid out, with broad and straight streets inter¬
secting each other at right angles; and has two spacious
public squares, which are planted with fine elm trees. The
court-house is a large structure of brown stone in the
Egyptian style. The library building is also very handsome,
and contains a public hall and a gallery of paintinn's. There
are many fine churches in the town, three of which have
elegant and lofty spires. They belong to Roman Catholics,
Methodists, and Presbyterians. There are in all about forty
churches of various sects in Newark. Among the literary
and educational institutions are,—a historical society, a lite¬
rary association, a W esleyan institute, and seven schools,
attended by about 2500 scholars. The chief importance of
the town is derived from its extensive manufactures, of
which the establishments for the production of India-rubber
goods, of carriages, and of machinery are the largest and
most important. Leather goods and articles of clothing are
also manufactured. The trade of the city is principally
coasting. The registered and enrolled shipping in 1852
had a tonnage of 510<, of which 1189 were propelled by
steam. In the same year the number of ships that entered
was 21, and their tonnage 2304 ; of those that cleared 13,
tonnage 1393. Pop. (1850) 38,893 ; (1853) about 45,500.
NEWARK-UPON-TRENT,amarket-town, and municipal and
parliamentary borough of England, county of Nottingham,
on an affluent of the drent, 20 miles N.E. of Nottingham,
and 124 N.N.W. of London. It is well though irregularly
built, and has a large market-place in the centre. The
parish church is one of the largest and finest in England;
and though originally a Norman building, it underwent
great changes in the time of Henry YI. It is in the form
of a cross, has a lofty spire, and contains some fine painted
glass, carved wood-work, and ancient monuments. To
the N.W. of the town are the remains of an ancient
castle, which was either built or repaired by Bishop Alex-
x
162 NEW
New ander in 1125. King John died here in 1216; Wolsey
Bedford lodged here after his fall in 1530; and in the neighbour-
hood Charles I. surrendered himself to the Scotch commis-
Brunswick. s*oners hi 1646. Newark has Wesleyan Methodist, Bap-
v tist, Independent, and other chapels; a town-hall, court¬
house, several schools, and almshouses. A considerable
trade is carried on in malt, flour, corn, wool, cattle, and
coal; and the commerce of the river is facilitated by the
wharves and warehouses which have been constructed here.
A county court is held at Newark; and there are six annual
cattle fairs. The borough returns two members to the
House of Commons. Pop. (1851) 11,330.
NEW BEDFORD, a town of the United States of
North America, in the state of Massachusetts, is situated
on the estuary of the Acushnet, an arm of Buzzard’s Bay,
55 miles S. of Boston. It stands on the slope of a hill, and
is for the most part built of wood. The streets, which are
4 straight and regular, are generally lined with trees, and
many of the houses are surrounded by gardens. The town-
hall is a very handsome building of granite, 100 feet long, 60
wide, and three storeys high. There is also a fine granite^
custom-house. New Bedford contains about 20 places of
worship belonging to various denominations, and numerous
public schools. The manufactures are considerable, but
principally in connection with the whaling trade, in which
the town is extensively engaged. Ship-building and cooper¬
ing are largely carried on. In the year ending June 30,^
1852, 18 vessels were admeasured, having a tonnage oi
5626. There are more than twenty manufactories of oil
of various kinds, and several planing-mills, rope-works, iron¬
works, &c. The shipping of New Bedford is chiefly em¬
ployed in whaling; and the total amount registered and
enrolled had in 1852 a tonnage of 149,208, of which
125,530 tons were employed in the whale fishery. I he
number of ships that entered in that year was 113, with a
tonnage of 27,940; those that cleared 174, with a tonnage
of 55,347. Pop. (1850) 16,443 ; (1853) about 17,500.
NEWBERN, a town of the United States of North
America, in North Carolina, stands at the confluence of the
rivers Neuse and Trent, 120 miles S.E. of Raleigh. It was
formerly for some time the capital of the state. It has a court¬
house, jail, theatre, public hall, and several churches and
schools. The trade of the place is considerable, and the river
is navigable for steamers for eight months in the year. Grain,
timber, turpentine, tar, and naval stores are exported. The
registered and enrolled tonnage of the port in 1852 was
5235. The vessels that arrived in the same year were 22,
tonnage 2822 ; those that cleared 24, tonnage 3151. Pop.
(1850) 4722.
NEW BRITAIN, an island in the Pacific Ocean, N.E.
of New Guinea, between S. Lat. 5. and 7. 30., and E. Long.
148. and 153. It is separated from New Guinea by Dam-
pier’s Strait, which is about 40 miles broad, and from New
Ireland by St George’s Channel. The outline is irregular,
and the area is 24,000 square miles. The surface is moun¬
tainous, rising to a considerable height, and well wooded
on the sloping sides. In some places the mountains extend
quite to the coast; but in others there are extensive plains
stretching along the shore. The highest summit in the
island has been observed to emit smoke. The soil is fertile,
and produces bananas, bread-fruit trees, sago palms, cocoa-
nut palms, and other trees; besides sugar-canes, bamboos,
yams, ginger, &c. The animal kingdom is represented by
dogs, pigs, turtle, and fish in large numbers. The New
Britons resemble the Papuans in their stout, well-propor¬
tioned figures and dark complexions. They are numerous
and entirely uncivilized, without any articles of clothing.
NEW BRUNSWICK, a colony of Great Britain in
North America, lying between N. Lat. 45. and 48. 5., W.
Long. 63. 50. and 67. 53.; and bounded on the N. by the
River Ristigouche and the Bay of Chaleurs, which separate
NEW
it from Lower Canada; E. by the Gulf of St Lawrence; S. New
by Nova Scotia and the Bay of Fundy; and W. by the Brunswick
state of Maine. Its length from N. to S. is 180 miles;
breadth, 150 ; area, 27,704 square miles. Its form is that
of an irregular quadrangle, and the length of its coast-line
is about 500 miles.
The surface of New Brunswick, though not presenting Surface
very striking varieties in the character of the different parts,
may be divided into three regions, differing to some extent
from each other in nature and aspect. The southern region
comprises the tract of land which stretches along the Bay
of Fundy, and is divided into two unequal parts by the
River St John. The whole coast of this region is bold and
rocky, and the surface is much broken and diversified with
rocks and ravines. To the W. of the St John the soil is
deep and fertile, and covered with tall and dense forests.
To the E. of that river the soil is not so fertile, but there
are many beautiful valleys covered with forests mixed with
corn-fields, and traversed by streams flowing into lakes at
the bottom of the valleys, and ultimately joining the St John.
The coast of the central region, along the Gulf of St Law¬
rence, is low and sandy, covered with trees of a small size.
For nearly 20 miles inland the country is flat, and consists of
marshes and mosses; but in the interior it rises into gently-
sloping hills and undulations, which extend westward as
far as the St John. The northern and north-western parts
of New Brunswick are more mountainous than any of the
other regions. A branch of the Alleghany Mountains
traverses the N.W. corner of the province, from the borders
of Maine to the Bay of Chaleurs. The mountains are not
of any great height; and while some are bold and preci¬
pitous towards the top, others are of a more rounded form,
and many of the hills are clothed with wood to their sum¬
mits. The scenery of this district is exceedingly varied
and beautiful; the mountains and glens contrast finely
with the rich valleys, the rivers, cataracts, and lakes, that
are everywhere seen ; and the immense forests add to the
beauty and luxuriance of the view. It is these forests that
form the most striking feature of New Brunswick, and
constitute not the least part of its value to the colonist.
The principal trees are those belonging to the order of
pines, which occupy most of the low-lying land in the pro¬
vince. Pines, larches, and spruces occur in great abundance;
and the rocky shores of the Bay of Fundy are rendered
extremely picturesque, especially in winter, by the dark-
green clumps of spruces contrasting finely with the snow
which lies around, and standing firm against the winds and
storms which agitate the waves beneath. The oak, ash,
maple, birch, poplar, and many other trees, are also found
in New Brunswick, affording inexhaustible supplies of
timber, and giving the forests in autumn a most gorgeous
and rich appearance from the varied tints of their foliage
and flowers.
A circumstance that adds greatly to the resources of the Rivers and
country and the beauty of the scenery, is the number of lakes,
rivers, streams, and lakes with which it is watered. Hardly
any part of the country is destitute of some stream, of
greater or less size; and in some parts of the interior a
canoe can be conveyed with equal ease to the Bay of
Chaleurs, the Gulf of St Lawrence, or the Bay of Fundy.
The largest river is the Looshtook or St John, which rises
in a lake of the same name in the state of Maine, flows
first N.E. and afterwards E., forming part of the boundary
between Maine and Canada. It then enters New Bruns¬
wick, and flows S. and S.E., till it falls into the Bay of
Fundy at St John’s, after a course of 450 miles. About
225 miles above its mouth, where the river enters New
Brunswick, occur the Grand Falls, a cataract 58 feet in
height, over which the rocks rise steeply to the height of
100 or 150 feet. The St John is navigable for large
steamers as far as Fredericton, 85 miles from the sea ; but
NEW BRUNSWICK.
New smaller vessels can ascend to the falls. Above them it is
Brunswick, navigated by steamers for 40 miles, to the mouth of the
Madawaska; and small boats and canoes may proceed as
far as the source. The St John receives many tributaries,
among which the most important is the Tobique, which
joins it on the left from the mountainous region of New
Brunswick; and in the lower part of its course there are
several lakes communicating with the river, the largest of
which, Grand Lake, about 50 miles from the sea, is 30
miles in length, and varies from 3 to 9 in breadth. The
river and bay of Miramichi are noticed in a separate ar¬
ticle. The Ristigouche, which marks the boundary be¬
tween New Brunswick and Canada, is formed by five main
branches; and from this circumstance it derives its name,
which signifies in the Indian language, “ the river that
divides like the hand.” It has a length of 100 miles,
and falls into the Bay of Chaleurs, having at its mouth a
breadth of 3 miles and a depth of 9 fathoms. The Nipisigit
waters the north-eastern part of New Brunswick, and falls
into the Bay of Chaleurs after a course of 100 miles. Next
to these the most important river in the province is the
Peticodiac, which falls into the north-eastern extremity of
the Bay of Fundy. It is navigable for large vessels to the
distance of 25 miles from its mouth.
Geology The geological structure of New Brunswick resembles
and mine- in its general arrangement that of most other parts of North
rak. America. The different formations extend either parallel
to the branch of the Alleghanies, which crosses the country
from S.W. to N.E., or parallel to the shores of the Atlantic.
Ihese mountains consist of granite, syenite, trap, porphyry,
and other rocks; and in other parts of the province the
Silurian, the Carboniferous, and the Old Red Sandstone strata
occur. The geology of the interior of New Brunswick is
not minutely known, owing to the country being so little
cleared. Several excellent salt springs are found, especially
in Sussex Yale, to the N.E. of St John’s. Many of the strata
of New Brunswick are very rich in fossil remains, which
are remarkable in many cases for the distinctness and perfec¬
tion with which they have been preserved. Of the mineral
riches of the province, the most important item is coal, of
which there is an immense quantity to be found. A vast
coal-field occupies the central counties, covering an area of
between 7500 and 10,000 square miles, or about one-third
of the whole extent. Iron has been found in great abun¬
dance, and of excellent quality for steel, at Woodstock on
the St John ; and copper on the banks of the Nipisigit.
The climate of New Brunswick, like most of the adja¬
cent parts of North America, is more subject to extremes
than places of the same latitude in the Eastern Continent.
At Fredericton the temperature ranges from 35° below zero
to 95 above, and the mean temperature is about 42°. The
severest part of the winter is from the middle of December
to the middle of March; but the deepest snows do not fall
till the end of February or beginning of March, when the
winds blow from the E. with great fury, piling up the snow
in drifts and banks. About the middle of March the south
w inds begin to blow with considerable strength, and soon
afterwards the ice disappears from the rivers and lakes,
and the country becomes fit for the plough. The spring
is short, and generally cold and rainy; but during the
summer very little rain falls, except in thunder-storms, which
at e frequent. I he finest part of the year in New Bruns¬
wick is the autumn, and especially what is called the In¬
dian summer, which occurs in the month of November.
t t ns period the varied hues of the forest, the dryness
anc clearness of the atmosphere, and the brilliancy of the
northern lights, all combine to increase the beauty of the
set nery. I he climate of the coast is somewhat more moist
than that of the interior. The clearing of the country, which
is lapidly going on, seems to be producing a gradual in¬
crease m the mildness of the inland regions; for w hile the
163
Climate
and agri¬
culture.
winter formerly lasted for six months, it now rarely exceeds New
three or foui. The climate is extremely healthy: epidemics Brunswick,
are rare ; rheumatism, low-typhus, and consumption are the
only prevalent diseases; and there have been many re¬
markable instances of longevity in the province. The soil
of New Brunswick is very good; and though the severity
of the winters is unfavourable to the growth of some
kinds of crops, potatoes, turnips, pulse, wheat, oats, rye, and
barley thrive extremely well here. The largest crop raised,
however, is that of hay, which is not only sufficient to sup¬
ply the cattle with fodder, but is also exported in consider¬
able quantities to the United States. The forests of New
Brunswick, having been as yet but partially cleared, and
as the occupation of cutting and sawing wood is more pro¬
fitable than that of farming, agriculture has made but little
progress, and the produce of the country is not sufficient
to supply the wants of the inhabitants. The cultivation
of the land, however, is rapidly extending; and im¬
provements are 'being gradually introduced, which will
render the produce of the soil more commensurate with its
natural fertility. The amount of land under cultivation in the
province in 1851 was 643,954 acres; and the crops raised
in 1855 were,—of wheat, 206,635 bushels; of barley, 74,300;
of oats, 1,411,164; of buck-wheat, 689,004 ; of Indian corn,
62,228 ; of pulse, 42,663 ; of turnips, 539,803 ; of potatoes,
2,792,394; of other roots, 47,880; and of hay, 225,093
tons. The number of horses in the same year was 22,044;
of horned cattle, 106,263 ; of sheep, 168,039; and of swine,
47,932.
Besides farming, the people of New Brunswick are em- Industry-
ployed for the most part in the fisheries ; in the lumbering and com-
business, as it is called,-—that is to say, in cutting down tirn-merce-
ber from the woods, and preparing it for exportation; and
in ship-building. The nature of the coasts of the province
affords great facilities for fisheries ; and the great abundance
offish which is to begot here would render fishing a profitable
pursuit. It is not, however, carried on to a very great ex¬
tent ; for though many of the inhabitants of the coast
pursue this occupation, along with those of farming and
lumbering, yet the demand for timber and the scantiness
of the population give greater encouragement to other
occupations; while the idleness of the people and the en¬
croachments of American fishermen prevent this employ¬
ment from being prosecuted with as much activity as it
might be. In consequence of the recent reciprocity treaty
with the United States, admitting the produce of the colonial
fisheries free of duty into that country, it is believed that
the fisheries of New Brunswick will be more actively car¬
ried on and more highly valued than hitherto. The princi¬
pal seats of the fisheries are in the harbour of St John’s,
and on the islands at the mouth of the Bay of Fundy. Cod,
haddock, herring, and mackerel, are the principal fish got
here ; and the total value of the fisheries in the Bay of
Fundy was, in 1850, L.52,700. The occupation of lum¬
bering, in which a great part of the inhabitants are em¬
ployed, though it is not favourable for the agricultural pro¬
gress of the country, serves to clear out and open up the
forests; and produces an active, hardy, and industrious set
of men. The timber is floated down the rivers to the saw¬
mills, of which there are in the province a large number.
The exports of New Brunswick consist principally of
timber and fish. rI he total value of the wood exported in
1854 was L.740,157; and that of the fish, L.55,359. The
total value of the exports in 1855 was L.826,381, and
of the imports, L. 1,431,330. The number of ships
built in the province in 1854 was 135, and their tonnage
99,426; in 1855 the number of ships was 95, and their
tonnage 54,561. The number belonging to the province
on the 31st December 1854 was 878, tonnage 141,454;
at the same date in 1855 the number of ships was 866,
and the tonnage 138,292. The number of vessels that
164
New
Brunswick.
Divisions
and go¬
vernment.
Iteligion
and edu¬
cation.
History
and popu¬
lation.
N E W
NEW
entered the various ports in 1855 was 3442, tonnage
590,767; those that cleared in the same year 3381, ton¬
nage 663,981. The number of saw and grist mills in the
province in 1851 was 845, employing 4668 hands. There
were also in the same year 125 tanneries, employing 255
hands; 11 foundries, employing 242; 52 weaving and
carding establishments, producing 622,237 yards of cloth,
and employing 96 hands ; 8 breweries, producing 100,975
gallons of malt liquors; and 94 other factories, employing
953 hands.
The province is at present divided into fourteen counties,
some of which, however, are but thinly peopled; and por¬
tions of land have been reserved for the aboriginal Indians,
of whom there were in 1851, 1116 still remaining. Hie
extent of land set apart for them is 61,2 <3 acres. The
government is in the hands of a lieutenant-governor, with
an annual salary ol L.3000, who is aided by an executive
council of eight, a legislative council, and a icpresenta-
tive house of assembly. The public revenue in 1855
amounted to L.93,916; and the expenditure in the same
year was L.138,353. The judicial establishments of New
Brunswick consist of a supreme court oi four judges, a
court of chancery, one of marriage and divorce, and one
for the trial of offences committed at sea; the three last of
which are presided over by the lieutenant-governor. There
is also a court of vice-admiralty, and one of probate. 1 he
number of barristers in the colony, practising also the
business of attorneys, was, in 1849, 155. The military
force of the colony consists of a regiment of yeomanry ca¬
valry, 3 separate troops ol cavalry', a regiment of artillery,
and 18 regiments of infantry, numbering in all 27,200 rank
and file.
The religious sects in New Brunswick are Episcopalians,
Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, and Roman Catholics.
None of these sects are supported by the government; but
the Bishop of Fredericton takes precedence next to the
lieutenant-governor and the commander of the forces. The
diocese of Fredericton was created in 1845, and included in
1849 a bishop, an archdeacon,33 rectors, and 8 curates, with
61 churches, capable of containing 17,920 people. The
synod of New Brunswick in connection with the Established
Church of Scotland consists of 13 ministers; and the synod
in connection with the Free Church of Scotland consists of
17 ministers. The Wesleyan Methodists had, in 1847, 21
ministers and 33 local preachers in the province. The Bap¬
tists, who are divided into various sects, had, in 1846, 41
ministers; and the Roman Catholics, in the same year, 1
bishop and 24 priests. The whole number of places of worship
in the colony in 1851 was 423. Education is well attended
to in New Brunswick. There is a university at Fredericton,
founded in 1828, and constituted after the model of those
of Oxford and Cambridge. It receives annually from
the crown a grant of L.1000, an equal sum from the pro¬
vincial legislature, and has an endowment of 6000 acres
of land near Fredericton. There are also Baptist and
Methodist colleges in the province. Grammar and parish
schools have been established in every county ; the manage¬
ment of the former being in the hands of a board of trustees
appointed by the lieutenant-governor and council, who
themselves form a board of education for the superintend¬
ence of the parish schools. The parish schoolmasters
receive government allowances, varying from L.18 to
L.30 per annum. The whole number of schoolhouses in
1851 wTas 798. The public charitable institutions consist
of a marine hospital, a lazaretto, and a provincial lunatic
asylum. The amount of money expended in 1854 for
educational and charitable purposes was L. 17,269.
The early history of New Brunsw’ick is closely con¬
nected with that of Nova Scotia, of which it originally
formed a part, when that province, then called Acadia or
New France, w'as under the French dominion. The earliest
attempt at colonization here was made in 1639; and m New
1672 a number of French emigrants settled on the Mira- Brunswick,
michi and in other parts of the country. In 1/13 New
Brunswick was ceded to Great Britain, in terms of the
treaty of Utrecht. The country was first settled by British
colonists in 1764 ; and in 1784 New Brunswick was sepa¬
rated from Nova Scotia, and made a distinct province.
It was originally peopled by several different Indian tribes;
but these have all now disappeared except two,—the Mic-
macs and the Melicetes,—who, though resembling each
other in physical appearance, differ considerably in their
origin and language. They wander in families about the
country; but an annual council is held, at which arrange¬
ments respecting their hunting, fishing, and other affairs,
are made. The European inhabitants of the province con¬
sist to a large extent of descendants of royalists from the
United States, who left their country at the American
revolution, that they might remain under the British sway.
The capital of New Brunswick is Fredericton, in the Principal
county of York, on the St John, 88 miles from its mouth.towns-
It stands on a plain bounded on one side by the river,
which is here three-fourths of a mile broad, and on the other
by a range of hills, 2 miles long and half a mile wide ; and
it is regularly built with long and straight streets. The most
of the houses are of wood, but the public edifices are of stone,
and some of them are very handsome. This town has a
cathedral, five or six churches, a province-hall for the accom¬
modation of the courts of law and legislature, a government-
house, library, barracks, and other buildings. Pop.about6000.
St John’s, the principal commercial town in the province, is
situated on a rocky promontory at the mouth of the St John
River, in N. Eat. 45. 20., W. Long. 66. 3. It is regularly
and well built; but the streets are in some places very
steep, although much labour has been expended in re¬
ducing them to a level. There are many handsome public
buildings of stone, brick, and wood, among which are a
court-house, church, and bank. The extreme point of
the promontory is defended by two batteries; and here are
also barracks and military stores. The number of new
vessels registered at St John’s in 1854 was 97 (besides which
11 vessels were built for owners in the United Kingdom),
aggregate tonnage 81,379; in 1855 the number was 76,
and the tonnage 40,986. At 31st December 1855, 566
vessels, of 110,451 tons burden, belonged to the port. The
number of vessels that arrived in 1851 was 1527, tonnage
282,450 ; those that cleared 1545, tonnage 324,821. The
total value of the imports in the same year was L.826,398,
and that of the exports L.535,441. Pop. about 12,000. I he
population of the various counties of New Brunswick in 1851
was as follows :—
Albert   6,313
Carleton  11,108
Charlotte 19,938
Gloucester  11,704
Kent 11,410
King’s  18,842
Northumberland  15,064
Total
Queen’s 
Kistigouche...
St John’s 
Sunbury 
Victoria 
Westmoreland
York 
 193,800
10,634
4,161
38,475
5,301
5,408
17,814
17,628
New Brunswick, a town of the United States of
North America, capital of Middlesex county, in the state of
New Jersey, stands on the right bank of the River Raritan,
26 miles N.N.E. of Trenton, and 30 S.W. of New York.
The older part of the town, which is built on the low ground
close to the river, has narrow and irregular streets; but on
the hill which rises behind there is a more recent portion,
with broad streets and many handsome edifices. Rutger’s
College, a building of dark red freestone, situated on a hill,
has 7 professors, 66 students, and a library of 10,000 vo¬
lumes. There is also here a theological seminary of the
Dutch Reformed Church, with 3 professors, 34 students,
and a library of 7000 volumes. New Brunswick has
NEW
Newburg about ten churches, several schools, two banks, a court-
11 house, and a jail. The Raritan is navigable as far as this
^ Port^" l^ace> ant^ tovvn >s connected with Bordentown, 42 miles
, distant, by the Delaware and Raritan Canal. It is also a
^ station on the New Jersey Railway, and has a considerable
trade. Pop. (1850) 13,070.
NEWBURG, a town of the United States, North Ame¬
rica, state of New York, on the right bank of the Hudson
River, 84 miles S. of Albany, and 61 N. of New York. The
ground on which it is built gradually rises from the water’s
edge to the height of 300 feet. It is well built; and con¬
tains ten churches; a court-house; jail; theological seminary
of the Associate Reformed Church, with about 11 students,
and a libraryof3200volumes; several schools; andfivebanks.
Newburg has large manufactories of cotton, wool, machin¬
ery, flour, plaster, leather, &c., and an active trade is car¬
ried on in grain, flour, and dairy produce, for which the
surrounding country is famous. Pop. 11,415.
NEWBURGH, a royal burgh and market-town of Scot¬
land, county of Fife, is situated on the right bank of the
Firth of Tay, 9 miles E.S.E. of Perth. It is well built, and
has one principal street running along the shore, and crossed
at right angles by another leading to the harbour, which is
formed by several piers extending into the river. The
town has a town-hall with a spire, a large parish church, two
United Presbyterian churches, Baptist and Independent
churches, and several schools. The harbour is pretty good,
admitting vessels of 500 tons burden; and some trade is
carried on in corn, timber, linen, and coal. The inhabitants
are principally employed in the weaving of coarse linens.
In the neighbourhood of Newburgh are the ruins of the
abbey of Lindores, and two curious antique crosses. The
town is ancient, and was made a burgh in 1457. Pop.
of the burgh (1851) 2638.
NEWBURY, a municipal borough and market-town of
England, county of Berks, on the right bank of the Kennet, 16
miles W. by S. of Reading, and 56 W. by S. of London. The
river is here crossed by a stone bridge of three arches; and
the town, which is well built, has two principal streets, which
are broad, and arranged in the form of the letter T. There
is a large market-place in front of the parish church, which
is a large but plain stone building of the age of Henry VII.
1 he town contains also places of worship for Wesleyan
Methodists, Independents, Baptists, Quakers, and Unita¬
rians, and a new Episcopal church has recently been erected
in the Gothic style. There is also in Newbury a substan¬
tial town-hall, jail, alms-houses, large workhouse, dispen¬
sary, literary institution with library, and several schools.
The Kennet supplies water-power for several large corn-
mills in the town and neighbourhood; and there are also
silk and paper mills, malthouses, and breweries, in and
about Newbury. The manufacture of woollen cloth was
formerly carried on to a much more considerable extent
than at present; and the place was of much importance in
the days of posting, from its position on the road to Bath. It
is now connected with the metropolis by a branch of the
Great Western Railway. Some trade is carried on in malt
and flour; and horse and cattle fairs are held thrice a year.
I wo engagements were fought here during the civil war in
1643 and 1644, in both cases with doubtful issue. Donning-
ton Castle, not far from Newbury, to the N.W., was the pro¬
pel ty of Chaucer the poet, who is believed to have spent
there the last years of his life. Pop. (1851) 6574.
Newbury-Port, a seaport of the United States of
Noith America, Massachusetts, situated on a gentle slope
on the right bank of the Merrimack, 34 miles N. by E. of
Boston. It is regularly built, with wide streets, some of
w nch rise in terraces parallel to the river, and in its centre
is a pond about six acres in extent, which is surrounded by
hne pleasure-grounds. The custom-house is a large granite
building, with a fine colonnade in the Grecian style; the
NEW
city hall, a handsome building, has recently been erected
the cost of about L.7000; and there are also a court-house •
16 churches, belonging to various sects; and about 30 schools’
I here is a lyceum, at which lectures are delivered • and a
public library has recently been established. Newbury-Port
has five manufacturing companies, employing in all from 1500
to 1600 hands, and an aggregate capital of L.246 000
Cotton goods are principally produced; but iron, machinery*
leather, boots, shoes, &c., are also among the manufactures’
Ihe harbour is large and safe, though there is a shifting
sand-bank at its mouth. The registered and enrolled ship¬
ping of the port at June 30, 1852, had a tonnage of 29,430.
The number of vessels that arrived in that year were'110
tonnage 9231; those that cleared 116, tonnage 10 140*
George Whitfield died here in 1770, and his remains’ are
buried in one of the churches of the town. Pod GSSO'l
11,318; (1853) about 13,000. '
NEWGASILE, a market-town of Ireland, county of
Limerick, situated on the Arra, 25 miles S.W. of Limerick
and 144 S.W. by W. of Dublin. It is a neat country town,’
with four principal streets and a large square. The parish
church is a fine building ; and the town has also a Roman
Catholic church, two schools, town-hall, market-house, bar¬
racks, fever hospital, dispensary, workhouse, and the re¬
mains of an old castle that once belonged to the Templars,
but is now the residence of the Earl of Devon. Coarse
cloth is the principle article of manufacture here, and dyeing
and bleaching are also carried on. Pop. (1851) 2513.
Newcasxle-Emlyx, a market-town of Wales, in the
county of Caermarthen, is pleasantly situated on the banks
of the leifi, 16 miles N.W. by N. of Caermarthen, and 229
W. by N. of London. It was anciently called Dinas-Emlyn,
or the “City of Emlyn ;” and a castle existed here at a very
early period. It was rebuilt in the time of Henry VII. by
SirRhys-ap-Thomas, and the place then obtained the name
of Newcastle. Hie castle was held by the royalists during
the civil war, but after that period it gradually fell into
decay, and only the ruins now remain. The town is well
built, and contains an Episcopal, a Baptist, and other
churches ; a school; and a savings-bank. Some trade is
can ied on in cattle, for which there are eleven yearly fairs.
Newcastle-Emlyn is included in the parish of Kenarth,
which had in 1851 a population of 1980.
Newcastle-under-Lyme, or under-Lyne, a market-
town and municipal and parliamentary borough of England,
in the county of Stafford, on the right bank and near the
source of the Trent, 16 miles N. by W. of Stafford, and 150
N.W. of London. It is well though irregularly built,
chiefly of brick, on the slope of two hills; and contains a
handsome town-hall; two Established churches, one of which
has an ancient square sandstone tower; besides Methodist,
Independent, Baptist, and Roman Catholic churches; a
literary and scientific institution, with a library; a theatre;
a savings-bank; and a range of alms-houses founded by
Christopher Monk, Duke of Albemarle, son of the cele¬
brated general. The principal manufacture carried on
here is that of hats, but there are also silk and paper mills,
and a cotton factory; while shoes, clocks, and earthenware
aie also produced. In the neighbourhood there are coal¬
pits and iron-works. An old castle, of the time of Henry
VII. formerly stood here, but no remains of it have been
preserved. The borough returns two members to Parlia¬
ment. Several fairs and cattle markets are held here an¬
nually. Pop. (1851) 10,569.
Newcastle-upon- Tyne is situated, as its name denotes,
on the River lyne, about 8 miles from the sea in a
direct line, and exactly 10 miles by the course of the navi¬
gable channel. It is a county within itself, having its own
shei iff and other officers distinct from the county of Nor¬
thumberland, of which it originally formed part. The assizes
for Northumberland are, however, still held in Newcastle,
165
Newcastle
11
Newcastle-
upon-
Tyne.
166
NEWCASTLE.
Tyne.
Naviga¬
tion.
Newcastle, the court-house and its precincts being exempt from the
npon- jurisdiction of the municipal authorities. The Tyne is
formed by the confluence of two streams, of which the
North Tyne rises near a place called Deadwater, on the
confines of Liddesdale in Scotland; the South Tyne has
its source near the mountain of Crossfell in Cumberland.
The point of junction is near Warden, a village 2 miles
W. of Hexham, from which town the united stream flows
past Newcastle, and thence between the towns of North
and South Shields, discharging its waters into the German
Ocean at Tynemouth, the ruins of the ancient monastery
at which place forms a conspicuous landmark on the north
of the entrance to the port. In the night a revolving light
is constantly kept burning, and exhibits a face every minute.
The River Tyne commissioners are at this time (1858)
erecting substantial stone piers at the entrance of the har¬
bour, which, when completed, will add greatly to the
safety of ships trading to the Tyne.
Within the river, near the town of North Shields, there
are two lighthouses for the use of vessels passing over the
bar. There are three warping buoys within the river, two
on the south and one on the north side; and in addition
to these there is a distinguishing buoy on the north side,
where the low light is situated. The tide flows up the
Tyne from Shields to a distance of 18 miles; and at New¬
castle Bridge it generally runs upwards about four hours
and a half, and downwards about seven hours and a half.
The perpendicular rise at the bar at Tynemouth is about
18 feet, and at the bridge from 11 to 12 feet. It is high-
water on the bar, at the full and change of the moon, at
about three o’clock, if the weather be settled ; but a strong
northerly wind will sometimes make it high-water an hour
sooner, and a strong southerly wind an hour later, than the
regular course ; and there will be at times 2 or 3 feet more
water on the bar with a strong northerly wind than with a
strong southerly one. The commissioners are making great
exertions to improve the navigation of the river, and employ
a powerful steam-engine for the purpose of dredging.
Due precautions against accidents to shipping have been
rendered necessary by the vast number of vessels that pass
up and down the Tyne; and an association, formed in
1825 at the Trinity House, has for its object the preser¬
vation of lives from shipwreck and the maintenance of a
life-boat at South Shields. The pilots on the river, and
the sea-pilots connected with the port of Newcastle,, with
all its creeks and harbours, which extend from Holy Island
on the north to Whitby on the south, are about 800 in
number, and are under the regulation of the corporation
ot the Trinity House, who have a spacious hall, a chapel
of very ancient workmanship, and alms-houses for poor
brethren and widows, situated in Trinity Chare, near the
quay. This ancient society is governed by a master
(elected annually) and twelve brethren, who hold a com¬
mon seal. The charter of this corporation was renewed
by King Henry VIII. in 1536, and confirmed by Queen
Mary in 1553, and also refounded by Queen Elizabeth in
1584. The bridge was founded in very ancient times, and
consisted of wood. It was once burnt, and at subsequent
periods was more than once carried away by the floods.
The existing bridge was built between the years 1775 and
1799. It was only 21 feet wide, which, as the population
and trade increased, was found very inconvenient; and in
1801 it was enlarged and widened, and is now 33 feet 6
inches in width. It connects the town of Newcastle with
its suburb Gateshead, which is in the county of Durham.
The inadequacy of this means of communication between
the opposite sides ot the river was long a subject of com¬
plaint, and several attempts were from time to time made
to secure the erection ot a second bridge on a high level,
so as to avoid the dangerous declivities of both banks. All
these failed in consequence of the magnitude of the capital
Trinity
House
bridges.
required, until the formation of a company to complete the Newcastle,
eastern line of railway communication between London and upon.
Edinburgh. The promoters of this scheme, now carried into Tyne.
successful operation, undertook, on the solicitation of the
inhabitants and others interested, to make the bridge which
was necessary for the transit of the railway available also
for ordinary traffic ; and to their liberality and enterprise,
under the scientific direction of Mr Robert Stephenson, the
public are indebted for that magnificent structure, the
“ High-Level Bridge.” The design is as remarkable for
its originality as for its grandeur; the structure consisting of
two distinct roadways, one above the other,—the lower ap¬
propriated to ordinary traffic, the upper to the railway,—their
respective elevations above the level of the river being 90
and 118 feet. The piers of the bridge are of stone, and
are six in number,—one on the margin of the river on each
side, and four in the stream, the distance between each
being 124 feet. The railway works within the town of
Newcastle, including the High-Level Bridge and the pur¬
chase of property, entailed an expenditure on the company
of upwards of half a million sterling.
The quay lies immediately to the east of the old bridge, Quay and
and was considered, previous to the introduction of wetwaU-
docks in our principal ports, as the finest wharf in England.
Its length was nearly 550 feet, to which a further length of
1000 feet has been added by the corporation. The new
portion, however, still presents an unsightly appearance, in
consequence of the delay which has occurred in effecting
the contemplated removal of a mass of property of the very
worst description, and the erection of buildings which would
have presented a handsome elevation to the river. The
old quay appears even more desolate, from the disastrous
effects of a tremendous explosion which occurred in the
neighbouring town of Gateshead in 1854, involving an un¬
precedented destruction of property on both sides of the
river. The town-wall formerly ran between the warehouses
on the quay and the river, to the great obstruction of com¬
merce, but was removed about the middle of the last cen¬
tury. Other portions of the wall have from time to time
been removed without any pressing necessity, and little of
it now remains. Leland, who saw it in its integrity, says,—
“ The strength and magnificence of the walling of this town
far passeth all the walls of the cities of England, and of
most towns in Europe.” Sir Ralf Sadleyr gives similar tes¬
timony.
From an early period Newcastle has been chiefly indebted Coal trade,
for its mercantile importance to the extensive coal-fields
adjacent. The cinders of this mineral discovered amongst
the ruins of several of the Roman stations in Northumber¬
land show that its use was not unknown to the imperial
legions in Britain, although the abundance of wood every¬
where available for fuel necessarily confined the consump¬
tion of coal to the immediate locality in which it was pro¬
duced. During the Saxon period we have no notice of
coal either as an article of commerce or of domestic con¬
sumption, although it is probable that where the seams were
easily accessible they were not altogether neglected. The
earliest authentic records of the Newcastle coal trade, after
the Conquest, is found in a charter of Henry III. to the
burgesses, a.d. 1239, in which he grants them license to
dig coal in the Forth and Castle field, within the liberties
of the borough. From an inquisition in the reign of Ed¬
ward I. it appears that, in consequence of the rapid de¬
velopment of this traffic, the revenues of Newcastle were
then worth L.200 per annum, although they had been
granted by King John at a fee-farm rent of L.100 per an¬
num, which was more than their then estimated value. In
1306 the use of sea-borne coal must have been general in
London, as in that year Parliament complained to the
king of its infecting the air with noxious vapours, in con¬
sequence of which the use of coal was prohibited, and
NEWCASTLE.
Newcastle- strict orders given to destroy all furnaces and kilns in
upon- which it was used. Coals, however, must have again
ffyDe‘ ] come into use in 1327, as at the coronation of Edward
III. a debt appears to have been due for this mineral;
and in the same reign orders were issued relating to the
measuring of coals; and such as were got in the field of
Gateshead were to be taken across the Tyne in boats,
and, after paying the custom-duty, to be sent to any port
of the kingdom, but to no port out of the kingdom except
to Calais. About the year 1338 the Prior of Tynemouth
granted colliery leases. In the year 1582 Queen Eliza¬
beth obtained a lease for ninety-nine years of the manors
and royalties of Gateshead and Whickham for L.90 per
annum, which caused the price of coals in London to rise
to 9s. the chaldron ; upon which the lord mayor made ap¬
plications to Lord Burleigh that the price might be reduced
to 7s. In 1615 the trade appears to have employed 400
sail of ships, some of which sailed to France, and others to
the Netherlands. During the civil wars the trade and the
prices of coal fluctuated much, as at one time London was
with the Parliament, and Newcastle with the royal party.
In 1675 the shipping of Newcastle was estimated at 80,000
tons. In 1710 the annual average export for the three
preceding years had amounted to 178,143 chaldrons, and
in ] 776 to 260,000. The following account will show the
vast but gradual increase since that time :—
An Account of the Quantity of Coals shipped at New¬
castle from 1794 to 1835, distinguishing those sent Coast¬
wise and those over Sea.
167
3ad.
Year.
1794
1800
1805
1810
1815
Coastwise.
Chal (Irons.
388,724
537,793
552,827
632,299
650,209
Over Sea.
Chaldrons.
39,935
47,487
49,572
17,258
42,834
1820
1825
1830
1835
Coastwise.
Chaldrons.
756,513
687,029
817,870
853,359
Over Sea.
Chaldrons.
44,826
51,444
74,456
116,803
The preceding account is given in Newcastle chaldrons,
which weigh 53 cwt., but the London chaldron weighs
only 28 cwt. The former contains 68, the latter 36
Winchester bushels. Since the duty on coals water-borne
ceased the account of the quantities shipped has been kept
with less correctness.
Coals Shipped from the Port of Newcastle from 1849
to 1857.
Year.
1849
1850
1851
1852
1853
Coastwise.
Tons.
2,127,558
2,252,293
2,049,846
2,157,273
2,131,417
Foreign.
Tons.
778,465
1,007,716
1,001,939
1,057,463
1,032,566
Year.
1854
1855
1856
1857
Coastwise.
Tons.
2,138,311
2,014,760
1,942,843
2,082,001
Foreign.
Tons.
1,345,456
1,417,640
1,649,788
1,773,363
The number and tonnage of vessels registered as be¬
longing to the port of Newcastle on 31st December 1856
were,—Sailing-vessels under 50 tons, 110 ; tonnage, 3083 :
above oO tons, 452; tonnage, 124,830: steam-vessels under 50
tons, 81; tonnage, 1364: above 50 tons, 23; tonnage, 7621.
During 1856 there entered and cleared at the port in the
vrrfoo? trr^e.’—Sai,ing-Vessels, inwards, 2172; tonnage,
179,281: foreign, outwards, 9860; tonnage, 1,262,076:
steam-vessels, inwards, 525 ; tonnage, 112,325: outwards,
/fL; tonnage, 196,713. In the colonial trade,—Sailing-ves-
tonnaSe> 17,040: outwards, 151; tonnage,
5J,01J: steam-vessels, outwards, 1 ; tonnage, 16. In the
lo-flm trade,~?aiiinS'Vessels> inwards> 3816; tonnage,
593,339: outwards, 6697; tonnage, 1,217,689: steam vessels,
TUMI8’ 103 ’ tonna&e5 33,452: outwards, 119; tonnage,
The export of lead from Newcastle, although much in¬
ferior in importance to that of coal, is of still greater anti¬
quity The lead mines are situated in the mountainous Newcastle-
districts in the west of Northumberland and Durham, and in upon-
the adjacent parts of Cumberland, from which the produce T^ne-
is conveyed to Newcastle for shipment. The discovery of ^
the mines of Cumberland in the reign of Henry I. is noticed
in the Chronicle of Robert de Monte ; and [those of Dur¬
ham were probably known at as early a period. The latter
were granted by King Stephen to his nephew Hugh
Pudsey, Bishop of Durham. The Cumberland mines were
gradually extended into Northumberland ; and in the reign
of Richard I. by much the more valuable portion was in the
latter county. In the earliest records the mines both of
Cumberland and Durham are described, not as lead but as
silver mines, from the abundance of that precious metal
which they contained. Those of Cumberland were let to
the royal moneyers at Newcastle and Carlisle, and those of
Durham probably supplied the mint which pertained to that
episcopate. The pipe rolls of Cumberland and Northum¬
berland afford several instances of the transport of lead
from the former county for export from Newcastle in the
reign of Henry II. The productiveness of these mines
continues undiminished; and large quantities are yearly ex¬
ported from Newcastle, both in pigs and in a manufactured
state. The manufactures carried on here include patent
shot, and all other preparations of lead, whether for pig¬
ments or otherwise.
The manufacture of glass was first introduced into Eng- Glass,
land by emigrants from Germany, who established them¬
selves in the neighbourhood of Newcastle in the reign of
Queen Elizabeth. The trade has continued to flourish
ever since, and is now extensively carried on in all its
branches—bottle, crown, sheet, and plate glass.
Works for smelting iron have been established in this Ironworks,
district for many years, but these have been multiplied to a
great extent within a short period. Various branches of
the iron manufacture are also carried on, including three
very extensive establishments for building locomotive en¬
gines ; one of them set on foot by the late George Ste¬
venson, father of the locomotive system, and now conducted
by his son, Robert Stevenson, C.E. The building of iron
ships has also been recently introduced on a very extensive
scale. Since the year 1816 a most important business has
arisen in the neighbourhood of Newcastle, namely, the pro¬
duction of crystals of soda and mineral alkali by the decom¬
position of common salt. Besides these, there are manu¬
factures of paper of all descriptions, and mills for the crushing
of linseed ; and the manufactories of copperas, coal-pitch,
spirits of tar, varnishes, soda, aquafortis, whiting, glue, vine¬
gar, and soap, are numerous and extensive.
The imports are various, but the principal articles are
corn, wine, spirits, fruits, sugar, tobacco, tea, coffee, but¬
ter, cheese, tallow, hides, oak-bark, rags, flax, hemp, linen
yarn, mahogany, deals and other timber, spars, masts,
cordage, tar, iron, and what is necessary for the equip¬
ment of shipping. This view of exports and imports ac¬
counts for the number of vessels which have entered this
port in successive years from foreign countries.
Newcastle occupies the site of the Roman fortress of Ancient
Pons AElh, one of the stations on the Wall of Hadrian, history,
which traversed the island from the Tyne to the Solway
Firth. In the immediate vicinity the Saxon kings had a
a ilia or occasional residence, called Ad Murum, celebrated,
according to Beda, for the baptism within its walls of two
royal converts—Sigebert, King of the East Saxons, and
Paeda, the son of Penda, King of Mercia. At the period of
the Norman conquest the Roman station was known as
Monkchester, having probably been used as a place of
refuge by the brethren of some of the numerous monastic
establishments which existed in the neighbourhood prior to
their destruction by the Danes, towards the close of the
ninth century. The castle, which gives name to the pre-
168 NEWCASTLE.
Newcastle- sent town, was built by Robert, the eldest son of William
upon Tyne. Conqueror, on his return from a hostile expedition into
v ^ Scotland, a.d. 1080. William Rufus is said to have fostered
. the growth of the infant community, as well by grants of
privileges as by pecuniary aid. The particulars of these
concessions rest on the authority of the metrical annalist
Hardyng, a comparatively recent historian ; but the gene-
- ral truth of his narrative is confirmed by the ascertained
position of Newcastle in the succeeding reign. The “ Laws
and Customs of Newcastle” under Henry I. bespeak the
advanced maturity of the borough, and the amount of royal
favour which it must have experienced. In the reign of
Stephen, Newcastle, with the rest of Northumberland, was
enjoyed in succession by the Earls Henry and William, the
son and grandson of David I., King of Scotland, but was
taken from the latter by Henry II. on his accession to the
crown of England. King John granted several charters to
the burgesses ; amongst others, one conferring the right of
holding the town in fee-farm, instead of at the will of the
crown. Henry III. further extended their immunities by
authorizing the election of a mayor out of their own body,
who should preside over them, instead of a provost, as
heretofore, appointed by the crown. The enfranchisement
of the borough from the dominion of the sheriff of Nor¬
thumberland, and the liberty of electing a sheriff of their own,
was conceded to them by Henry IV. Several additional
immunities were granted by successive charters, all of
which were, in the reign of Elizabeth, condensed and con¬
firmed by what was known then as the “Great Charterand
that, being afterwards slightly changed in the reign of
James I., continued till the passing of the existing law in
1835. By that law the town has been divided into eight
wards for the purposes of that act, and has now fourteen
aldermen, forty-two councillors, a mayor, and sheriff, with
justices of the peace, nominated by the crown. It returns
two members to Parliament.
The revenue of the corporation is very large, amounting
in 1856 to L.82,000, arising from dues on coal and cinders,
rents of property, tolls, &c.
Docks, &c. The corporation were, up to 1850, conservators of the
Tyne, but in that year they were superseded by a commis¬
sion composed of members from Newcastle, North and
South Shields, Gateshead, &c. By the Tyne Improvement
Act, which received the royal assent on the 15th July 1850,
the conservancy of the River Tyne is transferred from the
corporation of Newcastle to the “ Tyne Improvement Com¬
missioners.” Those commissioners are in number 18,—viz.,
4 life commissioners named in the act, and 6 elected annu¬
ally by the Newcastle council, 3 by the Tynemouth coun¬
cil, 3 by South Shields council, and 2 by Gateshead coun¬
cil. 1 he elections of river commissioners by the respec¬
tive councils takes place on the 9th November in each year.
By the T.yne Improvement Act 1852, additional powei’s
are vested in the commissioners ; and they are, by that act,
authorized to construct a dock at Hayhole, to be called the
Noi thumberland dock, and to form piers at the mouth of
the river. The Northumberland dock has since been
completed, and the two piers are in a state of considerable
forwardness. By the Tyne Improvement Act 1857, the
commissioners aie also authorized to construct a deep-water
dock at Coble Dean, communicating by a junction with the
Northumberland dock. Besides the corporation their are many
guilds or companies, having chartered privileges, and halls for
their assembling. Therearethe “Twelve Mysteries,’’founded
between the years 1215 and 1621; the “Fifteen By-Trades,”
founded between 1426 and 1626; and the various com¬
panies, eight in number, created at different periods, like
the others, between the years 1454 and 1675. These
companies choose annually sixty-nine stewards, out of which
number a body of nine is nominated, called the Herbage
Committee, whose duty it is to superintend the improve*
ment and enforce the regulations respecting the free com-Newcastle-
mons, of 1200 acres, upon which the burgesses have the upon-Tyne.
privilege of pasturing two cows each (and a free pasturage
is thus afforded to 700 cows), and also to watch over the
interests of the freemen, and of their respective fraternities.
They have a revenue of about L.900, derived from ground-
rents, way-leaves, and other sources.
Newcastle being a county of itself, the courts of assize Town and
and nisi prius are held thrice a year at the guildhall at the county
Exchange. Those for Northumberland, in the county- courts,
courts at the Castle Garth, are held at the same time.
There are also some inferior courts of justice held, such as
the mayor’s court, in which only free burgesses or their
widows are sued, and in which are tried all cases relating
to real or personal actions to any amount arising within the
town; the sheriffs court, in which all actions are brought
as in the mayor’s court, but with this distinction, that they
may be instituted against all other persons than free bur¬
gesses ; the court of conscience, to determine all debts or
actions not exceeding in amount forty shillings, which ex¬
tends to all persons residing within the liberties of the town ;
and the court of guild, the chief business of which now is
the admission of persons to their freedom, whether they are
entitled to it by birth, or by an apprenticeship during seven
years. Besides these, a court of admiralty is occasionally
held, the principal duties of which consist in preventing
injury from being done to the river or to the salmon
fishery.
The population of Newcastle has advanced in nearly the Population,
same proportion as that of the other towns of the kingdom.
In 1801 it amounted to 28,366, in 1811 to 27,587, in 1821
to 35,181, in 1831 to 42,760, in 1841 to 69,430, and in
1851 to 87,784. But each of these accounts is materially
deficient, owing to their exhibiting only the number of in¬
habitants within the limits of the burgh ; and does not in¬
clude those of its populous suburbs. In 1851 Gateshead
alone had 25,568 inhabitants. Annual rental 1857, New¬
castle, L.351,408 ; Gateshead, L.75,749.
The public buildings for religious purposes are nume- Public
rous. Those of the Established church claim the first at- buildings,
tention. Of these, the mother church of St Nicholas is
probably the oldest, and certainly the most striking. It
was founded in the year 1091, by Osmond, Bishop of Salis¬
bury, and placed under the jurisdiction of the bishop of
Carlisle. The edifice was burned in 1210, and the present
structure finished in 1359. The interior of the church is
242 feet; and on entering it by the great western door, the
spectator is struck with mingled impressions of delight and
solemnity, from the general and noble effect produced by
the view. Some considerable improvements in the arrange¬
ment of the pews made in 1783 have adapted it for ac¬
commodating a congregation of more than 1200 persons.
The organ is a remarkably fine instrument. The frame¬
work is mahogany, and the two pillars in front are magni¬
ficent ; the centre is surmounted by the figures of two
recumbent angels, and the compartments of the front are
embellished with a variety of richly-gilt pipes. Several
fine marble monuments have recently been erected on this
edifice. A public library is attached to this church, formed
by donations at different periods since the year 1661, but
principally by Dr Tomlinson.
St John’s church is an ancient structure, and supposed
to have been built in the latter end of the thirteenth cen¬
tury ; but it has since been enlarged and beautified at dif¬
ferent periods. The great eastern window contains some
curious ancient specimens of stained glass. By the erec¬
tion of some new galleries and other arrangements of pews,
it has been made capable of seating, including scholars in
the aisles, more than 1400 persons. It has a square steeple
with four pinnacles, a clock and six bells, with a large
burying-ground adjoining,
NEWCASTLE.
Newcastle- St Andrew’s church is said to have been built by David
upon-Tyne. king of Scotland, who died in 1153. It still exhibits some
specimens of Anglo-Norman architecture, though many
alterations have been made at different periods. Being
near the town wall, it suffered much during the siege of
1644, and was long afterwards closed. It is furnished with
a new organ, and the interior so arranged as to accommo¬
date 1300 hearers, besides 200 children. Near to it is the
burying-ground, which, by the removal of some houses
in ] 824, is laid open to public view, and handsomely sur¬
rounded by palisades.
All-Saints’ church is a modern structure, having been
erected between the years 1786 and 1796, at an expense
ofL.27,000, raised by an assessment upon the owners of
houses in the parish. It has a stately Doric portico at the
entrance, from which there rises an elegant spire to the
height of 202 feet from the ground. It has a fine set of
bells and a clock. It contains a spacious gallery, and the
whole seat-room will accommodate near 1200 persons, and
270 children of the charity schools, who have seats in the
gallery. This building w'as erected on the site of an ancient
church which existed before the year 1284, but which was
considerably larger, and capable of containing 2000 persons.
St Ann’s church is, properly speaking, a chapel of ease
to the parish of All-Saints. It'was erected in 1768, on the
foundation of an ancient building, at the expense of the
corporation. It has a large school attached to it, in which
boys are instructed in reading, writing, and arithmetic, on
very cheap terms. The church has seat-room for about
500 perons.
St Thomas’ church is a chapel of ease to the parish of St
Nicholas. It was begun in 1828, and finished in 1830. It is
an elegant structure, built in the early English style. The
church is 135 feet in length and 63 feet in breadth, and has
a tower 138 feet in height. It can accommodate from 1000
to 1100 persons. In the suburb or town of Gateshead is
the church of St Mary, a new steeple to which was built
on an old foundation in 1740. Its chief ornament is an ele¬
gant window of stained glass in the southern transept, which
was presented to it in 1824. There is seat-room for 800
persons, including that for the charity children. Among the
other churches are St Peter’s, Oxford Street, and St Paul’s,
Arthur’s Hill. This latter has been purchased by the In¬
dependents.
1 he places of worship for the various classes of dissenters
from the Established church are numerous. From the
vicinity to Scotland, the adherents of the Presbyterian form
of worship are the greatest in number, occupying nine
meeting-houses, most of them being of the Scotch kirk, and
others secessions from it. I he next largest portion of wor¬
shippers are the Wesleyan Methodists of the new and old
connection, who have six chapels, one of them the largest
place of worship in the town. The Independents occupy
thiee chapels, the Baptists three, the Roman Catholics two,
and the following persuasions,—viz., the Quakers, the Glass-
ites, the Unitarians, and the Swedenborgians,—one each.
To the enterprise of Mr Richard Grainger the inhabi¬
tants ot Newcastle owe the creation of almost a new town,
built in a style of architectural beauty not inferior to any
in the kingdom. After having built Eldon Square, Blackett
street, and several others of minor importance, Mr Grain¬
ger s first exertions, in an embellished style of architecture,
v\ ere made on a large piece of ground adjoining the Leazes.
Upon this he erected a parallelogram, consisting of up-
\wuts o i ty houses, all faced with polished stone, and of
gieat elegance of design, and some of them of large
(imensions. ns undertaking was carried through by him
at t ic same time that a spacious and splendid arcade was
constructed in the centre of the town. The next attempt
o this individual was more gigantic, and incurred an
expenditure of half a million sterling. There existed in the
VOL. XVI.
169
very centre of the town a large piece of ground, about Newcastle-
thirteen acres, which had originally been the gardens of the upon-Tyne.
Grey Friars, and of a convent of Benedictine nuns. This '
completely cut off the communication between the oppo¬
site sides of the town, except by circuitous streets, and
was partly occupied by stables, cow-sheds, and other nui¬
sances. Mr Grainger conceived the idea of covering this
extensive piece of ground with houses and markets of ele¬
gant construction. The purchase of the ground was effected
and the work begun, in the summer of 1834. This extra¬
ordinary undertaking consists of seven streets, some of them
80 feet broad, and all of stone, and highly embellished;
besides a butcher market and a vegetable market, which
alone occupy a space of more than two acres, and are en¬
tirely covered in. The butcher market consists of four
avenues, 19 feet 4 inches wide, 27 feet high, and extend¬
ing in length 338 feet. The vegetable market is connected
with the butcher market, and consists of one stupendous
hall, 318 feet long, 57 feet wide, and upwards of 40 feet
high. A new theatre of great architectural beauty, a chapel
for the Methodists of the new connection, anew dispensary,
and a church, are also included in the plan. At the top
of the principal street,- named Grey Street, is a column
150 feet high, surmounted by a statue of Earl Grey.
This elegant memorial is from a design by Messrs John
and Benjamin Green of Newcastle, and the statue is by
Bailey of London. The cost was defrayed by public sub¬
scription. Recently a large and massive building has been
erected for the jail and house of correction, which cost
L.49,000.
Newcastle is as well supplied with those institutions which
tend to the acquisition and diffusion of knowledge as anyplace
of its extent in the kingdom. The Literary and Philoso¬
phical Society was founded in 1793. Its objects were—the
discussion of the several branches of polite literature, and
making inquiries into the situation and properties of the
mineral productions of the neighbourhood, with the eluci¬
dation of the sciences applicable to commerce, antiquities,
local history, biography, nautical inquiry, and other sub¬
jects. A new institution for delivering lectures has been
united with it since 1802. A library, of more than 12,000
volumes, has been collected, and a valuable apparatus pur¬
chased for the illustration of chemistry and other branches
of physics. The usefulness of this society has recently
been greatly increased by the reduction of the annual sub¬
scription from L.2, 2s. to L.l, Is., in consequence of a
munificent donation to its funds by a spirited individual
(Robert Stevenson, Esq., M.P.) The Natural History
Society has erected an elegant building, which contains a
museum of very great value. The published transactions
of this society have raised the character of its members to
a high rank in that science. The Newcastle Antiquarian
Society hold their meetings in the old castle.
There is also an establishment recently formed, called
“ The Literary, Scientific, and Mechanical Institution,” of
which young persons may become members, and attend
classes appointed for drawing, mathematics, chemistry, and
the languages, at a very small expense. This society is
also gradually forming a library, and various collections to
assist in science and in art. There are likewise several
subscription-rooms for newspapers,—especially good ones
at the Exchange, Sandhill, and Central Exchange, Grey
Street.
I here is a well-endowed royal free grammar school, in
which Greek and Latin were intended to be taught gra¬
tuitously ; but a small fee is now paid by the scholars.
It has access to some exhibitions at Lincoln College, Ox¬
ford. In several other schools many boys and girls are
taught on the Lancasterian and Madras plans; and most
of the churches and chapels have schools connected with
them.
170 NEW
Newcome. The institutions for benevolent purposes are numerous,
of which the most prominent are Jesus’ hospital, which
provides for fifty old persons ; Blackett, and the two David¬
son’s hospitals, in all for eighteen poor widows of clergy¬
men or merchants; the Keelman’s hospital, formed by
that class of persons for the relief of their destitute, and
chiefly maintained by a duty of one farthing per chaldron
on all coals exported from the River Tyne; and the hos¬
pitals of St Mary Magdalen andof the Virgin Mary, the former
for a master and three, and the latter a master and eight
poor brethren.
The establishments for administering relief to the dis¬
eased or infirm poor are,—the infirmary, to which is now
annexed a lock hospital, and which extends relief to the
sick and lame poor of the counties of Newcastle, Durham,
and Northumberland; the average annual number of in¬
patients being 800, and of out-patients 700 ; the dispensary,
founded in 1777, supported by voluntary contributions,
the object being the administration of medical and surgical
aid to all diseased applicants, and the promotion of vaccine
inoculation; the house of recovery, for the reception of
persons afflicted with febrile diseases; the lunatic asylum,
for thirty-eight males and the same number of females;
the lying-in hospital, for poor pregnant women; the eye
infirmary, and St Luke’s hospital.
Markets, The markets are well supplied with provisions of all
&c< kinds; and the market for corn is one of the largest in the
north of England. Water is abundantly supplied by the
Water Company, from resources and reservoirs at Whittle
Dean, 12 miles W. of Newcastle. There are no less than
twelve public fountains, here called pants, in different parts
of the town, but on account of the height of the reservoirs
above the town, they are seldom now required, the pres¬
sure being sufficient; the fire-engines are under good re-
gulatijon. There are companies for insurance against fire,
as well as for ship and life risks. The town is well watched
and lighted with gas.
The places of amusement are not numerous ; the
most prominent being the theatre-royal. The former
house was opened in 1788, and was pulled down in
1836 to make way for the building of Grey Street. The
new theatre, which is a structure of great beauty, was
opened in February 1837. The assembly-rooms, built in
1766, are commodiously planned, having a ball-room 94
feet by 36, with a music gallery; adjoining are card-rooms,
a room for private assemblies, and on the lower story is a
supper-room, in which 460 individuals have been accom¬
modated at the same time. There is a music hall ap¬
propriately fitted up, with the requisite auxiliary apart¬
ments.
The communication between Newcastle and the western
coast is greatly facilitated by the Newcastle and Carlisle Rail¬
way, and to the north by the North British Railway, (j. H.)
NEWCOME, William, Archbishop of Armagh, a
learned divine, was born in Bedfordshire in 1729. Having
entered the university of Oxford, he was first a student of
Pembroke College, and afterwards a fellow and tutor of
Hertford College. His rise to honour and preferment was
sudden and rapid. The degree of D.D. was conferred
upon him in 1765; in the same year he became chaplain
to the lord-lieutenant of Ireland; and in 1766 he was pro¬
moted to the bishopric of Dromore. All the while New-
come was closely directing his attention to biblical criticism,
and was carefully maturing his views preparatory to pub¬
lishing them. At length the results of his studies began
to appear in quick succession. He published, among other
works, The Harmony of the Gospels, in 1778; The Dura¬
tion of our Lords Ministry particularly considered, in
1780; Observations on our Lord’s Conduct as a Divine
Instructor, in 1782; An Historical View of the English
Biblical Translations, in 1792 ; and An Attempt towards
NEW
revising our English Translation of the Greek Scriptures, New Eng-
in 1796. Meanwhile, the author, after having been sue- land
cessively translated to the sees of Ossory and Waterford, I!
had been installed in the archbishopric of Armagh in ^nd
1795. His death took place in 1800. v ‘ ,
NEW ENGLAND, a name given to the north-eastern
portion of the United States'of North America, comprising
the states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massa¬
chusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. (See United
States.)
NEWENT, a market-town of England, county of Glou¬
cester, 8 miles N.W. of the town of that name, and 110
W. by N. of London. It consists of three irregular streets,
and has a large old parish church, with a lofty spire, 2 dis¬
senting churches, and a national school. Pop. (1851) 1547.
NEW FOREST. See Hampshire.
NEWFOUNDLAND, an island belonging to Great
Britain, in the N. Atlantic Ocean, off the E. coast of North
America, and forming the most of the eastern boundary of
the Gulf of St Lawrence. It lies between N. Lat. 46. 38.
and 51. 37., W. Long. 52. 44. and 59. 31.; and is separated
from Labrador by the Straits of Belleisle, about 12 miles
broad; and on the S.W. it approaches within 70 miles of
North Point, in Cape Breton Island. Its form is generally
triangular, but extremely irregular. Its area is about 36,000
square miles, and its coast line is estimated at nearly 1000
miles in length.
This vast island reposes upon an immense bank, a con- Surface of
tinuation of which has been observed all the way to Nova the coun-
Scotia. It is apparently a mass of solid rock, having a very try-
wild and rugged appearance from the sea, and being any¬
thing but inviting. On its south-eastern quarter Newfound¬
land is formed into a peninsula of about 80 miles in length,
by from 15 to 60 in breadth ; the isthmus which unites
it with the mainland being not more than 4 miles in breadth.
This peninsula is called Avalon. To the N. of it, and on
the eastern side of the island, lies Trinity Bay, which is
separated from that of Bonavista by a narrow neck of land,
the point of which is Cape Bonavista. A long neck of land
also divides Trinity Bay from Conception Bay on the
northern side of Avalon. This bay ranks as the first dis¬
trict in Newfoundland, as well on account of the spirit and
enterprise of the inhabitants who people its shores, as from
its natural advantages of large harbours, coves, and the like.
The scenery on this part of the coast is majestic, wild, and
calculated to strike the beholder with awe. About 20
miles from Cape St Francis, the eastern boundary of Con¬
ception, are the bay and harbour of St John’s, the capital
of Newfoundland. A succession of bays indent the coast
all round the peninsula of Avalon, the principal of which
are—Trepassey Bay, St Mary’s Bay, and Placentia Bay.
The last, about 60 miles deep and 45 broad, lies between
Cape St Mary and Cape Rouge, and contains several
harbours and islands. It is separated from Fortune Bay by
one of those long and narrow necks of land which are so
common in the island. Fortune Bay is from 60 to 70 miles
deep, and from 20 to 30 broad, receiving many rivers from
the island lakes, and containing numerous harbours, the
principal of which is Fortune Harbour, on the eastern side.
St Pierre and Miquelon Islets are situated at the mouth of
Fortune Bay. They were ceded to France in the year
1814, and the former contains a harbour which is the ren¬
dezvous of the French shipping, and the residence of the
governor. From this point, all along the south side of New¬
foundland to Cape Ray, which forms the N.E. entrance of
the Gulf of St Lawrence, there are numerous bays, but none
of sufficient size or importance to require particular descrip¬
tion. On the western side, formed by Cape Anguille and
Cape St George, is the Bay of St George, a large and deep
inlet of the sea, into which several rivers, emerging from
lakes in the interior, empty themselves. Further to the
NEWFOUNDLAND.
Newfound- north is the Bay of Islands, formed by three arms, into
land, which several rivers discharge their waters. One of
these, called the Humber, is the most considerable yet dis¬
covered, its course having been traced for 114 miles to the
north-westward, where it issues from a lake between 50
and 60 miles in length. As its name would indicate, this
bay contains a number of islands, but none of any parti¬
cular consequence. The next large indentation of the sea
on the western side of Newfoundland is Bonne Bay, which
has also rivers communicating with the lakes in the interior.
I he next bay is called Ingornachoix Bay, which contains
two harbours; and to the north of it is St John’s Bay,
which receives the waters of Castor’s River. Along the
Straits of Belleisle, which separate Newfoundland from the
coast of Labrador, are a few inconsiderable inlets; but
beyond Cape Norman, the N.W. point of the island,
js a large bay called Pistolet Bay; and further to the
S. is Hare Bay, a deep gulf, the bottom of which intersects
the island for two-thirds of its breadth at this point, branch¬
ing oft into innumerable bays and coves, sheltered by lofty
hills. From this haven to White Bay, a very large inlet
of the sea on the eastern side of the island, and thence to
Cape St John, the coast is indented at short distances by
commodious and much-frequented harbours. The Bay of
Notre Dame and the Bay of Exploits are of great extent,
and contain a vast number of islands, together with a thriv¬
ing settlement called Twilingate. The River Exploits is
about 70 miles long, but its navigation is obstructed by
rapids, some of which have a velocity of nearly 10 miles an
hour. This river connects the Red Indian Lake, a large
sheet of water in the interior, with the Atlantic. From
Cape St John to Cape Freels the coast is a continuation
of ledges, shallows, islands, and rocks, but affords excellent
fishing-grounds. Bonavista Bay contains several islands,
and is itself indented by a number of small inlets and har-
bours. To the south of it is Catalina Bay, containing
Ragged Harbour, which completes the circuit of the island.
After the exterior aspect of Newfoundland has been de¬
scribed, the interior comes naturally to be noticed. But
this has as yet been very imperfectly explored. In 1823
a Mr Cormack succeeded in traversing its breadth from
Conception Bay on the east to St George’s Bay on the
west; and from his account it appears, that this portion of
it at least is much intersected with lakes and rivers, but
poorly wooded, and of a rocky and barren soil. In this
respect the island differs greatly from the other North
American colonies, producing little timber but what is
dwarf and stunted, except on the margins of bays and
rivers, where spruce, birch, and poplar sometimes grow to
a considerable size. Several high hills occur near the
centre of the island, and the inland country is represented
as generally undulating, so that lakes, rocks, marshes, and
occasional elevations, with little or no vegetation, consti¬
tute its characteristic features. The geologv of Newfound¬
land is nearly the same as that of the coast of Labrador.
J be prevailing formation is granite; but porphyry, syenite,
trap, gneiss, raica} clay-slate, and other strata are also found.
he island, it appears, abounds with minerals of various sorts.
Loal and lime have been wrought in more than one part
with some success ; and there is little doubt as to the ex-
liSvU 0,ftlC0PPer’ iron> and other mines, but it is not
y la le.y are very Productive. There are excellent
u!T nf tEUameS nfar U ape Ray> and there is also a quan-
tliJ i c rninend called marcasite, or iron pyrites, which
the early d^coverers mistook for real gold.
taliTvllflTV1?01^11 SeVere’is healthy; the rate of mor-
Md mlv a,"y Part °f the “Minent of America;
and many of the inhabitants attain to a great ao-e. The
of AnriD n 16 beS.inning of December to the middle
of April, and the most intense cold occurs in the months
of January and February. During this period, owing to the
171
Geology.
Climate.
clearness of the atmosphere, the brightness of the stars and Newfound-
northern lights have an exceedingly beautiful appearance land.
Ihe snow does not lie long on the ground, and the cold is
not so great as in Canada. The summer is short, but mild
and pleasant; though the heat is sometimes great in that
season.
The most remarkable feature connected with Newfound¬
land is the fogs which prevail on its coasts. Those of the
Gulf of St Lawrence are attributed to the coldness of the
gulf-waters, which is supposed to be permanent a few feet
below the surface, as well as at great depths. The fogs
on the banks of Newfoundland are undoubtedly chiefly due
to the meeting, in that point, of the cold air transported
along with the polar current with the warm atmosphere
over the gulf-stream. On the great bank the surface of the
water is many degrees colder than it is in the neighbouring
sea, and much less than that of the Gulf-stream, which is
within a short distance of it.
The soil of Newfoundland in the vicinity of the rivers Soil,
and lakes is generally rich and fertile, but it is covered in
many places with a thick coating of moss; and in the
eastern and southern parts of the island there are many
tracts which are very sterile, and can only be made pro¬
ductive by constant manuring. The amount of cultivated
land in the island, according to the census taken in 1845,
was 82,259 acres.
The most valuable vegetable productions are potatoes products,
and cabbages; and, next to these, turnips, carrots, parsnips,
radishes, and other garden roots, yield the most abundant
crops. There were in the island, according to the census
of 1845, 2409 horses, 8135 horned cattle, 5750 sheep, and
5791 goats. Carriboo deer, beavers, foxes, wolves, and
bears abound; as well as the well-known Newfoundland dog,
the true breed of which has become very scarce. Besides
the great staple of the island, fish, which is here understood
to mean cod, the numerous large and small sheets of water
abound in divers kinds of excellent trout and eels of a great
size ; and lobsters, lance, herrings, mackerel, and salmon, are
in great abundance ; plaice, sole, halibut, and thornback, are
likewise found on the coast. The capelin arrives periodically
in such immense shoals as to change the colour of the sea.
Herrings likewise arrive during spring and autumn in
prodigious numbers. As a product of the coast may be
mentioned kelp, which, with other sea-weed, is used as
manure.
The importance of this colony has exclusively arisen from
its fisheries. The different settlements are scattered prin¬
cipally on the shores of the eastern and southern sides of
the island, but especially on the former. They are gene¬
rally formed at the heads of the bays, particularly Concep¬
tion Bay, thence to St John’s, and southward to Cape Race.
The principal are, besides St John’s, the Bay of Bulls,
Brigus, Cape Broyle Harbour, Ferryland, Fermore, and
Renowes. St John’s, the capital of the island, is a place of St John’s,
considerable strength, situated about 70 miles to the N. of
Cape Race; N. Lat. 47. 35., W. Long. 52. 48. The har¬
bour is one of the best in Newfoundland, being formed be¬
tween two mountains, the eastern points of which leave an
entrance, called the Narrows. This is the only assailable
part, but it is so well defended that any vessel attempting
to force an entrance would inevitably be destroyed. There
is about 12 fathoms of water in the middle of the channel,
with tolerably good anchorage-ground. The most lofty
perpendicular precipices rise to an amazing height upon
the north side, and the southern shore appears less striking
in its altitude, only from a comparison with the opposite
rocks. There is a light shown every night on the left side
of the entrance, where there are also a small battery and a
signal-post. Other batteries of greater strength appear
towering above the rocky eminences towards the north. At
about two-thirds of the distance between the entrance and
172 N E W F O U
Newfound- what may properly be termed the harbour itself, there is a
land. dangerous shelf called the Pancake, opposite the Chain Rock,
so called from a chain which, in time of war, extends across
the strait at that place, to prevent the admission of any
hostile fleet. There are other fortifications besides those
already noticed, planted upon the heights around the town,
so as to render St John’s perfectly secure against any sud¬
den attack. Fort Townshend is situated immediately over
the town, and is the usual residence of the governor. Forts
Amherst and William are more to the north ; and there is
also a small battery perched on the top of a single pyramidal
mount, called the Crow’s Nest. The town itself consists
chiefly of one long straggling street, extending nearly par¬
allel to the shore on the north side of the port, from which
branch out several narrow lines of houses, that can only be
called lanes. The houses are chiefly built of wood, although
diversified by some of brick and a few of stone ; but they
are somewhat irregularly placed, although the town has
been much improved in this respect since the fire of 1846.
The principal feature of the town consists in its multitude
of wharves and fishing stages, which entirely line the shore.
The government wharf is a fine broad quay, open to the ac¬
commodation of the public. St John’s has repeatedly and
severely suffered from fires. In 1815 a great amount of
property was destroyed by a visitation of this sort. Other
conflagrations took place in 1817 and 1818; and in 1846 the
town was again almost destroyed by fire. 1 here are nine
places of public worship of various denominations at St
John’s, several school-houses, and numerous literary, scien¬
tific, and benevolent institutions. The town has a brewery,
a distillery, a flour-mill, and a foundry. The number of
vessels that entered the port in 1851 was 842, and their
tonnage 103,016. Those that cleared in the same year
were 703, and their tonnage 91,191. The trade of the
place consists principally in the export of dried fish, and
of seal, whale, and cod oil; and in the import of bread,
flour, tea, sugar, and other necessaries of life. The resident
population is about 19,000, and the fishermen amount to
about 6000.
The following table shows the quantities of dried cod
and seal-oil exported from Newfoundland for each year
from 1851 to 1855, a quintal of fish being 100 lb.:—
Years. Dried cod. Seal-oil.
1851   1,017,152 quintals. 6968 tons.
1852   972,921 „ 7333 „
1853   922,718 „ 8137 „
1854     774,117 „ 5667 „
1855   1,107,388 „ 3760 „
The number of vessels that entered in 1855 was 1185,
and their tonnage 150,603 ; those that cleared were 1017,
and their tonnage 137,513. The total value of the im¬
ports in the same year was L.1,152,804; and that of the
exports L.1,142,212. The government of the island is in
the hands of a lieutenant-governor, with a yearly salary of
L.3000, assisted by an executive council, not exceeding
seven in number, appointed by himself. The legislature
consists of a legislative council, above ten and below fifteen
in number, appointed by the Crown, and a house of as¬
sembly of thirty members, elected by the people. The
constitution received its present form in 1854, and at the
same time the system of responsible government was estab¬
lished. The public revenue in 1855 was L. 126,449, and
the expenditure L. 120,926. The public debt of the colony
in the same year amounted to a total of L.150,000. The
judicial establishments of the island comprise a supreme
court, composed of one chief and two assistant judges;
and three circuit-courts for the Northern, Central, and
Southern divisions of the island. No religious establish¬
ment is supported by the public funds, but the bishop of
Newfoundland receives a salary of L.300 a-year from the
N D L A N D.
British Treasury, the remainder of the provision for the Newfound-
episcopate being supplied by the Society for the Propaga- land.
tion of the Gospel. There were in 1855 forty ministers  v 
of the Protestant Episcopal church in Newfoundland and
the coast of Labrador, and sixty-six churches. 1 he Ro¬
man Catholics, in the same year, had forty-nine churches ;
the Wesleyans thirty-seven churches, forty preaching sta¬
tions and thirteen missionaries; and the Established
Church of Scotland, the Free Church, and the Congrega-
tionalists, had each a place of worship at St John’s. A con¬
siderable part of the public money is devoted to the pur¬
poses of education; and this sum amounted in 1855 to
L.8871. The number of schools aided by these grants
was 219, and the number of scholars 13,602. The sum
expended for benevolent purposes in the same year was
L.17,787; and the principal charitable institutions are an
hospital and lunatic asylum at St John’s.
When Newfoundland was first visited it was found to
contain two distinct races of aborigines; the one termed
Red Indians, and the other Esquimaux. Both are now
almost extinct; the former, it is supposed, is entirely so,
as deadly feuds were waged between them and the early
settlers. Besides, the Mic-mac Indians, who were intro¬
duced into the island from Cape Breton and Nova Scotia,
carried on with the Red Indians an exterminating war5>
which proved far more fatal to them than the hostilities of
the Europeans. A female of this tribe was captured in
1818, and from her a vocabulary of their language was ob¬
tained.
Without dwelling upon the tradition which represents
Newfoundland as having been settled at a very early period
by one Biron, a sea-king or pirate of Iceland, we have
authentic evidence of its re-discovery by John Cabot, on
the 24th June 1497. Sailing under the commission of
Henry VII. in these seas, he descried a headland, which,
as a lucky omen, he called Bonavista, a name which it still
retains. It was at that time inhabited by native Indians,
three of whom he brought home, clothed in skins, and
speaking a language which no person understood. It was
afterwards visited by navigators from France and Portugal,
who, reporting favourably of the abundance and excellency
of its cod fishery, European fishermen were soon attracted
to its coasts. In 1536 an English vessel attempted to win¬
ter upon the island, but the crew nearly perished from star¬
vation. Not deterred by this failure, however, nor by that
of a former attempt, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, in 1583, landed
on the island with 200 followers, and, under a patent of
Queen Elizabeth, took quiet possession of the country.
Being, however, desirous of prosecuting his discoveries, his
crews became disaffected, and, having separated into two
parties, one of them returned home. Most of those who
followed him were lost in a gale of wind off the Sable
Island, and the remainder perished, along with himself, on
their voyage homewards. Subsequent attempts were made
to explore and settle Newfoundland, but it was not until
the year 1623 that the first colony was established under
Sir George Calvert, afterwards Lord Baltimore. His son
was made governor of the colony, which he named Avalon
and soon afterwards proceeding thither himself, it increased
and flourished under his auspices. Other individuals ob¬
tained grants of land; and, about the year 1654, fifteen
settlements, comprehending 300 families, had been ma e
on the island, notwithstanding the constant bickerings
between the English and French, the latter having
established a colony at Placentia. On the breaking out
of the war after the accession of William III., these assume
a more serious character, and, after various recrimina¬
tions, St John’s was compelled to surrender to the French
in 1696. The captors set fire to the fort and town, and
destroyed most of the British settlements. To repair
these losses, our government despatched a squadron ; but
I
NEW
New the cowardice of one commander, and the ignorance of
Granada another, frustrated the design. The re-establishment of
peace put an end to hostilities for the time ; but they were
Hampshire.resume^ in 1702, during which year several of the French
i settlements were destroyed, and a great many fishing-boats
were burned or captured. In the following year an expe¬
dition miscarried, and this circumstance encouraged the
French to attempt the conquest of the whole island in
1705. For this purpose 500 men were despatched from
Canada to the assistance of the garrison of Placentia, who,
though repulsed from St John’s, extended their ravages
over the different settlements as far as Bonavista. In the
year 1708 the French completely demolished the town of
St John’s ; and, shortly afterwards, Carbonia, the only set¬
tlement ot consequence remaining in our hands, wras par¬
tially destroyed. From this time until the conclusion of
the peace of Utrecht, the French remained in quiet pos¬
session of Newfoundland; but, by this treaty, the island,
with all the adjacent ones, was declared to belong to Great
Britain, the French being only allowed the use of the two
islets of St Pierre and Miquelon. The revolutionary war
in America occasioned fresh disputes as to the right of
fishing upon the banks of Newfoundland. The New Eng¬
landers had hitherto enjoyed the right of taking fish, and
on this being resisted, they retaliated, by refusing to supply
the colony with many articles of provision upon which it
depended. This dispute was settled by the treaty of Ver¬
sailles in 1 /83, by which it was stipulated that the inhabi¬
tants ot the United States should have liberty to take fish
of every kind on the coast of Newfoundland, but not to
dry or cure their fish upon the island. Pop. (1845) 96,864;
(1850) estimated at more than 100,000.
NEW GRANADA. See Granada, New.
NEW HAMPSHIRE, one of the United States of
North America, is bounded on the N. by Canada, E. and
S.E. by Maine and the Atlantic Ocean, S. by Massa¬
chusetts, and W. by Vermont. It lies between 42. 41.
and 45. 25. N. Eat., and between 70. 40. and 72. 35. W.
Long.; extending in length about 185 miles, whilst its
average breadth is about 50 miles, and its area is computed
at 9280 miles. On the map its shape nearly resembles a
wedge inserted between the states of Maine and Vermont,
and having Massachusetts for its base. The line of coast
is indented with small inlets of the sea, and skirted by a
narrow sandy plain. At no great distance the country
swells into a mountainous region, and New Hampshire has
justly been called the “ State of Hills,” and also the “ Granite
State.” Mount Washington, the highest peak of the White
Mountain range, has a height of 6226 feet; and is thus,
with the exception of Mount Mitchell, in North Carolina,
the highest mountain in the Union E. of the Mississippi.
Between the Merrimack and the Connecticut are situated
many considerable mountains; the names of the principal
heights being Monadnock, 3718 feet high; Kearsarge, 3067
feet; Car’s Mountain, 1381 feet; and Moosehillock, 4636
feet. As a whole, the physiognomy of New Hampshire is
bold and prominent, and, although rugged, often sublime in
the highest degree. The mountains of the state are in the
centre, with a zone ol finely-diversified hill and dale country
around, the hills consisting generally of stony and moist
land, and affording excellent pasturage. The geological
structure of the mountains of New Hampshire consists
princqjally of granite and mica slate; the former predomi¬
nating among the White Mountains, and the latter among
t ie e evations farther to the S. The mineral resources of
the state are considerable. Iron has been found in great
a umance in many parts of the country; and there are
also mines of copper, tin, lead, and zinc. Granite is
more abundant here than in any of the other states; and
ne mai i e has bfeen found in considerable quantities,
i he general slope of the state is from N. to S., and in
173
NEW
that direction the most of the rivers flow. Of these the New
principal are—the Connecticut, which forms the boundary Hampshire,
between this state and that of Vermont; the Merrimack v-*-'
flowing through the middle of the state ; the Piscataqua in
the S.E.; and the Androscoggin, which flows for the greater
part of its course in the state of Maine. The principal lake
in New Hampshire is Lake Winnipiseogee, which is of an
in egular shape, about 25 miles in length, and varying from
1 to 10 in breadth. Its depth is great, and the scenery is
very picturesque and beautiful. There are also many
smaller lakes, of which Umbagog, on the confines of Maine,
Connecticut Lake, and Squam Lake, are the chief. The
whole surface of the water in this state is estimated to
amount to 110,000 acres. J he climate of New Hampshire
is severe, but less variable than that of Maine and of the
other northern states. The winters are long, and the snow
lies from November till April, and sometimes till May;
while the mountains are covered with snow for the greater
part of the year. The spring is generally wet and foggy,
but great heat is often experienced in the summer, when
the thermometer sometimes stands above 100°. The soil
is in general not very fertile; but the labour and industry
of the people have succeeded in rendering it productive of
many valuable crops. The richest portions are those along
the banks of the rivers, especially the Connecticut. The
uplands afford good pasture ground; and the whole country,
notwithstanding its few natural advantages, has a rich and
flourishing appearance. The lower slopes of the mountains
are thickly covered with forests of oak, pine, beech, maple,
walnut, &c.; while on the lower regions elm, ash, birch,
poplar, and other trees abound. The amount of cultivated
land in the state in 1850 was 2,251,488 acres; and during
the year ending June 1, 1850, the produce was 185,658
bushels wheat; 183,117 rye; 1,573,670 maize; 973,381
oats ; 70,856 peas and beans ; 65,265 buckwheat; 70,256
barley; 4,304,919 potatoes; 1,108,476 lb. wool; 6,977,056
butter; 3,196,o63 cheese; 257,174 hops; 7652 flax;
1,298,863 maple sugar; 117,140 bees’wax and honey;
598,854 tons hay; L.51,781 orchard produce; and L.11,833
market-garden produce. The number of horses in the
same year was 34,233 ; milch cows, 94,277; working oxen,
59,02 /; other cattle, 114,606; sheep, 384,756; and swine,
63,487; while the total value of live stock in the state was
L.1,848,310. The state of New Hampshire is actively
engaged in manufactures; for which great conveniences
are afforded by the water power which is furnished by the
different rivers and streams. There were in 1850,3301
manufactories in the state, of which 44 were cotton factories,
employing 2911 male, and 9211 female hands, having a
capital of L.2,280,000, consuming L. 1,008,210 of raw
material, and producing 113,106,247 yards of cotton and
140,700 lb. of yarn, valued at L.1,839,708; 61 woollen
factories, employing 926 male, and 1201 female hands,
having a capital of L.507,850, consuming L.264,023 of raw
material, and producing 9,712,840 yards of cloth and
165,200 lb. of yarn, valued at L.443,277; 29 iron-foun¬
dries, furnaces, &c., employing 390 hands, having a capital
L.49,/00, consuming L.39,073 of raw material, and pro¬
ducing 6074 tons of iron, valued at L.80,850; and 163
tanneries, having a capital of L.92,076, consuming L.l 12,867
of raw material, and producing leather valued at L.187,586.
Ship-building is carried on to a considerable extent in New
Hampshire; and the number of vessels built in 1852 was
14, with an aggregate tonnage of 9515. The whole of the
vessels owned in the state in the same year had a tonnage
ol 24,891, of which 2283 tons were engaged in the cod and
mackerel fishing. The trade of the state is very incon¬
siderable, as there is only one port of entry in the state,
viz., Portsmouth; while there are few rivers capable of
affording facilities for inland navigation. The tonnage of
the vessels that entered in 1850 was 11,044; of those that
174
NEW
NEW
New cleared 8213. The number of vessels built in the state in
v amps the year ending June 30, 1856 was 10, and their tonnage
v~"- 10,395. Ihe total value of exports for the same year was
L.1097, and of imports L.5068.
The government of the state is in the hands of a gover¬
nor, who is appointed annually by the people, and has a
salary of L.208. He is assisted by an executive council of
5 members; and there is also a senate of 12, and a house
of representatives of 286 members, popularly elected. The
judicial establishment consists of a supreme court, composed
of a chief justice and four associates, and of a court of com¬
mon pleas, having one chief justice and two associates.
Ihe supreme court has exclusive jurisdiction in criminal
cases; and there is a right of appeal to it from the court
of common pleas in civil cases where the matter in dispute
exceeds L.20 in value. For legal purposes, the state is
divided into five districts, in each of which the supreme
court holds two annual terms. The amount of the public
income for the year ending June 2, 1857, was L.43,636,
and the expenditure for the same year was L.40,187. The
total value of the taxable property in New Hampshire in
1856 was L.25,239,460; and in June 1857 the total num¬
ber of banks in the state was 52, their aggregate capital
L.1,048,185, and their circulation L.741,302. There were
also at that time 20 savings-banks, of which the deposits
were L.802,115, and the total means L.843,332. There
are numerous railways in the state, crossing it in various
directions, and communicating with the principal towns of
New England. The total length of all the lines in opera¬
tion in January 1857 was 480 miles. There are also seve¬
ral canals in New Hampshire; and telegraphs have been
established between the principal towns. The number of
churches in the state in 1850 was 602, being one for every
528 inhabitants ; and of these the Baptists owned 180; the
Christians 23; the Congregationalists 172; the Episco¬
palians 11; the Quakers 15 ; the Methodists 99; the Pres¬
byterians 13; the Union Church 32; the Unitarians 13;
the Universalists 36, &c. The total value of church pro¬
perty was L.291,995. The interests of education in the
state are committed to the care of a board of commissioners
from the several counties. The number of scholars in 1856
during the winter was 67,103; and in summer 58,203.
The number of teachers was 1077 male, and 3042 female.
The amount of money raised by taxation for schools was
L.44,230; and the whole amount expended for district
schools during the year 1856 was L.53,908. There were,
in the same year, 89 academies and private schools in the
state; and also a college at Hanover, with 16 professors,
251 students, and a library of 31,900 volumes; three
theological schools belonging to Methodists, Congregation-
ahsts, and Baptists, having in all 99 students; and one
medical school, having 5 professors, and 50 students. The
principal charitable institution of the state is the lunatic
asylum at Concord, which was opened in 1843, and has
at present 170 inmates. It is supported by the public
funds; and the receipts in 1857 amounted to L.5638 and
the expenditure to L.5502. There is also a house of re¬
formation for female and juvenile offenders, and a state
prison at Concord. The earliest settlements in this part of
the country were made by Mason and Gorges, who obtained
in 1622, from James I., a grant of the land between the
Merrimack and the Kennebec; and, in the following year
colonies were planted at Portsmouth and Dover. In 164l’
the colonists placed themselves under the protection of
Massachusetts, of which colony they continued to form a
part until 1679, when their country became a royal pro¬
vince. It was, however, afterwards united with Massachu¬
setts ; and was finally, in 1749, made an independent colony.
New Hampshire suffered very much at one period from
the inroads of the Indians; but having escaped this danger,
t le colony rapidly increased in wealth and population.
Although this state took an active part in the war of New
the American revolution, no important battles were fought Haven
within its territory, either at that time, or during the war ||
of 1812. The capital of the state is Concord. Pop. ^ewhaven.
(1850) 317,976.
NEW HAVEN, a town of the United States of North
America, state of Connecticut, pleasantly situated on a
plain at the head of New Haven Bay, an inlet of Lono-
Island Sound, 76 miles N.E. of New York, and 160 S.W.
of Boston. The plain on which it stands slopes gradually
to the sea, and is bounded on the other three sides by hills,
which on the E. and W. form steep and rugged precipices,
from 300 to 400 feet high. Three small rivers traverse the
plain from N. to S.; the Quinepiack on the E., the Mill
River which joins the former near its mouth, and the West
River; and these rivers are crossed by several bridges. The
town is regularly laid out, and very handsomely built; the
streets are broad, and in general lined with rows of fine
elms; and in the centre there is a public park, surrounded
and intersected by numerous avenues of elms. On account
of this conspicuous feature, New Haven has been called
the “ City of Elms.” There are also several other squares ;
and the public burial-ground is beautifully adorned with
trees, shrubs, and flowers. 1 he state house is a handsome
building of brick, covered with stucco, in the Grecian
style, and contains halls for the legislature and courts of
law. There are about 22 churches, many of which are re¬
markable for neatness and elegance. Of these 8 are Con¬
gregational, 4 Episcopal, 4 Methodist, 2 Baptist, 2 Roman
Catholic, 1 Universalist, and 1 Jewish synagogue. There
is also a handsome state hospital, built of stone, and placed
on a rising ground. Yale College, which is next to Har¬
vard, the principal university in the United States, was
founded in 1700, and transferred to New Haven in 1717.
It has extensive buildings, partly of brick and partly of
stone; and that which contains the library is a handsome
Gothic structure. It has 24 professors, 365 students, and
a library of 63,500 volumes. There are at present five
departments in this college—those of arts, divinity, medicine,
law, and science. Yale College has a valuable museum of
mineralogy and geology, which is the finest of the sort in
the United States, and surpassed by few in the world.
New Haven has also numerous schools which enjoy a high
reputation, and several literary and scientific societies. It
is connected by railway with the principal places in the
surrounding country; and steamers ply daily between this
and New York. The railway station for all the lines that
lead to the town is a handsome building of brick with
towers. The harbour is large and safe, but the shallowness
of the water prevents the entrance of large vessels; and,
though a long quay has been built into the centre, the
continual accumulation of sand at the bottom has neutralized
all the benefit that might have been derived from this erec¬
tion. The trade of the port is chiefly with the West In¬
dies, and mules form one of the principal articles of export.
I he number of vessels that entered from foreign parts in
the year ending June 30, 1852, was 110, and the tonnage
21,356; those that cleared were 108, and the tonnage
20,580. The manufactures of the town are considerable;
and the principal articles produced are carriages, clocks,
India-rubber goods, boots, shoes, and hardware. Pop.
(1850) 22,529; (1853) about 23,000.
NEWHAVEN, a village of Scotland, county of Mid-
Lothian, on the shore of the Firth of Forth, 2 miles N.
of Edinburgh. It consists for the most part of poor
houses, inhabited by a fishing population; but there have
been recently erected many handsome houses and villas,
which are chiefly used as seaside residences. There are
here an Established and a Free church; and a stone pier,
which is convenient for small fishing-boats. Pop. 2103.
Newhaven, a town and parish of England, county ot
NEW
tfew Ire- Sussex, near the mouth of the Ouse, 8 miles E.S.E. of
land Brighton. It has a parish church, a dissenting church, and
II a national school. The harbour has recently been much
few Jer- jmproved, and it is now considered the best between the
e^' j Downs and the Isle of Wight. Steam-packets sail regularly
from this to Dieppe, performing the passage in four or five
hours. Pop. (1851) 1260.
NEW IRELAND, an island in the South Pacific Ocean,
between S. Lat. 2. 40. and 4. 52.; E. Long. 150. 30. and
152. 50. It is separated from New Britain on the S.W. by
St George’s Channel, and from New Hanover on the N.W.
by Byron’s Straits. It is about 200 miles long by 12 in
average breadth; and the coasts are indented by several
small harbours. The surface is hilly, the elevations attain¬
ing a height of 1500 or 2000 feet; but they are all covered
with forests of bread-fruit, cocoa, and other trees. The
lower parts are well cultivated, and produce the sugar-cane,
the banana, yams, &c. Dogs, pigs, and turtles, are the chief
animals. The inhabitants, like those of the neighbouring
island of New Britain, belong to the race of Australian
negroes. For a description of them see Australasia.
Fancy woods and tortoise-shell seem to be the only articles
of commercial value to be obtained in this island.
NEW JERSEY, one of the United States of North
America, lying between N. Lat. 38. 55. and 41. 21., and
W. Long. 73. 58. and 75. 29.; and bounded on the N. by
New York; E. by the Hudson River and Staten Sound,
which separate it from New York, and by the Atlantic;
S.E. by the Atlantic; S.W. by Delaware Bay; and W. by
the River Delaware, which separates it from the states of
Delaware and Pennsylvania. Its length from N. to S. is
about 168 miles; its breadth varies from 37 to 70 miles ; and
its area is 8320 square miles. The northern part of the
state is hilly, being crossed from S.W. to N.E. by several
branches of the Alleghany ridge. Of these the principal
are,—the Blue Mountains in the extreme N.W., Schooley’s
Mountain, the Trowbridge range, and First Mountain, further
to the S.E. These hills, though not remarkable for their
height, present in general a bold and picturesque appear¬
ance, and inclose beautiful and fertile valleys, containing
some of the best land in the state. The west bank of
the Hudson is skirted for the length of 20 miles by a ridge
of rocks called the Palisades or Cloister Hill, which in some
places rises steeply above the river to the height of 200
feet. The middle part of the state is the most agricultural
portion, and has a rich and beautiful appearance. That part
of New Jersey which lies S. of Trenton and Raritan Bay
consists of a flat sandy plain, never rising above 60 feet
from the sea level, except to the S.E. of Raritan Bay, where
the Nevisink Hills rise to the height of 300 or 400 feet,
and present a conspicuous object to the navigator as he
leaves the harbour of New York. From the low sandy
promontory called Sandy Hook, opposite to the entrance
of New York Harbour, to Cape May, which forms the
eastern boundary of Delaware Bay, the whole coast con¬
sists of a low sandy shore, having in some places, inlets and
long, narrow, and shallow lagoons. The heavy surf of the
Atlantic is constantly beating against this beach, and the
form of the coast-line is being constantly changed. The
principal inlets on this coast are Barnegat Bay, Little Egg
Harbour, Gieat Bay, and Great Egg Harbour. Further
inland there is a tract of salt marsh, which gradually gives
place to the sandy plain of the interior. The shores of
Delaware Bay are skirted by a similar salt marsh ; but along
the left bank of the River Delaware the land is more ele¬
vated, and a branch of the mountains of Pennsylvania
crosses the river at Trenton, and forms, by a ledge of rock
over which the waters roll, the Falls of Trenton.
I he rivers of New Jersey, with the exception of the
Hudson and Delaware, which merely bound the state, are
not of great size. The Hackensack from the north, and
NEW 175
the Passaic, which follows a circuitous course from the New Jer-
west, fall into Newark Bay ; the former being navigable for 8ey*
small vessels to the distance of 15 miles, and the latter to that
of 10 miles from the sea. The Passaic is remarkable for its
falls near the village of Paterson, which are situated in the
midst of wild and beautiful scenery; but the volume of
water has been much diminished by being carried off for
mills, and it is only in times of flood that the full magni¬
ficence of the cataract can be seen. The Raritan, from the
west of the state, falls into the bay of the same name, and
is navigable for 17 miles ; the Great and Little Egg Har¬
bour rivers fall into the Atlantic, and the Maurice falls into
Delaware Bay, each being navigable for about 20 miles;
and there are also numerous rivers, but none navigable,
which discharge themselves into the Delaware. The hills
in the north of the state consist for the most part of sand¬
stone towards the west, and of gneiss towards the east;
while in the valleys of this region are found strata of slate,
sandstone, and limestone. The central and southern re¬
gions belong to the chalk formation, and contain beds of
marl, which are of great value for manure. Besides these, the
mineral riches of New Jersey consist of iron, which occurs
in great abundance in various forms ; copper, containing
in some places silver ore ; zinc, of which the mines in this
state are among the richest in the Union; slate, marble,
limestone, and granite. The soil of the country varies con¬
siderably in different parts; the central and southern re¬
gions, though not naturally rich in soil, may be easily made
to produce excellent crops of wheat, maize, and potatoes ;
while the northern portions, though not very fertile, are
well adapted both for agriculture and pasturage. The cold¬
ness of the climate is moderated in the south by the neigh¬
bourhood of the ocean ; while in the north it resembles that
of the south of the state of New York and the north of
Pennsylvania. The mean temperature at Lambertville of
the warmest month (July) for the year ending 30th June
1852 was 820,43; that of the coldest month (January),
30o,74. The greatest heat in the same year was 97°, the
greatest cold 16°‘5, and the mean temperature of the year
57°'82. The central and southern parts of the state con¬
tain extensive forests of pine, much of which is used for
charcoal, and sold at Philadelphia. There are also cedar
swamps in the south of New Jersey; and the principal other
trees that occur here are oak, hickory, sycamore, dogwood,
&c. The quantity of cultivated land in the state in 1850
was 1,767,991 acres; and the produce in that year com¬
prised 1,601,190 bushels of wheat, 1,255,578 of rye,
8,759,704 of maize, 3,378,063 of oats, 14,174 of peas and
beans, 3,715,261 of potatoes, 874,934 of buckwheat, 91,331
of grass seeds, 375,396 lb. of wool, 9,487,210 of butter,
565,756 of cheese, 182,965 of flax, 156,694 of bees’
wax, 453,950 tons of hay, L.126,511 worth of orchard
produce, and L.99,006 worth of market produce. The
number of horses in New Jersey in the same year was
63,955 ; of milch cows, 118,736 ; of working oxen, 12,070 ;
of other cattle, 80,455 ; of asses and mules, 4089; of sheep,
160,488 ; of swine, 250,370; and the total value of the live
stock was L.2,224,848. The state of New Jersey is, con¬
sidering its population, extensively engaged in manufactur¬
ing industry. In 1850 there were 4374 manufactories, each
annually producing goods to the value of L.100 and up¬
wards. Of these, 21 were cotton factories, employing 616
male and 1096 female hands, having a capital of L.309,060,
consuming L.138,880 worth of raw material, and producing
8,122,580 yards of cloth, and 2,000,000 lb. of yarn, valued
at L.301,148; 41 woollen factories, employing 411 male,
and 487 female hands, having a capital of L.102,970, con¬
suming L. 114,296 worth of raw material, and producing
771,100 yards of cloth, and 350,000 lb. of yarn, valued at
L.242,590; 108 furnaces, forges, &c., employing 1996
hands, having a capital of L.536,891, consuming L.198,894
Govern¬
ment.
NEW
worth of raw material, and producing 42,452 tons of cast
and wrought iron, valued at L.390,881 ; 133 tanneries, with
a capital of L.119,342, consuming L.88,237 worth of raw
material, and producing leather valued at L.150,928 ; be¬
sides numerous breweries and distilleries, producing 34,750
barrels of ale, and 1,250,530 gallons of whisky and wine.
The state of New Jersey, as it lies directly between the
two largest cities of the United States, New \ork, and
Philadelphia, is traversed by several lines of railway, which
have in general for their object the connection of New York
with Pennsylvania. In January 1857 the length of the
railways in the state was 492 miles. There are also several
canals, the total length of which amounts to 145 miles.
The foreign trade of New Jersey is not very great; for,
though it is bordered on one side by the sea, and on two
sides by navigable rivers, and though there are several sea¬
ports within its limits, the neighbouring great cities and
harbours of New York and Philadelphia carry off most of
the direct commerce to these places. The exports for the
year ending June 30, 1856, amounted to L.80, and the im¬
ports for the same year were L.576. There is, however,
an important internal and transit trade carried on through
this state. The number of ships built in the state in the
same year was 75, and their tonnage 9543. There were, in
January 1857, 46 banks, with an aggregate capital of
L.1,371,406, and a circulation of L.991,533.
The executive power in the state is in the hands of a
governor, who is elected by the people for three years, and
has a salary of L.374 and fees. The legislature consists of
a senate, elected for three years, composed of one member
from each county ; and a house of representatives, composed
of sixty members, annually elected. The judiciary consists
of a supreme court, composed of a chief and six associate
justices, who are appointed for a period of seven years by
the governor, with the consent of the senate. There are also
a court of errors and appeals, consisting of a chancellor,
the judges of the supreme court; and six others, appointed
in the same way for six years; a court of chancery, over
which the chancellor presides ; circuit-courts, and courts
of oyer and terminer, held thrice a year in each county by
the judges of the supreme court; and courts of common
pleas. New Jersey sends five members to the House of
Representatives of the United States. The public revenue
for 1856 was L.37,804, and the expenditure for the same
year L.37,506.
Kelipion, The number of churches in the state in 1850 was 807,
education, 0f which 107 belonged to Baptists, 66 to the Dutch Re¬
formed Church, 51 to the Episcopalians, 52 to the Quakers,
312 to the Methodists, 146 to the Presbyterians, and 21 to
the Roman Catholics. The proportion of churches to the
whole population is 1 to every 606 inhabitants. The whole
value of church property in the same year was L.737,588.
The educational establishments of the state consist of 3
colleges, having in all 72 professors, 460 students, and
33,000 volumes in their libraries ; theological seminaries of
the Presbyterian and Dutch Reformed Churches; besides
numerous lower schools, at which, in 1856, 125,035 out of
176,350 children between 3 and 18 were educated. The
whole number of teachers in the same year was 1942; and
the total amount of funds raised for purposes of education
was L. 107,132. The principal benevolent institution of
New Jersey is the state lunatic asylum, at Trenton, con¬
taining 233 patients in 1856. There is also, at the same
place, a state prison.
History. The earliest settlements in this country were made by
the Dutch, not long after their arrival in 'New York, be¬
tween 1614 and 1624. These were planted in the east of
the district, between the Hudson and Delaware ; the whole
of which was claimed by the Dutch, although the Swedes
had made some settlement in the western part of the same
country. These claims were, however, disregarded by the
New
Orleans.
N E W
British; for, in 1664, Charles II. granted to the Duke of Newmarket
York the whole of this country, and in the same year the
duke sold it to Lord Berkeley and Sir George Carteret, in
honour of the latter of whom, a native of Jersey, it re- ,
ceived the name which it still bears. The Dutch again got
possession of it in 1673, but resigned it on the conclusion
of peace in the following year. New Jersey escaped the
inroads of the savage tribes which desolated and afflicted
most of the older colonies ; but, in the war of the Revolu¬
tion, it was the scene of several victories gained by the
Americans, in most of which Washington was present.
Among these were the battle of Princeton in 1776, and
that of Monmouth in 1778. The state is divided into 20
counties; and had in 1850 a population of 489,555.
NEWMARKET, a market-town of England, partly in
the county of Cambridge, and partly in that of Suffolk, is
pleasantly situated at the foot, and on the gently sloping
side of a valley, 13 miles E. by N. of Cambridge, and 61
N. by E. of London. There is one principal street, about
three quarters of a mile long, only partially paved, but
lined with good houses, most of them modern, and many
very handsome. It has a market-house, two parish churches,
one of which is a fine building, Independent and Methodist
churches, a national and other schools, and a savings-bank.
Malt and beer are the chief manufactures. The principal
importance of Newmarket, however, is derived from horse¬
racing, for which it is the most famous place in the country.
The race-course is about 3 miles to the west of the town,
and is between 4 and 5 miles in length. There is also a
training ground on the slope of a hill to the south of New¬
market, and the town contains no less than fifteen training
establishments for horses. Races seem to have been esta¬
blished here as early as the end of the sixteenth century;
and soon afterwards, in the reign of James L, they became
a fashionable amusement. A house was erected at New¬
market for the accommodation of that monarch, which was
destroyed during the civil war, and restored in the time of
Charles II. Part of it still remains, but the rest has been
pulled down. Seven races are held during the year, which
attract a large number of visitors. Pop. (1851) 3356.
NEW ORKNEY, a group of islands in the South
Atlantic Ocean, lying between 60. and 61. S. Lat., about
675 miles S.E. of Cape Horn. The principal island is
called Mainland or Pomona, and another, called Saddle
Island, has a lofty mountain, known by the name of Noble’s
Peak, which is visible from a distance of nearly 70 miles.
The islands are all covered with high and rugged hills; and
there are found here large numbers of seals, and immense
flocks of sea-fowl. This group forms a part of New South
Shetland.
NEW ORLEANS, the commercial metropolis of Louis¬
iana, and of the south-western states of the American
Union, is situated on the left bank of the Mississippi River,
at a distance, by the windings of the river, of about 100
miles from its mouth; Lat. 29. 58. N., Long. 90. 7. W.
The position being one of commanding commercial im¬
portance, when viewed in connection with the immense
area of navigable waters (the shore lines of which, including
both banks, being estimated to be 35,000 miles in length)
which find their outlet in this direction, the city has pro¬
gressed in despite of many natural disadvantages. The
country in its immediate vicinity has been reclaimed by the
industry of man, and there is little or no land on the banks
of the river within the state of Louisiana, with an incon¬
siderable exception at Baton Rouge, which would not be
covered by the waters of the Mississippi during a consider¬
able portion of the year, were it not for the artificial em¬
bankment which, at vast labour and expense, has been
erected. This embankment or levee is 15 feet above low-
water mark at New Orleans, or 6 feet above the level of
the city, towards which it slopes almost imperceptibly, form-
New
Orleans.
Public
buildings,
&c.
Education,
religion,
&c.
NEW ORLEANS.
177
ihg a crescent-shaped quay, several miles in length, which
has scarcely a parallel in any part of the world for the advan¬
tages it affords for the landing and shipment of produce.
Along this line for 6 or 7 miles, during the season of active
business, may be seen dense forests of masts of vessels of
every nation moored three or four deep.
The city was originally laid out regularly in the form of
a parallelogram, with a front of about half a mile on the
river; but in its subsequent progress the same regularity
has not been observed. In the modern portions, however,
including the chief business parts, and what, until very
lately, was known as Lafayette, the streets are generally wide,
and the buildings large and commodious, displaying much
taste and elegance. Within a few years numerous blocks
of buildings for stores, four to six storeys in height, have
been erected; and private residences, in the upper portions
of the city and in the suburbs, are every day advancing in
number and style. Airy verandahs, large and beautiful
gardens, groves of ornamental trees, among which the
orange and the lemon scatter their fragrance and exhibit
their mellowed fruit, and the magnolia spreads its luxuriant
shades, adorn and beautify the town. There are many
spacious public squares, laid out with taste, and shaded with
beautiful trees. In one of these, originally known as the
Place D’Armes, but now changed to Jackson Square, shnib-
bery and flowers abound; vases, statuettes, and busts crown
the walks; and, in the centre, a bronze equestrian statue of
the hero of New Orleans, the work of an American artist,
rises to great height. Among the public buildings, the
New Custom-House is most notable. It has been in course
of construction about ten years, and will not be completed
for two or three years more. It will cover an area greater
than that of any public building in America, except perhaps
the Federal Capitol, and will cost several millions of dollars.
Among the finest buildings in the city are the Municipal
Hall, Odd Fellows’ Hall, Merchant Exchange, United
States’ Branch Mint, Charity Hospital, Mechanics’ Institute,
New School of Medicine, University Buildings, New Ma¬
rine Hospital, and Widows’ Home; the St Charles and St
Louis Hotels, City Hotel, banks, and Arcade ; and among
the churches, the Cathedral, St Patrick’s, the Presbyterian
church in Lafayette Square, the Episcopal in Canal Street,
and the Independent in Camp Street. The numerous
cotton-presses and markets are also on the largest scale,
possessing no inconsiderable interest. The St Charles’
Hotel is one of the most imposing structures in America,
and has been lately rebuilt upon the site of a similar building
destroyed by fire. It is capable of accommodating 800 to
1000 guests, and is said to have been built at an expense
of about L. 100,000. The public cemeteries are embel¬
lished and adorned in a style peculiar to the city.
The educational statistics of New Orleans show a larger
proportion of children at the public schools than either
Cincinnati, Baltimore, or New York. The system has been
some years in operation, and is highly honourable to the city.
Upwards of LAO,000 are annually expended upon the
public schools, and about 10,000 children are taught. The
private schools are not so numerous as in other cities, and
the means of acquiring an academical education are much
circumscribed. A university has been located at New
Orleans, with law, medical, and collegiate departments.
Ihe medical college has been in existence since 1835, and
has matriculated over 2000 students, the number being, in
1856, 200. 1 he law school was organized in 1847, and has
an average of forty to fifty students. In the collegiate de¬
partment little has yet been accomplished, there being no
sufficient organization or endowment. A chair of com¬
merce, founded by a merchant of New Orleans (Maunsel
White), is a somewhat novel feature introduced into this
university. Ihe subject of this university is again before
the legislature of the state, and it is thought that efficient
VOL. XYI.
improvement will be the result. A new medical school, New
established during the last year, affords much promise of Orleans,
excellence, and numbers many students. The medical
student has free and constant access to all the hospitals.
Of these the Charity Hospital is the chief, and is the
largest institution of the kind in America, and perhaps the
most efficiently regulated. It is an immense building, ad¬
mirably arranged and ventilated, with handsome grounds,
and acommodation for 1000 patients at one time. Amono-
the other hospitals are the Naval, on the opposite bank of
the river, Stone’s, the Franklin Infirmary, and a new mili¬
tary hospital in course of construction.
There are at New Orleans an academy of sciences, which
meets regularly for discussion and reports; a lyceum con¬
nected with the public schools, where lectures and addresses
from distinguished men are frequently delivered ; and, con¬
nected with these schools, a library of 10,000 volumes, well
selected, in all departments of literature and science. A
free public library attached to the Mechanics’ Institute
was lately destroyed by fire. Newspapers are published in
the French, Spanish, and German languages, as well as in
English. Two monthly medical journals, of established re¬
putation, are published; and De Bow’s Monthly Review, a
periodical devoted to the exposition of the industry of the
southern and western states.
By the census of 1850 (but there have been many
changes for the better since that time), it appeared there
were 13 Roman Catholic, 1 Episcopal, 2 German Reformed,
1 Jewish, 5 Methodist, 4 Presbyterian, 1 Universalist,
1 Christian, and 2 other churches, with accommodation for
27,350 persons, or 23 per cent, of the population (Boston
being capable of accommodating 56 per cent., and Charles¬
ton 67 per cent.). Total value of church property L.323,703,
which is now swelled to about L.400,000.
In proportion to population and wealth, there is no city Manufac-
in America which produces so few manufactures as Newtures.
Orleans. With the exception of a few foundries and ma¬
chine shops, no efforts in establishing factories on a large
scale have been successful. This is owing to the cost of
labour, the climate, and (as much as to either) a deficiency
of capital. In 1850 the capital invested in manufactures
was reported atL.618,675; hands employed, 3134; product,
L.931,422. Nine schooners and ten steamers were built in
Louisiana in 1856, of which nearly all were at New Orleans.
It is the commerce of New Orleans which gives to the Commerce,
city its distinctive character, and extends its reputation
throughout the world. This commerce has been gradually
extending from the humblest beginnings ; and so admirable
is its position in this respect that, vast as is the present
trade, it must continue to grow with the development and
settlement of the great interior basin of which it is the
mart. Railroads and canals may divert, as they are now
diverting, large portions of her trade to the markets of the
eastern states; but there will be left sufficient at all times
to follow the natural channels, and add to the commercial
opulence of New Orleans. Already is the city active in
giving aid to such internal improvement schemes as will
counteract the strokes of her enterprising rivals ; and, in a
few years she has appropriated many millions of dollars for
this purpose.
At the time of the transfer of New Orleans to the
Americans in 1803, its commerce was very inconsiderable.
In 1817, 137,746 tons entered or cleared from New Or¬
leans; and there also arrived in the year 1500 flat-bot¬
tomed boats and 500 barges. The exportswere L.2,812,713;
while in 1856 they amounted to L.30,053,346. The im¬
ports through the custom-house, for the fiscal year ending
30th June 1856, amounted in value to L.3,579,856. In
the year ending 31st June 1856, the foreign exports of
New Orleans reached L.16,786,798; being larger than those
of any American port except New York, ana being about
z
178 NEW NEW
Newport, one-fourth of the whole exports of the Union. Excluding
coin and bullion, New Orleans exports more largely of
domestic goods than New York. The amount of cotton
received at New Orleans, in the year 1855-6, amounted to
1,759,293 bales, or one-half of the whole crops of the
United States, and was valued at L.14,660,772. In 1856
the total tonnage which entered and cleared at New Or¬
leans was 1,436,299. The total arrivals,—ships, 874;
barks, 375 ; brigs, 261; schooners, 399; steamers, 234;
total, 2143: besides steam-boats, 2956. In 1854 there
were 5 banks in New Orleans, with a capital of L.3,306,348;
3 free banks, with a capital of L.560,157; and 2 other
banks in liquidation. In 1856 the banking capital of New
Orleans had not increased, and is believed to be inadequate
to the wants of its commerce. Under the general banking
law lately adopted it is believed there will be an amelioration.
History New Orleans was founded in 1717 by Bienville, the
and popu- governor of the province of Louisiana under the French,
lation. jn 1769 fhg colony was transferred to Spain. Its popula¬
tion in 1785 reached 4780. Napoleon I. obtained it from
Spain, and sold it to America in 1803, after it had been
for many years the centre of intrigues and negotiations. On
January 8,1815, was fought the battle of New Orleans, a few
miles below the city, between General Jackson, at the head
of the American forces, and the British under General
Pakenham, ending in the defeat of the latter with a loss in
killed and wounded of nearly 3000 men. The American
loss was but 13. The laws, manners, and institutions, of the
French and Spanish inhabitants of New Orleans are blended
happily with those of the American, and all distinctions and
prejudices are being gradually obliterated. The population
in '1788 reached 5331; in 1797, 8056; in 1810, 17,240;
in 1820,27,176; in 1830, 46,310; in 1840, 102,193; in
1850, 116,375 ; in 1856, about 125,000. Of the total po¬
pulation of 1850, 59,312 were white males, and 44,431
white females; 4104 free coloured males, and 6196 free
coloured females; and 8012 male, and 11,595 female slaves.
Of the same population (excluding slaves) 50,470 were
born in foreign countries, and only 48,601 were born in the
United States. (j. d. b. d® b.)
NEWPORT, a municipal and parliamentary borough
and market-town of England, county of Hants, in the Isle
of Wight, on the left bank of the Medina, 18 miles S.S.E.
of Southampton, and 82 S.S. W. of London. It is a neat
well kept town, with good houses, chiefly built of brick, and
has five principal streets, extending from E. to W., and
several others crossing them at right angles. The parish
church is a large and plain building, built in 1172, but fre¬
quently since then repaired and altered, though now in a
somewhat dilapidated condition. In it was found in 1793
the coffin of the Princess Elizabeth, daughter of Charles I.,
who died at Carisbrook Castle, shortly after her father’s execu¬
tion. Newport has besides a modern Episcopal church, with
an embattled tower; and Baptist, Independent, Wesleyan,
Unitarian, Roman Catholic, and other churches. There
are a handsome town-hall and market-house; a theatre;
jail; grammar-school, founded in 1619, and remarkable as
the scene of a conference between Charles I. and the Par¬
liamentary Commissioners ; several other schools; a public
library, occupying one of the best buildings of the town ;
almshouses ; and an infirmary. The industry of the town
is chiefly employed in the making of lace, in which about
300 hands are engaged, and in the manufacture of imple¬
ments of agriculture. For the latter of these Newport is
widely famed. The market of Newport, which is held on
Saturday, attracts a large number of persons from all parts
of the Isle of Wight; and the corn and other produce of the
island are exported from this town; while coal, provisions,
and manufactured goods are imported. The River Medina,
here crossed by a bridge, is navigable for small vessels as
far as the town, which the tide nearly reaches. There
is a quay in front of the town for the accommodation of Newport
ships. In the neighbourhood of Newport there are some v „
beautiful walks ; and a fine view of the surrounding country
may be obtained from a hill, called Mountjoy, to the S. of the
town. The borough returns two members to the House of
Commons. Pop. parliamentary borough (1851), 8047.
Newpokt, a municipal and parliamentary borough and
market-town of England, in the county of Monmouth, is
situated on the right bank of the River Usk, which is here
crossed by a fine stone bridge about 5 miles above its mouth,
and 20 miles S.W. of Monmouth. The older parts are
irregularly built, but other parts of it are of modern con¬
struction and of elegant appearance, and there are a number
of handsome buildings. The parish church of St Woollos
is an edifice in the Norman style, of which the nave and
western archway are still well preserved in their original
form ; while the aisles are not older than the middle of the
fifteenth century. Newport has two other Episcopal, besides
Wesleyan and Calvinistic Methodist, Independent, Roman
Catholic, and Baptist churches; several schools; an athe¬
naeum ; a mechanics’ institute ; a working-man’s institute ;
a dispensary; and a savings-bank. The town-hall and
the post-office are handsome buildings, which have been
recently erected. Ship-building is carried on to a great
extent here; and there are also several iron foundries, a
large nail-work, manufactories of anchors, chain-cables, &c.
Newport has a spacious dock, which is able at all times to
admit vessels of any size. The number of vessels regis¬
tered as belonging to the port in 1856 was 92, and their
tonnage 16,280. During the year 1856 there entered the
port:—In the coasting trade, 1544 sailing vessels, tonnage
86,246; and 468 steamers, tonnage 34,298 : in the colonial
trade, 70 sailing vessels, tonnage 17,040; and 1 steamer,
tonnage 602: in the foreign trade, 461 sailing vessels,
tonnage 96,334; and 2 steamers, tonnage 1200—in all,
2075 sailing vessels, tonnage 199,620; and 471 steamers,
tonnage 36,000. In the same year there cleared:—In the
coasting trade, 6777 sailing vessels, tonnage 414,002; and
269 steamers, tonnage it,259: in the colonial trade, 151
sailing vessels, tonnage 39,019: in the foreign trade, 898
sailing vessels, tonnage 183,440; and 5 steamers, tonnage
2828—in all, 7826 sailing vessels, tonnage 636,461 ; and
274 steamers, tonnage 20,087. Thus the total number of
vessels entered in that year was 2546, tonnage 135,620;
of those that cleared the number was 8100, and the tonnage
656,548. The town is connected with Gloucester, Cardiff,
and Pontypool by railway, and with the last of these places
also by the Monmouthshire Canal, which facilitates the
intercourse with the neighbouring country. The trade of
Newport is very extensive; the chief exports being coal,
iron, and tin; while timber, provisions, and other articles
are imported from America. The principal market-day is
Saturday, and there are several annual fairs. Of the Castle
of Newport, which is supposed to have been built by the
Earl of Gloucester, a son of Henry L, only a square tower
and a part of the great hall now remain, and are at present
employed as a brewery. Newport was attacked in 1839 by
a body of Chartists under John Frost; but the ringleaders
were afterwards convicted of treason, though the punish¬
ment was commuted to transportation. The borough unites
with Monmouth in sending a member to Parliament. Pop.
parliamentary borough (1851), 19,842.
Newport, a municipal borough and market-town of
England, county of Salop, on the borders of Staffordshire,
16 miles E.N.E. of Shrewsbury, and 142 N.W. of London.
It is a small town, and has a parish church, part of which
is of the fifteenth century, and which would be very beau¬
tiful in the interior were it not for the brick side aisles
which have been added in more recent times. There are
also Roman Catholic and Independent churches, two free
schools, two sets of almshouses, and a savings-bank. The
NEW
Newport only manufacture carried on here is that of stockings. Pop.
I! (1851)2906.
Parnell** NEWPORT, or Newport- Tip, a market-town of Ireland
v g > the county of Tipperary, 11 miles N.N.E. of Limerick;
v has a parish church, a Roman Catholic church, a national
school, and infantry barracks. Pop. (1851) 1114.
Newport, a seaport of the United States of North
America, in the state of Rhode Island, is beautifully situ¬
ated on the slope of a hill on the W. side of the island, 28
miles S. by E. of Providence. It is well built; and has
recently been considerably improved in this respect. The
principal buildings are—the state house, a brick edifice, hav¬
ing an octagonal cupola, and containing accommodation for
the state legislature and courts of law; a library and athe¬
naeum ; a custom-house ; a market-house; a masonic hall;
an armoury; 15 churches of various denominations; and
numerous fine hotels. Previously to the American Revo¬
lution, Newport was of great importance as a commercial
city, and rivalled in that respect those of New York and
Boston ; but it suffered greatly during the war that followed
that event; and, at its close, the population was reduced
from 10,000 to 5500. The vessels belonging to the port in
1852 had an aggregate tonnage of 11,000 enrolled and
licensed ; of which 1851 tons were employed in the whale
fishery, 3/85 in the coasting trade, 560 in cod and mackerel
fishing, and 255 in steam navigation. The vessels that
entered in that year were 28, and their tonnage 4863 ;
those that cleared were 20, and their tonnage 4337. The
town has 7 banks, with an aggregate capital" of L. 130,000,
and a savings-institution, whose deposits amount to L.60,791.
There are also several woollen and cotton factories, and 5
newspaper offices, in the town. The assessed value of tax¬
able property is about L. 1,000,000. Newport, on account
of its beautiful situation and mild climate, is a favourite
summer resort, especially for visitors from the south. There
is here a curious ancient structure of unknown origin, and
equally mysterious in the purpose for which it was designed.
It is a round building, 28£ feet high, and 23£ in diameter;
and, in its lower part, it has 8 pillars about 10 feet in
height. The walls are about 18 inches thick, and are pierced
by 3 small loopholes. 4 here is also a fireplace and chimney;
but the roof and floors have disappeared. Some have sup¬
posed this to be a religious edifice, built by the Northmen ;
and others that the original settlers used it as a place of
defence against the Indians: but these are mere conjec¬
tures, and no certain knowledge can be obtained about its
origin or use. Pop. (1850) 9563; (1853) about 10,000.
Newport, a seaport of Wales, in the county of Pem¬
broke, on the slope of a hill near the mouth of the Nevern,
7 miles E.N.E. of Fishguard. The streets are mean and
irregular; and the whole place has a very decayed appear¬
ance. In the neighbourhood there are some Druidical re¬
mains ; and the town has the ruins of an old castle, built by
the Normans in the thirteenth century, but afterwards
destroyed by Llewelyn. Newport has an old parish church,
and others belonging to Baptists, Independents, and Metho¬
dists, as well as several schools. Limekilns, malt-houses,
carding and flour mills are in operation; and, by means of
the harbour, which is secure, the export of slates, and the im¬
port of coal, timber, &c., is carried on. Pop. (1851) 1716.
Newport-Pagnell, a market-town of England, county
of Buckingham, is situated near the confluence of the Ouse
and Ousel, 48 miles N.N.W. of London. The latter river
divides the town into two parts, and is crossed by an iron
bridge, built in 1810. The parish church is a large ancient
budding, with a square tower and pinnacles. There are
also Baptist, Independent, and Methodist churches; several
schools; almshouses; a circulating library; and a savings-
bank. The only manufacture here is that of lace, and even
that is not so largely carried on as formerly; but there is
some trade in corn, coal, and timber. Pop. (1851) 3312.
NEW 179
NEWRY, a parliamentary burgh and seaport of Ireland Newry
on the borders of the counties of Down and Armagh, is II
beautifully situated in the valley traversed by the river of the ^ew
same name, not far from its mouth in Carlingford Bay 32 Wales*
miles S.S.W. of Belfast, and 63 N. of Dublin. It consists of
a fine square, and several good and well-paved streets lined
with well-built and handsome houses chiefly of brick. The
parish church is a fine modern building of early English
architecture, with a tower and spire 190 feet. high. There
are also Presbyterian, Independent, Methodist, and Roman
Catholic churches ; a town-hall, court-house, two jails, cus¬
tom-house, infantry barracks, assembly-room, fever hospital,
dispensary, and workhouse. The manufactures are exten¬
sive, consisting of beer, brandy, leather, linen, cordage,
cotton, glass, iron, brass, coaches, &c. The trade of the
place is also considerable, especially in the export of butter,
eggs, provisions, and cattle, and the import of coals, iron, &c.
The river, which is here crossed by four stone bridges, ad¬
mits vessels of 600 tons burden up to the town, and those
of 1000 tons to within 6 miles of it. There is also a ship-
canal leading to the sea, and a boat-canal to Lough Neagh,
which is 32 miles distant. The number of ships registered
at the port, 31st December 1856, was 114, and their tonnage
6648. In that year there entered the port coastwise, 793
sailing vessels, tonnage 47,495 ; and 254 steamers, tonnage
42,115. From the colonies, 16 sailing vessels, tonnage 7306;
from foreign parts, 15 sailing vessels, tonnage 2535—in all,
824 sailing vessels, tonnage 57,336; and 254 steamers, ton¬
nage 42,115. In the same year there cleared, coastwise,
278 sailing vessels, tonnage 15,111; and 250 steamers, ton¬
nage 42,945: for the colonies, 5 sailing vessels, tonnage
2401 : for foreign parts, 4 sailing vessels, tonnage 1962—
in all, 287 sailing vessels, tonnage 19,474 ; and 250 steamers,
tonnage 42,945. Steamers ply regularly twice a-week be¬
tween this town and Liverpool, a distance of 153 miles.
Newry is a place of great antiquity, and a Cistercian abbey
was founded here in 1157 by Maurice M‘Loughlin, king of
Ireland. The name of the town is supposed to have been
derived from the number of yew-trees which grew here,
and two especially within the limits of the abbey which
was called in Irish Na yar (“ of the yew-trees”). After the
Reformation, the abbey was granted to Sir Nicholas Bagnal,
marshal of Ireland, who converted it into a dwelling-house,
erected a church and castle, and rebuilt the town. Newry
formerly sent two members to the Irish, and now sends one
to the imperial Parliament. Pop. 1851)13,191.
NEW SOUTH SHETLAND, a group of islands in the
Antarctic Ocean, lying between S. Lat. 60.32. and 67.13.,
and W. Long. 44. 53. and 68. 15.; about 600 miles S.S.E. of
Cape Horn. They are twelve in number, and extend for
a distance of 300 miles from N.N.E. to S.S.W., being
bounded on the S. by a broad strait called Bransfield Strait,
separating them from an extensive country which appa¬
rently lies near the S. pole. The islands are rocky and
mountainous, having some peaks between 6000 and 7000
feet high. They are covered with snow for nearly the
whole year, and the only vegetation that is found in these
desolate regions consists of lichens and mosses, and some
scanty grass, which appear in a few tracts of the islands in
the warmest time of the year. They are of volcanic for¬
mation, and some of the mountains are covered with scoriae
and lava; while hot springs have been discovered rising
from among the snow with a temperature of not less than
146°. The only animals that are found on these islands are
sea-fowls, of which the albatross, the penguin, and the sea-
cormorant are the principal. Whales and seals of different
kinds are found in the seas; and the islands are fre¬
quently visited for the purpose of taking these animals.
New South Shetland was discovered in 1819 by Captain
Smith.
L NEW SOUTH WALES. See Australia.
180
News¬
papers.
Legal de¬
finition of
a news¬
paper.
Contrasted
character
of the
newspapers
of the 18th
and 19th
centuries.
NEWSPAPERS.
In popular language the term “ Newspapers” has
a more restricted application than is given to it in the
language of the law. Its use is confined, or almost con¬
fined, to such periodical publications as contain more
or less of political intelligence, published at short in¬
tervals ; whilst in the phraseology of the British statutes
and law-books the word “ Newspaper” is defined to include
—(1.) “Any paper containing public news, intelligence,
or occurrences, printed in any part of the United King¬
dom, to be dispersed and made public;” (2.) Any paper,
printed at intervals, not exceeding twenty-six days, of
which advertisements are the sole or principal contents;
and (3.) “Any paper containing any public news, intelligence,
or occurrences, or any remarks or observations thereon,
printed in any part of the United Kingdom for sale, and
published periodically, or in parts or numbers, at intervals
not exceeding twenty-six days between the publication of
any two such papers” (provided such paper shall not exceed
in dimensions and bulk two sheets of paper, each twenty-
one inches in length, by seventeen inches in breadth ;
and provided also that such paper shall be published for
sale for a less sum than sixpence). These definitions and
provisos were enacted with reference to duties which have
since been repealed, but they have still the force of law,
although within smaller limits. And to this cause it is
owing that publications, which none of their readers would
speak of as “ newspapers,” still continue to bear that de¬
signation in the official returns of the Stamp-Office and the
Post-Office.
The elaborate machinery, the wide circulation, and the
vast influence of newspapers, are now such familiar things,
that it needs some mental effort to conceive of their
absence, without an undue depreciation of the public
opinion of the days when newspapers were unknown. It
is even difficult thoroughly to apprehend the facts that
those days are little more than two centuries removed from
us, and that the newspaper of a period considerably less
distant than one century, was utterly unlike any publication
that now bears the name. A few men, indeed, of high
principle and vigorous intellect,—of some of whom we shall
have to speak hereafter,—earlier employed themselves in
political writings, which were periodically issued ; but those
writers were rather pamphleteers than journalists. The
true predecessors of the broad-sheets of our own day were
for the most part little better than court newsmen, slen¬
derly endowed even as respects syntax and orthography, who
were usually content to retail meagre intelligence in dis¬
jointed paragraphs, without a syllable of useful comment or
intelligible inference ; and of whom not a few were in the
habit of filling up occasional blanks by the insertion of
false news on one day, and the contradiction of it on
another. In this article it will be our aim to indicate, how¬
ever briefly, the successive steps by which publications of
such a class have been transformed into what even states¬
men are accustomed to honour with the name of a “fourth
estate” of the realm ; to show in what manner the legis¬
lation affecting newspapers has been gradually amended in
Great Britain, though by no means at an equal pace with
the improvement of the press itself, and that this amend¬
ment of British law is pregnant with instruction for other
countries; and, finally, to sketch, as far as our needful News-
limits will permit, the growth and present statistics of lepers,
newspapers in the principal countries of continental
Europe, as well as in the United States of America.
I.—THE NEWSPAPERS OF THE UNITED KINGDOM.
The first journalists were the writers of “ news-letters.”The early
Originally the dependents of great men, each employed in wrRers of
keeping his own master or patron well-informed, during
his absence from court, of all that transpired, the duty grew
at length into a calling. The writer had his periodical
subscription-list, and instead of writing a single letter, wrote
as many letters as he had customers. Then one, more
enterprising than the rest, established an “ intelligence-
office,” with a staff of clerks,1 and thus realized in sober
prose Chaucer’s poetical vision of The House of Fame:—
“ When one had heard a thing, I wiss,
He came straight to another wight,
And ’gan him telling anon, right
The same tale that to him was told.
******
Whether the tidings were sooth or false,
Yet would he tell it natheless,
And ever more with more increase
Than it was erst: Thus North and South
Went every tiding, from mouth to mouth.”
Of the earlier news-letters good examples may be seen
in Sir John Fenn’s collection of Paston Letters, and in
Arthur Collins’ Letters and Memorials of State (better
known, perhaps, as the Sydney Papers). Of those of later
date, specimens will be found in Knowler’s letters and
Dispatches of Strafford, and in other well-known books.
In the recently-published Diary of Narcissus Luttrell,
examples of manuscript news-letters occur as late as the
reign of William III.
By the pains and critical acumen of Mr Thomas Watts, The fiction
of the British Museum, the old and obstinate fiction, thatof an,
“ for the first printed newspaper, mankind are indebted to ^n£lisl1
the wisdom of Elizabeth and the prudence of Burleigh,”
is at length gradually disappearing from current literature,
although it has been many times repeated since the first
publication of his able pamphlet. The remarkable tenacity
of life which characterizes misstatements that have once
gained the public ear, may still therefore make it desirable
to enumerate the principal reasons which led to the con¬
viction that the English Mercurie of 1588 is a forgery.
As adduced by Mr Watts himself, they run thus:—(1.) The
obvious resemblance of the type to Caslon’s “English fount”
of the middle of the eighteenth century. (2.) The rigid
maintenance of that distinction between m’s and Fs, i’s and
j’s, which was utterly unknown to the printers of the six¬
teenth century. (3.) The preservation of the original MSS.
from which the printer worked, written in a modern hand,
with modern spelling, and with corrections,—obviously those,
not of a transcriber, but of an author,—which the printer
has copied; these MSS. being on paper manufactured in
the early part of the reign of George III.; and (4.) Serious
misstatements of fact, and anachronisms of date, of a kind
which could not occur in the statements of persons who
had taken part in the events they profess to narrate. These
1 Cymbal.—“ This is the outer room where my clerks sit,
And keep their sides, the Register in the midst;
The Examiner, he sits private there, within;
And here I have my several rolls and files
Of news by the alphabet, and all put up
Under their heads.”—Jonson, The Staple of Newt (acted in 1625),
NE WSP
News¬
papers.
The news-
pamphlets
of the 16th
century.
The Week¬
ly News of
1622.
points nave been thoroughly established; and it may now
be hoped that the English Mercuric is finally relegated to
its proper niche in the gallery of literary impostures.
Although no genuine newspaper of the sixteenth century
can be produced, English pamphlets, as well as French,
Italian, and German, occur with such titles as Newesfrom
Spaine, and the like. In the early years of the seventeenth
they became very numerous. In 1614 we find Butler (the
anatomist of Melancholy)pointing a sarcasm against the non¬
reading habits of “ the major part,” by adding, “ if they read
a book at any time... ’tis an English Chronicle, St Huon of
Bordeaux, AmadisdeGaul, &c.,aplay-book,or50/ne/?fl'm/>///^
of news?1.. . The most eminent purveyors of reading of this
sort were Nathaniel Butter, Nicholas Bourne, and Thomas
Archer; and by them was issued, in May 1622, the first au¬
thentic periodical newspaper which is now known to exist:2
—“ The 23d of May—The Weekly News from Italy, Ger¬
many, See., London, printed by J. D. for Nicholas Bourne
and Thomas Archer.” Butter’s name does not occur on this
number, but on many subsequent numbers it appears in
connection sometimes with Bourne’s and sometimes with
Archer’s name; so that there was probably an eventual
partnership in the new undertaking. Butter had published
Newes from Spaine in 1611, and he continued to be a pub¬
lisher of news until 1641, if not later. It is to him that a
passage in the fourth act of Fletcher’s Fair Maid of the
Inn obviously refers: —
... “ It shall be the ghost of some lying stationer. A spirit shall
look as if butter would not melt in his mouth 3 a new Mercurius
Gallo-Belgicus.”—Act iv., sc. 2.
In The Certain Newes of this Present Week [ending 23d
August 1622] the publisher inserted this advertisement:—
“ If any gentleman or other accustomed to buy the weekly
relations of newes be desirous to continue the same, let
them know that the writer, or transcriber rather, of this
newes hath published two former newes; the one dated the
second, the other the thirteenth of August, all which do
carry a like title, and have dependence one upon another ;
which manner of writing and printing he doth purpose to
continue weekly, by God’s assistance, from the best and
most certain intelligence.” There are on the face of these
early papers many indications that they were published
without legal sanction or cognisance. They touched very
slightly on home news; and it is probable that for a time
the censorship did not much care to interfere with their
scraps of foreign intelligence. But as their numbers in¬
creased, jealousy appears to have been excited, and forced
suppressions to have been imposed. One of the latest
which bears Butter’s name, entitled The Continuation of
the Forraine Occurrents for 5 iveekes last past, January 11,
1640 (o.s.), contains this address:—“The Printer to the
Header—Courteous reader, we had thought to have given
over printing our foreign avisoes, for that the licenser (out
of a partial affection) would not oftentimes let pass apparent
truth, and in other things (oftentimes) so cross and alter,
which made us almost weary of printing; but he being
vanished, and that office fallen upon another more under¬
standing in these forraine affaires, and as you will find more
candid, we are again, by the favour of His Majesty and the
State, resolved to go on printing, if we shall find the world to
A P E R S.
181
give a better acceptation of them than oflate, by their weekly News¬
buying them. Fhese hopeful anticipations do not appear papers,
to have been realized in the individual case of the writer; v ■- J
but a vast number of competitors for public support quickly Rapid mul-
presented themselves in the stirring times which England tiplication
was then entering upon, and their productions were eagerly of news-
read. November 1641 is especially noticeable for the pub- PaP-ers
lication, in the form of a newspaper, of the earliest authentic c^n^-u-^
report of the proceedings of Parliament. Diurnal Occur¬
rences, or the Heads of several Proceedings in both Houses
of Parliament,was usually, notwithstanding its title, a weekly
periodical, and it sometimes contained ordinary news in ad¬
dition to its staple matter. This was followed, within five
years, by a long train of newspapers, most of which were
published weekly, such as The English Post, Ireland's True
Diurnal, England's Memorable Accidents, Weekly Intel¬
ligence, The Kingdom's Weekly Intelligencer, The Spy,
Mercurius Aulicus, M. Anglicus, M. Civicus, M. Rusticus,
The Weekly Account, The Parliament!s Scout, M. Britan-
nicus, The Scotch Intelligencer, The Scottish Mercury, The
Welch Mercury, Mercurius Cambro-Britannicus, The King¬
dom's Weekly Post, Le Mercure Anglais (in French), The
London Post, The Country Messenger, and a multitude
more. Nearly the whole of these papers are characterized by
clumsiness of arrangement, by extreme paucity of original
comment on the news narrated, and very frequently by the
fierce virulence of such comments as do appear. The papers
of this period which stand out most saliently from the rest
are, the Mercurius Britannicus, M. Pragmaticus, and M.
Politicus of Marchmont Nedham ; and the Mercurius Au¬
licus of John Birkenhead. Nedham was unquestionably
both the ablest and the readiest man that had yet tried his
hand at a newspaper. He commenced Britannicus on the
22d August 1643, zealously advocated in it the cause of
the Parliament, and continued its publication until 1647.
At that period he changed sides for a time, under circum¬
stances of which we know nothing, save from the reports
of his enemies. According to them, “obtaining the favour Newspa-
of a known royalist to introduce him into Flis Majesty’s Pers writ-
presence at Hampton Court, ann. 1647, he then and there ^rj^mont
knelt before him, and desired forgiveness for what he had js^dham
written against himself and his cause; . . . . and soon after
wrote Mercurius Pragmaticus, which, being very witty,
satirical against the Presbyterians, and full of loyalty, made
him known to, and admired by, the bravadoes and wits of
those times. ... At length . . . Lenthall and Bradshaw .. .
persuaded him to change his style once more [in favour of]
the Independents, then carrying all before them. So that,
being bought over, he wrote Mercurius Politicus, so ex¬
treme contrary to the former, that the generality for a long
time . . . could not believe that that ‘ intelligence’ could
possibly be written by the same hand that wrote the M.
Pragmaticus. . . . The last [i.e., the Pragmatic!] were en¬
deavoured by the parliamenteers to be stifled, but the former,
the Politici, which came out by authority, and flew every
week into all parts of the nation for more than ten years,
had very great influence. . . . He was then the Goliah of
the Philistines, the great champion of the late usurper, who'e
pen, in comparison of others, was like a weaver’s beam.”3
Birkenhead’s M. Aulicus was also begun in 1643, and con- an(J V Sir
J. Birken-
 head.
1 So Crabbe, writing in similar strain a hundred and seventy years later:—
“ To you all readers turn, and they can look
Pleased on a paper who abhor a book ;
Those who ne’er deigned their Bible to peruse,
Would think it hard to be denied their news.”—The Newspaper, 1785.
3 The Courant, or Weekly Newes from Foreign Parts, of Oct. 9, 1621, mentioned by Nichols (Literary Anecdotes, iv. 38), is of doubtful
authenticity. It is described as “ a half-sheet in the black letter, 4to, out of High Dutch, printed for Nath. Butter.” Yet it is probable
that future researches will discover papers, serially published, of even earlier date. Publications of this sort have been usually too little
cared for in our great libraries.
3 Wood, Athena; Oxoniemes (by Bliss), iii. 1182. A new Mercurius Britannicus appeared in June 1647, but did not long continue.
Another, entitled M. Britannicus again Alive, was published in May 1648, and the title was often subsequently revived.
182
NEWSPAPERS.
News¬
papers.
The news¬
papers of
the Re¬
storation.
Establish¬
ment of the
London
Gazette.
tinued, although irregularly, until nearly the close of the civil
war. According to Wood, Charles I. “ appointed him to
write the Mercurii Aulici, which being very pleasing to the
loyal party, His Majesty recommended him to the [Uni¬
versity] electors that they would choose him moral philo¬
sophy readerwhich was done accordingly. He was as¬
sisted in the composition of Aulicus by George Digby and
by Dr Peter Heylin. He had considerable powers of satire
after a coarse fashion, and was one of the few rough-weather
royalists who were permitted to bask in the sunshine of the
Restoration.
Under Cromwell, the chief papers were M. Politicus and
The Public Intelligencer (of which the first number ap¬
peared on the 8th October 1655). These publications
were issued on different days of the week, and at length
they became conjointly the foundation of our present Lon¬
don Gazette. Even at their origin they were in some de¬
gree official papers. The Intelligencer underwent several
modifications of title at various periods, and was for a time
edited by Nedham. In 1659 the Council of State caused
the following announcement to be published :—“ Whereas
Marchmont Nedham, the author of the weekly news-books,
called Mercurius Politicus, and The Publique Intelligencer,
is, by order of the Council of State, discharged from writing
or publishing any publique intelligence; the reader is de¬
sired to take notice that, by order of the said council, Giles
Dury and Henry Muddiman are authorized henceforth to
write and publish the said intelligence, the one upon the
Thursday and the other upon the Monday, which they do
intend to set out under the titles of The Parliamentary
Intelligencer, and of Mercurius Pubhcus.” After the
Restoration, a monopoly of newspapers was attempted to
be set up in favour of Roger L’Estrange, by a royal grant
of “all the sole privilege of writing, printing, and publish¬
ing all narratives, advertisements, mercuries, intelligencers,
diurnals, and other books of public intelligence; . . . with
power to search for and seize unlicensed and treasonable,
schismatical and scandalous books and papers.” L’Estrange
continued the papers above mentioned, but changed their
titles to The Intelligencer and The News. In the first
number of the former he paints both himself and his
epoch in unmistakeable colours :—“ Supposing the press in
order,” he says, “ the people in their right wits, and news
or no news to be the question, a public Mercury should
never have my vote; because I think it makes the public
too familiar with the actions and counsels of their superiors,
too pragmatical and censorious, and gives them not only an
itch, but a kind of colourable right and license to be med¬
dling with the government.” But then, he bethinks him,
that in some shape or other the government is sure to be at¬
tacked; and therefore ends thus:—“ So that, upon the main,
I perceive the thing requisite; and (for ought I can see
yet) once a week may do the business; for I intend to utter
my news by weight, not by measure. . . . The way as to
the vent that has been found most beneficial to the master
of the book, has been to cry and expose it about the streets,
by Mercuries and hawkers, but whether that way may be
so advisable in some other respects may be a question.”
But not even in that day was such a scheme workable.
L’Estrange’s papers continued only until 1665, and within
that short period had their competitors, though of a miser¬
able kind. The first number of The Oxford Gazette was
published (whilst the court was at Oxford, on account of
the great plague then raging in London) on the 14th No¬
vember 1665, and became The London Gazette with the
twenty-fourth number, issued on the 5th February 1666.
For a very long period it retained its original size of a single
leaf in small folio. It contained no news or documents but
such as were palatable to the court; and these were retailed
in the most meagre fashion, without a scintilla of literary
ability. After the Revolution, however, it shared, to some
small extent, in the general improvement of the press; and News-
has now been published twice a week, without interruption, papers,
and in a continuous and uniform series, for nearly two cen-
turies.
The excitement which attended the “Popish plot,” and Restric-
the “ Exclusion Bill,” largely increased the number of news- tions °n
papers, without much elevating their character. The in- the news-
crease led to a new “Proclamation for suppressing the in^gQ™33
printing and publishing unlicensed news-books and pam¬
phlets of news” (May 12, 1680), in which it is set forth
that, “ of late, many evil-disposed persons have made it a
common practice to print and publish pamphlets of news,
without license or authority, and therein have vended . . .
idle and malicious reports,” &c. Great efforts were made to
give effect to this proclamation by the infliction of punish¬
ments of atrocious severity; but when English printers
were terrified into submission, Dutch printers supplied their
places. News-pamphlets poured in from Holland in spite of
the utmost efforts of licensers and custom-house officers, and
helped to prepare the way for the downfall of the Stuarts.
A few incidental paragraphs and announcements may de- Specimen
serve to be culled from the London newspapers of this period, of news-
by way of a small sample of their quality. In the fiftieth PaPer3 of
number of Domestick Intelligence, or News both from City the clos]ng
and Country (9th July, 1679), we read :—“ Whereas, on Charles II
Thursday the 18th instant, in the evening, Mr John Dryden
was assaulted and wounded in Rose Street, in Covent Gar¬
den, by divers men unknown: if any person shall make
discovery of the offenders to the said Mr Dryden, or to any
justice of peace, .... he shall not only receive fifty
pounds, .... but if the discoverer be himself one of the
actors, he shall have the fifty pounds without letting his
name be known, or receiving the least trouble by any
prosecution.” [In the present day such an advertisement
as this would entail a fine of fifty pounds on the newspaper
in which it appeared.] In No. 37 of The True News (27th
March, 1680), it is announced that a project is set on foot
“ for conveying of letters, notes, messages, amorous billets,
and all bundles whatsoever under a pound weight, and all
sorts of writings (challenges only excepted), to and from
any part of the city and suburbs; to which purpose the
projectors have taken a house in Lime Street for a general
office, and have appointed eight more stages in other parts
at a convenient distance ; a plot which, if not timely pre¬
vented by the freemen porters of the city, is like to prove the
utter subversion of them and their worshipful corporation?
The London Gazette of the 3d December 1683 informs
its readers that “ there is a considerable sum of money
already paid in to Mr Child at Temple Bar, towards the
lottery of the jewels of his late R.H. Prince Rupert. For
the satisfaction of all such as have any doubts of the fair
and equal proceeding in the drawing thereof, .... His
Majesty will be pleased publicly, in the banqueting-house,
to see the blanks told over, .... and to read the papers
in which the prizes are to be written, which .... His
Majesty will mix amongst the blanks.” In this instance,
it will be noticed, the style of the gazetteer is sufficiently
prolix to necessitate abridgment, but usually it is of the
concisest. Deeds which still sound in our ears like a
trumpet are narrated in the same bald manner as are the
merest trivialities of the court. Thus, No. 1884 ends with
this paragraph :—“ This day Algernon Sidney, Esq., was
brought from the Tower to the place appointed for his
execution on Tower Hill, where he was beheaded on a
scaffold erected for that purpose ;” and No. 1886 with the
following:—“ On Monday last, His Majesty and Her Royal
Highness were pleased to do Sir William Jennens the
honour to see his new-erected bagnio in Longacre, and
very well to approve thereof.”
The very day which followed the abdication of James II.
w'as marked by the appearance of three newspapers—The
NEWSPAPERS.
::88.
lb press
Drier
(leen
Ane.
News- Universal Intelligence, The English Courant, and The
papers. London Courant. Within a few days more, these were fol-
lowed by The London Mercury, The Orange Gazette, The
crease of London Intelligence, The Harlem Currant, and others,
nwspapers Licensing Act, which was in force at the date of the
vlutionof ^evo^uti°n> expired in 1692, but was continued for a year,
when it finally ceased. On the appearance of a paragraph
in The Flying Post of 1st April 1697,1 which appeared to
the House of Commons to attack the credit of the ex¬
chequer bills, leave was given to bring in a bill “ to prevent
the writing, printing, or publishing of any news without
license but the bill was thrown out in an early stage of
its progress. That Flying Post which gave occasion to
this attempt was also noticeable for a new method of print¬
ing, which it thus announced to its customers:—“ If any
gentleman has a mind to oblige his country friend or cor¬
respondent with this account of public affairs, he can have
it for twopence .... on a sheet of fine paper, half of
which being left blank, he may thereon write his own
affairs, or the material news of the day.”
But it was in the reign of Queen Anne that the news¬
paper press first became really eminent for the amount of
intellectual power and of versatile talent which was em¬
ployed upon it. It was also in that reign that the press
was first fettered by the newspaper stamp. The accession
of Anne was quickly followed by the appearance of the first
London daily newspaper, The Daily Courant (1703),
published and edited by the well-known printer Samuel
Buckley, and this by a crowd of new competitors for public
favour of less frequent publication. The first number of one
of these, The Country Gentleman's Courant (1706), was
given away gratuitously; and the following special pre¬
tensions were put forward on its behalf:—“ Among the
crowd of newspapers that come out weekly, it is hoped that
this may find as favourable a reception as any, when its
usefulness is rightly considered ; for here the reader is not
only diverted with a faithful register of the most remarkable
and momentary [i.e., momentous] transactions at home and
abroad, .... but also with a geographical description of
the most material places mentioned in every article of news,
whereby he is freed the trouble of looking into maps.”
Shortly after the commencement of The Daily Courant,
Defoe began his famous paper The Review. At first he
called it A Weekly Review of the Affairs of France, purged
from the Errors and Partiality of News-Writers and
Petty Statesmen of all sides. But this long and singular
title was objected to by friends and ridiculed by foes. With
the eighteenth number Defoe dropped the words “ of the
affairs of France,” although on the title-page of his second
volume he returned to the original designation thus modi¬
fied :—A Review of the Affairs of France, with Observa¬
tions on Transactions at Home. At the outset it was
published weekly, afterwards twice, and at length three
times a week. It continued from February-1704 to May
1713 ; and a complete set is of extreme rarity. From the
first page to the last it is characterized by the manly bold¬
ness and persistent tenacity with which the almost unaided
author utters and defends his convictions on public affairs,
against a host of clever and bitter assailants. He wTaxed
very wroth at times—as well he might—but expresses his
anger much oftener by incisive sarcasm than by the coarse
personalities which were then so common. The work is
as much marked by genial humour as by keen insight; and
it in its style it lacks polish, it undeniably abounds in vigour.
Lspecially memorable is it as the first newspaper which
bears plainly on its face that the author was far more intent
on making patriots than on making money. In that corner
183
News¬
papers.
llfoe’s
Kiview.
of his paper which he entitled “ Advice from the Scandalous
Club,” and set apart for the discussion of questions of litera¬
ture and manners, and sometimes topics of a graver kind
Defoe to some extent anticipated the Tatlers and Spec’-
tators of a later day. He thus explains the purpose which
he had there in view:—“ As to our brethren of the worship¬
ful company of news-writers, .... they shall meet with
no ill treatment. But if they tell a lie that a man may feel
with his foot, and not only proclaim their folly but their
knavery; if they banter religion, sport with things sacred,
and dip their pens in blasphemy; our Scandalous Club is
a new corporation erected on purpose to make inquisition
of such matters, and will treat them but scurvily, as they
deserve.” The essays of Queen Anne’s day, though in
their origin they partook of the character of newspapers,
open a theme too wide for the scope of this article, and more
properly belong to the subject of Periodical Publications.
The year 1710 was marked by the appearance of 27<e Swift’s
Examiner, or Remarks upon Papers and Occurrences^1™™™'
(No. 1, August 3), of which thirteen numbers had appeared er’t^d lts
by the co-operation of Bolingbroke, Prior, Friend, andn”stgS°"
King, before it was placed under the sole control of Swift,
who, as Sir W. Scott has said, “ not satisfied with directing
his artillery on the main body of the enemy, singled out for
his aim particular and well-known individuals. Wharton,
whose character laid him too open for such an attack, was
the first of these victims. Sunderland, Godolphin, Cowper,
Walpole, and Marlborough himself, became the butts of his
satire; but he is less justifiable where it is exerted against
Lord Somers, whose services to his country, independent of
ancient friendship and undeniable virtues, ought to have
silenced such reproaches as had no better foundation than
private scandal.”2 * The Whig Examiner, avowedly in¬
tended “ to censure the writings of others, and to give all
persons a re-hearing who had suffered under any unjust sen¬
tence of The Examiner,” followed on the 1st September; and
The Medley three weeks afterwards. In the same year a
paper, entitled The British Mercury (No. 1, March 27), British
was established by the proprietors of the Sun Fire Office. MercuI7-
In subsequently commencing a new series of this paper, its
conductors prefixed a sort of summary—from their own
point of view, of course—of the previous history of English
newspapers. After describing the renewed activity of the
press at the Revolution period, the writer proceeds:—
“ Such a furious itch of novelty has ever since been the
epidemical distemper, that it has proved fatal to many fami¬
lies; the meanest of shopkeepers and handicrafts spending
whole days in coffee-houses to hear news and read poli¬
ticks, whilst their wives and children wanted bread at home;
and their business being neglected, they were themselves at
length thrust into gaols Hence sprung that inunda¬
tion of Postmen, Postboys, Evening Posts, Supplements,
Daily Courants, Protestant Postboys, amounting to twentv-
one every week, besides many more which have not sur¬
vived to this time, and besides the Gazette, which has the
sanction of public authority; and this Mercury, only intended
for and delivered to those .... insured by the Sun Fire
Office. Yet has not all this variety been sufficient to sa¬
tiate the immoderate appetite of intelligence, without ran¬
sacking France, Holland, and Flanders, whence the foreign
mails duly furnish us with the Gazettes or CWarcte of Paris,
Brussels, Antwerp, Amsterdam, Hague, Rotterdam, Ley¬
den, and some others not so common, besides the French
and Holland Gazettes-di-la-Main.”
I his increasing popularity and influence of the newspaper
press could not tail to be distasteful to the ruling powers.
Prosecutions were multiplied, yet with small success. At
1 “ We hear that when the exchequer notes are given out upon the Capitation Fund, whosoever shall desire specie on them will have
it at 5$ per cent., of the Society of gentlemen that have subscribed to advance some hundred thousands of pounds.” (See Parliamentary
History of England, v. 1164.) 2 Life of Swift, i. 130.
184
NEWSPAPERS.
News¬
papers.
Imposition
of the
newspaper
stamp.
Swift’s ac¬
count of its
results.
List of the
London
papers of
1714,
and in
1733.
Johnson’s
opinion of
the news¬
papers of
1758.
length some busy brain struck out amidst its cogitations the
i'ertile expedient of a newspaper tax. To whom the first
idea was owing is not now known. All that our parliamen¬
tary history records on this point is, that “ some members
in the Grand Committee of Ways and Means suggested a
more effectual way for suppressing libels,” &c. The imme¬
diate or ostensible occasion, it may be added, of the enact¬
ment lay simply in the publication of a Dutch state-paper
by the writer of the Daily Courant, one of the best journals
of the time. The duty imposed was a halfpenny on papers
of half a sheet or less, and a penny on such as ranged from
half a sheet to a single sheet (10 Ann., c. xix., § 101), and
it came into force on the 19th July 1712. The first results
of the tax cannot be more succinctly or more vividly de¬
scribed than in the following characteristic passage of the
Journal to Stella:—“ Do you know that Grub Street is
dead and gone last week ? No more ghosts or murders
now for love or money. I plied it close the last fortnight,
and published at least seven papers of my own, besides
some of other people’s; but now every single half-sheet
pays a halfpenny to the queen. The Observatoris fallen;
the Medleys are jumbled together with the Flying Post;
the Examiner is deadly sick; the Spectator keeps up, and
doubles its price,—I know not how long it will hold. Have
you seen the red stamp the papers are marked with ? Me-
thinlis the stamping is worth a halfpennyJ It is one of the
“ curiosities of literature ” that the first commissioner of the
stamp-office was Richard Steele, who did not, however, long
retain the post.
Swift’s doubt as to the ability of the Spectator to hold out
against the tax was justified by its discontinuance in the
following year. But the impost which was thus fruitful in
mischief) by suppressing much good literature, wholly failed
in keeping out bad. Some of the worst journals that were
already in existence kept their ground, and the number of
such erelong increased.1 An enumeration of the London
papers of 1714 comprises The Daily Courant, The Exa¬
miner, The British Merchant, The Lover, The Patriot,
The Monitor, The Flying Post, The Postboy, Mercator,
The Weekly Pacquet, and Duntoris Ghost. Another enu¬
meration in 1733 includes The Daily Courant, The Crafts¬
man, Fog's Journal, Mist's Journal, The London Journal,
The Free Briton, The Grub Street Journal, The Weekly
Register, The Universal Spectator, The Auditor, The
Weekly Miscellany, The London Crier, Read's Journal,
(Edipus, or The Postman Remounted, The St James' Post,
The London Evening Post, and The London Daily Post.
Twenty years later the last-named publication became the
well-known Public Advertiser. Nor ought it to be forgot¬
ten, that to this multiplicity of newspapers we are indebted
for the foundation of that storehouse of curious information,
The Gentleman's Magazine. The title-page of the first
volume avows that it is “ collected chiefly from the public
papers ; ” and in his preface the editor remarks, that “ upon
calculating the number of newspapers, it is found that . . .
no less than two hundred half-sheets per month are thrown
from the press in London, and about as many printed else¬
where in the three kingdoms.” Towards the middle of the
century the provisions and the penalties of the Stamp Act
were made more stringent, and the jail population largely
increased by the number of offences against it. Yet the
number of newspapers continued to rise. Johnson, writing
in 1758, bears testimony to the still growing thirst for
news:—“Journals are daily multiplied, without increase of
knowledge. Ihe tale of the morning paper is told in the
evening, and the narratives of the evening are bought again
in the morning. These repetitions, indeed, waste time, but News-
they do not shorten it. The most eager peruser of news is papers,
tired before he has completed his labour; and many a man
who enters the coffee-house in his night-gown and slippers,
is called away to his shop or his dinner before he has well
considered the state of Europe.” Five years before this
remark appeared in the Idler, the aggregate number of
newspapers annually sold in England, on an average of three
years, amounted to 7,411,757. In 1760 it had risen to
9,464,790, and in 1767 to 11,300,980.
The first newspaper purporting by its title to be Scot- First news,
tish [The Scotch Intelligencer? 7th September 1643), and PaPers
the first newspaper actually printed in Scotland [Mercu- ScotIan(1-
rius Politicus, published at Leith in October 1653), were
both of English manufacture; the one being intended to
communicate more particularly the affairs of Scotland to
the Londoners; the other to keep Cromwell’s army well
acquainted with the London news. The reprinting of the
Politicus was transferred to Edinburgh in November 1654,
and it continued to appear (under the altered title, Mercu-
rius Publicus, subsequently to April 1660) until the be¬
ginning of 1663. Meanwhile, an attempt by Thomas Syd-
serfe to establish a really Scottish newspaper, Mercurius
Caledonius, had failed after the appearance of ten num¬
bers, the first of which had been published at Edinburgh
on the 8th of January 1661. It was not until March 1699
that a Scottish newspaper was firmly established, under the
title of The Edinburgh Gazette, by James Watson, a
printer of eminent skill in his art. Before the close of the
year the Gazette was transferred to John Reid, by whose
family it long continued to be printed In February 1705
Watson started The Edinburgh Courant, of which he only
published fifty-five numbers. In 1710 the town council
authorized Mr Daniel Defoe to print the Edinburgh Cou¬
rant in the place of the deceased Adam Bog. Four years
earlier the indefatigable pioneer of the Scottish press, James
Watson, had commenced the Scots Courant, which he
continued to print until after the year 1718. To these
papers were added, in October 1708, The Edinburgh Fly-
ing Post; and in August 1709, The Scots Postman. Five
years later this paper appears to have been incorporated
with the Edinburgh Gazette, and the conjoined publica¬
tions appeared twice a week. In December 1718 the town
council gave a privilege to James M‘Ewan to print the
Edinburgh Evening Courant (a journal which still subsists)
three times a week, on condition that before publication he
should “ give ane coppie of his print to the magistrates.”
The Caledonian Mercury dates from the 28th of April 1720.
At one period it was published thrice, and afterwards
twice a week. Its first proprietor was William Holland, an
advocate, and its first editor Thomas Ruddiman. The pro¬
perty passed to Ruddiman on Holland’s death in 1729, and
remained in his family until 1772. It now appears daily.
The early newspapers which in title and subject-matter Eariy irish
are Irish, belong, like their Scottish contemporaries, to the newspa-
London press. Such, for example, are Ireland's True Di- pers.
urnal (February 1642), and Mercurius Hibernicus (1644).
Sucli also was The Irish Courant, published almost half
a century later (No. 1, April 4, 1690); but this Revolu¬
tion journal had been preceded by The Dublin News-
Letter, printed in 1685, “ by Joseph Ray in College Green,
for Robert Thornton, at the Leather Bottle in Skinner
Row;” and was followed in 1690 by The Dublin Intelli¬
gence (No. 1, September 30,1690), which was also printed
See the Burney collection of newspapers in the British Museum; and Nichols, Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century, iv. 33-97.
This was followed by The Scotch Love, the first number of which is dated “ Sept. 30 to October 20, 1643,” and by The Scottish Mer¬
cury (No. 1, Oct. 5, 1643). In 1648 a Mercurius Scoticus and a Mercurius Caledonius were published in London. The Scotch Love was
the only one of these which attained a lengthened existence.
News- by Joseph Ray. Falketier's Journal was established in
papers. 1728, and appeared daily. Esdaile's News-Letter began
in 1744, took the title of Saunders' News-Letter in 1754
(when it appeared three times a week), and became a daily
newspaper in 1777. It is said still to possess the largest
circulation which has ever been attained by an Irish daily
paper.
Waterford possessed a newspaper as early as 1729, en¬
titled The Waterford Flying Post. It professed to contain
“ the most material news both foreign and domestic,” was
printed on common writing-paper, and published twice a
week at the price of a halfpenny. The Belfast News-Let¬
ter was started in 1737, and it still flourishes. The more
famous Freeman's Journal was long pre-eminent amongst
the Dublin papers for ability and vigour. It was estab¬
lished by a committee of the first society of “ United Irish¬
men” in 1763, and its first editor was Dr Lucas. Flood
and Grattan were at one time numbered amongst its con¬
tributors ; although the latter, at a subsequent period, is
reported to have exclaimed in his place in the Irish Par¬
liament, “ the Freeman!s Journal is a liar, .... a public,
pitiful liar.”1 The relations between the journalism and
the oratory of Ireland have been not infrequently of this
stormy character.
t’rosecu- The history of newspapers during the long reign of
tionsof the George III. is a history of criminal prosecutions, in which
1760-1820 in^lvlt^ua* writers and editors were repeatedly defeated and
* severely punished; whilst the press itself derived new
strength from the protracted conflict, and turned ignomi¬
nious penalties into signal triumphs. From the days of
John Wilkes to those of Leigh Hunt, every conspicuous
newspaper prosecution gave tenfold currency to the doc¬
trines that were assailed ; and if some timid malcontents
were occasionally cowed into silence and retreat, the ranks
were the stronger for their absence. In the earlier part
of this period, men who were mere traders in politics—
whose motives were obviously base, and their lives con¬
temptible—became powers in the state, able to brave king,
legislature, and law courts, by virtue of the simple truth
that a free people must have a free press. Yet the policy that
had utterly failed in 1763 continued to be clung to in 1819.
Iliso of One of the minor incidents of the North Briton excite-
parliamen- ment ie(i indirectly to valuable results with reference to
porting in ^ie much-vexed question of parliamentary reporting. Dur-
the news- lnS ^le discussions respecting the Middlesex election, Al-
papers. nion the bookseller collected from members of the House
of Commons some particulars of the debates, and published
them in the London Evening Post. The success which
attended these reports induced the proprietors of the St
James's Chronicle to employ a reporter, in their turn, to
collect notes in the lobby and at the coffee-houses. This
repeated infraction of the “privilege” of secret legislation,
entailed the memorable proceedings of the-House of Com¬
mons in 1771, with their fierce debates, angry resolutions,
and arbitrary imprisonments ;—all resulting, at length, in
that tacit concession of publicity of discussion which has
ever since prevailed.
-'liief Lon- 1 he three metropolitan newspapers which at different
t ion news- periods of this reign stood pre-eminent amongst their com-
’TfiO-l'fion Petlt®rs were The Public Advertiser, The Morning Post,
• and The Morning Chronicle. The far more striking pre¬
dominance ol The Times is, as we shall see hereafter, a
thing of later date. The first-named paper owed some of
its popularity to the letters of Junius. The Post and the
Chronicle were mainly indebted for their success (in by¬
gone days) to the personal qualities of individual editors.
It need hardly be said that the Public Advertiser was
already a successful and rising journal when it published the
NEWSPAPERS.
first contribution of Junius. To none other would the
letters of Junius have been sent. Many of them had ap-
185
News¬
papers.
peared before the smallest perceptible effect was produced
on the circulation of the paper; but when the “ Letter to Letters of
the King” came out (19th Dec. 1769, almost a year from the Junius in
beginning of the series), it caused an addition of 1750 the Public
copies to the ordinary impression. The effect of subse- Advertiser,
quent letters was variable; but when Junius ceased to
write, the monthly sale of the paper had risen to 83,950.
This was in December 1771. Seven years earlier the
monthly sale had been but 47,515. The Public Advertiser
did not, however, long retain the position into which it had
been so rapidly elevated. The Morning Chronicle was T>ie Morn-
begun in 1769. William Woodfall (‘Memory’Woodfall, |nS Chron'
as he was called) was its printer, reporter, and editor; andlcle"
continued to conduct it until 1789. James Perry suc¬
ceeded him as editor, and so continued, with an interval
during which the editorship was in the hands of the late
Mr Sergeant Spankie, until his death in 1821. In the days
of the “ Black Acts” the Chronicle was the most uncompro¬
mising opponent of the government, and Perry’s editorial
functions were occasionally discharged in Newgate ; in 1819
the daily sale nearly reached 4000. When sold in 1823
to the late Mr Clement, the purchase-money amounted to
L.42,000. Mr Clement held it for about eleven years, and
then sold it to the late Sir John Easthope, for a much
smaller sum than it had cost him. Of its subsequent for¬
tunes, it is enough here to say, that in 1854 its average
circulation had sunk to 2791 copies daily. But no loss of
popularity can deprive it of the distinction of having been
the first newspaper which was adorned by literary criticism
of the highest order.
The Morning Post dates from 1772. For some years it Tlie Morn-
was in the hands of the notorious ‘ Parson Bate’ (afterwards in£ Post*
known as Sir Henry Bate Dudley), and it attained some
degree of temporary popularity, though of no very enviable
sort. In 1795 the entire copyright, with house and
printing materials, was sold for L.600 to Peter and Daniel
Stuart, who quickly raised the position of the Post by en¬
listing Mackintosh and Coleridge in its service, and by
giving unremitting attention to advertisements and to the
copious supply of incidental news and amusing paragraphs.
A few years ago there was a long controversy about the Newspaper
share which Coleridge had in elevating the Post from
obscurity to eminence. That he greatly promoted this eri ®e"
result there can be no doubt. His famous “ Character of
Pitt,” published in 1800, was especially successful. It
largely increased the sale of the paper, and created a de¬
mand for the particular number in which it appeared that
lasted for weeks, a thing almost without precedent. Nor
were newspaper-owners likely to be at all insensible to the
value of talents which bore such a golden stamp. Mr D.
Stuart, indeed, was once silly enough to write,—after quot¬
ing the anecdote of the city bookseller Sir Richard Phillips
having slapped Coleridge on the shoulder at a dinner party,
saying, “ I wish I had you in a garret without a coat to your
back,”—“ In something like this state, I had Coleridge!'
But, when in a better mind, he has borne testimony on this
point which is unexceptionable. To write the leading
articles of a newspaper, he says, “ I would prefer Coleridge
to Mackintosh, Burke, or any man I ever heard of. His
observations were marked by good sense, .... extensive
knowledge, deep thought, and well-grounded foresight- . . .
They were the writings of a scholar, agentleman, and a states¬
man, without personal sarcasm, or illiberality of any kind.”
But unhappily, we must add, these noble qualities lacked
another. In his best days the poet-philosopher never pos¬
sessed that capacity for steady, persistent, punctual labour
which is the sinew of periodical literature, and for the want
VOL, XVI.
1 Debates of the Irish House of Commons, 3d Marsh 1789,
136
NEWSPAPERS.
News- of which we have all of us seen names synonymous with
papers, genius become symbols of failure. To say, therefore,
^ that it was less to the powers of Coleridge, than to the
energetic enterprise and the eminent business qualities of
the new proprietors, that the Morning Post owed its ex¬
traordinary rise, from a daily circulation in 1795 of 350, to
one in 1803 of 4500 copies, is consistent alike with the ascer¬
tained facts, and with the obvious necessities of the case.
Rapid de- But it may well excite some degree of wonder to find a
cline of the journaj which had attained such a position sinking within
PosTafter a very ^evv years to a depth of degradation which carried it
lsn3 as far below its competitors as it had formerly risen above
them. When Stuart sold his paper in 1803, with its circula¬
tion exceeding by one half that of its most popular daily
rival, and with a character for honest independence which
was still more enviable, he could hardly have anticipated
that in 1812 he would read in its columns a poetical ad¬
dress “ to the Prince Regent,” which, for unblushing false¬
hood and venal adulation, might challenge the enslaved
press of Austria or of Russia. “ Glory of the People,”
“ Protector of the Arts,” “ Maecenas of the Age,” “ Con¬
queror of Hearts,”—such were the epithets thickly strewn in
a eulogy which was wound up in this fashion :—>
“ Thus gifted with each grace of mind,
Born to delight and bless mankind;
Wisdom, with pleasure in her train,
Great Prince, shall signalize thy reign ! ”
It was for lashing this vile parasite in terms of manly in¬
dignation, and for vigorously enforcing the pregnant truth,
“ Flattery in any shape is unworthy a man and a gentle¬
man ; but political flattery is almost a request to be made
slaves,” that John Hunt and Leigh Hunt were sentenced
to a fine of one thousand pounds; to be, each of them,
imprisoned two years in separate gaols ; and to give heavy
security for good behaviour for five years more.
Repeated Whilst the general influence of the newspaper press was
augmenta- becoming both more extensive, and, in the main, incom-
tion of the parably more civilizing, the steady industry of official per-
j^V3Paf)er sons was constantly employed in endeavours to restrain and
diminish it. In 1756 an additional halfpenny had been
added to the tax. In 1765 and in 1773 various restrictive
regulations were imposed (5th Geo. III., c. 46; and 13th
Geo. III., c. 65). In 1789 the three halfpence was in¬
creased to twopence (29th Geo. III., c. 50); in 1797 to
twopence-halfpenny (37th Geo. III., c. 90); in 1804 to
threepence-halfpenny (44th Geo. III., c. 98) ; and, in 1815,
was altered to fourpence, less a discount of 20 per cent.
Penalties of all kinds were also enhanced, and obstructive
regulations were multiplied. Very obviously, these restric¬
tions failed in a great degree of their immediate purpose.
Yet their prejudicial effect in eking out the existence of the
worst portion of the press, by fettering fair competition, is
incalculable. Happily for humanity, there are, and will al¬
ways be, men to whom obstacles become spurs in the career
which conscience has traced for them. Their delight in
the chase rises with the difficulty of the country. When
once engaged in political conflict, they will, like Defoe,
neither give nor take quarter.1 But the legislation which
offers to such men the widest field for their energies, multi¬
plies the basenesses of weaker men, and gives impunity to
their crimes.
Before proceeding to notice the later history of the me¬
tropolitan newspapers, it may be desirable to glance at the
rise and progress of the English provincial press. A glance News-
at it is all that can here be attempted. papers.
The earliest provincial paper with which we are acquainted
is The Stamford Mercury, a publication which is still in Growth of
existence, and of which its proprietors can say, with some the English
reasonable pride, that it has appeared weekly, without in- provincial
terruption, for a hundred and sixty-two years. Next to Pu¬
tins came the Norwich Postman, first published in 1706,
in small quarto, and of meagre contents. The stated price
of this paper was a penny, but its proprietor notified to the
public that “ a halfpenny is not refused.” Two other papers
were started in Norwich within a few years afterwards,— Early pa.
The Courant in 1712; The Weekly Mercury, or Protes- pers of
tant’s Packet (which still exists) in 1720. Worcester seems Norwich,
to have been the third country town in England to boast 0f ^c°rcester>
a newspaper; the Worcester Postman appearing in 1708,
and the Worcester Journal having begun its more fortunate
career (still continued) in 1709. The Nexocastle Courant
followed in 1711; The Liverpool Courant in 1712; the
Salisbury Postman, and the Felix Farley's Bristol Journal,
each in 1715; The Nottingham Post in 1716; and the
Kentish Post in 1717. The Courant is still published at
Newcastle, and the Kentish Post (under the altered title of
Kentish Gazette) at Canterbury. Farley’s Bristol Journal
has merged into the Bristol Times. The others have long
since ceased to appear.
The Leeds Mercury was established in the year 1718, The Leeds
and, for the purpose of evading the Stamp Act, was made Mercury,
to extend to twelve pages, small quarto (or a sheet and a
half; the stamp being then levied only on papers not ex¬
ceeding a single sheet). Like its contemporaries, it was
published weekly, and its price was three-halfpence. In
1729 it was reduced to four pages of larger size, and sold,
with a stamp, at twopence. From 1755 to 1766 its publi¬
cation was suspended, but was resumed in January 1767,
under the management of James Bowley, who continued to
conduct it for twenty-seven years, and raised it to a circu¬
lation of 3000. Its price at this time was fourpence. The
increase of the stamp duty in 1797 altered its price to
sixpence, and the circulation sank from 3000 to 800. It was
purchased in 1801 by the late Edward Baines, who first began
the insertion of “ leaders.” It took him three years to ob¬
tain a circulation of 1500; but the Leeds Mercury after war ds
made rapid progress, and became one of the most important
and valuable of the country papers, as it still continues to be.
New-Year’s-Day 1719 was marked in Manchester by Early Man-
the appearance of the first number of the Manchester
Weekly Journal, published by Roger Adams. ThisPaPers-
was followed in 1730 by the Manchester Gazette (after¬
wards called the Manchester Magazine), published by
Henry Whitworth. Harrow’s Manchester Mercury was
begun on the 3d March 1762, and continued to exist until
the close of 1830. Both of the papers last named, although
alike characterized by that utter absence of literary talent
which usually marked the provincial press of the period, were
of violent politics, on opposite sides. The Magazine was
Whiggish and Hanoverian ; the Mercury, Tory and Jacobi-
tical. A controversy, which lasted for more than a year,
between the former and the Chester Courant (a paper that
may be regarded as in some sort a continuation of the
Manchester Journal above-mentioned, the publisher of
which had removed to Chester), is not the least curious of
the many episodes of the rebellion of 1745-6. It grew
out of the following paragraph, which had appeared in the
Mercury of 23d Sept. 1746
1 “ If I might give a short hint to an impartial writer, it would be to tell him his fate. If he resolves to venture upon the dangerous
precipice of telling unbiassed truth, let him proclaim war with mankind a la mode le pays de Pole—neither to give nor to take quarter.
If he tells the crimes of great men, they fall upon him with the iron hands of the law; if he tells their virtues, when they have any,
then the mob attacks him with slander. But if he regards truth, let him expect martyrdom on both sides, and then he may go on fear
less; and this is the course I take myself.”
NEWSPAPERS.
News- “Manchester, Sept. 22.—Last Thursday, about four in the morn-
papers. ing, the heads of Thomas Siddal and Thomas Deacon were fixed upon
v ^ —i J the Exchange. Great numbers have been to view them; and yester¬
day, betwixt eight and nine in the morning, Dr Deacon, a non-jur¬
ing priest, and father to one of them, made a full stop near the Ex¬
change, and, looking up at the heads, pulled off his hat, and made a
bow to them with great reverence. Pie afterwards stood some time
looking at them.”
The incident here recorded was but the spark which
fell amidst a large accumulation of combustible matter.
Party feeling was at that period in an especial state of ex¬
citement in Lancashire ; and the paper war which followed
afforded matter enough for a volume, under the title of
Manchester Vindicated: Being a complete Collection of
all the Papers recently published in Defence of that Town
in the Chester Courant.
The Man- Thirty years later, the American revolution rekindled
Chester^ tjie ioca{ big0try of faction, beneath the mask of patriotism,
fn^the*1^ even more than its former fierceness. At this period
American ^e Manchester Mercury published special supplements
war. from time to time, as intelligence came from the seat of
war; and whenever the news was unfavourable to the
Americans, prefixed headings to the supplements, which
served the double purpose of exulting in their defeat and
exciting popular hatred against such of the townsmen as
were known, or supposed, to regard the colonists in the light
of an injured people. Thus, on the 7th January 1777, an
extra sheet was published, entitled “No. 1312.—A New
Year’s Gift for all true lovers of their King and Country,
and a JReceipt in full to the most wicked, daring, and un¬
natural Rebellion that ever disgraced the Annals of History,
fomented and abetted by a Junto of Republicans on this
side the Atlantic. Joseph Harrop, printer of the Man¬
chester Mercury, with unspeakable pleasure again presents
his friends, gratis, with the following London Gazette
Extraordinary f &c. In the next paper this paragraph was
inserted:—
“We are assured by a gentleman just arrived from America, that
when Washington found himself reduced to the necessity of quit¬
ting his strong entrenchments near King’s Bridge, he declared that
all was over with the colonies, and dropped some intimation of not
wishing to survive the misfortunes of the day. . . Mr Washing¬
ton, notwithstanding his amour with Mrs Gibbons, is, we hear,
married to a very amiable lady; but it is said that Mrs Washing¬
ton, being a warm loyalist, has been separated from the General
since the commencement of the present troubles, and lives very
much respected in the city of New York.”
The next supplement begins thus:—“Ye republican
fomenters and abettors of rebellion, blush and tremble at
your deeds.” And another:—“ The hour is now approach¬
ing when all those vile republican miscreants, as well on
this as on the other side the Atlantic (who have fomented
... a most wicked and horrid rebellion against the best of
kings and the best of ministers), must answer for all their
mal-practices,” &c.
Nor did the utter failure of these predictions teach the
conductors or the patrons of the Mercury the wisdom of
moderation. The same paper, under the same manage¬
ment, fostered the “Church and King” mobs of 1792;
incited innkeepers to put up boards bearing the words,
“ No Jacobins admitted here ;” and denounced all opposi¬
tion to the government of the day as seditious and treason¬
able. When these frantic counsels had borne their natural
fruit of outrage on the property and persons of reformers,
the Mercury defended the criminals, and those who had
failed to put the law in force against them, in these words:
•—I he fact stands thus : If any man, at such a crisis as
this, will publicly make use of expressions inimical to the
wellbeing of the government under which he lives, the
consequence cannot be arrested by the best-regulated
police, because it will be summary.” At this time, Man¬
chester possessed no paper of any shade of liberalism. The
printing-office of the Manchester Herald, which had been
187
started on the 31st March 1792, as the advocate of moderate News-
reform, was partially destroyed by a mob in the month of papers.
December following ; the local authorities of the town
standing by and applauding the act; and the paper itself
ceased to appear in March 1793. The York CWarc* other Eng-
dates its first appearance in 1719 ; The Northampton lish papers
Mercury and The Salisbury Journal date from 1720;Priorto
The Gloucester Journal from 1722; The Reading Mer-17 50-
cury from 1723 ; The Chester Courant (already men¬
tioned) and The Chelmsford Chronicle from 1730; The
Kendal Courant appeared in 1731 ; The Derby Mercury
dates from 1732 ; The Sherborne Mercury (now called
The Western Flying Post) from 1736 ; The Hereford
Journal from 1739 ; Aris’s Birmingham Gazette from
1741; The Bath Journal from 1742 ; and The Cambridge
Chronicle from 1748. The total number of existing pro¬
vincial newspapers, the first publication of which is prior to
1750, is eighteen. Twenty-nine others have dates which
range between the years 1750 and 1790. Most other
country papers date their origin subsequently to the middle
of the last century.
The Times is usually dated from the 1st of January Origin of
1788, but was really commenced on the 18th JanuaryThe Times
1785, under the title of The London Daily Universal newsPaPer'
Register, printed topographically. This “ word-printing ”
process had been invented by a person named Henry Johnson’s
Johnson several years before, and is the subject of two patents for
patents, bearing date, respectively, 9th November 1778, loS°gra-
and 16th October 1780. The first of these is described P|”c Print‘
as a “method of printing with types or figures so connected1110'
as to prevent the possibility of error in all business where
figures are used, particularly in taking down the numbers
of blanks and prizes in the lottery.” The second is de¬
scribed as a “ method of casting and moulding types for the
purpose of composing by or with entire words, with several
words combined, with sentences, and syllables, and figures
. combined, instead of the usual method of composing and
printing with single letters,” &c. These patents were
Johnson’s; but the invention was eagerly taken up by Mr
Walter (himself a printer), who was sanguine of its success.
His Daily Register contained four pages, was printed on a
halfpenny stamp, and was at first sold for twopence-half-
penny, afterwards for threepence. In Nos. 510 and 511
Mr Walter made a long address to the public on the ad¬
vantages of the logographic plan, and of the obstacles it had
encountered. “ Embarked in a business,” he writes, “ into
which I entered a mere novice, .... want of experience
laid me open to many and gross impositions ; and I have
been severely injured by the inattention, ignorance, and
neglect of others. These reasons, though they will not
excuse, will account for and palliate the errors .... of
the logographic press,” &c. And he proceeds to state that
the impediments thrown in his way, by the typefounders in
particular, were such as to oblige him to erect a foundry for
himself. In short, it is the old story of all inventors, dif¬
ferenced in this case from many others by the circumstance,
that here there were difficulties in the way of ultimate and
permanent success which seem to have been really insu¬
perable.
Another obstacle in Mr Walter’s path will be best de¬
scribed in his own words :—
“The Universal Register has been a name as injurious to the The Daily
logographic newspaper as Tristram was to Mr Shandy’s son. Universal
But old Shandy forgot he might have rectified hy confirmation Register
the mistake of the parson at baptism—with the touch of a bishop changed
have altered Tristram to Trismegestus. The Universal Register, into The
from the days of its first appearance to the day of its confirmation, Times,
has, like Tristram, suffered from unusual casualties, both laughable
and serious, arising from its name, which, on its introduction, was
immediately curtailed of its fair proportion by all who called for
it,—the word Universal being universally omitted, and the word
188
NEWSPAPERS.
News¬
papers.
Register being only retained. 1 Boy, bring me the Register., The
waiter answers, ‘ Sir, we have not a library, but you may see it
at the New Exchange Coffee-House.’ ( Then, I’ll see it there,’ an¬
swers the disappointed politician; and he goes to the New Ex¬
change, and calls for the Register, upon which the waiter tells him
that he cannot have it, as he is not a subscriber, and [or?] presents
him with the Court and, City Register, the Old Annual Register, or
the New Annual Register For these and other reasons, the
parents of the Universal Register have added to its original name
that of the Times, which, being a monosyllable, bids defiance to
corrupters and mutilators of the language.” {The Times, or Daily
Universal Register, printed logographically .... for J. Walter, at
the Logographic Press, Printing-House Square, &c. No. 1, 1st
January, 1788.)
Within two years Mr Walter had his share in the
Georgian persecutions of the press, by successive sentences
to three fines and to three several imprisonments in New¬
gate, chiefly for having stated that the Prince of Wales and
the dukes of York and Clarence had so misconducted them¬
selves “ as to incur the just disapprobation of his Majesty.”
In 1803 he transferred the management of the journal to
his son, the late Mr Walter (together with the joint pro¬
prietorship), by whom, as is well known, it was carried on
with remarkable energy and consummate tact. To Lord
Sidmouth’s government he gave a general but independent
support. That of Mr Pitt, which succeeded, he opposed,
especially on the questions of the Catamaran expedition
and the malversation of Lord Melville. This opposition
was characteristically resented by depriving the elder Mr
Walter of the printing of the Customs department, which
he had performed for eighteen years; by the withdrawal of
government advertisements from the Times ; and by the
systematic detention at the outports of the foreign intelli¬
gence addressed to its editor. Mr Walter, however, was News-
strong and resolute enough to brave the government, and papers,
to beat it. He organized a better system of news trans-
mission than had ever before existed. He introduced
steam-printing, and repeatedly improved its mechanism ; The Times’
and although machines which now print 12,000 sheets in steam
the hour may seem to thrust into insignificance a press ofPrinting-
which it was at first announced as a notable triumph that Press-
the new machine performed its task “with such a ve¬
locity and simultaneousness of movement, that no less than
1100 sheets are impressed in one hour;” yet Mr Walter’s
assertion was none the less true, that the Times of 29th
November 1814 “presented to the public the practical
result of the greatest improvement connected with printing
since the discovery of the art itself.”
The effort to secure for the Times the best attainable Growth of
literary talent in all departments kept at least an equal pace the circu-
with those which were directed towards the improvementlation of
of its mechanical resources. And thus it has come to pass the Times'
that a circulation which did not, even in 1815, exceed on
the average 5000 copies, became, in 1834, 10,000; in
1844, 23,000; in 1851, 40,000 ; and in 1854, 51,648. In
the year last named, the Morning Advertiser, the most
popular of its daily contemporaries, attained an average cir¬
culation of but 7668 ; whilst that of the Daily News was
but 4160; that of the Morning Herald, 3712; of the
Morning Chronicle, 2800 ; and of the Morning Post,
2667. But this extraordinary fact will be best appreciated
if the average daily circulation of the Times, for a few
years past, be compared with that of all its daily contem¬
poraries of the London press collectively:—
The Times 
Aggregate of the other Daily Morning Papers
Total average circulation of Daily Morn- 1
ing Papers  J
Year 1846.
28,594
38,999
67,593
29,409
33,945
63,354
1848.
European
Revolution.
35,225
34,558
69,783
36,102
25,347
61,449
1850.
38,019
24,116
62,135
40,081
30,266
70,347
1852.
42,384
29,580
71,964
1853.
44,578
28,768
73,346
1854.
Russian
War.
51,648
26,268
77,916
The Times Of the many curious incidents which occur in the public
continent- J”story Times, one only can here be mentioned,
al banking ^ ^at one ’s t00 honourable to journalism, and has been too
forgeries of use^u^‘n its results to the community, to be passed over.
1840. In 1840, the then Paris correspondent of this paper (Mr
O’Reilly) obtained information respecting a gigantic
scheme of forgery which had been planned in France, to¬
gether with particulars of the examination at Antwerp of
minor agent in the conspiracy, who had been there, almost
by chance, arrested. All that he could collect on the sub¬
ject, including the names of the chief conspirators, was pub¬
lished by the Times on the 26th of May in that year, under
the heading, “ Extraordinary and Extensive Forgery and
Swindling Conspiracy on the Continent (Private Corre¬
spondence).” The project contemplated the almost simul¬
taneous presentation, at the chief banking-houses through¬
out the Continent, of forged letters of credit, purporting to
be those of Glyn and Company, to a very large amount;
and its failure appears to have been in a great degree
owing to the exertions made, and the heavy responsibility
assumed, by the 7imes. One of the persons implicated
brought a,n action for libel against the printer, which was
tiied at Croydon in August 1841, with a verdict for the
plaintiff, one farthing damages. A subscription towards
defraying the heavy expenses (amounting to more than
L.oOOO) which the Times had incurred, was speedily opened,
but the pioprietois declined to profit by it; and ultimately
it Mas determined, that of the sum (L.2625) which had
been laised, an amount not exceeding one hundred and
fifty guineas should be expended on twro commemorative
tablets, the one to be placed in the Times office, and the
other in the Royal Exchange ; the remainder of the money
being funded, and the dividends applied to the support of two
Times scholarships,” in connection with Christ’s Hospi- The Times
tal and the City of London School, for the benefit of pupils scholar¬
proceeding thence to the universities of Oxford or Cam-
bridge. This scheme was carried into effect in 1842.
For upwards of sixty years from the establishment of the Repeated
Times, only one of the many attempts that were made to failures of
found a new daily paper in London was successful. The new at'
most conspicuous failures were those of the Neiv Times temPtfto
(started by Dr Stoddart, better known as “Dr Slop”); of^Jfon
the Representative (in which the late Mr John Murray daily pa-
risked and lost a very large sum); and of the Constitu- pers.
tional (originated by a joint-stock subscription, under the
title of “ The Metropolitan Newspaper Company”). All
these failures were complete, notwithstanding that neither
talent, industry, nor money seems to have been wanting to
give the new papers a fair start. Of the latter, indeed,
about L.50,000 was lost in these three unsuccessful attempts.
Ihe stamp may have had its influence in promoting these
miscarriages, but the main cause of them lay in the unre¬
mitting energy, the wide forecast, and the practical wisdom
with which their most formidable rival provided for and
anticipated the wants of the public. The lesson is an in¬
structive one, M'ell deserving to be thoroughly studied by
all whom it may concern.
In the exceptional case, that of the Morning Advertiser, Establish-
the new paper attained commercial success by reason of its ment of
special character, as being at once the representative of the ^he De"r-
interests and of the charities of the Licensed Victuallers, [i'ser
Every publican who subscribed to it had his share in the an(i tlie
profits. I he subsequent success of the Daily News (the Daily
first number of which appeared in 1846), after a long and News.
News¬
papers,
ondon
vening
ewspa-
ers.
ondon
eekiy
iwspa-
;rs.
obbett’s
reekly
egister.
NEWSPAPERS.
189
severe struggle, has been mainly due to the ready skill with
which it corrected its early blunders, and turned them to
future account. Its literary staff was strong, and its enter¬
prise, especially in relation to the early obtainment of foreign
news, remarkable. For a time, too, it offered to the public
a tolerably complete newspaper for twopence-halfpenny;
but under the then existing circumstances this could not
continue. In January 1847 the price was raised to three¬
pence, and at this price it reached a daily sale at one time
of 23,000 copies, and managed for a while to hold its own
against a formidable combination of rivals. In February
1849 it resumed its original size, and was sold at the usual
price of fivepence. Its average sale in 1854 was (as we
have seen) only 4160. But it has always held a highly
respectable place in the ranks of metropolitan journalism.
London possessed no dailr/ evening paper until 1788,
nor did any evening paper attain an important position
until the period of the war with Napoleon, when the
Courier became the newspaper of the day. During the
last three years of that war its average daily circulation
reached 8000 copies. After the peace its popularity de¬
clined, and eventually a total change in its politics completed
its ruin. The Globe and the Sun, as independent papers, and
the Express and the Evening Mail, as offshoots respectively
of the Daily News and of the Times, are now the principal
journals of their class.
The London weekly press has always worn a motley
garb. In its ranks are to be found some of the most worth¬
less newspapers and some of the best. Weekly publication
facilitates the individuality of a journal, both as respects
its editorship, and as respects the class of readers to which
it more especially addresses itself. From the days of Daniel
Defoe to those of Albany Fonblanque and Robert Rin-
toul, there have always been newspapers bearing the un-
mistakeable impress of an individual mind. And this char¬
acteristic quality, whilst it has strengthened and deepened
the influence of good journals, has also, of necessity, in¬
creased the temporary power of bad journals. When to
great force of character in the writer and its natural result,
an almost personal intimacy between writer and reader,
governments have been unwise enough to add the strength
which inevitably grows out of persecution, the combination
might well prove a formidable one. Cobbett’s Weekly Re¬
gister affords perhaps as striking an illustration of journalism,
in its greatness and in its meanness, as could be culled from
its entire annals since a newspaper was first issued.
When Cobbett commenced his Political Register in the
year 1802, its plan was very different from that which he
ultimately adopted. The author was at first chiefly anxious
to make his work a good repertory of state papers ; but
his point of view soon changed. What had been intended
as a storehouse of materials for the future historian became
a record ot the varying moods of mind under which a
man ot remarkable powers regarded the passing events of
the day. The extraordinary success of the paper was
mainly owing to the vividness w'ith which these impressions
were recorded; to the clear and vigorous English, racy of
the soil, in which they were clothed; and, above all, to the
evidence it carried on its face that the writer, whatever his
other faults, was not to be bribed, and that he meant what
he said at least whilst he was saying it. Egotism beyond
all precedent, hatreds the most vindictive, and inconsis¬
tencies so numerous, that after a time opponents ceased to
take note of them, were qualities in this paper so apparent
that he who ran might read; and three-fourths perhaps of
the topics which came under notice were discussed with a
lack of information and a shallowness of thought that were
quite as striking as was the blaze of light in which the
writer placed the remaining fourth. To William Cobbett
no question was so difficult, and no name so sacred, as to
call for modest or reverent silence. Of reverence, in truth,
he had none. Cobbett’s French Grammar seemed to him News-
a greater work than the Paradise Lost; and the chief im- papers,
pression he derived from the writings of Addison was, that
they afforded copious examples of faulty syntax. To him
all subjects were almost equally welcome, were handled
with like confidence, and afforded similar opportunities for
bitter personality and fierce invective. Yet the Weekly
Political Register maintained a popularity that was almost
unexampled. Cobbett carried it on during thirty-three years,
and amidst all varieties of fortune. Whether he was at
home or on his travels, a prisoner in Newgate or an exile
in America, the work went steadily on, until it had filled
88 volumes, and then his labour ceased but with his life.
He owed to it an influence that was co-extensive with the
empire, and that made his name a household word at the
hearths of tens of thousands who had never set eyes upon
him. But if it be asked, what was the real outcome of Effect of
all this rare energy and untiring industry, in the way of the Weekly
enlightening and elevating that numerous public whose Register
ear it had gained, a truthful answer will be a sad one. te^chinSon
Here and there it set a-thinking men who had capacity history1 of
enough to seek further and better instruction elsewhere; Chartism,
but to a large proportion of its readers, the Register became
a sort of political gospel. Nor is it uncharitable to say, that
some of the worst excesses of “ Chartism ”—its bigotry and
rancour, its short-sighted obstruction of social improvements,
and its obstinate pursuit of courses leading to riot and out¬
rage—are partly ascribable to the one-sided teachings
and the frantic violence of the Weekly Register. Mis-
government, indeed, was the seed-plot; but these were po¬
tent fertilizers. Whatever else may have been wanting to
insure a large crop was amply afforded by the results of the
pertinacious maintenance of the newspaper stamp, and of
those other impediments which then so thickly studded the
path of every temperate and truth-loving writer who sought
to address himself to the masses of his countrymen, without
either flattering.their vanity or exciting their passions.
The manifest incongruity between the maintenance of The un-
“ taxes on knowledge” and the pretensions of a reforming stamped
government, gave a strong impulse to the violation of the law. Press of
Between the years 1831 and 1835 many scores of un- BUl^erkid1
stamped newspapers made their appearance. Poor Man’s 1 1,6110
Guardians, Twopenny Dispatches, Destructives, People’s
Conservatives, London Democrats, anda hostof other penny
and halfpenny papers swarmed from presses that seemed
to rival, in their mysterious itinerancy and sudden vanishings,
the famous Marprelate press of the sixteenth century. The
political tone of most of them was fiercely revolutionary.
Some of them taught Marat’s doctrine that the shortest and
surest path to political amelioration lies through a sea of
blood. Those of the latter class were characterized by
Lord Brougham (when under examination in a committee
of the House of Commons on the libel law), as competing
one with the other in the ferocity of their writings. “ Where
one,” he says, “ charged public characters with all offences,
another recommended their extirpation ; where one main¬
tained the lawfulness of rebellion, another maintained the
propriety of assassination.” Prosecution after prosecution
failed to suppress the obnoxious publications. The total
number of such prosecutions exceeded 700, and nearly
500 persons suffered imprisonment in the course of them.
But the law continued to be systematically broken.
1 o Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton is due the credit of having Reduction
grappled with this question in the House of Commons, in of the
a manner which secured the speedy reduction of the tax from stamP'
fourpence to a penny, and paved the way towards its sub- ^ggg
sequent though long-delayed abolition. This reduction ’
took effect on the 15th September 1836. At that date the
number of newspapers stamped in Great Britain and Ire¬
land was about 36,000,000 in the year, and the gross amount
of duty upwards of L.553,000. Of this sum English news-
190
NEWSPAPERS.
News- papers paid L.473,910; Scottish newspapers, L.47,999;
papers, and Irish newspapers, L.31,287. In the year ending 5th
January 1838, the first financial year during the whole of
which the reduced duty was in operation, the number of
Number of stamps issued throughout the United Kingdom was raised
stamps, and to 53,897,926, and the gross amount of the duty was re-
dutv^subse- ^uce<^ ^ L*223,425, 10s. lid. Of this sum English news-
quently to PaPers Paid L.182,998, 3s. 2d.; Scottish newspapers,
the reduc- L.18,671, 13s. 3d.; and Irish newspapers, L.21,755,14s. 6d.
tion in In the year ending 5th January 1849, the number of stamps
had risen to 86,465,684, and the gross amount of duty was
L.360,273, 12s. Finally, in the year ending 5th January
1855, the number of stamps issued to newspapers, exclusive
of price-currents, &c., at the rate of one penny,—to which
rate the parliamentary return before us is limited,—was
107,052,053, and the gross amount of duty thereon, Fews-
L.446,050. The details are as follows :— papers.
1836.
United Kingdom.
England.
Wales....
Scotland.
Ireland..
Total.
Number of
Newspapers
stamped.
412
21
102
108
643
Aggregate No. of
Id. Stamps issued
to Newspapers.
87,930,085
1,107,434
9,112,245
8,902,289
107,052,053
Gross Amount of
Duty thereon.
L. s.
366,375 7
4,614 6
37,967 13
37,092 17
446,050 4 5
At the date of this return (January 1855), the relative
consumption of ordinary stamps, and the average circula¬
tion of the principal newspapers, stood respectively thus:—
Eelative
circulation
of the prin¬
cipal news¬
papers in
1854.
Name of Newspaper.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23. '
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
Times—[See also Evening Mail] 
News of the World 
Illustrated London News 
. Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper 
Weekly Times 
Reynolds’ Weekly Newspaper 
Morning Advertiser 
Dispatch 
Daily News 
Bell’s Life in London 
Morning Herald    
M anchester Guardian 
Dublin Telegraph 
Liverpool Mercury 
Morning Chronicle 
Globe 
Express...j        
Morning Post 
Sun   
North British Advertiser (Edinburgh)^.
Evening Mail 
Saunders’ News-Letter (Dublin) 
Dublin Daily Express 
Leeds Mercury 
Glasgow Saturday Post 
Stamford Mercury 
Birmingham Journal   
Manchester Examiner and Times 
Shipping and Mercantile Gazette 
Bell’s Weekly Messenger 
Dublin General Advertiser 
North British Mail (Glasgow)   
Glasgow Herald 
Dublin Freeman’s Journal 
Staffordshire Advertiser 
Leeds Times 
London Gazette 
Observer   
Standard   
St James’s Chronicle 
Scotsman (Edinburgh) 
Witness „  
Examiner 
Spectator 
Date of
Establish¬
ment.
1785
1843
1842
1842
1847
1850
1794
1801
1846
1820
1781
1821
1852
1811
1770
1803
1846
1772
1792
1826
1789
1746
1851
1718
1830
1695
1825
1846
1836
1796
1837
1847
1803
1763
1795
1833
1655
1792
1827
1761
1817
1840
1808
1828
Periods of Publication
in 1855.
Daily
Weekly
Do.
Do.
Do
Weekly
Daily
Weekly
Daily
Weekly
Daily
Twice a week
Weekly
Four times a week
Daily
Do.
Do.
Do.
Do.
Weekly
Three times a week
Daily
Do.
Twice a week
Weekly
Do.
Twice a week
Do.
Daily
Weakly
Do.
Daily
Three times a week
Daily
Weekly
Do.
Twice a week
Weekly
Daily
Three times a week
Twice a week
Do.
Weekly
Do.
Politics.
Liberal
Do.
Do.
Democratic
Liberal
Democratic
Liberal
Do.
Do.
Do.
Conservative
Liberal
Do.
Do.
Conservative
Liberal
Do.
Conservative
Liberal
Neutral
Liberal
Neutral
Conservative
Liberal
Do.
Do.
Do.
Bo.
Neutral
Conservative
Neutral
Liberal
Conservative
Liberal
Neutral
Liberal
Neutral
Liberal
Conservative
Do.
Liberal
Do.
Do.
Do.
No. of Penny
Stamps in 18o4.
15,975,739
5,673,525
5,627,866
5,572,897
3,902,169
2,496,256
2,392,780
1,982,933
1,485,099
1,161,000
1,158,000
1,066,575
959,000
912,000
873.500
850,000
841,341
832.500
825,000
802,000
800,000
756,000
748.500
735.500
727,000
689,000
650,750
636,000
628,000
625.500
598,000
565,000
541.500
480,000
425,633
421.500
420,000
419,000
417,000
415,000
359,000
297,000
248,560
142,000
Average
Circulation
in 1854.
51,040
109,106
108,228
107,171
75,041
48,005
7,644
38,133
4,744
22,326
3,699
10,255
18,442
4,384
2,790
2,715
2,688
2,659
2,635
15,423
5,128
2,415
2,391
7,072
13,980
13,250
6,257
6,115
2,019
12,028
11,500
1,805
3,471
1,533
8,185
8,105
4,035
8,057
1,332
7,980
3,451
2,855
4,780
2,730
Final re- Ihe penny stamp, so far as it was compulsory, was at
coninulsorv en^re y rePealed by an act of Parliament, which re-
stamp-duty c,e.ived the r°yal assent on the loth of June 1855. Mr Milner
in 1855. Uibson had, in the previous session, carried a resolution of
the House of Commons affirming “ that it is the opinion of
this House that the laws in reference to the periodical press
and newspaper stamp are ill defined and unequally enforced;
and it appears to this House that the subject demands the
early consideration of Parliament.” This resolution neces¬
sarily brought the subject under the attention of the go¬
vernment, and especially ot Mr Gladstone, then chancellor
of the exchequer. That minister did not retain office long
enough to introduce his measure into Parliament; but his
successor took up the bill he had prepared, and with some
modification carried it into a law. It continued to be prac¬
ticable to stamp newspapers for transmission by post; and
in respect of all newspapers any part of the impression of
which should be so stamped, the existing regulations as to
the declaration, registration, and recognisances of newspaper
proprietors remained in force. In the course of the debates
the chancellor of the exchequer acknowledged that the
question had become “ not simply a question whether we
NEWSPAPERS.
News¬
papers,
shall retain or shall not retain a revenue of L.200,000,”—
(this was said on the assumption that about one-half of the
net revenue arising from the stamp would continue to be
received),—“ but it is whether we shall enter upon a cru¬
sade against a large portion of the existing newspaper press,
for the sake of enforcing a law which can only be enforced by
means of the verdicts of juries, which are somewhat doubtful
in their result.” Mr Drummond amused the House after his
fashion with a summary of the history of the newspaper
press, as it shaped itself to his fancy, in the course of which
he said that the writers in the Times “ reminded him a good
deal of what they called on board ship a ‘ handy-billy,’—
a tackle that came in upon all occasions whenever it was
wanted and also, “ of a bit of bog he had near a farm of
his. He once thought of draining it, and asked the opinion
of the farmer, who replied,—‘ No, no ! don’t drain it; in wet
weather there’s something for the cow; and if there’s no¬
thing for the cow, there’s something for the pig; and if there’s
nothing for the pig, there’s something for the goose.’ So it
was with the Times; if there was nothing in it for one
man, there was sure to be something for another.” In the
division at the second reading, taken on an amendment
professedly for delay, but substantially intended to defeat
the measure, the ayes were 215, the noes 161, the majo¬
rity 54. In the House of Lords no division took place;
ord Mont-hut Lord Monteagle recorded a protest against the bill,
igle’s pro-grounded partly on fiscal objections, and partly on the as-
ist against sertion that the proposed remission, “ so far from being
ie repeal. SOught for as a relief to the class of newspaper proprietors
whose interests are primarily involved in the question, is,
on the contrary, earnestly deprecated by them as being
likely to lead, through an unjust and unchecked piracy, to the
depreciation of their capital and the sacrifice of their com-
Year.
1753
1760
1790
1801
1806
1811
1814
1815
1816
1817
1818
1819
1820
1825
1826
1828
1829
1830
1831
1832
1834
1835
1836
1837
1838
1839
1841
1842
1843
1844
1845
1846
1847
1848
1849
1851
1852
1854
1856
Population at the Decennial
Periods of the Census.
[England, 6,186,366
Do 6,479,730
Do 8,540,738]
Great Brit., 10,942,646
Do 12,596,803
Unit. King., 21,272,187
Do 24,392,485
Chief Political Events or Topics of the
Year.
French Revolution 
War with Napoleon 
Do.
Do.
Defeat of Napoleon 
Waterloo campaign 
Congress of Vienna 
I Discontent in England..
J Peterloo massacre 
Trial of Queen Caroline.
Catholic Association ....
Commercial distress 
J Catholic emancipation 
French Revolution of July
| Reform Bill agitation 
Do 27,036,450
Do 27,724,849
Peel-Wellington administration ....
Stamp duty reduced Sept. 15, to Id.
First year of penny stamp 
Chartist agitation 
Number of Stamps Issued.
j. England.
"Great Britain.
Commencement of the systematic 1
agitation of Corn Law repeal.. J
Corn Law agitation
Repeal of the Corn Laws 
Famine in Ireland 
( French Revolution of February 1
\ European insurrections  J
War with Russia.
Great Britain
' and Ireland, ^
62,651,342
65,074,219
69,054,067
78,586,650
83,074,638
82,380,875
86,465,684
84,069,472
91,600,000
Amount of duty, L.421,811 1
122,178,5011
39,184,474 Optional stamp.
1 Inclusive of prices current, trade lists, &c., and of halfpenny stamps for supplements.
7,411,757
9,464,790
14,035,639
16,085,085
20,532,793
24,424,713
26,308,003
24,385,508
' 22,050,354
24,277,464
24,718,541
23,048,449
29,387,843
30,451,176
30,453,566
32,585,481
32,989,884
34,540,496
37,713,068
37,210,691
34,748,922
35,823,859
39,423,200
53,897,926
53,680,880
58,981,078
60,759,392
Rate of Duty (Net).
Hd.
2d.
3d.
31d.
( Part of the year, 3|d
j From Sept. 15, Id.
191
mercial interests.” It was pertinently rejoined by Lord
CanningThis in no way affects the justice of the ques¬
tion. It will be remembered that not many shipowners '
petitioned for the alteration of the navigation laws, nor
many farmers for the repeal of the corn laws.”
Thus was struck out from the statute-book a law which
had been thrust upon it at a time of unusual excitement, in
opposition to the counsels of the best statesmen of the day,
but which, nevertheless, continued in force for a hundred and
forty-three years. During that long term it uniformly showed
itself to be potent for mischief, and powerless for good. Any
period of unusual stringency in the execution of it was in¬
variably marked by rampant misgovernment, crowded gaols,
and wide-spread discontent. At length the contrast between
professions of anxiety for the promotion of popular educa¬
tion, and an obstinate perseverance in impeding the pro¬
gress of one of the most efficient of popular educators, be¬
came too glaring to be longer endured. It deserves to be
remembered, that at this final stage, although there was a
formidable array of maintainers of the stamp, not one of
the number was bold enough to avow any sympathy with
the reasons for supporting it which had so often been can¬
didly asserted by writers like L’Estrange, and by statesmen
like North and Pitt. In these days no politician has either
fear or dislike of an unshackled press. His only alarm is,
lest in losing its fetters, it should lose its character.
The interval since the repeal is as yet too brief to afford
materials for any satisfactory estimate even of the imme¬
diate results. We close this section of the subject, there¬
fore, with a brief statistical statement of the present posi¬
tion of the British newspaper press; first, however, pre¬
fixing a tabular summary of the operation of the stamp
duty at various periods of its existence.
News¬
papers.
192
NEWSPAPERS.
News¬
papers.
Number of
newspa¬
pers cur¬
rent in
1857.
The number of newspapers commenced from the early
part of 1855, when the repeal of the stamp duty had be¬
come a certainty, although not actually accomplished, and
which continued to be in existence at the beginning of
1857, amounts to 107. Eighty of these were started in
1855, and twenty-seven in 1856; twenty-six are metropo¬
litan, and eighty-one provincial. Of the latter, the majo¬
rity belong to towns which possessed no newspaper what¬
ever under the compulsory stamp act, and the price of
nearly one-third of them is but a penny. In some cases,
however, a portion of these new cheap papers is printed in
London, usually with pictorial illustrations, and to this is
added a local supplement containing the news of the district.
The total number of the newspapers published through¬
out the United Kingdom at the beginning of 1857 was 711;
and they may be classified as follows:—
Newspapers of
Liberal politics.
Democratic „ .
Conservative ,, .
Neutral ,, .
Total number.
Engl and.
Metro- Pro-
politan. vincial.
40
3
20
38
134
90
131
101 355
19
06
112
38
111
ta c
13
289
3
173
246
711
If these existing newspapers be classified according to
their respective dates of first publication, the enumeration
will run thus :—
Date of Tublication.
   Wales iwo'- Jre- isie oi
Metro. Prov. vvale8• land. land. Man.
First pub. prior to year 1700
betw. 1701 & 1750
„ 1751-60
„ 1761-70
„ 1771-80
„ 1781-90
„ 1791-1800
„ 1801-10
„ 1811-20
„ 1821-30
„ 1831-40
„ 1841-50
„ 1851-54
in 1855
„ 1856
First publication uncertain.
Total number.
England.
101
355
19
112
111
13
4
22
4
11
11
13
18
32
33
49
101
134
116
116
40
7
711
. Postal
transmis¬
sion of
newspa¬
pers in
1855 and
1856.
"I he decrease in the number of newspapers which passed
through the post-office in the year 1855 (during exactly
one-half of which the compulsory stamp had been abolished),
amounted to about one-fourth of the aggregate number
which had been posted in the preceding year. During
the six months of the optional stamp the money received
for impressed stamps was about L.93,000, and that for
postage stamps affixed on newspapers about L.25,000.
In the year 1856 the number of newspapers which passed
through the post-office was nearly 71,000,000, and of these
about three-fourths bore the impressed stamp, and one-
fourth was franked by the ordinary postage stamps. The
total gross revenue was therefore about L.295,833. Prior
to the abolition of the compulsory stamp the avcratje wei<Tht
of the newspapers passing through the post-office was three
ounces and a half. It is now about two ounces and three-
quarters. The reduction is due to the increase of the
small and cheap papers. It is understood that The Times
stamps about forty per cent, of its entire impression, the
daily average of which exceeds 60,000. It need hardly be
added that the alteration of the law, and the consequent
multiplication of the cheaper newspapers, have diminished
neither the circulation nor the well-earned influence of the News¬
leading journal. papers.
The establishment of a newspaper still requires com- v^v^/
pliance with most of the regulations of the 6 and 7 \\ ill. IV., Formali-
c. 76. Notice must be given at the Inland Revenue Office ties to be
in London, or at the .district stamp-office in the country, of?^8®™6'*
the contemplated publication, with particulars of(l.) title; estayisll.
(2.).precise locality of printing and publishing offices; (3.)mentofa
names in full of - printers and publishers ; (4.) number of new jour-
shares held by each proprietor, if there be more than one, nal-
with their names, occupations, and places of abode. This
declaration must.be made by the proprietor or by the pro¬
prietors jointly, if not exceeding two; if otherwise, then by
the two largest shareholders. The security of two sureties
(L.400 in London, L.flOO in the country) is still required
as a provision against the infraction of the libel law.
Each paper must bear the printer’s and publisher’s name
as heretofore, and a copy must be deposited at the stamp-
office (for which payment is made). The impressed stamp
carries the paper bearing it through the post-office for any
number of re-transmissions, if within fifteen days of publica¬
tion. Afterwards it is subject to the ordinary regulations
of the book-post. To entitle newspapers to transmission
to the colonies or to foreign countries, they must, in ad¬
dition to the payment of postage, according to the ordinary
rates, be specially registered, and an annual fee of five
shillings must be paid, which is due on the 15th June in
each year. (Miscellaneous newspapers in the Burney and
other collections of the British Museum ; Nichols, Literary
Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century, iv. 33-97 ; Returns
relating to Newspaper Stamps, 1836-1854 ; Report of the
Select Committee on Newspaper Stamps, 1850, passim;
Watts, Letter to Antonio Panizzi, Esq., on the reputed
English Mercury of 1588; Hansard’s Parliamentary
Debates, Sessions 1835, 1836, 1853, 1854, and 1855 ;
Hunt, The Fourth Estate, passim,; Coleridge, Biographia
Literaria, Supp. 392-395; Life of Edward Baines, 346,
seq.; Edinburgh Review, Oct. 1855, art. “ The Newspaper
Press ;” Mitchell, The Newspaper Press Directory, for
1857, passim; Second and Third Reports of the Post¬
master-General, 1856, 19; 1857, 10, seq. ; Scott, Memoirs
of Swift, 130, seq.; First Report of the Commissioners
on the Inland Revenue, 1857, 28 ; cxxiv.)
II.—THE NEWSPAPERS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
Boston was the first city of America that possessed a
local newspaper; but the earliest attempt in that direc¬
tion, made in September 1690, was suppressed by the autho¬
rities. So far as is now known, the only copy of this pio¬
neer of the vast new spaper press of the United States which
escaped destruction, is the copy that may still be seen in the
State Paper Office in London. It is a small quarto sheet,
one of the four pages of which is blank; the other three
contain a record of passing occurrences, not unlike the
contemporary news of the English press ; and with little
on the face of it to justify, in any sense, the assertion that
“it contained reflections of a very high nature.” Although
it purports to be “ printed by Richard Pierce for Benjamin
Harris,” it is probable that the latter was both printer and
editor, as he had already been of a London paper, and was
again at a subsequent period. Nearly fourteen years after¬
wards (April 24, 1704), the first number of the Boston Campbell's
News-Letter was “ printed by B. Green, and sold by Ni- Boston
cholas Boone;” but its proprietor and editor—so far as it^ews‘
can be said to have had an editor, for extracts from the J,etter'
London papers were its staple contents—was John Camp¬
bell, postmaster of the town. In 1719 he enlarged his
paper, in order, as he told his readers, “ to make the news
newet and more acceptable; . . . . whereby that which
teem’d old iii the former half-sheets becomes new now by
NEWSPAPERS.
News- the sheet This time twelvemonth we were thir-
papers. teen months behind with the foreign news beyond Great
Britain [or, in other words, the attention of the Bostonian
politicians was engrossed on the siege of Belgrade, when
their contemporaries in the mother country were intent on
the destruction of the Spanish fleet on the coast of Sicily] ;
and now less than five months; so that.... we have retrieved
about eight months since January last ;” and he encourages
his subscribers with the assurance thatifthey will continue
steady “ until January next, life, permitted, they will be ac¬
commodated with all the news of Europe.,. . . . that are
needful to be known in these parts.” But Campbell’s new
plans were soon disturbed by the loss-of his office, and the
commencement of a new journal by his successor in the
postmastership, William Brooker, entitled the Boston Ga¬
zette, “published by authority” (-No*. 1, 21*st December
1719). The old journalist had a bitter controversy, with
his rival, but at the end of the year 1722,-relinquished his
Green’s concern in the paper to Benjamin Green, by whom it was
editorship carried on with higher aims and greater success. The fol-
of the Bos- ]owing passage from an address to his readers (7th March
ton News- d, j x • v
Letter. -17may deserve quotation :—
“ The design of this paper is not merely to amuse the reader,
much less to gratify any ill-tempers by reproach or ridicule, to pro¬
mote contention, or espouse any party among us. The publisher,
on the contrary, laments our unhappy and dangerous divisions,
and he would always approve himself as a peaceable friend and
servant to all He longs for the blissful times when wars
shall cease to the end of the earth The publisher would
therefore strive to oblige all his readers by publishing those trans¬
actions that have no relation to any of our quarrels. For this end
he proposes to extend his paper to the history of nature among us,
as well as of political and foreign affairs That so this paper
may in some degree serve for the Philosophical Transactions of New
England, as well as for a political history ; and the things worthy
of recording in this, as well as in other parts of the world, may not
proceed to sink into eternal oblivion, as they have done in all the
past ages of the aboriginal and ancient inhabitants.”
Green conducted the paper until his death, at the close
of 1733, and was succeeded by his son-in-law, John Draper,
who published it until December 1762. By Richard
Draper, who followed his father, the title was altered to
Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Neivs-Letter ; and the
maintenance of the British rule against the rising spirit of
independence uniformly characterized his editorship and
that of his widow (to whom, at a subsequent period, a pen¬
sion was granted by the British government). It was the
only paper printed in Boston during the siege, and ceased
to appear when the British troops were compelled to eva¬
cuate the city.
Fho Boston \\\e Boston Gazette began, as we have seen, in 1719.
uazette. James Franklin, elder brother of the statesman, was its
first printer. It lasted until the end of 1754; its editor-
p ship usually changing with the change of the postmasters.
New Enr8 ^le ^ 7 August 1721, James Franklin started the New
and Cou- England Courant, now memorable for its connection with
1 ant. h‘s illustrious brother. It was soon embroiled in a religious
controversy, occasioned by the opposition of the clergy to
the practice of inoculation. Many of Franklin’s early writ¬
ings are to be found in its columns; and in February 1722
he assumed its management, James Franklin having been
forbidden by the General Court of Massachusetts “ to
print or publish the New England Courant, or any other
pamphlet or paper of the like nature, except it be first
supervised by the secretary of this province.” “ The main
design of this paper,” said the new editor, “ will be to en¬
tertain the town with the most comical and diverting inci¬
dents of human life, which, in so large a place as Boston,
will not fail of a universal exemplification. Nor shall we
be wanting to fill up these papers with a grateful intersper-
sion of more serious morals, which may be drawn from the
most ludicrous and odd parts of life.” The publication of
the Courant ceased in 1727; and two years later Franklin
vol. xvr.
193
established the Pennsylvania Gazette, which he continued News¬
weekly until 1765. But for his subsequent fame, both of papers,
these papers would perhaps have been utterly forgotten, v ■-
although their pages might afford useful contributions
towards a knowledge of the manners and condition of
New England in that day. , ,
To the Boston Gazette and the Courant succeeded
the New England Weekly Journal (20th March 1727;
incorporated with the Boston Gazette in 1741) ; and the
Weekly Rehearsal (27th September 1731), which became
the Boston Evening Post (August 1735), and under that
title was for a time the most popular of the. Boston news¬
papers. It aimed at neutrality in politics, and therefore
did not survive the exciting events of the spring of 1775.
Several minor papers followed, which may be passed over
without notice. A new Boston Gazette, which began in Ede’s Bos-
April 1755, has, however, claims to be particularized. For ton Oa*
a long time it was the main organ of the popular party, zette<
and expounded their policy with great ability, and in a
dignified temper. Otis, John Adams, Samuel Adams, and
Warren were amongst its writers. In January 1775 John
Adams began the famous “ Letters of Novanglus,” the Letters of
origin, of which he has himself (in his Diary) described in N°vanglus'
these words:—“ About this time Draper’s paper in Boston
swarmed with writers, and among an immense quantity of
meaner productions appeared a writer (Daniel Leonard)
under the signature of ‘ Massachusettensis.’ . . . These
papers were well written, abounded with wit, discovered
good information, and were conducted with a subtlety of art
and address wonderfully calculated to keep up the spirits of
their party and to depress our’s; to spread intimidation, and
to make proselytes among those whose principles and judg¬
ment give way to their fears Week after week passed
away, and these papers made a very visible impression on
many minds. No answer appeared I began at
length to think seriously of the consequences, and to write
under the signature of ‘ Novanglus ;’ and continued every
week in the Boston Gazette, until the 19th of April 1775.
The last number was prevented from impression by the
commencement of hostilities, and Mr Gill gave it to Judge
William Cushing, who now has it in manuscript. An
abridgment of the printed numbers was made by some
one in England, unknown to me, and published in Almon’s
Remembrancer for 1775, and afterwards reprinted, under
the title of History of the Dispute with America. In New
England they had the effect of an antidote to the poison
of ‘Massachusettensis.’” This last-named writer spoke more
truly than he knew, when he said in reply,—“ The changes
have been rung so often upon oppression, tyrannv and
slavery, that whether sleeping or waking, they are con¬
tinually vibrating in our ears.” ,
The Massachusetts Spy, under the indefatigable editor- Thomas’
ship of the American historian of printing, Isaiah Thomas, Massacha-
did yeoman’s service in this struggle, although of a differ- setts ®py-
ent kind from that of the Boston Gazette. The latter spoke
chiefly to the thinkers and natural leaders of the people.
The Spy was a light and active skirmisher who engaged
his antagonists wherever he met them, and frequently carried
the war into the enemy’s country. The Massachusetts Spy
began its career in July 1770, and had for a considerable
time less than 200 subscribers. To its title were added the
words “ A weekly political and commercial paper, open to
all parties, but influenced by none.” But the progress of
misgovernment, and the energies of its editor’s own charac¬
ter, soon led to a change in this respect, which was sufficiently
indicated by the introduction of a motto from Cato :—
“ Do thou, great Liberty, inspire our souls,
And make our lives in thy possession happy,
Or our deaths glorious in thy just defence.”
In July 1774, during the operation of the Boston Port
Bill, and soon after the landing of four British regiments,
2 B
194
NEWSPAPERS.
can press
at the Re¬
volution.
Franklin’s odd device was adopted, representing Great
Britain as a dragon, and the colonies as a snake divided into
nine parts, with the motto, “join or die.” But Boston
grew too hot for the patriotic printer, and he had to remove
to Worcester on the day of the battle of Lexington. Here
the paper continued to be published until 1786 ; the lack of
the stirring revolutionary matter being occasionally supplied
by the republication in its columns of entire books, such
as Robertson’s America and Gordon’s History of the Revo¬
lution. But this journal, like so many more, was for a time
killed by a tax. The stamp duty imposed in March 1786,
though amounting to but two-thirds of a penny, and very
speedily repealed, led to the suspension of the Spy until
April 1788. At that period it was resumed; and it still
continues, being the oldest newspaper in Massachusetts.
Numerical At the commencement of the struggle for independence
strength of tn 1775, Massachusetts possessed 7 newspapers, New
the Ameri- Hampshire 1 (founded in 1756, and entitled the N. H.
Gazette'), Rhode Island 2, and Connecticut 3; making
13 in all for the New England colonies. Pennsyl¬
vania had 8, of which the earliest in date was the Ame¬
rican Weekly Mercury (No. 1, 22d December 1719) ; and
New York but 3, the oldest of them being the New
York Gazette, the publication of which had commenced
on the 16th October 1725. Up to that period (1725)
Boston and Philadelphia were the only towns possessing a
newspaper throughout America. In the middle and south¬
ern colonies there were (in 1775), in the aggregate, 10
journals, of which Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina,
possessed each 2, South Carolina 3, and Georgia 1.
The total number of the Anglo-American papers was
34, and all of them were of weekly publication.
The Neio Hampshire Gazette still exists, and is the
of the New “father” of the American press. In 1810 this State pos-
England sessed 12 papers ; in 1828, 17 ; in 1840, 27; in 1850 (the
date of the last census), 32,—viz., 22 described as “ political,”
and 10 as “ miscellaneous.” The earliest paper established
in Vermont was the Green Mountain Postboy, first pub¬
lished in April 1781. In 1850 the number of newspapers
was 30; 27 of which are described as “ political.” Maine
possessed in 1850, 29; 4 of them of daily publication.
Rhode Island had 13, of which 5 were daily; Connecticut
had 28, including 7 daily papers ; Massachusetts possessed
in 1850 no less than 91 newspapers, with a collective cir¬
culation of 222,087 copies, and an aggregate circulation
amounting in the year to 46,587,000. Of these, about
two-thirds were published in Boston. Of the whole num¬
ber, 22 were of daily, 4 of tri-weekly, 11 of semi-weekly,
and 54 of weekly publication.
Pennsylvania had in 1810, 71 newspapers, and in 1850,
210, with a collective circulation of 338,336 copies, and
an aggregate circulation, in the whole year, amounting to
59,7 i 7,508 copies.
The Aurora was the most notable of the early Philadel¬
phia papers, next to Franklin’s Gazette. It's hostility to
federalism, and to Washington as the main pillar of the
federalists, was so violent that, on the termination of his pre¬
sidency, it sung so loud a Nunc dimittis as to excite a riot,
in which its printing-office was destroyed. The Daily Na¬
tional Gazette, started in 1820, soon became prominent for
its union of literature with politics. The total number of
journals, political and literary, published in Philadelphia,
in 1856, was 76, 12 of which were of daily publication,
and of New ^ew York, the Gazette already mentioned was fol-
York. lowed by the Weekly Journal (No. 1, 5th November 1733),
still memorable for the prosecution for sedition which it en¬
tailed on its printer, John Peter Zenger, and for the mas¬
terly defence of the accused by Andrew Hamilton. “ The
trial of Zenger,” said Gouverneur Morris, “ was the germ of
American freedom.” Gaines’s New York Mercury was pub¬
lished from 1752 to 1783. Rivington’sGazette y/as,
Summary
press.
Press of
Pennsyl¬
vania,
established in 1773, and in the first year of its existence is
said to have attained a circulation of 3600. After the Re¬
volution this paper was continued under the title New
York Gazette, and Universal Advertiser. The first daily
newspapers published in the city or State of New York was
The New York Journal and Register, commenced in
1788. In 1810 the aggregate number of papers published
within the State was 66, of which 14 belonged to New
York city. Ten years later the city press included 8
daily journals, with an aggregate daily circulation of 10,800
copies. No one paper circulated more than 2000, and but
two—the Evening Post and the Commercial Advertiser—
attained that number. Both the papers last named conti¬
nue to flourish. In 1832 there were 13 daily journals,
with a collective daily circulation of 18,200; or, on the
average, 140*0 to each paper. In 1850 the number of daily
papers (according to the census returns) was 51, with
an aggregate annual circulation of 63,928,685, which will
give an average daily issue of 3942 to each of them.
The penny press of America began in New York, and
the pioneer was the Daily Sun (No. 1, 23d September
1833), written, edited, set up, and worked off, by B. F.
Day, a journeyman printer. Its circulation at first was 600
copies. In 1854 its average issue was 36,525 copies. Its
success has been described with sufficient significancy as
mainly owing to “ piquant police reports,” at least at the
outset. When sold, it fetched L.50,000. The profit
arising from its advertisements has been stated by Mr Ho¬
race Greeley to amount to L.60 a day. The notorious
New York Herald is also a penny paper; was started in
1835 (at first at a halfpenny); and its average circulation in
December 1854 was 36,158. The New York Tribune
was established in 1851 by Mr Horace Greeley, who is still
its editor. Its circulation in 1851 was 19,000 copies, of
which somewhat more than half was sold within the limits
of the city. It has now a daily circulation of about 29,000
copies, and, in addition, issues as a weekly paper 163,000
copies, irrespectively of certain special issues for California
and for Europe. These are amongst the prizes of New
York journalism. How numerous the blanks are may be
inferred from the statement, that between the years 1820
and 1850, 32 daily newspapers were founded and aban¬
doned.
Elaborate as are the returns given in the United States’
census in relation to this subject, they are only to be relied
upon for precise information respecting newspapers when
limited to those of daily issue. The classification of the
main returns which bear on the matter is headed, “ How
often issued ;” and, although there is a subsidiary classifica¬
tion headed “ Character,” it fails to elicit even the simple dis¬
tinction between newspapers and magazines. This classed
arrangement comprises—(1.) “Literary and Miscella¬
neous;” (2.) “Neutral and Independent;” (3.) “ Political
(4.) “ Religious ;” (5.) “Scientific.” If, however, we under¬
stand the second division as meaning periodicals of “Neu¬
tral and Independent” politics, the entire newspaper press
of the State of New York in 1850 may be summed up
thus:—
News-
papers.
Daily
papers of
New York
at various
periods.
Penny
press of
America.
Character
“ Neutral and Independent” j
Newspapers /
Newspapers attached to a !
political party j
Total of the Newspaper press.
No. of
Papers
15
263
278
Average
Circulation
127,370
399,755
527,125
Aggregate An¬
nual Circulation
37,317,010
45,463,015
82,780,025
General
statistics of
the news¬
paper press
of New
York.
The total number of newspapers published in Maryland,
in 1850 was 40, Delaware had 10, and New Jersey
45. The last-named State had no local paper before
the Revolution, although a single number of one had been
NE W S P
News- published in 1765, under the title of the Constitutional
papers. Gazette, containing Matters interesting to Liberty, but no
wise repugnant to Loyalty. The earliest regular paper was
Newspaper the New Jersey Gazette, which began in December 1777.
orthf other ^ ^ number of newspapers in the Middle States at the
Middle ^ate t^le census (estimated as in the case of New York)
States. maY be taken at 583, exclusive of periodicals of a distinctly
literary, theological, or scientific nature.
In the Southern States, the annals of newspapers, as of so
Newspa- much else, may be far more compactly dealt with than is
persofthe possible in regard to the Northern and Middle States. Vir-
southorn ginia, notwithstanding its precedency, possessed neither
5 a es- newspaper nor printing-office until 1736; so that (as respects
one-half at least of the wish) there was once a prospect
that the devout aspiration of Sir William Berkley might be
realized. “ Thank God,” said this Virginian governor in
1671, “ We have neither free school nor printing-press, and
I hope may not have for a hundred years to come.” The
Virginia papers occasionally present to modern readers
figures of Liberty at their head (sometimes with a banner,
A P E R S. 19
inscribed “ Drapeau sans tache”), whilst in the bodv of News-
the journal comes a string of advertisements headed “ Cash papers,
for Negroes.” Those who love America best may perhaps v v '
be apt to think that Sir W. Berkley’s words would make as
appropriate a motto. This great question apart, several of
the Virginia papers have evinced considerable ability and
independence of spirit. The earliest journal established in
the State was the Virginia Gazette, commenced in 1736.
The Richmond Inquirer, which started in 1804, early
attained a leading position. In 1810 the total num¬
ber of Virginian papers was 28; in 1828, 37; at the
census of 1850, 67; with an average total circulation of
56,188 copies. North Carolina, at the last-named date,
possessed 37 newspapers, with an average total circulation
of 25,439; South Carolina, 29, with a similar circulation
of 36,415 ; Georgia, 26, with 23,346; Florida, 7, with 3500;
Alabama, 46, with 25,336.
The statistics of the newspaper press of the entire Union
may be thus epitomized, so far as respects the two classes
designated in the census “ Neutral” and “Political —
General
tatistics of
he news¬
paper press
if the
Jnited
states.
States and Territories.
Maine 
New Hampshire
Vermont 
Massachusetts....
Rhode Island....
Connecticut  
New York 
New Jersey 
Pennsylvania....
Delaware ,.
Maryland  
Dist. of Columbia
Virginia 
North Carolina...
South Carolina...
Georgia 
Florida 
Alabama 
Mississippi 
Louisiana 
Texas 
Arkansas 
Tennessee  
Kentucky  
Missouri 
Illinois  
Indiana 
Ohio 
Michigan 
Wisconsin  
Iowa  
California ,
Oregon Territory
Population.
Total  23,112,872
683,169
317,976
314,120
994,514
147,545
370,792
3,097,394
489,555
2,311,786
91,532
583,034
51,687
1,421,661
869,039
668,507
906,185
87,445
771,623
606,526
517,762
212,592
209,897
1,002,717
982,405
682,044
851,470
988,416
1,980,329
397,654
305,391
192,214
92,597
13,294
“ Neutral and Independent’’Papers.
No.
9
1
15
1
12
i
1
5
2
5
6
83
Total Cir¬
culation.
50,700
2,500
127,370
300
70,396
700
350
4,200
875
8,300
3,046
I’ooo
12,000
1,400
1,610
800
1,290
13^485
200
1,200
2,000.
303,722
AggregateNo.of
Copies Printed
Annually.
13,591,000
781,500
37,317,010
93,900
21,908,548
8,400
54,600
1,251,900
113,750
2,140,400
747,340
313,000
3,335,100
148,400
503,930
250,400
403,770
4,220,805
26,000
187,200
626,000
88,022,953
‘ Political ” Papers.
No.
29
22
27
82
12
28
263
44
198
8
39
15
62
35
24
20
7
45
40
34
14
6
36
42
42
73
84
192
39
42
25
1630
Total Circu¬
lation.
29,695
32,186
33,990
171,387
18,075
34,916
399,755
40,144
267,940
6,600
31,637
99,437
51,988
24,564
28,115
20.900
3,500
24,336
26,380
45,522
8,350
3,950
33,147
55,936
48,340
51,111
47.900
189,304
28,793
29,236
20,150
510
1,907,794
AggregateNo. of
Copies Printed
Annually.
2,501,680
1,673,672
2,025,430
32.996.800
1,693,650
3,422,432
45.463,015
3,823,138
37,808,960
374.400
4,196,924
10,990,736
6,698,176
1,457,664
4,310,930
1,491,350
202,800
1,889,169
1,519,024
8,356,224
660.400
205.400
5,138,580
5,245,888
5,496,280
3,384,162
3,569,324
18,865,282
2,556,836
2,517,487
1.281.800
26,520
221,844,133
Totals.
No
29
22
27
91
13
28
278
45
210
8
40
16
67
37
29
26
7
46
40
40
15
6
38
44
42
74
84
198
40
42
26
4
1
Total Circu¬
lation.
1713
29,695
32,186
33,990
222,087
20,575
34,916
527,125
40,444
338,336
6,600
32,337
99,787
56,188
25,439
36,415
23,946
3,500
25,336
26,380
57,522
9,750
3,950
34,757
56,736
48,340
52,401
47,900
202,785
28,993
29,236
21,350
2,000
510
2,211,512
AggregateNo. of
Copies Printed
Annually.
2,501,680
1,673,672
2,025,430
46,587,800
2,476,150
3,422,432
82,780,025
3,917,047
59,717,508
374.400
4.205.324
11,045,P36
7,950,076
1.571,414
6,451,330
2,238,69(£
202,SOU'
2,202,169
1,519,024
11,691,324
808,800
205.400
5,642,510
5,496,288
5,496,280
3,787,932
3.569.324
23,086,087
2,582,836
2,517,487
1,469,000
626,000
26,520
309,868,095
{Seventh Census of the United States, 1850 (Washington,
1853), passim; Buckingham, Specimens of Newspaper Li¬
terature, 2 vols. (Boston, 1850), passim; Coggeshall, The
Newspaper .RmW(Philadelphia, 1856), passim; Life and
Works of Franklin, by Sparks, i. 23, 123, &c.; Life and
Works of John Adams, ii. 405; Proceedings of the Nero
York Historical Society for 1844; Historical Notices of
Newspapers published in North Hampshire, in Farmer and
Moore s Collection, \\\. 174, seq.; Frothingham, History of
the Siege of hoston, 31, seq.; Minutes of Evidence before
the Select Committee on Newspaper Stamps (Evidence of
Mr H. Greeley), Q. 2614-2664, 2978-3068, pp. 389-395,
438-448.) r
III.—THE NEWSPAPERS OP PRANCE.
The long and eventful annals of French journalism Renaudot’s
begin with the Gazette established by Theophraste Re- Gazette,
naudot in 1631, under the patronage of Richelieu, and
Very probably with his active co-operation. Renaudot was
born at Loudon in 1584; studied medicine in Paris, and
afterwards at Montpellier, where he took his degree ;
established himself in the capital in 1612, and soon be¬
came conspicuous both within and beyond the limits of his
profession. Endowed by nature with great energy and
versatility of talent, he seems at an early period of his career
to have attracted the attention of the great Cardinal, and to
196
NEWSPAPERS.
News- have obtained permission to establish a sort of general
papers, agency office, under the designation of “Bureau d’Addresses
et de Rencontre.” An enterprise like this would, perhaps,
naturally suggest to such a mind as Renaudot’s the advan¬
tage of following it up by the foundation of a newspaper.
According to some French writers, however, the project
was formed by Pierre d’Hozier, the genealogist, who car¬
ried on an extensive correspondence both at home and
abroad, and was thus in a position to give valuable help;
according to others by Richelieu himself. Be this as it may,
Renaudot put his hand zealously to the work, and brought
out his first weekly number in May 1631. So much, at least,
may be inferred from the date (4th July 1631) of the sixth
number, which was the first dated publication ; the five pre¬
ceding numbers being marked by “ signatures” only—A to E.
Each number consists of a single sheet (eight pages) in small
quarto, and is divided into two parts—the first simply entitled
“ Gazette” the second “Nouvelles Ordinaires de Divers
Endroits.” For this division the author assigns two rea¬
sons—(1.) That two persons may thus read his journal at
the same time; (2.) That it facilitates a division of the
subject-matter—the Nouvelles containing usually intelli¬
gence from the northern and western countries, the Gazette
from the southern and eastern. He commonly begins with
foreign, and ends with home news,—a method which was
long and generally followed, and which still obtains. Once
a month he published a supplement, under the title of Re¬
lation des Nouvelles du Monde revues dans tout le Mois.
“ These monthly Relations of mine,” he says, “ serve to
epitomize and to correct the weekly ones. For it is with
news as with metals—when they come first from the mine,
the metals are mixed with earth. In like manner, news are
at the outset usually accompanied by mistakes and miscon¬
ceptions, from which in a little time they get separated, just
as the metals lose their dross in the furnace. Then you
get them pure.”
In October 1631, Renaudot obtained letters-patent to
himself and his heirs, conferring the exclusive privilege of
printing and selling, where and how they might please, “ the
gazettes, news, and narratives of all that has passed or may
pass within and without the kingdom—” .... [In the be¬
ginning of this document he had been designated “ Master
and General Intendant of the Address Offices of the King¬
dom and these offices are directly connected with the
Gazette by the addition, after the words we have quoted, of
what follows—] “ conferences, prices-current of merchandise,
and other printed matter of the said offices (autres im¬
pressions des dits bureaux).” At the end of the year, he
collected his thirty-one numbers into a volume, and pub¬
lished them under the title, Recueil des Gazettes de VAnnee
1631 ; prefixing also a preface to the public, and a dedica¬
tion to the king. In the former he says,—
“ The publication of gazettes is in truth new; hut this novelty
may win for them a favour which they will easily preserve. They
will be maintained for their utility, both to the community and to
individuals;—to the community, by preventing those false reports
which often serve to kindle turmoils and seditions; to individuals,
by enabling every man to adjust his business according to the
needs of the time. Thus the merchant will not betake himself
for traffic to a besieged or ruined city, nor will the soldier seek
for service in a country which is at peace,—to say nothing of the
advantage they will bring to those who have to write to friends,
whose curiosity they had heretofore to satisfy with news, often
invented for the occasion, or founded on the guess-work of mere
hearsay.” . . . . “ The difficulties,” he adds, “ which I mention as
attendant on the composition of my Gazettes are not put forward
for the glorification of my work, but as an excuse for my style, if it
does not always correspond with the dignity of my themes 
Captains wish to have news of battles and sieges every day; law¬
yers to have law reports; devout persons to meet the names of
favourite preachers and confessors. Some people, who understand
nothing of the secrets of the court, wish to have them exposed at
full length. Others are angry if their names do not meet the
king’s eye in the Gazette, for having bought the reversion of some
unimportant office, or for having safely conveyed a state parcel. News-
.... Some attach value to nothing but flowery language ; others papers.
would have my narratives resemble a bare skeleton Can ^
you then, my reader, deny me your pity, or withhold your pardon,
if my pen fail to please everybody, hold it as I may ; any more
than could the peasant and his son, in the fable, although they
travelled first singly, and then together, at one time a-foot, and at
another on the ass ? .... Yet I should deceive myself were I to
hope to curb your censure by my remonstrances. I cannot do it,
and ought not, reader, if I could. The liberty to find fault is not
the least of the pleasures attendant on reading of this sort; and it
is for your pleasure that this novelty has been invented. Enjoy,
then, at your ease your French liberty; and let every one say
boldly that he would take away this, or change that, and that he
could have done much better. I admit it. In one thing only I
will yield to nobody—in the search after truth, though 1 will not
vouch for its constant attainment.”
Renaudot’s assailants were numerous, and made full use
of “ French liberty.” Many, too, were the parodies by
which it was sought to throw ridicule upon his enterprise.
But he steadily pursued his course, rarely noticed his assail¬
ants, and at his death in October 1653, left the Gazette to
his sons in flourishing circumstances. In 1752 the title
“ Gazette de France” was first used. Under this designa¬
tion it continued to appear until the 24th August 1848.
During the five memorable days which followed that date it Suspension
was suspended; on the 30th it was resumed as Le Peuple of the
Frangais, Journal de VAppel d la Nation; and again mo- Gazette de
dified on the 14th September to L’Etoile de la France,^™™*™
Journal des Droits de Tous. On the 25th October it became ancl su^
Gazette de France, Journal de VAppel d la Nation ; and sequent re-
under this title it still continues to appear. A complete sumption,
set extends to upwards of 300 volumes, of which 189 are
in quarto, and the rest in folio. It scarcely need be added
that such a set forms a collection of great value, not only for
the history of France, but for that of Europe generally.
We pass over a group of Couriers (Le Courrier Fran-
gais, Le Courrier de la Cour, Le Courrier Burlesque, Le
Courrier Bourdelais, &c.), which properly form part of the
extraordinary collection of pamphlets usually termed Ma-
zarinades. Most of these Couriers belong to the year
1649, but they are not serial newspapers. They come within
the same category as the English news-pamphlets mentioned
in a preceding section of this article.
In 1650, Paris had its newspaper in verse. Loret, the Loret’s
“ courtier-poet,” as he has been called, began this flimsy Muse His-
but amusing, and now not uninstructive periodical, for the toriq116.
gratification of his patroness, Mademoiselle de Longue- °gtteaju
Temps, en
“ Pour complaire a ses volontes, Vers Bur-
Et mieux meriter ses bontes.” lesques.
But the new Gazetteer was too witty, and too incisive in his
stroke, to be long confined to the narrow though brilliant
circle of the Hotel de Longueville. MS. copies were ob¬
tained, sometimes surreptitiously, sometimes by dint of per¬
tinacious application. At length, after it had circulated
from hand to hand for nearly two years and a half, some
numbers were furtively printed under the title La Gazette
du Temps, en Vers Burlesques.
“ Des debiteurs de faux papiers,
Fires cent fois que des fripiers,
Faisaient imprimer ses gazettes.
Sans craindre ni loi ni syndic
Pour en faire un lache trafic.”
The poor poet was fain to follow the example. He con¬
soles himself by the reflection that the copies in MS. were
always faulty, and gravely assures his readers that “ printing
is an excellent invention for producing simultaneously
several copies of a work.” Resuming his verse, however,
he proceeds:—
“ Mais sache, lecteur debonnaire,
Encor que des mains du rimeur
Cette gazette epistolaire
Passe en celles de I’imprimeur,
NEWSPAPER S.
197
rcure
U lant,
ti erwards
i:rcure de
1 ance.
Qu’elle n’en est pas plus commune;
Car, sans abus ni fraude aucune,
_ II doit observer cette loi
De n’en tirer chaque semaine,
Qu’une unique et seule douzaine,
Tant pour mes amis que pour moi;
A pres cela point de copie,
En dut-on avoir la pepie.”
The usual title of each Gazette, as printed by the author,
is Lettre en vers a Son Altesse Mile, de Longueville ; but in
1656 he collected them under the title La Muse Historique,
ou Recueil des Lettres en Vers ecrites d S. A. Mile, de
Longueville, par le Sieur Loret. Livre premier. Dedie
au Roi (Paris, 1656, 4°). He continued the task almost
until the day of his death, in April 1665. His last letter
ends with this sad couplet:—
“ Le vingt-huit Mars j’ai fait ces vers,
Souffrant cinq ou six maux divers.”
The first complete edition appeared in 1658 ; and the
words “ Contenant les nouvelles du temps,” are added to
the title above mentioned.
Loret’s Gazette will always have interest in the eyes of
students, who care less for the “dignity” of history than for
the fidelity of its local colouring, and the animation of its
backgrounds, if we may so speak. It were as vain to look
there for any deep appreciation of the events of those
stormy times as for state papers or notes of diplomatic con¬
ferences. But it abounds in vivid portraits of the men and
manners of the day. It paints rudely, yet to the life, the
Paris of the Fronde, with all its effervescence and depres¬
sion, its versatility and fickleness, its cowardice and its
courage.
Of the Mercure Galant, established by Donneau de
Vise in 1672, it may be said that it sought to combine the
qualities of the Gazettes, both grave and gay. Like the
former, it contained the state news and court circulars of the
day. Like the latter, it amused its readers with satirical
verses, and with sketches of men and manners, which, if
not always true, were at least well invented. Reviews and
sermons, law pleas and street airs, the last reception at the
academy, and the last new fashion of the milliners, all find
their place; nor can it be denied that the writer has re¬
deemed the pledge implied in these words of his prospec¬
tus :—“ If my letters” (for, like Loret, he cast his news into
the epistolary mould) “ be preserved, . . . they may here¬
after become useful memorials, in which will be found many
things not elsewhere to be met with.” De Vise carried on
his enterprise during more than thirty years, and at his death
it was continued by that Riviere du Fresny, who has his
little niche in Voltaire’s portrait gallery :—
“ Et Du Fresny, plus sage et raoins dissipateur,
Ne fut pas mort de faim,—digne mort d’un auteur.”
The successor of this worthy, Lefevre de Fontenay, altered
the title to Mercure de France (a designation retained, with
some slight modification, until 1853). The Mercure passed
through many other hands before it came into those of
Panckoucke, at the eve of the Revolution. Amongst its
more conspicuous writers, immediately before this change,
had been Raynal and Marmontel. The latter, indeed, had
for many years been its principal editor, and in his Memoirs
has left us a very interesting record of the views and aims
which governed him in the performance of an arduous task.
And he there narrates the curious fact, that it was Madame
de Pompadour who invented the plan of giving pensions to
eminent men of letters out of the profits of the Mercure. To
one of Marmontel’s predecessors the “ privilege,” or patent,
had been worth more than L.1000 sterling annually. This
revenue was now to be shared amongst several, and to be¬
come a means of extending royal “patronage” of literature
at a cheap rate. Marmontel’s account of his conversation
News¬
papers.
with Pompadour as to the selection of the patronized, is not
the least amusing thing in those admirable Memoirs.
It is, too, to this pension-scheme that we owe the Contes
Moraux. Marmontel, who had long before lost his “patent ”
by an act of high-minded generosity, continued to share in
the composition of the literary articles with Chamfort and La
Harpe, whilst Mallet du Pan became the most prominent of
its political writers. In 1789 the latter published a series of
remarkable articles on the well-known book of De Lolme.
In the same year he penned some comments on the “ De¬
claration of the Rights of Man,” very distasteful to violent
men of all parties, but which forcibly illustrate the pregnant
truth they begin with :—“ The Gospel has given the simplest,
the shortest, and the most comprehensive ‘ Declaration of
the Rights of Man,’ in saying, Do unto others as you would
that they should do unto you. All politics hinge upon this.”
In 1790 the sale of the Mercure rose very rapidly. It Th® Mer-
attained for a time a circulation of 13,000 copies. Mira-?ure dur‘
beau styled it in debate, “ the most able of the newspapers.”
Great pains were taken for the collection of statistics and tioni
state papers, the absence of which from the French news¬
paper press had theretofore helped to depress its credit, as
compared with the political journalism of England, and
even of Germany. But in proportion as the Revolution
marched on with more rapid strides towards an unchecked
democracy, Mallet Du Pan evinced more and more un¬
mistakably his rooted attachment to a constitutional mo¬
narchy. And, like so many of his compatriots, he soon
found the tide too strong for him. The political part of
the Mercure changed hands, and after the 10th August
1792 its publication was suspended.
All this time the Moniteur {Gazette Nationale, ou le
Moniteur Universel) was under the same general manage¬
ment as the Mercure Frangais (so the title had been al¬
tered in 1791). The first idea, indeed, of this famous
official journal appears to have been Panckoucke’s, but it
did not firmly establish itself until he had purchased the
Journal de VAssemblee Nationale, and so secured the best
report of the debates. The Moniteur, however, kept step Contrast
with the majority of the assembly, the Mercure with the between
minority. So marked a contrast between two journals, with fhe °Pin"
one proprietor, gave too favourable a leverage to the re- ckoucke^”"
publican wits not to be turned to good account. Camille jy[ercure
Desmoulins depicted him as Janus,—one face radiant at the and those
blessings of liberty, the other plunged in grief for the epoch of his Mo-
that was rapidly disappearing. “ When M. Panckoucke,” niteur*
he said, “ leaves the printing-office of his Moniteur Uni¬
versel, he is an ardent patriot; when he enters the editor’s
room of his Mercure de France, a sudden change comes
over him, converting the patriot of the instant before into
a furious aristocrat.”
When resumed, after a very brief interval, the Mercure
Frangais became again Mercure de France ; its political
importance diminished, whilst its literary worth was en¬
hanced. During the later days of the Revolution, and
under the imperial domination, its roll of contributors in¬
cluded the names of Geoffroy, Ginguene, Morellet, Lacre-
telle, Fontanes, and Chateaubriand. The statesman last
named brought upon the Mercure another temporary sup- Suppres-
pression in 1807, by words which were in true unisonsion of llie
with the noblest deed of his chequered career,—that retire-
ment, namely, from the imperial service which he resolved tide by "
and effected on the day that the news of the execution of Chateau-
the Duke of Enghien reached him, being the day after he briand.
had been appointed by Napoleon a minister plenipotentiary.
A few of these weighty words must find room. What may
seem pedantic in their style is, it will be remembered, the
local colouring of the time.
. . . “ When in the silence of despair no sound makes itself
heard, save the chain of the slave and the voice of the informer,—
when all tremble before the tyrant, and it becomes as dangerous to
obtain his favour as to incur his displeasure, then arises the historian
<6
198
NEWSPAPERS.
News- who embodies the vengeance of the nations. It is in vain that
papers. Nero prospers. Tacitus is already born within the bounds of the
empire. Beside the ashes of Germanicus, he grows up to man’s
estate, unknown and unnoticed; and already has a righteous Pro¬
vidence placed in the hands of an obscure child the fame of the
master of the woi^d. If the part which the historian is called to
play upon the world’s stage be a noble one, yet it is often danger¬
ous ; but he ministers at an altar which, like that of honour, al¬
though abandoned, claims its sacrifice; the god is not annihilated
because the temple is deserted.”
Thus it chanced that alike under the brilliant despotism
of Napoleon, and under the crapulous malversation of Louis
XV., the management of the Mercure was revolutionized
for protests which conferred honour upon the journal, no
less than upon the individual writers who made them. Re¬
sumed by other hands, the Mercure continued to appear
until January 1820, when it was again suspended. In the
following year it re-appeared as Le Mercure de France au
dix-neuvieme Siecle, and in February 1853 it finally ceased.
A complete set extends to no fewer than 1611 volumes.
Journal de The only other newspaper of a date anterior to the Re-
Paris. volution which needs to be noticed here, is the Journal de
Paris, which was commenced on new year’s-day of 1777.
It had but a feeble infancy, yet lived, as ricketty children
sometimes do, for half a century. Its early volumes ap¬
pear so insipid to a nineteenth century reader, that he won¬
ders what can have been the cause of its occasional bicker¬
ings with the police. Its tameness, however, did not save it
from sharing in the “suspensions” of its predecessors. After
the Revolution, such men as Garat, Condorcet, and Reg-
naud de St Jean d’Angely appear amongst it contributors,
but those of earlier date were intensely obscure. Its period
of highest prosperity may be dated about 1792, when its
circulation is said to have exceeded 20,000.
The Nou- The police adventures of the writers of the MS. News
velles a la Letters, or NouveUes d la Main, were still more numerous ;
Main. an(j }f we may ju(jge fr0m the copious specimens of these
epistles which yet survive, must also not unfrequently have
arisen from lack of official employment, rather than from
substantial provocation. Madame Doublet de Persan, the
v/idow of a member of the French Board of Trade, was a
conspicuous purveyor of news of this sort. For nearly forty
years, daily meetings were held in her house, at which the
gossip and table-talk of the town were systematically (and
literally) registered ; and weekly abstracts or epitomes were
sent into the country by post. Piron (“Piron qui ne
fut rien, pas meme academicien ”), Mirabaud, Falconet,
D’Argental (the“ame damnee” of Voltaire, as Marmontel
called him), and, above all, Bachaumont, were prominent
members of the “ society,” and each of them is said to have
had his assigned seat beneath his own portrait. The lady’s
valet de chambre appears to have been editor ex officio;
and as he occasionally suffered imprisonment, when offensive
news-letters had been seized by the police, so responsible
a duty was doubtless “ considered in the wages.” News
and anecdotes of all kinds,—political and literary, grave, gay,
or merely scandalous,—were all admitted into the NouveUes
d la Main ; and their contents, during a long series of years,
form the staple of those Memoires Secrets pour servir d
l Histoire de la Repubhque des Lettres, which extend to
36 volumes, have been frequently printed (at first with the
false imprint,—Londres : John Adamson, 1777-89), and are
usually referred to by French writers as the Memoires de
Bachaumont.
The news- The journalism of the first Revolution has been the
papers of theme of many bulky volumes, and their number is still on
tion the increase- Like a11 modern insurrections, in which legi¬
timate and long repressed aspirations have been commingled
with visionary but fondly-cherished dreams of a world
wherein luxury should precede labour, and vice impercep¬
tibly transmute itself into virtue, the period of the Revolu¬
tion was marvellously fertile in every kind of intellectual
effort. The simple recital of the mere titles of the news¬
papers which then appeared throughout France fills more
than forty pages of larger dimensions than those which the
reader has now before him. It is obvious, therefore, that
a very casual glance at this part of our subject is all that
can here be given to it.
When at least one half of the French people was in a
ferment of hope or of fear at the approaching convocation
of the States-General, most of the existing newspapers
were still in a state of torpor. Long paragraphs, for ex¬
ample, about a terrible “ wild beast of the Gevaudan”—
whether wolf or bear, or as yet nondescript, was uncertain—
were still current in the Paris journals at this momentous
juncture; just as the “enormous gooseberry” fills up, at
the dull season of the year, a blank in an English, or the
“ marvellous sea-serpent” a blank in an American, country
paper. Mirabeau was amongst the foremost to supply
the popular want. His Lettres d ses Commettants began
on the 2d May 1789, and with the twenty-first number be¬
came the Courrier de Provence. Within a week Maret
(afterwards Duke of Bassano) followed with the Bulletin
des Seances de VAssemblee Nationale, and Lehodey with
the Journal des Flats Generaux. In June, Brissot de
Warville began his Patriote Frangais. Gorsas published
the first number of his Courrier de Versailles in the fol-
News-
papers.
lowing month, from which also dates the famous periodical
of Prudhomme, Loustalot, and Tournon, entitled Revolutions
de Paris, with its characteristic motto,—“ Les grands ne
nous paraissent grands, que parce que nous sommes 4
genoux ; levons nous !” A month later, Barere and Lou-
vet began the Journal des Debats, and Marat the Ami du
Peuple (which at first was called Le Publiciste Parisien).
The Moniteur Universel (of which we have spoken al¬
ready), was first published on the 24th November, although
numbers were afterwards printed bearing date from the
5th May, the day, it w ill be remembered, on which the
States-General first assembled. Camille Desmoulins also
commenced his Revolutions de France et de Brabant in
November 1789. The Ami du Roi was first published in
June 1790; La Quotidienne \n September 1792.
Of all these prominent journals the Moniteur and the De¬
bats alone have survived until now. A few of them lasted un¬
til 1794 or 1795 ; one continued until recently ; but most of
them expired either in the autumn of 1792, or with the fall
of the party of the Gironde in September 1793. In some of
these papers the energy for good and for evil of a whole life¬
time seems to be compressed into the fugitive writings of a
few months. Even the satirical journals which combated the
Revolution with shafts of ridicule and wit, keen enough
after their kind, but too light to do much damage to men
who were terribly in earnest, abound with matter well de¬
serving the attention of all students desirous of a thorough
knowledge of the period. Of this class those more espe- The light
cially in which Peltier was concerned—as, for example, skirmish,
the Actes des Apotres, the Paris, and L'Ambigu—depicters °fthe
the Royalists themselves vividly enough, whatever may be revolution‘
the amount of credit due to their delineations of their foes. ar^ ^ress'
Peltier’s name is now best remembered for the famous trial
which his incessant attacks upon Napoleon entailed on
him. His fondness for drawing comparisons between the
“yellow emperor” and the “black emperor,” greatly to the
advantage of the Haytian, so pleased the latter as to bring
him very substantial and acceptable marks of gratitude, in
the shape of numerous bags of coffee and hogsheads of
sugar, which were speedily converted into cash for the
gratification of tastes little in harmony with the ordinary
resources of an exiled journalist. The sad contrast be¬
tween the gratitude of the negro monarch and the indiffer¬
ence of the government of the Restoration towards services
which had been long and faithful, prompted an epigram,
which unfortunately alienated his distant benefactor:—
newspapers.
ne Jour-
il des
ebats.
News- “ Mon roi me traite comme un negre,
papers. Mais mon negre, a son tour, me traite comme un roi.”
So that the poor author died, if we accept the dictum of Vol¬
taire, an appropriate death, in a garret, in the spring of 1825.
The consular government began its dealings with the
press by reducing the number of political papers to thirteen.
At this period the original number of daily journals had been
nineteen, and their aggregate provincial circulation, apart
from the Paris sale, 49,313, or 2600 each, on the average.
Under Napoleon, the Moniteur was the only political
paper that was really regarded with an eye of favour. Even
as respects the nation at large, the monstrous excesses into
which the revolutionary press had plunged left an endur-
ing stigma on the class. When M. Berlin acquired the
Journal des Debats from Baudouin, the printer, for 20,000
francs, he had to vanquish popular indifference on the one
hand, as well as imperial mistrust on the other. The men
he called to his aid were Geoffrey and Fievee; and by the
brilliancy of their talents, and the keenness of his own judg¬
ment, he converted the Debats into a paper having 32,000
subscribers, and producing a profit of 200,000 francs a year.
When a special censorship was about to be imposed on it,
in 1805, at the instance of’Fouche, a remarkable correspond¬
ence took place between Fievee and Napoleon himself,
in the course of which the emperor wrote, that the only
means of preventing a newspaper from suspension was “ to
avoid the publication of any news unfavourable to the
government, until the truth of it is so well established that
the publication becomes needless, the bad news being in
everybody’s mouth.” (“ Toutes les fois qu’il parviendra
une nouvelle defavorable an gouvernement, elle ne doit
etre publiee, jusqu’a ce qu’on soit tellement sur de la verite
qu’on ne doive plus la dire, parce qu’elle est connue de tout
le monde.”) The censorship was avoided, but Fievee had to
become the responsible editor, and the title was altered to
Journal de l’Empire—the imperial critic taking exception
to the word Debats as “ inconvenient.” The old title was
resumed in August 1815. The revolution of July did but
enhance the power and the profit of the paper. It has
held its course with dignity as well as ability amidst recent
perils, and may still be said, in the words which Lamartine
applied to it in an earlier day, to have “ made itself part of
French history.”
Shortly before the Journal de VEmpire became again the
Journal des Debats {vt\ 1815), a severance occurred amidst
both the writers and subscribers, which led to the foundation
of the Constitutionnel, which for a short time bore the title of
EIndependent. The former became, for a time, the organ
of the Royalists, par excellence, and furnished its due quota
of “ ogre de Corse” and the like; the latter, the leader of
the opposition. In 1824, however, both were in conflict
with the government of the day. At that datq the statistics
of the Paris press were thus stated, in a secret report ad¬
dressed to the ministry :—
199
of Samt Albin (who had been secretary to Carnot, in his v*™
ministry of 1815), all of whom co-operated in its early editor- papers'
ship; and partly to its sympathy with the popular reve-
rence for the memory of Napoleon, as well as to the vigorous The rise
share it took in the famous literary quarrel between the and fail of
Classicists and Romanticists (although in that quarrel it tookthe ConstC
what may now be called the side of the vanquished\ Its tutionneb
part in bringing about the revolution of 1830 raised it to the
zenith of its fortunes. For a brief period it could boast of
23,000 subscribers, at 80 francs a year. But the invasion
of cheap newspapers, and that temporary lack of enterprise
which so often follows a brilliant success, lowered it with
still greater rapidity. When the notorious author of the
Memoires d’un Bourgeois, Dr Veron, purchased it, the sale
had sunk to 3000. Veron gave 100,000 francs for the
wretched Juif Errant of Sue, and the Sue fever rewarded
him for a while with more than the old circulation. Re¬
cently it has been under the editorship of Cesena, Granier
de Cassagnac, and La Gueronniere ; and it need scarcely be
added that its glory has departed.
The cheap journalism of Paris began in 1836 (1st July), La Presse
with the famous journal of M. De Girardin, La Presse and Le
followed instantly by Le Siecle, under the management 0f
M. Dutacq. The first-named journal attained a circula¬
tion of 10,000 copies within three months of its commence¬
ment, and soon doubled that number. The Siecle pro¬
spered even more strikingly, and in a few years had reached
a circulation (theretofore without precedent in France) of
38,000 copies.
The rapid rise of the newspaper press of Paris will be
best appreciated, if we tabularize the number of stamps
issued,—as has been already done for the British news¬
papers :—
Years. No. of Stamps.
1828 28,000,000
1836 42,000,000
1843  61,000,000
1844  62,283,200
1845    65,000,000
1846  79,000,000
At the date last mentioned the relative position of the
twenty-six daily papers stood thus:—
Circulation.
Htti sties
tithe
IFris press
i 4824.
Government Press.
Between
3000
and
5000.
Name of Paper.
Moniteur Parisien
La Beforme 
L’Echo Fran9ais 
Courrier Franjais 
Deinocratie Pacifique...
Le Droit 
■^Gazette des Tribunaux
L’Entr’acte  
BetwK.
2000
' and
3000
Journal de Paris   Betw.
Le Messager I 500
Le Corsaire-Satan j and
La France J 2000
Name of Paper.
1. Journal de Paris.
2. L’Etoile 
3. Gazette de France
4. Le Moniteur 
5. Le Drapeau 1
Blanc  )
6. Le Pilote  
Total  14,344
Circula¬
tion.
4,175
2,749
2,370
2,250
1,900
900
Opposition Press.
Name of Paper.
1. Le Constitutionnel..
2. Journal des Debats.
3. La Quotidienne 
4. Le Courier Fran9ais
5. Journal de Com-1
merce   /
6. L’Aristarque 
Circula¬
tion.
16,250
13,000
5,800
2,975
2,380
925
Total  41,330
The rapid rise of the Constitutionnel was due partly to
the great ability and influence of Etienne, of Beranger, and
Name of Paper. Circulation.
*Le Siecle 31,000.
*La Presse / ^^en
*Le Constitutionnel. | & 25,000.
* Journal des Debats /
L’Epoque  | ^i0^0
^ ^ (. & 15,000.
Le National )
*Le Charivari 
^Gazette de France..
Le Commerce 
La Quotidienne 
*La Patrie 
*L’Estate tte 
L’Esprit Public 
*L’Univers )
The Moniteur does not here appear, for the reason that the
greater part of its circulation is official and gratuitous. It
is just to add, that the vast disparity of circulation shown
by this table (as for example, between journals like Le
Aational and Le Siecle), affords no test whatever of public
opinion, either as to their politics, or their ability. The
business was simply an affair of story-telling. The most Rise of the
trashy novelist, who had for a moment won the public ear, feuilleton.
was able (for his brief period) to dictate terms to the
shrewdest and most experienced proprietor of a newspaper.
Thus it was that M. Dumas was enabled to make a con¬
tract with the proprietors of La Presse and Le Constitu¬
tionnel jointly, which brought him in 64,000 francs a
year; and then to sell the right of reprinting his tales, for
200
NEWSPAPER S.
News¬
papers.
Newspa-
1848.
a round sum, to a certain M. Troupenas, who, according to
the Paris wits, killed himself by a brain fever, brought on
in a vain attempt to divide M. Dumas’ lines into half lines,
in order to increase the number of volumes.1
To a great extent, the inundation of newspapers which
per flood of fo]loWed the revolution of February 1848, was but a
parody—and a very poor one—on the revolutionary press
of 1793. Most of them, of course, had very short lives.
When Cavaignac took the helm he suppressed eleven
journals, including La Presse and L’Assemblee Nationals.
The former had at this period a circulation of nearly 70,000,
and its proprietor, in a petition to the National Assembly,
declared that it gave subsistence to more than 1000 per¬
sons, and was worth in the market at least 1,500,000 francs.
In August, the system of sureties was restored. On the
13th June 1849 the present Emperor, as “ President of the
Republic,” suspended Le Peuple, La Revolution Demo-
cratique et Socials, La Vraie Republiqus, La Demo¬
cratic Pacifique, La Reforms, and La Tribune des
Peuples. On the 16th July 1850 the Assembly passed
what is called the “ Loi Tinguy,” by which the author of
every newspaper article on any subject, political, philosophi¬
cal, or religious, was bound to affix his name to it, on pen¬
alty of a fine of 500 francs for the first offence, and of 1000
francs for its repetition. Every false or feigned signature
was to be punished by a fine of 1000 francs, “together
with six months’ imprisonment, both for the author and the
editor.” The practical working of this law lies in the crea¬
tion of a new functionary in the more important newspaper
offices, who is called “ secretaire de la redaction,” and is, in
fact, the scape-goat ex officio. In February 1852 all the
press laws were incorporated, with increased stringency,
into a “ Decret organique sur la presse.” The stamp duty
for each sheet was fixed at six centimes, within certain
dimensions, and a proportional increase in case of excess.
By this law the newspapers are at present governed; and
their price—La Presse only excepted—has returned to the
tariff of 1835. The existing number of daily papers in
Paris is but fourteen (the Moniteur included), and is made
up of those to which an asterisk is prefixed in the preced¬
ing table, with the addition of DAssemblee Rationale, Le
Pays, IJUnion, and the Journal des Fails. The relative
circulation of the six leading papers recently stood thus:—
(1.) Siecle ; (2.) Presse ; (3.) Constitutionnel; (4.) Patrie;
(5.) Debats; (6.) Assemblee Rationale. The number of
provincial papers exceeds 500, but scarcely ten of them
possess importance of any kind.
(Hatin, Histoire du Journal en France, 2d edit., 1853,
passim ; Gallois, Histoire des Journaux et Journalistes de
la Revolution, 2 tom., passim ; Marmontel, Memoires, i.
277-291; Morellet, Floge de Marmontel, 11, 12; Cha¬
teaubriand, Memoires d’outre Tombe, iii., § 1, 24, seq.;
Memoires of Mallet Du Pan, i. 29, seq.; Biographie Uni-
verselle, articles “Bachaumont,” “Donneau,” “Doublet,”
“Garat,” “Loret,” “ Panckoucke,” “Ilenaudot;” Bulletin
du Bibliophile, N.S., vii. 855-866; Lamartine, Histoire
de la Revolution de 1848 ; Bibliotheque Imperiale—Ca¬
talogue de rHistoire de France, iv. 345-569, 1857, 4to.
Law of
1850 abo¬
lishing
anonymous
articles in
newspa¬
pers.
Press law
of 1852.
IV.—NEWSPAPERS OP GERMANY AND OF NORTHERN EUROPE.
Early No real serial newspaper can be shown to have existed
German jn Germany of earlier date than 1615, when Egenolph
papers.      ^° r
1 The following is a literal and lineal specimen of the dialogue of
Les Trois Mousquetaires, as published in Le Siecle :—
“ Mousq.—‘ Eh bien ?’
Valet.—‘ liien.’
M.—‘ Rien!’
V.—‘ Rien.’
M.—‘ Comment ?’
V.—‘ Rien, vous dis-je.’
M.—‘ C’est impossible,’” &c.
Emmel, a bookseller of Frankfort, established one, of which News-
little more is now known, than that in the following year papers,
his example was imitated, doubtless with some improve-
ment, by the foundation of the Frankfurter Oberpostamts-
zeitung. Fulda appears to have been the next German
town to possess a newspaper ; then Hildesheim (1619), and
Herford (1630). In the course of the century almost all
German cities of the first rank possessed their respective
journals. The earliest in Leipsic bears date in 1660. The
Hamburgischer Correspondent dates from 1714, and was The Ham.
almost the only German newspaper which really drew its burgischer
foreign news from “our own correspondent.” Berlin had two Correspon-
papers, those of Voss and of Spener, both of which are still
published. They possessed in their earlier career some
literary value, but were politically null. Some half-dozen
papers which glimmered in the surrounding darkness were
the reservoirs whence the rest replenished their little lamps.
On the whole, it may be said that the German newspapers
were of very small account, until after the outbreak of the
French Revolution. Nor, indeed, can any journal of a
high order be mentioned of prior appearance to the Allge- Founda-
meine Zeitung, founded by Cotta (at first under the title oftion of the
Neueste Weltkunde) in 1798, and which is still at the head
of the political press of Germany. Posselt was its firstZeilUDS'
editor, but his want of nerve—perhaps of physical health—
hindered the application of his high powers to political jour¬
nalism ; and to this constitutional impediment another was
added, which is very honourable to his memory. His arti¬
cles gave offence to the Austrian court, and the paper had
to change both its title and its place of publication. It
had been commenced at Tubingen, and removed to Stutt-
gardt. It was now transferred to Ulm, and again from thence
to Augsburg. It was Cotta’s aim to make this the organ
of statesmen and publicists, to reach the public through
the thinkers, to hold an even balance between the rival
parties of the day, and to provide a trustworthy magazine
of materials for the historians to come; and, in the course
of time, his plan was so worked out as to raise the Allge-
meine Zeitung into European fame. L. F. Huber suc¬
ceeded Posselt in the editorship. He was of a family which
had already distinguished itself in that kind of literary en¬
terprise which more especially aims at familiarizing to the
minds of one country the great works and the prevailing
thought of other countries. He died whilst yet in the prime
of life, but not before he had rendered good service. Steg-
mann, Kolb, Mebold, and Altenhofer have successively been
the chief editors since Huber’s death. Cotta was also thef,tlieriour'
founder, at various periods, of the Morgenblatt. which be-"^®^ ^
came famous for its critical ability and tact; of Vesperus ; of)?^ ^
Das Lnland; of Nemesis; of the Oppositionsblatt of Weimar
(for a time edited by Bertuch) ; and even of the Archives
Parisiennes. His ventures were not, of course, uniformly
successful in this or in any other of the many spheres of
his activity, but it is rare that men of like enterprise have
made so few failures. Whilst French influence was domi¬
nant in Germany, the German papers were naturally enough
little more than echoes of the Parisian press. But amidst ^l"Pulse
the excitements of the “ war of liberation” a crowd of
new journals appeared. Niebuhr began a Preussische
Correspondent; Gorres undertook the Rheinische Mercur;by the war
Wetzel, somewhat later, the Frankische Mercur, published of libera-
at Bamberg; Friedrich Seybold the Recharzeitung. Sometion-
of these journals lasted but two or three years. Most of
the survivors fell victims to that resolution of the Diet (20th
September 1819) which subjected the newspaper press,
even of countries where the censorship had been formally
abolished, to police superintendence of a very stringent
kind.
The aspirations for some measure of freedom which burst
forth again under the influences of 1830 led to the estab¬
lishment of such papers as Siebenpfeiffer’s Westbote ; Loh-
N E W S P A P E K S.
News¬
papers.
Crusade of
the Diet
against the
German
press.
The Ger¬
man press
subse¬
quently to
1840.
Statistics
of the Ger¬
man press
in 1849.
bauer’s Hochwachter; Wirth’s Deutsche Tribune; Eis-
enmann’s Buierische Volksblatt; Der Freisinnige of’ Kot-
teck and We]cker;and many more of much freer utter¬
ance than had theretofore been heard in Germany. This
led, in the ordinary course, to new declarations in the Diet
against the license and revolutionary tendencies of the
press, and to “regulations” of a kind which will be suffi¬
ciently indicated by the mention of one, in virtue whereof
no editor of a suppressed journal could undertake another
journal, during the space of five years, within any part of
Germany. It need hardly be added that few of the news¬
papers of 1830 saw the Christmas of 1832. Very gradually,
after 1840, some of the older journals—and amongst the
number the patriarch of all, the Frankfurter Oberpostamts-
zeitung—plucked up courage enough to speak out a little;
and some additional newspapers were again attempted.
Amongst those which acquired deserved influence were
Brockhaus’ Deutsche AUgemeine Zeitung, the advocate of
free trade and of a moderate liberalism, and possessing alarge
circulation in Northern Germany; the Deutsche Zeitung,
edited by Gervinus, at Heidelberg (July 1847); and the
Dorfzeitung, published at Hildburghausen. The stirring
events of 1848 called forth in Germany, as in so many
other countries, a plentiful crop of political instructors of
the people, many of whom manifestly lacked even the ca¬
pacity to learn, and vanished almost as suddenly as they
had appeared. But it is undeniable that a marked im¬
provement in the ability and energy of the German politi¬
cal press may be dated from this period, and bids fair to
continue, despite all impediments.
In 1833 the number of German newspapers of all kinds,
popular journals (Volksblatter) included, but without reck¬
oning periodicals devoted to literature or science, had
amounted to but 335, or thereabout; in 1849 this num¬
ber had increased to 1551, and their geographical distri¬
bution was as follows :—
States.
States.
No. of
Papers.
16. Liibeck  4
17. Luxemburg  4
18. Mecklenburg  22
19. Nassau  13
20. Oldenburg  8
21. Prussia    632
22. Reuss  11
23. Saxony  183
24. Saxon Duchies  44
25. Schaumburg-Lippe  2
26. Schleswig  5
27. Schwartzburg  12
28. Waldeck  2
29. Wurtemberg  67
No. of
Papers.
1. Anhalt  10
2. Austria  74
3. Baden  55
4. Bavaria  127
5. Bremen  18
6. Brunswick  9
7. Frankfort  17
8. Hamburg  24
9. Hanover  32
10. Hesse-Cassel  22
11. Hesse-Darmstadt  34
12. Hesse-Homburg  4
13. Hohenzollern  4
14. Holstein  17
15. Lippe-Detmold  4
In addition to these, but included in our total of 1551,
77 German newspapers were published in the Swiss can¬
tons, and 14 in the Baltic provinces of Russia. Many of
those reckoned in this enumeration have ceased to appear,
but others have taken their places ; and the total number
in 1855 was estimated to be a little above 1600.
The news- ^ t^ie beginning of 1840 the whole number of Austro-
paper press German and Austro-Hungarian periodicals, of all sorts,
in the was under 100; of which but 22 were (after a fashion)
Austrian political newspapers; and of these nearly all drew their
ominions. materials and their inspiration from the official papers of
Vienna ( Wiener Zeitung and Oestreichischer Beobachter).
1 hese two were all that appeared in the capital. Agram,
Pesth, Presburg, Limburg, and Prague had each two.
No other city bad more than a single journal, and that
one a nullity, in the sense in which newspapers were re¬
garded in France, and are still regarded in Britain or
America. In 1846 the aggregate number of periodicals
had grown to 155, of which 46 were political, but poli-
YOL. XYI.
tical only in the character of mere conduit-pipes for
intelligence “approved of” by the government. What
sort of journalists were likely to grow up in these Vien¬
nese leading-strings may be easily imagined. But it
would have been impossible to have conceived before¬
hand the ludicrous exhibition of their talents which these
writers made, when the short-lived freedom of the press
burst upon them like a thunder-cloud in March 1848.
Yet here, too, as elsewhere, some good seed was cast
into the ground, which no busy enemy has been able
quite to root up, and which has already produced the ear¬
nest of a harvest to come. In 1855 the number of poli¬
tical papers published throughout the entire territory,
at present under Austrian government, the Italian provinces
excepted, was 57. Their distribution and languages were
respectively as follows :—
201
News¬
papers.
Cities.
Num¬
ber of
News¬
papers.
Vienna 
Lintz 
Salzburg 
Gratz 
Klagenfurth....
Laybach 
Trieste 
Prague 
Brunn 
Olmutz 
Troppau 
Innsbruck 
Pesth 
Presburg 
Agram  
Temesva 
Neusatz 
Hermannstadt..
Crons tadt 
Lemberg 
Cracow 
Zara 
Totals
19
1
2
1
1
1
3
4
3
1
1
4
4
1
2
1
1
2
2
2
1
2
Languages.
Ger- Ma Po- Czec- Croa Ser- Scia- P1.011
man. ya lish. kish. tian. vian. vie. man
[In
59 45 2 2 2 1
* In addition to one in Italian.
addition to
1
1
Italian
1*
Prussian
newspa-
In 1856 the leading papers of Vienna,—namely, the
Ost Deustche Post, the Orsterreichische Zeitung, and the
Wanderer,—were in a thriving state. The imposition in
the autumn of 1857 of a heavy stamp duty on Austrian
newspapers, together with an additional 50 per cent, on the
tax upon advertisements, coming, too, as they have come,
at a time of commercial difficulty, will destroy this pro¬
sperity, and will be another blow at the progress of opinion
and free aspiration. But it is a step thoroughly Austrian,
and will, when the end arrives, be found to have had its
due reward.
In Prussia the influence of the events of 1848 upon the
newspaper press was naturally much greater, and it has per press,
been also more enduring, than in most other parts of Ger¬
many. There the ground was to a great extent prepared
for freer discussion, and the men who undertook it were
better fitted for their work. But even here the contrast be¬
tween the present reality and the past anticipation is not
enlivening. There is much activity; little independence.
The journals which enjoy the widest circulation are distin¬
guished by literary merit and political servility. The Ber¬
liner Privilegirte Zeitung had 12,200 subscribers in 1855;
the Berlinischen Nachrichten, 7600; the notorious Kreuz-
zeitung, the organ of the re-actionists (founded on the 1st
July 1848), has 5000; the Zeit, 6600; the National Zei¬
tung, 5400. Of the provincial press, the Kblnische Zeitung
is foremost; next to it come the Gazettes of Konigsberg,
Aix-la-Chapelle, and Breslau.
2 c
202
N E W S P
News¬
papers.
The news¬
papers of
Sweden.
In Sweden the earliest regular newspaper appears to have
been the Ordinarie Post-Tidende, fhst published in 1643,
and continued until 1680, which was followed by the Svemk
Mercurius (1675-1683), and the Relationes Curiosce (in
Latin, like their titles) which began in 1682, and ceased in
1701. In 1742 a Swedish newspaper in French {Gazette
Franqaise de Stockholm) was commenced, and was followed,
in 1772, by the Mercure de Suede. But the press in Sweden
had small political influence until so recent a date as 1820,
when the Argus was established by Johannsen. The strife
between “ Classicists ” and “ Romanticists ” spread itself in
Sweden, as in France, from the field of literature into that
of politics. Crusenstolpe’s Paderneslandet, and Hjerta’s
Aftonbladet, were long the most conspicuous of the Swe¬
dish journals; the former on the side of the royalists, the
latter on that of the reformers. Hjerta’s paper, in its best
day, could boast of a circulation of 5000 copies ; but on the
accession of King Oscar it ceased to appear as an opposi-
sition organ. The official paper is Post och Inrikes Tid-
ningar, the original title of which was Sveriges Statstidning.
Almost every town in the provinces has its paper. The
growth of the Swedish press during the present century may
be thus epitomized:—
Year.
1801.
1821.
No. of
Papers.
 25
 48
Year.
1829.
1831.
No. of
Papers.
 62
 80
Year.
1841.
1850.
No. of
Papers.
....112
....113
Newspa- If in Sweden the political influence of the press is a ne¬
pers of velty, in Denmark it is a newer thing still. Until 1830
Denmark, Copenhagen had but two papers, and they filled their
columns with mild extracts from foreign journals. Real
activity in this direction dates but from the establishment of
the Provincial States in 1834. The oldest existing paper is
the Berlingske Tidende, which dates from 1749, and was
at first published in German. It is now a semi-ministerial
journal. The Fadrelandet belongs to the opposition, and
in 1848-9 was in a glow of zeal for Scandinavianism and
“ Young Denmark.” The total number of political jour¬
nals existing in 1849 was 36. Those belonging to the
and of Nor-provinces are of small account. The oldest Norwegian
way. paper is the Christiania In telligentssedler, founded in 1763.
Next to this comes the Adressecontoirs Efterretninger,
published at Bergen. Den Constitutionelle is the organ of
the government, and has absorbed (for in newspaper affairs
incorporation almost always means absorption) an older
paper, called Norske Pigstidende. The Morgenblad is the
journal of the popular party, and dates from 1819.
{Allgemeine Deutsche Peal-Encyclopadie, oder Conver¬
sations-Lexikon (Zehnte Auflage, 1855), xv. 474-487,
art. “Zeitungen”; Journal of the Statistical Society
of London, iv. 127-131, art. “Statistics of Newspapers
in various Countries,” by P. L. Simmonds; Biographic
Universelle, arts. “ Bertuch,” “ Cotta,” “ Huber,” “ Pos-
selt,” &c.)
V.—NEWSPAPERS OF HOLLAND AND BELGIUM.
Nieuwe In respect of the first publication of a newspaper, Bel-
Tydinghen, gium takes rank before France, Germany, and Britain,
published The Nieuwe Tydinghen of Antwerp, published by Abraham
in l605erP Verhoeven’ dates from 1605’ as aPPears by the privilege
accorded to him for the exclusive retailing of news by the
Archdukes Albert and Isabella. But as no copy of any
number of this paper anterior to 1619 is now known to
exist, the statement must stand open to correction upon a
point which is at present doubtful,—the fact, namely,
whether or not this “ Tydinghe” was from its origin a re¬
gular periodical. M. de Jonghe possesses portions of it
from 1619 to 1630. It seems probable that the Gazette Ex¬
traordinary Posttydinghen, published by Wilhem Verdus-
sen between 1637 and 1644, is a continuation of Verhoeven’s
A P E R s.
paper. But be this as it may, that of Verdussen was cer- News-
tainly the foundation of the well-known Gazette van Ant- papers.
werpen, which continued to appear until 1827.
Bruges had also its Nieuwe Tydinghen uyt verscheyde Early jour-
gemesten, published (in black letter) Te Brugghe, by Nicho- nals of
laes Breyghel, in de Phlips-Stoc-Straete aen S. Donaes. BruKes.
When this paper was commenced is uncertain, but various ^nd of
numbers of it exist with dates ranging between 1637 and11™886 8,
1645. In one of these (26th July 1644) a Brusselsche Ga¬
zette of the 24th of that month is quoted, but for which
citation, no Brussels paper is known of earlier date than
1649. When the first number of Le Courrier veritable des
Pays-Bas made its appearance, the publisher (Jean Mom-
maert) prefaces the first number by an address to the reader,
in which he says:—“ I have long endeavoured to meet with
somebody who would give employment to my presses in
defending truth against the falsehoods which malignity and
ignorance send daily abroad. I have at length found what
I sought, and shall now be able to tell you weekly the most
important things that are going on in the world.” This
paper became afterwards the Gazette de Bruxelles, then
Gazette des Pays-Bas ; and, under the last-named title, it
continued to appear until 1791. The Annales PolitiquesF^wW
of Linguet was one of the most remarkable of the political Ann;;Ies
journals of Brussels in the last century. For a time the PolltIclues'
editor won the favour of the Emperor Joseph II. by praising
his reforms, and the government subscribed for 1200 copies
of his paper at two louis d’ors each a year; but here, as in
almost every other place of residence during his chequered
career, Linguet at length incurred fine and imprisonment.
His journal was at one time so popular that a printer in
Brussels itself regularly and rapidly published a pirated
edition of it. When the editor exposed the fraud in very
severe terms, the pirate faithfully copied the censure with¬
out a word of comment. Le National was a famous paper
for a short period prior to the revolution of 1830. Soon
after its cessation [its presses were destroyed by the popu¬
lace on the 26th August] the official journal, Moniteur
Beige, was established—“ the ministry deeming it indispen¬
sable, to the success of its great political enterprise, that a
journal should be created which might expound its views,
and act daily upon public opinion; ” and, on decree of the
regency, it was published accordingly.
The first newspaper published at Ghent, Gazette van Gend, Dutch
appeared in 1667. Den Vaderlander, begun in October newsPa-
1829, is one of the most widely-circulated of the Flemish pers'
journals. Holland has always been rich in newspapers,
but they have usually had more weight commercially than
politically. Those in most esteem are the Allgemeene
Handelsblad of Amsterdam; the Harlemsche Courant;
and the Staats Courant, and Journal de la Haye, both of
which are printed at the Hague.
(Warzee, Essai Historique et Critique sur les Journaux
Beiges, Gand, 1845, passim; Allgem. Deutsche-RealEncy-
clopadie, ut supra; Kolb, art. “ Linguet ” in Biographie
Universelle.)
VI.—NEWSPAPERS OF ITALY AND OF THE PENINSULA.
Of the manuscript gazettes or “ notizie scritte” of Venice, Venetian
little need here be said. They are memorable as indica- Gazettes-
tions of the Venetian policy, and also as having probably
given us (from the small coin for which they might be
read at certain public places) our word “ gazette;” but, like
their congeners in England and in Germany, were not news¬
papers. The often-quoted bull of Pope Gregory XIII.
was aimed rather at the writers than at the printers of V
news, and when these narratives or “relations” were at
length printed, they were occasional, not periodical. Nor
can it, we believe, be fixed with any certainty at what date
or in what part of the country an Italian serial newspaper was
NE WSP
News- first printed. In recent times Italy has had many admirable
papers, scientific and literary magazines, but political journalism
has scarcely taken root in that soil. The Diario di Roma,
the Gazzetta di Napoli, and many similar papers published
“ with approbation ” in Lucca, Bologna, Milan, and Florence,
have never possessed much influence either for good or evil.
Newspaper In later days, however, Sardinia has formed a notable ex¬
cess of ception to this state of things. No fewer than 45 purely
Sardinia, political papers were published in the Sardinian dominions
in 1852, and of these 41 were in Italian and 4 in French.
The leading journal was the Parlamento, which, in 1855,
altered its name to Piemonte. The Opinione represents
the party of progressive reform; the Armenia the clerical
party. The popular paper, entitled Gazzetta del Popolo,
had, at the last-named date, about 7000 subscribers. Of
the vast crowd of journals of a popular kind, many of them
marked by ability, but nearly all of necessity still more
remarkable for extravagance, which rushed forth so tumul¬
tuously in many parts of Italy in 1847 and 1848, few sur¬
vived the re-action and the repressive atrocities of 1849.
Spanish 1° Spain no newspaper of any kind existed earlier than
ournalism. the last century. Even within half a century of the pre¬
sent year, its capital contented itself with a single journal,
the Diario de Madrid. The peninsular war, and the es¬
tablishment of the Cortes, gave the first impulse towards
something which might be called political journalism, but
the change from total repression to absolute freedom was
too sudden not to be grossly abused. The Diario de los
Cortes, the Semanario Patriotico (published at Cadiz from
1808 to 1811), and the Aurora Mallarquina {pvM\\A\edL
at Palma in 1812-13), are the first of the new papers that
attained importance. Most of them fell with the Cortes
in 1823. In the following year Ferdinand decreed the
suppression of all the journals except the Diario and the
Gageta of Madrid, the Gageta de Bayona, and certain
provincial papers which dealt exclusively with commercial
or scientific subjects. At the close of his reign but three
or four papers were published in Madrid. Ten years after¬
wards there were 40 ; but their number is far more notice¬
able than their value. Spanish newspapers have been too
often the mere stepping-stones of political adventurers, and
not unfrequently the worst of them appear to have served
the turn more completely than the best. Gonzales Bravo
attained office mainly by the help of a paper of notorious
scurrility,—El Guirigay. The Universal and the Correo
were successively the tools of Jose Salamanca. At the
end of 1854 the number of political journals published in
Madrid was about 40, and the most conspicuous of them
were Espana and El Clamor Publico. In Portugal the
newspaper press is of still less account. The number of
newspapers published in Lisbon in 1852 was 7; in Oporto,
5. The Diatio do Governo is the official organ.
{Ally. Deutsche Real-Encyclopedic, ut supra, 456-460;
Ford, Handbook for Spain, 3d edition, 666, 667; British
Quarterly Retoiew, vi., 315-332, art. “ Newspaper Press
of Spain.5') ♦
VII.—NEWSPAPERS OF INDIA, AND THE RESTRICTIONS
IMPOSED ON THEM.
For a considerable period in the history of the govern¬
ment of India by the Company, the Indian press was very
unimportant both in character and influence. It was per¬
mitted to shape its course and to gain a position as it
could, under the potent checks of the deportation power
and the libel law, without any direct censorship. Nor was
it found difficult to inflict exemplary punishment on the
writers of “ offensive paragraphs.”
Prior to Lord Wellesley’s administration the most con¬
siderable newspapers published at Calcutta were The
World, The Bengal Journal, The Hurkaru, The Calcutta
A P E R S. 203
Gazette (the organ of the Bengal government), The Tele- News-
graph, The Calcutta Courier, The Asiatic Mirror, and papers.
The Indian Gazette. Mr Duane, the editor of the first- ^
named paper, was sent to Europe in 1794 for “ an inflam¬
matory address to the armyas was Mr Charles Maclean,
four years afterwards, for animadverting in The Telegraph
on the official conduct of a local magistrate.
Lord Wellesley was the first governor-general who Lord Wel-
created a censorship (April 1799). The circumstances ofleslfy’s ex-
the time were critical: the war with Tippoo was at itsPositlon of
height. In writing to Sir Alured Clarke, Lord Wellesley
thus expressed himself:—“I cannot but suspect the exist-the censor-
ence of a systematic design of mischief among the editors of ship of
several papers, particularly The Asiatic Mirror, The Tele-1799.
graph, and The Post . . . To-day I find in The Post . . .
a plain suggestion to Tippoo of the advantages which he
might derive by sending his looties into the Carnatic ; and
in The Mirror . . . you will find a dissertation on the
causes, nature, and extent, of the conspiracy discovered in
Bengal. ... I request you will embark the editor of that
paper (whom I understand to be a Mr Bruce, a desperate
Jacobin)/or Europe in the first ship which shall sail from
Calcutta.” His lordship then proceeds to establish
certain regulations for the future control of the press, and
adds that he is determined, on his return to Bengal, to limit
“ the extravagant number of newspapers now published in
Culcutta.” Of the new press code, the most important
section runs thus:—“ 1. No paper to be published at all until
it shall have been inspected by the Secretary to government,
or by some person authorized by him for the purpose.” It
is honourable to the memory of the noble marquis, that
on maturer thought, when the passing excitements of the
moment had given place to the judicial analysis of sell-
examination, and when policy had been tested by time, he
indicated his changed views, and his desire that the decree
of April 1799 should not be made a model, by striking out
all the passages relating to the Calcutta newspapers from
the revised Dispatches, which he was sending to the press.
According to Mr H. H. Wilson, the later historian of
British India, “ the duties of the censorship w'ere leniently
dischargedand he inclines to think that “ this control,
and the improving tastes and feelings of the age, gave to
the Indian chronicles a new character, and rendered them
respectable, if not very authentic, vehicles ol public infor¬
mation.” But the Marquis of Hastings appears to have
judged less favourably of their operation. He thought. it°orshj
more important to secure (to use his own words) “ the Lord x^ast.
salutary control which public scrutiny exercises overingSin
supreme authority, and the cheerfulness and zeal with 1818.
which all ranks of society co-operate in measures the
motives and objects of which they understand, and in which
they concur.” He therefore, in 1818, abolished the
censorship. Whatever the “leniency” of its application
may have been, the position of the newspaper press was
unmistakeable. We find it significantly marked by Lord
Wellesley himself, when he wrote in 1804 to the Danish
governor of Serampore, in reply to a complaint against a
Bengal journal,—“ The necessary orders have been com¬
municated to the editors of the newspapers published in
Calcutta, for the purpose of preventing the miblication of
any injurious reflections,” &c.
The power of transporting obnoxious editors to Europe
of course remained. Perhaps the most notorious of all in¬
stances of its exertion was that of the editor of The
Calcutta Journal, the late Mr J. S. Buckingham, which
occurred immediately after Lord Hastings’ departure from
India, and during the government of his temporary successor,
Mr John Adam. What Lord Hastings had regarded as
salutary Mr Adam stigmatized as highly pernicious. “ The
governor-general,” he wrote, “protests against the as¬
sumption of this right of control over the government and
NEWSPAPERS.
Licensing
laws of
1823.
Connection
of govern¬
ment ser¬
vants with
the press.
State of the
Indian
press in
1832.
The press
under Lord
\\r. Ben-
tinck.
its officers by a community constituted like the European
oociety of India.” I he removal of Mr Buckingham was
followed closely (14th March 1823) by a new licensing
act, far exceeding in stringency that of Lord Wellesley,
which had been cancelled five years before; and on the
5th of April 1823, by an elaborate “Regulation for Pre¬
venting the Establishment of Printing-Presses without
License, and for Restraining, under certain circumstances, the
Circulation of Printed Books and Papers.” Of this docu¬
ment, it is enough to say, that it appears to have been
framed with admirable fidelity on the Star-Chamber pre¬
cedents of the sixteenth century. The first application of
it was to the suppression of The Calcutta Journal.
Under the Marquis of Hastings, the germ of a native
press had ventured to show itself. Persian and Bengal
papers had just started up, when the new laws nipped most
of them in the bud. In some cases, however, natives suc¬
ceeded in obtaining the necessary licenses for the estab¬
lishment of others. Meanwhile a question grew into im¬
portance which had not been provided for,—the right,
namely, of the Company’s servants to connect themselves
with the European press, whether as writers or as pro¬
prietors. On this subject Lord (then Sir C.) Metcalfe
recorded a remarkable minute in December 1828. At
this date the repressive laws of 1823 had been already in
practice relaxed. Lord Metcalfe was strongly in favour of
increased liberty. He desired that ample power should
always be possessed by the local government for “ protect¬
ing the safety of the state,” but thought that “ to crush
what is in itself capable of great good, from an apprehension
that it may possibly, under circumstances as yet uncon¬
ceived, be converted into an evil, would be a forecast more
honoured in the breach than in the observance and re¬
gretted “that the orders of the Court of Directors have not
left employment in the press open to all their servants, ex¬
cept those in high official stations, ... on the indispen¬
sable condition that such employment should not be allowed
to interfere with the due discharge of public duties.”
In the course of the elaborate inquiry into the admini¬
stration of the government of India, which occupied both
Houses of Parliament in 1832, prior to the renewal of the
Company’s charter, the statistics of the Indian press were
thus stated: (1. European.) Three daily newspapers, The
Bengal Hurkaru, The John Bull, The Indian Gazette; one
bi-weekly, The Government Gazette; and two weekly, The
Bengal Herald, and The Oriental Observer. (2. Native.)
Janrie Jehan JSuma, Summachar Chunduca, Sunbad
Tuneer JSassuk, Bunga Boot, Sunbad Coumoodg.1 At
this period every paper was published, under a license, revo¬
cable at pleasure, with or without previous inquiry or notice.
But, in the words of Mr Sutherland, “ Lord William Ben-
tinck never interfered with the press, and it has been
privately understood he never will do so.” He was wont
to say, according to another good authority, Mr Kaye, “ I
do not care a straw for the vituperations of the press; . . .
but I have learned more from it than from all the other
somces of information which have been open to me since I
assumed the government of this country.” At Madras, on
the other hand, it remained under rigid restriction. The
papers, said Mr Sullivan in 1832, “are submitted to the
e le secretary before publication, and he runs his pen
J1rouff • • ■ • whatever may appear to him objectionable.”
Ihe Madras censorship was removed whilst the parliament¬
ary inquiry of 1832 was still pending. The Bengal Hur-
karu wM, at the date of Lord W. Bentinck’s government,
tiie journal of largest circulation, its average issue (daily
edition and tri-weekly editions together) being 1500.
News¬
papers.
 v '
One question only’, and that but for a brief interval, dis¬
turbed Lord William Bentinck’s love of free discussion.
The too famous “Half-Batta” measure led him to think
that a resolute persistence in an unwise policy by the homo
government against the known convictions of the men
actually at the helm in India, and an unfettered press, were
two things that could scarcely co-exist. It was on this
occasion that Sir Charles Metcalfe recorded his minute
of September 1830, the reasoning of which amply justifies
the assertion—•“ I have, for my own part, always advocated
the liberty of the press, believing its benefits to outweigh
its mischiefs; and I continue of the same opinion.”
This opinion was nobly carried out in the memorable law
drafted by Mr (now Lord) Macaulay, and enacted by Sir
Charles Metcalfe, as governor-general in 1835. Mr Macau¬
lay’s minute (16th April 1835) contained the pertinent ques¬
tion—“It is acknowledged that in realitylibertyis,and ought
to be, the general rule, and restraint the rare and temporary
exception. Why, then, should not the form correspond
with the reality ? Why should our laws be so framed as to
make it appear that the ordinary practice is in the highest
degree oppressive, and that freedom can be enjoyed only
by occasional connivance ?” The law of 1835 totally abro- Lord Met
gated the licensing system. It left all men at liberty to calfe’s law
express their sentiments on public affairs, under the leo-al °f 1835.
and moral responsibilities of ordinary life. It had the
hearty approval of most Indian statesmen in the front rank.
But it was as heartily condemned by the Court of Directors
at home; and for Sir Charles Metcalfe, it virtually can¬
celled (as far as the East India Company was concerned)
the honourable and eminent services of thirty-seven years.
And, after all, the directors discovered that they dared
not insist on a return to the system oflicenses. The press
increased in vigour and influence, and as unquestionably
rose in character. There were, as there will always be,
discreditable exceptions, in which bad men employed in the
light of day energies which, under the old system, would
have found their vent in underground channels. But in
the main the results have vindicated the policy. Lord
Metcalfe’s law remained in force until the outbreak of the
wretched Sepoy mutiny.
I he Act No. XV. of 1857 is entitled, “ An Act to regu- Lord Can-
ate the establishment of Printing Presses ; and to Restrain ning’s luw
in certain cases the Circulation of Printed Books andof 1857-
1 apers. Like that of 1823, on which it is closely modelled,
it absolutely prohibits the keeping or using of printinre¬
presses, types, or other materials for printing, in any pan
of the tenitories in the possession and under the govern¬
ment of the East India Company, except with the previous
sanction and license of government.” It also gives full
powers for the seizure and prohibition from circulation of
all books and papers, whether printed within the Indian
territories or elsewhere.
Phe lesults of this licensing act have yet to be learned
It is enacted for one year from its date; and the Minutes
of the government at Calcutta expressly deprecate the
criticism of its policy, otherwise than as a temporary mea¬
sure. But the Court of Directors, more cautiously, in the
despatch approving it (26th August 1857), take occasion
to say, “ We do not think it necessary at present to enter
on the general question of the freedom of the press in India.”
Whatever may be the eventual verdict of informed Eno--
lish opinion on the government of India by the Company,
considered as a whole, there can he nothing premature in
the assertion, that in their relations with the press, both the
directors at home and the functionaries who have most fully
ing to Mfwilfon'there wcre^^ WhiCh aPPearS ^ • C,0n,pany’S edition of the ReP°rts relating to India.
o were in 1846 eight native newspapers printed in Calcutta, besides otheis at the different presidencies.
ckccuru-
N E W
Newton, enjoyed their confidence in India, have uniformly distrusted
Sir Isaac. and dreaded free speech and unfettered discussion. But
men whose names will long live in the veneration of the
natives of India, as well as in the memories of their fellow-
countrymen, are found to be on the other side. That they
are so, is of good omen for the future.
{Minutes of Evidence on the Affairs of the East India
Company, February to July 1832, i. 98-101 ; 166-180
(Company’s edition); Report of the Select Committee of
House of Commons on the Affairs, &c., 16th August 1832,
31, 32 (ibid.); Report from Select Committee on the Sup¬
pression of the Calcutta Journal, 4th August 1834;
Minutes, 85-168 ; Appendix, passim ; Second Report from
Select Committee on Indian Territories, 12th May 1853,
64-68 ; Further Papers on the Mutinies in the East Indies,
1857, No. 5, 89-96; Returns relating to the Restriction
of the Liberty of the Press in India, 24th August 1857,
passim ; Selections from the Papers of Lord Metcalfe, 1855,
311 seq.; The Oriental Herald, 1824, i., 6-77, 123-142,
197-224 ; Letters to the Marquis of Hastings on the Indian
Press, 1824, 61, &c.; Memoirs and Correspondence of the
Marquess Welleslej/, i. 281, ii. 128, seq.; Wilson’s History
of British India, from 1805 to 1835, 1848, iii. 581-585.)
NEWTON, Sir Isaac, a distinguished mathematician
and natural philosopher, was born at the manor house of
Woolsthorpe, about half a mile to the west of Colsterworth,
in Lincolnshire, and some six miles to the south of Grantham.
His birth, which was premature, took place on the 25th of
December, O. S. 1642. His father, Mr Isaac Newton, was
proprietor of Woolsthorpe, worth about L.30 per annum,
and farmed it wdth his own hands. His mother was Harriet
Ayscough, the daughter of Mr James Ayscough, of Market-
Overton, in Rutlandshire. They had been married only a
few months when Mr Newton died, leaving his wife in a
state of pregnancy. The posthumous child was so small
that “ they might have put him into a quart mug,” and no
expectation was entertained of his continuing to live.
“ Providence, however,” as his biographer observes, “ had
otherwise decreed; and that frail tenement, which seemed
scarcely able to imprison its immortal mind, was destined to
enjoy a vigorous maturity, and to survive even the average
term of human existence.” Mrs Newton possessed a small
property in Leicestershire, about three miles from Wools¬
thorpe, which raised her annual income to about L.80.
In consequence of the marriage of Mrs Newton to the
Rev. Mr Smith of North Witham, she left her son Isaac
under the charge of her mother. He received his early
education at two day schools at Skillington and Stoke; and
in his twelfth year he went to the public school at Gran¬
tham, taught by Mr Stokes, and was boarded at the house
of Mr Clark, an apothecary. Here his attention was less
occupied with his studies than with the mechanical amuse¬
ments, in which he spent all his leisure hours. Models of
wind-mills, water-clocks, and self-moving carriages, were
executed by him in succession; and he contrived to amuse
his schoolfellows with paper kites and paper lanthorns,
which he raised to great heights in the air.
From the play-things of his childhood, Newton made a
rapid transition to higher amusements. The daily move¬
ments of the sun were traced upon the walls and roofs of
the buildings at Woolsthorpe. By means of pins and lines
he indicated the hours and half hours of his rude dials; and
though he was now employed in tending the cattle, and
going to the market at Grantham, yet he was often found
studying mathematics under a hedge, or gleaning fragments
of science from old books in Mr Clark’s garret at Grantham.
Ihis inattention to the duties of the farm increased with his
years, and his mother came to the resolution of giving him
an academical education. After the preparation of a few
NEW 205
Here our slight survey of a wide subject must needs find Newton
pause. To say that the newspaper press, with all its ability Sir Isaac.
and influence, is as yet but at the threshold of its career   
is neither presumptuous nor hazardous. In Britain, as well
as in America, the journals that unite the highest order of
talents with a manifestly conscientious sense of responsi¬
bility for the use of them, do but put into stronger light
the defects of their opposites. We as little believe that
the newspaper, at its best, will ever supersede books and
pulpits, as we have faith in the much-bruited but very
silly assertion, that “a number of The Times contains
more instruction than all Thucydides.” Until the jour¬
nalists and the readers of a country are alike imbued with
the spirit of (at least) their national classics, neither the
full powers nor the highest functions of journalism will be
elicited. But when a public thus intellectually nurtured
shall be daily addressed by a press plainly under the guid¬
ance of religious principle, then unquestionably the power
of instilling the same thought, at the same moment, into
thousands of minds will prove the mightiest of all the se¬
cular agents of civilization,—the most eftectiveof all curbs on
misgovernment, whether arising from the errors of rulers or
the temporary excitements of popular majorities, (e. e.)
months at Grantham school he was sent to Cambridge,
where he was admitted a subsizer of Trinity College on the
5th of June 1661, a bachelor of arts in 1665, a junior fellow
in 1667, and master of arts in 1668. Young Newton’s
attention was first turned to the study of mathematics by a
a passion for judicial astrology. He considered the propo¬
sitions in Euclid as self-evident truths ; and in the geometry
of Descartes, the Miscellanies of Schooten, the Claris of
Oughtred, and the Arithmetic of Infinites of Wallis, he
acquired his first knowledge of the mathematics. Kepler’s
Optics and Saunderson’s Logic were amongst the books
which he carefully studied, and upon which he wrote com¬
ments; and so rapid was his progress in knowledge, that he
was considered as being more deeply versed in several
branches than his own tutor. In the year 1666 he pur¬
chased a prism for the purpose of studying Descartes’
Theory of Colours; and early in 1668 "three additional
prisms, which were no doubt those used by him in his
experiments. He had in 1666 applied himself to the
grinding of “optic glasses of other figures than spherical;”
and finding that there were other causes than the imperfect
converging of rays to a focus which rendered refracting
telescopes imperfect, he was led to inquire into the cause of
the colours produced by lenses and prisms, and to make
those splendid discoveries respecting the different refrangi-
bility of the rays of light, the history and nature of which
will be found in the article Optics.
Having despaired of improving the refracting telescope,
Newton directed his attention to the reflecting one. At
this time Gregory’s Optica Promota, published in 1663,
fell into his hands; and, in considering the construction of
the Gregorian telescope there described, “he found the
disadvantages of them so great,” “ that he altered the design
ot it, and placed the eye-glass at the side of the tube rather
than at the middle.” On this altered principle he executed
a reflecting telescope with his own hands in the year 1668.
In 1671 he finished a better one, which was shown to the
king, and presented to the Royal Society, in whose custody
it still remains.
Although Newton delivered a course of lectures on optics
in Cambridge in 1669, 1670, and 1671, containing an
account ot his discoveries respecting the different refrangi-
bility of the rays ot light, yet the Royal Society was not
acquainted with them till 1672. On the 23d of December
1671 he was proposed as a member of that body by Dr
Seth Ward, bishop of Sarum, and he was elected on the
206
NEWTON.
ewton, 11th of January 1672. On the 6th of February he com-
.v ^ 3aac‘y wiunicated to Mr Oldenburg his discoveries respecting
* v ^ which he regarded as “ the oddest, if not the most
considerable, detection which had hitherto been made in
the operations of nature.”
No sooner was it communicated to the world that white
light consists of seven different colours, having different
degrees of refrangibility, than a crowd of obscure indivi¬
duals assailed, not only his conclusions, but the accuracy
of the experiments from which they had been derived. Dr
Hooke and Huygens attacked them on different grounds;
but Newton, in a letter to Oldenburg, dated the 11th of
June 1672, silenced the arguments of his opponents, and
established his general doctrine upon an impregnable basis.
The colours of thin plates, first observed by Boyle, and
studied by Hooke, had occupied the special attention of
Newton. The results of his inquiries were laid before the
Royal Society on the 7th of December 1675, and about
twelve years afterwards the theory of fits was completed,
and applied to the explanation of the permanent colours
of natural bodies. These researches, however, including
his experiments on the inflexion of light, which he gives
only as an imperfect fragment, were not published till
1704, when his treatise on Optics appeared. (See the
article Optics).
The first idea of gravity as the cause of the celestial mo¬
tions occurred to Newton in the year 1666, when sitting
alone in the garden of Woolsthorpe. Conjecturing that it
might extend as far as the moon, he was led to confirm the
conjecture by calculation, and thus to establish the doc¬
trine of universal gravitation, “ that every particle of matter
is attracted by, or gravitates to, every other particle of
matter, with a force inversely proportional to the square
of the distance.” This great discovery, and its application
to the movements of the planetary system, as well as to
that of the comets, was published in 1686, in his Philoso¬
phies Naturalis Principia Mathematical a work which, to
use the words of Newton’s biographer, “ is memorable, not
only in the annals of one science or one country, but will
form an epoch in the history of the world, and will ever be
regarded as the brightest page in the records of human
reason.” This remarkable production was speedily circu¬
lated over Europe; and although the discoveries which it
contained were for a while opposed by national as well as
personal jealousies, yet the Newtonian philosophy made
rapid progress, and finally supplanted the rival systems of
Aristotle and Descartes.
As early as the year 1666 Newton had discovered the
binomial theorem and the method of fluxions; and although
he had not communicated this discovery to any of his
friends, yet he had clearly described the principle, and ex¬
hibited the application of his method, in his Analysis per
Equationes numero Terminorum infinilas, a work which he
had communicated to Dr Barrow in June 1669, and which
was not published till 1701, nearly half a century after it Newton
was written. Our readers are well aware that the disco- Sir Isaac,
very of fluxions was claimed by Leibnitz, and that the
controversy which sprung out of this claim is scarcely yet
at an end.1
From the year 1669, when Newton was appointed to
succeed Dr Barrow as Lucasian professor of mathematics
at Cambridge, till 1688, he led a secluded life within the
walls of his college; but events now occurred which drew
him from retirement, and placed him conspicuously on the
stage of public life. James II., desirous of re-establishing
the Catholic faith as the national religion, had begun to
assail the privileges of his Protestant subjects. He ordered
Father Francis, an ignorant Benedictine monk, to be re¬
ceived at Cambridge as a master of arts, and the oaths of
allegiance and supremacy to be dispensed with. The uni¬
versity resisted this illegal mandate, and chose nine dele¬
gates to defend their independence. Having joined in re¬
sisting the wishes of the court, Newton was chosen one of
the delegates; and such was their firmness, and the argu¬
mentative weight of their representations, that the king
was led to abandon his design. Newton’s popularity was
extended by the success of the delegates, and he was elected
member for the university in 1688, along with Sir Robert
Sawyer, having beaten Mr Finch by only five votes.
Newton sat in the convention parliament from January
1689 till its dissolution in February 1690.
In the discharge of his parliamentary duties, he no
doubt experienced the unsuitableness of his income to his
new position. The limited means of his relations, and his
own generous disposition, had exhausted his scanty re¬
sources, and he and his friends naturally looked to some
patronage on the part of the government which might ena¬
ble him to pursue his scientific researches, unembarrassed
by those physical wants which have ever been the scourge
of genius, and especially of that variety of it which is called
forth by patient and continuous inquiry. There is ample
evidence that unsuccessful applications had been made for
this purpose; and the vexation and disappointment which
this ingratitude produced, combined with other causes,
seem to have thrown Newton into a state of nervous irri¬
tability, which threatened to paralyze even his mighty in¬
tellect. It is difficult to trace with distinctness the suc¬
cession of causes which at this time contributed to disturb
his serenity; but it has been said that, about the end of
1692, or early in 1693, his chemical laboratory had been
burned, and a number of manuscripts destroyed; and on
another occasion, several valuable manuscripts were con¬
sumed by a candle which he had left burning whilst he went
to chapel. These losses seem to have affected him deeply,
and “ he was so troubled thereat, that every one thought he
would have run mad, and he was not himself for months
after.” Another account of these events, communicated by
one Colin or Collins to Huygens,2 represents Newton as
M ^ acc°unt of this controversy will be found in the article Fluxions, and in Preliminary Dissertation IV nart ii § 1
wm befou°d “SirDavld Brewster's* <*• vL«,;;L
M eXtJwfc from the manuscript of Huygens was first published in Biot’s Life of Newton“ On the 29th of May 1694
insMie,1 either ^in,ConsMuenceaofW8SItnI1, ’ ^^orme^ ™ that, eightee/months ago, the illultis geometer Isaac New^LdLeo-
laLnratr,™ Q i ? ce of his too intense application to his studies, or from excessive grief at having lost by fire his chemical
indicated^an 'alienation mi^d^He he,<:am® to the Archhishop of Cambridge (Canterbury), he made some observations which
Tw moanc i,- i. i, , min(*‘ ^ was lmlne(iiately taken care of by his friends, who confined him to his home and annlied remedies
wUr CoHins; the sol of dZ Sl^Z ^ tZ ^^ fte )““
r.rsj
thematician, philosoph^^dfvLe6 &renHefhZe°en fdlow7 f th^R ™!glf,lly famous for his learning, being a most excellent ma-
books and tracts, he has writteri one unon ?he 1 • So«ety ,these1many yeaf! “<1 amongst many other very learned
received esneciallv from WW t th ™athematlcal principles of philosophy, which has got him a mighty name, he having
was one of CowJ and S est’abbshed nCe of ®ongrat,ulat°ry lett.ers for the same. But of all the books which he ever wrote, therf
Tost him many hundreds o^ounds This lPT th°“sa”ds of, exj,erimentu8’ which he had keen twenty years of making, and which had
y hundreds of pounds. This book, which he valued so much, and which was so much talked of, had the ill luck to perish.
NEWTON,
Newton, having actually become insane, and unable to understand
;ir Isaac, his own writings; and, relying upon the accuracy of this
statement, M. Biot and other French philosophers consi¬
dered his insanity as the reason why Newton had ceased
to make scientific discoveries. They even went so far as
to ascribe his study of theology to this enfeebled state of
mind, and thus to deprive our faith of that support which
it derived from having been illustrated and defended by so
great an expositor and champion.
That the mind of Newton was sound and active during
the period when it is said to have been seriously disturbed,
has been proved by many undoubted facts. In this in¬
terval he composed his four celebrated letters to Dr Bentley
on the existence of a Deity; letters which evince a power
of thought, and a serenity of mind, incompatible even with
the slightest obscuration of his faculties. The first of these
letters was written on the 10th of December 1692 ; the
second on the 17th of January 1692-3 ; the third on the
11th of February, and the fourth on the 2oth of Febru¬
ary 1693-4. These letters were written in answer to
some queries sent to him by Dr Bentley. After Dr Bent¬
ley had received the third letter, he sent to Sir Isaac an
abstract of his first unpublished sermon, requesting him “ to
acquaint him with what he found in it not conformable to
truth and his hypothesis f’1 and it was to this letter that the
fourth was a reply. In 1692 we find him also engaged in
mathematical researches on the quadrature of curves, and
in observations on halos; and in November and December
1693 he was occupied in discussing mathematical questions
with his correspondents. On the 1st of September 1694
Newton visited Flamsteed at Greenwich, and he was at
that time occupied with the difficult and profound subject
of the lunar theory, and with his fine theory of astronomical
refractions.
That Newton’s health was affected from the middle of
1692 to the middle of 1693, is quite certain; and that his
nervous system was shaken by loss of sleep and appetite, is
mentioned by himself. Exaggerated rumours had reached
his friends in London, and Mr Pepys was led to inquire if
these rumours of a discomposure of his mind had any founda¬
tion. Mr J. Millington, who was tutor of Magdalene
College, returned the following answer:—“I was, I must
confess, very much surprised at the inquiry you were
pleased to make by your nephew about the message that
Mr Newton made the ground of his letter to you, for
I was very sure I never either received from you or de¬
livered to him any such; and, therefore, I went imme¬
diately to wait upon him, with a design to discourse with
him about the matter ; but he was out of town, and since
I have not seen him, till, upon the 28th, I met him at
Huntingdon, where, upon his own accord, and before I
had time to ask him any question, he told me that he
had writt to you a very odd letter, at which he was
much concerned; added, that it was in a distemper that
much seized his head, and that kept him awake for about
five nights together, which, upon occasion, he desired I
would represent to you, and beg your pardon, he being
very much ashamed he should be so rude to a person for
whom he hath so great an honour. He is now very well,
and though I fear he is under some small degree of melan¬
choly, yet I think there is no reason to suspect it hath at
all touched his understanding, and I hope never will; and
so I am sure all ought to wish that love learning, or the
207
honour of our nation, which it is a sign how much it is Newton,
looked after, when such a person as Mr Newton lyes Sir Isaac-
NEGLECTED BY THOSE IN POWER.”
In the beginning of the year 1692, Charles Montague,
Lord Monmouth, and Mr Locke, were exerting themselves
to obtain some appointment for Newton. In his letters to
Locke, Newton himself refers, with a considerable degree
of feeling, to these exertions. He conceived that Charles
Montague, under the influence of some old grudge, had
been false to him, and that there had been a design to sell
him an office; and it is to the failure of these attempts
that Mr Millington alludes with such just severity in the
letter which we have quoted.
Newton was now in the fifty-third year of his age; and
whilst those of his own standing at the university had been
appointed to high stations in the church, or to lucrative
offices in the state, he still remained without any mark of
national gratitude. His fellow-labourers in science in every
part of Europe were enjoying the favour and protection of
their respective sovereigns, who had even invited foreign
philosophers to their capitals to enjoy the liberality which
they had extended to their own. Foreigners viewed with
astonishment the treatment of Newton by his own sove¬
reign, and in 1698 the French king had the nobleness of
mind to offer him, through Cassini, a liberal pension.
But this blot upon the English name was at last removed
by Charles Montague when, in the year 1694, he was ap¬
pointed chancellor of the exchequer. He had previously
consulted Mr Newton upon the subject of the recoinage;
and when Mr Overton, the warden of the mint, was made
a commissioner of customs, he served both his friend and
his country by appointing Newton to that important office.
“ I am very glad,” says he, “ that at last I can give you a
good proof of my friendship, and the esteem the king has
of your merits. Mr Overton, the warden of the mint, is
made one of the commissioners of the customs, and the
king has promised me to make Mr Newton warden of the
mint. The office is the most proper for you. ’Tis the chief
office in the mint; ’tis worth five or six hundred pounds
per annum, and has not too much business to require more
attendance than you can spare.”
The chemical and mathematical knowledge of Newton
proved of great use in carrying on the recoinage, which was
completed in about two years; and such was the zeal and
devotion with which Newton discharged the laborious duties
of this office, that he was appointed, in 1697, to the master¬
ship of the mint, which was worth between twelve and
fifteen hundred pounds per annum. In this situation he
drew up a table of assays of foreign coins, and composed
an official report on the coinage. Having retained his pro¬
fessorship at Cambridge whilst he was warden, he now
appointed Mr Whiston as his deputy, with all the emolu¬
ments of the chair.
In 1660 Newton was elected a Foreign Associate of the
Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris, along with Leibnitz
and the two Bernoullis. In 1701 he was elected one of
the members of Parliament for the University of Cambridge.
In 1703 he was raised to the presidency of the Royal Society
of London, to which he was annually re-elected during the
remaining twenty-five years of his life.
When Queen Anne and the court visited Cambridge on
the 16th of April 1705, she conferred the honour of knight¬
hood on Mr Newton.
and be utterly lost, just when the learned author was almost at putting a conclusion to the same, after this manner. In a winter’s
morning, leaving it among his other papers on his study table, whilst he went to chapel, the candle, which he unfortunately left burning
there too, catched hold by some means of other papers, and they fired the aforesaid hook and utterly consumed it, and several other
valuable writings; and, which is most wonderful, did no further mischief. But when Mr Newton came from chapel, and had seen
what was done, every one thought he would'have run mad; he was so troubled thereat, that he was not himself for a month after.”
(Brewster’s Life of Newton, 1831, p. 228.):
1 The interesting letter containing this request has been published for the first time in the-Mmoirs o/.Newton, &c., 1855, vol. ii.,
App. x., p. 463.
4
208 N E W
Newton, On the dissolution of Parliament in 1705, Sir Isaac was
ir sa^c'< a candidate for the representation of the university ;
^ v~"~ but he was beaten by a great majority. He was supported
by all the resident members; but being a Whig in politics,
and the cry of the church in danger having been raised on
that occasion, he became the victim of the ignorance and
fanaticism of the non-resident constituency.
I he first edition of the Principia having been sold off,
Dr Bentley and his other friends had, for a considerable
time, been urging Sir Isaac to prepare a new edition. The
duties of the mint would not permit him to devote much
time to such a task; but he willingly complied with the
request of his friends, when Mr Roger Cotes, Plumian pro¬
fessor of astronomy at Cambridge, undertook to superintend
its publication. Newton promised to send his own revised
copy to Mr Cotes in July 1709 ; but delays took place, and
the work was not completed till the spring of 1713. Nearly
three hundred letters—passed between Sir Isaac and Cotes,
and in which the various alterations and additions are dis¬
cussed—have been preserved in the library of Trinity Col¬
lege, Cambridge, and published by Mr Edleston in 1850.
When George I. succeeded to the throne of Great Bri¬
tain, Sir Isaac became an object of interest at court. The
Princess of Wales, afterwards queen-consort to George II.,
took great pleasure in conversing with him, and in corre¬
sponding with Leibnitz. Having one day mentioned to her
Royal Highness a new system of chronology which he had
composed while resident at Cambridge, she requested Sir
Isaac, through the Abbe Conti, to give her a copy of it.
He accordingly drew up an abstract of it from the loose
papers to which it had been committed, and sent it to the
princess for her private use alone. He afterwards allowed
a copy to be given to the Abbe Conti, on the condition of
its not being communicated to any person whatever. The
abbe, however, forgetting his obligation, communicated it
to M. Freret, a learned antiquary in Paris, who translated
it, and endeavoured to refute it. It was printed early in
1725, under the title of Abrege de Chronologic de M. le
Chevalier Newton, fait par lui-meme, et traduit sur le
Manuscnt Anglais. Upon receiving a copy of this work,
Sir Isaac Newton printed, in the Philosophical Transac¬
tions for 1725, a paper entitled, “ Remarks on the observa¬
tions made on a Chronological Index of Sir Isaac Newton,
translated into French by the observator, and published at
Paris.” In these remarks Sir Isaac charges the abbe with
a breach of promise, and gave a triumphant answer to the
objections which Freret had urged against his system.
Father Souciet entered the field in defence of Freret; and
in consequence of this controversy, Sir Isaac was induced
to prepare his larger work, which was published in 1728,
after his death, and entitled the Chronology of Ancient
Kingdoms amended ; to which is prefixed a short Chronicle
from the First Memory of Kings in Europe to the conquest
of Persia by Alexander the Great.
There is no part of Sir Isaac Newton’s biography more
remaikable than that which relates to his theological stu¬
dies. From a very early period of his life Newton had
seriously embarked in the study of theology. Previously to
1692 he was known by the appellation of an excellent
divine, and it is well known that he had begun to study the
subject of the prophecies before 1690; whereas, in order
to show that his theological writings were the productions
of his dotage, and subject to his supposed mental aliena¬
tion, M. Biot has fixed their date between 1712 and 1719,
betueen the seventieth and the seventy-seventh vear of
his age.
f -.ie of the most remarkable of Sir Isaac’s theological
productions is his Historical Account of Two Notable Cor-
T O N.
ruptions of the Scripture, in a letter to a friend. This friend Newton
was Mr Locke, who received the letter in November 1690. Sir Isaac
Sir Isaac seems to have been then anxious for its publica-
tion ; but as the effect of his argument was to deprive the
Trinitarians of two passages in favour of the Trinity, he
became alarmed at the probable consequences of such a
step. He therefore requested Locke, who was then going
to Holland, to get it translated into French, and published
on the Continent. Being prevented from going to Hol¬
land, Locke copied the manuscript, and sent it, without
Newton’s name, to M. le Clerc, who received it before the
11th of April 1691. On the 20th of January 1692, Le
Clerc announced to Locke his intention to publish the
pamphlet in Latin ; and upon intimating this to Sir Isaac,
he entreated him “ to stop the translation and impression as
soon as he could, for he designed to suppress them.” This
was according done ; but Le Clerc sent the manuscript
to the library of the Remonstrants, and it was afterwards
published at London in 1754; under the title of Two Let¬
ters from Sir Isaac Newton to M. le Clerc. This edition
is imperfect, and in many places erroneous. Dr Horsley
therefore published a genuine one, which is in the form of a
single letter to a friend, and was taken from a manuscript
in Sir Isaac’s own hand, in the possession of the Reverend
Dr Ekins, dean of Carlisle.1
Sir Isaac Newton left behind him in manuscript a work
entitled Observations on the Prophecies of Daniel and the
Apocalypse of St John, which was published in London in
1733, in one volume 4to ; another work entitled Lexicon
Propheticurn, with a dissertation on the sacred cubit of the
Jews, which were printed in 1737; and Four Letters ad¬
dressed to Dr Bentley, containing some arguments in proof
of a Deity, which were published by Mr Cumberland, the
nephew of Dr Bentley, in 1756.2 Sir Isaac also left a
Church History complete; a History of the Creation;
Paradoxical Questions regarding Athanasius, and many
divinity tracts.
Sir Isaac Newton devoted much of his time to the study
of chemistry; but the greater number of his experiments
still remain in manuscript. His Tabula Quantitatum et
Graduum Caloris contains a comparative scale of tempe¬
rature from that of melting ice to that of a small kitchen
coal fire. He wrote also another chemical paper, De Na-
tura Acidorum, which has been published by Dr Horsley.
Sir Isaac spent much time in the study of the works of
the Alchemists. He had diligently studied the works
of Jacob Behmen, and there were found amongst Sir
Isaac s manuscripts copious abstracts from them in his own
handwriting. In the earlier part of his life he and his re¬
lation Dr Newton of Grantham had put up furnaces, and
had wrought for several months in quest of the philoso- ,
pher’s tincture. These views are rendered more probable
by the fact, that among the manuscripts in the posses¬
sion of the Earl of Portsmouth, there are many sheets, in
Sir Isaac’s hand, of Flamsteed’s Explication of Hiero¬
glyphic Figures, and in another hand many sheets of Wil¬
liam Yworth’s Processus Mysterii Magni Philosophicus.
Amongst the inventions of Sir Isaac Newton we must
enumerate his reflecting telescope, his reflecting micro¬
scope, a sextant similar to Hadley’s, and his prismatic re¬
flector, with plane and convex surfaces. We owe also to
him some very interesting views on the decussation of the
optic nerves, which were first published in Harris’s Optics;
a hypothesis respecting ether as the cause of light and
gravity ; and some experiments upon the excitation of
electricity on glass.3
1 he sale of the second edition of the Principia having
been rapid, a third edition was called for in 1722. Roger
1 See Brewster’s Life of Newton, 1831, p. 276.
3 Newtoni Opera, by Horsley, vol. iv., p. 375.
“ Tlic original letters are preserved in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge.
NEWTON.
Newton, Cotes had died in the prime of life, and therefore New-
Sir Isaac, ton engaged Dr Pemberton to superintend the new edi-
tion, which was published in 1726, with numerous altera¬
tions.1
erection of a monument to his memory. It was finishprl
in 1731, and was erected in the centre of the abbey The
following is the epitaph inscribed upon it.—
209
Newton,
Sir Isaac.
During the last twenty years of Sir Isaac’s life, his beau¬
tiful and accomplished niece, Miss Catherine Barton, had
managed his domestic concerns. She was the daughter of
Mr Robert Barton of Brigstock, and of Hannah Smith,
Newton’s half sister. She had been a great favourite of
Charles Montague, Earl of Halifax, who, at his death in
1715, bequeathed to her a very large portion of his fortune.
This lady, who had been educated at Sir Isaac’s ex¬
pense, married Mr Conduit, and continued to reside with
her husband in Sir Isaac’s house until the time of his
death. Although the liberality of Lord Halifax to Mrs
Barton surprised her contemporaries, yet she was regarded
by all who knew her as a woman of strict honour and
virtue. As the niece of Newton, and the wife of Mr
Conduit, his successor in the mint, she moved in the high¬
est circles ; and during the century which has elapsed since
her death, it has never even been supposed that her con¬
nection with Halifax was impure. Professor De Morgan,
however, has recently attempted to show that she must
either have been the wife or the mistress of that noble¬
man ; and as there is not the slightest proof of a marriage,
we are forced by this groundless hypothesis to take the most
painful view of her character. Regarding this opinion as
derogatory to the character of Newton, his biographer has
shown, in the most satisfactory manner, that there is no
foundation whatever for the opinion that Mrs Barton was
either the wife or the mistress of Halifax, and has restored
her to her high position as the niece of Newton, and the
female head of the noble house of Portsmouth.
In the year 1722, when Sir Isaac was eighty years old,
he had been seized with an incontinence of urine, which was
ascribed to stone. By great attention to diet and regimen
he succeeded in keeping down this dreadful malady; but
in August 1724 he passed a small stone, and for some
months enjoyed a tolerable degree of health. In January
1725 he was seized with a violent cough and inflammation
of the lungs, which induced him to reside at Kensington ;
and in the February of the same year he had a fit of gout
both in his feet and hands, which produced a decided im¬
provement in his general health. His duties at the mint
were discharged by Mr Conduit, and he therefore seldom
went from home. Feeling himself well, he went to Lon¬
don on the 28th of February 1728, to preside at a meeting
of the Royal Society; but the fatigue which attended this
duty brought on a violent return of his former complaint,
and he returned to Kensington on the 4th of March, when
Dr Mead and Dr Chesselden pronounced his disease to be
stone. He endured the sufferings of this complaint with
wonderful patience and meekness. He seemed a little
better on the 15th of March, and on the 18th he read the
newspapers and conversed with Dr Mead ; but at six o’clock
in the evening he became insensible, and continued in that
state till Monday the 20th of March, when he expired
without pain between one and two o’clock in the morning,
in the eighty-fifth year of his age. His body was removed to
London, and on Tuesday the 28th of March it lav in state
in the Jerusalem Chamber, and was thence conveyed to
Westminster Abbey, where it was buried near the entrance
into the choir, on the left hand. The pall was supported
by the Lord Chancellor, the Dukes of Roxburghe and
Montrose, and the Earls of Pembroke, Sussex, and Mac¬
clesfield, who were fellows of the Royal Society, the Hon.
Michael Aewton, K.B., was chief mourner. The Bishop
of Rochester performed the funeral service. The relations
who inherited his personal estate devoted L.500 to the
Hie situs est
Isaacus Newton, Eques auratus,
Qui animi vi prope divina
Planetarum motus, liguras,
Cometarum semitas, Oceanique ^Estus
Sua Mathesi facem praaferente
Primus demonstravit;
Radiorum Lucis dissimilitudines
Colorumque inde nascentium proprietates
Quas nemo antea vel suspicatus erat, pervestigavit j
Naturae, antiquitatis, S. Scripturae
Sedulus, sagax, fidus interpres;
Dei opt. max. majestatem philosophia asseruit;
Evangelii simplicitatem moribus expressit.
Sibi gratulentur mortales, tale tantumque extitisse,
Humani Generis Decus
Natus xxv. Decemb. mdcxlii ; Obiit xx. Mar.
MDCCXXVII.
In the beginning of the year 1731, a medal was struck
at the 1 ower in honour of Sir Isaac Newton, bearing the
Felix cognoscere causas ; and on the 4th of February
1755 a fine full-length statue of him by Roubiliac, exe¬
cuted in white marble, was erected in the antichapel of
Trinity College, Cambridge, at the expense of Dr Robert
Smith, the author of the Complete System of Optics. The
pedestal bears the inscription from Lucretius,—
Qui genus humanum ingenio superavit;
a eulogium which may be questioned even by those who
are the greatest admirers of Newton’s genius.
The personal estate of Sir Isaac Newton amounted to
about L.32,000. It was divided amongst his four nephews
and four nieces of the half blood, the grandchildren of his
mother by the Rev. Mr Smith. The family estates of Wools-
thorpe and Sustern were bequeathed to John Newton,
whose great-grandfather was Sir Isaac’s uncle, by whom
they were sold in 1732 to Mr Edmund Turner of Stoke
Rocheford. Sir Isaac bequeathed his estate at Kensington
to Catherine, the only daughter of Mr Conduit, who after¬
wards married Mr Wallop, the eldest son of Lord Lyming-
ton, and subsequently Earl of Portsmouth. Sir Isaac was
succeeded as warden and master of the mint by his nephew,
Mr Conduit, who died in 1737.
In his social character Sir Isaac Newton was modest,
candid, and affable, accommodating himself to every class
of society in which he moved. His humility was that
of a philosopher who had experienced both the strength
and the weakness of the human mind, and of a Christian
who was deeply impressed with the unsatisfying nature of
all earthly greatness. “ I do not know,” said he, a short
time before his death, “ what I may appear to the world;
but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing
on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then
finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary,
whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before
me. His religious and moral character were equally ad-
mil able. He was deeply versed in the knowledge of the
bci iptures, and was not equalled in point of theological
learning by any of the divines of his age. He was a great
fiiend of religious toleration, and never scrupled to express
his abhonence of even the mildest species of religious per¬
secution.
Sir Isaac Newton was remarkable for his liberality upon
all occasions. His charity was boundless; and he was in
the habit of remarking, that those who gave away nothing
till they died never gave at all. He wrote to the Provost
of Edinburgh in 1/24, offering L.20 annually to Mr Mac-
Pemberton’s letters to Newton are among the Portsmouth papers.
VOL. XVI.
bee Brewster s Memoirs, &c., 1855, vol, ii., p.
2 D
210
NEWTON.
Newton, laurin, provided he became assistant to Mr James Gre-
Sir Isaac, gory, professor of mathematics in the university. In 1719
he gave fifty guineas to the Rev. Mr Pound, who made
some astronomical observations for his use ; and in 1720 he
gave him the like sum. He likewise bestowed large dona¬
tions on the Ayscoughs, his relations.
In his personal appearance Sir Isaac was not above the
middle size. He had “ a comely and gracious aspect, and
a very lively and piercing eye.” He was short-sighted,
but never wore spectacles, nor lost more than one tooth in
his life. Bishop Atterbury asserts, in opposition to this,
that the lively and piercing eye did not belong to Sir Isaac
during the last twenty years of his life. “ Indeed,” says
he, “ in the whole air of his face and make there was no¬
thing of that penetrating sagacity which appears in his
compositions. He had something rather languid in his
look and manner, which did not raise any good expectation
in those who did not know him.”
There is some reason to believe that Sir Isaac Newton
was of Scottish descent, although in the pedigree which he
gave into the Herald’s Office he stated that he had rea¬
son to believe that he was descended from the Newtons of
Westby. There is, however, ample evidence of the fact
that Newton mentioned to David Gregory that it was a
tradition in his family that his grandfather was a gentleman
in East Lothian ; and it has been placed beyond a doubt,
that Newton himself wrote to Scotland to ascertain if any
descendants of the family remained.1
The manor-house of Woolsthorpe, as well as every
other memorial of Sir Isaac, has been preserved with reli¬
gious care. Mr Edmund Turner of Stoke Rocheford put
up in 1798 a white marble tablet in the room where Sir
Isaac was born, recording his birth and death, and bearing
the celebrated lines of Pope :—
11 Nature and Nature’s laws lay hid in Night;
God said, ‘ Let Newton be,’ and all was light.”
The house still contains on its walls the two dials made by
Newton himself, but without the styles. His second tele¬
scope is preserved in the library of the Royal Society ; and
his globe, universal ring dial, quadrant, compass, and a re¬
flecting telescope said to have belonged to him, in the
library of Trinity College, Cambridge.
The manuscripts, correspondence, and other papers of
Sir Isaac Newton, have been preserved in different collec¬
tions. But the most important collection is the family
one in the possession of the Earl of Portsmouth. They
are deposited at Hurtsbourne Park, his lordship’s seat
in Hampshire, and were examined in 1837 by the late
H. A. Fellowes, Esq., the accomplished nephew of Lord
Portsmouth, and by Sir David Brewster, who has been
permitted to make use of them in composing Memoirs of
the Life, Writings, and Discoveries of Sir Isaac ISewton.
In this examination much new and valuable information
has been discovered relative to the early life of Sir Isaac,
which had been collected by his nephew-in-law Mr Con¬
duit, for the purpose of writing a life of him, which he was
prevented from executing by his death in the year 1737.2
Many letters and papers of Newton are in the possession
of the Earl of Macclesfield at Shirburn. They were found
amongst the papers of William Jones, the friend of Sir
Isaac, and the lather of Sir William Jones. These paperswere
put into the hands of the late Professor Rigaud of Oxford,
and were published in 1841, by his son, in two volumes.
About thirty-four of Newton’s letters to Flamsteed are
deposited in the library of Corpus Christi College, Oxford ;
but a large portion of the correspondence between Newton
and Flamsteed was found a few years since by Mr Baily in Newton,
the possession of Mr Giles, a private gentleman in London, Sir Isaac
and in the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, along with .
various important documents intimately connected with
the scientific history of that period. As the papers found , |
in the observatory had been purchased by the Board of
Lonffitude in 1771, the Lords Commissioners of the Admi¬
ralty” on the recommendation of the Board of Visitors of
the Royal Observatory, agreed to print them. They have
been accordingly printed in a large 4to volume, under the
superintendence of Mr Baily.3
Doubts have been entertained by some, and openly
expressed by others, on the propriety of publishing all
the papers contained in this collection. Several of the
letters of Flamsteed, and various parts of his autobiogra¬
phical memoir, contain bitter and maligant attacks upon
the character and conduct of Sir Isaac Newton, which, if
they had been published during his life, or not long after
it, might have been refuted on the authority of documen-
tai*y and other evidence. Fortunately for the memory of
Sir Isaac Newton, his generous and noble character, his
meek and gentle disposition, and his Christian forbearance
and patience, form a secure shield against the reckless and
wanton charges of his irritable and violent assailant. If
reflections have been cast on the character of Newton by
the animadversions of Flamsteed, the conduct of the latter
has been exposed to a scrutiny which it may not be able
to sustain; and the friends of Newton have been reluc¬
tantly compelled to collect the opinions which contemporary
writers had expressed of Flamsteed, in order to enable the
public to form a just estimate of the testimony which he has
borne against his fellow-labourer in science.
Those who wish to know more of the differences be¬
tween Newton and Flamsteed, may consult the volume
above mentioned, which is entitled ^ An Account of the
Rev. John Flamsteed, the first Astronomer Royal, compiled
from his own manuscripts, and other authentic documents
never before published ; to which is added, his British Ca¬
talogue of Stars, corrected and enlarged, printed by order
of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, London,
1835.” Mr Baily, at his own expense, published, in January
1837, a supplement to this work, which he distributed
amongst those persons and institutions only to whom the
original work was presented.” Much light has been re¬
cently thrown upon this controversy by the letters of
Flamsteed to Newton, and other documents, ■which Newton
had carefully preserved, and which were iound among the
Portsmouth papers by Sir David Brewster. These docu¬
ments have enabled his biographer to defend him against
the virulent attacks of Flamsteed.
(See Brewster’s Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Dis¬
coveries of Sir Isaac Newton, Edinburgh, 1855, 2 vols.;
and Edleston’s Correspondence of Sir Isaac Newton and
Professor Cotes, 1850.) (d. b.)
Newtonian Philosophy, the doctrine of the universe,
and particularly of the heavenly bodies, their laws, affections,
&c., as delivered by Sir Isaac Newton.
The term Neivtonian Philosophy is applied very differ¬
ently. Some authors under this denomination include all
the corpuscular philosophy, considered as it now stands
corrected and reformed by the discoveries and improve¬
ments made in several parts of it by Sir Isaac Newton. In
this sense it is that ’sGravesande calls his elements of physics
Introductio ad Philosophiam Newtonianam: and in this
sense the Newtonian is the same with the new philosophy,
standing contradistinguished from the Cartesian, the Peri-
1 See Memoirs of Newton, <te., 1855, vol. ii., App., pp. 540-546.
2 These papers have been more recently entrusted to Sir David Brewster, who has published the most important of them, in 1855, in
the Memoirs of Newton above referred to.
0 This volume was not published. The whole impression, which was small, was distributed in presents to scientific institutions,
public libraries, and individuals interested in the subjects to which it relates.
NEW
Newton,
Gilbert
patetic, and the ancient corpuscular system. By Newto¬
nian philosophy others mean the method or order which
Newton, ^‘r/saac Newton observes in philosophizing, viz., the rea-
John. ’ soning and drawing of conclusions directly from phenomena,
exclusive of all previous hypotheses; the beginning from
simple principles, deducing- the first powers and laws of
nature from a few select phenomena, and then applying
those laws, 8zc., to account for other things. And in this
sense the Newtonian philosophy is the same with the ex¬
perimental or inductive philosophy, and stands opposed to
the ancient corpuscular system. By this philosophy some
understand that particular kind in which physical bodies
are considered mathematically, and where geometry and
mechanics are applied to the solution of the appearances
of nature. In this sense the Newtonian is the same with
the mechanical and mathematical philosophy. Others,
again, by Newtonian philosophy, understand that part of
physical knowledge which Sir Isaac Newton has handled,
improved, and demonstrated in his Principia. Lastly, by
it is meant the new principles which Sir Isaac Newton has
brought into philosophy, the new system founded thereon,
and the new solutions of phenomena thence deduced, or
that which characterizes and distinguishes his philosophy
from all others; and this is the sense in which it ought to
be used. (See the articles Astronomy, Attraction, Dy¬
namics, Optics ; Professor Playfair’s Dissertation, part ii.,
sect 11.; and Sir John Leslie’s Dissertation, sect, vii.)
Newton, Gilbert Stuart, an artist, was born at Hali-
.ax in Nova Scotia in 1794. His lessons in painting
were begun at Boston under his maternal uncle, and were
finished in London at the Royal Academy. The laborious and
fastidious style in w-hich he prosecuted his art soon brought
him into notice. He first became known by his paintino-s of
“ The Forsaken” and “ The Lovers’ Quarrel,” which were
engraved in the Literary Souvenir for 1826. “ The Prince
of Spain’s visit to Catalina” and “Macheath” raised him
soon afterwards to the height of his reputation. His pic-
tuie of Abelard followed in 1833. Shortly after this he
became subject to mental aberrations^ which grew in course
of time into positive insanity. A few days, however, before
Ins demise his reason returned, and he died in perfect con¬
sciousness at Chelsea in August 1835. Newton was a
member of the Royal Academy. Some of his other pic¬
tures are, “ Shylock and Jessica,” “ Yorick and the Gri-
sette,” “ The Abbot Boniface,” “ Portia and Bassanio,” and
“ Lear attended by Cornelia and the physician.”
Newton, John, an English divine, remarkable for his
trials and adventures, and for the deep piety of his after
life, was the son of a sea-captain, and was born in London
in July 1725. After receiving a slight elementary educa¬
tion at a boarding establishment in Essex, he went to sea
at the age of eleven; and from that time he was left to
teach himself in the severe school of experience. The
sensitive and thoughtful boy now became the prey of con¬
flicting doubts and difficulties. For the next six years the
lehgious impressions which he had received by the knee of
his mother were in a continual struggle with the suggestions
ol atheistical books and scoffing companions. He became
by turns a reader of the Bible and a student of Shaftesbury—
a rnarisaical ascetic and a daring blasphemer—a remorseful
penitent and a callous sceptic. At length, in his nineteenth
year, Jus life assumed a more hopeful aspect. A passionate
attachment which he then formed for a young Kentish
maiden who afterwards became his wife, began ^to restore
the health and geniality of his heart; and his unexpected
promotion in the following year to the rank of a midshipman
on board the Havre man-of-war, afforded additional motives
for good conduct. Yet the self-willed seaman soon entailed
NEW
211
t ocraiucUi oUUIl tHllcllicU
upon himself a long series of tormenting troubles. Taking
it into his flighty brain to abandon his ship while she still
lay at I lymouth, he was caught, brought back, flogged, and
degraded. He set sail for India in 1745 a •,
taunted by his messmates, frowned upon by his superiors’ ^ohlT’
Td ATin?ing Wlth- dlsaPPointment. remorse, and rdwen^e ^
At Madeira a Guinea vessel took him in exchano-e for
another. But in Jhe course of six months he was fain to
be landed a penniless adventurer on the African coast near
hierra Leone. Employment was soon found in the service
of a slave trader in one of the Islands of the Plantane*
But the severity of the climate, and the cruelty of his mas¬
ter’s black concubine, turned that employment into the
most grovelling bondage. A year had not passed before
the stout English sailor was transformed into a spiritless
half-naked wretch, suffering under the effects of fever’
shivering under the wind and wet of the rainy season, de¬
vouring the nauseous roots which he stole by night from
the plantations, or the fish which he caught by the sea-shore,
and exciting the contempt and even the pity of the meanest
of the slaves. Still more degrading did his condition be¬
come when he had been hired by a more merciful master.
An English captain arriving at Sierra Leone in February
1747 with orders from his father to bring him home, found
Newton herding contentedly with the Negroes in their low
pleasures and gross superstitions; and it was only the
thought of the fair maiden in Kent that could induce him
to embark for his native land. The perils of this home¬
ward voyage brought at length the severe moral training of
Newton to a successful issue. On a March evening in
1748 he found himself on board a struggling and half-
foundered vessel in the midst of the raging Atlantic: his
sceptic indifference and blaspheming braggardism deserted
him at the near prospect of death; the truths of the gospel,
after a season of doubt, recommended themselves to his
trembling spirit; and, when the ship reached Ireland four
weeks afterwards, he stepped on shore an altered man. The
life of Newton now for the first time became bright with
the smiles of fortune. In 1 /50 his long-continued attach-
ment to Mary Catlett was ratified by marriage, and he was
shortly afterwards appointed commander of an African
slaver. It was at this time also that those studies began to
be prosecuted which trained and prepared his mind for the
clerical office. On shore, during the intervals between his
diffeient voyages, and on deck when his ship was bounding
before the breeze, he was fond of poring over Horace, Liv\“
Buchanan, and Erasmus. After a sudden stroke of illness
in 1754 had forced him to exchange a seafaring life for the
office of a landing waiter in the customs at Liverpool, he
extended his studies to Greek and Hebrew, and the best
theological works in Latin, French, and English. At
length, in 1 /64, he was ordained, and was appointed curate
of the parish of Olney. His pastoral labours were not fol¬
lowed by so much fruit as might have been expected.
With his healthy piety, indeed, he did much to relieve the
melancholy of the poet Cowper, and to form the religious
opinions of the commentator Scott. But his kind-hearted
liberality and his practical home-thrusts were alike spent in
vain upon the senseless and profligate boors of the parish.
It was not until he had been presented to the rectory of St
Maiy Woolnoth, London, in 1779, that he became one of
tie great instruments in dispelling the religious apathy of
that age. Ihe public were already in possession of his
autobiography and of many of his letters; and they now
began to legard him as a living proof of the efficacy of
evangelical Christianity. This impression was increased
and perpetuated by the earnest, simple-hearted zeal of his
pulpit ministrations. He continued to preach thrice a week,
even when he was bending under a weight of more than
fourscore years, and his sight, hearing, and memory were
fast failing. His friends entreated him to stop : “ What! ”
he exclaimed, “shall the old African blasphemer stop while
he can speak ? ’ He died not long afterwards, in December
1807
2i2
Newton,
Thomas.
II
Newton-
Ards.
N E W
A second edition of John Newton’s works, containing his
Autobiography, the Omicron Letters, the Cctrdiphonia, A
Review of Ecclesiastical History, the Olney Hymns, and
numerous sermons, discourses, tracts, and miscellaneous
writings, were published in 6 vols. 8vo, London, 1816. ILs
Life, by the Rev. Richard Cecil, was published in Cecil s
Works, 4 vols. 8vo, London, 1811, and has also been printed
separately.
Newton, Thomas, Bishop of Bristol, and Dean oi ot
Paul’s, was born on the 1st of January 1704. He was
educated at Lichfield and Westminster; and had his uni¬
versity course at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he
took his degree in arts, and attained to the rank of a fellow.
He took clerical orders in 1729; and after holding a curacy
at St George’s, Hanover Square, London, he received his
first preferment at Grosvenor Chapel, South Audley Stieet.
In the spring of 1744 he was, through the interest of the
Earl of Bath, his great friend and patron, presented to the
rectory of St Mary-le-Bovv. He took his doctor s degree
in 1745 ; and in the spring of 1747 he was chosen lecturer
of St George’s, Hanover "Square. In 1749 he published
his edition' of Milton’s Paradise I,ost, with notes from
various authors, 2 vols. 4to, which was well received by the
public, and by 1775 had gone through eight editions. His
next performance of any note was his Dissertations on t le
Prophecies, 3 vols. 8vo, 1754-8; a work not charactenzed
by very great profundity, either of thought or learning, but
which nevertheless attained a wide popularity. They were
translated into the German and Danish languages, and i e-
ceived the warmest encomiums from persons of leaining
and rank. In 1757 he was made prebendary of Westmin¬
ster, dean of Salisbury, and sub-almoner to His Majesty.
Four years afterwards he kissed the royal hand for his
bishopric of Bristol; and in 1768 was made dean of St
Paul’s. Newton’s health had never been robust; and
after enduring great physical prostration tor some time,
he died in 1782, in the seventy-eighth year of his age.
A complete edition of the bishop’s writings, including
numerous sermons and dissertations not referred to above,
appeared, with an autobiography of the author, in 3 vols.
4to, London, 1782.
‘NEWTON, a township of England, county of Chester,
situated on the slope of a hill, 8 miles E. by S. of Man¬
chester, and 5-J N.E. of Stockport. It has a parish church
in the Norman style, two Methodist churches, and several
schools. The manufacture of cotton is carried on here,
and employs the greater part of the population. Pop.
(1851) 7481.
Neavton-Abbot, a market-town of England, Devonshire,
pleasantly situated on a hill near the right bank of the
Lemon, 14 miles S.S.W. of Exeter. It contains a hand¬
some town-hall; a parish church; Independent, Baptist, and
Methodist churches; and several schools. Tanning and
shoemaking are the principal manufactures of the place;
and there is also some trade, principally in the exportation
of shoes to Newfoundland. The market-days are Wednes¬
day and Saturday; and three yearly fairs are held here.
In this place William III. made his first public declara¬
tion after his landing in this country in 1688. Pop.
(1851) 3147.
Newton-Akds, a seaport-town of Ireland, in the county
of Down, situated at the head of Lough Strangford, 10 miles
E. of Belfast. It is regularly laid out and well built, hav¬
ing a market-place, and a principal street lined with many
good houses. The old church, now used as a court-house,
though somewhat dilapidated, is a fine building, entered by
a beautifully-carved Norman doorway. It was completed
in 1632, though it probably existed before that time, and
was then only repaired. The present church, an elegant
building, was erected in 1817. There are numerous other
churches, belonging to Presbyterians, Methodists, Roman
NEW
Catholics, and Unitarians. Newton has also a large town- Newton-in-
hall, with assembly-rooms in connection with it; severalMakerfield.
schools; a fever hospital, dispensary, and workhouse. T he NeJ
weaving and embroidery of damask muslins is the principal jjirnava(j
branch of industry carried on here; but there is aUo an
extensive brewery in the town. In the neighbourhood
there are some good stone quarries and lead mines. 1 op.
(1851) 9567. , Trr.77 ,
Newton-in-Makerfielp, or in-the- Willows, a market-
town of England, county of Lancaster, 15 miles E. by N.
of Liverpool,and about the same distance W. of Manchester.
It has one principal street, which is broad, and lined with
good houses; and on the site of the ancient market-cross
an obelisk now stands. It possesses a neat parish church
with a spire; an Independent chapel; and several schools.
Cotton-mills, iron-foundries, glass-works, alkali-works, and
brick-kilns are tbe principal manufactories, and give employ¬
ment to the inhabitants. Races are held annually on a
common not far from the town. Pop. 3126.
Neavton-Stewart, a market-town of Scotland, county
of Wigtown, on the right bank of the Cree, which is here
crossed by a bridge of five arches, 7 miles N. by W. of
Wigtown. It has a good town-hall; a large Gothic parish
church; Free, United Presbyterian, Reformed Presbyterian,
and Roman Catholic churches; and several schools. The
inhabitants are employed to a large extent in the lead mines
which are worked in the neighbourhood; and brewing,
tanning, the manufacture of woollen and cotton stulfs, and
the curing of bacon, are carried on in the town. Pop. (1851)
2199.
Neavton-tjpon-Ayr. See Ayr, Newton-upon.
NEWTOWN, a parliamentary borough and market-town
of Wales, Montgomeryshire, pleasantly situated in avalleyon
the right bank of the Severn, here crossed by a stone bridge,
8 miles S.W. of Montgomery, and 175 W.N.W. of London.
The streets are narrow, and the houses have a very mean
appearance, being for the most part built of lath and plaster.
The parish church is a building in the early English style,
with a square tower, surmounted by a wooden belfry. There
are also Baptist, Independent, Wesleyan, and Calvinistic
Methodist churches; a theological seminary belonging to
the Independents ; besides several schools, a town-hall, and
a handsome cloth-hall. The manufactures ot the place are
considerable, and rapidly increasing in extent and import¬
ance. Flannel is the principal article produced,^ and w ith
this Newtown supplies a great part of Wales. 1 here are
also tanneries, malt-houses, potteries, and iron-foundries.
Newtown joins with Montgomery and other boroughs in
returning a member to Parliament. Pop. (1851) ot the
parish, 3784; of the borough, 6371.
Newtoavn-Barry, a village of Ireland, in the county ol
Wexford, is situated at the confluence of the Clody and
the Slaney, 23 miles N.N.W. of Wexford. It is in the
form of an irregular square; and has a good parish church
with a tower and spire, a fine Roman Catholic church,
several schools, a dispensary, and a fever hospital. Manu¬
factures of linen are carried on; and slate, granite, and
limestone are quarried in the vicinity. Pop. 1437.
Neavtoavn-Hamilton, a town of Ireland, in the county
of Armagh, is situated in a valley surrounded by steep hills,
11 miles S.S.E. of Armagh. It is ill built; and has a parish
church, Roman Catholic and Presbyterian churches, and
several schools. Some trade is carried on in flax. Pop.
1219>
Neavtoavn-Limavady, a market-town of Ireland, in the
county of Londonderry, is situated on the Roe, 13 miles
S.W. of Coleraine, and 15 E.N.E. of Londonderry. It has
a large parish church ; three Presbyterian and Iavo Wesleyan
churches; besides Independent, Roman Catholic, and Uni¬
tarian chapels ; several schools; a market house; jail; dis¬
pensary ; work-house ; and savings-bank. The manufacture
NEW
Newtown-
Stewart
New York
State.
Islands.
of linen is carried on here ; and there is a considerable trade
in grain and flax. Pop. (1851) 3206.
Newtown-Stewart, a market-town of Ireland, in the
county of Tyrone, 9 miles N. by W. of Omagh, con¬
tains many well-built houses; a large parish church;
Presbyterian, Wesleyan, and Roman Catholic churches;
a school; a dispensary; and the ruins of an old castle.
Pop. 1405.
Extent and NEW YORK, one of the United States of America, is
situated between Lat. 40. 30. and 45. N., and (including
Long Island, &c.) between Long. 71. 51. 58., and 79. 55.
It is bounded N. by Lake Ontario, St Lawrence River,
and Canada East; E. by Vermont, Massachusetts, and
Connecticut; S. by the Atlantic Ocean, New Jersey, and
Pennsylvania; and W. by Pennsylvania, Lake Erie, and
Niagara River. Its form is irregular, but may be compared
to that of an irregular triangle, with its apex touching the
Atlantic. 1 he extreme length east and west of its con¬
tinental part is about 335 miles, and the extreme breadth
noith and south about 308 miles. Including Long Island,
Staten Island, &c., the total area ol the state is computed
at 47,000 square miles, or about one sixty-third of the
entire area of the United States.
Long Island, the largest insular portion of the state, pro¬
jects into the Atlantic (opposite, and in the main parallel,
to the shore of the mainland, the most of which is embraced
by Connecticut), a distance of about 125 miles ; its greatest
breadth is about 20 miles, its average breadth 12 miles,
and its area about 1440 square miles. Staten Island, at
the mouth of New York harbour (and included in Rich¬
mond county), is about 14 miles long, from 4 to 8 miles
wide, w'ith an area of about 60 square miles. Manhattan
Island (embraced in New York city and county) has an
extreme length of 13J miles, an average breadth of 2
miles, and an area of 211 square miles. In New York
harbour are three islands—Governor’s, Elies’, and Bedlow’s,
ceded to the United States government, and fortified. In
the East River, or Strait of Long Island Sound, are three
islands occupied by New York city institutions. In Niagara
River, about 4 miles above Niagara Falls, is Grand Island,
having an area of 2<-j?g- square miles, besides several small
islands.
I he surface of the state is considerably elevated, the
larger part of it being a section of the great Alleghany
table-land. I here is, however, a great diversity in the
aspect of the several physical divisions. The eastern half
of the state is traversed by ranges of mountains; the in¬
terior has an uneven surface, and contains several large
and deep lakes ; and the western part, though frequently un¬
even, is distinguished for its broad and rich plains. There
NEW
213
'hysical
spect.
atural
visions.
tliintic
aie four great natural divisions,—1. The Atlantic district,
an
land.
the smallest of these, comprises Long Island, which is a low
strict or saut*y reS>01b with extensive plains rising along its north-
ang J er(* borders into hills of moderate elevation, at but one
only exceeding 300 feet in height. Its temperature
differs much from that of the mainland. Its insular posi¬
tion, and its early settlement, have occasioned the extirpa¬
tion of the larger quadrupeds ; and it is more remarkable for
t ic a undance and variety of its birds, than for the number
of its mammalia. It forms the southern limit of the migra¬
tions of the arctic species of birds, and the northern limit
to those of the torrid zone. It seems also to be the bound-
aiy etween the fishes and other classes of the northern
n a- • troflca seas* 2‘ The Hudson valley district com-
iieydis- prises the region watered by the Hudson River and its
tnbutanes, the chief of which is the Mohawk River. The
outline bears some resemblance to the letter L inverted
\ l)> t le peipendicular and main part of the letter re¬
presenting the Hudson River, and the horizontal and minor
part of it representing the Mohawk River. The latter,
after an eastward course of 140 miles, enters the Hudson
ulson
at a distance of 160 miles from the Atlantic. This district New YnrV
is traversed by ranges of the Alleghany Mountains, and its State,
western border embraces the Catskill range of mountains
some of which are nearly 4000 feet high. In regard to
size, this is the third of the four districts/ 3. The Northern Northern
district lies N. of the Mohawk valley, is bounded W. district,
by Lake Ontario and the River St Lawrence, and has the
shape of an irregular truncated triangle. Its south-eastern
half embraces the region of the Adirondack Mountains,
estimated to contain an area of about 6000 square miles,
and containing numerous conical peaks and short ranges,
reaching in some places an elevation of more than 5000
feet. lowards Lakes Champlain and George they subside
suddenly to the level of those sheets of wrater. To the
N. and N.W. there is a very gradual slope towards the
River St Lawrence. 4. The Western district includes the Western
region between Lakes Ontario and Erie on the N., and the district.
Pennsylvania boundary-line on the S. A large proportion
of it is. elevated and furrowed by valleys, extending N. and
S., which give rise to rivers pursuing opposite directions.
Its central position is a level table-land, rising in its south¬
ern parts to elevations of from 1000 to 1200 feet above
the sea,.and abruptly subsiding on its western border to the
level of Lake Erie. 1 his same portion contains a series
of lakes, stretching generally from N. to S., varying
fiom 15 to 38 miles in length, and discharging their
waters by one common outlet, the Oswego River, into
Lake Ontario. Lakes Erie and Ontario exercise a great
influence on the climate and other features of this dis¬
trict, the whole of which is exceedingly fertile, and in its
uncultivated portions is covered by a vigorous growth of
forest trees.
1 he Alleghany Mountains enter the S.E. part of the Mountains,
state by two distinct ridges from New Jersev and Pennsyl¬
vania. The former crosses the Hudson River at West
Point, forming the highlands of the Hudson, celebrated for
their scenery, which combines grandeur with the most pic-
tmesque beauty. At this crossing the highlands are from
15 to 20 miles in breadth, and have a height of about 1400
feet, and in one instance, on the E. bank of the river, near
Fishkill, they attain an elevation of nearly 1700 feet. East
of the Hudson this range has a N.E. direction, until it ap¬
proaches near the Connecticut boundary-line, and then
extends N., being called the Taconic range, until it mero-es
in the chain of the Green Mountains. The second branch
of the Alleghanies, leading from Pennsylvania, is the range
of the Shawanzunk Mountains, which also extends in a N.E.
direction, approaching the Hudson, but not crossing it.
1 he Catskill range approaches the Hudson bv a similar
course, and extends parallel to it for 20 miles' but then
bends oft to the N.W., towards the Mohawk River. The
mountains in the northern part of the state, which are to¬
gether generally called the Adirondack Mountains, com¬
prise several ranges which have distinct local names; but
they constitute a cluster which may be considered as a
branch of the great Appalachian system. In other sections
there are ranges of hills and highlands.
I he most important river for purposes of general naviga- Rivers
tion exclusively within the state, is the Hudson, which is
iiEo one of the most magnificent water-courses in the New
World.. It rises, by two branches, among the Adirondack
ilountains, and having received the Sacandaga, pursues its
course (of about 160 miles from its sources) to Waterford, 10
miles above Albany, where it receives the Mohawk River,
and thence flows almost directly southward about 156 miles,
to its entrance through New York Bay into the Atlantic
Ocean, lo Troy, 151 miles from the city of New York,
the tidal wave passes in from seven to nine hours from
New \oik ; and to that city the river is navigable for large
steamboats of light draught. Ocean vessels do not ascend
above Hudson, 118 miles from New York. The River St
214
NEW YORK.
Falls and
cascades.
New York Lawrence, the outlet of the great lakes, forms a large part
State. 0f the northern boundary of the state, and conveys to the
ocean a larger volume of water than any other river in the
world, except the Amazon. It is navigable for sloops to
Ogdensburg, 60 miles from Lake Ontario, but below that
place its navigation is much interrupted by rapids. Seve¬
ral rivers of great volume, lying within the state, have each
a course of above 150 miles; and, in addition to then na¬
tural service in draining and watering their respective
valleys, afford, from their descent, most valuable water¬
power, which latter circumstance prevents continuous na¬
vigation by vessels of considerable size.
The falls and cascades of the rivers of this state^ are
numerous, forming notable features in its scenery. I be
great Falls of Niagara are elsewhere described. The Ge¬
nesee River has a series of falls; near its sources it descends,
within the space of two miles, by three falls of 60, 90, and
110 feet, through a wild and picturesque gorge, formed in
the solid rock to the depth of 400 feet; and at Rochester it
again descends by three falls of 96, 20, and 105 feet (mak-
ino-, with two rapids, a total descent of 268 feet within the
city’s limits), the first of which, by its affording immense
water-power, has been a principal cause of the piospeiity o
that flourishing city. Fall Creek, near Ithaca, descends
438 feet, in the space of one mile, by several cascades, one
of which has a perpendicular pitch of 116 feet. Ihe Mo¬
hawk River in its falls at Cohoes is precipitated over a
broken rock 62 feet high, the bank of the river forming
precipitous walls 140 feet above the stream; and at Little
Falls, some miles above, it passes through a fissure m the
rocks, which rise on each side 500 feet above its surface.
Trenton Falls is a series of cascades and rapids m West
Canada Creek, a tributary of the Mohawk, and 15 miles N.
of Utica, extending over 2 miles in a narrow channel cut
through solid limestone rock, the sides of which in places
rise perpendicularly to the height of 140 feet. At Glenn s
Falls, 18 miles from Saratoga, the Hudson flows over
a precipitous ledge of rocks, with a descent of 70 feet.
In various other rivers, especially in the northern part of
the state, there are many waterfalls of much beauty,
which are also of importance from their furnishing motive
P The great exterior lakes, Ontario and Erie, are navigable
for the largest steamers and sailing-vessels, and each has
several good harbours. Lake Champlain, between this
state and Vermont, is 134 miles in length, and of compara¬
tively narrow though unequal width, but is navigable
throughout its length for steamboats of the first class. I he
lakes in the interior of the state not only constitute an in¬
teresting feature in its physical geography, but they are of
considerable importance to commercial navigation. The
largest of these which are navigable by steamers are Lake
George, 36 miles long ; Cayuga, 38 ; and Seneca, 35 ; after
which are Oneida Lake, 20 miles long; Skaneateles, 16;
Crooked, 18; Canandaigua, 15; Chautauque,18; and several
others. The northern district of the state abounds with
small lakes, there being perhaps 200, some of which are
greatly elevated above the sea.
The harbours of Buffalo and Dunkirk, on Lake Erie, are
capacious, and are also important commercial stations, forming
the termini of the two great lines of railroad which extend
through the whole length of the state to the Hudson River.
On Lake Ontario there are several good harbours,—viz.,
Sackett’s Harbour, Oswego, Genesee (port of Rochester),
Niagara, &c.; the first of which is the best, and was an
important naval station during the war of 1812-14. Lake
Champlain has some harbours, which are sufficiently com¬
modious for the shipping on that lake.
The sea-coast of the state is nearly all comprised in the
shores of Long Island, which contain a few harbours and
inlets, but none that are much frequented by shipping.
Lakes.
Lake bar-
tours.
Sea-coast.
The bay and harbour of New York are subsequently York
described. ^
TI« legislature of N-Yo J act _
“SVp'S «cou„f of rocks and soils, and their tke Jte.
localities ^with a list of all its mineralogical, botanical, and zoolo-
locaiHies, witu should also procure and preserve spe¬
cimens^ the same. In the execution of that act, and of the acts of
“18 1840 and of April 9, 1842, the survey was made. The
final report on the results of the survey consists of sixteen large
nCarto volumes, abundantly and splendidly illustrated. There are
eio-ht several collections of specimens of the animals, plants, soils,
minerals rocks, and fossils, found within the state, one of which
collections constitutes a museum of natural history at the capital
of the state, and the others are distributed among its collegiate
institutions. A geological map is also published, and several
more volumes are expected upon the palaeontology. The total
cost of the survey and of printing, &c., has been estimated at about
L Withthe exception of the alluvial and diluvial deposits, and the Geology,
beds of Tertiary on the St Lawrence, occupying a very limited area
all the formations of the state of New York are older than the coal
formation. The lowest rock of the coal formation occupies some
small patches in the south-western part of the state; but none o
the coal-bearing strata approach nearer than within six miles of the
state line. The prevalence of limestone in nearly all the forma¬
tions is worthy of notice, affording as it does the basis rock best
adapted to yield the materials for fertilizing the soil. . . „ .
There are two tracts of rocks of the Primary system (comprising Primary
the unstratified crystalline and the stratified non-fossihterousj system,
which together occupy about one-third of the area of the state, and
are separated from each other by the intervention of a narrow belt
of sedimentary rocks. The first is in the north-eastern part of the
state, and is of irregular circular form, occupying the counties ot
Essex, Warren, and Hamilton, with parts of the adjoining counties
embraced in the region of the Adirondack Mountains. Nearly the
whole of the county of Essex, with its lofty mountains, is composed
of hypersthene rock, a compound of Labrador felspar and hypers-
thene, allied to syenitic granite. In this region it is associated
with very large deposits of magnetic iron ore. Throughout this
northern section primitive limestone, important for the manufac¬
ture of lime for agricultural purposes, is_ quite abundant. Ihe
second tract of the Primary formation consists of a comparatively
small section, somewhat triangular, in the southern and south¬
eastern portion of the state, comprising the counties of Putnam
and Westchester, with the larger part of New York, and parts of
Rockland, Orange, and Dutchess. The predominant rock in both
these Primary sections is gneiss, which furnishes a fine building
material, and, under the popular name of granite, is extensively
quarried, varying, however, in appearance and composition in di -
ferent sections. Granite exists, but it is quite unimportant both in
extent and value. . nPaconic
The term Taconic system has been given to that series (comprisi g
seven groups, according to the New York geologists) denominated syste .
metamorphic, lying between the most decided crystalline slates and
the lowest fossiliferous rocks. (This system, according to Professor
Emmons, is fossiliferous, distinct from and lower than the New
York system, and corresponds to the Cambrian rocks of Great Bri¬
tain ; but according to others, it is the New York system metamor¬
phosed by heat.) The term is derived from the laconic or lag i-
kannic range of the Appalachian chain, on the eastern boundary of
the state, in which is the principal deposit; but there are extensive
deposits of similar character all along the west side of the Green
and Hoosac Mountains of New England, and so through the Appa¬
lachian ranges to Alabama, besides thinner ones in many other
places throughout the United States, making in all a series of rocks
many thousand feet thick and many hundred miles long._ Its seven
srouns or formations are,—granular quartz (which furnishes white
siliceous sand for glass and sand-paper, and for sawing rnarbie),
Stockbridge limestone, magnesian slate, sparry limestone roohng
slate, Taconic slate, and black slate. The limestone is fine, furnish¬
ing good building material. v i New Yrork
The New York geologists denominate as the New York syste™ ,
that whole series of rocks which are identical with the lower and y
upper Silurian of Europe, including two or three members of the
Devonian group; and this system they divide into four principal
groups, and subdivide into twenty-eight minor groups. Uther
American geologists have given other names to these series. Uur
limits allow only a synopsis of their extent in the state of iNew
York and brief allusion to their characteristics. The four princi¬
pal groups are named Champlain division, Ontario division,
Helderberg series, and Erie division.
The Champlain division, the lowest of the four, corresponding
New York ^'eLower Silurian (or Cambrian or graywacke) system of Europe
State. embraces eight formations. It occupies a very considerable but
irregular territory. It extends along the St Lawrence, commencino-
from its mouth, to its source in Lake Ontario. A branch runs
southerly along the east side of the granitic mountains of Essex &c.
along the borders of Lake Chamnlain. and thanno  i..
NEW YOKE.
215
ssiLoT“cb:it “Xiir “e r rth7?rs
sand above. ^ 111 ceiitre, and State.
Iron ores are abundantly distributed throuo-h the north
istern and south-pastorn <.1   . s 16 .nortil" Minerals.
ALbama. The., rod,. Indeed, dank the mountain, of Sff” *??“" °"he fa
to form a huge granitic island, giving us an idea r°i™er. in Llinton and Essex counties, the deposits of
1£S when the Silurian rnnVc   magnetic iron orp- thp r  r t ^ blls
 >  xiiuuuLains oi Jiissex
eounty &c., so as to form a huge granitic island, giving us an idea
o the state of things when the Silurian rocks were in course of de¬
position. Its lowest formation,—viz., the Potsdam sandstone is
supposed to be the lowest fossiliferous rock in the world. The
most common shell in it is a lingula, a genus which has survived all
the revolutions of the earth, and is still found in the ocean. This
formation, 300 feet thick, furnishes a beautiful and durable building
material The other formations (in ascending order), and their
estimated thickness, are—calciferous sand-rock, 300 feet, in which
fossils are both rare and obscure; Chazy and Black River lime-
T-100 fee*’ sonl<; of which produce fine dark-coloured marbles
as well as good quick-lime; Trenton limestone, 400 feet rich in
orgamc remains; Utica slate, 100 feet, employed in roofing; and
which f ™ J i gr0UP-’ embracinff the gray sandstone, 700 feet,
which furnishes stone suitable for grindstones.
of^PPer?UUrian °-f EuroPe embraces the two highest members
Saif of heT r dKViS10n’.a11 the 0ntario division, and more than
half of the Helderberg series of the New York geologists; and its
thickness is about 2400 feet. In New York the Upper Silurian rocks
extend in a belt of nearly equal width along thesouth side of Lake
Ontario (and in Canada on the north side of Lake Erie), whence it
spreads out southerly and westerly over more than half of the
iJn0orLSt th\ lovvest °f this astern is the Oneida grit, which
orlnic ’ Trse and fine grained, and almost destitute of
o game remains. Next to this are the formations comprised in the
Canton andN0" ^ Y°rk 8ysten,’-viz-’ Medina sandstone,
Clinton and Niagara groups, and the Onondaga Salt group. The
Medina sandstone, 350 feet thick, is a red or variegated siliceous
mass, sometimes marly and friable, interstratified with gray hands
quartzose sandstone. The Clinton group, 80 feet, is composed of
received^ariegated shales and sandstones, so diversified as to have
received the name of Protean, and it abounds in fossils. The Nia-
gara grouj), -64 feet, consists of shale below and limestone above
Jhofonnor, exposed to atmospheric and aqueous action, crumbles
, c^,a,nf |eaves •'be limestone in overhanging masses which at
eniuh break by their own weight. These are the rocwlr wLh
e water at Niagara Falls is iirecipitated, and this is the cause of
- elr retracession. This formation is highly fossiliferous. The
n fr'rtrvi 1 AAA ^ i j • ■« .
Onondaga Salt group, from 600 to 1000 feet thick^i^artoimense “™tleS of CattaraUgUS and Alleghany; the nitrogfn springs
mass of argillo-calcareous shaly rocks, abounding in veins and beds f ^ew Lebanon and Hoosac; and the carburetted hvdrofren
neighbourhood of Labe EriHndfc
magnetic iron ore, the black oxide, form beds offt-'orn11'to
-0 feet in thickness, almost without mixture, encased in
gramte; they are also found in the mountains of that region
and appear to extend without interruption into New York
horn Canada. Ihe Stafford vein in Essex county was esti-
rmted in the geological survey to contain ore sufficient to
yield three million tons of malleable iron. The specular
oxide is founu chiefly in the counties of St Lawrence, Jef-
ferson, and Franklin, which border the St Lawrence River
In the south-eastern section there are extensive beds of
abund^n! T1 h^matite but the latter is the more
abundant The carburet of iron occurs abundantly in the
same section, and less abundantly in the north-east section!
o/which h°CfCUrtin cons,derable.deposits in various sections,
of which by far the most extensive and celebrated are those
and ‘umilu!' R°t’r St1LawrenCe county- In 1837
hm ,i838i h yielded nearly 3000 tons ot' metallic lead ;
The,e !LhsaVeiin0t bee? regularly WOrked t0 that extent.
ties Thl Aa T1"8 ° i21"0’ C°Pper’ &C-’ in several coun-
ties. Ihe Onondaga salt springs, at and around Syracuse
aie the most important in the Union; they have been
worked since 1797, and the amount of their product has
inci eased with nearly every successive year. The number
I n89 ° saL ma.de in 1854 was 5,803,347; in 1855
6,082 88o ; and m 1856, 5,966,810. Mineral springs, cele¬
brated for their medicinal value, and as places of great resort
some of!h1erwrVeX1St 111 Vari°US districts> The central, and
- me of_ the western counties, contain abundance of gypsum
S 15 Thf yhU6e,d “S “ ffe, tilizer’ “"O exten3ively ex^
1 , The abundance of excellent bmldinc material
bas already been noticed. The petroleum springs, in the
nf , T aoounamg m veins and beds
gy) sum, and the source of all the salt springs in New York and
the Western States. Notwithstanding its great thicknesl itos vorv
arren in fossils. This Ontario division occupies a strip about 20
miles m width, and nearly equal in length to Lake Ontario, which
riin f8] ^ ,theao]Ith- The remaining varieties of the Upper Silu¬
rian (placed by Professor Hall under the name of the Lower lleldcr
berg limestones) are-the Water Lime group, 100 feet thick • Pen
tamerous limestone, 80; Delthyris limesfone^OO; and Uppe; len-
tamerous limestone. The last named (with the following—Qris-
any sandstone, /00 feet thick—in Pennsylvania ; Cauda Galli grit-
winn16 0r Sandstone’ Onondaga limestone; and corniferous
^e’ c.onstltute tlle Helderberg series (of the New York
2uS dTl0Ped “ an<I Schoharie
■ .eEe deibers lllnestone is cavernous; and some of its
.t.l«™ .ee.C7lr“:d f0r their “tent' .t.IactTte. Ud
stalagmUes of great variety and beauty.
N6wYnfntmat!0nSASt enumerated with the Erie division of the
ofn.Vo7t?™otetr„n;«Sfe^ GTr d^’ ' ^ "     ‘“IUW" ^ We
Unngs, in the neighbourhood of Lake Erie and Niagara
ST’Z 7r?yof nfice- There are several sprfngs
1 Lst-named class in the county of Chautauque, one of
wh.eh affords gas that ,s used to light the houses in the
i lage of Fredoma, while another supplies the lighthouse
in the village of Barcelona.
I lie soils of this state are so very various, that a full and « •,
correct description of them, within Lr limits, isimpo'sible
..n Several terms, the most of the soils, or the greater por-
Sjf thc surface of the state, may properly be called lery
fertile. The sections least fertile are in the north-east part
traversed by the mountains, where much of the surface is
poor and cold; and yet there are many productive vallevs
in that region. The valleys of the Hudson and Mohawk
comprise tracts of excellent soil, hut they are greatly
eXtent n^i fer!ility by ^tern parts
GenLfLl^1^ ^ ^ SeCti°n k— - the
^ -tiary
t mation.
.ow„ c.„.d Lua.oZrZ™ oSS
and the um.er VaH^l f ’ nv. gh the Central f01,15011 of the st^ ;
beds of urav JruUtnn the.^h.emung group, consisting of thin, even
of the southern tier of c^untiesterThnin?tShaleS’ °CCaPying the whole
tho ; counties. Ihus it appears that in New York
the state which extoLrbetweeSplthern half of that Portion of
the south, and Lake Ontario and 1 ®ni?syh,aaia boundary-lioe on
The Old Red snmWn™ 4, • h Mohawk Rlver °n the north.
strata of sandstone, shale, and shalv sanrlVf ^ COnsi*ts of vanous
of a red or reddish colour. Y Sandstone>the sandstones being
T„eClay, !anasof -the teMi„y format;oo stirt theshoresof n/rSoSirk tcwSby a'lbVaverage^'tem
liaritics. Taken aitogelher^'dl^yXXi;
everywhere one of great extremes, and subject to sudden
fng thIserhowangeS -f a11 timeS °f the year* Notwithstand-
verV healthv Tl’ aPPGarS Ulat the State as a whole is
state is 46°:49 ^1mean aVeragG temPeratiire of the whole
mum 12° hoi9 ,5 m!fn1.maximurn 92°’ mean »ani-
'ri1P Cn "u zero, and the mean annual range 104°.
whole nf Jo11 7r, 0f th? Valley 0f the Hudson,°and the
state Th * M f ^i ’ arp 1 le mosfc e(luable portions of the
vm-v’erre1, to Il£lS a clitliate which does not
U Mil aLvM. Ve ™ean averag'e- The region N. and
216
New York
State.
Vegeta¬
tion.
NEW YORK.
Zoology.
The abori
gines and
their anti
quities.
perature, backward seasons, and early frosts. 1 He wesjtei
or lake region has a similar climate to that of Long Islan .
Summarily, this state has the summer heats of Spam and
Italy, and the rigour of its winter is equal to those ot ttie
northern portions of Europe. . . , . . nf
Corresponding to the varieties m its characteristic^^
sur face, soil, and climate, we find, as we should expect, that
this state has an exceedingly diverse vegetation Within
borders are trees, shrubs, grasses, &c., of both extre™c
the States—the north and the south. Its most important na
tural o-rowth is that of its forest trees, which once covered its
whole territory, and yet occupy the immense tracts that have
not been brought underculti.at.on The most common tree
in the forest are the varieties of oak, pine, beech,
scarcely any variety, found under similar iatitude and chma ^
is wanting. The mountain sides and woods aie clothed witii
a shrubby undergrowth. The native grasses are numerous
Ld widely distributed, bu, only a few of *em are v»lu“bk,
and the cultivated meadow grasses are o fore. n m -
The whole number of flowering plants in the state ^ ab
1450,—of which 1200 are herbaceous, and loO may be
regarded as ornamental. Of woody plants, there aie -
«necies including 80 that attain to the stature of tree .
are reputed medicinal there are, native and natu-
climate, which exercises a great
influence upon the number and distribution o its animals
it results that its classes of the animal kingdom comprise
those found in both the northern and southern portions of
Europe The families Cervidce and Mustehdm may seive
as examples of the one; while the Vespertdtomdce and
will illustrate the other. The previous explanation
of the natural divisions of the state points out the four pri
c oal zoological districts, each sufficiently distinct in itself,
but of course so much blended at the lines of separation as
not to be contradistinguished. The forests were formerly
ranged by the moose, stag, and reindeer, but these are now
seldom met with. The existing animals are the Amei.can
deer, black bear, puma, &c, descending mjze to the
hares, squirrels, and smaller quadrupec s. the most
has been found in a fossil state in several places , the most
perfect and gigantic skeleton being that found in 1845 near
Newburgh, Orange county, weighing 2000 lbs., and owned
by Dr John C. Warren of Boston, by whom it has been
described in one of the memoirs published bYjh® ^ll "
sonian Institution. Teeth and other remains of elephant^
&c., have been occasionally dug up. Of birds of Fey te
species are numerous; of birds of passage,
tribes and 149 species; of the Scansoriae, the genus Picw>
(woodpecker) is verv common; of the Galhnaceae, seveia
species; of the Grallatorise, or waders, there are 62 species
in 7 families; and of the Palmipedes, or swimming birds,
there are many varieties. In regard to the Reptiha, m
phibia, Pisces, Mollusca, Crustacea, and Insecta, we have
not room for even a condensation of the results ot the
survey of the state. ,
The state of New York, in common with other portions
of North America, possesses many interesting but obscure
traces of once powerful nations, which seem to have existed
previous to those savage tribes who occupied the country at
the period of its discovery by Europeans. The ruins ot
fortifications, mounds, &c., the traces of agriculture, and the
remains of rude art which have been brought to light in
various parts of the state, display marks of high antiquity,
and bespeak the existence of a people entirely distinct from
the Indians who were found here by the first European
discoverers. These works consist chiefly of earthen para¬
pets, the sites of which, with a view to defence, appear to
have been selected with much judgment; and greater skill
was exercised in their construction than has been displayed
by the Indian races known to us. The forms ot these
a^cenfcou^y ' Near nvany of the forts
rounds of eith ^
unnPc in various stages ot deca\, aie eum j
have been™ e burial places, in some instances, of the more
have oeen me t number of forts and mounds in
recent Indian tribes exceed3 100. The
rioseedta™asPof the fortifications vary from 6 acres to 100
incioseu a ea. earthen walls which inclose
them 'r^theiTpresmhf abradedcondition, are from 10 to
V2 feet in height, and from 6 to 8 feet in breadth, borne
of these breastworks bear or have borne trees, whose age
has been estimated at more than two hundred and seventy-
five tears, and which may have been preceded by others.
There are indications that the architects of these works vveie
not so greatly advanced in civilization as the Toltecs o
Aztecs of Mexico, and thus their origin is surrounded with
adddional the fil.st settlement of New York, the Indian
principal Indian tribes in the region now comprised in the tribes,
state were those of the celebrated confederacy of the Five
Nations viz., the Mohawk, Oneida, Seneca, Onondaga, and
Cayuga.’ It is asserted by a writer in 1741, that this con¬
federacy was established, as the Indians say, one age or one
man’s life before the white people settled at Albany (1615),
or before white men came to the country. Long be ore
they were known to the Europeans, these nations had ac¬
quired a decided superiority over other Indians; and tin
they long retained, extending their conquests as far as
South Carolina. In 1714 they were joined by the lusca-
roras. and from that time the confederation was known as
that of the Six Nations. In 1608 Champlain by his attack,
had rendered them hostile to the French, and their hostility
continued until the French lost Canada. Their alliance
with the English continued so firm, that on the breakup
out of (and in fact before) the Revolutionary war, they were
induced to engage against the Americans. 1 he Six Nations
then numbered about 10,000, and bad 2000 bo d and skilful
warriors. Including these, there were, wdbm the Indian de-
nartment of the northern provinces, 130,000 Indians, o
whom 25,420 were fighting men. But if their employme
by the British government was disastrous to the American8,
it was equally so to the Indians. A considerable poition
of the Oneidas refused to join with the other tribes against
the colonists. The bond of this confederacy was severed
never to be reunited. The war made sad havoc with the
warriors, and at its close the remnants of the tnbes passed
away before the influx of settlers. In 1188 and 17 89 the
Six Nations, by treaty, conveyed to the state a arge trac
of their territory; and by other purchases, &c., the Indian
title to nearly all lands in the state was extinguished. Cer¬
tain reservations, chiefly in the western counties, were made,
portions of which the Indians and their descendants have
continued to hold to the present time. I heir total numbei
m The^ history of New York commences with 1609. On Discover
the third day of September in that year Henry Hudson, in 1609.
an Englishman by birth, in the service of the Dutch East
India Company, anchored his vessel, the Crescent, with
Sandy Hook. Almost at the same time Champlain was
invading New York from the north. After a week s delay,
Hudson sailed (Sept. 11) through the Narrows, and anchored
in New York harbour. Ten days (Sept. 12th to 22d)were
employed in exploring the river. Hudson, the first ot
Europeans who penetrated so far into the country, went
sounding his way beyond the Highlands, till the Cres¬
cent had sailed some miles above the city of Hudso ,
and a boat had advanced a little beyond Albany, fre¬
quent intercourse was held with the astonished Indians.
Having completed his discovery, Hudson descended the
3arly
)utch
rafliu.
Colonial
istory.
vents of
ie Itevolu-
on in
evv York.
formation
f Slate
;overn-
iuent.
NEW
stream to which time has given his name; and, on the fourth
day of October, set sail for Europe.
The right of possession of the country was claimed for
the United Provinces; and, in 1610, merchants of Amster¬
dam fitted out a ship with various merchandise to traffic with
the natives. The voyage was prosperous, and was renewed.
In 1614 the first rude fort was erected—probably on the
southern point of Manhattan Island. In the next year
(1615) the settlement at Albany was begun, on an island
just below the present city. This was the remote port of
the Indian trader, and was never again abandoned. Yet at
this early period there was no colony; not a single family
had emigrated; the only Europeans on the Hudson were
commercial agents and their subordinates. The Dutch
West India Company was incorporated, June 3, 1621, for
twenty-four years, and became the sovereign of the central
portion of the United States, though colonization on the
Hudson was neither the motive nor main object in its
establishment. Its first ship arrived in the harbour of
New York in 1623. This is the era of the permanent
settlement of the country, which in its development shortly
assumed the form of a colony.
In 1624 Peter Minuits, the commercial agent of the
West India Company, arrived with several families, and
thenceforward held the office of director (governor) until
1633, when he was succeeded by Wonter Yan Twiller,
who in 1638 gave place to William Kieft. During the
administration of the latter, the colony was troubled by con¬
troversies with the encroaching English, and suffered from
the provoked hostilities of the Indians. In 1647 Peter
Stuyvesant became governor, and by his exertions a provi¬
sional treaty was made with the surrounding English colo¬
nies. In 1664 Charles II. granted to his brother James,
the Duke of York, the territory claimed by the Dutch.
On 8th September of that year, Colonel Nichols, commis¬
sioned for the purpose, compelled Stuyvesant to surrender,
and changed the name of New Netherlands to New York.
In 1673 the Dutch retook the colony, but in the next year
they finally surrendered it to the English, who held posses¬
sion until the American Revolution. During this lengthy
period New York suffered much from the Indian depreda¬
tions and ravages in the wars waged between the French
and English. In 1690 Schenectady was burned by the
savages, and many of its inhabitants massacred. Apart from
these wars, no very important event occurred for many years
preceding the negro plot in 1741. On 7th October 1765,
the first continental congress of the colonies met in New
York city ; and from that time, until the close of the Revo¬
lution, the general history of New York is almost identical
with that of the united colonies.
A considerable portion of the active hostilities of the
revolutionary war took place on the soil of this state. At
its commencement the American militia captured Ti-
conderoga, Crown Point, and Whitehall, and thus secured
the command of Lake Champlain. The most prominent
occurrences in New York were,—the defeat, in the autumn
of 1776, of the Americans on Long Island and at White
Plains ; the surrender, on 17th October 1777, of Burgoyne,
the British general, with his 6000 troops; and the cap¬
ture, on the 16th July 1779 of StQ,ny Point by the Ame¬
ricans, under General Wayne. Jay, Hamilton, and others
distinguished in the national councils, were natives of New
York.
Ihe colonial government was suspended in May 1775,
from which time, to 20th April 1777, a provincial congress
governed; of which Nathaniel Woodhill was president
from August 1775. On 9th July 1776, the fourth session
of this body met, by adjournment, at White Plains, and
having received the Declaration of Independence, ap¬
proved it. On 12th March 1777, a constitution for the
YORK.
217
state was reported by a committee of the congress ; on New York
the 20th April following it was adopted ; and it so remained State,
through the war, and afterwards. On 26th July 1788 it v'—^
was ratified by the state legislature, and it thence con¬
tinued to be the organic law, without change (exceptino- a
few amendments in 1801) until 1821, when it was revised
by a convention elected for that purpose ; and their revision
was duly ratified by the people. In 1846 a new constitu¬
tion, prepared by a convention, was approved by the people ;
and to this was made, in 1854, an amendment relative to
the public debt.
The present constitution came into operation 1st Jan-Govern-
uary 1847. The right to vote is granted to every white ment.
male adult citizen resident of the state one year, of the Abstract
county four months, and of the election district thirty of.the.Con-
days; and to coloured persons having paid tax on freehold stitution‘
estate of L.52, and been citizens for three years. General
elections are held on the Tuesday after first Monday in
November. The legislature assembles on the first Tues¬
day in January. Senators (32) are elected for two years;
assembly-men (128) for one year; and both receive 12s. 6d.
per diem for a hundred days’ session, with mileage. The
Judiciary is thus constituted:—The court for the trial of
impeachments consists of the senate and the judges of the
court of appeals, and its judgment extends only to removal
or disqualification for office, with liability to indictment.
The court of appeals is composed of 8 judges, of whom
4 are elected by the electors of the state, and 4 are se¬
lected from the justices of the supreme court having the
shortest time to serve, and its chief judge is chosen from
those elected. The supreme court, having general juris¬
diction in law and equity, comprises 8 districts, in each
of which 4 justices are elected for eight years. County
courts (except New York county) consist of 1 judge,
elected for four years. Municipal courts have uniform
organization and jurisdiction; justices of the peace are
elected for four years. Any male adult citizen of good
morals, and requisite ability, may practice in all state courts.
The governor, elected by the people for two years,
must be thirty years old, state resident for five years,
and United States citizen. Of the administrative officers,
the secretary of state, comptroller, treasurer, attorney-
general, and state engineer, are elected by the people for
two years.
In 1814 the state had a fund applicable to the support pinances#
of its government, amounting to L.916,017. In 1817 the
construction of the Erie and Champlain canals was com¬
menced ; and in defraying their cost the public monies were
exhausted, and a debt was created. Before the year
1835 the state had formed 656 miles of canal, at a cost of
L.2,427,631, of which the Erie Canal, 364 miles long, cost
L.1,488,285. The public debt, though it has been gra¬
dually increasing, has never been a burden to the tax¬
payers of the state ; since the receipts from the tolls, &c.,
of the canals, have not only paid the expenses of the canals
and a large share of the ordinary expenses of government,
but have earned a surplus, used in discharging the interest
of the debt. On 30th September 1856, the total canal
debt was L.4,670,056. The work of enlarging the canals,
which, for several years, has been in progress, has resulted
in an increase of the canal debt; but, it is confidently be¬
lieved, that when this is completed, the canals will amply
repay all the cost of construction and maintenance, and
thereafter, afford a large revenue to the state. In 1856 the
assessed value of taxable property in the state was nearly
L.292,000,000; but this assessment, as in all the states, is
much below the real value.
The following table exhibits the result of the census PopnJa-
of New York during the period preceding the War oftioa.
Independence:—
VOL. XVI.
2e
NEW YORK.
218
Years.
1698
1703
1723
1731
1737
1746
1749
1756
1771
Whites.
Male.
8,143
9,322
17,583
24,856
25,740
26,860
32,355
43,261
73,990
Female.
7,754
9,085
16,810
18,205
25,756
25,622
30,401
39,981
69,484
Blacks.
Female.
1,174
3,364
4,866
4,948
4,857
5,696
7,570
10,623
2170
1084
2807
2897
3993
4250
4896
5978
9240
Total
Population.
18,067
20,665
40,564
50,824
60,437
61,589
73,348
96,790
163,337
In 1774 it was estimated that the colony of New York
embraced a population of 161,098 whites, and21,149 blacks;
or 182,247 in all. Of the enumerations in 1776 and 1782,
only fragments now remain. In 1786 a full census gave
to the state a total of 238,897 ; of which there were 219,956
whites, 18,889 slaves, and 12 Indians paying taxes. The
following table is a synopsis of the enumerations of the
state from 1790 to 1850,taken by United States’authority:—
Date of
Census.
White
Persons.
Coloured persons.
Free.
Slave.
Total
Population.
1790
1800
1810
1820
1830
1840
1850
314,142
556,039
918,699
1,332,744
1,873,663
2,378,890
3,048,325
4,654
10,374
25,333
29,980
44,870
50,027
49,069
21,324
20,343
15,017
10,088
75
4
0
25,978
30,717
40,350
40,068
44,945
50,031
49,069
340,120
586,756
959,049
1,372,812
1,918,608
2,428,921
3,097,394
The increase of population in this state during these
sixty years was not only greater in absolute numbers, but
was also greater in proportion than in any other of the free
states, the ratio having been SICHiS per cent.; while Maine,
which exhibited the next greatest growth, increased its po¬
pulation 504‘07 per cent, during the same period. On 1st
June 1855, the population had increased to 3,466,212 ; of
which there were 45,286 coloured persons.
Origin of The state census of 1845 first directed inquiries con-
population. cerning place of birth, which were of a general character.
Similar, but more minute inquiries, were made in the na¬
tional census of 1850, and still more careful investigations
in the state census of 1855. A synopsis of the returns of
the three periods thus presented :—
Place of birth.
State of New York...
-New England States (6)
Other United States..
Total United States..
Foreign countries 
At sea 
Unknown  
Total
1845.
1,894,278
228,881
83,642
2,206,801
347,266
50,428
2,604,495
2,129,651
| 307,1201
2,436,771
655,929
4,694
3,097,394
2,151,196
206,630
81,470
2,439,296
651,801
6,297
3,097,394
2,222,321
207,539
98,584
2,528,444
920,019
511
17,238
3,466,212
Percentage of classes:—
1845. 1850. 1850.
United States  84-731 78'672 /8-/53
Foreign countries  13-333 2U177 2U043
Unknown     1'935 ‘ISl -203
1855.
72-903
26-585
0-512
New York
State.
The published results of the census of 1850 and 1855 Migrations,
confirm the well-known fact that the Americans are mi¬
gratory in their character, and that the tendency of their
migration is westward. In 1850 the number of persons
born in this state, but then residing in other states, was
547,218 ; and the number of those born in other states, but
then residing in this state, was 288,100; showing an excess
of 259,119 given to other states. The census of 1855
plainly shows that a very large proportion of the inhabi¬
tants of the western counties were born in the eastern
counties.
^ The following table shows the respective numbers of the Origin of
population, on the 1st June 1855, born in foreign countries the foreign
(having over 100 emigrants in the state), and the percent-^orn'
age of the same in the total population :—
Countries.
Number.
Per
cent.
Countries.
Number.
Per
cent.
Ireland 
Germany....
England ....
Canada  
Scotland 
France 
Wales 
Prussia 
Holland 
Switzerland
Poland 
West Indies.
Nova Scotia.
469,753
218,997
102,286
47,842
27,523
18,366
8,557
6,352
4,214
3,948
1,880
1,846
1,602
13-549
6-314
2-949
1-379
0-794
0-529
0-246
0-183
0-124
0-114
0-054
0 053
0-046
Sweden  
Italy 
Austria 
New Brunswick 
Denmark 
Spain 
Norway   
Belgium  
Newfoundland 
South America 
Portugal 
Russia 
Mexico 
1,472 0-042
1,231 0-036
1,197 0-034
766 0-022
583 0-017
570 0-017
537 0-016
454 0-013
398 0-011
296 0-008
291 0-008
256 0-007
119 0003
In 1821, by a provision of the state constitution as then Census of
revised and adopted, the elective franchise was extended electors,
to all white male citizens, of the age of twenty-one years,
who paid taxes or performed military duty, or who were by
law exempt from taxes or military service. In 1826 the
constitution was amended by entirely abolishing the pro¬
perty qualification of white voters by a popular vote of
127,077 for, to 8215 against it. Since 1821 the state
census period has been decennial, commencing with 1825.
Its successive returns of the total population, and of the
number of voters and aliens, have been as follows :—
1825
1835
1845
1855
Total
Population.
1,616,458
2,174,517
2,604,495
3,466,212
Total number of
Voters.
296,132
422,034
539,379
652,322
Aliens.
40,430
82,319
153,717
632,746
Percentage of Pop.
Voters.
18- 32
19- 41
20- 32
1801
Aliens.
2- 50
3- 79
5-89
18-54
The constitution of 1821 provided that no man of colour Persons of
should vote unless possessed of a freehold worth L.52, above colour,
all incumbrances, and for three years a citizen, &c. ; also,
that no person of colour should be taxed unless possessed
of said real estate. In the adoption of the constitution of
1846, this provision was retained by a special vote of
1 The two tables for 1850 are both derived from the official United States census. Their discrepancies are owing to the circum¬
stance that the tables from which these totals were taken were prepared for different purposes, in different ways, and at different times,
involving the examination of the names of many millions of persons, and easily giving opportunity for some errors. The first is per¬
haps the more correct. It is taken from Tables XL. and XLVII. of the Compendium, 8vo, and is composed thus :—
Nativities.
AVhites.
Free
Coloured.
Total.
'’Born in the State....,   
"Born out of the State, and in the United States.
Born in foreign countries      
Unknown 
Aggregate.
2,092,076
296,754
665,224
4,271
3,048,325
37,575
10,366
705
423
49,069
2,129,651
307,120
655,929
4,694
3,097,394
NEW YORK.
New York 114,900 for, to 3901 against retaining it. The returns of
State, this class have been as follows :—
Coloured persons.
Not taxed.
Taxed 
Voters 
1825.
38,770
931
298
1835.
42,836
934
578
42,321
2,025
1,001
1855.
35,956
9,330
Growth of
the cities.
The rural
districts.
Occupa¬
tions of the
people.
One of the most prominent indications of the recent
enumerations is the tendency of the population to central¬
ize in cities and large towns, and apparently at the expense
of the rural districts. These changes, however, inevitably
result from the greater changes in the general condition of
the state and the whole Union. The increase of the facili¬
ties of intercommunication has concentrated the trades that
they may take advantage of the division of labour. The
unlimited field of enterprise offered in manufactures, trade,
and commerce, has caused a remarkable growth of cities
and towns along the lines and at the centres of the great
routes of transportation and travel; and these localities
have also received the greater share of the foreign immi¬
gration. In 1855 the eight chief cities contained nearly
one-third of the whole population of the state. The fol¬
lowing table shows their growth :—
Cities.
New York
Brooklyn
Buffalo....
Albany ..
Rochester
Troy 
Syracuse
Utica 
197,112
17,014
8,668
24.209
9,207
11,556
1835.
268,089
27,854
19,715
28,109
14,404
16,959
1840.
312,710
42,622
18,213
33,721
20,191
19,334
1845.
371,223
72,769
29,773
42,139
26,965
21,709
(incorporated as a city in 1848.)
8,3231 10,1831 12,7821 12,190
1850. | 1855.
515,547
131,357
42,261
50,763
36,403
28,785
22,271
17,565
629,810
205,250
74,214
57,333
43,877
33,269
25,107
22,169
Productive
industry.
In 1855 there were twenty-eight townships, with an ag¬
gregate population ranging from 5000 to 14,000, which con¬
tained one or more flourishing villages ; and fifty-four other
townships, with a population ranging from 4000 to 6500,
with villages, &c.
In the western and other agricultural sections of the
state, the increase of population has been checked by the
extensive emigration therefrom to the western states and
territories. This emigration has drawn off a considerable
share of the best class of the native population. However,
it should be considered that, in many sections, agriculture
itself requires less manual labour than formerly. The well
provided farmer of the present day has his machines for
sowing, hoeing, reaping, and threshing, and other improved
implements of agriculture.
The employments of the male population over fifteen
years of age were thus summed up in the census of 1850
Occupations of the People. Numbers.
Agriculture 313,980
Manufactures, mechanic arts, mining, trade,, and 1
commerce *  r ol2,697
Labour not agricultural    195 gl3
Sea and river navigation  23 243
Law, medicine, and divinity  14'258
Other pursuits requiring education  11,104
Government civil service  4 985
Army. 1,462
Domestic servants  6 324
Other occupations  3 628
Total  888,294
Owing to the absence of uniformity in the schedules on
this subject in the several enumerations, there are no reliable
data for comparing the number of persons in the various
occupations at different periods.
New \ork stands unrivalled among the states of the
219
Union in most 01 the gieat branches of national industry. New York
In some few particulars it is surpassed by some states, which State,
have greater natural advantages for the prosecution of those v'’—v'—^
branches,—as Maine, in making lumber and building ves¬
sels ; Pennsylvania, in raising coal and producing iroir; and
Massachusetts, in manufacturing cotton and woollen goods,
and in prosecuting the coast fisheries. But, taken altoge¬
ther, the industrial pursuits in New York are more varied
and more valuable in their results than those of any other
state.
Agriculture employs the greater part of the population, Agricul-
exclusive of the inhabitants of the cities and large villages, tare.
Great efforts have been made, especially by agricultural
societies, to introduce everywhere the best modes "of culture,
and with much success. Improvements of this class have
been particularly made in the vicinity of the city of New
York ; although in that section this result has been directly
owing to the great demands of the populous city. For
example, the western part of Long Island has soil that is
naturally of moderate fertility ; but it has been greatly im¬
proved, and it is now noted for its market produce.
Comparison of some of the Returns in 1850 and 1855.
In State of New York. 1850.
Number of farms, &c  170,621
Acres of improved land  12,408,964
Acres of unimproved land .... 6,710,1201
Cash value of farms L.115,530,545
Cash value of implements  4,601,021
Cash value of stock  15,327,183
1855.
231,740
13,657,491
13,100,693
L.166,532,362
5,609,892
21,620,007
In 1850, average number of acres in the farms, 113; aver¬
age value of same, L.675; average value of farming imple¬
ments and machinery, L.25. According to the census of
1850 (in which the returns of products are for the year
ending 1st June 1850) New York ranked as first of the
states in its aggregate production of oats (26,552,814 bush,
out of 146,584,179 in the whole Union), of buckwheat
(3,183,955 out of 8,956,812), of barley (3,585,059 out of
5,167,015), of Irish potatoes (15,398,368 out of 65,797,896),
of peas and beans, of market garden products, of orchard
products, and of hay, maple, sugar, honey, and hops. The
wheat crop was 13,121,498 bush., or 13 per cent, of the
whole United States’ crop, and ranking as the third state in
this respect; that of Indian corn was larger, amounting to
17,858,400 bush., though only 3 percent, of the United States’
crop. It also ranked as first of the states in the amount of
its live stock (valued at L.l5,325,099 out of L.l 13,370,936
in the whole Union), in the value of animals slaughtered,
and in its products of butter and cheese. Its product of
wool was about one-fifth of all in the Union, greatly exceed¬
ing that of every other state, excepting Ohio, which was a
trifle larger.
In manufactures New York is very extensively engaged. Manufac-
Its aggregate productions of this class of industry in 1850tures.
not only exceeded the corresponding product of any other
state, but amounted to nearly one-fburth of all manufactures
produced in the United States.
Statement of Establishments in 1850, each producing to the
amount of L.l04, or upwards, yearly.
Classes.
Cotton 
Woollen 
Pig iron 
Iron-casting....
Wrought iron .
Distilling, &c...
Tanning 
Salt 
86
249
18
323
81
189
942
192
Capital.
L.870,189
929,032
126,040
963,013
389,924
539,726
1,046,901
170,820
L.413,740
799,618
66,878
499,738
480,297
1,263,584
131,654
Persons
Employed,
6,320
6,674
505
5,925
2,130
1,676
4,945
873
L.748,326
1,464,706
124,564
1,233,742
783,068
204,298
207,979
TotaI  23,553 L.20,813,414 L.28,053,260 199,349 L.49,499,421
Percent, profit of the total, 53‘86; total females employed
1 This return of unimproved land is of that attached to fame,
220
NEW YORK.
New York (included in the above) 51,612—in cotton works 3668,
State, woollen 2412, tanninjj 31; total annual wages of all per-
i,„- j sons employed L.8,360,623. From the census of 1850 it
appears that of the classes of manufactures specifically men¬
tioned New York then ranked as first of the states only in
the manufactures of iron-casting, those of tanneries, and of
salt, beer, and ardent spirits ; indicating that its products,
aside from the great classes, were of many kinds. It also
appears that, in distilleries and breweries, New York em¬
ployed more capital than any other state (amounting to
L.538,726 out of L.1,772,409 in the whole Union) ; that its
product of beer was about four-sevenths, of rum about two-
fifths, and of whisky and high wines about two-ninths of all
made in the Union. The census of 1855 returned the
following statements:—
Total number of establishments 24,833
Establishments using water-power  7,551
Establishments using steam-power  2,444
Persons J Women   37,771 ( oiarqq
Employed. 1 Boys under 18 years  15,736 J   ’
'Girls under 18 years  6,233-’
Capital invested in real estate  L.14,818,832
Capital invested in tools and machinery  7,337,406
Cash value of raw materials used  37,165,478
Cash value of manufactured articles  66,128,815
The products from mining, so far as reported in 1850, are
included in the preceding total of the manufactures. The
localities in which this branch of industry is prosecuted are
referred to in the previous descriptions of the geology and
mineralogy of the state. The census of 1840 reported
that 1898 persons were then employed in mining.
The lumber business of this state is a source of much
wealth. The forests about the Sasquehanna and Delaware
furnish large quantities of pine for the Philadelphia and
Baltimore markets. Albany is noted as one of the greatest
markets for lumber in the world, though the greater part of
it is not obtained from New York, but from Canada, Michi¬
gan, and Ohio.
The interest of New York in the coast fisheries is im¬
portant, but there are no official or reliable returns on this
subject. In the deep-sea fisheries the state is not largely
engaged, and less so now than formerly. The number ot
vessels in the whale fishery, January 1, 1856, was 31, with
aggregate tonnage of 10,493 tons, showing a great decrease
from former times.
The building of vessels is very extensively prosecuted.
The amount of tonnage built within this state annually,
during the last four years, has uniformly averaged one-fifth
of the whole built in the Union. Nearly all of the great
American steam-ships have been built in New York city.
The amount of tonnage owned in this state is propor-
tionably less than the commerce, because many vessels
few York, which are employed in its carrying-trade are built, owned,
and registered, or enrolled in other states. New York, how¬
ever, owns two-sevenths of the total tonnage, and one-third
of the steam tonnage of the whole United States.
Statement of 30th June 1856.
New York. United States.
Total tonnage  1,508,810 4,871,652
Registered steam tonnage  68,777 89,715
Enrolled steam tonnage  155,738 583,362
Total steam tonnage  224,515 673,077
Tonnage of the several Districts in 1856.
Mining.
Lumber
business
Fisheries.
Buildin
vessels.
of,
Tonnage
owned in
New York 1,328,036
Sag Harbour  7,219
Greenport   10,238
Cold Spring  1,393
Champlain  11,249
Oswegatchie  9,572
Cape Vincent  6,130
Sackett’s Harbour  1,571
Oswego : 38,888
Genesee  4,012
Niagara  566
Buffalo Creek 89,929
The internal improvements of New York are remark- New York
able for their extent and cost, and have most beneficially in • State,
fluenced the prosperity of the state and of the Union. Most
of the canals were constructed, and are now owned by the Internal
state, and these have an aggregate length ofabout 800 miles, improve-
All the railroads have been formed by incorporated com- ments-
panics, and without the aid of the state, excepting its sub¬
scription of L.625,000 to the New York and Erie Railroad.
In the interior, especially in the vicinity of large towns,
there are many excellent plank-roads, which have probably
cost, in the aggregate, at least L. 1,000,000. The state’s
receipts from the canals have of late years varied between
L.540,000 and L.625,000 annually; and about one-third of
this is expended for the care, repairs, &c., of the canals.
The Erie Canal was constructed during 1817-25, 364 miles
long and 40 feet wide, at «. cost of L. 1,488,286 ; at various
periods sections of it have been enlarged, and this work of
improvement is still in progress. The Delaware and Hud¬
son Canal was built, and is owned by an incorporated com¬
pany ; 83 miles of its length is within New York. In
1832 the first two lines of railroad were opened,—viz., from
Albany to Schenectady 15 miles, and from the latter place
to Saratoga Springs. Statistics (September 30, 1855) of
railroads in New York:—Length of track laid, 2611^
miles; length of double track, including sidings, 912J
miles; total cost of road, equipment, and other expendi¬
tures, L.26,851,679; total amount of funded and floating
debt, L.16,276,209; capital stock paid in, L.14,404,560 ;
gross receipts in fiscal year 1855, L.4,492,224 ; do. ex¬
penses, L.2,520,448. Length of main line of Erie Rail¬
road,—New York city to Dunkirk, 461 miles ; New York
Central Railroad, Albany to Buffalo, 298 miles; Hudson
River Railroad, New York to Albany, 144 miles.
The total amount of the domestic and coasting trade of Domo«tic
this state is not known with any exactness; but this, un- and
doubtedly, is in a ratio corresponding to the extent of its ino lrade-
canals and railroads, and the amount of its foreign com¬
merce, as compared with other states.
The foreign commerce of New York comprises about Foroign
two-fifths of the exports of all the United States, and some- commerce,
what more than three-fifths of the imports,—thus averaging
more than half the foreign commerce of the nation.
The following table is made up from the returns of the
collection districts for fiscal year 1856:—
Collection Districts.
New York 
Champlain  
Oswegatchie 
Cape Vincent 
Sackett’s Harbour..
Oswego 
Genesee  
Niagara 
Buffalo Creek 
Total in 1852 ...
Total in 1854 ...
Total in 1856 ...
Exports.
L.20,573,660
490,578
161,374
138,718
169
997,445
157,896
182,266
180,967
15,425,535
21,989,942
22,885,102
Foreign.
L.1,270,538
242,499
154,095
62,218
142,987
40,562
16,845
2,800,387
3,538,101
1,929,785
Imports.
Total.
L.40,759,478
358,000
376,832
330,691
3,770
1,108,595
232,787
219,943
393,171
27,568,600
40,714,148
43,783,425
Total tonnage owned in the state, 1,508,810; consisting of
734,283 enrolled and licensed, and 774,526 registered.
Soon after the organization of the state government, pro- Education,
vision was made for an efficient system of public education.
Every town is divided into a suitable number of districts,
and in each is a school maintained at the public expense.
Statistics of the year 1855 :—
School districts in which school was kept on-an aver¬
age eight months in the year, reported  11,883
Teachers employed (males,10,117; females 14,019), do. 24,136
Children in state between 4 and 21 years, do 1,207,214
Attendance in the common schools, do  876,603
Attendance in private unincorporated schools, do. ... 45,362
Attendance in academies, do  29,967
N E W
New York -^gKrega^e attendance, as above  951,932
State. Aggregate expenditures for common schools L.735,817
It may be justly concluded that there is comparatively
only a small proportion of the children and youth in the
state who do not spend a portion of their time in school.
State Funds for Education. Capital.
Common school fund L.519,146
Literature fund  56,132
United States deposit fund  836,357
Income 1856.
L.32,736
3,536
53,519
Eighteen collegiate institutions, in the census of 1850, were
reported to have 174 teachers, 2673 pupils, and an annual
income of L.30,864 ; and 883 academies, &c\, were reported
to have 3130 teachers, 49,262 pupils, and annual income
of L. 168,817.
Public Libraries other than private in the State in 1850.
Libraries. Number. Volumes.
Public  43 197,229
School  10,802 1,388,729
College  25 138,870
State school   137 33,294
Church   6 2,698
Aggregate of libraries reported, 11,013 1,760,820
The Press. In 1810 there were 66 newspapers, with circulation of
4,139,200; in 1828, 161 ; and, in 1834, 267 issues; of
which 21 were dailies. The returns of subsequent periods
are as follows:—
The Press.
Number
in 1840.
1850.
Number. Copies Yearly.
Number
in 1855.
Dailies 
Tri-Weeklies
Semi-Weeklies
Weeklies 
Monthlies, &c.
34
13
198
57
51
8
13
308
48
Total.
302
63,928,685
776,100
3,116,360
39,205,920
8,358,408
428 115,385,473
73
13
16
411
157
670
In 1855, number whose circulation was reported... 540
Copies printed per annum of those reported 193,294,621
Estimated copies per annum of all classes 241,749,902
Churches. The following table presents the statistics of the prin¬
cipal religious denominations, according to the census of
1855, preceded by the total, which embraces over forty sects.
Ihese returns are of those religious societies that have each
a regular chapel of their own, not including those that
worship in schoolhouses and places of secular use :—
Denominations.
Chapels.
Value of
Property.
Usual At¬
tendance.
Church
Members
Baptists, four sects 
Congregational 
Evangelical Lutheran 
Friends 
Methodists, nine sects 
Presbyterians, five sects...
Protestant, Episcopal 
Reformed Protest. Dutch
Roman Catholic 
Union Bethel and Free ."
Universalists 
The total.
882
301
100
134
1580
710
346
260
291
152
133
L. 658,233
300,873
81,281
86,533
958,607
1,239,137
1,396,626
628,146
798,184
46,834
143,528
143,465
56,637
' 20,834
9,985
250,995
163,054
78,698
70,093
272,084
17,415
18,064
89,713
25,946
13,964
5,340
140,196
92,712
32,978
30,197
242,225
7,923
4,570
5077 L.6,558,547 1,124,211 70 2,384
Average value of churches, L.1290; average accommo¬
dation, 421; average number of inhabitants to each church,
Percentage of accommodation to total population,
Or /3 ; of attendance do., 32#41; of membership do., 20,23.
Pauperism, Hy census of 1825 the percentage of paupers to total
&c. population was _034; do. 1835, 0-31; do. 1845, 0 32. The
census of 1855 made no report on this subject. It is
known, however, by the annual reports of the secretary of
state, that pauperism has, since 1845, been much increased,
YORK.
221
though in no greater ratio than the foreign immigration, to New York
whicn it is in a very large degree attributable. " City.
During the year 1855 there were convicted in the courts
of record of the state 1842 persons, as follows:—Of Crime
offences against the person, 397 (383 males and 14 females) •
offences against property with violence, 278 (275 males
and 3 females); offences without violence, 586 (507 males
and 79 females) ; offences against the currency, 37 (36
males and 1 female); all other offences, 544 (513 males
and 31 females). In all the courts there were 6744 convic¬
tions, and of these 5076 were of foreigners.
There are three state prisons, in which for the 8 years State
1847-55, the average yearly number of prisoners was about prisons.
1700; and the average yearly increase was 86. Number
on 1st December 1855,1901 (1679 whites and 222 blacks);
and of these 92 were white females, and 14 black females.
The state has two establishments for the reformation ofllousps of
juvenile offenders. The older one, at Randall’s Island, city refuge,
of New York, was opened in 1825; and, up to the close of
1856, had received 6880 children and youth, of whom it is
believed that /0 per cent, were there reformed.
ihe state maintains numerous public institutions for Public in-
those unfoi tunate by nature or calamity. These are very stitutioi.s.
extensive, and conducted according to the best practice
known in similar establishments. The chief of these are
—the lunatic asylum at Utica; institution for the deaf-and-
dumb at New York; institution for the blind at New York ;
and the asylum for idiots at Syracuse. At New York also,
partly sustained by the state, are the City Hospital, Bloom-
ingdale Asylum for the insane ; emigrant hospitals; insti¬
tutions for seamen ; dispensaries, &c. (f. h.)
NEW Y ORK, city and port of entry, New York county,
state of New York, lies at the head of New York Bay,
and at the confluence of the Hudson River and the strait
called East River, which connects Long Island Sound
through New York Bay with the Atlantic Ocean. It is
the commercial metropolis of the state of New York, and
the greatest emporium in the New World. In general
importance it surpasses all other great cities of the world,
excepting London and Paris. Its area comprises (the city
and county having the same limits) the whole of Manhattan
or New York Island, and several small islands immediately
adjacent. I he separation of the former Rom the mainland
is caused by the water-course called Harlem River, con¬
necting the Hudson and East Rivers; but this is, in fact,
of little account; for, although the stream is, or might be,
of considerable service in navigation, it is crossed by bridges
and the Croton Aqueduct. The extreme length of New
It ork Island is about 13^- miles; its width through the greater
part of its length is about 2 miles; but at each extremity it
decreases irregularly; and its area is about 14,000 acres,
or 22 square miles. Lat. of the City Hall 40. 42. 43. N.,
Long, of do. from Greenwich 74. 0. 3. W.
New lork enjoys from nature almost every advantage Harbur
that could be desired to build up a great emporium. It baj*. and
extends between two rivers, each of which is navigable for rivers,
the largest vessels; and the harbour, below their confluence,
might contain the navies of all nations. The width of
the Hudson River is quite uniform, and is somewhat more
than a mile; while that of the East River varies, being, in
some narrow localities, not more than two-fifths of a mile,
though generally much greater. The harbour or inner
bay is of irregular elliptical form, about 8 miles long and
25 miles in periphery. Ihis is not only one of the best
but one of the most beautiful harbours in the world. Its
southern part is surrounded with small settlements, connected
by elegant villas and their gardens. Toward its northern
part the number of vessels at anchor increases ; and beyond
these is the dense forest of masts, bearing the flags of all
nations, crowded around the wharves of the great city and its
suburbs. In it are three islands ceded to the national go-
222
NEW YORK.
New York vernment, and fortified for the defence of the city. By
v j ^ie strait called “ the Narrows,” 7 miles from the lower
part of the city, and which is, for the space of a mile, about
1 mile wide, with extreme depth of 86 feet, it communicates
with the outer harbour, or bay proper, which extends
thence to Sandy Hook Light, 18 miles from the city, and
opens directly out into the ocean, forming one of the best
roadsteads on the Atlantic coast. On the bar, at Sandy
Hook the depth of water in the old channel is 21 feet at low
tide, and 27 or 28 feet at high tide; but, in the New or
Gedney’s Channel, it is 32 at low tide, and 38 or 39 at high
tide. The channel inside varies from 35 to 72 feet. The
rise of the tide is nearly 7 feet. The depth of water at
the wharves is sufficient for the vessels which they respec¬
tively accommodate, and increases rapidly outwards. The
currents in the rivers and bay are very strong, keeping
these waters open when the rivers and bays much farther
south are frozen up. In very severe winters the East River
is obstructed for a short time by ice ; which, in a few cases,
has collected so as to form a solid mass.
Defences. The harbour has for a long period been well provided
with defences, and these are being steadily augmented by
the general government. The principal works are at the
Narrows, which is the most important and most readily ac¬
cessible avenue of approach. On the Long Island side, or
shore of the channel, are Fort Hamilton and Fort Latay-
ette. On the Staten Island side, or shore of the channel,
are batteries Hudson and Morton, Fort Richmond (in 1857
not completed), and Old Fort Tompkins. Quite near the
lower point of the city there are fortifications on three
islands,—Governor’s, Bedlow’s, and Ellis’s,—and to these
may be added Castle Clinton, which is now entirely dis¬
mantled, but occupies a good position, and might again be
put in serviceable condition. The passage by the East
River from Long Island Sound is defended by Fort
Schuyler, a powerful work, situated at a narrow pass in the
river, about 17 miles from the lower part of the city.
Since 1854 there has been in construction a monster iron
steamer, or steam battery, designed for use in the waters
of the bay from Sandy Hook upwards, and intended to be,
in fact, a moveable fort of great efficiency. In 1857 Con¬
gress provided for the commencement of a fort opposite
Fort Schuyler; for the erection of another on the site of
old Fort Tompkins; for the repairs of those already estab¬
lished; and for extensive fortifications at Sandy Hook.
Surface. The island was originally much diversified ; and, in its
upper portion, where least peopled, it still retains somewhat
of its original character. The elevated rocky portions sub¬
sequently mentioned, vary from 70 to 130 feet above tide
water—the valleys being often deep, and the hills precipitous.
With the increase of population improvements have been
made according to a uniform system, in laying outavenues and
streets, levelling them, providing sewerage, &c. The island
is traversed centrally throughout its lower part by a ridge,
on each side of which the ground slopes gently to the
water. There is also a line of elevation along the western
side of the island in its upper part, from which the ground
descends to the Hudson and the East River. A consider¬
able portion of the lower part of the city, particularly that
near the rivers, is artificial ground. The Battery, a public
park at the southern extremity, was made upon a low ledge of
rocks, much beyond the original water-line, at first of 10
acres; but since 1854 it has been extended to 17 acres.
Geological The island lies upon the upturned edge of the primitive
formation, range which extends through Westchester county and the
New England States into Canada. The basis rock is
gneiss, except for about 1 mile at the northern extremity,
which is limestone, granular and primitive, and consider¬
ably quarried. The middle and northern portions are, or
were, rough and broken, from the almost constant outcrop¬
ping of the rock, The rock begins to makes its appearance
in the neighbourhood of Thirtieth Street, and thence ex- New York
tends northward to Manhattanville. In many places it City,
occupies large patches. On the west side of the city, not
far from the Hudson River, between Fiftieth and Sixtieth
Streets, and in some other parts, streets were cut through it.
The lower portion is everywhere covered with alluvial and
diluvial deposits, and is comparatively level. The soil is
a sandy alluvion, and less fertile than in many other parts
of the state.
The history of the city is directly divided into three Events in
periods, during which it has belonged to the three govern-the annals
ments,—Holland from 1609 to 1664; Great Britain from of the city-
1664 to 1783 ; and the state of New York since 1783. The
most prominent events in each period are thus stated:—
Dutch period.—1609, September 3, Hendrick Hudson
entered New York Bay; 1613, the settlement of New Am¬
sterdam was commenced; 1621, the Dutch WYst India
Company commenced operations; 1626, the island was
purchased of the Indians; 1652, New Amsterdam was in¬
corporated, and the government passed from the West
India Company into the hands of two burgomasters and five
assistants, called schepens, and one sellout or sheriff; 1664,
September 9, the English took the province.
English period.—1664, name changed to New York;
1673, July, retaken by the Dutch and called New Orange,
and held by them until ensuing year (treaty of 9th February
1674); 1686, James II. abolished the representative sys¬
tem, &c.; 1689, Leisler insurrection ; 1690, a colonial con¬
gress assembled here; 1696, city lighted by ordinance;
1711, slave-market established in Wall Street; 1720, two
per cent, laid on European imports; 1725, New York
Garette appeared; 1730, enlarged charter granted by Go¬
vernor Montgomerie; 1732, stage routes established to
Boston and Philadelphia, travelled once a month; 1741-2,
“Negro plot” and yellow fever; 1765, a colonial congress
assembled hei'e ; 1776-83, Revolution; 1776, September
21, a few days after the city had fallen into the hands of
the British, a conflagration, destroying from one-eighth to
one-fourth of the whole city ; 1783, November 25, evacua¬
tion by British army.
American period.—1789, April 30, Washington inaugu¬
rated first president of the United States at Federal Hall,
on site of present custom-house; 1798, 2086 deaths by
yellow fever, which returned in 1803, 1805, and 1822;
1807, Fulton’s steamboat on Hudson River; 1811, great
fire ; 1812, war with Great Britain, which suspended com¬
merce ; 1126, Erie Canal completed and great celebration ;
1832, Asiatic cholera, 4360 deaths ; 1835, December 16, 17,
conflagration of 648 buildings, loss L.5,200,000 ; 1837,
commercial revulsion; 1842, October 14, celebration of
completion of Croton Aqueduct; 1845, conflagration of
546 buildings, loss L.1,250,000; 1849, cholera; 1850,
Collins’ steamers to Liverpool; 1851, May, Erie Railroad
completed to Dunkirk; 1852, avenue railroads; 1853,
World’s Fair at Crystal Palace; 1854-5 (winter of), tem¬
porary depression of business, and suffering among the
poorer classes; 1857, May 1, new city charter partially car¬
ried into effect; June 16, culmination of the riot resulting
from opposition to the reorganization of the police depart¬
ment, followed through the summer by disturbances about
municipal affairs; September and October, a terrible fin¬
ancial panic, which increased daily to 14th October, when
the banks suspended specie payment; 1858, January 4,
new city charter carried into full effect, with installation of
new officers.
The foregoing enumeration of the principal occurrences
in the annals of the city does not constitute or comprehend
a correct outline of its real history. For a correct under¬
standing of this, we must compare the progress of the city
with the outline history of the domestic and foreign com¬
merce of the United States; and by so doing it is readily
of com¬
merce.
N E W
New York apparent that the remarkable prosperity of the former has
City. resulted from the general prosperity of the latter.
v'—^ Commercial interests originated the settlement of New
Growth of York, developed its rapid growth, have always directly in-
the'resultk ^"cnce(\ its changes of fortune, and are now the main sup-
0 resu port of its greatness. With the fluctuations of the course
of events, in regard to general commerce, there has always
been a corresponding change in the ratio of increase of the
population of the city and its general prosperity. After the
close of the Revolution, an activity in business was every¬
where apparent; and the citizens, by their persevering in¬
dustry, were ultimately enabled not only to materially ad¬
vance their own private interests, but also to promote the
prosperity of^the community at large. During the ten
years from 1790 to 1800, the population of the city in¬
creased from 33,131 to .60,489, or at a ratio of 82-16
per cent. During this period the old world, involved
in wars, was making constant demand upon the produc¬
tiveness and industry of the new world. In the latter
the produce of New York and the Western States was
pressing to the Atlantic, whence the shipping of the port
of New York carried it abroad, returning again with goods
loi disti ibution, both in its own and neighbouring markets.
Thus the business of the city increased wonderfully, and its
attendant advantages drew thither capital and men to par¬
ticipate in the profits from the large investments there made.
During the next decade, 1800 to 1810, there was a falling
oft of the ratio of increase of both population and wealtli^
and business enterprise was greatly depressed. Though the
increase of population during this period was at a ratio of
per cent., viz., from 60,489 in 1800 to 96,783 in 1810,
the increase in wealth was but 8 per cent.: viz., from
L.5,101,323 to L.5,407,572. In the first half of the suc¬
ceeding 10 years, 1810-20, the foreign commerce of the citv
was entirely suspended for 3 years by the war of 1812-14
with Great Britain ; after which, from 1815 to 1820, it again
levived, and greatly promoted the prosperity of the city and
nation. During this period, 1810-20, the increase in valua¬
tion was from L.5,407,572 to L. 14,485,568,or 163 per cent.;
while the increase in population was from 96,373 to 123,706
or only 28 J per cent.; which ratio is less than that of any other
decade, and clearly illustrates the connection of the citv’s
growth with commerce, since, during this same period the
increase of the population of the state was more rapid than
iooc6 , • iFrom ^82° commerce steadily increased until
18w5, m which year it reached a climax that was not ao-ain
attained until 1831. In 1826 the completion of the Erie
Canal opened a new avenue for trade and commerce, and
assisted in the formation of the great speculations which
soon characterized the financial career of the city. * The
reaction that followed this unnatural prosperity for a time
prostrated all branches of business, and most seriously
aftected the commercial interests of the city. Since its
recovery from that reverse of fortune, i'ts commercial
prospenty nis, foi the most part, been steadily augmenting-,
l ^ugh of course somewhat affected by the changes in the
taults of the national government, and by the changing rela¬
tions of the nations with which it has had interc
rogress of
population.
rcourse.
Progress of Population of the City Proper.
Population.
-. 2,500
1^98   4,937
  8,628
  10,381
17J3  21,876
1786   23,614
1790   33,131
1800   60,489
1805   75,770
1808   83,530
1810   96,373
Year. Population.
1814  95,519
1816 100,619
18-0  123,706
1825  166,086
1830  202,589
1835  268,089
1840 312,710
i845  371,223
l850  512,547
1855  629,810
YOKE.
223
been very defectively taken, and it is highly probable tW x,
a correct enumeration would have shown i permanem
population of above 700,000. The ponulatinn Ac 7 • 6 v Clty'
mediate suburbs should ’also be consldTd “ ZAt'ct ™t'
since these are, in fact, parts of the metropolis. ’
Un the East River side is the city of Brooklyn „
since 1854, has comprised the former cities of BnfnLl j Su^llrl)s
Williamsburg, and L town of BusWk
tug table states the progress of population from 1840 in
each of its divisions and in the whole of King’s county
which consists of the city and several towns :  *
Years.
Consolidated City of Brooklyn.
Brooklyn.
1840.
1845.
1850.
1855.
36,233
59,574
96,838
148,774
Williams¬
burg.
5,094
11,338
30,780
48,367
Bushvrick.
1,295
1,857
3,739
8,109
Total.
42,622
72,769
131,357
205,250
King’s
County.
Total.
47,613
78,691
138,882
216,355
On the New Jersey side of the Hudson, opposite the lower
part of the city, are Jersey city and Hoboken. The popu¬
lation of the former, in its present area, was 11,473, and in
1855, 21,715; that of the latter was, in 1850, 2668, and in
1855, 5842; and this growth was but a continuance of
previous duplication. Newark, the largest city in the state
of New Jersey, situated 8 miles west of Jersey city, in
1830 had 10,953 inhabitants; in 1840, 17,290; in 1850,
38,894 ; and in 1855, 53,440; and this growth was, in great
part, owing to that of New York, since the greater part of
the business consists in producing manufactures for the
New York market. The manufacturing city of Paterson,
16 miles from Jersey city, had 7596 inhabitants in 1840,'
11,334 in 18o0, and 23,960 in 1855; and its business like¬
wise centres in New York.
Origin of Population of New York in 1845-50-55.
Origin of Population.
Born in the United States.
Born in foreign countries .
Born at sea 
Unknown  
236,567
128,492
6,164
Total population j 371,223
1850.
277,752
235,733
2,062
515,547
1855.
303,721
322,366
103
3,620
629,810
Origin of those Born in the United States.
Origin of Population.
The state of New York 
The New England States (6).
Other States of the Union....
Total United States.
1845.
194,916
16,079
25,572
236,567
1850.
234,843
17,543
25,366
277,752
262,156
17,976
23,589
303,721
Summary of those Born in Foreign Countries.
■r, , 1850.
Engiand \ .
Wales... J  23,671
Scotland  7,660
Ireland 133,730
Germany  55,476
Prussia  665
Austria  109
Italy  708
Spain    303
France    4,990
Various other countries  8,421
1855.
f 22,713
[ 935
8,487
175,735
95,986
1,586
331
968
343
6,321
8,961
The census of I800 (June and July), is known to have
Total 235,733 322,366
In 1850 tlie population comprised 13,815 free coloured^0 fre®
persons, and we have the following statistics concerningco oure '
them:—
224
New York
City.
Civil con¬
dition.
Voters and
aliens.
Adults un¬
able to
read and
write.
Families
and dwell¬
ings.
Owners of
land.
I’lan.
NEW YORK.
Items of Returns.
Males ...
Females   
Number of families ....
Number of dwellings     
Born in state of New York 
• ... New Jersey ..
... Virginia 
... Pennsylvania.
... Maryland 
{Labourers 
Servants.......
Barbers  
Coachmen 
Cook   
Mulattoes.
1,330
1,736
663
211
1,887
246
166
169
170
187
196
42
11
17
Blacks.
4,765
5,984
2,326
721
6,469
1,234
712
513
580
957
612
80
96
78
Total.
6,098
7.717
2,989
932
8,356
1,480
878
682
750
1,144
808
122
107
95
Sixty of this class were engaged in pursuits requiring edu¬
cation, of which one-third were Mulattoes.
The census of 1855 is the first that affords data for com¬
parison of the number of single, married, and widowed in
the population. In the city the percentages of tnese classes
were—single, GO’TS ; married, STdl; widowers, T01; anu
widows, 3-63. .
The number and percentages of aliens and voters since
1821 in the city have been as follows:
Of adults (above 20 years) unable to read and write there
were in the city in 1840, 7775 whites. The same class in
1850 (also above 20 years) consisted of 17,140 whites, and
1667 coloured ; or a total of 18,807—of whom 2358 were
native, and 16,449 foreign born. In 1855 the total number,
white and free coloured, above 21 years, was 25,858, origi¬
nating; as follows:—
Countries. Males.
Ireland 6,383
England  97
Scotland  20
Germany  597
France  43
Females.
14,995
162
41
856
56
Countries. Males.
Switzerland  3
Other European 1 g0Q
Countries j
Canada  25 8
United States... 1,108 955
Females.
6
223
Returns of 1850 and 1855 on Families and Dwellings.
Statements. Dwellings. Families.
1850. 1855. 1850. 18o5.
Number 37,677 42,668 93,608 126,558
Persons in each IS^O 14-79 5-47 4'97
In 1855 the total value of dwellings, including the value
of their lots, was reported at L.56,975,391, being an average
of L. 1333.
The number of all classes reported in 1855 as holding
land by deed, contract, or perpetual lease, was 14,784, or
2’34 per cent, of the whole population. The total value of
real and personal estate in the city and county of New York,
for the year 1856, was L.106,612,599, of which L.70,935,849
was of real estate.
The valuation, as stated previously, is less than the real
value of property assessed. In 1856 the total valuation of
the “moneyed or stock corporations deriving an income from
their capital” was L.19,648,062, consisting of L.17,363,539
personal estate, and L.2,284,523 real estate; on which the
tax for city purposes was L.271,248.
The general plan of the city is regular. In the old or
southern part, now devoted wholly to business, the principal
streets were in part formed according to the shape of the
island, and hence its plan is not continuously uniform,
although each of its large divisions is by itself comparatively
regular. The uniform plan of avenues and streets com¬
mences at Houston Street, 1 mile from the City Hall, and New lork
1 f- miles from the Battery. Above this point the island City,
is divided longitudinally by fourteen parallel Avenues, 100 v'—
feet wide, which are crossed at right angles by 156 streets,
numerically designated, running directly from liver to river,
and 80 feet wide, excepting sixteen. The latter are 100
feet wide, of which Fourteenth Street is the fust that ex¬
tends entirely across the island. The principal street is Principal
Broadway, especially that main portion of it which occupies streets,
the central ridge of the island, extending in a straight line,
and with uniform breadth of 80 feet, nearly 2J miles, from
the Battery to Tenth Street (Grace Church). It is mainly
occupied by stores, but it also contains the principal hotels
and theatres, besides several banks and other prominent
structures. Although a very large proportion of the build¬
ings in this street are of costly construction, so that there
is not a more splendid business thoroughfare in the world,
yet its general aspect is impaired by a remarkable diversity
of architecture, for almost every block comprises several
fronts of marble, sandstone, and brick. The Bowery is the
next most important of the thoroughfares ; it is more plainly
built, and is traversed by some of the city railroads. Fifth
Avenue is the central street of the most elegant and fashion¬
able portion of the city, and is wholly occupied by very
costly private residences, which are chiefly constructed of
brown sandstone ; and several fine churches. Like all other
large cities, however, New York has many streets which
are lined with cheap, miserable, and densely-peopled tene¬
ments, which, with their inmates, afford a sad contrast to
the display of wealth and magnificence in other sections.
Besides the great central park, the city has seventeen Pub’ic
public squares and other areas, for the most part of small l)ar
extent, though varying in size, their aggregate area being
170 acres; they are generally inclosed with handsome iron
fences, and ornamented with trees, fountains, &c., affording
pleasant promenades. The new central park, designed
in 1853, and not yet completed, extends from Fifty-ninth
to One Hundred and Sixth Street, between Fifth and
Eighth Avenues. It is miles long by half a mile wide,
comprising 776 acres, including the present distributing
reservoir (occupying a position nearly central), the ground
taken for a new reservoir, and the Arsenal grounds belong¬
ing to the state, and valued, as first taken in its unimproved
state, at L.l ,076,947. Its surface is somewhat uneven, and
its natural configuration is used as the basis of the improve¬
ments. There are two beautiful parks, each comprising a
square, which are private property.
Owing to the natural shape of the island, to the fact that Movement
it was first settled at its southern extremity, and to the "io£opu a*
eligibility of that section for the extension of trade and
commerce, it has resulted that the growth of the city has,.
with successive years, been manifested by an increase of
houses and business buildings in a northward direction.
In the southern and business section the number of dwell¬
ings has yearly decreased, the old houses being pulled down,
and stores or other establishments erected. Therefore in
that section the number of inhabitants, instead of increasing
or remaining stationary, has rather diminished, and the
absolute increase of population has been most apparent in
the northern section. In the spring of 1853 the city was
quite compactly built from the Battery to Forty-second
Street, 4 miles. In that year, and somewhat before, a great
impulse was given to the northward movement by the erec¬
tion of the Crystal Palace ; and also by the sale on the part
of the city of large tracts of ground in that section. Tlie
increase, since 1853, of population in the northern sections
has been very great, and in part attributable to the intro¬
duction and extension of city railroads.
The several sections of the city are characterized by con- Styles of
siderable uniformity in their respective styles of building, building.
In the upper parts many of the blocks consist of houses
NEW
New York constructed precisely alike. Building lots are almost every-
City. where of equal width. In the older streets the buildings
are almost wholly of brick, which is now by far the chief
building material in all sections; though of late years the
use of freestone, marble, granite, and iron, for the front of
buildings, has become quite general.
Public edi- The City Hall occupies the centre of the park, in the
ficcs. lower part of the city. It is a very large and handsome
edifice, built, in combined Ionic and Corinthian orders, of
white marble, except its north side, and surmounted by a
cupola, which is crowned by a statue of Justice. It was
constructed between the years 1803 and 1812, at a cost of
L.112,232. It contains 28 apartments, used as the public
offices of the mayor and other members of the city govern¬
ment. The principal apartment, called the Governor’s
Room, contains a fine collection of portraits of men cele¬
brated in the civil, military, and naval history of the country.
In the common council-room is the identical chair occupied
by Washington when president of the first American Con¬
gress, which assembled in this city. In the rear of this
edifice is another large building, occupied by the principal
courts and some public offices; and east of it is the Hall of
Records, in which are preserved all the records and public
documents of the city.
The Merchants’ Exchange, occupying an entire block,
is built of Quincy granite, and cost about L.375,000. Its
front has a recessed portico with 18 columns, each of which
is a solid block of granite, 38 feet high, 4£ feet in diameter,
and weighing over 40 tons. Its central rotunda is elabo¬
rately constructed of white marble, and lighted by a very
lofty dome, which is in part supported by 8 Corinthian
columns of Italian marble, 41 feet high.
The Custom-House (on the site of the old Federal Hall,
where General Washington was inaugurated the first presi¬
dent) is built of white marble, in the Doric style, after the
model of the Parthenon, with two grand porticos, each
having 8 massive columns; its principal hall is circular,
surmounted by a dome, supported by 16 Corinthian
columns, 30 feet high, beautifully wrought with capitals of
the most exquisite workmanship. Its construction occupied
seven years (1834-41) ; and its cost, ground included, was
L.248,900.
The Post-Office is not noteworthy for its architecture,
though it is so for its history. It was formerly the Middle
Dutch Church, and was erected before the Revolution.
Much of its interior wood-work and its steeple were brought
from Holland during the Revolutionary war; this church,
in common with others used by the British, was much
injured from its occupation as a prison, hospital, &c. In
1790 it was repaired, and continued to be used for public
worship until rented by the United States government for
the general post-office of the city.
The Hall of Justice, or city prison, is an extremely mas¬
sive granite building of Egyptian architecture, and occupies
an entire block. Its gloomy aspect has obtained for it the
general name of “ The Tombs.” Its front has a recessed
portico, supported by 14 huge columns. It is chiefly occu¬
pied as a prison, though in part by the criminal courts, and
in part as a police station.
The Crystal Palace was erected in 1853 for the World’s
Fair, or “ Exhibition of the Industry of all Nations,” on
Reservoir Square, 3 miles from the City Hall. Since the
close of that exhibition it has been used only at intervals,
and then for sundry fairs, exhibitions, and festive assem¬
blages. It has a somewhat octagonal form; each main
diameter is 365^ feet long, and the area of its flooring is
1 < 3,000 square feet. Ihe dome is 100 feet in diameter,
and 123 feet high. Excepting the floors, the building was
constructed entirely of iron and glass,—requiring 1800 tons
of iron, 55,000 square feet of glass, and 750,000 square feet
of timber.
VOL. XVI.
YORK.
225
The State Arsenal, 4J miles from the City Hall, is a laree N.w York
edifice, containing arms and munitions belongino- to the City
state. It was erected in 1848, and is in the Gothic castel¬
lated style, presenting a massive and appropriate appearance
The City Armoury, or Down-Town Arsenal, is a hand¬
some structure in the Gothic style, two stories high, built
of blue stone. It is constructed on the best plan3for de¬
fence; as, for example, its windows are only 18 inches wide
so that in case of an attack it could be defended with suc¬
cess by fifty men. In January 1855 the citizen soldiery of
the city (comprised in the First Division, New, York State
Militia, in four brigades) consisted of—infantry, 3906;
cavalry, 1291 ; and artillery, 1589: total, 6786.
The hotels of New York are generally very large, and Hotels,
noted for their excellence; while a considerable ‘number
cost fully L.200,000, and are remarkable for their splendour.
Upon Broadway alone there are about twenty-five, all
elegant in their appointments, and severally accommodating
from 200 to 800 guests. Prominent among these, as the
oldest, and not surpassed in substantial excellence by any
of the more recent establishments, is the Astor House, a
rare example of popular favour, deservedly secured and long
and surely retained. It was erected by John Jacob Astor,
at a cost of L. 165,000, and opened in May 1836. ' The
building is constructed of Quincy granite, in the most sub¬
stantial manner, and contains about 400 rooms. The Sj: ’
Nicholas Hotel, opened in 1853, and subsequently much
enlarged, now constitutes the most capacious and costly
hotel in the world. It is built of white marble and free¬
stone, and is noted for the splendour of its apartments and
its general magnificence. The Metropolitan Hotel, built of
freestone, and a very imposing and attractive edifice, was
opqned in September 1852. Of similar character with
these three are the Clarendon, Everett, Brevoort, St Ger¬
main, and Lafarge. To this list might be added others
of nearly equal rank. The United States Hotel, built
of marble, at a cost of L.72,000, containing about 250
rooms, was the first of the mammoth hotels. Many other
hotels are very large, elegant, and well appointed; but
their great number precludes particular mention. Hotel¬
keeping, as practised in New York by the best houses, is
brought nearer perfection than in any other city in the
world.
Until the summer of 1852 the omnibuses of the city City con-
affbrded almost the only means of cheap and regular con- veyances
veyance. Up to that titn,e these were very extensively
used by the people, as they yet are, except in certain tho¬
roughfares, where they have been superseded by the rail¬
roads. I he city cars of the Harlem Railroad commenced
running in June 1833, and at the same rate of fare as the
stages, In August 1852, notwithstanding the strenuous
opposition of thousands against the establishment of rail¬
roads through the leading avenues of the city, the Sixth
Avenue and the Eighth Avenue lines commenced operation ;
and in July 1853 the Second Avenue and the Third Avenue
lines. These channels of travel are now better patronized
than the stages ever were, or ever would have been, had
the roads not been formed. On each line the fare is 2±d.,
without regard to the length of the routes, which vary from
2f (Fourth Avenue) to 5|- miles (Third Avenue). The cars
(which are drawn by horses or mules, and are about twice
the length of an omnibus) run day and night, at intervals
varying from two to thirty minutes, according to the public
requirements. Their successful operation has resulted in
their establishment in other cities.
Ihere are thirty lines of omnibuses, having in all about Omnibus
600 in daily use. The routes of these lines vary in length lines and
from three to five miles. The uniform fare is 3d. With hacks, &c.
these Broadway is often completely blocked from morn till
midnight, all efforts to remove or supersede them having
proved ineffectual. The number of hacks is not propor-
2f
NEW YORK.
226
New York tionate to the population of the city, owing mainly to the
Gity. greater facilities afforded by the more popular conveyances,
and somewhat to the extortionate demands of the hackmen,
though their rates are duly prescribed by law. By census
of 1855, 1741 persons were occupied as drivers; 5838 as
carters and draymen ; 3052 as porters; and 1004 as boat¬
men and watermen.
Ferries. Between New York and its immediate suburbs across
the rivers, steam ferry-boats are constantly plying. On
the principal ferries these are run throughout the night as
well as the day. From the populous part of the city there
are, across the East River, fourteen ferries, and across the
Hudson four; and from the upper part of the island there
are others across each river. On the East River the fer¬
riage is (excepting for the longest routes) Id.; on the Hud¬
son 1-^d. The number of passengers, vehicles, &c., crossing
daily is very great. In the morning and towards night the
boats are often crowded. To many places near the city
steamboats are run, especially in summer, at very low rates
of fare.
Manufac- In its manufactures, as well as commerce, New York is
turcs. the first city in America. In 1850 the number of hands
employed in manufactures, mining, or the mechanical arts
(establishments producing annually to the amount of
L.104), was 80,302; capital invested L.6,126,615; pro¬
duct annually L.1,882,958. The branches which are here
most extensively prosecuted are those directly developed by
the great trade and commerce.
Building of Ship-building is carried to a high degree of perfection ;
vessels. and in speed, beauty of model, and internal convenience,
the vessels built here are nowhere surpassed.
Table showing the number of vessels of all kinds built in
the district of New York, with their aggregate measure¬
ment, from 1843 to 1857, compiled from the Treasury
Reports:—
Fiscal
Years.
Ships &
Barques
Brigs.
Sloops
and Canal
Boats.
Steam¬
boats.
Total
Vessels.
Total
Tonnage.
1843
1844
1845
1846
1847
1848
1849
1850
1851
1852
1853
1854
1855
1856
1857
5
11
18
11
16
26
15
26
23
24
18
40
40
24
28
8
16
25
37
43
59
44
42
56
46
66
63
76
35
37
102
89
130
160
117
200
145
104
81
38
97
81
219
108
73
5
14
17
23
15
19
17
28
47
43
58
49
41
17
21
122
136
192
234
193
307
228
202
208
153
244
240
381
191
164
13,179
18,026
26,621
29,465
37,591
57,977
37,933
55,525
77,214
69,054
68,454
93,496
92,697
49,317
43,118
The construction of splendid ocean steamers has, since
1846, formed a distinguishing feature in the business of the
New York ship-yards. Of these there have been launched
about 120, all of which have fully satisfied, and in fact
exceeded, the expectations of their builders ; while several
have become celebrated throughout the world as superior to
ah, of every other nation, previously afloat. So great, how¬
ever, has been the rivalry between American and British
ship-builders, that, since 1850, the marine of each nation
has been yearly increased with new steamers, constructed
to surpass all their predecessors. This rivalry, still conti¬
nued, promises to furnish both of these countries, and others
also, with a vast number of steamers, which will greatly
promote their respective interests, and aid in extending
civilization over the globe.
Tonnage in The increase in the amount of the tonnage employed in
steam steam navigation since 1848, and owned in the district, is
navigation, exhibited in the following table:—
Years.
1848
1849
1850
1851
1852
1853
1854
1855
1856
1857
Registered.
Enrolled & Licensed.
Tons.
6,523
10,642
36,148
52,-392
63,860
76,851
82,607
89,105
68,777
69,051
95ths.
73
76
47
68
33
78
73
9
26
67
Tons.
57,705
61,175
58,967
69,148
77,063
88,311
101,487
107,692
107,820
111,526
95ths.
41
92
9
89
84
53
41
88
67
89
Total.
Tons.
64,229
71,818
85,115
121,541
140,924
165,163
184,095
196,798
176,597
180,578
95ths.
19
73
56
62
22
36
19
2
93
61
New York
City.
The following statement from the annual reports of the Total ton-
Secretary of the United States Treasury exhibits theregis- nage of the
tered, the enrolled and licensed, and the total tonnage be- dlstrict.
longing to the district of New York, in each decennial year
from 1825:—
1825
1835
1845
1855
1857
Registered.
Tons.
156,728
191,626
248,717
737,509
802,356
95ths.
14
43
37
10
Enrolled & Licensed.
Tons.
147,756
185,071
301,642
550,725
575,068
95ths.
8
29
48
29
51
Total.
Tons.
304,484
376,697
550,359
1,288,234
1,377,424
95ths.
22
72
48
66
61
Nearly all of the enrolled and licensed tonnage is em- Coasting
ployed in the coasting trade; but there are no complete tra(le*
official accounts of this trade. The law exonerates vessels
engaged in it from entering or clearing at the custom¬
house, unless they have foreign goods or distilled spirits on
board ; and comparatively few vessels which arrive from a
domestic port come within this exception. The record of
clearances coastwise (as many such vessels take foreign
goods or spirits) exceeds the number entered; but even this
list is far from including ah which are engaged in this trade.
The following summary, derived from the custom-house
records, is for the calendar years mentioned:—
1849
1851
1853
1855
1856
Entered Coastwise.
Vessels.
1855
1768
1733
1966
1669
424,976
455,542
507,531
614,045
539,461
Cleared Coastwise.
Vessels.
3994
4803
4789
4563
4696
895,589
1,214,942
1,310,697
1,378,889
1,482,310
The coastwise trade is carried on entirely by American
vessels, built and owned within the United States, as foreign
vessels are by law prohibited from engaging in it.
In addition to the foregoing, we give the following state- Coastwise
ment of coastwise arrivals for three years, collected from arrivals,
the returns of Mr James Thorne, boarding-officer, United
States revenue department, Whitehall:—
Note.—In the above no sloops are included. These, if added
to the many schooners from Virginia and Philadelphia, with wood
and coal, which, though consigned here, discharge their cargoes at
Brooklyn, Williamsburg, Jersey city, and the adjacent towns on
the Hudson, and are not hoarded owing to the remoteness of these
points for general business, would make the number much greater.
The officer estimates the schooners that arrive at the above places
and are not reported, at eight per day; which he thinks is an esti¬
mate rather under than over the actual number. This would give
for each year 2920 additional schooners to be added to the coast¬
ing trade, making the whole number of coastwise arrivals in 1855,
9222; in 1856, 9029; and in 1857, 9017. In the above statement
the steamers arriving from New Orleans, via Havana, are included.
The trade of the city with the interior of the Union
New York vastly exceeds its foreign commerce ; but of this there are
City, no full reports. The available data consist of the accounts
of the articles brought to tide-water by the Erie Canal, and
Trade with the statistics of freight-traffic on the railroads which centre
the inte- }n tjle (.jj-y. Qf tj]e the most important is the Erie
Railroad, which bears a relation to the entire southern por¬
tion of the state, and northern portion of Pennsylvania,
very similar to that sustained by the Erie Canal to the
northern part of the state. The eleven railroads leading
from the city have an immense and ever-increasing traffic;
and they directly connect the metropolis with every im¬
portant section of the country. The receipts of the city
from the Erie Canal are approximately known, because the
greater part of the receipts at tide-water at Hudson, near
Albany, from the same source, are directly sent to New
York. The following statement shows the aggregate ton¬
nage and value of the property which came to the Hudson
River, on all the canals, during the year 1856:—
Tonnage. Value.
Product of the Forests  858,771 L.2,176,431
Agriculture  1,023,417 10,379,644
Manufactures  50,454 934,199
Merchandise  14,073 1,103,’685
Other articles  176,754 882,365
Total  2,123,469 L.15,476,324
Of the total tonnage, the amount from Western States
and Canada, arriving by way of the Erie Canal, was
1,212,550. The amount of the produce of the state of
New York, arriving by all the canals, was 374,580 tons.
Number of barrels of flour by all the canals, 1,130,509;
bushels of wheat, do., 11,776,332 (or 2,355,266 barrels of
flour; total, 3,485,775 barrels wheat flour); bushels of corn,
do., 9,587,714.
The property which went up the canals in 1855 was in
tons 638,597, and in value L.23,634,234 ; the same in 1856
was in tons 650,943, and in value L.27,944,001. Aggre¬
gate of property brought and taken in 1855, L.39,667,732 ;
in 1856, L.43,420,325.
Foreign In surveying the business of New York, and comparing
commerce. }t with that of other American cities, it is at once seen that
the point in which it is relatively greatest is its foreign
commerce. From this source, more than any other, New
York derives its general pre-eminence. Compared with
the other great seaports of the world, the ocean commerce
of New York is more extensive than any, excepting perhaps
London and Liverpool. For this branch of industry the
city naturally possesses uncommon advantages; but its re-
mai kable prosperity has been owing mainly to the enterprise
of its merchants. 1 he following table is a summary view
of the percentage of New York in the entire foreign com¬
merce of the United States, at intervals of five years from
1825:—
NEW YOKE.
227
Fiscal
Years.
1825
1830
1835
1840
1845
1850
1855
1857
Tonnage
entered.
26-21
27-78
23-35
23-41
19-66
26-33
29-20
28’38
Tonnage
cleared.
21- 65
24-19
13-12
17-38
16-22
22- 52
23- 40
24- 82
Value of
Exports.
44-80
23-93
23-86
22-85
29-83
25-44
36-48
34-27
Value of
Imports.
51-92
54-54
59-58
53-05
58- 78
57-96
59- 09
61-67
Duties
collected.
78-37
68-48
74-61
55-84
64-18
61-73
61-58
Vessels and Tinnage entered into District of New Ynrh New York
' City.
Fiscal
Years.
1826
1830
1835
1840
1845
1850
1855
1857
American
Vessels.
1,528
1,443
1,450
1,882
2,588
3,014
Tonnage.
248,176
273,790
374,602
417,443
439,676
734,431
1,377,738
1,584,764
Foreign
Vessels.
480
512
558
1,281
1,185
1,054
Tonnage.
26,285
31,391
91,063
128,488
139,542
410,900
358,169
450,885
Total
Vessels.
2,008
1,955
2,008
3,163
3,773
4,068
Tonnage.
274,461
305,181
465,665
545,931
579,218
1,145,331
1,735,907
2,035,649
Ihe number of arrivals from foreign ports entered at the
custom-house is always greater than the official record of
clearances, because many vessels entering from abroad
clear for a coastwise port.
Vessels and Tonnage cleared from District of New York.
Fiscal
Ye ars
1826
1830
1835
1840
1845
1850
1855
1857
American
Vessels.
1,226
1,067
1,127
1,379
1,941
2,307
Tonnage.
208,202
210,535
289,268
283,149
341,094
596,812
1,091,244
1,310,875
Foreign
Vessels.
433
503
561
1,230
1,169
1,047
Tonnage.
19,655
32,620
77,121
125,619
142,431
385,666
354,510
445,566
Total
Vessels.
1,659
1,570
1,688
2,609
3,110
3,354
Tonnage.
227,857
243,155
366,389
408,768
483,525
982,478
1,445,754
1,756,441
The next tabular statement exhibits the value of im- Imports,
ports, the duties collected thereon, and the value of ex-duties, and
ports in each fifth fiscal year from 1820. The years exl,orts-
end with September 30th to 1840, and thereafter with
June 30th:—
Fiscal
Y ears.
1820
1825
1830
1835
1840
1845
1850
1855
1856
1857
Value of Imports.
10,419,783
8,053,342
18,278,089
12,515,526
14,561,955
24,305,736
32,188,648
41,314,728
47,121,696
Duties
collected.
L.
1,143,325
3,281,684
3,127,613
2,416,135
1,493,323
3,594,852
5,198,532
6,803,926
8,880,935
8,808,589
Value of
Exports.
E.
2,451,978
7,089,824
3,680,542
6,135,661
6,751,805
6,990,573
9,912,571
20,912,898
22,042,927
26,376,387
The returns previous to 1852 are from a United States
Treasury document, and those of subsequent years are from
the statements published in Hunt’s Merchants' Magazine. Tmnnrt9
1 he latter also presents the following classification of im- classified
ports and exports:—
Foreign Imports. igsg.
Entered for consumption L.31,268,354
Entered for warehousing  6,160,078
Freegoods  3,631,686
Specie and bullion  234,600
1857.
L.29,464,603
12,974,093
3,340,940
1,342,050
Total entered at the port.... L.41,294,718
Withdrawn from warehouse... 4,569,606
L.47,121,686
5,822,957
The imports in 1857, at New York, were even greater
than the total imports into the whole United States in any
fiscal year previous to 1853. Prior to 1855 about one-half
of the imports at this port were dry goods, but since that
date the enormous increase has been chiefly in general
merchandise:—
tonnage
‘.ntered
(( T^.e ,n^xt tw® tabular statements, derived from the
Old cleared .u"lted„btates Treasury Report on Commerce and Na-
i New Vlgatl0nj exhibit the number of vessels and amount of
<- tonnage entered into and cleared from the district of New
York for foreign ports, in each fifth year from 1826. The
years end with September to 1840, thence with June:—
rom
fork
Years.
1854
1855
1856
1857
Dry Goods.
19,247,841
13,108,005
17,895,555
19,312,304
General
Merchandise.
L.
20,559,344
19,080,638
23,399,168
27,809,387
Total Imports.
39,807,185
32,188,643
41,294,723
47,121,691
228
.New York
City.
Exports
classified,
&c.
Moneyed
institu¬
tions.
NEW YORK.
Description of Dry Goods Imported for Two Years.
Articles. 1856.
Manufactures of wool  L.5,178,249
Manufactures of cotton -.... 3,173,270
Manufactures of silk    6,242,410
Manufactures of flax   1,796,205
Miscellaneous dry goods  1,505,399
Total dry goods L.17,895,533
Which were disposed of as follows:—
Entered for consumption L.16,243,806
Entered for warehousing  1,651,727
1857.
L.5,488,085
4,082,083
6,185,393
1,893,034
1,657,523
L.19,306,118
L.15,590,337
3,715,781
Under the inducement to await the operation of the new
tariff, which provided for an important reduction in duties
on 1st July 1857, the stock in bonded warehouses had on
that day accumulated to the amount of L.7,695,466, against
the corresponding value of L.2,928,627 one year previous.
The exports to foreign ports during the fiscal year 1857
were larger, both in specie and produce, than during any
previous year. Classification for two fiscal years:
Articles. 1856.
Domestic produce    L.15,630,464
Foreign merchandise, free  264,354
Foreign merchandise, dutiable, 769,079
Specie and bullion  5,379,018
1857.
L.15,818,526
499,350
819,239
9,239,260
Total exports L.22,042,915
Total, exclusive of specie. 16,663,897
For a series of years the city of New York ha.s proved
to be the regulator of the policy adopted in financial affairs
throughout the Union, and may now be considered as its
financial centre* This has naturally resulted from its
being the leading channel of imports and exports; and
thus it has become the pivot upon which almost the whole
business of tbe country has turned. Since 1849 this has
especially been the case, by the constant influx of vast
amounts of gold from California; which, being brought
first of all into the city of New York, has materially aided
in augmenting the number and capital of all classes of its
moneyed institutions. Meanwhile, other causes have been
producing a gradual and powerful concentration of capital
at New York from all parts of the Union. During the
same period the banks and private bankers of every state
have increasingly made this city the depository of their
surplus funds, and more particularly since the practice of
allowing from 4 to 6 per cent, interest has prevailed.
Hence, of late years, exchange on New York has been
considered as equivalent to cash funds on hand by all en¬
gaged in the banking business. New York has for many
years been a creditor of the whole Union. Thereby it
has obtained a vast credit, and, consequently, the con¬
trol of immense capital, belonging, in small and large
sums, to remote parties. This rapid accumulation of capi¬
tal has not only aided to build up New York, but it has
at length been regarded as belonging permanently to the
interests of the city. From 1849 to 1857 the imports of
New York increased 133 per cent.; the bank capital 160
per cent.; the average bank loans 125 per cent.; and the
average bank deposits about 225 per cent.
In 1830 the capital of the banks in the city was
L.3,183,330; on 1st February 1834 (twenty-one banks)
L.3,929,472; and on 1st January 1837 (twenty-four banks)
L.4,346,080. The general banking law was passed by the
legislature 18th April 1838. In 1845 the number of banks
was twenty-four, and their capital L.4,809,184 ; and there
was no increase until 1849. In that year the capital was
raised to L.5,095,390; at the close of 1850 it was
L.5,634,645 ; in July 1852 (forty banks), L.7,465,610;
in January 1854 (fifty-seven banks), L.9,928,622; in
July 1856, L.11,077,146; and in July 1857 (fifty-six
banks), L.13,453,352.
Without presenting an account of the progress of the
L.26,376,375
17,137,115
banks during a series of prosperous years, and their usual New York
operations in such years, we shall briefly sketch the City,
features of their condition through the year 1857, which ^ v 7
opened favourably with a very buoyant stock mai ket. The banks
Throughout January money was in good demand, and a in 1857.
moderate stringency existed. In February the rates gra¬
dually declined, and stock securities were pretty well
sustained. In March there was more active movement,
with an advance in prices. In April money was abundant,
and the banks gradually increased their discount lines upon
an increasing specie basis and a larger deposit account; and
on the 11th of the month their loans were L.24,036,395,
being a higher point than ever before known. The highest
point in 1856 was 2d August, L.23,381,488; and the
highest in 1855 was on 1st September, L.20,924,365.
Through May the money market was easy, stocks were
buoyant, and the banks maintained a very uniform move¬
ment in the discount and specie departments. On 6th
June the loans and discounts were L.24,028,868, and for
four weeks remained above L.24,000,000, and at about
the same amount; but in that time the specie decreased
from L.2,736,395 to L.2,271,058,. owing to the active ship¬
ments. From 3d July the loans increased daily until
8th August (the highest point of the expansion), when they
amounted to L.25,432,756, being an increase of L.l ,454,796
in five weeks, or at an average of L.48,489 each business
day. With this expansion in discounts there was a steady
decrease in the specie reserve. During the last of the
five weeks just mentioned the loans and discounts in¬
creased L.308,373, while the specie decreased L.245,965.
Thus, on the 8th August, the loans and other chief items
of the accounts of all the banks in the city were, in com¬
parison with their condition on 3d January, as follows :—
Apprehensions of coming troubles were immediately ex¬
cited in the minds of many financiers. Thenceforward
the banks rapidly contracted their loans; at the same time
their specie reserve ran down, and the money market daily
became more stringent. The remarkable extent of this
contraction is readily apparent from the following tables:—
Increase of the Currency, fyc., in Nineteen Weeks.
Decrease of the Currency, fyc., in Four Weeks.
The foregoing statements show that the contraction in
four weeks after 8th August, was much greater than the
expansion in nineteen weeks before that date.
The next table shows, on comparison with the first table,
that the contraction in six weeks after 8th August was also
much greater than the expansion during the thirty-one
weeks before that date $ viz,, from 3d January :—
New York
City.
NEW
Decrease of the Currency, fyc., in Six Weeks.
Date.
Aug. 8 
Sept. 19....
Loans.
L.
25,432,756
22,661,960
Decrease... 2,770,796
Increase in specie reserve
Specie.
L.
2,445,281
2,824,200
378,919
Circulation.
L.
1,871,192
1,682,039
189,153
Deposits.
19,674,249
15,785,991
3,888,258
On 2Gth September the banks in Philadelphia and Bal¬
timore suspended specie payments ; but the banks in New
York city, and in part of New England, published that
they were able to maintain themselves as specie-paying in¬
stitutions. This announcement inspired hope ; but the
banks, instead of giving to their customers the expected
(and in fact promised accommodation), continued to diminish
their loans. The financial panic waxed more intense, sur¬
passing descriptiom Commencing in August, business of
almost every kind was gradually brought to a stand. In
almost every place the operations of manufactories, and
shops and stores, were reduced; and thousands of opera¬
tives and employes were discharged. Through Septem¬
ber the gloom deepened every day. Men were everywhere
calling for aid, and in vaim Property seemed to have no
fixed or certain value. In the fore part of October the
number of mercantile suspensions and failures augmented
rapidly over the corresponding daily announcements in Sep¬
tember. The paper of many of the most prominent and
reputable mercantile firms, of several of the largest private
banking-houses, and of some great railroad corporations, was
protested. The suspension of a few of the banks in the city,
and of a score of those in the interior of the state, and per¬
haps a hundred in other states, aided in bringing about
the general suspension by inducing a general run upon all
other banks. On Tuesday, 13th October, nineteen banks
ceased to pay specie to bill-holders and depositors; but to
the latter either paid notes or closed their doors entirely.
In the evening of that day all other banks resolved to
suspend on the ensuing day. This course was imme¬
diately followed throughout the Union.
It is generally considered that the panic which brought
on the crisis was owing chiefly, if not wholly, to the impru¬
dent course of the banks in expanding their discounts,
and then too suddenly contracting them. The actual
suspension of the banks was owing to the disgust and in*
dignation of the mercantile classes, who, having been
injured by the banks, retaliated by using their own power.
On this point, the London Times of 26th October re¬
marked that 4 The entire suspension of specie payments
by the New York and Boston banks, reported this morn¬
ing by the American mail, is the most satisfactory an¬
nouncement that could have been looked for. Had the
step been taken a fortnight earlier, an immense amount
of ruin might have been averted. The banks, after having,
by their mismanagement, brought about the state of affairs
which rendered the panic possible, sought to save them¬
selves by the sacrifice of the whole mercantile community ;
but the public, at last, took, the matter in their own
hands, and forced them to a stoppage, which placed them
in the same condition with their victims, and thus termi¬
nated the struggle.” The Times regarded the matter in
Us tine bearing, attributing the blame to the proper parties,
he returns for the week of suspension, ending 17th
ctober, being ten weeks from 8th August, are thus com-
pared with the returns of that date :—
Date.
Aug. 8.,
Oct. 17.
Decrease.
Loans.
25,432,756
20,259,543
5,173,213
Specie.
L.
2,445,281
1,634,003
811,278
Circulation.
L.
1,871,192
1,684,881
186,311
Deposits.
L.
19,674,249
11,019,709
8,654,540
YORK.
229
showing several still greater changes in each item, and par¬
ticularly in the decrease of specie and deposits, these having
been withdrawn by bill-holders and depositors.
After suspension the banks rapidly augmented their
specie to a sum several millions above any previous total
gaining from 17th October (when L. 1,634,003) to 12th
December (when L.5,428,928) the sum of L.3,794,925. But
no ease in the rtioney market was realized amongst business
men for seven or eight weeks, and there was no important
change in financial affairs until 11th December. On that
day the specie in the bahks hadaccumulatedto L.5,415,000,
and it was then resolved to resume specie payments on
the next day. In the first week after resumption the
specie increased nearly L.415,000, swelling the amount to
L.5,824,855, in the face of a very active shipment to
foreign ports. At the close of the year the banks of Phi¬
ladelphia, Baltimore, &c., had not resumed.
.New York
City.
Although it is reasonable to suppose that another revul¬
sion may occur in an interval of twenty years, it is pro¬
bable that this of 1857 will produce at least three benefi¬
cial results throughout most of the states, viz.,—The
abolition of small bank notes (under L.l or L.2); the
establishment of a specie basis of not less than 1 to 3 (or 4)
of circulation ; and the requirement of ample securities for
bill-holders and depositors.
On 1st January 1857 there were sixteen savings-banks Savings-
in the city, which had on deposit L.6,760,879. Number banks-
of depositors’accounts, L.151,559. During 1856 there were
193,317 deposits, amounting to L.3,053,992 ; and 139,422
withdrawals, amounting to L.2,412,978. Interest received
on stocks and securities, L.l,855,110. Interest received
on bonds and mortgages, L.l81,854. Interest allowed to
depositors, L.286,973.
The daily newspapers, with many of the weeklies and The press,
other periodicals, are remarkable for their intrinsic merits,
size, cheapness, and immense circulation; Each of the
leading newspaper establishments employs a very large
amount of capital, and is furnished with the best presses
and other equipments known among printers. The earliest
newspaper in New York was commenced on 16th October
1725, and printed weekly. Before the Revolution about
90 others had been in existence. In 1775 there were 4
newspapers. In 1832, 64 newspapers and periodicals. Ac¬
cording to the census of 1855, there were in that year 145
newspapers and 78 other periodicals,published as follows:—
Daily, 19; tri-weekly, 1; semi-weekly, 8; weekly, 87; semi¬
monthly 10; monthly, 87; quarterly, 13; semi-annually, 2;
annually, 3. Four of the daily papers are reputed to have
each a circulation above 30,000 (their proprietors not un-
frequently claim much more); and several of the weeklies
circulate to regular subscribers each from 40,000 to 50,000
copies. One weekly, devoted to news and politics, has
175,000 of a regular circulation, almost wholly to sub¬
scribers; while another, devoted to tales and “light read¬
ing,” is believed to have above 300,000. One of the
popular monthly magazines has 170,000, and a religious
monthly newspaper above 200,000.
The public and private provisions for the general educa- Education
tion of children, youth; and adults, are upon a liberal scale.
It is believed that less attention is given to education by
the illiterate and poor classes than in most large cities of
the Union ; but these are chiefly of foreign birth, and feel
compelled to make use of their children to gain a livelihood.
By the census returns it appears that the greater num¬
ber of the adults unable to read and write are of foreign
birth. 8
The number of public schools Under the jurisdiction of Public
the Board of Education, in the year 1855, was 271, viz.,— schools.
Grammar, for boys, 47 j grammar, for girls, 48 ; primary,
101 ; coloured, 14; corporate and asylum, 28; evening,
29; normal, 3 $ and the Free Academy. The whole num-
*
230
NEW YORK.
New York ber of teachers employed in the several schools was 1067,
• consisting of 187 males, and 880 females. The amount
~ ^  expended for purposes of education during the year was
L. 191,217; of which the sum of L.27,649 was received
from the state funds, and L. 163,568 raised by tax on pro¬
perty in the city. In the grammar and primary schools
(238) the whole number taught in 1855 was 137,874 ; the
annual average attendance was 47,858 ; and the cost (total
L.112,507) per pupil was, on the whole number taught,
15s. 5d.; on average annual attendance, L.2, 4s. 5d. The
evening schools, for adults, &c., were attended by 12,762
persons, and their support cost L.6796. The normal
schools, with 782 pupils, cost L.1256 for support. The
Free Academy, established in 1848, crowns the system of
public school education. In 1855 it had 696 pupils, and
its support cost L.7714. Its spacious edifice is built in the
Gothic style, after the manner of the town-halls of the
Netherlands, and cost, with site and fitting up, L.22,811.
It has 23 teachers, a library of 5000 volumes, besides
10,000 text-books, &c., excellent apparatus, laboratory, and
cabinets.
Academies. Select schools and academies, conducted by individual
and associated enterprise, are proportionately numerous.
Some of the seminaries for young woman are of very high
reputation, and have each several hundred pupils.
Colleges. Columbia College was founded in 1754 by royal charter
as King’s College, and received its present name in 1784.
Its trustees and officers are of the Protestant Episcopal
Church. It is richly endowed, possesses a valuable library,
and has usually about 120 students in its collegiate de¬
partment. It occupied its ancient position near the city-
hall, in beautiful open grounds, shaded by venerable trees,
until 1857, when it was removed to the upper part of the
city, and its former site is now covered with warehouses.
The university of the city of New York was founded in
1831, and is non-sectarian. Its edifice, fronting Washing¬
ton Square, is one of the finest structures in the city, and
the most costly collegiate building in the country. It is
constructed of marble, in English Gothic architecture ; and
its central part, used as the principal chapel, is an imita¬
tion of the celebrated King’s College chapel, Cambridge,
England. There are three flourishing medical colleges,
and several minor medical institutes. The College of
Physicians and Surgeons was founded in 1807; medical de¬
partment of the university in 1837 ; and New York me¬
dical college in 1851 ; each of which has an excellent
edifice, and is well furnished with a library and cabinet.
There are two theological seminaries,—the Episcopal,
founded in 1817, and richly endowed; and the Union
(Presbyterian), founded in 1836,—each possessing a large
and very valuable library.
Institu- The Cooper Institute, or the “ Union,” devoted to
tions and science and art, is an important establishment, founded by
libraries. Mr Peter Cooper, at a cost of L.62,500, for the educational
advancement of the youth and people of the city. Its
handsome edifice, of freestone, six storeys high, and cover¬
ing 20,000 square feet of ground, is unusually substantial,
and fireproof. The American Institute, incorporated in
1829, for the encouragement of commerce, agriculture, and
manufactures, has a building, containing a library of 8000
volumes and repository for models, in which weekly meetings
are held for scientific objects; but this organization is espe¬
cially noted for its annual exhibitions of national industry.
The Mechanics’ Institute has 5000 volumes, a good collection
of philosophical and chemical apparatus, and regular courses
of lectures. The Historical Society, founded in 1804, pos¬
sesses an extremely valuable library of 25,000 volumes, and
interesting collections, safely deposited in its fireproof edifice.
It has published numerous volumes on American history.
The Geographical and Statistical Society, founded in 1851,
holds frequent meetings, and has about 3000 volumes. The
total number of volumes in the public libraries and institu- New York
tions in 1855 was 336,290; of which, in the Astor Library, City.
80,000; Mercantile, 47,000; Society, 40,000, &c. The
Astor Library was founded by John Jacob Astor, by his be¬
quest of L.83,000, which directed that L. 15,600 should be
expended for a building, L.25,000 in a first outlay for books,
and the residue, or over L.42,000, invested as a fund for the
maintenance and increase of the library. The Mercantile
Library Association, formed in 1820 for merchants’ clerks
and others, is one of the most useful organizations in the
city, has 5100 regular members, and an annual revenue of
over L.2000. Since 1854 it has occupied the building
formerly known as the Astor Place Opera House.
The National Academy of Design, the chief art institu- Fine-art,
tion of America, was founded in 1826, since which time it societies,
has steadily advanced in influence and usefulness. It galleries,
numbers among its academicans and associates nearly all &c>
the eminent artists of the city and vicinity. It supports
free schools for the study of the antique and living models ;
possesses an extensive and valuable art library; makes
annual exhibitions of original works by American and foreign
painters and sculptors, &c. The New York Gallery of
the Fine Arts is a permanent collection of American art,
commenced a few years ago, containing many valuable
works, but not yet accessible to the public, through want
of a suitable and permanent gallery. The Dusseldorf
Gallery is an admirable exhibition of the works of German
painters, chiefly of the Dusseldorf school, in the building
erected and formerly occupied by the late American Art
Union. The Bryan Gallery of Christian Art is an extremely
interesting and valuable collection of the works of the old
masters. Several shops in Broadway, for the sale of oil-
paintings, engravings, picture-frames, artists’ materials, &c.,
keep up a rich display of works of art.
Theatres and other places of amusement are compara- Places of
tively numerous and well patronized. Some of them are amuse-
very large and elegant establishments. The building of1"6111-
the Academy of Music (or new opera house), completed in
October 1854, has 4600 seats; it cost L.57,000, and its
site L.12,500,—total, L.69,500. Among other permanent
amusements are several companies of Ethiopian minstrels;
and the changing attractions include an endless number
of panoramic exhibitions, concerts, balls, &c.
The benevolent or charitable institutions of a public Private
nature, founded and sustained by special associations, are and incor'
highly creditable to the citizens. These are numerous, Poratec|
cj j 7 benevolent
and some of them very extensive. The list embraces 9 institu.
hospitals, 3 infirmaries, 6 dispensaries, 7 homes for the tions.
relief of certain unfortunate classes, 4 homes for the aged
and indigent, 2 houses of industry, besides the missionary
establishments, and very many aid societies. In the upper
part of the city are the institutions for the blind, deaf-and-
dumb, and insane, each having spacious buildings, with
beautiful grounds. There are extensive institutions for sea¬
men on Staten Island, 6 miles from the Battery.
Most of the public institutions maintained by the city Public
government are situated on the islands in the East River, charities.
The almshouse and its hospitals, lunatic asylum, workhouse,
and city penitentiary, are on Blackwell’s Island. The
Nursery and various establishments for children, and the
house of refuge, are on Randall’s Island. Ward’s Island is
occupied with the hospitals, &c., under the charge of the
Commissioners of Emigration.
New York contains many of the central offices and Religious
publication establishments of those great religious societies and nJoral
and denominations which embrace in their labours the whole S0Cletles•
country. Some of their printing-offices are among the
largest in the city,—as those of the American Bible So¬
ciety; American Tract Society; Methodist Book Concern;
&c. In 1852 the Bible Society erected, at a cost of about
L.62,500, a new building, six storeys high, and comprising
NEW YORK.
New York an entire block; part of it being occupied by offices of other
City. societies.
v'—Synopsis of the census returns on churches:—Number
Churches, of churches in 1850, 214; in 1855, 252; aggregate
accommodation in 1850, 219,098; in 1855, 234,730;
value of church property in 1850, L.1,895,559; in 1855,
L.2,519,319, consisting of L.2,270,916 as value of churches
and lots, and L.248,403 as value of other real estate.
Twenty-seven sects were mentioned in returns of 1855,
from which are taken the following statistics of the chief
denominations:—
231
Religious Denominations.
Baptist 
Congregational 
Jews 
Methodist Episcopal 
Methodist African 
Presbyterian (Old & New )
School) J
Presbyterian, Associate 
Protestant Episcopal 
Reformed Protes. Dutch....
Roman Catholic 
Church Edifices.
26
9
10
33
6
33
6
43
22
24
Value.
Usual At¬
tendance.
L.
131,622
60,935
36,894
121.414
25,000
324,810
78,748
700,844
191,456
335.415
12,140
4,175
3,825
15,090
3,005
17,675
' 3,700
21,850
13,100
100,500
Church
Members,
7.116
905
1,953
8,878
1,668
10,643
1,708
9,006
5.117
78,488
are carried -5 feet beneath the ground, and the exterior New York
44-|- feet above it. The new reservoir, in the Central Park City,
begun in 1856 covers 97 acres; the cost of its construction
is estimated at L.250,000; amount awarded for the land
L.147,500. The total length of street pipes laid to 31st
December 1856 was 255 miles. The entire water receipts
to that date amounted to L.l,103,823.
The fire department of the city is a powerful organiza- Fire de-
tion, effective in the preservation of life and property, partment.
The city is divided into eight fire districts; and in case of
fire the alarm bells are struck according to the number of the
district in which the fire exists. The name of the locality
is signalled to the bell-ringers by telegraph. There are
46 fire-engine companies, 57 hose companies, and 13 hook
and ladder companies; nearly all of which are well sup¬
plied with the necessary apparatus for efficient service.
There are also 4 hydrant companies, whose duty it is to
take charge of the hydrants at fires. The fire marshal’s re¬
ports afford the following statements :—
Vo ton
iqueduct.
The most costly and conspicuous ecclesiastical edifices
are those of the Protestant Episcopal denomination. Of
these Trinity Church, built entirely of freestone, including
the tower and spire, 264 feet high, cost L.83,000, and is the
noblest building of Gothic architecture in America; and
Grace Church, a very elaborate structure of white marble,
cost L.42,000.
1 he Croton Aqueduct is the greatest and most import¬
ant public work, and is not only superior in grandeur and
costliness to anything of the kind on the globe in modern
times, but to any work ever executed by a comparatively
small community. In April 1835 the plan for its construction
was ratified by the electors by a vote of 17,330 for, to 5963
against it. In July ensuing the surveys were commenced ;
in the spring of 1837 the work was fairly begun ; and on the
14th October 1842 its completion was celebrated. Its cost
to 1843 was L.2,386,158. The pond, now called Croton
Lake, formed by the dam of Croton River, is 5 miles in
length ; the aqueduct from this dam to the distributing re¬
servoir is 40J miles; and the large mains from this reser¬
voir, through the central part of the city to the Battery,
add 4 miles, making the total length of the main conduit
50 miles. The aqueduct, built of stone, brick, and ce¬
ment, has form and dimensions as follows:—The bottom
is an inverted arch ; the chord or span line is 6 feet 9 inches,
and the versed sine 9 inches; the greatest interior width
is 7 feet 5 inches; and the greatest depth 8 feet 5£
inches. For the first 5 miles the side walls have an
extia height. It crosses Harlem River on A magnificent
bridge, 1450 feet long, constructed of well-dressed granite,
with 15 arches, the under side of which is 100 feet above
high tide, completed in 1849, at a cost of L.200,710. Its
general declivity per mile is, in its upper part, 13J inches,
and in its lower part, 9 inches. The dam covers about
400 acres, and is available as a reservoir for 500,000,000
gallons above the level that would allow the aqueduct to
ischaige 3o,000,000 gallons daily. The receiving reser-
ymr, 5 miles from City Hall, contains an area of 35 acres,
f int0 two equal parts, and has a capacity for
150,000,000 gallons. The distributing reservoir, 3 miles
trom City Hall, includes 4 acres, is also divided into two
equal parts, and has capacity for 25,000,000 gallons. Its
walls consist of an exterior and an interior wall, connected
at every 10 feet by cross walls. At their base the thickness
of the interior wall is 6 feet, of the exterior 4 feet, and the
intermediate space is 14 feet; or 24 feet in all. Both walls
Items returned.
Number of fires.
Alleged loss 
Insurance 
Amount paid 
June 1st to May 31st.
1854-5.
353
L.288,994
645,140
288,994
1855-6.
331
L.192,335
583,952
103,605
Decrease in
1855-6.
22
L.96,656
61,186
185,387
The permanent fund of the fire department, for the relief
of widows and children of its deceased members, exceeds
L.20,000; and the annual accounts of its payments for
relief, have of late years ranged from L.3000 to L.4100.
Gas-light is supplied by two companies, of which we have Gas-ligVt.
the following statistics:—The New York Gas-Light Com¬
pany, chartered in 1823, with a capital of L.208,000, sup¬
plies the district south of Grand Street; and in 1856 had
about 130 miles of mains of various sizes, and lighted 3500
public lamps. The Manhattan Gas Company, chartered
in 1833, with a capital of L.416,000, supplies the rest of the
city; and in 1856 had 190 miles of mains, lighted 7300 street
lamps (in 1850, 3797), and furnished gas to over 17,000
shops and dwellings. The following is a statement of the
assessed valuation of these companies in 1856:^—New
York,—personal estate, L.70,286; real estate, L.121,248:
total, L.191,534. Manhattan,—personal estate, L.274,570;
real estate, L.180,666: total, L.455,236.
The city charter, as it now stands, according to the Act The city
of Amendment of 14th April 1857, provides, that the govern-
corporate name of the body politic shall, as formerly, be ment.
“ the mayor, aldermen, and commonalty of the city of
New York.” The legislative power is vested in the com¬
mon council. This body consists of the Board of Aider-
men and the Board of Councilmen. The former comprises
17 members, each elected for two years, 8 or 9 retiring an¬
nually. The Board of Councilmen consists of 24 members,
6 from each senatorial district, elected on general ticket.
Both aldermen and councilmen must, at time of election,
be residents of the districts from which elected. Execu¬
tive power is vested in the mayor, who is elected for two
years. There are 6 executive departments, the heads of
which are appointed by the mayor, with approval of the
Board of Aldermen. The various departments of city
business are duly arranged according to statute. The ex¬
penses of the government have for many years been con¬
stantly increasing. During 1856 the total amount re¬
ceived into the treasury from all sources, except the sink¬
ing fund, was L.3,700,551 ; and the expenditure there¬
from was L.3,589,312; showing an excess in receipts of
L.l 11,239. I he principal items in the accounts wrere of
the sale of new city bonds, and the redemption of bonds
due. I he expenditures for the support of the city govern¬
ment proper were L.956,231. The permanent city debt
232
N E W
New
(chiefly for the Croton Aqueduct) on 1st January 1857,
Zealand. wag L.2,964,712, and the amount then held by the com-
missioners of the sinking fund towards its payment was
L.1,152,071, leaving as the outstanding debt unprovided
for L.1,825,037. Amount received on account of the fund
in 1856, L.253,723; interest paid on city stock in 1856,
L.173,758; amount of funded debt redeemable from
taxation, 1st January 1857, L.240,415; amount of city
debt cancelled in 1856, L.117,926; in the early part of 1857
the sum of L.206,248 was paid on account of the aqueduct
loans. The total operations of the city treasury for the
years 1855 and 1856 were :—
Receipts in 1855, L.3,545,850. In 18.56, L.4,315,939.
Payments in 1855, 3,444,555. In 1856, 4,236,276.
The total amount of tax (including the state tax) levied
in each year, from 1851 to 1856 inclusive, was:—
In 1851  L. 609,233
In 1852 ...... 703,816
In 1853   1,066,173
In 1854  L.1,008,591
In 1855   1,217,459
In 1856...... 1,474,045
The value of the real estate owned by the city in Fe¬
bruary 1857 was L.9,002,511 (as estimated, being chiefly
unproductive, at its cost price); of which the aqueduct
L.3,370,247; parks, L.2,913,406; piers and bulkheads,
L.1,213,122 (those used for commerce, L.842,915; for
ferries, L.336,873 ; for corporation purposes, L.33,334);
almshouses, L.354,166; schoolhouses, L.332,038; markets,
L.245,164. (f. h.)
Situation NEW ZEALAND consists of three islands of unequal
and area, size, situated in the South Pacific Ocean, between the pa¬
rallels of 34. and 48. S. Lat., and of 161. and 179. E.
Long. The northern island, called by the natives Ea-
(“The Child of'Mawe”),is of very irregular shape,
the northern portion being a narrow peninsula, varying from
8 to 50 miles across, the centre widening to a breadth of
200 miles, and then decreasing to an average of 60 or 70
towards its southern extremity. Its length, as measured
by a line drawn from Cape Maria Van Diemen to Cape
Palliser, is 540, and the breadth between Cape Egmont
and East Cape, 290 miles. The actual surface extent is
not more than 48,710 square miles, or 31,174,400 acres.
The middle island, called by the natives Tavai Poenammoo
(“ The Land of Green Talc”), extends from N. to S. about
470 miles; the breadth from E,to W. varies from 100 to 170
miles; and its area is computed at 72,072 square miles, or
46,126,080 acres. The southern island (called also Stewart's
Island) is about 60 miles long, and 30 broad ; its area being
about 1800 square miles, or 1,152,000 acres. Thus the area
of the three islands is estimated at 78,452,000 acres, being
about 1,192,160 acres beyond the extent of the islands
of Great Britain and Ireland. The names of New Ulster,
New Munster, and New Leinster, attempted to be imposed
upon these islands by the Colonial Office, have been disre¬
garded by the British colonists, who desire for their adopted
country a nomenclature more suitable to its future position
among the nations of the Southern World, Zeelandia, Aus¬
tral Britain, and South Britain, have been proposed, as being
more euphonious and descriptive, and it is probable that
one of these will in due time be adopted by the general
legislature.
Geological That these islands are of volcanic origin, admits of no
formation, question. At no very distant period their whole area pre¬
sented the appearance of a group of rocky islets, precipitous
and barren, except in the gullies of the mountains. New
Zealand largely participates in a general elevatory move¬
ment, extending from the southern pole over the whole
Southern Hemisphere. Besides this, she has her own
centres of volcanic action, some of which are yet in operation,
gradually raising the level of the land; the proofs of which in
the upheaving and increase of elevation are even now ob¬
vious to any intelligent traveller. Some of these changes
NEW
have been witnessed by the present generation. (Forbes.) New
These centres of volcanic action are supposed to be—(1.), Zealand,
at Qtawa, near the Bay of Islands; (2.) the vicinity of ^
Auckland; (3.) a range of country which may be de¬
fined by a line drawn from White or Sulphur Island to
Rotorua, Lake Taupo, and Mount Tongariro, to Wanganui;
(4.) the country afound Wellington. (Taylpr.) In the
middle island the upheavement of the land is observable
in a marked manner through the entire length of the west¬
ern coast from Cape Farewell to Dusky Bay. Some of the
most extraordinary changes in these regions have taken
place within the last few years. More than half of the
mountains of New Zealand are extinct volcanoes; a few
are yet in partial action, as Waka-ari (White or Sulphur
Island), Montohoro (Whale Island), Tongariro, and occa¬
sionally one of the Kaikora peaks. In the centre of the
northern island, between Rotorua, Lake Taupo, and Mount
Tongariro, the number of boiling mud pools, mud volcanoes,
and openings emitting sulphureous steam, is astonishing.
Some of them shoot up volumes of boiling water, like the
geysers of Iceland, to which they are little, if at all, inferior.
Earthquakes, as might be expected, occur occasionally; but
their action appears now to be confined to the shores along
Cook’s Straits, and the western coasts of the middle island.
The geological formation is simple, the rocks being erupted,
metamorphic, trappean, and sedimentary, the latter all of
them of tertiary origin, as proved by their imbedded
fossils. (Forbes.)
New Zealand is eminently a mountainous country, level Face of the
plains, though such there are of great extent, being the ex- country.—
ception. The mountain ranges run parallel with the sea- moun'
coast, generally from N.E. to S. W. In the northern island j.^1” s
these ranges vary from 500 to 1500 feet in height, until
they reach the centre of the island near Mount Pirongia,
where the great central Rangitito chain commences, which,
under the names of Ruahine and Tarahua, extends as far
as the southern extremity. “ This central mountain range
throws off spurs or ridges of a very difficult mountainous
country in various directions to the coast; the valleys be¬
tween these ridges, generally mere gorges at the hills, be¬
come fertile and extensive plains near the coast; and form
the channels of the Thames, the Waikato, the Mokau, the
Wanganui, the Rangitiki, and other minor streams. These
subsidiary mountain ridges or spurs, thrown from the main
range, are for the most part, where roads have not been
constructed across them, impassable even for horses; so
that no overland communication, except for foot-passengers,
can be considered as yet existing between the several
principal settlements.” (Sir George Grey.) Some of these
mountains are very elevated, and are covered with perpetual
snow. Pirongia is only 2500 feet high ; but Tongariro is
6200 feet, and Ruapahu 9000 feet in height. Though not
connected with any of the central or minor ranges, Mount
Egmont or Taranaki stands about 30 miles from the sea, and
rises to an elevation of nearly 9000 feet; it is distinguished
by the perfect shape of its cone, covered with perpetual
snow. The middle island has its northern shores skirted
by a high crescent-shaped range of mountains, throwing
out spurs towards the sea, and terming the sheltered har¬
bours in which that locality abounds, This range unites
with a great central range which runs through the island
midway, and with another of yet greater elevation which
skirts the western coast, and winch approaches even to the
very margin of the sea. Numerous streams subject to sud¬
den floods flow from these ranges. The highest peak in
New Zealand, Mount Cook, which rises to about 13,000
feet above the level of the sea, is one of the mountains of
this western range.
The appearance of the country generally is singularly gcenery
picturesque and attractive. “ It may be called a wooded
highland country, displaying some half dozen noble plains,
I
New and thousands of brook-watered valleys, dells, and dales.
Zealand. In combination of those great natural features which con-
/—■V—stitute the foundation of fine scenery, New Zealand is un¬
surpassed by any country in the world. She displays noble
forests, snow-capped mountains, shooting up 10,000 feet
from a sea of green, and wooded up to the line of snow;
tracts of rolling champaign country, dells, valleys, rivers
and rivulets innumerable ; and 3000 miles of bay and ocean
coast. The indigenous plants and trees being evergreen,
there is no autumnal fall: the country is always verdant.”
(Hursthouse.) To the truth of this glowing picture we can
bear testimony.
1 0ii. The soil is generally fertile : the swamps may be easily
drained, and will afford the best land to reward the la¬
bours and enterprise of future capitalists. There is per¬
haps as large a proportion of available land for agricultural
and pastoral purposes as in the British Islands ; and it must
be kept in mind, that the grazing capabilities, as well as
the results of husbandry in general, are fully equal to a
similar extent of land in Britain. “ Every English grain,
grass, fruit, and flower attains .full development and per¬
fection. Surface and subsoil are generally light and porous :
wet rapidly drains and percolates away.” (Hursthouse.)
Ilimate. The climate is undoubtedly one of the best in the world,
and is peculiarly congenial to English constitutions and
tastes. The summer is a little warmer than in England,
and of longer duration ; and winter, spring, and autumn,
are much milder. Rain and heavy dews are frequent, but
there are more fine days than in England ; the high winds
are perhaps the greatest inconvenience felt by strangers.
Snow is never seen in the northern island, except on the
mountain-tops; but there are occasional falls on the Can¬
terbury and Otago plains in the middle island. Fogs
and mists are rare, and thunder-storms less frequent than
in England. As New Zealand is near our antipodes, the
seasons are reversed, our summer months being winter
months in the Southern Hemisphere. Some little difference
of climate is caused by the difference of latitude between
the northern and southern colonies; but this is less than
might be expected. The mean temperature of the central
part of New Zealand, as compared with that of London, is as
follows:—New Zealand—spring 56°, summer 66°, autumn
58°, winter 52°; London—spring 49°, summer 62°, autumn
52°, winter 40. (Swainson ; Hursthouse.)
■ linerals. From the peculiar geological formation of the country,
it is probable that coal, copper, gold, and other metals, will
be found in abundance ; already accident, rather than
scientific research, has discovered that the most important
and valuable exist. Coal has been found near the North
Cape, on the banks of the Waikato, at Mokau, at Massacre
Bay, and in the Canterbury and Otago settlements. Gold-
diggings are being worked at Coromandel, near Auckland,
and at Aorere, near Nelson; and it is reported that this
precious metal has been discovered in the Matoura River
in the Otago colony. Copper is found at Kawau, the
Great Barrier Island, Monganui, and at the Dun Mountain,
near Nelson. Iron, in the form of pyrites and magnetic
iron-sand,abounds; thelatterespeciallynearNewPlymouth,
and covers the shores for miles, yielding 50 per cent, of iron
of the finest quality. Some of the rocks are powerfully
magnetic. Lead and manganese have been met with near
Auckland. The purest sulphur is abundant. Alum and
nitre are found at Wanganui and near the Rotorua lakes :
rock-salt near Mercury Bay. Various useful earths—fire-
clay, pipe-clay, ochres, &c.—are common. Slate, marble,
granite, sandstone, and freestone, are found in various parts;
and limestone exists in many localities, and is of great
purity. (Hursthouse.)
egeta- 1 he vegetation of New Zealand is remarkable. Six
2 0I>- hundred and fifty distinct species of trees and plants are in¬
digenous, of which scarcely twenty bear even a general
VOL. XVI.
233
resemblance to any of our English plants; there are few New
annuals and flower-bearing plants, but a large number of Zealand,
tree-creeping parasitical plants, and of the beautiful fern
and palm-tree family. The mode of growth in a New Zea¬
land forest is different from anything in the Old World.
“ Thousands of tall columnar trees, 100 to 200 feet high,
struggle up through a wilderness of underwood, their leafy
heads so loaded with tufts of rushy parasites, that the true
foliage is almost lost, while innumerable creepers coil round
every stem, run up every limb, glide from head to head,
and entwine the topmost boughs of a dozen trees in fifty
Gordian knots. The underwood consists of these creepers,
and of an equally dense growth of young saplings mixed
with forest shrubs; and such is the closeness of the growth,
that sun and air scarcely can penetrate.” (Hursthouse.)
The Kauri pine supplies splendid spars and masts. Other
pines are useful for building purposes, furniture, &c. A
resinous gum is an article of export. The root of the fern
was formerly the chief vegetable food of the natives ; and
the Phormium tenax furnishes the New Zealand flax, which
at some future period may be an important export.
The quadrupeds of New Zealand, previous to the arrival Animal
of Europeans, were the rat and the dog. Pigs were intro- kingdom,
duced by Captain Cook, and other valuable quadrupeds
followed. There are about fifty varieties of land birds, and
about a dozen of coast birds, of which the kiwi is the largest.
The gigantic moa, 12 feet in height, is probably extinct,
unless existing in the western ranges of the middle island.
The rivers abound in small fish resembling the eel, gray¬
ling, whitebait, &c\, of our rivers. The sea fish are nu¬
merous, but inferior to those of Europe for culinary pur¬
poses. The black whale frequents the coast from June to
October. Seals are found in the remote south. Sharks
are common on the coast. Cray-fish, oysters, cockles,
and mussels are abundant. The insects are similar to those
in England. The sand-fly is annoying to travellers in
the summer. (Hunburn.) (For the natural history of New
Zealand we must refer to the able treatise of the Rev.
Robert Taylor, Teika a Maui.)
By the New Zealand Constitution Act (1852), the three Polities
islands are divided into six provinces, three of which are in geography,
the northern island, viz., Auckland, New Plymouth, and —The six
Wellington ; the remaining three are in the middle island, colonies,
viz., Nelson, Canterbury, and Otago. The southern island
forms an appendage to the latter colony. Although a very
small portion of the island thus geographically appropriated
is occupied by the European settlers, this division is a con¬
venient one for the purpose of a more particular description
of the present condition of the British colonies in New
Zealand.
Auckland, the northern province, is about 400 miles in Auckland,
length, 200 in breadth, with a coast-line of 800 miles, and
an area of about 16,000,000 acres. It possesses the only
navigable rivers of any importance to be found in the island,
namely, the Waikato, with its tributary the Waipa; the
Thames; the Piako; the Kaipara, with its tributary the
Wairoa; and the Hokianga. There are also several
smaller streams, which at their mouths form suitable har¬
bours for ships of from 400 to 500 tons, and are navigable
for boats of 20 tons from 7 to 10 miles. Larger harbours
are numerous. The Waitemata (upon which Auckland
stands), on the east coast, nearly joins the Manukau harbour,
on the west coast, from which a narrow isthmus of 6 miles
separates it. The Waikato, Kavvhia, Whaingaroa, Kaipara,
Hokianga, Wangaroa, Bay of Islands, Mercury Bay, Tau-
ranga Bay, Maketu, Hicks Bay, Turanga or Poverty Bay,
are also respectable harbours, with others of less note.
This very extensive water communication, so important to
infant settlements, especially in a country where roads are
few, and carriage by land almost impossible without them,
has led to the largest amount of European immigrants being
NEW ZEALAND.
NEW ZEALAND.
234
New settled in this part of New Zealand, without any adventi-
Zealand. tious lielp fr0m colonizing companies. About one-twelfth
of the sixteen millions of acres has been purchased of the
natives by the colonial government. The chief town,
Auckland, situated on the south side of the Waitemata
harbour, and, like another Corinth, commanding the narrow
isthmus of Manukau, is one of the finest commercial sites
in New Zealand, “ the centre of a network of marine high¬
ways, a youthful antipodal Venice, surrounded by natural
canals.” (Hursthouse.) Being built upon hills, there are
few level streets ; but the houses are generally respectable.
The public buildings, churches, chapels, &c., are equal to
those in any town of the same size in the mother country.
The Church of England and the Wesleyans have respect¬
able schools for the education of the European population,
and institutions for the training of the native youth in the
vicinity. Two weekly English newspapers are published,
and one in the native (Maori) language. The population is
about 8000. Near to Auckland are the military pensioner
villages of Panmure, Howick, Oneunga, and Otahu, all
within a range of 6 or 10 miles, and connected with Auck¬
land by well-made roads. Russell, in the Bay of Islands,
which was once intended for the capital, is but a very small
town. Besides, there are various coast settlements, such as
Coromandel, Otea, Wangari, Wangaroa, Monganui, Hoki-
anga, Whaingaroa, Kawhia, and Tauranga, which have from
. ' 50 to 100 pioneer settlers, the nucleus of future city popu¬
lations. The principal lakes are Rotorua, Tarawera, Ro-
tomahana, and Taupo, in the vicinity of which are found
the hot springs, mud volcanoes, &c., to which reference
has already been made. In the general fertility of the soil,
and in the amount of available land for cultivation, Auck¬
land is fully equal, if not superior, to the other provinces in
the northern island, although in the peninsula north of the
Waitemata there is much poor and swampy land. The
gold field at Coromandel, and the copper-works at the Great
Barrier Island and Kawau, are now partially abandoned for
want of labour; but the mineral treasures of this province
will at some future period contribute largely to its resources.
The census of 1855 gave a population of 11,919 Europeans;
but the estimate for 1857 is about 15,000, to which we
must add 35,000 natives, who contribute their fair share to
the industrial resources of the colony.
New Ply- New Plymouth, called also Taranaki, is the smallest of
mouth. the six provinces, and is situated on the west coast, be¬
tween Auckland and Wellington. It has a coast-line of
]50 miles, and is about 100 miles long by 50 broad, with
an area of about 3,000,000 acres, of which not quite a
fiftieth part is yet in the possession of the colonists. It has
no navigable rivers, but many small streams, as the Mokau,
Oneiro, Waitera, Manawapo, and Patea, which are occa¬
sionally entered by small vessels. The roadstead near the
town of New Plymouth affords great facilities for the load¬
ing and unloading of the largest vessels, and there is no
doubt but that by the outlay of a moderate sum of money
a good harbour might be formed at this place, for which
there are peculiar natural facilities. Around the town, or
rather township, of New Plymouth, the European popula¬
tion is mainly concentrated within a radius of 10 miles.
The soil is peculiarly fertile; so that this portion of the
island is by common consent termed the “ Garden of New
Zealand.” The country near the sea is open and undulat¬
ing ; beyond, at some distance, it is forest, containing excel¬
lent timber. Mount Egmont, covered with perpetual snow,
gives a peculiar character to the scenery. The unwilling¬
ness of the natives to sell their lands has hitherto retarded
the progress of this settlement, by preventing a larger
accession of immigrants. In ] 855 the European population
was 2113, and the estimate for 1857 was 3000. This small
community, intellectually and morally, is perhaps one of
the most select and respectable in the world—not even
excepting the most favoured portions of the mother country. New
The native population is about 8000. One weekly paper’ Zealand,
is published. When the colonial funds admit of the expense »»
requisite for the formation of a harbour, and when the
native title has been more extensively extinguished by
purchase, this portion of New Zealand will offer irresistible
attractions to settlers from the mother country.
Wellington is the southern province of the northern Welling-
island, 200 miles long, 100 broad, with a coast-line of 500 ton.
miles, and an area of 12,000,000 acres, of which about one-
third has been purchased of the natives for the purpose of
European settlement. The land near and within 20 miles
of the principal harbour (Port Nicholson) is mostly moun¬
tainous, densely timbered, broken by steep ravines, and
most unfit for cultivation; but the valleys of the Hutt,
Wairarapa, Wanganui, Rangatiki, Manawatu, and sundry
adjacent portions, are admirably adapted for agricultural
purposes. The vicinity of Hawkes Bay (Ahuriri) has also
much good land ; and ifom this point there is a communi¬
cation across the island to Manawatu, and southerly to the
Wairarapa valley. Three of the rivers may be called
semi-navigable, as they may be entered by vessels of small
tonnage—the Wanganui, the Rangatiki, and Manawatu.
The harbour of Porirua is available for small vessels, and
this harbour and the available country to the north, in the
basins of the Manawatu, Rangatiki, and Wanganui rivers,
are connected with the town of Wellington (Port Nichol¬
son) and the Hutt River district by an excellent road,
which winds round the spurs of the Tarirua range. A good
road along the bay connects Wellington with the Hutt
River valley ; and another road now forming will lay open
the whole of the Wairarapa valley, and afford easy means
of intercourse with the capital. In no part of New Zea¬
land has so much been done to overcome formidable natural
obstacles by means of good roads. Wellington, the capital,
is situated on a beautiful bay opening into Cook’s Straits,
which forms the harbour of Port Nicholson, and which is
6 miles across, surrounded by hills of great elevation, and
affording a shelter for large vessels. The town, built
mainly of wood, stands on two level spaces on the west and
south sides of the harbour, and rises in terraces from the
margin of the bay, which gives it a most picturesque ap¬
pearance from the sea. The bay and scenery around has
been compared to that of Naples. Occasional earthquakes,
which have, however, ceased to be dreaded since the houses
have been built of wood, and high winds, are the main
drawbacks to this locality. Its central position on the great
marine highway of Cook’s Straits is the greatest advantage
of Wellington, which must secure for it an important rank
among the future depots of New Zealand; especially as it
possesses, next to Auckland, the best portion of the northern
island. Its population in 1857 was probably 5000. The
other townships are, a rural settlement in the Hutt valley,
a small town at Wanganui, Port Napier at Ahuriri (Hawkes
Bay), and the native mission village of the Church of Eng¬
land at Otaki, remarkable for its beautiful church, of native
workmanship. The province probably contains 12,000
Europeans and 15,000 native inhabitants. Two weekly
papers are published at Wellington.
Nelson is the northern province of the middle island, and Nelson,
is 150 miles long, 140 broad (with a coast-line of 500 miles),
and an estimated area of 15,000,000 acres, all of which are
virtually open for settlement, as the native population
scarcely amounts to 1000. The climate is comparatively
serene and dry, and more equable than in any of the other
provinces. It possesses great mineral wealth in coal,
copper, and gold. Between D’Urville Island and Cloudy
Bay are a large number of noble harbours opening into
Cook’s Straits, of which Queen Charlotte’s Sound and
Pelorus Bay are the principal; but the wooded hills rise so
abruptly that it has been stated, though perhaps with some
fl
NEW ZEALAND.
banter-
iury.
exaggeration, that there is scarcely a thousand acres of
land fit for the plough to be found along their margins.
The valleys of the Waimea and Motueka, of Blind Bay,
Massacre Bay, and Cloudy Bay (Wairau), afford, how¬
ever, ample room for the agriculturist and grazier. The
Grey and Butter rivers, on the west coast, are now found to
be available as ports, and to possess in their vicinity much
valuable land—a pleasing exception to the general dis¬
paraging character which has been given to the capabilities
of the west coast of the middle island. Nelson, the only
town, is situated at the bottom of Blind Bay, and possesses
a small but safe harbour, 50 miles away from the turbulent
winds of Cook’s Straits. It is sheltered by a range of hills
from the southern blasts, and enjoys a climate equable and
serene beyond any other locality. The Dun Mountain,
within a mile of Nelson, contains treasures of copper yet to
be developed. The European population of the colony,
which amounted in 1855 to about 6000, and which was sup¬
posed to be, in 1857,9000, is mainly located around Nelson, or
within a moderate distance. There is a weekly paper pub¬
lished at Nelson. A new township has been formed at the
harbour of Waitohi or Newton Bay, a south-eastern branch
of Queen Charlotte’s Sound; this is intended to be a port for
the produce of Wairau (Cloudy Bay), and of the Awatere
plains, to which district a road is now being formed of 12
miles through a nearly level valley. Other paths are
being discovered through the mountain-passes, by means of
which communication will be facilitated with the various
settlements in the Nelson province, and with those in the
adjacent province of Canterbury. Two lakes are con¬
nected with the Butter River (Rotorua and Rotuiti) ; but
as yet the interior of the middle island has not been explored.
The gold-diggings at Aorere (Motueka River) are now
exciting much attention, from their productiveness ; but
their main value to this province will be the additional in¬
centive given to emigration to it.
Canterbury is the central province of the middle island,
and is 200 miles long by 100 broad, with a coast-line of 500
miles, and an area of about 14,000,000 acres, all of which
are available for settlement, as the native population is not
above 500. I he western portion of this province is pro¬
bably rugged and scarcely accessible ; the centre is occupied
by mountainous ranges not yet explored. A vast elevated
plain of 4,000,000 acres extends from the foot of these
central ranges, gradually descending 40 miles to the heights
above Port Victoria (called also Port Cooper). This plain
is watered by more than twenty rivers. The portion nearest
the west coast consists of a deep border of fine cattle-graz¬
ing and loamy agricultural land; but the great inland por¬
tion is a true pastoral country, covered with a perpetual
herbage of grasses and dwarf shrubs, and admirably suited
for the breeding and depasturage of sheep, horses, and
cattle. The absence of wood is remarkable, but there is
plenty in Banks’ Peninsula and at the foot of the central
highlands. About fifty small rivers discharge themselves
into the sea on the east coast of this province, of which the
mouths of the Ashley, Courtney, and Avon are navigable
for a short distance by very small boats. A remarkable
eature in this province is Banks’ Peninsula, which pro-
tru es bom the east coast, and consists of a pile of densely-
w ooc ed volcanic hills, among which the principal harbours
of the colony are found,—viz., Port Victoria (or Cooper),
I ort Levy, Pigeon Bay, and Akaroa Harbour. Lyttleton,
t10 Post-town of the colony, is situated upon Port Victoria,
at the foot of the heights which lead to the great plain.
Population from 2000 to 3000. A good road is being
made up the heights, to connect Lyttleton with Christchurch,
the capital, which stands on the Avon, on the border of the
great plain. Population between 2000 and 3000. There
are smal settlements on the other harbours of the penin-
su a. aroa was the site of the French settlement formed
235
in 1840, and yet retains many of its original settlers. This New
colony was originally designed for members of the Church Zealand,
of England, and possesses a large number of the clergy of
that cburch, and educational institutions conducted by them.
There are also Wesleyan and Presbyterian churches, as the
exclusive principle has been wisely abandoned. Great
facilities are offered to small farmers and graziers, and the
tide of emigration is rapidly flowing in this direction. The
European population in 1857 was supposed to be not less
than 7000, who, as a matter of course, have their weekly
journal.
Otago is the southern province of the middle island, and Otago,
includes the whole of the southern or Stewart’s Island. It
is 150 miles long, 200 broad (with a coast-line of 500 miles),
and an area (including Stewart’s Island) of about 18,000,000
acres, the whole of which is available for settlement, as
the natives do not exceed 500 in number. The south¬
western coast is remarkable for its thirteen harbours, like so
many breaches in the sea-wall of this otherwise iron-bound
coast, and which run in a N.N.E. and S.S.W\ direction from
six to twenty miles inland. The land around these har¬
bours rises almost perpendicularly from the water’s edge,
and is covered with trees suitable for all purposes. The
depth of water also is remarkable, as soundings can rarely
be obtained under from 80 to 100 fathoms. The ports on
the east coast are Moerangi, Otago, and Molyneux Bay.
Stewart’s Island is well wooded, contains many excellent
harbours, of which Port Pegasus is the principal, and is
partially colonized by various little communities of tens and
twenties of old whalers, half-castes, and natives. The
European population of the province, about 4000, chiefly
Scotch, is settled on the east coast, in or near the following
settlements :—Dunedin, the capital, stands at the head of an
arm of the sea, which is only navigable for large ships as far as
Port Chalmers; population about 2000. Port Chalmers
is a rising seaport. Invercargill, the most recent settle¬
ment, is situated on the Bluff in Foveaux Straits, in a
central position between the Bluff harbour and the New
River, a fine stream, navigable for 20 miles. The lofty
mountain ranges towards the west coast, and the three large
lakes which are reported to exist in the interior, have not
yet been explored. From these ranges to the sea-coast on
the east the province consists for the most part of splendid
plains diversified with hill and dale, as if to suit our notions
of beauty, and available for all grazing and agricultural
purposes. The climate is bracing and invigorating, yet
temperate. This important province has the advantage of
being a few days nearer England than any other part of
New Zealand. Dunedin has, like the other colonial capitals,
its weekly journal. It was originally the settlement of the
Free Church of Scotland, and complaints are made of the
Somewhat exclusive tone of feeling prevalent in society,
which is annoying to settlers from other countries and be¬
longing to other churches; but this grievance, if it does
exist at all, must vanish with the increase and spread of the
population, while the industry, moral worth, and enterprise
of the Scottish population must insure for this colony a
high place among the political communities of New Zea¬
land.
It will be seen from the above sketch of the various Emigra-
colonies, that while there is ample room in the northern tion field,
island for emigrants, the whole of the middle and southern
islands are open for settlement, without any possible inter¬
ference with native rights. And when we consider the
climate, soil, harbours, and other available capabilities of
these invaluable islands, which only require a large Euro¬
pean population for their speedy and full development, we
cannot but augur favourably as to the position which New
Zealand will at some future period occupy in the history of
the world.
Ihe population of European race in New Zealand is
*
236
NEW ZEALAND.
New estimated by Hursthouse, for the year 1857, at 50,000,
Zealand, which is perhaps somewhat beyond the nctual number;
add to these 60,000 natives, and the entire population
Statistics, will be found not to exceed 100,000,—a scanty supply for
population, a land which is as capable as the British Islands of supporting
&c’ nearly thirty millions of people in all the comfort and luxury
of civilized life.
Trade,
marine.
Political
govern.
ment.
Districts.
Auckland 
New Plymouth
Wellington 
Nelson  
Canterbury ...
Otago  
Native po- I
pulation... J
Total.
Euro¬
peans.
15.000
3,000
12,000
9,000
7,000
4,000
Natives.
35,000
8,000
15,000
1,000
500
500
50,000 60,000 225,000
Acres cul¬
tivated.
50,000
15,000
50,000
50,000
20,000
15,000
25,000
Sheep.
50,000
30,000
350,000
330.000
320,000
120,000
1,200,000
Cattle.
20,000
6,000
23,000
17,000
16,000
12,000
6,000
100,000
Horses,
2,800
500
2,200
2,000
1,600
1,200
1,700
12,000
Pigs.
The exports of the New Zealand colonies consist of
provisions and timber to the neighbouring Australian co¬
lonies, and of wool, tallow, spars, flax, gums, copper ore,
&c., to the mother country. The estimated value of these
exports for 1857 is L.400,000, while the imports may be
calculated at L.600,000; part of the latter consisting of pro¬
perty belonging to emigrants from Europe, and forming
part of their capital stock. The welfare of New Zealand
depends mainly upon agricultural pursuits, as whaling sta¬
tions have ceased to be profitable, and the copper mines
have not succeeded, from the scarcity of labour. A taste
for maritime pursuits seems to be rapidly developing, if we
may judge from the statistics of the shipping the property
of New Zealand, as well as that employed in the foreign
trade. About 700 vessels of all sizes belong to the colonists,
the tonnage of which is 20,000, and most of them are of
colonial build. The foreign trade employs 400 vessels,
with a tonnage of 250,000. Steam communication is main¬
tained between Sydney and Auckland, and subordinate
lines are soon to ply between Auckland and the principal
ports of the islands. The adoption of the Panama route for
the Australian mail service to and from England would
bring New Zealand within forty days of the mother country.
The value of land varies in every colony, but the mini¬
mum price of wild land may be stated as ranging from 5s.
to 60s. the acre. Large tracts of land, especially in the
middle island, may be occupied, at fixed moderate rents, for
grazing purposes.
The present constitution of New Zealand, adopted by
Sir J. Pakington, the colonial secretary under Earl Derby’s
administration, received the sanction of the British Parlia¬
ment in the session of 1852. A plan of government, on the
principle of double election, framed by Earl Grey, the co¬
lonial secretary of a previous administration, had met with
almost universal disapprobation, and had been withdrawn
without having had a trial. The main provisions of the
plan of government now in operation are as follows:—
(1.) The six provinces were formed into distinct corpo¬
rate bodies, with privileges- far beyond those enjoyed by
ordinary municipalities; so that the term “government”
may be with propriety applied to them. Each of these was
empowered to elect a superintendent and provincial coun¬
cil, the latter not to consist of fewer than nine members,
but capable of being enlarged at the discretion of the gover¬
nor-general. The superintendent and council are elected
for a period of four years, by a suffrage which is almost
universal, the qualifications being small, and the possession
of property being a common thing in new colonies. The
governor-general may disallow the election of any superin¬
tendent, and may dissolve the provincial council at pleasure,
and may also disallow any bill passed by them within three
months ; but if allowed by him, it cannot be annulled by
the imperial government in England. The superintend¬
ent may summon and prorogue his council; but there must be
one session at least in each year. These provincial councils New
are prohibited from interfering with general legislation af- Zealand,
fecting the whole colony; as the customs, civil or common
law, currency, weights and measures, post-office, bank¬
ruptcy, lighthouses, harbour dues, marriage, inheritance, &c.
(2.) The government of the whole colony of New Zea¬
land to be vested in a governor appointed by the crown,
with a moderate civil list, secured by act of Parliament;
and also in a General Assembly, consisting of a Legislative
Council and House of Representatives, meeting in annual
session in Auckland and legislating for the entire colony,
with the exception of matters of purely local interest, which
are left to the provincial councils. The Legislative Council
consists at present of 15 members, nominated for life by
the governor. The House of Representatives consists of
36 members elected for five years, by a suffrage similar to
that of the electors of the provincial councils. The House
can be dismissed by the governor at pleasure.
(3.) In the general government, and also in the provincial
superintendencies, the principles of responsible government
are carried out as in England. The majorities create and
turn out administrations, and each acceptance of office by a
member is followed by a necessity of a re-election.
(4.) To avoid the interference of the British Colonial
Office in the land question, the control of the public lands
in each province has been since vested by the General As¬
sembly in the respective provincial councils ; the legislation
of which minor bodies, if confirmed by the governor-general,
is not liable to be disallowed by the government in England.
This appears to be a palpable evasion of the plain mean¬
ing of the act of Parliament by which the new constitu¬
tion was established in New Zealand.
. Making due allowance for the natural and inevitable dif¬
ficulties attendant upon the introduction of a new system
of government into a new country, and among a scattered
population, it must be admitted that the constitution (cum¬
brous and complex as it may appear for a population which,
in 1853, scarcely exceeded 30,000, and which now, in
1857, does not amount to 50,000) on the whole works well.
Local self-government is so desirable for young colonies,
that any inconvenience and cost is a small price for the
inhabitants to pay for the privilege of developing their own
resources and managing their own affairs, unchecked by a
distant executive and legislature, necessarily ill acquainted
with their wants and capabilities. These provincial assem¬
blies and administrations have called forth much local pa¬
triotism, and have developed much administrative talent;
and it must be remarked that the colonists of New Zea¬
land are, a large proportion of them, from the more edu¬
cated and respectable classes of the mother country. A
time may come when increased facilities of communication
may render it desirable to consolidate the local superin¬
tendencies, and merge their powers in that of the general
government; but this and other changes may be left to
the colonists themselves, who are the best judges of their
own legislative necessities.
It is difficult to ascertain the exact amount of the annual Revenue
revenue and expenditure of the seven exchequers of New and e*pen-
Zealand (viz., the six colonies and the general government).
Hursthouse gives the expenditure and revenue of 1856 at
L.270,000 ; one-half of the expenditure being for purchase
of land and public works. The revenue for 1857 arising
from land sales, customs, &c., is estimated by the same
writer at L.300,000. A loan of L.500,000 has been guaran¬
teed by the British Parliament for New Zealand, to enable
the general government to pay off the debt claimed by
the New Zealand Company, and for emigration and other
purposes. The government claim the right of pre-emption
in the case of land, so that no land can be sold by natives
except to the crown ; this land is sold ^gain at a much
higher price to the European settler. It is questioned
i
NEW Z E
New whether this mode of purchase has not been on the whole
Zealand, injurious, as the natives are becoming more and more un-
willing to part with land in large portions, but would be
ready to sell in small parcels to individual purchasers.
The Maori Some account of the native population will be found in the
("native) article Australasia, section viii., vol. iv. We may here add
population, some further information respecting this interesting people, now
rapidly progressing from savage life into civilization. It is ob¬
vious that the Maori belongs physically, and by the structure of
his language, to the light-coloured race of the Pacific Ocean, which
is found spread over the islands for a distance of 6000 miles (from
the Sandwich Islands to New Zealand). This race is supposed to
be of Malayan origin by some; while others suppose the ancient
Mexicans to have been the parent stock of the Pacific islanders.
We require a more perfect acquaintance with the languages of the
Eastern Archipelago in order to arrive at any definite conclusion
respecting the ethnology of this part of the world. Certain it is
that the progenitors of the Maori came from Hawaii and Tanai,
two of the Sandwich Islands, called in the New Zealand dialect
Hawaiki and Tawai, about 500 years ago. The names of thirteen
canoes of the leading chiefs, and of the articles brought in each
canoe have been preserved, with the additional information, that
the emigration came by the way of Tahiti and Easter Island
(Waiho). “ The New Zealanders are decidedly a mixed race :
some have woolly hair, others brown or flaxen; some are many
shades darker than others. The peculiar features of the Tartar are
also very common; the oblique eye, the yellow countenance, the
remarkable depression of the space between the eyes, so that there
is no rise in the nose, seem clearly to indicate that some portion
of the race is of Chinese or Japanese descent.” (Taylor.) This
view is confirmed by the fact of a bell, with characters similar to
Japanese, being found in the district of Wangaree in 1839. It is
supposed that, as a race, the Maori have degenerated from their
ancestors, who, at Easter Island, have left monuments of bygone
skill in the arts, and who, up to the discovery of the islands by
Captain Cook, possessed double canoes of superior build to any now
found among them. The superior houses of the Maori, and the art
of weaving, may have been introduced by these Chinese or Ja¬
panese emigrants accidentally thrown upon their coasts. Native
traditions, mixed up with much fable, seem to indicate tbe exist¬
ence of an aboriginal population, which was either destroyed or
amalgamated with the Maori emigrants. It is remarkable that,
like most colonists, while preserving the religious traditions of
their ancestors, the political bond of union was broken among
themselves. Split into innumerable families and tribes, each
having its own head, and independent of the rest, the history of
the Maori is one of discord, war, and blood. It is reported that
once a large temple called the Whare-Kura existed, in which all
the tribes met for worship, for council, and for the settlement of
disputes. This sacred locality, at first a grand place of union, be¬
came the source of discord; the chiefs quarrelled, fought, and at
last burnt the building; and from that period there has been no
union ; one tribe has ever been opposed to the other. At present
Taylor enumerates twenty-three principal tribes yet intact, be¬
sides fragments of others nearly extinct. The power of the chiefs
rests upon their birth and personal character. No great chief, like
those found in the Polynesian islands, exercises regal power. By
the Tapu, which is a powerful engine of control possessed by the
chiefs in New Zealand, as well as in the other islands of the Pacific,
the common people were effectually restrained, sometimes for good,
and also for evil. It consisted in making any person, place, or
thing sacred for a longer or shorter period, and was in fact a re¬
ligious observance established for political purposes. (Taylor.)
With a philosophical cosmogony and a poetical mythology, they
had no knowledge of a Supreme Being, but believed in a multitude
of divine beings, the creators of various natural objects; and these
were confused and mixed up with the spirits of their ancestors.
Thus, like the Greek heroes of the mythical period, most distin¬
guished persons among the Maori trace up their ancestry to a deity
(Atua). One of these (Maui) is said to have fished up New Zealand
(the universal tradition of the Polynesian races in reference to their
several islands). Prayer, in our sense of the term, formed no part
of the religion of the people: the karakia, which we translate
“ prayer,” is rather a spell or incantation to compel the gods to be
obedient to their wishes. These were accompanied by sacrifices and
offerings. Image-worship was confined to one locality, and was
offered to the^deity, who was supposed to be present in the idol.
The high chiefs (Ariki) and priests (Tohunga) were supposed at
all times to be able to hold visible intercourse with the gods. The
belief in the power of bewitching, as being possessed by every one,
was universal, and kept the native mind in bondage. Great at¬
tention was paid to the burial of the dead, for the sake of the spirit
which survived the dissolution cf the body. “ The prevailing
A L A N D.
idea of the abode of spirits was, that they went to the Reinrm
which is another name for Po or Hades : the word Reinga literally
means a “leaping place.” The spirits were supposed to travel to the
North Cape, or land’s end, and there, passing along a long, narrow
ledge of rock, they leaped down upon a fiat stone, and thence
slinging themselves into the water by some long sea-weed, they
entered Po, the Reinga being the passage to it. It was supposed
that there were several compartments in Hades, the lowest being
the worst, having no light or food, and there the spirits were
thought gradually to pine away, and to be finally annihilated ”
(Taylor.)
Before the general reception of Christianity the natives resided
in large fortified stockades, commonly erected on the summit of a
steep hill, or on a peninsula, &c.: these are called pahs. The
strong high fence of these pahs presents no mean obstacle to foes
not possessed of artillery. Within the pah are numerous subdi¬
visions and lower fencings, communicating with each other by
means of stiles : in each court a house, cart-house, and store for
food: the houses partly sunk in the ground, with a gable roof, and
a portico or verandah, where the occupants generally sit. The
post in the middle of the house, which supports the ridge-pole, has
its lower part carved into the form of a human figure represent¬
ing the founder of the family ; and the same figure is generally
found to surmount the gable end of the house. The inner chamber
or sleeping-place is heated like an oven, and is offensively so for
Europeans; but the natives enjoy it the more, being huddled to¬
gether almost naked for the whole night. Now the pahs are
generally deserted, especially those in inconvenient positions; the
stockades are left to waste away ; and the population is found in
villages and solitary farms, as in our own country. Slavery
scarcely exists now, having yielded to the power of Christianity ;
though the social distinction yet subsists, as it does even in more
civilized communities. The pride of birth is found in perfection
in New Zealand, for “ very little is thought of a chief who cannot
count back some twenty or thirty generations, and the high families
carry theirs back even to the beginning of all things. I was once
very much amused, in obtaining a tradition of this kind, beginning
with 1 from the nothing the something,' which went on gradually
introducing name after name, and at last terminating with that
of the speaker.” (Taylor.) To assist the memory, each family has
a carved board, which serves as a sort of genealogical table, and
the children were from this taught the names of their ancestors.
Polygamy, especially among the chiefs, was common before the
conversion of the natives to Christianity. Infanticide was not un¬
usual, and there was a great want of natural affection, with much
show of it, if we may judge of the ceremonious salutations—the
nose-rubbing, and the tangi, or weeping. War was carried on
most barbarously ; the defeated party, if not slain, were reduced to
slavery. . Cannibalism was universal, but was said to be but of re¬
cent origin, and arose, not from hunger, but from a deep feeling of
revenge. Now the very mention of this horrid custom is hateful
to the Maori; such a change has Christianity effected in public
opinion, as well as in national usages, within the space of one short
generation. A large number of songs, proverbs, and fables are
known to the old men, and formed the oral literature of the people
before the missionaries introduced letters and a new order of ideas.
These have been preserved by Sir George Grey and by the Rev.
Richard Taylor, just in time, as in another generation they would
have been lost. The native dress, made of the flax plant,'and the
practice of tatooing, and many other peculiarities of the preceding
generation, are now rapidly passing away ; and future travellers
will not be able to recognise the Maori described in the writ¬
ings of visitants of twenty or thirty years ago. The land tenure
of the Maori people throws some light upon their economical
condition while comparatively savage and uninfluenced by Euro¬
pean civilization, and is also of importance in its bearings
upon the future relationships of our colonial government with
the native tribes. No one has so fully and satisfactorily described
these as the Rev. Richard Taylor c—l< Band is held in three ways
by the natives: either by the entire tribe, by some family of it,
or by a single individual. The common rights of a tribe are often
very extensive. These generally apply to waste lands or forests,
and con\ ey to each individual of the tribe the right of hunting and
fishing over those parts. By intermarriages several tribes are some¬
times thus entitled ; but if such land be sold, it is nominally said
to belong to the principal chief or chiefs of the tribe ; they are the
parties with whom the treaty is made, and to them the payment is
given, which is, however, a nominal honour, the money being
equitably divided amongst all wrho are entitled to a portion, the
seller rarely retaining anything for himself. The same may be said
of that which is claimed by families : private rights to land are
very rare. rlhe eel-cuts are held in the same way. These are
drains made from lakes or swamps, w'ith weirs at the outlet to
catch the fish, which flow' out in great quantities during the floods.”
237
New
Zealand.
238
New
Zealand.
Missionary
labours.
The future
ot the
Maori po¬
pulation.
NEW ZEALAND.
It appears that all the descendants of the first possessor of a piece
of land or eel-cut possess a claim to a share of the property, and
that the stones placed as landmarks are as sacred as the dii termini
of the ancient Romans. The property of the native tribes in their
lands having been acknowledged and strictly respected by the
British government, the existence of the Maori is secured from
the degradation which has befallen the natives of many of our
colonial possessions. Yet for some time after the commencement of
regular intercourse with Europeans, the population rapidly de¬
clined, owing, perhaps, in some measure, though not entirely, to the
introduction of European diseases, and the evils attending the
transition state of the population from their previous habits to
those of Europeans. For instance, the warm flax dress, impervious
to the rain, was abandoned for the shirt and habiliments of the
Europeans. This mode of dress—worn in all weathers, and by night
as well as by day, without a change, and when wet, dried upon the
body of the wearer—was followed by a great increase in consump¬
tive complaints: add to this the introduction of fire-arms, which
was at first attended with a large increase in the number slaughtered
in war, as their possession was confined to a few tribes who took
advantage to revenge themselves upon their enemies. At present
there is a great disparity in the number of the sexes,—the women
being few in number compared with the men ; and the children are
yet fewer in proportion, say 75 females and 45 children to every
100 adult males. We suspect that this diminution of population
is incident to savage tribes on coming in contact with a more
civilized people, and that after a time this diminution may cease,
and a gradual increase take place. Indeed, it is the opinion of in¬
telligent missionaries that the population is beginning to increase,
and that in some parts of New Zealand—Taranaki, for instance
the number of births already exceeds the number of deaths.
The present advanced condition of the Maori population is owing
mainly to the indefatigable and praiseworthy exertions of the mis¬
sionaries. The Rev. Samuel Marsden, the colonial chaplain in
New South Wales, established the first mission of the Church of
England in New Zealand in December 1814 ; and in 1821 the first
Wesleyan mission station was founded by the Rev. Samuel Leigh.
For many years the field appeared the most unpromising, and no
impression appeared to be made upon the native mind j but at last
complete success has followed the efforts made, and now all the
inhabitants of New Zealand are nominally Christian. Cannibal¬
ism, polygamy, slavery, and other abominations of heathenism
have disappeared. Life and property are perhaps as safe in New
Zealand as in any country in the world. The missionaries have
introduced the plough and all the useful arts of civilized life; they
have reduced the language to writing, compiled grammars and dic¬
tionaries, and translated the Word of God and other works into the
language of the Maori population, most of whom can now read and
write. The progress of the natives in civilization has far surpassed
the most sanguine anticipations of those who are competent to esti¬
mate the obstacles which have to be overcome in the transition of
a whole people from savage customs to the decencies and comforts
of civilized life. As agriculturists and traders, the Maori people
occupy respectable positions; some of their farms are highly credit¬
able to them ; and in bargain-making they manifest something of
the caution and shrewdness of the Scottish character. Many of the
chiefs are owners of steam flour-mills, and others possess small
trading-vessels; some are shareholders in colonial banks; and many,
both of the chiefs and people, after selling portions of their land to
the colonial government, have shown their appreciation of the
security of an English title, and their faith in the additional value
which will be given to it by European industry, by becoming pur¬
chasers of allotments for their own use. In addition to the Euro¬
pean missionaries who labour among them, almost every village
has its native teacher and common school; and there is an institu¬
tion for training native teachers at Turanga. Among the special
friends of the Maori race we may mention the late governor, Sir
George Grey, and that remarkable man, Bishop Selwyn. The
Wesleyans have an institution at the “ Three Kings,” near Auck¬
land, for the training of Maori youths, which deservedly stands
high, and, together with other kindred institutions, is exerting an
important influence upon the more respectable class of the native
population. There are other missions of minor importance carried
on by the Roman Catholics and by a German society.
The future of the Maori population is contemplated by philan¬
thropists with intense interest. If the legislation of the British
colonies of New Zealand be in keeping with the general character
of the colonists, and of the religion which they profess, the Maori
will, in one or two generations, become thoroughly identified in
interests, views, arid feelings with the English population. It is,
however, very desirable that means should be adopted at once to
give the chiefs and more respectable wealthy and educated natives
a definite political and social position in connection with the local
and general legislatures. Much uneasiness is already felt by the
more intelligent natives at the fact of their political nothingness; New
and one very large meeting was held last year (1857) to consider Zealand,
the propriety of electing a king as the representative of the Maori
people. This proposal has for the present been negatived ; but the
feeling which prompted it remains, and must be grappled with.
The Rev. Robert Taylor, an experienced missionary, and Charles
Hursthouse, Esq., a well-known colonist and writer on New Zealand,
contemplating this difficulty from very different points of view,
agree in recommending that a certain number of the high chiefs
should have seats in the General Assembly, and that they should
be placed in the magistracy of their respective districts, with suit¬
able salaries. We have no doubt that in all questions affecting the
local interests of their respective districts and people, they would
be valuable senators, legislators, and magistrates. It is gratifying
to know that the feeling among the European population of New
Zealand towards the aborigines is most friendly ; and no plans are
so popular, or meet with more general support, than those which
have the advancement of native interests for their object.
The history of the discovery of these islands, and of History of
European intercourse up to the year 1809, will be found European
in the article Australasia, § viii., vol. iv. The increase intercours«
of the whale fishery in the South Pacific Ocean led to*“zJ?°'
the settlement of numerous deserters from whale ships
in various parts of New Zealand. This was followed by
the establishment of whaling stations on the shores, which
afforded opportunities for the introduction of many of the
less reputable of the convict class from New South Wales.
In the wake of these followed many reputable traders and
settlers engaged in the timber trade, &c. A large Euro¬
pean population was thus planted principally in the northern
part of the northern island, uncontrolled by any legitimate
authority, and amenable to no law. Besides these irregu¬
lar settlements, there were a number of mission villages
belonging to the Church of England and the Wesleyan
missionary societies, exercising a measure of influence
upon the natives and more respectable Europeans, and
occasionally brought into trying circumstances through the
conduct of the lawless portion of the European population,
as well as from the violence and cupidity of the natives.
The measures adopted at intervals by the imperial govern¬
ment, and by the colonial government of New South Wales,
were not only partial and calculated rather to irritate than
repress crime, but proceeded on assumptions of a contradic¬
tory character as to the right of interference, which after¬
wards caused much embarrassment to these authorities when
compelled to take more decisive action. By the acknow¬
ledgment of the independence of the native chiefs in 1831,
and again in 1835, and by the appointment of Mr Busby as
consul and British resident, but with no means at his disposal
to maintain his authority, the British government endea¬
voured to meet the necessities of the case, and to throw
obstacles in the way of colonization. Other views influ¬
enced a large class of merchants and gentry in Great Britain;
and the New Zealand Company was formed in 1837, which,
in the year 1839, received a charter, and immediately pro¬
ceeded to send out colonists to New Zealand. This move¬
ment obliged the British government to establish its autho¬
rity in the islands; and in order to this, Captain Hobson
was sent out in August 1839 as consul. The missionaries
and respectable Europeans at once rallied around a legiti¬
mate authority; and in February 1840 a large council was
held at Waitangi, when all the chiefs of that part of the island
agreed to acknowledge the Queen’s supremacy—“ giving
up,” as they said, “ the shadow of the land, but retaining
the substance.” A second council was held at Hokianga,
with similar results; and then Captain Hobson, as lieuten¬
ant-governor, proclaimed the British sovereignty over the
Isles of New Zealand, 21st May 1840. The seat of govern¬
ment was at first established at Russell, in the Bay of Islands,
but in 1841 was removed to Auckland, the present capital;
and on the 3d May 1841 the colony was relieved from all
dependence upon New South Wales. Meanwhile, a French
expedition, sent to occupy Banks’ Peninsula, in the middle
island, was forestalled by Captain Stanley, who had pro-
N E Y
N E Y
ceeded there a few days previously, and had planted the
British flag. The New Zealand Company, which, by taking
measures to colonize direct from England, had compelled the
assumption of British sovereignty, planted its first settle¬
ments at Wellington, in Port Nicholson, and at Nelson in
1839; the year following, Wanganui and New Plymouth
were established. The difficulty in obtaining possession
and satisfactory title to land purchased by them from the
natives, and dissensions with the new government of New
Zealand, retarded the progress of these infant settlements,
and involved many respectable colonists in ruin. Some
untoward events were attendant upon this rapid influx of
emigrants. In 1843 a fatal affray occurred at Wairau (in the
middle island), in which a large party of European gentle¬
men were murdered in a dispute with certain natives respect-
ing property in land. Two years after, the chief Heki raised
the standard of rebellion in the northern island, and burned
the town of Russell; and in 1846 there were disturbances
in the Hutt River district. In 1847 there were petty dis¬
turbances in Wanganui, since the suppression of which there
has been peace in New Zealand with the native tribes.
The example of the New Zealand Company was followed
by an association of gentlemen connected with the Church
of England, who, in 1848, formed the Canterbury settle¬
ment ; and the same year the Otago settlement was planted
by gentlemen in connection with the Free Church of Scot¬
land. No other colonies separate and distinct from these
six have been established in the islands. The proceedings
of the New Zealand Company provoked much animadver¬
sion and controversy both in England and in the colonies
which they had originated ; but to enter into the discussion
of the merits of the case would require more space than
can be afforded to this article, and, besides, would lead to no
profitable result. The company was finally broken up in
1851, and its debt of L.200,000 has been thrown upon the
land revenue of the New Zealand colony, much to the
annoyance of the people of Auckland, whose province was
beyond the sphere of the Company’s operations. In order
to reconcde the colony to this burden, a loan of L.500,000
has been guaranteed by the imperial government for the
purpose of local improvements, &c. (\y. b. b.)
NEY, Michel, a marshal and peer of France, was born
at Sarrelouis on the 17th of January 1769. His father had
been a soldier, but after the Seven Years’ War had re¬
tired to his native village, where he exercised the humble
trade of a cooper. Young Ney had received his education
at a school kept by the monks of St Augustin, under whom
he appears to have made considerable progress in his studies;
but being fired with military ardour by the recitals of his
father, he early enlisted, in 1787, in a regiment of hussars,
where he served for some time, and was a subaltern at the
commencement of the Revolution. He then attained the
rank of captain, in which capacity he made his first cam¬
paigns, acting as aide-de-camp to General de Lamarche,
arid afterwards as adjutant-general under the orders of
Kleber.. 1 his latter employment afforded him several op¬
portunities of distinguishing himself; and he was commonly
known by the well-merited surname of “ Indefatigable” be¬
stowed on him by his admiring general. In the official
reports of the time honourable mention is made of him at
the passage of the Than in 1795, and also at the combats of
Neuwied, Altenknrchen, Montabaur, and Wurtzburg. On
the 8th of August 1796 he took Pfortzheim, and was pro-
rank of brigadier-general. In the campaign
of ! ,97 he was again successful; but his horse having been
killed at the combat of Steimberg, he fell into the hands of
the enemy Hoche, who admired his undaunted courage,
earnestly solicited his exchange, and, as soon as he had ob¬
tained it, appointed him general of division. It was in this
capacity that, m l ,98, Ney commanded the cavalry of the
army which, under the orders of Schaumbourg, executed
the invasion of Switzerland. On this occasion he acted to¬
wards the inhabitants with as much generosity as circum¬
stances would permit; and the following year he acquired a
great reputation under Massena, particularly at the battle of
Zurich. In the year 1800 he served with the army of
Moreau, and greatly distinguished himself both at Moes-
kirch and at Hohenlinden. After the peace of Luneville
he returned to Paris, and was received with great distinc¬
tion by Napoleon, who found him a wife in the person of
Mademoiselle Augnie, a friend of Hortense Beauharnais.
When Bonaparte wished to effect the entire subjugation of
Switzerland, Ney was sent into that country with the title
of minister plenipotentiary, and there seems to have won
for himself the golden opinions of the people and the esteem
of his master. In 1804 he obtained the baton of marshal
of the empire; and the distinguished part which he played
in the storming of Elchingen, on October 4, 1805, induced
Napoleon, who was an eye-witness of his impetuous daring,
afterwards to honour him with the rank and title of Duke
of Elchingen. After the capitulation of Ulm, being ordered
to occupy the Tyrol, he entered Innspruck on the 7th of
November, at the head of the sixth corps of the grand armv,
which he also commanded the following year in the contest
with Prussia. Having contributed essentially to the victory
of Jena, he appeared before Magdeburg, and, by a prodigy
which still remains inexplicable, he, on the 11th of No¬
vember 1806, in less than twenty-four hours, received the
capitulation of that redoubtable fortress, made 23,000 pri-
soners, and took 800 pieces of cannon. In the beginning
of 1807 he obtained a signal success before Thorn, where
the whole Russian army had advanced to attack him, hoping
to surprise him in his winter quarters ; and, at a later period^
he carried the town of Friedland at the battle of that name,
which terminated the war in the north of Europe. But the
war in which Napoleon found himself involved, if extin¬
guished at one point, was assiduously kept alive at others.
Scaicely had he concluded a peace with the Russians at
Tilsit, when he hurried away to attack the Spaniards ; and
Marshal Ney, with his corps d’armee, was transported from
the banks of the Niemen to those of the Ebro and the
Tagus. The marshal, finding himself obliged to carry on
a war of posts and of chicane in Galicia, lost a great number
of men in this inglorious service, and with difficulty main¬
tained his ground till the moment when he received orders
to unite his corps with that of Massena, who had been sent
in order to expel the English from Portugal. But this was
found to be impracticable. It was judged that the lines of
Pones \ edras could not be attacked with any prospect of
success; and when Massena found himself constrained to
retiie before the Duke of W ellington, Ney commanded his
rearguard, and in that difficult retreat displayed equal talent
and courage. In 1812 he was recalled by Napoleon to
assist in the approaching invasion of Russia, for which an
army of more than four hundred thousand men had been
assembled on the Vistula. At the terrible battle of Mojaisk
or Borodino Ney commanded the centre ; and it was on
this occasion, amid the carnage of a conflict unequalled in
modern times, that “ the bravest of the brave,” as Ney was
called by the army, earned the title of Prince of Moskwa.
Nor did he display less valour and firmness in the disastrous
retreat from Moscow, in which his corps almost entirely
perished. Napoleon, in one of the bulletins of the army,
designated him as having a soul tempered with steel. In
1813 Ney pai ticipated in the indecisive victories of Liitzen
and Bautzen; but he had the misfortune to lose the battle
of Dennevitz, where he was defeated by Bernadotte and
Bulow, with the loss of 13,000 men, 43 pieces of cannon,
and 3 standards. Ihis event made a deep impression upon
his mind. Napoleon, according to St Cyr, manifested no
displeasure at the reverse, but ascribed it wholly to the
peculiar difficulties of the military art. Ney returned,
240 N E Y •
Ney. however, to Paris in a sort of disgrace. Nevertheless, he was
again employed in the unfortunate winter campaign of 1814 ;
and he was at Fontainebleau when Napoleon was compelled
to abdicate. Ney contributed materially to bring about this
event; and he was one of the first generals who submitted
to the Bourbons. Having presented himself before Mon¬
sieur on the 12 th of April, he said to that prince, “Your
Royal Highness will see wit!) what fidelity we can serve
our legitimate king.” He also went to pay his respects to
the king at Compiegne, and was there most favourably
received. Louis XVIII. himself received his oath as a
chevalier of the order of Saint-Louis, confirmed to him all
his titles and pensions, and created him a peer of trance.
Marshal Ney wTas living at his estate of the Coudreaux when
Napoleon, having escaped from the island of Elba, landed
on the coast of France in February 1815 ; and he there
received orders from the minister of war to repair to his
government of Besanjon. He immediately proceeded to
Paris, and presenting himself before the king, made great
protestations of devotion, and, kissing the hand of Louis,
declared to him that he would bring back tbe disturber ot
Europe in an iron cage. He then set out for the eastern
frontier, assembled some regiments at Besanyon, and placing
himself at their head, proceeded towards Lyons. At Lons-
le-Saulnier, however, he learned that Napoleon had already
entered Lyons; and from this time great agitation mani¬
fested itself amongst the troops. Nevertheless, the marshal
himself still appeared faithful to the king, and even ex¬
erted himself to calm the excitement which prevailed in
the army ; but in the night between the 13th and 14th
of March, an emissary sent by General Bertrand brought
him proclamations and letters from Napoleon. His old
master knew well that the heroic marshal was much more
at home in the field of battle than amid the mazes of po¬
litical intrigue. Bonaparte accordingly made him brilliant
promises, and styled him, as formerly, “ the bravest of the
brave.” The marshal could not resist the seductions of
the great general, and next day he read to the troops his
famous proclamation, beginning with these words, “ The
cause of the Bourbons is for ever lost. It is the Emperor
Napoleon, our sovereign, who is alone entitled to reign.”
His whole conduct during the Hundred Days was a conse¬
quence of this step. Napoleon sent him as extraordinary
commissioner to survey the frontiers of the North, and also
appointed him a member of his Chamber of Peers. In the
short but decisive campaign which ensued he displayed all
his accustomed gallantry. At Quatre-Bras, however, his
usual success did not attend him. Five horses wTere shot
under him at Waterloo ; yet with a dauntless spirit, which
no danger could quell, he headed the terrible charge of the
guards on foot, his clothes pierced thick with balls. And
when that fierce conflict was over, and his wild daring
proved bootless, he was among the last to leave the bloody
field. After the defeat of the French army he returned to
the capital. When Paris capitulated, Ney, having no hopes
of finding favour with the Bourbons, took refuge in Au¬
vergne, where lie was arrested in consequence of the ordi¬
nance of the 24th of July, in which he was described as
one of the authors of the revolution of the 20th March.
Being conducted to Paris, he was confined in the Concier-
gerie, subjected to several interrogatories, and at length
brought before a court-martial, composed of marshals of
France and lieutenant-generals, to whose competency he
objected. His counsel insisted much upon this point, in
which they were ultimately successful; the members of the
court being glad to escape from an embarrassing position,
by pronouncing their own incompetence to try the prisoner.
By an ordinance of the king, Ney was then brought before
the court of the peers, whose competency was not disputed.
But his counsel remonstrated warmly against the ex¬
pressions employed by the ministers, who had declared that
N G A
it was “ in the name of Europe ” that they demanded his Neyva
trial; and the same learned persons appealed with much II .
force and eloquence to the conditions of the capitulation or ^ g*1111-
Paris, which guaranteed to all who were within the walls of
the capital that they should neither be disturbed nor sought
after on account of their political conduct. All their efforts
to save their client w^ere, however, unavailing. After fifteen
sittings, Marshal Ney was condemned to death, on the 6th
of December 1815, by a large majority ; and the following
day the sentence was carried into execution. “ He who,”
says Napier (Peninsular War, vol. ii.), “ had fought 500
battles for France—not one against her—was shot as a
traitor ” by a platoon of veterans, near the palace of the
Luxembourg,where he had been condemned; and displayed
in his last moments the same heroic courage which had so
often distinguished him in the field of battle. Llis body
was given to his friends, and conveyed to the cemetery of
Pere la Chaise, where his tomb may now be seen. Marshal
Ney and Colonel Labedoyere were the only victims of a
revolution where it is evident that neither played the prin¬
cipal part, and that both were led away by the force of cir¬
cumstances, and the spell which Napoleon exercised over
the minds of the officers as well as the common soldiers of
the army. (j. B—E.)
NEYVA, or Neiva, a town of New Granada, on the
Magdalena, at its confluence with the River Neyva, 130
miles S.W. of Bogota. It is a place of considerable trade,
chiefly in cacao of excellent quality. It suffered much
from an earthquake in 1827, but is still a place of some
importance.
NGAMI, a lake of Southern Africa, lying between S.
Lat. 20. 23. and 20. 40.; E. Long. 22. 30. and 24.
Reports of the existence of this lake had been received a
long time before it was actually reached by European tra¬
vellers ; it occurs on Portuguese maps as early as 1508 ;
and its position was laid down with considerable accuracy
nearly twenty years before it was visited by Livingston,
Murray, and Oswell, July 28, 1849. They approached
it from the south, having crossed the Kalahari Desert,
which had for a long time presented an insuperable obstacle
to any attempts to explore the country in this direction.
Four years afterwards the lake was again reached by Mr
Anderson, who, following a course which had been for¬
merly deemed impracticable, started from Walfisch Bay, on
the W. coast of Africa, arrived at the western end of the
Ngami, and then travelled round a great part of its banks.
The discovery is of very great interest and importance,
not only because it enlarges our knowledge of the geo¬
graphy and natural history of the interior of Africa, but
also as it may tend to open up those hitherto inaccessible
regions to the influences of commerce, civilization, and reli¬
gion. The lake is known by the natives under various names,
derived from its different characteristics, such as Inghate,
or the “ Giraffe;” Noka ea Mokorbn, or the “ Lake of
Boats,” &c.; but that which has been adopted by Europeans
is Ngami, which signifies “ The Waters.” Its size was at
first somewhat over-estimated, on account of the low and
almost undistinguishable character of part of its banks, and
in consequence of the original discoverers having mistaken
its length for its breadth. It extends from E. to W., hav¬
ing a length of about 40 miles, a breadth at the widest
part of 10, and an average breadth of 8 miles. Its circum¬
ference is about 70 or 80 miles, and its area about 295
square miles. Its shape is somewhat like that of a pair of
spectacles, being narrow in the middle and spreading out
at each end to a considerable width. Its northern bank is
lined by a low and sandy tract of country, entirely destitute
of vegetation. This region has a breadth of about a mile,
beyond which distance tbe country is thickly wooded with
various kinds of acacia and other trees, among which the
enormous baobab is here and there seen raising its head
'N G A
Ngami. above the forest. The southern and western shores are
considerably higher; and the water is bordered by strips
of ground so thickly covered with reeds and rushes as to
admit of access to the lake only at a few points. The
water is very shallow at the western end of the lake; but
the depth is more considerable towards the eastern extre¬
mity. A remarkable peculiarity of the waters of the Ngami
is, that they are subject to a regular ebb and flow every
twenty-four hours. The ebb takes place during the night,
when the wind that prevails during the day entirely falls,
but in the morning the waters return to their original
position. This curious phenomenon has been supposed
to depend on the wind. Lake Ngami is fed by the
Teoge, which enters it from the N.W., and discharges into
it a considerable volume of water during the time of its
annual rise, which occurs in June, July, and August, and
sometimes later. This river has not as yet been ex¬
plored to any great distance; but it is believed to be of
great length, rising probably near the sources of the Coanza
and other large rivers. Its course is very circuitous, and it
is said to be wider further up than it is near the lake.
During the time of flood its depth is considerable ; and it
has been navigated with canoes for about 65 miles from the
lake. An outlet to the waters of the lake is furnished at
its eastern extremity by the broad and gently-flowing river
Zouga, which pursues an easterly course for about 300
miles, and is then lost in an immense sandy marsh, though
it has been supposed by some that it pursues its course
underground, and finally discharges itself into the Indian
Ocean. A branch of the Teoge is said to join this river,
and at some seasons of the year to force back its waters to
the lake. The scenery along the Zouga is extremely beau¬
tiful, and the thick and luxuriant forests in many places
extend to the very edge of the water. To the west of the
Teoge two other rivers are reported to exist, one of which
is small, and loses itself in the sand; while the other flows
parallel to the Teoge, but in an opposite direction, and
joins the Cunene, a river which falls into the Atlantic. By
this latter river it is probable navigation might be estab¬
lished from the sea-coast to the fertile land in the interior.
A great number of wild animals are found in the neigh¬
bourhood of the lake, of which the elephant, rhinoceros,
buffalo, giraffe, and antelope, are the Iprincipal. Hippo¬
potami are numerous, especially at the north-western ex¬
tremity of the lake; and the rivers and lake abound in
otters and crocodiles. The birds of this region are also
many and various, including many species of ducks and
geese, herons, storks, cranes, &c. The inhabitants of the
lake country are called Batoana, and form a small tribe of
the large and powerful family of the Bechuanas, who are
widely spread throughout Southern Africa. This tribe,
however, is not aboriginal in this district, but has only re¬
cently settled here, having conquered and reduced to slavery
the original inhabitants, who called themselve's Bayeye, or
“ men but are styled by the Batoana, Bakoba, or “ serfs,”
in consequence of their condition. The appearance of the
Batoana is handsome; but the women are generally short
and stout, and they encumber themselves with numerous
strings of beads, and with iron, brass, and copper rings on
their arms and legs. They smear their bodies with grease
and red ochre, which they conceive to be a much superior
practice to washing themselves. They are extremely fond
of snuff, and indulge much, especially the women, in the
habit of smoking. The principal occupations of the men
are, war, hunting, and the making of skins and furs into
garments; while to the women are left the more arduous
tasks of building the house, cultivating the ground, pre¬
paring the corn, and rearing the family. They are not de¬
ficient in intelligence, but this for the most part takes the
form of deceitfulness and cunning; and though outwardly
they are frank and well-behaved, this arises rather from their
VOL. XVI.
NIC
habits of politeness and etiquette than from real kindliness
of disposition. They are much given to revenge, but easily
appeased by presents. The prevailing vice among this
people is theft, and even their chiefs are not safe from their
pilfering propensities. They have no religion, nor any
notions of a Supreme Being; but they believe implicitly in
wizards, and especially^ the “ rain-makers,” although they
frequently put them to death^when disappointed in their
expectations. The government is monarchical and patri¬
archal, each tribe being governed by a chief, who resides
in the principal town, and has under him several inferior
chiefs at the head of the smaller towns and villages. These
inferior chieftains maintain a check on the .power of the
king, which is in other respects despotic. They as¬
semble in meetinsrs called pichos, where speeches are often
heard of considerable ability and even eloquence. The
principal town of the Batoana tribe is situated at the east
end of the lake, on the north bank of the .Zouga. The
principal articles of commerce that have yet been found
in the lake district are hides and furs of different sorts,
ostrich feathers, rhinoceros’ horns, and ivory; while the
natives demand in exchange beads and ammunition, but
especially the latter. (See Lake Ngami; or, Explora¬
tions and Discoveries during Four Years’ Wandering in
the Wilds of South-Western Africa, by Charles John
Anderson, London, 1856; and Livingston’s Travels and
Memoirs.}
NGANHOEI, an inland province of China, bounded on
the N.E. by Kiangsoo, S.E. by Chekiang, S. by Kiangsee,
W. and N.W. by Houpe and Honan. It lies between N.
Lat. 29.5. and 34. 18., and E. Long. 114. 50. and 119.
17.; and has an area of 48,461 square miles. The surface
for the most part is level; but towards the south and west
ranges of hills occur, never, however, rising to any great
height. The principal rivers are the Yang-tse-Kiang
and the Hoai-ho, with their affluents. There are several
lakes, of which the Chau-hu, or Nest Lake, is the largest.
Mines of gold, silver, copper, &c., are worked; and the
soil is very productive, especially of green tea, in the south¬
eastern regions, which are the best in China for the growth
of this plant. Ink and lanterns are the principal manu¬
factures of the province. Pop. 34,168,059.
NIAGARA.* See Canada.
NICiEA {Ishnik or Isnik), a well-built and important
city of Bithynia, stood in a spacious and fertile plain on the
eastern shore of the Lake of Ascania {Lake of Isnik).
According to one tradition, it was built by some of Alex¬
ander’s soldiers, natives of Nicsea in Locris, and derived
its name from the birth-place of its founders. Another ac¬
count, however, states that it was erected on the ruins of a
former town (Ancore or Helicore), by Antigonus, and was
called after him Antigoneia, and that this name was after¬
wards changed into Nicaea, in honour of Nicsea, the wife of
Lysimachus. The town enjoyed a long career of prosperity
under the different governments that successively ruled over
it. Under the native kings of Bithynia it was important
enough to compete with Nicomedia for the honour of being
considered capital of the country. During its subjection
to the Romans many of its public buildings were restored,
and its streets were often the scene of the celebration of
great festivals in honour of the emperors and the gods. In
the time ol the Eastern Empire the city was enlarged, was
surrounded with new walls, and became famous throughout
Christendom as the place where, in 325 A.D., the Nicene
creed was drawn up. (See Nice, Council of.) After be¬
ing during the middle ages a frequent subject of dispute
between the Turks and the Christians, it was constituted
by Theodore Lascaris, in the thirteenth century, the capital
of Western Asia. At length, however, in the fourteenth
century, on being incorporated with the Ottoman empire
by the Emir Orchan, Nicaea began to decline in prosperity.
2 h
242 NIC
Nicffia Many of the fine Greek temples and churches were then
II pulled down to furnish materials for mosques and other
Nicaragua, buildings From that time the large city gradually dwindled
V ^ J down until, in the present day, it has become a poor paltry
village of little more than a hundred houses. Yet many
ruined baths and edifices standing amid gardens and corn¬
fields, and a large portion of the ancient walls, still indicate
to the visitor the splendour and magnitude of the ancient
Nicaea.
Nic^ea, a town of Liguria. See Nice.
NICANDER, the author of two Greek poems on poisons
and antidotes, was a native of Glares near Colophon in
Ionia, and flourished in the second century B.C., in the
reign of Attains, the last king of Pergamus. He succeeded
his father Damnaeus in the hereditary office of priest of
Apollo Clarius. His poems show that he possessed a fine
talent for observation, and was fully equal to the other
naturalists of his own age. The other features, however,
of his literary character are not so favourable. His dis-
. sertations were unmethodical and often prolix; he was ever
on the outlook for obsolete and antiquated expressions,
which must often have rendered his meaning obscure even
to his contemporaries; and almost the only quality of the
poet he evinced was a fondness for the strange and the
fabulous. The longer of his two extant poems is entitled
Theriaca, treats of the wounds inflicted by poisonous ani¬
mals, and consists of nearly a thousand hexameter verses.
Among the curious zoological passages which are found
heterogeneously mingled with erroneous doctrines and ab¬
surd fables, are the first account ever given of the moths
that flutter round the evening candle, and an interesting
description of the resistance that the serpents make in de¬
fence of their eggs against the ichneumon. The other
poem, entitled Alexipharmaca, is a treatise, as its name im¬
plies, on antidotes, and contains more than 600 hexameter
lines. It seems to have been intended for a continuation
of the Theriaca, and accordingly it gives an account of the
effect of different poisons. A full analysis of the medical
portions of these two poems is given in Dr Adams’ edition
of the work of Paulus Algineta. Nicander was the author
of several other productions, both prose and poetical, of
which little more than the titles remain. The best edi¬
tion of his works, entire and fragmentary; is that of J. G.
Schneider, in two volumes, published respectively at Halle
in 1792, and at Leipsic in 1816.
NICARAGUA, an independent republic, formerly one
of the states of the Republic of Central America, and,
under the Spanish dominion, one of the provinces of the
captain-generalcy, called also the kingdom, of Guatemala.
The boundaries claimed by the republic of Nicaragua are
those which pertained to it as a province, viz.,—the Carib¬
bean Sea on the E., from the lower or Colorado mouth of
the San Juan River to Cape Gracias a, Dios; and the
Pacific Ocean on the W., from the mouth of the Rio Salto
de Nicoya or Alvarado on the Bay of Nicoya to the Bay
of Fonseca. On the N., and separating it from Honduras,
its boundary extends from the mouth of the Rio Negro,
falling into the Bay of Fonseca, to the head-waters of the
Rio Wanks or Segovia, following down that river to the
sea at Cape Gracias. Its southern boundary, separating it
from Costa Rica, is claimed to be a right line drawn from
the Colorado mouth of the San Juan river to the mouth of
the Rio Salto de Nicoya. Nicaragua is, therefore, em¬
braced between 83. 20. and 87. 30. W. Long., and 9. 45.
and 15. N. Lat., and, according to these claims, embraces
an area of not far from 59,000 square miles.
A considerable part of this territory, however, embracing
the entire Atlantic coast, with an undefined extent inland,
from the River San Juan to Cape Gracias, has been claimed
on behalf of the Mosquito Indians (see Mosquito Shore) ;
but the claim has never been conceded by Nicaragua. The
NIC
whole territory south of the River San Juan, and below the Nicaragua,
little River Flores, flowing into the Pacific, embracing the
ancient department of Guanacaste, has been claimed by
Costa Rica, and is at present in the actual occupation of
that state. Should these claims be idtimately admitted, they
will reduce by nearly one half the territorial area of the re¬
public.
The geographical and topographical features of Nicaragua
are not only remarkable, but interesting to the world at
large, from the facilities which they are supposed to afford
for opening a ship-canal between the Atlantic and Pacific
Oceans. The northern part of the republic, embracing the
whole of the district of Segovia, and a portion of Chontales,
borders on the high grounds or plateau of Honduras, and
partakes of its mountainous character. The valleys are
narrow, and the numerous streams which flow through them
rapid and turbulent. The hills are clothed with pines and
oaks, and the aspect and climate of the region are those of
the temperate zone. Here are found numerous rich mines
of gold, silver, and copper; and many of the streams carry
gold in their sands, whence it is washed in considerable
quantities by the Indians. To the southward of this ele¬
vated district, and between it and the high mountain group
or centre of elevation in Costa Rica, is the great basin of
the Nicaraguan lakes, lying transversely to the great range
of the Cordilleras, and completely interrupting it. It is
precisely this physical feature which has directed attention
to Nicaragua, as probably the best point where the oceans
may be connected by a canal. This great basin or valley
is not far from 300 miles long by 150 miles wide, and con¬
sists in great part of broad, beautiful, and fertile plains. In
its centre are spread out the Lakes of Nicaragua and
Managua, which collect the waters flowing inward from
every direction, and discharge them through a single out¬
let, the Rio San Juan, into the Caribbean Sea. Some of
the streams flowing into these lakes, especially those from
the north, are of considerable size, and furnish a supply of
water which could not be sensibly affected by drains for
artificial purposes. Lake Managua is a beautiful sheet of
water, nearly 50 miles long by 25 broad, and with an
average depth of 5 fathoms of water. It approaches, at the
nearest point, to within 20 miles of the Pacific Ocean, from
which it is separated on the south by a range of low vol¬
canic hills; but between its northern extremity and the sea
there are only the magnificent plains of Leon and El
Conejo, in the midst of which rise the regular cones of the
volcanoes of El Viejo, Telica, and Axusco. The gigantic
volcano of Momotombo stands out boldly into the lake; its
bare and blackened summit, which no human foot has ever
pressed, crowned with a light wreath of smoke, attesting the
continued existence of those internal fires which have seamed
its steep sides with burning floods, and which still send forth
hot and sulphurous springs at its base. Upon the northern
and eastern shores of the lake, lifting their blue, rugged
peaks one above another, are the mountains of Matagalpa,
gradually merging into those of Segovia, rich in metallic
veins. Upon the south and west are fertile slopes and
broad plains, covered with luxuriant verdure, and of almost
unlimited productiveness; while in the lake itself stands the
Island of Momotombita, an almost perfect cone in outline,
covered with a dense forest, in the deepest recesses of
which are still found gigantic idols, the rude relics of abori¬
ginal superstition. The town of Leon was first built on the
north-western shore of the lake, at a place now called Moa-
bita, which was subsequently abandoned for its present site,
in the midst of the great plain of the Marabios. From this
circumstance the lake is sometimes called Lake Leon. The
great feature of Nicaragua, however, is the lake of the same
name, the Cocibolca of the aborigines, which is unquestion¬
ably one of the finest bodies of water on the American con¬
tinent. Itis upwards of 100 miles in greatest length, by about
NICARAGUA.
243
Nicaragua. 40 miles in average width. Upon its southern shore, near
the head of the lake, stood the ancient city of Granada,
lately the rival of Leon, and once the most important com¬
mercial town in the republic. A few miles below Granada,
and projecting boldly into the lake, is the extinct volcano
of Mombacho, 5000 feet in height. Studding the lake at
its base, is a cluster of innumerable small islands called Los
Corales, of volcanic origin, rising in the form of cones to
the height of from 20 to 100 feet, and covered with ver¬
dure. Upon the same shore with Granada, but 40 miles
distant, is the ancient city of Rivas or Nicaragua, the
capital of a large, fertile, and comparatively well cultivated
district. Flowing into the lake, at its extreme southern
extremity, nearly at the same point where the Rio San
Juan (the ancient El Desaguadero) commences its course,
is the considerable Rio Frio, which has its origin at the
base of the great volcano of Cartago in Costa Rica. It
flows through an unexplored region, inhabited by an un¬
conquered and savage tribe of Indians called Guatusos, of
whose ferocity the most extraordinary stories are related.
The northern shore of the lake, called Chontales, for the
most part is undulating, abounding in broad savannas, well
adapted for grazing, and supporting large herds of cattle.
There are a number of considerable islands in the lake, tbe
largest of which are El Tapatero, Solentenami, and Omo-
tepec. The two former are deserted, but the latter has a
considerable population of Indians of the pure Mexican or
Aztec stock. This island is distinguished by two high co¬
nical mountains or volcanic peaks, called respectively Omo-
tepec and Madeira, which are visible from every part of the
lake, and from a distance of many leagues on the Pacific.
The name of the island, in the Nahuatl or Mexican lan¬
guage, signifies “two mountains,” from ome, two, and tepee,
mountain. The water of the lake, in most places, shoals
very gradually ; and it is only at a few points that vessels
of considerable size may approach the shore. Still, its
general depth, for all purposes of navigation, is ample, ex¬
cept near its outlet, where for some miles it does not ex¬
ceed from 5 to 10 feet. There are points, however, where
the depth of water is not less than 40 fathoms. The pre¬
vailing winds on the lake, as indeed of the whole state, are
from the N.E. ; they are, in fact, the Atlantic trades, which
here sweep entirely across the continent, and encountering
the conflicting currents of air on the Pacific, form those
baffling revolving winds, detested by navigators, under the
name of Papagayos. When the winds are strong the
waves of the lake become high, and roll in with all the
majesty of the ocean. At such times the water of the lake
is piled up, as it were, on the southern shore of the lake,
occasionally producing overflows of the low grounds. As
the trade winds are intermittent, blowing freshly in the
evening, and subsiding towards morning, the waters of the
lake seem to rise and fall accordingly; and this circum¬
stance gave rise to the notion, entertained and promulgated
by the ancient chroniclers, that the lake had a regular tide
like that of the sea. Some of them imagined, in conse¬
quence, that it communicated with the ocean by a subter¬
ranean channel. As already observed, the sole outlet of
the great Nicaraguan basin, and of the lakes just described,
is the River San Juan, debouching into the Caribbean
Sea., at the now well-known port of San Juan (Greytown).
I his river is a magnificent stream, but its capacities have
been greatly exaggerated, as will be seen in the paragraphs
referring to the proposed ship-canal. It flows from the
south-eastern extremity of Lake Nicaragua, nearly due east
to the ocean. With its windings it is 119 miles long.
1 he body of water which passes through it varies greatly
at different seasons of the year. It is, of course, greatest
during what is called the “ rainy seasonthat is to say,
from May to October. To this variation, in some degree,
may be ascribed the wide difference in the statements of the
depth and capacity of the river made by different observers.
Several considerable streams enter the San Juan, the
largest of which are the San Carlos and Serapiqui, both
rising in the highlands of Costa Rica. The streams flow¬
ing in from the north are comparatively small; indicating
that the mountains are not far distant in that direction, and
that upon that side the valley is narrow. The Serapiqui is
ascended by canoes to a point about 20 miles above its
mouth, where commences the road, or rather mule-path, to
San Jose, the capital of Costa Rica. About midway be¬
tween the lake and the ocean, on the south bank of the
river, are the ruins of the old fort or castle of San Juan,
captured by the English in 1780. The expedition against
it was commanded by Colonel Poison, with captain, after¬
ward Lord Nelson, as second in command. Of 200 men
under Nelson, drawn from his vessel, the Hinchenbrook,
but ten returned to the coast. At one time, besides this
fort, another at the head of the river (San Carlos), and a
third at its mouth, the Spaniards kept up not less than
twelve military stations on its banks. The width of the
river varies from 100 to 400 yards, and its depth from 2 to
20 feet. It is interrupted by five rapids,—viz., Rapides del
Toro, del Castillo, de los Valos, del Mico, and Machuca.
The Machuca rapids are the largest, and in many respects
the worst in the river. For a distance of nearly half a mile
the stream is spread over a wide and crooked bed, full of
large rocks projecting above the surface, between which the
water rushes with the greatest violence. They are con¬
sidered dangerous by the native boatmen, who are only en¬
abled to ascend them by keeping close to the northern
shore, where the current is weakest, and the bed of the
river least obstructed. Here the bongos or boats are
pushed up by main force. The late Transit Company lost
a number of their small steamers on these rapids, which,
without great artificial improvement, must remain an in¬
superable obstacle to regular steam navigation on the river.
The rapids of El Castillo are short, and deserve rather the
name of falls. Here the water pours over an abrupt ledge
of rocks, falling 8 feet in but little more than the same
number of yards. Bougos are unloaded here, and the
empty boats trucked past by men stationed there for the
purpose. The steamers of the Transit Company did not
attempt to pass these rapids, the passengers and merchan¬
dise being transferred by means of a tram-road to vessels
above. The remaining rapids, although formidable ob¬
stacles to navigation, do not require a special description.
The banks of the San Juan, for 20 miles from the lake, and
for about the same distance above its mouth, are low and
swampy, lined with palms, canes, and a variety of long
coarse grass called gamalote. Elsewhere the banks are
generally firm, in some places rocky, from 6 to 20 feet
high, and above the reach of overflows. They are every¬
where covered with a thick forest of large trees, draped all
over with Hanes or woodbines, which, with the thousand
varieties of tropical plants, form dense walls of verdure on
both shores of the stream. The soil of the river-valley seems
uniformly fertile, and capable of producing abundantly all
tropical staples. Like the Atrato, the San Juan river has
formed a delta at its mouth, through which it flows for 18
miles, reaching the sea through several channels. The
largest of these is the Colorado Channel, which opens directly
into the ocean; the next in size is that which bears the
name of the river, and flows into the harbour of San Juan.
Between the two is a smaller one called Tauro. This delta
is a maze of low grounds, swamps, creeks, and lagoons, the
haunts of the manati and alligator, and the homes of in¬
numerable varieties of water-fowl. The port of San Juan
(Greytown) derives its principal importance from the fact
that it is the only possible eastern terminus for the pro¬
posed inter-oceanic canal, by way of the River San Juan
and the Nicaraguan lakes. It is small, but well protected,
Nicaragua.
NICARAGUA.
244
Nicaragua, easy of entrance and exit, and lias a depth of water vary-
■“v'"*"' ing from 3 to 5 fathoms. Upon the Pacific the best port
of the republic is that of Realejo, anciently Posession, which
is capacious and secure, but difficult of entrance. Ihe
little bay of San Juan del Sur, which was used as the Pacific
port of the late Transit Company, is small and insecure,
and scarcely deserves the name of harbour. The same may
be said of the so-called ports of Brito and Tamaranda. A
good port is said to exist on Salinas Bay; but this falls on
that part of the coast in dispute with Costa Rica.
Next to its great lakes, the most striking physical fea¬
tures of Nicaragua are its volcanoes, which bristle along
its Pacific coast, in nearly a right line, from the Bay of
Fonseca to that of Nicoya. Commencing at the volcano of
Cosequina, we come in order to El Viejo, Santa Clara,
Telica, Las Pilas, Orota, Axusco, Momotombo, Masaya
or Nindiri, Mombacho, Ometepec, Madeira, Solentanami,
and Orosi, of which Cosequina, Momotombo, Masaya, and
Orosi are said to be vivo, or active. Besides these volcanic
peaks, there are numerous ancient craters and fissures giving
forth smoke and sulphurous vapours, called Infernillos. At
the time of the conquest of Nicaragua, in 1520, the vol¬
cano of Masaya, then called the “ Hell of Masaya,” was in
active eruption. Oriedo, the chronicler of the Indias, has
left us a graphic account of it as it then appeared. It has
had one or two violent eruptions since that period, and
after more than half a century of quiescence, is now (1857)
throwing out volumes of smoke, and giving other evidences
of renewed activity. It is a low, broken mountain, and the
country for miles around its base is covered with lava. The
volcanoes on the plain of Leon, knowrn as Los Marabios,
w'ere also active at the period of the conquest; and as late
as Dampier’s time, El Viejo was “ a volcano or burning
mountain.” Momotombo to this day sends out a constant
column of smoke, and an occasional cloud of ashes. The erup¬
tion of the volcano of Cosequina in 1835 was one of the most
fearful on record. It commenced on the 30th of January
of that year, and continued with uninterrupted violence for
four days, and then suddenly ceased. For three days the
clouds of smoke and sand which it sent forth totally ob¬
scured the sun for the distance of a 100 miles. Sand fell
in Jamaica, in Santa Fe de Bogota, and in Mexico, over
an area of more than 1500 miles in diameter. The explo¬
sions were heard 800 miles; and a ship off the coast sailed
for 50 leagues through floating masses of pumice, which
almost entirely concealed the surface of the water. Since
1835 this volcano has remained perfectly quiet, with no
signs of activity, except a few rills of smoke and vapour,
indistinguishable at a distance. The volcano of Orosi is
in a state of constant activity. Besides the volcanoes them¬
selves, and the hundred yawning craters amongst the
hills, there are numerous lakes of volcanic origin, shut in
by vitrified, blistered, and precipitous walls of rock, without
outlets, and often of great depth. Such is the remark¬
able Lake of Masaya, near the volcano of the same name,
which furnishes water, not only to the considerable town
of Masaya, but also to the inhabitants of numerous villages
in its vicinity. It is about 10 miles in circumference,
and its surface 500 feet below the general level of the
country. The water is reached by steep, narrow paths,
halt cut in the rock, and is carried up by the aquadoras
in jars, supported on their heads, or on their backs, by
bands passing around their foreheads. In some of these
volcanic lakes the water is fresh and good ; in others salt
and bitter. Perhaps no equal extent of the earth’s sur¬
face exhibits so many or so marked traces of volcanic
action as that part of Nicaragua intervening between its
lakes and the Pacific Ocean.
I he climate of Nicaragua, except among the mountains
or Chontales and Segovia, is essentially tropical, but never¬
theless considerably modified by a variety of circumstances.
The absence of high mountains towards the Atlantic, and Nicaragua,
the broad expanse of its lakes, permits the trade-winds
here to sweep entirely across the continent, and to give to
the country a degree of ventilation agreeable to the senses,
and favourable to health. The region towards the Atlantic is
unquestionably warmer, more humid, and less salubrious,
than that of the interior, and of the country bordering on the
Pacific. The Nicaragua basin proper, and within which
the bulk of its population is concentrated, has twm distinctly
marked seasons, the wet and the dry ; the first of which is
called summer, the latter winter. The wet season com¬
mences in May, and lasts until November; during which
time, but usually near the commencement and the close,
rains of some days’ duration are of occasional occurrence,
and showers are common. The latter do not often happen
except late in the afternoon, or during the night. They are
seldom of long continuance, and often days and weeks
elapse, during what is called the rainy season, without a
cloud obscuring the sky. Throughout this season, the
verdure and the crops, which, during the dry season, be¬
come sere and withered, appear in full luxuriance; the
temperature is very equable, differing a little according to
locality, but pursuing a very nearly uniform range from
78° to 88° of Fahrenheit; occasionally sinking to 70° in the
night, and rising to 90° in the afternoon. During the dry
season, from November to May, the temperature is less,
the nights positively cool, and the winds occasionally chil¬
ling. The sky is cloudless ; and trifling showers fall at rare
intervals. The fields become parched and dry, and the
cattle are driven to the borders of the streams for pastur¬
age; while in the towns the dust becomes almost insuffer¬
able. It penetrates everywhere, sifting through the cre¬
vices of the tiled roofs in showers, and sweeping in clouds
through the unglazed windows. This season is esteemed
the healthiest of the year. Its effect is practically that of
a northern winter, checking or destroying that rank and
ephemeral vegetation which, constantly renewed where the
rains are constant, as at Panama, form dense, dark jungles,
the birth-places and homes of malaria and death. For the
year commencing September 1850, and ending September
1851, the thermometer at the town of Rivas gave the
following results:—Mean highest, 86°'45 of Fahr.; mean
lowest, 7l°T5: mean average for the year, 77°'42;
mean range, ]50,3. The amount of rain which fell
from May to November inclusive was 90‘3 inches; from
December to April inclusive, 7'41 inches. None fell
in February; but 22‘64 inches fell in July, and 17'86
inches in October.
The natural resources of Nicaragua are very great. The
staples of the tropics, cotton, sugar, indigo, tobacco, rice,
cacao, coffee, &c., may be produced in the greatest abun¬
dance. The cotton, although as yet, from lack of sufficient
labour, produced in but small quantities, is of a superior
quality. The cacao of Nicaragua has long been cele¬
brated as next only to that of Soconusco in quality and
value. Its sugar is produced from a plant slenderer,
but containing more and stronger juice, than the variety
cultivated in the West India Islands. Two crops, and
sometimes, when the fields are irrigated, three crops are
taken from the same ground annually. This cane sel¬
dom requires to be replanted oftener than once in twelve or
fourteen years. The crystals of the sugar are remarkably
large and fine; and the sugar itself, when carefully manu¬
factured, nearly equal in beauty to the refined sugar of
commerce. The indigo is produced from an indigenous
plant called juiquilite (Indiyoj'era dispermu, Lin.), and has
a high reputation in commerce. Coffee flourishes well on
the higher grounds, but is not extensively cultivated. The
same may be said of tobacco, which is a government mono¬
poly, and its production not allowed, except in certain
quantities. Maize grow's in great perfection, and, manu-
NICAKAGUA.
245
Nicaragua, factured into tortillos, constitutes a
food. Cattle are numerous, and hides form a large item
amongst the exports of the country. Dye-woods, chiefly
the braziletto, are also extensively exported. In short,
nearly all the edibles and fruits of the tropics are produced
naturally, or may be cultivated in great perfection ; plan¬
tains, bananas, beans, tomatoes, yams, arrow-root, ci¬
trons, melons of all kinds, limes, lemons, oranges, pine¬
apples, guavas, cocoa-nuts, and many other varieties of
fruits and vegetables. Among the vegetable produc¬
tions which enter into commerce, may be mentioned sar¬
saparilla, arnotta, vanilla, ginger, gum-copal, gum-arabic,
copaiba, caoutchouc, dragon’s-blood, &c. The mineral
resources of Nicaragua are also very great. Gold, silver,
copper, lead, and iron are found in considerable quantities
in various parts, but chiefly in the districts of Segovia and
Chontales. The production of these metals has greatly
tallen oft' since the assertion of the country’s independence ;
still the produce is considerable ; but such is the unsettled
state of the country, it is impossible to obtain any satisfac¬
tory statistics concerning it. Sulphur may be had in inex¬
haustible quantities, crude and nearly pure, from the volca¬
noes ; nitre is also abundant, as also sulphate of iron. Not¬
withstanding the variety of its products, and the ease with
which they may be prepared for market, the commerce of
Nicaragua is very small. The wants of its people are few
and easily supplied.
Politically, Nicaragua is divided into five departments,
exclusive of the disputed department of Guanacaste, each
of which is subdivided into districts for municipal and other
purposes. The departments are as follows :—
principal article of Moresque ; but there are a few, and conspicuously among Nicaragt
« form a lnrrr« Gom them the great cathedral of Leon, which are of simpler and - h
more classical styles. This cathedral is of substantial ma-
sonry throughout. It was finished in 1743, after havin<>-
occupied thirty-seven years in building. The cost is said
to have been L.1,000,000 sterling. Nothing can better
illustrate its strength than the fact, that it has endured un¬
impaired the earthquakes and storms of more than a cen¬
tury. During the frequent revolutionary paroxysms of the
country, it is used as a fortress, heavy guns being mounted
on the roof. It has sustained several severe cannonades.
The project of opening a canal for ships through Nicaragua
began to be entertained as soon as it was found that no natural com-
munication existed between the oceans, as early as 1527. Since
that period it has furnished a subject for much speculation ; but
beyond a few partial examinations, until very lately, nothing of
a practical or satisfactorj* character had been attempted. In 1851
a careful survey was made of the River San Juan, Lake Nicaragua,
and the isthmus intervening between this lake and the Pacific, by
Colonel Childs, under the direction of the now extinct “ Atlantic
and Pacific Ship Canal Company.” Until then, it had always been
assumed that the River San Juan, as well as the lake itself, could
easily be made navigable for ships, and that the only obstacle to be
overcome was the narrow strip of land between the lake and the
ocean. Hence, all the so-called surveys were confined to that point
alone. One of these was made, under the orders of the Spanish
government, by Don Manuel Galisteo, in 1781. Another, and that
best known, by Mr John Daily, under the direction of the govern¬
ment of Central America in 1838. An intermediate examination,
quoted by Thompson, seems to have been made early in the present
century. The following table will show the results of these surveys
as regards this particular section :—
Departments.
Meridional....,  
Oriental 
Occidental 
Septentrional of Matagalpa.
Septentrional of Segovia....
Capitals.
Rivas 
Granada....
Leon  
Matagalpa.
Segovia 
Total.
Population.
20,000
95,000
90,000
40,000
12,000
257,000
Authorities.
Galisteo, 1781 
Quoted by Thompson, 18-
Baily, 1838 
Childs, 1851 
Distance from
Lake to Ocean.
Miles feet.
17 200
17 330
16 730
18 588
Greatest
Elevation
above
Ocean.
Feet.
272
296
615
159
Greatest
Elevation
above
Lake.
Feet.
134
154
487
47*
The population here given is the result of a census at¬
tempted in 1846. Making due allowance for deficiencies,
we may estimate the actual population of Nicaragua at not
less than 300,000; and it may be divided as follows, with
approximate exactness:—
Whites     30,000
Negroes  18,000
Indians  96,000
Meztizos    156,000
As the survey of Colonel Childs is the only one which can be ac¬
cepted as conforming to modern engineering requirements, it will
be enough to present the detailed results at which he arrived. The
line proposed by him, and on which all his calculations and esti¬
mates were based, commences at the little port of Brito on the Pa¬
cific, and passes across the isthmus between the ocean and the lake,
to the mouth of a small stream called Rio Lajas, flowing into the
latter ; thence across Lake Nicaragua to its outlet, and down the
valley of the Rio San Juan to the port of the same name, on the
Atlantic. The length of this line was found to be 194* miles as
follows:—
Total  300,000
The people generally live in towns, many of them going
2, 4, and even 6 miles, to labour in their fields, starting
before davyn, and returning in the evening. . The planta¬
tions, haciendas, hattos, huertas. See., are scattered over the
country, and are often reached by paths so obscure as almost
wholly to escape the notice of the travellers. The dwell¬
ings are usually of canes, thatched with palm, many of them
open at the sides, with no other floor than the bare earth,
and deserving of no better name than that of huts. These
fragile structures, so equable and mild is the climate, are
adequate to such protection as the natives are accustomed
to consider necessary. Some of the dwellings are more
pretending, are roofed with tiles, and have the canes plas-
teied over and white-washed ; and there are a few, belong¬
ing to ai ge proprietors, which are roomy, neat, and com¬
fortable. In the towns, the residences of the better classes
are built of adobes or sun-dried bricks, inclosing large
courts faced by broad corridors. The churches, as usual
in Catholic countries, monopolize nearly all that there is of
architectural skill and beauty. Their leading features are
Western Division :—Canal from the port of Brito on the \
Pacific, through the valleys of the Rio Grande and Rio l
Lajas, flowing into Lake Nicaragua J
Middle Division :—Through Lake Nicaragua, from the "j
mouth of Rio Lajas to San Carlos at the head of the l
San Juan River  J
Eastern Division—First Section :—Slack water naviga¬
tion on San Juan River, from San Carlos to a point on
the river nearly opposite the mouth of the Rio Sera-
piqui     
Second Section:—Canal from point last named to port |
of San Juan del Norte J
Miles.
18-588
56-500
90-800
28-505
Total as above.
  194-393
The dimensions of the canal were designed to be—Depth 17 feet j
excavations in earth, 50 feet wide at bottom, 86 feet wide at 9 feet
above bottom, and 118 feet wide at surface of water; excavations
in rock 50 feet wide at bottom, 77 feet wide at 9 feet above bottom,
and 78* feet wide at surface of water.
The construction of the canal on this plan contemplates supply¬
ing the western division, from the lake to the sea, with water from
the lake. It would, therefore, be necessary to commence the work
on the lake at a point where the water is 17 feet deep at mean level.
This point is opposite the mouth of the little Rio Lajas, and
twenty-five chains from the shore. From this point, for 1* mile,
partly along the Rio Lajas, the excavation will be principally in
earth; but beyond this, for a distance of 5* miles, which carries
246
NICARAGUA.
Nicaragua, the line beyond the summit, three-fourths of the excavations
v i~ v y would be in trap rock, that is to say, the deepest excavation or open
cut ■would be 64 J feet (summit 47 J feet + depth of canal 17 feet=64£
feet), and involve the removal of 1,870,000 cubic yards of earth, and
3,378,000 cubic yards of rock. The excavation and construction
on this miles alone was estimated to cost upwards of L.1,250,000.
After passing the summit, and reaching the valley of a little stream
called Rio Grande, the excavation, as a general rule, would be only
the depth of the canal. Mr Childs found that the lake at ordinary
high-water is 102 feet 10 inches above the Pacific at high, and 111
feet 5 inches at low tide, instead of 128 feet, as calculated by Mr
liaily. He proposed to accomplish the descent to Brito by means
of fourteen locks, each of 8 feet lift. The harbour of Brito, as it
is called, on the point where the Rio Grande enters the sea, is in
fact only a small angular indentation of the land, partially pro¬
tected by a low ledge of rocks, entirely inadequate for the termi¬
nus of a great work like the proposed canal, and incapable of an¬
swering the commonest requirements of a port. To remedy this
deficiency, it was proposed to construct an artificial harbour of 34
acres area, by means of moles and jetties in the sea and extensive
excavations in the land. If, as supposed, the excavations here
would be in sand, it would be obviously almost impossible to secure
proper foundations for the immense sea-walls and piers which the
work would require. If in rock, as seems most likely, the costand
labour would almost surpass computation. Assuming the excava¬
tions to be in earth and sand, Colonel Childs estimated the cost of
these improvements at upwards of L.540,000.
Returning now to the lake, and proceeding from 17 feet depth
of water, opposite the mouth of the Rio Lajas, in the direction of
the outlet of the lake at San Carlos, there is ample depth of
water for vessels of all sizes for a distance of about 51 miles, to a
point half a mile south of the Boceas Islands, where the water shoals
rapidly to 14 feet; for the remaining 5£ miles to San Carlos, the
depth averaging only 9 feet at low, and 14 feet at high water. For
this distance, therefore, an average under-water excavation of 8 feet
in depth would be required to carry out the plan of a canal of 17
feet deep. But if the lake were kept at high level, the under¬
water excavation would have an average of only about 3 feet. Co¬
lonel Childs proposed to protect this portion of the canal by rows
of piles driven on each side, and supposed that when the excavation
should be completed, there would be sufficient current between
them to keep the channel clear.
We come now to the division between Lake Nicaragua and the
Atlantic through or along the Rio San Juan. Colonel Childs car¬
ried a line of levels from the lake at San Carlos to the port of San
Juan, and found the distance between those points to be 119^- miles,
and the total fall from the level of high-water in the lake to that
of high-tide in the harbour, 107J feet. From San Carlos to a point
half a mile below the Serapiqui River, a distance of 91 miles, Colo¬
nel Childs proposed to make the river navigable by excavating its
bed, and by constructing dams, to be passed by means of locks
and short canals ; the remaining 28 miles to be constructed through
the alluvial delta of the San Juan, inland, and independently of
the river. Of the whole fall, 62$ feet occur on that portion of the
river which it was proposed to improve by dams, and on which
there were to be eight locks; and the remaining 45 feet on the inland
portion of the work, by means of six locks,—fourteen locks in all,
each with an average lift of nearly 8 feet. It was proposed to
place the first dam, descending the river, at the Castillo rapids,
37 miles from the lake, and to pass the rapids by means of a short
lateral canal. By means of this dam the river was to be raised at
that point 21$ feet, and the level of Lake Nicaragua 5 feet
above its lowest stage; or, in other words, kept at high-water mark,
to avoid the extensive submarine excavations which would be ne¬
cessary to enable vessels to enter the river. The fall at this dam
would be 16 feet. The other dams were to be four of 8 feet fall,
one of 13$ feet, and another of 14$ feet. Between all of these it
was found there would be required more or less excavation in the
bed of the stream, often in rock. Colonel Childs also proposed to
improve the harbour of San J uan by means of moles, &c., and also to
construct an artificial harbour or basin, in connection with it, of 13
acres area. As regards the amount of water passing through the
San Juan, it was found that at its lowest level, June 4, 1851, the
discharge from the lake was 11-930 cubic feet per second. The
greatest rise in the lake is 5 feet. When it stood 3-43 feet above
its lowest level, the flow of water in the river, at San Carlos,
was IS'OSfl cubic feet per second, being an increase of upwards of
50 per cent. Supposing the same ratio of increase, the discharge
from the lake at extreme high-water would be upwards of 23-000'
cubic feet per second. The river receives large accessions from its
tributaries, which, at the point of divergence of the Colorado chan¬
nel, swell the flow of water to 54-380 cubic feet per second; of
which 42-056 cubic feet pass through the Colerado channel, and
12*324 cubic feet into the harbour of San Juan.
The cost of the work was estimated by Colonel Childs as follows : Nicaragua,
Eastern division (from Port of San Juan to lake), L.2,604,655
Central division (through lake)  213,682
Western Division (from lake to Pacific),  2,895,126
L.5,713,463
Add for contingencies 15 per cent  857,019
Total estimated cost  L.6,570,482
The charter of the company, under the auspices of which Colonel
Childs was sent to Nicaragua, stipulated that the canal should be
of dimensions sufficient “ to admit vessels of all sizes.” A canal
therefore, such as the proposed, but 17 feet deep, and 118 feet
wide at the surface of the water, could not meet the requirements
of the charter, nor be adequate to the wants of commerce. To
pass freely large merchantmen and vessels of war, a canal would
require to be at least 30 feet deep, with locks and other works in
proportion, which would involve at least three times the amount
of excavation, &c., of the work proposed above, and a corresponding
augmentation of cost. A canal so small as to render necessary the
transhipment of merchandise and passengers is manifestly inferior
to a railway, both as involving, in the first instance, greater cost
of construction, and, in the second place, greater expense in work¬
ing, with less speed.
The surveys and estimates of Colonel Childs were submitted to
the British government, and by it referred for report to Mr James
Walker, civil engineer, and Captain Edward Aldrich, Royal
Engineers. The report of this commission, proceeding on the as¬
sumption that the plans, measurements, &c., of Colonel Childs were
correct, was on the whole favourable. It, however, suggested that
the item of “contingencies” in the estimate should be increased
from 10 to 25 per cent. Of all the works of the proposed naviga¬
tion, it pronounces the Brito or Pacific harbour as least satisfactory.
“ Presuming the statements and conclusions of Colonel Childs to be
correct, the Brito harbour is, in shape and size, unworthy of this
great ship navigation, even supposing the Pacific, to which it is
quite open, to be a much quieter ocean than any we have seen or
have information of.” Subsequently the plans and reports were
laid before a committee of English capitalists, with a view to pro¬
cure the means for the actual construction of the work. This
committee, after a patient investigation, declined to embark in the
work, or to recommend it to public support, on the ground—1st.
That the dimensions of the proposed work were not such as, in their
opinion, would meet the requirements of commerce ; 2d. That these
dimensions were not conformable to the provisions of the company’s
charter; 3<i. That supposing the work not to exceed the estimated
cost of L.6,500,000, the returns, to meet the simple interest on the
investment, at 6 per cent., would require to be at least L.390,000
over and above its current expenses; or to meet this interest, and
the percentage to be paid to Nicaragua, not less than L.473,000
over and above expenses ; or, allowing L.200,000 per annum for re¬
pairs, superintendence, cost of transportation, &c., then the gross
earnings would require to be L.680,000 4th. Putting the toll at
12s. 6d. per ton, the collection of this revenue would involve the
passage of upwards of 1,000,000 of shipping per annum ; 5th. That
not more than one-third of the vessels engaged in the oriental trade
could pass through a canal of the proposed dimensions, even if the
route which it would open were shorter than that by way of Cape
of Good Hope, instead of being more than 1000 miles longer to
Calcutta, Singapore, and other leading ports of British India; 6th.
That the heavy toll of 12s. 6d. per ton on ships would generally
prevent such vessels as could do so from passing the canal, inasmuch
as on a vessel of 1000 tons the aggregate toll would be L.625, or
more than the average earnings of such vessels per voyage; 7th.
That a work of the dimensions proposed, under the present condi¬
tion of commerce, would not attract sufficient support to defray the
cost of repairs and working, and could not therefore be safely
undertaken by capitalists. Upon the publication of this report,
the canal company obtained the privilege of opening a transit by
steamers and carriages through Nicaragua, the project of a canal
was definitively abandoned, and the charter allowed to be forfeited
for non-user. It was obtained in 1849, for a period of eighty-five
years from the completion of the work, for which twelve years were
allowed; the canal was to revert to the state at the expiration of
the charter; the state to receive for the first twenty years after the
opening of the work 20 per cent, annually of its net profits, and
thereafter 25 per cent. Other onerous restrictions were imposed,
of a nature to deter so large an investment of capital as the work
would require; although in these respects the charter was much
more liberal than any of those which had previously been conceded
for the same purpose. By the terms of the Bulwer-Clayton con-
vention of 1850, Great Britain and the United States have defined
NIC
Nicaragua principles which they agree should apply to an inter-oceanic
ll canal, wherever and whenever constructed:—
NIC
Niccolo
Pisano.
1. That neither Great Britain nor the United States will ever
obtain or maintain for itself any exclusive control over such work,
• nor erect fortifications commanding it, or in its vicinity, or make
use of its influence or relations with the countries through which
such canal may pass, to secure exclusive privileges for itself or its
subjects in the same.
2. Neither party to capture or detain the vessels of the other
while passing through the canal, or within ■— leagues of its ex¬
tremities.
3. To protect the capitalists undertaking the construction of
the canal from “unjust interference, seizure, and violence.”
4. To use their influence to facilitate the work, and their good
offices to procure the establishment of a free port at each extremity
of the same.
5. To guarantee the neutrality of the canal so long as its pro¬
prietors shall not make unfair discriminations on vessels in transit,
or impose unreasonable tolls.
6. To extend the same general protection to every practicable
communication, whether canal or railway, across the isthmus of
Central America.
The first opportunity for a compliance with the provisions of this
convention was afforded in 1856, in which year Great Britain
entered into a treaty with Honduras, for the protection and
guarantee of the Honduras Inter-oceanic Railway, in strict con¬
formity with the principles here laid down.
The construction of a ship-canal between the oceans through
Nicaragua is unquestionably witbin the range of engineering feasi¬
bilities; but it can be as safely affirmed that, with the present re¬
quirements of commerce, and under the laws which govern the use
of capital, it is not likely to be seriously undertaken. The assump¬
tion upon which most of the speculations regarding the utility of
such a work are founded, viz., that it would shorten the distance
between the ports of Europe and those of Asia in general, is erro¬
neous, as will appear from the following table:—
Via Cape of Via pro-
Good Hope. posed Canal.
From England
To Canton 
Calcutta 
Singapore 
Sidney, via Torres
Straits 
From New York
To Canton 
Calcutta 
Singapore 
Sidney 
Miles.
12,900
11,440
11,880
14,980
14,100
12,360
12,700
15,720
Net Loss. Net Gain
Miles.
13,800
15.480
15,120
12,550
11,820
13,680
1,420
9.480
Miles.
900
4040
4240
1320
Miles.
2320
3280
1280
5240
It will be observed that the sole advantage which the canal would
afford to Great Britain, as regards the East, would be a saving in
distance (equally attainable by a railway across the isthmus) of
2320 miles in communicating with Australia. As regards the
Sandwich Islands and the western coast of America, the gain in
distance, both to England and the United States, would be con¬
siderable, as shown in the subjoined table:—
From England
To Valparaiso 
Callao   
Sandwich Islands...
From New York
To Valparaiso 
Callao 
Sandwich Islands...
Via
Cape Horn.
Miles.
8,700
10,020
13,500
8,580
9,900
13,200
Fia proposed
Canal.
Miles.
7500
6800
8640
4860
3540
6300
Gain.
Miles.
1200
3220
4860
3720
5360
6900
(e. g. s.)
NICASTRO, a town of Naples, province of Calabria
Lltia II., on a slope of the Apennines, 19 miles S. by E.
of Cosenza. It is meanly built, but walled, and de¬
fended by a castle, in which Henry, eldest son of the Em-
peior hrederick II., was confined for having embraced the
Guelph party against his father. The town is the see of a
bishop, contains several churches and convents, and has
some trade in oil. Pop. 6600.
NICCOEO PISANO, or Di Pisa. See Pisano.
NICE (Ital. Nizza, anc. Niccea), a seaport-town of the
Sardinian States, capital of the province and administrative
division of the same name, is built on a small plain between
the Alps and the Mediterranean, 96 miles S. by W of
Turin. It is traversed by the River Paglione, and con¬
sists of three parts, one of which, called the Quartier de la
Croix de Marbre, stands to the W. of the Paglione, and is
the principal residence of strangers in Nice. This’part of
the town derives its name from a marble cross, built here
to commemorate the reconciliation of Charles V. and Fran¬
cis I. in 1538, through the intervention of Pope Paul
HI- Near this cross stands an obelisk in memory of the
two visits of Pius VII. in 1809 and 1814. In this quarter
of Nice there is also a large public square, surrounded with
fine buildings, and a handsome quay, which runs along the
side of the river. The other two parts of the town stand
on the E. side of the Paglione, and are separated from
each other by a hill of limestone 800 feet high, which for¬
merly had a castle on the summit, but is now laid out in
public walks commanding a wide and beautiful prospect.
Between the river and the castle-hill is the old town, con¬
sisting of several streets of no great breadth, and including,
close under the hill, a dirty locality, which is the oldest
part of the whole town. The quarter of the port on the
other side of the castle-hill is chiefly inhabited by sea¬
faring people, and was once a mean and crowded place, but it
has recently been much improved. TL he harbour is small,
but capable of admitting vessels drawing 15 feet of water,
and is protected by two moles, one of which has at its ex¬
tremity a lighthouse and battery. The entrance is diffi¬
cult in stormy weather, and it is not well adapted for a
harbour of refuge. The public buildings of Nice are by
no means remarkable; the principal is the cathedral, an
edifice in the common Italian style of the seventeenth
century. There are numerous other churches, but none
of them are of any great architectural merit. The national
college (which has a botanic garden), the public library and
zoological museum, the theatre, baths, convents, and hos¬
pitals, complete the list of the important public institutions
of the town. The climate of Nice has been much praised,
and although its advantages may perhaps have been exag¬
gerated, there can be no doubt that it is remarkable for its
mildness and salubrity. It is subject to no sudden varia¬
tions of temperature; the changes of season occur with
considerable regularity, and the differences in heat from
one month to another rarely exceed 2° or 3° Fahrenheit.
The mean temperature of the spring at Nice is about 64° ;
of the summer, about 74° ; of the autumn, about 55°; and’
of the winter, about 50 ; while the greatest heat in sum¬
mer is rarely above 84°, and the cold in winter seldom
below 32°. The clearness of the atmosphere during the
most part of the year is one of the greatest advantages of
the place; but the cold blasts of the vent de Use, as it
is called, which prevails in February, are both disagreeable
and injurious to invalids. The town contains several silk,
cotton, paper, and oil mills; and there are also manu¬
factories of tobacco, snuff, perfumery, soap, leather, &c.
I he trade of the place is in these articles, and in wine,
oranges, and other fruits. The number of vessels that
entered the port in 1846 was 2609; tonnage, 155,764:
those that cleared in the same year, 2583 ; tonnage, 153,635.
Nice was originally founded by the Phocaeans of Mar¬
seilles, and fortified by them against the native Gallic
tribes. For a long time it remained subject to its parent
city ; and even after both were included in the Roman em¬
pire, Nice was still in a subordinate position, and does not
seem to^have attained to any importance under the Roman
sway. The ancient town did not occupy precisely the same
site as the modern; but stood further up the mountains, where
there are some remains both of this town and of Ceme-
nelium (the modern Cimies). In the middle ages Nice was
247
Nice.
248 NIC-
Nice, the capital of a small independent county, and at that
Council of. tinie it stood on the left bank of the river, close round the
foot of the castle-hill. It afterwards came into the pos¬
session, first of the counts of Provence, and then of the
kings of Naples ; and was sold in the end of the fourteenth
century by Ladislaus to Amadeus VII. of Savoy, in whose
house it still remains. The town has been taken several
times by the French, and was annexed by them to the re¬
public, and made the capital of the department of the Ma¬
ritime Alps in 1791 ; but it was restored to Sardinia in
ISH.
The administrative division, of which Nice is the capital,
is bounded on the N. by Piedmont, from which it is sepa¬
rated by the Alps; E. by the division of Genoa; S. by the
Mediterranean ; and W. by France. The higher parts ol
the mountains in the north are covered with forests of ex¬
cellent timber trees, and the lower slopes and valleys,
though unfit for cultivation, afford excellent pasturage.
Towards the south the soil is fertile, and produces maize,
barley, and wheat; besides olives, figs, grapes, oranges,
and other fruits. Cattle are reared to a considerable ex¬
tent ; bees are also kept; and there are good fisheries along
the coast. The climate is mild and dry, being sheltered
from the north winds by the Alps. It is divided into three
provinces, as follows:—
 *• au:
miles.
Nice  1178 118,377
Oneille   173 60,072
St Remo  263 64,541
Total  1614 242,990
The town of Nice is remarkable as the birth-place of Mas-
sena, one of the most famous of Napoleon’s generals.
Pop. 33,811.
Nice, or Niccea, The Council of, was the earliest as
well as the most important of the oecumenical councils held
in the Christian church. It was convened at Nicsea, a
town in Bithynia, a.d. 325, by command of the Em¬
peror Constantine, to settle the controversy which had re¬
cently sprung up in the church respecting the doctrines of
Arius, presbyter of the Church of Alexandria. In an as¬
sembly of the presbyters held some time previously, Alex¬
ander, Bishop of Alexandria, maintained that the Son was
not only equal in dignity with the Father, but was also of
the same essence. Arius charged the doctrine with Sabel-
lianism, and boldly assumed the opposite extreme. “ If,”
said he, “ the Father begat the Son, the begotten had a
beginning of existence ; hence it is plain, that there was a
time when he was not.” (Socrates, Hist. Eccles., lib. i., c. 5.)
Not a few openly sided with Arius ; and the upshot of it
was that the heretic had his doctrines condemned, and
N I 0
himself and nine of his adherents excommunicated. The Nice,
quarrel raged fiercely on both sides, and the emperor Council of.
mildly attempted a reconciliation between the orthodox
bishop and the heretical presbyter. His efforts proved un¬
availing, and in order effectually to silence the disputants,
he convened the council in question. Bishops flocked to
it from all parts of Christendom, particularly from the East,
until their number amounted to 318. The assembly was
honoured by the imperial presence; and the venerable
Fathers began by accusing each other. Constantine, who
seems to have displayed much good sense on the occasion,
magnanimously burnt these accusations without reading
them ; and exhorting the disputants to peace and harmony,
bade them open deliberations. Debate waxed keen ; words
ran high ; whole quivers of logic and treasures of learning
were exhausted ; but unanimity was as distant as ever. The
orthodox party, after selecting those passages of Scripture
which bear upon the divinity of the Son of God, extracted
from them the conclusion that the Son was of the same
substance (6/xooixrios) or consubstantial with the Father.
Eusebius of Nicomedia proposed a creed in behalf of the
Arians, but the council pronounced it heretical, and ap¬
pointed Hosius of Corduba to draw up one in its stead.
This document, agreeing substantially with the Nicene
Creed of the present day, received the sanction of the
council and the approbation of the emperor. Deposition,
excommunication, and exile were the penalty of non-acqui¬
escence. Arius stood firm, and suffered the consequences.
Twenty of the twenty-two Arian bishops, whose ingenuity
was nicer than their conscience, subscribed to the creed,
by foisting an iota into the Platonic epithet of their oppo¬
nents, and thus converting o^oorio-tos (of the same substance)
into oiAOLovarLos (of similar substance). Secundus of Ptole-
mais and Theonas of Marmarica declined to stoop to such
courtly duplicity, and boldly reproved Eusebius for his dis¬
honesty.1 (See Arius.)
The Nicene Creed, as at present recited in the commu¬
nion service of the Church of England, agrees precisely
with the creed drawn up at this council, with the exception
of the part which asserts the divinity of the Holy Ghost.
This addition was made, a.d. 381, at the council of Con¬
stantinople ; and the words “ and the Son, ” coming after
“ who proceedeth from the Father,” were inserted by the
Spanish bishops in a.d. 447, and admitted after some
hesitation by those of Rome in a.d. 883.
The Second Council of Nice was held by the Empress
Irene and her son Constantine in a.d. 787, and declared
the worship of images to be lawful.
(See The Greek Ecclesiastical Historians of the first
Six Centuries of the Christian Era, 6 vols., London, 1853 ;
Some Account of the Council of Niccea, by John Kaye,
D.D., London, 1853; G'xesAev's Ecclesiastical History,
1 New and interesting information respecting the Council of Nice has recently been fallen upon in a Syrian fragment in the British
Museum (Add. MSS., No. 14,528), written in A.D. 501, and obtained from the Nitrian Desert in Egypt a few years since. The Syrian
text of this fragment, with a translation and notes, and some account of the MS. volume from which it has been obtained, was published,
under the title Analecta Nicoena, by B. Harris Cowper, London and Edinburgh, 1857 ; hut the impression was limited to 250 copies.
Among other curious pieces printed in this tract are,—(1.) The Epistle of Constantine the King summoning the Bishops to Nice, referred
to by Eusebius in his Life of that monarch, but hitherto regarded as lost; (2.) The Decree of Constantine against the Arians, given by
Socrates in his Church History, and found in other Syrian MSS.; (3.) The Nicene Creed; (4.) The Creed of Constantinople; (5.)
The Subscribers to the Nicene Council, the most ancient, curious, and complete list yet brought to light; (6.) Titles of the Canons of
Nice ; (7.) The Colophon ; (8 and 9.) Fragments from another MS. in the same collection, in which the presidency of the Nicene Coun¬
cil seems to be assigned to Alexander of Alexandria; (10 and 11.) Canons VI. and VII. of the Nicene Council, from which it will be
seen, that no allusion whatever is made to any superiority of the Roman See different from that of the others mentioned ; (12.) Colo¬
phon. The following is a copy of the long-lost letter of Constantine, as translated by Mr Cowper :—“An Epistle of Constantine the King,
summoning the Bishops from Ancyra to Nice.—That there is nothing more honourable in my sight than religion, is, I believe, manifest to
every man. Now, because the Synod of Bishops at Ancyra, of Galatia, consented formerly that it should be so, it hath seemed to us now
on many accounts, that it would be well for it to be assembled at Nice, a city of Bithynia, because the Bishops of Italy, and of the rest
of the countries of Europe, are coming, and because of the excellent temperature of the air, and because I shall be at hand as a specta¬
tor and participator of what is done. Wherefore I signify to you my beloved brethren, that ye, all of you, promptly assemble at the
city I spoke of; that is, at Nice, Let every one of you, therefore, diligently inquire into that which is profitable, in order that, as I
before said, without any delay we may speedily come to be a present spectator of those things which are done by the same. God keep
you, my beloved brethren.” (P. 21.)
NIC
Nicepho- Edinburgh, 1846; Neander’s Bistory of the Church, 8 vols.,
ms. London, 1850-52; and Landon’s Manual of Councils.)
NICEPHORUS I., Emperor of Constantinople, was a
native of Seleucia, and rose by the favour of the Empress
Irene, and by his own hypocritical intrigues, to the high
office of logotheta, or minister of finances. In 802 a.d.,
assisted by the ungrateful treachery of some eunuchs who
were high in favour with the queen, he seized upon the
purple. After Nicephorus had consolidated his power by
the most cruel measures, he despatched a letter to the ca¬
liph Harun-al-Raschid, demanding back the tribute-money
paid him by the Empress Irene. The caliph replied by
devastating the plains of Phrygia; and, after various for¬
tune, the death of Harun-al-Raschid in 809, left Nicepho¬
rus to direct a system of universal butchery against the
Bulgarians. He was surprised and slain in 811. (See Con-
STANTINOPOLITAN HlSTORY.)
Nicephorus II., surnamed Phocas, Emperor of Constan¬
tinople, was the descendant of a warlike race, and was born
about 912 a.d. He was brought up in the camp, and
rose by his own merit through the different grades of pro¬
motion until he was appointed magnus domesticus in 954.
His military genius was first displayed in several expedi¬
tions against the Saracens during 956 and 958; but not
until 959 did it appear in its full splendour. He then pro¬
posed to the young emperor Romanus II. the bold design
of taking Crete, which had been for more than a hundred
years the impregnable stronghold of a desperate gang of
Arabian pirates. The enterprise received the approval of
the emperor ; and in 960 Nicephorus was laying vigorous
siege to the massive fortifications of Candia, the capital of
the Cretans. Complete success was achieved in the following
year. He captured the city, and along with it the whole
island ; the inhabitants yielded to his proselytizing zeal, and
received baptism; and the long-extinct honours of a tri¬
umph were revived to reward him on his return to Con¬
stantinople. But in the full enjoyment of his renown, the
conqueror did not forget to follow up his success. Setting
out at the head of a mighty army in 962, he forced his
way through the narrow passes of Mount Amanus, and
entering Syria, compelled the principal cities to throw open
their gates. He was advancing in his career of victory
towards the River Euphrates, when intelligence reached him,
in 963, of the death of the Emperor Romanus. The thought
of aspiring to the vacant throne now seized him, and
changed the generous and free-hearted warrior into the
wily votary of ambition. His designs were executed with
a soldier-like promptness and decision. He first procured
for himself the appointment to the supreme command of
the oriental armies during the minority of the infant
princes; then he gained over to his interest the officers
and soldiers ; and at length he married the deceased em¬
peror’s wife—the infamous Theophano—and assumed the
title of Augustus. But Nicephorus was not so popular on
the throne as in the camp. Though he reappeared at the
head of his armies, and yearly made a successful invasion
against the Saracens, yet the heavy taxes which were levied
to support these expeditions more than counterbalanced,
in the public estimation, the glory gained by them. The
emperor came to be generally accused of hypocrisy and
avarice. His fickle wife in course of time joined the num¬
ber ot his enemies, and began to plot his death. One of
her paramours, John Zimisces, a brave and able general of
the imperial armies, was induced to undertake the office of
assassin. On a December night in 969, he crossed in a
small boat from the Asiatic side of the Bosporus, and
was admitted by a rope-ladder into the palace. There a
band of cut-throats, putting themselves under his direction,
buist into the royal apartment, and murdered Nicephorus
as he stalled from sleep. Ihe arch-assassin immediately
afterwards married Iheophano,and succeeded to the purple.
VOL. XVI,
NIC
Nicephorus III., surnamed Batoniates, Emperor of Con¬
stantinople, claimed to be a descendant of the Roman
Fabii. He served in the imperial forces, and in 1078 had
risen to be commander of the army in Asia. In that year,
aided by the Sultan Soliman, he raised the standard of re¬
volt against the Emperor Michael VII. The discontented
populace of Constantinople received him with enthusiasm;
the weak emperor resigned his crown to retire into a
monastery; and Nicephorus ascended the throne on the
25th March 1078. The new reign was inaugurated with
a cruel and narrow-minded policy which soon brought it to
a close. The rebel generals Ursel, Bryennius, and Basil-
acius, who were soon afterwards defeated and captured, had
their eyes put out, and were reserved for further cruelties.
Even the brave Alexis Comnenus, the conqueror of these,
became at length the object of the emperor’s ever-wakeful
suspicions, and was forced to flee from the ungrateful
court. It was this injustice that caused the downfall of
Nicephorus. Alexis was proclaimed emperor by the in¬
dignant soldiery, and Nicephorus, resigning the crown
retired to end his days in a monastery.
Nicephorus Callistus, an ecclesiastical historian, was
born towards the close of the thirteenth century, and died
about 1350. In his thirty-sixth year he was engaged at
Constantinople in the composition of an Historia Eccle-
siastica, founded on the narratives of Eusebius, Socrates,
Sozomen, Theodoret, Evagrius, and others. It is filled
with absurd fables; and of the twenty-three books only
eighteen are extant. They were published in Greek and
Latin, in 3 vols. fob, Paris, 1630.
Nicephorus, Patriarch of Constantinople, was the son
of Theodorus, one of the imperial secretaries of Constantius
Copronymus, and was born in 758. From his father he
inherited a zeal for image-worship, which gave a colour
to all the principal events of his life. He was present as
imperial commissary at the Nicene Council of 787, and
raised his voice against the Iconoclasts. This spirit of
partizanship only became more intense when, in 806, he
was raised from the condition of a monk to the patriarchate
of Constantinople. An edict against the worship of images
was passed in 814 by Leo the Armenian ; but neither
entreaties nor menaces could prevail upon Nicephorus to
assent to it. He rather preferred to be deposed in the
following year, and to spend the rest of his days in a con¬
vent. His death took place in June 828. Of his works,
which are written in Greek, the best is his Breviarium
Historicum, a compendious history of the period extending
between 602 a.d. and 770. It was published, with a Latin
version and notes, in 8vo, Paris, 1616; and was reprinted
in the Corpus Historice Byzantince. A Life of the
Patriarch Nicephorus, by his contemporary Ignatius,
has been translated into Latin, and inserted in the Acta
Sanctorum.
NICHOLAS I., the earliest of the Roman pontiffs who
bore that name, was elevated from the rank of a deacon to
the papal chair in April 858. One of his first endeavours
was to realize the alleged supremacy of the popedom.
Assuming as his authority the new ecclesiastical code, now
known by the name of the Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals, he
asserted that the Pope, as the representative of St Peter,
was the head of Christ’s body the church ; that the bishops,
as members of that body, had no other law than his will;
and that all offences throughout Christendom should be
liable to be arraigned before his tribunal. These principles,
so boldly asserted, were as boldly carried into practice.
Taking part in the dispute concerning the patriarchate of
Constantinople between Ignatius and Photius, he excom¬
municated the latter in 863, and maintained a fierce con¬
troversy with the Emperor Michael III. in support of this
exercise of his ecclesiastical authority. He also interfered,
during the same year, with the attempt of Lotharius, King
249
Nicppho-
rus
I!
Nicholas
250 NIC
Nicholas, of Lotharingia, to divorce his wife Thietberga, and to
marry his concubine Waldrade. The Emperor Louis, the
brother of Lotharius, bent upon forcing Nicholas to with¬
draw his interference, marched into Rome at the head of
an army. But the fervent and long-continued devotions
and the saint-like composure of the Pope soon awed the
superstitious potentate into submission and reconciliation.
Nicholas continued for the rest of his life to vindicate suc¬
cessfully the absolute ecclesiastical supremacy of the see of
Rome. He tlied in 867. His letters, amounting to about
a hundred, and treating of church doctrine and discipline,
were published in folio, Rome, 1542. The rest of his works
were inserted in Coleti’s Collection of Councils.
Nicholas II., whose original name was Gerhard, was
promoted from the bishopric of Florence to the Papal chair
in 1058. Under the guidance of the able and ambitious
Hildebrand, who was afterwards supreme pontiff under
the title of Gregory VII., he proceeded to establish his
authority, and to provide for the increased stability and
influence of the Papal see. John, bishop of Velletri, who
had been set up as a rival Pope, under the name of Bene¬
dict X., was forced to submit. A law was passed in
1059 which took the power of choosing the supreme pontiff
out of the hands of the Roman mob, placed it in the hands
of the cardinal bishops and priests, and restricted the
elective influence of the emperor and the citizens of Rome
to a mere assent. The new Pope was even daring enough
to claim the possession of Apulia, Calabria, and Sicily, to
give them in fief to Robert Guiscard, a Norman, and thus
to establish the civil supremacy of the Roman see over that
territory which was afterwards known as the kingdom of
Naples. Nicholas was further engaged in enforcing a
stricter morality upon the priests, when he died in July 1061.
Nicholas HI., whose original name was Giovanni Gae-
tani, succeeded John XXI. in 1277. His descent from
the noble family of the Orsini, his tact, and his energy ren¬
dered him a powerful upholder of the despotism of the
Roman see. He obtained from the Emperor Rudolph
several grants of territory in Italy, and punished the
haughty insubordination of Charles of Anjou, King of Na¬
ples, by depriving him of the dignity of senator of Rome.
Other great projects were occupying his attention, when a
stroke of apoplexy brought his career to a close in 1280.
Nicholas IV., originally known by the name of Jerome
of Ascoli, was raised from the bishopric of Palaestrina to
the pontifical chair in 1288. Though sometimes guilty of
favouritism, he was characterized in general by an enlight¬
ened zeal for the welfare of the church. He was a liberal
patron of theological as well as civil learning ; he sent forth
missionaries as far as China; and he used his utmost efforts
to revive the spirit of the Crusades. It is said to have been
the final expulsion of the Christians from the Holy Land
that hastened his death in 1292.
Nicholas V., whose real name was Tommaso Da Sar-
zana, succeeded Eugenius IV. in 1447. The meek probity
of his character did not suffer him to adopt the usual ag¬
gressive policy of the popedom; and his literary tastes
induced him to seek for that general peace which is so
favourable to the advancement of learning and civilization.
The consequence was, that in 1449 the anti-Pope Felix V.,
who had for several years maintained a schism in the
church, tendered his submission ; and about the same time
the Italian states, discontinuing their accustomed broils,
relapsed into tranquillity. The learned pontiff was thus
enabled to devote the rest of his life to the promotion of
polite letters. Under his rule Rome became the favourite
seat of learning. The most liberal patronage was extended
to literary merit; wits and scholars from all parts of Europe
thronged the pontifical court; a library, containing famous
manuscripts of the Christian fathers and the great Greek
authors, began to be formed in the Vatican ; and messen-
N I C
gers were constantly arriving from all the countries of Nicholas, St
Christendom with new treasures for its shelves. This rapid ||
advance towards general enlightenment was prematurely Nicias.
interrupted by the death of its wise and munificent pro- 's—>
moter in 1455.
NICHOLAS, St, one of the Cape Verde Islands, is si¬
tuated in N. Lat. 16. 42., W. Long. 24.20. ^ Its shape is irre¬
gular; and its area is 115 square miles. There are two re¬
markable mountains in the island, one of which, near the
centre, has the form of a sugar-loaf, and is called the Peak of
Trade. The soil is fertile, but there is not much wood or
water. There are several not very good harbours on the
south coast; but the principal trade is carried on at Grand
or St George Bay, at the western extremity. Pop. 5418.'
NICHOLS, John, a writer of literary anecdotes, was
born at Islington in 1745, and at the age of twelve became
an apprentice to the famous printer William Bowyer. His
taste for literature, his industry, and his business talents
soon raised him high in the favour of his master. He was
taken into partnership in 1766, and succeeded to the entire
business in 1777. It was then that the aptitude for curious
biographical and topographical research by which he was
specially characterized began to appear to the world. In
course of time it found full scope in the Gentleman's
Magazine, of which he became editor and part proprietor
in 1778 ; in his History of Leicestershire, which he began
in 1795, and completed in 4 vols. fol. in 1815 ; and in a
series of rare literary and antiquarian works which he con¬
tinued to edit and print. But its chief result was the
Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century, in 9 vols.
8vo, 1812-15. This work was a rich biographical treasury,
containing numerous traits of eminent men of every stamp,
and much correspondence, judiciously selected and accu¬
rately given. But Nichols had not yet exhausted his stock
of this sort of historical materials. In 1817-22, he pub¬
lished Literary Illustrations of the Eighteenth Century,
intended as a Sequel to the Literary Anecdotes, in 4 vols.
A fifth volume was in the press, and a sixth in preparation,
when the author died in 1826. The former was published
in 1828, and the latter in 1831. A seventh volume appeared
in 1848, and an eighth in 1858, both by his son, John
Bowyer Nichols, who succeeded to his fathers business.
(See Gentleman's Magazine for 1826.)
NICHOLSON, William, an eminent chemist and me¬
chanician, was born in London in 1753. His early years were
spent in commercial pursuits, but he soon abandoned that
occupation for the more congenial walk of scientific research.
He opened a school in the metropolis in 1775, which he
continued to conduct with great success for a long series of
years. Meanwhile he prosecuted mechanical invention
and scientific inquiry with great zeal. Besides English
translations of the chemical works of Fourcroy, Chaptal,
&c., he wrote numerous treatises on natural philosophy and
chemistry, and was unquestionably the most eminent philo¬
sophical journalist of his day. His most valued works are
his Dictionary of Chemistry, 2 vols. 4to, 1795 ; and his
Journal of Natural Philosophy, Chemistry, and the Arts,
5 vols. 4to, 1797-1802, of which a new series appeared in
36 vols. 8vo, 1802-14. He invented an araeometer and
other instruments, but so impoverished himself by these
pursuits that he was imprisoned for debt. He died in
London in June 1815. (See Dissert. Sixth, chap, vii.);
NICIAS, an Athenian statesman, son of Niceratus,
chosen by the aristocracy and the more moderate of the
democratical party, as the fittest person to lead the councils
of the commonwealth after the death of Pericles, in 428 B.C.
He was also a favourite with the people, as he was liberal
of his wealth for their gratification, and ever ready to assist
the distressed. He resembled Pericles in the conservative
nature of his foreign policy, and in the thorough incorrupti¬
bility of his character. The rigid decorum and strict devout-
NIC
Nicias. ness of his character have been severely ridiculed by Aristo-
phanes, in the Equiies, as nothing better than timidity and
superstition. The first matter in which Nicias and Cleon
took opposite views was the punishment that ought to be in¬
flicted on the inhabitants of Mitylene for their rebellion.
Cleon proposed and carried a decree for putting every man to
death, and for reducing the women and children to slavery.
This monstrous proposition was opposed by all the influ¬
ence of Nicias, but passed in spite of its evident injustice.
Nicias led several expeditions, and was always successful,
because, as Plutarch says, he selected those commands
where success was nearly certain, although the glory might
indeed be small. He took the islet called Minoa, at the
mouth of the harbour of Nisaea, the seaport of Megara;
and he plundered the coast of Boeotia. He commanded
the fleet, 425 B.c., at the time that the island Sphacteria
was blockaded by the Athenians, and willingly gave up the
command to Cleon, who exclaimed that if he were in that
station he would engage to subdue the island within twenty
days, and bring the garrison prisoners to Athens. To the
great surprise of all parties, Cleon succeeded in the enter¬
prise (Thucydides, iv. 28). The following year we find
Nicias commanding an expedition, which was directed
against the island of Cythera, an important appendage of
the Lacaedemonian territory, and which Nicias took without
much difficulty. After the death of Cleon at Amphipolis,
422 B.c., there was a strong inclination on both sides to
bring the war to a close ; and as Nicias was the most active
in promoting the measure, it was usually called the Niceian
peace. The fundamental principle of the treaty was, that
each party should restore what had been taken in war, ex¬
cept that Nisaea w'as reserved to Athens, in consideration
of the refusal of the Thebans to surrender Plataea. It was
concluded for fifty years, 421 b.c. (Thucydides, v. 18.)
At this time Alcibiades began to occupy himself with
public affairs; and wishing to ingratiate himself with the
popular party, he took th» opposite side to Nicias in almost
every question. It wras so in respect to the peace ; and as
there were some articles liable to be disputed, Alcibiades
soon managed to embroil matters, and war again broke
forth in all its original fury, 418 B.c. An expedition to
Sicily was next proposed by Alcibiades; and although it
was strongly opposed by Nicias, the decree was passed, and
Nicias was appointed, along with Lamachus and Alcibiades,
415 b.c., to command the troops. Matters were conducted
with various success; but the Athenians were at length
completely defeated, and Nicias fell into the hands of the
Syracusans. The mob demanded his life; and although
Gylippus, the Syracusan general, exerted himself to save
Nicias, it was without success. When Nicias and his col¬
league Demosthenes heard the sentence which had been
passed against them, they anticipated their fate by putting
themselves to death, in the year 413 b.c. (Thucydides,
vii.; Plutarch ; Diodorus Siculus ; Thirlwall’s History of
Greece, vol. iii.; Grote’s History of Greece, vols. vi., vii.)
Nicias, a great Greek painter, was the son of Nico-
medes, and flourished at Athens about the fourth century
b.c. He studied his art under Antidotus, a pupil of the
celebrated Euphranor. One of his earliest undertakings
seems to have been the painting of the marble statues of
Praxiteles, a process which the Romans called circum-
litio. But, though eminently successful in this engage¬
ment, he soon turned his hand to the more legitimate
blanches of his art. All his energies became absorbed in
t ic executing of pictures. He devoted great attention
to colouring, and was the first painter who used burnt
oc ire ; he studied the subjects of his pieces with the mi¬
nute caie which the dramatic poet bestows upon his plot;
and he was often so engrossed with his work that he forgot
to ta ^e his meals. The result of such painstaking industry
was, t lat the artist soon grew famous for the graceful de-
NIC 251
sign, the beautiful colouring, the exquisite light and shade Nicobars
and the fine general effect of his pictures. His master- II
piece was entitled Neicvta, and was a representation of the Nicolai*
infernal regions taken from the description in the Odyssey.
Ptolemy, King of Egypt, offered sixty talents for it; but the
painter chose rather to present it to his native Athens.
Such a patriotic liberality seems to have combined with his
genius in gaining for him the esteem of his fellow-citizens;
for, at his decease, he was honoured with a public funeral*
and was interred in the cemetery consecrated to the great
Athenian dead, on the road between the city and the aca¬
demy.
The other important works of Nicias, as enumerated by
Pliny, were a Nemea, a Hyacinthus, a Bacchus, and an
Alexander (Paris), all at Rome. (A minute account of
Nicias is given in the English Cyclopcedia.)
NICOBARS, a cluster of islands in the Indian Ocean,
lying between N. Lat. 6. 40. and 9. 20., and E. Long. 93. 3.
and 94. 13., and inhabited by Malays. A settlement was
formed here by the Danes in 1756, but abandoned by them
in 1768. In the year 1840 the whaler Pilot, of London, was
seized by pirates infesting the Nicobars. At this period
the sovereignty of these islands was claimed by the Danes.
Evidence subsequently obtained, left little room for doubt,
that, in several instances, the crews of British vessels had
been murdered, and the vessels scuttled and sunk by the
islanders. Measures were taken to give notoriety to these
circumstances. In 1848 the Danish government came to
the determination to abandon all claim to sovereignty over
the Nicobars. Some years later, certain residents of Chit-
tagong made a representation to the Indian government
regarding two brigs which had sailed for the Nicobars in
the year 1852. Neither of them had since been heard of,
and a strong presumption existed that both had been cut
off by savages. Captain Dicey, of the steamer Tenasse-
rim, was therefore despatched to the Nicobars for the pur¬
pose of inquiring into the fate of the missing vessels ; and
the report of this officer, the official authorities observes,
“ leaves no doubt that two vessels, one of them English,
have recently been destroyed, and their crews murdered by
the inhabitants of the Nicobars ; and there seems too much
reason to fear that these atrocities have been preceded by
many similar outrages.” These and the adjacent islands,
the Andamans, would, it has been suggested, answer
admirably for a convict settlement.
NICOLAI, Christoph Friedrich, a German author,
was the son of a bookseller, and was born at Berlin in March
1733. The intense ardour for learning which characterized
his life was early shown. Though engaged so soon as his
sixteenth year in the bookselling trade, he made himself a
proficient in general literature, and in the Greek, Latin,
and English languages. His increasing devotion to letters
led him in 1757 to resign his partnership in the family firm;
and though he was recalled to business in the following
year by the death of his brother, yet the projects that he
had planned during his retirement were actively carried out.
By this time he had formed, in conjunction with Lessing
and Moses Mendelssohn, a literary triumvirate, for the pur¬
pose of founding a new school of German criticism. They
had begun their scheme in 1757, by publishing the Biblio-
thek der Schbnen Wissenschaften. They now continued it
in 1759 by giving to the world the first of their famous
Letters on Criticism. It was with a similar end in view
that in 1765 Nicolai became the projector and editor of the
influential periodical styled Allgemeine DeutscheBibliothek.
I he severe and prosaic tone of criticism which character¬
ized this work soon involved him in many disputes with
some of the greatest writers in Germany. His facile and
ever-active pen was especially employed in writing pamph¬
lets and satirical romances against the philosophy of Kant.
Fichte and A. W. Schlegel attacked him in turn. Yet the
252 NIC
Nicolaitans irascible Nicolai continued to wrangle with his numerous
II enemies, and at the same time to dabble in all sorts of sub-
^ ico as. ^ jecj.g^ tj]j (jea|.]1 jn 1811. His Life was published by
V^L Gbckingk in 8vo, Berlin, 1820.
NICOLAITANS, a Gnostic sect of the second century,
mentioned by Irenseus, Tertullian, and Clement of Alex¬
andria. They claimed to have been founded by Nicolas,
one of the seven deacons enumerated in the sixth chapter
of the Acts ; and they were believed by the early fathers
to be identical with the sect of the same name alluded to
in the second chapter of the Apocalypse. But neither of
these opinions rests on satisfactory grounds. The peculiar
tenets of the Nicolaitans were founded on the principle that
the passions ought to be allowed to exhaust and destroy
themselves by indulgence. “ Subdue the flesh by abusing
it ” was the favourite motto with which they justified their
licentious conduct. (Neander’s Church History.)
NICOLAS, Sir Nicholas Harris, a very eminent
English antiquary, was the fourth son of John Harris Ni¬
colas of East Looe in Cornwall, whose Breton ancestors
had settled there on the revocation of the edict of Nantes.
He was born on the 10th March 1799. He entered the
navy on the 27th October 1808 ; and after some years
of active service as midshipman under his brother, in which
he took part in the capture of several armed vessels and
convoys on the coast of Calabria, he was promoted to the
rank of lieutenant on the 20th September 1815. Not
succeeding at the close of the war in obtaining employ¬
ment, he left the service, and took to the study of English
law and antiquarian literature. His first work, The Life of
Secretary Davison, appeared in 1823, the author having
married a descendant of the family of that worthy privy
counsellor during the previous year. He was called to the
bar by the society of the Inner Temple in 1825, but his
practice never extended beyond the occasional claims of
peerage before the House of Lords. Nicolas was chosen
shortly afterwards a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries,
became a member of their council in 1826, and was a fre¬
quent and valuable contributor to the Archceologia. His
imprudent zeal and violent temper, however, did not per¬
mit him long to enjoy this dignity; for after his first ap¬
pearance at its deliberations, the society struck him off
their list. He thereupon commenced a series of attacks
against the administration of the affairs of the society,
which do not seem to have been in the most perfect state
possible. These animadversions, besides appearing in
pamphlets, found a frequent place in the pages of the Re¬
trospective Review, of which Nicolas had become joint
editor in 1826. He continued with incredible industry to
elucidate and illustrate various departments of history,
genealogy, and heraldry, in a series of works, displaying
great research and sound critical acumen. As a whole, his
works possess a substantial historical value; but those perhaps
in which he has placed the majority of writers under the
greatest obligations to his industry and acuteness, are the
Synopsis of the Peerage of England, 2 vols., 1825; the
Testa,menta Vetusta, 2 vols., 1826 ; and his Chronology of
History, a work of great value, written in 1835 for Lard-
ner’s Cyclopcedia, and remodelled from his Notitia Histo-
rica of 1824. In his Controversy between Sir Richard
Scropeand SirRobertCrosvenor, 2 vols.,1832, a work which
was never completed, and in his Siege of Caerlaverock,
there occur a number of highly valuable biographical notices;
and, among others, one of Geoffrey Chaucer, which the
author afterwards enlarged for Pickering’s Aldine edition
of that poet. For the same series of British poetical au¬
thors, Nicolas wrote the memoirs of Surrey, Wyatt, Col¬
lins, Cowper, Thomson, Burns, and Kirke White. In con¬
nection with the same field, he made some curious and suc¬
cessful explorations in his Lives of Isaak Walton and
Charles Cotton, prefixed to Pickering’s beautiful edition of
NIC
The Complete Angler. His greatest works, however, and Nicolas
those by which his name will be longest remembered by _ ||
the majority of readers, are the History of the Orders of Nicole.
Knighthood of the British Empire, four large 4to vols., ^
1841-42; and The Dispatches and Letters of Admiral
Lord Viscount Nelson, 7 vols. 8vo, 1844-46. In acknow¬
ledgment of his merits in connection with the former work,
he was made a knight of the Hanoverian Guelphic Order
in 1831, was appointed chancellor of the Ionian Order of
St Michael and St George in 1832, and was advanced to
the grade of Grand Cross by Her Majesty in 1840. Sir
Harris left an unfinished History of the British Navy, in
2 vols., which promised to be a work of very great merit.
He was engaged in editing the papers of Sir Hudson Lowe,
until within a few days of his death, which took place at Cape
Cure, near Boulogne, August 3, 1848. (See Gentlemarts
Magazine for October 1848, which contains a complete list
of his writings; and Athenceum for August 12, 1848.)
Nicolas L, Pavlovich, Emperor of Russia, was the
third son of the Emperor Paul, and was born at St
Petersburg on the 7th of July 1796. He succeeded his
eldest brother, Alexander I., on the 1st of December 1825,
and was crowned at Moscow on the 3d September 1826.
He declared war against the Shah of Persia in this latter
year, incorporated the kingdom of Poland with his own
empire in 1832, commenced a war with Turkey in 1853,
which brought against him the allied armies of England
and France in 1854, and died on the 2d March 1855,
leaving his throne to his eldest son, the present Emperor
Alexander II. (See Russia.)
NICOLAS, or Nicholas, St, a town of Belgium, in
the province of East Flanders, is the principal place in the
populous and well-cultivated district called the Pays de
Waes, 20 miles N.E. of Ghent. It is well built, with
broad and regular streets, and a spacious market-place,
surrounded with fine houses. There are several churches,
one of which, that of St Nicholas, is a handsome structure;
a town-hall, a college, several schools, an hospital, two
orphan asylums, and a prison. Among the manufactories
of the town, tanneries, breweries, distilleries, salt-refineries,
dye-works, and potteries are the chief; and in addition to
these, linen, cotton, woollen, and silken stuffs, carpets, lace,
hats, tobacco, chocolate, earthenware, &c., are manufac¬
tured. In corn, flax, hemp, linen, &c., an active trade is
carried on ; and a market for flax is held here which is said
to be the largest in the world. Pop. 20,500.
NICOLAUS, surnamed Myrepsus, or “the ointment-
maker,” the author of a Greek pharmaceutical work, flour¬
ished in the thirteenth century at the court of the Emperor
John III. His treatise is known to the public only in the
form of a Latin translation entitled De Compositione Medi-
camentorum. Its value is almost cancelled by the fact
that it places the most absurd monkish charms and talis¬
mans in th§ category of remedies, and is little else than a
compilation from Nicolaus Praepositus, and other medical
writers. Yet it has found a place in the second volume of
H. Stephens’s Medicce Artis Principes, fob, Paris, 1567,
and has since been reprinted.
Nicolaus, surnamed Prsepositus to distinguish him from
Nicolaus Myrepsus, was the author of a Latin pharma¬
ceutical work entitled Antidotarium, and flourished in the
former half of the twelfth century as the principal of the
medical school at Salerno. His book was a standard autho¬
rity during the dark ages, was first printed at Venice in
1471, and has frequently been republished.
Nicolaus Damascenus. See Damascenus, Nicolaus.
NICOLE, Pierre, one of the most illustrious of the
Port-Royalists, was born at Chartres on the 19th October
1625. His father, Jean Nicole, who was a parliamentary
advocate, succeeded early in imbuing the mind of his son
with not a little of his own taste for classical literature. At
NIC
Nicole, the age of fourteen this grave and studious boy had com-
—pleted his preliminary studies; and his father removed him
to Paris, where, in 1644, he finished a course of philosophy
and theology, and took his master’s degree. The univer¬
sity of Paris was at that time in a ferment touching the
celebrated propositions of the Jansenists ; and Nicole had
his attention turned to the solitaries of Port-Royal. The
profound piety of that venerable community, and the austere
tranquillity of their life, had strong attractions for a spirit
so calm and meditative as that of Nicole, whose only wish
was for study and retirement. He accordingly betook him¬
self to their quiet retreat, and divided his time during the
three following years between studying the theology of the
Sorbonne, and giving instructions in belles lettres in the
educational institutions of Port-Royal. Having made ap¬
plication for licence, it was discovered that his opinions
were not in accordance with those of any Roman Catholic
university, much less with those of the theological faculty
of Paris, and he resolved to content himself with his theo¬
logical baccalaureat,w\\\c\\ he had obtained in 1649. From
this period he attached himself more closely to Port-Royal
and the Jansenists, and soon after took up his pen, in con¬
junction with the celebrated Antoine Arnauld, in defence
of Jansenius and his doctrines. Nicole never adopted
Jansenism, however, in all its extreme rigour. In various
treatises written at a comparatively early period of his
career, he took exception to not a few of the doctrines of
his brethren of Port-Royal, even while he put forth all his
strength in behalf of w hat he regarded as their grand claims
upon his fellow-men. This attitude is most noticeable
perhaps in a theological dissertation, published by him in
1657, under the pseudonym of Paul Irenaeus, designed to
pacify the Church, and to prove that Jansenism was only
an imaginary heresy. This interesting work bore the title
of Disquisitiones sex Pauli Irencei ad prcesentes Ecclesice
tumultus sedandos opportunce. In 1658 Nicole made a
journey into Germany in behalf of the cause ; and during
his residence there, translated into Latin the famous Lettres
Provinciates, which had recently issued from the most
gifted pen among the Port-Royalists. During the execu¬
tion of this task, the translator read Terence incessantly, in
order to catch the rare pungency and sprightliness of the
dramatist, and transfuse it, if possible, into his version of
these immortal letters. He submitted his work to the
Germans and Dutch as the performance of “ William
Wendrock, doctor of the University of Salzburg.” On his
return he retired with Arnauld to Chatillon, near Paris, to
devote himself with renewed ardour to the prosecution of
his cherished pursuits. One of the earliest products of his
pen in this retreat was the part he took in the composition
of the celebrated “ Port-Royal Logic,” published anony¬
mously at Paris in 1662, under the title La Logique, ou
l’Art de Penser; a work of pre-eminent merit, which
stands unrivalled even to the present day as an introduction
OLE.
to the study of the laws of thought.1 In 1664 Nicole gave
to the world his well-known Perpetuite de la Foi, better
known as La Petite Perpetuite, which the attempted re¬
futation of Claude induced the author to expand, five years
afterwards, into La Grande Perpetuite, in 3 vols. 4to. The
reputation gained for the humble Port-Royalist by this
striking performance proved too much for his modesty, and
he was fain to attribute the merit of it to his illustrious
friend Arnauld. Les Visionnaires (1665-6), directed bv
Nicole against the absurd mysticism of the poet and
romancist Desmarets, called forth a bitter attack from
Racine upon his ancient master at Port-Royal. At the
urgent request of his friends, Nicole in 1676 again solicited
ordination, but found his Port-Royal sympathies too great
a barrier for the liberality of the Bishop of Chartres. A
I^ettre which he wrote in 1677, for the bishops of Saint-
Pons and Arras, to Pope Innocent XL, on the laxity of the
casuists, raised such a storm against him that he was "obliged
to withdraw from the capital. On the death (in 1679) of
the Duchesse de Longueville, the most ardent protectress
of Jansenism, Nicole, considering himself as no longer safe
in France, left the kingdom, and sought an asylum in the
Low Countries. He returned to France in 1683, and after
remaining in concealment for some time, ultimately took
up his abode at Paris and resumed his literary occupations.
It was during this period that he completed "his Essais de
Morale, of which the first four volumes had been given to
the public between 1671 and 1678. The last two volumes
were published after the author’s death, the fifth in 1700,
and the sixth in 1714. After EArt de Penser, it is unques¬
tionably on this work that Nicole’s reputation as a philo¬
sophical writer mainly rests. We search in it in vain,
however, for much decided speculative originality. His
strength did not lie there. He is mainly occupied with de¬
lineations of a moral and religious nature, characterized by
exquisite subtilty and discrimination; but he seldom or never
permits his thoughts to traverse the decisive circle meted
out by his faith. Yet one constantly admires the delicate
observation, steady judgment, and calm spirit of the man.
Among his moral treatises there is, perhaps, no one more
characteristic of the author, and certainly no one superior
to Les Moyens de Conserver la Paix avec les Hommes. It
is only after reading this that one can adequately estimate
how great must have been that loyalty to the cause of truth,
and devotion to the honourable brotherhood with whom he
laboured, which could have induced so gentle a nature to
leave the quiet which he loved so well, to do earnest battle
in the arena of religious controversy, or to share in the
fierce strifes of political partizanship.2 The repose which
his nature longed after he was not destined to find here.
“ Rest! we shall rest through eternity,” said the bright
and brave Arnauld to him reproachfully. Nicole’s closing
years were occupied with two notable controversies,—the
one on monastic studies, in which he defended the liberal
The authorship of this famous work was for a long time problematical. It was sometimes ascribed to Nicole, sometimes to Arnauld
and sometimes to both. The latter is the correct opinion, however; for the younger Racine, who was a pupil at Port-Royal, informs
us, that the dissertations and additions are by Nicole ; the first, second, and third parts by Arnauld and Nicole together; and the fourth
irr9rnaUld a*0ne' (®ee ■Barbier’s Dictionnaire des Ouvrages Anonymes Pseudonymes, Paris, 1806.) After the first draft of the book in
lbo2, numerous changes and additions were made to it in the editions which were issued during the lifetime of the authors. The fifth
ediUon, from which the endless reprints which followed were taken, was published at Paris in 1683. It was translated into Latin soon
alter its first appearance ; and of the various versions of it in that language there have been a great number of editions. A Spanish
translation appeared in 1769, and an Italian one some years previously. There have been three English translations of the Art of Think¬
ing ; the first by “ several hands,” in 1685 ; the second by John Ozell, in 1716 ; and the third by Thomas Spencer Baynes, in 1851. The
atter is an admirable performance, and contains an Introduction, in which the scientific position, character, and history of the work are
carefully traced. J
a The simple and ingenuous character of Nicole often manifested itself in extreme timidity and amusing eccentricity. If an objec-
lon was raised in a discussion which he had not foreseen, he was entirely disconcerted. “ Trgville beats me,” he said “ in the chamber *
ut before he reaches the foot of the stair I confute him.” Having resided for a long time in the Faubourg Saint-Marcel, some one asked’
^ *• Preffrr?li tbl8 locality. “ It is,” said he, “ because the enemies who menace Paris will probably enter by the gate of
aint-Martin, 8'nl1 wil* accordingly be obliged to traverse the whole city before reaching my place of abode.” “ When walking in the
s ree s, says the Comtesse de la Riviere, “ he was always haunted by the fear that a tile would fall upon his head; and when he tra¬
velled by water, he was in perpetual terror lest he should be drowned.” (Lettret dc M. L. C. de la Riviere, Paris, 1776.)
254
NIC
NIC
]N icoll
II
Nicolson.
sentiments of Mabillon ; the other on Quietism, in which he
took part with Bossuet against Fenelon, but with infinitely
more honest manliness and liberality than was displayed by
the proud “ Eagle of Meaux.” The weighty labours of a
long life and the repeated excitement of controversy, for
which his temper was so little fitted, had in 1693 produced
their natural effect upon his health. After a lingering ill¬
ness of two years he was suddenly struck with apoplexy.
Crowds of persons from all quarters of Paris hurried to
visit the dying couch of the gentle-hearted pious old man.
Young Racine, now at the summit of his great fame, forgot
his former animosity to the author oiLes Visionnaires, and,
with a restorative medicine in his hand, hastened to where
his old master lay. But it was all in vain ; the good man’s
work was done. ” He died on the 16th November 1695, at
the age of seventy. Contrary to his expressed desire to be
interred without ceremony, his remains were accompanied
to the grave by the most distinguished men of the time.
The works of Nicole, entitled Essais de Morale et In¬
structions Theologiques, form 25 vols. l2mo, and were pub¬
lished between i67l and 1714. They were reprinted in
1741-44. Among a number of minor performances not
already mentioned, there is a Vie de Nicole by the Abbe
Goujet, forming the 14th vol. of the series. A Life of Nicole
will also be found in Besoigne’s Histoire de Port-Royal,
vol. iv.; and another by Saverien, in his Vies des Philosophes
Modernes, vol. i. The role of Nicole at Port-Royal, and
his dissent from certain positions of Pascal charged with
scepticism, have been placed in a clear light by Victor Cousin
in the Revue des Deux Mondes for January 1845. On
the opposite side, see Flottes’ Etudes sur Pascal, 1846.
NICOLL, Robert, a Scottish poet, was born in the
parish of Auchtergaven, in Perthshire, on the 7th of Janu¬
ary 1814. His parents were too poor to give him a regu¬
lar education; but his mother, who was a woman of singu¬
lar energy and intelligence, snatched an occasional hour
when her day of field-labour was done to teach her boy
to read. His school education was of the most rudimentary
character ; but by industry and courage he strove to supply
the deficiency. At the age of eight we find him tending
cattle for a livelihood, and eagerly reading books. When
he was thirteen, he could write an occasional paragraph for
a local newspaper ; and when bordering on twenty, he had
completed his apprenticeship with a grocer and wine-mer¬
chant in Perth, and was known as a writer of tales, poems,
and songs. In 1834 he opened a small circulating library
in Dundee, and during the following year published a vo¬
lume of Poems and Lyrics, which was very favourably
received by the press, and soon passed through three edi¬
tions. His verses, without being characterized by any of
the highest qualities of poetry, display great sweetness,
purity, and tenderness, and breathe much of the joyous hope¬
ful valour of his life. In 1836 his strongly liberal senti¬
ments got full vent in the pages of the Leeds Times, an
ultra-radical journal, of which he had become editor. The
spirit, energy, and devotion, with which he entered upon
this new undertaking, soon tripled the circulation of the
paper, but broke the health of the brave young poet. He
had been little more than a year in this position when he
was compelled to leave it. He died of consumption, at the
house of a friend in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh, on
the 9th December 1837, at the premature age of twenty-
three. (See his Life by Mrs Johnstone, in the third edition
of his poems.)
NICOLO, San, the chief town of the island of Tinos,
in the TEgean Sea, and the see of a bishop, has a modem
cathedral, and a population of 4000.
NICOLSON, William, Archbishop of Cashell, a
learned antiquarian, was the son of a clergyman, and was
born at Orton, in Cumberland, in 1655. Having entered
Oxford in 1670, he was chosen a fellow of Queen’s Col¬
lege in 1679, and was shortly afterwards presented to seve- Nicoma*
ral livings. His favourite studies now began to be prose- chus
cuted with vigour. He produced The English Historical II
Library in 1696-99; and The Scottish Historical Library ^ lcome(^C3,
in 1702; a series of national antiquarian works, which he
afterwards completed in 1724, by the publication of The
Irish Historical Library. His increasing fame was at¬
tended by high ecclesiastical preferment. He was pro¬
moted to the bishopric of Carlisle in 1702; was translated
to the see of Londonderry in 1718; and had the arch¬
bishopric of Cashell conferred upon him in 1726. His death
took place a few days after his elevation to this last dignity.
NICOMACHUS, a distinguished Greek artist, the son
of the painter Aristodemus, was a native of Thebes, and
flourished in the latter half of the fourth century b.c. He
rose to be unrivalled both for the celerity and completeness
of his execution. If we may believe Plutarch, he closely
resembled Homer in the spontaneous, and, at the same
time, graceful and vigorous play of his genius; and, ac¬
cording to Cicero, his pictures attained the very pitch of
perfection. His success as a teacher was also great.
Among his pupils he numbered several who were after¬
wards famous painters, such as his brother Aristides, his
son Aristocles, Philoxenes of Eretria, and Corybas. Yet
Vitruvius enumerates him among those artists who were
prevented by fortune from rising to their proper place in
the public estimation. The following pictures of Nico-
machus are mentioned by Pliny :—“ The Rape of Proser¬
pine,” “ Victory riding in a four-horsed Chariot,” “ Apollo
and Diana,” “Cybele,” “ Female Bacchanals,” and “Scylla.”
He was engaged in a magnificent picture of the “ Tynda-
ridae,” when he died.
NICOMEDES I., the earliest of the Bithynian kings
who bore that name, succeeded his father Zipoetes in 278
b.c. He inaugurated his reign by the assassination of two
of his brothers. This act of jealous cruelty rendered him
unpopular. An insurrection, headed by his remaining
brother Zipoetes, broke out and established itself in the
maritime provinces. Before tranquillity could be restored,
he was forced in 277 b.c. to employ the assistance of a
horde of Gauls who were then besieging Byzantium, and
thus to give that race for the first time a footing in Asia
Minor. The rest of the reign of Nicomedes seems to have
been spent in peaceful enterprises. In 264 B.c. he founded
the great city of Nicomedia to be the capital of his king¬
dom, and to perpetuate his name. Other beneficial under¬
takings were progressing under his superintendence, when
he died about 250 b.c.
Nicomedes II., surnamed Epiphanes, assassinated his
father Prusias II., and seized upon the throne of Bithynia
in 149 B.c. He had spent his youth at Rome as a hostage,
had secured the favour of the senate, and was therefore
inclined at first to trust for the prosperity of his kingdom
to an alliance with the great republic. Not until about
102 b.c., did he attempt to act independently of his power¬
ful allies. Joining himself to Mithridates, the great king
of Pontus, he laid hold upon Paphlagonia; and though he
pretended to relinquish his conquest at the command of
Rome, he set one of his own sons upon the vacant Paphla-
gonian throne. The next encroachment of the crafty king
was not so successful. By marrying Laodice, the widow of
Ariarathes VI. of Cappadocia, and by taking her orphan
sons under his protection, he thought to gain possession of
that kingdom. But the strong hand of Mithridates was by
that time upon the coveted crown; the Romans then in¬
terfered ; and Nicomedes, besides being foiled in his pro¬
ject, was deprived of his former acquisition, the kingdom of
Paphlagonia. He died shortly after this of disappointment,
about 91 b.c.
Nicomedes III. was the son of the preceding, and suc¬
ceeded his father about 91 b.c. His territories lay too
NIC
Nicomedia near the seat of the grasping Mithridates to remain long
_ II _ in tranquillity. In a short time his brother Socrates, in-
Nicosia. gtjgated by {bat intriguing foe, rose in rebellion and drove
him from his kingdom. No sooner had the unfortunate
king, by the intervention of the Roman senate, been re¬
seated upon his throne in 90 B.C., than he was induced by
the crafty counsels of Rome to embroil himself once more
with Mithridates. The result was, that in the course of
two years his forces were cut to pieces by the troops of
Pontus on the banks of the Amnius; his kingdom was in¬
vaded ; and he did not consider himself safe from his for¬
midable enemy until he had fled as far as Italy. There he
waited till the treaty concluded between Sylla and Mithri¬
dates in 84 B.C. restored him to his sceptre. The rest of
his reign seems to have passed in comparative tranquillity.
He died in 74 b.c., leaving no issue, and bequeathing his
kingdom to the Romans.
NICOMEDIA. See Ismid.
NICOPOLIS (Turk. Nikopol, anc. Nicopolis ad Is-
trum), a town of European Turkey, capital of a pashalic in
Bulgaria, stands on the right bank of the Danube, just be¬
low its confluence with the Aluta from the N., and the
Osma from the S., 80 miles S.W. of Bukharest, and 280
N.W. of Constantinople. It consists of two parts; one of
which, inhabited by Mohammedans, and protected by a
fortress, stands on a cliff of limestone, several hundred feet
high, rising from the river, and surrounded on the other
three sides by a ravine. Though provided with heavy pieces
of artillery, this castle, being commanded by the surround¬
ing heights, is of very little importance as a defence. The
Mussulman town is further defended by ramparts and bat¬
teries ; and though generally ill built, it presents a fine ap¬
pearance, with the many glittering minarets of its handsome
mosques. On the slopes which rise beyond the ravine,
stand groups of white houses, forming the other part of the
town, and occupied by Bulgarians, Wallachians, and Jews.
The surrounding country is very beautiful, and much of it
is laid out in gardens. Owing to its convenient situation
on the Danube, Nicopolis is a place of some commercial
activity. It was originally founded by Trajan, of whose
fortifications some remains still exist; and it is remarkable
as the place where the Sultan Bayezid I. defeated Sigis-
mund, King of Hungary, in 1396. It has since that time
been repeatedly injured by the Russians. Pop. about
10,000.
Nicopolis, “ The City of Victory,” a town of an¬
cient Greece, stood on the promontory of Epirus, on the
low isthmus which separates the Ionian Sea from the Am-
bracius Sinus {Gulf of Arid). It was erected by Augus¬
tus in 31 b.c. to perpetuate the fame of the victory which
he had gained at the neighbouring headland of Actium.
Special care was taken to render it worthy of its imperial
founder. A large population was drawn within its walls
from the adjacent cities; it was admitted into the Amphic-
tyonic Council; the privileges of a Roman colony were con¬
ferred upon it; and it became the scene of a quinquennial
festival, called Actia, in honour of the above-mentioned
battle. Under the successors of Augustus, Nicopolis con¬
tinued to be the capital of Epirus. It was, however, gra¬
dually sinking into decay; and during the dark ages its
dilapidated buildings were finally abandoned. About three
miles north of the modern town of Prevesa, a line of ruins,
stretching across the isthmus, and containing the remains
of a larger and a smaller theatre, a palace, a stadium, and
an aqueduct, still indicates the site of the ancient city of
Nicopolis.
NICOSIA, a town of Sicily, in the province of Catania,
occupies^ two hills near the rivers Salato and Capizzi, 35
miles W.N.W. of Catania. It has several churches and
convents. Few or no manufactures are carried on here ;
but the inhabitants gain their livelihood by agriculture,
N I E
255
and by trading in its produce and in cattle. In the vicinity Nicosia
alum, iron-pyrites, and rock-salt are found; and there are ||
some bituminous and sulphureous springs. Poo. about Niebuhr.
13,000. ^ v-^
Nicosia, or Lefkosia, the capital of Cyprus, stands
near the centre of the island, on the right bank of the
Pedia, in a plain inclosed by mountains. Though some¬
what decayed from its former splendour, it still has a fine
appearance when viewed from a distance; but the streets
are narrow and dirty, lined by houses of which many are
in a ruinous condition. It is surrounded by walls and
bastions, which have a circuit of about 3 miles ; but before
these were erected by the Venetians, the town was of much
greater extent. A handsome Gothic edifice, formerly the
church of St Sophia, is now converted into a mosque, and
many of its monuments have been injured by the hands of
the Turks. Besides the churches, convents, and mosques,
Nicosia has an ancient palace over the entrance of which
the lion of Venice still stands ; a handsome bazaar; and a
khan or inn for the accommodation of travellers. Carpets,
cotton stuffs, and leather, are manufactured here; and the
principal articles of commerce consist of wine and raw cot¬
ton. Nicosia is the seat of a Greek archbishop, and of the
Turkish governor of Cyprus. It was formerly the resi¬
dence of the Cyprian kings of the Lusignan dynasty; and
in 1570 was stormed by the Turks, who on that occasion
put to the sword about 20,000 of the inhabitants. Pop.
about 16,000.
NIEBUHR, Barthold George, the illustrious historian
of ancient Rome, was born at Copenhagen the 27th August
1776. He was son of the oriental traveller, Carsten Niebuhr.
His family for many generations had been settled in Hadel,
the north-western province of Hanover, where they occupied
a small patrimonial estate. The elder Niebuhr had been em¬
ployed by the Danish government on an exploring expedi¬
tion in Arabia, in the year 1760, in which he exhibited re¬
markable abilities and energy. On his return, after suffering
great hardships, he received an appointment in Copenhagen,
married, and had two children,—a daughter named Chris¬
tiana, and a son, Barthold George, a few years her junior.
The mother was also a German by birth; so that Barthold,
though born in Denmark, was himself German on both sides,
and learnt the German as well as the Danish language in his
nursery. When he was two years old his father removed to
Meldorf, the capital of South Denmark, a district of Holstein,
lying on the shore of the German Ocean, between the mouths
of the Elbe and Eyder, which, though subject to Denmark,
was occupied by a population claiming closer connection
by origin and language with its German than its Danish
neighbours. I he inhabitants of this border-land had se¬
cured in the middle ages a certain political independence,
of which they still retained the traces in their habits, their
feelings, and their municipal institutions. From these in¬
stitutions, in which the distinction of classes was strongly
marked, Niebuhr drew many illustrations of his theory re¬
garding the relations between the patricians and plebeians
of ancient Rome.
The bent of Niebuhr’s genius, and his habits of mind,
may be traced more clearly than in most cases to the cir¬
cumstances of his early years. From his father he derived
his interest in languages, in geography, and in the manners
and institutions of different nations, together with unwearied
diligence and great earnestness of character. To his mother
he owed apparently his moral and physical susceptibility ; he
was easily affected by change of climate and temperature,
and liable to fits of peevishness and irritability; while at the
same time he was endowed with great warmth of heart, and
gained the devoted affection of his friends and family.
From his father’s employment as a fiscal agent in Denmark
he acquired his turn for the subject of finance. Accus¬
tomed from his infancy to the marshes and moors of his
256
NIEBUHR.
Niebuhr, province, it was not till late in life that he acquired a taste
for picturesque scenery; to the last the fens of Holland
and the plains of the Campagna had more interest for him
than the romantic glories of the Alps and Apennines.
Meldorf seems to have afforded him no companion of his
own age, and but little society among his elders, which
could assist in expanding his intellect; but Boje, the pre¬
fect of the district, an intimate friend of his father’s, was
a man of cultivated mind and literary taste; and young
Niebuhr delighted in listening to their conversation, and,
as he grew up, in devouring the contents of their libraries.
Marvellous stories are told of the quickness of his obser¬
vation, and his powers of memory. His first political in¬
terest was excited by the war between Russia and Turkey
in 1787, the course of which he followed, or, if his father
may be believed, anticipated, with the map before him;
and the information he displayed in matters of history, geo¬
graphy, and statistics, was from the first extraordinary. In
1790, his thirteenth year, he was placed at the gymnasium
of Meldorf; in 1792 he was removed to a commercial
school at Hamburg, and in 1794 was admitted into the
university of Kiel. The system of education at a small
German university such as Kiel, was very similar to that,
little noticed and soon to be forgotten, pursued in our East
India College at Haileybury. The students, about 100 in
number, lived in habits of easy intercourse, and often of
affectionate friendship, with the professors and authorities,
frequenting their little parties, and associating with their
wives and daughters. The course of study, ranging over
two years, was wide, but necessarily superficial, exercising
the memory more than the understanding; the students
attending, with considerable latitude of choice, the lectures
of teachers in the learned languages, in German and Danish
history, in jurisprudence, logic, metaphysics, natural philo¬
sophy, chemistry, “aesthetics,” and philology, and probably
others, delivered orally and taken down in writing; great
stores of which manuscripts, more or less methodically
arranged, they carried away with them to form the basis of
future works or lectures of their own. On all these subjects
Niebuhr gained crude masses of information which none
but a mind of extraordinary activity, such as his own, could
have digested. But a more important acquisition than all
this learning, for the future development of his character, was
the friendship of Madame Hensler, the widowed daughter of
one of the professors, a woman of remarkable sense and in¬
telligence, towards whom, being six years her junior, he
continued through life to entertain the most respectful
regard, with whom he corresponded, without reserve, on
all his thoughts and feelings, and whose younger sister he
afterwards married. Here he also formed many valu¬
able intimacies; e.g., with the two Counts Stolberg, with
Count Adam Moltke, with Voss, Jacobi, Reventlow, and
Schlosser.
At Easter 1796 Niebuhr left Kiel. The reputation of
his abilities had become known to Count Schimmelmann,
the Danish minister of finance, who offered him the place
of private secretary. The elder Niebuhr, it seems, had
looked forward to his son following his own steps as a
geographer and explorer; but he felt that the delicacy of
his health was an obstacle to the realization of this plan,
and he now advised him to accept this opening to official
life at home. Niebuhr accordingly went to Copenhagen,
and entered his new patron’s service; but in August the
same year he was appointed secretary to the royal library
by the prime minister Bernstorff, the duties of which post
he combined, at least for a time, with those of the other.
Almost at the same time he received the offer of some
literary post in France; and again Schimmelmann proposed
to him the situation of consul-general at Paris. Both
these offers he declined. “ How could I bear,” he said,
“ to live »o far from all who are dear to me, among a na¬
tion to whom in general I have an aversion ? ” Such was Niebuhr,
the variety of openings, not lucrative perhaps, but involv-
ing some responsibility, which presented themselves to a
young German of t wenty years of age, known for his abilities
only in the small circle of one of the least conspicuous of
German universities.
In August 1797 Niebuhr went to see his friends in
Holstein.0 On this occasion the regard he had long enter¬
tained for Amelia Behrens, the younger sister of Madame
Hensler, determined him to make her the offer of his hand ;
and the young couple, Niebuhr being at this time twenty-one,
and the lady three years older, became solemnly betrothed.
He returned to his duties at Copenhagen ; but his views now
pointed to a professorship at Kiel, which might enable him
to marry, and devote his life to literary labours. Before,
however, entering deliberately on the career to which he had
destined himself, Niebuhr was anxious for the improvement
to be derived from foreign travel, and particularly for an
opportunity of making himself acquainted with England, a
country to which his father was much attached, and in
which he had himself felt especial interest from a child. In
June 1798 he sailed from Cuxhaven, landed at Yarmouth,
and went direct to London, where he resided till October,
and then fixed himself for six months at Edinburgh. Here
he attended the university for one session, and after tra¬
velling through parts of Scotland and England, returned
home in November 1799. His letters from this countryshow
with what active interest he studied the character andcustoms
of the English; but it is to be regretted that the acquaint¬
ance he formed here was confined to a few families and
individuals within a narrow circle ; and the habit of hasty
generalization, to which he was through life addicted, was
never more conspicuous than in the conclusions he drew
from his limited experience regarding the whole subject of
English life and manners.
In the spring of 1800, Niebuhr having obtained two
small appointments from the government at Copenhagen,
took up his residence there, and married his betrothed. It
is from this time that his thoughts and reading began to be
directed particularly towards classical antiquity, gradually
centring in the history of ancient Rome. Six years passed
in intense study and moderate employment, until, in 1806,
his name, not only as a scholar, but as a man of business
and knowledge of commerce and finance, rising higher and
higher, he received an invitation to transfer himself to the
service of the Prussian government. In accepting this
offer, after mature deliberation, he acknowledges himself to
have been influenced in some degree by pique at an anti¬
cipated slight in his official career in Denmark. His temper
was undoubtedly irritable, and his extraordinary quickness
of apprehension was combined apparently with some rest¬
lessness ; but the charges sometimes made against him, of
ingratitude to his first patrons, and insensibility to the
claims of his country, are wholly unreasonable. Schimmel¬
mann and Bernstorff seem to have given their full con¬
sent and approval to his proposed migration; and Niebuhr,
as we have seen, was himself a German, not a Dane, by
origin. At that moment, in the attitude of resistance to
France assumed generally by the nations of Eastern Eu¬
rope, a feeling of common nationality pervaded all the
people, at least of Teutonic birth and language. At a
later period, indeed, when the independence of the whole
of Germany seemed hopelessly lost, Niebuhr could con¬
template without hesitation the prospect of seeking a retreat
for his literary labours in Russia.
The change of life, however, which he now made was,
at its commencement, far from auspicious. He had en¬
rolled himself a citizen of Prussia at a moment when the
very existence of the Prussian state was trembling in the
balance. He arrived at Berlin, October 5, 1806, only nine
days before the fatal battle of Jena, which, with the disas-
NIEBUHR.
Niebuhr.
1
ters which rapidly followed, obliged him quickly to quit the
✓ capital, and seek more and more distant retreats in the
train of the flying government. He thus passed through
Dantzic and Konigsberg; and at last, about the beginning
of 1807, found himself at Memel, the northern extremity
of the kingdom. He had been placed in the department
of finance, for which he was qualified by previous connec¬
tion with the bank at Copenhagen. The minister who had
discovered his merit, and secured his services for Prussia,
was Von Stein, who seems to have had the highest con¬
fidence in his abilities as a financier. But the overthrow of
Prussia in the war with France brought about a complete
change of administration. Stein was replaced by Harden-
berg ; yet, though he lost a personal friend at the head of
affairs, Niebuhr’s talents seem to have been not less appre¬
ciated by the new minister. The financial department of
the commissariat was intrusted to him, and he removed to
the head-quarters of the government at Tilsit; till, on the
utter overthrow of Prussian independence, he desired leave
to retire to Copenhagen, and there await the result. He
was prevailed upon to remain; and when Napoleon de¬
manded the dismissal of Hardenberg, Niebuhr, in the wreck
of the government, was appointed with four others as a pro¬
visional commission to carry on affairs till a new adminis¬
tration could be formed. 1 he finances of the country were,
of course, in utter confusion ; immediate measures were
required to provide for paying the interest of the public
debt; and some fiscal reforms and arrangements, now set on
foot by Niebuhr, were accepted afterwards by Stein, when
he succeeded to the head of the government. Niebuhr
w’as now appointed to negotiate a loan at Amsterdam, and
thither he repaired with his wife in March 1808. There
he remained for a year; but his negotiation was unsuccess¬
ful : he paid a visit to Ditmarsh in 1809, and returned to
Berlin at the end of the year, where he was once more
placed at the head of the department charged with the
management of the national debt and the supervision of
the banks.
In 1810 Niebuhr found his administrative views so much
at variance with those of Hardenberg, who had once more
replaced Stein, that he demanded his dismissal, and re¬
quested at the same time an appointment as professor at
the new university then about to be opened at Berlin. In
his conduct in this matter it seems impossible to acquit
him of waywardness, and of weakly giving way to his ha¬
bitual restlessness of disposition. Hardenberg was sincerely
anxious to retain his services, willing to discuss and con¬
sider his views, and to come to an understanding with him ;
and Stein himself, the rival of Hardenberg, and Niebuhr’s
patron and personal friend, judged his conduct indefensible.
In a piivate letter to Humboldt, Stein thus expresses him¬
self,—Niebuhr declares his dissentient opinion. M. von
Hardenberg invites him to discuss the matter with him,
and to send another plan : to this he vouchsafes no reply;
mt instead hands in a lengthy chain of arguments against
Hardenberg’s plan to the king, without bringing forward
any other project; and now he wants to appear as a martyr
to the truth. All this is nothing but a refined egotism,”
&c. Niebuhr, it would seem, was beginning to pine again
for the literary occupation to which he was always recur-
nng in the midst of his official duties. After stating to
Madame Hensler, in very general and vague terms, his
grounds of dissatisfaction with the government measures,
he adds, Besides this, I must confess, that my sorrow for
the sacrifice of my mward life to this miserable finance
often wakes up with renewed force.” He allows himself
to i amble on m a very unworthy strain of reflection. “ A
consciousness how dearly any perfection in this art must
be purchased by a man who is fit for something better is
piobably the tiue reason why so feiv honest men have ever
made themselves masters of it  For a lono- time
past I have been almost unable to refresh myself by'study
.... This estrangement from my true life has now lasted
nearly three years and a half.” It was evidently InVh time
to speak in the mildest language, that the man of letters
should return to the occupations from which he had been
so long dissevered; and we may rejoice, as he did himself,
when the king acceded to Hardenberg’s recommendation
and gave him the post of historiographer. The minister
however, continued to consult him occasionally on financiai
matters; and Niebuhr, released from the responsibilities of
office, was not unwilling to tender his counsel.
We may ascribe to the natural vanity of a youno- man,
raised to important public offices by the disastrous circum¬
stances of his country,—for the flower of the youth of
Prussia was drained off into the armv,—the overweening
opinion Niebuhr seems to have entertained of his adminis¬
trative abilities. But none of his admirers—and no man
has received more indiscriminate admiration—have ever
pointed to any special service he rendered to Prussia in
the vaiious situations he filled in the government; and
there seems much reason to apprehend that, in relieving
himself from his official duties, he yielded to an imprac¬
ticable temper, ill suited to the conduct of public affairs.
However this may be,—and his friends, it should be men¬
tioned, averred that eventually even Stein acknowledged
the correctness of his views on the question between him
and his superior,—there can be no doubt that the change
now made in his career was fortunate for his fame, for his
comfort, and for the interests of literature. From this time
Niebuhr experienced but little interruption in his devotion
to letters, to classical antiquity, and specially to the history
of Rome. When the Prussian government was in want of
able civil administrators to direct or recruit the finances, it
was obliged to seek out a clever youth from a neighbouring
country, almost fresh from academic distinctions ; but when
it had to create a new university in its capital city, and
furnish it with a body of professors fitted bv their reputa¬
tion and abilities to place it at once on a level with the
oldest and most renowned seats of learning in Germany, it
could command the services of a whole corps of men, each
of them among the most illustrious in his own department
of knowledge. Niebuhr, whose reputation was destined to
eclipse them all, was less famous in 1811 in the republic of
letters than Schleiermacher, Savigny, Heindorf, Buttmann,
and others perhaps of the Berlin professors, among whom
he was now to be admitted. In the prostration of Prussia
at this period, while Stein at least, and a few others per¬
haps, were secretly preparing the country to re-assert her
independence at the favourable moment, the men of letters
seem to have made up their minds to forget their political
degtadation in their earnest devotion to intellectual specu¬
lation. 1 he university of Berlin gave great impulse to
thought among the educated men of the countrv, the pro¬
fessors above enumerated exercised, with many others,
great influence on the intellect of the age, and impressed
a. character for boldness, freedom, and originality upon tho
literature of Northern Germany. In his capacity of histo-
riographei, Niebuhr devoted himself specially from the
first to the history of ancient Rome. In 1811-12 he de¬
livered courses of lectures upon this favourite subject; and
these, with the promptness and ardour of his impatient
temperament, he worked up without delay into two volumes
Oi a history, which he published before the close of the-
second of these years. The appearance of the original edi¬
tion was unfortunately timed. The stirring political events
2 K
257
Niebuhr.
VOL. XVI.
Steins Leben, ii. 507, quoted in Niebuhr't Lift and Lettert, i. 234.
258 N I E B
Niebuhr, of 1813 cast it wholly into the shade. Even the author,
in the ardour of his patriotism, was contented to for¬
get it while he himself carried a musket on the exercising
ground, and undertook at the same time the conduct of a
political journal. With the return of peace and leisure for
literature, the history was not found to command all the
approbation or attention its author might have expected.
Though at a later period, as has been already intimated,
he changed his views on many essential points, he was far
from acquiescing at the time in the objections urged against
them, and continued loudly to proclaim the blindness and
stupidity of all who refused to accede to them. It was for¬
tunate, perhaps, that a long interval was now given him for
reflection. He had scarcely resumed the quiet tenor of his
lectures and studies, after the return of peace, when it was
painfully interrupted by the increasing weakness, and
finally by the death, of his amiable wife, whose health, al¬
ways precarious, seems to have suffered much from the
hardships of the migratory winter of 1806. Her parting
injunctions to him were to continue his history “ for her
sakeshe had perceived, perhaps, that his task had be¬
come already irksome to him, and he wanted encourage¬
ment to pursue it. But her loss for the time completely
broke his spirits, and he accepted, as a relief, the timely
and considerate offer of the Prussian embassy at Rome,—a
post which ordinarily was little more than honorary, but
which, in the contemplated event of a concordat being ar¬
ranged with the Pope, would require both tact and ability.
Before setting out on this long and distant banishment, at
which his sensitive nature was considerably dismayed,
Niebuhr was fortunate in securing himself a second wife
in the person of Margaret Hebrem, the niece of Amelia, a
woman of excellent sense, though probably with less appre¬
ciation of his intellectual character than the first, and who,
confident of the influence she should gradually win over his
affections, was content to stand avowedly second for a time
in his imagination.
In July 1816 the newly-married couple quitted Germany.
They were accompanied by Brandis, who has since attained
a distinguished name in literature, as secretary to the lega¬
tion. They passed through Wurzburg and Munich, where
Niebuhr did not omit to examine the MSS. in the libraries;
Innsbruck, where he inquired with intense interest into
the circumstances of the recent patriotic struggle of the
Tyrolese ; and Verona, where he made his discovery of the
Institutes of Gaius. This discovery was notified by Nie¬
buhr in a letter to Savigny from Venice, but he at first
supposed the fragment to be a portion of Ulpian. He
copied on the spot a single leaf, and sent it by way of spe¬
cimen to his friend at Berlin, where measures were promptly
taken for the recovery and publication of the lost treasure.
After visiting Venice, Bologna, and Florence, he reached
Rome on the 7th October 1816. At the period of his ar¬
rival there he seems to have been depressed in spirits and
suffering in health; he saw Italy also for the first time
under the pressure of famine; and, among other personal
inconveniences, the vessel in which his books were sent to
Leghorn was wrecked at Calais, and he remained for seve¬
ral months uncertain of their fate. He complained of the
character of the people ; he was dissatisfied with, perhaps
disappointed at, the meagre remains of antiquity which were
alone apparent—at least on a first view—upon the site of the
greatest of ancient cities, as well as in the country around;
and he was harassed by the difficulty of studying at a place
where he could only read in the public libraries on certain
days, and for some limited hours. Under these circum¬
stances, peculiarly untoward to a man of his temperament,
he seems to have been long unable to work upon the His¬
tory to which he had hoped to devote himself with more
zeal than ever; and though he was never idle, and con¬
stantly making some discoveries among the MSS. of the
U H R.
Vatican, he did not for some time recover the even tenor Niebuhr,
of his literary habits. Gradually, however, the vexations
of his position wore off; he was able to look with more in¬
dulgence on the character of the people ; he found more to
admire and attract him in the scenes around him; the re¬
spect in which he was personally held enabled him to relieve
himself from the frivolities of the society among which his
position might have thrown him; he regarded with genial
sympathy the enthusiasm of a clique of young German
artists, especially the painter Cornelius, who, in their turn,
revered him as a patron and director; and, finally, the birth
of a son, in April 1817, came opportunely to brace all his
energies, and fill him with pleasant and hopeful views of
life. To the child he gave the Roman name of Marcus ;
and began from the first month of its existence to lay out
his plans for its future education and career. He con¬
tinued all this time in constant correspondence wflth his
literary friends at Berlin, especially with Savigny and Ni-
colovius; but his letters to Madame Hensler still pre¬
sent, as before, the fullest picture of his life, his thoughts,
and his interests. He occupied himself with his usual as¬
siduity, but in desultory studies, tending, however, for the
most part, in the direction of Roman history, the reading of
the Latin scholiasts, the publication of various fragments
he discovered of Livy and Cicero, and the investigation of
the history of the successors of Alexander, as a preparation
for the period when the Romans first came in contact with
the Greeks and Orientals. During the greater part of his
residence in Rome he occupied lodgings in an old palace
built on a lofty story of the ancient theatre of Marcellus,
which lies between the Capitoline and the Tiber.
The negotiations with the papal government, to carry
on which Niebuhr was ostensibly sent to Rome, were not
brought to an issue till 1821, when he had been at his post
more than four years. The favourable termination of the
affair followed quickly upon a visit paid to Rome by Har-
denberg in person, and the minister’s friends claimed for
him the merit of settling it. The friends of Niebuhr, on
the other hand, maintained that all the preliminaries had
been arranged by him, and that the successful issue itself,
though Niebuhr himself allowed all the credit of it to fall
to his superior, was owing to his zeal and tact. There can
be no doubt that Niebuhr had made himself personally re¬
spected both by Pius VII. and his minister Cardinal Con-
salvi; but it appears that he had to wait nearly four years
for his instructions from the court of Berlin, and in the nego¬
tiations themselves he could have borne little part. At
all events it wmuld seem, from the serious quarrels which
ensued fifteen years later between the popish Archbishop
of Cologne and the Prussian government, that the concor¬
dat, whether it were the work of Hardenberg or of Nie¬
buhr, failed to make a practical settlement of the questions
it dealt with.
Brandis, the secretary of legation, had removed from
Rome before this time. He was succeeded by Bunsen,
who became one of the most devoted of Niebuhr’s friends
and admirers. In 1821 Niebuhr was engaged in sketching
the plan of the great work on Roman topography which
Bunsen, Plainer, and other coadjutors, have since given to
the world,—a work ill arranged and unequal in the execu¬
tion of its parts, but deserving, on the whole, to be con¬
sidered one of the most important and valuable of modern
additions to our knowledge of Roman antiquity. Some of
the chapters, particularly that which gives a general history
of the site of the city,—the most vivid and interesting of
the whole,—were contributed to the work by Niebuhr.
In 1822 Niebuhr had been six years absent from home.
The chief object of his mission had been effected, and not¬
withstanding the increasing estimation in which he was
held, and his consequently increased means of usefulness,
evinced on some public occasions, he became anxious to
N I E B U H B.
Niebuhr, return to Germany. His family now consisted of one son
and three daughters, and he was dismayed at the idea of
bringing up children amidst a society for which generally
he had so little respect. Having obtained, in the first in¬
stance, temporary leave of absence, he allowed himself, ap¬
parently for the first time,—such was the insecurity of the
country even round Frascati and Tivoli,—to leave the im¬
mediate neighbourhood of Rome, and paid a visit to Naples
in the spring of 1823. Returning from thence at the end
of five weeks, he took his farewell of Rome, and commenced
his journey northward in May. At St Gall he passed some
weeks, to recruit his health and to examine the MSS. in the
library there,—a labour which was repaid by the discovery
of the poem of Merobandes, which he prepared for publi¬
cation during his stay. From St Gall he went to Heidel¬
berg, and then on a visit to Brandis at Bonn, where he
proposed to take up his residence until it should be finally
decided whether or not he should return to his post at Rome.
At Rome, Niebuhr resumed his history in earnest. Some
new light had dawned upon him, and cleared up difficulties
that had long, perhaps unacknowledged to himself, thwarted
his efforts to make any substantial advance. But while still
engaged on his third volume he recurred to the correction,
and eventually to the re-casting of the two former, and
these occupations were again interrupted by a visit to Ber¬
lin. Here he obtained a final release from his duties as
ambassador, and was gratified with a pension. He was
expected, however, to remain for a time in the capital, and
give his aid to a financial commission. In the course of
1824, however, he was allowed to return to Bonn, and to
devote himself to studies, directed henceforth, rather than
interrupted, by the congenial duty of delivering lectures in
the university on ancient history. His first course (1824)
was on the history of Greece after the battle of Chaeronea:
this was followed by others on Roman antiquities, in the
winter of 1825, repeated in 1827; on ancient history gener¬
ally, 1826; ancient ethnography and geography in the
winter of 1827; the history of Rome under the empire,
in 1828 and 1829; and a second course on earlier Roman
history, in the summer of 1830.
The appreciation of Niebuhr’s services to literature seems
to have grown rapidly at this period, and this evidently in¬
spired him with more genuine confidence in himself than,
notwithstanding a sanguine, indeed we must say a boast¬
ful, habit of talking, he had hitherto really felt. In October
1825 he began to work again regularly on his History, and
he commenced a thorough revision of the first volumes,
without a pang of regret for the past or misgiving for the
future, with the full assurance that the book was about “ to
gain immensely in value,” and “ its principles to be fixed
immoveably for all ages.” “ I do not hesitate to say,” he
writes in April 1827, “ that the discovery of no ancient his-
toiian could have taught the world so much as my work;
and that all that may hereafter come to light from ancient
and uncorrupted sources will only tend to confirm or de¬
velop the principles I have advanced.” When the two
volumes appeared in their new form, they were at once re¬
ceived with acclamations by the learned, and Niebuhr un¬
doubtedly had the happiness of feeling that he had given a
new impulse to historical study, and created, in fact, an era
m literature. Among the compliments he received, none
seems to have been more gratifying to him than the zeal
and ability with which his work was translated by Messrs
ai e and Thirlwall, and the favour with which, under their
auspices, it was regarded at the university of Cambridge.
Besides working at his History (which he carried on
through a third volume), and the daily occupation of the
lecture-room, Niebuhr found time to undertake the super¬
intendence of a great work, no less than the publication of
tlie Corpus Scriptorum Byzantinorum, to which he himself
contributed an edition of Agathias. His name attracted a
259
number of able assistants, and he received abundance of Niebuhr,
important subsidies from foreign countries, as well as from
Germany, in the shape of collections, emendations, &c.
Of this work he speaks with his usual ardour : “ Is it not a
great thing that a publisher and a philologist should be able
to accomplish in six years from hence at the furthest, a work
that was but partially carried out in sixty years, under the
auspices and with the munificent aid of Louis XIV. ?” But
his labours now were as regular and methodical as they
were incessant. His residence at Bonn continued with
hardly a day’s interruption, excepting one journey to Hol¬
stein ; his mode of life was simple, his hours of study and
relaxation systematically allotted, and though always ac¬
tively alive to the politics of the day, and a regular fre¬
quenter of the public news-room, he did not suffer his atten¬
tion to be diverted to other literary occupations than those
above mentioned. He no longer indulged in visions of
great works to be carried on simultaneously with his His¬
tory, nor even to succeed it. He began even to limit his
views with regard to the great work of his life, and pre¬
scribed the triumph of Octavius as the termination of its
career. Yet he was more cheerful at this than at any other
period of his life, and seems to have hoped to attain his
seventy years, like the generality of people, as he says,
about him. He had visions also of a future visit to Rome,
“ twelve years hence.” But all these visions or anticipations
were suddenly cut off. In the winter of 1830 he had the
misfortune to suffer the loss of his house and some of his
books and MSS. by fire. He returned to his work with
more elasticity of spirit than might have been expected at
his age; nevertheless he wras considerably shaken by the
anxiety and mortification it occasioned him. The French
revolution of July 1830 was a still severer blow. He had
long regarded the progress of republican principles with a
morbid horror, and his mind was now filled with the worst
forebodings. He became more assiduous than ever in his
study of public events, and in his visits to the news-room.
At last, on the evening of Christmas-day 1830, he caught
a chill in walking home from the casino, where he had
been more than usually excited and heated in perusing the
account of the trial of Charles X.’s ministers. He took to
his bed, but inflammation of the lungs set in, and in the
course of a week his illness reached a fatal termination. He
died on the 2d January 1831; and his wife, who had
sickened at his bedside, died also on the 11th. They
were buried in the same grave, over which the present
King of Prussia, formerly his pupil at Berlin, erected a neat
and appropriate monument. Upon it a Roman Cains is
represented as taking his Caia by the hand, and the linea¬
ments of the two figures portray, with a certain air of
Roman formality and sternness, the features of Barthold
George Niebuhr and Margaret Hensler. In the summer
of 1831 this monument was not yet in existence; but the
eyes of the writer of this notice were attracted to a simpler
memorial of the great historian at Bonn, in the brass plate
on which his name was inscribed still affixed to the door of
the house which was his no longer.
The reputation of Niebuhr as a philologer and historian
had reached, as we have seen, a distinguished eminence at
the time of his decease, and it still continued to rise. He
was admitted, both in Germany and in this country, as a
standard authority on the points of classical antiquity to
which he had devoted himsell, and the revolution he had
aimed at effecting in the principles of Roman history were ac¬
cepted, almost without dispute, as accomplished and ratified.
According to the testimony of his admirer the Chevalier
Bunsen, he was even more fully appreciated in England than
in his own country; and the fact of 7000 copies of the
English translation of his History (vols. i. and ii.) having
been purchased within eight or ten years from the publica¬
tion, is adduced in proof of our superior discernment. But
260 N I E B
Niebuhr, even in Germany, as Niebuhr himself remarked, with re-
ference to the sale of his Byzantine Corpus, a class of
wealthy collectors had arisen, the number of which fur¬
nished no measure of the number of readers ; and any man
acquainted with English scholarship knows well that, not¬
withstanding a certain amount of superficial reading or
handling of Niebuhr’s volumes, there were but few among
us who really made a study of them, or rendered them¬
selves competent to express a reasonable judgment upon
them. Still, the great principles of his work, his reputed
discoveries, and more particularly the spirit in which they
were conducted, sank deeply into the academic mind of
England; and his genius, especially after it received the
enthusiastic adoration of Arnold, was admitted as almost
beyond cavil, or even qualification. In Germany the re¬
sults of his investigations were more strictly questioned
from an early period, and more severely criticised. The
time was coming w’hen a great re-action was to set in with
regard to Niebuhr’s estimation in this country also. Ihere
can be little doubt that the publication of his Lectures, and
still more of his correspondence {Lebensnachrichten, &c.,
abridged and translated into English, 1852) has tended
very sensibly to diminish it. The Lectures, it must be al¬
lowed, have been published at a great disadvantage, having
been only taken down from his oral delivery in the lecture-
room, and bearing evident marks, not only of the occasional
haste and incorrectness of all lectures delivered vive voce, as
these were, without even the assistance of notes, but of in¬
experienced and unskilful abridgments, and often of actual
misconception. Of these Lectures three series have been
given to the world by Dr Leonhard Schmitz, himself a
hearer of them: they embrace a course on Ancient History
generally, which must be pronounced extremely meagre
and colourless; and another on Ancient Ethnology and
Geography, about one-half of which is devoted specially
to Italy and Rome, undoubtedly far more interesting,
though abounding, to what must be called a morbid extent,
in crude theories and groundless assertions. A third course,
that on Roman History, extending as far as the reign of
Constantine, gives a connected view of the spirit in which
Niebuhr would have treated the later portions of the work
before him ; it cannot be said, however, that it evinces any
of the novelty or originality which so strongly characterize
his discussions on the earlier period, nor is it drawn out
sufficiently in detail to enable us to judge of his powers of
narration and description. On the whole, it must be said
that these Lectures have been received with great disap¬
pointment by the English reader, and have given a shock
to the feeling of unbounded devotion with which the author
was previously regarded.
The publication of the Lebensnachrichten is perhaps
still more to be regretted than that of the lectures. The
correspondence of Niebuhr exhibits, no doubt, in glowing
colours, his earnestness of character, his strict integrity,
his generous sympathy with everything noble, and de¬
testation of all meanness and injustice. Yet all this
was patent to a reader of ordinary insight on the face
of his published History, and required no further illustration
from his life and letters; while the evidence we receive
from it of his amiableness as a son, a husband, a parent,
and a friend, is in some measure balanced by certain indi¬
cations of peevishness, changeableness, and other infirmities
of temper, which are calculated to provoke and mortify
those who were most disposed to admire him. But it is
with Niebuhr’s literary character that we are most concerned.
The correspondence, and various essays and fragments of
essays on literary and political subjects, contained in the
U H R.
Kleine Schriften betray infirmities of judgment which are Niebuhr,
quite surprising.1 His views, for instance, on the dates of ^ ^ ^
Petronius and Quintus Curtius, are now generally regarded
as founded on very inadequate bases. His theory that the
municipal institutions of Italian towns in the middle ages
were derived, not from the northern conquerors, but from the
Romans, has been rejected by modern inquirers. He was
especially proud of his acquaintance with the institutions
and politics of England; yet he was wont to illustrate the
claims of the Italian allies on the Roman republic by com¬
paring them with the demand of the Irish Catholics for
the so-called emancipation, forgetting that from 1793 the
Catholics had acquired the franchise, the point for which
the Italians contended, and that their later cry was for
admission to Parliament, to which the claims of the Italians
presented no analogy whatever. His want of practical
good sense is shown characteristically in the notion he
elsewhere promulgates, that it would have been best for
the world that Spain should have retained her American
colonies, opening the trade with them to foreign nations
through Cadiz as an emporium, evidently with a retrospect
to the days of ancient or mediaeval commerce. All these
views, and many others equally frivolous, are advanced with
a dogmatism which is painful in a man of real genius, as in
any other it would be ridiculous. Further, we have clearly
seen how much he prided himself on his insight into the
principles of finance: yet we have observed how, on the
first occasion when an opportunity really offered for bringing
this insight to a practical test, he broke down completely,
and, in fact, fled from his post. Gibbon gives three rea¬
sons for the decline of the Roman empire : a distinguished
English writer of the present day has rejected them all,
and laid it wholly on the restriction of the currency and the
want of bank-notes. This is a question which it requires not
book-learning but actual knowledge of affairs to solve; and
of all others it is the question which we had a right to look
to Niebuhr, with his official training, to elucidate. _ Yet,
strange to say, there is not a single passage in his History,
his Lectures, his Essays, or his Correspondence, which
shows that he had ever considered the financial and mo¬
netary system of the Romans at all.
Grave complaints have been made against Niebuhr by
the Liberals of modern days, for his alleged desertion of
the cause of freedom. A fair consideration of his various
writings fully rebuts this ill-natured accusation. That
there are indications in the course of his life of some vacil¬
lation and indistinctness in his views, is no more than may
be said with equal truth of almost all thoughtful men,
men of speculation rather than of action,—whose lot has
been cast in periods of change and amidst the trial of politi¬
cal principles. Niebuhr’s political creed is ably and satisfac¬
torily drawn up in a communication from the Chevalier Bun¬
sen to the translator of his Correspondence ; though we must
here again remark the unpractical character which appears
on the face of his scheme for developing the parliamentary
system of Prussia. Deeply impressed as he was with the
hollowness of the election system in modern European
constitutions, on a mixed but uniform basis of property and
numbers, he would have filled his deliberative assemblies
by appointment from town-councils and corporations, a
notion which he probably derived from the conventions of
the Roman provinces under the empire.
There is yet another subject on which it is still more pain¬
ful to speak. The character of Niebuhr’s mind is remarkably
exemplified by his manner of dealing with religious subjects.
His feelings on this point were from the first deep and strong.
They survived the rejection which, after the many in-
1 The third volume of the English “ Life and Correspondence ” contains a selection
as well as from the Nach-gelassene or “ Posthumous.”
from the Kleine Schriften or “Lesser Writings,
NIEBUHR.
Niebuhr, stances of precipitate judgment on his part already alleged,
s—we may call hasty as well as ill-considered, of the greater
part of the positive belief of the Christian world. It was
on the birth of his son that the sense of the indeterminate¬
ness of his own creed,—of the chasm between his feelings
and his opinions,—became suddenly intolerable to him ; and
he determined, and with his curious simplicity of character
bluntly declared his determination, that the child “ should
believe in the letter of the Old and New Testaments.” . . .
“ I shall nurture in him,” he adds, “ from his infancy a firm
faith in all I have lost or feel uncertain about? After
such an avowal, it is impossible not to feel great dis¬
trust in Niebuhr’s speculations on other subjects, and ap¬
prehension lest, in perfect good faith and sincerity, he
should fatally mislead us for the satisfaction of a theory or
a sentiment.
Let us now turn, in conclusion, to the History, the great
work by which our author will continue hereafter to be
known, and by which it were much to be wished that he
could be known only. Niebuhr, it must be clearly un¬
derstood, comes before us much less as a destroyer of the
early Roman history than as a restorer. Among enlightened
students of antiquity the incredibility of the narratives of
Livy and Dionysius was already admitted, though the main
features of these accounts still retain their hold upon them,
from the apparent impossibility of constructing a substan¬
tial edifice from the fragments of truth, and a natural
reluctance to let the ground lie unoccupied. It was not
then the destructive, but the reconstructive part of Nie¬
buhr’s History which gave it its peculiar character, and
kindled so warmly the imagination of his most intelligent
readers. Arnold, above all men, was grateful to his master
for restoring to him the possibility of a belief in the Origines
of Roman history. But a sterner, perhaps a colder cri¬
ticism, has dispelled these last shadowy visions. Among
other writers,—for Niebuhr’s theories have been a fruitful
field of controversy, particularly in his own country, ever
since their publication,—Schwegler in Germany, and Sir
G. Cornewall Lewis among ourselves, have shown, it should
seem, the actual baselessness of some of the chief of his
reputed discoveries.
The most important of these discoveries, or theories,
as we must be content to call them, is undoubtedly that
which was received with unhesitating conviction, and ren¬
dered so popular, in this country at least, by Mr (now Lord)
Macaulay and Dr Arnold, as to have been for many years
accepted by all our scholars and students as an ascertained
fact; namely, the presumed derivation of the early history
of Rome from ancient national ballads. Schwegler, a very
competent and trustworthy authority on the present state
of the controversy, declares that in Germany this theory has
been now generally abandoned. Sir G. Cornewall Lewis
has recently analysed and discussed it in a masterly man¬
ner; and it may be presumed that it will henc'eforth retain
little favour with those among us who have read the Essay
on the Credibility of the Early Homan History. The posi¬
tive evidence on which it pretends to rest is shown to be
utterly inconclusive. The passages cited from Cato, Varro,
Lnnius, Cicero, Horace, and Valerius Maximus, are all
absolutely irrelevant. The assumption, that fragments of
t ese supposed ballads may be traced in the narrative of
Livy, is wholly gratuitous; the assertion that some of his
piose is actually verse, and may be read into Saturnian
mctie is only an amusing fancy; the attempt to produce
any analogous instance of history preserved in national
poetiy is entirely futile. Such is the conclusion to which,
whatever his own early prepossessions may have been, a
candid inquirer must be brought by a fair examination of
tne subject, as it is now presented to him.
But interesting and seductive as this' theory proved to
the first students of Niebuhr’s History, it was still less
261
attractive perhaps than his interpretation of the relations of Niebuhr,
the patricians and plebeians, as representing respectively a v -
dominant and a subject race, coalescing gradually into a V
single political body. This idea, which Niebuhr has de¬
veloped with peculiar force, and illustrated by minute and
multifarious learning, was not wholly new; nor did he
stand alone in his own generation in "marking the import¬
ance of regarding; such national relations. The theory that
most historic polities have.sprung from the subjection of
race to race, and that their career is generally to be ex¬
plained only by constant reference to this circumstance,
has been prolific of very serious consequences in modern
times. It is not too much to say, that the revolutionary
movements which pervaded so large a portion of western
Europe in 1848 were directed in no slight degree by pe¬
dantic notions of the influence of race and nationality.
Niebuhr in Germany, and Thierry in France, gave birth
simultaneously to a school of history in which this theory
played a conspicuous part. The French writer acknow¬
ledged that he derived the first germ of the idea which
he developed in his brilliant romance of the Conquest of
England, from a few pages in an early chapter of Scott’s
novel of Ivanhoe. There can be little doubt that Niebuhr
was right at bottom in conceiving that the institutions of
ancient Rome were really moulded, in a great measure, by
the mutual relations of different races, with different habits,
feelings, and languages, and also wuth a different political
status, yet combining in one polity; but it cannot be
allowed that he was always successful in tracing these diffe¬
rences, nor, indeed, that it is now possible to disentangle the
hopeless intricacies of the Roman constitution. Thus, for
instance, the distinction he alleged, that populus properly
means the patricians, as opposed to plebs, the plebeians;
and his bold assertion that Livy was incorrect in using
populus for the nation in general,—a theory which was
once eagerly embraced as the key to much of the early
history,—must now be regarded with distrust. His ex¬
planation of the real object of the Agrarian laws, which is
founded also on his fundamental distinction between the
patricians and plebeians,—the burghers, as he delights to
call them with reference to certain mediaeval analogies, and
the commons,—has been also severely contested ; but this
view, so clear, so interesting, and so apparently satisfac¬
tory, may be considered as tolerably well established at
the present day.
It will appear, from these remarks, that even in his His¬
tory, on which the fame of our author pre-eminently rests,
he is convicted by modern inquirers of error in some of his
fundamental positions. His work can never again be ac¬
cepted, with the faith and admiration of Arnold, as the
basis of a history of Rome. The notion of reconstructing
Roman history, of shelling off the husk of the ancient nar¬
rative, and bringing to light a new body of facts, of which
Livy and Dionysius were wholly ignorant, will probably be
discarded from henceforth ; while some writers will always
be found to cling pertinaciously to the legends of antiquity,
others vvill plunge more and more deeply into scepticism ;
and we may expect perhaps rather to see the accounts of the
later republic and the empire pulled to pieces, than those
of the kings and the decemvirate restored.
It is not without pain that the students of Niebuhr—
those who have been mainly led by him to look beneath
the surface of history, and examine the principles of human
affaiis can consent to abandon so large a part of his con¬
clusions, and modify so far their veneration for their master.
But Niebuhr must follow the fate of the great inventors
before him. Bossuet was the first to snatch at the clue of
a Divine Prqvidence through the history of man ; and he
created a school of historians which will continue always to
have its disciples, however much the specific views and
conclusions of their founder may be modified or rejected.
262 N I E
Niebuhr. Voltaire and Montesquieu sought the springs of history in
the manners and institutions of society; and they, too, have
generated a school of philosophic inquiry which has long
survived the reputed discoveries of its originators. Niebuhr
himself indeed may be regarded as a pupil of this school,
though in the depth of his investigations, the sagacity of
his combinations, and the boldness of his inferences, he
stands far before it, and deserves himself the reputation of
an originator and a founder. It is due to him to lay before
the reader, in a few words taken from the introduction to
his Lectures on Ancient Ethnography, fyc., the view he de¬
liberately took of the province of the historian :—
“ All history resolves itself into a knowledge of tlm cir¬
cumstances in the midst of which events occur, and of the
events themselves. In an abstract point of view, the two are
conveniently kept apart, although, concretely, they can never
appear separated. A history which does not enter into the.
development of circumstances at all, and altogether presup¬
poses them to be barren, is scarcely conceivable, unless
indeed it were written for contemporaries alone. Never¬
theless, the one side or the other predominates according
to the predilection of the individual historian. Livy gives
scarcely anything but the nai’ration of events ; earlier his¬
torians are fond of occupying themselves with the descrip¬
tion of circumstances ; and the more ancient the historian the
more striking is the peculiarity. Thucydides, the greatest
of all historians, whenever he has an opportunity, as in his
description of nations, dwells upon the representation of
circumstances. In the earliest times, therefore, ethnography
and chorography were always the principal objects of at¬
tention ; while, subsequently, this tendency decreased more
and more, and the narration of events alone was attended
to. The two, however, ought not to be separated; for,
without a knowledge of the circumstances in the midst of
which events take place, the study of history is altogether
useless. The mere knowledge of a country, however, is
not sufficient. The peculiarities of its inhabitants, products,
and the like, must be well known to the student; and without
this, history has no life,” &c. Animated with this view
of what was required in a true expounder of the events
and facts of past times, Niebuhr tried to surround himself,
as it were, with glowdng pictures of the whole life of the
people of whom he wrote. His immense erudition, his
extraordinary memory, and his vivid imagination, all played
into one another; and he believed himself, as he has some¬
where said, capable of reproducing before his mind’s eye the
minutest details of Roman manners and usages. If he dig¬
nified with the name of “ divination ” the habit in which he
freely indulged of guessing where it was impossible to ascer¬
tain, great allowance mustundoubtedly be made for one whose
mind had fed from his youth upwards upon the remains of
Roman antiquity, and whose fancy had never ceased for a
moment to remark, arrange, and combine their scattered frag¬
ments, till they assumed at will every shape it suggested. It
is his power of imagination which stamps Niebuhr as a man
of the highest genius, and will secure immortality to his
name and works. Even the errors of such a man will re¬
tain a halo of glory in the eyes of posterity ; his methods
and principles will continue to command respect and imi¬
tation ; he will be ranked in a triumvirate of philology
with Scaliger and Bentley, to whom he bears no common
resemblance in his rapid intuitions and bold combinations—
in his sanguine temper and unabashed self-confidence—in
his aims, his achievements, and his failures.
The following is a list of Niebuhr's works:—1. Published or
prepared for publication by himself:—History of Rome, 1st edition,
2 vols., 1812 ; 2d edition of vol. i., 1827; 3d edition of vol. i., 1828;
2d edition of vol. ii., 1830; 1st edition of vol. iii., 1832; edition
of Agathias, 1828, and Merobaudes, 2d edition, 1836, for the
Corpus Hist. Byzant.; Kleine Schriften, 1828. 2. Published since his
death, in English and German :—Lectures in Roman History, by Dr
Schmitz, 2 vols.; second edition of the same, with additions, in 3
N I E
vols.; Lectures on Ancient Ethnography and Geography, 2 vols.; Niebuhr
Lectures in Ancient History, 3 vols. 3. To these may be added the n
Lehensnachrichten, a biography of Niebuhr connecting the remains Niem-
of his correspondence, 3 vols., 1838, with a supplemental volume, cevvicr
containing the Circular-Briefe,—a series of letters intended for cir-  
culation among his family, written during his residence in Holland
in 1808-1809 ; together with a collection of literary and political
tracts from his contributions to periodicals. The first edition of the
History, 2 vols., was translated into English by Mr Walter ; the re¬
vised History, vols. i. and ii., by Messrs Hare and Thirlwall; the
3d vol. by Drs Smith and Schmitz. An abridged translation of
the Lehensnachrichten has been given by Miss Winkworth, in 3
vols. (c. M—E.)
Niebuhr, Carsten, a celebrated traveller, and the father
of the great Niebuhr, was the son of a farmer, and was
born in the duchy of Lauenburg in 1733. His parents died
when he was very young, and left him in the condition of a
poor peasant boy. Yet at the age of twenty-one he had
raised himself to the position of land-surveyor of his native
district, and was busily engaged in studying geometry. The
vigorous start which he had thus made in life soon carried
him on to higher preferments. While he was deeply im¬
mersed in 1758 in the study of mathematics at the univer¬
sity of Gottingen, the Count Bernstorff, the minister of
Frederick V. of Denmark, began to carry out a project
which had been suggested by Michaelis of sending a staff
of scientific men to explore the countries of the East. The
place of mathematician was offered to Niebuhr. He ac¬
cepted the office, but his modesty would not permit him to
accept the title of professor, which was intended to add dig¬
nity to the office. It was in January 1761 that Niebuhr,
in company with Von Haven the orientalist, Cramer the
physician, Forskal the naturalist, and Baurenfeind the
painter, set sail from Copenhagen. After exploring the
gigantic architectural remains of Lower Egypt, the expe¬
dition sailed down the Red Sea, touching at various places
on the coast of Arabia, and finally landed and established
their head-quarters at Mocha. The rest of the journey
was saddened by a series of fatal disasters. All the ex¬
plorers, with the exception of the judicious Niebuhr, had
been persisting in living on European diet, and were now
sick unto death. Accordingly, when the expedition set
sail for Bombay in 1763, Von Haven and Forskal were left
behind in foreign graves ; Baurenfeind was buried at sea ;
and Cramer died at the end of the voyage, leaving Niebuhr
to betake himself homeward alone. He lost no time in re¬
embarking ; and after passing through Persia, Syria, and
Asia Minor, and marking these countries with an attentive
eye, he arrived at Copenhagen in November 1767. It now
became his chief business to lay the results of his travels
before the world. He therefore published a Description
of Arabia, in 4to, Copenhagen, 1772 ; and Travels in
Arabia and the Circumjacent Countries, in 2 vols., 4to,
Copenhagen, 1774-78. These works were remarkable for
their new and correct information, expressed in a plain un¬
affected style ; and they soon brought the author into gene¬
ral recognition. The government at Meldorf in Holstein,
made him their land-surveyor in 1778 ; many learned men
throughout Europe began to seek his acquaintance; and the
Danish government conferred upon him the cross of Dane-
brog, and the title of councillor of state, and continued to
cherish him till the close of his life. He died in April
1815.
Carsten Niebuhr wrote for a German periodical accounts
of The Interior of Africa, and The Political and Military
State of the Turkish Empire, and several other papers.
His principal works have been translated from the German
into French and Dutch. A Life of him by his eminent son
was published at Kiel in 8vo, 1817.
NIEMCEWICZ, Julian Ursin, a famous Polish poet
and patriot, was born in 1757 at Skoki in Lithuania. His
youth was spent in learning the profession of a soldier; and
at the age of twenty he entered the Lithuanian army. In
!l
N I E
JTiemen. his own corps he found Kosciuszko, and imbibed from that
' noble spirit those patriotic sentiments which gave a direc¬
tion to the whole of his subsequent career. As early as
1788 his energies and talents had begun to be consecrated
to the cause of national freedom. In that same year, as one
of the deputies for Livonia, he became one of the great
patriotic orators of the Polish diet; in 1791, in conjunc¬
tion with Weyssenhoff, he started the National and Fo¬
reign Gazette, to be a vehicle for spreading his opinions;
and all the while he was fostering the spirit of nationality
among the populace by the poems he published and the
dramas he produced on the stage. Nor did his activity
slacken at the approach of commotion and peril. In the
insurrection that followed the second partition of Poland,
he was a most efficient confederate of Kosciuszko, both in
the council and in the field. But in October 1794 the dis¬
astrous battle of Macieiowice was fought; the cause of the
patriots received its death-blow ; and among the captives
who were carried away and immured in the fortress of St
Petersburg, was the zealous Niemcewicz. A check was
now put for a time upon his national ardour. For two years
he lay in his damp cell, relieving the tedium of his confine¬
ment by reading the English poets of the eighteenth cen¬
tury, and by translating Pope’s Rape of the Lock. On his
liberation, there was no resource for him but to repair, with
his compatriot Kosciuszko, to the United States of Ame¬
rica. Ihere he formed new acquaintances, married a lady
of New York, and became domesticated. Yet the welfare
of his fatherland still lay next his heart; and the intelli¬
gence, in 1806, that Napoleon had espoused the cause of
Polish liberty, hurried him back to Europe. He was soon
appointed, under the newly-instituted grand-duchy of War¬
saw, secretary of the senate, member of the supreme coun¬
cil of public education, and inspector of schools; and in
these capacities he began a new career of patriotism. His
activity did not flag when the Russians had regained their
supremacy over Poland. Though reinstalled by the Em¬
peror Alexander in the high office of perpetual secretary
of the senate, he did not hesitate to keep alive, both with
tongue and pen, the nationality of the people. In 1816
he revived the memory of the ancient glory of his coun¬
try by the publication of his Historical Ballads; in 1817
he pronounced a funeral oration over Kosciuszko; and
in 1822 he began to celebrate the great national heroes in
his Collection of Memoirs on Ancient Poland. All his
efforts were evidently aiming at another revolution. Ac¬
cordingly, the insurrection that broke out in November
1830 numbered the veteran Niemcewicz among its pro¬
moters. He was destined, however, to see the favourite
project of his life thwarted once more. The remaining
strength of his old age was spent in advancing the cause of
his beloved Poland in foreign lands. He died at Mont¬
morency, near Paris, in May 1841.
Besides the works already mentioned, Niemcewicz wrote
several tragedies and comedies, novels, historical sketches,
and tianslations from the English poets of the eighteenth
century. A complete collection of his poetical works ap¬
peal ed in 12 vols., Leipsic, 1838-40. An autobiographical
fragment, written in French, and entitled, Captivitu in St
Petfrfl>urg in 1794-96, was published in 1843 by the
olish Historical Committee at Paris, and was shortly after¬
wards translated into English by Laski. {English Cyclo-
pccdia of Biography.) ;
N1EMEN, or Memel, a river of Europe, rises in the
swampy regions of the Russian government of Minsk, where
it is foimed by several small streams between N. Eat. 53.
and 54., E. Long. 27. It flows first N., and then W.,
separating the governments of Vilna and Grodno ; then,
aftei making a detour through the latter, it divides them
Cnr /h M 0Jant ’ anc fi‘ially flows through Prussia to the
Cunsche Half, into which it falls by two mouths. It re-
N I E
ceives from the right the Beresina, the Vilia, the Joura
and other affluents; from the left, the Zelva, Szeschuppe &c’
Its whole length is 450 miles; and, though in some places
impeded by shoals, a great part of it is navigable. It is
of considerable commercial importance; for most of the
produce of Lithuania is conveyed by barges down this river •
and all the timber exported from Memel is floated down the
same channel.
NIEMES, a town of Bohemia, in the circle of Bunz-
lau, 18 miles N.N.W. of Jung Bunzlau, and 42 N.N.E.
of Prague. It contains a fine castle with extensive gardens*
a church, town-hall, and school. Linen and woollen stuffs
are manufactured here. Pop. (1846) 4181.
NIENBURG, a town of Hanover, capital of the county
of Hoya, stands on the right bank of the Weser, which is
here crossed by a stone bridge, 29 miles N.W. of Hanover,
and about as far S.E. of Bremen. It was formerly fortified’
but the defences were destroyed by the French in 1807.’
There are two churches, a high school, an hospital, several
courts of law ; linen, cloth, and vinegar manufactures, and
some trade in corn and timber. The town has also some
river shipping. Pop. (1852) 5052.
NIEUWENTYT, Bernard, an erudite Dutch philo¬
sopher, was born at Wastgraafdyk, in North Holland, on
the 10th of August 1654. His father, who was a Protest¬
ant clergyman, originally designed him for his own profes¬
sion ; but as Bernard displayed a stronger predilection for
science than for the church, he was allowed to follow his
own inclinations. He studied mathematics, medicine, law,
and philosophy with zeal and success. His confidence in
mathematical science, however, seems to have been greater
than his skill; for in 1694 he commenced a series of attacks
upon the calculus, which increased his notoriety, but did
not add to his fame. His first brochure was entitled, Con-
siderationes circa Analyseos ad Quantitates Infinite Par¬
ras Applicator., he., Amst. 1694; a work which he
followed up next year by Analysis Infinitorum seu Cur-
vilineorum Proprietates ex Polygonorum Naturd Deductce.
Leibnitz replied to his objections in the Leipzig Transac¬
tions, to which Nieuwentyt produced a rejoinder in 1696.
John Bernoulli defended Leibnitz; and Jacob Herman, in
a work published at Bale in 1700, ultimately silenced the
Dutchman, to the satisfaction of all intelligent mathemati¬
cians. With the exception of A Treatise upon a New Use
of the Tables of Sines and Tangents, contributed to the
Literary Journal of the Hague in 1714, we hear no more
of Nieuwentyt and mathematics. In philosophy he was a
follower of Descartes, and produced some fresh speculations
on the subject of natural theology. He attempted to estab¬
lish the existence of Deity by proofs drawn from the order
ol: nature and from the marks of design exhibited in the
universe. Flis great work on this subject, and the one
which forms the mainstay of his reputation, appeared origi¬
nally in the Leipzig Transactions, and was afterwards
published in Dutch, under the title of Regt gebruyk der
weereld beschovinge, 4to, Amsterdam, 1716. In the
authors own country it went through four editions in as
many years. ^ It was translated into English in 1718; into
French in 1 / 2o; and subsequently into German by two
different hands. I he English version was executed by
John Chamberlayne, under the title of The Religious
Philosopher, 3 vols. 8vo, London, 1718-19, and 1730. A
new interest attaches to this popular work of the solid
Dutchman, from the fact only recently made public (see
Athenamm for 1848, pp. 803, 907, 930), that Paley’s well-
known Natural Theology seems to have been all but copied
from it. Not only has the English archdeacon, it is alleged,
borrowed the general argument of the Dutch thinker, he
has likewise followed his arrangement, appropriated his
thoughts, made use of his form, and copied his details, and
that without anything like honourable acknowledgment.
263
Ifiemes
II
Nieuwen¬
tyt.
264 N I E
Nieuwland Paley refers twice in his work to the name of Dr Nieuwentyt,
Jl but in such a manner as obviously to decline the general ad-
Nievre. 0f sources of his information. Paley’s celebrated
" ^ v"*- ivatch which he found “ in crossing a heath ” in 1802, had
been picked up “ in the middle of a sandy down ” in Holland,
just eighty-six years before. An attempt to extenuate the
guilt of the reverend culprit may be seen in the Athenceum
already referred to. In addition to his other works, Nieu¬
wentyt left a refutation of Spinoza in Dutch, which was
published at Amsterdam in 1720. He had considerable
fame in his day as a physician; and his good sense, ready
eloquence, and amiable character, won him esteem as burgo¬
master of the town of Purmerend, and gave him great
influence in the provincial states. He died on the 30th of
May 1718.
NIEUWLAND, Peter, a Dutch writer, remarkable for
the precocity and versatility of his talents, was the son ot a
village carpenter, and was born at Diemermeer, near Am¬
sterdam, in 1764. Under the humble tuition of his parents,
his infant mind took to learning with an instinctive ardour,
and he could compose verses and solve geometrical problems
before the age of eight. This ardent predilection for two
branches of study so dissimilar, continued to be the promi¬
nent feature in his opening intellectual character. At the
university of Leyden, to which he had been sent through
the liberal patronage of Bernard Bosch, he was equally
noted for the easy rapidity with which he solved the most
intricate problems of the calculus, and the spirited elegance
with which he translated the poetry of the classics. When
his academical education had been finished, he appeared
before the public in 1787 as the author of a treatise on the
means of ascertaining the latitude at sea, and in 1788 as the
author of a volume of occasional poems. It was not until
he had been appointed professor of navigation and natural
philosophy at Amsterdam in 1789 that his attention was
exclusively devoted to mathematical studies. He published,
in 1793, a treatise on the art of navigation, and two papers
in Bode’s Astronomical Almanac. Other subjects of a
kindred nature were engaging his mind; and he was ac¬
quiring great academical fame at Leyden in the chair of
physics, mathematics, and astronomy, to which he had been
promoted in 1793, when he was cutoff at the age of thirty.
Among Nieuwland’s poems is an elegy, entitled Orion,
which became very popular in Holland.
NlilVRE, a department of France, lying between N.
Lat. 46. 40. and 47. 35., E. Long. 2. 50. and 4. 10; and
bounded on the N. by the departments Loiret and Yonne,
E. by those of Cote-d’Or and Saone-et-Loire, S. by Saone-
et-Loire and Allier, and W. by Cher. Its form is that of an
irregular quadrangle; its greatest length is 79 miles, its great¬
est breadth 65 miles; area 2642 square miles. A range of
mountains, forming an offset of those of Cote-d’Or, traverses
the department from S.E. to N.W., and separates the tribu¬
taries of the Seine from those of the Loire. These hills
gradually diminish in height towards the N.W. from 2640
feet to 400 or 600 feet high, and are connected with the
Cote-d’Qr Mountains by the Mountains of Morvan, which
extend westwards in the department of Cote-d’Or, and then
southwards between Nievre and Saone-et-Loire. The
general height of this chain is 1600 feet; but one of the
peaks, called Mount Prenelay, rises to the height of 2904
feet. The main ridge of the mountains of Nievre sends off
numerous smaller branches, which give the country a rugged
and uneven aspect. They are all thickly covered with wood,
and present a very wild appearance. The geological struc¬
ture of the south-eastern part of the department is chiefly
granitic and schistose, while in the N. the secondary strata
are predominant. There are few extensive plains, except
at the north-western extremity of the mountains, and on
the borders of the Loire and Allier, where there are some
tracts of sandy but fertile soil. The Loire enters the
N I G
department from the S., crosses it towards the N.W., and Nigdeh.
then flows northward between Nievre and Cher. Its prin- v-w
cipal affluents in this department are—the Aron, the Nievre,
and the Nohain, from the right, and the Allier from the
left, which merely skirts the department, separating it from
those of Allier and Cher. The Yonne rises in the Morvan
Mountains, and flows northwards to the Seine, receiving
several small affluents. The streams in the basin of the
Loire form numerous ponds, most of which are dried up in
the summer; and many canals have been constructed by
the inhabitants, which are useful for the irrigation of the
soil, and for supplying water-power to various manufactures.
The soil is in general poor, but it produces enough of grain
for the wants of the people. The climate is temperate but
moist; and in some parts fevers are common ; from which
the valleys of the Loire and Allier are protected by the
warm and dry winds which blow from the S. and E.
Agriculture has in recent years made great progress in the
department; rye and flax are the most important of the
crops; and vines are grown with success on the banks of
the Loire and Yonne. Of the whole extent of the country,
about 303,000 acres consist of arable land, 79,000 of pasture
land, 15,000 of vineyards, 368,000 of wood, 27,000 of waste
land, &c. The timber of the forests contributes in no small
degree to the wealth of the department; it consists princi¬
pally of oak, beech, and maple. The mineral resources of
Nievre are great, and are worked to a considerable extent:
iron, copper, and argentiferous lead are the principal metals;
and coal, marble, granite, sandstone, flint, &c., are found in
great abundance. One of the principal branches of indus¬
try in the department consists in the working of the mines
and in the smelting of iron ; the annual value of the mineral
productions is estimated at L.400,000. It has also been
calculated that Nievre contains 126,000 head of large cattle,
285,000 sheep, 48,000 pigs, 4000 goats, 16,000 horses,
1400 mules, and 2500 asses. There is abundance of game
in the department. Besides the smelting of iron, for which
there are 30 large furnaces, the manufactures of Nievre
consist of linen and woollen stuffs, pottery, porcelain, hard¬
ware, and cutlery of an inferior kind. Some trade is carried
on in agricultural produce and in articles of manufacture,
especially timber, charcoal, mill-stones, iron, steel, copper,
tin, cattle, hides, &c. The internal communication in the
country is facilitated by two canals, one of which connects
the Loire and the Yonne, and has a length of 86 miles in
this department; and the other extends alongside of the
Loire for 30 miles in Nievre. The department forms the
bishopric of Nevers; it contains 4 courts of the first in¬
stance, and 2 courts of commerce; 4 academies, 2 higher
communal schools, and 330 elementary schools. The capi¬
tal is Nevers; and it is divided into 4 arrondissements, as
follows:—
Cantons. Communes. Pop. (185G.)
Nevers   8 99 111,612
Chateau-Chinon  5 59 67,225
Clamecy  6 93 72,977
Cosne  6 65 74,272
Total 25 316 326,086
Nievre nearly corresponds with the ancient province of
Nivernais, which was in early times a county subject to the
dukes of Burgundy. Although it never had any his¬
torical importance, this country has given birth to several
celebrated men. The people are in general lively, indus¬
trious, and hospitable ; but ignorant, passionate, and much
given to pleasure.
NIGDEH, or Nidech, a town of Asia Minor, in the
pashalic of Karamania, on a hill 47 miles N.E. of Eregli.
It is defended by ancient walls, and by 3 castles; contains
several mosques, a Mohammedan college, and some remains
of antiquity. Pop. about 5000.
N I G E K.
Niger. NIGER, Qcorra, Kwora, or Kawara, a large river
—of Central Africa, which has long excited the interest of
geographers, and the attempts to explore which have
unfortunately, in too many cases, been attended with a
melancholy loss of life. The points long undecided re¬
garding this river were—whether the large river in the in¬
terior of Africa, first mentioned by Herodotus, and after¬
wards by Strabo, Pliny, Ptolemy, and others, could be
identified with what is now called the Quorra or Joliba, the
latter being the name given to it in the earlier part of its
course ?—whether it lost itself in the great Lake Tschad, or
terminated in the Atlantic Ocean ?—whether it carried its
waters underground through the Great Desert into the
Gulf of Syrtis ?—or whether it flowed in an easterly direc¬
tion, and formed a branch of the Nile?
It is now very generally agreed that the modern Niger
or Quorra is identical with the Nigeir of Ptolemy and
others. Herodotus gives an interesting account of an expe¬
dition undertaken by five young men of the tribe of the
Nasamones, a Libyan people who occupied the country
lying between that of the Garamantes, or the modern Fez*-
zan, and the great Bay of Syrtis. They set out for the
interior, and after passing through the inhabited region
and the country of the wild beasts, they traversed for many
days, in a western direction, the great sandy desert, until
they arrived at a country inhabited by men of low stature,
who conducted them through extensive marshes to a city
built on a great river, which contained crocodiles, and which
flowed towards the east. This river was then supposed
to be a branch of the Nile; but without going into the
arguments for and against, we may give it as the now ge¬
nerally received opinion that they had reached the Quorra
at a place where its course is eastward ; and some hold that
the city to which they were conducted was none other than
Timbuctoo itself. Notice is taken of the Niger by Strabo ;
and Pliny treats of it at considerable length, as the Nigris
of Ethiopia, but in a very confused manner, and as an af¬
fluent of the Nile. Mela, however, confessed that when
the Niger reached the middle of the continent, it was not
known what became of it. Ptolemy, who wrote later than
the preceding geographers, and was better informed regard¬
ing the interior of Africa, lays down as the course of the
Niger what corresponds tolerably well with what we know
to be the course of the Joliba or upper part of the Quorra.
He seems to have considered it as an interior river, having
no communication with the sea. The celebrated Arabian
geographers Abulfeda and Edrisi, and Leo Africanus, a
native of Spain, all assigned to the Niger a westerly course ;
and the two former represented it as rising from the same
source as the Nile ; but Leo supposed it to take its rise in
a, lake situated to the south of Bornou, whence it was be¬
lieved to flow westward to the Atlantic Ocean.
The early European navigators, in their discoveries on
the western coast of Africa, found successively the estu¬
aries of the Senegal, Gambia, and Rio Grande, and be¬
lieved them to be the mouths of the Niger. In course of
time they were tempted to explore these rivers for the
purpose of reaching the far-famed city of Timbuctoo, the
reputed wealth of which had excited their cupidity. These
they traced till they became mere rivulets, and yet found
themselves no nearer to the object of their desires. In the
meantime the French geographers De Lisle and D’An-
ville devoted their attention to Africa. De Lisle, in a map
published in 1714, gave the sources both of the Niger and
Senegal the former being made to flow eastward and the
iVf1 WnS Tand’ WjUch was an approximation to the truth.
vievv in his maP of Africa pub-
m i 9; and thus far a correct knowledge of the
source and direction of the Niger was obtained, by its
foSSegar 6351 rr°m the Nile’ and "K Lt
VOL. XVI.
The formation of the African Association in England in
1788 marks the commencement of a new era in the his¬
tory of African geography, The first and principal object
which occupied the attention of this body was the course
and termination of the Niger; and a reward was held out
to the person who should succeed in determining them. We
pass over the names of Ledyard and Lucas, the former
having died at Cairo before accomplishing anything; and
the latter having only gathered some information from the
Arabs, which tended rather to perplex than to elucidate
the subject. The third adventurer employed by the asso¬
ciation was Major Houghton, who had acted as British con¬
sul at Morocco, and had thus become familiar with Moorish
manners. He sailed up the Gambia to Pisania, and thence
proceeded into the interior, but he there met his death with¬
out accomplishing anything of importance. The honour
of determining the course of the Niger was reserved for
the celebrated traveller Mungo Park. Having offered his
services to the association, and been accepted, he, on the
22d May 1795, left England, and on the 5th of July reached
Pisania, where he remained for some time to acquire the
Mandingo language. On 2d December he began his
journey, and after crossing the country E.N.E. to Yarra,
and then turning S.E. through the kingdoms of Ludamar
and Bambarra, he came in sight of the Niger near Sego.
“I saw,” says he, “with infinite pleasure, the great object
of my mission, the long sought-for majestic Niger glitter¬
ing to the morning sun as broad as the Thames at West¬
minster, and flowing slowly to the eastward.” He traced
its course downwards to Silla, and upwards as far as Bam-
makoo, an extent of about 300 miles. From the latter
place he crossed the country by a more southern route
than his former track, and at length reached Pisania on
the 10th June 1797. At the request of the British go¬
vernment he undertook another expedition, and set sail
from Portsmouth, fully equipped, on 30th January 1805.
Pisania was again his point of departure, which he left on
the 4th of May 1805, accompanied by his brother-in-law
Mr Anderson, surgeon; Mr George Scott, draughtsman ;
five artificers from the royal dockyards; Lieutenant Mar-
tyn, and thirty-five privates of the Royal African Corps
stationed at Goree ; and a Mandingo, Isaaco, a priest and
trader, who acted as guide. He chose the route by which
he had returned on his first journey, but he had not pro¬
ceeded far when the rainy season set in, and by the time
that he reached Bammakoo only eleven men remained with
him, the rest having either died by the way, or been left
sick in charge of friendly natives, but never afterwards
heard of. The expedition descended the river in two
canoes to Sansanding, where Mr Anderson and some
others fell victims to the climate. His last despatches are
from this place. Writing to Lord Camden he said :—“ I
am sorry to say that of forty-four Europeans who left the
Gambia in perfect health, five only are at present alive;
viz., three soldiers (one deranged in his mind), Lieutenant
Martyn, and myself.” He added—“ We had no contest
whatever with the natives, nor was any one of us killed
by wild animals or any other accident.” He set sail from
Sansanding on the 19th November, and from information
since obtained, he seems to have proceeded down as far as
Boussa, 650 miles below Timbuctoo, where, having been
attacked by the natives, he and his companions attempted
to save themselves by swimming, but were drowned.
Park had been led to adopt the opinion of Captain
Maxwell, a slave trader, who had been accustomed to
frequent the Congo, that that river formed the lower part
of the Niger. After the time of Park this opinion con¬
tinued to gain ground, and the government was at length
induced, in 1816, to despatch an expedition to attempt the
solution of this question. It was divided into two parts:
the one, under the command of Major Peddie, was to pene-
2 L
265
Niger.
266 N I G E K.
Niger, trate across West Africa to the Niger; the other, under
Captain Tuckey, to ascend the Congo. These threw no
new light on our subject, and were attended with very disas¬
trous results; the commanders and most of the men hav¬
ing fallen victims to the climate. More recently the tra¬
vellers Laing, Caillie, Clapperton, and Richard Lander
ascertained important facts regarding the Niger; but it
is to the last of these that we are indebted for having
pointed out the true mouth of the Niger. His first jour¬
ney was undertaken as confidential servant to Captain
Clapperton, and on the death of that enterprising traveller
at Saccatoo on the 13th of April 1827, he brought home
his journal and papers. On his return to England he
volunteered to navigate the river from Boussa, the point
where Park perished, to its mouth. His offer having been
accepted by the government, he set out on his mission,
accompanied by his brother John, and reached Boussa on
the 17th of June 1830. From Boussa theLanders proceeded
up the river about 100 miles to Yaoori, where they arrived
on the 27th of June. They commenced the descent of
the river on the 2d of August; and on the 18th of Novem¬
ber following they entered the Atlantic by the River Nun,
and thus set at rest the long disputed question of the mouth
of the Niger.
The return of the brothers Lander awakened anew the
spirit of enterprise, and an expedition was fitted out by some
merchants of Liverpool for commercial as well as geogra¬
phical purposes. It consisted of two steam vessels, and
the general direction of it was intrusted to R. Lander. It
proceeded up the Niger as far as Rabba, and likewise for
nearly 100 miles up a hitherto unexplored affluent, the
Shary or Tschadda. The results of the expedition, how¬
ever, were unsatisfactory to the projectors, and most fatal
to those who had undertaken it, very few of the Europeans
having survived. Among those who perished were the two
Landers—John from the effects of the climate, and Richard
from a wound received in an encounter with the natives.
No further attempt of any magnitude was made until 1841,
when the government fitted out three steamers built spe¬
cially for the purpose. This expedition was intended to
carry out, besides extended researches, various philanthro¬
pic but ill-matured schemes. It shared no better fate
than its predecessors, having only reached Egga, about 50
miles above the confluence of the Tschadda, when it was
obliged to return in consequence of the sickness and death
on board.
In 1852 intelligence was received from Dr Barth, that on
the 18th of June 1851 he had crossed a large stream named
the Benue, or “Mother of Waters,” which, from the informa¬
tion received from the natives, he conjectured to be the
upper part of the Tschadda affluent of the Niger. He
reached it at a point called Taepe, where it is joined by the
Faro, in Lat. 9.2. N., Long. 14. E., 235 geographical miles
S. of Kuka, and 415 in a direct line E. by N. from the
confluence of the Tschadda with the Quorra. It was here
half a mile broad, and, when crossed, was 9|- feet deep in
the channel, but on their return, eleven days later, it had
risen l-£ feet. The Faro was five-twelfths of a mile broad,
and 3 feet deep, and by their return had increased to 7J
feet in depth. Both rivers had a very strong current, and
flowed westward.
Another expedition was now resolved on to explore the
Tschadda branch of the Niger, and the Admiralty entered
into a contract with Mr Macgregor Laird, one of the surviv¬
ors of the Liverpool expedition, to build and equip a suit¬
able vessel for that purpose. Accordingly, an iron screw
schooner, named the Pleiad, was built at Birkenhead.
“ She was of 260 tons measurement, 100 feet in length,
with 24 feet beam, and her engine was of 60 horse-power.
Her draught of water, when laden, was 7 feet, or 6 feet
when in ordinary trim. A sailing-master, surgeon, officers,
and crew, were provided for her by Mr Laird, and it was Niger,
arranged that she should be sent to Fernando Po, where
the officers appointed by government should join. The
peculiar features of this expedition were, first, the employ¬
ment of as few white men as possible; secondly, entering
and ascending the river with the rising waters, or during
the rainy season ; and lastly, it was anticipated that the use
of quinine, as a prophylactic or preventive, would enable
the Europeans to withstand the influence of the climate.
Mr Laird being permitted, by his agreement with the Ad¬
miralty, to trade with the natives whenever it was prac¬
ticable, provided a well-sorted cargo, and sent out persons
specially to attend to this branch. The Pleiad having made
a very satisfactory trial trip across the Irish Channel, finally
took her departure from Dublin on the 20th of May 1854.”
The expedition set out from Fernando Po on the 8th of
July, and four days later entered the Nun branch of the
Niger. In the beginning of August they reached the con¬
fluence of the two great rivers, speaking of which, Dr Baikie
says,—“ From our anchorage at the confluence, near the
Sacrifice Rock, as well as from the heights of Mount Patte,
the Chadda appeared a much nobler and finer stream than
the Kwora. The latter seemed small and narrow, and
could be seen pursuing in the distance its meandering route
from the northward, while full in front comes pouring from
the E. the broad, the straight-coursed Chadda. The na¬
tives allege that there is a difference in the colour of the
two streams, and hence the Kwora is named in Hanasa
Fari ’n rua, or the ‘ White Water,’ while the other is
known as Baki ’n rua, or the ‘ Black Water.’ I found the
temperature of the former to exceed that of the latter by
from half a degree to a degree of Fahrenheit.” The Pleiack
ascended the Tschadda 250 miles above the point reached
by the Liverpool expedition, and within about 50 miles of
the confluence of the Benue and Faro where crossed by
Dr Barth; and returned to Fernando Po on the 7th of
November. The party numbered 66 persons (12 Euro¬
peans, and 54 persons of colour), and though they had been
118 days on the river, very little sickness had been experi¬
enced, and no life lost.
The Quorra, or rather the Joliba, though its source has
not been actually explored, is said to rise in Mount Loma,
one of the Kong Mountains, in Lat. 9. 15. N., Long. 9. 36.
W. Its course is at first N., then N.E. to Curuassa, about
100 miles from its source, where it was crossed by Caillie,
and found to be, before the inundation commenced, 900
feet in width and 9 in depth, with a current of 2^ miles an
hour. Before reaching Bammakoo, it receives the Tan-
kisso and Sarano, both large streams; and at Bammakoo
it commences its course over the plain of Bambarra, flow¬
ing still in a N.E. direction. It pursues the same course
till it reaches Jenne, when it takes a bend nearly due N.,
flowing in that direction till it arrives at Lake Dibble,
where it reverts to the N.E., and continues in that direc¬
tion till it reaches Timbuctoo, where the Quorra proper
commences. Caillie navigated the river from Jenne to
Timbuctoo, and represents the banks between these places
as low and marshy. Below Lake Dibbie, which is of con¬
siderable size, the river is very deep, and from half a mile
to a mile in breadth, with a considerable current. Near
Kabra, the port of Timbuctoo, it divides into two branches;
the larger of which is about three-fourths of a mile broad,
and the smaller about 100 feet broad, but very deep. They
appear to unite at no great distance farther down ; but from
Timbuctoo to Yaoori very little is known of this great
river, except that its general direction seems to be S.E.
From Yaoori to the sea it was navigated by the Landers,
and was found to flow at first nearly due S., then to take a
rapid bend to the E., and afterwards gradually to return
and take a S.S.W. direction to the Atlantic, which it enters
by 22 mouths, the principal of which is the Nun.
NIG
Niger NIGER, C. Pescennius, a Roman general, was born at
II Aquinum in Italy in the former half of the second century,
Nijne-Nov- anj rose from a iow rank in the army to be governor of Syria,
gorod. jn 0ffjce {jjg graceful and athletic frame, his soldier-
like accomplishments, and his rigid enforcement of discipline,
secured the esteem of the soldiers; while his mild but im¬
partial rule rendered him a favourite among the provincials.
Accordingly, on the assassination of Pertinax in 193, he
was proclaimed emperor by the united voices of the people
of Asia and his own army. The intelligence that Septimius
Severus was also up in arms for the crown soon hurried
him into action. He marched westward from Antioch,
securing the most important Asiatic cities, and despatching
troops to occupy Thrace and Northern Greece. But the
chivalrous unsophisticated soldier of Syria was no match for
the wily and rapid Severus. His troops were finally routed
at the Gulf of Issus, near the Cilician gates, and he him¬
self was sacrificed to the revenge of his victorious rival
a.d. 194. (See Roman History.)
NIGRITIA, or Soudan “ (The Land of the Blacks”),
are names applied to the central regions of Africa; and, as
used by Europeans, include the country lying south of the
Sahara, and north of 6. N. Lat., bounded by Egypt and
Abyssinia on the E., and by the nations on the western
coast on the W. Until near the close of last century little
was known of this extensive country; but in 1790 Houghton,
who was the first European traveller in Central Africa, en¬
tered Nigritia from the west; and since that time several
other discoverers have explored the western and central parts
of this region, though the eastern part has not yet been
visited by travellers. The principal mountains in Western
Nigritia are the Kong chain, which stretches from W. to E.
along the south of the country; and the principal river is
the Niger, Quorra, or Joliba. The land is generally flat;
and being watered by the annual overflowing of the rivers,
as well as by the rains, there are some tracts of considerable
fertility, on which maize, millet, rice, tobacco, cotton, &c.,
are raised. The climate is very hot and sultry, except
during the rainy season, which extends from August to
October. Central Nigritia consists of a mountainous and
a flat region, the former lying to the W., and the latter to
the E., of the 11th degree of E. Long. The mountains do
not probably rise above 1000 or 1200 feet above the sea,
and the country between them is occupied with forests and
marshes. The level part of this district extends round
Lake Tschad, and is watered by its tributaries. It is one of
the largest tracts of inland alluvial ground in the world.
The soil is very fertile, but the rank vegetation renders
cultivation difficult; and the climate, though hot, is not un¬
healthy. Nigritia is divided into several smaller states, of
which the principal are Bambarra, Timbuktu, Houssa,
Bornu, Baghermi, Waday, Darfur, and Adamanua. (For
an account of these, see Africa.)
NIJ AR-Y-HUEBRO, a town of Spain, in the province
of Almeria, and 14 miles E.N.E. of that town. It is ill
built, and has a church and two schools. There are dye-
works, and manufactures of woollen stuffs and pottery.
Some trade is carried on in corn, cattle, barilla, and cloth.
Pop. 5820.
NIJNI-NOVGOROD, or Nishni-Novgorod, com¬
monly contracted to Nijegorod, a government of Russia,
between N. Lat. 54. 30. and 57. 5., E. Long. 41. 45. and
46. 15. It is bounded on the N. by Kostroma and Viatka,
w ' ^azan and Simbirsk, S. by Penza and Tambov, and
W. by Vladimir. Its length is 185 miles; greatest breadth,
lo6; area, 18,680 square miles. The surface is generally
flat, but diversified in some places by undulating heights,
which nowhere rise above 500 feet from the sea. The
prevailing geological formation is limestone, and iron is the
only rautal found here. A sandy soil, much mixed with
vegetable mould, forms the greater part of the surface,
NIJ 267
which is very fertile, and produces plentiful crops of Nijni-Nov-
corn, so as to serve as the granary of Russia. The gorod.
principal river is the Volga, which traverses the govern- v'—v-*-''
ment from W. to E., making a bend towards the S. It
receives in the government the Oka, Kulma, Kirsenez,
Sara, Verluga, and Alatyr. In 1849 there were 4,689,798
acres of arable land, 729,384 of meadow land, 5,105,469
of wood, and 1,243,109 of waste land. Farming is car¬
ried on here in a much superior style to what prevails in
most parts of Russia, and the farmers are distinguished
alike by their skill and industry. Besides corn, the prin¬
cipal crops raised are hemp, flax, hops, peas, and beans;
and considerable care is bestowed on the cultivation of
fruit,—apples and cherries especially being remarkable
alike in quantity and quality. The forests of this country
are a great source of wealth, on account of the abundance
of excellent timber which they contain, of which oak, lime,
pine, beech, and alder are the principal kinds. The breed¬
ing of cattle is also carried on, though not to such an extent
as agriculture; and there were in 1849 in Nijni-Novgorod
326,425 horses, 273,863 horned cattle, 475,801 sheep,
121,803 swine, and 1128 goats. The horses are the best
that are bred in Russia; and the horned cattle are also of
good breed. Although there are but few large manufac¬
tories in the government, it is inferior to none in the extent
to which the people are engaged in the pursuits of manu¬
facture ; for most of the villages are filled with artizans, who
produce on a small scale a great variety of articles. Spin¬
ning, weaving, and pottery, are chiefly carried on in these
small establishments; and among the more extensive pro¬
ductions leather, cloth, cordage, soap, candles, iron, steel,
&c., are the principal. There is an active trade in the ex¬
portation of corn, flour, hemp, flax, horses, and manufac¬
tured articles; and the importation of iron, salt, brandy,
wine, &c. The commerce of the country is greatly facili¬
tated by the large navigable rivers by which it is traversed.
Pop. (1849) 1,124,251.
Nijni-Novgorod, the capital of the above government,
stands at the confluence of the Oka with the Volga, on the
right bank of the latter river, 259 miles W. by N. of Mos¬
cow. It consists of three parts: the upper city, which
stands on a hill between the two rivers; the lower city,
which extends along the bank of the Volga; and a suburb,
stretching along that of the Oka. The highest part of the
upper city, which immediately overhangs the river, is occu¬
pied by the kremlin or citadel, which is surrounded by a
lofty wall flanked with towers, and contains the principal
buildings of the town. These consist of two cathedrals; the
governor’s palace, a modern building,"commanding an exten¬
sive view; a Protestant church; and other public edifices.
The town itself is pretty well built, though for the most
part only of wood. There is an irregular public Place
in the upper town. Nijni-Novgorod has 42 churches, 3
convents, a seminary for schoolmasters, and several schools.
Manufactures of malt, beer, leather, cloth, soap, candles,
copper and iron ware, &c., are carried on; but the chief
importance of the place is derived from the great fair which
is held here annually, and lasts from the latter half of July
to the end of August. The place of these fairs is a low
tract of ground, of a triangular shape, lying between the
Volga and the Oka, and separated from the town by the
latter river. At all other times of the year this place is
quite deserted, and sometimes overflowed by the rivers; but
as the fair is held at the dry season, it is then in no danger
of this, and always presents a very busy and animated
scene. It is laid out in broad and regular streets, crossing
each other at right angles, and having in general covered
arcades of iron along the sides in front of the shops. It
is drained by a system of underground sewers, made of
hewn stone, at a great cost. Access is gained to them
at several points by means of staircases; and water is con-
268 NIK
Nikolalev veyed through them from the rivers several times a-day.
Nile. The only communication with the town is by means of "a
v , y bridge of boats across the Oka. The governor of the pro¬
vince resides during the continuance of the fair in a hand¬
some building in the centre; and there is a Russian church
and a Mohammedan mosque within the precincts of the fair.
This part of the market is entirely built of stone, and con¬
tains 2521 shops, forming 60 blocks of buildings. This
forms the inner market, and it is separated from the outer
by a canal, which is crossed by four bridges. The outer
market is built of wood, and contains upwards of 2000
booths, built in a very substantial manner. In the inner
market are to be found chiefly the more valuable articles of
manufacture; such as cloth from Moscow, silk from Persia,
furs from Siberia, Astrachan, Buchara, and other places;
tea from China; and other goods. Here also there are not
such great crowds collected as in the outer market, but the
most extensive business transactions are carried on. The
outer market, which has more the character of a fair, is
generally much crowded with people from all parts of the
world, and contains most of the raw material and articles of
small value. The rivers during the continuance of the
market are crowded with vessels of all sorts and sizes, busily
engaged in loading and unloading their cargoes; and a great
number of people live entirely on the water. The whole
number who attend the market, from first to last, is esti¬
mated at 200,000; those collected together at any one time
being not more than 20,000. The amount of articles
bought and sold is immense. The quantity of iron collected
here in 1843 was about 60,000 tons; of copper, 800 tons,
valued at more than L.200,000; besides which there were
39,000 chests of tea, and many other articles. Pop. of
the town (1849) 30,710.
NIKOLAIEV, a town of Russia, in the government of
Kherson, occupies a large extent of ground at the conflu¬
ence of the Ingul and the Bug, 36 miles N.W. of Kherson.
It has wide and regular streets, lined with very well built
houses, one storey high, which have in general large gardens
attached to them. It is surrounded by fortifications; and
has a fine boulevard, planted with trees, along the edge of
the river. I he public buildings are numerous ; and among
them the most important are,—the cathedral, a modern edi¬
fice with a richly-decorated interior; the town-hall; the
observatory; the admiralty; the naval barracks; and naval
hospital. The dockyards are very extensive, and provided
with machinery principally of British construction. The
town has also numerous schools for naval cadets, pilots,
ship-builders, &c. Nikolaiev is the principal station of the
Black Sea fleet, and the residence of the admiral of it. It
was founded in 1791, and at first made rapid progress; but
it is now in a declining state, owing to the want of good
water and timber, the competition of Odessa, and other
causes. It is now kept up principally by the support of the
government. Pop. (1850) 39,338.
NIKOLSBURG, a town of Moravia, in the circle of
Briinn, and 27 miles south of that town, is built round the
foot of a rock, on which stands a castle flanked with high
towers. It has ill-paved and dirty streets; and the prin¬
cipal buildings are, a handsome church, two synagogues, and
a ITarist college. Manufactures of woollen and linen cloth
are carried on here. Pop. 8000. s
NILE. The whole subject of the geology, inundation,
levels, volume of water> deposits, and agricultural action of
the Nile in the northern portions of its course, has been so
^vYM\y treated of in the article Egypt (see vol. viii.,
pp. ^4-6), that we shall confine ourselves in the present
article to the southern and less known portions of this great
river and endeavour to throw some further light upon its
probable sources and course—that great problem which has
puzzled the geographers and men of science in all ages,
and baffled the attempts of the ancient priests of the Nile,
NIL
of the Pharaohs, of the Phoenicians, the Greeks under the Nile.
Ptolemies, the Romans under the Caesars, and, in much
later times, of Bruce, and the numerous expeditions under
Mohammed Ali and Ibrahim Pasha.
The general features of the Nile, as you ascend it from 'Wady
the second cataract at Wady Haifa to the junction at Khar- Haifa to
toum, undergo no material change. From time to time the Khartoum,
river flows through high rocks of dark syenite, and four
cataracts (more properly called rapids) impede its smooth
course for a few miles; but a detailed description of its
banks would be uninteresting: desert wastes and fertile
islands—sandyhills surmounted bydoum palms (here taking
the place of date trees), and narrow strips of luxuriant ve¬
getation—villages deserted by a too-heavily taxed popula¬
tion, and large towns, the capitals of their provinces,—cha¬
racterize the scenery. The crocodile increases in number,
as in size, and the ibis begins to appear. Near Berber,
about 100 miles north of Khartoum, the hippopotamus
ceases to be a rarity, and the white crocodile is occasion¬
ally to be seen.
In Lat. 21. N. the river makes a great bend to the east- Dewtof
ward, and the traveller southwards crosses the desert of Bayiouda.
Bayiouda, which skirts the western banks of the Nile, a
most beautiful ride of 250 miles through a garden rather
than a desert. I he path lies through woods of good-sized
trees—mimosas, myrtles, acacias, hung with tropical para¬
sites ; while the ground is covered with the senna, eolo-
cynth, ice-plant, and many strongly-scented shrubs. From
the dead roots of fallen trees rich orchids spring, and an
infinite variety of gay-coloured birds are flitting about over
head. Partridges and gazelles of several descriptions abound,
and the whole country is thickly peopled with many tribes,
who are in the habit of travelling from well to well, ac¬
companied by large herds of sheep, goats, and camels, in
search of pasture.
The great desert of Nubia borders the eastern bank of Desert of
the Nile, and is of a very different description. With the Korusko.
exception of some high rocks of quartz and granite, near
the well of El-Morah, the route from Aboohamed to Ko¬
rusko, a distance of 350 miles, lies through a perfectly
level, hard, gravelly plain ; no vegetation of any sort exists,
save on the immediate banks of the river, and the only
well is that of El-Morah, above mentioned.
After a journey of twenty-five to thirty days from Wady Khartoum.
Haifa, partly in boats, but chiefly on camels, the traveller
reaches Khartoum, the capital of Nubia, and the seat of
government of the “ provinces of the Soudan.” The town
contains about 30,000 inhabitants; but with the exception
of the governor’s palace, and one or two harems connected
with it, there are no buildings in it of any importance.
The gardens are most prolific: pomegranates, lemons,
limes, oranges, grapes, cream-fruit, bananas, prickly pears,
figs (two crops), and garden vegetables of great size and
luxuriance (salads, cucumbers, potatoes, radishes, &c.), are
to be had here in abundance. The trade in gum and
slaves is the only very important one. There is also a small
export trade in gold, ivory, and ostrich feathers ; while
glass beads, gunpowder, and Manchester cotton goods are
the principal imports of this city, which supplies the vast
territories of Sennaar, Darfur, and Fazokl. The net revenue
of these provinces is said to amount to from L.200,000
to L.250,000 per annum, which is remitted to Cairo, after
deducting the various expenses of government, collection,
and of the standing army. The latter consists of 15,000 in¬
fantry, 5000 cavalry, and 24 pieces of artillery. The go¬
vernor enjoys a more than viceregal power ;—at once com¬
mander-in-chief of the army, and chief judgeover these pro¬
vinces. Latif Pasha, who was the governor in 1850, told
the writer that he was in direct or indirect communication
with 30,000,000 subjects ; but as we found him ignorant
of the number of tribes inhabiting the immediate districts
NILE.
Nile.
kuse of
e inun-
|ition.
ue Nile.
round Khartoum, no great reliance can be placed on these
' figures, except in so far as they confirm all the accounts
we have of the immense population of the banks of the
White Nile. There is no reason to suppose that these
nations are badly governed, though they appear somewhat
over-taxed in certain districts ; for the rulers of the southern
provinces of Egypt are all men of great ability,—and, for
Turks, of rare intelligence,—in fact, they have, almost with¬
out exception, received these high preferments as a species
of transportation for being too European and civilized in
their ideas. Latif Pasha was an intimate friend of Linant
Bey, Clot Bey, and Lambert Bey, all of whom were in
great disgrace, and some of them in the same sort of hon¬
ourable banishment, during the latter part of the reign of
Abbas Pasha, the late viceroy of Egypt.
The city of Khartoum is situated in Lat. 15. 37. N., and
Long. 33. E. from Greenwich, within 250 yards of the con¬
fluence of the Write and Blue Niles, the Bahr-el-Abiad,
and the Bahr-el-Azrek. From this point the Nile flows
1500 miles ere it reaches the Mediterranean ; and with
one exception, that of the small tributary the Atbara or
Tacazze (a stream which may be waded across in the dry
season), not one drop of water falls into it; while it sup¬
plies the innumerable shadoofs of Nubia, the thousands
of sakias which water the land of Egypt, and the hun¬
dreds of canals which irrigate the country below Assiout;
and, after its long journey of 1500 miles, moving along at
the rate of from l|- to 3 miles an hour, exposed to the
evaporating influence of the rays of a never-clouded sun,
pours into the sea, through the Damietta and Rosetta
branches alone, a volume of water amounting to from
151,000,000,000 cubic metres to 706,000,000,000 cubic
metres per diem according to the season.
The most superstitious and uneducated of the Arabs at
Cairo still believe that one drop of water falling upon some
particular rock in Abyssinia causes the inundation of the Nile;
but the real cause of the annual overflow is well known to
be the very heavy rains which take place in the south during
the months of June, July, and beginning of August. The
traveller, ere lie reaches the junction of the two Niles,
will have already seen some traces of these heavy falls of
rain. In the desert of Bayiouda, 150 miles from the
river, the sides of each ridge of ground are marked with
miniature river-beds; every little valley has a damp spot,
where, for a few weeks, a small lake w^as collected; and
his path is often traversed by deep water-courses, now
long since dried up. At Khartoum the rains are described
as lasting for four or five weeks without intermission, the
streets are turned into rivers, the public square into a lake,
and many of the mud-walled houses fall in, though the
river does not overflow its bank on that side. In 1850
the Azrek rose at Khartoum as much as 18 inches in one
night. Violent as these rains seem to be, there is no
doubt that further south they are much mor6 violent, and
of much longer duration. The two branches of the Nile
rise at about the same time. The Blue Nile, during its
tortuous course, is fed by the various streams which flow
from the mountains of Abyssinia, and the Atbara collects
the rain which falls on the high ground situated to the
N.E.; but by far the largest body of water comes down
by the White Nile from the marshes and lakes in Lat. 6. to
10. N., and from the original mountain sources yet farther S.
1 he sources of the Blue Nile, or Bahr-el-Azrek, as we
know by the discoveries of Bruce, consist of three large
springs among some mountains 6000 feet above the level
of thesea, situated, according to his calculations,in 10. to 11.
N. Lat., and 36. to 37. E. Long.; thence the river flows
through the Lake of Izana or Dembea, known to Ptolemy
by the name of Kaloe, and pursuing a most circuitous
course (at one time almost returning to its original source),
collects all the streams running down from the mountainous
269
regions of Gojam, and flowing northward through a series Nile
of cataracts or rapids, descends into the district of Fazokl, v '
where the gold mines of the Pasha of Egypt are situated!
There, having been enlarged by the influx of the Jumet
from the S.W., the river reaches the plains of Sennaar bv
another series of cataracts and rapids. The natural bed of
the river at Khartoum is half a mile in width, and the water
in the dry season from 400 to 500 yards wide. In the inun¬
dation it rises from 18 to 24 feet in height, and is from 1
to 1^ mile in width. The water flows very rapidly when
compared with the White Nile, and opposite Khartoum is
clearer, fresher, and sweeter, than after its junction with
the latter.
The sources from which we might draw our information White Nile,
as to the White Nile are very numerous, but as very few of
those who have ascended this branch of the Nile above
Khartoum have taken reliable observations, and as no two
accounts are easily reconciled, our task of selection is no
easy one. We shall, however, briefly glance at the travels
and opinions of the most trustworthy pioneers.
Browne penetrated to the south of Darfur, and believes Opinions of
that the actual sources of the Bahr-el-Abiad are situated Browne-
in 7. N. Lat., and consist of many streams flowing from
the Mountains of the Moon, which he places in 6. N. Lat.,
4 degrees N. of the point to which the Nile has since been '
ascended. This is a revival of the opinion of Ptolemy,
and we believe the correct one,—“ The Ethiopian Anthro¬
pophagi dwell around this gulf, which is skirted on the
west by the Mountain of the Moon, from the snows of which
the superabundant waters of the Nile are drawn.” (Ptol.,
Geogr. iv. 8.)
Linant Bey, travelling for the African Association in Linant
1827, surveyed the course of the river a direct distance of Bey*
132 geographical miles, from Khartoum to about Lat. 10.
N. He describes the river as in many places 1^ mile
wide, while its banks seemed often as much as 4 miles
apart; and asserts that when the river is at its greatest
height it overflows its banks a distance of 20 miles on each
side. The general appearance of the country is flat; the
eastern side is desert, while the western banks are covered
with vegetation, stretching inland. Farther south, the
river becomes narrower, and the depth increases to from
6 to 8 fathoms. From information obtained at the most
southern point of his journey, he seems to be of opinion
that the White Nile rises from a System of lakes, and he ad¬
vances, in defence of this view, two facts,—Is#, That neither
gravel nor sand, indicative of its being fed by torrents, are
found in it, and that the clayey nature of its shoals proves
that it does not come from mountains; 2d, That the pro¬
digious quantities of fish which arrive at Khartoum by the
first freshes could only have come from lakes, where they
had been imprisoned during the low water, and from which
they escape when the heavy rains commence.
Mr Hoskins believes that the source of the Nile could Hoskins
only be discovered by means of an armed force, and that °S inS'
it would require a large army to subdue the great extent
of country through which the Bahr-el-Abiad passes. He
thinks that not only the chiefs, but the whole population,
instead of any of them joining the standard of the invader,
or furnishing him with provisions, would resolutely oppose
him ; each man would fight fbr the preservation of his
property, family, and liberty.
Colonel Leake observes that, if man-stealing had not c , ,
been the principal object of the numerous Egyptian expe- Leake!
ditions up the W hite Nile, they would have been more
successful in penetrating to its sources. He seems to be
of opinion that a route by water in the direction of the
sources of the Nile is afforded from the westward by means
of the newly-discovered branch of the Quorra (the Shary),
which is a mile and a half wide at its junction with the Quorra,
and is navigable for a great distance above the confluence.
270
NILE.
Nile.
Werne.
Marshes.
As the Shary, where crossed by Dr Barth, in Lat. 9. 2.
N., Long. 14. E., was found to be about half a mile wide,
this hypothesis is not an unnatural one. The most ancient
authorities uniformly maintain that the Niger and the Nile
are connected together; and it has ever been a favourite
opinion with the Egyptian race that the Nile flows from the
sea through the centre of Africa, is lost in the sands of the
great desert, and re-appears in the country of the Shellucs.
Mr Werne, in his work on the White Nile, gives a most
detailed account of his travels southward to about 4. 30.
N. Lat. He formed part of the great expedition in 1840
of which Ahmed Pasha and Suliman Kashef were the
chiefs, and MM. Arnand, Thibaut, and Sabatier the prin¬
cipal Europeans. The expedition consisted of 10 vessels
mounting 10 guns in all, and manned by 260 Negro, Egyp¬
tian, or Syrian sailors and soldiers. They set sail for the
southwards from Khartoum on the 23d November 1840.
As they proceeded, they found the left shore wooded with
a girdle of copsewood and large trees, extending just as far
as the annual inundation ; while on the right shore the bare
stony desert extended to the horizon. In Lat. 14. 35. N.
the river, now 3 miles broad, becomes studded with fertile
islands. They sail past the islands of Genna, Sial, and
Salahieh, swarming with three distinct tribes of monkeys ;
in the mud where they anchor, large river snails and oysters
are found; the low banks of the islands are trampled with
hippopotamus footprints; among the trunks of the trees,
still standing in the water, large white aquatic flowers
glisten, and the beautiful double lotus, sacred to the tem¬
ples of Lower Egypt, here first appears; the sun sinks be¬
hind the mountains of Hassanieh, and the roar of the lion
resounds on the eastern bank.
Twelve days’ sailing brings them to where the great
population of the banks of the White Nile begins. At one
moment 15 to 18 villages, with their round mud houses,
each containing from 6 to 8 inhabitants, are in sight; a few
minutes after, a bend of the river opens 20 to 25 more to
the view—many of them containing from 200 to 300
houses. As far as the eye can reach, vast fields of corn
stretch to the eastward, speckled with habitations; while
the western side continues flat, and forms an immeasurable
grassy sea, the limit of which is undiscernible from the
masthead. A few hours farther on, they sail through a
perfect sea of lotus, the whole river for many miles being
white with these beautiful flowers. Flocks of guinea-fowls
fly overhead, and geese, ducks, and many varieties of
fresh-water fowl abound. They proceed past forests of
tamarisks and lately covered pasture land, thickly peopled
with the dark handsome Shelluc or Bakhara tribes, to
where (Lat. 10 N.) the river winds in two vast streams
round a large island of marshy meadow land, 6 miles from
side to side, and nearly 20 long—forming no doubt the bed
of the river in the inundation season. When again on the
united stream, they find the number of villages undiminished,
but they are now shaded by the African giant-tree {Adan-
soma digitata), and in the woods the gum-bearing mimosa
seems crushed by the slender aspiring Dhelleb palm, here
taking the place of the Doum palm of Berber. At one
moment six ostriches are in sight on the western bank, and
sixteen white crocodiles are seen basking on the mud islands
in the middle of the stream. As they reach the River
Saubat (Lat. 9. N.), near the mouth of which 17 new
Shelluc villages appear, they see a large city 9 miles off, on
the confines of a fertile grassy plain, covered with huts and
cattle. On the western bank, two giraffes are quietly
browsing; and 35 villages, containing from 120 to 600 in¬
habitants each, are remarked at one moment.
In Lat. 9. 4. N. all this population and fertility ceases,
and the marshes begin. The bottom of the river is covered
with black moss, the current falls to half or even a quar¬
ter of a mile an hour, and the air is alive with every species
of mosquito and gnat; not a breath of air fills the sails ; the
heat is most oppressive, every sign of firm ground vanishes,
no tree, no village is in sight, and for days they row on in a
sea of grass, the burning sky above them. The only sounds
are the trombone gruntings of the numerous hippopotami,
as they wallow among the dank grasses. The gnats are
merciless—no protection from them can be devised, and
there is no rest night or day from their attacks ; sickness
appears—many of the crew die, and Mr Werner is himself
insensible for four days. The papyrus, 15 to 20 feet high,
and 2 inches thick, bearing on the top a corolla or tuft,
branching out in rays, as depicted in the temples, though
found in no other part of Egypt, is abundant here. This is
the part of the journey up the White Nile which has proved
fatal to the success of so many expeditions. The crews
have generally revolted, and refused to proceed any farther,
or the chiefs of the party have fallen ill, and ordered a
return.
At last they emerge into a canal 100 yards broad, sur¬
rounded by high reeds; the banks seem to be of a soft
green colour, formed by pale green aquatic plants—lilac
convolvulus, moss, water-thistles, and a kind of hemp—in
which the yellow ambac tree flourishes, hung round with
luxuriant deep-yellow creepers. Few land birds are to be
seen, but the pelican, the black ibis, and the dark-red
stork are not uncommon. The river winds so much (Lat.
7. 48. N.), that a boat which is four hours ahead seems to
be moving along parallel with the rest of the expedition,
and the progress is thought good when they make 2 miles
due south in 24 hours. Again (Lat. 6. 42. N.) villages
appear, and city succeeds city in the pasture land in the
interior on both sides of the river, and the shores are lined
with an innumerable population. A small army of elephants,
with the white paddy birds sitting on their backs, are shak¬
ing the branches of the Dhelleb palm for its fruit; and the
giraffe watches them from the borders of the desert.
Shortly after entering the kingdom of Bary the expedi¬
tion was guilty of a rash brutality, which, had there not
been a good wind at the time, enabling them to push for¬
ward, might have led to the most disastrous consequences.
The Turks quarrelled about some exchanges with the de¬
fenceless natives, and fired among them, killing and wound¬
ing 20 or 30 men and women. The natives are of course
not able to distinguish between the Turkish soldiery and
Europeans ; and as each Turkish expedition robs and mur¬
ders without scruple, the natural timidity of the Negroes
daily increases, and thus casts further difficulties in the way
of peaceful traders. The European portion of the expedi¬
tion seem to have behaved pretty well towards the natives,
but were, as we see from the three published accounts,
quarrelling with one another the whole time, and would
never have proceeded as far southwards as they did, had
they not been under the command of a stolid, obstinate,
and indifferent Turk. From Lat. 6. to Lat. 4. 30. N., the
river winds among fertile fields covered with habitations,
and the horizon is bounded on the east, west, and south by
high mountain-ranges—the Alps of Central Africa. In
4. 30. N. Lat., on the sixtieth day’s sail from Khartoum,
their progress was arrested by ridges of gneiss rock running
across the river, and forming a rapid not unlike the second
or third cataracts in Nubia, and which it would have been
in vain to attempt to pass without unloading their diabehies.
In a country rendered hostile by their own misdeeds, this
would have been very dangerous ; and having stayed at
this point for three days, they made sail northwards. The
river was at this point 323 feet across, and seemed to stretch
S.S.W.
During their stay, Lakono, the King of Bary, one of the
most powerful rulers of Central Africa, and his wife, paid a
visit to the commander, Selim Capitan. He arrived es¬
corted by about 1500 Negroes, all armed, naked, painted
Nile.
M iiollet.
■lie.
NIL
red with ochre, and wearing plumes of ostrich, guinea-fowl,
S or cocks’ feathers among their hair. Lakono wore a long
and wide blue cotton shirt, and on his head an oval net¬
work cap covered with black ostrich feathers; his neck,
arms, and legs were ornamented with rings of iron, red and
yellow copper, ivory, and glass beads. In height 7 feet;
the face oval; the forehead arched ; the nose straight or
curved, with rather wide nostrils; the mouth full, like that of
the ancient Egyptians, as sculptured in the temple of Aboo-
simbel; the orifice of the ears large ; and the temples a little
depressed : he may be taken as a type of his tribe. His
queen was most simply attired in two red leather aprons ;
the head was close shaved ; and she wore her usual orna¬
ments of iron, copper, and ivory round her neck, arms, and
ankles. The king, and indeed most of the court, towered
above the heads of their Turkish and Christian entertainers,
being all from 6 feet 6 inches to 7 feet high.
This tribe do not believe in a future life, but acknow¬
ledge one great invisible spirit, the creator of all things.
They believe that he sometimes visits a particular tree or
rock in the shape of a bird or lizard, and here a dervish or
hermit priest dwells, to whom the tribe come, laden with
presents, to consult as to their domestic, commercial, or war¬
like affairs.
Lakono told Mr Werne, that in thirty days (travelling)
from this point, the Abiad separates into four shallow arms,
and the water only reaches up to the ankles; but whether
these four brooks flow from the mountains or spring from
the ground, he could not say. He seemed positive that
there was no snow on these mountains, and they had great
difficulty in making him understand what snow was. This
seems to upset the theory that the melting of the snow on
the mountains is a cause of the inundation.
On the 28th of January the expedition began their re¬
turn, and after eighty-three days’ sail they arrived at Khar¬
toum.
M. Brun Rollet, whom the writer rA this article had the
pleasure of seeing in Khartoum, has (ft several occasions
penetrated as far as the 5th and 6th dftrees N. Lat., and
once reached the mountain of Garbo (3. N. Lat.), the highest
point to which the Nile has been ascended.
I rom this place (he says) there is every reason to believe
that the river, becoming less and less, could be traced about
3 or 4 degrees to the southward, to the foot of the moun¬
tains of Komberat, on the equator. The Kuendas, inhabi¬
tants of these latitudes, say, that from this chain of moun¬
tains flow two small streams which unite in the village of
LoLaya, S. of Robenza, at which spot the river may be
crossed on the trunk of a fallen tree. These natives could
not be made to comprehend what snow was.
M. Rollet has devoted himself for many years to trading
with the natives on the banks of the Misslad or Keilak,
Saubat, and White Nile. Adopting their costume and
speaking their language, he has resided among them year
a tei year, exchanging beads and iron, against gum, ivory,
and gold-dust. He has a very high opinion of most of the
tribes with whom he came in contact, and believes much in
tbe vahie of the commercial relations which might be es-
tablished with them. Once promote commerce (says M.
o et), )y protecting the navigation of the river and the
pioperty on the banks, and vast pecuniary advantages would
accrue to the Egyptian government; for the three principal
tributaries of the Nile are navigable almost to their sources.
By the Saubat, the foot of the mountains of Imadon, on the
southern confines of the kingdom of Cafa, may be reached;
fpatJLr ftrfC C' 111 uT-°^y’ S0^-dust, gum, cotton, and
• i , ni1-? ^ e. estabhshed with the nations living on
t S^fthe AdX- ^ a"d the ,ribeS “
tnn?Jn °.f ir°n for ivory’ which amounted to 20
tons in 1845, has risen to 100 tons in 1851 ; the export of
N I M
271
gum has increased much more. When once the Keilac Nimeguen.
has been ascended to Lake Fitry, will not (asks M. Rollet)
the route of the White Nile monopolize and treble the vast
export and import trade which has now to pass through the
great desert from the sea at Tripoli and Morocco to’ Bor-
nou, Ouaday, and Bagharmi ? The cataracts of the lower
Nile will always prove a barrier to any very large exten¬
sion of commerce, but a railway from Assuan through the
desert of Korusko would bring those rich countries to^within
ten days’journey of Cairo. All these vast tribes—the Denkas,
Shellacs, and Barys—would sooner or later become tribu¬
tary to Egypt, the slave trade raging between them would
be abolished, and the ancient country would regain the hio-h
rank which she enjoyed under the most powerful and pro¬
sperous of the Pharoahs. If this sounds enthusiastic, we
must remember that these are the opinions of a quiet
middle-aged man, a clever and successful merchant, who
has lived for twenty years in Southern Africa engaged in
the trade, and living among the people of whom he speaks.
Much hope was entertained by all those who are in-
teiested in the subject, either on commercial or on geogra¬
phical grounds, of the success of the great expedition’for
the discovery of the sources of the Nile, which left Cairo
last spring with flat-bottomed steamboats, and all necessary
appurtenances; but the premature return of Mr A. W.
Twyford, the only Englishman of the party (June 1857),
with the news that the expedition was stopped by orders
from Said Pasha at Meroe, near the Fourth Cataract, has
disappointed all the expectations that had been formed.
T he source of the Nile is therefore still unvisited ; but
after reading the interesting travels of Messrs Werne and
Rollet, we can almost answer the question asked by Tibul¬
lus 1400 years ago—
“ Nile pater quanam te dicere causa ?
Aut quibus in terris accoluisse caput ?”
We may assume that the sources of the Nile consist of two
or more mountain streams, flowing from the mountains of
Kombirat, on the equator, or half a degree south of it; thence
it flows northward to Lat. 9. N.; there it receives the tri¬
butary streams of the Misslad or Keilac from the west¬
ward, and the Saubat from the eastward ; thence, stretching
in a north-easterly direction, it reaches the city of Khar¬
toum, about 1500 miles from its source, where it is joined
by the Bahr-el-Azrek, or Blue Nile ; a few miles further on
it is increased by the waters of the Atbara, whence it flows
onward through Nubia; thence past the First Cataract into
Upper Egypt at Assuan, past Cairo to the Barege; whence,
diverging into two great branches, it falls into the Mediter¬
ranean through the Damietta and Rosetta mouths.
The writei of this article has drawn his information from
personal observation, and from the following works, espe¬
cially from the last three named:—Miss Martineau, East¬
ern Life; Captain Neel, Nubian Desert; Wilkinson,
Modern Egypt; John Kenrick, Ancient Egypt; Clot Bey’
Aper$u Generate sur VEgypte ; Journal of the Geogra¬
phical Society ; Hoskins, Travels in Ethiopia ; A. Melly
Lfttres dEgypte et de Nubie, 1852 ; M. Brun Rollet, Le
Nil Elanc et Le Soudan, Paris, 1855 ; Ferdinand Werne,
Expedition to discover the Sources of the White Nile’
London, 1849. (g> M>) ’
NIMEGUEN, or Nymegen, a town of Holland, in the
Pr°™e f Gelderland, stands on the Waal, 10 miles
S.S. W. of Arnheim, and 53 S.E. of Amsterdam. It is
sui rounded by fortifications in the form of a crescent, and
entered by ten gates. The church of St Stephen is a
Gothic edifice in the form of a Greek cross, and contains
some interesting monuments. There is also a town-hall,
built in 1554, in the Renaissance style, and adorned in
front with statues of the German emperors who have
conferred benefits on the town. In this hall was signed
the treaty of 1678 between Louis XIV., Charles II. of
272 N I M N I N
Nimes Spain, and the Dutch States. On a hill near the town are
II a few remains of the castle of Valkenhof, said to have been
Nineveh, ^ Julius Caesar, and occupied by Charlemagne.
“~v ^ Nimeguen has numerous churches, an hospital, military
watch-house, barracks, arsenal, theatre, and prison. There
is a large market-place; and on an eminence stands the
Belvedere, a lofty summer-house built by the town, and
commanding a fine view. Nimeguen is famous through¬
out the Netherlands for beer; and it also manufactures
leather, hardware, stoves, glue, Prussian blue, soap, painted
glass, See. There is a harbour in the river protected by a
wall; and a considerable transit trade is carried on. Pop.
(185Q) 21,272.
NIMES. See Nismes.
NINEVEH (Heb. ; Gr. Nm^Nivem; hat.Ninus,
Ninos, Nineve ; Arab. <53**) ; in the Assyrian cuneiform
character probably 4-U , Ninua; or (?) sometimes
tm <%] ), the capital of the ancient Assyrian em¬
pire. It stood upon the eastern bank of the Tigris, but
its exact site had not been satisfactorily determined until
recent excavatiuns had laid bare some of its principal ruins.
Tradition, however, had attached the name to a consider¬
able group of mounds, supposed, until lately, to be mere
heaps of earth and rubbish, near the Arab town of Mosul.
Nineveh offers almost a solitary instance of a great and re¬
nowned city having entirely passed away previously to what
may be termed the historic period. It did not, survive the
empire of which it was the capital. Both perished together
about a century and a half before the birth of Herodotus,
the father of history. Even the very ruins of its great
national monuments seem to have disappeared before any
pen could describe them. The Greek geographers col¬
lected some fabulous stories concerning the magnitude and
duration of the empire, and the extent and magnificence of
the capital; but the only contemporary notice of either is
to be found in the Bible, and the details afforded by the
Sacred records are few and meagre. It is, however, its
connection with the Jews, with the fulfilment of prophecy,
and more especially with the events of the first Captivity,
that renders the history of Nineveh of so much interest.
The earliest biblical mention of Nineveh is to be found
in the 10th or genealogical chapter of Genesis. It is there
placed among the primitive cities built after the dispersion
of mankind, and its foundation is attributed to Nimrod or
to Asshur, according to the different reading of the Hebrew
text, which leaves it somewhat in doubt whether the latter
name applies to an individual or to the country of Assyria.
It would appear from the context that the Jews believed
it to have been built and inhabited by the same race that
raised Babylon, from which city the Ninevites were a colony.
The next allusion to it, according to the generally received
chronology, would be in the book of Jonah, B.c. 850;
but some German critics have shown that that narrative
could scarcely have been compiled earlier than the fifth
century b.c., and consequently long after the destruction
of the city. It is there described as an “ exceeding great
city, of three days’ journey,” containing “ more than six
score thousand persons that cannot discern between their
right hand and their left, and also much cattle.” Nahum,
when foretelling its approaching fate, about 720 B.c., alludes
to its vast riches of silver and gold (ii. 9), and the multitude
of its great men and merchants (iii. 16, l7). It is next men¬
tioned in Isaiah as the residence of Sennacherib, the King of
Assyria, about 710 B.c. Zephaniah prophesies its impending
ruin; and this is the last allusion to it we find in Scripture as
an existing city. In the apocryphal books it is spoken of
as the dwelling-place of Tobitand his family, and in Judith
as the capital of Nebuchodonosor, King of Assyria.
Zephaniah prophesied in the reign of Josiah, the date
of whose death may be fixed about 609 B.c. Jeremiah Nineveh,
(xxv. 18-26) enumerating, in the first year of the Captivity,
or about 605 B.C., “ the kings of the north far and near,
and all the kingdoms of the world,” omits from the list
Assyria and Nineveh. It has been presumed, therefore,
that both empire and city had ceased to exist, and that
their fall had taken place between 609 and 605. This
date is remarkably consistent with the statement of Hero¬
dotus, that Cyaxares conquered the Assyrians after the
expulsion of the Scythians from Western Asia,—an event
which did not occur, according to the most accurate com¬
putation, until 606 B.C.; the precise date which may
therefore be assigned with some confidence, as founded
upon the concurrent testimony of sacred and profane his¬
tory, to the ultimate destruction of Nineveh. (Clinton,
Fasti Hellenici, i. 269.) It would appear, however, from
the statements of Greek writers, that about two centuries
and a half before that period the city had been devastated,
if not destroyed, by Arbaces, King of the Medes, upon
whose successful invasion of Assyria, Sardanapalus, the last
monarch of the ancient Assyrian dynasty, burnt himself
with his wives and riches on the funeral pile, according to
the well-known Greek legend. Although Abydenus places
this event 67 years before the first Olympiad, or 843 B.c.
(Euseb. Chmn. i. 12), it has been confounded with the
final overthrow of the empire, which occurred 237 years
later, upon the invasion of Assyria by the combined armies
of Cyaxares, King of Persia and Media, and Nabopo-
lassar, King, or more probably Satrap, of Babylon, who had
rebelled against the King of Assyria. Many ancient writers
bring the Assyrian empire to a close with the death ot
Sardanapalus. To reconcile this confusion of dates and
events, it has been conjectured that there were two kings
of the same name, and that the second Sardanapalus, who
was also called Saracus, was the last of the second dynasty,
and, like his predecessor, destroyed himself with his palaces
and wealth when his capital was about to fall into the
hands of his enemies. Josephus, on the other hand (Ant.
ix. 11, 3), distinguishes between the extinction of the
Assyrian empire and the fall of Nineveh ; the latter he places
115 years after the date of Nahum’s prophecy, or about
626 B.c.; the former (x. 2, 2), in the reign of Hezekiah,
probably on the murder of Sennacherib by his sons, or 710
B.C. Hitherto the discoveries amongst the ruins of the
city, and the interpretation of the cuneiform inscriptions,
have furnished no evidence of any conquest of Assyria by
a foreign race corresponding with the statements of the
Greek historians and of Josephus, although there is reason to
believe from the monuments that a change of dynasty took
place about 750 B.C. It may therefore be presumed that
the supposed destruction of Nineveh by Arbaces refers rather
to a revolt of the Medes, ultimately suppressed, with which
it has been confounded, than to a revolution causing the over¬
throw of the empire and an organic change of government.
The whole question is involved in so much obscurity, that
it can scarcely be determined by any attempt, however
ingenious, to reconcile the conflicting statements of Greek
writers. A better acquaintance with the contents of the
cuneiform inscriptions can alone afford authentic informa¬
tion upon this subject.
The earliest mention of Nineveh after its fall is to be
found in the Greek geographers. Herodotus, b.c. 440,
alludes to it, wKen describing a canal connecting the
Euphrates with the Tigris, as having stood upon the banks
of this latter river (i. 193); and again mentions it casually
in his sketch of Assyrian history. He evidently speaks of
it as no longer existing in his day. As he gives so ample
a description of Babylon, and as, in his journey thither, he
probably descended the Tigris, and must have passed the
very site of the sister city, it is to be presumed that he would
have left some account even of any ruins that might have
NINEVEH.
been still standing. The supposition that Nineveh had been
entirely destroyed and deserted by its inhabitants long before
his time, and had not been rebuilt, is confirmed by the fact,
that Xenophon does not even mention the name of Nineveh,
although, when leading the Ten Thousand in their memorable
retreat through the Assyrian plains forty years later, he
actually marched over the ground on which the city once
stood ; a remarkable circumstance, considering the important
part Nineveh had played in the history of Asia. He de¬
scribes, however, a large uninhabited castle, the walls of
which consisted of a plinth 50 feet high, and as many broad,
built of polished stones full of shells, and supporting a super¬
structure of brick masonry of the same breadth, but double
the height. He gives no name to these ruins, although they
were actually the walls of part of the ancient city of Nineveh,
merely observing that they were near a Median town called
Mespila, also, it would appear, uninhabited. Some similarity
in the name has suggested the identification of this place
with Mosul, which stands on the western bank of the Tigris,
immediately opposite the remains described by the Greek
commander.
Ctesias, who was Xenophon’s contemporary, describes the
city as one which had never been exceeded in the extent
and magnificence of its walls, but makes the strange blunder
of placing it on the Euphrates {Frag. i. 4), in which he has
been followed by Diodorus Siculus (ii. 27, 28), and which
can only be accounted for on the supposition, either that
the city had completely disappeared, or that an error had
crept at a very early period into the original text. A frag¬
ment from Ctesias, preserved by Nicolaus Damascenus,
restores the city to its true site on the Tigris (K. O. Muller
Frag. Hist. Grcec. iii. 858).
About seventy years after the retreat of the Ten Thousand,
Alexander fought his great battle of Arbela near the village
of Gaugamela, almost within sight of the very ruins described
by Xenophon ; yet none of the historians of his campaigns
ever allude to them, or mention the name of Nineveh.
Strabo, Diodorus Siculus, Ptolemy, and other writers, only
lefer to the city as having been the capital of the extinct
Assyrian empire, or describe some of its monuments from
traditions preserved in earlier records. We may therefore
conclude that Nineveh was not only entirely deserted and
destroyed after its capture by the Persians and Babylonians,
but that no attempt was made to rebuild or re-occupy it.
Indeed, its position was not such as to render it important
as a centre of trade or traffic. It could only have risen to
greatness and wealth as the capital of an empire and the
seat of government. When Babylon usurped those honours,
a busy population was no longer attracted to Nineveh.
Some centuries later, however, a small fortified town,
probably of Parthian origin, seems to have been built on
the ruins of the ancient city, and to have been even called
by its name. From the numerous Roman and Parthian
remains, such as fragments of terra cotta figures and coins,
found in the rubbish which had accumulated over the Assy¬
rian ruins, we may suppose that it stood on one of the great
mounds opposite Mosul. Ammianus Marcellinus (xxiii. 20)
mentions “ Nineve,” and Tacitus (xii. 3) alludes to the
capture of “ Ninos ” by Meherdates. It became incorpo¬
rated at one time in the Roman empire; and two Roman
coins are known to have been struck there; one of Traian,
Ti!h thec ie/e?d AUG> FELL NINI CLAY, the
ptIvtv TXirainus’ with the leSend COL. NINIVA.
r v, , would seem’ from the epithet “ Claudio-
po is, that the new town had been restored or rebuilt under
the Emperor Claudius. (Layard, Nin. and Bab. 591.)
It appears to have also borne at one time the name of
Hierapohs. In a tomb, probably of Parthian origin, found
Maxhffinus6 rUlnS, ^ preServedaSold coin of the Emperor
A small village called Ninoua is mentioned both by the
yoL. xvi, ;
Arab geographers and by European travellers as standi no¬
on the site of Nineveh in the middle ages. Both villao-e
and name have long since disappeared. The tradition of
the site of the ancient city is, however, still preserved by
the few Christians who live around the ruins, and by the
Mohammedans in their peculiar veneration for an edifice
supposed, but without any reason whatever, to cover the
tomb of Jonah, built over one of the principal buried ruins
and probably upon the foundations of an early Christian
church or monastery dedicated to the prophet. The great
mound opposite Mosul on which the Roman or Parthian
fortress of Ninos is supposed to have stood, is now called
by the Turks Kouyunjik—i.e., “ The Little Sheepby the
Aiabs, Armousheeah. The origin oi both names is un-
known.
I he ruins opposite Mosul have been mentioned by most
travellers, ancient and modern, who have visited that town ;
but the first to give any accurate description and plan of
Uiem was Mr Rich, for some years political agent of the
East India Company at Baghdad. In the year 1820 he
was able to make a careful survey of them, which was sub¬
sequently published by his widow. The Arabs in the
neighbourhood informed him that some time previous to his
visit the figures of men and animals sculptured in stone had
been dug out of one of the mounds. They had been im¬
mediately destroyed by the Mohammedans as idols belonging
to the infidels, and Mr Rich was unable to obtain even a
fragment. He only succeeded in collecting a few speci-
ments of pottery and bricks inscribed with cuneiform cha¬
racters, and one or two Assyrian relics. Ruins similar to
those examined by Mr Rich abound in the region watered
by the Euphrates and Tigris. They consist of enormous
mounds of earth rising abruptly from the plain. At some
distance they appear like natural elevations or mere heaps
of earth ; it is only on closer inspection that they are found
to be the work of men’s hands. Where the winter rains
have worn deep furrows in their sides, may be traced masses
of solid masonry, either of bricks baked in the kiln, or
simply dried in the sun. On and around them, far and
wide, are scattered fragments of pottery, the sure sign of
former population. The Arabs not unfrequently choose
these artificial elevations as the site of their villages of rude
mud huts, either building upon their summit, as a position
easy of defence against marauding Bedouins, or at their
foot. They call them 7W, a name by which they appear
to have been known even in the time of the Jewish cap¬
tivity. The principal mounds of this description on or near
the site of Nineveh are those already mentioned near
Mosul, usually identified with the remains of the city; 
Nimroud, near the junction of the Rivers Tigris and Great
Zab, about 20 miles to the S. of Kouyunjik; Selamiyah,
3 miles to the N. of Niinroud; Khorsabad, 12 miles to the
N.E. of Mosul; and Karamles, about 15 miles to the N.E.
of Nimroud. The space between these ruins contains nume¬
rous smaller mounds covering the remains of ancient edifices;
and on all sides may be found the traces of former habita¬
tions.^ The groups of Kouyunjik, Nimroud, Selamiyah,
and Khorsabad, are remarkable as each comprising one or
moi e large mounds, and the remains of a regular system of
walls and defences inclosing a considerable area. The
other ruins are isolated and scattered over the face of the
country without apparent order or design.
In the year 1841 M. Botta, who had been recently ap¬
pointed French consul at Mosul, determined to examine
more carefully than had hitherto been attempted the mound
of Kouyunjik. For this purpose he employed a party of
Arabs to excavate in it, but without other result than the
discovery of a few fragments of inscribed slabs. A peasant
having informed him that remains of ancient buildings had
been found at Khorsabad in digging the foundation of a
house, he removed his workmen to that ruin. He was
2 M
273
Nineveh.
274 NINE
Nineveh, almost immediately rewarded by the discovery of a series of
V'-""-'' upright slabs in a coarse grayish alabaster, sculptured in bas-
relief, with figures of men and animals, and with inscriptions
in the cuneiform or arrow-headed character, then only
known from Persian monuments of the Achmenian dynasty,
and a few fragments from the ruins of Assyria and Baby¬
lonia. These slabs were found to be the panelling of the
lower part of a room filled with earth and rubbish. A
doorway opened into a second apartment, and further exca¬
vations disclosed a series of halls and chambers of different
dimensions lined with similar sculptured slabs. After some
months’ labour, the greater part of the ground plan of a
magnificent palace was laid bare.
This edifice had evidently been destroyed by fire, which
had calcined the alabaster slabs. A mass of charred wood,
bricks, and other materials, employed in the construction of
the building, completely covered the ruins. Above this
heap of rubbish soil had accumulated. The surface of the
mound yearly produced a crop of barley or corn, and on
one part stood a small Arab village. The huts were pur¬
chased, and pulled down. Subsequently, under the direc¬
tions of M. Place, the ruins of a propylaeum and of a broad
flight of steps leading up to the building were uncovered.
The principal mound at Khorsabad may be divided into
two parts; an upper, about 650 feet square, and 30 feet
high; and a lower, connected'with it, about 1350 feet by 300.
At one corner it is a low pyramidal elevation, which may
mark the remains of a watch-tower or the superstiucture of
a royal tomb. The entire quadrangle, inclosed by walls,
would be about 1£ mile square. It contains no other ruin
of any importance.
M. Botta’s discoveries at Khorsabad were followed by
those of Mr Layard at Nimroud, where ruins of a similar
character, though of greater antiquity and of more import¬
ance, as being the remains of buildings of several different
epochs, were uncovered. A mound 700 yards by 400,
surmounted by a conical elevation or pyramid 140 feet high,
forms the corner of a walled inclosure 2331 yards by 2095
in the widest part. The Tigris once flowed under the
western face of this quadrangle, and at the foot of the great
mound. It is now 1-J mile distant. The northern wall
still shows the remains of fifty-eight nearly equidistant
towers; in the eastern only fifty can be traced. A deep
ditch or moat appears to have defended such parts of the
inclosure as were not protected by the river. 1 he remains
of several distinct buildings, erected by different kings,
were found in the principal mound. In one instance, ma¬
terials, such as sculptured slabs, had been taken from one
edifice to be used in the erection of another. Some had
been destroyed by fire, others appeared to have been sud¬
denly covered by the falling in of the upper stories. In
the one case, the sculptures were calcined, as at Khorsabad;
in the other, they were perfectly preserved with all their
original sharpness and minute details. Many of the cham¬
bers were panelled with slabs having nothing but the same
inscription repeated over and over again. Others were
lined with bas-reliefs singularly interesting and elaborate.
The pyramid was found to be the remains of a square
edifice, solidly constructed of sun-dried bricks, faced to the
height of 20 feet with masonry of large stones carefully
squared and bevelled, and above that height with kiln-
burned bricks. In the interior was discovered one vaulted
gallery 100 feet long, 12 high, and only 6 broad. It was
probably a royal sepulchre, but had been despoiled at some
remote period of its contents. It has been conjectured
that it may represent the tomb of Sardanapalus, which the
Greeks described as placed at one of the entrances to the
city. No remains of modern habitations existed in any
part of the ruins. A small Arab village, named after them,
has been built about one mile from the great mound.
Excavations were also carried on by Mr Layard in the
Y E H.
ruins opposite Mosul, which consist of two principal mounds, Nineveh
Kouyunjik, and that of Nebbi Yunus (or the tomb of the
prophet Jonah). On the sides and at the foot of the
latter, facing the river, is an Arab village, and the summit is
covered with the graves of Mohammedans who have been
buried around the holy edifice. A village formerly stood
on Kouyunjik, but its inhabitants deserted it many years
ago, and established themselves in the plain beneath. The
two mounds form part of the western or river side of the
fortified inclosure. Kouyunjik, the largest, measures about
866 yards by 500; Nebbi Yunus, 566 by 400. They are
connected by the remains of part of the wall forming the
western face of the quadrangle, which is 4530 yards in
entire length. The northern wall is 2330 yards; the
eastern, which forms a considerable curve, is about 5300;
whilst the southern is scarcely 1000; the inclosure having
thus the form of an irregular quadrangle, approaching to a
trapezium. The northern face was defended by a deep
moat; the western was protected by the Tigris, which
washed the walls, but has long since deserted its ancient
bed, and now flows about three-fourths of a mile from
Kouyunjik; still, however, approaching the north-west
corner of the inclosure. On the southern face was a ditch
and an exterior rampart. The eastern face, being the most
exposed, was the most strongly fortified. For this purpose
the nature of the ground offered many advantages. The
Khausser, a deep, sluggish stream, divides the quadrangle
into two nearly equal parts, and winds round the base of
Kouyunjik. Before entering the quadrangle, it runs for
about 1J mile parallel to and near the wall, thus furnishing
a strong natural defence. A low ridge of conglomerate
rock beyond the Khausser was heightened, by artificial
means, to form strong outer ramparts. The fortifications
to the south of the point where the Khausser enters the
inclosure were very extensive and complete. Two deep
and broad ditches, fed by that stream, one dividing itself into
two branches, and the outer and larger moat being no less
than about 200 feet in width, were separated by a second
wall or rampart; whilst a third, still in some places about
100 feet high, faced the open country, and extended almost
the entire length of the quadrangle. This outer wall was
probably that described by Diodorus Siculus as 100 feet
high, and sufficiently wide for three chariots to drive abreast
upon it. Its length he absurdly exaggerated. It appears
to have been constructed chiefly of the earth and rubbish
NINEVEH.
Nineveh, removed to form the ditch. No remains of stone facings
—have been found. The inner wall was built of stone and
brick masonry. It no doubt resembled those of the fortified
cities represented in the Assyrian bas-reliefs, with towers at
equal distances (many may still be traced), and surmounted
by ornamental battlements of stone, portions of which have
been found among the ruins. The entrances or gateways
were probably arched; two have been discovered and
partly excavated, one nearly in the centre of the northern,
the other in the inner eastern wall. The former consisted
of two halls, 70 feet by 23, opening upon the plain, and
upon the interior of the inclosure by gateways flanked
by colossal man-headed bulls and winged human figures.
On the pavement of limestone slabs could still be traced
the ruts of the chariot wheels. From the immense mass of
bricks, charred wood, and rubbish in which this gateway
was buried, it may be conjectured that a lofty tower rose
above it, which, like the palace, was destroyed by fire.
The ruins of the palace at Kouyunjik are similar to
those at Nimroud and Khorsabad, but belong to an edifice
of greater extent and magnificence than either. The
dimensions of the principal courts or halls exceed those of
any other Assyrian building yet discovered. Every part of
the palace was adorned with sculptures. During the ex¬
cavations carried on by Mr Layard no less than 71 cham¬
bers, panelled with nearly two miles of bas-reliefs, and 27
entrances formed by colossal winged bulls or lion sphinxes,
were uncovered, and scarcely half the palace was examined.
Works since carried on under the superintendence of Mr
Hormuzd Rassam and of Mr Loftus have brought to light
a large number of additional apartments.
The sanctity attached by the Mohammedans of Mosul to
the tomb of Jonah, has prevented Europeans from explor¬
ing to any extent the mound upon which it stands. Re¬
mains of building resembling those at Kouyunjik, and of
nearly the same period, were, however, discovered in.it by
Mr Layard; and subsequent excavations on a small scale,
undertaken by the Turkish government, have proved the
existence of a palace adorned with sculptures and sphinxes.
The ruins of a palace or temple have also been discovered
in the mound of Shereef-Khan, about 5J- miles to the north
of Kouyunjik; and nearly all the mounds scattered over
the plain between the Tigris and the hills have, when
examined, been found to contain remains of edifices, but
none have furnished sculptured or inscribed slabs. The
principal ruins in the district are,—Selamiyah, three miles
north of Nimroud, with a walled inclosure about three
miles in circuit; Karamles (near the field of the battle of
Gaugamela or Arbela); Baashiekha; and Baazani.
The most ancient Assyrian edifice hitherto discovered
is that at the north-western corner of the mound of Nim¬
roud. It appears to have been rebuilt, if not founded, by
a king whose name is believed, by some interpreters of the
cuneiform character, to read Asshur-dan-pal, And to cor¬
respond with the Greek Sardanapalus. The approximate
date of his reign may be from 950 to 920 b.c. His son,
whose name is read Shalmanee-bar, erected a second palace
in the centre of the same mound. His grandson (? Phal-
lukha), whois identified with the Scriptural Pul, and whose
queen is supposed to have been the celebrated Semiramis,
ei name having been found on monuments from this build-
in?plre^)u^t e(^ifice5 and founded a third near the spot.
• ^ ,1°.next, Pa^ace in order of date is that at Khorsabad,
raised by a king who has been identified with the Sargon
o saiah (xx.), and who would have consequently reigned
275
about i25 B.c. The ruins of this building were called, after Nineveh,
him, Saraoun even long after the Arab conquest. ’ The
great palace excavated at Kouyunjik was founded by Sen¬
nacherib about 700 B.c., as well as those at Shereef-Khan
and at Nebbi-Yunus, the latter of which appears to have
been finished by his son Essarhaddon, who added an addi¬
tional edifice to the group already erected at Nimroud,
and for this purpose appears to have destroyed, or taken
materials from, those built by Sardanapalus, by the Tiglath-
pileser of Scripture, and others, his predecessors. The
son of Essarhaddon, whose name also has some resemblance
to Sardanapalus, completed or enlarged the palace of his
grandfather at Kouyunjik, and added to that at Shereef-
Khan. Remains of an edifice belonging to his son, rudely
constructed, and without the usual ornamental sculptures, were
discovered in the south-east corner of the mound of Nimroud.
It is possible that all these palaces may have been built
upon the sites of more ancient edifices, of which, however,
no traces have hitherto been found. There can be little
doubt that Nineveh was founded several centuries previous
to the erection of the earliest buildings as yet uncovered.
If any value is to be attached to the dynastic lists of Cte-
sias and other Greek writers, which are, however, rejected
as entirely untrustworthy by the interpreters of the cunei¬
form inscriptions, the city must have existed nearly twenty-
two centuries B.c.; and this conjecture is strengthened by
its agreement with biblical chronology. The name of Ni¬
neveh occurs more than once on Egyptian monuments of
Thothmes III., or fourteen centuries B.c. Kings who oc¬
cupied the throne long previous to the first Sardanapalus,
the builder of the north-west palace at Nimroud, are men¬
tioned in the inscriptions; but although Nineveh appears
to have been a flourishing city even under those monarchs,
the capital of the empire, according to Sir Henry Rawlin-
son, was some 60 miles lower down the Tigris, on the
western bank, and is marked by the ruins of Kalah- Sherg-
hat, where monuments of a highly interesting character
have been discovered. The first of these kings may have
reigned about twelve centuries B.c., but there is reason
to believe that events of Assyrian history are alluded to on
monuments of a much earlier date. According to the in¬
scriptions it would seem that Sennacherib was the first to
move the seat of government to Nineveh, which he almost
entirely rebuilt, the city having fallen into decay and ruin.
But it must be observed, with reference to all conjectures
founded upon the interpretation of the cuneiform characters,
that our present knowledge of the ancient writing and lan¬
guage of Assyria is far too uncertain to admit of any positive
conclusions. The dates of the earlier edifices at Nineveh
depend entirely upon the correct rendering of the inscrip¬
tions. We know that the ruins of the north-west palace
at Nimroud are the most ancient yet discovered, and the
traditions still existing in the country point to them as
such ; but as yet we have no positive evidence to identify
its founder with any monarch mentioned in history, or the
date of whose reign can be established by any proof.1 On
the other hand, there is much concurrent evidence of a
very remarkable character, besides the interpretation of
the names on the monuments themselves, to enable us to
assign the palaces of Khorsabad, and Kouyunjik to Sargon
and Sennacherib. On monuments of the latter monarch
have been discovered inscriptions of extraordinary interest,
containing the name of Hezekiah, and a record of the inva¬
sion of Judea and siege of Lachish, mentioned in the book
of Kings.
be made of Jehu^ the^nn ^ ^ ^useum) raised by the son of the founder of the north-west palace, mention is believed to
meats from the same edifif the T °f Kumri”.and of Samaria as “ ^h-Kumri,” (the House of Omri); and on monu-
Assvria In an inarrinf ’ fenia*a ’ kin£> ^)ainascus (J lGnSs XXJ *s suPl)0se(l to be included in the list of kings who paid tribute to
Tyre,” arc spoken of. ?t °f & m0narch’ ascertained to be the Scriptural Pul, “ Menahem, King of Samaria, and Hiram, King of
NINEVEH.
276
Nineveh. Such being the ruins on or near the site of Nineveh,
and their relative antiquity, it remains to be determined
which represent the ancient city. It is evident that
the space inclosed within the quadrangle opposite Mosul
could not have contained a capital of such vast extent and
importance as is assigned to Nineveh by the concurrent
testimony of sacred and profane writers. The descrip¬
tion in the book of Jonah is too vague and obscure to
convey any definite idea of its size. Do the three days’
journey imply the circuit of the city, its extreme length, or
the time employed in traversing its principal streets ? Are
the “ six score thousand persons who did not know their
right hand from their left” intended to comprise a particular
class, such as children; or is the expression used to mark
the general ignorance of the whole population ? In the
one case, the city would have been of enormous extent,
and would have contained about 600,000 inhabitants; in
the other, it would have been of moderate size, with a po¬
pulation of 120,000. The dimensions assigned to Nineveh
by the Greek geographers are more definite ; and although
in many respects undoubtedly fabulous, curiously confirm
those given in the book of Jonah. Diodorus Siculus, who
derived his information chiefly, it would appear, from Cte-
sias, states that the city formed a quadrangle 150 stadia by
90, the square being thus 480 stadia, or about 60 miles, cor¬
responding to the three days’ journey of Jonah. Strabo
declares that Nineveh was larger than Babylon, the circuit
of whose walls were, according to him, 385 stadia ; and ac¬
cording to Herodotus 480. The inclosure of Kouyunjik
being scarcely 9 miles in circuit, including even the outer
ramparts, cannot be that described by Diodorus ; but as
an instance of the inaccuracy of Greek writers in giving
such dimensions, or of errors that may have crept into the
text of their works, we find this very quadrangle opposite
Mosul stated by Xenophon, after actual personal observa¬
tion, to be six parasangs, or about 18 miles in circuit, just
double its actual extent.1
To reconcile all conflicting statements, it has been con-,
jectured that Kouyunjik, Khorsabad, Nimroud, and Karam-
les, with the numerous ruins in the intervening plain, may
represent altogether the site of Nineveh. The careful
surveys of Captain Felix Jones of the East India Com¬
pany’s navy (published by the East India Company), prove
that these mounds occupy the four corners of a square,
inclosing an area agreeing very nearly with that assigned
to the city by Diodorus. It is assumed that each of these
four groups was a fortified quarter of the city, a place of
refuge and defence, including the palace of the king and
his attendants, the temples and the dwelling-places of those
attached to them, and the royal park or paradise. The
space between them is assumed to have been occupied by
the habitations of the people at large, scattered far and
wide over the face of the country, and not collected together,
as in a European city, by gardens and by cultivated
fields. This is not inconsistent with Eastern habits. Ispa¬
han and Damascus, with their suburbs, are cities of this
kind. Within the precincts of Babylon, according to Dio¬
dorus Siculus and Quintus Curtius, corn could be raised
sufficient for the sustenance of the whole population, in the
event of a siege.
On the other hand, if the inscriptions be correctly de¬
ciphered, the inclosure opposite Mosul was alone called
Nineveh ; Khorsabad and other mounds around having dis¬
tinct names. Nimroud (the Larissa of Xenophon) Sir H.
Rawlinson would identify with Calah, mentioned in the
I Oth chapter of Genesis. But then no ruins, except Sela-
i miyah, which are not of sufficient extent or importance,
would mark the site of Resen, “ a great city between
Nineveh and Calah.” He assumes that all the ruins de- Nineveh,
scribed represent separate and distinct cities, which were, i - Y->_'
however, in the time of the prophet Jonah, known alto¬
gether by the common name of Nineveh. It is quite clear
that, whatever may have been the extent of the city, there
were no walls corresponding in extent with the description
of Diodorus. If such ever existed, it is impossible that no
traces of them should be found.
There are no remains to show the general plan of the
city or of its principal quarters, the form of its streets, or
the nature of the common dwelling-places of its inhabitants.
It probably consisted, like most modern Eastern cities, of a
few great edifices devoted to royal or sacred purposes, and
constructed of rich and valuable materials; the abodes of
the people being of the meanest and rudest description.
Bricks made of clay, mixed with chopped straw, and simply
dried in the sun, were generally used for building, as they
still are in Assyria. Houses so built, when once aban¬
doned, soon fell into complete decay ; and their ruins, ex¬
posed to the winter rains and the summer’s sun, soon
crumbled to dust. A modern Arab village, when once
deserted, disappears in a few years, leaving scarcely a trace
behind. Masonry of sun-dried bricks, when properly pro¬
tected, and when buried, as in the Assyrian mounds, defies
the ravages of time. The walls of the palaces of Nineveh
in this material are in many places still as perfect as when
first raised.
The great public edifices have alone been sufficiently
well preserved to furnish any idea of the style of architec¬
ture presented at Nineveh. Assyrian architecture appears
to have originated on the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates.
It owes its distinctive features to the fact of the first great
public edifices of the race which devised it having been
erected upon the plains of Assyria and Babylonia. In
order to raise the building, for the sake of dignity or
defence, high above the surrounding country, it was neces¬
sary to form an artificial elevation, and those enormous plat¬
forms or mounds were constructed which form one of the
chief characteristics of Assyrian and Babylonian ruins.
This substructure was either of solid masonry of sun-dried
bricks, or simply of earth and rubbish heaped up. In the
bas-reliefs from Kouyunjik is represented the process of
building it. Long lines of workmen, many of them pri¬
soners or slaves, chained together and in fetters, are seen
emptying baskets filled with earth and stones on the accu¬
mulating heap. The substructure was raised about 40 or
50 feet above the level of the plain, and was generally faced
with masonry or stone. Broad flights of steps led up to
the summit. The public edifice or palace was constructed
principally of sun-dried bricks, but parts of the building
required more solid and more costly materials. To supply
the first, the kiln-burnt bricks were used; for ornament, the
Ninevites employed a coarse grayish alabaster found in
abundance in the immediate vicinity of their city. A re¬
markable feature in these buildings was the immense thick¬
ness of the walls, rarely less than 10 feet, generally about
15 feet. They were built of sun-dried bricks, and panelled
with upright sculptured alabaster slabs, from 8 to 10 feet
high, 3 to 4 feet broad, and about 18 inches thick, placed
close to one another, but not united by any mortar or ce¬
ment. Above these slabs the wall was either faced with
kiln-burnt bricks, plain or coated with enamel, forming ele¬
gant designs and patterns of the most brilliant colours, or
plastered and painted. Cedar and other precious woods,
gilding, ivory, and bronze, were also used to decorate the
sides of the chambers. These materials appear to be men¬
tioned in the inscriptions as having been brought from afar;
cedar-wood, for instance, from Mount Lebanon. The ceil-
1 The length of Xenophon’s parasaug may be determined by reference to the distances assigned to the marches of the Ten Thousand in
their retreat.
N I N
? neveh. ings of the rooms were also probably of cedar. Large quan-
titles of this precious wood were found in the ruins of
Nimroud. There is reason to believe that many of the
chambers were vaulted. Discoveries in the ruins prove
that the Assyrians were well acquainted with the principle
of the arch, and employed it in forming these entrances.
The principal doorways, and generally all those leading
into the great halls or courts, were flanked by those well-
known emblematic figures, now characteristic of Assyrian
architecture, uniting the body of a lion or a bull with the
head of a man and the wings of an eagle. These were
usually of gigantic proportions, and on these were generally
inscribed the annals of the reign of the king who caused
them to be erected.
The alabaster slabs placed against the walls were sculp¬
tured in bas-relief, or had an inscription carved upon
them. The sculptures were of two kinds—either figures
of priests or divinities of colossal size, or subjects repre¬
senting battles, sieges, hunting scenes, sacrifices, &c. In
the latter case, the slab was divided into two parts by an
inscription running across in a horizontal band, and con¬
taining a description of the work portrayed above or
beneath. Remains of colour upon the bas-reliefs prove
that they were originally painted. The pavement of the
chambers consisted of alabaster slabs, either carved with
rich and elegant pictures, or covered with inscriptions, or
more usually of large square kiln-burnt bricks. On the
back of almost every slab or stone used in the building
was carved the name of the king who founded it, together
with a short inscription containing his titles, the names of
the principal gods, and the countries he ruled over. Upon
the kiln-burnt bricks also was generally stamped or inscribed
the name of the king. The interior of these magnificent
edifices was adorned with statues of the gods and of the
king, and with obelisks and stelae of marble and other ma¬
terials covered with bas-reliefs and inscriptions record¬
ing the conquest and other remarkable events of the
reigns of Assyrian monarchs. Several of these monu¬
ments discovered in the ruins are now in the British Mu¬
seum.
These vast edifices were probably at the same time the
palace and the temple, the residence of him who was both
the high priest and the political chief of the nation. These
offices were at one time similarly united in Egypt, and
the palace-temple was the dwelling-place of the king.
Parts of the building may have been specially set apart for
worship and dedicated to a particular god ; but no detached
temple, as in ancient Greece, has been as yet found on the
site of Nineveh. The inscriptions, however, appear to
mention the fact of temples of extraordinary magnificence,
adorned with silver and gold, having been raised in differ¬
ent parts of the empire. The palace was also the house of
records of the nation ; on its walls were pictured and de¬
scribed its triumphs, and the prowess of its monarch in war
and in the chase.
1 he palaces of Nineveh seem to have been constructed
upon one general plan, and consisted of a number of cham¬
bers of various sizes grouped round large central halls, which
were probably open to the sky, and resembled the courts of
modern Persian houses. No columns of any kind, nor
pedestals for pillars of wood for supporting a roof, have been
discovered. Pillars of wood brought from distant coun-
tnes appear to be mentioned in the inscriptions, and columns
are frequently represented in the bas-reliefs. No traces of
windows have been found in the walls; consequently, it may
e piesumed that the rooms were either lighted from above
or through the doors only. The latter may have been the
case, as in modern houses at Baghdad and Mosul, in which,
or t le sake of coolness, the apartments are kept as dark as
possible. From the immense heap of bricks, earth, and
rubbish covering every part of the ruins, and filling every
N I N 277
chamber, frequently rising as much as 15 or 20 feet above Ning-po.
the level of the sculptured slabs, as well as from the
representations of buildings seen in the bas-reliefs, it is
probable that these palaces consisted of more than one
storey, and that the upper part having fallen in, com¬
pletely buried the lower. The admirable preservation of
the greater part of the sculptures, although executed in
a very soft material, which would have perished from
even short exposure, proves that such must have been
the case, and that the entire destruction of the buildings
must have been very sudden.
No remains of the outer walls of an Assyrian palace,
hitherto discovered, are sufficient to furnish an accurate
idea of the exterior architecture of Nineveh. Only the
lower part of a faqade at Kouyunjik has yet been ex¬
cavated. It consists of three grand entrances formed by
groups of colossal winged bulls and human figures, some
flanking the doorways, others placed back to back, and facing
outwards. From what still remains, and by comparison
with ancient buildings in other parts of the East, princi¬
pally in Persia, Mr Fergusson {Palaces of Nineveh and
Persepolis Restored) has with great ingenuity endeavoured
to restore a Ninevite palace. The discoveries at Kouyunjik
of bas-reliefs supposed to represent an Assyrian edifice go
far to verify his conjectures. There is nearly the same ar¬
rangement of columns in an upper storey resting upon a
solid basement. The capitals are ornamented with volutes
resembling those of the Ionic order, and they rest upon the
backs of winged bulls and sphinxes. The Persians appear
to have derived both their religion and their architecture
from the Assyrians. The latter was somewhat modified by
locality, and by the vicinity of quarries of fine building-
stone ; but the palaces of Xerxes and Darius at Persepolis
were erected upon nearly the same plan, and were adorned
with nearly the same ornaments and the same typical figures,
as those at Nineveh. Being built chiefly of stone, they have
defied for a longer period, although exposed to the air, the
ravages of time. One of the most remarkable facts con¬
nected with the discovery of the ruins of the palaces of
Nineveh is, the proof which they afford that the Greeks
derived their Ionic order of architecture from Assyria. It
reached them through Asia Minor and Ionia. Not only
was the Ionic volute the ordinary termination to an Assyrian
column, but the usual ornaments found on Ionic monuments
in Greece are for the most part purely Assyrian. Accord¬
ing to the interpretation of the inscriptions, the kings of
Assyria shortly before the fall of the empire employed
Greek and Phoenician artists in decorating their palaces,
and records have been found of the names of the kings who
sent them and the cities from whence they came.
Another important result of the discoveries at Nineveh
is, that they enable us to understand the architectural de¬
scriptions contained in the Bible, and especially those re¬
lating to the palaces and temples erected by Solomon, to
which, both in the general plan, the materials employed,
and the style of the ornaments, they appear to have borne
a very close resemblance. The Jewish edifices were, how¬
ever, far inferior in size to those of Assyria.
According to a tradition preserved by Greek authors,
Nineveh was finally captured by the Persians and Baby¬
lonians through a breach in its walls caused by a sud¬
den overflow of the waters of the Tigris. There are no
indications of this event either in the ruins of Kouyunjik
or of Nimroud. All the edifices hitherto discovered, ex¬
cept the north-west palace, attributed to Sardanapalus,
show undoubted marks of having been destroyed by fire,
and many conclude that the city was at last overwhelmed,
never to rise again, by one mighty conflagration, (a. h. l.)
NING-PO, an important city of China, one of the five
seaports open to foreign trade, and the principal emporium
in the province of Che-Keang, stands in a fine plain on the
278 N I N
Ninian ]eft bank of the Takia, Lat. 29. 51. N.; Long. 121. 32. E.
„ It is surrounded by walls, having a circumference of 5 miles,
jrnans,. . ^ jlejg].lt 0p 25 feej5 a breadth of 22 feet at the base and 15
at the summit; and is entered by five gates. The walls are
in a state of considerable dilapidation, and there are large
suburbs on the outside. Although considered by the Chi¬
nese as one of the finest cities in the empire, Ning-po does
not strike Europeans as at all remarkable for its elegance;
the streets being very narrow and dirty, and the houses,
built for the most part of brick, rarely exceeding one
storey in height. It is intersected by several canals, and
the river is crossed by a floating bridge. Among the prin¬
cipal buildings are a hexagonal brick tower of seven storeys,
160 feet high, and said to be upwards of 1000 years old; nu¬
merous pagodas and public offices; as well as the temple of
Ma Tsupu. Near the margin of the river there are nume¬
rous shops and storehouses, which excel in wealth and
splendour those of Canton; and near the city gates there
are many eating-houses and tea-shops. A missionary hos¬
pital, which was founded here in 1843, is of great public
utility, and is used not only by the poorer classes, for
whom it was specially intended, but by all ranks of so¬
ciety. Manufactures of silk are carried on here, as at
Canton ; cotton stuffs, carpets, furniture, &c., are also pro¬
duced; and in the vicinity are large salt-works. The
building of junks is also carried on to a considerable extent.
The trade of the place is very considerable, as it is the
principal port intermediate between the northern and
southern provinces; and owing to the superior speed and
safety of British vessels, the coasting seems to be rapidly
passing out of the hands of the Chinese. The number of
British vessels that entered and cleared here in 1856 was 206];
tonnage, 26,004. British goods are only imported to a small
extent; but large quantities of the produce of Singapore and
the Straits of Malacca find a market here. Among the ex¬
ports to Great Britain in 1856 was green tea to the value of
L.4328; and the principal other articles of export are raw
and manufactured goods of native produce, for the use of
the Chinese on the coasts and in the British colonies. The
trade of the port is on the whole in a flourishing and in¬
creasing condition. Pop. estimated at between 200,000 and
300,000.
NINIAN, or Ninyas, commonly called St Ninian, and
sometimes St Ringan, a distinguished bishop among the
ancient Britons, and said to be the first who carried the
light of Christianity into Scotland, seems to have been a
Briton of noble birth and excellent genius. After receiving
a tolerable education at home, he visited Rome in a.d. 370,
where he spent several years in study. On his return to
Britain he engaged with great zeal and success in preach¬
ing the gospel in the most uncultivated parts of the island.
He chose the modern Whitehorn in Wigtownshire as the
centre of his operations (called by Ptolemy, ii. 3, Aovko-
wi/3ta; and by the Romans, who had a station there, Can¬
dida Casa), then one of the two towns of the Novantse (the
Noomimu of Ptolemy), who inhabited Gallovidia (Gallo¬
way). We learn from Bede {Hist. Eccles., lib. iii.), that Ni-
nian built a fine church there about a.d. 400, which he dedi¬
cated to St Martin; and owing to his great success as a
Christian missionary was afterwards made bishop of White-
horn. This place was the centre of Christian light in Scotland
for more than a hundred years before the arrival ofColumba.
Some of the ruins of St Ninian’s church are still shown
at Whitehorn; and various localities in Scotland still bear
traces of the name and the reputation of this zealous mis¬
sionary.
NINIAN’S, St, a village and parish of Scotland, in the
county of Stirling, about T mile S. of the town of Stirling.
It consists of one main street of old whitewashed houses;
and has a parish, a Free, and a United Presbyterian church
and several schools. Malt, whisky, leather, carpets, tartans,,
NIP
nails, &c., are manufactured here. Pop. of the parish Ninove
(1851) 9851. J
NINOYE, a town of Belgium, in the province of East Nipissing.
Flanders, on the left bank of the Dendre, 20 miles S.E. of v~»-'
Ghent. It contains several churches and schools, a town-
hall, and an hospital. There are breweries, dyeworks,
bleachfields, brick-kilns, and manufactories of earthen¬
ware, leather, soap, tobacco, vinegar, thread, linen and
woollen fabrics, &c. Some trade is carried on in wool,
grain, cattle, and manufactured articles. Pop. 4718.
NIOBE, the daughter of Tantalus, King of Lydia.
The incidents in her life are related differently by different
authors; but the following is the simple legend given by
Homer:—She was married to Amphion, King of Thebes,
and bore to her husband six sons and six daughters. Proud
of the number of her children, she began to assert a scorn¬
ful superiority over Latona, who was .a less happy wife.
Hereupon Apollo and Diana, enraged at the insult cast
upon their mother, bent their bows, and slew the sons and
daughters of the doting Niobe. The childless queen, in her
distracted sorrow, found her way eastward to her father’s
kingdom. As she stood one day on Mount Sipylus, in the
motionless attitude of mute despair, she was changed by
the commiserating Jupiter into stone. There for many
ages afterwards the simple-minded believer of legends could
still detect in the rough outline of a crag the weeping figure
of the unhappy Niobe. This story was the subject of
several ancient sculptures. One of these, a group of four¬
teen statues, representing the mother in the midst of her
dying children, was dug up at Rome at some date before
1583, and was conveyed to Florence in 1775. It now
stands in the Uffizi gallery of the latter city, exciting by
its grandeur the admiration of connoisseurs. (See Arts,
Fine.) Various conjectures have been made regarding the
authorship and the original position of these statues.
Winckelmann supposed that they were the work of Scopas ;
and the English architect Cockerell has shown that they
were probably arranged on the tympanum of a temple.
NIORT, a town of Fi’ance, capital of the department
of Deux-Sevres, stands in the midst of a rich and beautiful
region, on the slopes of two hills, separated by the Sevre-
Niortaise, 79 miles S.E. of Nantes, and 225 S.W. of Paris.
It was formerly very meanly built; but has recently been
much improved, and has now many handsome streets and
two fine public squares. There are two churches, one of
which is an ancient Gothic building w ith a lofty spire; a
town-hall, formerly the palace of Eleanor of Guienne, queen
of Henry II. of England; an old castle now used as a
prison, in which Madame de Main tenon was born ; a pre¬
fecture, a theatre, public library, baths, cavalry barracks,
civil and military hospitals, &c. Niort is the seat of courts
of primary jurisdiction and of commerce, of a council of
prud’hommes, an agricultural society, and a commercial col¬
lege. The principal manufactures are leather and gloves,
especially of doeskin, of which not less than 30,000 dozen
are annually made. Shoes, woollen and cotton yarn, saddles,
paper, saltpetre, articles of wood and horn, &c., are also pro¬
duced here. The commerce of the place is considerable
in wine, corn, flour, wool, timber, manufactured goods, &c.
The Sevre is navigable as far as Niort. Pop. (1856) 18,136.
NIPHON. See Japan.
NIPISSING, Lake, a lake of Upper Canada, lying
midway between the Ottawa or Grand River and Geor¬
gian Bay, an inlet of Lake Huron. Its form is irregular;
its length is about 48 miles, its greatest breadth 25, and
its altitude 750 feet above the sea. Its principal affluent is
the Sturgeon River from the N., which connects it with
other lakes; and it discharges its waters by the French
River into Lake Huron. The lake contains several islands,
occupied by Indians; and abounds in large flocks of
geese.
N I S
Nisan NISAN, the first month of the Hebrew civil year. (See
II Abib.)
'israes. NISHAPOOR, a town of Persia, province of Khorassan,
the capital of a district of its own name, stands in a beauti¬
ful valley, 46 miles W, by S. of Meshed. It is meanly
built, for the most part of mud, and many of the houses are
in ruins. A wall and ditch, with a circumference of about
4000 paces, surround the town, in which the only public
buildings are an unsightly mosque and a pretty large and
well-filled bazaar. About 40 miles W.N. W. of Nishapoor
there are eight or nine mines of very fine turquoises, from
which our supply of these stones is chiefly derived ; but
most of them are very ill worked, and some have been en¬
tirely abandoned ; so that their produce it much less than
it might be under proper management. The town is said
to be very ancient, and to have existed in the time of Alex¬
ander the Great, by whom it was destroyed. Under the
Seljuk dynasty it was one of the four royal cities of Kho¬
rassan. In 1269 it was sacked by the Tartars; again by
Jhengiz-khan; and, in 1749, by Nadir Shah; from which
last calamity it has never recovered. Pop. estimated at
8000.
NISI PRIUS, alegal phrase derived from an ancient
writ in which the words occur. Previously to the statute
of Westminster 2, trials by assizes or juries could only take
place where the king happened to reside, or before the
justices on their septennial circuit through the English
counties; but by 13th Edw. I., cap. 30, the judges were
directed to hold certain assizes in every county not oftener
than three times in every year. The statute required that
the day and place in the county in which a case was to be
tried should be specified in the writ which assembled the
jury. Instead, accordingly, of the old writ, commanding
the sheriff' to bring the jury to Westminster to try the
cause, a nisi prius clause was added to the writ as fol¬
lows :—“ We command you, that you cause to come be¬
fore our justices at Westminster, on the morrow of All
Souls, twelve lawful men, who, &c., unless before {nisi
prius) that day A. B. and C. D., our justices assigned for
that purpose, shall come to your county to take the assizes
there.” The day of summons to Westminster is always
arranged to be later than the day for taking the county
assize, and hence the cause is always tried before the date
at which the sheriff is commanded to return the jury To
Westminster. In time, the phrase nisi prius came to be
applied to a large class of judicial business transacted at the
several assizes throughout the country before judges of the
superior courts. Judges of assize are called judges of nisi
prius; they are said to be sitting at nisi prius, when
sitting alone to try causes, and the law by which their de¬
cisions are regulated is called the law of nisi prius.
NISMES, or Nimes (anc. Nemausus), a town of France,
capital of the department of Gard, stands in a wide
and fertile plain, between the Rivers Gard on the N.,
and Vistre on the S., 23 miles W.S.W. of Avignon, 30
N.E. of Montpellier, and 62 N.W. of Marseilles. The
older part of the town is surrounded by boulevards, on the
site of the fortifications by which it was once defended ; and
contains narrow and irregular streets lined with old and
ill-built houses. The boulevards form fine broad streets,
with handsome houses, and are planted with trees; while
the outer parts of the town, which comprise about three-
fourths of its whole extent, have wide and regular streets,
and handsome modern edifices. The line of the Roman
walls of Nismes may still be traced; and some parts of them,
and two of the gates, are in good preservation. The
principal public buildings of the town are those of Roman
origin. Of these the largest is the amphitheatre, an oval
structure, which now stands, since the adjoining buildings
have been cleared away, in the middle of a large open space;
it is 437 feet long, 332 broad, and 70 high. The exterior
N I S
279
is very well preserved, though the building was used as a Nismes.
fortress in the middle ages. It has two storeys, each
consisting of sixty arches. Within these arches, on each
storey, a corridor runs entirely round the building ; that in
the upper storey being smaller than the lower. °Access is
gained to the interior by four entrances facing the four
points of the compass ; and from these wedge-shaped
passages lead to the centre, and stairs to the upper seats.
On the exterior are also to be observed the holes in which
the poles were inserted for supporting the awning which
shaded the spectators from the heat of the sun. The
interior is not so well preserved; but some of the ancient
seats, of which there were thirty-two rows, are still to be
seen. It is believed that this amphitheatre could contain
upwards of 17,000 spectators. Parts of the interior have
been restored, but rather clumsily, by a modern architect;
and it is still used by the people of Nismes for bull-baiting
and other favourite exhibitions. The date of the building
is unknown. Antoninus Pius, Titus, and Adrian, have
been each conjectured to have been its founder. Another
fine building of Roman construction is a Corinthian temple,
commonly called the Maison Carree, which is adorned
with thirty elegant Corinthian columns. It seems to have
originally stood in the market-place of Nemausus, which
was inclosed by a colonnade. It has been employed
at different times as a heathen temple, a Christian church,
a town-hall, a stable, a burial-place, a court-house, a corn
warehouse, and a museum ; in the last of which capacities
it still remains, and contains some antique remains and
pictures. A temple of Diana, or, according to some, of the
Nymphs; a reservoir, forming the termination of an aqueduct;
and a curious octagonal tower, called La Tourmagne, whose
origin is unknown,—are the chief other ancient buildings in
Nismes. Besides these, the town has a cathedral, built in
the eleventh century, but considerably altered in subsequent
times ; several elegant churches ; an episcopal palace and
seminary; a college, public library, court of justice, barracks,
hospital, theatre, &c. Nismes is also the seat of an appeal
court for the departments of Gard, Lozere, and Vaucluse ; of
courts of primary resort and of commerce; a school of design;
agricultural and medical societies, &c. As a manufacturing
town it holds a high rank ; and in the produce of silk it is
among the most important places in France. There are
several large establishments for dyeing and for printing silk
stuffs; but the weaving, which employs from 7000 to 8000
looms in Nismes, is principally carried on by the workmen
at their own houses, and not in factories.’ The silks of
Nismes are generally imitations of those of Lyons, and of
inferior quality; they are principally used by the lower
classes. Tanneries, distilleries, vinegar-works, and potteries,
are among the chief manufactories of the place; and in ad¬
dition to the articles already mentioned, cotton handker¬
chiefs, hosiery, velvet, chintzes, &c., are extensively pro¬
duced. An active trade is carried on, especially in raw
silk, for which it is the principal emporium in the south of
France; and in wine, vinegar, spices, drugs, &c. The
importance of Nismes has been recently increased by the
construction of railways diverging from this town to Mont¬
pellier, Alais, Avignon, Arles, and Marseilles. (Its ancient
history is given under Nemausus.) After the fall of the
Roman empire it fell into the hands of the Visigoths, who
were dispossessed in the beginning of the eighth century
by the Moors. The latter were expelled from Nismes by
Charles Martel, on which occasion the amphitheatre was
partially destroyed by fire, and the town much injured.
At the Reformation the greater part of the inhabitants
embraced the Protestant religion, and were in consequence
subjected to great persecution and cruelty. About one-
third of the population are still Protestants, and these form
the most wealthy classes in the town. The greatest reli¬
gious animosity is still kept up between the two sects; and
280
N I S
NOB
Nissa in 1815 a renewed outburst of intolerance on the part of
Nivelles ^ Ronmn Catholics took place. In more peaceful times
k 'j the mutual aversion of the two parties is shown by the way
v in which they keep aloof from one another, even frequenting
different places of amusement. Nismes was the birth-place
of Nicot, who introduced tobacco into France ; and of
Guizot the historian. Pop. (1856) 49,291.
NISSA, or Nisch, a town of European Turkey, in the
province of Servia, stands in a fertile and well-cultivated
plain, between two branches of the Balkan Mountains, 60
miles S.S.W. of Widdin, and 130 S.E. of Belgrade. It is
separated into two parts by the River Nissava, an affluent
of the Morava. The division on the right side, occupied
by Turks, is surrounded by good fortifications and a dry
ditch ; while on the other side is a bazaar, defended by a
trench and palisade; and beyondthis is the unprotected Chris¬
tian quarter. The fortifications are mounted with numerous
large guns; and Nissa commands the communication be¬
tween the provinces of Servia, Bulgaria, and Roumelia.
The principal building is the palace of the pasha. This
place was anciently called Naissus ; and is remarkable as
the birth-place of the Emperor Constantine. It was taken
by Amurath II. in 1389, and again by the Austrians in
1737. Pop. 10,000.
NITH, a river of Scotland, rises on the confines of Ayr¬
shire, Kirkcudbrightshire, and Dumfriesshire, flows S.E.
through Dumfriesshire, and falls into the Solway Firth after
a course of 45 miles. The principal towns on its banks are
New Cumnock and Dumfries, the latter about 8 miles from
its mouth. The Nith has salmon fisheries of considerable
value. It has been rendered a classic stream by the poetry
of Burns, who resided for some time at the farm of Ellis-
land, near Dumfries.
NITHARD, an old French historian, was the son of the
famous Abbot Angilbert, and of Bertha, the daughter of
Charlemagne, and was born at some date before 790.
Succeeding his father as duke or count of the maritime
coast, he seems to have risen to an influential position at
court. After the death of his uncle Louis Le Debonnaire
in 840, his services were employed to effect a reconciliation
between the three sons of that monarch; but he was un¬
successful in his negotiations, and it was soon his duty to
record the war which broke out between the brother princes.
His death took place in 858 or 859, in consequence of a
wound which he received in repelling an invasion of the
Normans. The history of Nithard is inserted in Duchesne’s
Historic^ Francorum Scriptores, in 5 vols. fol., Paris,
1636-41-49. A French translation has recently appeared
in the Collections des Memoires Relatifs d VHistoire de
France, of Guizot.
NITI, a celebrated pass over the Himalaya Mountains,
so called from a village of the same name in the vicinity,
in the British district of Kumaon, in the North-West Pro¬
vinces. The ascent from the southern side is for a great
part of the way very steep, over rocks of blue limestone;
and on the other side it leads to the valley of the Sutlej,
which is here 14,924 feet above the sea-level. The height
of the crest of the pass is 16,814 feet above the sea. At
this great elevation the rarity of the air has been felt by
travellers to produce the most painful effects; and even of
those natives who train themselves for the purpose of cross¬
ing the mountains, some can never bring themselves to
endure it. The pass remains open from the end of June
till the middle of October; and during that time the most
of the trade between Hindustan and Chinese Tartary is
carried on by it; the merchandise being conveyed on the
backs of yaks, goats, and sheep.
NIVELLES, a town of Belgium, province of South
Brabant, stands on the Thienne, 17 miles S. of Brussels. It
is not very well built, but has two large squares and a fine
public walk. There are 3 churches; one of which, that of St
Gertrude, is a fine edifice in the Romanesque style, built Nivernaij
in 1048. It contains two finely carved pulpits, one of wood |j
and the other of marble; and has two towers, the lower of Nobility,
which contains a chime of bells, on which the hours are
struck by a colossal figure called Jean de Nivelles. The
crypt is considered one of the finest in Belgium, and is
much resorted to by pilgrims. Nivelles has also a convent,
a college, normal school, academy of design and architecture,
hospital, court of primary jurisdiction, &c. Manufactures
of linen, woollen, and cotton stuffs, hats, lace, paper, oil,
tobacco, and other articles are carried on here; and there
is a considerable trade in corn, cattle, and swine. The
town owes its origin to an abbey founded in 645 by St
Gertrude, some cloisters of which still remain. It is said
to have been much more populous in the sixteenth century.
Pop. 8499.
NIVERNAIS, an old province of France, which com¬
prised the present department of Nievre and part of that
of Cher.
NIXDORF, a town of Bohemia, in the circle of Leit-
memz. stands near the borders of Saxony, 34 miles N.E.
of Leitmeritz. Manufactures of linen, hosiery, cutlery, and
hardware are carried on; and the latter articles are ex¬
ported to all parts of Germany. In the neighbourhood are
mineral springs, over which baths have been erected. Pop.
5090.
NIZAM’S DOMINIONS. See Hyderabad.
NIZZA MONFERRATO, a town in the kingdom of
Sardinia, in the division of Alessandria, stands at the con¬
fluence of the Belbo and Nizza, 16 miles S.W. of Alessan¬
dria. It has a silk-mill, and some trade in wine. Pop. 4376.
NOAH. See Deluge.
. NOBILITY, in the technical acceptation of the word,
means generally that quality or dignity which raises a man
above the rank of a commoner. Among the Romans, the
nobiles or “ known” men, were so called by way of distinc¬
tion from the ignobiles, or vulgar, who were “ not known.”
Originally the Roman patricians were the nobles, but b.c.
336 the plebeians obtained the right to rise to high offices
in the state, and subsequently the descendants of plebeians
who had filled curule magistracies inherited the jus imagi-
num, or right of holding the images of their ancestors—a
sort of coat of arms ; and were accordingly ranked with the
nobiles, and bore the dignity of nobilitas. He that had
only his own image was a novus homo, and he that had
neither his ancestors’ nor his own was an ignobilis.
“ The distinction of rank and honours,” says Blackstone,
“ is necessary in every well-governed state, in order to re¬
ward such as are eminent for their services to the public,
in a manner the most desirable to individuals, and yet with¬
out burden to the community; exciting thereby an ambi¬
tious yet laudable ardour, and generous emulation in others.
And emulation, or virtuous ambition, is a spring of action
which, however dangerous or invidious in a mere republic
or under a despotic sway, will certainly be attended Yvith
good effects under a free monarchy, where, without de¬
stroying its existence, its excesses may be continually re¬
strained by that superior power from which all honour is
derived. Such a spirit, when nationally diffused, gives life
and vigour to the community; it sets all the wheels of
government in motion, which, under a wise regulator, may
be directed to any beneficial purpose ; and thereby every
individual may be made subservient to the public good,
while he principally means to promote his own particular
views. A body of nobility is also more peculiarly necessary
in our mixed and compounded constitution, in order to sup¬
port the rights of both the crown and the people, by form¬
ing a barrier to withstand the encroachments of both. It
creates and preserves that gradual scale of dignity which
proceeds from the peasant to the prince; rising like a py¬
ramid from a broad foundation, and diminishing to a point
nobility.
Nobility, as it rises. It is this ascending and contracting proportion
that adds stability to any government; for when the de¬
parture is sudden from one extreme to another, we may
pronounce that state to be precarious.”
The origin of nobility is a subject involved in obscurity.
In the infancy of almost every nation we meet with a here¬
ditary nobility of some sort. It originally had a reference
doubtless to superior merit; and in early times is found
most frequently attaching to the warrior or the priest. An
interesting passage bearing on the origin of hereditary no¬
bility occurs in the Franca Gallia of Francis Hotman,
written in 1574. He says, “We must not omit making
mention of the cunning device made use of by Hugh Capet
for establishing himself in his new dominions (as king of
France a.d. 987). bor whereas all the magistracies and
honours of the kingdom, such as dukedoms, earldoms, &c.,
had been hitherto, from ancient times, conferred upon select
and deserving persons in the general conventions of the
people, and were held only during good behaviour, whereof
(as lawyers express it) they were but beneficiaries, Hugh
Capet, in order to secure to himself the affections of the
great men, was the first that made those honours perpetual,
which were formerly but temporary, and ordained that such
as obtained them should have an hereditary right in them,
and might leave them to their children. Of this see Fran-
ciscus Conanus the civilian, Comment, i., ch. 9.” (Burke’s
Peerage).
Sir James Lawrence, who, in his Nobility of the British
Gentry, maintains that gentility is superior to nobility (fit no-
bilis, nasciturgenerosus), holds that a coatof arms is the crite¬
rion of nobility. (See Heraldry.) He says (p. 3), “ Any
individual who distinguishes himself may be said to ennoble
himself. A prince, judging an individual worthy of notice,
gave him letters patent of nobility. In these letters were bla¬
zoned the arms that were to distinguish the shield. By this
shield he was to be known, or nobilis. A plebeian had no bla¬
zonry on his shield, because he was ignobihs, or unworthy
of notice. In an age when a warrior was cased in armour
from head to foot, he could only be known by his shield.
Fhe plebeian who had no pretensions to be known was
clypeo ignobilis albo. Hence arms are the criterion of no¬
bility. Every nobleman must have a shield of arms. Who¬
ever has a shield of arms is a nobleman. In every country
in Europe, without exception, a grant of arms or letters of
nobility is conferred on all the descendants. In the north¬
ern countries—Germany, Hungary, Russia, Sweden, Den¬
mark—the titles also of baron or count descend to all the
male posterity, and to all the unmarried females of the
family ; but in the southern countries—France, Spain, Por-
tugal, and Great Britain—the titles of duke, marquess, count,
viscount, or baron, descend only according to the rules of
primogeniture.”
In Great Britain nobility extends to the five ranks of
duke, marquess, earl, viscount, and baron. (See under
each.) The right of peerage seemi to have been originally
territorial; that is, annexed to lands, honours, castles, ma¬
nors, and the like, the proprietors and possessors of which
were,in rightof those estates, allowed to be peers of the realm,
and were summoned to Parliament to do suit and service to
their sovereign ; and, when the land was alienated, the
dignity passed along with it as an appendage. Thus in
England the bishops still sit in the House of Lords, in
right of succession to certain ancient baronies annexed, or
supposed to be annexed, to their episcopal lands; and thus
(I I Henry VI.) the possession of the castle of Arundel was
adjudged to confer an earldom on its possessor. But after-
waids, when alienations became frequent, the dignity of the
peerage w'as confined to the lineage of the party ennobled,
and, instead of territorial, became personal. Actual proof
of a tenure by barony became no longer necessary to con¬
stitute a lord of parliament; but the record of the writ of
VOL. X\ I.
summons to him or his ancestors was admitted as a suffi
cient evidence of the tenure. Peers of Great Britain are
now created either by writ or by patent; for those who
claim by prescription must suppose either a writ or patent
to have been issued or granted to their ancestors, though
by length of time it has been lost. The first of these sum¬
monses on record was made in the forty-ninth year of
Henry HI.; and the first instance of barons made by
letters patent dates from the reign of Richard II. The
creation by writ or the king’s letter is a summons to attend
the House of Peers, by the style and title of that barony
which the king is pleased to confer: that by patent is a
royal grant to a subject of any dignity and degree of peer-
Fhe creation by writ is the more ancient way ; but
a man is not ennobled thereby unless he actually take his
seat in the House of Lords ; and some are of opinion that
there must be at least two writs of summons, and a sitting
in two distinct Parliaments, to establish a hereditary barony*3;
and therefore the most usual, because the surest way is to
grant the dignity by patent, which endures to a man and
his heirs according to the limitation thereof, although he
himself should never make use of it. Yet it is customary to
call up the eldest son of a peer to the House of Lords' by
writ of summons, in the name of his father’s barony, be¬
cause in that case there is no danger of his children losing
the nobility in the event of his never taking his seat, seeing
they will succeed to their grandfather. Creation by writ
has also one advantage over that by patent. A person
created by writ holds the dignity to himself and his heirs,
without any words to that purport in the writ; but in letters
patent there must be words to direct the inheritance, other¬
wise the dignity endures only to the grantee for life.
The nobility of England are, as elsewhere, a privileged
order. In criminal cases a nobleman must be tried by his
peers—a privilege, indeed, secured to all by Magna Charta
(c. 29). It is said that the privileges of nobility do not ex¬
tend to bishops, who, though they are lords of Parliament, and
sit theie by virtue of the baronies which they hold^wre eccle-
sice, yet are not ennobled in blood, and consequently not
peers with the nobility. As to peeresses, no provision was
made for their trial when accused of treason or felony till after
Eleanor, Duchess of Gloucester, wife to the Lord Protector,
had been accused of treason, and found guilty of witchcraft’
in an ecclesiastical synod, through the intrigues of Cardinal
Beaufort. This very extraordinary trial gave occasion to
a special statute (20 Hen. II., c. 9) which enacted that
peeresses, either in their own right or by marriage, should
be tried before the same judicators as peers of the realm.
It a woman, noble in her own right, marries a commoner,
she still remains noble, and must be tried by her peers;
but if she *be only noble by marriage, then by a second
marriage with a commoner she loses her dignity; for as by
marriage it is gained, so by marriage it is also lost. Yet if
a duchess-dowager marries a baron'she continues a duchess
still; for all the nobility are pares, and therefore it is no
degradation. A peer, or peeress, either in her own right
or by marriage, cannot be arrested in civil cases; and they
have likewise many peculiar privileges annexed to their
peerage in the course of judicial proceedings. A peer sit-
ting in judgment gives not his verdict upon oath, like an
ordinary juryman, but upon his honour; he answers also to
bills in chancery upon his honour, and not upon his oath ;
but when he is examined as a witness either in civil or cri¬
minal cases, he must be sworn ; for the respect which the
law shows to the honour of a peer does not extend so far
as to overturn a settled maxim, that in judicio non creditur
nisi juratis. 1 he honour of peers is, however, so highly
tendered by the law, that it is much more penal to spread
false reports concerning them, and certain other great officers
of the realm, than concerning other men; scandal against
them being called by the peculiar name of scandalum niag-
281
Nobility.
282
N O C
Noci.
Nocera del natum, and subjected to peculiar punishment by different
Pagani ancient statutes. In point of fact, however, their immuni¬
ties have relation more to dignity than powder. In theii
legislative capacity, the peers of England form an estate of
the realm intermediate between the crown and the com¬
mons. In their judicial capacity they constitute the su¬
preme court of justice, from whose judgment there is no
further appeal. While bearing the minor crown, they
wield no minor sceptre of personal power. They possess
no regal jurisdiction, nor any sovereign seigniory. No peer
can invade with impunity the rights of a commoner, nor
exercise any peculiar authority not open also to the com¬
moner. A patent of English nobility, however, confers
not only a title, but also a certain amount of political power
and privilege. Yet there may be nobility without political
privileges, as in the case of Scotch and Irish peers, who are
not peers of the realm. There are also members of the
House of Lords who are not peers of the realm, as in the
case of the representative peers of Ireland and Scotian ,
and the bishops and archbishops of England and Iie.anc.
The peerages of Great Britain and Ireland enjoy the same
privileges in all other respects, however, except those de¬
pending upon sitting in the House of Lords (39 and 40
Geo. III. cap. 67). Peers of the realm are entitled to sit
there either by hereditary claim, or from being elected by
their own peers; whereas the rest of the nobility in t e
House of Lords are nominated by the crown to places which
entitle them to a seat for life, or for certain fixed periods.
New additions are constantly being made to the Lnglish
peerage. The persons selected for this honour are drawn
chiefly from the following classes :—Peers of Scotland and
Ireland; members of families already among the nobility ;
distinguished lawyers, and naval and military commanders ;
persons eminent in political life; persons of extensive
landed property, and some who have acquired great wealth
and attained to social importance in commerce. Hitherto
distinction in science and literature has been rewarded by no
higher dignity in England than that of a baronet, which does
not confer nobility ; but this custom was broken through in
1857, in the case of Lord Macaulay, who was'elevated to the
rank of nobility as a reward for distinguished literary merit.
A peer cannot lose his nobility except by death or
attainder, although there was an instance, in the reign
of Edward IV., of the degradation of George Neville,
Duke of Bedford, by act of Parliament, on account of his
poverty, which rendered him unable to support his dignity.
But this is a singular instance; and while it serves to show
the power of Parliament, proves how tender that august
assembly has always been in exerting so high a function.^
In France the titles and armorial bearings of the nobi¬
lity were abolished by order of the National Assembly,
June 18, 1790, and the records of the French nobility, in
600 vols., were burnt two years afterwards. Napoleon
created a new nobility in 1808, but the hereditary peerage
was abolished in 1831.
NOCERA DEI PAGANI, a town of Naples, province
of Principato Citra, at the foot of a hill occupied by the
ancient citadel, in the middle of a series of isolated heights,
21 miles E.S.E. of Naples. It consists of straggling groups
of houses, with gardens and trees between; and has seve¬
ral churches, a convent, a clerical seminary and other schools,
and good cavalry barracks. Manufactures of linen and other
stuffs are carried on. Nocera occupies the site of the ancient
Nuceria, which was destroyed by Hannibal in his invasion of
Italy. It is supposed to have received its modern epithet
from a colony of 20,000 Saracens, who were settled here in
the 13th century by the Emperor Frederick II., in opposi¬
tion to thecourt of Rome and the Guelph faction. Pop. 6800.
NOCI, a town of Naples, province of Bari, 28 miles
S.E. of the town of that name. It has a large hospital; and
some trade in corn, wine, oil, and silk. Pop. 8000.
NOG
NODES, the two points where-the orbit of a planet or Nodes
comet intersects the ecliptic, or where the orbit of a satel- ||
lite intersects the orbit of its primary. (See Astronomy.) ^ent;19
NODIER, Charles, a distinguished French htte-
rateur, was born at Besanpon, April 29, 1780. Fiom his
father, who was mayor of his native town during the first
years of the Revolution, he received an excellent classical
training. While still a mere lad, he gave earnest of his
future literary eminence by composing dramas and lyrics
on classical themes, which were much admired by com¬
petent judges in the circle of his friends. Encouraged by
their praises, he began to point his thoughts and studies to
a definite aim, and in 1798 published his Dictionnaire des
Onomatopees. This work, which displayed research and
critical power remarkable in so young a man, was, by the
advice of Fourcroy, adopted as a text-book in all the
government lycees and public schools throughout France.
At this period of his life Nodier devoted much of his time
to the study of natural history. He only published two
works bearing directly on that science; one, an Essay on
the Organs of Hearing in Insects; the other, his Biblio-
theque Entomologique; but nearly all his more mature
works give evidence of great taste and knowledge in these
branches of inquiry. His next work of importance was his
Napoleone, published in 1800. It was written in defence
of freedom, at that time rapidly dying out in France under
the military despotism of Bonaparte. Many of the views
and expressions were extremely distasteful to the First
Consul, who, after keeping the poet in confinement for
some months, banished him to his native town, and there
put him under police surveillance. Nodier’s studies now
took a philological turn, and his Examen Critique des
Dictionnaires de la Langue Frangaise was a valuable con¬
tribution to a science at that time much neglected in France.
For several years after this date, he led an unsettled and
wandering life, till he found a resting-place at Dole. He
there began a course of lectures on literary subjects ; gained
great popularity as a lecturer and critic; and married Ma¬
demoiselle Charves, a young lady of great beauty and accom¬
plishments. For some years after his marriage Nodier
continued to reside at Quintigny, near the Jura, till the
necessities of his family, and the prospects of abundant
literary employment, drove him to settle in Paris. For
some years he contributed regularly to the Journal des
Debats, and after the restoration of the Bourbons, became
editor of the Quotidienne. In 1818 he published Jean
Sbogar; in the following year his beautiful romance of
Therese Hubert; in 1820 Adele; in 1821 Smarra;
and in 1822 Trilby. These works served to establish
Nodier’s fame, and soon after the appearance of the last
mentioned of them he was appointed to the honourable
position of librarian to the Arsenal. The duties of this
office were severe, and the heavy exactions on his time
by society left him comparatively little time for writing.
Some of his best works, however, such as his Dernier Ban¬
quet des Girondins, his Fantaisies du Docteur Neophobus,
and his Franciscus Columna, date after his appointment
to the librarianship. He died on the 27th of January 1844,^
almost exactly ten years after his election as a member of
the French Academy. Nodier was one of the most amiable,
pure, and interesting among the French litterateurs of his
day. It may be doubted if even his best works are of a
texture to resist the tear and wear of all time. Fie wrote
too much, and too variously, to insure himself a place in
the front ranks of French genius; but it is hardly possible
to deny that, had he concentrated instead of diffusing his
powers, and written for the future rather than for the pass¬
ing hour, his chances of immortality might have become
certainties. An interesting Life of Nodier, by his friend
Francois Wey, was published at Paris in 1845.
NOGENT-LE-ROTROU, a town of France, depart-
N O I
Noimou- ment of Eure-et-Loire, at the foot of a steep hill in a
tiers beautiful valley on the left bank of the Huisne, 33 miles
II W.S.W. of Chartres. On the hill are the ruins of an old
Mlekens. cast]e> which was once the residence of the celebrated
- ' Sully’ In the town are three churches, one of which is as
old as the eleventh century, three hospitals, a chamber of
manufactures, a college, and a court of the first resort.
There are also dye-houses and fulling-mills, as well as
manufactories of leather, serge, cotton yarn, sieves, &c.
An active trade is carried on in linen, hemp, clover-seed,
hay, cattle, and other articles. Pop. (1856) 6542.
NOIRMOUTIERS, an island of France, off the coast
of the department of Vendee, separated from the mainland
by a channel about one mile in breadth, which is nearly
dry at low-water. Its length is about ten miles, greatest
breadth three; area about seventy square miles, of which
only about one-fifth 4s cultivated. This part is very fer¬
tile; and the rest of the surface is occupied chiefly by
pasture ground and salt marshes. The island lies gene¬
rally somewhat below the level of the sea, and is protected
from inundation by embankments. The principal produc¬
tions are salt, corn, beans, and some wine. On the east
coast stands a town of the same name, which is well built,
and has an old castle and a harbour. Pop. 7011.
NOLA, a town of Naples, in the province of Terra di
Lavoro, stands on the plain between Mount Vesuvius and
the Apennines, fourteen miles E.N.E. of Naples. It is ill
built and dirty; contains several churches and convents, a
college, hospital, and barracks ; and is the see of a bishop.
The town is of great antiquity, and is remarkable in Roman
history for the resistance it offered to Hannibal in B.c. 216,
who received his first check from Marcellus under the walls
of this town. Nola is also remarkable as the place where
Augustus died, a.d. 14; and in the fifth century it was the see
of StPaulinus,by whom church bells were introduced. Many
remains of antiquity have been found at Nola. Pop. 9600.
NOLLE PROSEQUI, a phrase used in judicial pro¬
ceedings, where a plaintiff in an action does not declare in
a reasonable time, in which case it is usual for the defen¬
dant’s attorney to enter a rule for the plaintiff to declare,
after which a non prosequitur may be entered. A nolle
prosequi is esteemed a voluntary confession that the plain¬
tiff has no cause of action ; and therefore if a plaintiff enters
his nolle prosequi, he may be amerced; but if an informer
cause the same to be entered, the defendant may have
costs. The phrase is derived from the words used in the
formal entry of the withdrawal, in which the party agrees
that he will not farther prosecute {se ulterius nolle prosequi).
NOLLEKENS, Joseph, a distinguished English
sculptor, was born in London on the 11th of August 1737.
His father, a native of Antwerp, was a painter by profes¬
sion, and is mentioned by Horace Walpole, under the name
of “ Old Nollekens,” as an artist of some repute. He died
whilst Joseph was still very young ; and his widow having
married again soon after his decease, the education of the
youthful sculptor was much neglected. In his thirteenth
year we find him in the studio of Scheemakers, where he
exhibited his passion for his art by drawing and modelling
early and late with the utmost assiduity. As his powers
expanded, he became repeatedly a successful candidate for
the prizes offered to rising genius by the Society of Arts.
In his twenty-third year we find him in Rome, friendless,
and nearly reduced to want, but enthusiastically pursuing
his vocation. He modelled and carved in stone a bas-reliefj
which brought him ten guineas in England; and in the
following year his group of “ Timoclea before Alexander,”
in marble, was honoured by the Society of Arts with a
premium of fifty guineas. This success placed him above
absolute dependence; and he was now noticed by the
artists in Rome, particularly Barry, and also by some Eng¬
lish visitors, amongst whom were Garrick and Sterne. The
N O L 283
great English actor recognising him one day in the Vatican, Nollekens.
invited him to breakfast next morning, and ended by sitting y—
to him for his bust, for the model of which Garrick paid
twelve guineas to the artist. Sterne likewise sat to him at
Rome; and the bust of the wit, which is in terra-cotta, is
considered an admirable likeness. To the last hour of
his life Nollekens alluded to it with pleasure. “ Dance,”
he used to say, “ made my picture with my hand leaning
on Sterne’s head; he was right.” He was liberally pa¬
tronized by his countrymen who annually migrated to the
capital of Italy, and for whom he executed many consider¬
able works in marble, of which “ Mercury and Venus chid¬
ing Cupid” are considered as the best. For all his produc¬
tions he received immediate and liberal payment. Early
misfortunes had made Nollekens acquainted with privation.
Being an economist from necessity, he became frugal from
habit; and this continued to influence his conduct when
the necessity for parsimony no longer existed. He lived
at Rome in a very humble manner, and, after ten years of
profitable study, he returned to London comparatively rich.
Nollekens was now prepared to commence business upon
his own account, and accordingly he took a lease of exten¬
sive premises in Mortimer Street. The busts of Sterne
and Garrick had spread his fame in his native country, and
he no sooner opened his doors than orders came in in abun¬
dance. In 1771 he was admitted an associate of the Royal
Academy, and in the following year was elected a member,
much to the satisfaction of George III., who soon after¬
wards honoured the artist by sitting for his bust. Nolle¬
kens about this time married a lady who was the friend of
Samuel Johnson, and, if report may in aught be credited,
the great critic was not insensible to her charms. Nolle¬
kens was fully aware that his strength lay in busts; and as
this line of art was an exceedingly profitable one, it may
readily be supposed that his time and talents were prin¬
cipally devoted to it. Amongst his sitters were the great,
the beautiful, and the titled of the land; and his profits
were commensurate with the condition of his employers.
He also found leisure to work out, slowly and with much
care, marble groups and statues, amongst which may be
mentioned those of “ Bacchus,” “Venus taking off her
sandal,” “ Hope leaning on an urn,” “ Juno,” “ Paetus and
Arria,” and “ Cupid and Psyche.” His portraits were ex¬
cellent, and there was generally a gentleness in the expres¬
sion, and a gracefulness in the handling, which never failed
to please. The likenesses of his busts were acknowledged
by all, and the prettiness of the statues could not fail to be
as generally admitted. But original vigour was wanting.
He was one in whom the merely imitative faculty greatly
surpassed the imaginative. The want of imagination Nol¬
lekens partially supplied, however, by a diligent study of
the antique; and hence, whilst every statue surpassed its
predecessor in delicacy of workmanship, the artist only
attained eminence by incessant labour. During a period
of ten years, from 1776 to 1786, he exhibited sixteen busts,
five statues, and four groups, some of which were not in
marble. The statues were those of “Juno,” “Diana,”
“ Adonis,” “ Cupid,” and “ Mercury,” in which he followed
the beaten track, withoutattempting anything new. Amongst
his monumental effigies may be mentioned that which com¬
memorated the three commanders who fell in Rodney’s
great battle of the 12th April 1782. From his “ Venus,” and
other statues of that description, we pass on to those pro¬
ductions which were more suitable to the genius of the
artist. The ten years which followed 1800 were the busiest
in the life of Nollekens; for although he was between sixty
and seventy years of age, he continued to work with the
same diligence and skill as in his youth. Upwards of fifty
busts proceeded from his chisel, besides nearly a score of
groups and statues. Amongst the former were the far-
famed heads of Pitt and Fox, those of the Prince of Wales,
284 N 0 M
iNombr6- afterwards George IV., Dr Burney, the Marquis of Staf-
e‘ 103 ford, the Duke of Bedford, and others. Of the twenty
Nominal- statues and groups, the statue of Pitt for Cambridge at-
ists and fracted most attention at the time. The “ Venus anointing
Tlpalists. herself,” however, was the favourite work of Nollekens,
though it is deficient both in originality and in propriety of
action. The workmanship of the statue, however, is very
fine. From 1810 till 1816, the last year of his exertions,
he modelled some thirty busts, not a few of which are
ranked amongst the most valuable of his works. The
principal heads are those of the Duke of York; Lords
Castlereagh, Aberdeen, Erskine, Egremont, Liverpool;
Canning, Perceval, Benjamin West, and Thomas Coutts
the banker. Nollekens died on the 23d of April 1823,
leaving a fortune of some two hundred thousand pounds.
(Cunningham’s Lives of British Painters, Sculptors, and
Architects, vol. iii.) (J. F. s.)
NOMBRE-DE-DIOS, a town of Mexico, department
of Durango, and 45 miles S.S.E. of the town of that name.
In the vicinity there are rich silver mines; but the princi¬
pal resources of the place are derived from the sale of a
liquor called mescal, distilled from the aloe. Pop. 7000.
NOMINALISTS and REALISTS, two opposing sects
among the scholastic philosophers, celebrated for the bitter
and even bloody hostility with which they maintained their
disputes. The contest turned upon the nature of general
terms, or universals. While both parties agreed that the
object of the science of logic was universals, they differed
upon the grand question as to whether these universals
were real things or mere names. One party espoused the
latter opinion, and went by the name of Nominalists;
the other adopted the former view, and received the name
of Realists. The Nominalist cited Aristotle in behalf of
his position ; the Realist adduced Plato in favour of his. It
becomes therefore necessary, in order to get to the root
of this famous controversy, to advert to the doctrines of
those ancient masters respecting common notions or ideas.
According to the opinion of Plato, common terms, as re¬
presentative of the actual and eternal ideas of the Divine
mind, according to which all particular existences are
formed, have a real, permanent existence. The partial
exponents of these ideas, as manifested in individuals, he
held to be unreal and illusory; and that the only proper
realities were those general notions or ideas denoted by
the term universals. Words, according to Plato, are the
means whereby wre ascend to a clear and vital perception
of things, and behind every common term there lurks an
unquestionable reality. To seize upon this reality is ac¬
cordingly the business of his dialectics. With Aristotle,
again, whose philosophy was fundamentally distinct from
his master’s, the business of dialectics is to treat of the
manner in which our minds discourse of things: words,
according to him, are the representatives of our thoughts;
and class words set forth in speech our notions or general¬
ized conceptions of individuals. He therefore denied the
eternal existence of Plato’s ideas, but admitted with him
the existence of those ideas in every individual of the
species of which they formed the proper essence. As the
phiases went among the schoolmen, Aristotle maintained
umversaha in re ; Plato, universalia ante rem; the No¬
minalists, universalia post rem. Logic, with Aristotle, was
the science of names and notions; with Plato it was more
the science of names and realities. With Aristotle logic
was an end in itself—it was the science of the laws of
discursive thinking; with Plato it was simply a means
wheieby the eternal and only realities which lay concealed
behind universals were to be laid hold of. It is curious,
however, that “ different philosophers,” according to Sir W.
. Hamilton, <£ have maintained that Aristotle was a Realist,
a Conceptualist, and a Nominalist in the strictest sense.”
(Hamilton’s Edition of Reid’s Works, p. 405, note.)
N O M
At a very early period in the history of the church the Nominal.
Platonic ideas of being and unity had become inseparably ists and
connected with the mysteries of the Christian religion. Realists.
The science of logic, as taught in the Organum of the
Stagyrite, who was, indeed, the true founder of the science,
was expounded by the doctors of the schools according to
the principles of Plato, which had no proper connection
with it. This practice continued until the times of St
Anselm, about the end of the eleventh century, when a
disputed passage in Porphyry’s Introduction to the Organum
of Aristotle, respecting the disagreement of the Platonists
and Peripatetics on the nature of genera, brought matters
to a crisis. Roscelinus, or Roscelin, a canon of Compeigne,
maintained that the notions of universals, of genera, and
species were possessed of no reality,—were nothing but
mere words {flatus vocis) employed to designate qualities
common to different individuals. By this man, and in this
manner, was Nominalism founded. Although apparently
a trifling dispute in itself, the theory of ideas was neverthe¬
less a fundamental one in the scheme of human knowledge.
The controversy thus excited by the canon of Compeigne
had accordingly an extensive bearing. If every genus is
only a mere word, it follows that individuals are the only
realities, and that the senses are at bottom the only sources
of knowledge. And not only so, but on this theory no
absolute affirmation respecting truth is possible, for such
an affirmation involves of necessity a general idea, which,
ex hypothesi, is destitute of real validity. Hence we have
scepticism at the next remove. Among churchmen, of
course, all such disputes partook more or less of a theolo¬
gical character. The Nominalist doctrine, by denying a
real validity to abstract ideas, was charged with necessitat¬
ing the denial of the realities of unities, and, in particular,
of the great unity which forms the basis of the Holy
Trinity. If the Trinity represented^mly a nominal unity,
then it was pretty obvious that Roscelinus, the Nominal¬
ist, was a very dangerous person indeed. The poor ca¬
non had therefore to retract, on pain of death, at the
Council of Soissons in 1092. St Anselm was the first
to attack the position of Roscelinus, in a work on the Unity
of the T rinity, but with a degree of temperance all his own,
and with a realistic creed different from that of the Realists
of the schools. Seeing that Nominalism and heresy had
now become synonymous, it behoved philosophic church¬
men to crush the error. William of Champeaux, in order
to do the work effectually, rushed straight to the opposite
extreme, and, as the founder of scholastic Realism, main¬
tained that universals, so far from possessing t. merely no¬
minal existence, were in point of fact the only real entities.
Genera, according to him, individualize themselves in par¬
ticular beings in such a manner that individuals differ only
by the variety of their accidents, but are identical as to
their essence or real nature. A few steps further and we have
pantheism. Such, then, were the alternatives to which the
speculations of Roscelinus and William of Champeaux re¬
duced the thinkers of that time. Nominalism and scepti¬
cism, Realism and pantheism—such was the dilemma. Abe¬
lard, the illustrious pupil of the founder of Realism, like a
wise man, chose a middle course in preference to the horn
of either extreme. He ascribed a reality both to indivi¬
duals and universals, but a reality differing in the case of
each. Individuals had, he maintained, an essential exist¬
ence, and universals an existence ideally real. Genera
were abstracted from particulars, and existed in the mind
in the form of notions, or (as we call them now) concepts,
and were held together and expressed bywords CdAe&general
terms. Hence the theory termed Conceptualism, or con¬
ceptual Nominalism, which was really the one main¬
tained by all succeeding Nominalists, and is the doctrine
of ideas generally believed in at the present day. Abelard
displeased his proud master, William, by this middle
N O M
Tomsz. course, and, as so often happens, gave satisfaction to no
one. Realism accordingly triumphed in silence during the
second stage of middle-age scholasticism. (See Cousin’s
Introduction to the unpublished works of Abelard, and his
Fragments de Phil. Scholast.) Nominalism had well-nigh
died out, when William of Occam or Ockham, an English
Franciscan, and pupil of Duns Scotus, came forward in the
fourteenth century to revive its decadent glory. This
“ invincible doctor” attacked the Realists with great spirit,
and raised the doctrines of the Nominalists into greater
repute than they had ever before enjoyed. Nominalism,
however, was no longer upheld by Occam and his followers
in its absolute form : Conceptualism is the appropriate de¬
signation for their theory. The contest between the op¬
posing parties was now conducted with a virulence and
ferocity altogether unworthy of philosophers. The strife
raged in the schools of Britain, France, and Germany with
the greatest fury. When words would not carry convic¬
tion, the passionate doctors had recourse to blows: when
argument and patience wrere alike exhausted, the invin¬
cible combatants drew upon, one another, and ended the
quarrel in blood. The doctor invincibilis himself, after
espousing the cause of Philippe le Bel, King of France,
and of Louis of Bavaria, against the Popes Boniface VIII.
and John XXII., died at Munich, “persecuted but not
subdued,” about the middle of the fourteenth century.
Realism, as then identified with the cause of the Pope and
the church, continued to prosper in Italy under the patron¬
age of the Roman See; while Nominalism, which, from the
influence of its most stanch supporter, had become identi¬
fied with the political movement then agitated against the
church, was generally received throughout the greater part
of the European continent. But the time came when not
only the University, but the King, of France issued edicts
of extermination against the Nominalists. Their writings
were ordered by Louis XL, in 1473, to be seized and
bound in the libraries in iron chains; but after some time
the edict was mitigated, the exiled sect was permitted to
return, and Nominalism gained the ascendancy in France
as in Germany. The fruitless and fatal consequences of
these wranglings gradually became apparent. Scholasti¬
cism, with its endless subtilties and perverse ingenuities, be¬
came suspected, and a disposition towards mysticism gra¬
dually made its appearance among thinking men. (See
Mysticism.) The revival of letters, and the advent of the
Reformation, eventually put an end to the fiercest contro¬
versy known in the annals of philosophical speculation.
Among the most celebrated Nominalists not already men¬
tioned, were,—Durand of Saint Pourcain, John Buridan,
Robert Holcot, Gregory of Rimini, and Henry of Hesse, in
the fourteenth century; and Matthew of Crochove, Peter
D’Ailly, Gabriel Biel, and Raymond of Sebonde, in the fif¬
teenth. Among the Realists not already cited may be men¬
tioned Henry of Gand, Walter Burleigh, Thomas of Stras-
burg, Marsile of Inghen, and Thomas of Bradwardine,—all
in the fourteenth century. In addition to the ordinary his¬
tones of philosophy, the reader may consult with profit
Ueber Nominalismus u. Pealismus, von Erner, 1842; also
Ke Dictionnaire des Sciences Philosophiques. (j. d—s.)
NOMSZ, Jan, a voluminous Dutch author, was born at
msterdam in 1738, and renounced commerce to devote
himself to literature. An epic poem, entitled William
1? the rounder of the Freedom of the Netherlands, brought
him into notice in 1779. Stimulated by his success, his ac-
ive bram continued to produce numerous works on differ¬
ent su ijccts. He wrote satires, poetical epistles, historical
sketches, newspaper articles, and translations from the
Trench. He also composed or translated more than forty
plays, which acquired great popularity on the stage of his
na ive city. Yet all these successful efforts did not prevent
lum from falling into misfortune, losing his self-respect, and
N O N
bringing his life to a calamitous close. He died in an hos¬
pital in 1803.
NONAGESIMAL, or Nonagesimal Degree, is the
highest point, or ninetieth degree of the ecliptic, reckoned
from its intersection with the horizon at any time ; and its
altitude is equal to the angle which the ecliptic makes with
the horizon at their intersection, or equal to the distance of
the zenith from the pole of the ecliptic. It is much used
in the calculation of the parallaxes of the moon. (See
Astronomy.)
NONAGON, a nine-sided polygon. (See Geometry.)
NONCONFORMISTS, the name by which Protestant
dissenters from the Church of England are generally known.
I heir existence dates almost as far back as that church
itself. The attempt made by Henry VIII. to constitute an
Anglican church differing from the Roman Catholic church
only on the point of supremacy, succeeded as long as his
own energy and boldness remained to support it. A sys¬
tem which had burnt Reformers as heretics, and hung
Papists as traitors, was not likely to find much favour in a
country where the popular zeal ran high in favour either of
the old opinions or the new. Henry’s system accordingly
died with its founder ; and it was reserved for the pious and
courtly Cranmer to have the honour of laying the first stone
of the proud edifice of the Church of England. The
government and the Protestants required the mutual sup¬
port of each other; and in order to a union, concessions
were made on both sides. They took a middle course be¬
tween Rome and Geneva, and laid the foundation of the
Church of England. Her principles of theology were
mainly Protestant; her prayers and thanksgivings savoured
of the ancient breviaries ; her government was episcopal;
and the king was her head. Despite the ingenuity and
good design of this compromise, it is obvious that it was
calculated to give scandal not only to zealous Catholics by
going too far, but also to zealous Protestants by not going far
enough. It was from the latter class, accordingly, that the
Nonconformists and Puritans of England afterwards sprung,
who were ultimately destined to exert a powerful influence
over the political as well as the religious institutions of the
kingdom. If in the days of Edward VI. the discontent of
this party caused the government not a little annoyance,
the fiery trials through which they had to pass during the
succeeding reign were not calculated to allay their scruples.
The cruelties of Mary drove immense numbers of Protes¬
tants to the Continent for safety, and the majority of them
found an asylum in Switzerland and Germany. A portion
of them settled at Frankfort, and resolved, after some deli¬
beration, to adopt the Genevan service-book in preference
to that of King Edward. Not a few of the exiles in Stras-
burg and elsewhere opposed this step; and Frankfort be¬
came the theatre of a contest between the rival systems of
Episcopacy and Presbytery. John Knox, who had minis¬
tered for a time to the exiles at Frankfort, was forced to flee
from the scene of strife, and Episcopacy triumphed. From
this dispute dates the existence of the Puritans or Noncon¬
formists ; both epithets having originated in the attitude
assumed by the opponents of the Church of England.
When Elizabeth came to the throne the exiles returned
to England, and brought their ecclesiastical disputes along
with them. The battle now began in real earnest on Eng¬
lish soil, but no concession could be obtained from Eliza¬
beth. She endeavoured, on the contrary, by the most vi¬
gorous policy to check the progress of this numerous, ac¬
tive, earnest-minded party. She occasionally even sent the
more stubborn of them to prison; but so strongly were
they attached to her as the mainstay of the Reformed
churches, that they did not cease to pray, from the gloom of
the dungeon, for the safety of her person and the victory of
her arms. “ The Nonconformists,” says Lord Macaulay,
“ rigorously as she treated them, have, as a body, always
285
Nonagesi¬
mal
I!
Noncon¬
formists.
286
NON
NON
EToncon- venerated her memory.” [History of England, vol. i.)
formists. The acts passed during Elizabeth’s reign for the suppres-
sion of Nonconformity were both numerous and severe. By
the Act of Uniformity (1 Eliz., c. 2), rigorous penalties
were enacted against all who should perform divine wor¬
ship after any other mode than that prescribed in the Book
of Common Prayer. From 1558 to 1565 this law was
only partially observed, but from the latter year it began to
be applied in all its force. Many of the Nonconformists
lost their preferments, for they had not as yet judged it ad¬
visable to separate themselves from the church. By the
act 23 Eliz., cap. i., sec. 5, the Puritans were subjected to
heavy fines as often as they indulged their antipathy to the
Established Church by absenting themselves from its worship.
The rigour of these fines was even increased by the statute
of 29 Eliz., cap. 6, secs. 4, 6; and by an act of 3 Jac. I.,
cap. 4, sec. 11, this obnoxious enactment was rendered
still more tyrannical and severe. The last statute of Eliza¬
beth’s reign which weighed heavily on Nonconformity in
England was 35 Eliz., cap. 1. It converted fines into impri¬
sonment, and even perpetual exile from the kingdom, as the
penalty of non-attendance at the Established Church, or of
the countenancing of conventicles. It should be noted,
however, that while those provisions severely affected the
Protestant Nonconformists, they were perhaps directed
mainly against the Roman Catholics. During this entire
reign the Puritans were not without great strength and in-
„ fluence in the House of Commons—an influence, moreover,
that continued to increase despite the rigorous policy adopted
for their suppression. And, after all, the demands of the
more reasonable among them were not so very exorbitant.
Not a few of them would have rested satisfied with the re¬
moval of such rites and ceremonies as they deemed a de¬
parture from the purity of Christian worship as revealed in
the Scriptures. Others, with Cartwright of Cambridge at
their head, were anxious for Presbytery rather than Episco¬
pacy; while a third party—the Brownists or Independents—
advocated the entire separation of church and state. The
death of Elizabeth came in 1603, however, and no conces¬
sions had as yet been made to the demands of the Puritans.
The high hopes raised by that much-wronged party on the
accession of a Presbyterian to the throne were not destined
to be realized. James I. condescended to hold conference
with the Nonconformists at Hampton Court, but was more
anxious to impress them with a sense of his superiority in
theological disputation, than to listen to their wrongs with
a view to their amelioration. The king was ingenious, but
the sturdy Puritans could not be convinced. They were
accordingly dismissed with insults, only to have fresh tem¬
poral and spiritual penalties issued against them in the Book
of Canons of 1604. The acts of 3 Jac. I., cap. 4, and of
21 Jac. I., cap. 4, were passed to circumscribe still more
the liberties of the nonconforming community, and to ren¬
der their bondage yet more galling. Still, Puritanism con¬
tinued to make progress in England, and the Arminianism
of King James added greatly to the number of the dis¬
affected in the bosom of the Church of England. The
policy of Charles I. showed no improvement on that of his
predecessors; and his bitter antagonism to the Puritans
found a zealous supporter in the person of the notorious
Archbishop Laud. To escape the atrocities of the Star
Chamber and of the High Commission Court, not a few sought
safety in voluntary exile to Massachusetts Bay, where they
founded a colony, of which men still know something. But
the sad relief of expatriation was soon denied them by ex¬
press proclamation. Hundreds of Puritan clergymen were
ejected during this reign for their hostility to the Book of
Sports: Calvinism was denounced by the king and court;
and fresh restrictions were laid upon Nonconformist preach¬
ing. Human patience, however, has its limits ; and a day
of dark retribution came, when the down-trodden people of
England rose in their wrath to right themselves. Laud was ^ones
beheaded in 1644: five years afterwards his royal master ||
shared the same fate: the Parliament had abolished Epis- Nonnus.
copacy, and Presbyterianism had its short hour of triumph.
During the Protectorate all manner of sects were tolerated:
Independency prevailed in the army : Baptists and Quakers
flourished: the most unheard-of visionaries sprung up ; but
Episcopacy remained proscribed.
The Restoration of 1660 placed Charles II. on the throne,
and brought back the old established religion. A new
“Act of Uniformity” was passed (14 Car. II., cap. 4) in
August 24, 1662, excluding from its communion all non¬
subscribers to the doctrines of the church, and otherwise
subjecting them to much suffering and cruel restriction. It
is from this date that the title of Nonconformists comes
most into prominence. On this occasion no fewer than
2000 ministers of the church resigned their livings rather
than conform to the Thirty-nine Articles. During the same
reign the Conventicle Act (16 Car. II., cap. 4), the Five
Mile Act (17 Car. II., cap. 1), the Corporation Act (18
Car. II., cap. 1), and the Test Act (25 Car. II., cap. 2),
fell either directly or indirectly with much severity upon
the Protestant Nonconformists. The statute of 22 Car.
II., cap. 1, was passed with a view to annihilate conventi¬
cles by means of fines of minute rigour and uncompromis¬
ing strictness. The opening of the reign of James II.
brought no relief to the Nonconformists; but, to their no
small astonishment and temporary delight, the 4th of April
1687, witnessed James’s arbitrary Declaration of Indulgence.
This proved, however, to be only a move more cunning
than wise on the part of his unfortunate Majesty, to unite
the Puritans and the Church of Rome in a coalition against
the Church of England. All classes of Nonconformists
were now exempted from penal laws : Protestant and Ro¬
man Catholic alike enjoyed public toleration. The Pro¬
testant dissenters soon discovered, however, that their spi¬
ritual privileges had, in point of fact, been abridged rather
than extended by this indulgence. If they were flattered
by the favour shown them by the court, they soon dis¬
covered they had purchased this hollow honour only at the
expense of treating the court religion—the religion of
Rome—with a becoming tenderness and respect. This,
to a genuine Puritan, was worse than gall and wormwood,
and it ultimately produced its effect. The blessings of a
better toleration were reserved for the reign of the Prince
of Orange. By the Toleration Act of 1 Wm. HI., cap.
18, all Protestant dissenters, except those who denied the
Trinity, were relieved from the penal statutes to which they
had been subjected. The benefits of this act were afterwards
somewhat circumscribed by the Occasional Communion Bill
and by the Schism Bill. The latter was repealed, however,
in the reign of Geo. III. (19 Geo. III., cap. 24) ; and the
Corporation and Test Acts were abolished in the reign of
Geo. IV. (9 Geo. IV., cap. 17). These and other im¬
provements, together with the passing of the statutes re¬
lating to registration and marriage, have now placed dis¬
senters in England in the enjoyment of full liberty of con¬
science in the matter of religious worship. (Special and
detailed accounts of the various sects of the Nonconfor¬
mists will be found under the articles Baptists, Inde¬
pendents, Methodists, Presbyterians, and Quakers.
See Price’s History of Protestant Nonconformity in Eng¬
land, 2 vols., London, 1838; and Macaulay’s History of
England?)
NONES, one of the three divisions of the Roman month.
(See Calendar.)
NONJURORS, those clergymen who refused to take the
oaths to the new government after the Revolution, and
who were in consequence subject to certain incapacities and
liable to certain penalties. (See Britain, History of)
NONNUS, a Greek poet, was a native of Panopolis in
N 0 O
7>oaheeva Egypt, and flourished in the fifth century A.D. It is
|| likely that he was still a pagan when he wrote the former of
! jrberg. h;s tw0 extant works, the epic poem Dionysiaca. Then
'Kr—' having been converted to Christianity, and probably re¬
solving to consecrate his talents to the support of the new
faith, he composed his hexameter paraphrase of the Gospel
of St John. The epic is chiefly characterized by a cum¬
brous and disjointed plot, which runs lumbering on through
forty-eight books amid much inflated verbiage and nume¬
rous inappropriate episodes. The paraphrase is valuable
only on account of some of the various readings which it
furnishes. The latest edition of the former of these works
is that of F. Graefe, in 2 vols. 8vo, Leipsic, 1819-26. The
latest edition of the latter is that of Passow, Leipsic, 1834.
NOOAHEEVA,N ouheva, or N ouka-Hiva, the largest
of the Marquesas Islands, is in S. Lat. 8. 53., W. Long.
139.49.; and has a length of about 18 miles. The surface is
rugged and mountainous, and the coasts steep ; the whole
island being apparently of volcanic origin. The soil is
rich and deep in the valleys, but on the hills it is thin, pro¬
ducing only tufts of coarse grass. Bananas and cocoa-nut
trees grow in abundance ; but as the inhabitants, who are
very lazy, are supplied with food by the spontaneous pro¬
ductions of the soil, the only article that is cultivated is
tobacco. The people are of a dark copper colour, and live
in huts of wood or cane raised above the ground on a plat¬
form of stones. There are several tribes in the island, who
are very warlike, and are believed to be cannibals. No trace
of any religion is to be observed ; and the utmost licentious¬
ness seems to prevail. The population is variously estimated
from 8000 to 18,000.
NOODT, Gerard, a celebrated jurist, was born at Nime-
guen in 1647. He began his studies in his native town, and
finished them at Franeker, by taking his degree in law. A
successful defence of two criminals, who were arraigned at the
bar for murder, first gave him a start in his profession. After
passing through several successive grades of promotion, he
was ultimately appointed a law professor at Leyden. But
it was in the character of a writer on jurisprudence
that his talents and acquirements were chiefly displayed.
His Latin style, modelled after the best writers, was pure
and precise ; he had an intimate acquaintance with the laws,
manners, and customs of ancient Home; his speculations
were guided by a simple desire for truth, and by a wary
dread of dogmatic conjecture; and his political opinions
were animated by a spirit of Catholic toleration. Accord¬
ingly his numerous works, as they successively appeared,
rose to the rank of standard authorities. Two of the most
popular among them were translated into French by Bar-
beyrac, and appeared at Amsterdam in 1707 and 1714,
under the respective titles of Pouvoir des Souverains, and
Liberte de Conscience. Noodt was still actively engaged
in adding to the number of his treatises when he was cut
off in 1725. His entire works, accompanied with a Life,
were published by Barbeyrac, in 2 vols. fob, Leyden, 1735,
and reprinted at the same place in 1760.
NOOTKA SOUND, an inlet of British North America,
on the W. coast of Vancouver Island; N. Lat. 49. 35.,
W. Long. 126. 35. It stretches in a N.N.E. direction for
10 miles, and forms a number of smaller bays and coves.
There is a wooded island in the centre ; and the greatest
breadth of water is not more than a quarter of a mile. The
shores are rocky, and the bay forms a very safe harbour,
but is not capable of accommodating more than two vessels.
NORBERG, or Nordberg, George, the historian of
Charles XII. of Sweden, was born at Stockholm in 1677.
Having entered into holy orders, after the usual course of
study at Upsal, he was appointed almoner to the army of
Charles XII. n 1703, and was promoted to the office of
chaplain to the king in 1707. He continued to hold this
latter post till he was carried away from the field of Pultawa
NOR
in 1709 to a captivity of six years in Russia. All this
while it had been his custom to keep a record of the prin¬
cipal incidents that came under his observation. Accord¬
ingly, several years after he had been settled down in a
pastoral charge in his native city, he was employed by
Queen Ulrica Eleonora to write the history of her deceased
brother, Charles XII. The work, after undergoing royal
inspection and revision, was published in 2 vols. fob, Stock¬
holm, 1740, and reappeared in a French translation in 3
vols. 4to, the Hague, 1742. Two years after this latter
date the author died at Stockholm.
NOR CIA, a town in the Papal States, delegation of
Spoleto, in a lofty valley near the source of the Nar, 17
miles E.N.E. of Spoleto. It has a considerable trade in
pigs, oil, wine, and other agricultural produce. Pop. 4000.
NORD, a department of France, so called from its being
the most northerly in the country, lies between N. Lat.
49. 58. and 51.5., E. Long. 2. 7. and 4. 23.; and is bounded
on the N. by the German Ocean, N.E. and E. by Belgium,
S. by Aisne and Somme, and S.W. by Pas de Calais. Its
length from N.W. to S.E. is about 124 miles; the breadth
varies from 2£ to 39 miles ; area, 2192 square miles. The
whole surface consists of a flat and monotonous plain,
slightly sloping towards the N.E., and diversified with a few
hills, which do not exceed 400 feet in height. The south¬
eastern part of the department is occupied by the northern
slopes of the mountains and the forests of Ardenne; and
throughout the whole extent of the country cultivation is
carried to the top of the highest elevations. The coast of
the German Ocean is formed by a range of sand-hills, called
dunes or downs, and the land beyond is little, if at all,
above the level of the sea. The principal rivers flow N.E.
towards the German Ocean, and owing to the flatness of
the country are of a very sluggish nature. The principal
of these are,—Ysser, Lys, Scarpe, Scheldt, and Sambre.
The Aa, which has a N.W. direction, separates the depart¬
ments of Nord and Pas de Calais. The soil is generally
very good; and near the coast, where the low land is of a
marshy nature, a skilful system of drainage has rendered
that not only fit for cultivation, but has reclaimed from the
water a tract of great fertility. Part of this district, called
the Watteringhes, has been drained from a very early
period by canals of various sizes,—some natural and some
artificial,—which convey the water of the marshes into
the sea at low-water. This district comprises an area
of 195,321 acres, and is divided into four sections, each
under the superintendence of special commissioners to see
that the works are kept in repair. The other portion of
the marshy ground lies partly in France and partly in
Belgium, and is known by the name of Moeres. It con¬
sists of a larger and a smaller Moere—the former having
an area of 7664 acres, of which 2944 are in France; while
the latter extends only to 433 acres. This ground has on
several occasions been drained, and again laid under water
for the protection of the frontier, but was finally recovered
from the sea in 1826. The soil of Nord consists of rich
alluvial earth in the northern part, and towards the south
is of a calcareous and clayey nature. The principal mine¬
rals are iron, coal, marble, paving-stones, potters’ clay, &c.
Cultivation is more largely and better carried on here than
in most other parts of France; about 890,000 acres are
occupied by arable land, 235,000 by meadows, 86,500 by
wood, &c. The crops principally raised consist of wheat,
rye, barley, oats, pulse, hemp, flax, tobacco, hops, &c. Pas¬
toral occupations are also largely pursued. The horses,
estimated at 80,000, are strong and fit for farm labour; the
horned cattle, of which there are 230,000 head, are of one of
the best breeds in France; and the 240,000 sheep of the
department produce excellent wool. There are also 75,000
pigs and 7000 goats. The mineral operations carried on
in this department are probably the most extensive in
288 NOR
Nord, France, consisting principally in the working of coal and
otes u j,.on m;nes> "phe manufactures are many and varied;
Nordhau- ^nen’ cotton, and woollen stuffs of all kinds; lace, tulle,
sen. cambric, and lawn ; sugar, starch, soap, oil, glass, paper,
earthenware, ropes, leather, cannon, &c. The commerce
of the department is also very great, consisting of the ex¬
portation of the produce of the soil and of the manufac¬
tures, and in the importation of cotton, wool, flax, tobacco,
wine, brandy, timber, &c., which are received from foreign
countries and from the French colonies. There are two
seaports on the German Ocean, Dunkirk and Gravelines,—•
at the former of which the maritime trade is chiefly carried on.
The people near the coast are employed to a large extent in
the herring fishery; and many vessels are sent out from
Dunkirk and Gravelines to the whale and cod fisheries. In
no part of France are the internal communications so much
facilitated by roads and canals as in this department, where
there are 15 imperial roads, extending over 360 miles ; 17
departmental roads of 176 miles ; besides 6 navigable rivers
and 23 canals, with a total length of 350 miles. There are
also 4 principal railways, extending over 143 miles. Nord
forms the diocese of the Archbishop of Cambrai, and con¬
tains 5 Protestant places of worship and a Jewish synagogue.
It has a court of appeal, 7 courts of primary jurisdiction, 4
tribunals of commerce, and 7 councils of prucThommes.
The educational institutions are,-^a primary normal school
at Douai, 2 academies, 15 communal colleges, 934 public
primary schools, See. There are also 47 hospitals, 2 deaf-
and-dumb institutions, 3 lunatic asylums and other chari¬
table establishments, 9 prisons, and 13 fortified places. The
capital is Lille ; and the department is divided into 7 arron-
dissements as follows:—
Cantons. Communes. Population, 185G.
Lille  16 132 404,279
Douai  6 66 106,155
Dunkirk   7 59 105,717
Hazebrouck   7 53 102,734
Avesnes 10 153 150,523
Valenciennes  7 81 163,082
Cambrai  7 118 179,863
Total 60 662 1,212,353
NORD, Cotes du. See Cotes du Nord.
NORDEN, a town of Hanover, in the province of
Aurich, on a canal leading to the Bay of Leisand, in the
German Ocean, which is 4 miles off, 16 miles N. of Emden,
and 15 N.W. of Aurich. It is an ancient and well-built
town, with a large market-place planted with fine trees.
There are churches belonging to the Lutherans, Reformed
Church, Roman Catholics, Moravians, and Mennonites ; a
synagogue ; an hospital, which was formerly a convent; and
a school. Norden has numerous breweries; manufactories
of cloth, leather, and tobacco; and a considerable shipping
trade. Markets for horses are held here. Pop. (1852) 6188.
NORDHAUSEN, a town of Prussian Saxony, in the
government of Erfurt, stands on the Zorge, at the foot of
the Seyersberg, a branch of the Harz Mountains, and at the
head of the fertile valley called the Guldene Aue, or Golden
Valley, 38 miles N.N.W. of Erfurt, and 49 W. of Halle.
It has an antique appearance, and is surrounded by walls
and towers, with seven gates. There are a Roman Catholic
and several Protestant churches, one of the latter contain¬
ing two paintings by Cranach; a town-hall; a theatre; 4
hospitals; and several schools. Nordhausen contains distil¬
leries, which are among the largest in Germany ; besides
tanneries, woollen factories, soap-works, oil-mills, and manu¬
factories of linen, hats, sealing-wax, vitriol, and chemical
NOR
substances. An active trade is carried on here in corn and Nordh *
cattle. Wolf, the famous classical scholar, was born in the ||eim
neighbourhood of Nordhausen. Pop. 14,960. Norfolk.
NORDFIEIM, a town of Hanover, in the province of
Hildesheim, on the left bank of the Ruhme, 12 miles N. of
Gottingen. It is well built, and defended by walls. There
are saw-mills, and manufactories of cloth, leather, shoes, and
tobacco. Some trade is carried on in timber. In the neigh¬
bourhood there are sulphureous springs. Pop. (1852) 4679.
NORDKOPING, or Norrkoping, a town of Sweden,
in the lan of Linkoping, near the mouth of the Motala, in
the Bravik, an inlet of the Baltic, 24 miles N.E. of Lin¬
koping, and about 90 S.W. of Stockholm. It has a beauti¬
ful situation on both sides of the river, which here incloses
two islands, and is crossed by several bridges. The streets
are broad, straight, well paved, and lined with neat houses,
generally only two storeys high, built some of wood and
some of stone. There are three churches, a town-hall, a
synagogue, an hospital, and several schools. Manufactures
of linen, cotton, and woollen cloth, paper, starch, soap,
tobacco, sugar, brass, hardware, &c., are carried on here;
and there are docks for ship-building, in which many fine
steamers have been constructed. A considerable trade is
carried on in the exportation of iron, grain, and manufac¬
tured articles. Pop. about 12,000.
NORDLINGEN, a walled town of Bavaria, in the
circle of Swabia, on the Eger, 39 miles N.W. of Augsburg,
and 48 S.W. of Nuremberg. It has 4 churches, one of
which, completed in 1505, has a tower 268 feet high, and
contains in the interior a fine organ and some paintings; \ '
a town-hall; an hospital; and several schools. Manufac¬
tures of carpets, woollen and linen cloth, leather, and glue,
are carried on here; and the place is remarkable for its
geese, in the feathers of which, as well as in cattle, an ex¬
tensive trade is carried on. Nordlingen is historically im¬
portant for the victory gained here in 1634 by the Aus¬
trians and Bavarians over the Swedes. A fresco painting
of the battle adorns the town-hall. Pop. 7000.
NORE, a part of the estuary of the Thames, to the E.
of Sheerness, and about 50 miles below London.
NORFOLK, an English maritime county, the most
easterly and the fourth in territorial extent in the country,
and tenth as regards population. It is bounded on the N.
and N.E. by the German Ocean; on the N.W. by the
estuary called the Wash ; and on the S. the rivers Waveney
and Little Ouse divide it from Suffolk; while the Great
Ouse, the Wilney, and the Nene separate it from Cam¬
bridgeshire. Its greatest length is about 70 miles from E.
to W., and the broadest part is 42 miles from N. to S. It
lies between 50. 17. and 52.56. N. Lat., and 0. 1. and 1.45.
E. Long.; is about 180 miles in circumference; and contains
within the county proper (as distinguished from the regis¬
tration county) 1,354,301 acres ; is divided into 33 hundreds
and 740 parishes, including the city of Norwich, which is a
city and county in itself.
The population, according to the returns at the six Census
decennial enumerations, amounted in 1801 to 271,125, in returns.
1811 to 288,305, in 1821 to 339,885, in 1831 to 384,142,
in 1841 to 405,124, in 1851 to 433,716.
The census of 1851 returns the registration county &s
follows J—
Areainsta- Inhabited Uninhab. Houses f■
tute acres. Houses. Houses, building. 10Pulat,0n'
1,300,311 91,144 3360 447 433,716
Males. Females.
210,759 222,957
The amount of real property assessed to the property
and income tax in 1851 was L.2,463,893, and the amount
These computations are founded on the principle adopted at the last census, which was taken in accordance with statutes 2 and 3 Will.
IV., c. 64, and 7 and 8 Viet., c. 61, which altered the limits of counties, and made them consist of groups of registration districts, in
general identical with poor-law unions. All isolated portions of counties are now considered part of the county surrounding them, or
with which they have the greatest common boundary. Norfolk, by this arrangement, has been diminished in area, the extensive parish
of Upwell having been detached from it and added to Cambridgeshire.
Norfolk.
NORFOLK.
289
assessed to the relief of the poor for the year ending March
1850 was L.l,865,216. The expenditure of the county for
1856 was—
For Gaols  L.6,407 18 10
Administration of Justice  4,201 5 10
Lunatic Asylums  1,770 17 7-
Coroners   1,071 14 9
Militia and Artillery   1,124 18 6
Miscellaneous    2,623 10 11
17,200 6 5
The county rate levies amounted to L.13,393 0 0
And the receipts from Government to  3,544 0 0
mouth, Loddon, Long Stratton, Reepham, and North Norfolk.
Walsham. West Norfolk comprises fifteen hundreds and i '
its polling-places are East Dereham, Fakenham, Lynn
Downham, Thetford, and Swaffham; the latter of which is
the principal place of election.
The municipal boroughs and corporate towns of Norfolk,
each also returning.two members to Parliament, are—
Inhabited Houses. Population.
Norwich 14;988 68,195
Great Yarmouth, with Gorleston  6,886 30,879
King’s Lynnj    3,845 Ip’sss
Thetford  844 4,075
1 ysical
c iracter-
cs.
ine.
jfliia-
m Uary
diilsions.
The births in 1851 were 14,345, deaths 9384, and marriages
3177. The places of' worship were—belonging to the
Church of England, 719; and sittings, 187,210: belonging
to other denominations, 722 ; and sittings, 125,703.
There are about 100 endowed schools in connection with
the Church of England, and above 1200 day schools of all
denominations. The educational census gives the number
of children of all ages at school—boys, 26,694; girls,
26,299. The Sunday schools are returned as 782 ; and Sun¬
day scholars, 50,182. The general census gives the total num¬
ber of children under ten years of age—boys, 52,996; girls,
53,082: and the total number under tuition at home or at
school—boys, 17,990; girls, 17,271: leaving 70,817, inclu¬
sive of infants, not under any instruction.
From its exposure to the North Sea, the climate of Nor¬
folk is generally colder than other parts of England, and the
prevalence of easterly winds in the spring retards the
growth of vegetation to a later period than in the western
districts. The surface of the country presents less variety
than most of the other English counties, being generally flat,
and uninteresting to the traveller in search of the picturesque.
The coast is chiefly comprised of low sandy beach, seldom
rising into bold elevations. The only lofty cliffs are St
Edmund’s Point at Hunstanton, and the chalk and clay
cliffs at Cromer, which are fast yielding to the incursions of
the ocean. The scenery is not woody; but of late years
timber has been more generally planted, for use as well as
ornament, than was formerly the case. The rivers, although
slow and sluggish in their course, are easy of navigation,
and, with the sea on the northern and eastern sides, form
natural water-boundaries to this county, making it almost
an island; in the eastern valleys the streams frequently
expand into large meres or broads abounding with fish. The
Great Ouse, navigable for barges 24 miles from its mouth,
rises in Northamptonshire, enters this county at Downham,
and enters the large estuary of the Wash, which divides
Norfolk from Lincolnshire, near Lynn. It affords water
communication with seven of the midland counties. The
Little Ouse and the Waveney rise within ten feet of each
other in the southern part of the county, but pursue directly
opposite courses, forming the boundary line between Nor¬
folk and Suffolk until the Little Ouse meets the'Great Ouse
on the borders of Cambridgeshire, and the Waveney,
becoming navigable at Bungay, meets the Yare at Burgh,
and falls into the sea at Yarmouth. The Bure rises near
Aylsham, and, after receiving the Thurne and Ant, falls into
the Yare, which rises near Attleburgh, becomes navigable
at Norwich, and, after receiving the waters of the Tass and
the Wensum, merges in the Waveney. A ship-canal has been
cut across the marshes from Reedham to Lowestoft in Suffolk,
connecting the Yare with the sea. The Nar rises near
Litcham, and has a short course to the sea near Lynn, whence
it is navigable to Narborough, a distance of sixteen miles.
1 he Reform Act divided the county into two parts,
East and \V est Norfolk, each returning two knights of the
sure to Parliament. The eastern division comprises
eighteen out of the thirty-three hundreds into which the
county is divided, and its polling-places are Norwich, Yar-
The agriculture of this county is the foundation of its in- ^Rricul-
dustrial prosperity. Few counties of England possess tare,
a greater variety of soils, and the peculiar excellence of the
far-famed Norfolk agriculturist consists in the skill with
which he mixes these various soils, thereby improving the
texture, and therefore the productive qualities of all. ° By
judicious claying and marling, large tracts of light sandy
desert, moor, and heath have been converted into rich
arable land; and by the extensive use of draining-mills,
both wind and steam, the low marsh lands have been con¬
verted into rich valleys of fruitful corn-fields. Ten years
ago it was said of the agriculturists of this county, that they
knew as much as would be necessary, if known generally,
to make England produce half as much again as it was at
that time doing. The more general diffusion of agricultural
science since that time may have lessened the comparative
superiority of the Norfolk farmers, but, as they took the
lead in throwing off the fetters of antiquated systems, they
continue to preserve their character for adopting readily ail
hints for improvement, and still exhibit examples of the
most judicious practices in husbandry. The ploughing and
drilling here are excellent; even indifferent skill in these
branches is very rare. The ploughs used are of light con¬
struction, drawn by two horses, or frequently bullocks, for
which a peculiar breed of Devons are employed, and driven
from behind with reins by the man who guides. This mode
of driving is said to be the cause of the straightness of the
lines preserved by both ploughs and drills. The most pre¬
valent system of cropping now' is the four-course, as first
introduced by the late Earl of Leicester; and the usual ro¬
tation is, turnips, barley, clover or other grasses, and wheat.
The five-course system is not uncommon, but the old six-
course is very rare. Nearly all the corn is stacked in the field.
The number of farms,in the county employing labourers
is 4868; those not employing labourers, or not making
returns, 1664—total, 6532. Number of labourers em¬
ployed in the field—-men, 32,840; w'omen, 606—total, 33,446.
Upwards of200,000 acres of commons and sandy heaths have
been inclosed during the last eighty years.
Ihe average yield per acre1 is ten cooms or five quarters
of barley, and nine cooms or four and a half quarters of
wheat. Above 1,045,760 acres of land are under cultiva¬
tion. Its agricultural productions are chiefly wheat, bar¬
ley, oats, peas, beans, potatoes, turnips, mangel-wurzel, beet,
hay (composed of rye-grass, clover, suckling, trefoil, or
sainfoin). Hemp is grown on the borders of Suffolk, and
flax is cultivated for the sake of the linseed to fatten cattle,
as well as for the flax itself. The management of the turnip
crop is a point on which Norfolk agriculturists have long
been pre-eminent. This valuable root was first introduced
into field culture in the reign of George I. by Viscount
Townshend, upon his estates in Norfolk. By the immense
stock of winter food they supply, an enormous increase in
the number of cattle and sheep bred and fattened in the
county has been produced. The principal implements used
in husbandry here are light ploughs, scarifiers, harrows,
drills, horse-hoes, chaff-cutters, and threshing-machines.
Wheat is often dibbled, the women and girls finding em-
1 In 1831 the
vol. xvr.
average yield of wheat was 3 quarters to the acre, showing an increase <?f 50 per cent, since that period.
2 O
290 NORFOLK.
Norfolk, ployment in dropping the seed. The quantity of grain
exported from the various ports of the county before the
opening of railways has been nearly 600,000 quarters in
a year, but since that time the exports have much diminished.
The principal market of the county is held at Norwich, for
cattle, corn, and sheep. For the year ending October 1857,
the amount of wheat brought to the Norwich market was
270,768 quarters, and of barley 187,245 quarters. The
Norwich cattle-market is one of the largest in England ; but
the live stock of the county possess few distinctive charac¬
teristics. The principal cattle bred are Durhams or short¬
horns, but many Scotch and Irish are sent over to be
grazed. Devons are used for ploughing, on account of their
quicker step and activity. There are but few dairies, and
these are confined to the neighbourhood of large towns.
The indigenous breed of Norfolk sheep is now almost
extinct, their hardy habits and agile movements, which were
virtues when land was less cultivated, becoming defects
when quickness of fattening became the primary quality
requisite. The sheep now chiefly bred are Downs and
half-bred Downs. The cart-horses are a fine breed,
averaging from 14 to 15 hands high. Norfolk pigs are com¬
paratively small; the finest now in the county are descended
from the Berkshire boar and Chinese pigs. Poultry of all
kinds is plentiful, and of a superior quality. The turkeys
are most highly prized; vast quantities are sent to the
London markets. No county is better stocked with game,
especially pheasants and partridges, which are sedulously
preserved by the landlords, and generally reserved in the
leases. Great numbers of rabbits are bred in extensive
warrens in many parts of the county.
From the earliest times Norfolk has been the seat of
manufacturing operations. For four centuries it was the
main centre of the woollen trade, first introduced by a co¬
lony of Dutch weavers, who crossed the Channel, and settled
themselves at Worsted, a village about 13 miles from Nor¬
wich. The sumptuary laws of Edward III., and the fixing
of staples at Norwich, tended to the increase of the manu¬
factures ; and the persecutions of the Duke of Alva, which
drove large numbers of Dutch and other artizans to these
shores, promoted the prosperity of the county. The most
flourishing period of Norfolk woollen manufactures was
during the middle of the last century. Bombazines, crapes,
paramattas, and silk goods of every description, are now
made. From the absence of coal and iron in the district,
the manufacturers cannot compete with the north for cheap¬
ness, but for quality their goods are yet unrivalled. The
number of wool-staplers and woollen manufacturers in Nor¬
folk, returned in the last census, was 587; silk do., and
dealers in silk, 2269; engaged in flax, 146; in cotton ma¬
nufactures, 383; rope and hemp, 863. Besides silk and
woollen manufactures, many other very important factories
have sprung up; as shoes, soap, paper, brushes, bricks, to¬
bacco, starch, mustard, oil-cake, and many varieties of arti¬
ficial manures. The fishing trade of Yarmouth is an
important branch of Norfolk commerce. The mackerel
fishing alone is estimated to produce L.l6,000 a year, em¬
ploying 90 boats and 870 men. The number of fishermen
in the county is 1340; fishmongers, 329. The herring
fishery employs 160 boats and 1300 men, besides those on
shore, and produces 100,000 barrels yearly. Yarmouth has
also extensive malting establishments.
Of various kinds of produce, the quantity sent by rail¬
ways to all parts of the kingdom, and exported from Lynn,
Wells, and Yarmouth, is very great.
Norfolk has railway communication with London via
Cambridge and via Ipswich from Yarmouth and from Lynn;
and with the north and north-west of England via Peter¬
borough branch from Ely.
The public and turnpike roads of the county are better
than in most parts of England, being generally raised higher
than the adjacent land, and well drained by trenches on Norfolk,
either side.
Norfolk is in the diocese of Norwich, and in the archi-
episcopal province of Canterbury. It is the head of the
judicial circuit of Norfolk, which comprises five other coun¬
ties. The military and maritime government of the county
is vested in the same individual. The Earl of Leicester is
the present lord-lieutenant, custos rotulorum, and vice-
admiral. In the two first capacities he presides over the
affairs of the county, has the control of the militia, and the
appointment of deputy-lieutenants and magistrates. As
vice-admiral of Norfolk he executes his authority under the
Lord High Admiral of England. The mayors of Yar¬
mouth and Lynn have admiralty jurisdiction on the rivers
of their respective boroughs and ports. In 1839 a rural
police, or constabulary force, was established in the county,
consisting of a chief constable and 136 subordinates. The
force has been at various times augmented ; and in 1857con-
sistedof one chief constable, one deputy-constable, and 219
subordinates; the total cost of whose maintenance, inclu¬
sive of all expenses connected with stations, &c., was
L.15,511 for the year ending October 1857. A comparison
of the statistics of crime gives 686 cases of detected felonies
in 1854, and 237 cases of undetected felonies. In 1857
felonies detected were 600; undetected, 199. The families
receiving titles from places in Norfolk are the Howards,
dukes of Norfolk; the Gordons, earls of Norwich; Con¬
ways, earls of Yarmouth. Thetford confers the title of
Viscount on the Fitzroys. The Townshends are viscounts
of Raynham, and barons of King’s Lynn. The De Greys
are barons of Walsingham, the Nelsons barons of Hilsbo-
rough, the Howards are barons of Castle Rising, the Ho-
barts barons of Blickling, the Calthorpes are barons of
Calthorpe, the Walpoles barons of Wolterton and Walpole,
the Harbords are barons of Suffield, and the Wodehouses
barons of Kimberley.
The most remarkable ancient mansions, some of which,
however, exist but in ruins, are Blickling Hall, Caistor
Hall, Oxburgh Hall, Winwall House, Stiffkey Hall, Bacons-
thorpe Hall, Hunstanton Hall, Scales Hall, Fincham Hall,
Thorpe Hall, Wallington Hall, and Merton Hall; many of
which exhibit the castellated character, though they do not
appear to have been regularly fortified.
The principal country seats of noblemen and gentlemen
are:—Beeston Hall, Sir J. H. Preston, Bart.; Blickling,
Marquis of Lothian ; Buckenham Tofts, Lord Ashburton ;
Castle Rising, Hon. F. G. Howard; Costessey Hall, Lord
Stafford; Elmham Hall, Lord Sondes ; Gunton House, Lord
Suffield; Harling Hall, Lord Colborne; Haveringland, E.
Fellowes, Esq., M.P.; Heydon Hall, W. E. L. Bulwer, Esq.;
Hillington Hall, Sir W. T. H. B. Ffolkes, Bart. ; Holkham,
Earl of Leicester; Honingham, Lord Bayning; Hough¬
ton, Marquis Cholmondeley; Keswick Hall, Hudson Gur¬
ney, Esq.; Ketteringham, Sir J. P. Boileau; Kimberley,
Lord Wodehouse; Kirby Cave, Lord Berners; Langley,
Sir W. B. Proctor; Melton Constable, Lord Hastings;
Merton Hall, Lord Walsingham; Oxburgh, Sir J. P. Bed-
ingfeld, Bart. ; .Quiddenham, Earl of Albemarle; Rayn¬
ham, Marqyisof Townshend; Scottow, SirT.H.E. Durrant,
Bart.; Wolterton, Earl of Orford.
Norfolk possesses few of the more important Celtic re¬
mains common on the western coast of the island; but
barrows with their contents, celts, spear-heads, beads, and
other vestiges of the ruder times, are found scattered
throughout the whole surface. Of the Roman period,
Caistor, by Norwich, is an interesting relic: its walls and
towers mark it for one of those permanent stations, known
by the name of Castra Hiberna, and hardly to be found
beyond the limits of Britain. Of summer camps, Brancaster,
Castle Rising, and Tasburgh exhibit more or less per¬
fect vestiges ; while coins and urns, glass and pottery, tes-
NOR
for folk tify in a variety of localities to the former presence of the
II Romans. Numerous traces of Danish, Saxon, and Norman
'skind^ ^tnes present themselves over the whole county, both
iV ' j ecclesiastical and civil. Thetford Castle is a remarkable
f specimen of a Roman fortification; and as a sacred Norman
edifice Norwich cathedral has few rivals in England. Many
parochial churches in the county also remain as specimens of
the Norman style. Binham Priory, and parts of the Abbey
of Walsingham, are specimens of early English architecture ;
as also are Yarmouth and other parish churches; while noble
specimens of the decorated and perpendicular periods
abound in every direction. Another leading feature of the
antiquities of Norfolk are the painted roodloft screens and
magnificent brasses. Among the most interesting remnants
of civil and domestic architecture may be enumerated the
castle at Castle Rising, the only known building of that de¬
scription in the kingdom ; Caistor and Oxburgh Halls; the
walls of Norwich, Yarmouth, and Lynn ; the ruins of the
bishop’s palace garden ; and the gates of the Close, Norwich.
At the time of the Reformation Norfolk -possessed no
fewer than 123 monastic institutions, abbeys, priories, nun¬
neries, colleges, and hospitals. Many were richly endowed.
Some interesting ruins still remain in the county; and the
general ecclesiastical architecture presents many curious and
interesting specimens to the antiquary. Above 120 round
towers remain in various parts. Flint is the prevailing
material of which they are constructed, through the scarcity
of stone in East Anglia. The tithes in most of the parishes
of Norfolk have been commuted for fixed annual rents.
Among many other distinguished natives of the county
we may enumerate Queen Anne Boleyn, born at Blickling ;
Archbishops Parker and Herring; Bishop Maltby; Lord
Nelson; Dr Samuel Clarke ; Sir Edward Coke ; Person ; Sir
Robert Walpole; Mrs Fry; Crome the artist; Lindley,
Hooker, and Sir James Smith, botanists ; Mrs Opie; General
Wilson, the hero of Delhi. (s. s. m.)
Norfolk, a town of the United States of North
America, Virginia, on the north bank of the Elizabeth
River, 32 miles from the sea, and 106 S.E. of Richmond.
The site is low and flat; the streets are broad, but some¬
what irregular, and lined with handsome houses of stone or
brick. The City Hall is adorned in front with six granite
columns, and has a dome 110 feet high; the Mechanics’
Hall is a building in the Gothic, and the Military Academy
in the Grecian style. There are fourteen churches, one of
which has a spire 200 feet high, nine seminaries, two read¬
ing-rooms, three banks, an hospital, and an orphan asylum.
Ihe harbour is large, secure, easily entered, and defended
by two forts. Norfolk is the principal commercial town in
\ irginia, and, along with Portsmouth, on the other side of
the river, the chief naval station in the United States. Its
trade is facilitated by the canal through the Dismal Swamp
to the south, and communication is kept up with New York
and Philadelphia by steamers. The shipping ‘of the har¬
bour, 30th June 1852, had a total tonnage of 7716 regis¬
tered, and 14,448 licensed and enrolled. The number of
vessels that entered in that year was 85, tonnage 20,778;
those that cleared 129, tonnage 24,447. In the same year
six vessels were admeasured, with a tonnage of 408. Pop.
(1850) 14,326; (1853) about 16,000.
Norfolk Island is the largest of a group of islands
in the South Pacific Ocean, consisting of Norfolk, Ne¬
pean, and Philip islands, together with several scattered
islets, or rather bare rocks, called the Bird Islands ; S. Eat.
(of the settlement on the south of Norfolk Island) 29. 10.,
1t6£ 58‘ 11 is 600 miles W.N.W. of Auckland,
and 900 N.E. of Sydney. These islands appear to rise
from the surface of a submarine table-land, which extends
or 8 miles to the N. and 25 to the S. of the group, with
an aveiage breadth of 18 miles, and an area of nearly 1000
square miles. The depth of water over this tract is remark-
N O R
ably uniform, not varying more than five fathoms ; and it
rises abruptly about 1000 or 1200 feet from the bottom of
the surrounding ocean. Philip Island is about 3£ miles
south of Norfolk Island, and is of basaltic formation, risino-
to the height of 900 feet at the south, and sloping towards
the north. Its area is about 500 acres. Nepean Island
which is separated by a channel 800 yards wide from the
largest of the group, is entirely of coralline structure, and
has a height of about 50 feet from the sea, and an area of
12 acres. Norfolk Island itself is not quite 5 miles in
length, with an average breadth of 2£. Its area is about
8960 acres, and its general elevation is about 400 feet above
the sea, while in the N.W. the double summit of Mount
Pitt attains the height of 1050 feet. The surface is broken
by numerous gullies with steeply-sloping sides, and through
these flow several streams, two of which have formed, by
the accumulation of soil between the sea and the hills, a
narrow strip of level ground, on which the settlement
stands. The soil, consisting of decomposed basalt, is every¬
where extremely rich ; even on the higher parts it is fer¬
tile, and in the valleys the vegetation is most luxuriant.
The principal tree, the Norfolk Island pine, resembling in
appearance the Norway spruce, grows on all parts of the
island, and attains in some places a height of 200 feet, and
a circumference of 30 feet. Maple, ironwood, a small spe¬
cies of palm called the Norfolk Island cabbage-tree, and a
fern having a height of 40 feet and fronds 11 feet in length,
also grow in abundance. The underwood of the forests
consists chiefly of lemons and guavas; and many plants
originally exotics now grow wild here. Bananas, yams,
sweet potatoes, and arrow-root, though tropical plants,
flourish on the island; and oranges, coffee, maize, and rye
may be raised. The amount of land under cultivation on
the 31st December 1852 was 16 acres of sweet potatoes,
40 of maize, and 2 of garden ground. All sorts of domes¬
tic poultry thrive here ; and there are bees which produce
excellent honey. There were, on the 31st December
1852, 30 horses, 721 horned cattle, 4140 sheep, and 125
swine; but a considerable number of these have since
been removed. The climate is healthy, and the heat is
tempered by the sea-breeze : the temperature is rarely
below 65°. Excellent roads have been made across the
island in various directions, and bridges across the streams ;
while extensive farm buildings of a solid nature have been
erected in various places. Norfolk Island, originally unin¬
habited, was first visited by Captain Cook in 1774; and in
1787 it was colonized partly by convicts aud partly by free¬
men from New South Wales; but in 1810 it was aban¬
doned, and all the buildings were destroyed. In 1825 it
was again used as a penal settlement, and occupied by fifty
soldiers, six civilians, and fifty criminals; but this estab¬
lishment was finally broken- up in June 1856, when the
inhabitants of Pitcairn’s Island, the descendants of the
mutineers of the Bounty, 194 in number, settled on this
island. The origin and present condition of this small com¬
munity are unique. Their whole stock of knowledge and
instruction was derived from a common seaman, who was
able to read and write, and being in possession of a Bible,
undertook to teach the children of the original mutineers,
of whom he was the last survivor. These people have thus
grown up, living peacefully and happily, in obedience to
the precepts of religion, but at the same time destitute,
from want of experience, of the knowledge and skill of
other civilized communities. They have a magistrate, two
councillors, and a chaplain; and they are now under the
authority of the governor of New South Wales. They
are affectionate, simple, and unsuspicious; but are igno¬
rant of the use of the plough, and of the most necessary
trades.
NORICUM, a province of the Roman empire, corre¬
sponding to portions of Austria and Bavaria, was bounded
291
Noricum.
292 NOR
Noris. on the N. by the Danube, on the W. by Vindelicia and
Rhaetia, on the S. by Italy and Pannonia, and on the E.
by Pannonia. Its name was probably derived from Noreia,
the ancient capital. It was a mountainous country, tra¬
versed by the Alpes Noricae and other ridges extending
from east to west. The valleys between these chains were
watered by the Dravus (Drave) and other tributaries of
the Danube. Yet, on account of the numerous marshes
and forests, the soil was not very fertile. The most noted
products were mineral. Large quantities of iron were ex¬
ported to supply the manufactories of arms in Northern
Italy, Moesia, and Pannonia; salt was abundant; and even
gold, according to Polybius, as quoted by Strabo, was at
one time found.
The country, though alleged to have been for a long
time under the government of a king, was divided into
several distinct tribes of Celtic origin. Of these the best
known were the Norici, who were anciently called the
Taurisci; and the Boh, who are said by Caesar to have
emigrated from Boiohemum about 85 b.c. But after the
district had been conquered by the generals of Augustus
about 13 b.c., the various tribes seem to have lost their
individuality, and Noricum itself was reduced into the form
of a Roman province. The face of the land also began to
assume a new aspect. The fens were drained, the forests
were cut down, the climate became milder, and the valleys
waved with rich harvests. Several Roman roads traversed
the country; and three Roman fleets on the Danube kept
back the marauding barbarians of the north. Colonies also
were founded, which in course of time became well known
under the names of Celeia (Cilly), Yirunum, Juvavum or
Juvavia {Salzburg), Lauriacum (Lorch), and Boiodurum
(Innstadt).
NORIS, Henry, a learned cardinal of the seventeenth
century, was born at Verona in 1631. He was carefully
educated by his father, Alexander Noris, originally from
Ireland, and well known by his Guerre di Germania. At
fifteen he was admitted as a boarder in the Jesuits’ college
at Rimini, where he studied philosophy; after which he
applied himself to the writings of the fathers of the church,
particularly those of St Augustine; and taking the habit in
the convent of the Augustinian monks of Rimini, he in a
short time distinguished himself amongst that fraternity by
his erudition, insomuch that, as soon as he had completed
his noviciate, the general of the order sent for him to Rome,
to give him an opportunity of improving himself in the
more solid branches of learning. His constant course was
to study fourteen hours a day; and this he continued till
he became a cardinal. He began his History of Pela-
gianism at Rome at the age of twenty-six, and published
it at Florence in 1673. To this work he added An account
of the schism of Aquileia, with a vindication of the books
written by St Augustine against the Pelagians and Semi-
Pelagians. In the following year the Grand Duke of
Tuscany invited him to that city, made him his chaplain,
and appointed him professor of ecclesiastical history in the
university of Pisa. His History procured the author great
reputation, but called forth several antagonists, to whom he
published proper answers. The dispute grew warm, and
was carried repeatedly before the sovereign tribunal of the
Inquisition, where it was examined with the utmost rigour,
and the author dismissed without the least censure. In
1692 he was called to Rome by Innocent XII., who made
him under-librarian of the Vatican. This post was a step
to a cardinal’s hat; his accusers therefore took fire afresh,
and published several new pieces against him. Noris tried
to remove these scruples in a work which appeared in 1695,
under the title of An Historical Dissertation concerning
One of the Trinity that suffered in the flesh. In 1695
his Holiness honoured him with the purple. On the death
of Cardinal Casanati in 1700, he was made principal keeper
NOR
of the Vatican Library. He died at Rome in 1704. His Normandy
works are characterized by great elegance and erudition;
and were published at Verona, in 5 vols. folio, in Norris.
1729-30.
NORMANDY, an ancient province of France, bounded
on the N. by the English Channel; E. by Picardy and the
Isle of France; S. by Perche, Maine, and Brittany; and W.
by the English Channel; had a length of about 150 miles,
a breadth of 75, and an area of 10,534 square miles. It
now comprises the departments of Seine-Inferieure, Eure,
Calvados, Manche, and'the greater part of Orne. Its an¬
cient name was Neustria ; but it was designated Normandy
in a.d. 912, when it was conquered by the Normen under
Rolf, the brother of the first Scandinavian Earl of Orkney.
NORRIS, John, one of the most eminent of the
English Platonists, was born at Collingborne-Kingston in
Wiltshire, where his father was a clergyman, in 1657.
With a view to the clerical profession, he was sent to Win¬
chester school; and at the Michaelmas term of 1676 he
entered Exeter College, Oxford. At school he was dis¬
tinguished for his classical attainments, and at college for
his enthusiastic study of philosophy. He soon exhausted
the scientific knowledge then current at his university;
and eager to explore the fountainhead of that stream of
which the waters were so sweet, he began the study of
Plato and Aristotle. It was in the groves of the Academy,
however, rather than in the halls of the Lyceum, that the
young speculator first found what he was in quest of. He
graduated as a bachelor in arts in 1680, and having soon
after obtained a fellowship in All-Souls’ College, he was
enabled still farther to indulge his preference for Plato and
his divine dialogues. For a temper so melancholy and
devout as Norris’s seems to have been, the transition from
his favourite philosophy to the mystic theology was at once
easy and natural; and to heighten the facility still more,
he had his attention arrested by the brilliant name of Father
Malebranche, a philosopher at once Platonic in temper and
Christian in spirit. The Recherche de la Verite was then
read by all for its lofty eloquence, and studied by the few
for the ingenuity of its metaphysics. Norris began an
ardent admirer, and ended a zealous disciple of this charm¬
ing idealist. Meanwhile little was known of this solitary
thinker until he inaugurated his career as an author in
1682, in The Picture of Love Unveiled, a translation of the
well-known Effigies Amoris of Robert Waryng. During
the same year he published a translation from the Greek of
Hierocles upon the Golden Verses of Pythagoras, a per¬
formance which he followed up by an original work in
1683, entitled An Idea of Happiness. Rejecting the com¬
mon notion of “ moral virtue,” taught by the Stoics and
Peripatetics, as incapable of making men happy in the
highest sense, he adopted the more exalted idea of “ divine
virtue,” as inculcated in the writings of Plato and the
Pythagoreans. The former regulates the actions of com¬
mon life; the latter engages in divine meditation and
seraphic ecstasy. “ He that has only the former,” says
Norris, “ is like Moses, with much difficulty climbing up
to the holy mount; but he that has the latter is like the
same person conversing with God on the serene top of it,
and shining with rays of anticipated glory.” This small
treatise at once ranked its author with that distinguished
band of Platonic divines which adorned the seventeenth
century in England. But it was a characteristic of Norris,
as of all the thinkers of that devout and learned school,
that while intensely fond of speculative retirement, and
“ happy in leisure and obscurity,” as he sings of it, he
nevertheless took an active interest in what was passing
around him during that noisy and changeful time. The
Rye-House plot of 1683 induced him to publish A Mur-
nival of Knaves, or Whiggism displayed and burlesqued
out of countenance ; a performance which showed that its
NOR
NOR
293
Morris, author could discourse of more things than the ecstasies of position were handsome and the work light; and the labo- Norristown
the mystical union. This sturdy English sense has always rious rector continued to ply his pen with increased ardour. v—^
proved too much for the full growth and fruition of the He completed his four volumes of Practical Discourses in
higher rhapsodies of mysticism. I he political brochure Letters concerning the Love of God, ndihesseCi
hurled at the Whigs was followed by an attack upon the to Mrs Astell, appeared in 1695. The subtle mystical ten-
Calvinistic dissenters, in which the Fellow of All-Souls dencies of the writer’s mind come forth in the latter work
stanchly combated some of the positions in the theology with peculiar distinctness. He exalts sentiment above
of the Genevan divine. This tract was entitled Tractatus science, and feeling above reason. He insists on the ab-
adversus Reprobationis Absolutce Decretum, novo methodo solute exclusiveness of the love of God, and its incompati-
et succinctissimo compendia adornatus, et in duos libros bility with any possible earthly affection as an end in itself.
digestus, 1683. Nor was this the only blow aimed by the These opinions he had afterwards occasion to re-assert and
sturdy churchman at the dissenters of his day; in 1691 vindicate. A very able work from Norris’s pen, entitled
he charged the Nonconformists with schism in a special An Account of Reason and Faith, in relation to the Mys-
treatise, after having given them repeated stabs as a sort of teries of Christianity, appeared in 1697, in answer to the
by-play in his previous works. Norris obtained his master’s Christianity not Mysterious of the deistical writer John
degree in 1684, took orders shortly afterwards, and pub- Toland. Perhaps none ofthe author’s writings would be read
lished his Miscellanies in prose and verse during the same with so much interest at the present day as this one. His
year. In his poems he endeavours to be something “ more discussion of the grounds and merits ofthe rationalism of that
than a country fiddler;” aspires “ to restore the declining period was so thoroughgoing, that the more modern forms
genius of poetry to its primitive and genuine greatness, to of doubt are in a great measure anticipated. None of our
wind up the strings of the Muse’s lyre,” and so forth; and modern writers have marked off with a more bold and
to save his readers from becoming oblivious of his high
design, he informs them occasionally, as he proceeds, “ this
ode is after the Pindaric way.” His argument is always
high, however; and amidst much purity of sentiment, deep
religious fervour, and some tedious moralizing, true gleams
of poetry occasionally break forth. This volume was the
most popular of all his works, and passed through numerous
editions during the author’s lifetime. Norris had long been
an admiring student of the works of Dr Henry More, then
at the height of his newly-won fame as a Platonic mystic,
and he resolved now to consult that philosopher respecting
some speculative difficulties on which he professed igno¬
rance and curiosity. The correspondence thus begun in
1684 ended only with the death of More three years after¬
wards, and was published by Norris in 1688. In 1685 he
produced a translation of Xenophon’s Cyropcedeia in con¬
junction with Francis Digby, the latter rendering the first
four books, and Norris the remaining four. The Theory
and Regulation of Love appeared in 1688, in which that
Platonic affection of which Norris was so fond finds an in¬
genious and eloquent advocate. He was made rector of
Newton St Loe in Somersetshire in 1689, married during
the same year, and gave to the world a treatise on Reason
and Religion. This was followed, in 1690, by Reflections
upon the Conduct of Human Life, in a letter to John
Locke’s friend, the famous Lady Masham. Locke was
living with that lady at the time, and on reading Norris’s
dedication, in which he supposed her to be blind, is said
to have “made himself merry withal” at the author’s ex¬
pense. Locke’s celebrated Essay appeared for the first
time during this year, and Norris, whose speculative opi¬
nions differed most fundamentally from those of Locke,
could not resist the temptation of attaching an Appendix
to his Treatise of Christian Blessedness, then passing
through the press, with “ Cursory Reflections upon a Book
called An Essay concerning Human Understanding” His
letter to Lady Masham brought him into collision with the
Quakers, in A Discourse concerning the Crossness of the
Quaker’s Fotion of the Light within, published in 1692, in
which he disabused the minds of that pious sect of the
opinion that he was favourable to their views. This treatise
is peculiarly valuable, as casting light upon Norris’s real
relation to mysticism. He had before had occasion to de¬
nounce the opinion that all bodily pleasures are to be ab¬
jured, and he now insists, with great force and clearness,
that the Quakers represent this light within as a sort of
extraordinary inspiration ; whereas I suppose it to be a man’s
natuial and ordinary way of understanding.” Norris was
now presented to the rectory of Bemerton, near Salisbury,
where he remained till his death. The revenues of this
steady hand the respective provinces of Reason and Faith,
whether in the region of natural or supernatural truth.
And a truly earnest inquirer, with any adequate apprecia¬
tion of the real significance of sound speculation, will find
more satisfaction in Norris’s book—now all but forgotten—
than in nine-tenths of all the treatises, pretentious and
otherwise, addressed to the thinking public of the present
day. The human Reason, according to Norris, is not co¬
extensive with absolute truth, and Faith occupies the bor¬
der-land between the known and the unknown, the hidden
and the revealed. Each faculty has accordingly a legiti¬
mate and inalienable sphere of its own, which can only be
usurped at the peril of intellectual and moral disorganiza¬
tion. The work, however, by which Norris is best known
to the philosophical w'orld is one of less real merit than the
former, but occupied with a subject of capital interest to all
metaphysicians. He was one of the very first, as has
already been observed, to raise his protest against the ap¬
parent sensationalism of Locke; and after meditating the
subject for seven years, Norris came before the public in
1701 with an elaborate defence of idealism, in An Essay
towards the Theory of the Ideal or Intelligible World.
The second part appeared in 1704. This work is in effect
a defence and development of the philosophy of Male-
branche, whom Norris styles “ the great Galileo of the in¬
tellectual world.” It displays wide reading and vigorous
thinking, and is written in a clear, forcible style. His next
work was A Philosophical Discourse concerning the Na¬
tural Immortality of the Soul, published in 1708, defend¬
ing that doctrine, with great ability and moderation, against
the hostile criticism of Dodwell. With the exception of
small treatises on Humility Cl) and Christian Prudence
(1710), and other minor pieces on practical subjects, this
work may be regarded as the last of this industrious and
able writer. His health, which had never been very robust,
ultimately gave way under the ceaseless pressure of active
labour ; and after lingering for some time, he died at Be¬
merton in 1711, at the age of fifty-four.
NORRISTOWN, a towm of the United States of North
America, state of Pennsylvania, stands on an elevated spot
on the left bank of the Schuylkill, 91 miles E. of Harris¬
burg, and 17 N.W. of Philadelphia. It is regularly laid
out, and well built of stone and brick. There is a hand¬
some court-house, begun in 1851, of light-gray marble; a
prison, a bank, a public library, nine or ten churches, and
several large boarding-schools. The river, which is here
crossed by two bridges, supplies moving power for two
large cotton factories and other manufacturing establish¬
ments, which employ a great number of hands. The trade
of the place is considerable, and is increased by the naviga-
294 NOR
North, tion of the river, and by railways extending to Philadelphia
on either side of it. Pop. (1850) 6024.
NORTH, Sir Dudley, styled by Macaulay “ one of the
ablest men of his time,” was the third surviving son of
Lord North, Baron of Kirtling, and was born on the 16th
May 1641. He received at Bury and at a writing school
in London an education which fitted him for a mercantile
life. Being then bound to a Turkey merchant, he was
soon afterwards sent out to Smyrna as a factor. The
young trader began his career with a scantily-stocked ware¬
house, but with a determination to make a fortune which
might enable him to close his days in ease and luxury at
home. Though naturally fond of frolic and pleasure, he
kept himself apart from profligate companions, lived with
the most careful thrift, and turned all the faculties of his
powerful mind upon the duties of his calling. But it was
not until in course of time he had been engaged to take
the management of an embarrassed factory at Constanti¬
nople that he obtained any prospect of success. After
collecting the debts of his employer, he established himself
in a factory of his own, and began to achieve success by
an artful system of policy. He sought the acquaintance
of the various foreign ambassadors at Constantinople; he
did not hesitate to conciliate the Turks by accommo¬
dating his conduct to their superstitions ; and he employed
all the strategems of trade with an ability which the most
wily Jew could not overreach. The result was, that in
1680 the great object of his life had been gained, and he
was on his way home to England. Dudley North had not
been long settled in London when his profound knowledge
both of the theory and practice of commerce was the means
of introducing him into public notice. He was advanced
to the office of sheriff, and proved himself a most efficient
and unscrupulous tool of the dominant Tory faction. His
services were rewarded with a knighthood, an alderman’s
gown, and the post of a commissioner of the customs. Re¬
turned to Parliament for Banbury in 1685, he rendered
himself unfavourably distinguished by proposing and carry¬
ing a tax on sugar and tobacco. But the most permanent
cause of his reputation was the publication, in 1691, of his
Discourses on Trade, a work which is said by Mr M‘Cul-
loch to contain “ a much more able statement of the true
principles of commerce than any that had then ap¬
peared.” The author died on the 31st December of the
same year.
North, Francis, Baron Guildford, Lord Keeper of the
Great Seal, was the elder brother of the preceding, and
was born on the 22d October 1637. From the school of
Bury he passed, in 1653, to St John’s College, Cambridge,
and after studying there for two years as a fellow com¬
moner, he became a member of the Middle Temple.
Young North began his legal career with all that concen¬
tration of purpose which distinguished his family. His
volatile disposition and his passion for pleasure were kept
in check ; and, setting himself doggedly to the study of law,
he endeavoured to subject all his propensities to the calm
control of self-interest. The same line of policy was pur¬
sued when he had been called to the bar in 1661, and
began to travel the circuit. No kind of influence was
thought too insignificant to be won. He truckled to the
prejudices of the judges; fawned upon those whose hands
were full of briefs; and sometimes chose to ride and starve
with a certain miserly serjeant named Earl, in order that
he might draw from the large experience of his fellow-tra¬
veller an account of all the tricks and subtleties of law.
By such means the time-serving aspirant soon acquired a
proficiency and reputation which combined to lead him on
to the highest legal preferments. He was appointed soli¬
citor-general in 1671, attorney-general in 1673, and lord
chief justice of the Common Pleas in 1675. At length,
in 1682, the Great Seal was intrusted to his keeping. In
NOR
this high position, where he was the object of general atten- North,
tion, and at this time, when the political world was torn
into two factions, North stood prominently out as the most
temporizing of the Trimmers. With that low species of
tact which cowardice supplies, he shunned every occasion
and every company where he might be betrayed into an
express statement of his political creed. The letter of the
law was the moral code by which he justified his public
conduct, and allegiance to the sovereign was the virtue
with which he covered his private bearing. It was only
when he was sinking into the grave amid general neglect
and distrust, that he first showed courage, by warning the
infatuated James II. of the ruin towards which the govern¬
ment was tending. His death took place on the 5th Sep¬
tember 1685.
The Lives of Dudley and Francis North, and of Dr
John North, a younger son of the same family, written by
their brother Roger North, were published in 2 vols. 4to,
1740-42, and republished in 3 vols., London, 1826. The
biographer, although a partial, self-conceited gossip, and a
bigoted Tory, unconsciously blabs out now and then many
little circumstances which silently cancel his absurd eulogies,
and exhibit his heroes in their real characters. (See also
Campbell’s Lives of the Chancellors, and Macaulay’s His¬
tory of England?)
North, Frederick, Earl of Guildford, the favourite minis¬
ter of George III., was of the same family as the preced¬
ing, and was born on the 13th April 1733. After receiv¬
ing his education at Eton, and at Trinity College, Oxford,
he resided for some time on the Continent preparing him¬
self for his future career. An early entrance into Parlia¬
ment was followed by a gradual rise through several cabinet
offices, until in 1769 he became chancellor of the exche¬
quer, and leader of the House of Commons, under the
ministry of the Duke of Grafton. His success in this high
position soon proved that he was a proficient in parliamentary
strategy. Accordingly, on the resignation in 1770 of the
nobleman at the head of the ministry, he was requested to
assume the vacant office. The readiness with which North
obeyed the request, and relieved the embarrassed mind of
the king, made him a great favourite with George III.,
as he was already with the House of Commons. Yet the
administration so auspiciously begun soon became remark¬
able for the calamities it brought upon the nation, and the
strong and malignant opposition it excited. The refusal
of the ministry to relieve the American colonists from the
paltry duty on tea, led to disturbances in 1773 which issued
in open rebellion in 1775. Then the Whig Opposition, led
on by Burke and Fox, commenced a series of the most
virulent attacks that had ever been witnessed in the British
senate-house. Not content with execrating the public
policy of the minister, they blackened his private char¬
acter, cast taunts upon his capacity, raked up every family
scandal, and even clamoured for his head. The Parliament
hall resounded with the most confused and boisterous wrang¬
ling. Yet on many a stormy night Lord North fought almost
single-handed against his great adversaries, meeting their
bold measures with his consummate tact, counteracting
the effect of their grand rhetorical displays with his strong
common sense, and blunting the edge of their satire with
his pungent wit and imperturbable good humour. For six
years he thus kept his ground triumphantly. By that time,
however, affairs were beginning to draw towards a crisis.
The British were shamefully failing in their attempts to sup¬
press the Americans; France and Spain had espoused the
cause of the colonists ; the public were waxing loud in their
indignation against the ministry ; and in 1781 William Pitt,
entering Parliament, consummated the oratorical strength of
the Opposition. Lord North, though he still held his original
opinion regarding the justice of the American war, would
then willingly have resigned. But he was repeatedly induced
Sror 'aller
N'orvamp-
NOR
by the opinionative king to pursue, in opposition to his
inclination, that administration which was endangering the
safety of the country. At length, in 1782, he was forced
’ to give place to Lord Rockingham. The rest of the parlia-
i mentary career of Lord North did not retrieve his political
reputation. Though the celebrated coalition which he
formed with Fox overthrew the ministry of Lord Shel¬
burne and Pitt, and raised him in 1783 to the post of secre¬
tary of state under the Duke of Portland, yet it became
universally unpopular, and did not keep him in power for more
than six months. This was the last time that North was
in office. He died in 1792, five years after he had been
struck with blindness, and two years after he had succeeded
to the family estates and to the title of the Earl of Guild¬
ford. (For fuller information regarding the administration
of Lord North, see Britain. See also Lord Brougham’s
Statesmen of the Time of George HI.)
NORTHALLERTON, a parliamentary borough and
market-town of England, capital of the North Riding of
Yorkshire,on an affluent of the Whisk, 32 miles N.N.W. of
York, and 225 N.N.W. of London. It consists of a prin¬
cipal street, broad and well paved, and numerous lanes
diverging from it. The parish church is large, in the form
of a cross, and has a square tower at the west end. There
are also chapels belonging to Independents, Wesleyans, and
Primitive Methodists, Baptists, and Quakers; and several
schools and charitable institutions. One of the latter,
called the Maison Dieu, was founded in 1476, and has
since been rebuilt. Northallerton has a market-house
near the centre of the town, a jail built after the plan of
Howard, and a court-house. There are here flour-mills,
tanneries, brick-kilns, breweries, malt-houses, and other
manufactories. The market-day is Wednesday; and five
yearly fairs are held. In the neighbourhood of the town
is a place called Standard Hill, where was fought, in 1138,
the battle of the Standard, in which King David of Scot¬
land was defeated by the English. The borough of North¬
allerton returns one member to Parliament. Pop. (18511
4995. 1 v '
NORTHAMPTON, a parliamentary and municipal
borough and market-town of England, standing on the
north side of the River Nen or Nene, is probably the An-
to?ia of Tacitus {Annal. xii. 31); Lat. 52. 15. N., Long.
0. 55. W., 67£ miles from London by the London and
North-Western Railway. It is a place of great antiquity,
and supposed to have been of British origin; but the
earliest mention of it is in the Saxon Chronicle, under the
name of Hampton : in Domesday Book it is called North-
antone. The castle, of which only some small portion of
the walls and an arch of semi-Norman character remain,
was built by Simon de St Liz, to whom William the Con¬
queror had given the town with the hundred of Fawsly.
Several Parliaments were held here; the first of these in
1130-31, in the thirty-first year of Henry I.; and the last, in
the fourth of Richard II. (1380), being that which origi¬
nated the poll-tax that occasioned the rebellion of Wat
iyler and Jack Straw. From its central situation, the
town or its neighbourhood was frequently the scene of con¬
flict during the civil wars both of earlier and later date,
v n July 10, 1460, a battle was fought here between
enry VI. and the Yorkists, &c., when the former was de¬
feated, and brought a prisoner into the town. In 1642
Northampton received a garrison for the Parliament under
Lord Brooke. On March 30,1645, Cromwell marched from
it with 1500 horse and two regiments of foot to Rugby.
After the Restoration, October 17, 1661, the walls of
Northampton, with those of Coventry, Leicester, Gloucester,
am aunton, were demolished, these towns having taken
the side of the Parliament. In 1675 the town was almost
destroyed by a fire in the short space of six hours ; L.25,000
Wasco ected by briefs and private charity towards repair-
N O R
295
ing the damage. Charles II. gave 1000 tons of timber Northamp.
from Whittlewood Forest towards rebuilding All Saints’ ton.
church, and remitted the duty of chimney-money for seven -v-^
years. In 1720 it was damaged by an extraordinary flood.
In 1750 a violent shock of an earthquake was felt, which
lasted nearly a minute; and in 1776 another of shorter
duration.
The town is pleasantly situated on an eminence sloping
to the south. Its general appearance is neat and clean.
The older buildings are constructed of a brownish-yellow
stone found in the neighbourhood, being the inferior oolite;
the modern houses are chiefly of brick or of a white stone
(the great oolite) from quarries in the adjacent village of
Kingsthorpe. The general style of architecture0 has
nothing remarkable: numerous alterations of late years
have been going on, chiefly in making more showy front¬
ages to the shops. The market-square is one of the largest
in the country, being about 600 feet square. For the last
twenty years the town has been rapidly extending, especially
towards the N. and E.: on the outskirts a great number
of new streets have been built, consisting of neat tenements
adapted to the working-classes, which form a pleasing con¬
trast to those built at the commencement of the century.
On the eastern side houses and villas of a more imposing
aspect have been erected for the use of the gentry and
more opulent tradesmen. The streets in general are" well
paved, and lighted with gas.
Of the public buildings, the principal are—the general
infirmary, established in 1747; the present building was
erected in 1793, and affords accommodation for about 120
patients. It has a medical library of 3000 volumes, and a
splendid collection of anatomical casts, which are deposited
in a separate building, containing also a convalescent ward
for ten male and ten female patients. The general lu¬
natic asylum, about half a mile from the town in the same
direction as the infirmary, was opened in 1838, and by sub¬
sequent enlargements is able at the present time (1858)
to receive about 280 patients. It is a self-supporting in¬
stitution. I he Royal Victoria Dispensary, established in
1844 to commemorate the visit of her present Majesty to
the town, is conducted on the provident principle, every
member above the age of fourteen subscribing one penny
per week: twopence a week will admit a man and his wife
and all his children under fourteen years old. The union
workhouse, on the Wellingborough road, has accommoda¬
tion for 300 inmates. The county-hall, where the quarter
sessions, the assizes, and county courts are held, is a good
specimen of Italian architecture, contemporary with the
later features of All Saints’ church. The town-hall is an
ancient building, and retains a good deal of carved panel¬
ling from the time of Henry VII. to that of Elizabeth.
Forty or fifty years ago alterations were made which dimin¬
ished the original capacity of the principal storey; and the
external staircase, which previously existed, was removed,
and one within the building substituted. As it now stands’
it is very inadequate to the wants of the town. The corn
exchange, erected a few years ago, consists of one large
hall, the interior of which, has an imposing effect; it is fre¬
quently used for musical performances, and has an excel¬
lent organ; attached to it are the offices of the mechanics’
institute, which has a library of nearly 11,000 volumes, and
now enrols 600 members. The Religious and Useful
Knowledge Society, supported principally by members of
the Established Church, occupies a building in another part
of the town. It has about 1000 members.
The town has seven churches—All Saints’, St Sepul¬
chre’s, St Peter’s, St Andrew’s, St Katherine’s, and St Ed¬
mund’s. The last three are of recent date. The old
church of All Saints, which was considerably larger than
its successor, was destroyed by the great fire of 1675 ; but
the tower escaped, and was incorporated with the new
296 NOE
Northamp- structure. Its style is the decorated, and the additions, in
ton. defiance of all congruity, are in that Italian style which
Inigo Jones and Wren had rendered fashionable, and, as
such, have great merit. The interior of the church is
strikingly beautiful. It contains a statue, by Chantrey, of
Spencer Percival, many years a member for the borough.
At the western entrance a portico extends the whole width
of the church, consisting of twelve Ionic pillats supporting
an entablature and balustrades. A statue of King Charles II.
surmounts the centre ; he is represented in Roman costume,
with a truncheon in his hand, and his head covered with a
wig of ample curls. St Peter’s is a most interesting spe¬
cimen of early and richly-ornamented Norman work. The
capitals of the columns of the nave are charged with curious
sculptures in a high state of preservation. The tower arch
also is elaborate, with chevron mouldings; and some pilaster
columns, on each side, are richly ornamented. Externally,
also, the church has many interesting features ; the tower
especially, which has buttresses of three semi-columns
diminishing at each storey. St Sepulchre’s has a special
interest as one of the four existing round churches built
after the model of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem. It
bears evidence of having been erected at periods widely
different: the circular part is Norman and early English ;
the spire, a fine piece of work, is perpendicular. St Giles’
has a good Norman door at the western entrance, and the
tower arch is of the same period.
Of the places of worship belonging to the various non¬
conformist bodies, four belong to the Baptists ; five to the
Wesleyan, Primitive, and Associated Methodists ; three to
the Independents; the Unitarians, Quakers, and Roman
Catholics have one each. In Castle Hill Chapel, a mural
tablet is erected to the memory of Dr Doddridge, who ex¬
ercised his ministry there for upwards of twenty years. A
similar memorial is erected in the Baptist chapel in Col¬
lege Street to the memory of the Rev. John Ryland,
who was minister there for thirty years, and was succeeded
by his son, the late Dr Ryland, afterwards president of the
Bristol Baptist College.
St John’s Hospital, in Bridge Street, is a very ancient, and
was at some period a very wealthy foundation. Its available
revenues are now equal only to the maintenance of a certain
number of aged women, some of whom have rooms in the
building. The importance of the charity in early times
is evident from the architectural features of the hospital
still remaining. St Thomas’s Hospital was founded in 1450,
in honour of St Thomas a Becket. It was first endowed
for twelve poor widows; to these six were added by Sir
John Langham in 1684, and since then the numbers have
been still further increased.
In Marefare is the free grammar school, founded in
1556 by Thomas Chipsey, a grocer of the town. Dr
Thomas Cartwright, Bishop of Chester, and James Hervey,
the author of the Meditations and other works, were edu¬
cated here. A free school, called the Blue-Coat School,
was founded in 1700. There are also various parochial
schools, and an excellent British school for boys and girls.
The Sunday schools belonging to the Established Church
and the different bodies of dissenters are numerous.
The town is divided into three wards—east, west, and
south ; and is governed by a mayor, six aldermen, and
eighteen councillors ; besides nine justices of the peace, a
recorder, and town-clerk. The borough has sent two mem¬
bers to Parliament from the commencement of the reign
of Edward I.
The coach-road to the metropolis, through Newport-
Pagnell, Woburn, Dunstable, St Albans, and Barnet, has
been superseded by the London and North-Western Rail¬
way, which is connected with Northampton by means of
a branch line from Blisworth, making the distance 67£
miles. From Northampton the railway has been carried
NOE
eastward to Peterborough, and a line, entering the town at Northamn.
the West Bridge, is also now in progress from Market- ton.
Harborough, where it will join the line from Leicester v>—v-*;
to Hitchin. Before the formation of railways, coals and
heavy goods were brought to Northampton by means of
the Nen and a branch canal from the Grand Junction
at Blisworth. Markets for the supply of meat and vege¬
tables are kept on Wednesdays and Saturdays; the
latter is also a cattle-market. About twelve fairs are
held in the course of the year. That on September 19 is
called the “ cheese fair.” The wool fair is held in the first
week in July. The race-course is 117 acres in extent.
The Northampton and Pytchley Hunt races are held in
March, at the close of the hunting season.
The barracks were finished in 1796 for the accommoda¬
tion of cavalry, and are situated at a short distance from
the race-course.
The borough gaol was opened in 1846. It is con¬
structed on the separate system, and is capable of contain¬
ing eighty persons. The county gaol was opened in the
same year, and is capable of receiving 150 prisoners.
About a mile S. of the town, on the old London road, is
one of the crosses erected by Edward I. to the memory of
his queen, Eleanor of Navarre. It is a work of great
beauty, and in fair preservation, but the upper portion has
long been wanting, and no record remains of its character.
An entry in the expense rolls makes mention of five
images, and it has been conjectured that the fifth (only four
being required for the canopy) surmounted the monu¬
ment.
The staple manufactory of the town is that of shoes, in
which the great majority of the working-classes are en¬
gaged. A large proportion of the army contracts are exe¬
cuted here and in the adjacent town of Wellingborough.
Stockings were formerly made here ; and the first stocking-
frame used in Leicester was brought to that town in 1680
by a person from Northampton named Alsop. Lace¬
making also was carried on to some extent, but it has
almost entirely ceased. There are three extensive iron-
foundries in Northampton. At Rushmills, about 2 miles
from the town, is a paper manufactory which supplies the
bank-note paper and the stamps for postage. The popu¬
lation has rapidly increased during the last fifty years. In
1801 it amounted to 7220; in 1811 to 8427; in 1821 to
10,844; in 1831 to 15,351; in 1841 to 21,242; and in
1851 to 26,657. (j.e.r.)
Northampton, a post-town and shire-town of Hamp¬
shire county, Massachusetts, one of the United States
of North America. It stands on a hill near the west bank
of the Connecticut River, 95 miles W. from Boston; and
consists chiefly of two streets laid out with considerable re¬
gularity. It contains several handsome public buildings,
of which the court-house, jail, and one of the churches are
the most conspicuous. The private houses are in general
large and in a good style, and many of them are elegant.
Northampton is one of the most beautiful towns in New
England, and distinguished for the refinement and intelli¬
gence of its inhabitants. A stream passes near the centre
of the town, on which are erected numerous mills and many
manufactories. The rearing of the silk-worm has been car¬
ried on here for some time, and large quantities of silk, as
well as cotton and woollen goods, are manufactured. Far¬
mington Canal extends from Newhaven to this place. A
bridge, built in 1826, connecting this town and Hadley, is
1086 feet in length by 36 in breadth, and is supported by
six piers and two abutments. The lands bordering on Con¬
necticut River, in which are now the towns of Northampton,
Hadley, and Hatfield, were first known by the Indian
name Nonotuck. It was the third place settled on the river
in this state, and was incorporated in 1654. Amongst the
striking objects in the scenery of Northampton are the
NOR ~ NOR 297
; )rthamp-beautiful river, and the heights called Mount Torn and inland position of the county, it is less subject to heavy Northamp.
jnshire. Mount Holyoke, the former being 1200 and the latter 900 and continued rains than most parts of England. The tonshire.
feet above the river. Long. 72. 38. W., Lat. 42. 19. N. climate is' mild and salubrious ; and the soil is generally
Pop. (1850) 5278. rich and fertile. It is pretty equally divided for the pur-
NORTHAMPTONSHIRE, one of the midland coun- poses of tillage and grazing. Some of the farmers are
ties of England, bounded by a greater number of counties great cattle-breeders, but the majority purchase beasts to
than any other like division of England, having on the N. fatten them for the market. Another agreeable feature is
the counties of Leicester, Rutland, and Lincoln ; E. those the great number of noblemen’s seats, and the mansions of
of Cambridge, Huntingdon, and Bedford ; S. those of Buck- the gentry, with the parks and plantations that adorn them,
ingham and Oxford; and W. Warwickshire. It lies be- The woodlands are extensive, consisting chiefly of the re¬
tween 51. 59. and 52. 40. N. Lat., and 0. 8. and 1. 20. mains of the royal forests of Rockingham, Salcey, and
W. Long. It is about 66 miles in length ; the breadth in Whittlebury, with the chases of Geddington and Yardley.
the widest part is 26 miles, in the narrowest not more than The ash is the staple timber tree of the county, and fetches
8 miles. Its extent is 630,358 acres, of which probably a high price.
580,000 are arable, pasture, and meadow land. In 1841 The county is not remarkable for mineral productions,
the population was 139,228; in 1851 it had increased to Limestone is abundant, and within the last few years the
212,380, occupying 43,942 houses. soil has been worked for ironstone in the neighbourhood of
In ancient British times this county was the most south- Northampton and along the line of the Peterborough Rail-
ern part of the Coritani; by the Romans it was included in way, and has been found to yield a tolerably large per-
the province of Flavia Caesariensis. The Roman roads centage. Good clay for bricks and tiles is to be met with
Watling Street and Ermine pass through it; the former on in many parts : there are also quarries for roofing-flags,
the S.W. from Towcester to Lilbourne, the latter enters by The only navigable river in this county is the Nen, or
Castor, and branches oft’at Upton. In the Saxon period Nene. It rises in the western part, flows across the county,
this county made part of the kingdom of Mercia. It suf- and then runs N. till it enters the German Ocean by Lin-
fered repeatedly and severely from the incursions of the colnshire. The Welland rises at Sibbertoft, and forms a
Danes. Simon De St Liz, a follower of William the Con- boundary between the county and Leicestershire and Rut-
queror, having received from his sovereign the town of land. The other rivers, the Ouse, the Avon, the Severn, and
Northampton to find shoes for his horses, fortified it, and the Charwell, which, like the two former, have their sources
built t'ne castle at the west entrance. During the 12th in Northamptonshire, are but inconsiderable rivulets till thev
century many councils were held at Northampton. The enter the adjoining counties. Previous to the construction
battle which decided the fate of Charles I. was fought at of railways the canals were important aids to inland traffic.
Naseby, June 14, 1645. Besides an obelisk erected a mile The Oxford Canal connects the county with that city. The
to the east of the scene of action, the “ Sulby hedges” still Grand Junction Canal, communicating on the one hand
remain as a more exact landmark. with London, and on the other with Liverpool and Man-
The whole of the county is within the diocese of Peter- Chester, passes through the county, and is navigable for
borough, with the exception of three parishes, Gretton, Nas- barges of 60 tons burden. The Grand Union Canal con-
sington, and King’s Sutton,which are in the diocese of Lincoln, nects it writh Leicester.
It forms an archdeaconry, containing 293 parishes, of which At the period of the Reformation the number of religious
172 are rectories, 93 vicarages, and 29 perpetual curacies, houses, including colleges and hospitals, amounted to nearly
From the census of 1851, it appears that in this county sixty. Of the great abbeys, Peterborough is the only one
there were at that time 592 places of worship, having in all that has been preserved entire ; to which may be added the
151,687 sittings. Of these, 292 places of worship belonged collegiate churches of Fotheringay, Higham-Ferrers, and
to the Episcopalians, 122 to various bodies of Methodists, Irthlingborough. The principal monastic remains are to
Si to Baptists, 56 to Independents, 6 to Quakers, 6 to be found at Daventry, Canons’Ashby, and Dingley. The
Roman Catholics, 4 to Latter-day Saints, 3 to Moravians, county is rich in almost every style of ecclesiastical archi-
and 16 to other bodies. The number of Sunday-schools lecture. As specimens of the early Norman style may
was 426, with 33,614 scholars. Of the-former, 257 be- be mentioned the churches at Earl’s Barton, Barnack,
longed to the Episcopalians, 68 to Methodists, 52 to Bap- Brixworth, Brigstock, Castor, Spratton, Barnwell, and
lists, and 39 to Independents. Of day-schools there were Twywell. Of ancient mansions the most deserving of
276 public, with 18,969 scholars; and 411 private, with notice are Castle-Ashby, the seat of the Marquis of Nor-
7555 scholars. Of the public schools, 169 were supported thampton, of which the oldest part was built in the reign
by religious bodies, 88 by endowments, and 14 by general of Henry VIII.; and Burghley House, near Stamford,
or local taxation. There were also 15 evening schools for built by Queen Elizabeth’s lord treasurer, and now the
adults, and 8 literary and scientific institutions. . seat of the Marquis of Exeter. Kirby Hall, near Rock-
By the Reform Bill the county was divided into two ingham, built by Sir Christopher Hatton, is now falling
divisions, N. and S„ each containing ten hundreds, and re- rapidly to decay, though habitable within the last half
turning two members. The election for the northern century. Althorpe, the seat of Earl Spencer, of uncertain
division is held at Kettering, and the polling-places are date, but restored by the Earl of Sunderland in 1688, claims
Kettering, Peterborough, Oundle, Wellingborough, and notice for its magnificent library, formed principally by the
Clipstone. The election for the southern is held at Nor- grandfather of the present Earl (1858), being the richest
thampton, and the other polling-places are Daventry, Tow- in early printed works of any private collection in the
cester, and Brackley. Two members are also returned for world. Of the crosses erected by Edward I. in memory of
1 eterborough, and two for Northampton. his queen Eleanor which still remain, two out of three are
1 his county, although destitute of any bold or striking in this county—one at Hardingstone, near Northampton,
scenery, presents an agreeable variety of bill and dale, and the other at Geddington.
bearing those marks of cultivation which indicate industry Of celebrated persons, who were natives of this county
and comfort on the part oi the occupiers. The general ele- or connected with it, the following maybe mentioned:—
vation of the land is about 300 feet above the level of the Robert Brown, founder of the sect of the Independents,
sea ; and the highest point, Arbury Hill, in the neighbour- born at Tolthorp, in Rutlandshire; John Dryden and
Jiood of Daventry, rises only to the height of 804 feet above Thomas Fuller, born at Aldwinckle ; James Hervey, author
sea-level. Owing to this absence of elevations, and to the of the Meditations, born at Hardino-gtone, and died at
VOL. XVI. 9 t.
298 NOR
North Cape Weston Favell; Bishop Wilkins; William Law, author of (
II The Serious Call, born at King’s ClifFe; Dr Doddridge,
Northcote. jn Lon[]ori) kut; resident at Northampton, minister of
"“r '• the Castle-Hill Meeting-House, and tutor of the Dissenting
Academy in that town; Parkhurst, the biblical lexicogra¬
pher ; Dr Paley; and Dr Carey, the missionary and ori¬
ental scholar, born at Paulerspury. Two of America’s
greatest sons were connected with this county. Franklin’s
ancestors had a freehold estate of about 30 acres for at least
300 years at Ecton, five miles from Northampton, where
they carried on the trade of blacksmiths. General Wash¬
ington was the great-grandson of John Washington, of
Sulgrave, who emigrated to America in 1637, and whose^
great-grandfather, Lawrence Washington, was mayor of
Northampton in 1532 and 1548. At Northborough
Oliver Cromwell’s wife died, and his favourite daughter,
Elizabeth, married Sir John Claypole, the lord of the
manor, the chapel of whose family remains attached to
the parish church. At Abington, Shakspeare’s favourite
grand-daughter, who married Sir John Bernard, lived and
lies buried there. It would be unpardonable to omit the
name of the late George Baker, whose History and Anti¬
quities of the county form a monument of the indefatigable
researches and minute accuracy of the author; and which
his sister, Miss Baker, his faithful companion and fellow-
labourer, by her ample Glossary of Northamptonshire (Lon¬
don, 1854) has made a lasting contribution to the history of
our language. (j. E. R.)
NORTH CAPE, the most northerly point of Europe, is
situated in the island of Magerde, separated from Norway
by a narrow strait; N. Lat. 71. 10., E. Long. 25. 46. It
consists of a long range of steep rocks, about three-quarters
of a mile broad, and 1200 feet above the sea. The geolo¬
gical structure of these rocks consists of gneiss, quartz, and
other primary formations. On the E. side there is a small
bay, hollowed out of the rock, which affords a landing-place;
but at all other parts it is inaccessible from the sea.
NORTHCOTE, James, an eminent English painter
and writer on art, was the son of a poor watchmaker, and
was born at Plymouth on the 22d October 1746. After
receiving a scanty education, he was apprenticed at an early
age to the trade of his father. He soon betrayed a decided
love for painting, however, and some humble successes in
portraiture induced him, after he had reached his twenty-
first year, to abandon watchmaking, and to set up a small
studio in his father’s house. The chief event which deter¬
mined the success of his after career was his introduction to
Sir Joshua Reynolds in 1771, who received the young
aspirant into his own house as one of his pupils. Northcote
now entered upon a course of regular study, with an untiring
enthusiasm which secured the approval and lasting kindness
of his master. Late and early he was found either in the
gallery of Sir Joshua or in the Royal Academy. At the
expiry of his term of five years, the desire to look upon the
great paintings of Italy occupied his mind. During the
next year he plied his pencil in order to obtain money for
his travelling expenses; and in 1777 he repaired to Rome,
with a scanty purse and with no knowledge of any language
except his own. It was his purpose to make portraitures
the staple of his support, and to devote his leisure moments
to the higher and more congenial subjects of historical
painting. Accordingly, during his sojourn of three years
in Italy, the works of Titian and Michael Angelo were the
chief objects of his study; and he flattered himself that he
had caught the grand style of these great masters. Yet no
sooner had he been removed from the daily inspection of
Italian art, than he slid insensibly into an imitation of Sir
Joshua Reynolds.
On his return to London in 1780, Northcote became a
professional painter of portraits and history. An air of pro¬
priety pervaded whatever he executed; his colouring, some-
NOR
what dull, and his drawing, stiff and defective, were redeemed Nortoem
by a certain academic grace; and although he lacked the Circars
highest gift of an historical artist—the power of conceiving ||
an entire scene in all its details—his knowledge of what a ^ortl1
picture ought to be enabled him, after much careful correc-
tion and elaboration, to portray an event with feeling and
clearness. A love of money combined with a love of art
to keep him constantly before his easel. If his merits were
not always recognised, it was not because he was too modest
to display and avow them; and if his rivals sometimes
threw him into the shade, it was because his contemptuous
taunts and depreciating criticism failed to prevent them
from rising. His services were soon hired by Alderman
Boydell, a munificent patron of the fine arts, and the origi¬
nator of “ The Shakspeare Gallery.” Northcote was
thus enabled to concentrate all his attention upon that
branch of the art most congenial to his taste. The first
paintings that he executed for his employer were, “ The
Murder of the Royal Children in the Tower,” “The Death
of Wat Tyler,” and “Arthur and Hubert;” and these at
once established his reputation. The Royal Academy
elected him a member in 1787, and he was welcomed into
his seat by the president, his kind old master, Sir Joshua.
Although, in a short time afterwards, the failure of Boydell
threw him back upon portraiture, his fortunes did not cease to
rise. Numerous sitters flocked to his studio; commissions
for poetical and historical pieces occasionally dropped in;
and in 1791 his earnings, which had been hoarded up with
the utmost care, were fast swelling into a handsome com¬
petence. His fame, however, began to decline ; his
portraits could not stand comparison with the masterpieces
of Lawrence, which were now beginning to come into the
field; and all his open depreciation of his young rival could
not prevent the public from thinking so. He tried moral
painting in 1796, in the “Modest Girl” and the “Wanton,”
but found he could not compete with Hogarth. Falling
back upon history, he produced “The Earl of Argyll in
Prison,” and “ The Vulture and Snake.” But the golden
age of historical painting was passing away, and his own
hand, weakened by age, was gradually forgetting its cun¬
ning. Last of all, he tried book-making, and in 1813 pub¬
lished a life of Sir Joshua Reynolds, which was chiefly
valued on account of the sayings and anecdotes which it
preserved. It was while the reputation of Northcote had
thus failed to be sustained by himself, that it was revived
by his newly-acquired friend, the celebrated William
Hazlitt. The two acquaintances had frequent intercourse;
the painter vented his pungent remarks and cutting gibes
while his hand plied the brush mechanically, and the writer
noted down the conversation as it proceeded. The result
was, that the sayings of Northcote were published by
Hazlitt in periodical sections in the New Monthly Magazine,
under the title of Hoswell Redivivus. The popularity
which that series of papers secured confirmed the bond
between the chronicler and his hero. A large work in 2
vols. 8vo, entitled Titian and his Times, was thus produced
between the two in 1830. This was the last eftort of
Northcote. He died on the 13th July 1831. (Cunning¬
ham’s Lives of Painters, &c.)
NORTHERN CIRCARS. See Circars, Northern.
NORTH SEA, or German Ocean, a part of the
Atlantic Ocean, lying between Great Britain on the W.
and Denmark and Norway on the E.; extends from N. Lat.
51. to 61., E. Long. 2. 30. to 7. 30. Its length is about
700 miles, its breadth about 420 miles, and its area about
270,000 square miles. Near the coasts of Norway, which
are steep, and, though indented by deep fiords, send but few
streams to the sea, the depth is the greatest, being about
190 fathoms; while the average depth of the whole sea is
only 31. On the low southern shores the Elbe, Weser,
Rhine, and Scheldt, which here discharge themselves, have
I
S'i’thum-
trland.
Sv—'
NOR
carried down immense quantities of sand, which have made
the southern portions of the sea comparatively shallow;
while on the coast of Great Britain the same effect, though
to a less extent, has been produced by the Thames, the
Ouse, the Humber, the Tyne, the Forth, and the Tay.
The centre of the sea is occupied by several large sand¬
banks, the principal of which are, one extending from the
Firth of Forth 110 miles to the N.E., another stretching
nearly as far N.W. from the mouth of the Elbe, and the
Dogger Bank, which lies between N. Lat. 54. 10. and
57. 24., E. Long. 1. to 6. 7. The North Sea has also some
remarkable deep holes, such as the Little Silver Pit, off the
Yorkshire coast, the Great Silver Pit, and the North North-
East Hole. The seaabounds in fish, especially cod, hake, ling,
turbot, soles, mackerel, herring, &c.; and fishing is exten¬
sively carried on, both on the different shores of the sea, and
on the Dogger Bank, where cod is obtained. The tides in
this sea are formed by the great wave of the Atlantic which
passes round the S. and N. of the British Islands. The
tide-waves from the N. and S. meet on the coasts of Jut¬
land, where the tides nearly neutralize each other. On
entering the North Sea the height of the wave is about 12
feet; but the form of the shore, the nature of the bottom,
and the direction in which it meets the land, cause it to vary
somewhat in height at different places, and on the Humber
it rises to 20 feet. The islands in this sea are of insignifi¬
cant size, and are three in number—Heligoland, off the
Elbe; the Isle of May and the Bell Rock, in the Firth of
Forth. On all these, and on many other points, light¬
houses have been erected. The North Sea is connected
with the English Channel by the Straits of Dover, and with
the Baltic by the Skagerrack, the Cattegat, the Great
Belt, the Little Belt, and the Sound.
NORTHUMBERLAND, an extensive county in Eng¬
land, situated on its northern extremity, upon the borders
of Scotland, from which it is separated partly by the River
Tweed, which, during the latter part of its course, flows
between this county and Berwickshire, and partly by a line
supposed to be drawn over the mountainous region on the
W. and N.W., where it meets with Roxburghshire. The
other boundaries are the German Ocean on the E., Durham
on the S., and Cumberland on the W. On the N. are two
small districts called Norhamshire and Islandshire, which,
though belonging by their situation to Northumberland,
formed a part of the county of Durham, along with another
tract called Bedlingtonshire, on the S.E. By a recent act
of Parliament these have been united to Northumberland,
and the Tweed has thus become the northern boundary of
the county. The town of Berwick, also on the N. of the
Tweed, has been added to Northumberland for election
purposes, but has still a separate jurisdiction, with a sheriff
of its own. Lindisfarne, or Holy Island, on the N.E.
coast, which in like manner belonged to Durham, is situated
about two miles from the mainland, opposite to the mouth
of the brook Lindis, and accessible to all kinds of convey¬
ance at low-water. Although about nine miles in circuit,
it contains little more than 1000 acres, the half of which is
sand-banks. In this view, Northumberland is situated
between 54. 48. and 55. 42. N. Lat., and between 1.25. and
2. 41. W. Long. Its greatest extent from N. to S. is 64
miles, and irom E. to W. it varies from about 46 miles,
which is its usual breadth between the River Tyne on the
S. and the Coquet on the N., till it terminates at the town
of Berwick on the N., in a breadth of only 5 or 6 miles.
The area is 1952 square miles, or 1,249,299 acres. Nearly
one-third of the county is scarcely capable of beneficial
cultivation.
It is divided into six wards, namely, Tyndale, Coquetdale,
Glendale, Bamborough, Morpeth, and Castle; the first
three comprising the western and mountainous district, and
the second three the coast lands on the E. Besides these,
NOR
299
Northumberland includes the county of Newcastle. The Northum-
maritime wards, though extending over only one-fourth of berland.
the county, are by far the most wealthy and populous,
owing chiefly to the great coal-works in Castle ward, near
the town of Newcastle, and along the banks of the Tyne.
It contains five deaneries and seventy-three parishes, all of
which are in the archdeaconry of Northumberland and
diocese of Durham.
All the western side of this county is mountainous, from
the boundary of Durham on the S. almost to the valley of
the Tweed on the N.; but this extensive tract, comprising
more than a third of the whole area, is not all of the same
character. The northern, or Cheviot Hills, extending to
about 90,000 acres, being for the most part green nearly to
their summits, comprehending many narrow but fertile
glens, and affording excellent pastures for the breed of sheep
to which they have given their name; whilst those to the
W. and S. are, in general, open solitary wastes, covered
with heath, and of very little value. Along the coast, from
the mouth of the Tyne to that of the Tweed, the country
is, with few exceptions, level and rich, with a soil which, in
some places, is a strong clay, and in others a dry loam, but
almost everywhere very productive, under the enlightened
system of cultivation which prevails so generally throughout
Northumberland. The climate of Northumberland is
colder, and the time of harvest later, than in the more
southerly parts of England. The western and upland
regions are cold and bleak ; but near the sea, although chill
east winds sometimes prevail, the temperature is consider¬
ably milder and warmer. The coast is generally low, and
has numerous bays and headlands ; while near to the main¬
land there are several small islands which are included in
the county.
The principal rivers of the county are the Tyne, Blyth,
Wansbeck, Coquet, Ain, and the Tweed, all of which fall
into the sea, carrying with them the tribute of many smaller
streams. The Till, which empties itself into the Tweed,
is also a considerable rivulet. The Tyne and the Tweed
are by far the most important, the tide flowing up the for¬
mer 16 miles, and up the latter 8 or 10 miles; whilst
the navigation of the other rivers is confined to a small
distance from their mouths. Both of these have long been
celebrated for their salmon fisheries, which are, however,
much less productive than formerly. Those on the Tyne
barely supply the local consumption, but the Tweed
fisheries afford a valuable article of trade with London, to
which the fish are sent packed in pounded ice, by which
means they are presented in the market in nearly as fresh a
state as if they had been newly taken from the water..
Northumberland has long been distinguished for its sub¬
terranean treasures, which are the main source of its wealth
and cause of its populousness. Of these, coal, which abounds
in most parts of it, is by far the most important. It is of
the best quality in the south-eastern quarter, on the banks
of the Tyne, whence those vast quantities are exported
which supply the great consumption of the metropolis, as
well as other British and foreign ports. The coal is all of
the kind called “caking coal,” which melts and runs
together in the fire, and, when of the best quality, leaves
very little ashes. Calculations have been made as to the
extent of this tract, the quantity of coal which it may con¬
tain, and the period when it must be exhausted; but upon
this latter point there is a great difference of opinion, some
estimating that the supplies must cease in three hundred
years, some not in less than eight hundred, whilst by others
it is held to be almost inexhaustible. Of the coal found
in Bamborough, Islandshire, and Glendale ward, the seams
are in general thin, and the quality inferior, not caking nor
burning to a cinder, but yielding a great quantity of ashes.
This is used only for home consumption and for burning
limestone, a purpose for which it is well adapted. Through
300 NOR
NOR
Nortbum- all this district coal and lime are generally found together:
berland. hut the south-eastern quarter, which is so rich in coal, is
destitute of limestone. Lead ore abounds in the mountains
on the S.W., particularly towards the head of that branch
of South Tyne called Allendale, where it has long been
wrought to a considerable extent. Iron ore is found in
many parts; stone marl near Tweedside, shell marl in
Glendale ward, and various sorts of sandstone or freestone
are obtained in almost every quartex*, some of it affording
tolerable flags for roofing and for floors. In the sand¬
stone quarries excellent grindstones are obtained, and a
great many are exported.
The agriculture of Northumberland is an object which is
only second in interest and importance to its coal-works.
Almost all those branches of rural economy for one or
more of which other districts are celebrated, may here be
found combined into one system, and conducted upon the
same farms. One finds here, in great perfection, the Lei¬
cester and Southdown sheep and the short-horned cattle of
Durham and Yorkshire; the turnips of Norfolk, cultivated
upon the drill system of Scotland ; the well-dressed fallows
of East Lothian and Berwickshire; and that regular alter¬
nation of tillage and grazing which is, of all other courses
of cropping, the one best adapted to sustain, and even to
improve, the productiveness of the soil. These remarks
apply in an especial manner to the northern part of the
county, where the farms are in genei’al large, and the occu¬
piers men of education and liberal acquirements. This
quarter has been long distinguished as a school of agricul¬
ture, to which pupils are sent, some of them gentlemen of
fortune, from various parts. The common period of leases,
at least in the northern district, is twenty-one years,
although many are shorter, and upon a few estates no leases
are granted. By the account taken for the purpose of
levying the property-tax in the year 1843, it was found
that the annual value of the real property amounted to
L.1,542,434. It may be worthy of remark here, that at the
seat of the Earl of Tankerville, called Chillingham Castle,
there still exist in the forest some remains of the herds of
wild cattle which are supposed to have formerly abounded
in this island, and to have been the origin of our race of cows.
This county is traversed by two principal lines of rail¬
way, extending from Newcastle, the one northwards along
the coast to Berwick, and the other westwards to Carlisle.
The length of the former, which is entirely in Northum¬
berland, is 66 miles, while the latter extends 41 miles befox-e
it leaves the county. Thei’e ai'e also shorter lines con¬
necting Newcastle with North Shields, Tynemouth, and
Blyth.
Northumberland is not eminently a manufacturing
county. Some wool-combing is carried on at Hexham, and
some thread is spun in the villages; but the chief branches
of manufacturing industry are those that depend upon the
€01116068, and are chiefly carried on within and around the
town of Newcastle, to which head in this work the reader
is referred.
Of all the English counties none is so rich as this in re¬
mains of the Roman era. Among these, the most important
is the famous wall built by Agricola against the Piets, and
subsequently repaix-ed and improved by Hadrian and Se-
verus. It extends across the S. of the county from the
Tyne to the Solway Firth. Thex-e is a great Roman
road running northwards through Northumberland into
Scotland ; and there are, besides, many Roman camps and
stations.
The population of the county at the six decennial enu¬
merations has been as follows:—In 1801 it amounted to
168,078, in 1811 to 183,269, in 1821 to 212,589, in 1831 North-
to 236,959, in 1841 to 266,020, and in 1851 to 303,568. West Pa!.
The number of inhabited houses in 1851 was 47,737. v BaS6-
Northumberland contained, in 1851, 488 churches, with
136,066 sittings. Of these, 154 belonged to the Church
of England, 198 to Methodist sects, 68 to Presbyterians,
20 to Roman Catholics, and 14 to Independents. There
were also 359 Sunday schools-—131 Episcopalian, 115
Methodist, 55 Presbyterian, and 18 Independent. The
number of scholars was 29,687. Of ordinary schools there
were 642, with 37,289 scholars.
The title of Duke of this county belongs to the family of
Pei'cy, which passed into the female line in the last century.
The Eai’l of Carlisle derives his second title from the town
of Morpeth. This county is included in the northern circuit.
The assizes are held at Newcastle thrice a year, and the
quarter-sessions successively at Newcastle, Morpeth, Hex¬
ham, and Alnwick. For the purposes of election two divisions
are formed, each returning two members. The elections for
the northern division are held at Alnwick, and the polling-
places are, besides that town, Berwick, Elsdon, Morpeth,
and Wooler; for the southern they are held at Hexham,
and the other polling-places are Bellingham, Haltwhistle,
Newcastle, and Stamfordham. Besides Newcastle and Ber¬
wick, each of which retmms two members, Morpeth, which,
previous to the Reform Bill, had two members, still retains
one. By the same act one member was given to the
borough of Tynemouth, which includes the town of North
Shields, with a considerable rural district around it. The
towns containing more than 2000 inhabitants, with their
population in 1851, were the following:—
Newcastle 87,784
Tynemouth 29,170
Berwick 15,094
Morpeth  10,012
Alnwick 6231
Hexham 4601
Blyth 2060
The noblemen’s and gentlemen’s seats are generally
handsome edifices, but those especially worthy of mention
are Alnwick Castle, the residence of the Duke of Nor¬
thumberland, and Chillingham Castle, that of the Earl of
Tankerville. Alnwick Castle is at present undergoing
most extensive improvements at an enormous cost, which,
when completed (in about 1860), will render it the most
complete and magnificent bai’onial residence in England.
Lord Ravensworth resides at Eslington Park during a por¬
tion of the year, but his principal seat is Ravensworth
Castle, in the county of Durham. Howick Hall is a hand¬
some building by Paine, under whose superintendence
many of the mansions of the Northumbrian gentry were
rebuilt about the middle of the last century. Bamburgh
Castle, an ancient royal fortress, and the seat of the
Northumbrian kings during the Heptarchy, came into the
possession of Nathaniel, Lord Crewe, Bishop of Durham,
who left extensive estates to trustees for charitable purposes.
The castle has been restored and fitted up for the occasional
residence of the trustees. Ford Castle was rebuilt about a
century ago by the late Lord Delaval. It is now the
property of the Marquis of Waterford, whose agent occupies
the castle. The modern additions are in bad taste, but
there are interesting remains of the ancient fabric, long the
residence of the noted border family of Heron. The re¬
mains of castles now in x'uins are Norham, Etal, Dunstan-
burgh, Warkworth, Prudhoe, Langley, and Thirlwall, with
many others of minor impox-tance. Of Wark and Mitford
little remains but the foundations. Bothal has been fitted
up as a residence for the agent of the Duke of Portland;
and Morpeth for the agent of Lord Carlisle. (j. H.)
NORTH-WEST PASSAGE. See Polar Regions.
301
I^OETH-WESTERN PROVINCES.
isions
nd
tricts.
The North-Western Provinces of Bengal form one of
the great political divisions of Hindustan, comprehending
a vast tract of territory, and constituting a sort of vice-pre¬
sidency under the chief government of India. The ad¬
ministration is conducted by an officer, bearing the title of
lieutenant-governor, who is appointed by the governor-
general in council. These provinces, intersected by the
Jumna and the Ganges, lie between Lat. 23. 51 and 30.
26., Long. 75. 20. and 84. 40.; and are bounded on the N.
by the Deyra Dhoon, Kumaon and Nepaul; on the E. by
Nepaul, Oude, and the lower provinces of Bengal; on the
S. by the lower provinces of Bengal and the native state of
Rewah; and on the S.W. by Bundelcund, Scindia’s terri¬
tory, and Rajpootana. The whole territory, comprehending
an area of 76,190 square miles, with a population, ac¬
cording to the census of 1852-53, of 30,473,927, is dis¬
tributed into six divisions and thirty-three districts. In
the following list the names in capitals are those of the
provinces, the others of districts. But there are districts
also bearing the same name as the provinces, except in
Rohilcund. The order is from north to south.
1. MEERUT,
2. Dehra Dhoon,
3. Saharunpore,
4. Mozuffurnuprgar,
6. Boolundshuhur,
6. Allygurh.
1. DELHI,
2. Bhuttiana,
3. Paneeput,
4. Hurreeanah,
6. Itohtuk,
6. Goorgaon.
ROHILCUND,
1. Bijnour,
2. Moradabad,
3. Budaon,
4. Bareilly and
Pillibheet,
5. Shahjehanpore.
1. AGRA,
2. Muttra,
3. Furruckabad,
4. Mynpoorie,
5. Etawah.
1. ALLAHABAD,
2. Cawnpore,
3. Futtehpore,
4. Humeerpore and
Calpee,
5. Banda.
1. BENARES,
2. Goruckpore,
3. Azimghur,
4. Jaunpore,
5. Mirzapore,
6. Ghazeepore.
Under the general arrangement for the government of
India (3d and 4th William IV., cap. 85), the then existing
Presidency of Bengal was to be divided into two Presi¬
dencies,—one retaining the previous name, the other to be
called the Presidency of Agra. This plan, however, was
not carried out; and by an act subsequently passed (5th
and 6th William IV., cap. 52), power was given to the East
India Company to suspend its operation, and to the go¬
vernor-general in council to appoint, during such suspen¬
sion, a lieutenant-governor of the north-west provinces,
exercising his powers within an extent of territory to be
defined by the authority from whom he received his ap¬
pointment, and with such limitations as the same authority
might deem fit. Agra is the seat of the government thus
established, from which circumstance the officer adminis¬
tering it is usually styled the Lieutenant-Governor-of Agra.
In addition to the limits above defined, the jurisdiction of
this functionary extends over some considerable tracts de¬
nominated the non-regulation districts, comprising the
Saugor and Nerbudda territories, the Butty territory, the
districts of Gurwhal, Ajmere, &c. By the Act of the Go¬
vernor-General in council, dated the 9th of January 1858, Mutiny of
Delhi and Meerut, or some portions thereof, were placed 1857.
under the Chief Commissioner of the Punjab.
As tbe great mutiny of the Bengal army in 1857, though Causes of
extending in some instances to Lower Bengal, and other parts sepoy
of India, was chiefly confined to the north-west provinces, mutiny of
the insertion of the present article seems to afford a fitting
opportunity for giving a summary of the principal occur”
rences connected with that extraordinary event. At the
commencement of the year just mentioned a degree of un¬
easiness was first observed in a brigade of native infantry sta¬
tioned at Barrackpore, and the natives attached to the depot
of musketry at Dum Dum, in the vicinity of Calcutta. A
rumour had been insidiously spread that the sepoys were to
be forced to embrace the Christian faith, and that as a prelude
to the change, and with the view of entrapping the troops in¬
to a loss of caste, the government had given orders that the
grease employed in the arsenal, in the manufacture of car¬
tridges for the new Enfield rifle, should be composed of the
fat of pigs and cows. In using this description of cartridge
one end is bitten off previous to loading ; and as the Moham¬
medan regards the hog as impure, while the Hindoo looks
upon the cow as a sacred animal, it would be alike repug¬
nant to the religious prejudices of both creeds to apply the
new ammunition to the mouth. The rumour appears to have
been first put in circulation at Dum Dum. At this place a
low-caste Hindu meeting a Brahmin sepoy, attached to the
depot of musketry, solicited a draught of water from his
lotah or drinking-cup. The Brahmin refused, observing, “ I
have scoured my lotah, and you will defile it by your touch.”
“Caste!” was the taunting rejoinder, “you think much of
your caste, but wait a little; you are all going to eat bul¬
lock’s fat, and then what will become of your caste?” The
news spread rapidly through the cantonment, and soon ex¬
tended to Barrackpore. At both stations it produced a
high degree of excitement. An investigation into the
matter was forthwith instituted under the orders of the
government. In the course of the inquiry it was ascer¬
tained that hog’s lard did not in any way enter into the
composition of the grease. At the same time, it could not
be satisfactorily shown from what description of animal the
tallow was obtained ; and, as under this doubt it would have
been impossible to convince the sepoys that the ingredients
were of an inoffensive character, the government at once
determined to remove all cause of objection by ordering
the cartridges to be issued altogether free from grease. A
notification was accordingly promulgated abolishing the use
of fat in the composition; but as the application of some
greasy substance was absolutely necessary for the purpose
of lubricating the bore of the rifle, the men were directed
to apply with their own hands whatever mixture they might
prefer. The alleged grievance being thus promptly re¬
dressed, and a full1 explanation of the matter having been
made by the commanding officers, both at Dum Dum and
The nddress to the troops by Major-General Hearsey, commanding at Barrackpore, is remarkable for its manly and straightforward
character. In a letter to the government, dated the 11th February 1857, he observes,—“ I must mention that I had the whole brigade
paraded on Monday afternoon, the 9th, and myself energetically and explicitly explained, in a loud voice, to the whole of the men the
folly of the idea that possessed them, that the government or that their officers wished to interfere with their caste or religious preju-
dices, and impressed on them the absurdity of their for one moment believing that they were to be forced to become Christians. I told
them the English were Christians of the Book, i.e., Protestants; that we admitted no proselytes but those who, being adults, could read
and fully understand the precepts laid down therein; that if they came and threw themselves down at our feet, imploring5 to be made
“ Book ” Christians, it could not be done ; they could not be baptized until they had been examined in the tracts of the Book, and proved
themselves fully conversant in them, and then they must of their own goodwill and accord desire to become Christians of the Book ere
they could be made so. I asked them if they perfectly understood what I said, especially the 2d Grenadiers; they nodded assent: I
then dismissed the brigade. I have since heard from officers commanding regiments, that their native officers and men appeared quite
( koosh ) pleased, and seemed to be relieved from a heaviness of mind that had possessed them.”
NORTH-WESTERN PROVINCES.
302
Mutiny of at Barrackpore, the sepoys appeared perfectly satisfied that
1857. no intention existed of interfering with their religious pre-
judices. Shortly afterwards, however, a similar spirit of dis¬
content developed itself at Berhampore, a military canton¬
ment near Moorshedabad. An escort party of the 34th native
infantry from Barrackpore had made known to the sepoys of
the 19thregiment native infantry stationed at Berhampore the
objections which had been urged against the new cartridges
by their comrades at Barrackpore and Dum Dunu and
though they had been apprised of the remedial mSisures
which had been adopted, a conviction seemed nevertheless to
be gaining ground that the government were steadily bent
upon making the sepoys lose caste by forcing them to handle
impure things. The men were consequently ripe for out¬
break. On the 26th of February the regiment was ordered
to parade for exercise with blank ammunition. When the
cartridges1 were about to be issued, the men, one and all, re¬
fused to receive them, upon the ground that the paper of
which they were made was glossy, and when burned gave
out a smell of animal fat. The plea was wholly without
foundation. Upon being analyzed the paper proved to be
free from all greasy or oily matter. Under these circum¬
stances, it became obvious that any farther continuance in a
conciliatory course would be most impolitic. From the
moment that the main facts of the outbreak were estab¬
lished, every member of the government felt satisfied that
no penalty short of the disbandment of the regiment would
meet the case. A severe example, it was hoped, would
have the effect of convincing the native troops that they
would only bring ruin upon themselves by failing in tbeir
duty to the state, and in obedience to their officers. In
this expectation the men were marched down to Barrack¬
pore, where, on the 31st of March, the regiment was formally
disbanded. The example was at first believed to have
produced the desired effect; and it was asserted that a better
spirit had begun to prevail among the native troops. But
almost immediately after, a European detachment was hur¬
ried down from Dum Dum to Calcutta, where an alarm had
broken out, upon its becoming known that two sepoys of the
2d regiment of native infantry, while on duty at the fort, had
been detected in an attempt to bring over the guard of the
Calcutta Mint. In the following month a sepoy, and one
of the native officers of the 34th native infantry stationed
at Barrackpore, were found guilty of mutiny, and sen¬
tenced to be hung ; and on the 6th of May the general in¬
subordination of the sepoys rendered it incumbent upon the
government to disband and dismiss from the service seven
companies of the same regiment quartered at that place.
At this juncture, moreover, information reached Calcutta of
the mutinous conduct of the 7th regiment of the Oude
irregular infantry at Lucknow.
General These partial mutinies at Barrackpore, Fort William,
outbreak. Berhampore, and Lucknow, indicating a wide-spread spirit
of disaffection, were but the forerunners of the general Mutiny Cf
revolt of almost the entire native army of Bengal. About 1857.
the middle of May, the startling intelligence reached Calcutta
that the flame of insurrection had burst forth at Meerut and
Delhi; that six regiments quartered in those cities, viz., the
11th and 20th native infantry, and the 3d light cavalry, at
Meerut, and the 38th, 54th, and 74th native infantry at Delhi,
had risen in open mutiny, and that the insurgents had seized
and retained possession of the city of Delhi. The announce¬
ment excited an all-absorbing interest throughout all classes
of the community. Every one felt that a crisis was at hand,
demanding from those who were called upon to encounter
it the exercise of a vigorous judgment, combined with the
most resolute courage and the greatest promptitude of de¬
cision. The government were not slow in proving them¬
selves equal to the occasion. A proclamation forthwith
appeared, disavowing all intention on the part of the state
to interfere with the caste or religion of its subjects;2 and
this preliminary step being taken, Lord Canning proceeded
to meet the emergency with all the energy and determina¬
tion which we are wont to admire in the earlier history of
our Indian conquests. The one great object was to procure
European troops. For this purpose prompt measures were
adopted for intercepting the military force then on its
passage from England to China; earnest requisitions for
reinforcements were simultaneously dispatched to the Mau¬
ritius, Ceylon, the Cape of Good Hope, and Great Britain;
and these were followed by the most vigorous preparations
for concentrating in the disturbed districts the scattered
military resources of the empire. In the following nar¬
rative, an attempt is made to connect the leading events
which mark the progress of this momentous outbreak.
Early in May 1857, the 3d regiment of Bengal light Meerut,
cavalry, stationed at Meerut, refused to continue the use
of the old cartridges; none of the new ammunition, as
already observed, having been issued to any native regi¬
ment. For this act of mutiny all the men of the regiment
armed with carbines were tried by court-martial, and eighty-
five of their number sentenced to imprisonment for ten
years with hard labour. The sentence was read at a
general parade of the troops on the 9th of May, and the
prisoners, after being ironed on parade, were marched off to
the jail. Two other native regiments, the 11th and the 20th
infantry,were also quartered at Meerut; and on the following
day, the 10th of May, the men of these corps broke out in
open mutiny, and joined the disaffected light cavalry. Col.
Finnis, of the 11th regiment, attempting to expostulate
with the men, was shot by the insurgents of the 20th re¬
giment. Several other British officers were then singled
out as victims, and all Europeans—men, women, or chil¬
dren—upon whom the miscreants could lay hands, were
ruthlessly murdered. The loss of life extended to about
forty individuals. In the course of the night the mutineers,
1 These were the old cartridges which the regiment were in the habit of using. It is, indeed, worthy of remark, that the new cart¬
ridges had been issued only to the musketry depots at Dum Dum, Umballah, &c., and not to any native regiment. They were adapted
exclusively to the new Enfield rifle ; and as the native regiments were armed hitherto with the common musket, it would have been use¬
less to have issued them.
2 The proclamation ran as follows:—“ The Governor-General of India in council has warned the army of Bengal, that the tales by
which the men of certain regiments have been led to suspect that offence to their religion, or injury to their caste, is meditated by the
Government of India, are malicious falsehoods. The Governor-General in council has learnt that this suspicion continues to be propa¬
gated by designing and evil-minded men, not only in the army, but amongst other classes of the people. He knows that endeavours are
made to persuade Hindus and Mussulmans, soldiers and civil subjects, that their religion is threatened secretly, as well as openly, by the
acts of the Government, and that the Government is seeking in various ways to entrap them into a loss of caste for purposes of its own.
Some have been already deceived and led astray by these tales. Once more, then, the Governor-General in council ■warns all classes
against the deceptions that are practised on them. The Government of India has invariably treated the religious feelings of all its sub¬
jects with careful respect. The Governor-General in council has declared that it will never cease to do so. He now repeats that declara¬
tion, and he emphatically proclaims that the Government of India entertains no desire to interfere with their religion or caste, and that
nothing has been or will be done by the government to affect the free exercise of the observances of religion or caste by every class of
the people. The Government of India has never deceived its subjects. Therefore the Governor-General in council now calls upon them
to refuse their belief to seditious lies. This notice is addressed to those who hitherto, by habitual loyalty and orderly conduct, have
shown their attachment to the government, and a well-founded faith in its protection and justice. The Governor-General in council
enjoins all such persons to pause before they listen to false guides and traitors, who would lead them into danger and disgrace.”
NORTH-WESTERN PROVINCES.
303
Mt ny of having previously rescued the eighty-five prisoners of the
!57. light cavalry who had been sentenced to hard labour, and
having fired the cantonments, retired in the direction of Delhi.
|lhi. This place the mutineers reached on the 11th. Crossing the
Jumna by the bridge of boats, they made direct for the palace
of the king, where, being promptly admitted, they sallied forth
into the town. Here they were met by the Delhi troops,
consisting of the 38th, the 54th, and the 74th native infantry.
Both parties evidently understood each other. The three
regiments at once fraternized with the rebels. This being
done, they turned upon their officers, many of whom they
shot or cut down; then continuing the career of atrocity
commenced at Meerut, they proceeded to murder all Euro¬
peans wherever they could be found. The number who
thus perished is said to have been very great. The next
step of the mutineers was to take possession of the fort and
city, and to secure the bridge of boats over the river.
Lieutenant Willoughby, the commissary of ordnance, held
charge of the magazine, and finding that the rebels were
escalading the walls by means of ladders, which had been
supplied from the palace, gallantly blew up the building.
Unhappily, this heroic soldier received severe injuries, and
did not long survive the daring act. All the Europeans
within the palace were slaughtered with the concurrence,
if not by order of the king, and the restoration of the house
of Timour was proclaimed. Delhi, thus captured, remained
in the occupation of the mutineers; and no inconsiderable
portion of the Bengal army was now arrayed in armed
resistance against the lawful rulers of the country. On the
part of the British, it was felt that the prompt recapture
of the city was of the first importance, it being obvious that
the preservation of order throughout the north-west pro¬
vinces was mainly dependent upon the early and signal dis¬
comfiture of the rebels. Delay, however, was unavoidable.
The commander-in-chief, General Anson, hastening down
to Delhi from the hill station of Simlah, reached Kurnaul
on the 25th of May, where he was attacked by cholera, and
fell a victim to the disease on the 27th of May. Upon this
the command of the army devolved upon Major-General
Sir H. Barnard, who, having been joined by the troops of
the Rajahs of Jheend and Pateeala, moved on towards
Delhi, and reached Allipore, 10 miles from the city, on the
5th of June. Before, however, the new commander could
reach the captured city, the insurgents sallied forth in great
force, and attacked a portion of the troops from Meerut
under Brigadier-General Wilson, at Ghazee-ood-deen Nug-
gur. The attack was made on the 30th of May, and re¬
peated on the 31st ; but the assailants were thoroughly
beaten and dispersed, leaving behind them five guns, and
large stores of ammunition. Our loss on the two occasions
amounted to 23 killed and 31 wounded. On the 8th of
June, General Barnard advanced from Allipore, and being
joined by Brigadier Wilson, made a spirited attack upon
the enemy’s intrenched outposts at Badlee-ke-serai, cap¬
tured the heights in front of Delhi, together with 26 guns,
and drove the rebels, dispirited, within the walls of the
city. The position thus secured by the British extended
from the river on the left, along the ridge facing the north
side of the city as far as the Subzee Mundee suburb on the
right, where the hilly ridge terminates; the distance from
the city walls averaging from 1200 to 1500 yards. On this
occasion a most determined resistance was shown by the
enemy, and the loss of the British was no less than 51
killed and 134 wounded or missing, with 63 horses. Next
day, and again on the 10th and the 11th, the enemy
attacked the British position, but were repulsed, and re¬
treated within the city. On the 12th a very serious attack
was made by the mutineers on the flagstaff picquet, nearly
in the centre ol the British position, and a few hours after¬
wards, at the Subzee Mundee, on the British extreme right.
The 60th native infantry, which had been detached to
Rohtuck, and had there mutinied and joined the insurgents
at Delhi, suffered mucli in this encounter. An assault
upon the city had been arranged for the 13th of June, but,
owing to the mistake of a superior officer in delaying to
withdraw the picquets—without which the columns of at¬
tack would have been too weak—was abandoned. On the
15th the rebels again made a sortie, attacked the Metcalfe
picquet, and tried to turn the left flank of the British, but
after a sharp action, were repulsed with great Joss. On the
17th the enemy opened a very heavy cannonade to cover
some batteries they were constructing. A single shot fired
by them killed Ensign Wheatley of the 54th native in¬
fantry, and killed or wounded nine men. At 4 p.m. Majors
Tombs and Reid led two columns to the attack of the
works the rebels had just commenced, and destroyed them,
losing only 18 killed and wounded. On this day the
mutineers were reinforced by the Nusseerabad brigade, con¬
sisting of the 2d company 7th battalion artillery, No. 6
horse battery, the 15th and 30th native infantry, and a
few troopers of the 1st Bombay lancers. On the 19th
the enemy attacked the British position in great force, a
very large body of them having got in the rear of it. The
action lasted till late at night, and was renewed next morn¬
ing. It ended in the retreat of the rebels, but the British
loss was 10 officers, 89 men, and 60 horses killed, wounded,
or missing. Lieutenant-Colonel Yule, of the 9th lancers,
was among the killed. On the 21st the rebels were joined
by the 6th light cavalry, the 3d, 36th, and 61st native
infantry from Jullundur and Phillour. On the 23d of
June, being the centenary of Plassey, the rebels made a
determined sortie,'which was not repulsed without severe
loss to the British. A gun was disabled, and 4 officers and
156 men were killed or wounded. On the 27th, and again
on the 30th, sorties were made, which the British repulsed,
with the loss to themselves of 62 killed and wounded on the
first occasion, and 46 on the second; but they were now
joined by fresh troops, which, on the 3d of July, made up
the besieging army to 6600 men of all arms. It was now
again proposed to attempt to take the city by a coup de
main; but the idea was again abandoned. On the 1st
and 2d of July, the 8th irregular cavalry, the 18th, 28th,
29th, and 68th native infantry, No. 15 horse battery, and
two 6-pounders, from Rohilcund, marched into the city
across the bridge of boats. On the 3d the rebels moved a
force of several thousand men against Allipore, which they
plundered; but next day the plunder was retaken by Major
Coke after a sharp skirmish. Further attacks were made by
the rebels on the 4th and 9th of July, in the last of which
the British loss amounted to 211 killed and wounded.
General Barnard was attacked with cholera, and died on
the morning of the 5th. The vacancy was supplied by
General Reed; but before the close of the month this
officer also was compelled, by severe illness, to hand over
the chief command to General Wilson. On the 9th the
enemy made a spirited sortie, and 100 of their horse charged
right into camp, cutting down Lieutenant Hills and some
camp followers. At the Subzee Mundee the fire was very
hot. The total British loss was 9 officers and 214 men
killed and wounded. In spite of past defeats the mutineers,
on the 14th of July, made a bold attempt to capture the
British batteries. The attempt proved abortive; but so
fierce was the onset that the assailants inflicted a loss upon
their opponents of 16 officers, including Brigadier Cham¬
berlain, and 194 men killed and wounded. On the 18th the
last serious engagement in the Subzee Mundee took place,
when the total of British casualties was 11 officers and 80
men. The British works were henceforward so complete in
this place that the enemy could effect nothing. Again, on
the 23d, the rebels came out in considerable strength, and
moved upon the British position at the Metcalfe battery.
Here they were taken in flank by a force under Brigadier
Mutiny of
1857.
*
304 NORTH-WESTERN PROVINCES.
Mutiny of Showers, and put to precipitate flight. A lull of a few days
v j succeeded ; but on the 31st of July, the anniversary of the
Mohammedan festival, styled “ Buckree Eed,” the enemy
poured out in great force, and commenced a general attack
upon the advanced posts of the British. The contest was
continued without intermission, day and night, until the
morning of the 2d of August. Never before had the rebels
displayed so great an amount of determination. Although
their courage invariably failed them when about to make
the final rush, yet never before had they so closely ap¬
proached the British breastworks. Throughout this pro¬
longed encounter, the British, well under cover, inflicted
terrible punishment upon the enemy, with slight loss to
themselves ; and when, about noon on the 2d, the rebels
drew olf the dead and wounded, who lay in heaps before
the British works, of the British only 46 of all ranks were
wounded. A few days later (12th of August), a battery
which had been opened by the enemy outside the walls,
bearing upon the point known as Metcalfe House, was
captured by a force under Brigadier Showers, who was
severely wounded. In this gallant affair the casualties
among the British extended to 117 killed and wounded;
many of the latter, however, were but slightly injured. It
may be here stated that, inclusive of three or four minor
contests which it has not been thought necessary to notice,
the number of engagements fought in front of Delhi from
the date of the insurrection to the commencement ot
August, amounted to no less than twenty-three. In these
the aggregate loss of the British was 318 killed and 1062
wounded. Of the former, 22 were officers and 296 privates ;
and of the latter, 72 were officers, the remainder consisting
of rank and file. With respect to the mutineers, though
their losses from their multiplied defeats must have been
enormous, still their numerical strength was throughout far
superior to the English; for, in addition to the reinforce¬
ments already mentioned, they had received a wing of the
12th native infantry, the 14th irregular cavalry, and half
No. 18 light field battery from Jhansi, and the Neemuch
brigade—viz., a troop of horse artillery, a wing of the 1st
light cavalry, the 72d native infantry, the 7th Gwalior
contingent, and the cavalry and infantry of the Kotah
contingent, which arrived late in July, besides many
smaller bodies.
After the fruitless attempt of the 1st of August, the enemy
appear to have lost all hope of dislodging the British, and
for upwards of three weeks remained comparatively inactive,
under shelter of their fortifications. On the 8th of August
Brigadier Nicholson arrived in the camp with a strong
brigade from the Punjab, bringing up the strength of the
English army to 8122 rank and file, besides 1535 sick, and
304 wounded. On the 13th a body of the enemy’s cavalry
left Delhi by the Nujufgurh road, with a view, it was
thought, of interrupting the British communications with
the Punjab. Several parties of them were cut up by
Lieutenant Hodgson with his horse and the guide cavalry,
and he returned to camp on the 22d. On the 24th a strong
column of the rebels with 18 guns, proceeded in the Baha-
durgurh direction, to intercept the field-train coming to the
British camp from Ferozepore. General Wilson, penetrat¬
ing the design, despatched a force in pursuit, under Brigadier
Nicholson, who came up with the rebels on the 26th,
posted at Nujufgurh. Here he attacked them with great
success, captured all their guns, and drove them back broken
and dispirited to Delhi. Their loss was estimated at be¬
tween 300 and 400; that of the British was 95 killed and
wounded. On the morning of the 27th a sortie was made
from Delhi, under the impression that the British force was
much weakened by the despatch of the force under Briga¬
dier Nicholson, who had not yet returned; but the attack Mutiny0f
was easily repulsed. 1857.
By the 6th of September, all the British reinforcements
that could be looked for, together with the siege-train, had
arrived. It was now determined to commence regular
siege operations, and the effective force for that purpose
amounted to 8748 men. There were besides in hospital
2977. The Europeans were—of artillery, 580; cavalry,
443 ; infantry, 2294. There were also the Cashmere con¬
tingent of 2200 men with 4 guns, and some hundred men
under the Jheend Rajah.1
. The north face, from which side the stronghold of the
rebels was to be attacked, comprised the Moree, Cashmere,
and Water bastions, with the curtain-walls connecting them.
Four batteries armed with heavy guns having been esta¬
blished in commanding positions, and within a short dis¬
tance of the walls, the bombardment commenced on the
11 th of September. In planning the attack one great object
kept in view was to divert attention from the real point of
the intended assault, and in this the British commander
completely succeeded, the enemy obviously concluding,
from their preparations that the attack was to be made
from a point more to the right. On the night of the 13th
two breaches near the Cashmere and Water bastions be¬
ing examined by the engineers, and pronounced practica¬
ble, orders for the assault were issued to take place at day¬
break the following morning. The arrangements for the
storming, which was to be made by four columns and a
reserve, were as follows:—1st column, Brigadier-General
Nicholson,—Her Majesty’s 75th regiment, 1st Bengal
fusiliers, and 2d Punjab infantry : to storm the breach
near the Cashmere bastion, and escalade the face of the
bastion. 2d column, Brigadier Jones, C.B,—Her Ma¬
jesty’s 8th regiment, the 2d European Bengal fusiliers,
and 4th Sikh infantry: to storm the breach in the Water
Bastion. 3d column, Colonel Campbell,—Her Majesty’s
52d regiment, the Kumaon battalion, and 1st Punjab in¬
fantry : to assault by the Cashmere gate after it should
be blown open. 4th column, Major Reid,—Detachment of
European regiments, Sirmoor battalion, Guide infantry,
and detachment of Dograhs: to attack the suburb Kis-
sengunge, and enter the Lahore gate. 5th column, Bri¬
gadier Longfield,—Her Majesty’s 60th Rifles, Kumaon bat¬
talion, and 4th Punjab infantry: the reserve.
At four o’clock a.m. the several columns were marched
to their respective positions, the heads of Nos. 1, 2, and
3 being concealed until the moment for action should
arrive. The signal for the assault was to be the advance of
the Rifles to the front to cover the heads of the columns
by skirmishing. Upon the word of command being given,
the Rifles dashed to the front with a shout, skirmishing
along and through the low jungle which extended to within
50 yards of the ditch. At the same moment Nos. 1 and 2
columns, the one headed by General Nicholson and the
other by Brigadier Jones, and consisting respectively of
950 and 850 men, emerged from the Koodsee Bagh, their
place of concealment, and steadily advanced towards the
breaches. On attaining the open space they were met from
the front and both flanks by a storm of bullets, and officers
and men fell fast on the crest of the glacis. For ten minutes
it was found impossible to get the ladders down into the
ditch, but the resolution of the British soldier carried all be¬
fore it. The scarp was ascended, and with a cheer and a rush
both breaches were won, and the enemy fled in confusion.
In the meantime the third column, consisting of 950 men
under Colonel Campbell of Her Majesty’s 52d light infantry,
made direct for the Cashmere gate, preceded by the explo¬
sion party under Lieutenants Home and Salkeld of the en-
1 The British troops actually engaged in the recapture of the city amounted to 2100 men.
ifutiny of gineers. Tliis little band, advancing in broad daylight to the
1857. gateway in the teeth of a sharp fire of musketry, coolly pro-
—v'*'' ceeded to adjust the powder bags. During the daring enter¬
prise Lieutenant Salkeld received two gunshot wounds. His
first shot was through the.arm; notwithstanding this he went
on to the gate, and while assisting in fastening the bags on
the spikes, he was shot through the thigh, and fell. Sergeant
Carmichael stepping forward to fire the train, u’as shot
dead. Sergeant Burgess then made the attempt with better
success, but paid for it with his life. Sergeant Smith, be¬
lieving that Burgess had also failed, sprang forward, but
seeing the train alight, threw himself into the ditch, and
escaped the effects of the explosion. A tremendous crash
announced that the gate was blown in, and the 3d column
rushed to the assault, and entered the town at ten o’clock,
just as the 1st and 2d columns had won the breaches.
To four of the little band of heroes who accomplished the'
destruction of the gate the Victoria cross was afterwards
awarded, viz., to Lieutenants Home and Salkeld, of whom
the former was killed on the 1st of October by the prema¬
ture explosion of a mine in destroying the fort of Ma-
lagurh, and the latter died of his wounds received at Delhi.
The other two on whom the cross was bestowed were Ser¬
geant Smith and a soldier of Her Majesty’s 52d, who bound
up Lieutenant Salkeld’s wounds. General Nicholson having
formed the troops within the walls, directed his advance
along the ramparts, occupying the defences as far as the
Moree bastion. Here, while endeavouring to penetrate
still further in the direction of the Lahore gate, this most
able, zealous, and gallant soldier, whose exploits during the
Afghan and Sikh wars, and recent victory at Nujufgurh,
had covered him with glory, received a wound at the head
of the advancing column, which, on the 23d of September,
terminated in his death. Unhappily the 4th column, which
had been destined to carry the suburb of Kishengunge and
enter the Lahore gate, failed in the enterprise. The prin¬
cipal loss sustained by the assailants was due to the obstinate
resistance they met with in clearing the way from the Moree
bastion to the Caubul gate, in a vain attempt to take the Burn
bastion, and in the repulse at Kishengunge. On the day
of the assault alone the loss amounted to 1104 men killed
and wounded, and 66 officers, exclusive of the losses of the
Cashmere contingent, or Dograhs, who were completely
routed by the rebels, and fell back to camp, leaving four
guns in the hands of the enemy. The loss of the enemy is
given at 1500 men. A permanent lodgement having been
now effected, preparations were made on the 15th for shel¬
ling the rebels out of the palace, the fort of Selimgurh,
and the other strong positions of the city. At dawn on
the 16th the magazine was stormed. In it were captured
125 pieces of cannon. The palace now lying well exposed
from this point, the guns opened upon it from the inclo¬
sure. The Kishengunge battery, which had repulsed the
4th column, was now evacuated by the enemy, and the
guns there taken swelled the number of captured pieces
to 200. On the 16th a chain of posts had been established
from the Lahore gate to the magazine, and on the 19th
the line was advanced to the Chandnee Chouk, the princi¬
pal street of the city. By the last mentioned day the re¬
sistance of the mutineers had become less decided ; and in
the evening of that day the Burn bastion was captured by
surprise, and early next morning the Lahore gate and Gar-
stin bastion were taken and held. At length ,the enemy
maintained only a desultory warfare from the tops of the
houses; and on the 20th of September, after an arduous
struggle, continued during seven days, the labour of the
gallant troops were crowned with complete success, and the
city of Delhi was once more in the exclusive possession of
the British. Large bodies of the mutineers effected a timely
escape. Among the fugitives were the king of Delhi and
his two sons and grandson. The royal party fled in disguise
VOL. XVI,
305
along the road south of the city, the king being accompanied Mutiny of
by his favourite wife the Begum Zeenut Mahal, “ the Or- 1857.
nament of the Palace.” On the 21st of September the kino-
surrendered to Captain Hodson, who succeeded also in cap¬
turing his two sons, Mirza Mogul and Mirza Khizr Sultan,
together with his grandson, Mirza Abu Bukr, at the tomb of
Humayoon, about 5 miles from Delhi. The life of the king,
now nearly ninety years of age, has been spared, and he
may be safely allowed to pass the remainder of his days
in peaceful exile. Not so the younger princes of the
family. His sons and grandson, who were known to have
taken an active part in the rebellion, on being taxed with
their guilt, craved for mercy. But stern justice alone
was to be dealt to them, and they were at once sentenced
to be shot. Their execution took place at the Delhi gate
on the 22d September. After the recapture of the city,
General Wilson, then suffering from severe illness, resigned
the command of the field force to General Penny, who, on
the morning of the 24th of September, despatched Lieu¬
tenant Colonel Greathed of Her Majesty’s 8th regiment,
with a strong moveable column to clear the Doab, and en¬
deavour to open communications with General Plavelock
at Cawnpore.
Cawnpore, one of the great military stations of the East Cawnpore.
India Company, is situated on the right or western bank of
the Ganges, immediately opposite to the territory of Oude.
In the spring of 1857, the military quartered here consisted of
three regiments of native infantry and one of native cavalry,
together with a detachment of Her Majesty’s 84th regiment.
For some weeks previous to the outbreak, the native troops
were known to have largely participated in the general ex¬
citement caused by the insidious rumours regarding the de¬
filed cartridges. Symptoms of insubordination had been
manifested from time to time in the ranks ; and at length, on
the night of the 4th of June, the 1st regiment of infantry and
the 2d light cavalry rose in open mutiny. At their head
appeared a Hindoo rajah known as Nana Sahib. This
monster in human form was the adopted son of the late
ex-Peishwa, Bajee Rao of Poona, and as such he had laid
claim to the reversion of the pension which the latter en¬
joyed from the British. His pretensions, however, were
overruled by the government, and his subsequent atrocities
would thence appear to have been prompted by personal
resentment. Nana had been on terms of intimacy with
most of the British officers at Cawnpore. He spoke Eng¬
lish, possessed a smattering of European literature, and was
regarded by those who knew him as shrewd and intelligent.
Before the mutiny broke out, and while the authorities
were temporizing in the hope that the recapture of Delhi
would restore peace and order, Nana proposed to strengthen
the garrison of Cawnpore by the addition of his own troops.
His offer was accepted, and about 300 or 400 men were
brought down from his castle at Bithoor, and located near
the magazine. At the same time he invited the officers to
send theirwives and children to Bithoor as a place of safety.
On the 4th of June, when the mutiny broke out, Nana
placed himself at the head of the rebels, saying “ I came in
appearance to help the British, but am at heart their mortal
enemy.” On the following day the 53d and 56th regiments
renounced their allegiance, and joined the mutineers. Nana
was not slow in proving himself the fitting commander of
the rebel force. An alarm having broken out at Futty-
gurh, a military station situate about 70 miles above Cawn¬
pore, a party of 132 Europeans, consisting of men, women,
and children, hurriedly quitted that place in boats, and were
proceeding down the river towards Allahabad. Upon ar¬
riving off Bithoor, Nana opened fire upon them. An oi'der
was then given to board the boats, which being done, the
fugitives were seized and dragged to the parade-ground at
Cawnpore, where the whole party were barbarously mur¬
dered. In the meantime the British force at Cawnpore
2 Q
NORTH-WESTERN PROVINCES.
306 NORTH-WESTERN PROVINCES.
Mutiny of had taken refuge, together with the women and children,
1857. within an intrenched camp under the command of Sir Hugh
Wheeler. Here, though besieged by a force 5000 strong,
the garrison succeeded in repelling every attack, and, more¬
over, frequently sallied out from the intrenchments to dis-
perse the rebels. In one of these sorties their gallant leader
was severely wounded, and his little band, dispirited by the
disaster, worn out by constant watching, enfeebled from
want of food, and encumbered moreover with a number of
women and children, were induced to surrender, upon re¬
ceiving the solemn promise of Nana that they should be
allowed to withdraw with the whole of the European popu¬
lation to Allahabad. The capitulation was made out on the
1st of July. Upon giving up the treasure, with the guns and
ammunition, the garrison with their followers were permitted
to embark. But the moment had now arrived for carrying
out Nana’s meditated treachery. He had never intended
that his victims should be allowed to escape. No sooner
had the boats loosened from the shore than a fire of artil¬
lery was treacherously opened upon them. The boats,
with one exception, were then brought back, and the sur¬
viving occupants once more landed, when Nana, in spite ot
his solemn pledge, issued his mandate for the indiscriminate
massacre of the male portion of the prisoners. The boat
containing General Wheeler does not appear to have been
captured until nearly 22 miles below Cawnpore, when it was
stopped, and all on board carried prisoners to Nana.
Amongst them, besides the veteran commander, who was
severely wounded, were Dr Harris and Captain Mackenzie.
Their arms had been tied, and thus bound they were led
off to execution. All met death bravely. Dr Harris fell
saying that his countrymen would revenge his death.
Lieutenants Henry Delafosse and Mowbray Thomson, both
of the 53d native infantry, had escaped from the advanced
boat by swimming. The women and children, in receiving
a short respite, were but spared for a worse fate than in¬
stant death. For some days they were kept in the most
agonizing suspense, and on the eve of the battle of Cawn¬
pore all were barbarously murdered. The number of Euro¬
peans thus slaughtered between the 1st and the 15th July
amounted in the aggregate to 868, and consisted of 88 of¬
ficers, 190 rank and file of Her Majesty’s 84th foot, 70
ladies, 120 women and children of Her Majesty’s 32d foot,
and 400 of the European population of the town, including
civilians, merchants, shopkeepers, and others. If to these
be added the number of fugitives who were intercepted in
coming down the river from Futtyghur, the total number
butchered by Nana amounts to no less than 1000 Euro¬
peans.
The relief of Cawnpore had been intrusted to Brigadier-
General Havelock. This officer reached Allahabad on the
30th of June. At this time the relieving force under his
command was composed of two European regiments re¬
cently withdrawn from Persia—viz., the 64th and the 78th,
mustering together 1100 or 1200 bayonets. Moving on
from Allahabad on the 4th of July, the general was joined
by a small detachment under Major Renaud. With the com¬
bined force, which, inclusive of 561 native soldiers, counted
in all but 1964 men, the general, on the 12th of July, encoun¬
tered the rebels, amounting to 3500, with 12 guns, at
Futtehpore, situated midway between Cawnpore and Alla¬
habad, and put them to complete route, capturing all their
guns. The loss of the British was, perhaps, the lightest
that ever attended such signal success. It amounted to no
more than 6 sepoys killed, and 8 wounded and missing.
General Havelock pursued the enemy in the direction of
Cawnpore. On the 15th he again attacked the rebels in
their entrenched position, close to the village of Osung,
capturing four more of their guns; and on the 16th he
signally defeated Nana Sahib in front of Cawnpore. At
this place the enemy were posted behind a succession of
villages, where a determined stand was to be made. The Mutiny of
fight was most stubborn, and every inch of ground was 1857.
resolutely disputed during the space of nearly three hours.
At length the fate of the day was decided by a flank move¬
ment of the 78th Highlanders turning Nana Sahib’s left.
«I never,” says an eye-witness, “ saw anything so fine.”
The men of the 78th went on, with sloped arms, like a wall.
Till within 100 yards not a shot was fired. At the word
‘ charge,’ they broke just like an eager pack of hounds, and
the village was taken in an instant.” Cawnpore now lay
open to the British. The rebel chief retired in the direc¬
tion of Bithoor, blowing up the magazine previous to his
retreat. In this engagement the loss of the British was
not inconsiderable, amounting to 70 killed and wounded
out of a force falling short of 2000 men. This force, how¬
ever, it must be borne in mind, had been opposed to 6000
mutinous sepoys, armed and disciplined after the English
fashion. Upon entering Cawnpore on the following morn¬
ing, the extent of the frightful catastrophe which had be¬
fallen the British garrison and the European residents first
became fully known. A wholesale massacre had been
perpetrated by Nana Sahib. The site was a paved court¬
yard. One writer describing the scene, observes :—“ The
blood was two inches deep upon the pavement; and from
the report we got from the residents, it appears that after
we had beaten the enemy on the previous evening, the
sepoys entered the place where the unhappy victims were
confined, killed all the ladies, threw their naked bodies into
a well, and hurled down the children alive upon their but¬
chered mothers. I saw it, and it was an awful sight.” Long
tresses of hair, torn bibles and prayer-books, work-boxes
and unfinished work, scattered about the red floor, told too
well the harrowing tale. Two or three only of the captives,
who had been concealed by their native servants, contrived
to escape. The daughter of Sir Hugh Wheeler perished
among the victims. This heroic lady, who appears to have
inherited the indomitable spirit of her father, is stated to
have shot five of the fiends with a revolver before they
could get sufficiently near to her to cut her down. Another
lady, previous to her death, is declared to have avenged
herself by destroying the ruffian who had carried her oft,
and who probably destined her for outrage. Upon reach¬
ing Bithoor in pursuit of the flying enemy, it was found
that Nana had just evacuated the village, and the British
commander was obliged to content himself with burning
the palace of the rebel and bringing away the guns. Gene¬
ral Havelock then crossed the Ganges into Oude, on his
march to Lucknow, leaving General Neill in charge of
Cawnpore. On the 28th July, he twice attacked the rebels,
and defeated them in both engagements. Arriving at
Oonao on the 29th, he found the place defended by 10,000
of the insurgent troops, including a portion of Nana Sahib’s
force. The village had been strongly fortified, and every
house was loopholed. But the assault of the British was
irresistible, and the enemy retreated, leaving behind them
their guns. After a halt of four hours, the indefatigable
and victorious commander pushed on for Futtehpore Chow-
rasee, distant about 30 miles from Lucknow. Here a
desperate engagement ensued, which resulted in the cap¬
ture of the town—the rebels withdrawing in the direction
of Lucknow. On this occasion the British sustained a loss
of 88 killed and wounded. After advancing still nearer to
Lucknow, and fighting another battle, in which the British,
though as usual victorious, incurred a loss of 85 killed and
wounded, General Havelock had the mortification to find
that farther progress was for the present impracticable. .A
body of the rebels, 25,000 strong, were posted in an in¬
trenched position in his front; cholera was making its
appearance in his small force, which had been already mate¬
rially reduced by incessant combats and successive victories.
The strength of the little band had indeed been overtaxed.
NOKTH-WESTERN PROVINCES.
307
Mutiny of It had gained more victories than had ever before been won
1857. in so short a time; but its numbers were now reduced be-
^ low 900 men. In these circumstances, General Havelock,
convinced of the impossibility of penetrating the thick
masses of the insurgents, deemed it incumbent upon him
to pause on his triumphant career, and to fall back upon
Cawnpore. A retreat was accordingly commenced. The
rebels, taking heart, closely followed in the rear, and ad¬
vanced as far as Nawabgunge. Here the British com¬
mander, nowise daunted by the enemy’s superiority of num¬
bers, once more halted to give them battle. Again he was
victorious; and, having added two more of the enemy’s
guns to his previous trophies, he leisurely crossed the
Ganges, and on the 13th August rejoined General Neill at
Cawnpore. Such a series of gallant exploits forms a bril¬
liant episode in Indian history. The battles of Cawnpore
and Oonao lose nothing of their brilliancy, even when com¬
pared with the victories of Clive and Wellesley. Having
rested for a few days at Cawnpore, General Havelock
marched a second time to Bithoor, where it was under¬
stood that the rebels, about 4000 strong, were posted with
two guns. Here, on the 16th of August, with a force mus¬
tering 1300 men and 14 guns, he again encountered them ;
and, after an obstinate engagement, in which the enemy
lost 250 killed and wounded, drove them from their posi¬
tion and captured their guns. The British loss was 14 killed
and 30 wounded. General Havelock then determined to
return to Cawnpore, there to await the arrival of reinforce¬
ments before advancing again upon Lucknow,
mcknow. At Lucknow, the capital of Oude, as early as the 3d of
May, the men of the 7th regiment of the Oude irregular in¬
fantry had mutinied. The city was held by Sir Henry Law¬
rence, one of the ablest and bravest officers of the Indian
army. No time was lost in disarming the regiment. A strict
investigation was then instituted, at the close of which it
was deemed sufficient to dismiss the greater number of the
native officers of the regiment, together with a few of the
sepoys, and to overlook the conduct of the remainder.
These conciliatory measures failed to produce a better feel¬
ing in the other regiments stationed at Lucknow. On the
30th of May an outbreak occurred, when about one-half
of the men of the 48th and 7lst native infantry, and some
few of the 13th native infantry, with two troops of the 7th
light cavalry, rose in insurrection. A sharp encounter fol¬
lowed, in which the mutineers sustained considerable loss,
but the greater portion contrived to elude pursuit in the
direction of'Seetapore. The example thus set at Lucknow
was promptly followed at every military station throughout
the province. The troops at Seetapore mutinied on the
4th of June ; those at Fyzabad and Secrora on the 8th;
at Sultanpore and Pertaubghur on the 8th ; at Pershadee-
pore on the 10th ; and at Burraich and Gonda at dates not
given. The regiments at these several stations consisted
of two field batteries, two regiments of cavalry, and ten
regiments of infantry. From Sultanpore, the 15th Oude
irregular cavalry and the 8th irregular infantry, started at
once for Delhi. It is worthy of remark, that at Fyzabad
the mutiny was marked rather by the generous spirit of
Europe, than by the barbarous customs of the East. Here
the men alter mutinying, actually saluted their officers, and
placed the ladies under protection. All the outposts of
Oude being thus lost, the mutineers gradually closed in
upon Lucknow. The position of Lawrence was now be¬
coming critical. His European force, the only one to be
depended upon, was fearfully small. It consisted of 510
men of Her Majesty’s 32d foot; and within the intrench-
ments there were no less than 350 women and children.
1 hree positions only were held by the British,—the Re¬
sidency, the Muchee Bhawan, and the cantonments. These
were greatly strengthened, and the remaining military
posts within the city were all abandoned. On the 30th of
June, Sir H. Lawrence having learned, by a reconnoisance Mutiny of
made on the previous day, that the rebel army were as- 1857.
sembling at Chinhutt, about 10 miles from Lucknow 's——v—
marched thither with 300 of Her Majesty’s 32d, 150 of the
13th native infantry, 100 of the 48th and 7lst, 125 Sikh
horse, 30 mounted Europeans, 300 police, and 11 guns, of
which 6 were manned by natives. On reaching the vil¬
lage of Chinhutt, he found the enemy to the number of
15,000 men, with 36 guns prepared to receive him. At
the first shot the police went over in a body, and the native
gunners, cutting the traces, galloped over to the enemy, or
back to Lucknow. The rest of the force displayed pro¬
digies of valour, natives vying with Europeans in daring
acts; but overpowered by numbers, the whole body were
compelled to retreat to the Residency at Lucknow, leaving
118 European officers and men killed, and 182 natives killed
and missing, besides 54 Europeans and 11 natives wounded.
The death of Colonel Case, commanding the 32d regiment,
who fell at the head of his men, deserves to be recorded.
Captain Bassano seeing him fall, went up to assist him.
“ Leave me to die here,” were the words of the wounded
hero ; “ your place is at the head of your company. I have
no need of assistance.” From the moment the force re¬
entered the Residency, the siege of that place commenced.
On the 2d of July Sir H. Lawrence was wounded by a
fragment of a shell; and after suffering amputation of the
leg, died on the morning of the 4th, having nominated
Major Banks to succeed him as chief commissioner and
commandant. On the 20th of July the enemy in vast
numbers attempted to storm, but were repulsed with the
loss of 1000 men. Next day Major Banks was killed, and
was succeeded by Brigadier Inglis, who continued the gal¬
lant defence, and repulsed several attempts to storm, of which
one on the 10th of August, and another on the 5th of Sep¬
tember, were the most spirited. On the 25th of Septem¬
ber, Generals Outram and Havelock, with a force originally
consisting of 2500 men, cut their way to the Residency,
and it becomes requisite, therefore, to return to the opera¬
tions under Havelock at Cawnpore.
After the second battle of Bithoor, fought on the 16th of
August, General Havelock, as above noticed, retraced his
steps to Cawnpore, where he expected to be reinforced by
fresh succours from Calcutta. Here, on the 14th Septem¬
ber he was joined by a force under General Outram, who,
though the superior officer, determined with chivalrous
generosity to waive his rank on the occasion, and to leave to
General Havelock the glory of relieving Lucknow, and
rescuing its gallant and enduring garrison. In accordance
with this determination, Sir James merely accompanied the
force to Lucknow, in his civil capacity, as chief commissioner
of Oude, at the same time tendering his military services to
the general as a volunteer. On the 19th, General Have¬
lock having formed his little army into two brigades,—of
which the first consisted of Her Majesty’s 5th fusiliers, the
64th and 84th regiments, the 1st Madras fusiliers, Captain
Maude’s troop of horse artillery, and 150 European volun¬
teer cavalry ; and the second of Her Majesty’s 78th High¬
landers, the 90th light infantry, Captain Olphert’s horse bat¬
tery, and some irregular horse,—crossed the Ganges into
Oude ; and on the 21st attacked the rebels at Mungarwar,
and drove them from their position, capturing four guns, two
of which, together with the colours of the 1st Bengal native
infantry, were taken by the volunteer cavalry in a charge
headed by Sir James Outram. The loss of the British was
trifling.
On the 21st of September the indefatigable general ac¬
complished a march of 14 miles, and one of 20 miles on the
22d, at the termination of which the firing at Lucknow was
distinctly heard. A royal salute was then ordered by Ge¬
neral Havelock to be fired to announce his approach to the
garrison. On the 25th the British force, skirting the city7
308 NORTH-WESTE
Mutiny of forced its way to the Residency against enormous numbers
1857. 0f t}le enerny? anci with the loss of 550 officers and men ;
Brigadier Neill and Colonel Bazeley being among the
killed, and Sir J. Outram being wounded.
It was now found that although, by a display of courage
which has never been surpassed, the relieving army
had made its way to the Residency, it was altogether
too weak to remove the besieged, of whom the greater part
were sick and wounded, and women and children. On the
contrary, Generals Outram and Havelock were now them¬
selves besieged, and their communications even with Alum-
bagh, where they had left their baggage with a guard of
300 men, were entirely cut off. At a short distance from
the Residency, in the palace called the Kaiserbagh, were
eight European prisoners, Sir M. Jackson, C.S., and his sister;
Captain P. Orr, his wife, and child; Lieutenant Burnes, Ser¬
geant Norton, and Miss Christian ; but nothing could be
done to relieve them, and all the males were subsequently
blown from guns by the rebels. Every day desperate con¬
flicts took place in the inclosure to clear the buildings sur¬
rounding the Residency. Sir J. Outram had now taken
command; and on the 26th of September ordered a sortie,
under Lieutenant Lowe, who cleared the Captan ka^Bazar,
to the east of the Residency, of the enemy, and took i guns,
but with the loss of Captain Hughes and 2 men killed, and
2 officers and 8 men wounded. On the 27th a second
sortie was made in much greater force against the enemy s
Garden battery to the S.W. of the Residency, which suc¬
ceeded in destroying the battery, but with the loss of 10
killed and 11 wounded. On the 29th three sorties were
made, in which Major Simmons, Captain M'Cabe, and a
gentleman volunteer of distinguished gallantry, Mr Lucas,
were killed, and about 50 others killed and wounded. On
the 1st of October Colonel Napier made a very successful
sortie, with trifling loss. In this manner such offensive
operations as the smallness of General Outram’s force
would permit were continued till the 16th of November,
when a determined and successful sortie was made in the
direction of the Kaisarbagh to aid the advance of Sir C.
Campbell, who, with a force of about 4000 men, had
advanced from Cawnpore upon Lucknow. Simultaneously
with the sortie Sir Colin reached the Secunderbagh, a palace
on the E. of the city, and S.E. of the Residency, filled with
sepoys, and protected by the fire from a large mosque, called
Shah Nujjuff, a little to the N., and nearer the Resi¬
dency. Here a terrific combat raged for three hours,
when both places were at length taken, the latter chiefly
by means of the 68-pounders of the naval brigade, com¬
manded by Captain Peel. In the Secunderbagh alone
2000 corpses of the enemy were counted. On the 17th
other defences of the enemy, between the Residency and
the buildings just mentioned, were carried ; and on the
afternoon of that day, under a heavy fire, Generals Out¬
ram and Havelock advanced and met Sir C. Campbell.
While Havelock was addressing his deliverers, his son was
struck down close to him by a ball, but he continued his
harangue, and did not turn to inquire the nature of the
wound until he had concluded his address. In these opera¬
tions 10 officers and 112 men were killed, and 33 officers
and 312 men wounded. The long-beleaguered garrison
of Lucknow was saved; but the numbers of the enemy
were still so great that it was necessary to evacuate the
Residency, and retire upon Cawnpore, without making any
attempt to take the city. At midnight on the 22d of No¬
vember the evacuation was noiselessly effected, most part of
the effects belonging to the garrison being left behind; and so
little was the retreat suspected by the enemy, that they
continued to fire on the Residency long after it was de¬
serted, so well had the operation been planned and carried
out by General Outram. On the 25th of November Ge¬
neral Havelock died of dysentery at Dilkusha, a palace
RN PROVINCES.
and park to the S. of the city. On the 27th Sir C. Mutiny of
Campbell received intimation from General Windham, whom 1857.
he had left to defend Cawnpore, that his position had been
attacked by overwhelming numbers of the rebels. Sir
Colin therefore hastened back to Cawnpoie with the ut¬
most speed, and arrived just in time to save the biidge of
boats from being destroyed by the enemy, who were in pos¬
session of the town, had completely surrounded General
Windham, and had brought some guns to bear on the
brido-e. Their army, estimated at 20,000 men, consisted of
the whole Gwalior contingent, comprising four batteries of
artillery, two regiments of cavalry, and seven of infantry,
and the forces under Nana Sahib and Koer Singh. On the
24th of November the vanguard had approached Cawnpore
so close that General Windham resolved to advance to meet
them, which he did on the 26th at the Pandu Nadee.
After a sharp action he defeated them, and took 3 guns,
losing 7 officers and 50 rank and file killed and wounded.
Then, instead of retiring upon Cawnpore, he encamped in
dangerous ground, amid thick jungle, where he was
attacked next day, and, after a murderous conflict, driven
into his intrenchments, the enemy occupying Cawnpore,
which they plundered, setting fire to many of the public
buildings. On the 28th Sir C. Campbell arrived, and ex¬
tricated General Windham from his perilous position, sur¬
rounded by an infuriated enemy, without supplies, and having
lost more than 300 of his best officers and men. After
keeping the rebels in check until the sick, wounded, and
non-combatants had been safely despatched to Allahabad,
Sir Colin, on the 6th of December, after skilfully drawing
the enemy from their position, advanced on them with irre¬
sistible fury, and overthrew them with great slaughter, cap¬
turing 16 of their guns, and putting them to headlong flight.
He then despatched Brigadier Hope Grant with the cavalry
and artillery, who, coming up with the fugitives as they were
preparing to cross into Oude, took nearly all their remain¬
ing guns, and inflicted a further heavy loss upon them.
Sir Colin’s subsequent operations and his final victories at
Lucknow will be found at the conclusion of this article.
While the events above narrated were occurring at Punjab.
Delhi, Lucknow, and Cawnpore, numerous outbreaks and
slaughters were taking place in other parts of India. On
the 13th of May an outbreak occurred at Ferozepoor,
on the left bank of the Sutlej, doubtless prompted by in¬
telligence of the massacre at Meerut. At this station the
crisis was manfully met by the British. The two regiments
stationed here were the 45th and 57th native infantry.
Upon being ordered to march from their cantonments,
the 45th broke out into open mutiny. They were at once
attacked by Her Majesty’s 61st foot and the 10th Bengal
light cavalry, which remained stanch, and few escaped
from the place. The 57th, upon being reasoned with,
gave up their arms. Ferozepoor is about 50 miles south
of Lahore, the capital of the Punjab. At Meean Meer,
the cantonments of Lahore, Lwere quartered three regi¬
ments of native infantry, the 16th, 26th, and 49th, and
the 8th light cavalry ; and the whole of these, upon the ar¬
rival of tidings of the mutiny at Delhi, it was resolved at
once to disarm. This being accomplished, the men w>ere
moving oft’ to join the disaffected corps at Ferozepoor, but
being intercepted by a movement of the British troops, they
speedily returned to obedience. The whole business was
managed with a degree of tact and discretion which re¬
flects the highest credit on Sir John Lawrence, chief
commissioner in the Punjab. Of the disarmed regiments
at Lahore, one subsequently mutinied. This was the
26th native infantry, which, on the 30th of July, killed their
commanding-officer, and then broke away. The fugitives
were chased by the police and some of the new levies,
and upwards of 500 were slain, or taken prisoners and
executed. At Jullundur the 36th and 61st regiments mu-
Mutiny of
1857.
illygurh.
fusseera-
ad.
lansi,
lissar,
nd Sirsa.
NOETH-WESTERN PROVINCES.
309
tinied on the 4th of June, and with a few men of the 6th
light cavalry proceeded to Phillour, where they were joined
by the 3d native infantry. These corps crossed the Sutlej
and entered Loodiana, whence, being driven out by a de¬
tachment of Her Majesty’s 8th foot, they made their way to
Delhi. Symptoms of disaffection had also been manifested
in the 51st and 55th regiments stationed at Peshawur, and
some of the men had been discharged about the end of
May. The 51st subsequently mutinied at Peshawur, and
the latter at Huzzara. The 51st had been disarmed, and
swift retribution overtook their treachery, nearly the whole
regiment being cut up, or taken prisoners and executed.
The 55th wore attacked and broken, and a large number
taken prisoners were executed at Huzzara. A remnant
escaped, and took refuge with the predatory Affghans of the
frontiers; but although at first received as friends, they are
said to have been forcibly converted to Mohammedanism,
and sold as slaves. At Mooltan two native regiments were
disarmed by Brigadier Chamberlain. Sealkote, another
military station in the Punjab, took an active part in the
mutiny. The 35th regiment of native infantry, part of the
illustrious garrison of Jellalabad, proceeding from Sealkote
to Delhi, were believed to be wavering in their fidelity, and
were disarmed. The 14th native infantry, which had mu¬
tinied at Jhelum, had been completely broken, with the
loss, however, of 50 Europeans of Her Majesty’s 24th regi¬
ment killed and wounded, besides 3 officers ; but a small
remnant escaping to Sealkote, were there joined by the 46th
regiment, and a wing of the 9th light cavalry. The main
body of these mutineers was overtaken by General Nichol¬
son on the 16th of July, and completely cut up. In the
meantime a moveable column had been organized by Ge¬
neral Reed, in concert with Brigadiers Chamberlain, Cotton,
Edwardes, and Nicholson; and mutiny, wherever mani¬
festing itself in the Punjab, was speedily quelled and put
down with a strong hand. Thus, not only did Sir John
Lawrence suppress insurrection in his own province, but
contributed also, in a great degree, to the success at Delhi,
by forwarding large and timely reinforcements to the be¬
sieging army.
Allygurh, an important post, as commanding the com¬
munications up and down the country, had been garrisoned
by four companies of the 9th native infantry, the men of
which had hitherto conducted themselves with steadiness.
On the 20th of May these companies rose against their offi¬
cers, who were thus compelled to abandon the station. A
portion of the same regiment, which was quartered at Myn-
poorie, mutinied on the 22d of May; but by the tact and ad¬
mirable conduct of one of their officers, Lieutenant De
Kantzow, the men were kept back from acts of violence,
and finally quitted the station to join their comrades at
Allygurh, en route to Delhi.
At Nusseerabad, in the province of Ajmere, the 15th
and 30th regiments of native infantry, and the 2d company
of the 7th battalion Bengal artillery, mutinied on the 28th
of May, and beat off with loss a portion of the 1st regiment
of Bombay light cavalry (lancers), who gallantly charged
the guns. In this engagement Captain Spoftiswoode and
Cornet Newberry were killed, and Captain Hardy and
Lieutenant Jack wounded. Colonel Penney, commanding
the 1st light cavalry, was killed by a fall from his horse. The
rebels marched with colours flying and bands playing to
Delhi. Subsequently a portion of the 12th Bombay native
infantry mutinied at Nusseerabad on the 10th of August, and
was disarmed.
On the 29th of May the Hurreeanah battalion and 4th
irregular cavalry, stationed at Hansi and Hissar, to the
north-west of Delhi, mutinied and massacred a number of
Euiopeans. Many of the civil and military officers effected
their escape. 1 he gallant general, Van Cortlandt, who so sig¬
nally distinguished himself in the Mooltan campaign, march¬
ing from the north-west, had two engagements with the rebels Mutiny of
at Sirsa, defeating them in each instance with severe loss. 1857.
At Bareilly the 18th and 68th native infantry, and the
8th irregular cavalry, rose en masse on the 31st of May. The Rarcilly.
outbreak appears to have been concerted for a fixed hour
at a given signal. Brigadier Sibbald was killed. Many
of the European residents and civil servants of the Com¬
pany were massacred. Fortunately the ladies had quitted
the station some days earlier for thatof Nynee Tal. Among
the victims were the two judges of Bareilly, Mr Raikes
and Mr Robinson. These two gentlemen were arraigned
before one of the native judges. It does not appear of what
they were accused, but a mock trial ensued, when they
were found guilty and beheaded. A number of half-castes
and native Christians, amounting to no less than ninety
individuals, were also dragged to the church and there
butchered.
Shahjehanpore, situated 50 miles to the south-east of Ba- Shabjehan-
reilly, was the scene of a more striking tragedy enacted on pore,
the same day. Here the Christian residents were at church,
when the 28th regiment, after cutting down their officers,
surrounded the edifice, and massacred the whole congre-
7 O
gation.
Agra also added to its celebrity by the heroic conduct Agra,
of its garrison during the military revolt. An escort of
treasure, proceeding from this place to Muttra about the
middle of May, and consisting of two companies of the 44th
and 67th native infantry, shot their officers, and decamped
with the booty. Intelligence of the atrocity being conveyed
to Agra, the two regiments on the 31st of May were ordered
to parade and deliver up their arms. No hesitation was
evinced by the men in obeying the mandate. From this
time all was quiet for several weeks. But at the commence¬
ment of July the city was menaced by the 72d native in¬
fantry, a wing of the 7th light cavalry, and the 4th troop
Istbattalion horse artiller}', who, their ranks being swelled by
bodies of malcontents, had marched to Futteypore Sikri from
Neemuch, a cantonment distant 300 miles. At their ap¬
proach the European inhabitants took refuge within the
fort. The garrison there consisted of the East India Com¬
pany’s 3d regiment of European infantry, numbering, with
the artillery, 650 men, besides 500 volunteers, foot and
horse. On Sunday, the 5th of July, about 500 of this garri¬
son,—it being known that the enemy were within 3 miles
of the station,—boldly issued forth to confront the enemy.
An obstinate battle ensued, and the rebels were dislodged
from their position; when, the ammunition of the British
force falling short, it was compelled to retreat. The Eng¬
lish loss amounted to 49 Europeans killed, and 92 wound¬
ed. The spirit and gallantry displayed on the occasion
seems to have had one good result, in securing the fort
from attack or investment. About 5000 Europeans, in¬
cluding the garrison, had taken refuge within its pre¬
cincts. The native troops stationed at Agra, consisting of
the Kotah contingent and the Kerowlee horse, mutinied
before the battle, and joined the rebels. Some weeks pre¬
vious to these events, i.e., on the 25th of May, a procla¬
mation had been issued by the lieutenant-governor of
Agra, offering pardon to all mutineers who should lay down
their arms. This proclamation was disapproved by the
government, and another substituted. Subsequently the
rebels were dispersed. On the 24th of August a detachment
from the fort, under Major Montgomery, consisting of
about 200 men, encountered a strong body of the insur¬
gents of the Doab, posted in the inclosed garden of
Maun Singh, between Hatrass and Allygurh, and drove
them back with great slaughter in the direction of Allygurh.
At Benares, from the moment of the outbreak, great Benares,
uneasiness had been felt, and when Colonel Neill reached
that city with the 1st Madras fusiliers on the 3d of June,
matters w ere in a very critical state. On the following
NORTH-WESTERN PROVINCES.
310
Mutiny of day a report reached the city that the 17th regiment of
1857. native infantry had broken out into open mutiny, and
attacked an escort of treasure at Azimgurh, situated 80
miles north of Benares. Upon this it was thought advisable
to disarm the 37th regiment of native infantry, in which
some excitement had been displayed. The regiment
being ordered on parade, Colonel Neill called upon the
men to lay down their arms. This was answered by a fire
upon the British, which was immediately returned by the
artillery and Europeans. The Sikh regiment and the h-
regular cavalry joined the mutineers. Upon observing the
disaffection of‘the Sikhs, the artillery opened fire upon them,
and broke them, though they charged up to the muzzles
of the guns. The expulsion of the 37th from the lines was
then effected, the mutineers taking the route of Jaunpore.
After doing good service at Benares, Colonel Neill pushed
on to Allahabad, where he arrived on the 11th of June,
in time to save the fort. Here the 6th regiment of native
infantry, which had rendered itself conspicuous by declara¬
tions of loyalty, mutinied on the 4th of June. The mutineers
were joined by three troops of Oude irregular cavalry, and
turned upon their officers, thirteen of whom they cut down.
The remainder, with several civilians, took refuge in the fort,
while the town was occupied by the insurgents; an in¬
fluential Moulvie having set up his standard in the imme¬
diate vicinity, and gathered around him the elements o
rapine and disorder. Colonel Neill found the place close y
invested by the rebels. These he attacked on the 13th
and 15th of June, on which last-mentioned day the enemy,^
beaten on all points, abandoned the city. On the 12th of
July Colonel Neill was promoted to the rank of brigadier-
general ; and on the 16th, having handed ovei the command
of the Allahabad garrison to Captain Hay of the 78th High¬
landers, proceeded to Cawnpore to join General Havelock.
The death of this gallant officer at Lucknow has been al¬
ready noticed.
Gwalior. The Gwalior contingent, a body of native troops paid
by Scindia, but commanded by British officers, revolted on
the 16th of June, in spite of the efforts made by the Maha¬
rajah, through whose aid alone the British officers escaped.
From that time to the middle of November this powerful
body of rebels remained inactive in the neighbourhood of
Gwalior, being kept in check by Scindia, who called out
his feudatories for that purpose. Several times a battle was
on the eve of being fought, in which the superior discipline
of the rebels would have probably given them the advan¬
tage. Had they succeeded, or had Scindia been less warm
in the English cause, it cannot be doubted that the mutinous
contingent would have agreed to the proposal of the In¬
dore rebels and marched on Delhi, in which case the
British besieging army would have been in imminent peril.
Foiled, however, by the opposition of Scindia, the Gwalior
contingent at length, about November, advanced towards
Calpee, and thence, on the 24th of that month, marched
on Cawnpore, where they engaged and defeated General
Windham, but were subsequently routed, as mentioned
above, by Sir Colin Campbell. They, nevertheless, still
continued to hang about Calpee; and on one or two occa¬
sions skirmished sharply with the English advanced posts
in that direction.
Indore. Holkar’s contingent rose on the 1st of July, and attacked
the government British Residency, which they destroyed,
and killed several officers and many persons connected with
the English government. Most of the Indore officials and
Europeans escaped to Sehore, from whence they arrived
safely at Hoshungabad. The main body of these mutineers
marched to Gwalior, where they vainly endeavoured to pre¬
vail on the Gwalior contingent to join them in an advance on
Delhi. At last, on the 5th of September, they proceeded to
Dholpore, about 30 miles from Agra, at the point where the
road from Delhi to Bombay crosses the Chumbul, Fortunate
it was that Delhi had fallen ere this great force of rebels Mutiny of
could reach it. Colonel Greathed’s column, which had been 1857.
despatched towards Agra as soon as Delhi was completely
occupied, after dispersing the Jhansi rebels in a sharp
action at Bolundshuhur on the 27th of September, and
blowing up the fort of Malagurh on the 29th, reached Agra
on the&10th of October early in the morning. The weary
troops had scarce begun to encamp when they were charged
by the cavalry of the Indore rebels, whose guns opened on
them at the same time. The English suffered some loss,
and had a gun captured before they could form their ranks
to resist this surprise. The Sikh horse were the first to
charge the enemy, and they were followed by the 9th
lancers, who charged in their shirt sleeves. The English
guns then opened, and, after a fierce engagement of two
hours, the rebels were routed with great slaughter, with the
loss of thirteen guns and all their camp equipage. From
the date of this overthrow Holkar’s contingent never again
formed a compact body. Indore itself was kept from join¬
ing fully in the rebellion, mainly through the zealous efforts
of the young Prince Holkar, who throughout showed the
most unshaken fidelity to the British. On the 15th of
December the Malwah field force, under Brigadier Stewart,
arrived in the city, and disarmed the malcontents, on many
of whom summary justice was executed.
At Jhansi the troops, consisting of a wing of the 12th Jhansi.
native infantry and some irregular cavalry, mutinied on the
5th of June, and a large number of Europeans, men, women,
and children, were horribly murdered. The rebels marched
off to Delhi. Upon the recapture of the city by the Brit¬
ish on the 21st September, the Jhansi insurgents evacuated
the place, and took the road to Bolundshuhur, where, on
the 27th, as above stated, they were attacked by the pursu¬
ing column under Colonel Greathed, and completely routed.
At Saugor, in Central India, although the majority of the Saugor.
troops participated in the general spirit of mutiny, a re¬
markable instance of loyalty was displayed by one regi¬
ment. On the 3d of July, the 42d native infantry, and
part of the 3d irregular cavalry, mutinied, and called upon
the 31st regiment to join them. The latter regiment,
deprived of its European officers, who had taken refuge in
the fort, nevertheless behaved most loyally, drove the mu¬
tineers out of the station, retook a large signal gun and six
elephants, which they restored to the authorities. The de¬
feated rebels were, however, joined by large bodies of
Boondelas and other marauders, and soon after completely
invested Saugor, which remained in a state of siege and in
extreme danger till the 3d of February 1858, when it was
relieved by General Sir Flugh Rose, commanding the Ner-
budda field force.
Though the spirit of disloyalty was known to be all but Dinapore,
universal throughout the Bengal army, three regiments ol
native infantry continued to be maintained in full force at
Dinapore. These were the 7th, 8th, and 40th. A depu¬
tation of merchants had waited upon the governor-general,
entreating that these regiments might be disarmed ; but the
reply had been, that the government had every confidence
in the fidelity of the men. Shortly afterwards, however, the
symptoms of mutiny became unmistakeable, and on the
25th of July the three regiments threw off their allegiance,
and broke out in insurrection. At this time Her Majesty’s
10th foot, and part of Her Majesty’s 37th regiment, with
an European field-battery, were quartered at Dinapore.
Nevertheless, by the mismanagement of General Lloyd, in
command of the station, and owing to his physical unfit¬
ness for his duties, the three mutinous regiments were
allowed to cross the Soane river, and to escape with little
loss to Arrah, distant twenty-five miles west of Dinapore.
Here Mr Wake, the magistrate of the district, with 11 other
Europeans and 45 Sikhs had taken refuge within a small
bungalow, which had been previously fortified. The build-
NOHTH-WESTERN PROVINCES.
ifutiny
1857.
Jibbul-
of Ing was forthwith surrounded by the insurgents. This
being made known at Dinapore, a detachment composed
of 350 men of the 10th and 37th regiments was despatched
by boats for the relief of the little band; but being landed
by night, under the direction of treacherous guides, the
party fell into an ambuscade, and were driven back with a
loss of more than half their number killed and wounded.
The disaster was in some degree retrieved by the heroic
defence of the besieged- garrison. These succeeded in
holding the rebels at bay during seven days, until the
8th of August, when, after the failure of the expedi¬
tion from Dinapore, they were relieved by Major Vin¬
cent Eyre, of Caubul celebrity, who, with a detachment of
200 men and three guns from Buxar, dispersed a force of
3000 insurgents, headed by a native rajah, Kowur Singh,
of Jugdeespore, with three pieces of artillery. The par¬
ticulars of this romantic defence are thus given by Mr
Wake, the magistrate of Shahabad:—-“During the entire
siege, which lasted seven days, every possible stratagem
was practised against us. The cannons were fired as fre¬
quently as they could prepare shot, with which they were
at first unprovided, and incessant assaults were made upon
the bungalow. Not only did our Sikhs behave with perfect
coolness and patience, but their untiring labour met and
prevented every threatened disaster. Water began to run
short—a well 18 feet by 4 was dug in less than twelve
hours; the rebels raised a barricade on the top of the
opposite house—our own grew in the same proportion; a
shot shook a weak place in our defence—the place was
made twice as strong as before; we began to feel the
want, of animal food and short allowance of grain—a sally
was made at night, and four sheep brought in; and finally,
when we ascertained beyond a doubt that the enemy were
undermining us, a countermine was quickly dug. On the
30th, the troops sent to our relief from Dinapore were at¬
tacked and beaten back close to the entrance of the town.
On the next day the rebels returned, and telling us that
they had annihilated our relief, offered the Sikhs and the
women and children (of whom there were none with us)
their lives and liberty, if they would give up the government
officers. August the 1st, we were all offered our lives, and
leave to go to Calcutta, if we would give up our arms. On
the 2d, the greater part of the sepoys wrent out to meet Major
Eyre’s field force, and on their being soundly thrashed, the
rest of them deserted the station ; and that night we went
out, and found their mine had reached our foundations, and
a canvass tube filled with gunpowder was lying handy to
blow us up; in which, however, I do not think they would
have succeeded, as their powder was bad, and another
stroke of the pick would have broken into our countermine.
We also brought in the one gun which they had left on the
top of the opposite house. During the whole siege, only
one man, a Sikh, was severely wounded, though two or
three got scratches and blows from splinters -and bricks.”
The mutineers, driven from Arrah, retreated in the direc¬
tion of Jugdeespore, whither they were pursued by a de¬
tachment of the 10th foot. Here the men of that x-egi-
ment gloriously avenged the slaughter of their comrades
at Arrah. After a contest which lasted for upwards of two
hours, Jugdeespore fell into their hands. No less than 400
of the rebels were cut down, and the remainder completely
routed. General Lloyd being removed from his post, Sir
James Outram succeeded to the command of Dinapore, but
shortly after moved up towards Oude.
Among the latest revolts was that of the 52d native in¬
fantry, which mutinied and quitted Jubbulpore, a station
111 miles S.E. of Saugor, with the view of effecting a junc¬
tion with the Dinapore rebels. The insurgents were met
near the fort of Saugor by the column of Madras troops
from Kamptee, and defeated, with a loss of 150 killed. Lieu¬
tenant Macgregor, who had been detained by the regiment
311
as a kind of hostage, was murdered by the rebels. His body Mutiny of
was found by the British covered with wounds. J 1857.
At the small town of Nagode or Nagound, on the road v--''
from Saugor to Allahabad, and about 30 miles to the N.W. Nagode.
of Rewah, was stationed the 50th Bengal native infantry!
This corps mutinied, but without slaughtering its officers'
not long after the outbreaks at Saugor and Jubbulpore ; and
thus the circle of rebellion was completed in Bundelcund.
The rajahs of Saugor and Shahgurh, and the rani of Jhansi!
aided the insurgents with all their power. The rajah of
Rewah remained faithful, though his troops were disaf¬
fected.
On the 21st of August a detachment of the JodhporeAboo
legion, stationed at Aboo, rose, plundered the bazaar, and
attempted to murder some invalids of Her Majesty’s 83d
regiment, but were repelled from their barracks with loss.
They wounded Mr A. Lawrence, son of General G. Law¬
rence, and, descending the mountain, plundered the village
of Anadra at the foot ot it, and then proceeding to the
stations where the other parts of the legion were, induced
them to join. On the 1st of September General Lawrence
marched from Ajmere to meet them, and on the 18th came
upon them at Awah, and succeeded in driving them from
their position outside the town, but finding this too strong
to be attacked, was compelled to retire. Here Captain
Monk Mason, who had pushed on from Palee to join
General Lawrence, was killed in the attempt. About this
time the chiefs of Dhar, Mundesore, and Amjheera, joined
in the rebellion; and on the 19th and 20th of September
a sharp action was fought at Neembhera, about 20 miles
N.W. of Neemuch, in which the 12th Bombay native in¬
fantry, and the 2d Bombay cavalry, distinguished them¬
selves. The place was taken with the loss of one Euro¬
pean killed, and 16 natives killed or wounded. The
Jodhpore legion was subsequently completely routed at
Narnoul, 86 miles S. of Hansi, by Colonel Gerrard, who
was killed in the action. Five officers were wounded, and
the total of killed and wounded was 70.
At Kotah, the capital of the Rajpoot state of that name, Kotah>
situated on the right bank of the Chumbul, 195 miles S.W.
of Agra, the forces of the rajah, consisting of 2140 infantry,
710 cavalry, and 600 artillerymen, rose against his authority,
and in rebellion against British supremacy, on the 15th of
October, and murdered the political agent, Major Burton of
the 40th Bengal native infantry, with his two sons. They
then plundered the Residency and set fire to it.
Besides these principal outbreaks, many lesser risings and Mutinies
mutinies of single corps, or detachments of corps, took place in other
in various parts of India. Thus the Ramgurh battalion IJarts.
mutinied near Sherghotty, and on the 29th of September
were met and routed by Major English with a detachment
of the 53d regiment and some Sikhs. The 32d native in¬
fantry rose at Deogurh in the south-west districts, and killed
Lieutenant Cooper, Mr Ronald,and some others; the 34th at
Chittagong, and the 73d at Dacca and Julpigoree, also
mutinied so late even as November 1857, but" the defec¬
tion of these corps produced only local disturbance, and
added little or nothing to the danger and magnitude of the
general revolt. In the meantime, the Madras army, with
the exception of the 8th cavalry, which refused to proceed
on service to Bengal, and was consequently disarmed, and
a few irregular troops at Nagpore, continued faithful and
aided greatly in the suppression of the revolt. The prin¬
cipal native ruler in Southern India, the Nizam, threw the
whole weight of his influence into the scale in favour of the
British ; and his minister, Salar Jung, a nobleman of Euro¬
pean energy, courage, and abilities, crushed a desperate
attempt of the fanatical Rohillas to raise the standard of
rebellion at Hyderabad. In the Bombay army, where there
were 15,000 soldiers, recruited from Oude and the adjacent
provinces, the case was different. On the evening of the
312
NORTH-WESTERN
PROVINCE S.
Mutiny of 31st of July, 167 men of the 27th Bombay native infantry rose
1857. ^t Kolapore, in the South Mahratta country, and murdered
three of their officers, and carried off 37,000 rupees from
the treasury. They were shortly afterwards attacked by
LieutenantKerr,with a bodyof the South Mahratta irregular
horse, and dispersed or destroyed. The fugitives perished
in the jungles of want, or were killed by the villagers. On
the 10th of August a trooper of the 1st Bombay lancers
attempted to raise an emeute at Nusseerabad, and was for a
time protected by the 12th native infantry, but at length
shot. About the same time a small part of the 2d Bombay
cavalry mutinied at Neemuch, and were not overpowered
without a struggle, in which four Europeans lost their lives.
Plots were also discovered in the 2d grenadiers at Ahmeda-
bad, and the 29th native infantry at Belgaum ; and on the
20th of August the havildar major of the latter regiment,
and some others, were executed. At Bombay the 10th
native infantry were discovered to be in a disaffected state ;
and a soldier of that corps, and one of the marine battalion,
were blown from guns. But it was in Sindh that the most
extensive conspiracy was formed; and but for the fidelity
of Jacob’s horse, and the admirable management of the
commissioner, Mr Frere, the whole of that province would
have been in a blaze. At Kurrachee the 21st Bombay
native infantry were disarmed, and a considerable number
of sepoys executed ; at Shikarpore and Hyderabad there
were attempts at a rising; and at the former place the
Bengal artillerymen seized the guns, and kept up a fire on
cantonments for some time. These particulars suffice to
prove the alarming state of India when the European rein¬
forcements from England began to arrive. It remains now
to show how these were made available for the extinction
of the revolt.
Between June the 18th and the end of November 1857,
ninety-four large transports were despatched from England,
having on board 34,481 European soldiers to reinforce the
royal army in India. In addition to these, 900 men were
despatched overland; and several regiments were drawn
from the Cape, Ceylon, and the Mauritius, and also from
the China expedition, whence also was furnished a formi¬
dable naval brigade, the men of which served 68-pounder
guns with terrible effect in the storming of Lucknow. In
the beginning of November the bulk of these reinforce¬
ments began to arrive, and in the first fortnight of that
month 8000 men were landed at Calcutta alone. Thus
along the Ganges a stream of reinforcements was constantly
flowing up, enabling the commander-in-chief to reduce
Lower Bengal to order, garrison the chief places, and pre¬
pare a powerful army for the capture of Lucknow and the
complete conquest of Oude. At the same time Sir J.
Lawrence was actively engaged in levying new Sikh troops
and despatching them to the south ; while Jung Bahadur,
the regent of Nepal, sending forward several thousand
Gorkhas to the aid of the British, prepared to descend from
the hills into Oude with 10,000 more. At Madras and
Bombay, as fresh European regiments arrived, those al¬
ready in the presidencies were pushed up towards Central
India, and there formed into columns, which gradually
swept the rebels towards the east, and co-operated with
the columns from the Delhi and Punjab armies, which,
advancing southward, cleared the Doab and Rohilcund, and
drove the insurgents into Oude, where they were stopped
by Sir C. Campbell and the main army. Turning to the
operations of the subsidiary columns during the close of
1857, and taking that of Colonel Greathed first, it may
be briefly noticed, that after the defeat of the Indore rebels
on the 10th of October, this force halted a few days at Agra,
and reached Mynpooree, 71 £ miles to the east of Agra, on
the 19th; and on the day previous Brigadier Grant took
command from Colonel Greathed. The guns and treasure
of the rajah, who had fled with the rebels, were here cap-r
Mutiny of
1857.
Measures
for sup¬
pressing
the revolt.
tured, and the fort was blown up. On the 23d the column
arrived at Kanouj, and there falling in with a body of tlw
Delhi fugitives, killed 200 of them, and captured five guns, —
with the loss of one officer and two privates wounded. On
the 26th the column reached Cawnpore, whence, its losses
bein0, recruited bv fresh troops, and having been made up
to 3460 men, with twenty guns, it moved on towards Luck¬
now, and arrived at Nawabgunge, near that city, on the 1st
of November. From this date its operations merge in
those of the main army.
In the meantime, the districts west of Delhi were swept pcihi co.
by a column under Brigadier Showers, who, on October the lumn.
2d, captured Rewaree, 50 miles S.W. of Delhi, the town
of a rebel rajah, who fled, leaving twelve guns loaded on the
ramparts of his fort. On the 12th Brigadier Showers reached
Jhajhar, once the capital of the adventurer George Thomas,
but now of a rebel naw'ab, who was made prisoner on the
17th, and subsequently hanged at Delhi. The column then
moved to Dadree, cutting to pieces some small parties of
rebels on the way, and thence to Kanound, where fourteen
guns and considerable treasure and stores wrere taken. On
the 31st of the same month a detachment of this column
cut up a body of Mewatties on the heights near Sona, in
the Goorgaon district. The column returned to Delhi on
the 9th of November, and immediately after moved out
again to Meerut, en route for Be war.
From Madras a strong column having assembled at Madras
Kurnool under Brigadier Whitlock, moved upon Jubbul-army,
pore, and on the L5th of December advanced from that
town into the Saugor territory, quieting the disturbed dis¬
tricts as it proceeded, and sending on two regiments of
cavalry to clear the way to Benares. The advance of this
column was greatly facilitated by the brilliant successes of
Captain Osborn, the political agent at Rewah, and Lieu¬
tenant-Colonel Hinde, who, with the forces ol the rajahs of
Punnah and Rewah, and some levies raised in Bundelcund,
defeated several bodies of insurgents, and captured the
strong fort of Bijrajoogurh, the killadar of which place,
and ninety-three other prisoners, were shot by command of
Brigadier Whitlock. Simultaneously almost with the suc¬
cessful operations of the last-named officers, an alarming out¬
break of the wild tribes in Sumbulpore, a large expanse of
jungly country directly south of the region in which the
column of Brigadier Whitlock was moving, was put down
by Major Bates of the 40th Madras native infantry, and
Captain Wood, commanding a squadron of the Nagpore ir¬
regular cavalry. On the 30th of December Captain Wood,
with 73 horsemen and 200 infantry of the 40th native in¬
fantry and Ramgurh battalion, encountered a body of the
rebels near Sumbulpore, and killed fifty-three and dispersed
the rest. Captain Wood, who killed three of the enemy with
his own hand, was wounded, with Dr Winslow and nine
privates. These rebels had previously murdered Dr Moore
not far from the spot where they were defeated. Another
body of insurgents was shortly afterwards routed with great
slaughter by Major Bates in the same district. Madras
troops were likewise successfully engaged some weeks later
in suppressing a rebellion raised by the rajah of Shorapore,
a small principality in the S.W. angle of the Nizam’s terri¬
tories. On the 7th of February the troops of the rajah
were defeated near his chief town by a small Madras
column, with trifling loss to the English ; but Captain New-
bery of the 8th Madras cavalry was killed, and Lieutenant
Stewart of the same corps wounded. Shorapore was occu¬
pied next day by Colonel Malcolm, with the South Mahratta
horse ; and the rajah himself was made prisoner at Hydera¬
bad, whither he had fled.
From the Bombay side a column called the Malwah field
force, consisting of the 14th light dragoons, Her Majesty’s arniy
86th foot, the 3d Bombay cavalry, the 25th native infantry,
some Bombay artillery, and a strong force of the Nizam’s
NORTH-WESTERN PROVINCES. 313
ihitinyof contingent, had been organized under Brigadier Stewart of
1857. the 6th native infantry,for operations in Central India. On
the 22d of October this column defeated a body of rebels
near Dhar; and on the 1st of November took that strong
place, the fort being one of the strongest in India. After
the battery had opened for four days, an advance was made
to the breach, when the fort was found to be evacuated.
A treasure of nearly half a million was here captured. On
the 8th Brigadier Stewart marched north towards Mehid-
pore, when an army of rebels under Heera Singh, formerly
a jemidar in the Nagpore cavalry, had, with the aid of the
Mehidpore contingent, which mutinied as they approached,
committed great havoc, and killed Major Timms, Captain
Mills, Dr Carey, and several other Europeans, as well as
150 of the contingent who remained stanch to the British.
On the 13th Major Orr, with the 1st, 3d, and 4th Nizam’s
cavalry, attached to the Malwah field force, came up with
Heera Singh, and made a most brilliant and successful
charge, retaking all the guns and stores just captured from
the Mehidpore contingent. The rebels were pursued to a
village ten miles from Mundesore, where their supports
showed themselves in great strength. On the 21st the whole
column, of which Major Orr’s cavalry formed part, was at¬
tacked by the Mundesore rebels, numbering about 8000 men,
who were driven back into the town with heavy loss. On
the 23d the column defeated Heera Singh at the village of
Gooraria. The 14th dragoons captured five guns on the
enemy’s left centre. Lieutenant Redmayne of that corps
was killed, and seven officers w-ere wounded, and 68 rank
and file killed and wounded. On the night of the 24th
the rebels evacuated Mundesore. These rebels had
besieged Neemuch for the three weeks previous to the
arrival of the Malwah field force, and on the 21st had
attempted to carry it by escalade, but were repulsed with
loss. The casualties on the English side were two
European officers and four sepoys wounded. The 12th
Bombay native infantry here particularly distinguished
themselves. In a battle fought, however, at Jeerun, near
Neemuch, on the 24th of the previous month, the English
garrison of that town had sustained severe losses. On that
occasion Captain Tucker of the 2d Bombay cavalry, and
Captain Reade of Her Majesty’s 83d foot, were killed, five
officers were wounded, and other casualties were numerous.
The Malwah field force now made a long halt at Mun¬
desore, where many of the rebels were executed. On
the 2d of December it moved south to Indore, which it
reached on the 15th ; and next day Sir R. Hamilton, the
governor-general’s agent for Central India, and General
Sir Hugh Rose, arrived there, and Holkar’s mutinous troops
were forthwith disarmed, and numerous executions took
place. General Rose having gained the chief command of
this column, which was now called the Nerbudda field
force, proceeded to Sehore, a town in Bhopal, 132 miles
S.W. of Saugor. Arriving here on the 10th of January
1858, he disarmed the mutinous Bhopal contingent sta¬
tioned at Sehore, and caused 150 of them to be executed.
He had now with him the 14th and 17th dragoons, and
the 3d Bombay lancers, Her Majesty’s 86th foot, the 3d
Bombay European regiment, and a very powerful force of
artillery, sappers and miners, and engineers. On the 26th
the general laid siege to the strong fort of Ratgurh, which
was taken on the 29th, many of the rebels escaping down
the precipitous rocks. The day previous an insurgent force
which attempted to relieve the garrison was defeated,
and driven across the river, by Captain Hare with the
Hyderabad contingent. A pretender, who had assumed
the title of a prince of the house of Timour, named
Muhammed Fazl Khan, was here taken and hung with
another chief over the gate. On the 30th Sir H. Rose
marched for Saugor, and at the first stage from Ratgurh,
drove a body of rebels from some difficult ground. Here
VOL. XVI.
Captain Neville of the royal engineers, aide-de-camp to Mutiny of
Sir H. Rose, was killed. On the 3d of February Sir 1857.
Hugh reached Saugor and relieved the garrison, which had
been besieged since July of the previous year. Twenty
rebels were executed here.
On the 3d of March Sir H. Rose, moving on Jhansi,
forced the Mudianpore Pass, with the loss to the British of 20
killed and wounded.
Early in January 1858 a strong column, under Brigadier
Roberts, prepared to move from Deesa in Gujerat into
Rajpootana. On the morning of the 6th, 200 men of the
10th Bombay native infantry, 100 of Her Majesty’s 95th
regiment, 2 guns, 30 men of Captain Aitken’s battery, and
20 of the royal sappers and miners, under command of
Major Raines of the 95th, went forward to attack the village
of Rowah, 9 miles from Deesa. It was found strongly for¬
tified, but the infantry gallantly stormed it. Three British
officers were wounded, and several men. Gold and silver
coins to the value of L.5000 were found among the ruins of
the village. On the 10th Major Raines, having sent back
his sick and wounded to Deesa, and having received rein¬
forcements, advanced towards Awah, his column now con¬
sisting of the 8th hussars, 1st Bombay lancers and 2d
cavalry, Her Majesty’s 72d Highlanders, and 96th and 51st
regiments, with a detachment of the 83d and the royal en¬
gineers, the 1st and 2d native infantry, Captain Aitken’s
battery, 2 troops of horse artillery, and a siege train.
On the 19th the column was joined at Jaitpoora, 2 miles
from Awah, by two companies of the 83d, a battery of
foot artillery, 600 Sindh horse, two squadrons of the 1st
lancers, and part of the 12th native infantry, under
Colonel Holmes of the latter regiment, who took com¬
mand of the whole force. On the night of the 23d
this column captured Awah, one of the strongest towns in
Rajpootana, taking 16 guns and 170 prisoners, of whom
25 were executed forthwith. On the 1st of February
General Roberts marched from Deesa to join Colonel
Holmes, having with him some sappers and miners, a
wing of the 9th regiment, and some of the 2d cavalry, and
having effected a junction, the whole column, 7000 strong,
with 30 guns, marched towards Kotah, through the pass of
Bharoondurrah.
In the meantime, the commander-in-chief was busily Operations
engaged in preparing for the final reduction of Oude and the 0f the main
capture of Lucknow. After the complete route of the Gwa- army,
lior rebels, and their flight across the river into Oude, or
westward to Kalpee, Sir C. Campbell despatched a column
under Brigadier Walpole to clear the Lower Doab, and
make its way to Etawah. He himself, leaving three regi¬
ments at Cawnpore with instructions to put that place in a
state of defence by digging rifle-pits, throwing up earth¬
works, and levelling buildings that might yield cover to an
enemy, moved with the main army upon Furruckabad. This
place, the capital of the district so called, and distant from
Agra 90 miles, from Lucknow 95, is on the left bank of the
Ganges, while the British cantonment of Futtygurh lies
about 3 miles to the west, on the right bank of the river.
Both places were occupied in great force by the rebels; and
the nawab had taken a leading part in the insurrection, and
by the murder of a great number of Europeans had made
himself only less infamously prominent than Nana Sahib.
As Sir C. Campbell approached, the nawab received an ac¬
cession of strength from Etawah, the rebels at that place
deserting it on the 29th of December, when Brigadier Wal¬
pole entered, and flying to Furruckabad. On the 20th of
January Sir Colin came to a place one march from Fur¬
ruckabad, where abridge over the Kalee Nadee had to be
repaired. The working parties were attacked by about 5000
rebels, who were, however, quickly put to flight, with the
loss of all their guns, seven in number. Here a most gal¬
lant officer, Lieutenant Younghusband, of the 5th Punjab
2 R
314 NORTH-WESTERN PROVINCES.
Mutiny of cavalry, was wounded mortally, and Lieutenant Maxwell,
1857. 0f the Bengal artillery, severely. The next day Sir Colin
occupied Furruckabad, which was evacuated by the enemy,
the nawab leaving his guns and stores behind him. A
column from Delhi, under Colonel Seaton, arrived at Fut-
tygurh at the same time. On the 29th of December Cap¬
tain Hodson, of the irregular cavalry, had brought des¬
patches from this column to Sir Colin, riding 90 miles across
a country overrun with rebels. In this hazardous exploit
three of his escort were killed, and a few wounded. On
the 13th of January Brigadier Walpole, with his brigade,
was moved forward to repair a bridge over the Ram Gunga;
and as a powerful force of the enemy assembled to oppose
him on the opposite bank, reinforcements were sent out to
him on the 15th. On the 26th a sharp action was fought
between a force under Brigadier Hope, and 5000 of the
rebels, with four guns, who had crossed the river at Mhow,
18 miles from Furruckabad. Captain Hodson was severely
wounded, and his second in command, Lieutenant Mac-
dougal, killed. Captain Steel of the 9th lancers, and
Lieutenant Gough of the 3d Bengal cavalry, were also
wounded; and 13 men and Dr Fairweather of the 4th
Punjabees, and 10 men of Her Majesty’s 53d regiment,
were killed or wounded by the explosion of one of the
enemy’s tumbrils. On the 1st of February the com¬
mander-in-chief, leaving a brigade to watch the Rohilcund
rebels, broke up his camp from Futtygurh and descended
upon Cawnpore. He himself rapidly passed through the
place on the 4th, reached Allahabad on the 8th, where he
had an interview with the governor-general, who was now
on his way to the seat of war. The same night he returned
to Cawnpore, where, till the beginning of March, he was
employed in superintending the concentration of stores and
troops for the advance on Lucknow. On the 3d of Febru¬
ary the 88th regiment, with two guns and some Sikh horse,
despatched to watch the Kalpee rebels, arrived at Bhogni-
pore, 5 miles from Kalpee. Next morning they were at¬
tacked by the rebels from the latter place, consisting of
part of the Gwalior contingent, and the 32d and 40th
native infantry. The enemy first attacked the picquet of
Captain Thomson, who commanded the Sikh horse. He
bravely held his ground until reinforced, when the enemy
were repulsed, and pursued to within a mile of Kalpee.
Captain Thomson was wounded, and six men, the former
severely. On the 7th of February Mr A. Hume of the
civil service, with 400 matchlock-men, and a corps of
irregular cavalry under Captain W. Alexander and Mr
Maconochie, moved out from Etawah 22 miles to Anundram,
where about 800 rebels occupied a strong position with one
gun. Mr Hume gallantly led the storming party, and put
the rebels to flight, who were then sabred by the cavalry.
The enemy left 25 dead on the field; their gun was taken,
and 6 prisoners, who were hanged. Mr Hume’s party lost
38 killed and wounded. About a month previous to this
the Bareilly rebels despatched three columns, two to attack
Nynee Pal, and the third to overrun the Saharunpore
districts, On the 10th of February one of these columns
was encountered by Colonel M£Causland from Nynee Tal,
with the 66th Gorkhas, 200 cavalry, and 2 guns, near
Buteree. The enemy lost 3 guns, and had 250 men killed.
The British loss wras 35 killed and wounded, including 2
officers wounded. The third rebel column, led by the
Nawab of ISajeebabad, crossed the river at Kunkhal, near
Hurdwar, on the 10th of January, and were immediately
attacked by Captain Boisragon with 100 Gorkhas, a few
Sikhs, 10 Europeans, and 2 guns. The rebels fled in con¬
fusion on being charged by the Gorkhas in flanks, and by
the Sikhs, led by Mr Melville of the civil service, in front;
and the Moyapore dam being suddenly opened by Captain
Drummond, of the canal department, as they were fording
the stream on their retreat, great numbers of them were
drowned. The nawab himself was wounded, and his nephew Mutiny of
fell by Captain Boisragon’s own hand. 1857.
It is requisite here, in order to complete the view of
operations at this time, to revert for a moment to the Bom- Mutiny of
bay presidency, where the Bheels in the Ahmednugur and the Bheels.
Khandesh collectorates, and adjoining districts, and along
the Sautpoora Mountains, had risen in arms so early as Sep¬
tember 1857. On the 8th of October a number of them,
estimated at 1500 men, had posted themselves on a hill at
Sinnore, 20 miles S. of Nassuk. Here they were on that
day attacked by Lieutenant Henry, superintendent of the
Ahmednugur police, who was killed, and his party repulsed
with severe loss. On the 29th of the same month, Raghujee
Bhangria, a Bheel chief, passed through the Ahmednugur
districts, plundering and burning. During the end of No¬
vember and December the Bheels, under Khajja Singh,
in great force, lined the Sautpoora Hills, near the Sindhia
Ghat, and are said to have carried off plunder from the ad¬
jacent villages to the amount of L.140,000. Towards the
end of January the Bheels of Chandore were attacked by
Captain Montgomery, superintendent of the Ahmednugur
police, in a dense jungle, 12 miles S.E. of that place, with
indifferent success. He gallantly led his men three times
to the charge, but was himself badly wrounded, and obliged
to retire. Lieutenant Stuart of the nizam’s infantry was
killed; Lieutenant Davidson of the 19th native infantry,
and Lieutenant Chamberlain of the 26th native infantry,
wounded,—the former dangerously. On the ]9th of
February another engagement took place near the same
spot, at Mahadeo Donger, when Captain Pottinger de¬
feated the insurgent Bheels, and took many prisoners.
Returning to the operations in Oude, it is requisite, be- The Cork-
fore describing the first advance of the commander-in-chiefha allies,
from Cawnpore, to give a brief summary of the movements
of the Gorkha forces despatched by Jung Bahadur to the
aid of the British, and subsequently supported by a power¬
ful column under his own command. The Nepal chief
had, soon after the outbreak, volunteered his assistance to
the governor-general, but his overtures were at that time
rejected. In July, however, 3000 Gorkhas had reached
Goruckpore; but owing to the masses of rebels which sur¬
rounded them, they retreated from that place, with all the
Europeans belonging to the station, on the 13th of August,
towards Azimghur. At Gujhaba, 35 miles from Goruck¬
pore, they were attacked by some thousands of rebels under
Mohammed Hoossain, but soon repulsed their assailants,
killing 150, and taking many prisoners, who, with two ex¬
ceptions, were all put to death. The Gorkha loss was 2
killed and 7 wounded. Llaving arrived at Azimghur, which
they found plundered by the rebels, they halted there, and
on the 20th of September sent out 1000 men under Cap¬
tain Boileau to attack a party of insurgents at Nundowlee,
belonging to the Rajah of Attroniah. The Gorkhas were
completely successful, and took three brass guns at the point
of the bayonet, killing 100 of the enemy, and having them¬
selves but 16 wounded. Jung Bahadur at this time sent a
reinforcement of two regiments to the hill stations of Almora
and Nynee Tal. Major Ramsay, with 150 Gorkhas, 25
irregular horse, and 30 gentlemen volunteers, before the
above reinforcements arrived, attacked a body of 800 rebels
advancing on Almora from Bareilly, and killed upwards of
100, losing only 1 risaldar killed, and 1 Gorkha wounded.
On the 30th of October Colonel Wroughton, with 500
men of Her Majesty’s 10th foot, 1100 Gorkhas, and some
guns, drove a body of 5000 rebels, with 4 guns, from a
position at Chanda. The Gorkhas gallantly captured the
guns, and killed 400 of the enemy, losing 13 of their own
men killed, and 60 wounded. The same Gorkhas had,
on the 19th, defeated Hasan Yar Khan at Kudwa. In that
action Messrs Jenkinson and Carnegy of the civil service
greatly distinguished themselves, and killed 7 of the enemy.
NORTH-WESTERN PROVINCES.
Mutiny of Towards the end of November the rebels from Lucknow
1857. pushed heavy columns to the south ; so that the Gorkhas
* ^ ^ were compelled to again evacuate the Goiuckpoie district
and Azimghur. On the 2d of December Jung Bahadur
arrived at Segowlee, in the plains, having with him 9000
regular Gorkha troops and a multitude of irregulars.
°On the 19th of December the Calcutta Gazette an¬
nounced that Jung Bahadur was entering the plains of
Hindustan to co-operate with the British troops in the
restoration of order in the British provinces. Brigadier-
General Macgregor was appointed to accompany the Ne-
paulese chief; and a strong brigade under Colonel Franks
was organized at Benares to co-operate with him by ad¬
vancing in the direction of Jaunpore and Azimghur. Her
Majesty’s 97th and 20th foot, with a wing of the 10th regi¬
ment and some royal artillery, formed the nucleus of
this force. On the 6th of January Jung Bahadur, with 14
regiments of infantry and 4 batteries of artillery of 6 guns
each, took Goruckpore. The enemy’s position was strong,
but their resistance feeble. They lost 7 guns, and had 200
men killed ; while the Gorkha loss was 2 killed and 7
wounded. Previous to this action a column of the Goruck¬
pore rebels had been defeated at Sobanpore, 5 miles S.E. of
Majhowlee, and 40 from Goruckpore, by Colonel Rowcroft
with the naval brigade (about 160 men) and two Gorkha
regiments. The rebels lost a gun, and had 200 killed ;
while there were but 4 wounded in Colonel Rowcroft’s
force. In the meantime the enemy had shown themselves
in such force near Azimgurh, that Colonel Longden, com¬
manding there, had been compelled to retire. By the 22d
of January Jung Bahadur’s van had reached Belwa Bazar,
on the Gogra, opposite Fyzabad ; and Colonel Franks’
column had been swelled by 4000 Gorkhas, some Madras
troops, Sikhs, 200 sailors, while his artillery amounted to 24
guns. On the 4th of February the advanced troops of the
Gorkha main army attacked and dispersed the rajah of
Gondah’s army near Fyzabad, with the loss to themselves
of only 1 killed and 2 wounded. But Brigadier Franks
was now rapidly pushing forward; and on the 19th of
February he defeated at Chanda two armies of rebels,
one of 8000 men, the other of 11,000. The loss of the
enemy was very heavy. On the 23d the same officer
gained a still more decided victory, killed 1800 of the rebels,
and captured their standing camp and 20 guns. The Bri¬
tish loss in the three actions was 2 killed and 16 wounded.
Many rebel sepoys of the 13th, 15th, 20th, and 40th native
infantry were killed in these engagements. Both the
column of Brigadier Franks and that of Jung Bahadur
joined the commander-in-chief at Lucknow without further
serious opposition.
'apture of In the meantime, Sir J. Outram had repulsed incessant
liucknow, attacks on his post at Alumbagh, just on the outskirts of
the revolt0*1 Lucknow, which he held with a fine division of 5000 men,
composed of the 1st Madras fusiliers, the 5th fusiliers,
the 75th, 78th, and 90th, with Brusier’s Sikhs, Olphert’s
and Maude’s batteries, some Madras sappers and miners,
and the volunteer cavalry. To these regiments belongs
the glory of maintaining the post of honour, and taking the
lead in the final triumph at Lucknow. They were several
times attacked at Alumbagh by immense masses of the
enemy, and always repulsed them with terrible loss. On
the 22d of December they took from the rebels 4 guns,
an elephant, and great stores of ammunition. On the 12th
and on the 16th of January they routed a mass of 30,000
men, which advanced on all sides of them. On February
the 21st the rebels came out again in vast numbers, having
sworn on the Koran to conquer or die. They formed in
the shape of a crescent, and as the horns of their immense
line began to converge on Alumbagh, General Outram
attacked each extremity of it. They gave way almost at
315
once, leaving 500 dead on the field; while the British had Mutiny of
only 6 wounded. On the 25th they made another and a 1857.
final effort, the begum and her son coming out on elephants
to witness the conflict, which ended still more disastrously
for them than the preceding. These successes were a
presage of the easy reduction of the city, which fell on the
19th of March. Sir C. Campbell had been detained at
Cawnpore longer than was expected by the non-arrival of
the siege train from Agra. At last, on the 10th of Febru¬
ary, an extra bridge having been thrown over the Ganges
from the Cawnpore side, the passage began. Such, how¬
ever, was the prodigious number of men and animals, that
it was many days ere they had crossed. The whole road
from Cawnpore to Alumbagh was lined with troops and
baggage-cattle, among which were 16,000 camels. The
actual numbers of Sir C. Campbell’s main army were—
infantry, 11,442; cavalry, 3961; artillery, 1669; naval
brigade, 331; sappers and miners, 1970;—grand total,
19,373. Thus, with Outram’s and Franks’ divisions of
5000 men each, and Jung Bahadur’s army of 10,000 Gor¬
khas, the whole force arrayed against Lucknow fell little
short of 40,000 men, with 180 guns; and it may justly be
said that an array so formidable and so well appointed never
was seen in Hindustan.
On the 6th of March, Sir C. Campbell having arrived a
few days previously, General Outram, with 5000 men and
30 guns, crossed the Goomtee, and took post to the E. of the
city, pushing his reconnoissances to the S., and after repuls¬
ing an attack, bivouacked on the field of Chinhutt, where
Sir H. Lawrence was so disastrously defeated. On the 7th
Sir J. Outram despatched General Hope Grant with 2000
cavalry to the N.E., to make a reconnoissance, and during
his absence the enemy made a second and more serious
attack. On the 9th Sir James turned the enemy’s first line
of works, which, though constructed with great care and
skill by the revolted sappers and miners from Roorkee,
were by a grave mistake made without protections from a
flanking fire. In consequence, Outram’s guns enfiladed
the whole line, and enabled General Lugard’s division, on
the 10th, to carry the Martiniere and adjacent works on the
S. of the city; and shortly after, the whole left of the
enemy’s earthworks, to within 800 yards of Banks’ house.
On the 10th this latter post was taken, and on the 11th the
same division carried the begum’s palace, which had been
fortified in a way to make it defensible against a whole
army. Here 600 bodies of sepoys of the 22d, 38th, and
other regiments, were counted; and General Lugard lost
about 100 men of his division in killed and wounded; among
them Captain Hodson, the capturer of the King of Delhi,
and well-known commander of irregular horse. On the
same day Jung Bahadur joined with his Gorkhas. A severe
struggle now took place in the direction of the Moosa
Bagh, to the N.W. of the city; and here Captain Cooper
of the engineers, Captain Moorsom of Sir J. Outram’s staff,
and many other gallant men, fell. On the 13th Sir Colin
took the Imambara, and opened a tremendous fire on the
Kaiser Bagh, the walls of which were shivered to pieces.
On the 14th General Outram carried the town between
the iron bridge and the Residency; and thousands of the
enemy began now to stream out of the city, taking the road
to Rohilcund. On the 16th the Muchee Bhawan and Great
Imambara were captured; and on the 18th the Gorkhas
carried a very strong position in front of Alumbagh. A
detachment of these troops brought in Mrs Orr and Miss
Madeline Jackson, who had born prisoners in the hands of
the rebels since the advance of General Havelock. On
the 19th the whole city was in possession of the British;
and though many thousands of the rebels escaped, and a
desultory warfare ensued, the close of the great revolt may
be dated from this epoch. (e. t.) (e. b. e.)
316 NOR
North- NORTH-WEST TERRITORY. See Hudson’s Bay
West Territory.
Territory NORTHWICH, a market-town of England, in the
Norway, county of Chester, on the left bank of the Weaver, near its
i confluence with the Dane, 15 miles N.E. of Chester, and
155 N.W. of London. It has an old-fashioned appearance,
and contains many ancient buildings. The church, which
is large, is remarkable for its semicircular chancel and
curiously carved roof. There are also places of worship
for Independents, Baptists, Wesleyan and Primitive Me¬
thodists, and several schools. Northwich is chiefly import¬
ant for its salt mines and brine springs, the former of
nor
which have been worked since the seventeenth century, and
are believed to be the richest salt mines m the world ihe
brine springs, however, are now more extensively used, and
are calculated to yield from 300,000 to 400,000 tons of salt
annually. This forms the principal aiticle of tiade m
Northwich, being conveyed to Liverpool by the W eaver
and Mersey, on which about 300 vessels are employed in
this business. Ship-building, brick-making, iron and brass
founding, brewing, and other avocations, are carried on
here ; and fairs are held three times a jear. 1 op. (i851)
13TT
NORTON-CHIPPING. See Chipping-Norton.
Norton
Chipping
Norway.
NORWAY.
Histoiy. Norway is an extensive country in the north of Europe,
united with Sweden under one king. All the territory
which is now comprised by Norway and Sweden, w as de¬
signated *Sca«rfia by the ancients. Pliny calls \X. Scandia
msuia, an appellation which derives its origin from the cii-
cuinstance of the Romans, in the time of their great
naturalist, being only acquainted with that part of the
country called Skanen or Skonen,the little information which
they possessed being obtained from some Germans. 1 his
is the ancient province of Schonen or Scania, the most
southerly of Sweden. The name was afterwards changed
to Scandinavia, which has been called the “ stoie-house of
nations,” but without any just title to such a distinction. It
seems now quite certain that Scandinavia was not the
native country of the Scythians or Goths, but that they
migrated from Asia to Europe. 1 he fact of Pliny having
designated Scandinavia as an island of considerable although
uncertain magnitude, has also given rise to some discussion.
To the imperfect knowledge of geography which the an¬
cients possessed may reasonably be attributed their, mis¬
taken notion as to the insular position of these countries..
Origin of But our present purpose is with Norway, which in
the name. Swedish is called Norrige, and in Danish, Norge (pro¬
nounced Norre). “ In spite of the vague ideas which the
ancients entertained of the northern countries of Europe,”
says Make-Brim, “it cannot be doubted that the country
which Pliny calls Nerigon is Norway. Many geographers1
have asserted that the name signifies the “Way of the
North ;”2 but its true etymology seems to be ]\or-Rige,
“ Kingdom of the North,” or rather, perhaps, assuming the
word Nor as signifying gulf, “Kingdom of Gulfs,” because in
effect its coasts are much more indented than those of
Sweden. We thus see that the name of Nerigon has much
more analogy with that of Norrige than with that of Nor-
w7eg, which at the first glance appears to be the origin of
the modern name. The early history of Norway is inter¬
woven with the annals of Sweden and Denmark, and con¬
sists in legends contained in the Heimskringla or Saga, a
collection of ancient manuscripts, which is to Norway what
the Edda is to Iceland. The petty sovereigns who held
sway in Norway in remote ages were independent, but
appear to have acknowledged a kind of supremacy in the
kings of Sweden and Denmark, probably more nominal than
real; but until the ninth or tenth century little is known of
the annals of the country. The Norwegians, of course,
constituted no inconsiderable proportion of those daring ad¬
venturers who, under the general name of Normans on the
Continent, and Danes in Britain, became at one time the
terror of all the maritime parts of Europe.3
The Royal Northern Antiquarian Society of Copenhagen
has published a series of the Saga, comprehending the his¬
torical account of events which belong to European history, TH-tm-y
as well as to that of Scandinavia, during the eleventh and
twelfth centuries. It includes a period of about 170 years,,
beginning with the Saga of St Olaf, the contemporary of
Canute the Great of England, who assumed the crown of
Norway in 1013, and continuing the series until the death
of Magnus Erlingson in a sea-fight with Sverrer I. in 1184.
This is one of the most curious and minute pictures of an
age long past which the literature of Europe is possessed of.
It is not only valuable as an historical document, confirm¬
ing or adding to our stock of facts relative to a dark period
of English history, but as a record of the social condition of
the country at that time, and of the influence of the I hing,
or assembly of the people ; a reference of all matters to this
popular convocation being one of the most striking facts re¬
corded in the Saga. From these rude annals we learn,
that, at a period immediately preceding the first traces of
free institutions in our own country, similar institutions
existed in great activity amongst these northern people. It
seems a fair inference from these facts, therefore, that we
owe the political institutions which we enjoy to the Danes
and Normans, who were more likely to impose their own
peculiar institutions upon those whom they subdued, than
to receive institutions from the conquered.
From other Sagas preceding that of St Olaf, we learn,
that about the middle of the ninth century Halfden the
Black divided Norway into five districts, with fixed head
places for holding Things in each. At these assemblies
laws were framed suitable to the local circumstances of each
district, which gave its name to the code. I his potentate
was succeeded by the celebrated Harold Harfagr, or the
Fair-Haired, who ascended the throne at ten years of age,
and reigned from 863 to 936. I his warlike monarch, alter
long fighting, reduced all the independent nobles or petty
kings to the condition of subjects, and consolidated the
various principalities of Norway into one kingdom. I hus
was consummated in a single reign, and that, too, in the
ninth century, a work which afterwards cost the other na¬
tions of Europe several centuries of bloodshed and co.iten
tion. But this was more easily accomplished in Norway
than elsewhere ; for in that country the great nobility never
had feudal powrers, and consequently those who were under
them as servants were bound by no such ties of vassalage
as the retainers of a Highland chieftain or a Norman baron.
They were not taught passive and unconditional submission
to a superior, although he might bear the title of king; for
before a small sovereign could make war he was under the
necessity of assembling the Thing, and obtaining its sanc¬
tion. The equal division of property among children,
which extended to the crown itself, prevented the accumu¬
lation of power in the hands of individuals; and the circum-
1 See the article “ Norwege ” in the Dictionnaire Geographique de VEncyclopedic. 2 Prom Nord and weg (way), Norweg.
3 See the articles Denmark, France, and England.
\T O II W A Y.
317
stance of the total want of fortresses, castles, or strongholds
' in the country, owing to the division of estates, effectually
prevented a nobility from attaining the same power with
the nobles of feudal countries, and setting the royal autho¬
rity at defiance. Some of these nobility or small kings
colonized Iceland; and Normandy was conquered by Rolt
Gangr, one of those whom Harold Harfagr expelled from
Norway. In this king’s reign Christianity was introduced
into the country, and from this period the events recorded
in the historical Saga may claim some degree of confidence.1
The length of this reign was no doubt favourable to the
lower orders, by consolidating their institutions, which, as
they weakened the authority of the petty kings, were
favoured by Harold. Eric, his son and successor, whom
he had associated with himself in the royal authority, was
deposed by the Thing on account of his cruelty, and a
younger brother succeeded him. Hakon, which was the
name of this son of Harfagr, was brought up from his
childhood at the court of Athelstane, King of England. He
reigned nineteen years, during which period there was fre¬
quent reference to the Things, both for amending the laws and
for the dissemination of Christianity. It appears that, in at¬
tempting to establish thereligionoftheCrossinhisdominions,
Hakon had recourse to what were considered as unconsti¬
tutional means ; for we find that, at a meeting of the T hing,
held in the year 956, a husbandman named Asbiorn, of
Medalhuus, stood up and declared, on the part of his neigh¬
bours and of himself, “ that they had elected Hakon to be
their king upon the condition that freedom of religion and
freedom of conscience should be warranted to every man ;
and if the king persisted in attempting to suppress their an¬
cient faith, they would elect another king;” adding, “and
now, king, make thy choice.” This is certainly one of the
most striking instances of parliamentary patriotism to be
met with in the history of Europe; and we must descend
six or seven centuries nearer to the present time before we
can match it in the annals of our own country. Hakon was
not only compelled to give way, but also to take part in the
heathen ceremonies of the meeting. This king was slain
in 963, in a battle with the sons of his elder brother Erie,
upon whom Athelstane of England had conferred the king¬
dom of Northumberland.
It appears that, after the death of Harfagr, the small
kings again had risen to some degree of power, and that
each in his own assembly, called also a Thing, had exercised
a limited authority. Olaf the Saint, before he assumed the
name of king, consulted one of these assemblies of the nobility
as to the way of proposing his claim as heir of Harfagr to
the general Things of the people; and he proceeded in
such a manner as to show that their voice alone was insuffi¬
cient to constitute him supreme chief in the land, without
the sanction of the general Thing. These institutions
appear to have always conferred or confirmed the royal pre-
rogative, and to have been of great importance-in that age
amongst the whole Scandinavian people. In cases where
the good of the community was at stake, they set the royal
authority at defiance, and obliged the sovereign to accept
of such international contracts as the Things of both coun¬
tries conceived was for their mutual benefit. The Thing
of Sweden compelled the sovereign of that country to con¬
clude a peace with Norway, and to bestow his daughter in
marriage on King Olaf, towards whom he cherished im¬
placable enmity. Olaf had the title of Saint conferred on
him for the exertions which he made to introduce Chris¬
tianity amongst his subjects; but in prosecution of this v
object he exercised the most atrocious cruelties, and com¬
pletely alienated the affections of his people. He attempted
to govern without the intervention of the Things, which
became the cause of his ruin; for when Canute the Great,
who conquered Norway, invaded his dominions, the people
literally “stopped the supplies;” and, unable to collect a
force sufficient to oppose the King of England, he was com¬
pelled to seek refuge in Russia. For the purpose of re¬
covering his crown, he landed in Sweden with a few fol¬
lowers, and, having received an accession to his force from
the king of that country, who was his brother-in-law,
marched from the Gulf of Finland across the peninsula to
the Fiord or Gulf of Trondhjem. In the meantime the
Thing of Norway raised an army of 12,000 bonder, and
placed it under the command of Olyer of Egge. At the
debouche of the valley of Vaerdal they met Olaf at the head
of about 4000 adventurers. The conflict could not be
doubtful where there was such an inequality of numbers,
and where the superiority lay on the side of those who were
fighting in defence of their liberties. King Olaf was de¬
feated and slain, without even showing the prudence and
courage which had distinguished his early career. This
battle was fought on the 31st of August 1030, and not on
the 29th of June or July 1033, as is commonly stated.2 The
body of the fallen monarch was transported to St Clement’s
church in Trondhjem, which had been erected by himself.
In return for the services which he had rendered the
church, the clergy soon afterwards canonized him; and
even at Constantinople temples were erected to his memory.
His tomb was regarded as a consecrated spot, to which pil¬
grimages were performed, not only by ardent devotees
from the north, but also from the south of Europe.
Canute the Great did not long remain in Norway ; and
from the period of OlaTs death the country was ruled by
native monarchs, who even for a time governed Denmark.
It may be gathered from the ancient chronicles before re¬
ferred to, that at this period society was composed of four
distinct orders. The first was the nobility, who were de¬
scendants of royal families ; and, without regard to priority
of birth, those who were descended both on the mother’s
side and father’s side from Harfagr were eligible to the
supreme monarchy. They appear to have had no civil
power or privilege as nobles, but merely this odelsbaarn-ret
to the crown. The odelsbaarnmen, bondermen, or hus¬
bandmen, were the proprietors of lands held neither from
the king nor from any feudal superior. These were the
people who had a voice at the Things. A third order con¬
sisted of the unfree men, holding land for services as vas¬
sals or as labourers in cottages, but who had no voice in the
Things in respect of their land. A fourth order was com¬
posed of the traelle or domestic slaves, who were private
property, and in a lower state than the former class. This
condition of society, which was equivalent to slavery, w-as
abolished by Magnus VIE, who reigned from 1319 to
1344.
The most important event in the history of Norway,
Sweden, and Denmark, in the middle ages, was the union
of the three kingdoms under one sovereign, Margaret,
daughter of Waldemar, King of Denmark, which was ef¬
fected by the league of Calmar, in the year 1397. The
circumstances which led to this remarkable occurrence will
Norw¬
ay-
1 Harold ITarfagr was born in the year 853; he began to reign in 863, and died in 936. St Olaf’s father was Harold Grtendske, his
grandfather Gudrod, his great-grandfather Biorn Stawke, and his great-great-grandfather Harold Harfagr; and St Olaf was born A.D.
995, only fifty-nine years after the death of his great progenitor Harfagr. A contemporary of St Olaf was therefore a credible source
of information for all the events of Harfagr’s reign, such as the conquest of Normandy by liolf Gangr, the colonization, of Iceland, &c.
(Laing s Journal of a Residence in Norway.}
a This is put beyond a doubt by a circumstance which all accounts of the battle mention, namely, that a total eclipse of the sun oc¬
curred on the same day. Professor Hanstcen of Christiania has calculated that such a celestial phenomenon could only have taken place
on the 31st of August 1030.
318
NORWAY.
Norway, be found narrated in the article Denmark. Had this
princess been as capable of conquering national prejudices
as she was of defeating armies, her dominions would have
constituted a great and powerful monarchy. But the pas¬
sions of her people were more than a match for her policy ;
and it was no doubt better that the three nations which she
governed should each remain in quiet possession of its own
freedom, as enjoyed under its own form of government and
laws, than that they should lay aside all differences, and,
heartily uniting as one kingdom and people, become the
terror and scourge of Southern Europe. Margaret died
without issue; but during her lifetime she appointed her
grand-nephew, whom some historians call her cousin, Eric,
a descendant of the dukes of Pomerania, as her successor ;
and he succeeded to the triple crown of Scandinavia in
1412. The union, however, was far from being cordial;
and for rather more than a century local insurrections from
time to time broke out and distracted the country. The
Swedes, in particular, felt great reluctance to submit to a
foreign dynasty ; and after various attempts on their part
to shake themselves free from the compact of Calmar, the
oppression and cruelty of Christian II. led to the final
separation of Sweden in 1520, under the celebrated Gus-
tavus Erickson or Vasa. Norway and Denmark, however,
remained under one sceptre, till, at the adjustment of
European affairs after the fall of Napoleon, Norway was
separated from Denmark, and united to the crown of
Sweden. This took place in the year 1814.
The circumstances which led to the forcible separation
of two countries that had for centuries been united by the
closest relations, and the union of one of them with another
country which had for as many ages been regaided as a
natural enemy, may be shortly stated. The grand object
of the leading powers was to induce every state to join in
the league against Napoleon ; and Sweden, in consideration
of an ample bribe, acceded to the general confederacy.
One of the foulest stains on the escutcheon of Great Bri¬
tain is the treaty which she entered into with Sweden*
dated 3d March 1813. By this notorious compact against
the liberties of a whole people, England gave to the King of
Sweden the kingdom of Norway (which was no more hers
than Rome or Pekin), together with Guadaloupe, and a
million of pounds sterling, as a remuneration to his Swe¬
dish Majesty for joining the allied powers against France.1
After the battle of Leipsic, fought in October 1813, the
Crown Prince of Sweden entered Denmark with his army ;
and after some bloody scenes in Holstein, peace was con¬
cluded at Kiel on the 14th of January 1814. By this
treaty Denmark gave up all right to Norway, considering
it as quite hopeless to enter into a contest with Sweden
and England. Although the King of Denmark might re¬
linquish his claim to the sovereignty of Norway, this was
no reason for the people of that country making an uncon¬
ditional surrender of themselves to a foreign potentate.
They declared themselves an independent nation, framed
a constitution of their own, and proclaimed Prince Chris¬
tian, son of their former sovereign, and governor of Nor¬
way, as their lawful king. Not a little blood was shed in
the contention between Sweden and Norway ; and England
actively interfered by blockading the ports of Norway, for
the purpose of starving the inhabitants of the country into
subjection. But a speedy settlement of the question be¬
came necessary to all parties. The constitution which
the Norwegians had prepared in April 1814, and which
they were in arms to maintain, was guaianteed to them,
upon condition of their accepting along with it the
Swedish monarch as king, and the Crown Prince of Den¬
mark abdicating the throne. Matters were arranged on
this footing ; and on the 17th May 1814, both parties, the
King of Sweden and the Norwegian nation, solemnly
entered into a compact to the effect stated, under the
sanction and guarantee of the allied powers, and of Great
Britain amongst the rest.2 By the treaty the entire inde¬
pendence of Norway as a kingdom was secured, the
crowns alone being united, as in the case of Hanover and
England. She had a constitution of her own framing,
a legislature of her own electing, without being interfered
with by any foreign authority in the exercise of her right,
and laws of her own making and administering; in short,
Norway remained a pure democracy in all but the name.
Since this union of Norway and Sweden under one so¬
vereign, there have occurred only two events of any im¬
portance in the history of the former. The first was the
abolition of hereditary nobility by the Storthing; and the
second was an attempt of the Swedish cabinet in 1824 to
force on the Norwegian people an entire amalgamation of
their country with Sweden. But the firmness of the Stor¬
thing or Parliament, the honourable feelings of the sove¬
reign, and, it is said, the interference of Russia on the part
of the allied powers, prevented such an infamous attempt
to violate the faith of treaties, and bring disgrace upon
those who had guaranteed them. Great Britain, as a party
to the treaty of 1813, and as having inflicted some injury
on the country by her ships of war, was especially bound
to protect the liberties and national independence of Nor¬
way, and to preserve her from becoming a mere province of
Sweden, as Poland is now of Russia.
The facts relative to the abolition of hereditary nobility
may be shortly stated. It is fixed that the executive power
has not a final veto, but only a suspensive negative, till the
law is passed by three successive Storthings. In the year
1815 both chambers of the Storthing proposed and passed
a motion to abolish nobility for ever in Norway. The
slender remains of this class were of foreign, and almost in
every instance of recent origin ; besides, few of them had
enough of property to enable them to hold a dignified sta¬
tion fn society. By the law of succession land is equally
divided amongst all the children, so that large estates could
not be entailed on the possessor of the family title ; and
hence, to maintain his rank and respectability, a nobleman
must have become a placeman or a pensioner, or engaged
in operations which would bring nobility into contempt.
The existence of a hereditary nobility in a country where
the law of primogeniture was unknown in the succession to
real property, seemed therefore an anomaly, which, in any
circumstances, could not long be tolerated, and which was
altogether unsuitable to the state of things which had long
obtained in Norway. The royal assent, however, was re¬
fused to the proposed enactment in 1815, and again in the
year 1818, after it had passed through a second Storthing.
To prevent it from passing a third time became the grand
object of government; for then it would necessarily have
become the law of the land, with or without the royal con¬
sent. In 1821, the year when the measure was to be again
brought forward, the king in person repaired to Christiania,
and used every means to induce the Storthing to abandon
it; but in vain. Six thousand soldiers were marched to
the neighbourhood of that city, to overawe both the legis-
1 In the article containing the accession of England to the treaty, after various mutual stipulations, there is a provision containing
the following words :—“ And his majesty the King of Sweden engages that this union shall take place with every possib e regai an
consideration for the happiness and of the people of Norway.” _ . . . ,,
2 It is a fact worthy of being recorded, that the committee which drew up this constitution, and laid it before the Nationa ssem y,
eat only four days, viz., from the 12th to the 16th of April. That so perfect a model of a free constitution should have been rame in
so short a period is truly marvellous; especially as it was not a rough, unfinished outline, but a system of government comp c e in a
its details. ' ■
NORWAY.
orway.
v-v-—^
FI sical
Isfct.
]', rds.
lature and the people; and extreme irritation prevailed.
At this critical moment, when the flames of civil war were
about to be kindled, both the Russian and American minis¬
ters interfered. What arguments or remonstrances they
employed are unknown ; but the fact is, that government
lowered its tone, the troops were withdrawn, and the Swe¬
dish government gave way. The Storthing having passed
the measure abolishing hereditary nobility for the third
time, it consequently became law. Norway therefore re¬
mains a pure democracy, federally united with the monarchy
of Sweden. Its constitution has outlived two dangerous
attacks upon it; and as the principles upon which it is
based have been developed by practice, it has gained ad¬
ditional strength, and been further secured by the love and
veneration of the people. The sudden disjunction of Den¬
mark and Norway left, of course, much business to be ad¬
justed between individuals of the two countries. It thus
occasioned much distress and loss to persons having con¬
nections and property in both ; and it still produces a con¬
stant intercourse. Few, we believe, will admire the manner
in which the union between Sweden and Norway was
effected; but as few will doubt the benefits which must
result to both from the exchange of mutual hostility for
mutual cordiality, and to a certain extent an identity of
interests.
If the reader turn to the map of Europe, he will find
that Norway extends from the 58th to the 7lst degree of
N. Lat, and at the broadest from the 5th to about the 31st
degree of E. Long. On the E. it is bounded by Sweden
and Russian Lapland, W. by the North Sea, S. by the Ska¬
gerrack, and N. by the Arctic Ocean. At the broadest part
it is scarcely 300 miles across, and N. of the 63d degree of
latitude the breadth is very inconsiderable, the country
narrowing to a mere belt. Its shape is peculiar, andx in the
main, it resembles that of a Florence flask,—the rounded
bottom being presented to the south, and the long narrow
neck stretching to the north. Norway thus begins about
the parallel where Scotland ends. The most southerly head¬
land in the former, that is the Naes, is nearly in the same
parallel as the Pentland Frith, which divides the latter
country from the Orkney Islands. The sea-coast presents
many features similar to those which characterize Iceland,
the north of Scotland, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and
other islands and continental tracts of country exposed to
the storms, the currents, and the perpetual buffetings of
the Northern Ocean. The action of the sea alone, how¬
ever, could not have formed such immense fissures as are
found in the solid primary rock on the Norwegian coast.
The theory of the elevation of the land by volcanic impulse
from below seems alone sufficient to account for such
phenomena.1
The greater part of Norway may be said to have an
outer and an inner coast, the former being a succession of
rocky islands of all dimensions, from a mere point to more
than a mile in length, and lying within about a mile of the
mainland, thus circling all the coast as with a girdle. Boats
and small vessels make their coasting voyages within the
rocks; for, even when the ocean is strongly agitated, the
outer barrier acts as a sort of breakwater, preventing the
channel within from being thrown into violent commotion,
except where directly open to the sea, when the wind
rushes in with great force and agitates the waves.
I hose immense arms of the sea which penetrate deep
into the country are called fiords in Norway; a name
in geographical nomenclature identifying them with the
319
firths of Scotland, to which they bear a slight resem- Norway,
blance, and also to the maritime lochs so numerous on the ^ y
west coast of that country; but the nearest approach to
similarity, although it falls far short, is an inlet of the sea
on the west coast of Ireland known as the Killeries. To
enumerate these fiords were only to present a catalogue of
names designating the same object in different situations
and of different sizes. They vary from 60 to 200 miles
in length, and from being several miles to less than a gun¬
shot in breadth; and altogether they constitute one of the
most remarkable physical features of the country. In many
of these fiords the rocks rise precipitously on either side,
and the waiter is of great depth. The inland streams ge¬
nerally empty themselves into the fiords; and, as in the
case of the firths of Forth, Clyde, and others, in Scotland,
it is often difficult to say where the river ends and the ocean
begins. All along the rock-bound coast these arms of the
sea succeed each other with much regularity. In pene¬
trating within their sombre and sometimes dangerous
mouths, the scene is all at once changed, presenting at the
bottom of these bays, creeks, and other indentations, towns
of a pleasant and cheerful aspect, and banks finely wooded
with all the varieties of those forest trees which we are ac¬
customed to meet in more temperate latitudes,—such as oak,
ash, elder, and elm trees,—and studded with cottages, farm¬
houses, and country residences, indicating taste and com¬
fort, if not luxury and wealth. The tide rushes into many
of those fiords with great violence, especially on the north¬
westerly quarter of the peninsula. This is readily accounted
for from the fact, that the interior basins are often very ca¬
pacious, whilst the mouths by which the water flows in to
fill them are frequently very confined. Opposite to Folden
Fiord is the Maelstrom, or Moskoestrom, long celebrated as
the most appalling whirlpool in Europe ; but it owes much
of its reputation to the exaggerated accounts of travellers.
It is situated nearly at the extremity of the range of the
Lofoden Islands, beginning between Moskoenaes and Mos-
koe, and exhausting itself between Varoe and Rost, the
last of which is the most westerly of the Lofodens. The
whirlpool is simply caused by the rushing of the ocean, as
the tide rises and falls, between this chain of islands, which
impedes its course like the narrow mouths of the fiords.
The relative position of the surrounding islands causes the
Maelstrom to form a large circle; and the great inequalities
of its bottom, which, from a few fathoms, deepens suddenly
in many parts to 200, increase the violence of the current.
A coast like that of Norway, so beset with irregular cur¬
rents, islands, and rocks, many of the latter close under
water, requires at all times to be approached with extreme
care, but particularly so in westerly gales, when it becomes
a lee-shore. The Norwegian government has recently
completed a series of splendid charts, on a scale of 3 inches
to the mile (with necessary sailing directions), of the whole
coast, from the Christiania Fiord, round the North Cape,
to the Russian frontier in the White Sea; a most import¬
ant and valuable addition to hydrography, of which the
lamented Sir Francis Beaufort, our hydrographer of the
navy, did not fail to avail himself, and caused fifteen large
sheets, together with an index chart, to be published there¬
from in 1855, for the benefit of British mariners. Neither
are there wanting admirable maps of the interior, prepared
by Professor Munch, by Capt. Rosen of the Engineers, and
by Capts. Waligorski and Hergoland.
The interior of Norway is almost one immense mass of Mountains,
rocky mountains and plateaux. It is mountainous, but it is
Indeed, the large rounded boulder-stones found on the tops of the highest mountains afford evidence sufficient of the fact that at one
ime Norway had been submerged beneath the Northern Ocean. That the sea never flowed in this quarter of the globe (and conse¬
quently in every other), eight thousand feet (the height of the highest mountains) above its present level, may readily be taken for
granted. \V e may, therefore, conclude, that the land has been raised by some mighty power; and we know of none which could effect
ns but the pent-up fire and compressed gases of a volcano, which, striving for vent, upheaved the solid pavement of the globe which
ay above them, and thus broke it up into innumerable fragments.
' t^Si*
320
NO R W A Y.
Norway, so rather by rea-on of its general elevation.than from the
conspicuous altitude of its summit,s._< The', mountains do
not form continuous chains or ridges; neither are they a
series of detached elevations ; but, especially in the S., they
to hills of moderate elevation. Sneehcette alone comes
upa mountain magnitude: it is <300 feet above the
the-seal but this fell is 3000 feet at this farm-house (at
Jerkin), which is about 12 miles from‘the base of Snee-
Norwa
fcrm plateaux or table-lands of great breadth, and generally ha:tip. The actual height, therefore, of this mountain, for
more or less connected together, though occasionally sepa-
rated by deep but always narrow valleys. Tliese table-lands
are the fjelds of Norway, and are usually distinguished by
specific names, as the Dovre Fjeld, Sogne Fjeld, Stagen
Fjeld, &c. Their summits are often so level that, did roads
exist, a coach and four might be driven, along and across
them for many miles. The surface ot the country niay be
distinguished into two distinct portions—the comparatively
narrow district extending from near Trondhjem to the
North Cape, a distance of more than 600 miles, and the
more expanded portion, 400 miles in length, from Trondh¬
jem to the Naes of Norway. Throughout the former por¬
tion the mountains cling, as it were, to the coast; and though
the eye, is about the same as that of Ren Nevis, about
4300 feet, with the disadvantage of gaining its apparent
height by a slow rise from the fell. There is a considerable
mass of snow in a hollow on the bosom of Sneehoette,
but not more than remains for great part of the summer on
hills in Aberdeenshire,—nothing like a glacier. The head
and shoulder are clear of snow. The most extraordi-
narv feature of this mountain tract is, that the surface of
the fell, and of Sneehcette to its summit, is covered with,
or, more properly, is composed of, rounded masses of gneiss
and granite, from the size of a man’s head to that of the
hull of a ship. These loose rolled masses are covered with
soil in some places; in others they are bare, just as they
Norway here occupies0 only one-fourth of the breadth of were left by the torrent which must have rounded them
nonirtculo it- r>nnt-nin<2 nil flip mnrp mnsiderable eleva- and deposited them in this legion.
The glaciers of Norway are neither so numerous nor so re- Glaciers.
the peninsula, it contains all the more considerable elev
tions. They assume here more the form of a connected
range than in the southern part of the country, and are
known by the name of the Kjolen Mountains. 1 he highest
land is the mass called Sulitelma, some of the summits of
which rise to the height of more than 6000 feet above the
level of the sea. South of Trondhjem (in Lat. 63. N.)
the high ground occupies by far the greatest part of the
breadth of Norway, and on the parallel of the Dovre Fjeld,
fully half the breadth of the peninsula. “ By a rude esti¬
mation,” says Professor Forbes, “ on Professor Keilhau’s
map, I find that the portion of the surface of Norway, S. of
the Trondhjem Fiord, which exceeds 3000 feet above the
sea, amounts to very nearly 40 per cent, of the whole;
and when it is recollected that only one summit exceeds
8000, and that the spaces exceeding 6000 are almost in¬
appreciable on the map, it will be more clearly understood
how completely the mountains have the character of table¬
lands, whose average height probably rather falls short of
than exceeds 4000 feet.” (Forbes.) The Dovre Fjeld,
lying between 62. and 63. of N. Lat., is a table-land of an
average height of rather more than 3000 feet above the sea,
and having mountains rising, in the case of Sneehcette, and
possibly one or two others, to the height of above 7000 feet.
Ymes-Fjeld, the highest summit in Norway, in Lat. 61. 30.
N., is estimated at 8400 feet above the level of the sea.
Travellers are proverbially prone to give exaggerated
descriptions of the physical features of the countries which
they traverse; and from this cause our ideas of the height
of some of the Norwegian mountains, and the sublimity of
the scenery which they present, have occasionally been
pitched rather above the truth, which is the case with re¬
spect to the Dovre Fjeld. Mr Laing, in his excellent
account of the country, thus describes this great natural
feature of Norway:—“The Dovre Fjeld here (at Jerkin,
on the northern verge of the range) may be from 24 to 28
miles across. When we give things their real names we
take away much of their imagined grandeur. The Dovre
Fjeld sounds well, and we fancy it a vast and sublime na¬
tural feature. It really is no more than a. fell, like those of
Yorkshire or Cumberland ; an elevated tract of ground,
whence run waters in opposite directions, and which forms
the base of a number of detached hills of moderate eleva¬
tion. In fact, as a scene impressing the traveller with
ideas of vast and lonely grandeur, the tract from the
waters of the Tay to those of the Spey, by Dalnacardoch,
Dalwhinny, and Pitmain, greatly surpasses it. You are
indeed 3000 feet above the level of the sea; but that is
not seen ; it is a matter of reflection and information. You
look down upon nothing below you, and look up only
markable, either in beauty or extent, as those in Alpine coun¬
tries. The Norwegian mountains are, for the most part,
continuous table-topped rocks, of an average height of from
about 3000 to 6000 feet, intersected with deep fissures,
forming the valleys, lakes, rivers, and fiords at their base.
On the highest summit of these table-topped mountains the
snow lodges, the point of perpetual congelation being be¬
tween 4000 and 5000 feet above the sea-level. It lies very
deep, and in some cases extends in almost one uniform mass
for many miles. The largest of these snow-fields is
that of Justedalsbraen (sometimes called Sneebraen), and
Folgefonden ; the latter an extensive plateau of some SOmiles
long, by 6 to 18 miles in breadth. Professor Wittich, who
ascende’d the Folgefonden, says, that at most places the snow-
field extends to the steep precipices with which the moun¬
tainous mass on which it rests terminates on all sides ; and
that in those places where its edges could be observed, the
snow had a thickness of about 40 feet.
Thanks to Professor Forbes, who visited Norway in
1851, we have now been made acquainted with the phy¬
sical geography of that country, in connection with the
snow-fields and glaciers, ot which little or nothing was pre¬
viously known. He describes the Nygaard Glacier, on the
Justedalsbraen, as in all probability the most regularly de¬
veloped glacier in Norway. Like the glaciers of Bondhuus
and the Suphelle Glacier, it sweeps down into the very
midst of the verdure of the valley. Professor Forbes’s
observations extended also along the entire coast, up which
he proceeded in one of the Norwegian steamboats which
every summer thread their way to the North Cape through
the numerous islands which lie off the land. 1 he glaciers
are not so numerous as might be expected to the northwards,
but in some cases they descend very close to the sea, as
in the case of those of the Nus Fiord, “ the northernmost
glaciers on the continent of Europe which descend below
the snow-line.”
' There are a number of lakes in Norway, the largest of Lakes and
which is the Myosen (now traversed by a steam-vessel), a rivers,
splendid sheet of water, about 60 miles in length, and from
1 to 10 in breadth. Its scenery has been classed with the
pastoral or beautiful, rather than with the sublime. Its
shores are well cultivated ; and with the exception of a few
rough promontories dipping into the lake, the slopes are
easy, and yield fine crops of oats, here, flax, pease, and po¬
tatoes. Its direction, like that of a great many of the lakes
and rivers in Norway, is from N.W. to S.E., crossing the
61st parallel of N. Lat. The depth of the Myosen
varies greatly, but it is considered shallower than most of
1 Laing’s Residence in Norway, p. 52-3.
N O R W A Y.
321
the other Norwegian lakes. The depth'in the lower parts, the whole, instead qf behig repelled by the wild tempest of Norway,
is not more than 40 fathoms ; often if is mucli less ; but in ’ air which accompanies the greater cataract. At other
the upper part it has been found to exceed a hundred, times single threads of snow-white water stretch down a
Yet even this is nothing in comparison with the depth of steep of 2000 feet or more, connecting the Fjelde above
the other lakes, particularly of the Fahmund Soe, which is and the valley below ; they look so slender that we wonder
reputed to" be unfathomable ; a distinction always allotted at their absolute uniformity and perfect whiteness through-
to the deepest lake in every mountainous country. A' out so great a space, never dissipated in air, never disap-
lanm stream called the Vormen Elv, issues from the pearing under debris; but on approaching these seeming
southern limit of Lake Myosen ; and at Lillehammer, which threads we are astonished at their volume, which is usually
is its northern extremity, it forms a communication with such as completely to stop communication from bank to
I ake Losna by the River Lougen. Into this lake flows bank.” (Forbes.) There are many other lakes and rivers in
a river which rises in the Dovre Fjeld range of mountains, Norway .besides those which we have described, amongst
and appears to be the one alluded to by Mr Laing in the which we may mention the Torris Elv, called the Odderen
following passage “ The stream which runs through Gul- Elv during part of its upper course, a large stream, which
brandsdal and&the Myosen, and reaches the sea at Fre- enters the sea at Christiansand; the Topdals, which falls into
derickstad, beino- the same I left at Lien, comes down the sea near the same place; the Louven Elv, which rises in
from the hills afor near Lessee, and is there divided into the Hardanger Fjelde, traverses several long, narrow lakes,
two branches, one of which, as above stated, runs into the passes through Kbngsberg, and enters the sea near Nau-
Myosen, and the other into the North Sea at the fiord in vig, in Lat. 59.; and between this stream and the Lougen,
Romsdal amt, in which the town of Molde is situated ; thus which lies considerably to the N.E., there is more than one
includino- in’its delta between four and five degrees of large river. A multitude of streams also run into the North
latitude, and all the west and south of Norway. The Sea. The most important of these is the Namsen (now the
course of this little river from Lessoe to the sea is very favourite resort of our countrymen for salmon-fishing),
important, as it gives precision to our ideas of the shape which, from its exit out of the lakes that give rise to it,
and direction of the Dovre Fjeld, and its connection with has a course of about 90 miles. From the ground sloping
the Hurunwer, the Fille, and the Hardanger Mountains.” with more rapidity upon this side of the mountain chain
This river°must therefore have a course of probably 100 than on the other, the water-courses must be considerably
miles in a north-westerly, and above 250 in a south-easterly steeper. Mr Barrow, in his Excursions in the North of
direction. It is in several parts of its course of considerable Europe, speaks in glowing terms of the “ snow-capped
breadth, and at more than 100 miles from its embouchure mountains, the fir-clad hills, the lovely valleys, the clear
is described as a large, dark-coloured, and rapid river. A and limpid streams, the clearer lakes, and unfathomable
still larger stream is the Glommen, called by way of dis- fiords.” The extraordinary clearness of the water has
tinctionStor Elven, or the Great River, from its being the been a subject of remark by all travellers, and has no
largest in Norway. It rises in the government of Trondh- parallel in any other country; neither has it been satis-
jem, not far from Oresund Lake, through which it runs; factorily accounted for. It may possibly be owing to the
and’ it afterwards traverses the extensive government of purity of the water itself, the clear sky, and clear white
Christiania, flowing through Osterdaelen and Hedemarken, sandy bottom which often prevails in the fiords. Sir
passing Kongsvinger, and finally falling into the sea at Arthur De Capell Brocke makes the following observa-
Frederickstad^ afte”- a course, reckoning its sinuosities, of tions upon the singular clearness of the water : —“ As we
probably more than 400 miles, all in Norway. From passed slowly over the surface (of the fiords), the bottom,
the heart of this continent it opens an easy communica- which was in general a white sand, was clearly visible, and its
tion with the ocean, and through its means the produce minutest objects, when the depth was from 20 to 25 fathoms,
of the interior is brought down to the coast. At about During the whole course of the tour I made, nothing ap-
200 miles from the sea it is described as a fine majestic peared to me so extraordinary as the inmost recesses of the
stream, 200 yards in breadth. Navigation, however, is deep thus unveiled to the eye.”
obstructed by numerous falls, one of which, not far from The forests of Norway, as is well known, are large and nu- Forests,
its mouth, is called the cataract of Sarpen, the roar of merous ; but they do not appear to be so extensive as those
which is heard at a great distance. There are other falls of Sweden. In the southern parts of Norway, indeed,
on the same river; but the most stupendous natural phe- and up as far as Irondhjem the supplies of timber aie
nomenon of this description is situated upon the opposite considerable ; but to the north of the lattei place, and along
side of the mountain range, on streams which flow into the the sea-coast, as well as on the mountain ranges, wood is not
North Sea. Mr Lloyd 1 (and all subsequent travellers plentiful, many parts of the country being perfectly destitute
agree with him) describes the falls of Rjukanfos and Yo- ofit. Norway, however, from the district of Trondhjemsouth-
ringfos as particularly grand, the first having a perpendicu- wards, may be considered as a country abundantly supplied
lar descent of 450 feet, and the second of 900 feet, the with gigantic forests of magnificent trees, amongst which
body of water in both cases being very considerable. Mr the pine, birch, and aspen are the most celebrated and the
Forsell, in giving some statistical information regarding most valuable to the inhabitants.
Norway, mentions other falls even more stupendous than The prevailing rocks found in Norway belong to the Geology,
these. The waterfalls of Norway are, in fact, extremely primitive and transition series. The west coast is wholly
numerous, and some of them are grand beyond description, composed of primitive rocks, gneiss and mica-slate greatly
“ Running water of a bright and sparkling green is seen on predominating. Secondary rocks occur but rarely, and
every side, at least in the valleys ; it pours over cliffs often alluvial deposits are not so abundant as in many other less
in a single leap, but more frequently and more effectively extensive regions. Granite is rare. When it appears, it is
in a series of broken falls, spreading laterally as it descends, frequently in veins traversing the primitive stratified rocks,
and riveting the imagination for a long time together in the or running parallel with beds or strata; and sometimes it
attempt to trace its subtle ramifications. The sound is is found spread over the surface of mica-slate, as at Forvig;
rather a murmur than a roar, so divided are the streams, or irregularly associated with clay-slate and diallage rock,
and so numerous the shelves of rock tipped with foam ; as in the island of Mageroe. But by far the most abundant
whilst a luxuriant vegetation of birch and alder overarches rock in Norway is gneiss, all the others of the primitive
2 s
VOL. XVI.
1 Field Sports of the North of Europe, vol ii., p. 295.
322
NORWAY.
Norway, series appearing to be subordinate to it. Extensive tracts
of country, and long mountain ranges, seem to consist al¬
most entirely of gneiss. In some parts it abounds in veins
of rose and milk quartz, in iron ores, in garnets (sometimes
the precious, but most frequently the common garnet), and
other minerals. Mica-slate, however, which rests upon
and alternates with the gneiss, is far from being so gene¬
rally distributed; as is also the case with the clay-slate. In
some places steatite occurs in beds, and is quarried in slabs
to be used for different purposes. Quartz rock, various
hornblende rocks, and limestone occur in beds subordi¬
nate to the gneiss and mica-slate. One side of the valley
of Shalheim, situated between Bergen and Sognefiord, is
bounded by hills of snow-white quartz, which are almost
bare, and present mural precipices having a very singular
appearance at a distance, from their shining white colour.
Gabbro or diallage rock occurs in great quantities, con¬
nected with clay-slate, in the island of Mageroe and in
other parts of Norway. The class of transition rocks con¬
tains, besides graywacke, alum, slate, limestone (sometimes
combined with tremolite), and other rocks well known to
mineralogists as belonging to the following eruptive series :
Granite, which sometimes contains hornblende; syenite,
which contains a beautiful labradorite, and often crystals
of the gem named zircon ; porphyry, and associated with
it various trap rocks allied to basalt and amygdaloid. All
the mountains, and especially those of the south, contain
a great number of minerals much prized in collections,
and of metals valuable to man, amongst which may be
mentioned gold, silver, iron, copper, cobalt, and lead. I he
mines of silver in Norway are situated at Kbngsberg ; but
although they once afforded rich returns, they now scarcely
repay the labour bestowed on them. Large masses of
native silver have been found here; one of them, about 6
feet long by 10 inches in diameter, is now in the museum
of Copenhagen, weighing upwards of 500 lb. The Kongs-
berg mines abound with mineralogical curiosities, of which
the most remarkable is native electrum, a natural alloy
of gold and silver. There is a gold mine at Edswold,
in the district of Rommarge, and mines of lead and silver
in that of Jarlsberg; but they have not been wrought to
any extent. The copper mines of Norway are chiefly
situated in the northern division of the kingdom. The
most considerable are those at Alten, situated in the 70th
parallel of latitude, and worked by a company of English¬
men ; and at Roraas, on the Swedish frontier, in Lat.
62. 35. N.; the latter of which were discovered in 1644.
These consist of three mines, called the Storvuitz, Roraas,
and Ejda. The ore both of the Alten and Roraas copper
mines is of the same character; the veins not rich, but
numerous and powerful. Copper is supposed to exist to the
northward of Roraas, in various parts of the mountain range
which divides Sweden from Norway. The other copper
mines are from 15 to 20 leagues from Trondhjem, at
Quikne, Laeken, Selboe, and in the district of Christi¬
ania at Fredericksgave or Foledel. The principal iron
mines are situated in Southern Norway; and of these the
most distinguished are those of Arundal and Krageroe.
The mines of Arundal are celebrated for the richness of
their mineralogical treasures. Many of these are rare,
such as botryolite, datholite, wernerite, scapolite, and mor-
oxite ; besides abundance of epidote, actinolite, cocolite,
and colophonite. The ore (magnetic iron ore) is found
in beds of gneiss, of which the country is chiefly formed.
The total quantity of iron ore obtained annually "does not
exceed 30,000 tons, but it is of the finest quality. The
total produce of copper varies from 400 to 500 tons.
The mines of cobalt, which are worked at Modum and
Fossum, are extensive, but not very deep. There is a
mine of plumbago and black lead at Engledal. The mines
of alum, which are worked in the mountains of Egeberg,
near to Christiania, afford not only a sufficiency for the Norway,
consumption of the country, but some for exportation.
Norway possesses quarries of granite, marble, millstone,
whetstone, slate, and clay. Granite is exported to Holland,
and marble and other minerals to Denmark.
Some valleys in Norway give abundant indications of Ancient
their having been lakes of fresh water, which were either lakes, &c.
gradually drained as the land became elevated, or, bursting
the barriers that confined them, suddenly laid their basins
dry. Mr Laing describes one of these in the following
passage:—“ On ascending the steeps which bound the flat
alluvial bottom of the valley on each side, and which con¬
sists generally of banks of gravelly soil, one is surprised to
find a kind of upper terrace of excellent land, cultivated
and inhabited like the bottom, and consisting of the same
soil, a friable loam. This terrace rests against the primary
rocks of the fjelde, which are here limestone, marble, and
gneiss, or rock of the micaceous family, of which the laminae
are singularly twisted and contorted ; and the terrace has
evidently been the bottom of an ancient lake, which has
been bounded by these fjelde ridges.” The same traveller
gives an account of one of those ancient sea-beaches,
which, in other countries besides Norway, are calculated
to arrest the attention and excite the wonder of the ob¬
server of nature. He is speaking of the Snaasen Vand,
a lake some 60 or 70 miles, north from Trondhjem.
“ About 7 miles inland from the present sea-strand, at
the head of the fiord, and about 60 feet above the pre¬
sent high-water level, there is an ancient sea-beach of a
very remarkable character. About the house of Fossum,
and 40 feet higher than the lake of that name, the sea-
shells are so abundant that they might be applied to
agricultural purposes, and they lie close to the surface.”
At another place in the neighbourhood there is a large
bed of shells, which have been used in mending the road
for a considerable distance towards Snaasen Vand. “ They
are entire; the upper and under ones of the mussel, cockle,
and clam are united, and the mussels grouped together,
as in the living state; so that this bed has clearly been the
spot upon which the animals lived.” From these and other
indications, it is concluded that a shore, in a direction
nearly parallel to that of the present one of the Trondhjem
Gulf, and on a level at least 60 feet higher, has existed
at a recent geological period. These beds are not covered
with any thickness of decayed vegetable soil, and the shells
retain in part their natural hue and enamel. The land,
therefore, has been elevated at no very distant period ; at
what rate per century has not been determined as to this
side; but the Swedish philosophers assert that the change
of level in the Gulf of Finland is at the rate of 4£ feet
in a hundred years. Such could not have been the case
on the shores of Norway washed by the North Sea, for the
relative positions of known points upon the line of the sea¬
shore, to the present level of the sea, are by historical
evidence ascertained to have changed little if any during
a thousand years. The change of level may have been
local, or it may have gone on more rapidly at one time than
at another.
Earthquakes have been repeatedly experienced in Nor¬
way. History records one which occurred at Trondhjem
on the 18th of July 1686, and another on the 1st of April
1692. On the 14th of September 1344, the River Guul
disappeared in the earth; and on its bursting out again
destroyed forty-eight farms and 250 human beings. About
the same time a great earthquake took place in Iceland.
Indeed the whole aspect of this country bears evidence to
the fact, that at some period, or more probably at different
periods, its surface has been elevated, depressed, and
shattered by great convulsions.
From the general elevation of the land, the climate is Climate
of course rendered more severe than would naturally be-anii soi1.
NOR
Norway, long to a country under the same parallel, the general eleva-
tion of which was more nearly on a level with the ocean.
The winters are long and very cold ; but, as in all northern
climates, their length and severity are in some measure
compensated by the great heat, and consequently rapid
vegetation, in summer. Towards the east, and in the in¬
terior, the winter is longest, the cold, generally speaking,
always increasing towards the north. The effects of the
sea-breezes upon the general temperature of the coasts
of all countries are well known. Winter, however, is very
pleasant and salubrious; for although the air is cold, it
is dry and bracing, not damp and raw. But the west¬
ern part, especially about Bergen and along the coast, is
proverbially rainy, owing probably to the high mountains,
which attract the clouds wafted from the' ocean. But
the country behind this barrier is on that account par¬
ticularly dry, perhaps somewhat too much so. In Norway
the weather is in general more steady than in Britain; it is
either good or bad for considerable periods. The summer
season is delightful, and very warm. In narrow glens it is
too hot during the middle of the day; but the morning,
evening, and midnight hours are charming, and peculiar to
this country. The sun is below the horizon for so short a
time that the sky retains the glow, and the air the warmth
and dryness, which are as grateful to the eye as they are
pleasing to the feelings. A little north of Trondhjem it
continues above the horizon for the twenty-four hours in
the height of summer. Summer lingers long in this coun¬
try ; and, in general, it is an unbroken series of beautiful
days. The disagreeable season is the spring (April and
May), when, in the transition from winter to summer, the
snows are suddenly melted, and the ground is rendered un¬
comfortable for travelling. Damage is sometimes done in
this season by the rapid swelling of the torrents and
rivers. When the white covering of winter disappears,
vegetation bursts forth at once, and advances with asto¬
nishing rapidity.
The mean annual temperature at Christiania is
the winter being 23°-2, the summer 59°’8. At Bergen
the mean annual temperature is above 5° higher than at
Christiania, being 46°-8; and while in the summer months
the temperature is nearly the same, the winter months at
Bergen are, on an average, not less than 13° warmer. At
Trondhjem, in Lat. 63. 26. N., the mean annual tempera¬
ture for the year 1826-7 was 40o-8, being in each month
as follows:—November, 33°T ; December, 310,3; January,
180,5; February, 160,7; March, 270,5; April, 420,3;
May, 560,3; June, 62°-4; July, 57°‘9; August, 54D,7;
September, 510,1 ; October, 380,7. At Alten, in Lat. 69.
57., the average temperature for eleven years (1837-1848)
was at 9 a.m. 34o'50, and 9 p.m. 32°-83 ; mean, 33°-66.
The mean temperature of February, which is decidedly the
coldest month, is 150,4; and of August, which is usually
the hottest, 540,3. This range, however, is small com¬
pared with the actual extremes on particular days; for we
find in 1848 the maximum at 860,9, the minimum at — 20o,2.
It is rarely, however, that the mercury falls below zero;
whilst there is not perhaps another part of the earth’s sur¬
face on this parallel where the mercury does not freeze in
winter. Ihe fall of rain and snow here in 1848 was 17'19
inches. 1 he gulf-stream exercises an important influence
upon the climate of Norway. Taking its rise in the Gulf
of Honda, it proceeds northwards and eastwards, until it
breaks on the shores of Europe and Northern Africa, a por¬
tion of it striking the western coasts of the British Isles,
and being prolonged to the coast of Norway, imparting
warmth to water and to land, and effectually repelling the
invasion of floating ice, with which the coast of Norway
would otherwise be continually menaced. It is a remark¬
able fact, that the smallest piece of drift ice is unknown on
any part of the Norwegian coast, though it extends to Lat.
WAY.
7L N.; while off the coast of North America they are oc¬
casionally seen as far south as Lat. 41. N.
The luxuriance of vegetation being abridged by the
length and severity of the winter, the soil is thus indirectly
rendered comparatively sterile. In America the immense
forests are continually enriching the mould with their de¬
caying foliage; but in Norway the paucity of alluvial tracts,
the prevalence of rock, seldom far beneath, and often form¬
ing the surface, together with the want of vegetable decom¬
position, materially detract from the quantity as well as the
quality of the soil. In some parts it is very rich ; and the
valleys, in particular, are celebrated for their luxuriant fer¬
tility. But much of the soil is thin, and obstructed by
rocky knobs rising above its surface, and interfering with
the labours of the husbandman. “ I have not, indeed,”
says Mr Laing, “ seen in Norway twenty acres of arable
land in one field, without some obstruction from knobs of
stone.” The vegetation of the west coast of Norway is very
similar to that of Britain, but in the south and east there
is found a completely different flora, approximating to that
of Denmark and Germany. The cause of the remarkable
difference between the flora, and also the fauna, of the
two coasts, may probably in part be referred to the
absence of tides on the south coast. This circumstance
seems to exercise an important influence on the cha¬
racter of the natural productions of the country; and we
the more especially refer to it, as it seems to have been
hitherto entirely overlooked by naturalists. At Bergen the
tide falls 6 or 8 feet, but on the south coast it does not fall
6 inches.
“ In Norway,” says Mr Laing, “ the trees of the pine tribe Natural
are called/mt-m and gran. Furu is our pine {Pinus silves- produc-
tris), and gran is our fir (Pinus abies); the one is the red tions-
wood, and the other the white wood of our carpenters.
There are whole districts which produce only furu, others
only gran ; and this seems not exactly regulated by latitude
or elevation. The zones at which different trees cease to
grow appear to be a theory to which the exceptions are as
numerous as the examples. In Romsdal amt, at Fanne
Fiord, near Molde, in Lat. 62. 47. N., and with a me¬
dium temperature of only 4° of Reaumur (41° of Fahren¬
heit), pears, the bergamot, gravenstein, and imperial, and
also plums, come to perfection ; and the walnut tree often
bears ripe fruit. Hazel and elm in the same amt form con¬
tinuous woods, as at Egerdal. Yet the gran disappears
altogether, although in the same degree of latitude it grows
at an elevation of 1000 feet above the sea in the interior
of Norway, and even in Lat. 69. in Lapmark. It has
been found a vain attempt to raise it in Romsdal amt, a
locality in which the following trees and bushes grow
readily:—Canadian poplar, balsam poplar, horse chestnut,
larch, elder, yew, roses of various sorts, lavender, box,
laburnum, white thorn, and ivy. Larch brought from Scot¬
land appears to thrive. There must be something in the
nature of the plants, not connected with elevation or lati¬
tude, that determines the growth of the gran and furu.”
Wood grows in sheltered situations in Nordland and Fin-
mark, as far north as Alten Fiord (Lat. 70.), but of dimi¬
nutive size, and in limited quantity. Trees in the valley of the
Ncimsen are large enough for building material and the masts
of ships. Laing remarks, that he “ did not expect certainly
to be charmed with the crops in the sixty-fifth degree of north
latitude; but the vegetative power, whatever be the cause,
is more vigorous here than in the north of Scotland. Some
of the largest establishments of saw-mills in Norway are
supplied with trees from the forests around the Snaasen
Vand. Of ordinary productions,—as rye, oats, here, flax,
hops,—there appeared to be great crops. This may well be
in a soil and climate which raises such noble forests. Be¬
hind the house I inhabited is a standard cherry-tree bear¬
ing ripe fruit. It would be a rarity in Scotland to raise
324
NORWAY.
Norway, them unless against a wall, even eight degrees of latitude
v south of this.” Here Mr Laing found hops cultivated as a
crop, while flax ripened so as to be fit for seed. The
mountain and common ash are here scarce; the aspen,
wild cherry, birch, and the pine tribes, being the trees, and
the juniper, wild raspberry, and wild rose, the bushes which
generally prevail. .
The country south of the Namsen may be considered as
capable of producing, in favourable situations, the grains and
fruits of England, and these, too, often in the highest degree
of perfection. Most kinds of fruit are abundant, but the
greatest favourite is the cherry. The crop of cherries is
scarcely ever known to fail; and in proof the abundance
of this fruit, it maybe mentioned that the Norwegians pre¬
serve it in great quantities, and use it in many culinary
operations. Amongst the fruits growing wild are straw¬
berries, raspberries, cloudberries, cranberries, and various
other kinds of berries. The three first mentioned are con¬
sidered as delicious, and they are eaten both when freshly
gathered, like cultivated strawberries, and after being pre¬
served. . .
Zoology. The animal kingdom of Norway requires some notice.
As population has increased, the wild animals have of com se
gradually disappeared, and the bear and the wolf aie no
longer the terror of the traveller, as they were wont to be.
In November the bear retires to some sheltered hole in
the rocks of the Fjeld, and remains in a state of inactivity,
without food, it is said, until April. Indeed many of the
smaller animals—the field-mice, the lemmings, and, Mr Laing
conjectures, many of the birds—pass the winter in this cli¬
mate in a state of occasional torpidity. The wolves are not
so dangerous animals as those of the south of Europe. I hey
rarely attack a man, but they will carry off a dog at his
side; and they often commit serious havoc amongst the
domestic animals. The loss of sheep, calves, cows, and
foals, in certain parishes, during the season when they are
at pasture, is sometimes immense. Bears also commit
depredations of the same kind, but not nearly to the same
extent as the wolf, which, when he gets into a herd, bites
and tears all that he can overtake. Many horses may be
seen scarred by them. I he elk is now rarely met with,
and in all likelihood has entirely disappeared from this part
of Europe. It is described in former times as a magnificent
animal, being often seventeen hands in height, and some¬
times exceeding in size the largest horse. Ihe glutton or
wolverine, so called in America, is reckoned a Norwegian
animal. Its total length is not more than two feet and a
half, and it flies from the face of man. It feeds chiefly
upon beasts which have been accidentally killed; but it
will hunt small animals, such as meadow-mice, marmots,
and the like, and occasionally attack disabled animals of a
larger size. Although not fleet, it is very industrious, and
does great injury to the small fur trade in the northern
parts of Europe. The rein-deer, which is found in con¬
siderable numbers on the Hardanger Fjeld and the Sogne
Fjeld, and the diversified qualities of which are so beau¬
tifully adapted to the bleak and inhospitable regions in the
north of Norway, will be found described in the article
Lapland. The author of Notes on a Yacht Voyage to
Hardanger Fiord mentions falling in with a herd of from
three to four hundred rein-deer when descending from the
Folgefonden. “ The whole herd was soon out of sight.
In the distance it resembled a vast moving cloud against
the snow, with a small dark mote in front. The guide said
they were not often seen congregated in such large num¬
bers.” The beaver, although not extinct, is rare, and lives
solitary, not, like the American beaver, in society. A par¬
ticular kind of dog, with a remarkably fine, soft, and glossy
fur, is bred for its skin, which is made into pelisses for
winter wear. Besides the wild and tame rein-deer, red
deer are pretty numerous in some districts. The fox and
the lemming are abundant in some parts, paitieulaily in the Norway,
north. A multitude of birds inhabit the coasts of the ocean,
and Norway furnishes a considerable part of the eider-down,
so well known to the luxurious in couches. Game is plen¬
tiful ; the principal birds being called the tydder, roer,
ryper, and jerper. The tydder is the bird known of old in
Scotland by the name of capercailzie, and which became
extinct in that country, but has been introduced again of
late years by the Marquis of Breadalbane and other noble¬
men. The cock is a noble bird, of the size of a turkey-
cock, with a bill and claws of great strength. The roer is
the female, and in size, plumage, and appearance so dif¬
ferent from the male, that it has received a different name
in the language. T he ryper is the same as the Scottish
ptarmigan, but larger and better clothed. Its flavour, how¬
ever, is inferior to the game of the Scottish hills. But the
jerper is a more delicate bird for the table than any of our
name. It is of the grouse species, and about the size of
a full-grown pigeon. The silence of the forest solitudes
is occasionally broken by the sweep of the eagle s or the
heron’s wing; but the traveller in Norway is generally
struck with the limited number of small birds which he
meets in the course of his ramblings. Magpies, the lloys-
ton crow, and swallows, are common ; but the lark, linnet,
thrush, blackbird, robin, and some others common to Great
Britain, are little known here. Mr Barrow mentions hear¬
ing the cuckoo, not far from Rbraas, at an elevation of
3000 feet above the level of the sea. Hares and squirrels
are in considerable abundance; and there are some other
quadrupeds and birds no strangers in the country, but they
are of too little importance to require any particular men¬
tion. Amongst domestic animals may be mentioned the
horse, goat, sheep, and cow; the goose, the duck, and the
turkey, which are also found wild. Of horses there is a
small breed very general in Norway, and another of a larger
size, which is much esteemed for its swiftness and sureness
of foot. “ These Norwegian horse are beyond all praise,”
says Mr Laing: “ they scamper down hills as steep as a
house roof, and in going up hill actually scramble. They
have no objection whatever, if you have none, to any path
or any pace; they are the bravest of horse kind. All
travellers speak of them in similar terms. They are fed
entirely upon hay, which, although merely withered grass,
appears to be more substantial than ours, fiom the wind
and powers of the horses, which live upon nothing else.
The sheep are shaped like deer, having long legs and small
muzzles. Numbers of goats and cows are kept, the milk
which they yield being very rich and highly esteemed.
Fish abound in the seas, lakes, and rivers of Norway ; and
the inhabitants not only derive a considerable portion of
their subsistence from fishing, but it also forms an impoit-
ant article of export. Salmon-fishing in Norway has be¬
come a favourite pastime with many of our countrymen.
Amongst the insects, the gnat, or rather mosquito, is found
exceedingly annoying. They are in greatest abundance
and most venomous in the north. The kuria infernalis, so
called from the dreadful effects which follow from its bite,
frequents the marshes or boggy grounds. The acute pain
and inflammatory swelling which its bite produces are re¬
moved by a curd poultice, which is said to be an infallible
cure. The entomology of the south of Norway is very
similar to that of the south of England, whilst that of the
west resembles the entomology of Scotland.
The principal products of the Norwegian farm are,—oats, Agricul-
rye, wheat, here, hops, flax, a kind of bearded spring grain, ^‘Pr0'
with potatoes; and a large portion of every farm is set apart 11
to grow grass for the cattle and horses. The grass for the
most part is natural, sown grasses for hay being very little
cultivated. The land, after a here crop following potatoes, is
left to sward itself with natural grasses for four years, and
to form the hay land; so that the proportion of grass to
NORWAY. S25
Norway, arable land is much greater than in our farms. Ihe natural
grasses do not attain any length, and they are shaven as
close to the gi'ound as a bowling-green. ^ I he fields are not
what is called top-dressed, as with us. The scythe in use
is much shorter in the blade than that of Great Britain, and
it answers the purpose much better. Potatoes have been
much cultivated since 1812 and 1814, when bad crops, and
the war then raging, reduced many to the use of bark-bread.
A small inclosure tor hops is attached to every farm-house ;
but garden vegetables are little used. Probably the short
interval between winter and summer allows little time for
attending to any but the essential crops. The hop flour¬
ishes with little attention under the sixty-fourth parallel;
a striking fact, seeing that this plant is delicate and pre¬
carious in the south of England. In farming operations,
ditching, draining, and clearing land of vegetable and other
obstructions, are prosecuted with great spirit and success.
Agriculturists are continually adding to the quantity of
arable land in the country by thus redeeming the soil from
its original wild state. However, from causes already men¬
tioned, Norway is not capable of furnishing the means of
subsistence to any considerable population. Generally
speaking, only tbe glens of the country are inhabited. On
the dividing ridges there is little or no cultivation, and, in¬
deed, no soil to cultivate, but only rounded masses of
gneiss and micaceous rocks, with juniper, fir, aspen, birch,
and beech, growing where they can amongst the stones.
Mr Laing gives a minute account of a Norwegian farm
rented by a Scotchman; and as he considers it “ fitted to
be the representative of a large portion of the estates into
which this country is divided,” we shall abridge his descrip¬
tion. Each farm may be considered as consisting of three
divisions. The first is the infield, or what we should call the
mains, or home acres, inclosed for the crops and the best
hay. The next is the mark or outfield, also inclosed, and
affording the out-pasture for the cattle. Parts of it are oc¬
casionally fenced off, and broken up for grain, and, when
exhausted, are left to sward themselves ; so that when the
cattle are sent to the fjelde in summer, some hay is got
from the mark. There is often a still rougher piece of
ground divided from the mark, as a range for goats and
young cattle, called the out-mark. The third division is
the seater. This is a pasture or grass farm, often at the
distance of 30 or 40 miles up in the fjelde, to which the
whole of the cattle and dairymaids are sent for three or four
months in summer. The huts on these seaters are substan¬
tial buildings, with every accommodation necessary for the
dairy, and butter and cheese are accordingly made in very
considerable quantities. “ The farm of my countryman,”
says Mr Laing, “consists of 1276 maelings, or 290 Eng¬
lish acres; but this does not include.the seater, which
happens here to be on the hills immediately behind the
farm, is covered with fine trees, and is of a defined
boundary, extending about a Norwegian mile (7 Eng¬
lish miles) in circuit. On the measured lattd, 148 acres
are cleared; but, being farmed in the Norwegian style, one-
third only bears crops of corn and potatoes. The remain¬
der is always in grass or hay, for the winter support of the
cattle. It is natural grass, not top-dressed with manure,
and is mown when not above the length of one’s finger, so
that tbe proportion of arable land that must be given up to
keep the cattle in winter is enormous. It is the system of
farming in this quarter; 142 acres outside of the 148 infield
are halt cleared, being fenced off' and ploughed in patches.
It bears good grass, but is encumbered in some places with
brushwood and stones.”
1 his farm supports twenty cows, seven horses, and a
score or two of sheep and goats. The accommodation for
cattle is excellent. I hey stand in a single row in the
middle of a wide house, with partitions between each, and
loom before and behind greater than is occupied by the
animal itself. The cow-house is lighted by glass-windows Norway,
on each side. The cattle stand on a wooden floor, below
which is a vault, into which the dung is swept by a grated
opening at the end of each stall.” All the cow-houses in
Norway are constructed on this large and convenient scale;
and neither cows nor horses require litter, which is a great
saving of fodder. Besides, they are kept perfectly clean
with comparatively little trouble. The value of a farm in
Norway depends very much upon the locality. In For¬
ester’s Norway (Appendix), one containing about 300 acres
of cultivated land, besides some bogs capable of cultivation,
and a good little forest of different kinds of wood, is men¬
tioned as having cost about 12,000 dollars, or about L.2200
sterling. Twenty years were allowed to discharge the pur¬
chase-money, the tenant in the meantime paying a rent of
L.4 per cent. Many farms, however, of like extent, may be
had for one-half, or even one-third of this sum. The one men¬
tioned by Laing was considered worth about 4000 dollars.
“ The harvest-work here,” says Mr Laing, “ and I believe
all over Norway, is well done ; and parts of their management
might be adopted with advantage in our late districts, where
so much grain is lost or damaged almost every autumn by
wind or rain. For every ten sheaves, a pole of light strong
wood, about the thickness of the handle of a garden-rake,
and about 9 feet in length, is fixed in the ground by an iron-
shod borer; it costs here almost nothing. A man sets two
sheaves on the ground against the stem, and impales all‘the
rest upon the pole, one above the other, with the heads
hanging downwards.” This is certainly a mode very supe¬
rior to ours ; and they have likewise a better way of cutting
it, by which little of the grain is lost. But for an account
of this process, and other farming operations, we must refer
to Mr Laing’s work (pp. 96, 106).
The breed of cattle in Norway is fine-boned, thin-skin¬
ned, and kindly-looking; the colour is generally white,
sometimes mixed with red, but seldom entirely black. The
head and muzzle are as fine as in our Devonshire breed.
There is so little coarseness about the head or neck of the
bull, that the difference between him and the ox is less ob¬
servable than in our breeds. The cattle are all very care¬
fully attended to, and form an important branch of the hus¬
bandry, as dairy produce enters much into the food of every
family, and is more certain in this climate than that of
grain. The cows, sheep, and goats are more tame and
docile than they are in Britain, from the constant care and
attendance bestowed on them during the long period which
they must stand within doors; and the Norwegians are re¬
markably kind to their domestic animals. Goats are a
favourite stock, and on every farm appear to be much more
numerous than sheep. The goat will eat and thrive on the
shoots of the dwarf birch, beech, and young fir; but the
sheep will not, and in winter it requires some hay. The
goat then gets dried leaves and shoots of the beech,
which only cost the trouble of collecting and drying them.
Irrigation is carried on in many parts to an extent quite
unknown in this country. Hay being the principal winter
support of live stock, and both it and corn, as well as pota¬
toes, being liable, from the shallow soil and powerful reflec¬
tion of the sun’s rays from the rocks, to be burned and with¬
ered up, the greatest exertions are made to bring water from
the head of each glen, along such a level as will give the
command of it to each farmer at the head of his fields. This
is done by conducting water in troughs made of the half of a
tree roughly scooped out, from the highest perennial stream
amongst the hills, through woods, across ravines, along the
rocky and often perpendicular sides of the glens ; and from
this main trough lateral branches shoot off to each farm.
The farmer distributes this supply by moveable troughs
amongst his fields, watering each rig successively. The
quantity of land traversed by these artificial water-courses
is very great,
326 NOR
Norway. In winter, when agricultural operations are suspended, the
v'—Norwegian employs himself in making all the implements,
furniture, and clothing, which his family may require;
thrashing out the crop, attending to the cattle, driving about
to fairs, or paying visits. The heaviest of his occupations is
driving wood out of the forests, or bog-hay from the fjeld
where it is made in summer by those who attend the cattle.
The distillation of potato-brandy was, until very lately,
general all over Norway, every common bonde or peasant
proprietor distilling his own few barrels. The vice of
drunkenness, however, had become so flagrant, that it was
considered necessary by the Storthing to place very
stringent restrictions on the sale and manufacture of
spirits ; and now private stills are strictly forbidden, and
spirits are only allowed to be sold in the towns. The im¬
provement in public morals, in consequence, has been very
marked. In the valley of the Miosen Mr Brace made
inquiries as to the general morality of the bonders of the
province, and learned that intoxication was certainly very
much diminished since government had made it so diffi¬
cult to get brandy, and that altogether there was a great
progress; which doubtless is the case in all other districts.
The thrashing machines in general use amongst agri¬
culturists are similar in construction to those of Scotland;
and some have grinding machinery attached to them.
There is an institution of a very peculiar nature, which is
quite common all over Norway. In this country there are
no merchants equivalent to our corn-dealers, nor are there
any weekly markets held for the sale of grain. There are
no middle-men between the grower and the consumer, and
any surplus grain which the farmer may have is stored up
in what may be called corn magazines, which are just large
warehouses erected in various parts of the country, as the
necessities of the inhabitants require them. What grain the
farmer thinks he will not require he conveys in sledges to
these places, and for every eight bushels which he deposits,
he receives nine at the end of twelve months; in short, he
lays it out at interest, and has an increase of one-eighth per
annum. If, however, he has none deposited, or overdraws,
he pays for the quantity received in loan at the rate of one-
fourth of increase per annum ; so that for every eight
bushels which he takes he pays back ten at the end of
twelve months, or at that rate for whatever time he may
have the loan. This is, in fact, a savings-bank for corn,
and is probably the most ancient of these institutions.
The small profit which occurs upon these transactions de¬
frays the necessary expenses of building and keeping up the
magazines, which are entirely under the management of
the bonder or peasant proprietors. In Norway the bulk of
the farmers have no rent to pay, the property being theirown;
the articles which their farms produce constitute nearly the
whole of the food or raiment which they and their people
require ; and there are not, as in other countries, consider¬
able masses of population in towns and villages, who, not
being producers of food themselves, must obtain it from
those who are; so that the farmer is less dependent upon
money-bringing crops than is the case with us. If he raise
what is sufficient for his own household consumption, with
a little surplus for sale to purchase a few luxuries, all the
purposes of farming are served with him.
State of “Property in Norway is held by what is called the udal
propertju or 0(iei system of rights, not from any superior, not even
from the king, but, as the possessors proudly express it, by
the same right by which the crown itself is held; conse¬
quently there is no acknowledgment, real or nominal, as
feu-duty or reddendo, paid. In this country all lands are
theoretically said to be held from the king; and, according
to Sir Edward Coke, we have no allodial lands. In Nor¬
way estates are allodial, the absolute property of the owner;
they are therefore possessed without charter, and are sub¬
ject to none of the burdens and casualties affecting land
WAY.
held by feudal tenure direct from the sovereign, or from his
superior vassal. There is, in short, a total negation of the v orWay-
feudal principle; there is neither superior nor vassal; so
that the military service which the latter paid to the former
in consideration of the land which was granted appears
never to have existed in Norway; and as this constituted
the foundation of the law of primogeniture, so where such
service was entirely unknown, there was no necessity for
that law, which consequently remained equally unknown.
In all feudal countries the eldest male heir has to pay an
acknowledgment to the feudal superior on his entering as
vassal in the land. But udal, or noble land, as the word
signifies, not being held for military service to a superior, no
delectus personce as to who should inherit it was competent
to any authority, and consequently no preference of the
eldest male heir could grow into the law of succession to
land. Hence the land came to be equally divided amongst
all the surviving children, male and female. There ap¬
pears, however, to be a species of entail connected with the
udal tenure. If the udalman in possession should alienate
to a stranger, the next of kin has a right of redemption on
paying the price of the land. This is called the Odel-
baarn’s Ret, and all the kindred of the udalman in posses¬
sion are what is called Odelsbaarn to his land, or, in other
words, have a certain right in the order of consanguinity.
By recent enactments, this right of redemption has been
limited in its exercise to a period of five years; and it is
provided that all improvements, as well as the original price,
must be paid for.
The equal partition of property amongst children by the
udal tenure has prevented the accumulation of property in
large masses; but, as might have been expected by theo¬
rists, it has not led to subdivisions of estates to an injurious
extent. “ The division of the land appears not,” says Mr
Laing, “ during the thousand years it has been in operation,
to have had the effect of reducing the landed properties to
the minimum size that will barely support human existence.
I have counted from five-and-twenty to forty cows upon
farms, and that in a country in which the farmer must, for
at least seven months in the year, have winter-houses and
provender provided for all the cattle. It is evident that
some cause or other, operating on aggregation of landed
property, counteracts the dividing effects of partition among
children.” In another place Mr Laing says, “ The estates
of individuals are generally small; and the houses, furni¬
ture, food, comfort, ways and means of living among all
classes, appear to me to approach more nearly to an equality
to one standard than in any country in Europe. This
standard is far removed from any want or discomfort on the
one hand, or any luxury or display on the other. The
actual partition of the land itself seems, in practice, not to
go below such a portion of land as will support a family
comfortably, according to the habits and notions of the
country; and it is indeed evident that a piece of ground
without houses upon it, and too small to keep a family
according to the national estimation of what is requisite,
would be of no value as a separate property. The heirs
accordingly either sell to each other, or sell the whole to a
stranger, and divide the proceeds. The duty of the Soren-
skriver, or district judge, consists chiefly in arranging this
kind of chancery business, and all debts and deeds affecting
property are registered w ith him.”
The cause which, according to Mr Laing, has prevented
excessive subdivision is, “that in a country where land is
held, not in tenantry merely, as in Ireland, but in full
ownership, its aggregation by the deaths of co-heirs and by
the marriages of female heirs among the body of land-
owners, will balance its subdivision by the equal succession
of children.” This is undoubtedly true ; and when taken in
connection with other facts, may sufficiently explain the
case. Mr Laing informs us that the standard of living is
NORWAY.
)rway. high in Norway; or that the population is much better
clothed, lodged, fed, and generally provided for, than our
labouring and middling classes in the south of Scotland.
The dwelling-houses of the meanest labourers are divided
into several apartments, and have wooden floors and a suffi¬
cient number of good windows, with some kind of outhouse
for cattle and lumber. Their food and clothing are equally
good and substantial. Now it seems quite clear that a
people habituated to such a standard of subsistence and
comfort will not only not suffer their condition to sink in¬
definitely below it, but by prudence and foresight in the
contraction of marriage and the raising of a family, will keep
down their numbers considerably within their means of
subsistence. In Norway, that condition which secures
respectability to a common man is one in which be com¬
mands not only all the comforts, but most of the luxuries
of life common to the country; and the natural desire of
all mankind to keep up caste, to maintain themselves in that
station in which they were born, not to decline from it, and
fall, as it were, out of the ranks, will operate as a most
powerful check upon the minute subdivision of land. There
are other causes in operation, to which our circumscribed
limits will only admit of our adverting. These are the
ancient and confirmed habits of the people, which may be
taken into account as a corollary of the preceding proposi¬
tion ; and the absence of impediments, such as fines or
alienation, or imposts of any kind, in the way of sale or
conveyance. Where such fines exist, the difficulties of
re-uniting land which has been subdivided are great and
annoying.
The bulk of the population in Norway consists of two
classes of landholders: those who have farms larger than
they themselves can cultivate, and those who exclusively
farm their own estates. The first are called proprietors,
a sort of conventional term, equivalent to our esquire ;
the smaller landholders, who work upon their own estates,
are called bonder, a term, as appears, nearly equivalent to
feuar in Scotland. The incomes of the former seldom
exceed L.150 or L.200, although there are some who
possess as much as L.3000 or L.4000 sterling per an¬
num. The Norwegian valleys are crowded with bonder
farms, which are very numerous throughout the country,
and, with their look ol plenty and completeness, may com¬
pete with the richest and most beautiful in Scotland. Mr
Laing draws a very pleasing and interesting picture of this
class of people, whose comfort and happiness may indeed
be inferred from a short statement of facts. They are
owners of their own little estates, which produce all the
necessaries of life, and afford a surplus for the payment of
taxes and the purchase of luxuries. They are exceedingly
lodged, and the families live abundantly; the manner
of living, indeed, is pretty much the same amongst all classes.
1 hese, and the comfortable assurance that in case of death
the udalman leaves his wife and family provided for, are cer-
tain y calculated materially to promote human -happiness.
1 his class, says Mr Laing, “ are the kernel of the nation.
1 Hey are in general fine athletic men, as their properties
are not so large as to exempt them from work; but large
enough to afford them and their households abundance,
and even a superfluity, of the best food.”
Besides the bonder, or agricultural class, properly so
called, who occupy all the most fertile lands in the country
ffom hesborede to the hill-foot,” whereon corn will
glow, there is another class called fjeld bonder, who form
scnb'eflalh^1" wereT> between the class above de-
landb and hav^l 'Vanderi"? Lender. They also possess
Sn,a"- ^ cimfort-
try, their situaUon is not so ftvofraWe,
ion equal to that of the other small proprietors The field
bonders are “ the hewers of wood aJd drawer "of w£er^In
Norway ; but they still possess property in cattle as well as in
land, and they are described as extremely hardy and active
and as having more robust frames than the agricultural
bonder. There is yet another class of the population which
is altogether distinct from any of the preceding, consisting
entirely of fishermen, whose social condition must be con”
siderably inferior to that of the others.
In the provinces of Nordland and Finmark, which oc- Fish5n(y
cupy the northern part of Norway, beyond the River Nam- K’
sen, agriculture is but a secondary business, and fishing
may be said to occupy most of the attention of the inhabi¬
tants. Indeed, a Norwegian writer says, that were it not
foi the Norwegian fishery, the whole of Finmark and a part
of Nordland would be inhabited only by nomad Finns,
and the towns all along the coast would languish and disap¬
pear. The crops of grain are too inconsiderable and pre¬
carious to afford them the means of subsistence, and the
riches of the deep are brought in as a compensation for the
poverty of the land. The winter fishery in the Lofoden
Islands, from the middle of January to the middle of
April, and the summer fishery over all the coast, which in
some blanch or other gives employment for the remainder
of the year, furnish the inhabitants with the means of pur¬
chasing the necessaries which they require.
I he Oxonian in Norway, by the Rev. F. Metcalfe,
published in 1856, gives a very complete account of the
Lofbden fishery; and from that work we extract the fol¬
lowing pai ticulars : Ihe fishermen begin to arrive in open
boats from all parts of Norway soon after New Year’s Day,
and take up their positions along the coast, from Balstad on
Jhe W., to Bretesnes on the island of Great Molle on the
E. In each boat there are generally five men, one of whom
commands and takes the helm. At Henningsvar, a favour¬
ite station, as many as 900 boats congregate; and it is
computed that there are at least 3500 boats, giving an
aggregate of 21,000 men, employed exclusively in fishing.
Besides these, there are numberless jaegts and jagts, be¬
longing to merchants from far and near along the coast,
which come to buy oil and fish, and sell groceries, &c.
At Svolvar alone there were no fewer than 140 of these
vessels. The fishermen live in huts along the shore, which,
together with the permission to fish, they hire of the pro¬
prietors of the adjoining land at certain rates fixed by
government. If the morning is fine and the weather suit¬
able, the government officers appointed for that purpose
hoist the requisite signal, and the boats go out and set their
nets and lines generally at right angles to the run of the
coast. If the weather is bad, no signal is hoisted ; and
every one venturing out under those circumstances is liable
to a fine of 5 dollars, and to have all his fish seized. Most
of the day is consumed in fishing with a hand-line and in
taking up the nets and long lines. On getting to shore,
the fish are gutted and hung up to dry on poles and cross¬
bars, which they hire of the proprietors along the coast.
I hese ai e stock-fish (so called because they are dried on
stocks oi poles), and are unsplit. Others, which are sold
to the owners of the jaegts, are split open, salted down,
and packed flat in the holds of these vessels. On obtain¬
ing a caigo, they leave for home; and on arriving there,
the fish aie taken out of the vessel, washed, and dried upon
^^ese are khp-fish—i.e., rock-fish. The laws
of N oi way are very stringent regarding the preparation of
t le stock-fish. None are allowed to be taken down before
the 12th of June, nor are any allowed to be hung up after
the 14th of April. There is a fine of 2 dollars on every
hundred fish taken down or hung up before or after the
above dates respectively. Everything is managed accord-
ing to strict rule, and under the surveillance of government
officers. During the period of the fishery no steamer is
allowed to come near, for fear of driving away the fish. All
the fish caught after the 14th of April are prepared as klip-
328
Norway.
NORWAY.
Manufac¬
tures and
commerce
fish; but the fishing is virtually over then, and the men
leave the Lofodens, returning, however, in die course ot
the summer to take away the stock-fish. 1 he cod-hver
oil so extensively used in medicine is prepared from the
livers, which are put into barrels brought from home for the
purpose, or sometimes sold to merchants on the spot. 1 e
best oil is that which exudes from the natural fermentation
of the liver. Cod-liver oil is not obtained solely from the
cod-fish, but also from others, as the shark, the ling, and
especially the sei or coal-fish, its liver being richer m oil
than that of the cod. It is caught in large quantities in
summer, especially in the Bay of Varanger. Cod-hver oil
costs on the spot from 5 to 6 dollars the barrel of 120 pots,
and a wine-bottle holds about three-fourths of a pot; so that,
in round numbers, at the highest price, it costs about Is.
the imperial gallon. .
All the towns export fish. Bergen exports more thai
one-half the stock-fish ; but of late the Romsdal towns, as
they are called, have become dangerous rivals to it in tie
klip-fish trade. Half the oil goes from Bergen. I here is
still a heavy export duty on all kinds of fishery products.
About L.6000 are also raised annually by the duty on salt
the greater part of which is used in curing the fish. Until
1851, a tithe of all the fish and oil was paid to the clime i
of the district; but instead of this tax, which was very vexa¬
tious, and led to numerous disputes and much dishonesty,
an extra tax of two skillings per vvaag (36 lb.) is ievied on all
fish exported ; while on oil the additional duty is 1- ski 1 gs
(5d.) per tonde (30 gallons). The value of the different kinds
of fish annually exported is estimated at about one million
sterling The quantities are given in a subsequent table.
Besfdes these important general fisheries, there is in
every creek of the fiords, even at a hundred miles up from
the ocean, abundance of cod, whitings, haddocks, floundei s,
sea-bream, and herrings, caught for daily use and for sale
by the seafaring peasantry. The rivers and lakes are like¬
wise well supplied with fish (the former with salmon), which
may indeed be said to constitute the basis of a Norwegian
repast. Dried and salted fish is sent in great abundance to
the Mediterranean, and also to Hamburg and Holland. Lob¬
sters are caught among the rocky islands in immense num¬
bers for the supply of the London market. Anchovies are
also caught in prodigious quantities.
The manufactures of Norway are too unimportant to
detain us long. Wood and fish are the chief produce of
the country; and these find their way to every part ol
Europe, chiefly in Norwegian vessels, which in return bring
home whatever foreign articles are required, at the cheapest
possible rate of freight. The import duties are very mode¬
rate. Before the importer pays his duties, he is allowed
to take his goods to his own warehouse and shop, upon
giving security for the amount of the duties ascertained by
the custom-house officers at landing; he also keeps an
account of his sales, and pays the duty every three months
upon the quantity which appears to have been sold. I his
must be of great advantage to the dealer in a country so
poor as Norway, since it leaves his capital entirely free for
active employment. Coffee, sugar, tea, French brandy, and
French and Spanish wines, tobacco, and a limited quantity ot
spiceries, are the principal articles for which the housekeepei
has to disburse money. The other necessaries of life are pio-
duced by themselves. Shoes, furniture, cloths, and the like,
are all made at home. Looms are at work in almost every
house in the country ; carding, spinning, and weaving form¬
ing constant occupations of the female part of the household.
Woollen cloth, substantial but coarse, excellent bed and
table linen, and checked or striped cotton or linen for female
apparel, are the ordinary fabrics produced. These home¬
made stuffs, including boots, gloves, and in bad weather
great-coats, clothe the greater part of the inhabitants, and
more comfortably than is the case with the lower and mid¬
dling classes of people in most other countries. Ihe upper
ranks or the people of condition, dress as in other parts of
Europe; and as living and lodging are nearly on a level
amongst all the respectable classes, the peasant proprietor,
and those more wealthy than he is, this wearing of foreign
articles by the latter, and home-made stuffs by the former,
would seem to constitute a kind of conventional distinction
between them. . . .
The principal articles of export are timber, bark, iron,
copper, fish, and some others. The principal articles of
import are corn; colonial produce; woollen, linen, and cotton
goods; wine; brandy, &c. The following is the quantity
offish exported from Norway in the year 1855, viz.:
Stock-fish  tons 16,374
Klip-fish  » 22,318
Cod Roes  barrels 30,668
Herrings, salted... „ 519,868
Norway.
Cod-Liver Oil ... barrels 78,804
Anchovies   kegs 11,737
Salmon, smoked. lbs. 4,551
Salmon, salted... barrels 77
Lobsters, live... number 814,188
Other Fish, salted „ 3,040
In the year 1854, 31,000 quarters of oats were exported,
which Mr Crowe states is unparalleled in the annals of the
trade of Norwav, but is likely to be repeated, as the pro¬
vince of Hedemarken, which is now brought into connec¬
tion with the capital and sea-coast, is pre-eminently suited
for the growth of that cereal. The total amount of cereals
imported in 1851 was 631,390 imperial quarters; in
1852, 602,110 do.; in 1853, 567,192 do.; in 1854, 425,975
do.; and in 1855, 492,591 do.
Mr Crowe further remarks that there has been a general
increased importation of many articles, attributable to the pro¬
sperity of the country and the reduction of duties on a variety
of articles entering largely into their domestic economy.
The deals of Christiania have always been held in the
highest estimation; a consequence of the excellence
of the timber, and of the care with which the sap-wood
and other defective parts are cut away. Like many other
branches of the trade of Norway, that of preparing wood
was formerly fettered by pernicious restrictions; the saw¬
mills being licensed to cut a certain quantity only, and the
proprietors bound to make oath that it was not exceeded.
But this absurd regulation no longer exists.
The following is a return of timber and deals of every
description, exclusive of deal-ends for splitwood under 20
inches long, lathwood, &c., exported from Norway in the
years specified, viz.:—
J . Loads.
XiOStClSa 9 # n e f\C) 4
632,727 of which there were sent to Great Britain 165,024
701,462 ,, „ » ” 246 646
775,845 „ „ ” ” 236 247
743,468 „ „ » ” 217915
737,557 „ „ » •>
The amount of wood under 20 inches, called splitwood,
exported to Great Britain in 1855 was 40,980 loads.
British manufactured goods are admitted into Norway on
moderate duties, and are very generally made use of.
The weights and measures ot Norway are the same asWe.gh^
those of Denmark. With regard to money, the principal ^
silver coin in circulation (for there are none of goid) is
called a species dollar, which is divided into one hundred
and twenty skillings. There are also half species, one-filth
species, one-tenth species, one-twentieth, and what is deno¬
minated skillemynt, or small change—that is, four and two
skilling pieces of silver, and also one-half, one, and two
skilling pieces of copper. The dollar is worth four shi-
liners and fourpence three farthings sterling at the present
rate of exchange. There are, besides, notes of one do lar,
half a dollar, and twenty-four skillings, all printed on white
paper. The notes of five dollars’ value are on blue paper,
those of ten dollars on yellow paper, those of fifty on green
paper, and those of one hundred on red paper. RflVenue.
The Norwegian finances are in a flourishing condition, Rev •
the revenue having latterly increased considerably, me
1851
1852
1853
1854
1855
N O R W A Y.
329
rway. Bank of Norway, which was founded in 1816, has its
head-office in Trondhjem, with branches in the prin¬
cipal towns, and is under the direction of five stock¬
holders, with a council of fifteen representatives of the other
proprietors. The transactions of this bank are conducted
upon a principle totally opposite to that of the Scotch and
other banking establishments. It is there considered as a
first principle that the bank should hold only available
securities, as bills or bonds at a short date, or payable at a
short notice, for its issues or advances. The national bank
of Norway is therefore a bank for landed property, and
discounts mercantile bills and personal securities only as a
secondary branch. Its chief business is advancing its own
notes, upon first securities over land, any sum not exceed¬
ing two-thirds of the value of the property, according to a
general valuation made in the year 1812. The borrower
pays four per cent, for what he draws, and is bound to pay
also five per cent, of the principal yearly. This kind of
bank is exceedingly well adapted for the wants of the
country ; and their paper can scarcely be considered as less
secure than their silver.
The Norwegian army consists of some 24,000 troops of
all arms. Two companies belonging to each regiment in
the Norwegian service are trained to the use of the skidor
or skate. This corps, called the skielobere, move with sin¬
gular agility and speed, and, whilst skating along with the
greatest velocity, perform their military evolutions with
uncommon precision. The army is at the disposal of the
king, as far as its services can be rendered available in
Scandinavia; it cannot, however, be sent beyond the limits
of the peninsula without the special permission of the Stor¬
thing. The king has the nomination of the superior officers
of the army, as well as of some few of the first civil officers
under the government; that of others rests with the Stor¬
thing. Norway is governed by a viceroy, appointed by the
King of Sweden ; Christiania, the capital of the country,
being the seat of government. She contributes nothing
towards the expense of the Swedish government, beyond
a trifling annual allowance to the royal family; but she
supports all her own civil and military institutions,
vy. The Norwegian navy consists of 3 frigates, 5 corvettes,
4 brigs, and 124 gun-boats. They have also 13 steam-
vessels of war, of, in all, 1490 horse-power, the largest being
of 200 horse-power. Nine of these are employed in the
royal mail service, under the command of naval officers.
During the summer months three ships are usually commis¬
sioned for a summer’s cruise with cadets.
The officers of the Norwegian navy consist of a rear-
admiral and 6 commodores, 12 captains, 12 lieutenant-
captains, 24 first lieutenants, 35 second lieutenants, and 64
petty officers; besides 100 cadets, and 120artillery cadets. In
case of war, every male is bound to serve a certain period
either in the army or navy; and there are about 50,000
seamen, whose names are on the registers, liable to serve.
There is a great difference in the pay of the navy and
merchant service, the latter being more than double; but,
as in our own case, the seamen are far better fed and pro¬
vided for in the naval service. The merchant seamen are
generally engaged either in the transatlantic or North Sea
and Mediterranean timber trade, or in the fisheries. They
are described as amongst the hardiest and best race of
seamen in the world, and accustomed to live on coarse fare,
and put up with many hardships to gain their livelihood.
The mercantile marine of Norway has greatly increased
within the last few years, as appears by the following
return:—
No. of Vessels. Tonnage. Crews.
1851   4496   412,437   24,057
1852   4742   427,234 25,388
1853   4893   454,856 26,545
1854   5129   501,860   28,063
1855   5241     538,964   28,638
VOL. XVI.
Vessels of all nations now trade with Norway, and her Norway
ships are to be met with in every foreign port. Mr Crowe, i.-—.
the intelligent consul-general at Christiania, remarks that
“ a few years ago, the Norwegian flag was scarcely ever
seen beyond the confines of Europe ; now it waves in every
part of the globe.”
Some very interesting and elaborate statistical tables
connected with the population and productions of Norway,
compiled from government sources, was published in Chris¬
tiania in 1857. From these it would appear that the follow¬
ing is the total amount of the population in 1855, viz.:—
Province of Christiania 
,, Christiansand,
„ Bergen 
„ Trondhjem....
,, Tromsbe 
643,135
244,413
242,914
227,343
132,242
Total   1,490,047
The following is the amount of the population at various
former periods:—1769, 723,141; 1801,883,038; 1815,
885,431 ; 1825, 1,056,318; 1835, 1,194,827; 1845,
1,328,471 ; and 1855, 1,490,047.
The increase of population has chiefly taken place amongst
the agricultural classes; and the additional food raised for
their support, together with the advance of the people, is to
be attributed partly to additional tracts of land having been
taken in, and partly to improved methods of cultivating the
old soil.
The kingdom of Norway is divided into five sees or stifts, Political
each of which is divided into a certain number of districts, divisions,
corresponding to its size and importance, and these again
into parishes, of which there are 336 in the country. The
dioceses are—Christiania, containing Christiania, the capital;
Christiansand, the largest town in which bears the same
name ; Bergen, containing the large and important city of
the same name ; Trondhjem, which contains the city of
Trondhjem, situated on the south shore of a great fiord of
the same name ; and Tromsoe, comprising the northern
territories of Nordland and Finmark. The stifts are thus
distributed:—Christiansand occupies the southern extremity
of the country; Bergen and Christiania occupy, the former
the western, and the latter the eastern side of Norway,
where it is widest, extending over its whole breadth in
that quarter, and being separated by the great moun¬
tain chain; still further north lies Trondhjem, which
is succeeded by Tromsoe, the most northerly region of
Norway, and of which the reader will find some account
in the article Lapland. Each district, called a fbgderie or
bailiwick, is under a foged, who has charge of the collection
of taxes, police, and ail executive functions in his district.
Besides this public functionary, there are military officers,
who have official residences in the district; and the amtman,
and sorenskriver or judge ordinary. Christiania, Bergen,
Trondhjem, and the other large towns in Norway, will be
found described under their own respective heads.
The Norwegians enjoy more political liberty than any political
other European nation. The parliament, called the Stor- constitu-
thing, is chosen by the owners or life-renters of the land tion.
who have attained the age of twenty-five years complete.
The minimum value which gives a vote is 150 dollars, or
L.33 ; a value which, from the large diflusion of property,
renders the suffrage nearly universal. To render the elec¬
tor himself eligible as a representative, it is only necessary
that he should be thirty years of age, have resided ten
years in Norway, and be altogether unconnected with the
state. The voters choose electing men, 1 to every 50
voters in towns, and 1 to every 100 voters in counties.
The electing men, on a day fixed by law, choose their
representatives, and the body thus elected forms the
Storthing. The proportions of members chosen is founded
on the principle that the towns in Norway should as nearly
330
NORWAY.
Norway, as possible return one-third, and the country two-thirds of
the whole body, which must not consist of less than 75, nor
of more than 100 members. Each district elects as many
substitutes as it elects representatives, to provide against
death and other casualties. The Storthing is chosen every
three years, and is assembled only once in three years, when
it sits for three months, or until the business be despatched.
The 1st of February is the day of meeting fixed by law.
An extraordinary Storthing may be convened by the king,
but its acts must be confirmed by the next regular Stor¬
thing. After some preliminary business, such as electing a
president, speaker, and secretary, the Storthing divides
itself into two chambers. One-fburth of its whole number
is formed into a second chamber, called a Lagthing, or di¬
vision, in which the deliberative functions of the legislative
body are vested. No bill can be introduced there; it must
come from the other house, which is called the Odelsthing,
or House of Commons. The Lagthing can only deliberate
upon what is sent to it, and approve, reject, or send back
the bill with proposed amendments. It is also the court be¬
fore which, aided by the Hoieste Ret Court, an independent
branch of the state, the lower house may impeach ministers
of state. The Storthing consists, in fact, of three houses
—the Lagthing, the Odelsthing, and the entire Storthing.
In this latter all motions are made and discussed ; and, it
entertained, are referred to committees to report upon to
the Storthing. The report, when received back from a
committee, is debated and voted upon ; and, if approved,
a bill in terms of the report is ordered to be brought into
the Odelsthing. This house entertains or rejects the pro¬
posed bill, frames and discusses the enactments, if it is not
rejected in toto, and sends it up to the Lagthing or upper
house, to be deliberated upon, approved, rejected, or
amended. In regard to the passage of bills through these
two houses, the practice of the Norwegian Parliament does
not differ materially from that of our own, except in the
more limited functions of the Lagthing, the king having
only a suspensive veto. But if a bill pass through three
successive Storthings, it becomes the law of the land with¬
out the royal assent. This was exemplified in the case of
the bill, already mentioned, for the abolition of hereditary
nobility. The duties of the Storthing need not be minutely
specified ; they may easily be inferred. The members are
paid for their services ; and no executive officer of govern¬
ment can sit in either house. The clearest and most con¬
cise account of the constitution of Norway will be found
in Mr Forester’s Rambles in Norway, published in 1850,
and in Mr Brace’s Norse-Folk, published in 1857.
Jurispru- F°r legal purposes, the whole country is divided into five
dence. stifts or provinces, and these are farther subdivided into 17
amts and 64 judicial districts, each of which last comprehends
several prestigilds or parishes. To each of these divisions
there is a distinct tribunal, with a supreme court of ultimate
appeal for the whole kingdom, established at Christiania.
The lowest court, which is strictly one of equity, not of law,
is the court of mutual reconcilement or agreement held in
every parish, and over which presides a commissioner, who
is elected every three years by the householders, and holds
his court once a month, receiving a small fee. Every case
or lawsuit whatsoever must pass through this preliminary
court, where no lawyer or attorney is permitted to practise.
Each party states his own case ; and if by the judgment or
advice of the commissioner the parties are brought to agree,
his opinion is duly registered in another court held in the
parish, and it has all the validity of a final decision. If,
however, the litigants are not satisfied, they carry their case
to the lowest legal court, that of the sorenskriver, or sworn
writer, wdiich is held in every parish of each district once
in every quarter. The sorenskriver’s court is of great im¬
portance. Besides judging civil and criminal matters, it is
the court of registration affecting property in the district,
and also of ascertaining the value of, and succession to, the
property of deceased persons. The court next above is the ^
stift-amt court, or that of the province, and is thus consti¬
tuted : It consists of three judges with assessors, is station¬
ary in the chief town of each province, and is the court of
appeal from all the lower tribunals of the province, having
at the same time the revision of their administration. It
must likewise sanction their decision in criminal matters
before sentence can be pronounced. There is, lastly, the
Lloieste Ret Court of final appeal. It consists of seven
judges, and, by the ground law, is one of the three estates
of the constitution, being independent of the executive and
leo-islative branches. To this court appeals are carried
in the last resort, from the stift-amt courts, in criminal as
well as civil cases.
The Norwegian system of jurisprudence presents some
remarkable features, not the least important of which is, that
the judge is responsible for his legal decision ; and in a case
of appeal to a higher court, he must there defend his judg¬
ment, being liable in damages for a wrong decision. This
principle involves a high responsibility, and must occasion
some individual annoyance, as well as expense ; but it does
not prevent able lawyers from becoming candidates for ju¬
dicial functions; and beyond all doubt it is of great advantage
to the public in giving certainty to the law, and in prevent¬
ing as well as remedying erroneous decisions. The punish¬
ment of death was abolished by the Danish government
aboutthe latter end of the last century, a measure of question¬
able expediency in this country, at least where the second¬
ary punishments are by no means perfect. But the punish¬
ment which is found the most effective, and which forms
Norway
one of the most distinguishing characteristics of the country,
is that of the “loss of honour.” From the earliest times
this has been a specific punishment in the criminal law of
Norway, standing next in degree to the loss of life. 1 here
is, and always has been, much more of the real business of
the country in the hands of the people of Norway, and trans¬
acted by themselves, than is possessed by the inhabitants of
any other European nation. Now, as the “ loss of honour”
involves exclusion from all the functions which naturally
devolve upon them, the punishment is very severely felt,
and looked upon, even by the humblest peasant, with the
greatest dread.
The Norwegian Church is in principle and doctrine Lu- Church,
theran, and remains as it was originally moulded after the
subversion of the ancient faith, unaltered by the spirit of
innovation, and unviolated by the hand of power. It is es¬
sentially ceremonial, and has been considered by some
almost as much so as the Roman Catholic. Mr Forester,
however, justly observes, that such persons look only at the
surface of things. “ They have been startled,” he says, “ by
the array of images on the altar, the display of rich vest¬
ments in the celebration of the eucharist, and the use of
the unleavened wafer, together with a high degree of re¬
verence, accompanying the administration of that sacrament;
and from these appearances have been led to conclusions
which are by no means justified.” “ It would be more cor¬
rect to say that the public worship of the Lutheran Church
essentially differs from the Roman Catholic, and has a close
affinity to that of the Church of England. It is, indeed,
ceremonial and liturgical But there is nothing
superstitious in her ceremonial; and her ritual, like our own,
contains nothing that is contrary to the Word of God.”
The altar of the Norwegian Church is decorated with
crosses and images, and the priest, arrayed in embroidered
robes of velvet, celebrates high mass under that name.
There are in Norway 336 prestigilds or parishes, and many
of these are exceedingly large, extending in some parts from
the sea-coast to the Swedish frontier, and containing from
5000 to 10,000 inhabitants. This is certainly a low provi¬
sion for religious instruction ; but the people, generally
NORWAY.
331
Jrway.
E<
nation.
speaking, are scattered all over the country, not clustered
in towns and villages; and although individually they are
not affluent, they are at least respectable, notwithstanding
that as a whole they are poor. Under such circumstances pa¬
rishes must necessarily be large. There are five bishoprics
in Norway, each of which has in it a number of inferior
clergy. The patronage is in the hands of the five bishops
and the council of state, a committee of which has charge of
all the affairs of the church. The incomes of the clergy are
derived from tithes, commuted into a payment of grain, glebe
farms (one of which the widow has for her life), offerings, and
dues. These incomes in country parishes vary from L.150
to L.350; but in large towns or thickly-settled parishes
they are higher. The bishops have about L.800 to L.900
each. In proportion to the other professional classes
in the country, the clergy are well paid, and the church has
always been the first profession to which talent is naturally
directed. The clergy are laborious and zealous in the dis¬
charge of their duty, the church service forming the smallest
part of it. They have school examinations, Sunday schools,
and other institutions for the promulgation of Christian
knowledge. It is a peculiar characteristic of the Norwegian
Church that there is no dissent from it; there are no secta¬
rians in the country. In political rights and privileges the
clergy are on a footing with the rest of the inhabitants,
and are represented in the Storthing like other citizens.
One chief cause of the influence of the ministers of religion,
and the absence of dissent, is the high consideration in which
the right of confirmation is held. The person who has
passed this ordeal is regarded as having received amoral as
well as a religious diploma, which capacitates him for an
office of trust and responsibility.
There are few countries, perhaps, where education has
of late years been more attended to than in Norway. In
all the large towns there are public schools, and academies
and schools for mechanics and artizans. The latter are
called drawing-schools, of which there are eight, where
mechanics are instructed in modelling, drawing, mathema¬
tics, See. In the diocese of Christiania alone, Mr Brace
tells us, that there are no less than 197 stationary schools,
besides a high school. In many of the towns there are
charity schools, where the children of the poor remain
during the day, while their parents are at work. These are
supported by public and private contributions. Education
is very generally diffused ; but great difficulties exist, owing
to the population, though not numerous, being so scattered.
In the country parishes there are parochial schoolmasters, of
whom some have fixed residences, and others live for one-half
of the year in one place, and tor the other half in another. A
small tax is levied from each householder, and every adult
pays a small personal fee. There is a considerable de¬
gree of intelligence evinced in some of these communi¬
ties ; but the schools are too widely scattered over a
thinly-peopled country to be equally beneficial to all. It
may be mentioned, that the clergy pay particular attention
to the diffusion of education. The higher department of
university education at Christiania is expensive ; and, be¬
sides, there is not such a demand for educated men in
the medical, legal, and commercial professions, as in more
densely peopled and commercial countries, the tendency of
which undoubtedly is to raise the standard of intellectual
proficiency amongst all classes of the community. Those
belonging to the learned professions are not numerous, be¬
cause the demand is not great, and the supply is adjusted
accordingly. I he restrictions on the free exercise of trade
and industry also operate with great force in depressing gene¬
ral education. Before a person can enter upon any medical
01 legal employment, before he can manufacture, buy, or sell
as a mei chant, he must obtain peculiar privileges from a cor¬
porate body. “As the expense of preparation,” says Mr Laing,
and the small number of prizes to be obtained, place the
higher and learned professions out of the reach of the main Norway,
body of the people, as objects of rational ambition, for which
they might endeavour to bestow superior education upon w
their children ; so the restrictions and monopoly system shutThe 1,reSS'
them out from various paths and employments for which in¬
genuity, with ordinary useful education, might qualify
them.”
From the general diffusion of periodical publications, the
Norwegians are a reading people. What is of great import¬
ance to the community is, that the press is by law perfectly
free. There is no duty on newspapers. Every little town
has its local newspaper; and from the importance attached
to local subjects there discussed, the bulk of the community
are the purchasers, not the educated few. In type and
paper they are superior to the French or German papers,
and much ability is shown in conducting them. There is no
scurrility nor personal abuse displayed by those who write
in them ; yet the most entire freedom of discussion exists,
public men and public measures being handled freely but
decorously, and with a strict eye to the general good. Se¬
veral monthly journals are devoted to literature, antiquarian,
agricultural, and military subjects ; and in almost every news¬
paper there is the announcement of some new work or trans¬
lation. Yet the literature which ought strictly to be con¬
sidered as Norwegian is not yet of a very high order,
compared with that of other countries. But the mind of the
country is advancing, and literature, which is young in Nor¬
way, will advance along with it.
The inhabitants of Norway are very polite in their man- Manners
ners, as well to each other as to strangers. There is a na- an<f cus*
tural bonhornmie among the peasantry which is very agree-10™3-
able to meet with; shaking your hand for the smallest
benefit conferred upon them, even for the payment of what
is their due. They are partial to theatrical representa¬
tions, so that the drama holds a high place in their estima¬
tion ; and, besides the public theatres, there are societies of
amateur performers in all the larger towns, and even in some
of the villages. In music, dancing, and dress, the Norwe¬
gian females are by no means deficient. They have
pleasing voices, and in every family of every station singing
and dancing are constantly practised in the long winter
evenings. Music is taught in the country by the organist
attached to each parish. In the winter regular fairs are
held, at which Swedes and Laplanders attend for disposing
ot goods. Mr Bayard Taylor tells us, in his Northern Tra¬
vels, that at Raubyen, which is a large village, with a stately
church, the people were putting up booths for a fair in Lat.
65. N. in the open air, with the mercury freezing. Christ¬
mas is kept in great style, and there are other festivals and
various amusements which serve to relieve the tedium of
winter and spring. The 17th of May, also, being the anni¬
versary of their independence, is celebrated both at home
and abroad by every Norwegian, and with marked propriety.
Mr Laing gives a favourable account of the state of morals
in Norway ; but, without impugning so high an authority,
if we are to take bastardy as a test, the statement is not
borne out by the facts. The proportion of illegitimate to
legitimate children is as 1 to 10 ; but the evils entailed upon
society by illegitimacy are partially alleviated by the state of
the law in respect to this. Children are not only rendered
legitimate by the subsequent marriage of the parents, as in
Scotland, but the father, previously to his contracting a mar¬
riage with another party, may, by a particular act, legitimize
them. The Norwegians are, at all events, a very hospitable,
honest, industrious, peaceable people, and the great mass
virtuous in the opinion of all travellers.
Norway is not deficient in her charitable institutions. Mr Charitable
Brace, in his work entitled The Norse-Folk, or a Visit to the iastitu*
Homes of Nonvay and Sweden, considers Bergen as the tlC,ns•
most conspicuous town for its institutions of charity. He
states, that with a population of 28,000, it appropriates
332
NORWAY.
Norway. L.6500 per annum to the poor and sick, besides the sums
for public institutions. There are the Old Sailors’ Asylum,
120 inmates ; the Widows’, 31 inmates ; the Old Warders’,
30; the Old Citizens’, 60 ; Leprous Hospital, 600 ; Hos¬
pital, 120 ; Insane Asylum, 50 inmates. The mode of dis¬
posing of the vagrant and criminal children is similar, says
Mr Brace, to that adopted by private organization in his
own country (America),—“the sending them to individual
homes in the country, where responsible parties are bound
to support and educate them. There seems to be a very
regular and exact visiting of the poor by public inspectors,
who are bound to serve without pay for four years. 'I hese
report if the children do not attend school, or are vagrant,
or falling into criminal habits ; they also dispense assistance,
and give permits for the different asylums and institutions.”
At Christiania there is an institution for vagrant and
houseless girls, the Eugenia Stift, which, the same author
tells us, seems excellently managed ; and a new insane
asylum, “ a large building arranged on the best modern
principles. There is no wall about the asylum, and the view'
is exquisite, enough in itself to be a cure for the diseased
mind.”
Public The government of Norway, aware of the value and im-
improve- portance of steam navigation, has made great and judicious
meats. exertions to promote it. This is a country where it is cal¬
culated to produce its greatest benefits, from the manner in
which the peninsula is traversed by long arms of the sea,
penetrating sometimes to its very centre. Steam-vessels
are now seen plying on these fiords, and during the summer
months they navigate the whole coast from Christiania to
the North Cape. They are commanded by naval officers ;
the fares are moderate ; and in all that regards the comfort
of passengers they rival our own. Roads and bridges are
kept in a state of excellent order; a circumstance likely to
happen in a country of proprietors, whose common interest
it is to keep them in repair. There are no tolls in Norway ;
the principle of the farmers and others is to work in concert,
and to keep up establishments for the common benefit. A
railway, the only one in Norway, not long since opened,
runs from Christiania to Eidsvold, and will be continued to
Minde, at the foot of the Miosen Lake, a distance of 50 or
60 miles. A steamboat thence plies to Lillehammer, at the
head of the lake, a further distance of about 70 miles, thus
opening a direct communication to the sea with one of the
most productive parts of the interior. The easiest ap¬
proach from England to Norway is from Hull, whence
there is a weekly steam communication with Christian-
sand during the summer months ; but to those not fond
of the sea, the best route is by Calais, and, taking the rail
through Hanover, Hamburg, and Kiel, proceed by steam¬
boat to Korsos, and again by rail through Zealand to Co¬
penhagen, whence there are steamers through the Cattegat
to Gottenburg and Christiania. Many of our countrymen
now visit this delightful country.
The worst feature, perhaps the only thoroughly bad one Norway
in the institutions of Norway, is, that the trade is not free
Each trade is monopolized by a sort of guild or fraternity,
by which even country dealers are licensed. The perni¬
cious effects of such a system are sufficiently manifest,
and we shall close our account of this interesting country
with the following observations, extracted from a work of
great authority on such subjects :
“ The principle of equal partition of land among all the
children, retained in Norway from the earliest period, pre¬
vailed also in England before the Conquest. A relic of it
remains in the law of gavelkind, still existing in Kent.
The different effects produced on society by the retention
of that law in the one country, and its general disuse in
the other, are remarkable. In Norway, chiefly by its ope¬
ration, a high standard of sufficiency has been preserved
among the middle and labouring classes. Population has
been prevented from increasing too rapidly by the fear
which people have of falling below the general standard.
There has, therefore, been a continual prevalence and dif¬
fusion of ease and wellbeing. But on account of the ab¬
sence of great inequalities of condition, and therefore of
many of the usual stimulants to exertion, society has been
kept at a low level. Great social freedom has indeed al¬
ways existed, in consequence of the land being in the
hands of the mass of the people; but there has been a
want of ability, until a very recent period, to combine for
the preservation of their political independence. During
their earlier history, their political liberties were often
variable and uncertain. After the union of their crown
with that of Denmark in 1380, it appears that the Danish
nobility gradually encroached upon their privileges ; for
when, in 1660, the crown and the people combined against
the nobility, and abolished the states in Denmark, a simi¬
lar revolution also took place in Norway ; and that country
continued under absolute government until the establish¬
ment of its constitution in 1814. Their udal laws trained
them in the management of their own affairs, and produced
that feeling of self-respect which the possession of property,
and of land in particular, is calculated to give. These, to¬
gether with the civil institutions preserved or introduced
whilst they were under the Danish crown, prepared
them for the large measure of freedom to which they have
now attained. The evil of their udal system is its tendency
to obstruct the development of intellect, and to keep society
stationary. But since 1814 they have made great progress.
Stimulants to mental activity are now no longer wanting.
Their continual collision with Sweden, the problem of their
internal restrictions on trade and commerce, the routine of
their government, and the wholesome struggles always aris¬
ing in a free state, will supply them. Their land will become
more productive, by the application of science to its cultiva¬
tion ; their trade will also be expanded.” {Edinb. Review,
No. cxxxi., p. 60.) (J» F* s.) (j—N b—W.)
History.
NORWICH, a city of England, and the capital of the
county of Norfolk, stands in 52. 42. N. Lat., and 1. 20. E.
Long., 108 miles from London.
Modern archaeologists agree in regarding Norwich as the Venta
Icenorum of the Romans, called Oaer Gunturn by the British, and
afterwards North-wic (north town) by the Angles, the tribe which
peopled Northfolk and SouthfolJc. As the capital of the Iceni, it
was without doubt an important place long prior to the advent of
any of these foreign conquerors, the castle being the royal residence
of British kings, and most probably of Boadicea. At a later date
it became the metropolis of East Anglia, and we have records of
the residence of Uffa, Anna, and other royal personages, at the
castle. The original structure, however, fell a sacrifice to the Danes,
who completely overran this district, under Svveyn. It was rebuilt by
Canute; and again suffering injury, was so entirely renovated, if
not w holly rebuilt, at the time of the Norman Conquest, as to pre¬
sent no vestiges of any other architectural features than were com¬
mon to all the Norman edifices. The earthworks of the castle-hill,
however, hear traces of early British construction; and utensils that
have been dug up bear testimony to the presence of the Romans at
some period. The military fortification at Caistor, abofft three
miles distant from the castle, which, until recently, was considered
the Venta Icenorum, is now pronounced to have been the Roman
camp, placed there, as it were, to guard the British settlement at
Norwich. In 1049 Norwich was created an earldom by Edward
the Confessor. In Domesday Book the city or borough is stated as
having 1320 burgesses with their families, 25 parochial churches,
and between 800 and 900 acres of land. In the reign of William
Rufus, the episcopal see was removed thither from Thetford by
Bishop Herbert, who in 1096 laid the first stone of Norwich ca¬
thedral. Henry I. granted the city a charter containing the
same franchise as the city of London then enjoyed, and the govern¬
ment of the city was then separated from that of the castle, the
NORWICH. 333
Norwich chief officer being styled Prcepositus, or Provost. From the time of
\ Henry I. to Edward III., the liberties of the city were often sus-
pended, and gradually enlarged. A colony of Flemish weavers,
who had settled at Worstead in the reign of Henry I., first intro¬
duced the woollen manufactures; a second colony settled in Nor¬
wich in the reign of Edward III., and the city was made a staple
town for the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk. These causes, com¬
bined with the sumptuary laws of Edward HI., greatly promoted
its commercial prosperity. Grand tournaments were held, at which
at various times the kings Henry III., Edward I., and Edward III.
and his queen Phillippa, were present. Edward the Black Prince
was also present at a tournament in 1350. The castle, which had
been used as a place of confinement for prisoners under the earls,
was, in the fourteenth year of the reign of Edward III., given over
entirely to the sheriff of the county, and from that time was used
wholly'as a county jail. In 1403 the city was separated entirely
from the county of Norfolk, under the name of the county and city
of Norwich; and the first mayor was elected by the citizens. In
1422 the doctrines of the Reformation made their appearance in
Norwich ; and several persons were executed as Wickliffites or Lol¬
lards. A large chalk-pit on the outskirts of the city is to this day
known as “ Lollards’ Pit,” from having been the scene of these per¬
secutions, which continued at intervals until the reign of Edward
VI. Among the list of martyrs is the name of Thomas Bilney,
who was burned in 1531. In 1549 the city was the scene of an
insurrection resembling that of the Jacquerie in France and the
Peasants’ War in Germany. The facts of this local rebellion were
simple enough. The poor objected to the inclosure of certain com¬
mons and waste lands in the neighbourhood of Attleborough and
Wymondham; fences were thrown down; Robert Kett alias Knight,
a tanner, a bold and resolute man, headed the rebels, aided by his
brother William, a butcher. Their numbers increased, and, march-
in" towards Norwich, they encamped on Household Heath, took
possession of the mansion of the Earl of Surrey, and thence pro¬
ceeded to lay siege to the city. They held courts of justice under
a large tree, called the “ Oak of Reformation;” and having aug¬
mented their numbers from the citizens to 16,000, and strongly
fortified their camp, they summoned the city to surrender. For
months they maintained hostilities, and the country round was pil¬
laged and laid waste, until at length they gained an entrance to the
city, and bore off the mayor and several of the corporation prisoners
to their camp. A strong force was sent down for the defence of the
city, under the Marquis of Northampton. A regular engagement
was fought at the base of the hill, on St Martin’s Palace plain, in
which Lord Sheffield, a nobleman engaged in the strife, was slain.
The rebels prevailed, and forced the marquis to retire, and on bis
retreat, plundered and set fire to the city in many parts. The Earl
of Warwick, assisted by his son Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester,
was then sent to the relief of the citizens. The city was again
stormed by the king’s troops, and the rebels forced to retreat, after
two days’ sharp conflict, during which upwards of 3000 were killed.
The insurgents were subdued. About 300 of the ringleaders were
executed, and the two Kelts were sent to the Tower of London, and
being both convicted of high treason, Robert was executed on the
top of Norwich Castle, and William on Wymondham steeple.
Norwich, in common with all Norfolk and Suffolk, took up the
cause of the Reformation with a vehemence which causes them to
stand alone in the annals of history, and has ever preserved the
same spirit of progress and independence amongst the masses,
amounting to democratic tendencies and tastes. In Elizabeth’s
reign the burnings of the Roman Catholics rivalled the flames
which had been fed by Protestants in former reigns, and martyr¬
doms for heresy of doctrine, even among Protestants themselves,
were far from being uncommon. In 1578 the queen visited the
city in person, and very grand doings celebrated the'event. During
the Commonwealth the city was put in defence against the royal
cause, the castle was fortified for the service of Cromwell, the goods
of the bishops and clergy sequestered, the bishop’s palace sacked,
the cathedral and churches plundered and defaced, and Bishop Hall
turned out and driven into retirement. In 1645 the city was
divided into presbyteries, and the observance of Christmas-day
abolished by command. At the Restoration the city was amongst
the earliest to do homage to King Charles. In June 1660 the fee-
farm of the city was resigned to him, with a present of L.1000 in
gold ; and in 1663 the charter of the city was renewed and enlarged.
In 1671 the king visited the city, and was entertained most hos-
pitably. In 1701 the art of printing, which had been discontinued
for many years, was revived, and newspapers began to be printed,
lew other events of historical interest have distinguished the city,
apart from its progress in manufactures.
(anufac- It has been already stated that woollen manufactures were com-
| ares. menced in the city by a colony of Dutch weavers in the reign of
Edward HI. In the reign of Richard II. they declined; discontent
reigned throughout the kingdom; and Norwich shared the general
lot of devastation and plunder at the hands of armed bands, 80,000 Norwich,
in number, under Litester, a dyer. In Elizabeth’s reign trade i j
revived, through the invitation given to the Dutch and Walloons, v ~
then fleeing from the persecutions of the Duke of Alva. Thirtv of
th^se were invited to Norwich, all of them experienced workmen,
each to bring with him ten servants, to be maintained at the ex¬
pense of the Duke of Norfolk. These multiplied, until their num¬
bers exceeded 5000. Soon after the settlement of these strangers
new articles of manufacture were introduced, and the admixture of
mohair and silk with the wool produced a total change in the quality
of the goods. The camlets made to order for the East India Com¬
pany were annually from 12,000 to 20,000 pieces, until 1833, when
the order was transferred to Yorkshire for a cheaper but inferior
article. In 1784 the manufacture of cotton was introduced into
the city ; but the invention of the spinning-jenny, and the facilities
possessed by the north, with its coal and iron, for the development
of that great power, proved fatal to the progress of cotton manu¬
factures in Norwich. In 1819 a new silk and worsted fabric, called
“Norwich crape,” was invented, and became so fashionable., that dur¬
ing the Walpole administration (1821) court mourning was ordered
entirely to consist of it. Subsequently the chalis superseded this
fabric; it was woven in Norwich, but printed in London. The
most flourishing period of Norwich manufactures was during the
middle of the last century, when fabrics of almost every kind were
made. The camlet trade of late has greatly revived, and large
quantities are now made for exportation. Fancy goods are also
made to a great extent for the American and Australian markets
in great variety. Poplins; plain, watered, and figured chalis;
cashmeres, tamataves, gauzes, crapes, silks, satins, satinettes, lustres,
mousseline de laines, velvets, &c., are all now produced in abundance
by the Norwich weavers. The numbers engaged in wmollen ma¬
nufactures at the last census were 973; in silk and woollen goods,
3996 ; flax and hemp, 304; cotton, 178. There are also extensive
establishments for dyeing and finishing the goods manufactured.
During the past ten years the manufacture of shoes has been very
largely carried on. At this time the number of persons employed
in the work amounts to 2722 men and 1241 women, besides those
wives of shoemakers who frequently earn a good addition to their
income by binding. There are 114 curriers, 26 fellmongers, and
30 tanners in the city. Very large manufactures of oil-cake,
starch, and mustard have sprung up of late. The premises of one
new establishment of the kind covers three acres of ground.
Brushes are now being extensively made in the city ; and tobacco
is manufactured in large quantities for London and other markets.
The city of Norwich is built partly upon a plain on the Principal
banks of the River Wensum, a tributary of the Yare, na- features,
vigable for barges, and partly on the gentle acclivity of a
hill. The ancient boundary walls, of which few fragments
remain, inclosed a space of a mile and a half from N. to
S., and a mile and a quarter from E. to W. The modern
suburbs have, however, long outgrown these limits. Its
chief characteristics are its castle, crowning the summit of
a curious sugar-loaf hill, of remote but doubtful origin, in
the central part of the city; its noble cathedral; its mul¬
titude of churches, nearly all built of flint, some very old,
but chiefly of the perpendicular period; its quaint guild¬
hall, a rare specimen of flint studwork; its spacious mar¬
ket-place, and badly-paved, narrow, winding streets, branch¬
ing off from open spaces or plains of frequent occurrence.
The unusually large proportion of ground occupied by
gardens has obtained for it from very ancient times the
title of “ The City in an Orchard.” The castle, as before
stated, is of Norman architecture, occupying the site of an
ancient British fortress. The walls of the keep exist entire,
but the exterior has been so completely renovated as to
present quite a modern appearance. The interior, how¬
ever, preserves its genuine features of antiquity. The space
around on the summit of the hill has been inclosed, and
very commodious arrangements been made for the accom¬
modation of prisoners, the whole building having been ap¬
propriated as a county jail since the reign of Henry III.
The castle-hill or meadow beyond the ditch which sur¬
rounds the sugar-loaf hill, occupies a large area, and is used
as a cattle and sheep market. The fairs are also held there.
The cathedral is one of the finest specimens of Norman Public
architecture existing in the country. The tower is un- buildings,
rivalled for the beauty of its details and proportions. It is
334 NORWICH.
Norwich. not well situated, being closely surrounded by buildings
and walled-in gardens, among which may be traced vestiges
of the old monastic edifice of which the cathedral formed a
part. The transepts and west fronts have been restored,
but not thereby improved in beauty. The chief entrance
on the west is a deep and vaulted portal of pointed archi¬
tecture, above which is a noble well-proportioned window,
recently filled in with stained glass, the design of which is
totally out of character with the tracery of the window
itself. The nave within is grand and imposing, divided in
length by fourteen semicircular arches of great solidity and
depth, supported by massive piers, excepting in two in¬
stances, where the piers are replaced by cylindrical columns
ornamented with spiral mouldings. The triforium is com¬
posed of similar arches. The side aisles below are low,
and the vaultings plain. The nave and aisles are 72 feet
in width, and 204 feet in length. The roof is elaborately
decorated with sculptured bosses. Two of the arches ot
the south aisle of the nave are perpendicular, the vaulting
being of the latest florid style, strangely out df harmony
with the simplicity of the Norman style which prevails
around. This formed the chapel of Bishop Nix, the last
Roman Catholic bishop of the diocese, famous for his per¬
secutions of the Protestants in the reign of Mary. 'I he
choir, which is 183 feet in length, extends westward con¬
siderably beyond the tower, is of unusual length, and im¬
posing in its effect. On each side of the entrance are the
stalls of the dean, archdeacon, and prebendaries, all beau¬
tifully carved. The transepts have been thrown open to
the choir, much increasing the accommodation for sittings,
and improving the general effect. The chancel terminates
with an apsis, in recesses of which formerly were the stalls
of the bishop and clergy. The decorating of both nave and
choir is peculiarly beautiful; the lantern of the tower, which
rises upon four semicircular arches, supported by four mas¬
sive piers, is handsome, but disfigured by painted medallions
on the ceiling. A curious speculatory or oriel, for watching
the altar at Easter, remains in the north wall of the chancel.
There are only two tombs with statues in the cathedral,—
one to Bishop Goldwell, a curious specimen of the style of
monumental sculpture in the fifteenth century; another,
modern, to the memory of Bishop Bathurst, by Chantrey.
Mural monuments are plentiful. Sir William Boleyn,
great-grandfather of Queen Elizabeth, is buried on the
south side of the choir; the founder, Bishop Herbert de
Losinga, lies in the centre of the chancel. The cloisters
are situated on the south of the nave, and form one of the
largest quadrangles in England, being 174 feet in length on
each side. They are in excellent preservation, and elabo¬
rately-sculptured bosses ornament the vaulted roofs. At
the south-west corner are two lavatories. The cloisters
were 133 years in progress of building. The church is
dedicated to the Holy Trinity. Several chapels still re¬
main about it; only one, however, is fitted up for use—St
Luke’s, which is used as the parish church. The bishop’s
palace is a low rambling structure of mixed dates, the most
ancient portion being the cellars, which are groined and
vaulted. Some ruins exist of an ancient refectory, now
overgrown with ivy. The whole place was thoroughly de¬
secrated and spoiled at the period of the Commonwealth.
Two of the gates of the Close are fine specimens of the
architecture of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
The next public building of importance is St Andrew’s
Hall, a fine old ecclesiastical structure, originally the nave
of the church of the Black Friars’ monastery. At the
Reformation and suppression of the religious houses, the
corporation of the city negotiated the transfer of this hand¬
some edifice to its possession for the sum of L.80. Since
that time its nave has served the purposes of a spacious
town-hall, and is used for every variety of civil and political
meeting, most especially for the triennial musical festivals
for which Norwich is so justly celebrated. The chancel Norwich
has always been preserved for religious worship, having v 
been leased by the corporation to the Dutch congregation,
who in their turn grant permission for its use to the chap¬
lain and poor of the workhouse, which stands on the site of
other parts of the monastery, the cloisters being converted
into kitchens, &c. The hall is of perpendicular architec¬
ture, and was built by the famous Sir Thomas Erpingham.
The roof is open timber, and supported by two rows of
slender and graceful pillars, which divide the nave and
aisles. It is now adorned with portraits of civic dignitaries
and other paintings, among which are two historical pieces
by Martin, a native of the city, and a fine full-length por¬
trait of Lord Nelson.
The guildhall, an ancient and curious specimen of flint-
work, stands in the north-west corner of the market-place.
The assizes for the city are held there, as well as all meet¬
ings of the magistrates and council. The council-chamber
is a handsome room, fitted up with furniture of the period
of Henry VUI., and is an interesting specimen of a court
of justice of that period. A glass case incloses a naval
trophy in honour of Lord Nelson, being the sword of the
Spanish admiral, Xavier Winthuysen, presented by his
lordship to the corporation. The original letter accom¬
panying the sword is inclosed in the case.
The market-place is an oblong of very irregular out¬
line. Many gable-ended roofs lingering above the modern
shop-fronts, and quaint projecting storeys, give a pictur¬
esque and somewhat foreign character to the scene. The
market is abundantly supplied with provisions of every
kind. Poultry and sausages, the staple product of Norfolk
and Norwich, of course abound; and in summer the display
of plants and flowers forms a very pretty addition to the
view.
Norwich has two large public libraries, in addition to the
new free library opened in 1857, which already numbers
some thousand volumes, and is much frequented by the
class for whom it was designed. A good museum, contain¬
ing one of the finest collections of birds in the kingdom out of
London, occupies the only remaining portion of the ancient
palace of the dukes of Norfolk in the city. The museum
contains the valuable herbarium of Sir J. E. Smith, the dis¬
tinguished botanist. It has a spacious corn exchange,
where a very extensive business is carried on; and assembly-
rooms for miscellaneous purposes. The gaol is a modern
structure on the confines of the city. The churches, thirty-
six in number, besides the French and Dutch church, are
not generally worthy of note, save to the antiquarian. St
Peter’s Mancroft, the largest, is a handsome structure,
measuring 180 feet in length, and 60 in height, with north
and south aisles. It has lately been completely restored,
and fitted up with open seats. The roof is fine open
timber-work, and the organ one of those originally built
by Harris. The church contains many curious tombs
and monuments. The famous Sir Thomas Browne was
buried beneath the chancel of this church. The peal of
twelve bells in the tower is said to be unrivalled. The
tenor bell weighs 41 cwt. St Andrew’s, St Stephen’s, and
St Michael’s Coslany churches are the next in importance.
Besides the numerous churches, Norwich has two Roman
Catholic chapels, a Jews’ synagogue, and between twenty
and thirty dissenting places of worship. The city is well
supplied with charitable institutions. It has four endowed
hospitals for the poor, each possessing very large funds.
St Giles, the most important, has an income of nearly
L.8000 per annum ; while as much as L.10,000 per annum
is dispensed in the city through the medium of other chari¬
table institutions. The Norfolk and Norwich Hospital may
be classed among the most important of these; it was
established in 1772, and contains 105 beds. The number of
patients that have been admitted since the opening is 47,072
NOR
N O T
S35
Norwich
II
Tostrada-
mus.
in-patients, and 37,531 out-patients. From December 1855
to December 1856 the number was—in, 781; out, 721. A
public dispensary, eye infirmary, infirmary for sick children
(established by Jenny Lind), a Bethel blind asylum, orphans’
homes, and many other charitable institutions exist, and
several very rich benevolent societies.
The corporate body consists of 16 aldermen and 48
councilmen. The mayor and sheriff are chosen annually
from their number. The city has sent two members to
Parliament since Edward I. Pop. (1851) 68,195. (s. s. M.)
Norwich, a town of the United States of North America,
state of Connecticut, at the confluence of the rivers Yantic
and Shetucket, which join to form the Thames, 13 miles
N. of New London, and 40 E.S.E. of Hartford. It is built
on the slope of a hill, and has a fine appearance from the
river, the streets running in terraces one behind the other.
There are here county buildings, a town-hall, eight or nine
churches, several schools, and six banks. The water of the
rivers supplies moving power to several manufactories,
which produce woollen and cotton stuffs, paper, ropes,
leather, pottery, Sec. The River Thames is navigable up
to this place ; and Norwich also communicates with the sea
by means of a railway on each side of the river. There is
daily steam communication between New York and a point
7 miles below Norwich. Pop. (1850) 10,265; (1853)
about 11,500.
NORWOOD, a town of England, in the county of Sur¬
rey, 6 miles S. of London. It contains two district
churches, one of Grecian and the other of Gothic architec¬
ture; Wesleyan, Independent, and Baptist places of wor-;
ship ; several schools ; almshouses ; and a Roman Catholic
convent. Among the places of interest are the noble
public cemetery, and a pleasure ground called Beulah Spa,
which contains a mineral spring. Pop. 3977.
NORWOOD, Richard. See Dissertation IV., § 4.
NOSSI-BE, or Nos-Beh, an island in the Indian
Ocean, in front of the Bay of Passandava, on the N.W.
coast of Madagascar; S. Lat. 13. 20., E. Long. 48. 20.
It is irregular in outline and surface, and evidently of vol¬
canic formation. The highest summit, which is near the
southern extremity, is about 1700 feet above the sea, and
is covered with fine timber to the top. The area of the
island is about 580 square miles. The land near the sea
is well cultivated, and produces rice, maize, potatoes, &c.,
more than enough for the inhabitants. At several places
on the coast excellent anchorage may be obtained. Nossi-
Be belongs to the French, being a dependency of the
Island of Bourbon. Pop. (1851) 15,178.
NOSTRADAMUS, Michel de, or Notre-Dame, a
celebrated physician and astrologer, was descended of a
noble Provencal family, and born on the 14th of December
1503, at St Remy, in the diocese of Avignon. He studied
humanity and philosophy at the college of Avignon, and
physic at Montpellier. On the outbreak of the plague in
1525 he set out towards Toulouse, and passed on till he
reached Bordeaux. After spending five years on the journey,
treating all the patients that came in his way, he returned to
Montpellier, and was created doctor of his faculty in 1529.
At Agen he contracted an acquaintance with Julius Caesar
Scaliger, which induced him to make some stay in that town.
On his return to Provence, he established himself first at
Marseilles, and afterwards at Salon, where he became a
recluse, and employed his leisure in study. In 1546 he
rendered essential service by his medical skill to the inhabi¬
tants of Aix, then suffering from a severe visitation of the
plague. He had for a long time occasionally followed the
trade of a conjurer, and now he began to think himself
inspired, nay, miraculously illuminated with a prospect
into futurity. As often as he fancied these illuminations
discovered to him any future event, he entered it in
wiiting, in enigmatical prose sentences; but revising them
afterwards, he thought the sentences would appear more Notary,
respectable, and would savour more of a prophetic spirit, ^
if they were expressed in verse. This opinion determined
him to throw them all into quatrains, and he afterwards
ranged them into Centuries. When this was done, he
hesitated about making them public, till reflecting that the
time of many events which he had foretold was very near
at hand, he determined to print them. This he did with
a dedication addressed to his son Caesar, an infant only
some months old, in the form of a letter or preface, dated
the 1st of March 1555. This edition, which includes seven
Centuries, was printed by Rigault at Lyons.
Henri IT., and his mother Catherine of Medicis, having re¬
solved to see the prophet, he received orders to repair to Paris.
He was very graciously received at court; and he returned
to Salon loaded with honours and presents. Animated
with his success, he augmented his work from three hun¬
dred quatrains to a complete milliad, and published it in
1558, with -a dedication to the king. That prince having
died the next year of a wound which he received at a
tournament, the book of the prophet was immediately con¬
sulted ; and in the 35th quatrain of the first century this
unfortunate event was, strange to say, found predicted.
So remarkable a prophecy added greatly to his fame,
and he was shortly afterwards honoured with a visit from
Emanuel, Duke of Savoy, and the Princess Margaret of
France, his consort. From this time Nostradamus found
himself overburdened with visitors, and his fame daily in¬
creased. Charles IX. presented him with a purse of two
hundred crowns, together with a brevet, constituting him
his physician in ordinary. But the prophet enjoyed these
honours only for the space of sixteen months, having died
at Salon on the 2d of July 1566. Besides his Centuries, we
have the followingcompositions of Nostradamus:—A treatise
de Fardemens et de Senteurs, 1552; a Book of singular Re¬
ceipts, pour Entretenir la Sante du Corps, 1556; a piece des
Confitures, 1557; and a French translation of the Latin of
Galen’s Paraphrase, 1552. In addition to various Prophecies,
some of which were translated into English during his own
time, he published the Almanac of Nostradmaus in 1559.
The eleventh and twelfth Centuries of his quatrains were
published after his death. It is to these productions that
the following pungent distich was applied by Jodelle:—
Nostra damns cum falsa damns, nam fallere nostrum est,
Et cum falsa damns, nil nisi Nostra damus.
NOTARY, in its original signification, was applied to a
person {notarius) employed to take notes {notce) of trials
and other judicial proceedings in the Roman courts. These
notarii represented in some measure our modern reporters,
and, like them, employed symbols of abbreviation, ora species
of short-hand, to facilitate the reporting of a speaker’s words.
This appears from various passages in classical and ancient
writers, such as Manlius and Martial. The notarii were
generally slaves ; and, in addition to their ordinary duties,
not unfrequently took down a man’s will in writing, and
were sometimes called upon to attend the prefects in the
capacity of transcribers, and attest the acts of spiritual dig¬
nities when the empire became Christian. In the fourth
century the notarii received the name of exceptores, and the
functionaries corresponding most nearly to the modern no¬
taries were termed tahelliones. The business of the latter
was to draw up contracts, wills, and other legal instruments.
It is impossible to determine when notaries were first known
in England. As early as the time of Edward the Confes¬
sor we read of charters being executed by notaries for the
royal chancellor. The power of admitting notaries to prac¬
tise seems to have been vested in the Archbishop of Can¬
terbury by the 25 Hen. VIII., c. 21, sec. 4. The term
of a notary’s apprenticeship, and the manner of his admis¬
sion to practise, are regulated by the act 41 Geo. HI., c.
336
NOT
NOT
Noto.
Notation 79, and amended bv the 3 and 4 Will. IV., c. 70, and 6
» and 7 Viet., c. 90. “The recent statutes, 20 and 21 Viet.,
cc. 77, 85, for the abolition of the ecclesiastical courts, do
not affect the notaries. As appears from countless allusions
in our literature, it was customary in former times for nota¬
ries to make all kinds of legal instruments. Their occu¬
pation is now limited to the attestation of contracts and
writings of a mercantile kind, to their authentication in a
foreign country, to the protestation of bills of exchange,
See. They also receive and take the affidavits of masters
and mariners of ships. The notaries have to pay an annual
certificate duty, like attorneys, solicitors, and proctors ; and
in the stamp act, 44 Geo. 3' c. 98, prohibiting persons not
duly qualified from preparing deeds relating to real or per¬
sonal estate, notaries, as well as attorneys, Sec., are ex¬
cepted, subject to their taking out their annual certificates.
In Scotland, before the reign of James III., papal and
imperial notaries practised until the third Parliament ox
that king, held at Edinburgh on 29th November 1469,
when an act was passed declaring that notaries should be
made by the king. It would appear, however, that tor
some time afterwards there were in Scotland two kinds ot
notaries, clerical and legal,—the instruments taken by t le
latter bearing faith in civil matters. In 1551 an act was
passed directing sheriffs to bring or send both kinds ot
notaries to the lords of Session to be examined; and in a
subsequent statute, passed in 1555, it was ordained that
no notary, “ by whatsoever power he be created, should
use the office “except he first present himself to the said
lords, showing his creation, and be admitted by them
thereto.” It does not appear that this statute vested the
rio-ht of making notaries in the Court of Session ; but in
1563 it was by law declared that no person should take
on him the office, under the pain of death, unless created
by the sovereign’s special letters, and thereafter examined
and admitted by the lords of Session. Since then the Court
of Session have in Scotland exercised full and exclusive
authority on the admission of notaries in all legal matters,
spiritual and temporal. It is the privilege of notaries to
expede the instruments by which a proprietor is infeft or
feudally vested in land, to protest bills, to authenticate
copies of writings, and generally to do what is usually done
by the notary in England.
NOTATION, the method of expressing numbers or
quantities by signs or characters appropriated for that pur¬
pose. (See Arithmetic and Algebra.)
NOTES, in music, are characters used in writing or
printing, to mark the pitch and the duration ot the sounds
of any musical composition. These characters or signs
of notation have varied much at different times. Many
alterations of those now generally received have been
proposed, but not adopted. Numerical and literal me¬
thods of expressing musical sounds have been repeatedly
proposed; but it seems that these are even more compli¬
cated than the method in common use. A musical short¬
hand, constructed of alphabetical letters, was proposed
in 1805 in France, but rejected; although in numerous
cases of simple melody and harmony it might be very
useful in saving sjKice to publishers of books. (As to
the notation of music in ancient and modern times, see
Padre Martini, Hawkins, and Burney, and especially Mer-
senne and Mace regarding the entablature of some musical
instruments now disused.) (g. f. G.)
NOTO, a town of Sicily, capital of a province of the
same name, stands on a hill near the left bank of the River
Noto, not far from its mouth, and 14 miles S.W. of Syra¬
cuse. It is well built, and has regular streets and spacious
squares. There are several churches and convents; a col¬
lege ; a museum, with a large collection of Greek, Roman,
and Moorish coins; council-house ; hospital, &c. Some
trade is carried on in corn, wine, and oil. About 4 miles
to the N W are the remains of the ancient Netum, con- Netting,
sisting principally of an amphitheatre and a gymnasium. ham.
NOTTINGHAM, a large market-town of England, the
capital of the county of the same name, in the centre of
England Since the time of Henry VI. the town has been
itself a countv, with its own recorder and sheriff. It is a
place of great antiquity, deriving its name from the Saxon
word Snottingaham, which is descriptive of its position as a
retreat in rocks, since there were formerly many, and are
still a few, caverns, cut in the soft rock on which its castle
was built. It is by some antiquaries asserted that it was
once a Roman station ; but that is a subject of controversy.
The earliest records notice some incursions ot the Danes
about 866; but they appear to have deceived a check from
the town, and a defeat near it from King Alfred, who after¬
wards made it the winter-quarters of his army. William the
Conqueror erected a castle, and constructed fortifications so
strong as to render the place impregnable against any ot the
methods of attack which were then known. King Richard
Cceur de Lion assembled a Parliament in this place pre¬
viously to his departure for the Holy Land, and another soon
after his return from Palestine. It was from Nottingham
that Richard III. marched forth to his fatal battle of Bos-
worth Field. Here Charles I. erected his royal standard
at the commencement of the civil war, at a spot now in¬
cluded in the General Hospital gardens. The castle of
Nottingham, defended by the royalists, was besieged by the
parliamentary forces under the command of Colonel Hutch¬
inson, to whom, after a brave defence, it at length sur¬
rendered. The particulars of the siege are related in a most
interesting manner by the wife of that officer. When
Cromwell had attained supreme power, he ordered the for-
tifications to be destroyed, and the castle to be dismantled.
Early in the present century this town and neighbourhood
were distinguished by the riotous disposition of the lower
orders. This was especially the case between the years
1811 and 1814, when the Luddites, as they were termed,
were excited to destroy much of that machinery by the aid
of which the town subsequently attained to its present high
degree of affluence. These disturbances were quelled by
the power of the law, and some wholesome severities; but
a portion of the trade was transferred to distant and more
tranquil districts. During the excitement respecting par¬
liamentary reform a very violent spirit was manifested,
which led to the destruction of a silk-mill in the neighbour¬
hood, many outrages upon private houses, and the burning
of the castle belonging to the Duke of Newcastle on Oc¬
tober 10, 1831. These disturbances led to a few exemplary
punishments and some heavy burdens on the town, to in¬
demnify those whose property had suffered by the riots.
Nottingham is finely situated upon the side of a hill over¬
looking the valley of the Trent, and near to the south¬
western extremity of what was formerly the forest of Sher¬
wood, once famous as the resort of the celebrated Robin
Hood, but now a well-cultivated district. The environs of
the town are picturesque and beautiful. It is surrounded,
except towards the Trent, by eminences which command
extensive views of the neighbourhood and of adjoining
counties. Clifton Grove and the village of Wilford, cele¬
brated by Kirke White, together with Wollaton Hall, the
seat of Lord Middleton, and Belvoir Castle (distant 19
miles), are marked features in the landscape.
Immediately contiguous to the town, on its western side,
is the Park, an appanage of the castle, and originally a
erant from the crown. It was purchased of Francis, Earl of
Rutland, by William Cavendish, first Duke of Newcastle,
who commenced the present building in 16/4, in the eight)-
third year of his age. The park contains about 120 acres, and
is remarkable for its undulatory surface. The boundary
next the town is marked by a range of hills upwards ot 10
NOTTINGHAM. ~ 337
Votting- feet high. These terminate abruptly on the south-west
ham. with a magnificent precipice, 130 feet high, upon which the
castle stands. The whole is of the New Red Sandstone for¬
mation, and readily yields to the stroke of the quarryman.
It is to the facilities thus afforded by nature that the nume¬
rous caverns and rock habitations, for which Nottingham
and the Park are so famous, owe their origin. After the
estate came into the possession of the present duke, a lofty
tunnel was cut through one of the sandstone hills above
named, constituting the principal carriage approach from the
town to the valley of the Park. The ground is laid out for
villa residences, and terraces and drives are formed; the
valley being set apart for pleasure-grounds and ornamental
planting. The landscape is rarely equalled in beauty,
and affords a sudden and magical transition from town to
country. Of this the merchants and principal inhabitants
have availed themselves, by erecting residences of a costly,
and for the most part elegant and tasteful character. The
Park is bounded on the south by the River Leen, or rather
the artificial watercourse said to be formed by William
Peverill, the first grantee of the castle, in the time of William
the Conqueror. The original bed of the river as it ran into
the Trent may be now traced at the point at which it was
diverted.
Some of the old streets are narrow, but in the great ex¬
tension of the town of late years some new and spacious
avenues have been built, and much improvement has been
judiciously effected. The market-place is one of the finest
in England. It is spacious, occupying an area of 27,515
square yards, or rather more than five acres and a half.
It is well paved, and admirably adapted for the purpose of
the two weekly markets held in it on Wednesday and Sa¬
turday, the last of which is the principal one. At the east
of the market-place stands the Exchange Hall, which is a
noble-looking building. The pediment is crowned with a
well-proportioned pedestal, on which stands the figure of
Justice. On the pediment are the town arms; and under¬
neath it, with a clock intervening, is a handsome Venetian
window, ornamented with two elegant Ionic columns, which
lights the spacious room within. That apartment, when
the temporary doors which divide it are thrown open, is
123 feet long, 30 wide, and 30 high, with an arched ceil¬
ing. It is used for public dinners, at which more than 400
persons can be commodiously seated, and also for public
meetings. This room was nearly destroyed by an accidental
fire in 1836, but has been restored and further beauti¬
fied. One part of the building is appropriated to magisterial
business, and another is occupied as a police-office, and for
the residence of the mayor’s serjeant-at-mace. Underneath
the Exchange there are a few shops in front, but the prin¬
cipal part of the ground-floor is appropriated to shambles.
In another part of the market-place is the Subscription Li¬
brary, containing more than 13,500 volumes, many of them
of great value. With this is incorporated the Standfast
Library, consisting of works chiefly classical and theological;
making a total of nearly 15,000 volumes. There are also
maps, and portraits of eminent individuals connected with
the town, amongst whom are Colonel Hutchinson, Lord
Byron, Sir Richard Arkwright, Kirke White, and others.
1 he other civic buildings are the county jail and hall, a
commodious but not elegant structure; the house of cor¬
rection and town jail, standing on the site of a convent of
the hospitallers ot St John of Jerusalem; the town-hall,
where the borough assizes and sessions, and the mayor’s
and sheiifis courts are held; the post-office, occupying a
very commanding situation; and the free grammar school,
in which 80 boys are educated—40 in the classical, and 40
m the English department.
1 he .edifices for religious worship are in about the same
P'oport'on to the number of the inhabitants as is seen in
other places which have increased with similar rapidity.
VOL. XVI.
St Mary’s is usually denominated the mother church of the Kotting-
town, from its priority of erection. It resembles a cathe- ham.
dral more than a parish church in its extent, its architec- v v -ay
ture, and its decorations, and is the most striking object
in the place when viewed from what is called the High
Pavement. It stands on an elevated spot, and is said to be
nearly 70 feet above the level of the meadows near the
town. The date of the erection is unknown, but is said
to have been in the fifteenth century. It is in the form
of a cross, and has a handsome square tower, in which there
is a musical peal of ten bells. The length of the structure
in the inside is 216 feet, the breadth at the transept 97, at
the west end or principal entrance 67, and in the chancel
29 feet. The height of the tower is 126 feet, and that of
the side aisles 60 feet. The porch on the south side is a
very ancient and elaborate piece of workmanship, which
tradition has assigned to the neighbouring priory of Len-
ton as its original site. In the north transept there is an
excellent organ of great power. There are in this church
many monumental inscriptions on tombs of the family of the
Earls of Clare, and one of an Earl of Meath, and the mau¬
soleum of the family of the Wrights. In the year 1848 the
building, having undergone extensive repairs and numerous
alterations, with a view to carrying out its original design,
was re-opened for public worship. The cost, upwards ot
L.9000, was defrayed by a subscription.
Besides the mother church, there are provided for the
adherents of the established worship the following edifices :—
St Peter’s, St Nicholas’, St James’s, St Paul’s, Trinity, St
John Baptist’s, St Matthew’s, and St Mark’s. The Roman
Catholics possess a cathedral dedicated to St ^arnabas, and
erected in 1844 at a cost of L.20,000. The Nonconfor¬
mists have numerous places of worship, some of them large
and costly. Wesley and Halifax Place chapels, belonging to
the Methodists, will accommodate each 1800persons, and the
former is stated to have cost L.10,000. Other descriptions
of Methodists have 5 places of worship ; the Baptists of va¬
rious orders 7; the Independents 4 ; the Unitarians, Qua¬
kers, Irvingites, and numerous other sects, 1 each. In
1851 the total number of places of worship was reported as
37, of which 8 belonged to the Church of England, and 29 to
other religious bodies. The largest reported attendance (on
Sunday, March 31) in that year was, at the several churches,
5570, and at the other places of worship 11,284.
The charitable institutions depending on endowed foun¬
dations or on voluntary contributions are numerous. The
Blue-Coat School clothes and educates about 50 boys and
20 girls. The General Hospital, built in 1781, possesses
about two acres of land, given partly by the Duke of New¬
castle and partly by the corporation. It is supported chiefly
by subscriptions, and usually contains about 140 patients;
whilst between 1100 and 1200 are out-patients receiving
medical advice and assistance. The Dispensary, established
in 1831, has on an average 350 patients. The General
Lunatic Asylum is a modern and spacious brick building,
erected in 1810, at an expense of nearly L.20,000. There
are extensive courts, gardens, and places for recreation ; and
the whole economy of the place is well contrived for the
recovery of the inmates. The foundation of a second asy¬
lum for patients of the middle class was laid by the Duke of
Newcastle, October 30, 1857. Labray’s and Lambley’s
Hospitals are small asylums for aged widows; and Collins’
Hospital is a splendid charity, founded by one of the Smith
family of the town, of which Lord Carrington is the pre¬
sent head. It consists of twenty-four small but conve¬
nient dwellings for as many poor widows, each of whom
receives four shillings weekly, and two tons and a half of
coal every year. From the same endowment Carrington
Street Llospital, which accommodates 20 inmates, was built
between the years 1831 and 1834. Plumptre Hospital,
founded by a family of that name (since transplanted into
2 u
338
NOTTINGHAM.
Notting¬
ham.
Kent) in the year 1392, but twice repaired since,—viz., in
IGSOand 1751,—has been rebuilt under an act ot Parliament
passed in 1823. Thirteen aged widows are provided with
comfortable dwellings within the house, and allowed six
shillings weekly, whilst thirty others, called out-pensioners,
receive ten pounds a year. Willoughby’s Hospital contains
nineteen tenements, the inhabitants of which receive a
small pension. Wooley’s Alms are dwellings for six poor
persons; and Bilby’s Almshouses for eight persons, who
have each a loaf weekly, and two tons of coal at Christ¬
mas. Warser Gate Hospital gives apartments to six, and
Hanley’s to twelve poor persons. Other almshouses exist;
so that in the year 1844 the number of persons thus pro¬
vided for was i80. In 1852 Mr George Gill erected six
additional tenements for decayed workmen.
Among the public edifices that deserve notice may be
mentioned the barracks, built in 1792, a plain building,
with apartments for officers and privates, and suitable
stabling for three troops of horse. At the close of 1857 the
government resolved on erecting new barracks on a different
site, granted by the corporation. There is an assembly-
room, as well as a theatre of moderate dimensions, and the
usual provision of gas and water works, &c. Among the
comparatively recent buildings of a public character are a
savings-bank ; a mechanic’s institution, wdth a hall capable
of accommodating 1000 persons, a library of 6000 volumes,
a museum of natural history, reading-rooms, &c.; the Arti-
zan’s Library, containing 2000 volumes ; the People s Col¬
lege, founded by Mr George Gill in 1847, intended to bring
the higher advantages of education within common reach ; a
large and handsome asylum for the blind; a ragged school;
a female refuge ; and baths and wash-houses. Pwo of the
older mansions of the town are now occupied, the one as a
government school of design, and the other as a people’s
hall, a gift to the working-classes by a benefactor whom we
have already named, Mr George Gill. To these must be
added a large and handsome building, erected in 1853 as a
corn market, and now used as a general exchange and
news-room. To this is attached a telegraph office.
The most important event in the modern history of Not¬
tingham was the passing, on June 30, 1845, of an act for the
inclosure of about 1300 acres of pasture land, by which the
town was nearly encircled, and which was subject to rights
of common. Surrounded by this belt of open country, the
town had been hemmed in upon a space of 265 acres, and
was one of the most densely peopled in the kingdom,—
an immense surplus both of trade and population, properly
identified with Nottingham, being located in large manu¬
facturing villages in the immediate vicinity. The effects of
the act are strikingly apparent. Many hundreds of houses,
with numerous factories, now spread over the recently-in¬
closed space. It is traversed by public and private roads of
more than 18 miles in length. Upwards of 50 acres are
laid out, for the purposes of public recreation, in a cricket-
ground, ornamental walks, and an arboretum of about 20
acres, to which there is free admission. An extensive race-
ground is included in the space reserved for public accom¬
modation. The inclosure act also provided for the appro¬
priation of 8 acres for the purposes of interment. Of these,
four, designed for the use of dissenters, were added to the
general cemetery, establishd in 1837, and now comprising
18 acres ; and the remainder are incorporated with a recently
formed Church of England cemetery, containing in all 13 acres.
The change in the town itself is as great as that which
marks its immediate vicinity. Factories and warehouses
have sprung up with a rapidity of which scarcely any other
town presents an example. Almost all the leading mer¬
chants and manufacturers have enlarged or rebuilt the
places in which they carry on their business; so that Not¬
tingham appears like a place which has suddenly become
the seat of some new and very flourishing trade. The old
warehouses, &c., were of the plainest character, and utterly Netting,
destitute of architectural pretensions. The reverse may be ham.
said of the new. Under the direction of Mr Hine and
other able architects, the town has now been ornamented
with a large number of commercial buildings, which for
their architectural character will bear comparison with the
higher class of civic edifices to be found elsewhere.
°The population of Nottingham amounted in 1811 to
34,253 ; in 1831 it was 50,680; and in 1841, 53,091. It
had grown in 1851 to 58,529, exclusive of the suburbs of
Sneinton and Radford, which are now strictly incorporated
with Nottingham, and constitute one town. Of these, the
former contained at the last census 8840 inhabitants, and
the latter 12,637; making a total of 80,006. To these
ought perhaps to be added the immediately contiguous pa¬
rish of Lenton, having a population of 5589. On this esti¬
mate, the population of Nottingham, taking into account its
rapid increase during the last few years, cannot fall far
short of 100,000. The villages wfithin 4 miles, and most of
them, strictly speaking, dependencies of the town, contain
an additional population of 30,000.
The Trent is navigable up to the town; and the various
canals which branch from that river afford the means of
communication with every part of the kingdom. There are
two distinct lines of railway connecting Nottingham with
the metropolis, as well as with the north, besides lines run¬
ning to Derby, Newark, Lincoln, Mansfield, Ilkeston, and
other places.
We are enabled, on the authority of W. Felkin, Esq.,
F.L.S., to present the following account of the two prin¬
cipal branches of the trade of this important town :—
The surprising invention of the stocking-frame by Lee has is- Machine-
sued in one of the most interesting chapters in the history of me- wrought
chanical invention and manufacturing industry. It was upon this iace tra(je
machine that, about a century ago, a coarse imitation of cotton 0f Netting-
lace was first produced. The fabric was all weft from one conti- jlam
nuous thread. A beautiful adaptation of the machinery enabled a 1857.
fine silk net (point lace) to be made, employing for many years
1500 frames in Nottingham and its vicinity. This fabrication has
long since died out. Then the machine was so arranged as that the
material should be used altogether as warp. This very ingenious
machine is still usefully and extensively employed. Mr John
Heathcoat, then a working-frame smith in Nottingham, invented
the bobbin-net machine, &nd patented it in 1809. His first ma¬
chines were from 18 to 36 inches in width. A woman making lace on
a pillow may produce three to five meshes or interstices in a minute.
The first machine produced 1000 meshes per minute. A square
yard of the produce was sold for L.5. This machine, as originally
constructed, though displaying wonderful mechanical skill, was a
complicated one. During the whole of the intervening time inces¬
sant and remarkable ingenuity has been shown in simplifying and
improving the machine. It is now made 180 to 200 inches in
width ; and plain net of like quality to that first made is sold cur¬
rently at 6d. for the square yard. A man turns off with ease 40,000
meshes per minute from this “ mechanical pillow/’ as the bobbin-net
machine was originally called by its talented inventor. Luddites
having broken the patentee s machinery at Loughborough, he estab¬
lished himself at Tiverton, where he now employs 300 machines.
He has represented that borough in Parliament since 1831. There
are also about 100 machines at Barnstaple, 250 at Chard, 100 in
the Isle of Wight, and 300 in Derbyshire. There are 2550 bobbin-
net and 800 warp machines at work in Nottingham and its vici¬
nity. Excepting less than one-tenth of the production, the whole
of the English bobbin-net machinery is employed for the Notting¬
ham lace trade. The capital in this machinery amounts to
L.1,500,000, independently of that employed in the construction of
doublino' and throwing raw materials used in this branch of busi¬
ness. The number of persons wholly or in part engaged in it is
135,000, or more—as smiths, machine hands, menders, warehouse
men and women, finishers, embroiderers, &c. Wages may be stated
at,—men 20s. to L.5; youths, of both sexes, 8s. to 20s.; children,
3s. to 8s. per week. The whole machinery, or nearly so, is worked by
steam or water power, where employed on plain or common fancy
goods. The Jacquard apparatus has been applied at great cost,
but with perfect success, to about 2500 of the machines, making
every class of bobbin-net and warp goods, up to the most expensive
and close imitation of pillow articles. The statistics for 1857 may
be stated, with pretty close approximation to truth, as follows:—
NOTTINGHAM.
339
Notting¬
ham.
losiery
rade of
lotting-
am in
857.
3600 bobbin-net, and 800 warp lace machines used up 9,600,000 lb.
weight of raw cotton wool, at an imported cost of L.712,000, to
which was added L.2,318,000 wages and profits; making a total
return of L.3,030,000 : and raw silk, 450,000 lb., at a cost of
L 503 000 to which was added wages and profits L.1,247,000—
total return in silk lace goods, L.1,750,000. There were there¬
fore materials used costing L.1,215,000, to which were added wages
and profits L.3,565,000 ; making the entire return L.4,780,000, of
which L.4,300,000 passed through the warehouses of Nottingham.
About two-fifths of the amount is believed to be exported. During
the first twenty years after the bobbin-net machine was invented,
pillow lace was very adversely affected by it. Since then the cheaper
machine lace has led the way to a larger consumption of pillow lace
goods, and at better wages and prices than for ages before.
The machinery invented in 1589 by the llev. W. Lee, at Wood-
borough, in the county of Nottingham, for the manufacture of
hosiery, was the result of extraordinary mechanical genius. After
his death it was chiefly transferred to and around London; but a cen¬
tury ago it had become concentrated in the three midland counties.
In order to bring before the public the sufferings of the people then
engaged in this branch of trade, Mr William Felkin of Nottingham
caused a minute census of the machinery to be taken in 1844.
This statement included the frames, hands employed, classes of work
produced, materials used, throughout 230 parishes in the counties
of Leicester, Derby, and Nottingham, where stocking-frames were
to be found, as well as those which were in other parts of the three
kingdoms. In Leicestershire there were 6933 employed upon cot¬
ton, 9875 woollen, 168 silk, 1582 mixed, and 2303 not at work;
total, 20,861. In Derbyshire, 4380 cotton, 171 mixed, 1454 silk, and
792 not at work ; total, 6797. In Nottinghamshire, 12,440 cotton,
2094 silk, 299 mixed, 46 woollen, and 1503 not at work; total, 16,382.
In other parts of England, 1572 frames; in Scotland, 2605; in Ire¬
land, 265. Total stocking-looms in the three kingdoms, 48,482.
These machines had been worked in small shops, or the houses
of work-people. The rates of wages in 1844, and for forty years
previously, had been depressed to the lowest living point, it being
all hand employment. Since that year there has been a gradual
but most important improvement throughout the whole trade. The
demand for goods has gone somewhat beyond the supply of labour;
the rates of wages have advanced 50 to 100 per cent., according to
classes of goods made ; all the available machinery has been em¬
ployed, though the former excessive hours of work have been short¬
ened; and the former wretchedness of the people has disappeared.
During the last ten years about 1300 sets of power rotary round
frames have been constructed, about 800 of which are in Nottingham,
and 500 in the two adjoining counties. Several hundreds of wide
frames have been placed in factories, and adapted to rotary steam-
power. Out of the total number of stocking-looms (about 50,000),
there are now at least 17,250 engaged in the trade of Nottingham¬
shire, giving employment in making, stitching, sewing, finishing,
&c., to about 40,000 men, women, and children, at from 30s. to 2s. 6d.
a week. Of the production of Nottingham hosiery, about one-third,
it is believed, has been of late exported. The value of Notting¬
ham hose-frames is estimated at L.310,000.
The kind and quantity of materials used, and value of hosiery
goods produced in 1857, bear no comparison with 1844, or any
former period. One workman in a hand-frame may produce one
dozen cotton hose, weighing 2 lb. on an average, in a week ; one
set of round frames, managed by one man, will turn off easily 200
dozen, each of l£ lb. weight (using 300 lb. of cotton per set) in a
week. Such hose are selling, when prepared for market, at 2s. 6d.
per dozen. This cheap hosiery has forced its way where stockings
were unknown ; and in both home and foreign markets an increased
demand for every class of English hosiery has marked the late
epochs of enlarged manufacturing prosperity.
The following is an approximate estimate of the production of
hosiery in the Nottingham trade of the year 1857 :—
Material.
Consumpt of Cost in
raw material. Import.
Raw cotton wool..
Mixed wool....
Raw silk 
Total
Lbs.
9,000,000
2,600,000
100,000
L.
338,000
107,000
100,000
545,000
Wages and
Profits.
L.
987,000
333,000
235,000
1,555,000
Total
Return.
L.
1,325,000
440,000
335,000
2,100,000
Nottingham has been celebrated for its ale, the qualities
of which have been the theme of song. It is still good, and
very potent. Its excellence has been attributed by some
to the good quality of the barley grown in the neighbour¬
hood, by others to the purity of the water, and by many to
the excellent cellars scooped out of the rock, with which Netting-
most of the good houses are furnished. hamshire.
This town returns two members to the House of Com-
mons. The freemen, who were formerly the sole electors,
are still numerous, but are exceeded in number by the ten-
pound voters.
By the municipal corporation reform law passed in 1835,
the town is to continue a corporation, is divided into seven
wards, and has a mayor, fourteen aldermen, and forty-two
councillors, with twelve justices of the peace appointed by
the crown. (s. m—ll.)
NOTTINGHAMSHIRE, an inland county of England,
bounded on the N. by Yorkshire and a part of Lincolnshire,
on the E. by Lincolnshire, on the S. by Leicestershire, and
on the W. by Derbyshire. It is of an oval figure, with its
narrowest end towards the north. Its greatest length is
about 50 miles, and its greatest breadth 27. Its circum¬
ference is estimated at 140 miles. The number of square
miles is 822, or 526,076 acres.
The county is divided into six hundreds, or, as they are
usually denominated, wapentakes; three of which are to
the north and three to the south of the River Trent. It
contains nine market-towns, and 207 parishes. The annual
value of the real property assessed to the property and in¬
come tax for the year ending 5th April 1851 was L.l, 198,843.
The number of inhabitants amounted in 1801 to 140,350;
in 1811 to 162,000; in 1821 to 186,873; in 1831 to
225,400; in 1841 to 249,910; and in 1851 to 270,427.
The number of inhabited houses in 1851 was 55,019.
We are not enabled to state the exact proportions of the
several classes engaged at that date in trade, agriculture, &c.
According to the census of 1851, the county contains 231
public day-schools, 58 of which are supported by endow¬
ments, and 136 by the voluntary subscriptions of members
of tbe Established Church. The total number of scholars
in public and private day-schools is 31,178. The number of
Sundayschools is 428,of which 183 belong to the Established
Church, and 245 to other religious communions. The
total number of scholars in the former is stated to be 17,785,
and in the latter 26,153. The places of worship belonging
to the Church of England are returned as being 248, and
those belonging to other religious bodies as 382, of which
the large proportion of 273 is assigned to the Wesleyan
Methodists. The number of sittings is reported as 160,234,
of which the Established Church furnishes 76,960.
The towns and villages containing more than 2000 in¬
habitants, and the numbers in each, were in 1851 :—•
Nottingham   58,529
Newark     11,330
Mansfield  10,627
Basford (parish)  10,093
Worksop  7,215
Sutton in Ashfield  6,542
Lenton (parish)  5,589
Greasiey (parish)   5,284
Arnold  4,704
Bui well   3,786
Southwell    3,516
Beeston   3,016
Hucknal-Torkard   2,970
Retford   2,943
Clarborough   2,504
Kirby in Ashfield  2,363
Carlton   2,329
Ruddington   2,181
Bingham   2,054
The face of the country is generally level, with moderate
undulations; and its beauties are of a mild description,
somewhat picturesque in the vicinity of Sherwood Forest,
but displaying neither the striking features of the adjoin¬
ing county of Derby on its western side, nor the flat insi¬
pidity of the plains of Lincolnshire on its eastern side.
From its position between these two descriptions of coun¬
try, and from its moderate elevation, it enjoys a milder
climate than either, partaking neither of the cold air of the
one nor the moist atmosphere of the other. The mean
temperature of the county town L said to be only l-^-0 below
that of London, or 490,73. The dryness of the climate is
favourable to early vegetation, and is supposed to be the cause
of the seed-time and harvest in Nottinghamshire commenc¬
ing at the same period as in the more southern counties.
340
NOTTINGHAMSHIRE.
Netting- The soil of this county is very various. On the borders
hamshire. 0f Derbyshire there is a stripe of land with coal and lime-
' stone, partly in wood, but mostly under arable culture.
Parallel to it is a broader tract, including Sherwood Forest,
the soil of which is chiefly sandy and gravelly; but though
naturally sterile, it has in some degree been brought into
a productive state by the extensive cultivation ot turnips,
and the maintenance of considerable flocks of sheep. 1 he
tract which adjoins is a clayey soil, extending to the banks
of the River Trent. It is chiefly arable land, but varied
with woods and meadows, and highly productive ot wheat,
oats, beans, and, in some parts, of hops. I he lands on the
banks of the Trent are very fertile, being mostly devoted
to pasture, on which many oxen are fattened; and some
of the dairies are extensive. The arable land of this dis¬
trict is celebrated both for the quantity and the quality of
the oats which it produces. The beautiful vale of Belvoir,
in the south-easternmost part of the county, enjoys some
of the best soils, both for pasture and arable husbandry, ot
any part of this island. The farms are in general small,
and commonly held by tenants at will, the rents taken from
whom are generally moderate; and a very great propor¬
tion of the land is free from the burden of the tithes.
The spirit of agricultural improvement has not proceeded so
far as in many other counties, though it has made consider¬
able progress of late years. Neither the breeds of cows and
sheep nor the modes of cultivation differ so much from those
of the adjoining counties as to deserve any especial notice.
There are no mines except those of coal, which are ex¬
clusively confined to a narrow district bordering on Derby¬
shire ; the coal is of good quality, very abundant, and, by
means of railways and internal navigation, diffused through¬
out the whole county. Excellent stone for building is
raised in many parts, some of which has the peculiarly
valuable quality of hardening by exposure to the weather.
Many parts of the county abound in veins of gypsum. In the
parish of Gotham it is found in strata of the thickness of 3
feet. At Beaconhill, near Newark, there are large quarries
of this substance. Although it has been much praised as a
manure, the trials of it that have been made in its vicinity
have not been attended with such beneficial results as to
induce the continued use of it for that purpose. It should
only be used in moderate quantity, and on stiff soils.
The forest of Sherwood, formerly celebrated as the
scene of the exploits of Robin Hood, whose deeds amused
our nursery days, is mostly an open heathy plain, bordered
with recent plantations, and upon which the plough has
made very extensive encroachments. The boundaries of
the forest are extensive, it being 25 miles in length, and
from 7 to 9 in breadth ; but a great portion of it has be¬
come the property of private individuals, and is inclosed
in farms and parks; in the latter of which is to be found
the deer with which this forest was once most abundantly
stocked. The trees of most ancient date are those on the
estates of the Duke of Newcastle and Lord Manvers.
Nottinghamshire is, for its population, one of the great¬
est manufacturing counties. (For information on this
subject the reader is referred to the concluding part of
the article Nottingham.) The spinning of cotton-yarn,
from its natural connection with the trade of the district, has
been introduced and very widely extended ; and the estab¬
lishments at Nottingham, at Pleasley Works, near Mans¬
field, and several other places, are upon an extensive scale.
There are also some large manufactories for silk-throwing
and for spinning worsted yarn. Malting and brewing are
carried on to a considerable extent; and the beer of Not¬
tingham and of Newark rivals that of Burton-upon-Trent.
There are potteries at Sutton-in-Ashfield ; starch is made
at Lenton; and sailcloth and candlewick at Retford.
The foreign trade of this county is mostly conducted by
the mercantile houses of London and Liverpool; but some
of the larger manufacturers export their own goods both Notting-
to the continent of Europe and to the more distant parts of hamshire.
the world.
The River Trent, the fourth in magnitude of the Eng¬
lish streams, passes across the county, and is navigable for
barges throughout the whole of it; but its deficiencies of
water and its shoals are such great impediments that a canal
by the side of it, 10 miles in length, is found of great use
to the intercourse. The other rivers are not navigable,
but are beneficial for the purposes of irrigation. They are
the Erewash, the Soar, the Maun, the Meden, the Wollen,
the Worksop, the Idle, the Leen, and the Dover or Dare.
These all discharge their waters into the Trent. The
canals are—the Nottingham, the Grantham, the Idle, and
the Chesterfield. The last of these is about 40 miles in
length ; the others about 10 each. By means of these
and the Trent, the intercourse by internal navigation is
extended to almost every district of the county. In addi¬
tion to this means of communication, all the principal
towns, and most of the more populous villages, are now
embraced in the railway system.
The titles derived from this county are those of Marquis
of Granby, Earl of Mansfield, Viscount Newark, and Barons
Pierrepoint and Carrington. For election purposes, the
county has been divided into two districts, the northern
and the southern. Each of them returns two members.
The election for the northern division is held at Mansfield,
and the polling-places are, that town, East Retford, and
Nottingham. The election for the southern division is
held at Newark, and the other polling-places are Bingham
and Southwell. The three boroughs, Nottingham, Newark,
and Retford, return each two members, as before the passing
of the Reform Bill. The whole of the county is in the
diocese of Lincoln, to which it was transferred from that of
York at the recommendation of the ecclesiastical commis¬
sioners in 1836. It is on the midland circuit of the judges.
The remains of Roman and Norman antiquities are nu¬
merous. Amongst the former are the camps at Barton
Hill, at Combes Farm, at Gringley, at Hexgrave, and at
Wenney Hill, and a Roman villa near Mansfield. Among
the latter are the Castle of Newark; the abbeys of New-
stead, Rufford, and Welbeck; the priories of Mattersey
and Worksop; and the churches of Bingham, Blythe,
Southwell, and Balderton.
Among the distinguished natives of this county have
been Archbishop Cranmer, Dr Erasmus Darwin, Sir Mar¬
tin Frobisher, Denzil Lord Holies, Ireton, the son-in-law of
Cromwell, Lady Mary Wortley Montague, Paul Sandby,
Archbishop Seeker, Gilbert Wakefield, Bishop Warburton,
and Henry Kirke White.
The seats of noblemen and gentlemen of the first class
are as numerous as in any county of England. Among
the most remarkable are the following, viz.:—Annesley
Hall, John Musters, Esq.; Babworth Hall, H. B. Simpson,
Esq.; Bramcote Hall, J. S. Sherwin, Esq.; Bunny Park, G.
A. Forteath, Esq.; Clifton Grove, Sir Robert J. Clifton ;
Clumber Park, Duke of Newcastle; ColwickHall (unoccu¬
pied); Elton Manor, W.F. N.Norton, Esq.; Flintham Hall,
T. B. T. Hildyard, Esq.; Grove Hall, G. H. Vernon, Esq.;
Holme Pierrepoint, Viscount Newark, M.P.; Kelham
House, J. H. M. Sutton, Esq.; Kingston Hall, Lord Bel-
per; Mapperley House, Ichabod Wright, Esq.; Newstead
Abbey, late Lord Byron (now Colonel Wildman); Nor¬
wood Park, Sir John Sutton, Bart.; Nuttall Temple, R.
Holden, Esq.; Osberton, George S. Foljambe, Esq.; Os-
sington Hall, Right Honourable J. E. Denison, M.P.;
Oxton Grange, H. P. Sherbrooke, Esq.; Ruddington
Grange, Charles Paget, Esq., M.P.; Rempstone Hall,
Lady Sitwell; Rufford Abbey, Earl of Scarborough;
Serlby Hall, Viscount Galway, M.P.; Stanford Hall, Rev.
S. V. Dashwood; Thoresby Park, Earl Manvers ; Thrump-
ureddin.
N O U
ton Hall, Honourable Captain Byron; Ihurgarton Priory,
Richard Mil ward, Esq. ; Watnall Hall, Colonel Rolle-
stone; Welbeck Abbey, Duke P°‘’tland ;TI^,hTtt01]
Manor, T. D. Dickenson, Esq.; and Wollaton Hall, Lord
Middleton.
NO UREDDIN, or Noor-Ed-Deen, the name of several
Moslem rulers of Syria, of whom the most distinguished
was Noureddin Mahmoud, Melek-El-Adel, who suc¬
ceeded his father the famous Zenghi, Emir of Aleppo, in
1146. His reign was endangered at its commencement
by the attempts of the Christians to regain the possessions
which had lately been wrested from them. Joscelme de
Courtenay siezed upon his former capital Edessa: but he
was speedily dislodged, and the rebellious spirit of the
citizens was suppressed by an extensive massacre. The
second crusade, under the command of Louis VII. of France
and the Emperor Conrad, arrived in 1148. But the ranks
of the Christian invaders had been wasted in their march by
the shafts and scimitars of the infidels; their strength was
now still further weakened by the dissensions of the royal
leaders; and after sitting down for some time before Da¬
mascus, they returned ignominiously to Europe. It was
about this time that Noureddin conceived the grand pro¬
ject of rearing an effectual barrier against future crusades
by annihilating the dominion of the Christians in Palestine,
and uniting all Syria and the neighbouring districts under
one government. For achieving such an enterprise his
character peculiarly qualified him. His pious zeal had
raised him high in the estimation of his fellow-Moslems;
his conscientious frugality specially adapted him for the
management of military expeditions ; on account of his
majestic bearing and simple soldier-like manners, he had
become the darling of his army ; and for his just rule and
merciful care for the poor and the oppressed, he was re¬
garded as the father of his people. Accordingly, he began
the enterprise with great vigour and success. Raymond,
Prince of Antioch, was defeated and slain in 1149; Josceline
de Courtenay, Count of Edessa, was taken captive soon
afterwards; and the whole of Northern Syria became in
consequence the possession of Noureddin. He then turned^
his attention to the gaining of Damascus. The course of
events rendered force in this case unnecessary. Anar, the
able vizier of that kingdom, died; the ruler Modjir-Ed-Deen
was considered too imbecile to resist the threatened attack
of Baldwin III., King of Jerusalem; and in 1154 the terrified
inhabitants of Damascus willingly put themselves under
the jurisdiction of the powerful and benign Emir of Aleppo.
Noureddin had now extended his dominions around the
borders of the Latin territories in Palestine, and had thus
gained a favourable position for carrying out still fuither
the great project of his reign. A severe illness, indeed, in
1159, and a defeat which the Christians inflicted upon him,
gave a check to his success. But speedily recovering
himself, he encountered the famous Reginald de Chatil-
lon, prince of Antioch, defeated him, and took him prisoner.
Taking advantage also of the distracted state into which the
khaliphate of Egypt had been plunged by the contention for
the viziership between two emirs, Shawir and Ed-Dirgham,
he resolved to extend his influence into that country.
Sheerkooh, and his nephew Salah-Ed-Deen or Saladin,were
accordingly despatched at the head of an army to raise the
former of the rivals to the contested office. At first the
enterprise was unsuccessful. Shawir, after he had been
placed in the viziership, refused to fulfil his obligations to
Sheerkooh, and summoned in the aid of Amaury, the son
and successor of Baldwin III. The troops of Aleppo were
besieged in Pelusium, and were forced to capitulate to the
Christians. At length, however, the tactics of Noureddin
himself retrieved the declining fortunes of the Moslems. His
inroad into the state of Antioch recalled Amaury to its
defence; the Christian troops immediately on their arrival
NOV 341
were routed near Tiresia with disastrous loss ; and Sheer- Novalis.
kooh being sent once more into Egypt, succeeded, in 1168, v—^
in removing the perfidious Shawir by death, and in esta¬
blishing himself as lieutenant of Egypt in the name of his
master. The schismatic khaliphate of the Fatimites in that
country was then abolished ; the Egyptians were restored to
the spiritual jurisdiction of theAbasside khaliph of Baghdad;
and that chief of the Faithful conferred upon his meritorious
servant Noureddin the title of Sultan, and the direct in¬
vestiture of Egypt and Syria. Noureddin might now have
turned his vastly increased resources against the Latin states
in Palestine, and might thus have achieved the magnifi¬
cent result to which all his past successes had been tending.
But the last few years of his life were molested by the
ambitious intrigues of the able Salah-Ed-Deen, who had
succeeded his uncle Sheerkooh in the lieutenancy of Egypt.
He was on the eve of setting out to chastise his rebellious
subject, when an attack of quinsey brought his days to a
close at Damascus in May 1173.
NOVALIS, the literary pseudonym usually applied to
Friedrich Ludwig yon Hardenberg, a distinguished
philosopher and poet of Germany, who was born at a
country house of his family in the county of Mannsfeld,
in Saxony, on the 2d of May 1772. His father, a frank,
rugged, honest German, had spent his early years as a
soldier, but was at this time director of the Saxon salt¬
works. The mother of Novalis was “ a pattern of noble
piety and Christian mildness,” and her son seems to have
loved her with the most enthusiastic affection. From both
his parents, who were attached to the Herrnhut com¬
munion, Novalis inherited that decidedly religious temper
which continued to be the ruling principle of his life. In
childhood he was very delicate, and was brought up in the
most retired manner. He showed no interest in the bois¬
terous sports of youth, and even shunned the society ol his
fellows. He remained in this dull, dreamy condition
until his ninth year, when a dangerous illness shook his
faculties from their slumber, and called forth the energies
of a genius of uncommon power and originality. His ele¬
mentary education was now prosecuted with great success;
and he displayed an extraordinary fondness for history and
poetry. The Traditionary Tale (Mdrcheri), which he after¬
wards continued to admire, had at this early stage a peculiar
charm for him; and one of his earliest literary endeavours
was a composition of this sort, written for the amusement
of his brothers and sisters. After a few months at a gymna¬
sium, he repaired to Jena in 1 790, where he prosecuted his
studies for three years. He then removed with his brother
Erasmus to the university of Leipsic, and after spending
a season there, went to Wittemberg to complete his edu¬
cation. It seems to have been Jena, however, which
exerted the most marked influence over his development.
Here he first met Friedrich Schlegel, and it was here he
first listened to the lofty eloquence of Fichte. The Wis-
senschaftslehre, or Doctrine of Science, of that distinguished
thinker, was studied by Novalis with singular avidity. The
charm of its refined idealism attracted the sympathies of
an intellect of surprising subtilty ; the stern grandeur of its
morality called forth the enthusiasm of the youthful ro¬
manticist ; and the burning eloquence and calm dignity of
the teacher carried conviction to the heart of the student.
The philosophy of Fichte formed accordingly the ground¬
work of all the subsequent speculations of Novalis. Tim
Kantian distinction, and even occasional antagonism, of
the Understanding and the Reason, is carried by him into
all departments of mental development—into poetry, virtue,
and religion. He learned to despise with the transcen-
dentalists the dull, blind, pedestrianism of the Understand¬
ing, and sought to gain the citadel of truth by following
the' clear, steady light of the higher Reason. The whole
of his writings have a constant reference to this specula-
342
N 0 Y
NOV
Novalis. tive theory, and can only be studied in the light of it.
After displaying a strong predilection for a military life,
his friends succeeded in prevailing on him to follow his
father’s occupation; and he accordingly removed to Arn-
stadt in Thuringia in 1794, to train himself for business.
Having remained a year there, he was appointed auditor of
the department of which his father was director, and took
up his residence at Weissenfels. In the year 1797 events
occurred which, according to his biographer Tieck, gave a
shock to his whole nature, and imparted a gloomy com¬
plexion to his thoughts, from which he was not destined to
recover. During his residence at Arnstadt he had become
enamoured of a fair, delicate German girl, possessed of
uncommon attractions, but with health exceedingly fragile.
He had hardly known her a year when the chill spring
winds came and withered the fair flower; and ere he had
time to dry his tears, he had to follow the remains of his
brother Erasmus to the grave. It was during this year
that the greater number of those remarkable pieces of
Novalis, called Hymns to the Night, were composed. Not
a few of his Fragments also belong to the same period.
In 1798 he removed to Freyberg to study mineralogy
under the famous Werner. In the mathematical and physical
sciences he took an eager interest ; and if we may judge
from the fragmentary papers which he has left, he seemed to
have prosecuted the study on a great and original principle.
He put together about this time his unfinished “ physical
romance” of Lehrlinge zu Sais, or the Pupils at Sais, so
full of strange poetized philosophy and shadowy allegorical
allusion. While here he formed another betrothment,
destined like the first to be cut short by death. On his
return to Jena he made the acquaintance of August Wil¬
helm Schlegel and Tieck, then engaged in the famous
literary campaign in behalf of what is generally known as
Romanticism. Tieck “ re-awakened poetry in him,” he
says; and it was in conjunction with these men, whose
cause he ardently espoused, that Novalis first presented
his thoughts to the world. He contributed his Bluthens-
taub, or Pollen of Flowers, together with numerous poeti¬
cal pieces, to the Musen-Almanach of F. Schlegel; and
composed about the same time his Geistliche Lieder, or
Spiritual Songs, so remarkable for simple sublimity and
still, devout pathos. In addition to his passionate love of
nature, these were perhaps his highest poetic gifts. In the
summer of 1800 we find him living at a solitary spot at
the foot of the Kyffhauser Mountain in Thuringia, busily
engaged on his art romance of Heinrich von Ofterdingen,
designed, as he said, to be an “apotheosis of Poetry.” It
was never completed, however, and was ere long published
in its unfinished state. In his prose style he generally aims
at simplicity and directness—qualities not always to be
found in his poetry. Indeed, it may be questioned whe¬
ther, with all the wealth of a truly regal genius, he was
possessed of the highest faculties of the poet. If in the
rich strength of his theosophic mysticism he resembles an
oriental, the likeness is increased when we regard the soft
passiveness of his mind and character. Carlyle, who calls
him the “ German Pascal,” says, “ The chief excellence we
have remarked in Novalis is his, to us, truly wonderful
subtlety of intellect; his power of intense abstraction, of
pursuing the deepest and most evanescent ideas through
their thousand complexities, as it were with lynx vision,
and to the very limits of human thought.” {Miscellanies,
vol. ii., p. 95.) In August 1800, while Novalis was pre¬
paring for a journey to Freyberg to bring home his be¬
trothed, he was seized with a spitting of blood, which ended
in a rapid decline. Hope, gladness, and rich expanding
activity had just begun to make life desirable to him, when
death came with the spring of 1801, and ended his strange
career, at the premature age of twenty-eight. A Life of
Novalis, by his friend Tieck, will be found prefixed to
Novalis Schriften, herausgegeben von Ludivig Tieck und Novara
Friedrich Schlegel, 2 vols., Berlin, 1802, and since fre- ||
quently republished. A new edition of his Works, with Nova
various additions previously unpublished, appeared at Berlin ^ Scotia-
in 1846, under the care of Tieck and Bulow. v~—
NOVARA, a town in the Kingdom of Sardinia, capital
of a division and province of the same name, stands on a
rising ground between the Agogna and the Terdoppio,
53 miles E.N.E. of Turin. It is well built, containing
several good and well-paved streets; and was formerly
surrounded by walls, but these have now nearly all dis¬
appeared. The cathedral is an ancient and handsome
building, with a square tower surmounted by a cupola,
and contains in the interior several fine paintings and
sculptures. The church of St Gaudenzio is likewise a
fine structure, and contains one of the best paintings of
Gaudenzio Ferrari. Besides these and other churches,
Novara contains public offices, a town-house, court-house,
an episcopal palace and seminary, several upper schools, a
theatre, hospital, barracks, and market-house. The manu¬
factures of the place are not very extensive, and consist
chiefly of leather, cotton cloth, candles, starch, pottery,
and biscuits. The principal trade is in silk and rural pro¬
duce, for the latter of which Novara is the chief emporium
in Piedmont. Near the town a battle was fought in 1849,
in which the Sardinians were totally defeated by the Aus¬
trians under Radetzky. The result of this engagement
was the resignation of the crown of Sardinia by the king,
Carlo Alberto, and tbe renunciation of the Sardinia claims
on Lombardy. Pop. about 16,000.
The division of Novara is bounded on the N. by Switzer¬
land and the Alps, E. by Lake Maggiore and the Ticino,
S. by the Po, and W. by the divisions of Turin and Ivree.
Towards the N.W. it is occupied by the branches of the
Alps; but the greater part consists of a fertile plain, watered
by the Fosa, Sesia, Terdoppio, Agogna, Ticino, and other
smaller streams. Corn, rice, hemp, pulse, &c., are grown
here; and on the higher regions the vine is largely culti¬
vated. The division of Novara is subdivided as follows :—
Provinces. Area in sq. miles. Pop. (1848).
Novara  533 178,069
Lomellina  480 139,649
Pallanza  312 64,030
Ossola  520 36,331
Valsesia  290 35,879
Total  2135 453,958
NOVA SCOTIA, a British province of North America,
situated between N. Lat. 43. 25. and 46.0., and W. Lon.
61. 0. and 66. 30., and connected with the S.E. part of the
continent by an isthmus of only 8 miles in width. It is
bounded on the N. by the Strait of Northumberland, which
divides it from Prince Edward’s Island; on the N.E. by the
Gut of Canseau, which interposes between it and the island
of Cape Breton ; on the S. and S.E. by the Atlantic Ocean ;
on the W. by the Bay of Fundy ; and on the N.W. by New
Brunswick. Its extreme length, from Cape Canseau on the
E. to Cape St Mary’s on the W., is about 280 miles ; but its
breadth varies from 50 to about 100 miles; and it contains
a superficies of 15,607 square miles. From this, however,
about one-fifth may be deducted for lakes, arms of the sea,
and rivers, leaving about 8,000,000 acres of land, the greater
part of which is still uncleared, and covered with forests.
The most remarkable characteristic of this peninsula is Surface,
the numerous indentations along the coasts. The shores
are lined with rocks, and studded with thousands of small
islands; and close to these, and in the harbours, almost
without exception, there is a considerable depth of water.
All along the S.E. shore there is a succession of noble har¬
bours ; and vessels sail amongst and within the myriads of
islands which line the coast during the most blustering
NOVA S
Nova weather, thus enjoying comparatively smooth water, whilst
Scotia, the main ocean heaves in violent agitation. 1 he principal
 ' inlets are Sheet Harbour, Halifax Harbour, Margaret’s
Surface. Bay, Mahon Bay, Shelburne Harbour, on the Atlantic;
St Mary’s Bay, 10 miles broad and 35 long; Annapolis
Basin, 10 miles in length, and from 1 to 4 in breadth;
Mines Basin, 50 miles "long, and 16 broad at the widest
part, on the Bay of Fundy, which is terminated by Chig-
necto Bay, between Nova Scotia and New Brunswick;
Pictou Harbour, on Northumberland Strait; St George’s
Bay, on the Gulf of St Lawrence; and Chedabucto Bay,
on the Gut of Canseau. Between Halifax and Cape Gan-
seau there are said to be no less than twelve harbours capable
ofaccommodating ships of the line, besides fourteen others ac¬
cessible for merchantmen. The interior of the country is
very agreeably diversified with hill and dale, river and lake,
forest "and grassy plain. The surface, although undulating,
is not mountainous; the highest land, Ardoise Hill or
Arthur’s Seat, being only 810 feet above the level of the
sea, nearly the same height as Arthur’s Seat at Edinburgh.
The high lands generally run parallel to the coasts, branch¬
ing off' in all directions, and in some instances terminating
in bold cliffs on the coast, the most remarkable of which is
Aspotagoen, between Mahon and Margaret’s Bay, which is
about 500 feet in height. A tract of rugged and hilly
country stretches along the shore of the Atlantic, varying
in breadth from 20 to 60 miles, and having an average
height of about 500 feet. The North Mountains, which
are washed by the Mines Basin, extend along the coast of
the Bay of Fundy, and terminate in Cape Blomidon ; and
parallel to these run the South Mountains in the interior
of the peninsula. The Cobequid Hills extend from the
northern shores of Mines Basin towards Northumberland
Strait, having a breadth of 10 miles, and a height of about
800 feet. There are several remarkable caverns and grottoes
in Nova Scotia, one of which, at St Peter’s Point, on the
coast of the Bay of Fundy, displays in the interior a spacious
hall, the roof of which is fretted with stalactites.
Rivers and The interior of Nova Scotia is intersected and watered
Lakes. ky numerous rivers, lakes, and streams, which beautify
and enrich the country. The two largest rivers are the
Annapolis and the Shubenacadie. The former takes its
rise in King’s County, and, running parallel with the Bay of
Fundy, after a long and serpentine course, in which it
receives the Moose and Bear Rivers, discharges itself
into Annapolis Bay. It is navigable to a considerable ex¬
tent, and its banks present a rich and pleasing landscape.
The Shubenacadie, issuing from the Grand Lake in the
county of Halifax, divides that county from Hants, and,
after a rapid and circuitous course, the length of which has
not yet been accurately ascertained, discharges itself into
the Bay of Mines. It receives the waters of ten other
rivers, is navigable for large vessels a long way into the in¬
terior, and contains on its banks inexhaustible quantities of
gypsum and lime, together with extensive groves of fine
timber. At Pictou, three rivers, navigable for large ves¬
sels, empty themselves into the harbour; the East, West,
and Middle Rivers. Besides these, there are the Avon,
navigable for a considerable distance ; the La Have, which
issues from a chain of inland lakes, and has a course of
about 60 miles; the Mersey, which winds from Lake
Rosignol through the Queen’s county, and discharges itself
into Liverpool Harbour; the Medway, the Shelburne, the
Clyde, the Tusket, the St Mary, and others, all of which
owe their origin to lakes in the interior. A canal, called
the' Shubenacadie Canal, together with a chain of lakes,
forms a communication by water across the peninsula from
Halifax Harbour to Cobequid Bay, at the head of the
Mines Basin. The most extensive still sheet of water is
the Rosignol, situated partly in each of the three counties
of Queen, Shelburn, and Annapolis. It is said to be 30
C O T I A. 343
miles in length, but is little known. Lake George is also Nova
of considerable size; and there are innumerable others Scotia,
which it is unnecessary to mention.
The climate of Nova Scotia w'as for many years after its climate,
discovery considered as an insuperable barrier to agricul¬
tural industry, and an idea long prevailed in England that
it was peculiarly the region of snow and fog. The tempera¬
ture is indeed colder in winter in this peninsula than it is
in Great Britain ; but when the weather is cold it is usually
dry; and altogether the winter is milder, and the summer
less intensely hot, than at Quebec. The summer heat is
moderate and regular; the autumn is a delightful season;
and there is seldom any severe winter weather until the end
of December. Frost continues generally from Christmas
to April, and the spring is of very short duration. The
temperature varies during the year from 6° or 8° Fahr.
below zero, to 80° above it, the average of the coldest
month at Halifax being about 20°, and that of the hottest
about 70°. Like other parts of North America, however,
Nova Scotia is subject to sudden changes of temperature,
sometimes as much as 50° in twenty-four hours. The mild¬
ness of the climate seems to be owing in some degree to
the influence of the gulf-stream, which prevents the har¬
bours on the Atlantic from being frozen up in winter like
those on the northern coast.
There is a great variety of rocks in Nova Scotia, but Geology,
granite, trap, and clay-slate predominate. The most
abundant variety is the gray granite, which, together with
gneiss and mica-slate, prevails along the shore, and is
well adapted for mill-stones. Trap rocks, sometimes im¬
bedded in clay-slate, protrude in various places in im¬
mense parallel ridges above the surface, and frequently in
piles of loose masses heaped confusedly together, traversed
frequently by veins of quartz. Clay-slate of a very fine
quality, and used as a building stone, prevails in the eastern
section of the colony ; and graywacke and graywracke-slate
extend along both shores of Chedabucto Bay, in which are
found beds of limestone and numerous specimens of specular
iron ore. In connection with carboniferous limestone are
found, both in Cape Breton and Nova Scotia, those im¬
mense coal-fields which are supposed to rival in extent the
mines of the mother country. The coal is of a bituminous
character, and entirely different from that which is found in
the United States, east of the Appalachian Mountains. It
is of various kinds, some of which are well fitted for the
use of the smith, others for that of steamboats, and others
for gas-making. In the coal formations of this country
there is also found an immense quantity of gypsum, which
is largely exported to the United States. Varieties of
copper, iron, and lead ores are also abundant; and dif¬
ferent other minerals of less importance are found. Fine
specimens of agates, amethysts, chalcedonies, jaspers, and
other stones, are obtained in Nova Scotia. Salt springs,
some of them strongly impregnated with saline matter, are
met with near Pictou, at River Philip, and some other parts.
The wild animals are the moose, carriboo, bear, lynx, Zoology,
fox, marten, otter, mink, beaver, musk-rat, porcupine, ra¬
coon, weasel, squirrel, hare, and the like, all of which, ex¬
cepting the two last, have rapidly decreased in number.
Nearly all the birds common to North America frequent
Nova Scotia; and there are but very few kinds of fish
which are found in the American seas that do not frequent
the shores of this colony in vast swarms. The lakes and
rivers abound in trout and salmon.
The soil is of many different qualities, and various Soil,
degrees of fertility. The alluvial or intervale lands, of
which there are extensive tracts, are rich, and produce
plentiful returns of wheat, barley, oats, Indian corn, pota¬
toes, turnips, with all the vegetables and fruits common in
England. Some of the uplands, lying between the hilly
country and the rivers, are light and poor ; whilst the high
344
Nova
Scotia.
Agricul¬
ture.
Sable
Island.
Manufac¬
tures and
commerce.
NOVA SCOTIA.
lands are rich and very productive. The lands on the At¬
lantic coast are generally so rocky as to admit of cultivation
only at much expense and labour ; but after the stones are
removed, the soil is by no means barren. The forests of
Nova Scotia still constitute a prominent feature of the
country. The trees are the same as those common to
America, and the timber is generally large and lofty.
Agriculture is carried on to a considerable extent in
Nova Scotia. The cultivated ground consists partly of
the rich alluvial marshes on the shore of the Bay of Fundy,
and partly of the uplands in the interior of the country.
The former kind of ground, which has been recovered from
the sea by means of dykes, was estimated in 1850 to
amount to 40,012 acres; and the latter to 799,310 acres.
The produce in 1852 was 297,151 bushels of wheat,
196,097 of barley, 61,438 of rye, 1,384,437 of oats, 170,301
of buckwheat, 37,475 of maize, 21,638 of pease and beans,
3686 of grass seeds, 1,986,789 of potatoes, 467,127 of tur¬
nips, 32,325 of other roots, 287,837 tons of hay, 3,613,890
lb. of butter, and 625,069 lb. of cheese. The amount of
live stock in the same year was 28,789 horses, 156,857
neat cattle, 86,856 milch cows, 282,180 sheep, and 51,533
swine. „ _
Sable Island, although distant about 85 miles from
Nova Scotia, is considered as belonging to that pro¬
vince. It lies directly in the track of vessels bound to
or from Europe, and has been the scene of numeious
and melancholv shipwrecks. It is 25 miles in length,
bv about l£ in breadth, the eastern end being in Lat.
43. 59. N., and Long. 59. 45. W. It is a barren
desert throughout, the soil consisting chiefly of sand,
and the only vegetable productions being a coarse grass
and some wild pease. A sum, which amounted in 1854
to L.1977, is annually devoted to keeping on the
island a superintendent from Nova Scotia, with a party of
men provided with provisions and other necessaries, for the
purpose of affording assistance to any shipwrecked mariners,
of whatsoever nation, who may be driven on its inhospitable
shores. There is a small stock of cattle on the island, and
a large number of wild horses, but the chief supplies of food
are obtained from Nova Scotia.
The manufactures are few in number, consisting prin¬
cipally of coarse cloth, flannel, carpets, hats, paper, to¬
bacco, leather, spirits, and agricultural implements. The
province contained in 1850, 1153 saw-mills, employing 1786
hands; 386 grist-mills, employing 437 hands; 10 steam-
mills ; 237 tanneries ; 9 foundries ; 81 carding and weaving
establishments ; 17 breweries and distilleries ; and 131 other
manufactories of various sorts. In the same year there were
raised in Nova Scotia 114,992 chaldrons of coal; there
were quarried 79,795 tons of gypsum, valued at L.10,498 ;
28,603 casks of lime, valued at L.4433, were burned ;
2,845,400 bricks, valued at L.3211, were made; and
110,441 lb. of maple sugar were produced. In the same
year the value of leather manufactured w7as L.52,625 ; of
boots and shoes, L.73,654 ; of iron smelted, L.4635 ; of
castings, L.3486; of soap, L.28,277; and of candles,
L.21,210. Ship-building is also carried on in Nova Scotia.
The number of vessels constructed in 1854 w'as 244, and
their tonnage 52,814. Besides farming, the chief occupa¬
tion of the inhabitants is fishing ; and some combine both
pursuits. There were in 1851 employed in the fisheries of
Nova Scotia and Cape Breton 812 vessels, with a tonnage
of 43,333, and manned by 3681 men; 5161 boats, with
6713 men ; and the number of nets and seines was 30,154.
The quantity of fish cured was 196,434 quintals ; and there
were also obtained 1669 barrels of salmon ; 3536 of shad ;
100,047 of mackerel; 53,200 of herring; 5343 of alewives ;
and 15,409 boxes of smoked herrings, valued at L.217,270 ;
as well as 189,250 gallons of fish oil, valued at L.l 7,754.
The total value of the fisheries is estimated to exceed
L.200,000. The exports of the province consist principally
of fish, sugar, molasses, rum, cotton and woollen goods,
timber, &c. The total value of the exports in 1854 was
L.1,247,668. The principal articles imported are flour,
sugar, tea, manufactured goods, &c.; the total value of
the imports in 1854 was L.l,791,082. The number and
tonnage of the vessels that entered and cleared in 1851
w7ere as follows :—
Countries.
United Kingdom
British Colonies .
United States ....
Other Countries .
Total
Entered.
Ships. Tons.
107
1447
1581
267
3402
47,744
104,611
159,676
28,008
340,039
Cleared.
Ships.
74
1595
1436
142
3247
Tons.
38,728
133,607
152,202
13,501
338,038
The executive power in Nova Scotia is in the hands ^of a Govern-
lieutenant-governor, and a council of six membsre. 1 heIIlcn •
legislature consists of a council of nineteen, appointed by
the governor, subject to the approval of the crown ; and a
House of Assembly, of fifty-one members, elected by the
people. The system of responsible government has been
established in Nova Scotia since 1848. The lieutenant-
governor has a salary ol L.3000 a-year. The judicial
establishment consists of a supreme court, composed of
a chief-justice and four assistant judges; which sits at
Halifax three times a-year, and makes two annual circuits
of the province ; a court of error, composed of the lieu-
tenant-governor and executive council; a court of chan¬
cery ; courts of general sessions of the peace ; courts of
vice-admiralty; a court of marriage and divorce; and
courts of probate. The established religion is Episcopa- Religion,
lian : Nova Scotia was created a diocese in 1787, and has
a bishop, an archdeacon, and fifty other clergymen ; the
two first being supported by an endowment from the home
government, and the others by the Society for the 1 ropa-
gation of the Gospel. rlhe amount of public expendituie
for ecclesiastical purposes in 1854 was L.3687. Ihere is a
Synod of Nova Scotia in connection with the Established
Church of Scotland, and various churches in connection
with the Free Church of Scotland and the United Presby¬
terian Church. The Roman Catholic Church has two dio¬
ceses, Nova Scotia and Cape Breton, w ithin the province.
The whole number of churches in 1851 was 56/ ; and the
adherents of the various denominations were as follows ;—
Church of England 36,482
Church of Scotland 18,867
Free Church of Scotland....25,280
United Presbyterians 28,767
Roman Catholics 69,634
Baptists    42,243
Methodists 23,596
Congregationalists  2,639
Lutherans  4,087
Other sects  4,660
Nova Scotia contains several colleges, besides inferior Education,
educational establishments. King s College at \\ indsoi
resembles the English universities, and Dalhousie College
at Halifax those of Scotland. There are also a Free
Church college, a Baptist college, and a Roman Catholic
college. None of the attempts which have been made to
unite some of these colleges into a university has proved
successful. Each of the counties in the province has a
grammar school; and the total number of schools in Nova
Scotia in 1851 was 1096, attended by 31,354 scholars. The
amount of public money expended on education in 1854
was L.l3,401.
The military forces of the province consist of twenty-six Army,
regiments of militia, 26,248 strong, but which might soon
be raised to nearly double that number. Besides this,
Nova Scotia is protected by two or three regiments of the
line, which are always stationed in the garrison towns, and
by the visits during the summer of the squadron of the
Royal Navy. The principal fortifications in the province
Novatianus
Inhabi*
tants.
History,
NOV
are at Halifax, at Windsor, at Annapolis, and at Cape
Breton. The revenue is chiefly derived from * duty ^on
imported goods, and amounted in o . , -k ’
while the expenditure for the same year L.169,lo9.
The inhabitants of Nova Scotia consist of English, Scotch,
Irish Americans, Germans, Swiss, Acadian Fiench, Indians,
and freed Negroes. They mingle and live together in muc i
harmony, and generallv the social state of the province is
rapidly improving. Its prosperity has greatly increased,
and, instead of importing, it now exports provisions It,
fisheries to which proper attention is at length paid, its rich
and prolific soil, and its mines of coal and iron, are sources
of wealth which were too long neglected by Great Britain.
The province is divided into eighteen counties, including
Cape Breton, as follows:—
Counties. Pop-W
Halifax  39,112   c •
Lunenburg  16,395   Lunenburg.
SheTbur'ne...  10,622   Shelburne.
Yarmouth  13,142   Yarmouth.
Pigby  12,252   Digby.
Annapolis  14,286   Annapolis.
King’s  14,138   Kellie.
Cumberland  14,339   Amherst.
Colchester  15,469   Truro.
Pictou  25,593   Pic ou.
Sydney  13,467   Antigomshe.
Richmond  . 10,381   Arichat.
VKir” /  27-68°  { Bedeque.
Total  276,117   Halifax.
Our limits will only admit of a brief abstract ol the his¬
tory of Nova Scotia. Ancient authorities state that it was
discovered by the Cabots in 1497; but it was not until
1604 that the French attempted to form settlements. 1 iicy
were, however, expelled from it in 1614 by the Englis i
colonists of Virginia, who claimed the country m right o
the discovery of Sebastian Cabot. In 16^1 Sir William
Alexander obtained a grant of the whole peninsula, and it
was named in the patent Nova Scotia, instead of Acadia,
as the country was called by the French. In the mean¬
time the latter obtained a footing in it a second time ; and
it was not until 1654, when a strong force was despatched
bv Cromwell, that the French settlers were brought under
subiection. In 1667 Nova Scotia was ceded to France by
the treaty of Breda; but, after suffering during the war
which broke out in 1701, as well as previously, it was finally
rp«]pd to England bv treaty in the year 1711. ; Prom tins
ceded to England by treaty in the year 171
period till 1749 it was neglected by Great Britain ; but the
designs of the French called the attention of government
to the province. Encouragements were held out to settlers ;
Parliament gave a large grant; and about 4000 adventurers,
with their families, embarked for the colony. Halifax was
immediately founded ; but the French settlers under the
name of neutrals, were still very numerous ; and, with the
aid of the Indians, they inflicted repeated injuries upon
the British, until they were forcibly expelled by the lattei.
In 1758 a constitution was granted to Nova Scotia; ami
the capture of Louisburg, in the island of Cape Breton,
during the same year, gave additional security to the colony,
which now began to improve. By the treaty of 1 ans, 10th
of February 1762, France resigned all further claims on
any of her former possessions in North America, and nothing
of any material importance has since occurred. New
Brunswick and Cape Breton were separated from Nova
Scotia, and formed into two distinct governments, in 1784,
but the latter was re-annexed to Nova Scotia in 1819-
NOVATIANUS, the founder of the sect of the Nova-
tians, was, according to Philostorgius, a native of Phrygia,
NOV
and was born about the beginning of the third century.
The religious intolerance of his opponents has falsified his
life, and has represented him as little else than a hypocritical
time-server. But the account which is most consistent
with the growth of his peculiar opinions is the following :—■
His conversion took place after an intense mental struggle,
and he was baptized when he was lying on a sick-bed, in
hourly expectation of death. C)n his recovery, his religious
sentiments retained a tinge of that gloom under which they
had sprung into life. Admitted into the priesthood, he de¬
voted himself to the severe theological studies and the
ascetic penances of the cloister. It is not surprising, then,
that his spirit was shocked at the easy terms on which those
who had relapsed into idolatry during the Decian persecu¬
tions were re-admitted into ecclesiastical communion. He
began to maintain boldly that the church had no warrant
from Scripture to pardon the sins of those who, after their
baptism, had sacrificed to idols : that her sole duty in this
case was to exhort them to repentance, and to commend
them to the mercy of God. I he learning, eloquence, and
virtuous life of the new reformer soon drew a party around
him. Among others, Novatus, a Carthaginian priest, joined
the dissentients, and by his hot-headed zeal speedily hunied^
the controversy into an open schism. Advantage was taken of
the martyrdom of Fabianus, Bishop of Rome, in 250, to dis¬
own the authority of Cornelius, the successor to the vacant see,
and to set up Novatianus as his rival. I he result was, that at
a council convened at Rome in 251, the Novatians and theii
leader were excommunicated. Thus compelled to organize a
new sect, the heresiarch set himself to develop his peculiar
opinions. The following became the distinguishing tenets of
his creed (1.) That not only sacrificing to idols, but all
mortal sins, such as adultery and temporizing in any way
with idolatry, ought to debar backsliders from i e-admission
into the church. (2.) That if this regulation were not
maintained, the church would become defiled, and would
no longer be (as it ought to be) a community of believers
who had never fallen since their baptism into any other
than venial offences. This testimony Novatianus is said
to have sealed with his blood. After his death, his fol¬
lowers, in spite of much persecution, rapidly increased and
spread themselves over Christendom. They continued to
vindicate their right to be considered the true church, by
callin0- themselves Kadapoi {Puritans), and by re-baptizing
all proselytes from other Christian sects. However, they
did not maintain their existence as a separate sect for much
longer than two centuries.
Of the several works in which Novatianus displayed Ins
methodical reasoning, his pure and elegant diction, and his
animated style, three authenticated writings alone remain.
These are a letter written in the name of the Roman clergy
to Cvprian in 250, and two treatises entitled respectively
Be Trinitate, and Be Cibis Judaicis. They have been
published collectively by Welchman, 8vo, Oxford, 1724,
and by Jackson, 8vo, London, 1728. The two treatises are
also generallv found in the editions of 1 ertullian.
NOVA ZEMBLA, or Novaia Zemlia, a name which
signifies in Russian “ New Land,” is applied to an island, or
rather chain of islands, in the Arctic Ocean. It extends
from N.N.E. to S.S.W., curving slightly towards the .,
and lies between N. Lat. 70. 30. and 76. 30, E Long. 51.
30 and 77. It is washed on the W. by the Spitzbergen
Sea, and on the E. by the Kara Sea; which, along with
Burrough’s Strait, separates Nova Zembla from the conti¬
nent and from the island of Vaigats. Its whole length is
about 500 miles, with an average breadth of about oU.
The most southerly island of the chain is separated from the
rest bv a strait called Matochkin Shar, or Matthew s Strait;
and farther to the N. there is another strait called Cross
Bay, which divides itself into several arms, and forms otlie^
small islands. The southern island alone is properly called
2 x
345
346
NOV
NOV
Novel
II
Novgorod.
Nova Zembla; the middle one, which is much smaller, is
known by the name of Matthew’s Land; while to the
N. lie Liitke’s Land and Barent’s Land, believed to
form one continuous island. The eastern shores of all the
islands are low; but on the W. the land is mountainous,
rising in general 2000 feet above the sea, and the highest
summit, near Matthew’s Strait, is 3475 feet in height. The
formation of the mountain is for the most part black clay-
slate; and in the southern islands grey limestone, like that
of the northern part of the Ural chain. The climate of
these islands is indicated by the following table :—
Place.
South extremity.
Matthew’s Strait.
Cross Bay 
N. Lat.
E. Lon.
57. 47.
57. 20.
58. 0.
Mean An- Mean Sum-
nualTemp. mer Temp.
140,99
16-93
20-74
35°-59
38-49
36-60
Mean Win¬
ter Temp.
3°-21
2-29
9-78
The vegetation is very scanty, consisting only of mosses
and lichens ; in many parts the ground is quite barren ; and
notwithstanding the long continuance of the sun above the
horizon, the soil is never thawed more than a foot or two
deep. Animal life is as scarce here as vegetation. Nova
Zembla is often visited by fishermen from Archangel in
pursuit of the walrus. It was visited at an early period by
the Russians, but was first brought into notice by Steven
Burrough, who made a voyage thither in 1556. The west
and part of the east coast were visited in 1596 by the
Dutch navigator Barents; and several Russian expedi¬
tions have been sent out from Russia within the present
century to explore the islands.
NOVEL. See Romance, part ii.
NOVELDA, a town of Spain, province of Alicante, and
15 miles W. of the town of that name. The streets are
pretty regular, and the houses, which are mostly of stone,
are generally well built. Some trade in fruit and agricul¬
tural produce is carried on; and after agriculture, distil¬
leries and oil-mills principally afford employment to the
population, which amounts to about 9000.
NOVELLARA, a town of Northern Italy, duchy of
Modena, and 16 miles N.W. of the town of that name.
It is the capital of a principality annexed to Modena in
1737 ; and carries on some silk and leather manufactures.
Pop. 4100.
NOVEMBER, the eleventh month of our modern
year, was the ninth in the old Roman calendar. On this
account the name November or Novernbris (from novem,
nine) was assigned to it in the Alban calendar. It consisted
originally of thirty days, but Julius Csesar added one to it.
Augustus, however, again reduced it to its original number,
which it has ever since retained. (See Calendar.)
NOVGOROD, or Novogorod, a government of Rus¬
sia, lying between N. Lat. 57. 18. and 61. 8., E. Long.
30. 10. and 39. 40.; and bounded on the N. by Olonetz,
E. by Vologda and Yaroslaw, S. by Tver, and S.W., W.,
and N.W. by Pskov and St Petersburg; area, 46,833
square miles. The country is diversified with hills, valleys,
plains, marshes, rivers, and lakes; the northern part is
in general low and flat; but in the south the Valdai hills
stretch for about 100 miles from S.W. to N.E., though
these do not exceed 300 feet in height. The principal
rivers are the Msta, which enters the government from
Tver, flows north-west, and falls into Lake Ilmen; the
Lovat, Pola, and Schelen, which fall into the same lake;
the Volchov, which flows from that lake into the Ladoga
Canal; the Schekona and Vologda, tributaries of the Volga;
and the Sias and Buscha, which fall into Lake Ladoga.
There are altogether in the government forty-two rivers,
and fifty-five small, besides three large lakes. Of these
last, the most extensive is the Bielo Osero, or White Lake,
in the north-east, which is 26 miles in length, about as
much in breadth, and 432 square miles in extent. Lake
Ilmen, near the western extremity, has a length of 26 miles> Novgorod,
a breadth of 16, and an area of 346 square miles ; and Lake
Vosche has a length of 14 miles, and an area of 177 square
miles. There is a canal, 5 miles in length, connecting the
rivers Msta and Volchov, by which navigation is carried
on without passing through Lake Ilmen, as that extensive
sheet of water is liable to dangerous storms. The soil in
the southern parts is good and productive ; but in the north
it is very swampy, consisting for the most part of peat bogs.
The climate is cold, and the winter long, lasting from No¬
vember to May; while in the northern parts the cold is
extreme, and the winter about a month longer than in
the south. A large part of the land is covered with dense
forests of pine, fir, birch, alder, elm, and other trees, which
supply abundance of timber for export, and give shelter to
great numbers of deer, elks, bears, wolves, lynxes, and other
wild animals. The people are chiefly engaged in agricul¬
ture ; and the principal crops are rye, barley, oats, buck¬
wheat, potatoes, pease, flax, and hemp. Although there is
much fine pasture ground, the inclemency and length of the
winters prevent the rearing of more cattle than is necessary
for farming; horses, oxen, and sheep of the common Rus¬
sian breeds, and a few goats and pigs, are kept. Next to
agriculture, fishing is the most general occupation of the
people; it is carried on with great success on the lakes
and rivers. Coal, iron, freestone, slate, lime, marl, &c.,
are among the mineral produce of Novgorod; and there
are also good salt springs. The manufactures are not very
extensive ; and consist of coarse linen, soap, candles, potash,
&c. Distilling, iron-smelting, and bell-making are also
carried on. The exports of the province consist entirely
of home produce, especially corn, hemp, flax, iron, timber,
salt, hides, and furs. The principal place of trade is Nov¬
gorod, the capital. The government is divided into ten
circles. Pop. (1846) 907,900.
Novgorod, the capital of the above government, stands
on the Volchov, where it issues from Lake Ilmen, 120
miles S.S.E. of St Petersburg. It is one of the most
ancient towns in Russia, having been founded in the fifth
century of the Christian area by the Sclavonians, who had
long previously invaded Europe, and followed a wandering
mode of life. Their government was at first democratic,
but dissensions having broken out and greatly weakened
their power, Ruric was invited in the ninth century to
assume the government, and he established at Novgorod
the original foundation of the Russian monarchy, the seat
of which was soon afterwards removed to Kiev. Novgorod
afterwards acquired many privileges from the Russian arch¬
dukes ; and in the twelth century became an independent
republic under a hereditary magistrate of limited power.
In the thirteenth century a factory of the Hanseatic League
was established here; and for a long time Novgorod was
the most important commercial city in the north-east of
Europe. Its fairs were resorted to by the Hanse merchants,
and by people from all the neighbouring countries; and in
the fifteenth century it is said, though not probably with
truth, to have contained 400,000 inhabitants. Indeed, so
great was its power and prosperity at this time as to give
rise to the saying, “ Quis contra Deum et magnam No-
vogorodiam.” But this did not last long; for in 1477 its
independence was completely destroyed by Ivan Vassilie-
vich I.; and in 1570 Ivan IV. took occasion, from a trea¬
sonable correspondence of some of the citizens with Poland,
to massacre more than 25,000 of the inhabitants. The
trade of the place was still considerable, until the founda¬
tion of St Petersburg, which monopolized the Baltic trade,
and completely destroyed the importance of Novgorod.
It now presents most unmistakeable marks of fallen great¬
ness in its ruinous buildings, dilapidated walls, and grass-
grown streets. The Kremlin, or fortress, stands on the
north side of the river, and is connected by a fine stone
NOV
NUB
847
Novgorod- bridge with the commercial town and Sophiskaia on the
Sieversk other side. There are numerous churches, the principal
II of which is the cathedral in the Kremlin; three monas-
Nowan- ter;eSj a bazaar, a palace, a poor-house, and an orphan school,
uggur. gaji.c]otb5 leather, soap, and candles are manufactured.
V Pop. 16,781.
Novgorod-Sieversk, a town of Russia, capital of a dis¬
trict in the government of Tschernigov, stands on the
right bank of the Desna, 109 miles E.N.E. of Tschernigov.
It~is surrounded by walls, and has a castle, but neither is in
a good state of repair. An active trade in corn, hemp,
and lime is carried on; and several large fairs are held an¬
nually. Pop. (1849) 10,544.
NOVI, a town of Northern Italy, capital of a cogno¬
mina} province in the division of Genoa, is situated in the
plain of Marengo, at the foot of the Apennines, 25 miles
N.N. W. of Genoa. It is surrounded by an old dilapidated
wall; and of its old castle few remains now exist. The
streets are irregular and narrow; but in the centre of the
town is a handsome square adorned with a beautiful
marble fountain. The principal public building is an an¬
cient church, a fine old edifice with two towers ; and some
of the old houses are noted for their picturesque appearance.
It is the seat of civil and commercial tribunals; and has a
college, two monasteries, a theatre, and foundling hospital.
Novi has an active trade; and carries on various manu¬
factures, the chief of which is silk, for which it is one of the
most celebrated places in Italy. In the neighbourhood a
severe action took place in 1799 between the French and
Austro-Russians, in which the former were defeated. Pop.
10,500. The province has an area of 288 square miles,
and contained, in 1848, 65,013 inhabitants.
Noyi-Bazar, a town of European Turkey, capital
of a cognominal sanjak in the government of Bosnia, is
situated on the Rashka, 130 miles S.E. of Bosna-Serai.
It is a place of some trade; and has several warm baths.
Pop. about 8000.
NOVICE, a person not yet skilled or experienced in an
art or profession. In the ancient Roman militia, novicii
or novitii were the young raw soldiers, distinguished by
this appellation from the veterans. In the ancient orders
of knighthood there were novices or clerks in arms, who
went through a kind of apprenticeship ere they were ad¬
mitted knights. Novice is more particularly used in mo¬
nasteries for a religious person in his or her noviciate ox-
year of probation, and who has not taken the vows. In nun¬
neries the novices wear a white veil, the rest a black one.
The custom of giving novices the religious dress was not
known before the twelfth century. The Council of Trent
fixed the age of profession at sixteen years.
NOVO-REDONDO, a seaport-town and fort of S.W.
Africa, belonging to the Portuguese. The town occupies
the summit of a x-ock at the mouth of the River Redondo,
and is inhabited almost solely by free Negroes.
Novo-Tscherkask, a town of European Russia, ca¬
pital of the country of the Don Cossacks, on the River
Don, about 40 miles from its mouth. It was founded in
1806 in consequence of the unhealthiness of old 1 scherkask,
the then capital. It is the seat of the government offices;
and is well laid out with bi-oad and regular streets, the
houses being generally of one storey. It has a cathedral
and numerous other churches, a college, and several
schools, and a large hospital. Pop. (1850) 17,875.
NOWAGURH, a raj of India, subject to the political
agent for the S.W. frontier. Its centre is in Lat. 20. 20.
N., Long. 82. 25. E.; and it has an area of 1512 square
miles. Pop. estimated at 68,000. The country is said
to be among the worst governed of those within the circle
to which it belongs.
NOWANUGGUR, a town of India, peninsula of Kat-
tywar, province of Gxizerat, 310 miles N.W. of Bombay.
It stands on a creek indenting the S. shore of the Gulf of Nox
Cutch; and carries on a great trade, being the principal II
place of the district of Hallar, which is estimated to con- Nubia*
tain a popidation of 207,680. The tow-n itself is nearly 4
miles in circuit, and is celebrated for its manufactures of
fine cloth, as well as for the dyes given to that article.
Copper ore has been discovered in a range of hills in the
vicinity.
NOX, one of the most ancient deities among the heathens,
and the personification of Night. She was daughter of
Chaos, and from her union with her brother Erebus, she
gave birth to the Day and the Light. She was also the
mother of the Parcse, Hesperides, Dreams; of Discord,
Death, Momus, Fraud, &c. Nox is called by some of the
poets the mother of all things, of gods as well as of men; and
Homer makes her the subduer of gods and men, Zeus him¬
self being awed by her. (i7. xiv.) She was worshipped with
great solemnity by the ancients, and had a famous statue,
executed by Rhoecus, in the temple of Diana at Ephesus. It
was usual to offer her a black sheep, as she was the mother
of the Furies ; and a cock was also presented to her, as that
bird proclaims the approach of day during the darkness of
the night. She is repi'esented as mounted on a chariot, and
covered with a veil bespangled with stars. The constella¬
tions generally went before her as her constant messengers.
Sometimes she is seen holding under her arms two children,
one of which is black, representing Death, and the other
white, representing Sleep. Some of the poets have de¬
scribed her as a woman veiled in mourning, cx-owned with
poppies, and on a chariot drawn by owls and bats. (See He¬
siod, Theog.; Euripides, Orestes and Ion; also Pausa-
nias.)
NOY, Sir William, an attorney-general, whose con¬
duct was one of the great causes of the civil war in Eng¬
land, was born in 1577. During the former part of his
career his sentiments were patriotic, and he was distin¬
guished in Parliament as one of the most formidable oppo¬
nents of the despotism of Charles I. No soonex-, however,
had he been appointed attox-ney-general in 1631, than he
was suddenly transformed into one of the most pliant
tools of the king. The legal knowledge and ingenuity of
the political apostate began to be employed in extorting
from the constitution certain precedents which might coun¬
tenance the tyranny of his royal master. He consummated
his treachery to his country by devising the project of
levying ship-money. But before he had seen the disasters
which that act of his contributed to bring upon the land,
he died, in 1634. Among his valuable legal works are, A
Treatise of the Principal Grounds and Maxims of the
Laws of England, of which the seventh edition was pub¬
lished in 12mo, 1806; and The Compleat Lawyer, of which
the latest edition was published in 8vo, 1674.
NO YON (anciently Noviomagus), a town of France,
department of Oise, on the Vorse, a tributary of the Oise,
42 miles E.N.E. of Beauvais. The town is ancient, but
well built; and is smrounded with numerous gardens. It
was formed into a bishopric in 531 ; and its cathedral is a
fine Romanesque edifice of the twelfth and thirteenth cen¬
turies. Charlemagne x-esided here; and Hugh Capet was
here elected king of France in 987. Noyon is, however,
chiefly remarkable as the birth-place of the Reformer John
Calvin. Manufactures of linens, hosiery, leather, &c., are
carried on, and a brisk general trade. Pop. 6322.
NUBIA, a large country of Africa, lying between Egypt
on the N. and Abyssinia on the S., the Red Sea on the
E. and the Great Desert on the W.; and extending from
N. Lat. 11. to 24., E. Long. 25. to 36. The name, how-
evei’, is not always applied to the whole of this region, but
is restricted by some geogx-aphers to the country east of
the Nile, while the natives themselves apply the terms
Nooha, or Wady-el-JVooba, to a comparatively small por-
348 NUBIA.
Nubia, tion between Derr and Dongola. It is about 850 miles in
length, and upwards of 600 in breadth ; while its area is
estimated at 360,000 square miles.
Character The aspect of the country in Lower Nubia is very dif-
of the ferent from that of Egypt, though both alike form part of
country. t]ie valley of the Nile. The mountains, which consist
chiefly of sandstone and granite, approach much nearer to
the river, leaving only a narrow strip of arable land along the
water’s edge ; and the rocks in some places extend into the
bed of the river, forming rapids, the lowest of which, called
the First Cataract, occurs at the confines of Egypt and Nu¬
bia. Beyond the hills which line the river on either side
stretches the desert of Nubia, extending on the one side to
the Red Sea, and on the other being separated from the
Sahara only by inconsiderable hills and table-lands. In some
places the desert comes quite close to the Nile, forming
sandy banks to the river, and in other places the banks are
covered only with a thin strip of vegetation. Upper Nubia
occupies the lowest of the three table-lands which are sup¬
posed to constitute this part of the African continent. The
elevation increases towards the southern border of Nubia,
which has a height of 4000 feet above the sea. 1 his district
is also occupied by several mountain chains, which do not for
the most part, as in Egypt, extend parallel to the river, hut
from west to east, forming numerous valleys in the same
direction. Of these chains the most important are the
Gebel Snigre, Gebel Safieha, and Orbay Langay; the
last of which stretches from Faka on the Albara to Suakim
on the Red Sea, and has numerous offshoots in the east¬
ern Nubian desert. A range of mountains stretches along
the coast of the Red Sea, but these are not very high, nor
in any way remarkable. Coarse grey granite, quartz, and
mica-slate' are the chief geological formations of Upper
Nubia. Gold and silver mines are said to exist near the
shores of the Red Sea; but all the attempts made by the
Pasha of Egypt to work them have proved fruitless. In
Upper Nubia the Nile is not so closely shut in by moun¬
tains as in the lower region ; and this country is also watered
by other rivers, which discharge their waters into it. At
the Second Cataract immense plains stretch out from either
margin of the stream, exhibiting, it is said, even in their
present neglected condition, unequivocal indications of fer¬
tility ; and as there seems to he little doubt that in former
ages the annual inundation extended considerably beyond
the limits of modern cultivation, so it may reasonably be
presumed that anciently the country was much more pro¬
ductive and populous than in modern times, when the de¬
crease of the inundation, and the continual encroachment
of the moving sands of the desert on either side, have com¬
bined to produce the desolation which now prevails. At
present the Nile seldom or never overflows its banks in
this part of Nubia; and the portion of the soil cultivated is
irrigated by means of sakkeas, or Persian wheels con¬
structed for raising the water of the river to the level of
the adjacent ground. The eastern bank of the Nile is
much better adapted for cultivation than the western, be¬
ing more easily irrigated by artificial means. But it is not
a little remarkable, that all the splendid ruins for which
this region is distinguished, and which exhibit so great
labour, ingenuity, and skill, are found upon the opposite
bank ; a circumstance which seems to strengthen the pre¬
sumption that Nubia was formerly much more fertile and
populous than in the present day.
Divisions The country on the banks of the Nile is composed of
of Nubia, two parts,—Wady Kenoos and Wady Nooba, so called
from the tribes who inhabit them, and who differ from each
other in language. The former extends from the confines
of Egypt on the south to Wady Sebooa; and the latter,
from which the general name of the country appears to have
been derived, stretches as far as the frontier of Dongola.
The chief distinction between these two parts consists in
the circumstance, that the languages spoken in each are Nubia,
entirely different.
The grain which forms the principal object of Nubian,
cultivation is dhourra, the Andropogon sorghum of bo¬
tanists. It is raised upon the patches of soil irrigated by
means of the sakkeas or Persian wheels, of which there are
from 600 to 700 between the First and Second Cataracts-;
and when ground, it is formed into a cake somewhat re¬
sembling the Abyssinian teff. After the duourra, the Nu¬
bians raise a crop of barley, French beans, lentils, and
sometimes also of water-melons. Sometimes a third crop
is raised in the year, and this in these cases generally con¬
sists of dhourra again. Tobacco is everywhere cultivated,
and constitutes the principal luxury of all classes, being
either smoked or sucked in a peculiar manner between
the gums and the lip. Animal food is scarce, and seldom
eaten, even by the chiefs or sheiks. The liquors used are
palm-wine, a spirit distilled from dates, and a sort of beer
called booza, which is made from dhourra. Excessive in¬
dulgence in these liquors is general throughout the whole
country. The only fruit trees cultivated in Nubia are
palms, but the soil is adapted for several others. Great
sameness prevails in the vegetation of the desert, the trees
being mostly acacias, tamarisks, date and doum palms.
The climate of Nubia, though intensely hot in summer, Climrite
is nevertheless remarkably healthy. This is no doubt a
consequence of the extreme dryness of the atmosphere,
occasioned by the absence of rain and the absorbent qua¬
lities of the soil. The upper regions of Nubia, however,
are by no means destitute of rain, but are exposed from
March to May to those showers which cause the overflow¬
ing of the Nile. They do not extend N. of 17. 30. N.
Eat. The plague has seldom or never reached Wady
Haifa, and beyond the Second Cataract it is entirely un¬
known. The small-pox, however, is a fearful scourge, and,
owing to the ignorance and filthiness of the people, occa¬
sionally commits dreadful ravages. *
The people are now generally known by the-name of Nu- p0pU]a.
bians, and are called by the Arabs Barabra. They consist ti0nt
of the Kenoos and Nooba tribes, and differ considerably in
appearance at different places, those to the south being much
darker than the inhabitants of the country bordering on
Ee;ypt. They are generally well made, strong, and muscular,
and have tolerably good features. The women are not
handsome, but perfectly well formed, and in general re¬
markable for agreeable countenances and pleasing manners.
Great numbers of the Nubians repair to Cairo, where they
usually act as porters, and are esteemed for their honesty;
but they always return to their native villages with the
little property which they have saved in plying their humble
vocation. They excel the Egyptians in honesty and vera¬
city, though they are inferior in acuteness. They are like¬
wise distinguished for their brave, independent, and patrio¬
tic spirit. The inhabitants of Derr-el-Mahas and the more
southerly districts differ considerably from the other Nu¬
bian tribes. They are of Arab descent, and speak the
language and follow the wandering life of that people.
Previously to 1821 the Nubians were independent, be-p, n
ing ruled by chiefs of their own; but in that year they
were brought under the power of the Egyptian pashas; commerce.
and the government of Nubia is now, like that of Egypt, a
military despotism. Some trade is carried on in Nubia,
Sennaar and Shendy being the principal mart? for the
commerce of eastern Africa. The principal articles of ex¬
port to Egypt are dates, which are obtained here of an ex¬
cellent quality ; gold, ivory, ebony, and slaves are imported
into Nubia from the interior of Africa, and thence sent to
Egypt, Arabia, or the East; and the principal imports through
Egypt are soap, sugar, beads, coral, paper, and hardware.
One of the most remarkable features of this region con¬
sists in the magnificent monumental remains with which it
NUB
N U D
349
N ubia.
Monu¬
mental re¬
mains of
Nubia.
is covered along the line of the stream, and which continue
to perpetuate the genius and power of the ancient popula¬
tion of the country situated on the Upper ISlile. I he prin¬
cipal remains in Nubia, beginning with the lowest down on
the river and proceeding upwards, are the following : At
Dabod on the W. bank, 15 miles above the First Cataract,
are the remains of a temple, dedicated, according to a Greek
inscription over the entrance, by Ptolemy Philometer and
his queen Cleopatra, to Isis and other deities. 1 he temple
of Kalabshee, whose ruins stand on the same side of the
Nile about 29 miles above Dabod, is the largest in Nubia.
It does not seem to be earlier than the time of Augustus,
though the materials have apparently been taken from an
older°building. The body of the temple consists of three
parts and has twelve columns in front. It stands in the middle
of an inclosure, which is entered by a portico with two pyra¬
midal towers. At The same place is an ancient temple of
the a<ro of the Pharaohs, cut out of the rock, and adorned
with elegant sculptures. The temple of Dendoor, which
stands just within the tropic, is believed to have been
founded by Augustus in honour of Osiris, Isis, and Homs.
At Dakkeh, further up than Dendoor, are the remains of a
temple founded by Ergamun, an Ethiopian king of the age
of Ptolemy Philadelphus. On the opposite side there are
extensive brick ruins, bearing the names of Remeses VIf.
and VIII., who lived in the twelfth century b.c. The
ruined structure at Sabooa has before it a propylon, with two
pyramidal towrors. The pronaos on each of its longest
<ides has five columns without capitals, and in front of each
is a colossal figure, 16 feet in height, with the arms crossed
on the breast, and the usual emblems in the hands. In
front of the propylon are two statues, 10 feet in height,
with their faces towards the river, and attached by the
backs to stone pillars of equal elevation : and an avenue of
sixteen sphinxes leads from the bank of the Nile to the
temple. The whole fabric appears to be of the remotest
antiquity, and is ascribed to the age of Remeses the Gi eat
(1355-1289 B.C.) Of the same era is the temple of Derr,
which, has some bold though defaced sculptures.
But of all the temples of Nubia, that of Aboo-Simbel
Ebsamboul or Ipsamboul, about 40 miles below the Se¬
cond Cataract, is incomparably the most remarkable. It has
the finest colossal figures of any in Egypt, which, notwith-
standin0- their great size, have countenances of considerable
beauty,°when seen from a proper distance. The great hall
contains eight pillars wdth colossal figures attached to them,
and there are many other apartments opening into it. Both
the pillars and the walls are covered with representations
of battles, storming of castles, triumphs, and sacrifices, in a
style, if not superior to, at least bolder than, that of almost
any in Egypt, both in regard to the design and the woik-
manship. The second hall, which is of less dimensions,
contains four pillars about 4 feet square, and the walls aie
covered with hieroglyphics in tolerable preservation. Be¬
yond this there is a chamber of the same width, but shorter,
in which is the entrance to the sanctuary; and at each end
is a door leading into smaller apartments in the same direc¬
tion with the adytum. The sanctuary itself is 23 feet m
length by 12 in breadth, and contains a pedestal in the
centre, with four colossal figures in a sitting posture at the
end, all in good order and uninjured. 1 he outside oi ex¬
ternal front of this temple is truly magnificent, being 117
feet in width, and 86 feet in height, whilst the space from
the top of the cornice to that of the door is 66^ feet, and
the height of the door itself 20 feet. There are four enor¬
mous sitting figures, the largest in Nubia, or even in Egypt,
excepting only the great sphinx at the Pyramids, to which
they approach in the proportion of nearly two-thirds. _ On
the top of the door is a statue of Osiris, 20 feet in height,
with a colossal figure on each side looking towards it. 1 he
cornice of the temple is adorned with hieroglyphics, and
under it are a torus and frieze, the one 6 and the other 4 Nuddea.
feet in breadth. Above the cornice is a row of squatted ^
monkeys, twenty in number, and each 8^ feet across the
shoulders. This temple was nearly two-thirds buried in
the sand till the year 1817, when the sand was cleared
away, and an entrance obtained by Belzoni, Irby, Mangles,
and Beechey. In several places of the square border which
encircles the front of the temple, and also on the buttresses
between the colossal figures, are a number of ovals or
rings, containing the name and praenomen of Remeses the
Great, the same Pharaoh whom the Greeks indicate by the
name of Sesostris or Sethosis.
The temples at Samneh, situated on the western bank
of the river, between the twenty-first and twenty-second
degree of north latitude, afford specimens of a more perfect
class of structures ; intermediate, it would seem, between
such excavations as that of Ebsamboul and the magnificent
edifices of Karnak and Luxor. That on the eastern bank
has a portico and a hall running parallel to it, behind
which are three small and one larger chamber; and that on
the other side is more elegant, consisting of one chamber
surrounded by a corridor of pillars.
The first architectural attempt in Nubia probably was General de-
the improvement of some hole or cave in the rock; or ductlons-
even if the country possessed no natural caves for imitation
by a people possessing the troglodyte habits natural to the
inhabitants of a burning climate, the mountains themselves
would afford facilities for constructing durable habitations.
After having got possession of a hole or cave, the next
step of these primitive architects would probably be to
extend the excavation, to form several chambers separated
by the native rock, and when a compartment of larger
dimensions was designed, to have square pillars for the sup¬
port of the roof. In the course of time the outer front,
with the inner walls and pillars, would receive decorations
derived from imitations of the natural forms of the country,
and subjects connected with the historical remembrances
or religious creed of the nation. We see abundant evi¬
dence in the rock-temples of Nubia to convince us that
the order of progression and improvement here indicated
was that actually followed in their gradual enlargement and
decoration ; yet a prodigious period must have elapsed be¬
tween the rudest excavation in the rock, such as Derr ap¬
pears to have been in its primitive state, and the highly-
finished sculptures of the great temple of Ebsamboul. In
fact, “ antiquity appears to have begun” long after these
primeval architects had commenced their troglodyte la¬
bours. But, in surveying the wonders which crowd the
banks of the Nile from Meroe to Memphis, our minds be¬
come insensibly impressed with the reflection, that the
wealth, power, and genius which produced them have en¬
tirely passed away; that, if new worlds have risen, and new
races been discovered, “ we have lost old nations; and
that, in the lapse of ages, empires themselves vanish, like
the baseless fabric of a vision, leaving scarcely a wreck or
trace behind them. The contrast between what now is and
what once must have been in Ethiopia and in Egypt, is
indeed most striking; nor is it easy to pass, even in thought,
through the various scenes of conquest and desolation which
must have conspired to produce the effects we contem¬
plate. History sheds no light on events and characters
which the lapse of 3000 years has covered with impene¬
trable obscurity; and whilst groping our way amidst temples
dedicated to gods, and structures raised in honour of
heroes, whose very names sound like voices from the dead,
we content ourselves with the conclusion, which all the
monuments impress on us, that long before the dawn of his¬
tory there had existed in that singular region a great people,
whose architectural monuments have outlasted their learn-
in", their philosophy, and almost even their very name.
"nUDDEA, a district of British India, under the lieu-
350 N U D
N U M
Nuddea
Nume-
rianus.
tenant-governor of Bengal, comprised within the delta of
the Ganges, and lying between Lat. 22. 49. and 24. 10. N.,
and Long. 88. 9. and 89. 11. E. It is about 90 miles in
! length from N. to S., by 45 in breadth, and has an area of
2942 square miles. The soil is well watered and highly
fertile, producing in abundance rice, millet, maize, pulse,
oil-seeds, sugar-cane, indigo, tobacco, and hemp. Pop.
298,736.
Nuddea, a town of British India, in the district of
Burdwan, at the commencement of the Hooghly River, 80
miles N. of Calcutta, Lat. 23. 25. N., Long. 88. 22. E. It
was the capital of a Hindu principality anterior to the Mo¬
gul conquest of Hindustan, and was taken and entirely de¬
stroyed in 1204. In modern times it has been the seat of
a Brahmin seminary of learning; anterior, however, to that
of Benares.
NUGEENAH, a town of British India, division of Ro-
hilcund, North-West Provinces, in Lat. 29. 27. N., Long.
78. 30. E. It is noted for its manufactures of fire-arms ; and
contains about 14,000 inhabitants.
NUISANCE, or Nusance, in law, a thing done to the
annoyance of another. Nuisances are either public or pri¬
vate. A public or common nuisance is an offence against
the public in general, either by doing what tends to the
annoyance of all the king’s subjects, or by neglecting to do
what the common good requires ; in which case, all annoy¬
ances and injuries to streets, highways, bridges, and large
rivers, as also disorderly ale-houses, gaming-houses, and the
like, are held to be common nuisances. A private nuisance
is, when only one person or family is annoyed by the doing
of anything; as when a person stops up the light of
another’s house, or builds in such a manner that the rain
falls from his house upon his neighbour’s. In Scotch
law, there is no recognised distinction between public and
private nuisances.
NUMA POMPILIUS, the successor of Romulus on the
throne of Rome, was the son of an illustrious Sabine, and
was raised to the imperial dignity by the unanimous voice
of the Roman senate and people. After a remarkably po¬
pular reign of 42 years, during which he endeared himself
both to his own people and to the surrounding nations by
his great abilities and singular humanity, Numa died in the
year of Rome 82. (See Roman History.)
NUMANTIA, a very noble city, the ornament of the
Hither Spain, and celebrated for the long wrar of 20 years
which it maintained against the Romans. The inhabitants
obtained some advantage over the Roman forces, till Scipio
Afficanus was empowered to finish the war, and to effect
the destruction of Numantia. The town occupied an emi¬
nence of great steepness, and was approachable only on one
side. Scipio began the siege with an army of 60,000 men,
and was bravely opposed by the besieged, who were no
more than 4000 men able to bear arms. They held out
against the enemy with the most indomitable courage while
their provisions lasted; but being reduced to desperation,
they set fire to their houses, and destroyed themselves, so
that not even one remained to adorn the triumph of the
conqueror. It was taken by the Romans 134 B.C., and the
conqueror obtained the surname of Numanticus. It is con¬
jectured that the modern Puente de Garray, near Soria,
marks the site nearly of this once famous city. Fragments
of antiquity are occasionally dug up there. (Accounts of
this memorable siege are to be found in Appian, B. Hisp.
48, &c.; Eutropius, iv.; Cicero, De Off.; Strabo, iii.;
also in the Compendia Historice, b. iii., of Pedro Tutor v
Melo, Soria, 1690.) J
NUMBERS, Book of. See Pentateuch
NUMERALS. See Arithmetic.
NUMERIANUS, Marcus Aurelius, a Roman em-
peroi, succeeded to the purple conjointly with his elder
brother Carinus, on the death of his father Carus, a.d. 284, Numidia.
and was murdered in the same year, after a reign of eight
months. (See Roman History.)
NUMIDIA, an ancient country of Africa, which owed
its name to the circumstance that its early inhabitants were
pastoral tribes (No^dSes). These tribes, differing both in
descent and character, extended their wanderings from the
Nile along the coast as far west as the Fortunate Islands.
The limits of the country were therefore for a long time
very ill-defined. It was not until the time of the Punic
wars that the title of Numidians came to be definitely re¬
stricted to the Masssesyli and the Massyli, who dwelt be¬
tween the River Mulucha {Malouid) on the W., and the
Carthaginian territory on the E., and were divided from
each other by the River Ampsaga {Wad-el-Kebir). These
two tribes were then athletic and warlike savages, living on
the sides of the mountains in little huts called magalia,
and scouring the plains on horseback without saddle or
bridle. From that period, however, the character of the
people, and the condition of the country, began to be
changed by foreign interference and the" events of war.
During the struggle between Hannibal and the Romans,
Syphax, the prince of the Massaesyli, espoused the cause of
the former, and Masinissa, the prince of the Massyli, es¬
poused the cause of the latter. Syphax was defeated,
along with his great ally, in the battle of Zama, b.c. 202;
his territories were incorporated with those of the Massyli;
all the Carthaginian district, with the exception of a portion
around the capital city, was added; and Masinissa received
possession of the whole, with the title of King of Numidia.
It then became the aim of that able prince to civilize his
people by the introduction of arts and agriculture. After
his death in 148 b.c., the same line of policy was followed,
with even more success, by his son and successor Micipsa.
But the commotions that broke out in the ensuing reign
marred the prosperity which a long peace had been foster¬
ing. Jugurtha, the nephew, and Adherbal and Hiempsal,
the sons of Micipsa, were left joint-heirs to the throne.
The first of these princes was unscrupulous and ambitious,
and did not rest until he had defeated and murdered his
cousins, and had seized the sceptre of the entire kingdom.
1 his involved the Numidians in a contest with the Ro¬
mans. After all the wiles of intrigue and the stratagems of
war had proved unsuccessful, the usurper was captured and
put to death in 106 b.c., and the crown was bestowed upon
Hiempsal II. But the disasters of Numidia were not yet
ended. Juba I., the son and successor of the last-men¬
tioned prince, espoused the cause of Pompey during the
Roman civil war. The final defeat of his party at the
battle of Thapsus, in 46 b.c., left him exposed to the ven¬
geance of Caesar. The desperate state of his affairs drove
him to commit suicide ; and his kingdom, reduced into the
form of a Roman province, was placed under the governor¬
ship of Sallust the historian. Soon after this period Nu¬
midia began to enter upon a long period of prosperity. The
“jus coloniae” was conferred upon its capital, Cirta (Con¬
stantino), and upon its other chief towns—Rusicade, Hip¬
po-Regius (Bona), Sicca (Keff), Lambaesa, and Theveste.
Commerce was diffused by means of the Roman roads;
peace was preserved by means of the Roman soldiers; and
the wild Numidian horsemen were thus transformed in
course of time into a community of industrious peasants.
The gospel found an easy entrance, and prospered so
rapidly, that the country is said to have contained in the
fifth century no fewer than 123 episcopal sees. It was not
until the invasion of the Saracens, in the seventh century,
that the prosperity of Numidia, simultaneously with its
Christianity, received a fatal blow. (See Algiers. For
further information regarding Numidian history, see also
Masinissa, Micifsa, Jugurtha, and Juba I.)
351
C' J
NUMISMATICS.
INTEODUCTION.
Introduo- The science of Numismatics treats of coins and medals.1 It
tion. acquaints us with the metals used in their composition, their
v v' various inscriptions and devices, their mechanical execution and
Definition, artistic merit. It tells us of the different denominations of
coins, with their relation to one another, and the laws by which
they wcfo regulated.
Coins and The earliest known coins were issued by the Greeks, most
medals. probably in the eighth century before the Christian era.2 By
the fourth century the whole civilized world used money, each
state generally having its proper coinage. This has continued
to be the case to the present time ; so that now there are few
nations without a metal currency of their own, and of these
but a small proportion are wholly unacquainted with the use of
coins. The number of varieties of coins and medals of which
specimens are preserved in collections may be estimated at
not less than 200,000 ;3 * and future discoveries will probably
greatly raise this sum. A series of monuments of such length
and completeness affords, as might be expected, very import¬
ant illustration to history and to kindred branches of know¬
ledge. This is, indeed, the real value of Numismatics; and the
student will do well to keep it constantly before him, for thus
v he will be saved from the narrow view of a mere collector, by
which many have been led in a false direction, and so dis¬
credit has been brought upon the science.
How they Coins, although they confirm history, rarely correct it, and
illustrate never very greatly. The earliest belong to a time and to
history, nations as to which we are not otherwise wholly ignorant, and
they do not afford us that precise information that would fill
in any important details of the meagre sketch of contemporary
history. We gain from them scarcely any direct historical in¬
formation, except that certain cities or princes issued money.
When, in later times, the devices and inscriptions of the coins
give more detailed information, history is far fuller and clearer,
so that the numismatic evidence is rarely more than corrobora¬
tive. There are, indeed, some remarkable exceptions to this
rule, as in the case of the Bactrian coins, which have supplied
the outlines of a portion of history which was otherwise almost
wholly lost, The value of the corroborative evidence afforded
by coins must not, however, be overlooked. It chiefly relates
to chronology, although it also adds to our knowledge of the
pedigrees of royal houses. But perhaps the most interesting
manner in which coins and medals illustrate history is in their
bearing contemporary, or nearly contemporary, portraits of the
most famous kings and captains, from the time of the first suc¬
cessors of Alexander the Great to the present age: whereas
pictures do not afford portraits in any number before the lat¬
ter part of the middle ages; and works of sculpture, although
occupying, in this respect, the same place as coins in the last-
mentioned period and under the Roman empire, are neither
so numerous nor so authentic. There is no more delightful
companion in historical reading than a cabinet of coins and
medals. When we know the features of Alexander and Mi-
thradates, of Julius Caesar and Augustus, of the Antonines
and Severus, we can far more readily take ourselves back to
the times in which they lived, and feel a real interest in their
stories. Our belief in the truth of history is confirmed by
the qualities we can perceive in their portraits. The strength
and energy of Alexander, the brilliant genius of Mithradates,
the philosophic calmness of Antoninus, the obstinate ferocity
of Nero, and the brutality of Caracalla, are as plain on the
coins as in the pages of history. The numismatic portraits
of the time following the founding of Constantinople have
less individuality; but after the revival of art they recover
that quality, and maintain it to our own day, although exe¬
cuted in very different styles from those of antiquity. From
this last class we can form a series of portraits more complete
and not less interesting than that of the ancient period.
While coins and medals thus illustrate the events of history, Introduc-
they have an equally direct bearing on the belief of the nations tion.
by which they were issued; and in this reference lies no small ^
part of their value in connection with history. The mytho- Mytho¬
logy of the Greeks not having been fixed in sacred writ- i0gy
ings, nor regulated by a dominant priesthood, but having &
grown out of the different beliefs of various tribes and iso¬
lated settlements, and having been allowed to form itself
comparatively without check, can scarcely be learned from
ancient books. Their writers give us but a partial or special
view of it, while even modern authors, in their attempts to
systematize, have often but increased confusion. The Greek
coins, whether of kings or cities, until the death of Alexander,
bear sacred subjects only. Afterwards, on the regal coins,
the king’s head usually occupies the obverse, and a sacred
subject is placed on the reverse. About this period the local
myths begin to lose their special character, through the de¬
struction of the small independent states, and the centralized
system of the great empire and the kingdoms which sprang
from it. The earlier coins afford us invaluable evidence for
the reconstruction of Greek mythology. We have nowhere
else so complete a series of the different types under which the
divinities were represented. There are in modern galleries very
few statues of Greek divinities, including such as were intended
for architectural decoration, which are in good style, fairly
preserved, and untouched by modern restorers. If we add to
these, bas-reliefs of the same class, and the best Grasco-Roman
copies, we can scarcely form a complete series of the various
representations of these divinities. We cannot take ruder or
baser works, since we should be led into error by them. The
coins, however, supply us with the series we desire, and we may
select types which are not merely of good work, but of the
finest. The mythology of ancient Italy, as distinct from that
of the Greek colonies, is not so fully illustrated by the coins of
the country, because these are for the most part of Greek design.
There are, however, some remarkable exceptions, especially in
the money of the Roman commonwealth, the greater number
of the types of which are of a local character, including many
that refer to the myths and traditions of the earliest days of
the city. The coins of the empire are especially important, as
bearing representations of those personifications of an allegori¬
cal character to which the influence of philosophy gave great
prominence in Roman mythology.
Coins are scarcely less valuable in relation to geography Geo-
than to history. The position of towns on the sea, or on graphy,
rivers, the race of their inhabitants, and many similar particu¬
lars, are positively fixed on numismatic evidence. The infor¬
mation that coins convey as to the details of the history of
towns and countries has a necessary connection with geo¬
graphy, as has also their illustration of local forms of worship.
The representations of natural productions on ancient money
are of special importance, and afford assistance to the lexico¬
grapher. This is particularly the case with the Greek coins,
on which these objects are frequently portrayed with great
fidelity. We must recollect, however, that the nomenclature
of the ancients was vague, and frequently comprised very
different objects under one appellation, and that therefore we
may find very different representations corresponding to the
same name.
The art of sculpture, of which coin-engraving is the off- Art,
spring, receives the greatest illustration from Numismatics.
Not alone is the memory of lost statues preserved to us in
the designs of ancient coins, but those of Greece afford ad¬
mirable examples of that skill by which her sculptors at¬
tained their great renown. The excellence of the designs of
very many Greek coins struck during the period of the best
art is indeed so great, that, were it not for their smallness,
they would form the finest series of art-studies in the
world. The Roman coins, though at no time to be compared
1 This science cannot be considered to be a branch of Archaeology, since it treats not only of ancient and mediaeval coins, but of modern ones also.
® The Chinese place the commencement of their coinage at a very remote date, but this statement is unsupported by satisfactory evidence. All
authentic specimens appear to be several hundred years later than the oldest Greek money. (See sect, vi., below.) .
3 The collection of the British Museum now comprises upwards of 120,000 specimens; and during late years from 2000 to oOQO pieces have been
annually added.
352
NUMISMATICS.
Introduc- to the purest Greek, yet represent worthily the Graeco-Roman
tion. art of the empire. From the accession of Augustus to the
death of Commodus they are often fully equal to the best
Graeco-Roman statues. This may be said, ^for instance, ot
the dupondii struck in honour of Livia by 1 iberius, and by
the younger Drusus ; of the sestertii of Agrippina ; and of the
gold coins of Antoninus Pius and the two Faustinas, which pre¬
sent portraits of remarkable beauty and excellence. 1 he me¬
diaeval Italian medals are scarcely less useful as records of the
progress and characteristics of art, and, placed by the side ot
the Greek and Roman coins, complete the most remarkable
comparative series of monuments illustrating the history of the
great schools of art that can be brought together./ Ancient
coins throw as great light upon the architecture as upon the
sculpture of the nations by which they were struck. Under
the empire, the Roman coins issued at the city very frequently
bear representations of important edifices. . The Greek-impe¬
rial coins, struck in the provinces, present similar types repre¬
senting the most famous temples and other structures of their
cities, of the form of some of which we should otherwise have
been wholly ignorant. The little-known art of painting among
the ancients does not receive any great illustration from the
coins. The best Greek pieces are of too severe a style to admit
of an approach to pictorial treatment, although we perceive
such a tendency in the works of important schools, and during
the period of decline. The Roman coins sometimes present
groups which have a very pictorial character,. traceable to
the tendency of the sculpture of the period : this is principally
about the time of the Antonines. They are never, however,
so pictorial in treatment as the mediaeval Italian medals. The
art of gem-engraving among the ancients is perhaps most
nearly connected with their coinage. The subjects of coins and
gems are so similar and so similarly treated, that the authen-
ticity of gems, that most difficult of archaeological questions,
receives the greatest aid from the study of coins. No one
whose eye is acquainted with the treatment of figures by Greek
and Roman medallists could suppose for a moment such works
as those of the Poniatowski collection to be productions of an¬
cient artists. It is probable, also, that coins not unfrequently
supplied subjects to the old gem-engravers.
After what has been said, it is not necessary to do more than
Literature, mention how greatly the study of coins tends to illustrate the
contemporary literature of the nations which issued them. Not
alone the historians, but the philosophers, and the poets are
constantly illustrated by the money of their times. This was
perceived at the revival of letters; and during the last two
centuries coins were very frequently engraved in the larger
editions of the classics. A want of technical numismatic know¬
ledge in the editors, and the carelessness of the artists, com¬
bined to deprive these illustrations of much of their value.
Probably in part on this account, but chiefly in consequence
of the change from historical to textual criticism, ancient coins
have been little used in this manner by the new school. This
neglect is beginning to be remedied, although the full value of
coins and medals in illustration of the literature of modern as
well as ancient times is not as yet sufficiently perceived.
Origin of qqie gCience of Numismatics isof a comparatively recent origin.
this science, ancients do not seem to have formed collections, although
they appear to have occasionally preserved individual speci¬
mens for their beauty. Petrarch has the credit of having been
the first collector ; but it is probable that in his time ancient
coins were already attracting considerable notice. The im¬
portance of the study of all coins has since been by degrees
more and more recognised; so that at the present time no
branch of the pursuit is left wholly unexplored. It cannot,
however, be said that the actual condition of the science jus- Definitions-
titles great expectations. We shall best perceive this if we ^ ^ v -n— s
inquire what objects it has to fulfil.
Besides its bearing upon the history, the religion, the man- Its uses,
ners, and the arts of the nations which have used money, the
science of Numismatics has, from its relation to art, a special
modern use, at which we have already hinted. Not alone do
coins display the various styles of art prevalent at different
ages, but in doing so they supply us with abundant means for
promoting the advancement of art among ourselves. It the study
of many schools be at all times of advantage, it is especially so
when there is little originality in the world. Coins and medals
have therefore two main uses, the one relating to the illustra¬
tion of history, and the other to the promotion of art. It is not
for these purposes that collections are usually formed. It is in
vain to point to the high prices now paid for rare coins, if that
rarity be not always accompanied by some marked historical or
artistic importance. Very few among the collectors think of any
thing beyond the rarity or the beauty of a coin, and of the latter
they frequently judge by a vicious standard. So little have the
coins themselves been thoroughly studied even by professed
numismatists, that few of them have formed an opinion as to
the different denominations to which many of the most com¬
mon specimens correspond. The study of ancient coins, and
that of ancient systems of coinage, have been more and more
separated. There is also much reason to complain of the com¬
parative neglect of various branches of Numismatics. Tjntil
equal attention be paid to all, the condition of the science
cannot be called sound. Why, for instance, while the Roman
money is eagerly collected and studied, is the Byzantine series,
its proper continuation, and one of the most important portions
of the mediaeval class, generally treated with contemptuous
neglect ? Numismatics, thus superficially and partially pur¬
sued, demands the least labour and affords no result of import¬
ance, except the negative one of bringing into disrepute one of
the most valuable aids to historical inquiry.
Sect. I.—DEFINITIONS.
The following are the most necessary numismatic defini¬
tions :—
1. A coin is a piece of metal of a fixed weight, stamped by au¬
thority of government, and employed as a circulating medium.1
2. A medal is a piece struck to commemorate some event or per¬
son, and having no place in the currency, ^ledals are frequently
comprised with coins in descriptions that apply to both equally :
thus, in the subsequent definitions, by the term coins, coins and
medals must generally be understood.
3. The coinage of a country is usually divided into the classes of
gold, silver, and copper, for which the abbi-eviations A7', AX, and
JE, are employed in catalogues. In each class are comprised nod
only the coins of the metal from which it takes its name, with no
more than a necessary or inseparable proportion of alloy, but coins
of other metallic substances, usually base, and always compound,
which were generally struck in the place of the purer pieces. The
principal metallic substances thus used were electrum for gold,
billon for silver, brass for copper, and potin for silver and copper.
4. Electrum (ijXizrgav, %\iKTooi), a compound metallic substance,
consisting of gold with a considerable alloy of silver. Pliny makes
the proportion to have been four parts of gold to one of silver.2 * * The
material of early coins of Asia Minor struck in the cities of the west¬
ern coast is the ancient electrum. It appears here to have first con¬
sisted of three parts of gold to one of silver; but afterwards the pro¬
portion of silver was increased, though perhaps not everywhere.
Gold largely alloyed with silver, not struck by the ancient Greeks
1 This definition excludes, on the one hand, paper currencies and their equivalents among barbarous nations, such as cowries, because they are
neither of metal nor of fixed weight, although either stamped or sanctioned by authority, and, on the other hand, modes of keeping metal in
weight, like the so-called Celtic “ ring-money,” as not stamped, although perhaps sanctioned by authority. The latter has attracted so much
attention, that it must not be passed by without some further notice. There seems to be no reasonable doubt that the Celtic gold rings all
weigh multiples of the same unit, but very seldom multiples of one another. From their form, it is probable that most ot them were used as
ornaments, and as such they would probably have been generally made to weigh an exact weight without fractions, on the same principle that
the ancients frequently avoided fractions of their measures in architecture. They belong to a time anterior to the introduction of money among
the Celts, or before its general use, and one, therefore, at which precious metal must have been weighed when employed in barter. Hence an
additional reason, and probably the main one, why their weight is always some multiple of the same unit. In a primitive state of society in the
present day, a woman often wears her dowry in coins as ornaments; and thus these Celtic rings may have been both ornaments and substitutes
for money. . .
2 Hist. Nat. xxxiii. 23; comp, xxxvii. 11. Pliny distinguishes two kinds of “ electron,” amber, and this metallic substance. In Ureelc poetry
the name seems to apply to both, but it is generally difficult to decide which is meant in any particular case. Sophocles, however, where he men¬
tions 5r{0f 2aA£«v’,H>.cJtT^v, .... **} re* T*Si*«v Xjt/rcV (Ant. 1037-1039), can scarcely be doubted to refer to the metallic electrum.
NUMISMATICS. 353
Definitions.or their neighbours, should be termed pale gold, as in the case of
v, j some of the late Byzantine coins.
f 5. Billon, a term applied to the base metal of some Roman coins,
and also to that of some mediaeval and modern coins. It is silver
with a great proportion of alloy. When the base, silver coins are
replaced by copper washed with silver, the term billon becomes in¬
appropriate.
6. Brass, a compound metallic substance employed for coins. It
may be used as an equivalent to the orichalcum of the Romans, a
fine kind of brass, of which the sestertii and dupondii were struck,
but it is commonly applied indiscriminately to the whole of their
copper currency.
7. Botin, a term applied to the base metal of which some ancient
coins are composed. It is softer than billon.
8. Various other metallic substances have been used in coinage.
The so-called “glass money” of the Arabs has not been proved, to
have borne any value, and if it had, it would be excluded with
paper money and the like from the class of coins.
9. The forms of coins have greatly varied in different countries
and at different periods. The usual form in both ancient and mo¬
dern times has been circular, and generally of no great thickness.
10. Coins are usually measured by Mionnefs scale, from which
the greatest dimension is taken, or when they are square, the greatest
dimension in two directions. This is, however, a very unsatisfac¬
tory scale, as its divisions are of an arbitrary character, and the in¬
struments for applying it are such as make exactness scarcely pos¬
sible. A kind of gauge, graduated to inches and decimal parts of
an inch, would be far more satisfactory.
11. The weight of a coin is of great importance, both in deter¬
mining its genuineness and in distinguishing its identity. To as¬
certain exact weight to the tenth of a grain is therefore very neces¬
sary, and this can only be done by the careful use of excellent scales.
12. The specific gravity of a coin furnishes a ready means of de¬
termining the metal predominating in its composition.
13. Whatever representations or characters are borne by a coin
constitute its type. The subject of each side is also called a type,
and when there is not only a device but an inscription, the latter
may be excluded from the term. This last is the general use. No
distinct rule has been laid down as to what makes a difference of
type, but it may be considered to be an essential difference, how¬
ever slight.
14. A difference too small to constitute a new type makes a
variety.
15. A coin is a duplicate of another when it agrees with it in
all particulars but those of exact size and weight. Strictly speak¬
ing, ancient coins are rarely, if ever, duplicates, except when struck
from the same die.
16. Of the two sides of a coin, that is called the obverse which bears
the more important device or inscription. In early Greek coins,
it is the convex side; in Greek and Roman imperial, it is the side
bearing the head ; in mediaeval and modern, that bearing the royal
effigy, or the king’s name, or the name of the city; and in oriental,
that on which the inscription commences. The other side is called
the reverse.
17. The field of a coin is the space unoccupied by the principal
devices or inscriptions. Any detached independent device or cha¬
racter is said to be in the field, except when it occupies the ex¬
ergue.
18. The exergue is that part of the reverse of a coin which is
below the main device, and distinctly separated from it: it often
bears a secondary inscription. Thus, the well-known inscription
CONOB occupies the exergue of the late Roman and early Byzan¬
tine gold coins.
19. The edge of a coin is the surface of its thickness.
20. By the inscription or inscriptions of a coin, all the letters it
bears are intended : an inscription is either principal or secondary.
21. In describing coins, the terms right and left mean the right
and left of the spectator, not the heraldic and military right and
left, or those of the coin.
22. A bust is the representation of the head and neck : it is com¬
monly used of such as show at least the collar-bone, other busts
being called heads.
23. A head properly means the representation of a head alone,
without any part of the neck, but it is also commonly used when
any part of the neck above the collar-bone is shown. .In the pre¬
sent article we have followed custom in the use of the terms bust
and head.
24. A bust or head is either facing or in profile, in which latter
case it is described as to right or to left. Two busts may be placed
in various relative positions which cannot be described in English
without circumlocution.
25. A bust wearing a laurel-wreath is said to be laureate.
26. A bust bound with a fillet is described as with a fillet. The
term diademed is scarcely permissible.
27. A bust of which the neck is clothed is said to be draped.
VOL. XVI.
28. An object in the field of a coin which is neither a letter nor Arrange-
a monogram is usually called a symbol. This term is, however, only ment of
applicable when such an object is evidently the badge of a town Coins,
or individual. The term adjunct, which is sometimes employed in- i ^ , j
stead of symbol, is manifestly incorrect.
29. A mint-mark is a difference placed by the authorities of the
mint upon all money struck by them, or upon each new die or sepa¬
rate issue. This term is properly used only with reference to some
mediaeval and modern coins, since the mint-marks of ancient and
oriental coins cannot be discriminated with any certainty.
30. A coin is said to be a surfrappe when it has been struck on
an older coin, of which the types are not altogether obliterated.
31. A double-struck coin is one in which the die or dies have
shifted so as to cause a double impression.
32. A coin which presents two obverse types, or two reverse
types, or of which the types of the obverse and reverse do not cor¬
respond, is called a mule : it is the result of either a mistake or a
caprice.
Sect. II.—ARRANGEMENT OF COINS.
No uniform system has as yet been applied to the arrange¬
ment of all coins. It is usual to separate them into the three
great classes of ancient coins, comprising Greek and Roman ;
of mediaeval and modern coins ; and of oriental coins. The
details of these classes have been differently treated, both gene¬
rally and specially. The arrangement of the Greek series has
been first geographical, under countries and towns, and then
chronological, for a further division ; that of the Roman series,
chronological, without reference to geography ; that of the
mediaeval and modern, the same as the Greek ; and that of the
oriental, like the Roman,—a treatment inadmissible except in the
case of a single empire. Then, again, some numismatists have
separated each denomination or each metal, or have separated
the denominations of one metal and not of another. There has
been no general and comprehensive system, constructed upon
reasonable principles, and applicable to every branch of this
complicated science. Without laying down a system of rules,
or criticising former modes of arrangement, we offer the follow¬
ing as a classification which is uniform without being servile:—
1. Greek Coins.—All coins of Greeks, or barbarians who
adopted their money, struck before the Roman rule, or under
it, but without imperial effigies. The countries and their pro¬
vinces are placed in a geographical order, from west to east,
according to the system of Eckhel, with the cities in alpha¬
betical order under the provinces, and the kings in chrono¬
logical order. The civic coins usually precede the regal, as more
important. The coins are further arranged chronologically,
the civic commencing with the oldest, and ending with those
bearing the effigies of Roman emperors. The gold coins of
each period take precedence of the silver, and the silver of the
copper. The larger denominations in each metal are placed
before the smaller. Coins of the same denomination and period
are arranged in the alphabetical order of the magistrates’
names, or letters, &c., that they bear.
2. Roman Coins.—All coins issued by the Roman common¬
wealth and empire, whether struck at Rome or in the provinces,
provided in the latter case that they are absolutely of the same
character as the coinage of the city. The oldest proper Ro¬
man money is placed first, chronologically arranged ; then that
of the commonwealth, bearing the names of those who had the
privilege of striking it, coins of all metals and denominations
being placed under each family, and the families being put in
alphabetical order ; and, lastly, the coinage of each emperor,
disposed either chronologically or geographically, according to
the indications it offers, and without separation of denomina¬
tions. An alphabetical arrangement of inscriptions must be
resorted to in the family series and the imperial, when no other
method can be followed, and in the smallest subdivisions, such
as the coinage of one denomination issued in a particular year
or by a particular mint.
3. Mediceval and Modern Coins of Europe.—All coins
issued by European states, their branches and colonies, from
the fall of the Empire of the West to the present day. This
class is arranged in a geographical and chronological order, as
similar as possible to that of the Greek class, with the im¬
portant exception of the Byzantine coins and the coins follow¬
ing Byzantine systems, which occupy the first place. The'
reason for this deviation is, that the Byzantine money may
be regarded not alone as the principal source of mediaeval
2 y
354
NUMISMATICS.
Greek coinage, but as the most complete and important mediaeval
^oins. series, extending as it does without a break throughout the
middle ages. The regal coins usually precede the civic ones,
as more important; and the medals of each sovereign or city
follow the coins. The money of the Turkish empire is in¬
cluded in the oriental class.
4. Oriental Coins.—All coins bearing inscriptions in eastern
languages, excepting those of the Jews, Phoenicians, and Car¬
thaginians, which are classed with the Greek coins, from their
close connection with them. These coins should be arranged
under two great divisions, Pagan and Mohammadan,—the one
nearly corresponding to the Greek and Roman class, the other
to the mediaeval and modern; for although the former includes
modern coins, they are essentially similar to those of the
ancient period. The first division is arranged for the most
part according to the same general principles as the Greek
series, the kingdoms being disposed geographically, and their
sovereigns in a chronological order. It commences with the
coinage of the Persian empire, and ends with that of China.
The second division follows in general the same method of ar¬
rangement, with one important deviation, that the coins of the
Umawee and Abbasee Khaleefehs occupy the first place.
This method of arrangement will be found to be as uniform
as it can be made, without being absolutely mechanical and ser¬
vile. It differs in some important particulars from most or
all of those which have previously obtained ; but these very dif¬
ferences are the result of the consideration of a complete col¬
lection, and have therefore an inductive origin. A general
uniformity is no slight gain, and may well reconcile us to some
partial defects. These defects may be remedied in large col¬
lections by the use of “ cross-references” from one cabinet to
another, and by the formation of independent series to illus¬
trate the general one. The latter suggestion is one that is well
worthy careful consideration. A series illustrative of Greek
art, and another of Roman art, might be formed. A series of
portraits, and another of groups, would be equally valuable.
Others might be made to show the changes of the coinage in
relation to the condition of a state, with careful indications of
the weight and composition of the examples, and to illustrate
the history of a particular country or city. Thus, the Byzan¬
tine copper coinage exhibits the success or disaster of the im¬
perial arms, and the financial state of the empire, in its fluctu¬
ations ; while nothing can be more interesting than to see at
one view the numismatic history of a great city. We have
coins of Rome under the commonwealth and the empire, under
the Ostrogoths, the Byzantines, the senate, and the popes.
The series of London would be not the least curious. It would
begin with the Roman coins issued by the mint of Londinium
at the time of Diocletian and his colleagues, comprising those
of the usurpers Carausius and Allectus ; then, having ceased
not long after for a time, it would recommence with the Saxon
pennies, including a specimen of those of King Alfred, which
have for their reverse type the monogram of the city’s name ;
and, continuing through the mediaeval period, it would con¬
clude with modern tokens and medals, among the latter of which
might be placed a copy of that famous one of the first Napoleon,
with the inscription “ Frappee a Londres,” which was intended
to commemorate the success of the Boulogne expedition.
Sect. III.—GREEK COINS.
There are some matters relating to Greek coins in general
which may be properly considered before they are described
in geographical order. These are their general character,
their devices and inscriptions, the art of such as are not
barbarous, the mode of striking, and the chief denomina¬
tions, with the different talents of which they were the divi¬
sions.
rlfararolr ii Pe™^ during which Greek coins were issued was proba¬
bly not less than a thousand years in length, commencing about
the middle of the eighth century b.c.,1 and generally ending at
the death of Gallienus, a.d. 268. If classed with reference only
to their form, fabric, and general appearance, they are of three
principal types,—the archaic Greek, the ordinary Greek, and
the Graeco-Roman. The coins of the first class are of silver, Greek
of electrum, and sometimes of gold. They are thick lumps of Coins
an irregular round form, bearing on the obverse a device, with,
in some cases, an accompanying inscription ; and on the reverse
a square or oblong incuse stamp (quadratum incusum), usually
divided in a rude manner. The coins of the second class are
of gold, electrum, silver, and copper. They are much thinner
than those of the preceding class, and usually have a convex
obverse, and slightly concave or flat reverse. The obverse or¬
dinarily bears a head in bold relief. The coins of the third
class are, with very few exceptions, of copper. They are flat
and broad, but thin, and generally have on the obverse the
portrait of a Roman emperor. It may be observed that the
common division of Greek coins is into autonomous and im¬
perial, the former comprising all except those of the Roman
period which have the effigies of emperors.
In choosing the types of Greek coins (using the term in its Devices,
restricted sense), the first intention was, that they should in¬
dicate the city or state by which the money was issued. The
necessity for distinctive devices was most strongly felt in the
earlier days of the art, when the obverse of a coin alone bore
a design, and, if any inscription, but the first letter, or the
first few letters, of the name of the people by which it was
issued. The motive which dictated the kind of type to be
selected was undoubtedly a religious one. This position has
been established in a conclusive manner by Mr Burgon in his
Inquiry into the Motive which influenced the Ancients in
their Choice of the Various Representations which we find
stamped on their Money.2 There are some isolated instances
in which the religious character of a type is doubtful; but
these, if proved, would be only exceptions to a general rule.
The piety of that age adopted religious devices, and for a long
time it was held to be impious to substitute any other repre¬
sentations for them. To the same cause may, perhaps, be partly
ascribed the preference on the most ancient coins for devices
of a symbolical character to actual representations of divini¬
ties ; although the difficulty of portraying the human form in
the infancy of art must have had considerable influence in this
direction.
Greek coins, if arranged according to their types, fall into Classifica-
three classes,—1. Civic coins and regal, without portraits of tion of
sovereigns; 2. Regal coins bearing portraits; and, 3. Graeco- devices.
Roman coins, whether with imperial heads or not. The coins
of the first class have either a device on the obverse, and the
quadratum incusum on the reverse, or two devices; and these
last are again either independent of each other, though connected
by being both local, or—and this is more common—that on the
reverse is a kind of complement of that on the obverse. It
will be best first to describe the character of the principal
kinds of types of the first class, and then to notice their
relation. It must be noted that a head or bust is usually an
obverse type, and a figure or group a reverse one ; and that,
when there is a head on both obverse and reverse, that on the
former is usually larger than the other, and represents the
personage locally considered to be the more important of the
two. We must constantly bear in mind that these types are
local and religious, if we would understand their meaning.
An observation of Mr Burgon, in the essay to which refer¬
ence has just been made, puts this in a very clear light. “ 1
do not believe,” he says, “ that the types of coins are, on any
occasion, original compositions, but always copied (from the
earliest to the lowest times) from some sacred public monu¬
ment. Thus, when we find what is called a Boeotian buckler
on coins, we are not to look upon the representation as a
Boeotian buckler, but as the buckler of some Boeotian hero well
known to the ancient inhabitants of that country, and ac¬
counted to be sacred by them. In like manner, when we find
Minerva represented on coins, we are not to understand the
type as a Minerva, but the Minerva of that place; and, in
some cases which might be brought forward, the individual
statues which are represented on coins, or ancient copies,
will be found to exist. The only example of originality
of composition apparent on coins is where types have been
doubled or halved, to express similar modifications of value.”3
1 It is extremely difficult to fix the age of the earliest coins known to us; but on the whole it seems most reasonable to assume for them the ap-
proximative date we have given. They may be somewhat older, but it is scarcely possible that they can be much later.
Jyurmsmatic Journal, vol. i., p. 97; etseqq.
/d., note 70, pp. 115,116. The doubling of a type is also indicative of two sovereigns reigning together, or of a king and his queen, ex¬
amples of both ot which cases occur on the Ptolemaic coins. 6
355
NUMISMATICS.
Greek In thefollowing list we have classified the types of Greek coins
Coins, of cities, and of kings, not having regal portraits, m a syste-
v   J matic order, without referring to their relative antiquity
Coins with- Head or figure of a divinity worshipped at the town, or by the
out regal people, which issued the coin,—as the head of Pallas on coins of
portraits. Athens, and the figure of Hercules on coins of Boeotian Thebes.
Groups are very rare until the period of Graeco-Roman coinage.
2. Sacred natural or artificial objects.-
а. Animal sacred to a divinity of the place,—as the owl
(Athens), and the tortoise (iEgina).
б. Sacred tree or plant,—as the silphium (Cyrene), and the
olive-branch (Athens).
c. Arms or implements of divinities,—as the arms of Her¬
cules (Erythrae), the tongs of Vulcan (^Esernia).
It is difficult to connect many objects comprised in this class with
local divinities. The reason of this appears to be, that the Hellenes,
wherever they colonized, and nowhere more than in Greece, found
an earlier system of low Nature-worship, and endeavoured to incor¬
porate it into their own more intellectual mythology, sometimes
with but partial success.
3. Head or figure of a local genius.
«. River-god,—as the Gelas (Gela).1
6. Nymph of a lake,—as Camarina (Camarina).
c. Nymph of a fountain,—as Arethusa (Syracuse).
4. Head or figure of a fabulous personage, or half-human mon-
eter,—as Medusa (Neapolis Macedonise), the Minotaur (Cnossus). .
5. ’ Fabulous animal,—as Pegasus (Corinth), a gryphon (Panti-
capaeum), the Chimaera (Sicyon).
6. Head or figure of a hero or founder,—as Ulysses (Ithaca) ; the
Lesser Ajax (LocriOpuntii); Taras, founder of Tarentum (Taren-
tum).
7. Objects connected with heroes.
Animal connected with local hero,—as Calydonian boar or
its jaw-bone (AStolians). Arms of heroes also occur as
types, but their attribution to particular personages is
difficult or impossible.
8. Celebrated real or traditional sacred localities,—asamountain
or hillock (Apollonia Illyrici), the Labyrinth (Cnossus).
9. Representations connected with the public religious festivals and
contests,—as a chariot victorious at the Olympic games (Syracuse).
The relation of the types of the obverse and reverse of a
coin is a matter requiring careful consideration, since they fre¬
quently illustrate one another. As we have before observed,
this relation is either that of two independent objects, which
are connected only by their reference to the same place, or the
one is a kind of complement of the other. Among coins illus¬
trating the former class we may instance the beautiful silver
didrachms of Camarina, having on the obverse the head of the
river-god Hipparis, and on the reverse the nymph of the lake
carried over its waters by a swan ; and those of Sicyon, having
on the obverse the Chimsera, and on the reverse a dove._ The
latter class is capable of being separated into several divisions.
When the head of a divinity occurs on the obverse of a coin,
the reverse is occupied by an object or objects sacred to that
divinity. Thus the common Athenian tetradrachms have on
the one side the head of Pallas, and on the other an owl and an
olive-branch; the tetradrachms of the Chalcidians in Macedonia
have the head of Apollo and the lyre ; and the copper coins of
Erythroe have the head of Hercules and his weapons. The same
is the case with subjects relating to the heroes: thus there are
drachms of the AEtolians which have on the obverse the head
of Atalanta, and on the reverse the Calydonian boar, or its
jaw-bone and the spear-head with which it was killed. In
the same manner the coins of Cnossus with the Minotaur on
the obverse, have on the reverse a plan of the Labyrinth. Greek
Besides the two principal devices, there are often others of less Coins,
importance, which, although always sacred, and sometimes ^
symbols of local divinities, are generally indicative of the
position of the towns, or have some reference to the families
of the magistrates who used them as badges. Thus, for ex¬
ample, besides such representations as the olive-branch, sacred
to Pallas, on the Athenian tetradrachms, as a kind of second
device dolphins are frequently seen on coins of maritime places;
and almost every series exhibits many symbols which can only
be the badges of the magistrates -with whose names they occur.
Regal coins of this class are usually of a local character, owing
to the small extent of most of the kingdoms, which were rather
the territories of a city than considerable states at the period
when they were issued.
The second great class—that of coins of kings bearing por- Coins with
traits—is necessarily separate from the first. Religious feeling regal por-
aflbrds the clue to the long exclusion of regal portraits. It traits,
was not the result of that native horror of despotic power
which made the early Greek kings or tyrants, from necessity or
through policy, ape the character of citizens; but it was owing
to a yet stronger feeling—the belief that it would be profane
for a mortal to take a place always assigned hitherto to the
immortals. Were there any doubt, it would be removed by
the character of the earliest Greek regal portrait, that of
Alexander, which occurs on coins of Lysimachus. This is not
the representation of a living personage, but of one who wras
not alone dead, but had received a kind of apotheosis, and who
having been already called the son of Jupiter Ammon while
living, had been treated as a divinity after his death. He is
therefore portrayed as a young Jupiter Ammon. Probably,
however, he would not have been able, even when dead, thus
to usurp the place of a divinity upon the coins, had not the
Greeks become accustomed to the oriental “worship” of the
sovereign which he adopted. This innovation rapidly pro¬
duced a complete change ; and every king of the houses which
were raised on the ruins of the Greek empire could place his
portrait on the money 'which he issued, and few neglected to
do so, while the sovereigns of Egypt and Syria even assumed
divine titles.
The reign of Alexander produced another great change in
Greek coinage, very different from that we have noticed. Pie
suppressed the local types almost throughout his empire, and
compelled the towns to issue his own money, with some slight
difference for mutual distinction. His successors followed the
same policy; and thus the coins of this period have a new
character. The obverses of regal coins with portraits have
the head of the sovereign, which in some few instances gives
place to that of his own or his country’s tutelary divinity ;
while figures of the latter sort almost exclusively occupy the
reverses. Small symbols on the reverses distinguish the towns
in this class.
The GrEeco-Roman coins commence, at different periods, Grasco-
with the seizure by Rome of the territories of the Greek Roman
states. They are almost all copper; and those in that metal coins,
are the most characteristic and important. In their types we
see a further departure from the original religious intention
of those of earlier times, in the admission of representations
not alone of eminent persons wtoo had received some kind of
apotheosis, such as great poets, but also of others, who, al¬
though famous, were not, and in some cases probably could
not have been, so honoured. We also observe on such of
these coins as are Greek imperial many Roman types of an
1 The head of a river-god, supposed to be the Aohelous, is represented on coins of (Eniadae as that of a bearded man covered with the skin
the head and neck of a bull. Col. Leake (Numismata Hellenica, Eur. Greece, pp. 79, 80) notices how this illustrates a passage in e rao nm
Sophocles, where Dejanira describes the forms under which the Achelous appeared as her suitor.
of
of
“ Mvytr'rMg yoco yiv poi ^orotf^os, Xtya,
“Os (a lv Vcqru ‘roirgcfj
*Poii7'&jv Ivocpyyjf mupof, uA.Xot ocioXof
Aoolxcov iXixrof, ocXXot codgaw xvth
BoUrfgCJgOf' lx ^2 h&.ffX'lOU yiVilOMiOf
YL^ovvo) ^lippocivovro xgvvoi'iou vrorov.'’ (9-14.)
The scholiast alludes to a passage in the description of the contest of Achilles with the rivers, in the Iliad, where the Scamander throws forth the
slain, bellowing like a bull, tin radpof (xxi. 237.) The whole is very illustrative of the feeling which gave rise to the representations of
vases and coins. Homer stands before the period of these designs, whereas the tragedians lived long after its commencement. ’
while they may but reflect in their writings the subjects which they saw everywhere portrayed. It may be observed, that the nrst and . ?
of the Achelous mentioned by Sophocles occur as those of rivers on vases and coins, besides that the third is varied by being represen e vn
a beard, and that the second is found on vases, as that of the Achelous. A bull is the most common symbolical form of a river on tne coins#
356 N U M I S M A T I C S.
Greek allegorical character. The following principal hinds of types
Goins. may. specific jn addition to those of the two previous
classes:—
1. Head or figure of a famous personage who either had received
a kind of apotheosis, as Homer (Smyrna), or had not been so ho¬
noured, as Herodotus (Halicarnassus), and Lais (Corinth).
2. Pictorial representations, always of a sacred character, al¬
though occasionally bordering on caricature. We may instance,
as of the latter sort, a very remarkable type representing Pallas
playing on the double pipe, and seeing her distorted face reflected
in the water, while Marsyas gazes at her from a rock,—a subject
illustrating the myth of the invention of that instrument (Apa-
mea Phrygiss).
3. Allegorical Roman types, as Hope, &c., on the coins of Alex¬
andria of Egypt, and many other towns. These were of Greek
origin, and owed their popularity to the sculpture executed by
Greeks under the empire ; but the feeling which rendered such
subjects prominent was not that of true Greek art, and they are
essentially characteristic of the lower school, which attained its
best condition at Rome under the early emperors. Of this sort
of type we must again speak in noticing the Roman coinage.
Those kinds of types which were common to this and the
older classes were also considerably developed in their sub¬
jects. Thus, for instance, groups frequently took the place
of single figures ; and the representations of sacred localities
acquired a great prominence—the most common being of
buildings, which are generally temples. In the architectural
types, a tendency to pictorial representation is evident in the
constant endeavours to depict edifices in perspective.
Roman There is a class of coins which is always considered as part of
colonial the Greek imperial, or Grasco-Roman with imperial effigies,
coins. although in many respects distinct. This is the colonial series,
struck in Roman colonias, and having almost always Latin in¬
scriptions. As, however, these colon ire were towns in all parts
of the empire, from Emerita in Spain {Merida) to Niniva
Claudiopolis {Nineveh) in Assyria, in the midst of a Greek
population, and often of Greek origin, their coins help to
complete the series of civic money, and, as we might expect,
do not very markedly differ from the proper Greek imperial
coins, except in having Latin inscriptions, and showing a
preference for Roman types.
Inscrip- We have now to speak of the meaning of the inscriptions
tions. of Greek coins. These are either principal or secondary ; but
the former are always intended when inscriptions are men¬
tioned without qualification, since the secondary' ones are non-
essential. The inscription of civic money is almost always
the name of the people by w’hich it wras issued, in the geni¬
tive plural, as A0HNAIflN, on coins of the Athenians ;
STPAKOSinN, or coins of the Sy7racusans. The inscription
of regal money is the name or name and title of the sovereign
in the genitive, as AAESANAPOT, or BASIAEflS AAES-
ANAPOT, on coins of Alexander the Great. It has been
hitherto always supposed that the word understood is “ mo-
ney ” {vopiay-u) ; so that the inscriptions were read “ money of
the Syracusans,” “ money of Alexander,” &c. Mr Burgon
has, however, formed a different opinion; and although he
has not yret made public the results of his inquiry, he has very
generously communicated them to us, with permission to use
them, without of course entering into details. He supposes
the inscription to relate to the type, and that the word under¬
stood is the name of that type. It should be remarked that the
tjpe the reverse of a coin being usually a complement of that
of the obverse, there is in general virtually but one type—that
of a tutelary divinity of the place or sovereign. The Athenian
coins we have mentioned with the inscription A0HNAinN have
the type of a head of Pallas ; and the meaning is therefore,
according to Mr Burgon s explanation, not “ the money of the
Athenians, but “ Pallas of the Athenians.” When the name
of the divinity represented is written, the word understood is
supplied. Thus on coins of Syracuse, with the head of Are-
thusa as the type, we read APE0O2A—2TPAK02K1N; and
on others, with the head of Jupiter, ZET2 EAET0EPIO2—•
2TPAK02IflN. We should not be justified in further dis¬
cussing this explanation ; but we must add, that its fitness to
all inscriptions, and its congruity with the religious meaning
of the types, as first discovered by Mr Burgon, afford the best
arguments for its correctness. The secondary inscriptions
either describe secondary types, as A0AA, accompanying the
representation of the arms given to the victor in the exergues
of Syracusan decadrachms; or are the names of magistrates or Greek
other officers ; or, in regal coins, those of cities, or those of the Coins,
engravers of the dies, of whom sometimes two were employed, v
one for the obverse, and the other for the reverse ; or are dates.
These inscriptions are often but abbreviations or monograms,
especially when they indicate cities on the regal coins.
The importance of Greek coins as illustrating the character Art of
of contemporary art cannot be easily overrated. We would coins,
here speak of them in this relation in a general sense, without
inquiring as to their bearing on particular branches of art.
We would endeavour to assign them their true place as records
of art, rather than to discuss their illustration of kindred mo¬
numents. It is indeed most desirable that something of this
kind should be. attempted. The question that is here proposed
has not received a proper consideration ; and the partialities
of a period of bad taste, themselves founded on partly spurious
merits, have been handed down as traditions not to be ques¬
tioned to those who receive with too blind a reverence all the
productions of Greek art, Not alone discriminating praise,
but the most jealous observation of faults, characterizes the
highest kind of regard. All human art must be faulty ; and
blind admiration indicates nothing better than a weak judg¬
ment. The Greek artists, indeed, by making beauty the first
quality in art, and by forming a system which, wdiile it for¬
bade extravagance, checked development, committed fewer
faults than any others ; but they did commit some faults.
Notwithstanding the geometrical severity of their temples,
the rigid exclusion of historical subjects from their sculpture
of the best period, and the tameness of their use of colour in
ceramic art, they have been in some things guilty of bad taste.
Nothing could be more barbarous than to represent not only a
human figure, but that of a woman, sustaining a vast weight,
and sustaining it with difficulty. If it be excusable to repre¬
sent giants thus supporting great masses, can it be to put
women in their place as the columns on which a building
rests ? So, too, in sculpture—in a higher sense, and therefore
as deserving far stronger censure—is false taste shown in
the exclusion of historical subjects, because they were not ca¬
pable of ideal treatment. Who can forgive a nation which
was content to commemorate the battle of Marathon in a
perishable painting, when meaningless combats of Greeks and
Amazons, sculptured in enduring marble, adorned the wralls of
its temples ? Great Pericles must be represented in a helmet,
because his head was too long to be symmetrical. Thus the
Greeks, wbtli their love of material beauty, could not fully per¬
ceive the intellectual beauty of truth. In ceramic art, we find
even in the best period faulty forms and exaggerated designs.
We must the more carefully look for such things since the gene¬
ral excellence and uniformity of Greek high art is apt to deaden
the power of discrimination. So long, however, as we know
that this was a human art, worked out by human hands, which,
like all other art, had its infancy, its manhood, and its decline
and death, we know that it cannot have been perfect, and
mistrust our judgment if for a time we think it so. Peeling
thus, we come to the consideration of any monuments of Greek
art, not wdthout earnest admiration and respect for its high
beauties and excellencies, yet conscious of its defects and short¬
comings ; expecting to see in it, as in all human things, the mys¬
teriously-blended good and evil, and carefully maintaining such
an independence as may enable us to avoid blind admiration,
and such an interest as may preserve us from cold criticism.
Excellence in art is not perceived at the first search, nor
does it shine out in the boldest objects. So in nature the
highest beauty often demands the greatest toil, and is found
at last, not flaunting in the glare of sunlight, but hidden in
some untrodden recess. We must not look to size, nor regard
boldness, nor think of the value of the material. We must
even set aside the mechanical fineness of execution, seeking
only that pure excellence that requires no adventitious aid,
and is seen, at least in its intention, through a rude exterior.
A few lines by the hand of a master have more meaning than
the most elaborate work of a copyist. It is also needful care¬
fully to separate the subject from the artistic execution. A
fine head will often give a medal a supposititious excellence,
while another difficult to treat will produce an equally sup¬
posititious badness.
The art of Greek coins, strictly so called, is separated into
three great periods—the period of advance, that of excellence,
and that of decline, The first period extends from the time
NUMISMATIC S
Greek of the earliest coins to about the commencement of the admin-
Coins. istration of Pericles, n.c., 440; the second period extends for
^ ) about a century from this era to the overthrow of Greek liberty,
which -we may date at the battle of Chmroneia, b.c. 338 ; and
the third period extends downwards to the cessation^ of the
Greek coinage, at the death of Gallienus, a.d. 268. The last
age might be held to conclude with the commencement of the
Roman empire, since about that time the decline ot pure Greek
art had been completed, and the later coins are rather to be con¬
sidered as Grasco-Roman in art, as in all else, than Greek.
Here, however, we limit ourselves to the works of the second
period, that of excellence, to which we have assigned a dura¬
tion of about a hundred years, from b.c. cir. 440 to 340. These
may be considered as extreme limits, since in some Greek cities
the coinage did not attain its highest beauty until somewhat
after the rise of Pericles to power, and in none, before his
time; and in the same manner, the decline appears in some
cities to have commenced considerably before the reign of Alex¬
ander, but nowhere at a later period. It seems probable, judg¬
ing from the chronological and historical indications of coins,
as well as from the reiative number of those of different styles,
making, in the latter case, some necessary allowances, that in
no city or state did the period of excellence last more than a cen¬
tury, and that its usual duration was from fifty to seventy years.1
The finest Greek coins may be separated into two great
riod. classes, distinguished by a marked difference of style : those
struck in Greek cities of Asia, of eastern Europe, and of the
islands of the iEgean Sea ; and those struck in Italy and
Sicily. The former class has far finer designs than the latter,
but is frequently deficient in execution, partly, no doubt, on
account of its having been issued by less opulent cities. The
difference is not unlike that which we observe in ancient
and modern gems, although it is not nearly so wide. An
ancient gem of good time is characterized by an excellence of
design, usually combined with an execution which is, however
powerful, poor and rude. A modern gem rarely fails in skil¬
ful execution, although its design is generally, in comparison,
either tasteless or in bad taste. The coins of Greece Proper
and its eastern colonies during the best period, although often
indifferently executed, show an unequalled vigour of drawing;
while those of the Italian and Sicilian cities display far inferior
art, of which the details are worked out in the most elaborate
and delicate manner. The obverse-type of a coin of the Greek
class looks like the copy of a head from the sculptures of the Par¬
thenon ; that of one of the Italian class, like a carefully-wrought
gem. The former will bear magnifying rather than the latter,
which has, nevertheless, the advantage in the execution of its
details. We may thus separate two great schools, which may
be compared to those of Phidias and Lysippus, as possessing
like them these main characteristics : that the one aimed at
reality,—the other at effect; the one at representing things as
they are, either in reality or in the imagination,—the other at
representing them so as to be seen to the best advantage.
While the two schools endeavoured to attain the same result,—
a representation of what was most beautiful,—they did so with
a very different feeling. The nobler school set before it the
perfection of various kinds of beauty, the vigorous as well as
the delicate, and thus did not suffer itself to be entangled by
that narrow pursuit of one class of objects which infallibly pro¬
duces mannerism. The inferior school, by requiring all beauty
to be soft, and delicate, and rich, fell into the error of neglect¬
ing many noble subjects, and soon acquired a mannerism that
rapidly destroyed its best elements, so that its decline (as
357
shown by coins of known date) was far more rapid than that Greek
of the other. The difference between the two schools is best Coins.
perceived when we recollect that the one contains examples of ^ v J
all that is finest in the other, with the addition of many
beauties which it does not possess. The Greek school repre¬
sents, in fact, all high Greek art ; while the Italian is but
eclectic, and is almost limited to one kind of excellence. We
therefore only call the former a school for the sake of clearness.
The coins of the pure Greek school have scarcely been Pure
enough studied for us to be able to point to one well- Greek
known series as typical of the class. This is, however, partly school,
owing to a cause to -which allusion has been already made-—
the fewness of fine coins of this school in comparison to those
of the Italian school of the same time, resulting from the rela¬
tive poverty of the towns by which they were issued. The
rude archaic types of the Athenian coinage of the time of the
Persian invasion were maintained until art had far declined,
probably from commercial reasons ;2 and the art of the chief
trading cities of the west coast of Asia Minor was checked by
their conquest or government by the Persians at the time of
its excellence. Corinth alone, of the great marts, sent forth a
consistently beautiful coinage. The Italian and Sicilian towns,
on the other hand, had wealth and leisure enough to carry out
efficiently in their coinage their highest idea of beauty. The
series which, as a whole, best illustrates the excellencies of the
Greek school, is one not deservedly known to numismatists,
while it is absolutely unknown to students of art. This is the
series of electrum coins of Asia Minor, in so far as it was
issued during the period of the best art. The rest of the finest
coins of this school are almost exclusively silver; gold or elec¬
trum not having been generally common in the Greek cities
before Philip’s time, and the copper money having been usually
neglected. As among the most beautiful Asiatic coins, we
must particularize those of Clazomenaa in gold and silver, of
the early part of the best period, which bear heads of Apollo,
facing, in the boldest and grandest style. In Europe, many
of the cities of Macedon, Thrace, and Greece Proper, issued
pieces of the highest merit. Nothing in the whole range of
Greek art is more beautiful than the head of Apollo in profile on
coins of the Chalcidians ; nor anything bolder than that of Bac¬
chus in profile on a coin of Thasos, and that of Mercury, facing,
on coins of Minus. In Greece itself, we may notice, as among
the finest coins, those of Elis, with the head of Juno, and those
of the Locri Opuntii, with that of Proserpine. After a care¬
ful review of the best specimens of this school, we perceive
that it is identical with the highest school of sculpture, more
remarkable for its fidelity, breadth, and boldness, than for its
minuteness of execution, and equally happy in purely ideal
subjects and in the simple portrayal of natural objects. There
are no finer representations of the Greek divinities than those
borne by the coins ; as a series there are none as fine. Of
the portraits the same can be said, but in a lower sense,
since there is but one that belongs to the period of the highest
art, that of a Persian ruler of Asia Minor, whom there is much
reason for supposing to be Cyrus the Younger, on a coin of a
Greek mint. The decline of this school was, however, so
gradual, that some of the portraits on coins of the earlier part
of what we have called the third period, issued in Greece and
the East, give an excellent idea of what the best Greek medallic
art could have effected in this direction. The representation
of natural objects in general is characterized by an equal degree
of force and vigour, although there is no attempt to idealize the
animals; a lion is a lion, and nothing more.3
1 It is interesting to compare the duration of tho highest Greek art in other branches, and that of other art in different ages. The period of
the best Greek sculpture and architecture appears very nearly to correspond to that of the best numismatic art in place and duration, though pro¬
bably it was a little earlier both in its commencement and its conclusion. The age of the best painting seems to have been even more nearly con¬
temporary with that of the finest coins. The great sculptors and painters after the time of Philip, if we may judge frotn the copies of their works
and the descriptions that are extant, stood very much in tho same relation to their predecessors that the later Italian painters did to Raphael.
The best Graeco-Roman art, in coins as well as in sculpture and architecture, had a longer duration, a circumstance which is explained by its com¬
parative mediocrity; but its utmost limit is less than two hundred years. In more ancient times, the highest Egyptian art in architecture and
sculpture is likewise limited to a hundred and fifty years, although its rise and decline were of an extremely gradual character. Tho great variety
of the developments of Christian architecture make it difficult to determine its best periods ; but if we separate it into styles, we shall find that the
highest excellence of no one much exceeded a century and a half. Tho same is still more true of the modern schools of painting and sculpture, and
of the art of modern coins and medals. If wo turn to the East, we observe the same law in the different styles of Mohammedan architecture. The
brief duration of the highest art of Greek coins is therefore in no way remarkable ; especially when we recollect that its excellence was the result
of a very rapid development, and was thus naturally, so to speak, as short-lived as it was extraordinary in its beauty.
2 The maintaining of the old Athenian types was probably owing to the reputation of the coins for purity and just weight among the barbarians.
For the same reason the Austrian government not long ?go re-issued the dollars of Maria Theresa for the trade of the Levant. The Abyssinians
in general would lately take no money but one variety of these dollars. (Isenberg’s Amharic Dictionary, p. 86).
3 It might seem unreasonable to suppose that the lower animals could be treated in art in an ideal manner; but it must be remembered that the
358
NUMISMATICS.
Greek
Coins.
Italian
school.
Modes of
coining.
The most beautiful coins of the Italian school, unlike those
just noticed, are well known to every one. They have come
to be regarded as examples of the highest Greek medallic art
and hence, perhaps, in some measure the unworthy estimate of
that art shown by the neglect with which it is treated. The two
most beautiful series are unquestionably those of Tarentum
and Syracuse, the wealthiest of the Grecian colonies in the W est.
Many of the gold coins of both cities belong to the best period
of art, and for their rich beauty and exquisite workmanship
deserve a high place in the scale of artistic excellence. . Their
silver coins are still more worthy of careful study, as indicating
the growth and decline of art, and as sometimes excelling the
gold. The same praise cannot be given to the decadrachms of
Syracuse, commonly called the Syracusan medallions. These,
though certainly beautiful, display a considerable decline of
taste, showing a first development of those faults which amount,
to caricature in many of the coins of the Carthaginians of
which the obverse is similar. Scattered throughout the class
there are coins of extreme beauty, especially some of the
towns of Heraclea and Thurium in Lucania, perhaps the most
vigorous of all in design and treatment; and others of Neapo-
lis, Metapontum, Velia, and Terina, as well as of the Sicilian
town of Camarina. These coins, and many others, are un¬
doubtedly extremely beautiful; but as a class they lack the
force which characterizes the purer school, and in their rich
and profuse detail show a taste which must be pronounced
false. We are apt to be dazzled in judging them by the fine¬
ness of their metal, the clearness of the execution, the accuracy
of the work, and the richness of the designs ; but when we
come to examine them critically, we look in vain for the
bolder excellence of the Greek school; we see not alone very
few things that are vigorously treated, but scarcely any that
would bear vigorous treatment. Stripped of their ornamenta¬
tion, many of the designs would be weak, and scarcely any of
them, tried by this test, would be for a moment comparable with
those of the Greek school.
It is important to study the mode in which Greek money
was coined, because the forms of the pieces thus receive ex¬
planation, and true coins are discriminated from such modern
falsifications as have been struck, and in some degree from
those which have been cast. Our direct information on the sub¬
ject is extremely scanty ; but we are enabled by careful infer¬
ence to obtain a very near approximation to the truth on all the
most important points.
It is generally supposed that a certain Roman family coin,
issued in the time of Augustus, bears a representation of the in¬
struments of coining. It is a denarius of the family Carisia, and
sometimes bears the name of T. Carisius, who was a triumvir
monetalis of Augustus. On the obverse is the head of Juno
Moneta, with sometimes the name MONET A ; on the reverse
we see an anvil, above which is the cap of Vulcan, bound with
a laurel-wreath, while on the right is a hammer, and on the
left a pair of tongs. The cap is but little different in form
from that which is worn on the head of the bearded Vulcan
on the coins of Lipara, and that of the young Vulcan on
those of iEsernia; the latter of which has a wreath like the cap
of the denarius under discussion. It is also to be noted, that
on some coins of Lipara, Vulcan is portrayed holding his
hammer in his right hand, and in his left a vessel he has just
formed; while on those of iEsernia already mentioned the pair
of tongs is placed behind his head as an appropriate symbol.
Homer in two passages—the second of which Eckhel quotes—
mentions the anvil, tongs, and hammer, as the implements of
Vulcan, or of a worker in metal. First in the Iliad, when he
describes Vulcan making the armour of Achilles, he says—
&YIX.SU tv ci>cfio6tTw /nsyoiv olx./u,ovet' ytVTO (Ss yfiioi
Px/<rT'/jgiz k^chts^ov, trtgyCpt at ytvro iruguyfiyv.
{II. xviii. 476-7.)
In the Odyssey the same are mentioned as the special im¬
plements of a worker in metal, and therefore, of course, of
Vulcan:—
Greek
Coins.
Yt'kdt Ss
■'OttA5 tv %sg(rlv ty,uv 'Trii^ctTcc rijcvys,
"Axyovoi re, oQvqxv <r, tvTrotrirov re vvoxy^riv,
Otoiv Tt %(>ucr6v eigyx^sro’{Odys. iii. 432-435.)
There could be no better description than these two passages
afford of thq implements represented on the denarius in ques¬
tion : there we see the anvil with the projections by which it
would be fitted in the anvil-block, the hammer, and the tongs ;
nothing is omitted by the poet but the cap, which indeed,
stands for Vulcan. With this explanation Eckhel perfectly
agrees ; but of late it has been usual to consider the type as
representing the implements of coining. The cap has been
supposed to be a die placed above the anvil, and the hammer
and tongg to be here coining instruments. The form of the
cap, however, would have been most inconvenient for a die,
and the hammer is far better suited for beating out metal than
for striking a very heavy blow. Just as the head of Juno
Moneta is represented on the obverse because she was held to
protect the coinage, so the symbols of Vulcan, the tools of his
craft, are placed on the reverse because he was the patron
of the workers in metal. We will go further and say, that
such an explanation is fully in accordance with the intention
which guided the ancient medallists, whereas the other would
require a departure from usage.
We are able to describe but a single ancient die of the
authenticity of which we are persuaded. Mr Burgon, to
whose kindness we are indebted for an account of it, saw it
during his residence in the East, but failed to persuade its
possessor to part with it. He describes it, from recollection,
as a piece of copper or bell-metal, in the shape of a truncated
cone, flat at the top and bottom, about 3^ inches in height,
and from about 3 inches in diameter at the bottom to 2 at
the top. In the upper surface was cut the die for the re¬
verse of a tetradrachm of a Seleucide king of Syria, with
the type of Apollo seated on a cortina. There appears to
have been no trace of any method of adjusting this to the die
of the obverse.
From the appearance which the coins present, it may be in¬
ferred that the Greeks placed a ball of metal, carefully ad¬
justed to the proper weight, and cold, between two dies, and
then struck the upper die a powerful blow with a very heavy
hammer. There was no collar to give the coins an exactly
circular form. The dies must have been of hard metal, though
less so than modern ones. Some Greek coins have been found of
the same die, but such as the writer has seen did not present any
evidence as to the wear to which their dies had been subjected.
The Roman coins appear to have been struck in the same man¬
ner, but with a more careful adjustment of the two sides, yet
without a collar. Their dies, although hard, must have been,
like the Greek dies, softer than those of the moderns, since, in
the case of coins from the same die, we can trace the increase
of imperfections through wear, and this notwithstanding the
small period for which each die was used, and the relatively few
coins struck from it. In the case of Greek coins, there is simi¬
lar evidence, in the great number which have bad or imperfect
impressions, although not worn ; since all these can scarcely
owe their inferiority to insutficient force having been used in
striking them.
Some few Greek and Roman coins were cast and not struck ;
others, at least in the latter series, were first cast to give them
their general form, and then struck. Both cases, however,
form very rare exceptions, and are confined to particular groups
of coins, and not to isolated examples.
The monetary system of which we propose now to speak is Monetary
that of the Greeks and Phoenicians alone. The barbarians system,
who imitated Greek coinage, and whose money is therefore in¬
cluded in the same great class, had also monetary systems, as
the general exactness of the weight of the gold and silver coins
of any one people at a particular period undoubtedly shows.
For the present, however, we must be content to collect evi¬
dence as to what these systems were, without attempting to
form theories.
The money of the Greek cities, except those of the west of
Greeks idealized the human form, not alone in those expressions which depend upon mind, but in those which are not more than animal. The
Egyptians, however, in one particular at least, surpassed them, since they idealized the forms of the lower animals with complete success. The
Hons in the British Museum, brought by the Duke of Northumberland from Gebel Berkel in Ethiopia, are the best examples of this success
in the collections of Europe. _ They show that the artist has grasped the idea conveyed to him by a lion—conscious strength; and has re¬
presented it in a manner which is sublime without being unnatural. No Greek lions are at all to be compared to these.
Greek
Coins.
Silver
money.
NUMISMATICS.
359
Asia Minor, which issued electrum coins, appears to have been
of silver only from the origin of coinage until after the expe¬
dition of Xerxes. Subsequently both gold and copper money
was issued. Silver, however, seems to have continued to be
the standard, and the gold coins were struck in denominations,
usually, if not always, derived from the silver ones. Silver,
therefore, is the most important metal.
The denominations of silver coins were divisions of the
mnaor mina, which again was a division of the talent. The
mina and talent were monies of account as well as weights,
and therefore, in discussing the coinage, they may be treated
as coins. The only reason that they were not struck must
have been their great weight. Although the same system of
denominations obtained, with no very great variatfon, in all
the Greek and Phoenician cities, yet there was a relative differ¬
ence of weight, owing to the use of at least four distinct
talents. The ancients mention more talents than these, of else
call some of them by more than one name. Mr Burgon, how¬
ever, after weighing a great number of coins, found no rea¬
son to distinguish more than four talents—the Attic, the
fEginetan, the Alexandrian or Ptolemaic, and the Tyrian.
The Attic talent was used by many Greek cities before Alex¬
ander’s time, and particularly had no rival in Italy, nor
indeed in Sicily, except at two towns for a time at a very
early period. Alexander adopted it, and thenceforward it be¬
came almost universal in Greek coinage. The weight of its
drachm, as deduced from the best evidence, was properly about
67’5 grains troy, and that of its tetradrachm about 270. There
was in general no very great depreciation of the Attic weight
in subsequent times until the Roman period. The weight of the
principal denominations, the drachm and the tetradrachm, we
have given to show the relation of the talents. Of the other de¬
nominations we shall speak afterwards. The fEginetan talent
was as ancient as the Attic, and it is possible that it was even
of an earlier origin, most coins of the remotest period being ad¬
justed to it. The Attic talent was, however, the standard of
some of the oldest coins, and the instances of the change from
the fEginetan to it are not, on the whole, of a character that
would warrant the conclusion that it was of later origin. The
fEginetan talent is frequent in Greece and the islands in early
times. Its drachm weighed about 96 grains, and the didrachm
about 192 grains. The Alexandrian or Ptolemaic talent might,
Mr Burgon holds, be more properly termed the Macedonian.
The first Ptolemy, who was attached to all Macedonian usages,
abandoned the Attic weight which Alexander had adopted,
and issued money adjusted to the old talent of Macedon. We
find this talent to have been that of the earlier coinage of the
cities of Macedon and Thrace, and of the Macedonian kings, in
both cases before Alexander the Great, and to have been re¬
stored, not invented, in the coinage of the kings of Egypt. In
the former class, its drachm weighs originally about 58 grains,
and its tetradrachm about 232 grains, but they fall gradually
to much lower weights. In the latter class, the drachm weighs
originally about 55 grains, and the tetradrachm about 220
grains. The Tyrian, which might rather be called the Phoeni¬
cian talent, was in use among the Persians and Phoenicians.
The Carthaginians, however, adopted the Attic talent in Sicily,
while still using the Phoenician in Africa, as the kings of Syria
struck their general coinage on the former system, but that
of their Phoenician cities on the Alexandrian. The drachm
of this talent weighed, according to Mr Burgon, between 58
and 59 grains, and the tetradrachm about 235.1 The earlier
Persian coins are of a somewhat heavier weight. The similarity
of weight of the Alexandrian and Phoenician talents might sug¬
gest a common origin, but it would be hazardous, with the slight
evidence we possess, to attempt to form anytheory on the subject.
We are best acquainted with the denominations of the coinage
of Athens, which followed the Attic talent. These denomi¬
nations were—the drachm, with its multiples, and its sixth
part, the obolus ; and that division, with its multiples and its
divisions. The following list is drawn out from that in Col.
Leake’s Numismata Hellenica (European Greece, p. 21),
where the standard weight of the Attic drachm is assumed to be
67'5 grains :—
1.   67-5 grains troy = 1 drachm.
2. Ai'tSgax/ut»i  135'0 „ — 2 do.
3. TsrjaSjar 270'0 „ =4 do.
4. Aix.ahga.^fjLov 675,0 ,, =10 do.
5. ’OfidXoi  ll^S ,, = £ of drachm.
6.     16-87 grs. troy
7. AiufioXov  22’5
33-75
= {
1| obolus.
2 oboli.
3 oboli, or
hemidrachm.
4 oboli.
5 do.
8. T^iu/itiXev, or
9. Tbt^uHoXov  45-0
10. nsvTaw/SsXov  56-25
11. Tgirccgrvftigiov, or Tj/- 1
  J
12. 'HfiiofioXiov  5-62
13. Ti rx..o TYiU Or T«£-
There were 100 drachms in the mna or mina, and 60 mina3 in
the talent.
8-43
2-81
i of obolus.
J do.
£ do.
In the civic money for which the Attic talent was used the
most common piece was either the tetradrachm or the didrachm.
Thus, at Athens the great currency was of tc tradrachms, at
Corinth of didrachms. In the money of the kings the tetra¬
drachm was the chief coin. The smaller pieces were nume¬
rous, though fewer than these two most important denomi¬
nations, except in the lesser cities, which did not frequently
strike the latter. A smaller coin that is very frequent in the
later period appears to have been an Attic tetrobolon, but
was probably also considered to be an iEginetan hemidrachm,
since it was introduced not long after the general abandonment
of the system of the latter, and when its weight would have
been preferred, from its near approach to that of a well-known
coin of that system. Those cities which used the JEginetan
talent are not known to have issued any larger piece than the
didrachm, which is their principal coin. The drachm and
hemidrachm are, however, also frequent. In the Alexandrian
talent the most common pieces, during the early period, when
it should rather be called Macedonian, were the tetradrachm,
didrachm, and drachm. At first octodrachms were struck.
Under the Ptolemies the common coins were tetradrachms, but
decadrachms were also issued. The system of the denomi¬
nations of the Tyrian or Phoenician talent was somewhat
different from that of the other talents, though not essentially
so. The principle of division into thirds, seen in the Attic
talent in the case of the obolus, which is the sixth part of the
drachm, is more fully developed in the Phoenician talent. The
Carthaginian coins are principally tetradrachms and didrachms,
but dodecadrachms and decadrachms also occur, as well as
drachms and smaller pieces. In the cities of Phoenicia tetra¬
drachms were the largest and the most important coins. In the
Persian series the principal pieces are tetradrachms and coins of
a third of their value, with different types, which are usually
called silver Darics. It is probable that this system tended to
produce the issue of the pieces called cistophori by the cities
of the west of Asia Minor at a late period. These coins must
originally have been struck as Attic tridrachms; but they
appear afterwards to have been considered to be tetradrachms,
and if this be established, they are examples of a fifth system.
It is probable that the names of most denominations were the
same among the Greeks, and that the Persians and Phoenicians
had a difierent nomenclature, although the Greeks would have
called their coins, in so far as they agreed with their own, by
Greek appellations.
The gold and electrum coinage appears to have been every- Gold
where based upon the silver in its denominations; for, although money,
in many cases it is very difficult to arrive at even a probable
conclusion, from the fewness of specimens, all the direct evi¬
dence seems to be in favour of this opinion. The oldest coins
are the electrum staters of the west of Asia Minor, commonly
called in ancient times Cyzicene staters. Their weight is
about 248 grains, which is a little in excess of that of the
Phoenician tetradrachm. It contains, however, only about 186
grains of pure gold, three-fourths of the whole weight, the re¬
maining fourth being of silver, and as the latter appears not
to have been taken into account, the relation seems rather to
have been to the .ZEginetan didrachm. There were smaller
denominations, of which one, the hecta, which was the sixth
part of the Cyzicene stater, was very common. Other pieces
appear to have the weight of the third of the stater. The
Persian staters, anciently called Daric staters, and now gold
Darics, are of pure gold, and are in weight equivalent to rather
light didrachms of the Attic talent. In European Greece
there is little gold money before the time of Philip of Macedon.
He issued staters of the weight of Attic didrachms. Subse¬
quent kings struck distaters, or gold tetradrachms ; hemistaters,
Thomas Catalogue, Greek, &c., Coins, p. 57.
360
NUMISMATICS.
Greek
Coins.
Copper
money.
G reek
coinage of
different
countries.
or gold drachms ; and smaller coins. The largest known coin
of the cities which was struck in gold is the stater, and it is
; usually less common than lower denominations. The system
upon which this coin, which maybe considered to be the basis
of the gold money, was subdivided, has not yet been fully deter¬
mined. The Ptolemies struck staters, adjusted to the Alex¬
andrian talent, as well as octodrachms and pentadrachms.
There are at least two distinct systems of denominations of
Greek copper money anterior to the Roman domination, which
we may term the Greek and the Italian. Of the former system
the principal coin was the chalcus, or piece of brass, of which
eight went to the obolus of silver. There was a smaller piece
called a leptum, of which the chalcus is said to have contained
seven. The coins have usually been so carelessly struck that
it is difficult to separate them by weight. The Italian system,
which was used in Italy and Sicily, and does not seem to be of
foreign origin, is better known. The weight is more accurate,
and the value is frequently marked upon the coins. The
highest denomination was the as, according to the Roman
nomenclature, which was at first, nominally, the pound coined,
and was thence called as libralis; and the unit was the uncia,
or ounce, its twelfth part. The common divisions were the
semissis or semis, the half of the as ; the triens, or third; the
quadrans, or quarter; the sextans, or-sixth*; -and the uncia.
Although originally these were coined at near their full weight,
they were afterwards rapidly reduced, until at length the as
contained but half an ounce of metal.
(The most important works on the entire class of Greek coins
may be here mentioned. The account of Greek coins in Eckhel’s
Doctrina Numorum Veterum} will be found to contain the condensed
result of the studies of the author’s predecessors, with much valu¬
able matter of his own. Although not equal to the part relating
to Roman coins, this treatise is of very high merit, and has not
yet been superseded. Sestini, in his Classet Generales,^ has pub¬
lished an excellent companion and supplement to Eckhel. Follow¬
ing that author’s arrangement, he has enumerated the principal
inscriptions of Greek coins, and has thus afforded great assistance
to those who are engaged in their classification. Mionnet’s volu¬
minous Description de Medailles Antiques, &c.,3 is very useful, but
of little authority. It is a catalogue of Greek coins, compiled
with much industry by one who had great practical knowledge,
but who was not otherwise qualified to attain a high place as
a numismatist. Colonel Leake has lately published a catalogue
of examples and electrotypes in his possession of coins of the Greek
series, excluding most of those struck by barbarians.4 The notices
given in this work of the geographical, historical, and mythologi¬
cal references of the coins are of high value. The most important
work on the weights of Greek coins is Ebckh’s Metrologische Un-
tersuchungen.5)
We may now pass on to notice tbe Greek coinage of each
country, following Eckhel’s arrangement.
The series commences with Spain, Gaul, and Britain, three coun¬
tries of which the money presents a general resemblance, constitut-
ing the only great class of barbarous Greek coinage. It must not
be supposed that the money of the whole class is of one general
character; on the contrary, it has very many divisions, distin¬
guished by marked peculiarities: it has, however, everywhere one
characteristic in common,—that its devices are corrupt copies of
those of Greek or Roman coins. The earliest of these barbarous
coins appear to be the best imitations of the gold and silver money
of Philip II., King of Macedon. Next in order of time come the
imitations of Roman famdy coins, the denarii of the commonwealth,
in both Spain and cuul, and that copper money of the former
country which followed its silver imitated types. There are in these
coinages evident imitations of Greek designs, besides the Macedo¬
nian ones we have mentioned, to which it is not easv to assign a
chronological place, though they are probably anterior to the imi¬
tations of the Roman coins, but not to the more accurate money
of Greek colonies, especially Massilia in Gaul. It is useless to at¬
tempt a very minute classification of the subjects of these barbarous
types, since the artists by whom they were executed did not properly
understand them; and we must be contented if we can perceive the Greek
general though accidental principles to which they owe their origin. Coins
The coinage of Hispania or Spain, corresponding to the modern y *
Spain and Portugal, was issued during a period of not more than v _*1"
three hundred years, from about b.c. 250 to a.d. 41. The earliest ®Pa^n-
coins can scarcely be carried further back than B.c. 250, and pro¬
bably were issued long subsequently; while the latest are of the
reign of Caligula, during, <jf at the close of which, the coinage was
evidently stopped. The money* of this period was of four classes,
—the Celtiberian, or native; that of the Phoenician, and that of the
Greek colonies; and the Roman coinage. To the Celtiberian class
specimens of the earliest period of Spanish coinage undoubtedly be¬
long; so that its commencement was about, or probably after, B.C.
250. Its cessation must have been caused by the subjugation of Spain
to the Roman commonwealth in the middle of the second century
B.c. The coins are of silver and copper, no gold pieces being
known. In form they are flat, and, in the case of the copper, rather
thick. The silver have the general appearance of Homan family
denarii,of which, indeed, they are imitations; while the copper again
are imitations of the silver. The most common obverse-type of
the coins in both metals is the head of a divinity, and the
reverse-type a horseman or two horsemen. The inscriptions are in
Celtiberian characters, and appear to be always the names of the
cities, and perhaps also tribes, by which the coins were issued.
The Celtiberian alphabet is manifestly of Phoenician origin ; but
the language which it was employed to express appears to have
been that of the aboriginal inhabitants, represented by the modern
Basques. The art of these coins is barbarous. With reference to
their denominations, it must be remarked that the most common
silver pieces have about the same weight as the Roman denarii of
the period, and the Greek-Attic drachms, then nearly equal to
the denarii. It is not easy to decide from which of the two it
was adopted, but the balance of evidence seems to predominate in
favour of a Roman source.
The change from the Celtiberian to the Latin coinage does not seem
to havebeen abrupt. Wefindcertain coins withinscriptions indicat¬
ing a transition, while in art and typesthey show a relation to the later
Celtiberian pieces, as well as to the earliest Roman. Their inscrip¬
tions are either bilingual, in Celtiberian and Latin, or else they are
written partly with Celtiberian and partly with Latin characters.
Phoenician and Greek colonies issued money of their ow-n during
the period of the Celtiberian coinage. The Phoenician coins, such
as those of Gades, have types which are not without meaning, but
their execution is very barbarous. The Greek coins, as those of
Lmporiae, have types which show a distinct meaning, although they*
are executed with a coarseness often amounting to barbarism.
The Roman coins of Spain, besides those w-hich bear inscriptions
in Latin and Celtiberian, of which we have already spoken, are of
two periods,—that of the commonw-ealth, and that of the empire.
The money of the former class differs little in art or intention from
the Celtiberian coinage, which it superseded ; but that of the latter
shows a considerable change in the character of the types. The
imperial coins were all issued by Roman colonke. Their art can¬
not be said to indicate any important progress, but their inscrip¬
tions are accurate, and the types display a distinct intention. Their
obverses bear the head of the emperor, or of some imperial personage,
while the reverses have types usually referring to the foundation
of the colonias by which they were issued. Among the most com¬
mon reverse-types may be specified the emperor or a priest guiding
a plough drawn by two oxen, a subject representing the ceremony
of describing the extent of the walls; an ox, intended to convey the
same idea; an altar, sometimes called in the inscription the altar
of Augustus, the founder; and a temple.
The following are the most important coins in the three provinces
of Hispania :—In Lusitania we may notice the imperial money of
its capital, Augusta Emerita, which took its name from its havino-
been a settlement of pensioners {emeriti). The denarii of the legate
of Augustus P. Carisius, which bear the name of this place, were per¬
haps struck at Rome. In Bastica, the series of the Phoenician colony
Gades is especially worthy of note ; and in Tarraconensis, those of
the Greek colonies Emporiae and Rhoda. The money of the
fepanish island of Ebusus is of a remarkably Phoenician character.
(The principal books upon Celtiberian coins are M. de Saulcy’s
Essai* and two works by M. Boudard,7 the second of which, now in
^ Doctrina Numorum Veterum consoripta a Josepho Eckhel, 8 vols. 4to, Vind, 1792-1798.
3 wneraks teu Moneta. Vans Urbium Popubrum et Regum ordine geographico et chronobgico descripta, editio secunda, 4to, Flor. 1821
p • -Antiques Grecques et Romaines avec bur degre de rareti et bur estimation, par T. E. Mionnet 6 vols and l vol nlates 8vo
J5ZS1 S8 LlSEiLi ’lit1?7-, Th° <•—
penai. ine inaexes in the ninth volume of the Supplement are especially useful.
5 ■Numismata Hellenica, a Catabgue of Greek Coins collected by IF. M. Leake, 4to, London, 1854.
this fSSautL? waf n^oTCfull v ^cht.e\M^nzf»fs\und MVse dte.s ^terthums&c von August Bockh, Svo, Berl. 1838. It is unfortunate that
Don Y Yeazquez de Queino much Sfor,!?m d "'l ' the as tho hterary materials for his subject. From the researches of
V e JA, 2 ?.ueiP° 2 r ln.formatlon may be expected. The writer is indebted to him for much liberal assistance
t ('tassijication des Monnaies Autonomes de VEspagne, par F. de Saulcy, Svo, Metz, 1840.
P. A Bord^d, R^St^7rnogreTs)^e/2WS^°nna,W AutonQm(s d’Espagne, par P. A. Boudard, Svo, Paris, 1852 ■-Numumalique Iberienne, par
Greek
Coins.
Gaul.
NUMISMATICS.
361
progress of publication, promises to be a very complete treatise.
There is also an excellent sale-catalogue, by M. Gaillard, of a
large collection of Spanish coins, and coins current in Spain in
ancient and modern times, formed by Don Garcia de la Torre.1)
The coinage commonly called that of Gaul should rather be
classed to the Gauls, since it belongs to the-people more properly
than to the country; for, in addition to the money struck in the
territory called after them, it comprehends pieces issued by the
Gauls or other barbarians near Macedonia and Illyricum, and in
the south of Germany. The Gaulish coinage appears to have
generally extended over a period of less than four centuries; for the
oldest pieces, as far as we can ascertain, are those which follow the
types of Philip II. of Macedon, and the latest are the Roman of Augus¬
tus.2 Some of the Greek coins of Massilia may be of a time some¬
what anterior to that of Philip. There are two principal classes,—
the true Gaulish coinage, and that of Gaul under the Romans.
The ancient Gaulish coins are of gold (often greatly alloyed with
silver or copper), of silver, of copper, and of potin. They are
usually convex, and, in the case of the gold and potin, generally
thick and heavy. The earlier designs are copied from those of
Greek money, the gold and silver coins being imitations of the
staters and tetradrachms of Philip II. of Macedon. At a later
time the silver and copper coins of the Gaulish chiefs and tribes
chiefly follow the designs of Roman denarii of the commonwealth
and the beginning of the empire. The early class is uninscribed,
except when part or whole of the Greek legend is imitated; but
the later class bears Latin inscriptions. The art of both is bar¬
barous, although that of the later class is better than that of the-
earlier in this respect. There appear to be two monetary
systems, but they are not clearly made out; although it is most
reasonable to consider them to have been imitations, the one of
the Macedonian system, and the other of the Roman.
The money of the important Greek colony of Massilia forms a
separate class with that of the far less noted towns of Antipolis
and Beterra, in the same division of Gaul. It was issued during
at least three full centuries preceding the subjugation of the country
by the Romans. Its metals are silver and copper, gold coins not
having been discovered. The designs and inscriptions are purely
Greek, and the art, in the case of Massilia, is not unworthy of
an isolated colony. The denominations appear to follow the Attic
talent.
The proper Roman coinage of Gaul is, as far as is known, of
copper only, although there is silver as well as copper money of
some reguli protected by the Romans before the complete reduc¬
tion of the country. This Roman money is of a few colonise alone.
Like the contemporary Spanish pieces of the same class, the coins
are large and coarsely executed. On the obverses there are com¬
monly two heads,—either those of Augustus and Julius, or Augus¬
tus and Agrippa, back to back. The designs of the reverses appear
usually to relate directly or indirectly to the establishment of the
colonise. The inscriptions are in Latin, and the denominations
seem to follow the Roman system.
Some of the more important or interesting coins may be now
indicated in the order of their proper arrangement. Here we
deviate from the principles of those continental numismatists who
comprehend all the coins of Britain under Gaul. While admitting
the common general character of the money of the two countries,
and that some coins virtually identical may have been struck on
both sides of the Channel, we perceive a sufficient difference in the
majority of specimens found in England and on the Continent to
render a distinction necessary. Besides this, many of the coins found
in our own country bear names which are undoubtedly those of Bri¬
tish towns or chiefs, such as Verulamium and Cunobelinus. It is not
easy to define in a few words the main particulars in which early
Gaulish and British coins differ; but it may be said that the former
are generally in a style either somewhat better or much worse, espe¬
cially in the quality of grotesqueness, than that of the latter. Pass¬
ing by Gallia Aquitanica, as numismatically uninteresting, we may
notice in Gallia Narbonensis the coins of the Greek city of Massilia,
some of which, in the silver series, are of great beauty, although
the larger proportion are below the average of Greek money of
the period in their art. The Roman colonise Nemausus and Vienna,
in the same division of Gaul, are represented by copper coins of Greek
some interest. Those of the former place have for their type of Coins,
reverse a crocodile chained to a palm tree, in commemoration of i
the subjugation of Egypt by Julius or Augustus, and those of the
latter bear the device of a galley passing a castle. Among the
towns of Gallia Lugdunensis, Lugdunum (called on the coins of
the empire Oopia) may be-pointed out for its autonomous and im¬
perial money. Besides these coins of cities, there are many having
the names of Gaulish chiefs and tribes. Some of these are classed
with the cities, because the position of the territories they ruled or
occupied in one of the great divisions of Gaul is known; but others
cannot be so placed, and are therefore arranged alphabetically,
after the geographical series. Among the last are many uncertain
names, which may be of towns, tribes, or chiefs. Especial caution
is needed in any attempts to find the historical places of Gaulish
chiefs. The information to be derived from their coins is so meagre
that there is great danger of mistake in such endeavours. If, for
example, the name of a chief is read, and the position of his terri¬
tories ascertained, it does not follow that he is identical with one
bearing the same name, and holding the same territories, mentioned
by an ancient author; yet the contrary supposition is not un¬
natural.- At the end of the Gaulish series are placed the unin¬
scribed coins, some of which are among the earliest pieces issued
by the Gauls, while others are probably of various times in the
subsequent peridds of thCir native coinage until its very conclusion.
(The principal works upon the coins of Gaul and the Gauls are,—
the learned treatise of M. Lelewel ;3 the accurate catalogue raisonne
of Gaulish coins in the French Collection, by M. Duchalais ;4 * the
account of the money of Gallia Narbonensis, by M. de la Saussaye;6
the essay on that of the north-west of France, by M. Lambert ;6
and the papers of the Marquis de Lagoy on various Gaulish coins.7)
The ancient coinage of Britain is of the period before the com- Britain
plete subjugation of the country by the Romans. It is manifest
that it was derived from that of Gaul, but it is not possible to say
how long after the origin of the latter. There are no coins of
which we know the date until the time of the struggle with the
Romans. Taking into consideration the general persistence of the
types, and the regularity of the weight and fabric, of the whole gold
coinage, it is most reasonable to suppose that it was issued during
a period of about two centuries, closing cir. a.d. 43. It would
therefore appear that the Britons had a metal currency at the time of
Caesar’s invasion. The received text of Caesar’s Commentaries,
indeed, states the very contrary ; but Mr Hawkins has shown that
the manuscripts, however they diflfer in the passage in question,8
agree in relating that the use of either gold or copper money ob¬
tained among the Britons, and has traced the existing corruption
to the editors of the middle of the seventeenth century. He cites
a manuscript of about the tenth century, in the British Museum,
which reads as follows :—“ Utuntur aut sere aut nummo aureo aut
annulis ferreis ad certum pondus examinatis pro nummo a state¬
ment, as far as the money is concerned, entirely consistent with
numismatic evidence.9 The silver coinage, it must be observed, is
not known to have been issued until after Caesar’s time, no speci¬
mens which can be considered to be much anterior to Cunobe¬
linus, who is believed to have been contemporary with Augustus,
Tiberius, and Caligula, having been found. British coins are pro¬
perly of but one class, since there is no money but that of the
natives. The metals used are gold, silver, copper, and potin.
The coins greatly resemble those of Gaul in form and general ap¬
pearance, as already noticed. They are thick and convex, the gold
being the most remarkable for their thickness. The types of the gold
coins are taken from those of the Gaulish in the same metal; the
obverses bearing some device based on a degraded form of the head
of Hercules on the money of Philip II., which has become a pattern,
or even an ear of corn; while the reverses have a horse, with a
wheel or other symbols, standing in like manner for the chariot on
the Macedonian pieces. The inscriptions are always in Latin. The
art of the coins is barbarous, though it often displays a kind of con¬
ventional neatness of execution. The monetary system appears to
be the same as that of the earlier native Gaulish money.
In arranging the British series, we place first coins bearing the
names of known princes or towns ; then those bearing unknown
1 Description des Monnaies Espagnoles et des Monnaies Etrangeres qui ont eu cows en Espagne, &c., par Joseph Gaillard, 4to, Madrid, 1852.
a Strabo (lib. iv., cap. iii.), as Eckhel notices (Doct. Num., vol. i., p. 65), speaking of his own time,—that is, of about the close of the reign of
Augustus and the beginning of that of Tiberius,—mentions the striking of gold and silver money by the Roman prefects of Lugdunum. No coins,
however, have been found which have the head of any one later than Augustus ; and the known Roman imperial money of Gaul is of copper alone.
3 Etudes Numismatiques et Archtologiques, par Joachim Lelewel, ler vol., Type Gaulois ou Celtique, 8vo, Bruxelles, 1841 (with a volume of plates).
4 Description des Medailles Gaulloises faisantpartie des Collections de la Bibiiotheque Royale, par Adolphe Duchalais, 8vo, Paris, 1846.
8 NumismaUque de la Gaule Narbonnaise, par L. de la Saussaye, 4to, Paris, 1844.
6 Essai sur la Numismatique Gauloise du Nord-Quest de la France, par Ed. Lambert, 4to, Paris, 1844.
7 Description de Quelques Medailles inedites de Massilia, &c., par M. le Marquis de Lagoy, 4to, Aix, 1834 ; Notice sur VAttribution de Quelques Me*
dailies des Gaules, &c., 1837 ; Melanges de Numismatique, &c., 1845 ; Essai de Monographic d'une Serie de Medailles Gauloises d’argent, &c., 1847.
® Bell. Gall., lib. v., cap. 12. 9 Silver Coins of England, pp. 8, 9.
VOL. xvr. 2 z
362
NUMISMATICS.
Greek names; and last, those which are uninscribed. Coins in the second
Coins, division may be constantly transferred to the first by the careful
- v J observation of the places of their finding. The coins of the third
division are probably the oldest. They occupy in type a middle
place between the coins of Gaul of the same kind and the earliest
inscribed British coins of which the date is known, and which are
of about the time of Julius Caesar or Augustus. There are no in¬
scribed coins which can be referred with certainty to any chief
mentioned by Caesar. The earliest of known date are of Tascio-
vanus or Tasciovans, the father of Cunobeiinus. He must have
reigned about the time of Augustus, for we cannot place him earlier,
since one of his silver coins shows a manifest imitation of a type of
denarii of that emperor in its obverse and reverse; nor can we
suppose his reign to have extended much later, since he was the
grandfather of the famous Caractacus. The coins of Cunobeiinus,
the son of Tasciovanus, and Shakspeare’s Cymbeline, are the most
interesting in the British series. He is supposed to have been a
contemporary of Augustus, Tiberius, and Caligula, an opinion which
cannot be far wrong, since he was the father of Caractacus, and to
have ruled over a territory extending from the Severn to the east
coast, and comprising the country of the Cateuchlani, Trinobantes,
and Dobuni.1 His coins are of gold, silver, and copper; the gold
pieces following the old barbarous types, with some improve¬
ment in execution ; and the silver and copper having types de¬
rived from those of Roman coins, or at least showing Roman
influence. They have the names of the king and his father, both
generally abbreviated, and sometimes those of two towns where they
were struck,—Camulodunum, his capital, probably represented by
Maldon in Essex, and Verulamium or Verulam. There are coins
bearing the inscriptions SEGO and TASC, which have been ascribed
to the Segonax mentioned by Caesar ;2 but Mr Evans assigns them,
with more reason, to the tribe of the Segontiaci. This tribe he sup¬
poses to have been ruled by a chief called Epaticcus, known only
by his coins, whom he conjectures to have been a son of Tascio¬
vanus, and on his death to have shared his kingdom with Cunobe¬
iinus. Other coins have been ascribed to Boadicea, because they
bear the inscription BODVO ; but this must be considered to be a
purely conjectural attribution.
(There is no general account of British coins which can be called
complete. This is partly owing to the circumstance that their
proper explanation has been the result of recent inquiries; but it
is to be hoped that this deficiency will soon be supplied. The
works of Ruding3 and Hawkins4 give a concise notice of these
coins; there is an essay on those of Cunobeiinus by the Marquis
De Lagoy ;5 and the Numismatic Chronicle contains several most im¬
portant papers on British money by Mr Evans.6)
]v> The ancient coins of Italy occupy the next place in Eckhel’s
arrangement. They appear to have been struck during a period
of more than 500 years, the oldest being probably of the beginning
of the sixth century B.C., and the latest somewhat anterior to the
time of Julius Caesar. The larger number, however, are of the
age before the great extension of Roman power, which soon led
to the use of Roman money almost throughout Italy. There are
two great classes, which may be called the proper Italian and the
Graeco-Italian ; but many coins cannot be referred to either, since
they present peculiarities of both. The proper Italian coins are
of gold, silver, and copper. Of these, the gold coins are extremely
rare, and can never have been struck in any large numbers. The
silver are comparatively common, but the copper are very numerous
and characteristic. Some of the silver coins have an incuse de¬
vice on the reverse, which almost always is a repetition of that on
the obverse : these are of Greek cities, but their fabric is nearly
peculiar to Italy. There are also a few with a design on the ob¬
verse and a perfectly plain reverse. The most remarkable copper
coins of this class are of the kind now called ces grave, some of which
must be considered to be the early proper coinage of Rome, although
others are known to have been struck by other Italian cities. These ’ Greek
are very thick coins, some of which are of great size, while more have Coins,
a rude appearance. The designs of the Italian coins are generally,
if not always, of Greek origin, although the influence of the native "
mythology may be sometimes traced. The inscriptions are in Latin
or Oscan, and follow a native orthography: sometimes on the earlier
coins they are retrograde. The art of this class is generally poor,
or even barbarous. The denominations appear to be Greek, ex¬
cept in the case of the copper money, which follows a native sys¬
tem. Of this system, which we have already noticed, the early
proper Roman coins afford the best known examples. The Graeco-
Italian coins are of gold, silver, and copper. The silver and copper
are very common, and the gold comparatively so, although struck
by few states or cities. In form the silver and copper coins are
thicker than those of Greece of the same period, but there is not
the same difference in the gold. The designs are of Greek origin,
although here, as in the proper Italian coins, but less markedly,
can native influence be detected. This influence is evident in the
frequent occurrence of types symbolically representing rivers,
showing a bias towards the old nature-worship ; and still more in
the use of Latin inscriptions, with half-Etruscan forms of the letters
on coins otherwise purely Greek. Of the best art of ancient Italian
money we have already spoken, and we shall have occasion to men¬
tion some of its most beautiful examples. The denominations of the
gold coins are unquestionably derived from those of Greece, ac¬
cording to the weight of the Attic talent, the heaviest being a
stater of that talent. The lower denominations require to be care¬
fully studied before they can be satisfactorily explained. The
silver denominations are perfectly Greek, and follow the Attic
talent: there are few tetradrachms, the didrachms are extremely
common, and smaller denominations are usually not rare. \\re
thus learn that the silver currency was chiefly of didrachms, smaller
pieces being less used, and larger ones scarcely used at all.7
Commencing in the north of Italy, the first coins that strike us
are those of Populonia in Etruria. The silver money of this place
is especially remarkable for being generally of a peculiar fabric, al¬
ready noticed, in which the reverse is left perfectly plain. In Um¬
bria we may notice the ms grave of Tudor, and in Picenum that of
Asculum and Hadria together,8 and that of Hadria alone. In Latium
would be placed the early coinage of Rome, were it not included in
the separate class of Roman money, with the exception of the pieces
issued by the Campanian towns with the name of the city. In the
province of Samnium we observe a very remarkable series of coins
issued during the Social or Marsic War by the Italian states confede¬
rate against Rome. They rose to obtain the rights of Roman citizen¬
ship, but their league was gradually broken by the conclusion of se¬
parate treaties by the senate with individual states. The earliest
common reverse-type of their coins represents eight persons, who
are probably delegates of the eight states which composed the ori¬
ginal league, and certainly stand for those states, taking an oath
over a sacrificial pig. The series, as it continues, commemorates
the gradual violation of this engagement. The eight persons are
reduced to six, the six to four, and the four to two. That these
changes should be represented is the more remarkable, if we recol¬
lect that the war lasted but three years, from B.C. 90 to 88 inclusive.
Some of the coins have Oscan, and others Latin, inscriptions.
In the money of Campania we observe fine Greek work, com¬
bined, in some cases, with inscriptions showing an Italian ortho¬
graphy and form of letters. The coins of Cales afford examples of
good art in both silver and copper; their inscription is C ALENO,
apparently a genitive plural form. Those of Cumm are generally of
coarse design and execution ; among them are some of an early
time. The money of Hyria comprises didrachms of good work of
the best period of art, and bearing very archaic retrograde inscrip¬
tions, as ANIRY. Hleapolis, the modern Naples, is represented by
an extensive series, including fine silver coins, particularly di-
1 Ruding’s Annals of the Coinage of Great Britain, 3d ed., vol. i., p. 98. 3 Bell. Gall., lib. v., cap. 22.
8 Annals of the Coinage, &c., p.97, etseq. 4 Silver Coins of England, p. 8, et seq.
6 Essai sur les Medailles Antiques de Cunobeiinus, Roi de la Grande-Bretagne, &c., par M. le Marquis de Lagoy, 4to, Aix, 1826.
8 “ On the Date of British Coins,” Numismatic Chronicle, vol. xii., p. 127; “ On the British Coins attributed to Dubnovellaunus,” vol. xiv.,
p. 79 ; “ Remarks on ‘ The Coins of Cunobeline and of the Ancient Britons,’ by the Rev. Beale Poste,” vol. xiv., p. 126 ; “ On some Rare and
Unpublished British Coins,” vol. xvi., p. 80; “On a New Type in Silver of Dubnovellaunus,” vol. xvi., p. 176; “On a Method of Casting
Coins in use among the Ancient Britons,” vol. xvii., p. 18; “ On the Coins of Cunobeline with the legend Tasciovani F.,” vol. xviii., p. 36 ; “ On
some Rare and Unpublished Ancient British Coins,” vol. xviii., p. 44 ; “ On the Attribution of certain Ancient British Coins to Addedomarus,”
vol. xviii., p. 155 ; “ Errors respecting the Coinage of the Ancient Celtic Kings of Britain,” vol. xviii., p. 161; “ On some Unpublished Types of
Ancient British Coins,” vol. xix., p. 64 ; “ On a Gold Coin of Epaticcus ” (in the press).
_ 7 We may hence infer the wealth of the population of Italy before the Roman domination, and the consequent high price of the necessaries of
life. In Greece, on the other hand, except at the great towns, such as Corinth and Athens, we notice that the current money is in
most places mainly of small denominations. The regal coinages are of course exceptions to this rule. The inhabitants of Greece were, however,
less attentive to their copper coinage than those of Italy and Sicily, which may partly explain their having struck very small silver coins. The
Athenians had no copper coinage, or one of a merely arbitrary value, when they issued a large number of the low denominations of silver money;
but after they had struck copper coins of a real value, their smallest silver pieces were coined in a much less quantity.
* When the names or symbols of two or more towns appear on a coin, it is understood to commemorate an alliance, called on the Greek imperial
money, ‘O/tovoiK,
NUMISMATICS
Greek drachms, and copper coins as excellent in design, and usually coated
Coins, with the beautiful blue or green patina produced by the soil of the
v ' / neighbourhood. The coinage of the great Greek cities of Italy may
^ 1 * be considered to begin with Neapolis, though that of the Italian
Italy. cities does not here cease. In Numismatics it is impossible to
separate money according to a strictly geographical or historical
order. The earliest coins sanctioned by the Roman state are
classed as uncertain coins of Campania. Of these we shall speak in
treating of Roman money, since to it they historically belong, al¬
though most of them are purely Greek in their art, and they are all
rightly considered to be of the Greek class. In Calabria, Tarentum
affords the largest series of any city of Italy, and one which is, for
extent and beauty combined, second alone to that of Syracuse in all
the West. The gold coins are extremely fine, and those of silver,
which are principally didrachms, are interesting on account of the
early style of some, and the exquisite work of others, the latter being
of the best period. The usual types of the didrachms are, on the
obverse Taras, son of Neptune and founder of the city, carried by
a dolphin, and on the reverse a horseman, who, as we shall show in
speaking of the coins of Sicily, appears to represent a victor in the
horse-race at the Olympic games. The copper coins are few, and
not remarkable. The money of the cities of Lucania is very
interesting. Among the coins of Heraclea are didrachms of ex¬
quisite work, having on the obverse a head of Pallas, with the
monster Scylla on the helmet, and on the reverse Hercules
strangling the Nemean lion, a design of great vigour, and showing
perfect anatomical knowledge. The series of Metapontum, or,
to follow the Greek orthography, Metapontium, stands next in
its silver to that of Tarentum in extent, and is as beautiful in its
finest coins, the subjects of which are even better adapted for that
delicate treatment in which the Italian and Sicilian artists espe¬
cially excelled. The great majority of these coins are didrachms,
although the tetradrachm has been discovered. They commence
at an early time with didrachms of a class that we have already
mentioned as almost peculiar to Italy. The type of the obverse, an
ear of bearded wheat, as a symbol of Proserpine, is repeated on the
reverse, but is there incuse instead of being in relief. The didrachms
of the best period have on the obverse the head of Proserpine, or
that of some other divinity, and on the reverse the ear of bearded
wheat. Some of these are of extreme beauty. Of Posidonia, after¬
wards called Psestum, there are archaic coins of the incuse class
just mentioned, with the type of Neptune striking with his trident.
The famous Sybaris, afterwards called Thurium, is represented,
under its first name, by early didrachms with incuse, reverses, pro¬
bably of the sixth century b.c. ; and, under its second name, by a
very fine series of silver coins of about 400 B.C. Sybaris having
been twice overthrown by the Crotonians, the new city Thurium was
founded in its stead by a colony from Athens, B.C. 444. The later
coins are chiefly didrachms, but there are not a few tetradrachms.
Examples of both denominations are of very fine work. Some of
the tetradrachms are superior in the quality of boldness, which is rare
in Italy and Sicily, and equal in execution to any other coins of
those countries. They are nearest, though yet inferior, to the
finest coins of Greece and Asia. On the obverse they have the
head of Pallas, with Scylla on the helmet, and on the reverse ahull
butting.1 Among the coins of Velia, which are principally di¬
drachms, we notice many of beautiful work. Their common re¬
verse-type, a lion seizing a stag, carries us to Asia, and reminds
us that this town owed its origin to a colony of the Phocaeans of
Ionia, whose native place was taken by the Persians. This and
similar types are almost wholly found on Asiatic coins, particularly
those issued under Persian rule. They are evidently adopted from
eastern symbolism, but with a change of meaning: the original
signification seems to have been the strength of regal power, the
later one, the strength of a divinity, probably always Hercules. It
should be remembered that the difference of feeling among the
easterns and the Greeks as to the kingly dignity would render a
change necessary to preserve the religious meaning of these types.
Passing on to the province of the Bruttii, we observe the coinage of
that people, or of the province in general, to be fine in the three
363
metals, though not of the best Italian style, the earliest pieces being Greek
probably not anterior to the time of Pyrrhus, K:ng of Epirus. The Coins,
money of Caulonia comprises early didrachms of the incuse class, i t
with a type not yet satisfactorily explained, representing some v
divinity. The town of Croton is represented by a series of much
interest. It commences with incuse didrachms of an early period.
Some didrachms and smaller coins of a time somewhat later are
remarkable for having on the reverse, instead of a repetition of the
tripod, which is the type of the obverse, an incuse flying eagle.
The didrachms of the period of good art are extremely beautiful.
Two of their types are of especial interest; one represents Belle-
rophon on Pegasus, slaying the Chimsera; and the other portrays,
on either side of the tripod, which is the most common type of
the place, Apollo drawing his bow, and the serpent Python which
he is about to destroy. The coin last mentioned exhibits very ad¬
mirable work. The money of the Locri Epizephyrii is fine, but
not of an early period : it probably commences just after the time
of Pyrrhus. The town of Pandosia is represented by rare silver coins
of great beauty. The series of Rhegium comprehends archaic tetra¬
drachms, and others, as well as didrachms and copper pieces, of the
best time, and of fine design and execution. The most interesting of
these coins are some of the earliest. They are tetradrachms, having
on the obverse a victor in a biga, and on the reverse a hare running.
This is the type of tetradrachms of Messana of the same period so
similar in work to these that theyr can only be distinguished from
them with certainty by their inscription. The type ceases at Rhe¬
gium, but continues at Messana, and we perceive by the later coins
of that place that the chariot is undoubtedly one drawn by two
mules (unfivn)? Aristotle, cited by Pollux, relates that Anaxilaus
of Rhegium, having introduced hares into Sicily, and having con¬
quered in the chariot-race of mules at the Olympic games, placed
on the money of the people of Rhegium a mule-chariot and a hare.3
The types relating to victories in chariot-races always refer to
the success at the Olympic games of a citizen or tyrant of the place
which struck the coin, as we shall be able to show. The pieces of
Rhegium and Messana in question can only relate to a contest dur¬
ing the period at which the chariot-race of mules prevailed, that is,
during the years from B.c. 500 to 448, inclusive. The earlier coins
of Messana, and all of Rhegium of this type, must also be of a time
when the two towns were under a united government. In the
case of Messana, the coins follow a Samian influence, if not domi¬
nation, since there is a piece of that town with the Samian types,
which immediately precedes them.4 5 These particulars all point to
the time of Anaxilaus, tyrant of Rhegium, who first invited the
Samians perfidiously to seize Messana, then called Zancle, about
B.C. 494, and afterwards expelled them, and ruled the two cities
until his death. His reign, reckoned from his accession at Rhe¬
gium, probably lasted from B.C. 494 to 476. This period cor¬
responds to the style of the coins, which would point of itself to
the earliest part of the fifth century B.C.6 We may therefore con¬
sider that these coins of Rhegium, and the coins of Messana of the
same time, bearing the same types, were issued by Anaxilaus after
his victory at the Olympic games, of which Simonides sang
the triumphal ode.® While we accept the explanation which
Aristotle gives of the chariot, we cannot take that of the hare,
since there is nothing the least resembling it in Greek numis¬
matics. We would rather consider the latter type to be a relic of
the old nature-worship, which was especially prevalent in Italy and
Sicily, but of which the Greeks in Aristotle’s time had but an in¬
distinct knowledge. We will conclude this notice of ancient coins
of Italy with those of Terina, of which the didrachms are of ex¬
treme beauty and delicacy. On the obverse they bear the head of
a female divinity, called on a copper piece of the same place Pan-
dina; and on the reverse, the figure of a local genius, or of the
same divinity, usually, but mot always, winged. In one case, the
figure is represented filling a jar at a fountain issuing from a lion’s
head in a wall, and in another, resting seated on a jar, from which
flows water; and it is worthy of note that, in the latter type, a
flower springs up near the mouth of the jar. Pandina (IlavSnva) is
probably a name of Hecate.
1 It has been suggested that the name Thurium, “impetuous ” or “ warlike,” might be indicated by the bull, as a speaking type ; but it is far more
consistent with correct criticism to suppose that the latter refers to the rushing forth of a fountain, or rapid course of a river; a river, as we have
seen is frequently represented as a bull, and a fountain might be with equal appropriateness.
3 The dvwn of the Olympic games was a chariot drawn by mules.
A»«|iXa; o P»y7yo;) ouans iyovou rii; lixihitz; r'tus XKywuv, o Si, ilffayayuv « opov Si xai ,0\vp.?riot. wxjja'af aWvj), V*) yoa.iffp.Kri ruv
'VnyUuo lyiruvcoffw ivrivnv *al Xayav. (Aristot. ap. Poll., V. 75.)
4 There are also coins of Rhegium with the Samian types, which were probably struck at the same period; whence it is reasonable to suppose
that some of the Samians settled at Rhegium at the time of the taking of Zancle.
5 The Syracusan decadrachms, called damaretia, which were struck in one of the three years B.C. 480-478, are certainly of better art than these
coins of Rhegium and Messana; but this might be owing to the wealth and importance of Syracuse.
6 Millingen’s excellent paper “ On the Date of some of the Coins of Zancle or Messana,” in the Transactions of the JR* Soc. Lit., vol.i., part ii., P»
93 et seq., is here our chief authority.
364
NUMISMATICS.
Greek (The most useful works on ancient Italian coins are Carelli’s
Coins, plates,1 the account of the iEs Grave of the Kircherian Museum
by MM. March! and Tessieri,2 and Millingen’s Considerations.3)
The coins of Sicily properly follow those of Italy. They ap¬
pear to have been issued during a period of about six centuries or
a little more. The oldest cannot be carried further back than the
commencement of the sixth century B.C., and the latest are Roman
colonial pieces of the reign of Tiberius. The earliest coins are
silver; the gold money commences with the period of the best art
in Sicily, but is not common during the earlier part of that time ;
and the copper coinage probably begins during the fifth century B.C.
The gold and the silver money cease at the subjugation of the
island to Rome; but the copper continues later, some having been
issued under the Romans. The latest coins are Greek imperial of
Segesta and Roman colonial of Agrigentum, struck in each case
under Augustus, and Roman colonial of Panormus, struck under Ti¬
berius. In form the silver and copper pieces are compact and thick.
The types of Sicilian coins most resemble those of coins of
Italy, especially of the south. They show the same partiality for
representations of rivers, which are not unfrequently accompanied
by their names. The most common and important device on the
coins of the great towns, usually occurring on the reverse, and
sometimes on the obverse, of the larger silver pieces, decadrachms of
Syracuse, and tetradrachms and didrachms of that and other places,
and on the reverse of some of the gold coins of Syracuse and its
kings, represents a victor in a chariot-race. Its exact meaning
never having been properly determined, we must give some space
to its consideration. The same device, and others that belong to
its class, occur on coins of cities out of Sicily; but as they are not
so closely related to the Sicilian representation as the various
types of that representation are to one another, we will not at
present notice them. This device is found on coins of the Sicilian
cities of Agrigentum, Camarina, Catana, Gela, Himera, Leontini,
Messana, as well as Rhegium in Italy, with the same types as
Messana, Segesta, Selinus, and Syracuse, and on coins of kings of
the last town. The earliest and latest of these, of which the dates
are most nearly known, were struck respectively in one of the
years B.C. 480-478, and during the reign of Hiero II., King of
Syracuse, B.C. 275-216. There are several types, which are of two
classes. The first and more ancientclass comprises all theearly coins
with this device, and closes at the commencement of the period of
the best art, about B.C. 430 ; it is distinguished by the victor being
a man. The second class extends through the periods of the best
art, and of decline, to the time of the latest coin with the device;
in it the victor is a goddess, and latterly usually Victory. On coins
of one city, Selinus,, of both classes, Apollo and Diana are repre¬
sented together in the car; in the older ones Diana drives, in the
later Apollo; and on tetradrachms of one type of Syracuse, a
winged male genius acts as charioteer. The oldest coins of the
first class generally have the type of a chariot drawn by two horses;
others have a chariot drawn by two mules; and there are also trigse
and quadrigae of horses. The later coins of the same class have
almost always a quadriga of horses. On the earlier pieces the
beasts are usually represented in slow action, probably through the
unskilfulness of the artists; but on the later ones they are gene-
rally in rapid course. One of the metae (vutr/rKi) is sometimes seen
beyond the chariot, showing that the critical time of the race is
intended, when the driver had to avoid disaster by the adroitness
with which he turned.4 Victory hovers above, with a wreath,
about to crown the charioteer, or as if intending to crown the
horses. Beneath, in the exergue, on the later coins, we notice
symbols, usually dolphins or other marine animals, or objects
proper to the sea. On the coins of the second class, the chariot
is always a quadriga, either in rapid course, or proceeding slowly
as if in triumph. The place of the charioteer is taken by
a goddess, as already mentioned, who is either a divinity of the
place, as Proserpine at Syracuse and Segesta, and Minerva at
Gamarina, or \ ictory ; and, except in the last case, Victory
hovers above with a wreath, about to crown the victor. As we
have already mentioned, on coins of Selinus, Apollo and Diana are
represented in the car together, the former driving on those of this
class; and on coins of Syracuse, a winged male genius is charioteer :
these are exceptional examples. In the exergue are either marine
objects or prizes, but not the wreath, with sometimes at Syracuse
the inscription A0AA, leaving no doubt as to their meaning. These
prizes are a suit of armour on coins of Syracuse, and two jars on
those of Camarina.
These types plainly refer to victories in the chariot-races of public
games which had reflected honour upon the great towns of Sicily. Greek
From the marine symbols, we should infer that they were cele- Coins,
brated on the sea-shore, or were in some manner connected with
the sea. The religious character of the types of Greek coins shows
that these must have been sacred games; and the substitution of Slcily.
divinities for the charioteers proves that they were held in the
highest reverence. In the Iliad, when the divinities personally
assist the heroes, as especially where Minerva acts as charioteer to
Diomed, it is only on some occasion of the greatest importance, in
accordance with the Horatian maxim. Usually they aid their
favourites less directly, as at the games at the funeral of Patroclus,
where the poet makes Eumelus about to succeed through the help
of Apollo, until Minerva secures the victory for Diomed. In both
cases the idea is the same as that intended to be conveyed by the
later types of the coins. It might be contended that games held in
such high honour could scarcely have been local celebrations at the
towns on the money of which they are commemorated ; but there is
direct evidence to show that they were not such. One of the metm
is represented on coins of Catana, of about B.C. 380, and on others of
Gela, of about fifty years earlier, and is in each case an Ionic column,6
although the treatment of the chariot and the general style is far
different. The types, therefore, refer to chariot-races of four differ¬
ent kinds, celebrated at games held in the highest reverence. To
no games will these particulars so well apply as to the Olympic.
They were the most revered and famous of all the Greek games,
being the chief of the four called sacred; and at them, during the
periods at which the various types first occur, were held races of
the very four kinds which they represent, the chariot-race of mules
having lasted, as previously noticed, only fifty-three years, a period
including that during which the first coin relating to such a contest
■was struck. A victory at the Olympic games was held to be no
less glorious to the city of the victor than to himself. It is probable,
indeed, that the highest honours were paid to the victor in the foot¬
race, after whom the Olympiad was distinguished; but there is no
doubt that success in other, contests, and especially in the chariot-
race, was considered as not much less glorious. Nothing, therefore,
could be more proper than the commemoration on coins of victories
in the Olympic chariot-race; and we have only to inquire whether
the cities of Sicily with types relating to such races were success¬
fully engaged in that contest. The remaining odes of Pindar,
which are of the very period of the earlier of the coins we are con¬
sidering, give no doubtful answer. Fourteen of these odes relate
to the Olympic games, and of these, again, six celebrate success in
chariot-races, every one of which was gained by a Sicilian,—two by
an Agrigentine, two by a Camarinman, and two by Syracusans,—ail
of cities which struck coins with the chariot-type. If we look at
the lists which have been made of victors in the Olympic games
mentioned by ancient writers, we perceive that not only these cities,
but others of Sicily of which the coins have chariot-types, were suc¬
cessful in the Olympic chariot-race or at other contests of those games.
If any doubt remained as to the correctness of this explanation,
it would be removed by the direct statement of Aristotle, already
noticed, that Anaxilaus, tyrant of Rhegium, placed the type of a
mule-chariot on the coins of that place when he had been victo¬
rious at the Olympic games; and that of Plutarch, that Philip II.
of Macedon commemorated his success in the Olympic chariot-race
by placing the representation of a chariot on his money. The
former story we have seen to be confirmed by coins of Rhegium and
Messana, and the latter is shown to be correct by the representation,
on the reverse of Philip’s gold pieces, or staters, of a victorious
biga, a type not seen on the coins of earlier kings of Macedon.
This explanation of the chariot-type in the case of Philip’s
staters leads us to the discovery of the true meaning of a kindred
device, occurring on his coins and those of several Greek cities.
Philip is also related to have gained the prize in the horse-race at
the Olympic games; and, accordingly, the common reverse-type
of his largest silver coins, which are tetradrachms, represents a
horseman holding a palm. The palm is not the only indication
that a race is here referred to; for if we compare this type with the
less common one representing a mounted traveller, probably some
hero, we observe that the rider in the former case is smaller than
in the latter, and the horse perhaps larger. There can, therefore,
be no doubt that Philip commemorated his victory in the horse¬
race, as he did that in the chariot-race, on his coins. This result
leads us to examine the common reverse-device of the didrachms of
Tarentum, which represents a horseman, naked or armed, generally
either crowned or about to be crowned with a wreath by Victory,
flying above him, or crowning himself, or crowning his horse.
a Franeisci Carellii Numorum Italice Veteris Tabulas ccii., edidit Cmlestinus Cavedonius, 4to, Leips. 1850 (best ed.).
3 tJ Aes Crave del Museo Kircheriano ovvero U Monete Primitive de'Popoli dell' Italia Media [Giuseppe March! e Pietro Tessieril, Roma, 1839.
4 townderations sur la Aumismatique de VAncienne Italie, par James Millingen, 8vo, Flor. 1841. Suppl. 1844.
boph., Afertr. 720-722 and 743-748. The whole of this description, the locus classicus on the Greek chariot-races, deserves careful study in con*
nection with the coins, although it must be remembered that it relates to the Pythian games. Comp. Hor. Carm., lib. i., od. i. 3-6.
It would seem, from the description of Sophocles (Electr., loc. cit.), that the metse at the Pythian games were objects like posts, perhaps columns.
NUMISMATICS.
365
Greek
Coins.
The importance of the horse is shown not alone by his being crowned
by the rider ; in another type he is embraced, or at least welcomed,
by Victory standing to receive him, as if after a race; and again,
in another, a small figure, apparently a genius, raises one of his
fore-feet and examines the hoof, as if to extract a stone. Another
type shows two horses, the rider of one of which leads the other.
In the exergue of these coins there are symbols, often of a marine
character All these representations evidently relate to games
held in high honour, at which the horse-races were of two kinds,
—one the usual contest with single horses, the other that at
which every rider had two horses, one of which he rode while
leading the other. There must also have been some connection
with the sea. Here, as in the case of the chariot-race, the parti¬
culars entirely agree with the Olympic games, at which there were
the two kinds of horse-races represented—the common one, and that
with two horses. As if to remove all doubt, a similar type to those
of Tarentum occurs on the coins of Syracuse and Leontini smaller
than the tetradrachms. In the case of the former town, a rider is re¬
presented on the reverse of didrachms, drachms, and hemidrachms,
and in that of the latter, of didrachms and drachms; in each case of
the earlier period. In one of the Syracusan examples, Victory flies
above the horseman, while in the exergue there is a marine monster,
two particulars which complete the parallel with some examples
of the chariot-type on coins of the same place. If the explanation
of the chariot-type be correct, it cannot be doubted, especially when
we recollect the minute agreement in the instance last mentioned,
that the similar type which we are considering must be explained
in the same manner. It should, moreover, be borne in mind that
the two types occur in Philip’s coinage, with strong evidence of
their meaning, and that it is therefore probable that they have the
same signification on the other coins mentioned above; in each
case referring to two kinds of contests at the Olympic games. The
gold coins of Gyrene, which we have not yet mentioned, have the
two types. They present no difficulty. The chariot is always a
quadriga, bearing in the earlier examples a figure seeming to
represent a common charioteer, but in the later, a Victory driving.
The horseman has, in one instance, the traveller’s hat, or causia,
hanging from his neck behind; and here he might possibly be a
hero, as on coins of Macedonian kings. As in the case of the
Sicilian cities, we find from ancient writers that Gyrene was suc¬
cessful at the Olympic games. It is probable that, at a compara¬
tively late period, perhaps from the early part of the third century
B.C., these types lost their proper meaning, and were no longer
used with reference to any victory of the city or king issuing the
coins bearing them, but were copied in a careless manner from the
earlier coinage, or continued with a kind of heraldic intention.
Some objections which are likely to occur to any one considering
this question may be here noticed. A similar explanation of the
chariot-types was offered by the older writers, and has been aban¬
doned by numismatists, except in the case of Philip’s staters.
Why, it may be asked, has their explanation fallen to the ground
if it be near the truth? We reply, because it was founded on bad
criticism, and uncritically developed. It is no matter for surprise
that the earlier numismatists should have supposed that these types
referred to famous games, for they were always striving to dis¬
cover some reference to whatever was celebrated in ancient times.
Thus far they happened to be right; but the next step led them into
error, for, with their accustomed carelessness in such matters, they
fixed in any case upon that one of the four sacred games to which
the character of a particular device seemed at first sight to point.
Such mere guesses, supported by no sound reasoning, were often
necessarily erroneous, and the explanation fell into contempt.
Nothing but a knowledge of the religious meaning of the types of
Greek coins, and of the appropriateness of all their details, could
establish a correct explanation. Another objection wears at first
sight a more serious aspect. It seems unreasonable that the
Olympic games should be commemorated on coins struck in Sicily,
in Italy, in Macedonia, and in the Cyrenaica, and not on coins of
Greece Proper. We must remember, however, that an Olympic
triumph would have been esteemed of far more importance in
remote places than those near the scene. The difficulties of the
voyage or journey, the long absence of the competitors, and their
great expenses, would, in the case of distant cities, forbid any but
the most wealthy from engaging in the contest, and raise public
expectation to the highest pitch while expecting the event. These
conditions would, indeed, scarcely be those of the kings of Macedon ;
but they had a special motive for feeling pride in an Olympic suc¬
cess : their country was out of the limits of Hellas, and as none
but Greeks could join in the great contest, it was only by proving
a Greek ancestry that they obtained, with difficulty, this privilege.
The Greeks of Italy, of Sicily, and of Africa, may have felt a
similar pride in being able to contend, while their neighbours,
often not only little inferior to them in civilization, but far excel- Greek
ling them in power, were rigorously excluded. Goins.
In adopting the explanation given above of two classes of types v *
of Greek coins, we must be careful to avoid an error into which the v
earlier writers fell. It would be natural to suppose that the coins Sicily,
bearing these types celebrate directly certain victories, or even vic¬
tors, at the Olympic games, but the principles which regulated the
choice of types forbid such a conclusion, while the coins present no
direct indications of any relation to individual persons, but in the
later period the very contrary. The types were first adopted on
occasions at which the city or sovereign acquired distinction at the
Olympic games, but not wnth the intention of a direct historical or
■personal reference, although there is necessarily such reference of an
indirect character. The nature of the difference is well explained
by the absence, as far as we know, of any types referring to the foot¬
race, the successful contender in which was the especial Olympic
victor, or to other contests besides the horse-race and chariot-race.
In these other contests the victor was personally engaged, whereas
in the chariot-race and horse-race this was not necessarily the case,
and apparently very unusual; indeed, as to the latter, the evident
light weight of the riders represented on the coins proves that, at
the period to which they belong, the owners could not have gene¬
rally ridden their horses. The victors could not, therefore, be di¬
rectly commemorated by these types. It would be interesting to
pursue this inquiry, but we cannot do so in the present article. We
would, however, in conclusion, caution students against hastily sup¬
posing some apparently similar types to have the meaning of those
we have explained. Investigations of this kind must be prosecuted
with the utmost care, and coins or types must never be considered
singly, except after every effort has been made to gain the illustra¬
tive light afforded by similar examples.
The inscriptions of Sicilian coins, particularly the older, are in¬
teresting with respect to palaeography and for their orthography.
We may especially point out the inscription AKPATANTOS, written
in the boustrophedon manner on tetradi achms of Agrigenturn of the
best period. Other instances will be mentioned when we speak of the
coinage of the principal towns. We have already noticed the art
of Sicilian coins, which may be regarded as on the whole more
typical of the western school than that of the coins of Italy. The
denominations are, in the case of gold, the same as those of Italy,
—Greek in origin, though not wholly identical with any Greek sys¬
tem ; in the case of the silver, purely Greek; andin thatof the copper,
Italian. The silver coins are of very heavy Attic weight, excepting
only those of Zancle before it was called Messana, and the earliest
of ilimera, both which follow the ^Eginetan system. The princi¬
pal silver coin is the tetradrachm, which takes the place of the
didrachm of Italy. Although the copper money is adjusted to the na¬
tive Italian system, its art, as with the rest of the coinage, is Greek.
The first coins to be noticed in the series of Sicily are those of
Agrigentum. They include gold as well as silver pieces of the
period of good art. The most remarkable of the silver are tetra¬
drachms, some of which have on the obverse two eagles devouring
a hare, and on the reverse a successful chariot at the Olympic
games driven by Victory; while others, as well as didrachms,have on
the obverse an eagle standing, and on the reverse a crab. The cop¬
per coins are on the Italian system: many of them are of the good pe¬
riod, and of good work. The type most worthy of note is the headof a
river-god, with the name Acragas, which was that of the river of the
town. The success of Agrigentum at the games is attested by
Pindar; while Virgil (AEw. iii. 704), Gratius {Cyneg. 526), and Silius
Italicus (Punic, xiv. 208-210), mention its ancient renown for
horses. Its lofty site (arduus Acragas), overlooking the sea, and
on the bank of the stream of the same name, makes the eagles, the
crab, and the river, appropriate devices, showing that Greek types
have a local fitness, while chosen with a religious intention.
The money of Camarina is of especial beauty and interest. The
fifth of Pindar’s Olympic odes, that to Psaumis the Camarinaean,
B.C. 452, affords an excellent commentary upon it. The earliest coin
we know is a didrachm of about this time; whereas there are many
pieces of from fifty to a hundred years earlier of most of the
other important cities of Sicily. Camarina, however, was then
but lately inhabited (veWo* KSjkv), having been recently twice devas¬
tated by the Syracusans. If there be any older coins, they are proba¬
bly of a different type. This has on its obverse a helmet upon a
round shield, and on its reverse a pair of greaves, between which
is a dwarf palm (Chammrops humilis).1 The arms are perhaps those
of Minerva, kept here, as Virgil (^En. i. 16) and Ovid (Fast. vi. 46)
say the arms of Juno were at Carthage; and the palm might re¬
present the sacred grove (cchiros aynov) in which the temple of the
goddess probably stood. This piece is followed by tetradrachms
and didrachms of the best period and of most beautiful work, vary¬
ing a little in their style. The tetradrachms have on the obverse
1 Oxford Essays, 1857, " Sicily,” by M. E. Grant Duff, p. 75.
366
NUMISMATICS.
Greek the head of Hercules in the lion’s skin, and on the reverse Minerva,
Coins. as a victor at the Olympic games, in a quadriga, a type of which we
have already spoken. It was Minerva, protector of the city
II«XXaf) whose sacred grove was made more illustrious by the suc¬
cess of Psaumis. The didrachms have on the obverse the head of
a river-god, portrayed as a young man with small horns, and with
his hair wet. Of the two rivers of Camarina, the Oanus and the
Hipparis, the latter is here represented, for in one case the name is
given on the coin. Pindar seems likewise to show the same pre¬
ference ; for while he merely mentions the Oanus . .."Cluvtv),
he speaks of the sacred channels in which the Hipparis watered the
city (aptiovi carols,"ixvaois ‘•‘triv a$u On the reverse the
nymph Camarina (’flxsavoo . . . Kec^aj/va) is seen carried
across her lake {iy^u^ii/.* . . . by a swan swimming with ex¬
panded wings, while she aids it by spreading her veil in the man¬
ner of a sail. Some of these didrachms have on either side,
around the chief device, fresh-water fishes. The copper coins of
Camarina are on the Italian system.
The series of Catana comprises fine archaic tetradrachms and
others of the time of the best art, which are handsome, though man¬
nered. The reverse-type of the latter is a victor at the Olympic
games in a quadriga, passing one of the metae, which is a column
of the Ionic order. Gela is represented by coins in the three
metals. The archaic tetradrachms and didrachms must be especially
mentioned. The former have on the obverse the fore-part of the
river-god Gelas, whence the city took its name—
- “ Immanisque Gela fluvii cognomine dicta”
(uffln. iii. 702), as Agrigentum did from the Acragas, and Camarina
from its lake. The Gelas is represented as a bull, having the face of
a bearded man. On the reverse is a victorious biga at the Olympic
games, in some examples represented passing a meta, which is an Ionic
column, and resembles that on coins of Catana. A tetradrachm
of the later portion of the time of good art, with the types of the
fore-part of the Gelas and the victorious chariot, here a quadriga,
is remarkable for having above the latter a bird, doubtless an
eagle, taking the place of Victory. A tetradrachm of the com¬
mencement of the period of good art, and of the highest western
style, characterized by a slight severity of treatment, has on the
obverse the head of the Gelas, as a young man horned, surrounded
by three fresh-water fishes; and on the reverse Victory in a biga,
with a wreath above. The accompanying inscription is TEA-
niON. Some of the copper coins are beautiful, but not of the
finest style. The money of Himera is of great interest. The
earliest pieces are didrachms, which, like the series of Zancle,
follow the iEginetan talent. No other Sicilian cities are known
to have struck coins on this weight. The oldest didrachms of
Himera, which probably commenced in the sixth century B.C., bear
on the obverse a cock, and on the reverse an incuse type. They
are succeeded by archaic tetradrachms, which bear on the one side
a victorious chariot, and on the other a nymph sacrificing, near
whom a little Pan, or Paniscus, stands beneath the stream of a
fountain issuing from a lion s head in a wall. The fountain no
doubt represents the hot spring of the place, from which it was
afterwards called Thermae. Leontini is chiefly represented by
archaic tetradrachms and didrachms ; but there are a few tetra¬
drachms of the early part of the time of good art. The type of
the chariot at the Olympic games occurs on these coins, of both
periods. The series of Messana is one of particular value. It
commences when the town was called Zancle, or, as it is written on
the coins, Dancle, with early drachms and smaller pieces of the
^Eginetan weight, and of very archaic work. On the obverse is a
dolphin, and around it a sickle ; and on the reverse is a shell in the
midst of an incuse pattern. The place is said to have received its
name on account of its resemblance in form to a sickle or
^aynXi]), like the town of Drepanum, or Drepana, in Sicily, and
probably the promontory of Drepanum of the Peloponnesus. If
there were no religious meaning attached to these names, this early
design of Zancle would be an instance of what is termed a speaking
tjpe. It is more reasonable, however, to suppose that in each case
there was a primary religious meaning in the names, and indeed later
writers say that the sickle of Saturn was buried here, and at the Sici¬
lian Drepanum, the descriptive character offering a secondary mean-
ing. Nexu to these first coins of Zancle may be placed, as the oldest
piece of the Attic weight, a tetradrachm with the Samian types,—a
lion s scalp on one side, and on the other the head of a bull, and bear¬
ing the inscription ME22ENION (for Meoaxviav). This coin was Greek
doubtless struck during the rule of the Samians, who took the place Coins,
about B.c. 494, at the instigation of Anaxilaus, tyrant of Rhegium, v
by whom they were subsequently expelled. (Thucyd. vi, 4.) The . . v
next pieces are the earliest of those which have on the obverse a ^oily,
chariot drawn by two mules, and on the reverse a running hare.
They most closely resemble coins of Rhegium, with the same de¬
vices, and must be assigned, like them, to the rule of Anaxilaus.
As we have already mentioned, the period at which this tyrant
governed the two towns is thus indicated, particularly as these
types cease in the coinage of Rhegium, although they continue at
Messana, some of the tetradrachms bearing them being of the period
of fine art.1 The copper coinage is of good work. When the town
had been seized by the Mamertini, its name was changed to theirs,
which is accordingly borne by the later coins, which are of copper.
They are good, but not of the best style. Naxos is represented by
handsome archaic tetradrachms and others of the fine period, and
by smaller silver pieces, chiefly of the earlier time.
There are some coins of the city of Panormus, but most of
those which have been classed to it are of the Carthaginians, issued
both in Sicily and Africa. Nothing is more probable than that
many of these pieces were struck at Panormus, but there is no
means of distinguishing any such, and if there were, the mere fact
of their having been issued at the place would not justify us in
classing them to it. The Carthaginian coins of Sicily may be best
noticed after the Greek coins. Segesta is represented by tetra¬
drachms and didrachms of the archaic and of the good period. One
of the tetradrachms of the early part of the latter time has on the
obverse the Olympic victorious quadriga, driven by Proserpine,
who carries ears of bearded corn, while Victory flies above, about
to crown her. The reverse-type represents a hunter, that is, some
divinity or mythical hero in that character.
The series of the city of Selinus next demands notice. The
first coins are didrachms, bearing on the obverse a leaf, and on the
reverse an incuse square, either having several divisions, or else
containing a repetition of the leaf. The representation of the leaf
is not, either on these or later coins, very exact. The city and its
river no doubt derived their name from the plant atXitov, the leaf
of which must be here intended. There is some difficulty as to its
identification; for in this case, as in those of many other natural
objects, the Greeks may have given the same appellation to very
different things. The plant sacred at Selinus appears to be, as
Colonel Leake supposes, wild celery (Apium graveolens);2 but it
does not follow that that of the same name with which the victors
at the Isthmian and Nemean games were crowned was really the
same.3 Tetradrachms of a later time, either of archaic style or of
that of the earliest part of the period of good art, have devices of
more than usual interest. The obverse bears a biga with Apollo
and Diana, the latter of whom drives,—a type doubtless referring
to the Olympic games; and the reverse exhibits a river-god, the
Hypsas, sacrificing at the altar of iEsculapius, while a wading bird
is sometimes seen behind him, as if departing. The latter subject
appears to allude to the draining of the marshes into the river, by
which the place was rendered more healthy. A tetradrachm of
the best Sicilian style is important in connection with the opinion
we have put forward as to the meaning of the chariot-types. It
has on the obverse a quadriga, with two personages, doubtless
Apollo and Diana, the former of whom appears to be driving;
above them is a wreath, and below an ear of bearded wheat,—the
former plainly indicating a victory, the latter connecting the type
with a Syracusan one of the same period relating to the Olympic
games. The reverse represents the Hypsas sacrificing, as usual.
The illustrious city of Syracuse is worthily represented by its
coins. Its early and long-continued greatness in commerce and in
arms, its luxury and its love of the arts, are attested as fully by
these monuments as by the voice of history. The best do not indeed
ever display the breadth and grandeur, and rarely the simplicity,
that characterize the highest examples of the medallic art of
Greece and her Asiatic colonies, but rather err in an excess of rich¬
ness and a use of tricks of art; yet the intrinsic beauty of many, and
the fine execution of almost all, command great admiration, while
the historical value of the series gives it an additional interest.
The system of the gold coins of the Syracusans, like that of those
of the Greek cities of Italy, is fundamentally on the Attic standard,
but presenting some remarkable differences. Thus, although there
are gold drachms and hemidrachms, there are also pieces respectively
a ear*y cojns of Messana compare Millingen’s paper in Trans. R. Soc. Lit., vol. i., pt. ii., pp. 93, et sea.; and p. 363, supra.
a Numismata Hellemca, “ Sicily,” &c.; Oxford Essays ' lkl, “ Sicily,” p. 79. 1
rariv,U -1- narr3t.es a story of Timoleon which illustrates this question, relating that when he was marching from Syracuse to encounter the
, afn^s> as 1113 soldiers were going up a hill, on the other side of which they expected to see the enemy, they met mules carrying parsley
i -ii Vw vtioolj asa omen, because of the Greek custom to crown the sepulchres with parsley, which occasioned the proverb, of one
Parsley- But their leader encouraged them by saying that Fortune had brought them their crowns before vic-
xxvi) CaU3e tlie Lorint uan3 tlie crown of parsley sacred, and then deoorated with it the victors at the Isthmian games. (Plut. Timoleon, cap.
NUMISMATICS.
367
as heavy as one and a half of each of these denominations. The
oldest examples are of the early part of the period of good art, and
therefore date from about the middle of the fifth century before
the Christian era; and the latest probably immediately precede
the reign of Agathocles (u.C. 317), the first tyrant whose name
we find on the coins. There are some of these pieces which show
marks of decline, but the greater number are of good work. One
of the finest has on the obverse a head of Apollo, and on the
reverse one of Diana, very differently treated, the former having
an ideal character, but the latter resembling a portrait. Other
coins present on the obverse heads of the young Hercules and
of other divinities, while the most important reverse-type is a
victorious biga. The silver coinage of Syracuse, which follows the
Attic talent, presents many denominations. The decadrachms,
though rare, are more common than those of any other city. The
tetradrachms are extremely numerous, and evidently formed, at
almost every period until about the time of Agathocles, the bulk of
the silver coinage, the smaller denominations being of less frequent
occurrence. The earliest coins are tetradrachms and didrachms of
very rude work, which may be assigned to the later part of the sixth,
century B.C. The tetradrachms bear on the obverse a charioteer in a
biga, and on the reverse an incuse square of four divisions, having
in°the centre a female head, probably that of Proserpine. The
didrachms have a rider on the obverse, and the same reverse-types
as the tetradrachms. A little later we find coins of much better
execution, having a female head on the obverse, with dolphins,
usually four in number, around it; and on the reverse Victory
above the chariot or the horseman. Next in time to these are the
famous decadrachms, believed to be the coins known as damare-
tia, struck by Damareta, wife of King Gelon, on receiving a pre¬
sent of a hundred talents of gold, which the Carthaginians gave
her when she had negotiated peace for them, after their defeat
by her husband at the battle of Himera. As this battle was fought
in the year B.c. 480, and Gelon died B.C. 478, the date of these
coins is very nearly fixed, and may be considered to be B.C. 479.
They afford an example of the highest archaic style, a style not
without its excellence and promise. The resemblance to Egyptian
art is most remarkable, and far greater than we observe in the
money of Greece Proper. The obverse bears a female head, pro¬
bably that of Proserpine, bound with a wreath ; it occupies a
circle, indicated by a fine line, without which are four dolphins,
as though swimming round. The reverse-type represents a cha¬
riot, apparently drawn by three horses, in slow action, and driven
by a man. Victory flies above, and below is a lion running.
The style of the face of the goddess, with the slightly rounded
nose, the eye as if seen in front, and the placid expression, no less
than the treatment of the horses, at once recalls to one’s mind the
colossi and battle-scenes of the temples of Egypt. There are tetra¬
drachms of so exactly the same work as these larger pieces that
they must have been issued with them. After this time we per¬
ceive a rapid change to a much freer style, but yet one that already
shows mannerism. The hair of the goddess, now undoubtedly Pro¬
serpine, is either partly covered with a kind of bag, or is variously
arranged, sometimes in almost a fantastic manner ; and the dolphins
around are less regularly placed than before. The period of good art
may be considered to begin about B.C. 450, and to terminate with
the commencement of the tyranny of Agathocles (b.c. 317). The
length of this time is partly due to an accident which happened
here towards its close—the introduction, when medallic art was fast
declining, of coins with the types and style of those of Corinth,
where that art had but little decayed; so that there was a kind of
recovery, very unusual in ancient money. At the commencement
of the period of the best art, we observe some admirable tetra¬
drachms, which, for the beauty of the face of* Proserpine, the
treatment of her hair, and the vigour shown in the drawing of
the horses, now and always henceforward on the civic coins re¬
presented at full speed, are in their class quite unexcelled. The
finest of these coins known to us is one in the British Museum.
It has on the obverse a most beautiful head of Proserpine sur¬
rounded by three dolphins, and on the reverse a victorious quadriga,
driven by a bearded charioteer. Victory hovers above, holding in
her right hand a wreath, and in her left a label bearing the
inscription ETAINETO, supposed to be the name of an artist.
The names of artists begin to appear on these coins about this
time; and the distinction given to this word is by no means a
proof that it is not one. Another, but little later, has on the ob¬
verse a head of Proserpine with ears of bearded wheat in her
hair, and on the reverse a quadriga driven by a winged male
genius, while Victory hovers above crowning him. On the
obverse is EYM, the beginning of an artist’s name, and on the
reverse EY@, the beginning of the name of another artist,
showing that different hands were employed to design the two
sides. Several coins, still somewhat later than this, have on their
reverse Proserpine, with a flaming torch in her hand, driving the
victorious quadriga. One of these has for the obverse-type a Greek
helmeted head of Minerva. To the same time belongs a tetra- Coins
drachm with a very beautiful head of the fountain-nymph
Arethusa, whose name is sometimes written above in the form
APE0O2A, as in Lord Northwick’s admirable specimen, which
has also the name of the artist, KIMHN, on the fillet. The
head is represented facing, but somewhat turned to the left,
with the hair loose and as if wet, though skilfully arranged. The
reverse bears Proserpine in a victorious quadriga. The name of
Cimon also occurs on more than one of the decadrachms of the fine
period, which we might otherwise have supposed to have been
struck a little later. There may, however, have been two artists
of the same name, or one may have worked at different periods
of his life in styles varying as much as these. The later deca¬
drachms are not, however, like the earlier, all of the same time;
for there are some of an inferior style, which must be referred to
a lower date. All were, however, probably struck during the
tyranny of the first Dionysius (b.c. 405-368). Their obverse-type
is a head of Proserpine, with the hair variously arranged, some¬
times partly contained in a bag of net, sometimes bound with
corn leaves, and surrounded by four dolphins. The reverse dis¬
plays the same goddess in a victorious quadriga at full speed,
while Victory above is about to crown her ; and the reward, a
suit of armour, sometimes with the word A©AA, is seen below.
These coins have been commonly considered the finest in the Greek
series ; but the best of them are excelled in design and in execution
by tetradrachms of the same place, and even these cannot be com¬
pared to the productions of the pure Greek school, as we have
already endeavoured to show. There are other tetradrachms,
besides those already mentioned, of about the time of these deca¬
drachms ; and some of a later period and inferior work, which are
probably of the reign of Dionysius II., and of the republic esta¬
blished by Dion and overthrown by the tyrant. All these have
types very similar to those of the decadrachms. The figure in
the quadriga of the latest is, however, Victory. After these it
is most reasonable to place those didrachms and smaller coins,
which, although of Syracusan fabric, have in the former case
wholly, and in the latter partly, Corinthian types. They are of
good work ; and the didrachms so closely resemble those of Co¬
rinth, that their issue can only be explained by the supposition
of some extraordinary influence on the part of the parent city.
This condition is perfectly fulfilled by what occurred at Syracuse
on the final overthrow of the second Dionysius by Timoleon the
Corinthian (b.c. 344). The depopulated state of the city accounts
for the inferiority of those coins which we suppose to have been
struck a little before this event; while a large issue of Corinthian
coins at Syracuse would agree with the policy of Timoleon. He
replenished the population with a body of Corinthian colonists,
and sold the houses to them, depositing the proceeds in the treasury;
and in accordance with his endeavours to connect the town as
much as possible with Corinth, he would naturally, on issuing a
new coinage from the sum thus obtained—said to have been a
thousand talents (of silver)—have adopted the Corinthian types.
There is a kind of hybrid coinage, half Corinthian and half Syra¬
cusan in character, which probably succeeded this, and lasted until
the reign of Agathocles. The copper coinage of Syracuse anterior
to Agathocles does not commence before the period of good art. It
is on the Italian system, often of fine design and work, and well
deserves the most careful study.
The regal coins of Syracuse are of far inferior interest to those
struck in the name of the people. Some of them are beautiful,
but none in the highest style of Sicilian art. The series is im¬
portant on account of the weight of the silver pieces after the
time of Agathocles. For these the Ptolemaic talent seems to have
been used, their weights being in accordance with it; while the
treatment of the portraits is similar to those of the Greek kings
of Egypt. Of Hiero II. there are octodrachms, of Queen Philistis
tetradrachms and smaller pieces, and of Hieronymus pentadrachms.
It is to be observed that the drachms of Philistis have a low Attic
weight. It is possible, from the rarity of these silver coins, that
they were struck rather as medals than to form the bulk of the
coinage. The money of Agathocles is in gold, silver, and copper ;
that of Hicetas in gold; and that of Hiero II. and Hieronymus,
again, in the three metals. Queen Philistis is only known from the
coins and an inscription. She must have been the wife of Hiero
II. towards the end of his reign, or of one of his sons. Her coins
have fine though mannered designs; that of the obverse being
her veiled head, and that of the reverse a victorious chariot. The
later Gelon is probably a son of Hiero II., of that name, who may
have been admitted to some share of regal power.
The town of Tauromenium, represented by five pieces in the
three metals, closes the series of those Greek cities of Sicily, which
are of high numismatic interest. We must, however, mention the
main characteristics of the true Siculo-Punic coins—that is, those
368
NUMISMATICS.
Greek
Coins.
actually struck by the Carthaginians in Sicily. It has been usual
to place together a large class of Graeco-Punic coins, on account
of their general similarity. A careful examination, however,
Sicily. shows that they must he separated into two distinct divisions,
representing the coinage of the Carthaginians in Sicily and in
Africa, as Mr Burgon pointed out in his catalogue of the Thomas
Collection. These classes are mainly to be distinguished by their
weight, the Sicilian coins being adjusted to the Attic talent,
like those of the Greek cities of the island, while the African follow
the Phoenician talent; but there is also a general difference in the
types and style, which in the former are far more Greek than in
the latter, in which Egyptian, or at least African, characteristics
may be perceived. The Siculo-Punic coins are in silver and copper,
for there are no gold pieces belonging undoubtedly to this series.
Tetradrachms are the most numerous of the silver pieces. The
most frequent types are, for the obverse, the head of Proserpine,
and for the reverse a horse or horse’s head, both, especially the
horse, being sometimes accompanied by a date-palm. The horse
was probably sacred at Carthage, and thus came, to be the fa¬
vourite symbol of the city. In late times the head appears to
have become the prevailing form of the symbol. It may be worth
while to remind the reader that both Virgil1 * and Silius Italicus3
mention the digging up of a horse’s head—the symbol, says the
former, of the future nation—at the foundation of Carthage ; and
that the form of this tale given by Eustathius is still more illustrative
of the coins. The last writer relates that the founders having dis¬
covered the head of an ox, took it as a bad omen, and left off dig¬
ging; but commencing again about a cultivated date-palm, like
that of the coins (tpo'mxK vtipvrtvftivov, as distinguished from a wild
one), found the head of a horse.3 This version of the story may be
the origin of the combination of the horse and date-palm upon the
Carthaginian money. We may also notice that there are Siculo-
Punic tetradrachms with the head of Proserpine and a victorious
quadriga, struck in imitation of coins of Syracuse of the same
denomination.
(The principal work upon the Sicilian coinage is that of G. L.
Castelli, Prince of Torremuzza, which, although published towards
the close of the last century, has not yet been superseded.4)
The islands near Sicily struck copper coins which are often singu¬
lar, and always of some interest. Those of Cossura are Phoenician,
with an Egyptian character ; those of Gaulos are Greek and Phoeni¬
cian ; and those of Melita, Phoenician, showing both Egyptian and
Persian influence. Of Lipara there is heavy copper money on the
Italian system, having on the obverse a head of Vulcan, and some¬
times on the reverse a figure of the same divinity seated, holding a
hammer, and a vase which he seems to have just formed.
The Tauric lu the Tauric Chersonese there are interesting coins of the city
Chersonese, of Panticapaeum, the modern Kertch, in the three metals. Their
obverse usually bears the head of a Pan, and their reverse a
gryphon, or its head or fore-part. The money of European Sar-
matia, of Dacia, and of Upper and Lower Moesia, is chiefly copper
of the Greek imperial class. The few coins of earlier times are
generally of a coarseness not far removed from barbarism. In
European Sarmatia we may notice the autonomous and imperial
pieces of Oebiopolis, and in Dacia the series bearing the name of
the province. The Roman colonia Viminacium, in Upper Mcesia,
is represented by numerous coins of a late time. Of Istrus, in
Lower Mcesia, there are didrachms and drachms having a strange
type on the obverse, representing two beardless heads side by side,
the one upright and the other upside down. On the reverse is an
eagle devouring a fish. The former type has not been explained:
it probably relates to some Greek myth. The style of those coins,
it may be noticed, is in general fair, though it sometimes ap¬
proaches to barbarism. There are abundant Greek imperial coins
of Marcianopolis and Nicopolis; while Tomis, the place of Ovid’s
banishment and death, is not unrepresented in this class.
Thrace. The coins of Thrace are of high interest. The oldest are pro¬
bably of the sixth century B.c., and there are others of all subse¬
quent times, both while the country was independent and while it
was subject to the Romans, until the cessation of Greek coinage.
Some of the best period are of the highest artistic merit. So long
as they maintain any general distinctive peculiarities of fabric and
design—that is, from their commencement until the age of Philip—
the Thracian coins resemble those of Macedon. They also follow
the same talent, that of Macedon, commonly called the Alexandrian
or Ptolemaic. The heaviest tetradrachms are the earlier, which Greek
weigh about 232 grains : those issued at later times are generally Coins,
much lighter. The money of Abdera comprises tetradrachms and i
smaller coins of the period of archaic and fine art. The principal
type is a seated gryphon. ASnus is remarkable for the great ^hrace*
beauty of some of its coins. These are tetradrachms of the earliest
part of the time of the best art. They bear on the obverse a head
of Mercury, facing, in his cap, and on the reverse a goat. The
broad, free treatment of the head cannot be sufficiently praised; and
it is worthy of remark, that it is here far more effective than the
later and artificial style. There are drachms of a period subse¬
quent to that of these coins, which enable us to make this com¬
parison. The money of the ancient city of Byzantium commences
with early tetradrachms and smaller coins, having on the obverse
a bull above a dolphin, and on the reverse an incuse square of four
divisions. Tetradrachms of the late part of the time of good art,
bearing the head of Ceres veiled, and with corn in her hair, on the
obverse, and Neptune seated, on the reverse, should also be noticed,
as well as the long series of copper coins issued under the empire.
Of Cosa there are Graeco-Roman aurei, which were probably struck
by Brutus during the short time that he maintained himself against
the triumvirs. They bear on the obverse an eagle holding a wreath
in one claw, and on' the reverse a figure in a toga between two
lictors, with the Greek inscription K02flN. There is sometimes
in the field of the reverse a monogram of the letters L B, which is
supposed to indicate the name of Lucius Brutus, whom we know
to have struck Roman money with the more famous Marcus Brutus.
The Roman colonia of Deultum is represented by many coins; and
the city of Hadrianopolis by a long series, comprising fine pieces.
Of Maronea, anciently famous for its wine, there is an interesting
series of coins, beginning with very early drachms. After these
we notice tetradrachms of the fine period, having on the obverse a
horse, and on the reverse a vineyard, conventionally represented
by a vine in a square. There are also large tetradrachms of a late
time, with, on the one side, the head of an androgynous Bacchus,
and on the other the standing figure of a young Bacchus. The
Greek imperial coins of Pantalia and Perinthus are worthy of
notice. Among those of the latter town we may mention very fine
pieces of Antoninus Pius and Sever us, and large coins, commonly
called medallions, of Caracalla. In the Thracian Chersonese the
most important series is one of autonomous silver coins, probably of
the town of Cherronesus. The money of the island of Thasos is of
much interest. It commences with extremely old silver coins,
which appear to be on the iEginetan system. These are followed
by a series on the Attic weight, ranging from a very early time to
the commencement of the period of good art, some of the latest be¬
ing of fine style. The obverse-type represents a satyr carrying a
female, and the reverse-type is an incuse square, divided, more or
less rudely, into four parts. After this we observe coins bearing
for their obverse-type the head of Bacchus. Some of these are of
the best period of art, and one, a tetradrachm, is among the very
finest Greek coins. The head of Bacchus is treated in a sculptural
style that is remarkably broad and grand. The massive, powerful
features, and the formal hair nearly falling to the neck in regular
curls, like those of the full beard, are relieved by a broad wreath
of ivy leaves designed with great delicacy and simplicity. The
reverse bears a Hercules kneeling on one knee and discharging his
bow, a subject powerfully treated. Of a far later period there are
large tetradrachms much resembling those of Maronea. They were
probably struck, in both places, in the early days of the Roman
rule. The money of Lysimachus is of far higher importance than
that of any other king of Thrace. The most common pieces are, in
gold, staters, and in silver, tetradrachms. The earlier coinage
follows the types of that of Alexander the Great. The later coin¬
age, of which the examples are far more numerous, bears as the
obverse-type what is considered to be the first Greek regal por¬
trait, the head of Alexander with goat’s horns, deified as a young
Jupiter Ammon :r> the reverse-type is a seated Minerva holding a
little Victory. There are coins of the kings of Paeonia, which are
chiefly silver, and have a resemblance to those of the Macedonian
sovereigns, although they are somewhat barbarous.
The coinage of Macedonia, both civic and regal, is of great Macedon.
variety and interest. It commences at an early time, probably to¬
wards the end of the sixth century B.C. The oldest pieces are of
silver, copper, and not long afterwards gold, having come into use
1 i. 441-445. 3 Pmm. ii. 410, 411.
3 Ol St xki rovro tfio) (paylv, u; clou, oi ’'E/Uffireev, yyouv ei (jura rm Ailovs, oovffffovri; ti; tfoXlu; xriiriv, xo.'i [-jogs logovri; x£<paA»jv,
avitr^ovro tou ogvtri7ii», oia ovrivo-apiYtii pilous xki Sat/Xs/av oviixy, o xu.) ot fiics Wao,%<iii<riv' St !V£j/ <poiviXK vupwrtvfttvov, ligov x£<p«X»)v
fTt’jrou, xk) truu.fi'x.Xovris /rriLtKintrOui tr%/>Xtiv a.vro~i, xou ‘Xa.o aXXaiti 'boat') rgotpHs, xa.6a xa) ro7s 'Itf'roi;, txri(rtt.v iv ru rotouTai toKu rtiv x.r.X.
(Eustathius ad Dionysium, Perieg. 195 ; comp. Justin, xviii., cap. v.) .
Sicilies Populorum et Urbium Regum quoque et Tyrannorum Veteris Nummi Saracenorum Epocham antecedentes, fob, Panormi, 1781 (with two ap¬
pendices—first, 1789; second, 1791).
* Some have doubted this type to represent Alexander, but the evidence in favour of its doing so must be considered to be conclusive.
NUMISMATICS.
369
Greek
Coins.
Macedon.
for coinage during the fourth century B.C. The types are of a
Greek character, with, in the earliest class, a tendency to bar¬
barism. Their art, although at first slow in its development, at¬
tained great excellence. The standard of the earlier coins is that of
the old Macedonian talent, which is better known as the Alexan¬
drian or Ptolemaic, from its restoration to use in the coinage of
Egypt by the first Ptolemy. The weight of its drachm was at first
about 58 grains. The heaviest denomination in Macedonia was
an octodrachm. The coins of this denomination are of an early
period, all dating about the time of Alexander I., and indicate the
metallic wealth of the country rather than the success of its trade
at that time, since they are more likely to have been coined from
the produce of the mines than from silver acquired in commerce.
Philip II. adopted for gold money, which he was the first Mace¬
donian king to issue, the Attic weight, striking staters on that sys¬
tem, while he maintained the old standard for his silver coinage.
Alexander the Great made the weight of the gold and silver money
the same by using the Attic system for both ; and from his time no
coins of kings of Macedon, in these metals, were struck on any other.
The series of Macedon commences with coins of the kingdom or
province bearing the name of the Macedonians. Some of these
seem to have been issued under the kings, hut others are of the
Roman domination. The money of Acanthus comprises fine ar¬
chaic tetradrachms, and others of the commencement of the period
of good art. The type of their obverse is a lion seizing a bull.
There are smaller pieces of various kindred types. The money
of jEneia is chiefly interesting from its bearing the head of the
hero .Eneas. The town of Amphipolis is represented by a long
series. There are tetradrachms having on the obverse a head of
Apollo facing, which are of fine w'ork, but not in the severe and
best style. The reverse-type is a torch in an incuse square. Other
silver, as well as copper coins, display good art. There are also
many Greek imperial copper pieces of this place. The territory of
Chalcidice is pre-eminent for the high excellence of some of its silver
coins. These are tetradrachms of the best period, and of an ad¬
mirable style. The more important design is that of the obverse,
representing a head of Apollo in profile, crowned with laurel. It
is in very high relief, and treated with great simplicity, though not
with the severity of somewhat earlier pieces. The delicacy of the
features is balanced by the shortness of the hair, and the broad,
heavy wreath of laurel. On the reverse is a lyre of seven strings.
Other tetradrachms are of comparatively coarse work. There is an
early series of coins of Lete. Some are of a remote date, and none
later than about the time of Alexander I. The obverse-type is a
Pan or faun with a nymph, and on the reverse is an incuse square.
These coins are nearly all tetradrachms. Of Neapolis there are
archaic silver and copper coins, with, on the one side, a Gorgon-
head, and on the other a head of a female. The coins of Philippi
are in the three metals. The gold pieces are fine staters, with the
head of Hercules in the lion’s skin on the obverse, and on the re¬
verse a tripod. The silver and early copper pieces have the same
types. The style of all points to the reign of Philip II., who, hav¬
ing discovered or gained possession of a rich gold mine near Cre-
nides, changed its name to Philippi. Pydna is represented by
copper money of the best period, sometimes fine, and, in the case
of one specimen we have seen, very beautiful. There is a long
series of Greek imperial coins of Thessalonica. Traslium must
also be mentioned on account of its archaic silver coinage, and for
the excellence of some of its copper money of the best time. The
class of uncertain coins of Macedonia is deserving of careful study.
It comprises very early silver pieces, among which octodrachms of
the Macedonian talent should be especially noticed. One of the
latter, and a smaller piece, bear inscriptions which have caused
them to be attributed to the Orestse, but both Millingen and
Colonel Leake assign them to a people of Thrace, not otherwise
known to us, whom they call the Orescii, from the inscriptions of
the coins. There are also two coins of Geta, King of the Edoni, a
prince of whom we have no other record. They are octodrachms
of about the period of Alexander I. On the obverse is repre¬
sented a hero wearing a causia driving two bulls, and the reverse
bears an incuse square of four divisions, having around it on one
coin PET[A]2 BA2IAEfl2 HAHNAN, and on the other PETA2
HAONEON BA2[I]AEV2. The difference, not alone in con¬
struction, but in orthography, and the use of long and short vowels,
is very remarkable, and seems to indicate barbarism, since the coins
are unquestionably of the same period. Both were found in Baby¬
lonia by Mr Rich,—a circumstance that finds its explanation either
in the commercial importance of the Macedonian silver at this time,
or in the probability that the remains of the armies of Darius and
Xerxes carried away with them some Greek money taken as plunder.
The coinage of the Macedonian kings, since it includes the money Greek
of Philip II. and that of Alexander the Great, is equal in interest Coins,
to any other Greek regal series. The oldest pieces are of Alex- v , ,
under I., the contemporary of Xerxes. These are octodrachms,
resembling those of Geta, King of the Edoni, but having on ^acedon.
the obverse a hero by the side of a horse; and coins of a lower
denomination with the same type. The next king known by
his coinage is Archelaus (b.C. 413-399), of whose reign we have
silver coins, some of which are of archaic, and others of fine work,
as well as the earliest copper money of the series. Of Amyntas
II. (b.C. 397-371) there are coins of fine work, both in silver and
copper. The money of subsequent reigns is not remarkable until
that of Philip II. His gold pieces are staters and a small division.
The abundance of the former is attributable to his having possessed
the gold mine of Philippi. The staters are Attic didrachms, and
are of fine, but not of the highest art. They bear on the obverse the
head of young Hercules,—not of a sufficiently manly cast, and re¬
sembling that of Apollo, though rightly attributed to the former
divinity by Mr Burgon. On the reverse is a goddess in a victorious
Olympic biga, a type we have already explained: in one case
Victory flies before the horses. These coins were afterwards known
as fik/rz-iia, and the gold money of Alexander as —-ap¬
pellations which probably did not include larger or smaller pieces.
Horace calls the gold coins of Philip, “ Philips” (“ regale nomisma,
Philippos”). (Epist. ii. 1., v. 232.) The silver coinage of Philip
is exclusively composed of tetradrachms of the Macedonian talent.
Their type of obverse is a head of Jupiter; and of reverse either a
mounted hero wearing a causia, or a victor in the horse-race with
a palm, a design already discussed. There is a difficulty in deciding
as to the copper money of Philip.
The coinage of Alexander the Great, both in the number of the
cities where it was issued, and in its abundance, excels all other
Greek regal money; but its art is, without being despicable, far
below excellence. The types are not remarkable in themselves,
and there is a great sameness characterizing the entire series.
The system of both gold and silver is Attic, Alexander having
made the money of these metals uniform in weight by substituting
the Attic for the Macedonian silver talent. The gold coins are
distaters or gold tetradrachms, hemistaters or drachms, with their
half, and a smaller denomination. The types of the distaters and
staters—the latter of which were the most common pieces—are, for
the obverse the head of Minerva, and for the reverse Victory bearing
a standard. The largest silver piece is the decadrachm, of which
there is but a single specimen known, now in the British Museum.
The types of the tetradrachms and most of the lower coins are, on
the obverse the head of young Hercules in the lion’s skin, and on
the reverse Jupiter seated, bearing on his hand an eagle. The
head has been supposed to be that of Alexander; but this is not the
case, although there is probably some assimilation to his portrait.
The great currency was of tetradrachms, which were struck in
different cities, distinguished by proper symbols and monograms.
The classification of these coins is difficult, and has not been suffi¬
ciently studied. The copper money is not remarkable. (There is
an essay upon Alexander’s coinage by M. Muller of Copenhagen,
which will be found of service in its examination.1)
The coinage of Alexander is followed by that of Philip Arrhidams,
in gold and silver. To Alexander Egus no money has been assigned
with certainty ; but it is probable that coins in silver and copper,
usually attributed to Alexander II. of Epirus, were issued by
Ptolemy I. in Egypt in the name of this titular sovereign. The
obverse-type of these is a head of Alexander the Great, like that on
the coins of Lysimachus, in the silver pieces covered with the skin
of an elephant, and in the copper ones bare. The money of Cas-
sander and his sons Philip IV. and Alexander IV. is not remark¬
able. The coins of Antigonus, King of Asia, are placed in the Mace¬
donian regal series, since he was a successor of Alexander, and his son
Demetrius gained the Macedonian sovereignty; but this is scarcely a
correct classification. He struck very fine tetradrachms, having on
the obverse a head of Neptune, and on the reverse Apollo seated on
the prow of a galley,—types indicating the naval power of this king.
The coins of Demetrius I., Poliorcetes, comprise fine tetradrachms,
the types of which have a similar reference. They bear either, on
the obverse his portrait horned, and on the reverse a figure of Nep¬
tune, or on the one side a winged female figure (Victory)2 in the prow
of a galley, blowing a trumpet, and on the other Neptune striking
with his trident. The latter types cannot be doubted to relate to
the great naval victory which Demetrius gained over Ptolemy.
The tetradrachms of Antigonus I., Gonatas, which are of inferior
style and work to those of Demetrius, have types which appear to
refer in like manner to the great event of his time. Their obverse-
1 Numismatique d’Alexandre le Grand, suivie d’un Appendice contenant les Monnaies de Philippe II. et III. Par L. Muller, 8vo, Copenhagne,
1855 (with a vol. of plates in 4to).
8 Eckhel supposes this figure to be Fame, but in this instance he seems to have judged hastily (Doct. Num. Vet., vol. ii., pp. 120,121).
VOL. XVI. 3 A
370
NUMISMATICS.
Greek type is a Macedonian buckler, with the head of Pan in the midst;
Coins. and their reverse-type Pallas Promachus. The head of Pan is
supposed to have been taken as a device in consequence of the panic
which led to the discomfiture of the Gauls at Delphi,—panics
being attributed, as the name imports, to the influence of Pan.
The money of Demetrius II. and Antigonus II. is unimportant.
The tetradrachms of Philip V. have, on the obverse two kindred
types, in each case a head in the helmet of Perseus, but one appa¬
rently representing Philip in the character of that hero, and the
other the hero himself, though probably assimilated to the king. The
reverse bears a club. Other tetradrachms and smaller coins have a
simple portrait of Philip. The tetradrachms of Perseus are of a fair
style, considering the time at which they were struck. They bear
on the one side the king’s head, and on the other an eagle on a
thunderbolt.
Thessaly. The coinage of Thessaly presents very few specimens of a remote
period, while coins of the best time are numerous. The latter are
in general remarkably like the finest coins of Sicily and Italy,
although there are some of a severer style. The weight is gene¬
rally, if not always, adjusted to the iEginetan talent. Of the town
of Gomphi or Philippopolis there is a beautiful drachm, having on
the obverse a female head facing, which is probably that of Juno.
The coins of Lamia are also to be noticed for their beauty. The
series of Larissa is well worthy of a careful examination. It com¬
mences with archaic pieces, and some of the early period of good
art, but of rather coarse execution. These are followed by coins of
fine work. The usual obverse-type is the head of the nymph of the
fountain facing, and on the reverse is generally a horse, either free
or drinking. On some the head is treated in a very rich manner,
like that of the fountain-nymph Arethusa, facing, on tetradrachms
of Syracuse ; indeed, in one case, the resemblance, in its obverse, of
a didrachm of this place to these Sicilian coins is most remarkable.
The small silver pieces have very interesting types, relating to the
nymph of the fountain, and to be compared for mutual illustration
with the common didrachms of Terina and with some of those of
Elis. The copper money is also fine. The coins of Pharsalus and
Pherae are worthy of note. Of the tyrants of the latter town,
Alexander and Tisiphon are represented by their coins; but we
agree with Mr Burgon in thinking the tetradrachms which have
been ascribed to the former to be of a king of Paeonia. The coins
of Tricca resemble those of Larissa.
IHyricum. The coinage of Illyricum is poor and rude. The weight is at
first ^Eginetan, but afterwards it appears to have been generally
Attic, a change probably attributable to Corinthian commercial
influence. Of Apollonia there is a large series of Attic drachms,
the most important type of which is a reverse one representing
three nymphs dancing around what appears to be a burning hillock,
but may be intended for a volcano. There are also a few Greek
imperial pieces. Dyrrhachium, which never, as far as is known,
bears on its coins the more famous name of Epidamnus, is repre¬
sented by an important series. First, there are iEginetan di-
drachms, with Cocyrman types,—on the obverse a cow suckling a
calf, and on the reverse a device supposed to be a kind of ground-
plan of the famous gardens of Alcinoiis. These are succeeded by
didrachms with Corinthian types, and, of course, on the Attic
standard; and then the old types are resumed, but apparently
without a return to the former weight. Dyrrhachium, it should
be remembered, was founded partly by Corcyrsean and partly by
Corinthian colonists. The Corinthian types are, however, to be
at least mainly ascribed to subsequent influence, although their
adoption may have been furthered by the recollection of the origin
of the town. A didrachm of the first class bears the name of a
King Monunius, who has been supposed to be the Illyrian prince
Monunius mentioned by Livy and Athenaeus, and who reigned
about B.c. 180. All the AEginetan didrachms, however, must be
concluded to have been struck from about B.c. 400 to 300, the
Attic money supplanting them at near the latter date; and there¬
fore this supposition is not tenable.
Epirus. The coins of Epirus are of higher interest and beauty than those
of Illyricum. The weight is generally iEginetan, except in the
regal series, which follows the Attic standard. Of the Epirots
there are silver coins which appear to be ^Eginetan didrachms
and drachms of low weight. They are of about the time of Pyrrhus
and of a later period. The city of Ambracia is represented by
beautiful silver pieces, with, on the one side a veiled female head,
and on the other a kind of obelisk. Of Damastium there are rude
coins, which are doubtless of an early period. The long series
of Greek imperial money of Nicopolis must also be mentioned.
The coinage known to us of the kings of Epirus begins under Greek
Alexander I. His coins have been found in the three metals, but Coins
they are rare. It is probable that they were struck in Italy while v l ,
he was in that country. The coins of Pyrrhus are of high in-
terest, and remarkable for their beauty, although in a greatly Epirus,
decorated style. There can be little doubt that they were for the
most part struck in Italy and Sicily—at Tarentum, Syracuse, and
probably other towns also. Some of the gold pieces are fine, but
the silver are more worthy of note. The tetradrachm has for
the type of the obverse a head of the Dodonasan Jupiter crowned
with oak, and for that of the reverse Juno seated. A fine didrachm
bears on the obverse a young male head helmeted, which we
believe to represent Pyrrhus, though in a peculiar manner. It is
said that Pyrrhus was judged by his contemporaries to bear a great
resemblance to Alexander in face and manner j1 and if we compare
this head with that king’s on the coins of Lysimachus, we perceive
a remarkable similarity. There is what we should call a strong
family likeness, if the term be admissible, between the two. The
features are not alone similar, but they have the same animated
expression. Visconti considered the head in question to be that
of Pyrrhus, and brought forward the argument given above, but he
did not meet the objection that the treatment is ideal. This diffi¬
culty is overcome if w e consider it to have been an idealized por¬
trait of Alexander assimilated to that of Pyrrhus, as the head of
Hercules on the money of the former king is probably assimilated
to his own. The portrait of Alexander on the coins of Lysi¬
machus, and again on those which we suppose to be of Alexander
iEgus, is also ideally treated, more especially in the latter case.2
Among the copper coins of Pyrrhus we must remark the beautiful
ones with the portrait of his mother Phthia. The money ascribed
to later kings of Epirus is of doubtful attribution.
The coinage of the island of Corcyra generally, or of the Corey- Corcyra.
raeans, commences with very early didrachms and drachms of the
AEginetan weight. These are followed by coins of the early part
of the period of good art, but usually somewhat rudely executed.
The types of the didrachms of this and the preceding group are, on
the obverse a cow suckling a calf, and on the reverse the supposed
gardens of Alcinoiis, both, as we have seen, like those of the first
didrachms of Dyrrhachiums. These are followed by coins with, on
the one side, the head of an androgynous Bacchus, and on the other
a Pegasus. The former of these types is illustrated by the fame of the
wine of Corcyra in ancient times; the latter by the colonization of
the island from Corinth, to which town this type must be held to re¬
fer. These and the later coins are probably on the Attic standard.
Copper money is abundant, both of the autonomous and the impe¬
rial class. There are, however, no pieces which can be considered
to be of very fine art in either silver or copper.
The coins of Acarnania are not remarkable for beauty, or for Acarnania
variety in their types. We must mention those of the Acarnanians,
which are AEginetan didrachms and drachms, having on the obverse
the head of the Acheloiis, beardless, and covered with a bull’s skin,
and on the reverse a seated Apollo. These are probably of about
the time of Alexander the Great. Of Leucas there are silver
and copper coins, the latter being numerous; and of (Eniadae,
copper, with, on the one side the head of Jupiter, and on the
other that of the Acheloiis, bearded, and in a bull’s skin. The
honour in which the Acheloiis was held explains the occurrence of
its head in more than one series.
In AEtolia, the money of the AEtolians must be mentioned. The AEtolia.
gold and silver coins are fine, but not of the best period or of a
very good style, and are probably to be referred to about Alex¬
ander’s time. The gold pieces have on the obverse the head of
Minerva or that of Hercules in the lion’s skin, and on the reverse
AEtolia, personified as a female seated on shields, with a little
Victory on one hand. There are similar types on the silver coins;
and the drachms bear others relating to the chase of the Calydonian
boar. The latter have on the one side the head of Atalanta wearing
a causia, and on the other the boar and the spear-head with which
he was killed. The standard is first AEginetan, and then Attic.
In Locris the coins of the Locri Opuntii, no doubt struck at Opus, Locris.
claim our notice. There are didrachms and hemidrachms on the
AEginetan weight, of the best period, and of a style which is
admirable, notwithstanding that it is very rich in the treatment of
the subject occupying their obverse. This is a head of Proserpine,
with corn-leaves in her hair. The reverse bears a warrior in a
fighting attitude, with sword and shield. His name, A1A2, which
is sometimes written beneath, shows that he is the Lesser Ajax, who
led the Locrians to the siege of Troy.
v toc%o$ ioxivcu xa.i Toii AXtZccv'dgotj XKI Tvs tyooGts vczivov xoc] filets Tctgce, Tolls ayavets Iv tovtu trxtots Tivots ogeerdoti
xtxi pipripctru, ray a'kXojy fiatriXtay tv To^usotis xoti 2ogv<pegeis x/.imi tpo.^aou xcti ru pii^ov tiu.Xiyia6a.L, povoti St Hup ecu rols otiXois xotl rxif
Xte<mi torifo/xvvpuiou Toy AXtgavS^y. (piut, pyn.>( capi viii )
* Milhngen (Considerations, Supp.,pp, 27,28) supposed the head on the didrachm of Pyrrhus to be intended for that of Achilles, and his opinion has
some support from the occurrence of the letter A in the field. This letter would, however, be equally appropriate in the case of Alexander.
NUMISMATIC S.
371
(5 reek
Coins.
licsotia.
Attica.
There are silver coins of the Phocians and of Delphi. Those of
the former are of archaic and of fine art, and follow the ^Eginetan
system. The coins of Delphi, which are on the same standard, are
not an important series. Among them are Greek imperial pieces,
some of which have a representation of the famous temple on the
reverse.
The coinage of Bceotia forms an interesting series. It is chiefly
of a period anterior to the reign of Alexander, under whom the
political importance of Thebes and the whole country came to an
end. The silver money is fine in its art, and a great similarity is
observable in its fabric and types. The standard is iEginetan, but
the Attic must have been introduced after Alexander’s time, as
there are some specimens of its weight. The copper money is poor.
Of the Boeotians there is a long series. The great currency was of
A3ginetan didrachms, but many smaller coins are found. In the
archaic pieces the obverse-type is a Boeotian buckler, which is
probably that of Hercules, and the reverse bears an incuse square.
On coins of the early part of the time of good art we find the
buckler and a diota; the former seeming to stand for Hercules, and
the latter for Bacchus, corresponding to the types of Thebes with
the head of Bacchus on one side and Hercules on the other. Later
coins of these types, and of a very fine style, bear on the reverse
the earlier letters of proper names, which can only be of magis¬
trates. One, a didrachm, may be particularized for its beauty and on
account of the inscription EIIAMI, which Mr Burgon supposes to be
part of the name of the illustrious Epaminondas, an opinion which
the style of the coin corroborates. On this piece there is a rose
above the diota. The other names require to be carefully studied.
There are still later pieces of inferior work. Very rare tetradrachms
of Attic weight, standing quite by themselves in the coinage of
Bceotia, must be referred to a time subsequent to that of the silver
coins of Higinetan weight. Their obverse-type is a head of Jupiter,
and their reverse-type a seated Neptune.
The coinage of Orchomenus is fine. Very beautiful hemidrachms
of the best time, with the head of Proserpine on the obverse, must
be particularized. Of Tanagra there are coins of the archaic and
the good period. The money of these lesser towns cannot, however,
be compared for importance to that of Thebes. A few small gold
coins have been found of this city ; but the great currency was of
silver, and chiefly in didrachms, of course on the HSginetan stand¬
ard. The earliest silver pieces must be assigned to a time not
long after the beginning of Greek coinage. These have on the
obverse the usual buckler, and on the reverse an archaic © in the
midst of an incuse pattern. After these there are pieces of early
good style and others of rich work of a later time, although also of
the age of the best art. The types appear mainly to relate to Her¬
cules and Bacchus. We may notice didrachms, with on the ob¬
verse the buckler, and on the reverse the diota, with the buckler,
and the infant Hercules strangling serpents, and with the head of
Bacchus, and Hercules stringing his bow. The last reverse-type is a
very fine example of the early work of the good time. The copper
money is not remarkable. The only other Boeotian town which need
be mentioned is Thespias, of which there are silver coins of a late
archaic time.
In Attica the great series of Athens demands our consideration.
The gold money is not common, and of a late time, probably near
that of Philip. The pieces are staters or didrachms. The silver
is very plentiful, and must anciently have had a high commercial
importance. We have already spoken of the denominations in
treating of those of Greek coins generally. It may be here men¬
tioned that the decadrachm of Athens is extremely rare; that the
most common coin is the tetradrachm ; and that some of the smaller
pieces are of frequent occurrence. The earlier coins have archaic
types, commencing about B.C. 500, and reaching^own, without any
essential change of style, througTi the period of good art,—a cir¬
cumstance which can only be attributed, as already remarked, to a
desire not to injure the credit of the Athenian money for purity
among the nations which received it in trade. They are thick and
of coarse fabric. There was no doubt a still older Athenian coinage,
of which specimens must remain; but on this subject nothing
satisfactory has as yet been published. The most notable coins of
the earlier class are the decadrachm, which has on the obverse the
head of Minerva, and on the reverse an owl with spread wings,
with the inscription A0E, and an olive branch, and the tetra¬
drachm, with the same obverse, and on the reverse an owl, usually
turned to the right, but sometimes to the left, and more rarely
facing, but with its wings closed. The coins of the later class are
thinner, and consequently broader, and of a more recent style, than
those of the earlier. They probably commenced not long after the
time of Alexander, and lasted until that of Sylla,if not later. The
principal pieces are tetradrachms, each bearing the names of three
magistrates, among which occur those of two kings, Antiochus Greek
(doubtless the third of that name), and the famous Mithradates of Coins.
Pontus. Their obverse-type is a head of Minerva, probably copied
from that of the ivory-and-gold statue by Phidias in the Parthenon
rather than that of the bronze one by the same artist on the Acro¬
polis; and their reverse-type is an owl upon an amphora. The Athe¬
nian copper is of low art. The first attempt to introduce it failed j1 but
the principal piece {%<xXxou{) was common in the time of the poet Phi.
lemon,2 about B.c. 300. The most remarkable copper coins are two
bearing representations of tbe Acropolis and the great edifices. Both
have on the obverse a head of Minerva. The reverse of one represents
the Acropolis, with the grotto of Pan, the statue of Pallas Proma-
chus, the Parthenon, and the Propylsea, with the steps leading up
to the latter. The reverse of the other shows the theatre of Bac¬
chus, above which are caverns in the rock, and higher still the
Parthenon and the Propylsea.3 Hespecting the rest of Attica we
need only remark that there are fine copper coins of Eleusis, and
that there are Greek imperial pieces of Megara.
The money of the island of iEgina is of especial interest, since iEgina.
with it Greek coinage is said to have originated. The story is,
that at a time when HSgina was a dependency of Argos, Phidon,
king of Argos, struck the first Greek money there, in the eighth
century B.c. It is said that previously silver was formed into
spikes (o/SsA/ff-xoi), of which six made a handful ; and that
thus the name of the drachm and its sixth, the obolus, originated;
but this account may be an invention of later times. There can be
no doubt, however, that the earliest HUginetan coins are of extreme
antiquity. The weight is of course on the talent of iEgina. The
oldest pieces are very primitive didrachms, bearing on the obverse
a tortoise, and on the reverse a rude incuse stamp. Afterwards the
stamp becomes less rude, and later has a peculiar shape. There
are some coins of the early part of the fine period, and of excellent
work. The great currency was of didrachms. The copper coins are
not remarkable, but some appear to be of a time anterior to most
Greek pieces in this metal.
The series of Achaia is numerous and interesting. First we Achaia.
must mention the coins of the Achaean League. The principal
pieces appear to be tetrobola, since their weight is about that
of two-thirds of a light Attic drachm. The type of the obverse
is a head of Jupiter, and that of the reverse AX, for AXAIfiN, in
a monogram, with the name of the people by which the coin
was issued, either in full, or represented by its commencement, com¬
monly the latter, and generally some distinctive symbol. There is
also copper money of this confederacy. Corinth is represented by
a very large series of coins, the weight of which is always Attic.
The chief coin was the didrachm. The oldest pieces are of a
very early time, and bear on the obverse a Pegasus, and on the
reverse an incuse pattern. On coins of a subsequent time, of ar¬
chaic stjde, latterly approaching to that of the good period, we
find the Pegasus still on the obverse, but on the reverse the head of
Minerva in an incuse square. Of the period of the excellence and
decline of art there are numerous specimens, some of which are of
beautiful work, although generally devoid of the severity of the
highest Greek art. The didrachms have on the one side a Pegasus,
either galloping, which is most common, or standing, or drinking;
and on the other the head of Minerva, sometimes with a laurel-
wreath on the helmet, which, it may be noticed, is always Corinthian.
The old letter koppa, the initial of Corinth according to the archaic
orthography, is generally seen on the obverse, as well as various
symbols and letters, on the reverse. The smaller coins have the
same obverse, but generally on the reverse a head of Venus, some¬
times in a cap. Some of these, which appear to be principally
tetrobola, are of good work; and there are a few of fine early style.
There are some drachms with Bellerophon in a combatant attitude,
mounted on Pegasus, on the one side, and the Chimasra on the other.
The autonomous copper money is poor, but often of fair work, and
interesting, especially when the type relates to the myth of Bellero¬
phon. Under the Romans this city was made a colonia; and we have
a large and interesting series of the copper coins struck by it as such.
To the colonies of Corinth is assigned a large series of silver coins,
chiefly, at least, didrachms,—for it is doubtful if there are smaller
pieces,—with the common types of the parent city. These coins
probably do not, in some cases, indicate anything more than Corin¬
thian origin,—and there can be no doubt that the didrachms of
Corinth had such a reputation in commerce that other cities would
have been ready, when it was possible, to issue similar pieces,—
but in other cases they are witnesses of a contemporary influence
or actual supremacy of that great mart,
There are copper pieces of Patrse as a Roman colonia, and silver
and copper coins of Phlius, both of the period of good art. The
ancient city of Sicyon is remarkable for the great beauty of its
Aristoph. Ran. 737; Eccles. 810.
Ap. Meineke, Com. Frag. vol. iv. p. 24.
3 See Numismata Hellenica, “ European Greece,” 21, etseq.
372
NUMISMATICS.
Greek money. Notwithstanding its reputation for antiquity, no coins of
Coins, the archaic time have been attributed to it. The silver coins com¬
mence in the time of early good art, and continue until a late
period, perhaps not far from that of the Achaean League. The
standard, at least during the good time, is iEginetan. The most beau¬
tiful specimen known to us is a drachm of an excellent and simple
style, having on the obverse a dove, as if alighting, and on the re¬
verse the letter 2, placed horizontally like M, with an ornament be¬
neath it. There are didrachms of a somewhat later time, which,
although very fine, are a little too decorated, or at least not severe,
in their style- The type of their obverse is the Chimaera, and that
of their reverse a flying dove within a wreath. The copper is
mainly of good time, but some pieces may be late.
Elis. The money of Elis, or the Eleans, forms a most interesting series,
many of the silver coins being of the highest style, and almost all
bearing interesting devices, remarkably executed.. The weight is
^Eginetan ; and didrachms must have been the most important coins.
The inscription, in full FAAEIfiN, is remarkable for the use
of the digamma. The earliest coins are thick pieces of archaic
work, and singular style, probably struck about the time of the
expedition of Xerxes. The obverse bears a flying eagle carrying
a serpent, and the reverse, a thunderbolt, sometimes of an elaborate
formf Later archaic coins have the eagle carrying a hare or ser¬
pent, and a winged female figure. Next in order of time are the
first fine coins. Some of these have on the obverse an eagle
preying on a hare, and on the reverse a winged female figure
seated on a base. This reverse is very beautiful in one example
we have examined. Still later than these are coins of the finest
style. On the obverse is a head of Juno, in a tiara, with honey¬
suckle ornaments, and sometimes bearing her name HPA; and on
the reverse an eagle,or a thunderbolt, within a wreath. The head
of Juno is an admirable design, and fully proves that the Greeks
attained as great success in coin-engraving as in sculpture. Not
only is the face most beautiful, but it is perfectly appropriate to
the character of Juno as drawn by the poets, and fit for the form
and surface of a coin. There are also pieces in a later style. The
copper money is not remarkable.
Cephal- We have next to notice the coinage of the island of Cephallenia.
lenia &c. The very early and archaic silver coins of Cranii must not be passed
by, nor the money of Pale and Same, all cities of this island. Of
the island of Zacynthus there are silver coins, usually of rather
coarse work. Didrachms of the early good style, on the ^Eginetan
standard, must be mentioned. The coins of Ithaca are of copper.
They are of interest on account of their common obverse-type,
which is a head of Ulysses.
Messenia. Returning to the mainland, we first notice the money of Mes-
senia, or the Messenians. The most remarkable coin is an iEgine-
tan didrachm of the finest style, having on the obverse a head of
Proserpine, excelling in design the similar subjects on the money of
Syracuse. On the reverse is a figure of Jupiter. The other silver
coins are of a comparatively late time, many being of about the pe¬
riod of the Achaean League. The copper money is plentiful, but not
interesting. In Laconia it is only necessary to mention the coinage
of Lacedaemon. As we might have expected, there are no early
coins, the silver money being, like so much of that of the Greek
cities, of about the time of the Achaean League. Among the types
of the autonomous copper pieces may be noticed the head of the
Spartan lawgiver, with the inscription ATROTProC.
Argolis. The series of Argos in Argolis commences, as one would have
anticipated, with coins of a very early period. The standard is
iEginetan. The first coins are the drachm, with a wolf on the
obverse, and on the reverse A, the initial letter of the name of the
people and city, in an incuse square of two divisions, and the
hemidrachm and a smaller piece, each with a wolf’s head on the
obverse, and the same type of reverse as the drachm. The most
common silver coins have as their obverse-type the fore-part of a
wolf; and the head also occurs on smaller pieces. Among coins of the
period of good art we must especially notice those which have for
the obverse-type the head of Juno wearing a tiara; a design which,
although sometimes of great beauty, is not equal to that of the coins
of Elis, the style being less simple. A reverse-type of one of these
coins, a drachm, represents Diomed stealthily advancing with the
Palladium in his left hand, and a short sword in his right. On
coins of the period to which this belongs (for it is certainly anterior
to Alexander), the devices were of a strictly religious character.
We cannot suppose a historical subject to be introduced; and it is
therefore evident that the Trojan war was then considered by the
Argives to be mythical. It may be remarked that some of the
copper coins of Argos are of good style. Of the town of Trcezen
there are very fine silver coins of the early part of the best period Greek
of art, and some of a later time. _ Coins.
The money of Arcadia is interesting, although it does not form a v ^
large series. Some pieces are doubtless among the most ancient
struck by the Greeks, and the types of these and later coins are Arcadia,
often connected with the remarkable myths of this primaeval part
of Hellas, showing particularly the remains of its old nature-wor¬
ship. The first series to be noticed is that of Arcadia generally, or
the Arcadians. It commences with very ancient silver coins, pro¬
bably of at least the sixth century B.C., bearing types which con¬
tinue to the early part of the fine period. These coins are chiefly
hemidrachms on the JEginetan system, of which the usual types
are, for the obverse, Jupiter iEtophorus seated, the eagle usually
represented as if flying from his hand; and for the reverse, a female
head. Of a later time, from about the age of Alexander, there are
coins with, on the obverse, the head of J upiter, and on the reverse
Pan seated. These form part of the general currency which fol¬
lowed that of Alexander, and was most prevalent under the Achasan
League. As they have everywhere a maximum weight of about
40 grains, it is probable that they were equal to low iEginetan
hemidrachms, as well as to Attic tetrobola similarly debased ; and
from their generally having come into use where the system of the
former had obtained, they were probably considered as related to
it, although actually Attic tetrobola. In Crete, however, the
iEginetan standard was supplanted by the Attic, and the same
must have been the case in Boeotia, although there no pieces of
the later issue above the weight of Attic tetrobola seem to have
been common. The coins of Heraea are interesting. They
commence at a very remote period, and last to the time of
good art. The types of the oldest are, for the obverse, a female
head veiled, probably that of Juno, in an extremely archaic style;
and for the reverse, the retrograde inscription A5a, between two
horizontal ornamented borders. These and the other archaic coins
are hemidrachms, and a smaller piece, on the iEginetan standard.
The antiquity of Mantinea is, in like manner, attested by its money.
The silver coins of a very early time have on the obverse a bear,
representing Callisto, the mother of Areas, and on the reverse three
acorns in a triangular incuse depression. Others, of a later time,
have on the one side an acorn, and on the other the letter M. As to
the type of the bear, it may be observed that Callisto was particularly
honoured here j1 and as to that of the acorn, that its occurrence
shows that the prominence given to this fruit in the myths relating
to Arcadia must be due to a primasval nature-worship, and not to its
having been supposed to have been the food of the earliest inhabi¬
tants. The silver coins of Megalopolis are important, since we
know the city’ to have been founded B.C. 370. The types are the
same as those of the coins of the Arcadians of the same period, the
obverse bearing the head of Jupiter, and the reverse Pan seated.2
The silver coins of Pheneus must be noticed to be of fine work.
The last Arcadian town of the money of which we shall speak is
Stymphalus. The finest coin attributed to this place is a magni¬
ficent didrachm on the iEginetan standard. The obverse bears
the head of Diana laureate, and the reverse Hercules striking with
his club. This coin, although of great beauty, is not of the highest
style. The head is not sufficiently simple in its treatment, being
too rich in the details. The other design also errs in a want of
meaning. When Hercules is represented shooting, there is no need
to portray the object which he attacks ; but when he uses his club,
there is a defect if we do not see what he is about to strike. Mr
Burgon thinks this piece must be of a city of the same name in
Crete, as yet unknown to us from any other source. Not alone is
the style of the coin remarkably Cretan, and even the mechanical
execution, but the very same types occur on iEginetan didrachms
of Chersonesus of Crete. Yet Diana and Hercules were both wor¬
shipped in the Arcadian city. The smaller silver coins are un¬
doubtedly of that place. They have on the one side the head of
Hercules, and on the other, the head and neck of a Stymphalian
bird, most resembling those of a vulture. There were representa¬
tions of these birds in the temple of Diana at Stymphalus.3 The
series of Tegea can scarcely be considered as important, but three
of the reverse-types of its copper coins are very interesting. Two
of these relate to the story that Minerva gave a jar containing the
hair of Medusa to her priestess Sterope, daughter of Cepheus, in
order that she might terrify the Argives should they attack Tegea
during the absence of Cepheus, when Hercules desired his aid
in an expedition against Sparta. The third represents a hind
suckling the infant Telephus.
The coins of Crete bear witness to its ancient wealth. Silver Crete,
must have been abundant, whence, except it were anciently found
1 Paus. Arc. 3, 9, 35, 36.
2 Colonel Leake (Mini. Hel., Eur. Gr., p. 72) supposes that the later silver coins of Arcadia were struck at Megalopolis; and this would explain
the identity of their types with those of the coins of this place. 3 Paus. Arc. 22.
NUMISMATICS.
373
Greek
Coins.
in the island (and modern researches there have not yet detected
any traces of this metal, much less of its former working), we must
suppose an extensive and active commerce. The period over which
the autonomous silver coins range extends from about the latter
part of the sixth century B.C. to the beginning of the Roman rule
The autonomous copper coinage belongs only to the Jitter part ot
this period, and gold money has not been found. The imperial
coins are not numerous. The types have a very local character,
which connects them with early Greek mythology. Neptune,
Jupiter, Juno, Hercules, and the local goddess Britomartis, identified
with Artemis, are among the principal divinities. Subjects con¬
nected with the myths of Europa and that of the Minotaur also
occur. Many series have evident reference to the primaeval nature-
worship. The art of the silver coins of Crete is well deserving of
study. In general it is at first rude, and suddenly attains excel¬
lence. In its perfection it stands by itself, as wholly distinct from
that of any other class of Greek money. In essential excellence it
is inferior to no other style, but it errs in a want of fitness, neces¬
sarily arising from its intensely pictorial character. The percep¬
tion of beauty which it displays is very great, although in female
heads there is too much richness. The figures, the animal forms,
and the trees are drawn with the most admirable truth and freedom,
and, notwithstanding, often in very low relief for Greek coins. The
pictorial character of this art is shown not alone in the choice of
subjects, but in the extremely natural mode in which they are
treated, with a constant preference for perspective, without in
either case a regard for the form or surface of the coin. Thus, as
examples of Greek art, the finest Cretan pieces are of the highest
value; but as examples of that art as applied to coins, they are to
be consulted with great caution. The standard of the older silver
coins, comprising all those of fine style, is ^Eginetan ; and the coins
show a considerable lowering of weight. The later coins follow the
Attic talent. Judging from their art, none of the older class can
be much more recent than B.c. 370, nor any of the later, much ear¬
lier than B.C. 320. One thing is certain, that there is a gap between
the coins of the two systems which corresponds very well to the
reign of Alexander, some of whose coins may be ascribed, on very
probable grounds, to Cretan cities.
Of the island of Crete, generally, there are Roman silver coins
of the earlier emperors, some of which are of fine work for the
period. The inscriptions are either in Latin, or partly in Latin
and partly in Greek. In the autonomous civic series there are
didrachms of Aptera, called on its money Aptara. The obverse
bears a female head wearing a tiara, and the reverse a warrior
before a sacred tree J Of Chersonesus, the port of Lyctus, called on
the coins Chersonasus, there are didrachms of fine style, and some¬
times of fine work also. The obverse has a head of Diana Brito¬
martis, who had a temple here ;1 2 and the reverse bears either Apollo
with his lyre, or Hercules striking with his club. The pieces with
the latter reverse are essentially identical with the fine coin hither¬
to attributed to the Arcadian Stymphalus which we have lately
noticed. The series of silver coins of Cnossus is of great interest
and beauty. This city is said to have been the capital of the ancient
Cretan kings, and its coins show that it must have been a wealthy
place. The oldest coins are of a very archaic style, and probably
anterior in time to the expedition of Xerxes, and certainly not
later. One of these, a didrachm, has on the obverse the Minotaur,
portrayed as a man with apparently a bull’s head, kneeling on one
knee; and on the reverse the Labyrinth, represented by an intricate
pattern. Another didrachm, of about the same time, has on the
one side the Minotaur, who has here undoubtedly a bull’s head, and
on the other a head, which appears to be that of a female, within a
labyrinthine border. The head, which is probably that of Ariadne,
being put for a person, and the border for the Labyrinth, are
instances of archaic feeling. The antiquity of these coins disproves
the supposition that the Labyrinth was an invention of the later
poets, as there is no mention of it by Homer, Hesiod, or Herodotus ;
a supposition which has led to the conjecture that the idea is of
Egyptian origin, and fixed to this place on account of the natural
excavations in its neighbourhood.3 The coins show that the myth is
older than Herodotus; and it may be observed that the Egyptian
Labyrinth, both from the evidence of ancient writers and that of its
lately-discovered remains, does not appear to have been what is gene¬
rally understood by a labyrinth. Further, it is doubtful if Homer
do not in one place allude to the Cretan Labyrinth.4 Of the early
part of the time of fine work are didrachms with, on the obverse, the
head of Proserpine, and on the reverse the head of a bull, for the
Minotaur, in a labyrinthine border, or else only a conventional pat¬
tern for the Labyrinth. One of these is, on the obverse, in excel- V
lent style. These are succeeded by coins of the most beautiful design
and execution. They have on the obverse a head of Juno wearing
a tiara, and apparently represented as young; and on the reverse
the Labyrinth, which here has a rectangular form, and is a maze.
The head is of great beauty; its youthful and soft character is
probably an effect of Cretan art, but it may refer to the tale that
Juno was married near this town.5 The didrachm and drachm of
these types are known. Of a later time there are tetradrachms on
the Attic standard, with, on the one side, the head of Apollo, and
on the other the Labyrinth, represented of a circular form ; or the
head of Jupiter, and the rectangular form of the Labyrinth. There
are interesting coins of Cydonia. Their types constantly refer to
the myth of Cydon, son of Apollo by Acacallis, daughter of Minos.
The money of Eleuthernae must also be mentioned.
Gortys, or Gortyna, is represented by most remarkable coins, which
generally allude to the myth of Europa. Didrachms of about B.C.
500 have on the obverse Europa carried by the bull, and on the
reverse a lion’s scalp, in linear and incuse squares. Colonel Leake
describes one belonging to Gen. Fox, with nearly this general type,
bearing on the reverse a retrograde inscription in archaic characters,
rOPTTNOS TO 2AIMA[2HMA],6whereprobably means “badge”
or “ ensign,” and not “ type;” for the last rendering would not be
in accordance with the principles of the inscriptions of Greek coins.
These pieces are followed by a remarkably fine class of spread iEgi-
netan didrachms, the types of which relate to the myth of Europa.
The best are of the early part of the period of good art, at the
time at which perfect skill of handling had been attained. These
have on the obverse Europa seated in a pensive attitude on the
trunk of a tree, doubtless the sacred plane at Gortyna which was
said never to shed its leaves, mentioned by Pliny ;7 and on the
reverse a bull suddenly turning his head, as if stung by a fly.
Nothing in Greek art exceeds the skill and beauty of these
designs. The truth with which the tree is sketched, and the
graceful position of the forlorn Europa, are as much to be admired
as the fidelity with which the bull is drawn, even when fore¬
shortened, sharply turning his head, with his tongue out, and his
tail raised. These designs, beautiful in themselves, are strikingly
deficient in fitness, and afford equally strong illustrations of the ex¬
cellencies and the one great fault of the art of Cretan coins. Many
pieces of the same class are of rude execution, but a fine style is evi¬
dent in all. There is a tetradrachm with the types of the late Athe¬
nian ones, from which it differs only in the name, and in having the
badge of a butting bull. The coins of Hierapytna are chiefly re¬
markable for bearing the representation of a date-palm. Of Itanus
there are fine early pieces, and others of the best period. Lyttus, as
its name is written on the coins in the Cretan form, instead of Lyctus,
is represented by many silver coins, chiefly archaic ^Eginetan di¬
drachms, having on the obverse a flying eagle, and on the reverse
a boar’s head.
The coins of Phsestus form an interesting series. Among the
didrachms are someof admirable work, with, on the obverse, Hercules
slaying the Hydra with his club, and on the reverse a bull, excel¬
lently drawn. Others, also of fine work, have on the one side
Hercules seated on the ground, and on the other a bull within a
wreath. The most remarkable coins of Phasstus are, however,
those that bear representations of Tales, the man of brass, said
to have been made by Vulcan. One of these is an ^Eginetan di¬
drachm, on which he is portrayed as a winged youth, naked, bear¬
ing in each hand a stone, and in a combatant attitude. This figure
is accompanied by his name. A similar design is seen on a copper
coin. The reader will recollect the accounts which ancient writers
give of Tales, and especially that of Apollonius Rhodius (Argonaut.
iv., 1638, et seq.), who relates that he prevented the Argonauts
from landing in Crete by hurling stones at them, until he was de¬
stroyed by the artifice of Medea. These coins afford important il¬
lustration to such scanty and less authoritative notices, and have
the advantage, as usual, of addressing us by representation and not
by description. Instances of this kind show convincingly the great
value of numismatic knowledge in the study of Greek mythology.
Of Polyrrhenium, or Polyrrhenia,8 there are many coins; the early
ones are fine, and should rather be called of the people than of the
place, since it is said that at the period to which they undoubtedly
belong the city was not built, and the Polyrrhenians dwelt in villages,
Strabo, lib. x., cap. 4.
Greek
Coins.
1 Numismata Hellenica, “ Insular Greece, pp. 3, 4.
8 Comp. Hoeck, Areja, vol. i., p. 56, et sea. . , ,
4 11. xviii. 590, et seq. It is, perhaps, of little importance that the Cnossians in after times showed a so-called sculpture in white stone asen
Daedalus, representing the dance of Ariadne, a work to which Homer was here said to allude. (Pans. ix. 40.)
8 Died. Sic. v. 72. ..
0 A'umismata Heilenica, “ Insular Greece,” p. 18. Plm. Hist. Nat. xn. o.
8 The name of the place or people on the coins has but one P.
374
NUMISMATICS.
Greek by which we can scarcely understand a straggling and unwalled
Coins. town.1 There are interesting coins of Priansus and Rhaucus,
vy ^ both with representations of Neptune. Of Sybrita, or Sybritia, we
must notice a didrachm of the finest work, bearing on the obverse
Bacchus or a bacchic figure, with a thyrsus carried by a panther,
and on the reverse Hercules drawing on his right buskin.
Eubcea. The coins of Euboea are plentiful, but their types are not very
various. All, however early, are on the Attic standard, and no
numismatic indication of a distinct Euboic talent has yet been
discovered. Of Eubcea generally, silver and copper coins are
known. The former are of the early part, and the rest of the
period of good art, but principally of the latter. The obverse has a
female head, probably of Venus, and the reverse, the head of a
sacrificial bull. Carystus is represented by early didrachms with,
on the one side, a cow suckling a calf, as at Dyrrhachium, and on
the other a cock ; and by later pieces with the head of Hercules
bearded, in the lion’s sk;n, and a palm-tree or other device. Of
Chalcis there are drachms with the head which is probably that of
Venus, and an eagle destroying a serpent, some of which are fine,
although not very remarkable for their art. There is an early
tetradrachm of Eretria, bearing on the obverse a bull as if stung by
a fly, and with a bird standing on his back, and on the reverse a
cuttle-fish. Among the later coins no very fine pieces are found.
Of Histiaea there are many small silver coins, which appear to be
drachms and tetrobola. The obverse-type is, as we think, the head
of a bacchic female (for it can scarcely be of the androgynous
Bacchus), and is sometimes very beautiful; and the reverse-type is
a female seated on a prow, and holding a mast. Most of these coins
are of the fine period, but some are late. In the copper series there
are also pieces of good style.
Ceos, &c. Among the other islands classed after Euboea, Ceos is especially
worthy of note. There are coins which have the name of the
people in general, and others of the cities of Carthaea, Coresus or
Coresia, and lulis. The silver money of Coresus is wholly of a very
early time, for we must assign it to the sixth and seventh centuries
B.C., carrying its oldest pieces as far back as near the commence¬
ment of Greek coinage. The weight is A5ginetan; and there are
didrachms and smaller coins. The usual obverse-type is a cuttle¬
fish and dolphin, and the reverse bears an incuse pattern. Of the
coins of Melos the common obverse-type is a fruit, probably a
pomegranate. Those who expect, from the excellence of the works
of art that have been found in this island, a corresponding beauty
in its coinage, will be disappointed, as at Athens. Naxos is repre¬
sented by early ^Eginetan didrachms and coins of the fine period,
the latter being chiefly copper piecesof remarkably delicate and good
work. The types are bacchic. Of Paros the silver money is
plentiful, but not very fine ; it consists chiefly of Attic didrachms.
There are very early iEginetan didrachms of Siphnos, and smaller
archaic coins. Some of the copper pieces are of the best period,
and very fine. Of Tenos there are silver coins of the good time,
but of poor work. The head of the bearded Jupiter Ammon occurs
on tetradrachms following the Attic standard, and on smaller
pieces, that of the young Ammon, laureate as well as horned,
which shows the reasonableness of concluding that the two repre¬
sentations are of the same divinity.
Pontus, &c. The coinage of Asia commences with that of Asia Minor. The
first provinces are Bosporus and Colchis, the coins of the cities of
which are few and unimportant. The coins of the cities of Pontus
are more numerous, and although none of them are archaic or
deserve to be characterized as fine, the style of some, both of silver
and of copper, is not bad. The general series is of copper pieces,
which are sometimes large and usually thick, and are of more careful
work than those of Greece Proper. The only place meriting especial
notice is Amisus, which alone of the cities of Pontus seems to have
issued autonomous silver coins. These were continued under the
emperors in the form of Greek denarii, that is, Roman denarii with
Greek inscriptions. The common subjects of the coppermouey of this
place relate to the myth of Perseus and Medusa. The series of the
kings of Pontus and Bosporus has, as its first interesting coins, those
of the famous Mithradates VI., king of Pontus, of whom there are
staters and tetradrachms. The portrait on the best tetradrachms is
extremely fine, and, as a portrait, scarcely excelled in the whole
class of Greek coins. Even as a design it has great merits ; and
this is the more remarkable if we consider the low period at which
it was struck. The treatment of the hair has been well explained
by the supposition that the head was copied from a statue in which
the king, who is said to have been a very skilful rider and chario¬
teer,2 was represented driving; an opinion which derives some
support from the apparent allusion by Pliny to a work or works
of the kind.3 The subsequent coins are not interesting. They are
of the remaining part of the kingdom of Pontus, and of all that of
Bosporus until near its close, probably not very long after the time
of Constantine the Great. The gold and silver coins soon became
Roman aurei and denarii in their weight. The gold degenerates
into electrum, and the silver is supplanted, though later, by potin
or other very base metal. These coins bear dates in the Pontic era.
In Paphlagonia we must especially notice the coins of the cities
Amastris and Sinope. The silver pieces of the former place bear
a female head, in a laureate Phrygian bonnet, probably represent¬
ing Amastris the founder. On the late copper money the bust of
Homer occurs. There are also copper coins of the imperial class.
The silver pieces of Sinope are plentiful, and of fair work. There
are copper coins of a Pylaemenes, king of Paphlagonia, but it is
not known to which of the sovereigns bearing that name they
should be assigned. Bithynia is represented by a more important
series. Of the country generally there are Roman silver medal¬
lions, of the weight of low Attic tridrachms, with Latin inscriptions,
and imperial copper pieces with Greek inscriptions. The ordinary
silver coins of Cbalcedon strikingly resemble, on both sides, the
early ones of Byzantium, a circumstance confirmatory of the state¬
ment that the two cities were colonized at nearly the same time
from Megara. Of Cius, also called Prusias ad Mare, there are fine
silver pieces: the latter name occurs on some of those in copper.
Hadrian! and Hadrianotherae issued autonomous copper coins. Of
Heraclea there are silver coins of good work of the fine period;
these are Aiginetan didrachms, and smaller pieces apparently on
the same standard. The obverse-type is a head of Hercules, either
bearded or beardless, in the lion’s skin; and the most interesting
reverse-type, a female head wearing a tiara on which are three
turrets, is probably that of the town personified. Of the ty¬
rants of Heraclea, there are silver coins of Timotheus and Diony¬
sius ruling together, and of Dionysius reigning alone. Of the
imperial class, there is a large series of Nicaea, and there are many
coins of Nicomedia. The series of Bithynia closes with the money
of its kings, consisting of Attic tetradrachms and copper pieces.
The tetradrachms bearing the name of Prusias are probably of
Prusias I. and II., for there is some difference in the portraits.
The copper coins with the same name, some of which are fine,
cannot be otherwise classed than to both kings, since we do not
know by which of the two they were issued. Of Nicomedes II.
and III. there are only tetradrachms.
The fine Greek coinage of Asia may be considered to commence
with Mysia. Cyzicus is in numismatics a most important city.
From it the Cyzicene staters derived their name, which appears to
have been used as a general appellation of the electrum staters of
the west coast of Asia Minor, although those of Phocaea were dis¬
tinguished. Some of the known specimens of these coins, as well
as of the hectse, were doubtless struck at Cyzicus ; but we have
thought it best to group the whole class to which they belong
together, until it is more certainly classified. The silver coinage
of this town comprises archaic but not very old pieces, and others
of early fine work, but of somewhat archaic style, having on
the obverse a half-boar, behind which is a fish, and on the reverse
a lion’s head in profile, within an incuse square. Of the best art
there are most beautiful tetradrachms of the Phoenician or Persian
talent. The obverse bears a head of Proserpine, with a veil on the
back wound round her hair, and in the hair ears of corn. This is
an example of the best Greek art, equally simple, delicate, and
graceful. Such a union of beauty with breadth and simplicity is
very rare, especially in the representation of female heads. Above
the head is the inscription SftTEIPA, which may be compared with
KOPH SfiTEIPA KTZIKHNfiN on a late copper coin, accompanying
a head which is probably that of the younger Faustina in the
character of Proserpine. The reverse-type of the fine tetradrachms
is a lion’s head in profile above a fish. These were followed, after
a long space, by coins on the Attic weight; for there is a tetra¬
drachm on that standard resembling those of the later Macedonian
kings. Some of the autonomous copper coins are fine, but most are
of a low period, probably having been issued just before and under
the Roman domination. The late pieces are, however, sometimes
of good work for their time. There are also many imperial copper
coins.
The money of Lampsacus must next be noticed. In gold there
are fine staters, adjusted apparently to the standard of the darics
rather than to that of the Attic talent; although, from the small
difference in weight, this is hard to determine. One is very fine,
though not of the highest art, and remarkable for the peculiar
style of the design of its obverse. This is the head of a bearded
man, with long dishevelled hair, and covered with a conical cap
bearing a wreath. It may perhaps be a head of Neptune. The
1 Strabo, lib. x., cap. 4. As, however, the city built by the Achseans and Lacedaemonians is here described as strong, it is possible that the
villages which it supplanted really formed a straggling town without walls.
a Appian. Mithr. § 112. s plin. Hisu N(lt > lib>
xxxiii., § 54.
Greek
Coins.
Paphlago¬
nia and
Bithynia.
Mysia.
NUMISMATICS.
375
Greek reverse has the fore-part of a winged horse, the wing being
Coins curled, and the body terminating in what seems to be a kind of
, fin, so that the monster would appear to be a sea-horse. The old
y "i gilver coins have on the obverse a Janus-like combination of two
female heads. Of the good period there are some small pieces; and
there is also an Attic tetradrachm of late time, showing the aban¬
donment of the old standard, which was probably Phoenician. The
autonomous copper money is not very important. Of Parium there
are silver coins of the early fine period, and of rather archaic style.
Some copper pieces of good time are remarkable for bearing an
altar in perspective, such objects being scarcely ever thus repre¬
sented until a much later period.
The coins of the great city of Pergamus or Pergamum are chiefly
of a late time. There are, indeed, gold and silver pieces of the
good period, the former being very rare; but the most numerous
silver coins are cistophori, and therefore late. The cistophorus,
as we have already shown, is in weight an Attic tridrachm, but
it probably came, through the depreciation of the Phoenician tetra-
drachms of Rhodes and other places, to be considered a tetradrachm,
and thus the half and quarter of it were struck, although apparently
in no great numbers. All the cistophori are of the kingdom of
Pergamus, which afterwards became the Roman province Asia.
The oldest were most probably issued under the kings, but the
later are of the Roman rule, and we find on them the names of
proconsuls or propraetors of Asia, and of proconsuls of Cilicia,
from the time at which Phrygia was given to that province. Thus
the name of M. Tullius Cicero, as proconsul, occurs on a cistophorus
of Apamea of Phrygia, and, with the title “ Imperator,” on one of
Laodicea in the same country, the latter coin illustrating an event
narrated by the orator.1 The obverse-type of these pieces is the
cista mystica, a basket from which a serpent issues, all within a
wreath of ivy; and the reverse-type, two serpents, partly inter¬
twined, and rising on either side of a bow-case, or sometimes, but
rarely, of some other object. These proper cistophori are succeeded
by coins of the time of the triumvirate of Mark Antony and his
colleagues, with a Roman head or heads on the obverse, and ser¬
pents on either side of the cista, and of some other object, on the
reverse; and these, again, are followed by the so-called imperial
silver medallions of Asia, which are of the weight of cistophori.
These last have on the obverse either the head of an emperor or
that of an empress, and on the reverse various designs, and are of
fine work for the period. The earliest are of Augustus, and the
latest of Domitian.2 The copper pieces of Pergamus are numerous,
both of the autonomous and of the imperial class, the latter com¬
prising some medallions. The principal coins of the kings of Per¬
gamus are Attic tetradrachms, with, on the obverse, a laureate
head, believed to be that of the first king, Philetserus, and on the
reverse a seated Minerva. The portrait is often very fine, when it
must be considered to be one of the best Greek portraits, and an
excellent example of the work of the time. The reverse is pro¬
bably taken from that of the common tetradrachms of Lysimachus,
from whom Philetserus revolted. Although the inscription of the
reverse is always #IAETAIPOT, a monogram or letter sometimes
points out the king by whom a particular coin was issued. Be¬
sides these tetradrachms, there are copper coins, which, however,
are unimportant.
The Troad coinage of the Troad is chiefly interesting from its reference,
' in its later pieces, to the Trojan War, and the manner in which it
thus illustrates the Iliad. We must recollect, however, that this
kind of evidence on very late coins cannot be safely held to be in¬
dependent, except where the type is of an indisputably religious
character, and also that, at the Roman time, and a period somewhat
earlier, this character is not constant. Hence we must not
hastily conclude that the coins show that there was a local tradi¬
tion of the great contest, nor that they prove its heroes to be my¬
thical. Of Abydos there are silver coins of the early part of the
good period, which seem to be adjusted to the Phoenician talent.
The drachms have on the obverse an anchor, to which a craw-fish
is about to cling; and on the reverse a head of Medusa, with the
serpents, which are not usually represented on the coins. There
are Attic tetradrachms of a late time, noticeable for their strange
fabric, which gives them the appearance of cast coins, and renders
them suspicious to those who are unaware of this peculiarity.
Alexandria is represented by late Attic tetradrachms, having on
the one side a head of Apollo, and on the other, Apollo advancing
with bow and arrow, and the inscription AIIOAAfiNOS ZMI6Et22
AAESANAPEfiN, &c. There are later autonomous and imperial Greek
coins, in copper, of the Roman colonia. Of Ilium there are like- Coins,
wise late Attic tetradrachms of coarse work, bearing on the obverse
the head of Minerva, and on the reverse the same goddess advanc¬
ing, holding in her right hand a spear, which rests on her shoulder,
and in her left hand a distaff, with the inscription A0HNA2
IAIAA02, &c. One of the autonomous copper pieces has on the
obverse Hector in a combatant attitude, with his name EKTfiP,
and on the reverse the wrolf and twins, showing that it is of the
Roman period. On another copper coin Aeneas is represented
carrying Anchises, and leading Ascanius. There are also many
imperial copper pieces of this place. Of Scepsis, which is said to
have been the capital of a Dardanian kingdom for a long period
between the fall of Troy and the age of Alexander,3 there are
archaic silver coins; and some of its copper money is of good style.
Sigeum was for a great length of time a dependency of Athens;
and the common types of its silver coins are accordingly Athenian,
although the style of art is different. The island of Tenedos is
represented by very early coins, and others of the fine and late
periods. The usual obverse-type of all the silver pieces is a J anus¬
like combination of two heads, probably those of Jupiter and J uno;
and the usual reverse-type of all but the oldest is a two-headed
axe.4 The weight seems to be always Attic.
In AEolis we may notice that some of the coins of A3gae are of a AEolis.
very early time, and that the principal type, the head and neck,
or fore-part of a goat, is probably connected with the name. The
town of Cyme is represented by an important series of silver coins.
A few of these are early, but most are fine late Attic tetradrachms,
probably first struck not very long after Alexander’s time, and per¬
haps issued for about a hundred years. On the obverse is a female
head, perhaps that of Diana, bound with a narrow fillet: the style
has some purity and vigour, though yet far inferior to that of the
best Greek coins, and thus shows the vitality of art in Asia Minor.
The reverse-type is a horse within a wreath of laurel. There are
also examples of fair work among the copper coins. Of Myrina
there are Attic tetradrachms like those of Cyme, and of about the
same period. The obverse-type, which is a laureate head of Apollo,
is in a vigorous style. The imperial coins of .ZEolis are not very
numerous.
The coinage of Lesbos is remarkable for the base material of Lesbos,
what we may consider, as a class, to be its oldest pieces. These,
although at first heavier, probably represent Aiginetan didrachms
and divisions, their original weight having been determined on the
same principle as that which regulated the weight of the electrum
coins of Asia Minor. They are doubtless of the different cities of
the island, although it is difficult to attribute most of them. Cer¬
tain of these early base silver coins, with, on the obverse, two boars’
heads facing one another, and on the reverse an irregular incuse
square, must be classed to Antissa, as Mr Burgon has determined,
since one bears the letters AN in monogram. To Methymna may
perhaps be assigned a coin of the kind just noticed, but there is
also a silver one of very archaic style, which is, if not anterior to it,
at least of the same time. Of a later period there are fine coins of
this town. Among the copper pieces we must not pass by one
already mentioned, on which Arion and the dolphin are repre¬
sented. The weight of the pure silver coins of Methymna seems to
be always Attic. Mytilene appears to have struck electrum coins,
for hectae are assigned to it, one of which bears the letters AE.
It must be remembered that this was the chief town of the island,
and, as Col. Leake supposes, Homer’s As^/Jav euxTijU.iyuv. There are
early base coins of this place, and silver of the fine period. The
standard seems to be yEginetan. The copper pieces are numerous,
and the earliest are of fair style. The very late are interesting, as
bearing the names and portraits of benefactors. Mytilene is thus
shown to have honoured such persons as heroes or heroines; and
one, Theophanes, the friend of Pompey, from whom he obtained
for this city, his native place, the privileges of a free state, is in¬
deed even called a god; while Archedamis, probably his wife, is
styled a goddess. The imperial coins of Mytilene may also be
mentioned: they comprise medallions. There are beautiful copper
pieces of Pyrrha of the good period.
The electrum coins of Asia Minor may be best placed between j’iectTUra
iEolis and Ionia, in the opinion of Mr Burgon, since this position is coins 0f
about the centre of their geographical range. They form a most Asia
interesting class, whether we consider the antiquity of the earliest, Minor,
or the admirable style of the designs of a great proportion, or their
1 Having conquered the barbarians at Issus, Cicero received this title: “ Ita victoria justa Imperator appellatus apud Issum,” &c. (Epist.
Farm. ii. 10.)
a See, on the whole subject of the cistophori and imperial medallions, an excellent paper by M. Pinder, “ Uber die Cistophoren und fiber die
Kaiserlichen Silbermedaillons der Rbmischen Provinz Asia, von M. Pinder” (Kbngl. Acad, der Wissensch.), Berlin, 1856.
8 Strabo, lib. xiii., chap. i.
4 Aristotle (ap. Steph. Byz. voc. TLsSo;) gives a puerile explanation of these types, which Colonel Leake (Num. Hel., “ Insular Greece,” p. 43)
rightly condemns.
376
NUMISMATICS.
Greek
Coins.
Ionia’
general importance in reference to Greek mythology. As to their
art, it may be truly said that it is impossible to form a fair opinion
of the artistic excellence of the coins of the west of Asia Minor with¬
out a knowledge of these, which make up the majority of the most
carefully-executed specimens struck during the best period.. The
earliest electrum coins have the appearance of a greater antiquity
than any in the whole Greek series ; and thus explain the remark of
Herodotus, that the Lydians, as far as he knew (for he does not
here omit his characteristic cautious mode of expression), were the
first who struck money. Although perhaps the first coins may
have been struck in HSgina, and others soon afterwards, elsewhere
in Greece, and this useful invention speedily adopted in. Asia, it
seems more pronable that it was of Asiatic origin ; and it should
be remembered that the part of Asia to which the electrum class
belongs was at this early period subject to the Lydian kings. . The
oldest pieces are staters and smaller coins, with rude and seemingly
unmeaning incuse stamps on the obverse, and on the reverse a mere
mark of the rough surface of the anvil. These are followed by
coins with a rude design on the obverse, and irregular incuse
stamps in a square on the reverse. After a time the art of the
designs on the obverse improves, and the reverse is occupied by a
quadripartite incuse square, of which each of the divisions is in a
different plane. There are many staters and hectae of this class,
which we may call the later archaic, to distinguish it from the
older class which precedes it. To the same group must be assigned
some hectae struck towards the close of its period, which are re¬
markable for having a second and incuse design on the reverse,
differing from that on the obverse. The electrum coins of the best
period commence with such as are slightly archaic. These have
the quadripartite incuse reverse, which is, as far as we know, the in¬
variable reverse of the statersof this whole period. These staters are
of pure and excellent style in their designs. The hectae are unex¬
celled for breadth and purity of style, combined with the greatest
beauty and refinement. They present a most interesting series of
heads of Greek divinities. The latest show a slight decline in their
style.
In Ionia we must first notice the town of Clazomenae, the earlier
silver pieces of which bear the fore-part of a winged boar. Among
the coins issued at a later time, we must notice three examples which
worthily support the character we have given the artists of Asiatic
Greece. These are, a gold coin of the weight of the third of an
Attic tetradrachm, and two silver Attic tetradrachms. The obverse-
type of all is a head of Apollo facing, and the reverse-type a swan.
The age is about the middle or latter part of the fifth century B.C.;
and the head is in the very best Greek style, the swan being not so
finely executed. The former is slightly better on the gold coin,
where it has a simple grandeur and beauty that gives it a place
among the first monuments of Greek art. On the two tetradrachms
the head is but little inferior; and it is noticeable that the artist,
proud of his work, has inscribed on both (for they are by the same
hand, though from different dies) “Theodotus made this ” (6EOAO-
T02 EIIOEI). There is a tetradrachm, doubtless later, on which the
head of Apollo shows an ornate and mannered style. Some of the
copper coins are of the good time, and well executed.
Passing Colophon, of which there are archaic coins and others of
the fine period, we reach Ephesus. The early silver pieces of this
town, which are not of a very remote period, have on the one side
a bee, and on the other usually an incuse square, rudely divided
into four parts. The most important of the older coins of the fine
period are tetradrachms of the Phcenician talent, bearing on the
obverse a bee, and on the reverse a date-palm and the forepart of
a stag. The principal later coins of the same period are didrachms
of a lower weight, and in time a little before the expedition of
Alexander. They bear on the one side the bust of Diana, in a
beautiful style, but not the finest j and on the other the fore-part
of a stag. Of a still lower time there are many cistophori. Some
of the autonomous copper pieces display a good style of art. There
is a large imperial series, including some coins of silver. Of the
latter metal certain are of especial interest, since they bear,
although they are evidently of Roman weight, inscriptions stating
them to be drachms and didrachms. These are followed by Roman
denarii of fine work, with Latin inscriptions. The imperial
copper money also presents specimens of good art for the period.
There are coins in both silver and copper of Ephesus with the name
of Arsinoe, which the city took from the wife of Lysimachus, and
bore only during his life. They have the portrait of Arsinoe,
which may be compared with that on her Egyptian coins as wife of
Ptolemy Philadelphus.1 The money of Erythrae bears types con¬
nected with Hercules. Some of its silver coins, on the Phcenician
standard, are of good style; and the autonomous copper pieces are no¬
ticeable for the great number of magistrates’ names which they bear,
indicating the long period during which they were issued. On
the coins of Magnesia are subjects connected with the River Greek
Maeander. Thus the earlier silver pieces, which have on the Coins
obverse an armed horseman galloping, bear on the reverse a
humped bull butting, within a circular meander, or upon a straight
device of the same kind; so that there seems to be a double symbolic
representation of the river. There is also a fine spread Attic
tetradrachm, of late time, but of fair work, like those of Cyme;
and having on the obverse the bust of Diana, and on the reverse
Apollo standing on a meander. Of Miletus there are a few archaic
silver coins on the Attic standard, with, on the one side, a lion’s head
and fore-leg, and on the other a conventional star in an incuse
square. The later pieces, which appear mainly to follow the Phce¬
nician standard, are of good and sometimes excellent work. Their
obverse-type is a head of Apollo, and their reverse-type a lion
looking back at a star. The silver coins of Phocaea are very early,
and have on their obverse a seal, reminding us of the derivation of
the name of the place. The copper coins are much later, and some
of them are in a good style. No early silver coins of Smyrna
are known, the pieces in this metal being late Attic tetradrachms,
with, on the obverse, a female turreted head, probably^ that of
Cybele, and on the reverse a lion or a monogram, within a wreath
of oak. In copper there is a large series, both of the autonomous
and of the imperial class. Some coins of the former kind are of
fair work. Certain of them have on the obverse a figure of Homer
seated ; and it was doubtless copper money of Smyrna of this sort
which Strabo mentions as bearing the name 'Opri^uoi. Other auto¬
nomous copper coins bear on the obverse the head of Mithradates
VI., and were doubtless struck when he held the place. The impe¬
rial class comprises fine pieces, with portraits of great beauty and
merit, and otherwise of good work. Historically the most in¬
teresting are those which bear the name of a Vespasianus Junior
(na/Ti^os), supposed to be a prince of the Flavian family not other¬
wise known to us. Of Teos there are archaic HSginetan di¬
drachms, bearing on the one side a seated gryphon with curled
wings, and on the other a quadripartite incuse square. There
are later coins of the earliest good work, and others of subsequent
times.
Chios and Samos, islands of Ionia, are represented by interesting Chios and
coins. Of the former there are archaic silver pieces, but the Samos,
greater number of its coins are of the early fine period. The
obverse-type is a seated sphinx with curled wing, and an amphora
upon a slightly-raised surface like a shield; and the reverse bears
an irregular incuse square of four divisions. The weight is Phceni¬
cian. There are later coins in silver, and many autonomous and
imperial copper pieces. Some autonomous copper pieces of the Ro¬
man period have the value inscribed, thus ACCAPION HMT2T, [s«c.]
ACC APIA ATO, ACCAPIA TPI A, and also OBOAOo, the latter being pro¬
perly the name of a Greek silver coin. The coins of Samos are on the
Phcenician standard. There are numerous tetradrachms, some early,
and many of the good period. Their common obverse-type is a
lion’s scalp ; and the early coins have on the reverse the head and
neck of a bull, the later, the fore-part. Some of the smaller silver
pieces are supposed from their types to have been issued at a time
when Samos and Clazomenae were in alliance.
The autonomous civic coinage of Caria is generally poor in art, Caria.
and even inclining to barbarism. Of the imperial class there are
coins of many cities, but no one very large series. The autono¬
mous money of Cnidus, of which the silver follows the Phcenician
system, deserves especial mention. The early coins have on the
obverse the head and fore-leg of a lion, and on the reverse the head
of Venus. The same types continue, but during the time of good
art they change places. There are other silver coins of Cnidus, with,
on the one side, a Rhodian type, the head of Apollo facing, and on the
other the Cnidian head and fore-leg of the lion. These indicate a
Rhodian alliance or domination. The money of Halicarnassus in¬
cludes some silver pieces of the good period. Of lasus there are
silver coins of good but not the best style, having on the obverse
the head of Apollo, and on the reverse a youth swimming beside a
dolphin which he holds—a type reminding one of the well-known
didrachms of Tarentum. Of Myndus there are silver pieces, with,
on the obverse, the head of Jupiter, and on the reverse an Egyptian
divinity’s plumed head-dress. The coins of Nysa, of Stratonicea, and
of Tripolis may also be mentioned. The money of the kings of Caria
is worthy of note. The weight is Phcenician. There are tetra¬
drachms, didrachms, and drachms, having for their obverse-type a
fine head of Apollo, laureate, facing; and for the reverse-type a
standing figure of the Carian Jupiter holding a two-headed axe
and sceptre. These pieces are of Mausolus or Maussolus, of Idrieus
or Hidrieus, and of Pixodarus.
First of the islands of Caria, Calymna should be noticed. The 0alynina
early silver coins are extremely barbarous, but the later are in a an(j 0o8i
good style. The obverse bears a helmeted male head, in the earlier
1 See a paper by Mr Borrell of Smyrna (Num. Chron., vol. ii., p. 171, et seq.)
N U M I S M A T I C S.
377
Greek pieces bearded, and in the later, beardless ; and the reverse, a lyre.
Coins Cos affords an important series. The standard of the silver pieces
' , appears to be Phoenician, but if so, the weight of the earliest is
very heavy. The oldest'tetradrachms have remarkable types:
Cos. that of the obverse represents a naked male figure dancing and
beating a tambourine before the tripod of Apollo, and the reverse
is occupied by an irregular incuse square, divided diagonally, and
having a crab in the centre. The obverse-type is in a very fine
late archaic style. Among the later coins we must notice, as the
most beautiful, although not severe in its treatment, one with, on
the obverse, a head of Hercules bearded, and on the reverse a head
of Ceres veiled. There are also small pieces of a subsequent time,
which bear on the one side a head of ^Esculapius, resembling that
of Jupiter, and on the other a serpent. Many copper coins also
bear types relating to this divinity. The imperial money is in¬
significant.
Rhodes. The island of Rhodes takes an important place in numismatics.
In Homer’s time, three cities, Hindus, lalysus, and Camirus, di¬
vided its territories between them. After having existed several
centuries, these cities united to found Rhodes, and ceased to possess
separate laws. Strabo places this event in the course of the Pelo¬
ponnesian War (x«ra ra. nt\otri>»y>iiriKxd), and gives another indica¬
tion of its date when he says that the architect employed was Hip-
podamus of Miletus, who built the Pirseeus of Athens, for the latter
work was executed about B.C. 475. It may therefore be supposed
that Rhodes was founded not very long, perhaps as much as twenty
years, before the Peloponnesian War, which began B.C. 431. These
particulars entirely agree with the numismatic evidence. The
coins of the three cities, if we include those attributed to Astyra, are
generally of archaic fabric, and in no case late; whilethoseof Rhodes
do not in style reach earlier than the middle of the fifth century
B.C. The coins of Camirus and those of lalysus, the latter seem¬
ing always to commemorate alliances, are worthy of careful study.
Of Rhodes there are gold staters of Attic weight, and smaller
pieces, all of a low period. The silver coins form a large series.
The pieces struck before Alexander’s expedition may be considered
as generally of the good period, although some of them are archaic;
and those issued after his reign may be assigned to the time of
decline. During that reign his regular coinage was struck at this
city. The obverse bears a head of Apollo, facing in the large
coins, and usually in profile in the small. The earlier are chiefly
to be distinguished by the facing head of Apollo being bare, and
the later, by its being radiate. On the reverse is a rose, almost
always represented in a side view, but sometimes as seen from
above. After a very careful examination of many examples, we
are firmly convinced that this is nothing but a single rose. It has
been suggested that it is a pomegranate flower (fiuXu.virriov'); but
the coins seem to us absolutely to overthrow this theory, although
supported by the opinion of Colonel Leake. Ifo doubt there is a
certain degree of conventional treatment in the representation, but
not enough to render its meaning in any degree doubtful. Some
of these coins are fine, although most of them show, in the head, a
degree of harshness. The weight is Phoenician, and becomes very
low. The autonomous copper coins are similar to the silver; a
few are fine, and some are very large. Those of the imperial class
are unimportant.
Entering Lycia, we are in a more Asiatic region than any through
which we have passed. The earlier coins have a peculiarly local
character in most instances, and are no doubt of the Persian do¬
mination. It seems probable that their issue ceased Somewhat before
Alexander’s expedition, for we can scarcely bring the latest quite
as low as that event. There can be no question that, here as else¬
where, a Greek coinage was then introduced, first struck by Alex¬
ander, and afterwards by the cities. The earlier coins are principally
of silver, but copper pieces occur. Some of the farmer have a very
archaic aspect; and the style of all would be called archaic else¬
where, but here the eastern character of the devices must be taken
into account. The types present a union of Greek and oriental de¬
signs, the most common of which is one probably of the latter class—
the so-called triquetra, an object resembling a ring to which three
hooks are attached. A man-headed bull with curled wings is also
to be noticed. The inscriptions are in Lycian characters, except in
the case of the early pieces of Phaselis, which have Greek letters.
The coins with Lycian inscriptions have not been satisfactorily at¬
tributed. The standard is probably Phoenician, but this cannot be
regarded as certain. Sir Charles Fellows has published a list of
all the specimens of this class known to him, with engravings of
the greater number.1 The later coins, or such as were struck after
Alexander’s time, are of inferior interest to those which we have
just noticed. The common types are, for the obverse the head of
Apollo, frequently in rather an androgynous character, and for
the reverse, a lyre in a shallow incuse square. These occur on Greek
small silver coins of the cities Cragus, Limyra, Massicytes, Patara, Coins,
and Phaselis, the earlier coins of the last of which we have already
noticed. The imperial pieces of Lycia, in silver and copper, form
a very small class.
The older of the autonomous coins of Pamphylia show oriental Pamphy •
influence, although this is principally displayed in the weights and Ha.
inscriptions. The imperial money consists of copper pieces, which
are not of great importance. Of Aspendus there is a large series
of silver coins. They appear, from their weight, to be double
silver darics, equal to two-thirds of the Phoenician tetradrachm.
The inscription is in a Pamphylian form, and written in Greek
characters. The common coins are generally of the early part
of the fine period; they have on the obverse two wrestlers en¬
gaged, and on the reverse a slinger discharging a stone, with, in
the field, a triquetra formed of three legs, like that represented
on coins of Syracuse. The autonomous series of Perga is not im¬
portant. Of Side there are archaic pieces of the weight of double
silver darics. Their obverse-type is a pomegranate fruit (ri'Sn)
above or upon a fish. Of a subsequent period are early fine silver
coins of the same denomination as the older ones, although lighter.
Their obverse-type is Minerva holding an owl or a little Victory,
with a pomegranate in the field; and their reverse-type, a male
figure sacrificing. They bear an inscription in Sidetan letters,
which differ from those on the coins of Aspendus—some being
apparently Phoenician, while others are Greek. After these coins
are Attic tetradrachms, bearing on the one side the head of Minerva,
and on the other a Victory, with a pomegranate in the field. They
are very similar to the tetradrachms of Amyntas, King of Galatia.
In Pisidia the only important autonomous series is that of Selge. Pisidia, <tc.
The principal coins are pieces of the weight of double silver darics.
Their types are essentially the same as those of the silver coins of
Aspendus, already noticed. On the one side are two wrestlers, and
on the other a slinger, who here appears to be Hercules, with a
triquetra in the field. The inscription is Greek. The autonomous
copper money of Termessus must also be noticed. The imperial coins
of Pisidia are not very numerous. Of the cities of Isauria there
are only a very few imperial copper coins; and in Lycaonia there
are some autonomous pieces of Iconium, and a very scanty imperial
series of that and other places. Cilicia has a higher numismatic Cilicia,
interest. The autonomous coins display Persian influence, even if
we exclude, as of the oriental class, the money of the satraps. The
weight is evidently on the Phoenician standard, and the principal
denomination is generally what we may term the double silver
daric. The imperial coins are not very important. Of Celenderis
there are archaic and early fine pieces, of the weight of double
silver darics. The older are not of a remote time, and some of
them are remarkable for the excellence of their style and execu¬
tion. The obverse-type is a naked horseman seated sideways, and
the reverse-type is a goat crouching forwards. The coins of the
good period present no great differences. Of Mallus there are silver
coins, which are either partly or wholly Persian in their types.
These are of the same denomination as the pieces of Celenderis
just noticed.- So also are the silver coins of Kagidus, which are of
fine or fair style, as well as those of Soli, some of which are very
early, but others of the period of good art. The autonomous silver
coins of Tarsus bear witness to its ancient wealth. The earlier are
on the Phoenician standard, and the chief piece is of the weight of
a double silver daric; and the later follow the Attic standard, and
the principal denomination is a tetradrachm. The former are of
the Persian period, and the latter of that of the Seleucidae. The
inscriptions of these silver coins are Phoenician, and their types
have an oriental character. The Phoenician coins having the
weight of double darics have on the obverse Baal of Tarsus seated,
and on the reverse a lion seizing a stag; and the Attic tetra¬
drachms have the same obverse-type, and the reverse-type of a lion
walking. Among the devices of the copper coins is the so-called
monument or, incorrectly, tomb of Sardanapalus. The imperial
coins include some base silver or potin pieces. The coins of satraps
struck at Tarsus should be referred to the Persian series. It may
be noticed that there are copper coins of Tarcondimotus and Philo-
pator, kings of Cilicia.
The coins of Cyprus form a small but remarkable series. They Cyprus,
do not commence at a very early period, for one of the oldest is
struck upon a silver coin of Aspendus, with the types of the
wrestlers and slinger. The usual metal is silver. The types fre¬
quently refer to the worship of Venus. The inscriptions are in
Cyprian characters ; but the pieces of one place, if the attribution
be right, bear Greek letters, and there is an instance of Phoenician
letters on the same coin with Cyprian ones. The art is chiefly
remarkable for its oriental character, which gives the coins an
1 Coins of Ancient Lycia before the Reign of Alexander> with an Essay on the relative Bates of the Lycian Monuments
Charles Fellows, 1855.
VOL. XVI.
m the British Museum, by Sir
3$
378
Greek
Coins.
Lydia.
Phrygia.
NUMISMATICS.
archaic appearance that more satisfactory evidence does not corro¬
borate. The denominations appear to be Phoenician, and there is
no doubt that the heaviest is of the weight of two silver darics.
Pieces having on the obverse a ram Ij’ing down, and a reverse,
either perfectly plain, or else bearing a ram’s head or a kind of
crux ansata, are assigned by the Due de Luynes to Amathus, with
two exceptions. The coins with the Greek inscription MAP, before
alluded to, he attributes to Marium. To Salamis he classes coins
of which two types are worthy of note. One of these represents a
female seated on or carried by a bull, and the other a figure, ap¬
parently also that of a female, carried by a ram. The former type
connects the myth of Europa with the worship of the Cyprian
Venus and Astarte; and the latter connects these again with the
story of Helle, and the recumbent ram on the Cyprian coins with
the famous one which bore the Golden Fleece. There are a few
copper coins of this class. The Due de Luynes has published an
excellent essay on these coins of Cyprus.1 A few pieces are known
of the kings of Cyprus. Of the Greek imperial class there are
base silver and copper pieces of the island generally, on which
occurs, in both metals, a remarkable reverse-type representing the
famous temple of Venus at Paphos.
The coinage of Lydia is chiefly of copper pieces, the majority of
which are either actually imperial or struck during the imperial
period. The autonomous copper coins of Blaundus may be men¬
tioned, as well as those of Magnesia ad Sipylum. One of the
latter place is of the highest interest, from its bearing a fine
portrait of Cicero, which is no doubt nearly or quite contem¬
porary. It is of good work, resembling in that respect the
Homan money of the earlier emperors. The autonomous cop¬
per coins of Philadelphia must also be noticed. Of Sardis
there are cistophori, as well as many copper pieces. Some
of the latter, of the imperial class, display good work.. There
are copper coins of Thyatira, both autonomous and imperial, some
of the latter being of fine work for the period to which they belong.
Tralles is represented by cistophori and by copper coins. There
are some uncertain Lydian coins, which were probably struck at Sar¬
dis by a Lydian king, perhaps Croesus. They are of both gold and
silver, and bear on the obverse the fore-part of a lion facing the
fore-part of a bull, as if attacking it, while the reverse is occupied
by an incuse square rudely divided into two parts. The gold coins
weigh the same as the darics, and the principal silver ones, like
the °so-called silver darics, one-third less. The type is mani¬
festly of an oriental, if not a Persian character, being only another
form of the common one of a lion seizing a bull. It would be
hasty, however, to conclude that the coins are of the time following
the overthrow of Croesus by Cyrus.
The coinage of Phrygia is chiefly of the Roman period, and its
imperial pieces are numerous and interesting. Of Apamea Cibotus,
more anciently Celamse, there are cistophori and autonomous copper
coins, some of which are of a fair style for the late time at which
they were struck. The imperial series contains the remarkable
pieces which have been supposed to bear a representation of the
ark of Noah. These are of Septimius Severus, Macrinus, and
Philip Senior, and have on the reverse an ark in the shape of a boat
or chest, with two persons either within or near it, and upon it the
letters NfiE or Nfi. It is not reasonable to suppose, as has been
frequently done, that these coins directly refer to the Noachian
Deluge. It does not seem possible that any Jewish or Christian
community would have been able, at the time when these pieces
were struck, to fix types of the public money of a pagan town, and
it is by no means likely that any local tradition would have pre¬
served the actual name of Noah. The letters which appear at first
to be that name may, however, be part of the name of the people,
AFIAMEfiN, or they may have been added by tooling in modern
times, but as to this we cannot speak positively, not having seen
any of the specimens. In either case the designs would do no more
than refer to the story of Deucalion, and so indirectly to the De¬
luge of Noah. The appellation xiptuiis given to the town implies some
connection with an ark ; and it is very probable that the tradition
of a great flood would be stronger in Phrygia than in Greece Proper,
from the former country being much nearer the site where the ark
must have rested than the latter. There is another coin of Apamea
with a remarkable reverse, which we have already described in an
earlier place. It is one of Septimius Severus, with the type of
Minerva playing on the double pipe. Other pieces also have designs
relating to the myth of Marsyas, as one of Hadrian, on which he is
represented playing on the double pipe. Of Cibyra there are silver
coins of a base style, and copper pieces; and of Hierapolis, copper
coins, including some of a fine late style. Laodicea is represented
by cistophori and autonomous copper coins, of which last some
are of fair style, as one with the bust of MA or Lunus upon a
crescent, wearing a Phrygian bonnet wreathed with laurel. Some
of the early imperial pieces bear fine portraits. On the copper Greek
coins of Prymnessus the bust of Midas is represented wearing a Coins.
Phrygian bonnet. „ ^
The autonomous coinage of the cities of Galatia is very uni.m- GTT
portant, and the imperial series is not extensive. There are coin? ^latiaand
of several kings, of whom the principal one is an Amyntas, believed ^ppacto-
to be the contemporary of Strabo. The gold money attributed to1^-
him is of doubtful authenticity. His silver pieces are light Attic
tetradrachms, greatly resembling those of Side. There are imperial
copper coins of Galatia generally.—The autonomous civic coinage
of Cappadocia is very scanty; but of the imperial class there is
one long and interesting series—that of Caesarea. It comprises
silver coins of somewhat base metal. These are of several denomi¬
nations, of which the basis seems to be a Greek denarius, than
which there is a lighter piece as well as heavier ones. They were
struck for about 200 years, terminating after the reign of Geta.
Among the reverse-types must be noticed a Bactrian camel, and
the sacred mountain Argseus. The latter subject is frequent on
copper as well as silver coins ; and on the former the mountain is
sometimes represented as if upon an altar. The money of the
kings of Cappadocia is also worthy of note. It consists of silver
pieces, which appear to be Attic drachms, and were struck during a
period extending from about the last quarter of the third century
B.C. to the time when Cappadocia was made a Roman province.
The coins bear portraits which are sometimes well executed.
There are a few copper pieces of the ancient kingdom of Armenia.
The coinage of Syria commences with the series of the Seleu- Syrix,
cidae, which, for the excellence of its portraits, may, as a whole, take
the first place in the class of Greek regal money. It comprises a
few gold pieces; its silver coins, which are chiefly tetradrachms,
are abundant, and there are many copper coins. The reverse-types
present no great variety, and are usually of little interest. The
weight of both gold and silver coins is Attic, excepting those in the
latter metal issued by the Phoenician mints, which, save the earliest
pieces of Sidon, which are on the Attic weight, follow the standard
of the Ptolemaic coins. Of Seleucus I. there are gold staters.
Most of his tetradrachms have the same types as those of Alexander
the Great, with sometimes this deviation, that the Jupiter on the
reverse holds a Victory instead of an eagle. Some, however, have
on the obverse a head, doubtless that of Seleucus, in a close helmet,
mainly formed of the skin of a bull s head, with the horn and ear.
Other tetradrachms have on the reverse Minerva fighting in a
quadriga of elephants, with, in the field, an anchor, the symbol of
Seleucus. It is remarkable that, under the next sovereign, An-
tiochus I., tetradrachms were still struck bearing Alexander’s
types, but with, in the only example we have seen, the same varia¬
tion of the reverse-type as in some of the similar coins of Seleucus
I. The ordinary tetradrachms bear the king’s portrait and Apollo
seated on a cortina, a common reverse-type of the earlier Seleu-
cidae. The tetradrachms of Antiochus II., Seleucus II., Antiochus
Hierax, and Seleucus III., are only interesting for their portraits.
Antiochus III., or the Great, struck gold money, for there is an
octodrachm, of course on the Attic standard, among his coins. The
portrait on the tetradrachms varies according to his age : sometimes
it is fine. The tetradrachms of Seleucus IV. need not be noticed,
except as having portraits. Those of Antiochus IV. have two types
of obverse, both of which are fine heads : one of these is undoubtedly
that of this king; the other, which is bearded, may be that of
Jupiter, although it has a resemblance to the portrait. The tetra¬
drachms of Antiochus V. and Demetrius I. have portraits. Of
Alexander I. there are not only Attic tetradrachms, but also Ptole¬
maic of Tyre and Berytus, having an eagle on the reverse, the
characteristic of the class, plainly showing its Egyptian origin. A
tetradrachm of Sidon has Attic weight and a Syrian reverse-type.
The portrait on one of Tyre is fine. On the earlier tetradrachms of
Demetrius II. the king’s head is beardless, but on the later, bearded.
One of them bears the design which has been supposed to repre¬
sent the monument of Sardanapalus. Of this Demetrius there are
also Ptolemaic tetradrachms of Tyre and Sidon. The portrait of
Antiochus VI. on his tetradrachms is very fine. That of Tryphon,
upon an extremely rare coin of the same denomination, is remark¬
able for its strange helmet, having the horn of an ibex projecting
in front. The tetradrachms of Antiochus VII. and of Alexander
II. have portraits; and those of Cleopatra with Antiochus VIII.,
bear heads of the queen and king, one behind the other. Seleucus
V. is represented by copper coins; there are tetradrachms with
portraits of Antiochus VIII. alone, Antiochus IX., Seleucus VI.,
Antiochus X., Antiochus XI., Philip, Demetrius III., and copper
coins of Antiochus XII. The tetradrachms of Tigranes have the
bust of the king wearing a strange oriental head dress. The series
closes with copper pieces of Antiochus XIII.
In Commagene we may notice the autonomous and imperial cop-
1 Numismatiqm et Inscriptions Cypriotes, par H. de Luynes, 4to, Paris, 1852.
Greek
Coins.
^eleucis
ind Pieria,
Sc.
Phcenicia.
NUMISMATICS.
379
per coins of Samosata, and the pieces of Zeugma of the latter class.
There is also copper money of the kings of Commagene. In Cyr-
rhestica there are unimportant autonomous copper coins, and not
very numerous imperial pieces in the same metal. Those of Beroea,
Cyrrhus, and Ilierapolis, of the latter class, may be mentioned.
There are a few autonomous copper coins of Chalcidene, but 1 almy-
rene is not represented. Copper pieces are indeed known, purport¬
ing to be of the famous Zenobia, struck at Alexandria of Bgypt;
but those we have examined are doubtful or false. In Seleucis and
Pieria the series of the great city of Antioch on the Orontes must
be first noticed. There are autonomous copper coins, but those of
the imperial class are far more numerous and important. They
form a very large series, extending through nearly the whole
period of Graeco-Roman coinage. The types are not of much
interest, and are very few in number; while the art of the coins is
generally rude, although some of the silver pieces are in.a fair
style. The series has, however, a historical value, in showing us
what emperors here struck money, and therefore ruled in Syria.
The silver coins are of base metal, which becomes potin, and even at
last copper washed with silver. In weight they are very low Attic
tetradrachms, each being equivalent to four denarii of the early
empire. They do not lose weight by degrees, but the quantity of
pure metal constantly decreases. They commence under Augustus,
and last as late as the time of Volusian. The Era according to
which the earlier are dated is the Caesarian, except during the
reign of Augustus, and part of that of Tiberius, when the Actian
was used. After Nero the tetradrachms bear no such date, the
emperor’s tribunitian year taking its place. The obverse bears the
head or bust of an emperor or empress, and the reverse, the city
seated, or an eagle upon a thunderbolt or club. The eagle, with
sometimes a symbol or letter between its legs, becomes at a late period
the constant reverse-type. There are copper coins having Greek in¬
scriptions, and others contemporary with them having Latin in¬
scriptions, although after a time the two kinds merge into one, with
Greek inscriptions, except that the Roman S. C. in Latin letters is
added. It is to be remarked, that on some pieces of the last class the
city is called a colonia, having been constituted one by Caracalla.
The autonomous copper coins of Apamea may be noticed, as bear¬
ing an elephant for a reverse-type. Of Laodicea we must mention
late tetradrachms, doubtless of the Roman period, and of the same
standard as those of Antioch : their obverse-type is a turreted and
veiled female bust, personifying the city. There are also autono¬
mous and imperial copper coins. Seleucia is represented by late
autonomous tetradrachms of the same kind as those of Laodicea,
and with the same type on the obverse, as well as by copper coins.
In Ccelesyria there are some copper coins of Damascus, both autono¬
mous and imperial, and others in the same metal of a king Aretas.
It is not certain to which, if any, of the sovereigns bearing his
name, mentioned in history, this Aretas corresponds. In Tracho-
nitis there are only a few imperial copper coins of Caesarea
Panias; and in Decapolis there is a small number of pieces, of the
same class and metal, of some of the cities.
The money of Phoenicia is more interesting than that of the
countries last mentioned. Here the autonomous coinage again be¬
comes important, and affords us some indications of the ancient
power and wealth of the great commercial people from whom the
region takes its name. The earliest coins, however, are classed
with those of Persia, and were no doubt mostly struck under Per¬
sian rule; while such as were probably issued independently are
sufficiently oriental in character to belong rather to that kind
than to the Greek. Of Berytus there are copper coins both au¬
tonomous and imperial'; those of the latter sort are numerous,
and struck by the city as a colonia. Of the imperial copper coins
of Byblus, one of Macrinus may be noticed, as bearing for its re¬
verse-type the representation in perspective of a' temple of curious
construction, one of the many illustrations of architecture which
this class affords. The silver pieces of Sidon are tetradrachms and
didrachms of the Ptolemaic talent. The obverse bears the bust of
the city, personified as a female veiled and turreted ; and the re¬
verse the eagle of the Ptolemies. The earlier of the coins are of
good work on the obverse, although not of a high style. The
autonomous copper coins have interesting types, among which we Greek
may notice Europa carried by the bull; a device mentioned by Coins.
Lucian as borne on the money of this place. Some of the coins of
this class have Phoenician as well as Greek inscriptions. The
imperial copper does not form a long series : it first bears Greek
inscriptions, but afterwards Latin as a colonia. The coins are
dated by two eras, tbe first supposed to be that of the Seleucidse,
the second that of the autonomy of the town. The autonomous and
imperial coins of Tripolis must be mentioned. Next in order stands
the series of Tyre. This comprises many silver autonomous coins,
the principal pieces being tetradrachms of the Ptolemaic talent.
The obverse-type is a laureate and beardless head, seemingly of
Hercules ; and the reverse-type a Ptolemaic eagle, behind which is
a palm-branch. The head may perhaps be assimilated to the por¬
trait of a Ptolemy. None of the pieces are fine, but a few have
some merit; There are also autonomous copper coins, as well as
imperial pieces of the Roman colonia. The dates are in two
eras, as at Sidon, supposed to be that of the Seleucidse, and that
of the autonomy of Tyre. There can be no doubt that some
of the early so-called Persian coins must have been struck at
Tyre. These may be distinguished by future investigations. The
insular city of Aradus is represented by an interesting series. This
probably commences with Phoenician pieces issued under the Per¬
sian rule, but such have not been positively attributed. The most
important Greek coins are tetradrachms, having for their obverse-
type the turreted and veiled bust of the city personified, but of
Phoenician weight, unlike the similar coins of Syrian cities. They
are of poor work, and bear dates in the Era of the Seleucidse.
Drachms, which appear from their style to be somewhat earlier,
have on the obverse a bee, and on the reverse a stag, behind which
is a palm-tree—types of Ephesus. These must be of the Attic
standard, somewhat depreciated, unless they are of a very heavy
Phoenician weight. There are copper coins of Phoenicia, hav¬
ing Phoenician letters only, and at least generally subsequent
in time to the Persian domination. These require careful study
in order to their satisfactory classification to the cities which issued
them.
In Galilee there a few imperial copper pieces of Ptolemais, Judaea, &c.
Sepphoris, and Tiberias; and in Samaria, some of Caesarea, and a
greater number of Neapolis. In Judaea there are no autonomous
coins of Jerusalem, although the pieces supposed to have been
issued by Simon the Maccabee were no doubt there struck. There
are, indeed, some imperial copper coins of the colonia HSlia
Capitolina, founded on the ruins of Jerusalem by Hadrian. It
may also be mentioned that there are a few copper pieces, both
autonomous and imperial, of Ascalon and Gaza. By far the most
interesting coins are, however, those with Hebrew inscriptions,
which are usually assigned, and we believe justly, to Simon the
Maccabee. These are shekels and half-shekels, respectively equiva¬
lent to tetradrachms and didrachms of the Egyptian talent.1 * The
shekels bear on the obverse the pot of manna, with the inscription,
Vpa (“The shekel of Israel”), and the letter V, for nrti
(“year”), followed by a letter indicating the date; and on the
reverse, Aaron’s rod that budded, with the inscription
Tronpn (“ Jerusalem the Holy”). The half-shekels have the same
types, but their reverse inscription is VpW *’Xh (“ Half-shekel”).
The dates which occur on either shekels or half-shekels are
those of the years 1, 2, 3, and 4. The letters are in what is
called the coin character, an old form of Hebrew. The weight of
the coins shows that they must have been struck under either the
Ptolemies or the Seleucidse; and in the latter case they may be
compared to the pieces of Phoenician cities following the. standard
of the kings of Egypt, although issued under the authority of the
Syrian kings. During the period thus indicated we find that the
right of coining money with his own stamp was granted to Simon
the Maccabee by Antiochus VII. ;s and there would be no question
that this was the date of these pieces, were it not that it is said
that the Jews adopted as an era the previous establishing of the
freedom of the country by the treaty of Simon and Demetrius II.,
between two and four years earlier.3 This difficulty may, how¬
ever, be explained, if we suppose either that Antiochus merely con-
i M Ch. Lenormant finds fault with Josephus for saying that the shekel is equal to four Attic drachms (» Si <n*xis *W«
Sivs™ Sg^«5 Ant. Jud. iii. 8, 2). He argues, that the weight of the so-called Maccabean shekel being that of a Phoemcian tetra-
drachm is much below that of an Attic tetradrachm (Eeuae Numismatique, Fr., 184o, pp. 180 181). It is perfec ly true that there was this dif¬
ference between the Maccabean shekel and the contemporary Attic tetradrachm; but Josephus must be understood to speax of the Attic tetra-
drachm or drachm of his own time. By gradual depreciation the Attic drachm had come to be equivalent, under Augustus, to the Ro™an dena
rius, so that the two coins were considered thenceforward identical; and thus pieces struck at Ephesus a little earlier than the time of Josephus
which have the weight of a denarius and of two denarii, bear respectively the inscriptions APAXMH and AIAPAXMON. At t e ,j 0
denarius was almost exactly equal to the quarter of a Maccabean shekel. There is no question, then that Josephu was right m Saying that the
shekel was equal to four Attic drachms, meaning the current Attic drachms, and not the older pieces o S • t may be ;s no
the later coins of the same kind subsequently mentioned are shekels of the old weight, and their quarters struck on Roman denarii. There is no
reason, therefore, to suppose that the Jewish coins show a depreciation like that of those with which Josephus compares em.
“ 1 Macc. xv. 6. Id< xlUl ^
380
NUMISMATICS.
Greek
Coins.
Arabia, &c,
Egypt.
firmed privileges before granted by his brother,1 or else that he gave
his sanction to the Jewish money already issued. There are also
copper coins of subsequent princes of Judaea, ending under Agrippa
II. Their inscriptions are at first in Hebrew and in Greek, but
afterwards in the latter language only. Of a later period there
are autonomous silver and copper coins, with Hebrew inscriptions,
like those of the coins assigned to Simon, but with a difference in
the form of the characters. There are shekels of this class, which,
notwithstanding their strange fabric, appear to be genuine. The
smaller silver coins are usually or always re-struck Roman denarii,
and cannot be doubted. The proper name that occurs on both, as
well as on the copper, is yttWi'. There is no doubt that these
pieces were issued by Barchochebas, who raised the Jews in the
time of Hadrian; but it is doubtful whether the name Simeon
refers to him or to Simon the Maccabee. There is also a class of
uncertain imperial copper coins of Judaea, which may perhaps
have been struck at Jerusalem.
Of Roman Arabia there are imperial copper coins of the country
generally, as well as of the cities Bostra and Petra. In Meso¬
potamia the autonomous coinage is unimportant; but the imperial
copper money of Carrhae, Edessa, Nisibis, and Rhessena is worthy
of notice. There are also coins of the kings of Edessa, generally
bearing the name of the contemporary Roman emperor or empress;
a few are denarii, but the greater number are copper pieces. Of
Assyria, there are autonomous copper coins of Atusia ad Caprum,
and imperial pieces in the same metal of the famous Nineveh as a
Roman colonia, with the name NINIVA CLAVDIOPOLIS. The
known coinage of Babylonia is very scanty. It is possible that
among the earliest money of what is termed the Persian series there
may be some of the last days of the old kingdom of Babylon. There
are copper coins of Molon and Timarchus, kings of Babylon, of a
much later period. The former was a satrap of Media who rebelled
against Antiochus III., B.C. 223, and was defeated and slew himself
B.C. 220. His money shows that he took the title of king.
The coins of ancient Africa, including Egypt, are far less nume¬
rous than those of the other two continents. The most important
series is that of Egypt. There are no coins that can be assigned to
the period anterior to the conquest by Cambyses, nor do the Egyp¬
tian monuments bear any representations of money; but we learn
from them that gold and silver were kept in rings, and weighed
when their value was to be ascertained. From the time of Cam¬
byses, Persian coins must have been in circulation in Egypt; and
indeed Herodotus tells us that Aryandes, governor under this king
and Darius Hystaspis, was put to death by the latter for issuing
silver money. In the Persian series there are some pieces in a
kind of spurious Egyptian style, which are not improbably of
Aryandes. The certain coinage of the country commences with
that of the first Ptolemy, bearing his name. There can be little
doubt that some of the money of Alexander the Great was struck
in Egypt; and it seems most probable that Ptolemy issued coins first
for Philip Arrhidaeus and then for Alexander A3gus, the titular
kings in whose names he governed in the earlier part of his rule.
The proper Ptolemaic coinage is in the three metals. The gold and
silver pieces are adjusted to the Ptolemaic or Alexandrian talent,
hut there are examples of Attic weight in one reign. The prin¬
cipal denomination of gold money is the octodrachm, but the penta-
drachm and tetradrachm are also found. In silver the chief coin
is the tetradrachm, but there are also decadrachms. The copper
coins are adjusted to an Egyptian talent, distinct from that of the
other money, and probably representing the old native system.
The gold and silver pieces of the earlier Ptolemies are compara¬
tively numerous, and are chiefly of the heavier denominations.
Their art is superior to that of the money of the later princes, of
whom there is scarcely anything but copper. The art of the first
period is fair, the portraits being usually good in style, and some¬
times, in the case of the queens, excellent. The designs, except
the portraits, are uninteresting, and of no great variety. The
whole series requires a more careful examination than it has yet
received in order to its accurate classification. It is especially
desirable that the indications of places of mintage offered by the
coins should be considered. At present scarcely anything can be
said, but that it is probable that many were struck in cities of Cy¬
prus^ and I hcenicia, although some must have been issued in Egypt,
particularly after the loss of foreign dominion. The chief coins of
the first Ptolemy are pentadrachms in gold and tetradrachms in silver.
In both the king’s bust occupies the obverse, and an eagle on a thun¬
derbolt, the reverse. The portrait is good. The tetradrachms,
'V nch are very numerous, bear dates. Some of the copper coins of
this reign have on the one side the bust of the king, and on the
other that of Berenice. To the time of Ptolemy Philadelphus we
must assign gold octodrachms and tetradrachms, with, on the one side,
the portraits of Ptolemy I. and Berenice, and on the other, those of Greek
Ptolemy II. and Arsinoe. It is probable that most of the silver Coins
coins of the second Ptolemy bear his father’s portrait. Of his
queen, Arsinoe, there is a fine series of both gold and silver pieces.
The gold coins known are principally octodrachms, and the silver
are all decadrachms. The obverse-type in both cases is the head
of the queen, with a tiara and veil, a good design, but not in the
best style; and the reverse-type is a double cornucopiae. Of Pto¬
lemy Euergetes there are fine gold octodrachms, having on the ob¬
verse the king’s bust, wearing a radiate diadem and an embroidered
chlamys, and with a sceptre-like trident; and on the reverse a
radiate cornucopiae. The portrait is in a good style. Of Berenice
there are gold and silver coins, some of which have Attic weight.
The portrait is generally of good style, and in one case very beau¬
tiful and somewhat different from the common one, though its
attribution is confirmed by the fame of this Berenice’s beauty.
Tetradrachms, in silver, of Ptolemy Philopator are known ; and
octodrachms, in gold, of Arsinoe. The obverse in both cases is
occupied by a portrait, that of the queen being of great beauty.
Of Ptolemy Epiphanes there are gold octodrachms and silver tetra-
drachms, both bearing his portrait, well executed. Tetradrachms
of Ptolemy Philometor likewise occur. The coins of the later
Ptolemies are not yet satisfactorily classed. They are, as already
noticed, principally of copper. There are silver coins, didrachms and
drachms, bearing on the obverse the bust of a young man in the
character of Bacchus, which are doubtless of Ptolemy Neus Dionysus,
or Auletes. The Egyptian coinage of the famous Cleopatra seems to
have been only of copper pieces. They bear her bust on the
obverse ; the face is intelligent, but not beautiful. Her head, with
that of Mark Antony, occurs on silver coins of the Roman pro¬
vince Asia. The greatest portion of the Ptolemaic copper money
cannot be exactly classed, since it bears no indication of the reigns
during which it was issued; so that difference of style is the main
guide. The common types are, for the obverse the bearded head of
Jupiter Ammon, and for the reverse an eagle on a thunderbolt.
Some of these copper coins are very large and heavy.
Of the Roman period, the imperial series of Alexandria, whether
we consider its extent or the interest of its types, is the most re¬
markable in its class, and deserving of far more study than it has
received. It commences under Augustus, and terminates with
Constantins I. and Galerius Maximianus; thus lasting longer than
the Greek imperial money elsewhere. In the earlier part of the
period there are potin coins, representing silver money, and most
probably meant for tetradrachms of the Ptolemaic standard; but
the common metal is copper, at first struck in several sizes, in¬
cluding some that are large. The types are very various ; they are
Graeco-Roman, and even purely Roman (though not technically so),
Greek, Graeco-Egyptian, and Egyptian. The Egyptian types are
very interesting, and form a series standing by itself. The coins of
this last kind begin to deserve especial attention under Domitian;
and those of Trajan, Hadrian, and Antoninus Pius are numerous
and interesting. One of the last emperor, dated in his sixth year,
is particularly important, as commemorating the commencement of
a Sothic Cycle, A..D. 139 :2 the type is a crane, the Egyptian ben-nu
or phcenix,3 with a kind of radiate nimbus round its head, and the
inscription is AinN. The coins of the subsequent emperors are less
important. About the time of Claudius Gothicus, and thencefor¬
ward, there seems to be but one size of coin, the material of which
is copper, generally or always washed with silver. The coins of
the Nomes of Egypt form a remarkable class. They belong to a
short period, the earliest being dated in the eleventh year of Trajan,
and the latest in the eighth year of Antoninus Pius. Their metal is
copper, and they are of different sizes. There can be no doubt that
they were struck at the metropolis of each Nome. The types relate
to the local worship, and thus illustrate the Egyptian religion.
The inscriptions are the names of the Nomes. There is an excep¬
tional coin of the town of Pelusium. (The work of Zoega affords
the best account of the coinage of Egypt under the Romans.4)
Passing beyond Egypt, we may notice that there are a few Libya, &c<
autonomous coins of Libya, and, in Marmarica, of Petra. In the
Cyrenaica there is an interesting series of Cyrene. The gold coins
are numerous, and of the time of good art, some showing a decline.
The heaviest pieces are Attic staters or didrachms, bearing on one
side a victorious quadriga, in the earlier examples driven by what
seems to be a male charioteer, in the later by Victory. Coins of half
the weight of these, or gold drachms, have on the obverse a horseman,
and on the reverse the sacred silphium plant. On smaller pieces the
head of Jupiter Ammon occurs, both bearded and beardless. The
weight of the silver coins is at first Attic, but it becomes very light,
the tetradrachms being reduced to very nearly an equality with
tridrachms, and thus considerably below the Ptolemaic tetradrachms.
Comp. Macc. xv. 5.
Horce Ag., p, 32.
Id., p. 40, et seq.
4 Numi yEgyptii Lnperatorii (Gr. Zoega), 4to, Rom. 1787.
NUMISMATICS.
381
Roman The cause of the change may have been the influence of Rhodian
Coins, and other light coins, but the occasion is not known; in time it was
 probably anterior to the rule of Magas. There are didrachms, be-
sides the tetradrachms. The art of the silver coins is sometimes fair,
although never very fine. The usual types are, for the obverse the
bearded or beardless head of Ammon, the former sometimes crowned
with silphium, and for the reverse the silphium plant. Some of the
copper pieces are relatively of a fair style. Of the Cyrenaica gene¬
rally there are Greek and Roman coins, the latter issued by Roman
officials. Of the town of Barce there are both gold and silver
pieces, the former not being common. The silver series commences
with somewhat archaic coins. The standard is Attic, with the
same change as at Cyrene. The types are, for the obverse the
silphium, and for the reverse the head of Ammon; designs which in
some of the later coins change places. In Syrtica the autonomous
Roman coins of the colonia Leptis Magna, and in Zeugitana
the money of Carthage, are deserving of notice. In speaking
of the Siculo-Punic coinage, we have already had occasion to
treat of the money of the Carthaginians issued in Sicily. Their Afri¬
can coinage has the same chief types, the head of Proserpine, and
the horse or horse’s head and palm-tree. It follows the Phoenician
talent, and the dodecadrachm and decadrachm are known, besides
tetradrachms and smaller pieces. Some copper coins are known of
the city of the Roman period with Latin inscriptions. There are a
few imperial pieces of towns of Mauritania, as well as an interesting
series of the kings of Numidia and Mauritania. There are silver
coins of Bocchus, silver and copper of Juba I. and Juba II., as well
as the latter with Cleopatra ; copper of Cleopatra alone; and silver
and copper of Ptolemy. The silver pieces of this series are probably
for the most part low denarii. On the whole, the coinage of Africa
beyond Egypt is poor and of small interest.
Sect. IY.—ROMAN COINS.
The ancient Roman coinage appears to have commenced
late in the fourth, or early in the third century b.c., and to
have continued without interruption until the fall of the W estern
Empire, a.d. 476. It will be necessary here to give a sketch of
Classes. R*e characteristics of its great classes. The earliest Roman
coins are of gold, silver, and copper, of Greek fabric and with
Greek types, but Latin inscriptions. Their art shows that
they date from about the time of Pyrrhus to near the close of
the third century b.c. There can be no doubt that they were
issued by Campanian cities subject to the commonwealth.
After a time the Romans had a proper coinage of Roman or
Etruscan fabric, and with Roman types as well as Latin in¬
scriptions. With this class the proper Roman coinage com¬
mences. The period of these coins is different with those of
each metal. The silver and copper money _ probably began
about the same time, near the close of the third century b.c. ;
and terminated, in the case of the former about b.c. 80, in that
of the latter somewhat earlier. The late silver coins are of
Campania only; and the same is the case with all the gold
pieces, which were most probably struck between b.c. 90
and 80. It will be seen that the later coins of this class
considerably overlap in time the earlier of the next class,
but their types forbid our altering the arrangement. rlhe
copper coins, commonly called cbs grave, are the .most im¬
portant. They are of heavy weight and coarse fabric, bearing
rude types, the most common of which are, for the obverse the
head of Janus bifrons, and for the reverse the prow of a galley.
The silver coins usually have as their obverse;-type the head of
Minerva, and the gold ones, that of Janus. This class was
succeeded, though in an irregular manner, by what is called
the family or consular series, the latter of which appellations
is incorrect. Its coins are of the three metals, and with Roman
types and Latin inscriptions. They were struck at Rome from
b.c. cir. 170 to the time of Augustus, by individuals to whom the
state allowed the right of coinage, whose names they bear, and
they are therefore classed according to the Roman families. The
gold and silver family coins usually have on the obverse the head
of a divinity, or of a personification, or of a traditional or histo¬
rical personage; and, on the reverse a mythological, symbolical,
traditional, or historical subject. They are generally of better
art than the ses grave, which the copper coins, on the contrary,
follow in art as well as in types. The imperial coinage may be
considered to commence with that of Julius Caesar, although the
family series does not then terminate. It is of two classes; that
of the pagan emperors, and that of the Christian emperors.
The former class ends under the reign of Constantine, when he
changed the coinage. The coins are of gold, silver, and copper;
the last including brass. Their designs from the time of Augustus
to the decline of the empire show a fair style of art, and display
great mechanical skill. They most nearly resemble modern
coins, particularly in form and thickness, but their designs are
generally in higher relief. The obverses bear the portrait of an
emperor or empress, or of a Caesar ; and the reverses, historical,
mythological, or symbolical types. Towards the latter part of
its period the coins become thinner in form and of much lower
art and execution. The second class of imperial money, that
issued by Constantine for the greater part of his reign, and by
his successors to the fall of the Western Empire, is of gold,
silver, and copper, and is mainly to be distinguished from the
preceding one by the absence of pagan types, and by a further
decline in its art. It is important to distinguish the five great
divisions of Roman money which we have described, and which
may be called the Greek coinage of the commonwealth, the
early Roman coinage, the family coinage, that of the pagan,
and that of the Christian emperors.
In seeking the motives which influenced the choice of the Devices
types of the proper Roman coinage, we must not imagine too and in¬
close an analogy with the case of Greek money. The idea ofscriptions.
the first coinage, that of the Campanian cities, which was not
properly Roman, was to adopt subjects connected with religion.
This feeling was maintained, though it seems somewhat igno¬
rantly, in the ses grave. Under the empire, however, the
sovereign became the source of the chief types, although the
religious motive was, perhaps for a reason of policy, never
wholly abandoned. An inscription of the time of Diocletian,
SACRA MONETA AYGG NN (Augustorum nostrorum),
■well expresses this idea ; the coinage personified by the goddess
is still sacred, but yet it is the emperors’. The proper Roman
coinage, if separated according to its types, falls into four
classes, the ses grave, the family silver and gold (for the
copper maintained the old types), the pagan imperial, and the
Christian imperial. The designs of the first are, like those of
the early Greek coins, sacred distinctive symbols, though, as
already noticed, probably not always understood by those who
used them. The types of the family silver and gold coins
are somewhat ditferent from those of any class of money which
we have already noticed. The primary religious motive is
indeed to be clearly traced in them; but their having been
selected to distinguish families, instead of towns or tribes, gives
them a peculiar character. The following are the principal
classes to which these types may be reduced:—
1. Head or figure of a divinity worshipped at Rome ; as head of
Jupiter (fam. Petillia), figures of the Dioscuri (Junia), or of a
divinity worshipped by the family or individual striking the coin,
as head of Neptune (Pompeia, coin of Sextus Pompeius).
2. Sacred natural or artificial object; as pontifical implements
(Antonia).—This class is not a very large one, and sacred animals
rarely occur.
3. Head or figure of a personification of a country or town ; as
heads of Hispania (Carisia), Roma (Julia), Alexandria HSgypti
(^Emilia).
4. Head or figure of an allegorical personage ; as heads of Favor
(Hostilia), Pallor (id.), Honos and Virtus (Fufia, Mucia).
5. Fabulous monster; as Scylla (Pompeia).
6. Head or figure of an ancestral personage; as heads of Numa
(Calpurnia), Ancus Marcius (Marcia).
7. Events connected with ancestors; as figure of Marcus Lepidus,
as TVTOR REG [is], crowning Ptolemy Epiphanes (iEmilia).
8. Places connected with historical exploits, and of a votive cha¬
racter; as Pharos of Messana (Pompeia, of Sextus, probably com¬
memorating the sea-fight off Messana, B.C. 38).
9. Symbolical representations commemorating contemporary
events, as a general welcomed on landing by a country or city
(Minatia).
10. Heads of living personages exercising dictatorial power, or
in very high authority; as head of Sylla (Cornelia).
11. Representations connected with military matters; as legion¬
ary standards (Antonia)
Besides the principal designs, there are symbols and nume¬
rals, generally to be regarded as having been indicative of
successive issues from the mint. The inscriptions are usually,
on the obverse the name of the personage represented, with,
in the field, x for denarius, and the like ; and on the reverse the
name of the person who issued the coin: the latter sometimes
occurs on the obverse. The inscriptions are in the nominative.
382
NUMISMATICS.
Art.
The series of Roman imperial coins of the pagan emperors
(commencing with Julius Caesar, and terminating with the
adoption of Christian types by Constantine the Great) bears
devices of the same general character as those of the family
money, but with a far stronger relation to living persons and
events than to mythology. The obverse-type of this period is
the portrait of an imperial personage, an emperor, an empress,
or a Cassar; and the reverse bears some subject directly or tro¬
pically connected with their actions. Under Julius and Augus¬
tus moneyers of powerful families shared the right of issuing
coins with the head of the state ; their money is like that of the
family series, to which it should be assigned, but it generally
bears on the obverse the head of the emperor, if we may include
Julius with Augustus under that name. In the reign of
Augustus, however, this privilege ceased; and the emperor
struck the gold and silver money, while the copper was issued
by the senate, and therefore always bears the characters S. C.,
for Senatm consultu. Without repeating what we have said
of the types of the Roman family coins, wre may mention the
principal kinds of types of the imperial coins. Those of the
obverses vary only in the treatment of the head or bust of
the imperial personage. Those of the reverses are com¬
monly mythological, representing divinities; or allegorical,
representing personifications ; or historical, representing,
either directly or tropically, acts done or works executed
by the reigning emperor. Thus the coins of Hadrian, besides
bearing the figures of the principal Roman divinities and per¬
sonifications, commemorate, by allegorical representations of
countries or cities, the emperor’s progresses, and, by actual
representations, his architectural works. The inscriptions of
the coins of the pagan empire are either simply descriptive,
such as the emperor’s names and titles in the nominative, on
the obverse, or partly on the obverse and partly on the reverse,
and the name of the subject on the reverse ; or else they are
dedicatory, the imperial names and titles being given on the
obverse in the dative, and the name of the type on the reverse.
On the latter there is sometimes a directly dedicatory inscription
to the emperor. The inscriptions of the earlier imperial coins,
from Tiberius to Alexander Severus, have generally a chro¬
nological character, usually giving the current consulship of the
emperor, or his last consulship, if he did not at the time hold
that office, as well as the year of his tribunitian power. In
the latter part of the third century an indication of the towns
at which the coins were struck commences, usually occupying
the exergue of their reverses. There are also sometimes cha¬
racters or signs in the field. The geographical indications are
not completely understood, but it is probable that they gene¬
rally mark not only the place of striking, but each fresh issue
of the same type.
The coins of the Christian empire differ from those of the
pagan empire mainly in the character of their reverse-types.
These are generally allegorical and free from pagan intention,
though not from pagan influence, as in the cases of the common
types of Victory inscribing the emperor’s vota upon a shield, or
in later times holding a long cross, and of seated Rome. Purely
Christian types are less common: the most remarkable is that
of the monogram of the name of our Saviour, formed of X and
P, the latter letter being placed vertically across the former.
The inscription HOC SIGNO VICTOR ERIS, on coins dating
not many years after the victory of Constantine over Licinius,
must also be noticed. The inscriptions generally show the
same change as the types. There are many varieties, but very
few absolutely different types and inscriptions.
Roman coins, if classed according to their art, fall into three
main divisions,—that of rude and slightly progressive art, that
of the best art, and that of declining art. The period of the
first class commences with the issue of the ses grave, about the
latter part of the third century b.c., and lasts to the accession
of Augustus; that of the second comprises the reigns of that
emperor and his successors, as far as the death of Commodus ;
and that of the third extends from this time to the close of the
empire. The case is a very different one from that of the
Greek coinage, for the improvement of art in the time before
Augustus is in general very slow, and the great advance made
in his money is owing to a better system, and the employment
of Greek artists. The decline, which sensibly commences in
the reign of Commodus, although his coins are generally of
good style, is not very rapid, and receives occasional checks,
until, at the time of Diocletian, there is a sensible improve¬
ment, which, however, is more evident in the execution of the Roman
coins than in their designs. The money of Constantine the Coins.
Great is perhaps the best of this time; under his sons decline
has again begun, and it steadily, though still slowly, continues
until the close of the empire.
We shall here speak only of the best art of Roman coins, as
in the case of the art of Greek coins, and for stronger reasons.
The art of Roman coins is not steadily progressive from in¬
ternal vigour, and in its time of excellence is far more foreign
than native in character. It is, however, well worthy of study,
in this period, for its intrinsic merit, for its illustration of con¬
temporary sculpture, and on account of its influence on me¬
dieval and modern numismatic art. The Roman coins were
designed under the revival of Greek art, during the empire, by
the Greco-Roman school. The Romans had properly no art of
their own. Their greatest temples, and the statues of their gods,
were essentially copies or imitations by Greeks of Greek works,
except, in the case of the statues, some few Greek originals of an
earlier time. Both differed from the best Greek works in a want
of simplicity and purity of design and execution, and the statues
show a tendency to pictorial and dramatic rather than ideal
treatment. The portrait statues and busts are most charac¬
teristic of this style. With an evident faithfulness, they usually
show a deficiency of grandeur, and occasionally some man¬
nerism. Perhaps the most excellent example of this class is
the bust commonly called that of Clytie, in the British Museum,
which is undoubtedly a portrait of the Graeco-Roman school.
The best Roman coins approach most nearly to the excellence
of this very beautiful sculpture. As simple medallic por¬
traits, they are indeed scarcely surpassed, except by the still
more pictorial Italian medals of the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries; but they never rise to the simple grandeur of the
few good Greek portraits that occur on coins. The difference
is this : the Greek sculptor seized the highest expression of the
face he would represent, and produced an ideal portrait; while
the Grasco-Roman copied the usual expression, and produced
nothing beyond a faithful portrait. The finest examples of
Graeco-Roman art on coins are the portrait of Livia as Pietas,
Justitia, and Salus, and that of the elder Agrippina, on copper
coins; and those of the elder and younger Faustinas, in the
gold series. The medallions and copper coins of Trajan, Had¬
rian, Antoninus Pius, and Commodus, are on both sides of
excellent design and beautiful workmanship. For portraits,
none of the period are more interesting than the coins of Nero,
the growth of whose bad passions may be traced in the increas¬
ing brutality of his features and their expression. In the case
of other emperors, the portraits are either always the same, or
taken at two ages. The whole series from Augustus to Com¬
modus is well worthy careful examination, especially as afford¬
ing some of the best specimens of the work of an important
school of ancient art. This Graeco-Roman school is seen to far
more advantage in these w'orks than in its attempts—and these
but imitative—at high sculpture, in which, through an inade¬
quate ideal, it failed to produce anything pure, elevated, and
simple. Let any one who would see how far it fell short
compare the Venus of the Capitol with the Venus of Melos.
We have already had occasion to speak of the mode in which Systems of
Roman coins were struck, and we may now pass on to consider coinage,
the denominations of the coinage at different times. The sub¬
ject is one of extreme difficulty, from the disagreement of the
evidence of ancient writers with that of the coins themselves,
and the obscurity of the indications offered by the latter. It
was believed, until lately, that some existing Roman coins were
as early as the period of the kings, from the statement of Pliny,
that Servius Tullius first struck copper money, and from the
ancient appearance of the specimens in question. Any such
theory is, however, wholly untenable. The earliest Roman
coins, as we have already mentioned, were of Greek fabric, and
issued by Campanian cities. The gold and silver appear to
follow the Greek system of the Attic talent, while the copper
are on the Italian system. The denominations of the second
class are, in gold, the aureus and half-aureus; in silver, the
denarius, and its half, the quinarius; and in copper, the as,
with certain of its divisions. The denominations of the third
class, or family series, are in general the same as those of the
preceding class, with, in the copper, a depreciation of weight.
The denominations of the fourth class—that of the pagan em¬
pire—are the same, though again of constantly decreasing
weight. The fifth class, comprising the money of the Chris-
NUMISMATICS.
383
Homan tian emperors from Constantine’s change in the coinage until
Coins, the fall of the Empire of the West, has a different system of
v denominations.
Wo may now notice the money of each metal in particular, from
Gold coins. the commenCement of a Roman system with what we have called
the second class of Roman coins. Pliny states that the first aurei
were struck, forty-five from the pound of gold, B.C. 207; a date which
well agrees with what must be that of the oldest silver coins of
this class. The gold coins of the same class seem to have been on this
standard, for they weigh a little more than a hundred grains, which
would indicate that about forty-five were struck from the pound.
There is also in this series a half-aureus (a coin of which we do not
know the ancient appellation) of this series. The aurei of the next
class—the family series—fluctuate in weight. The earliest are
somewhat heavier than those of the preceding class; those of the
time of Sylla are very much heavier, having been struck thirty
to the pound; while those of Pompey are forty to the pound, a
reduction mentioned by Pliny. There are no half-aurei of the
family series known, but they are found of the reign of Augustus.
From the time of Augustus the weight of the aureus was gradu¬
ally lowered, until Nero fixed the number to be struck from
the pound of gold at forty-five, making a corresponding change
in the silver money. Caracalla, in a.d. 215, further reduced
the aureus by striking fifty from the pound; and many of his
successors issued gold coins that were much lighter than the
weight thus fixed. Under Constantine the Great a new coin was
substituted for the aureus, called solidus, or vopur/j,K, of which,
seventy-two were coined from the pound. This continued to be
the principal Roman gold coin, and to maintain its full weight,
to the fall of the Empire of the West, and, indeed, with little
change of weight, though latterly much alloyed, until the end of
the Byzantine Empire. The divisions of the solidus were the half
and third, commonly, but without authority, and, in the case of the
latter, incorrectly, called the semissis and tremissis.
Silver The principal silver coin of the commonwealth was the denarius,
coins. of which there were twenty-five to the aureus. Pliny makes the first
denarii to have been struck as early as B.C. 269; but there are no
specimens that we can ascribe to an earlier period than the date he
assigns to the first aureus—B.C. 207. It may be remarked, how¬
ever, that since the denarius is derived from the Attic drachm, the
Campanian Attic-drachms of Greek types might have been con¬
sidered by Pliny as the first denarii; although the principal gold
coins of the same class could not be called the first aurei. In this case
the date would perfectly apply. The denarius received its name
from its being at first equivalent to ten asses. It had two divisions
in silver—its half, the quinarius; and its quarter, the sestertius: the
quinarius, when bearing the figure of Victory on its reverse, was
termed victoriatus. Smaller silver coins are mentioned by an¬
cient writers as current under the commonwealth, but no examples
of them have been recognised. There are quinarii of the second
class of Roman coins, that to which the earliest denarii belong.
The victoriati are said to have been struck by a Clodian law (Plin.
N.H., lib. xxxiii., § 13), but it has not been ascertained when this
law was enacted. The sestertii are all, as far as we know, of a
later time. It is said that at first a hundred denarii were struck
from the pound of silver; and accordingly we find that the oldest
weigh from 50 grains to above 60. In the time of Augustus, how¬
ever, eighty-four denarii were struck from the pound. When Nero
lowered the weight of the aureus, he proportionately reduced the
denarius, coining ninety-six from the pound. In subsequent reigns
the proportion of alloy was constantly increased, until, in the time
of Severus, it was one-half of the weight of the coin. Caracalla, in
a.d. 215, legalized a considerable proportion of alloy in the denarius,
and issued a new coin, called after him the Argenteus Antoninianus,
of which sixty were struck from the pound—a coin which not very
long afterwards supplanted the denarius. The argenteus was con¬
siderably alloyed, and later emperors made it baser by degrees, until
at length it was a copper coin washed with silver, and even tin.
The types of obverse introduced by Caracalla were always main¬
tained ; they represent the bust of the emperor with a radiate
crown, as Phoebus, and that of the empress resting on a crescent,
as Diana. Diocletian again issued coins of good silver of two de¬
nominations, one of which appears to represent the argenteus,
though without its types, and the other the denarius. Constantine
the Great added other denominations, all which have not been satis¬
factorily identified among his coins. The principal silver coin of
his time was the cententionalis, weighing a little less than 50 grains,
which was probably first issued by Diocletian. This system was
followed to the end of the Empire of the West, although but two
denominations were usually struck, which seem to be the centen-
tibnalis and a piece of half its value.
The earliest proper Roman copper coinage has been generally Roman
supposed to be as ancient as the time of the kings. The principles Coins,
of just criticism forbid us, however, from carrying any of these
coins to a remoter period than the latest part of the third century r,
before the Christian Era. The as, which was the principal copper ,PPer
coin, is said to have been first coined of the weight of a pound ;C0lns*
and therefore when the weight of the denomination had been low¬
ered by authority, these oldest asses were called librales. For the
same reason, the whole class of heavy copper coins received the
name of as grave when there was a lighter currency. It is not
clear whether this appellation anciently included all the copper
money of this kind, whether of Rome or of Etruscan cities,
heavier than that bearing the names of Roman families ; but this
was probably the case. The as, like the libra, contained twelve
uncicB, or ounces ; and the divisions which were commonly struck
were the semis or semissis, its half; the triens, or third; the quadrans,
or quarter; the sextans, or sixth ; and the uncia, or twelfth. The
other divisions of the as which have been noticed are, according to
M. Cohen, the quincunx, or five ounces, without Rome; and the bes
or bessis, or eight ounces; and dodrans, or nine ounces; which
last two have been alone found among the coins of the family
Cassia.1 The Roman pound has been estimated by Bbckh at
5053 grains,2 but no as has been found, as far as we know,
nearly equal to this estimate. There are, however, specimens
which are of not much less weight; and if we make allowance
for waste by rusting and for irregularity of striking, which is
especially great in almost all copper coinage, and generally below
the standard, we may consider they fairly represent the asses
librales. An examination of the divisions of the as leads to the
same result. There are also larger pieces of metal of greater
weight than the as, and of an oblong form, bearing on one side
the figure of a bull, of which some true specimens remain, although
most of those which are in cabinets are forgeries. They are of the
period of the ses grave, and might be supposed to represent the sum
of three asses (called tressis), or ten asses (called decussis), according
to when they were struck ; but it is doubtful if they are more than
pieces of metal containing a number of pounds without fractions,
like the so-called Celtic ring-money. While the earliest asses and
their divisions are of nearly full weight, we find the later ones are
much lighter. During the period of what we have called the second
class of Roman coins, which commences with the issue of a proper
Roman coinage, the as appears, from existing specimens, to have
gradually fallen to the sixth part of its original weight by a degra¬
dation that was probably on the whole regular. During the next
period—that of the family coins—the asses seem to be only of the
weight of either two ounces or a single ounce. Under Julius Caesar
the as weighs not quite half an ounce ; and we first observe two new
copper coins—the sestertius, and its half, the dupondius. At this
time the number of asses to the denarius had already been increased
to sixteen; so that the sestertius, which was the quarter of the
denarius, contained four asses. The sestertius, however, and the
dupondius, were struck of fine yellow brass (orichalcum), while the
as was of copper. Instead, therefore, of Aveighing two ounces and
one ounce respectively, they weighed one ounce and half an ounce ;
while the as weighed nearly half an ounce. The reason that the
as is defective, rather than the dupondius excessive, probably is, that
its weight was that to which the coin had already fallen, and that
it was considered better to make the new piece of an exact weight
than slightly to raise the old one. The dupondius and as, being
nearly of the same weight, and having the same types, are in
general only to be distinguished by the difference of metal, and
sometimes the more careful work of the former. The rust pro¬
duced by the chemical action of different soils often hides the
colour of the metal, and so takes away the principal means of
discrimination; yet the two may usually be distinguished, at
least as late as the time of the Antonines, particularly if one is
careful to compare them with the sestertii, to which the dupondii
always have a nearer resemblance than have the asses. Divisions
of the as are very uncommon under the empire. Those which exist
are of the period extending from the accession of Augustus to that
of Gallienus. From that time it is doubtful if any were coined.
The Arery small pieces issued considerably later do not seem to
have corresponded to any one of the old coins. The copper coinage,
like the silver and gold, suffered considerable changes. Alex¬
ander Severus, or, as he is called on the coins, Severus Alex¬
ander, reduced the sestertius and dupondius to two-thirds of their
former weight. A few years afterwards a larger coin or denarius
of brass, equal to four sestertii, was issued, called the Philippus
aereus, from the Emperor Philip, who seems to have first struck
it. In the time of Gallienus the sestertii and dupondii cease alto¬
gether, at least as a regular series, and the principal coin seems to
Monnaies de la Rip. Rom., p. vii.
* Metr, Untersuch., p. 165.
384
NUMISMATICS.
Roman
Coins.
Medallions
and tickets
Chief
classes of
Korn a.\
coins.
Family
series.
be the as, now a small piece coined of brass, and some larger pieces,
generally Philippi terei. In the reign of Diocletian a new coin of
copper, frequently plated (the follis or terurtianus), was introduced ;
and the Philippus sereus appears to have been abandoned at the
same time. The smaller coin, which is also of copper, appears to
be the assarion. Constantine the Great changed the copper coinage;
but he seems to have taken the money of Diocletian as the basis
of his coinage. His copper money consists of two principal deno¬
minations, which differ only from those of Diocletian in being
somewhat lighter, and the half of the smaller coin. Thenceforward,
to the end of the empire, there was no very important change,
except that the largest coin, the follis, fell into disuse after the
time of Honorius, and that there was a constant diminution in the
weight of the others. The common division of the Roman copper
money, according to its size, is into first brass, second or middle
brass, and third brass. The first class includes the sestertii, the
second the dupondii and earlier asses, the third the later asses and
all smaller coins. It is not necessary to show the faults of an ar¬
rangement that is so thoroughly unscientific in character; but we
must protest against its use in the arrangement of cabinets, and
the consequent injury to the real progress of numismatic inquiry.
In addition to the Roman coins, there are certain pieces which
.cannot be properly considered to have been money. These may
be classed as medallions and tickets. The medallions are of gold,
silver, and brass or copper, and usually larger than the largest
coin of the time of their metal. They are generally, if not
always, of the weight of a number of coins without fraction; but
they are not therefore to be considered as part of the currency.
The gold medallions commence under Constantine the Great, and
continue to the end of the empire ; the silver probably commence
under Gallienus, and last to the same time ; and the copper com¬
mence with Augustus, and continue at least to the reign of Alex¬
ander Severus. The types resemble those of the coins, but have an
especial reference, in the case of the copper pieces, on account of
their having been set in the standards, to military matters. The
work of all is usually finer than that of the current money. Of
the tickets, the most interesting are the contorniates, which were
probably struck between the time of Constantine the Great and the
fall of the empire, and were connected with the games.
(The most valuable treatise on the entire class of Roman coins is
the part of Eckhel’s Doctrina Numorum Veterum which relates to
it. Except with reference to the family series, no great advance
has been made since its publication ; and on the whole it is both
the most complete and the most learned account of Roman money.
Mionnet’s work, entitled Medailles Romaines,1 is of far less import¬
ance. It has the two cardinal defects of not describing the most
common types, and of following no scientific arrangement. There
are several excellent essays on particular branches of the subject,
which we shall have occasion to notice in subsequent places.)
Without considering in detail every kind of Roman money, it
will be necessary to make some observations on the chief classes, the
early proper coinage of the city, the family series, and that of the
empire. Of the first kind, the ses grave is beyond doubt the most
important portion. It must not be supposed, however, that it is
all of Rome; for it is certain that much was issued by other cities,
although there is a great quantity that we must believe to be pro¬
perly Roman. The as of Rome is known by having on the obverse
the head of Janus bifrons, and on the reverse the prow of a galley,
to which Ovid alludes, asking—
“Cur navalis in sere
Altera signata est, altera forma biceps ? ”
(Fast, i.) Other denominations have different obverses, with the
same reverse, and must have been struck at Rome or under Roman
authority. Coins of other types are to be generally referred to
cities in the neighbouring provinces. (The most complete work on
the scs grave is that by MM. March! and Tessieri, already noticed.)
The series of family coins consists mainly of denarii, other
pieces, both in gold and silver, being comparatively rare, and even
the copper money of the same class being not so numerous, and
showing far fewer varieties. The types of the denarii are of high
interest, especially when they relate to the Roman traditions, or to
earlier or contemporary history. Those that refer to the story of
Romulus, or bear the heads of others of the primaeval kings, or
commemorate events assigned to this first age of the city, show
how strong a hold the early Roman legends had taken upon the
mind of the people in the first and second centuries before the
Christian era, at times mainly anterior to similar written evidence.
These types are for the most part not the common devices of the
nation, but proper to each family; and they thus indicate the
general feeling more clearly than those of Greek cities, which gave
no scope to individual choice. The family coins that record the
achievements of the house, whether in days past or in the time
when they were issued, are also of high interest. The memory of
events not yet recognised in written history is thus preserved, and
in such a manner as to lead us to hope that we may, with the aid
afforded by the coins, restore otherwise lost portions of the annals
of the city. It is important to observe,—there can be no doubt,
owing to historical considerations, differences of style, and evidently
local types,—that many family coins were struck not alone out of the
city, but in provinces beyond Italy. We may notice a few of the
types of denarii, taking the families in an alphabetical order. Of
the family ASmilia there are interesting coins relating to deeds
performed or structures raised by members of that house. One
bears the head of Alexandria on the obverse, and on the reverse
Marcus Lepidus crowning Ptolemy Epiphanes. Another has a
representation of Paulus ^Emilius as if raising a trophy, with
Perseus, king of Macedon, and his two children, standing before
him. The coins of Mark Antony, which belong to the family
Antonia, display his power and arrogance. To Junia is assigned
the money of the celebrated Brutus. The most remarkable coins in
the family series, were they undoubted, would be those of Brutus
commemorating the death of Julius Caesar, with on the reverse a
cap of liberty between two daggers, and the inscription EID. MAR.
There are specimens in both gold and silver, the latter having two
types of obverse ; but we have seen none that could be pronounced
satisfactory. Dio Cassius indeed says that such a commemorative
type was placed on his coins by Brutus ; but it is not unlikely that
all the pieces bearing it would have been called in by the triumvirs,
while the passage would have stimulated modern forgers to produce
what it describes. Among the types of the coins of the family
Marcia we notice the head of King Ancus Marcius. The coins of
the family Pompeia are of great interest. The most remarkable
one has on the obverse the Pharos of Messana above a Roman
galley, and on the reverse Scylla striking with a rudder; types
supposed to relate to the defeat of the fleet of Octavianus, B.C. 38,
near Messana, by that of Sextus Pompey; or possibly referring to
the earlier battle in the straits of Sicily, B.C. 42, between the same,
and with the same result. The coins of the family Tituria present
two noticeable types, one representing the Romans carrying off
two Sabine women, and thus commemorating the Rape of theSabines,
and the other, Tarpeia being crushed by bucklers. (The best work
on the family coins is that of M. Cohen.2)
The imperial series is properly the continuation of the family
class, although characterized by marked distinctions. The deno¬
minations present a more perfect system, as we might have ex¬
pected ; and the reference of the types is either to the state or to
the emperor. The types of the later family coins, however, from
the time of Sylla, when the liberties of Rome were already over¬
thrown, are very frequently similar in intention to those of the
imperial money. The whole class may be separated into three
main divisions, the first comprising the coins of the period extend¬
ing from the rule of Julius Caesar to the death of Commodus; the
second, those of the subsequent time, as far as the accession of Con¬
stantine; and the third, those of that sovereign and his successors
to the fall of the Empire of the West. The coins of the first period
have that general character of order and fitness that we should ex¬
pect in the money of a great empire, and at the same time show
such changes as would be made by a nation which despised com¬
merce, and was strong enough to carry its contempt into acts.
Under the outward system of regularity there lay an element of
disorder that brought about in the end financial ruin. The prin¬
ciples that worked little harm in an age of prosperity were engines
of destruction when the state was overtaken by adversity. No
longer sustained by a powerful government, or applied with mo¬
deration, slight changes took the form of desperate experiments,
each one of which left the exchequer in a position of greater diffi¬
culty. In the period we are now noticing, we find but the com¬
mencement of this disorder in the constant though small decline of
the weight of gold and silver coins, and the legalization of their
moderate reduction, a system which did but continue the custom
of the commonwealth, under which there had been far greater
changes. The chief coins are the aureus, the denarius, the sester¬
tius, the dupondius, and the as. Denominations lower than these
are not common. There is a general similarity of types, especially
in the case of the aurei and denarii. On the whole, the best work
is shown in the sestertii; but the dupondii are often excellent, as
well as the aurei and denarii. The types have for the most part a
reference to the emperor rather than to the state, although this is
less marked at the first than afterwards. The coins of Augustus
show a decided advance in their art upon those of Julius; but in
this respect they must yield to those of Livia, Antonia, and Agrip-
Roman
Coins.
Coins of
the empire.
* De la Rarete et du Prix des Medailks Romaines, par T. E. Mionnet, 2|te 4d., 2 vols. 8vo, Paris, 1827.
Description Generate des Monnaies de la RepubVque Romaine, par H. Cohen, 4to, Par. 1857.
NUMISMATICS.
385
Roman pina the Elder, which are among the most excellent Roman coins.
Coins. The portraits of Livia, as Sal us, Justitia, and Pietas, on dupondii,
. y are among the most beautiful examples of Grasco-Roman art. The
' v ^ bust of Antonia on aurei and denarii, as Ceres or Proserpine, is a
loins of the finer subjectj scarcely less ably treated.1 The portrait of the elder
mpire. Agrippina on sestertii is quite equal to those of Rivia in work,
although the face is not so beautiful. The coins of Drusus Senior
bear types relating to his conquest of the Germans. The denarius
of Tiberius is interesting on account of the description of it in the
New Testament with reference to the question of the lawfulness of
paying tribute. The sestertii of Nero are of very fine work, and
in this respect yield to no other coins in the series. The money of
Vespasian and Titus records the subjugation of Judaea. The coins
of Trajan are remarkable for their architectural types ; and those
of Hadrian as commemorating his journeys. The portrait of An¬
toninus Pius is fine; and that of the elder Faustina is among the
most beautiful. The head of Marcus Aurelius is also well executed;
and that of the younger Faustina is always beautiful, and some¬
times inferior to none in the series, when the empress is repre¬
sented as very young, probably in the character of Venus, whose
name and figure occupy the reverse. The imperial ladies are dis¬
tinguished by the manner in which they wear their hair, which is
sometimes a safer guide than the portrait. The coins of Commodus
may be considered to close the series of those showing good art:
some of them display great delicacy and careful work. Among the
more interesting pieces is the copper medallion, having on the
reverse Roman Britannia seated.
The disorders that followed the death of Commodus have left their
impress on the coinage, which then lost its beauty of design and de¬
licacy of execution, neither to be more than partially restored in after
times. The money of Severus and his house, which shows systema¬
tic lowering of value, is of interest. The base metal argenteus is
already found in the time of Niger, but it was not regularly intro¬
duced until the reign of Caracalla. The coins of Elagabalus are
remarkable for their reference to the oriental worship to which he
was attached. Under Alexander Severus, the copper money was
legally reduced, and great attention was paid to its execution,
which is excellent for the period. The art and purity of the
money declined after Alexander’s reign, and in that of Gallienus
both had sunk to a very low condition. The chief coins of this
emperor, and the so-called “ Thirty Tyrants,” were the argentei,
which were of copper or base metal washed with silver, and brass
pieces of the same size, commonly called “ third brass,” which are
first plentiful at this time. With the accession of Aurelian the
Greek imperial money may be considered to cease, except at Alex¬
andria ; and thenceforward very much of the Roman coinage was
struck in the provinces. After a time we notice the abbreviated
names of the towns of mintage in the exergues of the coins; a
practice which appears to have commenced in the reign of Gal¬
lienus, but not to have attained a regular form until that of
Diocletian and Maximian. About the period of the latter, Treves,
Lugdunum (Lyons'), Arles, Uondinium, Rome, Constantinople,
Antioch, Alexandria, and Carthage, and afterwards Ravenna and
Milan, are the most common mints. The changes of Diocletian,
although they improved the material of the coins by substituting
pure silver pieces for the base argentei, and added the large cop¬
per follis to the third brass, did not materially affect the types.
Throughout this period they are of inferior interest to those of
the prosperous age that preceded it. Their reference is rather to
divinities than to events, and they show a want of originality.
With Diocletian, however, the art of the coins improves, a stiff
style being introduced, which, notwithstanding its radical faults,
is not devoid of force. In the treatment of heads it is more happy
than in that of groups.
The commencement of the third period of Roman coinage we
have dated in the reign of Constantine the Great. The proper
beginning cannot be exactly fixed; for it would be difficult to
choose between the monetary changes of this emperor and his
abandonment of pagan designs and adoption of others, either con¬
nected with Christianity or supposed to be not repugnant to it.
The two events do not, however, seem to have been far apart.
The recognition of Christianity was not the cause of such great
immediate changes in the types as one might have supposed. A
little earlier several types of a symbolical or allegorical character
had been introduced, and these were retained. The Christian
types at first are very few, and they can scarcely be said to pre¬
dominate during any part of the remaining period of the Western Medieeval
Empire. The art of Constantine’s money resembles that of Dio- and Mo-
cletian’sjbut after his time there is a speedy decline, and towards dern Coins,
the close of the empire the coins are in this respect very poor. The ^ >
most interesting coins are the third brass pieces of Constantine,
with the Christian monogram upon the standard (labarum), and
the somewhat later folles, as those of Vetranio, with the inscription
HOC SIGNO VICTOR ERIS. The coins of Julian the Apostate
are to be noticed on account of their showing a recurrence to
purely pagan designs. On the whole, it may be considered that
the change of religion was fatal to the types of the coins, no doubt
because it took place at a time when the art of the empire was in
too low a condition to be capable of expressing new ideas.
Sect. V.—MEDIAEVAL AND MODERN COINS OF
EUROPE.
The period of the mediaeval and modern coins of Europe
must be considered to commence about the time of the fall of the
Western Empire, so that its length to the present day is nearly
1400 years. The many groups into which this great class is
divided are so remarkably different from one another that it
cannot be treated, like the Greek or the Roman series, as a
whole. It is also impossible to separate the mediaeval and
modern coins, either in the entire class, because the time of
change varies, or in every group, since there are usually pieces
indicative of transition which display characteristics_ of both
periods. The clearest division is, to place the Byzantine coin¬
age first alone, and to consider the rest of the class as possess¬
ing a kind of general similarity, though of the widest sort. .
The Byzantine money is usually held to begin in the reign Byzantino
of Anastasius, a.d. 491-518. The coinage is always in the empire,
three metals, but the silver money is rare, and was probably
struck in small quantities. At first both the gold and the
silver are fine, but towards the close of the empire they
are much alloyed. The types, except when they refer simply
to the sovereign, are of a religious, and consequently a Chris¬
tian character. This feeling increases to the last. Thus, on the
obverse of the earlier coins the emperors are represented alone,
but from about the tenth century they are generally por¬
trayed as aided or supported by some sacred personage or
saint. On the reverses of the oldest coins we have such types
as a Victory holding a cross, but on those of later ones, a repre¬
sentation of our Saviour or of the Virgin Mary. Subsequently
some allegorical religious types are introduced, as that of the
Virgin Mary supporting the walls of Constantinople. The prin¬
cipal inscriptions for a long period almost invariably relate to
the sovereign, and express his name and titles. The secondary
inscriptions of the earlier coins indicate the town at which the
piece was struck, and, in the case of the larger copper pieces, the
year of the emperor’s reign is also given. From about the
tenth century there are generally two principal inscriptions,
the one relating to the emperor, and the other to the figure of
our Saviour. The secondary inscriptions at the same time
are descriptive, and are merely abbreviations of the names or
titles of the sacred personages near the representations of
whom they are placed. From the time of Alexius L, Com-
nenus, the principal inscriptions are almost disused, and de¬
scriptive ones alone given. These are nearly always abbre¬
viations, like the secondary ones of the earlier period. The lan¬
guage of the inscriptions was at first Latin, with a partial use of
Greek; about the time of Heraclius, Greek began to take its place
on a rude class of coins, probably local; by the ninth century
Greek inscriptions occur in the regular coinage ; and at the time
of Alexius I. Latin wholly disappears. The Greek inscriptions
are remarkable for their orthography, which indicates the changes
of the language. Of the art of these coins little need be said.
It has its importance in illustrating contemporary ecclesiastical
art in the East, but is generally inferior to it in both design
and execution. The denominations, except those of the gold
money, present matter for careful inquiry, little that is definite
1 The beautiful bust in the British Museum, usually called that of Clytie, probably represents a Roman lady (if the^early days of the empire.
That it is the work of a Grasco-Roman artist, and—whether meant to be an ideal subject °r not P01*. rai-. , , , . . ^ f
doubt. In time it must be, judging from its style, of the first century of the Christian era; and the manner m w ic nrnhablo that
earlier part of that period. The lady represented may be only a private person, but the excellence of the wor m Antonia with
she is of an impeiial family. On a comparison with the coins, it will be noticed that the head bears a great resemb r„r,rp«ontp(l on some
whose character the simple modesty of its expression, unexcelled in portrait-sculpture, would well accord. That An onia s p
of these coins as Ceres or Proserpine, agrees with the conceit of the sculptor, who h^s made the bust to spring Irom a nowei.
VOI-. XVI.
386 NUMISMATICS.
Mediaeval having been ascertained respecting them. The chief gold
and Mo- piece was the solidus or which maintained its just
dern Coins, weight, as established by Constantine, for near 1000 years
from the reign of Anastasius until the latter days of the Em¬
pire of the East, and without diminution of purity except dur¬
ing the time of disaster that closed this long period, its cor¬
ruption commencing under the Comnenian princes. This
accuracy rendered the solidi famous in the commerce of Europe,
so that they were the principal gold pieces, not alone of the East
but of the West also, before the issue of florins and ducats by the
cities of Italy. The smaller gold pieces were the half and third
of the solidus, as in the late Roman coinage, but after a time
they were both disused, and the solidus was alone issued.
In the eleventh century the solidus begins to be struck in a very
concave, or rather a cup-shaped form ; and this kind soon sup¬
planted the old flat coin, and continued to the taking of Con¬
stantinople. The silver and copper pieces take the same shape,
but not so consistently. These concave coins are termed
nummi scyphati. The silver money of Justinian I. has more
denominations than that of the close of the Western Empire,
but they are not satisfactorily determined and identified. In
the reign of Heraclius, in a.o. 615, a large silver piece, weighing
six grams, and therefore called a hexagram, was issued: its
weight is about 105 grains. During the eleventh century con¬
cave silver pieces were issued, as well as flat and somewhat thick
ones of a smaller size and lesser weight. The Byzantine copper
money falls into two great classes, the first commencing under
Anastasius and ending under Basil I., and the other beginning
under Leo YI. and extending thence to the close of the
empire. The former class is distinguished by the coins
bearing numerals indicative of their value. It follows three
systems,-—that of the empire generally, that of Alexandria,
and that of Carthage. The unit was the coin called vovy-fttcu
or ’hsTTTov. Under Justinian L, or about his period, we
observe coins of the empire generally, with on the reverses
the following indexes of value :—M, K, I, E, A, E, B, and
A, or 40, 20, 10, 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1, nummia; the Latin equi¬
valents of certain of these being given on some coins, chiefly
of western mints, and the index XXX also occurring without
a Greek equivalent. Anastasius, in a.d. 498, reformed the
copper coinage, and struck pieces with the index occupying the
greater part of the reverse, and having beneath it the abbre¬
viated name of the place of issue. Justinian I. added, in the
coinage of his twelfth year, a.d. 538, the regnal year. The
weight of this copper money presents extraordinary variations,
which indicate the condition of the imperial finances from year
to year. There is, as might be expected, a decline which is
constant, although irregular. The Alexandrian coins com¬
mence under Anastasius, and terminate with the capture of
the city by the Muslims. They have two denominations,
marked respectively IB and S, as containing 12 and 6 nummia,
the former of which forms the great bulk of the copper money,
and maintains its weight with tolerable accuracy. Some of
these pieces of the reign of Heraclius, struck while his sons
Heraclius Constantinus and Heracleonas were associated with
him, have the double index IB and M, a circumstance ex¬
plained by the depreciation of the copper money of the empire
generally, while that of Alexandria retained almost its just
weight. There is an isolated Alexandrian coin of Justinian L,
with the index AE (33), of great rarity: it was probably
issued as an experiment, and never subsequently struck. The
monetary system of the Vandals at Carthage is an offshoot of
the Byzantine. It probably lasted from the accession of Hu-
neric to the capture of the city and dethronement of Gelimer ;
but the pieces bearing indexes of value have no sovereign’s
name. The indexes are XLII, XXI, XII, and MI. The sys¬
tem must be regarded as a double one, comprising a piece of 42
and its half, and one of 12 and its third, the relation of all be-
ing,. if we take the piece of 12 as the unit, for the sake of con¬
venience, 3’5, 175, 1, and ’SS. Under Basil I. there was a
reform, and larger copper pieces were issued. The second
class of Byzantine copper coins begins under Leo VI. The
denominations are at first evidently the same as those of the
preceding class.
Besides the regular series of the Byzantine Empire, in which
we include the money assigned to the Latin emperors of Con- Mediaeval
stantinople, there are several groups connected with it, either and Mo¬
by their similarity, or on this account, and also because the dern Coins,
sovereigns were of the imperial houses. The former of these ^/
two classes comprehends the money of the Ostrogoths struck gub B
in Italy, that of the Vandals in Africa, and that of the Visigoths zantin^"'
in Spain. The last series is wholly of gold pieces, which, not- groups
withstanding their barbarism, are of interest, as showing the ° P ’
wealth of the kingdom. The latter class comprises the money
of the emperors of Nicsea, of Thessalonica, and of Trebizond.
The last group consists of small silver pieces, which were prized
for their purity: they were called Comnenian aspers (oWgos
Koy.v’/ivxTct'), the princes of Trebizond having sprung from the
illustrious family of the Comneni. (The best work on the
Byzantine coinage generally is M. de Saulcy’s Essai.1 The
Letters of the Baron Marchant2 contain much that is valuable ;
and the treatise of M. de PfaffenhofFen on the coins of the
empire of Trebizond3 should also be consulted.)
The class comprising the rest of the mediaeval money may Other me-
now be generally described, before we briefly notice its several dieeval
divisions with their modern continuations. The oldest of these coins,
coins are imitations, more or less barbarous, of the late Roman
and early Byzantine money. They are usually of gold, and
represent the solidus and its divisions. In Italy, where much
of the civilization and art of the Romans yet remained, the
coins of the Lombard kings of Italy and dukes of Benevento
are not greatly inferior to the contemporary coins of the
Greek emperors. In France, the Merovingian sovereigns
struck pieces which are sometimes even more faithful imita¬
tions than these. Britain, most completely cut off from civi¬
lization after the departure of the Romans, first issued bar¬
barous and blind imitations of the smallest Roman copper
coins latterly in circulation, and then little silver pieces,
with types sometimes of the same origin. In Spain, the gold
money of the Visigoths, already mentioned, is in its general
character similar to that of the Merovingian kings of France.
A little before the commencement of the German Empire a
new class of coins began to be issued, mainly consisting of
two denominations,-—the denier, of silver, derived from the
denarius ; and its half, theobole, which was first of silver, but
afterwards of billon, and took its name from the obolus.
These pieces rapidly supplanted the gold currency, although
the imitation of the solidus, called the sol dSor or soldo d’oro,
and its divisions, continued to be struck in France and Italy.
The characteristic money of the middle ages begins with these
coins. Though we still perceive the influence of Roman ideas,
the effect of a new system is apparent, not alone in the types of
many of the pieces, but in the extension of the right of coin¬
age. The principal coins of this class are of the German Em¬
pire, of France, of the Scandinavian states, and of England,
and commence about the middle of the eighth century, lasting
until the revival of art. Except in the empire, the denier
was almost exclusively struck, and known as the penny or
sterling. The coins were issued not alone by the emperors
and kings, but also by the ecclesiastical princes and lords ; and,
except in England, where the right was almost always more
restricted, by the feudal lords and the heads of religious houses.
The most common types of imperial and regal coins are, for
the obverse the bust of the sovereign, and for the reverse what
is commonly termed a Greek cross, varying in form, accom¬
panied respectively by the royal name and titles, and the
name of the place of mintage, or of the moneyer, or both.
The feudal lords and the ecclesiastics gradually adopted badges
or distinctive types, those of the former being of a rude heraldic
character, those of the latter having a religious meaning, though
with a necessary local reference. The religious types also occur
on the coins of sovereigns when struck at cathedral towns.
Towards the close of the twelfth century the singular pieces
called hracteates appear. They were issued in Germany, and
seem to have been extremely common during the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries, after which period they ceased. They
are coins of silver or billon, sometimes large, but very light,
and bearing a single design, usually of very barbarous work.
From their extreme thinness, they have the appearance of
tinfoil impressions of coins. They often do not bear even a
1 Essai de Classification des Suites Monetaires Byzantines, par F. de Saulcy, 8vo, Metz, 1836 (with a volume of plates).
® Lettres du Baron Marchant sur la Numismatique et I’Histoire, nouvelle ed., 8vo, Paris, 1851.
3 Essai sur les Aspres Comnenats, ou Blancs d'Argent, de Trebisonde, par F. de Pfaffenhoffen, 4to, Paris, 1847.
NUMISMATICS.
387
Mediaeval single letter, and rarely a full inscription, and there is there-
and Mo- fore frequently much difficulty in ascertaining their proper
lern Coins, attribution. During the time of the bracteates civic coins
commence, issued by imperial cities, or free cities, or by
corporations of towns under ecclesiastical or feudal lords.
The first pieces which display any excellence in art are
those of Italy, struck for the emperor, or for the various states,
in the time of Frederic II. That sovereign’s Italian money
affords remarkable evidence of the revival of art; but we do
not see as great an advance in other countries. From this
time, however, or not long afterwards, until the early days of
the sixteenth century, there is a constant progress everywhere,
and the coins, although they scarcely add to our historical
knowledge, are interesting as works of art. The denomina¬
tions of both gold and silver money are very various, and
some have several appellations in different countries when
there is not a sufficient change of weight, style, or appearance to
justify their being so separated. The basis of all the systems
is, however, to be traced to the commercial cities of Italy,
from the florins and ducats of which, the former either of gold
or silver, the principal coins of other countries were derived.
In the middle of the fifteenth century medals commence, and
for about a hundred and fifty years are frequently of high
merit and interest. It may be mentioned that the mediaeval
silver coinage is on the whole the most important, the gold
almost failing from the time of the decay of Roman influence
until that of the revival of art, and the copper being much
neglected, and sometimes altogether abandoned, until near the
close of the middle ages.
It is not necessary to speak at any length of the general
characteristics of the modern coins und medals of European
states and their colonies. In all that is technical, as in the
preparation of the metals, the convenience of the form, and
the mechanical execution, the moderns have far surpassed
their predecessors ; but in the beauty and meaning of the types
they are at as great a distance below them, and immeasurably
below the Greeks. The French medals of the first Napoleon
are alone in the least comparable with the earlier pieces of the
same kind. We will not here enumerate the denominations;
but it may be noticed that the sovereign and the dollar,
sometimes yielding to the shilling, which may be termed
its quarter, all with various appellations, but little difierence
of weight, are the principal gold and silver coins of both
hemispheres.
j\rt. It would be interesting, had we space, to notice fully the
art of this entire class, to examine its growth, and to trace its
decline, but, as with that of Greek and Roman coins, we must
limit ourselves to the best period. This is a space of about a
hundred and fifty years, from the middle of the fifteenth cen¬
tury to the close of the sixteenth. The numismatic art of this
time may not unworthily be placed by the side of its sculpture
and its painting. Not alone have some of its medallists taken
honourable places in a list where there was no room for
ignoble names, but to design medals was not thought an un¬
worthy occupation for the most famous artists. There are, as
we should expect, two principal schools, the Italian and the
German. The former attained a higher excellence, not alone
as possessing a finer style, but one especially adapted to coins
or medals. The object which the artists strove to attain was
to represent a head, or to commemorate an action, in the best
manner possible, without losing sight of the' fitness of the
designs to the form and use, real or imaginary, of the piece
on which they were to be placed. For the successful attain¬
ment of this purpose, the style of the later pre-Raphaelites
I was eminently suited. Its general love of truth, symmetrical
grouping, hard drapery, and faithful though cold portraiture,
were qualities especially fitted to produce a fine portrait and a
good medal. The less sculptural and more pictorial German
art was not so suitable to numismatic designs. The por¬
traits of the German coins and medals are often more charac¬
teristic than those of the Italian, and the groups have some¬
times greater expression; but both are less appropriate. They
show also too great a profusion of detail, by which the effect
of the boldness of the outlines is frequently lost; yet they
display great originality and vigour, and will reward an atten- Mediaeval
tive study. Both these schools, but especially the Italian, and Mo-
afford the best foundation for a truly excellent modern me- dern coins,
dallic art. The Greek and Roman coins are rather to be
studied as examples of art in general than of this especial art,
although they supply the most useful suggestions. To copy
for a modern piece the design of a Greek or Roman coin is
as inappropriate as it is to represent an English general in
the garb of a Greek hero in one place, and in that of a Roman
statesman in another. The finest coins and medals of Italy
and Germany have an object far more similar to that we seek
to fulfil in our own, and their nearness in time makes many
details entirely appropriate. Thus, without blindly imitating
them, our artists may derive from them the greatest assistance.
(The most useful works on mediaeval and modern coins
generally are, Appel’s Repertorium ;x the treatises of Mader1 * 3 4
and Lelewel;3 and, for current money, the Encyclopedic
Monetaire.*')
We do not purpose to enter in any detail into the various
divisions of the subject we have treated in its main outlines.
The questions that would require consideration are of two com¬
plicated and technical a nature to be illustrated in the present
essay within any reasonable limits: our endeavour will there¬
fore be merely to indicate the principal matters of inquiry, and
the most serviceable books for the student’s use.
The money of Portugal is regal, and not of great interest. It Portugal
affords indications of the wealth and commercial activity of the and Spain,
state in the early part of the eighteenth century. There is no
special work upon it. The coinage of Spain is, almost without ex¬
ception, regal, but a more curious class than that of Portugal. The
coins of the early contemporary kingdoms, such as those of Arra-
gon, and of Castile and Leon, are especially worthy of examina¬
tion. We may mention, as of a very peculiar character, a large
gold piece in the coinage of the latter state, called the Bobla de la
^Vanda, from its bearing the shield of the famous order of knight¬
hood of the Yanda or Band. Of this there are examples assigned
to John I. (1379-90) and John II. (1406-54). The money of the sole
monarchy is less worthy of notice. The city of Barcelona is re¬
presented by coins bearing the names of various kings, except in
the case of those issued at the time of the Peninsular war. The
medals of Spain are not important. (There is no complete work
on mediaeval and modern Spanish money, but the catalogue of M.
Gaillard, referred to in speaking of the ancient coins of Spain, will
be found of service in this department also.)
The coinage of'France forms a large series. It begins with the France,
money of the Merovingian dynasty. This consists almost wholly
of gold pieces, imitated from those of the late Roman and Byzan¬
tine rulers, as already mentioned, the chief denomination in com¬
merce being the tremissis, or third part of the sol d’or (solidus).
The coins are rare, and bear either the names of a king and city,
or of a moneyer and city. They are of different degrees of bar¬
barism in their art. Under the princes of the Carlovingian dynasty
the principal coins are deniers, and after a time oboles also, gold
money being extremely rare. They bear the name of the king and
that of the city where they were struck, and have a more original
character than the earlier pieces, although they are still barbarous.
The money of the Capetian house commences with coins like those
of the line preceding it. By degrees the coinage improves. In
the thirteenth century gold pieces were issued. There are several
denominations of these and of silver coins, but to some different
names are applied for various types with the same weight, as the
denier Parisis of Paris, and the denier Tournois of Tours. At the
time of Philip VI. the coins are fine. The modern coinage may be
considered to commence under Henry II., whose portrait is of good
work. During this period there is no very remarkable feature in
the current money, except the occurrence in the seventeenth cen¬
tury of the pieces of the sort termed pied fort, which we must re¬
gard as a kind of patterns. The seignorial coins of France are,
during the middle ages, of considerable importance, though inferior
to the similar classes of German and Italian money. The medals
are far more interesting than the modern coins. Their interest be¬
gins in the age of Louis XIV., but they take a fresh character under
the first republic and the reign of Napoleon I. Almost every great
event, from the beginning of the power of the emperor until his
fall, is worthily commemorated in this series, unequalled in its class
for extent, completeness, and excellence. The designs, notwith-
1 Appel's llepertorium zur Munzkunde des Mittelalters und der neuern Zeit, 4 parts in 7 vols. 8vo, Pesth, 1820-22; Wien, 1824-1829.
8 Kritische Beylrdge zur Munzkunde des Mittelalters, von Joseph Mader, 6 vols. 8vo, Prag. 1803-1813.
8 Numismatique du Moyen-Age, consideree sous le Rapport du Type, par J. Lelewel, 3 vols. 8vo, Paris, 1835, and vol. of plates, &c. ,
4 Encyclopedic Monetaire, ou Nouveau Traite des Monnaies d’or et d’argent en circulation, &c., par A. Bonneville, fob, Paris, 1849.
388
NUMISMATICS.
Mediaeval standing that mannerism which appears to be essential to modern
and Mo- French art, are vigorous in drawing, and executed with great care
dern coins. an(l skill. The intention of each subject is well carried out, if we
x lir_ —, make the same allowance as before for national peculiarity of feel¬
ing ; and equal success is shown both in realistic representation
and in idealistic composition. No other series of medals is at all
to be compared to this, although individual specimens of the me-
dimval period struck both in Italy and Germany are of a far
higher style, more original, more vigorous, and altogether grander
both in the idea of the artist and the form which he has given it.
(The numismatists of France, especially of late, have displayed a
most praiseworthy diligence ; so that we cannot indicate a tenth of
the useful treatises they have produced. On the regal coinage the
works of Le Blanc,1 and Fougeres and Combrouse,2 must be men¬
tioned ; on the seignorial, that of Duby ;3 and on the Napoleon
medals, as we may term them, the volumes devoted to this subject
in the series entitled Tresor de Numismatique et de Glyptique.*)
England. The English coinage, as before mentioned, commences with two
uncertain classes, which, wherever struck, certainly formed the
currency of the country during the interval from the departure of
the Romans, about A.D. 450, until the issue of money with royal
names by the Saxon kings, a practice which cannot be carried
earlier than about a century after this event. One of these classes
consists of imitations of the latest Roman copper money, and the
other of the small silver pieces to which the name of sceatta is
applied, having rude types which are sometimes of Roman origin,
but sometimes original. In all probability the former were first
issued, and then the latter. The regular coinage commences under
the Heptarchy. There is money of the kingdoms of Kent, Mercia,
the East Angles, and Northumbria. The chief coins are silver
pennies, but sceattas also occur; and of Northumbria there are
stycas, which are pieces of a base metal in the composition of which
copper is the largest ingredient. The most interesting coins of
this group are those of Offa, king of Mercia • these are silver
pennies, remarkable for their quaint designs and their relatively
careful execution. Of this period, but extending into the earlier
part of that of the sole monarchs, there are coins issued by the
archbishops of Canterbury and York. The money of the sole mo¬
narchs, whether Saxons or Danes, is strictly a continuation of that
of the Heptarchy : it consists almost wholly of silver pennies, which
latterly were cut into halves and quarters to form halfpennies and
farthings. Under the Normans and earlier Plantagenets the same
coinage continues; but under Edward III. there is regular gold
money, of which the chief piece is the noble of six shillings and
eightpence ; and the silver groat, which supplanted the penny, has
already commenced. The obverse-type of the noble, representing
the kingin a ship,probably commemorates, as suggested by Ruding,6
Edward’s victory over the French fleet off Sluys, A.D. 1340. At
the same time, there is a visible improvement in the art of the
coinage, which advances until, under the early Tudors, it attains
its highest excellence, from which, however, it is speedily to fall.
Of Henry VIII. we have gold and silver coins of most existing
denominations, as well as of earlier ones long since abandoned.
The finest piece is the sovereign, a large flat coin of gold, bearing
on its obverse the figure of the king (whence its name) on his
throne. With Queen Elizabeth the modern money may be held to
commence, the Gothic character of the types giving place to the
later and far less beautiful style. The coinage of Charles I. pre¬
sents great varieties, owing to the civil war. The scarcity of silver
in the royal treasury during the troubles induced the king to coin
twenty and ten shilling pieces of silver, in addition to the crowns
and smaller denominations. One of the most remarkable of his
pieces is a crown struck at Oxford. It bears on the obverse the
king on horseback, with beneath the horse a representation of the
town, or rather of its principal buildings, and on the reverse the
heads of the “ Oxford Declaration.” Of equal interest are the
siege-pieces of many castles famous in the annals of those days.
The coinage of the Commonwealth is of a plainness proper to the
principles of those who sanctioned it. The great Protector, how¬
ever, caused to be designed money of his own bearing his head.
This seems never to have been sent forth, and is therefore put in the
class of patterns. Simon, the chief of English medallists, designed Mediseval
the coins, which are unequalled in our whole series for the vigour of and Mo-
the portrait (a worthy presentment of the head of Cromwell), and the dern coins,
beauty and fitness of every portion of the work. Henceforward there i
is a decline in the coinage, although skill is perceived in the portrait ^ '•
of William III., whose grand features could scarcely have failed to
stimulate an artist to more than a common effort. Queen Anne’s
money is also worthy of note, since one of her coins, the farthing,
has been the cause of an extraordinary delusion. It is commonly
imagined that a very small number (some say three) of these pieces
were struck, and that their value is a thousand pounds each, in¬
stead of a few shillings. In consequence, many imitations have
been forged, and such are constantly brought to collectors by un¬
fortunate labourers and the like, who imagine that they possess
the greatest numismatic treasure in the world. After this there
is little to remark, except the baseness of the art of the coins under
the first three Georges, until the genius of Pistrucci gave a worthier
form to our currency, which the care and accuracy of Wyon has
preserved without mere imitation. Besides the regal coinage, there
is scarcely any baronial money, the class being represented by a
few pieces, generally at least struck by personages of the royal
house, and all belonging to the period of the close of the Norman
line and beginning of the Plantagenet. The English tokens form
a curious class. They are of two periods: the earlier, which are
generally of brass, were issued at the middle of the seventeenth
century and somewhat after; the later, which are mainly of copper,
were struck during the scarcity of the royal coinage at the end of
the last century, and during the earlier years of the present one.
Both were chiefly coined by tradesmen, and bear their names.
The medals of England are less important than those of France
and Germany. Some of those of the Tudors, commencing with
Henry VIII., are of good style. Those of the period of the Stuarts
are more interesting than beautiful. During the civil war many
pieces were struck commemorating the chief men and events of
that time. The custom continued under the Commonwealth and
after the Restoration; and there is a curious series of medals and
what may be termed jetons, relating to the Popish Plot in the
reign of Charles II. Of a later period are the medals of the two
Pretenders and their family; but of our own times little worthy
of note. The colonial money of England is unimportant until
lately, when it is not unworthy of the wealth and activity of the
dependencies. The money struck by the English kings for their
French dominions forms a peculiar class, mainly French in its
character, termed the Anglo-Gallic. This may be used to supply
some gaps in the regal series of England, as, for instance, contain¬
ing money of Richard I., of whom no English coins are known. (On
the English coinage generally there is the great treatise of Ruding ;6
on the silver money, the very complete and accurate work of Mr
Hawkins ;7 on the Anglo-Gallic coins, Gen. Ainslie’s Essay ;8 on
the medals, nothing better than the indifferent work of Pinkerton ;9
and on the tokens of the seventeenth century, a catalogue just pub¬
lished, which entirely meets the wants of the collector.10)
The coinage of Scotland is allied to that of England, although Scotland,
generally ruder; but it seems to have been more influenced in the
early period from Scandinavia, and towards its close from France.
The oldest pieces are probably silver pennies or sterlings, resem¬
bling the contemporary English money, of the commencement of
the twelfth century. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries there
is an important coinage, both in gold and silver, not the least in¬
teresting pieces being those of Queen Mary, many of which bear
her portrait. The indifferent execution of the coins of this period
is traceable to the disturbed state of the kingdom. (On the coinage
of Scotland there is the old work of Cardonnel,11 and the later one
of Mr Lindsay.12)
The money of Ireland is more scanty and of less importance than Ireland,
that of Scotland. The pieces most worthy of notice are the silver
pennies of the early Norse kings. Of later times there is little that
is interesting, except the coinage of James II. during his attempt
to maintain himself in the island. (Mr Lindsay has written a work
on the Irish coinage.13}
Belgium occupies the next place in our arrangement. Its Belgium
   and Hol-
I Traite Historique des Monnoies de France, par M. le Blanc, 4to, 1690. land.
8 Description complete et raisonnee des Monnaies de la 2me Race Roy ale de France, par F. Fougeres et G. Combrouse, fob, Paris, 1837; Suppl. 1838.
3 Traite des Monnoies des Barons, par M. P.-A. Tobiesen Duby, 2 vols. 4to, Paris, 1790.
^ 4 MedaUks de la Revolution Francaise (1789-1804), fob, Paris, 1836; Collection des Medailles de VEmpire Francais et de VEmpereur Napoleon, fob,
8 Annals of the Coinage, vol. L, p. 219.
6 Annals of the Coinage of Great Britain and its Dependencies, by Rev. R. Ruding, 3d ed., 3 Vols. 4to, Loud, 1840.
7 The Silver Coins of England arranged and described, by Edward Hawkins, 8vo, Lond. 1841.
io ^vftrat}ons °f the Anglo-French Coinage, 4to, Lond. 1830. * The Medallic History of England to the Revolution, 4to, Lond. 1790.
Tokens issued in the Seventeenth Century in England, Wales, and Ireland, by William Boyne, 4to, Lond. 1858.
II Numismata Scotice, or a Series of the Scottish Coinage from the Reign of William the Lion to the Union, by Adam de Cardonnel, 4to, Edinburgh,
17 8b.
12 A View of the Coinageof Scotland, by John Lindsay, 4to, Cork, 1845. 13 A View of the Coinage of Ireland, by John Lindsay, 4to, Cork, 1839.
NUMISMATICS.
389
'Mediaeval
and Mo-
lern Coins
Switzer¬
land.
Italy.
coinage comprises many pieces struck by foreign rulers, and has
little of an independent character, either in the regal or seigneurial
class. It closely resembles the money of I ranee and Germany.
The series of Holland is similar in character until the period of the
revolt of the Provinces. The medals are highly interesting, more
especially those which w'ere struck by the Protestants in comme¬
moration of current events, many of which relate to the great
contest with Spain. Such are the pieces recording the raising of
the siege of Leyden, likened to the destruction of Sennacherib s
army; the assassination of William the Silent; and the discom¬
fiture of the Armada; affording striking indications of the zeal,
the piety and the confidence in the right which built up the great
political structure of the Dutch Republic. After this time the
medals lose much of their interest. (Among the many works on
the coins of the Netherlands and Holland, we must specify that of
Van der Chijs.1)
The money of Switzerland is of considerable importance, chiefly
during the early period of its independence. The coins of both
cantons and towns bear their ancient shields, drawn at first with a
vigorous grotesqueness. There are also pieces of ecclesiastical
lords, and others having the right of coinage in particular cities or
districts. (The general works on German coins will be found to
treat of those of Switzerland also, but we must mention the special
essays of Haller2 and Dr H. Meyer.3)
The coinage of Italy during the mediaeval period is alone rivalled
by that of Germany, which, moreover, it excels in some respects.
First in Italy the revival of art influenced the coins, and in Italy
each step of advance found in them its record. The oldest mediaeval
Italian coins are gold pieces of the Lombard kings of Italy and of the
dukes of Benevento, occupying, as already mentioned, very much
the same position in relation to the late Roman and the Byzantine
money, as the earliest coins of Spain and France. The series of the
kings of Italy is taken up by that of the emperors of Germany,
which forms a remarkable class, especially as indicating the excel¬
lence of art here at a time when to the rest of Europe it was almost
unknown. The great republics are worthily represented, their
coins attesting by their purity, and the influence they seem to have
exerted, the commercial energy of the states. Of Venice there is a
long series, for the chief part bearing the names of the doges.
Florence contends with Venice in the extent and purity of her
coinage. Her florins of gold were for a great period as famous in
European commerce as the gold ducats and silver matapans of her
rival. The types of the florins—the lily of Florence, and the Bap¬
tist—were copied by the feudal lords of more northern lands, to
the swamps of Holland and the shores of the Atlantic; the designs
of the matapans—one of w’hich, the doge receiving the gonfalone
from St Mark, was yet more distinctive—w’ere adopted by the half-
barbarous tribes whose territories were the fighting-ground in the
long contest of the German and the Turk. The medals of Florence,
which are anterior to the time of the dukes, or those issued by
them, not to omit the works of Florentine medallists which are not
otherwise connected with their native state, are among the chief
monuments of the numismatic art of Italy. The chief value of
these medals lies in their bearing admirable portraits of persons of
celebrity. Passing southwards, the series of Rome is of the highest
historical and artistic value. It is for the greatest part struck by
the popes, of whom there are both coins and medals. The later
pieces commemorate the events of each reign, and are, as might be
expected, of high excellence in style, although, from the excessive
fondness of the artists for allegory, they are generally wanting in
simplicity, and do not directly seize the attention. Another fault
is partiality without invention or vigour. We may instance the
medal of Gregory XIII. recording the Massacre of St Bartholomew,
both for its reverse-type, an angel slaying the Huguenots, and the
inscription VGONOTTORVM STRAGES. Far superior is the
satire of some of the medals of the Dutch Protestants, and the dig¬
nity of others. Since the seventeenth century, few papal medals
have been struck that are entitled to even moderate praise ; those
of the present day are beyond measure poor and weak. We must
also mention the money of Naples, especially the oldest, which is
of its strong Norman princes, who, supplanting the Arabs in Sicily,
at first there struck their coins with legends partly or wholly in Mediaeval
Arabic characters, while on the mainland they issued the ordinary arKi jj0_
money of the day. Many other groups might be mentioned, as the dern Coins,
coins of the Visconti and Sforza families of Milan, of the D’Este i | | /
of Ferrara, and many more houses great in their love of arms and
in their protection of art. (The coinage of Italy is amply illus-
trated by excellent essays, mainly of the last century. We must
particularize those of Argelati,1 2 3 4 * Zanetti,6 Bellini,6 Carli-Rubbi,7and
Fioravanti.8)
The money of Germany is, like that of Italy, far too various for Germany,
us to be able to do more than sketch some of its main features. It
comprises three great classes,—the coinage of the emperors, that of
the electors, and that of the smaller princes, the religious houses,
and the towns. The imperial money, even when limited to what
is strictly German by the exclusion of pieces struck in France and
Italy, forms a very large series. Its chief characteristics are the
same as those of the other great medimval classes, except that, until
near the close of the middle ages, it is considerably backward in
its art. At this time its portraits are very characteristic, as well as
the current coins as on the medals and the double-dollars, which are
virtually medals. Of especial excellence is the medal of Maximilian
I. and Mary of Burgundy, struck on their marriage; and the still
finer medal of Maximilian, bearing on its obverse the emperor on
horseback, fully armed, and said to have been designed by Albert
Diirer, of whose hand it is not unworthy. The coinage of the
archbishops of Cologne is a remarkable series. In the earlier
period it bears representations of the cathedral, as is not unusual
on ecclesiastical money of the time. The coins of Mayence, although
they yield to those of Cologne in number and importance, form a
large group. Of the dukes of Saxony there are fine dollars, which,
at the period of the Reformation, bear vigorous and characteristic
portraits. Of Treves there is another curious class, resembling that
of Cologne. Besides these, there are very numerous bracteates and
later pieces of temporal lords, of bishops and abbots, and of cities,
some of which are free. (The treatises on this branch are many
and excellent. We must specify those of Joachim9 and Cappe,10
besides remarking that the general works of Mader and Appel,
before mentioned, give very large information on German money.)
The coins of the Scandinavian states—Denmark, Norway, and Denmark,
Sweden—are almost wholly regal. There are a few civic pieces, but Norway,
the ecclesiastical bracteates assigned to this group are probably and Swe-
for the most part of Northern Germany. The regal money of these den.
states is closely connected. In the earlier period it resembles the
English and Scottish coinage, although with a national character of
its own ; afterwards it is more like that of Germany. There are
some medals of historical interest. (This branch has not received
the attention it merits, and there is no complete essay upon it.
The great Danish work on medals, however, will be found to con¬
tain very full materials.11)
The coinage of Russia is mainly of the modern period, and, until Russia,
comparatively recent times, shows a remarkable degree of barbar¬
ism. The medals are of no intrinsic merit, their sole value being
historical. Both coins and medals are regal, except such of the
former as were struck in cities now included in Russia, while yet
under Sweden. (The work of Baron de Chaudoir will be found to
give a good account of Russian money.12) The coins of Poland are
mainly of the kings, and resemble those of the Hungarian king¬
dom. Of the states between Germany and Turkey there are inter¬
esting coins. The kingdom of Hungary and the principality of
Transylvania are each represented by an important series,thatof the
latter comprising large and remarkable gold pieces of the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries. There are early coins of the patriarchs
of Aquileia, and of the kings of Servia. The money of the Turkish
Empire is of the oriental class, but there are many coins struck by
Christian states in its present territories. This class may be called
that of the Crusaders, comprising money of the princes of Achaia,
and the dukes of Athens, in Europe ; and of the kings of Cyprus
and Jerusalem, the princes of Antioch, and the counts of Edessa
and Tripolis, in Asia. This is very similar to the contemporary
mediaeval money. A kindred series is that of the knights of Rhodes
and Malta, which bears testimony to the wealth and power of that
1 Verhandelingen, uitgegeven door Teyler’s Tweede Genootschap, 4 vols. 4to, Haarlem, 1851-5. ■
2 Schweizerisches Munz-und MedaiUenkabinet beschrieben, von G. E. von Haller, 2 vols. 8vo, Bern, 1781.
3 Die Bracteaten der Schweiz, &c., von Dr H. Meyer, 4to, Zurich, 1845. ^ _ n
4 De Monetis Italioe Variorum lllustrium Virorum Dissertationes, &c., P. Argelatus collegit, &c„ 6 vols. fob, Med. 1750-1759.
6 Nuova RaccoUa, delleMonete e Zecche d’Italia, di G. A. Zanetti, 5 vols. 4to, Bologna, 1775-1789. . . .
6 V. Bellini de Monetis Italia Medii JEvi Dissertatio, 4to, Ferrarise, 1755 ; Altera Dissert., 1767 ; Postrema Dissert., 1774 ; Novissima Dissert., 17.9.
T Delle Monete e dell’ Instituzione delle Zecche d’Italia, &c., Dissertazioni, del Conte Don G. Carli-Rubbi, 4to, Mantova,, DJI.
8 Antiquiores Pontificum Romanorum Denarii, &c., a V. C. J. Vignolio, iterum prodeunt studio, &c., B. ilorav antis, 4to, Rom. 1731.
9 Neu-erbfnetes Groschen-Kabinet, 13 vols. 8vo, Leipz. 1739-1769. . ,
10 Die Miinzen der Deutschen Kaiser und Kdnige des Mittelalters, von II. P. Cappe, 2 vols. 8vo, Dresden, 1848-18o0; Beschreibung der Colnischen
Miinzen des Mittelalters, 8vo, Dresden, 1853. v
11 Beskrivelse over Danske Mynter og Medaille i den Kongelige Samling, fob, Kiobenhavn, 1791, and vol. of plates.
18 Aper^u sur les Monnaies Russes, &c., par le Baron S. de Chaudoir, 2 vols, 8vo, St Petersbourg, 1836-7, and vol. of plates.
390
NUMISMATICS.
Oriental
Coins.
America.
Persian
imperial
coins.
Coins of
the Persian
kings and
satraps.
illustrious order. (We must mention, in illustration of this group,
M. De Saulcy’s account of the money of the Crusaders.1)
Respecting the coinage of America it is needless to enter into
detail. Neither the money of the Spanish and Portuguese depen-
pencies, and of the later states, nor that of the English colonies and
the United States, present much that is worthy of note. The coin¬
age resembles that of the parent countries, hut is of coarser work.
The dollar is the chief denomination. There are some coins of
historical value, as those with the portrait of the Mexican emperor
Augustin ; and in the north, Lord Baltimore’s pennies. (The Ency¬
clopedic Monetaire, before mentioned among general works, will be
found to be of great use in this branch.)
Sect. VI.—ORIENTAL COINS.
Oriental coins are of two great classes, the Pagan and the
Mohammadan. (On both classes the great work of Marsden
should be consulted.2) The first division is separated into the
coins of the Persian Empire, the Parthians, and the Sassanians;
of Bactria, and of the Hindus ; and into those of transgan-
getic India, China, and Japan.
The Persian coins probably range from the commencement of the
reign of Cyrus, or his capture of Babylon, to the overthrow of the
empire by Alexander the Great, a period of about two centuries.
The only pieces we can positively attribute are of satraps of the
later kings. There can be no doubt, however, that vre possess
specimens of almost every reign, except the very short ones,from
that of Cambyses, to which, if not to that of Cyrus, the oldest coins
must be referred, from their style. The metals are gold and silver,
the latter being that of the great bulk of the coinage. The form is
usually flat and very thick. The types are of no great number.
The main principle on which they were selected was a desire to
honour the sovereign, which, if we recollect the worship the Achse-
menian kings received, is not greatly different from the religious
feeling of the Greek coinage. The chief observe-types represent
the king in a chariot, sometimes hunting the lion, or as an archer
drawing his bow. This personage is not, however, to be supposed
in any case to be the reigning king, but rather the King of Persia
in a kind of abstract sense. As a reverse to these types we notice
occasionally a city or a galley. The money of the satraps is some¬
what more Greek in its character, although it has among its types
the representation of a king or satrap, that of a city, and the eastern
device of a lion seizing a bull, and the like. The undoubted regal
coins have generally no inscription whatever. Some, seemingly of
this class, though they are perhaps of satraps, bear Phoenician cha¬
racters, apparently the beginning of a name in one case, and in
another, various dates. The coins of satraps have Phoenician in¬
scriptions, usually giving the name of the person who issued the
money, and that of the divinity of the place where it was struck.
The art of this class of coins is not remarkable; it is at first similar
to contemporary Greek art, and generally maintains, at least in
some degree, its original conventional stiffness. There is one ex¬
ception to this character in a beautiful coin attributed to Cyrus the
Younger, to be soon mentioned, but this is in all respects a Greek
piece, though evidently struck for a Persian king or usurper. The
Persian coins are adjusted to the Phoenician talent. The principal
denomination of the gold is the daric or daric stater. The chief
silver coin is a third of the tetradrachm, a denomination which is
not uncommon; and there are also octodrachms, as well as smaller
pieces.
We will notice some of the principal coins, first of the kings,
and then of the satraps, in chronological order, as far as this is
practicable. The oldest Persian pieces are probably certain octo¬
drachms of very early wrork. They bear on the obverse a galley
beneath the wralls of a town, and on the reverse the king Jd
his chariot engaged in a lion-hunt. These can scarcely be later
than the age of Gyrus or Cambyses ; and it is most reasonable to
suppose them to have been struck at Tyre. Next in time to these
we would place the pieces with semi-Egyptian types, having on the
one side an owl with a crook and flail, like the representations of
Egyptian sacred hawks, and usually on the other a king or divinity
riding upon a kind of sea-horse. The latter is sometimes the ob¬
verse-type. These we take to be the coins of Aryandes, satrap of
Bgy.pt) whom Herodotus relates to have been put to death by
Darius Hystaspis for striking silver money ; but they may perhaps
he regal pieces. After these may be placed the gold darics and the
silver pieces of the same type, and two-thirds of their weight, with
the figure of the king, usually as an archer kneeling, on the obverse,
and with an irregular incuse type on the reverse. These, or at
least the gold coins, appear to have been current as late as the time
of Artaxerxes Mnemon. To this reign we may assign, on strong
evidence, a most remarkable coin, bearing the portrait of a Persian
Oriental
Coins.
regal person on the obverse, and on the reverse a lyre, with the in¬
scription BA2IA. This is assigned by M. de Longperier to Cyrus
the Younger ; and we accept his attribution as highly probable.
Of the money of the satraps we may particularize the coins of
Pharnabazus and Tiribazus, and those formerly attributed to
Dernes, but given by Mr Waddington to the celebrated Datames.
(The best work on the ancient Persian money is that of the Due de
Luynes on the coins of the satraps.3)
After eighty years of subjection, first to Alexander and his sue- Parthian
cessors, and then to the earliest Bactrian kings, the Persian power c°ios.
was restored by Arsaces. With him the Parthian series of coins
commences. This consists mainly of silver money, though there are
also copper pieces. It shows markedly the influence of the Greeks,
having inscriptions in their language, and its reverse-types derived
from their coinage. The obverses bear the sovereigns’ busts, which
in the earlier period are often well executed. The denominations
appear to be wholly of Greek origin. The Parthians were sue- Sassanian
needed by the Sassanian princes. This line issued a more oriental coins,
coinage than their predecessors, bearing on the obverse the king’s
bust, usually wearing a very large and elaborate head-dress, and
on the reverse the sacred fire-altar. The attachment which Arde-
shir, the founder of this dynasty, bore towards the fire-worship,
established this national reverse-type, which endured during the
four hundred years that his house held the sovereignty. The Sas¬
sanian money is chiefly of silver ; gold pieces are very rare. (On
the Parthian coins the work of Mr Lindsay4 * should be consulted ;
on the Sassanian, M. de Longperier’s treatise.6)
The Bactrian coins form an important link between the money Bactrian
of the West and that of the East. They were issued by the princes coins,
of one of the dynasties founded on the ruins of Alexander’s em¬
pire, in so distant a territory that its very existence was scarcely
known until the discovery of the coins. This kingdom was estab¬
lished B.C. 256, in the reign of Antiochus II., king of Syria, by the
defection of Diodotus, governor of Bactria. The coinage of this
first sovereign evidently follows that of the Seleucidae in types and
inscriptions, and, so far as the silver is concerned, in weight also;
and the principal money of the subsequent rulers is of the same
kind, although showing decay in its art. Under Agathocles, how-
ever, who seems to have been the successor of Diodotus, and cer¬
tainly cannot have reigned much later, we observe the commence¬
ment of a peculiar class of coins, consisting of square copper pieces,
bearing on the one side a Greek inscription, and on the other an
Indian-Pali legend. The occurrence at this early period, in the
midst of a Greek coinage, of pieces of a form unknown to the
Greeks, and with an Indian as well as a Greek inscription, fur¬
nishes, as Mr Thomas argues, no weak evidence of an independent
Indian coinage before this time—a subject to which we shall shortly
recur. The Bactrian series is chiefly valuable from the aid it has
afforded in the reconstruction of contemporary history. Much,
however, remains to be done in the arrangement of the series before
its full use can be realized. Of the coins of the successors of the
kings already mentioned little need here be said, except that
bilingual inscriptions become constant on silver as well as copper
pieces, and that the former are sometimes of the square form. The
Bactrian series is succeeded by more than one half-barbarous class
similar to it, but far more oriental in character.
The question of the independence of the earliest Indian coinage India,
is of too complicated a nature to admit of its being here fully dis¬
cussed, but we must indicate its main features in order to draw
attention to a matter affecting ancient civilization in the far East.
It must not be supposed, however, that the conclusion that the
Indians had struck money before the time of Alexander, would
attribute to them the separate invention of coinage : in this case it
is more reasonable to presume that they had received Greek coins
in commerce, and had thus been stimulated to issue a metal cur¬
rency of their own. Mr Thomas has devoted much attention to this
question, which will be found to be fully discussed in his edition of
Prinsep’s Essays. He argues on the existence of the square copper
pieces in the Bactrian series, on the character of antiquity displayed
by the Behat copper coins, and on the presumptive evidence of
written records. The earliest class he considers to be that 6f silver
1 Numismatique des Croisades, par F. de Saulcy, 4to, Paris, 1847.
- Aumismata Orientalia Illustrata, by W. Marsden, 4to, Lond., part i., 1823; part ii., 1825.
, Essai sur la A umismatique des Satrapies et de la Phenicie, sous les Hois Achcemenides, par H. de Luynes, 4to, Paris, 1846, with plates
m supp ement. 4 A View of the History and Coinage of the Parthians) by John Lindsay, 4to, Cork, 1852.
Essax sur les Medailles des Hois Perses de la Dynastic Sassanide, par A. de Longperier, 4to, Paris, 1840.
NUMISMATICS.
391
Oriental
Coins.
j?iam and
Jhina.
Mohamma'
dan coins.
punch-marked pieces. Of a later period than this whole class are
the coins of the Sah kings of Saurashtra, the age of which is far
more nearly fixed. These are silver pieces bearing dates which
show them to have been struck within about a hundred years.
The dates Mr Thomas considers to be reckoned from the Sri Harsha
Era, which would place the coins between the middle of the second
and the middle of the first century b.c. The Sah kings were fol¬
lowed by the Guptas, who appear to have been at the first con¬
temporary with them. To these belong the rude gold coins, with
figures of Indian divinities, which are frequently found in the
country. Their importance at the time, and their influence on the
later coinage, must have been very great. The types of the later
Hindu coins are of the same character as those of this group,
although recently better executed. Although they are still issued,
these proper Hindu coins have been long since virtually supplanted
by those of the Mohammadan dynasties and the Company. (The
most useful works on Bactrian and Indian money are Prinsep’s
Numismatic Essays, which have been collected and edited by Mr
Thomas, and will be very shortly published. The original value
of these papers is greatly enhanced by the labour and skill with
which Mr Thomas has illustrated them, bringing them down to the
present state of knowledge, and adding everywhere new infor¬
mation. Professor Wilson’s Ariana Antiqua1 must also be con¬
sulted. The most complete account, though one now requiring
many additions, is in Marsden's great work, which we have already
mentioned.)
Beyond India, it may be mentioned that Siam has a coinage of
its own, consisting of spherical lumps of silver, impressed w'ith a
punch, in the place of which coins with oriental types, but on a
European model both in form and art, are now being issued. The
Chinese money offers a field for great research. Here the question
of an origin of money in the East, independently of Greek influence,
is raised by the great antiquity that the Chinese writers assign to
the commencement of the art among them. The conclusion, for the
present at least, must here mainly depend upon our estimate of the
value of the written evidence, for the money affords but doubtful
testimony, more especially as the Chinese fabricate coins as they do
vases, to deceive the curious. Some existing specimens are attri¬
buted to the twenty-first year (b.c. 523) of the reign of the Empe¬
ror King-wang, of the Tcheow Dynasty ; but in the opinion of the
Baron de Chaudoir, there is no certainty, before the reign of Chy-
hoang-ty (b.c. 247-210), of the Heow-tsin Dynasty. The money
consists almost wholly of copper pieces. These are at first of va¬
rious shapes, sometimes being in the form of a sword or a bell,
though flat; but at length they take the usual shape of coins, ex¬
cept that they are perforated in the centre with a square hole, in
order that they may be strung. The silver coins are dollars of a
recent period. The rebels have issued copper money resembling
that of the Mantchoo Dynasty, but with their own inscriptions.
(On the Chinese coins, Baron de Chaudoir’s work should be con¬
sulted.2)
The second class of oriental money—that of Mohammadan
states—has been issued during a period extending from about the
middle of the seventh century of the Christian Era to the present
day. The oldest of positive date (gold coins) were struck a.h. /8.
There are others, however (copper pieces), which must be ascribed
to the interval between this date and the first great extension of
Arab power, half a century earlier. We may mention the bilin¬
gual coins of cities of Syria and Palestine, Damascus, Emesa, and
Tiberias, and barbarous imitations of the latest Byzantine money
of Alexandria. Silver pieces are known of the year A.H. 79, but
the dated copper coins do not commence until some years later:
thenceforward the coinage of the greater number of Muslim states
is in the three metals. The date of the earliest gold and silver
coins thus falls into the reign of the Khaleefeh ’Abd-El-Melik Ibn-
Marwan, under whom, in A.H. 76, the first Muslim coinage is re¬
lated to have appeared, by El-Mekeen, Es-Suyootee, and Ibn Ku-
teybeh. There is a remarkable copper coin, generally resembling
the bilingual pieces just mentioned, and having on one side a figure,
probably representing the khaleefeh. In its inscriptions, which are
wholly in Arabic, we read, “ The servant of God (or ’Abd-Allah),
5Abd-El-Melik, the Prince of the Faithful.”—The fabric and general
appearance of the regular coins, especially for the first five centu¬
ries of their issue, is remarkably similar. They are always flat,
and generally thin, and are without types, in the ordinary sense Oriental
of the term, except some semi-barbarous ones, which originated in Coins,
imitation of those of the current Byzantine money of the time, or y r t j
of older Greek types. The whole of both sides of the coins is occu-
pied by inscriptions, usually arranged horizontally in the areas, and
in single or double bands around. With the rise of the Tatar power
the old Arab type of the coins begins to be disused, and a new one
introduced, mainly differing in the greater size of the pieces and
the disposition of the inscriptions, which are placed in and around
a square. This form was scarcely less wide in its use, or long in
its duration, than that which it superseded. The prevalent metal of
the earlier class is gold; of the later, silver. The intention of the
inscriptions is religious. All Mohammadan coins bear the profes¬
sion of the faith—“ There is no deity but God: Mohammad is the
apostle of God.” The Shiya’ees add—“ ’Alee is the friend of God.”
The title of the khaleefeh, and afterwards his name also, or the
name and title of the king, as well as the year of the Flight and
the place of mintage, are generally given. The religious feeling
as to the coinage was, until recent times, not less strong with the
Muslims than with the ancient Greeks. For some centuries it was
not lawful to put the name of any sovereign, as such, upon the
coins, except that of the khaleefeh; and an independent prince,
even if actually at war with him, continued to issue money in his
name, doing no more than add his own, without any title, as though
he were a provincial governor. The rival khaleefehs in Spain and
Africa by degrees shook this privilege, and under the Turkish and
Tatar dynasties it ceased, about the time when the khaleefehs of
Baghdad had nearly lost all temporal power, shortly before their
overthrow.
Mohammadan coins cannot lay claim as a class to high artistic
excellence. Their beauty depends, in the earlier period, upon the
disposition of the inscriptions, and afterwards upon this combined
with the form of the characters. Among the best of the older
coins are those of the Umawee and ’Abbasee khaleefehs, and of
the Fatimee khaleefehs in Egypt. The money of the Moors in
Spain, of some of the later kings of Persia, and sultans of Turkey,
affords beautiful specimens of the more recent coinage. The finest,
however, are generally inferior in execution, and often in design,
to the best engraved work of the same times. The principal deno¬
minations, particularly during the earlier period, are well known.
For many centuries there were scarcely any more pieces than one
of each metal, the deenar of gold, the dirhem of silver, and the
fels of copper,—and these were of nearly the. same size, and other¬
wise very similar in their appearance. Their names betray a
foreign origin ; the deenar derived its appellation from the dena¬
rius ; the dirhem, from the drachma ; and the fels, from the follis.
In its weight the deenar, at first of about 65‘5 grains, followed that
of the solidus, which at that time had succeeded to the aureus, and
was doubtless the “ piece of gold.” The dirhem, of 45 grains, pro¬
bably was considered as equivalent to the chief silver coin of the
Isaurian family. The fels, however, cannot be readily identified,
from the irregularity of the contemporary copper money of the
Byzantines. At a later time, as the influence of the Eastern Empire
wore out, the money of the commercial states of Italy affected the
oriental coinages ; and from this and other causes new systems took
their rise, until in our own days the money of the Mohammadan
dominions on the Mediterranean is generally assimilated to that of
Christian Europe. (The most useful books on Mohammadan coins
in general are, besides Marsden’s Numismata Orientalia, the works
of Frahn3, Mbller4 *, and Erdmann.6)
The coinage of the Umawee and’Abbasee khaleefehs merits the
same place in this series as the Byzantine in the mediaeval. It pre¬
sents little matter of historical interest beyond the indications of
the condition of the state, from the abundance or the scantiness, or
even the entire absence, of money under particular reigns. Thus
we have evidence of the magnificence of the earliest prinoes of the
house of E1-’Abbas, and the misery of the latest, who yet held rule
in the city of Baghdad, when the Tatar Hulagu was almost at its
doors. Here and there the attention is fixed by a more definite
fact, as when on the coins of Haroon Er-Itasheed we read the name
of his famous wezeer Jaafar.
First among the Muslims of Africa and Western Europe we
would place the khaleefehs of Spain, who in that remote country
restored somewhat of the greatness of their ancestors of the house
1 Ariana Antiqua, a Descriptive Account of the Antiquities and Coins of Afghanistan, by II. II. Wilson, 4to, London, 1841.
2 Recueil de Monnaies de la Chine, du Japan, &c., par le Baron S. de Chaudoir, fol., St Petersbourg, 1842.
3 Ch. M. Ercehnii llecensio Numorum Muhammedanorum Acad- Imp. Scient. Petrop. 4to, Petrop., 1826; Ch. M. Frashnii Nova Sup-
plementa ad Recens., ed. B. Dorn, 4to, Petrop. 1855.
4 De Numis Orientalibus in Numophylacio Gothano Asservatis Commentatio Prima, edit, alt., auctore J. H. Mcellero, 4to, Gotha:,
1826 ; Commentatio Altera, 4to, Erfordiae et Gothae, 1831.
6 Numi Asiatici Musei Universitatis, Ac., Casanensis, recensuit, &c., F. Erdmann, 2 vols. 4to, Casani, 1834.
392 NUN
N U N
Nun of Umeiyeh. Their money resembles that of the contemporary
i; ’Abbasees. Under later dynasties, and especially that of theopu-
Nundinae. lent and luxurious kings of Granada, large gold pieces were issued,
noticeable for the fineness of their work. The coinage of the
shereefs(or khaleefehs, as they have called themselves) of Morocco
or Fez, of the Aghlabee Dynasty, and of the Fatimee khaleefehs
at Keyrawan, before they had conquered Egypt, offers little to
detain us. The money of Egypt itself forms a long series, well
deserving of study. There is nothing remarkable of the period
during which it was governed by the naibs or lieutenants of the
Umawee and’Abbasee khaleefehs, before the establishment of the
independent dynasty of the Toolooneeyeh, a.d. 868. Of this house,
and that of the Ikhsheedeeyeh, which succeeded it after a short in¬
terval, there are deenars bearing the name of the reigning prince,
besides that of the khaleefeh. The gold money of the Fatimee
khaleefehs, who overthrew the line last mentioned, is well executed,
and usually has two oi three concentric inscriptions on each side.
Under the Kurd or EiyoobeeDynasty the coinage is similar; but
under the two Memlook dynasties—the Turkish and the Circassian
—the money is coarse, and rather resembles that of the Seljuks
than the earlier series of Egypt. Since the Turkish conquest the
money of this country has been similar to that of Constantinople,
although possessing peculiar characteristics. In Syria there are
coins of the Eiyoobee princes. Next to these we may place the
money of the Seljuks and Turkuman Ortokites, the latter remark¬
able for the use of barbarous figures, derived from the Byzantine
or ancient Greek types. The coins of the Atabegs form a group
similar to the last. The money of the Turkish Empire shows the
influence of the Italian republics. Its principal gold coin at the
first was the funduk, of about 54 grains in weight, which was de¬
rived from the Venetian sequin or gold ducat, that, from the time
of the decline of the credit of the Byzantine solidi, formed a princi¬
pal coin of Western Asia. In recent times the money of the sultans
of Turkey is of elegant work, although generally not of pure metal.
The Persian coinage does not greatly differ from the contem¬
porary money of the more western states. It may be'said to com¬
mence under the powerful SamaneeDynasty, and to continue under
the Soofees, and Nadir Shah and his successors. The most charac¬
teristic part of the coinage is the latest, in which we observe great
beauty in the form of the letters and the ornaments, and an un¬
usual variety of types. Among the latter may be noticed one of
some gold coins of Fet-h ’Alee Shah, representing the king on
horseback slaying a lion ; and those of the copper pieces of uncer¬
tain date, one of which reproduces the ancient Persian device of
the lion seizing the bull. The coins of the Mogul Tatars of Persia,
of Teemoor, and of the Khans of Kapchak, resemble the contem¬
porary Mohammadan coinage of other countries. The money of
the Muslim dynasties of India forms a considerable class, although
it must yield in importance to that of the Hindus. The chief
series is that of the Patan or Afghan sultans, and their successors
the Mogul emperors. Among the minor groups we must notice
the money of Tipoo Sultan, some of whose coins are very beautiful;
and that of the kings of Oude, latterly remarkable for its grotesque
imitation of modern heraldry. (This branch of Indian numismatics
is treated of in the works before indicated as describing Moham¬
madan coins generally.) (h. s. p.)
Nundinae.
NUN, or Akassa, a river of Marocco, forming part of
the southern boundary of that country. It rises in the
Atlas range, and flows westward to the Atlantic, into which
it discharges itself, 30 miles S.W. of Cape Nun, after a
course of 130 miles.
Nun, or Non, a promontory of Marocco, in N. Lat. 28.
46., W. Long. 11. 3.
Nun, Nonn, or Nomi, a river of the Chinese Empire,
rises in Manchooria, flows generally southwards, forming
part of the boundary between Manchooria and Mongolia,
and falls into the Songari, an affluent of the Amur. Its
length is about 600 miles, and its chief tributaries are the
Hoojur, Noomin, Yalo, Tchola, and Toro.
NUNS, in the Roman Catholic Church, are female
ascetics, who, like the monks of the other sex, retire from
the world, form themselves into religious communities, and
profess perpetual chastity. There are various orders of
nuns; some devoting themselves entirely to private reli¬
gious exercises, while others engage in the more active
duties of Christian charity. The first nunnery is said to
have been founded by one St Syncletica, a contemporary
of St Anthony, in the third century. (See Monachisbi.)
The first institution of the kind in France was founded
near Poictiers by St Marcellina a.d. 360; and the first
established in England owed its origin, according to Dug-
dale, to Edbald, king of Kent, who founded a nunnery at
Folkestone a.d. 630.
NUNCIO (Lat. nuntius; It. nunzio) signifies a mes¬
senger in general, but is employed specially to designate
the ambassador sent by the Pope to Roman Catholic states.
This functionary is usually a prelate, and when a cardinal
he is styled legate. In those countries subject to the
decretals and discipline of the Council of Trent, the papal
nuncios act as judges of appeal from the decision of the
bishops; but in other Roman Catholic states (as France,
Austria, &c.), which maintain their independency of the
discipline of the Court of Rome, nuncios possess no
jurisdiction, and have simply the diplomatic character of
any other ambassador from a foreign court. In former
times, however, the influence of nuncios and legates at
foreign courts was frequently all but supreme.
NUNDINiE, as if Novemdince, from novem and dies,
signifying literally the ninth day, was the name given to
the weekly market-days of Rome. The term was also
occasionally extended to the place and business of these
markets, as well as to the time at which they occurred.
According to the ancient Calendaria, the entire year,
beginning with the first of January, was divided into weeks
of eight days each. Seven ordinary days would therefore
always intervene between the last day of one week and the
last day of the week immediately succeeding it. To these
seven days, the Romans, after their customary mode of
reckoning, added, not only the one immediately succeed¬
ing, but also the one immediately preceding, which made
in all nine days, and hence they spoke of the market-day
as occurring on the ninth day. A similar usage is still
known in some countries where the expression “ eight
days” is frequently used for a week. Some affirm that the
institution of the nundinae owes its origin to Romulus, while
others attribute it to Servius Tullius. As, however, the
nundinae were originally market-days for the country people,
who, on these stated occasions, came to Rome to dispose
of the produce of their labour, to provide themselves with
necessaries, and to get their legal disputes adjusted by the
king, it would seem to follow that the nundinae must have
originated at a time when the Roman population extended
beyond the precincts of the city. The nundinae were dies
nefasti for the patricians, and fasti for the plebeians
(Niebuhr’s Homan History, vol. ii.) ; but when such a dis¬
tinction arose does not appear, for, according to the ancient
Calend&ria, the nundinae and dies fasti, or days of business,
coincided. For the plebeians, however, the nundinae con¬
tinued to be business days, and on these they pled causes
and held public meetings and debates with members of their
own order on matters concerning the public or private
interests of that order.
The Romans were always peculiarly careful lest the
nundinae should fall on the kalends of January, or on the
nones of any month ; and to avoid such an unfortunate
conjunction, they were particularly watchful in the insertion
of the dies intercalaris, or the 355th day of the Roman
year. The primce kalendce were avoided, according to
Macrobius, from the public belief that, if the nundinae oc¬
curred then, the whole of the ensuing year would be sig¬
nalized by misfortune ; and the nones were shunned because
the birth-day of Servius Tullius was celebrated on the
nones of every month, and the presence of the country
folk in the city on that occasion was deemed by the patri-
nun
N U R
393
Nunez.
Nuneaton, clans to be dangerous to the peace of the lepublic
owing to the excitability incidental to such a concourse
of the plebeian order. Perhaps, however more satis¬
factory grounds for this prejudice were to be found
in the fact, that the kalends of January were observed
as occasions of intimate domestic intercourse, and that
the nones were believed to want the protection of the
^NUNEATON, a market-town and parish of England,
county of Warwick, on the left bank ^ ^nker here
crossed by two bridges, 14 miles N.W. of Hugh}, and 17
N.N.E. of Warwick. It is well built, consisting of one
main and several smaller streets. The parish church is a
small but neat building, in the Gothic style, with a square
tower. There are also places of worship for Independents,
Wesleyans, Baptists, and Roman Catholics, as well as
several’ schools. The chief manufacture is that of ribbons ;
but malting and silk-making are also carried on. In the
neighbourhood are coal mines and stone quarries; and neai
the west of the town runs the Coventry Canal. 1 he mar¬
ket-day is Saturday; and three yearly cattle fairs are held.
Pop. (1851) 4859. . , . ,
NUNEZ, or Nonius, Fernando, an eminent classical
editor, was born in the latter half of the fourteenth century
at Valladolid, and was surnamed “El Pinciano, from
Pintia, the ancient name of his native town. I hough a
scion of the noble family of Guzman, and a commander of
the Order of Santiago, he consecrated his life to the pur¬
suits of polite literature. After sitting at the feet of the
eminent Antonio Lebrija, he studied for some time at Bo-
logna, and returned to Spain the first Greek scholar of his
age. His talents were soon employed, at the request of
Cardinal Ximenes, in preparing the Latin version of the
Septuagint for the Complutensian Polyglott. He was then
installed by the same munificent patron of letters in the
Greek chair of the newly-founded university of Alcala de
Henares. This office the force of circumstances induced
him in course of time to abandon; and he was next ap¬
pointed professor of rhetoric at Salamanca. It was there
that those services in the cause of letters were chiefly per¬
formed which elicited the commendation of such men as
Erasmus, Lipsius, and Vossius. The annotations that he
published in 1536 on the works of Seneca restored the text
of that author. He also produced Observationes in Pom-
ponium Melam, 8vo, Salamanca, 1543; and Observationes
in Loca Obscura et Depravata liistonee baturalis G.
Plinii, Salamanca, 1544. At the same time, both from
the academical chair and at his hospitable table, he was
instructing many a young man that was destined to spiead
abroad the light of learning. He died in 1553, requesting
that the following words might be inscribed on his tomb:
Maximum vitae bonum mors—(“ The greatest blessing in
life is death”). ,
Nunez, or Nonius, Pedro, an eminent Portuguese ma¬
thematician, was born at Alcacer do Sal in 1492. His
attainments raised him to a high rank both as a teacher
and as a writer in his own peculiar science. He became
preceptor to Don Henry, son of King Emmanuel, and was
installed in the mathematical chair at Coimbra. He also
continued to publish, till his death in 1577, the following
treatises:—De Arte Navigandi ; Annotationes in Iheonas
Planetarum Purbachii; and De Crepusculis. It was in
this last work that his device for subdividing the arcs of
quadrants and other astronomical instruments was first pro¬
mulgated. It consisted in describing within the same
quadrant 45 concentric circles, and then dividing the outer¬
most of these into 90 equal parts, the next into 89, the
next into 88, and so on till the innermost, which is divided
into 46. The nonius, as the instrument was called, was
afterwards improved by others, until, in the hands of Pierre
Vernier, it reached its present perfection, and received the
■'VOL. XVI.
name of the vernier. A collection of the works of Nunez
was published at Basle in 1592.
NUNEZ, or Kakundy, a river of Western Africa, in
Senegambia, flowing westward, and falling into the Atlantic v,
in N. Lat. 10. 40., W. Long. 14. 40. Its banks are thickly
wooded, and very unhealthy. Some traffic is carried on in
gold, ivory, hides, &c.
NUREMBERG (Germ. Numberg), a. town of Ba¬
varia, in the circle of Middle Franconia, stands on the
Pegnitz, an affluent of the Regnitz, 95 miles N. by W. of
Munich. It is built on both sides of the river, which is
crossed by several bridges, on a sandy but feitile plain,
about 1000 feet above the level of the sea; and from what¬
ever side it is viewed, the towers of its churches piesent a
very fine appearance. No other German town retains so
much of the appearance and character of the middle ages ;
indeed, the principal feature of the town is the air of anti¬
quity which pervades it. It is encircled by a high wall,
from which rise numerous turrets, said to have foimeily
been 365, but now about 100 in number. Outside of the
wall is a dry ditch, 50 feet deep and 100 broad, the sides
of which are lined with masonry. The town is entered
by four principal gates, which are flanked by large lound
watch-towers, no longer necessary for purposes of defence,
but adding to the picturesque appearance of the place.
The streets are narrow and irregular, lined with antique
houses, having in general narrow but highly-ornamented
fronts, and pointed gables fronting the street. The ground
stories are low, and generally employed as warehouses;
but the upper apartments, occupied as dwellings, are often
richly adorned with carving and stucco, while many of the
larger houses include two or three open courts. Theie aie
numerous public squares, of which the chief are the princi¬
pal market, in one corner of which is a fountain sui mounted
by a Gothic obelisk, with statues in stone ; St Giles’ Square,
which contains a statue of Melancthon; and the Goose
Market, adorned with a fountain and bronze image. The
largest and finest church in Nuremberg is that of St Law¬
rence a Protestant place of worship, which stands on the.
south side of the river, and gives its name to that part of
the town, as the church of St Sebald does to the other. It
was built at the desire of the Emperor Adolphus of Nassau,
in the thirteenth century, and has recently been completely
restored. It is in the Gothic style, with two elegant towers
surmounted by tapering spires. The portal at the west end
is most profusely adorned with sculptures, and over it is a
fine circular window 30 feet in diameter; while the inteiior
is very rich in stained glass and ancient pictures. Its prin¬
cipal ornament, however, is a tabernacle, or repository for
the sacramental wafer, a pyramidal erection of stone, 64
feet high, adorned with most exquisite carving. The church
of St Sebald, though inferior to the former, is still one of
the finest Gothic buildings in Germany, the west end being
in the round style of the tenth century, while the towers,
nave, and east end are of a later date, in the pointed style.
The bronze shrine of St Sebald, the masterpiece of the
celebrated Peter Vischer, who completed it, with the assist¬
ance of his sons, in 1519, after thirteen years’ labour, is the
chief object of interest here. It consists of a rich Gothic
canopy supported by slender pillars, having beneath it the
oaken coffin of the saint, adorned with silver plates; and
although the church is now used for the Lutheran service,
this magnificent monument is allowed to retain its place.
The Catholic church, or Frauenkirche, was founded by
the Emperor Charles IV., and completed in 1361, in the
best style of German-Gothic architecture. It contains
many ancient monuments, and a complicated clock, which
shows the movements of the sun and moon. Besides these,
there is also a Gothic chapel, dedicated to St Maurice,
which is now used as a picture gallery. The town-hall,
a building in the Italian style, erected in 1619, contains
3 D
Nunez
Nurem¬
berg.
394
N U R
ftumc.
Nurpoor within it an older portion, built in 1340. The great hall,
which is 76 feet long and 28 wide, is adorned with paintings
by Albert Diirer; and there is a smaller council-chamber
above. Underneath the building there are dismal dun¬
geons and a torture-chamber; and subterranean passages
have recently been discovered leading beneath the city to
the town ditch. To the north of the town, on a sandstone
rock, stands the castle, built in 1030 by the Emperor Conrad
II., and presented by the town in 1855 to the king. It is
now used as a royal palace; and contains a linden tree, said
to have been planted by Queen Kunigunda 700 years ago.
Nuremberg has a grammar school, founded by Melancthon,
whose statue adorns its front; a public library, with 30,000
volumes; a school of design; polytechnic, industrial, and
other schools; a theatre; a general and a military hospital;
a deaf-and-dumb asylum; orphan hospital; and other bene¬
volent institutions. There are also several scientific so¬
cieties. The churchyard of St John, about half a mile to
the N.W. of the town, is remarkable as having been the
burial-place for several centuries of the aristocracy of Nu¬
remberg. It contains 3500 grave-stones, all regularly num¬
bered, and most of them adorned with the armorial bearings
of the dead. Between this and the city gate stand seven
stone pillars, with sculptures representing scenes in the pas¬
sion of our Saviour. Nuremberg is at present the most im¬
portant manufacturing and commercial town in Bavaria.
Cloth, brass, bronze, and steel-ware, wires, needles, musical
and mathematical instruments, toys, and black-lead pencils
are the principal articles made; and in these an extensive
trade is carried on, as this place is the chief mart for goods
passing between the north and the south of Europe. It was
formerly a much more important city, and in the middle ages
rose to a great height in wealth and prosperity. The ear¬
liest mention of the town is about the middle of the eleventh
century, when it received from Henry III. the privileges
of a free market, and the right of coining money and levy¬
ing toll. From this time it steadily increased in wealth
and population, and obtained further privileges from sub¬
sequent emperors. In 1219 it was made a free city, in¬
dependent of any European power; and as such it con¬
tinued till it was given over by Napoleon in 1806 to the
King of Bavaria. The period of its highest prosperity was
during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, when it was
able to furnish 6000 men to the imperial army. But the
discovery of the passage to India by the Cape of Good
Hope, by directing the commerce with the East into a
different channel, led to the decline of Nuremberg as a
place of trade; and though it has recently again risen in
importance, it has never regained its mediaeval prosperity.
At the Reformation the inhabitants early embraced the
Protestant cause ; and in the Thirty Years’ War they were
on the side of the Swedes, and suffered much in 1632,
during the blockade which Gustavus Adolphus endured
from the imperial forces under Wallenstein. Nuremberg was
the birthplace of many remarkable men, among whom the
most distinguished is Albert Diirer the painter, whose house
is still to be seen. Pop. (1843)45,381; (]855)about 50,000.
NURPOOR, a town of British India, in the Baree
Dooab division of the Punjab, on a small affluent of the
Ravee, among the lower mountains of the Himalaya chain ;
N. Lat. 32.18., E. Long. 75. 57. A large proportion of the
inhabitants are Cashmerians, who are employed in the
weaving of shawls. The town has a large and well-sup¬
plied bazaar; and derives much importance from its position
on the route between India and Cashmere. It was ori¬
ginally governed by a hereditary rajah, but was afterwards
seized by the Sikhs. Ihere is a fort of stones and mud, on
an eminence 200 feet high, but it is commanded by
the higher elevations which surround it. Pop. 6000 or
8000.
NURSIA, an ancient city of the Sabines, situated at
NUT
the foot of that lofty group of the Apennine range now Nurtingen
known as the Monti della Sibilla. From the nature of its ||
position, in the immediate vicinity of high mountains, the N“tnieg.
climate of Nursia was somewhat cold. Virgil alludes to it
as Nursia frigida {2En. vii. 716), and Silius Italicus (viii.
417) does the same. It is mentioned by Livy (xxviii. 45)
as furnishing volunteers for the armies of Scipio during the
second Punic war, about two centuries before the Christian
era. At this period it must have been one of the most im¬
portant towns of the Sabines, as it is mentioned in the same
connection as Reate and Amiternum. Under the Romans
it held the rank of a municipal town, and seems to have
been somewhat republican in its sympathies ; for we find its
inhabitants chastised by Octavian for their adherence to
the cause of the democratic party. Columella (x. 421) and
Pliny (xviii. 13, § 34) allude to the rapa Nursina, or Nur-
sian turnips, as having been celebrated in their day; and
Martial (xiii. 20) refers to the same circumstance when he
speaks of the pilce Nursince. From its secluded position,
this town is not mentioned in the Roman Itineraries. It
gave birth, however, to Vespasia Polla, the mother of the
Emperor Vespasian ; and at a place called Vespasiae, not
many miles from Nursia, the monuments of this distinguished
family were to be seen during the time of Suetonius? It is
perhaps more celebrated still as the birth-place of the fa¬
mous Benedict of Nursia, the founder of the first great
monastic order in the Christian church. The place" had
been made an episcopal see at a very early period, and is
said to have had St Eutychius for its first bishop. Massive
walls are said to be seen still at Norcia, resembling those of
the Sabine towns of Reate and Amiternum. These ruins
form the only traces of this old Etruscan town.
NURTINGEN, a town of Wiirtemberg, circle of
Schwarzwald, on the Neckar, 14 miles S.S.E. of Stuttgardt.
It contains an old castle, a church, a rich hospital founded
in 1480, and several schools. There are also cotton fac¬
tories, dye-works, and manufactories of musical instru¬
ments. Pop. 4550.
NUSSEERABAD, a cantonment of British India, in
the district of Ajmeer, North-West Provinces, stands on a
large sandy plain, 15 miles S.E. of Ajmeer; N. Lat. 26. 20.,
E. Lon. 74. 50. It is large, and regularly laid out, with
broad streets, and has several tanks and wells. The climate
is considered superior to that of any other station in India;
but the heat is very great, sometimes in summer rising
above 100°. The mean annual temperature is about 76°.
NUTMEG, the kernel of the fruit ofMyristica fragrant,
Houttuyn (Nat. Ord. Myristicacece), and two or three
other species of the same genus. The common nutmeg
tree grows from 20 to 25 feet in height, and is very
handsome in form and habit. The fruit, which is abun¬
dantly produced, resembles the peach in colour, but is
rather pear-like in shape. This fruit consists of four parts.
The outermost is a thick fleshy pericarp, which has a strong
flavour of nutmeg. This portion is not generally used, but
is occasionally preserved in syrup as a sweetmeat. The
next portion is the curious scarlet mesocarp or arillode,
called mace. This incloses the endocarp, which is a thin
and brittle shell of a shining brown colour, furrowed longi¬
tudinally by the pressure of the mace, and within this shell
is the kernel, or nutmeg. Nutmegs are imported from
Penang and other Indian islands. The quantity imported
in 1856 was 468,501 lb., of which a considerable quantity
was again exported to other countries. Nutmegs are
packed in very strong chests, and are usually powdered
with lime, to prevent the attack of a weevil-like insect, the
Arceocerus coffece, which is very destructive, often destroy¬
ing the entire contents of a chest (about 2|- cwt.), of the
value ofL. 35. Besides the common nutmeg, a sort called
the long, or wild nutmeg, is frequently imported. It is
usually inclosed in the shell, and is nearly twice as long as
N U T
Nutrition the common nutmejr, but not any thicker. This is the
II fruit of Myristica fatua, Houttuyn. It is brought from
Nuts- the Banda Isles, and is inferior to the common nutmeg,
v-—^ The nutmeg yields, by expression, a solid yellow fat,
called oil of mace, or butter of nutmegs, which is sometimes
used in pharmacy. (See Oils.) The duty on nutmegs is
one shilling per pound. (t. C. a.)
NUTRITION. See Food, and Dietetics.
NUTS. The term nut is applied to that class of fruits
which consist generally of a single kernel inclosed in a
hard shell. Botanically speaking, they are one-celled fruits
with hardened pericarps, more or less enveloped in a cupule
or cup, formed by the aggregation of the bracts. Several
nuts are of considerable importance, in consequence of their
sweet edible kernels, and some from their abundant oil.
The common Hazel-nut of the shops, or the small nut of our im¬
port tariff, is the fruit of the hazel {Corylus avellana, W.) The
hazel-nut is now found generally throughout the temperate parts
of Europe and in many parts of Asia. In Spain, Sicily, and some
parts of Turkey, it is very extensively cultivated, and forms an im¬
portant article of trade. The import of hazel-nuts to this country
alone is immense. In 1857 it was about 224,486 bushels, of which
the chief part came from Spain, and the remainder from Sicily,
Smyrna, and Constantinople. From Spain we receive two prin¬
cipal kinds, but they appear to differ only in the circumstance that
the so-called Barcelona nut is kiln-dried, whereas the Black
Spanish is the fresh ripe nut. The latter is only sent at the com¬
mencement of the season, as it will not keep long. They are
usually sent in hags of two bushels each ; but it not unfrequently
happens that they are imported in bulk, especially from Smyrna,
whence we receive the small red nut (Corylus Colurna, Willd.)
Besides its extensive use as an edible fruit, the hazel-nut yields an
oil which is much valued by artists in oil-colours and by watch¬
makers. (See Oils.) The filbert is extensively cultivated in England,
particularly in Kent; and the common hazel is one of the commonest
of our coppice shrubs. The Walnut is the fruit of Juglans regia,
Linn. (Nat. Ord. Juglandaceoe), and is found in the northern parts
of Asia. It seems probable that the nuts mentioned in Genesis
xliii. 11, were walnuts, as Pliny says the native country of the nut
is Pontus, and vast quantities are still gathered in the neighbour¬
hood of Trebizond. He mentions two kinds, both of which were
occasionally eaten roasted, viz., the Abellina (C. avellana, W.), so
named from Abellinum in Campania; and another kind, which is
supposed to have been the filbert (C. tubulosa, W.) The walnut tree
is now cultivated generally throughout Europe, and is as much
valued for the fine timber it produces as for its edible nuts. In
this country the young green nuts, before the shells become hard,
are gathered in considerable quantities and made into a favourite
pickle. The nuts are imported from Germany, Italy, France,
and Spain, and sometimes from Turkey: 57,000 bushels were
imported from these places in 1857. They are only used in this
country as an eatable fruit; but in Cashmere they are pressed
for oil in great quantities. The Hog-nut (Juglans porcina, Michaux),
and the Black walnut (Juglans nigra, Linn.), natives of Canada, are
occasionally brought in small quantities from that country, and
are sometimes seen in our fruiterers’ shops, but are inferior to
the common walnut. Two other nuts, closely allied to the wal¬
nut in the same natural order, are the Hickory-nut (Carya alba,
Nuttall), with which are often mixed the nuts of C. sulcata, Nutt.,
now frequently brought from the United States. These, however,
are so much alike that they are not ordinarily'recognised as dis¬
tinct from each other. They are smaller than the vralnut, have
smooth hard shells of a light colour, resembling common deal-
wood, are marked by longitudinal ridges, and do not split into two
shells. The Peccan-nut (Carya olivceformis, Nuttall), usually im¬
ported from New Orleans, is nearly of the shape and size of the
olive, but somewhat longer and thinner. The shell of this favourite
nut is very thin and smooth, and the kernel plump and large. The
quantity of hickory and peccan nuts annually imported is small,
probably not exceeding 800 bushels; but it cannot be ascertained
with certainty, as the greater part received is in the form of pre¬
sents. They are, however, beginning to be in demand in our
markets. The Chestnut is produced by a large tree (Castanea
vesca, Gaertner), Nat. Ord. Corylacece. The tree takes its name from
Castana in Thessaly, but is so commonly distributed over Europe
that it is probably indigenous to most of the southern countries of
that continent. It is very abundant in Spain, whence we receive
the greater part of the chestnuts brought to this country. It was
well known to the Romans ; and Pliny speaks of eighteen varieties
of this fruit. He says it was called by the Greeks Bios balanon, or
N U X 395
“ Jove’s acorn,” and Sardian acorn, from its having been first in- Nux
troduced by the people called Sardes. In his day the choice sorts Vomica,
were roasted and eaten, and the inferior ones used for feeding pigs, i .
Of late, limited quantities of small sweet chestnuts have been im-
ported from the United States, which are probably the fruit of *
Castanea vesca, naturalized in America. The quantity of chestnuts
imported from Spain and other parts in 1857 was 84,000 bushels.
The Brazil-nut, or Juvia, is the fruit of one of the largest trees of
the Brazilian forests, the Bertholletia excelsa, Humboldt and Bonp-
land (Nat. Ord. Lecythidaceas). This nut, which is also called
Para-nut and Castanha-nut, is at first inclosed in an outer apple¬
shaped shell as large as a moderate-sized melon. This usually con¬
tains about twenty of the nuts, which average an inch and a half in
length, and are thick and triangular in the middle, but sharp at
each end, with a rough greyish-brown shell. The kernel is very
sweet and oily. They are imported chiefly from the ports of Para
and Maranham, generally in bulk. The import for 1857 was
27,000 bushels. The Sapucaia-nut, another Brazilian fruit, is
also seen occasionally in our fruit shops. It is produced by a large
tree of the same natural order as the Bertholletia, called Lecythis
ollaria, or “ Cannon-ball tree.” Its specific name is taken from the
large urn-shaped capsules, called “ monkey-pots” by the inhabitants,
which contain the nuts. The Sapucaia-nut has a sweet flavour, re¬
sembling the almond, and if better known would be highly appre¬
ciated. They are, however, scarce, as the monkeys and other wild
animals are said to be particularly fond of them. This nut, which
is of a rich amber-brown, is not unlike the Brazil-nut, but it has a
smooth shell furrowed with deep longitudinal wrinkles. The
Sapucaia-nut has hitherto only been imported into Liverpool; and
the whole quantity is not more than forty or fifty bushels per
annum. The Pistachio-nut is the fruit of Pistacia vera, Linn. (Nat.
Ord. Anacardiaceoe). It is a native of Syria. Although a remark¬
ably delicious nut, and much prized by the Greeks and other eastern
nations, it is not well known in this country. It is not so large as
a hazel-nut, but is rather longer and much thinner, and the shell
is covered with a somewhat wrinkled skin. The quantity im¬
ported is very small and uncertain. The small nut of Pistacia
lentiscus, Linn., not larger than a cherry-stone, is also occasionally
imported from Smyrna, Constantinople, and Greece. The Cashew-
nut belongs to the same natural order as the Pistachio. It is the fruit
of a small tree, the Anacardium occidentals, a few bushels of which
are occasionally sent from the West Indies, where it is a native.
The Cajou or Cashew nut is remarkable in consequence of the en¬
largement of the receptacle or peduncle after the flower falls. This
receptacle, on the top of which the nut grows, becomes as large as
a good-sized pear, and is sweet and agreeable to the taste. The
Souari or Surahwa nut, called also the “ Butter-nut of Denierary,”
and by our fruiterers the “ Suwarrow-nut,” is the fruit of Caryocar
butyrosum, Willd. (Nat. Ord. Rhizobolacece),—the Pekea butyrbsa
of Aublett, a native of the forests of Guyana, growing 80 feet in
height. This is perhaps the finest of all the fruits called nuts.
The kernel is large, soft, and even sweeter than the almond, which
it somewhat resembles in taste. The few that are imported come
from Demerary, and are about the size of an egg, somewhat kidney¬
shaped, of a rich reddish-brown colour, and covered with large
rounded tubercles. The Cocoa-nut is the fruit of Cocos nucifera
(Nat. Ord. Palmaceas). This nut is, when ripe, inclosed in a
large fibrous husky shell, which yields the vegetable fibre called
coir. The kernel forms an inner coating to the hard shell,
about three-quarters of an inch thick, inclosing at first a sweet
limpid liquid, called the milk, which afterwards becomes the
albumen of the seed. It is the inner fleshy portion of the kernel
which is eaten. In the tropics it is universally regarded as a very
wholesome and nutritious fruit, and yields a large quantity of oil.
(See Oils.) Cocoa-nuts are imported from the West Indies, and
sometimes from Western Africa. About a million and a half are
received annually. Oround-nuts are the fruits of Arachis hypogcea
Linn. (Nat. Ord. Leguminosce). They are roundish, irregular¬
shaped pods, improperly called nuts, of a straw colour, covered with
small square depressions, arranged with considerable regularity.
They contain two or three reddish-brown seeds, which have the
flavour of the gray field-pea. They are sometimes eaten when
roasted, but are chiefly used for expressing oils. (See Oils.) They
are sometimes imported in large quantities from Africa and the
West Indies. It is said to be a native of South America, but there
is reason to believe it came originally from Africa. (t. c. a.)
NUX VOMICA, the seeds of a moderate-sized tree,
StrychnosNux-Vomica, Linn. (Nat. Ord. Loganiacece, Div.
Strychnece), a native of the coast of Coromandel. The nux
vomica, or poison-nut, has been known for a long time, and
is supposed to have been made known to Europe by the
Arabian physicians; but one or two other seeds have evi-
396 N Y A
Nyassi dently been confounded with it. The pulpy fruit which in-
II closes the seed is about the size of an orange, with a thin
Nyiregy* ^rjtt]e shell, of a brilliant orange colour; and, from the fact
v aza‘- , that the pulp is eaten by birds, would seem to be innocuous.
“^ * The fruit contains many seeds, imbedded in a white gela¬
tinous pulp. These seeds are about three-fourths of an inch
in diameter, quite circular, slightly convex on one side, and
depressed on the other ; of a peculiar silky appearance, and
of a light-drab colour, not unlike silk-covered buttons. 1 hey
are very hard and horny, and consist chiefly of dark greenish-
gray albumen, in which their intensely poisonous quality le-
sides. The deadly powers of this seed are due to the pre¬
sence of the alkaloid called strychnia or strychnine, a salt
consisting of C44 H24 N2 08; but it contains another poison¬
ous alkaloid called brucine, of nearly similar composition—
c 4 H25 N2 07. It was discovered in 1818 by Pelletier
and Caventou, and it was afterwards proved by M. Ma-
gendie and by Dr Fouquier that the salt possessed a re¬
markable specific action upon the spinal marrow without
particularly affecting the brain. It has consequently been
found very serviceable in certain spinal diseases, but its
administration requires excessive care. Almost every part
of the tree, except the pulp of the fruit, partakes of the
intense bitter of the seed. The poisonous bark introduced
into Europe as angostura bark did not come from South
America, but from India, and proves to be that of the S.
nux-vomica. The wood is very hard, and is used as a useful
kind of timber. The imports of nux vomica were only 550
lb. in 1840; but in 1857 it was over 1000 bags, or about
250 cwt. The use to which this large quantity of so power¬
ful a poison is applied is by no means clear. Much is em¬
ployed for the destruction of rats and other noxious animals,
but not sufficient to account for so great an increase. It is
free of duty, and is almost always imported from Bombay
in small bags of about 28 lb. each, and is worth from 6s. to
8s. per cwt. (t* c- a0
NYASSI, or The Sea, a lake in the interior of equa¬
torial Africa, has been known by report to Europeans for
about three centuries, but has never yet been reached or
explored by them. The latitude of its centre is about 10.
S., and it is beliered to extend from S.E. to N.W. between
E. Long. 30. and 35. It is known by various names, and
appears to be the same as the lake called Maravi on old
maps. The great rivers Nile, Zaire, and Zambesi have
been supposed to take their source from this lake, but the
truth of the statement is more than doubtful.
NYIREGYHAZA, a market-town of Upper Hungary,
in the county of Szabolcs, 29 miles N. of Debreczin. It
has a Greek, a Roman Catholic, and two Protestant
churches; a Protestant school; saltpetre-works; and mineral
springs. A yearly market of considerable importance is
held here. Pop. (1851) 13,826, mostly Protestants.
N Y M
NYKOPING, a seaport-town of Sweden, capital of a 3tykSping.
Ian of the same name, stands on an inlet of the Baltic, 54 ||
miles S.W. of Stockholm. It is regularly built, and con- ^ymphs.
tains a new and an old castle, several courts and public
offices, three churches, an hospital, and manufactories of
linen, cotton, and woollen stuffs, hosiery, tobacco, needles,
&c. Pop. 3486. The lan is bounded on the N. by Lake
Malar, which separates it from Upsala and Westeras, E.
by Stockholm and the Baltic, S. by Linkoping, and W. by
Orebro. Area 2497 square miles. Many valuable mine¬
rals, such as iron, copper, lead, &c., are obtained here: the
higher regions are well wooded, and the plains fertile and
well cultivated. The bays on the Baltic coast facilitate the
exportation of metals, timber, corn, and cattle. Pop. (1850)
120,113.
NYMPHS (Gr. vv^ai, Lat. vymphce), in Greek and
Roman mythology, a class of inferior female deities of almost
infinite number, who were held to preside over all parts of
the earth. They were commonly represented as beautiful
young women, and generally in the train of some of the
greater divinities, such as Neptune, Juno, Diana, or Pan.
In most parts of Greece and Italy they were worshipped
with offerings of kids, lambs, milk, or honey, but never of
wine. In the latter country they were sometimes honoured
with special temples or chapels. The interest they took in
men and human affairs was believed to be entirely of a
kindly and beneficent nature. They presided alike over the
dry land and the watery element. In the former class the
most important were the mountain nymphs, the Oreades or
Orodemniades, who also took local names from the special
hills which they haunted, such as Cithceronides, &c.; the
nymphs of trees, the Dryades and Hamadryades, whose
life was commensurate with that of the forest tree in which
they had their abode; and the nymphs of valleys and
groves, the Napace, &c. Of the water-nymphs the most
important were the Oceanides, the daughters of Oceanus
and Tethys, said to be 3000 in number. After them may
be named the Nereids, the daughters of Nereus and Doris,
fifty in number, of whom the most famous were Amphitrite,
the wife of Neptune ; Thetis, the mother of Achilles ; Ga¬
latea, &c. Their favourite haunt was the JEgean Sea, and
they were held in high honour throughout Greece, espe¬
cially at Corinth. The river-nymphs, the Potameides,
were worshipped under local names, derived from the spe¬
cial rivers over which they presided; such as Acheloides,
from the Achelous ; Pactolides, from the Pactolus, &c. The
Naiades, or nymphs of the fresh water, were known as
Limnades and Crencece, or Pegcece, according as they in¬
habited lakes or springs. Even the waters of Hades had
their presiding nymphs, the Avernales, many of whom were
believed to be endowed with prophetic power, and to com¬
municate that gift to their favourites among men.
397
0.
O n the fifteenth letter and the fourth vowel of the Eng-
|| '"A lish alphabet, occupies a position in point of sound
Oases, between the vowels a and u. The shape ot the letter seems
^ to have originated in the circular form assumed by the
lips in pronouncing it; yet in the hieroglyphical characters,
and even in the ancient Greek alphabet, it appears to have
been taken from the shape of the eye. In English O has
a long sound, as in bone, moan, broke, roll, winch is usually
denoted in a word or syllable by a final e, as in bone, lonely,
or bv a servile a as in moan, roaming. It has also a short
sound as in hot, long, and a soft sound like the Italian u
and the French ou, as in move, which is shortened in words
ending in a close articulation, and represented by oo as in
look, *root. The vowel o is convertible with a variety
of vowels and of vowel combinations, in English, as well
as in other languages; e.g., what is o to the eye is m to
the ear in the words son, none, done, won. The English
o in the words one, two, gone becomes a in Scotch as ane,
twa, gane; and o interchanges with ea in cleave, clove ;
heat, hot, &c. O was used as a numeral byMdie ancients
to represent 11, and with a dash over it (O) to denote
11,000. Among the Irish O prefixed to proper names,
like Fitz in England and Mac in Scotland, signifies son of,
as 0‘Neal, the son of Neal; and was originally employed
as a character of family dignity. O, a circle, or CO is
called by the Italians circolo, and is used by them to ex¬
press tempo perfetto in music, or what we call triple time.
(For the use of O in abbreviations, see Abbreviations.) O
is often employed as an interjection to express a wish,
admiration, pity, surprise, &c.; but when strong emotion is
to be conveyed, the exclamation is written Oh!
OAK. See Planting, Timber, and Ship-Building.
OAKHAM, or Okeham, a market-town of England,
capital of the county of Rutland, stands in the fertile vale
of Catmore, 17 miles E. by N. of Leicester, and 85 N.N.W.
of London. It is pretty well built; and contains an old
castle supposed to have been built in the reign of Henry
II., and now used as a county-hall; an ancient parish
church, with a lofty spire ; Presbyterian, Independent, Wes¬
leyan, and Baptist places of worship ; national schools ; and
a free grammar school, founded in 1584, with an hospital
for old men attached to it. The chief manufacture is that
of silk shag for hats. Oakham is not commercially of much
importance ; and, though some traffic in coals is carried on,
it depends principally on its retail trade in articles of home
use. There is a canal between this place and Melton-Mow-
bray. Several yearly fairs for cattle and sheep are held
here. Pop. (1851) 2800.
OASES was the name given by ancient writers to the
verdant spots that occur at intervals in the midst of the
waste sands of Africa, and is said to be derived from the
Coptic word ouah, a resting-place. The foundation of
an oasis is a hollow stratum of sandstone or clay, which
retains the moisture that flows into it, and which is encircled
by a rim of the limestone that forms the bed of the sur¬
rounding desert. On this basis springs up in green luxu¬
riance an orchard of date, fruit, and other trees, interspersed
with wheat and millet. These oases, as the etymology
given above implies, seem to have been originally used
merely as halting-places for the Egyptian and Ethiopian
traders in their journey through the desert. It was not
until the Persian conquest of Egypt that they became per¬
manent settlements. They were afterwards garrisoned by
the Greeks and Romans in succession; and at a still later
period they became a place of refuge, first to persecuted
Christians, and then to heretics. Their number was great.
Herodotus likens them to a chain stretching from E. to W. Oates,
through the Libyan desert. But the most celebrated were
four, called respectively Oasis Magna, Oasis Trinytheos,
Oasis Minor, and Ammonium. The Oasis Magna (the mo¬
dern El-Khargeli) is about 90 miles W. from the banks
of the Nile, and is 80 miles in length, and from 8 to
10 in breadth. It was a district of great importance in
ancient times. Herodotus called it the 1‘ City Oasis; and
Josephus called it “ The Oasis” par excellence. In pagan
times it was the site of a temple 468 feet long, and dedi¬
cated to Amun-Ra; and after the commencement of the
Christian era it was crowded with churches and monasteries.
The Oasis Trinytheos (the modern El-Bacharieh) was
situated N. from the Oasis Magna, and W. from the city
of Hermopolis Magna. There is no evidence that it was
ever a permanent settlement of the Egyptians, the Per¬
sians, or the Greeks. The most ancient architectural re¬
mains are Roman. The fact, however, that several Arte¬
sian wells have been recently discovered there, and that
the construction of these was unknown to the nations above
mentioned, seems to indicate that the Oasis I rinytheos
was visited at an early period by some people who had im¬
ported the art of making artificial springs from the eastern
countries of Asia. The Oasis Minor (the modern El-
Dakkel) was situated nearly N. fron the Oasis Magna, and
W. from the city of Oxyrynchus. The ruins of a temple
and several tombs show that it was a station of the Greeks.
It was also under the dominion of the Romans, and was
then famous for its wheat. Ammonium (the modern El-
Shvah) was situated N.W. from the Oasis Minor. Though
not more than 6 miles in length and 3 in breadth, it was at
one t ime the most famous of all the oases. Its soil produced
salt in great abundance and of the finest quality, and at the
same time was well w’atered and iruitful. 1 here also was
the celebrated “Fountain of the Sun” which Herodotus
saw in the fifth century b.C. There especially was the
temple of Jupiter Ammon, which Alexander the Great
visited in 331 B.C., and which was built of stone, of a
blue and green colour, and covered with hieroglyphics.
The fountain is still seen springing up in a grove of dates ;
and the walls of the temple, retaining their bright colouring,
are still seen in ruins near the village of Gharmy.
The term oasis has in modern times come to signify any
fertile tract in the midst of a desert.
OATES, Titus, the infamous fabricator of the “ Popish
Plot,” was born about 1619. From the very first he was
an apostate and a deceiver. He left the Anabaptists, among
whom he had been trained, and after studying at Cambridge,
accepted a benefice in the Church of England. With this
position his life and opinions were soon found to be glar¬
ingly inconsistent; and he entered a Jesuit college in
France. Even there his conduct was too unprincipled to
be endured; and in 1677 he found himself obliged to
take up the profession of a scheming vagabond. It was then
that Oates, animated probably by the hope of gain and
the love of low intrigue, resolved to take advantage of the
alarm into which the English nation had been thrown on
account of the suspected Popish inclinations of Charles II.,
the avowed Popish opinions of the Duke of York, and the
growing confidence of the Papists in general. He patched
up a chimerical story, and communicated it to the govern¬
ment at London as a plot which had been formed by the
Roman Catholics. The capital, he said, was to be set on
fire, the citizens massacred, the king assassinated, Ireland
invaded by a French army, and certain Papists whom he
named placed in the high offices of the state. This fabri-
398
OAT
Oaths.
Jewish
oaths.
cation realizing the apprehensions in the public mind, and
seeming to be corroborated by certain events, gained uni¬
versal credence. The government were at their wits’ end;
all London was instantly on the alert for the expected
attack; and the people, hurried on by the blind instincts
of hatred to their foes and gratitude to their supposed sa¬
viour, rushed into an extreme course of action. Oates
was raised to the summit of popularity and power; a
pension of L.900 a year was conferred upon him ; no¬
thing Jess magnificent than a suite of apartments in White¬
hall Palace was thought worthy of lodging his precious
person ; and whenever he appeared in public he was greeted
by the unbonneted populace. The fresh fictions which he
continued to invent regarding the plot were also received
without hesitation. With the aid of certain worthless as¬
sociates, he procured the conviction of many innocent Ro¬
man Catholics, and was the main cause of a series of judicial
murders which extended over the space of two years. By
that time, however, the nation was opening its eyes upon
the monstrous system of deceit by which it had been duped,
and a storm of retribution was gathering against the head
of the arch offender. On the accession of James II. in
1685, he was tried before the Court of King’s Bench, was
convicted of perjury, and was sentenced to be first pilloried
and whipt at the cart’s tail, and then to be imprisoned for
life. The former part of the punishment was executed
with a severity which was evidently intended to kill him.
The latter part was broken off by the accession of William
III., and the simultaneous re-action in the state of public
feeling. The trial of Oates was then declared by Parlia¬
ment to have been illegal; his crimes were pardoned by
the king; and he was allowed to skulk away into obscurity
with a pension of L.300 a-year. He died in 1705. (For
the particulars of the “ Popish Plot,” see Britain. See
also Lord Macaulay’s History of England?)
OATHS are solemn declarations made, with an appeal to
God or to some superior being, for the truth of what is
affirmed, or for the honesty of what is promised. It is
always to be presumed, in the taking of an oath, that the
person imposing it believes that the swearer expects the
superior being whom he calls to witness will visit him with
punishment in the event of his violating that oath. On no
other supposition can an oath be conceived of any value or
significance. The person making the oath may or may not
fear the evil consequences of perjury ; but the individual
imposing the oath is supposed to believe that the swearer
is apprehensive of those consequences. Oaths are asser¬
tory, or those by which something is affirmed as true;
and promissory, or those by which something is pro¬
mised to be done. Oaths are again either voluntary or
compulsory.
It would appear, from all that can be gathered on the
subject, that the practice of using oaths on certain im¬
portant occasions has been observed in all nations where
any definite idea of a superior being has prevailed. This
practice is found as early as the days of Abraham, who
charges his servant: “ Put, I pray thee, thy hand under
my thigh ; and I will make thee swear by the Lord, the
God of heaven and the God of earth, that,” &c. (Gen. xxiv.
2, 3, 37). This oath was private rather than judicial or
national. Instances of public or national oaths, in which
an entire kingdom or a large body of people wrere involved,
are to be found in Judges xxi.; also in 1 Kings xviii. 10;
and the first example of a strictly judicial oath is to be
found in Levit. vi. 3-5. This custom of oath-making,
which had been in use amongst the Jews from the earliest
times, was sanctioned by Moses, and employed by him in
connection with his code of laws. Other beings besides
God were sometimes invoked in taking an oath, among the
Hebrews and certain other nations of the East; as the soul
(2 Kings ii. 2 ; 1 Sam. xx. 3, &c.); the head or life of a
O A T
king (Gen. xlii. 15). The most solemn oath among the Oaths
Persians, according to Hanway, is, “ By the king’s head ;” t
and Aben Ezra informs us that this oath was common in
Egypt in his time (a.d. 1170) among the khaliphs. Some¬
times the oath-taker swore by some precious part of his own
body, as the head (Matt. v. 36); by the earth, the heaven,
and the sun (Matt. v. 34, 35) ; by angels (Josephus, He
Bell. Jud. ii. 16, 4); by the temple (Matt, xxiii. 16);
and by Jerusalem (Matt. v. 35; compare Lightfoot, p.
281). The levity of the Jewish nation with regard to
oaths became notorious; and while we find some of their
doctors sharply reproving this vice (Othon. Lex., p. 351 ;
Philo, ii. 194), it is nevertheless notorious that the rab¬
binical writers, by their nice distinctions, subtle casuistry,
and perverse ingenuity on the subject of swearing, did
much in effect to countenance open falsehood, and lessen
the enormities of perjury and profanation. The heathen
satirists poisoned their shafts against the Jew with the
blasphemous perjury of that race (Martial, xi. 9) ; and
when we come down to Christian times, we find a growing
disposition to discountenance a practice which had been
prostituted to the worst of purposes. Some contend that
the language of Christ respecting oaths (Matt. v. 34-37) is
absolutely prohibitory of that practice ; while others, with
perhaps greater justice, suppose that his words apply to
profane and wanton swearing, rather than to solemn and
judicial oaths. Not a few of the early fathers held oaths
to be unchristian ; and some modern sects, such as the
Quakers, &c., decline, on Scriptural grounds, to take oaths
in courts of law.
Among the Greeks, oaths seem to have been taken both Greek
between individuals and nations, on certain solemn occasions, oaths,
from a very early period. When the fate of the Trojan
war was to be decided by single combat, the agreement
was ratified by oath. {Iliad, iii. 276.) A similar practice was
observed in other treaties and alliances, as appears from
Herod, i. 69, 74, 146, 165; Thucyd. v. 47. As is abun¬
dantly obvious from their writers, the Greeks held in great
reverence the sanctity of oaths. Illustrations of this are to
be found especially in Homer, Alschylus, Pindar, Euripides,
and Sophocles. The ingenious prevarication and mental
reservation of a Jew or a Jesuit was precisely what Homer’s
great hero, in his noble heathenish indignation, hated
“like the gates of hell” {Iliad, ix. 313). The story of
Glaucus the Spartan, who was annihilated with his whole
family for simply entertaining the question as to whether
or not he should fulfil an oath, affords a good illustration of
Greek feeling upon the crime of perjury. (See Herodotus,
vi. 86 ; Juvenal, xiii. 202.) It is but too well known, how¬
ever, that, with the decay of everything great and noble
among the Grecian states, the crime of perjury became an
every-day occurrence; and a Greek became among the
Romans only another name for a liar. Each nation or
people swore by its own deity or hero: as the Thebans by
Hercules, the Lacedaemonians by Castor and Pollux, and
the Corinthians by Neptune. An oath was often suggested
by office, character, place, or sex. Thus Iphigeneia the
priestess swore by Artemis; Antilochus, in talking of
horses, is told to swear by Poseidon, the equestrian deity ;
Achilles swears by his sceptre ; Telemachus by his father’s
sorrows; Demosthenes by the heroes of Marathon; and
Pythagoras by the number Four. If the men found it
necessary to swear by Hercules and Apollo, the women felt
called upon to give weight or ornament to their words by
invoking Aphrodite and Demeter. Citizenship was ratified
by oath in Athens, and public functionaries were sworn in
to their office. It is supposed that the oaths occasionally
taken by witnesses in judicial proceedings were, for the
most part, voluntary among the Greeks. Oaths with the
Greeks were frequently accompanied by sacrifice and
libation, and the swearer placed his hands upon the victim,
OAT
Oaths, the altar, or some other sacred thing, while he was taking
the oath. (Livy, xxxi. 50.)
noman Among the Romans, magistrates and other dignitaries
oaths. had to come under an oath, in entering upon the public
service, to protect and observe the laws. All Roman
soldiers, on their enlistment for a campaign, had to take
the military oath (sacramentum), binding themselves to be
faithful to the commands of their superior officers. (Livy,
xxii. 38.) In transactions with other nations, oaths were
taken in the name of the Roman republic. Livy has
recorded (i. 24) the most ancient form of this kind of oath,
in a treaty struck between the Romans and the Albans.
Jupiter was invoked, while the priest struck the victim with
a flint-stone {lapis silex) ; and from the important part
played by this instrument in oath-taking, the god himself
came to be called Jupiter Lapis. During the latter years
of the republic, the early reverence for international oaths
became well nigh forgotten ; and in peijury, both individual
and national, the Roman came to rival the Jew and the Greek.
The remarks already made respecting the conversational
oaths of the Greeks apply pretty correctly to those of the
Romans: Hercules, Pollux, Jove, and Bacchus were the
favourites of the men ; while women, lovers, and exquisites
garnished their soft speech by appeals to Juno and Venus.
Examples of this practice are endless among the classical
writers. In Roman judicial proceedings, oaths were
occasionally required from the plaintiff or defendant, or
both. The oath of calumny {jusjurandum calumnice) was
taken by the plaintiff in solemn declaration that there was
no malice or dishonesty in his suit. It does not seem to
have been always necessary to examine prisoners on oath
in civil cases; but in the criminal proceedings of the
judicia publica, oaths appear to have been administered.
(Cicero, Pro Q. Rose. Com. c. 15; Noodt, Op. Omn. ii.
479 ; Digest De Testibus.)
English a general rule, all testimony in English judicial pro-
‘,aths‘ ceedings requires to be given by oath. This custom is
said to have been introduced into England by the Saxons
A.D. 600. Only those can be sworn as witnesses, however,
who will profess their belief in the existence of Deity, in a
future state of rewards and punishments, and that perjury
will be punished by God. A Jew, a Mohammedan, or a
Hindu may be sworn as witnesses by the oath which they
severally consider binding. All other persons, such as
professed atheists, &c., cannot be admitted to give evidence
on oath injudicial proceedings. Young children, imbeciles,
&c.; are also incompetent, from deficient intelligence.
Quakers and others, who object to taking judicial oaths on
Scriptural grounds, are allowed to give their evidence on
affirmation, both in civil and criminal proceedings. A
peer or lord of Parliament, when a dependant in Chancery,
is required to give his answer to a bill upon honour only ;
and the members of a corporation give in their answer
under the seal of their body. Oaths are also required by
English law on admission to offices of public trust, as the
oath of princes to rule constitutionally, the oath of supre¬
macy, the oath of allegiance, and the oath of office. All
who hold offices of any kind under the government, as
members of the House of Commons, ecclesiastics, members
of colleges, schoolmasters, serjeants-at-law, councillors,
attorneys, &c., are required by statute to take the oaths
of allegiance, &c. The oath of supremacy was first
administered to British subjects (26 Hen. VIII.) in 1535 ;
that of allegiance was framed (3 James I.) in 1605 ; and
the oath of abjuration (13 Will. III.) in 1701. A solemn
affirmation or declaration may be substituted for an oath in
certain cases by the Lords of the Treasury, according to
the Act 5 and 6 William IV., c. 62. (See Knight’s
Political Cyclopcedia, vol. hi., p. 436.) The principal
sanctions against mendacity in a witness are—(1.) The
legal punishment incidental to a conviction of false swear-
O B A 399
ing ; (2.) The influence of public opinion ; (3.) The dread Oaxaca
of future punishment from the Deity. Bentham, in his II
famous attack upon the taking of oaths in his Rationale of 0ban*
Evidence, denies that the third of those considerations has
the force of a sanction at all, and maintains that the first
and second alone have influence. But it must be obvious
to every one, that while the third sanction may not be so
universal in its influence as the first and second, it may be,
and in point of fact is, in the case of not a few, regarded as
a consideration of infinitely greater weight than any other
whatever. And, as was said already, it is the opinion of the
person who takes the oath that gives it value in the eyes
of the person administering or imposing it. Nothing can
be more obvious, however, than the very great abuses to
which the practice of oath-taking is liable. So long as the
moral and religious sense of a nation is sound and pure, its
public or private oaths will carry with them a becoming awe
and reverence; but no sooner does the national morality
begin to decline than perjury becomes an every-day occur¬
rence, and men swear to anything that suits their interest
or pleases their caprice. Such, at least, is the lesson
taught us by the history of the Jew, of the Greek, and of
the Roman. (See Ugolino’s Thesaurus Antiq. Sacr., vol.
26; Grotius, De Jure, &c., lib. ii., c. 13; Tyler’s Oaths,
their Origin, Nature, and History; the Cyclopedia of
Political Knowledge ; and Smith’s Diet, of Antiquities^)
OAXACA. See Mexico.
OBADIAH, the fourth of the minor prophets according
to the Hebrew, the fifth according to the Greek, and the eighth
according to the chronological arrangement, is supposed to
have prophesied about the year b.c. 599. (Jaim’s Introd.)
We possess but a small fragment of his prophecies, and it
is impossible to determine anything with certainty respect¬
ing himself or his history. Several persons of this name
occur about the same period, one of whom presided at the
restoration of the temple in the reign of Josiah, b.c. B24,
and is considered by many to have been the author of the
prophecy. Another, who was governor of the house of
Ahab, was regarded by the ancient Jews as the author of
the book ; an opinion followed by Jerome (Hieron. Comm,
in Abdiam; Sixtus Senens. Bib. Sa?ict.). Others place
the author in the reign of Ahaz, b.c. 728-699 ; while some
think him to have been a contemporary of Hosea, who
prophesied b.c. 722. Jahn maintains, from the warnings
to the Edomites, ver. 12-14, that Obadiah prophesied before
the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar; while
De Wette infers from ver. 20, that the composition of the
book must be placed after the destruction of that city.
From a comparison of Obad. ver. 1-4 with Jer. xlix. 14-
16 ; Obad. ver. 6 w’ith Jer. xlix. 9, 10; and Obad. ver. 8
with Jer. xlix. 7, it is evident that one of these prophets
had read the other’s work. That Jeremiah was the original
writer has been maintained by Bertholdt, Credner, De
Wette, and others. (See Eichhorn’s Introd., sec. 512;
Rosenmiiller’s Scholia; and Jager, Ueb. die Zeit Obadjah.)
His prophecies are directed against the Edomites, and in
this respect correspond with Amos i. 11, Jer. xlix. 22, Ezek.
xxv. 12-14, and Ps. cxxxvii. 7; but he consoles the Jews
with a promise of restoration from their captivity—a pro¬
phecy which was fulfilled in the time of the Maccabees,
under John Hyrcanus, b.c. 125. The language of Obadiah
is pure, but he is too fond of the interrogatory form of ex¬
pression ; his sentiments are noble, and his figures bold and
striking. (In addition to the works already specified, the
reader may consult Leusden’s Obadiah ; Pfeiffer, Comm,
in Obad. ; Schrber, Der Prophet Obad., &c. ; Venema,
Lectt. in Obad., with the additions of Verschuir and Lohze ;
Kohler, Anmerkk. ; Schnurrer’s Dissert. Philol. ; Hende-
werth, Obadjce Prophetce Oraculum in Idumceos.)
OBAN, a parliamentary burgh and seaport of Scot¬
land, Argyllshire, 20 miles N.W. of Inverary, and 6 |
400 O B E
Obe N.W. of Glasgow. It is built in the form of a crescent,
|| round the shore of a hay of the same name, and has an
Oberlin. extensive coasting trade with the Clyde, as it is the chief
seaport and market-town for a large extent of country.
It contains places of worship belonging to the Established,
the Free, the United Presbyterian, the Scottish Episcopal,
and the Independent churches; several schools, a library,
reading-room, savings-bank, and custom-house. I he har¬
bour is deep and safe, being sheltered by the island of Ker-
rera; and the inhabitants are extensively engaged in fishing.
Steamers ply regularly between this town and Glasgow;
and during the summer it is a great resort for tourists, who
make this their starting-place for the various parts ^f t ie
Western Highlands. The Bay of Oban is surrounded by
steep cliffs, on which stand the rums of Dunolly Castle;
while about three miles to the north of the town aie t le
remains of that of Dunstaffnage. Oban unites with Ayr
and other burghs in returning a member to Parliament.
Pop. (1851) 1742. , . • - a
OBE, Obi, or Oby, a river of Siberia, rises in tne
Altai Mountains, where it is formed by the union of two
main streams, the Katunga and the Biya. ^ a.n
irregular course, but generally towards the N.W., till it
joins the Irtish from the south. It then turns northward,
and flows in that direction, frequently dividing itself into
two streams, which flow separately for long distances, and
then unite again. It falls into the Gulf of Obe by three
branches, the largest and deepest of which is that which
lies to the east. Its whole length is estimated at 2000 miles.
The principal affluents of the Obe are the Irtish, which is
longer than the branch which retains the name of Obe,
the& Tom, the Choolyn, and the Ket; while the Irtish
receives from the west the 1 obol and the Iskim. Both the
Irtish and the Obe abound in fish, which might be made a
valuable article of export. The country drained by the
Obe and its tributaries is calculated to have an area of
1,370,000 square miles. The Gulf of Obe, which derives
its name from the above river, is an inlet of the Arctic
Ocean, betwreen 70 and 80 miles in breadth, and upwaids
of 400 in length. It lies between N. Lat. 67.30. and
72. 30.; E. Long. 72. and 77.
OBELISK, a truncated, quadrangular, and slender
pyramid, raised as an ornament, and frequently charged
with inscriptions or hieroglyphics. Obelisks appear to have
been of very great antiquity, and first raised to transmit to
posterity certain precepts, which were cut in hieroglyphical
characters ; but they were afterwards used to immortalize
the great actions of heroes and the memory of persons who
were beloved. The first obelisk mentioned in history was
that of Remeses, King of Egypt, which was forty cubits high.
Phius, another king of Egypt, raised one of fifty-five cubits;
and Ptolemy Philadelphus, another of eighty-eight cubits,
in memory of Arsinoe. Augustus erected one at Rome, trans¬
ported from Egypt, in the Campus Martius, which served to
mark the hours on a horizontal dial drawn upon the pavement.
They were called by the Egyptian priests the “ fingers of the
sun,” because they were made in Egypt to serve also as styles
or gnomons for marking the hours on the ground. The Arabs
still call them “ Pharaoh’s needles.” (See the elaborate w’ork
of Zoega, De Origine et Usa Obeliscorum, illustrated with
very beautiful and accurate plates ; Sir G. Wilkinson’s An¬
cient Egyptians; and articles Architecture and Egypt.)
OBERLIN, Jean Frederic, a celebrated philan¬
thropic pastor, was the son of a teacher, and was born at
Strasburg on the 1st August 1740. Under the religious
instructions of his mother, and of a devout Lutheran
preacher named Dr Lorentz, he imbibed that spirit of pious
zeal which determined his future career. Before the age
of twenty he had formally dedicated himself to God; and
at the close of his university course he became a minister
of the French Protestant Church. The great work of his
OBE
life however, did not commence until, in 1767, he was Oberlin.
appointed to the curacy of Waldbach in the valley of
Ban de la Roche in Alsace. He then found himself among
a few io-norant and half-savage parishioners, who were shut
up from the civilized world within the cold bosom of their
native mountains, were scattered over a stony uncultivated
valley, lived upon wild apples and pears, and shivered in
filthy cabins of turf. His first act was an attempt to induce
the natives to open up their country by making regular
highways. But he soon found that all his ardent expositions
of the advantages of trade could not excite their sluggish
desires. He therefore seized a mattock, and began to make
a road with his own hands. This action struck the peasants
like an electric shock. They could not stand idly by while
their delicately-nurtured pastorwas sweating in their behalf:
young and old came flocking to give their assistance ;
highways began to traverse the valley; a bridge was
thrown over a turbulent stream that interrupted all inter¬
course with Strasburg; and in a short time commerce was
beginning to circulate through the country. I he same
mode of teaching by example was used to introduce agri¬
culture. The pastor brought a patch of ground that was
by the wayside under cultivation ; the fine crop, as it grew
ripe, excited the envy of all that passed by; they came in
crowds to learn the secret of his agriculture ; he gave them
both instruction and assistance; and the result was that the
desert of Waldbach soon began to “ blossom as the rose.”
To improve the domestic economy of his parishioners was
the next endeavour of Oberlin ; and he did it like one who,
after the example of the Divine Master, deems it a sacred
task to relieve even the meanest want of humanity. He
assisted the men in building comfortable cottages; despatched
the idle boys to the neighbouring districts to learn farming
or the mechanical trades ; set the unemployed girls to
knitting, straw-plaiting, and cotton-spinning; and instructed
the housewives in using certain common plants for food and
medicine. The love and gratitude which the natives felt
for all these benefits, opened their hearts to receive the
higher lessons of their pastor. Llis homely sermons on
Sabbath, his prayer-meetings during the week, his habit ot
blending religion with all the duties of common life, and
his humble and active piety—all contributed to soften down
their rough and stubborn dispositions. He induced them
to start an itinerant library, to establish the first specimens
of infant schools that had ever existed, and to build an
ordinary school at each of the five villages in the parish.
It w’as not even thought impertinent when he kept a register
of their moral characters, and inquired into the most paltry
of their family affairs. In fact, he had now come to be
considered the father of his flock; and no circumstance in
his large household wTas thought too trifling to demand his
loving attention. The latter half of Oberlin’s life was spent
in superintending the social organization which he had
established in his parish, in entertaining the many pious
individuals who came from different parts of Europe to visit
him, in circulating copies of the Bible throughout France,
and in advancing the cause of missions in heathen countries.
He died on the 1st June 1826, and was interred with great
honour, and in the presence of a great concourse of people,
at the village of Foudai. The name of Oberlin was
associated for some time afterwards with the active piety
of Louisa Schepler, a humble woman, who had lived in his
house for fifty years in the capacity of servant and house¬
keeper. This simple-hearted peasant continued till her
death in 1837 to teach in the schools of the valley, to
consecrate all her little earnings to Christian charity, and
to wait without remuneration on the children of her
beloved master. {Brief Memorials of Oberlin, by the
Rev. Thomas Sims, M.A., London, 1830; and Memoirs
of Oberlin, with a Short Notice of Louisa Schepler,
London, 1838 and 1852.)
0 B E
Oberlin Oberlin, Jeremie Jacques, a learned antiquary and
II philologist, the elder brother of the preceding, was born
Object. a(; gtrasburg in 1735, and entered the university of his
^ native place. His career was distinguished fiom the veiy
first by an unwearied devotion to antiquarian research. At
the end of his philosophical course, he produced a thesis,
entitled De Vetevum Ritu Condiendi Movtuos. 1 hen,
commencing a theological curriculum, he turned his
attention exclusively to the archaeology of the sacred
writings. Nor were his favourite studies discontinued
when he was appointed assistant and successor to his father
in the laborious duties of an elementary teacher in the
gymnasium. He requested and obtained permission from
the university of Strasburg to deliver a course of lectures
on the Latin tongue ; he prelected and published manuals
on archaeology and ancient geography; and he made
frequent excursions into various provinces of France to
investigate the antiquarian remains and the provincial
dialects of the country. At length, in 1782, his appoint¬
ment to the chair of logic and metaphysics at Strasburg
brought his philosophical activity into full play. He pub¬
lished smt* les Minnesingers in 1782-89; an
edition of Horace in 1788 ; and Observations concernant
le Patois et les Meurs des Gens de la Campagne in 1791.
The troubles of the French revolution interrupted his
studies ; and in 1793 he was imprisoned for some time at
Metz; but on the restoration of tranquillity he returned
with fresh zest to his books. His edition of Tacitus
appeared in 1801 ; and his edition of Ciesar in 1805.
He was engaged in editing Justin, when he was cut off by
a stroke of apoplexy in 1806.
OBERN A I, or Oberehniieim, a town of France,
in the department of Lower Rhine, 14 miles N. of Schele-
stadt. It is ill built; and has a large town-hall, college,
and hospital; while in the vicinity are the ruins of a palace
and a convent. Calico, leather, hats, soap, bricks, earthen¬
ware, nails, &c., are made here. The town was once
fortified ; and has sustained several sieges. Pop. 5356.
©BIDOS, a fortified town of Portugal, province of
Estremadura, stands on the Arnoia, where it enters the
lagoon of Obidos, 47 miles N. by W. of Lisbon. It has
some ancient remains; and is remarkable for a victory
gained here by the British under Wellington over the
French, 15th August 1808. Pop. 3000.
OBJECT and OBJECTIVE, SUBJECT and SUB¬
JECTIVE, are two pairs of correlative terms, much used
in philosophical speculation, and not always free from am¬
biguity. The foundation of this capital distinction in
philosophical terminology is to be found in the ultimate
analysis of knowledge itself, of which philosophy lays claim
to be the science. For if knowledge is the result of a re¬
lation between that which knows (the subject) and that
which is known (the object), it follows that the terms Sub¬
ject and Subjective, Object and Objective, stand forth as
opposing contraries, to mark off compendiously the grand,
the fundamental distinction which lies at the root of all
knowledge. The general discrimination indicated by those
terms is at once articulate and precise; but in their special
application they are liable to ambiguity and equivocation.
The Subject, as now commonly employed by philosophers,
denotes that which knows; and is limited exclusively to
the Ego, or conscious mind, called by the Germans Das Ich,
and by the French Le Moi. Subjective, is employed in
like manner to express what pertains to the mind, the Ego
or thinking principle. The terms Object and Objective,
again, are employed generally in contrast and correlation to
these, to denote that which is known, the Non-ego, with its
modes and properties, called by the Germans Das Nicht-
Ich, and by the French Le Non-Moi. But it is obvious
that the terms Subjective and Objective, while generally
distinguishing what belongs to mind from what belongs to
VOL. XVI
O B O 401
matter, are not quite thorough and unambiguous in their Oblate
discrimination. For the object known is not of necessity a II
mode of what is called matter, or of the Non-ego. If I am ^0b°jaD- ^
conscious of joy or sorrow, for example, or call before my
imagination the representation of a distant object, it is ob¬
vious that what the mind contemplates is, in this case,
wholly in and of itself—is as emphatically a mode of
the Ego as extension is of the Non-ego. But if the phe¬
nomena of the thinking subject can thus become objecti¬
fied, so to speak, and converted into the object known,
there at once emerges a palpable equivocation in the use
of the terms Object and Subject. This ambiguity may be
effectually avoided, however, by coupling with those terms
a qualifying attribute when it is necessary to do so. While,
therefore, Subject and Subjective should be employed in
their simplicity to denote what belongs to, or is dependent
on, the knowing mind, whether of man in general or or
some man in particular; and Object and Objective to ex
press what does not so belong or depend; some nomen¬
clature is requisite to mark off precisely an object of know¬
ledge as a mode of mind on the one hand, or as something
different from mind on the other. “ Without, therefore,”
says Sir William Hamilton, “ disturbing the preceding no¬
menclature, which is not only ratified but convenient, I
would propose that, when we wish to be precise, or when
any ambiguity is to be dreaded, we should employ, on the
one hand, either the terms subject-object, or subjective ob¬
ject (and this we could again distinguish as absolute or as
relative) ; on the other, either object-object or objective ob¬
ject.” With respect to the alternative indicated above
parenthetically of the absolute or relative element in sub¬
jective objects, he remarks in another place, “ But the sub¬
ject-object may be either a mode of mind of which we are
conscious as absolute, and for itself alone,—as, for example,
a pain or pleasure; or a mode of mind of which we are
conscious as relative to, and representative of, something
else,—as, for instance, the imagination of something past
or present. Of these we might distinguish, when neces¬
sary, the one as the absolute or the real subject-object; the
other as the relative or the ideal, or the representative sub¬
ject-object. Finally, it may be required to mark whether
the object-object and the subject-object be immediately known
as present, or only as represented. In this case we must
resort, on the former alternative to the epithet presentative
or intuitive ; on the latter to those of represented, mediate,
remote, primary, principal” &c. See Hamilton’s edition
of Reid, note B ; in which there will be found a historical
and critical exposition of the use of these terms in the
Greek and scholastic philosophy. (See also Dictionnaire
des Sciences Philosophiques.)
It may not be improper to observe, that the words
Subject and Object, besides possessing the technical sig¬
nification just described, are also used in a popular sense
entirely different. Thus, in the expression “ subject of
discourse,” the word “ subject” is employed for the ma¬
teria circa quam, where object would be exclusively ap¬
plied in philosophy. Object is also vulgarly used, both in
France and England, for end, motive, final cause, &c.
OBLATE, flattened or shortened, as an oblate spheroid,
having its axis shorter than its middle diameter, and being
formed by the rotation of an ellipse about its shorter axis.
The earth, the polar diameter of which is shorter than the
equatorial, is an oblate spheriod.
OBLIQUE signifies generally something aslant, or de¬
viating from the perpendicular. Thus an oblique angle is
either acute or obtuse ; that is, any angle except a right one.
OBLONG, in general, denotes a figure the length of
which exceeds the breadth ; as, for example, a parallelo¬
gram.
OBOLLIS, an ancient Greek coin. (See Numismatics.)
OBOJAN, a town of Russia, in the government of
3 E
402
0 B S
Occam.
Observa- Kursk, stands at the confluence of the Obojanka and Psiol,
tones 35 miles S. of Kursk, and about 370 W.S.W. of Moscow.
It is well built; has several churches, schools, and hospi¬
tals; and drives a flourishing trade in cattle, wax, &c. Pop.
(1849) 4968.
OBSERVATORIES. (See Astronomy, Supplement
to part i.)
OBY, a small island in the Malay Archipelago, S. of Gi-
lolo ; S. Lat. 1. 30., E. Long. 127. 50. It is about 50 miles
in length, and varies from 10 to 20 in breadth. It has
lofty mountains and dense woods, and yields spices and
sago. The Dutch have a settlement at the west end ; and
near thisjs another island called Little Oby.
OCANA, a town of Spain, in the province of Toledo,
35 miles S. of Madrid, and 26 E. of Toledo. It is an an¬
cient town, built on the sides and top of a hill, and is sur¬
rounded by ruinous walls. The streets are narrow and ill
built, but there are several handsome squares, churches,
convents, schools, an hospital, and a prison. The town is
supplied with water by a stone aqueduct of nineteen arches,
supposed to have been built by the Romans. Manufactures
of soap, bricks, earthenware, cloth, &c., are carried on.
In the neighbourhood the Spaniards sustained in 1809 a
signal defeat from the French. Pop. 4789.
Ocana, a town of New Granada, capital of a province
of the same name in the department of Guanenta, on the
Oro, 60 miles N.W. of Pamplona. It stands among the
Andes; and there are copper mines in the vicinity. Some
trade is carried on by the River Oro and the Canaverales,
into which it falls. Pop. of town, 5500 ; of province, 23,450.
OCCAM, or Ockham, William of, an English scholastic
philosopher, and the great champion of Nominalism in the
fourteenth century, was born at Ockham in Surrey in the
latter half of the thirteenth century. He repaired to Paris
at an early age, having been expelled from Oxford for ex¬
citing tumults among the students. On reaching that city
he joined the ranks of the Franciscans, and sat at the feet
of their great chief, Duns Scotus, “ the most subtle Doctor.”
Nothing is known respecting Occam until he appeared as a
public teacher in Paris. In this capacity he produced an
extraordinary sensation. By the boldness of his speculations
and the vehemence of his dialectics, mere tradition, no
matter how venerable, whether political, religious, or philo¬
sophical, found no quarter with William of Occam. “ The
invincible Doctor,” as he soon proved himself, threw the
weight of his influence, as the advocate of Nominalism and
free opinion, and the sworn foe of Realism and intellectual
submission, on the side of Philip the Fair of France in his
contest with Pope Boniface VIII. William published a
celebrated manifesto in favour of the cause, entitled Dispu-
tatio super potestate ecclesiastica prcelatis atque principibus
terrarum commissa, which the successor of St Peter did not
at all relish. The author and his followers were branded as
innovators in the church as well as in the schools; and No¬
minalism became with the ecclesiastical party another name
for heresy. On the death of Boniface, Pope John XXII.
summoned Occam and his disciples before him at Avignon,
and the “ invincible Doctor” only escaped the vengeance of
his Holiness by a precipitate flight to Bavaria, on the 26th
of May 1328. Here he gained the protection of Louis, and
remained till his death, which took place at Munich some
twenty years afterwards. (For the doctrines of Occam, see
Nominalism and Realism.)
The following writings compose Occam’s philosophical works:—
Super libros Sententiarum subtilissimce qucestiones, fol., Lyon, 1495,
in which will be found the substance of the author’s metaphysical
doctrines ; Quodlibeta septem, fol., Paris, 1487, and Strasburg, 1491;
Summa logices, 4to, Venezia, 1591, and frequently reprinted; Major
summa logices, 4to, Venezia, 1522; Qucestiones in libros Physicorum,
fol., Strasburg, 1491,1506; Expositio aurea super totam artem vete-
rem, videlicet in Porphyrii proedicabilia et Aristotelis prccdicamenta,
fol., Bologna, 1496.
Ochino.
O C H
OCCULTATION is that phenomenon in which a star Occulation
or planet becomes concealed from our view by the inter¬
vention of the moon. (See Astronomy.)
OCCUPANCY, in Law, is the taking possession of that
which before belonged to no one in particular. This, ac¬
cording to Blackstone {Commentaries, b. ii., c. 16), is the
true ground and foundation of all property, or of holding
those things in severalty which by the law of nature, un
qualified by that of society, were common to all mankind.
OCEAN. See Physical Geography.
OCEANIA. See Australasia.
OCEAN US, an ancient Greek god, was the son of
Uranus and Gaea,* and the eldest of the Titans. Homer
and Hesiod represent him as a divinity of might and im¬
portance, and they each mention several elements in his
greatness. He was the father, by Tethys, of the rivers, and
of the 3000 Oceanides, the goddesses of the rivers; he
dwelt in a palace in the far west; and “ the ocean stream”
over which he ruled encircled the whole earth, and touched
the vault of heaven on every side.
OCELLUS LUCANUS, a Pythagorean philosopher,
born in Lucania in Italy, as his name implies, and supposed
to have flourished during the fifth century b.c. He is said
to have been a contemporary as well as a disciple of Pytha¬
goras. The only definite information we possess respecting
Ocellus—and even that is not of the most authentic cha¬
racter—is to be found in two letters cited by Diogenes
Laertius (lib. viii., c. 80, 81), in which Archytas sends
Plato a reading of four works of the Lucanian philosopher.
Plato, in acknowledging the receipt of the precious MSS.,
expresses his admiration of their contents. These books
contained treatises on Law, on Kingly Rule, on Piety, and on
the Nature of the Universe. Of these writings, the only one
which has come down to us is the last, entitled Ilegi r^s
tov TravTos cfivcrios; written originally in Doric Greek ; but
the authorship of it is by no means clear. The best
editions are those of Rudolphi, Leipsic, 8vo, 1801; and of
Mullach, Berlin, 1846. The Marquis D’Argens pub¬
lished an 8vo edition at Berlin, 1762, with a French
translation and a commentary. There is a good
edition by Batteux, 3 vols. 12mo, Paris, 1768; and an
English version of Ocellus was published in 8vo, 1831, by
Thos. Taylor.
OCHINO, or Ochinus, Bernardino, a famous Italian
ecclesiastic, was born at Sienna in 1487, and assumed the
monkish garb at an early age. After living for some time
among the Franciscans, he passed over to the Capuchins,
and was elevated in 1537 to the rank of general of that
order. From that time Ochino was distinguished for his
bold and earnest self-devotion to whatever he considered
his duty. His simple and touching eloquence was zealously
exerted in behalf of the church and his own order; none of
the favours which admiring princes attempted to heap upon
him could excite his cupidity; and he was content to be
known throughout Italy as an itinerant preacher and a
squalid, emaciated ascetic. In 1541, when the truth of the
Protestant doctrines dawned upon him, he did not hesitate
to cast away the great popularity he had gained in the
Church of Rome, and to become a fugitive and a wanderer
for the sake of his honest conviction. After taking refuge
in Geneva and Augsburg, he found an asylum in England,
in 1547. The accession of Mary in 1553 drove him back
to the Continent; and not until 1555 did he obtain a per¬
manent footing as minister of an Italian church at Zurich.
Before eight years had passed, his fearless avowal of his
opinions brought him once more into trouble. Happening,
in a volume of dialogues which he published, to maintain
that polygamy was lawful under certain circumstances, he
was driven forth from Switzerland in mid-winter to find
another home. He retreated into Poland ; but no heretics
could remain there. Worn out with age and travel, he
O C H
*)chUHills turned to go into Moravia: the plague overtook him at
|| Slawkow, and he died in 1564. „
O’Connell, Ochino was the author of a collection of sermons, which
Daniel. was published in Italian, at Basle, in o vols. 8vo, 1562.
' Several of them have been translated at different times into
English. He also wrote commentaries on the epistles to the
Romans and Galatians, and some pamphlets against Popery.
OCHIL HILLS, a mountain range of Scotland, in the
county of Perth, about 24 miles in length, and having an
average breadth of 12 miles. They extend from within 2
miles of the Forth, near Stirling, in a N.E. direction, to the
Firth of Tay. The highest point is Bencleugh, at the S. W.
extremity, 2300 feet above the level of the sea. The geo¬
logical formation is basalt and greenstone, probably cover-
ino- Silurian formations; and iron and copper ores have
been found. The greater part of the hills afford good pas¬
turage for sheep.
OCKLEY, Simon, an eminent orientalist, and professor
of Arabic in Cambridge, was born at Exeter in 1678. He
was educated at Cambridge, and distinguished himself by
uncommon skill in the oriental languages. Having taken
a degree in divinity, he was, in 1705, presented by Jesus
College with the vicarage of Swavesey, and in 1711 he was
chosen Arabic professor of the university. He had a large
family, and his latter days were rendered unhappy by pe¬
cuniary embarrassments. He died in the year 1720. Ihe
principal works of Ockley are, Introductio ad Linguas
Orientates, 1706; The History of the Jews throughout the
World, from the Italian of Leo of Modena, 1707 ; The Im¬
provement of Human Reason, from the Arabic, 1708; The
History of the Saracens, in 2 vols. 8vo, 1708—18.. d his
last work was compiled from Arabic manuscripts in the
Bodleian Library at Oxford, and is justly valued for its
accuracy and erudition.
OCLISEER, a town of British India, in the district of
Broach, presidency of Bombay, 35 miles N. of Surat, and
50 miles S. of Baroda, on the route between these two
towns. Pop. 7000.
O’CONNELL, Daniel, a celebrated political agitator,
was born at Carhen, in the neighbourhood of Cahirciveen,
in the county of Kerry, on the 6th of August 1775. He
was descended from an old Roman Catholic family in
his native county, who could boast more of the antiquity
of their descent than of the affluence of their circumstances.
His father, Morgan O’Connell, if not a rich man, possessed
at least a tolerable competence, the fruits of his own in¬
dustry and prudence; and enjoyed the advantage, during
those stirring times, of comparative seclusion amid the
romantic wilds of Kerry. Daniel received his first lesson
from a poor old hedge-schoolmaster, who being engaged
on a begging expedition, took a fancy for the child, and is
said to have taught him his alphabet at a single sitting.
At the age of thirteen O’Connell was sent to a school at
Redington, Long Island, near Cove, conducted by a Ca¬
tholic priest named Harrington. After spending a year at
this institution without, according to Fagan, giving much
indication of superior talent, young O’Connell and his
brother were removed by their uncle Maurice, who had
adopted the lads, with the design of being sent to some
suitable place of learning on the Continent. They accord¬
ingly entered the Jesuit’s college of St Omer’s in France
in 1791, and after remaining a year there, they removed to
the English college of Douai. At the former institution
Daniel seems to have carried all before him, and the prin¬
cipal, Dr Stapylton, wrote of him when leaving, “ I never
was so much mistaken in my life as I shall be, unless he
be destined to make a remarkable figure in society.” The
outbreak of the French revolution brought their studies to
a close, and the two young Irishmen turned their faces
towards England the same day the unfortunate Louis lost
his head at Paris. The atrocities of the Reign of Terror
O C O 403
produced a strong impression on the mind of O’Connell ; O’Connell,
and he had no sooner got on board the English packet-boat Daniel,
at Calais than he plucked the tricolor cockade from his v—^
cap, trampled it under his feet, and flung it into the sea.
He returned to Ireland, he said, almost a “ Tory at heart.”
During his absence the rigour of the penal laws against
Roman Catholics had become somewhat relaxed; and
the profession of law was now thrown open to the Catho¬
lic as well as the Protestant. O’Connell resolved to pre¬
pare himself for the Irish bar, and became a student at one »
ofthelnnsof Court in London in 1794. He was called
to the bar in 1798, and commenced a most brilliant career
as a legal pleader. Politics do not seem to have occupied
much of his public attention at this period, and he even
held aloof from the wild and unscrupulous revolutionists of
his time. The policy which subsequently guided his pub¬
lic life had already taken hold of his mind. “ He would
accept of no social amelioration at the cost of a single drop
of blood.”
O’Connell made his first public appearance at a political
meeting held by the Catholics of Dublin in the Royal
Exchange Hall, on the 13th of January 1800, to petition
against the proposed union of the English and Irish legisla¬
tures. In this short speech are to be found in germ the fun¬
damental ideas of his public life. There is a certain stiff¬
ness and formality about it, doubtless incidental to youth
and inexperience; but it is pervaded by a sturdy energy
and clear-headed determination which gives solidity to his
patriotic indignation, and commands instant respect. From
this period O’Connell gradually assumes a leading place
among the political agitators of the day. In 1802 he was
privately married to his cousin Mary, daughter of Dr
O’Connell of Tralee. The disastrous insurrection of 1803,
known as “Emmett’s rebellion,” found O’Connell enrolled
among the “ lawyer’s infantry ” in the general arming which
then took place. The calamitous results of that unhappy
movement, and the temporary cruelties which it entailed,
served more and more to inflame the passions of the dis¬
affected, and gave an increasing prominence to the “ Ca¬
tholic question.” The “ Catholic Board,” having incurred
the displeasure of the government, was dissolved by pro¬
clamation in 1804; but the zeal and activity of its ad¬
herents succeeded in reviving it soon after under the title
of the “ Catholic Committee.” Regular reports of the
debates of this body are to be found in the Dublin news¬
papers from 1808. O’Connell, who was now in good
practice, and who seems to have been regarded as the
most promising barrister of the day, directed his surprising
energies more systematically and continuously to the cause
of the Roman Catholics; and became the acknowledged
leader of political reform in Ireland. It is to this period of
his life that O’Connell alludes in his pamphlet written in
reply to the attack of Lord Shrewsbury in 1842, when he
rebuts the taunt of receiving “ the rent,” as it was called,
in the following words:—“For more than twenty years
before emancipation, the burden of the cause was thrown
upon me. I had to arrange the meetings, to prepare the
resolutions, to furnish replies to the correspondence, to ex¬
amine the case of each person complaining of practical
grievances, to rouse the torpid, to animate the lukewarm,
to control the violent and the inflammatory, to avoid the
shoals and breakers of the law, to guard against mul¬
tiplied treachery, and at all times to oppose, at every peril,
the powerful and multitudinous enemies of the cause. . . .
At that period, and for more than twenty years, there was
no day that I did not devote from one to two hours, often
much more, to the working out of the Catholic cause, and
that without receiving or allowing the offer of any remu¬
neration, even for the personal expenditure incurred in the
agitation of the cause itself.” The most painful occurrence,
of a personal kind, of O’Connell’s entire career took place
404 0 C O
O’Connell, in 1815. Having applied the term “ beggarly ” in one of
Daniel, his speeches to the Dublin corporation, one ol the mem-
bers of that body, Mr D’Esterre, came forth in defence of
its injured dignity, and demanded satisfaction from the
ag-itator. A duel followed, which ultimately proved fatal
to D’Esterre. O’Connell never ceased to express the most
painful regret at the issue of this melancholy affair. Beyond
the general indication just given of the services rendered
by him to the cherished cause, nothing of very special im¬
portance in O’Connell’s career demands attention until the
summer of 1828, when the decisive struggle for Roman
Catholic emancipation had reached its crisis. A vacancy
having occurred in the representation of the county of
Clare in the month of June of that year, O’Connell was
proposed as a candidate, despite his adherence to the Ro¬
man Catholic faith, and was returned to Parliament by a
great majority. On reaching Westminster, he refused to
take the oaths, which had been framed with the express
design of excluding Roman Catholics. The attitude
which he assumed had the effect of bringing the civil dis¬
abilities of his party prominently before the nation. A
year passed away full of keen and noisy debate, both in and
out of Parliament, without any decisive result; yet the in¬
fluence of intelligent public opinion, even among Protes¬
tants, was waxing so strong in favour of Catholic emanci¬
pation, that the following year witnessed the repeal of the
last of those civil disabilities to which Roman Catholics
had been so long and so unjustly subjected. O’Connell
took his seat as a member of Parliament in May 1829.
Here he seems to have been both feared and disliked, and
was received by the House with the most icy coldness.
The day came, however, wrhen his matchless oratorical
powers were recognised, and he ultimately became perhaps
the most attractive debater in the House of Commons.
(See an excellent sketch of the public speakers of that
period in the New Monthly Magazine for 1832.) The
career of O’Connell is of necessity so much interwoven with
the public history of the time, from his entry upon his par¬
liamentary duties, that the reader will find his subsequent
history placed in the most intelligible light by referring to
the articles Britain, and Ireland. At the general elec¬
tion in 1830 he was returned for his native Kerry. He
represented Dublin from 1832 to 1835, when he was un¬
seated. The following year he sat for Kilkenny; in 1837
he was once more returned for the capital ; and in 1841
he was chosen representative of the county of Cork. The
Conservatives came into power in 1841, and the great
Irish agitation in behalf of the repeal of the Union began
to assume a formidable character. “Monster meetings”
were held all over the country. The “ rent,” or annual
subscription for the support of the “ Liberator” and the
cause of repeal, poured in in the most cheering manner;
and O’Connell strove to unite all Irishmen in the struggle.
He announced in the Repeal Association—“ 1843 is, and
shall be, the great repeal year.” Spots rendered sacred by
tradition and song were chosen as rallying-points for the
indignant display of popular independence; and the royal
hill of Tara, the curragh of Kildare, and the rath of Mul-
laghmast, shook with the noisy patriotism of thousands upon
thousands of wild ignorant Irishmen. The chief laid
aside for a time the dignified eloquence of the senator, and
adopted a style better adapted to captivate the hearts of
his admiring fellow-countrymen. Like Nestor of old in the
camp of the Greeks, “ the words distilled from his lips like
honeybut it is to be feared there was more “ blarney”
than wisdom in them. No man knew better than O’Con¬
nell what to say, and when to say it; and if he treated the
House of Commons to splendid displays of fiery logic, im¬
passioned invective, and brilliant retort, he knew well
where a slight touch of swagger gave a man a kingly air,
where a rare joke went farther than a good argument,
OCT
where big words passed for wisdom, and loud ones for Octagon
courage. “ The great Irish people ” who believed in re- ||
peal were down on their knees before the “ Liberator : ” his Octavia.
heart was cheered within him ; and out of the abundance of
his generosity he made the most liberal promises. “I
hope,” he said, “ to be able to give you, as a New Year’s
gift, a Parliament in College Green.” Other cheer awaited
that festive season, however. Another “ monster meeting”
was projected at Clontarf, three miles from Dublin, at which
the choice of those swaggering patriots were to appear on
horseback, and parade before the idle and applauding mul¬
titude as the glorious “ Repeal Cavalry.” But the Irish go¬
vernment failed to sympathize with this grand conception ;
and the iron hand of power was lifted menacingly in the
face of repeal. The prohibitory proclamation of govern¬
ment was followed up by a peaceful recommendation from
the “ Liberator,” who always strove to steer clear of a phy¬
sical collision. This proclamation was issued on the 7th of
October 1843, and ere seven days had passed, the Chief
and a number of the leading repealers were arrested on
a charge of conspiracy and sedition. O’Connell had,
throughout his entire career as apolitical agitator, manifested
the most consummate skill and self-command in con¬
stantly treading on the very verge of constitutionalism, and
yet always keeping within the bounds of strict legal activity.
Attempts had previously been made to convict him of
sedition, but to no purpose. But the flush of success of
“the great repeal year” apparently threw him off his guard,
and the “ Liberator” was now within the clutches of the
law. After a trial of twenty-four days, the Irish judges
sentenced O’Connell to imprisonment for twelve months,
with a fine of L.2000, and bound him oyer to keep the
peace for seven years. The judgment was carried before
the House of Lords, and the decision of the Irish judges
was reversed. This trial had the effect of dissolving the
charm exercised by the “ Liberator” in Ireland: it well
nigh beggared the Repeal Association, and indeed gave
the death-blow to the entire movement. O’Connell’s doc¬
trine of the absolute renunciation of physical force in seek¬
ing political amelioration met with no favour at the hands
of the “Young Ireland” party ; and in 1846 they seceded
from a leader who had been the champion of the cause for
forty years. The Irish famine was only needed to break the
spirit of the indomitable O’Connell. With failing health
and a heavy heart, he set out on a devotional pilgrimage to
Rome in 1*847, but he had only reached Genoa, when he
was suddenly called to lay down his load on the 15th of
May of the same year. At his own request, his heart was
embalmed and borne to Rome, and his body was carried
back to the land which he had loved so well. He left
three daughters and four sons to lament his loss. His
eldest son Maurice, for many years the representative of
Tralee, died in 1853. The Memoir on Ireland written
by O’Connell never got beyond the first volume.
(See the Life and Speeches of Daniel O’Connell, M.P.,
by his son, John O’Connell, M.P., 2 vols., 1846; The
Life and Times of Daniel O'Connell, by William Fagan,
M.P., 2 vols., 1847; Personal Recollections of Daniel
O’Connell, by Daunt, 2 vols., 1848 ; Last Days of Daniel
O’Connell, by Maccabe, 1847.) (.J. P—s.)
OCTAGON, an eight-sided polygon. (See Geometry.)
OCTAHEDRON, one of the five regular solids con¬
tained by eight equal and equilateral triangles. (See Geo¬
metry, part ii.)
OCTAVIA, the youngest daughter of Caius Octavius,
and the sister of Augustus. She was the widow of Caius
Marcellus in 40 B.C., when her brother and Mark Antony
concluded their recent variances by a formal treaty ol
agreement. Her marriage with the latter was then pro¬
posed as a means of still further strengthening the union
between the two triumvirs. To save her country from
OCT
civil broils, and to please her brother, the noble-minded
matron sacrificed herself, and wedded the notorious liber¬
tine. It soon appeared that along with her hand she had
given her life’s devotion. As long as Antony remained at
home, her wisdom, her virtues, and the charms of her ma¬
ture beauty, were zealously employed to keep him on good
terms with Octavianus. When he deserted her in 36 B.C.,
for the syren charms of Cleopatra, her conjugal fidelity re¬
mained unabated. In the following year she set out for
Egypt to endeavour to regain his vagrant affections; on
receiving at Athens an order from him to return home, she
immediately obeyed ; and it was not until, in 32 B.C., he sent
her a bill of divorce, that she could be prevailed upon to
leave his house in Rome. Even after his death in 30 B.c„
she did not think that her obligations to serve him were
at an end. She continued to bring up his younger son by
his first wife Fulvia; a,nd when his children by Cleopatra
were brought to Rome to grace the triumph of Octavianus,
she adopted them into her own family. Octavia had now
for several years been constantly attended by misfortune ;
but the great and the closing sorrow of her life was yet to
come. In 23 b.c. Marcellus, her son by her first husband,
the idol of the Roman people, and the heir-presumptive to
the empire, died at the age of twenty. She fell into a state
of melancholy, which continued till her death in 11 b.c.
The great worth of Octavia was celebrated by a public
interment, and by a funeral oration delivered by her impe¬
rial brother. Her memory was preserved by a magnificent
edifice built by Augustus, and called “ Porticus Octaviae.”
Octavia, the grand-daughter of the preceding, was the
daughter of the Emperor Claudius and Messalina, and was
born about 42 a.d. Her short life was a series of the most
cruel wrongs. At the age of six she was betrothed to
Lucius Silanus, a young man of noble birth. About her
eleventh year this betrothal had been nullified by the de¬
signs of her step-mother, the infamous Agrippina; and she
was married to Nero, the son of the latter, and the heir to
the empire. Nine years afterwards Nero, by that time
emperor, divorced her on the charge of sterility, in order
to make room for Poppsea. The innocent young princess
next became the victim of the systematic vengeance of her
triumphant rival. An attempt was first made to force her
servants tp accuse her of incontinency; but not even thp
torture could wring from them a word against the reputa¬
tion of their mistress, She was then exiled into Campania;
but the people soon brought her back to Rome in triumph.
At length the slave Anicetus was hired to procure her
condemnation, by swearing that he had been her paramour.
The helpless girl, in her twentieth year, was immediately
taken away to the island of Pandataria to be put to death.
Her veins were opened by the soldiers; extreme fear, how¬
ever, prevented the blood from flowing; and it was found
necessary to stifle her in the steam of a hot bath. The
woes of Octavia form the subject of a tragedy found among
the works of Seneca, and they have also been dramatized
by Alfieri.
OCTOBER, in chronology, the eighth month, as the
name implies, of the old Roman year, but the tenth in
the calendar of Numa, Julius Caesar, &c. The senate
gave this month the name of Faustinus, in compliment to
Faustina, the wife of the Erpperor Antoninus ; Commodus
wished it to be called Invictus; and Domitian named it
Domitiqmus; but in spite of all these attempts it still retains
its original name. This month was sacred to Mars ; and
a horse, called the October Equus, was annually sacrificed to
that deity. A race was run with chariots previously to the
sacrifices, when the fleetest horse was made the victim.
ODE, a short lyrical poem containing a vivid expression
of the feelings of the poet in moments of high excitement.
Among the Greeks and Romans the ode (wSiy, a song) was
intended to be sung, and was usually accompanied by some
ODE 405
musical instrument, especially the lyre. Hence the ex- Odeipore
pression “ lyric poetry,” of which the earliest forms seem 1'
to have been the ode. The most celebrated classical odes 0dessa-
are those of Pindar, Anacreon, and Horace, which are still
recognised by the moderns as models in that species of po¬
etical composition. In the modern use of the word, how¬
ever, the ode differs, on the one hand, from the song, by
greater length and variety, and by not being necessarily
adapted to music; and, on the other, from the ballad, by
generally excluding narrative, and limiting its range exclu¬
sively to the expression of feeling or passion on a given
subject. In English literature the odes of Dryden, Gray,
and Collins are much esteemed. (See Poetry.)
ODEIPORE, a raj of British India, under the jurisdic¬
tion of the political agent for the S. W. frontier of Bengal;
N. Lat. (of centre) 22. 40., E. Long. 83. 23.; area 2306
square miles. This territory was forfeited to the British
government on account of the systematic crimes of the
rajah, and the want of direct heirs. The annual revenue is
estimated at L.loQO. Pop. 133,000. The chief town is
Odeipore, 183 miles S. of Benares, and 320 W. of Cal¬
cutta.
ODENATHUS, a famous prince of Palmyra, and hus¬
band of the celebrated Zenobia. (See Palmyra.)
ODENSE, a seaport-town of Denmark, capital of the
island of Funen, on the N. bank of the Odense-Aue, a
small stream flowing into the fiord of the same name, 88
miles W. by S. of Copenhagen. It is one of the oldest
places in Denmark, and is said to have been founded by
Odin, whose grave is shown about a quarter of a mile to
the N. of the town. The cathedral, in the Gothic style,
founded by Canute IV. in 1080, and completed in 1301,
is one of the finest ecclesiastical buildings in Denmark,
and contains the tombs of several Danish kings. There
are here also an old episcopal palace, a royal palace, a
town-hall, several schools, a theatre, two public libraries,
an hospital, &c. The manufactories of the place consist of
breweries, distilleries, iron-foundries, and woollen mills;
and some trade is carried on, which is facilitated by several
harbours near the town. Pop. (1851) 11,122.
ODENS WALD, a range of mountains of Western Ger¬
many, in Hesse-Darmstaflt, stretching northwards from
Heidelberg to Darmstadt. Its length is about 45 miles;
and the highest point is the Katzenbuckel, 2300 feet above
the sea. The western slopes consist of granite and gneiss,
and the eastern of sandstone. The higher elevations are
well wooded, and the lower regions cultivated. Several
remains of Roman forts exist here.
ODER, a river of Europe, rises in Moravia, about 15
miles E. of Olmiitz, flows N.E. to the confines of Prussia,
then turns to the N.W., and flows generally in that direc¬
tion as far as Oderberg in Brandenburg, where it turns to
the N.E., and discharges its waters through the Grosse
Half into the Baltic. Its whole length is 550 miles ; and
it is navigable for vessels of 50 tons as far as Breslau, and
for small boats up to Ratibor in Prussian Silesia. It receives
from the right the Malapane, Bartsch, and Wartha; and
from the left the Oppa, Silesian and Bohemian Neisse,
Katzbach, and Bober. The principal towns on its banks
are Breslau, Glogau, Frankfort, Custrin, and Stettin. This
river is connected by canals with the Elbe, the Spree, and
the Vistula.
ODESSA, a town of European Russia, in the govern¬
ment of Kherson, stands on the north-western shore of the
Black Sea, 90 miles W.S.W. of Kherson, and 390 N. of
Constantinople ; N. Lat. 46. 28., E. Long. 30. 43. Placed
between the mouths of the Dniester and Bug, and not far
from that of the Dnieper, the site is very favourable for
commerce.
From the reign of Peter the Great, Russia had been
steadily looking forward to a maritime preponderance, both
406 ODE
O D O
Odessa, military and commercial, in the Black Sea ; and soon after
the peace of Jassy, by which the province of Kherson was
ceded to Catharine, that princess selected as the place for
a commercial emporium a village called Kodschabeg, then
inhabited only by a few fishermen. The town was founded
in 1794 ; and the first settlers were a number of Greek
families, who were induced to remove thither from other
portions of the country which had been recently given up
by the Turks. When the Emperor Alexander I. ascended
the throne, he entered with zeal into the project which
Catharine had formed. The French emigrant Duke of
Richelieu, who had entered the Russian service, was ap¬
pointed governor, and displayed great zeal and judgment.
Under his administration Odessa rapidly rose in prosperity ;
so that by the year 1804 the inhabitants had increased to
the number of 15,000. A fortress, a lighthouse, and a laza¬
retto, were constructed, as well as a mole to secure 300 sail
of vessels from the S.W. winds, which sometimes blow
with prodigious force. In 1817 the inhabitants were ex¬
empted from taxes for thirty years; and the port was de¬
clared to be an open one. All goods of every kind could
now be imported without duty for the consumption of the
city, or for re-exportation, but were chargeable with duty on
passing into the surrounding country. This gave a great
impetus to its advancement, which still operates. During
the late Russian war the batteries of Odessa fired upon the
Furious, a British steam-frigate under a flag of truce, on
the Hth of April 1854 ; and as no reparation was made for
this breach of the laws of war, a squadron of the allied fleet
bombarded the place on the 22d of April, and greatly in¬
jured the fort, the batteries on the moles, and the vessels
in the harbour. On the 12th of May the steam-frigate
Tiger, which ran aground in a fog, was fired at by the ar¬
tillery of Odessa. The vessel was destroyed, the captain
mortally wounded, and the crew captured.
The prosperity of Odessa has risen in a great measure
from its maritime accessibility. It has a spacious bay,
which, though open to the easterly winds, is tolerably se¬
cure ; it is very extensive, and the anchorage ground is
good. There is a kind of harbour formed by two moles,
about two-thirds of a mile in length, and a handsome quay
capable of accommodating 300 vessels. The town is re¬
gularly built; the streets are wide and straight; and the
houses are for the most part built of stone, and two stories
in height. The streets are, however, but partially paved.
Odessa is defended by a strong citadel on the N.E.,
which has a double ditch and also several outworks ; and
there are also batteries on the moles and on the shore be¬
tween them. Among the public edifices, the most conspi¬
cuous is the cathedral, a large and elegant pile. There
are a number of other churches for the Greek worship;
and the Jews, Roman Catholics, and German Lutherans
have their respective places of worship. A college has
been established, with a museum and botanic garden.
The admiralty, hospital, exchange, and theatre (where
plays, in the Russian and Greek languages, and Italian
operas, are performed), are fine buildings. The town has
several schools, a lazaretto, barracks, and the governor’s
house, containing the public offices. Along the quay runs
a boulevard, lined with handsome houses, and adorned with
a statue of Richelieu. Most of the water is brackish ; and
to provide that necessary element in purity, an aqueduct
h*is been constructed at great expense, which conveys it
from a distance of nearly 20 miles. The climate is healthy,
though the summer is intensely hot. Winter is short, but
severe, the sea being more or less frozen for about two
months.
The rapid growth of Odessa depends wholly upon its com¬
merce, the sources of which are to be found in the fertil¬
ity of its surrounding soil and that of the more distant dis¬
tricts, to which there is easy access. The steppes, which
form a semicircle around Odessa, extend to nearly 100
miles from the city. This district is destitute of trees and
of running water, but the soil is said to be favourable to the
growth of corn, especially of wheat. There are many gar¬
dens and vineyards in the vicinity of Odessa; and the
melons raised here form a favourite article of food.
The soil of the districts bordering upon the northern side
of the steppes, even with the negligent husbandry it re¬
ceives, is most abundantly productive of wheat. Indeed,
there is no part of the world known in which, in propitious
seasons, the increase of grain is so great. It is, however,
liable to great variations in its growth, and sometimes
years occur when the increase is very insignificant. The
quantities of wheat exported from Odessa in each year
from 1847 to 1852 may be seen from the following table :—
Odiham
Odoacer.
Years. Qrs. Years. Qrs.
1847   2,016,692 1850   980,377
1848   1,409,963 1851   718,325
1849   1,127,000 1852   1,362,251
The quantity of Indian corn exported in 1852 was
225,635 qrs.; of rye, 216,229 qrs.; of barley, 35,102
qrs.; of oats, 6918 qrs.; and of pulse, 4291 qrs. The
corn of Odessa is for the most part conveyed to the
coasts and islands of the Mediterranean, and also in
large quantities to Britain, to which there were exported
from this place in 1852, 570,237 qrs. of wheat, 222,276 of
Indian corn, 3644 of rye, 23,875 of barley, 1296 of oats,
and 404 of peas. Of linseed there were exported in
1852, 135,880 qrs.; of tallow, 38,575 cwt.; of candles,
5688 cwt.; of wool of various sorts, 74,864 cwt.; of
hides, raw and dressed, 1877 cwt.; of copper, 8133 cwt.;
and of cables and cordage, 13,227 cwt. To the United
Kingdom were exported, in 1852, 83,050 qrs. of linseed,
and 16,450 cwt. of wool, besides smaller quantities of other
articles. The total value of the exports from Odessa was
estimated in 1852 at L.3,976,754. The imports consist
chiefly of wine, porter, rum, sugar, tobacco, fruits, lead, tin,
zinc, coals, hardware, machinery, and linen, woollen, silk,
and cotton goods. The total value of the articles imported
in 1852 was estimated at L. 1,637,895. The number of
vessels that entered the port in 1851 was 698, and the ton¬
nage 196,218, including 126 British vessels, with a tonnage
of 37,531. The number that cleared was 729; tonnage,
203,842 ; and among these, 130 British, tonnage, 38,830.
The inhabitants are of very mixed races, but consist
chiefly of Russians, Greeks, and Jews. German handi¬
craftsmen are also to be found amongst them in consider¬
able numbers ; whilst the more extensive mercantile houses
are composed of Italians, English, French, or Armenians.
In no spot perhaps in Europe are there so great a number
of languages spoken as on the exchange of Odessa. The
admixture of oriental dresses, manners, and languages pre¬
sents a very novel and lively picture; and the bazaars con¬
tain all the productions of the East, from Persian shawls
down to rose-pastilles. Pop. (1850) 71,392.
ODIHAM, a market-town of Hampshire, England, 37
miles N.E. of Southampton, It stands on the N, side of a
chalk down, and consists of a well-built main street and
two others of smaller size. The parish church is an old
brick edifice, with a square tower. There are remains of
an ancient palace, and a ruined castle in which David I. of
Scotland was imprisoned for eleven years. Lily the gram¬
marian was born at Odiham in 1468. Pop. (1851) of the
parish 2811.
ODIN, the supreme divinity of the ancient Scandina¬
vians. (See Mythology.)
ODOACER, the first barbarian king of Italy, was the
son of Edecon, the minister of Attila. In 476 he wrested
the sceptre from the hands of Romulus Augustulus, the last
Roman emperor of the West; and in 493 he was deposed
and assassinated by Theodric the Ostrogoth. (See Italy.)
407
ODONTOLOGY,.
Introduc¬
tion.
Definition.
INTRODUCTION.
Odontology1 is that branch of anatomical science which
treats of the teeth. The term “ tooth ” has been applied in
Zoology and Zootomy to various organs and parts; usually
to such as are so solid, so shaped, and so situated in animal
bodies, as to serve for seizing and operating on the food;
but it has been also applied to parts, such as the promi¬
nences on the hinge of bivalve shells, which have no rela¬
tion to the digestive function. The silicious spines of in-
fusory animalcules, the calcareous jaws of sea-urchins, the
chitinous hooks and booklets of sea-worms, and many cor¬
responding parts of invertebrate animals, are described as
“ teethbut the present essay exclusively relates to those
bodies, hardened chiefly by the phosphate of lime, which
are attached to parts of the mouth or beginning of the
alimentary canal, and which are peculiar to the vertebrated
classes of animals.
The term “ tooth” is immediately derived from the Teu¬
tonic word tunth, which we may trace through the old
English or Anglo-Saxon tain, the Danish land, the Ger¬
man zahn, the Latin dens, the French dent, the Italian
dente, the Greek odous, odontes, the Welsh dant, the Erse
dend, and the Lithuanic dantis, to the Sanscrit mother-
root dantas: these synonymes being strikingly illustrative
of the coincidence, in one of the primary words, of a natural
class of languages which prevails from Central Asia, west¬
ward, over Europe, and of the unity of stock of the great
Indo-European family of mankind.
True calcified teeth are primarily, if not permanently,
distinct parts from the bony skeleton, and are exposed, save
where their development is prematurely arrested, as, e.g.,
in the rudimental tusk of the narwhal. The exceptions to
their calcified condition in the Vertebrata are very few;
such, e.g., as the horny teeth in the Myxinoid fishes and
the Monotremes. But true calcified teeth vary in their
tissue and composition, and still more in regard to number,
size, form, structure, position, and mode of attachment in
different animals. They are principally adapted for seizing,
tearing, dividing, pounding, or grinding the food: in some
they are modified, to serve as weapons of offence and de¬
fence ; in others as aids to locomotion, means of anchorage,
instruments for uprooting or cutting down trees, or for
transport and working of building materials. They are
characteristic ot age and sex; and, in man, they have second¬
ary relations subservient to beauty and to speech.
Teeth are always most intimately related to the food and
habits of the animal, and are therefore highly interesting
to the physiologist. They form, for the same reason, most
important guides to the naturalist in the .classification of
animals; and their value as zoological characters is enhanced
by the facility with which, from their position, they can be
examined in living or recent animals; whilst the durability
of their tissues renders them not less available to the
palaeontologist in the determination of the nature and affi¬
nities of extinct species, of whose organization they are
often the sole remains discoverable in the deposits of former
periods of the earth’s history.
I eeth are composed of a cellular and tubular basis of
animal matter containing earthy particles, a fluid, and a vas- Introduc-
cular pulp. In general, the earth is present in such quantity tlon-
as to render the tooth harder than bone, in which case the
animal basis is gelatinous, as in other hard parts where a Composi-
great proportion of earth is combined with animal matter. In t10'1'
the very few instances among the vertebrate animals above
cited, where the hardening material exists in a much
smaller proportion, the animal basis is albuminous; the
teeth here agree, in both chemical and physical qualities,
with horn.
Teeth rarely consist, like bones, of a uniform or nearly
uniform substance, but are composed to two or more tis¬
sues, characterized by the proportions of their earthy and
animal constituents, and by the size, form, and direction of
the cavities in the animal basis which contain the earth, the
fluid, or the vascular
pulp. The tissue
which forms the body
of the tooth is called
“ dentine” (Lat. den-
tinum; Gexm. zahn-
bein, zahnsubstanz ;
Fr. Vivoire) ; (fig. 1,
d). The tissue which
forms the outer crust
of the tooth is called
“cement” (Lat. cee-
mentum, crusta petro¬
sa) ; (figs. 1 and 5, c),
The third tissue,when
present, is situated
between the dentine
and cement, and
is called “ enamel ”
(Lat. encaustum, ad-
amas) ; (figs. 1 and
5, e).
Dentine consists of
an organized animal
basis, and of earthy
particles: the basis is disposed in the form of compart¬
ments (fig. 3, a), of minute tubes (fig, 3, d), and cells (fig.
3, g); the particles have a twofold arrangement, being
either blended with the animal matter of the interspaces
(e) and parietes (<i) of the tubes and cells, or being con¬
tained in a minutely granular state in their cavities. The
density of the dentine arises principally from the propor¬
tion of earth in the former of these states of combination.
The tubes and cells contain, besides the granular earth, a
colourless fluid, probably “ plasma,” or “ liquor sanguinis,”
in a delicate cellular tissue, and thus relate not only to the
mechanical conditions of the tooth, but to the vitality and
nutrition of the dentine.
Approximative steps to the recognition of the true nature
of teeth were made by Purkinje2 and Retzius;3 but the
first definite and unequivocal announcement of the observed
organic connection between the vascular and vital soft parts
of the frame and the hard substance of a tooth, was com¬
municated to the Institute of France in 1839.4 “If the
Fig. i.
Section of Human Molar Tooth (magn.).
* h rom ohovg, a tooth, and "Koyog, a discourse.
Vepenitiori Dentium Humanorum structurd Observationes (Fraenkel), and Meletemata circa Mammalium Dentium Evolutionem (Rash-
°4< M ^ i • • 3 Mi/croskopiska Under sokningar ofver Jddernes sardeles Tandbenets struktur, Stockholm, 1837.
,T V U.n U^e> <?ans ces con(iitions, est sousmis au microscope, et compare a un bulbe encore depourvu de matiere calcaire, on
V01 ,^U.\ n us ;T.evetl* *a meinkrane lisse, dense, que 1’on observe dans ce dernier; et le bord apical du bulbe dont on a detache
son etui emai e parait villeux et flocconeux.” . . . . “ A mesure que la formation de la dent est plus avancee, il devient plus difficile
e separei a portion calcifiee du bulbe de la portion non calcifiee, et en meme temps plus facile de decouvrir la continuation des pro-
ODONTOLOGY.
408
Introduc* pU]p 0f a growing tooth be submitted to microscopical
v tl0n^ t examination, and compared with a pulp before it has begun
to be calcified, it will be seen to be not covered by any
Nature of outer membrane, like the so-called ‘ membrana propria,’ or
tooth. gjjjQQth dense covering of the uncalcified pulp ; but the
surface of the pulp, from which the calcified sheath has
been removed, will appear cottony and villous: in propor¬
tion as the tooth is more advanced in its formation, it be¬
comes more difficult to separate the calcified from the non-
calcified part of the pulp, and at the same time more easy
to discover the continuation of the prolongations of the
pulp in the interior of the numerous medullary canals which
constitute so many distinct centres of radiation for the
plexiform dentinal tubes.” This discovery of the organic
connection between the pulp and the canals of the dentine,
made by observation of the development of the teeth of the
shark, was affirmed to be applicable to the teeth of Mam¬
malia : it was only the excessive smallness of the dentinal
tubes in the latter which rendered invisible to the naked
eye the irregularity of the uncalcified surface of the pulp,
when the calcified part was detached in a growing tooth.
The apparent smoothness of such exposed surface was
illusory.
Dr Schwann, in his important essay on the correspon¬
dence in structure and development between animals and
plants,1 spoke of the “ presumed” transition of the cells of
the pulp into the dentinal tubes, which he calls “ fibres,”
but leaves that capital fact as one still of uncertainty, and
questionable. The author of the present article published
the full evidence of his original propositions, above cited,
in his work entitled Odontography, 4to, 1840-1845, and
was able to give more direct testimony of the continuation
of filamentary processes of the pulp into the minute tubes
of hard dentine, on the occasion of anatomizing a full-grown
male elephant in 1850. “ I had the tusk and pulp of the
great elephant at the Zoological Gardens longitudinally
divided, soon after the death of that animal in the summer
of 1847. Although the pulp could be easily detached from
the inner surface of the pulp-cavity, it was not without a
certain resistance, and when the edges of the co-adapted
pulp and tooth were examined by a strong lens, the fila¬
mentary processes from the outer surface of the pulp could
be seen stretching, as they were withdrawn from the den¬
tinal tubes, before they broke. They are so minute that,
to the naked eye, the detached surface of the pulp seems
to be entire, and Cuvier was thus deceived in concluding
that there was no organic connection between the pulp and
the ivory.”2
Confirmatory evidence of the continuation of filamentary
processes of the pulp into the dentinal tubuli in the human
teeth, has recently been communicated to the Royal So¬
ciety of London by Mr Tomes,3 It has appeared to the
present writer that the filamentary processes of the pulp
become resolved, at or near the first bifurcation of the Introdu-
tubuli, into mere delicate membranous linings of the den- tion.
tinal tubes, which are chiefly occupied by the plasma con- v'—
tained in these continuations of the pulp, with occasional
detached calcareous particles.
Until a comparatively recent period, the analogy of den-Structure,
tine to bone was supposed to be confined to their chemical
constitution, and the nature of the hardening material;
while the arrangement, as well as the mode of deposition of
the tooth-tissue, were considered to be wholly different
from that of bone; and the dentine to agree, in its general
nature and mode of growth, with hair and other extravas-
cular horny parts, with which most teeth closely correspond
in their vital properties.4
The structure of a tooth, in fact, was regarded as simply
laminated, and the ivory was described as being formed
layer within layer, deposited by, and moulded upon, the
formative superficies of the vascular pulp. The illustrations
and supposed proof of this structure and mode of growth
were derived from the apparently detached condition of
the newly-formed particles of dentine on the pulp’s surface,
when exposed by the removal of the calcified part of the
tooth; from the appearance observed in the teeth of ani¬
mals fed alternately with madder and ordinary food, which
undoubtedly illustrate the true progress of dental develop¬
ment ; from the illusory traces of laminated structure ob¬
served in vertical sections of teeth when viewed with the
naked eye, or with a low magnifying power; and lastly, and
chiefly, from the successive hollow cones into which a large
tooth, such as the elephant’s tusk, is commonly resolved in
the process of decomposition.
With regard, however, to the appearances presented by
the teeth of animals under the influence of madder, and the
separation of the dentine into superimposed lamellae during
decomposition, the same conclusions, as to intimate structure
and mode of development, might be drawn respecting true
bone, which also commonly resolves itself into the concentric
lamellae during decomposition, and presents the same appear¬
ance of alternate white and red layers in animals fed alter¬
nately with madder and ordinary food during the progress of
its growth. The lines running parallel to each other, and to
the contour of the crown, presented by the cut surfaces of
vertical sections of teeth, especially of the elephant’s tusk,
or of the tooth of the cachalot, are due to a totally different
structure from that to which they are ascribed. The la-
mellated arrangement, thus seemingly demonstrated, is,
moreover, far from being a constant appearance; on the
contrary, the superficies of vertically cut or fractured sur¬
faces of the human and most other teeth offer a very
different character, and one which has led to many approxi¬
mations and allusions to the true structure of dentine, in
the works of anatomists who have recorded their own ori¬
ginal observations.
longements du bulbe dans I’interieur de cesnombreux canaux medullaires qui constituent tant de centres de radiation distincte pour les
tubes calcigeres plexiformes. Le principe du development dentaire s’effectuant par depot dans la substance et non par exsudation en de¬
hors de la substance d’un bulbe pr6-existant, tel qu’il ressort de la dentition des squales, est d’une application sans effort, naturelle et
manifeste a la formation des dents des mammiferes. Dans 1’ivoire d’une dent simple de mammifere, il existe un canal medullaire unique,
appele cavite du bulbe, et un systeme unique de tubes rayonnes calcigeres; mais le plan et la mode de formation sont les memes que
dans les squales.” “ Les tubes calcigeres d’une dent de mammifere cnt des parois distinctes tant dans les portions calcifiees que dans
les portions non calcifiees du bulbe. Ces parois sont rendues fragiles par le depot qui s’y fait de particules terreuses dans la portion
calcifiee du bulbe, et alors se separent facilement de leur portion non calcifiee, laquelle se continue dans le reste du bulbe, et c’est 1’ex-
cessive petitesse des tubes rompus qui rend invisible a I’oeil nu 1’irregularite de la surface du bulbe : mais cette appearance d’une surface
naturelle libre, exsudante, n’est qu’une illusion.” (Recherches sur la structure et la formation des dents des Squaloides, et application des
faits observes d une nouvelle theorie du developpement des dents, par M. Iv. Owen; Oomptes Rendus des Seances de VA.cademie des Sciences,
No. 25, 16 Decembre 1839, p. 786.
^ Mikroscopische Untersuchungen ueber die Uebereinstimmung in der Struktur und dem Wachsthum der Thiere und RJlanzent 8vo, 1839,
p. 117.
2 Cyclopaedia of Anatomy and Physiology, p. 929, part xxxviii., Feb. 1850. Compare with Annales du Museum, tom. viii., p. 96, and
the Ossemens FossiLes of Cuvier, tom. i., p. 517, ed. 1834-6. 3 Philosophical Transactions, 1856, p. 515.
4 See English translation of Muller’s Physiology, 1837, pp. 391 and 392 ; De Blainville, Ostfagraphie et Odontographie, Primates, p. 15,
without date, but communicated by the author to the Institute of France, December 1839; vide Comptes Rendus de PAcademic of that
month, Dec. 16, p. 782.
ODONTOLOGY.
409
Structure.
Whoever attentively observes a polished section or a
fractured surface of a human tooth may learn, even with
the naked eye, that the silky and iridescent lustre reflected
from it in certain directions is due to the presence of a fine
fibrMalSpi”hose works may be detected the germs of
many important anatomical truths that have subsequently
bee/ manured and established, says that the tee* con ists
of two parts, of which the internal bony layers (dentine)
seem to be composed of fibrous, and, as it were, tendinous
capillaments reticularly interwoven. Retzius cites many
recent authors-e.y., Scemmenng Schreger and Weber —
who mention the silky, glistening lustre of the dentine, and
Frederick Cuvier, in the preliminary discourse of his admir¬
able work, the Dents desMammiferes, observes, “ Les dents de
I’homme, de singes, de carnassiers, ont un ivorre d’apparance
soyeuse, qui semble forme de fibres” (p. 27). These intelli¬
gible hints of the true structure of the dentine, which the fore¬
going observers received from a superficial but unprejudiced
inspection, failed, however, to incite them to a closer inter¬
rogation of nature in regard to the dental tissues. One of
her most persevering investigators had, nevertheless, long
before obtained a true and definite answer to his more
direct inquiries. Leeuwenhoek having applied his micio-
scopical observations to the structure of the teeth, discovered
that the apparent fibres were really tubes, and he com¬
municated a brief but succinct account of his discovery to
the Royal Society of London, which was published, to¬
gether with a figure of the tube, in the 140th number of
their Transactions. This figure of the dentinal tubes, with
additional observations, again appears in the Latin edition
of Leeuwenhoek’s Works, published at Leyden in 1^30.
The dental substance (dentine) of the human teeth, and
of those taken from young hogs, is described as “ being
formed of tubuli spreading from the cavity in the centre
to the circumference.”4 Fig. 2 is accurately copied from
Leeuwenhoek’s original figure, intended to re¬
present the general arrangement of these tu¬
buli in the human molar tooth. The Dutch
microscopist computed that he saw 120 of the
tubuli within the forty-fifth part of an inch.0
Leeuwenhoek also shows that he was aware of
the peculiar substance, distinct from the Fig. 2.
and enamel, and now termed the cement, or section of Hu-
crusta petrosa, which enters into the composi- . ^oiar
tion of the teeth of the horse and ox ;6 a com- Leeuwenhoek,
ponent part of the tooth which Hunter speaks of as a second
kind of bone, and which was first accurately and specifically
described by Tenon7 and Blake.8
The discovery of Leeuwenhoek that the dentine was made
up of very minute tubes, which proceeded from the inner
to the outer surface of the tooth, was confirmed by
kinje 9 so far as regarded their existence; but Purkinje
added an exact and particular account of the direction of
these tubes in the human dentine, and showed that, in ad¬
dition to them, the dentine contained an intermediate or
intertubular tissue. This he describes as homogeneous and
without structure, and as entering into the composition of Introduc-
the dentine in a greater proportion than the tubes them- tl0n-
selves. The more extensive, varied, and minute observa- !s—
tions of Professor Retzius10 led to the discovery of the Structure,
cells of the intertubular tissue of the ramuli (fig. 3,/), sent
Fig. 3.
Hiehlv-maenified section of Dentine and Cement, from the Fang of a Human
60 Molar Tooth.
off from the main dentinal tubes (fig- 3, e?), into that tissue,
and of the anastomoses of the ramuli with each other (fig.
3, b), with the intertubular cells, and with the cells at the
periphery of the dentine (fig. 3, g). According to the re¬
searches of Dr Schwann,11 the animal basis of the intei tu¬
bular tissues possesses a fibrous structure. Besides the
primary and secondary branches of the dentinal tubes, Ret¬
zius first clearly described their curvatures and undula¬
tions, which may be defined as followsAs a general rule,
the dentinal tubes are directed, as affirmed
by Leeuwenhoek and Purkinje, from the
inner to the outer surface of the tooth, and
vertically to those surfaces, as shown in the
section of the human incisive tooth (fig.
4), and of the molar tooth (fig. 1, at
d, d). But in their course the tubes
describe two, three, or more curvatures,
appreciable by a low magnifying power.
These are termed the “primary curva¬
tures.”12 With a higher power, the tubes
are seen to be bent throughout the whole
of their flexuous course into minute and
oblique undulations or gyrations (fig. 3,
d), 200 of which were counted by Ret¬
zius in one-tenth part of an inch length
of a human dentinal tube; these are
termed the “secondary curvatures” or
gyrations.13 Both the primary and se¬
condary curvatures of one dentinal tube
are usually parallel with those of the con¬
tiguous tubes ; and from the radiated course ^ ^
of these tubes, they occasion the appear- section of Human
ance of lines running parallel with the ex- inmaor.
Fig. 4.
1 « Duplici excitantur parte, quarum interior ossea lamella fibrosis et quasi tendinosis capillamentis in naturam implicetis constat.”
(^Inatome Plantarum, Lugd. Batav. 1687, p. 37.) _ /lonn'i
3 Isenflamm und Rosenmuller’s Beitrdgen zur Zergliederungskunst, band i., p. 3 (180 ).
3 See his edition of Hildebrand’s ifand&wc/i der Hnatomie, band i., p-206. . -icto „ -iaao'i
4 “ Microscopical Observations on the Structure of Teeth and other Bones (Fhilosophtca ransac ions, , p. ).
6 See Hoole’s translation of the iSeZect TFbriis of Leeuwenhoek, 4to, 1798, p. 114. .
6 « parvi molares, quos bos, dum adhuc admodum juvenis sive vitulus, habuerat, undiquaque a io osse circum uc i . (
atio Epistolarum, 4to, Lugd. Bat. 1689, p. 7.) ^ ■ j a ■ d •
7 “ Memoire sur une Methode particuliere d’etudier 1’Anatomie,” in Memoires de l Academic des Sciences, Paris, an. vi.
8 An Essay on the Structure and Formation of Teeth, Dublin, 1802.
9 Be penitiori Dentium Humanorum structura Observationes, 4to, 1835. „
10 Mikroslcopiska Undersdkningar dfver Jddernes sdrdeles Tandbenets struktur, ^v0^n^0C^110yI1^jJ
11 Microskopische Untersuchungen iiber die
12 Trans. Brit. Assoc., vol. vii., p. 148. See
13 Odontography, p. 141; see plates 16, fig. 3; 24, fig. 2 ; 64 A, fig. 3.
VOL. XVI.
dernes sdrdeles Tandbenets strulctur, »vo, .
Uebereinstimmung in der Strucktur der Thiere und flanzen, vo,
See Odontography, plate 24, fig. 1 j 64 A, fig. 2 J 7 , g. ;
3 F
410
ODONTOLOGY.
Introduc- ternal contour of the tooth ; for, when the surface of a
tion. longitudinal section of a tooth is viewed with the naked eye,
^*sv^**' the light is differently reflected from the different parts of
Dental tis- the oblique secondary curves of the tube on which it
sue8* falls; but the curves being parallel to each other, and
to the superficial contour of the section, they appear like
the cut edges of a series of parallel and superimposed la¬
mellae. In many teeth, moreover, and especially in the tusks
of the elephant, the secondary branches of the dentinal
tubes dilate into intertubular cells; along lines which, in
like manner, are parallel to the coronal contour of the
tooth : hence another cause of the appearance of concentric
lamellae, and of the actual decomposition of such teeth
into superimposed lamelliform cones. Such appearances
and modes of decomposition are peculiar to the dense
or unvascular dentine, but are by no means common to
that modification of the tissue. Varieties of form, such as
the occasional aneurismal-like dilatations of the dentinal
tubuli, as shown at e (fig. 3), have been figured by that ac¬
curate and minute investigator of the pathology of the hu¬
man teeth, Mr S. J. A. Salter, in the Transactions of the
Pathological Society of London for 1855, pi. i., fig. 3. In
fig. 3 the delicate filamentary prolongations of the pulp are
represented at d, d; the dentinal compartments, or indica¬
tions of the original cells of the dentinal pulp are shown at
a, a ; and the modified peripheral layer of the dentine at g,
to the superior sensibility of which M. Duval first called
attention, distinguishing it by the name of “ dictyodonte.”1
Such is the typical structure of dentine, which structure re¬
lates, in regard to the curvilinear compartments, a, a (fig. 3),
to the steps in its formation ; and in regard to its tubular
columns, to the strength of the tooth and its vitality; the
latter important property depending on the percolation of
the plasma through the delicate cellular structure of the
filamentary prolongations of the pulp, so far as they may ex¬
tend along the tubuli. The sensibility of the dentine is due
to concomitant productions of neurine; but the distinct
tubules are not large enough to admit capillary vessels with
red particles of blood, and the tissue above described has
consequently been sometimes termed “ unvascular dentine.”
The simplest modification of dentine is that in which
capillary tracts of the primitive vascular pulp remain un¬
calcified, and permanently carry red blood into the sub¬
stance of the tooth. These so-called medullary canals
(more properly “ vascular canals”), present various disposi¬
tions in the dentine, which they modify, and which modi¬
fication is called “ vasodentine.”2 It is often combined
with true dentine in the same tooth ; e.g., in the scalpriform
incisors of certain rodents,3 the tusks of the elephant,4
the molars of the extinct iguanodon.5 A third modifica¬
tion of the fundamental tissue of the tooth is where the cel¬
lular basis of the dentine is arranged in concentric layers
around the vascular canals, and contains radiated cells like
those of osseous tissues ; it is called “ osteodentine.”
The tissue called “cement” closely corresponds with
osteodentine and with the osseous tissue of the skeleton of
the same animal in which it is found; and wherever it
occurs of sufficient thickness, as upon the teeth of the
horse (fig. 5, c), sloth (fig. 9, c), or ruminant, it is also tra¬
versed, like bone, by vascular canals. In reptiles and mam¬
mals, in which the animal basis of the bones of the
skeleton is excavated by
ing with their contents
the “corpuscles of Pur-
kinje,” these are like¬
wise present, of similar
size and form, in the “ce¬
ment ; ” and are its chief
characteristic as a con¬
stituent of the tooth. The
hardening material of the
cement is partly segre¬
gated and combined with
the parietes of the radiated
cells and canals; and is
partly contained in dis- "
gregated granules in the
cells, which are thus ren¬
dered white and opaque
viewed by reflected light.
The relative density of
the dentine and cement
varies according to the
proportion of the earthye
matter, and chiefly of that
part which is combined
with the animal matter in
the walls of the cavities,
as compared with the size
and number of the cavi¬
ties themselves. In the
complex grinders of the
elephant (fig. 140), the
wart-hog (fig. 121), the
minute radiated cells, form-
Introduc-
tiou.
Fig. 5.
Highly-magnified Section of part of a
Horse’s Tooth.
voles (fig. 88), and the capybara, the cement c, which forms
nearly half the mass of the tooth, wears down sooner than
the dentine.
The “enamel” is the hardest constituent of a tooth,
and consequently the hardest of animal tissues; but it
consists, like the other dental substances, of earthy matter
arranged by organic forces in an animal matrix. Here,
however, the earth is mainly contained in the canals of
the animal membrane; and, in mammals and reptiles,
completely fills those canals which are comparatively wide,
whilst their parietes are of extreme tenuity. The hard¬
ening salts of the enamel are not only present in far greater
proportion than in the other dental tissues ; but in some
animals are peculiarly distinguished by the presence of
a small proportion of fluate of lime.
The examples are extremely few, and confined to cold¬
blooded animals, of calcified teeth which consist of a single
tissue ; and this is always a modification of dentine. The
maxillary denticles of the parrot-fish (Scarus), and the large
pharyngeal teeth of the wrasse (Za&rws), consist of a very hard
kind of unvascular dentine. Fig. 6 shows a vertical section
of one of the latter teeth, supported upon the vascular
osseous tissue of the pharyngeal bone ; p is the pulp cavity.
The next stage of complexity is where a portion of
the dentine is modified by vascular canals. Teeth thus
composed of dentine and vaso-dentine are very common
in fishes. The hard dentine is always external, and holds
the place, and performs the office, of enamel in the teeth of
1 Observations Anatomiques sur VIvoire, 8vo, Paris, 1838, p. 14. “ Souvent les molaires sent tellement usees que, au lieu d’etre tuber-
culeuse, leur face triturante est lisse par I’effet de la detrition. On y distingue parfaitment, comme apres la coupe transversale d’une
dent, les aspects sous lesquels se presentent ses substances dures ; 1’un appartient a 1’email qui est tres-blanc; le second a la substance
osseuse, que je designe sous le nom d’osteodonte ; et le troisieme a cette partie qui, sous forme de zone circulaire et de couleur de corne, se
trouve entre ce dernier et I'email, et que j’appelle dictyodonte. Si avec la pointe d’un curedent d’acier, ou d’une sonde, on touche une
de ces parties, 1’email ne donne aucun signe de sensibility, 1’osteodonte quelquefois un peu, mais le dictyodonte beaucoup et plus sou¬
vent. (Duval, Observations Pratiques sur la Sensibilite des Dents, 8vo, 1833, p. 7.)
2 This substance was first characterized as a component of tooth distinct from ivory, enamel, cement, and true bone, and as easily re¬
cognisable, in a paper by the author, communicated to the British Association in 1838, loc. cit. p. 137.
3 Odontography, 4to, p. 405. 4 Ibid., p. 643. 5 Ibid., p. 251.
Introduc¬
tion.
Dental tis¬
sues.
higher animals.1
ODONTOLOGY.
Fig. 7 illustrates this structure in a longi-
411
for which it has commonly been mistaken in the teeth of Introduc-
fishes; it is called “ vitrodentine.” ^ tl0D' ,
The molars of the dugong are examples of teeth com-
posed of dentine and cement; the latter tissue forming a Dental tis-
thick external layer. Fig. 8 shows a transverse section ot sues.
Fig. 6.
Magn. section of a Pharyngeal Tooth of Labrus.
tudinal section of a tooth of a shark of the genus Lamna ;
in the outer layer of hard unvascular dentine, the earthy
n at.-size.
Fig. 8.
Magn. section of part of a Molar Tooth of the Dugong (Halicore indicus).
Fig. 7.
Magn. section of a Tooth of a Shark (Lanina).
constituent so predominates that it takes a polish like enamel.
the crown of the second molar, natural size, and above it a
magnified view of a portion of the section ; in which d is the
dentine, remarkable for the number of minute calciferous
cells at its periphery, and c is the cement. A small portion
of osteodentine usually occupies the centre of the crown ato.
In the large teeth ot the lower jaw of the cachalot (Phy-
seter) the pulp-cavity of the growing tooth becomes filled
up by osteodentine, the result of a modified calcification
of the dentinal pulp; and the full-grown tooth presents
three tissues, as shown in fig. 62, in which c is the thick
external cement, d the hard dentine, and o the osteoden¬
tine: the latter is sometimes developed into stalactitic-shaped
nodules, loose in the pulp-cavity.
In the teeth of the sloth, and of its great extinct congener
the megatherium, the hard dentine is reduced to a thin
layer, and the chief bulk of the tooth is made up of a
central body of vasodentine, and a thick external crust ot
cement. Fig. 9 represents a longitudinal section of a lower
molar of the three-toed sloth {Bradypus tridactylus) mag¬
nified ; v is the vasodentine, d is the hard dentine, and c is
the cement; p is the apex of the wide persistent pulp-
cavity. In the megatherium the hard dentine, which is
the firmest tissue, forms the transverse ridge of the grind¬
ing surface (fig. 54, d), like the enamel-plates in the ele¬
phant’s grinder : it has consequently been described to be
enamel,2 but its relation to that tissue is only one of analogy
or function.
The human teeth, and those of the carnivorous mammals,
appear at first sight to be composed of dentine and enamel
only, as they were described to be by the Cuviers,3 wrho
called them therefore “ simple teethbut their crowns are
originally, and their fangs are always, covered by a thin coat
of cement. There is also commonly a small central tract
1 Odontography, pp. 17, 37. 2 Cuvier, Ossemens Fossiles, 4to, tom. v., p. 172.
3 Dents de Mammiferes, p. 1; Lemons d'Anat. Comp. iv. (1836), p. 199.
412
ODONTOLOGY.
Introduc- of osteodentine in old teeth. In figs. 1 and 4, magnified
tion.
Fig. 9.
Magn. section of a Molar of the Sloth (Bradypus tridactylus).
views are given of longitudinal sections of a human incisor
and molar tooth, in which d is the dentine, e the enamel,
and c the cement.
The teeth called by Cuvier “ compound” or “complex”
in Mammalia, differ, as regards their composition, from the
preceding only by the different proportion and disposition
of the constituent tissues. Fig. 10 is a longitudinal section
of the incisor of a horse; d is the den¬
tine, e is the enamel, and c the cement;
c is the layer of cement reflected into
the deep central depression of the crown,
usually occupied by a coloured mass of tar¬
tar and particles of food, forming the
“ mark” of the horse-dealer. The charac¬
teristic structure of the three tissues—d
dentine, e enamel, c cement—is shown in
the magnified part of the section in fig. 5.
A very complex tooth may be formed
out of two tissues by the way in which
they are interblended as the result
of an original complex disposition
of the constituents of the dental ma¬
trix. The teeth of certain fishes, and
of a singular extinct family of gigantic
sauroid Batrachians, called “Labyrintho-
donts,”1 exhibit, as the name implies, a
remarkable instance of this kind of com¬
plexity. Fig. 11 is a view of a canine
tooth of the Labyrinthodon salaman- of the incisor of a
dro'ides, of the natural size ; and fig. 12 Hoise-
is a slightly magnified view of a transverse section across
the part of the crown marked a. At first view the tooth
appears to be of the simple conical kind, with the exterior
surface merely striated longitudinally, but every such streak
is a fissure into which the very thin external layer of cement introduc-
c is reflected into the body of the tooth, where it follows tion.
the sinous wavings of the lobes of dentine which diverge
from the central pulp-cavity pp. The inflected fold of Dental tis-
cement c runs straight for about half a line, and then be- sues,
comes wavy, the waves rapidly increasing in breadth as
they recede from the
periphery of the tooth :
the first two, three,
or four undulations
are simple ; then their
contour itself becomes
broken by smaller
or secondary waves;
these become stronger
as the fold approaches
the centre of the
tooth, when it in¬
creases in thickness,
and finally terminates
by a slight dilatation
or loop close to the
pulp - cavity, from
which the free margin
of the inflected fold of
cement is separated
by an extremely thin
layer of dentine. The
number of the in¬
flected converging
folds of dentine is
about fifty at the mid¬
dle of the crown of
the tooth figured, but
is greater at the base.
All the inflected folds
of cement at the base
of the tooth have the
same complicated dis¬
position with increas-
ed extent ; but as Qanjne Tooth of the Labyrinthodon salaman-
they approach their droidesin&t. size),
termination towards the upper part of the tooth, they gra-
Fig. 12.
Transverse section of a Tooth of the Labyrinthodon (magn.)
dually diminish in breadth, and consequently penetrate to a
Proceedings of the Geological Society, January 20, 1841, p. 257.
ODONTOLOGY.
413
Introduc- less distance into the substance of the tooth. Hence, m such
tion. a section as is delineated, it will be observed that some of
v s/ ' the convoluted folds, as those marked c, extend to near the
Dental tis- centre of the tooth; others, as those marked c reach only
sues. about halfway to the centre; and those folds, c ,which, to use
a geological expression, are “ cropping out, penetrate to a
very short distance into the dentine, and resemble m their
extent and simplicity the converging folds of cement in
the pulp of the tooth of the Ichthyosaurus. I he dispo¬
sition of the dentine is still more complicated than that of
the cement. It consists of a slender central conical column,
excavated by a conical pulp-cavity for a certain distance
from the base of the tooth; and that column sends radiat¬
ing outwards from the circumference a series of vertical
plates, which divide into two once or twice before they
terminate at the periphery of the tooth. Each of these
diverging and dichotomizing plates gives off throughout its
course smaller processes, which stand at right angles, or
nearly so, to the main plate; they are generally opposite,
but sometimes alternate ; many of the secondary plates or
processes which are given off near the centre of the tooth
also divide into two before they terminate, and their con¬
tour is seen in the transverse section to partake of all the
undulations of the folds of cement which invest and divide
the dentinal plates and processes from each other. The
dental pulp-cavity is reduced to a mere line about the
upper third of the tooth, but throughout its whole extent
fissures radiate from it corresponding in number with the
radiating plates of dentine. Each fissure is continued
along the middle of each bifurcation and process to within
a short distance of the line of cement. The pulp-fissure
commonly dilates into a canal at the origin of the lateral
processes of the radiating plates, before it divides to ac¬
company and penetrate those processes. The main fis¬
sures or radiations of the pulp-cavity extend to within a
line or half a line of the periphery of the tooth, and sud¬
denly dilate at their terminations into spaces, which in
transverse section are subcircular, oval, or pyriform (p); the
branches of the radiating lines, which are continued into
the lateral secondary plates or processes of the dentinal
lamellae, likewise dilate into similar and generally smaller
spaces. All these spaces or canals in the living tooth,
must have been occupied by corresponding processes of
the vascular pulp; they constitute so many centres of ra¬
diation of the fine calciferous tubes, which, with their unit¬
ing clear substance, constitute the dentine.1 *
An analogous complexity is produced by numerous
fissures radiating from a central mass of vasodentine,
which more or less fills up the pulp-cavity of the seem¬
ingly simple conical teeth of the extinct family of
fishes called “ Dendrodonts,” characterizing the Old Red
Sandstone, or Devonian system.
Fig. 13 is one of these fossil
teeth of the natural size—a,
a transverse section; and fig.
14 a reduced view of a por¬
tion of the same section en¬
larged twenty diameters. Thus
magnified, a central pulp-ca¬
vity of relatively small size, and
of an irregular lobulated form,
is discerned, a portion of which
is shown at y; this is imme¬
diately surrounded by trans¬
verse sections of large cylin¬
drical vascular or pulp canals
of different sizes; and beyond these there are smaller and
Fig. 13.
Tooth of Dendrodus biporcatus
(nat. size).
more numerous medullary canals, which are processes of Introduc-
the central pulp-cavity. In the transverse section these tion-
processes are seen to be connected together by a net-work ^
of smaller vascular canals belonging to a coarse osseous Dental tis¬
sues.
Fig. 14.
Magn. section of part of Dendrodus biporcatus.
texture, into which the pulp has been converted, and this
structure occupies the middle half of the section. All the
vascular canals were filled up by the opaque matrix. From
the circumference of the central net-work straight pulp-
fissures radiate at pretty regular intervals to the periphery
of the tooth; most of these fissures divide once, rarely twice,
in their course,—the division taking place sometimes at their
orio-in, in others at different distances from their termina-
tions,-—-and the branches diverge slightly as they proceed.
Each of the above pulp-canals or fissures is continued from
a short process of the central structure, which is connected
by a concave line with the adjoining process, so that the
whole periphery of the transverse section of the central
coarse reticulo-vascular body of the tooth presents a cre-
nate outline. From each ray and its primary dichotomous
divisions short branches are sent off at brief intervals, ge¬
nerally at right angles with the trunk, or slightly inclined
towards the periphery of the tooth. These subdivide into
a few short ramifications like the branches of a shrub, and
terminate in irregular and somewhat angular dilations simu¬
lating leaves, but which resolve themselves into radiating
fasciculi of minute dentinal tubes. There are from fifteen
to twenty-five or thirty-six of these short and small lateral
branches on each side of the medullary rays.
A third kind of complication is produced by an aggrega¬
tion of many simple teeth into a single mass.
The examples of these truly compound teeth3 are most
common in this class of fishes, but the illustration here
selected is from the mammalian class. Each tooth of the
Cape ant-eater (Orycteropus, fig. 15) presents a simple
form; is deeply set in the jaws, but without dividing into
1 Odontography, pp. 195-217, pi. 64 A, 64 B. " Ibld’1 P' 171‘ , , „ ,,
3 In the Leqons d’Anatomic Comparee of Cuvier, the teeth in which folds of enamel and cement penetrate the entire substance ol t e
crown are called “compound.” “Nous appellons dent composee celle dont les differentes substances forment des rephs tellement pro-
414
ODONTOLOGY.
Fig. 15.
Magn. section of a part of the Compound Tooth of
the Orycteropus.
Introduc- fangs; its broad and flat base is porous, like the section of
tion. a common cane. The canals to which these pores lead
contain processes of a vascular pulp, and are the centres of
Dental tis- radiation of as many independent series of dentinal tubules,
sues. Each tooth, in fact, consists of a congeries of long and
slender prismatic denticles of dentine, which are cemented
together by their ossified capsules, the columnar denticles
slightly decreasing in diameter, and occasionally bifurcating
as they approach the grinding surface of the tooth. A
figure of a longitudinal section of the molar teeth is given in
pi. 76, fig. 10, of the author’s Odontography. Fig. 15 gives
a magnified view
of a portion of the
transverse section
of the fourth molar,
showing c the ce¬
ment, d the den¬
tine, and/? the pulp-
cavity of the den¬
ticles.
The pectinated
incisors of the fly¬
ing lemur of the
Indian Islands ((xa-
leopithecus, fig. 86) are examples of teeth the crowns of
which are composed of denticles consisting of hard den¬
tine, with a covering of true enamel. The layer of ce¬
ment over this is too thin to show its characteristic structure,
and does not fill up the intervals of the denticles, which
stand out as free processes from the base of the crown.
Tubular prolongations of the pulp-cavity are continued up
the centre of each denticle. The originally detached sum¬
mits of the crown of the human incisor are homologous
with these columnar processes or denticles of the incisor of
the Galeopithecus. In the compound molars of the great
African wart-hog {Phacochcerm), the columnar denticles
are in three rows, and their interspaces are filled up
by cement; each denticle consists of a slender column
of hard dentine inclosed in a thick sheet of enamel, the
whole being bound together by the cement; and the den¬
ticles, as in the Galeopithecus, blend together into a com¬
mon base in the fully-developed tooth. A figure is given
of the grinding surface of the third true molar of the Pha-
cochcerus Pallasii in fig. 121.
In the elephant the denticles of the compound molars
are in the form of plates, vertical to the grinding surface,
and transverse to the long diameter of the tooth (figs. 140,
141). When the tooth is bisected vertically and length¬
wise, the three substances—d dentine, e enamel, and c
cement—are seen interblended.
A still more complex grinding apparatus is found in certain
fishes. The lower pharyngeal bone of the parrot-fish
{Scarus), for example, supports a dental plate with a tritu¬
rating surface, like that of the compound molars of the
Phacochcerus ; the interlocked upper pharyngeals (fig. 35)
support dental masses with a grinding surface, more like
that of the compound molars of the elephant. When a
vertical and longitudinal section is made of one of these
upper pharyngeal compound teeth, each denticle is
seen to be composed of a body of very hard and unvas-
cular dentine, with a thick sheath of enamel, the den¬
ticles being united together by the cement, and sup¬
ported and further united together, and to the pharyngeal
bone, by a basal mass of vascular osteodentine. When
worn down by the trituration of hard corals to this basis,
four alternating kinds of dental tissue, of varying degrees introduc.
of density, and of corresponding variations of level, are tion.
exposed in this fish.1
Such are some of the prominent features of a field of Dental tis-
observation which comparative anatomy opens to our view, sues.
—such the varied nature, and such the gradation of com¬
plexity of the dental tissues, which, up to December 1839,
continued, notwithstanding successive approximations to the
truth, to be described in systematic works as a “ Phaneros,
or a dead part or product exhaled from the surface of a
formative bulb.”2
In the development of a tooth, a matrix or formative Develop,
organ, corresponding in complexity with the kind of tooth ment.
to be formed, is first developed. It consists either of a soft
vascular papilla,—a free conical process,—as in certain
fishes (fig. 24, c), which mold of the future simple tooth is
called its “ pulp,” or the “ dentinal pulp ; ” or it consists of
the “ pulp ” inclosed in a “ capsule or of a pulp with such
a modification of a peripheral part, situated between the
pulp proper and the capsule, as to merit a distinct definition
as an “ enamel organ.” The first and most constant of
these parts is termed the “ dentinal pulp ” (fig. 16, />) ; the
second is the capsule, or “ ce- y
mental pulp” (fig. 16, c); the
third is the “ enamel pulp ”
(fig. 16, e). _ r
The linear cavity in the
gums of the embryo, in which
the pulps of the first series of
teeth are formed, is termed the
“ primary dental groove:” where
the first are succeeded by a
second set of teeth, the pulps
of these teeth are developed in
a distinct recess, called the
“ secondary dental groove.”
In man a certain proportion
only of the teeth developed in
the primary groove are displaced by teeth developed in a
secondary groove ; and the twenty teeth, so displaced, are
called “ milk-teeth,” or deciduous teeth. The teeth of the
molar series developed in the secondary groove are called
“ premolars,” or bicuspids. The true molars are a conti¬
nuation of the primary series, and are only “ permanent,”
inasmuch as those of the secondary series are not co-exten-
sive with them in number and position in the jaws. The
differentiation of teeth, according to place and order of de¬
velopment, is illustrated (fig. 17) in the lower jaw of a young
Fig. 16.
Matrix of a Human Tooth (magn.)
Fig. 17.
Section of Lower Jaw of a young Hog, showing the Teeth in course of formation.
hog. The teeth of the grinding series marked d l to d 4,
m 1 to m 3, are successively developed from before back¬
wards in the primary groove; the teeth marked p 2 to
p 4 are developed in the secondary groove, as are also
the successors of the canines and incisors. Both grooves
fonds, que dans quelque sens qu’on coupe la dent, on coupe plusieurs fois chacune des substances qui la composen , e es son
molaires de V elephant” The teeth ofthe ‘ Labyrinthodonts ? would come under this definition more tru y an ^se 0 ,
phant, although they differ from them in having no enamel; for a molar of an elephant might be bisected vertica y an ransv )
without cutting the tissues across more than once. . , ., o, a 4r.
1 Numerous other modifications of dental structure will be found described and figured in the author s Odontograp iy, o,
2 De Blainville, Osteographie, passim.
1 The general results of this communication were given in the Comptes Rqndus, 1839, p. 783. The commission appointed by the
French Academy to report on a subsequent memoir on the same subject, advert to some of the phenomena previously communicated by
the present writer. “ Quant aux preparations qui montrent 1’areolite de la pulpe, non seulement nous les avons reproduites avec suc¬
cess ; mais de plus nous avons constate, a I’etat frais, la granulation des areoles signalee par M. Richard Owen,” loc. cit. 1842, p. 1063.
416
ODONTOLOGY.
Introduc- interpretation of the “proper parietes” of the dentinal tube,
titm. 'phg indications of the primitive boundary or proper parietes
of the parent cell (fig. 19, a) are in like manner more or less
distinctly retained, through a modification of the arrange¬
ment of the calcareous salts in the boundaries and in the in¬
terspaces of the cells. The salts are sometimes blended with
the blastema in these interspaces in a disgregated condition,
which renders them almost as opaque as the arese of the
tubes. When a layer of the calcified cells is carefully de¬
tached, the exposed uncalcified surface of the pulp pre¬
sents the appearance of a net-work, the meshes being formed
by the exposed cells and the intervening very thin layer of
blastema. Each mesh, however, which gives a transparent
or bright contour to the cell, when viewed by transmitted
light, instead of presenting a single stellate nucleus, shows,
by well-directed light under a higher power, several points,
each of which have been torn from the cavities of the den¬
tinal tubes in the displaced cap of dentine. A view of the
thin transparent margin of the cap of a growing tooth, which
may be cut off with a pair of fine scissors, easily affords the
means of demonstrating the corresponding structure in that
calcified part of the pulp. A slight change of focus is re¬
quired to bring the ends ofthetubuli in view, from that in which
the clear outline of the dentinal cell is best seen. In propor¬
tion as the process of calcification approximates the cells,
and as these have undergone the changes in their nucleolar
contents preparatory to the proper arrangement of the har¬
dening salts within, the proportion of the basal substance
in the interspaces of the cells to the enlarged cells them¬
selves decreases, and the cells become more readily detached,
and seemingly independent, when torn out in the displace¬
ment of the cap of dentine. Although they are less ad¬
herent laterally to the basal substance of the pulp, they are
more coherent with the cells of the same linear series, the
tubes of the calcified cell accepting or effecting a union
with the peripheral ends of the elongated granular nuclei,
or nucleolar cavities of the contiguous cell in the next cen¬
tral layer. The angles at which the elongated nuclei, or suc¬
cessive portions of the dentinal tubuli, thus unite, con¬
stitute the secondary gyrations or curves of the cells. The
primary curves depend upon the arrangement of the pri¬
mary linear series of the parent cells or compartments of the
PulP*
The original contour of these cells is most discernible
after calcification of the teeth of the Mammalian class, and
here with different degrees of distinctness in different spe¬
cies. They are the true dentinal cells or compartments
(fig. 3, a, a), and must not be confounded with the so-called
intertubular or interfibrous cells f, g, the first notice of
which is due to Retzius. The diameter of the denti¬
nal compartments or calcified primary cells of the pulp is
usually one-fourth or one-half larger than that of the blood-
disc of the species manifesting them. These cells are figured
in the treatise on Odontography above referred to, in the
Mylodon (pi. 79), in the incisive tusk of the Dugong (pi.
95), in the premolar (pi. 113), and in the canine (pi. 113, a)
of the Pteropus, in the incisor of the chimpanzee (pi. 119, a),
and of the human subject (pi. 123), and in the molar of a
rhinoceros (pi. 139). They have been subsequently de¬
scribed and figured by Czermak.1
The altered mode of action, or change in the nuclei of
the smaller central cells of the pulp, is the first and essential
step in the modification of the dentinal tissue which pro¬
duces the substances which are termed osteodentine and
vasodentine. In the former, many of the cells retain their
nucleus undivided, and the hardened salts are impacted
around it in the interior of the cell, but enter only partially
into the granular substance of the nucleus, in the minutely
disgregated form, which produces the opacity and whiteness
of the resulting corpuscle. In the formation of vasoden- Introduc-
tine many of the cells lose their nucleus, which seems to tion.
have become dissolved. In both the latter modifications of
dental tissue the blood-vessels remain, and establish the
wide tubular tracts in the calcified substance to which the
name of the “ vascular canals” is given. In true, hard, or un-
vascular dentine no trace of the blood-vessels remains ; all
has been converted into a much more minute calcified
tubular tissue by the assimilative or intersusceptive proper¬
ties of cells, and by the modification of their nucleolar
contents. But the vascularity of the dentinal pulp, and
especially the rich network of looped capillaries that adorns
the formative peripheral layer at the period of its functional
activity, have attracted general notice, and have been de¬
scribed by Hunter and subsequent authors on dental de¬
velopment. By most this phenomenon has been regarded
as evidence of the secreting function of the surface of the
pulp, and the dentine as an out-pouring from that vascular
surface which was supposed to shrink or withdraw from the
matter excreted. For it has been asked, “ If the unvascu-
lar dentine be the effect of the conversion of the vascular
pulp, by what process is all trace of the vascular ramifications
obliterated, since none can be detected in such dentine ?”
The same question is equally applicable to the nerves of the
pulp. In the explanation of this process attention must
first be paid to the almost straight and sub-parallel course
of the vessel in the pulp’s substance, and to the remarkable
regularity of form and size of the meshes of the terminal
reticulation on the surface of the pulp.
At the part where calcification has commenced the
extremities of the capillaries are commonly found in a state
of congestion, and crowded with blood-discs, which are
pressed together into polyhedrons, and apparently stagnated
and left out of the current of circulation. These aggre¬
gated blood-discs exhibited, in various and often in striking
degrees, those changes of the contained matter to which
their own multiplication may be due. In this present situa¬
tion and condition it is obvious that such changes must be
preparatory either to their disappearance and removal, or
to some important share which they are destined to take in
the development of the dental tissue. The stagnant cor¬
puscles nearest the vascular and unchanged pulp exhibit
the irregularity of contour which has given rise to the
terms “ mulberry” or “ granulated,” applied to such altered
blood-discs when seen in other circumstances. These cor¬
puscles in other respects, as colour, size, and general
form, retained their usual character. The blood-discs
nearer the cap of dentine exhibited more plainly the
contained granules, to the commencing development ot
which the irregular contour above mentioned is due; this
appearance was associated with an increase of size, a change
from the circular to the elliptical form, and a gradual loss of
the characteristic colour, which was longest retained by the
central granular matter.
The enamel-pulp differs from the dentinal pulp at its
first formation by the more fluid state of its blastema, and
by the fewer and more minute cells which it contains. The
part of the blastema next the dental pulp acquires more
consistence by an increased number of its granules, and it
contains more numerous and larger cells. Many of these
show a nuclear spot, others a nucleus and nucleolus; the
spherical nucleolar cells in the part of the blastema farther
from the capsule are so numerous as to form an aggregate
mass, with a small quantity of the condensed blastema in
the minute interspaces left between the cells, which are
pressed together into hexagonal or polygonal forms. In
this state they constitute a great part of the enamel-pulp,
which is of considerable extent in the complex molar teeth
of the ruminants. The appearance produced by these
1 Beitrage zur Mikroskopischen Anatomie der Menschlichen Ad fine, 8vo, 1850, taf. i. unci ii.
ODONTOLOGY.
417
Introduc- aggregate cells, in a section of the tooth-matrix of a calf s
tion. molar, is compared by Raschkow1 and Purkinje to the
actinenchyma of certain vegetable tissues, and the con¬
necting condensed blastema to threads of cellular tissue.
The field of the final metamorphosis of the cells into the
moulds for the reception of the solidifying salts is confined
to close contiguity with the surface of the dentinal pulp.
Here the cells increase in length, lose all trace of their
nucleus, and become converted into long and slender cylin¬
ders, usually pointed at both ends, and pressed by mutual
contact into a prismatic form. These cylinders have the
property' of imbibing the calcareous salts of the enamel fiom
the plasmatic fluid, and of compacting them in a clear and
almost crystalline state in their interior—the disappearance
of the nucleus being evidently the condition of the absence
of any permanent cavity, cell, canal, or other modification of
the mineral matter, at least in the enamel-fibres of the calf.
In the human subject it is probable that the cavity of the
cylinder may be subdivided, by a multiplication of delicate
nucleoli, into compartments; or that the remains of such
multiplied nucleoli may cause a modification of the walls of
the cylinder, and so produce the characteristic transverse
striae of the enamel-fibre. This appearance is not pre¬
sented in the enamel of the frog’s tooth, nor in that of the
teeth of the hog or calf, in which animals the writer’s ob¬
servations of the development of this tissue have been
chiefly made. As the development proceeds, the cells in
immediate contiguity with the calcified prisms undergo the
same changes as their predecessors, and become united to
them by their peripheral pointed extremities ; whilst the
fluid plasmatic contents of the cells are exchanged for the
dense salts of which the enamel is chiefly composed. The
selective surface formed by the organic membrane of the
cell would seem to be destroyed by the very pressure re¬
sulting from its own action, and exerted by the contents of
the closely-packed contiguous prisms when the cavities of
the cells are completely filled. The membrane ceases, at
least, to be distinguishable under the microscope from the
solid contents of the cell, except at that surface of the
enamel next the capsule, and which is still in progress of
growth. What is remarkable here is, that not the whole
of the actinenchymatous part of the enamel-pulp is con¬
verted into the long and slender prismatic cellular basis of
the enamel; at least in the valleys of the complex crown
of the molars of the ruminant and pachyderm (calf and colt).
This part of the enamel-pulp originally occupies more space
than the subsequent layer of enamel does ; and this super¬
fluous peripheral part seems to be absorbed, and its place
to be occupied by a growth or thickening of the vascular
capsule. No capillaries pass from the capsule into the
actinenchymatous pulp of the enamel; nor has the writer
been able to trace a blood-vessel into that part of the cap¬
sule which was actually the seat of the calcifying processes.
Here, as in the dentinal and enamel pulps, the calcareous
salts are selected and arranged by the assimilative, selec¬
tive, and intus-susceptive properties of the cell walls, and by
the repellent power of their nuclei. The enamel pulp
bears a relation to the dentinal pulp analogous to that
which the peripheral part of the matrix producing the vitro-
dentine of the shark’s tooth bears to the body of the matrix
forming the osteodentine. Evidence of the close connec¬
tion between the enamel and dentine in the marsupial
Mammals is given in plate 102 of the author’s Odonto¬
graphy. The differentiation of the two tissues, and the
distinction of their formative pulps, become greater in the
higher Mammalia.
The blastema or fundamental tissue of the capsule is at
first semitransparent, and of a pearly or opaline colour, but
richly ornamented with blood-vessels. As the period of its Introduc-
calcification approaches, which is later than that of the tion-
dentinal pulp, it becomes denser, and exhibits numerous
nucleated cells. The blastema itself presents more evi¬
dently a fine cellular or granular structure, in which the
calcareous salts are impacted in a comparatively clear state,
constituting the framework of the cemental tissue, d he
characteristic features of this tissue are due to the action of
the proper nucleated cells upon the salts of the plasma
diffused through the blastema, in which those cells are
imbedded—the cells being characterized by a single large
granular nucleus, which almost fills the clear area of the
cell itself. If, when the formation of the cement has begun
in the incisor or molar of a colt, one of the detached specks
of that substance, with the surrounding and adhering part
of the inner surface of the capsule in which it is imbedded,
be examined, these nucleated cells are seen closely aggre¬
gated around the calcified part in concentric rows, the cells
of which are farther apart as the rows recede from the field
of calcification. Those next the cement rest in cup-shaped
cavities in the periphery of the calcified part; just as the
first calcified cells of the thick cement which covers the
crown of a complex molar are lodged in the exterior of the
enamel. These exterior cavities of the cement are formed
by centrifugal extension of the calcifying process in the
blastema in which the cells are imbedded. The calcareous
salts penetrate, in a clearer and more compact state, the
cavity of the cell; but their progress is arrested apparently
by the nucleus, which maintains an irregular area, partly
occupied by the salts in a subgranular, opaque condition, but
chiefly concerned in the reception and transit of the plas¬
matic fluid, which enters and escapes by the minute tubes
which are subsequently developed from the nucleolar cavity
as calcification proceeds. The radiated cells or cavities
thus formed are the most common characteristic of the
cement, but not the constant one. The layer of the cap¬
sule which surrounds the crown of the human teeth, and of
the simple teeth of Quadrumana and Carnivora, consists
of the granular blastema, without or with very few nucle¬
ated cells; and the radiated corpuscles are consequently
not developed, or are sparingly developed, in the cement
which results from its calcification. In the thicker parts of
the inflected folds of the capsule of the complex teeth of
the Herbivora, traces of the vascularity of that part of the
matrix are persistent, the blastema calcifying around cer¬
tain of the capillaries, and forming the medullary canals.
The parietes of these canals are traversed by minute tubes,
continued from, or communicating with, the radiated cells.
In the deep sockets of the teeth of persistent growth
the matrix is maintained by the constant additions of new
blastema and cell material to the bases of the dentinal, enamel,
and cemental pulps. The author has demonstrated the
partial growth of the enamel-pulp along the side of the
capsule corresponding to the convexity of the long incisor
of the under-jaw of the porcupine, in the preparation now
in the physiological series of the Hunterian collection
(No. 375 A.)
Chemical analyses2 of the composite substances, as built Composi-
up by the organizing processes in the fundamental tissues tion of
of the matrix above described, have yielded the followingteeth'
results:—
Incisors of Adult Man.
Dentine.
Organic substance... 28'70 3'59
Inorganic substance. Tl'SO 96-41
Cement.
L * II.
29-42 29 12
70-58 70-88
100-00 100-00 100-00 100-00
1 Meletemata circa dentium evolutionem, 4to, 1835.
2 These results are cited chiefly from Bibra’s Chemische Untersuchungen tiler die Knochen und Zdhne, 8vo, 1844.
VOL. XVI. 3 G
ODONTOLOGY.
418
Molars of Adult Man.
66-72
Dentine.
Phosphate of lime, with a trace of'
fluate of lime ^
Carbonate of lime  3-36
Phosphate of magnesia  1-08
Salts  ;  0-83
Chondrine   27-61
Fat  0-40
100-00
Enamel.
89-82
4-37
1-34
0-88
3-39
0-20
100-00
Berzelius’ analysis gives—
Dentine.
Phosphate of lime, with a trace of)
fluate of lime J
Carbonate of lime  5"3
Phosphate of magnesia  1-0
Soda and muriate of soda  1-4
Cartilage and other animal matter  28"0
100-0
Enamel.
88-5
8-0
1-5
20
100-0
Canine of a Lion.
Dentine.
Phosphate of lime, with a trace of 1 60"03
fluate of lime J
Carbonate of lime  3-00
Phosphate, of magnesia  4-21
Salts  0-77
Chondrine   31-57
Fat  0-42
100-00
Enamel.
83-33
2- 94
3- 70
0-64
9-39
a trace.
10000
Teeth of a Dolphin (Delphinus delphis).
Dentine.
Phosphate of lime, with a trace of l
fluate of lime J
Carbonate of lime  l-84
Phosphate of magnesia  1-36
Salts  0-99
Chondrine   28‘62
Fat  0-82
100-00
Cement.
69-42
1-79
1-47
0-93
25-73
0-66
100-00
Tusk of Elephant.
Ivory.
Phosphate of lime, with a trace of fluate of lime.. 38-48
Carbonate of lime   5-63
Phosphate of magnesia  12*01
Salts  0-70
Chondrine   42-94
Fat   0*24
10000
Tush of Wild Boar.
Dentine.
Phosphate of lime, with a trace of fluate of lime.. 60-00
Carbonate of lime  2-51
Phosphate of magnesia  6*43
Salts  0-43
Chondrine   30-50
Fat   013
100-00
Incisors of Ox.
Phosphate of lime, with a |
trace of fluate of lime... J
Carbonate of lime 
Phosphate of magnesia  
Salts 
Chondrine 
Fat   
Dentine. Enamel. Cement.
59-57 81-86 58*73
7*00 9-33 7-22
0-99 1-20 0-99
0-91 0-93 0-82
30-71 6-66 31-31
0-82 0-02 0-93
100-00 100-00 100-00
Crocodile.
Phosphate of lime, with a trace of
fluate of lime 
Carbonate of lime 
Phosphate of magnesia 
Salts  
Chondrine  
Fat  
Dentine. Cement.
53-69 53-39
6-30 6*29
10-22 9-99
1-34 1-42
27*66 28-15
0-79 0-76
100-00 100-00
Introduc¬
tion.
Pike (Esox lucius), Large Teeth of Loioer Jaw.
Dentine.
Phosphate of lime, with a trace of fluate of lime... 63-98
Carbonate of lime   2-54
Phosphate of magnesia   0-73
Salts  0-97
Chondrine   30-60
Fat   1*18
100-00
The proportion of mineral or inorganic substance would
seem to vary, within certain limits, in different individuals
of the same species. Thus, in the molar teeth of one man
Bibra found 79‘00 of inorganic matter, and in another,
7T99; whilst Berzelius found 72*0. The proportion of
inorganic matter in hard dentine will depend in some
degree upon the number of dentinal tubes, from the area
of which the salts are in part excluded: thus, in the mo¬
dified dentine (ivory) of the elephant’s tusk, in which the
tubuli are more numerous, close-set, and extensively un¬
dulated in a given space than in ordinary dentine, the
organic bears a greater proportion to the inorganic matter
than in the dentine of the teeth of most other Mammals.
The cement of the composite molar teeth of the ruminants
and of the elephant contains a little more organic matter
than the dentine does; but in the cetaceous dolphin it con¬
tains a rather less proportion, and is consequently harder.
The nerves of the teeth are derived from the trigeminal Nerves of
or fifth pair, of which the second division supplies those of the teeth,
the upper jaw, the third division those of the lower jaw
(fig. 20). In the human subject, the three dental branches
Eig. 20.
Upper and Lower Jaws of a Hog, dissected to show the Nerves of the Teeth.
of the infra-orbital nerve intercommunicate by their primary
branches, from which, and from a rich plexus formed by
secondary branches upon the membrane lining the antrum,
two sets of nerves are sent off to the alveolar processes of
the upper jaw : one set (rami dentales) supplies the teeth,
the other (rami gingivales) the osseous tissue of the jaw
and the gums. The latter agree in number with the in¬
tervals of the teeth, as the proper dental nerves do with the
teeth themselves. These two sets are not, however, so
distinct but that some intercommunications are established
between the fine branches sent off in their progress to the
parts they are specially destined to supply. The rami den¬
tales take the more direct course through the middle part
of the osseous tissue to the teeth, penetrate the orifices of
the fangs, and form a rich plexus with rhomboidal meshes
ODONTOLOGY.
419
Introduc- upon the coronal surface of the pulp, the peripheral elemen-
tion. tary filaments returning into the plexus by loops.
V—' In the lower jaw, the dental nerve, besides supplying the
proper nerves to the teeth, also forms a rich plexus, in
which it is joined by some branches from the division of
the nerve that afterwards escapes by the foramen mentale,
and from this plexus the cancellous tissue of the bone, as
well as the gums, are supplied.
In the dog and other Carnivora the nerve of the laniary
tooth is conspicuous from its size: that which supplies the
still more developed analogous tooth or tusk of the boar
(fig. 20, c) is still more developed, having relation also to
the continual reproduction of the matrix at the base of the
tusk. In the lower jaw of the porcupine (fig. 21) the nerve
of the great incisor is given off from the dental nerve (w),
Fig. 21.
Lower Jaw of a Porcupine, dissected to show the Nerves of the Great Incisor
near the middle of its course through the osseous canal, and
returns at an acute angle to penetrate the cavity at the base
of the sealpriform tooth, and supply its persistent pulp i.
This recurrent course indicates the progressive change in
the relative position of the pulp to the origin of its nerve.
Besides the branches for the molar teeth, many smaller
filaments penetrate the spongy texture of the bone, and
form a rich plexus, from which the gum derives its fila¬
ments. The maxillary plexus is most richly developed, in
the horse, above and between the alveoli of the three pre¬
molar teeth; it is less complex where it supplies the molar
teeth, their alveoli, and the gums. In the lower jaw of the
horse a very rich plexus begins to be formed in the can¬
cellous substance of the bone by branches of the dental
nerve soon after its entry into the canal. The intercom¬
munications between the dental and gingival nerves, and
those supplied to the osseous tissue from the supra-maxil-
lary and infra-maxillary plexuses, explain the sympathies
manifested in neuralgy and rheumatic pains between the
teeth and the osseous cavities in which they are implanted,
of teeth^ c'ass t'ss,ies *n which teeth should rank has fre¬
quently been a subject of controversy in systems of histo¬
logy ; the fact being overlooked, that they have not the
same unity of composition as bones or epidermal appen¬
dages. One constituent of teeth, viz., the cement, ought
clearly to rank with the osseous tissue; and the dentine or
ivory, which was described for the last time, probably, in
July 1838, as being, “like the hair, arranged in concentric
layers,” 1 bears, on tbe contrary, a close analogy to bone in
structure, and is almost identical with it in chemical com¬
position. Its modifications, called “ vasodentine ” and
“ osteodentine,” form intermediate gradations between
the hard dentine and true bone. True enamel is a tissue
per se ; but in the teeth of fishes there are several inter¬
mediate stages of gradation, which link enamel to dentine,
as the dentine itself in most fishes passes gradually into
bone. Heusinger2 admits that the relation of the teeth to
the corneous tissue {horngeivebes) is not clearly elucidated Introduc-
in human anatomy, but he affirms that it is most conelu- tion-
sively established in that of the lower classes of animals. v'—^
No doubt, in tracing the modifications of the dental sys¬
tem through the animal kingdom, we find true horny pro¬
ductions substituted for teeth in certain vertebrate species,
as the Ornithorhynchus, whale, tortoise, &c. So likewise
the office of teeth is performed by parts (modified as to
form) of the crustaceous and chitinous integuments of the
articulate classes ; but there are no transitional or interme¬
diate structures, such as Heusinger alludes to, between
teeth and nails, horns or hair. The lamellar disposition
traceable in the texture of the hardest dentine is much
more closely similar to that of bone, especially the con¬
centric plates surrounding the Haversian canals, than to the
texture of nails. The structure .of the tooth
of Orycteropus is essentially like that of all
true teeth: the apparent resemblance which it
presents to the horn of the rhinoceros, or to
baleen, arises from its being compounded of
i many minute parallel and elongated denticles.
And the close resemblance in intimate struc¬
ture and chemical composition between true
teeth and bones being established, it may be
observed that the osseous tissue is not confined
to the endo-skeleton: it is developed largely
to form the exo-skeleton in fishes, in the lo¬
ricate reptiles, and even in the Mammalian class,
—as, for example, in the armadillos, where
bone is substituted, to strengthen the integu-
, natural size. men^ for which forms the scaled armour
of the allied pangolins. Now, the relation of the tooth of
the armadillo to that of the Ornithorhynchus is precisely
analogous to that which subsists between the osseous
plates of the armadillo, and the corneous scales of the
Manis; but this relation no more establishes identity of
tissue or system of tissues in the one case than in the
other.
The general form of the matrix or formative organ of
teeth, and the relative position of the dentinal pulp to its
product, bear a close analogy with those of the formative
organ of hairs, bristles, shells, and other productions of the
epidermal system. In these, however, the papilla or pulp is
developed from the external skin ; in the teeth from the mu¬
cous membrane or internal skin. Teeth further agree with
the extra-vascular appendages of the skin in being shed and
reproduced,—sometimes once,—sometimes frequently dur¬
ing the lifetime of the individual; the latter condition may
be termed “interrupted reproduction.” In some cases,
again, as with certain epidermal productions, the reproduc¬
tion of the tooth is “uninterrupted,” and goes on continu¬
ously during the lifetime of the individuals, new matter be¬
ing added to the base as the old is worn away from the apex
or working surface of the tooth.
A tooth, when fully formed, is subject to decay, but has
no inherent power of reparation. A tooth of limited
growth can only increase in size after its formation is com¬
pleted by abnormal growth of its most highly organized
constituent, the cement. Thus the analogy of the dental
organs to those of the corneous system holds only in their
mode of development,3 in their shedding and reproduction,
and in their exposure to external influences, and to the
contact ot extraneous bodies: but the antlers of deer are
similarly exposed, and are likewise shed and reproduced
annually, and also contemporaneously with the fall and re¬
production of the hair; yet antlers are not therefore classed
with the horny tissues, any more than the bony cone of the
horns of the cavicorn ruminants.
1 Medico-Chirurgical Review, p. 43. 2 System der Histologie, 4to, 1823, p. 160.
3 The cells and fibres of the horny tissues are formed in, and not excreted from, the surface of their formative pulps.
420
Teeth of
Fishes.
Number.
Substance.
Structure.
ODONTOLOGY.
Sect. I.—TEETH OF FISHES.
The fishes of Great Britain, and those which are known
to us by vernacular names, form a comparatively small part of
the class; but wherever the dentition of such is described,
the species will be indicated in the present article by their
common names. As, however, many interesting modifica¬
tions of the dental organs occur in exotic fishes, known by
no other names than those by which they are recorded in
the systems and catalogues of naturalists, the information
respecting their dentition which is here endeavoured to be
given must be unavoidably confined to those who com¬
bine some knowledge of Zoology with that of Comparative
Anatomy.
Excellent illustrations of the dental system in fishes are
given in the article Ichthyology, as, e.g., from the preda¬
ceous Alepisaurus (p. 213, fig. 19), the phytiphagous Plo-
tosus (p. 220, fig. 50), and in various other species, from
figs. 52 to 62 inclusive, accompanied with so exact a sum¬
mary of the general modifications of the system in the
piscine class, as leaves little to be added in the present
article on that head. Yet this little appears necessary ; for
the teeth of fishes, whether we study them in regard to
their number, form, substance, structure, situation, or mode
of attachment, offer a greater and more striking series of
varieties than do those of any other class of animals.
As to number, they range from zero to countless quan¬
tities. The lancelet, the ammocete, the sturgeon, the
paddle-fish, and the whole order of Lophobranchii, are eden¬
tulous. The Myxinoids have a single pointed tooth on the
roof of the mouth, and two serrated dental plates on the
tongue. The tench has a single grinding tooth on the
occiput, opposed to two dentiferous pharyngeal jaws below.
In the lepidosiren (fig. 36), a single maxillary dental plate
is opposed to a single mandibular one, and there are two
small denticles on the nasal bone. In the extinct sharks
with crushing teeth, called Ceratodus and Ctenodus, the
jaws were armed with four teeth, two above and two below.
In the Chimerce two mandibular teeth are opposed to four
maxillary teeth. From this low point the number in dif¬
ferent fishes is progressively multiplied, until in the pike
and many other fishes the mouth becomes crowded with
countless teeth.
With reference to the main and fundamental tissue of
tooth, we find not fewer than six leading modifications in
fishes:—Hard or true dentine,—Sparoids, Labroids (fig. 6),
Lophius, Balistes, Pycnodonts, Prionodon, Sphyrcma, Me-
galichthys, Rhizodus, Diodon, Scarus: Osteo-dentine,—
Ceslracion, Acrodus, Lepidosiren, Ctenodus, Hybodus,
Percoids, Scicenoids, Colloids, Gobioids, and many others :
Vaso-dentine,—Lamna (fig. 7), Psammodus, Chimceroids,
Pristis,Myliobates: Plici-dentine,—Lophius, Holoptychius,
Lepidosteusoxyurus, at the base of the teeth: Labyrintho-
dentine,—Lepidosteusplatyrhinus, Bothriolepis: and Den-
dro-dentine,—Dendrodus (fig. 14) ; besides the compound
teeth of the Scarus and Diodon.
One structural modification may prevail in some teeth,
another in other teeth of the same fish; and two or more
modifications may be present in the same tooth, arising
from changes in the process of calcification and a persist¬
ency of portions or processes of the primitive vascular pulp
or matrix of the dentine. The modifications of dentine,
called vasodentine and osteodentine,1 predominate much
more than in the higher Vertebrata; and they thus more
closely resemble the bones which support them. There is,
however, great diversity in respect of substance. The teeth
of most of the Chaetodonts are flexible, elastic, and com- Teeth of
posed of a yellowish subtransparent albuminous tissue; Fishes,
such, likewise, are the labial teeth of the Helostome, the
premaxillary and mandibular teeth of the Goniodonts, and
of that percoid genus thence called Trichodon. In the
Cyclostomes (lampreys) the teeth consist of a denser albu¬
minous substance. The upper pharyngeal molar of the
carp consists of a peculiar brown and semitransparent tissue,
hardened by salts of lime and magnesia. The teeth of the
flying-fish {Exoccetus') and sucking-fish {Remora) consist
of osteodentine. In many fishes, e.g., the Acanthurus,
Sphyrcena, and certain sharks {Lamna, fig. 7), a base, or
body of vasodentine, is coated by a layer of true dentine,
but of unusual hardness, like enamel; in Prionodon this
hard tissue predominates. In the Labrus the pharyngeal
crushing teeth consist wholly of hard or unvascular dentine
(fig. 6). In Pycnodonts, and many other fishes, the body
of the tooth consists of ordinary unvascular dentine, covered
by a modification of that tissue which I have called “ vitro-
dentine,” from its clear, polished, enamel-like character;
but this is not enamel, nor the product of a distinct organ
from the dentinal pulp: it differs from ordinary dentine
in the greater proportion of the mineral particles, their
more minute diffusion through the gelatinous basis, and in
the straighter course and more minute size of the dentinal
tubes ; it results from the calcification of the external layer
of the dentinal pulp, and is the first part of the tooth which
is formed. In Sargus and Balistes the body of the tooth
consists of true dentine, and the crown is covered by a
thick layer of a denser tissue, developed by a distinct organ,
and diftering from the “ enamel” of higher animals only in
the more complicated and organized mode of deposition of
the earthy salts. The ossification of the capsule of the
complex matrix of these teeth covers the enamel with a
thin coating of “ cement.” In the pharyngeal teeth of the
Scarus a fourth substance is added by the ossification of the
base of the pulp after its summit and periphery have been
converted into hard dentine; and the teeth thus composed
of cement, enamel, dentine, and osteodentine, are the most
complex, in regard to their substance, that have yet been
discovered in the animal kingdom.
The tubes which convey the capillary vessels through
the substance of the osteodentine and vasodentine of
the teeth of fishes2 were early recognised on account of
their comparatively large size,—as by Andre, e.g., in the
teeth of Acanthurus, and by Cuvier and Von Born in the
teeth of the wolf-fish and other species. Leeuwenhoek
had also detected the much finer tubes of the peripheral
dentine of the teeth of the haddock. These dentinal
tubuli are given off from the parietes of the vascular canals,
and bend, divide, and subdivide rapidly in the hard basis-
tissue of the interspaces of those canals in osteodentine;
the dentinal tubuli alone are found in true dentine, and
they have a straighter and more parallel course, usually at
right angles to the outer surface of the dentine. Those
conical teeth of fishes which, when fully-formed, con¬
sist wholly or in great part of osteodentine or vasoden¬
tine, always first appear with an apex of hard or true den¬
tine. In some fishes the simple central basal pulp-cavity
of such teeth, instead of breaking up into irregular or pa¬
rallel canals, sends out a series of vertical plates from its
periphery, which, when calcified, give a fluted character to
the base of the tooth, e.g., in Lepidosteus oxyurus. Some¬
times such radiating vertical basal plates of dentine are
wavy in their course, and send off narrow processes from
their sides; and as a thin layer of the outer capsule inter-
1 Odontography, Introduction, p. Ixxii.
2 The vasodentine of Pristis and Myliobates is like that of the teeth of the Cape ant-eater (Orycteropus); the vasodentine of the Psam-
modonts resembles that which forms the base of the tooth of the sloth and megatherium ; the vasodentine of Mammals differs from the
osteodentine, in the absence of the radiated “ Purkingian ” cells.
iTeeth of
Fiflhes.
Situation.
Attach¬
ment.
ODONTOLOGY.
421
digitates with the outstanding plates of the dentinal pulp,
and becomes co-calcified with them, a transverse section of
such a tooth presents a series ot interblended wavy or laby-
rinthic tracts of thick dentine radiating from the centre, and
of thin cement converging towards the centre of the tooth.
An analogous but more complicated structure obtains,
when the radiating wavy vertical plates of dentine dichoto¬
mize, and give off from their sides, throughout their course,
numerous branch plates and processes, which are tiaversed
by medullary sinuses and canals, with their peripheral ter¬
minations dilated, and becoming the centres of lobes or
columns of hard dentine. The transverse section of such
teeth gives the appearance of branches of a tree, with leaf¬
stalks and leaves radiating from the central pulp-cavity to
the circumference of the tooth; whence the fossil fish in
which this structure was first detected has been called
Dendrodus (fig. 14).
With respect to situation the teeth in sharks and rays
are limited to the bones (maxillary and mandibular) which
form the anterior aperture of the mouth. In the carp and
other Cyprinoids the teeth are confined to the bones (pharyn¬
geal and basi-occipital) which circumscribe the posterior
aperture of the mouth. The wrasses (Labrus) and the
parrot-fishes (Scarus) have teeth on the premaxillary and
premandibular bones, as well as on the upper and lower
pharyngeals; both the anterior and posterior apertures of
the mouth being thus provided with instruments for seiz¬
ing, dividing, or comminuting the food, the grinders being
situated at the pharynx. In most fishes teeth are deve¬
loped also in the intermediate parts of the oral cavity ; as
on the palatines, the vomer, the hyoid bones, the branchial
arches; and, though less commonly, on the pterygoids,
entopterygoids, the sphenoids, and even on the nasal bone
(fig. 36, c). It is very rare to find teeth developed on the
true superior maxillary bones ; but the herring and salmon
tribes, some of the ganoid fishes, and the great Sudis, are
examples of this approach to the mgher Vertebrates. Among
the anomalous positions of teeth may be cited, besides the
occipital alveolus of the carp,1 the marginal alveoli of
the prolonged, depressed, well-ossified rostrum of the saw¬
fish (Prisiis). In the lampreys, and in Helostornus (an
osseous fish), most of the teeth are attached to the lips.
Lastly, it is peculiar to the class Pisces, amongst Vertebrata,
to offer examples of teeth developed in the median line of
the mouth, as in the palate of the Myxines ; or crossing the
symphysis of the jaw, as in Notidanus, Scymnus, and Mylio-
bates.
Nor is the mode less varied than the place of attachment.
The teeth of Lophius, Pcecilia, and Anableps are always
moveable ; in most fishes they are anchylosed to the jaw by
continuous ossification from the base of the dental pulp, the
histological transition being more or less gradual from the
structure of the tooth to that of the bone. Sometimes we
find, not the base, but one side of the tooth anchylosed to
the alveolar border of the jaw, and the teeth oppose each
other by their sides instead of their summits (Scarus); in
Pimelodus, however, where the teeth are thus attached,
the crown is bent down in the upper teeth, and is bent up
in the lower ones, at right angles to the fang, so that they
oppose each other in the normal way. Certain teeth of
recent or fossil cartilaginous fishes have their base divided
into processes like fangs; but these serve for the attach¬
ment of ligaments, and are not set in bony sockets like the
true fangs or roots of the teeth of Mammals. Some sharks
have two divaricating fangs. Some fossil teeth, referred to
the genus Petalodus by Agassiz, with the specific name
“ radicans,” have the base divided into several fangs or
processes, indicating a generic distinction. The base of
anchylosed teeth is at first attached to the jaw-bone by
ligament; and in the cod-fish, wolf-fish, and some other
species, as calcification of the tooth progresses towards its
base, the subjacent portion of the jaw-bone receives a sti¬
mulus, and develops a process corresponding in size and
form with the base of the tooth. For some time a thin
layer of ligamentous substance intervenes, but anchylosis
usually takes place to a greater or less extent before the
tooth is shed. Most of the teeth of the Lophius retain the
primitive ligamentous connection. The ligaments of the
large internal or posterior teeth of the upper and lower
jaws radiate on the corresponding sides of the bones, the
base of the tooth resting on a conformable alveolar process.
Some implanted teeth in the present class have their
hollow base further supported, like the claws of the feline
tribe, upon a bony process arising from the base of the
socket; the incisors of the file-fish {Batistes, fig. 22), e.g.,
afford an example of this double or reciprocal gomphosis.
In fig. 22 the teeth
in place, and the outer
wall of the premaxil¬
lary, have been re¬
moved to show, as at
«, the socket and the
basal peg of the fully
developed incisor; at b
the apex of a succes-
sional incisor, which
has worn away the
peg, and caused the
fall of the incisor it
was about to succeed ;'
and at c the less advanced germ of the tooth destined to
succeed that which was supported by the peg a.
The vertical section of a pharyngeal jaw and teeth of the
wrasse {Labrus, figs. 23 and 6), would afford the architect a
model of a dome of unusual strength, and so supported as to
Fig. 22.
File-Fish (Batistes forcipatus).
relieve from pressure the floor of a vaulted chamber (fig. 23,
c, c) beneath. The base of the dome-shaped tooth a is slightly
contracted, and is implanted in a shallow circular cavity, the
rounded margin of which is adapted to a circular groove in
the contracted part of the base; the margin of the tooth,
which immediately transmits the pressure of the bone, is
strengthened by an inwardly projecting convex ridge. The
masonry of this inner buttress, and of the dome itself, is com¬
posed of hollow columns, every one of which is placed so as
best to resist or transmit in the due direction the exter¬
nal pressure (fig. 23). The floor of the alveolus is thus
relieved from the office of sustaining the tooth : it forms,
in fact, the roof of a lower vault, in which the germ of a
successional tooth (fig. 23, b, b) is in course of develop¬
ment. Had the crushing tooth in use rested, as in the
wolf-fish, by the whole of its base upon the alveolus, the
supporting plate, gradually undermined by the growth of
the new tooth, must have given way, and been forced upon
the subjacent delicate and highly vascular and sensitive
matrix of the half-formed tooth. But the superincumbent
pressure is exclusively sustained by the border of the al¬
veolus, whence it is transferred to the walls dividing the
vaulted cavities containing the germs of the new teeth.
1 Odontography, pi. 8, vol. iii., p. 980, fig. 518.
422
ODONTOLOGY.
Teeth of
Fishes.
Develop¬
ment.
The roofs of these cavities yield to the absorbent process
consequent on the growth of the new teeth, without mate¬
rially weakening the attachment of the old teeth, and with¬
out the new teeth being subjected to any pressure until
their growth is sufficientlyadvanced to enable them to bear it
with safety. By this time the sustaining borders of the old
alveolus are undermined, and the worn-down tooth is shed.
Many analogous structures could be adduced did space
permit: in fact, the whole of this part of the organization
of fishes is replete with beautiful instances of design, and
instructive illustrations of animal mechanics.
As might have been anticipated from the discovery of
the varied and predominating vascular organization in the
teeth of fishes, and the passage from non-vascular dentine to
vascular dentine in the same tooth, the true law of the de¬
velopment of dentine “ by centripetal metamorphosis and
calcification of the cells of the pulp,” was first definitely
enunciated and illustrated from observations made on the
development of the teeth of fishes.1
It is interesting to observe in this class the process ar¬
rested at each of the well-marked stages through which the
development of a mammalian tooth passes. In all fishes
the first step is the simple production of a soft vascular pa¬
pilla from the free surface of the buccal membrane. In
sharks (fig. 24) and rays, these papillae c do not proceed
to sink into the substance of the gum, but are covered by
caps of an opposite free fold of the buccal membrane. These
caps /, <7, do not contract any organic connection with the
papilliform matrix ; but, as this is converted into dental
tissue, the tooth is gradually withdrawn from the extraneous
protecting cap to take its place and assume the erect posi¬
tion on the margin of the jaw, as at a, b. Here, therefore, is
represented the first and transitory “ papillary” stage of
dental development in Mammals; and the simple cre¬
scentic cartilaginous maxillary plate, with the open groove
behind containing the germinal papillae of the teeth, offers
in the shark a magnified representation of the earliest con¬
dition of the jaws and teeth in the human embryo.
In many fishes, e.g., the angler (Lophius) and pike,
the dental papillae
become buried in
the membrane from
which they rise, and
the surface to which
their basis is at¬
tached becomes the
bottom of a closed
sac; but this sac
does not become in¬
closed in the sub¬
stance of the jaw;
so that teeth at
different stages of
growth are brought
away with the thick
and soft gum, when
it is stripped from
the jaw-bone. The
final fixation of
teeth so formed is
effected by the de¬
velopment of liga¬
mentous fibres in
the sub-mucous tis¬
sue betw een the jaw
and the base of the Fjg. 24.
tOOth; which fibre S Section of the Jaw and Teeth of a Shark (Lanina).
become the medium of connection between those parts, either
as elastic ligaments, or by continuous ossification. Here, Teeth of
therefore, is represented the “ follicular” stage of the de- Fishes,
velopment of a mammalian tooth ; but the “ eruptive ” stage
takes place without previous inclosure of the follicle and
matrix in the substance of the jaw-bone.
In Batistes (fig. 22), Scarus (fig. 34), Sphyrcena, the
Sparoids, and many other fishes, the formation of the teeth
presents all the usual stages which have been observed
to succeed each other in the dentition of the higher
Vertebrata: the papilla sinks into a follicle, becomes sur¬
rounded by a capsule, and is then included within a closed
alveolus of the growing jaw (fig. 22, c), where the develop¬
ment of the tooth takes place, and is followed by the usual
eruptive stages. A distinct enamel-pulp is developed in
Batistes, Scarus, Sargus, and Chrysophrys.
No cartilaginous fish has teeth implanted in maxillary alveolar Squalid*
cavities, or confluent with the substance of the jaw; they are at-or sharks,
tached to the fibrous and mucous membrane which cover the max¬
illary cartilages ; thence it occurs, in certain genera, as Myliobates
and Scymnus, that a single tooth in the median plane may lie di¬
rectly across the symphysis, and he supported by the two rami of
the jaw. The Plagiostomes, like many other natural families of
fishes, present such modifications of their common and character¬
istic type of structure as fit them for very different habits of life,
and the acquisition of different kinds of food. The active and
predatory sharks are associated in this order with the sluggish
omnivorous rays, and the dental system presents every grade of
modification from the laniary to the molary type. The Lamna
(fig. 24), with its teeth exclusively adapted for holding, piercing,
and lacerating, and the Myliobates (fig. 26), with its maxillary
mosaic pavement of flattened molars, form the two extremes of the
series.
The sharks, or squaloid Plagiostomes, with few exceptions, have
teeth of a conical, sharp-pointed, more or less compressed form,
sometimes with trenchant or serrate edges and accessary basal den¬
ticles ; they are arranged along the margin and posterior surface of
the jaws in close-set vertical rows of from three to thirteen teeth
in each row, according to the species. The teeth of the contiguous
rows in certain genera, as Selache and Lamna, are parallel to each
other; but in (xaZews and Carcharias they are placed alternately,
so that the base of one tooth advances laterally into the interspace
of two teeth of the contiguous row, and reciprocally ; but the late¬
rally contiguous teeth are never articulated with each other, as in
certain rays.
In general the anterior or external tooth only of each row is
erect, the rest being recumbent. In Lamna, however, the second
and third teeth are commonly seen in positions intermediate be¬
tween those of the erect anterior (fig. 24, a) and the recumbent
posterior teeth (c). It is scarcely necessary to repeat, that although
the teeth of the sharks possess greater individual mobility than
those of the rays, the recumbent ones (fig. 24, c) cannot, as has
been supposed, be voluntarily erected. These teeth are still in pro¬
gress of development, and several of them are covered by a reflec¬
tion of the mucous membrane of the mouth (fig. 24, g), which would
be lacerated by such a movement; it is by a gradual change of po¬
sition in the fibrous membrane, to which their base is attached,
that the altered direction of the consolidated teeth is effected.
The formation of the teeth of the sharks, as of many other fishes,
exemplifies, on a large scale, the earliest or papillary stage of
dental development in the higher classes of animals. It is not suc¬
ceeded here by either a follicular or an eruptive stage; the for¬
mative papillae are never inclosed, and consequently never break
forth. The pulp, when consolidated by the deposition of the cal¬
careous salts in the pre-existing cells and tubes, is gradually with¬
drawn from the protective sheath (fig. 24, g), which the thecal
fold of mucous membrane /, / afforded during the early stages of
its formation. In the uterine foetus, one foot long, of the great
white shark (Charcharodon), the jaws seem at first sight to be
edentulous ; a fissure presents itself on the inner side of the margin
of each jaw, running parallel with it, between the thin smooth
membrane covering the convex edge of the cartilage, and the free
margin of a fold of mucous membrane which lies parallel to and
upon the inner side of the jaw. When this fold is drawn away
from the jaw, the minute teeth are exposed, arranged in the usual
vertical rows ; these points are all directed backwards and towards
the base of the jaw, and are seen to slip out of fossae or sheaths in
the membranous folds, as this is gradually reflected backwards and
1 In the author’s Hunterian Lectures, delivered at the Royal College of Surgeons, May 1839. See also Compte Rendu de VAcademic des
Sciences, Dec. 1839, p. 784; and Odontography, Introduction, and part i., passim.
ODONTOLOGY.
423
sth of
ishes.
towards the base of the jaw. Here the anterior lamina of the fold,
which, from its office, may be termed “ thecal,’' is continuous with
the mucous membrane at the base of the rows of teeth ; the poste¬
rior layer is reflected backwards to the front line of attachment
of the tongue. Close to the anterior line of reflection there is a
row of simple conical papillae; in the succeeding row the papillae are
larger, the cone broader and flatter, and its apex is covered with a
small cap of dense and glistening dental substance, which is readily
removed, though not without displacement of part of the dental
pulp, the granules of which, adherent to the cavity of the displaced
dental cap, are always readily recognisable under the microscope.
The third series of papillae, counting from below in the lower jaw,
have acquired the size and shape of the future tooth, with the cre-
nate edges well marked; half the tooth is completed, and its re¬
moval from the fleshy base of the pulp cannot be effected without
evident laceration of the pulp. When this is done under the mi¬
croscope, the torn processes of the pulp continued into the medul¬
lary canals of the new-formed tooth are plainly visible. The
fourth tooth is completely formed, as also the fifth and sixth in
the ascending series : these progressively diminish in size. The
last or highest, which is first exposed on reflecting the thecal
fold, and the first which was completed in the order of develop¬
ment, consists of a simple cone, similar in form and size to the
apical third of the ordinary-sized teeth below it; yet its growth
is quite completed, and its base firmly attached to the maxillary
membrane.
In a foatus of a white shark (Carcharias ferox) 3 inches long,
which had not lost its external branchi®, the membranous groove
between the jaw and thecal fold was much shallower, and only
two rows of papillae were present on the maxillary membrane.
The minute anterior teeth in the more advanced foetus were
developed from these primitive papilla;, which must be succeeded
by others of progressively larger size, till the normal form and
dimensions of the adult teeth are attained. The foetal shark is
peculiarly favourable for such comparisons, as it presents nume¬
rous pulps and teeth in every stage of formation, easily detached, j
and without violence, from their exposed situation, and of a
flattened form, well adapted for microscopical observation.
The unossified pulps, examined with a high power, consist of
semi-opaque polyhedral granules or cells suspended in a clear
matrix, and the whole is inclosed in a tough transparent mem¬
brane, which forms the outer surface of the pulp. Beneath this
membrane, at the crenate margins, the nucleated cells are
arranged in lines precisely corresponding with those of the
subsequent dentinal tubes. The formation of the tooth com¬
mences by the deposition of earthy particles in the tough ex¬
ternal membrane of the pulp. The present writer has been
unable to recognise the distinct arrangement of the hardening
salts in this layer. It is transparent, extremely dense, and
forms the enamel-like polished coating of the tooth; in sections
of fully-formed teeth, the finest terminal branches of the parallel
peripheral dentinal tubes are lost in the above clear enamel¬
like substance. When this outer layer of the apex of the tooth
is completed, it is so easily detached from the subjacent pulp,
that it might be readily supposed that there was no organic con¬
nection between them. If, however, the so exposed pulp be now
examined with the microscope, and compared with an uncalcified
pulp, it is seen to be no longer covered with the smooth, dense
membrane observable in the latter; but the apical edges, from
which the enamel-like cap has been detached, appear villous or
floccular. It is obvious that the first shell of the tooth has been
neither transuded from the superficies of the external membrane of
the pulp, nor has been deposited between that membrane and the
granular part of the pulp, but is due to the conversion of the ex¬
ternal membrane into a dense enamel-like bone. ‘The formation
of the body of the tooth by deposition of earthy particles in pre¬
existing and pre-arranged cavities is still more satisfactorily demon¬
strable. In proportion as the formation of the tooth has advanced,
the difficulty of separating the calcified from the uncalcified portion
of the pulp is increased ; and at the same time it becomes easier to
detect the continuation of the processes of the pulp into those
medullary canals which form so many separate centres of radiation
of the plexiform dentinal tubes.
As a consequence of a formation of a tooth by conversion of,
instead of transudation from, a pre-existing pulp, the successive
formation of these pulps necessarily follows where a succession of
teeth is required. These reproductive pulps are developed, in the
shark, from the vascular mucous membrane at the angle of reflec¬
tion of the thecal fold upon the groove of the basal line of the jaws.
They gradually advance from this situation towards the margin of
the jaw, the centripetal calcification extends as they advance, and
consolidation is completed (as in fig. 24, c) by the time the teeth
are ready to change their recumbent for the erect position ba,
and take the place of the tooth previously shed.
The teeth of the rays are in general more numerous than those Teeth of
of the sharks; they have less mobility, are more closely impacted, Fishes,
and in some cases are laterally united together by fine sutures, so v _ ^
as to form a kind of mosaic pavement on both the upper and lower
jaws. The Myliobates, or eagle-rays, which present the last-men- “alldaB> or
tioned condition, unique in the vertebrate sub-kingdom, have large iiays*
and massive teeth (fig. 26); but in the rest of the present family of
cartilaginous fishes, the teeth (fig. 25) are remarkable for their
small size as compared with those of the sharks. The teeth in some
species of rays are adapted for crushing, but in others they have
the middle or one of the angles of the crown produced into a sharp
point. In all genera of the ray tribe, whatever the diversity of
size and shape of the teeth, they are placed in several rows, and
succeed each other uninterruptedly from behind.
In the genus Rhina, each tooth is supported on a short fang or
pivot, which tapers as it recedes from the crown ; there is a groove
along the posterior part of the pivot, and a perforation on each
side; the crown is lozenge-shaped, convex above, and sculptured
with a series of transverse and slightly undulating and punctate
ridges, presenting a pattern which somewhat resembles that of the
grinding surface of the comparatively gigantic tooth of the extinct
cartilaginous fish of the chalk formation called Ptychodus. The
modification of the dentigerous surface of the jaws, and the beautiful
quincuncial arrangement of these teeth, are exhibited in fig. 25.
Fig. 25.
Dental Pavement of the Upper Jaw {Rhina).
The middle part of the upper jaw forms a bold prominent convexity,
separated by a depression on each side from a lateral and less pro¬
duced rising. The contour of the dentigerous surface of the lower
jaw presents depressions corresponding to the eminences above,
and vice versa.
The modification of the plagiostomous type of teeth, for the
purpose of crushing alimentary substances, is most complete in the
genus Myliobates. A view of this armature of the mouth, as seen
from behind in the Myliobates aquila, is given in fig. 26. Both
Jaws and Teeth of an Eagle-Ray {Myliobates aquila)
jaws are covered with a pavement of broad teeth, having a flat
grinding surface, vertical and finely-undulated sides, by which
424
ODONTOLOGY.
Teeth of
Fishes.
contiguous teeth are joined together, as by a suture (fig. 27, c), and
a base divided into a
number of small parallel
longitudinal ridges.
The entire phalanx
of dental plates of the
upper jaw describes the
segment of a circle. A
longitudinal and verti¬
cal section of a single
dental plate, viewed by
a compound lens of an
inch focus, exhibits at
its base a coarse net¬
work of large irregu¬
lar canals, filled with
a vascular medullary
pulp. From this net¬
work smaller medul¬
lary canals proceed to¬
wards the flat grinding
surface, in a straight Fig. 27.
and slightly diverging Magnified Section of parts of two contiguous
course, subdividing di- Denticles of Mj/tiofcates aguila.
chotomously, with interspaces equal to their own diameter at the
base, but much wider at the working surface of the tooth; under the
same power, the area of the medullary canals presents generally an
irregular elliptical form (fig. 27, a), from which radiating dentinal
tubes are faintly perceptible. Each canal and its series of tubes is
surrounded by a line of generally a hexagonal form (fig. 27, b), which
constitutes the boundary between contiguous canals and tubes; the
whole tooth being thus composed of an aggregate of slender, elon¬
gated, commonly six-sided prismatic teeth, placed vertically to the
grinding surface. The wavy line of the suture, uniting two conti¬
guous teeth, is shown at c.
The teeth of the Myliobates, like those of the rest of the Plagios-
tomes, are successively formed at the posterior part of the tesse-
lated series in proportion as they are worn away in front. A series
of minute and closely-aggregated papilliform matrices rise from the
mucous membrane behind the teeth, and are covered by a fold of
the same membrane, which is reflected forward so as to conceal
the pulps of the last-formed teeth. The papilliform pulps are
ossified by the deposition of the calcareous salts in the peripheral
cells and radiating tubes; but the medullary or central canal of
each pulp continues to retain its organized and vascular contents
until the whole of the compound tooth is completed; the calcified
wall of the medullary canal is then thickened, and the area dimi¬
nished, by the successive formation of concentric laminse of osseous
matter.
As the teeth of the Myliobates are gradually carried forwards
into action by the direction of growth of their basis of support, the
areas of the medullary canals become progressively diminished, as
in bone, by osseous deposition in concentric layers, and they thus
become finally consolidated in the anterior teeth.
Cestraci- dental characters of this family of cartilaginous fishes are
onts. chiefly manifested in a form of tooth better adapted for crushing or
comminuting alimentary substances which offer only passive resist¬
ance, than for piercing, cutting, and lacerating a living prey ; and
in most of the species the teeth vary in form and size in the same in¬
dividual to a greater degree than in the sharks. Of the numerous
singular forms of this tribe of cartilaginous fishes that once peopled
the seas of the Northern Hemisphere, and which have left their less
perishable remains in the secondary strata of the present dry land,
all have now disappeared, and the sole existing representative is
the genus Cestracion, of which the most common species is met with
in the Australian seas. The ancient fossils above alluded to would
have been scardely intelligible, unless the key to their nature had
been afforded by the teeth and spines of the existing Cestracion.
In the Port Jackson shark (Cestracion Phillippit), the jaws form a
greater proportion of the skull than in any other existing cartila¬
ginous and plagiostomous fish. They are also more elongated, and
directed more horizontally forward, thus approaching nearer to the
usual position of the jaws in the osseous fishes. The teeth are ar¬
ranged, as in the Plagiostomes generally, in several antero-posterior
rows along the margin and inner surface of both jaws (fig. 28);
but the rows are more oblique than in the sharks, although less so
than in certain rays,—e.g-., Rhina. The teeth of the upper jaw are
delineated in fig. 28. Those at the anterior part of the jaws are
the smallest; they present a transverse, subcompressed, conical
figure, with the apex produced into a sharp point; the points are
worn away from the used teeth at the anterior and outer parts of
the jaw, but are strongly marked in those which still lie below the
margin. There are six subvertical rows of these small cuspidate
teeth on each side of the jaw, together with a median row close to
the symphysial line, and there are from twelve to fourteen teeth in
a row. Behind the cuspidate teeth the five consecutive rows of
teeth progressively increase in all their dimensions, but principally
in their antero-posterior extent. The sharp point is converted into
a longitudinal ridge traversing a convex crushing surface, and the
Teeth of
Fishes.
Fig. 28.
Upper Jaw and Teeth of Port Jackson Shark (Cestracion), half nat. size.
ridge itself disappears in the largest teeth. As the teeth increase
in size, they diminish in number in each row. The series of the
largest teeth includes from six to seven in the upper, and from
seven to eight in the lower jaw. Behind this row the teeth, although
preserving their form as crushing instruments, progressively dimi¬
nish in size, while at the same time the number composing each
row decreases. From the oblique and apparently spiral disposition
of the rows of teeth, their symmetrical arrangement on the opposite
sides of the jaw, and their graduated diversity of form, they con¬
stitute the most elegant tesselated covering to the jaws which is to
be met with in the whole class of fishes.
The modifications of the form of the teeth above described, by
which the anterior ones are adapted for seizing and retaining, and
the posterior for cracking and crushing alimentary substances, are
frequently repeated, with various modifications and under different
conditions, in the osseous fishes. They indicate, in the present
cartilaginous species, a diet of a lower organized character than in
the true sharks; and a corresponding difference of habit and dis¬
position is associated therewith. The testaceous and crustaceous
invertebrate animals constitute most probably the principal food of
the Cestracion, as they appear, by their abundant remains in second¬
ary rocks, to have done in regard to the extinct Cestracionts, with
whose fossil teeth they are associated.
From the extensive series of osseous fishes, the limits of the pre¬
sent article compel a selection of a few of the more remarkable
modifications of the dental system.
Genus Anarhicas.—The cat-fish or wolf-fish (Anarhieas lupus) Anarhicas.
has two kinds of teeth with well-marked distinction of form, ac¬
cording to which they might be termed laniaries or canines, and
molars. The anterior teeth (fig. 29, a) form strong cones, and
diverge so as to act as grappling hooks, well fitted for a firm grasp
of the mailed body of a struggling lobster, or for extracting the
shell-fish from his rocky recess or sandy burrow. The back teeth
c are like paving-stones, and are powerful crushers. The pre¬
maxillary teeth (fig. 29, a) are all conical, and arranged in two rows;
there are two, three, or four in the exterior row, at the mesial half
of the bone, which are the largest; and from six to eight smaller
teeth are irregularly arranged behind. There are three large,
strong, diverging laniaries at the anterior end of each premandi-
bular bone (fig. 29), and immediately behind these an irregular
number of shorter and smaller conical teeth, which gradually ex¬
change this form for that of large obtuse tubercles; these extend
backwards, in a double alternate series, along a great part of the
alveolar border of the bone, and are terminated by two or three
smaller teeth in a single row, the last of which again presents the
conical form. Each palatine bone supports a double row of teeth, the
outer ones being conical and straight, and from four to six in num¬
ber ; the inner ones two, three, or four in number, and tuberculate.
The lower surface of the vomer (fig. 29, c) is covered by a double
Lophius.
ODONTOLOGY.
425
irregularly alternate series of the same kind of large tuberculate
crushing teeth as those at the middle of the premandibular bone.
Fig- 29.
Upper and Lower Jaws and Teeth of the Wolf-fish (Anavhicas lupus),
half nat. size.
hones are two in number, and have the teeth arranged in a double Teeth of
alternate row along each margin. Fishes.
The pharyngeal, palatine, and vomerine teeth are fixed by anchy- ^ i
losis to their respective bones; this is also the case with most of „ ...
the premaxillary teeth, and with the exterior teeth of the lower
jaw (fig. 31, a, a), but the remainder, and especially the large
posterior teeth of the lower jaw (fig. 31, b, b), are attached by means
of elastic ligaments to the margins of slightly elevated alveolar pro¬
cesses. These ligaments (fig. 31, c, c) are principally inserted into
the inner straight margin of the base of the tooth, from which their
glistening fasciculi radiate to be implanted into the jaw. The rest
of the base of the tooth is connected at its circumference with more
lax and yielding fibrous bands, and with the mucous membrane of
the mouth, which covers the alveolar tract in the interspaces of the
teeth. To any attempt to bend these teeth outwards resistance is
offered by the internal ligaments above described, and by the pres¬
sure of the anterior angle at the base of the tooth against the
alveolar processes or raised tubercle on which it rests ; but the tooth
readily yields to a force acting in the opposite direction, and the
Fig. 31.
Section of Mandible and Teeth of the Angler (Lophius piscatorius).
All the teeth are anchylosed to more or less developed alveolar
eminences, but a narrow line of demarcation is long discernible
(us at 2, fig. 30). From the enormous development of the muscles
Fig. 30.
Section of Lower Jaw and Teeth of Anarhicas lupus, half nat. size.
of the jaws, and the strength of the shells which are cracked and
crushed by the teeth, their fracture and displacement must obviously
be no unfrequent occurrence: and most specimens of the jaws of
the wolf-fish exhibit some of the teeth either separated at this line
of imperfect anchylosis, or, more rarely, broken off above the base,
or, still more rarely, detached by fracture of the supporting osseous
alveolar process.
The angler (Lophius piscatorius) has teeth on the premaxillary,
premandibular, palatine, vomerine, and pharyngeal bones. They
are of an elongated, conical, sharp-pointed, and slightly incurved
form, presenting merely difference of size, degree of curvature,
and mode of fixation, but all bespeaking the predatory and carni¬
vorous habits of the species. In the upper jaw, the teeth are
congregated in three or four irregular rows at the median or upper
third part of each premaxillary bone, and form a single and regular
series along the lower two-thirds of the same bone. These latter,
which may be termed the serial teeth, are from fifteen to eighteen
in number; they are short, strong, pointed, and incurved, of nearly
equal size, and placed at regular distances from each other. The
two outer irregular rows of the median intermaxillary teeth are
somewhat larger, and are directed forwards. The inner rows at
this part contain the longest teeth, and their points are turned
back; but they are movably connected with the bone by a me¬
chanism which will be described when treating of those of the
lower jaw. The superior pharyngeal teeth are arranged in three
groups upon as many separate bones on each side; each group
describes a curve, with the convexity turned forwards. The teeth
of the posterior bone are the smallest. The inferior pharyngeal
YOL. XVI.
largest and most prominent teeth can be bent inwards and back¬
wards (as at c, fig. 31), so as to point to the gullet when the hand
is pressed over them in the direction a body would take when
drawn into the mouth to be swallowed. The moment, however,
this force ceases to act, the teeth recoil to their erect position, as
shown by the dotted outline in fig. 31) as if operated on by a
spring. If everything attached to the base of the tooth, excepting
the internal pyramidal band of ligamentous fibres, be removed, the
tooth, after being bent down, returns with the same force to the
erect position; it is therefore to this band that its resilience is
due.
The cyprinoid fishes, properly so called, which are typified by Cyprinidse.
the carp and loach, respectively representing the genera Cyprinus
and Cobitis, have the jaws completely deprived of teeth. jphe
inferior pharyngeals, or throat-bones, are armed with one or more
rows of teeth, which are flattened, conical, or curved, according to
the species. These are succeeded by teeth at the external, as the
old are shed from the internal, surface of those bones. They work
against each other, and upon the very hard callous or calcified
plate which is fixed in a depression on the inferior surface of the
basi-occipital bone. The omnivorous barbels (Barbus and Labeo-
barbus) have three rows of pharyngeal teeth, which are weaker in the
latter genus. In Acanthopsis the pharyngeal teeth are sharp-pointed,
and are placed in a single row. In the loaches (Co&to), which feed
on worms and aquatic insects, the pharyngeals are attenuated, with
chisel-shaped extremities. In the gudgeons (Gobio), which feed on
worms, aquatic larvae, and small molluscous animals, with their ova
or fry, the pharyngeal teeth are conical, slightly curved at the
extremity, and arranged in two rows. In the carp (Cyprinus Carpio),
which feeds on the soft part of aquatic plants, larvas of insects and
worms, the pharyngeal teeth have broad, flat-ridged crowns, like
the molars of herbivorous quadrupeds.
In the globe-fishes (Diodon), the lamellated structure of the tooth, p)j0(jon<
and its reproduction by successive transudation of layers from a
persistent pulp, were supposed to be clearly demonstrated in the
broad rounded triturating tubercule which is situated behind the
alveolar border of the upper and lower jaw. The exposed surface
of this tooth presents, in fact, a series of transverse and parallel
striae, which in a vertical section (fig. 32) are seen to be the mar¬
gins of thin, superimposed, horizontal, and slightly flexuous plates
a, b, which have been partially abraded by trituration in an oblique
plane. The superior layers are the most worn; in proportion as
they descend, in the lower jaw, they increase in breadth, and fin¬
ally, instead of being soldered together, they become detached, thin¬
ner, and of a more friable texture ; the lowest and incompletely de¬
veloped plates lying loosely in the cavity of the jaw, beneath the
superincumbent mass (as at a, fig. 32). If a vertical section of the
dental tubercle be made on one side of the median plane, the
3 H
426
ODONTOLOGY.
Teeth of
Fishes.
Scarus.
laminae are seen to he developed in two distinct lateral moieties,
which become anchylosed together by means of a thin median ver¬
tical osseous partition
at their median mar¬
gins; their lateral mar¬
gins are similarly an¬
chylosed to the outer
walls of the denti¬
gerous cavity. The
laminae are developed
successively; and in
proportion as the an¬
terior ones are worn
away, the posterior
ones appear in readi¬
ness to replace them ;
so that the due num¬
ber of ridges on the
triturating surface is
always maintained.
To examine the struc- Fig. 32.
ture of the lamelliform Section of Jaw and Deytal Mass of a Globe-fish
denticles, it is neces- {Diodori).
sary to make extremely thin sections in a direction vertical to their
plane. Fjach plane then exhibits, instead of an amorphous or sub¬
crystalline mass of excreted calcareous matter, a series of extremely
minute dentinal tubes, occupying its whole extent, and having a
general direction vertical to its plane. The tubes are obviously wider
at the lower side of the plate, and gradually disappear in the clear
and dense substance at the opposite surface. When the thinnest
and most transparent parts of the same section are examined with
a compound lens of £-inch focus, the horizontal partitions which
occupy the interspaces of the lamelliform teeth are seen to consist
of a coarse cellular osseous texture, without any radiating cells, but
similar to the texture of the rest of the endo-skeleton of the Diodon.
The main tubes of the dental plate are continued immediately from
the cells of the osseous septum ; they proceed for a short distance
vertically, or with a slight curvature, in the substance of the dental
plate, and then quickly divide and subdivide, the branches gene¬
rally coming off at an angle of 45°, being slightly bent, crossing
each other in an inextricable manner, and terminating ultimately
in the clear matr ix of the upper surface of the dental plate. By the
time that calcification has begun in one pulp, a second has been
developed beneath it, and it is the portion of the pulp solidified
which gives rise, in the macerated and dried jaws, to the loose and
thin lamellae in the dental cavity. These lamellae become fixed by
means of the coarser calcification or ossification which subsequently
takes place in the remains of the pulp; and their margins are thus
anchylosed to the surrounding bones in a manner analogous to the
fixation of the base of the ordinary shaped teeth in other fishes.1
Genus Scarus.—The dense tesselated covering of the beak-like
jaws (fig. 33) of the parrot-fishes (Scarus) consists of a stratum of
Fig. 33.
Premaxillary Bone and Teeth of a Parrot-fish (Scarus muricatus).
prismatic denticles (fig. 34, a), standing almost vertically to the
external surface of the jaw-bone, the square tuberculate ends of
which appear externally wedged close together, like the blocks in
wood-pavement. This peculiar armature of the jaws is well adapted
to the habits and exigences of a tribe of fishes which browse upon
the lithophytes that clothe, as with a richly-tinted carpet, the bot¬
tom of the sea, just as the ruminant quadrupeds crop the herbage
of the dry land.
The irritable bodies of the gelatinous polypes, which constitute
the food of these fishes, retract, when touched, into their star-shaped
stony shells; and the Scari consequently require a dental apparatus
strong enough to break off or scoop out these calcareous recesses.
The jaws are therefore prominent, short, and stout; and the ex¬
posed portions of the premaxillaries and premandibulars are en¬
cased by the complicated dental covering represented in figs. 33
and 34. The polypes and their cells are reduced to a pulp by the
Fig. 34.
Section of Premandibular Bone and Teeth of Parrot-fish (Scarus muricatus).
action of the pharyngeal jaws and teeth (fig. 35) that close the pos¬
terior aperture of the mouth.
The typical Scari have both upper
and lower pharyngeal bones paved
with strong, thick lamelliform teeth,
set vertically and transversely in the
opposed surfaces of these bones. It
is the posterior pair of the upper
pharyngeals (fig. 35) which are thus
armed. The lower pharyngeal bone
is single.
The superior dentigerous pharyn¬
geals present each the form of an
elongated vertical inequilateral tri¬
angular plate ; the upper and pos¬
terior margin is sharp and concave ;
the upper and anterior margin forms
a thickened articular surface, convex
from side to side, and playing in a
corresponding groove or concavity
upon the base of the skull; the in¬
ferior boundary of the triangle is the
longest, and also the broadest; it is
convex in the antero-posterior direc¬
tion, and flat from side to side. It is
on this surface that the teeth are
implanted ; and in most species they
form two rows, the outer one con¬
sisting of very small teeth (fig. 35,
a), the inner one of large teeth b. Upper Pharyngeal Bones and
These present the form of compressed Teeth a Parrot-fish (Scarus
conical plates or wedges, with the
basis excavated and the opposite margin moderately sharp, and
slightly convex to near the inner angle, which is produced into a
point. These plates are set nearly transversely across the lower
surface of the pharyngeal bone, and are produced beyond the margin
of the bone, and interlock with those of the adjoining bone when
the pharyngeals are in their natural position. The smaller denticles
of the outer row are set in the external interspaces of those of the
inner row.
The dentine of the pharyngeal teeth of the Scarus consists of den¬
tinal tubes and a clear intermediate substance. The tubes average
a diameter of ^^-^th of an inch, and are separated by interspaces
equal to twice their own diameter ; and these tubes, on leaving the
pulp-cavity, form a curve with the convexity turned towards the
base of the tooth, and then bend slightly in the opposite direction ;
the sigmoid curve being most marked in the tubes at the base of
the denticles, whilst those towards the apex become longer and
Fig. 35,
Teeth of
Fishes.
  v  
For other details of the gymnodont dentition, see Annales des Sciences Naturelles, 2de serie, tom. xii., p. 347,
ODONTOLOGY.
427
m th of Straighter. Besides the primary curvatures exemplified in the
Fishes figure, each dentinal tube is minutely undulated; it dichotomizes
v ! three or four times near its termination, sends off many fine lateral
'l_ ^ 1 branches into the clear uniting substance, and finally terminates
in a series of minute cells and inosculating loops, at the line of
junction with the enamel.
This substance is as thick as the dentine, and consists of a similar
combination of minute tubes and a clear connecting substance.
TIk tubes may be described as commencing from the peripheral
surface of the tooth, to which they stand at right angles; and
having proceeded parallel to each other half-way towards the
dentine, they then begin to divide and subdivide, the branches
crossing each other obliquely, and finally terminating in the cellu¬
lar boundary between the enamel and dentine.
The teeth which present this complex structure are successively
developed at one extremity of the bone in proportion as they are
worn away at the other—not, however, as Cuvier describes, from
behind forwards in both upper and lower pharyngeal bones, but in
opposite directions in the opposite bones, the course of succession
being from before backwards in the upper, and from behind for¬
wards in the lower pharyngeal bones. In the progress of the
attrition to which they are subjected, the thin coat of cement re¬
sulting from the ossification of the capsule is first removed from the
apex of the tooth, then the enamel constituting that apex, next the
dentine, and finally the coarse central cellular bone supporting
the hollow wedge-shaped tooth ; and thus is produced a triturating
surface of four different substances of different degrees of density.
The enamel, being the densest element, appears in the form of
elliptical transverse ridges inclosing the dentine and central bone ;
and external to the enamel is the cement which binds together the
different denticles.
The single inferior pharyngeal bone consists principally of an
oblong dentigerous plate. Its breadth somewhat exceeds that of
the conjoined dentigerous surfaces of the pharyngeals above; and
it is gently hollowed, to correspond with their convexity. This
dentigerous plate is principally supported by a strong, slightly
curved, transverse, osseous bar, the extremities of which expand
into thick obtuse processes for the implantation of the triturating
muscles. A longitudinal crest is continued downw'ards and for¬
wards from the middle line of the inferior pharyngeal plate, ante¬
rior to the transverse bar, to which the protractor muscles are
attached.
A longitudinal row of small oval teeth, alternating with the large
lamelliform teeth, like those of the superior pharyngeals, bounds
the dentigerous plate on each side. The intermediate space is oc¬
cupied exclusively by the larger lamelliform or wedge-shaped
teeth, set vertically in the bone, and arranged transversely in
alternate and pretty close-set rows.
There is a close analogy between the dental mass of the Scarm
and the complicated grinders of the elephant, both in form, struc¬
ture, and in the reproduction of the component denticles in hori¬
zontal succession. But in the fish the complexity of the triturating
surface is greater than in the mammal, since, from the mode in
which the wedge-shaped denticles of the Scarus are implanted upon,
and anchylosed to, the processes of the supporting bone, this like¬
wise enters into the formation of the masticatory surface when the
tooth is worn down to a certain point.
The proof of the efficacy of the complex masticatory apparatus
above described is afforded by the contents of the alimentary canal
of the Scari. Mr Charles Darwin, the accomplished naturalist and
geologist, who accompanied Captain Fitzroy, R.N., in the circum-
navigatory voyage of the Beagle, dissected several parrot-fishes
soon after they were caught, and found the intestines laden with
nearly pure chalk, such being the nature of'their excrements;
whence he ranks these fishes among the geological agents to which
is assigned the office of converting the skeletons of the lithophytes
into chalk.
Sphyrama. Genus SPHVRJiNA.—The most formidable dentition in the order
of osseous fishes is that which characterizes the Barracuda sea-pikes
(Sphyrcena), and some extinct fishes allied to this predatory genus.
In the great Barracuda of the southern shores of the United States
{Sphyrcena barracuda, Cuv.), the lower jaw contains a single row
of large, compressed, conical, sharp-pointed, and sharp-edged teeth,
resembling the blades of lancets, but stronger at the base. The
two anterior of these teeth are twice as long as the rest; but the
posterior and serial teeth gradually increase in size towards the
back part of the jaw. There are about twenty-four of these piercing
and cutting teeth in each premandibular bone. They' are opposed
to a double row of similar teeth in the upper jaw, and fit into the
interspace of these two rows when the mouth is closed. The outer¬
most row is situated on the premaxillary, the innermost on the
palatine bones. There are no teeth on the vomer or superior max¬
illary bones. The two anterior teeth in each premaxillary bone
equal the opposite pair in the lower jaw in size; the posterior pre¬
maxillary teeth are serial, numerous, and of small size ; the second Teeth of
of the two anterior large premaxilliary teeth is placed on the inner Fishes,
side of the commencement of the row of small teeth, and is a little
inclined backwards. The retaining power of all the large anterior
teeth is increased by a slight posterior projection, similar to the
barb of a fish-hook, but smaller. The palatine bones contain each
nine or ten lancet-shaped teeth, somew'hat larger than the posterior
ones of the lower jaw\ All these teeth afford good examples of the
mode of attachment by implantation in sockets, which is a rare one
in the class of fishes.
The base or fang of the fully-developed tooth of the Sphyrcena
is anchylosed to the parietes of the socket in which it is inserted.
The pressure of the crown of the new tooth excites absorption of
the inner side of the base of the old, which thus finally loses the
requisite strength of attachment, and its loss is followed by the
absorption of the old socket, as in the higher animals.
It is interesting to observe that the external teeth are in general
contemporaneously shed, so that the maxillary armour is always
preserved in an effective state. The relative position of the new
teeth to their predecessors, and their influence upon them, resembles
some of the phenomena which will be described in the dentition of
the crocodilian reptiles. To the crocodiles the present voracious
fish also approximates in the alveolar lodgment of the teeth ; but
it manifests its ichthyic character in the anchylosis of the fully-
developed teeth to their sockets, and still more strikingly in the
intimate structure of the teeth. The loss or injury to which these
destructive weapons are liable in the conflict which the Sphyrcena
wages with its living and struggling prey is repaired by an unin¬
terrupted succession of new pulps and teeth. The existence of these
is indicated by the foramina, which are situated immediately pos¬
terior to, or on the inner margins of, the sockets of the teeth in
place. These foramina lead to alveoli of reserve, in which the
crowns of the new teeth, in different stages of development, are
loosely imbedded. It is in this position of the germs of the teeth
that the sphyrsenoid fishes, both recent and fossil, mainly differ as
to their dental characters from the rest of the scomberoid family,
and proportionally approach the sauroid type.
In all fishes the teeth are shed and renewed, not once only, as in
mammals, but frequently during the whole course of their lives.
The maxillary dental plates of Lepidosiren, the cylindrical dental
masses of the chimseroid and edaphodont fishes, and the rostral
teeth of the Pristis (if these modified dermal spines may be so
called), are perhaps the sole examples of permanent teeth to be met
with in the whole class. In the great majority of fishes the germs
of the new teeth are developed, like those of the old, from the free
surface of the buccal membrane throughout the entire period of
succession; a circumstance peculiar to the present class. The
angler, the pike, and most of our common fishes, illustrate this
mode of dental reproduction; it is very conspicuous in the car¬
tilaginous fishes, in which the whole phalanx of their numerous
teeth is ever marching slowly forwards in rotatory progress
over the alveolar border of the jaw; the teeth being successively
cast off as they reach the outer margin, whilst the new teeth rise
from the mucous membrane behind the rear rank of the phalanx.
This endless succession and decadence of the teeth, together with
the vast numbers in which they often co-exist in the same fish, illus¬
trate the law of “ vegetative ” or “ irrelative repetition,” as it
manifests itself on the first introduction of new organs in the animal
kingdom; under which light we must view the above-described
organized and calcified preparatory instruments of digestion in the
lowest class of the vertebrate series.
At the extreme limit of the class of fishes, and connecting that Lepidosi-
class with the reptiles, stands the very remarkable genus, the dental ren.
system of which is shown in fig. 36. This consists of two small,
a
b
t
Fig. 36.
Skull and Teeth of the Lepidosiren annecteus.
slender, conical, sharp-pointed, and slightly recurved teeth, which
project downward from the nasal bone a, and of strong trenchant
dental plates, anchylosed with the alveolar border of the upper (b)
and lower (e) jaw, in each of which the plate is divided at the
middle or symphysial line, so as to form two distinct lateral teeth.
The office of the two laniariform teeth is to pierce and retain the
ODONTOLOGY.
428
Teeth of nutritive substance or prey, which is afterwards divided and com-
Keptiles. minuted by the strong maxillary dental plates. The upper pair of
v — — ■> these plates is supported by the anterior part of a strong arch of
bone, which combines the character of the superior maxillary, pala¬
tine, and pterygoid bones. The superior maxillary is represented
by the median and anterior bar, passing in front of the dental plate
of the lower jaw when the mouth is shut, and terminating on each
side in a process which projects outwards and backwards on each
side of the anterior part of the arch; the palatine portion consti¬
tutes the median part of the roof of the mouth behind the foregoing.
The pterygoid portion is indicated by its fulfilling the usual func¬
tion of an abutment extended between the palatine portion of the
upper jaw and the articular pedicle of the lower jaw. The upper
dental plates are confined to the first two parts of the arch
(maxillary and palatine), and do not extend upon the pterygoid
portion; the lower dental plates are anchylosed to the preman-
dibular bone. Viewing the upper pair of plates as a single tooth,
it may be described as indented at its outer surface by five vertical
angular notches, penetrating inwards through half the breadth of
the supporting bone, and dividing the plate into six angular pro¬
cesses, which, from the direction and varying form and breadth of
the entering notches, radiate from the posterior part of the median
line or division of the tooth. The inferior dental plate is similarly
notched on its outer side, but the proportions of the angular inden¬
tations are such that they receive all the processes of the upper
dental plate when the mouth is shut, whilst only the four anterior
processes are reciprocally received into the notches of the upper
dental plate. The dental plate consists, as in the cod and Sphyrcena,
of a central mass of coarse osseous substance traversed by large
and nearly parallel medullary canals, and an external sheath of
very hard “ vitrodentine.”
Dendro- The labyrinthic structure of the teeth of the bony gar-fish of the
donts. North American lakes and rivers (Lepidosteus) has been already
alluded to in the introductory generalization on dental tissues.
The still more complex structure of the fossil teeth of the extinct
Dendrodonts (fig. 14) is there more fully described. As compared
with the vasodentine (fig. 7) of the sharks and of many existing
osseous fishes, the dental tissue of the Dendrodonts differs in both
the extent and regularity of the radiating medullary canals, and
more especially in the straight course of the fine dentinal tubes.
Both the foregoing genera of fishes have been termed “ sauroid,”
but are more truly “ salamandroid,” and approach, like the Lepi-
dosiren, most closely to the lower confines of the reptilian class ;
and as this existing annectant genus is allied to the perennibran-
chiate Batrachians, so the Dendrodus may have linked some extinct
group of the class of fishes with the equally extinct family of
sauroid Batrachians which have been termed “ Labyrinthodonts.”
Sect. IL—TEETH OF REPTILES.
In the class Reptilia, the whole order of Chelonia is
edentulous, as well as the family of toads (Bufonidce), in the
order Batrachia ; certain extinct genera of Saurians were
edentulous, e.g., the remarkable Rhynchosaurus of the New
Red Sandstone of Shropshire, and some of the extinct
Saurians of South Africa.
In the tortoises and turtles, the jaws are covered by a
sheath of horn, which in some species is of considerable
thickness, and very dense ; its working surface is trenchant
in the carnivorous species, but variously sculptured, and
adapted for both cutting and bruising, in the vegetable
feeders ; it may be said that the transitory condition of the
mandibles of the batrachian larvae is here persistent. The
development of the continuous horny maxillary sheath
commences, as in the parrot tribe, from a series of distinct
papillae, which sink into alveolar cavities, regularly arranged
(in Trionyx) along the margins of the upper and lower
jaw-bones; these alveoli are indicated by the persistence
of vascular canals long after the originally separate tooth¬
like cones have become confluent and the horny sheath
completed. The teeth of the dentigerous saurian, ophidian,
and batrachian reptiles are for the most part simple, and
adapted for seizing and holding, but not for dividing or
masticating their food. The siren alone combines true
teeth with a horny maxillary trenchant sheath, like that of Teeth of
the chelonian reptiles. Reptiles.
With respect to number, in no existing reptiles are the
teeth reduced so low as in certain mammals and fishes; Number,
nor, on the other hand, are they ever so multiplied as in
many of the latter class. The extinct dicynodont reptiles
of South Africa had but two teeth, which were long tusks
implanted in the upper jaw (fig. 44).1 Some species of
Amphisbeena (A. alba), with fifteen teeth in the upper jaw
and fourteen in the lower, afford examples of the smallest
number of teeth amongst existing reptiles ; and certain
Batrachians, with teeth “en cardes” at the roof of the
mouth, or which have upwards of eighty teeth in each
lateral maxillary series, present the largest number. It is
rarely that the number of the teeth is fixed and determinate
in any reptile, so as to be characteristic of the species ; and
still more rarely have the individual teeth such characters
as to be determined homologically from one species to
another.
The teeth of reptiles, with few exceptions, present a Form,
simple conical form, with the crown more or less curved,
and the apex more or less acute. The cone varies in
length and thickness; its transverse section is sometimes
circular, but more commonly elliptical or oval, and this
modification of the cone may be traced through every
gradation, from the thick, round, canine-like tooth of the
crocodile, to the sabre-shaped fang of the Varanus, the
Megalosaur, and Cladeiodon.2 Sometimes, as in the fully-
formed teeth of the Megalosaur, one of the margins of the
compressed crown of the tooth is trenchant, sometimes both
are so ; and these may be simply sharp-edged, as in the
Varanus of Timor, or finely serrated, as in the great
Varanus, the Cladeiodon, and the Megalosaur.3
The outer surface of the crown of the tooth is usually
smooth: it may be polished, as in the Leiodon; or impressed
with fine lines, as in the Labyrinthodon (fig. 11) ; or raised
into many narrow ridges, as in the Pleiosaur and Polypty-
chodon; or broken by a few broad ridges, as in the Iguano-
don (fig. 42) ; or grooved by a single longitudinal furrow,
as in some lizards and serpents (fig. 38).4
The cone is longest, and its summit sharpest, in the
serpent; from these may be traced, chiefly in the lizard
tribe, a progressive shortening, expansion of the base,
and,blunting of the apex of the tooth, until the cone is
reduced to a hemispherical tubercle or plate, as in the
Thorictes and Cyclodus. The extinct Placodus was
remarkable for the great size of its flat crushing teeth; in
one species (PL laticeps) the diameter of the crown of the
last palatal tooth is one inch four lines, the length of the
skull being eight inches: this is the largest proportional
grinding-tooth in the animal kingdom. In the Pleiosaur,
the dental cone is three-sided, with one of the angles
rounded off. The posterior subcompressed teeth of the
alligator (fig. 46) present a new modification of form ; here
they terminate in a mammillate summit, supported by a
slightly constricted neck. In the tooth of the Hyloeosaur
the expanded summit is flattened, bent, and spear-shaped,
with the edges blunted. But the breadth of the compressed
crown is greatest in the subcompressed teeth of the extinct
Cardiodon and the existing Iguanas, the teeth of which
latter reptiles are further complicated by having the margins
notched. The great Iguanodon had the crown of the
tooth expanded both in length and breadth, and combined
marginal dentations with longitudinal ridges; this tooth
(fig. 42) presents the most complicated external form as
yet discovered in the class of reptiles. In no reptiles does
the base of the tooth ever branch into fangs.
With respect to situation, the teeth may be present on Situation.
1 Transactions of the Geological Society, 2d series, vol. vii., p. 59.
3 Ibid., fig. 60.
2 Odontography, pi. Ixii. A, fig. 4.
4 Ibid., pi. Ixv.
0 D O N T
’ Teeth of the jaws only,—viz., the maxillary, premaxillary, and man-
Iteptiles. dibular bones, as in the crocodiles, and many hzaids, or
upon the jaws and roof of the mouth ; and here, either
upon the pterygoid bones, as in the Iguana and Mosasaur;
or upon both palatine and pterygoid bones, as in most
serpents; or upon the vomer, as in most Batrachians ; or
upon both vomerine and pterygoid bones, as in the Axolotl;
or upon the vomerine and phenoid bones, as in the sala-
mandra glutinosa, Maclure. W ith respect to the marginal
or jaw teeth, these may be absent in the premaxillary
bones, as in many serpents ; or they may be present in the
upper and not in the lower jaw, as in most frogs; or in
both upper and lower jaws, as in the tailed Batrachians ;
and among these they may be supported, upon the lower
jaw, by the premandibular or dentary piece, as in the
Salamander, Menopome, Amphiume, Proteus ; or upon the
splenial piece,1 as in the Siren ; or upon both the splenial
and premandibular bones, as in the Axolotl. The palatine
and pterygoid teeth may, in the Batrachians, be arranged
in several rows, like the “ dents en cardes of fishes. I he
sphenoid and splenial teeth are always so arranged in the
few species that possess them. The premaxillary, maxillary,
and premandibular teeth are uniserial, or in one row, with
the exception of the Ccecilia^ and the extinct Labyrintho-
donts, which have a double row of teeth at the anterior part
of the lower jaw.
Attach- As a general rule, the teeth of reptiles are anchylosed to
meat. the bone which supports them; when they continue dis¬
tinct, they may be lodged either in a continuous groove,
as in the Ichthyosaurs,2 or in separate sockets, as in the
Plesiosaurs and crocodiles (fig. 46).
The base of the tooth is anchylosed to the walls of a
moderately deep socket in the extinct Megalosaur and
Theocodon. In the Labyrinthodonts and Caecilise, among
the Batrachians, in most Ophidians,—and in the Geckos,
IAgamians, and Varanians, among the Saurians,—the base of
the tooth is imbedded in a shallow socket, and is confluent
therewith. In the Scincoidians, the safeguards {Tejus) in
most Iguanians, in the Chameleons, and most other lacer-
tian reptiles, the tooth is anchylosed by an oblique surface,
extending from the base, more or less, upon the outer side
of the crown, to an external alveolar plate of bone,3 the inner
alveolar plate not being developed. In the frogs, the teeth
are similarly but less firmly attached to an external parapet
of bone. The lizards, which have their teeth thus attached
to the side of the jaw, are termed “ Pleurodont.” In a few
Iguanians, as the Istiures, the teeth appear to be soldered
to the margins of the jaws; these have been termed
“ Acrodonts.” In some large extinct Lacertians,—e.^., the
Mosasaur and Leiodon,—the tooth is fixed upon a raised
conical process ofbone, as shown in the author’s “ Odon¬
tography,” plate 68, fig. 1 ; and plate 72, fig. 2.
These modifications of the attachment of the teeth of
reptiles are closely adapted to the destiped application of
those instruments, and relate to the habits and food of the
species: we may likewise perceive that they offer a close
analogy to some of the transitory conditions of the human
teeth. There is a period, for example,* when the primi¬
tive dental papillae are not defended by either an outer or
an inner alveolar process, any more than their calcified
homologues, which are confluent with the margin of the
jaw in the Rhynchocephalus.5 There is another stage,6 in
which the groove containing the dental germs is defended
by a single external cartilaginous alveolar ridge ; this con¬
dition is permanently typified in the Cyclodus, and most
existing lizards (fig. 41). Next, there is developed in the
O L 0 G Y. 429
human embryo an internal alveolar plate, and the sacs and Teeth of
pulps of the teeth sink into a deep but continuous groove, Reptiles,
in which traces of transverse partitions soon make their ^
appearance : in the ancient Ichthyosaur the relation of the
jaws to the teeth never advance beyond this stage.
Finally, the dental groove is divided by complete par¬
titions,7 and a separate socket is formed for each tooth ; and
this stage of development is attained in the highest organized
reptiles—e.g., the crocodiles.
The tissues entering into the composition of reptilian Substance,
teeth may be four-fold, and a single tooth may be
composed of dentine, cement, enamel, and bone; but
the dentine and cement are present in the teeth of
all reptiles. In the Batrachians and Ophidians a
thin layer of cement invests the central body of dentine,
and, as usual, follows any inflections or sinuosities that
may characterize the dentine. Besides the outer coat
of cement, which is thickest at the base of the teeth,
a generally thin coat of enamel defends the crown of the
tooth in most Saurians, and the last remains of the pulp
are not unfrequently converted into a coarse bone, both in
the teeth which are anchylosed to the jaw, and in some
teeth, as those of the Ichthyosaur, which remain free.
The only modification of the dentine, which could at all en¬
title it to be regarded in the light of a new or distinct sub¬
stance, is thatwhich is peculiar in the present class to the teeth
of the Iguanodon, and which will be presently described.
The varieties of dental structure are few in the rep- Structure,
tiles, as compared with either fishes or mammals, and
its most complicated condition arises from interblending
of the dentinal and other substances, rather than from
modifications of the tissues themselves. In the teeth of
most reptiles, the intimate structure of the dentine coi res¬
ponds with that which has been described as the type, of
the tissue,—e.g., the hard or unvascular dentine,—and which
is the prevailing modification in mammals, viz., the radiation
of a system of minute plasmatic tubes from a single pulp-
cavity, at right angles to the external surface of the tooth.
The most essential modification of this structure is the
intermingling of cylindrical processes of the pulp-cavity in
the form of medullary canals, with the finer tubular struc¬
ture.8 Another modification is that in which the dentine
maintains its normal structure, but is folded inwardly upon
itself, so as to produce a deep longitudinal indentation on
one side of the tooth. It is the expansion of the bottom of
such a longitudinal deep fold that forms the central canal
of the venom-fang of the serpent; but a glance at fig. 39
will show that, notwithstanding the singularly modified dis¬
position of the dentine (6), its structure remains unaltered;
and although the pulp-cavity {p) is reduced to the form of
a crescentic fissure, the dentinal tubes continue to radiate
from it according to the usual law. By a similar inflection
of many vertical longitudinal folds of the external cement
and external surface of the tooth, at regular intervals around
the entire circumference of the tooth, and by a correspond¬
ing extension of radiated processes of the pulp-cavity and
destine into the interspaces of such inflected and converg¬
ing folds, a modification of dental structure is established
in certain extinct reptiles, which, by the various sinuosities of
the interblended folds of cement, and processes of dentine,
with the partial dilations of the radiated pulp-cavity, pro¬
duces the complicated structure, which has been described
at page 412, and figured in cut 12. But this complication
is, nevertheless, referable to a modification of form or
arrangement of the dental tissues, rather than of their
number in the same tooth: the dentinal tubes in each
1 “ Opercular bone ” of Cuvier (in reptiles). 2 Odontography, pi. xiii., fig. 9.
4 At the sixth week of gestation. See Prof. Goodsir “ On the Development of the Human Teeth,” Edinburgh Medical and Surgical
, ° 2d Series, vol. vil.. I)t. 11.. ol. vi., figs. O and O, p. od.
Journal, No. 138.
6 At the seventh or eighth week. (Ibid.)
6 Geological Transactions, 2d Series, vol. vn., pt. n., pi. vi., figs, o and b, p. Sd.
7 At the sixth month. (Ibid.) 8 Odontography, pi. Ixxi., “ Iguanodon.
430
ODONTOLOGY.
Teeth of
Reptiles.
Develop¬
ment.
Katrachia.
sinuous lobe of dentine in the most complex tooth of the
Labyrinthodon exhibit the same general disposition and
course as in the fang of the serpent, and in the still more
simple tooth of the Saurian.
The teeth of reptiles are never completed, as in certain
fishes, at the first or papillary stage ; the pulp in all sinks
into a follicle, and becomes inclosed by a capsule : in cer¬
tain reptiles this becomes more or less surrounded by bone ;
but in the existing species the process of development never
offers the “ eruptive stage,” in the sense in which this is
usually understood, as signifying the extrication of the
young tooth from a closed alveolus. The completion of a
tooth, with the exception of the extinct dicynodont rep¬
tiles, is soon followed by preparation for its removal and
succession : the faculty of developing new tooth-germs seems
to be unlimited in the present class, and the phenomena of
dental decadence and replacement are manifested at every
period of life. The number of teeth is generally the same
in each successive series, and the difference of size pre¬
sented by the teeth of different and distinct series is con¬
siderable. The new germ is always developed, in the first
instance, at the side of the base of the old tooth, never in
the cavity of the base: the crocodiles form no exception to
this rule. The poison-fangs of serpents succeed each other
from behind forwards: in almost every other instance the
germ of the successional tooth is developed from the bottom
and towards the outer side of a small fissure in the mucous
membrane or gum that fills up the shallow groove at the
inside of the alveolar parapet and its adherent teeth ; the
papilla is soon enveloped by a capsular process of the sur¬
rounding membrane ; a small enamel-pulp is developed in
the matrix opposite the apex of the tooth ; the deposition of
the earthy salts in this mould is accompanied by ossification
of the capsule, which afterwards proceeds pari passu with
the calcification of the dentinal papilla or pulp; so that,
with the exception of its base, the surface of the uncalcified
part of the pulp alone remains normally unadherent to the
capsule. As the tooth acquires hardness and size, it
presses against the base of the contiguous attached tooth,
causes a progressive absorption of that part (fig. 46, a),
and finally undermines, displaces, and replaces its predeces¬
sor. The number of nascent matrices of the successional
teeth is so great in the frog, and they are crowded so close
together, that it is not unusual to find the capsules of con¬
tiguous tooth-germs becoming adherent together as their
calcification proceeds. After a brief maceration, the soft
gum may be stripped from the shallow alveolar depression,
and the younger tooth-germs in different stages of growth
are brought away with it.
The mode of development of the teeth of serpents does
not differ essentially from that of the teeth of the Batra-
chians above described, except in the relation of the papillae
of the successional poison-fangs to the branch of the poison-
duct that traverses the cavity of the loose mucous gum in
which they are developed.
The variations which the dental system presents in the
Batrachian order of reptiles are more conspicuous in the
number, situation, and structure of the teeth, than in their
form or mode of attachment.
Certain Batrachians are edentulous, as the genus Hyla-
plesia, among the tree frogs, and the Bufonidce, or family of
toads—some of the species of Bombinator excepted.
The teeth, when present, are generally numerous, simple,
of small and equal size, and close-set, either in a single row,
or aggregated like the teeth of a rasp.
It is not without interest to observe, that a characteristic
condition of the dental system in fishes—viz., the absence of
teeth on the superior maxillary bone,—is continued in those
genera of perennibranchiate Batrachians which stand at the
lowest steps of the reptilian class.
In the Siren {Siren lacertina, Linn.), the lower margin
of the intermaxillary bones, and the sloping anterior and
upper margin of the lower jaw, are trenchant, and are each
incased in a sheath of firm, albuminous, minutely fibrous
tissue, harder than horn. The bones thus armed slide upon
each other like the blades of a pair of curved scissors, when
the mouth is closed, and are well adapted for dividing the
bodies of small fish, aquatic larvae, worms, &c. The splenial
or opercular element in the jaw is beset with numerous
minute pointed teeth, arranged in short oblique rows, and
directed obliquely backwards. The palatal surface of the
mouth presents on each side two flat, thin, and moderately
broad bones, forming an apparently single oblique oval plate,
which converges to meet its fellow at the anterior part of
the palate, so as conjointly to constitute a broad rasp-like
surface in the form of a chevron. The anterior long plate
on each side of the divided vomer, supports six or seven
oblique rows of small pointed retroverted teeth ; the smallest
posterior plate, probably the homologue of the pterygoid, is
beset with four rows of similar teeth ; there being thus ten
or eleven rows on each side of the palatal chevron. The
number of denticles in the middle rows is eleven or twelve ;
these become fewer in the anterior and posterior rows ;
they are all of similar size and form, corresponding with
those of the lower jaw, to which they are opposed.
The condition of the dental system in this, the lowest of
the Batrachia is not without interest, independently of the
absence of the superior maxillary teeth, and of the presence
of the palatal and inferior maxillary rasp-teeth (dents en
cardes). The maxillary sheaths of the Siren being com¬
posed of horn, and being, moreover, easily detached from
the subjacent bones, closely resemble the deciduous man¬
dibles of the tadpoles of the higher Batrachians.
The Proteus anguinus, though retaining its external
gills, offers a further advance to the dental characters of the
higher Batrachians. The alveolar border of each inter¬
maxillary bone is armed with a row of eight or ten minute
and fine sharp-pointed teeth ; each premandibular bone
supports a greater number of similar but larger teeth, like¬
wise arranged in a single row. The vomerine bones sup¬
port a row of denticles, similar, and parallel to, the inter¬
maxillary crescentic series: but the horns of the palatine
dental crescent are continued much farther back, and ter¬
minate, as in the Menobranchus, on the anterior part of the
pterygoid bones ; each half of the crescentic or chevron¬
shaped series contains twenty-four teeth. The superior
maxillary bones are repre¬
sented in the Proteus by
mere cartilaginous rudi¬
ments.
The Menopome makes
a nearer approach to the
caducibranchiate group,
and allies itself most closely
with the gigantic newt
of Japan (Sieboldtia,
Bonap.), and with that/7!
equally gigantic extinct
species of newt so noted
in Palaeontology, as the
“ Homo diluvii testis ” of
Scheuchzer. The single F.g g.
close-set series of small,Qranjnm an^ Upper Jaw and Teeth of the
equal, conical, and slightly Menopome. (Menopoma aUeghanniense).
recurved teeth describes a semicircle on both the
upper and the lower jaws; in the former the majority
are supported by true maxillary bones b, about eight or
ten on the premaxillaries a. The row of similar but
smaller teeth on the anterior expanded border of the
divided vomer c runs parallel with, and at a short distance
behind, the median part of the maxillary series. The pre¬
mandibular teeth are received into the narrow interspace
Teeth of
Reptiles.
i
1
(
ODONTOLOGY.
Teeth of between the two rows in the upper jaw when the mouth is
Reptiles, closed. The teeth of the Menopome, as of the Amphiume
are anchylosed by their base and part of the outer side to a
slightly elevated external alveolar ridge.
Genus Labyrinthodon.—The dental system in this ex¬
tinct genus is more formidable than in any existing Ba-
trachian, the teeth being implanted in distinct sockets, and
a few of the anterior ones developed into large tusks
Ophidia.
(fig. 11).
A close-set series of subsequent teeth extends along the
alveolar border of both upper and lower jaws, and along the
anterior part of the outer margin of each broad vomerine
bone. Both the division and dentigerous character of this
bone exemplify the batrachian affinities of the reptiles in
question. Two or three canine-shaped teeth, at least three
times the size of the serial teeth, are placed in the pre¬
maxillary bones, also at the anterior and external angle of
each vomer, at the fore-part of the maxillaries, and behind
the anterior extremity of the serial teeth of the lowrer jaw.
This allocation of teeth in a double row is peculiar, among
reptiles, to the Cecilia and the present equally aberrant
form of Batrachian : it is a common dental character in the
class of fishes.
But the remarkable characteristic of the teeth of the
Labyrinthodonts is the complex structure described in
the general introduction, and illustrated in fig. 12. By
this character the author, in 1841,1 determined the nature
of certain fossil teeth which had been found in a member
of the New Red Sandstone series in Warwickshire, but
which were of extreme rarity in that formation in England.
The geological evidence at that period had left it uncer¬
tain whether this light-coloured sandstone was the equivalent
of the “Keuper” or “Bunter” division of the German
Trias.2
So far as the geological question depended upon the de¬
termination of the generic identity ol the reptilian fossils in
the English and German formations, it supported the view
entertained by certain geologists as to the correspondence
of the Warwick sandstones with the Keuper sandstones ot
Germany. And if, on the one hand, geology has in this
instance derived any benefit from microscopical investiga¬
tions of animal tissues, on the other hand it must be ad¬
mitted, that in no instance has comparative anatomy been
more directly indebted to geology than for the fossils, and
the stimulus to their microscopic investigation, by means ol
which a knowledge has been obtained of the most beautiful
and complicated modification of dental structure hitherto
known, and of which no adequate conception could have
been gained from investigations, however close and exten¬
sive, of the teeth of existing species of animals.
The order Ophidia, as it is characterized in the system of Cuvier,
requires to be divided into two sections, according to the nature of
the food, and the consequent modification of the jaws and teeth.
Certain species, which subsist on worms, insects, and other small
invertebrate animals, have the tympanic pedicle, of the lower jaw
immediately and immovably articulated to the walls of the cra¬
nium. The lateral branches of the lower jaw are fixed together at
the symphysis, and are opposed by the usual vertical movement to
a similarly complete maxiilary arch above; these belong to the
genera Amphisboena and Anguis of Linnaeus, the latter represented
by our common slow-worm. The rest of the Ophidians, including
the ordinary serpents and constrictors, which form the typical
members, and by far the greatest proportion of the order, prey
upon living animals of frequently much greater diameter than
their own ; and the maxillary apparatus is conformably and pecu¬
liarly modified to permit of the requisite distension of the soft
par'.s surrounding the mouth, and the transmission of their prey to
the digestive cavity.
In the present article the description will be restricted to the
dental peculiarities of the true serpents. All these subsist on
animal matter, and swallow their food whole, whether they prey
on living animals, as is the case in almost every species, or feed on
the eggs of birds, as in the Deirodon scaber, 0. (Coluber scaber
Linn.)
With the exception of this and some congeneric species, in which
the teeth of the qrdinary bones of the mouth are so minute as to
have been deemed wanting, the maxillary and premandibular bones
in all true Ophidians are formidably armed with sharp.pointed
teeth; there is on each side of the palate a row of similar teeth
supported by the palatine and pterygoid bones. In the great
Pythons, and some species of boa, the premaxillary bone also sup¬
ports teeth. All the teeth, whatever be their position, present a
simple conical form, the cone being long, slender, and terminated
by an acute apex, and the tooth is either straight, or, more com¬
monly, bent a little beyond the base, or simply recurved, or with a
slight sigmoid flexure. The teeth are thus adapted for piercing,
tearing, and holding, and not for dividing or bruising. In some
species certain teeth are traversed by a longitudinal groove for
conveying an acrid saliva into the wounds which they inflict; in
others, two or more teeth are longitudinally perforated for trans¬
mitting venom ; such teeth are called “ poison-fangs” (fig. 38, b), and
are always confined to the superior maxillaries, and are generally
placed near the anterior extremity of those bones.
In the genus Deirodon, the teeth of the ordinary bones of the
mouth are so small as to be scarcely perceptible, and they appear
to be soon lost; so that it has been described as an edentulous ser¬
pent. An acquaintance with the habits and food of this species
has shown how admirably this apparent defect is adapted to its
wellbeing. Its business is to restrain the undue increase of the
smaller birds by devouring their eggs. Now, if the teeth had
existed of the ordinary form and proportions in the maxillary and
palatal regions, the egg would have been broken as soon as it was
seized, and much of its nutritions contents would have escaped
from the lipless mouth of the snake in the act of deglutition; but,
owing to the almost edentulous state of the jaws, the egg glides
along the expanded opening unbroken, and it is not until it has
reached the gullet, and the closed mouth prevents any escape of
the nutritious matter, that the shell is exposed to instruments
adapted for its perforation. These instruments consist of the in¬
ferior spinous processes of the seven or eight posterior cervical
vertebrae, the extremities of which are capped by a layer of hard
cement, and penetrate the dorsal parietes of the oesophagus. They
may be readily seen, even in very young subjects, in the interior
of that tube in which their points are directed backwards. The
shell being sawed open longitudinally by these vertebral teeth, the
egg is crushed by the contractions of the gullet, and is carried to
the stomach, where the shell is no doubt soon dissolved by the acid
gastric juice.
In the boa-constrictor, the teeth are slender, conical, suddenly
bent backwards and inwards above their base of attachment, with
the crown straight or very slightly curved, as in the posterior
teeth. The premaxillary bone supports four small teeth; each
superior maxillary bone has eight much larger ones, which gra¬
dually decrease in size as they are placed farther back. There are
eight or nine teeth of similar size and proportions in each preman¬
dibular bone. These teeth are separated by wide intervals, from
which other teeth similar to those in place have been detached.
The base of each of the above teeth is extended transversely, com¬
pressed antero-posteriorly, and anchylosed to a shallow alveolus
extending obliquely across the shallower alveolar groove. An
affinity to the lizard tribes is manifested by the greater develop¬
ment of the outer as compared with the inner wall of the alveolar
furrow.
The palatine teeth, of which there are three or four in each pa¬
latal bone, are as large as the superior maxillary ones, and are simi¬
larly attached. The pterygoid teeth, five or six in number, which
complete the internal dental series on the roof of the mouth, are of
smaller size, and gradually diminish as they recede backwards.
In the interspaces of the fixed teeth in both these bones, the places
of attachment of the shed teeth are always visible, so that the dental
formula, if it included the vacated with the occupied sockets, would
express a greater number of teeth than are ever in place and use
at the same time. In the smaller species of boa, the premaxillary
bone is edentulous. All the teeth have a lethal perfection of form
for piercing. Their direction prevents the escape of the prey in
which they are once fixed; while the separate and independent
movement of each half of both upper and lower jaw, and of the
dentigerous bones of the palate, allows of the different series of
teeth being successively withdrawn and implanted in a more ad¬
vanced position in the victim, which is thus gradually drawn into
the gullet without the retaining force being unduly relaxed during
any part of the engulphing process.
The Colubers, like other true serpents, have two longitudinal
431
Teeth of
Reptiles.
 W
Proceedings of the Geological Society, Jan. 20, 1811, No. xx., p. 257.
2 Geological Transactions, 2d series, vol. v., p. 345.
432
ODONTOLOGY.
Teeth of rows of teeth on the roof of the mouth, extending along the pala-
Reptiles. tines and pterygoids. The genus Oligodon appears to form the sole
exception to this rule. In the Dryinus nasutus, M. Duvernoy has
noticed a few small teeth on the transverse bone or external ptery¬
goid, as well as on the internal pterygoid.
In certain genera of non-venomous serpents, as Dryophis, Dipsas,
and Bucephalus, in which the superior maxillary teeth increase in
size towards the posterior part of the bone, the large terminal teet i
of the series are traversed along their anterior and convex side by
a longitudinal groove. In the Bucephalus capensis, the two or three
posterior maxillary teeth present this structure, and are muc
larger than the anterior teeth, or those of the palatine or preman-
dibular series ; they add materially, therefore, to the power of ie-
taining the prey, and may conduct into the wounds which
inflict an acrid saliva, but they are not in connection with the
duct of an express poison-gland. The long grooved fangs are either
firmly fixed to the maxillary bones, or are slightly moveable,
according to their period of growth ; they are concealed by a sheath
of thick and soft gum, and their points are directed backwards.
The sheath always contains loose recumbent grooved teeth, ready to
succeed those in place.
In most of the Coluhri each maxillary and premandibular bone
includes from twenty to twenty-five teeth; they are less numerous
in the genera Tortrix and Homalopsis, and are reduced to a still
smaller number in the poisonous serpents in the typical genera, of
which the short maxillary bone supports only a single perforated fang.
The transition to these serpents, which was begun in the Bucephali
and allied genera with grooved maxillary teeth, is completed by
the poisonous serpents of the genera Pelamis, Hydrophis, Elaps,
Bungarus, and Hamadryas; which latter genus, as its cervical
integument can be expanded into a hood, constitutes an intermediate
link between Bungarus and Naja.
The superior maxillary bone (fig. 38, &) diminishes in length with
the decreasing number of teeth-
which it supports; the ectoe
pterygoid bone elongates in ths
same ratio, so as to retain itt $
position as an abutment againsd
the shortened maxillary, an-
the muscles implanted into this
ectopterygoid style communi
cate, through it, to the maxillary
bone, the hinge-like movements
backwards and forwards upon
Fig. 38.
Skull and Teeth of the Rattlesnake
{Crotalus durissus).
the ginglynoid articulations connecting that bone with the anterior
frontal and palatal bones. As the fully-developed poison-fangs are
attached by the same firm basal anchylosis to shallow maxillary
sockets, which forms the characteristic mode of attachment of the
simple or solid teeth, they necessarily follow all the movements of
the superior maxillary bone. When the external pterygoid is re¬
tracted, the superior maxillary rotates backwards, and the poison-
fang is concealed in the lax mucous gum with its point turned
backwards; when the muscles draw forward the external ptery¬
goid, the superior maxillary bone is pushed forwards, and the
recumbent fang withdrawn from its concealment and erected.
In this power of changing the direction of a large tooth, so that
it may not impede the passage of food through the mouth, we may
perceive an analogy between the viper and the Lophius; but in the
fish the movement is confined to the tooth alone, and is dependent
on the mere physical property of the elastic medium of attachment;
in the serpent, the tooth has no independent motion, but rotates
with the jaw, whose movements are governed by muscular actions.
In the fish, the great teeth are erect, except when pressed down by
some extraneous force ; in the serpent, the habitual position of the
fang is the recumbent one, and its erection takes place only when
the envenomed blow is to be struck.
A true idea of the structure of a poison-fang will be formed by
supposing the crown of a simple tooth, as that of a boa, to be pressed
flat, and its edges to be then bent towards each other, and soldered
together so as to form a hollow cylinder open at both ends. The
flattening of the fang, and its inflection around the poison-duct,
commences immediately above the base, and the suture of the in¬
flected margins runs along the anterior and convex side of the
recurved fang : the poison canal is thus in front of the pulp-cavity.
The basal aperture of the poison-canal is oblique, and its opposite
outlet is more so, presenting the form of a narrow elliptical longi¬
tudinal fissure, terminating at a short distance from the apex of
the fang.
The character most commonly adduced from the dental system,
as distinguishing the venomous from the non-venomous serpents, is,
that the former have two, the latter four, rows of teeth in the upper
jaw, the two outer or maxillary rows being supplied by the single
poison-fang. The exceptions to this rule are, however, too nume¬
rous for its value as a distinguishing character in a question of
such practical moment as the venomous or non-venomous properties Teeth of
of a serpent. In all the family of marine serpents the poison-fang Reptiles,
is only the foremost of a row of fixed maxillary teeth. In the ^
Hydrophis striatus, e.g,, there are four teeth, and in the Hydrophis
schistosa there are five teeth behind the venom-fang, of rather
smaller size than it; the two-coloured sea-snake (Pelamys bicolor)
has also five maxillary teeth in addition to the perforated one.
The poison-fang in this genus is relatively smaller than in 'the
venomous serpents of the land, but presents the same peculiar
structure, and death has followed the wound it has inflicted. The
poison-glands occupy the sides of the posterior half of the head:
each consists of a number of elongated narrow lobes, extending
from the main duct, which runs along the lower border of the
gland, upwards and slightly backwards; each lobe gives off lobules
throughout its extent, thus presenting a pinnatifid structure ; and
each lobule is subdivided into smaller secerning caeca, which con¬
stitute the ultimate structure of the gland.
The whole gland is surrounded by a double aponeurotic capsule,
of which the outermost and strongest layer is in connection with
the muscles by whose contraction the several caeca and lobes of the
gland are compressed and emptied of their secretion. This is then
conveyed by the duct to the basal aperture of the poison-canal of
the fang. We may suppose that, as the analogous lacrymal and
salivary glands in other animals are most active during particular
emotions, so the rage which stimulates the venom-snake to use its
deadly weapon must be accompanied with an increased secretion
and great distension of the poison-glands; and, as the action of the
compressing muscles is contemporaneous with the blow by which
the serpent inflicts its wound, the poison is at the same moment
injected with force into the wound from the apicaT outlet of the
perforated fang.
The duct which conveys the poison, although it runs through the
centre of a great part of the tooth, is really on the outside of the
tooth—the canal in which it is lodged and protected being formed
by a longitudinal inflection of the parietes of the pulp-cavity, or
true internal canal of the tooth. This inflection commences a little
beyond the base of the tooth, where its nature is readily appre¬
ciated, as the poison-duct there rests in a slight groove or longi¬
tudinal indentation on the convex side of the fang; as it proceeds,
it sinks deeper into the substance of the tooth, and the sides of the
groove meet and seem to coalesce, so that the trace of the inflected
fold ceases in some species to be perceptible to the naked eye,
and the fang appears, as it is commonly described, to be perforated
by the duct in the poison-fang.
From the real nature of the poison-canal it follows, that the
transverse section of the tooth varies in form in different parts of
the tooth. At the base it is oblong, with a large pulp-cavity of a
corresponding form, with an entering notch at the anterior surface;
farther on, the transverse section presents the form of a horse-shoe,
and the pulp-cavity that of a crescent, the horns of which extend
into the sides of the deep cavity of the poison-fang; a little be¬
yond this part the section of the tooth is crescentic, with the horns
obtuse and in contact, so as to circumscribe the poison-canal; and
along the whole of the middle four-sixths of the tooth, the section
shows the dentine of the fang inclosing the poison-cavity, and hav¬
ing its own centre
or pulp-cavity p, in
the form of a cres¬
centic fissure, situ¬
ated close to the
concave border of
the inflected sur¬
face of the tooth.
It is such a section
of which a magni¬
fied view is given in
fig. 39. The pulp-
cavity disappears,
and the poison-canal
again assumes the
form of a groove
near the apex of the
fang, and termi¬
nates on the ante¬
rior surface in an
elongated fissure.
The venom-fangs
of the viper, rattle¬
snake, and fer-de-lance are coated only with a thin layer of a
subtransparent and minutely-cellular cement; the disposition of
the calcigerous tubes is obedient to the general law of verticality
to the external surface of the tooth : it is represented, as seen in a
transverse section from the middle of the fang, in fig. 39. Since
the inflected surface of the tooth can be exposed to no other pres-
Fig. 33.
Transverse Section of the Poison-Fang of a
Rattlesnake.
ODONTOLOGY.
433
Teeth of sure than that of the turgescent duct with which it is in contact,
Reptiles, the tubes which proceed to that surface, v, while maintaining their
usual relation of the right angle to it, are extremely short, and the
layer of dentine separating the poison-tube from the pulp-cavity
p is proportionably thin. The dentinal tubes that radiate from
the opposite side of the pulp-cavity to the exposed surface of the
tooth d are disproportionately long.
The teeth of all Ophidians are developed and completed in that
which is the original seat of the tooth-germs in all animals viz.,
the mucous membrane or gum covering the alveolar border of the
dentigerous bones. This gum presents the same lax tissue, and is
as abundantly developed, as in the pike, Lophius, and many other
fishes, in which it likewise serves as the nidus and locality for the
complete development of the teeth.
The primitive dental papilla in the common harmless snake very
soon sinks into the substance of the gum, and becomes inclosed by
a capsule. As soon as the deposition of the calcareous salts com¬
mences in the apex of the papilla, the capsule covering that part
becomes ossified and adherent to the dentine, and the tooth begins
to pierce and emerge from the gums before its mould, the pulp,
is half completed. Fresh layers of cells are successively added to
the base of the pulp, and converted by their confluence and calci¬
fication into the tubular dentine, until the full size of the tooth is
attained, when its situation in the gum is gradually changed, and
its base becomes anchylosed to the shallow cavity of the alveolar
surface of the bone.
In the posterior part of the large mucous sheath of the poison-
fang, the successors of this tooth are always to be found in different
stages of development: the pulp is at first a simple papilla, and
when it has sunk into the gum, the succeeding portion presents a
depression along its inferior surface, as it lies horizontally with
the apex directed backwards. The capsule adheres to this in¬
flected surface of the pulp; and the introduction of the duct of the
poison-gland is completed by the extension of the borders of the
inflected pulp around that tube.
Lacertia. Among the inferior or squamate Saurians (lizards, monitors, igua¬
nas) there are two leading modifications in the mode of attachment
of the teeth, the base of which may be either anchylosed to the sum¬
mit of an alveolar ridge, or to the bottom of an alveolar groove,
and supported by its lateral wall ; these modifications are indi¬
cated by the terms “ acrodont” and “ pleurodont.” A third mode
of fixation is presented by some extinct Saurians, which in other
parts of their organization adhere to the squamate or lacertine
division of the order,—the teeth being implanted in sockets, either
loosely or confluent with the bony walls of the cavity: these may
be termed the “ thecodont”1 Lacertians. Most of the ancient
triassic and permian Saurians belong to this group.
Varanidte. In the crocodilian monitor-lizard (Varanus crocodilinus), the large
fixed compressed teeth, of which there may be about seven in each
upper maxillary bone, and six in each premandibular, are anchy¬
losed by the whole of their base, and by an oblique surface leading
upwards on the outer side of the tooth to a slight depression on the
oblique alveolar surface, as in the variety called striatus. In this
monitor the base of the tooth is finely striated, the lines being pro¬
duced by inflected folds of the external cement, as in the Ichthyo¬
saur and Labyrinthodon, but being short and straight, as in those
of the former genus.
The alveolar channel or groove has scarcely any depth; but the
anchylosed base of the tooth is applied to an oblique surface, ter¬
minating in a sharp edge, from which the outer side of the free
crown of the tooth is directly continued. The great Varanus, like
the variegated species, manifests its affinity to the Crocodilians in
the number of successive teeth which are in progress of growth to
replace each other; but from the position in which the germs of
the successional teeth are developed, the more advanced teeth in
this species, as in the variety variegatus, do not exhibit the exca¬
vation that characterizes the same parts of the teeth of the Enalio-
saurs and crocodile.
Dinosauria. The compressed piercing and trenchant form of tooth which
characterizes the varanian lizards was anciently manifested by a
gigantic extinct Saurian, of which the remains were discovered by
the late Dr Buckland in the oolitic slate of Stonesfield, near Oxford.
These remains have been examined by the writer in the geological
museum of that university. The specimen which is most illustra¬
tive of the dental peculiarities is a portion of the lower jaw with a
few teeth. The first character which attracts the attention of the
anatomist in this fossil is the inequality in the height of the outer
and inner alveolar walls. This assures him of the saurian affinities
of the gigantic reptile, a similar inequality characterizing the jaws
of almost all the existing lizards. But in these the oblique groove,
so bounded, to which the bases of the developed teeth are anchy¬
losed, is much more shallow, and is relatively wider ; and the
teeth in all the stages of growth are completely exposed when the Teeth of
gum has been removed. Reptiles.
In the great oolitic carnivorous lizard, which its discoverer has i /
called Megalosaurus, the greater relative development of the inner M .
alveolar wall, as compared with the dentigerous part of the jaw in 1 osau‘
existing Saurians, narrows the dental groove, and covers a greater
proportion of the bases of the teeth, besides concealing more or less
completely the germs of their successors. Moreover, instead of the
mere shallow impressions upon the inner side of the outer alveolar
plate to which the teeth are attached in modern lizards, there are
distinct sockets formed by bony partitions connecting the outer
with the inner alveolar wall in the jaw of the Megalosaurus.
These partitions rise from the outer side of the inner alveolar
wall in the form of triangular vertical plates of bone, and from the
middle of the outer side of each plate a bony partition crosses to
the outer parapet, completing the alveoli of the fully-formed or
more advanced teeth; the series of triangular plates forming a kind
of zig-zag buttress along the inner side of those alveoli. The outer
parapet rises an inch higher than the inner one.
Of the fully-developed teeth, only one has been preserved in situ,
in the specimen under description; the others appear rather to
have slipped out than to have been broken off, the anchyloses of
the basal capsule of the tooth to the alveolar periosteum being but
slight, and apparently taking place tardily, in the Megalosaurus.
Fig. 40 exhibits a portion of another jaw of the Megalosaurus, also
Eig. 40.
Section of Jaw with Teeth of the Megalosaurus BuMandi, nat. size,
from Stonesfield oolite, from which the inner wall has been removed
3 i
VOL. XVI.
1 0»x», a sheath ; oou;, a tooth.
ODONTOLOGY.
434
Teeth of to show the germ of a successional tooth c, about to succeed an old
Reptiles, tooth a, which has been broken, and near to which is a newly-
v J formed tooth coming into place &. These teeth well exemplify the
shape of the crown of the tooth, which is subcompressed, slightly re¬
curved, sharp-edged, and sharp-pointed, the edges being minutely
serrated; the edge upon the convex or front border b becomes blunted
as it descends about two-thirds of the way towards the base of the
tooth; that upon the concave hinder border a is continued to the
base. The lower half of the crown is thicker towards the fore margin
than towards the hind one; so that a transverse section, like that
above (a, in fig. 40), gives a narrow oval form pointed behind. At
the upper half of the crown the sides slope more equally from the
middle thickest part to both margins, and the section is a narrow
pointed ellipse. The crown is covered by a smooth and polished
enamel, which wholly forms the marginal serrations. The base of
the tooth is coated with a smooth, lighter-coloured cement, forming
a thin layer, and becoming a little thicker towards the implanted
end of the tooth. The remains of the pulp are converted into osteo-
dentine in the basal part of the completely formed tooth. Moderately
magnified, the surface of the enamel presents a finely-wrinkled ap¬
pearance. The marginal serrations show, under a somewhat higher
power, that the points are directed towards the apex of the tooth
a structure well adapted for dividing the tough tissues of the saurian
integument.
The main body of the tooth consists of dentine, of that hard
unvascular kind of which the same part of the teeth of existing
crocodiles and most mammals is composed. The dentinal tubules
in the Megalosaurus are extremely fine and close-set, presenting a
diameter of ^i^th of an inch, with interspaces varying between
two and three times that diameter. They radiate from the pulp-
cavity at right angles with the external surface of the tooth. The
primary curvatures correspond with those of the dentinal tubules
in the Varanus (figured in the author’s Odontography, plate Ixvii.,
fig. 2), but they are less marked; so that the tubules appear
straighter in the Megalosaurus. After their origin, they dichoto¬
mize sparingly, but the number of minute secondary branches sent
off into the intermediate substance is very great. These secondary
branches proceed at acute angles from the primary tubules; the
divisions of the latter become very frequent near the periphery of
the dentine, and the terminal branches dilate into, or inosculate
with, a stratum of minute calcigerous cells, which separates the
dentine from the enamel.1 No part of the dentine is pervaded by
medullary canals, as in the Iguanodon.
A series of teeth from individual Megalosauri, of different ages,
are preserved in the British Museum and in the geological museum
at Oxford; although differing in size, they preserve the character¬
istic form above described. In one specimen the point of the crown
and the trenchant margins have been rubbed down to a smooth
obtuse surface; it seems to have come from the hinder part of the
dental series, where the teeth may have been smaller and less sharp,
or more liable to be blunted by a greater share in the imperfect act
of mastication, than the teeth in advance.
Successional teeth in different stages of growth are shown in the
original portion of jaw of the Megalosaurus in the Oxford museum.
Some, more advanced, show their crowns projecting from alveoli
already formed by the plates extending across from the triangular
processes before described. Vacant sockets, from which fully-
formed teeth have escaped, occur, generally in the intervals be¬
tween these more advanced teeth. The summits of less developed
teeth are seen protruding at the inner side of the basal interspaces
of the triangular plate, between them and the true internal alveolar
parapet. There can be no doubt that, in the course of the develop¬
ment of these teeth, corresponding changes take place in the jaw
itself, by which new triangular plates and alveolar partitions are
formed, as the old ones become absorbed, analogous to those con¬
comitant changes in the growth and form of the teeth, alveoli, and
jaws which take place in so striking a degree in the elephant.
The peculiarity of the Megalosaurus, as compared with the croco¬
diles and lizards, which have a like endless succession of teeth, is
the deeper position of the successional tooth (fig. 40, c), in relation
to the one (a) it is destined to replace, and the great proportion of
the tooth which is formed before it is protruded. This interesting
character is well exhibited in the portion of the jaw kindly sub¬
mitted to the author’s examination by the late Duke of Marlborough,
and a portion of which is shown in fig. 40. The anterior tooth a
in this specimen show's at the inner side of its base the commencing
absorption stimulated by the encroaching capsule of the successional
tooth c below, the crown of which is completed externally, though
not consolidated. On one of the fractured margins of this piece of
jaw, a part of the basal shell of an absorbed and shed tooth remains, Teeth of
with part of the root of the successional tooth, which has risen into Reptiles,
place, but which shows its base full of matrix, the pulp not having , > | ,
been calcified at that period of the tooth’s growth.
In the proportion of the successional teeth which is formed in the
formative cavity in the substance of the jaw, the Megalosaurus offers
a closer resemblance to the mammalian class than do any of the
recent or extinct crocodilian or lacertian reptiles. But the evi¬
dence of uninterrupted and frequent succession of the teeth in the
Megalosaurus is unequivocal; and this part of the dental economy
of the great carnivorous reptile is strictly analogous to that which
governs the same system in the existing members of the class. The
different forms of the teeth at different stages of protrusion did not
fail to attract the attention of the gifted discoverer of the Megalo¬
saurus, in whose words this notice of its dentition may be fitly
concluded:—
11 In the structure of these teeth we find a combination of me¬
chanical contrivances analogous to those which are adopted in the
construction of the knife, the sabre, and the saw. When first pro¬
truded above the gum, the apex of each tooth presented a double
cutting edge of serrated enamel. In this stage its position and line
of action were nearly vertical; and its form, like that of the two-
edged point of a sabre, cutting equally on each side. As the tooth
advanced in growth, it became curved backwards in the form of a
pruning-knife, and the edge of serrated enamel was continued
downwards to the base of the inner and cutting side of the tooth,
whilst on the outer side a similar edge descended, but a short dis¬
tance from the point; and the convex portion of the tooth became
blunt and thick, as the back of a knife is made thick for the pur¬
pose of producing strength. The strength of the tooth was further
increased by the expansion of its side. Had the serrature continued
along the whole of the blunt and convex portion of the tooth, it
would in this position have possessed no useful cutting power; it
ceased precisely at the point beyond which it could no longer be
effective. In a tooth thus formed for cutting along its concave
edge, each movement of the jaw combined the power of the knife
and saw ; whilst the apex, in making the first incision, acted like
the two-edged point of a sabre. The backward curvature of the
full-grown teeth enabled them to retain, like barbs, the prey which
they had penetrated, In these adaptations we see contrivances
which human ingenuity has also adopted in the preparation of
various instruments of art.” 2
The lizards of the Iguanian family are characterized by a short Iguanidae.
contractile tongue, slightly notched at its extremity, but are distin¬
guished for the most part by having teeth on the pterygoid bone,
and also by the complicated form of the crown of the maxillary teeth
in the typical genera, the species of which subsist chiefly on vegetable
substances. In most of the Iguanians the teeth are lodged in a com¬
mon shallow, oblique, alveolar groove, and are soldered to excava¬
tions on the inner surface of the outer wall of the groove.
In the pleurodont Iguanians, the teeth never present the true
laniary form ; and if simply conical, as at the extremes of the
maxillary series, the cone is more or less obtuse ; but in general it
is expanded, more or less trilobate, or dentated along the margins
of the crown.
The dentition of the Basilisks differs little from that of the Iguanse.
The posterior teeth are rather trilobate than tricuspid; the anterior
ones are small, circular, pointed, and slightly curved. There are
generally from five to six conical teeth on each pterygoid bone ; but
in the mitred Basilisk there are twelve teeth in each of these rows.
The Amblyrhynchus, a genus which is somewhat remarkable for
the marine habits of at least one of the species (Amblyrhynchus ater),
whose diet is sea-weed, has the tricuspid structure well developed
in the posterior teeth.
The typical genus of the present family of Saurians is charac¬
terized by the crenate or dental margin of the crown of the maxil¬
lary and premandibular teeth, a few of the anterior small ones
excepted. The pterygoid teeth are arranged in two or three irre¬
gular rows, resembling somewhat the dents en cardes of fishes.
In the full-grown horned Iguana (Metopoceros cornutus, Dum.),
there are about fifty-six teeth in both the upper and lower jaws, of
which the four first are conical and slightly recurved ; the twelve
succeeding teeth are somewhat larger in size, with more compressed
and expanded crowns; the rest are triangular, compressed, with
dentated margins. The inner surface of the crown of the tooth is
simply convex and smooth, the outer surface traversed by a median
longitudinal, broad, obtuse ridge. Fig. 41 gives a view of these
teeth on the inner side of the lower jaw: a, the teeth in place,
anchylosed to the outer parapet of the alveolar groove ; b, the germ
1 The microscopic characters of the tooth of the Megalosaurus are represented in the Odontography, pi. Ixx. A, in part of a transverse section of
the middle of the crown, including the pulp-cavity and its osteo-dentine.
* Buckland, Bridgewater Treatise, vol. i., p. 237.
ODONTOLOGY.
435
Teeth of °f a successional tooth ; c, a tooth more advanced, and rising into
nlace. The base of the older teeth soon begins to be sapped by the
Fig. 41.
Lower Jaw and Teeth of an Iguana (Metopoceros cornutus).
successors. In the common as in the horned iguana there is a
single row of small teeth implanted in each pterygoid bone; but
no iguanian lizard has teeth on the palatine bones.
The pulp-cavity in old teeth becomes occupied by a coarse bone,
characterized by large irregularly-shaped calciferous cells ; and
the interspaces are filled with irregular moss-like reticulations of
tubes. Branches of the pulp-cavity are never continued in the
form of medullary canals into the substance of the dentine in the
existing Iguanae.
The germs of the successional teeth {b, fig. 41), are developed
from the mucous membrane covering the inner side of the base of
those in place. The apex of the dentated crown is first formed ; by
its pressure it excites absorption of the base of the fixed tooth, and
soon undermines it, and then occupies the recess in the alveolar
plate in the interspace of the two adjoining fixed teeth. After the
crown is completed, the rest of the tooth forms a contracted and
elongated fang, which at first is hollow, then becomes consolidated
by ossification of the remaining pulp c, and is afterwards a second
time excavated by the pressure of a new tooth.
Dinosauria. The value of a knowledge of the comparative anatomy of the
teeth, and especially of their external characters, in the cold-
Iguanodon. ki00(ied classes of animals, has never, perhaps, been placed in so
striking a point of view as in the leading steps to the discovery of
the present most extraordinary and gigantic reptile. The detached
teeth and bones of the Jguanodon, successively discovered in the
Wealden strata of Sussex, and afterwards found associated together
to the extent of nearly half the skeleton of one and the same indi¬
vidual, in the greensand of Kent, offer not the least marvellous or
significant evidences of the inhabitants of the now temperate lati¬
tudes during the later secondary periods of the formation of the
earth’s crust.
With vertebrae, subconcave at both articular extremeties, having,
in the dorsal region, lofty and expanded neural arches, and doubly
articulated ribs, and characterized in the sacral region by their
unusual number and complication of structure; with a Lacertian
pectoral arch, and unusually large bones of the hind limbs, exca¬
vated by large medullary cavities, and adapted for terrestrial pro¬
gression ;—the Iguanodon was distinguished by teeth, resembling
in shape those of the Iguana, but in structure differing from the
teeth of that and every other known reptile, and unequivocally
indicating the former existence in the Dinosaurian order of a
gigantic representative of the small group of living lizards which
subsist on vegetable substances.
The important difference which the fossil teeth presented in the
form of their grinding surface was pointed out by Cuvier,1 of
whose description Dr Mantell adopted a condensed view in his
Illustrations of the Geology of Sussex, 4to, 1827, p. 72. The com¬
bination of this dental distinction with the vertebral and costal
characters, which prove the Iguanodon not to have belonged to the
same group of Saurians as that which includes the Iguana and
other modern lizards, rendered it highly desirable to ascertain by
the improved modes of investigating dental sWucture, the actual
amount of correspondence between the Iguanodon and Iguana in
this respect. This has been done in the author’s general descrip¬
tion of the teeth of reptiles,2 from which the following notice is
abridged :—
The teeth of the Iguanodon (fig. 42), though resembling most
closely those of the Iguana, do not present an exact magnified
image of them, but differ in the greater relative thickness of the
crown, its more complicated external surface, and, still more
essentially, in a modification of the internal structure, by which
the Iguanodon equally deviates from every other known reptile.
As in the Iguana, the base of the tooth is elongated and con¬
tracted ; the crown expanded and smoothly convex on the inner
side; when first formed it is acuminated, compressed, its sloping
sides serrated, and its external surface traversed by a median longi¬
tudinal ridge, and coated by a layer of enamel; but beyond this
point the description of the tooth of the Iguanodon indicates cha¬
racters peculiar to that genus. In most of the teeth that have Teeth of
hitherto been found, three longitudinal ridges traverse the outer Reptiles,
surface of the crown, one on each side of the median primitive _ i
Fig. 42.
Front and side views of a Tooth of the Iguanodon, nat. size,
ridge; these are separated from each other and from the serrated
margins of the crown by four wide and smooth longitudinal grooves.
The relative width of these grooves varies in different teeth; some¬
times a fourth small longitudinal ridge is developed on the outer
side of the crown. The marginal serrations which, at first sight,
appear to be simple notches, as in the Iguana, present under a low
magnifying power (fig. 43), the form of transverse
ridges, themselves notched, so as to resemble the
mammilated margins of the unworn plates of the
elephant’s grinder; slight grooves lead from the
interspaces of these notches upon the sides of the
marginal ridges. These ridges or dentations do
not extend beyond the expanded part of the crown;
the longitudinal ridges are continued farther down,
especially the median ones, which do not subside
till the fang of the tooth begins to assume its sub- Mar ina^ri^geg
cylindrical form. The tooth at first increases both on the Tooth
in breadth and thickness ; then it diminishes in ot the Iguano-
breadth, but its thickness goes on increasing ; in don’
the larger and fully formed teeth, the fang decreases in every
diameter, and sometimes tapers almost to a point. The smooth
unbroken surface of such fangs indicates that they did not adhere
to the inner side of the maxillae, as in the Iguana, but were placed
in separate alveoli, as in the Crocodile and Megalosaur; such sup¬
port would appear, indeed, to be indispensable to teeth so worn by
mastication as those of the Iguanodon.
The apex of the tooth soon begins to be worn away, and it would
appear, by many specimens, that the teeth were retained until
nearly the whole of the crown had yielded to the daily abrasion.
In these teeth, however, the deep excavation of the remaining fang
plainly bespeaks the progress of the successional tooth prepared to
supply the place of the worn-out grinder. At the earlier stages of
abrasion a sharp edge is maintained at the external part of the
tooth by means of the enamel which covers that surface of the
crown; the prominent ridges upon that surface give a sinuous
contour to the middle of the cutting edge, whilst its sides are jagged
by the lateral serrations. The adaptation of this admirable dental
instrument to the cropping and comminution of such tough vege¬
table food as the Clathrarice and similar plants, which are found
buried with the Iguanodon, is pointed out by Dr Buckland, with
his usual felicity of illustration, in his Bridgewater Treatise, vol. i.,
p. 246.
When the crown is worn away beyond the enamel, it presents a
broad and nearly horizontal grinding surface (fig. 44). and now
another dental substance is brought into use, to
give an inequality to that surface; this is the ossi¬
fied remnant of the pulp, which, being firmer than
the surrounding dentine, forms a slight transverse
ridge in the middle of the grinding surface: the
tooth in this stage has exchanged the functions of
an incisor for that of a molar, and is prepared to
give the final compression, or comminution, to the
coarsely divided vegetable matters.
The marginal edge of the incisive condition of Fig.44.
the tooth and the median ridge of the molar stage A worn Tooth of
are more effectually established by the introduc- 116 guail° 0I1‘
Fig. 43
Ossemens Fossiles, 1824, vol. v., pt. ii., p. 351.
Odontography, pt. ii., p. 249 ; Transactions of the British Association, 1838.
436
ODONTOLOGY.
Teeth of tion of a modification into the texture of the dentine, by which it
.Reptiles, is rendered softer than in the existing Iguanas and other reptiles,
and more easily worn away. This is effected by an arrest of the
calcifying process along certain cylindrical tracts of the pulp,
which is thus continued, in the form of medullary canals, analogous
to those in the soft dentine of the Megatherium’s grinder, from the
central cavity, at pretty regular intervals, parallel with the den¬
tinal tubes, nearly to the surface of the tooth. The medullary
canals radiate from the internal and lateral sides of the pulp-cavity,
and are confined to the dentine forming the corresponding walls of
the tooth. Their diameter is ^th of an inch. They are separated
by pretty regular intervals equal to from six to eight of their own
diameters. They sometimes divide once in their course. Each
medullary canal is surrounded by a clear space. Its cavity was
occupied in the section described by a substance of a deeper yellow
colour than the rest of the dentine.
The dentinal tubes present a diameter of j^ogth of an inch, with
interspaces equal to about four of their diameters. At the first
part of their course, near the pulp-cavity, they are bent in strong
undulations, but afterwards proceed in slight and regular primary
curves, or in nearly straight lines to the periphery of the tooth.
The secondary undulations of each tooth are regular, and very
minute. The branches, both primary and secondary, of the dentinal
tubes are sent off from the concave side of the main inflections;
the minute secondary branches are remarkable at certain parts of
the tooth for their flexuous ramifications, anastomoses, and dilata¬
tions into minute calcigerous cells, which take place along nearly
parallel lines for a limited extent of the course of the main tubes.
The appearance of interruption in the course of the dentinal tubes,
occasioned by this modification of their secondary branches, is
represented by the irregularly dotted tracts in the figure. This
modification must contribute, with the medullary canals, though
in a minor degree, in producing that inequality of texture and of
density in the dentine, which renders the broad and thick tooth of
the Iguanodon more efficient as a triturating instrument.
The enamel which invests the harder dentine, forming the outer
side of the tooth, presents the same peculiar dirty brown colour,
when viewed by transmitted light, as in most other teeth. Very
minute and scarcely perceptible undulating fibres, running ver¬
tically to the surface of the tooth, form the only discernible struc¬
ture in it.
The remains of the pulp in the contracted cavity of the com¬
pletely formed tooth are converted into a dense but true osseous
substance, characterized by minute elliptical radiated cells, whose
long axis is parallel with the plane of the concentric lamellae,
which surround the few and contracted medullary canals in this
substance.
The microscopical examination of the structure of the Iguano-
don’s teeth thus contributes additional evidence of the perfection
of their adaptation to the offices to which their more obvious
characters had indicated them to have been destined.
To preserve a trenchant edge, a partial coating of enamel is
applied; and, that the thick body of the tooth might be worn away
in a more regularly oblique plane, the dentine is rendered softer as
it recedes from the enamelled edge, by the simple contrivance of
arresting the calcifying process along certain tracts of the inner
wall of the tooth. When attrition has at length exhausted the
enamel, and the tooth is limited to its function as a grinder, a third
substance has been prepared in the ossified remnant of the pulp to
add to the efficiency of the dental instrument in its final capacity.
And if the following reflections were natural and just, after a
review of the external characters of the dental organs of the
Iguanodon, their truth and beauty become still more manifest as our
knowledge of their subject becomes more particular and exact:—
“ In this curious piece of animal mechanism we find a varied
adjustment of all parts and proportions of the tooth, to the exercise
of peculiar functions, attended by compensations adapted to shift¬
ing conditions of the instrument during different stages of its
consumption. And we must estimate the works of nature by a
different standard from that which we apply to the productions of
human art, if we can view such examples of mechanical contriv¬
ance, united with so much economy of expenditure, and with such
anticipated adaptations to varying conditions in their application,
without feeling a profound conviction that all this adjustment has
resulted from design and high intelligence.”1
Dicynodon. The existing species of lizard differ from those of the crocodile
in the anchylosed condition of the teeth, which present few modi¬
fications of importance ; those that yield most fruit to physiology,
and which have most expanded our ideas of the extent of the re¬
sources and exceptional deviations from what was deemed the rule
of structure in the Saurian dentition, have been discovered by the
study of the fossil teeth of extinct forms of the order. Amongst
these the most extraordinary, in respect of their dental system, have
been recently discovered in a probably “ Permian” formation in
South Africa. These fossil reptiles have been termed “ Dicyno-
donts,” from their dentition being reduced to one long and large
canine tooth on each side of the upper jaw, and these teeth impart,
at first sight, a character to the jaws like that which the long
poison-fangs give, when erected, to the jaws of the rattlesnake.
Fig. 45 is a reduced side view of the skull and teeth of the
Teeth of
Reptiles.
Fig. 45.
Skull and Tusks of Dicynodon lacerticeps.
Dicynodon lacerticeps. The maxillary bone is excavated by a wide
and deep alveolus, with a circular area of half an inch, and lodges
a long and strong, slightly curved, and sharp-pointed canine tooth
or tusk c, which projects about two-thirds of its length from the
open extremity of the socket. The direction of the tusks is for¬
wards, downwards, and very slightly inwards; the two converging
in the descent along the outer side of the compressed symphysis of
the lower jaw. The tusk is principally composed of a body of com¬
pact unvascular dentine. The base is excavated by a wide conical
pulp-cavity, with the apex extending to about one-half of the im¬
planted part of the tusk, and a linear continuation extending along
the centre of the solid part of the tusk. From this central line the
dentinal tubes radiate, with a gentle curve at the beginning, con¬
vex towards the point of the tusk, and then proceeding straight to
the periphery of the tooth, but inclining towards the apex. They
present parallel secondary curves, divide dichotomously twice or
thrice near their beginning, and send off numerous small lateral
branches, chiefly from the side next the apex. At their primary
curve the dentinal tubes are of an inch in diameter, and
their intervals are of an inch across. The dentinal cells
are most conspicuous near the periphery of the tooth, and vary in
diameter from ^^^th to of an inch.
The enamel, at least at the middle of the tusk, is thinner than in
the teeth of the crocodile. It presents only a finely lamellated
texture, the layers being parallel with the surface of the dentine
on which it rests. There is only a fine linear trace of cement on
the exterior of the sections of the implanted base of the tusks; and
here it is too thin to allow of the development of the radiated cells
in its substance. There is no trace of teeth or their sockets in the
lower jaw,2 so much of the alveolar border as is exposed presents a
smooth and even edge, which seems to have played like a scissor-
blade upon the inner side of the corresponding edentulous border
of the upper jaw; and it is most probable, from the analogies of
similarly-shaped jaws of existing reptilia, that the fore-part of both
the upper and under jaws were sheathed with horn.
Until the discovery of the Rhynchosaurus, this edentulous and
horn-sheathed condition of the jaws was supposed to be peculiar to
the chelonian order among reptiles ; and it is not one of the least
interesting features of the Dicynodonts of the African sandstones,
that they should repeat a chelonian character hitherto peculiar
amongstLacertians,to the above-cited remarkableextinct edentulous
genus of the new red sandstone of Shropshire; but our interest
rises almost to astonishment, when, in a saurian skull, we find,
superadded to the horn-clad mandibles of the tortoise, a pair of
tusks, borrowed, as it were, from the mammalian class, or rather
foreshadowing a structure which, in the existing creation, is peculiar
to certain members of the highest organized warm-blooded animals.
Crocodilia.—The ancient writers on natural history appear to Crocodilia-
have been much struck with the great number of teeth in the cro¬
codile ; and their descriptions were exaggerated to the tone of the
impressions thus produced. Thus, according to Achilles Tatius,
the crocodile had as many teeth as there were days in the year.
How many teeth a crocodile may develop through the whole
course of its life in uninterrupted succession, will never, perhaps,
be determined; they then would doubtless far exceed in number
the liberal allowance of Tatius; but with regard to those teeth
which are in use in the jaws at any given time, the number is now
1 Buckland s Bridgewater Treatise, vol. i., p. 249.
2 2*s, two, xvvodous, canine tooth.
ODONTOLOGY.
437
Teeth of well established—e.g., the crocodile of the ^as j^g
17—17
-16
=66
Reptiles.^ that of the West Indies (Crocodilus acwtws) has 1g_1g—66i the com-
mon aligator (Aligator Indus), has lg ^=76. The great gavial
3Q 30
or garrhial (Gavalis Gangeticus) has oq r^^ius ^l^’
ferent species and genera of crocodiles differ from each other in the
number of teeth, and also the individuals differ within small limits.
The best and most readily recognisable characters by which the
existing Crocodilians are grouped in appropriate genera are derived
from modifications of the dental system.
In the caimans (genus Alligator) the teeth vary in number from
to ig 22 22
  to 5 the fourth tooth of the lower iaw or canine, is
18_18 22—22’
received into a cavity of the palatal surface of the upper jaw, where
it is concealed when the mouth is shut; in old individuals the
upper jaw is perforated by these large inferior canines, and the
fossae are converted into foramina.
In the true crocodiles (genus Crocodilus) the first tooth in the
lower jaw perforates the palatal process of the intermaxillary bone
when the mouth is closed ; the fourth tooth in the lower jaw is
received into a notch excavated in the side of the alveolar border
of the upper jaw, and is visible externally when the mouth is closed.
In the two preceding genera the alveolar borders of the jaws
have an uneven or wavy contour, and the teeth are of unequal size.
In the gavials (genus Gavialis) the teeth are nearly equal in
size and similar in form in both jaws, and the
first as well as the fourth tooth in the lower
jaw passes into a groove in the margin of the
upper jaw, when the mouth is closed.
The number of teeth is always greater in the
gavials than in the crocodiles or alligators.
The first five pairs of teeth above are supported
by the premaxillary bones; the first, second,
and fourth of the lower jaw are the longest.
The eight or nine posterior teeth are nearly
conical, the rest are sub-compressed antero-
posteriorly, and present a trenchant edge on
the right and left side, between which a few
faint longitudinal ridges traverse the basal
part of the enamelled crown (fig. 46).
The position of the opposite sharp ridges,
and the direction of the flat sides of the crown,
are reversed in the extinct crocodile (Grpc. cwZ-
tridens), which in other respects most nearly
resembles the gavial in the form of the teeth.
In most of the extinct species of Crocodilians
the teeth are characterized by more numerous
and strongly developed longitudinal ridges
upon the enamelled crown, than in the recent
species; and they are commonly longer, more
slender, and sharp-pointed. But in one of the
crocodiles with sub-biconcave vertebrae (Gonio-
pholis crassidens), from the Wealden formation and Purbeck lime¬
stone, the teeth have crowns which are as round and as thick in pro¬
portion to their length as in the recent crocodiles or alligators.
The more ancient crocodiles, from the Oolite and Lias, called
Steneosauri and Teleosauri, had jaws like those of the modern gavials,
but sometimes longer and more attenuated, and armed with more
numerous, equal, and slender teeth, adapted for the capture of fishes,
which appear to have been the only other vertebrate animals exist¬
ing at those periods in numbers sufficient to yield subsistence to
carnivorous marine Saurians.
In all the Teleosauri the teeth are more slender, less compressed,
and sharper pointed than in the gavial; they are slightly recurved,
and the enamelled crown is traversed by more numerous and better
defined ridges—two of which, on opposite sides of the crown, are
larger and more elevated than the rest. The fang is smooth, cylin¬
drical, and always excavated at the base. The teeth of the Steneo¬
sauri, or extinct crocodiles with long and slender jaws, and with
vertebrae sub-concave at both extremities,but with subterminal nos¬
trils, differ from those of the Teleosauri in being somewhat thicker in
proportion to their length, and larger in proportion to the jaws.
The teeth of both the existing and extinct crocodilian reptiles
consist of a body of compact dentine, forming a crown covered by
a coat of enamel, and a root invested by a moderately thick layer
of cement. The root slightly enlarges or maintains the same
breadth to its base (fig. 46, a), which is deeply excavated by a
conical pulp-cavity extending into the crown, and is commonly
either perforated or notched at its concave or inner side.
In the black alligator of Guiana, the firstfourteen teeth in the lower
jaw are implanted in distinct sockets. The remaining posterior teeth
Fig. 46;.
Teeth of the Gavial.
are lodged close together in a continuous groove, in which the divi¬
sions for sockets are faintly ^ £
indicated by vertical ridges,
as in the jaws of the Ichthyo¬
saurus.
A thin compact floor of bone
separates this groove and the
sockets anterior to it (fig. 47)
from the large cavity of the
ramus of the jaw. Itispierced
by blood-vessels for the sup¬
ply of the pulps of the grow¬
ing teeth and the vascular
dentigerous membrane which
lines the alveolar cavities.
The tooth-germ c (fig. 47)
is developed from the mem¬
brane covering the angle be¬
tween the floor and the inner
wall of the socket. It be¬
comes, in this situation, com- ^ 47
pletely enveloped by its cap- Section of Jaw with Teeth of the Alligator,
sule, and partially calcified, before the young tooth penetrates the
interior of the pulp-cavity of its predecessor.
The matrix of the young growing tooth affects, by its pressure,
the inner wall of the socket, as shown in fig. 47, and forms for
itself a shallow recess, at the same time it attacks the side of the
base of the contained tooth; then, gaining a more extensive attach¬
ment by its basis and increased size, it penetrates the large pulp-
cavity of the previously formed tooth either by a circular or semi¬
circular perforation. The size of the perforation in the tooth,
and of the depression in the jaw, proves them to have been in great
part caused by the soft matrix, which must have produced its effect
by exciting absorbent action, and not by mere mechanical force.
The resistance of the wall of the pulp-cavity having been thus
overcome, the growing tooth and its matrix recede from the tem¬
porary alveolar depression, and sink into the substance of the pulp
contained in the cavity of the fully-formed tooth.
As the new tooth grows, the pulp of the old one is removed ; the
old tooth itself is next attached, and the crown, being undermined
by the absorption of the inner surface of its base, may be broken
off by a slight external force, when the point of the new tooth is
exposed, as in figs. 46 and 47, h.
The new tooth disembarrasses itself of the cylindrical base of its
predecessor (fig. 47, a) with which it is sheathed, by maintaining the
excitement of the absorbent process so long as the cement of the old
fang retains any vital connection with the periosteum of the socket;
but the frail remains of the old cylinder, thus reduced, are sometimes
lifted out of the socket upon the crown of the new tooth (as in fig. 46,
a), when they are speedily removed by the action of the jaws. This
is, however, the only part of the process which is immediately pro¬
duced by violence ; an attentive observation of the more important
previous stages of growth, teaches that the pressure of the growing
tooth operates upon the one to be displaced only through the medium
of the vital absorbent action which it has excited.
Most of the stages in the development and succession of the teeth
of the crocodiles are described by Cuvier with his wonted clearness
and accuracy; but the mechanical explanation of the expulsion of
the old teeth, which Cuvier adopts from M. Tenon, is opposed by
the disproportion of the hard part of the new tooth to the vacuity
in the walls of the old one, and by the fact that the matter im¬
pressing, viz., the uncalcified part of the tooth matrix, is less dense
than the part impressed..
No sooner has the young tooth (fig. 46, b) penetrated the interior
of the old one (fig. 46, a) than another germ c, begins to be de¬
veloped from the angle between the base of the young tooth and
the inner alveolar process; or in the same relative position as that
in which its predecessor began to rise, and the processes of succes¬
sion and displacement are carried on uninterruptedly throughout
the long life of these cold-blooded carnivorous reptiles.
From the period of exclusion from the egg, the teeth of the
crocodile succeed each other in the vertical direction; none are
added from behind forwards like the true molars in Mammalia. It
follows, therefore, that the number of the teeth of the crocodile is
as great when it first sees the light as when it has acquired its full
size; and, owing to the rapidity of their succession, the cavity at
the base of the fully-formed tooth is never consolidated.
The fossil jaws of the extinct Crocodilians demonstrate that the
same law regulated the succession of the teeth at the ancient epochs
when those highly-organised reptiles prevailed in greatest numbers,
and under the most varied generic and specific modifications, as at
the present period, when they are reduced to a single family com¬
posed of so few and slightly varied species as to have constituted
in the system of Linnaeus a small fraction of the genus Lacerta.
Teeth of
Reptiles.
438
ODONTOLOGY.
Teeth of
Mammals.
N umber.
Sect, m.—TEETH OF MAMMALS.
The class Mammalia, like that of Reptilia and Pisces,
includes a few genera and species that are devoid of
teeth ; the true ant-eaters (Myrmecophaga), the scaly ant-
eaters, or Pangolins (Manis), and the spiny monotrematous
ant-eater {Echidna), are examples of strictly edentulous
Mammals. The Ornithorhynchus has horny teeth, and
the whales {Balcena and Balcenoptera) have transitory
embryonic calcified teeth (fig. 59), succeeded by whale¬
bone substitutes (fig. 58), in the upper jaw. Horny
processes analogous to, perhaps homologous with, the
lingual and palatal teeth in fishes, are present in the
Echidna. The female Narwhal seems to be edentulous,
but has the germs of two tusks in the substance of the
upper jaw-bones (fig. 62); one of these becomes deve¬
loped into a large and conspicuous weapon in the male
Narwhal (fig. 62, a), and accordingly suggested to Lin¬
naeus the name, for its genus, of Monodon, meaning single
tooth. But the tusk is never median, like the truly single
tooth on the palate of the Myxine; and occasionally both
tusks are developed in the Narwhal. In another Ceta¬
cean—the great Bottle-nose or Hyperoodon—the teeth are
reduced in the adult to two in number (fig. 61), whence
the specific name, H. bidens; but they are confined to the
lower jaw. The sharp-nosed dolphin {Ziphius) has also
but two teeth, one in each ramus of the lower jaw ; and
this is perhaps a sexual character.
The Delphinus griseus has five teeth on each side of the
lower jaw; but they soon become reduced to two.
Amongst the Marsupial animals, the genus Tarsipes is
remarkable for the paucity as well as minuteness of its
teeth. The Elephant has never more than one entire
molar, or parts of two, in use on each side of the upper
and lower jaws, to which are added two tusks, more or
less developed, in the upper jaw.
Some Rodents, as the Australian water-rats (Hydromys),
have two grinders on each side of both jaws, which,
added to the four cutting teeth in front, make twelve in
all; the common number of teeth in this order is twenty ;
but the hares and rabbits have twenty-eight teeth. The
Sloth has eighteen teeth. The number of teeth, thirty-
two, which characterizes man, the apes of the old world,
and the true Ruminants, is the average one of the class
Mammalia ; but the typical number is forty-four.
The examples of excessive number of teeth are pre¬
sented, in the order Bruta, by the Priodont Armadillo,
which has ninety-eight teeth; and in the Cetaceous order
by the Cachalot, which has upwards of sixty teeth, though
most of them are confined to the lower jaw; by the com¬
mon porpoise, which has between eighty and ninety teeth ;
by the Gangetic dolphin, which has one hundred and
twenty teeth ; and by the true dolphins {Delphinus), which
have from one hundred to one hundred and ninety teeth,
yielding the maximum number in the class Mammalia.
Where the teeth are in excessive number, as in the
species above cited, they are small, equal, or sub-equal,
and of a simple conical form; pointed, and slightly re¬
curved in the common dolphin; with a broad and flattened
base in the Gangetic dolphin ; with the crown compressed,
and broadest in the porpoise; compressed, but truncate,
and equal with the fang, in the Priodon. The compressed
triangular teeth become coarsely notched or dentated at
the hinder part of the series in the great extinct cetaceous
Zeuglodon. The simple dentition of the smaller Arma¬
dillos, of the Orycterope, and of the three-toed Sloth, pre¬
sents a difference in the size, but little variety in the shape
of the teeth, which are subcylindrical, with broad tritu¬
rating surfaces ; in the two-toed Sloth, the two anterior Teeth of
teeth of the upper jaw are longer and larger than the rest,
and adapted for piercing and tearing.
Teeth are fixed, as a general rule, in all Vertebrata,
and the only known exceptions are those presented by
certain species of fishes ; e. g., the Sharks, Lophioids,
Goniodonts. In the higher Yertebrata the movements of
the teeth depend on those of the jaw-bones to which they
are affixed, but appear to be independent in the ratio of
the size of the tooth to the bone to which it is attached.
Thus the extent of rotatory movement to which the large
perforated poison-fangs of the rattle-snake are subject,
depends upon the rotation of the small maxillary bone;
so, likewise, the seemingly individual movements of di¬
varication and approximation observable in the large
lower incisors of the Bathyergus and Macropus,1 are due
entirely to the yielding nature of the symphysis uniting
the two rami of the lower jaw, in which those incisors are
deeply and firmly implanted.
In man, where the premaxillaries early coalesce with
the maxillary bones, where the jaws are very short, and
the crowns of the teeth are of equal length, there is no
interspace or “ diastema” in the dental series of either
jaw, and the teeth derive some additional fixity by their
close apposition and mutual pressure. No inferior Mam¬
mal now presents this character; but its importance, as
associated with the peculiar attributes of the human or¬
ganization, has been somewhat diminished by the discovery
of a like contiguous arrangement of the teeth in the jaws
of a few extinct quadrupeds ; e. g., Anoplotherium, Nesodon,
and Dichodon.
The teeth in the Mammalia, as in the foregoing classes, Develop-
are formed by superaddition of the hardening salts to ment
pre-existing moulds of animal pulp or membrane, organ¬
ized so as to insure the arrangement of the earthy particles
according to that pattern which characterizes each consti¬
tuent texture of the tooth.
The complexity of the primordial basis, or matrix,
corresponds, therefore, with that of the fully-formed tooth,
and is least remarkable in those conical teeth which con¬
sist only of dentine and cement. The primary pulp,
which first appears as a papilla rising from the free surface
of the alveolar gum, is the part of the matrix which, by
its calcification, constitutes the dentine. In the simple
teeth, the secondary, or enamel pulp, covers the dentinal
pulp like a cap; in the complex teeth it sends processes
into depressions of the coronal part of the dentinal pulp,
which vary in depth, breadth, direction, and number, in
the different groups of the herbivorous and omnivorous
quadrupeds. The dentinal pulp, thus penetrated, offers
corresponding complications of form ; and, as the capsule
follows the enamel pulp in all its folds and processes, the
external cavities or interspaces of the dentine become
occupied by enamel and cement—the cement, like the
capsule which formed it, being the outermost substance,
and the enamel being interposed between it and the den¬
tine. The dental matrix presents the most extensive
interdigitation of the dentinal and enamel pulps in the
Capybara and Elephant. The matrix of the mammalian
tooth sinks into a furrow, and soon becomes inclosed in a
cell in the substance of the jaw-bone, from which the
crown of the growing tooth extricates itself by exciting
the absorbent process, whilst the cell is deepened by the
same process, and by the growth of the jaw, into an
alveolus for the root of the tooth. Where the formative
parts of the tooth are reproduced indefinitely, to repair,
by their progressive calcification, the waste to which the
working surface of the crown of the tooth has been sub-
1 See Mason Good’s Book of Nature, vol. i. p. 285. 1826.
ODONTOLOGY. 439
«Teeth of ject the alveolus is of unusual depth, and of the same The “bicuspids” in human anatomy, and the corre- Jeethof
Mammals. Jforrn and d;ameter throughout, except in the immature spending teeth called “ premolars” in the lower mammals,
^ ' animal, when it widens to its bottom or base. In teeth illustrate this law. . . ^ ^ .
of limited growth, the dentinal pulp is reproduced in The Mammalian class might be divided, in regard to
progressively decreasing quantity after the completion of the succession of the teeth, into two groups—the Mono-
the0exterior wall of the crown, and forms, by its calcifi- phyodonts,' or those that generate but one set of teeth, and
cation one or more roots or fangs, which taper, more or the Diphyodonts? or those that generate two sets of teeth,
less rapidly to their free extremity. The alveolus is The Monophyodonts include the Cetacea and the Bruta
closely moulded upon the implanted part of the tooth; (Edentata of Cuvier); all the other orders are Diphyodonts.
and it is worthy of special remark, that the complicated The teeth of the Mammalia, especially of the Diphyo- Form,
form of socket which results from the development of two donts, have usually so much more definite and complex
or more fangs, is peculiar to animals of the class Mammalia, a form than those of fishes and reptiles, that three parts
In the formation of a single fang, the activity of the are recognised in them, viz. the “fang, the “ neck,
reproductive process becomes enfeebled at the circumfer- and the “crown.” The fang or root (raaias) is the
ence, and is progressively contracted within narrower inserted part; the crown {corona) is the exposed part;
limits in relation to a single centre, until it ceases at the and the constriction which divides these is called the neck
completion of the apex of the fang, which, though for a {cervix). The term “fang” is properly given only to the
lon^ time perforated for the admission of the vessels and implanted part of a tooth of restricted growth, which fang
nerves to the interior of the tooth, is, in many cases, gradually tapers to its extremity; those teeth which grow
finally closed by the ossification of the remaining part of uninterruptedly have not their exposed part separated by
the capsule. a neck from their implanted part, and this generally mam-
When a* tooth is destined to be implanted by two or tains to its extremity the same shape and size as the
more fangs, the reproduction of the pulp is restricted to exposed crown. .
two or more parts of the base of the coronal portion of It is peculiar to the class Mammalia to have teeth Fixation,
the pulp, around the centre of which parts the sphere of implanted in sockets by two or more fangs; but this
its reproductive activity is progressively contracted. The can only happen to teeth of limited growth, and generally
intervening parts of the base of the coronal pulp adhere characterizes the molars and premolars ; perpetually
to the capsule, which is simultaneously calcified with growing teeth require the base to be kept simple and
them, covering those parts of the base of the crown of widely excavated for the persistent pulp (figs. 54 and 55).
the tooth with a layer of cement. The ossification of the In no mammiferous animal does anchylosis of the tooth
surrounding jaw, being governed by the changes in the with the jaw constitute a normal mode of attachment,
soft but highly organized dental matrix, fills up the spaces Each tooth has its particular socket, to which it firmly
unoccupied by the contracted and divided pulp, and affords, adheres by the close co-adaptation of their opposed sur-
by its periosteum, a surface for the adhesion of the cement faces, and by the firm adhesion of the alveolar periosteum
or ossified capsule covering the completed part of the to the organized cement which invests the fang or fangs
tooth. °f the tooth.
The matrix of certain teeth does not give rise, during True teeth implanted in sockets are confined, in the Situation,
any period of their formation, to the germ of a second Mammalian class, to the maxillary, premaxillary, and
tooth, destined to succeed the first. This, therefore, when mandibular or lower maxillary bones, and form a single
completed and worn down, is not replaced; all the true row in each. They may project only from the pre-
Cetacea are limited to this simple provision of teeth. In maxillary bones, as in the Narwhal, or only from the
the Armadillos, Megatherioids, and Sloths, the want of lower maxillary bone, as in Ziphius; or be apparent only
germinative power, as it may be called, in the matrix, is in the lower maxillary bone, as in the Cachalot; or be
compensated by the persistence of the matrix, and by the limited to the superior and inferior maxillaries, and not
uninterrupted growth of the teeth. In most other Mam- present in the premaxillaries, as in the true Ruminants
malia, the matrix of the first developed tooth gives origin and most Bruta. _ .
to the germ of a second tooth, which sometimes displaces, The teeth of the Mammalia usually consist of hard Substance,
sometimes takes its place by the side of, its predecessor unvascular dentine, defended at the crown by an invest-
and parent. All those teeth which are displaced by their ment of enamel, and everywhere surrounded by a coat
progeny are called temporary, deciduous, or milk teeth of cement. The coronal cement is of extreme tenuity
(fi"? 17, di-d, 4). The mode and direction in which in Man, Quadrumana, and terrestrial Carnivora; it is
they are displaced and succeeded, viz., from below up- thicker in the Herbivora, especially in the complex grindeis
wards in the lower jaw, in both jaws vertically, are the of the Elephant, and is thickest in the teeth of the k.lot ,
same as in the crocodile ; but the process is never repeated Megatherium, Dugong, Walrus, and Cachalot. V ertica
more than once in any mammiferous animal. A consi- folds of enamel and cement penetrate the crown of the
derable proportion of the dental series is thus changed; tooth in the Ruminants, and in most Rodents and Pachy-
the second, or permanent teeth (fig. 17, i 1 -p, 4), having a derms, characterizing by their various forms the genera
size and form as suitable to the jaws of the adult as the of the last two orders; but these folds never converge
displaced temporary teeth were adapted to those of the from equidistant points of the circumference of the crown
young animal. towards its centre. The teeth of the quadrupeds of the
The permanent teeth (fig. 17, ml-m,S), which assume order Bruta {Edentata, Cuv.) have no true enamel; this
places not previously occupied by deciduous ones, are is absent likewise in the molars of the Dugong and the
always the most posterior in their position, and generally Cachalot. Ihe tusks of the Narwhal, Walrus, Dinothe-
the most complex in their form. The successors of the rium, Mastodon, and Elephant, consist of modified dentine,
deciduous incisors and canines differ from them chiefly in which, in the last two great proboscidian animals, is pro¬
size. The successors of the deciduous molars may differ perly called “ivory,” and is covered by cement,
likewise in shape, in which case they have always less The Dolphins and Armadillos present^ little variety Kinds,
complex crowns than their predecessors. in the shape of the teeth in the same animal, and this
1 jttoyof, once; puw, I generate; odoug, tooth.
2 Sig, twice; and odoug.
440
ODONTOLOGY.
Teeth of
Mammals.
Ornitho •
rhynchus.
sameness of form is characteristic of most of the Mono-
phyodonts, in which, therefore, the teeth are not divisible
into distinct kinds.
In almost all the other Mammalia, particular teeth have
special forms for special uses: thus, the front teeth, from
being commonly adapted to effect the first coarse division
of the food, have been called cutters or incisors; and the
back teeth, which complete its comminution, grinders or
molars; large conical teeth, situated behind the incisors,
and adapted by being nearer the insertion of the biting
muscles, to act with greater force, are called holders,
tearers, laniaries, or more commonly canine teeth, from
being well developed in the dog and other Carnivora,
although they are given, likewise, to many vegetable
feeders for defence or combat; e. g., Musk-deer. Molar
teeth, which are adapted for mastication, have either
tuberculate, or transversely rigid, or flat summits, and
usually are either surrounded by a ridge of enamel, or
are traversed by similar ridges arranged in various
patterns. Certain molars in the Dugong, the Mylodon,
and the Zeuglodon, are so deeply indented laterally by
opposite longitudinal grooves, as to appear, when abraded,
to be composed of two cylindrical teeth cemented together,
and the transverse section of the crown is bilobed. The
teeth of the Glyptodon were fluted by two analogous
grooves on each side. The large molars of the Capybara
and Elephant have the crown cleft into a numerous series
of compressed transverse plates, cemented together side
by side. The modifications of the crown of the molar
teeth are those that are most intimately related to the
kind of food of the animal possessing them. Thus, in
the purely carnivorous mammals, the molars are simple,
trenchant, and play upon each other like scissor-blades.
In the mixed feeding species, the working surface of the
molars becomes broader and tuberculated; in the insecti¬
vorous species it is bristled with sharp points; and in the
purely herbivorous kinds, the flat grinding surface of the
teeth is complicated by folds and ridges of the enamel
entering the substance of the tooth, the most complex
forms being presented by the Elephants.
The substances serving for teeth in the anomalous Duck-mole or
Platypus of Australia, are of a horny texture, consisting of close-set,
vertical hollow tubes, resembling the outer compact tissue of baleen
or “ whalebone.’’ They are eight in number, four in the upper, and
as many in the under jaw. The anterior tooth of the upper jaw (fig.
48, o) is extended from behind forwards, but is low, very narrow,
Fig. 48.
Jaws and Teeth of the Platypus, (Ornithorhynchits paradoxus).
and four-sided; the broadest side forms the base of attachment,
and is slightly concave; the outer and inner facets converge to a
serrated edge in the young Ornithorhynchus, but becomes worn in
the old animal, and forms the fourth side of the tooth. The cor¬
responding tooth in the lower jaw is rather narrower, and retains
longer its trenchant edge.
_ At a distance from the anterior tooth, equal to its own length, is
situated the horny molar (b), which consists of a flattened plate of an
oblong subquadrate figure. A slightly raised margin includes two
large concave surfaces, a little elevated above the intervening part
of the grinding surface. The corresponding tooth in the lower jaw
is somewhat narrower, but of similar form. Each division or tubercle
of the molar is separately developed, and they become confluent in
the course of growth. According to the analysis of Lassaigne, 99'5
parts of the dental tissue of the Ornithorhynchus have the com¬
position of horn; this is hardened by 0'3 parts of phosphate of
lime.
The notice of the dental apparatus of the Monotremes ought to Teeth of
include mention of the two short and thick conical processes which Mammals,
project from the forepart of the raised intermolar portion of the
tongue in the Ornithorhynchus; which, like the more numerous spines
on Ihe’ corresponding part of the tongue of the Echidna, represent,
in these low-organized mammals, the lingual teeth of fishes.
The teeth of the Orycterope, or Cape Ant-eater, are of a simple Order
form but peculiar structure ; their common number in the mature Bruta.
animal is 7 ;J-=26 (fig- 49, A), and they all belong to the molar series.
The anterior teeth are very small, and are not unfrequently wanting,
or are concealed by the gum, especially the first in the upper jaw;
the second tooth of the upper jaw is small, compressed, and obtuse;
it opposes a similar one in the lower jaw; the third and fourth
molars increase in size, have an elliptical transverse section, and a
triturating surface of two facets (fig. 49, B); the fourth and fifth
molars are the largest in the upper jaw, are of equal size, and have
a longitudinal depression in their internal and external sides, giving
their transverse section a bilobed or hour-glass figure ; the seventh
molar is smaller and has the same simple figure as the fourth,
(fig. 49, B). The proportions of these teeth, the depth of their sockets,
and their structure, as viewed in longitudinal section with the naked
eye, are shown in fig. 50. The teeth are continued solid, and of the
Kg. 50
Section of Lower Jaw and Teeth of the Orycteropus. Nat. size.
same dimensions, to the bottom of the socket, and terminate by a
truncate and undivided base. If each be viewed as an aggregate of
teeth, as partially shown in fig. 15, it will be found that the com¬
ponent denticle has its base excavated by a conical pulp-cavity, as
in other animals, and which is persistent, as in the rest of the order
Bruta. The wide inferior apertures of these pulp-cavities constitute
the pores observable on the base of the compound tooth of the
Orycterope, and give to that part a close resemblance to the section
of a cane. The canals to which these pores lead are the centres
of radiation of the calciferous tubes of the denticle, (fig. 15); such
denticles are cemented together laterally, slightly decreasing in
diameter, and occasionally bifurcating as they approach the grind¬
ing surface of the tooth. The substance of the entire tooth thus
resembles the teeth of the Myliobates and Chimceroids among fishes,
rather than any true teeth in the Mammalian class, in which it
offers a transitional step from the horny substitutes of teeth above
described to the true teeth.
The teeth of the Orycteropus, when rightly understood, offer, how¬
ever, no anomaly or exceptional condition in their mode of develop¬
ment. Each denticle is developed according to the same laws, and
by as simple a matrix as those larger teeth in other mammals, which
consist only of dentine and cement. The dentine is formed by ossifica¬
tion of the capsule; both pulp and capsule continue to be reproduced at
the bottom of the alveolus, pern yxmw with the attrition of the exposed
crown; and the mode and time of growth being alike in each
denticle, the whole compound tooth is maintained throughout the
life of the animal. The augmentation in the size of the whole tooth,
during the growth of the jaw, is effected by the development of new
denticles, and a slight increase of size in the old ones, at the base of
the growing tooth, which, in the progress of attrition and growth,
becomes its grinding surface.
The teeth of the Armadillo-tribe are harder than those of any Genus
other species of the order Bruta; but, as in all that order provided Dasypus.
with teeth, they are wholly devoid of enamel. They consist, in
ODONTOLOGY.
441
Teeth of both existing and extinct Armadillos, of three distinct substances,
Mammals, of which the unvascular dentine is present in greatest proper-
tion, and forms the main body of the tooth; bat it includes a
small central axis of vascular dentine, and is surrounded by an ex¬
tremely thin coating of cement. The teeth are more numerous
in the Priodon—the largest of the existing Armadillos—than in
any other land mammal; but they are of very small size and simple
form, and are all referable to the molar series (fig. 51). They vary
Sloths.
Kg. 51.
Teeth of the Lower Jaw of the Great Armadillo, (Triodon gigas).
in number from twenty-four to twenty-six in each upper jaw, and
from twenty-two to twenty-four on each side of the lower jaw,
amounting to from ninety-four to one hundred in total number.
They are compressed laterally, increasing in size, and especially in
breadth, as they recede backwards, with oblique or horizontal "flat
grinding surfaces, and are continued of the same size and form to
their implanted extremity, which is excavated by a large conical
pulp-cavity. This absence of roots, and the undivided hollow base
indicative of the constant growth of the tooth, are common not only
to the teeth of the Armadillos, but to those of all the known species
of the order Bruta.
In the Priodont the teeth, though so unusually numerous, are many
of them separated by slight intervals; those of the lower jaw oppose
their outer sides to the inner sides of the upper teeth when the
mouth is shut.
The Armadillos of the sub-genus JSvphractus, Wagler, to- which
the term Dasypus is restricted by F. Cuvier, are distinguished by
having the anterior tooth (fig. 52, i), which is shaped like the succeed-
Fig. 52.
Jaw teeth of the weasel-headed Armadillo, (Dasypus 6-cinctus).
ing molar, implanted in the premaxillary bone. The two anterior
teeth of the lower jaw being in advance of the premaxillary tooth,
are, with it, arbitrarily held to be incisors ;
they are compressed, but are terminated by
obtuse crowns. The rest of the series, from
which the incisors are not separated by any
remarkable interval, gradually increase in
size to the penultimate molar; they have
the same alternate position and obliquely-
worn grinding surfaces as in the Tatusice.
Some species of the extinct loricate genus,
Glyptodon, surpassed the Rhinoceros in size,
and the dentition of the genus was more com¬
plicated, and more adapted to a vegetable
diet, than that of the small existing Armadillos.
The total number of teeth in the Glyptodon
has not yet been determined. A fragment
of the anterior part of the lower jaw shows
that the teeth extend close to the symphysis,
and therefore indicates their presence in the
premaxillary bones above..
The single tooth (fig. 53), on which the
generic character of the Glyptodon was
founded,1 is long, rootless as in the exist¬
ing Armadillos, but compressed laterally,
and divided by two deep angular, longitu¬
dinal, and opposite grooves on each side,
into three plates, which give the grinding
surface the form of as many rhomboidal
lobes. In the Glyptodon the osteo-dentine
(fig. 53, o) occupies a larger proportion of
the centre of the tooth than in the small
Armadillos ; it is harder than the dentine {d)
the most diminutive of the tribe, now exist. They are called Sloths, Teeth of
or Tardigrades, from their inability to move otherwise than slowly Mammals,
and with difficulty on the ground ; but they are excellent climbers, for ^"V—^
which their organization especial!}- befits them.
The following are the common and constant characters of the
dentition of the phyllophagous Bruta, both recent and extinct:—
Teeth implanted in the maxillary and mandibular bones, few in
number, not exceeding f :f ; composed of a large central axis of vaso-
dentine, with a thin investment of hard dentine, and a thick outer
coating of cement. To these, of course, may be added the dental
characters common to the order Bruta, viz., uninterrupted growth
of the teeth, and their concomitant implantation by a simple, deeply-
excavated base, not separated by a cervix from the exposed summit
or crown.
The dental formula of the genus Bradypus is—i §; eg; m
18. Ur Brandt2 3 has described and figured the skull of a young Ai, in
which a very small tooth preceded
the compressed one on each side
of the lower jaw, rendering the
number of teeth equal to that in
the upper jaw. In the two-toed
sloth (Cholcepus didactylus, Ufig.)
the teeth (fig. 54) offer a greater
inequality of size than has yet
been observed in any other genus
of Bruta; the first of each series,
o, in both jaws, which in the rest
of the order is the smallest, here
so much exceeds the others as,
with its peculiar form, to have re¬
ceived the name of a canine. This
tooth is separated by a marked in¬
terval from the other teeth, espe¬
cially in the upper jaw, so that those
above play upon the anterior part
of those below, contrary to the
relative position and mutual action
of the true canine teeth in the
Quadrumana and Carnivora.
They are of a triedral form, with
the margins of the oblique abraded surface leading to the point,
trenchant. The second tooth of the upper jaw (5) is the smallest of
the series. The third (c) and fourth [d) molars are a little larger,
and have two abraded surfaces which converge to the median ridge.
The fifth molar (e) is the smallest, and has an oblique grinding sur¬
face. In each tooth the ridge is formed by the hard dentine, and is
interrupted in the middle by an excavation of the soft dentine.
The second, third, and fourth teeth of the lower jaw correspond in
size and shape with the third and fourth above; and like the small
upper molars, are separated by short intervals ; the last is the smallest
and most curved.
The teeth of the Sloths consist of a central axis of vaso-dentine
(fig. 9, v), occupying rather more than half the thickness of the tooth,
which is inclosed by a wall of unvascular dentine {d), and this by one
of cement (c) of less thickness than the layer of hard dentine.
Fig. 53.
Fig. 54.
Teeth of the two-toed Sloth (JJholccpvs,
didactylus).
or cement (c), and rises upon the grinding
surface, in the form of a ridge extending
Tooth of great extinct Arma- alo„g the middle of the long axis of that
i o, ( yp o ii c avipes. gurface> anq }n tfiree shorter ridges at right
angles to the preceding, at the middle of each of the three rhomboidal
divisions of the tooth.
Of the leaf-eating species of the order Bruta, very few, and these
<£ 2 d
5
Fig. 55.
Section of Upper Jaw and Teeth of the Megatherium. One-third nat size.
The teeth of the Megatherium, the most gigantic of the extinct Megathe-
   rium.
1 Geological Transactions, 2d Series, vol. vi. p. 81-85.
YOL. XVI.
2 Dissertatio Zoologicu inauguralis de Tardigradis, 4t'>, 1828, p. 31, pi. 2, figs, o and 6.
3 K
442
ODONTOLOGY.
Lower Jaw and Teeth of
Megatherium.
Teeth of quadrupeds of the Sloth tribe, are five in number on each side of tbe
Mammals, upper jaw (fig. 55), and four on each side of the lower jaw (fig. 56).
They are more closely _ arranged, and
longer, and more deeply implanted, than
in the smaller Megatherioids, e. g., Mylo-
don, Megalonyx, etc. They present a
more or less tetragonal figure, and have
the grinding surface traversed by two
transverse angular ridges, big- 55 ex¬
hibits a longitudinal section of the five
molars of the upper jaw, in situ, and
demonstrates the great extent of the
implanted part of the tooth ; the natural
length of the series of five grinders is
ten inches.
Each molar tooth of the Megatherium
is excavated by an unusually extensive
conical pulp-cavity (p), from the apex
of which a fissure is continued to the
middle depression of the grinding sur¬
face of the tooth («). The central axis
of vaso-dentine (z>) is surrounded by a
thin layer of hard or unvascular dentine
(d), and this is coated by the cement (c c),
which is of great thickness on the ante¬
rior and posterior surfaces, but is thin
where it covers the outer and inner sides
of the tooth. The vaso-dentine (fig. 57, v)
is traversed throughout by medullary
canals, measuring of an inch in
diameter, which are continued from the
pulp-cavity, and proceed, at an angle of
50°, to the plane of the hard dentine,
parallel to each other, with a slightly
undulating course, having regular interspaces equal to one diameter
and a half of their own area, generally anastomosing in pairs by a
loop (l l), the convexity of which is turned towards the origin of
^ the tubes of the hard dentine,
forming a continuous reflected
canal. The loops are situated
near, and for the most part close
to, the hard dentine (d). In a
few places one of the medullary
canals may be observed to ex¬
tend across that tissue.
The cement (fig. 57, c) is cha¬
racterized by the size, number,
and regularity of the vascular or
medullary canals (m) which tra¬
verse it. They present the
diameter of T2W °f an jnch> are
separated by intervals equal to
from four to six of their own
diameters. Commencing at the
outer surface of the cement, they
traverse it in a direction slightly
inclined from the transverse axis
towards the crown of the tooth,
running parallel to each other ;
they divide a few times dichoto-
mouslyintheircourse; andfinally
anastomose in loops, the con¬
vexity of which is directed to¬
wards, and in most cases is in
close contiguity with, the hard
dentine (d). Fine tubules are
sent ofif, generally at right an¬
gles from the medullary canals,
which quickly divide and sub¬
divide, form anastomosing reti¬
culations, and communicate free¬
ly with the similar tubes that
radiate from the calciferous cells
of the intervening tissue (r).
The tooth of the Megatherium
thus offers an unequivocal ex¬
ample of a course of nutriment from the dentine to the cement, and reci¬
procally. In the structure which the fossil teeth of the Megatherium
and its extinct congeners clearly demonstrate, we have striking evi¬
dence of their rich organization, and that they were once pervaded
by vital activity. All the constituents of the blood freely circulated
through the vascular dentine and the cement, and the vessels of each
substance, intercommunicated by a few canals, continued across the
hard or unvascular dentine.
With respect to those minuter tubes, the more important as being
more immediately engaged in nutrition, which pervade every part of
the tooth, characterizing: by their difference of length and course the
Tig. 57.
Highly magnified Section of the Dental
Tissues, Megatherium.
three constituent substances, they form one continuous and freely Teeth of
intercommunicating system of strengthening and reparative vessels, Mammals,
by which the plasma of the blood was distributed throughout the
entire tooth, for its nutrition and maintenance in a healthy state.
The grinding surface of the close-set molars of the Megatherium
difiers, on account of the greater thickness of the cement on their
anterior and posterior surfaces, from those of all the smaller Mega¬
therioids, in presenting two transverse ridges (fig. 56, d), one of the
sloping sides of each ridge being formed by the cement (fig. 55, c),
the other by the vascular dentine (fig. 55, v), whilst the unvascular den¬
tine (d), as the hardest constituent, forms the summit of the ridge like
the plate of enamel between the dentine and cement in the Elephant’s
grinder. The great length of the teeth, and concomitant depth of
the jaws, the close-set series of the teeth, and the narrow palate, are
also strong features of resemblance between the Megatherium and
Elephant in their dental and maxillary organization. In both these
gigantic phyllophagous quadrupeds, provision has likewise been
made for the maintenance of tbe grinding machinery in an effective
state throughout their prolonged existence ; but the fertility of the
creative resources is well displayed by the different modes in which
this provision has been effected ; in the Elephant, it is by the forma¬
tion of new teeth to supply the place of the old when worn out; in
the Megatherium, by the constant repair of the teeth in use, to the
base of which new matter is added in proportion as the old is worn
away from the crown. Thus, the extinct Megatberioids had both the
same structure and mode of growth and renovation of their teeth as
are manifested in the present day by tbe diminutive Sloths.
Those cetaceous Mammals which are properly called “Whales” ’Whales,
have no teeth, but horny substitutes in the form of plates, ter¬
minating or fringed by bristles. Of these plates, called “ Baleen”
and “ Whalebone,” tbe largest, which are of an equilateral tri¬
angular form, are arranged in a single longitudinal series on
each side of the upper jaw, situated pretty close to each other,
depending vertically from the maxillary bones, with their flat surfaces
looking backwards and forwards, and their unattached margins out¬
wards and inwards, the direction of their interspaces being nearly
transverse to the axis of
the skull. The smaller
subsidiary plates are
arranged in oblique series
internal to the marginal
ones. Thus, if the upper
jaw of one side of the
skull of a Whale were
bisected transversely, the
flat surface of a series of
the baleen-plates would
be exposed, as in fig. 58,
in which a is the supe¬
rior maxillary bone, b
the ligamentous gum giv¬
ing attachment to c, the
horny base and body of
the chief baleen-plate,
which terminates in d,
the fringe of bristles; e
marks the smaller baleen -
plates.
The base of each plate
is hollow, and is fixed
upon a pulp developed
from a vascular gdm,
which is attached to a
broad and shallow de¬
pression occupying the
whole of the palatal sur¬
face of the maxillary and
of the anterior part of the
palatine bones, the Whale
being thus, like Echidna,
an example of a mam¬
malian animal, which may
be said to have palatal teeth. The base of each plate is unequally im¬
bedded in a compact sub-elastic substance (6), which is so much deeper
on the outer than on the inner side, as, in the new-born whale, to include
more than one half of the outer margin of the baleen-plate. This
margin is shown at c (fig. 58), and is continued downwards in a line
dropped nearly vertically from the outer border of the jaws. The
inner margin of each plate (d) slopes obliquely outwards from the base
to the extremity of the preceding margin ; the smaller plates decrease
in length to the middle line of the palate, so that the form of the
baleen-clad roof of the mouth is that of a transverse arch or vault,
against which the convex dorsum of the thick and large tongue is
applied when the mouth is closed. Each plate sends off from its
inner and oblique/margin the fringe of moderately stiff but flexible
hairs, which project into the mouth.
The direction <f the plates is not quite transverse at every part of
ODONTOLOGY.
443
' Teeth of the series ; the inner border is turned rather forwards in the anterior,
Mammals, and obliquely backwards in the posterior plates ; and the inner
Y   margin at the basal part of the posterior plates is slightly curved
towards the back part of the mouth, to which the bristly terminations
of these parts of such plates are directed, thus presenting an additional
obstacle to the escape of the small marine animals/ for the prehension
and detention of which this singular modification of the dental system
is especially adapted. The baleen-pulp is situated in a cavity at
the base of the plate, like the pulp of a true tooth; whilst the exter¬
nal cementing material maintains, both with respect to this pulp and
to the portion of the baleen-plate which it developes, the same relations
as the dental capsule bears to the tooth. According to these analogies,
it must follow, that only the central fibrous or tubular portion ot the
baleen-plate is formed, like the dentine, by the basal pulp, and that
the base of the plate is not only fixed in its place by the cementing
substance or capsule, but must also receive an accession of horny
material from it, as Hunter first indicated; this material answers to
the cement of true teeth.
Mr Scoresby, who in his account of the Balcena mysticetus, notices
only the large marginal plates, states that they are about two hundred
in number on each side; the largest are from ten to fourteen feet,
very rarely fifteen feet, in length, and about a foot in breadth at their
base; these plates are overlapped and concealed by the under lip
when the mouth is shut.
In the Balcenopterce or fin-backed whales (fig. 58), the baleen-
processes (e), internal to the marginal plates, are fewer and smaller
than in the Baloence, the marginal plates (c) are more numerous,
exceeding three hundred on each side; they are broader in proportion
to their length, and much smaller in proportion to the entire animal;
they are also more bent in the direction transverse to their long
axis. As in the true whales, each plate of baleen consists of a central,
coarse, fibrous substance, and an exterior, compact, fibrous, layer
beyond which the central part projects in the form of the fringe of
bristles.
A thin transverse section of baleen, viewed with a low magnify¬
ing power, demonstrates that the coarse fibres, as they seem to
the naked eye, which form the central substance, are hollow tubes
with concentric laminated walls. When a high magnifying power
is applied to such a section, the concentric lines are shown not to be
uniform, but interrupted here and there by minute elliptical dilata¬
tions, which are commonly more opaque than the surrounding
substance, and which, like the radiated cells of true bone, are probably
remains of the primitive cells of the formative substance; similar
long elliptical opaque bodies or cells are dispersed irregularly through
the straight parallel fibres of the dense outer laminae of the baleen-
plate.
The chemical basis of baleen, according to Brandt, is albumen
hardened by a small proportion of phosphate of lime,
ftytlua The singular armature of the palate and lower jaw, in the
T ’ Jiytina, or Arctic Dugong, likewise falls within the present category.
According to Steller,'2 this marine animal has no true teeth, but
only two large whitish dental masses, one adhering to the palate,
the other to the opposed part of the lower jaw. They are not im¬
planted by gomphosis, but adhere by numerous pores to correspond¬
ing papillae of the membrane covering the palate and lower jaw;
besides which, the palatal tooth is fixed at the sides of its anterior
part to furrows in the lining membrane of the thick lip. The free
surface of the dental mass is sculptured by undulating grooves and
risings, adapted to corresponding inequalities in the opposite mass.
Dr Brandt has shown by later and more minute examination of
the problematical teeth of the Itytina, deposited by Steller in the
Petersburg collection, that their texture is horny, consisting of minute
hollow fibres, placed vertically to the plane of the grinding surface
of the tooth, but of unusual density. Thus the dentition ot the
Rytina closely resembles that of the Ornilhorhynchus in both the tex¬
ture and implantation of the teeth, which will probably be found to
contain a similar or greater proportion of osseous matter. M. F.
Cuvier has suggested that the above - described plates may be
analogous in position, as in texture, to the horny covering of the
opposed surfaces of the deflected portions of the upper and lower jaws
in the Dugong.
Foetal The true Whales (Balcenidce), before they acquire their peculiar
Whales. array of baleen-plates, manifest in their foetal age a transitory con¬
dition of a true dental system, which, though abortive and functionless,
beautifully typifies that which is normal and persistent in the
majority of the order.
In an open groove (fig. 59, a) which extends along the alveolar
border of both the upper and the lower jaws, there is a series of
minute, conical, acute, or obtuse denticles, (fig. 59, 1-7), with hollow
bases inclosing the uncalcified remains of a vascular pulp. In the
foetus of a Balcenoptera, the jaws of which were about four inches
in length, the unclosed alveolar groove of the upper jaw contained
7 i? «y ^ a •> .
Fig. 60.
Transitory Denticles of Foetal WliaJe.
Hypero
odon.
Fig. 59.
Extremity of Lower Jaw of a Foetal Whale, with the Denticles. Nat. size,
twenty-eight such denticles, that of the lower jaw forty-two. The
anterior denticles in both jaws were the smallest; but.they increase
in size more gradually, and maintain a greater regularity of form in
the lower jaw, where they are also most numerous, and in.which the
tvpical dentition of the carnivorous cetaceans manifests its plenary
development in the great Cachalot.
Fig. 60 exhibits three of the transitory teeth of a foetal Whale : one
is simple, with the fang contracted
to a point by the diminution and
cessation of growth; the next tooth
shows two fangs; and the third,
more plainly, the origin of its double
character to two contiguous and partly confluent tooth-germs.
These small teeth and their matrices disappear before birth ; yet
the foetal Whale comparatively long retains and palpably exemplifies
the earliest stage of dental development in the higher Mammals,
viz., the open fissure which in these is so rapidly closed, especially
in the human subject. But beyond this stage, the true dentition of
the Balaznidce is not destined to proceed, and they thus manifest, agree¬
ably with the general laws of unity of organization, their closest
relations to the typical characters of their order at the early periods
of development—divesting them¬
selves of part of the more general
type, in order to assume their special
and distinctive characters, as they
advance towards maturity.
The great Bottle-nose or bi¬
dent Whale offers a transitional
grade between the true Whales
and the typical Delphinidce. The
palate is said to be beset with
small, unequal, pointed, callous pro¬
tuberances, which Cuvier conjec¬
tures to be rudimental baleen-plates.
The fetal denticles do not all perish, m .
but two or three of the anterior pairs M of ’ °
acquire a large size as compared
with their transitory representatives in the Balcemdce—and one of
these pairs is long retained in the lower jaw, though functionless,
and hidden by the gum.
These teeth are figured, as seen, when the gum has been re¬
moved, at the extremity of the lower jaw of the Hyperoodon, in cut
61, b. They are conical, slightly curved, with an unusually sharp
and slender apex, tipped by enamel. Though loose in their sockets,
they project so little from them, and have such wide bases, that they
are retained in situ, and do not fall out in the dried jaw ; two smaller
cavities (fig. 61, a) in front, and the remains of a larger socket in the
alveolar groove, behind the retained teeth, attest the former presence
of other teeth. Mr. Thompson of Belfast3 has figured the lower jaw
of a Hyperoodon with two small teeth on each side, near the sym¬
physis ; they were concealed by the gum, and so hidden in the
sockets, as not to be visible in a side view of the jaw\ The animal
was a male, and twenty-three feet long; the first tooth was seven
and a half lines from the end of the jaw ; the second tooth was one
and a half inch distant from the first.
In the Narwhal [Monodon monoceros), two of the primitive dental Monodon.
germs at the forepart of the upper jaw proceed in their development
to a greater extent than do those in the lower jaw of the Hyperoodon;
but every other trace of teeth is soon lost. The two persistent
matrices rapidly elongate, but in the retrograde direction, forming a
long fang rather than a crown ; each tooth sinks into a horizontal
alveolus of the premaxillary bone, or, rather, at the junction of the
Fig. 61.
' Clio borealis, Limacina arctica, and small pelagic Crustacea. Before the naturalists of the Arctic expeditions had determined the nature of
the food of the true baltenae, John Hunter had stated, “ I do suppose the fish they catch are small when compared with the size of the mouth. On
the Structure and Economy of Whales.”—BAi/. Trans. 1787, p. 397. .... , 7 7 7.,.
2 “ Masticationem absolvant prseter normam omnium animalium, non dentibus, quibus in umversum carent,. sed duobus osswus vahdis, candmis,
seu dentium integris massis, quorum una palato, altera maxillae inferior!, infixa et huic opposita est. Insertio ipsa, seu connexio prorsus msqlita,
nec ulla prorsus nomine exprimi potest, gomphosin vocare non licet ob id, quod ossa non infiguntur maxillis, sed multis papillis et pons, pons et
papillis reciprocis, palati et mandibulae inferioris recipitur. Ossa haec molaria subtus multis foraminulis pertuste, velut netricum digitate yel spongta,
quibus arteriae et nervuli eodem mode ut dentibus animalium inseruntur, superna parte glabra sunt.”—Nov. Commentar. Petropolit., vol. n. p. oOz.
3 Annals of Natural History, March 1846, pi. a.
444 ODONTOLOGY.
Teeth of premaxillary with the maxillary, and soon, by the forward growth of
Mammals, these bones, becomes wholly inclosed, like the germs of the teeth of
the higher Mammalia at their second stage of development. In the
female Narwhal, the pulp is here exhausted, the cavity of the tooth
is obliterated by its ossification, further development ceases, and the
two teeth remained concealed, as abortive germs, in the substance of
the jaws for the rest of life, so that in the skeleton a section oi the
skull must be made in order to display them, as in fig. 61, b. In the Teeth of
male Narwhal, (fig. 61, a) the matrix of the tooth in the left pre- Mammals,
maxillary bone continues to enlarge ; fresh pulp material is progres-
sively added which by its calcification elongates the base, protrudes
the apex from the socket, and the tusk continues to grow until it
acquires the length of nine or ten feet, with a basal diameter of four
inches This is that famous “horn” which figures on the forehead
Physeter.
Base of Skulls of Male and Female Narwhal, with the Tusks and Lower Jaw.
of the heraldic unicorn, and so long excited the curiosity and con-
lectures of the older naturalists, until Olaus Wormius made an end
of the speculative and fabulous “ monocerologies,” by the discovery
of the true nature of their subject; whilst Anderson1 in the year
1736, took advantage of the accident of the stranding of a Narwhal
at the mouth of the Elbe, to communicate to the zoological world an
accurate figure of the animal which bore the supposed single horn.
Linnaeus has embalmed the old idea of this weapon in the binomial
Monodon monocevos, under which the Narwhal is entered in the
Systema Natures.
The exterior of the long tusk is marked by spiral ridges, which
wind from within forwards, upwards, and to the left. About fourteen
inches is implanted in the socket; it tapers gradually from the base
to the apex. The pulp-cavity, as shown in the longitudinal section
of the tusk, given in fig. 62, is continued nearly to the extreme point,
but is of variable width; at the base it forms a short and wide cone ;
it is then continued forwards, as a narrow canal, along the centre of
the implanted part of the tooth, beyond which the cavity again
expands to a width equalling half the diameter of the tooth; and
finally, but gradually, contracts to a linear fissure near the apex. .
Thus, the most solid and weighty part of the tooth is that which
is implanted in the jaw, and nearest the centre of support, whilst the
long projecting part is kept as light as might be compatible with the
uses of the tusk as a weapon of attack and defence. The portion of
pulp, in which the process of the calcification has been arrested,
receives its vessels and nerves by the fissure continued from the basal
expansion of the pulp-cavity.
In a few instances, both tusks have been seen to project from the
jaw. In the cranium of such a Narwhal, figured by Albers, the right
tusk projects only six inches from the socket, is proportionally slender,
and is smooth.
With regard to the conjectured ulterior use of the concealed tusk
(fig. 62, a), in the male, as a potential substitute, in the event of the joss
of the large tusk, a conjecture more than once repeated by writers since
first proposed by Eeisel, the solidity of the concealed tusk, and its
distorted and generally-closed base, evince that the term of its growth
has expired.
In the Delphinus gnseus, the dentition of the upper jaw is transi¬
tory, as in Hyperoodon, but at least six pairs of teeth rise above the
gum, and acquire a full development at the forepart of the lower
jaw. The crowns of these teeth soon become obtuse, and even their
duration is limited, for the specimen described by M. F. Cuvier2 had
but two teeth on each side of the lower jaw. A Dolphin, perhaps an
aged individual of this species, has been lately described with the
dentition reduced to two teeth in the lower jaw.
The outward and visible dentition of the great Sperm-whale or
Cachalot {Physeter macrocephalus) is confined to the lower jaw.
The series consists in each ramus of about twenty-seven sub¬
incurved, conical, or ovoid teeth, according to their state of develop¬
ment and usage ; the smallest teeth are at the two extremes of the
series. In the young Cachalot they are conical and pointed; usage
soon renders them obtuse, whilst progressive growth expands and
elongates the base into a fang, which then contracts, and is finally
solidified and terminated obtusely. The teeth are separated by
intervals as broad as themselves. In respect of their mode of
implantation in the jaw, they offer in the Cachalot a condition interme¬
diate between that of the teeth of
the extinct cetaceous-like Ichthyo¬
saurus, and of those of the pis¬
civorous Delphinus. They are
lodged in a wide and moderately-
deep groove, imperfectly divided into
sockets, the septa of which reach
only about half-way from the bottom
of the groove. These sockets are
both too wide and too shallow to
retain the teeth independently of
the soft parts, so that it commonly
happens, when the dense semi-liga¬
mentous gum dries upon the bone,
and is stripped off in that state, that
it brings away with it the whole
series of the teeth like a row of
wedges half driven through a strip
of board. A firmer implantation
would seem unnecessary for teeth
which have no opponents to strike
against, but which enter depres¬
sions in the opposite gum when the
mouth is closed. That gum ^how¬
ever, conceals a few persistent
specimens of the primitive foetal
series of teeth; these (of which one
is shown at the upper part of
fig. 63) are always much smaller
and more curved than the func¬
tional teeth of the lower jaw, of
which a section is given in the same
cut.
There is a well-marked sexual
distinction in the size of the jaws ol . .
the PKymter maerocM,,. tto«
of the matme lemale being rela- clialot, (Physeter macrocephalus).
tively shorter by full one-third than
in the male. There are usually twenty-three teeth in each ramus
of the lower jaw of a full-sized female Cachalot.
The first-formed extremity of the tooth in the young Cachalot is
tipped with enamel; when the summit of the crown has been abraded,
the tooth consists of a hollow cone of dentine (fi^. 63, d), coated by
cement (c), and more or less filled up by the ossified pulp (o). _ Irre¬
gular masses of this fourth substance have been found loose in the
pulp-cavity of large teeth. The external cement is thickest at the
junction of the crown and base, which are not divided by a neck._
The permanent or mature dentition of the Beluga {Delphinus Delphinus.
leucas, Pall.), though scanty, is more normal than in the Physeter,
nine functional teeth being retained on each side of the upper jaw,
and eight in each ramus of the lower jaw. They present the jorm
of straight subcompressed obtuse cones. The Delphinus glohiceps.
Fig. 63.
' Cited bv Cuvier in his Ossemens Fossiles, tom. v. pt. i. p. 319.
2 Dents de Mammifere, p. 243. It was eleven feet in length, and captured at Brest.
ODONTOLOGY.
445
Teeth of which has 1^ = 52, strong, conical, and pointed teeth in the
Mammals, vigour of its’age, begins soon after to lose them, and m old mdi-
—viduals none remain in the upper jaw, and not more than eight or
ten are preserved in the lower jaw; those at the anterior part pt the
jaws last longest, and their summits are received in cavities in the
upper jaw, or the gum covering it, when the mouth is shu .
The most formidable dentition is that of the predaceous Grampus
(Phoccena orca), whose laniariform teeth are as large in proportion
to the length of the jaws as in the crocodile; they are in number
i3-13=50’ all fixed in deep and distinct sockets, separated by
interspaces ’which admit of the close interlocking of the upper and
lower teeth when the mouth is closed; the longest and largest teeth
are at the middle of the series, and they gradually decrease m size
as they approach the ends, especially the posterior one; the short¬
ness of the anterior teeth is in great part due to the wearing down
of the sharp summits, which are best preserved in the small posterior
teeth; the position of the bruising and piercing teeth being the
reverse of what commonly obtains.
The tooth continues to expand below the enamelled crown to the
middle of the fang, which is three times the length, or more, of the
crown; it then gradually diminishes to a truncated base, more or
less excavated, according to the age of the tooth. The expanded
ventricose fang is subcompressed and flattened at the sides. A worn
tooth of an old Grampus much resembles the canine of the Ursus
spelceus; but the long ventricose fang of that is flattened only on one
side, is convex at the other, and the pulp cavity is obliterated long
ere the crown is worn down ; the base of the enamel is more evenly
circular, less oblique from the convex to the concave side of the
crown ; the fang in the Grampus is marked by many wavy transverse
lines of growth.
In the common Dolphin the number of teeth amount to 190,
arranged in equal numbers above and below, and there is a pair of
teeth in the premaxillaries which are toothless in the other Cetacea.
They have slender, sharp, conical, slightly incurved crowns, and
diminish in size to the two extremes of the dental series ; the acute
apices are longer preserved than in tlm foregoing species.
The teeth of the common Porpoise {Phoccena vulgaris), are
arranged in equal number on each side of both upper and lower jaws,
and are from 80 to 92 in number; the crown is slightly expanded
and compressed, and the fully-formed fang is recurved and enlarged
at its extremity.
The Gangetic Dolphin {Platanista gangetica) differs from the rest of
the Delphinidce scarcely less in the form of its teeth than in that of
the jaws. Both the upper and lower maxillary bones are much
elongated and compressed; the symphysis of the lower jaw is co¬
extensive with the long dental series, and the teeth rise so close to
it, that those of one side touch the others by their bases, except at
the posterior part of the jaw. The lateral series of teeth are similarly
approximated in the upper jaw at the median line of union, which
line is compelled, by the alternate position of* the teeth, to take a
wavy course.
There are thirty teeth on each side of the upper jaw, and thirty-two
on each side of the lower jaw. In the young animal they are.all
slender, compressed, straight, and sharp pointed, the anterior being
longer than the posterior ones, and recurved. Contrary to the rule
in ordinary Dolphins, the anterior teeth retain their prehensile
structure, while the posterior ones soon have their summits worn
down to their broad bases.
The most remarkable change that occurs in the progress of growth
is the antero-posterior expansion, as well as elongation of the
implanted base of the tooth, which likewise has its outer surface
augmented by longitudinal folds or indentations, analogous to, but
weaker than, those in the base of the teeth of the Sauroid fishes.
Sometimes the posterior tooth of the Platanista has the base divided
into two short fangs—the sole example of such a structure which I
have met with in the existing carnivorous Cetacea.
at no period entirely enclosed in a bony cell; in which respect the
Cetacea offer an interesting analogy to true fishes.
The Cetacea permanently represent that early embryonic stage
when no cervical constriction divides the large head from the trunk,
and when the rudimental limbs offer no outward marks of joints or
digits; they likewise retain a preponderating proportion of brain,
and manifest for a long period, and on a magnified scale, the first
stages in the development of teeth.
When, by the increasing depth of the jaw, and the reciprocal
elongation of the tooth, its base or fang becomes supported by bone
(fig. 64, 6), a longer time than usual elapses before the alveolus is
completed by the development of transverse partitions between the
outer and inner walls of the open groove; and in the meanwhile the
teeth are lodged, like those of the Ichthyosauri, in a common and
continuous bony channel. In the Delphinidce the teeth are succes¬
sively developed from before backwards, and pass through all their
stages of growth in that order of position—the anterior ones having
their fangs and alveoli completed, whilst the posterior teeth are lodged
in a common groove, or may be supported at the back part of the
series by the gum only, as at a. When the formation of the entire
series of teeth approaches its completion, the Dolphin resembles the
Alligator in having the anterior teeth lodged in sockets, and the
posterior teeth in an alveolar groove. In the Cachalot the large
middle teeth of the series are the last to have the fang solidified.
The conversion of the last remnant of the pulp produces the irregular
bone-like deposit in the centre of the tooth, and closes up the
lower aperture—one or two minute canals for the nutrient vessels
being usually left. The mass of this fourth central substance is
greatest in the Cachalot (fig. 63, o), in which the process^sometimes
commences at an independent centre, and proceeds centrifugally, as
in ordinary ossification, giving rise to the detached, stalactitic
masses occasionally found loose in the unclosed pulp-cavity of large
teeth. _ . .
The remains of a gigantic animal discovered in a tertiary forma- Zeuglodon.
tion in the State of Louisiana, and originally, interpreted to belong
to the class of reptiles with the name of Basilosaurvs? having pre¬
sented, in both portions of upper and lower jaws, teeth implanted by
a double fang in deep sockets, the writer demonstrated from this
character, and the microscopic structure of the teeth, both the mam¬
malian nature and cetaceous affinities of the species, and proposed
for it the name of Zeuglodon, or yoke-tooth.2 The crowns ot the
large posterior teeth are sub-compressed and conical, with an obtuse
apex. The upper part of the crown has its anterior and posterior
margins strongly serrated (fig. 65). The crown is contracted from
Fig. 65.
Deciduous and Permanent Teeth of the Zeuglodon.
side to side in the middle of its base, so as to give its transverse
section an hour-glass form (fig. 66); and the opposite wide longitu-
d
Develop¬
ment
fFig. 64.
Section of Jaw and Teeth of a Dolphin (Delphbius delphis).
The primitive seat of the development of the tooth-matrix in
the vascular membrane or gum (fig. 64, a) lining an open groove
on the alveolar border of the maxillary bones (6), is maintained
much longer in the Cetacea than in the highest organized Mam¬
malia; a greater proportion of the tooth is also developed before
the matrix sinks into, or is surrounded by a bony alveolus; and,
with the exception of the rudimental tusks in the Narwhal, is
Transverse Section of a Tooth of the Zeuglodon. Nat. size,
dinal grooves which produce this form, become deeper as the crown
approaches the socket, and at length meet and divide the root of the
tooth into two separate fangs. The anterior teeth have a single
root, and are somewhat smaller than the posterior ones; the crown
is sharp-pointed, conical, slightly recurved and laterally compressed,
the transverse section of the base forming an ellipse.
Harlan, Medical and Physical Researches, 8vo, 1835. Prof. R. Grant, in Thomson’s British Annual for 1839.
Transactions of the Geological Society of London, 2d Series, vol. vi.
446
ODONTOLOGY.
Teeth of
Mammals.
Order
Sirenia.
Halicore.
The teeth of a species of this genus were figured by Scilua in his
work De Corporibus Marinis, 4°, 1747, tab. xii. fig. 1. They
have been ascribed, since the above-cited memoir on Zeuglodon
appeared, by Mr. Grateloup, to a genus called Squalodon, and by
Dr. Gibbs to a genus called Dorudon. The mode of completion
of the teeth in this extinct Cetacean is different from, and conforms
to, a higher type than that of any of the existing carnivorous genera
of the order. It is evident that the pulp which, from the form and
structure of the crown, was originally simple, becomes afterwards
divided into two parts, and that its calcification then proceeds towards
two distinct centres, which are each separately surrounded by con¬
centric striae of growth. The cavitas pulpi, which is very small in
the crown of the tooth, becomes contracted as the fangs descend, and
is almost obliterated near their extremities.
The summits of the crown of the teeth of the Zeuglodon were
sheathed with enamel. Their base exhibits an investment of a thin
layer of cement, which augments in thickness where it surrounds the
fangs. _
Dr Carus1 figures a fragment of the under jaw of the Zeuglodon
(see fig. 65), in which a worn-out deciduous molar appears to be dis¬
placed and succeeded vertically by a premolar ; this would imply an
affinity to the Sirenia. In the Sirenia, whose dentition will next be
described, the two-fanged structure is fully established in the Mana¬
tee, whilst the Dugong presents a near resemblance to the Zeuglodon
in the composition and the intimate structure of the molar teeth. The
vertebrae of the Zeuglodon resemble those of the carnivorous Cetacea.
The size of the extinct animal is estimated at near seventy feet; it
accordingly affords a very interesting addition to the history of the
dental system in the Cetaceous order, and makes the typical group
approach by another step nearer to the Dugongs and Manatees,
which are more essentially related to the Pachyderms.
Two marks of inferiority in the dental system of the carni¬
vorous Cetacea, which they have in common with many of the
order Bruta, viz.—uniformity of shape in the whole series of teeth,
and no succession and displacement by a second or permanent
set,—disappear when we commence the examination of the dentition
of those apodal Pachyderms, which have been called by Cuvier the
Herbivorous Cetacea.
In the Dugong (Halicore), for example, we find incisors distin¬
guished by their configuration as well as position from the molars,
and the incisive tusk is deciduous, displaced vertically, and suc¬
ceeded by a permanent tusk; both these characters are shown in
fig. 67. Of the incisors of the Dugong, only the superior ones project
in.
Fig. fi7.
Section of Jaws and Teeth of a Dugong (Eitlicore indicus.)
from the gum in the male sex, and neither upper nor lower ones are
visible in the female. The superior incisors (i) are two in number
in both sexes. In the male they are moderately long, substriedrai,
slightly and equally curved, of the same diameter from the base to
near the apex, which is obliquely bevelled off to a sharp edge, like
the scalpriform teeth of the Bodentia. Only the extremity of this
tusk projects from the jaw, at least seven-eighths of its extent being
lodged in the socket, the parietes of which are entire, and the ex¬
terior of the great intermaxillary bones presents an unbroken surface.
In the female Dugong the growth of the permanent incisive tusks of
the upper jaw is arrested before they cut the gum, and they remain
throughout life concealed in the premaxillary bones ; the tusk in
this sex is solid, is about an inch shorter and less bent than that of
the male ; it is also irregularly cylindrical, longitudinally indented,
and it gradually diminishes to an obtuse rugged point; the base is
suddenly expanded, bent obliquely outwards, and presents a shallow
excavation. The deciduous incisors of the upper jaw (fig. 67, i d)
are much smaller than the permanent tusks of the female,2 and are
loosely inserted by one extremity in conical sockets immediately ante¬
rior to those of the permanent tusks (fig. 67), adhering by their
opposite ends to their tegumentary gum, which presents no outward
indication of their presence. Not more than twenty-four molar teeth
are developed in the Australian Dugong (Halicore Australis), or
more than twenty molar teeth in the Malayan Dugong, viz.—in the
latter, five on each side of both upper and lower jaws (fig. 67, 1-5),
but these are never simultaneously in use, the first being shed before
the last has cut the gum.
The period when the molar series can be viewed in its most com¬
plete state in the Dugong is that represented in fig. 67. The molar
teeth increase very regularly in size ; the fang of the first (1) and of
the second (2) is soon completed and solidified; that of the third (3)
is more elongated, and retains its basal cavity longer, but it becomes
at length contracted to a point, solidified, partially absorbed, and the
tooth is then shed; the crown presents a regular oval shape in trans¬
verse section. The fourth molar, when fully formed, resembles a slightly
bent cylinder with a nearly smooth outer surface ; the crown is flat,
or slightly depressed at the centre. The opposite extremity of the
tooth is excavated by a regular conical cavity, lodging the remains
of the pulp, With age, however, the fang contracts, takes on an
irregularly fluted and tuberculate surface, and is at last closed at its
extremity. The matrix of the last molar tooth (5) expands as the
crown is forming, and manifests a tendency to divide into two
fangs; but having acquired the size and form exhibited in fig. 67,
b, in transverse section, the pulp is maintained in a wide basal
pulp-cavity, to supply the waste of the crown according to that
pattern.
The molar teeth of the Dugong consist of a large body of dentine
(fig. 8, d), a small central part of osteo-dentine, and a thick external
investment of cement (c). The communications between the tubes
of the cement and those of the dentine are clearly discernible in
several parts of the circumference of the latter substance, and the
whole system of tubes adapted to circulate the plasma of the blood
through the solid tissues of the tooth is, perhaps, in no existing
mammal better seen than in the molar of the Dugong. The small
portion of osteo-dentine in the centre of the tooth is permeated by a
few vascular canals, which are derived frojjr the remains of the pulp.
In the female Dugong the whole of the smaller extremity of the tusk
is surrounded by a thin coat of true enamel, which is covered by a
thinner stratum of cement. In the male’s tusk the enamel, though it
may originally have capped the extremity, as in the female’s, yet, in
the body of the tusk, it is laid only upon the anterior convex, and on
the lateral surfaces, but not upon the posterior concave side of the
tusk; which is thickly coated with cement.
This side, accordingly, is worn away obliquely when the tusk comes
into use, whilst the enamel maintains a sharp chisel-like edge upon
the anterior part of the protruded end of the tusk.
The presence of abortive teeth concealed in the sockets of the
deflected part of the lower jaw of the Dugong (fig. 67, a, id) offers
an interesting analogy with the rudimental dentition of the upper
jaw in the Cachalot, and of both jaws in the foetal Whales. The
arrested growth and concealment of the upper tusks in the female
Duo-ong, and the persistent pulp-cavity and projection of the corre¬
sponding tusks in the male, are equally interesting repetitions of the
phenomena manifested on a larger scale in the singular dental system
of the Narwhal; but the habitual abrasion to which the tusks of the
male Dugong are subject prevents their closer resemblance to the
male Narwhal’s tusk in regard to length. The simple implantation
of the molar teeth and their composition are paralleled in the teeth
of the Cachalot; their difference of form, and the more complex
shape of the hindmost tooth, are repetitions of characters which were
present in the dentition of the extinct Zeuglodon.
The co-existence of incisive tusks with molar teeth, and the suc¬
cessive displacement of the smaller and more simple anterior ones
by the advance of larger and more complex grinders into the field of
attrition, already seem to sketch out peculiarities of dentition, which
become established and
attain their maximum in
the Proboscidian family
(Elephants and Masto¬
dons) of the Ungulate
order.
The transition from
the cetaceous to the
more normal type of
pachydermal dentition is
effected by the Manatee
(Manatus), especially by
the modification of the
molar series.
The deflected anterior
extremities of the inter- Fie C8
poartllaarsiJg?eeYedduous Lower Jaw and Teeth of a Young Manatee-
tusk in the young Manatee (fig. 69, i); but this is not succeeded by a
permanent one in either sex. Six depressions for rudimental teeth
Teeth of
Mammals.
ManatuA
1 See Nova acta Caes. Leop. Carol, vol. xxii. tab xxxix. B. fig. 2, p. 390.
Broceedbigs of the Zoolog. Society, 1838, n. 41.
ODONTOLOGY.
Teeth of
Mammals.
Order
Marsupi-
alia.
Thyla-
cinus.
occur in the gum, covering the deflected forepart of each ramus of
the lower jaw in the young new-born American Manatee (fig. 68, 1-
6), and in the sixth (6) Stannius1 found a tooth, which he calls a sixth
incisor. . .
The molars of the American Manatee are thirty-eight in number,
ten on each side of the upper jaw, and nine, at least, on each side of
the lower jaw 5 but they are never simultaneously in place and use.
The number of teeth ordinarily in use at the same time is that repre¬
sented in Fig. 69, 3-8, where the first and second molars (1, 2) have
been shed, and the two last (9 and 10) have not come into place;
The dental formula of the genus Dasyurus is—
•4,4 1.1. 2_2 4 a _ 49
1 3.3 ’ ° 1.1 ’ ^ 2.2 ’ 4.4
The eight incisors of the upper jaw (fig. 70, i) are of the same
447
Teeth of
Mammals.
Dasyurus.
1'ig. 69.
Teeth of the Upper Jaw of a Manatee.
in the lower jaw seven molars are usually in use in the adult. The
first (figs. 68 and 69, 1) in both jaws is small and simple. Beyond
the second, the ciwns in the upper jaw are square, and support two
transverse ridges with tri-tuberculate summits, having also an ante¬
rior and posterior basal ridge; each tooth is implanted by three
diverging roots, one on the inner and two on the outer side , they
increase in size very gradually, from the foremost to the last.
The crowns of the four or five anterior molars of the lower jaw
resemble those above, but the rest have a large posterior tubercle ;
they are all implanted by two fangs, which enlarge as they descend,
and bifurcate at the extremity; the crowns are of moderate height,
and project only a few lines above the sockets.
The molars consist of a body of dentine, a coronal_ covering of
enamel, and a general investment of cement, very thin upon the
crown, and a little thicker iipon the fangs.
All the grinding teeth of the Manatee belong to the true molar
series, in so far as that none are displaced by vertical successors;
but the first molar (fig. 68, 1) is small, conical, and simple, and is
separated by a brief interval from the first of the two-ridged molars
(2 e). In this respect the Manatee manifests, like the Dugong, a
cetaceous character, and the more strongly, inasmuch as the number
of molars successively developed from before backwards is greater.
The anterior teeth are, however, displaced before the posterior ones
are developed, although they have no vertical successors; which cir¬
cumstance is also characteristic of the Elephant, and the shape, the
structure, and the mode of implantation of the molars of the Manatee,
accord with the pachydermal type, and herein more especially with
the teeth of the Dinoiherium and Tapir.
In the Marsupial order, the typical number of the teeth in the
molar series is seven on each side of both jaws, the first three of
which displace as many milk teeth, and are “premolars” (fig. 76, p
1, 2, 3), the other four are true “molars,” (fig. 76, m\, 4). Incisors
(fig. 71, i) are present in all the species, but are variable in number,
in some genera exceeding that of the Mammalian type. Canines
(fig. 71, c) are large in the Dasyures, are feebly represented in the
Phalangers and Petaurists, are absent in the lower jaw of the
Potoroos and Koala, and in both jaws of the Kangaroos and
Wombats.
The Basyures and Thylacine offer the carnivorous type of the
dental system, but differ from the corresponding group of the placental
Mammalia, in having the molars of a more uniform and simple struc¬
ture, and the incisors in greater number; the dental formula of the
Dog-headed Opposum, Thalydnus, is—
i 4_* ; c — ; ; m ^ 46.
3.3 ’ 1.1 ’ r 3.3 44
The canine teeth are long, strong, curved, and pointed, like those
of the dog tribe ; the points of the lower canines are received in
hollows of the premaxillary palatal plate when the month is closed,
and do not project, as in the carnivorous placentals, beyond the mar¬
gins of the maxillary bones. The premolars (p) present a simple
compressed conical crown, with a posterior tubercle,
which is most developed on the hindmost. The
true molars (m) in the upper jaw are unequally
triangular, the last being much smaller than the
rest; the exterior part of the crown (fig. 70, a, b)
is raised into one large pointed middle cusp and
two smaller cusps; a small strong obtuse lobe (c)
projects from the inner side of the crown. The
nmltimate upper molars of the lower jaw are compressed and tri-
Molar of the Thy- cuspidate ; the middle cusp being the longest,
lacine. especially in the two last molars, which resemble
closely the carnassial teeth (dents carnassieres) of the dog and cat.
lug. 71.
Dentition of the Ursine Dasyure. Nat. size.
length and simple structure, and are arranged in a regular semicircle.
The six incisors of the lower jaw (fig. 71, i) are similarly arranged,
but have thicker crowns than the upper ones. The canines (fig. 71, c)
present the same, or even a greater relative development, than in the
Thylacine; in an extinct species of Vasyurus, they had the same
form and relative proportions as in the Leopard. The premolars (p
2 and 3) answer to the two last in the Opossum, and have simple
crowns. The upper true molars (m) have triangular crowns; the
first presents four sharp cusps ; the second and third each five; the
fourth, which is the smallest, only three. In the lower jaw, the last
molar is nearly of equal size with the penultimate one, and is bristled
with four cusps, the external one being the longest. The second
and third molars have five cusps, three on the inner and two on the
■ outer side; the first molar has four cusps. The carnivorous cha¬
racter of the above dentition is most strongly marked in the Ursine
Dasyure, or Devil of the Tasmanian colonists, the largest existing
species of the genus.
A carnivorous Australian marsupial, of the size of a Lion, Thylacoleo
now extinct, which the writer determined under the name of
Thylacoleo carnifex, in 1848, has a true carnassial tooth, upwards
of an inch and a half in fore and aft extent, and one inch in height;
consisting wholly of the “ blade ” in the lower jaw (fig. 72), and with
the addition of a very feeble
depressed tubercle in the
upper jaw. On the occasion
of a visit to London by M.
Paul Gervais, at the period
when the supposed marsu¬
pial character of the Ptero-
don or Hynodon (fig. Ill)
of the miocene deposits of
Auvergne, Gard, and Vau
Fig. 72.
Fig. 70.
Penultimate Upper
cluse were under discussion, Lower Carnassial Tooth viewed from above, of
the writer took the oppor- the Thylaeoleo.
tunity to point out to that able comparative anatomist and palaeon¬
tologist, certain characters deducible from the foramen carolicum and
foramen lacrymale, bearing on this question, and illustrated those con¬
clusions by reference to the then unique carnivorous fossil which had a
short time before been transmitted from Australia. M. Gervais accor¬
dingly enters the genus Thylacoleo in the geographical table of fossil
mammalia, of the “ Zoologie and Paleontologie Franfaise,” and in his
remarks on those of Australia (Nouvelle Hollande), he writes, “ Les
depots pliocenes ou pleistocenes ont fourni des Grand Kangaroos, un
grand Wombat,2 divers autres especes congeneres de celles d’a pre¬
sent, les genres de Diprotodon et Nototherium, qui etaient aussi des
Marsupiaux, mais dont les allues et la taille approchaient de celles
de nos grands pachydermes Diluviens, et le Dasyurien, plus grand
que le Lion, que M. Owen nomme Thylacoleo ” (p. 192).
In some of the smaller species of the carnivorous group, as the Phascogale
Phascogale, the canines lose their great relative size, and the molar
teeth present a surface more cuspidated than sectorial; there is also
an increased number of teeth, and as a consequence of their equable
development, they have fewer and shorter interspaces. The genus
Phascogale is characterized by—
ip-,c l'4; p 3_3; m4:4 46.
0.0 1.1 0.0 4.4
In this dental formula may be discerned a step in the transition
from the Dasyures to the Opposums, not only in the increased number
of spurious molars, but also in the shape and proportions of the
incisors.
1 Beitrage zur Kenntniss der Amerikanischen Manati’s, 4to, Bostock, 1843.
2 That, viz., which is alluded to as being “ at least four times as large as either of the known existing species,” in the writer’s memoir on the
extinct species of Phascolomys.—(July 1845), Trans. Zool. Soc. tom. iii. p. 306.
448
ODONTOLOGY.
Teeth of The general character of the dentition of these small predatory
Mammals. Marsupials approximates to the insectivorus type, as will be exempli-
fied in the Shrew, Hedgehog, etc., among the placental^ Mammalia,
and corresponds with the food and habits of the species, which thus lead
from the predaceous, or flesh-feeding, to the Entomophegous tribes.
Phascolo- The interval is further diminished by a lost Marsupial genus,
therium. which forms one of the ancient Mammalia that have rendered the
oolitic formations at Stonesfield so famous. This genus, which the
■writer has called Phascolotherium,1 presents the same numerical
dental formula as in Phascogale, viz.—
i or 4.4; c ™ (^g-7^).
But the incisors (i) and canines (c) are separated by vacant inter¬
spaces, and occupy a larger proportional space in the dental senes.
Myrme-
cobius.
Amphi-
ttierium.
Tig. 73.
Lower Jaw and Teeth of the Phascolothere. Nat. size, in outline.
The transition from the false (p 1, 2, 3) to the true (m 1, 2, 3, 4)
molars, is more gradual; the latter are more compressea than in the
Opossum; the five larger teeth present each a large middle cusp,
with a smaller one in front and behind it, and with a basal ridge,
which, projecting a little beyond both the anterior and posterior
smaller cusps, gives a quinque-cuspid character to the crown of the
tooth.
The Myrmecohius (fig. 74) is characterised by the following re¬
markable dental formula:—
11* ; c L1; p 33 •
3.3 ’ 1 1 ’ r
; ™ ~ = 54.
From this formula it will be seen that the number of true and false
molars, eighteen in both jaws, exceeds that of any other known
existing Marsupial. The
molars (m 1, 6) present
a distinct multicuspid
structure, and both the
true and false ones pos¬
sess two separate fangs,
as in other Marsupials.
The inferior molars are
Fig. 74. directed obliquely in-
Dentition of the MyrmecoLius. waids, and the whole
dental series describes a
slight sigmoid curve. The premolars (p 1, 2, 3) present the usual com¬
pressed triangular form, wuth the apex slightly recurved, and the base
more or less obscurely notched before and behind. The canines (c) are
very little longer than the false molars. The incisors (i) are minute,
slightly compressed, and pointed ; they are separated from each other
and the canines by wide intervals.
The genus Amphitherium is founded on fossil remains of lower
jaws and teeth discovered, like those of the Phascolothere, in the
oolitic slate at Stonesfield, in Oxfordshire, and it receives elucida¬
tion from the dental characters of the previous genus, but is remark¬
able for having a still greater number of molar teeth. The dental
formula is as follows:—
Tig. 75.
Lower Jaw and Teetli of the Amphitherium. Twice nat. size.
and separated by intervals, as in the existing Marsupial genus Myr-
mecobius; the canine (c) had a similar form. The shape of the
crowns of the premolars (p) and molars (m) is shewn in the specimens Teeth of
of the larger species (Amphitherium Broderipii), in the museum at Mammals.
York, their implantation of the jaw, each by two long slender roots,
as indicated in to 1 and 2, is demonstrated by one of the specimens
of the smaller species (Amphitherium Prevostii) in the museum at
Oxford.
The singular animal on which this genus was founded, has but Choercpus.
two toes on each fore foot; its dental formula is—
z y ; C y ; » 3 3 ; TO y = 46.
3.3 1.1 3.3 4.4
All the teeth are of small size ; the upper incisors are conical, the
lower ones truncated, and the hindmost is notched ; the canines are
conical and compressed; the upper one is simple and remote from
the incisors; the lower one is near the incisors, and is notched ante¬
riorly; the premolars are separated by intervals, as in Myrmecobius;
they are tricuspid, except the first in the upper jaw, which resembles
the canine. Each true molar consists of two triangular prisms,
those of the upper jaw being broader than those below, and with
their base turned outwards, contrary to those in the lower jaw. The
genus would seem by its dentition to rank between Myrmecobius
and Perameles. Its digital characters are anomalous and unique
among the Marsupialia, but are evidently a degeneration from the
Saltatorial or Bandicoot type.
The dental formula of the genus Ifidelphys is—
.55 1.1 3.3 4.4 ,,-v
*0! cn'>Palvm4A: 60 (yg-76).
Didelphys,
Fig. 76.
Dentition of the Virginian Opossum.
The Opossums resemble in their dentition the Bandicoots more
than the Dasyures; but they closely resemble the latter in the tuber¬
culous structure of the molars, the two middle incisors of the upper
jaw are more produced than the others, from which they are also
separated by a short interspace.
The canines still exhibit a superior development in both jaws
adapted for the destruction of living prey, but the molars have a con¬
formation different from that which characterizes the true flesh-feeders,
and the Opossums consequently subsist on a mixed diet, or prey
upon the lower organized animals.
The smaller species of Didelphys, which are the most numerous,
fulfil in South America the office of the insectivorous Shrews of the
old continent. The larger Opossums resemble in their habits, as in
their dentition, the carnivorous Dasyures, and prey upon the smaller
quadrupeds and birds; but they have a more omnivorous diet, feeding
on reptiles and insects, and even fruits. One large species (Did.
Cancrivora) prowls about the sea-shore, and lives, as its name im-
?lies, on crabs and other crustaceous animals. Another species, the
'apock, frequents the fresh water, and preys almost exclusively on
fish. It has all the habits of the Otter ; and, in consequence of the
modifications of its feet, forms the type of the sub-genus Chironectes,
111. Its dentition, however, does not differ from that of the ordinary
Opossums.
The dental formula of the genus Tarsipes has not been accu- Tarsipea.
rately determined; the molars soon begin to fall; the small
canines are also deciduous ; the two procumbent incisors of the lower
jaw remain the longest. The inferior incisors are opposed to six
minute incisors above, which are succeeded by a small canine and
some small molars ; but these are reduced in some, perhaps old indi¬
viduals, to a single tooth on each side.
The Phalangers, being provided with hinder hands and prehensile Phalan-
tails, are strictly arboreal animals, and have a close external resem- gista.
blance to the Opossums, by which name they are generally known
in Australia and the islands of the Indian Archipelago, where
alone they have hitherto been found. They differ from the Opossums
chiefly in their dentition, and in accordance with this difference,
their diet is more decidedly of a vegetable kind.
The absence of anomalous or functionless premolars, and of Phasco
inferior canines, appears to be constant in this genus, the dental larctos.
formula of which, in other respects resembles that of Phalangista;
it is—
1 n;c -p n;m £4 =30 (Fis-77)-
The true molars (fig. 77) are larger in proportion than in the Pha¬
langers ; each is beset with four three-sided pyramids (a, b, c, d),
the cusps of which wear down in age, the outer series in the upper
Transactions of the Geological Society of London, vol. vi. 2d series, 1838, p. 58, pi. 6.
ODONTOLOGY.
449
Teeth of teeth being the first to give way; those in the lower jaw are nar-
Mammals, rower than in the upper; there is also the rudiment of a “ cingulum, ’
Hypsi-
prymnus.
Molar Tooth of the Koala
‘ ‘ • magnified.
Dentition of the Koala (1‘hascolarctos fuscus.)
as at * *■ The premolars (p 3) are compressed, and terminate in a
cutting edge ; in those of the upper jaw there is a small parallel ridge
along the inner side of the base. The canine (c) slightly exceeds in
size the posterior incisor, and terminates in an oblique cutting edge
rather than in a point; the fang is closed at the extremity; it is
situated, as in the Phalangers, close to the premaxillary suture.
The lateral incisors of the upper jaw are small and obtuse; the two
anterior or middle incisors are more than twice as large as the rest;
they are conical, slightly curved, sub-compressed, bevelled off obliquely
to the anterior cutting edge, but differing essentially from the
dentes scalprarii of the Rodentia in being closed at the extremity of
the fang. The two incisors of the lower j aw resemble those of the
upper, but are longer and more compressed.
The dental formula of Ifypsiprymnus, the generic name of the
Potoroos, or Kangaroo-rats, is—
,3.3 1.1 1.1 4.4
11.1 ’ C 0.0 ’ P PI ’ m 4.4 — 80
The anterior of the upper incisors, (fig. 78, i) are longer and more
curved than the lateral ones, and their pulps are persistent. The
canine (c) is larger than
in the Koala; it is situ¬
ated on the line of the
premaxillary suture;
and while the fang is
lodged in the maxillary,
the crown projects al¬
most wholly from the
premaxillary bone. In
the large Hypsiprymnue
ursinus, the canines
Fig. 78. are relatively smaller
Dentition of the Potoroo, (Hypsiprymnus.) than in the other Poto¬
roos, a structure which indicates the transition from the Poto¬
roo to the Kangaroo genus. The single premolar (fig. 78, p)
has a peculiar trenchant form; its maximum of development is
attained in the arboreal Potoroos of New Guinea (Hypsiprymnus
ursinns and Hyps, dorcocepephalus), in the latter of which its antero¬
posterior extent nearly equals that of the three succeeding molar teeth.
In all the Potoroos, the trenchant spurious molar (p) is indented,
especially on the outer side, and in young teeth, by many small
vertical grooves. The true molars (m 1, 2, 3, 4) each present four
three-sided pyramidal cusps ; but the internal angles of the two oppo¬
site cusps are continued into each other across the tooth, forming
two angular or concave transverse ridges. In the pld animal these
cusps and ridges disappear, and the grinding surface is worn quite flat.
In the genus Macropus (fig. 143), the normal condition of the per¬
manent teeth may be expressed as follows :—
.3.3 0.0 1.1 4.4 0Q
tn:cM;-Pu:m4T4=5:28-
The main difference, as compared with Hypsiprymnus, lies in the
absence of the upper canines as functional teeth; but the germs of
these teeth are always to be found in the young mammary foetus of
the Macropus major, and the writer has detected them, but of very
small size, and concealed by the gum, in the adults of some small
species of Kangaroos, as, e.g., Macropus rufiventer, Ogilby, and
Macr. psilopus, Gould. This, however, is a rare exception; while
the constant presence and conspicuous size of the canines will always
serve to distinguish the Potoroo from the Kangaroo. The crown of
the true molars supports two principal transverse ridges, with a
broad anteiior talon and a narrow hinder one. In most species a
spur is continued from the hinder to the fore ridge, and another from
the fore ridge to the front talon.
Dr Mason Good has remarked, “ The Mus maritimus, or African
rat, has the singular property of separating at pleasure, to a con¬
siderable distance, the two front teeth of the lower jaw, which are
not less than an inch and a quarter long; that elegant and extra¬
ordinary creature, the Kangaroo, which, from the increase that has
lately taken place in his Majesty’s garden at Kew, we may soon hope to
see naturalized in our own country, is possessed of a similar faculty.’’1
This faculty of divaricating the lower incisors is due to the laxity Teeth ot
of the symphysial union of the two. rami of the lower jaw ; the teeth Mammals,
merely move with the bones in which they are implanted. Remains
of gigantic Kangaroos have been discovered in the same caves in
Australia which contained the teeth and jaws of the large extinct
Dasyurus laniarius, and they probably formed the prey of that species
and of its contemporary the Thylacine, which has equally become
extinct in the continent of Australia.
A gigantic extinct herbivorous Australian Marsupial, the bulk jy;pro_
of which may be surmised from the length of the skull, which todon.
equals three feet, manifests a dentition which makes the nearest
approach to the type of the Kangaroos ; but the anterior or median
pair of upper incisors of the upper jaw present the condition of
large, curved, scalpriform, over-growing tusks, which work against
a similar but straight procumbent pair of incisive tusks below;
thus presenting a transitional feature between the Kangaroos and the
Rodent form of Marsupial called Wombat (Phascolomys).
By reason of this modification, the writer separated the above
large fossil Marsupial generically from Macropus, and proposed for
it the name of Diprotodon, or two-incisored, in his Description of the
Australian fossil Mammalia, in the appendix to “ Mitchell’s Expe¬
dition into the Interior of Eastern Australia,” 8vo, 1838.
He has since ascertained that the second and third incisors are
present, though of diminutive size, in the upper jaw of the Dipro¬
todon ; but as these teeth are actually reduced to two in the lower
jaw, and functionally so in the upper one, the generic name is still
applicable. There is no trace of canines in either jaw. The molars
present the double transversely-ridged type of the Macropus, an
anterior and posterior low basal ridge being added to the two prin¬
cipal eminences.
Five such molars were developed on each side of both jaws, pro¬
gressively increasing in size from the first to the fourth. The first
is generally shed before the last is in place.
A second genus of huge Marsupial Herbivora has been indicated
under the name of Nototherium? The Thylacoleo seems to have
been designed to keep these giants of the order in check.
The dental system presents, in fig, 79, the extreme degree of p}iasco-
lomvs.
Fig. 79.
Dentition of the Wombat {Phascolomys).
that degradation of the teeth, intermediate between the front incisors
and true molars, which has been traced from the Opossum to.the
Kangaroos; not only have the functionless prem.olars and canines
now totally disappeared, but also the posterior incisors of the upper
jaw, which we have seen in the Koala and Potoroo to exhibit, a
feeble degree of development as compared with the anterior pair;
these, in fact, are alone retained in the dentition of the genus
Phascolomys.
The dental formula of the Wombat is thus reduced, both in
number and kind, to that of the true Rodentia, viz.—
^g. 79).
The incisors (i), moreover, are dentes scalprarii, with persistent
pulps; but are inferior, especially in the lower jaw, in their relative
length and curvature to those of the placental Glires; they present
a subtriedral figure, and are traversed by a shallow groove on their
mesial surface. The premolars (p) present no trace of that com¬
pressed structure which characterises them in the Koala and Kanga¬
roos, but have a wide oval transverse section; those of the upper
jaw being traversed, on the minor side, by a longitudinal groove.
The true molars (m 1-4) are double the size of the premolars; the
superior ones are also traversed by an internal longitudinal groove;
but this is so deep and wide that it divides the whole tooth into two
prismatic portions, with one of the angles directed inwards. The
inferior molars are in like manner divided into two triedral portions,
but the intervening groove is here external, and one of the facets of
each prism is turned inwards. All the grinders are curved, and
describe about a quarter of a circle. In the upper jaw the concavity
of the curve is directed outwards ; in the lower jaw, inwards. The
false and true molars, like the incisors, have persistent pulps, and
Book of Nature, vol.
YOL. XVI.
i. p. 285. 1826.
2 Owen, Report on the Extinct Mammals of Australia, cfc. 8vo, 1844, p. 12.
3 L
450
ODONTOLOGY.
Teeth of
Mammals.
Order
Insecti-
vora.
Chryso-
chloris.
Fig. 80.
are, consequently, devoid of true fangs, in which respect the Wombat
differs from all other Marsupials, and resembles the extinct Toxodon,
the dentigerous Bruta, and herbivorous Bodentia.
The cuts, figs. 72, 70, 77, and 80, showing the working surface
of the molar teeth, exemplify stages in the progressive transition
from the carnivorous to the herbivorous modification of those teeth
in the Marsupial series.
Figure 72, nat. size, is the lower carnassial tooth of the great
extinct Thylacoleo. Fig. 70 is an upper molar of the largest exist¬
ing Marsupial carnivore, the Thylacine of Tasmania ; the addition
of the inner lobe (c) gives it a triangular form.. In the Dasyurus the
inner lobe is augmented, and the outer division is thickened by the
development of a pointed tubercle or cusp from the cingulum. In
the Bandicoot [Perameles Myosuros), a second lobe answering to d in
fig. 77 is added to the inner division of the crown, and two tubercles
are developed from the outer part of the cingulum; in the Phalan-
gista and Koala (fig. 77). the outer tubercles are obsolete, and the
principal lobes (a, b, c, d) are almost equal, with a posterior basal
ridge and the rudiment of an anterior one.
In the Hypsiprymnus the lobes answer¬
ing to a and c begin to coalesce and form
a transverse ridge, as do those behind
answering to b and d. In the Macropus
(fig. 143) the coalescence is more complete;
and in the Diprotodon the double cross-
ridged structure is complete. The parts
of the cingulum forming the anterior and
posterior basal ridges are present in all
Grinding Surface of a Lower the three last examples. Finally, the
Molar (nat. size) of the Great \yombat (fig. 80) shows the most aberrant
extinct om a . modification of the grinding surface. The
cut is taken from a molar tooth of the lower jaw of the great extinct
Phascolomys gigas. , ,
The dental system in this order is remarkable for the many varieties
and even anomalies which it presents—almost the only characteristic
predicable of it in the numerous small quadrupeds which constitute
ft being the presence of several sharp points or cusps upon the
crowns of the molar teeth, which are always broader in the upper
than in the lower jaw. The teeth that intervene between these and
the incisors are most variable in form and size, but are never absent;
the incisors also differ in
number, size, and shape, in
different species, the ante¬
rior ones approximating in
some species to the cha¬
racter of the scalpriform teeth
of the Rodents.
Of all existing Insectivora,
the Chrysochlore, or irides¬
cent mole of th e Cape, makes
the nearest approach, by the
number of its molar teeth
(fig. 81), to that remarkable
condition which was mani-
Fig. 81. fested in the most ancient
Dentition of the Cape-Mole {Chrysochloris period of Mammalian exist-
capensis) magnified. eI1ce Ly the extinct Awphi-
therium and Spalacotherium of the Oolitic period in geology.
At least true molars may be assigned to the Chrysochlore accord¬
ing to their form—the only character, in the absence of the known
order of vertical displacement and succession by which the true and
false molars can at present be defined in this species. The anterior
large laniariform tooth, and the two succeeding small teeth, are in¬
cisors, by virtue of their position in the premaxillary bones; the
next small tooth, with a simple compressed tricuspid crown, may be
regarded either as a canine or a premolar. The crowns of the true
molars are thin plates, flattened from before backwards, with two
notches on the working edge, and a longitudinal groove along the
outer and thicker margin. Another anomaly, more remarkable than
that of the shape of the true molars, is their separation from each
other by vacant intervals, as in many Reptiles.
The crowns of the five lower true molars are compressed antero-
posteriorly, but are of unusual length, and have the thicker margin
turned inwards; the summit of the outer border is pointed and most
prominent; the inner division is subdivided into two points. The
anterior incisor is small and procumbent; the second has a larger
laniariform crown; the third is small, and resembles the two pre¬
molars which intervene between this and the first large tricuspid
molar. The lower molars are separated by wider intervals than
those above ; the crowns of the opposing series enter reciprocally the
interspaces, and interlock ; in mastication, the anterior margin of the
lower tooth works upon the posterior margin of the opposite upper
tooth.
According to M. Cuvier,1 each series in the upper jaw of the Teeth of
Chrysochlore includes one incisor and nine molars ; and in the lowei Mammals,
jaw two incisors and eight molars. M. de Blainville, guided by the
intermaxillary sutures in the young Chrysochlore, regards the first
three teeth in each lateral series as incisors, the fourth as a canine,
and the remaining six as molars in both upper and lower jaws.
The writer’s views, as given in the foregoing description, are expressed
by the following formula •—
. 3.3 1.1 6.6
* 3.3 1 P 2.2 > m 6.5 ^O.
The small insectivorous mammal, called Spalacotherium* which Spalaco-
has left its fossil remains a a therium.
in the upper Oolite of Pur-
beck, bad ten molar teeth
on each side of the lower
jaw, of which six at least
presented a tricuspid
crown (fig. 82), with pro- Ig‘
■portions very similar to °f Lcwer Jaw and Teeth of the Spalacothenum
those of the Chrysochlore. Iricuspidcns.
In the Shrew-moles of America (Scalops) the dentition makes an Scalops.
important step towards the normal mammalian condition, by the
restriction of the characters of the true molar teeth to the three
posterior ones in each lateral series ; between these and the large
scalpriform incisor, in the upper jaw, there are six teeth; the first
two of which must also be regarded, by the analogy of the Chryso¬
chlore, as incisors; the next tooth might pass for a canine ; and the
remaining three for premolars; of these the last is the largest, and
has a triedral pointed crown. The true molars have large crowns,
each with six cusps, four on the outer, and two on the inner part of
the grinding surface. In the lower jaw the first incisor is small and
procumbent, and the second large and laniariform, as in the Chryso¬
chlore ; the third is absent, and a vacant space separates the incisors
from the three premolars, and the crown of each true molar consists
of two parallel three-sided prisms, each terminated by three cusps,
and having one of the angles turned outwards, and one of the faces
inwards ; the interspaces between the angles makes the outer surface
of the long molars of the Scalops appear grooved. The dental
formula of this genus, according to the above description, is—
. 33 1.1 3.3 3.3
* 2.2 > c 0.0 > .P 3.3 ’ m 3.3 =
36.
The dentition of the common mole [Talpa europcea, fig.. 83) Talpa.
includes eleven teeth on each side of both upper and lower jaws.
The first three in the upper jaw are very small, with simple incisive
crowns, and are each implanted by a long and slender fang. These
teeth are incisors. The next tooth (c), by the size and shape of the
crown, represents a canine, but it is implanted by two fangs like the
succeeding premolar teeth. Three of these teeth (p 1,2,3) are of small
size, with compressed conical
crowns ; the fourth premolar
(p 4) has a larger three-sided
conical crown, supported by
three fangs, the crowns of the
true molars (m 1, 2, 3) are
multicuspid; the middle one
the largest, with five points,
and usually supported by four
fangs, the hindmost the small¬
est, with a tricuspid crown and
three fangs. In the lower jaw Fig. 83.
the first four teeth on each Dentition of the Mole {Talpa ettropaa).
side are small, simple, and
single-fanged, like the three incisors above; the fifth tooth has a
large laniariform crown, supported by two fangs, being very similar
to, but shorter than, the two-fanged canine above. As it passes
behind that tooth when the mouth is shut, we must regard the fourth
tooth below, notwithstanding its small size and similarity to the
incisors, as the true inferior canine, as it is in the Ruminants. The
fifth tooth (p 1) is then the first and largest of the series of four
premolars, each of which has a small posterior talon at the base of
the compressed conical crown. The three true molars (m 1, 2, 3)
are each implanted by two fangs, and have quinque-cuspid crowns,
the middle molar being the largest.
The teeth of the mole have been differently classified by different
authors; but the difference turns mainly upon the determination of
the canine teeth. F. Cuvier3 and T. Bell4 both regard the fourth
large tooth of the upper jaw (c) as a canine, notwithstanding it has
two fangs. M. de Blainville5 describes it as an incisor, in which
case the double implantation would be still more anomalous. The
position of the incisive foramen, however, indicates that the double
socket of this tooth is posterior to the premaxillary suture, and that
the number of incisors has been rightly determined by F. Cuvier.
1 Dents de Mammiferes, p. 63. 2 Proceedings of the Geological Society,
4 History of British Quadrupeds, 8vo, 183.7, p. 85.
June 1854. p. 426. 3 Dents de Mammiferes, p. 62.
5 Osteographie, Insectivores, 4to, p. 49.
ODONTOLOGY.
451
Teeth of By this justly-esteemed authority, the canines are held to be wanting
Mammals, in the lower jaw of the mole. Mr Bell regards as lower canines the
large fifth tooth on each side, although posterior to the canine above;
and M. de Blainville, having assigned eight incisors to the upper jaw,
adopts the same view in regard to the lower jaw, and calls the first pre¬
molar {p 1) a canine. With regard to the fourth tooth above, if it be
not developed in the premaxillary bone, it claims to be regarded as a
canine by the size and shape of the crown, and to be a premolar by
virtue of its two fangs; but, since the fang of a tooth is subject to
more variety than the crown, the present writer has been guided by
the more fixed character, and has called the tooth in question a
canine.1 The fourth tooth below (o_),_although so. small, is the only
one which has the true relative position of a canine, in advance of
the one above when the mouth is shut, and we shall find in the
fjenus Lemur a similar conformity of size and shape between the
ower canine and incisors as exists in the common mole.2 .There is
no difficulty about the other teeth, the canines being determined, and
thus the dental formula of the genus Talpa is—
. 3.3. 1.1. 4.4. 3.3
I 3~3 » ^ ’^44’ ^33 ===
According to this homology, the teeth are equal in number, and
alike in kind in both jaws; the true molars are reduced to the nor¬
mal quantity in the placental series, and the entire dentition is the
least anomalous of any which is manifested in the family Talpidoe.
In the Talpa moogura, Temm., the inferior canine is absent, as in
the genus Scalops. In the Condylure, or Rayed-mole, it is present,
with the form and proportions of a canine.
In Talpa leucura, Blyth (p 1), is wanting.
Soricidse. The transition from the Moles to the Shrews seems to be made
Solenodon. by the water-moles [Mygale), and the Solenodon. The latter
insectivore combines the form of a gigantic Shrew, with a denti¬
tion resembling that of the Chrysochlore. Each premaxillary
bone contains three incisors, the first large, canine-shaped,
grooved anteriorly, with the point inclined backwards; the other
two incisors small, with simple conical crowns; these are suc¬
ceeded by seven teeth, the two anterior having three-sided conical
crowns, the other five bearing, in addition, an external tuberculate
basal ridge In the lower jaw, the anterior incisor is very small, and
the second large and laniariform, as in the Scalops and Chryso¬
chlore ; but it is remarkable for a deep longitudinal excavation upon its
inner side,3 apparently produced by the friction of the large upper
incisors which are received into the interspace of the lower pair;
the third lower incisor is small and simple ; of the seven succeeding
teeth, the four last have multicuspid crowns like true molars.
Mygale. The Pyrenean Water-mole (Mygale pyrenaica) has eleven teeth
on each side of both jaws; the first incisor above is relatively larger
than in Scalops, trihedral, and sharp-pointed; the second and third
incisors are very small; none of the succeeding teeth present the
form and size of a canine ; the last three teeth are multicuspid, and
are true molars. In the lower jaw, all the teeth anterior to the true
molars are small and simple.
The teeth in the lower jaw of a species of Water-mole (Palcco-
spalax), as large as a Hedgehog, which has become extinct in Eng¬
land, present a close resemblance with those oi the Mygale; the true
molars have square, quinque-cuspid crowns, but are distinguished
from the teeth of all known recent Insectivora by the presence of a
minute tubercle at the bottom of the outer vertical fissure of the
crown.4 *
The typical Shrews always manifest their rodent analogy by the
great preponderance of the anterior pair of incisors in both upper
and lower jaws. In the lower jaw the great incisor is uniformly
succeeded by two small and three large multicuspid molars; but in
the upper jaw the number of small premolars varies. The last true
molar is commonly of small size. The subgenera of Shrews are
chiefly based upon the form of the large incisors and the numerical
variations of the dentition of the upper jaw. In the common Shrew
(Sorex araneus oi Linnaeus) there are four true'molars and three
small teeth between these and the anterior incisor; this tooth has a
pointed tubercle at the back of the base of the crown. The long
procumbent incisor of the lower jaw has the trenchant superior
margin entire. In the Sorex (Amphisorex) tetragonurus, the upper
edge of the lower incisor is notched; the large upper incisor appears
bifurcate from the great development of the posterior talon; five
small teeth, progressively decreasing in size, intervene between the
upper large incisor and the true molars. In the Sorex (Hydrosorex)
llermanni, the trenchant edge of the lower procumbent incisor is
entire; there are four small teeth between the large anterior incisor
and the true molars in the upper jaw, as in the great Sorex indicus;
but the three first are subequal, and the fourth very minute ; there
is a fourth small true molar above. The enamelled tips of the teeth
of the species of Amphisorex and Hydrosorex are stained of a bright Teeth of
brown colour; the teeth of Sorex proper, as the common Shrew Mammals.
(S. araneus), are not so stained.
In the progress of the formation of the large notched incisors, the
summits of the tubercles are first formed as detached points, sup¬
ported upon the common pulp, and do not become united until the
centripetal calcification has converted this into a common dentinal
base. Some anatomists have regarded the large incisor so formed
as an aggregate of two or three teeth; but in Sorex proper and
Hydrosorex, the calcification of the lower incisor spreads from a
single point, and the interpretation of the notched incisor of the
Amphisorex,* us the representative of these incisors, might, by parity
of reasoning, be applied to the human incisor teeth, the dentated
margins of which are likewise originally three or four separate
tubercles.
The determination of the small teeth between the large anterior
incisors and the multicuspid molars depends upon the extent of the
early anchylosed premaxillaries; the incisors being defined by their
implantation in those bones, the succeeding small and simple-crowned
molars must be regarded as premolars ; not any of them having the
development or office of a canine tooth; their homotypes in the lower
jaw are implanted by two roots.
The thickness of the enamel, in proportion to the body of dentine,
is unusually great in these small insectivores, and the sharp points of
the teeth long ^retain their fitness for the office of cracking and
crushing the hard or tough teguments of insects.6 The enamel-pulp
of the large lower incisors is so large as to overlap, in the young
Shrew, the growing margin of the socket, so as to encase with enamel
not only the crown of the tooth, but also the contiguous part of the
jaw-bone. Daubenton first drew attention to this structure, and M.
Duvernoy has likewise made the interesting observation, that the
roots of the teeth of Shrews become anchylosed to the jaw-bone, a
reptilian character offered by the Sorricidce alone in the mammalian
class.
In the dentition of the Tupaias (Olisorex) we begin to trace Erinaceidas.
characters intermediate between those of the dentition of Shrews Glisorex.
and of Hedgehogs. The dental formula of the Olisorex tana is—
. 2.2 1.1 3.3 3.3 „„
1 2.2 ’ C 1.1 ’ P 3.3! m3.3 — 36.
The upper incisors are small, simple, and wide apart in the upper
jaw ; the anterior incisor in the lower jaw is long and procumbent,
but relatively smaller than in the Shrews ; the canines are small in
both jaws; the premolars increase in size and complexity as they
approach the true molars ; the first two of these are subequal, with
six cusps in the upper and
five cusps in the lower
jaw ; the last true molar
is smaller, and is tricus¬
pid.
In Macroscelis (Ele¬
phant-mice of the Cape)
and Gymnura, each in-i
termaxillary bone con¬
tains three teeth, which,
in the former genus, are
succeeded by four pre¬
molars and three true
molars, with the same
number of teeth in the
lower jaw. In Gymnura
(fig. 84) the first tooth
which succeeds the inci¬
sors has the form and size
of a canine (c) in both
upper and lower jaws, but
has two roots in the upper jaw ; this is followed by four premolars (p
1-4), the last of which, in the upper jaw, is large and quadricuspid, the
first (m 1) and second (m 2) of the true molars have square multi¬
cuspid crowns ; the last true molar (m 3) is smaller and triangular.
In the lower jaw of the Gymnura the fourth premolar (p 4) has a
compressed tricuspid crown. The dental formula of Gymnura is
typical, viz.—
Gymnura.
Tig. 84.
Dentition of the Gymnuria Rafflesii.
;3.3.
'3.3’
,1.1 4.4 . 4.4
U’PW™ Li
= 42.
The dentition of our common Hedgehog (Erinaceus europceus'', Erinaceus.
shows greater inequality in the upper and lower jaws, the formal 1
being—
% 3 3 1 P o ’ m 3.3  
1 Odontography, 1842, p. 416. Mr Blyth has arrived, as it seems independently, at the same conclusion. He writes: “ In the moles, as in
most other Insectivora, and also in the Lemuridce, the lower canine is minute, and takes the form of an incisor, for which it has been very commonly
mistaken, and the first premolar is developed to assume the form of a canine.”—Journal of the Asiatic Society, No. 3, 1850.
3 See Brandt, Acta Petropol, ii. 1834. 3 The name of the genus (iroXiiv, a pipe, oSouf, a tooth, relates to this structure.)
History of British Fossil Mammals, p. 25.
See the beautiful monograph Sur les musaraignes, by Professor Duvernoy, in the Memoires de la Society d' Histoire Naturelle de Strasbourg,
1834. 6 See De Blainville, Osteographie dts Insectivores, p. 55
452
ODONTOLOGY.
Centetes.
The first incisor in Loth upper and lower jaws is larger and longer
than the rest, and is very deeply implanted in the jaw; the tooth
which follows the incisors is small in both jaws, but especially so in
the lower; it has two roots in the upper jaw. The last premolar is
the largest in both jaws; above it has a quadricuspid crown with
three fangs ; below, a subcompressed tricuspid crown with two fangs.
The true molars decrease in size from the first to the third in both
jaws, the first and second have subquadrate four-pointed cro wns above ,
below, they are narrower, and the anterior and inner angle is produced
into a fifth cusp.
The true molars of the tropical Hedgehogs, forming the sub-genera
Echinops and Ericulus, are more simple, and approach the form of
those in the Chrysochlore, being compressed from before backwards,
with two outer cusps and one inner cusp in the upper jaw, and with
one outer and two inner cusps in the lower jaw. I he number of
incisors is in both sub-genera, which are followed by small
and simple premolars ; but Eviculus has \compressed tricuspid
molars, and Echinops only
The large Tenrecs or tailless Hedgehogs of Madagascar, combine
the simple molars of the Ericulus with the most formidably developed
canines which are to be met with in the whole order Insectwora.
The incisors are two in number in the upper jaw, but three in the
lower jaw ; very small and sub-equal in both ; the canines are long
and large, compressed, trenchant, sharp-pointed, recurved, and single-
fanged,° thus presenting all the typical characters of those teeth
in the Carnivora. They are separated in both jaws by a wide space
from the premolars ; the first above is compressed, unicuspid with a
hinder talon, and two-fanged; the second has a larger prismatic tri¬
cuspid crown and three fangs ; of the four posterior teeth, which by
their antero-posterior compression may be regarded as true molars,
the first three have tricuspid crowns as in the Echinops, and have
three fangs ; the fourth is smaller, is tricuspid, and has two fangs ; all
the lower molars have two fangs.
Structure. The teeth of the insectivora consist of a basis of hard dentine,
with a thick coronal investment of enamel, and an outer covering of
cement, very recognizable in the interspaces of the coronal^ cusps,
in microscropic sections of the molars of the larger species, as
the Tenrecs and Macroscelles, and always thick where it closes
the extremity of the fangs. Here the cement is commonly more
highly organized, is traversed by medullary canals, generally pre¬
senting concentric walls, thus assumes the character of true bone,
and, in the Soricidce, is frequently continued into the substance of
the jaw itself.
The small proportion of dentine, in comparison with the thick
layer of enamel, has been already alluded to in the Shrews, ypt the
dentinal tubuli are at their commencement very little inferior in dia¬
meter to those of the human incisors ; the trunks are very short, and
are resolved into radiated penicilli of undulating branches, which
3uickly subdivide, interlace and anastomose together near the boun-
ary line between the dentine and enamel. In most of the Insecti¬
vora, the secondary branches of the dentinal tubes are unusually
conspicuous, especially in the dentine forming the fangs. Thp den¬
tinal compartments are rarely well defined ; in the large canines of
the Centetes, they are sub-hexagonal, and about -J^th of an inch
in diameter, but diminish in size towards the periphery of the den-
tine.
The deciduous teeth of the Moles and Shrews are uterine, i.e.,
are developed, and disappear before birth. They are extremely
small, and are all of the most simple form. In the foetal Sorex
araneus, calcification of the papillary exposed pulps of the teeth,
which are succeeded by the first and second premolars, proceed
to a very slight extent, and these microscopic rudiments appear to
be absorbed rather than shed. The deciduous incisors are further
advanced before their displacement, and present the form of equal¬
sized dentinal spicula, tipped with enamel, attached by the opposite
end to the gum, and not exceeding ^th of an inch in length; the
number of the uterine series of teeth is
In the volant Insectivora, or Bats, the canines are always present
in both jaws, of the normal form, and with slightly variable propor¬
tions. The molar series never exceeds and is divisible into
premolars and true molars ; the latter are bristled, with sharp points,
and this type characterises the great bulk of the Cheiroptera of
Cuvier. The molars of the large frugivorous Bats (Fteropus) have
flat crowns.
The incisors are the most variable teeth in the Cheiroptera ; they
may be entirely wanting, or be present in the numbers of 1.1 to 2.2
in the upper, and from 1.1 to 3.3 in the lower jaw ; they are always
very small, and, in the upper jaw, commonly unequal, and separated
by a wide median vacancy. In the genus Chilonycteris, the mid¬
incisors above, and the outer ones below, have the crown notched ;
the mid-incisors below have two notches, producing three lobes on
Develop¬
ment.
Order
Cheiro¬
ptera.
the cutting border. Taking the common simple-nosed Bat (Ves- Teeth of
pertilio murinus) as a type of this Insectivorous group, we find its Mammals,
dental formula to be—
.2.2 1.1 3 3
1 3.3 i c 1.1; -P 3.3 = 38-
The dentition of the suctorial or Vampire Bats deviates, as Desmodus.
might be anticipated, in a remarkable degree from that of the In¬
sectivorous Bats. The crushing instruments required for the food
of those species are not needed; and the true molars, with their
bristled crowns, are entirely absent in the Vampires {Desmodus),
(fig. 85). The teeth, at the fore-part of the mouth, are especially deve¬
loped, and fashioned for the infliction of a
deep and clean triangular puncture, like that
made by a leech. The incisors are two in
number above, closely approximated, one
in each premaxillary bone, with a very
large, compressed, curved, and sharp-pointed
crown, implanted by a strong fang which
extends into the maxillary bone. The upper yig. 85.
canines have similar large lancet-shaped Skull and Teetll of the vam-
crowns, and their bases touch those of the pire-Bat (Desmodus Vam-
incisors. In the lower jaw the incisors are pirus).
two in number on each side, much smaller than the upper pair, and
with bilobed crowns. The lower canines are nearly equal in size to
those above, and have similar piercing trenchant crowns. The molar
series is reduced above to two very small teeth, each with a simple
compressed conical crown, implanted by a single fang. The first
two molars below resemble those above ; but they are followed by a
third, which has a larger compressed and bilobed crown, implanted
by two fangs. This tooth corresponds with the last premolar in the
more normal genera of Insectivorous Bats. The dental formula of
the true Vampire Bat {Desmodus), is thus reduced to—
.1.1 .1.1
P
3.3
= 20.
The opposite extreme which the aberrant varieties of the Chei- Pteropus.
ropterous dentition attain, is manifested in the great frugivorous
Bats—sometimes, but erroneously, called Vampires—but which have
never been met with in South America, the peculiar country of the
true blood-sucking Bats.
The complex stomach of a Pteropus is described as that of a
Vampyre Bat in the “Lectures of Comparative Anatomy,” by Sir
Everard Home, who thereupon infers that “ the Vampyre Bat lives
on the sweetest of vegetables,” and that “ all the stories related with
so much confidence of its living on blood, and coming in the night
to destroy people while asleep, are entirely fabulous,” p. 160. But
the blood-thirsty habits of the true Vampyres have been observed or
experienced by more than one scientific traveller in South America.
Dr Spix calls one of these Bats, which he discovered in Brazil,
“ Sanguisuga crudelissimaand Mr Darwin has recorded the
attack of another species which fastened upon the withers of his
horse during a nocturnal bivouac in Chili.a
In some African Pteropi {Pt. macrocephalus and Pt. Whitei), the
last small molar would seem to be wanting in both upper and lower
jaws, according to Messrs Ogilby and Bennett.*
The frugivorous species, sometimes called “flying foxes,” and by
the French “ Rousettes,” include the largest animals of the order
Cheroptera, and constitute the genus Pteropus; their dental
formula is—
.2.2 1.1 2.2 3.3 
12.2 > c 1.1 > V 33' m 3.3
The deciduous teeth make their appearance above the gum
in Bats, as in Shrews, before birth; but they attain a more
completely developed state, and are retained until a short time after
birth, when they are shed.
The Colugos {Galeopithecus) resemble the Bats in the great Galeopi-
expanse of their parachute, formed by the fold of integument extend- thecus.
ing on each side from the fore to the hind extremity ; but they
appertain, by the essential characters of their organization, to the
Lemuridce; the dental formula of the genus is—•
. 2.2 1.1 2.2 3.3 *
4 3.3 > c 1.1 > P 2.1' m 3.3
The two anterior incisors of the upper jaw are separated by a wide
interspace; in the Philippine Colugo they are very small, with simple
bilobed crowns ; but in the common Colugo {Lemur volans, Linn ;
Galeopithecus Temminckii, Wat.) their crown is an expanded plate,
with three or four tubercles ; the second upper incisor, which is
unquestionably supported by the intermaxillary bone, presents the
peculiarity of an insertion by two fangs in both species of Galeopi¬
thecus.
In the lower jaw the crowns of the first two incisors present the
See Mr Martin’s Memoir in the Zoological Transactions, vol. ii.
See Voyages of (he Adventure and Beagle, vol. iii. p. 25.
* Trans. Zool. Soc. ii. p. 34.
ODONTOLOGY.
453
Teeth of
Mammals,
Structure.
Order
liodentia.
Fig. 86.
form of a comb, and are in this respect unique in the class
Mammalia; one is figured magnified three dia¬
meters in cut 86. This singular form of tooth is
produced hy the deeper extension of the marginal
notches on the crown, analogous to those on the edge
of the new-formed human incisor; the notches being
also more numerous as well as deeper ; each of these
teeth is implanted by a single conical fang.
In the broad pectinated incisors of the Galeopi-
thecus the pulp-cavity divides at the base of the
crown into as many canals as there are divisions of the
crown, one being continued up the centre of each to
within a short distance of its apical extremity. The
dentinal tubes which radiate from these canals have a
Lower*5 Incisor diameter at their origin of ~th of an inch; they quickly
of Galeopithe- divide and subdivide dichotomously, with rather large
cm. Magn. anq irregUlar secondary undulations, sending off many
fine branches, and resolving themselves into numerous smaller rami¬
fications which interlace irregularly near the enamel.
In different orders of the class Mammalia, there are instances in
which the ordinary number of incisors is diminished, and their grow¬
ing power transferred to a single pair of tusks projecting from the
forepart of the upper or the lower jaw, or of both. The Dinotheres,
Toxodons, Mastodons, and Elephants, among the Ungulata, the
Du gong in the Sirenia, the Aye-aye in the Quadrumana, the Dipro-
todon and Wombat in the Marsupialia, and the Narwhal amongst
the Cetacea, are instances of this modification ; which reaches its
extreme in the latter mammal in which the dentiparous force seems
concentrated in a single tooth of the upper jaw, which acquires the
shape of a long spiral horn.
But there is an extensive series of small Mammalia in which a
single pair of large, curved, ever-growing incisors in each jaw is
associated with so many other peculiarities of structure, as to have
caused them to be regarded as a distinct order of the class, which
Li mucus defined as the Glires, and which Cuvier called, from the
habit associated with that dental modification, “ Rongeurs,” liodentia
or Gnawers. These incisors (fig. 87, i), separated by a wide interval
from a short series of
molars, characterize
the whole order of
Rodents; the single
exceptional family,
Leporidce, including
Hares, Rabbits, and
Picas or tailless Hares
of Siberia (fig. 90)
retaining a second
minute incisor (i, 2)
behind each of the
large ones in the
upper jaw.
The incisors are re¬
gularly curved, the
Her ones (fig. 88, i)
  o o . awer ones (fig. 21)
a 8maller°8egment of a larger circle; these are the longest incisors,
and usually have their alveoli extended below, or on the inner side
Pig. 88.
Skull and Teeth of a Porcupine.
Cranium and tipper Teeth of the Patagonian Cavy (Dolichitis).
of those of the molars to the back part of the lower jaw (fig. 21, i).
As in all teeth of unlimited growth, the implanted part of the incisors
retains the form and size of the exposed part or crown, to the widely
open base, which contains a long conical persistent dentinal pulp
(fig. 21, a), and is surrounded by the capsule in a progressive state of
ossification, as it approaches the crown, an enamel-pulp being
attached to the inner side of that part of the capsule which covers
the convex surface of the curved incisor. The matrix is here noticed
in connection with the tooth, because it is always found in full deve¬
lopment and activity to the time of the Rodent’s death.
The calcification of the dentinal pulp, the deposition of the earthy Teeth of
salts in the cells of the enamel-pulp, and the ossification of the cap- Mammals,
sule, proceed contemporaneously; fresh materials being added to the
base of the vascular matrix as its several constituents are progres¬
sively converted into the dental tissues in the more advanced part of
the socket. The tooth, thence projecting, consists of a body of com¬
pact dentine, sometimes with a few short medullary canals continued
into it from the persistent pulp-cavity, with a plate of enamel laid
upon its anterior surface, and a general investment of cement, which
is very thin upon the enamel, but less thin, in some Rodents, upon
the posterior and lateral parts of the incisor. The substances of the
incisor diminish in hardness from the front to the back part of the
tooth, not only in so far as the enamel is harder than the dentine,
hut the enamel consists of two layers, of which the anterior and
external is denser than the posterior layer, and the posterior half of
the dentine is rendered by a modified number and arrangement of the
dentinal tubes less dense than the anterior half.
The abrasion resulting from the reciprocal action of the upper and
lower incisors produces, accordingly, an oblique surface, sloping from
a sharp anterior margin formed by the dense enamel, like that which
slopes from the sharp edge formed by the plate of hard steel laid on
the back of a chisel; whence the name “ dentes scalprarii,’’ given to
the incisors of the Rodentia.
The varieties to which these incisors are subject in the different
Rodents are limited to their proportional size, and to the colour and
sculpturing of the anterior surface. Thus in the Guinea-pig, Jerboa,
and Squirrel, the breadth of the incisors is not half so great as that
of the molars; whilst in the Coypu they are as broad, and in the
Cape Mole-rats (JBathyergus and Orycteromys), broader than the
molars. In the Coypu, Beaver, Agouti, and some other Rodents,
the enamelled surface of the incisors is of a bright orange or reddish-
brown colour. In some genera of Rodents, as Orycteromys, Otomys,
Meriones, Girvilla, Hydrochcervs, Lepus, and Lagomys, the anterior
surface is indented by a deep longitudinal groove. This character
seems not to influence the food or habits of the species ; it is present
in one genus and absent in another of the same natural family. In
most Rodents the anterior enamelled surface of the scalpriform teeth
is smooth and uniform.
The molar teeth are always few in number, obliquely implanted
and obliquely abraded ; the series in each side converging anteriorly
in both jaws, but they present a striking contrast to the incisors in
the range of their varieties, which are so numerous that they typiiy
almost all the modifications of form and structure which are met
with in the molar teeth of the omnivorous and herbivorous genera of
other orders of mammalia.
In some Rodents—e. g., Cavies (fig. 88), the molar teeth are root¬
less ; others—e. g., the Agouti, have short roots, tardily developed like
the molars of the Horse and Elephant; others, again—e g., the Rat
and the Porcupine, soon acquire roots of the ordinary proportional
length.
The differences in the mode of implantation of the molar teeth relate
to the differences of diet. The Rodents, which subsist on mixed food,
and which betray a tendency to carnivorous habits, as, e.g., the true
Rats, or which subsist on the softer and more nutritious vegetable
substances, such as the oily kernels of nuts, suffer less rapid abrasion of
the molar teeth ; a minor depth of the crown is therefore needed to
perform the office of mastication during the brief period of existence al¬
lotted to these active little Mammals ; and as the
economy of nature is manifested in the smallest
particulars as well as in her grandest operations,
no more dental substance is developed after the
crown is formed, than is requisite for the firm
fixation of the tooth in the jaw.
Rodents that exclusively subsist on vegetable
substances, especially the coarser and less nutri¬
tious kinds, as herbage, foliage, the bark and
wood of trees, wear away more rapidly the grind¬
ing surface of the molar teeth; the crowns are
therefore larger, and their growth continues by
reproduction of the formative matrix at their
base in proportion as its calcified constituents,
forming the exposed working part of the tooth
are worn away. So long as this reproductive force
is active, the molar tooth is implanted, like
the incisor, by a long undivided continuation
of the crown. When the force begins to be
exhausted the matrix is simplified by the suppression of the enamel-
organ, and the dentinal pulp continues to be reproduced only at cer¬
tain points of the base of the crown, which by their elongation con¬
stitute the fangs. The Beaver and other Rodents, in the second
category of the order, according to the implantation of the molar
teeth, exemplify the above condition. But in the Capybara, Doli-
chotis (fig. 88), and other Rodents with rootless molars, the repro¬
duction of the grinders, like that of the incisors, appears to continue
throughout the animal’s existence. The rootless and perpetually
growing molars are always more or less curved (fig. 88, p, m); they
454
ODONTOLOGY.
Teeth of
Mammals.
derive from this form the same advantage as the incisors, in the
relief of the delicate tissues of the active vascular matrix from the
effects of the pressure which would otherwise have been transmitted
more directly from the grinding surface to the growing base.
The complexity of the structure of the crown of the molar teeth,
and the quantity of enamel and cement interblended with the dentine,
are greatest in the rootless molars of the strictly herbivorous Rodents.
The crowns of the rooted molars of the omnivorous Rats and Mice
are almost as simple as the tuberculate molars of the Bear or of the
human subject, which they appear to typify. They are at first tuber¬
culate. When the summits of the tubercles are. worn off, the
inequality of the grinding surface is lor a time maintained by the
deeper transverse folds of enamel, the margins of which are separated
by alternate valleys of dentine and cement; but these folds, sinking
only to a slight depth, are in time obliterated,, and the grinding
surface is reduced to a smooth field of dentine, with a simple border
of enamel. Examples of various forms assumed by the inflected
folds of enamel in the molars of the Eodentia are given in the works
of the Cuviers and other naturalists.1 These folds have a general
tendency to a transverse direction across the crown of the tooth.
Baron Cuvier has pointed out the concomitant modification of the
shape of the joint of the lower jaw, which.almost restricts it to hori¬
zontal movements to and fro, in the direction of the axis of the head,
during the act of mastication. When the folds of enamel dip in
vertically from the summit to a greater or less depth, into the sub¬
stance of the crown of the tooth, as in those molars which have roots,
the configuration of the grinding surface varies with the degree of
abrasion; but in the rootless molars, where.the folds of enamel
extend inwards from the entire length of the sides of the tooth,, the
characteristic configuration of the grinding surface is maintained
without variation, as in the Guinea-pig, the Capybara, and the rata-
gonian Cavy. , _ , , . .
The whole exterior of the molar teeth of the Eodentia is covered
by cement, and the external interspaces of the enamel-folds are filled
with the same substance. In the Chinchillidas and the Capybara,
where the folds of enamel extend quite across the body of the tooth,
and insulate as many plates of dentine, these detached portions are
held together by the cement. Such folds of enamel are usually
parallel, as in the large posterior lower molar of the Capybara, which,
in shape and structure, offers a very close and interesting resem¬
blance to the molars of the Asiatic Elephant.
The modification observed in the Yoles (Arvicola) calls to mind
the molars of the African Elephant and some mastodons. The par¬
tial folds and islands of enamel in the molars of the .Porcupine and
Agouti typify the structure of the teeth of the Rhinoceros. The
Fig. 89.
Structure of the Molar of the Water-Vole (Anicola amphibia), magnified.
opposite lateral inflections of enamel in the molars of the Gerbille
and Cape Mole-rat, represent the structure of the molars of the Hip¬
popotamus. The double crescentic folds in the Jerboa sketch out,
as it were, the characteristic structure of the molars of the Anoplo-
there and Ruminants, &c.
The transverse section of the molar of the Water-vole (fig. 89) Teeth of
shows that modification of the grinding surface in which the folds of Mammals,
enamel (e) extend like promontories, some outwards, the others in-
wards, into the substance of the crown ; a like section of the Beaver’s
molar exhibits islands with a promontory of enamel.. The transverse
section of the crown of the molar of Lagostomus displays not fewer
than five islands of enamel, which hard substance is so thick that it
enters more abundantly into the composition of the tooth than the
dentine itself.
The pulp, after the formation of a certain thickness of tubular
dentine, becomes converted into osteo-dentine in both the rooted and
rootless molars of the Rodents. This fourth substance is exhibited
at o in the magnified transverse section of the Water-vole’s molar
(fig. 89), which shows the four diflerent dental tissues, viz. cement
(c), enamel (e), dentine (d), and osteo-dentine (o), entering in more
equal proportions into the formation of the crown than has hitherto
been demonstrated in any other mammalian tooth. When the crown
is worn by mastication down to the place of the section figured, the
four substances appear in the same proportions on the grinding sur¬
face, contributing to its efficiency as a triturating organ by the ine¬
qualities consequent on their various degrees of density and resist¬
ance to the abrading forces.
The molars are not numerous in any Rodent; the Hare and Rab¬
bit (Lepus), have i. e., six molars on each side of the upper jaw
(fig. 90), and five on each side of the lower jaw (fig. 91). The
Pika (Lagomys), has s.s, Tim Squirrels have The families of
the Dormice, the Porcupines, the Spring-rats (EcMmyidce), the Oc-
todonts, the Chinchillas, and the Cavies (fig. 88), have molars.
In the great family of Rats (Muridce), the normal number of molars
is 3'f ; but the Australian Water-rat {Hydromys), has but molars,
making, with the incisors, twelve teeth, which is the smallest num¬
ber in the Rodent order. The greatest number of teeth in the pre¬
sent order is twenty-eight, which is exemplified in the Hare and
Rabbit; but forty teeth are developed in these species, ten molars
and two incisors being deciduous.
In all the Rodents in which the number of molars exceeds three
in a series, the additional ones are anterior to them, and are pre¬
molars, i. e., they have each displaced a deciduous predecessor in the
vertical direction. This it is which constitutes the essential distinc¬
tion between the dentition of the marsupial and the placental Rodent;
the latter, like the placental Carnivora, Quadrumana, and Ungulata,
having never more than three true molars. Thus the Rodents
which have the molar formula of shed the first tooth, in
each series, and this is succeeded by a permanent premolar which
comes into place later than the true molars—later at least
than the first and second, even when the deciduous molar
is shed before birth, as was observed by Cuvier in the Guinea
Pig. In the Hare and Rabbit, three anterior teeth in the
upper jaw (fig. 90 y?) succeed and displace three deciduous
predecessors (fig.
90, d), coming
into place after
the first and
second true mo¬
lars (fig. 90, m)
are in use, and 1
contemporane¬
ously with the
last molar. It Fig. 90.
does not appear ^ j)ecijuoug ana Permanent Teeth of the Hare,
that the scalpn- ^
form incisors (fig. 90, i) are preceded by milk teeth, or, like
the premolars of the Guinea Pig, by uterine teeth; but
the second incisor (fig. 90, i 2) is so preceded—e. g., by
the tooth marked d, i, 2, at which period of dentition six
incisors are present in the upper jaw.2 This condition is
interesting both as a transitory' manifestation of the normal
number of incisive teeth in the mammalian series, and it eluci¬
dates the disputed nature of the great anterior scalpriform teeth of
the Rodentia.
Geoffroy St Hilaire contended 3 that the scalpriform teeth of the
Rodents were canines, because those of the upper jaw extended
their fang backwards into the maxillary bone, which lodged part of
1 See Natural History of the Mammalia, by G. R. Waterhouse; order Rodentia. 8vo, 1849. Ossemens Fossiles, G. Cuvier. Les Dents de
MammifZres, E'. Cuvier. 2 PI. 104, fig. 5.
2 Geoffroy St Hilaire, in his Systeme Dentaire d’Oiseaux, 8vo, 1824, Appendix, p. 73, claims the discovery for himself by prevision, and
fo r his assistant Delalande by demonstration, of this interesting fact. “ Je vis la un mode d’arrangement, comme on 1’avait observe chez les Kan¬
garoos ; et dans la ckaleur d'improvisation, je nvavisai d'ajouter que peut-etre un cas d’atrophie avait cause Fabsence de les treisieme paire de dents,
laquelle, ne manquant chez les lapins que pour ce motif, n’emepcherait pas qu'ils ne fussent, tout aussi bien a Fdgard des incisives que sous d’autres
rapports, comparables aux Kangaroos. J’etais comme de cotume accompagne de M. Delalande, qui prdparait mes logons; il prit confiance dans
mon appergu; il fit. dans un intervalle de deux jours, et sans m’en parler, des recherches a cet egard ; et, a la legon suivant, il me surprit en me pr.e-
sentant devant les elbves plusieurs pibces fraiches : ‘ Voici me dit il, en existence positive, voici en fait, ce que vous avez presenti pouvoir etre; voicj
les tetes des lapins avec six dents incisives.’ M. Lemaire deLisan court, aujourdhui membre de FA cad. R. de Medecine, Fun de mes auditeurs a
cette epoque, pent se rappeler la vive sensation que cela fit sur les eleves,” p. 72.
3 Isidore Geoffroy St Hilaire cites the opinion in Art. Rongeurs, Diet. Classique d’Histoire Naturelle
ODONTOLOGY.
455
■Teeth of
)rder
£uadru-
nana
'heiromys.
their hollow base and matrix. But the scalpriform teeth are con-
fined exclusively to the premaxillary bones at the beginning of their
formation, and the smaller incisors which are developed behind them,
in our anomalous native Rodents, the Hare and Rabbit, retain their
usual relations with the
premaxillaries, thus pro¬
ving, a fortiori, that the
tooth which projects
anterior to them must
also be an incisor.
Fig. 91 shows the
single incisor {i) of the
lower jaw, the two de¬
ciduous molars {d p),
Lower Deciduous and Permanent Teeth of the Hare. ^ twQ prelnolars (jj),
and the three molars (m), of the young Hare (Lepus timidus).
The law of the unlimited growth of the scalpriform incisors is
unconditional; and constant exercise and abrasion are required to
maintain the normal and serviceable form and proportions of these
teeth. When, by accident, an opposing incisor is lost, or when, by
the distorted union of a broken jaw, the lower incisors no longer
meet the upper ones, as sometimes happens to a wounded hare,1 the
incisors continue to grow until they project like the tusks of the
Elephant, and their extremities in the poor animal’s painful attempts to
acquire food, also become pointed like tusks. Following the curve
prescribed to their growth by the form of their socket, their points
often return against some part of the head, are pressed through the
skin, then cause absorption of the jaw-bone, and again enter the
mouth, rendering mastication impracticable, and causing death by
starvation.
In the Museum of the College of Surgeons, No.. 2203, Osteological
Series, there is a lower jaw of a Beaver, in which the .scalpriform
incisor has, by unchecked growth, described a complete circle. 1 he
point has pierced the masseter muscle, and entered the back of the
mouth, passing between the con¬
dyloid and coronoid processes of the
lower jaw, descending to the back
part of the molar teeth, in the advance
of the part of its own alveolus, which
contains its hollow root.
The upper jaw of a Rabbit, with an
analogous abnormal growth of the
scalpriform and accessory incisors, is
figured in cut 92,2
Cheiromys.—In this genus of the
Lemurine animals, represented by the
Aye-aye (fig. 93),as inPhascolomys amongst the Marsupials, Desmodus
Forepart of tipper Jaw of a Rabbit,
with Incisors of Abnormal Growth.
Fig. 93.
Skull and Dentition of the Aye-aye (Cheiromys ifaiagascaricnsiif).
amongst the Bats, and Sorex amongst the Insectivores, the dentition
is modified in analogical conformity with the Rodent type, to which,
in the present instant, it makes a very close approximation, the
canines being absent, and a wide vacancy separating the single pair
of large-curved scalpriform incisors in each jaw from the short series
of molars.
The upper incisors are compressed, presenting a narrow oval
transverse section, with the long diameter from before backwards.
They are curved in the segment of a circle, and deeply implanted.
The short exserted crowns touch one another; their simple widely
excavated fangs diverging as they penetrate the substance of the
jaw. These crowns also project obliquely forwards, and do not ex¬
tend vertically downwards, as in the true Bodentia.
The lower incisors are more depressed, and of greater breadth from
before backwards, than the upper ones. They are more curved than
in the Bodentia, describing a semicircle, three-fourths of which are
lodged in the socket, which extends backwards beyond the, last molar
tooth to the base of the coronoid process. The most important cha¬
racter by which the incisors of this anomalous Lemur differ from
those of the Bodentia is the entire investment of enamel, which is,
however, thicker upon the front than upon the back part of the tooth.
Tho molar teeth are four on each side of the upper jaw, and three on
each side of the lower jaw; implanted vertically and in parallel
lines. The molars are of simple structure, with a continuous outer
coat of enamel, and a flat subelliptic grinding surface. The upper
ones are of unequal size, the first being the smallest and the second
the largest. In the lower jaw the inequality is less, and the last
molar is the least. The first and last molars above have but one
root; the second and third have each three roots. The first lower
molar has two roots ; the second and third have each a single root.
The dental formula, in the Slow Lemurs {Stenops), is—
. 2.2 l.l 3.3 3.3
i 2.2 ’’ C 1.1 3.3 ’ m 3 3
In the Stenops Tardigradus, the first upper incisor is larger than
the second, as in the genus Tarsius.
The true Lemurs or Makis [Lemur, Geoff.) have the same number Lemur,
and kind of teeth as the Slow Lemurs. The inferior canines are
compressed and procumbent like the incisors, but are a little larger.
In the upper jaw the incisors are small and vertical, with short ex¬
panded crowns; the two on the right side are separated by a wide
space from the two on the left. The canine (c) is long, curved, com¬
pressed, sharp-edged, and pointed. The three premolars have the
outer part of the crown prolonged into a compressed pointed lobe,
whilst the inner part forms a tubercle, which is largest in the second
and third. In the true molars the inner division of the crown is so
increased as to give it a quadrate form, the outer division being
divided into two pointed lobes. The first of the true molars is the
largest in both jaws.
All the Quad'rumana of America are distinguished from the Apes Platy-
and Monkeys of the Old World by certain well-marked characters ; rhyn®.
of these, the position of the nostrils at the sides of the broad nose,
whence their collective name, is the most conspicuous; but they
have a more important dental distinction in the superior number of
the premolars, which are instead of §:£, whereby the American
Monkeys manifest their closer affinity to the Lemurs, and their infe¬
rior position in the zoological scale. The small “ Marmosets,” how¬
ever, forming the genera ITapale and Midas, have but two true
molar teeth on each side of both jaws—their dental formula being—
i M ; c U; » = 32.
2.2 ’ 1.1 ^ 3.3 ’ 2.2 _ _
The lemurine character of the long, narrow, inferior incisors con¬
tinues to be manifested by the Sakis (Pithecia III.), which, like the
larger species of Platyrhines called Howlers, Capuchins, and Spider-
Monkeys, have the normal number of true molar teeth in the Qua-
drumanous order—their dental formula being—
P
3.3.
m = 36.
3.3
The Capuchin Monkeys (Cebus) (fig. 94) have the four lower
Fig. 94.
Dentition of a Capuchin Monkey {Celus secniulus).
incisors (i) with broad, thick wedge-shaped trenchant crowns ; a form
1 Professor Budge has described and figured the upper and lower jaws of a hare with preternaturally directed and elongated tusks, in the
Verhandlingen des Naturhistor, Vereines der Treuss. Rheinlande, 6te& Jahrgang. &vo, 1849, p. 506.
2 See the specimens, Nos. 1966-197‘1, Mus. Coll. Chir. Lend.
456
ODONTOLOGY.
Teeth of
Mammals.
Catarhina.
which these teeth retain, with slight modifications, throughout the
rest of the Quadrumanous order. The canines (c) are sufficiently
developed to inflict severe wounds. The first three of the molar
series (p, 2, 3, 4) are bicuspid premolars; the rest (m, 1, 2, 3) are
quadricuspid true molars. .
All the Platyrhine Monkeys have four more teeth m their first
dentition than the Catarhine or Old World Quadrumanes possess-^
the deciduous formula being—
i 2^ ; c k1; m 24.
2.2 1.1 3.3
Fig. 95 shows the deciduous series in place, together with the first
of the permanent true molars (m, 1); the
germs of the rest of the permanent teeth
are exposed in the upper jaw.
In the Catarhine division of the order, the
first or deciduous dentition consists, as in
man, of—
i 2’2 • p ■ m — = 20.
2.2 ^ 1.1 2.2
The two milk molars are displaced and suc¬
ceeded vertically by the two bicuspid pre¬
molars, and are followed horizontally by
three true molars on each side of both upper
and lower jaws. The permanent formula in
all the Old World Quadrumana is —•
c U; P m~ — 32.
The incisors have always a shape conform¬
able to their name, but are very thick and
strong; in the upper jaw the middle are
larger than the lateral ones, and both are
larger than those below. The canines are
conical, pointed, with trenchant posterior
margins, always longer than the adjoining
teeth, and acquiring, in the males of the
great Baboons and Orangs, the proportions
of those teeth in the true Carnivora. The
Mandrills (Cynocephalus maimon) have these
dental weapons most formidable for their size
and shape; especially the upper pair, which descend behind the
crowns of the lower incisors,
As the precise characteristics of the human dentition are best de- Teeth of
monstrated by comparison with that brute species which is most Mammals,
nearly allied to man, and makes the first step in the descending
scale, the details of such a comparison may perhaps be not unaccep-
table, as one of its subjects is a species of Chimpanzee {Troglodytes panze"e
Gorilla), unknown to science when the writer’s “ Odontography” Troglo-
was published, and which, so far as its organization is known, is dytes.
more anthropoid than even the docile and smaller species of Chim¬
panzee {Troglodytes niger). A side view of the teeth of a male full-
grown, but not aged, specimen of the great Chimpanzee is given of
the natural size in (fig. 96). This dentition, though in all its prin-
Fig. 95,
Deciduous and Permanent Teeth of a Young
Cebus Jpdla.
and along the outside of the
first lower premolars, the crowns
of which seem as if bent hack
by the action of the upper can¬
ines ; the anterior longitudinal
groove of these canines is very
deep, their posterior margin
very sharp. A long diastema
divides the upper canine from
the incisors, a short one sepa¬
rates it from the premolars;
these and the three true mo¬
lars, are arranged in a straight
line.
In the great Orang-utan {Pi-
thecus Wurmbi) the median in¬
cisors of the upper jaw are of unusual size and strength; the thickness
(antero-posterior diameter) of the base of the crown almost equals the
breadth of the same; and they are double the size of the lateral
incisors. The abraded surface of the front incisors in the old Orang
forms a broad tract extending obliquely from the cutting edge to the
back part of the base of the crown; the lateral incisors are more
pointed, the outer angle being obliquely truncated; a vacant space
of their own breadth divides them from the canines. These, in the
male of the Great Orang (Wurmb’s Bongo), have a long and strong
slightly-curved crown, extending below the alveolar border of the
under jaw when the mouth is shut, with a moderately sharp posterior
margin, but without an anterior groove; the crown is convex exter¬
nally, with a slight convexity between two longitudinal depressions
on the inner surface. In the female Orang the canines are smaller;
the crowns extend only a short distance beyond the level of the ad¬
joining molars.1
In the upper jaw both premolars and molars are implanted by three
diverging roots, two external and one internal; in the lower jaw the
corresponding teeth are each implanted by two strong diverging roots;
the series of grinders forms a straight line on each side of both jaws.
Fig. 96.
Dentition of an Adult Male (Troglodytes Gorilla), nat. size.
cipal characters strictly quadrumanous, yet, in the minor particulars
in which it differs from the dentition of the Orang, approaches nearer
the human type. In the upper jaw the middle incisors (t) are
smaller, the lateral ones (fig. 96, i, 2) larger than those of the Orang;
they are thus more nearly equal to each other ; nevertheless the pro¬
portional superiority of the middle pair is much greater than in Man,
and the proportional size of the four incisors both to the entire skull
and to the other teeth is greater. Each incisor has a prominent pos¬
terior basal ridge, and the outer angle of the lateral incisors {i, 2) is
rounded off as in the Orang. The incisors incline forwards from the
vertical line as much as in the great Orang. Thus the characteris¬
tics of the human incisors are, in addition to their true incisive
wedge-like form, their near equality of size, their vertical or nearly
vertical position, and small relative size to the other teeth and to the
entire skull. The diastema between the incisors and the canine on
each side is as well marked in the male Gorilla as in the male Orang.
The crown of the canine (fig. 96, c), passing outside the interspace
between the lower canine and premolar, extends in the male Troglo¬
dytes Gorilla a little below the alveolar border of the under jaw
when the mouth is shut; the upper canine of the male Troglodytes
niger likewise projects a little below that border. In the male of the
smaller Chimpanzee {Troglodytes niger), the upper canine is conical,
pointed, but more compressed than in the Orang, and with a sharper
posterior edge ; convex anteriorly, becoming flatter at the posterior
half of the outer surface, and concave on the corresponding part of
the inner surface, which is traversed by a shallow longitudinal impres¬
sion ; a feeble longitudinal rising, and a second linear impression
divide this from the convex anterior surface, which also bears a lon¬
gitudinal groove at the base of the crown. The canine is rather
more than twice the size of that in the female. In the male Gorilla
(fig. 96, c), the crown of the canine is more inclined outwards ; the
anterior groove on the inner surface of the crown is deeper; the pos¬
terior groove is continued lower down upon the fang, and the ridge
between the two grooves is more prominent than in the Troglodytes
niger. Both premolars (fig. 96, p 3 and p 4) are bicuspid; the
outer cusp of the first, and the inner cusp of the second being the
largest, and the first premolar {p 3) consequently appearing the
largest on an external view. The difference is well marked in the
1 In tbe writer’s Odontography (1842, p. 442) is recorded a variety which he observed in the dentition of a full-grown Orang-utan, in the
collection of the Baron Yan der Capella at Utrecht, viz., a supernumerary molar on each side of both jaws, making six molars, of which two only
had the form of premolars.
In the Calcutta museum Mr Blyth has noticed in an adult female Bornean Orang, a fourth true molar on the left side of both upper and lower
jaw, the supernumerary tooth above being of a round shape, and very small.
In a collection of skulls of the smaller species of Orang recently sent from Borneo {Pilhecns Aforio), the writer observed the skull of an adult male
with the same supernumerary molar on each side of the upper jaw, but not in the lower jaw.— Trans. Zool. Soc.
These instances illustrate the tendency to variety in the remarkable Anthropoid Apes of Borneo, a tendency which seems to he also manifested
in an occasional arrest of development of the characteristic long upper extremities.
ODONTOLOGY. 457
Teeth of female (fig. 97). The anterior external angle of the first premolar is
Mammals, not produced as in the Orang, which in this respect makes a marked
approach to the lower Quadrumana. In Man, where the outer curve
Tig- 97.
Dentition of an Adult Female Gorilla.
of the premolar part of the dental series is greater than the inner
one, the outer cusps of both premolars are the largest; the alternat¬
ing superiority of size in the Chimpanzee accords with the straight
line which the canine and premolars form with the true molars.
The true molars (fig. 96, wr 1, m 2, m 3) are quadricuspid, rela¬
tively larger in comparison with the bicuspids than in the Orang.
In the first and second molars of both species of Chimpanzee, a low
ridge connects the antero-internal with the postero-external cusp,,
crossing the crown obliquely, as in Man. There is a feeble indica¬
tion of the same ridge in the unworn molars of the Orang; but the
four principal cusps are much less distinct, and the whole grinding
surface is natter and more wrinkled than in the Chimpanzee. _ In the
Troglodytes niger the last molar is the smallest, owing to the inferior
development of the two hinder cusps, and the oblique connecting
ridge is feebly marked. In the Troglodytes Gorilla this ridge is as
well developed as in the other molars, but is more transverse in
{>osition ; and the crown of m 3 is equal in size to that of m 1 or m 2,
laving the posterior outer cusp, and particularly the posterior inner
cusp, more distinctly developed than in the Troglodytes niger. The
repetition of the strong sigmoid curves which the unworn promi¬
nences of the first and second true molars present in Man, is a very
significant indication of the near affinity of the Chimpanzee as com¬
pared with the approach made by the Orangs or any of the inferior
Quadrumana, in which the four cusps of the true molars rise distinct
and independently of each other. A low ridge girts the base of the
antero-internal cusp of each of the upper true molars in the male
Chimpanzee; it is less marked in the female. The premolars as
well as molars are severally implanted by one internal and two
external fangs, diverging but curving towards each other at their
ends, as if grasping the substance of the jaw. I have found the two
outer fangs of the second premolar connate in one female specimen
of the Troglodytes niger. In no variety of the human species are
the premolars normally implanted by three fangs; at most the root
is bifid, and the outer and inner divisions of the root are commonly
connate. It is only in the black varieties, and more particularly
that race inhabiting Australia, that I have found the wisdom tooth
{m 3) with three fangs as a general rule; and the two outer ones
are more or less confluent.
In the lower jaw of the Gorilla the lateral incisors are broader
than the middle ones, although they are smaller relatively than in
the Troglodytes niger; they are larger and less vertically implanted
than in Man. The lower canines are two inches and a half in length,
including the root; the enamelled crown is an inch and a quarter in
length, and nearly an inch across the base; it is conical and trihedral;
the outer and anterior surface is convex, the other two surfaces are
flattened or subconcave, and converging to an almost trenchant edge
directed inwards and backwards; a ridge separates the convex from
the antero-internal flat surface ; both this and the posterior surface
show slight traces of a longitudinal rising at their middle part. The
lower canine of the male shows the same relative superiority of size
as the upper one compared with that in the female in both species of
Chimpanzee. The canine almost touches the incisor, but is separated
by a diastema one line and a half broad from the first premolar.
This tooth (p 3) is larger externally than the second premolar, and
VOL. XVI.
is three times the size of the human first'premolar (p 3); it has a sub- Teeth of
trihedral crown, with the anterior and outer angle produced forwards, Mammals,
slightly indicating the peculiar feature of the same tooth in the
Baboons, but in a less degree than in the Orang. The
summit of the crown ot\p 3 terminates in two sharp
trihedral cusps—the outer one rising highest, and the
second cusp being feebly indicated on the ridge ex¬
tending from the inner side of the first; the crown has
also a thick ridge at the inner and posterior part of its
base. The second premolar (p 4) has a subquadrate
crown, with the two cusps developed from its anterior
half, and a third smaller one from the inner angle of
the posterior ridge. Each lower premolar is implanted
by two antero-posteriorly compressed divergent fangs,
one in front of the other, the anterior fang being the
largest.
The three true molars are equal in size in the Troglo¬
dytes Gorilla; in the Troglodytes niger (fig. 98), the
first (m 1) is a little larger than the last (m 3), which
is the only molar in the smaller Chimpanzee as large as
the corresponding tooth in the black varieties of the
human subject, in most of which, especially the Austra¬
lians (fig. 99), the true molars attain larger dimensions
than in the yellow or white races. The four principal
cusps, especially the two inner ones of the first molar
of both species of Chimpanzee, are more pointed and pro¬
longed than in Man; a fifth small cusp is developed
behind the outer pair, as in the Orangs and the Gib¬
bons, but is less than that in Man. The same addi¬
tional cusp is present in the second molar, which is
seldom seen in Man. The crucial groove on the
grinding surface is much less distinct than in Man,
not being continued across the ridge connecting
the anterior pair of cusps in the Chimpanzee. The crown of
the third molar is longer antero - posteriorly from the greater
development of the fifth posterior cusp, which, however, is rudi-
Teeth of Right Side, Lower Jaw, of adult male Chimpanzee, {Troglodytes niger).
Nat. size.
mental in comparison with that in the Semnopitheques and Macaques.
All the three true molars are supported by two distinct and well-
developed antero-posteriorly compressed divergent fangs, longitu¬
dinally excavated on the sides turned towards each other; in the
white and yellow races of the human subject these fangs are
usually connate in m 3, and sometimes also in m 2. The molar
series in both species of Chimpanzee forms a straight line, with a
slight tendency, in the upper jaw, to bend in the opposite direction
to the well-marked curve which the same series describes in the
human subject.
This difference of arrangement, with the more complex implanta¬
tion of the premolars, the proportionally larger size of the incisors as
compared with the molars; the still greater relative magnitude of
the canines; and, above all, the sexual distinction in that respect
illustrated by figs. 96 and 97, stamp the Gorillas and Chimpanzees
most decisively with not merely specific but generic distinctive
characters as compared with Man. For the teeth are fashioned in
their shape and proportions in the dark recesses of their closed
formative alveoli, and do not come into the sphere of operation of
external modifying causes until the full size of the crowns has been
acquired. The formidable natural weapons with which the Creator
has armed the powerful males of both species of Chimpanzee, form
the compensation for the want of that psychical capacity to forge
destructive instruments which has been reserved, as his exclusive
prerogative, for Man. Both Chimpanzees and Orangs differ from the
human subject in the order of the development of the permanent
series of teeth ; the second molar (m 2) comes into place before either
of the premolars has cut the gum, and the last molar {m 3) is acquired
before the canine. We may well suppose that the larger grinders
are earlier required by the frugivorous Chimpanzees and Orangs than
by the higher organized omnivorous species with more numerous and
3 M
458
ODONTOLOGY.
Teeth of
Mammals.
Homo.
varied resources, and probably one main condition of the earlier
development of the canines and premolars in Man may be their
smaller relative size.
Having reached, in the Gorilla, the highest step in the series of
the brute creation, our succeeding survey of the human dental system,
cleared and expanded by retrospective comparison, becomes fraught
with peculiar interest, since every difference so detected establishes
the true and essential characteristics of that part of man s frame.
The human teeth are the same in number and in kind as those of
the Chimpanzee and Orang-utan, nor does man differ in this respect
from any of the inferior catarhine Quadrumanes. The human
dental formula is therefore—
. 2.2 1.1 2.2 3.3
^;cri! m3l = 32’
that is to say, there are on each side of the jaw, both above and be-
ow, two incisors, one canine, two premolars, and three true molars.
They are more equal in size than in the Quudrumana. . No tooth
surpasses another in the depth of its crown; and the entire series,
which describes in both jaws a regular parabolic curve, is uninter¬
rupted by any vacant space (fig. 99). The most marked distinction
Tig. 99.
Teeth of Left Side, Lower Jaw, of Adult Male Australian. Nat. size.
between the dentition of Man and that of the highest Quadrumanes, is
the absence of the interval between the upper lateral incisor and the
canine, and the comparatively small size of the latter tooth (fig. 100, c);
but its true character is indicated by the conical form of the crown,
which terminates in an obtuse point, is convex outwards, and flat or
sub-concave within, at the base of which surface there is a feeble pro¬
minence. The conical form is best expressed in the Melanian races,
especially the Australian (fig. 99, c). The canine is more deeply
implanted, and by a stronger fang than the incisors; but the con¬
trast with the Chimpanzee is sufficiently manifest, as is shown in
fig. 98. There is no sexual superiority of size either of the canine or
any other single tooth in the human subject.
Both upper and lower premolars (fig. 99, p 3 and 4) are bicuspid ;
they are smaller in proportion to the true molars than in the Chim¬
panzee and Orang. In the upper premolars a deep straight fissure
at the middle of the crown divides the outer and larger from the
inner and smaller cusp; in the lower premolars the boundary groove
describes a curve concave towards the outer cusp, and is sometimes
obliterated in the middle by the extension of a ridge from the outer
to the inner cusp, which cusp is smaller in proportion than in the
upper premolars. These teeth in both jaws are apparently implanted
each by a single, long, subcompressed, conical fang; but that of the
upper premolars is shown by the bifurcated pulp-cavity to be essen¬
tially two fangs, connate, and which, in some instances, are sepa¬
rated at their extremities.
The crowns of the true molars fig. 99, m 1,2, 3) are larger in propor¬
tion to the jaws, are a little larger in proportion to the bicuspids, and
still more so in proportion to the canine and incisor teeth, than in
the Chimpanzees and Orangs. The contour of the grinding surface
is more rounded, and we have seen that the higher Quadrumana
already approximate to this character by the angles of the crown being
less marked than in the lower Quadrumana. The first and second
true molars of the upper jaw support four trihedral cusps; the in¬
ternal and anterior one is the largest, and is connected with the
external and posterior cusp by a low ridge extending obliquely across
the grinding surface, with a deep depression on each side of it; the
anterior groove extending to the middle of the outer surface, the
posterior one to the inner surface. The enaihel is first worn away
by mastication from the anterior and internal or largest tubercle, a
line of enamel extending from the outside to the middle of the crown
is the last to be removed before the grinding surface is reduced to a
field of dentine with a simple ring of enamel. It is worthy of remark,
that by the time when the permanent teeth have come into place the
first true molar in both jaws is much more worn, as compared with
the second and third molars, than it is in the Chimpanzee or Orang,
owing to the slow attainment of maturity characteristic of the human
species, and the longer interval which elapses between the acquisi¬
tion of the first and the last true molars, than in the highest Quad¬
rumana. In the last true molar, called from its late appearance the
“ dens sapientise,” or wisdom-tooth, the two inner tubercles are
blended together, and a fissure extends in many instances, especially
in the Melanian varieties, from the middle of the grinding surface,
at right angles to that dividing the two outer cusps, to the posterior
border of the tooth.
The first upper molar is always implanted by three diverging Teeth of
fangs, two external and one internal. The second molar is usually Mammals,
similarly implanted, but the two outer fangs are less divergent, are
sometimes parallel, and occasionally connate; this variety appears
to be more common in the Caucasian than in the Melanian races ; and
in the Australian skulls examined by the writer, the wisdom-tooth
has always presented the same three-fanged implantation as in the
Chimpanzee and Orang.
The crowns of the inferior true molars are quinque-cuspid, the
fifth cusp being posterior and connected with the second outer cusp;
it is occasionally obsolete in the second molar. The four normal
cusps are defined by a crucial impression, the posterior branch of
which bifurcates to include the fifth cusp ; this bifurcation being
most marked in the last molar where the fifth cusp is most developed.
In the first molar a fold of enamel, extending from the inner surface
to the middle of the crown, is the last to disappear from the grinding
surface in the course of abrasion. The wisdom-tooth (fig. 99, m 3)
is the smallest of the three molars in both jaws, but the difference
is less in the Melanian than in the Caucasian races. Each of the three
lower molars is inserted by two sub-compressed fangs, grooved along
the side, turned towards each other. This double implantation
appears to be constant in the Melanian, especially the Australian
race (fig. 99), in which the true molars are relatively larger than
those of the Caucasian race. In Europeans it is not unusual to find
the two fangs in both the second and third molars connate along a
great part or the whole of their extent.
With respect to the reciprocal apposition of the teeth of the upper
and under jaw, it is interesting to observe that the crown of the
lower canine is, as usual, in advance of that above, and fits into the
shallow notch between that and the lateral incisor. The inferior
incisors are so small that their anterior surface rests against the
posterior surface of the upper ones when the mouth is closed; the
other teeth are opposed crown to crown, the upper teeth extending a
little more outwardly than the lower ones.
Hunter remarks that the supernumerary teeth happen oftener in
the upper than in the under jaw, and he believed them to be always
incisors or canines. In the Osteological series of the Museum of
the London College of Surgeons there is a skull of a male Hindoo
(No. 5541), in which there were two well-formed canine teeth placed
side by side in the left upper jaw, the series being very regular and
even. The wisdom-tooth is sometimes not developed.
The deciduous series of teeth in the human subject (fig. 100) con-
Deciduous and Permanent Teeth, Human Child: set. 6£.
The upper milk incisors of the Chimpanzee are relatively larger Comparison
than in Man, especially the middle pair ; but the disproportionate of the
size of these is still more manifest and characteristic of the Orang. deciduous
The crown of the canine is longer and more pointed in the Chim- t^th in
panzee than in Man ; still more so, and farther apart from the ™a.n>tlie
incisor in the Orang. The first upper milk-molar (fig. 100, d 3) is as par|™"e an(j
large in the human subject as in the Chimpanzee, and its crown is Qra ’
divided into two principal cusps, but the outer and larger one has a
small subdivision notched off posteriorly, and the inner cusp is
relatively larger than in the Chimpanzee. The first upper milk-
molar of the Orang is simply bicuspid, but is larger than in the
Chimpanzee. The second milk-molar of the human child (fig. 100,
d 4) could scarcely be distinguished from that of the young Chim¬
panzee ; both are quadricuspid, and the same oblique ridge crosses
the grinding surface from the antero-internal to the postero-externa
Teeth of
Mammals.
Homo.
\ Develop-
I ment.
Order
Carnivora.
Felis.
ODONTOLOGY.
459
tubercle ; but the pointed summits of the two outer cusps are a little
more produced in the Chimpanzee. The second molar of the Orang,
besides its larger size, has the four tubercles better defined, and the
oblique ridge less developed. The lower deciduous incisors of the
anthropoid Apes differ from those of the human subject in their
superior size, greater relative thickness, and, in the lateral incisor
more particularly, by the rounding off of the outer angle. The lower
canine of the Chimpanzee has a longer, larger, and more pointed
crown, with a sharp posterior edge; it is less marked in the canine
of the Orang, which is larger and thicker than in the Chimpanzee.
The crowns of the upper and lower canines_ are more obliquely
opposed, the lower one being more advanced in those apes than in
the human subject. The first lower deciduous molar of the human
subject has four tubercles and a small anterior ridge, and is larger
than that of the Chimpanzee, which supports a single large-pointed
cusp, and a posterior ridge. The corresponding molar of the Orang
has a similar simple crown, but is as large as that of the human
child. The second lower milk molar (fig. 100, d 4) is of equal or
superior size in the human subject to that in the Chimpanzee,
but it supports three outer and two inner cusps, while in the Chim¬
panzee it has but four cusps. In the Orang the fifth external and
posterior tubercle is feebly indicated. The deciduous molars of the
human subject, as in the Chimpanzee and Orang, have each three
fangs in the upper, and two in the lower jaw.
The differences brought out by the foregoing comparisons, though
less striking than those exhibited by the permanent teeth, will be
appreciated by the philosophical anatomist as yielding more certain
evidence of the essential distinction of the Bimanous species. He
will perceive that they are not due to mere adaptive developments,
but are manifested at a period when the subjects of comparison are
far from having attained the pre-ordained term of deviation from the
common type ; that they are antecedent to those changes in the
dental system itself, which more broadly characterize the species,
and, in the Orang and Chimpanzee, proceed further to differentiate
the male and female sexes.
Calcification of the permanent series of teeth commences first in
the pulp of the first true molar (fig. 100, m 1), and, very soon after,
if not simultaneously, in that of the anterior incisor (zl), about five
or six months after birth. The first true molar (m 1) comes into place
and use between the sixth and seventh year; the first permanent
incisor (i 1) between six years and a half and eight years ; the calci¬
fication of the pulps of the lateral incisor (i 2) and canine (c) com¬
mences about eight or nine months after birth, and they cut the
gum, the canine quickly following the incisor, between the seventh
and ninth years. Calcification of the first premolar (bz'cwspts, 3)
begins at, or soon after, the second year; that of the second about a
year later; and both premolars (p 3 and 4) have displaced the de¬
ciduous molars (d 3 and 4), and come into use between tbe eighth
and tenth years. The pulp of the second molar (m 2) begins to be
calcified about the fifth or sixth year, and it cuts the gum from about
the twelfth year to the fourteenth year, but always later than the
ermanent canines and premolars. The third molar (m 3) begins to
e calcified about the twelfth year, and usually comes into place at
or after the twentieth year.
Both earlier and later periods of the development of the permanent
teeth have been observed and recorded; but such varieties rarely affect
the general order of succession. This order is here described as it
occurs in the lower jaw, the teeth of which usually appear earlier
than the corresponding ones above. It will be seen, therefore, that
the human subject differs from the Chimpanzee and Orang in the
order of progression of the permanent teeth.
John Hunter, after indicating the first incisor and the first molar
as the earliest of the adult teeth that are formed, rightly observes,
“ The teeth between these two points make a quicker progress than
those behind.”1 In the Quadrumana the progress is slower, the
second molar preceding in the order of development the bicuspid, and
the last molar the canines.
The Lion {Felis Leo)
may be taken as the type
of the flesh-feeders. The
largest and most conspi¬
cuous teeth in this and the
other feline quadrupeds
are the canines (fig. 101,
c); they are of great
strength, deeply im¬
planted in the jaw, with
the fangs thicker and
longer than the enamel¬
led crown ; this part is
conical,slightly recurved,
sharp-pointed, convex in
front, with one or two
Dentition of the Lion. longitudinal grooves on
the outer side, almost flat on the inner side, and with a sharp edge
behind. The lower canines pass in front of the upper ones when the
mouth is closed.
The incisors, six in number on both jaws, form a transverse row ;
the outermost above (fig. 101, i) is the longest, resembling a small
canine; the intermediate ones have broad and thick crowns indented
by a transverse cleft. The first upper premolar (p 2) is rudimental;
there is no answerable tooth in the lower jaw. The second (p 3), in
both jaws, has a strong conical crown supported on two fangs. The
third upper tooth (p 4) has a cutting or trenchant crown divided
into three lobes, the last being the largest, and with a fiat inner side,
against which the cutting tooth (m) in the lower jaw works obliquely.
Behind, and on the inner side of the upper tooth (p 4), there is a
small tubercular tooth. The feline dental formula is —
i — ; c — ; p — ; m ^ — 30.
A glance at the long sub-compressed, trenchant, and sharp-pointed
canines, suffices to appreciate their peculiar adaptation to seize, to
hold, to pierce, and lacerate a struggling prey. The jaws are strong,
but shorter than in other carnivora, and with a concomitant reduction
in the number of teeth; thus the canines are brought nearer to the
insertion of the very powerful biting muscles, called “ temporal ”
and “ masseter,” which work them with proportionally greater force.
The use of the small pincer-shaped incisor teeth is to gnaw the soft,
grisly ends of the bones, and to tear and scrape off the tendinous
attachments of the muscles and periosteum. The compressed tren¬
chant blades of the sectorial teeth play vertically upon each other’s
sides like the blades of scissors, serving to cut and coarsely divide
the flesh ; and the form of the joint of the lower jaw almost restricts
its movement to the vertical direction, up and down. The wide and
deep zygomatic arches, and the high crests of bone upon the skull
concur in completing the carnivorous physiognomy of this most for¬
midable existing species of the feline tribe.
The penultimate tooth in the upper jaw (fig. 101, p 4), and the
last tooth in the lower jaw (fig. 101, m), were denominated by Cuvier
“ dents carnassieres,” which has been
rendered “ dens sectorius,’’ the “ sec¬
torial,” or scissor-tooth.2 It is a very
characteristic tooth in the carnivorous
order, but undergoes many modifica¬
tions, and preserves its typical form,
as represented in figures 102 and 103,
only in the most strictly flesh-feeding
species. In it may be distinguished
the part called the “ blade ” (fig. 102,
Fig. 102.
Fig. 103.
Working Surface of the Upper Sectorial Tooth, Side view of Lower Sectorial Tooth
Hyaena. Nat. size. Lion. Nat. size.
b, b), and the part called the “ tubercule ” (fig. 102, t). The lower
sectorial in the genus Felis consists exclusively of the blade (fig. 103),
which is pretty equally divided into two lobes. The blade of the
upper sectorial always plays upon the outside, and a little in advance
of the lower sectorial.
The upper permanent sectorial (fig. 104,p 4) succeeds and displaces Devclop-
a deciduous tubercular molar (fig. 104, d 4) in all carnivora, and is, ment.
therefore, essentially a premolar tooth ; the lower sectorial (fig. 104,
m 1) comes up behind the deciduous series {d 3, d 4) and has no
immediate predecessor; it is, therefore, a true molar, and the first of
that class. By these criteria the sectorial teeth may always be dis¬
tinguished under every transitional variety of form which they pre¬
sent in the carnivorous series, from Machairodus (fig. 145, VI.), in which
the crown consists exclusively of the “ blade ” in both jaws, to Ursus
(fig. 109), in which it is totally tubercular; the development of the
tubercle bearing an inverse relation to the carnivorous propensities
of the species.
The dentition of this genus presents a nearer approach to the Hymna.
strictly carnivorous type, than in other Carnivora, by the reduction
of the tubercular molars to a single minute tooth on each side of the
upper jaw, the inferior molars being all conical or sectorial teeth;
the molar teeth in both jaws are larger and stronger, and the canines
smaller in proportion than in the Feline species, from the formula of
which the dentition of the hyaena differs numerically only in the
retention of an additional premolar tooth, p 1 above andp 2 below, on
each side of both jaws. The dental formula of the genus Hycena is:—
• 3.3. 1.1 4.4 1.1
^QQ) ^ \ l' P 001^1
3.3’
1.1
1 Natural History of the Human Teeth, 4°, p. 82.
Odontography, p. 475.
460
ODONTOLOGY.
Teeth of The crowns of the incisors form almost a straight transverse line in
Mammals both jaws, the exterior ones, above, being much larger than the four
middle ones, and extending their long and thick inserted base further
P*
Fig. 104.
Deciduous Teeth; young Lion.
back; the crown of the upper and outer incisor is strong, conical,
recurved, like that of a small canine. The four intermediate small
incisors have their crown divided by a transverse cleft into a strong
anterior, conical lobe, and a posterior ridge, which is notched verti¬
cally ; giving the crown the figure of a trefoil. The lower incisors
gradually increase in size from the first to the third; this and the
second have the crown indented externally; but they have not the
posterior notched ridge like the small upper incisors; the apex of
their conical crown fits into the interspace of the three lobes of the
incisor above. The canines have a smooth convex exterior surface,
divided by an anterior and posterior edge from a less convex^ inner
side; this surface is almost flat and of less relative extent in the
inferior canines. The first premolar above (p 1) is very small, with
a low, thick, conical crown ; the second presents a sudden increase of
size, and an addition of a posterior and internal basal ridge to the
strong cone. The third premolar exhibits the same form on a still
larger scale, and is remarkable for its great strength. The posterior
part of the cone of each of these premolars is traversed by a longitu¬
dinal ridge. The fourth premolar above is the carnassial tooth (fig.
102), and has its long blade (&, 6) divided by two notches into three
lobes, the first a small thick cone, the second a long and compressed
cone, the third a horizontal sinuous trenchant plate; a strong triedral
tubercle (<) is developed from the inner side of the base of the ante¬
rior part of the crown. The single true molar of the upper jaw is a
tubercular tooth of small size. The first premolar of the lower jaw,
(fig. 105, p 2) fits into the interspace between the first and second
premolars above, and answers, therefore, to the second lower premolar
in the Viverridce; it is
accordingly much larger
than the first (pi) above;
it has a ridge in the fore¬
part of its cone, and a
broad basal talon behind.
The second (fig. 105, p
3) is the largest of the
lower premolars, has an
anterior and a posterior
basal ridge, with a verti¬
cal ridge ascending upon
the fore as well as the
back part of the strong
rounded cone ; the third
premolar (p 4) is portion-
ably less in the Hycena crocuta than in the H. vulgaris; its posterior
ridge is developed into a small cone; the last tooth (m 1) is the sectorial,
Fig. 105.
Dentition, Lower Jaw, of the Hyaena.
and consists almost entirely of a blade divided by a vertical fissnre into Teeth of
two sub-equal compressed pointed lobes ; the points are less produced Mammals,
than in the Felines, but the lower sectorial of the hyaena is better
distinguished by the small posterior basal talon, from which a ridge
is continued along the inner side of the base, and is slightly thickened
at the forepart of the crown.
The deciduous teeth consist of—
.33. „ l.t. 3.3 00
^3.3 ’ C l.l’ ™ 3.3 22‘
The first normal deciduous molar is two-fanged, and has a more
compressed and consequently more carnassial crown than that of the
second permanent premolar, by which it is succeeded. The second
deciduous molar is the sectorial tooth; the inner tubercle is con¬
tinued from the base of the middle lobe, and thus resembles the per¬
manent sectorial of the Glutton (Gulo) and many other Mustelidoe;
the deciduous tubercular molar is relatively larger than in the adult
Hycena, and offers another feature of resemblance to the permanent
dentition of the Glutton. It is also worthy of remark that the
exterior incisor of the upper jaw is not only absolutely, but relatively
smaller in the immature than in the adult dentition of the hyaena,
and again illustrates the resemblance to the more common type of
dentition in the Carnivora.
The permanent dentition of the Hyaena, as of other genera or
families of the Carnivora, assumes those characteristics which adapt
it for the peculiar food and habits of the adult, and mark the devia¬
tion from the common type, which always accompanies the progress
to maturity. The most characteristic modification of this dentition
is the great size and strength of the molars as compared with the
canines, and more especially the thick and strong conical crowns of
the second and third premolars in both jaws, the base of the cone
being belted by a strong ridge which defends the subjacent gum.1
This form of tooth is especially adapted for gnawing and breaking
bones, and the whole cranium has its shape modified by the enor¬
mous development of the muscles which work the jaws and teeth
in this operation.2 Adapted to obtain its food from the coarser
Earts of animals which are left by the nobler beasts of prey, the
yaena chiefly seeks the dead carcass, and bears the same relation to
the lion which the vulture does to the eagle. In consequence of the
quantity of bones which enter into its food, the excrements consist
of solid balls of a yellowish white colour, and of a compact earthy
fracture. Such specimens of the substance, known in the old
Materia Medica by the name of “ album graecum,” were discovered
by Dr Buckland in the celebrated ossiferous cavern at Kirkdale.
They were recognised at first sight by the keeper of a menagerie,
to whom they were shown, as resembling both in form and appear¬
ance the fceces of the spotted Hyaena; and, being analysed by Dr
Wollaston, were found to be composed of the ingredients that
might be expected in fiscal matter derived from bones, viz. phos¬
phate of lime, carbonate of lime, and a very small proportion of the
triple phosphate of ammonia and magnesia. This discovery of the
coprolites of the hyaena formed, perhaps, the strongest of the links
in that chain of evidence by which Dr Buckland proved that the
cave at Kirkdale, in Yorkshire, had been, during a long succession
of years, inhabited as a den by hyaenas, and that they dragged into
its recesses the other animal bodies, whose remains, splintered and
bearing marks of the teeth of the hyaena, were found mixed indis¬
criminately with their own.
This family of Carnivora, which comprehends the Civets, Genets, Viverrid*.
Ichneumons, Musangs, Surikates, and Mangues, is characterized
with few exceptions, by the following formula :—
4 3.3 ’ C 1.1 ’P 4.4 ’ 2.2
(fig. 106). It differs from that of the genus Canis by the absence o
a tubercular tooth
{m 3) on each side
of the lower jaw;
but, in thus mak¬
ing a nearer step
to the feline denti¬
tion, the Viverridce,
on the other hand,
recede from it by
the less trenchant Dentition of Cynogale.
and more tubercular character of the sectorial teeth.
The canines are more feeble, and their crowns are almost smooth;
the premolars, however, assume a formidable size and shape in some
aquatic species, as those of the sub-genus Cynogale (fig. 106), in
which their crowns (p 1-4) are large, compressed, triangular, sharp-
pointed, with trenchant and serrated edges, like the teeth of certain
sharks, (whence the name Squalodon, proposed for one of the species),
and well adapted to the exigencies of quadrupeds subsisting princi¬
pally on fish; the opposite or obtuse, thick form of the premolars is
manifested by some of the Musangs, as Paradoxurus auratus.
1 An eminent civil engineer, to whom the writer showed the jaw of a hyaena, observed that the strong conical tooth, with its basal ridge, was
a perfect model of a hammer for breaking stones for roads.
2 “The strength of the hyaena’s jaw is such, that in attacking a dog, he begins by biting off his leg at a single snap.” Buckland, ’Reliquiae,
Diluoiance, p. 23.
ODONTOLOGY.
461
Teeth of
Mammals,
'ail is.
In the lower jaw the sectorial tooth (m 1) manifests its true molar
character by the presence of an additional pointed lobe on the inner
side of the two lobes forming the blade at the forepart oi the crown ,
the posterior, low, and large lobe of the tooth being also tntuberculate,
as in the dog. The last molar (m 2) has an oval crown with tour
small tubercles, resembling the penultimate lower molar m the dog,
with which it corresponds. . . _T. . r c
The deciduous dentition consists, in the Viverrine lamily, ot
• 3-3 . ^11. ^ 33 _ 9ft
* 3.3 ’ C 1.1 ’ m 3.3
If the first permanent premolar has any predecessor, it must be
rudimental, and disappear early in both jaws ; the second premolar
displaces the first normally developed deciduous molar; the third
upper premolar displaces and succeeds the deciduous sectorial, which
has a sharper and more compressed blade, and a relatively smaller
internal tubercle, than the permanent sectorial. This tooth displaces
the last deciduous molar, which is a tubercular tooth, resembling in
form the first of the two upper permanent tuberculars ; these coming
into place without pushing out any predecessors, enter into the cate¬
gory of true molar teeth. In the lower jaw the third premolar dis¬
places the deciduous sectorial, which has three trenchant lobes and
a relatively smaller posterior talon than the permanent sectorial.
The fourth premolar displaces the third or tubercular milk-molar.
The permanent sectorial and tubercular molars displace no predeces¬
sors, and are therefore m 1 and m2.
The alternate interlocking of the crowns of the teeth of the upper
and lower jaws, which is their general relative position in the
Carnivora, is well-marked in regard to the premolars of the Viverridcc
(fig. 106); as the lower canine is in front of the upper, so the first
lower premolar (p 1) rises into the space between the upper canine
and first upper premolar; the fourth lower premolar in like manner
fills the space between the third upper premolar (p 3) and the
sectorial tooth (p 4), playing upon the anterior lobe of the blade of
that tooth which indicates by its position, as by its mode of succession,
that it is the fourth premolar of the upper jaw. The first true molar
below, modified as usual in the Carnivora to form the lower sectorial,
sends the three tubercles of its anterior part to fill the space between
the sectorial {p 4) and the first true molar {m 1) above. In the
Musangs, the lower sectorial is in more direct opposition to its true
homotype, the first tubercular molar in the upper jaw; and these
Indian Viverridce {Paradoxuri) are the least carnivorous of their
family, their chief food consisting of the fruit of palm-trees, whence
they have been called “ Palm-cats.”
The normal dental formula of the genus Cams is—
i ; c —: p —; m‘^- — 22 (fig. 107, Canis).
3.3 1.1 4.4 3.3 ^ ^
The incisors form a continuous series, describing the segment of a
circle in both jaws, and progressively increase in size from the first
to the third ; the trenchant margin of the crown is divided by two
notches into a large middle and two small lateral lobes. The
canines (c) are curved, sub-compressed; the enamelled pointed crown
forms nearly half the length of the tooth, and is smooth, without any
groove. The premolars (p) have strong sub-compressed conical
crowns gradually enlarging from the first to the third (p 3) in the
upper jaw, and to the fourth (p 4) in the lower jaw, and acquiring
one or two accessory posterior tubercles as they increase in size.
The fourth upper premolar (p 4) presents a sudden increase of size,
with its sectorial form; its blade is divided into two cones by a wide
notch, the anterior cone being the strongest and most produced ; the
tubercle is developed from the inner side of the base of this lobe.
The first and second upper molars (m 1 and 2) are tuberculate ;
but the second is very small, less than half the size of the first molar.
The first true molar below (m 1) is modified to form the opposing
blade to the sectorial tooth above; retaining the tuberculate cha¬
racter at its posterior half. The blade is divided by a vertical lineal
fissure into two cones, the posterior being the largest; behind this Teeth of
the base of the crown extends into a broad, quadrate, trituberculate Mammals,
talon. The second molar has two anterior cusps on the same trans-
verse line, and a posterior broad flat talon; the last lower molar (m,
3) is the smallest of all the teeth.
The absence of a tuberculate molar in the lower jaw of the im¬
mature Dog, brings the character of the deciduous dentition of the
genus Cams much closer to that of the typical members of the Car¬
nivorous order, and affords an interesting illustration of the law that
“ unity of organization is manifested directly as the proximity of the
animal to the commencement of its development.” 1 The succession
of two tubercular molar teeth behind the permanent sectorial tooth
in the adult, or permanent dentition of the lower jaw, carries the genus
Canis farther from the type of its order, and stamps it with its own
proper omnivorous character, and this contributes to adapt the Dog
for a greater variety of climates and food, and of other circumstances,
all of which tend, in an important degree, to fit that animal for the
performance of its valuable services to man. In no other genus of
quadruped are the jaws so well or so variously armed with dental
organs ; notwithstanding the extent of the series, the vacancies are
only sufficient to allow the interlocking of the strong canines. These
are efficient and formidable weapons for seizing, slaying, and lacerat¬
ing a living prey ; the incisors are well adapted, by their shape and
advanced position, for biting and gnawing ; the premolars, and espe¬
cially the sectorials, are made for cutting and coarsely dividing the
fibres of animal tissues, and the tuberculate molars are as admirably
adapted for cracking, crushing, and completing the comminution of
the food, whether of an animal or vegetable nature.
The dentition of the Weasel tribe (Mustelidos) is illustrated in Musteliuai.
fig. 145, IV., Mustela, and by that, of the Otter, fig. 108, which is a
great aquatic Weasel or Polecat; its dental formula is
as U. 44; m LI _ 3g
3 3’ 1 1 ’ ^ 3.3 2.2
The canines (e) are shorter than those of the Fox, narrower than
those of the Badger, larger and relatively thicker than those of the
Martin-cat. The first premolar (p 1) in the upper jaw, which is
absent in the Polecat and Weasel, is retained in the Otter (fig. 108
and is placed on the inner
side of the canine; the
sectorial premolar (p 4)
has its inner lobe much
more developed in Lutra
than in Putorius, and the
tubercular molar (m 1) is
relatively larger. Similar
modifications of these
teeth distinguish the den¬
tition of the lower jaw
of the Otter, which
agrees in the number Tig. 108.
and kind of teeth with Teeth of Upper Jaw of the Otter,
that of the Polecat. The
increased grinding surface relates to the inferior and coarser nature
of the animal diet of the Otter, the back teeth being thus adapted
for crushing the bones of fishes before they are swallowed.
In the Martin cats (Mustela), the little homotype ofy> 1 above is
present in the lower jaw ; in the bloodthirsty Stoats and Weasels, p
1 is absent in both jaws; as it is likewise in the great Sea-otter
(Enhydra), in which’ also the two middle incisors are wanting in
the lower jaw. In this animal the second premolar (p 3) has a
strong obtuse conical crown, double the size of that ot p 2 ; the
third premolar [p 4) is more than twice the size of ^ 3, and represents
the upper carnassial or sectorial strangely modified ; the two lobes
of the blade being hemispheric tubercles. The last tooth (m 1) has
a larger crown than the sectorial, and is of a similar broad crush¬
ing form.
The Mustelidoe present great constancy.in regard to the number
of their true molar teeth ; with one exception, the Ratel (Mellivora),
in which p 2 is absent below, they have one true molar on each side
of the upper jaw, and two on each side of the lower jaw ; the second
of these has always a broad tubercular crown, like the one above.
The upper true molar is supported by one inner, and sometimes by
one (Putorius, Gulo), sometimes two (Mustela, Lutra, Melphitis)
outer fangs. The second true molar below is also tubercular, but
has a single fang. The crown of the first true molar below offers
many gradations from the sectorial type, as manifested in Putorius
and Gulo, to the tubercular type, as in the Taira, Eatel, and Sea-
otter. The principal varieties occur, as usual, in the comparatively
less important premolars; in the Martins and Gluttons, they are as
numerous as in the Dog; the first, in both jaws, being implanted by
a single fang ; the rest by two, with the exception of the last above,
which has three roots. In the Otter, we find the first premolar
removed from the lower jaw ; and the second (now the first) shows Us
true homology by its double implantation, as well as by the position!
of its crown behind the first in the upper jaw.
1 This law is defined and exemplified in the writer’s Lectures on the Invertebrate Animals, pp. 368, 800, ed. 1843; p. 645., ed. 1855.
462
ODONTOLOGY.
Teeth of In the Stoats, Skunks, and Eatels, the premolar series is. fur-
Mammals. ther reduced by the loss of the anterior tooth (p 1) in both jaws,
and by the diminution of the size of p 2, which thus becomes the
first in both jaws, and is also now implanted by a single fang. In a
South American Skunk, the second premolar disappears in the upper
jaw, leaving there only the homologues of the third and fourth ot the
typical formula, p 4 being always the sectorial in the Mustelidce, as
in other terrestrial Carnivora. This tooth, under all its modifica¬
tions, retains the blade with the lobe, corresponding to the middle
one in the feline sectorial, generally well-developed and sharp-pointed ;
the differences are principally manifested by the proportions of the
inner tubercle, and the relative size of the third root supporting, it.
But the upper sectorial, being a premolar, and therefore requiring
less modification of the crown to adapt it for its special functions,
manifests a more limited extent of variety than the lower sectoiial,
which, being a true molar, requires greater modification of the
typical form of its crown to fit it for playing upon the sectorial blade
of p 4 above. . ,
Melidie. In this sub-family is comprised the European Badger (Me.es), the
Indian Badger (Ardonyx), and . the American Badger .(Taxidea);
which, with respect to their dentition, stand at the opposite extreme
of the Mustelidce to that occupied by the predaceous Weasel, and
manifest the most tuberculate and omnivorous character of the teeth.
The formula is—
3.3 . 1.1. „ 3.3. „ 1.1
* 8.3 ’ C 1 1 ; ^
1.11
4.4 ’
2.2
= 30.
The canines are strongly developed, well pointed, with a posterior
trenchant edge; they are more compressed in Arcionyx than in
Meles. The first lower premolar {pi) is very small, single-fanged,
and, generally, soon lost. The first above, corresponding with the
second in the dog, is also small, and implanted by two connate fangs.
The second upper premolar {p 3) has a larger, but simple, sub-com¬
pressed conical crown, and is implanted by two fangs. . The third
(p 4) repeats the form of the second on a larger scale, with a better
developed posterior talon, and with the addition of a trituberculate
low flat lobe, which is supported by a third fang ; the outer pointed
and more produced part of this tooth represents the blade of the sec¬
torial tooth and the entire crown of the antecedent premolars. The
true molar in Meles (m 1) is of enormous size compared with that of
any of the preceding Carnivora ; it has three external tubercles, and
an extensive horizontal surface traversed longitudinally by a low ridge,
and bounded by an internal belt, the “ cingulum’’ of Illiger. In the
Labrador Badger, the last premolar has a larger relative size, the part
corresponding with the blade of the sectorial is sharper and more
produced, and the internal tubercle has two lobes; the succeeding
molar tooth is reduced in size, and its crown presents a triangular
form. The first true molar below has its sectorial lobes better deve¬
loped ; these differences give the North American badgers a more
carnivorous character than is manifested by the Indian or European
Pro-
cyonidae.
species.
In other allied genera, which, like the badgers, have been grouped,
on account of the plantigrade structure of their feet, with the bears,
a progressive approximation is made to the type of the dentition of
the Ursine species. The first true molar below soon loses all its
sectorial modification, and acquires its true tubercular character ;
and the last premolar above becomes more directly and completely
opposed to its homotype in the lower jaw. The Racoon {Procyon),
and the Coati {Nasua), present good examples of these transitional
modifications ; they have the complete number of premolar teeth, the
dental formula being,
4.4
P £4
40.
3.3 ’ “ 1.1 ’ 4.4 ’ "" 2.2
The development of the inner part of the crown of the last upper
premolar, which constitutes the tubercle of the sectorial tooth, now
produces two tubercles on a level with the outer ones which repre¬
sent the blade; and the opposite premolar below {p 4), which is the
true homotype of the modified sectorial above, begins to acquire a
marked increase of breadth and accessory basal tubercles. All the
lower premolars, as well as the true molars, have two fangs ; the
three first premolars above have two fangs, the fourth has three, like
the two true molars above.
The dental formula of the Indian Benturong {Arctictis) and Kin-
kajou {Cercoleptes) is—
3.3’ v 1.1
co^S^S=36*
Ursidae. The essential characteristic of the dentition of the Bears (figs. 109
and 145, II.), Ursus, is the development, in the lower jaw, of the true
molar teeth to their typical number in the placental Mammalia, and
their general manifestation, in both jaws, of a tuberculate grinding
surface; the premolar teeth are much reduced both in size and
number. In the frugivorous Bears of India and the Indian Archi¬
pelago, the four premolars {p 1-4) are commonly retained longer
than in the fiercer species of the northern latitudes. In the Ursus
labiatus, the third small premolar above, and the second and third
below, have each two connate fangs; the fourth premolar above
presents three sub-equal obtuse tubercles supported by two distinct
fangs. It is the only one of the four lower premolars retained in
the dentition of the great extinct Ursus spelccus; the first premolar Teeth of
4'ig. 109.
Dentition of the Bear (ZJrsus).
maritimus and U. arctos. The second lower premolar is soon lost
in the Bears of temperate and northern latitudes, but is longer retained
in the tropical species called “ Sun Bears ” [Helarctos, Horsefield).
The first true molar (ml) has a longer and narrower crown than the
one above. The second true molar (m 2) has a narrow, oblong, sub¬
quadrate, tubercular crown, which, like that of the first true molar,
is supported by two fangs. The crown of the third lower molar (m 3)
is contracted posteriorly, and supported by two connate fangs ; it is
relatively smallest in the Sun-bears, and largest in the great Ursus
spelceus. The dental formula of the genus Ursus is—
i—-, c — ; p —; m = 42.
3.3 1.1 r 4.4 3.3
It is essentially the same both in number and kind of teeth as in
genus Canis, but the individual or specific varieties, which in the
Dog affect the true molar teeth, are confined in the Bears to the pre¬
molars. It would seem in the genus Ursus as if the preponderating
size of the large tubercular true molars had tended to blight the
development of the premolars.
In fig. 110 the deciduous teeth and their successors are figured,
Big. 110.
Milk-Teeth of the Bear.
as displayed by the removal of the outer wall of their sockets. The
milk-molars, four in number on each side of both jaws, progressively
increase from the first to the fourth. The characteristic relative
position to them of the premolars is shown atp 2, 3, and 4. Behind
these is shown the large formative cell of the first (m 1) of the true
molar series.
A tendency to deviate from the ferine number of the incisors is Phocidse.
seen in the most aquatic and piscivorous of the Musteline quadru¬
peds, viz., the Sea-otter {Enhydra), in which species the two middle
incisors of the lower jaw are not developed in the permanent denti¬
tion. In the family of true seals the incisive formula is further re¬
duced, in some species even to zero in the lower jaw, and it never
exceeds |:|. All the Phoddce possess powerful canines; only in
the aberrant walrus (fig. 112), are they absent in the lower jaw, but
this is compensated by the singular excess of development which they
manifest in the upper jaw,
In the pinnigrade, as in the plantigrade, family of Carnivores, we
find the teeth which correspond to true molars more numerous than
in the digitigrade species, and even occasionally rising to the typical
number, three on each side; but this, in the seals, is manifested in
the upper, and not, as in the bears, in the lower jaw. The entire
molar series usually includes five, rarely six, teeth on each side of
ODONTOLOGY.
eth of the upper jaw, and five on each side of the lower jaw; with crowns
mmals. which vary little in size or form in the same individual. 1 hsy ar®
-'y—•mS supported in some genera, as the Eared heals (Otanai) and Elephant
Seals (Cystophora), by a single fang; in other genera by two fangs,
which are usually connate in the first or second teeth; the lang or
fangs of both incisors, canines, and molars, are always remarkable 101
their thickness, which commonly surpasses the longest diameter or
the crown. The crowns are most commonly compressed, conical,
more or less pointed, with the “cingulum” and the anterior and
posterior basal tubercles more or less developed; in a few of the
largest species they are simple and obtuse, and particularly so in the
walrus in which the molar teeth are reduced to a smallei number
than in the true seals.1 In these the line of demarcation between
the true and false molars is very indefinitely indicated by characters
of form or position ; but, according to the instances in which a de¬
ciduous dentition has been observed, the first three permanent molars
in both jaws succeed and displace the same number of milk molars,
and are consequently premolars; occasionally, in the seals with two-
rooted molars, the more simple character of the premolar teeth is
manifested by their fangs being connate, and in the Stenorhynchus
serridens (fig. Ill) the more complex character of the true molars (m
1 and 2) is manifested in the crown. There is no special modifica¬
tion of the crown of any tooth by which it can merit the name of a
“sectorial” or “carnassial;” but we may point with certainty to
the third molar above and the fourth below, as answering to those
teeth which manifest the sectorial character in the terrestrial Carni-
vora.
The coadaptation of the crowns of the upper and lower teeth is
more completely alternate than in any of the terrestrial Carnivora,
the lower tooth always passing into the interspace anterior to its
fellow in the upper jaw.
In the genus Phoca proper (Cabcephalus, Cuv.) typified by the
common seal (Ph. vitulina), the dental formula is—
463
3.3 .
2.2 ’
-;p
33.
1.1 ’
m = 34.
the external ones in the upper jaw are intermediate in size between
the canines and the middle incisors.
In the Stenorhynchus leptonyx each molar tooth in both jaws is
trilobed, the anterior and posterior accessory lobe curving towards the
principal one, which is bent slightly backwards; all the divisions are
sharp-pointed, and the crown of each molar thus resembles the
trident or fishing-spear; the two fangs of the first molar in both
jaws are connate. In Stenorhynchus serridens (fig. Ill), the three
anterior molars on each side of both jaws are four-lobed, there being
one anterior and two posterior accessory lobes ; the remaining pos¬
terior molars (true molars) are five-lobed, the principal cusp having
one small lobe in front, and three developed from its posterior
margin; the summits of the lobes are obtuse, and the posterior ones
are recurved like the principal lobe. Sometimes the third molar
below has three instead of two posterior accessory lobes. Occasion¬
ally, also, the second, as well as the first molar above, has its fangs
connate; but the essentially duplex nature of the seemingly single
fang, which is unfailingly manifested within by the double pulp-
cavity, is always outwardly indicated by the median longitudinal
opposite indentations of the implanted base. These slight and unes¬
sential varieties, presented by the specimens of the Saw-toothed
Sterrink [Stenorhynchus serridens) brought home by the enterpriz-
ing naturalist of Sir J. Ross’ Antarctic expedition, accord with the
analogous varieties noticed in other species of Seals, and show the
inadequacy of such characters as marks of subgeneric distinction.
In the genus Otaria the dental formula is—
In the Phoca Caspica the upper molars have commonly one acces¬
sory cusp before, and one behind, the principal lobe; the lower molars
have one accessory cusp before, and two behind, the lower molars.
In the Phoca Orcemandica the upper molars have no anterior
basal cusp, and only one behind ; the lower molars have two behind
and one in front, except the first, which resembles that above, and
like it has connate fangs. _ ^
The condition of the molar teeth is nearly the same in the Phoca
barbata, but the crowns are rather thicker and stronger, and. the
three middle ones above have two posterior basal cusps feebly indi¬
cated, the same being more strongly marked in the four last molars
below.
The following genera of Seals with double-rooted molars( Pelagius,
Stenorhynchus) have four incisors above as well as below, i. e. f :f.
The allied sub-genus (Ommatophoca) of Seals of the southern
hemisphere has six molar teeth on each side of the upper, and five
on each side of the lower jaw, with the principal lobe of the. crown
more incurved. The two first molars above are closely approximated,
but this may prove to be a variety.
In the Stenorhynchus the jaws are more slender and produced,
and the molar teeth are remarkable for the long and slender shape of
the principal lobe, and of the accessory basal cusps. The incisors
Fig. 111.
Dentition of the Saw-toothed Seal. (Stenorhynchus).
(fig. Ill) have sharp conical recurved crowns, like the canines, and
1.1,
35.
-L Q Q
ms~— 36.
2.2
2.2 ’ 1.1 x 3.3
The two middle incisors are small, sub-compressed, with the crown
transversely notched; the simple crowns of the four incisors below
fit into these notches; the outer incisors above are much larger, with
a long-pointed conical crown, like a small canine. The true canine
is twice as large as the adjoining incisor, and is rather less recurved.
The molars have each a single fang.
In the great proboscidian and hooded Seals {Cystophora), the
incisors and canines still more predominate in size over the molars ;
but the incisors are reduced in number, the formula here is—
t ; <• y; p —; m ?:? = 30.
1.1 ’ 1.1 ’ r 3.3 ’ 2.2
All the molars are single-rooted, and all the incisors are laniariform.
The two middle incisors above and the two below are nearly equal;
the outer incisors above are larger. The canines are still more for¬
midable, especially in the males; the curved root is thick and sub¬
quadrate. The crowns of the molar teeth are short, sub-compressed,
obtuse; sometimes terminated by a knob and defined by a constriction
or neck from the fang; the last is the smallest.
In the Walrus {Trichechus rosmarus, fig. 112), the normal incisive
formula is transitorily represented in
the very young animal, which has
three teeth in each intermaxillary
bone and two on each side of the fore¬
part of the lower jaw ; they soon dis¬
appear, except the outer pair above,
which remain close to the intermaxil¬
lary suture, on the inner side of the
sockets of the enormous canines, and
seem to commence the series of small
and simple molars which they resemble
in size and form. In the adult there
are usually three molars or premolars
on each side, behind the permanent
incisor, and four similar teeth on each
side of the lower jaw; the anterior one
passing into the interspace between
the upper incisor and the first molar,
and therefore being the homotype
of the molar. In a young walrus’
skull with canine tusks eight inches long, the writer has seen a
fourth upper molar (fifth including the incisor) of very small size,
about a line in breadth, lodged in a shallow fossa of the jaw, behind
the three persistent molars. The crowns of these teeth must be
almost on a level with the gums in the recent head; they are very
obtuse, and worn obliquely from above down to the inner border of
their base. The molars of the lower jaw are rather narrower from
side to side than those above, and are convex or worn upon their
outer side. Each molar has a short, thick, simple and solid root.
The canines (c) are developed only in the upper jaw, but are of
enormous size, descending and projecting from the mouth, like tusks,
slightly inclined outwards and bent backwards; they present an oval
transverse section, with a shallow longitudinal groove along the
inner side, and one or two narrower longitudinal impressions upon
the outer side; the base of the canine is widely open, its growth being
uninterrupted.
The food of the walrus consists of sea-weed and bivalves; the
Fig. 11-2
Skull and Teeth of the Walrus
1 The relation of Trichechus to the Phocidce is analogous to that of Machairodus to the Felidce, and also, in the simplification of the molars, to that
of Prvteles to the Canidce.
464
Teeth of
Mammals.
Machairo-
dus.
Hyaenodon.
ODONTOLOGY.
molars are well adapted to break and crusli shells ; and fragments of
a species of Mya have heen found, with pounded sea-weed, in the
stomach. The canine tusks serve as Weapons of offence and defence,
and to aid the animal in mounting and clamhering over blocks of ice.
A large extinct carnivorous animal (Machairodus, fig. 145, _VI.),
had the upper canine teeth (c) developed to almost the same dispro¬
portionate length as in the walrus, by which they were also com¬
pelled to pass outside the lower jaw when the mouth was shut. But
these teeth were shaped after the type of the feline canines, only with
more compressed and trenchant crowns; and they were assomated
with other teeth in number and kind demonstrating the due affinity
of the Machairodus to the genus Fdis. _ ,
The molar series of the upper jaw includes three teeth on each
side, answering to the last two premolars (p 3 and p 4) and to the
small tubercular tooth (m 1) in the lion. The inner tubercle oft I®
carnassial tooth (p 4) is much less developed than in lehs. -< tie
molar series of the lower jaw accords with that of the lion, but pd
is relatively very small in the South American Machairodus {M.
neoqosus). ...
The symphysis of the lower jaw presents a rapid increase in
vertical diameter, whilst a depression on the outer side, between the
canine and the first molar, indicates the part which received the long
upper canine. The lower canine is much reduced in size, and
appears to form the exterior tooth of the series of incisors ; these are,
however, six in number in the lower as in the upper jaw. „ 1 .
Both the anterior and posterior margins of the long upper falci¬
form canines are finely serrated in Machairodus. The fossil teeth
of this kind from Kent’s Hole, Torquay, indicate a species of Machai-
rodus, as big as the lion, and distinct from that of the Italian pliocene
deposits, on which Cuvier founded his “ Ursus cultridens.'
In more ancient tertiary formations, remains of carnivorous mam¬
mals have been found with the three true molar teeth as expressly
modified for the division of flesh, and as worthy the express term of
“ sectorials” or “ carnassials,” as the teeth so called in the lion and
other felines. And these teeth were associated with conical premo¬
lars, long canines, and short incisors, so as to exemplify the typical
formula, e. g.—
• 35 LI. „ 44 85 ^ 44.
° 3 3 1.1 ’ ” 4.4 3,3
rhe extinct Eycsnodon and Fterodon of the upper eocene formations
if Hampshire,'and of parts of France, manifest this interesting and
Instructive character of dentitiom ...
A reduced view of the lower jaw of the IJyanodon llcguicni is
yjven in fig. 113. After the canines (c) come four successively
Pig. 113,
Dentition, Lower Jaw, of Hycenodon.
enlarging conical compressed premolars (p 1-4); then, instead of a
single carnassial representing the first true molar, there are three of
these singularly modified teeth—the first (m 1) being of suddenly small
size, as compared with the antecedent premolar, and obviously illus¬
trating its true nature as a continuation of the deciduous series, with
which, doubtless, it agreed in size. It became a permanent tooth
only because there was no premolar developed beneath it, so as to
displace it. The succeeding carnassial true molars (wi 2 and 3) pro¬
gressively increase in size. The symbols in fig. Ill denote the
homologies of the teeth. The marks of abrasion on the lower teeth
Tig. 114.
Dentition, Upper Jaw, of Amphicyon,
in the Hyccnodon prove the upper series to have been the same in
number.
The obvious number of premolars in the Hyamodon negatives Teeth of
the notion entertained by He Blainville, that it was a marsupial Mammals,
carnivore. . _ . .....
A second form of equally ancient Carnivore was a mixed-feeding .
animal, allied to the Viverridai and to the Dog tribe, the true molars ^
presenting the tuberculate modification, and the typical number and
kinds of teeth being functionally developed, as in the Hyamodon.
The series in the upper jaw are shown in fig. 112. The term
“ tubercular” is as applicable to the three true molars of the
Amphycyon (jn 1, 2, 3) as the term “carnassial” is to those of the
Hycenodon.
The teeth of the Carnivora, -with the exception of the aberrant Structure
amphibious forms, so closely correspond in their intimate struc- Carnivora,
ture, both with each other and with those of the human subject,
as to require here only a brief and general notice. They all enter
into the category of “ simple teeth,” that is, the dentine or main
body is not penetrated by folds of the other component tissues, but
has an even exterior, covered, at the part forming the crown, with
enamel, and having a general outer investment of cement, the coronal
layer forming too thin a film to manifest any of the radiated cells.
The dentine is of the kind called “ hard or unvascular; ” the tubuli
are rather finer than in the human teeth; they have the same general
direction from the pulp-cavity, but present stronger primary curva¬
tures, more frequent dichotomous divisions, and more numerous
minute lateral branches, which latter usually curve from the trunks
at right angles. The dentinal compartments are subhexagonal,
about --U-th of an inch in diameter, with the peripheral contour
forming almost a regular curve. In the Seals the dentine forms
usually a smaller proportion of the tooth than in the terrestrial Car¬
nivora ; the characteristic thickness of the roots in this family, is
principally due to the thick covering of cement, and the pulp-cavity
is usually closed by a more than usual quantity of the osteo-dentine.
The tubes in the Seal’s molar describe very strong and.irregular
curves on leaving the pulp-cavity; but when within a third of the
distance to outer surface, they fall into more parallel and regular
undulations; they are y^L^^th of an inch in diameter,. and. the
interspace between two tubes is about T_uTy_th of an inch in width.
The tubes dichotomise less frequently and less regularly than in
the teeth of the Dog or Hysena, but send off from both sides extremely
numerous short branches, which bend almost transversely across
the interspaces, and the side branches are occasionally sent off in
greater abundance along lines parallel with the outer contour of the
teeth, giving the appearance of opaque striae., or concentric layers, to
polished sections of the dentine. The dentinal tubes resolve them¬
selves at their extremities into rich tufts of curved branches, which
terminate in a layer of minute cells at the crown, and in the root
communicate with the radiated cells of the cement.
In the molar teeth of the Otaria jubata, the tubes, proceeding in
the long axis of the crown, are, on the peripheral half of the dentine,
nearly parallel; towards the side of the crown they proceed in more
zigzag, almost angular curves, and appear to cross each other, con¬
spicuous branches being continued from the.angles; the interspaces
of the tubes were about ^-^th of an inch in width. The dentinal
compartments are more numerous and less regular than in the teeth
of the ordinary Carnivora; and their contour is more obscured by
the deeper curves and more numerous branches of the dentinal tubes.
The enamel of the teeth of the Carnivora is extremely dense and
brittle ; it consists of fibres similar to those in the Human teeth, but
relatively smaller, as, for example, in the large canines of the Tiger,
and the molars of the Hyaena; the transverse striae are also less
distinct. In the molar of the Otaria, the enamel-fibres are very dis¬
tinct, placed at right angles to the plane of the crown, and less curved
than in Man or the Quadrumana; instead of the transverse striae,
they present a minute granular structure.2
The cap of enamel with which the teeth of the Walrus are at first
tipped, is soon worn off; and, except at the abraded surface, the rest
of the tooth—both tusks and molars—is thickly coated with cement.
The dentine closely corresponds with that in the ordinary Seals; in
the molar teeth the tubes present the same diameter, the same inter¬
spaces, and undulating curvatures ; but their dichotomous divisions
are more marked. In the canines the lateral branches terminate in
minute opaque cells, dispersed throughout almost the whole dentine,
but most numerous and conspicuous near its periphery, where the
dentine is defined by a distinct layer of these cells; only a third part
of the periphery of the canine is composed of true dentine, the central
third part of the tooth is filled up by osteo-dentine, which, as in the
teeth of the Cachalot, often projects in irregular rounded masses
into the short and wide basal pulp-cavity. The whole mass., indeed,
of the osteo-dentine consists of numerous independent calcifications
of the pulp, having as many distinct centres, usually hollow, and
producing, when the substance is examined by the naked eye, the
appearance which Cuvier has compared to “ pudding-stone.’ The
central cavities are for the most part associated together and with
the pulp-cavity by medullary canals. The tubes radiate from these
central cavities in all directions, with sub-parallel, diverging curva-
Ossemens Fossiles, 4to, 1824, vol. v. pt. ii. p. 517.
2 Retzius failed to detect any true enamel in the teeth of the Phoca anellata.
ODONTOLOGY.
465
Ungulata,
or
Jlerbivora.
tures, dividing, subdividing, and sending, off numerous branches,
which anastomose with those of the adjoining masses, and, where
these are situated next the dentine, with the. tubes of that tissue.
In each lobe of the osteo-dentine the concentric rings parallel with
the contour of the central medullary cavity are well marked. Myriads
of minute calcigerous
cells are dispersed
throughout the osteo-
dentine. The pulp-
cavity of the incisor
and molar teeth is
filled up by a smaller
quantity of the osteo-
dentine.1 Minute vas¬
cular canals convey
the capillary blood¬
vessels to this struc¬
ture, from the vascular
membrane attached to
the solid base of the
molars, and in the
tusks, from the per¬
sistent pulp, which
fills the basal cavity.
The cement of the
Morse’s teeth is dis¬
tinguished from the
osteo-dentine by its
continuous uniform
structure, by the absence of the detached centres, and their con¬
centric lines; but the radiated cells are disposed in regular layers,
concentric and parallel with the contour of the body of dentine ;
the radiating tubes, from the cells forming the layer next the
dentine, communicate freely with the peripheral ramifications of
the dentinal tubes, and also with the proper cemental tubes,
which are disposed vertically to the plane of the cement. In¬
deed, the evidence of an intercommunicating system of canals, too
minute for the gross fluid of the circulating system, is most striking
and universal throughout the substance of both the tusks and. small
teeth of the Walrus. Vascular canals are, however, present in the
cement as in the osteo-dentine, from the capillaries in which it may
be presumed that the colourless plasma is elaborated, which meanders
through the minuter systems of cells and tubes.
The first forms of vegetable-eating mammals of which we have
cognizance, those, viz., that have been restored from fossil remains
discovered in the eocene or oldest tertiary deposits,
, have presented a dentition conformable, in number
^ and kind of teetb, to the typical condition in the
j Placental Diphyodont series.
The chief modifications are presented by the grind¬
ing surface of the molar teeth. In the Hyracothevium
(e. g., fig. 115) the grinding surface supports four prin-
lobes (o, v) are first abraded; those of the inner lobes (c, d) are next Teeth of
abraded; and thus a double crescentic field of dentine is exposed, with Mammals,
a detached island on the summit of the internal cone (m). This,
afterwards, from the minor depth of the valley in front of its base,
becomes blended with the lobe [d). In the Palceotherium (fig. 117)
Fis. 118.
Dentition of tlie Dichoikn cuspidatus.
Fig. 115.
tions of the Upper Molar of cipal cusps, each transverse pair (ac, b d) being con-
molar Hyracothtrium. nected by a ridge which is raised midway into a
teeth smaller conical tubercle, and the crown is girt by a cingulum.
In the Anoplotherium (fig. 116) the crown is divided into a front (/, c)
and a back {f d) lobe by a valley (e), extending from the inner side,
two-thirds across, contracting as it penetrates. A second valley (</, i)
crosses its termination at right angles, and forms a curved depres¬
sion in each lobe, concave towards the outer side of the crown,—
this side being impressed by two parallel excavations (//). There
is a large conical tubercle (m) at the wide entry of the valley (e).
Fig. 116.
Upper Molar of Anoplotherium.
Fig. 117.
Upper Molar of Paheotkerium.
The two points of the outer continuous border formed by the two outer
the crown of the molar is divided into an anterior (b, d) and posterior
(a, c) part by an oblique fissure (e), continued from near the middle
of the inner surface of the crown obliquely outwards and forwards,
two-thirds across the tooth. Each division is subdivided partially
into two outer {a and b) and two inner (c and d) lobes ; the anterior
division by the terminal expansion (?’) of the fissure (e), the posterior
one by the valley or fissure (g). The lobes (c and a) are bordered
near their base by a ridge.
The first of the above types (fig. 115) of the upper grinders of the
eocene Herbivora is continued into, or governs, wTith minor modifica¬
tions, the corresponding teeth of the Cheeropotamus, Anthracotherium,
and the existing Hog-tribe and Hippopotamus. The second or
Anoplotherian type (fig. 116) is continued into the Dichodon, Dicho-
bunes, and the existing Euminant dentition. The third (fig. 117) is
the fundamental pattern of the upper molars of the tribes of the
Horse and Rhinoceros.
A fourth form of eocene grinder, that of the genus Lophiodon, is very
nearly allied to the Palceotherium, but the more complete union of
the lobes a, c, and that of the lobes b, d, gives a more decided trans¬
versely-ridged character to the crown, and this type was carried on
in the Dinotherium (fig. 136) and the existing Tapirs.
The space allotted to this article limits the selection of examples of
the ungulate dentition to a few of the best-marked modifications, and
the first of these forms a transitional step between the Anoplotherium
and the Buminantm.
The dentition in question is that of an extinct genus, the remains
of which occur in the upper eocene of Hampshire, and which the
writer has described under the name of Dichodon cuspidatus2 (fig.
118). The dental formula is—
1 3i3 ’ C IT ’ 4.4 ’ ™ 3.3
The crowns of these different kinds of teeth are of nearly equal height,
and there is no break in tbe series.
The incisors {i 1, 2, 3) have low and broad trenchant crowns.
The canine (c) closely resembles them, but is a little larger, and with
a low point: it is, however, more trenchant than piercing. The
first {p 1), second (p 2), and third (p 3) premolars, have their crown
much extended from before backwards, with three progressively
more developed and pointed compressed cusps on the same line ; to
which is added, in the upper jaw, an inner ridge, developed in the
third premolar (p 3) into an inner posterior cusp. The fourth pre-
molar (p 4) has a thicker and shorter crown with two pairs of
cusps. The upper true molars (m 1, 2, 3) have the two pairs of
cusps sharp and pointed, with a series of five low accessory points
developed from the outer part of the cingulum. The lower molars
(m 1, 2, 3) have as complex crowns as the upper ones, but with the
accessory basal points (a, 6, c, e) developed from the inner, instead of
the outer side of the crown, and with the convex sides of the chief
cusps turned in the opposite direction to those above. In fig. 116
the outer side of the true molars, of the last premolar, of the canine,
and of the incisors, is shown, together with the grinding surface of the
three anterior premolars in the upper jaw. The inner surface of the
’ “ L’ivoire des defenses du Morse est compact, susceptible d’un poli presque ausi beau que celui de I’hippopotame mais sans stries; la partie
moyenne de la dent est formde de petits grains ronds places pele vnele, comme le Cailloux dans la pierre appelee Poudingue; e’est ce qui le
caractdrise. Les dents molaires de cet animal ont leur axe compost des memes petits grains que celui des defenses. Elies n’ont aucun cavite dans
leur interieur.”—Cuvier, Leqons d’Anat. Comparee, tom. iii. (1805), p. 106.
2 Quarterly Journal qf the Geological Society, June 1847.
VOL. XVI. 3 N
VOL. XVI.
466
ODONTOLOGY.
Order
Rtuni-
nantia.
Camelid®
Develop¬
ment.
m
Fig. 119.
Upper Molar ot
Diqhqdon.
entire series of the lower teeth is shown, together with the grinding
surface of the three true molars of the last {m 3) here supports a
third pair of lobes (e). As compared with, the
anoplotherian molar (fig. 116), the outer lobes
 I (a, b) of that of the Dichodon (fig. 119) are thicker
 l and sharper; the inner opes (c, <Z)—especially
fj the latter—are developed to an equality with the
outer ones, and more distinctly separated from
them. The valley (m) extends across the whole
breadth of the tooth, and is crossed at right
angles by the fore-and-aft doubly-curved valley
(g and i). . . .
The modification of the upper molars of the existing Ruminant
quadrupeds consists m the lower
and less pointed lobes of the crown,
the unworn summits of which are
at first rather trenchant, like curved
blades, than piercing. They are
soon abraded by mastication, and
present the crescentic lobes of
dentine (a, b, c, d) shown in fig.
120. The transverse double-cres¬
centic valley (y, i) contains a
thicker layer of cement, and forms
two detached crescents in worn
teeth. The premolars resemble
Fl£-120- in structure one half of the true
Upper Molar of Megaceros. molars. The upper incisors, the
upper canine, and the first premolar of both jaws are not developed in
the typical Ruminants, the dental formula of which is
i o3^;m3- = B2.
The gazelle, the sheep, the ox—respectively representing the
families Antilopidoe, Ovidce, and Bovidm, which are collectively
designated the “ hollow-horned ruminants’’—all present this formula.
It likewise characterises many of the solid-horned ruminants, or the
deer tribe (Cervidce), the exceptions having canine teeth in the upper
jaw of the male sex, and sometimes also in the females, though they
are always smaller in these. _ .
The upper canines attain their greatest length in the small rumi¬
nants called Musk-deer, and especially in the typical species (Moschus
moschiferus, fig. 145, Vll.) These teeth, indeed, in the male Musk
present proportions intermediate between those of the upper canines
of the Machairodus and of the Morse. The inverse relationship in
the development of teeth and horns, exemplified by the total absence
of canines in tfie Ruminants with persistent and typical horns, by their
first appearance in the periodically hornless deer, and their larger
size in the absolutely hornless Musks, is further illustrated by the
presence not only of canines, but of a pair of laniariform incisors in
the upper jaw of the Camelidse.
In the Camel and Dromedary the upper canines are formidable for
their size and shape, but do not project beyond the lips like the tusk
of the Musk-deer; they are more feeble in the Llamas and Vicugnas,
and are always of smaller size in the females than in the males. I he
inferior canines, moreover, retain their laniariform shape in the Came-
lidce, and are more erect in position than in the ordinary Ruminants.
They are separated by a short diastema from the incisors in the
Auchenice.
The true nature of the corresponding canines in the ordinary Rumi¬
nants, in which they are procumbent, and form part of the same series
with the incisors, is always indicated by the lateness of their develop¬
ment, and often by some peculiarity of form. Thus in the Moschus
(fig. 145, VII. c) they are smaller and more pointed than the incisors,
and in the Giraffe they have a much larger crown, which is bilobed.
The laniariform tooth in the premaxillary bone of the Gamelidce,
which represents the upper and outer incisor, is smaller than the true
canine which is placed behind it in the Camel and Dromedary ; but
in the Vicugna it is as large as, or larger than, the true canine.
Most of the deciduous molars of the Ruminants resemble in form
the true molars; the
last milk-molar, for
example (fig. 121, d
4), in the lower jaw,
has three lobes like
the last lower true
molar (m 3). The
deciduous molars in
existing true Rumi¬
nants are three in
number on each side,
and, being succeeded
by as many premolars, the ordinary permanent molar formula is—
?
Fig. 121.
Deciduous and Permanent Teeth of a Sheep.
rn^
r 3.3 3.3
but there is a rudiment of 1 in the embryo fallow-deer, and in one
of the most ancient of the extinct Ruminants (Dorcatherium, Kaup)
the normal number of premolars was fully developed.
The birth and growth of a young Giraffe at the Zoological Gardens Teeth of
of London, enabled the writer to make the^following obseryations on Mammals,
the course of development and succession of the teeth in this
Ruminant, which is the largest existing species of its order. The
four middle deciduous incisors began to cut the gum one week after
birth, and their crowns were entirely extricated at the end of four
weeks, at which time the summit of the crowns of both the first and
second deciduous molars were visible. At two months the third
incisor had cut the gum ; at three months the third deciduous molar,
and at four months a fourth molar were in place ; the latter being the
first of the permanent series of true molars.
The progress of shedding the deciduous teeth was traced by obser¬
vation of the mother Girafl'e. She arrived at the Zoological Gardens
in May 1836, and was then about eighteen months old, and had all
the deciduous series, with the first permanent true mojars. The
two middle deciduous incisors were shed in the month of March
1838, the second incisor on each side in the following Ju}y, the first
deciduous molars in October, and the second deciduous molars in
November and December of the same year. At this time the second
(rue molars came into place, the last true paolars began to appear
above the gum in August 1839, and the last deciduous molar was
replaced by the third premolar before the end of that year. The
shedding of the whole deciduous series was completed by the fall of
the canines in the female Giraffe at the period of the birth of her
second fawn in May 1841, when she must have been six years and a
half old; the large bilobed crowns of the permanent canines were
not completely in place until September 1841.
The same noble menagerie has afforded the opportunity of record¬
ing the following state of the first dentition of the Dromedary:—
In the new-born animal the six deciduous upper incisors present
a larger size than any rudiments of these that have been discerned in
the foetus of ordinary Ruminants, and, as was discovered by sub¬
sequent dissection, these transitory incisors leave conspicuous alveoli
in the premaxillary bones. The canine and first functional deciduous
molar are small; the second and third deciduous molars are large,
bilobed, and each lobe is bicrescentic. In the lower jaw the func¬
tional milk-teeth consist of the six incisors and two canjnes, one on
each side, all with the overlapping leaf-shaped crowns. The func¬
tional molars are but two in number, in each ramus of the jaw. The
first small, simple, conical, compressed, notched behind; the second
very large, and three-lobed, each lobe bicrescentic, and the last lobe
the largest. The middle incisors are relatively larger in the deci¬
duous than in the permanent series, as compared with the outer
ones and the canine in the ordinary Ruminants. The Giraffe deviates
furthest from the typical proportions of these teeth in the. superior
expanse of the bilobed crown of the permanent canine, but it is inte¬
resting to find that the deciduous canine, though its crown is also
bilobed, is relatively smaller in proportion to the incisors, and thus
shows a less amount of deviation from the common type. The third
molar is the last inferior true molar. This tooth in the great extinct
Siyatherium retained more of the shape of its deciduous apalogue,
the last milk-molar, than is usually seen in existing species of
Buminantia.
The characteristic complexity of the molar teeth of a Ruminant is
seen in most of the deciduous series, but in the permanent series
only in the three posterior teeth of both upper and lower jaws, which
are the true molars ; the three first, or premolars, having more simple
crowns than those which they displace. The complexity in ques¬
tion is the result of peculiar plications of the formative capsule, some
of which are longitudinal, or project inwards from the sides of the
capsule, and form peninsular folds of enamel upon the grinding sur¬
face of the tooth, whilst others depend vertically from the summit of
the matrix into the body of the tooth, and form islands of enamel
when the crown begins to be worn. Of the longitudinal folds, two in
the upper true molars are external, broad, but shallow, and often
sinuous, and one is internal, narrow, and deep, extending quite
across the summit of the crown of the tooth, and decreasing in depth
towards the base of the crown. The corresponding fold of enamel
in the completed tooth, accordingly, extends more or less across the
crown, from within outwards, as the tooth is less or more worn.
The whole circumference of this complex molar is also invested by a
coat of enamel and a thinner layer of cement. In some Ruminants,
e. g.. Ox, Deer, and Giraffe, a small vertical column (fig. 120, m) is
developed at the internal interspace of the two lobes of one or more
of the upper true molars, varying in height, and rarely reaching the
summit of the new-formed crown. Different genera of Ruminants
also differ in the depth and sinuosity of the two outer longitudinal
folds, and in the depth and complexity of the two vertical folds,
which likewise are united in some species by a longer common base
than in others, producing thereby a continuity of the enamel, and
complete antero-posterior bisection of the grinding surface during a
longer period of attrition. The upper molars also differ in their
breadth, or antero-posterior diameter, as compared with their thick¬
ness or transverse diameter ; but as the summit of the crown is
always relatively broader in proportion to its thickness, care must be
taken to compare teeth of the different species that have been worn
to the same extent, or to allow for the difference.
Teeth of
Mammals.
ODONTOLOGY.
467
In the Ox the outer contour of each lobe of the upper molars is
more sinuous than in the Antelope or Sheep, the middle convexity
beinsr more prominent and the lateral depressions deeper. I he cres¬
centic islands are not so wide as in the larger Antelopes, and the
secondary terminal indentations are less marked at the iorepart ot
the island. The small internal accessory column (e) forms part of
the periphery of the grinding surface at the inner interspace of the
lobes when the crown has been worn down about halt an inch, fiom
which part it decreases in size to the beginning of the fangs.
In the Deer (Cervus), the inner crescentic subdivision of each lobe
is thicker transversely than in the Bovidce. In the great extinct
Irish Deer (Megaceros, fig. 120), which has molar teeth as large as
those of the Aurochs, the crescentic islands are simple, narrow, and
more curved or bowed than in the Ox, and in consequence of the later
division of the vertical fold of the capsule, the pemental cavity of
each is continued into the other until a later period of the attrition
of the crown, as shewn in the upper molar (fig. 120). In the Elk
(subgenus Alces), the central crescents are continuous for a still
longer period, and the median longitudinal fold, which divides the
crown transversely, retaining its full breadth tor a greater extent.
The crown of the molar is divided, during a longer period of attri¬
tion, by a crucial incision. The molars of the Camel present
the most simple condition of the Ruminant type of these teeth ; the
transverse fold dividing the crown being short, the dentine of the two
lobes soon forms a continuous tract. The common base of the cres¬
centic vertical folds of the capsule being likewise short, the enamel
islands are soon separated from each other. They include a shallow
or narrow crescentic cavity, with a simple but slightly sinuous con¬
tour. The two outer shallow longitudinal depressions of the crown
have no middle rising; and there is no columnar process at the inter¬
space of the two inner convexities. Bojanus has well illustrated
these characteristics of the upper molars of the Camel in his memoir
on the Merycotherium,' a large extinct Camelqid genus of Rumi-
nantia, founded on remains discovered in the drift of Siberia; and
he has extended the comparison to the Sheep, the Elk, and the
Ox.
Cuvier compares the lower molars of the Ruminants to the upper
ones reversed. In the lower true molars the single median longitu¬
dinal fold is external, and divides the convex outer sides of the two
lobes. The base of the fold extends, in some species, across the
molar for some distance before it contracts in breadth, retreating
towards the outer side, and the two lobes of the crown accordingly
continue to he completely divided for a longer period, as in the Elk
and Giraffe. The inner surface of the molar is gently sinuous, the
concavities being rarely so deep as those of the outer surface of the
upper molars. The lower molars are always thinner, in proportion
to their breadth, than those above, and the crescentic islands are
narrower and less bowed. The differences which the lower molars
present in different genera of Ruminants are analogous to those in
the upper molars, hut are less marked. The accessory small column,
when present, as in Bos, Urus, Megaceros, and A less, is situated at
the outer interspace of the convex lobes, and nearer the base in the
Cervidce than in the Bovidce. It is not developed in the Antelopes,
Sheep, or Camel, and is wanting in most of the smaller species of
Deer. The last true molar of the lower jaw is characterized in all
Ruminants by the addition of a third posterior lobe. _ This is very
small and simple in the Camel and the Gnu, is relatively larger in
the Bovidce and Cervidce, and presents, in the Megaceros and Siva-
therium, a deeper central enamel island or fold, which also charac¬
terizes the smaller third lobe in the Giraffe. The lower molars of
the genus Auchenia are peculiarly distinguished by the vertical ridge
at the forepart of the anterior lobe, which does not exist in the Camels
of the Old World. . . .
In all Ruminants, the outer contour of the entire molar series is
slightly zigzag, the anterior and outer angle of one tooth projecting
beyond the posterior and outer angle of the next ‘in advance. The
premolars are smaller and more simple than the molars, with which
they form a continuous series in the true Ruminants. In the upper
jaw they are not divided into two lobes by an internal cleft, but
resemble a single lobe of the true molars, of greater breadth than
thickness, with a single central crescentic island, and usually with
an internal nasal ridge.
The central crescents have a more complex contour in Megaceros
than in Bos, and the first premolar, which is always the smallest, is
relatively larger in the Deer than in the hollow-horned Ruminants.
In the small Musk-deer, the crescentic enamel-island is reduced to a,
small internal notch or fold, and the outer border of the crown js
trenchant and pointed. In the lower jaw the premolars decrease in
size from the third to the first, which has usually a compressed
conical crown, with a sinuous inner surface. The second and third
premolars have two deeper notches on the inner side, and a small
second hinder lobe seems to be slightly marked off by a vertical depres¬
sion on the outer side of the crown. All the three lower premolars have
compressed, sub-trenchant, and pointed crowns in thg small Musk-
deer (Tragulus). The true Musk (Moschus) more resembles the
ordinary Deer in its premolars. The aberrant Camelidce deviate Teeth of
most from ruminant type in the position, shape, and number of the Mammals,
premolars. s»»>—
The extinct Cheeropotamus, Anthracotherium, Hyopotamus, and
Hippohyus, had the typical dental formula, and this is preserved in
the existing representative of the same section of non-ruminant
Artiodactyles, the Hog. The permanent dental formula of the genus
Sus is illustrated in fig. 20.
The upper incisors (fig. 20, i) decrease in size from the first to sui(j®
the third; the first has a short, strong, obtusely-pointed crown, Hog-tribe,
obliquely levelled from the outside of the base to its apex, which.
inclines towards and touches that in the other premaxillary by its
produced inner part; the crown, before it is wmrn, presents a semi¬
lunar depression on its inner side, the concavity of which, directed
towards the base, receives a tubercular prominence, it is implanted
by a short, thick, curved fang; this incisor is relatively larger in the
Sus larvatus than in the Sus scrofa; the basal line of the enamel is
extremely irregular; that substance extends more than an inch upon
the outer side of the tooth, but only two or three lines on the inner
side, where an angular piece seems to be cut out. The second
incisor in the common Hog has a crown as broad as the first, but
shorter and thinner; its edge is trenchant and dentated, but is soon
worn down; in this state the abraded surface of both incisors shows a
dark mark in the centre. The third is a very small tooth, a little
removed from the second. The lower incisors are long, sub-com¬
pressed, nearly straight; the second is rather larger than the first;
the third is the smallest, as in the upper jaw.
The upper canines, in the Wild Boar (fig. 20, c) curve forwards,
outwards, and upwards ; their sockets inclining in the same direction,
and being strengthened above by a ridge of bone, which is extraor¬
dinarily developed in the Masked Boar of Africa. The enamel
covering the convex inferior side of this tusk is longitudinally ribbed,
but is not limited to that part; a narrow strip of the same hard
substance is laid upon the anterior part, and another upon the pos¬
terior concave angle forming the point of the tusk, which is worn
obliquely upwards from before, and backwards from that point. In
the Sow the canines are much smaller than in the Boar. Castration
arrests the development of the tusks in the male.
The teeth of the molar series progressively increase in size from
the first to the last. The first premolar (fig. 20, p 1) has a simple,
compressed, conical crown, thickest behind, and has two fangs ; it is
further removed from the second in the Sus larvatus than in the Sus
scrofa. The second premolar (fig. 20,p 2) has a broader crown with
a hind-lobe, having a depression on its inner surface, and each fang
begins to be subdivided. The third premolar (fig. 20, p 13) has a
similar but broader crown implanted by four fangs. The fourth pre¬
molar (fig. 20, p 4) has two principal tubercles and some irregular
vertical pits on the inner half of the crown. The first true molar
[m 1), when the permanent dentition is completed, exhibits the effects
of its early development in a more marked degree than in most other
Mammalia, and in the Wild Boar has its tubercles worn down, and
a smooth field of dentine exposed by the time the last molar has come
into place; it originally bears four primary cones, with smaller sub¬
divisions formed by the wrinkled enamel, and an anterior and posterior
ridge. The four cones produced by the crucial impression, of which
the transverse part is the deepest, are repeated on the second true
molar (fig. 20, m 2) with more complex shallow divisions, and a
larger tuberculate posterior ridge. The greater extent of the last
molar (fig. 20, m 3) is chiefly produced by the development of the
hack ridge into a cluster of tubercles; the four primary cones being
distinguishable on the anterior main body of the tooth. The crowns
of the lower molars are very similar to those above but are rather
narrower, and the outer and inner basal tubercles are much smaller,
or are wanting; the grinding surface of the last is shown in
fig. 122.
The first or deciduous dentition of the Hog consists of—
3.3.
33’
= 28, (fig. 17).
The first milk-incisor above is large, oblique, trenchant, and with a
depression on the inner surface of the crown; the second and third
are pointed, the latter being as long as the milk-canine. The first
and second incisors, helow, are
trenchant and oblique, and have
the indentations and ridge
slightly marked on the upper or
inner side of the long and nar¬
row crown ; the third is pointed,
and like a canine. The outer
third milk-incisor in both jaws
Kg. 122. is more advancedin growth than
Last Lower Molar, Hog. Nat. size. the rest at birth, ihe canines
are feeble, and have their nor¬
mal direction in both jaws, the upper ones ascending according to the
general type, which is not departed from until at a later period of
life.
1 Nova Acta Nat. Curios. 4to, 1824, tom. xii. pt. i. p. 265, tab. xxi.
468
ODONTOLOGY.
The first deciduous molar is not succeeded by a premolar, but holds
the place of such some time after the other deciduous molars are shed
and succeeded by the premolars (p 2, 3, and 4). The last true molar
(fig. 122) is remarkable for its large proportional size and complexity
of grinding surface. By the time it is acquired and in use, the hrst
true molar (m 1) is worn flat.
The Hog is the only existing hoofed genus that manifests as
regards number, the typical dentition displayed by the Dichodon
in common with many other Eocene ungulate and unguiculate Mam¬
malia. The deviation in the Hog from this type is slight being
confined to the non-development ot p 1, and the early reduction ot
the numerical formula by the loss ol the small tooth [d 1, fa,.,,
at the beginning of the molar series. / . • • p „„„ j
That the Dichodon belongs to the Artiodactyle series is inferred
notwithstanding the want of any direct evidence of the structure of
its limbs, from the more simple form and structure of p 1, p 2, and
p 3, as compared with the true molars, and from the symmetrical
ruminating pattern of the grinding surface of the crown of the true
'"From the true Ruminants the Dichodon differs in the development
of the upper incisors and of p 1 in both jaws, which teeth are wanting
in all the known existing species ^ , ,, , ,, , o
Such feeble traces of embryotic rudiments of these teeth as have
been observed by Professor Goodsir and others, in the Cow and Sheep,
and the more conspicuous germs of upper incisors, of which one pair
is functionally developed, in the Camehdce, are phenomena that derive
increased significance and interest _ from the fact of the functional
development of the same teeth in Artiodactyle Ungulates of the Eocene
^Inthe configuration of the true molars the Dichodon. would seem
to be more nearly allied to the Ruminant section of the Arhodactyla;
inthe number and kinds of its teeth it more resembles the Hog-tnbe
amongst the non-Ruminant section. The known facts of the deci¬
duous dentition of the Dichodon supply an additional test of its
affinities, owing to the marked differences, in the times and order of
succession of the permanent teeth, between the Hog-tribe and the
Ruminants, at least in the Ox and Sheep.
In these the last true molar cuts the gum before any of the pre¬
molars appear, and the canine
teeth (“corner-nippers” of the
veterinarians) are the last of the
permanent teeth to come into
place, their appearance marking
the completion of the third year
in the Sheep, and a somewhat
later period in the Ox. In the
Hog the canines appear before
the premolars, and these are in
place and use before the last
molar is on a level with the rest
of the grinders.
In the Dichodon cuspidatus
the second true molar, in the
upper jaw, is in place before
any of the deciduous series of
teeth have been shed; and it
is coming into place, with the
crown complete, before the
pulps of the premolars have
even begun to be calcified.
The lower jaw of the sheep
at from nine to twelve months
would afford the nearest parallel
amongst existing Artiodactyles
to that of the immature Dicho¬
don figured in pi. 4. fig. 2, vol.
iv. of the Quarterly Journal of
the Geological Society. But by
the time the second true molar
in the Sheep is as far advanced
in development as in the Dichodon fig. 2, loc. cit., p. 2, upper jaw)
the first permanent incisor is in place, and the germs of the pre¬
molars in the cavities of reserve have calcified crowns. •
The subjoined table indicates the several teeth by the symbols
explained in the Section on the Homologies of the Teeth.1
The necessity of exactness in the records of the age of the
valuable breeds of domesticated cattle, exhibited in competition at
agricultural meetings, has led to a greater accuracy in the state¬
ments of the periods of development of the different teeth in the
Ox, Sheep, and Hog; and the results of the writer’s observations,
with those recorded by Bojanus, the learned veterinary profes¬
sor at Wilna, and by Mr Simonds, the professor of cattle path¬
ology in the Royal Veterinary College of London,2 are averaged in
the following
Table op the Times op Appearance op the Permanent Teeth in
the Ox, Sheep, and Hog.
Teeth of
Mammals
Ox.
Symbols, yea^'Month. YearMonth
i 1
i 2
i 3
c
m 1
m 2
m 3
d orp 1
p 2
P 3
p 4
Sheep.
Early.
Year. Month.
Late.
Year. Month.
Hog.
Year. Month.
The dentition of the Wart-hogs is reduced by the suppression of Phaco-
certain incisors, and of the first two premolars—the tooth-forming chcerus.
energy being, as it were, transferred to the last true molar, which is
even more remarkable than in the common hog for its size and com¬
plexity in both jaws. Fig. 123 shows the condition of the upper
Tig-123-1
Molar Series of adult Wart-hog (Phacochccrus).
Nat. size.
molar series in a Phacochcerus JEliani, soon after the acquisition of
m 3. The first true molar (m 1), in consequence of its being in place
much earlier than the rest of the permanent series, as shown in fig.
124, is now almost worn out. The premolars (p 4 and p 3) continue
Fig. 124.
Dentition of a Young Wart-hog, Phacochcerus.
in use afterm 1 is shed; and by the modifying growth of the jaw
and the pressure on the grinders, they are brought into contact with
m 2. The writer has seen instances in which p 4 has remained after
m 2 has been shed, and when the molar series has been reduced to
the teeth marked p 4 and m 3. This tooth (fig. 123, m 3)—the last
true molar—is the most characteristic tooth of the Phacochoerus, and
perhaps the most peculiar and complex tooth in the whole class of
Mammalia. The surface of the crown presents three series of enamel
islands, in the direction of the long axis of the grinding surface; the
middle row, of eight or nine islands, is elliptic and simple; those of
the other rows are in equal number, but are sometimes subdivided
into smaller islands. These islands or lobes are the abraded ends of
long and slender columns of dentine, encased by thick enamel, and
the whole blended into a thick coherent crown by abundant cement,
See also Philosophical Transactions, 1850, p. 481.
The Age of the Ox, Sheep, and Pig, 8vo, 1854.
ODONTOLOGY.
469
Hippopo¬
tamus.
Teeth of which fills up all the interspaces, and forms a thick exterior invest-
Mammals. ment of the entire complex tooth. . ^ ,
Y ' The milk-molars are f:| in number - hut only the two last are
succeeded by premolars (fig. 124, p 3 and p 4), although sometimes
a small anterio? milk-molar {d 2) is developed m the lower as in the
upper law. This interesting modification, as to order and number,
in the change of the dentition, has thrown important light on the
more anomalous dentition of the Elephant. ,
The tendency to excessive and, as it may be termed, monstrous
development which characterises the canine teeth in the typical
SuidcB, affects both these and the incisors in the present remarkable
genus,’ of which the Hippopotamus of the great rivers ol Africa is
now the sole existing representative. v , . , , , •
The two median inferior incisive tusks are cylindrical, of great size
and length, obliquely abraded at the upper and outer part of their
extremity; the basal portion which is lodged in the deep alveolus is
longitudinally grooved ; the two outer incisors are likewise cylindrical
ancf straight, are much smaller, and are worn towards the inner side
of their point. The upper canines curve downwards and outwards,
their exposed part is very short, and is worn obliquely at the fore¬
part from above downwards and backwards; they are three-sided,
with a wide and deep longitudinal groove behind. The lower canines
(fig. 126) are extremely massive and large, curved in the arc of a
circle, subtrihedral, the angle rounded off between the two anterior
sides,’ which are convex and thickly enamelled, the posterior side of
the crown being almost wholly occupied by the oblique abraded sur¬
face opposed to that on the upper canine. _ The implanted base of
each of these incisive and canine teeth is simple, and excavated
for a large persistent matrix, contributing to their perennial growth
by constantly reproducing the dental matter to replace the abraded
extremities. The direction of the abraded surface is in part provided
for by the partial disposition of the enamel. The molar series con-
sistsof- i>ii;ml5 = 28-
The first premolar has a simple subcompressed conical crown, and a
single root; it rises early, and at some distance in advance of the
second premolar, and is soon shed; the other premolais form a con¬
tinuous series with the true molars in the existing species, but in
the extinct Hippopotamus major, whose remains are found in the
superficial deposits of this island and on the Continent the second
premolar is in advance of the third by an interval equal to its own
breadth. This and the fourth premolar retain the simple conical
form, but with increased size, and are impressed by one or two longi¬
tudinal grooves on the outer surface, which, when the crown is much
worn, give a lobate character to the grinding surface. The true molars
are primarily divided into two lobes or cones by a wide transverse
valley, and each lobe is subdivided by a narrow antero-posterior cleft
into two half cones, with their flat sides next each other ; the convex
side of each half cone is indented by two angular vertical notches,
bounding a strong in¬
termediate prominence.
When their summits
begin to be abraded, each
lobe or pair of demicones
presents a double trefoil of
enamel on the grinding
surface, as shown in fig.
125; when attrition has
proceeded to the base of
the half cones, then the
grinding surfaces of each
lobe pi-esents a quadrilo-
bate figure. The crown
of the last molar tooth of
the lower jaw is lengthened
out by a fifth cone, deve¬
loped behind the two nor¬
mal pairs of half cones, and smaller in all its dimensions.
The large tusks of the Hippopotamus exhibit the maximum ot
density in the chief component tissues. The enamel “ strikes fire
with steel like flint. The compact dentine has a high commercia
value, especially for the fabrication of artificial teeth. It differs from
true ivory by showing, in transverse section, the simple concentric
instead of the “engine-turned” or curvilinear decussating hues.
In the ordinary-sized tusks the fine-tubed dentine, which forms
the concentric-lined ivory, continues with little or no alteration of
texture from the periphery to the pulp-cavity; but in very large and
old tusks the apex of that cavity contains osteo-dentine, and that
tissue is abundantly developed when the normal function of the den¬
tinal pulp is disturbed by injury or disease. A very remarkable
example of the inferior tusk of the Hippopotamus is figured in cut
126, exemplifying the subserviency of the osteo-dentine in the re-
rig. 125.
Molar Tooth, Hippopotamus.
The iniury is indicated externally by a sudden transverse constric- Teeth of
J J Mammals.
Fig. 126.
Lower Tusk, united after fracture, of the Hippopotamus.
tion of the tusk (fig. 126), with an interruption in the ename! at
that part, and irregular deposits of dentine both there and at the
adjoining concavity of the tusk. A longitudinal section of the tusk
showed the pulp-cavity obliterated at the fractured part, and for some
distance below it, towards the base of the tusk by a mass of osteo-
dentine, deposited principally in the form of nodules closely impacted
together, their convex sides projecting into the re-established pu p-
cavity next the base, the general disposition of the osteo-dentine
being very like that in the centre of the tooth ol the Cachalot. Ine
remains of the pulp-cavity in the protruded part, or crown of the
tusk, were unusually conspicuous, m the form of a narrow canal near
the concave side of the tusk, and opening like a fistula upon that
surface lust beyond the fracture. Another irregular slender canal
extended transversely through part of the uniting substance, and
opened upon the concave side of the tusk just below the preceding.
From these appearances it may be concluded that the tusk, either by
the action of a shot, or other violence, had been snapped across its
implanted and hollow base, with probably also fracture and injury
to the prominent socket; but that the broken portions being held
together by their adhesion to the surrounding parts, inflammation ot
the pulp and capsule had ensued, ending in an altered mode of action
in the calcifying processes, which produced the more vascular sub¬
stance, which has exemplified its resemblance to true bone by effect¬
ing the union of the fracture. .
The true natural affinities of the Hippopotamus are clearly mam- Succession,
fested by the character of its deciduous dentition; and it this be
compared with the dentition at a like immature period in other
Unqulata, e. g., with that of the Horse tribe, it will be seen, by its
closer correspondence with that of Artiodactyles, and more es'pecm y
the Phacochere, that the Hippopotamus is essentially a gigantic Hog.
The formula of the teeth, which are shed and replaced, is—
• ^
2.2
l.l
cn
= 24.
paration of a complete fracture of a tooth.
If the small and simple tooth, which is developed anterior to the
deciduous molars, and which has no successor, be regarded, irom its
early loss in the existing Hippopotamus, as the first of the deciduous
series, we must then reckon with Cuvier four milk-molars on each
S1<The incisors in both jaws are simply conical and subequal, with
an entire cap of enamel on the crown. The deciduous canines
scarcely surpass them in size in the upper jaw, and not at all in the
lower. Projecting forwards, here,, from the angles of the broad and
straight symphysis, they appear like an additional pair of incisors;
and we have seen that the character of equality of development was
retained by the ancient form of Hippopotamus with the more typical
number of incisors, |-.f, which formerly inhabited India.
The first true deciduous molar has a conical crown and two fangs
in both laws. That above has also a conical crown with one strong
posterior and two anterior ridges. The second^ deciduous molar has
a large trilobate crown, the first lobe small, with an anterior basal
rid"-e • the second large, conical, with three longitudinal indenta¬
tions ;’ the third lobe still larger, and cleft into two half-cones by an
antero-posterior fissure assuming the normal pattern of the true
molarsf The third deciduous molar above more closely resembles
the ordinary upper true molar; but its second pair of demi-cones are
relatively larger. In the lower jaw the last deciduous molar has a
more complex crown than that of any other teeth of the permanent
or deciduous dentition.’ It has three pairs of demi-cones, progres¬
sively increasing in size, from before backwards, with an anterior
and posterior basal ridge and tubercles. Like the last trilobate
deciduous lower molar of the Hog, it increases in thickness pos¬
teriorly, instead of diminishing here, like the last true molar of the
lower (aw of the adult Hippopotamus.
, Thi7tooth is described as the first of four true molars by M. F. Cuvier, Dents d* Mammjfires, p. 207; but its true nature was recognised by
Baron Cuvier. See Ossemens Fossiles, 4to, i. p. 289.
470
ODONTOLOGY.
Equidse.
Perisso-
dactyla.
The Horse yields the first example of the dentition of the hoofed
Quadrupeds with toes in uneven number, because it offers in this
part of its organization some transitional features between those of
the dental characters of the typical members of the artiodactyle and
of those of the Perisso-dactyle Ungulata.
All the kinds of teeth are retained, in nearly normal numbers, in
both jaws, and with almost as little unequal or excessive develop¬
ment as in the Anoplothere; but the prolongation of the slender
C Fig. 127.
Dentition of Upper Jaw, florse.
jaws carries the canines (figs. 127, 128, c) and incisors (ib. i) to
Fig. 128.
Dentition of Lower Jaw, Horse.
some distance from the molars, and creates a long diastema, as in
the Ruminants and Tapirs. The first deciduous molar (fig. 129, d 1)
Fig. 129.
Deciduous Dentition, Horse.
is very minute, and is not succeeded, as in the Anoplothere, by a
permanent premolar ; yet, remaining longer in place than the larger
deciduous molars behind, it represents the first premolar, and com¬
pletes the typical number of that division of the grinding series.. If
the dental formula of the genus Equus be restricted to the function¬
ally developed permanent teeth, it will be—
c — == 40.
1 3.3 1.1 ^ 3.3 3.3
The outer side of the upper molar of the Horse (Equus Caballus,
fig. 180) is impressed, as in the Palseothere (fig. 117), by two wide
longitudinal channels (fig. 130,
/,/). The depression (i) is sepa¬
rated from the oblique valley (e);
the depression {g) forms a cres¬
centic island like i, when the
crown begins to be worn away.
There is a smaller depression {h)
which indents the hinder side of
the crown. An accessory lobe, ap¬
parently answering to that marked
m in Anoplotherium (fig. 116), but
more probably answering to the
inner end of the lobe (d) in the
Rhinoceros (fig. 132), is marked
off by the anterior indentation
(k), and adds to the complexity of the crown, which, in the
general aspect of the grinding surface, approaches in character
to that of the Ruminants (fig. 120). In the lower jaw, the correspon¬
dence of type with that of the Rhinoceros is more obvious. The
teeth here, as is usual in other quadrupeds, are narrower transversely
than in the upper jaw; they are divided externally into two convex
lobes (pi. 128, m 1 and 2) by a median longitudinal fissure, and on
the inner side they present three principal unequal convex ridges,
and an anterior and posterior narrower ridge; but the crown of the
molar is penetrated from the inner side by deeper and more complex
folds than in the Rhinoceros or Palseothere. The anterior one, be¬
tween the narrow ridge and the first principal internal column,
expands into a sub-crescentic fold; the second is a short, simple fold,
and terminates opposite that which penetrates the tooth from the
outer side ; the third inner fold expands in the posterior lobe of the
mi
Fig. 130.
Upper Molar, Horse.
Nat. size.
tooth, like the first. Two short folds partially detach a small acces- Teeth of
sory lobe at the posterior part of the crown. Mammals.
The incisors (figs. 127, 128, i) are arranged close together in the
arc of a circle at the extremity of both jaws.
They are slightly curved, with long simple
subtrihedral fangs tapering to their extre¬
mity (fig. 131). The crowns are broad, thick,
and short. The contour of the biting surface,
before it is much worn, approaches an ellipse,
These teeth, if found detached, recent or fossil,
are distinguishable from those of the Rumi¬
nants by their greater curvature, and from
those of all other animals by the fold of enamel
(fig. 131, c’) which penetrates the body of the
crown from its broad flat summit, like the
inverted finger of a glove. When the tooth
begins to be worn, the fold forms an island of
enamel inclosed in a cavity, partly filled by
cement and partly by the discoloured sub¬
stances of the food; this is called by horse-
dealers the “ mark.” In aged horses the
incisors are worn down below the extent of the
fold, and the mark disappears. The cavity is
usually obliterated in the first, or mid-incisors
at the sixth year, in the second incisors at
the seventh year, and in the third or outer
incisors, at the eighth year, in the lower jaw.
It remains longer in those of the upper jaw,
and in both the place of the mark continues
for some years to be indicated by the dark-
coloured cement.
The canines (figs. 127 and 128, c) are small in the stallion, less in
the gelding, and rudimental in the mare. The unworn crown is
remarkable for the folding in of the anterior and posterior margins of
enamel, which here includes an extremely thin layer of dentine.
The upper canine (fig. 127, c) is situated in the middle of the long
interspace between the incisors and molars. The lower canine (fig.
128, c) is close to the outer incisor, as in the Ruminants, but is better
distinguished by its cuspidate form. The antetype, or representative
of the first premolar (fig. 129, d 1), is a very small and simple rudi¬
ment, and is soon shed. The three normal premolars (figs. 127, 128,
p 2, 3, and 4) are as large and complex as the true molars (figs. 127,
128, m 1, 2, 3). The anterior one (p 2) is usually the largest of the
series in the upper jaw, the anterior lobe extending forwards into an
obtuse angle.
The most obvious character by which the horse’s molars may be
distinguished from the complex teeth of other Jlerbivora correspond¬
ing with them in size, is the great length of the tooth before it
divides into fangs. This division, indeed, does not begin to take
place until much of the crown has been worn away ; and thus, except
in old horses, a considerable portion of the whole of the molar is
implanted in the socket by an undivided base. This is slightly
curved in the upper molars.
The following is the average course of development and succession
of the teeth in the Equus Caballus:—The summits of the first func¬
tional deciduous molar (fig. 129, d 2, “first grinder” of vetei'inary
authors) are usually apparent at birth ; the succeeding grinder [d 3)
sometimes rises a day or two later, sometimes together with the first.
Their appearance is speedily followed by that of the first deciduous
incisor (fig. 129, i 1, “centre nipper” of veterinarians) which usually
cuts the gum between the third and sixth days. The second
deciduous incisor (fig. 129, i 2) appears between the twentieth and
fortieth days, and about this time the rudimental grinder (d 1) comes
into place, and the last deciduous molar (d 4) begins to cut the gum.
About the sixth month the inferior lateral or third incisors (fig. 129,
i 3), with the deciduous canine (c), make their appearance. The
minute canine is shed about the time that the contiguous incisor is
in place, and is not retained beyond the first year. The upper
deciduous canine is shed in the course of the second year. The
appearance of the third deciduous incisors or “corner nipper’’ com¬
pletes the stage of dentition called the “ colt’s mouth” by veterinary
authors. The first true molar (ml) appears between the eleventh
and thirteenth months. The second molar (m 1) follows before the
twentieth month. The first functional premolar (p 2) displaces the
deciduous molar (d 2) at from two years to two years and a half old.
The first permanent incisor (figs. 127 and 128, i 1) protrudes from
the gum at between two years and abalf and three years. At the same
period the second, or penultimate premolar (ib. p 3), pushes out the
penultimate milk-molar (fig. 129, d 3), and the penultimate true molar
(m 2) comes into place. The last premolar (p 4) displaces the last
deciduous molar at between three years and a half and four years ;
the appearance above the gum of the last true molar (m 3) is usually
somewhat earlier. The second incisor (i 2) pushes out its deciduous
predecessor about the same period. The permanent canine or “tusk”
(c) next follows ; its appearance indicates the age of four years, but
it sometimes comes earlier. The third, or outer incisor (fig. 128, i 3),
pushes out the deciduous incisor (ib. 3 d) about the fifth year, but is
Fig. 131.
Section of Incisor.
Horse.
ODONTOLOGY.
471
.Teeth of
riammals.
Ihinoceros.
seldom in full place before the horse is five years and a half old ; the opposite the right hand shews the outer side, that opposite the Teeth of
last premolar is then usually on a level with the other grinders, left hand the inner side. In each figure, a d is the anterior lobe, Mammals.
Upon the rising of the third permanent incisor, or “corner nipper^  
of the veterinarians, the “colt” becomes a “horse, and the nlly
a “mare,” in the language of the horse-dealers; after the disap¬
pearance of the “mark” in the incisors, at the eighth or ninth year,
the horse becomes “ aged.”
The modifications which the upper molars of the rhinoceros pre-
sent, as compared with those of its antetype, the Palseothenum, will
be readily understood by comparing fig. 117 with fig. 132, and are
k
Tig. 134.
Deciduous and Permanent Teeth, Hyrax. Nat. size.
b e the posterior lobe; c is the antero-internal border, and d the
postero-internal border of the anterior lobe; e is the postero-internal
border of the posterior lobe ; /is the concavity of the anterior, g that
of the posterior lobe. The above structure characterises the last
two premolars and all the true molars of the lower jaw of the
Ehinoceros, the ultimate one not being characterised, as in the
Palceotherium, by an accessory lobe.
The deciduous molars of the Ehinoceros are, in number as well
as in shape, closely similar to those in the diminutive, hornless,
hairy, rhinoceros-like quadruped, called Hyrax, which hears the
same relation to the great Ehinoceros as the small existing Sloth
does to the extinct Megatherium. The change of dentition of the
Bhinocerot/idoi is, therefore, here illustrated by the young Hyrax
mpensis (fig. 134).
The law of development, so instructive and constant in the placen¬
tal Diphyodonts, is well illustrated in this species. The four pre¬
molars (p 1, 2, 3, 4) are exposed above the four deciduous molars
(d l, 2, 3, 4), which they push out; the first true molar (m 1) is in
place; the second (m 2) and third (m 3) molars are in different states
of forwardness. The first premolar differs from the rest only by a
graduated inferiority of size, which, in the last premolar (p 4), ceases
to be a distinction between it and the true molars.
V -
Pig. 132.
Upper Molar, Rhinoceros. Nat. size.
as followsThe concavities (//) on the outer side of the crown, in
fig. 117, are almost levelled, and from one of them a slight convexity
projects, in some species of Rhinoceros, giving a gently undulated
surface on that side of the crown. The valley (e) is more expanded
at its termination (i), and in some species bifurcates and deepens, sq
that one branch may form an insulated circle of enamel when the.
crown is worn. The posterior valley (g) is usually deeper and more
extended. The ordinary lobes (a, b, c, d) are very similar, and pro¬
duce, by the confluence of a with c, and of b with d, the two oblique
tracts of dentine which are more decidedly established as transverse
ridges in the Lophiodont or Tapiroid group. A basal ridge (r) girts
more or less completely the inner and the fore and hind parts of the
base of the crown.
The formula of the functional molar series is—
pti; m — == 28.
r 4.4 3.3
Fig. 135
Dentition of the Tapir.
There are no canines. As to the incipors, the species vary, not only
in regard; to their form and proportions, but also their existence; and
in tlm varieties of these teeth we may discern the same inverse rela¬
tion to the development of the horns which is manifested by the
canines of the Ruminants. Thus, the two-horned Rhinoceroses of
Africa, which are remarkable for the great length of one {Ilh. bicornis,
lih. simus) or both (Mi. Keitloa) oi the nasal weapons, have no
incisors in their adult dentition, neither had that great extinct two-
liorned species (Eh. tichorinus), the prodigious development of whose
horns is indicated by the singular modifications ‘of the vomerine,
nasal, and pre maxillary bones, in relation to the firm support of those
weapons. The Sumatran bicorn Rhinoceros combines, with compara¬
tively small horns, moderately-developed incisors in both jaws ; and
the same teeth are present in the nearly allied extinct two-horned
Rhinoceros, called, after its discoverer, Scldeiermacheri. The incisors
are developed in both the existing Unicorn Rhinoceroses, (Eh. Indicus
and Eh. Sondaicus), but they attain their largest dimensions in the
singular extinct hornless spe¬
cies, the Ehinoceros . indsivus
of Cuvier, which makes the
transition to the extinct genus
Palceotherium, and forms the
type of the aberrant subgenus
Acerotherium of Dr Kaup.
The molar teeth in the lower
jaw consist of two subequal
oblique crescentic or semi-
cylindrical lobes, which, when
slightly worn, present the ap¬
pearance shewn in the middle of the three figures in cut 133,
from a molar of the right ramus of the lower jaw. The figure
d e
„ 133.
Lower Molar, Rhinoceros.
Fig
The dental formula of the Tapir is—
4§J; o ; p 4,4; m g = 42 (fig. 135).
The median incisors above (i 1, 2, 3) have a broad trenchant crown,
separated by a transverse channel from a large basal ridge; the
wedge-shaped crowns of the opposite pair below fit into the
channel, and,have no basal ridge; the outer incisors above (i 3) are
very large and like canines ; those below are unusually small. The
canines (fig. 135, c) have crowns much shorter than their roots, and
not projecting, like tusks, beyond the lips ; they are pointed, with
an outer convex, separated by sharp edges from an inner, less con¬
vex, surface. The lower canines form part of the same semicircular
series with the incisors ; the upper ones project close to the inten-
maxillary suture, separated from the incisors by a short space for the
reception of the crown of the lower canine. The first three premolars
above (p 1, 2, 3) have the outer part of the crown composed of two
half cones, the posterior one having a basal ridge ; the anterior basal
ridge rises into a small cusp in the second premolar, which increases
in size in the third and fourth; in this tooth (p 4) the transverse
depression divides at the base of the anterior and outer demicone,
and the posterior divisipn is continued into the interspace of the two
demicones; these, therefore, now become in m 1 and 2 the outer-
ends of the two transverse, wedge-shaped eminences, giving their
summits a curve whose con¬
cavity is turned backwards ;
the last molar (m 3) may be
known by the shorter and
more curved posterior emi¬
nence. In the dentition of
the lower jaw (fig. 136) the
double transverse ridged
Tapirus.
Fig. 136.
Molar Series, Lower Jaw, Tapir.
type of tooth, which has been before described in the Kangaroo,
472
ODONTOLOGY.
Teeth of
Mammals.
Diprotodon, and Manatee, prevails throughout the molar series, the
anterior talon being most produced and compressed in the first
tooth (p 2). . , ,
The most extraordinary of extinct Pachyderms is that which
Cuvier regarded as a gigantic Tapir, on account of the character ot
the molar teeth (see the lower fig. in cut 137); hut which subsequent
Teeth of
Mammals.
Fig. 137. ^
Dentition of Dinotherium
discovery of the cranium, and the enormous tusks of the lower jaw
(fig. 137), has proved to be a genus connecting the tapiroid with
the proboscidian families of Perissodactyla..
The permanent dentition of the genus Dinotherium is
i™; C™-,P —; m||=22.
The two deciduous molars in situ on each side of the fragment of
the upper jaw of the young Dinotherium, which Professor Kaup
has figured in Tab. 1 of his Ossemens Fossiles de Darmstadt, answer
to the third and fourth of the typical series. The crown of the ante¬
rior milk-molar supports two transverse ridges with an anterior and
posterior basal ridge; its contour is almost square; the last mi
molar has a greater antero-posterior extent, and supports three trans¬
verse eminences with an anterior and posterior basal ridge, the
anterior ridge being developed into a pointed tubercle at its outer
end. The two premolars (fig. 137, p 3 and 4) conform to the general
rule in being more simple than the teeth which they displace and
succeed. The first upper premolar (p 3) supports a longitudinal
ridge on the outer side of the crown, and two mamilloid tubercles,
with confluent bases along the inner side of the crown, wmoh is sur¬
rounded, except at its outer part, by a basal ridge. Ihe unworn
summits of both the ridge and tubercles are divided into smailei
tubercles by a series of notches. The crown of the second premolar
(p 4) supports four tubercles, the outer ridge being deeply cleft, and
the two anterior tubercles are united by a continuous ridge, which
converts them into a transverse eminence, like those which charac¬
terise the true molar teeth. The transverse diameter of the second
premolar exceeds the antero-posterior one, the proportions being the
reverse of those of the deciduous molar, which it displaces. Ihe
first true molar (m 1) repeats the structure of the hindmost deciduous
molar, its crown having a disproportionate antero-posterior extent,
and supporting three transverse eminences, with an anterior, poste¬
rior, and internal basal ridge. The Dinothere resumes the lapiroid
character, and differs essentially from the Mastodon, inasmuch as
the posterior molars {m 2 and 3), instead of having an increased
antero-posterior extent and more complex crowns, increase only in
thickness, and support two instead of three transverse eminences,
they have also an anterior and a posterior basal ridge. In the lower
jaw the first premolar (p 3) is implanted, like that above, by two
fangs; but it has a smaller and simpler crown, which is narrower
in proportion to its antero-posterior extent, and is almost entirely
occupied by the antero-posterior ridge, only the posterior of the two
inner tubercles being developed; thus the crown presents more of a
trenchant than of a grinding character; the second premolar (p 4)
supports two transverse ridges. The third of the permanent series,
which is the first true molar (m 1), has three transverse ridges, like
the one above, but is relatively narrower, the second {m 2) and third
{m 3) true molars have each large square crowns, with two trans¬
verse ridges, and an anterior and posterior talon, the latter being
more developed than in the corresponding molars of the upper jaw.
As the three-ridged or first true molar tooth is the first of the per- , _ .
manent series which comes into place, its crown, conformably with
the general law, exhibits most abrasion.
The generic peculiarity of the Dinotherium is most strongly mani¬
fested in its tusks. These tusks (fig. 137) are two in number,
implanted in the prolonged and deflected symphysis of the lower jaw,
in close contiguity with each other, and having their exserted crown
directed downwards and bent backwards, gradually decreasing to the
pointed extremity. Each tusk has a slight longitudinal depression
on its outer side ; the long implanted base is excavated by a wide
and deep conical pulp-cavity, like the tusks of the Mastodon and
Elephant.
In jaws with molar teeth of equal size, the symphysis and its
tusks offer two sizes; the larger ones, which have been found four
feet in length, with tusks of two feet, may be attributed to the male
Dinothere; the smaller specimens, with tusks of half size, to the
female. The ivory of these tusks presents the fine concentric struc¬
ture of those of the Hippopotamus, not the decussating curvilinear
character which characterises the ivory of the Elephant and Mas¬
todon. No corresponding tusks, nor the germs of such, have yet
been discovered in the upper jaw of the Dinotherium.
No family of Mammalian quadrupeds has suffered more from the Probosci-
destructive operations of time than that which is characterised by dians.
the gigantic size of the individuals composing it, and their peculiar
endowment of a long and prehensile proboscis. The Elephants of
Africa, India, Ceylon, and Sumatra, represent the proboscidian type
of the hoofed series of mammals at the present day ; but much more
numerous species of as huge proboscidians formerly existed, dispersed
over a wider geographical range, and in which the Elephantine den¬
tition was reduced by gradational series of modifications almost to
the comparative simplicity of that of the Dinothere and Tapir.
The name Mastodon was applied by Cuvier to certain species, Mastodon,
which, being at the Tapiroid or Dinotherian extremity of the pro¬
boscidian series, manifested modifications of the teeth most meriting
to be held generically distinct from those of the existing Elephants.
The grinding surface of the molars (fig. 138), instead ot being cleft
into numerous thin plates, was divided into wedge-shaped transverse
ridges, and the summits of these were subdivided into smaller cones,
more or less resembling the teats of a cow, whence the_ generic name.1
A more important modification appeared to distinguish the extinct
genus, in respect of the structure of the molar teeth ; the dentine, or
Upper Molar of Mastodon. I
principal substance of the crown of the tooth (fig. 138, d) is covered
by a thick coat of dense and brittle enamel (e); a thin coat of cement
is continued from the fangs upon the crown of the tooth, but tbis
substance does not fill up the interspaces of the divisions of the
crown, as in the Elephants (fig. 144, c). Such at least is the cha¬
racter of the molar teeth of the typical and first-discovered species
of Mastodon, which Cuvier has termed Mastodon cjiganteus Mas¬
todon angustidens (fig. 138). Fossil remains of proboscidians have
subsequently been found principally in the tertiary deposits of tropical
Asia, in which the number and depth of the clefts of the crown of
the molar teeth, and the thickness of the intervening cement, are so
much increased as to establish transitional characters between the
lamello-tuberculate teeth of the Elephants and the mammilated
molars of the typical Mastodons, showing that the characters dedu-
cible from the molar teeth are rather the distinguishing marks of
species than of genera in the present family of mammalian quadru-
peds.
The dentition of this family may be expressed by the formula
di11 • i11 • c00- md3-3- p y-
ai — , i - , c oa’ m as’ ^ i.i
m|| = 34;
3.3
that is to say, in the proboscidians in which the dentition most
nearly approached to the typical one, thirty-four teeth were developed,
1 fiutlrog, a nipple; oSoug, a tooth.
ODONTOLOGY.
473
as follows:—In the upper jaw two deciduous incisors, followed by
twoa permanent incisors deve¬
loped as .tusks; six deciduous
molars, (three on each side, d
2, 3, 4, fig 3 9 ; two premolars
(one on each side, p 3, fig.
139), and.six true molars (three
on each side, m 1, 2, 3, figs. 139
and 140):—in the lower jaw,
two incisors as tusks (uncertain
whether preceded by deciduous
tusks), deciduous molars, pre¬
molars, and molars, as in the
upper jaw. The Elephantoid
animal {Mastodon bngirostris, Kaup; Mastodon angustidens, in part,
Cuvier) which exhibited the above instructive dentition of the Pro¬
boscidian family, once roamed over the part of the earth now forming
England, France, Italy, and Germany. The first steps in our knowledge
of its dentition were made by Cuvier, who called it the narrow-toothed
Mastodon “ Mastodon a dents etroites,” or Mastodon angustidens.
This name was suggested by the less breadth of the grinding surface
1'ig. 139.
Deciduous dentition, young Mastodon
longirostris.
Dentition of old Mastodon longirostris.
of the teeth as compared with those of a previously described species
of Mastodon from North America, called the Mast, giganteus or M.
Ohioticus. Cuvier describes and figures a last molar, upper jaw, from
Trevoux, consisting, as in the specimen from Norfolk Crag (fig. 138),
and as in that from Eppelsheim (fig. 140, m 3), of five transverse
ridges, with a front and back talon or subsidiary ridge. The latter
is the largest, and subdivided into teat-shaped tubercles, so as almost
to merit the name of a sixth division of the tooth. The principal
ridges are divided into two chief or primary tubercles, with secondary
tubercles in the interspace; the chief tubercles are more or less
deeply grooved lengthwise, or cleft at top, so that mastication wore
them down to small circles of .dentine surrounded by a thick border
of enamel, and further attrition reduced these to a trilobed or trefoil
form.
The last lower molar of the Mast, angustidens from La Koehetta
di Tanaro,1 exhibits the same five principal transverse ridges and
the hinder one, as in the corresponding tooth in the Eppelsheim
Mastodon (fig. 140, m 3), and being the first of the series of narrow
mastodontoid teeth to which Cuvier applied the name angusti¬
dens, it may be regarded as the type of that species. The charac¬
teristic premolar of the Mast, angustidens, with a quadrate crown
of two ridges, each cleft into two tubercles (fig 139, p 3), is
figured by Cuvier, in Op. cit. pi. i., fig. 3, and again, in situ, with the
last deciduous molar {d 4) in a portion of the upper jaw of the Mas¬
todon angustidens from Dax (ib. pi. iii., fig. 2). The nature of this
quadrituberculate tooth as a premolar, i. e., as a tooth which displaced
and succeeded an earlier or deciduous tooth in the vertical direction,
was recognised by Cuvier. “ Je crois encore qu’on peut en conclure
que la dent anterieure etait susceptible de remplacement de haut ou
has, comme dans I’hippopotame: ma raison est, que cette petite
dent de Dax n’est pas encore usee et qu’il faut qu’elle soit venue
apres la grande qui Test.”2 Dr Kaup has described and figured the
same premolar in tire upper jaw of a younger individual of the Mas¬
todon angustidens (his longirostris), in which it is still concealed in Teeth of
its formative cavity above the three-lobed deciduous tooth which it Mammals,
has replaced in Cuvier’s specimen. The tooth next behind, which
is the homologue of the last milk-molar {d 4, fig. 139) of the typical
series, consists, in both the Dax and Eppelsheim specimens, of three
principal ridges and a posterior bituberculate talon, this accessory
portion being more developed in the Eppelsheim specimen. AYliether
such difference be valid for a specific distinction may be doubted, but
that Cuvier assigned the name angustidens to a Mastodon with
narrower molars than the M giganteus, w'bich had a quadri-tuberculate
premolar, a penultimate molar of four principal divisions and a talon,
and a last molar with five principal divisions and a talon, is certain.
To that Mastodon, therefore, which has the same shaped and sized
ultimate and penultimate true molars and premolar, the same name
is here assigned. .
The antepenultimate molar (fig. 139, ni 1) consists of four ridges and
Three molars are developed anterior to this tooth; the first (fig. 3,
d 2) is the smallest, with a subquadrate crown of two transverse
ridges. The second molar (fig. 3, d 3), of twice the size of the first,
has three ridges. The third molar (d 4), with an increase of one
third the bulk of the former, has three ridges and a
bituberculate talon, which in some specimens might
almost be reckoned as a fourth ridge. The two-ridged
premolar (p 3) above described, takes the place of the
second of the above molars, after the first and second
are shed. The above definition of the molar series ap¬
plies to both upper and lower jaws, the cut (fig. 136),
and the symbolic letters and numbers, preclude the
necessity of verbal description.
From the analogy of the existing elephants, it may
be inferred that the long tusks (fig. 137, i) supported by
the premaxillaries, were preceded by a pair of small
deciduous incisors. There is not such ground for con¬
cluding their existence in the mandible; but this jaw,
at least in the male Mastodon, supported two incisive
tusks, shorter and straighter than those above.
In the Proboscidian quadrupeds the molar teeth, pro¬
gressively increasing in size, and most of them m com¬
plexity, follow each other from before backwards, at
longer intervals than in other quadrupeds, and are never
simultaneously in place. Not more than three are in
use at any period on one side of either jaw; all the
molars, save the penultimate (fig. 140, m 2) are shed by
the time the crown of the last molar has cut the gum,
and the dentition is finally reduced to m 3 on eadr side
of both jaws, with commonly the loss of the inferior
tusks, as in the old Mastodon angustidens, from the
tertiary deposits of the Po, described and figured by
Sismonda.3
The readiest and most intelligible key to the homologies of the
above-described dentition, aberrant as regards the Mammalian type,
but typical amongst the Proboscidian modifications, is that afforded
by the Wart-hog [Phacoclieerus). In fig. 122 the symbols are
attached to the several teeth indicative^ of their homologies, as un¬
doubtedly determined by comparison with the Hogs that retain the
typical dentition.
The Wart-hog, moreover, is the hoofed animal that makes the
nearest approach to the Elephant in the complex structure of the
molars, in their progressive increase of size and complexity, in the
early loss of the anterior molars, and the ultimate reduction of the
series to the last large and complex one {m 3).
In Phacocheerus (fig. 122) only the last two premolars {p 3 and 4)
are developed; in Mastodon (fig. 136) only the penultimate one {p
3); in Elephas proper, even this tooth becomes obsolete, and the
guide to the deciduous molars is restricted to the homology of the
true molars {m 1, to 2, and to 3), with the answerable teeth in Mas¬
todon and Phacocheerus.'
As to the teeth anterior to the molar series, some might be tempted
to regard the tusks of the Proboscidian as the homologue of the
tusk-like canines of the boar tribe, advanced to the position of the
incisors, which are in that view wdrolly wanting. But the numerous
instances in which in Herbivora, the canines are obsolete whilst
the incisors are retained, and the true incisive nature of the pre¬
maxillary tusk-like teeth in the Rodents, show the determination of
the premaxillary and symphysial tusks of the Proboscidians, as
incisors, to be the sounder conclusion.
The dentition of the genus Elephas, the sole existing modification Elephas.
of the once numerous and various Proboscidian family, includes two
long tusks, one in each of the premaxillary bones, and large and
complex molars in both jaws. Of the latter there is never more
than one wholly, or two partially, in place and use on each side at
any given time, the series continually being in progress of formation
1 Cuvier, Op. cit. Divers Mastodontes, pi. iv., fig. 1, top view. fig. 2, side view.
3 Osteogrc{fia di un Mastodonte Angustidente, 4to, Turin, 1851.
2
Ossemens Fossiles, 4to, 1821, tom. i. p. 256.
4 Odontography, p. 621.
3 o
YOL. XYI.
474
ODONTOLOGY.
Teeth of and destruction, of shedding and replacement; and, in the Elephants,
Mammals, all the grinders succeed one another, like true molars, horizontally,
^ J from behind forwards. The total number of teeth developed in the
Elephant appears to be—
,.1.1 .1.1 , 3.3 3.3 „
The two large permanent tusks are preceded by two small de¬
ciduous ones, and the number of molar teeth which 0 ow °.ne
another on each side of both jaws is certainly not less than six,
of which the last three answer to the last three m the Mastodon
and to the true molars, m 1, 2 and 8, of other diphyodont placental
Mammals. The writer has shewn in his Odontography, that the
deciduous tusk makes its appearance beyond the gum between t e
fifth and seventh months. It rarely exceeds two inches in length, and
is about a third of an inch jn diameter at its thickest, where it pro¬
trudes from the socket. The fang is solidified, and contracts to its
termination, which is commonly a little bent, and is considerably
absorbed by the time the tooth is shed, which takes place between
the first and second year.” “ The socket of the permanent tusk in
a new-born Elephant is a round cell about three inches in diameter,
situated on the inner and posterior side of the aperture of the tem¬
porary socket.” The permanent tusks cut the gum when about an
inch in length, a month or two usually after the milk-tusks are shed.
At this period, according to Mr Corse,1 the permanent tusks are
“ black and ragged at the ends; when they become longer, and pro¬
ject beyond the lip, they soon are worn smooth by the motion and
friction of the trunk.” Their widely-open base is filled upon a conical
pulp, which, with the capsule surrounding the base of the tusk and
the socket, continues to increase in size and depth, obliterating all
vestiges of that of the deciduous tusk, and finally extending its base
close to the nasal aperture. The ivory of the tusk is formed by
successive calcification of layers of the pulp, in contact with the
inner surface of the pulp-cavity ; and, being subject to no habitual
attrition from an opposed tooth, but being worn only by the occasional
uses to which it is applied, it arrives at an extraordinary length. It
follows the curve originally impressed upon it by the form of the
socket, and gradually widens from the projecting ape^ to that part
which was formed when the matrix and the socket had reached their
full size. , ,
These incisive teeth of the Elephant not only surpass other teeth
in size as belonging to a quadruped so enormous, but they are the
largest of all teeth in proportion to the size of the body; represent¬
ing, in a natural state, those monstrous incisors of the Rodents (fig.
92), which are the result of accidental suppression of the wearing
force of the opposite teeth.
The tusks of the Elephant, like those of the Mastodon, consist
chiefly of that modification of dentine which is called “ ivory,” and
which shows, on transverse fractures or sections, strjae proceeding in
the arc of a circle from the centre to the circumference in opposite
directions, and forming, by their decussations, curvilinear lozenges.
This character is peculiar to the tusks of the Proboscidian Pachy¬
derms, and is characteristic of true ivory. In the Indian Elephant
there is a well-marked sexual difference in the growth of the
tusks. They are always short and straight in the female^ and less
deeply implanted than in the male; she thus retaining, as usual,
more of the characters of the immature state. In the male they have
been known to acquire a length of nine feet, with a basal diameter
of eight inches, and to weigh one hundred^ and fifty pounds ; but
these dimensions are rare in the Asiatic species.
Mr Corse, speaking of the variety of Indian Elephant, called
“ Dauntelah” from its large tusks, which project almost horizontally
with a slight curve upwards and outwards, says: “ The largest I
have known in Bengal did not exceed seventy-two pounds avoirdu¬
pois; at Tiperah they seldom exceed fifty pounds.” There are
varieties of the Dauntelah, in which the large tusks of the male are
nearly or quite straight; and in a more marked breed called “ Mook-
nah” the tusks are much smaller, are straight, and pointy directly
downwards. These ascertained varieties in an existing species ought
to weigh with the observers of analogous varieties in the teeth of
fossil Proboscidians, before they pronounce definitely on^ their value
as characters of distinct species. More anomalous varieties occasion¬
ally present themselves in the African Elephant, as when one tusk
is horizontal, the other vertical, or when, from some distortion of the
alveolus, a spiral direction is impressed upon the growth of the tusk,
as in that specimen figured by Grew in the “ Rarities of Gresham
College,” tab. 4, and which is now in the Museum of the Royal Teeth of
College of Surgeons, London,2 The tusk of the Elephant is slightly Mammals,
movable in its socket, and readily receives a new direction of growth
from habitual pressure ; this often causes distorted tusks in captive
Elephants; and Cuvier relates the mode in which advantage was
taken of the same impressibility in order to rectify the growth of
such tusks in an Elephant kept at the Garden of Plants in
Paris.
The tusks of the extinct Ekphas primigenius, or mammoth, have a
bolder and more extensive curvature than those of the Elephas indicus;
some have been found which describe a circle, but the curve being
oblique, they thus clear the head, and point outwards, downwards, and
backwards. The numerous fossil tusks of the Mammoth which have
been discovered and recorded, may be ranged under two averages of
size—the larger ones at nine feet and a half, the smaller at five feet
and a half in length. The writer has elsewhere3 assigned reasons
for the probability of the latter belonging to the female Mammoth,
which must accordingly have differed from the existing Elephant of
India, and have more resembled that of Africa in the development
of her tusks, yet manifesting an intermediate character by their
smaller size. Of the tusks which are referable to the male Mammoth,
one from the newer tertiary deposits in Essex measured nine feet
ten inches along the outer curve, and two feet five inches in circum¬
ference at its thickest part; another from Eschscholtz Bay was nine
feet two inches in length, and two feet one and a half inches in circum¬
ference, and weighed one hundred and sixty pounds. A specimen,
dredged up off Dungeness, measured eleven feet in length. In several
of the instances of Mammoth’s tusks from British strata, the ivory
has been so little altered as to be fit for the purposes of manufacture;
and the tusks of the Mammoth, which are still better preserved in
the frozen drift of Siberia, have long been collected in great numbers
as articles of commerce.4 5
In a specimen of the extinct Indian Elephant [Elephas ganesa,
Fr. and 0.) preserved in the British Museum, the tusks are ten feet
six inches in length, and in consequence of their small amount of
curvature, they project eight feet five inches in front of the head.
Their apparent disproportion to the size of the skull is truly extraor¬
dinary, and exemplifies the maximization of dental development.
Cuvier 6 states that the Elephant of Africa, at least in certain localities,
has large tusks in both sexes, and that the female of this species,
which liyed seventeen years in the menagerie of Louis XIY., had
larger tusks than those in any Indian Elephant, male or female, of
the same size which he had seen. The ivory of the tusks of the African
Elephant is most esteemed by the manufacturer for its density and
whiteness.
The molar teeth of the Elephant are remarkable for their great
size, even in relation to the bulk of the animal, and for the extreme
complexity of their structure (fig. 141). The crown, of which a
great proportion is buried in the socket, and very little more, than
the grinding surface appears above the gum, is deeply divided into a
number of transverse perpendicular plates, consisting each of a body of
dentine (d), coated by a layer of enamel (e), and this again by the less
dense bone-like substance (c) which fills the interspaces of the enam¬
elled plates, and here more especially merits the name of “ cement,”
since it binds together the several divisions of the crown, as at c, before
they are fully formed and united by the confluence of their bases into
a common body of dentine. As the growth of each plate begins at
the summit, they remain detached, and like so many separate teeth
or denticles, as at the back part of .fig. 141, until their, base is com¬
pleted, when it becomes blended with the bases of contiguous plates
to form the common body of the crown of the complex tooth, from
which the roots are next developed. The plates of the molar teeth
of the Siberian Mammoth {Ekphas primigenius, fig. 142) are thinner
in proportion to their breadth, and more numerous in. proportion to
the size of the crown, than in the existing species of Asiatic Elephant
^In the^African Elephant (fig. 144), on the other hand, the lamellar
divisions of the crown are fewer and thicker, and they expand from
the margins to the centre of the tooth, yielding a lozenge form when
cut or worn transversely, as in mastication.
The horizontal as well as vertical course of development of the Pevelop-
Elephant’s grinder is well illustrated by the molar, the last of the ment.
lower jaw (fig. 141). The separate digital processes of the posterior
plates are still distinct, and adhere only by the remaining cement.
A little in advance we see them united to form the transverse plate
1 See Mr Corse’s Memoir on the Teeth of the Elephant, in the Philosophical Transactions, 1799, p. 211. A good figure of the deciduous tusk is
S12GOsTeoPl!aSeries, No. 2757. The writer is indebted to the distinguished traveller, Dr Livingstone, for a similar tusk of an African Elephant, from
the Zambesi district.
3 History of British Fossil Mammals, 8vo, p. 247. . ,. T _ „ „„„ ,
4 In the account of the Mammoth’s bones and teeth of Siberia, published in the Philosophical Transactions for. 1737 (No. 446), tusks ar
which weighed two hundred pounds each, and “ are used as ivory to make combs, boxes, and such other things; being little more brittle and easily
turning yellow by weather and heat.” From that time to the present there has been no intermission in the supply of ivory furnished by tbe tusks
of the extinct Elephants of a former world.
5 Loc. cit. p. 55.
ODONTOLOGY.
475
Teeth of (a, q), and at the opposite extremity of the tooth the common base
Mammals, of dentine (d) is exposed, by which the plates are finally blended into
Fig 141.
Last Lower Grinder, Elephant.
one individual complex grinder.1 This never takes place simul¬
taneously along the whole extent of the tooth in the Indian Elephant.
into play with a prominent enamel ring; the digital processes Teeth of
are next ground down to itheir common uniting base, and a trans- Mammals.
verse tract of dentine,
with its wavy border
of enamel, is exposed;
finally, the transverse
plates themselves are
abraded to their com¬
mon base of dentine,
and a smooth and po¬
lished tract of that
substance is produced.
From this basis the
roots of the molar are
developed, and in¬
crease in length to
keep the worn crown
on the grinding level
until the reproductive
force is exhausted.
When the whole ex¬
tent of a grinder has
successively come into
play, its last part is re¬
duced to a long fang
supporting a smooth
a few remnants of the
Fig. 142.
Upper Grinder of the Mammoth, (Elephas ’primigemus).
The African species manifests a closer affinity to the Mastodon by the
fcasal confluence of the plates before the anterior ones are worn out.
& . d *
Fig. 143.
Upper Molar, Asiatic Elephant.
The formation of each grinder begins with the. summits of the
anterior plate, and the rest are completed in succession; the tooth is
d f c
Fig 144.
Upper Molar, African Elephant.
gradually advanced in position as its growth proceeds, and in the
existing Indian Elephant, the anterior plates are brought into use
before the posterior ones are formed. When the complex molar
cuts the gum the cement is first rubbed off the digital summits, then
their enamel cap is worn away, and the central dentine comes
and polished field of dentine, with pe
bottom of the enamel folds at its hinder part.
When the complete molar has been thus worn down to a uniform
surface, it becomes useless as an instrument for grinding the coarse
vegetable substances on which the Elephant subsists ; it is attacked
by the absorbent action, and the wasted portion of the molar is
finally shed. The grinding teeth of the Elephant progressively
increase in size and in the number of lamellar divisions from the first
to the last, and as the rate of increase in both respects is nearly iden¬
tical in both jaws, they are here described as they appear in the lower
one (fig. 141).
The first molar, which cuts the gum in the course of the second Succession,
week after birth, has a subcompressed crown nine-lines in antero¬
posterior diameter, divided by three transverse clefts into four plates,
the third being the broadest, and the tooth here measuring six lines
across. The first and second plates have two mamilloid summits,
the third and fourth have three or four such; there is a single and
sometimes a double mamilloid summit at the fore and back part of
the crown, and the base slightly contracts, and forms a neck as long
as the enamelled crown, but of less breadth, and this divides into
anterior and posterior long, subcylindrioal, diverging, but mutually
incurved fangs; the total length of this tooth is one inch and a half.
The corresponding upper molar, which Mr Corse describes as cutting
the gum a little earlier than the lower one, has the anterior process
or mammilla, and the posterior talon, developed into a fifth plate,
smaller than the fourth, with which its middle part is confluent; the
neck of this tooth is shorter, and the two fangs are shorter, larger,
and more compressed, than those of the lower first molar. This
tooth is the homologue of the deciduous molar (fig. 139', d 2) in the
Mastodon and other Ungulates; it is not a mere miniature of the
great molars of the mature animal, but retains, agreeably with the
period of life at which it is developed, a character much more nearly
approaching that of the ordinary pachydermal molar, manifesting
the adherence to the more general type by the minor complexity of
the crown, and by the form and relative size of the fangs. In the
transverse divisions of the crown we perceive the affinity to the
Tapiroid type, the different links connecting which with the typical
Elephants are supplied by the extinct Lophiodons, Dinotheriums,
and Mastodons'. The subdivision of the summits of the primary
plates recals also the character of the molars, especially the smaller
ones, of the Phacochere in the Hog tribe. As the Elephant advances
in age, the molars rapidly acquire their more special and complex
character. The first molars are completely in place and in full use
at three months, and are shed when the Elephant is about two years
old.
The sudden increase and rapid development of the second molar
answering to d 3 in fig. 139, may account for the non-existepce of
any vertical successor to the former toothy or “premolar,” in the
Elephant. The eight or nine plates of the crown of this tooth are
formed in the closed alveolus, behind the first molar, by the time this
cuts the gum, and they are united with the body of the tooth, and
most of them in use, when the first molar is shed. The average
length of the second molar is two inches and a half, ranging from
two inches to two inches and nine lines ; the greatest breadth, which
is behind the middle of the tooth, is from one inch to one inch three
1 Some anatomists have described the divisions of the crown of the Elephant’s grinder as so many “distinct teeth,” and Mr Corse (loc. cit. p-
213), who first propounded this view, calls each complex grinder “a case of teeth,” and states, “that these teeth are merely joined to each other by
an intermediate softer substance acting like cement.” But this statement applies only to the incompletely formed tooth; and the detached eminences
of each individual plate, or of the crown of any complex tooth, at that stage of growth when they are held together only by the still uncalcified
supporting matrix, might reasonably be regarded as so many distinct teeth.
476
ODONTOLOGY.
lines. There are two roots; the cavity of the small anterior one
expands in the crown, and is continued into that of the three ante¬
rior plates. The thicker root supports the rest of the tooth; the
second molar is worn out and shed before the beginning of the second
by virtue of the different densities of their constituent substances, Teeth of
a series of cylindrical jidges of enamel, with as many depressions of Mammals,
dentine, and deeper external valleys of cement, the more advanced ^
and more abraded part of the crown is traversed by the transverse
ridges of the enamel inclosing the depressed surface of the dentine,
kr?e poBterior root. It bopB.^ap^aW gn» >boutthe a; .Oo i, hoover, fitted for the first
Tire anterior angle is more obliquely abraded, grvrng a pentagonal
figure to the tooth in the upper jaw. The number of plates m the
crown of this tooth is fifteen or sixteen; its length between seven
and eight inches, its breadth three inches. It has an anterior simple
and slender root supporting the three first plates ; a second of largei
size and bifid, supporting the four next plates ; and a large contract¬
ing base for the remainder. The forepart of the grinding surface
of this tooth begins to protrude through the gum at the sixth year ;
the tooth is worn away, and its last remnant shed, about the twen¬
tieth or twenty-fifth year. It is the homologue of the first true
molar of ordinary Pachyderms. „ . P ^ ,,
The fifth molar, answering to m 2 m fig. 140, with a crown ot irom
seventeen to twenty plates, measures between nine and ten incnes in
length, and about three inches and a half in breadth. The second
root is more distinctly separated from the first simple root than from
the large mass behind. It begins to appear above the gum about the
twentieth year; its duration has not been ascertained by observa-
tion, but it probably is not shed before the sixtieth year.
The sixth molar, answering to m 3 in fig. 140, is the last, and has
from twenty-two to twenty-seven plates ; its length, or antero-poste-
rior extent, following the curvature, is from twelve to fifteen inches ;
the breadth of the grinding surface rarely exceeds three inches and
'a half.
The reproductive power of the matrix in some cases surpasses
that of the formative development of the cavity for lodging the tooth,
and the last lamellse are obliged to be folded from behind forwards
upon the side of the tooth. Fig. 141 shows this condition in the last
lower molar.
the pulp fit for deglutition. The structure and progressive develop¬
ment of the tooth not only give the Elephant’s grinder the advantage
of the uneven surface which adapts the millstone for its oifice, but,
at the same time, secure the constant presence of the most efficient
arrangement for the finer comminution of the food at the part of the
mouth which is nearest the throat.
With regard to the microscopic structure of the peculiar modifica¬
tion of dentine called “ ivory,” this is characterised partly by the
minute size of the tubes, which, at their origin from the pulp-cavity,
do not exceed an in diameter; in their close arrange¬
ment, at intervals scarcely exceeding the breadth of a single tube;
and, above all, on their strong and almost angular gyrations, which
are much greater than the secondary curvatures of the tubes of ordi¬
nary dentine.
The dentinal tubes of ivory, as they radiate from the pulp-cavity,
incline obliquely towards the pointed end of the tusk, and describe
two slight primary curves—the first convex towards that end, the
second and shorter one concave. These curves, in narrow sections
from near the open base of the tusk, are almost obscured by the
strong angular parallel secondary gyrations. The tubes divide dicho-
tomously, at acute angles, and gradually decrease in size as they
approach the periphery of the tusk.
The characteristic appearance of decussating curved strim, with
oblique rhomboidal spaces, so conspicuous on transverse sections or
fractures of ivory, is due to the refraction of light caused by the
parallel secondary gyrations of the tubes above described. The
strong contour lines observed in longitudinal sections of ivory, parallel
with the cone of the pulp- cavity, and which are smaller, circular, and
concentric, when viewed in transverse slices of the tusk, are com-
One may reasonably conjecture that the sixth molar of the Indian  ,   _
Elephant if it make its appearance about the fiftieth year, would, monly caused by strata of minute opaque cellules, which are unusually
from its superior depth and length, continue to do the work of mas- numerous in the interspaces of the tubes throughout the substance
tication until the ponderous Pachyderm had passed the century of its of the ivory, and by their very great abundance and larger size m
existence. the peripheral layers of cement. The close-set lateral branches ot
The molars succeed each other from behind forwards, moving, not the dentinal tubes unite with the tubuli of the cells. The decom-
in a right line, but in the arc of a circle. The position of the grow- position of the fossil tusk into superimposed conical layers takes
in"- tooth in the closed alveolus is almost at right angles with that place along the strata of the opaque cellules, and directly across the
in'use. The grinding surface being at first directed backwards in course of the gyrating dentinal tubes. By the minuteness and close
the upper jaw, and forwards in the lower jaw; and being brought arrangement of the tubes, and especially by their strongly undulating
by the revolving course into a horizontal line in both jaws, so that secondary curves, a tougher and more elastic tissue is produced than
the molars duly oppose each other when developed for use. The results from their disposition in ordinary dentine; and the modifica-
imaginary pivot on which the grinders revolve is next their root in tion which distinguishes “ivory” is doubtless essential to the due
the upper iaw, and is next the grinding surface in the lower jaw ; degree of coherence of so large a mass as the elephant s tusk, pro¬
in both towards the frontal surface of the skull. Viewing both upper jecting so far from the supporting socket, and to be frequently applied
and lower molars as one complete whole, subject to the same revolv- in dealing hard blows and thrusts. The central part ol the tusk,
ing movement, the section dividing such whole into upper and lower especially near the base of such as have reached their lull size, is
portions, runs parallel to the curve described by that movement, the occupied by a slender cylindrical tract of modified ivory, perforated
upper being the central portion, or that nearest the pivot, the lower by a few vascular canals, which is continued to the apex ol the tusk,
the peripheral portion. The grinding surface of the upper molars is It is not uncommon to find processes of osteo-dentine or imperfect
r r - r - . s • i i i-L-x .r xi.. i  i _•  —:—o e+oia/Ui'i-io fr>rm i mto the interior of
consequently convex from behind forwards, and that of the lower
molars concave. The upper molars are always broader than the
lower ones. The bony plate forming the sockets of the growing
teeth is more than usually distinct from the body of the maxillary,
and participates in this revolving course, advancing forwards with
the teeth. The partition between the tooth in use and its successor
is perforated near the middle, and in its progress forwards that part
next the grinding surface is first absorbed, the rest disappearing
with the absorption of the roots of the preceding grinder.
Structure. There are few examples of organs that manifest a more striking
adaptation of a highly complex and beautiful structure to the exi¬
gencies of the animal endowed with it, than the grinding teeth of
the Elephant. We perceive, for example, that the jaw is not encum¬
bered with the whole weight of the massive tooth at once, but that
it is formed by degrees as it is required; the division of the crown
into a number of successive plates, and the subdivision of these into
cylindrical processes, presenting the conditions most favourable to
progressive formation. But a more important advantage is gained
by this subdivision of the tooth; each part is formed like a perfect
simple tooth, having a body of dentine, a coat of enamel, and an
outer investment of cement. A single digital process may be com¬
pared to the simple canine of a Carnivore ; a transverse row of these,
therefore, when the work of mastication has commenced, presents,
bone-like ivory, projecting in a stalactitic form1
the pulp-cavity.
The musket-balls and other foreign bodies which are occasionally
found in ivory, are immediately surrounded by osteo-dentine, in
greater or less quantity.2 It has often been a matter of wonder how
such bodies should become completely imbedded in the substance of
the tusk, sometimes without any visible aperture, or how leaden
bullets may have become lodged in the solid centre of a very large
tusk without having been flattened. The explanation is as follows :—
A musket-ball, aimed at the head of an elephant, may penetrate the
thin bony socket and the thinner ivory parietes of the wide conical
pulp-cavity occupying the inserted base of the tusk. The hole is
soon healed and filled up, by ossification of the periosteum of the
socket and of the pulp next the thin wall of ivory which has been
perforated. The ball sinks below the level of this cicatrix, and the
presence of the foreign body exciting inflammation of the pulp, an
irregular course of calcification ensues, which results in the deposition
around the ball of a certain thickness of osteo-dentine. The pulp,
then resuming its healthy character and functions, coats the surface
of the osteo-dentine, inclosing the ball, together with the rest of the
conical cavity into which that mass projects, with layers of normal
ivory. By the continued progress of growth the ball so inclosed is
carried forwards to the middle of the solidified part of the tusk.
1 Haller seems to have been the first to notice these irregular internal deposits in the pulp-cavity of the elephant’s tusk. FAementa Physiologies,
tom. viii. p. 519. 2 Cuvier, Annales du Museum, tom. viii. p. 115 (1806). Goodsir, Edinh. Philos. Trams., 1841, p. 97.
'Teeth of
ilammals.
ODONTOLOGY.
477
Should the hall have penetrated the base of the tusk of a young
elephant, it may he carried forwards by the uninterrupted growth
and wear of the tusk, until that base has become the apex, and be
finally exposed and discharged by the continual abrasion to which
the apex of the tusk is subjected. , , , i
Yet none of these phenomena prove the absolute non-vascularity
of the tusk, but onlv the low degree of its vascularity. Blood circu¬
lates, slowly no doubt, through the prolongations of the pulp in the
minute vascular canals which are continued through the centre of the
ivory to the very apex of the tooth. And it is from this source that
the fine tubular structure of the ivory obtains the correspondingly
minute villi carrying the plasmatic colourless fluid by which its low
vitality is maintained. . i • i •
The matrix of the tusk consists of a large conical pulp, which is
renewed quicker than it is converted, and thus is not only preserved,
but grows up to a certain period of the animal’s life. It is lodged in
the cavity at the base of the tusk; this base is surrounded by the
remains of the capsule—a soft vascular membrane of moderate thick-
ness_which is confluent with the border of the base of the pulp,
where it receives its principal vessels. The writer had the tusk and
pulp of the great elephant at the Zoological Gardens longitudinally
divided, soon after the death of that animal in 1847. Although the
pulp could be easily detached from the inner surface of the pulp-
cavity, it was not without a certain resistance ; and when the edges
of the co-adapted pulp and tooth were examined by a strong lens,
the filamentary processes from the outer surface of the pulp could be
seen stretching, as they were withdrawn from the dentinal tubes
before they broke. They are so minute that, to the naked eye, the
detached surface of the pulp seems to be entire, and Cuvier was
thus deceived in concluding that there was no organic connection
between the pulp and the ivory.
Each molar of the Elephant is formed in the interior of a mem¬
branous sac—the capsule, the form of which partakes of that of the
future tooth, being cubical in the first molar, oblong in the last, and
rhomboidal in most of the intermediate teeth; but always decreasing
in vertical extent towards its posterior end, and closed at all points,
save where it is penetrated by vessels and nerves. It is lodged in
an osseous cavity of the same form as itself, and usually in part
suspended freely in the maxillary bone; the bony socket being des¬
tined to form part of the socket of the tooth, the exterior of the
membranous capsule is simple and vascular; its internal surface
gives attachment to numerous folds or processes, as in most other
Ungulate animals. The dentinal pulp rises from the bottom of the
capsule, or that part which lines the deepest part of the alveolus, in
the form of transverse parallel plates, extending towards that part of
the capsule ready to escape from the socket. These plates adhere
only to the bottom of the capsule; their opposite extremity is free
from all adhesion. This summit is thinner than the base; it might
be termed the edge of the plate, but it is notched or divided into
many digital processes. The tissue of these digitated plates is iden¬
tical with that of the dentinal pulp of simple mammalian teeth ; it
becomes also highly vascular at the parts where the formation of the
dentine is in active progress. Processes of the capsule descend from
its summit into the interspaces of the dentinal pulp-plates, and conse¬
quently resemble them in form ; but they adhere not only by their base
to the surface of the capsule next the mouth, but also by their lateral
margins to the sides of the capsule, and thus resemble partition-
walls, confining each plate of the dentinal pulp to its proper chamber;
the margin of the partition opposite its attached base is free in the
interspaces of the orifices of the dentinal pulp-plates. The enamel
organ, which Cuvier appears to have recognised under the name of
the internal layer of the capsule, is distinguished by its light blue
subtransparent colour and usual microscopic texture.
For the details of the action of those parts of the complex matrix
in the formation of the several tissues of the grinding tooth of the
Elephant, reference may be made to the Ossemens Fossiles1 of
Cuvier and the writer’s Odontography? in which the theories of ex¬
cretion and conversion may be contrasted.
Section IY.—Application of Odontology to Classification.
True teeth being restricted to the Vertebrate classes, their appli¬
cation to zoology is proportionally limited; but in them they form
more or less important, if not essential, aids to the classification and
grouping of species.
In this relation, however, as zoological characters, teeth possess
different degrees of value in different classes, the lowest degree being
in the class of Fishes, and the highest in that of Mammals.
Numerous rows of teeth, gradually succeeding and displacing each
other, characterise the higher organized, or Plagiostomous Fishes,
and particular modifications of form and size of their teeth dis- Teeth of
tinguish the primary subdivisions of the Plagiostomous order. A Mammals,
few other groups are well defined by dental characters, as the Pye-
nodonts, Gymnodonts, Goniodonts, and Chaetodonts. The teeth afford
good characters for the sub-division of the Sea Breams {iSpandae),
and Cuvier 3 has availed himself of dental characters to establish four
tribes of that natural family. But in most of the natural orders, and
in many of the subordinate groups, the dental system is subject to
very great diversity in regard to the form, number, and position of
the teeth; and in some natural groups of Fishes, there is also a want
of constancy in the structure of the teeth. There are extremely few
genera of Fishes that can be characterised by a definite numerical
dental formula, like that which is applicable to most of the Mamma¬
lian genera. Indeed, in the first introduction of true teeth into the
animal series, regarded in the ascending order, they manifest, like
the mouths of the Polypi, the stomachs of the Polygastria, the gills
of the Nereids, and the generative organs of the Toenice, the principle
of vegetative or irrelative repetition ; and in many fishes are too
numerous to be counted. The limits within which the teeth are
applicable as means of classification in Fishes, have been attempted
to be defined in the writer’s Odontography. Traced from species to
species, they are of great importance in the determination of the
fossils of this class.
With regard to microscopic structure, certain of the modifications
of dental tissues, defined in the introductory section of the present
Essay, are peculiar to, and characteristic of, the piscine class. Un-
vascular, or fine-tubed dentine, forms the crown of the teeth in a few
Fishes, but is more common in those of the higher classes, in which,
however, it is always associated with enamel or cement, or with
both substances.
With regard to the class Reptilia, the teeth serve to charac¬
terize smaller and more definite groups, as, e. g., the venomous and
non-venomous Ophidians, the acrodont, pleurodont, and thecodont
Saurians. Certain genera, and even species, may likewise be known
by peculiar forms of teeth ; but these are exceptions, and it is rarely
that a definite dental formula can be assigned as a generic character
of a reptile. There is no decided modification of dental structure
peculiar to any of the class of reptiles; the poison-fang is rather a
modification of form. The labyrinthic structure reaches its maximum
of complexity in the great extinct Sauroid Batrachianis of the Keuper
sand-stone, but “ it also exists at the base of the tooth in a few fishes,”4 *
and specific instances of it in that class (Lejndosteus and a few other
Sauroids) have since received illustrations in the works of Professor
Agassiz 6 and Dr Wyman.6
The only constant and general character of the teeth of the cold¬
blooded classes of Vertehrata is derivable from the brief period of
their existence in the individual, so that the few which develop
roots have these always simple and undivided, usually hollow, and
with the germ of a successor in or near them.
With the exception of the composite dental masses of the Chimae-
roids and the anomalous rostral teeth in Pristis, no existing species
of fish or reptile could be said to have permanent teeth : no extinct
species of either class has yet been found with teeth having divided
roots implanted in sockets; and the sole evidence of perpetual
growth by a persistent pulp, has but lately been given by the
singular extinct Saurians of South Africa, with two long canine
tusks in the upper jaw, which must have grown and been maintained
throughout life, of due size and strength, like the tusks of the Boar
and Walrus.7
In the mammalian class the value of the dental organs, as charac- Dicy-
ters of classification, is much greater than in reptiles or fishes. Yet nodon.
there is a difference in this respect in the different orders, and the
dental system of the monophyodont Cetacea and Bruta has a much
greater range of variation, and a less constant relation to the other
characters on which the families and genera are founded, than in the
diphyodont species. But, with respect to these also, the value of the
teeth as zoological characters has been over-rated.8
It is true, indeed, that the most manifestly natural mammalian
genera are those, the species of which are provided with absolutely
similar molar teeth, and that those genera which include species
with molars of different forms do not present the same character of
unity. It does not follow, however, that by combining species of
mammals with similar molars, a group will be formed perfectly
analogous to those which may be considered as the most natural.
Neither the molar teeth nor any other solitary character will serve to
establish a natural classification.
The molar teeth will least mislead in this respect where their
modification is most extreme, as when they are adapted to divide the
flesh of animals, in which case they must of necessity be associated
with the faculties and instruments for seizing and destroying prey.
1 Ed. 1835, 8vo, tom. i. pp. 514, 869. 1 2 4to, 1841-5, pp. 645-655. 3 Eistoire des Poissons, tom. vi. p. 5.
4 Odontography, 1841, chap, ii., p. 201. 5 Poissons Fossiles, Notice sur les Sauroides, Janvier, 1843.
6 Trans. Boston Society of Natural History, August 1843. 7 Geological Transactions, 2d series, vol. vii.
8 M. F. Cuvier says:—“Cette recherche me fit reconnaitre que tous les genres manifestement naturels, et admis comme tels par tous les
Naturalistes, etaient forme's d’esp^ces pourvues de machelfores ahsolument semblables; que ceux qui comprenaient des espfeces dont les machelfores
differaient, n’offraient point ce caracfore d’unite' qui etait le partage des premiers ; et, enfin, qu’en reunissant les especes a machelieres semblables
on reformait des groupes parfaitement analogues a ceux que Ton pouvait considerer comme les plus parfaits.” Dents de Mammiferes, 8vo., 1825, p. ix.
478 ODONTOLOGY.
Teeth of But molar teeth may be similarly modified, and equally well adapted,
Mammals. for crushing vegetable substances, which substances may be sought
for by one species on the dry land, by a second in marshes, and by a
third in the sea, or on the banks of rivers. The grinding surface of
the molar tooth, for example, may for this purpose be elevated into a
pair of transverse ridges, and we find such molars in the Kangaroo,
the Tapir, and the Manatee, as also in the extinct Diprotodon, No-
totherium, and Dinotherium. The small anterior molars of the
Mastodon giganteus likewise present this form. It would be difficult
to select, from the Mammalian class, the constituents of a more
heterogeneous group than Wjould be constituted by the character
which M. F. Cuvier has assigned as the true guide to the for¬
mation of the most natural and uniform genera in Mammalogy.
Even in regard to teeth adapted to carnivorous habits, were these
characters to form the sole guides in classification, species of pla¬
cental Mammalia would be associated with those of the implacental
subclass; and M. F. Cuvier, in illustrating his generalization, ob¬
serves :—“ Les sarigues, les perameles, et les dasyures se sont reunis
aux Insectivores, &c. &c., et je crois avoir ete conduit a ces modifi¬
cations par des motifs legitimes.’’1
The molar teeth, which are best adapted for dealing with vege¬
table food, as in the Kodents and the hoofed Mammals, shew modifi¬
cations of the enamel-markings of the grinding surface which are
characteristic of families, of genera, and, in many instances, of
species ; and which are of the greatest utility to the Palaeontologist
from their conspicuous and well-marked features, and their con¬
stancy.
It is interesting also to observe, that in their more general appear¬
ance, the patterns of the upper molars are more symmetrical in the
Ungulata, with hoofs in even numbers (compare figs. 115,118, 120,
125), than in those with hoofs in odd numbers (compare figs. 117,
130, 132).
Sect. IV.—HOMOLOGIES OF THE TEETH.
Homolo- The idea of a recognition of answerable teeth in dif-
giesofthe ferent animals has prevailed, more or less vaguely, in
Teeth. Anatomy, from an early period of the science.
When “incisors,” “canines,” and “molars” were pre¬
dicated of the dentition in different species, homologous
teeth were recognised so far as the characters of those
classes of teeth were defined and understood.
The Cuviers2 went a step further, and distinguished
the molar teeth into “ false ” and “ true,” into “ carnas-
sial” and “tubercular.” De Blainville pointed out a
particular tooth by the name of “principal,” which he
believed himself able to trace from species to species.3
The results of the writer’s researches into the homo¬
logies of the teeth are given in his Odontography in the
Transactions of the British Association for 1839, and in
those of the Royal Society for 1850, p. 481.
The first step in this inquiry is the elimination of those
classes of Vertehrata and orders of Mammalia in which
homology cannot be predicated of individual teeth. This
limits the work to the group of Mammals which the
writer has termed “ Diphyodonts.”
Only in the Mammalian orders with two sets of teeth
do those organs acquire fixed individual characters, sup¬
porting the application of special denominations ; and
this individualization of the teeth is eminently significative
of the high grade of organization of the animals manifest¬
ing it.
Originally, indeed, the name “incisors,” “laniaries”
or “ canines,” “ molars,” “ false molars,” were given to
the teeth in Man and certain Mammals, as in Reptiles, in
reference merely to the shape and offices so indicated;
but names of teeth can now be used as arbitrary signs,
in a more fixed and determinate sense. In some Carni¬
vora, e.g., the front teeth have broad tuberculate summits,
adapted for nipping and bruising, while the principal
back-teeth are shaped for cutting, and work upon each
other like the blades of scissors. The front teeth in the
Elephant project from the upper jaw in the form, size, Homolo-
and direction of long pointed horns. In short, shape and gie*of the
size are the least constant of dental characters; and the
homologous teeth are determined, like other parts, by
their relative position, by their connections, and by their
development.
Those teeth which are implanted in the premaxillary
bones, and in the corresponding part of the lower jaw,
are called “incisors,” whatever be their shape or size.
The tooth in the maxillary bone, which is situated at, or
near to, the suture with the premaxillary, is the “ canine,”
as is also that tooth in the lower jaw which, in opposing
it, passes in front of its crown when the mouth is elosed.-
The other teeth of the first set are the “ deciduous molars
the teeth which displace and succeed them vertically are
the “ premolarsthe more posterior teeth, which are
not displaced by vertical successors, are the “ molars,”
properly so called.
The premolars must displace deciduous molars in order
to rise into place; the molars have no such relations. It
will be observed in fig. 17 that the last deciduous molar
(d 4) has the same relative superiority of size to <2 3 and
d 2 which m 3 bears to m 2 and m 1 ; and the crowns of
p 3 and p 4 are of a more simple form than those of the
milk-teeth which they are destined to succeed. This,
however, is not a constant or essential character. Teeth
of each of the kinds arbitrarily termed “incisors,”
“ canines,” “ false molars,” and “ molars,” have received
other special names, having reference to certain peculi¬
arities of form or other property. The “ false molars ” in
the human subject have been called “ bicuspids.” The
last upper premolar and the first true molar in the Car--
nivora are termed “ sectorials,” or “ molaires carnassieres.”
Teeth of an elongated conical form, projecting consider¬
ably beyond the rest, and of uninterrupted growth, are
called “tusks;” such, for example, are the incisors of the
Elephant, Narwhal, Dinotherium, and Dugong, the canines
of the Boar, Walrus, and Hippopotamus. The long and
large incisors of the Rodents have been termed, from the
shape and structure of their cutting edge, scalpriform
teeth, chisel teeth, “ dentes sealprariiT The lower incisors
of the Flying Lemurs (Galeopithecus), with the crown
deeply notched like a comb, are termed “ dentes pectinati.”
The canines of the Baboons, which are deeply grooved in
front like the poison-fangs of some snakes, are “ dentes
canaliculati.” The compressed crowns of the teeth of
short-clawed Seals (Stenorhynchus) and of the extinct
Zeuglodon, being divided into points like a saw, are “ dentes
serrati,” etc. But a true knowledge of nature, a right
appreciation of what is essential in her phenomena, tends
to explode needless terms of art invented for unimportant
varieties, and to establish those terms that are the signs
of true species of things.
As most zoologists have adopted the Cuvierian system
of nomenclature and homology of the teeth in Mammalia,-
it may not be superfluous to explain what is here deemed
objectionable in that system. In it the molar series of
teeth, or those that follow the canines, are divided, accor¬
ding to their form, into three kinds, “false molars,”
“ carnassials,” and “ tubercular molars,” and the generic
dental characters of the Mammalia are formulized accord¬
ing to this system. Thus, the genus Felis has—“ fausses
molaires” “ carnassieres” “ tuberculeuses” = jj.*
This seems a true and natural way of expressing the
homotypal teeth, or the answerable teeth in the upper
and lower jaw. But to illustrate its error, the subjoined
diagram (fig. 145) is appended, in which the dental
1 Loc. cit,, p. xi. 2 G. Cuvier, Lemons d'Anatomic Comparee, tom. iv. (1836). F. Cuvier, Dents des Mammiferes, 8vo. p. 77.
* Osteographie des Mammiferes, tom. i. p. 43. 4 Ossemens Fossiles, 8vo. 1835, tom. vii. p. 14. Dents des Mammiferes, p. 77.
ODONTOLOGY.
479
Homolo- system of the Cat-tribe {Fells V.). is associated with
that of other Mammals, and in which the line marked
u Cuvier" intersects the teeth in each jaw, called t4 car-
nassieres,” those anterior to them being the teeth called
Teeth.
MlnrxnviUe.
Cuvier
Homo.
IT. Ursus.
JIT. Canis.
IV, Musbelct.
Y. Fein,
VI-
Machairodiia.
'VmHosckna.
Cuvier
Fig. 145.
Homologies of Teeth.
“ fausses molairesthose behind—a single tooth in the
upper jaw of Fells—being the “ tuberculeuses.” In this
genus the tooth {p 4) above chiefly plays upon the tooth
(ml) below, which has a similar sectorial or carnassial
modification of form; they fit, indeed, almost as Cuvier
describes, like the blades of a pair of scissors. The two
teeth in advance of the carnassial in the upper jaw {p 3, Homolo-
p 2) in like manner are opposed to the same number of £ie8 of tlie
“ fausses molaires” in the under jaw, and the canine (c) vJreeth-
above plays upon the canine below; all seems fitting and
symmetrical, save that the little tubercular (ml) above
has no opponent in the lower jaw. And, perhaps, the
close observer might notice that, whilst the upper canine
{c) glides behind its homotype below, the first upper false
molar {p 2) passes anterior to the crown of the first false
molar {p 3) below ; and that the second false molar and
earnassial of the upper jaw are also a little in advance of
those teeth in the under jaw when the mouth is shut.
In passing to the dentition of the Dog (fig. III. Canis),
formulized by Cuvier as “ fausses molaires ||, carnas-
sieres tuberculeuses || = it will be observed that
here the first upper false molar {p 1) differs from the first
{p 2) in Fells, inasmuch as, when the mouth is shut, it
preserves the same relative position to its opponent below
(p 1, in fig. III.) which the upper canine does to the
lower canine, and that the same may be said of the second
and the third false molars; but that, with regard to the
carnassial above {p 4), this tooth repeats the same relative
position in regard to the fourth false molar below {p 4),
and not to that tooth (m 1) which Cuvier regarded as the
lower homotype of the carnassial; and, indeed, the more
backward position of the lower carnassial is so slight that
its significance might well be overlooked, more especially
as the two succeeding tubercular teeth above were opposed
to two similar tuberculars below.
How unimportant size and shape are, and how signifi¬
cant relative position is, in the determination of the homo¬
logies of teeth as of other parts, may be learnt before
quitting the natural order of Carnivora ; e. g. by the con¬
dition of the dental system in the Bear (fig. II. Ursus).
Here the lower tooth (m 1), instead of presenting the car¬
nassial character, and resembling in form the upper tooth
(p 4), which is the homologue of the upper carnassial in
the dog, has a tubercular crown, and corresponds in size
as well as shape with the upper tooth (m 1), to which it is
almost wholly opposed, and with the same slight advance
of position which we observe in the lower canine as com¬
pared with the upper one, and in the four lower pre¬
molars (p 1, p 2, p 3, p 4) as compared with their veri¬
table homotypes above. F. Cuvier divides the molar
series of the genus Ursus into “fausses molaires
carnassieres tuberculeuses ~f = The tendency in
every thinker to generalise and to recognise Nature’s har¬
monies, has led him here to use the term “ carnassi&re ”
in an arbitrary sense, and to apply it to a tooth above
(II. p 4), which he owns has such a shape and diminished
size as would have led him to regard it as merely a false
molar, but that the upper carnassial would then have
entirely disappeared ; and it has also led him to give the
name “ carnassiere” to a tooth below (m 1), which he,
nevertheless, describes as having a tubercular and not a
trenchant crown. In so natural a group as the true
Carnivora, it was impossible to overlook the homologues
of the trenchant carnassials of the lion, even when they
had become tubercular in the omnivorous bear ; and
Cuvier, therefore, having determined and defined the teeth
so called in the feline genus, felt compelled to distinguish
them by the same names after they had lost their formal
specific character. And if, indeed, he had succeeded in
discovering the teeth which were truly answerable or
homotypal in the upper and lower jaws, the term “ car¬
nassial” might have been retained as an arbitrary one for
such teeth, and have been applied to their homologues in
1 Ossemens Fossiles, tom. cit. p. 59. Dents des Mammiferes, p. 95.
54 Op. cit. p. 109.
ODONTOLOGY.
480
Homolo- Man, the Ruminant, or tlie Pachyderm, where they are
°f as certainly determinable as in those aberrant Carnivores,
* — in which they have equally lost their sectorial shape.
But the inconvenience of names indicative of such
specialties of form will be very obvious when the term
“ tuberculeuses ” comes to be applied to the three hind¬
most teeth in the Hycmodon (fig. 113), which teeth answer
to the broad crushing teeth, m 1, m 2, and m 3, in the
bear and some other existing Carnivora. Ih® analogous
term “ molar” having a less direct or descriptive meaning,
is therefore so much the better, as the requisite aibitraiy
name of a determinate species of teeth. _
Had Cuvier been guided in his determinations ot the
teeth by their mutual opposition in the closed mouth, and
had studied them with this view in the Carnivora, with
the dentition most nearly approaching to the typical
formula, viz. the bear, he could then have seen that the
three small and inconstant lower premolars 0 l,p 2, p 3)
were the homotypes of the three small and similarly
inconstant premolars above; that the fouith false molar
{p 4 below), which, as he observes, “ alone has the normal
form,”1 was truly the homotype of the tooth above (p 4),
which he found himself compelled to reject from the class
of “ fausses molaires,” notwithstanding it presented their
normal form; that the tubercular tooth (m 1) which he
calls t£ carnassiere ” in the lower jaw, was the veritable
homotype of his first “ molaire tuberculeuse ” above (m 1),
and that the tooth in the inferior series, which had no
answerable one above, was his second u tuberculeuse
(m 3) in the present Essay. The true second tubercular
above {m 2) is, however, so much developed in the bear
as to oppose both m 2 and wi 3 in the lower jaw, and it
might seem to include the homotypes of both those teeth
coalesced. One sees with an interest such as only these
homological researches could excite, that they were dis¬
tinctly developed in the ancient Amphicyon (fig. 114),
which accordingly presents the typical formula.
Thus the study of the relative position of the teeth of
the bear might have led to the recognition of their real
nature and homologies, and have helped to raise the mask
of the extreme formal modifications, by which they are
adapted to the habits of the more blood-thirsty Carnivora.
But the truth is plainly and satisfactorily revealed when
we come to trace the course of development and succes¬
sion of these teeth. The weight which must ever attach
itself to an opinion sanctioned by the authority of both
the Cuviers, demands that a conclusion contrary to theirs,
and which seems to be opposed by Nature herself in
certain instances, should be supported by all the evidence
of which such conclusion is susceptible.
It is proposed, therefore, first, to show how, in the
bear, the writer’s determinations of the teeth are estab¬
lished by their development, as well as by their relative
position. As the question only concerns the molar series,
the remarks will be confined to those teeth. In the jaws
of the young bear, figured in cut 110, the first premolar
is the only one of the permanent series in place ; the other
grinders in use are the deciduous molars, d 2, d and
d 4; dJ 2 will be displaced by ^ 2, 3 by y? 3, and d 4,
by the tooth p 4, which, notwithstanding its size and
shape, Cuvier felt himself compelled to discard from the
series of false molars, but which we now see is proved by
its developmental relations to d 4, as well as by its relative
position and similarity to p 4 in the lower jaw (fig. 145,
TIrsus) to be veritably the last of the premolar series, and Homolo.
to agree not in shape only, but in every essential character, gks of the
with the three preceding teeth called by Cuvier “ fausses
molaires.” So, likewise, in the lower jaw, it is seen that
the primitive deciduous series {d d 2, d 3, and d 4)
will be displaced by the corresponding premolars (p 1, p
2, p 3, andp 4); and that the tooth m 1, called carnas¬
siere by Cuvier, in the lower jaw, difi'ers essentially from
that (p 4) so called in the upper jaw, by being developed
without any vertical predecessor or deciduous tooth.
The same law of development and succession prevails
in the genus Canis, as may be readily seen in the jaws of
a dog of ten months’ age. Although the tooth (m 1, III.
fig. 145) in the lower jaw has exchanged the tubercular
for the carnassial form, it is still developed, as in the bear,
behind the deciduous series, and independently of any
vertical predecessor; and the tooth (p 4) above, although
acquiring a relative superiority of size to its homologue
in the bear, and more decidedly a carnassial form, is not
the homotype of the permanent carnassial below, but of
that premolar (p 4) which displaces the deciduous carnas¬
sial {d 4). The symbols in fig. 145 III. sufficiently indi¬
cate the relations of the other teeth, and the conclusions
that are to be drawn from them as to their homologies.
In the genus Felis (fig. 104), the small permanent tuber¬
cular molar of the upper jaw (m 1) has cut the gum before
its analogue (d 4) of the deciduous series has been shed ;
but though analogous in function, this tooth is not
homologous with, or the precedent tooth to m but
precedes the great carnassially modified premolar (p 4).
In the lower jaw the tooth (m 1) which is functionally
analogous to the carnassial above, is also, as in the dog,
the first of the true molar series, and the homotype of the
little tubercular tooth (ml) above. And the homologies
of the permanent teeth (p 4 and m 1 below, fig. 145, V.),
with those so symbolised in the dog (fig. 145, III.), teach
us that the teeth which are wanting in the feline, in order
to equal the number of those in the canine dentition, are
m 2 in the upper jaw, m 2 and m 3 in the lower jaw ; p 1
in the upper jaw, p 1 and p 2 in the lower jaw; thus
illustrating the rule, that, when the molar series falls short
of the typical number, it is from the two extremes of such
series that the teeth are taken, and that so much of the
series as is retained is thus preserved unbroken. In the
great extinct sabre-toothed tiger (Machairodus, fig. 145,
VI.2), the series is still further reduced by the loss of p 2
in the upper jaw.
That the student may test for himself the demonstra¬
tion which the developmental characters above defined
yield of the true nature and homologies of the feline
dentition, the most modified of all in the terrestrial
Carnivora, he is recommended to compare with Nature
the following details of the appearance and formation of
the teeth in the common cat. In this species the decidu¬
ous incisors (d i) begin to appear between two and three
weeks old ; the canines (d c) next, and then the molars
(d m) follow, the whole being in place before the sixth
week. After the seventh month they begin to fall in the
same order; but the lower sectorial molar (m 1) and its
tubercular homotype above (ml) appear before d 2, d 3,
and d 4 fall. The longitudinal grooves are very faintly
marked in the deciduous canines. The first deciduous
molar (m 2) in the upper jaw is a very small and simple
one-fanged tooth; it is succeeded by the corresponding
1 J^axts clcS IH^QTyiTYllfGTGS pill •
2 Machairodus, from a sabre; and o'ioo;, a tooth. This generic name was imposed by Dr Kaup on the extinct animal which
was armed with canine teeth, like that in the above figure (c). Such teeth, long, compressed, falciform, sharp-pointed, and with anterior and
posterior finely-serrated edges, were first discovered in tertiary strata in Italy and Germany, and were referred by Cuvier to a species ot
hear, under the name of Ursus cultridens.
ODONTOLOGY.
481
omolo- tooth of the permanent series, which answers to the
of the secon(l premolar (p 2) of the hyrnna and dog. The
second deciduous molar (in 3) is the sectorial tooth ; its
blade is trilobate, but both the anterior and posterior
smaller lobes are notched, and the internal tubercle,
which is relatively larger than in the permanent sectorial,
is continued from the base of the middle lobe, as in the
deciduous sectorial of the dog and hymna ; it thus typifies
the form of the upper sectorial, which is retained in the
permanent dentition of several Viverrine and Musteline
species. The third or internal fang of the deciduous
sectorial is continued from the inner tubercle, and is
opposite the interspace of the two outer fangs. The
Musteline type is further adhered to by the young Feline
in the large proportional size of its deciduous tubercular
tooth (d 4). In the lower jaw, the first milk-molar (d 3)
is succeeded by a tooth (p 3) which answers to the third
lower premolar in the dog and civet. The deciduous
sectorial (d 4), which is succeeded by the premolar (p 4),
answering to the fourth in the dog, has a smaller propor¬
tional anterior lobe, and a larger posterior talon, which is
usually notched; thereby approaching the form of the
permanent lower sectorial tooth in the Mustdida.
When the premolars and the molars are below their
typical number, the absent teeth are missing from the fore¬
part of the premolar series and from the back-part of the
molar series. The most constant teeth are the fourth
premolar and the first true molar; and these being
known by their order and mode of development, the
homologies of the remaining molars and premolars are
determined by counting the molars from before backwards,
e. g., “one,” “two,” “three;” and the premolars from
behind forwards, “ four,” “ three,” “ two,” “ one.”
Examples of the typical diphyodont dentition are ex¬
ceptions in the actual creation; but it was the rule in the
earlier forms of placental Mammalia, whether the teeth
were modified for animal or vegetable food.
Not only the Hycenodon (fig. 113) and Amphicyon (fig.
114), but the Dichodon (fig. 118), Anoplotherium, Palwo-
therium, Chceropotamus,1 Anthracotherium,2 Hyopotamus,3 *
Ilyracotherium^ and other ancient (eocene and miocene)
tertiary Mammalian genera pi'esented the forty-four teeth,
in number and kind according to that which is here pro¬
pounded as the typical or normal dentition of the placental
Mammalia.5 When the clue is afforded, by the observed
development and succession of the teeth, to their homolo¬
gies, it infallibly conducts us to the true knowledge of the
nature both of the teeth which are retained, and of those
which are wanting to complete the typical number. We
have availed ourselves of this in deciphering the much
modified dentition of the genus Felis; and the same clue
will guide us to the knowledge of the precise homologies
of the teeth in our own species.
The discovery by the great poet Goethe of the limits of
the premaxillary bone in Man leads to the determination
of the incisors, which are reduced to two on each side of
both jaws; the contiguous tooth shows by its shape as
well as position that it is the canine, and the characters
of size and shape have also served to divide the remaining
five teeth in each lateral series into two bicuspids and
Teeth.
three molars. In this instance the secondary characters Homolo-
conform with the essential ones. But since we have seen £hs of the
of how little value shape or size are, in the order Garni- %
vora, in the determination of the exact homologies of the
teeth, it is satisfactory to know that the more constant
and important character of development gives the requi¬
site certitude as to the nature of the so-called bicuspids
in the human subject. In fig. 100, the condition of the
teeth is shown in the jaws of a child of about six years of
age. The two incisors on each side (d i) are followed by
a canine (c), and this by three teeth having crowns re¬
sembling those of the three molar teeth of the adult. In
fact, the last of the three is the first of the permanent
molars; it has pushed through the gum, like the two
molars which are in advance of it, without displacing any
previous tooth, and the substance of the jaw contains no
germ of any tooth destined to displace it; it is therefore,
by this character of its development, a true molar, and
the germs of the permanent teeth, which are exposed in
the substance of the jaw between the diverging fangs of
the molars (cZ 3 and cZ 4), prove them to be temporary,
destined to be replaced, and prove also that the teeth
about to displace them are premolars. According, there¬
fore, to the rule previously laid down, we count the per¬
manent molar in place the first of its series (m 1), and the
adjoining premolar as the last of its series, and conse¬
quently the fourth of the typical dentition (p 4).
We are thus enabled, with the same scientific certainty
as that whereby we recognise in the middle toe of our
foot the homologue of that great digit which forms the
whole foot, and is encased by the hoof, in the horse, to
point to p 4, or the second bicuspid in the upper jaw,
and to m 1, or the first molar in the lower jaw, of man
(fig. 145, I.), as the homologues of the great carnassial
teeth of the lion (p 4, m 1, fig. 145, Y.) We also con¬
clude that the teeth which are wanting in man to com¬
plete the typical molar series, are the first and second
premolars, the homologues of those marked p 1 and p 2 in
the bear (fig. 145, II.) The characteristic shortening of
the maxillary bones required this diminution of the num¬
ber of their teeth, as well as of their size, and of the
canines more especially; and the still greater curtailment
of the premaxillary bone is attended with a diminished
number and an altered position of the incisors. One sees,
indeed, in the carnivorous series, that a corresponding
decrease in the number of the premolars is concomitant
with the shortening of the jaws. Already in the Muste-
lidce (fig. 145, IV.), the first premolar below is abrogated ;
in Felis also above, with the further loss of the second
premolar in the lower jaw ; the true molars being corre¬
spondingly reduced in these strictly flesh-eating animals,
but taken away from the back part of their series.
The homologous teeth being thus determinable, they
may he severally signified by a symbol as well as by a
name. The incisors, e. g., are represented in the present
Essay (See figs. 20 and 118) by their initial letter i, and
individually by an added number, i 1, i 2, and i 3 ; the
canines by the letter c; the premolars by the letter p;
and the molars by the letter m ; these also being differen¬
tiated by added numerals. Thus, the number of these
1 History of British Fossil Mammalia, v>. 416, fig. 164. 2 Jobert, Annales des Sciences, t. xvii. p. 139.
3 Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, May 1848, p. 103, pi. viii. 4 Geological Transactions, 2d series, vol. vi. p. 203.
8 Thirty-eight instances are cited in the writer’s memoir on “ Plioloplms,” Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, May 1857. The
seeming exception afforded by the oolitic Plagiaulax, on which much stress is laid by Lyell (Supplement to Manual of Geology, p. 21),
bears upon the generalisation with about the same value as the abnormal dentition of Proteles does upon the generalised dental formula of
the genus Canis. It is objected that “ we ought, in every great amily of the Mammalia, to find evidence of closer adherence to the
archetype the farth r we recede in time ” (ib., p. 22). And the Plagiaulax is cited as evidence to the contrary. But the force of the argu¬
ment really lies in the suppression of the fact, that all the other known instances of the same great Marsupial family, from oolitic strata, do give
evidence of such closer adherence to archetype. The type of the Diphyodont dentition is a modification of the wider Yertebrate type of
dentition ; and the great majority of known oolitic Mammals exhibit that greater degree of vegetative repetitioa of teeth (as in fig. 74),
which the theory, rightly understood, would have anticipated.
YOL. XVI. Z P
482 O D 0 N T
Homolo- teeth, on each side of both jaws, in any given species,
Sie®of the Man, e. g., may be expressed by the following brief
formula:—
. 2.2 1.1 2.3 3.3 oo .
12.2 ’ C 1.1 ’ -P 2.2 ’ m 33 ~ 32 ’
and the homologies of the individual teeth, in relation to
the typical formula, may be signified by * 1, * 2 ; c ; p 3,
p 4 ; ?n 1, m 2, m 3 ; the suppressed teeth being i 3, p 1,
and p 2.
If we were desirous of further testing the soundness of
the foregoing conclusions as to the nature of the teeth
absent in the reduced dental formula of man, we ought to
trace the mode in which the type is progressively resumed
in descending from man through the order most nearly
allied to our own.
Through a considerable part of the Quadrumanous
series, e. g., in all the Old World genera above the Lemurs,
the same number and kinds of teeth are present as in
man, the first deviation being the disproportionate size of
the canines and the concomitant break or “ diastema” in
the dental series for the reception of their crowns when
the mouth is shut. This is manifested in both the Chim¬
panzees and Orangs, together with the sexual difference
in the proportions of the canine teeth. Then comes the
added premolar in the New World Monkeys, and the
further additions in lower quadrupeds, until in the Hog
genus we see the old primitive type of Diphyodont denti¬
tion resumed or retained.
The typical dentition is departed from in the existing
Hippopotamus by the early loss of p 1, and the reduction
of the incisors to in both jaws ; in the extinct Hippo¬
potamus of India, p 1 was longer retained, and the incisors
were in normal number f :f; whence the term Hexaprotodon
proposed for this interesting restoration by its discoverers,
Cautley and Falconer.
The existing even-toed or artiodactyle Ungulata superadd
the characters of simplified form and diminished size to
the more important and constant one of vertical succession
in their premolars.1 These teeth in the Ruminants, e. g.
(fig. 145, YIL, Moschus, p 2, 3, 4,), represent only the
moiety of the true molars, or one of the two semi-cylin-
drical lobes of which those teeth consist, with, at
most, a rudiment of the second lobe, as Cuvier very
accurately describes, and F. Cuvier figures in pi. 94 of
his useful work, Dents des Mammiferes. An analogous
morphological character of the premolars will be found to
distinguish them in the dentition of the genus Sus (fig.
20), in the Hippopotamus, and in the Phacochcerus (fig.
124), where the premolar series is greatly reduced in
number: yet this instance of a natural affinity manifested
in so many other parts of the organization of the artiodac-
tyle genera has been overlooked in F. Cuvier’s work above
cited, although it is expressly designed to show how such
zoological relations are illustrated by the teeth. Confiding
in the accuracy of the Baron Cuvier’s division of the
hoofed quadrupeds into “ Pachyderms ” and “ Ruminants,”
M. I. Cuvier separates the non-ruminant artiodactyles
from the ruminant genera of the same natural division, by
interposing the Tapir, Hyrax, Rhinoceros, and Elephant;
whilst the Horse, which, in the size and complexity of its
piemolars, as well as in many other characters, agrees
closely with the other perissodactyle Ungulates, is placed
in close juxtaposition with the Ruminants.
, ^ost °f the deciduous teeth of the Ruminants resemble
in form the. true molars ; the last, e. g. (fig. 121, c? 4), has
three lobes in the lower jaw, like the last true molar (?n 3).
0 L 0 G Y.
Sufficient, it is hoped, has been adduced to prove that Homolo.
the molar series of the Diphyodonts is naturally divisible Sles of the
into only two groups, premolars and molars; that the .
typical number of these is $'■$, ; and that each indivi-
dual tooth may be determined and symbolised throughout
the series, as is shown in the instances under cut 145.
If anything were wanting to prove the artificial character
of a threefold division of these teeth, and the futility of
any other classification than that founded upon develop¬
ment, it would be afforded by the attempt to determine
the homologous teeth, which is exemplified by the dotted
line which traverses the series, and which crosses the
teeth distinguished by the name “ principales ” in the
great “ Osteographie and Odontographie ” of De Blainville.
This author abandons the classification of the molar
series adopted by the Cuviers, without assigning his ob¬
jections to it, and proposes another, in which he divides
the series into “ avant-molaires, principales, and arriere-
molaires he exemplifies this division by the human den¬
tition, in which the five grinders on each side of both jaws
are formulised as “two avant-molaires, one principale,
and two arriere-molaires.”2
With regard to the characters of these kinds of teeth,
the avant-molaires are “ simple or complex,” the princi¬
pale is “ trenchant,” and the arriere-molaires are “ tuber¬
culous.” But as shape is not a constant character,
especially in the “ principale,” the author proposes another
from its position, describing it as “ being implanted below
the root of the zygomatic process of the maxillary bone ”
in the upper jaw; and stating that the tooth which
opposes it below, and is in advance of it, is the lower
“ principale.”
In defining the dentition of the genus Felis) M. de Blain¬
ville accordingly assigns one “ avant-molaire,” one “princi¬
pale,” and two “arriere-molaires” in the upper jaw; and
one “ avant-molaire,” one “ principale,” and one “ arriere-
molaire” in the lower jaw.3 In another part of the same
work, he, however, proposes another formula, viz., two
“avant-molaires,” one “principale,” and one “arriere-
molaire” above; one “avant-molaire,” one “principale,”
and one “arriere-molaire” below; but, taking either of
these determinations, or the dental formulae which heassigns
to other carnivorous genera, and comparing them with his
formula of the molar series in the Quadrumana and Man,
we find that a tooth which displaces and succeeds a milk-
tooth in one species is made the homologue of a tooth,
which, in Man and Quadrumana, rises above the gum
without displacing any predecessor; in other words, the
“ principale ” is a premolar in certain genera, and a true
molar in other genera. Reference may be made to the
concluding pages of the chapter on the teeth of the Car¬
nivora in the writer’s Odontography, p. 514, for
further proofs that a “ molaire principale ” does not
exist in nature; that the characters by which it is defined
by M. de Blainville are artificial; and that they fail in
their application to determine the teeth in the series of
placental Mammalia with deciduous and permanent teeth.
In the series of figures under cut 145, the line, “ Cuvier”
traverses the tooth or its homologue, from Man to the
Ruminant, which Cuvier distinguished as the “ molaire
carnassiere; ” the other line traverses that tooth which
M. de Blainville distinguishes as the “ molaire princi¬
pale ; ” the letters and numbers symbolise the teeth, and
indicate their individual homologies, and the binary
division of the molar series, which it has been one object
of the present Essay to illustrate. To show how these
symbols may be applied to the exposition of facts in the
ti ^ t^wr^er 8 " Remarks on the Classification of the Hoofed Quadrupeds,” in Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, May 1848.
le o er Eocene genera, e. g., Lophiodon and Pliolophus, manifest a minor departure from type in a less changed form of one or two of the
hinder premolar* a Osteographie, tom. i„ p. 43. « Osteographie, p. 43.
ODONTOLOGY.
483
Homolo- comparative anatomy of the teeth, the difficult homology
gies of the 0f ^e proboscidian dentition, and the complex and
intricate subject of the succession of the teeth in the
kangaroo, will be finally selected.
With regard to the homologies of the complex molars
of the proboscidian quadrupeds, a species of insight which
may come to be deemed, in the course of anatomical
science, as of equal import to the knowledge of the for¬
mative process of parts, it may be admitted that the mere
fact of the marked and disproportionate increase of size
of the first of the three last molars (fig. 139, to 1) over
its predecessor (d 4), the last of the first three that are
developed, seems to be but a feeble support to the ana¬
logical evidence on which chiefly the three last molars of
the elephant are here classed in a category distinct from
that of their smaller predecessors. But the value of such
indication and analogy Avill begin to be apparent when
we examine the condition of dental development in the
primeval forms of Proboscidians. It has already been
shewn that the typical character of the Diphyodont den¬
tition was more closely and generally adhered to in the
genera that existed in the old tertiary periods in geology
than in their actual successors; it became, of course,
highly interesting to inquire whether the Miocene Masto¬
dons, the earliest of the great proboscidian quadrupeds of
which we have any cognizance, manifested any analogous
closer adhesion to type than their elephantine successors,
and whether they would afford any actual proof of the
true deciduous nature of the first, second, or third molars,
by the development of a vertical successor or premolar.
Cuvier first ascertained the fact, though without appre¬
ciating its full significance, in a specimen of the upper
jaw of the Mastodon anguslidens from Dax, in which the
second six-lobed deciduous molar was displaced by a
four-lobed or quadricuspid premolar developed above it,
and succeeding it vertically. The same important fact
was subsequently confirmed by Dr Kaup, in observations
of the Mastodon angustidens (his Mast, longirostris) of the
Miocene of Eppelsheim.
This satisfactorily proves the true deciduous character of
the first and second molars (fig. 139, d 2 and 3) ; and, that
the third molar in the order of appearance (d 4) is also one
(the last) of the deciduous series, is indicated, both by the
contrasted superiority of size of the tooth (m 1), and the
more direct evidence which a comparison with the dentition
of the wart-hog (fig. 124) affords, that to 1, fig. 139, is the
first of the true molars. The great extent and activity of the
processes of dental development required for the prepara¬
tion of the large and complex true molar teeth, would seem
to exhaust the power in Proboscidians, which, in ordinary
Pachyderms, is expended in developing the vertical suc¬
cessors of the deciduous teeth. In the miocene Mastodon
above cited, this normal exercise of the reproductive force
was not, however, wholly exhausted; and one premolar
(fig. 139, p 3), of more simple form than its deciduous
predecessor, was developed on each side of both jaws ; but
even this trace of adherence to the archetypal dentition is
lost in the more modified Proboscidians of the present day.
Another and interesting mark of adhesion to the archetype
was shown by the development of two incisors in the
lower jaw in the young of some of the Mastodons, by the
retention and development of one of these inferior tusks
in the male of the Mastodon giganteus of North America,
and by the retention of both in the European Mastodon
angustidens (fig. 140). No trace of these inferior homo¬
types of the premaxillary tusks have been detected in the
foetus or young of the existing elephants. In the gigantic
Dinotkerium, the upper incisors were suppressed, and the
lower incisors were developed into huge tusks, which
curved down from the symphysis of the massive lower jaw.
The chief modifications of the marsupial dentition have Homolo-
already been described and illustrated. The observed Sies of the
phenomena of the development and change of the teeth
led to the generalisation that the marsupial differed from
the placental Diphyodont mammals in having four true
molars, i. e., to. ^ instead of to. ; and also that they
differed in having only three premolars, i. e. p. ^ instead
°fp. ^; the typical number of the grinding series,
being the same. Since, however, there is reason to con¬
clude that to 1 in the placental series, as, e.g., figs. 17 and
124,isacontinuationofthedeciduousseries of molars, which
might be symbolised as d 5, and only becomes a permanent
molar because there is no premolar developed above it, so
we may regard the tooth marked m 1 in figs. 75, 76 and
78 as being an antecedent tooth of the deciduous series,
rendered permanent by a like reason, the suppression, viz.
ofp 4. In other words, that to 1 in fig. 75 is the homo-
logue of 4 in fig. 17, and that the true homologue of p.
4 is not developed in the Marsupialia.
The homologues of the teeth of the Kangaroo are illus¬
trated in fig. 146, according to this idea of them.
The permanent dental formula of both the Macropodidcs
and Hypsiprymnidce, according to the usual view, as given at
p. 449, is—>
ss
i.i
c
y
o.o
P
y.
i.i ’
m
ii = 30.
4.4
According to the real state of things it is-
. 3.3
1 i.i
:o.o
i.i ,i.i
P i.ii.i
3.3
m 35 = 30-
The canines, which are confined to the upper jaw, are
small or minute when retained ; and disappear after being
represented “ en germe ” in most of the true Kangaroos.
The deciduous dentition of the great Kangaroo (Macro¬
pus major) is—
.3.3 1.1 2.2 1Q
i —; c —: m —= 18.
1.1 ’ 0.0 ’ 2.2
The canines are rudimental, and are absorbed rather than
shed. The deciduous incisors are shed before the young
animal finally quits the pouch ; when this takes place, the
dentition is—
the upper incisors being i 1, the molars d 2 and <7 3 of
the typical dentition. This stage is exemplified in the
lower jaw at A (fig. 146). The next stage shows the
acquisition of i 2 in the upper jaw, and 4 in both jaws,
and the formula is—
* n; ^ m 18 fis-146)-
At one year old, the dentition is-
. 3.3
1 ri¬
el m
3.3
mri = 24;
the additional teeth being i 3 and to 1 (C, fig. 146), in
which the demonstration of the true deciduous character
of <7 2 and <7 3 is shown by the germ of their vertical
successor p 3, which is exposed in the substance of the
jaw. The next stage is the shedding of d 2, and the
acquisition of to 2 (D, fig. 146). Then <7 3 is shed by the
ascent ofjo 3 into its place (E, fig. 146). Afterwards to 3
is acquired ; and in the Macropus gigas, p 3, simultaneously
pushed out (F, fig. 146).
Thus, four individuals of this species may be found to
have the same number of molars, i. e. ; two of these
individuals may seem, on a cursory comparison, to have
them of the same shape, e. g., as in C and E, fig. 146, or
as in D and F. In fact, to determine the identity or dif¬
ference in such instances, it requires that the substance of
484
ODONTOLOGY.
Homolo- the jaws be examined, to see if the germs of successional
gies of the ^eeth be present, as at^> 3, C and D, or at m 3, E. riie
ee ' result of such examination may be to show that not one
of the four Kangaroos with the m
had the same or homologous teeth.
The four grinders, e. g. may be—
2, tZ 3, cZ 4, m 1; as in C ; or
cZ 3, (Z 4, to 1, to 2; as in D ; or
y> 3, cZ 4, to 1, to 2 ; as in E ; or
d 4, to 1, to 2, and to 3 ; as in F.
The changes, however, do not
end here. As age advances, d 4
is shed, and the molar series is re¬
duced numerically to the condition
of B ; but, instead of cZ 4, cZ 3, and
d 2, it consists of to 1, to 2, to 3.
Finally, to 1 is shed, and the
dentition is reduced to the same
numerical state as at A ; the teeth,
however, being m 2 and to 3. The
order here described is not pre¬
cisely that which is followed in
some of the smaller species of
Kangaroo. In Macropus Benettii,
e. g. the acquisition of to 3 is not
accompanied by the displacement
of p 3 ; and a molar series of
is long retained.
These symbols, it is hoped, are
so plain and simple as to have
formed no obstacle to the full and
easy comprehension of the facts
explained by means of them. If
these facts, in the manifold diver¬
sities of Mammalian dentition,
were to be described in the ordi¬
nary way, by means of verbal
phrases or definitions of the teeth,
c. g., the second deciduous molar
representing the fourth in the typi¬
cal dentition, instead of d 4, and
so on, the description of dental
development would continue to oc¬
cupy much unnecessary space, and
would levy such a tax upon the at¬
tention and memory as must tendto
enfeeble the judgment and impair
the power of seizing and appreciat¬
ing the results of the comparison.
Each year’s experience has
strengthened the writer’s convic¬
tion that the rapid and successful
progress of the knowledge of animal
structures, and of the generaliza¬
tions deducible therefrom, will be
mainly influenced by the determi¬
nation of the homology of parts
and organs, and by the concomi¬
tant power of condensing the pro¬
positions relating to them, and of
attaching to them signs or symbols
equivalent to their single sub¬
stantive names. In the writer’s
work on the Archetype of the Skeleton, he has denoted
most of the bones by simple numerals. The symbols
of the teeth are fewer in number, are easily under¬
stood and remembered, and, if generally adopted, might
take the place of names. They would then render un¬
necessary the endless repetition of the verbal definitions
of the parts, harmonize conflicting synonyms, serve as a
universal language, and at the same time express the Homolo-
expositor’s meaning in the fewest and clearest terms-gies of the
The entomologist has long found the advantage of such reetl1'
Jig. 146.
Development and Succession of the Molar Series, Kangaroo.
signs as $ and 5, in reference to the sexes of insects, and
the like ; and it is hoped that the time is now come
when the anatomist may avail himself of this powerful
instrument of thought, instruction, and discovery, from
which the chemist, the astronomer, and the geometrician
have obtained such important results.
(n. o.)
0 D R
Odrys® ODRYS^E, an important tribe of Thrace, occupied a
territory whose limits were different at different times, but
(Ecolampa- yyjjQgg central part was on the banks of the Artiscus and in
dius- the neighbourhood of the Hebrus. They seem to have
been a colony of that horde of barbarians that came pour¬
ing into Thrace from the north after the Trojan war. They
were an important people from the first period of theii
settlement. Their name frequently occurs in legendary
history. Thamyris, the ancient bard, is said to have been
one of their tribe, and Orpheus is represented to have been
At the date of their introduction into authentic
(EDI
485
cal
Councils
II
CEdipus.
tures. From this period CEcolampadius was a learned, (Ecumen
tolerant, yet decided advocate of the opinions of the Re¬
formed in Switzerland. In a short time his elegant and
powerful eloquence had overcome all opposition in Basle;
and a thorough reformation of the church in that town was
going rapidly on under his superintendence. He then
went to the assistance of Zwingle in the controversy with
Luther regarding the real presence in the Eucharist. A
treatise, entitled De vero intellectu verborum Domini
“ Hoc est Corpus Meum^ was published by him in 1525 ;
this was followed, as the controversy proceeded, by several
hSory^uring^he invasion of Scythia by Darius Hystaspis, letters and pamphlets; and in the celebrated discussion in
their native mountains protected their independence against 1529 at Marburg between the championsof the two parties,
their native
the Persians ; and the fine breed of horses which they pas¬
tured on the plains of the Hebrus supplied their armies
with a large and efficient squadron of cavalry. In the latter
half of the fifth century b.c. they had extended their ter¬
ritory northward to the Danube, westward to Abdera, and
eastward to the Euxine Sea; and their annual revenue had
risen to be equal to the sum of 800 talents. The prosperity
of the Odrysse, however, had now reached its zenith, and
began to decline. A disputed succession divided them
into factions, and made them an easy prey for their ambi¬
tious neighbours. In 357 b.c., after a course of various
fortune, the Athenians wrested from them the Thracian
Chersonese ; and in 343 b.c., after a war of nine or ten
years, Philip II. of Macedon reduced them to the state of
tributaries, and began to plant Philippopolis and other
colonies in the very heart of the country. Yet the spirit
of independence among the Odrysae soon began to revive,
and even before the death of Alexander the Great they
had raised the standard of rebellion. On the accession of
Lysimachus to the sovereignty of Thrace they commenced
a struggle for liberty, which continued with various inter¬
vals till the fall of the Macedonian kingdom. The Odrysas
then became the auxiliaries of the Romans, and were em¬
ployed in subjecting the other Thracian tribes to the do¬
minion of Rome. Yet they retained a form of independ¬
ence, and were treated like allies rather than tributaries.
Augustus allowed them still to be governed by native
sovereigns, even though their king Sadales, in 42 B.C., had
bequeathed his kingdom to the Romans; Crassus bestowed
upon them parts of the territory of the Bessi; and in course
of time Rome had placed the whole of Thrace under their
control. Yet in the time of Tiberius they began a series
of rebellions, which resulted in the abolition of their inde¬
pendence, and the reduction of their territory into the
form of a Roman province, during the reign of Vespasian.
CECOLAMPADIUS, the Graecized name of Johann
Hausschein, one of the most eminent of the Reformers.
He was descended by his mother’s side from a Swiss family,
and was born at Weinsberg in Franconia in 1482. His
father, a wealthy merchant, at first intended him for trade,
and afterwards sent him to Bologna to learn jurisprudence.
But the timid youth, averse to the turmoil of business and
fond of letters, soon entered upon the peaceful and studious
life of an ecclesiastic. He studied divinity at Heidelberg,
and Greek and Hebrew at Stuttgardt; in 1516 he was
preaching at Basle, and assisting his friend Erasmus in
publishing Annotations on the New Testament; and in
1520 he retired into the monastery of Altenmunster, near
Augsburg. Yet underneath this love of literary ease
there was a strong sincerity of heart, which would not
suffer him to remain undecided in the midst of the contro¬
versies of those reforming days. Before two years had
passed, his attacks upon the creed of the Romish Church
had brought him into danger: he escaped immediately from
the convent, and took refuge in the castle of Ebernburg;
and in 1524 he undertook the duties of a preacher and a
he entered the lists against the great German Reformer.
He was still busily engaged both with tongue and pen in
refuting the Lutherans, when death closed his career, in
December 1531.
The principal works of CEcolampadius are—In Librum
Job Exegemata—In Danielem Prophetam Libri Duo, fol.
1553; and Commentarii Omnes in Libros Prophetarum,
in 2 vols. fob, 1558. His Life, written in Latin by Capito,
and published in 4to, 1536, was translated into English,
and printed along with those of Zwingle and Luther, by
Henry Bennet Callesian, 8vo, London, 1561. There is
also a Life, in German, by Herzog, in 2 vols., 1843.
CECUMENICAL COUNCILS. See Council.
OEDENBURG (Hung. Sopron or Soprony ; anc. Sem-
pronium or Sopronium), a town of Hungary, capital of a
county of the same name, stands on the Ilkva, not far from
the Neusiedlersee, 36 miles S.S.E. of Vienna. It is well
built, and has the appearance of a quiet Austrian country
town, with little of the Hungarian character about it. The
watch-tower, which is all that remains of the old fortifica¬
tions, is said to be the loftiest in Hungary. Some of the Ro¬
man Catholic churches are fine Gothic edifices; and there are
also a Protestant church, a Dominican convent, a Ursuline
nunnery, Roman Catholic and Protestant schools, orphan
hospital, and theatre. Manufactures of woollen, linen, and
cotton fabrics, potash, hardware, &c., are carried on; and
the town has also sugar refineries and potteries. Some
trade is carried on in these articles, as well as in the pro¬
duce of the country ; and large markets for cattle are held
here, at which about 40,000 oxen and 160,000 pigs are
sold annually. Many Roman antiquities have been found
in the town. The inhabitants are mostly Germans, and
about half of them are Protestants. Pop. (1851) 16,274.
The county of Oedenburg, which is bounded N.E. by
Wiesselburg, E. by Raab, S. by Eisenburg, W. and N. by
the archduchy of Austria, has an area of 1272 square miles.
It is occupied on the W. by low branches of the Styrian
Alps, while towards the E. it is quite flat. Nearly the
whole of Neusiedlersee is in this county, and it receives the
most of the rivers. The soil is generally fertile, though
swampy in some parts, and yields large crops of corn, flax,
wine, and fruits. Live stock are reared to a considerable
extent, and abundance of fish is obtained from the lake.
Pop. 207,800.
CEDIPUS, an ancient Grecian king, whose tragical
sorrows were a favourite subject of the classical poets, was the
son of Laius and Jocasta, the King and Queen of Thebes.
The following is the ordinary account of the cruel destiny
of his life. King Laius had been warned beforehand by
an oracle that he should be slain by his son. Accordingly,
no sooner was the infant born, than with his feet bored and
bound together, he was carried away and exposed on Mount
Cithaeron. A shepherd chancing to pass that way, took him
up and conveyed him to Polybus, the tyrant of Corinth.
This king, being childless, adopted the infant, and seeing his
little feet swollen, called him CEdipus. Years passed by;
theological professor at Basle, with the avowed intention of and the foundling was growing up at the Corinthian court
teaching nothing but what was consistent with the Scrip- a young man, and the reputed son of Polybus, when one
486 0 E H
Oehlen* day he heard his supposed parentage tauntingly questioned,
schlager. This threw him into the torture of uncertainty, and hurried
him away to consult the oracle of Delphi. The oracle would
give no other response than the prediction that he should
slay his father and marry his mother. Shuddering under
the prophecy, CEdipus resolved to return no more to Co¬
rinth, and, led blindly on by Destiny, he bent his steps to¬
wards Thebes. On a narrow part of the road between
Delphi and Daulis, a menial driving an elderly personage
in a chariot called to him saucily to get out of the way.
The insult was resented ; a scuffle ensued ; and the young
traveller slew his two opponents. The elderly personage was
Laius; and thus part of the horrible prediction had been
fulfilled. Unconscious of what he had done, CEdipus held on
his way ; and arriving at Thebes, found the neighbourhood
in a terrible dilemma. 1 he Sphinx, settled upon a rock,
was exacting, on pain of death, from all who passed by an
answer to a riddle; every one in turn was failing in the
attempt to give a solution ; and the population was fast wast¬
ing away before the clutches of the monster. At this
juncture CEdipus solved the fatal enigma, and the Sphinx
fell lifeless from her lofty seat. The hand of Queen Jocasta
was bestowed as a reward upon the deliverer of the people;
and thus the fulfilment of the predicted destiny was com¬
pleted. Several years, however, passed before it was known.
At length a plague fell upon the Thebans; the oracle de¬
clared that the calamity could only be stopped by the dis¬
covery of the murderer of Laius ; the seer Tiresias made
this discovery ; and the revolting secret burst disastrously
upon the royal family. Jocasta hung herself; CEdipus tore
out his eyes. In course of time he wandered forth, led by
his daughter Antigone, and after much travel, found him¬
self near Colonus in Attica. Entering the unapproachable
grove of the Furies, he remained there under the protec¬
tion of these dread goddesses till his death. The history of
CEdipus furnished the subject of several ancient tragic
poems. The CEdipus Tyrannus and the CEdipus Colonus
by Sophocles, and the CEdipus by Seneca, are still extant.
OEHLENSCHLAGER, Adam Gottlob, the greatest
poet and dramatist of Denmark, was born at Westerbro, a
suburb of Copenhagen, on the 14th of November 1779.
He was named after his father’s patron, Count Adam Gott¬
lob Moltke, who had secured for the elder Oehlenschlager
the place of organist, and afterwards that of steward of the
royal chateau of Fredericksborg. This palace, distant about
two miles from Copenhagen, and built, it is said, after the de¬
sign of Inigo Jones, was a favourite resort of the court
in summer, but in winter was left to the solitary occupa¬
tion of the poet’s parents, two watchmen, and a couple of
dogs. Here the boy grew up; and he was fond of record¬
ing in later years the delight with which he used to tra¬
verse the stately but deserted apartments, feeding his
childish eye with gazing on the portraits of heroes and
kings, and imagining for himself a brilliant future of fortune
and fame. Here he acquired such rudimentary knowledge
as the dame’s school and the parish clerk could furnish, and
he was allowed to read whatever came in his way, or could
be found to his taste in a circulating library of the capital, to
which he was permitted by his father to make exploring
expeditions on fine days. His reading lay chiefly in ro¬
mances, old and new. Robinson Crusoe and Tom Jones
shared his favour with the Arabian Nights and Siegfried
the Dragon-Slayer ; and he knew the Comedies of Hol-
berg, the German Moliere, almost by heart. In boyhood,
as in after life, he felt the beauties of nature deeply, and
was quick in the perception of character. The beautiful
suburb in which he lived a free and rambling life gratified his
sense of natural beauty; and even in the narrow and homely
circle of his father’s friends he found scope for the exercise
of his faculty of observation. The power of improvisation,
and the impulse to convey his own ideas and impressions to
0 E H
others, so often developed in boyhood and lost in after Oeh]<>ni.
years, showed itself early in him ; and before he was twelve scnlager.
years of age he was overheard by the clergyman preaching
in the chapel to an imaginary audience with so much effect,
that his unexpected auditor urged his parents to educate
him for the church. To give him an education in the
capital was, however, beyond his father’s humble means.
Fortunately for his future career, his talents attracted the
notice of Edward Storm, the Norwegian poet, who pro-
cured his admission as a free scholar into the School for
Posterity in Copenhagen, of which Storm was superin¬
tendent. Here the same activity of mind continued to be
shown; but Latin and history suffered not a little beside
the stronger attractions of poetry and the drama. Oehlen-
schlager’s mind was not one to pursue any study with
method, or to follow it into its depths. His curiosity and
thirst for knowledge, always active, was quickly satisfied,
and as quickly started off in search of some new object. As
his boyhood advanced, the dramatic faculty became more
developed. The characters he imagined, he was irresistibly
compelled to embody and to put into action. Thus he used
to write little pieces to be acted by himself and his playfellows,
among whom he soon became a favourite and a leader. His
facility of composition was even then remarkable. “My
dear boy,” Storm said to him once with quiet irony, “ you
are a greater poet than Moliere. It used to be thought
a feat in him to write and bring out a piece in eight days;
you dash it off with ease in one.” Storm, with whom he was
a favourite, looked after his studies for three of the four
years he remained at the Posterity School, when death de¬
prived him of the poet’s kind and thoughtful friendship.
Oehlenschlager took a fair place among his fellow-students ;
and, despite his desultory habits and imaginative pursuits, he
acquired during this period a fair knowledge of history, geo¬
graphy, and his mother tongue ; he was w'ell up in geometry
and trigonometry, had mastered German, knew something of
French, and had gained a superficial knowledge of some of
the sciences. At the age of sixteen Oehlenschlager was con¬
firmed, and left the school; and now the question arose, to
what he was to turn ? His father’s scanty means made it
important that the boy slxmld be speedily put in the way
of earning his own livelihood. Commerce was talked of;
but a merchant without money was, as his mother said, like
a violin without strings. Oehlenschlager, besides, knew
nothing of English, then, as now, the great language of
trade ; and arithmetic had always been his stumbling-block.
A vacancy, however, was heard of in the counting-house of
a friend at Christianshafen, and thither Oehlenschlager,
with a heavy heart, went with his father. To his infinite
satisfaction they found that the young man whose place he
was to fill had resumed his duties, and they had to return
as they went. On the way back Oehlenschlager persuaded
his father, whose disposition was easy to a fault, to allow
him to prosecute at home the studies necessary to enable
him to take his degree in arts. To these he applied him¬
self for some time with zeal, taking lessons in Greek and
Latin from the tutor of the sons of the gardener at Fre¬
dericksborg ; but his progress in these severer studies was
not great. The Muses continued to assert their mastery
over him, and his scanty pocket-money was expended upon
plays and visits to the theatre. Despairing of success in
any other career, he determined to go upon the stage, for
which he was in some measure prepared by his practice in
the plays which he had been in the habit of performing
with his companions. Having with some difficulty obtained
his parents’ consent to this step, and secured from the
necessary authority an admission to the court theatre at
Copenhagen, he made his appearance, after a course of pre¬
liminary study under the direction of Rosing, then the lead¬
ing actor there. He continued on the Copenhagen stage for
nearly two years ; but his success was simply respectable, and
O E H L E N S
Oehlen- not such as to reconcile him to the difficulties and anxieties
schlager. of a profession for which he had manifestly no peculiar
^ ^^ vocation. His office was to write plays, not to act them.
A variety of little circumstances combined to make his
position in the theatre irksome. Rosing alone seems to
have entertained hopes of him as an actor. Phis was not
enough for Oehlenschlager, and he threw up his engage¬
ment, after having remained on the stage just long enough
to learn something of the technical requirements of the art
for which he was afterwards to minister such admirable
materials. About this time, too, he had made the acquaint¬
ance of the brothers Oersted, one of whom afterwards mar¬
ried his sister. Their habits of methodical and profound
study impressed him deeply. He had seen nothing like it
before, and, contrasting their attainments with his own, he
was stimulated to retrieve, if possible, the time which he
had lost. To this he was encouraged by these gifted
brothers ; and, under the guidance of Anders Sandbe Oer¬
sted, he devoted himself for a time with ardour to the
study of jurisprudence, and passed the preliminary examina¬
tions with credit. Oehlenschlager was still only nineteen,
and his poetic powers had been quickened into action by
the loss of his mother, whom he loved tenderly and deeply,
and by an attachment which he formed for his first and
only love, Christiana Georgina Elizabeth Heger, the
daughter of the Counsellor Heger. Literature soon divided
his attention with the studies of law. He read much, espe¬
cially in the authors of the great German school, which had
recently sprung up; and his writings, both in verse and
prose, began to attract attention. He associated with men
of letters, and gave much attention to the study of northern
antiquities, mythology, and literature. The expedition of
the British fleet against Copenhagen for a time interrupted
these peaceful studies. Oehlenschlager joined a corps of
volunteers, and has left an amusing account of their ama¬
teur military career. This temporary distraction over, he
returned with renewed activity to his former literary pur¬
suits, and in 1803 published his first volume of poetry.
Some of its contents are worthy of his subsequent fame ; but
it was not until the appearance of his dramatic poem of
Aladdin in 1804 that he gave the assurance of realizing the
boast with which, in a moment of enthusiasm, he had on one
occasion startled and amused his companions, that he would
one day rescue Danish poetry from the decay into which it
had fallen since the days of Ewald. This work bears the
unmistakeable impress of genius. The luxuriance of fancy,
the freshness and exuberance of feeling, the variety and
truth of the characters, the spontaneousness of emotion,
and the pervading sense of power, reconcile the reader to
its want of compression and occasional feebleness of execu¬
tion. All the wealth of a lively and sensitive nature is
scattered lavishly over its pages. In the composition of
this work Oehlenschlager felt that nature had destined
him for a poet, and not for a lawyer. His countrymen
took the same view; and, through the interest of Count
Schimmelman, he obtained from the Danish government
a travelling pension in August 1805. With this he made
a tour through Germany, where he made the acquaint¬
ance of Goethe and Wieland, and the brilliant circle
whom the old Duchess Amelia had gathered around her
at Weimar. At Halle he wrote his Hakon Jarl, his second
play, in six weeks. At Goethe’s suggestion he translated the
Aladdin into German, and he dedicated his translation to
that poet in lines of great beauty. He followed the same
course with reference to all his principal plays, revising as
he translated them, so that they frequently appear to more
advantage in their German than in their Danish dress.
From Weimar he went to Paris, where he wrote his Pal-
natoke, and Azel und Walburg, dramas unsurpassed by
any of his later works. Here, too, he conceived the idea
of his Correggio, the first and best of the long line of
C H L A G E E. 487
art-dramas in which Germany has since been prolific, al- Oehlen-
though it was in Parma that this fine work fitly took a schlager.
definite shape, which was afterwards perfected in Rome. v-—v-*~/
After an absence of five years, Oehlenschlager returned
in 1810 to Copenhagen, where he was already famous,
and an enthusiastic reception awaited him. He had en¬
dowed some of the finest national legends with a noble
dramatic life, and laid the foundation of a national drama of
the best kind. His countrymen were proud of him, and at
this early period, as through all the rest of his long life,
were not sparing in their demonstrations of regard. Fie
was appointed professor of aesthetics at the university of
Copenhagen,—a position which he continued to fill with
honour till nearly the close of his life. On the 10th of May
1810 he married Christiana Heger, to whom he had been
so long betrothed, and whom, after the companionship of
many years of uninterrupted happiness, he lived to regret.
From the time of his return to Copenhagen, Oehlen-
schlager’s life was one unbroken career of literary labour
and of literary honour. He wrote much in nearly all de¬
partments of the belles lettres,—poems, dramas (serious and
comic), operettas, tales, and novels. It is by his dramas,
however, that posterity will know him. Besides comedies
and operas, he wrote twenty-four tragedies, of which nine¬
teen are on Scandinavian themes. These are of various
and unequal merit; but all are more or less deserving of
perusal, and some will rank among the first in the first class
of modern dramas. Like all dramatists of the highest order,
Oehlenschlager himself is not seen in the best of his works.
His characters feel and speak with a spontaneousness, and
truth to the situation, which make the reader forget the
author in the living reality of the scene. The art to blot,
however, was one which Oehlenschlager seems never to have
learned. As the first impulse came, so he w rote ; and his
writings accordingly bear many traces of feebleness, which a
more vigorous judgment would have been at pains to remove.
Oehlenschlager was scarcely less esteemed in Sweden than in
Denmark. In the summer of 1829 he visited that country,
where he was greeted by all classes with a burst of enthusiasm
such as commonly is bestowed only on conquerors or kings.
He was met on the high road by a procession of students.
Addresses were presented to him from all quarters. At the
distribution of degrees in the ancient cathedral of Lund,
Bishop Tegner, the greatest poet of Sweden, saluted him
with a panegyric in hexameters in which he was hailed as
the king of the poets of the north, and placed a laurel
crown upon his head amidst a storm of music and artillery.
Soon afterwards he was made a knight of the North Star
by the King of Sweden, and received the diploma of
doctor of philosophy from the university of Lund. Ova¬
tions not less gratifying awaited him on a subsequent visit
to Sweden, and also to Norway. In 1815 he received from
the King of Denmark the knighthood of Dannebrog, and
in 1839 he was appointed counsellor of state. Other and
higher honours were subsequently conferred upon him in his
own country ; and from the sovereigns of Sweden, Prussia,
and Belgium he received similar distinctions. A great
festival was held at Copenhagen on the 14th November
1849, in honour of his seventieth birthday, on which occasion
he recited a poetical address, in which he said,—
“ Although the end far distant may not be,
There’s life and sinew in the old man yet;
To you I drink, and drain the cup with glee,
For ’tis no funeral feast that here is set.,;
He was then in the full enjoyment of all his powers, and was
even then busy with literary tasks. But about six weeks
afterwards symptoms of a breaking up of the constitution
appeared; and he died on the 20th of January 1850. About
an hour and a half before his death he requested his son to
read to him that part of the scene in the fifth act of his
tragedy of Socrates, where the philosopher speaks of death.
488 0 E L
Oels “It is,” he said, “so unspeakably bea\itiful.” He heard
[! the passage read with deep emotion, “ and with a smile,” says
Oeniadae. t]ie biographer, “of rapturous delight. When it was con-
V'—eluded, he put an end to the reading, and took leave ol his
family.” The incident is characteristic, not, as has been said,
of the poet’s vanity, but of his simple faith, which regarded
himself only as the medium through which an inspiration from
ahigher source spoke. So it was with Oehlenschlager through
life. His poetry flowed from him under an inspiration as un¬
conscious, and often as fitful, as music from the wind-swept
chords of an yEolian lyre. When the mood passed, he seems
to have rarely set himself to the task of rejecting what was
weak or indifferent, or heightening by the touches of art what
had been left imperfect in the heat of composition. Oehlen-
schlager’s death was felt as a national loss, and his obsequies
were celebrated with almost regal honours. A funeral oration
was pronounced over his remains by the Bishop of Seeland in
the cathedral of Copenhagen, and they were then borne to
the church of Fredericksborg attended by a crowd of more
than 20,000 people, or about a sixth of the entire popula¬
tion of the capital. The prince royal, the royal aides-de-
camp, the whole diplomatic body, all the clergy, and the
different guilds of arts and manufactures, swelled the train ;
and the coffin was borne by the youth of the public schools.
Thus royally attended, the great Scandinavian bard was laid
to rest in the grave of his fathers on the 26th January 1850.
Oehlenschlager was robust in body as in mind,—a burly
man, with a large head, and features which beamed with
intellig'ence and vivacity. He seemed to be rather a child
of the sunny south than of the noi’th. His complexion was
tinged with ruddy bronze, his eyes were dark and brilliant,
his smile full and joyous, his gestures animated and quick.
His sensibilities were at all times readily moved. He en¬
joyed keenly, and his sympathies were wide and genial.
There was to the last much of the child in him; and in the
midst of their admiration his friends were often moved to
smile at his harmless egotism. Rarely has a poet’s life
been happier, or more in harmony with his nature. Born
poor, he was fortunate in the love of parents with whom
he grew up in an atmosphere of simplicity, integrity, and
piety. He was fortunately enabled by well-timed patron¬
age to follow from the first the instincts of his genius. His
country early recognised his claims. Placed by it in a posi¬
tion to pursue his literary career without anxiety, he was
cheered through life by the assurance that his efforts were
watched with interest, and welcomed with hearty sympathy.
Rich in purse he never was ; but he was rich in the love of a
wife to whom he was devoted, and of children who caused him
no regrets,—rich in the possession of all his powers of mind
and body to the close of a long life,—rich in the love of
. honoured friends, and in the admiration of his country. In
him genius was happily allied with goodness ; and the world
dealt kindly with the man whom nature had endowed with
many of her choicest gifts. (t. m—N.)
OELS, a town of Prussia, in the government of Breslau,
on the Oelsa, 17 miles N.N.E. of Breslau. It is fortified ;
and has an extensive ducal palace built in the form of a
square, and containing a good library; a Roman Catholic
and three Protestant churches, a synagogue, several schools,
an hospital, and a theatre. Manufactures of woollen, linen,
and silken stuffs are carried on here ; and there are oil and
other mills. Pop. 6928.
OENIADiE (modern Trikardho), an important town of
Acarnania in ancient Greece, was situated on the western
bank of the Achelous (Aspropotamo), about 2 miles from
the mouth of that river. Its name was probably derived
from CEneus, a legendary iEtolian hero. It stood on an
insulated hill, strengthened by massive walls, and sur-
I’ounded on all sides by extensive morasses. These forti¬
fications, natural and artificial, rendered the town for a
considerable time a formidable and invincible foe to the
OFF
Athenians. Pericles was unable to take it by siege in Oenotria
454 b.c. ; Phormion advanced against it in 429 B.C., but ||
could not pass across the swamps ; and it was not until 424 Offenbach,
b.c. that it was forced by the general Demosthenes to
take the Athenian side in the Peloponnesian war. This
seems to have been a fatal blow to the independence of
CEniadae. In the latter half of the fourth century B.c. it
was taken by the iEtolians; in 219 B.c. it passed into the
hands of Philip, King of Macedonia; and in 211 B.c. it
was captured by the Romans, and given once more to the
iEtolians. Although the citizens were freed from the do¬
minion of their fellow-countrymen in 189 B.c., they never
recovered their former importance. From that date CEnia-
dae disappeared from the arena of history. Large portions
of its walls still remain in excellent preservation.
OENOTRIA. See Italy.
OERSTED, Hans Christian. See Dissertation
Sixth, chap, vii., sec. 4.
OESEL, an island belonging to Russia, stretches across
the mouth of the Gulf of Riga, between N. Lat. 58. and 58.
40., E. Long. 21. 40. and 23. 20. Its length from S. by
W. to N. by E. is about 45 miles; average breadth, 12
miles; area, about 1200 square miles. Next to Zealand,
this is the largest of the islands in the Baltic. It has steep
and bold coasts, and a rocky undulating surface, watered by
numerous streams. The rocks are for the most part cal¬
careous ; and the soil, though not naturally fertile, may be
made productive by means of manure. A great part of
the island is covered with forests, and a considerable ex¬
tent of it is used as pasture ground. The climate is milder
in winter than that of the adjacent mainland; but in spring
and autumn severe storms frequently occur. Corn is raised
in sufficient quantities to furnish an article of exportation ;
wheat, rye, barley, and oats being the principal crops;
while hemp and flax are also cultivated. Many of the
inhabitants are also employed in pastoral and piscatorial
pursuits. Few manufactures are carried on. The majo¬
rity of the people are Lutherans; and the chief town is
Arensberg, on the S.E. coast. CEsel at one time belonged
to the Teutonic knights, but was seized by the Danes at
an early period, and ceded by them to Sweden in 1645.
In the beginning of the eighteenth century it was taken
possession of by Russia, to which power it was finally
ceded in 1721 along with Livonia, of which government
it forms a part. Pop. about 40,000.
OETINGER, Friedrich Christoph, a mystic divine,
was born in 1702 at Gbppingen in Wiirtemberg. After
finishing his education at the university of Leipsic, and
occupying himself with several learned engagements, he
was appointed pastor at Hirschau in 1738. It was about
this time that he began to imbibe the doctrines of mysti¬
cism from the treatises of Bcehmen and others. In 1765
his edition of the works of Swedenborg, in 2 vols. 8vo,
and his treatise entitled Earthly and Heavenly Philosophy,
revealed his opinions to the public, and drew down upon
him the reprehension of his ecclesiastical superiors. Yet
protected by the Duke of Wiirtemberg, and aided by his
own excellent character, he rose to a high position in the
church. After passing through several grades of promo¬
tion, he was appointed prelate at Murhard, and continued
there till his death in 1782.
OFANTO (anc. Aufidus), a river of Italy, in the King¬
dom of Naples, rises in the Apennines, province of Princi-
pato Ultra, flows E.N.E., separating Capitanata from Ba¬
silicata and Bari, and falls into the Adriatic, after a course
of 75 miles. On the right bank is the field of the battle
of Cannee, where the Romans were totally defeated by
Hannibal, B.C. 216.
OFFENBACH, a town of Hesse-Darmstadt, province
of Starkenburg, on the left banks of the Main, here crossed
by a bridge of boats, 5 miles E.S.E. of Frankfort. It is well
OFF
Offenburg built and partly walled; and has a ducal palace, several
11 churches, a school, poor-houses, theatre, &c. Its manufac-
Ohio. tures are extensive, consisting of woollen, cotton, and silken
fabrics; gloves, wax-cloth, leather, soap, earthenware, &c.
There are no fewer than ninety-five manufacturing establish¬
ments in the town, employing 6000 hands, and producing
annually about L.650,000 worth of goods. I his place is
also remarkable for its bookbinding, in which art it is supe¬
rior to any other place in Germany. An active trade is car¬
ried on in wine and other articles. Pop. (1852) 13,087.
OFFENBURG, a town of Baden, in the circle of Mit-
telrhein, on a hill near the Kinzig, 42 miles S.S.W. of
Karlsruhe. It has a town-house, merchants’ hall, school,
nunnery, hospital, &c. Manufactures of leather, glass, and
other articles, and some trade, are carried on. Pop. 4010.
OFFTCINAL, is the name applied to such medicines,
whether simple or compound, as are required to be con¬
stantly kept in the apothecaries’ shops.
OGDENSBURG, a town of the United States of
North America, state of New York, on a plain at the con¬
fluence of the Oswegatchie with the St Lawrence, 200
miles N.N.W. of Albany. It is well and regularly built;
and contains numerous churches, belonging to Presby¬
terians, Episcopalians, Methodists, Baptists, and Roman
Catholics ; an academy ; and three banks. There are iron-
foundries, machine-shops, and other manufactories. The
trade of the town is considerable; and it communicates by
steam-vessels with the different ports on Lake Ontario. It
is also connected by railway with Boston and New York.
The number of vessels that entered the port in 1852 was
830; tonnage, 347,698: that cleared, 798; tonnage, 341,188.
Pop. (1853) about 6500.
OGECHEE, a river of the United States of North
America, state of Georgia, flows S.E., and falls into the
Atlantic by Ossabaw Sound, 20 miles S. of Savannah. Its
whole length is 250 miles ; and it is navigable by sloops for
30 or 40 miles.
OGILVY, John, an industrious author and literary
speculator, was born at Edinburgh in 1600. His father
was a prisoner for debt in the King’s Bench, and could
give him but little education. Yet the boy had a practical
ingenuity, and an ever-wakeful prudence which led him
over the greatest difficulties on towards success. While
supporting himself by teaching dancing to the families of
the English nobility, he contrived to gratify his eager avi¬
dity for learning. In 1649 his literary accomplishments
had become so considerable that he became an author by
profession, and began to publish a series of metrical trans¬
lations of some of the ancient classics. His Virgil ap¬
peared in that same year, his Fables of jFsop in 1651, his
Iliad in 1660, and his Odyssey‘m 1665. Yet although
Ogilvy had gained distinction by these publications, and
although he had been appointed superintendent of the
poetical part of the coronation pageantry in 1661, and
master of the revels in Ireland in 1662, he continued to be
the same plodding and practical man of business. After
the great fire of 1666 had reduced him to beggary, he
contrived in a short time to set up a printing-press; and in
the capacity of cosmographer to the king, published a large
atlas in several folio volumes, and a description of the roads
in England from his own actual survey. Flis death took
place in 1676.
OPIIO, one of the United States of North America,
situated on the river of the same name, which separates it
on the S. and S.E. from Kentucky and Virginia; on the
E. it has Pennsylvania; N., Lakes Erie and Michigan ; and
on theW., Indiana. It has an area of 39,961 square miles,
being somewhat greater than that of the kingdom of Por¬
tugal ; and, in all respects, it is one of the most important
states of the valley of the Mississippi or of the American
Union.
O II I 489
The face of the country is delightfully varied, and presents Ohio,
a table-land from 600 to 1000 feet above the level of the
sea. A ridge of high lands divides the waters flowing Physical
north into Lake Erie from those flowing south into the aspect.
Ohio. There is a ridge crossing the state in the latitude
of Columbus, south of which the surface is diversified by
hills and valleys. Swamps and morasses occasionally occur,
forming, however, only a twentieth part of the whole sur¬
face. The river-bottoms are extensive and very fertile.
Prairies are numerous; but the country was originally
covered with magnificent forests, which are still far from
being extinct.
The Ohio River and Lake Erie receive the waters of
the state. Those streams which enter into the Ohio are
the Muskingum, Hockhocking, Scioto, Miami, &c. The
Muskingum is navigable 75 miles for steamers, and for
small boats nearly to its source. The Flockhocking
courses through a hilly and beautiful country, and is a
deep and narrow stream. The Scioto can be ascended
to nearly its source, and has many thriving towns on its
banks. Its valley is wide and fertile. The Little Miami
is less adapted to navigation than to mill-sites. The Big
Miami enters the Ohio in the S.W. corner of the state,
after a course of 100 miles. The northern rivers are
the Maumee, Sandusky, Cuyahoga, which are in part na¬
vigable, but furnish the most abundant water-power for
manufacturing purposes. The other streams are the Por¬
tage, Black, Rocky, Vermillion, &c.
Over nearly the entire surface of the state there lies a Geology
deposit of various thickness, known by the name of allu-an<1 nnnes'
vium, believed to have been made by currents of water.
One of the most important strata is a transition limestone,
equivalent to the mountain limestone of Europe. It crops
out in places, forming, at small cost, a valuable building
material. East of the Huron and Olantangy rivers the
lime stratum dips under one of shale or clay-slate ; farther
east this passes under a stratum of sandstone ; still farther,
the sandstone is overlaid by a conglomerate, and then by
the lower coal series; and, finally, the upper coal series
passes beyond the eastern and south-eastern boundary
of the state. One-third of Ohio is therefore within the
great coal basin, of which Wheeling, Virginia, Is the centre.
In several of the southern counties are extensive beds of
the best iron. In Western Ohio are found gypsum, salt,
and lead. It is estimated that the beds of workable coal
would be sufficient to last 10,000 years, supposing Ohio to
use as much as is now used in England and Wales. By
the census of 1850, it appears that Ohio produced as
follows:—
Establishments. Capital. Value of products.
Pig iron  35 L.313,123 L.261,632
Iron castings 183 429,923 639,444
Wrought iron  6 34,331 26,632
Salt  32 39,320 27,558
The county of Tuscarawas is 550 square miles in extent,
and in every part of it, it is said, coal may be found. Pro¬
fessor Mather, in his report on the geology of the state,
estimates the quantity of coal in this county alone at
80,000 millions of bushels! In 1840 the production of
coal in Ohio is stated at 2,382,368 bushels, in 1848 at
6,538,968, in 1857 at 40,000,000 bushels; and the pro¬
duction of iron has swelled to the aggregate of 100,000
tons. The coal is bituminous. A belt of ironstone, aver¬
aging 12 miles in width, is 100 miles or more in length. Salt
springs are numerous, and salt-works are frequent and suc¬
cessful. Marble, freestone, and gypsum occur.
Ohio is noted for the fertility of its soil. Where the
transition lime rock is the upper stratum, as it is in nearly
half the state, the soil is remarkably adapted to wheat and
grass; and, indeed, seven-eighths of the state are considered
well adapted to the growth of wheat. What is known as
3 Q
vol. xvr.
490
Ohio.
Climate.
Forests.
Agricul¬
ture.
Manufac¬
tures.
Commerce.
OHIO.
the Connecticut Reserve, having a shale and sandstone
basis, is less fertile, yet pi'oducing fruits and grains suitable
to the climate. About 25,000,000 acres of land in the
state could be brought into cultivation, and would support
many millions of inhabitants.
On account of its elevation, the climate of Ohio is seve¬
ral degrees lower in average temperature than on the same
parallel in the Atlantic states. The summer is subject to
tornadoes, but the autumn is always serene and pleasant,
though the winters are occasionally severe. Along the
valley of the Ohio the temperature is milder than in the
interior, but fever and agues prevail to some extent in this
section. The climate otherwise is very healthy, as much
so as that of the majority of the states.
In the forests are found black walnut, oak, hickory, sugar
and other maple, beech, poplar, ash, sycamore, papaw,
buckeye, cherry, dogwood, elm, hornbeam. The cypress
is almost the only evergreen, and it is but scanty. Medi¬
cinal roots, such as ginseng, valerian, columbo, snake-root,
blood-root, &c., are found. Fish and game are abundant.
At the last federal census (1850), it appeared that there
were in Ohio 143,807 farms, having under cultivation about
10,000,000 of acres, with about 8,000,000 more inclosed,
but unimproved. The average number of acres to each
farm was 125 : average value of farm, L.518; and of farm¬
ing implements, L.37. Gross value of all the farms in the
state, with their implements and machinery, L.77,500,000.
The number of horses, asses, and mules, was 466,820; milch
cows, 544,490; working oxen, 65,381 ; sheep, 3,942,929 ;
and swine, 1,964,770. The total value of live stock was
L.9,192,027 ; of animals slaughtered, L.1,549,839. The
quantity of wheat raised was 14,487,351 bushels; of rye,
425,918; oats, 13,472,000; Indian corn, 59,078,695; po¬
tatoes, 5,245,760; barley, 212,440; buck-wheat, 638,060;
hay, 1,443,142 tons; maple sugar, 4,588,000 ib.; tobacco,
10,454,449 ; wool, 10,196,371; silk cocoons, 1552; and
wine, 11,524 gallons.
Only another of the United States exceeded Ohio in
the production of wheat. The other agricultural products
are hops; clover and grass seed ; pease and beans; market,
nursery, and orchard products; flax seed, flax, and hemp.
The produce of the vineyards is large, and commands a
market in all parts of the Union.
Ohio, in the possession of coal and iron, may be said to
have few rivals in capacity as a manufacturing state, when
the full fruition of her reasonable hopes are realized. In
1850, she manufactured cotton goods to the value of
L.231,462 ; pig-iron to about the same amount; castings,
L.639,435; wrought-iron, L.26,632. She distilled or
brewed nearly 100,000 barrels of ale, and 12,000,000 gallons
of whisky, &c. The gross statistics of all the manufac¬
tures are as follows:—Establishments, 10,622 ; capital,
L.6,045,733 ; raw material used, L.7,224,586; hands em¬
ployed, 51,500; wages paid, L.2,805,758; annual pro¬
duct, L.l 3,051,507.
Ohio being an inland state, must show very low figures
in the foreign commerce of the Union. For the inland or
home trade she enjoys advantages on account of her posi¬
tion with reference to the Ohio, the Mississippi, and the
lakes, together with her great works of internal improve¬
ments, enjoyed by few, if any, of the other states. One of
her leading authorities says, at the close of 1857, that her
production of corn has reached to 90,000,000 bushels, and
of wheat to 22,000,000. He estimates the total agri¬
cultural, mining, and manufacturing produce of Ohio for
that year at L.40,800,000; and says that Ohio is now
worth L.200,000,000, and that three-fourths of it have
been made out of the profits of labour applied in the in¬
dustrial pursuits. She exports L.12,500,000 of products,
besides enjoying the commerce of her neighbours.
The annual statement of commerce, published at Cin¬
cinnati, shows that the total produce received at that city Ohio,
in 1856-57 reached L.l6,060,444 ; and that the exports
were L.l 1,800,447. In the city and vicinity 500,000 bar¬
rels of whisky are distilled, consuming 8,000,000 bushels of
corn and other grain. Number of hogs packed, 344,512.
The city is increasing as a wheat, flour, and tobacco mart.
Over 500,000 gallons of wine are produced from the vine¬
yards in the vicinity, giving employment to a large number
of persons, and producing large returns to capital.
The Ohio Canal was completed in 1832, from the Ohio Internal
River to Lake Erie, 307 miles. Its branches or feeders improve-
are,—the Columbus branch, 10 miles in length ; the Lancas- nients.
ter branch, 9 miles ; the Athens extension to Hocking, a
prolongation of the Lancaster, 56 miles; the Zanesville
branch, of 14 miles, connects the Ohio Canal with the
Muskingum improvement, by which another channel is
opened to the Ohio River at Marietta; the Walhonding
branch is 25 miles in length.
The Miami Canal connects Cincinnati with Lake Erie,
270 miles, and was completed in 1832, with several
branches. The whole number of miles of canals constructed
by the state is 827, at a cost of over L.3,000,000. The
other canals, which are private property, are the Sandy and
Beaver, 76 miles, extending from the Ohio Canal to the
Ohio River, at the mouth of the Beaver; the Mahoning
Canal, 77 miles. The canals have, however, in part yielded
to the railroads, and are in general far from being works
of the first class.
The oldest railroads are the Little Miami, from Cincin¬
nati to Springfield, 84 miles; the Mad River, from Lake
Erie to Springfield, 134 miles; the Mansfield and San¬
dusky ; the Lake Erie and Kalamazoo, from Toledo, on
Lake Erie, to Adrien, forming a junction with the Michi¬
gan Southern Road, to which it forms an outlet to the
roads of Ohio, 35 miles. It would occupy too much space,
however, to enter into a detail of the numerous railroad
routes now in operation in Ohio. They constitute several
great lines, running through the States from east to west,
and from north to south, bringing nearly every county and
town in its limits within reach of railroad improvement.
Perhaps one of the most important of all these great works
is the Ohio and Mississippi Railroad, 330 miles in length,
which has been lately completed, and connects by a direct
route the cities of Cincinnati and St Louis. The railroads in
progress or in operation in Ohio, at this time, make up an ag¬
gregate length of 3000 miles; the surface of the country being
most favourable to their construction. There are no lines
of pre-eminent importance, because it is said that trade and
commerce are not, as in other states, forced into peculiar
channels by the natural configuration of the country.
Among the cities are Cincinnati, which is known as the Cities.
“ Queen of the West,” supposed now to have a population
of over 200,000, making it the fifth city of the American
Union; Columbus, the capital of the state, is the centre
of a rich country, which is daily adding to its opulence and
extent; Dayton is at the meeting of various railroad lines,
and is therefore accessible from every point; Zanesville,
on the Muskingum, is in the midst of a rich and populous
valley region; Chillicothe, on the Scioto, is inclosed by
picturesque hills; Springfield is at the junction of the
Mad River and Lagonda Creek, which affords every variety
for mill-sites; Stenbenville and Portsmouth are on the
Ohio ; Sandusky city is on Lake Erie ; and Toledo on the
Maumee River, at the terminus of the Wabash and Erie
Canal.
The amount appropriated for schools in Ohio from the Education,
several state funds reached, in 1855, L.544,540. The rfd'g1011*
whole number of common schools was 12,012; number &c>
of scholars attending, 357,547 males, and 311,477 females.
Total number of school-houses 7830, which had been
erected at a cost of L.464,561. There are 91 high schools,
Ohio.
OKI
having about 4000 scholars ; and 88 schools for coloured
children, with about the same number of attendants.
There were also a large number of German schools, adapted
to that class of population.
Twenty-six daily newspapers were printed in 1850, 10
tri-weekly, 201 weekly; total of all classes, 261, printing
annually 30,447,407 copies. The total number of libraries,
other than private, was 352, having 186,828 volumes.
The whole number of paupers reported was but 1673.
There is a lunatic asylum at Columbus, which had at the
last statement 261 inmates. Two other institutions of like
character have been opened at Newburg and Dayton.
The Ohio penitentiary at Columbus has about 600 inmates.
A library and schools are attached to the prison, and the
convicts are instructed in the elementary branches. The
state derives a small revenue from the institution. There
is a deaf and dumb asylum, with 148 occupants; and a
blind asylum, containing 72.
The value of church property in Ohio, by the census of
1850, was L.2,413,812, and the number of the church
sittings was 1,457,769; the Methodist being the pre¬
dominating sect, giving, with the Baptists, one-half of the
whole number of seats.
There were, in 1850, 26 colleges, with 3621 pupils ; 206
academies and private schools, with 15,052 pupils; 66,020
persons in the state over twenty years of age were in¬
capable of reading and writing, or about 3 per cent, of that
class, which compares very favourably with other western
states.
lievenue. The total revenue of the state of Ohio in the year end¬
ing with January 1856 was L.756,492, and the expen¬
diture L.731,681. The state cannot, by its constitution,
contract debt for internal improvement. Total debt in
1856, L.3,390,334; value of the real estate at the same
time, L.120,387,191; and of the personal estate,
L,58,962,250. Total taxes of all sorts, L.1,765,520.
History. After the western exploration of Marquette (1673) from
Canada, and the expedition of D’Iberville to the mouth of
the Mississippi and up its stream, the French began the
construction of forts throughout the extensive region which
they embraced. Thus was founded their claim to Ohio ;
whilst the English, on the other hand, claimed it from
grants made by their crown, which extended from sea to
sea, and from a cession made by the six nations of Indians,
who claimed the entire sovereignty of the Ohio valley.
The English Ohio Company having made a settlement on
the Great Miami, it was destroyed by the French in 1752,
at which time war occurring between the two nations,
many hostile expeditions were conducted with different
results. The defeat of Braddock was followed by the
victories of Dunmore. On the return of peace in 1763,
the whole of Canada was ceded to England, and with it all
the territory to the east of the Mississippi River. After the
War of Independence the whole of the western lands held
by the several states were ceded to the federal government.
Surveys and sales of these lands being at once made, the
Ohio New England Company purchased a tract lying
adjacent to the Scioto and Muskingum rivers, where, in 1788,
Marietta was begun, the first permanent settlement in
Ohio. Governor Arthur St Clair was appointed territorial
governor.
In 1787 John Cleves Symmes purchased from Congress
a million of acres in Ohio, northward from the Ohio River,
and between the two Miamis, in which region was founded
the second settlement at Columbia, about five miles distant
from the present city of Cincinnati. Mathias Denman
purchased for 500 dollars the site on which Cincinnati is
built, and the first cabin was erected in 1788. Other
settlements immediately followed. The Indians, in despite
of all treaty stipulation, continued to harass the settlers.
Block-houses were constructed; and in 1789 Fort Wash-
O H I
ington, as a means of protection, was begun. These
aggressions continuing, General Harmar, with 1300 men, v-
marched against the Indian towns, but was compelled to
retreat. In 1791 General St Clair, at the head of an army
of 3000 men, undertaking a similar enterprise, was attacked
by a combination of nearly all the north-western tribes,
and after a gallant struggle, sustained a most disastrous
defeat. The result of those reverses was severely felt in
the settlement, and for some time the tide of emigration
actually ceased. In 1794 General Wayne assembled an
army at Greenville, and soon obtained a decisive victory
over a force of 2000 warriors, at the rapids of the Maumee.
Not until the country was laid waste, and forts on every
hand were seen springing up, did these hardy warriors
abandon their futile struggles. “When we consider,” says
an authority, “ the fierce and unrelenting warfare waged
by the Indian tribe upon the white settlements of the West,
during thirty-seven years of almost uninterrupted conflict
from 1757, when the first white man was killed in Ken¬
tucky, down to the period of Wyne’s victory, we may form
some faint idea of the toil and perils and sufferings of the
bold and hardy race of the pioneers who effected the
colonization of the Western World. An Indian chief, at
the conclusion of a treaty yielding up the right of soil in
Kentucky, said to Boone,—‘ Brother, we have given you a
fine land, but I think you will have trouble to settle it;’ and
his prediction was fully verified there and elsewhere.”
Constant streams of population began now to pour into
Ohio. Connecticut sent many to her reserved tract border¬
ing on Lake Erie. In 1798 the inhabitants of the territory
numbered 5000, with eight organized counties. The first
meeting of territorial legislature was held in September
1799. William Henry Harrison, then secretary of the
territory, and afterwards president of the United States,
was at that time elected to Congress. In 1802 the federal
government authorized a convention to form a state con¬
stitution. It sat at Chillicothe ; and Ohio was admitted into
the Federal Union soon after. The first legislature met in
the same place in 1803; and two years later the United
States acquired, by another Indian treaty, the reserve west
of the Cuyahoga River, and subsequently the Maumee and
Sandusky region. In 1811 the Indians were defeated by
General Harrison at Tippecanoe; and in 1816 the seat of
government was removed from Chillicothe to Columbus,
where it now is.
491
Ohio.
Population.
Whites.
Coloured
1800.
45,028
337
228,861
1,899
576,572
4,862
Total. 45,365 230,760 581,434 937,903 1,519,467 1,980,329
928,329
9,574
1,502,122
17,345
1,950,050
25,279
Density to the square mile in 1840, 38'02; 1850, 49’55.
Of the total population, but 1,219,452 were born in the state,
and 538,134 in the other American states; and 218,512
were born in foreign countries. Of these, about 120,000
were of German origin.
Ohio, a river of the United States of North America, is
formed by the confluence of the Alleghany and Mononga-
hela, which rise in the Alleghany Mountains, and unite at
Pittsburg, in the west of Pennsylvania. It then flows
generally towards the S.E., separating the states of Ohio,
Indiana, and Illinois, on the right, from those of Virginia
and Kentucky, on the left; and falls into the Mississippi
1216 miles above its mouth; N. Lat. 37., W. Long. 89.
10. Its whole length is more than 950 miles; but its
length in a straight line is not more than 614. At the con¬
fluence of the two great branches, the Ohio is somewhat
more than 600 yards wide, and it immediately assumes that
broad, placid, and beautiful aspect which it maintains to its
492 O H L
Ohlau junction with the Mississippi. Its breadth varies exceed-
II ingly, being in some parts 1400 yards, whilst in others it is
^ , only 400 yards across. Between Pittsburg and its mouth
V**vr*" it is diversified with about 100 considerable islands, besides
a great number of tow-heads (or barren sandy islands over¬
grown with willows) and sand-bars, which in low stages of
the water greatly impede navigation. Some of these islands
are of exquisite beauty, and afford most lovely situations for
retired farms. The passages among them, and the sand¬
bars at their head, are great difficulties in the navigation of
the river. Notwithstanding these obstacles, however, it is
well adapted for boat navigation, the current being re¬
markably smooth and gentle, excepting at Louisville in
Kentucky, where it is broken by falls, the water running
for several miles with great rapidity, although not so much
so as to be insurmountable by boats. A canal round these
falls, a work of great magnitude and utility, has been com¬
pleted. The annual range of the Ohio, from low to high
water, is about 50 feet; the extreme range is 10 feet more.
When lowest it may be forded at several places above Cin¬
cinnati. Throughout the year it is subject to sudden and
very considerable elevations and depressions. Generally, the
navigation is obstructed by floating ice for five or six weeks
in winter. When the river is at its mean height, its current
is about 3 miles an hour ; when higher and rising it is more ;
and when very low it does not exceed 2 miles an hour. The
Ohio and all its tributaries cannot, it is believed, have less
than 5000 miles of waters navigable for boats ; and taking
all circumstances into account, few rivers in the world can
vie with it, either in utility or beauty. From its very com¬
mencement it affords most delightful prospects. Rivers of
a romantic and beautiful character flow into it almost at
equal distances, like lateral canals. The aspect of the
country on the banks has much grandeur, softness, and
variety. Of the rivers and creeks which join it, the follow¬
ing are all navigable by steamboats for considerable dis¬
tances, viz., the Muskingum, Great Kanawha, Big Sandy,
Scioto, Miami, Kentucky, Green, Wabash, Cumberland,
and Tennessee. The last is by far the largest and most
important tributary of the Ohio, watering considerable por¬
tions of Alabama, Tennessee, and Kentucky. Of creeks
and smaller rivers there are probably nearly two hundred
which enter the Ohio ; but a list of them would only be a
dry catalogue of uncouth names. The area watered by the
Ohio and its affluents is estimated at 200,000 square miles.
OHLAU, or Olau, a town of Prussia, province of Si¬
lesia, government of Breslau, on the right bank of the
Ohlau and left of the Oder, 18 miles S.E. of Breslau. It
has a large castle, several churches, an orphan hospital, and
a poor-house. There are extensive tobacco manufactories
and a flour-mill, besides breweries, distilleries, &c. Pop.
6079.
OHRDIIUF, a town of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, in the
principality of Gotha, on the Ohra, 8 miles S. of Gotha. It
has a castle, a newly-erected town-hall, and several churches
and schools. Manufactures of woollen cloth, porcelain, or¬
gans, &c., are carried on here ; and there are also numerous
mills and bleach-works. The trade is considerable in wool,
coals, &c. Pop. 4559.
OICIT, Loch, a lake of Scotland, county of Inverness,
between Loch Ness and Loch Lochy. It is about 4 miles
in length by 1^- in breadth ; it receives the Glengarry River,
and discharges its waters by the Oich into Loch Ness.
Phis loch is connected by the Caledonian Canal with Loch
Ness and Loch Lochy.
OILS. Under this head is ranged a group of organic
compounds of great interest, both on account of their
great economic value, and from the fact that they occur
abundantly both in animals and plants. They consist
chiefly of carbon and hydrogen, but more or less of oxygen
is generally associated with them, and causes considerable
O I L
variation in their qualities. They are either solid or liquid, Oils,
and in the former condition are more frequently termed/ate,
These flits are more abundant in the animal than in the vege¬
table kingdom. Oils, whether liquid or solid, usually consist
of three other substances, two of which, stearine (ariap,
suet), and margarine (gapyapov, a pearl), are solid ; and the
other, elaine or oleine, is liquid at ordinary temperatures.
They are all from 6° to 9° lighter than water, and their
liquid or solid condition depends upon the proportion in
which their component parts are mixed. Thus, in the fats
the oleine exists in small quantity, and in the liquid oils it is
the chief constituent. A certain degree of heat is necessary
to the mixture, for at low temperatures there is a tendency to
separation : the stearine and margarine are precipitated
and solidified, and, if pressed, can be entirely freed from the
oleine. Both oils and fats, when boiled with water and al¬
kali, undergo the peculiar process of saponification, or, in
other words, solidify, and become converted into soap;
during this process a liquid of a sweet taste, called glycerine,
is given off. (See Glycerine). Glycerine exists in oil and
fats as a base to which stearic, margaric, and oleic acids are
united, forming stearine, margarine, and oleine.
The principal uses to which oils and fats are applied are
soap-making, illumination by candles or oil, lubricating
machinery, and dressing cloth. They are easily separated
by moderate pressure from the animal or vegetable tissues
which contain them, but are not usually pure until they are
rendered so by clarifying.
Of the animal oils, those are chiefly solid which are Fised and
yielded by the mammals and birds; whilst those derived volal'le
from reptiles and fishes are for the most part liquid at the 0lls•
ordinary temperature. The true oils and fats are unchanged
when heated even to a temperature above 400°; but there
is another group of compound substances, termed essential
oils, yielded bv the vegetable kingdom, which are volatile
at ordinary temperatures; hence the term fixed oils \s often
applied to the former, and volatile oils to the latter. The
volatility of the essential oils renders distillation a ready
means of procuring many of them. They resemble the
fixed oils in many respects, but differ materially in others ;
for instance, they do not undergo saponification when treated
with alkalies; like them, however, they often separate at
low temperatures into solid and liquid portions,—the former
called stearopten, the latter elceopten. They are very
slightly soluble in water, and they differ materially in the
sensation they produce on the skin. Instead of the smooth
soft feel of the true oils, they are harsh and rough to the
touch. The essential oils are mostly pure hydro-carbons,
but many are capable of absorbing oxygen when exposed
to the air, which darkens their colour, and renders them
resinous in appearance, a result which may be seen gene¬
rally around the mouths of bottles in which they are kept.
Some are obtained already oxidized, and some are found to
contain sulphur: hence they have been classified as pure
hydro-carbons, when free from oxygen; oxidized essences,
when obtained in combination with oxygen; and sulphu¬
retted essences, when combined with sulphur. The com¬
binations which the essential oils enter into render them
peculiarly interesting to the student in organic chemistry.
They appear to be the cause of all the more remarkable
odours and flavours which characterize plants; and as they
can generally be separated easily, they are very valuable in
an economic point of view, affording us the means of con¬
centrating and retaining the perfumes of the most evanes¬
cent flowers, and in the same way of preserving the most
pungent and delicate flavours.
Essential oils are in some instances procured by simple
pressure, as those from the rind of the orange tribe; others
are distilled with water, and float upon the condensed water
in the receiver. Some, however, are so easily destroyed by
these processes, that they can only be obtained by the power
OILS.
493
Rock oil.
Sources of
oils.
Animal
oils.
which the fixed oils have of absorbing them. Thus, essence
of jessamine is obtained by placing layers of the freshly-
gathered flowers between layers of cotton-wool saturated
with the fixed oil of almonds or of poppy seed, both of
which are themselves odourless. They, however, soon ab¬
sorb the essential oil naturally emitted from the flowers, and
become highly perfumed. Fresh layers of flowers are sup¬
plied until the fixed oil is saturated, when it is pressed out
from the cotton-wool. . . .. ,
Besides the fixed oils and fats, and the essential oils, there
is a mineral product called rock oil; it is not, however,
properly speaking, an oil, but is a variety of petroleum,
which exists abundantly in some bituminous shales. Works
have been established in Dorsetshire and other parts of the
kingdom for obtaining this material, but without much
success. Large quantities are, however, brought from Ban-
goon, in the Burmese empire, chiefly to Liverpool, where
nearly700 tons weight were imported in 1857- Works exist
at St Helen’s, near Liverpool, and other places, where from
this material, which is of a dark greenish-brown colour,
and nearly the consistency of butter, a light amber-co¬
loured oil-like liquid is obtained, said to be very useful as a
lubricant for machinery. A considerable proportion of
paraffine is obtained from it, and it yields a very volatile
naphtha.
In enumerating the oils, those produced from the animal
kingdom will be first mentioned, and in the order of zoological
classification ; then the fixed vegetable oils; and finally the
three classes of essential oils. Of the twelve orders into which
naturalists divide the mammalia, only four comprise animals
which yield oils of economic value. These orders are Carnivora,
Cetacea, Ruminantia, and Pachydermata.
Of the carnivorous animals yielding oleaginous products, we
have first the bear. The black bear (TJrsus Americanus,
Gmelin), a native of North America, yields an abundance of
grease or soft fat; which is collected by the hunters who pursue
the animal for its skin and hams, and is occasionally imported
into this country, not, as some may suppose, to be used by the
hair-dressers and perfumers for pomades,but for the more useful
manufacture of candles, &c. But the principal oil-producing
carnivora are the seals, several species of which are killed on
purpose. The quantity of seal oil imported is very great.
Most of it comes from Newfoundland. The species which chiefly
yield it are Callocephalus Grcenlandicus, Callocephalus vitu-
linus, Pkoca barbata, and Arctocephalus Falklandicus.
The part which yields the oil in these animals is the blubber,
a peculiar layer of oil-cells which lies immediately under the
skin of the animal, and in fact constitutes a portion of the skin
itself. Seal oil is liquid, and, when pure, of a pale straw-
colour. The first drawings from the blubber give the purest
oil, which is obtained without pressure ; but the succeeding
drawings from the blubber-cask are more or less deeply
coloured brown by the decomposition of the oil-cells.
The Cetacea are remarkable for the extent of this, peculiar
skin-development called blubber, which in some species is one
or two feet in thickness. This is not, however, the only source
of the whale oil; for in the great-headed cachalot or sperma¬
ceti whale {Catodon macrocephalus, Cuv.), the gigantic head,
which nearly equals the body in bulk, has an enormous receptacle
on the upper part of the skull, from which oil is obtained. This
receptacle consists of a dense bag, divided into numerous.large
cells or compartments, in which the oil exists in a semi-fluid
state, owing to the large quantity of stearine or spermaceti
which it contains, and which can easily be separated from it
by simple draining or slight pressure. The quantity ot oil
yielded by some of the larger whales, especially the cachalots,
’is enormous, but is often erroneously stated, owing to a mis¬
understanding of the fact that quantity in liquid oils is cal¬
culated by the tun measure, and not by the ton wreight, as with
solid oils or fats. A cachalot commonly yields 20 tuns, or 5040
gallons ; and single whales have been known to yield 30 tuns
(7560 gallons). The following oils derived from the whale
tribe are known in commerce :—Sperm Oil, and its stearine,
Spermaceti, from the cachalot ; Train or Common Whale Oil,
from the Right Whale (Balcena mystiedus) and other species ;
Pot-head Oil, from both Olobicephalus deductor and Clobi- Oils.
cephalus Swineval; and Porpoise Oil, from Phoccena com- v lT-   
munis. These oils are usually imported as train or sperm oils ;
but the brokers are well skilled in distinguishing them.
Of the ruminating animals, we have only two species which
yield oleaginous products; but they are unequalled in value
by any others. They are the ox (Bos taurus, Linn.), and
the sheep (Ovis ammon, Linn.) The fat of both these animals
melted down constitutes the tallow of commerce. They are
so generally mixed together that there is no possibility of
ascertaining the exact amount yielded by.each. We.receive
our largest supply from Russia; but we import considerable
quantities from Denmark, Prussia, the Hanse Towns, Holland,
Turkey, South America (particularly Buenos Ayres and Monte
Video), the Cape of Good Hope, the East Indies, Australia,
&c. That imported from the ports of Monte Video and Buenos
Ayres is chiefly, if not altogether, ox tallow ; whilst that from
Australia is principally from the sheep. Besides the enormous
quantity imported, we have to take into consideration that
which is produced in Great Britain, which has been computed
to be equal to the amount imported.
From, the bones of the feet of oxen a valuable oil is obtained.
It contains comparatively little of the harder portion, (stearine),
and is in a fit state to be used for machinery. It is procured
by boiling the bones, and skimming off the fatty oil as it rises
to the surface of the water. It is called neats-foot oil; and
from the fact that it remains liquid at a temperature below oJ ,
and is not liable to rancidity, it is peculiarly well adapted for
turret clocks and other machinery much exposed to cold. The
supply from such a source is necessarily limited.
Of the Pachydermata only two yield oily products of any
commercial importance. The first of these in point of value
is the common hog (Sus scrofa, Linn.), the fat of which, under
the name of lard, is very extensively used. Considerable
quantities are consumed in articles of food. Most of the oint¬
ments of the pharmaceutist have lard for their base ; and.when
too rancid for these purposes, it is used for greasing machinery,
especially the axles of railway carriages. In the United States
the production of lard is immense ; and its stearine, which is
easily separable from the elain, is extensively used in the
manufacture of candles. The liquid stearine, under the name
of lard oil, is used for the finer parts of machinery, and for that
purpose is extensively imported into this country from Europe
and America. The fat of the horse does not, when melted,
possess the same firm consistency as that of the ox, sheep, and
swine. The proportion of stearine in it being comparatively
small, it is only within the last eight years that it has attracted
any attention ; but now it constitutes an important article of
trade with Buenos Ayres and Monte Video, whence it is im¬
ported under the names of horse or mare’s grease.. The latter
name is, however, more generally applied. From its liquidity,
it is extremely penetrating ; hence the ordinary packages for
grease and tallow were found to be insufficient, as the casks
were frequently half empty on their arrival. This checked its
introduction for some time ; but it is now put into square boxes
lined with tin, and arrives without loss. It is found to answer
very well as a lubricant for machinery.
From the classes comprising the birds and the reptiles (Aves
and Reptilia) neither oils nor fats of any importance are ob¬
tained, although the domesticated birds sometimes produce it
in abundance. That of the goose, under the name of goose-
grease, is occasionally heard of as a useful domestic remedy for
various ailments.
The class of fishes (Pisces) is a considerable source of oil,
always of a clear liquid quality. It is nearly all yielded by
one species, the common cod-fish (Gadus Morrhua, Linn.).
The Cod Oil, and the Cod-liver Oil of commerce, are both ob¬
tained from the liver of the fish ; the latter, which is now so
extensively used medicinally, being only prepared with a little
more care. Its principal value as a remedial agent appears to
depend upon its nutritive qualities, and the digestive powers
of a portion of pepsin, or biliary matter, which is always pre¬
sent, and which may be detected by the application of a drop
of concentrated sulphuric acid, wffien, if the oil be really cod-
liver oil, a beautiful purple colour will be immediatelyproduced.
The number of cod-fish captured is incalculable. The cod-
fishers, in opening the fishes to salt and dry them, carefully
preserve the livers, for which an extra boat is usually in at-
494
OILS.
Oils- tendance ; these are taken on shore, and piled up in immense
masses exposed to the sun. The heat soon makes the oil run
from the livers in considerable abundance, and for a short time
it is very clear, and of a light straw colour,'—'this is the first
quality, and is kept by itself. As the livers begin to decom¬
pose, however, they give a darker colour to the oil, and several
qualities are obtained, the last of which is thick, turbid, and
extremely otfensive to the smell, and is known under the name
of cod-pitchings. A small quantity of oil made from the com¬
mon herring {Clupea harengus, Linn.) is imported from time
to time from North America; but its strong and unpleasant
odour prevents it from being much used.
Vegetable The vegetable sources of oils are very numerous, and some
oils. are of great importance.
Fixed Vegetable Oils.—Of these the most important is
Olive Oil, procured from the ripe fruit of the olive (Olea
Europwa, Linn.), which is cultivated for this purpose through
all the countries of Southern Europe and Northern Africa.
Its native country is Asia. On Lebanon and the Mount of
Olives, and in the neighbourhood of Aleppo, the olive tree still
grows wild. Its general diffusion through the countries suit¬
able to its growth is no doubt attributable to the Romans, al¬
though the Carthaginians and others had previously procured
and cultivated it. Pliny says (book xv., Bohn’s edition),
“ Fenestella tells us that in the year of Rome 173, being the
reign of Tarquinius Priscus, it did not exist in Italy, Spain, or
Africa; whereas at the present day it has crossed the Alps
even, and has been introduced into the provinces of Gaul and
the middle of Spain. In the year of Rome 505, Appius Clau¬
dius, grandson of Appius Claudius Caecus, and L. Junius, be¬
ing consuls, 12 pounds of oil sold for an as; and at a later
period, in the year 680, M. Seius, son of Lucius the curule
sedile, regulated the price of oil at Rome, at the rate of 10
pounds for the as, for the whole year. A person will be the
less surprised at this, when he learns that twenty-two years
after, in the third consulship of Cn. Pompeius, Italy was able
to export oil to the provinces.” Its value has never decreased;
and, next to corn, olive oil is still perhaps the greatest neces¬
sity of the nations of Southern Europe. It has been described
as the cream and butter of Spain and Italy; and the quantity
consumed in those countries as food, entering into their cookery
in every imaginable way, is immense. There are several
varieties in cultivation, which vary much in quality. That
which yields the sweet Italian and French salad oils is the
var. /3. longifolia, Aiton. Its fruit, when pickled unripe, is also
most highly prized. The inferior oils of Spain are made from
the large olive, var. o. latifolia, Aiton. In Italy and France
the oil is obtained by crushing the fruit in mills,—the 'grind¬
ing stones of which are so set that they will thoroughly crush
the pulpy part of the fruit without breaking the stone or
kernel in the centre. The fruit, which is gathered for the
purpose when very ripe, is not unlike a small damson in shape
and colour, and the stone in the centre is very hard. After crush¬
ing in the mill, the pulp is put in bags made of rushes and
slightly pressed, when the fine or virgin oil flows out abund¬
antly. Afterwards the cake or marc is again broken up, mixed
with water, and returned to the press, and an oil of an inferior
quality is obtained. The cake or marc is once more broken
up and mixed with water, after which it is placed in vats to
ferment, and then again pressed. The result is an oil of a
very inferior sort, only useful to the soap-makers. The oil of
the olive is liquid at the ordinary temperature, but becomes
solid a few degrees below 32°. In Spain the process is less
carefully conducted. Instead of being gathered by hand, the
olives are beaten from the trees, and are consequently much
mixed—ripe, unripe, and decayed. They are left in large heaps
on the ground to ferment, which partly breaks up the oil cells;
they are then ground and pressed, and yield a very inferior
oil. The finest virgin oil for table use is imported from Leg¬
horn and from France. The common oil is chiefly used in
England for dressing woollen cloths, for which purpose vast
quantities are required in Yorkshire, the west of England, and
other cloth districts. On the Continent it is also employed in
making soap. In 1856 the imports were as followsFrom
France, 358 tuns; Portugal, 3175 tuns; Spain, 2,301 tuns;
Sardinia, 907 tuns; Tuscany, 1,973 tuns ; Two Sicilies, 6,093
tuns; Turkey, 491 tuns; Morocco, 2579 tuns; Malta, 360
tuns ; Ionian Islands, 2900 tuns; other parts, 278 tuns ; in
all, 21,415 tuns, or 5,395,580 gallons, valued at L.1,124,755.
Palm Oil is obtained from the fruit of the oil palm (Elceis
Guineensis, Linn.), a native of Western Africa, by crushing
the thin fleshy covering which surrounds the hard stone or
seed, and by pouring boiling water upon the pulp, upon which
the oil floats and is skimmed otf. In this process, however,
much of the colouring matter of the drupe, which is a fine
orange-yellow, is retained, which, besides its colour, imparts
to the oil a sweet violet-odour. Palm oil, when imported, is
of the consistence of butter. Vessels arrive entirely laden with
it. It is put in casks of various sizes, but usually very large,
and made to suit the stowage of the vessels. Spirits, tobacco,
cutlery, cloths, beads, cowries, arms, gunpowder, and other
articles, are given in barter to the natives in exchange for the
oil. This trade has now obtained an immense importance,
owing to the valuable discoveries by which the oil can be de¬
prived of its colour, and a solid part, called palmitic acid, con¬
verted into candles of a very superior quality. The addition
of sulphuric acid entirely carbonizes the yellow vegetable
colouring matter. It is then submitted to the action of steam, at
a temperature of 612°, in a still of peculiar construction, which
carries over the particles of oil with the steam, leaving behind
the charcoal or carbonized vegetable matter. Previous to the
distillation, however, lime is added to neutralize the acid, and
that also remains behind. The material which conies over runs
from the still as a clear colourless oil, which upon cooling has
the colour and consistency of lard in cold weather. This is
cast into square cakes about 14- inch in. thickness, and 18 inches
square. The cakes are placed between mats made of coir, or
cocoa-nut fibre, and submitted to the action of powerful hydrau¬
lic presses, which force out the elain, a liquid about the colour
and consistency of linseed oil. The mats are then taken from
the press, and the cakes, which are now much harder, are re¬
melted and made into candles. Nothing can give a better
idea of the extent to which this manufacture is carried on than
the fact, that Messrs Price and Co., at their works in Lon¬
don, and at Bromboro’ Pool, Cheshire, are now making 150 tons
of these candles per week, and give employment to upwards of
2000 persons. Great quantities are also consumed in the
manufacture of soap. When it is remembered that each drupe
will only yield about iVth part of an ounce in weight, and that
each palm only produces three or four pounds at one crop, the
number of palms in the forests of Western Africa must be
immense, and the industry called into action by this want of
civilized man must exert a most beneficial influence over the
destinies of the African races. The drupes are borne in im¬
mense clusters, each surrounded by sharp bracts, and they
greatly resemble gigantic pine-apples both in shape and colour.
Cocoa-nut Oil is produced from the white kernel which lines
the shell of the large cocoa-nut (Cocos mia/era, Linn., Nat. Ord.
Pahnacece). This kernel is ground in mills in Ceylon, where
it is largely cultivated for its oil; and when ground, the mass,
called copper ah, is submitted to considerable pressure. The oil
runs at first limpid and liquid, but it afterwards becomes white
and solid. It is largely used in making soap, and also in
making candles; for the latter purpose the stearine only is
used. The oleine, both of cocoa oil and palm oil, is used for
lubricating machinery. It is nearly all obtained from Ceylon,
whence it is exported chiefly to this country in large casks and
iron tanks.
Linseed Oil is pressed from the seed of the flax plant
{Linum usitatissimum, Linn., Nat. Ord. Linacece). It is not
imported very largely, being chiefly manufactured in this
country from home-grown or imported seed. The seed is first
ground in mills, and afterwards submitted to enormous hydrau¬
lic pressure. The oil yielded is of a dark brown colour, and is
one of the best drying oils. It is therefore of great value to
painters, who use this oil almost exclusively in mixing their
paints. Linseed is imported in very large quantities from the
East Indies, Russia, Germany, Holland, America, and other
places. The total quantity received in 1856 was 1,180,180
quarters, valued at L.3,195,634. This does not represent the
value of the oil, for the cake or marc, which remains after the
oil is expressed, is of considerable value for feeding cattle.
Seed Oil is a name applied to the expressed oil of the
physic-nut (Jatropha curcas, Linn., Nat. Ord. Euphorbiacece).
Within the last six years this oil has been brought into notice
as a substitute for the dearer olive oil in dressing woollen
fabrics. It has highly purgative properties; and the seeds
imported, under the name of croton nuts, produced serious results
OILS.
495
when first landed on the Liverpool quays; the tempting name
induced many to eat their blandly flavoured white kernels, and
the consequences were nearly fatal to some. 1 he oil, too, at
first produced disagreeable effects amongst the workmen, "who
have a habit of tasting with their fingers the various oils they
use. This evil, however, soon cured itself, and the oil is now
largely used. It is chiefly imported into Liverpool from
Lisbon, but the Portuguese manufacturers obtain the seeds
from the Cape de Verde Islands. There is no doubt that vast
quantities might be obtained from the "West Indies, where the
plant is indigenous. It is cultivated in the East Indies, and
its oil is called Bhoga Bhirindi til. The imports have reached
nearly 400 tuns per annum; but owing to the indefinite name
given to it, this oil is confounded with others, and the exact
quantity cannot be ascertained. The importers also have some
interest in suppressing information respecting its source and
true character. It is a good drying oil, and would probably,
if boiled, be equal to linseed oil for painters’ purposes.
Sessamum or Gingely Oil is made from the seed of Sessa-
mum orientale, Linn. (Nat. Ord. Pedaliacece). This seed is
grown extensively all through India, where its oil is known
under various names, as Tillee Oil, Manchy noona:, Til he tel,
nullenai, tamool, &c. The seed is small, not much unlike
the flax seed in shape: the colour usually a light drab—but
there are dark-coloured varieties. The oil is bland and sweet,
and useful for all purposes to which the common kinds of olive
oil can be applied. In 1856, 5269 quarters of this seed were
imported for expressing the oil; and of the oil itself in 1857,
42,136 gallons, or nearly 166 tuns. The marc or oil-cake is
much relished by cattle, and is very nutritious.
Niger-seed Oil is expressed from the seeds of Verhesina
sativa. H. K., or Guizotia oleifera, Cassini (Nat. Ord. Com-
positce), another East Indian seed, also extensively used in
that country under the names of Ram til, Valisaloo Oil,
Valisaloo noonce, &c. The seed only is imported here. It is
black and shining, resembling in shape the common sun¬
flower seed, but is scarcely larger than a caraway seed. The
oil is as sweet and liquid as that of the olive, and answers the
same purposes. About 700 quarters were imported in 1857.
Safflower-seed Oil is expressed from the seeds of the
safflower plant (Carihamus tinctorius, Nat. Ord. Compositce),
also a native of India, where it is very extensively cultivated,
both for its flowers and seed. The latter are of the same
shape and size as those of the sunflower, but are white instead
of black. They yield a large quantity of a fine clear oil, of a
peculiar golden-yellow colour. It has good drying properties,
and burns well, but has a peculiar and not very agreeable
odour. There is good reason for believing that this oil, known
in India under the name of Koosum Oil, is the celebrated
Macassar oil of the Malays, and, in all probability, of our own
perfumers. It has certainly a specific effect upon the growth
of the hair. The oil is not often imported, but a large quantity
of the seed now finds its way annually to this country ; but as
the official designation of “ seed unenumerated” is applied to
this and many others in the returns, the exact quantity cannot
be ascertained. Between 300 and 400 quarters were imported
in 1857 into the port of Liverpool, and probably a much
larger quantity into London.
Rape Oil is expressed from the seeds of Brassica rapa, and
its variety B. oleifera, De Cand. (Nat. Ord. Cruciferce), a
common European weed, which is, however, largely cultivated
for its seed. It yields a yellowish-brown oil in considerable
abundance, valuable for burning and other purposes. Several
other cruciferous plants, yielding a similar oil, are also largely
imported under the same name, and are consequently con¬
founded with it. Thus we have immense quantities of the
seed of Sinapis toria, S. glauca, S. nigra, sent from India
under the name of rape-seed, and the colsa or colza seed
(Brassica campestris, var. a oleifera, De Cand.) is imported
from Holland and Germany, and finds its way into our markets
under the same designation. The quantity of seed imported
as rape in 1856 was as follows:—From Russia, 2556 qrs.;
Denmark, 4402 qrs.; Germany, 2267 qrs.; Holland, 1850qrs.;
British East Indies, 251,890 qrs.; other parts, 1955 qrs.;—
or 264,920 quarters in all, in which probably not more than
8000 quarters are genuine rape-seed. Besides the seed, a con¬
siderable quantity of the oil was imported from the continent
of Europe.
Ground-nut Oil is yielded by the seeds of Arachis hypo-
gcea^irm. Ovd. Leguminosai). The seeds are about the Oils,
size of a small horse-bean, generally two in a pod. They are ^ nl- ,,
much used, when roasted, as food both in South America (its
native country), and also in Africa, India, and China, in which
countries it is” now naturalized and grown to a great extent.
The oil is thin and limpid, burns well, and is a good substitute
for olive oil, both for the table and other purposes, as it is
remarkably free from rancidity. It is almost pure elain, and
has accordingly been recommended for watch and clock-work,
and other delicate machinery. The quantity of the seeds im¬
ported in 1857 was about 2500 tons. Some small lots of the
oil have also been imported, but the exact quantity cannot be
ascertained. It is known in India under the name of Katchung
Oil.
Castor Oil is expressed either with or without heat from the
seeds of the palma-christi plant (Ricinus communis, Linn.,
Nat. Ord. Euphorbiacece), a native of the East Indies, where
it is known under many names. In Tanjore the native name of
that which is obtained by putting the crushed seeds into hot
water is Adivia aumedum. It is used for burning in lamps.
That which is expressed without heat, and is consequently
known here as cold-drawn, is there called Arandee ha tel.
Only the cold-drawn is sent to this country, and it is nearly
all used for medicinal purposes, in consequence of its valuable
aperient qualities. It is now disseminated pretty generally
through all tropical and subtropical countries. About 1200 quar¬
ters of the seed were imported in 1857, besides large quantities
of the oil. Another seed is imported for the purgative oil which
it yields, but the quantity is very small. It is the fruit of
Groton Tiglium, Lam. (Nat. Ord. Euphorbiacece), also a native
of India ; the oil is never used except for medicinal purposes.
The seeds of Jatropha curcas, before-mentioned, are often
imported as croton seeds, but not more than a few bushels of
the real croton seeds are annually brought to this country.
Poppy-seed Oil, obtained from the seed of the white poppy
(Papaver somniferum, Linn., Nat. Ord. Papaveracece), is most
likely of Asiatic origin. It is cultivated chiefly for its narcotic
juice (opium), but the value of its seed for oil purposes is
rapidly increasing; and the fact that it is easily cultivated in
France and other temperate parts of Europe, adds much to its
interest. Thousands of acres of land in France alone are now
annually covered with crops of the white poppy, grown only
for its seed, which yields a sweet limpid oil, esteemed by
many as preferable for most purposes to that of the olive,
especially as a salad oil. The impression which long pre¬
vailed, that the seed of a plant producing so poisonous a juice
as that of the poppy could not be otherwise than injurious,
actually led to legislative enactments against its introduction
into France in former times. But, like those in our own
country against logwood, they have long since passed away,
and poppy oil and logwood are now amongst the most useful
of our commercial materials. In 1856, 24,121 qrs. of this
seed were imported, of which no less than 24,073 qrs. were
from British India. The oil has not been imported, unless in
very small quantities, from France.
Almond Oil is expressed from the kernel of the common
almond (Amygdalus communis, Linn.) The value of the
sweet varieties for other purposes causes the small bitter
almond to be generally used for expressing this oil, especially
as the essential oil can afterwards be distilled from the marc.
The fixed oil of almonds is chiefly manufactured in France;
it is much used by perfumers, as it is very nearly inodorous,
and will consequently receive the most delicate perfumes.
It is an expensive oil, as it requires 1 cwd. of almonds to
obtain 50 lbs. of oil. It is of a light yellow colour, and
contains very little stearine, only about 24 per cent. It is
often adulterated with the oil of Guizotia oleifera. Besides
its chief use by the perfumers, it is also, to a small extent,
used in the operations of pharmacy. The imports are small,
and published returns contain both the fixed and volatile oils,
consequently the exact quantity of each cannot be ascertained.
Most of that used in Great Britain is home manufactured.
Amongst the less known oils and vegetable fats are the
Madia Oil, yielded by the seed of Madia sativa, Molina (Nat.
Ord. Compositce), a native of Chili, and cultivated in Italy for
the sake of its oil, which is limpid and sweet. Gold of Pleasure
Oil, from the seed of Camelina sativa, Granby (Nat. Ord. Cru¬
ciferce), a native of the continent of Europe. It does not
succeed well in England, but the oil is used for many purposes
496
Oils.
Essential
oils.
OILS.
on the Continent, being even employed in culinary prepara¬
tions. Oil of Mexican poppyseed (Argemone Mexicana,
Linn., Nat. Ord. Papaveracece) is a drying oil, and is used in
Mexico, its native country, for polishing wood. It is also
employed for various useful purposes in the East and West
Indies, where it is now cultivated. Indian Almond Oil, a
sweet limpid oil, is obtained from the kernels of Ter-
minalia catappa, Linn. (Nat. Ord. Gombretacece)- I his tree
is a native of India, and is now cultivated in the West Indies.
The kernel is not very large, but closely resembles the almond
in flavour. The oil has not yet been imported. Walnut Oil,
expressed from the kernel of the common walnut (Juglans
regia, Linn., Nat. Ord. Juglandacew), is extensively manu¬
factured in Circassia, where the tree is very’ abundant. It is
used by the natives for almost every purpose to which oil is
applied, but it is not exported.
The following liquid oils were exhibited in the Indian col¬
lection at the Exhibition of 1851, but no information given as
to their uses or commercial value. Gheeronjee Oil, from the
seeds of Suchanania latifolia, Roxb. (Is at. Ord. Anacar-
diaccal). Valuse mine, from the seeds of Guizotia abyssinica
(Nat. Ord. Gompositce). Poonseed Oil, expressed from the
nuts of an unknown species of Calophyllum (Nat. Ord. Glu-
nacece). Oondee Oil, from the nuts of Calophyllum inophyl-
lum. Caju-apple Oil, from the cashew-nut, Anacardium
occidentale, Linn. (Nat. Ord. Anacardiacea). Neem Oil, ob¬
tained from the pulp of the margosa-berries, or fruit of Melia
azadirachta, Linn. (Nat. Ord. Meliaceaa). Kurrunj Oil, ex¬
pressed from the nut of Pongamia glabra, Nentenat (Nat.
Ord. Leguminosce). Its chief value is in veterinary medicine.
Country Walnut Oil, from the kernels of Aleurites triloba,
Forst. (Nat. Ord. Euphorbiacecc). Country Walnut Oil, from
the seeds of liergera Konigii, Roxb. (Nat. Ord. Aurantiacece).
Hingun or Hingota Oil, from the seeds of Balanites AEgyp-
tiac'a, Delile (Nat. Ord. Amyridacece). Oil of Ben, from the
seeds of Moringa pterygosperma, D. C. (Nat. Ord. Morin-
gacece). Mooneela Grain Oil, from the grain of Dolichos
bijlorus, Linn. (Nat. Ord. Leguminosce).
Solid Oils, or Vegetable Tallows.—KoTcum or Cohum Oil,
made from the fruit of Garcinia purpurea (Nat. Ord. Clusia-
cece), is now frequently imported from India, usually in large
candle-shaped rolls about eighteen inches in length, and from
one to three inches in diameter. This oil has a sweet balsamic
smell, and is said to be wholly used by the candle-makers for
their best kind of candles.
Muohwa Oil, or Bassia Butter, is made from the large seeds
of Bassia latifolia and Bassia longifolia (Nat. Ord. Sapo-
tacece). This material, which is rather softer than butter, and
of a yellow colour, is used in India for food, burning in lamps,
and making soap. It was first imported into England during
1857. The quantity, however, was very small.
Chinese Vegetable Tallow, obtained from the seeds of Btil-
lingia sebifera (Nat. Ord. Euphorbiacece), by placing them
in boiling water, is white, and harder than common tallow.
In China it is used for making candles, and in this country
it has been employed to give firmness to softer fats, but the
quantity sent is very small and uncertain.
Essential Oils or Essences.—These are all of vegetable
origin, usually of a pale yellow colour ; lighter than water, and
nearly all liquid at the ordinary temperature. They appear
to constitute the odorous and sapid principles of plants. They
are slightly soluble in water, perfectly so in alcohol or ether;
and they evaporate so readily that their adulteration by any
of the fixed oils may be readily detected by a drop of the oil
being applied to white paper. The greasy spot will entirely
disappear if held before the fire, provided the essential oil be
unmixed; but if a fixed oil has been added, the greasy stain will
remain. They are obtained chiefly by distillation from various
parts of plants, as the wood, bark, leaves, flowers, fruits, and
seeds. Some, however, are obtained by expression and other
means. The essential oils or essences, as they are frequently
called, are arranged by chemists under the three following
divisions:—
1st. Pure Hydrocarbons, the principal of which are :—Oil of
Turpentine, yielded by several trees of the Nat. Ord. Coniferce,
the principal of which are Finns tceda, Linn., Finns palus-
tris, H. K., and Abies excelsa, Poir. It is obtained by
making holes in the base of the stem, from which a very large
quantity of the fluid substance called turpentine flows and is
collected in casks. This is of a light yellow colour, and oils
of the consistency of thin honey; but soon gets hard, by i __
the evaporation of its essential oil. Turpentine, when dis- ^
tilled, yields about 25 per cent, of a thin, colourless essential
oil, known as spirit or oil of turpentine, which is chiefly manu¬
factured in this country from turpentine imported from the
United States ; but a considerable quantity is also sent from
America. Oil of Orange Peel, from the yellow part ( flavedo)
of the rind, is imported from Sicily, and is used in perfumery.
Oil of Orange Flowers, or Oil of Neroli, from the petals of the
flowers,is used in perfumery, and is imported from Italy. Oil of
Orange Leaves, or Oil of Petit-grain, from the leaves and the
immature fruit which falls otf soon after the flowers, is used
in perfumery. It is imported from Italy and France. Oil of
Lemon, from the yellow portion (flavedo) of the peel of the
fruit, is used largely in perfumery ; and imported principally
from Sicily. Oil of Bergamotte, from the rind {flavedo) of
the Bergamotte orange, is used in perfumery, and is imported
from Sicily. Oil of Cloves, from the spice called cloves, is used in
confectionary and perfumery; andischieflydistilled inEngland.
Oil of Pimento, from the spice called Jamaica pepper, allspice,
or pimento, is used in perfumery and confectionary; it is chiefly
made in England. Oil of Caraioay, from caraway seeds
(the fruit of Carum Carui, L., Nat. Ord. Umbelliferce), is dis¬
tilled chiefly in this country for perfumery and confectionary.
Oil of Camomile, from the dried flowers of the camomile
{Anthemis nobilis, L., Nat. Ord. Composite), is prepared in
England; it is used only in medicine. Oil of Juniper, from the
berries of Juniperus communis, L., (Nat. Ord. Coniferce),
usually imported from Holland, is used principally in veteri¬
nary medicine. Oil of Thyme, from the whole plant of
Origanum vulgare, L. (Nat. Ord. Labiatce), is used in
veterinary medicine; and is both made in England and im¬
ported from the continental ports. Oil of Peppermint, from
the whole plant of Mentha piperita, L. (Nat. Ord. Labiatce),
is used chiefly in confectionary. It is imported in considerable
quantities from the United States and from the European
ports ; but the best is that manufactured in England, at Mit¬
cham, in Surrey, where the cultivation of plants yielding essen¬
tial oils is extensively carried on ; and the distillation of the
oils carried to so high a degree of perfection, that the prices
realized are often nearly double that of the foreign ones.
Attar, or Otto of Roses, is procured from the leaves of the
rose {Rosa centifolia, L., Nat. Ord. Rosacea). This most
delicate perfume is only made in India and Persia. The chief
manufacture is at Ghazipore, on the Ganges, where thousands
of acres of roses are cultivated. The petals of the flower are
distilled with water, which comes over highly perfumed. This
water is then set aside in basins, carefully covered over to
prevent impurities being blown in ; and each morning the film
of oil which has risen to the surface during the cool hours of
night is carefully skimmed off with a feather, and placed in
small glass bottles. When pure, it is extremely valuable; the
present price in this country being about 80s. per ounce. It
is too generally adulterated either with the odourless fixed oil
of almonds orgingelly, or the sweet-scented oil of Andropogon
calamus-aromaticus, a grass which yields an abundance of rose-
scented essential oil. Sometimes it consists almost entirely of
this sophistication ; but it is coarse and disagreeable to the prac¬
tised perfumer, and can easily be detected ; besides which, it
remains liquid at the ordinary temperature, whereas pure otto
of roses is solid at 83°F. The Persian is chiefly received from
Turkey, and is generally considered the best. Oil of Birch
is distilled in Russia from the bark of the common birch {Betula
alba, L., Nat. Ord. Betulaccea). It has a sweet cedar-like
odour, and is used in dressing Russia leather, to which it com¬
municates its peculiar smell. Lately small quantities have
been imported for preparing leather in a similar manner.
2d. Oxidized Essential Oils.—Oil of Mint, distilled from
the whole plant of common mint {Mentha sativa, L., Nat.
Ord. Labiatce), is chiefly made in England ; and used only in
pharmacy. Oil of Penny Royal, distilled from the whole
plant oiMentha Pulegium, L. (Nat. Ord. Labiatce), is made in
England for medicinal purposes. Oil of Cassia, distilled from
the bark of Cinnamomum Cassia, Blume (Nat. Ord. Lau-
racece), is manufactured in China, and imported in con¬
siderable quantities, usually in chests like those used for tea,
each containing four tin canisters filled with the oil. It is used
in perfumery. Oil of Cinnamon, distilled from cinnamon or
O I s
Oils the bark of Cinnamomum zeylanicum, Nees (Nat. Ord.
|| Lauraccce), possesses, when pure, all the delicious flavour
Oise. and pungency of the spice, and is used for similar purposes.
Small quantities only are imported from Ceylon. It is fre¬
quently adulterated with oil of cassia. The essential Oil of
Almonds is usually distilled from bitter almonds, although it
can also be obtained from the sweet varieties quite as easily ;
but for economy the cake of the former, from which the fixed
oil has been expressed, is chosen. When first distilled, this
oil contains hydrocyanic or prussic acid, and is consequently a
dangerous poison ; but when purified by mixing with lime,
and the proto-chloride of iron, and re-distilling, it becomes quite
innocuous. Oil of Lavander, distilled from the flowers of
Lavandula vera, De Cand. (Nat. Ord. Labiatce), is only
used in perfumery. The best is made at Mitcham ; but con¬
siderable quantities are imported from France and Italy. An
inferior kind is made from the flowers of L. spica, and is known
in commerce as oil of spike. Oil of Rosemary, distilled from
the leaves and flowers of Rosmarinus officinalis, L. (Nat.
Ord. Labiatce). It resembles oil of lavander, and is chiefly
O I s
497
made in England and France. Oil of Aniseed, is distilled both
from the seeds of Pimpinella Anisum, L. (Nat. Ord. Um-
belliferce); and from those of Illicium anisatum, L. (Nat.
Ord. Magnoliacece). It is imported in the same manner as
oil of cassia, in considerable quantities from China; and is
used in medicine, perfumery, and the jnanufacture of liqueurs.
The oils distilled from diflerent species of the genus Andro-
pogon (Nat. Ord. Graminacece) are imported from Ceylon,
and used in perfumery. Oil of Citronelle, from A. citratum,
De Cand., has a lemon odour. Oil of Verbena, from A. Schce-
nanthus, Linn., resembles the perfumed verbena (Aloysia
citriodora). Oil of Rose-scented Geranium (from A. Cala¬
mus-aromaticus, Hoyle) is also produced abundantly in India,
where the native medical practitioners use it as a rubefacient
for rheumatism. It is also used in perfumery, and particu¬
larly to adulterate the otto of roses.
3d. Essential Oils containing Sulphur.—This division em¬
braces only a few chemical oils, such as oils of mustard,
garlic, horse-radish, and some others of no general impor¬
tance.
Oise.
Imports and Exports of Oils in 1857, with the Current Prices and estimated Value (compiledfrom the Brokers'
Circulars).
Name of Oil.
Animal Oils and Fats.
Seal    
Whale or train, of various qualities.
Sperm whale 
Tallow of Oxen and Sheep-
British colonies 
Foreign countries  
Lard  
Lard oil 
Horse fat, called usually “mare’soil”
Cod, or cod-liver, of all sorts 
Vegetable Oils and Fats.
Olive 
Palm 
Cocoa-nut 
Sessamum, or gingelly 
Kape 
Castor 
Kokum oil 
Oil or spirit of turpentine 
Essential oils of all sorts.......
Imports.
2,016,000 galls.
1,348,200 „
1,360,800 „
96,498 cwt.
919,811 „
140,660 „
114,984 galls.
12,360 cwt.
1,024,884 galls.
5,715,600 „
873,000 cwt.
146,300 „
42,136 galls.
1,131,480 „
37,379 ,.
2,380 cwts.
71,584 „
253,700
Exports.
Average Price.
Free.
F ree.
Free.
Id. per cwt.
Is. 6d. ,,
Free.
Free.
Free.
Free.
Free.
Free.
Free.
Free.
Free.
Free.
Free.
Free.
Is. per lb.
27,216 galls.
227,000 „
1,600 „
116,300 cwt.
5,316 cwt.
654 galls.
270,600 galls.
555,158 „
190,186 cwt.
1,274 „
L.O
0
0
3 6 per gall.
3 9
8 0
0 0 to L.2 15 0
per gall,
f 2 10 0 to L.3
3 0
per cwt.
0 0 per gall.
14 0 j)er cwt.
4 0 per gall.
16,816 galls.
865 ,,
Nil.
22,784 cwt.
97,000 lb.
0 4 0 „
2 3 0 per cwt.
2 2 0 „
0 3 6 per gall.
0 3 9 „
0 12 0 „
2 0 0 per cwt.
1 13 0 „
M O O tn Ti SO O
Estimated
value of
Imports.
L.352,800
252,787
544,320
2,926,275
22.997
20,962
204,973
1,143,120
1,882,950
307,236
7,374
212,152
224,027
4,760
120,797
152,034
(t. c. A.)
OISE, a department of France, lying between N. Lat.
49. 4. and 49. 46.; E. Long. 1. 42. and 3. 8.; is bounded
on the N. by Somme, E. by Aisne, S. by Seine-et-Marne and
Seine-et-Oise, and W. by Eure and Seine Inferieure. Its
form is nearly that of a parallelogram ; its length from E. to
\\ . is 65 miles, average breadth about 40 miles ; area 2244
square miles. The surface is undulating, with a general
slope to the S.W., except a narrow strip of land in the N.
of the department, which slopes towards the N. A chain of
hills traverses it near its northern boundary, and another
runs parallel to the left bank of the Oise; but none of the
elevations exceed 850 feet above the level of the sea. The
principal river is the Oise, from which the department
takes its name. It rises near Chimay, in the province of
Hainault in Belgium, not far from the French frontier,
and flows S.W. through the departments of Nord, Aisne,
Oise, and Seine-et-Oise, until it joins the Seine about 12
miles below Paris. Its whole length is 137 miles ; and it is
navigable as far as Chaunay 75 miles above its confluence with
the Seine. It receives from the left the Serre, the Lette,
the Aisne, and the Nonette; and from the right none but
small streams, of which the most considerable is the The*
rain. A small portion of the west of the department is
VOL. XVI.
watered by the Epte, a tributary of the Eure; and the
S.E. corner is traversed by the Ourcq, which joins the
Seine above Paris. The geological formation of the country
is in general calcareous; and the soil in many parts fertile,
consisting of a stiff clay; but in some places dry sandy
tracts occur, which are entirely barren, or nearly so. Most
of the land is well fitted for the cultivation of wheat or
other kinds of corn; but the higher regions are chiefly
used for pasture; and a great part of the country is covered
W'ith wood. The climate is not insalubrious, but rather
moist, especially during the long winters. The mineral
productions are few and of little consequence, except lime¬
stone, which is extensively worked. Small quantities of
iron of an indifferent quality are also found. The extent
of arable land in the department is estimated at about
960,000 acres: of meadow land, 74,000 acres; of vineyards,
6000 acres ; of wood, 200,000 acres ; of waste land, 37,000
acres. Corn, pulse, potatoes, and beet-root are produced in
sufficient abundance to form articles of export; and hemp,
flax, fruits for cider, &c., are also raised. The wine produced
in Oise is bad; and the number of vineyards is decreasing.
Cattle and horses are reared in the department, but not to
any great extent; and the greatest amount of attention is de-
3 b
49S
Oka
. II
0 Keeffe.
OKA
voted to the sheep, which are in general of an excellent
breed. There are in Oise about 100,000 head of cattle,
60,000 horses, 600,000 sheep, 50,000 pigs, 1500 goats,
2500 mules, and 8000 asses. Manufactures of various
kinds are carried on to a large extent. Among the most
important is that of beet-root sugar; but there are also ma¬
nufactured broad cloth, bricks, tiles, pottery, porcelain,
leather, cordage, paper, beer, glass, and other articles.
The trade is considerable in the produce of the manufac¬
turing industry, and in grain, fruits, cider, and timber.
The means of internal communication consist of the three
rivers, Oise, Aisne, and Ourcq, navigable in this depart¬
ment for 82 miles ; two canals, 21 miles in length ; a rail¬
way traversing the department for 43 miles ; and numerous
roads. Oise forms the diocese of the Bishop of Beauvais ;
includes 4 courts of primary jurisdiction, 2 courts of com¬
merce, 3 communal colleges, and 841 primary schools.
It returns three members to the legislative assembly. The
capital is Beauvais, and the department is divided into four
arrondissements as follows :—
Cantons.
Beauvais   12
Clermont  8
Compiegne  ®
Senlis  ^
Total  35
Communes.
216
145
149
126
636
Pop. (1856).
128,721
89,413
95,002
82,949
396,085
OKA, a river of European Russia, rises in the govern¬
ment of Orel, and flows N.E. through those of Tula,
Kaluga, Moscow, Riazan, Vladimir, and Nijni-Novgorod.
After a course of about 600 miles, it falls into the Volga at
the town of Nijni-Novgorod. It is navigable as far as Orel,
and is of great commercial importance, as affording an easy
means of communication for the produce of the different
regions on its banks. The country that it waters is the
most fertile portion of the Russian empire, and has an area
of 127,000 square miles. It receives numerous tributaries ;
of which the most important are the Upa, Jizdra, Nara,
Moskva, Tzna, and Kliasma.
OKAMANDAL, a small district of British India, in
the presidency of Bombay, and province of Guzerat, form¬
ing the north-western portion of the peninsula of Katty-
war. It is separated from the mainland by a runn or salt
marsh, extending from the Gultof Cutch, in a S.W. direc¬
tion to Mudhe, where it is separated from the sea by a
narrow sand-bank, which is altogether covered during high
tides. The area of the district is estimated at 334 square
miles; and the length of the coast-line is about 75 miles.
The north-western extremity forms a bold headland, which
is indented on the N. side by the harbour of Beyt, pro¬
tected by an island of the same name at its mouth. This
district, on account of its favourable situation for molesting
the commercial navigation of the Indian Ocean, was for a
long time a favourite haunt of pirates ; but their lawless
depredations have been completely put down by the British
government. The soil of Okamandal is quite barren ; and
the only articles of commerce yielded by the district are the
sankh or conch-shells, which were formerly used as war
trumpets by the Rajpoots ; but their principal use is now
by the Brahmins for religious purposes. The district con¬
tains 43 villages, and a population estimated at 12,590.
O’KEEFFE, John, a popular dramatist, was born at
Dublin in 1747. Though educated for a painter, he exhi¬
bited from an early age a decided passion for the drama. At
the age of sixteen he had composed a play; at the age of
eighteen he wrote a comedy, which was acted on the stage ;
and shortly afterwards he became a member of the com¬
pany of the Smock-alley Theatre, Dublin. His active
brain, however, did not find scope enough in the position of
a mere player. While performing at the Irish capital, or
strolling during the summer through the provinces, he pro-
O K E
duced several little pieces which met with success on the Oken.
stage. At length, in 1778, his farce entitled Tony Lump-
kin in Town, was played with applause at the Haymarket;
and the career of a dramatist was opened up to O’Keeffe.
Abandoning the profession of an actor, and settling in
London in 1781, he commenced, amid an increasing attack
of blindness, to support his family by his pen. Comedies
and operatic farces followed each other in quick succession,
and were variously brought out by Colman of the Hay-
market, and Harris of Covent Garden. Their genial and
vivacious sentiment, and broad and whimsical humour, atoned
for their poverty of incident and want of individual cha¬
racters ; the great majority of them had a long run of suc¬
cess ; and many of them were acted over again at the com¬
mand of Royalty. It was about 1798 that O’Keeffe, then
almost blind, ceased to have connection with the stage. The
rest of his life was spent under pecuniary embarrassments.
An edition of 21 of his plays, which was published in 1798,
scarcely paid the expenses ; and a small annuity, which he
bought in 1800, and two royal pensions, which were respec¬
tively conferred upon him in 1803 and 1826, afforded him
but an inconsiderable pittance. His death took place at
Southampton in 1833. O’Keeffe, during his long life, had
produced no fewer than 68 plays. Of these, Wild Oats,
The Agreeable Surprise, The Poor Soldier, The Highland
Heel, and some others, still retain their footing on the stage.
{Recollections of the Life of John O'Keeffe, written by him¬
self, in 2 vols. London, 1826.)
OKEN, Lorenz. Under this name the great natu¬
ralist of the transcendental or deductive school is com¬
monly known; but his real name was “ Lorenz Ockenfuss,”
under which he was baptized at Bohlsbach, Wiirtemberg,
being born in that small Suabian village on the 1st of
August 1779. As “ Ockenfuss ” he was entered at the
natural history and medical classes in the university of
Wurzburg; whence he proceeded to that of Gottingen,
where he became a private teacher, and abridged his name
to “ Oken.” As Lorenz Oken, he published, in 1802, his
small work entitled Grundriss der Naturphilosophie, der
Theorie der Sinne, und der darauf gegrundeten Classifica¬
tion der Thiere, 8vo.
This is the first of the series of works which placed Oken
at the head of the “ natur-philosophie ” or physio-philo¬
sophical school of Germany. In it he extended to physical
science the philosophical principles which Kant had applied
to mental and moral science. Oken had, however, in this
application, been preceded by Fichte, who, acknowledging
that the materials for a universal science had been dis¬
covered by Kant, declared that nothing more was needed
than a systematic co-ordination of these materials ; and this
task Fichte undertook in his famous Doctrine of Science
(Wissenschafts-lehre), the aim of which was to construct
a priori all knowledge. In this attempt, however, Fichte
did little more than mdicate the path ; it was reserved for
Schelling fairly to enter upon it, and for Oken, following
him, to explore its mazes yet farther, and to produce a
systematic plan of the country so surveyed.
In the Grundriss der Naturphilosophie of 1802, Oken
sketched the outlines of the scheme he afterwards devoted
himself to perfect. The position advanced in that remark¬
able work, and to which he ever after professed himself to
adhere, is this,—“ that the animal classes are virtually no¬
thing else than a representation of the sense-organs, and
that they must be arranged in accordance with them.
Agreeably with this idea, Oken contends that there are
only five animal classes :—1. The Dermatozoa, or Inverte-
brata ; 2. the Glossozoa, or Fishes, as being those animals
in which a true tongue makes, for the first time, its appear¬
ance ; 3. the Rhinozoa, or Reptiles, wherein the nose opens
for the first time into the mouth and inhales air; 4. the
Otozoa, or Birds, in which the ear for the first time opens
O K E N.
Oken. externally; and 5. the Ophthalmozoa, or mammals, in
^ ^ / which all the organs of sense are present and complete, the
eyes being movable and covered with two lids.
In 1805 Oken made another characteristic advance in
the application of the a priori principle, by a book On
Generation {Die Zeugung, Frankf., 8vo), wherein he main¬
tained the proposition “ that all organic beings originate
from, and consist of, vesicles ov cells. These vesicles, when
singly detached and regarded in their original process of
production, are the infusorial mass or protoplasma {ur-
schleim), from whence all larger organisms fashion them¬
selves, or are evolved. Their production is therefore no¬
thing else than a regular agglomeration of infusoria; not, of
course, of species already elaborated or perfect; but of
mucous vesicles or points in general, which first form them¬
selves by their union or combination into particular species.”
This doctrine is strikingly analogous to the generalized
results of the ablest microscopical observations on the de¬
velopment of animal and vegetable tissues which have been
prosecuted of late years.
One year after the production of this remarkable treatise,
Oken advanced another step in the development of his
system; and in a volume published in 1806, in which
Keiser assisted him, entitled, Beitrdgen zur Vergleichenden
Zoologie, Anatomic, und Physiologic, he demonstrated that
the intestines originate from the umbilical vesicle, and that
this corresponds to the vitellus or yolk-bag. Caspar Frie¬
drich Wolff had previously proved this fact in the chick
but he did not see its application as evidence of a general
law. Oken showed the importance of the discovery as an
illustration of his system. In the same work Oken de¬
scribed and re-called attention to the corpora Wolffiana,
or “ primordial kidneys,” as they are now termed and re¬
cognised. At this period, the enlightened Duke of Weimar
and the poet Goethe (who repaid the friendship of his prince
by the reflection of his own undying renown), were bringing
to perfection the plan of general education for the grand-
duchy. The university of Jena, under these auspices, had
been rapidly rising to pre-eminence; not through the wealth
of its endowments or by any artificial excitement, but
through the celebrity of the professors and members, whose
noble aspirations were stimulated by the encouraging eye of
the prince, and the observant care of his minister for educa¬
tion. Under these auspices had been fostered a Griesbach,
Fichte, Shelling, Feuerbach, the two Humboldts, Hufeland,
and Schlegel.
The reputation of the young privat-docent of Gottingen
had reached the ear of Goethe, and in 1807 Oken was in¬
vited to fill the office of “ Extraordinary Professor of the
Medical Sciences” in the university of Jena. He accepted
the call, and selected for the subject of his “ Inaugural dis¬
course,” his ideas on the “ Signification of the bones of the
skull,” based upon a discovery he had made in the previous
year. This famous lecture was delivered in the presence of
Goethe, as privy-councillor and rector of the university, and
was published by the young professor in the same year, with
the title, Ueber die Bedeutung der Schadelknochen, ein
Programm beim Antritt der Professur an der Gesammt-
XJniversitdt zu Jena, 4to, 1807. Of the relation of this essay
to the vertebral theory of the skull, we shall subsequently
offer a few remarks.
With regard to the origin of the idea, Oken narrates in
his Isis, that, walking one autumn-day in 1806, in the
Hartz forest, he stumbled upon the blanched skull of a deer,
picked up the partially dislocated bones, and, contemplating
them for a while, the truth flashed across his mind, and he
exclaimed, “ It is a vertebral column! ” At a meeting of
the German naturalists, held at Jena, some years after¬
wards, Professor Kieser gave an account of Oken’s dis¬
covery in the presence of the grand-duke, which account is
printed in the Tageblatt, or “ proceedings,”of that meeting. <-
The professor states that Oken communicated to him his
discovery when journeying in 1806, to the Isle of Wan-
geroog. On their return to Gottingen, Oken explained his
ideas by reference to the skull of a turtle in Kieser’s col¬
lection, which Oken disarticulated for that purpose with
his own hands. “ It is with the greatest pleasure,” writes
Kieser, “ that I am able to show here the same skull, after
having it thirty years in my collection. The single bones
of the skull are marked by Oken’s own hand-writing, which
may be so easily known.” There was a cause, as we shall
presently see, for this circumstantial testimony.
Oken having delivered and printed his Introductory
Lecture m 1807, informs us, in the heft vii. of his Isis, that
he presented copies to Goethe and to other members of the
grand-duke’s government. “ Goethe was so pleased with
my discovery as to invite me to stay with him during the
Easter week of 1808 in his house at Weimar, which invita¬
tion I accepted.”
The range of Oken’s lectures at Jena was a wide one,
and they were highly esteemed. They embraced the sub¬
jects of natural philosophy, general natural history, zoology,
comparative anatomy, the physiology of man, of animals,
and of plants. The spirit with which the professor grappled
with the vast scope of science is characteristically illustrated
in his essay Ueber das Vniversum als Fortsetzung des
Sinnensystems, 4to, 1808. In this work he propounds
“ that organism is none other than a combination of all the
universe’s activities within a single individual body.” This
doctrine led him to the conviction “ that world and organism
are one in kind, and do not stand merely in harmony with
each other.”
In the same year he published his Erste Ideen zur
Theorie des Lichts, &c., in which he advanced the proposi¬
tion, that “ light could be nothing but a polar tension of
the ether, evoked by a central body in antagonism with
the planets; and that heat was none other than the motion
of this ether.” Here Oken may be said to have anticipated
the doctrine of the “correlation of physical forces.”'
In 1809, he extended his system to the mineral world,
arranging the ores, not according to the metals, but agree¬
ably to their combinations with oxygen, acids, and sulphur.
In 1810 Oken summed up his several views on organic and
inorganic natures into one compendious system. The first
edition of his Lehrbuch der Naturphilosophie appeared in
that and the following years, in which he sought to bring
his several doctrines into mutual connection, and to “ show
that the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms are not
to be arranged arbitrarily in accordance with single and iso¬
lated characters, but to be based upon the cardinal organs
or anatomical systems, from which a firmly-established num¬
ber of classes would necessarily be evolved ; that each class,
moreover, takes its starting point from below, and conse¬
quently that all of them pass parallel to each other.” That,
“as in chemistry, where the combinations follow a definite
numerical law, so also in anatomy, the organs—in physio¬
logy, the functions—in natural history, the classes, families,
and even genera of minerals, plants, and animals—present
a similar arithmetical ratio.”
Three editions of this extraordinary book have appeared,
each more fully elaborated than the former. An epitome
of the work will presently be given. In continuing the
personal history of the author of the Naturphilosophie, we
may first mention that, on Goethe’s recommendation, Oken
was honoured, on the publication of the first edition of the
Lehrbuch in 1810, with the title of “ Hof-rath,” or court-
councillor. In 1812 he was appointed “ ordinary professor
of natural sciences” in the university of Jena.”
499
Oken.
1 Thcoria Generationis, 8vo, 1774.
500 O K
Oken. In 1816 he commenced the publication of his well-known
periodical, entitled Isis, ein Encyclopadische Zeitschrift,
vorzuylich fur Naturgeschichte, vergleichende Anatomic und
Physiologic, 4to. In this journal not only appeared essays^
and notices on the natural sciences, but on other subjects of
interest; poetry, and even comments on the politics of
other German states, were occasionally admitted. 1 his led
to representations and remonstrances from the governments
criticized or impugned, and the court of YV eimar gave Oken
the alternative of suppressing the Isis, or of resigning his
professorship. He chose the latter. I he publication of
the Isis at Weimar was prohibited. Oken made arrange¬
ments for its issue at Rudolstadt, and this continued unin¬
terruptedly until the year 1848.
The independent spirit manifested by Oken excited his
courtly enemies to harsher measures. An accusation was
preferred against Oken as a member of a forbidden seciet
democratic society he stood his trial and was acquitted.
He thereupon retired for a while into private life, occupying
himself with the editorship of the Isis, and with his scientific
works. Amongst these may be cited the Lehrbuch der
Naturgeschichte, 1815-1825 ; his Handbuch der Natur¬
geschichte zum Gebrauch beij Vorlesungen, 1816—1820;
and his Naturgeschichte fur Schulen, 8vo, 1821. In these
manuals Oken considered that he had arranged for the
first time the genera and species in accordance with the only
true or physio-philosophical principles; stating briefly every¬
thing of vital importance respecting them ; and that it was
the first attempt to frame a truly scientific history of nature.
In 1821 Oken promulgated, in his Isis, the first idea of
the annual general meetings of the German naturalists
and medical practitioners, which happy idea was realized
in the following year, when the first meeting was held at
Leipzig in 1822. They have been continued ever since in
Germany; and similar annual scientific gatherings have
been adopted in other countries, of which the “ British As¬
sociation for the Advancement of Science” is an instance,
avowedly, at its origin, organized after the German or
Okenian model. The writer of the present notice at¬
tended the German annual meeting at Freiburg in 1838,
and heard a fervid extempore address by Oken of upwards
of an hour’s duration, in which the rare eloquence of the
gifted man, and the sympathy and respect of his country¬
men for the orator, were strikingly manifested.
In 1828 Oken resumed his original humble duties as
“ private teacher” in the newly-established university of
Munich ; and soon afterwards he was appointed “ ordinary
professor” in the same university. In 1832, on the proposi¬
tion by the Bavarian government to transfer Oken to a
professorship in a provincial university of the state, he re¬
signed his appointments and left the kingdom.
Switzerland has the honour of affording the final place of
refuge, with means of an independent pursuit of science, to
this philosophic and patriotic naturalist. Oken was ap¬
pointed in 1833 to the professorship of natural history in the
then recently-established university of Zurich. There he
continued to reside, fulfilling his professional duties and
promoting the progress of his favourite sciences, to the
period of his demise, in the seventy-second year of his age.
Oken’s phi- In his Lehrbuch der Naturphilosophie, of which a transla-
losophy. tion of the last edition, by A. Tulk, Esq., has been published
by the Ray Society, under the title of Elements of Physio-
philosophy, Oken begins by asserting that philosophy, as the
science which embraces the principles of the universe or world,
is only a logical conception ; but it may conduct to the real
conception. Thus the mathematics are principles (or a philo¬
sophy) of which the universe is the reality. “ The world con¬
sists of two parts—one apparent, real, or material; the other
non-apparent, ideal, spiritual. Hence there are two divisions
of philosophy,—viz., pneumato- and physio-philosophy.”
The latter is the subject of this treatise.
Its object is “to show how, and in accordance with what
E N.
laws, the material took its origin ; to portray the first periods oken.
of the world’s development from nothing; how the elements v.
and heavenly bodies originated ; in what method by self-
evolution into higher and manifold forms they separated into
minerals, became finally organic, and in man attained self-
consciousness.” Physio-philosophy is, therefore, in fact, the
history of creation, a name under which it was taught by the
most ancient philosophers,—viz., as “cosmogony.”
Man, being the crown of nature’s development, must com¬
prehend every thing that has preceded him. “ In a word, man
must represent the whole world in miniature.” Hence the
laws of spirit are not different from the laws of nature—both
are transcripts of each other.
Physio-philosophy, therefore, is more important than pneu-
mato-philosophy, because nature is antecedent to the human
spirit.
And the whole of philosophy consists in the demonstration
of the parallelism that exists between the activities of nature
and of spirit.
But inasmuch as the spiritual existed before the real, and
gave it birth, physio-philosophy must commence from the
spirit.
It is divided into three parts : the frst, treating of spirit and
its activities ; the second, of the individual phenomena or things
of the world ; the third, of the continuous operation of spirit
in the individual things.
It would be impossible, within the limits of this article, to
follow Oken through his extraordinary development of the
science he has thus described. Every sentence is a link in the
chain of argument, which could not be extracted so as to be in¬
telligible, nor would it endure further condensation. It must
suffice to state that he traces, agreeably with his system, the
evolutions of every form of being, organic and inorganic, in a
regular series, from the simple element to the most complex
shapes. “ Polarity is the first force which appears in the
world.” “Galvanism is the principle of life,” “the vital
force.” “The galvanic process,” he says, “ is one with the
vital process.” “ There is no other vital force than the gal¬
vanic polarity.” Oken, then, contends that organism is gal¬
vanism, residing in a thoroughly homogeneous mass. A gal¬
vanic pile, pounded into atoms, must become alive. In this
manner nature brings forth organic bodies. The basis of
electricity is the air; of magnetism, metal; of chemism (the
name he gives to the influence that produces chemical combina¬
tion), salts. The basis of galvanism, in like manner, is the
organic mass. Accordingly, whatever is organic is galvanic ;
whatever is alive is galvanic. Life, organism, galvanism, are
one. Life is the vital process ; the vital process is an organic
or galvanic process. Galvanism is the basis of all the processes
of the organic world.
At the creation God created a mass of organisms of no larger
size than an infusorial point. Whatever is larger has not been
created but developed. “ So,” says Oken, “ the Bible teaches
us.” God did not make man out of nothing, but took an
elemental body then existing, an earth-clod or carbon, moulded
it into form, thus making use of water, and breathed into it
life,—viz., air, whereby galvanism or the vital process arose.”
Organization is produced by the co-operating influence of
light and heat. “ The ether imparts the substance, the heat
the form, the light the life.”
The life of an inorganic body is a threefold action of the
three terrestrial elements, in which three processes galvanism
consists. The nutrient process is magnetic, present and en¬
tire in every part of the body, and wheresoever it is withdrawn
there is death. It operates according to the laws of crystalliza¬
tion. The digestive process acts according to the laws of
chemism, which is not only the process of liquefaction, but the
process of formation or creation of new organic matter. The
digestive process converts the inorganic to the organic mass.
It is the formation of mucus. The chyle is strictly a mucus.
Into mucus the air finally settles down by the process of oxida¬
tion, called the respiratory process. By this the juices emerge
from their state of indifference, by which each point of the juice
becomes polar towards every other ; all are mutually attracted,
all repelled, and thereby a decided circulation-motion is
originated.
Every globule of sap or mucus \s per se indifferent. It has,
therefore, a natural affinity for each of the three elements
comprehended in the organism. By respiration it is united
to the element air, hy digestion to the element water, by
nutrition to the element earth. These three processes consti¬
tute the galvanic process. Thus the galvanic circle is com¬
plete, and motion is the manifestation of galvanism. The pro¬
cess of motion is synonymous with the galvanic process this
is the vital process. , . .
The distinction between the organic and the inorganic is
self-motion. The organic is destroyed so soon as motion dis¬
appears in it; the inorganic is destroyed so soon as motion
enters it.
The above will serve as an idea of the spirit of the work,
and of the author’s style and treatment of the most recon¬
dite questions. We now return to Oken’s essay on the
Signification of the Bones of the Head, on which, perhaps,
his reputation as an original discoverer is best founded.
There nevertheless still prevails confusion, or indistinct¬
ness of ideas, in the opinions set forth relative to Oken’s
claims to, or share in, the discovery of the vertebral nature
and arrangement of the bones of the skull.
All Oken’s writings are eminently deductive illustrations
of a foregone and assumed principle, which, with other
philosophers of the transcendental school, he deemed equal
to the explanation of all the mysteries of nature.
According to Oken, the head was a repetition of the
trunk—a kind of second trunk, with its limbs and other
appendages ; this sum of his observations and comparisons
—few of which he ever gave in detail—ought ever to be
borne in mind in comparing the share taken by Oken in
homological anatomy with the progress made by other cul¬
tivators of that philosophical branch of the science.
The idea of the analogy between the skull, or parts of the
skull, and the vertebral column, had been previously pro¬
pounded and ventilated in their lectures by Autenreith and
Kielmeyer, and in the writings of Jean-Pierre Frank. By
Oken it was applied chiefly in illustration of the mystical
system of Schelling—the all-in-all and all-in-every-part.
From the earliest to the latest of Oken’s writings on the
subject, “ the head is a repetition of the whole trunk with
all its systems. The brain is the spinal chord ; the cranium
is the vertebral column; the mouth is intestine and abdo¬
men ; the nose is the lungs and thorax ; the jaws are the
limbs ; and the teeth the claws or nails.” Spix, in his folio
Cephalogenesis, 1818, richly illustrated comparative crani-
ology, but presented the facts under the same transcenden¬
tal guise; and Cuvier ably availed himself of the extra¬
vagancies of these disciples of Schelling to cast ridicule on
the whole inquiry into those higher relations of parts to
the archetype, which Professor Owen has called “ general
homologies.” “ M. Spix,” Cuvier writes, “ makes this
bone, which I call ‘ posterior frontal,’ the ‘ scapula ’ of the
upper limb of the head ; and M. Oken, according to the
same mystical language, makes it the ‘ merry thought’ ( four-
chette) of the upper limb of the head; for it must be re¬
marked, that the Philosophy of Nature, in pretending to
find again in the head all the parts of the trunk, acts so
arbitrarily, that each of those who would apply it employ
these strange denominations in a different manner.”
“ Cet humerus de la tete de M. Oken devient pour M.
Spix le pubis de cette meme tete, ou, pour parler un langage
intelligible, un des osselets de 1’ouie.” 1
The vertebral theory of the skull had practically disap¬
peared from anatomical science when the labours of Cuvier
drew to their close. It needs only to refer to the works of
his chief pupils and successors, Milne-Edwards, John
Muller (Physiologic), Wagner (Lehrbuch der Zootomie),
or Agassiz (Poissons Fossiles), to have sufficient evidence
of that fact. In Owen’s Archetype and Homologies of
the Vertebrate Skeleton, the idea of the vertebral structure
of the skull was not only revived but worked out for the
first time inductively, and the theory rightly stated, as
follows :—“ The head is not a virtual equivalent of the trunk,
but is only a portion, i.e., certain modified segments of the
whole body. The jaws are the ‘hoemal arches’ of the first
two segments; they are not limbs of the head.”—(P. 176.)
Vaguely and strangely, however, as Oken had blended
the idea with his d priori conception of the nature of the
head, the chance of appropriating it seems to have overcome
the moral sense—the least developed element in the spiritual
nature—of Goethe, unless the poet deceived himself.
Comparative osteology had early attracted Goethe’s at¬
tention. In 1786 he published his essay Ueber den
Zwischenckiefer den des Menschen und der Thiere, 4to,
Jena, showing that the intermaxillary bone existed in man
as well as in brutes. Not a word in this essay gives the
remotest hint of his having then possessed the idea of the
vertebral analogies of the skull.
In ^^(MorphologieA^y. 250), Goethe first publicly
stated that thirty years before the date of that publi¬
cation he had discovered the secret relationship between
the vertebrae and the bones of the head, and that he had
always continued to meditate on this subject. I he circum¬
stances under which the poet, in 1820, narrates having be¬
come inspired with the original idea, are suspiciously ana¬
logous to those described by Oken in 1807, as producing
the same effect on his mind. A bleached skull is acciden¬
tally discovered in both instances ; in Oken’s it was that of
a deer in the Harz Forest; in Goethe’s it was that of asheep
picked up on the shores of the Lido, at Venice. Mr Buckle,
in his discourse “ On the Influence of Women in the Pro¬
gress of Knowledge”—Fraser’s Magazine, April 1858, p.
402, states:—“ Goethe, strolling in a cemetery near Venice,
stumbled upon a skull which was lying before him. Sud¬
denly the idea flashed across his mind that the skull was
composed of vertebrae; in other words, that the bony cover¬
ing of the head was simply an expansion of the bony cover¬
ing of the spine. This luminous idea was afterwards adopted
by Oken and a few other great naturalists in Germany and
France, but it was not received in England till ten years
ago, when Mr Owen took it up, and in his very remarkable
work on the Homologies of the Vertebrate Skeleton, showed
its meaning and purpose as contributing towards a general
scheme of philosophic anatomy.” This reproduction of a
disparaging statement respecting Oken necessitates the fol¬
lowing summary of the facts:—
It may be assumed that Oken, when a private teacher at
Gottingen in 1806, knew nothing of this unpublished idea
or discovery of Goethe ; and that Goethe first became aware
that Oken had the idea of the vertebral relations of the
skull when he listened to the Introductory Discourse in
which the young professor, invited by the poet to Jena,
selected this very idea for its subject. It is incredible that
Oken, had he adopted the idea from, or been aware of an
anticipation by, Goethe, should have omitted to acknowlege
the source—should not rather have eagerly embraced so
appropriate an opportunity of doing graceful homage to the
originality and genius of his patron.
The anatomist having lectured for an hour, plainly un¬
conscious of any such anticipation, it seems hardly less in¬
credible that the poet should not have mentioned to the
young lecturer his previous conception of the vertebro-
cranial theory, and the singular coincidence of the accidental
circumstance which he subsequently alleged to have pro¬
duced that discovery. On the contrary, Goethe permits Oken
to publish his famous lecture, with the same unconscious¬
ness of any anticipation as when he delivered it; and Oken,
in the same state of belief, transmits a copy to Goethe, who
thereupon honours the professor with special marks of atten-
1 Ossemens Fossiles, 4to, 1824, tom. v., pt. ii., pp. 75-85, quoted in an able article in the Quarterly Review, vol. xciil., in which the his¬
tory of the Discoveries of the Archetype and llomologies of the Vertebrate Skeleton is briefly but convincingly discussed, pp. 70-8Q.
502 O K
Oken. tion, and an invitation to his house. No hint of any claim
of the host is given to the guest; no word of reclamation
in any shape appears for some years. In Goethe’s Tag
und Jahres Hefte, he refers to two friends, Riemer and
Voigt, as being cognizant in 1807, of his theory. Why did
not one or other of these make known to Oken that he had
been so anticipated? “I told my friends to keep quiet,”
writes Goethe in 1825! Spix, in the meanwhile, in ^1815,
contributes his share to the development ot Oken s idea
in his Cephalogenesis. Ulrich follows in 1816 with his
Schildkrotenschadel; next appears the contribution, in
1818, by Bqjanus, to the vertebral theory of the skull;
amplified in the Pavagon to that anatomist s admirable
Anatome Testadinis Europcece, fob, 1821. And now, for
the first time in 1818, Bojanus, visiting some friends at
Weimar, there hears the rumour that his friend Oken
had been anticipated by the great poet. He communicates
it to Oken, who, like an honest man, at once published the
statement made by Goethe’s friends in the Isis of that year
(see p. 509), offering no reflection on the poet, but re¬
stricting himself to a detailed and interesting account of
the circumstances under which he himself had been led,
independently, to make his discovery, when wandering
in 1806 through the Hercynian forest. It was enough
for him thus to vindicate his own claims; he abstains
from any comment reflecting on Goethe; and maintained
the same blameless silence when Goethe ventured for the
first time to claim for himself, in 1820, the merit of
having entertained the same idea, or made the discovery,
thirty years previously. Such an idea may have occurred
to him at that time; in 1807 Goethe may have deter¬
mined to keep silence on the matter, and have permitted
Oken to reap undisturbed the honour of the discovery;
for the poet must then, at least, have been convinced
that the young professor had made it independently.
But this generous hypothesis is incompatible with Goethe’s
later reclamation. In this he not only ascribes the dis¬
covery to himself, but writes, “ In the year 1807 this theory
appeared tumultuously and imperfectly before the public.”
By “ tumultuously” Goethe signifies his recollection of the
applause with which Oken’s audience received the first
announcement of the theory. What is worse, Goethe
apathetically permitted, to say the least, some of his wor¬
shippers to undermine the moral character of Oken in re¬
ference to this cranio-vertebral hypothesis.
In 1836 an anonymous statement appeared in the
Allgemeine Zeitung, to the effect that Oken had stolen the
idea of the vertebral nature of the skull from Goethe. Oken,
with German bluntness, replied in the same journal, that
his nameless accuser “was a liar and calumniator.”1 The
accuser was silent.
The German naturalists held their annual meeting that
year at Jena, and there Professor Kieser publicly bore
testimony, from personal knowledge, to the circumstances
and dates of Oken’s discovery. Neither Goethe nor any
of his friends had a word to offer on the subject. Yet
the poet continued to permit his flatterers from time to time
to ascribe to him the merit of the discovery; and again, in
1824, he claimed it for himself, with the contemptuous allu¬
sion, above cited, to the Introductory Lecture of 1807,
but without mentioning Oken’s name. Goethe did not
dare directly to impute plagiarism to Oken, who thereupon
consistently kept silent. At length, in the edition of
Hegel’s works by Michelet, 8vo, Berlin, 1842, there
appeared the following paragraph, p. 567 :—“ The type-
bone is the dorsal vertebra, provided inwards with a hole,
and outwards with processes, every bone being only a mo¬
dification of it. This idea originated with Goethe, who
worked it out in a treatise written in 1785, and published it
E N.
in his Morphologic, 1820, p. 162. Oken, to whom the Oken.
treatise was communicated, has pretended that the idea was
his oum property, and has reaped the honour of it.” This
accusation again called out Oken, who thoroughly refuted
it in an able, circumstantial, and temperate statement, in
heft vii. of the Isis, 1847. Goethe’s osteological essay of
1785, and the only one he printed in that century, is on a
different subject. In the Morphologic of 1820-24, Goethe
distinctly declares that he had never published his ideas
on the vertebral theory of the skull. He could not, there¬
fore, have sent any such essay to Oken before the year 1807.
Oken, in reference to his previous endurance of Goethe’s
pretensions, states, that “ being well aware that his fellow-
labourers in natural science thoroughly appreciated the true
state of the case, he confided in quiet silence in their judg¬
ment. Meckel, Spix, Ulrich, Bojanus, Carus, Cuvier,
Geofffy St Hilaire, Albers, Straus-Durckheim, Owen,
Kieser, and Lichtenstein, had recorded their judgment in
his favour and against Goethe. But upon the appearance of
the new assault in Michelet’s edition of Hegel, he could no
longer remain silent.”
A recent biographer of Goethe asks, “ why did not Oken
make the charge of plagiarism during Goethe’s lifetime ? ”2
The answer is, that he at no time made such charge. He
left Goethe’s affirmations for what they were worth, and
to produce such effect as they might with the competent
historians of science. It was possible that Goethe had
stated a truth: he might only have been uncandid and un¬
generous. But that did not make Oken the less an original
discoverer. Only when he was charged with plagiarism did
he enter into the question with the view of honest self-vindi¬
cation, and that both before and after Goethe’s death.
As to the question of the superiority of the deductive
over the inductive method in philosophy, as illustrated by
the writings of Oken. His bold axiom, that heat is but a
mode of motion of light,—and the idea broached in his essay
on Generation (1805), viz.,that “all the parts of higher
animals are made up of an aggregate of infusoria or ani¬
mated globular monads,”—are both of the same order as his
proposition of the head being a repetition of the trunk, with
its vertebrae and limbs. Science would have profited no
more from the one idea without the subsequent experimen¬
tal discoveries of Oersted and Faraday; or by the other
without the microscopical observations of Brown, Schleiden,
and Schwann ; than from the third notion without the in¬
ductive demonstration of the segmental constitution of the
skull by Owen.
It is questionable, indeed, whether in either case the dis¬
coverers of the true theories were excited to their labours,
or in any way influenced, by the d priori guesses of Oken ;
more probable is it that the requisite researches and genuine
deductions therefrom, were the results of the correlated
fitness of the stage of the science, and the gifts of its true
cultivators at such particular stage.
Oken’s real claims to the support and gratitude of natu¬
ralists rest on his appreciation of the true relations of natural
history to intellectual progress, of its superior teachings to
the mere utilitarian applications of observed facts, of its in¬
trinsic dignity as a science.
To natural history thus worthily comprehended Lorenz
Oken devoted his whole time and energies up to his last
illness, which closed his career at Zurich, on the 11th
of August 1851. A fine statue of the philosopher, by Drake
of Berlin, has been erected to his honour in the university
of Jena, where he first publicly taught.
We give a list of Oken’s chief works and original essays:
1. Grundriss der Naturphilosophie, der Theorie der Sinne
und der darauf gegrundeten Classification der Tfiiere. Frankf.
1802, 8°. 2. Die Zeugung. Frankf. 1805, 8°. 3. Abriss
1 “ Einen Itugner, Verlaumber und Ehrabschneider,” Ally, Zeit-, June 20. 2 Lewes, Life and Works of Goethe, 8vo, 1855, vol. ii*, P« 1*>9«
Oken.
0 K E
der Biologie. Gottingen, 1805, 8°. 4. Ueber die Bedeutung der
Schadelknochen, ein Programm beim Antntt der Professur
zu Jena. Frankf. 1807, 4°. 5. Ueber das Universum als Fort-
setzungdes Sinnensystems. Jena, 1808. 4°. 6. Frste Ideen
zur Theorie des Lichts, der Finsterniss, der Farben, und der
Warme. Jena, 1808, 4°. 7. Grundzeicbnung des naturlicben
Systems der Erze. Jena, 1809, 4°. 8. Ueber den Wertb der
Naturgeschichte. Jena, 1809, 4°. 9. Lebrbucb der Natur-
pbilosopbie. 3 vols. Jena, 1809-11. Ed. .Jena, Icol.
Ed 3 Zurich, 1843.—(Angl.) Elements of Pliysio-pinlosophy:
Ray Society. 8°. London, 1847. 10. Lehrbuch der Natur-
geschichte. Leipz. 1813.—-Weimar, 1815, 1825, 8°. fig. 11.
Isis 12 Handbuch der Naturgeschichte zum Gebrauch bey
Yorlesungen. Niirnb. 1816-20, 8°. 13. Naturgeschichte fur
Schulen. Leipz. 1821, 8°. fig. 14. Esquisse d’un Systeme
d’Anatomie, de Physiologic, et d Histoire Aaturelle. Paris,
1812, 8°. 15. Allgemeine Naturgeschichte. Stuttg. 1833-42,
14 yols. 8°. fig.— Wiegm. Arch. 1835, I. p. 7. 16. Idees sur
la Classification des Animaux.—Ann. Sc. n. (2e S) XIY. p. 247.
17. Das Thierreich. Stuttg. 1836-38, 4 vols. 8°. Atl. fol. 18.
Idee sulla Classificazione filosofica dei tre Regni della Natura.
—II Politecnico, Milano, III. 1840, pp. 8, 28.—Ann. Sc. Nat.
ser. 2, XIV. p. 247. 19. Fortpflanzung der Wasserschnecken
ohne Paarung.—Isis, 1817, p. 320. 20. Ueber Geschlecht und
Gattung.—Isis, 1817, p. 465. 21. Aufenthalt der Meerwiirmer
und Anatomic von Arenicola piscatorwn.—Isis, 1817, p. 466,
fig. 22. Reisefragen.—Isis, 1817, p- 537. 23. Ueber Proteus
anguinus und die durchgehenden Naslocher als Character der
Amphibien.—Isis, 1817, p. 641, fig.; 1821, p.27L _ 24. Nach-
trag fiber die Bedeutung der Schadelknochen.—Isis, 1817, p.
1204; 1818, p. 510; 1823, pp. 353, 401; 1837, p. 575. 25.
Nachtrag fiber die Entstehung der Darme aus dem Nabelblas-
chem—Isis, 1818, p. 59. 26. Bedeutung der Knochen des Cro-
codillschadels und der Nasenbeine derYdgel.—Isis, 1818, p.278.
27. Ueber die Farben der Blumen.—Isis, 1818, p. 472. 28.
Die Presswerkzeuge der Insecten entsprechen den Fiissen.—
Isis, 1818, p. 477, fig. 29. Verzeichniss der entomologischen
Literatur von 1790-1800.—Isis, 1818, p. 711. 30. Anatomie
von Thalassema.—Isis, 1818, p. 878. 31. Bestimmung der gis-
tigen Milbe in Persien (Rhynchoprion persicum).—Isis, 1818,
p. 1567. 32. Begriff des Muschelbaues.—Isis, 1818, p. 1817.
33. Deutung des Thieres von Stronsa.—Isis, 1818, p. 2099.
—Entstehung des ersten Menschen.—Isis, 1819, p. 1117. t.
13. 34. Bein-Philosophie.—Isis, 1819, p. 1528. t. 18. 35.
Ueber Pterodactylus longi- et brevirostris.—Isis, 1819, p.
1788. t. 20. 36. Ueber die Bedeutung des Insecten Leibes.—
Isis, 1820, p. 552. 37. Ueber das Athmen der Pricken.—Isis,
1321, III. p. 271. 38. Nachtrag zu Richter's Aufsatz fiber
den weiblichen Kuckucksmagen—Isis, 1823, II. p; 225. 39.
Ueber die Sammlung der vergleichenden Anatomie zu Paris.
Isis, 1823, Lit. Anz. p. 265. 40. Zahnsystem.—Isis, 1823, p.
274. 41. Bemerkungen fiber die Schadel der Saugthiere,
Vogel und Lurche.—Isis, 1823, p. 353. 42. Ueber die bchadel
der Fische und die Bedeutung des Kiemendeckels.—Isis, 1823,
p. 401. t. 14, 15. 43. Ueber das Brust- und Schultergerfist
und das Becken der Thiere.1—Isis, 1823, p. 441. t. 16, 17.
44. Bemerkungen fiber die Skeletevon Haarthieren.—Isis, 1823,
p. 455. 45. Ueber die niederen Thiere in der Pariser Samm¬
lung der vergleichenden Anatomie.—Isis, 1823, p. 457-1. 17.
46. Ueber die Saugthiere in der Zoologischen Sammlung zu
Paris.—Isis, 1823, p. 481. t. 17. 47. Ueber die Vogel,
Lurche, Fische, Weichthiere, und Kerfe in dieser Sammlung.
—Isis, 1823, p. 505. 48. Ueber das Ey und die Zitzen des
Schnabelthiers.—Isis, 1823, p. 1427. 49. Rudimens des pieds
vers I’anus des Boas.—Feruss. Bull. 1826, VII. p. 445. 50.
Bau des Bisambeutels.—Isis, 1826, p. 849. t. 6 {Feruss. Bull.
1827, X. p. 144). 51. Ueber die Bedeutung der Foetus-hfillen
und die Ursache des ersten Athmens.—Isis, 1827, p. 371. t. 4.
52. *Ueber die Bedeutung der Schulter und Muskeln der
Schildkrote.—Isis, 1827, p. 456. 53. Ueber das Zahlengesetz
in den Wirbeln des Menschen.—Isis, 1829, p. 306. 54. Ueber
die Bedeutung der Farren- und Moos-capsel.—Isis, 1829, p.
395. 55. Cyprinus uranoscopus, Agass., aus der Isar.—
Naturf. in Be'rl. 1828.—Isis. 1829, IV. p. 414. 56. Ueber die
Aufnahme der Naturwissenschaften in die Gymnasien.—Isis,
1829, p. 1225. 57. Entwickelung des Kfichelchens im Ey.—•
Isis, 1830, VI. p. 575. 58. Ueber das Betragen von Proteus.—
Isis, 1832, p. 699. 59. Ueber die Richtung des Wurzelchens
u. das Winden des Stengels.—'Isis, 1834, p. 804. 60. Ueber
OLD
503
Lepidosiren.*—Ms, 1838, p. 347 ; 1839, p. 607; 1840, p. 467; Okhotsk
1843, p. 441. 61. Ueber den Steinbruch von GEningen.—Isis ||
1840, p. 282.—L. u. Br. N. Jahrb. 1843, p. 230. 62. Ueber Oldcastle.
das Perlboot {Nautilus Pompilius, L).—Isis, 1835, p. 1. 63. -y—^
Ueber die Schadelwirbel.—Isis, 1847. 64. Beitrage zur ver¬
gleichenden Zoologie, Anatomie und Physiologie.—Bamb. u.
Wfirzb. 1806; 1807, 2 vols. 4°. fig.—Isis, 1818, I. p. 59, von
Oken u. Kieser. (r. o.)
OKHOTSK, a town and province of Eastern Siberia, in
the district of Yakutsk. The province consists of a narrow
strip of country, along the shore of the sea of Okhotsk,
about 1000 miles in length, and varying from 80 to 200 in
breadth. It is traversed through its whole extent by the
Stanovoi Mountains, which run along the sea coast, and
send down a few small streams to the sea. Of these the
chief is the Okhota. The climate is very severe; but
there are some tracts of pasture-ground and clumps of trees.
The rein-deer and the dog are the only tame animals; and
furs and timber are the only articles of produce. Fish is ob¬
tained along the coasts ; and shoals of small whales are occa¬
sionally met with. The district is used as a penal settlement
for the most incorrigible criminals, with whom and their
descendants it is for the most part peopled. Pop. about
7000. The town of Okhotsk stands at the mouth of the
Okhota. N. Lat. 59. 21., E. Long. 142. 45. It consists
of a collection of ill-built and irregularly arranged log-
houses; and has a government house, hospital, church,
storehouses, &c. It is the principal station of the Russo-
American trading company, who convey furs hither from
America, and hence to Kiachta, to exchange for Chinese
goods. Pop. 957.
Okhotsk, Sea of an inlet of the North Pacific Ocean,
between Kamtschatka and Siberia, extending from N. Lat.
50. to 60., E. Long. 137. to 155. From its N. E. extremity
the gulfs of Ijighinsk and Perjinsk stretch into the land.
Its depth is generally great, and there are few islands.
Near the coast it is frozen for 6 months of the year.
OLAND, or Oeland, an island in the Baltic, belong¬
ing to Sweden, included in the lan of Kalmar, and separated
from the mainland by the Kalmar Sound, which varies from
3 to 15 miles in breadth. Length 85 miles; average
breadth 8; area 608 square miles. The western shores
are low; those to the east high and steep; and the pre¬
valent formation throughout the island is limestone. To
the north are a few small lakes; but no considerable
streams anywhere occur. The soil, though scanty, is
fertile ; and a great part of the surface is covered with fine
forests. Cattle and sheep are extensively reared; and
deer, wild boars, and other game abound. Oland is famous
for its breed of ponies of very small size. The weaving of
cloth is carried on, and furnishes an article of export trade.
The island contains several villages, of which Borgholm
the capital, on the west coast, is the chief. The people are
extensively employed in fishing and navigation ; and there
is an alum mine, the most important in the kingdom, which
employs about 300 hands. Pop. 33,000.
OLDCASTLE, Sir John, commonly called “ The
good Lord Cobham,” was born in the fourteenth century,
during the reign of Edward III. He obtained his peerage
by marrying the heiress of Lord Cobham, who had distin¬
guished himself during the reign of Richard II. for his
opposition to the tyranny of that monarch. He commanded
an English army in France during the reign of Henry
IV. where he displayed great military skill. Oldcastle
had, from the outset of his career, set himself with great
patriotism and independence to oppose the political and
ecclesiastical corruptions of his time. Being a man of fine
natural talents, and having a passionate thirst for know¬
ledge, he turned his attention to the doctrines of John
Wycliffe; and after examining them with great care,
declared his adherence to the cause of the reformers. He
collected and transcribed the works of Wycliffe for circula-
504
OLD
OLD
Oldcastle tion among the people, and sent preachers of reform into
N various parts of the country. The cause made great pro-
en urg. gregs> an[j growth 0f heresy was attributed to this
" v ^ nobleman’s influence. Henry V. had a partiality for the
good lord, and tried to reclaim him by expostulation.
“ Next to God,” said his lordship, “ I profess obedience to
my king; but as to the spiritual dominion ot the Pope, I
could never see upon what foundation it was claimed, nor
can I pay him any obedience.” The king turned away
in displeasure, and left the heretic to the tender mercies ot
the Church. Escaping from the tower where he had been
imprisoned as a heretic, he sought refuge in Wales. In
1414 the clergy got up a report ot an imaginary conspiracy
of the Lollards, with Lord Cobham at their head, for the
destruction of the king. A bill of attainder was passed
against him; 1000 merks were set upon his head; and
perpetual exemption from taxes was promised to any town
that should secure him. After an exile of four years in
, Wales he was at length seized, carried to London, and
executed in St Giles’ Field in the most cruel and barbar¬
ous manner. Johan Bale tells us in his Brefe Chronycle
of the examination and death of this nobleman : “ Than
w as he hanged up there by the myddle in cheanes of yron,
and so consumed a lyve in the fyre, praysynge the name
of God so longe as his lyfe lasted” (p. 96). Thus died in
1418 one of the ablest and most brilliant men of his day,
who, according to his biographers, was qualified to shine
alike in the cabinet, the field, and the court. As a writer
Lord Cobham is known by a piece entitled Troche Con¬
clusions Addressed to the Parliament of England. He
thus stands distinguished as the first martyr and the first
author among the nobility of England. (See Lives of
Wycliffe and his Disciples, by William Gilpin, 1765.)
Capgrave, in his Chronicle of England (edited by the Rev.
F. C. Hingeston, London, 1858), gives a tolerably minute
account of the career of Oldcastle ; but with a strong
prejudice against him and all Lollards. The priestly
chronicler remarks of his lordship : “ A strong man in
bataile he was, but a grete heretik, and a gret enmye to
the Cherch” (p. 304).
OLDCASTLE, a market-town of Ireland, county of
Meath, 20 miles N.W. of Trim, and 52 N.W. of Dublin.
It has three churches, a market-house, savings-bank,
dispensary, school, and poorhouse. There are here lime-
quarries, and extensive flour-mills; and an active trade is
carried on in yarn. Pop. 1072.
OLDENBURG, Grand Duchy of, one of the states of
the German Confederation, consists of three parts, separated
from one another by other states. The duchy of Oldenburg
properly so called, is bounded on the N. by the German
Ocean, E. by Hanover and the territory of Bremen, S. and
W. by Hanover; and lies between N. Lat. 52. 50. and
53. 44., and E. Long. 7. 40. and 8. 45. The principality
of Liibeck or Eutin is bounded by the duchy of Holstein,
the territory of the free city Liibeck, and the Baltic.
The principality of Birkenfeld, which forms the third por¬
tion of Oldenburg, lies in Southern Germany; and is
bounded N. and W. by Rhenish Prussia, S. and E. by
Coburg and Hesse-Homburg. Total area, 2433 square
miles. The surface of Oldenburg proper is level through¬
out, as it forms part of the great plain of Northern Ger¬
many. Its uniformity is only here and there broken by
low sand-hills, such as the Osenberge, between the towns
of Oldenburg and Delmenhorst. The land on the coasts
of the North Sea and on the banks of the Weser and
Jahde is low, rich, and marshy; and is protected by em¬
bankments from the incursion of the water. The inland
regions consist of moors and heaths. The sea-coast is lined
with extensive sand-banks, called Watten. The princi¬
pality of Liibeck is also for the most part flat and barren ;
but near the sea there are some rich and fertile districts.
Birkenfeld is a rocky and mountainous region, with nume- Oldenburg
rous valleys of no great extent. Ihe duchy ot Oldenburg
is washed by the German Ocean, which forms two gulfs,
those of Jahde and Weser, at the mouths of the rivers of
the same names; the principality of Liibeck is washed
by the Baltic. The principal rivers in Oldenburg are the
Weser, which forms its boundary on the side of Bremen
and Hanover, and receives the Hunte with its tributary the
Lethe, and the Ochtum with the Delme ; the Hase and the
Leda in the S., which join the Ems ; and the Jahde, a small
river near the coast. In the principality of Liibeck the
Trave, a navigable river, and the Schwentine, both flow into
the Baltic. In Birkenfeld the Nahe, an affluent of the
Rhine, takes its origin. In Oldenburg and Liibeck there
are numerous lakes, some of them of considerable size, but
in Birkenfeld there are none. The most important in the
duchy proper are the Zwischenahner-Meer, the Great and
Little Bullenmeer, while Liibeck contains the Plciner-See,
Eutiner-See, Keller-See, &c. The climate is temperate,
but damp and foggy on account of the vicinity of the sea.
Agricultural and pastoral employments are extensively
practised in Oldenburg. In the marshy land the prin¬
cipal crops raised are wheat, barley, oats, rape-seed, beans,
and peas ; in the sandy districts, barley, oats, potatoes, hops,
flax, hemp, and tobacco, are raised ; while in both kinds of
land rye is produced, but not enough to supply the inhabi¬
tants. In Liibeck the soil is good, and the same crops
are cultivated as in the duchy ; in Birkenfeld, the stony
nature of the ground prevents the raising of much corn,
but potatoes, flax, See., are produced. The whole amount
of corn produced in the grand duchy is estimated at more
than 3,000,000 bushels. Forests occur chiefly in the prin¬
cipality of Birkenfeld ; there is little wood in Liibeck or in
the alluvial tracts of Oldenburg, but part of the moorland
region is covered with it. The rearing of cattle is carried
on chiefly in Oldenburg proper and in the principality of
Liibeck ; the horses are remarkable for their strength, and
the oxen are of good breed. The whole grand duchy con¬
tained in 1853-4, 38,193 horses, 198,823 head of cattle,
293,985 sheep, 86,488 swine, and 9905 goats. Fowls
are also numerous, and bees are very generally kept.
Mining operations are carried on in Birkenfeld only, and
these principally in iron, for which there is a furnace, pro¬
ducing; on an average about 500 tons yearly. Copper, lead,
zinc, and precious stones, are also found in this principality.
Manufactures are not extensively carried on in Oldenburg.
Yarn-spinning, linen-weaving, and the making of woollen
stockings, are the principal branches in which the people
are employed. At Varel, the principal manufacturing place
in the country, there are cotton factories ; and the duchy also
contains many breweries, distilleries, meal, oil, and paper
mills, saw-mills, See. Shipbuilding and navigation afford the
means of subsistence to many of the inhabitants; and the
trade of Oldenburg is of much more importance than the
manufacturing industry. The exports consist of corn,
cattle, horses, butter, cheese, bacon, hides, leather, yarn,
linen, stockings, &c.; while the principal imports are wines,
fruits, salt, woollen and silken stuffs, hardware, pottery, &c.
The number of vessels that entered and cleared at the ports
of Oldenburg in 1856, with their tonnage, was as follows :—
Vessels belonging to
Oldenburg  
Other countries,
Total.
5072
2397
7469
82,764
68,622
151,386
Cleared.
4565
2182
6747
77,221
66,763
143,984
Oldenburg has no railways, but lines of telegraph extend
from the town of Oldenburg to Elsfleth and to Bremen.
The government of Oldenburg is a limited monarchy.
OLD
lldenburg. The office of grand duke is hereditary in the male line, and
each prince on his accession has to take an oath that he
will preserve the constitution inviolate, and rule according
to the laws. According to the constitution of 1848,
amended in 1852, there is a Diet in a single chamber, com¬
posed of members elected by the people. The people ap¬
point electors, one for every 300 inhabitants; and these again
elect the delegates to the Diet, of which there is one for
every 6000 inhabitants. The number composing the Diet
is at present forty-seven. Every citizen of twenty-
five years old and upwards has a vote for an elector,
and is eligible as an elector and as a member of the Diet.
The public receipts and expenditure for 1857 each
amounted to L.71,970, and the debt at the end of 1856
was L.652,000. There is no established church in Olden¬
burg, but the grand duke and the majority of the people
belong to the Lutheran body. The duchy contains also a
considerable number of Roman Catholics, and a small pro¬
portion of Jews. The educational interests of the country
are pretty well attended to, but the scarcity of villages,
and the way in which the dwellings are scattered through¬
out the country, especially in the moorland regions, render
it impossible to establish a number of schools sufficient for
the population. There are in the entire state 4 gymnasia,
4 higher burgh schools, 2 normal schools, a military school,
a school of navigation, and other superior and middle
schools. The whole number of elementary schools in the
grand duchy was (in 1855) 547, with 773 teachers, and
44,879 pupils. The judicial establishment of Oldenburg
consists of an upper court of appeal at Oldenburg, courts
of chancery in the duchy of Oldenburg and principality of
Lubeck, a senate of justice in Birkenfeld, and several in¬
ferior courts. The people of Oldenburg are distinguished
for order, courage, loyalty, patriotism, hospitality, and
benevolence. The ducal family of Oldenburg is of very
ancient origin, being descended from Wittekind, a Saxon
chieftain, who submitted to Charlemagne in 785. The
title of Count of Oldenburg was first assumed by Chris¬
tian I. in 1156, after he had erected the castle of Old¬
enburg. In 1232 the county became independent of the
empire, and towards the end of the century Count Otto,
a younger brother of Christian III. of Oldenburg, ob¬
tained by purchase the lordship of Delmenhorst; but the
two families were afterwards united by marriage under
Dietrich the Lucky. His eldest son, Christian, became
King of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, and Duke of
Schleswig and Holstein ; while from the younger son, Ger¬
hard, the dukes of Oldenburg are descended. His succes¬
sors enlarged their territory by the addition of Jever in
1575, and of Kniphausen during the Thirty Years’ War.
In 1667 the ducal family became extinct, and Oldenburg
come into the possession of Denmark; under which king¬
dom it remained till 1773, when Christian VII. of Denmark
transferred it to the elder branch of the Gottorp line in the
person of the grand prince Paul, afterwards Emperor of
Russia, as a compensation for the claim of the House of
Holstein-Gottorp to Schleswig and Holstein. The new
possessor of Oldenburg gave it over to the head of the
younger branch of the same house, Frederick Augustus,
the Prince and Bishop of Lubeck; and in 1777 Olden¬
burg was raised by the Emperor Joseph II. to the rank
of a duchy. In 1810 the duchy was conquered by Na¬
poleon I. and made a French department, but in 1813
it was restored to the ancient ducal family ; and at the
Congress of Vienna, the principality of Birkenfeld was
ceded to it by Prussia. The title of grand duke was first
assumed by Duke Augustus in 1829. The lordship of
Kniphausen, which had been since 1825 under the supre¬
macy of Oldenburg, became a part of the grand duchy in
1854. The capital of Oldenburg is the town of the same
name, and the divisions of the grand duchy are as follows :—
VOL. XVI.
OLD
Bailiwicks. Parishes.
I. Duchy of Oldenburg  28 108
1. Circle of Oldenburg  4 13
2. ,, Nuenburg   4 9
3. „ Ovelgbnne  5 18
4. „ Delmenhorst  4 15
5. „ Vechta  3 14
6. „ Kloppenburg  3 15
7. „ Jever  5 24
II. Principality of Lubeck  3 14
III. „ Birkenfeld  3 22
Total grand duchy   34 144
505
Pop. in 1855. Oldenburg
232,950 11
42,593
36,891
30,419
34,976
33,191
31,786
23,094
21,684
32,529
287,163
Oldham.
Oldenburg, the capital of the above grand duchy, is a
well built though dull town, in a flat country, on the banks
of the Hunte, 24 miles W.N.W of Bremen. The castle,
where the grand duke resides, is a handsome freestone
building, surrounded by beautiful pleasure-grounds. Here
also are a palace for the princes, government offices, a bar¬
racks, which is a large and imposing edifice, and two theatres.
The old church of St Lambert, the most remarkable of the
three churches in Oldenburg, has avaultcontaining the tombs
of the ducal family. For the intellectual culture of the in¬
habitants Oldenburg has many advantages: besides mili¬
tary, normal, and grammar schools, there are a collection
of antiquities, a gallery of paintings, and a public library
of 50,000 volumes. Sugar refineries, soap-works, brew¬
eries, distilleries, &c., are the principal manufactories ; and
timber, wool, &c., the chief articles of trade. The date of
the foundation of the town is not known ; but in 1155 it
was first fortified as it still remains. Pop. (1852) 9526.
OLDENBURG, Henry, was born about 1626 in the
duchy of Bremen in Lower Saxony. He came to London
in 1653, where he held the office of consul for the town of
Bremen for nearly two years. Being discharged from that
employment, he was appointed tutor to Lord Henry
O’Bryan, an Irish nobleman, whom he attended to the
university of Oxford, where he was admitted to study in
the Bodleian Library in the beginning of the year 1656.
He was afterwards tutor to Lord William Cavendish, and
gained the friendship of Milton the poet. During his re¬
sidence at Oxford he became acquainted with the founders
of the Royal Society, and was chosen assistant to Dr Wil¬
kins, the secretary to that body. Fie applied himself with
extraordinary diligence to the business of his office, and in
the year 1664 began the publication of the Philosophical
Transactions, which he continued to No. xxxvi., 25th June
1677. After this the publication was discontinued till the
January following, when it was again resumed by his suc¬
cessor, Nehemiah Grew, who carried it on till the end of
February 1678. Oldenburg died at Charleton, in Kent,
in August 1678. In addition to a few short papers on
medical and other subjects published in the Transactions,
Oldenburg translated several works into English from the
French and Latin, under the anagram Grubendol.
OLDHAM, an ancient parochial chapelry and market-
town, and modern municipal and parliamentary borough, is
situated in the hundred of Salford, in the county of Lan¬
caster, distant 7 miles N.E. from Manchester, and 186
miles N.N.W. from London. In the neighbouring hills
are the sources of the rivers Medlock and Irk, which pass
through the town, and supply moving power to many of the
mills.
Oldham is built upon an eminence, and is difficult of
access by highways. It has no canal, nor was there any
railway accommodation till the year 1842, when a branch
was made from the Manchester and Leeds line; this is a
great advantage to the district, although its utility is im¬
paired by a steep incline of 1 in 26. Notwithstanding
these drawbacks, trade has rapidly extended, a fact which
may be accounted for by the existence of vast fields of
coal beneath and near the town.
3 s
506 OLD
Oldham. For a long period Oldham has been distinguished for the
V—manufacture of hats, a distinction which it maintained till
the early part of the present century, when the use of silk
instead of beaver considerably diminished the demand, and
induced many of the work-people to seek employment in
other branches. As little capital is required foi the pio-
duction of silk hats, the trade is now largely distributed
over the country. A few extensive establishments still
exist here, one oi' which obtained the highest prize in this
department at the Great Exhibition of 1851. .
Another important branch of industry is the iron trade,
the growth of which has greatly contributed to the pro¬
sperity of the place, there being several large works giving
employment to upwards of 4000 persons The principal
one, that of Platt Brothers and Co., n which 3000 men
and boys find constant occupation, and receive G.idU,UUU
per annum in wages.
Cotton manufacture is the staple trade, there being
within the borough, in 1856, 96 mills, with steam-engines
of 3400 horse-power, and employing 7906 men and boys,
and 8635 women and girls, or a total of 16,541 hands.
Oldham was incorporated in 1849, and is governed by
a mayor, 8 aldermen, and 24 councillors. Formerly its
sanitary condition was exceedingly defective, the streets
ill paved, and the supply ot water scanty. Improvements
are going on rapidly, and since the water-works have been
purchased by the corporation, an increased quantity equal
to a million and a half of gallons daily has been secured,
which will be sufficient to meet the growing wants of the
town for many years to come.
For educational purposes many private schools exist;
there is also a most efficient blue-coat school for the in¬
struction and support of 120 orphan boys, endowed by
Thomas Henshaw, an opulent hat-manufacturer, who, in
1808, bequeathed for the purpose L.40,000. At his death,
in 1810, his heirs filed a bill in chancery, praying that the
will might be set aside on the ground of the alleged in¬
sanity of the testator. This led to protracted litigation,
which terminated in favour of the school. During this
time the property bequeathed had accumulated to upwards
of L.100,000. By local subscriptions a handsome and
capacious building wTas erected, where, since 1834, nearly
700 orphan boys have enjoyed the comforts of home, and
received a substantial English education; many of whom
are now filling respectable positions in society. I here are
several mechanics’ institutions; the principal one, the
Lyceum, a large and beautiful structure erected at a cost
of L.6000, and opened in July 1856, is supported mainly by
working men. In the evening classes about 450 opera¬
tives receive the elements of a sound English education,
with French, Latin, and the higher branches of mathema¬
tics, great proficiency being often attained, particularly
in the latter study. There are also several national and
British schools, and the Sunday-schools contain 12,500
children.
Amongst the public buildings, besides the blue-coat
school and the lyceum, is a handsome town-hall, a capa¬
cious working-man’s hall, and ample and well-arranged
public baths. Parochially Oldham is united to Pi'estwick.
The parish church, dedicated to St Mary, is an imposing
modern structure, besides which there are eight other
churches, four Independent chapels, two Wesleyan, one
Roman Gatholic, and a large number of places of worship
belonging to different Protestant dissenting communities.
Since the passing of the Reform Act it returns two
members to Parliament. The population amounted to
12,024 in 1801 ; to 16,690 in 1811; to 21,662 in 1821 ;
to 32,381 in 1831 ; to 42,595 in 1841; and to 52,818 in
1851. The annual value of rateable property in 1692 was
L.287; in 1857, L.166,815.
OLDHAM, John, justly styled the “ English Juvenal,”
OLD
both from the power and severity of his satires, and from Oldham,
his spirited delineation of contemporary life and manners, v^-vw
was the son of a Nonconformist clergyman, and was born
at Shipton near Tedbury, in Gloucestershire, on the 9th
August 1653. He was educated at Tedbury school and
at Edmund Hall, Oxford, where he distinguished himself
in Latin and Greek, and displayed a great love for poetry.
Scanty means compelled him to leave college after taking
his degree of B.A. in May 1674. Idleness and depend¬
ence were peculiarly irksome to the proud young scholar,
and in the absence of any definite plan of life, he was glad
to secure occupation and independence as usher at the
free school of Croydon in Surrey. His first published
poem, a Pindaric ode on the death of his close companion,
Richard Morwent, belongs to this period, and displays not
only great power of illustration, but also a subtle tenderness
of feeling peculiarly interesting and suggestive when con¬
trasted with the strong satirical vehemence of his subse¬
quent compositions. He endeavoured to lighten the thank¬
less task of “ beating Greek and Latin for his life,” as he
calls it, by secret attention to the muses. Some of his
pieces having found their way in manuscript to the liter¬
ary haunts of the London wits, drew upon their author the
attention of such grand personages as Rochester, Dorset,
and Sedley. These lettered nobles visited the poor
scholar at Croydon, but no immediate consequences fol¬
lowed. In 1678 he became tutor in the family of Judge
Thurland, at Reigate, where he remained till 1680. It
was about this period he composed those celebrated Satires
upon the Jesuits, which, appearing in 1679, during the ter¬
rible episode of the Popish plot, met with signal success,
and at once secured for their author a great reputation.
In boldness and bitterness, in strong rage and fierce
rancour, no Protestant writer of that feverish time can be
compared for a moment with this obscure young Noncon¬
formist. Dryden had more art than Oldham, but did not
surpass him in power and depth of invective. On be¬
coming tutor to the son of Sir William Hicks, Oldham
made the acquaintance of Dr Richard Lower, who inspired
him with a temporary enthusiasm for the study of medi¬
cine. After a year’s estrangement from his muse, however,
the old passion came back upon him, and he resolved no
longer to prove inconstant to his first love. Having
escaped from the bondage of tuition, Oldham settled in the
metropolis, where he gained the acquaintance of the
choicest spirits of the time. Dryden contracted the
strongest attachment to the young satirist, and recognised
in him a genius kindred to his own. Oldham just shared
enough in the gaiety and dissipation of the town, to enable
him, with fresh energy, to lash its vices and expose its
vanities. He was not to be bribed or corrupted from his
vocation. He declined the office of private chaplain to the
household of the Earl of Kingston, but that generous
nobleman, who seems to have had a sincere regard for the
proud and manly satirist, prevailed upon him to become
his guest at Holmes-Pierpont, in Nottinghamshire. This
seclusion the poet did not long enjoy. His constitution
was naturally consumptive, and an attack of small-pox put
an end to his days on the 9th December 1683, in the
thirtieth year of his age. I His last piece, A Sunday thought
in Sickness, is peculiarly touching, from its devotional peni¬
tence and humble resignation. The poets of his time wrote
enthusiastic tributes to his memory; and distinguished above
them all, both for truth and pathos, were the generous
lines of Dryden. Oldham’s poems, while remarkable for
condensed force, rugged vehemence, and striking choice
of language, are in general deficient in finish and harmony
of versification. This he knew and vindicated. “ No
one,” he says, “ would expect that Juvenal, when he is
lashing vice and villany, should flow so smoothly as
or Tibullus, when they are describing amours or gallantries.
OLD
Oldys His satires possess a lasting historical value, as a faithful
I! picture of the life and manners of the Restoration ; and
Olearius. while the subjects of his invectives are for the most part
J temporary, the freedom and breadth of handling which
they receive inspire them with an abiding interest. For
courage and independence—for love of liberty, and scorn
of the slavery of patronage—Oldham had no equals among
the writers of that servile age. He casts a withering
glance of his satirical eye upon “very sparkish dedica¬
tions,” and, reliant on his own genius and honesty of pur¬
pose, passes the patron by with a haughty modesty. His
works were collected and published in a single volume in
1686; in 2 vols. in 1722. An edition in 2 vols., with a
life of the author, edited by Captain Edward Thompson,
appeared in 1770; and an admirable edition of Oldham’s
works, with the omission of a few of his coarser pieces,
together with a biography of the poet, appeared in 1854 in
the Annotated Edition of the English Poets, edited by
Robert Bell, London.
OLDYS, William, a useful bibliographer, was the
natural son of Dr Oldys, chancellor of Lincoln, and was
born in 1696. He was an industrious and accurate scholar.
Yet as he was a dissolute spendthrift, his whole life, with
the exception of ten years, during which he was librarian
to the Earl of Oxford, was lent on hire to the London
booksellers. His claim to notice rests chiefly on his biblio¬
graphical works, such as the British Librarian, 8vo, Lon¬
don, 1737. He indeed wrote, among other works, the
lives in the Biographia Britannica which are marked by
the signature G.; and a Life of Sir Walter Raleigh,
which was prefixed to that author’s History of the World.
But these productions, though rich collections of rare and
important facts, are utterly destitute of that sympathetic
appreciation of character, which is a necessary element in
all real biographies. The death of Oldys took place in
1761. He left behind a manuscript collection of notes on
various bibliographical subjects, and a copy of Langbaine’s
Lives, filled with annotations ; both of which are preserved
in the British Museum.
OLEARIUS, Adam, a famous German traveller, whose
real name was QElschlager, was born in Aschersleben in Prus¬
sian Saxony in the year 1600. After finishing his studies at
Leipsic he entered the service of Frederick, Duke of Hol-
stein-Gottorp. There his knowledge of mathematics and
geography soon attracted notice. Accordingly, when the
duke, intent upon opening a commercial intercourse with
India through Russia and Persia, was about to send
Crusius, a civilian, and Brugman, a merchant, on two se¬
parate embassies to the Russian Czar and the Persian
Shah, he appointed Olearius their secretary. The envoys
set out on their first embassy in October 1633, and arrived
at Moscow in August of the following year. The Czar
Michael Federowitz approved and countenanced the en¬
terprise of their master; and they returned to Holstein in
April 1635. Their second embassy commenced in Oc¬
tober of the same year. Having reached Moscow they
embarked on the Moskva, passed from the Moskva into
the Oka, from the Oka into the Volga, from the Volga
into the Caspian, and, coasting along the western shore of
that sea, were cast on shore at Derbend. Then they
passed overland by the cities of Ardebil, Sultanieh, and
Room, and arrived at Ispahan in August 1637. At the
end of a few months the Shah had made up his mind to
open a negotiation with the Duke of Holstein-Gottorp, and
the envoys turned their faces homewards. On his return,
Olearius set himself to write an account of these expeditions,
which was published under the title of Beschreibung der
Mushowitschen und Persischen Reise, folio, Schleswig,
1647. The work gave much judicious and exact informa¬
tion regarding many subjects previously unknown, and it
speedily became popular. It was translated into French by
O L I 507
Wicquefort in 1727, and into English by Davies in 1662. Oleron
The fourth edition of the original appeared in Hamburg II
in 1696, twenty-five years after the author’s death. In atU 01lvarez>
dition to other works of lesser importance, Olearius was also ^
the author of a chronicle of Holstein, 4to, Schleswig, 1674.
OLERON (anc. Uliarus), an island lying off1 the W.
coast of France, opposite the mouth of the Charente, and
included in the department of the Charente-Inferieure. It
is about 18 miles in length from N.W. to S.E., and 7 in
extreme breadth; and at one part is within a mile of the
mainland. The greater part of the island is fertile, but
there are also some extensive salt marshes, from which
a considerable quantity of salt is made. The chief pro¬
ducts are corn, wine, and vegetables. Pop. 17,000. The
chief town, Chateau d’Oleron, stands on the S.E. coast, and
contains about 3000 inhabitants. This island gives name
to a code of maritime laws framed by Richard I. of Eng¬
land, when at Oleron in A.D. 1194. These laws were
afterwards received by all the nations of Europe, as the
basis of their marine constitutions.
OLINDA, a city of Brazil, province of Pernambuco,
3 miles N. of Recife. It is beautifully situated on a cluster
of eminences, and is rather well built. It has a cathedral
and other churches, several convents, a bishop’s palace,
college, hospital, botanic garden, and public library. Pop.
8000.
OLIVA, Fernan Perez de, the most famous Spanish
prose writer of his time, was born at Cordova about 1492.
From his boyhood he was remarkable for his unwearied de¬
votion to letters. He studied successively at Salamanca,
Alcala, Paris, and Rome; and, according to his own ac¬
count, travelled more than 3000 leagues in pursuit of know¬
ledge. But the chief cause of his fame was his successful
attempt to develop the power and resources of the Spanish
language, by introducing the custom of using it instead of
Latin in serious prose compositions. While he was lectur¬
ing in the university of Paris on the ethics of Aristotle, he
published in his native tongue a didactic dialogue on the
Dignity of Man. The immediate result of this work, dis¬
playing as it did the first specimen of correct and elevated
Spanish prose, was to establish its author’s reputation, and
contribute to his promotion in life. He was successively
appointed ethical professor and rector of the university of
Salamanca; and would have been elevated to other dig¬
nities, had not his death happened prematurely about 1533.
The ultimate effect of the dialogue was to induce the prose
writers of Spain to use henceforth their own language.
Oliva was also the author of other didactic discourses, and
several translations from the classical dramatists. His writ¬
ings were published in 4to, Cordova, 1585, by his nephew,
Ambrosio de Morales, and in 2 vols. 12mo, Madrid, 1787.
(Ticknor’s History of Spanish Literature, vol. i., p. 491.)
OLIVA, a town of Spain, province of Valencia, 43 miles
N.N.E. of Alicante. It is built in the form of an amphi¬
theatre, on the side of a hill about IJ mile from the Me¬
diterranean. It has an ancient palace, two parish churches,
several convents, and an hospital. Many of the inhabi¬
tants are employed in agriculture; and the manufactures
are almost confined to hempen and linen cloths. Pop.
5600.
OLIVAREZ, Gaspar Guzman, Conde Deque de, a
celebrated Spanish statesman, was descended from an illus¬
trious Castilian family, and was born at Rome about 1587,
during his father’s embassage to Sextus Quintus. After
studying at the university of Salamanca, he received, through
the influence of his uncle the Duke of Uceda, the appoint¬
ment of gentleman of the bed-chamber to the Prince of
Asturias, and he immediately commenced the career of a
political aspirant. His first design was to gain complete
control over the simple boy, his master. He was fast worm¬
ing himself into favour, when, in 1621, the prince succeeded*.
O L I
to the throne of Spain, under the title of Philip IV. He
then feigned a reluctance to engage in the new administra¬
tion. This apparent modesty served alike to conceal his de¬
signs, and to raise him in the estimation of the king; aim
before a few months had passed, he received the title oi
Duque de San Lucar, as a seal of the royal favour and con¬
fidence. The minion now flung aside the mask, and ap¬
peared in the character of a selfish and jealous despot. He
displaced his uncle from the position of minister, dismisse
many of the best servants of the state, and surrounded him¬
self with creatures of his own. It he also disbanded many
idle officials, it was mainly to gratify a private distrust; and
if he revoked many lavish government grants, it was mainly
to defray the extravagant expenses of his ministerial pomp
and splendour. At the same time the nation was groaning
under the most burdensome imposts, and the consequent
decay of agriculture, commerce, and the useful arts. Hie
most disastrous, however, of all the measures of Olivarez,
was an attempt to regain by arms the influence which Spain
had formerly possessed over the other nations of Europe.
Plappening in this enterprise to cross the path of the
French minister, Cardinal Richelieu, he found himself en¬
gaged with an adversary who baffled him at every point,
and ultimately effected his overthrow. The cardinal’s
stratagems involved him in a long and unsuccessful war
with the Dutch; the cardinal’s forces checked his armies
in Germany and Italy; and the cardinal’s intrigues fanned
the rising flame of insurrection within the Spanish do¬
minions. T. he national discontents were thus bi ought to
a climax in 1640. The province of Catalonia rebelled, and
called in the aid of the French; Portugal threw off the
Spanish yoke, and elected the Duke of Braganza its king;
and at the end of two years the insurgents had foiled all
attempts at suppression, and were steadily increasing in
strength. It was at this emergency, in 1643, that the
numerous enemies of Olivarez succeeded in supplanting
him in the king’s favour. The disgraced minister died at
Toro in the same year, with the reputation of having
brought his country to the verge of ruin.
OLIVENZA, a fortified town of Spain, province of
Estremadura, near the left bank of the Guadiana, on the
Portuguese frontier, 15 miles S.S.W. of Badajoz. Ihe
surrounding country is fertile in corn and wine, and an
active trade is carried on in the town. There are several
churches and convents, three hospitals, and a poorhouse.
Olivenza is strongly fortified, and till 1801 belonged to
Portugal. Pop. 6300.
OLIVER, Isaac, an eminent miniature-painter, was
born in England in 1556. After studying, it is said, under
Nicholas Hilliard and Frederigo Zuccaro, he appeared be¬
fore the public as a professional artist. At times he painted
history, and executed drawings after Parmigiano and other
Italian masters. But it was in the field ol miniature por¬
trait-painting that his fame was won. Flis likenesses ot
Mary Queen of Scots, Queen Elizabeth, Henry Prince of
Wales, Sir Philip Sydney, Ben Jonson, and others, were
unrivalled for their delicate truthfulness and exquisite finish;
and afterwards obtained a place in the celebrated collection
of Dr Mead. It was after a miniature of his that the por¬
trait of James I. was painted by Rubens and \ andyck.
Isaac Oliver died at his house in Rlackfriars in 1617.
Oliver, Peter, the eldest son of the preceding, was
born in London in 1601. He was instructed in art by
his father, and succeeded to his father’s place and reputa¬
tion in miniature portrait-painting. Among other works, he
executed a portrait of his wife, which was, in the time of
W'alpole, in the possession of the Duchess of Portland ; and
seven historical pieces, which were lately in Queen Caro¬
line’s closet in Kensington Palace. Flis death took place
about 1654.
OLIVESj Mount or, a ridge, now called by the Arabs
O L I
Jebel-el- Tur, lying on the E. of Jerusalem, on the other Olivet
side of the narrow valley of Jehoshaphat. Towards the S., ||
over against the “ well of Nehemiah,” it sinks down into a °fivier.
lower height, nowcalledby Franks the “Mount of Offence,”
in allusion to the idolatrous worship established there by
Solomon. Near this lies the usual road to Bethany, so
often trodden by our Saviour. About a mile towards the N.
is another summit, nearly equal in height to the middle
one. Beyond the northern summit the ridge sweeps round
towards the W., and spreads out into the high level tract N.
of the city, which is skirted on the W. and S. by the upper
part of the valley of Jehoshaphat. The elevation of the cen¬
tral peak of the Mount of Olives is estimated by Schubert
at 2556 Paris feet, or 416 Paris feet above the valley of Je¬
hoshaphat. This considerable ridge derives all its import¬
ance from its sacred associations. To the mount whose
ascent David “ went up, weeping and barefoot,” to which
our Saviour ofttimes withdrew with his disciples, over which
he often passed, and from which he eventually ascended
into heaven, belongs a higher degree of sacred and moral
interest than is to be found in mere physical magnitude, or
than the record connects even with Lebanon, Tabor, or
Ararat.
OLIVET, Joseph Thoulier d’, an elegant writer and
accomplished classical scholar, was born at Salins in 1682.
Being destined for the church, he entered the Order of
Jesus, and studied theology at Rheirns, at Dijon, and at
Paris. But it was not until he had mingled familiarly in
the society of such men as Boileau, Huet, and Rousseau,
that his mind caught its fine ardour for classical learning,
and his life took its peculiar bent. He soon afterwards re¬
solved to leave the society of the Jesuits : the offer ot the
important position of tutor to the Prince of Asturias could
not induce him to alter his resolution; and he retired to
his quiet study in Paris, to live contentedly upon the emolu¬
ments of a small benefice. I hen began that series of
literary publications on the works of Cicero which has as¬
sociated the name of Olivet with that of the great Roman
orator. In 1721 was printed his translation of the De Na¬
ture, Deorum,—a work which was the means of gaining for
him an admission into the French Academy. He published
his version of the Orations against Catiline in 172/ ; and
in 1737 he appeared, along with President Bouhier, as the
joint-translator of the Tusculan Disputations. In 1740-
1742 was given to the public his masterpiece, the edition of
the entire works of Cicero, in 9 vols. 4to. A collection of
extracts from Cicero, accompanied with a French tiansla-
tion, entitled Pensees, and published in folio, 1744, com¬
pleted his elucidations of his favourite author. Meanwhile
the Abbe d’Olivet had been emulating the elegant and
severely simple style ot the classical historians in his Hts-
toire de VAcademic Fran^aise, intended for a continuation
of Pelisson’s History, and published in 2 vols. 4to, 1729.
His death took place in 1768.
Olivet was also the author of a grammatical treatise en¬
titled Remarques sur la Langue Lrangaise, in 12mo,
Paris, 1767; and of a translation of the Philippics of De¬
mosthenes, printed along with his version of the Orations
against Catiline. Editions of his several translations from
Demosthenes and Cicero appeared in 1 < 66. His edition
of Cicero has been very frequently reprinted.
OLIVIER, Guillaume Antoine, a learned French
entomologist, was born at Arcs, near Draguignan, in 1756,
and took the degree of Doctor of Medicine at Montpellier.
His whole life was eagerly devoted to the advancement of
natural science. While still a young man, he was diawing
up an illustrated account of the Coleoptera for a projected
entomological history by Gigot d’Orcy ; and he was also
engaged in writing a natural history of insects for the
Encyclopedic Methodique. After the convulsions of the
French revolution had interrupted both these undertak-
0 L M
O L O
509
Olmutz ings, his increasing reputation recommended him to the
|| notice of Roland, minister of the interior, as a fit person to
Olonetz. be sent along with Bruguieres on a mission to Persia, tor
W the purpose not only of establishing commercial relations
with that country, but also of making contributions to na¬
tural science. On his return at the end of moie than six
years, he set himself to write an account of his voyage, and
in finish the two works he had left incomplete His elec¬
tion into the Institute in 1800 stimulated Ins industry. He
published in 1802-7 his Voyage dans l Empire Olhoman,
I’Eqyptc, et la Perse, in 3 vols. 4to; he finished in 1 08
his Histoire Naturelle des Coleopteres, in 6 vols. 4to; and
he was crumbed in his Dictionnaire de l Ihstoire ISaturelle
des Insecies de VEncyclopedie Methodique, when the dis¬
ease manifested itself which caused his death at Lyons in
1814. This last treatise, which had been begun to be
printed in 1789, was completed in 1819, in 9 vols. 4to.
Olivier also contributed several articles on his favourite
studies to the Memoirs of the Institute and of the Society
of Agriculture, and to Nouveau Dictionnaire d His¬
toire Naturelle applique aux Arts of Deterville. (For an
account of his special services to the cause of natural
science, see Entomology.) . . „
OLMUTZ (Morav. Holomauc), a city, capital ot a
circle of the same name, and formerly the capital of Mora¬
via, stands on the River March or Marawa, 40 miles N.JN.L.
of Brtinn. It is strongly fortified, being surrounded by
walls and protected by a citadel, and is reckoned one of the
strongest places in the Austrian dominions. It is entered
by four gates, and is for the most part well built. I he ca¬
thedral is a fine Gothic edifice, founded about the beginning
of the fourteenth century by Wenzel III. of Bohemia.
Several of the other churches, of which there are twelve,
are handsome buildings, particularly that of St Mauritius,
which contains the largest organ in Moravia, and that of St
Michael. Among the other public buildings are the town-
hall, the archbishop’s palace, the former college of the Je¬
suits (now used as barracks), and the university buildings.
The university was removed from Olmutz to Kremsir in
consequence of the outbreak in Austria in 1848-50. The
university library contains about 50,000 volumes. Among
the educational institutions here are an academy of nobles,
an archiepiscopal seminary, a gymnasium, and a military
school. Olmutz is the seat of judicial and other courts, and
various public offices of the circle. There are a maternity
hospital, an hospital for the sick, and an orphan hospital.
It has manufactures of linen, woollen, and cotton stuffs,
leather, earthenware, and vinegar; and carries on an active
transit trade, especially in cattle. Olmutz was taken by
the Swedes during the Thirty Years’ War; but was be¬
sieged in vain for seven weeks by Frederick the Great in
1758. Lafayette was confined here in 1794. Pop. (1851),
exclusive of the militarv, 11,406.
OLNEY, a market-town of England, county of Buck¬
ingham, on the left bank of the Ouse, which is here crossed
by a bridge of four arches, 18 miles E.N.E. of Buckingham.
The town is small but neat, and is surrounded by beautiful
scenery. It is chiefly celebrated as having been for a
lengthened period the residence of the poet Cowper, during
which time the Rev. John Newton was curate heie.
The parish church is a large Gothic edifice, with a spiie
1 85 feet high. There are several almshouses and dissent¬
ing places of worship. I he inhabitants are employed in
lace-making, hosiery, and silk-weaving. Pop. of parish
(1851), 2329. . . .
OLONETZ, a government of European Russia, lying
between N. Lat. 60. and 64. 30., E. Long. 29. 40. and
42. 20., is bounded on the N. and E. by Archangel, S.E.
bv Vologda, S. by Novgorod, S.W. by St Petersburg, and
W. by Lake Ladoga and Finland. Its length from N.W.
to S.F L 370 miles; breadth, 250 miles; area, 53,875
square miles. The surface is for the most part flat, but in
the N.W. there are some hills of no great height, called
the Mountains of Olonetz; while in the S. the country is
traversed by a ridsre that divides the affluents of the Volga
from those of the "Baltic. The geological formation of the
hills is for the most part granitic, covered over with con¬
glomerate and clay-slate, and the tops are densely wooded,
while the lower slopes are in many places quite open. The
level part of the country consists to a large extent of
marshy land, but much of the area is occupied by a rich
clavey soil covered with greensw’ard, and the extent of
ground under water is very great. Upwards of seven-tenths
of the whole area is covered with wood. There are said
to be 1998 lakes, and 858 rivers and streams. The principal
lakes are Ladoga and Onega, which are described under
their proper names. The chief rivers are—the Onega, which
flows into the White Sea; the numerous streams, which
fall into Lake Onega; the Svir, which joins Lake Onega
with Ladoga; and a few tributaries of the Volga in the b.
The mineral resources of Olonetz form no small portion of
the wealth of the government. Iron ore is obtained on the
lakes and marshes, and several mines, richer than those for¬
merly worked, have been recently discovered. Copper
mines wTere formerly w'orked, but on account of their scanty
produce, these have been abandoned. Some traces of gold
have been observed, and it is believed to occur at a con¬
siderable depth below the surface. Coal is also expected
to be obtained in Olonetz. Many kinds of marble, por¬
phyry, granite, and quartz, are found ; as well as amethysts,
garnets, topazes, and other precious stones. In the marble
works of Tewdia, many pieces of stone carving are made,
which are remarkable for durability and beauty of work¬
manship. In this government was obtained the piece of
porphyry which was sent by the Emperor Nicholas to
France to form the coffin of Napoleon I. The climate is
severe, the winter long and intensely cold, while dining
the short summer the heat is very great. But notwith¬
standing this inclemency, agriculture is carried on in all
parts of the government, though the produce is not suffi¬
cient for the domestic wants. Hemp and flax are exten¬
sively grown in places where corn would not thrive. But
the most valuable part of the vegetable produce is timbei,
of which there is a great abundance, especially of pines and
larches, suitable for the masts of ships. Of the whole area
of Olonetz, there are 91,186 acres ot meadow land, 692,816
acres of arable land, 237,647 acres ot hay, 26,81o,H5
acres of wood, and 6,505,009 acres of lakes, rivers, and
marshes. Cattle are not reared in large numbers, owing
to the expense of keeping them during the long and severe
winters. Most of the peasants, however, have some horses,
cows, and swine; but the total number, compared with
the extent of the country, is small. There were in
1849, 53,356 horses, 96,392 horned cattle, 82,438 sheep,
5659’pigs, and 187 goats. Of wild animals, the govern¬
ment contains wolves, bears, elks, reindeer, foxes, &c.
Seals are found in the large lakes, and the rivers abound
in fish. Few manufactures are carried on, except at Petio-
zavodsk, the capital, where there is an imperial cannon
foundry. Trade also is in a low condition. The raw pro¬
duce of the country, together with tallow, cast-iron, and
cannons, are exported to St Petersburg and Archangel.
The inhabitants are almost all Russians, but there are some
Finns in the western part, and a few wandering Laplanders.
The people of Olonetz belong to the Greek Church, and to
the see of the Archbishop of Novgorod. Ihere are in the
government 46 educational institutions ot various kinds,
with 102 teachers, and 2059 scholars. Pop. (1856)
285,945.
OLORON (the ancient Iluro), a town of France, capital
of a cognomina! arrondissementin the department of Basses-
Pyrenees, stands on the summit and slope of a hill, on the
Oloron.
510 0 L O
Olot right bank of the Gave d’Ossau, where it unites with the
il . Gave d’Aspe to form the Gave d’Oloron, 15 miles S.W. of
^yrapifu pau_ jj. j.jle gea|. 0f a 0f primary instance, and
carries on an active trade in wool, sheep-skins, hams, cattle,
and timber. The principal manufactures are woollen cloths
and yarn, hosiery, leather, paper, and combs. Pop. (1856)
5869.
OLOT, a town of Spain, in the province of Gerona,
about 15 miles N.W. of the town of that name, and 85 from
Barcelona. It lies on the left bank, and about two leagues
from the source of the River Fluvia, on a small plain at the
foot of the volcanic hill Montsacopa, and on the north of the
small circle formed by that hill and six other extinct vol¬
canoes in the vicinity. In spite of its proximity to the Py¬
renees, the climate is remarkably temperate. The houses
of the town are built of the light porous trap that abounds,
made into a concrete by being mixed with gypsum in large
moulds, basaltic stone forming the foundation. The streets
are narrow and ill paved, but regular. The parish church,
San Esteban, is a spacious and fine edifice, contrasting with
the tasteless architecture of the other buildings of the town.
There are, besides, seven other churches; one primary school,
well endowed, in a building intended for an hospital; a
grammar school, a school of design, and six smaller schools ;
an ex-convent of Carmelites, now a barrack; a workhouse,
a good modern theatre, and a small wooden circus for bull¬
fights. The town is remarkable for its copious supply of
water. There are ten fountains within the walls, and out¬
side the city they are very numerous, forming convenient
lounging and dining places in summer for the inhabitants.
The surrounding country is woody and fertile, producing
the cereals, legumes, wine of inferior quality, and oil. Cows
and sheep are reared; and there is abundance of small game.
The chief industry of the town is the production of coarse
woollen and cotton fabrics, now falling into decay, the coarse
woollen caps, which formerly constituted an important
branch of manufacture, being now little worn. There are
manufactures also of linen, paper, and leather to a small
extent; and a ribbon factory, remarkable in Spain as being
lighted with gas made on the premises, a convenience en¬
tirely wanting in the towns of the province. Olot is a very
ancient town. There are remains of an aqueduct and bridge
of Roman construction. In 1427 it was entirely destroyed
by an earthquake. It figured and suffered much in the
war of independence, being a strong point, and passed alter¬
nately into the hands of French and Spanish, until the
latter dismantled the fortifications. In the last civil war it
was much coveted, and frequently attacked by the Carlists,
but unsuccessfully. Among its remarkable men the cele¬
brated jurist Fontenella may be mentioned. Pop. (1849)
9988
OLTENITZA. See Danube.
OLYMPIA, a town of ancient Elis in Greece, stood at a
small distance W. from Pisa, on the right bank of the Al-
pheus (Rufia), in a plain that opened westward towards the
Ionian Sea, and was skirted on all other sides by hills. It
was chiefly famous for its sacred grove, said to have been
inclosed by Hercules, and called by pre-eminence Altis, a
word which is the Peloponnesian ASolic form of dAo-os.
Many sacred edifices rose up among the planes and wild
olive-trees of this grove. By far the most important of
these was the Olympieium or Olympium, the temple of
Jupiter Olympius, which stood near the southern boundary
of the Altis, and faced the east. It was founded by the
Eleians in 572 b.c. The spoils which that people had
taken in their war against Pisa and the neighbouring cities
were devoted to its erection ; and after the lapse of nearly a
century, it received its last finish from the chisel of Phidias
the great sculptor. It was a peripteral hexastyle structure
of the Doric order, built of limestone from the adjacent
mountains, roofed with slabs of Pentelic marble, occupying
a site of 230 feet in length, and 95 in breadth, and rising
O L Y
to the height of 68 feet. Both pediments were enriched Olympiad
with legendary stories in relief: the front pediment was ||
topped by a gilded statue of Victory, and below it, attached Olympias,
to the frieze, hung twenty-one votive bucklers, the offering v'—
of the Roman general Mummius. At the two ends of the
temple were two brazen gates leading respectively into the
two chambers into which the building was divided. The
western and backmost chamber was called the Opisthodo-
mus. On entering the eastern and front chamber, the
spectator advanced straight forward up a double colonnade
towards a rich and gorgeous curtain, which intercepted his
view. The curtain was drawn aside, and there, on a cedar
throne, spangled with inlaid gold, ivory, ebony, and pre¬
cious stones, and crowded all over with painted and sculp¬
tured stories of the gods, appeared the master-work of
Phidias, the colossal gold and ivory statue of the Olym¬
pian Jove, seated with an image of Victory in his right
hand and an eagle-surmounted sceptre in his left, and
almost touching the roof with his olive-crowned head.
Behind the temple of Jupiter the background of the sacred
grove was crowded with other structures. There were
the Herseum (the temple of Juno), the great altar of
Jupiter, the Metroum (the temple ofthe Mother of the Gods),
the Prytaneium, and the Bouleuterion. There were also
altars, porticoes, monuments, and statues peeping out at
intervals from among the trees.
Olympia was also famous as the scene of the Olympic
games. Close to the eastern wall of the Altis stood the
stadium, or seat for the judges, a long embankment of
earth bent into the form of a horse-shoe, resting its circular
extremity on the foot of Mount Cronius, and opening its
other extremity to the south. Joining the two ends ofthe
stadium, and forming a continuation, were two rows of
stables and other apartments, which, inclining towards each
other, ran southward until they made a narrow aperture,
and inclosed a space. This space was called hippaphesis,
from being the starting-place of the horses ; and embolus,
from having an outline like the beak of a ship. The
aperture of the embolus led into the hippodrome or race¬
course, which extended for the space of two stadia towards
the River Alpheus, and was bounded on the right by a small
eminence, and on the left by an artificial embankment.
The information regarding Olympia is chiefly derived
from the fifth and sixth books of the Itinerary of Pausanias.
Of all the edifices that he describes, the temple of Jupiter
is the only one whose site can definitely be traced. Much
light, however, has been thrown upon the subject by Leake’s
Peloponnesiaca. (See also Mure’s Tour in Greece, &c., in
2 vols., 8vo, 1838.)
OLYMPIAD. See Chronology.
OLYMPIAS, the mother of Alexander the Great, was
the daughter of Neoptolemus I., King of Epirus, and
became the wife of Philip IL, King of Macedonia, about
359 B.c. The numerous amours of her husband soon
began to keep her in the torment of jealousy; but it was
not until 337 B.c., when he married Cleopatra, the niece of
Attalus, that her revengeful and imperious disposition burst
forth with remorseless fierceness. Hastening to her native
country, she endeavoured to persuade her brother, the King
of Epirus, to exact vengeance for her wrongs. Unsuccess¬
ful in this attempt, she returned to Macedonia to try more
insidious measures. She encouraged her son Alexander
to intrigue against his father, and at length, it is said, hired
Pausanias to murder her husband. There is even reason
for believing that she took up the body of the crucified
assassin, placed a crown of gold upon his head, burnt his
remains over the tomb of the murdered king, and instituted
annual rites in honour of his memory. The accession of
Alexander enabled Olympias to give freer vent to her
lawless passions. One of her first acts was to put to death
her rival Cleopatra, and her rival’s infant. Then, by
attempting to usurp the chief power in the absence of her
Olympic
Games.
O L Y
son, she involved herself in an inveterate quarrel with the
regent Antipater. During the life of Alexander she
directed a continued series of recriminations against her
adversary, and after the death of Alexander she plotted
his overthrow in her retirement in Epirus. At length the
demise of Antipater in 319 B.C. left Olympias free to engage
in some new enterprise of ambition. Accordingly, in 31 (
B.C., she took the field in person to support the cause of the
new Macedonian regent Polysperchon against Cassander
and his allies, and advanced to encounter an army under
the princess Eurydice. At the sight of the mother of
Alexander, the opposing forces threw down their arms
without striking a blow; and the queen celebrated the
triumph by butchering in cold blood Eurydice, her husband
Arrhidaeus, Nicanor the brother of Cassander, and a
hundred Macedonian nobles. This was the crowning act
of Olympias’ long course of vindictive cruelty, and
retribution was close at hand. Towards the close of that
same year she found herself besieged in Pydna by
Cassander; in the spring of 216 B.C. her garrison was
driven by famine to a surrender; and, contrary to the
stipulations, she was condemned to death. A body of
soldiers was sent to execute the sentence in the prison;
but the fearless and commanding mien of Philip’s wife and
Alexander’s mother overawed them, and sent them huddling
towards the door. The Macedonians whose friends had
been murdered by her then rushed in upon her ; but she
received their strokes without uttering a single cry of
weakness, and fell with all the dignity of a queen.
OLYMPIC GAMES, the greatest of the national
festivities among the Greeks. They derived their name
from Olympia, the place at which they were celebrated.
(See Olympia.) Their great antiquity is shown by the
mythical accounts that are given of their origin. Hercules,
Pelops, and Atreus are severally represented by different
legends as the founders. But the first historical fact
regarding the Olympic games is their revival in the ninth
century B.C. by the conjoint exertions of Iphitus of Elis,
Lycurgus of Sparta, and Cleosthenes of Pisa. The festival
was then appointed to be held once every four years; the
intervals between the periods of celebration were called
Olympiads; all persons of pure Plellenic blood were
invited to contend in friendly contests by the banks of the
Alpheus ; a general armistice was preserved throughout
Greece during the festive days; and the territory of Elis
was considered consecrated ground. Great crowds of
Greeks from all parts, both at home and in the colonies,
were wont to frequent the Olympic games—some for the
purpose of taking part in them or of seeing them, but
many more for other purposes. Friends came to meet
friends; traders to find customers; magnates to be the
fowpot or representatives of their different states; painters
and other artists to exhibit their works; and literary men
to publish their books by reading them to the multitude.
All women were forbidden, on pain of death, to be present,
or even to cross the Alpheus. At first the inhabitants of
Pisa superintended the games ; but after the conquest of
that city by the Eleans, the conquerors claimed the
management, and chose the hellanodicce or judges out of
their own state. (See Hellanodica:.) How the com¬
petitors were trained previously, what exercises were the
subjects of the competition, what honours were lavished
upon the victors, and what effect the Olympic gatherings
had upon the social prosperity of the Greeks, have all been
fully noticed in the article Games. The Olympic games
continued to be celebrated after the Greeks had been sub¬
jected to the yoke of Rome. Roman citizens took part in
them; and Roman emperors expended large sums of
money in celebrating them. At length, in 394 a.d., under
the reign of the Emperor Theodosius, after they had
existed for more than a thousand years, and had outlived
O L Y
511
dorus
Olympus.
many famous kingdoms and republics, they were finally Olympio
abolished.
OLYMPIODORUS, a Neo-Platonic philosopher of
Alexandria, flourished in the former half of the sixth cen¬
tury, immediately before the Pagan schools were closed by
the edict of Justinian. He delivered comments upon the
Gorgias, Philebus, Phcedo, and Alcibiades I. of Plato.
These scholia evince extensive learning, and a special
acquaintance with lamblichus, Syrianus, Damascius, and
other Neo-Platonists. They also contain many striking
and clearly apprehended modifications of the doctrine of
the Alexandrian school. The most important of these
is the distinction drawn between religion and philosophy.
According to Olympiodorus, religion teaches by allegories,
philosophy by clear and distinct thoughts; the former pre¬
sents an inert and barren symbol to the imagination, the
latter fixes a living and procreative idea in the mind. It
is therefore necessary that philosophy should strip off the
allegorical dress of religious doctrines, and expose the
naked truth within. Accordingly he gives a metaphysical
and moral interpretation to the principal classical myths.
Another interesting feature in the scholia of Olympiodorus
is his occasional treatment of the great questions in psycho¬
logy and moral science. He holds that reason is the
supreme element in the soul, and has a right to rule over
sensibility and will, the two other elements. This doctrine
leads him to maintain that the moral nature of man is in its
best state only when it is wholly subject to reason, and that
virtue is nothing else than wisdom. The human soul, thus
governed by a principle more elevated than its fellows, he
assumes to be the model for all political communities, and
infers, like his master Plato, that an aristocratic government
is the best.
The scholia of Olympiodorus on the above-mentioned
dialogues of Plato have not come down to us entire, but
only in notes of his lectures taken by his students. Some
of the scholia on the Phcedo were published by Forster,
Oxford, 1745 ; those on the Gorgias by Routh, Oxford,
1785 ; those on the Alcibiades I. by Creuzer, Frankfort,
1821 ; and those on the Philebus, by Stallbaum, Leipsic,
1826. Olympiodorus is also the author of a Life of Plato,
which has been published by Etwall, London, 1771 ; and
by Fischer, Leipsic, 1783; in both cases along with some
of the Platonic dialogues. A philosophical analysis and a
bibliographical summary of his works are given in Cousin’s
Fragments Philosophiques, 4th edition, 12mo, Paris,
1847.
OLYMPUS, a lofty mountain in Greece, stands on the
frontier line between Thessaly and Macedonia. Its position
and aspect are worthy of its ancient fame; and it might
still be called, as it was by the classical poets, “ the leafy,”
“the shady,” “the many-ridged,” and “ the snowy” Olym¬
pus. It rises boldly up from the pleasant vale of Tempe
on the south, and the Macedonian plains on the north, to
the height of 9754 feet, towering above all the neighbour¬
ing summits, and looking eastward over the Thermaic Gulf
to the distant peaks of Mount Athos. Forests of pine, oak,
chestnut, beech, and other trees, sweep along its base and
climb its sides; its rocky masses farther up are cleft by
numerous yawning ravines; and its broad summit rises
against the clear sky covered with a sheet of sparkling
snow. Such lofty grandeur rendered Olympus a worthy
habitation for the deities of the early Greeks. There Jove
sat when he filled the sky with his thunder-clouds, and
scattered his lightning-shafts over the world. There, too,
in a palace reared by Vulcan, he summoned the gods to
council or to banquet. From this spot also he was wont
to pass out into the exterior sphere of the universe through
an opening which was made in the metallic,dome of the sky,
and which had a thick cloud for a door. Becoming thus, in
course of time, identified with the abode of the gods, the
512 O L Y
O M A
word Olympus was afterwards used as a synonyme for
heaven.
There were several other mountains called Olympus, the
most important of which were the hill in Elis near Olympia,
the range in Mysia extending eastward along the boundary
line between Phrygia and Bithynia, and the chain of heights
in the island of Cyprus.
OLYNTHUS, a town of Chalcidice, stood at the head
of the Toronaic Gulf, between the headlands of Sithonia and
Pallene, about 60 stadia from Potidsea. The early part of
its history is not marked by much prosperity. During the
second Persian invasion of Greece, Artabazus, the geneial
of Xerxes, captured the town, slaughtered its Bottiaean in¬
habitants, and gave it to the Chalcidians. It next came
under the yoke of Athens; and not until the commence¬
ment of the Peloponnesian war, when the Spartan general
Brasidas crushed the Athenian power in Chalcidice, did it
assert its independence. At that time, however, the Olyn-
thians began to play an important part in history. The
maritime situation of their city, and its central position
among the neighbouring independent towns, were the na¬
tural advantages with which they started. One of their
first deeds was to exact from Amyntas, the embarrassed
king of Macedonia, some additional territory. Then, on
the broad principle of a common participation in all civil
rights and privileges, they established a confederacy with
the other Chalcidian and several of the Macedonian cities.
In 383 b.c. their strength had become so formidable that
they refused to restore the land previously conceded to
them by the Macedonian monarch, and threatened to punish
the towns of Acanthus and Apollonia for not joining the
league. Yet it was the assumption of this bold attitude
that led to the overthrow of Olynthus. The aid of Sparta
was immediately solicited to punish the arrogant Olynthians,
and after a stout resistance, they were forced to surrender
to Polybiades in 379 B.c. Their federation was forthwith
broken up ; the seizure of Pydna, Methone, and Potidaea,
not long afterwards, deprived" them of all hope of ever re¬
organizing it; and they were left alone to cope with the
rising destiny of Macedonia. They warded off their fate
for some time by forming a league with Philip, the
king of that country. At length their alliance with
the Athenians, in 352 b.c., led to an open war with the
Macedonian monarch in 350 B.c. All the eloquence of
Demosthenes could not incite his countrymen to send ade¬
quate succour to their struggling allies : all the resistance
of the besieged citizens themselves could not keep out the
bribes of the intriguing Philip. In 347 B.c. Lasthenes and
Eutychrates betrayed the city ; all the inhabitants were sold
for slaves ; and every building was razed to the ground.
OMAGH, a market-town of Ireland, county of Tyrone,
Ulster, on the left bank of the Strule, 27 miles S. of Lon¬
donderry. It is a neat, clean, and well-built town; the
houses generally of stone, and the streets lighted with gas.
Among the public buildings are the county court-house, an
elegant building of Grecian architecture, the county jail, dis¬
trict lunatic asylum, infirmary, barracks, and union work-
house. The river is crossed by a handsome stone bridge.
There are a parish church, a Roman Catholic chapel, and
several dissenting places of worship. Omagh was burned
by James II. in 1689, and again by accident in 1743.
Market-day, Saturday. Pop. (1851) 3385.
OMAN. See Arabia.
OMAR I., Abu Hafssah Ibn-al-Khattab, the second
khalif of the Mussulmans, was the third cousin of Abdullah,
the father of Mohammed. So inveterate an adversary was
he at first to the new creed of Islam, that he set out one
day to murder the prophet. Chancing, however, by the
way to take up a copy of the Koran, and to read the 20th
chapter, he was converted on the spot, and became from
that hour the most zealous of the Moslems. His military
talents and intrepid valour were forthwith devoted to the Omar,
service of the founder of his religion. Among many other
instances of fidelity that he gave was the promptness with
which on one occasion he struck oft the head ot a plaintiff
who had dared to question the justice of one of the pro¬
phet’s judicial decisions. In fact, a spirit kindred to that
which influenced his master seemed to influence him. “If
God should wish,” said Mohammed, “ to send a second
messenger to this world, his choice would undoubtedly fall
on Omar.” The self-sacrificing zeal of Omar came out into
greater prominence at the death of the prophet in 632.
When he saw the Mussulmans about to come to a schism
touching the respective claims of himself and Abu Bekr to
the caliphate, he put an end to the dangerous dispute by
declaring for his rival. He then submissively undertook,
and faithfully discharged, the duties of chamberlain to the
khalif. Even when in the following year he was appointed
successor to the khalifate by the death-stricken Abu Bekr,
it was with reluctance that he accepted the appointment.
“ I have no occasion for the place,” he said. “ But the
place has occasion for you,” replied the dying khalif. In
the position of “ Emperor of the Faithful ” the kingly spirit
of Omar found its proper sphere. In no long time he com¬
municated his prompt vigour and high-toned fanaticism to
the whole military administration. Devoted lieutenants
were placed in command of the several armies ; the sol¬
diers were disciplined by severe abstinence, and animated
by hopes of a voluptuous paradise ; and the Saracen con¬
quests extended themselves with a rapidity greater even
than in the days of the prophet himself. In 637 Saad Ibn Abi
Wakkass took Madayin, the capital of Yezdejerd, King of
Persia; in the following year Abu Obeydah Ibn Jerrah
and Khaled Ibn Walid completed the reduction of Syria;
in 640 Amru Ibn-al-Ass had subjugated Egypt; and in 641
Mugheyrah subdued Armenia. A similar prosperity mean¬
while pervaded the civil administration. The khalif was
ruling in Medina with a wise and self-denying beneficence
that rendered him in reality the father ot his people. 1 he
poorest subjects ever found him an impartial judge between
them and their high-born oppressors. It was his custom
every Friday night to expend all the contents of the trea¬
sury upon public and charitable purposes. A part of the
money was given as regular pay to the soldiers, another
part constituted pensions for meritorious officers, and the
rest was distributed among his dependants, according to their
necessities. He reserved nothing to support his own state,
but he lived in primitive simplicity on a small pittance which
he earned by manufacturing leather belts. Flis food was
barley bread, his drink water, and his garb an old gown
torn in twelve places. Unarmed and unguarded, he mingled
with his people, took his daily walks out into the country,
and enjoyed his noontide repose under a wayside tree, or on
the steps" of the great mosque, among the beggars. At the
same time, he was exhibiting in his life a model of Moham¬
medan piety. Much of his time was occupied in praying and
preaching at the tomb of the prophet; occasional pilgrimages
were made to Mecca ; and the words of the Koran and the
precepts of wisdom were ever upon his lips. Such a severely
pure and sublimely simple morality could not fail to
awaken in some minds an overpowering reverence and
awe. Accordingly, it was said that the staff of Omar
was more dreaded than the sword of his successors. In
other minds it could not fail to excite hatred and revenge.
Accordingly, an arrogant Persian slave, who had applied in
vain to the khalif to be relieved of half the tribute paid to his
master, swore to be avenged on the inexorable judge. At¬
tacking him while saying the morning prayers in the mosque,
he inflicted upon him three mortal wounds. After languish¬
ing for some days, Omar died in 643. It was in the reign
of Omar that the famous Alexandrian library was burnt, and
that several of the Mohammedan institutions began to be
0 M A
Oroar formed. (See Ockley’s Saracens; Gibbon’s History;
Planck’s Dissertatio de Omaro Chalifa, Lund. 1806 ; and
Omen. Von Platen’s Geschichte der Todtung des Chalifen Omar,
—^ Berk 1837. , „ , ^ .
Omar II., the eighth khalif of the dynasty of the Ommi-
ades, was the great grandson of Omar I., and succeeded Soli-
nian in 717. In the midst of a luxurious and contentious
people, he imitated the temperance and charity of his great
ancestor. The chief purpose of his reign was to reconcile
the followers of Omar and Ali, the two sects into which the
Mussulmans were then divided, and to restore the latter
to their property and privileges. Yet it was this genero¬
sity that led to his ruin. The Ommiades, dreading the fall
of their faction, put him to death by poison in 720.
OMEN literally signifies a sign or indication of some
future event, taken from the language of a person speaking
without any intention to prophesy. This appears from the
archaic form of the word, which was osmen. Varro says
{De Lingua Latina, lib. v., c. 7, § 76) “onewquod ex ore
primum elatum est, osmen dictum and Freund conjec¬
tures that this original form of the word may again be re¬
lated to oo-o-a and cty, which signified primarily a prophetic
voice. Cicero remarks {De Divinatione, i. 45) that the
Pythagoreans attended to the words not only of gods, but
also of men, which they called omens. The term omen
became subsequently applied to all signs, of whatever na¬
ture, from which men believed themselves capable of ex¬
tracting any knowledge of future events. Omens are
distinguished from all other modes of divination by their
purely accidental character. To trace the history of this
superstition, it would be necessary to begin almost with the
origin of the race. There is perhaps no form of erroneous
belief so common to all nations, and so similar in its special
development, as that of omens. The causes of this uni¬
formity are not far to seek. The desire, so peculiar to man,
of drawing aside the curtain of mystery which hangs over
his life, combined with the general sameness of human ex¬
perience throughout the world, are sufficient to account for
the striking coincidences often traceable between the omin¬
ous events of an eastern king and an ancient Roman, be¬
tween an old Greek and an ignorant Englishman. Light¬
ning, thunder, &c.; the motions and voices of animals, and
particularly of birds ; personal sensations of body and mind,
&c., were regarded by the Greeks and Romans as peculiarly
ominous. The Romans especially carried this superstition
to an extravagant extent. (See Augur.) One curious
variety in ancient divination is, that to a Greek the right
hand denoted good luck, and the left the contrary ; while
the Roman exactly reversed this order.
The portentous or supernatural omens were either ex¬
ternal or internal. Of the former kind were those showers
of blood so frequently occurring in the Roman history,
which were much of the same nature with the adventure
of TEneas, which he calls monstra deum. Of the latter
kind were those sudden consternations, which, seizing upon
men without any visible cause, were imputed to the agency
of the god Pan, and hence called panic terrors. But in¬
deed there was hardly anything, however trivial, from
which the ancients did not draw omens. That it should
have been thought a direful omen when anything befell
the temples, altars, or statues of the gods, need excite no
wonder; but that the meeting of a eunuch, a negro, a
bitch with whelps, or a snake lying on the road, should
have been looked upon as portending bad fortune, seems
absurd enough.
Of the countless occurrences still regarded by the igno¬
rant and superstitious as of ominous import, the following
may be cited as examples:—To break a looking-glass is
extremely unlucky ; for the party to whom it belongs will
lose his best friend. If, going a journey on business, a
sow cross the road, you will probably meet with a disappoint-
VOL. XVI.
O M E 513
ment, if not a bodily accident, before you return home. Omer, St
To avert this you must endeavour to prevent her crossing [1
you ; and if that cannot be done, you must ride round on Ometepe.
fresh ground. If the sow be attended with her litter of ^
pigs, it is lucky, and denotes a successful journey. It is
unlucky to see first one magpie, and then more; but to
see two denotes marriage or merriment; three, a successful
journey; four, an unexpected piece of good news; and five,
that you will shortly be in a great company. To kill a mag¬
pie will certainly be punished with some terrible misfor¬
tune. If in a family the youngest daughter should be
married before her elder sisters, they must all dance at her
wedding without shoes. This will counteract their ill luck,
and procure them husbands. If you meet or pass a funeral
procession, always take off your hat. I his keeps all the
evil spirits attending the body in good humour. If, in
eating, you miss your mouth, and the victuals fall, it is
very unlucky, and denotes approaching sickness. It is
lucky to put on a stocking the wrong side outwards ; chang¬
ing it alters the luck. When a person goes out to transact
any important business, it is lucky to throw an old shoe
after him. It is unlucky to present a knife, scissors, razor,
or any sharp or cutting instrument, to one’s mistress or
friend, as they are apt to divide love and friendship. 1 o
avoid the evil effects of this, a pin, a farthing, or some trifl¬
ing recompense, must be taken. To find a knife or razor
denotes ill luck and disappointment to the party that finds
it. (For much curious information on this subject, see
Brand’s Popular Antiquities, Bohn’s edition, vol. iii., pp.
110-255.)
OMER, St, a strongly-fortified town of France, capital
of an arrondissement of the same name in the department
of Pas-de-Calais, stands on the River Aa, at the mouth of
the Canal Neuffosse, 25 miles by railway S.E. of Calais. It
is built partly on the declivity of a hill, and partly on low
marshy land at its foot. It is surrounded by fortifications
about 2 Jr miles in circumference, and is further defended
by several strong and extensive outworks; but its chief
strength consists in its being surrounded by marshes, and
standing on the Aa, by means of which three-fourths of its
circuit may be protected by water. I he principal streets
are broad and regular, and the town is generally well built;
but the houses have a dull and gloomy appearance, being
chiefly built of yellow or gray bricks. There are numerous
public fountains and several fine promenades. The cathe¬
dral is a very fine building in the Gothic style, completed
about the middle of the sixteenth century. The abbey
church of St Berlin, at one time the finest Gothic edifice
in French Flanders, is now in ruins from the effects of the
revolution of 1830. The college, town-hall, arsenal, prison,
and theatre, are the principal public buildings. There are
several convents and hospitals, courts of justice and com¬
merce, a public library of about 20,000 volumes, and an
English college for the education of British Roman Catholics.
Woollen cloth, paper, beer, brandy, and leather are among
the principal manufactures; and an active trade is carried
on in corn, wine, flax, wool, &c. Pop. (1856) 19,796.
OMERCOTE, a town of British India, in Scinde, stands
in the Eastern Desert, 90 miles E. of Hyderabad, N. Lat.
25. 22., E. Long. 69. 47. Near the town is a fort 500 feet
square, defended by mud walls and by numerous towers.
Omer cote was taken in 1813 by the ameers of Scinde from
the Rajah of Joudpoor, and is the birth-place of the renowned
Emperor Akbar.
OMETEPE, an island of Central America, near the
western shore of the Lake of Nicaragua, in length about 20
miles, and in breadth 7. or 8. It is of volcanic origin, and
contains two conical mountains of granite, thickly covered
with forests, and of which one manifests occasionally signs
of volcanic action. The other summit is the higher of the
two, and its height has been estimated at 5252 feet above
3 T
514 0 M N
Omnium the sea. The island contains two villages, Ometepe and
II , Muyagalpa; and the entire population is about 1700.
^Onegha.^ OMNIUM is a term employed at the stock exchange to
denote the aggregate value of the different stocks in which
a loan is usually funded. (See M‘Culloch’s Commercial
Dictionary.)
OMSK, a fortified town of Asiatic Russia, government
of Tobolsk, stands on a barren sandy plain, at the conflu¬
ence of the Om with the Irtish, 280 miles S.E. of Tobolsk ;
N. Lat. 54. 59., E. Long. 72. 54. It is well built, and con¬
tains, besides several churches, a governor’s house, hospital,
a military school, and a college for the education of inter¬
preters for the army, in which the languages are taught.
Manufactures of military clothing are carried on here; and
here caravans start for Tashkend and Bokhara in Turke¬
stan. The fortifications are modern, regularly constructed in
the form of a polygon, and flanked by five bastions. Omsk
was formerly the capital of a separate government, which
has been divided between those of Tobolsk and Tomsk.
Pop. 11,705.
OMUN, a town of Guinea, capital of a territory of the
same name, stands on an island in the Old Calabar River;
N. Lat. 6. 9., E. Long. 8. 15. Pop. estimated at 5000.
ON. See Heliopolis.
ON AT AS, an ancient Greek sculptor, was the son of
Micon, and flourished at Algina in the fifth century b.c.
The ascertained facts of his life, as recorded by Pausanias,
consist mainly of short notices of his principal works. At
Pergamus there was an Apollo ; in a sacred cave near Phi-
galia there was a black Ceres, with the horse’s head; at
Delphi there was a group of statues, the votive offering of
the Tarentines; and at Olympia there were a Hercules,
a Mercury, a bronze chariot, and a group representing the
Grecian heroes drawing lots for the privilege of accepting
the challenge of Hector. Onatas also practised painting.
He was the assistant of Polygnotus in decorating the ves¬
tibule of the temple of Minerva Areia at Plataea, and in
this capacity he painted a picture representing the expedi¬
tion of the Argives against Thebes.
OND A, a town of Spain, province of Castellon de la Plana,
in a hilly country, 37 miles N. of Valencia. It has broad
and generally "well-paved streets, and several squares. Manu¬
factures of earthenware, tiles, paper, &c., are carried on, and
there are also numerous flour and oil mills. On a hill near
the town stands a large and ancient fortress. Pop. 4517.
ONEGA, a lake of European Russia, in the government
of Olonetz, lies to the N.E. of Lake Ladoga, next to which
it is the largest lake in Europe. Its shape is irregular, its
length from N.N.E. to S.S.W., being about 130 miles, and
its greatest breadth about 50 miles; area estimated at 3400
square miles ; its depth for the most part varies from 80 to
100 fathoms. Near the shores there are numerous small
islands, but the centre is quite open. It is fed by the rivers
Migra, Shuia, Vodla, and Vytegra; and discharges its waters
by the Svir into Lake Ladoga. The shores are generally
rocky, and the waters clear, abounding in fish.
Onega, Gulf of the south-western arm of the White Sea,
runs into the land in a S.E. direction, having a length of
75 miles, and a breadth at its mouth of 60 miles. It receives
at its head the River Onega, which issues from Lake Latcha
in Olonetz, flows N.E. to the confines of Archangel, and
thence N.W. to the sea; total length, 270 miles. It is used
for floating down timber, but is seldom navigated on account
of the numerous falls and rapids.
ONEGLIA (Fr. Oneille), a seaport-town of the king¬
dom of Sardinia, capital of a province of the same name,
in the division of Nice, at the mouth of the Impero,
55 miles S.W. of Genoa, and 41 E.N.E. of Nice. It is
defended by fortifications, partly destroyed by the French
in 1792 ; and contains a handsome church, court of justice,
public offices, convents, grammar school, hospital, &c. Ma-
o N o
nufactures of soap, leather, &c., are carried on. The har- Qngol
hour is not good ; but the situation is favourable for comT H
merce. Pop. 5500. The province of Oneglia is moun- Onosander.
tainous in the N., and slopes gradually down to the sea.
Its principal produce is olives. Pop. (1848) 60,072.
ONGOL, a town of British India, in the district of Nel-
lore, presidency of Madras, 189 miles N. of Madras; N.
Lat. 15. 30., E. Long. 80. 6. It is large, but consists for
the most part of wretched mud hovels, covered with thatch;
and has a ruinous fort. The scenery in the vicinity is
picturesque ; and the country, though not fertile, is rich in
copper ore. Pop. of the town and district annexed to it,
31,666.
ONKELOS, the author of a celebrated Targum or
Chaldee paraphrase of the Pentateuch, is supposed to have
flourished during the first centuries of the Christian era, and
most probably during the first. The notices of him are
meagre and uncertain. He is mentioned four times in the
Babylonian Talmud, but it is all but certain that he is there
confounded more than once with the Greek paraphrast
Aquila, who occasionally went by the same name. From
the purity of his Chaldee, it has been inferred that he was
a Babylonian ; but as we do not possess any specimens of
the Palestinian Chaldee of that time with which to com¬
pare his version, little weight can be attached to this con¬
jecture. The knowledge of his paraphrase is supposed by
Eichhorn and Bertholdt to have been confined to the Ba¬
bylonian Jews only for a long time, as Origen and Jerome
are silent regarding it. But it is to be remembered that
these fathers had to do with Greek versions of the original
text when they were occupied with biblical literature.
Prideaux also concludes, from the excellency of his para¬
phrase, that he must have been a native Jew ; and there
can be no doubt that his knowledge of the Hebrew was
worthy of all the praise bestowed on it by the Jews. In
point of purity, the diction of his Targum approaches the
style of Daniel and Ezra. His work is not properly o.para¬
phrase, as he for the most part adheres with great litera-
lity to the original text, which renders his version useful
alike for purposes of criticism and interpretation. The
Targum of Onkelos was used by the Jews as a sort of dic¬
tionary of Hebrew words. The chief editions of it are
those of Bologna, 1482 and 1490; Lisbon, 1491 ; Constan¬
tinople, 1505; Bomberg, in his rabbinical Bibles, 1518-
1549 ; also in Buxtorf’s rabbinical Bible, and in the Paris
and London polyglotts. A Latin translation of it, with
valuable notes, was published by Fagi at Strasburg in
1546 ; and an important work on the text of Onkelos ap¬
peared at Vienna in 1830, by S. D. Luzzato, under the
title of Philoxenus. (See De Onkelo Chaldaico, Pent.
Paraph., Leipz. 1846; also Dr S. Davidson’s Dihlical
Criticism, 1854.)
ONOMATOPOEIA (pvopa, name; Troieco, 1 make), is the
name applied to those words which are supposed to be
formed from an imitation of natural sounds. Such words are
occasionally to be found in all languages, but the Greek and
German are particularly rich in them. (See Dictionnaire
raisonne des Onomatopees,by Ch.Nodier, 8vo, Paris, 1808.)
ONOSANDER, the author of a famous work on mili¬
tary tactics, called Srpar^ytKos Adyos, is supposed to have
lived about the middle of the first century after Christ,
but nothing is known of his personal history. Subsequent
Greek and Roman writers on military affairs made Onosan¬
der their text-book; and numerous generals, both in ancient
and modern times, have expressed their obligations to him.
His work was published first in Latin by Saguntinus, Rome,
1494 ; again in Latin by Camerarius in 1595 ; in French
by Charrier, Paris, 1546; in Italian by Cotta, Venice, 1546;
in English by Whytehorne, London, 1563; in Greek (for
the first time) and Latin by Rigaltius, Paris, 1599. The
best edition is that of Schwebel, Niirnberg, 1761, which
O N T
Ontario contains the French version of Zur-Lauben, and notes
II from the MSS. of Jos. Scaliger and Is.Vossius. Onosander
’dcypoor. ^as a piatonist, and wrote a commentary on the Republic
' of his master, which is now lost.
ONTARIO, Lake. See Canada.
ONTENIENTE, a town of Spain, province of Valen¬
cia, on the right bank of the Clariano, 11 miles S.W. of
San Felipe. It contains a ducal palace, town-hall, three
churches, one of which has a lofty square tower, an hospi¬
tal, and several schools. Cloth, linen, paper, brandy, and
earthenware, are manufactured; but the industry of the
town is in a declining state. Pop. 9508.
ONTOLOGY (ov, being; Aoyos, discourse) is that
branch of philosophy which investigates the nature and
properties of being, or reality, as distinguished from pheno¬
menon, or appearance. (See Metaphysics.)
ONYX. See Mineralogy.
OOCHEYRA, a native state of India, under the super¬
intendence of the lieutenant-governor of the North-Western
Provinces of Bengal. It lies between N. Lat. 24. 10. and
24. 36., E. Long. 80. 35. and 81. 4., and is bounded on
the N.E. by the jaghire of Sohawul and by Rewah, E.
by Rewah, S.E. by Myheer, and W. by Punnah ; area, 436
square miles. The chieftain of this state having been
convicted of the murder of his brother, was deposed and
banished by the British government, who assumed the
management of affairs during the minority of his son. He,
however, when he assumed the power in 1838, found him¬
self totally unable to conduct the government, and at his
own request, the country was again put temporarily under
British administration. The annual revenue is estimated
at L.6632, and the population at 120,000.
OODEPOOR CHOTA, sometimes called Mahur, a
district of British India, in the Rewa-Caunta, province of
Guzerat, bounded N. by Deoghur-Barreea, E. by Allee-
Mohun, S. by the districts of Akraunee and Mewassee, and
W. by the territory of the Guicowar. It lies between N.
Lat. 22. 2. and 22. 32., E. Long. 73. 47. and 74. 20.;
and has an area of 1059 square miles. It is watered by
the Orsung, an affluent of the Ncrbudda. It was formerly
an independent state under British protection; but in
1855, on the discovery of a systematic bribery of the
natives attached to the political agent’s office, the state was
annexed to the British possessions. The capital is Oode-
poor, a town on the Orsung, 105 miles S.E. of Ahmedabad,
with a population of 6000.
OODEYPOOR, or Mewar, a Rajpoot state of India,
bounded on the N. and W. by the British district of Ajmere
and the native states of GodwarandSerohee, S.by theMyhee-
Caunta, Dongurpore, and Banswara; and E. by Purtab-
ghur, Tonk, Gwalior, and Boondee. It stretches from N.
Lat. 23. 46. to 25. 56., and from E. Long. 72. 50. to 75.
38.; has a length of 150 miles, a breadth of 130, and an
area of 11,614 square miles. The south-western part of
this territory is occupied by the Aravulli Mountains, which
extend thence along the frontiers of Oodeypoor northwards
to Ajmere. To the north of Komulmair, this chain takes
the name of Mhairwarra, and at this part it varies from 6
to 15 miles in breadth. The wild and deep glens of these
mountains are occupied by Bheels, Minas, and Mairs; and
the fastnesses of the southern part of the range have like¬
wise given shelter to numerous native tribes, acknowledg¬
ing no superior power, and paying no tribute. The geolo¬
gical formation of the mountains consists for the most part
of granite, quartzite, and gneiss; and many valuable mine¬
rals are obtained here. Tin, silver, and copper are the prin¬
cipal metals that occur. The remainder of the country
has an average elevation of 2000 feet above the level of
the sea, and slopes gradually from S.W. to N.E. The
principal rivers are the Banas and the Beris, flowing N.E.
from the foot of the mountains* The rana or prince of
o o M 515
Oodeypoor is regarded as the head of the Rajpoot States, Oodeypoor
although his supremacy is not acknowledged in any other
respect; from which circumstance it has been inferred that Oomrawut'
these princes were formerly possessed of real power over ^ *ee’
the whole of Rajpootana. The state of Oodeypoor be-
came tributary to the British government by the treaty of
1818; and the amount of tribute was originally fixed at
L.22,400 per annum, but this was reduced in 1848 to
L.20,000. A corps of Bheels was raised in 1841 at the
joint expense of the British and Oodeypoor governments,
in order to reduce to subjection the Bheel districts of the
country; and this has been performed with complete suc¬
cess. Pop. estimated at 1,161,400.
Oodeypoor, the capital of the above state, stands on a
low ridge, in a valley surrounded by hills, 70 miles W. of
Neemuch, 135 S.W.ofNusseerabad, and 395 N.of Bombay;
N. Lat. 24. 37., E. Long. 73. 49. It presents a grand and
beautiful appearance when seen from the east, but on a
nearer approach is seen to be but ill built. The palace, a fine
granite building 100 feet high, stands on a rock overlook¬
ing the city, and an artificial lake formed by the embank¬
ment of a stream. The town is said to have been founded
and named after Oody Singh, Rana of Mewar, in 1568, and
it was formerly very populous; but though in recent times
the place has been recovering somewhat of its prosperity,
it was estimated in 1818 to contain not more than 3000
houses.
OOJEIN, a city of India, in the territory of Gwalior,
stands on the right bank of the Seepra, 152 miles S.W. of
Goonah, 260 S.W. of Gwalior, and 598 W.S.W. of Alla¬
habad ; N. Lat. 23. 10., E. Long. 75. 47. It is of an ob¬
long form, 6 miles in circumference, and is surrounded by
a wall of stone, with round towers. The houses are very
much crowded together, and are for the most part built either
entirely of wood, or of a wooden framework filled up with
brick, with roofs in some cases sloping and tiled, and in
others consisting of terraces, after the eastern fashion. The
principal bazaar consists of a broad and well-paved street,
lined with houses of two stories in height, the lower of
which, of stone, contain the shops, and the upper, of brick,
form the dwellings. There are in the city four mosques
and many Hindu temples; a large and convenient, though
not very handsome palace belonging to the Scindia family;
and an observatory, built by Jai Singh, Rajah of Jey-
poor, and minister of Mahomed Schah, Emperor of Delhi
(1719-1748). Oojein is one of the seven sacred cities of
the Hindus ; and from it the degrees of longitude are calcu¬
lated by the Hindu geographers. It is of great antiquity;
being believed to be the place mentioned by Ptolemy under
the name of Ozoana. Vikramajit, King of Oojein, who
ascended the throne in 57 B.C., was so celebrated in India
that the Samvat era, which dates from the beginning of
his reign, is still universally used throughout Hindustan ;
and his son Chandrasen is said to have ruled over the whole
of India. Oojein fell into the power of the Mohammedans
in 1310. At this time it was the capital of Malwa; and
along with this country it afterwards came under the power
of the Patans, but was recovered by Akbar in 1561. In
the middle of the eighteenth century it was conquered by
the Mahrattas, and was regarded as the capital of Scindia’s
dominions till 1810, when the seat of government was
transferred to Gwalior.
OOMRAWUTTEE, a town of British India, in one of
the districts of Hyderabad, ceded by the Nizam to the
British government, 245 miles N. of Hyderabad, and 350
N.E. of Bombay. It is of great commercial importance on
account of the cotton grown in the surrounding districts,
which is conveyed to the town, there cleaned, and sent for
exportation to Bombay and Calcutta. Many mercantile
firms are established here; and most of the great houses in
Upper India have either branches or correspondents at
516 O O R
Oorcha Oomrawuttee. This place enjoys great advantages on ac-
II count of its freedom from transit duties; and will, before
Opera, long, be connected with Bombay by a line of railway.
OORCHA, a town of India, capital of a raj or princi¬
pality of the same name in Bundelcund, 131 miles N. of
Saugor, 142 S.E. of Agra, and 743 N.W. of Calcutta;
N. Lat. 25. 21., E. Long. 78. 42. It is built on a rocky
hill, is about 3 miles in circuit, and is surrounded by an
uncemented wall of unhewn stones, which has thiee lofty
gateways. In the town is a fortress, separated fiom the
rest of the buildings by a branch of the Betwa, which is
filled with water during the time of the inundations, and
crossed by a wooden bridge. In the fortress stands the
residence of the rajah, and a handsome palace ; while in the
town there is a temple adorned with lofty spires. 1 he raj
of Oorcha, which is also frequently called Tehree, from a
town of that name, where the rajah generally resides, has
an area of 2160 square miles, yields a revenue of L.60,000
per annum, and maintains a force of 7000 or 8000 men.
Pop. of the raj, 192,000.
OORT, Adamyan, the teacher of Rubens, was born
at Antwerp in 1557. His. early style, acquired under the
tuition of his father, was marked by careful and correct
drawing, and raised him to a high place in his profession.
He was employed to decorate many of the churches and
public edifices in Flanders ; he received into his school of
painting such promising pupils as Rubens, Jordaens, Franck,
and Van Balen; and so excellent did his artistic skill be¬
come, that, according to the greatest of his scholars, a
course of study at Rome was the only training requisite to
render him the first historical painter of his day. But the
loose moral character of Oort prevented his further success.
His cruel outbursts of passion drove away all his pupils
except his future son-in-law Jordaens; his intemperance
palsied his hand and broke up his studious habits; and the
pictures he executed before his death, in 1641, were full of
negligence and mannerism.
OOSTERHOUT, a town of Holland, in the province
of North Brabant, 5 miles N.E. of Breda. It has a town-
house, churches, and schools. There are here potteries,
producing a kind of earthenware which is highly prized ; be¬
sides breweries, tanneries, corn-mills, &c. Some trade is
carried on in corn, timber, and cloth. Pop. 7500.
OOTAKAMUND, a town of British India, presidency
of Madras, district of Coimbatoor, stands on the Neilgherry
Hills, at an elevation of 7300 feet above the sea, 32 miles
N.W. by N. of Coimbatoor. It is partly occupied by
natives, and partly by Europeans; the houses of the latter
being scattered along the slopes of the valley in which it
stands, while those of the natives are more closely collected
together. There is an elegant church, and public gardens.
Ootakamund is the principal as well as the most elevated
sanatory station on the Neilgherry Hills. It was founded
in 1822.
OPERA, a lyrical drama set to music in recitations, airs,
duetts, trios, quartetts, choruses, and finales; preceded by
an instrumental overture, and accompanied by an orches¬
tra ; and, when performed, enforced and embellished by
action and declamation, and appropriate costumes and
scenery. The opera appears to have originated at Flo¬
rence about the end of the sixteenth century. (See Doni’s
Works, passim.) The Italians divide their operas into tour
kinds; the sacred opera, the serious opera, the semi-serious
opera,‘‘and the opera buffa, or comic opera. The French
have their grand?opera, in which the whole lyrical drama
is sung; and the opera comique, in which the singing is
intermingled with spoken dialogue. The Germans have a
greater variety of such distinctions of operas; as the grand
opera, the serious opera, the tragic opera, the heroic opera,
the romantic opera, the allegorical opera, the military
melodrama, the comic opera, and some ethers.
O P H
(Much amusing and interesting matter relative to the rise Ophicleide
and progress of the opera may be found in Dr Burney’s ||
Tours and History, in the Baron de Grimm’s Correspon- °phir.
dence, and in various German periodicals conducted by
musicians. See also Arteaga, Manfredini, Signorelli, &c.
For some technicalities relative to operatic music, see the
article Music.) (G’ g.)
OPHICLEIDE. See Music.
OPHIOLOGY (o<£is, a serpent, Xoyos, a discourse) is
that branch of zoology which treats of serpents. (See Rep-
tilia.)
OPHIR, Y'rx, the name of a place, country, or region
famous tor its gold, which Solomon’s ships visited in com¬
pany with the Phoenician. Regarding its locality there are
several interminable controversies. We shall lay before
the reader the exact amount of our information respecting
the subject, and show how far it applies to what appears to
be the three most probable localities,—namely, Arabia,
Africa, and India. Our information amounts to this,
that King Solomon made a navy of ships in Ezion-ge-
ber, which is beside Eloth, on the shore of the Red Sea,
in the land of Edom; that his Phoenician neighbour and
ally, Hiram, King of Tyre, sent in this navy his servants
along wdth the servants of Solomon; that they came to
Ophir, and fetched from thence gold, and brought it to
Solomon ; and that they brought in the same voyage algum
or almug trees and precious stones (1 Kings x. 11), silver,
ivory, apes (or rather monkeys), and peacocks (according
to some, pheasants, and to others, parrots). The first theory
which appears to be attended with some degree of evidence
not purely fanciful is, that Ophir was situated in Arabia.
In Gen. x. 29, Ophir stands in the midst of other Arabian
countries. Though gold is not now found in Arabia, yet
the ancient writers, both sacred and profane, ascribe it to
the inhabitants in great plenty. We may also suppose,
along with some authors, that Ophir, situated somewhere
on the coast of Arabia, was an emporium at which the
Flebrews and Tyrians obtained gold, silver, ivory, apes,
almug trees, &c., brought thither from India and Africa by
the Arabian merchants, and even from Ethiopia. In favour
of the theory which places Ophir in Africa, it has been
suggested that w'e have the very name in ‘v'r.s, afir, and
that the Chald. Targumist on 1 Kings xxii. 48 so under¬
stood it, where he renders by ; probably in¬
ferring from 2 Chron. xx. 36, that to go to Ophir and to
Tarshish was one and the same thing. Origen also says,
on Job xxii. 24, that some of the interpreters understood
Ophir to be Africa. Michaelis supposes that Solomon’s
fleet, coming down the Red Sea from Ezion-geber, coasted
along the shore of Africa, doubling the Cape of Good Hope,
and came to Tarshish, which he, with many others, sup¬
poses to have been Tartessus in Spain, and thence back
again the same way; that this conjecture accounts for their
three years’ voyage out and home ; and that "Spain and the
coasts'of Africa furnished all the commodities which they
brought back. Others have conjectured that Solomon’s
fleet, after reaching Spain by that course, came home by
the Mediterranean ; thus completing a circuit which Hero¬
dotus relates to have been completed by the mariners of
Necho, King of Egypt. In behalf of the conjecture that
Ophir was in India, the following arguments are alleged,—
that it is most natural to understand from the narrative that
all the productions said to have been brought from Ophir
came from one and the same country, and that they were all
procurable only from India. The^Sept. translators appear
to have held this opinion, from rendering the word 2w0tp,
2ov</>ip, 2w^>ipa, which is the Egyptian name for that
country. Josephus also expressly and unhesitatingly
affirms that the land to which Solomon sent for gold was
“ anciently called Ophir, but now the Aurea Chersonesus,
which belongs to India;” find the Vulgate renders the
O P I
O P I
words “ the gold of Ophir” (Job xxvm. 16) by tinctis
India; coloribus.” There are several places, such as Ma¬
lacca, comprised in that region which was actually known as
India to the ancients, any of which would have supplied the
car-o of Solomon’s fleet. (Among other works on this con-
Cell "U 111 kjv/lwiiiwii o \  o __ •
troversy not before referred to, see Wahner, DeRegione
Ophir ; Tychsen, “ De Commerc. ^cbr.”jm
Gott xvi 164 &c.; Huetii Commentntio de Navigatione
Salomonis ; Iteland, Dissertt. Miscell. i. 172 ; or in Ugolini
rJ1/iCSCIUT'US^ Vll.)
OPIE, John, an eminent painter, was born in the
parish of St Agnes, near Truro in Cornwall, in 1761.
Although he was the son of a poor carpenter, and was
placed at a very early age in his father’s shop, his artistic
genius could not be suppressed. He decorated the walls
of his paternal cottage with likenesses of his friends, and
covered the deals which he planed with comic drawings in
red chalk. But it was Dr Wolcott, better known as
“ Peter Pindar,” who was the chief instrument in fostering
his talents. That eccentric satirist, who was then a physi¬
cian at Truro, hired him as a menial, encouraged his aspira¬
tions, and took the charge of his fortunes. After allowing
him to gain facility of hand by practising as an itinerant
portrait-pain ter, he brought him to London in 17&1, and
with both prose and verse introduced him to the world as
“ The Cornish Wonder.” The public, who are always glad
of anything to stare and gape at, were roused. 1 he peasant
artist soon found himself the gazing-stock of all the minions
of fashion ; it became no uncommon circumstance for the
street in front of his house to be blocked up with carriages;
and before a year had passed, he had painted the principal
nobility, and had realized a handsome sum of money. But
the tide of success which had risen so suddenly as suddenly
ebbed. The fashionable world began to perceive that the
manners of the rustic painter were too homely to be tole*
rated in their refined presence, and that his style of por¬
traiture was too vigorous and natural to do justice to their
aristocratic features. Accordingly they deserted him for
some other novelty; the rest of the public followed their
example ; and even Peter Pindar, offended at some neglect,
either real or imaginary, began to cast gibes at the man he
had formerly eulogized. It was under these unexpected
disappointments that the full strength of Opie’s character
began to appear. He set himself to remedy his defective
education by studying the English classics, and by mingling
in literary society. At the same time, his devotion to his
art continued unabated; and though dexterous in execut¬
ing a picture, he became careful in conceiving it, and fas¬
tidious in correcting it. The results of such unwearied
industry were great and palpable. It is true that he never
attained to refinement in his portraits, or to poetry in his
historical pieces; but both in his portraits and historical
pieces there was latterly a power of imitating the colouring
of nature which, according to West, no artist had ever
rivalled. Some of his historical pieces came into favour
with the public; and his portrait of Fox was for a while
the talk of the town. Soon after 1801 more commissions
began to flow in upon him than he could execute. In
1807 the height of his ambition was attained, when he was
raised to the professorship of painting in the Royal Aca¬
demy. But he did not long enjoy his elevation. After
delivering four lectures on Design, Invention, Chiaroscuro,
and Colouring, he died on the 9th April 1807, and was
buried near Sir Joshua Reynolds. His widow, the well-
known writer, published jl^ Lectures on Painting, with a
Memoir, in 1809. **
Some of the most popular pictures of Opie are, “ The
Murder of James I. of Scotland,” “ The Death of Rizzio,”
“ Arthur taken Prisoner,” “ Hubert and Arthur,” “ Belisa-
rius,” and “Juliet in the Garden.” (Cunningham’s Lives
of Painters, &c<)
Opie, Amelia, the wife of the preceding, was the
daughter of Dr Alderson, a physician in Norwich, and was
born there in 1769. The circumstances of her early life
gave the bent to her after-career. In her girlhood she
beguiled the solitude of her father’s summer-house by com¬
posing songs and tragedies; on her visits to London, the
superior society into which the accomplishments of her
mind and the graces of her person introduced her, served
to stimulate her aspirations ; and after her marriage in 1798,
she was encouraged by her husband to become a candidate
for literary fame. Accordingly, in 1801, she published a
novel entitled Father and Daughter. Although this tale
showed no artistic ability in dealing either with incidents
or with characters, yet it was the work of a lively fancy and
a feeling heart, and speedily brought its author into notice.
She was encouraged to publish a volume of sweet and
graceful poems in 1802, and to persist in the kind of novel-
writing which she had so successfully commenced. Ade¬
line Mowbray followed in 1804, and Simple Tales u\ 1806.
The death of her husband in 1807, and her return to Nor¬
wich, did not slacken her industry. She published Temper
in 1812, Tales of Real Life in 1813, Valentine's Eve in
1816, Tales of the Heart in 1818, and Madeline in 1822.
At length, in 1825, her assumption of the tenets and garb
of the Quakers checked her literary ardour, and changed
her mode of life. Besides a volume entitled Detraction
Displayed, and several contributions in prose and verse to
various periodicals, nothing afterwards proceeded from her
pen. The rest of her life was spent in travelling and in
the exercise of Christian benevolence. She died at Nor¬
wich in 1853. A Life of Mrs Opie, by Miss C. L. Bright-
well, was published in 1854.
OPITZ, Martin, Von Biberfeld, the father of modern
German poetry, was born at Bunzlau in Silesia in 1597. At
the universities of Frankfort and Heidelberg he studied his
native literature, in addition to the regular branches of edu¬
cation. During the migratory life which he then began to
lead his favourite study was not forgotten. While occupying
the chair of philosophy and humanities at Weissenburg, in
1622, he published his first poem, Zlatna oder von der
Ruhe des Gemiiths. At Vienna, in 1624, the death of the
Archduke Charles afforded him a subject for an elegy, a
production which was rewarded by Ferdinand II. with a
laurel crown and a patent of nobility. During his residence
at Dantzic, where he held the office of secretary and his¬
toriographer to the Polish king, he published several poems
and translations,among which were versions of ihe Antigone
of Sophocles, and of the Psalms. It was in this city that
he was cut off by the plague in 1639. Opitz is now remem¬
bered less on account of his poetical excellence than for the
correctness and purity of style which he introduced into
German poetry. He was also the author of several prose
works, of which his treatise on German Poetry is most
esteemed. (See in particular Umstandliche Nachricht
von des weltberiihmten Schlesiers M. Opitzen von Bober-
feld's L,eben, Tode und Schriften, von C. G. Lindner, 2
vols., 1740-41.)
OPIUM, the concrete juice of the white poppy {Pa-
paver somniferum,) a plant of the natural order Papaver-
acece. It is obtained by incisions made in the green capsule
of the plant when nearly at maturity, from which it exudes'
as a milky juice that concretes in a brownish mass, which
is scraped off the capsule, and collected into lumps such as
are found in the market. It is termed by Dioscorides
/atj/cwvos ottos, sap GY juice of the poppy. It was anciently
prepared in nearly the manner above described, and seems
to have obtained its name from the Greek word ottos. It
was used as a hypnotic by the ancients; and was long
employed in modern times ere it was analysed. About
1812 it was found by Serturner to be a compound sub¬
stance } and the subsequent researches of Pelletier, RobL
. f
518
0 P I
O P O
Opium.
quet, Mulder, Anderson, and others, have detected in it no
less than sixteen ingredients, besides saline matters,—
1. Morphine
2. Narcotine.
3. Thehaine.
4. Codeine.
5. Narceine.
6. Porphyroxine.
7. Meconine.
8. Meconic acid.
9. Papaverine.
10. Brown extract.
11. Caoutchouc.
12. Besin.
13. Concrete oil.
14. Gum.
15. Bassorine.
16. Lignine.
The first nine are crystallizable, the rest amorphous.
The therapeutic or medicinal properties of the drug are
due to the morphine alone ; and it was a vast improvement
in pharmacy to separate it from the other ingredients, which
impair its power, or produce disagreeable effects in certain
individuals. Thus, some persons suffer from headache,
nausea, or intense itching of the skin, from crude opium,
who do not experience these effects from morphia, winch,
on account of its insolubility in water, is generally adminis¬
tered as a muriate or an acetate. The quantity of morphine
differs somewhat in different kinds of opium. The best
Turkey opium produces usually from &25 to 7'80 per cent,
of pure muriate of morphia, containing 12 per cent, of the
acid; but it is stated that an opium obtained from the
purple variety of the P. somniferum in Germany con¬
tains a much larger quantity of this valuable principle.
The only other principle in opium of importance is the me¬
conic acid, which affords to the toxicologist his best means
of detecting the administration of opium or laudanum with
a criminal intent.
Formerly all our opium came from Asia Minor, and
the opium of Turkey is still considered the best; but a
few years ago the poppy began to be extensively culti¬
vated in India, especially in Bengal and Malwah, the
greatest part of which is sent to China, to the extent, in
1856, of 4,735,500 lb. From Turkey, in the same year,
we imported 74,914 lb.; from Egypt, 2958 lb.; from the
Black Sea and other places, 2652 lb.; or in all, 81,524 lb.
Of this quantity, 42,329 lb. were entered for home con¬
sumption, but principally employed in the manufacture of
the salts of morphia, which are largely exported to various
parts of the world. Good opium is also produced in Eng-
and, in France, and Germany ; but the principal European
supplies come from Asia, though it has been successfully
cultivated in this quarter of the globe.
A good description of the preparation of opium in India
is given by Dr Joseph Hooker, who studied the process at
Patna, one of the principal opium districts. The capsules
are incised by a rude sort of knife with three or more blades,
called nnstur, which is drawn along the capsules during the
hottest time of the day: the white juice exudes and con¬
cretes into opium, which is scraped off in the morning. If
the night dews are heavy, or if rain falls in the interval, the
quality of the drug is much impaired. By 10 a.m. the
process of collecting is finished; and an expert operator
will thus produce in twenty-four hours about half a pound of
opium. Dr Hooker considers the Indian opium inferior to
the Turkish; and it certainly yields less morphia. The
opium when collected is put into jars, called godowns, for
transportation to Patna, where it undergoes the following
process to prepare it for the market, according to Hooker:—
“ At the end of March the opium jars arrive at the godowns by
water and by land, and continue accumulating for some weeks.
Every jar is labelled and stowed in a proper place, separately tested
with extreme accuracy, and valued. The contents of all are thrown
into capacious vats, occupying a very large building, from whence
the mass is distributed to be made into balls for the markets. This
operation is conducted in a long paved room, up and down which
the workers sit; every man is ticketed, and many overseers are
stationed to see the work properly conducted. Each workman sits
on a stool, with a double stage before him, and a tray. On the top Oporto
stage is a tin basin containing opium sufficient for three balls ; in y.
the lower, another basin cortaining water. In the tray stands a
brass hemispherical cup, in which the ball is worked. To the man’s
right hand is another tray with two compartments—one contain¬
ing thin pancakes of poppy petals, the other a cupful of sticky
opium-water, made from refined opium. The man takes the brass
cup and places a pancake at the bottom, smears it with opium-
water, and with many plies of the pancake, makes a coat for the
opium. Of this he guesses at one-third of the mass before him,
puts it inside the petals, and agglutinates many other coats over it.
The balls are again weighed, and reduced or increased to a certain
weight, if unequally made up. At the day’s end, each man takes
his work to a rack with numbered compartments, and deposits in
it that which answers to his own number. From thence the balls
are carried by boys to the drying-room, each being put in a clay
cup, and exposed in tiers in the enormous building called the dry¬
ing-room, where they are constantly examined and turned, to pre¬
vent their being attacked by weavils, which are very prevalent
during north-east winds—little boys creeping along the racks all
day long for this purpose. When dry, the balls are packed in two
layers of six each, in chests, with the stalks, dried leaves, and
capsules of the poppy plant, and sent down to Calcutta for the
opium market, whither every ball is exported. A little opium is
prepared, of very fine quality, for the Medical Board, and some for
general sale in India; but the proportion is trifling, and such is
made up into square cakes. A good workman will prepare from
30 to 50 balls a day—the total produce being 1000 to 1200 a day.
During the working season 1,353,000 balls are manufactured for
the China market alone.”
The principal use which the Chinese make of opium is
to smoke it with tobacco, when it produces a languor so
pleasing and seductive that those who indulge in it are as
little able to resist the temptation to repetition as the
drunkard to relinquish his strong potations. The effects of
this vice are even more debasing than that of habitual
intoxication by alcoholic liquors,—enfeebling rapidly both
the mental and bodily powers. The Chinese have long
been the principal consumers of opium ; and notwithstand¬
ing the drug has latterly been cultivated to a considerable
extent in China, the imports into that empire have been
largely and rapidly increased. So much is this the case,
that while the imports in 1827-30 did not exceed 16,000
chests, they now (1856-57) amount to from 65,000 to
70,000 chests—that is, to from 10,000,0001b. to 10,800,000
lb.1 This opium is entirely supplied by India; and being
subjected to a high duty, partly levied on its production
and partly on its exportation, it produces to the Indian
treasury a net return of nearly four millions sterling a year
(in 1855-56, L.3,714,353); every shilling of which is, of
course, derived from the foreign consumers of opium, or
Chinese. This system has been much objected to, but
without any good reason. The high price charged for the
drug must, of course, lessen its consumption, and conse¬
quently, also, the injurious effects which it is said to occa¬
sion ; so that, while the system we adopt yields a large
revenue, it obstructs what is said to be the demoralization
of the Chinese. The increasing use of opiates among our
operative classes has been strongly condemned by many
writers, though we would fain hope that the prevalence of
the practice has been somewhat exaggerated; and the in¬
ferences on this head, from the quantity of opium imported,
do not take into account the large exportation of salts of
morphia from Britain, which in 1856 amounted to no less
than 112 lb.—equivalent to two-thirds of the opium entered
for home consumption.
(See Annalen der Pharmakie, tom. iv.; Journal de
Pharmacie, tom. viii.; Parliamentary Reports, “Poisons;”
Christison’s Toxicology, and Dispensatory; Pharmaceuti¬
cal Journal, vol. xi.; Dr J. Hooker’s Botanical Journal,
vol. i.)
OPORTO (o Porto, “The Port”), the second city of the
kingdom of Portugal, province of Entre Douro e Minho, the
1 40,000 to 50,000 chests of Bengal opium, at 160 lb. a chest, and from 20,000 to 25,000 Malwa opium, at 140 lb. per chest.
OPORTO.
519
Oporto best cultivated and the most fruitful province in the kingdom,
stands on the northern bank of the Douro, about a league
from its mouth, in Lat. 41. 11. 15. N., Long. 8. 8. 22. W.
Passengers by steamers and the larger vessels usually land
at the town of Sao Joao de boz, built on low land at the
mouth of the river, where there are a castle and lighthouse.
The dangerous bar of the Douro, upon which many vessels
have been wrecked, is near Foz. lo add to the difficulties
of the passage, the bar is continually altering its position.
The river itself is liable to sudden risings after heavy falls
of rain on the mountains.
It appears from the Itinerary of the Emperor Antoninus,
that in the year a.d. 160 there was a town on the river over
against the present city which bore the name of Cago or
Gaia. At a subsequent period the Alani entered Lusitania,
and founded a city on the site of the present Oporto, which
they called Castrum Novum, in distinction to the Castrum
Antiquum of the opposite bank. About the year 540 this
portion of Lusitania was taken possession of by the Arian
Goths under Leovogildo, who caused all persons refus¬
ing to adopt his opinions to be put to the sword, even,
it is said, his own sons. In 716 the Goths gave way to the
Moors under Abdul Hassan, who conquered Galicia, a.nd
seized the whole country as far as the River Douro. The
place afterwards fell into the hands of the Christians, and
they were attacked by the Moors under Abderrahman in
820. A battle was fought at Campanha, in which Alfonso I.
commanded the Christians. The Moors were defeated, and
a part of the city whence the Christians issued to the contest
received the name Batalha, which it still retains. However,
such was the fluctuating fortune of the contending races,
that the place afterwards fell under the power of the Moors,
by whom it was retained until 1092, when certain knights of
Gascony, commanded by Don Alfonso Fredrico, subdued the
city, and it was ever afterwards retained by the Christians.
In later times Oporto has been notorious for popular out¬
bursts. In 1756 there was an insurrection on account of
the creation of the wine monopoly, and twenty-six persons
suffered death. On the 11th May 1809 the Duke of Wel¬
lington passed the Douro here, and surprised Soult, who
fled. The latest event of importance was its siege in 1832
and 1833 by Dom Miguel, and its successful defence by
Don Pedro with 7500 men. In this siege the city suf¬
fered severely, and more than 16,000 of the inhabitants
were killed.
Oporto extends for about 3 miles along the river. The
streets, though irregular, are tolerably well paved, kept
pretty clean, and some of them are spacious. The principal
buildings are,—the cathedral, originally of pointed Gothic,
but barbarously mangled in later times; the bishop’s pa¬
lace, perched on a high rock, and containing a noble stair¬
case ; the Torre dos Clerigos, a tower 210 feet high, built
of granite in 1779, commanding an extensive view, and
visible from vessels 30 miles away; the English factory-
house, a building 70 feet by 90, erected in 1790, and contain¬
ing a ball-room, library, refreshment-room, &c.; the build¬
ing, formerly a Capuchin monastery, in which the museum,
and public library containing 70,000 vols., are deposited;
barracks capable of housing 3000 men ; the Royal Hospital,
commenced, like many of the edifices in Portugal, on an
extravagant scale of vastness, and therefore incomplete;
the foundling hospital, which annually receives from 1000 to
2000 infants ; and a large Italian opera-house. Amongst the
numerous churches, that of S. Francisco is large and some¬
what imposing; and the Cedo-feita church, very curious.
The church of our Lady of Lapa is a handsome Corinthian
edifice, forming a well-known landmark. The chapels are
very numerous; the monasteries, which formerly existed
here to the number of twelve, and the five convents, have
been suppressed. The English have a chapel and ceme¬
tery, and maintain a chaplain here. Oporto is lighted with
gas, manufactured by a company, of which the chief pro- Oporto,
prietors are British residents. Electro-telegraphic wire
connect Oporto with the government offices at Lisbon.
The manufactures of Oporto are on a small scale, and
the produce is of a very poor quality. There are iron-
foundries, cooperages, sugar-refineries, and roperies ; boats
and small ships are built here. Oranges are grown in the
neighbourhood, and camellias flourish remarkably well.
The olive tree receives less attention here than in other
parts of Portugal. Oporto has a botanical garden. Small
quantities of tin and quicksilver are extracted in the neigh¬
bourhood. The chief exports, besides wine, are oil, oranges,
and other fruits, cream of tartar, shumach, and cork. The
principal imported articles are,—corn, rice, coffee, sugar,
manufactured goods, hardware, and timber. Oporto has a
bank which enjoys good credit, and is of great use in com¬
mercial operations; four insurance companies, a govern¬
ment industrial school, alyceum, an academia polytechnica
with ten chairs, a medico-chirurgical school with nine chairs,
an academy of fine arts with four chairs, and a public library
belonging to the municipality. Nine daily newspapers are
published here. The receipts at the custom-house in 1853
amounted to upwards of L.33,200, and the receipts from
the duties levied on articles of consumption entering the
city amounted to L.22,250 in the same year. Portuguese
steamers connect Oporto with other parts of the kingdom,
and British steamers establish a communication with Eng¬
land. The wine known in this kingdom as port, and which
has hitherto found its largest market here, is produced in
a mountainous district called the Alto-Douro, which is
distant from Oporto about 15 leagues. The dimensions
of the district are about 8 leagues by 4, and the rocks
upon which the soil rests are of igneous origin. The sur¬
face is extremely irregular, and the roads very bad. rl he
climate is an extreme one, being cold in winter and hot in
summer. Until the vine disease entered the district it pro¬
duced about 105,000 pipes of wine annually, the average
produce being rather more than one pipe per acre. The
expense of a pipe of wine varies from 15s. to 60s., according
to the nature of the ground. The vines are cultivated in
terraces, and not suffered to grow higher than 3| feet, the
effect being by no means pleasing to the eye. In the course
of a year the soil is turned over three times: firstly, in au¬
tumn, when the earth is hollowed round the roots of the
plants with the view of catching the rain ; secondly, in April,
when the earth is replaced round the roots with the view
of defending them from the sun’s power; thirdly, when the
fruit begins to ripen. The chief part of the work of culti¬
vation is done by men from Galicia, about 8000 of whom
are thus employed in the district. The pay of the men is
from sixpence to eightpence a day, with ibod. The vintage
commences in the latter part of September, and continues
nearly a month. Women and children pick the grapes,
which are removed in baskets by Gallegos (the inhabitants
of Galicia), who carry them to the wine-press, where the
juice is extracted by the pressure of men’s feet. The must
is placed in casks to ferment; and after this process has
been gone through, the wine is transferred to large vats,
where a second fermentation ensues. Great Britain is the
great market for port wine, but a very small part of that
which reaches the island is the pure produce of the grape.
Certain regulations of the Portuguese government hamper
the importer—no wine being permitted to leave the country
without the sanction of a committee of persons, who only
allow a strong, black, sweet wine to be exported. It is said
to follow, that the best wines of the country are either kept
back, or must be treated with brandy, elder-berries, &c., be¬
fore they can obtain the necessary license. None of the beau¬
tiful white wines of the district reach this country; and wines
which would rival the claret, Burgundy, &c., of other places,
we never hear of. Of late years a disease has ravaged the
O P P
grapes of Portugal, and the produce of wine has been greatly
reduced. Previously the average annual produce of the
Alto-Douro district amounted to between 80,000 and 90,000
pipes, of which about 28,000 pipes were exported. In 1854
Great Britain imported 22,800 pipes of port wine, that
being about the average amount for the preceding ten
years.
The length of Oporto along the river is nearly 3 miles,
and its inhabitants amount to about 90,000. Many Biitish
merchants, chiefly connected with the wine trade, reside
here; and there is a British consul, as well as an English
chaplain and English medical men. The public conveyances
consist of hackney coaches, bullock carriages, and a few
omnibuses, connecting some of the neighbouring towns
with Oporto. A railway is in contemplation between this
place and Lisbon, but many years must elapse before such
an expensive work can be completed. One of the chief
wants of the kingdom is good internal communication by
means of roads, but the impoverished state of the country
is too great to allow of these being soon made.
OPPELN, a government of Prussia, occupying the
greater part of Upper Silesia, is bounded on the N. by the
government of Posen, N.W. and W. by that of Bieslau,
S. by Austrian Silesia, and E. by Poland. It has an area
of 5148 square miles, the greater part of which is covered
with mountains and hills. The Oder traverses it from S.
to N.; and the only other large river is the Vistula, which
forms the boundary of the government to the S.E. There
are, however, numerous small lakes and ponds which give
rise to streams; and the country is also watered by the
Neisse, an affluent of the Oder from the E. The mineral
riches of the district are considerable, consisting of coal,
iron, zinc, tin, argentiferous lead, &c. The climate is cold
and moist, and the ground is covered with snow for a great
part of the winter. A considerable part of the surface is
occupied with forests; and though the soil is not so fertile
as that of Lower Silesia, some of the valleys are very pro¬
ductive ; but the quantity of corn grown is not sufficient for
the consumption. Cattle and sheep are kept in large num¬
bers. Manufactures are not carried on to any great ex¬
tent, except those of hardware, steam-engines, leather, and
wmollen stuffs. Weaving is also carried on in the moun¬
tainous districts. Some trade is carried on in timber. Pop.
1,014,383.
Oppeln, a town of Prussia, capital of the above govern¬
ment, on the left bank of the Oder, 51 miles S.E. ot Bres¬
lau. It is surrounded by walls, and entered by four gates.
There are here several churches, a synagogue, schools, a
town-hall, arsenal, hospitals, &c. Manufactures of linen,
leather, earthenware, and other articles are extensively
carried on ; and there is a considerable trade in timber, lead,
zinc, wines, &c. Pop. 8439.
OPPIAN, a Greek poet, was born at Corycus, or Ana-
zarba, in Cilicia, towards the close of the reign of Marcus
Aurelius, in the second century after Christ. His father,
Agesilaus, was equally distinguished for rank and learning,
and he caused young Oppian to be instructed in music,
geometry, and the belles-lettres. Septimius Severus hav¬
ing seized upon the throne, arrived at Anazarba, and imme¬
diately the senate of the place threw themselves at the feet
of the conqueror. Agesilaus stood aloof upon this occa¬
sion, being too much engrossed with his philosophical in¬
quiries,—a circumstance which so irritated Severus that he
deprived the philosopher of all his property, and banished him
to the island of Melita in the Adriatic. Thither Oppian fol¬
lowed his father, and it was in this compulsory retreat that he
conceived and executed his two poems on Fishing ('AAicv-
Ti/cd), and on Hunting (Kw^yertKa), written in Greek hexa¬
meters. When they were finished he went to Home, and pre¬
sented them to the son of Severus, Antoninus Caracalla, w ho
O P P
esteemed them so highly that he permitted the author to Oppian.
demand of him whatever recompense he pleased. Oppian ]!
asked only for the release of his father, with permission to 0PP^o.
the latter to return to his own country. The emperor
not only granted the favour, but added the gift of a piece
of gold (about 15s. 6d. of our money) for each of the
verses which he had just heard recited. If, as Suidas
affirms, these verses amounted to 20,000, never did poet
receive so splendid a recompense. But Oppian did not
long enjoy his good fortune. Scarcely had he returned to
bis own country, when he sunk into the grave, at the early
age of thirty, having fallen a victim to the plague, which
then desolated the city of Anazarba. His fellow-citizens
erected to his memory a magnificent tomb, whereon was
engraved an inscription in Greek verse, which still re¬
mains. This is all that we learn of Oppian from the ano¬
nymous Greek historian of his life, whom all the succeed¬
ing biographers have faithfully copied. We must, how¬
ever, except Schneider, the learned editor of his works,
who, being struck with the disparity of style and poetic
embellishment which he remarked in the poems on the
Chase and on Fishing, conceived that two works which
were so different in merit could not possibly have been the
productions of the same author. Besides, the author of the
Cynegetica states in two different passages that his native
place was a city on the Orontes in Syria. The critic ac¬
cordingly supposed that there were two Oppians, the first of
whom, a native of Cilicia and author of the Halieutica,
preceded the second by several years. In the opinion of
Schneider, it is to the latter that we are indebted for the
Cynegetica, in which the author has, according to him, at¬
tempted to reproduce, but with great inferiority of talent,
the manner and some of the imagery of the first Oppian.
Belin de Ballu, however, attempted to refute this hypo¬
thesis in the preface to his Greek edition of the Cynegetica,
published at Strasburg in 1786, where he proposes to get
rid of the allusions to the birthplace of the author of Cyne¬
getica by a clumsy alteration of the text! I he unqualified
praise generally accorded to Oppian by critics must have
been bestowed in view of the Halieutica, and not of the
Cynegetica, which is altogether an inferior production.
John Tzetzes calls the author a model of grace ; J. C. Sca-
liger compares him to Virgil in harmony and elegance of
style; Gaspar Barth, Conrad Gesner, and many others,
never cite him except to couple his name with laudatory
epithets. The two poems have generally been printed to¬
gether. The only separate edition of the Greek text of
the Halieutica is the editio princeps, Florence 1815. The
first edition of both poems is that of Aldus, Venice, 1517,
with the Latin translation of the Halieutica of Lorenzo
Lippi, printed in 1478. I he best edition is that of Schnei¬
der, containing the Greek text, accompanied with a Latin
translation, and followed by the paraphrase in Greek prose
which the sophist Eutecnius had made of the Ixeutica
(another poem attributed to Oppian, but now lost), Stras¬
burg, 1776, and Leipsic, 1813. The last edition is that of
Didot, Paris, 1846. Both poems were translated into Italian
by Salvini, Florence, 1728. Prior to this there were two
French translations of the Cynegetica, one by Florent Chris-
tien, Paris, 1575 ; and another by Fermat in 1690. I he
Halieutica was translated into English heroic verse by
Jones and others, Oxford, 1722, 8vo, with a Life of the
author prefixed.
OPPIDO, a town of Naples, in the province of Calabria
Ultra I., 4 miles E.S.E. of Palmi. It is the see of a bishop,
and is supposed to occupy the site of the ancient Mamer-
tium. It is chiefly remarkable, however, for the great
earthquake which took place here in 1783, during which
several houses in the town, and an olive grove in the neigh¬
bourhood, were engulphed. Pop. 8000.
521
OPTICS.
History. Optics, from the Greek word oTrro/xai, which signifies to
see, is the name given to that branch of natural philosophy
which treats of the nature and properties of light; of the
changes which it suffers either in its qualities or in its
course when transmitted through bodies, when reflected
from their surfaces, or when passing near them; of the
structure of the eye, and the laws of vision ; and of the con¬
struction of those instruments in which light is the chief agent.
HISTORY.
The early history of optics, like that of all the sciences
cultivated in ancient times, is involved in much obscurity.
After the art of glass-making was discovered, lenses and
spheres of glass seem to have been used as burning-glasses.
Aristo- In Aristophanes’s comedy of The Clouds a burning sphere
phanes, js distinctly described. Pliny speaks of globes of glass
B,c- which produced combustion when held to the sun. Lac-
Lartan tantius informs us that a globe of glass full of water could,
this T.d. 'wlien exposed to the sun, kindle a fire even in the coldest
303! weather. And it appears that globes of glass were used by
the Vestal Virgins to kindle the sacred fire, and by sur¬
geons to burn the flesh of sick persons that required to be
cauterized.
Pythago- Among the earliest speculators on vision were Pythagoras
ras- and Plato. The former held that bodies became visible by
means of particles projected from their surfaces and enter¬
ing the eye, while the latter, in order to give the eye
some share in the matter, supposed that something emitted
from the eye met with something emitted from the object,
and was again returned into the organ of vision. The fol-
Plato. lowers of Plato, however, though they had deteriorated
rather than improved the conclusion of Pythagoras, were
acquainted with two important facts in the science. They
taught that light moved in straight lines, and that when it
was reflected regularly from the surfaces of polished bodies
the angle of incidence was equal to the angle of reflection.
Euclid, b.c. The earliest writer on optics was Euclid, the celebrated
300. geometer, whose treatise on the subject is still extant.1 It
consists of two books on optics and catoptrics, and proceeds
on the Platonic theory, that the visual rays pass from the
eye to the object, forming a cone whose apex is in the eye,
and whose base is the object. He shows that the angles of
incidence and reflection are equal, and that the incident and
reflected rays lie in a plane at right angles to the reflecting
surface ; and he discusses the apparent magnitude and form
of objects, and the apparent place of the images formed by
reflection from plane, convex, and concave mirrors. In the
26th, 27th, and 28th theorems, he shows that the part of a
sphere seen by both eyes, and having its diameter equal to,
or greater or less than, the distance between the eyes, is
equal to or greater or less than a hemisphere, and conse-
quently that each eye sees dissimilar portions of the sphere,
by the union of which it is seen when looked at with both
eyes.2 The book on optics contains sixty-one, and that on
catoptrics, thirty-one theorems.
Aristotle!, As a naturalist Aristotle made some valuable optical ob-
b.c. 410. servations. He described, with tolerable correctness, the
phenomena of rainbows, halos, and parhelia. He considered
the rainbow as produced by the reflection of the sun’s rays History,
from the drops of rain which gave an imperfect image of the
sun; and he ascribes the light which appears in the sun’s
absence to the reflective power of the atmosphere.
The speculations of Seneca and Cleomedes derive any Seneca,
interest they may possess from their absurdity. Seneca A-D-65*
noticed the magnifying power of a bottle of glass in enlarg¬
ing small letters, and he observed that an angular piece of
glass produced all the colours of the rainbow. Cleomedes, Cleomedes,
in his cyclical theory of motion, has given an elaborate ex--4-*13- 50-
planation of the manner in which rays proceeding from the
eye render the objects which they meet visible, but it is
too stupid to demand the slightest attention.
The science of optics may be justly considered as owing pt:olemy’
its origin to the celebrated Claudius Ptolemy, the astrono- £°rn A,D‘
mer of Alexandria, who flourished at the end of the first
century. His work entitled Ptolemcei Opticorum Sermones
quinque ex Arabico-Latine versi, was known in the time of
Roger Bacon to have treated on astronomical refractions,
but it had escaped the notice of philosophers, and its valu¬
able contents were unknown until 1816, when Delambre
published an analysis of it from the manuscript in the Royal
Library at Paris. Montucla had, long before the discovery
of the French manuscript, mentioned that a manuscript
copy of Ptolemy’s Optics was in the catalogue of the Bod¬
leian Library in Oxford. This interesting manuscript, which
Professor Rigaud was so kind as to examine at our request,
belongs to the Savilian Library, and had been the property
of Sir Henry Savile himself. As in the Parisian manu¬
script the first book is wanting, but it has no blank spaces
like the Parisian one, and it is accompanied with a preface
by the translator, containing an abstract of the work, and
stating that the fifth book is imperfect. The translator
mentions that the second book had been previously trans¬
lated from Arabic into Latin by Amiratus Eugenius, a Sici¬
lian, from the latest of two copies of which the new trans¬
lation was made. The following abstract of this interesting
work is taken from Delambre’s Analysis, and from the trans¬
lator’s abstract as communicated to us by the late Professor
Rigaud.
“ The Optics of Ptolemy consists of five books. The
first book is wanting, but from the recapitulation of it at the
beginning of the second, it appears to have contained a dis¬
sertation on the relations between light and vision, founded
on the idea that the visual rays issue from the eye. In the
second book he shows that we see better with two eyes
than with one, and that the object is not seen in the same
place with one eye as with two. Vision, he says, is single,
if the two axes of the pyramids of the visual rays are directed
in the same manner on the object, but becomes double
if the axes are not directed in a similar manner, and if the
distance is a little less than the distance between the eyes.
He next proceeds to find, geometrically, the circumstances
which produce single or double images. He ascribes
imperfection of sight in old men to a want of the visual
virtue, which, like the other faculties, decays with the ap¬
proach of age ; and he states that those who have concave
eyes see at a less distance than those who have not such
eyes. Rapidity of motion, he asserts, confounds the colours
on a wheel. If the colour is in the direction of a radius
1 Euclidis Optica et Catoptrica nunquam antehac Graece edita. Eadem Latine reddita per Joannera Penam, Regium Mathematicum.
His praeposita est ejusdem Joannis Penaj de usu optices prefatio, ad illustrissimum principem Carolum Lotharingum Cardinalem, pp. 17,18,
Parisiis, 1557 ; or Opera, by D. Gregory, pp. 619, 620, Oxon. 1703.
8 Dr Smith is of opinion that this treatise was not written by Euclid the geometer; an opinion which he rests on the number of blun¬
ders which the author has committed. (Smith’s Optics, vol. ii. Rem. p. 16, § 93.)
VOL. XVI. 3 u
522
OPTICS.
History, the wheel will appear entirely of this colour, and if different
colours are at different distances from the centre, these will
appear on the wheel as so many concentric circles differently
coloured. When, after looking long at a coloured object,
we direct the eye to another, we attribute to it the colour
of the first.
“ In the third book, which treats of reflection from plane
and concave mirrors, he shows, that in a plane mirror the
object is seen in the perpendicular drawn from the object
to the plane of the mirror and continued behind it. He
mentions that objects appear smaller towards the zenith
and larger towards the horizon, because in the former case
we see them in a position to which we are less accustomed.
“ In concave mirrors the objects appear concave, and in
convex ones they appear convex, and the image is seen at
the point of intersection of the reflected ray, and the line
drawn from the object to the centre of the sphere.
“ The fourth book treats of concave and compound mir¬
rors, and of the effects of two or more mirrors. In these
mirrors an object may be reflected and rendered visible by
all the parts of the mirror, or by three, or two, or even one
point. The image may be either on the surface of the
mirror, or before the surface, or behind the eye, or behind
the mirror. When the image is behind the mirror, the
distance of the object from the mirror is less than that of
the image. When the image is between the eye and the
mirror, the distance of the object from the eye will be some¬
times greater than the distance of the image from the mirror,
and sometimes it will be equal to it, and sometimes less.
When the object is between the mirror and the eye, it will
be seen in a part different from that where it really is; and
if we give it a motion in one direction, it will appear to move
in the opposite direction.
“ The book is the most curious and valuable of the
whole work. Ptolemy begins by explaining the experi¬
ment with the piece of money, which, when concealed be¬
hind the side of a vessel, becomes visible by filling it with
water. The refraction of the visual ray in penetrating the
water makes us see the piece of money out of its place, and
in the prolongation of the primitive direction of the ray
emitted from the eye. In order to measure this refraction
at different angles, Ptolemy employs a circle divided into
360°, the inferior half of which is plunged in the water, so
that the refracting surface covers one of the diameters of the
circle. The centre of the circle is marked by a small
coloured body, and a second similar body is fitted to one of
the quadrants out of the water, and at a given distance from
the vertical diameter ; a third coloured body slides on the
lower part, which is immersed in the water. This last
body is then pushed with a rod till the eye placed on the
body in the air sees all the three in a straight line. The
two distances of the second and third body from the vertical
diameter are thus measured on the graduated circle.
“ In this manner Ptolemy obtained the results in the fol¬
lowing table, which contains the angles of refraction from
air to water from 10° up to 80° of incidence :—
Angles
of incidence.
Angles
of refraction.
0°
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
Ratio of the sines
of the angles of
incidence and refraction.
. 0° 0'
. 8 0 1 to 0-80143
.15 30  1 — 0-78136
.22 30... 1—0-76537
.28 0  1 — 0-73037
.35 0  1 — 0-74875
.40 30  1 — 0-76992
.45 01 1 — 0-75249
.50 0  1 — 0-77786
mark, that at an incidence of 40° and 50°, where the angle History,
of refraction can be measured most accurately, the results
of Ptolemy approach very near to the truth.
“ In order to measure the angles of refraction from air
into glass, Ptolemy adopted the ingenious idea of procur¬
ing a semi-cylinder of pure glass, and adjusting the diameter
of it so as to coincide with the horizontal diameter of the
graduated circle already described. By performing the very
same experiments which he made with water, he found that
there was no refraction at a perpendicular incidence; but
that for every other position the angle in the air was always
greater than the angle in the glass, and the refraction
greater than in water. When the three bodies were placed
in appearance in the same straight line they always re¬
mained there, whether the eye was placed above the glass
or below it. The following are the refractions from air to
glass which he obtained in this manner:—
. , Ratio of the sines
Angles ^ Angles ^ of the angles of
incidence and refraction.
of incidence.
of refraction.
0°.
10 .
20 .
30 .
40 .
50 .
60 ,
70 ,
80
. 0° 0'
. 7 0  0-70179
.13 30  0-68255
.20 302 0-70041
.25 0  0-65748
.30 0  0-65270
.34 30  0-65403
.38 30  0-66247
.42 0  0-67946
The mean of these ratios is 0-67386, whereas the true
ratio is 0-64516; but at the angles of incidence of 40°, 50°,
and 60°, the ratio is very near the true one.
“ When the semi-cylinder of glass was placed on the sur¬
face of water, Ptolemy observed that the refractions from
water into glass were less than any he had observed, be¬
cause the difference of density between water and glass
was less than between water and air. The following were
the results which he obtained:—
Ratio of the sines
of the angles of
incidence and refraction.
0° O'
9 30  0-95044
Angles
of incidence.
Angles
of refraction.
0°
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
.18 30  0-92774
.27 0  0-90778
.35 0  0-89233
.42 30    0-88192
.49 30  0-87804
.56 0  0-88422
.62 0  0-89657
The mean of these ratios is 0-76736, differing little from
the correct one, viz., 0-7486; and it is interesting to re-
The mean of these ratios is 0"90, the true ratio being
0*8760, the index of refraction for water being 1'336, and
that of glass 1-525; but at the angles of incidence of 50°,
60°, and 70°, the ratio is very near the true one.
“ Ptolemy now discusses the important subject of astrono¬
mical refractions, which he ascribes to the difference of den¬
sity between ether and air. If the visual ray, he remarks,
is stopped by an impenetrable body, it could not show us
a body which is hid behind the first; and if the second be¬
comes visible, it can only be on account of the flexion of
the visual ray. This flexion takes place at its passage into
a medium of different density; and the possibility of this
flexion, he asserts, may be proved by the following pheno¬
mena. By observations on the stars, it was found that the
parallels drawn through the apparent place of those which
rise or set, are nearer the north pole than the parallels
which pass through their apparent place when they are in
the meridian; and the nearer the stars are to the horizon,
the greater is the approach of their parallels to the pole.
By observing a circumpolar star, Ptolemy found that it was
nearer the pole in its lower passage across the meridian;
but when it was near the zenith, its parallel became greater
1 This is 45° 30' in the Oxford manuscript.
2 In the Oxford MS. this is 18° 30'. Professor Rigaud supposes the real number to have been 19 30 .
OPTICS.
j History, in appearance, whereas in the first case it became smaller.
Hence it follows that refraction raises the stars towards the
zenith. In order to explain the manner in which refrac¬
tions operate, Ptolemy makes use of the same figure upon
which Cassini has since founded his theory. He employs
almost the same reasoning in order to determine the quan¬
tity of the refraction. He remarks, that the more a star
is elevated, the less will be the difference between its true
and its apparent place, and that this difference will be no¬
thing in the zenith, because a perpendicular ray experiences
no flexion. He demonstrates by a figure, that in every
case the refraction carries the star towards the zenith; and
he states that the height of the atmosphere is unknown,
but that it must begin below the sphere of the moon. From
this general account of the fifth book of the Optics of
Ptolemy, it will be seen that he gives a theory of astrono¬
mical refractions much more complete than that of any
astronomer before the time of Cassini.”
Galen, a.d. Claudius Galen, the celebrated Greek physician, who
130-218. wrote on so many other subjects than medicine, directed
his special attention to the phenomena of vision. In the
twelfth chapter of the tenth book of his work On the use of
the different Parts of the Human Body, he has minutely de¬
scribed the phenomena which are seen when we look at solid
bodies with both eyes, and with the right and left in succes¬
sion. He shows by diagrams that we see dissimilar pictures
of the body in each of these three modes of viewing it.
“ Standing near a column,” lie says, “ and shutting each eye
in succession; when the right eye is shut, some of those parts
of the column which were previously seen by the right eye
on the right side of the column, will not now be seen by
the left eye; and when the left eye is shut, some of those
parts which were formerly seen with the left eye on the
left side of the column, will not now be seen by the right
eye. But when we, at the same time, open both eyes, both
those parts will be seen, for a greater part is concealed when
we look with either of the two eyes than when we look with
both at the same time.”1 In this fundamental law of bino¬
cular vision so distinctly stated, we have the grand prin¬
ciple of the stereoscope, namely, “ that the picture of the
solid column which we see with both eyes is composed of tivo
dissimilar pictures, as seen by each eye separately.”
During nearly a thousand years which elapsed after the
death of Galen, no progress was made in optics. Banished
from Europe along with the other sciences, it found shelter
in Arabia, where it was destined to receive very important
accessions.
Alhazen, Alhazen, who flourished about the end of the eleventh
a.d. 1100. century, was the individual who gave this fresh impulse to
optical science.2 He establishes the opinion of Pathagoras,
that vision is performed by rays which proceed from the
object to the eye ; and he states that vision is not completed
till the ideas of external objects are conveyed by the optic
nerves to the brain; and after a description of the eye and
its parts, he assigns to each of them the function which it
performs in vision. He maintains that we see objects singly
with two eyes, because we must perceive only one image
when it is formed on corresponding parts of the retina. The
instrument employed by Alhazen for measuring the angle
of refraction, is more complex than that used by Ptolemy,
and his knowledge of the refraction of the atmosphere and
of fluids, is obviously inferior to that of the Alexandrian
philosopher. Alhazen ascribes to refraction the twinkling
of the stars, and the contraction of the diameters and dis¬
tances of the heavenly bodies; and it follows, from his me¬
thod of reasoning, that refraction elevated the stars towards
523
the pole and not towards the zenith, as had been sagaciously History,
ascertained by Ptolemy. Alhazen has described seven spe- v'—»
cies of mirrors, and he was the first person who determined
the focus of rays after reflection, when the place of the ob¬
ject is known. He has treated largely of optical illusions,
whether produced in direct or in refracted and reflected
vision; and he ascribes the size of the horizontal moon to
the apparent form of the concavity of the sky, which is
imagined to be more remote in the horizon than anywhere
else. Alhazen likewise observed that objects were magni¬
fied when held close to the plane side of the larger seg¬
ments of a glass sphere; and he has given rules, which are
far from being correct, for determining the apparent size of
objects when seen through such spheres.
The next cultivator of optics was Vitello, whose work Vitello,
was first published at Nuremberg in 1535.3 He made a a.d. 1270.
series of experiments on the angles of refraction of water
and glass, which apparently exceeded those of Ptolemy in
correctness, the mean ratio of the sines being nearer the
truth, and the ratio for each angle of incidence coinciding
more accurately with the mean ratio. The following are
the results he obtained with water:—
Angles Angles Ratio
of incidence. of refraction. of the sines.
0°  0° 0'
10   7 45  0-77658
20  15 30  0-78135
30  22 30  0-76537
40  29 0  0-75423
50  35 0  0-74875
60  40 50  0-74992
70  45 30  0-75904
80  50 6  0-77787
The mean of these ratios is 0-76414, whereas that ob¬
tained by Ptolemy was 0-76736, and the true ratio (the in¬
dex of refraction being 1-3358), 0-7486. The results for
30° and 60° are exactly the same as Ptolemy’s.
The following were the measures obtained by Vitello for
glass :—
Angles Angles Ratio
of incidence. of refraction. of the sines.
0°    0° O'
10   7 0   0-70179
20  13 30  0-68255
30  i...,19 30  0-66761
40  25 0    0-65748
50  30 0  0-65270
60  34 30 0-65403
70  38 30  0-66247
80  42 o   0-67946
The mean of these ratios is 0-66976, whereas that ob¬
tained by Ptolemy is 0-68736, and the true ratio 0-64516.
In comparing this last table with the similar one given by
Ptolemy, we cannot fail to be struck with their entire simi¬
larity, with the single exception of the angle of refraction
at 30° of incidence, which Vitello makes 19° 30', and Pto¬
lemy, in the Paris copy, 20° 30'. Now, in the Oxford ma¬
nuscript the numbers are 18° 30'; and Professor Rigaud
conjectures that the real number has been 19° 30', the same
as Vitello’s. Hence we cannot on any just grounds regard
the measures of refraction given by the Polish philosopher
as anything else than those of Ptolemy, from whom he must
have borrowed them.
By comparing the two tables for water, we are inclined
to make the same unfavourable supposition. The refrac¬
tion for 20°, 30°, and 50° of incidence are exactly the same
in both; and Vitello’s measure for 70°, viz. 45° 30', is the
same as Ptolemy’s in the Oxford manuscript. But this
1 Be usu Partium Corporis Humani, edit. Lugd. 1550, p. 593.
2 Montucla has very incorrectly charged Alhazen with borrowing the greater part of his optics from Ptolemy. Delambre has refuted
this opinion, and rendered it probable that the Arabian philosopher never saw the work of Ptolemy. What assistance he obtained from
his predecessors who flourished after Ptolemy cannot now be ascertained. See Connaissance des Terns for 1816,
3 This work has been very erroneously regarded as little more than a translation of Alhazen's treatise,
524
OPTICS.
History, opinion is converted into certainty when we examine
Vitello’s table of the refractions from water into glass, in
which all the measures are identically the same with those
of Ptolemy.
In the course of his experiments, Vitello was led to ob¬
serve that whenever light was reflected or refracted by
transparent bodies, a certain portion of it was lost, but he
does not estimate the quantity, contenting himself with the
observation that bodies always appear less luminous when
seen by refracted and reflected light. In treating of the
cause of the rainbow, he shows that refraction is as neces¬
sary to its production as reflection, but he of course does
not ascribe the colours to refraction, regarding it merely as
a means of giving strength or condensation to the solar rays.
He imitated the colours of the rainbow (which, like Seneca,
he considers as having their origin in a mixture of the sun’s
rays with the blackness of the cloud) by placing a white
piece of paper beneath a circular vessel of glass containing
water; but he says that they are not the same colours with
those of the rainbow, because they are not in the same
number, and do not reach the eye after reflection. He
shows that in those countries where the meridian altitude
of the sun exceeds the semi-diameter of the rainbow, a
rainbow cannot be seen at noon. His observations on the
foci of glass spheres, on the twinkling of the stars, and on
other optical phenomena, are of no value.
Passing over Archbishop Peckham’s treatise on optics, en¬
titled Perspectiva Communis, as containing nothing either
new or important, we come to consider the claims of Roger
Roger Ba- Bacon to the invention of the microscope and the telescope,
con, born Jn his Opus Majus, which embraces his Perspectiva and
1214* Specula Mathematica, he has given an account of his spe¬
culations and inventions in optics. Dr Plott, Dr Friend,
Dr Henry, Wood, Muschenbroek, Jebb, and William and
Samuel Molyneux have agreed in regarding Bacon as the
inventor of the telescope; while Dr Smith of Cambridge is
of opinion that he wrote only hypothetically, and had never
made any experiments with real lenses. As this is not the
place to discuss this subject in a critical manner,1 we shall
content ourselves with giving a single extract respecting the
telescope and microscope.
“Greater things than these may be performed by refracted
vision. For it is easy to understand by the causes above
mentioned, that the greatest things may appear exceeding
small, and on the contrary; also that the most remote ob¬
jects may appear just at hand, and on the contrary. For we
can give such figures to transparent bodies, and dispose
them in such order with respect to the eye and the objects,
that the rays shall be refracted and bent towards any place
we please; so that we shall see the object near at hand, or
at a distance, under any angle we please. And thus from
an incredible distance we may read the smallest letters, and
may number the smallest particles of dust and sand, by rea¬
son of the greatness of the angle under which we may see
them; and on the contrary, we may not be able to see the
greatest bodies just by us, by reason of the smallness of the
angles under which they may appear; for distance does not
affect this kind of vision, excepting by accident, but the
quantity of the angle. And thus a boy may appear to be a
giant, and a man as big as a mountain, forasmuch as we may
see the man under as great an angle as the mountain, and
as near as we please ; and thus a small army may appear a
very great one, and, though very far off, yet very near us,
and on the contrary. Thus also the sun, moon, and stars
may be made to descend hither in appearance, and to ap¬
pear over the heads of our enemies; and many things of the
like sort, which would astonish unskilful persons.”
Whether these remarks were the result of speculation or
of actual experiment, it is not easy to determine; but in History,
opposition to the opinion of Dr Smith, we may adduce a
passage from Recorde’s Pathway to Knowledge, printed in
1551, in which he distinctly speaks of a “ glasse” used by
Friar Bacon. “ Great talke there is of a glasse he made at
Oxford, in which men might see things that weare don, and
that was iudged to be don by power of euill spirites. But
I know the reason to be good and natural, and to be arright
by geometry (with perspective as a part of it), and to
stand as well with reason as to see your face in a common
glass.”
On the authority of various passages in the writings of Invention
Friar Bacon, M. Molyneux is of opinion that he was ac-ofspecta-
quainted with the use of spectacles; and when Bacon says cles-
that “ this instrument (a plano-convex glass, or large seg¬
ment of a sphere) is useful to old men, and to those that
have weak eyes ; for they may see the smallest letters suffi¬
ciently magnified,”—we are at least entitled to conclude that
the particular way of assisting decayed sight which he de¬
scribes was known to him, though he may not have used
his segment of a glass sphere in looking at objects separated
by an interval from its plane side. But whether spectacles
were in use or not in Bacon’s time, it is quite certain that
they were known and used about the time of his death,
which happened in 1292. Alexander de Spina, a native of
Pisa, who died in that city in 1313, having seen a pair of
spectacles made by some other person, who was unwilling
to communicate the secret of their construction, got a pair
made for himself, and found them so useful, that he cheer¬
fully made the invention public. M. Spoon,2 to whom we
are indebted for this fact, fixes the date of the invention be¬
tween 1280 and 1311. Signior Redi, from whom Spoon
quotes the preceding fact, states that he possesses a manu¬
script written in 1299, Di Governo della Familia de Scan-
dro di Pissozzo, in which the author says, “ I find myself
so pressed by age, that I can neither read nor write without
those glasses they call spectacles, lately invented, to the
great advantage of poor old men, when their sight grows
weak.” It is stated also in the Italian Dictionary Della
Crusca, under the head of Occhiale or Spectacles, that friar
Jordan de Rivalto, who died at Pisa in 1311, tells his audi¬
ence, in one of his sermons, which were published in 1305,
“ that it is not twenty years since the art of making spec¬
tacles was found out, and is indeed one of the best and most
necessary inventions in the world.” Bernard Gordon, too,
a celebrated physician of Montpellier, in his Lilium Medi¬
cines, published about 1305, recommends an eye-salve as
capable of making the patient read the smallest letters
without spectacles; and Muschenbroek informs us that it
is inscribed on the tomb of Salvinus Armatus, a Florentine
nobleman, who died in 1317> that he was the inventor of
spectacles.
Before we quit the period of Friar Bacon, we must notice Leonard
a claim to the invention of the telescope which has been Oigges,^
made in favour of Leonard Digges, an Englishman, because dietl lo'4
this claim, whatever be its amount, supports undeniably the
prior claim of Bacon. The claim of Digges is founded on
passages in his Pantometria and Stratiotikos. The first of
these works appeared at London in 1571, and a second edi¬
tion of it, edited by his son Thomas Digges, Esq., was pub¬
lished in 1591. The Stratiotikos was published in 1579
and also in 1590. In the preface to the second edition of
the Pantometria, Thomas Digges remarks:—“ My father,
by his continuell painfull practices, assisted by demonstra¬
tions mathematical, was able, and sundrie times hath, by
proportionall glasses, duely situate in conuenient angles, not
onely discouered things farre off, read letters, numbred
peeces of money, with the verye coyne and superscription
1 We must refer our readers to a series of able anonymous letters upon this subject, published in the Phil. Mag. vols. xviii. xix.
2 Recherches Curieuses d’Antiquite, dissert, xvi.
OPT
listory. thereof, cast by some of his freends of purpose upon downes
in the open fields, but also seuen miles off declared what
hath beene doone in priuate places.”
In the twenty-first chapter of the first book, Leonard
Digges himself says,—“ But marvellous are the conclusions
that may be performed by glasses (mirrors) concave and
convex, of circular and parabolic forms, using for multipli¬
cations of beams, sometimes the aid of glasses transposed,
which, by practice, should unite or dissipate the images or
figures presented by the reflection of others. By these
kind of glasses, or rather frames of them placed in due
angles, yee may not only set out the proportion of an whole
region, yea, represent before your eye the lively image of
every house, village, &c., and that in as little or great space
or plan as ye will presente ; but also augment or dilate any
parcel 1 thereof, so that, whereas, at the first appearance a
whole toun shall present itself so small and compact together
that ye shall not discover any difference of streets, yee may,
by application of glasses in due proportion, cause any pecu¬
liar house or room thereof dilate and show itself in as ample
form as the whole touns at first appeared, so that yee shall
discern any trifle, or read any letter lying there open, espe¬
cially if the sun beams may come into it, as plainly as if you
were corporeally pressent, although it.be distant from you
as far as eye can discrie. But of these conclusions I mind
not here more to introduce, having at large, in a volume by
itself, opened the miraculous effects of perspective glasses.”
Now it is a curious fact that Thomas Digges expressly
says that his father’s knowledge of optics “ partly grew
by the aid he had by one old written book of Bakon’s Ex¬
periments, that by strange aduenture, or rather destinie,
came to his hands.”
In support of the opinion that the telescope was known
in England more than forty years before 1609 or 1610,
when it was supposed to have been invented in Holland, we
may quote a passage or two from the celebrated John Dee’s
mathematical preface to Euclid, written at Matloke on the
9th of February 1570, the year in which it was published.
Dee speaks of having seen once or twice, in company with
Orontius at St Denis in 1551, “the lively image of an¬
other man in the air aloft, walking to and fro or standing
still.” But the most remarkable passage is that in which he
speaks of the means of ascertaining the numbers of an
enemy’s army: “ The herald, pursuivant, sergiant royall,
captain, or whosoever is careful to come near the truth
herein ; besides the judgment of his expert eye, his skill of
ordering tacticaly, the help of his geometrical instrument;
ring or staffe astronomical, commodiously framed for car¬
riage and use. He may wonderfully help himself hy per¬
spective glasses, in which I trust our posterity will prove
more skilful and expert, and to greater purposes than in
these days can be credited to be possible.”
When polite learning began to revive in Europe, some of
the more abstract sciences began to be cultivated with suc-
Mauroly- cess. Maurolycus, a teacher of mathematics at Messina,
;us, a.d. was particularly distinguished by his optical researches, of
1525. which he published an account in his Theoremata de Lu-
mine et Umbra and his Diaphanorum Partes, seu libri tres.
In the first of these works, which was completed in 1525,
but not published till 1575, Maurolycus treats of the mea¬
sure of light, or the illumination of bodies, and he particu¬
larly explained the curious phenomenon observed since the
time of Aristotle, that when the sun shone through an
aperture of any form, the figure of the aperture always ap¬
peared round; except when the sun was eclipsed, when it
had the appearance of a crescent. He shows that each
point of the aperture is the apex of two opposite cones of
rays, one of which has the sun for its base, while the other,
ICS. 525
when cut by a plane at right angles to its axis, will produce History,
a luminous circle, whose diameter will be proportional to
the distance of the plane from the aperture. “ Consequently
if these images be taken at a considerable distance from the
aperture, and therefore be pretty large when the aperture
itself is small; since the whole image consists of a number
of images, all of which are circular, the image of the sun
formed by the aperture, of whatever form it be, must be
circular also; and it will approach the nearer to a perfect
circle the smaller is the aperture and the more distant the
image.” In studying the phenomena of vision Mauroly¬
cus was very successful. He shows that the crystalline
humour is a lens which collects the rays which enter the
eye and converges them to foci on the retina; but he does
not seem to have found that these foci depict an exact
image or picture of the object upon the retina. Limited,
however, as this discovery was, it enabled him to ascertain
the cause of long and short-sightedness, the pencils in the
former case coming to a focus before they entered the re¬
tina, and in the latter at points beyond the retina. Hence,
as in both these cases vision is indistinct, either from a
too early or a too late convergence of the rays, he concluded
that concave glasses of suitable focus would relieve the
short-sighted person, and convex glasses the long-sighted
person.
The subject of the rainbow also occupied Maurolycus’
attention. He found the diameter of the outer bow 42°,
and that of the inner from 53° to 56°; but according to the
theory which he adopted, namely that part of the sun’s rays
were reflected from the exterior of the drop, while the rest
entered the drop and circulated within it by reflection
along the sides of an octagon, the diameters of the bow
should have been 45° and 56°. Maurolycus supposed the
colours of the rainbow to ha four, namely, orange {crocus),
green, blue, send purple. Taking his crocus to be red, his
enumeration in leaving out the yellow, as Dr Wollaston did
more recently, show much accuracy of observation.1 Mau¬
rolycus attempted to discover the law of refraction, but
without success. He supposed that the angle of refraction
was always five-eighths of the angle of incidence, which is
a tolerably correct estimate in the case of glass, but quite
erroneous for bodies of low and high refractive powers.
Maurolycus may be considered as the first discoverer of
the aberration of figure, in so far as he observed that the rays
which were incident at a distance from the axis of a trans¬
parent sphere, had their focus nearer the sphere than those
which were incident nearer the axis. This happy observa¬
tion was the result of his having noticed the caustic curves
formed by such spheres, which he justly described as arising
from the continued intersections of the refracted rays.
While the Sicilian philosopher was making new and im- Baptist,a
portant discoveries, a celebrated Neapolitan, Joannes Bap- Porta, born
tista Porta, was endeavouring to promote the interests of 1547, died
science, as an ardent collector of its stores, as well as an
original inquirer into its mysteries. He established an
Academy of Sciences, which held its sittings in his own
house, and which numbered among its members all the
virtuosi in Naples. Each member was bound to contribute
to the common stock something not commonly known, and
in this way he obtained the materials for his Magia Natu-
ralis, which appeared in the year 1560,2 when he was only
about fifteen years of age. This work was speedily trans¬
lated into French, Hebrew, Spanish, and Arabic, and went
through numerous editions in different parts of Europe.
The Papal court viewed with jealousy the proceedings of
a society which devoted so much energy to the spread of
knowledge, and, though Baptista Porta was a Roman Ca¬
tholic, the meetings of the academy were prohibited. Al-
1 The yellow which is in the sun’s direct rays is observed when the sun’s rays are reflected from the sky or from clouds.
9 A second and greatly enlarged edition was published about thirty years afterwards.
526
OPTICS.
History, though Baptista Porta was well acquainted with the writ-
ings of his predecessors, yet the principal invention recorded
in his Natural Magic is that of the camera obscura, which
he seems to have brought to great perfection. He remarks,
in the 17th chapter of this work, that if a small aperture is
made in the shutter of a dark room, distinct images of all
external objects will be depicted on the opposite wall in
their true colours; and he further adds, that if a convex
lens be fixed in the opening, so that the images are received
on a surface at the distance of its focal length, the pictures
will be rendered so much more distinct, that the features of
a person standing on the outside of the window may be
readily recognised in his inverted image. Baptista Porta
applied his instrument to the representation of eclipses of
the sun, and of hunting scenes, battles, and other events
produced by moveable pictures and drawings. In this way
he magnified small objects and drawings, and produced the
effects of the magic lantern by the light of the sun in place
of that of a lamp. He considered the eye as a camera
obscura, the pupil as the hole in the window contracting
and dilating with different lights, and the crystalline lens as
the principal organ of vision, though he seems to have
regarded it not as his convex lens, but as the tablet on
which the images of external objects were formed, the
cornea being, no doubt, in his estimation, the part of the
eye which formed the picture. Baptista Porta was doubt¬
less acquainted with what may be called the simplest form
of the refracting telescope, namely, that in which a convex
lens is the object-glass, and the eye placed six inches be¬
hind its focus, the eye-glass. He found that when his eye
was thus placed behind a convex lens, he could read a
letter which he could not read with his naked eye.
In another place Porta, after mentioning the effects pro¬
duced by a concave and a convex lens separately, remarks,
“ that if you knew how to combine one of each sort rightly,
you would see both far and near objects larger and more
clearly.” “ If Porta,” says Mr Drinkwater Bethune, in his
admirable life of Galileo, “had stopped here, he might
more securely have enjoyed the reputation of the invention,
but he then professes to describe the construction of his
instrument, which has no relation whatever to his previous
remarks.” “ I shall now endeavour to show in what man¬
ner we may contrive to recognise our friends at the dis¬
tance of several miles, and how those of weak sight may
read the most minute letters from a distance. It is an in¬
vention of great utility, and grounded on optical principles,
nor is it at all difficult of execution; but it must be so
divulged as not to be understood by the vulgar, and yet be
clear to the sharp-sighted.” The description seems far
enough removed from the apprehended danger of being too
clear; and indeed every writer who has hitherto quoted it,
has merely given the passage in its original Latin, appa¬
rently despairing of an intelligible translation.1
At a more advanced age, Baptista Porta composed an¬
other work, entitled De Refractione Optices parte, libri
novem, and in which he treats of binocular vision. He
repeats the propositions of Euclid on the dissimilar pictures
of a sphere as seen with each eye and with both ; he quotes
from Galen the passage to which we have already referred,
on the dissimilarity of the three pictures seen by each eye
and by both. But having adopted the absurd opinion that
we can see only with one eye at a time, he denies the accu¬
racy of Euclid’s theorem; and while he admits that the
observations of Galen are correct, he endeavours to explain
them on other principles. In illustrating Galen’s views on
the dissimilarity of the three pictures above referred to, he
gives a diagram,2 in which we recognise not only the prin¬
ciple but the construction of the stereoscope. It contains History,
a view, represented by a circle, of the picture of a solid as
seen by the right eye, of the picture of the same solid as
seen by the left, and of the combination of these two pic¬
tures as seen by both eyes between the two first pictures.
These results, as exhibited in three circles, are then ex¬
plained by copying the passage from Galen, in which he
requests the observer to repeat the experiments, so as to
see the three dissimilar pictures when he is looking at a
solid column.3
A theory of the rainbow was about this time proposed Fleschier,
by J. Fleschier of Breslau, in his treatise entitled De Iri- A-D-1571.
dibus doctrina Aristotelis et Vitellionis, which was pub¬
lished in 1571. He supposes the rays to suffer two refrac¬
tions,—one on entering, and the other on emerging from the
drop; but after one ray had thus been separated into a
coloured beam by these refractions, he supposed that this
beam was reflected to the eye from another drop.
These views, imperfect as they are, paved the way for He Domi-
the true theory of the rainbow. Antonio de Dominis, arch- ms’ l50™
bishop of Spalatro, first broached this theory in his treatise died
De Radiis Visus et Lucis, which was published in 1611.
He justly asserts that two refractions in a drop of water, and
one intermediate reflection, were sufficient to bring back to
the eye of the spectator the rays of light by which the bow
was formed. An experiment with a globe of glass inclos¬
ing water, either suggested to him or confirmed this opinion.
In following out this experiment, however, our author com¬
mitted several mistakes. He explained the exterior bow
by the same number of refractions and one reflection, but
he supposed that the rays which formed it were returned
to the eye by a part of the drop lower than that which
transmitted the red of the interior bow. In addition to this
mistake, he supposed that the rays which went to form one
of the bows came from the upper part, and those which
went to form the other bow from the under part of the
sun’s disc. Notwithstanding these mistakes, De Dominis
is entitled to be regarded as the true discoverer of the
cause of the primary rainbow.
The treatise containing these discoveries was not pub¬
lished till after the use of the telescope by Galileo; but
Bartolo, who published it, informs us in the preface, to use
the words of the author of the Life of Galileo, “ that the
manuscript was communicated to him from a collection of
papers written twenty years before, on his inquiring the
archbishop’s opinions with respect to the newly discovered
instrument, and that he got leave to publish it, ‘ with the
addition of one or two chapters.’ The treatise contains a
complete description of a telescope, which, however, is
proposed merely to be an improvement on spectacles; and
if the author’s intention had been to interpolate an after-
written account, in order to secure to himself the unde¬
served honour of the invention, it seems improbable that
he would have suffered an acknowledgment of additions,
previous to publication, to be inserted in the preface. Be¬
sides, the whole tone of the work is that of a candid and
truth-seeking philosopher, very far indeed removed from
being, as Montucla calls him, conspicuous for ignorance
even among the ignorant men of his age. He gives a
drawing of a convex and concave lens, and traces the pas¬
sage of the rays through them ; to which he subjoins, that
he has not satisfied himself with any determination of the
precise distance to which the glasses should be separated
according to their convexity and concavity, but recommends
the proper distance to be found by actual experiment, and
tells us that the effect of the instrument will be to prevent
the confusion arising from the interference of the direct
1 See “ Life of Galileo,” Libr. Useful Knowl., p. 21, for a translation of the passage, which we have not thought worthy of insertion.
2 This diagram is given in Sir David Brewster’s Treatise on the Stereoscope, p. 8.
3 Be Refractione, &c., lib. v., p, 132; lib. vi., pp. 143-5, Neap. 1593.
OPTICS.
527
History.
ivention
’ the tele-
ope.
etius.
jipper-
; heim.
and refracted rays, and to magnify the object by increasing
the visible angle under which it is viewed.”1
From the great liberality of his sentiments, and his con¬
version to the Protestant faith, this eminent ecclesiastic
was obliged to leave Italy, and to take refuge in London,
in 1616, where he lived some years. Having been induced
to return to Italy, his imprudence exposed him to new per¬
secutions; and having been imprisoned by Urban VIII., he
died of poison in the prison of the Inquisition. Sentence
was passed upon him after his death, and his body, with all
his books and papers, was publicly burnt in the Campo de
Fero in the year 1624.
We now approach the time when the telescope was un¬
questionably invented. We have no doubt that this in¬
valuable instrument was invented by Roger Bacon or Bap-
tista Porta, in the form of an experiment, though it perhaps
had not in their hands assumed the maturity of an instru¬
ment made for sale, and applied to useful purposes both
terrestrial and celestial. If a telescope is an instrument by
means of which things at a distance can be seen better
than by the naked eye, then Baptista Porta’s convex lens,
with his eye looking at the image which it formed, and
reading a letter too remote to be otherwise legible, was a
real telescope; but if we give the name to a tube having a
convex lens at one end, and a convex or a concave lens at
the other, placed at the distance of the sum or the differ¬
ence of their focal lengths, then we have no distinct evidence
that such an instrument was used before the beginning of
the seventeenth century.
In his Treatise on ^Dioptrics, Descartes has ascribed the
invention of the telescope to James Metius, a citizen of
Alkmaer, in Holland; but Huygens, in mentioning this
claim,2 says, that, “ to his certain knowledge, telescopes
were made before this at Middleburg, in Zealand, about
the year 1609, either by John Lippersheim, whom Sirturus
mentions, or by Zacharias (Jansen), whom Borellus makes
the first inventor of them in his book de Vero Telescopii
inventore. The telescope which they made did not exceed
a foot and a half long. But much earlier than both, Joannes
Baptista Porta, a Neapolitan, had delivered the rudiments
of this art in his book on Dioptrics and Natural Magic, pub¬
lished fifteen years before telescopes appeared in our Bel¬
gium. In these books he speaks of his specilla as showing
things placed at a distance as if they were nigh, and also
of the construction of concave and convex lenses. But
that he made no great progress in this art is hence evident,
that in all that time it did not become famous; and that he
did not discover any of those things in the heavens that
were observed afterwards.”
In this passage Huygens leaves the claims of his two
Dutch friends on the same level; but though Borellus
adopts the conclusion that Jansen was the inventor, yet it
has been ingeniously suggested that Jansen’s claim as the
inventor of the microscope has been mixed up with the
invention of the telescope, on the evidence adduced by
Borellus. On this hypothesis Lippersheim is supposed to
have invented the telescope by accident in 1609, and that
Jansen, possessing an instrument so like it, had been able,
after hearing of Lippersheim’s contrivance, to make a simi¬
lar instrument, without having seen the telescope of his
rival.3
Much light has been thrown on the early history of
the telescope by Professor Moll, who has discussed the
claims of the various competitors with much sagacity and
fairness. It appears, from the official acts and journals of
the States-General of Holland, still existing among the
archives at the Hague, that on the 2d of October 1608
that body took into consideration a petition from Hans History.
(John) Lippershey, a native of Wesell, and spectacle-maker v/—^
at Middleburg, praying that an instrument which he had
invented for seeing at a distance might be rewarded, either
by granting an exclusive privilege of making it for thirty
years, or an annual pension to enable him to make these
instruments for Holland alone. It was resolved that a
committee should communicate with the petitioner, and
inquire if he could not so improve the instrument as to
enable one to look through it with both eyes. Lippershey
offered to make three telescopes of rock crystal for one
thousand florins each (about L.83 each), but the commit¬
tee was instructed to get him to moderate his charge, and
promise never to transmit his invention to anybody. On
the 6th of October a bargain was made that Lippershey
should construct one instrument of rock crystal for the
state, at the price of 900 florins (L.75), 300 florins to be
paid down, and 600 when the telescope was completed and
approved of. On the 16th December the committee report,
“that they examined the instrument invented by Lippershey
to see at a distance with tivo eyes, and that they approved
of it.” But, in reference to the exclusive privilege, they
“ resolved that, whereas it appears that many other persons
have a knowledge of this new invention to see at a distance,
it is expedient to refuse the prayer of the petitioner for an
exclusive privilege, but that he will be commanded to make,
within a certain time, two other instruments of his inven¬
tion for seeing with two eyes, at the same price.” These
two new instruments were delivered before the 13th Feb¬
ruary 1609.
While these transactions were going on, Jacob Adri-
aansz, sometimes called Metius of Alkmaer, petitioned the
States-General on the 17th of October 1608, for an exclu¬
sive privilege for a similar instrument. He was the third
son of Adriaan Anthonisz, or Metius, who discovered the
approximate ratio of the diameter of a circle to its circum¬
ference. His petition still exists among the manuscripts
of Huygens, in the library at Leyden. He alleges that he
began his researches as far back as 1606 ; that the inven¬
tion was accidental, and when he was making other experi¬
ments ; and that in 1608 when he sent in his petition, his
instrument was made of bad materials. He at the same
time readily admits that a spectacle-maker of Middleburg
had offered before him a similar instrument to the states,
which had been tried by Prince Maurice, and other
persons.
With regard to the claims of Zacharias Jansen, or rather Jansen.
Tansz or Zansz, they cannot be supported by any evidence ;
and there is reason to believe, as we shall afterwards see,
that his invention of the microscope was mistaken for the
invention of the telescope.4 The following is Professor
Moll’s summary of the facts which he has established by
authentic documents:—
“That on the 21st of October 1608, John or Hans
Lippershey, a native of Wezel, a spectacle-maker of Middle¬
burg, in Zeeland, was actually in possession of the invention
of telescopes.
“ That, on the 17th of October of the same year 1608,
Jacob Adriaansz, sometimes called Metius of Alkmaer in
Holland, also was in possession of the art of making tele¬
scopes, and that he actually made those instruments ; but
that either from disgust or some other reason, he afterwards
concealed his invention, and thus actually gave up every
claim attached to the honour of it.
“ That there is little reason to believe that either Hans
or his son Zacharias Zansz were also inventors of the
telescope; but there is every probability that this Hans,
1 “ Life of Galileo,” JAbr. Useful Knowledge, p. 22. 2 Dioptrics, p. 163-4. 3 “ Life of Galileo,” Libr. Useful Knowledge, p. 24.
* Professor Moll’s interesting researches on the history of the telescope will he found in the Journal of the Royal Institution, Lond.
1831, vol. i., pp. 319, 483.
528
OPTICS.
History, or John, or his son Zacharias Zansz, invented a compound
v'—microscope about 1590.
“ That this Lippershey used rock or mountain crystal in
the construction of telescopes, and that he is the inventor
of the binoculus.”1
Galileo’s When Galileo was at Venice early in 1609, he heard
construe- rumours that an instrument which represented distant ob-
tion of the jects as if they were near, had been invented by a Dutch
telescoPe» spectacle-maker. This rumour was confirmed by a letter
A’r>' ’ which he received from James Badorere at Paris, and
Galileo, who asserts that he had never seen one of the
instruments, set himself to discover the principle of their
construction, and to make one for his own use. It has
become a question, though one of no interest, whether the
Italian philosopher had actually seen one of the new instru¬
ments. We cannot hesitate for a moment in believing
Galileo’s assertion ; and even if we confide in the statement
made by Fucarius, that he had himself seen one of the
Dutch telescopes, which at that time had been brought to
Venice, it by no means follows that Galileo saw it. It is
quite certain, indeed, that previous to the 31st August 1609,
one of the new perspective glasses had been sent from
Flanders to the Cardinal Borghese ;2 and Lorenzo Pignoria,
on the authority of whose letter of the above date this fact
rests,3 adds, “ we have seen some here, and truly they
succeed well.”
The following is Galileo’s account of the matter, from a
letter which he wrote in March 1610: “It is about ten
months ago that it came to our ears, that a glass had been
worked by a Belgian, by the help of which, visible objects,
though at a great distance from the eye of the observer,
may be seen distinctly. (In the Italian of the Saggiatore
it is added, ne pia aggiunto, no more was added, or this
was all.) And some experiments were related of the
admirable effects of this instrument, which some believed,
and others not. A few days afterwards the same was con¬
firmed by letters of a noble Frenchman, Jacob de Badorere,
from Paris; all which occasioned me to apply myself
wholly to inquire into the cause of this, and to think on the
means by which the invention of a similar instrument might
be brought about; in which I succeeded in a short time,
assisted by the doctrine of refraction : and I first procured
a leaden tube (an organ pipe), at the end of which I adapted
spectacle glasses, both plane on one side, the one convex
on the other side, the second concave. Bringing the eye
near the concave glass, I saw the objects large and near
enough: they appeared three times nearer, and nine times
larger than if seen with the naked eye.
“ Afterwards I made another instrument, which made
objects appear sixty times larger.
“ Finally, sparing neither industry nor expense, I suc¬
ceeded so far as to make an instrument of such excellence
as to make the objects seen through it appear a thousand
times larger, and more than thirty times nearer, than if seen
with the natural power of the eye.”4
Galileo’s first telescope must have been made in May or
June 1610. Viviani5 says, that it was in April or May
1609 that the rumour of the invention of the telescope
reached Venice when Galileo was there, and that, with this
information only, Galileo returned to Padua, and succeeded
in finding out the principle in the following night.
The new instrument long went by the names of Gali¬
leo’s tube, the perspective, and the double eye-glass, the
more appropriate names of telescope and microscope History,
having been afterwards given to these instruments by
Demisiano.
Telescopes were early and eagerly imported into Eng-Telescopes
land, and known by the name of trunks and cz/Jmcfers ; in England,
and so soon as July 1609 we find that our countryman 1-609.
Harriot was directing them to the lunar disc, and had begun Harriot
two full drawings of that luminary, which he afterwards
completed.6 Harriot’s earliest observations on Jupiter’s
satellites were made on the 1st October 1610, nine months
after their discovery by Galileo. The earliest telescope in
England must therefore have been obtained from Holland ;
and in a letter from Sir William Lower to Harriot, dated
the longest day of 1610, from Traventi in Caermarthen-
shire, he says: “We are here so on fire with these things
that I must render my request and your promise, to send
more of all sorts of these cylinders. My man shall deliver
you monie for anie charge requisite, and contente your
man for his paines and skill. Send me so many as you
think needful unto these observations: in requital I will
send you store of observations. Send me also one of
Galileus bookes, if anie yet be come over, if you can get
them.” In a letter dated July 6, 1610, Sir Christopher
Heyden writes to his friend Camden: “ I have read Galileus,
and to be short, do concur with him in opinion, for his
reasons are demonstrative ; and of my own experience with
one of our ordinary trunks, I have told eleven stars in the
Pleiades, whereas no age ever remembers above seven, and
one of these, as Virgil testifieth, not always to be seen.”7
From this and other facts, Professor Rigaud infers “that it
is perfectly clear that Harriot and his friend had been in
the habit of using telescopes before the discoveries of
Galileo were known to them ; and it appears likewise that
in 16108 they were manufactured in England.” The mag¬
nifying power of some of the telescopes used by Harriot
were -f-, \°, y, 3T2, In a letter from Sir William
Lower to Harriot, dated Traventi, 6th July 1610, he says :
“ I have received the perspective cylinder that you pro¬
mised me, and am sorrie that my man gave you not more
warning, that I might have had also the two or three more
that you mentioned to chuse for me. Henceforward he
shall have orders to attend you better, and to defray the
charge of this an others, for he confesseth to me that he
forgot to pay the worke man.
“ According as you wished, I have observed the moone
in all his changes. In the new I discover manifestlie the
earthshine a little before the dichotomic; that spot which
represents unto me the man in the moone (but without a
head) is first to be scene. A little after, neare the brimme
of the gibbous parts, towards the upper corner, appeare
luminous parts like starres, much brighter than the rest;
and the whole brimme along lookes like unto the descrip¬
tion of coasts in the Dutch bookes of voyages. In the full
she appears like a tarte that my cooke made me the last
weeke. Here a vaine of bright stuffe, and there of darke,
and so confusedlie al over. I must confesse I can see none
of this without my cylinder ; yet an ingenious younge man
that accompanies me here often, and loves you and these
studies much, sees manie of these things, even without the
helpe of the instrument, but with it sees them most plainlie,
I mean the young Mr Protheroe.”
It is highly probable that the first Dutch telescopes had
their eye-glass concave, like Galileo’s, though this sup-
1 The binocular telescope. 3 “Life of Galileo,” Libr. Useful Knowl., p. 23.
3 The following is the passage: “ We have no news except the return of his Serene Highness, and the re-election of the lecturers,
among whom Signior Galileo has contrived to get 1000 florins for life; and it is said to be on account of an eye-glass like the one which
was sent from Flanders to Cardinal Borghese. We have seen some here, and truly they succeed well.”
4 Moll, Journal of the Royal Institution, vol. i., p. 488. 6 Viviani Fifa del Galileo, p. 69.
® liigaud’s Supplement to Bradley's Miscellaneous Works, pp. 20, 21. 7 Camden, Epistolos, p. 129, quoted by Professor Rigaud.
6 Before February.
OPTICS.
529
Jansen.
History, position is opposed by the traditional story of a large and
inverted image of a weathercock having been seen through
Astrono- the earliest of them, in which case the eye-glass must have
mical tele- been convex. Even so late as the period when Descartes
scone in- published his Dioptrics, which was in 163/, no other tele-
vented by scope but a Ga]j]ean 0ne had been described, excepting in
Kei>11611 Kapler’s Dioptrica, which appeared at Frankfort in 1611.
A U‘ ' In his 86th proposition he explains the theory of the tele¬
scope, and has shown how an instrument which produces the
same effects might be made, by substituting for the usual
concave eye-glass one or more convex eye-glasses. Kepler,
however, does not appear to have constructed such a tele¬
scope, and Father Scheiner1 seems to have been the first per¬
son who embodied the plan in an actual instrument, which
has ever since been known by the name of the astronomi¬
cal telescope, in consequence of the inversion of the images
not being disagreeable in astronomical observations.
Invention The real inventor of the compound microscope is as little
<>f the mi- bnown as the inventor of the telescope. It would be in
ovoscope, vain t0 jnqUjre jnto tiie history of the single microscope,
for the magnifying power of globes was known to the
ancients ; and no individual ambition or national partiality
has endeavoured to assign the honour of inventing it to any
person whatever. We agree with Professor Moll, that
Zacharias Zansz or Jansen has the best claims to be
considered as the constructor of the compound micro¬
scope. He seems to have made one so early as 1590,
and to have presented one to the Archduke Albert of
Austria, who gave it to Cornelius Drebell, who lived, as
mathematician to the king, at the court of our James the
First. William Boreel, the envoy to England from the
States of Holland, saw in England, in 1619, and in the
hands of Cornelius Drebell, the very microscope which
Zansz had given to the archduke. This account of its
history was given by Drebell himself. The microscope in
question was 18 inches long, consisting of a tube of
gilt copper 2 inches in diameter, supported by two sculp¬
tured dolphins, resting on a base of ebony, upon which the
objects were placed. M. Fontana, a Neapolitan, first
described the compound microscope, consisting of two con¬
vex lenses, in his work entitled Novce Terrestrium et Celes-
tium Observationes, which appeared in 1646; but claims to
have made the discovery so early as 1618, though he does not
adduce any evidence whatever of this fact. Huygens, on
the contrary, says, “ It does not appear that these micro¬
scopes were made in the year 1618, because Sirturus, who
published a book that year about the origin and construc¬
tion of telescopes, would hardly have been silent upon so
remarkable an invention, if it had been thus known.
Fontana, indeed, lays claim to it from the year 1618, in his
hook of Observations, published in 1646 ; but the testimony
of Lyrsalis, there printed, goes no higher than the year
1625. But that my countryman Drebelius made these
compound microscopes at London in the year 1621, I have
often been informed by several eye-witnesses, and that he
was then reckoned the first inventor of them.”
This testimony of Huygens in favour of Drebell is in
direct contradiction to the statement said by Boreel or
Borelli, to have been made to the Dutch envoy in 1619.
In consequence of this conflicting evidence, Galileo may
be regarded as having the best claim to the invention of
inventor of (qie compound microscope. Viviani distinctly informs us,
the micro- jn pjg 0j Qaine0t) that he was led to the invention of
scope, a.d, tbe Horoscope by that of the telescope, and that in the year
1612 he actually sent a microscope as a present to Sigis-
mund, King of Poland. Having been dissatisfied with the
performance of this instrument, he seems to have devoted
himself ttvelve years afterwards to its improvement; and in
Fontana.
Galileo the
probable
a letter to P. Frederigo Cesi, he says that he had delayed History,
to send him the microscope, the use of which he describes, Vs—
as he had only then brought it to perfection, owing to the
difficulty he experienced in making the glasses.2 In his
Magic of Nature, Schottus mentions a singular accident
which took place with one of the newly-invented micro¬
scopes. A Bavarian philosopher, when travelling in the
Tyrol, was taken ill on the road and died. The village
authorities found a little glass instrument in his pocket,
which happened to contain a flea fixed in the focus ot the
microscope. Upon looking into the eye-glass, they were
struck with terror at the sight of the gigantic animal, and
the remains of the poor philosopher, who was thus proved
to be a sorcerer, were pronounced unworthy of Christian
burial. Some bold sceptic, however, explored the mystery,
and produced the giant which had alarmed them.3
The name of Kepler, though associated principally with Discoveries
astronomical discovery, will ever be venerated by the Cul-of Kepler,
tivators of optical science. His researches, which relate 1630.'
principally to vision and refraction, are contained in his
Paralipomena ad Vitellionem, published at Frankfort in
1604, and in his Dioptrica, already referred to. His dis¬
coveries respecting vision, though founded to a certain
degree on the views of Maurolycus and Baptista Porta, are
nevertheless to a great extent original. He was the first
person who actually showed that distinct and inverted
images of external objects are formed upon the retina, as
in the camera obscura, by the foci of pencils emanating
from every point of the object. He explained the pheno¬
mena of distinct and indistinct vision, and showed how that
indistinctness could be removed by the use ot convex and
concave glasses. Although D’Alembert4 has asserted that
all optical writers before him had assumed it as an axiom
that every visual point is seen in the direction of its visual
ray, yet, as Dr Wells has observed, this assertion is not
well founded, for Kepler had long ago maintained that ob¬
jects are perceived not along the visual rays, but along lines
which pass from their pictures on the retina through the
centre of the eye ; an opinion in which he has been followed
by Dechales and Dr Porterfield, to the last of whom Dr
Reid has by mistake ascribed the discovery of this law.
Hence Kepler was led at once to the true theory of erect
objects being seen from inverted images. This he con¬
sidered as the business of the mind, which, when it judges
of an impression made on the lower part of an inverted
image on the retina, considers it as made by rays pioceed-
ing from the higher parts of an erect object, a necessary
consequence of his opinion that objects are peiceived in
lines passing through the centre of the retina. In order
to explain the adaptation of the eye to different distances,
Kepler supposed that the ciliary processes dravy the sides
of the eye towards the crystalline lens, by which change
the <Tlobe of the eye is elongated, and the retina placed at
a greater distance from the crystalline, so as to accommo¬
date the eye to the distinct vision of near objects.
The refraction of light in its passage through different
media is treated very unsatisfactorily by Kepler. Although
he failed in his attempts to discover the law of refraction,
yet he arrived at certain rules for glass, which enabled him
to discover many of the leading principles of convex and
concave lenses. He found, for example, that below 30 ot
incidence, the angle of refraction was nearly two-thirds ot
the an He of incidence ; that at 90° of incidence the angle
of refraction was 42° ; and that if the refracted ray tell at
a greater obliquity than 42°, upon the interior surface ot
Hass it would be totally reflected back again into the glass
at an angle equal to that of incidence. He then shows, by
applying these principles, that plano-convex lenses ot glass
1 Rosa Ursina, 1650. 2 “Life of Galileo,” Libr. of Useful Knowledge, p.
4 Opuscules Mathematiques, tom. i., p. 265.
VOL. XVI.
3 Ibid., p. 27.
3 x
OPTICS
530
History, have their foci at a distance from the lens equal to the dia-
meter of the sphere of which their convex surface is a por¬
tion, and that equi-convex lenses have their focal length
equal to the radius of the sphere of which their convexities
are a portion. When the lens has its surface unequally
convex, he makes the focal length equal to a mean of the
radii of the two spheres. The same properties being proved
in reference to concave lenses, Kepler proceeds to find the
focus of refracted rays, when they radiate from points at
different distances from the lens. He proved also that rays
issuing from the focus of a lens will emerge on the other
side of it parallel; that if they issue from a point between
the focus of the lens, they will diverge after refraction,
while those which issue from a point beyond the focus will
converge; and, finally, that when the distance of the
radiant point is equal to twice the focal length of the lens,
the distance of the image will be equal to the distance of
the object.
In treating of the refraction of the atmosphere, Kepler
remarked that the quantity of refraction would alter if the
atmosphere varied in weight, and that it would be different
at different temperatures.
Snellius Although Tycho and Kepler made many ineffectual
discovers attempts to discover the law of refraction, yet the honour
tef °f ^iat Sreat discovei7 was reserved f°r Willebrord Snellius,
a n * professor of mathematics at Leyden, who died at the age
~ ’ of thirty-five, leaving behind him a manuscript work on the
subject. The doctrine of refraction having become more
important after the invention of the telescope, Snellius
devoted himself to its investigation, and “after many
troublesome experiments and attempts,” succeeded in his
research. Supposing AB to be
the refracting surface of water,
an object under the water at D
appeared as if it were raised and
seen in the line RC. He then
produced RC till it intersected,
at E, a line DK drawn parallel
to the perpendicular MN, and he
asserted that at every angle at
which the object D was viewed,
it would appear at E, and that
CD was to CE in a given ratio,
such as 4 to 3, when the refract¬
ing body was water. Now this
is a true geometrical expression
of the law of refraction, though
the same truth may be better
enunciated in other two ways. If we continue the lines
CE, CD till they meet Ad, a line perpendicular to AB, in
the points f and d; then, on account of the parallels Ad,
KD, CD is to CE as Cd is to Cf', but ACd is the com¬
plement of the angle of refraction, and AC/1the complement
of the angle of incidence, and Ad, Af are their secants.
Hence it follows from Snellius’s result, that the cosecants
of the angles of incidence and refraction are in a constant
ratio, which is a correct mathematical expression of the law
of refraction. Again, in the triangle CDE, the sides CD,
CE are to one another as the sines of the opposite angles;
that is, as the sines of the angles DEC or KEC, or ECN
or RCM, and of CDE or DCN ; that is, the sines of the
angles of incidence and refraction are in a constant ratio,
which is the usual and most distinct expression of the law
ol refraction. In giving this law of Snellius, Huygens has
in our opinion forgotten his usual courtesy, when he states
that Willebrord Snellius did not “ thoroughly comprehend
his own invention,” and “ never imagines that the ratio was
the ratio of the sines.” Now we cannot conceive it possible History,
that a man like Snellius, who was a good geometer, was
ignorant of the two simple trigonometrical expressions of
his geometrical law ; and we do not doubt that he preferred
his own for two distinct reasons. In the first place, it con¬
nects itself with the leading physical phenomena of the
apparent rise of the refracted object from D to E, and by
substituting CF for CD it furnishes us with a much more
simple and accurate method of obtaining by projection the
refracted ray from the incident one. If RF, for example,
is the incident ray, we have only to divide CF into two
parts, CE, EF, so that CF is to CE in the constant ratio
belonging to the refracting body.
But whether we are right in this conjecture or not, it is
an unquestionable truth that Snellius discovered the true
law of refraction, though he did not express it in trigono¬
metrical language.
In the year 1637, about eleven years after the death of Descartes,
Snellius, Descartes published his Dioptrics, in which, with- ^orn
out ever mentioning the name, or alluding to the labours die<i 16501
of Snellius, he announces the true law of refraction ex¬
pressed in terms of the sines, as the result of his own in¬
quiries. As Snellius’s work existed only in manuscript, it
was quite possible that Descartes knew nothing of its con¬
tents ; but Vossius, in his work De Natura Lucis, states,
that the heirs of Hortensius had communicated freely to
Descartes the manuscripts of that professor, among which
was that of Snellius’s work; and Huygens confirms this
allegation when he states in his Dioptrics that he had him¬
self seen the whole manuscript volume of Snellius, and had
heard that Descartes had also seen it,1 and that it was
perhaps from hence that he deduced {elicuerit) that mea¬
sure which consists in the sines. We should not have
entered so minutely into this subject, had not M. Biot2
thrown into entire oblivion the labours of Snellius, and
ascribed to Descartes the undoubted discovery of what he
calls “ this great property of light.” The same eminent
philosopher likewise ascribes to Descartes the discovery
that the incident and refracted rays are always in the same
plane, a truth which was well known to Ptolemy, and which
is clearly included in Snellius’s expression of the law of
refraction. In opposition to the opinion of M. Biot, we
must place those of Huygens, Montucla, Bossut, Priestley,
David Gregory, Smith, Hutton, Robison, Young, and
Playfair ; and we shall dismiss the subject after giving the
admirable reasons which induced Professor Playfair to decide
against Descartes. “ There is no doubt, therefore,” says
he,3 “ that the discovery was first made by Snellius ; but
whether Descartes derived it from him, or was himself the
second discoverer, remains undecided. The question is
one of those, where a man’s conduct in a particular situation
can only be rightly interpreted from his general character
and behaviour. If Descartes had been uniformly fair and
candid in his intercourse with others, one would have rejected
with disdain a suspicion of the kind just mentioned. But the
truth is, that he appears throughout a jealous and imperious
man, always inclined to depress and conceal the merit of
others. In speaking of the invention of the telescope, he has
told minutely all that is due to accident, but has passed care¬
fully over all that proceeded from design, and has incurred
the reproach of relating the origin of that instrument without
mentioning the name of Galileo. In the same manner,
he omits to speak of the discoveries of Kepler, so nearly
connected with his own ; and, in treating of the rainbow,
he has made no mention of Antonio de Dominis. It is
impossible that this should not produce an unfavourable im¬
pression ; and hence it is that the warmest admirers of Des-
ct
1 Bossut is incorrect in saying that Huygens assures us that Descartes saw the manuscript volume of Hortensius. His words are,
Cartesium quoque vidisse accepimus.” (JJioptrica, p. 3.) 2 Traiti de Physique, tom. iii,, pp. 204, 20.
3 Professor Playfair’s Dissertation in this Work, part i., § 5,
d
Fig. l.
OPTICS.
531
ilistory. cartes do not pretend that his conduct towards Snellius can
be completely justified.” . , x rp,
The Dioptrics of Descartes consists of ten chapters. 1 he
first treats of light, the second of refraction, the third of the
eye, the fourth on lenses in general, the fifth on the images
formed on the bottom of the eye, the sixth on vision, the
seventh on the mode of perfecting vision, the eighth on the
figures which transparent bodies require to turn the rays
by refraction suited to all modes of vision, the ninth on
microscopes, and the tenth on the mode of polishing glasses.
The inability of spherical surfaces to converge rays to one
point or focus had been long known to opticians; and
Kepler, though he conjectured that surfaces generated by
the revolutions of the conic sections might have such a
property, left the subject just as he found it. Descartes,
however, has discussed it in a most ingenious manner in
the eighth chapter of his Dioptrics. He has shown how
parallel and converging and diverging rays may be brought
to accurate foci by means of ellipsoidal and hyperboloidal
surfaces, so that if such surfaces could be executed by
opticians, all optical instruments would receive the highest
degree of perfection which they could attain from the re¬
moval of spherical aberration. In order to carry this sys¬
tem into efiect, he contrived machines for grinding elliptical
and hyperbolical lenses ; and in the tenth chapter of his
Dioptrics he has given perspective drawings and descrip¬
tions of them. In the years 1627 and 1628, when he was
residing at Paris, M. Mydorgius, with whom he lived on the
most intimate habits, urged him to undertake the grinding
of hyperbolical and elliptical lenses, and he soon became a
great master of the art of glass-grinding. He found it
necessary, however, to associate with himself in this under¬
taking an eminent artist, M. Perrier, who, as an optical-
instrument maker, was well acquainted both with the theoiy
and the practice ot his art. After many failures, a tolerably
good hyperbolic convex lens was completed ; but the con¬
caves were found to be more difficult j and in consequence
of M. Perrier refusing to accompany Descartes to h raneker,
and having occasioned him much needless expense in the
erection of his laboratory7, a quarrel took place, and the
great practical object which they had in view was for a
while abandoned. Descartes, however, was sanguine in his
expectations, and not aware that there was another abei ra¬
tion more difficult to overcome than that of spherical figui e,
he expected to be able to make the greatest discoveries in
the heavens by means of his new lenses. With the
assistance of M. Huygens, the father of the celebrated
philosopher, he induced some Dutch artists to lenew the
attempts of Perrier ; but these and his subsequent endea¬
vours to construct such lenses have failed, though we cannot
allow ourselves to think that the attempt is a hopeless
one.
Descartes made some interesting observations upon
vision, particularly on the method by which we judge of
the distances and magnitudes of objects; ,but his principal
discovery in physical optics relates to the theory of the
rainbow. He discovered the true cause ot the exteiioi
rainbow ; and in his Traite des Met cores, he proves that it
was produced by two refractions, and two intermediate
reflections within the drop, thus explaining most satisfac¬
torily the faintness of its illumination, and the inversion of
its colours. He has clearly shown also, why the interior
bow is 42° in diameter, while the exterior one is 52 ;
though he did not understand the true origin of the colours.
We regret to add, that Descartes gives his explanations of
both the interior and exterior bows without ever mention¬
ing the name of Antonio de Dominis, who was the real
discoverer of the cause of the rainbow ; and our regret is
increased when we are compelled to add, that M. Biot has, History,
contrary to the opinion of all philosophers, given his aid to
Descartes in depriving the Italian philosopher of the only
discovery which has immortalized his name.1
The science of optics is under considerable obligations Christo-
to Christopher Scheiner, a Jesuit, and professor of mathe-pher Schei-
matics at Ingolstadt. He completed the theory of vision lier>.boi;n
in so far as he proved by direct experiment that the pictures die(1
of external objects were distinctly delineated on the retina.
By paring away the coats from the back of the eyes of
sheep and oxen, and also the human eye, he made the in¬
verted pictures distinctly visible, and exhibited the experi¬
ment publicly at Rome in 1625. In his work entitled Oculus,
published in 1652, he speaks of the great resemblance of the
eye to the camera obscura, and gives various contrivances
for erecting the images. He adopts the theory of Kepler
respecting the visible direction of objects, and he observed
the interesting fact that the pupil of the eye is dilated in
viewing distant, and contracted in viewing near objects.
In measuring the refractive powers of the humours of the
eye, he makes that of the aqueous humour differ little from
that of water, and that of the crystalline humour differ little
from that of glass, ascribing to the vitreous humour an in¬
termediate refractive power. By tracing the progress of
the visual rays through all the humours of the eye, he de¬
monstrates that the retina, and not the crystalline lens, is
the seat of vision ; and he describes some interesting ex¬
periments respecting vision through one or more small
apertures. We owe also to Scheiner the interesting ex¬
periment of exhibiting on the wall of a darkened room the
disc of the sun with all its spots by means of a telescope.
A new and very interesting branch of optics had begun Double re-
to excite the attention of philosophers, namely, that of the fraction of
double refraction of light. Erasmus Bartholinus, a physi-
cian at Copenhagen, and the author of several excellent y
works on geometry, received from some Danish merchants nug A D
that frequented Iceland “ a crystal stone like a rhombic 1669.
prism, which, when broken into small pieces, kept the same
figure.” With this substance which was called Iceland spar,
from its locality, Bartholinus made a number of experiments
both chemical and optical, and he has published an account
of the optical results which he obtained in a small volume
which appeared at Copenhagen in 1669, under the title of
Erasmi Bartholini Experimenta Crystalli Islandici, Dis-
diaclastici quibus mira et insolita Refractio detegitur, and
is dedicated to Frederick HI., King of Denmark. In seven¬
teen experiments and twelve propositions this able and saga¬
cious philosopher has presented us with an excellent sum¬
mary of the more prominent phenomena of double refrac¬
tion. He has shown that Iceland spar has the property ot
double refraction,—that is, of giving two images of all ob¬
jects seen through it, whether its faces are parallel or in¬
clined, like those of a prism; that the incident light is
equally divided between these two pencils ; that one of
these refractions is performed according to the law of
Snellius, the ratio of the sines being as 1 to 1-667, but that
the other is performed according to an extraordinary law
which had not previously been observed by philosophers.
He observed also a position in which the object appears
six-fold, but he did not discover that this took place only
in some specimens which were composite or irregular
crystals.
These discoveries of Bartholinus having been commum- Discoveries
cated to the Royal Society of London, and printed in No. 0f Huy-
67 of their Transactions, they attracted the notice of gens, born
Christian Huygens, a celebrated Dutch philosopher 0f the 1629, died
finest genius and the highest attainments. Having given
a new theory of refraction, he wanted to repeat Bartholinus’s
> In his Optics, hook ik„ p. 14T, Sir Isaac Newton gives ahnost the whole rainb°W t0 ^
Bays, “ The same explication Descartes hath pursued in his Meteors, and mended that f
He
OPTICS.
532
History, experiments, principally with the view of ascertaining if they
^ opposed any difficulties to that theory. His work on this
subject, entitled De Vestrange Refraction du Cristal d’ls-
lande, which forms the 5th chapter of his Trade de la Lu-
miere, was written in 1678, and was read to Cassini, Roemer,
and De la Hire, and to several other members of the Royal
Academy of Sciences, which he had been invited to join
by the liberality of the French king; but it was not pub¬
lished till 1690, when he was resident at the Hague. After
giving Bartholinus the credit of having discovered some of
the principal phenomena of double refraction, he describes
the general properties of Iceland spar in forming two images
of objects, and he shows that all the phenomena are related
to the axis, or that diagonal of the rhomb, in the direction
of which the crystal has no double refraction. He proves
that the double refraction, or separation of the two images,
gradually increases as the inclination of the refracted ray to
the axis increases, and becomes a maximum in a plane at
right angles to the axis. In the four preceding chapters of
his Trade de la Lumiere he had explained all the pheno¬
mena of reflection and refraction upon a new theory, in which
he supposed light to be produced in the same manner as
sound, by means of undulations propagated in an elastic
ethereal medium ; a hypothesis revived by Euler and ex¬
tended by Dr Young, and now almost universally embraced
under the name of the “undulatory theory.” In applying the
same theory to explain the phenomena of double refraction,
he supposes the ray produced by the ordinary refraction
of the medium to be produced by spherical undulations
propagated through the crystal, while the ray formed by
the extraordinary refraction is produced by spheroidal
undulations, the ratio of the two refractions determining
the form of the generating ellipse. Huygens then pro¬
ceeds to show that this theory affords, by calculation, re¬
sults agreeing very exactly with those which he had ob¬
tained by direct experiment. This discovery is perhaps
the most splendid which has occurred in the history of
optical science.
Discovery When Huygens had finished his researches on double
of the po- refraction, he discovered what he calls a “ wonderful phe-
larization nomenon,”1 2 and, though he acknowledges that we cannot
of light. fincj t^e cause 0f' jf? yet iie thinks it proper to indicate the
phenomenon that others may inquire into it. This discovery
is that of the polarization of the light which forms the two
pencils of Iceland spar, and he confesses that he must add
to this theory other suppositions in order to explain it, though
he thinks that a theory confirmed by so many proofs will
still preserve its plausibility (vraisemblance). Huygens
had naturally supposed that the light which composed the
two pencils was like all other light, but upon transmitting
the two rays formed by one rhomb of calcareous spar through
another rhomb, he was astonished to perceive that when the
two rhombs were similarly placed as if they had formed one
larger one, neither of the rays suffered double refraction in
passing through the second rhomb, the ordinary ray from
the first being only ordinarily refracted by the second
rhomb, and the extraordinary ray only extraordinarily re¬
fracted. The same thing took place when one of the
rhombs,—the second, for example,—was turned round 90°,
with this difference, that the ordinary ray of the first rhomb
suffered only extraordinary refraction, and the extraordinary
ray only ordinary refraction from the second rhomb. But
in all other positions of the second rhomb, excepting these
two rectangular ones, the ordinary and extraordinary rays
of the first rhomb were each divided into two by the second
rhomb; so that there were now four rays, sometimes of equal,
but generally of unequal brightness, and such that the light
of all the four never exceeded that of the single ray inci- History,
dent on the first rhomb.
Huygens discovered also the double refraction of quartz,
or rock-crystal, but he committed a great mistake in sup¬
posing that its double refraction was regulated by an en¬
tirely different law, the light being in this case propagated
through it in two spherical waves, one of which was a little
slower then the other? This result he mentions in his pre¬
face as having been obtained after he had read his work to
his colleagues in the Academy of Sciences. It is, however,
founded on an incorrect observation, as the extraordinary
refraction of rock-crystal is produced by spheroidal undu¬
lations like that of Iceland spar, with this difference only,
as afterwards discovered by M. Biot, that the spheroid is a
prolate one.
Even if Huygens had not immortalized his name by these
great discoveries, his treatise on Dioptrics and on Halos,
and his construction of refracting telescopes of immense
size, would have given him the highest reputation. His
treatise on Dioptrics, which was not published till 1703,
among his posthumous works, and which he had begun to
prepare at an early period of his life, was particularly ad¬
mired by Sir Isaac Newton. It contains a copious explana¬
tion of the properties of lenses of all forms; and their sphe¬
rical aberration is treated with much perspicuity, having
previously, in the 6th chapter of his Trade de la Lumiere,
published an interesting discussion respecting the figures
of transparent bodies for refracting and reflecting light to
a single focus. The subject of vision, and the method of
assisting long and short sighted persons by lenses is ably
discussed, and nearly the latter half of the work is devoted
to the theory of telescopes, telescopic eye-pieces, and micro¬
scopes.
Many of these theoretical views Huygens submitted to
the test of experiment. Having acquired great expertness
in the art of grinding lenses, he executed refracting tele¬
scopes 12 and 24 feet in focal length, and afterwards one
of 120 and another of 123 feet, with which he discovered
Saturn’s ring and the fourth of his satellites. These two
last object-glasses he presented to the Royal Society; but
as it was impracticable to use tubes of such enormous length,
Huygens contrived a method of mounting them without
tubes at the top of a long pole. The practical knowledge
which he had thus acquired, was published along with his
Dioptrics in a work entitled Commentarii de formandis
poliendisque vitris ad Telescopia, a considerable part of
which was published by Dr Smith in his Optics. Among
his posthumous works appeared his DisserCatio de Coronis
et Parheliis, a work of great merit, in which he ascribes
these phenomena generally to crystals of ice in the upper
atmosphere, and a translation of the whole of which Dr
Smith has published in the first volume of his Optics.
Among the eminent men who gave an impulse to optical James
discovery, we must assign a considerable place to our coun- Gregory,
tryman James Gregory. This eminent mathematician, in b?rn 1638’
confirming the experiments of Vitello and Kircher on the die<i
angles of refraction, discovered the true law which had pre¬
viously been found by Snellius. He made the refractive
power of water T3347, which coincides exactly with that of
the middle ray between the lines D and E of Fraunhofer.
Having discovered, before the publication of this work, that
Descartes’contained the law of refraction, he men¬
tions the circumstance, and ascribes his being unacquainted
with that work to the “ want of new mathematical books”
in the library of the college of Aberdeen. Although Bap-
tista Porta appears to have made the nearest approach to flectjn(T
the invention of the Newtonian reflecting telescope, or telescope.
1 “ Une phenoniene merveilleux, que j’ay decouvert apres avoir ecrit tout ce que dessus.” (Traite de la Lumiere, p. 88.)
2 Traite, &c., §§ 20, 21. “ Cette double refraction sembloit demander une double emanation d’ondes de lumiere, toutes deux tplxeriques,
(car les deux refractions sont regulieres) et les unes seulement un peu plus lentes que les autres.”
OPTICS.
533
History.
Gregorian
telescope.
Newtonian
telescopes.
Cassegrain*
ian tele¬
scope.
Grimaldi
discovers
the inflec¬
tion of
light; born
1619, died
1663.
rather microscope, yet his experiment excited no notice,
and no instrument could be said to have been invented.
James Gregory, however, has described what is now known
by the name of the Gregorian Reflecting Jelescope, at
the end of his Optica Promota, published in 1663. It
consisted of a parabolic concave minor peifbrated at the
centre, and having in front of it a small concave elliptic
speculum, at a distance a little greater than the sum of
their focal lengths. The parallel rays emitted by a remote
object formed an image of that object in front of the great
mirror, and in its focus ; and in the conjugate focus of the
small speculum, behind the great speculum, there was
formed another image of the object, which was magnified
by an eye-glass. In 1664 Messrs Rives and Co., English
opticians, attempted to construct a 6-feet Gregorian tele¬
scope, under the superintendence of its inventor, but, after
a rough trial of it, Mr Gregory, not aware of the nice ad¬
justments which it required, conceived that the figure of
the speculum was defective, and, being on the eve of going
abroad, he never even made a tube for the mirrors. Stimu¬
lated by the failure of his friend, Newton “ altered,” as he
says, “ the design of the instrument,” and “ placed the eye¬
glass at the end of the tube rather than at the middle;” and
therefore he was obliged to reflect the rays to a side by an
oval plane speculum. Sir Isaac actually constructed one
of these instruments with his own hands, and described it
in a letter to a friend, dated the 23d February 1668-9.
The aperture of the speculum was 1 inch, its focal length
six inches, the eye-glass, which was a plano-convex lens,
about T^ths of an inch in focal length, and the magnifying
power 39 times. He considered it as equal to a 3 or 4
feet refractor, and it showed distinctly the four satellites of
Jupiter and the phases of Venus.1 Encouraged by his
success, he completed another telescope in 1671, which was
better than the first, and which is preserved in the library
of the Royal Society. The next Newtonian reflecting tele¬
scope of any importance was executed by Mr John Had¬
ley in 1719 or 1720, with a speculum 6 inches in diameter,
and 5 feet in focal length; but for a long time the Gre¬
gorian form was the most popular in England. About
1672 M. Cassegrain substituted a convex speculum for the
small concave one of Gregory, which had the advantage of
shortening the tube of the telescope without diminishing
the power of the instrument.
Other claimants have arisen for the honour of inventing
the reflecting telescope. Father Mersenne, in a letter to
Descartes in 1637, suggested the idea of using concave
mirrors in reflecting telescopes; but Descartes endeavoured
to convince him that his views were not likely to succeed.
At a later period Fontenelle, in the History of the Academy of
Sciences for 1700, has very recklessly ascribed the invention
of this instrument to Father Zucchi, an Italian Jesuit, who
published at Lyons, in 1652, a volume entitled Optica
Philosophica. In this work he says that he thought of
substituting concave specula for object-glasses, and having
found a concave metallic mirror in a cabinet of curiosities,
he applied to it a concave eye-glass, and observed with it
celestial and terrestrial objects. As no small speculum was
used in this combination, it was neither a Newtonian, Gre¬
gorian, nor Cassegrainian telescope ; and if Zucchi conceived
himself the inventor of a reflecting telescope, why did he
conceal it till 1652, and why did he not get a real specu¬
lum made to give his idea a fair trial ?
Among the discoveries of the seventeenth century, that
of the inflection of light ranks among the most important.
This addition to physical optics was made by Francis Maria
Grimaldi, an Italian Jesuit, who published an account of it
in a work entitled Physico-mathesis de Lumine, Coloribus,
et Iride, aliisque annexis, which was published at Bologna History
in 1665, two years after his death. Introducing a ray v
the sun’s light into a dark room, and through a very small
aperture, he remarked that it formed a cone of light in
which all bodies had their shadows larger than if the rays
passed in straight lines by their edges. Round these sha¬
dows he noticed three coloured fringes becoming narrower
as they were farther from the body; and in strong light he
observed similar coloured fringes, varying from two to four,
according to the distance of the shadow from the body.
Hence our author concluded that light is bent from its
rectilineal path in passing by the edges of bodies.
When he admitted the light through two small apertures,
so near each other that the one luminous cone did not
penetrate the other till at a considerable distance from the
apertures, he observed that the rays so interfered with one
another as to render the spot illuminated by their united
light more obscure than ichen it was illuminated by either
of them singly. This extraordinary result is announced in
the following proposition : “ That a body actually illu¬
minated may become more obscure by adding a new light
to that which it already receives,”—and may be regarded as
the first discovery of the interference of light.
Dr Robert Hooke, one of the most ingenious and able Dr Hooke,
men of the century which he adorned, not knowing of the born 1635,
discovery of Grimaldi, communicated to the Royal Society <lied 1'03-
in 1672 an account of “ the discovery of a new property of
light not mentioned by any optical writers before him.”
In a subsequent communication in 1675, he draws the fol¬
lowing conclusions from his experiments :—1. There is a
deflection of light, dift'ering both from reflection and refrac¬
tion, and seeming to depend on the unequal density ot the
constituent parts of the ray, whereby the light is dispersed
from the place of condensation, and rarified, or gradually
diverged into a quadrant. 2. This deflection is made
towards the superficies of the opaque body perpendicularly.
3. Those parts of the diverged radiations which are de¬
flected by the greatest angle from the straight or direct
radiation are the faintest, and those that are deflected by
the least angles are the strongest. 4. Rays cutting each
other in one common foramen do not make the angles at
the vertex equal. 5. Colours may be made without refrac¬
tion. 6. The diameter of the sun cannot be taken with
common sights. 7. The same rays of light, falling upon
the same point of an object, will turn into all sorts of colours
by the various inclination of the object. 8. Colours begin
to appear when two pulses of light are blended so well, and
so near together, that the sense takes them for one.”
We owe also to Dr Hooke the first accurate experiments
that were made on the subject of thin plates, which, we be¬
lieve, had been first observed by Mr Boyle.2 He investi¬
gated the leading phenomena as exhibited in the colours of
the soap bubble, and between two plates of glass pressed
together. He discovered that the colours depended upon
certain thicknesses of the thin plates; but he failed in de¬
termining the relation between given thicknesses and given
colours. He succeeded in splitting mica into plates of ex¬
treme tenuity, so as to give the most brilliant colours, one
giving a yellow, another a blue, and the two together a deep
purple. In his Micrographia, printed about seven years
before any of Newton’s experiments were made on the same
subject, Dr Hooke has published the following remarkable
explanation of these phenomena, which coincides in a
singular manner with that which is now universally re¬
ceived :—“ It is most evident (says he) that the reflection
from the under or further side of the body is the principal
cause of the production of these colours. Let the ray fall
obliquely on the thin plate, part thereof is reflected back
1 Brewster’s Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Lewton, vol. i., pp. 45 52.
2 Experiments and Observations upon Colours, 1663.
534
OPTICS.
History, by the first superficies,—-part refracted to the second surface,
whence it is reflected and refracted again. So that after
two refractions and one reflection there is propagated a
kind of fainter ray; and by reason of the time spent in
passing and repassing, this fainter pulse comes behind the
former reflected pulse ; so that hereby (the surfaces being
so near together that the eye cannot discriminate them
from one) this confused or duplicated pulse, whose strongest
part precedes, and whose weakest follows, does produce on
the retina the sensation of a yellow. If these surfaces are
further removed asunder, the weaker pulse may become
coincident with the reflection of the second or next follow¬
ing pulse, from the first surface, and lag behind that also,
and be coincident with the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh,
or eighth ; so that if there be a thin transparent body, that
from the greatest thinness requisite to produce colours does
by degrees grow to the greatest thickness,—the colours
shall be so often repeated, as the weaker pulse does lose
paces with its primary or first pulse, and is coincident with
a subsequent pulse. And this, as it is coincident or follows
from the first hypothesis I took of colours, so upon experi¬
ment have I found it in multitudes of instances that seem
to prove it.”
Galileo and the philosophers of the Academia del Cimento
had proposed to measure the velocity of light by means of a
base on the surface of the globe ; but such an attempt was
utterly hopeless, and it was only in a wider range that this
problem could be solved. Baffled in finding an explanation
of some irregularity in the emersion of the first satellite of
Koemer Jupiter, Cassini and Roemer had concluded that it depended
born 1644 on the distance of Jupiter from the earth, and that in order
died 1710. to explain it, it was necessary to suppose that the light of
the satellite required ten or eleven minutes to move across
the earth’s orbit. This happy idea seems to have first oc¬
curred to Cassini ; but he speedily abandoned it, while
Roemer pertinaciously cherished the hypothesis, and at
last immortalized himself by demonstrating in the most
rigorous manner that light moves through the diameter of
the earth’s orbit, a distance of 190 millions of miles, in
eleven minutes.
Passing over the valuable researches of Tschirnhausen,
a Saxon nobleman, on caustic curves, which had been pre¬
viously discovered, and the discoveries of Mariotte and De
la Hire, respecting the seat of vision, which have not termi¬
nated in any satisfactory conclusions, we are brought to one
of the most brilliant periods of optical discovery.
Discoveries ^ie year 1665 Sir Isaac Newton, when only twenty-
of Newton, three years of age, bought three prisms ; but he does not
born 1642, seem to have made any particular experiments with them,
died 1727. jn 1666, however, he bought another, with which he pro¬
posed to repeat Grimaldi’s experiment on the elongation of
the sun’s image produced by the prism. In the course of
this and the two or three subsequent years, he made and
perfected his great discovery of the different refrangibility
of light, which he communicated to the Royal Society on
the 6th of February 1672, having, on the 18th of January,
announced it as £< the oddest if not the most considerable
detection which hath hitherto been made in the operations
of nature.” Having found that refraction could not be pro¬
duced without colour, he was led to direct his attention to
the perfection of the reflecting telescope, and produced the
instruments which we have already mentioned. Another
result of this discovery was the completion of the theory
of the rainbow, the origin of the colours of which had History,
hitherto perplexed philosophers. v—Y-i-y
The next optical discovery made by Sir Isaac Newton
related to the colours of thin plates, or of thin transparent
bodies, such as the soap bubble. We have already seen
that Dr Hooke had made some progress both in observing
the phenomena and in investigating the cause of such
colours; but it is to Newton that we owe an elaborate
analysis of the subject. In a letter from Sir Isaac to Dr
Hooke, dated 5th February 1676, he acknowledges that
the latter had previously observed “ the dilatation of the
coloured rays by the obliquation of the eye, and the op¬
position of a black spot at the contact of two convex glasses,
and at the top of a “ water bubble ” (soap bubble). In the
course of his experiments on thin plates Newton was led
to the discovery of the colours of thick plates; and he de¬
vised a theory for explaining both classes of phenomena,
known by the name of the theory of fits of easy reflection
and transmission. This theory, remarkable for its inge¬
nuity, is now no longer an expression of the phenomena, and
has given way to the theory of undulations, which Hooke
had the sagacity to anticipate as affording the true cause of
the colours of thin plates.
Early in 1676 Newton communicated to the Royal So¬
ciety his Theory of the Colours of Natural Bodies, in which
he ascribes all the varieties of colour exhibited in nature to
the circumstance “ that the transparent parts of bodies, ac¬
cording to their several sizes, reflect rays of one colour and
transmit those of another, on the same grounds that thin
plates or bubbles do reflect or transmit those rays.”
Sir Isaac Newton’s experiments on the inflection of light
were never finished by their author. His observations were
limited, and his theory incorrect; and indeed it was only
from the hands of those who adopted the undulatory system
that a true explanation of the phenomena could be ex¬
pected.
The experiments of our author on the refractive powers
of bodies, from which he anticipated that the diamond “ was
probably an unctuous substance coagulated,” have on this
account been regarded with high favour; while his few ob¬
servations on the double refraction and polarization of light
have almost disappeared from the history of optics.1
The next great step in the history of optical discovery Achroma-
is the invention of achromatic telescopes, or telescopes tic tele,
which are free from colour. When Sir Isaac Newton found scope,
that he could not produce refraction without colour, he
abandoned the improvement of the refracting telescope as
hopeless, and devoted himself to the construction of re¬
flectors. The opinion at which he had arrived respecting
the impracticability of refracting light without colour was,
however, an erroneous one, which he had deduced from an
incorrect observation of the relative length of the prismatic
spectra formed by different bodies when the mean refraction
was the same. In less than two years after Newton’s death—
namely, in 1729—Mr Chester More Hall, of More Hall in Mr More
Essex, was led by the study of the human eye, which he Hall,
erroneously conceived to be achromatic, to consider the
possibility of constructing a telescope by an analogous com¬
bination of media. After many experiments, he found two
kinds of glass capable of producing, by their combination,
refraction without colour.2 About 1733 he completed
several such object-glasses, which, with a focal length of
20 inches, bore an aperture of more than 2£ inches, one of
1 M e must refer our readers, for a full and elaborate account of Newton’s optical discoveries, to Brewster’s Memoirs of the Life, Writ-
ings, and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton, vol. i.
a Mr Hall might have got this hint from David Gregory’s Catoptrics, published at Edinburgh in 1713. f< But if,” says he, <c on account
of physical difficulties in grinding and polishing proper specula, we should still use lenses, it would perhaps be useful to employ media of
different density to compose the object-glass, as we see done by nature in the structure of the eye, where the crystalline humour (of almost
the same refractive power as glass), is joined by nature, who does nothing in vain, with the aqueous and vitreous humours (not unlike
water in their refractive power), to paint the image as distinctly as possible in the bottom of the eye.” (Gregory’s Catoptrics, prop,
xxiv., scholium.) Dr Brown’s translation of the preceding passage is very incorrect.
OPTICS.
335
Dollond.
a.d. 1757.
History, which was long afterwards in the possession of the Rev.
Mr Smith, of Charlotte Street, Rathbone Place, and was
found to be achromatic. Another of Mr Hall’s telescopes
was in the possession of Mr Ayscough, optician in Ludgate
Hill, in 1754. Mr Hall, however, kept his invention a
secret; none of his instruments were either sold or exhi¬
bited for sale, and those into whose hands they fell do not
seem to have discovered either their principle or their value.
Without calling in question the merits of Mr Hall, we
must do justice to those of Mr John Dollond, an undoubted
inventor of the achromatic telescope, who, unacquainted
with the instruments of Mr Hall, proceeded step by step
till, in 1757, he invented and constructed the achromatic
telescope. To this eminent individual, and the other mem¬
bers of his family, we owe the construction of many of the
finest instruments by which the science of astronomy has
been so much promoted. Mr Peter Dollond, the son of
John Dollond, first suggested and used the triple object-
glass, in which a better correction of the spherical aberra¬
tion was effected, by placing the concave flint glass between
two convex lenses of crown glass.
The mathematical world owe many obligations to Euler,
Clairaut, D’Alembert, and Boscovich, for their able inves¬
tigations of the theory of achromatism, but their investiga¬
tions did not prove of any practical value ; and it has been
justly stated by Sir John Herschel, “ that from all the ab¬
struse researches of Clairaut, Euler, and D’Alembert, and
other celebrated geometers, nothing hitherto has resulted
beyond a mass of complicated formulas, which, though con¬
fessedly exact in theory, have never yet been made the
basis of construction for a single good instrument, and re¬
mains therefore totally inapplicable, or at least unapplied in
practice.”1
No attempt had hitherto been made to measure the in¬
tensity of different lights emanating either directly from
luminous bodies, or when transmitted through or reflected
from different bodies. This subject, to which the name of
Photometry has been given, was begun by Huygens and
P. F. Marie, who describes an instrument called a luci-
meter; but it is to M. Bouguer and M. Lambert that we owe
the most scientific and complete investigation of this class
of facts.
Bouguer’s earliest experiments were published in 1729,
born 1698, in his Optical Essay on the Gradation of Light, which
died 1758. was republished in 1760, much augmented and improved,
under the title of Traite d’Optique sur la Gradation de la
Lumiere.
Lambert, Bouguer was followed in this inquiry by M. Lambert, an
born 1728, able German mathematician, who published an account of
died 1777. researches at Augsburg in 1760, in a duodecimo volume
of 547 pages, entitled Photometria sen de Mensura et Gra-
dibus Luminis, colorum et umbrae. It is divided into seven
parts:—1. On the modifications and degrees of direct light,
and of its brightness and illuminating power; 2. Experi¬
ments and calculations on the modifications of light depend¬
ing on transparent bodies, but chiefly glass ; 3. Experiments
and calculations respecting the modifications of light de¬
pending on the opacity of bodies; 4. Calculations and expe¬
riments on the sense of light, and its apparent brightness;
5. On the dispersion of light passing through diaphanous me¬
dia, chiefly the earth’s atmosphere ; 6. Calculations respect¬
ing the illumination of the planetary system ; and 7. On
the modifications and degrees of heterogeneous and relative
light, or the light of colours and shadow.
Sir Wil- Passing over the minor labours of Porterfield, Turner,
liam Her- Mazeas, Dutour, Buffon, Scheiffer, Darwin, Melvill, Mit-
schel, born chell, and others, we come to the period of Sir William
1822 die<i •^ersc^e^ Since the discovery of the belts and nearest sa¬
tellites of Saturn, no discovery of any importance had been
Photo¬
metry
Bouguer,
made respecting the natural history of the heavens. At the History,
age of thirty-six, when Sir William was residing at Bath, he V — v-^.7
devoted much of his time to the construction of telescopes ;
and the following account of his progress is too interesting
to be given in any other language than his own,—“ When
I resided,” says he, “ at Bath, I had long been acquainted
with the theory of optics and mechanism, and wanted only
that experience which is so necessary in the practical part of
these sciences. This I acquired by degrees at that place,
where, in my leisure hours, by way of amusement, I made
for myself several 2-feet, 5-feet, 7-feet, 10-feet, and 20-feet
Newtonian telescopes, besides others of the Gregorian form,
of 8-inches, 12-inches, 2-feet, 3-feet, 5-feet, and 10-feet,
focal length. My way of doing these instruments at that
time, when the direct method of giving the figure of any
one of the conic sections to specula was still unknown to
me, was to have many mirrors of each sort cast, and to
finish them all as well as I could, then to select by trial the
best of them, which I preserved; the rest were put. by to
be repolished. In this manner I made no less than two
hundred 7-feet, one hundred and fifty 10-feet, and about
eighty 20-feet, not to mention those of the Gregorian form,
or of the construction of Dr Smith’s reflecting microscope,
of which I also made a great number. My mechanical
amusements went hand in hand with the optical ones.
The number of stands I invented for these telescopes it
would not be easy to assign. I contrived and delineated
them of different forms, and executed the most promising
of the designs. To these labours we owe my 7-feet New¬
tonian telescope stand, which was brought to its present
convenient construction about 1778.”
By means of these instruments, with which he surveyed the
heavens with unwearied diligence, he discovered the planet
Uranus, with six satellites, two new satellites circulating
round Saturn, the quintuple belt and double ring of the same
planet, and various other astronomical phenomena of the
highest interest. In 1783 he finished a 20-feet reflector,
with an aperture of 18/5- inches, and formed the design of
constructing a still larger instrument. On the recommenda¬
tion of Sir Joseph Banks, his Majesty George III. agreed
to defray the expense of a large telescope, and under his
munificent patronage, which has never since been imitated
by his successors, Sir William began in 1785, and completed,
on the 27th August 1789, a reflecting telescope 40 feet in
focal length, having its great speculum four feet in breadth,
3£ inches thick, and weighing, when newly cast, 2118 lb.
On the 28th of August, the day after this gigantic instru¬
ment was erected, Sir William discovered a new satellite
of Saturn, and in the same year another satellite, both of
which were nearer the body of the planet than the other
five discovered by Huygens and Cassini. In this manner
the telescope, which was a toy in the hands of Galileo,
became with Sir William Herschel a vast machine, carrying
the observer himself, and directed and moved by appropriate
mechanism.
An improvement in the achromatic telescope, of great Dr Blair,
value, though not yet brought into practical use, was made A;D-1787,
by Dr Robert Blair. Although in the achromatic telescope died 1829-
composed of crown and flint glass, the colour was as com¬
pletely corrected as it was possible to do with such lenses,
yet it had long been observed that there were residual
colours, which formed what are called a secondary spectrum,
and which arise from the coloured spaces in the spectrum,
produced by crown glass not having the same size as those
in a spectrum of equal length produced by flint glass. Va¬
rious attempts had been made in vain to obtain other sub¬
stances, in which this irrationality, as it was called, of the
coloured spaces did not exist; and Dr Blair was hence led
to attempt the removal of the secondary spectrum by other
1 Phil. Trans., 1821, p. 222.
336
OPTICS.
History, means. The plan which he adopted was the following:—He
made each lens of his compound object-glass achromatic,
but in such a way that the secondary spectrum produced by
the one should be corrected by the secondary spectrum pro¬
duced by the other. Such an object-glass required two fluid
media and three lenses of glass, and Dr Blair succeeded in
constructing them so as to be perfectly free from all second¬
ary colour. In the course of his experiments, however, he
was fortunate enough to discover that the muriatic acid
mixed in proper proportions with metallic antimony, or but¬
ter of antimony, as it was called, gave a spectrum in
which the colours had exactly the same proportion as crown
glass; and hence, by inclosing this fluid between two lenses
of crown glass, the one next the object being plano-convex
and the other a meniscus, he obtained an object-glass in
which the rays of different colours were bent from their
rectilineal course with the same equality and regularity as in
reflections. To such an object-glass he proposed to give
the name of aplanatic, to indicate the entire removal of all
aberration. Dr Robison informs us that one of these tele¬
scopes, which did not exceed fifteen inches in length, equalled
in all respects, if it did not surpass, the best of Dollond’s
achromatic telescopesforty-two inches long. After the death
of Dr Blair, his son, Mr Archibald Blair, attempted in vain
to produce instruments of the same perfection. Had this
young man lived, he might have executed something bet¬
ter, but he was cut off at an early age, and has left to the
Royal Society of Edinburgh an account of his father’s me¬
thods, which we hope may prove useful to science.
Dr Thomas Hitherto the undulatory theory of light, as proposed by
borr^ms Huygens, and supported by Hooke and Euler, had met with
tHed IS'V ^evv adherents; and the reputation of Newton had given to
the theory of emission an adventitious authority to which it
was not entitled. Dr Young, however, boldly threw down
the gauntlet, and maintained the theory of Huygens with the
greatest ingenuity and talent. In his paper of 1800, entitled
Outlines of Experiments and Observations on Sound and
Light, he shows that light has a strong analogy with sound,
and that it is produced by the undulation of a highly elas¬
tic ethereal medium which pervades all nature. In another
paper, which he published in 1801, On the Theory of Light
and Colours, he applies the theory of undulations to the ex¬
planation of natural phenomena; and lays down the follow¬
ing hypotheses:—1. That a luminiferous ether pervades the
universe, rare and elastic in a high degree. 2. That undu¬
lations are excited in this ether whenever a body becomes
luminous. 3. That the sensation of different colours depends
on the different frequency of vibrations excited by light in
the retina; and, 4th, That all material bodies are to be con¬
sidered, with respect to the phenomena of light, as consist¬
ing of particles so remote from each other as to allow the
ethereal medium to pervade them with perfect freedom, and
either to retain it in a state of greater density and of equal
elasticity, or to constitute, together with the medium, an
aggregate which may be considered as denser but not more
elastic. He then proceeds to demonstrate in nine propo¬
sitions some of the leading truths in the theory, applying
them in corollaries to the colour of striated surfaces, the
colours of thin plates, the colours of thick plates, and the
colours produced by inflection. In 1802 Dr Young pub¬
lished An Account of some Causes of the Production of
Colours not hitherto observed. The cases described in this
paper are the colours of delicate fibres and of mixed plates.
I he first he explains by the interference of two portions of
light, one reflected from the fibre and the other bending
round its opposite side, and at last coinciding nearly in di¬
rection with the former portion. The colours of mixed
plates are those produced when moisture, butter, or tallow,
are placed between two plates of glass, so that portions of air
are intermixed with these substances. A candle seen through History,
such a medium is surrounded with a sort of halo, and Dr
Young considers the colours as produced by the light which
passes through one of the media moving with greater velo¬
city so as to anticipate the light which comes more slowly
through the other.
In 1803 Dr Young published what may be considered
as his principal paper, entitled Experiments and Calcula¬
tions relating to Physical Optics, in which he has given
an experimental demonstration of the general law of inter¬
ference. By intercepting the rays which passed on one
side of a body which formed fringes by reflection, the fringes
disappeared, whether the interception was made on one side
or the other of the body. This admirable experiment estab¬
lished the truth of his law of interference, and paved the
way for those splendid generalizations respecting the undu¬
latory theory which have so widely enlarged the boundaries
of optics.
In April 1814, in a review of Malus’, Biot’s, and Brews¬
ter’s on Light, which Young contributed to the
Quarterly Review, he first published his explanation of the
colours of crystallized plates exposed to polarized light by
the law of interference, an explanation which is now uni¬
versally admitted. In the article on Chromatics, which Dr
Young contributed to this work, the reader will find a full
account of the discoveries to which the law of interference
has been so successfully applied. One of the most import¬
ant applications of the undulatory theory was published in
that article for the first time. Dr Young has there given
an expression of the velocity of reflected light at a perpen¬
dicular incidence from bodies of various refractive powers,
which is a simple function of the index of refraction.1
In giving an account of Sir William Herschel’s dis¬
coveries, we have not mentioned his discovery of invisible
heating rays beyond the red extremity of the spectrum, be¬
cause we have ourselves succeeded in discovering that lu¬
minous rays exist at that part of the spectrum. In re¬
peating Sir W. Herschel’s experiments, M. Ritter of Jena Ritter,
placed muriate of silver in different parts of the spectrum, a-d. 1801.
and found that it soon became black beyond the violet ex¬
tremity, less black in the violet rays, becoming still less
black in the blue and green, and so on till the blackness
vanished. When he used muriate of silver, slightly black¬
ened or disoxygenated, its white or original colour was partly
retained by the red, and still more by the supposed invisible
rays beyond it. In these experiments of Ritter’s, as well
as in those of Sir W. Herschel, the solar spectrum, when
seen by the eye, as thrown upon paper, is extremely short.
A great part of the violet extremity as well as the red
extremity is invisible, so that when the thermometer and
the muriate of silver seemed to be wholly out of the spec¬
trum, they were completely within the violet and the red
spaces, as we have placed beyond a doubt by comparing
the length of a spectrum on paper with that which can be
rendered visible by directly looking through a telescope at
a highly magnified one.
Without knowing of the experiments of Ritter, Dr Wol- Dr Wol¬
laston discovered the chemical effects which exist at the laston. ^
violet end of the spectrum; but the merit of this experi-jgoy’
ment decidedly belongs to Scheele, who discovered that
muriate of silver was more blackened in the violet rays than
in any other part of the spectrum. The principal discovery
in optics which we owe to Dr Wollaston, is his method of
observing the spectrum, and his discovery offive fixed lines
in it. The following is his own description of it:—“ I can¬
not conclude these observations on dispersion without re¬
marking that the colours into which a beam of white light
is separable by refraction, appear to me to be neither seven,
as they usually are seen in the rainbow, nor reducible by
1 See Dr Peacock’s Lift of Dr Thomas Young, chaps, vi. and xii., Lond. 1855.
OPTICS. 537
History, any means (that I can find) to three, as some persons have return from the expedition to Egypt, he had composed his History,
conceived ; but that, by employing a very narrow pencil of Traite d’Optique, a work of great merit; but as soon as
light, four primary divisions of the prismatic spectrum may the subject of double refraction was announced, he devoted Discoveries
be seen with a degree of distinctness that, I believe, has himself to the inquiry with equal ardour and success, of Malus.
not been described nor observed before. Residing in the Rue des Enters, in Paris, he happened to
“ If a beam of day-light be admitted into a dark room by view, through a doubly refracting prism, the windows of the
a crevice ^thof an inch broad, and received by the eye at palace of the Luxembourg, which were then reflecting to
a distance of 10 or 12 feet, through a prism of flint glass/ree his eye the rays of the setting sun, and on happening to
from veins, held near the eye, the beam is seen to be sepa- turn round the prism, he was surprised to perceive that one
rated into the four following colours only, red, yellowish- of the two images of each window vanished in every quad-
green, blue, and violet; in the proportion represented in rant of the rotation of the prism. In pursuing this remark-
the figure. able experiment, he was conducted to the splendid discovery
“ The line A that bounds the red side of the spectrum is which forms an epoch in the history of optics, that when a
somewhat confused, which seems in part owing to the want pencil of light is reflected by a surf ace of glass at an angle
of power in the eye to converge red light. The line 13, of 54° 35', or of tvater at an angle of 52° 45', the reflected
between red and green, in a certain position of the prism, light possesses all the characters of one of the pencils formed
is perfectly distinct; so also are D and E, the two limits of by double refraction. Hence the pencil was said to be
violet. But C, the limit of green and blue, is not so clearly polarized by reflection. When a pencil thus reflected was
marked as the red; and there are also, on each side of this made to fall on another surface of the same kind at the
limit, other distinct dark lines,/and g, either of which, in an same angle, but so that the plane of the second reflection
imperfect experiment, might be mistaken for the boundary was at right angles to the plane of the first, then not a
of these colours. single ray of the light suffered reflection, the whole pencil
“ The position of the prism in which the colours are most suffering refraction only. When the light fell upon a plate
clearly divided is when the incident light makes about equal of glass, the light reflected from the second surface acquired
angles with two of its sides. I thus found that the spaces the same property.
AB, BC, CD, DE, occupied by them, were nearly as the On the 11th of March 1811, Malus announced to the
numbers 16, 23, 36, 25. Academy of Sciences, that when a pencil of light was thus
“ Since the proportions of these colours to each other polarized by reflection, the light which was at the same
have been supposed by Dr Blair to vary according to the time transmitted through the surface consisted of a portion
medium by which they are produced, I have compared of light polarized in an opposite direction, and proportional
with this appearance the coloured images caused by pris- to that which was reflected, and of another portion not
matic vessels, containing substances supposed by him to modified, which preserves the properties of direct light,
differ most in this respect, such as strong but colourless nit- This last portion becomes less and less by transmitting the
ric acid, rectified oil of turpentine, very pale oil of sassafras, ray through a number of plates in succession till the trans-
and Canada balsam also nearly colourless. With each of mitted pencil is wholly polarized in one direction,
these I have found the same arrangement of the four colours, Malus likewise made several experiments on the polariz-
and, in similar positions of the prisms, as nearly as I could ation of light by metals, and he was led to the conclusion
judge, the same proportions of them.1 that the diflerence between transparent and metallic bodies
“ But, when the inclination of any prism is altered so as was, that the former refract all the light polarized in one
to increase the dispersion of the colours, the proportions of direction, and reflect all that is polarized in the other, while
them to each other are thus also changed, so that the spaces metallic bodies reflect what they polarize in both directions.
AC and CE, instead of being as before 39 and 61, may be In a series of experiments on crystals and organized sub¬
found altered as far as 42 and 58.” These interesting stances, communicated to the Academy on the 19th August
observations are appended to his Method of examining 1811, Malus found that they all depolarized a pencil of
Refractive and Dispersive Powers by Prismatic Reflection, polarized light; that is, a pencil of polarized light which
which was published in the Phil. Trans, for 1802. refused to be reflected by another surface properly placed,
In the year 1800, Dr Wollaston published in the Phi- recovered its power of being reflected after being trans-
losophical Transactions some curious experiments and mitted through certain crystals and organized substances. All
observations On Double Images caused by Atmospherical crystals which did not crystallize in the form of the cube or
Refraction; and in the same work for 1802, he communi- the regular octahedron, were found to possess the property
cated a series of measures On the Oblique Refraction of of depolarization; and the organized substances which he
Iceland Crystal in different planes, which he found, as the found to possess the same property, were the transparent
measures taken by Huygens had done before, to agree in a and fibrous portions of leaves and flowers, the pellicles
remarkable manner with the beautiful law established by which cover the hazel, silken, and woollen fibres, white
the Dutch philosopher. hairs, scales, horn, ivory7, feathers, the skins of quadrupeds
These researches of Dr Wollaston, but particularly the and fishes, shells, and the whiskers of a whale. Malus in¬
discoveries of Dr Young, had about this time drawn the tended to prosecute this subject to a greater extent, but
attention of the philosophers of France to the subject oi his brilliant career of discovery terminated by his death on
double refraction. Laplace had considered the deviation the 7th February 1812.
of the extraordinary ray as due to the action of the attract- I he loss of Malus, great as it was felt to be, was imme- j)|scoverjpg
ive and repulsive forces by which Newton and his succes- diately supplied by his distinguished colleague in the Insti-of ^ ^ra
sors had endeavoured to explain the ordinary refraction and tute, M. Arago, who has added to this and other depart- g0j i30rn
reflection of light; and the French Academy of Sciences ments of science so many brilliant discoveries. On the 1786, died
was thus led in 1808 to propose the double refraction of Hth of August 1811, before the death of Malus, M. Arago 1853.
light as the subject of a prize to be adjudged in 1810. communicated to the Institute a memoir “On a particular
Among the few memoirs which were sent in competition modification which the luminous rays experience in their
Malus, for this prize, that of E. L. Malus, colonel of the imperial passage through certain transparent bodies.”2 Upon ex-
born 1775, corps of engineers, was the successful one. After his posing thin plates of sulphate of lime, mica, and rock-crys-
died 1812. ____   — 
1 The observations in this paragraph are quite incorrect. Dr Blair s results, to which they stand opposed, have been placed beyond
the reach of doubt. a Memoires de Vlnstitut, 1811, part i., pp. 93-134.
3 r
VOL. XVI.
538
OPTICS.
History, tal, to polarized light, and subsequently analyzing the light
v^—which they transmitted by a prism of calcareous spar, M.
Discoveries Arago observed the most splendid complementary colours
of Arago. changing with every variation in the inclination of the plate.
When the light was incident perpendicularly, and the plate
turned round in its own plane, the colours were in all posi¬
tions the same, though they varied in intensity. He found
two positions, at right angles to each other, in which the
crystal gave no colour; and these positions were those in
which the principal section of the crystal was perpendicular
to, or coincident with, the plane of primitive polarization.
Setting nut from these positions, the intensity of the ray
gradually increased, and became a maximum at an angle of
45° to that plane. When the crystallized plate was fixed,
and the analyzing plate turned round so as to vary the in¬
clination of the plane of reflection from it, to that of the
fixed plate which polarized the light primitively, the change
in the colours was most beautiful. M. Arago observed that
the colour reflected in any one position of the analyzing
plate was complementary to the colour reflected in the per¬
pendicular position. He also found that the power of
depolarizing the different colours diminished with the
thickness of the plate, and he reduced mica to such a
degree of thinness that it depolarized no colours at all.
In studying the same phenomena in sulphate of lime and
rock crystal, M. Arago was led to the conclusion that the
colours depended on some other cause than that of the
thinness of the plate. M. Arago likewise discovered the
depolarizing property in a piece of flint glass, about three
quarters of an inch in thickness.
We owe also to M. Arago the discovery ol circular
polarization in quartz, which he made in 1811. By trans¬
mitting polarized light along the axis of the prism, he ob¬
served the tints to be different in their nature from the
ordinary tints of the mineral, although they increased and
diminished with the thickness of the plate. When analyzed
with a prism of Iceland spar, he observed that the true
images had complementary colours as in the ordinary tints,
and that the colours changed, descending in Newton’s scale
as the prism was turned round, so that if the colour of the
extraordinary image was red!, it became in succession orange-
yelloiv, green, and violet; and hence he drew the import¬
ant inference that the differently coloured rays had been
polarized in different planes in passing along the axis of the
crystal. M. Arago’s duties in the observatory prevented
him from pursuing these valuable discoveries with that con¬
tinuity of labour which they demanded.
A very important discovery was made by M. Arago
respecting the colours of thin plates.1 When the rings
of thin plates in common light were examined through
a rhomb of Iceland spar, M. Arago discovered that
when the principal section of the rhomb was parallel
and perpendicular to the plane of incidence, the in¬
tensity of the light in one of the images varied with
the incidence, and that this image vanished altogether
when the pencil of light was inclined 35° to the surface, or
when it was incident at the maximum polarizing angle.
This result was the same, whether he examined the re¬
flected or the transmitted rings. Hence he inferred that
the light of both the systems of rings was polarized in the
plane of incidence, at the polarizing angle for glass. M.
Arago has likewise shown that the colours of the reflected
and transmitted rings are complementary, and that their in¬
tensities are exactly equal, completely neutralizing each
other, or forming white light when they are superposed.
The most interesting experiment, however, made by M.
Arago, is that in which he examined the rings when a con¬
vex lens was pressed upon a metallic reflector. When
viewed with a prism of Iceland spar, as before, one of the History,
two images vanished at the maximum polarizing angle of
the glass, but the phenomena were different above and below Discoveries
this angle. At less angles the dimensions and the colours of Arago.
of the rings were the same in both images, which differed
only in the quantity of their light; but at greater angles
the rings in the two images had their colours complemen¬
tary, the one beginning from a white centre, and the other
from a black one.
We have already seen that Dr Young first applied the
principle of interference to explain the colours of crystal¬
lized plates ; but he did not explain why these colours are
not produced excepting with polarized light. MM. Arago
and Fresnel entered upon this inquiry, and obtained a satis¬
factory solution of the difficulty. They found that two rays
of light polarized in the same plane produced fringes by
their interference as in common light ; that no interference
at all takes place when these planes are at right angles to
each other; and that at an intermediate inclination the
interference is diminished, and the fringes decrease in in¬
tensity. In following out these interesting results, they
found that two oppositely polarized pencils will not inter¬
fere even when their planes are made to coincide, unless
they belong to a pencil which had been wholly polarized in
cne plane.
We owe also to M. Arago the beautiful discovery that
the quantity of polarized light in the reflected and trans¬
mitted pencils of common plates are exactly equal.
We are indebted likewise to M. Arago for some import¬
ant results respecting the interference of light. We have
already seen that the interior fringes formed by diffraction
disappear when the light which passes by one side of the
inflecting body is stopped. M. Arago observed that these
fringes were displaced by making the same light pass
through a thin plate of some transparent substance, and
that the bands were always shifted to the side on which the
plate was placed. The amount of this displacement deter¬
mines the velocity of light in the interposed medium, and
consequently gives us a measure of the refractive power of
that body with the highest degree of accuracy.
In conjunction with M. Biot, M. Arago published a valu¬
able series of experiments on the density and refractive
power of nine gaseous bodies measured in relation to atmo¬
spheric air taken as unity. Hydrogen stood at the head of
the table, with a refractive index equal to 6'61436 (or
T’OSSo if we use the density given by Berzelius), whilst
oxygen stood at the foot of the table, with a refractive index
of 0-8616.
The polarization of the light of the clouds and the blue
sky had been noticed by Malus, Arago, and Sir David
Brewster, but M. Arago was the first to study it with a
polarimeter of his invention. He found that the polariza¬
tion was intense towards the zenith, and increased to the
distance of 90° from the sun, after which it diminished to
the distance of 150°, where it became invisible when this
last point was at some height above the horizon. That is,
the point of the polarization to which he gives the name of
the Neutral point, is situated 30° above the point opposite
the sun.
By means of the polariscope, Arago found that the light
of the moon and the tails of comets were slightly polarized.
He found also that the light issuing obliquely from the sun’s
surface is not polarized ; and therefore that the sun’s light
does not proceed from an incandescent mass,2 but from a
gaseous envelope of flame.
Among the most successful cultivators of physical optics, M. Biot,
M. Biot holds a distinguished place. His attention was bom 1774.
first directed to the colours of crystalline plates discovered
1 Memoires d’Arcueil, tom. iii., “ Sur les Couleurs des Lames Minces.”
2 He had previously found that the light emanating obliquely from a red-hot metallic plate was polarized.
OPT
History, by M. Arago, and by nice instruments and indefatigable
v —t labour he determined the general laws of the phenomenon
Discoveries in reference to the thickness of the plates, and the compo-
of Biot. sition of the tints as observed in sulphate ct lime and ’°t'k-
crystal, calcareous spar, and arragonite. He observed that
at a perpendicular incidence the two colours correspond to
those seen by reflection and transmission in thin plates of
air, and he concluded that the thicknesses at which these
colours were developed, were proportional to the thickness
of the plate of air which gave the same tint in Newton’s
scale. These thicknesses were found to vary with the
nature of the crystal, and were always much greater than
the thicknesses of thin plates which gave the same tints.
He had at first supposed that at oblique incidences the
changes of colour followed the same law as in thin plates,
but he afterwards found that the tint depended on the
thickness of the crystal traversed by the refracted ray, and
varied as the square of the sine of the angle which the direction
of the ray formed with the optic axis. In these experiments
M. Biot considered arragonite, sulphate of lime, topaz, and
mica, as all having one axis of double refraction like cal¬
careous spar.
In order to explain these various phenomena, M. Biot
communicated to the Institute in 18121 his ingenious but
now exploded theory of Moveable Polarization. In this
theory the particles of a polarized ray are supposed to pre¬
serve their primitive polarization till they reach a certain
depth in the crystal, when a succession of isochronous
oscillations round their centre of gravity take place, the
axes of polarization being carried alternately to each side of
the axis of the crystal. The depth through which the
particle is carried during each of these oscillations, is
assumed to be twice the depth through which it has passed
before the oscillations began. When the ray emerges from
the crystalline plate, the oscillations are supposed to stop,
and the rav assumes a fixed 'polarization (in which the
axes of the particles are arranged in two rectangular direc¬
tions), as if the last oscillation had been completed when it
quitted the plate.
The remarkable colours discovered by M. Arago along
the axis of quartz, were carefully studied by M. Biot, and
he and M. Seebeck, nearly about the same time, observed
the existence of the very same colours in several essential
oils and solutions, such as oil of turpentine, oil of laurel, oil
of lemons, syrup of sugar, the two first turning the planes
of polarization from right to left, and the two last from left
to right. In a memoir laid before the Institute in 1818,
M. Biot shows that the angular rotation of the plane of
polarization is directly proportional to the thickness of die
plate, and inversely to the square of the length of the fits
as given by Newton. He then concludes that this propeity
of turning the particles of light round their centres of
gravity resides in the ultimate particles of solid or fluid
bodies, that it is necessary to their very existence, and that
it is entirely independent of their mutual distances and
mode of aggregation.
M. Biot afterwards resumed this subject, and extended
his researches to a great variety of substances ; and he has
still more recently employed circular polarization in detect¬
ing the constituents of particular vegetable substances
where chemical analysis had partly or wholly failed. He
has shown that the soluble portion of plants, or the farina¬
ceous matter of grain and roots, to which he has given the
name of dextrine^ and which M. Raspail had considered to
ICS. 539
be of the nature of gum, turns the planes of polarization History,
more powerfully to the right (hence the name dextrine)
than the syrups of cane sugar ; and that all the gums, and Discoveries
the syrups of the sugar of grapes, turn the planes of polari- of Biot,
zation to the left. M. Biot has also applied the same method
of research in ascertaining the changes which take place in
the sap of trees, and in analyzing the processes of vegeta¬
tion which are concerned in the growth of wheat and rye.
His researches are of great practical value in an agricul¬
tural point of view, and ought to impress on those whom it
most concerns, the important truth, that the most recondite
discoveries in science will sooner or later find a useful
application.
One of the most important discoveries made by M. Biot
was the true nature of the double refraction and polarization
in quartz, which Huygens had been unable to develop.
M. Biot found that it differed from that of calcareous spar,
in having the phenomena regulated by & prolate in place
of an oblate spheroid, the least refracted image being the
ordinary ray in quartz, and the extraordinary one in Ice¬
land spar.
In 1840 M. Biot communicated to the Academy of
Sciences an interesting memoir on Lamellar Polarization,
which he considers as essentially different from molecular
polarization; and by means of which he endeavours, but
not at all successfully, to explain the remarkable pheno¬
mena discovered by Sir David Brewster in apophyllite,
analcime, and other minerals. In the case of apophyllite,
he conceives “ that it has a positive molecular axis of double
refraction coincident with the axis of the primitive prism,
with two orders of lamellar systems, one perpendicular to
the axis, and existing always with unequal degrees of in¬
tensity ; and the other occasional, and composed of laminae,
which may be directed obliquely to this axis wTith all de¬
grees of inclination, even till it becomes parallel to it.”2
Whilst these researches were carrying on in France, Sir Sir David
David Brewster was occupied with the same subject in Brewster.
Scotland. In his Treatise on New Philosophical Instru¬
ments, published in the beginning of 1813, he has shown
that chromate of lead and realgar exceed the diamond3 in
refractive power ; that diamond, phosphorus, and sulphur
have their high refractive powers in the order of their in¬
flammabilities ; that fluor spar and cryolite have their refrac¬
tive powers below all solid substances (excepting tabasheer),
and lower dispersive powers than all other bodies ; and that
all doubly refracting crystals have a double dispersive powder.
He showed that oil of cassia had the least, and sulphuric
acid the greatest action upon green light; that a tertiary
spectrum is formed when prisms of the same substance but
different angles are made to correct the dispersion by the
inclination of one of them ; and that achromatic combina¬
tions may be effected by prisms and lenses of the same
kind of glass.
In the year 1812 he began to study the subject of the
polarization of light, in consequence of having become ac¬
quainted with Malus’ celebrated discovery of the polariza¬
tion of light by reflection. He discovered the remarkable
property of the agate, by which it gives only a single dis¬
tinct image polarized in. one plane ; the property of depo¬
larization possessed by almost all minerals, and by many
animal and vegetable substances ;4 the polarized colours
produced by thin plates of mica and topaz ", the partial
polarization of light by polished metals ;5 and the complete
polarization of the exterior and interior rainbows.
1 Sur un nouveau genre d'Oscillation que les Molecules de la Lumiere eprouvent en tr avers ant stains cristaux. Brewster 9
2 See Memoires de iTnstitut, tom. xviii., pp. 539-727 ; Abbe Moigno’s Repertoire d Optique Moderne, tom. i., p. 370, and Brewst
0plfn of ..lid. and daids, <K~i stood a. the head, and and at ,h. tot.^Our auftor. how-
ever nlaced various substances above diamond, and tabasheer far below ice. . . .. .
« These discoveries were communicated to the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and owing to the state of communication between France
540
OPTICS.
by reflec¬
tion.
History. In the course of these inquiries our author discovered
the two beautiful systems of elliptical coloured rings, which
Discoveries we see by transmitting polarized light along the two optical
of Brew- axes of topaz ; and in consequence of his using a conical in
ster. place of a parallel beam of light in these experiments, he
was led to observe the same system of rings, under different
modifications, in various other bodies. While examining
the depolarizing effect of a plate of mica at an oblique in¬
cidence, he was led to the discovery of the polarization of
light by oblique transmission through bundles of crystallized
or uncrystallized plates ; and though Malus had anticipated
him in this discovery, yet he had determined the law of the
phenomena, which had escaped the notice of that skilful
observer.
Hitherto no idea had been formed of the mechanical con¬
dition of bodies in which the polarizing and doubly refract¬
ing structure were exhibited; but in the years 1814 and
1815, a new light was thrown upon the subject by three
discoveries made by Sir David Brewster, namely, that the
polarizing structure could be produced in glass by heat,
and also by rapid cooling that Prince Rupert’s glass drops,
formed by rapid cooling, possessed that structure ;2 and that
by means of simple pressure, that species of crystallization
could be communicated to soft and indurated jellies, which
forms two apparently polarized images, and exhibits the
complementary colours by polarized light.3
Law of po- We have already seen that Malus considered the property
larization 0f polarization by reflection as independent of the other
modes of action which bodies exercise upon light. In order
to investigate this subject, Sir David Brewster made an ex¬
tensive series of experiments to determine the angles of
maximum polarization by reflection, from the surfaces of
bodies, and from the separating surfaces of different media.
After encountering many difficulties, he was led to the dis¬
covery of the very simple law, that the index of refraction is
the tangent of the angle of polarization, which is rigorously
true for all separating surfaces, and for rays of all refrangi-
bilities; and hence we obtain an immediate explanation of
the perplexing fact, that at the maximum polarizing angle
the polarization of the ray is never complete. When this
law is expressed geometrically, it informs us that when a
ray of light is polarized by reflection, the reflected ray forms
a right angle with the refracted ray; that the sum of the
angles of reflection and refraction is a right angle, or count¬
ing from the surface, that the angles of reflection and re¬
fraction are equal. In the same paper our author has shown
that light may be completely polarized by two, three, or
more reflections, at angles all above or all below, or partly
above and partly below the angle of complete polarization;
a greater number of reflections being required, as the inci¬
dent ray approaches either to the refracting surface, or to a
line perpendicular to it. In the same paper it is shown that
every ray of light polarized by reflection has been acted upon
by the refracting force, and that total reflection exercises an
analogous action upon light with metallic surfaces.
I he influence of heat in producing a transient polarizing
structure in glass, led our author to an elaborate examina¬
tion of the subject in 1815.4 When the edge of a thick
plate of glass is laid on a bar of hot iron, the heat gradually
propagates itself along the plate, and its path is marked by
the most beautiful fringes of polarized light; but no sooner
has the heat entered the plate of glass than similar fringes
appear on its upper edge, where there is no heat at all.
After a certain period the whole surface of the glass is
covered with coloured fringes, which are arranged in two
Influence
of heat.
similar polarizing structures at the edges, separated by two History,
dark lines or axes from an opposite structure in the middle. ^
When the glass is removed from the iron, the fringes gra- Discoveries
dually disappear, and are extinguished when the heat is of Brew-
uniformly diffused over the glass. If the plate of glass is ster.
made very hot in boiling oil, and is then allowed to cool
with its edges against a plate of cold iron, it will exhibit in
a fainter degree the fringes above described ; but they are
now all reversed, the middle structure having the same
character as the external structures had formerly, and vice
versa. If, when a plate of glass is covered over with the
polarized tints, it is suddenly cut in two by a diamond in
the direction of its length, the whole structure is instantly
changed, and each piece has the same properties and struc¬
ture as the whole, exactly like a portion detached from the
end of a magnet. The same properties he found in mu¬
riate of soda, fluor spar, obsidian, semi-opal, horn, tortoise¬
shell, and various animal and vegetable bodies. The tints
thus developed by heat exhibit, by their being made to
cross one another and by other modifications, a series of
the most brilliant phenomena within the whole range of
optics.
In continuing these experiments, our author found that
when the plate of glass, after being brought to a red heat,
was allowed to cool quickly, it exhibited permanently the
same coloured fringes, a discovery which had likewise been
made by Dr Seebeck of Nuremberg.
This paper is followed by another, published in the same Influenced
volume of the Transactions,5 on the communication of the pressure.
structure of doubly refracting crystals to glass, muriate of
soda, fluor spar, and other substances, by mechanical com¬
pression and dilatation ; and on the 17th November 1816,
our author communicated to the Royal Society of Edin¬
burgh another paper, on the effects of compression and dila¬
tation in altering the polarizing structure of doubly re¬
fracting crystals.6
In 1816 he communicated to the Royal Society his ex- Optical
periments on mother-of-pearl, explaining the origin of its Pr0Perties
fine superficial colours, and showing that they could be com- Qf.me°athier’
municated to wax, isinglass, the fusible metals, and even to pear ’
lead, by hard pressure. In 1815 he published a paper cm Colours in
the multiplication of images, and the colours which accom- calcareous
pany them, in some specimens of calcareous spar,'' a sub- sPa^•
ject which had exercised the sagacity of Huygens, Benja¬
min Martin, Brougham, Robison, and Malus. The last of
these philosophers ascribed the multiplication of the images
to the interception of the pencils by fissures within the
crystal, and the colours to the thin plate of air which it
inclosed ; but Sir David Brewster discovered the true cause
of the phenomena, and proved that there were no fissures
nor plates of air; that the multiplication of the images arise
from one or more veins of calcareous spar, which divided
the rhomb into prisms, so as to form composite crystals,
having the axes of crystallization and of double refraction
of the two contiguous crystals turned round 180°, so that
each of the two pencils formed by double refraction are
subdivided in passing from one crystal to the other. He
has shown also that the colours are the polarized tints pro¬
duced by thin crystallized plates, these plates giving the
regular system of coloured rings seen along the axis of cal¬
careous spar, the light being polarized by the first prism of
spar, and analyzed by the last. Hence it follows that the
polarized tints of crystals were seen and studied by Huy¬
gens and his successors, without having any idea of what
they were.
and England, neither the author nor any of the members of the Society were acquainted with the previous discovery of M. Arago of the
colours of crystalline plates, or with those of Malus on depolarization and metallic polarization.
1 Phil. Trans. 1814, p. 1. 2 Ibid. 3 ib;d. igi5; p, 6o.
Phil. Trans. 1816, p. 46, and Edinburgh Trans., vol. viii., p. 383, where the phenomena are represented by formulae.
6 Edin. Trans., vol. viii., p. 156. 6 Ibid., vol. viii,,p. 281. 7 Phil. Trans. 1815, p. 270, and Edin. Trans., vol. viii., p. 165.
OPTICS.
541
History. The crystalline lenses oi animals had hitherto been sup-
posed to increase regularly in density, from the circum-
Lenses of ference to the centre, for the purpose of correcting the
animals, spherical aberration. Sir David Brewster, however, showed
in 1816,1 that’there were often ihree structures in such
lenseS)—a structure increasing in density from the centre,
being accompanied with another diminishing in density,
and that these structures displayed themselves in circular
rings of polarized tints, traversed by a rectangular black
cross, the tints themselves sometimes rising to a bright
yellow of the first order. About the same time he dis¬
covered the remarkable property of the diamond of ex¬
hibiting irregular patches of doubly refracting structures, as
if it had been in the state of gum, subject to irregular pres¬
sure or induration ;2 * and having afterwards discovered
gaseous cavities in the same gum, in which the expansive
pressure of the included gas had communicated to the sur¬
rounding parts a regular doubly refracting structure, he
corroborated his supposition that it had a vegetable origin,1
which he has more recently confirmed by discovering that
many diamonds consist of strata of different refractive
powers, a property not possessed by any mineral body.4
Metallic In the beginning of February 1815, when examining the
polariza- action 0f metals upon polarized light, our author discovered
tion' that complementary colours were produced by one or more
reflections from plates of gold, silver, and other metals ;
that analogous colours were produced by total reflection ;
that common light was wholly polarized in the plane of in¬
cidence by a number of metallic reflections, this number
being greater in silver and gold than in the other metals.
Though examined with much care both by our author and
M. Biot,5 the nature and law of these phenomena were still
veiled in obscurity.
Biaxal Hitherto all crystals were believed to have one axis of
crystals. double refraction, like Iceland spar or quartz ; but in the
year 18176 Sir David Brewster discovered that the greater
number of crystals, and among these arragonite, sulphate
of iron, sulphate of barytes, sulphate of strontian, topaz, fel¬
spar, and nitre, had two axes of double refraction, which he
called resultant axes, and which were more or less inclined
to each other, as the intensity of the real axes more or less
approached to equality. By measuring the deviation of the
two pencils in different planes, he found that the double
refraction was the same in every part of the same ring, dis¬
appearing along the resultant axis, and increasing with the
value of the tints; and by projecting the coloured rings,
and measuring the angular distances from the axis at which
the same tints were produced, he was led to the true phy¬
sical law of the tints, and of the deviation of the extraor¬
dinary ray. This general law, when applied to the polarized
tints, is thus expressed : The tint produced at any point of
the sphere, by the joint action of two axes, is equal to the
diagonal of a parallelogram whose sides represent the
tints produced by each axis separately, and ivhose angle is
double of the angle formed by two planes passing through
that point of the sphere and the respective axes. W hen
the law is applied to the phenomena of double refraction, it
may be thus expressed : The increment of the square of the
velocity of the extraordinary ray produced by the action of
two axes of double refraction, is equal to the diagonal of
a parallelogram whose sides are the increments of the square
of the velocity produced by each axis separately, and calcu¬
lated by the law qf Huygens, and ivhose angle is double of
the angle formed by tivo planes passing through the ray
and the respective axes. When the two rectangular axes
are of equal intensity and of the same character, the pre¬
ceding law gives the very same results as the law of Huy- History,
gens does for one axis placed at right angles with the other «'
two. When the crystal has three equal rectangular axes,
their forces are in equilibrio in every part of the sphere, and
there is neither double refraction nor polarization. When
the first of these laws is applied to the mysterious actions
of sulphate of lime, with the origin and classification of
which M. Biot had been so much perplexed, and which he
has represented by complicated and empirical formulae, the
whole mystery disappears, and all the diversified and capa¬
cious variations of tint which he had ascribed to secondary
forces, become the legitimate and calculable results of two
axes of double refraction.
During these laborious researches, our author was led to
the law by which the primitive forms of minerals are con¬
nected with the number of their axes of double refraction,
and to point out the connection between the optical struc¬
ture and chemical composition of crystals.
The absorption of common light, in virtue of which Absorption
crystals exhibit different colours, or shades of colour, in of light,
different directions, had been long observed by Wollaston,
Cordier, Bournon, De Dree, and others; but Sir David
Brewster discovered that in a great number of coloured
crystals, both with one and two axes of double refraction,
polarized light was absorbed, according to regular laws de¬
pending on the inclination of the ray to the axis or axes of
the crystal, and that in such crystals the two pencils are
always differently coloured, the difference of colour dis¬
appearing in the direction of the axis, and rising to a
maximum at right angles to it. d hese phenomena are
finely seen in super-acetate of copper, dichroite, Brazilian
topaz, and augite. These properties are shown by our
author to be singularly modified by heat, and even com¬
municated to crystals which do not naturally possess it.
Absorbing crystals have been called dichroitic, and the
property itself dichroism.
The subject of circular polarization was likewise examined Circular
by our author in quartz and amethyst.7 He found that P™za*
heat entirely removed from quartz the power of producing
circular polarization, when the substance was reduced to
fusion ; he discovered it near the resultant axis of chryso-
beryl, and in certain specimens of unannealed glass.8 In
examining the properties of the amethyst, he found that Amethyst,
this interesting mineral combines the opposite structures of
the two kinds of quartz, being composed of alternate strata
of right and left-handed quartz, these two opposite actions
destroying each other at their junction, where the coloui-
ing matter of the amethyst is principally apparent.
In all the experiments on the polarization of light by re- Crystal-
flection from crystallized surfaces, their action was supposed sur-
to be the same as that of common solids and fluids ; and
Malus had distinctly stated it as the result of experiment,
that Iceland spar had the same polarizing angle on all its
surfaces and in every azimuth, its action being indepen¬
dent of the position of the principal sections,” “ that its re¬
flecting power extends beyond the limit of the polarizing
forces of the crystal, and that as light is only polarized by
penetrating the surface, the force which produces extraor¬
dinary refraction begins to act only at this limit.”9 Doubt¬
ing the accuracy of these results, Sir David Brewster insti¬
tuted a series of experiments on the action of crystallized
surfaces upon light, by which he has established the remark¬
able fact that the angle of complete polarization varies from
57° 14' to 59° 32', on the surface of the rhomb of calcareous
spar, being a minimum in the plane of the principal section,
and a maximum in a plane perpendicular to it. But it is
i Phil Tram 1816 p. 311. 2 Edin. Tram. 1816, vol. viii., p. 167. 3 Geological Trans. 1816.
* See our art.' MICROSCOPE, vol. xiv chap, i., and PM. 7V««*. 1841, p.41. ^ ^ ? p ^
6 Traiti de Physique, tom. iv., p. ®79. Phil. Trans. , p. • 9 Theorie de la Double Refraction, p. 240.
8 “ Treatise on Optics,’ Lardner s Cabinet Cyclop., p. 1Z».
OPTICS.
542
History, not merely the polarizing angle that is changed. When
the ordinary reflecting force is weakened by causing the
Discoveries reflection to be made from the refracting surface of oil of
ofBrewster cassia and Iceland spar, he found that the light was no
longer polarized in the plane of reflection, and that the de¬
viation from this plane depended on the inclination of the
ray to the axis of the crystal, the deviation becoming less
and less as the refractive power of the fluid was diminished.
In the same paper he has shown that by altering the me¬
chanical condition of the surfaces of crystals, and making
the ray enter this surface from fluids of different refractive
powers, the ordinary or the extraordinary image may be
weakened or extinguished at pleasure.1
In the year 1816, Sir David Brewster discovered a re-
Apophyl- markable system of coloured rings in apophyllite, a singularly
litc. constituted crystal, one part of which has one axis, whilst
another part has two axes of double refraction. Different
parts of this crystal possess different degrees of double re¬
fraction, with the same thickness, and at the same inclina¬
tion to the axis ; and the beautiful and symmetrical figure
which a perfect crystal exhibits by polarized light, deline¬
ated in the most splendid colours, is perhaps the finest sight
which the mineral kingdom can present to us.2 By the aid
of polarized light, our author discovered also a singular
Chabasie. structure in certain crystals of chabasie, in which the double
refraction gradually diminishes in successive strata, then
vanishes, and re-appears with an opposite sign, the one
double refraction being positive and the other negative ;
but the most remarkable of all these structures was that of
Analcime. analcime, in which he discovered a new species of double
refraction, in which the phenomena are related to planes
instead of axes, in which the double refraction disappears.3
In the year 1829, our author communicated to the Royal
Society of London five papers. The first of these, entitled
Grooved On periodical colours produced by the grooved surfaces of
surfaces, metallic and transparent bodies,* contains an account of a
new series of periodical colours exhibited by grooved sur¬
faces, which succeed each other in a plane at right angles
to that in which the usual spectra are seen, and producing
a singular modification of these spectra. In the second
Double re- paper, on the double refraction produced by pressure in the
fraction by molecules of bodies,b he has shown that the axis of pressure
pressure. js ^ regular axis of double refraction, and that the doubly
refracting properties, which are not inherent in the mole¬
cules themselves, are produced by the pressure caused by
the forces of aggregation, which generally differ in inten-
sity in the direction of the three rectangular axes. The
tioifb'^re ot^er three papers treat of the laws of the polarization of
flection ^ ^ reflection6 and refraction,7 and on the action of the
and refrac- second surfaces of transparent plates8 upon light,
tion. We have already seen that Malus, Biot, and Sir David
Elliptic po-Brewster had been baffled in their attempts to unravel the
larization complex phenomena of metallic polarization. The last of
Jn metals, these authors had at various times resumed the investiga¬
tion ; but it was not till February 1830, that he communi¬
cated the result to the Royal Society, in a paper entitled
On the phenomena and lav)s of elliptic polarization, as ex¬
hibited in the action of metals upon light.9 All the phe¬
nomena of metallic polarization are shown to be those of
elliptical polarization, connecting the phenomena of circu-
larly polarized light with those of plane polarized light, the
action of silver approaching nearest to that of totally reflect¬
ing surfaces by which circular polarization is produced, and
that of galcena to transparent bodies or those not metallic History,
by which plane polarization is produced. The colours ac- y n
companying these phenomena have no relation to those of Discoveries
crystallized plates, and in the case of silver and gold are ofBrewster
extremely beautiful and splendid.
Hitherto the analysis of solar light by Sir Isaac Newton New ana-
had been regarded as complete, and incapable of any farther lysis of
development. From this analysis he himself deduced the solar light-
conclusion, that to the same degree of refrangibility ever be¬
longed the same colour, and to the same colour ever be¬
longed the same degree of refrangibility. So early as 1822,
in a paper on the monochromatic lamp, &c.,10 Sir David
Brewster showed that some of the colours of the spectrum
were compound, capable of being analyzed by absorbing
media, and that different colours had the same refrangibi¬
lity. This result stood in direct opposition to the Newton¬
ian doctrine, and our author, in order to support it, under¬
took an elaborate series of experiments, the results of which
were communicated to the Royal Society of Edinburgh in
1831 in a paper entitled On a new analysis of solar light,
indicating three primary colours forming coincident spectra
of equal lengths f In these three overlapping spectra the
intensity of each colour is a maximum at that point where
the same colour is most intense in the compound spectrum.
Hence it follows that all the colours in the solar spectrum
are compound, consisting of red, yellow, and blue light in
different proportions, so that if at any point we separate as
many rays of each colour as is necessary to produce white
light, by absorbing the excess at that point, we should ex¬
hibit the strange phenomenon of white light incapable of
being decomposed by the prism. This has actually been
done by Sir David Brewster, by means of absorbing media.
This paper was followed, in 1833, by another, on the co¬
lours of natural bodies,n in which our author shows that
they have not the same composition as those of thin plates,
and demonstrates the truth of this opinion by a special
analysis of the green colour of plants, the most prevalent
tint in nature, and the one which Newton had pronounced
to be of the third order. In the same year our author pub¬
lished his Observations on the Lines of the Solar Spectrum,
and on those produced by the earth's atmosphere, and by
the action of nitrous acid gas,Vi but we must reserve our
notice of this paper till we come to describe the discoveries
of Fraunhofer.
In the year 1837 our author pointed out a remarkable
connection between the phenomena of absorption and the
colours of thin plates,u and in 1838 described some new
facts in the colours of mixed plates}9 In 1841 he communi¬
cated to the Royal Society of London a series of new phe¬
nomena exhibited by thin plates exposed to polarized light f9
and in 1843, to the Royal Society of Edinburgh, a paper
on the law of visible position in single and binocular vision,
in which he gave the true theory of the stereoscope, an in¬
strument which was invented independently by Profes¬
sor Wheatstone, and Professor Elliot of Edinburgh. In
the year 1841 he communicated to the Philosophical So¬
ciety of St Andrews an account of his observations on the
polarization of the atmosphere, and of the polarimeter with
which they were made;17 and in 1845 he discovered the
neutral point beneath the sun, which goes by his name.13
In 1846 he communicated to the Philosophical Society of
St Andrews, and also to the British Association of that
year, an account of a new property of light—namely, its
4 PA v' Tfant- P- 145. 2 min. Phil. Jour., vol. i., p. 1; and Edin. Trans., vol. ix., p. 317. 3 ibid<) vol> x p. -[gy.
6 ThiV 1 ooa*' 18r2q’ P- 3.°,1.i Jour, of Science, vol. ii., p. 46. 6 Ibid> 1830) g7 or ibid vol m ^
9 tJ n 9S7P' L°I lhJd- £-8-’ VoL m-’ 160' 7 Ibid-> ?• 135 5 or ibid- P- 218- 8 Ibid., p. 145; or ibid., p. 230.
H pit’ T ’ V-’ N°iI'’ V°L iv-> PP- 136> 247’ 10 Min- Trans*vol. ix., p, 433.
14 mranS'' V°^ XU'’ P‘ 423 ’ or Min. Jour, of Science, N.S., vol. v., p. 197. is Ibid. 13 Ibid.
l8 Tnhnqrnn’s* PA .1 /tt 15 Ibld‘’ I888* P- 1C Ibid., 1841, p. 43. 1T Proceedings of the Society, Dec. 5, 1841.
Johnston s Physical Atlas, and Trans, of Royal Irish Academy, vol. xix., part ii.
OPTICS.
543
History.
1831.
double reflection and polarization, as exhibited on the sur-
  faces of chrysammale of potash, chrysammate of magnesia,
and murexide} In 1846, he published2 his researches on
the decomposition and dispersion of light in solid and fluid
bodies (the fluorescence of Professor Stokes). In 1849 he
exhibited to the Royal Scottish Society of Arts his lenti¬
cular stereoscope, now in universal use ;3 and in 1853 he
discovered that the crystalline and doubly refracting struc¬
tures could be communicated to crystalline powders by
compression and traction.
Dr See- Dr Thomas John Seebeck of Nuremberg was an
beck, born active and successful cultivator of the science of optics.
1770, died pjjs first experiments on this subject were published in
Schweigger’s Journal for April 1813 and December 1814.
In 1811 M. Arago observed the polarizing structure in thick
pieces of flint, and in 1812 Sir David Brewster had noticed
the same property in some pieces of plate glass.4 In Dr
Seebeck’s paper of 1813, he observed the regular figure
produced by polarized light, when the glass had the regular
form of cubes and cylinders. In cubes of an inch in dia¬
meter, he found them to be indistinct, and not produced by
fluor spar or rock-salt. In his second paper of December
1814, he shows that a plate of glass made red hot, and set
upon its edges to cool, exhibits at the part which cools first
a series of coloured fringes, which spread over the whole
plate, the structure which produces them remaining perma¬
nently fixed in the glass. These experiments are posterior
to those made in Scotland on the effects of heat upon glass,
and on the polarizing structure of glass cooled in water.
Early in 1816, Dr Seebeck discovered the property of
certain essential oils in producing the polarized tints, the pro¬
perty of single refraction possessed by tourmaline, and the
system of coloured rings produced by Iceland spar; but in
these discoveries he was anticipated, as we have seen, by
others, though he is entitled to all the merit of a second
discoverer.
In 1809 Dr Seebeck communicated to the Academy of
Sciences at Berlin an interesting memoir on the unequal
production of heat in the prismatic spectrum,5 in which he
showed that the place of maximum heat varied with the
substance of which the prism was made, being in the yellow
rays in the spectra formed by water (and according to
Wunsch, in alcohol and oil of turpentine); in the orange m
concentrated sulphuric acid, and solution of sal ammoniac
and corrosive sublimate ; in the middle of the red in crown
and plate glass, and beyond the red in flint glass. Dr
Turner6 ascribed these results to the different powers of
these media to refract the rays of solar heat; but Sir David
Brewster explained them by supposing that colourless
transparent bodies exercise the same variety of absorptive
action upon heat that coloured bodies do upon light, the
body in the last case becoming coloured in consequence of
that action. Hence the maximum ordinate of heat will
shift its position with the nature of the body, and we shall no
doubt find media with several maxima and minima, and points
of no heat at all, according as we increase the size of the
prism or the thickness which the heat traverses.7 The
best way to carry on such researches is to use a prism of
glass whose curve of heat is well ascertained, and then to
determine the changes which take place in the curve by
interposing thick plates of transparent solids and fluids.
This eminent philosopher would have done still more for
structive and accurate experiments on the polarizing angle History,
of different substances, which confirm the accuracy of the ^
law of the tangents,8 and another on the polarizing angle of
calcareous spar in different azimuths.
We come now to that auspicious period in the history of Fresnel
optics, when this science was destined to receive the grand- born 1788,
est accessions from the genius of M. A. Fresnel, engineer died 1827.
of roads and bridges. What Newton did for astronomy,
Fresnel did for physical optics ; and all Europe will, we are
persuaded, confirm the decision which places him pre-emi¬
nently above all the other cultivators of this branch of science.
The discoveries of Fresnel, however, are so connected with
theoretical considerations, that it is impossible, in a histori¬
cal sketch, to give anything like an idea of their magnitude
and importance. The phenomena of rotatory polarization Circular
in quartz, which had so much perplexed philosophers, have polariza-
been completely explained by Fresnel. He found that they ti011*
arise from the interference of two circularly polarized pen¬
cils, propagated with different velocities along the axis of
quartz, the one revolving from right to left, and the other
from left to right, and that a plane polarized ray is equivalent
to two circularly polarized rays of half the intensity. These
facts he verified experimentally, by an achromatic combina¬
tion of right and left-handed prisms of quartz, so disposed
as to double the refraction of the images.
M. Fresnel had also found that light was circularly
polarized by two total reflections from glass at an angle of
about 54° 37'; and by placing between two rhombs of glass,
each of which polarized the light circularly and had their
planes of reflection at right angles to each other, a crystal¬
lized plate, he observed that the light transmitted through this
system exhibited phenomena analogous to those seen along
the axis of rock-crystal. The rhomb of glass so cut, that
when the incident rays enter and leave it perpendicularly,
they have suffered two reflections at an angle of 54° 37', is
well known by the name of Fresnel’s rhomb.
Fresnel’s theory of double refraction and polarization, Theory of
one of the finest efforts of genius, conducted its author double ve¬
to many important results which had escaped the notice fraction,
of the most diligent observers. Hitherto it had been taken
for granted by all, and appeared to be proved by Biot’s ex¬
periments on topaz, that in biaxal crystals one of the rays
followed the ordinary law of the sines ; but it followed
from Fresnel’s theory that it did not, and by a series of the
nicest and most difficult experiments he determined, that
neither of the two rays have a constant velocity, both being
performed according to a new law. What had been called
the extraordinary ray, he found by his theory to be regu¬
lated by the law discovered by Sir David Brewster, and
simplified in its mathematical expression by M. Biot, and he
showed that all the phenomena of double refraction could
be accurately calculated. The axes of elasticity in Fresnel’s
theory are the same as the axes of double refraction in Sir
David Brewster's paper of 1818, and the laws of the compo¬
sition and resolution of such axes in uniaxal, biaxal, and tes-
sular crystals which have no double refraction, previously
given by the latter, are all necessary results of the same
theory.
But the most remarkable part of Fresnel’s theory is his an(j poiari-
explanation of the polarization of light. The hypothesis of zation.
transversal vibrations first presented itself to Dr Young
while considering the law of extraordinary refraction in
Dr A. See¬
beck.
I ms eminent pnnosopner wouia nave none sun uiuie jui & — — . ; •7U o- t-. j
the science of optics, had he not been attracted to the study biaxal crystals, as communicated to him by Sn Davi
of thermo-electricity, in the creation and extension of which Brewster. M. Fresnel however, showed that it was a ne-
he has immortalized his name. cessary consequence of the laws of interference and that
We are indebted to Dr A. Seebeck for a series of in- the vibrations of a polarized ray are on the surface of the
i Proceedings of Phil. Soc, St Andrews, Jan. 5, 1846; Report of Brit. Assoc., 1846 p. 7; Prof. Stokes’paper on “Metallic Reflection,”
&c in Phil Ma 1853 2 Edm- Trans- 1846, vol. xvi., p. 111.
C3 TVaJ.'soc.% Arts, 1849 ; Phil. Mag., Jan. 1852 ; and Treatise on the Stereoscope, Lond 1857 4 Treat, on New Phil lusts p. 335
6 Berlin Memoirs, 1818-1819, p. 305, or Edin. Jour, of Science, vol. 1., p. 358, No. 2, Oct. 1824 Chemistry, 3d ed., p. 84.
7 Second Report of the British Association, 1832, p. 294. 8 Edin. Jour, of Science, N.S., vol. v., p
99.
544
History.
OPTICS.
interfer¬
ence of po
larized
light.
Diffraction
of light.
Reflection
of light.
wave, and perpendicular to the plane of polarization. In un¬
polarized light they are also only on the surface of the wave,
and this species of light is conceived to “ consist of a rapid
succession of systems of waves polarized in every possible
. plane, passing through the normal to the front of the wave.”
[Hence light is polarized by resolving the vibrations into
, two sets in two rectangular directions.1
We have already slightly noticed the fine discoveries of
MM. -4rago and Fresnel on the interference of polarized
light, and we can now only refer with admiration to the
beautiful series of experiments by which the phenomena of
,Xtioveable. polarization were properly explained, and brought
r,under. the dominion of the undulatory theory. When a
. polarized ray proceeding from a luminous point is trans¬
mitted thrpugh two rhomboids of Iceland spar of equal
thickness, whose principal sections are inclined 45° to the
plane of primitive polarization, the emergent light will di¬
verge as if from two near points, and the two portions will
be oppositely polarized. MM. Arago and Fresnel found
that the light formed by the union of these pencils was
plane, circularly, or elliptically polarized, according to the
difference of the paths traversed when they met. Follow¬
ing out this principle, MM. Arago and Fresnel were led to
an experimentum crucis, to determine the accuracy of the
theory of moveable polarization. A homogeneous ray of
polarized light was transmitted through a plate of sulphate
of lime, having its principal section inclined 45° to the plane
of primitive polarization, and of such a thickness that it should
be circularly polarized according to the undulatory theory,
and plane polarized according to the other; and the result
was decisive against the theory of moveable polarization.
We owe also to M. Fresnel the true theory of the in¬
flection or diffraction of light. The Academy of Sciences
made this the subject of their physical prize for 1818, and
the memoir of our author was the successful one. He had
at first adopted and extended the theory of Dr Young, that
the fringes arise from the interference of the direct and in¬
flected light; but he was afterwards obliged to admit, that
rays passing at a sensible distance from the reflecting body,
deviate from their primitive direction, and interfere with
the direct light. This interesting effect he ascribes to a
number of elementary waves sent from each portion of the
surface of the principal wave when it reaches the reflecting
body, and he determines the resultant of all the elemen¬
tary waves sent by these portions to a given point. Upon
applying this theory to various cases of inflection, he found
it to agree so well with observation, that, with the exception
of the cases of diffraction by narrow apertures, the theory
did not err more than the 2500th part of an inch.
Among the many important discoveries of Fresnel we
must enumerate the theory of the reflection of light. Dr
Young had shown on the undulatory theory, that at a per¬
pendicular incidence the intensity of the reflected light
was a very simple function of the index of refraction.2 M.
Poisson had arrived by another process at the same result,
without knowing, we believe, what had been done by Dr
Young;11 and he afterwards extended his inquiries to dif¬
ferent incidences.4 I he conclusions, however, at which
this distinguished mathematician arrived, were inconsistent
with observation; and Fresnel had the good fortune to give
a complete solution of the problem, by combining the docv
trine of transversal vibrations with the theory of waves. He
assumes, that the elasticity of the ether in the two media
aie equal, but their density different, though he also solved
the problem on the more general assumption, that the elas- History,
ticity was different in the two media. He thus obtained
formulae for all incidences and all refractive powers, and the
law of the tangents, as well as that of the equality of pen¬
cils polarized by reflection and transmission, became the
consequences of these formulae. At a perpendicular inci¬
dence the formula coincides with that of Young and Poisson,
and at 90° the whole light is reflected, a result which has
been verified by observation.5
Among the active cultivators of the science of optics we Lord
must place our distinguished countryman, Lord Brougham. Brougham.
So early as 1796, when he was only eighteen years of age,
he communicated to the Royal Society of London an in¬
genious paper on the inflection of light, and in 1797 another
on the same subject.6 These researches were published
before Dr Young discovered the key to this class of pheno¬
mena, and before Fresnel had explained them on the prin¬
ciple of the undulatory theory. In his early papers, Lord
Brougham considered the phenomena of diffraction, as pro¬
duced by inflecting and deflecting forces emanating from the
deflecting body, and acting, as Newton also supposed, on the
passing rays. In his recent investigations, communicated to
the Academy of Sciences and to the Royal Society, however,
he has used these terms solely for the purpose of rendering
more distinct the account of his experiments; and he has
avoided all reference to the two rival theories.
The recent investigations of Lord Brougham were made
at Cannes, in Provence, with a very fine apparatus made for
him by the late M. Soleil, and he repeated them in Paris
before the Abbe Moigno and others in 1850, when they
were communicated to the Academy of Sciences.7 The
originality and importance of the discoveries of Lord
Brougham may be judged of from the two following pro¬
positions, which relate to a new property of the inflected
and deflected rays:—
1. “4 he rays of light, when inflected by bodies near
which they pass, are thrown into a condition or state
which disposes them to be on one of their sides more
easily deflected than before their first flection, and disposes
them on the other side to be less easily deflected; and
when deflected by bodies, they are thrown into a condition
or state which disposes them on one side to be more easily
inflected, and on the other side to be less easily inflected
than they were before the first flection.”
2. “ The rays disposed on one side by the first flection
are polarized (or are in a state resembling polarization) on
that side by the second flection ; and the rays polarized on
the other side by the first flection, are depolarized and
disposed on that side by the second flection.”8
Contemporary with the discoveries of Fresnel were those Fraunho-
of the late M. Fraunhofer of Munich, who made several fer, born
important observations on the solar spectrum, on the 1787, died
diffraction of light, on refractive and dispersive powers, and 1826.
on the refrangibility of the light of the fixed stars. By
using fine prisms entirely free of veins, he discovered that
the solar spectrum was crossed by about 590 black lines,
and he executed a beautiful drawing of the spectrum, in
which the most important of these are projected. Fraun¬
hofer was not aware that Dr Wollaston had previously dis¬
covered seven of these lines ; but this slight anticipation
does not in the least degree diminish the singularity of this
splendid discovery. He discovered similar lines in electric
light, and in the spectra of the Moon, Venus, Mars, Castor,
Pollux, Sirius, Capella, Betalgeus, and Procyon ;9 but none
2 ®ee Hulk tin de la Soo. Philqmathiqwe, 1824, and Mem. de VInstitut, torn. xvii.
4 jJ6 7 al',t7lcle Chromatics, written by Dr Young, vol. vi., sec. xvi, 3 Mem. de, VInst., tom. ii.
Mem. de l Inst., tom. x. s Ann de chim., 1821. 6 Phil. Trans. 1796, p. 227, and 1797, p. 352.
s ^ Renfus> &c-> 1850, tom. xxx., pp. 43, 67; and Abbe Moigno’s Repertoire d'Optique, &c., tom. iv., p. 1498.
9 Co™ brougham s paper is printed in the Philosophical Transactions for 1850, pp. 235-260.
rn. Journal of Science, No. xv., p. 7. Sir David Brewster asserts, that all the coloured stars derive their colours from defective
lines in their spectra, hav ing found these lines in those most strongly coloured.
History.
Action of
gases on
spectrum.
Sir John
Herschel.
OPTICS.
545
whatever in artificial white flames. These lines he found
to have a fixed position in relation to the coloured spaces,
and, by measuring accurately the distance of prominent
lines in the different coloured spaces, he obtained measures
of the refractive and dispersive powers of bodies with a
degree of accuracy hitherto unknown. Fraunhofer con¬
sidered these lines as having their origin in the nature of
the sun’s light; but Sir David Brewster, who by particular
methods has discovered more than twice the number of
lines reckoned by Fraunhofer, has established the curious
fact that many of them are produced also by the action of
the earth’s atmosphere. In his researches on this subject,
Sir David Brewster discovered the remarkable property
possessed by nitrous gas of producing analogous lines in
great numbers, increasing in width with the thickness of
the gas, or with an augmentation of its temperature. “ The
power of heat alone,” says this author, “ to render a gas,
which is almost colourless, as red as blood, without decom¬
posing it, is in itself a most singular result; and my surprise
was greatly increased when I afterwards succeeded in
rendering the same pale nitrous acid gas so absolutely black
by heat, that not a ray of the brightest summer sun was
capable of penetrating it.”1 Professors Miller and Daniel
afterwards discovered numerous fixed lines, disposed at equal
distances, in the vapour of bromine and iodine; and Sir
David Brewster has more recently discovered hundreds of
lines, under very singular circumstances, in the spectrum of
an artificial substance, resembling mother-of-pearl;2 but
what is most interesting, these lines are moveable, shifting
their place in the spectrum by varying the incidence, and
are produced by the periodical action of thin plates inclosed
in the substance. He has also discovered that broad dark
bands like those produced by absorbing media, but entirely
different from the nearly equidistant bands formed by single
thin plates, are produced by a number of thin plates in a
state of combination.3
Considering the lines of the spectrum as produced by
interference, Fraunhofer was induced to make a complete
series of experiments on the inflection of light, particularly
on the splendid colours produced by gratings of wires, and
grooved surfaces, which were published in the year 1822,
in the Memoirs of the Royal Bavarian Academy of
Sciences.4, He afterwards repeated these experiments with
a finer apparatus, and communicated an account of them to
the Academy of Sciences at Munich, on the 14th June
1823.5 The science of optics owes also to Fraunhofer the
art of making the finest glass for achromatic telescopes and
prisms; and such was the perfection at which he ailived,
that, in a letter to the author of this article, he expressed
bis willingness to undertake an achromatic object glass
eighteen inches in diameter. Our author wrote also a
treatise on halos, parhelia, &c., in which he ascribes the
small solar and lunar halos to the inflection of light by
particles of vapour in the atmosphere, and the great halos
of 45° to the refraction of hexagonal prisms of ice.6
Among the most distinguished contributors to optical dis¬
covery, Sir John Herschel occupies a high place. The devia¬
tions of the polarized tints from the colours of thin plates, or
those of Newton’s scale, had been discovered by Sir David
Brewster in acetate of lead, tartrate of potash and soda,
apophyllite, topaz, and various other minerals. He had
divided these crystals into two classes, viz., those that had
the red ends of the rings inwards, and the blue ends out¬
wards; and those that had the blue ends of the rings
inwards, and the red ends outwards? In his paper of 1818,
he states, that “ in almost all crystals with two axes, the History,
tints in the neighbourhood of the resultant axes, when the v .
plate has a considerable thickness, lose their resemblance
to those of Newton’s scale, as will be more minutely
described in another paper.” Conceiving that these deviated
tints arose from the superposition of systems of rings of
different colours, Sir John Herschel examined the coloured
rings by homogeneous light, and established the important
fact that the inclination of the resultant axes varied in the
different colours of the spectrum, the poles or centres of
the rings approaching to each other in red, and receding in
violet light, in some crystals ; while in others they receded
from each other in red, and approached in violet light. In
tartrate of potash and soda, for example, the inclination of
the axes was 75° 42’ in red, and only 55° 14 in violet light.8
These various axes all lie in the same plane, excepting in
borax. In the paper containing this discovery, and in other
two,9 communicated to the Cambridge Philosophical Society,
he has described various interesting phenomena which he
discovered in different specimens of apophyllite and in
hyposulphate of lime,10 and which led him to some import¬
ant conclusions respecting the law of proportional action of
these crystals on the different colours of the spectrum.
We have already seen that the force which produces cir¬
cular polarization had been deemed a property of the ulti¬
mate particles of bodies, and totally unconnected with their
mode of aggregation. In 1820 Sir John Herschel made
the beautiful discovery, that the direction of the circular
polarization in quartz was invariably the same with that of
the plagiedral planes round the summit, the direction of the
polarization being retrograde or direct, according as these
planes leant forward or backward round this summit.
We owe also to Sir John Herschel an interesting inquiry
into the aberrations of compound lenses and object-glasses f
a series of curious experiments on the phenomena produced
by diaphragms or apertures of various shapes, variously
applied to mirrors and object-glasses,12 and a great number
of original views and valuable experiments, which are con¬
tained in his Treatise on Light, one of the most valuable
and original works on science which has appeared during
the last century.
M. Fresnel was, we believe, the first person who ob- M. Mit-
served the change produced by heat on the tints of sulphate scherlich.
of lime. It is to M. Mitscherlich, however, that we owe the
most complete investigation of this subject. He found that
heat expands crystals differently in different directions.
Iceland spar is expanded by it in the direction of its axis,
while it is in a slight degree contracted in directions per¬
pendicular to the axis. The rhomb thus approaches to the
cube, and the double refraction is diminished. M. Mitscher¬
lich also found that the inclination of the optical or resultant
axes, which is about 60°, diminishes with heat till they
actually form one axis, when by a farther increase of heat
they again separate, and open out, as it were, in a plane at
right angles to that of the laminae. We have repeated this
experiment, and enjoyed the remarkable sight of observing
the one system of rings marching towards the other in the
plane of the laminae, and changing their form and size as
they advanced.13 An analogous, and even a more remark¬
able property, was discovered by Sir David Brewster in
glauberite. At the freezing point glauberite has two optical
axes for all the colours of the spectrum, the inclination of
the axes being greatest in red, and least in violet light.
When heat is applied, the two axes approach, and those of
different colours unite successively, the crystal possessing
i P, yr,837- «-
nr,,. t r f-iAQ 8 p/,,7 Trans 1820. p. 45. ^ Cambridge Trans., \o\s. \\.
1 Edin. Jour, of Science, No. xn., p. 348. vnu. irans. ^ ii zfi •, m iqoi „ 099
10 Sir John discovered similar deviations in vesuvian or idocrase (Treatise on Light, zrt. 1125.) Phi. Trans. 1821, p. 222.
12 Treatise on Light, §§ 767, 768, &c. 13 ^nd. and Edm. Phil. Mag., 3d senes, vol. 1., p- 417.
VOL. XVI.
OPTICS.
546
History, the remarkable property of being a uniaxal one for red, and
a biaxtxlfor violet light. By increasing the temperature,
the optical axes open out in the same order, but in a plane
at right angles to that in which they formerly lay, and long
before the temperature has reached that of boiling water
the planes of the axes in all the prismatic colours are per¬
pendicular to their first position.1 Such a crystal would
form a delicate chromatic thermometer.2 M. Marx has
discovered an analogous property in topaz, in which the two
axes separate with heat, the variation being greater in the
coloured than in the colourless varieties.3 Sir David
Brewster has discovered that regular double refraction is pro¬
duced in some soft substances by the application of heat.
M. Rud- Some very excellent and interesting results have been
berg. obtained by M. Rudberg, on the effect of heat upon doubly
refracting crystals. He found that the extraordinary ray
in calcareous spar (the line F was used) had its deviation
increased 2' 34”, as the refractive index increased 000043,
by a rise of temperature equal to 64°, the refracting angle
of the prism being 59° 55' 9’'; whereas the refractive power
for the ordinary ray, either does not change at all, or de¬
creases with the temperature by a quantity extremely small.
In rock-crystal he found the deviation to be 42", or 000027,
both on the ordinary and extraordinary ray, the angle of
the prism being 45° 20' 5". In arragonite he found that
the double refraction decreased a little with the temperature.4
We owe also to M. Rudberg a series of valuable experi¬
ments on the refractive actions of the differently coloured
rays in crystals with one and two axes of double refraction.
His measures were taken in reference to the fixed lines in
the spectrum, and the minerals he employed were rock-crys¬
tal, calcareous spar, arragonite, and colourless topaz. He
confirmed the existence of two dispersive powers in doubly
refracting crystals, announced long before by Sir David
Brewster; and the variation of the inclination of the optic
axes with the different colours of the spectrum, which had
also been previously discovered by Sir John Herschel.5 M.
Rudberg was no doubt unacquainted with the previous
labours of these authors, otherwise he would not have passed
them over without notice.
ho-nnsT’ every other branch of physical science, optics owes
(lied 1840.’ mucl110 t'le profound researches of M. Poisson, which are in
general of too recondite a nature to find a place in a popular
treatise. The theory of the colours of thin plates was left
incomplete by Dr Young. The two interfering portions
from the upper and under surface of the plate were obviously
unequal, and therefore could not destroy one another wholly
by interference, as they are found to do. M. Poisson re¬
medied this defect by showing that there must be an infinite
number of partial reflections within the plate, at each of which
a very small portion of light was reflected, so that the sum
of all these portions of light makes up for the defect of one
of the pencils, and makes the interfering pencils equal.
Hence M. Poisson has shown that at a perpendicular inci¬
dence, and at points where the effective thickness of the plate
is an exact multiple of the length of half an undulation,
the intensity of the reflected and transmitted light will be
the same as if the plate were suppressed altogether, and
the bounding media in absolute contact, so that when these
media have the same reflective power, no light will be re¬
flected and the whole transmitted. By the aid of the pro¬
perty discovered by M. Arago, that the light is reflected in
the same proportion at the first and second surfaces of a
plate, M. hresnel extended M. Poisson’s conclusions to all
incidences.
In treating of the subject of diffraction, M. Poisson was
led to the curious result that the centre of the shadow of a History
small opaque circular disc, exposed to light diverging from i ^
a single point, is as much illuminated by the diffracted light,
as it would be by the direct light if the opaque disc were
removed. By cementing a small metallic disc upon a plate
of pure and homogeneous glass, M. Arago verified this re¬
markable deduction of theory.
In two memoirs read to the Academy of Sciences in Ampere.
1828,6 M. Ampere has made a valuable addition to the theory born 1775.
of Fresnel. By an indirect and not very rigorous process,
M. Fresnel had been led to the equation of the wave sur¬
face;7 but M. Ampere obtained a direct demonstration of
it, deducing the equation in the manner which Fresnel had
merely indicated, and he derived from this equation the
elegant geometrical construction obtained indirectly by
Fresnel.
The undulatory theory of light has been greatly advanced M. Cauchy,
by the researches of M. Cauchy, a French mathematician b?rn
of distinguished eminence. In determining the law of pro- died 1857‘
pagation of a plane wave, he shows that a disturbance ori¬
ginally limited to a given plane will give rise to three pairs
of plane waves with uniform velocities, and parallel to the
original plane, the two waves of each pair moving in oppo¬
site directions, but with equal velocities. He shows that
the separate pairs will move with velocities represented by
the reciprocals of the axes of an ellipsoid, the form of which
is regulated by the position of the plane wave, and the
nature of the system, the absolute displacement of the
molecules being parallel to the direction of these axes.
Hence a system of plane waves superposed at the point
of original disturbance, will be divided into three corre¬
sponding systems, and these will generate by their super¬
position a curved surface of three sheets, each sheet being
touched by all the plane waves of the system. If these
principles are established, it will follow as a necessary con¬
sequence that a single ray of light will he divided into
three polarized rays, one of which will in all cases have
little intensity. M. Cauchy, as Dr Lloyd remarks,8 has not
pointed out the method of discovering this ray, or stated
the precise physical condition on which its existence de¬
pends ; but it “ would seem to arise from the circumstance
that the vibration normal to the wave is not absolutely in¬
sensible, so that the actual vibrations are not accurately
in the plane of the wave.”9 “ The results of M. Cauchy’s Triple re¬
general theory,” continues Dr Lloyd, “embrace and confirm fraction,
those ofFresnel; and the mathematical laws of the propagation
of light are shown to be particular cases of the more gene¬
ral laws of the propagation of vibratory motion in any elastic
medium composed of attracting and repelling molecules.
Considered, however, simply with reference to the theory of
light, the solution given by M. Cauchy cannot, I conceive,
be considered as a complete physical solution. In other
words, the phenomena of light are not connected directly
with any given physical hypothesis, but are shown to be
comprehended in the results of the general theory, in virtue
of certain assumed relations among the constants which
that theory involves. Ifj indeed, we were able to assign
the precise physical meaning of these equations of condi¬
tion, we should have nothing more to desire in the general
theory of light; for these equations must necessarily express
the characteristic properties of the vibrating medium. In
this point of view, their discussion becomes a subject of the
highest interest; and it is probably that the important con¬
clusions, of which we have yet to speak, may in this man¬
ner be confirmed and extended.”
Before quitting this subject, however, we ought to men-
1 Edin. Trans., vol. xi., p. 273; and Lond. and Edin. Phil. Mag., 3d series, vol. i., p. 417.
3 Jahrbuch der Chimie, vol. ix. * Lond. and Edin. Phil. Mag., vol. i., p. 409.
Ann. de Chimie, tom. xxxix.; Moigno’s Repertoire d’Optique Moderne, vol. i., pp. 84, 85.
8 British Assoc., 4th Report, pp. 391, 392,
3 Phil. Trans. 1818, p. 108.
6 Ibid., vol. i., pp. 1, 89, 136, 146.
7 British Assoe., 4th Report, p. 391.
9 See p. 548 (note).
OPT
History, tion that there is an essential difference between the theories
of Fresnel and Cauchy. In the former a ray is said to be
polarized in or parallel to any plane, when the vibrations
of the molecules of either are perpendicular to that line or
plane; whereas, in Cauchy’s theory, a ray is said to be po¬
larized in or parallel to any plane, when the vibrations of
the ether are performed in or parallel to that plane.
Dispersion The inability of the undulatory theory to explain the dis-
of light. persion of light was long one of the few exceptions to its
universal application. Dr Young supposed that the material
particles of bodies are incapable of permanent vibrations;
that these vibrations will retard those of the ether; and
that this retardation will be proportional to their fre¬
quency. Mr Challis, adopting Dr Young’s idea, has en¬
deavoured to explain the manner in which the undulations
of ether within bodies are modified by their material atoms.
He supposes that a sensible reflection takes places at every
interruption of continuity in the medium; and he infers
that the mean effect produced by a retarding cause propor¬
tional to the reflective power of the atoms, will be to make
the condensation corresponding to a given velocity greater
in a certain proportion than in free space, and to diminish
the velocity of propagation in the same proportion. Mr
Airy has more recently endeavoured to remove this diffi¬
culty, by supposing that in refracting media there may be
something depending on time which alters their elasticity,
in the same manner as in air the elasticity is greater with a
quick than with a slow vibration of particles.
An anonymous writer, in an article which appeared in The
Philosophical Magazine, has proposed another hypothesis
for obtaining a difference of elasticity. He supposes that
the ether accumulates itself round the particles of transpa¬
rent media, and forms spheres of a density increasing to¬
wards their centre ; and he infers that a succession of vibra¬
tions, communicated through a medium thus constituted,
will give rise to new vibrations propagated with various
velocities corresponding to those of the different rays in the
spectrum.
The complete removal of this difficulty from the undula¬
tory theory has been effected by the skill of M. Cauchy.
Regarding the sphere of action of the ethereal molecules as
indefinitely small, in comparison with the length of an un¬
dulation, it had been inferred that the velocity of the undu¬
lations must be constant in the same medium ; but this
restriction being removed as a groundless one, M. Cauchy
considered the problem in a more general manner, and
arrived at the result, that there exists a general relation
between the length of the undulations and the velocity with
which they are propagated, or the index of refraction ;
and consequently that rays of different colours will have
different degrees of refrangibility. I his relation is expressed
by an equation involving two arbitrary constants, depending
on the nature of the medium, and determinable by two
values of the index of refraction for two waves of a known
length. The refractive index for waves of other lengths
may then be computed. Professor Powell has done this
for several media,1 whose refractive indices for the fixed
lines in the spectrum have been determined by Fraunhofer,
Rudberg, and himself; but though there is a general coin¬
cidence with the theory, the differences are in some cases
rather inauspicious.2
Mr Airy. In examining the two rays produced by the double re¬
fraction of quartz, Mr Airy was led to a discovery which
we consider as one of the most important in its results, and
one of the most beautiful in its phenomena, that has yet
been made in this branch of optics. The circular polariza¬
tion of the two rays along the axis of quartz had been
I c S. 547
studied by different philosophers, and had been explained History,
by Fresnel with singular ingenuity, on the principles of the
undulatory theory. No attempt, however, had been made
to account for the existence of this property only in the rays
which pass near the axis of the crystal, or to define the
limit where the circular polarization ended, and the plane
polarization commenced. Fresnel, and all who have written
on the subject, seem to have shrunk from this difficulty;
but Mr Airy thought that the two kinds of polarization must
have some connecting link, and by the aid of theory and
experiment he succeeded in discovering it. In place of the
two rays in quartz consisting of plane polarized light, as was
universally believed, Mr Airy has shown that they both
consist of elliptically-polarized light, the greater axis of the
ellipse for the one ray being in the principal plane of the
crystal, and the greater axis of the other perpendicular to
that plane. One of the rays he found to be right-handed
elliptically polarized, and the other left-handed elliptically
polarized. The proportion of the axes of the ordinary ray
is more nearly one of equality than the proportion of the
axes of the extraordinary ray, each proportion being one
of equality when the direction of the ray coincides with
the axis, and becoming more unequal with the inclination,
according to a law not yet discovered. The results cal¬
culated from the theory are in perfect accordance with those
which Mr Airy has obtained from very nice and difficult
experiments; so that we may regard this beautiful and
singular property of the two rays of quartz as perfectly es¬
tablished.
Without knowing of the beautiful experiments of M.
Arago, already referred to, Mr Airy was led to make the
same experiment on the coloured rings formed between a
lens and a metallic reflector, and to draw the same conclusion
from it in favour of the undulatory theory. From a con¬
sideration of the formulae of Fresnel, Mr Airy expected
that if the rings were formed between two substances of
different refractive powers, such as plate-glass and dia¬
mond, the light being polarized perpendicular to the plane
of incidence, they should have a black centre at incidences
less than the polarizing angle of the glass, and greater than
the polarizing angle of the diamond ; while they should have
a white centre at all intermediate angles. These anticipa¬
tions Mr Airy confirmed by experiment; and in the course
of his observations he observed certain peculiarities in the
phenomena, from which he has drawn the following con¬
clusions, viz:—
1. When the angle of incidence is less than the maximum
polarizing angle of the diamond, the nature of its reflection
is similar to that of metallic reflection ; the phase of vibra¬
tion in the plane of reflection being more retarded than
that of vibrations perpendicular to the plane of reflection, but
perhaps by a smaller quantity than in reflection from metals.
2. In the neighbourhood of the polarizing angle, the na¬
ture of the reflection is different from any that has hitherto
been described. The vibrations in the plane of reflection
do not vanish, but on increasing the angle of incidence by
three or four degrees, the phase of vibration is gradually
retarded by about 180°. In the reflection of light whose
vibrations are perpendicular to the plane of reflection, there
is no striking difference between the effects of diamond and
those of glass.
3. For angles of incidence greater than the polarizing
angle there is no sensible difference between the effects of
diamond and those of glass.3
Hitherto the mathematical theory of light owed almost
all its development to the distinguished members of the In¬
stitute of France,—to Malus, Arago, Fresnel, Poisson, and
A rnu. irans. ioou-o/. , . •
2 For a general account of the researches of M. Cauchy, particularly those on metallic refiection, see Prof. Forbes Dissertation in this
work, vol. i., pp. 920, 921; and also Abbe Moigno’s Repertoire, &c., vols. i. ii. and iv. 3 Cambridge Trans. 1832.
548
OPTICS.
History. Cauchy; but it was now destined to receive a powerful
impetus from those eminent members of Trinity College,
Dublin, who have nobly sustained the honour of their
country by their genius and discoveries. In his Essay on
Sir Wm. R. the Theory of Systems of Rays, Sir William R. Hamilton has
Hamilton, given an elegant analytical form to that part of the theory
of Fresnel which relates to the determination of the velocity
and polarization of a plane wave; and he has deduced the
velocity and direction of the ray from that of the wave, and
consequently the form of the wave surface.1 In these re¬
searches Sir W. R. Hamilton was conducted to the disco veiy
of some new geometrical properties of the wave surface.
He found that "this surface has four conoidal cusps at the
extremities of the resultant or optical axes, at each of
which the wave is touched by an infinite number of tan¬
gent planes, forming a tangent cone of the second degree,
while at the extremities of the lines of single-wave velocity
there are four circles of plane contact, in every part of each
of which the wave surface is touched by a single plane.
These cusps and circles, the existence of which does not
seem to have been suspected by Fresnel, have led Sir W.
R. Hamilton to some remarkable theoretical conclusions re¬
specting the laws of refraction in biaxal crystals. To this
Conical re- new property he has given the name of conical refraction,
fraction, because a single ray is refracted into an infinite number,
forming a kind of cone. This conical refraction is of two
kinds, external and internal. In external conical refraction
one internal cusp ray corresponds to an external cone of
rays; and in internal conical refraction, an external ray
incident at an angle corresponding to the line of single¬
wave velocity within, is connected with an internal cone of
rays.2
Dr Lloyd. Sir W. R. Hamilton requested Dr Lloyd of Trinity Col¬
lege, Dublin, to inquire experimentally into the existence
of these two kinds of conical refraction. For this purpose
he selected arragonite, a crystal of great biaxal energy, and
having its optic axes inclined about 20°. It was cut with
parallel faces perpendicular to the line bisecting the two
optic axes. Upon looking at the light of a distant lamp
through the crystal, and in the direction of one of the
optical axes, Professor Lloyd saw a point more luminous
than the space immediately about it, and surrounded by
something resembling a stellar radiation. Hence the direc¬
tion of the optical axes may be determined by this modifi¬
cation of common light. When the adjustment was per¬
fected, and the light transmitted in the exact direction of
the cusp ray, there appeared at first a luminous circle, with
a small dark space in the centre, and in this dark central
space were two bright points, separated by a narrow and
well-defined dark line. These appearances rapidly changed
in shifting the minute aperture next the eye. On examin¬
ing the emergent cone with a plate of tourmaline, Dr
Lloyd was surprised to observe that only one radius of the
circular section vanished in a given position of the tourma¬
line, and that the vanished ray ranged through 360°, while
the tourmaline was turned through 180°. Hence it. follows
that all the rays of the cone are polarized in different planes.
On a more attentive examination of this phenomenon, Dr
Lloyd discovered the remarkable law, “ That the angle be¬
tween the planes of polarization of any two rays of the cone
is half the angle between the plane containing the rays
themselves and the axis.” This law he found to be in per¬
fect accordance with the theory.
The verification of the second kind of conical refraction
Dr Lloyd found to be more difficult. The angle of the
cone of rays which theory indicated should be seen within History,
the crystal when a single external ray corresponding with a
ray refracted along an optical axis, was 1° 55' in arragonite.
The external ray was divided into two, but when the cri¬
tical incidence was gained, after much care in the adjust¬
ment, Dr Lloyd “ at last saw the two rays spread into a
continuous circle, whose diameter was apparently equal to
their former interval.
“ This phenomenon was exceedingly striking. It looked
like a small ring of gold viewed upon a dark ground ; and
the sudden and almost magical change of the appearance
from two luminous points to a perfect luminous ring, con¬
tributed not a little to enhance the interest.
“ The emergent light, in this experiment, being too faint
to be reflected from a screen, I repeated the experiment
with the sun’s light, and received the emergent cylinder
upon a small piece of silver paper. I could detect no sen¬
sible difference in the magnitude of the circular sections at
different distances from the crystal.
“ When the adjustment was perfect, the light of the
entire annulus was white, and of equal intensity through¬
out. But when there was a very slight deviation from the
exact position, two opposite quadrants of the circle ap¬
peared more faint than the other two, and the two pairs
were of complementary colours. The light of the circle
was polarized, according to the law which I had before ob¬
served in the other case of conical refraction. In this in¬
stance, however, the law was anticipated from theory by
Professor Hamilton.”
In addition to these interesting results, Dr Lloyd has
published an account of a new case of interference, in
which the experimental exhibition of the fact is much more
manageable than in the experiment of two slightly inclined
mirrors given by Fresnel. Dr Lloyd causes the light
reflected at an angle of 90° from the surface of a single
piece of plate-glass or a metallic reflector, to interfere with
the direct light that passes parallel to the reflecting surface
and near it. A screen placed on the other side of the
mirror receives the direct and the reflected pencils, which,
meeting under a small angle, after having traversed paths
differing by a small amount, interfere. Dr Lloyd also re¬
ceived the two pencils upon an eye-piece placed at a short
distance from the reflector, and saw a very beautiful sys¬
tem of bands, in every respect similar to one half of the
system formed by the two mirrors in Fresnel’s experiment.
Dr Lloyd has more recently, in 1836 and 1837, com¬
municated to the Royal Irish Academy the results of his
researches on the propagation of light in uncrystallized
media. His object was to simplify and develop that part
of M. Cauchy’s theory which relates to the propagation of
light in an ethereal medium of uniform density, and to ex¬
tend the same theory to the case of the ether inclosed in
uncrystallized substances, taking into account the action of
the internal molecules. In the first part of his memoir Dr
Lloyd has given good reason for concluding that the theory
in its present form is insufficient to explain the pheno¬
mena of light in bodies, and that it becomes necessary to
take into account the action of the material molecules.
In doing this he limits himself to the comparatively simple
case in which the molecules of the ether and the body are
uniformly diffused. In the expression for the velocity of
propagation each term consists of two parts,—one of which
is due to the action of the ether, and the other to that of
the body. “ It is not improbable,” says Dr Lloyd, “ that
there may be bodies for which the first or principal term is
1 The wave surface is a geometrical surface employed to determine the direction and the velocity of reflected and refracted rays. It is
spherical in a singly refracting medium; a double surface, or one of two sheets in a doubly refracting medium ; and a surface of three
sheets, on the supposition that there is. a triple refraction. It has always a centre round which it is symmetrical; and the radii drawn
from this centre in different directions represent the velocities of rays to which they are parallel. (Maccullagh’s Irish Trans., vol. xvii.j
2 Irish Trans., vol. xvii., p. 136. 3 Phil. Trans. 1030, p. 325; or Edin. Jour, of Science, N.S., No. viii., p. 259.
History.
Professor
Maccul-
lagh, born
1809, died
1847.
OPT
nearly nothing, the two parts of which it is composed being
of opposite signs, and nearly equal. In this case the prin¬
cipal part of the expression for the velocity will be that
derived from the second term ; and, if that term be taken
as an approximate value, it will follow that the refractive
index of the substance must be in the sub-duplicate ratio
of the length of the wave nearly. Now, it is remarkable
that this law of dispersion, so unlike anything observed in
transparent media, agrees pretty closely with the results
obtained by Sir David Brewster in some of the metals.
In all these bodies the refractive index (inferred from the
angle of maximum polarization) increases with the length
of the wave. Its value for the red, mean, and blue rays, in
silver, are 3-866, 3-271, 2-824, the ratios of the second and
third to the first being -85 and *73. According^ the law
above given, these ratios should be "88 and *79.”1
We are indebted also to Dr Lloyd for an admirable Ele-
mentari) Treatise on the Wave Theory of Light? and an
excellent history Of the Progress and Present State of
Physical Optics, published in the Fourth Report of the
meeting of the British Association held in Edinburgh,—a
history not less characterized by its candour and truth, and
absence of all national partiality, than by the profound and
accurate knowledge of the subject which it everywhere dis¬
plays. The only cultivator of physical optics to whom Dr
Lloyd has done injustice is himself; and we are glad of the
opportunity which we here enjoy of giving a brief and im¬
perfect account of his original and valuable researches.
It is with no less pleasure that we proceed to give an
account of the optical discoveries of another Irish philoso¬
pher, who, at an early period of life, had placed himself in
a distinguished position both as a mathematician and a
natural philosopher. We have already seen that M. Am¬
pere gave a direct demonstration of Fresnel’s construction
for finding the surface of the wave. His solution, however,
was extremely difficult and complicated. 1 he late Mr James
Maccullagh was led in 1829 to believe, from the simplicity
and elegance of the results, that there must be some simpler
method of arriving at them, and, upon considering the sub¬
ject with attention, he was led to a concise demonstration
of the same theorem, and of some of the other leading
points of Fresnel’s theory. He has demonstrated a geome¬
trical construction for finding the magnitude and direction
of the elastic force arising from a displacement in any
direction, and by his construction, with the aid of a few lem¬
mas, he is immediately led to all the conclusions established
by M. Fresnel. The magnitude and direction of this force
are represented by means of an ellipsoid, having for its
semi-axes the three principal indices of the medium, these
axes coinciding in direction with, and being inversely pro¬
portional to, the axes of Fresnel’s generating ellipsoid.
The properties of the wave surface, and its use in deter¬
mining the directions and velocities of reflected and re¬
fracted rays, seem to have been discovered independently
by Sir W. R. Hamilton, M. Cauchy, and Mr Maccullagh;
and in a paper entitled Geometrical Propositions applied to
the Wave Theory of Light, Mr Maccullagh has applied the
properties of that surface to the geometrical development
of the theory of double refraction.
Hitherto the remarkable laws of the double refraction of
quartz, developed by the successive labours of Arago, Biot,
Fresnel, and Airy, were merely a set of independent facts
unconnected by any theory; but Mr Maccullagh, in a
paper On the Laics of the Double Refraction of Quartz, sent
to the Royal Irish Academy in February 1836, has shown
how they may be explained hypothetically, by introducing
differential coefficients of the third order into the equations
of vibratory motion.
ICS. 549
The theory of the action of the metals upon light hav- History,
ing been long among the desiderata of physical optics, Mr
Maccullagh thought it would be important to represent the
phenomena of elliptic polarization, discovered by Sir David
Brewster, by means of empirical formulae, in a manner
analogous to that employed by Fresnel in the case of total
reflection. Mr Maccullagh has applied his formulae to steel;
and in computing from it the intensity of light reflected
when common light is used, he obtained the remarkable
result, that the intensity decreases very slowly up to a large
angle of incidence (less that 75°), and then increases up to
90°, where there is total reflection. This result entirely
accords with the remarkable fact discovered by Mr Potter,3
that the intensity decreases with the angle of incidence as
far as 70°. Mr Maccullagh conceives that experiment
alone can decide whether the subsequent increase indi¬
cates a real phenomenon, or arises from an error in the em¬
pirical formulae.
Mr Maccullagh deduces also from his formulae the phe¬
nomenon observed by Mr Airy in the diamond ; and he
has applied it successfully to the phenomena discovered by
M. Arago respecting the rings formed between a trans¬
parent and a metallic surface. In this experiment Mr Mac¬
cullagh and Dr Lloyd have both discovered a curious ap¬
pearance unnoticed by any other author. Through the last
twenty or thirty degrees of incidence, the first dark ring
surrounding the central spot, which is comparatively bright,
remains constantly of the same magnitude, though the other
rings dilate greatly by an increase of incidence.
Hitherto the undulatory theory had been unable to give
any explanation of the variation of the polarizing angle,
when the light was reflected in different azimuths from
calcareous spar, and other doubly-refracting surfaces. Mr
Maccullagh, however, was induced to exercise his mathe¬
matical skill on this interesting subject; and so early as
1834 he communicated to Dr Lloyd an expression for the
angle of polarization at the surface of crystallized media,
when the plane of reflection coincides with the principal
section of Fresnel’s ellipsoid; and he found that the law,
which he extended by analogy to all cases, represented
with much exactness the observations of Sir David Brewster.4
In a subsequent paper On the Laxvs of Reflection from
Crystallized Surfaces? he has explained the principles upon
which his formula is founded. He was obliged to adopt
the view of Cauchy, that the vibrations of polarized light
are parallel to its plane of polarization, and being embar¬
rassed by his third i*ay, he altered Cauchy s six equations of
pressure, so as to make them afford only two rays, and give
a law of refraction exactly the same as Fresnel’s.
It appears, from a subsequent paper of Mr Maccullagh’s,8
that M. Seebeck7 had solved the same problem long be-
fore>—namely, in the case where the plane of incidence co¬
incides with the principal section of the crystal,—and had
confirmed its accuracy by experiment. M. Seebeck had
also pointed out a defect in Mr Maccullagh’s formulae
Nos. 2 and 3, which induced the latter to resume the sub¬
ject ; and in a new paper, read to the Irish Academy on
the 9th January 1837, a solution of the following problem
is given for the first time :—“ Supposing a ray of light,
polarized in a given plane, to fall on a doubly-refracting^
crystal, it is required to find the plane of polarization of
the reflected ray, and the proportion between the ampli¬
tudes of vibration in the incident, the reflected, and the two
refracted rays.” The hypotheses employed by our author
are these, viz.,—
1. The density of the ether is the same in all media.
2. The vibrations are parallel to the plane of polarization.
3. The vis viva is preserved.
   i rr „ r, a „,i;t;r.n rmndon 1857. 3 Edin. Jour, of Science, N.S., No. 4.
1 P^oTLToTd’s^epJt'on Physical Optics,” in the ^ 1836, No. 6.
6 Lond. and Edin. Phil. Mag., vol. vm., p. 103. VOi- *•> P- *
550
History.
OPTICS.
4. The vibrations are preserved; that is, the resultant
of the incident and reflected vibrations are the same as the
resultant of the refracted vibrations. “ This theory,” says
the author, “ represents very accurately the experiments of
Sir David Brewster and M. Seebeck on the light reflected
in air from a surface of Iceland spar.”
We owe also to Mr Maccullagh some interesting views
respecting the nature of the light transmitted by the diamond
and by gold-leaf. He conceives that there is a change of
phase produced by refraction, as well as by reflection, from
these bodies, the change being different according as the
light is polarized in the plane of incidence, or perpendicular
to it. If the incident ray, therefore, is polarized in any
intermediate plane, the refracted ray should be elliptically
polarized, which was found to be the case in gold-leaf. He
conceived that the same remark explains the appearance of
double refraction in specimens of the diamond which give
only a single image, and that other precious stones are likely
to have similar properties. Our author has obtained a
general formula for the difference of phase between the two
component portions of the refracted light,—one polarized in
the plane of incidence, and the other perpendicular to it.
He finds from this formula, that the difference of phase,
which is nothing at a perpendicular incidence, increases
until it becomes equal to the characteristic, at an incidence
of 90°; and when the light emerges into air, the difference
of phase is doubled.
The science of physical optics has been recently cul¬
tivated with great success by several distinguished mem¬
bers of the Academy of Sciences, and by other eminent
individuals in Paris—by MM. Babinet, Senarmont, Jamin,
Foucault, Fizeau, Becquerel, and Pasteur.
M.Babinet. The researches of M. Babinet are so numerous and
varied that the narrow limits of this article will not
permit us to give any detailed account of them. His
memoirs on circular double refraction and polarization, on
the rainbow and optical phenomena of the atmosphere,
on the effect of heat upon the polarized rays in crystals,
on dichroism and the absorption of polarized light by
crystals, and his discovery of the neutral point, or the
point without polarization, above the sun, to which his
name is attached, place him on a high level among optical
discoverers.1 *
The science of physical optics has received many im¬
portant additions from the labours of M. Senarmont. In
an interesting memoir published in the Annales de Chimie?
on the reflection of light, he has given new methods3 of
studying rectilineal and elliptical polarization, as exhibited
in the reflection of light from transparent uncrystallized
bodies, from uncrystallized bodies possessing metallic
opacity, from transparent crystallized bodies, and from
crystallized bodies possessing metallic opacity. He has
also demonstrated that all the phenomena of reflection at
the surfaces of bodies possessing metallic opacity are
analogous to those at the surface of transparent crystallized
bodies, and that they establish the existence of double
refraction in crystals essentially opaque. In two interesting
memoirs on the conductibility of crystallized bodies for
heat,4 * * he has shown that, in general, heat is conducted by
bodies according to laws almost identical with those by
which light is propagated.
The experiments of M. Senarmont <eon the artificial
M. Senar-
mont.
production of dichroism or polychroism in crystallized History,
substances,” are exceedingly interesting. Having made a
concentrated tincture of Campeachy wood, rendered purple
by some drops of ammonia, he introduced it by absorption
into crystals of nitrate of strontian, and upon transmitting
a pencil of white light through a prism of the crystal, “ the
'phenomena were perfectly characteristic of polychroism in
crystals with two optical axes, and absolutely similar to
those observed by Sir David Brewster in cordierite (tolite
or dichroite), and which M. Haidinger afterwards found
in the andalousite of Brazil''b Other colouring matters
introduced into other crystallized salts produced the same
phenomena in different degrees. The colouring matter of
amethyst, which Sir David Brewster found to exist between
the two strata of opposite rotations, has obviously been
deposited during the formation of the crystal in the same
manner as the colouring matter in dichroitic minerals. The
latest memoir of M. Senarmont with which we are
acquainted is entitled Researches on Double Refraction?
in which he proposes to derive the laws of double refraction
from a graphical representation of the iris or coloured band
which exists at the confines of total reflection in uncrys¬
tallized bodies, but which becomes a circular coloured
aperture with the two pencils formed in doubly-refracting
crystals. In the same manner as the phenomenon of total
reflection is a demonstrative proof of Snellius’ law of the
sines in simple refraction, so will the phenomena of total
reflection, as exhibited by doubly-refracting pencils, be as
conclusive a proof of the laws of double refraction.
Among the living cultivators of physical optics, M. M. Jamin.
Jamin of Paris has obtained a distinguished place. His
discoveries are contained in four memoirs: on metallic
reflection,7 on the colours of metals,8 on the reflection of
light by transparent bodies, and on the double refraction
and polarization of quartz. By means of the formulae of
Cauchy, M. Jamin has computed the colours of metals at
angles of incidence near the perpendicular for one and for
ten reflections, and he has found the theory in perfect
accordance with experiment. Sir David Brewster had
observed that bodies of high refractive power, such as
diamond, realgar, and chromate of lead, do not polarize at
any angle the whole of the incident light. This incomplete
polarization M. Jamin discovered in nearly all transparent
bodies. He found also that, with a few exceptions, they
convert plane-polarized intoelliptically-polarizedlight: these
exceptions are menilite and alum cut perpendicularly to the
axis of the octahedron.
Our limits will not permit us, in this part of our article,
to give any account of the discoveries of M. Pasteur on M. Pasteur,
circular polarization ; of M. Becquerel on phosphorescence M. Bec-
in relation to the different parts of the spectrum; of the querel.
fine experiment of MM. Foucault and Fizeau on the ^'uft°u*
velocity of light in media of different densities; of the M^pizefui
interesting researches and inventions of Plateau in reference m. Plateau,
to vision ; of the analysis by Mosotti of the spectra produced M. Mosotti.
by gratings; of M. Haidinger’s observations on double M. Haid-
reflection and pleochroism, and his method of determining inger.
by the eye alone the direction of the plane of polarization;
and of the important discoveries of Professor Stokes Stokes,
respecting the nature of internal dispersion (to which he
has given the name offluorescence'), and a supposed change
in the refrangibility of light.
1 ^.e C°mptes Rendus, &c., tom. iv., and the Abbe Moigno’s Repertoire d’Optique Moderne, toms. i. and iv. passim, for an account
of M. Babinet’s labours.
s Tom. xx., 3d series.
In one of these methods M. Senarmont employs a double plate of quartz with opposite rotations. The Abbe Moigno regrets that
he has not mentioned M. Soleil as “ the inventor of this ingenious apparatus.” The apparatus in a more perfect form—namely, as exist¬
ing in a ‘ingle plate of amethyst—was described by Sir David Brewster in the Edin. Trans. 1819, vol. ix., p. 150. long before it was pro¬
posed by M. Soleil. > ^ r > o r
, df Chimie, &c., tom. xxi. xxii. xxiii., 1847-1851. An important memoir by M. Senarmont on the optical properties of
( * s? re ra^inS crystals will be found in the same journal, 3d series, tom. xxxiii., p. 391, and another on the optical properties of micas.
7 rptel n *' &Ck’,23d Jan- 1854> tom- P- 504. « Ibid., 21st Jan. 1856, tom. xlii., p. 65.
Ann. de Chimie et Physique. 8 Comptes Rendus, &c., tom. xxv., p.714; ibid., tom. xxx., p. 99.
OPTICS.
551
Introduc- Although more intimately connected with the history of
tion. Photography,1 we cannot omit to notice the new and
remarkable property of light recently discovered by M.
M. Niepce Niepce de St Victor, commandant of the Louvre, to whom
de St Vic- the photographic art is under the deepest obligations.
This new property or new action of light is finely exhibited
in the following experiment:—“I expose,” he says, “to
the sun’s light a sheet of card-board strongly impregnated
with two or three applications of a solution of tartaric acid,
or nitrate of uranium; after insulation, I cover with card¬
board the interior of a long and narrow tube of white iron,
and after sealing the tube hermetically, I find that after a
very long lapse of time, the card-board ‘ impressions’ paper
rendered sensible by the muriate of silver. The maximum
effect is obtained in twenty-four hours, when the air is at its
ordinary temperature; but if, after projecting into the tube
some drops of water to moisten slightlythe card-board,we again
shut up the tube and expose it to a temperature of 40° or 50°
(centigrade, we presume), and subsequently open its mouth,
and place upon it a sheet of sensitive paper, we shall in a
fewr minutes obtain a circular image of its mouth as strong
as if the sensitive paper had been exposed to the sun.” A
simpler experiment, in which the same action is shown, is
thus described by its author:—“ Expose to the light of the Introduc-
sun, or even to diffused daylight, an engraving, and then tion-
place it above a sheet of sensitive paper prepared with
muriate of silver. A copy of the engraving will be ob¬
tained in the same manner as if the paper and engraving
had been exposed to the light of the sun.”
The intensity of the “persistent activity” thus exhibited
by light after it has been imprisoned or laid up (emmaga-
sinee) in paper or card-board, is more or less strong
according to the nature of the substance, the time of ex¬
posure, and the state of the atmosphere. “ A body rendered
active” (that is, in which the light is actively persistent)
“ by insulation, will transmit this activity by contact in the
dark to another body, such as tartaric acid.”1 If light is
simply motion, it is difficult to understand how it can main¬
tain its motion in the card-board till it gives itself out and im¬
pressions sensitive paper ; or if its motion is extinct, how it
can recover its state of motion from a state of rest. What¬
ever opinion we entertain of the theories of light, it seems
quite clear that in its action on bodies there is a material
agency different from that of simple motion. The ether
itself may be a compound body consisting of, or containing,
all the elements of matter.
Light.
OPTICS.
Having thus given a condensed sketch of the history of optical discovery from the earliest to the present times, we shall
now proceed to the proper subject of this article. As the nature of this work requires that the subject be treated in a very
popular manner, we shall pass briefly over those branches of Optics which are generally treated mathematically, and which
occupy a prominent part in all ordinary treatises, and occupy our limited space with the more interesting departments of
Chromatics, Physical Optics, the Double Refraction and Polarization of Light, the Explanation of Natural Phenomena, the
Laws of Vision, and the Construction of Optical Instruments.
INTRODUCTION.
The ancients confounded the phenomena of vision with
those of light, by supposing that when we see external
objects something passes from the eye to the object. The
phenomena of light, however, are totally independent of
those of vision, and have a real existence in nature, whether
we suppose them to be objects of vision or not.
1. Light is the element by means of which we see ex¬
ternal bodies. These bodies may be divided, in reference
to light, into two classes, self-luminous and non-luminous,
or dark bodies. The first class includes the sun, the stars,
flames of all kinds, and bodies which become luminous by
friction, heat, and electrical and magnetical action. Such
bodies become visible by the light which they themselves
emit, and we then obtain a knowledge of their apparent
form. The sun, for example, is seen to be round, and the
flame of a candle to be of a conical shape. The second
class of bodies, however, are never visible but when placed
in the light of self-luminous bodies. It includes the moon
and all the primary and secondary planets, of which we see
only those portions upon which the sun’s light directly falls,
and all the other objects upon our own glpbe. When we
bring a lighted candle into a room, its light falls upon all
the objects in the apartment, and they become visible.
These bodies reflect or throw back the light of the candle,
and they scatter it in all directions, because they are, gene¬
rally speaking, visible wherever we place our eye. But
objects also become visible by the light thrown off by non-
luminous bodies. When the moon has the form of a sharp
crescent, we see the obscure part of her circular disc by the
light thrown upon her from the earth, which is at that time
almost fully illuminated by the sun. In like manner in the
room lighted with a candle, objects are seen in corners and
places upon which the light of the candle does not fall.
These objects, however, are illuminated by the light of the
candle thrown back by the white ceiling and walls of the
apartment; and hence the reason why the ceilings of
apartments should always be white, and why the walls should
be as white as possible, if we wish to obtain the greatest
quantity of light from a given flame.
2. The light thrown off from all bodies, whether self-
luminous or non-luminous, if it has entered the body, is of
the same colour as themselves. A red-hot body, or a stick
of red sealing-wax, will make a sheet of white paper appear
red if held near them. Light reflected from the surface of
coloured bodies is white.
3. But though coloured bodies throw off light of the
same colour with themselves, bodies do not appear of the
same colour as that of the light which falls upon them.
All bodies which are white in white light appear of the
same colour as that of the light which falls upon them ;
but other bodies, such as red wax, appear red even in white
light, a property which they derive from a peculiar struc¬
ture acting upon the different colours of which white light
is composed. Bodies of this kind, when illuminated with
lights of different colours, always appear brightest in light
of the same colour which they exhibit in white light. Thus
a stick of yellow wax is more luminous than a stick of red
wax, but the yellow wax will be less luminous than the red
wax if we illuminate them both with red light.
4. Bodies, in their relation to light, are divided into two
classes—opaque and transparent. An opaque body is one
that stops the light that falls upon it, such as a piece of
coal, or a plate of silver; and a transparent body is one
which transmits the light through it, such as glass, water,
and air. The most opaque body, hoover, may be made
transparent by making it sufficiently thin, and the most
transparent one may become opaque by making it suffi¬
ciently thick.
5. The opacity of bodies, or their power of intercepting
light, gives rise to what is called the shadows of bodies.
As the shadows of bodies are of the same form as the bodies,
we thence deduce the fundamental optical fact, that light
moves in straight lines. The same fact may be proved in
a thousand ways, but most simply by placing three small
1 See Professor Forbes’ Dissertation, art. 569.
8 See Comptes Rendus, &c., 1st March 1858, tom. xlvi., p. 448.
552
OPTICS.
Introduc- holes in a straight line. In this case the light will pass
tion. through them, but if any one of them deviates from the
straight line, the light will be stopped. 1 he same thing is
finely seen, without any experiment, by admitting light into
a dark room through a narrow circular aperture. Its path,
marked out by the floating dust which it illuminates, will
be seen to be a straight line.
6. Light issues or radiates in every direction and xiom
every point in the surface of luminous and visible bodies.
This fact is proved by the circumstance, that we see such
bodies wherever we place our eye. However much we
may magnify the bright part of the sun s disc through a
telescope, or a sheet of white paper through a microscope,
we shall never see any points destitute of light.
7. Light consists of separate and independent parts,
which, when reduced to the smallest magnitude, are called
rays of light. A beam of light transmitted into a dark
room may be actually divided into smaller portions in a
variety of ways. The smallest portion that we can allow
to pass may be called a ray of light, and possesses the same
properties as the larger beam.
8. Light moves at the rate of 192,000 miles in a second.
This extraordinary property of light has been deduced by
direct calculation from the immersions and emersions in
eclipses of Jupiter’s satellites, which become visible to us
nearly a quarter of an hour earlier when the earth is nearest
Jupiter than when it is farthest from that planet. The
exact velocity of light obtained in this manner is 192,500
miles in a second; whereas Dr Brinkley and M. Struve
have found it to be 191,515 miles in a second, from the
phenomena of aberration; or 191,500, if we take 20 '36,
which is the most recent measure of the constant of aber¬
ration.1 This last determination is undoubtedly the most
correct.
By a beautiful experiment, M. Fizeau has recently found
that the velocity of the light of a lamp is 196,000 miles.
The velocity with which light travels is so inconceivable,
that we require to make it intelligible by some illustrations.
It moves from the sun to the earth in 7^ minutes, whereas
a cannon-ball fired from the earth would require seventeen
years to reach the sun.
Light moves through a space equal to the circumference
of the earth, or about 25,000 miles in about the eighth part
of a second. The swiftest bird would require three weeks
to perform this journey.
Light would demonstrably require jive years to move
from the nearest fixed star to the earth, and probably many
thousand years from the most remote star seen by the tele¬
scope. Hence if a remote visible star had been created at
the time of the creation of man, it may not yet have be¬
come visible to our system.
9. When light falls upon any body, whether rough or
smooth, coloured or uncoloured, a part of the incident light
enters the body, and is either lost within it or transmitted
through it; and part of it is reflected from its surface, either
in the same or in a different direction from that in which it
came. The light which enters the body and is lost, the
light which is transmitted through the body, and the light
which is reflected from it, suffer certain changes in its
direction and in its physical properties. It belongs to the
geometrical or mathematical part of optics to assign the
laws which regulate the change of direction which light
experiences when it is transmitted through, or reflected
from bodies whose density is uniform, and whose surfaces
have a geometrical form ; and to physical optics, to explain
the changes in the physical properties which light acquires
in passing through bodies, in passing near them, or in being
reflected from their surfaces.
The laws which regulate the reflection of light constitute Catoptrics,
that branch of optics which is called Catoptrics, and the
laws which regulate the changes of deviation which light
experiences when transmitted through bodies is called
Dioptrics.
Part I.—CATOPTRICS, OR THE REFLECTION
OF LIGHT.
The word catoptrics (derived from the Greek words Kara,
from, and oTrro/xai, to see) signifies that department of optics Catoptrics,
which treats of the reflection of light from the polished and
regularly-formed surfaces of bodies, such as water, glass,
and the metals.
The name of speculum or mirror has commonly been
given to bodies that have regularly-formed and highly-
polished surfaces. The word speculum is generally applied
to polished metals, and mirrors to reflectors made of glass
and covered with an amalgam of tin and mercury, or with
a coating of pure silver, in order to increase their power
of reflecting light.
There are four kinds of specula used in optics, namely,
plane, convex, concave, and cylindrical, and when light falls
upon any of these specula, which we shall always consider
to be formed of polished metal, it is reflected according to
the same law.
Fig. 2.
General Law of Deflection.
Let AD (fig. 2) be a ray of light which falls upon a
plane speculum MN, and strikes it
at the point D, this ray will be
driven back in the direction DB,
so inclined to the original ray AD,
that if we raise from the point D a
line DE perpendicular to MN, the
angle BDE will be equal to the
angle ADE. The ray AD is called the incident ray, DB
the reflected ray, ADE the angle of incidence, and DBE
the angle of reflection. The two rays AD, DB, and the
perpendicular DE, all lie in the same plane AEBD. This
plane is sometimes called the plane of incidence, and some¬
times the plane of reflection, and it is always at right angles
to the reflecting surface MN.
When the reflecting surface is concave, as MN in fig. 3,
and is part of a sphere, whose centre
is C, a ray of light AD, falling upon
any point D, will be reflected in a
direction DB, so as to form the same
angle BDC, with a line CD drawn ^
from the centre of the sphere to the
point of incidence D, that the inci¬
dent ray AD does, viz., the angle
ADC. In this case the line DC is perpendicular to the
reflecting surface at D.
When the speculum is convex, as in K
fig. 4, and C the centre of its spherical
surface, then if we draw CE, passing
through any point D of the spherical
surface MN, any ray of light AD, inci¬
dent at D, will, after reflection, take a
direction DB, having the same inclination
BDE to DE that the incident ray AD
has. In this case also the prolonged ra¬
dius of curvature CE is perpendicular to
the surface MN at D.
When the surface is cylindrical, the form of the reflecting
line, or the line lying in the plane of reflection, is a circle
in one direction, a straight line in another, and an ellipse
Fig. 3.
Fig. 4.
1 See Aberration, vol. ii.
OPTICS.
553
Catoptrics, in all intermediate ones; but in every case the reflected
v—/ ray will take such a direction that the angle which it
forms with a line perpendicular to a plane touching the
cylinder at the point where the ray strikes it, will be equal to
the angle which the incident ray forms with the same per¬
pendicular. This is true of all curved surfaces whatever.
The results now stated have been established by direct
experiment for all inclinations of the incident ray; so that
it is a law universally true, that in the reflection of light
the angle of incidence is equal to the angle of reflection.
Hence it follows that when the incident ray is perpendicular
to any surface, it is reflected back in the direction in which
it came; and when the incident ray is parallel to the re¬
flecting surface (when plane), or is inclined 90° to it, it will
pass on without suffering any change in its direction.
By means of the law of reflection we can easily deter¬
mine, even without any calculation, the effects produced
upon light by specula and mirrors, and the shape, and mag¬
nitude, and position of the images of all objects seen by
reflection from them. These effects we shall now proceed
to consider in their order.
Definitions.—Parallel rays are those which are parallel
or equidistant, as AD, A'D' (fig. 5).
Diverging rays are those which issue or diverge from
a point, and separate from each other, forming an angle, as
AD, AD', AD" (fig. 6).
Converging rays are those which converge to a point, or
approach to one another, as AD, A'D', A''D,' (fig. 7).
Sect. I.—On the Reflection of Rays from Plane,
Concave, and Convex Mirrors.
Deflection from Plane Mirrors.
Reflection of Parallel Rays.—When parallel rays AD,
A'D' fall upon a plain speculum MN at the points D, D', they
will preserve their paral¬
lelism after reflection.
Drawing the perpendi¬
culars DE, D'E', make
the angles of reflection
EDB, E'D'B' equal to
the angles of incidence
ADE, A'D'E', and it will be found that DB is parallel to
D'B.' If the space between AD, A'D' be supposed to be
filled up with other rays parallel to AD, the space between
DB and D'B' will also be filled up with parallel rays.
Hence a beam of parallel rays ADD'A' will be reflected
into the parallel beam BDD'B', the latter being the same
as the former, but inverted. If the inverted beam suffers
another reflection from another mirror, parallel to MN, it
will be restored to a position exactly parallel to ADD'A',
and no longer inverted.
Reflection of Diverging J?a7/s—When diverging rays,
AD, AD’, AD", fall upon a speculum MN, they will be
reflected in directions
DB, DB', D'B",
found by making the
angles BDE, BPD'E',
B"D"E" respectively
equal to ADE, AD’E',
AD"E"; and the re¬
flected rays being con¬
tinued back till they
meet, they will be
found to meet at a ris-6-
point A', so that the line AA' is at right angles to MN,
and AN equal to AN. Hence the rays will have the same
divergency after reflection as before it, and as if they came
from A', the reflected beam being inverted, as in the pre¬
ceding case.
VOL. XVI.
Reflection of Converging Rays.—When converging rays Catoptrics
AD, A'D', A"D", fall . ’ v '
upon a speculum MN,
they will converge
after reflection to a
point B', so situated
that if BB' is at right
angles to MN, B'M
will be equal to BM.
The reflected rays,
DB', D'B', D'B', will
be found by making
the angles EDB', E'D'B', E''D"B', respectively equal to
the angles of incidence, ADE, A'D’E', A''D"E''.
Fig. 7.
Reflection from Concave Mirrors.
Reflection of Parallel Rays.—Let MN (fig. 8) be a
concave mirror whose centre of concavity is C, and let
parallel rays, AD, A'D',  J
A"D", fall upon the
mirror, the central ray
AD passing through dB  ~tk-
the centre C. From  
C draw the lines CD', //'' n
CD". Then since CD'
is perpendicular to the Fig. s.
mirror at D', the ray A'D' will be reflected in the direc¬
tion D'F, so that the angle of reflection CD'F is equal to
the angle of incidence CD'A. In like manner, the ray
A"D" will be reflected to F, and the central ray AD will be
reflected back to F also ; all intermediate rays being like¬
wise reflected to F.
If the curvature of MN is not deep, and if the points
D', D" are taken near D, it will be found by making the
angles of reflection equal to the angles of incidence, that
the rays all meet accurately at F, which is called the focus
of the mirror for parallel rays, or its 'principal focus. This
focus is in all mirrors exactly half-way between the centre
C and the surface of the mirror.
The point F derives its name of focus from its being the
burning point of a mirror, or the point where the parallel
rays issuing from the sun are most condensed, and therefore
occasion the most powerful heat.
Reflection of Diverging Rays.—Let AD, AD', AD" (fig.
9) be diverging rays issuing from A and falling upon the
mirror MN, whose centre is C, and principal focus O.
Then if we make the angles of reflection equal to the angles
of incidence, as in the last case, we shall find that the rays
will be reflected to a point F, between the centre C of the
mirror, and its principal focus O. If the radiant point A is
removed from the mirror, and the rays fall on the same
points of it, it is manifest that the incident rays will be re¬
moved farther from the perpendiculars CD', CD"; and con¬
sequently the reflected rays which meet at F will also be
removed farther from them. Hence F will approach to O ;
and when A is infinitely distant, and the rays parallel, F
will coincide with O. But if A approaches to the mirror,
the incident rays will approach to the perpendiculars ; and
as the reflected rays will do the same, their point of con¬
course F will approach to C. When A reaches C, the
focus F will also reach C, and the reflected ray will coincide
with the incident ray.
554 OPT
Catoptrics. If A still advances towards the mirror, the incident rays
will get within the perpendicular, and therefore the reflected
rays will be without it, and their point of concourse F will
advance from C outwards, in proportion as the radiant point
advances from C inwards. When A reaches the principal
focus O, the reflected rays will be parallel, as seen in fig. 8;
and when A comes still nearer the mirror, the reflected
rays will diverge, as if they proceeded from some point be¬
hind the mirror, this point being called the virtual or ima¬
ginaryof such rays.
In all the preceding cases the point A, from which the
rays issue, and the point F, where they are collected by
reflection, are called conjugate foci, because if we make A
the radiant point, F will be the focus; if we make F the
radiant point, A will be the focus.
The conjugate foci of a concave mirror may be easily
found by projection. The following rule will give the focus
more accurately when the rays A'D', A"D'' are not far from
the central one AD. Multiply the distance of the radiant
point from the mirror, or AD, by the radius CD, and divide
this product by the difference between double the distance
AD and the radius CD, and the quotient will be the conju¬
gate focal distance required, or FD. If twice AD is less than
CD, the conjugate focal point will not be before the mirror,
but behind it, the focus being in that case a virtual one.
Reflection of Converging Rays.—Let AD, A'D', A"D"
(fig. 10) be rays converging to a point a behind the mirror
make the angles of reflection CD/, CD/respectively equal
to the angles of incidence A'D'C, A"D"C; and D/ D'/will
be the reflected rays having their focus at f between the
mirror and its principal focus F. If the point of conver¬
gence a of the rays, or the conjugate focus, approaches to
the mirror, the other conjugate focus f will also approach to
it; and if it recedes from the mirror, the focus f will also
recede, reaching F when a is infinitely distant, in which
case A'D', A"D" are parallel, as in fig. 8. The following is
the rule for finding the conjugate foci when one of them is
given :—
Multiply the distance of the point of convergence from
the mirror, or aD, by the radius of the mirror, or CD, and
divide this product by the sum of double the distance «D
and the radius CD, and the quotient will be the conjugate
focal distance required—namely, /D—the focus / being in
front of the mirror.
Reflection from Convex Mirrors.
Reflection of Parallel Rays.—Let parallel rays AD,
AD', A"D7 (fig. 11) be incident upon the convex mirror
MN, whose centre
is C. Draw the
perpendiculars CE,
C E' passing through
D' and D", and c
making the angles
of reflection ED'B,
E'D 'B' equal to the
angles of incidence
A'D'E, A"D"E'; the
reflected rays will be D'B, D"B', whose virtual focus F is
behind the mirror, and so situated that FD is equal to FC.
ICS.
Reflection of Diverging Rays.—If we suppose the rays Catoptric*.
AA'A" to diverge from any point in the line or axis AD,
they will recede from CE, CE'; consequently the reflected
rays D'B', D"B' will recede also ; that is, will become more
divergent, as if they came from a focus between F and D,
the virtual focus approaching to D as the radiant point A
approaches to D.
Reflection of Converging Rays.—In like manner, if the
rays AA'A" widen at A—that is, converge to some point
behind the mirror MN—they will approach to CE and CE',
so that the reflected rays D'B, D"B" will also approach to
CE, CE', and consequently diverge less, or have their virtual
focus between F and C. When the converging rays coin¬
cide with CE, CE', they will be reflected back in the direc¬
tion in which they came, having C for their virtual focus.
When the converging rays pass CE, CE', the reflected rays
will also pass to the opposite side, and converge less after
reflection, having their virtual focus beyond C. When they
converge to F, the reflected rays will be parallel, as in fig.
11, where we may suppose BD', B'D" the incident, and
D'A', D"A" the reflected rays. When the rays converge
to a point between F and D, the reflected rays will con¬
verge to a point in the axis; and as the point of convergency
of the incident rays approaches to F on the one side, the
point of convergency of the reflected rays will approach to
it on the other.
It would have been easy, by the simplest elements of
geometry, to have demonstrated the preceding truths ; but
the demonstration would have been rigorous only when the
rays fell upon the mirror at points infinitely near D in the
axis AD. By finding from projection the foci of rays of
all kinds, and falling upon the mirror at all degrees of
obliquity, the reader will acquire more substantial knowledge
of the subject than he can do either from geometrical or
algebraic demonstrations. The same observation is appli¬
cable to the results obtained in the following section.
Sect. II.—On the Formation of Images by Apertures,
and by Plane, Concave, Convex, and Cylindrical
Mirrors.
Formation of Images by Apertures.—In optics an image
is a luminous resemblance or picture of any object what¬
ever, formed either on a white ground, such as a sheet of
paper, or seen through ground glass, or suspended in the air.
In order to understand how images are formed, let us
suppose that a soldier is standing on the outside of an open
window (fig. 12), with a redcoat and blue trousers, strongly
illuminated by the sun. The white wall WW opposite the
window is illuminated by all the light which enters the
window, the blue light of the sky, the green foliage, the red
coat, and the blue trowsers, so that it has no distinct colour,
but a mixture of all these. If ^ve close the shutters SS, so as
to allow no light to fall upon the wall but the red light of the
coat and the blue light of the trowsers, it will be illuminated
only by a mixture of red and blue light. But if we close
the shutters completely, and leave only a small hole A, about
OPTICS.
555
Catoptrics, half an inch in diameter, then it is obvious that the red
W^rays at and below R, passing through the hole A wdl
illuminate the opposite wall at and above ^ with raZ lig it,
and the blue rays the opposite point at and below b with
blue light; and that no red light can fall upon b and no
blue light upon r. Hence we shall have the rerf body of
the soldier rudely shadowed out at and above r, and his blue
legs at and below b, this small image being inverted, because
the rays from the upper part of his body fall upon the lower
part of the wall, and the rays from the lower part of his body
upon the upper part of the wall. If we make the hole A
smaller and smaller, the inverted image of the soldier will
become more and more distinct, the colours will be better
separated, and the picture may be made so distinct, that the
features of the individual could be recognised. Now this
separation of the various lights that at first fell upon the wall
is effected solely by diminishing the aperture through
which they pass; for if the aperture is exceedingly small,
then as two rays cannot proceed from the same point of the
object, they cannot fall upon or illuminate the same point of
the image, and hence each point of the object is represented
on the wall by the colour of the light which it throws out.
As the coloured rays from the soldier are thrown off in
all directions, an inverted image of that soldier may be
formed in any part of space, by excluding all the other
rays except those which pass through a small aperture. It
is manifest, from a simple inspection of fig. 12, that the
' size of the inverted image will diminish not only with the
distance of the aperture from the soldier, but also with the
distance of the wall W W from the aperture.
Formation of Images by Concave Mirrors.—1 he effect
of a concave mirror in forming an image is the same as that
of an aperture, but it produces a finer effect, and acts upon
a different principle.
From the doctrine of reflected diverging rays it follows, Catoptrics,
and may be proved by projection, that as the object MN ' * ^
approaches to the mirror, the image mn will recede fiom
the mirror, till the object and image meet one another at
the centre C, where they will have the same size. If MN
still moves towards the mirror within C> the image mn will
move outwards beyond C, and the image will now be
larger than the object. If the object comes to the place
mn, and is of the same size as mn, the image of it will be
formed at MN, and will have the same size as MN. it the
obiect goes still nearer the mirror, the image will go still
farther off than MN, increasing in size. When the object
reaches the principal focus half-way betweeh C and 1), tie
image will be infinitely distant; and when the object goes
still nearer the mirror, as in fig. 14, where it is placed at
MN, between the principal focus F and the mirror Ai>,
Fig. 13.
Let AB (fig. 13) be a concave mirror, C its centre, and
MN an object placed before it. Of all the rays which flow
from every part of this object in every direction, we shall
consider only those which issue from its1 extremities M,N.
The rays from M radiate in every direction, but those which
fall upon the mirror, namely, the pencil or cone MAB, are
the only ones which require our notice. This pencil ot
diverging rays will have its focus at a point m farther from
the mirror than its principal focus, and in like manner the
pencil NAB will have its focus at some point n, pencils
intermediate between M and N having their foci at points
intermediate between m and n. These points may be found
by projection, as already described, or by the rule given for
diverging rays. ,
The image mn is obviously an inverted picture ot tne
object MN, and its size is to that of the object as the dis¬
tance of the image from the mirror is to the distance of the
object from it, that is, as wA is to NA, as may be found
from projection, or from an experimental measurement of
the distance, when a mirror is actually used.
Fig. 14.
the rays will diverge in front of the mirror, and foi m an in¬
verted virtual image, mn, behind the mirror. As the image
MN approaches the mirror, the virtual image mn also ap¬
proaches to it. . . i
If we take a concave mirror of some size, and place
before it any highly luminous or strongly-illuminated object,
such as a plaster-of-Paris cast, we may obtain an interest¬
ing experimental proof of the preceding results. When the
image is formed in front of the mirror, it will appear sus¬
pended in the air, and the effect of this will be greatly
heightened if it is received on a cloud of thin blue smoke
raised from a chafing-dish below the place of the image.
By considering that as the object moves from MN to L
(fig. 13), the image mn advances to C, we obtain an explana-
planation of the celebrated experiment with the dagger, in
which a person with a drawn dagger striking at the mirror,
is met by another person, viz., his own image, returning the
stroke. •
If the object MN is the sun, a small image of his disc
will be formed at mn, in which are collected all the rays of
light which fall upon the surface of the mirror. It will
therefore have such a degree of heat as to melt even the
hardest gems and metals. Such a mirror is called a burn-
ino- mirror, from its effects. (See Burning Glasses.)
°Formation of Images by Convex Mirrors.—ks convex
mirrors often form a part of household furniture, we are
more familiar with their properties. They always form
erect images of objects, which appear at a distance behind
them. IfAB(fig. 15) is a convex mirror whose centre is G, and
principal focus F, and MN an object placed before it, it is
obvious, from our description of fig. 11, that the diverging
pencils MAB, NBA will diverge more after reflection, as
if they came from virtual foci mn behind the mirror, so that
our eye receiving such diverging rays will see an erect
image of the object MN placed behind the mirror, and
between F, its principal focus, and D. If MN approaches to
AB, mn will approach it also, and if MN recedes from the
556
OPTICS.
Catoptrics, mirror, mn will also recede from it, their relative sizes vary-
ing as their distances. When the object touches the mirror,
N
Fig. 15.
Kaleido¬
scope.
the image also touches it, and they are then exactly of the
same size.
Formation of Images by Plane Mirrors.—Every person
is familiar with the effects of a plane mirror, or looking-
glass. The image of any object
placed before it is seen behind it
of the same size, in the same po¬
sition, and at the same distance
from the mirror. In order to un¬
derstand this, let AB (fig. 16) be
the mirror, MN the object, and
E the eye of the observer, situ¬
ated in any given position. Rays
from M and N fall upon every
part of the mirror, but MC, MD
are the only ones from M which
can reach the eye E, as all the rest are reflected either
above or below the eye E. In like manner, the rays NF,
NG are the only ones from N which can enter the eye.
The extremity M of the object will therefore be seen in
the direction Era, and the concourse or virtual focus of the
reflected rays will, as shown in fig. 7, be at a point ra, so
situated, that if MAra is at right angles to the mirror, Am
will be equal to AM. For the same reason, the point N
will be seen at n, as far behind the mirror as N is before
’t; and it is obvious, from the parallelism of Mra and Nrc.
and the equality of the distance of the points M, ra, and
N, n, from AB, that mn is equal to MN.
If two plane mirrors are inclined to each other, as
AC, BC (fig. 17), and an object MN placed between
them, an eye situated so as to receive the
reflected rays, will see a series of images
of MN all arranged symmetrically. Be¬
hind AC, for example, an image mn will
be formed, and behind BC another image
M'N'. But as the rays which form these
images again fall upon the mirrors, we
shall see images of mn and M'N' formed
by AC and BC ; thus mn will be the
image of mn formed by BC, and M"N" an image of M'Ps
formed by AC. In like manner, mn will be the image o
mn formed by AC, and the image of M' N" formed by B(
will also lie upon ra « , so that we shall have two images a
ra n overlapping each other, and forming one exactly, if thi
angle ACB is exactly one-sixth part of 360°, or 60°; but i
it is not, the compound image m'n" will be seen double an<
imperfect. The five images above described, reckoning thi
double one at ra 'n" as only one, will, together with the ob
jeet MN, to which all the images are equal and similar, consti
tute a perfect equilateral triangle ; so that if MN is a colourei
and an irregular object, the symmetrical figure composed b'
Fig. 17.
it, and all its images, will be highly beautiful and agreeable Dioptrics
to the eye. If MN, in place of being perpendicular to the ■
mirror BC, had been inclined to it, no pair of images would
have formed a straight line, as in the figure, and the com¬
bination would have been more beautiful. This is the
principle of the kaleidoscope, in as far as the multiplication
and arrangement of the images is concerned ; but this in¬
strument has already been so admirably described by an
eminent writer in our article Kaleidoscope, that we must
refer the reader to it for farther information.
Formation of Images by Cylindrical Mirrors.—It is not Cylindrical
easy, in a diagram, to represent the progress of rays in the mirrors,
formation of an image by a cylindrical mirror. As a cylin¬
der is in one direction a plane mirror, in another a convex
mirror, and in all others an elliptical one, the eccentricity of
the ellipse passing through all degrees, from a circle to a
straight line, different parts of a regular figure presented to
such a mirror will appear of different sizes, and at different
distances behind it. Part of the figure will have the same
form and position as in a plane mirror, part as in a convex
mirror, and the other parts of the image will have interme¬
diate sizes and positions. Hence the image will be com¬
pletely distorted. If the mirror is placed horizontally, the
human face will appear of the right size from ear to ear,
but contracted, as in a convex speculum, from brow to chin.
Hence, if a distorted picture is properly drawn, and properly
presented to the mirror—that is, if the cylinder is placed
vertically before the picture—the image of the distorted pic¬
ture will be rectified; the length between the ears will be
contracted into the same proportional size as the shortness
between the brow and the chin, and their shortness will
remain unaffected. Such a distorted picture will be after¬
wards represented in the part of this article on Optical
Instruments.
In this section the objects are supposed to be lines, or
surfaces composed of lines. But if the objects are solids,
such as the human figure, or other bodies whose parts are at
different distances from the mirror, the images of such ob¬
jects are different from the images of the same objects seen
by the eye, when the diameters of the mirrors exceed that of
the pupil of the eye. This subject, which is of the highest
importance in photography, will be treated in part ii., sect. 4.
Part II.—DIOPTRICS, OR THE REFRACTION OF
LIGHT.
Dioptrics (from Sia, through, and oTrro/xat, to see) is that
branch of optics which treats of the passage of light through
transparent bodies, and, consequently, of the changes which
it experiences in entering and quitting such bodies.
Sect. I.—On the Refraction of Light.
If we hold a drop of pure water or an irregular piece of
clear glass in the sun’s rays, each will have a sort of shadow
like opaque bodies. Hence it follows that light has not
passed freely through them, and must therefore have
suffered some change in its direction, either whHe entering
these bodies, or passing through them, or emerging from
them. The change which it has suffered is called refrac¬
tion, and the nature of this change will be discovered by
observing the effects produced upon light by transparent
bodies whose surface is flat and regular.
For this purpose let AB (fig. 18) be the surface of ivater
in a vessel, and RC a ray or pencil of light proceeding
from a candle or from the sun, through a small hole, and
falling upon the water at C. Part of this light will be
reflected in the direction O, so that the angle rCP is
equal to RCP, PQ being a line perpendicular to the water
at C; hut the greater part of the light will enter the water
at C, and in place of going straight on to e, it will be bent
OPTICS.
557
Fig. 18.
Dioptrics, or refracted at C, or the ray Re will be broken back at
C, and proceed in a straight
line to E. Drawing a circle
PAQB round C as a centre,
and from the point E, where the
refracted ray cuts it, drawing
EK parallel to PQ, it was found
by Snellius that CD was to CE
or Ce as 3 to 4; and we have
shown in the “ history of optics,”
that if Rf and EF are drawn
perpendicular to PQ, CD is to
Ce as EF is to R/l But R/ is
the sine of the angle of incidence RCP, and EF is the
sine of the angle ECQ, which is called the angle of re¬
fraction. Now, Snellius discovered, by numerous experi¬
ments, that whatever was the magnitude of the angle of
incidence RCP, the magnitude of the angle of refraction
Was such that CD was to Ce as 3 to 4, or in a constant ratio.
Hence it follows, that the sines of the angles of incidence
and refraction R/and EF, are, in the case of water, in the
constant ratio of 4 to 3.
Snellius did not mention the constant ratio of the sines,
but merely the constant ratio of CD and Ce, which is the
same thing ; and he preferred the use of that ratio for the
following reason:—When a luminous body is placed at E
below water, and its light passes through a small aperture
at C, it is found to be refracted or bent into the direction
CR, so as to be seen by an eye at R, in the direction Re,
elevated from E to D.
As the incident ray RC approaches to the perpendicular
PQ, the refracted ray CE approaches also to the perpendi¬
cular, and CD becomes less and less, and when RC coin¬
cides with PC, or when the ray is incident perpendicularly,
the refracted ray CE will coincide with CQ, or the inci¬
dent ray will suffer no refraction at C. When the angle of
incidence RCP increases, and RC approaches to the sur¬
face of the water CB, the angle of refraction ECQ will also
increase, the line CD will increase, and the refracted ray
approach also to the surface CA, and when RC coincides
with BC, Ce will coincide with CA, and no light whatever
will enter the w^ater, but it will all be reflected. When Ce
coincides w'ith CA, CD will be 3, and D will coincide with K.
Such are the phenomena and
law of refraction when light passes
from a rare medium such as air,
into a dense medium such as
water, the ray being always re¬
fracted towards the perpendicular,
according to the fixed law already
described. Let us now suppose,
that the ray of light passes from
a dense medium, such as water,
placed above AB (fig. 19), into a
rare medium, such as air placed
below AB, and let PQ be a perpendicular to the surface
of the water at C. It is found by experiment that the ray
neither goes straight on to e, nor is refracted towards the
perpendicular as before, but is refracted from the perpen¬
dicular into the direction CE ; so that, if the line KED is
drawn through E, parallel to PQ, and cutting the original
direction of the ray Re prolonged, in the point D, CD will
be to CE or Ce, as 4 to 3, and in a constant ratio, or R/
the sine of the angle of incidence will be to EF the sine of
the angle of refraction in the constant ratio of 4 to 3. When
the ray RC coincides with PC, so that the angle of inci¬
dence is nothing, the angle of refraction will also be nothing,
and the refracted ray CE will coincide with CQ, the inci¬
dent ray having gone straight on without experiencing any
refraction; but when the angle of incidence increases, and
RC approaches towards BC, the refracted ray CE will ap¬
proach to CA, which it will reach long before R reaches Dioptrics.
B. When CE reaches CA, the ray RC will no longer
emerge from the water into the air, but will suffer total re¬
flection at C ; and at every angle of incidence beyond that
at which this total reflection commences, the light will
continue to be totally reflected till RC coincides with RB.
If we repeat all the above experiments with plate or
crown glass, in place of water, we shall find the very same
phenomena reproduced, with the difference only, that the
constant ratio of CD to Ce, or of the sines Rf to EF, in
place of being as 3 to 4 in one case (see fig. 18), and 4 to
3 in the other (see fig. 19), will be as 2 to 3, and as 3 to 2 ;
or in the case of water the ratio will be as 1 to 1*333, and
in glass as 1 to 1*500. The number 1*333 is called the
index of refraction for water,
and 1*500 the index of re¬
fraction for glass. In like
manner, it is found that the
index of refraction for ta- ^
basheer is 1*111, being less
than that for water; for flint
Fig. 20.
glass 1*600, for diamond
2*500, and for chromate of
lead about 3*00. Hence it
follows, that bodies refract
light in different degrees,
measured by their indices
of refraction. In order to
have an ocular representa¬
tion of the different degrees
of refraction, we have drawn
in fig. 20 the different refracted rays, corresponding to a
given incident ray RC, supposing the surface AB to be
first air (the medium above it being a vacuum), then
tabasheer, then water, then flint-glass, then diamond, and,
lastly, chromate of lead.
When the index of refraction of any body is known, we
can easily ascertain the progress of a ray of light which falls
upon such a body, and its direction after quitting the body.
The following example of this we shall give for plate-glass.
Let AB (fig. 21) be the surface
of a piece of plate-glass whose
index or ratio of refraction is as
2 to 3, or as 1 to 1'50, and let
a ray of light RC fall upon it at
C. Prolong RC to e, and upon
a scale of equal parts take in the
compasses CD, equal to 10 of
these parts, and Ce equal to 15,
or CD equal to 2, and Ce to 3
parts. Upon C as a centre, with
the radius Ce, describe the semi¬
circle AeB, and through D draw KDE, perpendicular to
AB, and meeting the semicircle in E; join CE, and CE
will be the refracted ray. When the ray passes from a
denser to a rarer medium, as in fig. 19, Ce is made equal to
10, and CD to 15, and KD being drawn perpendicular to
AB, and a line drawn from C to the point E, where DK
cuts the circle, CE will be the refracted ray. This method
is obviously much more simple and elegant than when
we use the sines of the angles. When E and K coincide
with A (fig. 19), DK becomes a tangent to the circle at
A, and the light suffers total reflection.
If the preceding experiments are repeated with various
solids and fluids, it will be found that the same law of re¬
fraction takes place with all of them ; the index of refraction
varying more or less in each; the refractive power being
least in the gases, and less in fluids, generally speaking,
than in solids, as will be seen in the following table of re¬
fractive powers, collected from various authors, and deter¬
mined by methods possessing various degrees of accuracy.
Fig. 21.
558
Dioptrics.
OPTICS.
Table of the Refractive Powers of Gases, Fluids, and Solids.1
Dioptrics.
Index of Refraction.
A vacuum  l-OOOO
GASES.2
Hydrogen  1
Oxygen  1
Atmospheric air 1
Azote  ....1
1
1
1
1
1
1
r
i
i
i
i'
i
000138
■000272
■000294
■000300
•000303
■000340
■000385
■000443
■000449
•000449
•000451
■000503
•000644
•000665
000678
■000779
■000789
000834
001095
001159
001500
Nitrous gas 
Carbonic oxide 
Ammonia 
Carburetted hydrogen
Carbonic acid 
Muriatic acid 
Hydrocyanic acid 
Nitrous oxide 
Sulphuretted hydrogen
Sulphurous acid 
Olefiant gas   
Chlorine 
Protophosphuretted hydro¬
gen 1
Cyanogen 1
Muriatic ether 1
Phosgene  1
Vapour of sulphuret of car¬
bon 1
Vapour of sulphuric ether,
(boiling point at 35° cen-
tig.) 1-001530
All the preceding observations were made
by M. Dulong, excepting that on atmosphe¬
ric air, which we owe to M. Biot.
FLUIDS AND SOFT SOLIDS.
Ether expanded by heat to
thrice its volume l-0570 Br.
Volatile newfluid discovered
by Sir D. Brewster in ca¬
vities in topaz (Brews-
toline) 1-1311 Br.
Volatile newfluid discovered
by Sir D. Brewster in ame¬
thyst, at 83J° Pahr. (ame-
thystoline) P2106 Br.
Second new fluid discovered
bySirD.Brewsterintopazl,2047 Br.
Nitrous oxide, liqui- f much less 1 „
fled by pressure.... { than water J
Muriatic acid',
gas, do I nearly f much less-) ^
Carbonic acid [ equal ^than water!
gas, do )
Chlorine { Slnwiter 1 „
Cyanogen I ^ Pres f perhaps less |
l I than wfltpr J
Do. do
\ than water J
do 1-316 Br.
Sulphurous acid, liquified f same as ) „
by pressure { water J ‘
fN.
Water l-336{ W.
( Br.
„ fixed line E3 1-33585 Fr.
Aqueous humour of the eye...1-3366 Br.
n „ of haddock...1-341 Br. Y.
Vitreous humour of eye.... J
» „ lamb 1-345 \
” » P^011 1,353 Ur Y
Expectorated mucus 1-339 J
Saltwater 1-343 Br.
H.
Br. Y.
Br.
Br.
Eu.
Br. Y.
Br.
Br. Y.
Br. Y.
He.
Br. Y.
W.
Br. Y.
W.
Br. Y.
Br. Y.
Br.
Br. Y.
C.
He.
Br.
Br. Y.
C.
He.
Br. Y.
Br.
Br.
Br. Y.
Br.
Br. Y.
Index of Refraction
( 1-344 Eu.
Vinegar, distilled •( 1-372
(. 1-347
Acetic acid 1-396
Jelly-fish. (Medusa cequorea) 1"345
White of an egg 1-351
, , , / 1-359
„ a hen’s do j
Port wine 1-351
Human blood  1-354
Saturated solution of alum
and water 1-356
Oil of boxwood 1-356
nun J 1-358
Albumen 1-36
Brandy 1-366
Rum 1-360
Oil of ambergris j J.379
Alcohol, sp. gr. 0-866  1-371
(1-372
„ rectified spirits... •( l-374
(1-377
Saturated solution of salt 1-375
Muriatic acid, sp. gr. 1-134 j
„ „ strong 1-401
„ „ highly concen¬
trated 1-4098 Bi.
Oil of wine  1-379 Br.
Sweet spirit of nitre  1-384 He.
Malic acid 1-395
Pus  1-404
Nitrous acid j
Crystalline lens of man, outer
„ „ middle coat 1-3786 i Br.
„ „ centre  l,3970j
Crystalline lens of lamb’s eye,
outer coat 1-386 \
„ „ middle coat 1-428
,, „ centre 1-436
Crystalline lens of pigeon 1-406
„ „ haddock’s
eye, outer coat 1-410
„ ,, centre 1-439 j
1-380 1
1-447 J VV-
1-463 Eu.
Solution of potash, sp. gr.
1-416 j fixed line E 1-40563 Fr.
( 1-410 Br. Y.
Nitric acid, sp. gr. l-48...< 1-410
11-412
Hydrate of soda, melted by
heat 1-411
Hydrophosphoric acid, do 1-423
Phosphoric acid fluid 1-426
Yolk of a fresh egg 1-428
f 1-430
Sulphuric acid, sp. gr. 1-7. < 1-435
l 1-440
Oil of rhue j
Phosphorous acid 1-437
Hydrophosphoric acid, cold.. .1-442
« .. 1f , ] 1-446
fepermacGti^ melted. ••••••••• j
Oil of wax  1-452
Oil of wormwood 1-453
Oil of wormwood, boiling ...1-4416 M.
Bees’ wax, melted  1-453 Br. Y.
Br. Y.
Crystalline lens of the ox..
W.
C.
Br. Y.
Br. Y.
Br.
Br. Y.
He.
W.
Br.
Br.
Br. Y.
Br. Y.
Br.
W.
Br. Y.
C.
Br.
Index of Refraction.
Bees’ wax, melting 1-4503 M.
W.
Br.
Br.
W.
Br. Y.
W.
Br.
Br.
Br. Y.
W.
Br. Y.
Br.
Br. Y.
Br.
Br. Y.
W.
Br.
Br. Y.
W.
Br.
Br. Y.
C.
W.
He.
boiling 1-542
Oil of camomile 1-457
(1-457
Oil of lavender  < 1-467
11-475
Tallow, melted 1-460
White wax, melted 2-462
Oil of poppy {
Oil of peppermint j y.^yg
Oil of rosemary j 1-472
Oil of spermaceti j J.^yg
f 1-470
Oil of almonds < 1-481
11-483
Oil of turpentine, rectified...1-470
r 1-475
Oil of turpentine < 1-476
{1-482
(1-476
„ „ common | i-4gg
» » sp. gr.
0-885, fixed line E 1-47835 Fr.
(1-470 Br.
Oil of olives, sp. gr. 0-913 < 1-4705 He.
1 1-476 Br. Y.
Oil of bergamot  j J^1 y
Oil of birch, distilled from | 1*470 Br. Y.
Oil of beech ?  1*471 l Br.
Oil of juniper  1-473 J
Butter, cold 1-474 Br. Y.
Palm oil  1-480 W.
Oil of rape-seed P475
Naphtha  1-475
Essence of lemon 1-476
Oil of dill-seed j
Oil of thyme j
Oil of cajeput 1-478
Naples soap  1*483
Oil of mace, melted 1-479
Oil of spearmint j
Oil of lemon { 1 f3!?
| 1-481
Oil of pennyroyal  1-482
( 1-485
Linseed oil, sp. gr. 0-932... < 1-482
( 1-485
Oil of savine  1-487
Oil of juniper j ^
Train oil  1-491 I
Oil of wormwood 1-485 >Br. Y,
0“te°a (l-tssj
Br.
Br. Y.
W.
Br.
Br. Y.
Br.
Br. Y.
Br. Y.
Br.
Br. Y.
Br. Y.
Br.
Br. Y.
Br.
Br.
Br. Y.
N.
W.
Br Y.
Br.
•485.
Florence oil  [.1-490
Oil of fenugreek j j^g
Oil of hyssop |
Windsor soap  1-487
Nut oil, perhaps impure... j
Tallow, cold  1-492
Oil of caraway seeds j p.^gp
Br.
Br.
Br. Y.
Br.
Br. Y.
Br. Y.
He.
Br. Y.
Br. Y.
Br. Y.
Br.
1 In the above Table, the letter TVaffixed to any index of refraction, indicates that the observation was made by Newton ; 17, Hauks-
bee; Eu, Euler; M, Malus; C, Cavallo’s table; Itu, Rudberg; Bi, Biot; Bo, Potter; Ze, Zeiher; Bx, Descloiseaux; Bose, Boscovich ;
Fr, Fraunhofer; He, Sir John Herschel; F, Mr Faraday; Hat, Haidinger; Mil, Miller; W, Wollaston; S, Senarmont; Am, Angstrom;
Heu, Ileusser; Br, Sir David Brewster ; and Br.Y, by Dr Young, who calculated the indices from Sir David Brewster’s observations.
* Taken when the temperature was 32° Fahr., and the barometer at 29-922.
3 The fixed line E is given in this Table for several substances, as it is in the green space and nearly the mean ray.
lioptrics.
Index of Refraction.
Oil of marjoram ,
Oil of nutmeg ...
(1-4
11-4
(1-4
U-4
\V4
•490
•491
•491
•497
1-491
•493
Br. Y.
Br.
Br. Y.
W.
Br. Y.
Br.
Oil of angelica
Bees’ wax * ®2IlBr.Y.
„ „ cold 1*492 j
AY.
Br. Y.
Br.
Br. Y.
Br.
AY.
Br.
,, white wax, cold 1-535
” f 1-494
Balsam of sulphur | 1-497
Honey   
Grass oil   
Treacle  
Oil of beech nut 1-500
f 1-500 1
Oil of rhodium { 1505 )
V 1'503 1 t> y
. ,, f 1-503 JBr,Y*
Spermaceti, cold   j l-SSS AY.
/V^lBr.Y.
Oil of pimento   1-510 J
11-507 Br.
f 1-505 AY.
Oil of amber j i-507 \ Y
Bird lime 1-506 }
„ , , f 1-506 Br.
Oil of sweet fennel seeds... j
, . . f 1-507
Balsam of capivi 
OPTICS.
Index of Refraction.
Quartz, melted, red rays 1-453 S.
Hyalite, red rays 1-455
Alum 1-457
458
Canada balsam.
ri-6
' X 1-515
( 1-528
{ 1-532
V. 1-549
Br. Y.
AY.
Br. Y.
AY.
Br. Y.
Br,
Br.
Br.
AY.
Eu.
Br. Y.
AY.
Oil cf cinnamon  1-508
Oil of mace  1519 1 gr v
11-522 J Kr*
„ I 1-532
Oil of sassafras < 1-536
\ 1-544
Balsam of Gilead 1-529
f 1-535
Oil of cloves 1 1-539A Br. Y.
Oil of cashew nut 1-536 l Br. Y.
, ( 1-536 | Br. Y.
Oil of anise seed | 1-601^ Br.
Petroleum 1-544 Br. Y.
Oil of tobacco  1-547 Br.
Balsam of styrax 1-584 Br.
/ 1-534 Eu.
I 1-589 \
 \ 1-604 l Br. Y.
{ 1-632 J
Balsam of Peru, mean 1-600 1
Essential oil of bitter almonds 1-603 J
( 1-631 } Br'T'
Oil of cassia A i.64i \
11-647 i Br.
Sulphuret of carbon 1-678 J
Muriate of antimony, vari¬
able, about  1'8 W.
Oil of cinnamon
SOLIDS.
Tabasheer from Vellore 1-1111 A
„ „ Nagpore 1-1454
„ „ ditto  1-1503 V Br.
„ whitest kind  1-1825 I
( 1-3085 J
Ice \ 1-310 AY.
f 1-344 1 „
Cryolite  | ^349 J Br.
Sphene P> 1"361 Mil.
Carbonate of potash, lowest
refr. ••..*.•   .....1*379 Br.
Hydrophane, dry, red ray....1-382 1
„ full of water...1"438 J
Gluten of wheat, dried 1-426
Fluor spar  
„ sp.gr.
1-714
Sulphate of Magnesia
Borax, sp. gr. 1-7149
Fluellite  ;.T47 AY.
Gum-arabic, sp. gr. 1-375 ....1-467 N.
Gmelinite 1"474 |
Opal, partly hydrophanous...T479 J
Arseniate of soda, least  1-479 1 „
„ ,, greatest...1-481 J
Sulphate of ammonia and ) 4.473 g
magnesia J
„ „ H 1-483
n n /1-487
Camphor  | 4.493
Sulphate of potash and j - 4-437
manganese J
„ „ nickel... |3 1-4905
„ „ cobalt... |3 1-4655 /S,
„ ammonia and nickel (3 1"499 I
„ „ cobalt... )3 1-4925
„ „ zinc /3 1-491 J
Obsidian  1-488 Br.
Levo- and dextro-tartrate "I 4.4929A
i llle.
Br.
AY.
Br. Y.
j 1-433
\l-4£
436
of potash and soda,
/3 red r
p, green do,
P red rays | 4.4935j
80daj/3 1-490 |g
Br.
Br. Y.
Levo-tartrate of
and ammonia...
Dextro „ „ P 1-495 J
Iceland spar, ext 1-488 AY.
ditto  1-4833 M.
fixed line E, do. 1"4887 Ru.
ord 1-657 AY.
ord 1-6543 M.
fixed lineE,ord.1-6636 Ru.
ord 1-667 N.
Sulphate of iron, greatest ...1-494 Br.
Sulphate of potash 1-509 Br.
1 axis, ord 1-493 ")
„ ext 1-501 [ S.
2 axes P 1-494 J
Oxalic acid P 1-499 Alii,
Rochelle salt, mean, green...1-4985 He.
„ „ red 1-4929 He.
„ tartrate of potash
and soda    1-515
Yolk of an egg, dry 1-500
Triple oxalate of chromium
and potash, least 1-506 1
„ greatest 1-605 j
Glass plate, English 1-500 1
„ French 1"50 J
„ English, ext.... | 1-5133 He.
red ray 11-514 Bose.
Glass plate, Dutch 1-517 1
„ crown 1-525 J
„ crown, prism Dollond,
ext. red ray 1-526 He.
„ crown, prism Dollond..1-5109 Br.
„ crown, Fraunhofer, No.
13, sp. gr. 2-535, fixed line
B. .....   1-5314 Fr.
Glass, crown, Fraunhofer, No. 9,
fixedline, sp.gr. 2-535 1-5330 Fr.
Do. do. sp. gr. 2-756, fixed
lineE. ...   1-5631 Fr.
Glass, bottle 1-582 Br.
Starch, dry  1-504 Br. Y
Stilbite 1-508
Gum-scammony  1-510
Gum-arabic 1-512
.. , / 1-513
„ not quite dry... | 4.544
( 1-514
Human cuticle j 1-517
AY.
Br
AY.1
Br.
AY.
AY.
Br.
Br. Y.
Mil.
Br.
Br.
Br.
Br. Y.
Br.
Br. Y.
AY.
AY.
Index of Refraction.
Nitre, least index 1-335
greatest index 1-514
a 1-5052
P 1-5046
y 1-330
Dantzic vitriol, sulphate iron,1-515 N.
Phosphate of ammonia, ord. ..1-5155..
, potash, ext 1-47651 ^
„ ord 1-50751
ext 1-4685J
Nadelstein from Faroe  1-5153 Br.
Mesotype, least 1-516 'j
,, greatest  1"522 V Br.
Sulphate of zinc, ord. refr....1-517 J
P 1-4845 Dx.
( 1-517 Br. Y.
Myrrh gum  j 4.526 \
Tartaric acid, least 1-518 l Br.
,, greatest  1-575 J
AVavellite 1'52
, ( 1-520
Gum-dragon (tragacanth;, j 4.gg
Glass—borax, 1: silex, 2 1-528
r 1-521
Gum or shell-lac i 1-525 | y.
^ 1*528 J
r 1*524
Caoutchouc  •{ 1'534
{1-557
Tartrate of potash, neutral, p T526
Citric acid 1-527
Leucite 1-527
Sulphate of lime « 1-5297 I
, „ yellow ray D p 1-5227 > Au.
J y 1-5206 J
Crystalline of ox and fish,
dried 1-530 AY.
(1-531 AY.
Pitch { 1-581 Br. Y.
{ 1-586 Br.
Sulphate of copper, least j 1-531 j
refraction \ l‘o52 j
f 1-532 Br. Y.
Olibanum gum j 1-544 Br.
Orthose P> 1-5225 Dx.
Glass of phosphorus, phos¬
phoric acid fused 1-532 A
Solid phosphoric acid 1-544 J-Br.
Glass of borax, fused borax...1-532 )
Manna  .1-533 Br. Y.
Arragonite, ext. index 1-5348 1 >4
„ ord ......1-6931 }
„ y 1staxisofelasticity 1*5326 S
P 2d ditto 1-6863 V Ru.
« 3d ditto 1-6908 J
f u 1-6859 A
„ axes of elasticity -I P 1-6815 y D x
( y 1-5301 J
Arseniate of potash 1-535
Fahlunite 1-535
(1-535
1-547
1-550
f 1-535
Mastic gum  •{ T549
U-568
. . f 1-535
Amme gum  ■! 4.545
{1-535
Copal gum  { 1-^4®
{1-553
, . f 1536
Sugar, white j 4.544
„ melted  1"548
Agate, white, red rays P537 S.
Dichroite, iolite, cordie- ( « 1-5433 A
rite, from Ceylon, axes •! p 1-5413 y Dx,
of elasticity  { y 1"5371 J
Felspar 1-536 Br.
Mellite, least  1-538 1
„ greatest 1-556 J
559
Dioptrics.
AY.
Br.
AY.
Br. Y.
Br. Y.
AY.
Br. Y.
Br.
AY.
Br. Y.
AY.
Br.
Br. Y.
AY.
Br. Y.
Br. Y.
Dr AVollaston informed us that he had mistaken Dragon’s-blood for Guir-dragon.
560
Dioptrics.
Index of Refraction.
Dx.
Mellite, ord l-5455\
„ ext 1-5255
Nepheline, ord 1-5365 /
„ ext 1-5415'
Junipergum { ^ y
Carbonate of barytes, least.. .1-540 Br.
Formiate of strontian, | “ 6 1 Dx.
axes of elasticity \ £ 1-48664 /
Boxwood  1-542 W.
Apophyllite 1-5431 He.
Carbonate of strontian, least 1-543 l
„ „ greatest...1-700
Rock-salt, sp. gr. 2-143 1-557 j
Chio turpentine, mean 1-551 /
Sagapenum gum  1-545
Turpentine  1-545 VBr.Y.
Burgundy pitch, mean 1-558 J
Gum-thus, mean 1-550 Br.
Amethyst 1-562 W.
Quartz, ord. ray 1-5484 M.
„ ext 1-5582 M.
„ ord., line E 1-5471 R.
„ ext., ditto 1-5563 R.
Amber  1-547 W.
„ sp. gr. 1-04  1-556 N.
Pennine, ord 1-576 ) TT .
,1-575 )nai-
Br.
Br. Y.
Br.
Br.
Br. Y.
W.
S.
ext.
Resin, mean 1-554
Glue, nearly hard 1-553
Chalcedony  ....1-553
Comptonite  1-553
r. . / 1-559
Parisite, ord   1-569 1
„ red rays, ext  1-670 J
Hyposulphate of lime, mean
red ray 1-561
„ „ mean green 1-566
Dragon’s-blood 1-562
tt  / 1-565
Wernerite, ext   1-563
,, ord 1-594
Baryto-calcite, least 1-565
„ greatest  1-701
Glass, pink-coloured 1-570
Staurotide l-572’6 Mil
Assafcetida  1-575 Br. Y.
Arseniate of ammonia, ord....l-5775-|
„ „ ext.... 1-524
„ potash, ord 1-5915 j
„ „ ext 1-5365-J
f 1-576
Flint-glass,var. specimens-! 1-578
[ 1-583
He.
He.
Br. Y.
Br.
W.
Br.
extreme red..
^1-584
1-594
1-596
1-601
Br.
He.
W.
He.
Bose.
Br.
He.
Fr.
' 1-604 Br. Bose.
Do. Fraunhofer, No.3,lineE..l-6145
„ Ho. 30, line E 1-6374
„ No. 23, ditto 1-6405
„ No. 13, ditto  1-6420
Andalusite, green 1-624 Mil.
Prussiate of potash 1-586 Br.
Anhydrite, ord 1-5772 Bi.
» ext 1-6219 Bi.
r« 1-614 \
„ axes of elasticity -( (Z 1-576 l Mil.
^ 1 y 1-571 J
Hyposulphite of lime, least.. .1-583 l He.
j. ,, greatest 1-628 J
Emerald i-sgs Br.
„ green ray, ord 1-5841 1 ^
>. _ „ ext 1-5780 / JJx-
.Benzoic gum, mean 1-591 \V.
OPTICS.
Index of Refraction,
Tortoise-shell  1-591 Br.
(1-596 W.
Guiacum gum.; < 1-600 Br. Y
{1-619 Br.
Beryl, ord 1-582 1 ^
„ ext 1-576 J
Balsam of Tolu 1-60 W.
„ „ mean 1-618 Br.
Siliceo-carbonate of zinc and
iron, least 1-6005 Br.
Ditto, ditto, greatest 1-8477 Br.
Hopeite, ord 1-601 \
Glass, ruby-red ,.1-601 l Br.
Meionite  1-606 J
„ ord 1-5955 1 n
„ ext 1-5595 J '
Iron sinter  1-606 1 t.
Glass, purple-coloured 1-608 J r‘
Resin of jalap 1-608 Br. Y.
Hyposulphite of strontian,
least 1-608 \ „
Ditto, greatest 1-651 J e’
Topaz, colourless  1-6102 Bi.
„ 1st axis of elasticity...1-6145 Ru.
„ 2d ditto ditto 1-6167 Ru.
,, 3d ditto ditto 1-6241
„ bluish,from Cairngorm 1-624 Br.
„ Brazil, ord 1-6323 Bi.
„ „ ext 1-6401 Bi.
„ blueAberdeen 1-636 'j
„ yellow 1-638 l Br.
„ red 1-652 J
„ Brazil yellow, for |
greenrays  U 1-6150 J
Siliceo-carbonate of zinc from
Aachen, least  1-6173 Br.
„ greatest  1-6395 Br.
„ from Bohemia, least 1-600
„ „ greatest 1-848
Castor  1-623 Br.
Sulphate of barytes, ord .1-6352 M.
„ „ ext 1-6468 M.
„ „ ord 1-6201 Bi.
Do. ord. yellow, green rays...1-6460 He.
„ „  1-646 W.
Muriate of ammonia  1-625
Aloes 1-634
Glass, opal-coloured 1-635
Tourmaline, line D, ord 1-6366
„ „ ext 1-6193
Euclase, ord 1-6429 Bi.
„ ext 1-6630 Bi.
Sulphate of strontian   1-649
Mother-of-pearl 1-653
Spargelstein 1-657
Epidote, least 1-661
,, greatest 1-703
Chrysolite, least 1-660
„ greatest 1-685
„ (cymophane), f * 1.7434 \ Dx
axes of elasticity  I ^ 1-7470 J
Dioptase, ord 1-667
„ ext 1*723
Phenakite, ord 1-652 1 „
„ ext 1-672 j
Chloruret of sulphur  1-67
Nitrate of bismuth, least 1-67
„ „ greatest 1’89
Glass, orange-coloured.. 1-695 ’
Boracite 1-701
Glass, tinged red with gold.. .1-715
„ deep red 1-729 Br
Euchroite, least 1"709 I
Nitrate of silver, least 1-729 !
,, „ greatest 1-788 j
Chromate of potash, yellow,/3 1-722
Hyposulphite of soda and
silver, least  1-735
Br.
Br. Y.
Br.
} Fr.
/Br.
He.
S.
He.
He.
Dx.
He.
Br.
W.
Br.
W.
Rubellite
Br.
He.
W.
Br.
He
Index of Refraction.
Hyposulphite of soda and
silver, greatest 1-785
Idocrase, ord 1-7205-v
„ ext   1-71851
Nitrate of soda, ord 1-506
„ ext 1-366
Apatite, ord 1-646 1
„ ray D, ext 1-641 j
Axinite 1-735 \
Nitrate of lead 1-758 ( ^
Cinnamon stone  1-759 f r‘
Chrysoberyl 1-760 j
(1-756 He.
Spinelle < 1-761
( 1-812
Felspar, greatest refr 1-764
Sapphire, white  1-768
„ blue 1-794 'j
„ ord 1-769 l Br.
„ ext 1-762 J
/ 1-768 He.
\ 1779)
Ruby 1-779 i Br.
Zircon, orange coloured 1‘782 J
Glass lead (flint) 1-787 Ze.
Pyrope 1-792
Labrador hornblende l-80
Arsenic 1-84
Garnet  1-815
Borate of lead, fused, extreme
red ray  1-866
Leadhillite fi 1-8828 Dx.
Sulphate of lead 1-925 V
Withamite, least 1-931 V Br.
„ greatest 1-960 J
Glass—lead 2, sand 1 1-987 W.
Zircon, least refraction 1-961 Br.
„ greatest ditto 2-015
f 1-958
« 1 v .. 1.2-008
Sulphur, native  ) ‘>•04
( 2-115
„ „ melted 2T48
Calomel, ord 1-96 ,
„ ext 2-60 j
Tungstate of lime, least l-970 1 t.
„ „ greatest...2-129 J r'
Glass—lead 3, flint 1 2-028 Ze.
Carbonate of lead « 2-0745 l
/3 2 0728 l Dx.
7 1-798 J
Scaly oxide of iron 2-1 Y.
r 1-889
Glass of antimony <
^ 2-216
Silicate of lead, atom to
atom, extreme red  2-123
Phosphorus  j
Blende  2-260
Nitrate of lead, ord 2-322
Diamond, sp. gr. 3-4 j
/ 2-487
- \ 2-775
 {fn«,
Chromate of lead 2-479 1
Do. another kind, least refr. 2-503 l Br.
Do. another kind, do 2-508 J
Chromate of lead, another kind,
greatest refraction 2-974 1 ^
„ another kind, do. 2-926 j r*
„ „ ext 2-493 ] MU*
Octohedrite  2-500 •
Realgar, artificial  2-549
Red silver ore 2'564
Greenockite, ord 2-688 •
Dioptrics.
Br.
Haiiy.
Br. Y.
W.
Br.
Br.
• S
brown coloured.,
N.
W.
Po.1
Bi:.
He.
Br. Y.
Br.
Br.
He.
N.
Br.
Br.
• W.
Br.
1 Deduced from its polarizing angle, which was 65°.
OPTICS.
561
If light is regarded as consisting of material particles, it
must move with greater velocity in bodies than in vacuo,
in the proportion of the sines to which the refraction of
these bodies is proportional. The power of bodies, there¬
fore, to refract and reflect light, must be inversely propor¬
tional to their specific gravities; for if a body of small
specific gravity has the same index of ieh action as a
body of &great specific gravity, the former must have
exercised a greater absolute force upon light than the
latter.
On the hypothesis of emission, it. has been shown by Sir
Isaac Newton that the absolute refractive power of bodies Dioptrics,
is proportional directly to the square of the cosine of their
maximum angle of refraction, and inversely to their specific
gravity ; that is, calling R the absolute refractive power, m
the index of refraction, and D the density of the body, we
1
shall have R = '-'‘ a formula by which the following
table of absolute refractive powers has been computed.
The numbers marked Dulong were, we believe, computed
by Sir John Herschel from the refractive indices given by
Dulong in the preceding table.
Table of Absolute Refractive Powers.
| Dulong.
Newton.
Dulong.
Malus.
Newton.
Calcareous spar.
Nitre 
Muriate of soda.
rsn
n)
Index of Refraction.
( 0 0424 Malus.
| 0-6536 Newton,
j 0-6440 Brewster,
•••• 1 0-7070
| T647
\ 0 7100
Alum  0-6570
Nitric acid 0-6676
Borax 0-6716
Hydrocyanic acid 0-7366
Ruby 0-7389
Sulphate of iron 0-7551
Muriatic ether vapour ...0 7552
Brazilian topaz 0-7586
Rain water 0 7845
Flint glass, mean 0-7986
Cyanogen 0'8021
Sulphuretted hydrogen. .0-8419
Gum-arabic 0-8574
Sulphuret of carbon va¬
pour  0-8743
Sulphuric ether vapour.. .0-9138
Proto-sulphuretted hydro¬
index of Refraction.
Tabasheer 0 0976 -j
Cryolite 0-2742 J. Brewster,
Fluor spar 0-3426 J
Oxygen 0-3799 Dulong.
( 0-3829 Dulong.
Sulphate of barytes.... | 0.3979 Newton.
Sulphurous acid gas 0-4455
Nitrous gas 0-4491 > Dulong.
f 0-4528 J
Air    \ 0*4530 Biot.
I 0 5208 Newton.
Carbonic acid gas 0-4537 4
Azote 0-4734 l Dulong.
Chlorine 0-4813 J
Glass of antimony 0-4864 Newton
Nitrous oxide 0-5078
Phosgen 0-5188
Selenite 0-5386
Carbonic oxide 0 5387
Quartz 0-5415
llock-crystal 0-5450
Common glass 0-5436
Muriatic acid gas 0-5514 Dulong
Sulphuric acid 0-6124 Newton. gen
The results given in the preceding tables are susceptible
of increased accuracy, not only by taking accurate mea¬
sures of the indices of refraction of the bodies, in relation
to the fixed line E of the spectrum, but also by obtaining
more accurate measures of their specific gravities.
Sect. //.— On the Refraction of Rays by Bodies with
Plane and Spherical Surfaces.
Having shown how to find the refracted ray, when the
incident ray is given, and the constant ratio of refraction
which belongs to any transparent body, we may trace the
progress of rays through bodies of any form whatever, pro¬
vided we have the lines given which are perpendicular to
the surface of the body at the points where the rays fall
upon it. In all spherical surfaces this perpendicular is a
line drawn through the point of incidence and the centre
of the spherical surface; and in all other cases it is a line
perpendicular to a line touching the surface at the point of
incidence.
The names of prisms and lenses have been given to those
transparent bodies which are most useful in optical experi¬
ments, and in the construction of optical instruments. Sec¬
tions of these different refracting bodies are shown in the
annexed diagram.
Newton.
Brewster.
Newton.
Brewster.
Newton.
Dulong.
Brewster.
Newton.
Dulong.
Brewster.
Newton.
Brewster.
| Dulong.
Newton.
■ Dulong.
Dulong.
Brewster.
Dulong.
Brewster.
Dulong.
■ Newton.
Index of Refraction.
Ammonia 1-0032
Alcohol, rectified 1-0121
Carbonate of potash 1"0227
Chromate of lead 1-0436
Olefiant gas 1-0654
Muriate of ammonia 1 0788
Carburetted hydrogen....1-2204
Camphor 1-2551
Oil of olives 1-2607
Oil of linseed 1-2819
Spirit of turpentine 1-3222
Bees’ wax 1-3308
Amber 1-3S54
Octohedrite 1-3816
Bi-sulphuret of carbon ...1-4294
Diamond 1-4566 Newton.
Oil of cinnamon r sp. gr. 1 1-4944 \
Oil of cassia 1 1-044 J 1-6184 j
Realgar... ^So > B«!wster.
Ambergris l-<000 .
Sulphur 2 2000 j
Phosphorus 2"8857 f
Hydrogen 3-0953 Dulong.
Malus.
Newton.
Brewster.
.0-9680.
3. A spherical lens (C) is a lens whose surfaces have the
same centre, and is consequently a sphere or a part of one.
4. A double convex lens (D) has two convex spherical sur¬
faces, whose centres are on opposite sides of the lens. It is
said to be equally convex when the radii of its two surfaces
are equal; and unequally convex when the radii are unequal.
o. A plano-convex lens (E) is a lens which has one ot its
surfaces flat or plane, and the other convex.
6. A double convex lens (shown at F) is a solid bounded
by two concave spherical surfaces. It is equally concave
when its surfaces have the same radius, and unequally con¬
cave when they have different radii.
7. A plano-convex lens (G) has one of its surfaces con¬
cave and the other plane.
8. A meniscus lens (H) has one of its surfaces concave
and the other convex, the two surfaces meeting if con¬
tinued. The convexity predominates, and it acts as a
convex lens.
9. A concavo-convex lens (I) differs from the meniscus
only in the circumstance that the two surfaces do not meet
if continued. Hence the concavity predominates, and the
lens acts as a concave one.
10. A cylindrical lens is shown in fig. 23; it is merely
a cylinder of glass, or any other transparent body.
Fig. 22.
1. A prism, represented in the figure at A, is a solid
piece of glass, having three plane surfaces, AR, AS, RS,
which are called its refracting faces, the light passing
through any two of them.
2. A plane lens {V>) is a lens the centre of whose surfaces
are infinitely distant. Its sides are therefore parallel like a
piece of plane glass.
VOL. XVI.
Fig. 23. Eig. 24.
11. A piano-cylindrical lens (shown in fig.
24) has one surface plane and the other cy¬
lindrical.
12. A transverse cylindrical lens (fig. 25)
resembles two piano-cylindrical lenses, [Jane
transversely, or with their lengths at right
angles to each other, and joined together by
their plane surfaces at a, b, c, d.
4
Fig. 25.
562
OPTICS.
Dioptrics.
Refraction
by prisms.
Refraction by Prisms.
As prisms are essential parts of optical instruments, and
are of peculiar value in experiments on light, it is necessary
to have a correct idea of the phenomena which they ex¬
hibit in refracting rays of light.
Let ABE (fig. 26) be a prism of two equal sides BA,
BE, and made of glass whose index of refraction is 1*500,
or whose ratio of
refraction is as
1*500 to 1, or as 3
to 2, and let RC
bearay incidenton
its first surface at
C. It is required
to determine the
path of this ray
after it has suffered
refraction at both
its surfaces AB,
BE. From any scale set off CG equal to 10 divisions, and
CR equal to 15, and through G draw GD perpendicular to
AC. From the point C, and on the line GD, set off CD
equal to CR, and through D and C draw DCc; then Cc will
be the refracted ray. From a scale on which pc is 10, set
off cCg equal to 15 parts, and drawing gd perpendicular to
BE, make cd equal to cC, and draw through d and c the
line dcr ; then cr will be the path of the ray refracted by the
second surface BE of the prism. When the radius Cc will
not reach the perpendicular gd, the ray Cc will not be
refracted at all, but will suffer total reflection. When total
reflection commences, the point d will fall in the line
EB, and the perpendicular gd will touch the circle de¬
scribed with the radius cC round c, at the point d. At
all greater angles of incidence the ray Cc will be totally
reflected.
The sine of the angle of incidence at c, when the ray
Cc is not able to emerge from the prism, but suffers total
reflection, will be found in the case of plate-glass (whose
index of refraction is T500) to be equal to
1
1*500’
or
0*666; the angle corresponding to which is 41° 48'.
The total reflection which thus takes place within trans¬
parent bodies is a very remarkable and highly interesting
phenomenon. The light is far more brilliant than what is
obtained from the brightest silver, which gives more re¬
flected light than any other metal; and it possesses curious
physical properties, which will be explained in a subsequent
part of the article. The phenomenon of total reflection may
be finely seen by filling a tumbler-glass with water, and
placing it above the head, so as to see the image of a candle
reflected from the lower side of its surface when at rest.
I he brilliancy of the image surpasses that of every other
species of reflection. Diamonds, precious stones, and the
glass ornaments of chandeliers, &c. &c., are often cut so as
to send to the eye light that has suffered total reflection.
I he brilliant white lustre of dew-drops arises from totally
reflected light.
I o a person under perfectly still water, the vision of ob¬
jects either out of the water or on the bottom must be very
singular. Ihe whole visible heavens, in place of being a
hemisphere, will appear like a cone, with an angle of 97°.
‘ All objects,” says Sir John Herschel, “ down to the hori¬
zon, will be visible in this space, and those near the horizon
much distorted and contracted in dimensions, especially in
height. Beyond the limits of this circle will be seen the
bottom of the water and all subaqueous objects reflected,
and as vividly depicted as by direct vision. In addition to
these peculiarities, the circular space above mentioned will
appear surrounded with a perpetual rainbow of faint but
delicate colours.” In order to understand this, let MN
Fig. ‘.'7.
(fig. 27) be the surface of the water, and E an eye
bottom. Let DE be the direc¬
tion in which a horizontal ray
ND would be refracted at D,
and CE the direction in which
MC would be refracted at C.
Then it is clear that all objects
on the horizon will be seen in
the directions ED, EC, and as
the same is true in every azimuth, ACEDB will be a sec¬
tion of the cone, which will comprehend within it all objects
In the visible horizon. The sun and moon will appear to
rise at A and set at B. They will have the appearance of
ovals, with their smaller diameters vertical. They will quit
the horizon, and descend to it again very slowly, as the
angle of refraction varies very slowly from 90° of incidence
downwards. If a man fishing near N stands up to his knees
in water, his knees will just be seen above the water, in the
direction EB, and his body standing within the cone BEA,
while his legs will be seen bright, and inverted in the direc¬
tion of about EN, by the total downward reflection of the
surface MN of the water. If we draw Cc and T)d, making
the angles cCE, cfDE, equal to CED, then all objects in the
water, to the right hand oft?, and to the left hand of c, will
be seen by total reflection from the inner surface MN of
the water, in the space surrounding the cone AEB. An
object at c will be seen by reflection from the point C in
the direction EC, and an object at d by reflection from D ;
but none of the objects between c and d will be seen by
reflection to the eye at E. Hence we see the reason why
the fisherman’s legs, like other objects under water, will be
seen by total reflection in a direction near to EN. The
circular rainbow, or rather fringe of colours, which separates
the objects out of the water from those which are beneath
it, and seen by total reflection, is that band of colour which
always bounds light that is totally reflected.
It frequently happens, both in optical experiments and in
optical instruments, that light is refracted at the surfaces of
two media placed in contact, such as water and glass, and
in compound lenses of flint and crown glass, either touching
one another or united by a cement. In all such cases, it s
necessary to determine the refraction which light expe¬
riences at their refracting surface. It is found by experi¬
ment, and may be proved theoretically, that the index of
refraction for the separating surfaces of media is equal to the
quotient of the most refractive divided by the least refrac¬
tive medium. Thus, the index of refraction for the sepa¬
Dioptrics.
rating surface of water and plate-glass will be
1*500
1*336’
1*122, which is nearly the same as that of tabasheer. In
order, therefore, to find the refract¬
ed ray in this case, let MN (fig. 28)
be a parallel stratum of water rest¬
ing upon a piece of parallel glass
OP. A ray RC will be refracted
in the direction Cc', and may be
found by the method formerly
given. In order to find the change
produced in the direction of the
ray at c', take a point g, in the line c'C, so that if e'C is
T122, eg shall be 1*009, then drawing g d' perpendicular
to the refracting surface, make cd' equal to c'C ; and having
drawn through the points e?, c the line dec,—e'e will be
the refracted ray. This ray being incident on the second
surface of the glass plate at c, will be refracted in a direc¬
tion cr, which may be found by the method formerly de¬
scribed. It will be found both by projection and by ex¬
periment,—namely, by looking through the compound plate
MNOP, and observing any distant object,—that the finally
refracted ray cr is parallel to the incident ray RC.
If the angle RCA (fig. 26), the complement of the angle
OPTICS.
563
'Dioptrics. ot incidence, is increased, the point c, where the refracted
v i |- y ray emerges from the side BE of the prism, will approach to
E, and the angle rcE will diminish, till at a particular incli¬
nation of the incident ray the angle RCA will become
equal to the angle rcE. When this happens, the refracted
ray Cc, will be equally inclined to the refracting faces of
the prism BA, BE, and will be parallel to the base AE.
This will be obvious by considering Cc as an internal ray
incident on both sides of the prism, and at equal angles to
each, in which case it will suffer equal degrees of refrac¬
tion, and therefore be equally inclined to the refracting
faces.
If the eye is placed at r to receive the refracted ray cr,
it will see the luminous body, such as a candle, from which
the ray RC proceeds, in the direction rc, and the angle
which this ray rc forms with RC will be the deviation of
the ray produced by the refraction of the prism. Let us
now suppose the candle to be fixed, and the prism turned
round, so that the angle RCA maybe increased; it will be
found experimentally, and may be easily proved by pro¬
jection, that the deviation of the ray rc is least when the
angle RCA is equal to rcE, or when Cc is parallel to AE,
and increases when Cc deviates on either side from this
mean position. Now this position may be easily ascer¬
tained by placing the eye behind the face BE, and turning
the prism till the refracted image of the candle, or other
object, becomes stationary. When this takes place, Cc is
parallel to AE, or CcB is an isosceles triangle ; and it
may easily be shown, by similarity of triangles, or by pro¬
jection, that the angle of refraction at the first surface is
equal to half the angle of the prisrn, or ^ABE. Hence
we obtain the following simple rule for finding the index
. of refraction, after having measured, with a goniometer or
otherwise, the angle of incidence, or the complement of
the angle RCA :—Divide the sine of the angle of inci¬
dence by the sine of half the angle of the prism, and the
quotient will be the index of refraction.
For the purpose of measuring indices of refraction, we
do not require regular prisms of considerable size. Two
small faces, well ground and tolerably polished, are sufficient
for this purpose. They need never
be larger than the pupil of the eye,
and will answer well enough if
they are of the size of a pin’s head.
If we wish to measure the index of’r
refraction of fluids, we have only to
place a drop of the fluid at the an¬
gular point A of two pieces of par-
rallel glass AB,AE (fig. 29), fixed Fig.29.
at any angle by a piece of wood or wax BE. Enough of the
fluid for the purpose will be retained by capillary attraction
at the point A, and after measuring the angle BAE of the
prism, and the angle of incidence at which the image of
the candle becomes stationary, the index of refraction will
be found as before.
Refraction through Plane Glasses.
Refraction Every person is acquainted with the fact that light which
by plane passes through plane glasses, or glasses which have their
glasses. two surfaces flat and parallel, like MN in fig. 30, does not
suffer any very perceptible change, either in its general
direction, or in the parallelism, convergency, or divergency
of its rays. If AB, A'B', for example, be two parallel
rays incident on the plate of glass MN, they will suffer
equal refractions at B, B', because they are incident at the
same angles, and the refracted rays BC, B'C' will there¬
fore be parallel. These parallel rays again falling upon
the second surface at C, C' will suffer equal refractions Dioptrics,
there, and will emerge parallel in the lines CD, C'D'.
Hence we conclude that parallel rays after transmission, at
any obliquity, through a plane glass, will emerge paral¬
lel. But as the rays DC, D'C' will, to an eye at D and
D', be seen in the directions DCa, DC a, their absolute
directions in space are altered, and the difference between
the real and the visible direction will increase with the
obliquity of the rays AB, AB, and with the thickness of
the plate of glass. If we suppose MN to be part of a
looking-glass, silvered on its lower side CC', then the re¬
fracted rays BC, B'C' will, after reflection at C, C', in the
directions Cc, C'c, be refracted at c, c into the parallel
directions cd, c'd'. But the rays AB, A B/ will be reflected,
though in a much fainter degree, in the directions B6, B b ;
so that an eye placed so as to receive these rays will see
the bright image reflected from the silvered surface, in the
direction cd, and the faint image reflected from the first
surface, in the direction Ed, at a distance from each other
depending on the obliquity of the reflection, and on the
thickness of the plate. A candle, for example, will be seen
double at a short distance from the mirror; but a larger
object, in order to be seen double, must be viewed at a
greater distance. At great obliquities, and when the ob¬
jects are very luminous, such as gas-burners, &c., other
images will be seen by reflections at c, c, and the subse¬
quent reflections from the other side of the plate. If the
two faces of the plate are not exactly parallel, the bright
and faint images above described will change their dis¬
tance, sometimes overlapping each other, and sometimes
separating, according to the part of the plate on which
they fall, though the angle of incidence may remain the
same.1
When diverging and converging rays pass through a
plane glass, the position of the
points of divergency and con¬
vergency are altered. Let ABB'
(fig. 31) be a pencil of rays
diverging from A, and incident
upon the plane glass MN. The
emergent rays CD, C'D will,
after the second refraction at
C, C', proceed as if they had M
come from the point b. Hence a
plane glass brings the divergent
point of diverging rays nearer
to it. For the same reason, if
D&D' is a converging beam of-
light, its point of convergency b,
will be removed to A by the
plane glass.
When there is only one refraction, as in the case of
standing water, whose surface is BB', and bottom CC', then
the very reverse will be the result. A diverging beam
ABB' will have its divergent point removed to a, and a con¬
verging beam would have it brought nearer the surface.
Fig. 31.
1 We had once a looking-glass of this kind sent to us as a curiosity by a gentleman, who valued it on account of its remarkable proper¬
ties. It differed from all the rest in his possession only in its being the worst.
564
OPTICS.
Dioptrics. Refraction of Rays by Spheres.
Refraction When a ray of light falls upon a curved surface of any
by spheres, kind, the infinitely small part of the surface which it occu¬
pies may be considered as coinciding with the tangent to
the surface, or with a plane surface touching the curve at
the point of incidence. When the surface is spherical, this
tangent plane is perpendicular to the radius, or the line
drawn from the centre of the sphere to the point of inci¬
dence. Hence it is always given when the centre is given.
Let MN (fig. 32) be the section of a sphere of glass,
whose index of refraction is 1*500, as before; a ray
passing through its centre S, and therefore unrefracted, be¬
cause it is incident perpendicularly on both surfaces; and
Fig. 32.
RC, RC other rays parallel to, and equidistant from, RS/”;
it is required to find the path of one of these, RC, through
the sphere. Join SC, which will be perpendicular to the
surface at C. From a scale on which RC is three parts, set
off RG equal to 1, and draw GD parallel to CS (which is
the same as drawing it perpendicular to the elementary
surface, or tangent to the sphere at C). Make CD equal
to CR, and through D and C draw the line DC/| meeting
the posterior surface of the sphere at c, and the axis of the
sphere at/. The point / would have been the focus, had
there been no second surface to refract the ray Cc a second
time. On a scale on which Cc is two parts, set oft’ Cg
equal to 1 part, and having joined Sc, draw gd parallel to
Sc, and make cd equal to cC. Through cdraw dcV, meet¬
ing the axis of the sphere in F. As the ray RC, below
RS/J falls in the very same manner on the sphere MN, it
will have its refracted ray in a similar direction, and the
two rays will meet at F, which is called the focus of the
sphere for parallel rays, or the principal focus of the sphere.
If we determine the path of the ray RC, and find the foci
/and F for both surfaces; by using different indices of re¬
fraction, we shall find that in every case the distance EF
of the principal focus of the sphere is exactly one-half of
the distance 1/ of the focus for the first surface, and that
FS is to ES as the sine of incidence or the index of refrac¬
tion is to the difference between twice the sine of incidence
and twice the sine of refraction ; that is, in glass, as 1*500
is to 3*000-2*000, or as T500 to 1*000.
Hence we have for different refractive bodies the follow¬
ing results:—
Index of Refraction.
Tabasheer FS is to ES as 1*111 is to 0*222
Water  FS is to ES as 1*336 is to 0*672
Glass  FS is to ES as 1*500 is to 1*000
Zircon  FS is to ES as 2*000 is to 2*000
Hence it appears that in the case of zircon, and all other
bodies whose index of refraction is 2*00, the focus F falls
exactly on the posterior surface of the sphere at E ; and it
therefore follows that in diamond, phosphorus, &c., and all
bodies whose refractive power exceeds 2*000, the principal
focus falls within the sphere, the focus advancing from E
towards S, as the index of refraction increases, and reaching
the centre of the sphere S, when the index of refraction
becomes infinite.
It may be interesting to trace the distances E of the
principal focus F from the sphere, in bodies of various re¬
fractive powders, supposing the radius of sphere to be 1 Dioptrics,
inch, and placed in vacuo.
Distances EF. Ft. in.
Hydrogen  3623 inches 301
Oxygen  1833 ,,  
Atmospheric air 1701 „  
Phosgen  432 „  
Tabasheer  4 „  
Water  0 98 „  
Glass  0*50 „ .......
Zircon   .. 0*00 „  
Diamond within the sphere.
153
141
33
0
0
0
0
11
2
9
0
4
1
0i
0
nearly.
In spheres of diamond, and other substances of high re¬
fractive power, a refracted ray Cc may fall so obliquely
upon the inner surface of the sphere, that it would be
totally reflected, and would therefore be carried round the
surface of the sphere, without the possibility of making its
exit. If the length of the refracted ray Cc should cut off
an arc which is an aliquot part of a circle, the ray would
describe a regular polygon, being always reflected from the
same points; but if it was not an aliquot part of a circle,
the points of reflection would vary in every revolution of
the ray.
The following is the rule for finding the principal focus
of a sphere, or its focus for parallel rays:—Divide the
index of refraction by twice its excess above unity, and the
quotient is the distance of the principal focus from the
centre of the sphere.
When the rays RC, RC, in place of falling on the sphere
in directions parallel to the axis, or to one another, proceed
from a near object, and always from a point in the axis
RSE, their focus may be found by the very same method
which we have already given. When the point from which
the rays diverge is very distant, the focus of such rays will
be a little farther from the sphere than F, and as the radiant
point approaches to the sphere, the focus F will recede from
it, as will be more fully explained when we treat of the pro¬
gress of rays through lenses.
Refraction of Rays by Convex Lenses.
The action of an equally convex lens in refracting the Refraction
rays of light, is exactly the r by convex
same as that ofa sphere, with a lenses,
this difference only, that the^
two surfaces are brought
nearer each other, and in
consequence of this, the ray
refracted by the first sur¬
face falls upon the second
surface at a different point,
and at a different angle, the
effect of which is to produce
a change in the position of the focus.
If LL (fig. 33) be a double and equally convex lens Parallel
of glass, a line A/ passing through the centre C, or middle rays,
point of its greatest thickness, is called its axis. Let paral¬
lel rays AB, A'B' fall upon the first surface at the points
B,B'; these will be refracted in directions BD, B'D’, which
will be determined by the method shown in fig. 32. Had
there been no second surface, these rays would have con¬
verged to a focus at f but as they meet the second sur¬
face of the lens at D and D', they will there be refracted,
as shown in fig. 32 for the sphere, so as to take the direc¬
tions DF, D'F, and have their principal focus at F.
The following is the rule for finding the principal focus
of a glass lens unequally convex :—Multiply the radius of
the one surface by the radius of the other, and divide twice
this product by the sum of the same radii.
If the glass lens is equally convex, and has its index of
refraction 1*500, the distance CF, or its principal focal dis¬
tance, will be equal to the radius of any of its surfaces.
The following is the rule for finding the principal focal
OPTICS.
565
•Dioptrics.
)blique
•ays.
Fig. 34.
Diverging
rays.
distance of a plano-convex lens of glass. \\ hen the convex
side is exposed to parallel rays, the focal distance, reckoned^
from the plane side, will be equal to double the radius ol
the convex surface, diminished by two-thirds of the thick¬
ness of the lens. When the plane side of the lens is ex¬
posed to parallel rays, the distance of the focus fiom the
convex side will be equal to twice tne radius.
When the rays AB, A'B', A"B" (fig. 34) are oblique to the
axis, the middle ray ABC,a'^
passing through the centre
C, will obviously suffer re¬
fraction at B, but as it
falls upon the second sur¬
face at the same angle, it
will be refracted a second
time in an opposite direc¬
tion, so that it will proceed
in a direction df parallel to
AB. The rays A'B', A''B"
will suffer refraction at the points B', B", and also at the
points D, and D', and it will be found by projection that
they meet in a focus F in the axis df.
In the preceding case the parallel rays are supposed to
issue from some very distant object; but if the object from
which the rays proceed is near or not very distant from the
lens, its focus will recede from the lens, in proportion as the
object or point of divergence approaches to it. T his fact
scarcely requires to be proved, for it is manifest that as the
radiant point approaches to the lens, the rays fall more and
more obliquely on the first surface, and less and less obliquely
on the second, so that the deviation produced by refraction
is not sufficient to bring them to a focus so near the lens as
the point F, in fig. 33. This will be better understood from
fig. 35, where LL is a convex lens, whose focus for parallel
rays is F. Let RL, RL be rays diverging from a candle
or other body, at
R, then, if we
trace the refract-j
ed rays by the
method already
Fig. 35.
the same distance RC, and from this product subtract twice Dioptrics,
the product of the radii, for a divisor. The quotient of the
dividend divided by the divisor will be the focal distance
C/ required.
When the lens is equally-convex, multiply the distance
of the radiant point RC by the radius of the surfaces, and
divide that product by the difference between the same
distance and the radius, and the quotient will be the focal
distance Qf required.
If the lens \splano-convex, divide twice the product of
the distance of the radiant point RC multiplied by the ra¬
dius of the convex surface, by the difference between that
distance and twice the radius, and the quotient will be the
distance of the focus from the centre of the lens.
When converging rays fall upon a convex lens, they are Converg-
always refracted to a point between the lens and their point ing rays,
of convergence. Let
RL, RL (fig. 36) ue
rays converging to
any pointr, behind the
lens LL, it is very
evident that refraction
must always make
Fig. 36.
given in fig. 32,
we shall find that
they will meet at a point/, farther from the lens than F,
and that if the point R advance to R', the focus/ will advance
to/', and so on, the focus /' receding from the lens as R
approaches to it. W hen the distance RC is equal to twice
CF, or twice the principal focal distance, the distance of
the focus/ from the lens will be equal to the distance of
radiant point from it, or Cf will be equal to CR. When
R comes nearer C,/' goes rapidly away from it, and when
R comes to F', which is called the anterior focus, CF’ being
equal to CF, the rays will be parallel, or what is the same
thing, the focus / will have retired to an infinite distance.
When R comes nearer to C than F, the rays will diverge,
after passing through the lens, as if they 'came from some
point in front of the lens, and this point, or virtual focus,
as it is called, will approach to the lens as R approaches it,
in moving from F' towards C. I he points R andy and
R’ and /, are called conjugate foci, because it may be
shown that rays diverging from / will be refracted to R,
and rays diverging from /, to R'. It is indeed a general
truth in all the phenomena of refraction and reflection, that
if the refracted rays are supposed to be the incident ones,
the incident rays will be the refracted ones; for the ray
experiences the very same action in an inverse order, by
retracing its path.
The following is the rule for finding the focus/, or the
conjugate focal length of a convex lens of glass for diverg-
in»- rays:—Multiply twice the product of the radii of the two
surfaces of the lens, by the distance of the radiant point or
RC, for a dividend. Multiply the sum of the two radii by
them cross the axis RCr of the lens somewhere between r
and the lens, and always between the principal focus F and
the lens. The exact point may be found by the methods
already .given. As the point of convergence r recedes from
the lens, the focus/will approach to the principal focus F,
and when r is infinitely distant, the rays RL, RL become
parallel, and / will coincide with F. When r approaches
to C,/ will also approach to it.
The focus of a double-convex glass lens, when its thick¬
ness is small, for converging rays, may be found by the fol¬
lowing rule :—Multiply twice the product of the radii of the
two surfaces by the distance rC of the point of conver¬
gence, for a dividend. Multiply the sum of the two radii
bv the same distance rC, and add to this product twice, the
product of the radii, for a divisor. The quotient obtained
by dividing the above dividend by this divisor, will be the
focal distance/C required.
When the lens is equally-convex, multiply the distance
rC by the radius of the surfaces, and divide that product
by the sum of the same distance and the radius, and the
quotient will give the focal distance/C required.
In plano-convex lenses we must divide twice the product
of the distance rC multiplied by the radius of the convex
surface, by the sum of that distance and twice the radius,
and the quotient will give the focal distance required.
Refraction of Rays by Concave Glasses.
In order to show how to find the refracted ray when the Refraction
light is incident on a concave surface, let LL (fig. 37) be le^"caVe
a double and equally con¬
cave lens of glass, and RB,
R'B' two rays parallel and
equidistant from the axis
RC of the lens. From a
scale on which RB is 1*5,
take BG equal to 1, and
from G draw GD parallel
to SB, the radius, and con¬
sequently perpendicular to
Fig. 37.
the first concave surface of the lens. Make BD equal
to BR, and through D and B draw DB&, which will be the
ray refracted by the first surface. On a scale where 6B
is 1, make bftg equal to 1*5. From g draw gd parallel to
bs, the radius of the second surface, and consequently per¬
pendicular to that surface at b. Make bd equal to AB, and
through b draw dbr ; Arwill be the ray refracted by the second
surface. In like manner, the other ray R'B' will be refracted
566
OPTICS.
Dioptrics, by the first surface, in the direction B7/, and the two re-
fracted rays br, b'r will diverge as if they had proceeded from
a point F, found by continuing br, b'r' backwards, which
is called the virtual focus of the concave lens LL.
If we trace oblique 'parallel rays through a double con¬
cave lens in the same manner as we have done for a con¬
vex one in fig. 34, we shall find that they will be refracted
as if they diverged from a focus in the axis or ray which
passes through the centre of the lens. The rules for find¬
ing the virtual focus of parallel rays refracted by a double¬
concave or plano-concave lens, are the same as for convex
lenses.
Diverging When diverging rays RB, RB (fig. 38) fall upon a
rays. concave lens LL, they
will be refracted
lines br, Hr, more
divergent than paral- «
lei rays, as if they
proceeded from a vir¬
tual focus f nearer the
lens than its principal Fis-38-
focus F. As the radiant point R approaches to C, f will
approach to C.
The following are the rules for finding the virtual focus
of a concave lens of glass for diverging rays:—Multiply
twice the product of the radii by the distance RC of the
radiant point R, for a dividend. Multiply the sum of the
radii by the distance RC, and add to this twice the pro¬
duct of the radii, for a divisor. Divide the dividend by
the divisor, and the quotient will be the virtual conjugate
focal distance fC. If the lens is equallg-concave, multiply
the distance of the radiant point R by the radius, and
divide the product by the sum of the same distance and
the radius, and the quotient will be the virtual focal dis¬
tance required.
If the lens is a plano-concave one, multiply twice the
radius by the distance of the radiant point, and divide this
product by the sum of the same distance and twice the
radius, and the quotient will be the virtual focal distance.
Converg- When converging rays fall upon a concave lens, their
ing rays, virtual focus will be without the principal focus on one
side, if the point of convergence is without the principal
focus on the other side. This case is shown in fig. 39,
where the rays
RB, R'B', con¬
verging to /, ....
without the prin-   1   
cipal focus F,v.-;li
be refracted in
the direction Br, fig- 3lJ-
B r, as if they had diverged from a focus at f on the other
side of the lens. When yC is equal to twice the principal
focal distance CF, the virtual focus of divergence/' will be
at the same distance on the left hand of C as the point of
convergence f is distant on the right hand. When / ap¬
proaches the lens on the right hand, the virtual focus/1 will
recede from it on the left. When/ reaches F, the virtual
focus will be infinitely distant, or the refracted rays will be
parallel; and when / advances from F to the lens, the re¬
fracted rays will converge on the right hand of the lens,
and the focus will advance towards the lens, as the point of
convergence advances towards it.
The rule for finding the conjugate focus of a converging
beam, for a doubly concave lens, is the same as that for
diverging rays in a doubly convex lens. If the lens is
plano-concave, the rule is the same as for diverging rays
falling upon a plano-convex lens.
Refraction of Rays by Memscuses, and Concavo-Convex
Lenses.
It would be quite unprofitable to trace the progress of
different rays through these various forms of glasses, both Dioptrics,
because they are but little used, and because the very same
methods which are applicable to convex and concave sur- Refraction
faces, are applicable also to them. When used by them- by menis-
selves and for ordinary purposes, these lenses are inferior cases,
to the common convex and concave lenses, and therefore
are seldom met with. We shall therefore content our¬
selves with giving the rules for finding their foci.
In a meniscus the focus for parallel rays is obtained by
dividing twice the product of the two radii by their dif¬
ference, and the quotient wall give the focal distance.
In the same kind of lens the focus for diverging rays
will be thus found Multiply twice the distance of the ra¬
diant point by the product of the radii of the two surfaces,
for a dividend. Multiply the same distance by the differ¬
ence between the two radii, and to their product add twice
the product of the two radii, for a divisor. The quotient
arising from dividing the dividend by the divisor, will be
the focal distance of the meniscus. This rule will answer
also for converging rays.
In concavo-convex lenses the very same rules will apply, and ron-
but the rays have a virtual focus in front of the lens, as in c^v0-con-
concave lenses. 'vex senses.
In treating of the passage of oblique rays through a
double convex glass (as shown in fig. 34), we have stated
that there is a point C, called the centre of the lens, through
which the ray that passes suffers the same refraction at both
surfaces, or emerges parallel to its original direction.
In equi-convex lenses, this centre C is accurately in
the middle line of the
thickness of the lens ;
but in other forms of
lenses it is not. Hence
it is necessary to point
out the method of find¬
ing this centre. In
double convex or con¬
cave lenses, the centre
C (see figs. 34, 40, and
41) lies within the two surfaces of the lens
vex and plano-concave
lenses, it is coincident
with the vertex of the
convex or concave sur¬
faces, and in menis- K"
cuses and concave-con¬
vex lenses it lies without
the thickness of the
lens, and nearest to the
surface which has the
greatest curvature. Let R, r (figs. 40-43) be the centres
of the convex and concave surfaces of the lenses, and REr
(figs. 40, 41), or RrE (figs. 42, 43), are their axes. Taking
any point A in one
surface, draw RA, and
parallel to this draw
ra, which will cut the
other surface of the
lens in a. Join Aa,
and continue it till it
meets the axis REr or
RrE in some point E;
this point E is called the
centre of the lens, because every ray that passes through it
will have its incident and emergent parts pamllel, such as
QA and qa. From the similarity of the triangles REA,
rEa, and the composition and division of ratios, we have
RAqpra : ra = REq=rE (or Rr) : rE. Hence rE must be
invariable like the other lines, and on whatever point the
parallel radii RA, ra, are drawn, the line Aa must cut the
Fig. 40.
In plano-con-
Fig.41
OPTICS.
567
Dioptrics, axis Rr in the same point E.
t0 Pass ou^ ^ie ^ens ‘n
both directions, it will suffer
the same quantity of refrac¬
tion in opposite directions, ,
because the angles of inci¬
dence aAR, Ear, are equal.
Hence the incident and
emergent parts, AQ, a^, will
be parallel
Refraction
by cylin¬
drical
lenses.
When the lens is small in diameter, or of a great focal
length, or its thickness inconsiderable from other causes,
the path of the ray Q Aay, may be taken as a straight line
passing through the centre E of the lenses. This is evident
from the circumstance that the perpendicular distance be¬
tween the lines AQ, aq diminishes both with the obliquity
of the incident ray and the thickness of the lens.
On the Refraction of Rays by Cylindrical Lenses.
Cylindrical lenses may have all the forms of the lenses
which we have already described. A perfect cylindrical
lens corresponds with a sphere whose section is the same ;
a plano-convex cylinder has its section similar to a plano¬
convex lens of the same dimensions ; and a meniscus cylin¬
der has one of the cylindrical surfaces convex and another
concave.
In all these cases the curved surfaces are cylindrical;
that is, circular in one direction, and rectilineal in another ;
but we may combine a spherical surface either convex or
concave, with a cylindrical surface either convex or con¬
cave, and thus produce cylindro-spherical lenses, an ingeni¬
ous application of which to vision was made by Mr Airy,
for the purpose of remedying a defect in his own eye.
This class of lenses, therefore, whether entirely cylindrical
or cylindro-spherical, having been found of real use both
in matters of science and for the purposes of vision, it be¬
comes of consequence to give a general account of their
properties.
Let LLL'L' (fig. 44) be a double convex cylindrical lens,
composed of two cylindrical surfaces,
one of which is LLL'L' Then it
RRR be three parallel and horizontal
rays passing through the thinnest por¬
tion of the upper part of the lens, it
is obvious that they will be refracted
to a focus at F, at the same distance
from the lens as in an ordinary lens.
In like manner the rays R'R'R' falling upon the lowest
portion of the lens will have their focus at F . Every
intermediate portion of the lens will have a similar focus
somewhere in the line FF', and if we suppose all the rays
to proceed from a distant object, such as the sun, there will
be an image of the sun, or a luminous focus in every point
of the line FF', and FF' will be a brilliant line of light.
This property of a cylindrical lens to form a bright line
of light has been ingeniously applied by Captain Kater in
the construction of his azimuth compass, which we have
described in our article Magnetism, vol. xiv.
In cylindrical lenses diverging and converging rays will
have the same foci as in common and concave lenses of the
same curvature; and therefore the rules for finding their
foci are applicable also to them.
Cylindrical lenses have been applied by Sir David
Brewster for improving the vision of objects that are
rectilineal, such as the defective lines in the solar spectrum.
When these lines are not visible, or are very imperfectly
visible, on account of the imperfections of the telescope,
the application of a cylindrical lens, either solid or fluid,
If we suppose the ray Aa renders them more visible when the axis of the cylinder or Dioptrics.
cylindrical surface is accurately perpendicular to the lines.
A prism has a similar effect. Both of them act in filling
up the irregularities of the edges of the lines by a succes¬
sion of images of other parts of the line. If we look, for
example, at a screw nail, or a twisted or rough rope, through
a prism or cylinder, whose length is perpendicular to the
screw or rope, the edges of both will be as smooth as if they
were polished cylinders.
A patent was taken out several years ago by a Parisian
artist for a transverse cylindrical lens similar to that shown
Fig. 43.
in fig. 25; which differs from the cylindrical lens in fig.
42 in this, that the second cylindrical surface has the axis
of the cylinder of which it is a part, perpendicular to the
axis of the cylinder of which the first surface is a part.
The effect of this combination is exactly equivalent to a
plano-convex glass of the same radii of curvature, and
therefore it does not possess any superior properties, as was
believed by its inventor.
If we cross two cylindrical lenses, such as that in fig. 41,
at right angles, we shall have all the effect of a double con¬
vex lens. Or if we cross two good test tubes filled with
water or any other fluid, in the same manner, we shall also
obtain a rude imitation of the effect of a spherical lens, which
may answer for the common purposes of a microscope.
(See Microscope, vol. xiv.)
The application of a cylindro-spherical lens by Mr Airy Mr Airy’s
to the purpose of remedying imperfect vision in his own eye, sphero-ey-
deserves to be more particularly noticed. He found that lindncal
his eye refracted rays to a nearer or shorter focus in a I
vertical than in a horizontal plane,1 so that his eye was
completely useless. Hence he concluded that the curva¬
ture of his cornea was greater in a vertical than in a hori¬
zontal plane, and he ingeniously proposed to correct this
defect by cylindrical refraction. As the eye was short¬
sighted, he required concave surfaces to correct the general
defect of a too convex cornea. He therefore had a lens
constructed which was doubly concave, one of the surfaces
being spherically concave, and the other cylindrically con¬
cave, and of such a curvature as to bring to the same point
the vertical and horizontal foci of the cornea. An artist of
the name of Fuller, at Ipswich, constructed for Mr Airy
lenses of the proper dimensions, which enabled him to read
the smallest print at a considerable distance with his defect¬
ive eye, as well as he could do with the other. He found
that vision was most distinct when the cylindrical surface
was turned from the eye, and he placed the lens as near the
eye as possible. There is another application of cylindrical
lenses which we believe has not hitherto been made. In
all preparations of natii -al history, objects which are gene¬
rally preserved in cylindrical bottles or vessels containing
fluids, the objects are always seen distorted, being magnified
to the greatest extent in a plane perpendicular to the length
or axis of the cylinder, while in a rectangular direction the
object is not magnified at all. In order to see the objects
of their true shape, and have them equally magnified in all
directions, a cylindrical lens of a suitable focus should be
employed, so that the axis of the cylinder may be at right
angles to the cylindrical axis of the vessel.
Sect. III.—On the Formation of Images by Lenses,
and on the Vision of Objects through them.
In the preceding section we have treated of the forma¬
tion of images by rays transmitted through small apertures,
and have considered the formation of images by reflecting
surfaces.
In order to explain the formation of images by convex
lenses, whether double, or plano-convex, or meniscuses, let
i This was the case also in Dr Thomas Young’s eye, but it did not injure his vision. {El. Nat. Phil., vol. ii., pp. 578,579.)
563
OPTICS.
Dioptrics. LL (fig. 45) be a convex lens, MN an object farther from
s—it than its principal focus. Let MLL be a cone of diver¬
gent rays proceeding from M, and having their focus at /;/
behind the lens; and NLL another similar cone from the
other extremity N of the object, and having their focus at v.
Every other part of the object will send out rays in all direc-
Dioptrics.
tions; but only those which fall upon the circular surface
of the lens LL will be refracted by it, and they will all have
their focus between m and n. These refracted pencils,
however, cannot be shown in the figure without crossing
one another. As every part of the object MN will there¬
fore send to corresponding points of the image mn rays of
their own colour, an image of MN resembling it in all re¬
spects will be formed at mn, and as the rays from the upper
part M of the object go to m, and from the lower part to n,
this image will be an inverted one; and if we draw lines
through the centre of the lens from M to m, and N to n, it
will be evident from the similarity of triangles that the size
of the image will be to the size of the object as the distance
of the image from the lens is to the distance of the object.
If we place the eye behind this image mn, we do not see
it suspended in the air at mn, but it appears as if it were in
front of the lens. That the image, however, is formed at
mn may be proved by viewing it on smoke raised at that
place, or on a piece of ground glass, or semi-transparent
paper; or if we bring the eye in front, we shall see it dis¬
tinctly painted on any white ground, such as a piece of
white paper. We shall suppose it, however, to be seen on
smoke by the eye placed behind it at A or B. It will be
seen exactly at mn as if it were a real object; and in order
to see it distinctly, the eye must view it at the same dis¬
tance as it views other objects, and it may be viewed as
any other object is, through a pair of spectacles or a mag¬
nifying-glass.
As all the rays from MN cross each other at the points
m, n of the image, the very same rays radiate from those
points that radiated from M, N, and consequently the very
same effect must be produced in the eye as if these rays
proceeded from a real object at mn. Hence, by placing an¬
other convex lens at a proper distance behind mn, a distance
greater than its principal focus, we may form another image
of this image in the conjugate focus of the second lens.
If we wish to form a magnified image of an object by any
lens, we have only to place the object nearer the lens, and
it follows from the rules for conjugate foci that the image
will increase. If MN, for example, is brought nearer LL,
the image mn will recede from the lens, and increase in size.
When ML is equal to twice the principal focal distance of
the lens, the distance of the image mL, and the size of the
image will be the same as that of the object MN. If MN
comes still nearer the lens, mn will recede still farther, and
continue to increase in size till it becomes infinitely large
and infinitely distant. When this happens, the rays which
form it will have become parallel. If during all these
changes the eye is withdrawn from the lens, so as to be at
least six inches behind the place where the image is formed,
it will observe the image distinctly’ before it. But when
the rays become parallel, the eye may then be placed im¬
mediately behind the lens, and it wifi see the object dis¬
tinctly in the anterior principal focus of the lens, and mag¬
nified in proportion to the shortness of the focal distance of
the lens.
In the preceding paragraphs, we have described the prin¬
ciples of the camera obscura, the compound microscope, and
the operation of the single microscope. When the image
mn is distinctly formed on paper, the lens LL acts as in
the camera obscura, painting all objects before it in their
natural colours, in their just proportions, and with all their
movements, on a white ground placed behind it. When the
image mn has become greater than the object MN, by the
advance of the latter to the lens, the eye views this mag¬
nified picture, and the effect is the same as in the compound
microscope, whose object-glass is LL, and whose eye-glass
has a focal distance equal to that of the eye. When the
image is infinitely distant, and the rays enter the eye paral¬
lel, the object being then in the anterior principal focus of
the lens LL, and the eye behind it, the lens is then acting
as a single microscope.
When objects are within our reach, such as microscopic
objects, or near objects presented before a camera obscura,
it is always in our power to illuminate them with artificial
light, and thus make dark objects give brighter images ; but
when this cannot be done, in consequence of the objects
being out of our reach, we can increase the brightness of
the image by increasing the area or superficies of the lens.
If the area of the lens LL, for example, were doubled, it
would collect twice the quantity of rays that flow from every
point of an object, and concentrate them at the correspond¬
ing points of the image nm.
In order to understand the principle of the telescope and
single microscope, we must be acquainted with what is called
the apparent magnitudes of objects. If we hold a sixpence
A (fig. 46) at the distance of six or eight —___d_c b
inches from the eye E, then it it will
exactly cover or appear equal to a shil- T
ling placed at B, a half-crown placed at
C, and a crown at D. If we remove the sixpence A, the
shilling will just cover the half-crown. If we remove the
shilling, the half-crown will just cover the crown. Hence
all these coins, placed as they are in the figure, are said to
have, to an eye placed at E, the same apparent magnitude,
because they are all seen under the same angle DEF, and
would all cover the same portion of the sky, or of any dis¬
tant object.
If the sixpence A is brought thrice as near the eye E as
in fig. 47, its angle of apparent magni¬
tude will now be GEF thrice as great
as DEF (fig. 46), and it will appear
thrice as large as DF. The sixpence
has therefore been magnified; and if.
we interpose a lens between it and the
eye, so as to make the rays refracted by the lens parallel,
j&i- E
Fig. 47.
OPTICS.
569
Dioptrics, it will appear distinctly magnified, and the lens whic i e
interpose will be a single microscope. , .
Objects within our reach, and capable of being placed
where we please, may be therefore magnified to any extent
by placing them very near the eye, and m the anterior focus
of a small convex glass, which, by making the diverging
rays parallel, render the object as distinctly seen under a
great angle as if it were a large object placed at a distance,
and subtending the same angle at the eye.
Rationale But when objects are at a distance and beyond our reach,
,of the tele- such as remote terrestrial objects, and the planets and stars,
scope. we can magnify them, or represent them to our eye under
a greater angle* of apparent magnitude, by a different prin¬
ciple. If, when the object is the dial-plate of a clock, at
the distance of 12,000 feet, we place a lens whose focal dis¬
tance is six feet in the end of a tube about 6 feet long, and
direct it to the dial-plate, a distinct inverted image of the
dial-plate will be formed in the focus of the lens at a dis¬
tance of 6 feet from it. If we then view this image with
our eye placed six inches behind it, we shall see the image
of the dial-plate distinct and magnified. Now, as the dis¬
tance of the dial-plate is 12,000 feet, and that of the^image
only six feet from the lens, the image will be ^ , or
2000 times smaller in diameter than the object, not in ap¬
parent magnitude, but by real measurement ; and if we
were to take the image and place it beside the dial-plate,
and view them both at the distance of 12,000 feet, then
apparent magnitudes would, like their real magnitudes, be
in the proportion of 2000 to 1. But the image is fortunately
within our reach, and we can do with it what we choose. Let
us first view it with the naked eye, which, generally speak-
ins, sees objects most distinctly at a distance of 6 inches, and
as we see it at the distance of 6 inches, it will appearas
much greater as it would have done at the distance of 12,000
feet as 12,000 feet is to 6 inches, or as 24,000 is to 1. Hence
it follows, that though the image is diminished in the focus
of the lens 2000 times, yet it is magnified from its proxi¬
mity to the eye 24,000 times,—that is, it is magnified on
the whole or twelve times. Now, this magnifying
effect will be found under all circumstances to be equal to
the focal length of the lens employed, divided by the foca
distance of the eye, or the distance at which it sees small
objects most distinctly, which is 6 inches,—that is, in the
6 feet 72 inches _ titrip, A
Present “5e 6md^’ " Ttata’ ” ,W'lm ” ,
short-sighted person, whose eyes have a focus of only d
inches, would be liable to see the same image of the dial-
plate at the distance of three inches, and in his case the
magnified effect would be ^ “^hesf °r 24 timeS 5 ^ ^
old person, or one whose eyes were long-sighted, so as not
to be able to see objects distinctly nearer than 12 inches,
would see the dial-plate magnified only 6 tunes. But both
these persons could put on highly magnifying spectacles,
so as to see the image at very short distances, or what is
the same thing, to look at the image of the dial-plate throng i
a magnifying glass, which would enable them to see it at
the distance of 1 inch. In this case the magnifying effect
72
would be —, or 72 times.
Telescopes. But the instrument which we have now fitted up is pre-
* cisely a telescope, the large lens being its object-glass, and
the small one used by the observer its eye-glass; and hence
the magnifying power of such an instrument is always equal
to the focal length of the object-glass divided by the focal
length of the eye-glass. The image formed by such a
Astrono-
. n.ical.
Their mag¬
nifying
power.
telescope is inverted, which is of no consequence when we Dioptrics,
look at the heavenly bodies, and it is therefore called an
astronomical telescope; but in looking at the dial-plate,
and at terrestrial objects, the inversion would be disagree¬
able ; and it is therefore usual to make the image erect, by
using either a concave eye-glass, or three or more convex
eye-glasses. In the former case it is called the Galilean Galilean.
telescope, and in the latter a terrestrial telescope.
When the distance of the object is not very great, or
when the focal length of the lens bears a considerable pro¬
portion to the distance of the object, the magnifying power
of a lens, when the eye views the image formed by the lens at
the distance of 6 inches, wfill be the following. Subtract the
focal distance of the lens in feet from the distance between
the image and the object, and divide the remainder by the
same focal distance. By this quotient divide twice the
distance of the object in feet; and the quotient will express
the magnifying power, or the number of times that the object
has been increased in apparent magnitude by the lens.
The very same observations apply to images formed by
concave mirrors ; and hence a single concave minoi be¬
comes the simplest form of the reflecting telescope, the eye
viewing the image which it forms. In the case of such
images”the body or the head of the observer must be placed
between the object and the image, so that in order to use a
single concave mirror, w'e must either make the miiror so
large that the observer’s head will not obstiuctall the light,
or we must make the reflection a little obliquely, oi, what
is done in practice, we must by means of a small plane
mirror or a prism reflect or refract the rays to one side, so
as to allow the observer to look at the image formed by the
concave mirror without obstructing the rays in their passage
from the object to the mirror, the quantity obstructed by
the plane mirror or prism being too small to do any injuiy.
If we view the image through a convex lens, so as to mag¬
nify it still more, the mirror and the lens will constitute a
reflecting telescope.
Sect. IV.—On the Form of the Images of Objects
PRODUCED BY LENSES OF DIFFERENT SlZES.
Reflecting
telescopes.
Various optical writers1 have treated of the images of Form of
objects, such as lines and surfaces; but, in so far as we images by
know, no writer has treated of the shape and condition of the
image of solids, such as the human figure, or of landscapes,
the parts of which are placed at different distances from the
lens or mirror by which they are formed. To the pho¬
tographer, and to the public who employ him, this subject
is one of fundamental importance, whether the object to be
delineated is to be looked at as a single picture, or consists
of binocular images to be raised into relief by the stereo-
SC The images of solid objects, or objects in relief, formed
upon a plane surface, differ in many respects from the ob¬
jects themselves. Science the most profound, and art the
most inventive, have been combined, and in a great degree
successfully, in executing lenses for telescopes, microscopes,
and photographic cameras; but even when a lens i^optically
perfect, all points of the object placed at different distances
fi-om the lens will be represented in the image with different
degrees of distinctness. The same is true of the images of
objects seen by the most perfect eye when fixed on one
point of the object. By changing its focus, however, if one
eye is used, or, if two eyes are used, by converging the optic
axis upon every point of the object in rapid succession, a
distinct view of every part of it is obtained. This, however,
cannot be done with the images of lenses; and hence it is
impossible to form upon a plane surface the image of any
object in which all the parts shall be equally distinct.
Smith’s Complete Syttem of Optics, vol. i., P- 238; and vol. n., p. 83.
4c
VOL. XVI
570
OPTICS.
loptncs. Following the geometrical principles of perspective, a cor-
rect picture of any object whatever upon a plane surface is
obtained by drawing lines from the point of sight through
every point of the object to that plane. Such a picture,
thus stippled as it were, will be more distinct than any
picture formed in the most perfect camera, because every
point will in the one case be equally and perfectly distinct,
while in the other those points alone which are equidistant
from the lens will be distinct, all the rest being little discs
of light, increasing in diameter with their distance from
their true foci. As the images seen by the human eye are
formed by a lens, whose aperture is the pupil, about one-fifth
of an inch in diameter, we may regard it as a correct repre¬
sentation of external objects, not differing perceptibly from
the perspective picture. For the same reason, we may con¬
sider the image of an object formed by a lens one-ffth of an
inch in diameter as a correct representation of it.
If we now, in perspective, take a new point of sight one-
fifth of an inch distant from the first, and draw lines as before
from every point of the object supposed to be fixed, the
perspective representations of it on the former plane will
be changed, the two pictures will be dissimilar, and the
similar points of the one will not coincide with the similar
points of the other. For the same reason, if we look with
one eye at the same object from two different points one-fifth
of an inch distant, we shall obtain two views of this object
equally dissimilar. The dissimilarity of the two pictures will
increase with the distance of the two points of sight; and if
the points of sight are distant inches, the dissimilarity will
be considerable. But the two eyes of man are distant 2^
inches, and therefore the pictures of objects seen by each eye
must be very dissimilar, the right eye seeing parts on the left
side of a statue, for example, which are not seen by the left
eye, and the left eye seeing parts on the right side of the
statue which are not seen by the right eye. If we wish,
therefore, to have a picture of any solid object exactly the
same as it is seen with our two eyes, we must take it with two
lenses one-fifth of an inch in diameter, placed at the distance
of 2^- inches, and having their axes converged to the point
of the object which we desire to see most distinctly. Or
we may take the picture by a lens three inches in diameter,
by means of two apertures one-fifth of an inch in diameter,
the centres of which are one inch and a quarter distant from
the centre of the lens, the line joining them being hori¬
zontal. The picture thus taken will not be so distinct as
one taken with the single lens of the same diameter.1
These facts being admitted as rigorously true, let us
suppose that a perfect lens four inches in diameter is em¬
ployed to produce upon a plane surface, the ground glass
of a camera for example, the image of any object, lineal,
superficial, or in relief, the diameter of the pupil being one-
fifth of an inch. Then, as there will be in the lens several
nundred areas (400 if the apertures are square) equal to
that of the pupil, the image formed by the lens will be a
compound image, or a combination of 400 perspective
views of the object, taken from 400 different points of
sight, each distant £th of an inch from its neighbour, and
all those formed by the margin of the lens such as seen
from points of sight 3 inches and four-fifths distant from each
ot lei. Such a jumble of incoincident images cannot under
any circumstances be a true representation of an object,
vnet iei dead or alive. This view of the question, founded
on the principles of perspective, will be more intelligible if
we consider the subject in its optical aspect.
Let LL/ (fig. 48) be either the horizontal or the vertical
^ec 'P11 0 a ens> and let ABDEC be the similar section of
a solid cylinder ABCD, terminated by a cone CED, placed
e oie t le ens in order to have an image or picture of it
taken upon a plane surface behind the lens. Prolong the
lines EC, ED, till they meet the lens at the points c, d, and Dioptrics.
CA, DB till they meet it at the points a, h. If we now i
cover all the lens i.
except the central
portion ah, or use a
lens of the diameter
ah, the image of the
object ABE will be
a circle, because not
a single ray from the
lines AC, BD, or
CE, DE—that is,
from the surface of
the cylinder or the
cone can reach the lens ah. In like manner, if
we cover all the lens except cd, all the rays from AC,
is, from the surface of the cylinder—will fall
upon the lens cd, but none of the rays from EC, ED, the
surface of the cone. But when the whole lens L'L is ex¬
posed, the rays from EC, ED will fall upon it, and have
their image formed behind the lens. The image of the
solid thus formed upon a plane, such as the ground glass of
a camera, will be represented by a circle corresponding to
AB, surrounded by a luminous ring, whose external diame¬
ter represents the surface of the cylinder, and a second
ring whose external diameter represents the surface of the
cone. If the object ABDEC is viewed by the eye, the
diameter ol whose pupil is ah, the circular end AB of the
cylinder w'ould alone have been seen ; so that it is obvious
that the images of objects must vary with the diameter of
the lenses which produce them. These results have been
confirmed by direct experiment.
Let us now apply these principles to pictures of the human
bust taken by a photographic camera. The human face
and head, or bust, consists superficially of various lines and
surfaces, inclined at all angles to the axis of the lens by
which their image is to be formed upon a plane surface.
A true perspective representation of the human head placed
at AB will be given by a lens ah, whose diameter is equal
to that of the pupil of the eye. From such a portrait all
surfaces, such as AC, BD, EC, ED, will be excluded, be¬
cause no rays from them can fall upon ah ; but if we use
the whole lens EL', all these surfaces, and all those of an
intermediate inclination, between AC and EC, and between
BD and DE, will be introduced into the portrait. If LL'
is a horizontal section of the lens, the marginal parts between
a, and L might introduce into the portrait the left eye, the
left ear, or the left side of the nose, which are not visible
in a true perspective representation of the head; and for
the same reason the marginal parts between b and L' might
introduce into the portrait the right eye, or the right ear, or
the right side of the nose, which are not visible in a true
perspective representation of the head ; or all these features
will be enlarged or widened horizontally, because they
subtend a greater angle, as seen from the marginal parts of
the lens. If LL' be a vertical section of the lens, the top
of the head, the upper part of the lips, and the eyelids wilf
be introduced into the portrait by the upper marginal part
of the lens; while the lower part of the nose, the interior
of the nostrils, the lower part of the upper lip, and the lower
part of the chin will be introduced by the marginal parts
Z»L of the lens. I he same is true of all other sections of
the lens; and a monstrous representation will thus be ob¬
tained of the human head, the monstrosity increasing with
the size ot the lens. The form and character of portraits
will thus vary with the shape of the lens; so that by making
it circular, oval, square, rectangular, triangular, or any
irregular form, we may produce remarkable modifications of
photographic portraits. A round and swelled face might
1 See Edinburgh Transactions, vol. xv., p. 365.
OPTICS.
571
Dioptrics, be improved by a lens whose length is three or four times
its breadth, and a narrow and pinched face might be im¬
proved by a large circular lens.
The hideousness of photographic portraits is universally
admitted. A distinguished writer speaks of the terrible
reality of photography, adopting the general idea that the
look of age and suffering exhibited in sun pictures arises
from the unsteadiness of the sitter, and the necessary con¬
straint of feature and of limb under which the victim
submits to the operation. The true cause, however, modi¬
fied doubtless by others, is to be found in the size of the
lens, however perfect it may be.1
There is another defect in large lenses which requires to
be mentioned. When pictures of trees, of shrubs, and
flowers, or any other object smaller than the lens, are taken,
the images of these objects, though absolutely opaque, are
transparent; and leaves and stems, and small objects behind
them, are seen like ghosts through the photographic image.
This will be understood from the annexed figure, in which
LI/ is a large lens, and AB an object whose picture is to
Fig. 49.
tion.
be taken by it. It is obvious that rays from a small object
D situated beyond AB, will fall upon the marginal parts
Lm, LA of the lens, which will form an image of it in front
of the image of AB, so that AB will appear transparent.2
The preceding observations, mutatis mutandis, are equally
applicable to mirrors or specula, which are sometimes em¬
ployed for taking photographic pictures.
Having described the nature of images taken by large
lenses,3 it is of importance to notice certain properties of
small lenses which render them peculiarly valuable in pho¬
tography, or other purposes where a very correct picture
of objects is required. If we could illuminate objects suffi¬
ciently, or give a very high degree of sensitiveness to the
collodion or other material for the reception of their images,
a small pin-hole, without any lens at all, would give the
most accurate picture of objects of all kinds, whether lineal,
superficial, or solid.4 In cameras with two large achromatic
lenses, the light has to pass through a great thickness of
glass, which may not be altogether homogeneous, and which,
if it is not, must deform the image. The light, too, has to
pass through eight surfaces, which may not be truly spheri¬
cal, and, whether so or not, must scatter light in all direc¬
tions upon the sensitive plate. If the optical axes of these
surfaces are not perfectly coincident, thq image must be
injured; and whether they are or not, the lights reflected
from them must fall upon the sensitive plate. In addition
to these evils, the difficulty of keeping away from the sensi¬
tive plate all extraneous light is in proportion to the size of
the lens. From all these imperfections small lenses are to
a great extent free ; and we have no doubt that the time is
approaching when a single achromatic lens one quarter of
an inch in diameter will be in universal use. In proof ot
this, we have now before us a photograph taken in sixty
seconds with a single lens of rock-crystal,5 not achromatic, Spherical
and which is far superior to all others of the same person Aberra-
(and they are numerous) taken by the first photographic
artists with the most perfect cameras. With these facts
before us, we have no hesitation in expressing our con¬
viction that the photographer who has the sagacity to per¬
ceive the defects of his instrument, the honesty to avow it,
and the skill to remedy them by the researches of optical
science, will take a place as high in photographic portraiture
as that of a Reynolds and a Lawrence in the sister art.
Paht III.—ON SPHERICAL ABERRATION, AND
CAUSTIC CURVES.
The rules which we have already given for finding the
foci of lenses and mirrors, are strictly applicable only to
rays that pass near the axis of the lenses and mirrors ; and
this may be readily proved by the method of finding the
refracted and reflected ray which we have explained and
used.
Sect. I.—On the Spherical Aberration op Lenses.
In order to prove and illustrate the preceding truth, we Spherical
shall suppose parallel rays to be incident on a mass of glass aberration
MNOP (fig. 50) in which there is only one refraction at its of le!lses•
first surface, and we do this both to avoid the confusion of
lines, and because it is perfectly sufficient for the purpose
of explanation. Let RS be the axis of the spherical sur¬
face MN, passing through
S, its centre of curvature;
and if we consider it a ray, '
also, it will go on to F p- ■
without any refraction, j
Let RB be a ray falling^
on the refracting surface^-
at a distance from the axis
RS, and parallel to it. e.
From the point of inci¬
dence B draw BS, which
Pig. 50.
will be perpendicular to the surface at B,and take BG three-
fourths of BR, BG being to BR as 1 is to PoOO, the
index of refraction. From G draw GD parallel to BS,
and making BD equal to BR, through the points D and B
draw B/C for the refracted ray. Do _ the very same thing
for the rav RB' falling on the point B, and parallel to RS,
and equidistant from it, and B/A will be the refracted ray.
If we now take two rays rb, rb' near the axis, and parallel
to and equidistant from it, and apply the same method of
projection to them, we shall find the refracted rays to be
5F, b'F crossing the axis, and converging at a point F, more
remote from the refracting surface than/. If we draw
through F a line AFC, perpendicular to the axis, then A
and C being the points where the marginal or most remote
rays which fall on the surface MN meet AFC, and F be¬
ing the focus of those nearest the axis, the distance /F is
called the longitudinal spherical aberration, and AC the
lateral spherical aberration of the lens.
These results may be obtained experimentally by cover¬
ing up with a circle of black paper, all the central parts of
the spherical surface, leaving a clear marginal ring corre¬
sponding with BB'. If the surface thus limited is exposed
to the solar rays, we shall find a pretty distinct picture or
1 The photographic picture of a cube taken by a lens of a greater diameter than the cube, will show jive of its sides, when a true per¬
spective representation of it is simply a single square of its surface. . . . .
2 See Sir D. Brewster’s Treatise on the Stereoscope, p. 175, where this phenomenon is more u y exp aine
3 Lenses of nine and even twelve inches diameter have been used in photography.
4 See Treatise on the Stereoscope already referred to, p. 137.
6 A single lens of rock-crystal should have its radii as 14 to 1, which is nearly a plano-copvex, the flattest s;de being turned to
the object.
572
OPTICS.
tion.
Spherical image of the sun formed at/ which, from a cause which
Aberra- we g]^]] soon explain, will be highly coloured at the edges.
If we now remove the black circle from the surface MN,
and cover the outside surface with black paper, excepting
a small opening in the vertex of the lens, where the axis
RS cuts it, and expose the lens to the sun’s rays, we shall
find the image of the sun distinct at F, and it will be less
coloured than the image formed at f from another cause.
If we now expose successive rings of the surface MN to
the sun’s light, shutting up all the rest of the lens, we shall
find that the ring nearest the axis will have its focus near/
between/and F ; the second ring, its focus still nearer F ;
the third, its focus still nearer F; and so on, till the last
ring will give its image of the sun close to F. Hence it
follows, that there will be distinct images of the sun formed
by each ring, and occupying the whole space /F; and,
therefore, if we expose the whole surface MN to the solar
rays, the image of the sun must be extremely confused
and indistinct; and if received upon a sheet of white paper
placed at AC, it will consist of a bright disc at F, sur¬
rounded with a broad halo of light, becoming fainter and
fainter towards A and C.
As this is true of every spherical surface whatever, it
follows that every image formed by a spherical surface or
lens, and every object seen through it, must be indistinct,
from the confusion of rays produced by spherical aberra¬
tion. As this indistinctness increases with the aperture of
the lens, or the distance of the marginal rays from the
axis, we may remove it to a certain degree by limiting the
aperture, or using smaller lenses; but excepting in the case
of the sun or any highly luminous body, this diminution
of the aperture would injure vision, from the want of light,
especially in microsopes and telescopes; and hence it
becomes an object of the highest importance in optics, and
it is one which has occupied much attention, to discover
methods of diminishing or correcting the spherical aberra¬
tion of lenses.
Philosophers have therefore been led to calculate with
accuracy the amount of spherical aberration in lenses of
different forms, and having different sides exposed to the
incident rays. The following are the results which they have
obtained, and they may be readily verified either by experi¬
ment, or by tracing the refracted rays through large dia¬
grams of lenses of different shapes.
1. In a plano-convex lens (such as that shown at E, fig.
22.), whose plane side is turned to parallel rays, or to
distant objects, if it is intended to form an image of them
aberration. 'n f°cus» or with its plane side turned to the eye, if it
is to be employed as a single microscope or magnifier,—
the spherical aberration is times its thickness, or the
greatest that can be obtained from it. This is called its
worst position.
2. In a plano-convex lens, whose convex side is turned
to parallel rays, the spherical aberration is only l^^ths of
its thickness, or the least that can be obtained from it.
This is called its best position.
3. In double convex lenses with equal convexities, the
spherical aberration is lT$5^ths of their thickness, greater
than that of a plano-convex lens in its best position.
4. In double convex lenses having their radii as 2 to 5,
the spherical aberration will be the same as in a plano¬
convex lens in its viorst position, if the flattest side, or that
which has its radius 5, is turned towards parallel rays ; and it
will be the same as that of a plano-convex lens in its best posi¬
tion, if the surface whose radius is 2 is turned to parallel rays.
5. The lens of least spherical aberration is a double
convex one, the radii of whose surfaces are as 1 to 6, hav-
Forms of
lenses of
least and
greatest
1-000
ing the surface whose radius is 1 turned towards parallel Spherical
rays. In this, which is its best position, the aberration is Aberra-
only IjJ^ths of its thickness. But if the side with the tion-
radius 6 is turned towards parallel rays, the aberration will
be S-j^ths of its thickness.
If we determine the virtual focus of the central and
marginal rays for a concave surface (as in fig. 50), we shall
find that the spherical aberration is exactly the same for
concave as for convex lenses ; and hence all the preceding
results are equally applicable to them.
If we suppose that the lens of least spherical aberration
(as in art. 5) has an aberration expressed by unity, the com¬
parative aberrations of other lenses will be as follows:—
Double convex or concave with radii as 1 to 6, in "I
best position   J
Plano-convex or concave in best position 1-081
Double equi-convex or equi-concave 1-561
Plano-convex or concave in worst position 4-206
As a general rule for all lenses already made, and whose
focus it is inconvenient to alter, the most convex surface
should always be placed towards parallel rays when the
lenses are used singly.
The preceding results are calculated on the supposition, Aberration
that the lens is made of glass whose index of refraction is with
1*500; but the numerical results vary greatly when we use je^ent nie"
transparent media of higher and lower refractive powers.
When the index of relfaction is 1*6861, which is nearly
that of some of the metallic glasses, and of several precious
stones, and of sulphuret of carbon nearly, the lens of least
spherical aberration is not one which has its radii as 1 to
6, but one which is plano-convex; and when we come to
higher refractive powers, such as those of sapphire, ruby,
garnet, and diamond, of which lenses are now made for mi¬
croscopes, and ought to be made for the eye-glasses of power¬
ful telescopes, one of the surfaces of the lens of least sphe¬
rical aberration must be concave. This will be seen from
the following results which we have calculated from Sir
John Herschel’s formula,1 2 viz., ^r=:^ where R"
R 2/D + ya
and R' are the radii of the surfaces of the lens of least sphe¬
rical aberration, and p the index of refraction.*
Index of Refraction. Ratio.
Vacuum 1-000 1 to 1-00 equi-convex.
Tabasheer 1-100 1 to 1-31
New fluid in amethyst 1-111 1 to 1-35
Second do. in topaz 1-200 1 to 1-76
Ice 1-300 1 to 2-43
„ Water 1-3368  1 to 2-77
Cryolite 1-350 1 to 2-93
Fluorspar 1-400... 1 to 3-60
Plate-glass 1-500 1 to 6-00
Quartz, Topaz 1-600 1 to 14-00
Chrysolite 1-686 1 to infinity, plano-convex.
Sulphuret of carbon 1-700 1 to —93 meniscus
Garnet, Ruby 1-800 1 to —12
Glass—lead 2£, flint 1 1-900 1 to—7
Zircon 2-000 1 to —5
Diamond, Octohedrite 2-500 1 to —2-5
Chromate of lead 3-000 1 to—2-1
3-500 1 to-1-6
4 000 1 to —1-5 equal radii.
infinite 1 to —1
But it is not merely the curvature of the lens of least
aberration that changes its character and its magnitude,—
the aberration itself suffers a very great variation. This
will appear from the table already referred to in the article
Microscope.
In the case of diamond the aberration must be next to
nothing; but in order to obtain this great advantage, its
second surface must be very concave, which diminishes
1 Phil. Trans.
2 See our article Microscope, vol. xiv., p. 771, for the numbers obtained by Mr Coddington, from indices of refraction from 1-4 up
to 2 0.
OPTICS.
573
Spherical
Aberra¬
tion.
\berration
>f rays rot
parallel.
greatly its magnifying power. We have no doubt that arti¬
ficial glasses or other solids will yet be made by ait, and
that mineral bodies will be discovered which will have such
a high refractive power, as to enable opticians to lemove
almost wholly the spherical aberration of single lenses.
Hitherto we have spoken only of the aberration of parallel
rays, the effect of which is invariably to shot ten the focus
of the marginal or exterior rays; but when the incident
rays converge or diverge, the aberration diminishes, and the
focus of the marginal rays continues to be nearer the sur¬
face than that of central rays, till the focus of convergence
or divergence comes up to two particular points in the axis,
at the first of which, as will be presently seen, the aberra¬
tion disappears, and at the second of which, namely, the
focus of parallel rays on the convex side, it is infinite. When
the focus of convergence or divergence is situated between
these points, the effect of aberration is to lengthen the focus
of marginal rays, and shorten that of central rays, the focal
distance of the latter being now shorter than that of the
former. These results are true for all curvatures and all
indices of refraction.1
Sir John Herschel has given the following general rule
for all double convex or concave lenses, and for all menis-
cuses and concavo-convex lenses in which the sum of the
curvatures of their surfaces is greater than \/2/a + 3/a2 times
their difference (/a being their index of refraction). The
effect of aberration will be to throw the focus of marginal
rays more towards the incident light than that of central
ones, when the lens is of a positive character, or makes pa¬
rallel rays converge; but more from the incident light if of
a negative character, or if it cause parallel rays to diverge.2
We have mentioned above, that there is a point in the
axis, at which rays which diverge from it, and fall upon a
concave surface, will have no spherical aberration. This will
be understood from
fig.
51, where BB'
is the first concave
surface of a medium,
C its centre, BCD
its axis, and A a
point in the spheri¬
cal surface, where it
meets the axis be¬
yond the centre C.
If we take two points
Fig. 51.
R, F, such that RC is equal to the radius AC of the sur¬
face multiplied by the index of refraction, or RA to AF
as the index of refraction is to unity, then all rays diverging
from R, whether marginal or central, and falling upon the
concave surface BDB', will be refracted at BB' in direc¬
tions Br, BV, which will proceed from the virtual focus F
without any spherical aberration. This may be readily
proved by the projection of the rays. Hence if, upon F as
a centre, with any radius FE greater than FD, we describe
a circle MEN, we shall have the second surface of a con¬
cavo-convex lens, which will be entirely free of spherical
aberration. This is evident, as the rays refracted by the
first surface BDB’
fall perpendicularly
on the second sur¬
face, and suffer there¬
fore no refraction.
As there is a
concavo-convex lens
without aberration,
for rays diverging
from one point of its
axis R (fig. 51), so
Dr Clair
on spheri¬
cal aberra¬
tion.
Set riSeLwithout aberration for rlys converging to nyl SH, RK;after refraetion by (he concave lens (fig. 54),
a particular point in its axis. Let RB, R'B' (fig. 52) be Spherical
rays converging to a point /in the axis RC/1 of a convex ■A^erra-
refracting surface BDB', whose centre is C. If we take ^ tion. ^
fC so that it is to the radius CD as the index of refraction
is to unity, then it may be shown, by projection or calcula¬
tion, that the refracted rays RB, rb, whether marginal or
central, will be refracted in lines BF, 5F, having the same
focus F, without any spherical aberration. Hence if, with
F as a centre, we describe any circle, having its radius F<f
less than FD, we shall have the second or concave surface
of a meniscus, which will have no aberration, because the
rays BF, 5F will pass through that surface perpendicularly,
and suffer no refraction.
Owing to the injurious effect of spherical aberration on
the performance of telescopes and compound microscopes,
philosophers have sought to correct the spherical aberra¬
tion of convex lenses by the opposite aber¬
ration of concave ones. We have already
given drawings3 of three doublets without
spherical aberration, according to the cal¬
culations of Sir John Herschel. We
shall now give an account of the method
used by Dr Blair of correcting the sphe¬
rical aberration in his compound object-
glasses, and as they possess some histori¬
cal interest, we shall give the same dia¬
grams which he employed. Let AB (fig.
53) represent a convex lens receiving a
pencil of diverging rays from the object S,
and let D be the focus of marginal and F
that of rays incident near the axis, such
as ST. The greatest longitudinal aberra¬
tion will therefore in this case be DF.
Let GH (fig. 54) be now a concave lens,
upon which are incident parallel rays
SH, RK. Let P be the virtual focus of
marginal rays, such as SH, and N the focus of rays near
the centre, such as RK, so that PN will be in this case the
longitudinal aberration. The convex lens in fig. 53 is in
the position which gives the least
spherical aberration, and the con¬
cave lens in fig. 54 is in the position
which gives the greatest aberration.
Hence, in order to make the aberra¬
tions equal, we must make the focal
distance of the convex glass much
shorter than that of the concave one,
and if it is requisite to have the dis¬
tance of the points F and N from
the convex and concave lenses the
same as it is shown in the figures,
the object must then be placed much
nearer the convex lens. Hence the
image of the near object S is placed
at the same distance from the con¬
vex lens in fig. 53, or the virtual focus
of the concave lens in fig. 54, where
it is shown as refracting parallel or
infinitely distant rays.
When the focal distance KN, therefore, for parallel rays,
is equal to the distance TF for rays diverging from S, and
when the aberration DF and PN are equal, then if the
two lenses are combined (as in fig. 55), parallel rays SH,
RK falling upon them, will be refracted to the focus S,
without any spherical aberration. For if we suppose all the
rays from S, which the convex lens (fig. 53) converges to
D and F, to be returned back from these points to the lens,
they would be refracted accurately to S. But the parallel
Fig. 54.
I
1 Sir John Herschel’s Treatiee on Light, sect. 288.
2 Ibid., 299.
3 Art. Microscope, chap, ii., vol. xiv.
574
OPTICS.
AbernT the directions HX, K V, are exactly in the same relative
^.jon situation as the rays which we have sup-
i posed to be returned directly back from F
and D are in at their incidence on the con¬
vex lens. Hence, when these lenses are
combined, as in fig. 55, parallel rays falling
on the concave lens, and after refraction
incident upon the convex lens, will be re¬
fracted accurately to S without any sphe¬
rical aberration.1
The difficulty of getting rid of the aber¬
ration of spherical surfaces induced opti¬
cians at a very early period to propose the
construction of lenses that were not sphe¬
rical, and that had such forms as to be en¬
tirely free of spherical aberration. As the
marginal parts of spherical lenses refract
the rays which fall upon them too much,
the spherical aberration would obviously
be removed or diminished by giving the
surface any curvature in which the mar¬
ginal parts become /ess convex,
Lenses not
spherical.
Pig. 55.
Now this is the character
of two well-known curves, viz., the ellipse and the hyper¬
bola, which, as Descartes discovered, may be employed
in the formation of lenses in the following manner:—
Pig. 56.
Ellipsoidal If a lens LL (fig. 56) has the form of a meniscus in
lenses. which the convex surface LAL is part of a prolate spheroid
formed by the revolution of an ellipse, whose greater axis
AD is to its eccentricity (or distance between its foci F, /)
as the index of refraction is to unity, and if the other sur¬
face LaL is concave, and part of a sphere whose centre is
F, the remoter focus of the spheroid; then rays RB, RA,
RB, parallel to the axis RF of the spheroid or the ellipse,
will be refracted by the convex spheroidal surface alone to
the remoter focus F, and as these rays fall perpendicularly
upon the second surface LaL, they will suffer no change
whatever by its action, and continue their progress to F.
The same property belongs to a concavo-convex lens L'L',
whose anterior or concave surface is part of a prolate sphe¬
roid of the same dimensions as for the meniscus, and having
its convex side spherical, with f as a centre, and of any
radius. In this case, all rays R'5, R'&, parallel to the axis
and incident at 5, b, will be made to diverge from the same
virtual focus F, and will suffer no change of direction in
passing out of the second or convex surface, as they all fall
upon it perpendicularly.
These truths may be proved by the most elementary
principles of the conic sections, or by drawing a tangent
mn to the elliptical surfaces at B, b, and determining the
refracted rays by the method already described.
Hyperbolic Upon the same prin-
leiis. ciples a plano-convex
lens may be constructed
without spherical aber¬
ration as shown in fig.
Plano-con- 57, provided its pos-
vex. terior surface LaL is
part of a hyperboloid
Fig. 58.
Fig. 57.
formed by the revolution of a hyperbola LaL, whose greater Spherical
axis is to the distance between the foci as the index of re- Aberra-
fraction is to unity. Parallel rays RB, RA, R'B', will suf- Con¬
fer no refraction at the plane surface BAB', but, at the points
of the convex surface b, b', will be refracted accurately to
F, the further focus of the hyperboloid.
In like manner a plano-concave lens, having its concave Plano-con.
surface part of a hyperboloid, will diverge all rays so as to cave,
have their virtual focus in one of the foci of the hyperbo¬
loid.2
The following elegant method of determining the figure Huygens’
of a refracting surface which shall refract marginal and lens of no
central rays to the same focus is due to Huygens. Let R aberration,
(fig. 58) be the focus
of diverging rays, and
F the focus to which it
is required to refract
them with accuracy.
Take any point A as
the vertex of the re¬
fracting surface requir¬
ed ; the surface must
be such that the inci¬
dent and refracted rays
RB, BF, have such a ratio to each other, that the excess of
RB above RA shall be to that of FA above FB, as the in¬
dex of refraction is to unity. In order to find the curve
BAB which possesses this property, take in the axis RF any
point D, and let DA be divided at the point C in such a
manner that AC is to AD as unity is to the index of re¬
fraction, and from R and F as centres describe the arches
of circles BDB', BCB', with the radii RD, FC, their points
of intersection, B, B' will be in the required curve. In like
manner, any other points in the curve may be found, and
in order to convert it into a lens we have only to describe
a spherical surface LaL, round the focus F as a centre, so
that the refracted rays BF, B'F may suffer no change by
passing through it perpendicularly. The curve BAB' gra¬
dually approaches to an ellipsoid as the radiant point R
becomes more distant from the lens, and when it is in¬
finitely distant the curve is the section of an ellipsoid,
whose further focus is in F.3
Various attempts have been made to execute lenses of
other forms than spherical, but without decided success.
Descartes has described machines for this purpose in the
tenth chapter of his Dioptrics, but though he succeeded to
a certain degree in his experiments, yet the art has never
been acquired of producing figures sufficiently accurate for
fine telescopes and microscopes.
Sect. II.—Spherical Aberration of Mirrors.
It has been already stated under “ Catoptrics” in this ar- Spherical
tide, that in all reflections from spherical surfaces it is only aberration
for the ray near the axis that the rules for finding their fociof mirrors,
are correct, those which fall farther and farther from the
axis having their foci nearer the reflecting surface. Hence
all the images which are formed by spherical surfaces are in¬
distinct from spherical aberra¬
tion, like those formed by lenses, R_
with this difference, that the
images are not confused with 
the different colours which al-
ways accompany the refraction   
of lenses.
If MN (fig. 59) is a concave Fig. 59.
mirror, by which parallel rays R, R are reflected from its
margin, and r, r from near its axis, it will be found, from
1 See Edinburgh Transactions, vol. iii., p. 27. 2 See Descartes’ Dioptrica, cap. viii.
3 See Newton’s Lectiones Opticce, part i., sec. iv., and Huygens’ Traite de la Lumiere, p. Ill, &c.
OPTICS.
575
Spherical
Aberra¬
tion.
arabo-
>idal
\irrors.
a simple projection of the reflected rays, that R, R will in¬
variably be reflected to a focus F nearer the mirror than
the focusof the central rays. The space Fy is called the
longitudinal or linear spherical aberration, and it will ob¬
viously become greater as the diameter of the mirror is in¬
creased, its focal length or its curvature remaining the
same, and with its curvature when its diameter or aper¬
ture remains the same.
In mirrors, in all cases but one, the marginal rays have
a shorter focus than the central ones, or, what is the same,
have their focus nearest the reflecting surface. This case
takes place when the radiant point is situated between the
surface and the principal focus on the concave side of the
mirror, in which case the focus of marginal rays is farther
from the mirror than that of central rays.
There are only two cases in which spherical reflecting
surfaceshave no spherical aberration,—namely, when diverg¬
ing rays radiate from the centre of a concave mirror or
spherical surface, in which case they are reflected back
without aberration to the point from which they came, with¬
out any aberration; and when they converge to the centre
of a convex mirror or spherical surface, in which case they
will be reflected back in lines diverging from the centre or
virtual focus behind it, without any aberration.
One of these cases, namely, the first, is not an ideal
one, but is actually applicable to practical purposes. For
example, if rays diverging from F, the centre of curvature
(not the focus) of the reflecting mirror MN (fig. 60), fall
upon the mirror, they
will be reflected to F,
and pass through F to¬
wards a lens LL, which
will refract them into a
parallel beam LLRR,
if’FL is the focal length
of the lens; or into a
converging beam, so as
Fig. 60.
Spherical
Aberra¬
tion.
Fig. 61.
to illuminate strongly any near object, if FL is greater than
the focal length of the lens. This contrivance has been
proposed for lighthouse illumination, where, in addition to
the beam FLL radiating directly from F, the lens LL re¬
ceives also the other beam FMN, both of which it unites
in one parallel beam LLRR. In the accurate illumination
of objects for the microscope this contrivance is also appli¬
cable ; and hence for this purpose a spherical mirror is
better than a mirror of any other form.
As we cannot in the case of reflectors diminish their
spherical aberration as we did in lenses, by giving a different
shape to the two surfaces, it becomes of great importance
to form the reflecting surface in such a manner as to re¬
move the spherical aberration altogether. It is evident
from the inspection of fig. 59, where CB is a perpendicular
to the mirror at B, RMC the angle of incidence, and CBF
the angle of reflection, that if the reflecting surface should
be such that the line BF, drawn to a fixed point F, should
always form equal angles with a line CB perpendicular to
the mirror at the point of incidence, the parallel rays would
all converge to the point F. Now the parabola is a curve
which possesses this property, as shown in fig. 61. Let AEB
be a parabola which forms a reflecting
surface by its revolution round its axis
RFE, and let R, R, R be parallel
rays incident upon the paraboloidal
surface at the points A, E, B. Then
if F is the focus of the parabola, and
GH a line touching the curve at A,
it is a property of the parabola1 that
the angle GAR is equal to HAF, but
GAR is the complement of the angle of incidence, and
therefore HAF will be the complement of the angle of re¬
flection, and consequently AF the reflected ray. As this
is true for every ray parallel to the axis RFE, it follows
that all parallel rays incident upon the surface of a parabo- '—'v—'
loidal mirror will be reflected accurately to the focus of the
paraboloid.
It may be shown, in like manner, that convex parabo- Convex pa^
loidal reflectors will reflect parallel rays so as to make them raboloidal
diverge from the virtual focus of the paraboloid. If, in fig. “irrors-
61, we continue the line RA to R', and also FA to r, it
follows, from the above reasoning, that R'AH is equal to
r AG, and that the reflected ray is Ar, diverging accurately
from the focus F.
When we wish to reflect diverging rays to a focus with¬
out aberration, we must have recourse to another solid of
revolution,—namely, a prolate spheroidal surface formed by
the revolution of an ellipse round its greater axis. In this
case, rays diverging from one of its foci will be reflected
accurately, without aberration, to the other focus. This will
be understood from fig. 62, where R, F are the foci of an
ellipsoid, AEB a section of the
ellipsoidal surface, and GH a
line touching the ellipse at A ;
then if rays diverging from one
of its foci R, fall upon the re¬
flecting surface at A, E, and B,
they will be reflected accurately
to the focus F, or if they radiate Flg'62,
from F, they will be reflected to R. As it is a property of
the ellipse2 that the angle GAR is equal to HAF, then since
GAR is the complement of the angle of incidence, HAF
must be the complement of the angle of reflection, and AF
the reflected ray. As the same is true of every other point
of the ellipsoidal surface, it follows that all rays incident
upon it from one focus will be converged without aberra¬
tion to the other focus.
In like manner it may be shown, by producing RA to ^°ncay°
R', and RB to R', that rays falling upon a convex ellipsoi- a
dal mirror, and converging to one focus, will be reflected
as if they diverged accurately from the other focus; that
is, rays R'AR, R'BR, converging to R, will be reflected in
diverging directions hr, Br, as if they diverged from the
focus F, or rays rA, rB converging to F, will be reflected
in directions AR', BR’, as if they diverged from R as their
virtual focus.
If the concave surface of a mirror is a portion of a hyper- Hyperbo-
boloid, a solid generated by the revolution of a hyperbola lo;dal
about its axis, rays converging to one locus will be re¬
flected to the other focus. Let AEB (fig. 63) be a sec¬
tion of the hyperboloid, and RAR',
RBR', rays converging to its fo- R-
cus; these rays will be reflected
to its other focus F. Let GH be
a tangent to the hyperbola at A, r-
then by a well-known property of
the hyperbola,3 the angle GAR is
equal to HAF ; but the former be- n
ing the complement to the angle of
incidence, and the latter the com-
Fig. 63.
plement to the angle of reflection, AF will be the reflected
ray. For the same reason, if the rays diverge from the
focus F, they will, after reflection, diverge in the directions
AR, BR, as if they came from the other focus R'.
In a similar manner it may be shown, that in a convex
hyperboloidal mirror AEB, rays diverging from one focus
R', will be reflected in directions Ar, Br as if they diverged
from the other focus F.
The preceding truths are of great practical use in the
construction of optical instruments. In all reflecting tele-
See Conic Sections, vol. vii., part i., prop, iii., cor. 3.
2 Ibid., part ii., prop, v., cor. 4.
3 Ibid., part iii., prop, v.
576
OPTICS.
Caustics, scopes, where parallel rays are required to be reflected to a
single focus, it is necessary that the figure of the reflecting
surface should be that of a paraboloid ; and as in the spe¬
cula of such telescopes the portion of the paraboloid which
is requisite does not differ much from the same portion of
a spherical surface that has the same focal length, artists
have contrived particular methods by which the marginal
parts of the spherical surface shall be worn down in the act
of polishing, so as to convert the spherical into a parabo¬
loidal surface.
In the reflectors of lighthouses, where a large surface is
required to be used, a copper plate thickly plated with silver
is hammered by means of a gauge to as correct a para¬
boloidal figure as possible, and a lamp being placed in its
focus, the light which it radiates is reflected in a beam of
considerable brilliancy.
Mirrors for In the construction of reflecting microscopes, where the
micro- image of a small object placed in one spot has a magnified
scopes. image of it formed in another point, an ellipsoidal speculum
is used; and Mr Cuthbert, an eminent London artist, has
succeeded in giving to such small specula an accurate ellip¬
soidal form. Professor Potter has also succeeded, as we have
mentioned elsewhere,1 in giving specula a true ellipsoidal
form, and has published an account of the method by which
he was able to effect this important object.2
Sect. III.—On Caustic Curves formed by Spherical
Reflecting and Refracting Surfaces.
Caustic When two or more rays of light cross one another at any
curves. point, they illuminate any reflecting substance placed in
that point with their united light. Hence it follows, that
when spherical surfaces converge the rays which fall upon
them to different foci, these different foci must form so many
illuminated points, if they are received on smoke, on white
paper, or on water with any reflecting particles suspended
in it. The lines which passthrough these luminous foci, or
rather the lines formed by the union of a great number of
them, are called caustics, or caustic curves. As these
curves are in reality a visible representation of the pheno¬
mena of spherical aberration, they possess considerable in¬
terest as experimental illustrations of that class of facts.
When diverging rays fall upon a spherical mirror, whose
surface exceeds a hemisphere, the caustics formed by re¬
flection are exceedingly beautiful. Let ACB (fig. 64) be
Fig. 61.
the section of such a spherical surface; whose centre is E,
and whose principal focus for parallel and central rays is at
f. Let a beam of light RAC, diverging from R, be in¬
cident on the upper part AC of this mirror, the beam con¬
sisting of the individual rays Rl, R2, R3, &c., up to RIO;
and let the reflected rays 1-1, 2-2, 3-3, &c., be found by
making the angle of reflection which they form with the Caustics,
perpendiculars drawn from 1, 2, 3, &c., to E, equal to the
angles of incidence which they form with the same perpen¬
diculars. We shall then have the directions, and also the
foci and intersections of all the rays. The ray 10-10 does
not meet the axis RC at all, but falling on the mirror at the
point 3, will there suffer a second reflection. The ray 9-9
has its focus exactly at C, the vertex of the mirror, where
it will suffer a second reflection ; and so on with all the rest
up to 12, which is the last which will suffer a second re¬
flection. All the reflected rays, after 9-9, cross the axis,
or have their foci at points gradually approaching to /,
which is the focus of the central ray Rl. As all the rays
proceeding from R, but not drawn in the figure, which fall
upon the other half CB of the mirror, at points correspond¬
ing to Rl, R2, &c., will have their foci in the same points
between C and /, there will be along that line a series of
foci constituting a line of light becoming more intense to¬
wards/.
But the rays R 10, R 9, R 8 cross each other after re¬
flection, and before they reach the axis, as shown in the
figure, and hence there will be a beautiful curve of light
Af called a. caustic, formed by the intersection of these rays.
The other half of the mirror CB will form a similar caustic,
and the projecting points f are called the cusps of these
caustics, and Cf their tangent.
If a small pencil of light, consisting of two contiguous
rays, moves from RA towards the position RB, being in¬
cident successively at 9, 8, 7, 6, &c., the conjugate focus of
this pencil, or that formed by the intersection of the two
rays of which it consists, will move along the caustic curve
Af, while the points where it crosses the axis RC, or its
focus formed by its union with a similar pencil similarly
incident on the other half of the mirror, will advance from
C to/.
If we now consider ACB as a convex spherical surface,
and place the radiant point R as far to the right of the ver¬
tex C as it is to the left of it in the figure, and if we project
the reflected rays, we shall find that when traced back¬
wards, they wull intersect the axis and each other, in the
very same manner as they do in the figure, forming an
imaginary or virtual caustic, in place of a real one, the
two being in every respect the same.
If, while the radiant point R remains as in the figure, we
suppose the convex surface ASB to receive the incident
rays, it will then be found, by projecting the reflected rays,
that they will form an imaginary caustic A</>B, less than
A/B, and joining it at the points A, B. This difference in
size arises from the radiant point being in this case much
nearer the convex surface than before.
Let us now suppose that the radiant point R recedes from
the concave mirror ACB, the point/of the cusps will gra¬
dually approach to F, the tangent Of diminishing at the
same time ; and when R is infinitely distant, or the rays
parallel, the point / will coincide with F, the focus of
parallel rays. The same will take place in the case of the
convex mirror ACB ; but in the case of the convex mirror
ASB, the point <£ of the cusps will approach to F', and will
coincide with it when R is infinitely distant.
If, in the case of the concave mirror ACB, the radiant
point R now approaches to the mirror, the cusps / will ap¬
proach to the centre E of the mirror, the caustic curve Af
becoming flatter and flatter, and when R reaches E, there
will be no caustic at all, in consequence of all the rays being-
reflected back to the centre, all their foci and intersections
having united in that point.
In the case of the imaginary caustic A<£B, when R
approaches to S, will also approach to S, the caustic
approximating in form to the circular arch AS; and when
1 Art. Microscope, chap, iii., vol. xiv.
2 Edin. Jour, of Science, N.S., No. xii., p. 228.
OPTICS.
577
laustics. It reaches S, $ will also reach S, the caustic disappearing
when it has reached that limiting form.
All that we have said is obviously applicable only to one
section of the spherical mirror; but as the same is true of
every section whatever, the caustic will not be a cm ve, but
a surface formed by the revolution of the curves A/*B round
its axis /C, all the reflected rays being tangents to this
surface.
We shall now consider the change in the appearance of
the caustic, when the radiant point comes within the sphere
of which the reflecting surface is a part, and when the
mirror becomes a concave polished sphere. The effect
thus produced is shown in fig. 65, RE being less than RS.
In this case a remarkable double caustic will be formed,
F3, F3, to a focus /3, still nearer the mirror. If we Caustics,
now conceive rays flowing from F to fall on the mirror ^
Fig. 05.
composed of a short one of the kind shown in fig. 64, and
another with two long branches, one of which is shown at
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, the dotted line below the axis SE showing the
other halves of the caustic, and long branches converging
behind the mirror. Had R been placed nearer S than E,
the branches 1, 2, 3, &c., would have diverged behind the
mirror, having their virtual foci within the mirror. When
R is half-way between S and E, the curved branches be¬
come parallel lines. When R comes nearer E the branches
1, 2, 3, &c\, shorten ; the smaller caustics also shorten ; they
both approach to the centre E, the long branches moving
quickest, till at E, as w-e have already seen, all the rays from
It are reflected back to the same point, and the caustics all
disappear.
M. A. Delarive, in his ingenious dissertation on caustic
curves,1 has shown that caustics generated by parallel rays
are epicycloids, formed by one circle rolling upon a fixed
circle concentric with that ot the mirror, and having a radius
equal to half of its own. Dr Smith has shown that when
the radiant point is at S, the caustic is an epicycloid whose
generating circle is two-thirds of the radius of the minor,
and the fixed circle one-third of that radius.2
When the radiant point passes the centre E, the caustics
shift their place to the opposite side of E, and present the
same phenomena as before.
There is a curious property, however, involved in these
phenomena, which we have represented in fig. 66, where
the radiant point is supposed to be at F, a very little within
the principal focus of a spherical mirror ACB. We have
supposed the rays to diverge from a point a little within
the principal focus, because it is only in this case that the
rays FI, FI, at a little distance from the axis, may be
reflected in directions 1-1, 1-1, exactly parallel. The
rays F2, F2, falling at a greater distance from the axis,
will be made to converge to a focus at /2, and rays
Fig. 66.
between the rays FI, FI, and the axis FC, these rays will
diverge, because they radiate from a point a little within
the principal focus, and hence vve have one spherical mirror
which has, under these circumstances, the paradoxical pro¬
perty of rendering a faint cone of diverging rays parallel,
converging, and diverging, after reflection.
All that we have said of the caustics formed by the sec- Caustics
tions of spherical surfaces, are true of cylindrical surfaces, from cylin-
and by means of surfaces of this kind the phenomena of sur-
caustic curves may be beautifully exhibited. They are in¬
deed often presented to the eye at the bottom of china
vessels of a cylindrical form, when exposed to the rays of
the sun or to'the light of a candle. Owing to the depth
of such vessels, the obliquity of the rays prevents the effect
from being well seen; but we may take shallow cylindrical
vessels, or make deep ones shallow by an artificial bottom
of paper or pasteboard, or by filling them nearly with milk,
or any other fluid with a white opacity, or with a fine white
powder pressed into a smooth surface. In order to show
the caustics, when the radiant point is placed within the
cylindrical surface, a piece of card should be made to float
upon oil in the cylindrical vessel, and a very minute wick
inserted in the card at the points of the axis where we
wish the radiant point to be placed. This wick, when lighted,
will be the radiant point R in fig. 65, and the caustics
will be beautifully formed on the surface of the white card.
The following method, however, of exhibiting caustic
curves, we have found very convenient and instructive, and
it has the advantage of allowing the radiant point to come
within the cylinder. A piece of steel spring, highly polished,
such as a watch-spring, is bent into a concave form, like
AB (fig. 67), and is placed vertically with its lower edge
resting upon a piece of card or white
paper. It is then exposed to the solar
rays, or those of any artificial light, so
that the plane of the card MN passes
through the luminous body, and the caus¬
tic curves will be seen finely displayed,
varying with the distance of the radiant
point, °and with the reflecting arch AB.
By altering, too, the curvature of the arch,
arid bending it into different known curves,
either by applying a portion of its breadth
to the required curves delineated upon a
piece of wood, and either cut or burned
sufficiently deep in the wood to allow the edge of the thin
strip of nietal to be inserted in it, a great variety of inter¬
esting phenomena may be observed. The brightest re¬
flector is a thin strip of polished silver or plated copper.
Gold and silver foil will also answer, or a strip of mica.
A cylindrical section of a wide glass tube or a bottle,
especially if a piece is cut out of them to allow the incident
rays to pass to the reflecting surface in the plane nearly of
the base of the cylinder, will produce the caustic curves in
great perfection. The caustic curves produced by a highly
Fig. 67.
l Dotation tur la Partie de VOplique qui traite des courles dites Caustlque,, p. 84, Geneve, 1823. This interesting dissertation con-
xjisseriuLiui t v v ino\nA\nrr Malus and Gergonne, and merits the attention of those who wi^n
tains an account of the labours of preceding mathematicians, including 0 „ • n vol> 174.
to prosecute the subject mathematically. * * J 1
VOL. XVI.
578
OPTICS.
Caustics, gilt or polished metallic ring, such as the ring of a bell
handle, are exceedingly beautiful, the phenomena of a
convex and a concave surface being here united.
Caustics formed by diffracting Surfaces.
It is evident, from what has been said of caustics formed
by reflection, or Catacaustics, that analogous curves must
also be formed by spherical refracting surfaces, which have
been called Diacaustics. In order to explain these curves,
we shall take the case of diverging rays falling upon a
spherical surface, as shown in fig. 68, where DBD is the
spherical surface, C its centre, R the radiant point, RD,
RD, two extreme rays touching the sphere, and refracted
in the directions D/, D/; and RB, RB, other rays nearer
the axis, and refracted in the directions BF, BF. If we
join CD, CD, and drawing the semicircles DEC, DE'C,
make the lines CE, CE' in the same proportion to CD as
unity is to the index of refraction, the caustic will begin at
E,E', and extending in the directions EF', E'F, willapproach
to the axis RC till it meets it at the principal focus F.
The caustics formed by the two refractions of a sphere,
or of a cylinder (in a plane perpendicular to its axis) are
shown in fig. 69, where ACB is the spherical section, E its
centre, R the radiant point, and RC the ray which touches
the spherical surface. This ray will be refracted by the
first surface in the direction 6-6, and by the second surface
of the sphere at 6; the other rays, R5, R4, &c., will be all
refracted in the directions indicated by the numerals 5, 4,
&c., and their various intersections will form the caustic
6, 4, 3, 2, \,f each ray crossing the next ray before it cuts
the axis, / being the focus or the point where the rays
nearest the axis cut it. The luminous figure bounded by
the intersection of the successive rays, is composed of the
two bright caustic curves. Within these caustics there is
also much light arising from the intersections between the
caustics and the axis; but as there are no intersections
without the caustics they are bounded by darkness.
When parallel rays fall upon the spherical section ACB,
the caustic commences at the extremity of a diameter per¬
pendicular to the axis of the section, because the extreme
ray suffers refraction at that point, and will intersect the
nearest a little within it; and they extend, as in fig. 69, to
the principal focus of the sphere for rays near the axis.
The real caustic will be the surface formed by the revolu¬
tion of the curves round the axis E/1; the section of this
surface will be a luminous point atf but at the posterior
part it will be a luminous circle vividly depicted on the
sphere. M. Delarive has pointed out a method of deter¬
mining the index of refraction of solid spheres, or of hollow
spheres containing different fluids, by measuring the
diameter of this luminous circle, which is smaller in fluids
of high than in those of low refractive power. The phe¬
nomena of caustics formed by refraction, may be distinctly
exhibited by exposing to the rays of the sun, or a strong ctro.
artificial light, a globe of glass filled with any fluid, or a inatics.
solid transparent sphere, or the widest part of a round glass
decanter. With all these bodies the whole of the luminous
figure will be clearly seen. If we use a cylinder full of
water, such as a tumbler or a cylindrical bottle, we shall see
the caustic curves formed upon a white surface held parallel
to the cylindrical surface of the fluid, the light falling upon
the cylindrical surface in the same plane.
Part IV.—ON THE REFRACTION OF COMPOUND
LIGHT, OR THE DOCTRINE OF COLOURS AND
THE PRISMATIC SPECTRUM.
In the preceding pages we have considered white light, Chro-
whether emanating directly from the sun or from artificial nmtics.
flames, or consisting of the same rays reflected and modified
by other bodies, as a simple element, all the particles of
which had the same index of refraction, or suffered the
same change of direction when refracted by any transpa¬
rent body. This, however, is not the nature of light.
White light, as emitted by the sun or other luminous bodies,
is a very compound element, all the parts of which possess
very different properties, and these properties are of a very
remarkable and interesting kind. The power which causes
the reflection of light from polished metallic bodies is not
capable of decomposing it, unless when it enters the sub¬
stance of the metal; but the power which produces refrac¬
tion is peculiarly influential in separating compound white
light into its elements. The same decomposition may be
effected by the interference of rays of light, by absorption,
and by another principle of analysis which has been called
dissection. The two first of these processes of analysis de¬
compose compound light of different degrees of refrangibi-
lity, while the two last decompose compound light whose
rays have the same refrangibility.
Sect. I.—On the Decomposition of Light, and the
Different Refrangibility of its Rays.
The constituent parts or colours which compose white Seven co¬
light are seven in number—red, orange, yellow, green, blue, lours.
indigo, and violet. These colours have been long observed
and studied in the rainbow, and in the refractions produced
by lenses and prisms, but till the time of Sir Isaac New¬
ton no satisfactory explanation had been given of their
origin and properties. Descartes had found that colours
similar to those of the rainbow were produced by prisms,
and he endeavoured to explain them by saying that the
particles of the medium, or matter which transmits light,
endeavour to revolve with so great force, that they cannot
move in a straight line, whence comes refraction; and that
those particles which endeavour to revolve more strongly
produce a red colour, those that endeavour to move a little
more strongly produce yellow, and so on with the other
colours. Now this explanation, as Dr Whewell1 has justly
remarked, though it contains a gratuitous hypothesis respect¬
ing the cause of refraction, yet it proves that Descartes
considered the different colours as produced by different
degrees of refraction. In like manner Grimaldi, as the
same author has observed, explains colours by saying “ that
the colour is brighter where the light is dense; and the
light is denser on the side from which the refraction turns
the ray, because the increments of refraction are greater
than the rays that are more inclined ;”a that is, that the blue
rays are more refracted than the red rays. We cannot agree,
however, with Dr Whewell in the opinion, that this expla¬
nation of Grimaldi’s might give an explanation of most of
the facts, but one much more erroneous than a develop-
1 Hist, of Inductive Sciences, vol. ii., p. 350.
2 Ibid., p. 352.
OPTICS.
579
Chromatics ment of Descartes’ views would have been.” It appears
to us quite manifest, that both Descartes and Grimaldi had
a vague sentiment that the different colours were produced
by different degrees of refraction, and that Grimaldi’s is the
more distinctly expressed of the two; but we cannot for a
moment agree with the author above quoted, “ that Des¬
cartes was led very near the same point with Newton.”
The sentiments expressed by Descartes and Grimaldi were
mere notions of the moment, which authors often throw out
without much thought, and which are employed in future
times to pervert the history of science. If these two
authors really thought that colours were produced by dif¬
ferent degrees of refraction, why did they not, as they did
other opinions, submit them to the test of an experiment,
which required neither thought nor labour, and the means
of making which were in their hands? Sir Isaac Newton
was well acquainted with the writings of Descartes, and so
much with Descartes’ notions about colours, that the exa¬
mination of them was the object which he had in view in
purchasing his prisms. He never refers to them as anticipa¬
tory of his own discoveries; and we must therefore continue
to give Sir Isaac the undivided merit of the discovery of the
unequal refrangibility of light, as well as its experimental
establishment.
We shall now pi’oceed to give our readers some account
of this great discovery, and we shall make no apology in
doing this to some extent in Sir Isaac Newton’s own words,
abridging his descriptions where they are redundant or
have become unnecessary, and omitting the demonstration
of some of his propositions. We are induced to do this also
because they exhibit the finest model of experimental re¬
search, and should be studied by every person who is de¬
sirous of investigating truth with diligence and patience.
Unequal “ 1. The light of the sun coyisists of rays which differ
refrangibi- in colour and refrangibility.—In a very dark chamber, at a
lity of round hole F (fig. 70), about one-third of an inch broad,
light.
two rectilinear and parallel sides, and two semicircular ends. Chromatics
On its side it was bounded pretty distinctly, but on its ends
very indistinctly, the light there vanishing by degrees. At
the distance of 18j feet from the prism the breadth of the
image was about 2| inches, but its length was about 10f
inches, and the length of its rectilinear sides about 8 inches;
and ACB, the refracting angle of the prism, by which so
great a length was made, was 64 degrees. With a less
angle the length of the image was less, the breadth remaining
the same. It is also to be observed that the rays went on
in straight lines from the prism to the image, and therefore
at their going out of the prism had all that inclination to
one another from which the length of the image proceeded.
This image PT was coloured, and the more eminent colours
lay in this order from the bottom at T to the top at P:
red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet; together
with all their intermediate degrees, in a continual succession
perpetually varying.”
Hence “ the light of the sun consists of a mixture of
several sorts of coloured rays, some of which, at equal in¬
cidences, are more refracted than others, and therefore are
called more refrangible. The red at T, being nearest to
the place Y, where the rays of the sun would go directly if
the prism was taken away, is the least refracted of all the
rays ; and the orange, yet low, green, blue, indigo, and violet,
are continually more and more refracted as they are more
and more diverted from the course of the direct light. For,
when the prism is fixed in the posture above mentioned, so
that the place of the image shall be the lowest possible, the
figure of the image ought to be round, like the spot at Y,
if all the rays that tended to it were equally refracted.
Therefore, since it is found that this image is not round,
but about five times longer than it is broad, it follows that
all the rays are not equally refracted. This conclusion is
farther confirmed by the following experiments :—
“ In the sunbeam SF (fig. 71), which was propagated into
made in the shutter of a window, I placed a glass prism
ABC, whereby the beam of the sun’s light SF which came
in at that hole, might be refracted upwards, toward the op¬
posite wall of the chamber, and there form'a coloured image
of the sun, represented at PT. The axis of the prism was,
in this and the following experiments, perpendicular to the
incident rays. About this axis I turned the prism slowly,
and saw the refracted or coloured image of the sun, first to
descend, and then to ascend. Between the descent and
ascent, when the image seemed stationary, I stopped the
prism, and fixed it in that posture, for in that posture the
refractions of the light at the two sides of the refracting
angles,—that is, at the entrance of the rays into the prism,
and at their going out of it,—are equal to one another.
“ Then I let the refracted light fall perpendicularly upon
a sheet of white paper (MN) placed at the opposite wall of
the chamber, and observed the figure and dimensions ot
the solar image (PT) formed on the paper by that light.
This image was oblong, and not oval, but terminated by
the room through the hole F in the window-shutter EG, at
the distance of some feet from the hole, I held the prism
ABC in such a posture that its axis might be perpendi¬
cular to that beam : then I looked through the prism upon
the hole F, and turning the prism to and fro about its axis,
to make the image yt of the hole ascend and descend, when
between its two contrary motions it seemed stationary, I
stopped the prism; in this situation of the prism, viewing
through it the said hole F, I observed the length of its re¬
fracted image yt to be many times greater than its breadth;
and that the most refracted part thereof appeared violet at
y; the least refracted appeared red at t; and the middle
parts indigo, blue, green, yelloiv, and orange in order. The
same thing happened when I removed the prism out of the
sun’s light, and looked through it upon the hole shining by
the light of the clouds beyond it. And yet if the refrac¬
tions of all the rays were equal according to one certain
proportion of the sines of incidence and refraction, as is
commonly supposed, the refracted image ought to have
580
OPTICS.
Chromatics appeared round. So then, by these two experiments, it
appears that in equal incidences there is a considerable in¬
equality of refractions.”
2. The light of the sky, or the light of the suii reflected
from the first surface of bodies, and also the white fiames
of all combustibles, whether direct or reflected, differ in
colour and refrangibility, like the direct light of the sun.
3. Homoqeneal light is refracted regularly without any
dilatation, splitting, or shattering of the rays; and the con¬
fused vision of objects seen through refracting bodies by
'heterogeneous light arises from the different refrangibility
of several sorts of rays. „ , ,
4. Every homogeneous ray considered apart is refracted,
according'to one and the same rule; so that its sine of in¬
cidence is to its sine of refraction in a given ratio ; that
is, every differently coloured ray has a different ratio be¬
longing to it. , , . , . . ,
Sir Isaac Newton has proved this by experiment; and
in other experiments he has determined by what numbers
these given ratios are expressed. For instance, if a hete¬
rogeneous white ray of the sun emerges out of glass into
air; or, which is the same thing, if rays of all colours be
supposed to succeed one another in the same line AC
72), and AD, their common
sine of incidence in glass, be
divided mioffty equal parts,
then EF and GH, the sines
of refraction into air of the
least and most refrangible
rays, will be 77 and 78 of
such parts respectively. And
since every colour has se¬
veral degrees, the sines of
refraction of all the degrees
of red will have all interme¬
diate degrees of magnitude
from 77 to 77£; of all the degrees of orange from 77| to
77£; of yellow from 77£ to 77£; of green from 77J to 77£;
of blue from 77£ to 77§; of indigo from 77§ to 77£; and
of violet from 77£ to 78.
5. Whiteness, and all gray colours between white and
black, may be compounded of colours; and the whiteness of
the sun’s light is compounded of all the primary colours,
mixed in a due proportion.
Such is an abridged account of Newton’s great discovery
of the different refrangibility of light, . .
In examining the prismatic spectrum, it is difficult to
discover the terminations or boundaries of the different
colours. They pass into one another by insensible shades,
and if any person were to lay down their apparent limits
by the nicest observations, he would find, what has been
recently discovered, that these limits vary with the state
of the atmosphere, and with the altitude of the sun.
Sir Isaac Newton, however, did make the attempt, and
the following are the results which he obtained, we believe
with crown or plate glass. We have added the results
obtained long afterwards by Dr Wollaston1 and Mr Fraun¬
hofer2 with flint-glass, which shows the difficulty of this
class of observations:—
Fig. 72.
The influence of these discoveries on the progress of Chromatics
optical science was very remarkable. They led Sir Isaac
to discover that the cause of the imperfections of the refract- imperfec-
  _ tion of
refracting
ing telescopes R
was the differ¬
ent refrangibility
of the rays of
light. If LL, forR
example, is a lens
without spherical
aberration, upon^
which parallel
telescopes.
Fig. 73,
Newton in
Crown-Glass.
Red  45  
Orange   27  
Yellow  40  
Green   60  
Blue  60  
Indigo  48  
Violet  80  
Wollaston in
Flint-Glass.
Fraunhofer in
Flint-Glass.
  56 I
  27   Red
  27 J
  46    82-8
...... 48 1
  47 ]
 109   90
.Blue 129-6
360
.360
.360
rays R, R, R of white light are incident, then it is obvious
that the violet, or most refrangible rays, will be most re¬
fracted in directions Lv, L-y, crossing the axis at v, and there
giving a violet focus of light. In like manner the red, or
the least refrangible rays, will be refracted in directions Lr,
Lr, crossing the axis at r, and there giving a red focus of
light. In like manner, all the other rays will have foci of
their own colour between v and r. If we draw the line ab,
meeting the intersection of the extreme violet rays aftei
their convergence with the extreme red rays befoie theii
convergence, it will cut the axis at a point c. Ihe line vr
is called the longitudinal aberration of refrangibility, or the
longitudinal chromatic aberration, and ab is called the la¬
teral aberration of refrangibihty, or the diameter of the
circle of diffusion, all the coloured rays being diffused over
the circle of which ab is the diameter. Ihe space varb
is called the sphere of diffusion, and the section ot it shown
in the figure may be regarded as a parallelogram, on ac¬
count of the smallness of the angles rLv, t-Lv, which are
greatly magnified in the figure. Hence it may be easily
shown that the longitudinal aberration vr is to the lateral
aberration ab as the focal distance of the lens is to its ladius
or half its aperture.
In the circle of diffusion ab the light becomes very faint
towards a and b, and very intense in the centre c,. so that
there is formed at c a sort of general focus indistinct and
coloured. Every part of an object, therefore, will have its
image, formed in the foci of such a lens, similarly indistinct
and similarly coloured, and hence we see the leason why
refracting telescopes had such great imperfections that it
was necessary to make them of enormous length, in oidtr
to obtain a sufficient magnifying power.
From these causes, Sir Isaac Newton despaired of the
improvement of refracting telescopes, and set himself at an
early period of his life to execute reflecting telescopes. His
successors, however, Mr Hall and Mr Dollond, studied the
subject of refraction as produced by prisms made ot different
substances, and found, as we have already fully stated in
our history of Optics, that Sir Isaac Newton was mistaken
in supposing that all refracting media gave spectra, oi se¬
parated the colours of white light, in the same proportion
as their refractive powers, and that diffeient bodies had
different dispersive powers, as well as different lefractive
ones.3 This grand discovery we shall now proceed to
explain.
Sect. 11.—On the different Dispersive Powers of
Bodies.
The term dispersion has been employed to denote the Dispersion
separation of the different rays of white light into that°fllgbt-
divergent beam which constitutes the prismatic spectrum,
the differently coloured rays having been dispersed or scat¬
tered by their different refrangibility. Sir Isaac Newton
believed that all bodies whatever, whether water, or crown
or plate or flint glass, dispersed light in an equal degree,
1 See sect. v.
3 See the article Achromatic Glasses, vol. ii.
2 These results are taken from his coloured figure of the spectrum.
OPTICS.
581
-hromatics provided the mean refraction, that .s, the refraction of the
mean or middle ray of the spectrum (the green ray, viz.),
" of these bodies was equal; or, in other words, that the
dispersion, or the angle formed by the extreme red and
the extreme violet ray was in difterent bodies proportional
to the mean refraction. .
As Sir Isaac Newton submitted to experiment a number
of fluid substances, in the form of prisms, it is, perhaps,
one of the most remarkable oversights in the history ot
science, that he did not think of comparing the length of
the spectra which they formed; and it is equally strange
that for more than a century he, and all his successors,
should never have thought of forming the spectrum from
any other luminous body less in diameter than the sun,
or even from any luminous line of small breadth. Ihe
consequence of these oversights was, that the most im¬
portant discoveries relative to light, and to optical instru¬
ments, were reserved for another age.
In our History of Optics, and in the article Achroma¬
tic Glasses, we have given a detailed history of the suc¬
cessive labours of Hall, Dollond, Euler, and others, by
which the achromatic telescope was invented and perfected.
If we perform the experiment shown in fig. 70, with
two prisms, the one of flint, and the other of crown glass,
and measure in each the length of the spectrum PI, 01
rather the angles which the violet and the red rays PA,
TA make with each other, and the angle which the mean
qreen ray forms with the direction ot the white beam SY,
this last angle will be the mean refraction of the prism, and
the first the angular dispersion. We shall then find, that
while in crown-glass the quotient obtained by dividing the
greater by the lesser angle, or the part of the mean lefi ac¬
tion to which the dispersion is equal, will be seventeen
hundredths (TVir), while in flint-glass it will be thirty
hundredths (yW). this number varying with the nature ot
the glass. , . . ,
This result may be exhibited to the eye by placing be¬
hind a prism of crown-glass C, another of flint-glass F, ot
such an angle as not to produce any deviation by retrac¬
tion, the angle of deviation of the green ray produced by
the crown-glass prism C, being compensated by an equal
vex lens of mu^n-glass, as shown in fig. 73, may be cor- Chromatics
reeled by a concave lens of/7m<-glass, while the rays pro-
duced by the unbalanced refraction of the convex glass are
still converged to a focus. Such a combination of lenses
is called an achromatic object-glass, and a telescope with
such an object-glass is called an achromatic telescope.
Nothing is easier than to determine by experiment, when
we have obtained good glass for the construction of these
lenses, the proper radii to which they should be ground in
order to correct the aberration of colour; but it may be
readily shown that the aberration of colour produced by a
convex lens of crown-glass will be corrected by a concave
lens of flint-glass, provided the focal lengths of the two
lenses are proportional to their dispersive power. Thus, in
fig. 75, if LL is a convex lens of crown-glass, whose focus
and opposite deviation produced by the flird-glass prism F ;
that is, the green ray Kg will emerge parallel to the incident
rav RA. When this has been effected, it will be seen that
there is still a spectrum rv, which will colour the edges o
any object which is viewed through the prism, and m which
the colours will have the same position as if they had been
produced by a small flint-glass prism placed in the same
manner as the flint-glass prism F.
If we now take two prisms, one of crown and the othei
of flint glass, of such angles that all objects seen throug i
them are colourless, or that a ray of light B^r, when re¬
fracted by them (as in fig. 74), shall be white, it will be
found that the white pencil Bw will be refracted towards
the base of the crown-glass prism, the flint-glass having
corrected the colour produced by the crown-glass one, but
still left a considerable balance of refraction produced by
the latter. , j u
Hence it is manifest that the colours produced by a con-
Fig. 75.
for green rays is at f, and for violet and red lays at v and r,
and if F is the virtual focus of a concave lens ll of flint-
glass, for the mean green ray, then parallel rays A, A, A
will be refracted to a single focus at RV, where the violet
and red rays will be united, provided the focal length of
ll, viz., EF, is to E/, the focal length of LL, as 0'068, the
dispersive power ot y?«72£-glass, is to 0'033, the dispersive
power of erowm-glass.
The dispersive powers of various glasses, and of some Dispersive
fluids, had been measured with considerable care, in re- powers of
ference to the improvement of the telescope, but no at- otl‘s-
tempt was made to investigate it as a branch of physics,
exhibiting new and interesting properties of transparent
bodies. Dr Wollaston set the example of beginning this
inquiry, and he determined in a very general manner the
dispersive qualities of thirty-three substances, which he ar¬
ranged in the order of their dispersive powers, without giv¬
ing any numerical estimate of their value. In this state ot
the subject Sir David Brewster, by a new method of measur¬
ing dispersive powers, which presented considerable facility
of observation, made a very extensive series of experiments
on the subject, which, in a physical point of view', presented
several curious results. In laying the following table of his
observations before our readers, we must warn them that
they were made often with the most imperfect specimens
of the minerals and fluid substances, from the difficulty of
getting any other, and that they were intended only to in¬
dicate the general properties of bodies in dispersing light.
The want of fixed points in the spectrum in reference to
which the measures could be taken, rendered it necessary
to use the extreme points, which varied with the intensity of
the light employed, and with the absorbing action of the
bodies themselves, when they happened to be coloured or
imperfectly transparent. The discovery of the fixed lines,
and their use in measuring dispersive powers, introduced
by Fraunhofer, has given a new impetus to this subject;
and when it is practicable to obtain good prisms ot the
substance under examination, no other method should be
adopted. This, however, is very difficult, and in genera
impossible, especially in saline substances, minerals, and
gems, which are never used in combination with glass, or
with’one another, to produce achromatic combinations.
The same remark is applicable to fluids, with very few
exceptions.
582
O P T ICS.
Chromatics
Table of the Dispersive Powers of various Solid and Fluid Bodies.
Chromatics
Names of Substances.
Chromate of lead 'j
(greatest refrac- \
tion) estimated at J
Chromate of lead 'j
(greatest refrac- \
tion) must exceed J
Realgar, a different 1
kind, melted j
Chromate of lead 1
(least refraction).. J
Realgar, melted 
Oil of cassia 
Sulphur, after fusion..
Phosphorus  
Sulphuret of carbon..,
Balsam of Tolu 
Balsam of Peru 
Carbonate of lead J
(greatest refrac- l
tion) J
Barbadoes aloes  
Essential oil of bitter 1
almonds  J
Oil of anise seeds.......
Acetate of lead, melted
Balsam of sty rax ...
Guiacum 
Carbonate of lead
(least refraction) .
Oil of cummin 
Essential oil of tobacco
Gum ammoniac 
Oil of Barbadoes tar..
Oil of cloves 
Green-coloured glass.
Sulphate of lead 
Deep red glass 
Oil of sassafras  
Opal-coloured glass...
Muriate of antimony 1
(refr. pr. r598)... /
Rosin  
Oil of sweet fennel 1
seeds J
Oil of spearmint  
Orange-coloured glass
Rock-salt 
Flint-glass, Bosco- 1
vich’s highest J
Caoutchouc  
Oil of pimento 
Flint-glass 
Deep purple glass 
Oil of angelica 
Oil of thyme 
Oil of fenugreek 
Oil of wormwood 
Oil of pennyroyal 
Oil of caraway seeds...
Oil of dill seeds 
Oil of bergamot 
Flint-glass 
Ohio turpentine 
Gum thus 
Oil of lemon 
Flint-glass 
Part of the
whole re
fraction to
which the
dispersion
is equal.
0770
0-570
0-394
0-388
0-374
0-089
0-149
0156
0-077
0-065
0-058
+ 0-091
0-058
0-048
0-044
0-040
0 039
0-041
0056
0-033
0-035
0 037
0-032
0-033
0-037
0-056
0-044
0-832
0-038
0-036
0032
0-028
0-026
0-042
0-029
0-028
0 026
0-032
0-031
0-025
0-024
0-024
0022
0-024
0-024
0-023
0-023
0-029
0028
0-028
0023
0-028
Dispersive
power.
0-400
0-295
0-267
0-262
0-255
0-139
0130
0-128
0-115
0-103
0093
+ 0091
0-085
0-079
0077
0 069
0 067
0-066
0 063
0 065
0-064
0-063
0062
0-062
0-061
0-060
0-060
0060
0-060
0-059
0-057
0-055
0-054
0-053
0 053
0-0527
0052
0-052
0-052
0051
0-051
0-050
0-050
0-049
0-049
0-049
0-049
0-049
0-048
0-048
0-048
0-048
0-048
Names of Substances.
Oil of juniper 
Oil of chamomyle..
Gum juniper 
Carbonate of stron
tites (greatest re
fraction) 
Oil of brick  
Flint-glass, Bosco- 1
vich’s lowest j
Nitric acid 
Oil of lavender 
Balsam of sulphur 
Tortoise shell  
Horn 
Canada balsam 
Oil of marjoram 
Gum olibanum 
Nitrous acid  
Cajeput oil  
Oil of hyssop 
Oil of rhodium 
Pink-coloured glass 
Oil of savine 
Oil of poppy 
Zircon (greatest refr.)
Muriatic acid  
Gum copal  
Nut oil 
Burgundy pitch 
Oil of turpentine 
Oil of rosemary...
Feldspar 
Glue 
Balsam of capivi.
Amber 
Oil of nutmeg ....
Stilbite  
Oil of peppermint 
Spinelle ruby 
Calcareous spar
(greatest refrac¬
tion) 
Oil of rape-seed  
Bottle-glass  
Tartrate of potash 1
and soda  J
Carbonate of potash )
(greatest refrac- J-
tion)  J
Gum elemi 
Sulphate of iron  
Diamond  
Oil of olives 
Gum mastich 
White of an egg 
Oil of rhue  
Gum myrrh 
Beryl 
Obsidian  
Ether  
Selenite 
Alum     
Castor oil 
Sulphate of copper 
Crown-glass, very 1
green j
Part of the
whole re¬
fraction to
which the
dispersion
is equal.
0022
0-021
0-025
0032
0-021
0-019
0-021
0-023
0-027
0025
0-024
0-022
0024
0018
0-021
0022
0022
0-025
0-021
0-020
0-045
0-016
0-024
0-022
0-024
0-020
0020
0-022
0-022
0-021
0023
0-021
0021
0019
0-031
0027
0-019
0-023
0-020
0-013
0-021
0-019
0-056
0-018
0-022
0-013
0-016
0-020
0-022
0-018
0-012
0-020
0-017
0018
0-019
0-020
Dispersive
power.
0-047
0-046
0-046
0046
0-046
00457
0045
0-045
0045
0-045
0-045
0 045
0-045
0-045
0-044
0-044
0044
0-044
0-044
0-044
0-044
0-044
0-043
0-043
0-043
0-043
0-042
0-042
0-042
0-041
0-041
0-041
0-041
0-041
0-040
0-040
0-040
0-040
0-040
0039
0-039
0-039
0-039
0-038
0038
0-038
0-037
0-037
0037
0-037
0-037
0037
0-037
0-036
0036
0 036
0-036
Names of Substances.
Gum arable 
Sugar, after being 1
melted and cooled J
Jelly-fish, body of 1
(Medusa cequorea) j
Water 
Aqueous humour of 1
a haddock’s eye... j
Vitreous humour of 1
ditto J
Citric acid 
Rubellite 
Leucite 
Epidote 
Common glass, Bos- 1
covich’s highest... J
Glass of borax 
Garnet  
Pyrope  
Chrysolite 
Crown-glass 
Common glass, Bos- 1
covich’s lowest.... j
Oil of ambergris 
Oil of wine 
Phosphoric acid, 1
solid prism, yellow j
Glass of phospho- 1
rus, white ..
Plate-glass ....
Sulphuric acid
Tartaric acid..,
Nitre (least refraction)
Borax  
Axinite  
Alcohol 
Sulphate of barytes ..
Tourmaline 
Phosphoric acid, fluid
Carbonate of barytes 1
(least refraction)1 J
Malic acid 
Carbonate of stron-
tites (least refrac
tion) 
Crown-glass, Leith,
Robison 
Rock-crystal..
Emerald  
Borax-glass, 1 bor,
2 silex 
Calcareous spar 1
(least refraction) J
Blue sapphire  
Bluish topaz, from 1
Cairngorm J
Chrysoberyl  
Blue topaz, from 1
Aberdeenshire ... J
Sulphate of strontites..
Carbonate of potash 1
(least refraction).. J
Prussic acid 
Fluor spar 
Cryolite 
Part of the
whole re¬
fraction to
which the
dispersion
is equal.
■:)
:}
0-018
0-020
0013
0-012
0 012
0012
0019
0 027
0-018
0-024
0-018
0027
0-026
0-022
0018
0-012
0-012
0017
0-017
0017
0-014
0-016
0-009
0014
0-022
0-011
0-011
0019
0012
0-015
0-011
0-015
0014
0-015
0014
0-016
0 021
0016
0-019
0-016
0015
0-0088
0-008
0010
0-007
Dispersive
power,
0-036
0036
0-035
0-035
0-035
0-035
0 035
0-035
0 035
0-035
0 0346
0034
0034
0-033
0-033
0-033
0-033
0-032
0-032
0-032
0-032
0-032
0-031
0-030
0-0304
0-030
0-030
0-029
0-029
0-028
0-0283
0-0285
0-0282
0 027
0033
0-026
0-026
0026
0-026
0-026
0-025
0-025
0-024
0-0 24
0-0233
0-0227
0022
0-022
The following measures of the dispersive powers of
several varieties of glass were taken by Sir John Herschel,
by a method which gave him nearly the extreme rays of the
spectrum, namely, by viewing the spectrum through a dark
blue glass, which stops the green, yellow, and most re¬
frangible red rays, and therefore allows the extreme rays ol
the spectrum to be seen,—rays which the eye does not
recognise in any of the ordinary lights which are used in
1 The dispersive power of the other image is considerably greater than this. See Edin. Trans., vol. vii., p. 289.
OPTICS.
583
Chromatics optical instruments. If we condense the sun’s light, as we
have done, in order to render visible rays at the extremities
of the spectrum that have not been recognised, we should
obtain dispersive powers still higher than those given by Sir
John Herschel. By determining, however, the extremities
of the spectrum seen by the ordinary light of the sky, it
would be easy to accommodate all measures of dispersive
power taken in such a light to those taken in the light used
by Sir John Herschel, or in the more condensed and con¬
sequently elongated spectrum above referred to. In order
that the measures in the following tables may be correct,
it is necessary that they should all have been taken when
the sun had the same altitude; because it is quite certain
that the violet part of the spectrum diminishes in length
very rapidly as the sun approaches the horizon, and some
change also takes place at the red extremity.
Dispersive Powers of different kinds of Glass.
Names of Substances.
Flint-glass 
Ditto 
Ditto 
Ditto, heavy 
Ditto    
Crown-glass 
Ditto, a different kind .
Plate-glass 
Part of the whole
refraction to which
the dispersion is
equal.
0-03849
0-03705
0*03734
0-03951
0-03747
002139
002494
0-02616
Dispersive
power.
006404
0-06409
0-06386
0-06555
0-06409
0-04063
0-04704
0-05090
Sir John Herschel justly remarks, that it ought not to ex- Chromatics
cite surprise that the dispersions deduced by this method ^ ■- v
should considerably exceed all former estimates.1
In the preceding table of dispersive powers we have given Explana-
two columns of numerical results, the first column contain-tion of the
ing the part of the whole refraction, or angle of deviation to tables,
which the angle of dispersion is equal, and the other the
dispersive power itself. The first column is obviously not
a measure of the dispersive power, because, if the dispersion
in that column is ^th part of a low refraction in one body,
and the ^th part of a high refraction in another body of
great refractive power, the dispersive power of the latter
must be smaller than that of the former, in the inverse ratio
of the index of refraction of the two bodies minus unity.
Hence the numbers in the second column, the dispersive
powers, are obtained by dividing the first column by the
index of refraction minus one.
If we wish to have the intrinsic or absolute dispersive Absolute
powers of bodies, in reference to the action of their ultimate dispersive
molecules, on the theory of emission, and on the supposition, l,ower*
as Sir John Herschel has remarked, in reference to abso¬
lute refractive powers, of the ultimate atoms of all bodies
being equally heavy, we must divide the numbers in the
second column of the preceding table by the specific gra¬
vities or densities of the bodies. In this way we have com¬
puted the results in the following table, containing the
substances principally that exercise an extreme action in
the dispersion of light.
Table of Absolute Dispersive Poivers.
Names of Substances.
Sulphate of barytes ...
Ditto strontites.
Carbonate of barytes...
Sapphire 
Chryso-beryl 
Topaz  
Fluor spar 
Cryolite 
Diamond 
Plate-glass  
Rock-salt  . ..
Specific
gravities used.
4-48
3-95
3-70
3-50
3-93
3-50
3-17
2- 95
3- 50
2-76
2143
Absolute
dispersive power.
0-00602
0-00607
0-0063
00066
0-00675
0-00685
0-0069
0-0074
0-0109
0-0112
0-0250
Names of Substances.
Water 
Amber 
Oil of olives 
Oil of turpentine 
Sulphur, fused 
Realgar 
Phosphorus  
Oil of anise seeds 
Bi-sulphuret of carbon.
Oil of cassia 
Specific
gravities used.
1-00
1-04
0-913
0-87
200
3-50
1-75
0-987
1-27
1-044
Absolute
dispersive power.
0035
00400
00415
0-0483
0-065
0-0728
0-0731
0-078
0081
0131
These results present us with several views of consider¬
able interest. The salts of barytes have, in reference to
their density, the least dispersive power of all bodies, and
the next in order are the gems, including even diamond,
which occupies so different a place in our table of absolute
refractive powers. The inflammable bodies, with the ex¬
ception of diamond, stand at the head of the table, oil of
cassia having by far the greatest absolute dispersive power
of any body yet examined. That this is owing to the hy¬
drogen which it contains is very probable, and has almost
been proved by an experiment by Sir John Herschel, who
deprived a portion of this oil of most of its hydrogen by
making a stream of chlorine pass through it till it refused to
act any farther. By this means he converted the oil into
a viscous mass, the dispersive power of which was dimin¬
ished one-half, while its refractive power had hardly suf¬
fered any change. This result leads us to conclude that
hydrogen has the greatest intrinsic dispersive power of all
bodies. Fluorine seems to be the element which has
nearly the lowest dispersive power.
Double One of the most interesting results exhibited in the ge-
dispersive neral table of dispersive powers relates to the dispersive
power. powers of doubly-refracting substances. Dr Wollaston had
measured the dispersive power of the ordinary ray in cal¬
careous spar, so far at least as to ascertain that it stood
above water, and plate and crown glass. Sir David
Brewster had been led to measure the dispersion of the
extraordinary ray, and found it to be much lower than that
of water. He was hence induced to examine the dis¬
persive powers of other doubly-refracting crystals, and was
thus led to the result which we have stated.2 Similar re¬
sults have been more recently obtained by M. Rudberg and
Mr Cooper, without knowing that the subject had been
previously investigated.
Sect. III.—On the Irrationality of the Coloured
Spaces in the Spectrum, and the Existence of a
Secondary Spectrum.
We are indebted, we believe, to M. Clairaut for the dis- Secondary
covery of the irrationality of the coloured spaces in the spectrum,
spectrum. He found that when the flint-glass of an achro- Clairaut.
matic object-glass had its aberration of colour as com¬
pletely corrected as possible,—that is, when the extreme red
and violet rays were accurately united in the same focus,—
still there remained a portion of uncorrected colour, which
was of a purple or claret colour on one side of the focus, and
of a green colour on the other. If prisms had been used
1 Edin. Trans., vol. lx., p. 458.
2 See Phil. Trans. 1813, p. 107, where this result was first published.
584
OPTICS.
Chromatics in place of lenses, and the sun’s light transmitted through
's—them in the usual manner, there would have been a small
residual spectrum, or secondary spectrum, as it has been
called, consisting of purple anil green light. I he Abbe
Boscovich. Boscovich afterwards observed the same fact, but con¬
sidered it so extraordinary that he suspected some latent
cause of error, and submitted his experiments to the most
rigid scrutiny. Heat last admitted the irrationality of the
coloured spaces in the spectrum as a demonstrated truth,
and has shown how three of the colours of the spectrum
may be corrected or united in the same focus in achro-
Bobison. matic telescopes. Professor Bobison obtained similar re¬
sults, and gave the name of outstanding colours to those
which were not united, and which form the secondary
spectrum.
Blair. This subject was more fully investigated by Dr Blair, in
his interesting paper on the unequal refrangibility of light,1
and he has shown that the proportions of the coloured spaces
vary with the substance of the opposing prisms, so that a
complete correction of colour cannot possibly be effected
by two media of different dispersive powers. Hence Dr
Blair was led to examine the nature of the dispersive
action of different media, and by the most ingenious de¬
vices succeeded in producing fluid object-glasses in which
the aberration of colour was completely corrected. The
telescopes which he made on this principle were so extra¬
ordinary, that Professor Robison assures us that one of
them, fifteen inches in focal length, equalled in all re¬
spects, if it did not surpass, the best of Dollond's fokty-
two inches long.
Wollaston. Under these circumstances, the scientific world was sur¬
prised at the following statement published by Dr Wollas¬
ton in the Phil. Trans, for 1803 :—“ Since the proportions
of these colours have been supposed by Dr Blair to vary
according to the medium by which they are produced, I
have compared with this appearance the coloured images
caused by prismatic vessels containing substances supposed
by him to differ most in this respect, such as strong but
colourless nitric acid, rectified oil of turpentine, very pale
oil of sassafras, Canada balsam, also nearly colourless. With
each of these I have found the same arrangement of these
four colours, and in similar positions of the prisms, as nearly
as I could judge, the same proportions of them.” Dr Blair
was surprised that Dr Wollaston should have used such a
coarse method of determining a point that required delicate
observations, especially with the substances above men¬
tioned ; and he remarked to the writer of this article, that
if Dr Wollaston would only make use of lenses, he would
see his mistake after a single observation.
There is no doubt, however, that the secondary spec¬
trum can be made very visible by prisms, and if we
use a prism of oil of cassia to correct the colour pro¬
duced by another of sulphuric acid, we shall have a strik¬
ing ocular proof of the existence of a large secondary
spectrum.
The phenomena of a secondary spectrum will be under¬
stood from fig. 76, where RR is a ray passing through an
aperture in the window-shutter SS, and refracted by a prism
P in the direction PM, so as to form the spectrum AB on
the wall—PA being the extreme violet ray, PM the mean
ray, and PB the extreme red. The spectrum will consist
of four palpable colours,—red, green, blue, and violet; and
if the prism is one of crown-glass, the mean ray PMN
which bisects the spectrum will be at the boundary of the
blue and green spaces. If we were to take a prism of flint-
glass with a much less refracting angle, and form a spec¬
trum CD of the same length as AB, and at the same dis¬
tance from the prism, the line mn which marks the bound¬
ary of the blue and green spaces will no longer be the Chromatics
mean ray of the spectrum, but will be decidedly nearer the V—
red extremity D. The least refrangible half of the spec¬
trum has therefore been more contracted, and the most
refrangible half more expanded than in the crown-glass
spectrum. If we now take a prism of sulphate of barytes
or fluor spar, capable of forming a third spectrum EF of
the same length as the other two, the boundary of the blue
and green spaces will now be at gv, nearer the violet than
the red extremity of the spectrum, and the least refrangible
half of this spectrum will be more expanded, and the most
refrangible half more contracted, than in the crown-glass
spectrum.
“ If a spectrum,” says Sir David Brewster,2 “ formed by
flint-glass, had its co’oured spaces exactly of the same di¬
mensions with those of an equal spectrum formed by
crown-glass, any object, such as a window-bar lying parallel
to the common section of the refracting planes of the two
prisms, shouldappear perfectly colourless when seen through
the combined prisms. But if the coloured spaces in the
two spectra are not proportional, as shown in fig. 76, but
are irrational, then the window-bar cannot be wholly free
from colour, for though the extreme red and violet rays
of both the spectra are united, yet the intermediate colours
are not rendered coincident. In the spectrum AB, formed
by the crown-glass, the first green ray MN, which is here
the mean ray, is obviously more refracted than the first
green ray mn in the spectrum CD formed by the flint-
glass, and therefore the flint-glass will not be able to re¬
fract the green ray so as to unite it with the red and violet.
Hence the green ray will, as it were, be left behind, while
the red and violet rays are rendered coincident. Thus,
if a prism p of flint-glass is placed behind a crown-glass
prism P, so as exactly to correct its dispersion, the spec¬
trum AB will be reduced to a secondary spectrum ab, the
upper half of which is green, which is left behind, and the
lower half is of a claret colour, formed by the union of the
red and violet rays. If the bar of a window had been ex¬
amined through the combined prism Vp, the upper side of
it would have been tinged with green, and the lower side
of it with a claret-coloured fringe.
“ By comparing, in a similar manner, the spectrum EF,
formed by fluor spar, with the spectrum AB, formed by
crown-glass, it will be found that the fluor spar, having a
greater action than the crown-glass upon the green ray,
will carry it beyond the place of the united red and violet,
and will form a secondary spectrum ef the lower half of
which is green, and the upper half of a claret colour,
arising from the union of the red and violet light. If the
bar of a window were viewed through the combined prisms
of crown-glass and rock-crystal, it would be tinged with
green on its lower side, and with a claret-coloured fringe
on its upper side.
“ When ahorizontal window-bar, therefore,is seen through
any two prisms which correct each other’s dispersion, with¬
out uniting all the colours, the green fringe will always be
1 Edin. Trane., vol. iii., p. 3.
a Treaties on New Philosophical Instruments, 1813, p. 356.
585
OPTICS.
Chromatics on the same side of the bar with the vertex of the prism
which has the least action upon the green light, or which
contracts the red and green rays, and expands the blue and
violet ones ; that is, if the vertex of the flint-glass prism is
* pointing downwards, the uncorrected green fringe will be
on the lower side of the bar. By observing, therefore, the
position of the green fringe, we can immediately ascertain
which of the two prisms has the greatest action upon the
green light.
The "following table contains the result of a numerous
series of observations made by Sir David Brewster on the
secondary spectra of different bodies, the substances being
arranged inversely according to their action upon green
light. The bodies at the top of the table form spectra
in which the red and green spaces are most contracted,
and the blue and violet ones most expanded. The rela¬
tive position of some of the substances, particularly
the essential oils, is quite empirical; but by a refer¬
ence to the original experiments, it will be seen whether
or not the relative action of any two bodies has been deter¬
mined.1
Table of Transparent Bodies arranged inversely accord¬
ing to their Action upon Green Light.
1. Oil of cassia.
Sulphur.
Sulphuret of carbon.
Balsam of Tolu.
5. Carbonate of lead.
Essen, oil of bitter almonds.
Oil of anise-seeds.
Oil of cummin.
Oil of sassafras.
10. Oil of amber.
Acetate of lead melted.
Opal-coloured glass.
Orange-coloured glass,
lied-coloured glass.
15. Oil of sweet fennel seeds.
Oil of cloves.
Muriate of antimony.
Oil of lavender.
Canada balsam.
20. Oil of turpentine.
Oil of sage.
Oil of pennyroyal.
Oil of poppy.
Oil of hyssop.
25. Oil of spearmint.
Amber.
Oil of lemon.
Oil of caraway-seeds.
Oil of nutmegs.
30. Oil of thyme.
Oil of peppermint.
Oil of bergamot.
Oil of marjoram.
Oil of wormwood.
35. Oil of dill seeds.
Oil of chamomile.
Castor-oil.
Gum copal.
Kosin.
40. Diamond.
Nitrate of potash.
Oil of beech-nut.
Oil of rue.
Oil of savin.
45. Nut-oil.
Balsam of capivi.
Oil of fenugreek.
Oil of rosemary.
Oil of rhodium.
50. Flint-glass.
Zircon.
Oil of olives.
Oil of rape-seed.
Oil of spermaceti.
55. Oil of juniper.
Oil of ambergris.
Calcareous spar.
Rock-salt.
Gum juniper.
60. Tartrate of potash and soda.
Oil of almonds.
Crown-glass.
Gum-arabic.
Alcohol.
65. Ether.
Borax, glass of.
Borax.
Tourmaline.
Leucite.
70. Selenite.
Beryl.
Topaz, blue.
Fluor spar.
Citric acid.
75. Malic acid.
Acetic acid.
Nitrous acid.
Muriatic acid.
Prussic acid.
80. Nitric ticid.
Rock-crystal.
White of an egg.
Ice.
Water.
85. Super-sulphuretted hydro¬
gen.
Phosphorous acid.
Sulphurous acid.
Phosphoric acid.
89. Sulphuric Acid.
Dr Blair Finding it impossible to obtain any highly dispersing
a plan a ti a medium which should refract the rays of the spectrum in the
telescop ’ o same manner as crown-glass, Dr Blair thought of employ¬
ing this very imperfection in obtaining a perfect correction
of colour. As the green rays remained the outstanding
ones, or were not united in the same focus with the red and
Fig. 77.
violet, he considered that if an achromatic concave lens
should refract the outstanding green more strongly than the v romatlcs
united red and violet, while an achromatic convex lens "
should also refract the outstand¬
ing green more strongly than the
united red and violet, then twro
such achromatic lenses combined
might unite the outstanding green
with the red and violet, and thus
effect a perfect union of all the
colours. Hence he took the com¬
bination shown in fig. 77, for a
concave lens, composed of a con¬
cave lens ab, of crown-glass, and
a convex lens cd of a fluid which
had its dispersive power of such
a character as to unite the red
and violet rays as stated in the
figures, and leave the green out¬
standing and most refracted. He
then made an achromatic convex
lens, fig. 78, composed of a convex lens hg of an essential
oil, the same as that in cd, which disperses the rays in a
lesser degree, and of a concave
lens efgh of an essential oil which
disperses the rays in a much
greater degree. This compound
lens has its convexity such as to
unite at a convenient distance,
rays which diverge from the violet
focus of the compound concave
lens shown in fig. 77, and there¬
fore its focal length must be much
shorter than the other, like the
flint lens in a common achroma¬
tic. But though the focal lengths
of the two compound lenses are
thus different, yet, the distance
or deviation of the outstanding
green from the united red and
violet is equal in both.
When these two compound lenses are placed in contact,
as shown in fig. 79, it is manifest that the equal and oppo¬
site deviations of the green ray
will balance each other, and that
this ray will therefore be united
with the red and violet, and thus
form a pencil exempt from se¬
condary colours. The plates of
glass shown by dotted lines at
ef, cd, though necessary when
the two compound lenses are se¬
parate, as in figs. 77, 78, are of
course removed, since the two
fluids which they separate, as fig.
79, are the same. Hence the
compound object-glass consists
of a concave lens of crown-glass
ab, of a meniscus ef of a fluid,
and a convex glass of another
fluid, inclosed between two glasses
like watch-glasses. Dr Blair found it best in practice to
make all the glasses concave meniscuses, in place of having
all the concavity in one lens ab.
In continuing his experiments, Dr Blair happened to try
the muriatic acid mixed with a metallic solution. He found
it best to make his compound convex lens, as shown in fig.
78, of crown-glass and that fluid, which enabled him to cor¬
rect the colour of the compound concave in fig. 77, and like-
4 ii
VOL. XVI.
1 Brewster’s Treatise on New Philosophical Instruments, pp. 373-387.
586
OPTICS.
Chromatics wise to correct the aberration of figure by a concave which
lengthens only by one-third the focal distance of the convex.
When he was trying a compound concave formed only of
crown-glass and muriatic acid, he observed that this fluid
produced an inverted secondary spectrum, and gave a primary
spectrum in which the green rays were among
the most refrangible; and hence he was con¬
ducted to the idea of forming a compound lens
consisting merely of a single concave lens of
muriatic acid placed between a plano-convex
and a meniscus of crown-glass. In this lens,
which he actually constructed and used, he ob-'
serves that the rays of different colours were
hent from their rectilineal course with the same
equality and regularity as in reflection}
In such telescopes, Dr Blair found that when
the focal length of the object-glass was nine
inches, the aperture might be increased as far
as three inches; and in order to distinguish
such instruments where the aberration is re¬
moved, from achromatic ones in which it is
only partially removed, he proposed the use of
the term aplanatic} ^80-
Section IV.—On the Tertiary Spectrum, and the
Method of Correcting the Aberration of Colour
by Prisms and Lenses of the same kind of Glass.
Tertiary
spectrum.
The existence of the tertiary spectrum was discovered
experimentally by Sir David Brewster, who deduced it also
from the constant ratio of the sines. It is produced when
the dispersion of a prism of any substance is corrected
by another prism of the same substance with a different
refracting angle. An irrationality takes place in the
coloured spaces, which prevents the correction of colour
from being complete. The residuary spectrum was there¬
fore called the tertiary spectrum, merely to distinguish it
from the secondary one, which is produced by the specific
quality in the refracting media, which act in opposition to
each other.
In examiningthephenomenaofthisnewspectrum, Sir David
Brewster was led to a very paradoxical method of exhibiting it.
Having formed ^
a prism of oilMlte“
of cassia, with a ^
large refracting
Fig. 81.
angle, and viewing through it the broadest horizontal bar
of a window, so that the edges of the bar were free of all
colours, he inclined the prism so as to make the bar exhibit
at its edges the prismatic colours, as shown in fig. 81, where
the edges Z>M and cN had spectra iaM, c/’N, consisting of
the usual red and yellow rays, while the edges eM, 6N had
spectra edM, bcS composed of the usual blue and violet
rays. rI hese spectra increased from b and e towards M and
N, and at the nodes b, e, where the spectra would have
vanished, had each face of the prism received the rays
symmetrically, the tertiary spectrum was clearly displayed
in the form of a green and yellow fringe.
In order to produce refraction without colour by two
prisms of the same kind of glass, they may be combined, as
in fig. 82, where a
ray of light R in¬
cident on the first
prism AB is re- r
fracted to the axis m
MF at F. I he Fig. 82.
prism AB has a smaller refracting angle than CD, and is
^ acc ,in an oblique position, so that its dispersion is in-
ci eased in a greater ratio than its refraction, for the purpose
of correcting the dispersion of CD without balancing its Chromatics
refraction; the prism CD having a position in which its re- v t
fraction and dispersion are a minimum. The ray R will
therefore converge colourless, and meet the axis at F.
If the prisms have the same refracting angle, and are
placed in the position shown in fig. 83, the ray R will emerge
colourless in the direction mr. This combination of prisms,
as well as that in fig. 82, has the property of expanding all ob¬
jects viewed through them, in a vertical plane passing through
their sections BA CD; that is, of magnifying them in one
plane. Hence, if we place another similar pair of prisms
horizontally, this pair also will magnify objects in a horizon¬
tal plane, and by combining these two pair of prisms, we
obtain an instrument which will expand or magnify objects
in all directions.
This instrument was first constructed by Sir David
Brewster in 1812, under the name of a teinoscope, for alter¬
ing the proportions of objects in plans and drawings, by
expanding them differently in rectangular directions ;a and
there is reason to think that Dr Blair was acquainted with
this method of magnifying objects by prisms. Mr Archi¬
bald Blair some years ago put into Sir David Brewster’s
hands an instrument of this kind, composed of four prisms,
which had been executed by his father, but the date of its
construction he had no means of discovering. There
cannot, therefore, be the shadow of a doubt that both the
principles and the invention of an instrument for magnify¬
ing objects by means of prisms, were known and published
in Scotland long before the celebrated M. Amici of
Florence brought forward a contrivance of the same kind.
That M. Amici’s invention was an independent one will
not be questioned.
As we conceive that a telescope of this kind may have
many useful applications, we have given in the annexed
figure a sketch of the instrument as actually fitted up for use.
It consists of
two prisms,
AB, AC of
the same kind
of glass, and
having a small
refracting an- Fig. 84.
gle. Their common line of junction at A is horizontal, and
their planes of refraction vertical. Other two similar prisms
DE, EF, are placed transversely, their common line of
junction at E being vertical, and their planes of refraction
horizontal. An object M, therefore, seen through the
prisms in the direction OM, by an eye placed at O,
will be magnified three, four, or five times, or more, ac¬
cording to the inclination and angles of the prisms. It is
expanded or stretched out in a horizontal plane by the two
first prisms ED, EF, and then expanded and stretched out
in a vertical plane by the other two prisms AB, CD.
If w’e use homogeneous light, we may construct the in¬
strument with only two prisms, as there is no necessity
for correcting the colour with a second prism. For solar
observations, the two prisms will constitute a telescope, a
darkening glass being used as in other instruments. It
will be thus equally useful for viewing the lines in the spec¬
trum, where homogeneous light is necessarily used ; and by
placing two, three, or four instruments in the same tube, we
1 Edin. Trans., vol. iii., p. 53.
2 Ibid.
3 Edin. Phil. Jour., vol. vi., p. 334, April 1822.
OPTICS.
587
Phenome¬
na of the
spectrum.
Prismatic may obtain any magnifying power we desire. The length
Spectrum. 0f the instrument which we have drawn is only two inches
and three-quarters.
Sect. V—On the Optical Phenomena of the
Spectrum.
Although the discovery of the principle, and the actual
construction of achromatic and aplanatic telescopes had
directed the attention of many observers to the nature of
the prismatic spectrum, yet, with the exception of its vary¬
ing length in different bodies, and the continuity of its
coloured spaces, no attempt was made to question the
general account of its phenomena given by Sir Isaac Newton.
Owing to his having used the diameter of the sun as the
body from which his spectrum was formed, and to the diffi¬
culty of procuring in his day good prisms of glass, Sir Isaac
never obtained anything like pure homogeneous light, and
was therefore unable to determine the exact boundaries of
the coloured spaces. Had the spectrum been observed in
the same manner on the planet Mercury and on Saturn, the
spectrum produced by the same prism would have been very
different. On Mercury the rays would have been less
pure and homogeneous than that observed on our earth,
and the mean refrangible rays of a different colour; while
on Saturn the colours would have been more pure and
homogeneous.
1. Discoveries of Dr Wollaston.
The first person, in so far as we know, who proposed
to form the spectrum by using a very narrow pencil of
light in place of the sun, was Dr Wollaston, to whom
we owe many most valuable observations on the subject.
“ I cannot,” says he, “ conclude these observations on
dispersion, without remarking, that the colours into which a
beam of white light is separable by refraction, appear to me
Discoveries
of Dr Wol¬
laston.
Fig. 85.
Fixed lines to be neither seven, as they usually are seen in the rainbow,
truin'3 S^CC" nor ret^llc^^e by any means (that I can find) to three, as
some persons have conceived; but that by employing a
very narrow pencil of light, four primary divisions of the
prismatic spectrum may be seen with a degree of distinct¬
ness, that I believe has not been described nor observed
before. If abeam of daylight be admitted into a dark room
by a crevice ^ of an inch broad, and received by the eye
at the distance of ten or twelve feet through a prism of flint-
glass,/ree from veins, held near the eye, the beam is seen to
be separated into the four following colours only, red, yel¬
lowish-green, blue, and violet, in the proportions represented
in the figure.
“ The line A that bounds the red side of the spectrum
is somewhat confused, which seems in part owing to the
want of power in the eye to converge red light. The
line B, between red and green in a certain position of the
prism, is perfectly distinct; so also are D, and E, the two
limits of violet. But C, the limit of green and blue, is not
so clearly marked as the rest; and there are also, on each
side of this limit, other distinct dark lines,/and .9, either of Prismatic
which, in an imperfect experiment, might be mistaken for the Spectrum,
boundary of these colours.
“ The position of the prism in which the colours are most
clearly divided, is when the incident light makes about
equal angles with two of its sides. I then found that the
spaces AB,BC,CD,DE, occupied by them, were nearly as
the numbers 16, 23, 36, 25.” Dr Wollaston adds, that
when the inclination of the prism is altered so as to in¬
crease the dispersion of the colours, the proportions of them
to each other are then also changed, so that the spaces AC
and CE, instead of being as before 39 and 61, may be
found altered as far as 42 and 58.
The lines which Dr Wollaston has described in the pre¬
ceding observations, are called the fixed lines in the spec¬
trum, and may be considered, as we shall presently have
reason to see, as one of the most valuable observations
which have been made on this subject. He owed the
discovery solely to his having used a narroiver line of light,
and had he employed a still narrower and brighter line, he
would have seen many more lines.
In considering Dr Wollaston’s observations, and com¬
paring the results with those of Sir Isaac Newton, we must
carefully attend to the circumstance, that he used a beam
of daylight, not one of sunlight, and as this beam eman¬
ated from the blue sky, and was light which had been greatly
modified by the action of the atmosphere, as we shall soon
show, his estimate of the number and nature of the coloured
spaces does not in the least affect or invalidate the obser¬
vations of preceding authors. The sun’s light used by
Newton had lost many of its rays by the absorptive action
of the atmosphere, before it fell upon Dr Wollaston’s prism.
In consequence of taking it for granted that Dr Wollaston
was analysing the same kind of light that Sir Isaac New¬
ton analysed, both he and Dr Young were misled in the
interpretation of the phenomena. Speaking of the obser¬
vations of Newton and his followers, Dr Young says, “ The
observations were however imperfect, and the analogy was
wholly imaginary. Dr Wollaston has determined the division
of the coloured image or spectrum in a much more accurate
manner than had been done before; by looking through a
prism at a narrow line of light, he produces a more effec¬
tual separation of the colours than can be obtained by the
common method of throwing the sun’s image on a wall.
The spectrum formed in this manner consists of four colours
only, red, green, blue and violet, which occupy spaces in
the proportion of 16, 23, 36, and 25, respectively, making
together 100 for the whole length ; the red being nearly
one-sixth, the green and the violet each about one-fourth,
and the blue more than one-third of the length. The
colours differ scarcely at all in quality within their respec¬
tive limits, but they vary in brightness; the greatest inten¬
sity of light being in that part of the green which is nearest
to the red. A narrow line of yellow is generally visible at
the limit of the red and green; but its breadth scarcely
exceeds that of the aperture by which the light is admitted,
and Dr Wollaston attributes it to the mixture of the red
with the green light.1 There are also several dark lines
crossing the spectrum within the blue portion and in its
neighbourhood, in wdiich the continuity of the light seems
to be interrupted. This distribution of the spectrum Dr
Wollaston has found to be the same whatever refracting
substance may have been employed for its formation ; and
he attributes the difference which has sometimes been
observed in the proportion, to accidental variations of the
obliquity of the rays.”2 Hence Dr Young was led to sup¬
pose that the yellow line was the accidental union of the
1 Dr Young has given in his Elements of Natural Philosophy, vol. i., p. 786, plate 29, a small coloured drawing of the spectrum as
seen by Dr Wollaston and himself, with the yellow line. This line has no existence in the true solar spectrum.
2 Nat. Phil., vol. ii., p. 637»
588
OPTICS.
Prismatic extremity of the red and green spaces,—to regard yelloio
Spectrum. as a niixture o\' red <\x\d green light, and to suppose that the
green space consisted only of homogeneous green without
any mixture of yellow. In consequence, says he, ot
Dr Wollaston’s correction of the description ot the pris¬
matic spectrum compared with these observations, it became
necessary to modity the supposition that I advanced in the
last Bakerian lecture respecting the proportions of the
sympathetic fibres of the retina ; substituting ked, green,
and violet, for red, yellow, and blue.” In this manner
the yellow space was struck out of the spectrum on the
authority of Dr Wollastons observations .
2. Discoveries of Fraunhofer.
mscoveries Without knowing anything of the discovery of fixed lines
of Fraun- jn skylight by Dr Wollaston, M. Fraunhofer, a cele-
hofer- brated practical optician at Benedictbaiern, near Munich,
made a series of the most beautiful discoveries respecting
the spectrum, which he published in 1814 and 1815. By
making use of prisms of uniform density, and entirely free
of veins, and by excluding all extraneous light, and stopping
the rays which formed the coloured spaces which he was
not examining, he made the important discovery that the
Lines in solar spectrum was covered with a great number of black
the spec- lines of different thicknesses parallel to each other, and
tram. perpendicular to the length of the spectrum.
All kinds of prisms, fluid or solid, provided they were
good, exhibited the same lines, and Fraunhofer found that
these5 lines had a fixed position in the spectrum, and that
thev varied with the length of the spectrum, the distance
between any two affording a precise measure of the action
of the prism on the rays in which these two lines were
placed. These lines are darker than the rest of the spec¬
trum, and some of them appear entirely black. The largest
lines could scarcely be seen if the aperture exceeded a
minute, and the finest lines also disappeared entirely when Prismatic
the aperture was 40." The aperture used by Fraunhofer Spectrum,
was nearly one-fiftieth of an inch wide, and 2-88 inches
high. The prism was made of flint-glass, and had a re¬
fracting angle of nearly 60°, and was placed before the
object-glass of the telescope so that the angles of inci¬
dence and emergence were equal, or the angle of refrac¬
tion a minimum. This apparatus is shown in fig. 86,
Fig. 86.
where the prism is seen in front of the object-glass of the
telescope of a repeating theodolite resting on a horizontal
plane with a steel axis, round which it moves.
When the prism was turned round, so as to increase the
angle of incidence, the lines disappeared, and the same took
place when the angle of incidence was diminished. But
the lines reappeared at a greater incidence by shortening,
and at a smaller incidence by lengthening the telescope.
The solar prismatic spectrum, as seen by Fraunhofer, is
represented in fig. 87, which has been abridged, and many
Fig. 87.
of the lines necessarily omitted, Fraunhofer himself having
been obliged to leave them out of his map. At the line A
the red space nearly terminates, and the violet space at I;
but when the light of an illuminated cloud fell upon the
aperture in the prism, the spectrum appeared to terminate
on one side at B, and on the other between G and H. At
A there is a distinct and well-defined line, the boundary of
the red space being a little beyond it. “At a there is a
mass of lines, forming together a band darker than the ad¬
jacent parts. The line at B is very distinct, and of a con¬
siderable thickness. From B to C may be reckoned nine
very delicate and well-defined lines. The line at C is
broad, and black like D. Between C and D are found
nearly thirty very fine lines, which, however, with the ex¬
ception of two, cannot be perceived but with a high magni¬
fying power, and with prisms of great dispersion; they are
besides well defined. The same is the case with the lines
between B and C. The line D consists of two strong lines
separated by a bright one. Between D and E we recog¬
nise about 84 lines of different sizes. That at E consists
of several lines, of which the middle one is the strongest.
From E to 5 there are nearly twenty-four lines. At b there
are three very strong ones, two of which are separated by a
fine and clear line. They are among the strongest in the spec¬
trum. The space 6F contains nearly fifty-two lines, of which
F is very strong. Between F and G there are about 185
lines of different sizes. At G many lines are accumulated,
several of which are remarkable for their size. From G to
H there are nearly 190 different lines. The two bands at
H are of a very singular nature. They are both nearly
equal, and are formed of several lines, in the middle of
which there is one very strong and deep. From H to I
they likewise occur in great numbers. Hence it follows
that, in the space BH, there are 574 lines. The relative
distances of the strongest lines were measured with the
theodolite, and placed in the figure from observation. The
OPT
| * Prismatic faintest lines only were inserted from estimation by the
Spectrum, eye.” The lines in the solar spectrum which wre have thus
minutely described after Fraunhofer, are not seen in the
spectra formed by any white flame or white light, whether
it is generated by ordinary combustion, or produced by the
application of intense heat to a solid body. In the flame
of a lamp, however, Fraunhofer discovered that there is a
double yellow line occupying exactly the same place as the
double line D, the two black lines of D corresponding with
the two luminous ones of the double yellow line in lamp
light. Flence it follows that ordinary white light, pro¬
duced in the manner already mentioned, has 590 rays of
I C S. 589
a definite refrangibility which do not exist in solar light, Prismatic
and hence the black lines have been called defective rays Spectrum,
or lines.
By means of the apparatus shown in fig. 86, Fraunhofer
determined in a very accurate manner the distances be¬
tween the principal fixed lines1 B, C, D, E, F, G, H, taking
those which divided the spectrum most conveniently. The
line b, for example, w'ould have been better than E for its
magnitude and distinctness, but it does not divide the space
DF so equally. He repeated these observations with dif¬
ferent kinds of flint and crown glass of several fluids, and
obtained the results given in the following table:—
Table showing the Distances of the Principal Fixed Lines in the Spectrum in various Media, according to Fraunhofer.
Different Combinations of
Refracting Media.
o> ci
iHPn
Flint-glass, No. 13 
Crown-glass, No. 9 
Water 
Ditto 
Sol. of potash in water.
Oil of turpentine 
Flint-glass, No. 3 
Ditto No. 30 
Crown-glass, No. 13 
Ditto   
Flint-glass, No. 23 
Ditto, ditto 
651°
63*
65f
65*
52*
Angle of the
Prism.
3-723
2- 535
1-000
1-000
1- 416
0-885
3- 512
3-695
2 535
2- 756
3- 724
3-724
26° 24'
39 20
5
5
5
5
41
21 42
43 27
42 56
60 15
45 23
Angle of
Deviation.
27' 8"
38 19
36 40
36 40
45 56
20 12
35 16-6
3 9
26 35-4
39 13
55 13-2
45 12-2
BC
3'
2
3
3
4
4
3
2
3
3
11
6
16"
44-5
24
12-4
2
56
8
35-6
5
32-8
12-6
26
CD
9' 4"-2
7 23-5
8 10
8 10-6
10 26
13 52
8 22
6 56-8
8 14-4
9 37-6
31 14-8
17 47-8
11' 50"
9 14
9 58
9 57-5
12 54
18 46-1
10 46
9 12-6
10 28-2
12 29-8
41 21-4
23 31-8
10' 3 3"-9
8 14
8 38
8 30-5
11 12
16 14
9 50
8 19
9 10
11 1-6
38 14-8
21 23-8
20' 23"-9
15 10
15 16
15 15-6
20 36
31 8
19 10
16 15-6
17 14-8
20 53-6
1° 14 45-2
41 33-4
GH
18' 18"
13 18
12 41-9
12 46-2
17 24
27 28
17 10
14 32-2
14 48-4
18 17-4
3-6
28-8
1° 8
These valuable data were deduced from measures taken
six times for each substance ; but as the theodolite tvas
only twenty-four feet distant from the window ot his dark
room, it became necessary to apply a correction to the angle
of deviation p, arising from the distance 4’25 inches of the
centre of the prism from the axis of the theodolite. This
correction w'ould have been very great for twenty-four feet,
and therefore Fraunhofer, to avoid the uncertainty which
arises from a great correction, determined the angle p for
the yellow ray of the light of a lamp which has the same
refrangibility as D. When the lamp was placed at the
distance of 692 feet, the correction of p for crown-glass and
water was only 40". Hence for the smaller arcs, which were
really measured, the corrections were very small, being only
2"-o for BC, 6"-5 for CD, and 8" for DE. All the angular
distances, therefore, in the preceding table have had this
correction applied to them.
M. Fraunhofer then proceeded to determine the index
of refraction m for the different fixed lines, and calling cr
the angle of incidence, p the angle of emergence, ^ the
angle of the prism, and to the index of refraction, he
obtained,
(sin p + cos if/ sin o-)2 + (sin. i/r sin o-)2\
sin if/ J
When the angle of incidence is equal to the angle of
emergence, or the angle of deviation a minimum, and if p
is the angle of deviation, or that which the emergent ray
forms with the incident ray, we have
sin Up + if/)
m— —.- ■-{———.
sin
When the dispersive power of the body under examina¬
tion is very great, the value of the index of refraction m
given by this last formula will not be rigorously correct, as
the equality of the angles of incidence and emergence can
only take place for one ray. Fraunhofer, therefore, mea¬
sured the distances BC, CD, when the distance of the
two lines B and C, C and D was the smallest, which takes
place when the ray or line which bisects these spaces has
its angle of incidence and emergence equal. When the
substances have a less dispersive power, or the prisms
a smaller angle, the same cave is not necessary to obtain
this degree of accuracy. If we then call E/n the index of
refraction for the ray E, we have
Em=sin ifc + f + DE);
sin -^if/
and for the ray F,
pm_sin jC/* + + DE + EF)
sin ^if/
In this way Fraunhofer obtained the following indices
of refraction for the different solids and fluids formerly
used:—
1 The reader will be desirous of knowing which of these principal lines were discovered by Dr A\ollaston. The following attempt
to do this is given by Sir David Brewster in his “Report on Optics,” published in the Proceedings of the British Association, vol. i.,
p. 320, note 2:—“ In the spectrum formed by a narrow beam of daylight, Dr Wollaston had, previously to the year 1802, discovered
seven lines, which he has designated by the letters A, B,/, C, g, D, E; the first line A being, according to his observations, the extreme
boundary of the red rays, and the last line E the extreme boundary of the violet rays. The correspondence of these lines with those of
Fraunhofer I have with some difficulty ascertained to be as follows:—
A, B, f, C, g, D, E,—Wollaston.
B, D, b, F, G, H,—Fraunhofer.
There is no single line in Fraunhofer's drawing in the spectrum (nor is there any in the real spectrum), coincident with the Iine C of
Wollaston ; and indeed he himself describes it as not being “ so clearly marked as the rest.” 1 have found, however, that this line O
corresponds to a number of lines half-way between 6 and F, w-hich, owing to the absorption of the atmosphere, are particularly visi e
in the light of the sky near the horizon. In order to have seen the lines B and H of Fraunhofer, especially the last, Dr Wollaston s
“ beam of daylight” must have come from a part of the sky very near the sun’s disc.”
590
OPTICS.
Prismatic
Spectrum.
Table showing the Indices of liefraction corresponding to the Principal Fixed Lines of the Spectrum, in various
Media, according to Fraunhofer}
Prismatic
Spectrum.
Refracting Media.
Flint-glass, No. 13  
Crown-glass, No. 9 
Water 
Ditto     
Solution of potash in water  
Oil of turpentine   
Flint-glass, No. 3 
Ditto No. 30  
Crown-glass, No. 13   
Ditto 
Flint-glass, No. 23, prism of 60c
Ditto No. 23, prism of 45°
Bm
1-627749
1-525832
1-330935
1-330977
1-399629
1-470496
1-602042
1-623570
1-524312
1-554774
1-626596
1-626564
Cot
1-629681
1-526849
1-331712
1-331709
1-400515
1-471530
1-603800
1-625477
1-525299
1-555933
1-628469
1-628451
Dot
1-635036
1-529587
1-333577
1-333577
1-402805
1-474434
1-608494
1-630585
1-527982
1-559075
1-633667
1-633666
Eot
1-642024
1-533005
1-335851
1-335849
1-405632
1-478353
1-614532
1-637356
1-531372
1-563150
1-640495
1-640544
Fot
1-648260
1-536052
1-337818
1-337788
1-408082
1-481736
1-620042
1-643466
1-534337
1-566741
1-646756
1-646780
Got
1-660285
1-541657
1-341293
1-341261
1-412579
1-488198
1-630772
1-655406
1-539908
1-573535
1-658848
1-658849
Hot
1-671062
1 546566
1-344177
1-344162
1-416368
1-493874
1-640373
1-666072
1-544684
1-579470
1-669686
1-669680
niuminat- Before he proceeded to employ these results to the con¬
ing power stmction of achromatic telescopes, Fraunhofer endeavoured
of the spec- 1
trum.
to determine by exact measurement the illuminating power
of the spectrum at different points. In order to do this, he
A constructed an apparatus represented in figs.
88, 89. To an eye-glass E, made on purpose
for the telescope of the theodolite, he applied
a small plane metallic mirror a, the edge of
which being well defined, cut the field of the
telescope in the middle, as shown in the figure.
It was placed at an angle of 45° to the axis of
the object-glass A, and in its focus. The eye¬
glass E is pulled out till the edge of the small
speculum a is distinctly seen. At the side of
the eye-glass, and in a direction at right angles
to the edge of the speculum a, or to the axis
of the telescope, he fixed a tube c&B, cut at the
point b in the direction of its length, and in
this opening he placed a narrow and a shorter
tube MN, whose section is seen at b, crossing
the larger tube cB at right angles. A small
flame, supplied with oil from an external ves¬
sel, was placed in the tube MN(fig. 88), so as to
be in the axis of the tube cB. At the point of the
ft
Fig. 89.
narrow tube b or MN, where it was cut bv the axis of the
tube cB, was a small round aperture for allowing the light
of the flame to fall upon the speculum a. Hence it follows
that the eye at E will see in half of the field the speculum
a illuminated by the flame, and in the other half the colours
of the spectrum formed by a prism placed, as formerly
described, before the object-glass A. By making the tube
MN and the flame approach the speculum, we increase its
degree of illumination, and can therefore make it equal to
the illumination of the part of the spectrum which we wish
to determine. In this way he obtained for each coloured
space in the spectrum a certain distance of the flame from
the speculum, which afforded a measure of the intensity of
illumination, the squares of the distances being inversely as
the intensities.
With the prism of flint-glass, No. 13, having an angle of
26° 24' 5", he obtained the following results. Though the
experiments were made in clear weather, and at noon, he
sometimes perceived, in the course of the observations, a
slight change in the density of the light which the prism
received. The differences in the four sets of expeiaments
may have been partly owing to this change, and the flame
may also have changed its intensity in the course of the
observations. If we call the intensity of the light at the
brightest part of the spectrum 1, we shall then have the
intensities at the different points as under:—
Table showing the Intensity of Illumination at different
points of the Spectrum.
Points of the Spectrum
where the illumination
was measured.
At the line B 
At „ C 
At „ D 
At 2-7ths of DE from E
At the line E 
At „ F  
At „ H 
At „ G  
Intensity of Light.
Exp.l. Exp. 2. Exp. 3. Exp. 4. Mean
0-0100
0-0480
0-6100
1-0000
0-4400
0-0840
0-0100
0-00110
0-044
0-096
0-590
1-000
0-38
0-14
0-029
0-0072
0053
0-15
0-72
1-00
0-61
0-25
0 053
0-009
0-020
0084
0-62
1-00
0-49
0-19
0-032
0-005
0-032
0 094
0-640
1-000
0-480
0-170
0-031
00056
Fraunhofer found the brightest part of the spectrum at
the distance of nearly it or £ of DE from D.
The results of the preceding experiments are expressed
in the curve which accompanies the spectrum in fig. 87,
the preceding values in the last column of the table being
the ordinates of the curve, and the angular distances BC,
CD in the table on the preceding page, for flint-glass, No.
13, being the abscissae.
If we suppose that the quantity of the light in the
differently coloured spaces is represented by the areas of
1 The Abbe Dutiron has recently made a series of experiments with various kinds of glass, with a new instrument constructed by
Brunner of Paris. (See Annalti do Chimie, 3d aerie*, tom. XXviil.)
Prismatic
Spectrum.
Irrational¬
ity of the
coloured
spaces
proved.
Fixed
lines in
starlight.
the curves BC, CD, we shall obtain the following results,—
the area of the space DE being made equal to unity :—
Quantity of
light in, or
area of,
BC 0021
CD 0-300
DE  DOOO
Quantity of
light in,or
area of.
EF   0-32S
FG 0-185
GH 0035
Hence it follows, that in Fraunhofer’s spectrum the most
luminous ray is nearer the red than the violet end of the
spectrum, in the ratio of 1 to 3-o, and that the mean ray is
almost in the middle of the blue space.
Sir John Herschel has rendered visible the chemical rays Prismatic
beyond the visible "violet rays: their colour is that of la- Spectrum.
vender-gray; but they require to be concentrated with v'—^
a lens in order to be seen.1 2
M. Fraunhofer next proceeds to apply these interest-Achroma-
ing results to the construction of achromatic combinationstlc potnbi-
for telescopes. From his table, given at the top of thenatl0ns*
preceding page, he obtains the following ratios of the
different dispersive powers of the differently coloured
rays in the different combinations mentioned in the first
column:—
Table showing the Hatios of the Dispersion of the differently-coloured Rays for each combination of Media?
Refracting Media.
Cn'—Bn'
Flint-glass, No. 13, and water 
Flint-glass, No. 13, and crown-glass.
No. 9  
Crown-glass, No. 9, and water 
Oil of turpentine and water 
Flint-glass, No. 13, and oil of turpen¬
tine  
Flint-glass, No. 13, and kali 
Kali and water 
Oil of turpentine and kali 
Flint-glass, No. 3, and crown-glass,
No. 9  
Crown-glass, No. 13, and water 
Crown-glass and water 
Crown-glass, No. 2, and crown-glass,
No. 13 
Flint-glass, No. 13, and crown-glass 
Flint-glass, No. 3, and crown-glass 
Flint-glass, No. 30, and crown-glass,
No. 13 
Flint-glass, No. 23, and crown-glass,
No. 13   
2562
1-900
1-349
1- 371
1-868
2- 181
1-175
1-167
1-729
1-309
1-537
1-174
1-667
1-517
1-932
1-904
J)n'—Cn'
Bn—Cn
2-871
1-956
1-468
1-557
1- 844
2- 338
1-228
1-268
1-714
1-436
1-682
1-171
1-704
1-494
1-904
1-940
En'—Dn'
En—Dn
3-073
2-044
1-503
1-723
1- 783
2- 472
1-243
1-386
1-767
1-492
1-794
1-202
1-715
1-482
1- 997
2- 022
Fn'—En'
3-193
2-047
1-560
1-732
1- 843
2- 545
1-254
1-381
1-808
1-518
1-839
1-211
1-737
1- 534
2- 061
2-107
Gn'—Fn'
3-460
2-145
1- 613
1-860
1-861
2- 674
1-294
1-437
1-914
1-604
1-956
1-220
1-770
1- 579
2- 143
2-168
3-726
2-195
1-697
1-963
1- 899
2- 844
1-310
1-498
1-956
1- 651
2- 052
1243
1-816
1-618
2-233
2-268
The important results embodied in the preceding table,
completely overturn the opinion of Dr Wollaston respect¬
ing the proportionality of the different colours, and establish
beyond all question the irrationality of the coloured spaces.
In the very first combination, for example, of flint-glass
and water, the ratio of the dispersion of the rays in the red
space BC is as 1 to 2-56, whereas in the violet space GH
it is as high as 1 to 3‘726. In the combination ol flint-
glass and oil of turpentine, we have a case where the irra¬
tionality is very trifling, and what Fraunhofer has not ob¬
served, the irrationality is nothing between the orange and
blue spaces, and almost nothing between the red and indigo,
but very considerable between the green and all the other-
spaces, and a maximum between the green and the violet.
The differences of the ratios, too, are negative or diminish¬
ing in the two first or least refrangible spaced, and positive
in all the rest, the negative differences nearly balancing the
positive ones; whereas, with very trifling exceptions, the
ratios increase towards the most refrangible extremity of
the spectrum.
To tire Chevalier Fraunhofer we owe also the discovery
of many fixed lines in the light of the planets and fixed stars.
As the light of our sun is defective in so many rays, it was
to be expected that the light of all the planets which he
illuminates would be equally defective in the same rays.
In the brighter colours of the moon's spectrum, we find
the same fixed lines as in the sun’s light, and in the same
place. The spectra from the light of Mars and Venus con¬
tained the lines D, E, b, and F, of solar light, and precisely
in the same place. In the spectrum of Sirius he was unable
to perceive fixed lines in the orange and yelloio colours,
but in the green he saw a very strong streak, and in the
blue other two very strong ones, having no resemblance to
any of the lines in the solar spectrum. Castor gives a
spectrum resembling that of Sirius. The streak in the
green was so intense, that, notwithstanding the weakness
of the light, he ascertained by measurement that it occu¬
pied the same place as the green streak in Sirius. He dis¬
tinguished also the two streaks in the blue, but he could
not ascertain their place. In the spectrum of Pollux he
found many weak and fixed lines, which resembled those
of Venus. The line D he saw distinctly, and occupying
the same place as in the pure light. In the spectrum of
Capella he saw the lines D and b as in solar light. The
spectrum of Belalgeus contains numerous fixed lines, which
in a favourable atmosphere are sharply defined. There
were lines like the solar ones D and b. In the spectrum
from Procyon, some lines were perceived with difficulty,
but they were not sufficiently distinct to be measured. In
the orange space, however, he saw a line at D.
In all these stars the light is colourless; that is, the de- Defective
fective rays are equally numerous in the differently colouredlines in
spaces of their spectra, or are so balanced that the obstruc-
tion of light at these places does not affect the whiteness of
their light. Presuming that in coloured stars the colour
was caused by defective rays being more numerous in one
part of the spectrum than in another, Sir David Brewster
had an opportunity many years ago of confirming the con-
1 Phil. Trans. 1840, p. 19.
2 M. Dutiron has also given, in the work already referred to, a table of the dispersive powers of the substances whose refractive
powers he had measured.
592
Prismatic
Spectrum.
Longitudi¬
nal lines in
the spec¬
trum.
Bright
lines in
spectra of
different
flames.
OPTICS.
jecture by examining with a very fine prism of rock-salt
the orange-coloured slax of the double star £ Herculis, when
seen through Sir James South’s largest achromatic telescope.
One defective band was observed in the red space, and two
or more in the blue space, and consequently the orange
colour of the star was owing to a greater defect of blue than
of red rays.
In examining the spectrum of the sun, Professor Zante-
: deschi, now of Padua, discovered a set of longitudinal
lines in the spectrum perpendicular to the fixed lines
of Fraunhofer, and has published beautiful drawings
of them in his Ricerche sulla Luce} They were ob¬
served by Wartman in 1840, and by various authors; but
the general opinion has been, that they arise from minute
irregularities or particles of dust on the slit or line of light
from which the spectrum is formed. More accurate obser¬
vations, however, have given a different character to the
phenomenon; and M. Babinet, who has investigated the
subject, regards it as a true and valuable discovery. Pro¬
fessor Zantedeschi and Professor Ilagona Scina have found
that the lines are produced only when a lens or telescope
is used along with the prism; and M. Babinet, who has
observed them with a very fine apparatus made by M.
Porro, has given an interesting explanation of them. The
lines themselves are sometimes broad and sometimes narrow,
generally black, but sometimes luminous, depending on the
focal length and nature of the lens or lenses.
When a lens has a proper diaphragm, M. Arago found that,
setting out from its focus, the axis of a luminous pencil pre¬
sents a series of dark and bright points, surrounded with nar¬
row rays, bright and obscure, such as are shown in figs. 126,
127, 128, and described in section 3. Now, in Zantedeschi’s
experiments “ every point of the luminous slit, according to
its distance from the prism, the screen, or the eye-glasses,
gives dark or bright spots, which are transformed by the
action of the prism into longitudinal lines either dark or
bright. The centre of a black ring, in dilating itself longi¬
tudinally, will give a large black line. The centre of a
brilliant ring will in like manner produce a large bright line,
coloured prismatically from red to violet. The dark and
bright narrow rays will be produced from the dark and
bright narrow rings which surround the bright and dark
centres; and finally, according to all the circumstances of
the relative position and magnitude of all the pieces of the
apparatus, we ought to have an immense variety in the posi¬
tion and brightness of the different longitudinal lines.2
In the spectrum of the light of a lamp, and generally
of all white flames, none of the defective lines are found,
and consequently all such flames contain rays which do not
exist in the light of the sun and stars. Fraunhofer, how¬
ever, observed in the orange space of the spectrum from
the light of a lamp a bright line more distinct than the
rest of the spectrum. He found it to be double, each
bright line corresponding with each of the two dark
lines forming the line D of the solar spectrum, already
described in the preceding section. If we throw any of the
salts of soda into the flame, the bright orange line D be¬
comes more brilliant, and I have discovered in the salted-
wick flame a bright line placed nearly half-way between
the two that compose D. On the less refrangible side of D
I have found three equidistant bright lines in the salted-
wick spectrum, the least refrangible of the three correspond¬
ing with a defective line in the solar spectrum lying be¬
tween Band D1 of Fraunhofer. I have discovered also Prismatic
a band in the solar spectrum corresponding with the space Spectrum,
between the two of the most refrangible of these three
bright lines. Designating the two lines of D by the
letters a, b, and the other three bright lines by c, d, h, and
the small line between a and b bye, we have ab = cd=dh;
bc= Ifai, and ae less than eb.
When nitrate of strontian is thrown into an alcohol flame,
a great number of brilliant red lines are exhibited on the
most refrangible side ofD9, corresponding with defective
lines in the pure light, and a few on the less refrangible
side of D.
In the spectrum produced by the combustion of nitre
upon charcoal I have observed brilliant red lines corre¬
sponding with the double lines A and B, and with the
group of eight lines between A and B in Fraunhofer’s
map.3
In a series of experiments on the spectra produced in
the combustion of various mineral and saline substances in
oxygen and carburetted hydrogen gas, I observed many
defective bands and lines, which gave to the flames
the colour of the predominating rays, and also numerous
bright lines analogous to those which have already been
described.4
Sect. VI.—On the Physical Properties op the
Spectrum.
The physical properties of the spectrum, which have been Physical
the subject of experimental investigation, are its heating properties
power, and the chemical and apparently magnetical in-of,lie
fluence of its rays. spectrum.
Heating Power of the Spectrum.—That the heat of the Heating
coloured rays should be most intense where their light w'as P0W(ir-
strongest was long the general belief of philosophers ; and
Landriani, Rochon,5 and Sennebier, found by direct experi¬
ment that the highest temperature existed in the yellow
space. Sir W. Herschel, however, found that the heating Sir W.
power increased from the violet to the red space, and that Herschel.
the thermometer continued to rise when placed beyond the
visible red extremity of the spectrum. He therefore drew
the conclusion, that there were invisible rays in the light of
the sun which had the power of producing heat, and which
had a less degree of reffangibility than red light. Sir W.
Herschel attempted in vain to determine the index of re¬
fraction of the extreme invisible ray which possesses the
power of heating; but he ascertained that at a point H
inch distant from the extreme red ray the invisible rays
exerted a considerable heating power, even though the
thermometer was placed at the distance of 52 inches from
the prism.
In 1801 Sir Henry Englefield repeated these ex-Sir Henry
periments; but he does not acquaint us with the kind Englefield.
of glass of which his prism was made. Fie obtained
the following results, which confirm those of Sir William
Herschel:—
Colours of the
Spectrum.
Blue  
Temperature,
Eahr.
  56
Green  58
Yellow  62
Red  72
Beyond red  79
1 Chap, iii., Venezia, 1846. 2 Comptes Rendus, tom. xxxv., p. 415. 3 Ibid., tom. xxx., p. 578.
^,See a brief notice of these experiments in the Report of the British Association for 1842, p. 15, and the North British Review, vol. vi.,
The Abbfe Rochon used a prism of flint-glass, and a thermometer containing spirits of wine, and he found the maximum tempera¬
ture in the yellow-orange rays. See his Opuscules, 1783. Dr Hutton, in his Philosophy of Light and Heat, Edin. 1794, p. 38, remarks
that “ the compound^ light, which is white, has a greater power of giving vision in proportion to its power of exciting heat; whereas
in the red species it is the opposite, for here the power of exciting heat is great in proportion to its power of giving vision.”
Prismatic
Spectrum.
Later ex¬
periments.
Berard.
Wunsch.
Seebeck.
OPT
From our author’s own account of the method of making
these experiments, we place no confidence in the principal
result respecting the invisible rays. “ As I had nothing to
do with light” says he, “it was not necessary to darken
the room ; and as I wished to accumulate as large a por¬
tion of solar heat as possible, I placed the prism in an
open window” As the whole interest of these experi¬
ments was concentrated in the determination of invisible
heating rays, Sir Henry had a great deal to do with light,
as the whole question turned upon an exact appreciation
of the termination of the spectrum. In a dark room the
spectrum is much longer than in open day ; and we have
reason to believe from experiment, that Sir Henry Engle-
field’s spectrum did not visibly extend beyond the line C
of Fraunhofer; so that his maximum temperature of 79° was
actually found in the red rays.
With the view of throwing light upon this subject, Sir
David Brewster has endeavoured to ascertain the visible
extent of the spectrum by various methods of condensing
the light, and absorbing by coloured media the luminous
parts of the spectrum. By these means he has traced the
visible spectrum, and the fixed lines in it, as far beyond the
line A as the distance of the group of lines a is from A,
and has seen it indistinctly to a distance as great as AB
beyond A. Hence there cannot be the least doubt that
the experiments beyond the visible red were actually made
when the thermometer was placed in the red space. He
does not, however, infer from this that there are no invi¬
sible rays beyond the red ; but merely that the experiments
of Herschel and Englefield were made in a part of the
spectrum where rays of light actually exist. On the con¬
trary, Sir D. Brewster concludes that there are rays of
heat of all degrees of refrangibility, and consequently con¬
sisting of waves of all degrees of breadth and velocity.
When produced by a slight vibratory movement, the waves
of heat are broad and slow; as the temperature rises, they
become narrower and quicker in their motion. When their
velocity is such as to equal that of the extreme red ray,
they become faintly visible, and the other colours are suc¬
cessively produced by quicker motion, till white light is
radiated. This seems to be the process by which incom¬
bustible bodies are gradually raised from the deepest red
to the brightest white ; and if we examine by means of a
prism the changes which take place in the gradually in¬
creasing light, we shall find that the different rays of the
spectrum are successively added to the red light.1 He con¬
ceives, therefore, that the sun emits rays of all degrees of
refrangibility, extending probably far beyond the visible
extremity of the violet, and though not capable of being
rendered sensible, yet exercising powerful influences in the
economy of nature.
M. Berard and Sir Humphry Davy obtained results
analogous to those of Sir W. Herschel,—M. Berard finding
the maximum heat at the very extremity of the red ray,
and Sir H. Davy beyond it.
The most valuable series of experiments on this subject
were made by Professor Wunsch and Dr Seebeck of Berlin.
So early as 1807, Professor Wunsch3 had made experi¬
ments with prisms of various substances, and obtained the
following results:—
Substances of which the Place of Maximum
Prisms were made. Heat.
Alcohol   Yellow space.
Oil of turpentine Yellow space.
Water Yellow space.
Green glass Red
Yellow glass Extreme red.
These results were confirmed by Dr Seebeck, who ob¬
tained the following new results :—
ICS.
Substances of which the Place of Maximum
Prisms were made. Heat.
Sulphuric acid, concentrated Orange.
Solution of sal-ammoniac Orange.
Solution of corrosive sublimate...Orange.
Crown-glass  Middle of red.
Plate-glass Middle of the red.
Flint-glass, English Beyond the red.
Ditto Bohemian Beyond but nearer the red.
593
Prismatic
Spectrum.
The explanation which was given of these results by Sir Brewster.
David Brewster accounts in a very satisfactory manner for
all the phenomena. He conceives that transparent bodies
have the power of absorbing or stopping certain rays of
the thermometric spectrum, as Dr Robison called it, in
the same manner as coloured bodies have the power of
stopping certain rays of the luminous spectrum. These last
bodies necessarily became coloured by stopping certain rays;
but as the eye is not sensible to heat in the same manner as
to light, the absorptive power of transparent bodies for heat
can only be proved by the thermometer. He considers
ivater as the type of bodies which are uniformly transparent
for heat, as its maximum of heat coincides with its maxi¬
mum of light. A prism of crown-glass, on the contrary,
is less uniformly transparent for heat; and its maximum of
heat is in the red space, because it has absorbed much of
the heat in the yellow space. In like manner, flint-glass has
absorbed more of the heating rays in the red than the crown-
glass, and hence its maximum is about the extremity of
the red, or beyond the end of the sp'ectrum as commonly
seen. In coloured media the maximum ordinate of their
luminous spectrum shifts along the whole prismatic spec¬
trum ; sometimes there are two or more maxima of light,
and sometimes narrow and wide spaces entirely defec¬
tive in light. Hence Sir David Brewster3 supposes that
there are defective spaces and lines in the thermometric
spectrum.
This view of the subject suggests a new mode of in¬
vestigating the phenomena of the heating rays. If we
take a prism of coloured glass to investigate the dark spaces
and lines produced by absorbing media, we shall only have
a very imperfect approximation to the true results ; that
is, we never could have absolutely dark spaces in the spec¬
trum as long as all the rays that went to the formation of
the spectrum passed through all the different thicknesses
of the prism. The thinnest parts of the prism allow all
the rays to pass, and consequently illuminate the whole
spectrum, so that the actions of various thicknesses of the
media are confounded, and the real absorptive action at a
given thickness concealed. In like manner, in the spectrum
of heat, the heating rays which pass through the thin parts
of the prism will throw heat into every part of the spectrum ;
and hence the experiments should be made with the frus¬
tums of prisms, where the difference of thickness is small,
and the want of area made up by an increased height of
the prism. The best way,'however, of making the experi¬
ments would be to use a compound prism constructed as
in fig. 90, where AB,
MN, is the section of a
compound prism consist¬
ing of four frusta of
prisms, AB, ab, dl), &c.,
the frustum AB being
part of a prism ABC,
the frustum ab part of
a prism abc, &c.; or this
compound prism, in place b
of being ground out of
the mass, which would be difficult, though practicable, might
be composed of a single prism ABC, with parallel plates
1 See Professor Powell’s “ Report on Radiant Heat,” British Association Reports, vol. i., p. 295.
2 Magazin der Gesellsch., &c. 3 Professor Powell's Report, pp. 293, 294.
4 tr
vor.. xvi.
594
OPTICS.
Prismatic of the same glass, added by cement so as to compose the
Spectrum, notched parallelogram ABMN. Very interesting results
v'—might also be obtained by using spectra formed by inter¬
ferences in the manner we shall afterwards describe.
In all experiments with fluid prisms the results are per¬
plexed with the effects of the plates of glass by which the
prisms are confined, in the same manner as we would distuib
and indeed nullify the results respecting the absorption of
light bv coloured fluids, were we to confine them in hollow
prisms made of coloured glass. The only method of re¬
medying this defect in the experiment would be to form
the spectrum by a prismatic vessel of the fluid, whose upper
surface AC is formed by gravity, and its lower surface BC
by a plate of highly polished silver, which reflects back the
spectra through the first surface.
According to Berard’s experiments the calorific rays of
the spectrum are capable of being doubly refracted and
polarized like those of light, and he obtained the same re¬
sult with culinary heat,—the heat of a dark body below
redness being substituted for solar heat.1
Herschel. The calorific or thermic spectrum has been recently ex¬
amined by Sir John Herschel, by means of a new and in¬
genious process,—namely, by the drying power of the heat
itself.
A piece of thin paper, such as is used for foreign corre¬
spondence, is blackened on one side by Indian ink, or, what is
better, by a smoky flame, and the other, or white side, is sa¬
turated with good* rectified spirit of wine, which will make it
uniformly black. The solar spectrum being thrown upon this
wet side of the paper, its heating power will be displayed
by the whiteness produced by the evaporation of the alcohol.
By this process, and with an object-glass of crown and flint
glass, and a prism of flint-glass, he obtained the following
results:—The thermic spectrum is continuous throughout
the length of the luminous spectrum, but at a point a,
considerably beyond the extreme red, the heating power is
a maximum, having gradually increased up to this point.
It then diminishes slightly for a short space, and again
reaches a second maximum at ft; from this point it dimi¬
nishes and ceases altogether. It then reappears, and reaches
another maximum at y; diminishes again; ceases, and reaches
a fourth maximum at 8. Traces of a fifth maximum were
seen at e.
Calling the length of the luminous spectrum 57,—viz.,
43 on the violet side of the yellow line D, and 14 on the
red side,—the distances of the maxima will be as follows:—
a = 18'2 from the line D.
0 = 267
y= 357
3 = 45-1
. = 55
The thermic spectrum thus extending the whole length of
the luminous spectrum beyond the line D.
With a crown-glass prism and lens, “ the insulation, Prismatic
of y,” says Sir John Herschel, “ was much less sensible, Spectrum,
and the separation of a and hardly to be perceived. This
would go to point out the flint-glass as the origin of the spots;
and to that idea I rather incline. With a prism of pure
water, and also with one of a saturated solution of muriate
of lime, the spot y was greatly enfeebled, and 8 invisible.
Green glasses cut off nearly the whole thermic spec¬
trum.”2
On the Chemical Effects of the Spectrum.—It was long Chemical
ago observed by Scheele that muriate of silver was rendered effects of
much blacker in the violet rays of the spectrum than in the spec-
any other part of it.3 In the year 1801 Professor Bittertrum*
of Jena exposed muriate of silver in various parts of the Muriate of
spectrum, and also beyond its apparent limits. He found silver,
that the action was least of all in the red rays, greater in
the yellow, greater still in the blue and violet, and greatest
of all beyond the visible violet rays. Dr W ollaston and M.
Beckman obtained a similar result, apparently without know¬
ing what had been done by Ritter. In repeating the experi¬
ments of Scheele with white muriate of silver, “ he found
that the blackness extended not only through the space
occupied by the violet, but to an equal degree, and to about
an equal distance, beyond the visible spectrum; and that
by narrowing the pencil of light the discoloration may be
made to fall almost entirely beyond the violet. It
would appear, that this and other effects usually attributed
to light, are not in fact owing to any of the rays usually
perceived, but to invisible rays that accompany them; and
that if we include two kinds that are invisible, we may
distinguish upon the whole six species of rays into which a
sunbeam is divided by refraction.”1
The phrase almost entirely beyond the violet, used by
Dr Wollaston, cannot be considered as indicating the ex¬
istence of invisible rays, even if we did not know from the
experiments of Fraunhofer and others, that the visible
violet space extends greatly beyond the place where both
Ritter and Wollaston found the muriate of silver to be
blackened. The existence of invisible rays, therefore, how¬
ever probable, cannot be regarded as a scientific fact.
The chemical action of the least refrangible rays upon Gum guia-
gum guiacum was discovered by Dr WTollaston. Havingcum’
washed a card with a solution of this gum in alcohol, he
found that it acquired a green colour from the concentrated
violet and blue rays. No change of colour was effected
by heat; but in the red rays the tinged card lost its green
and recovered its original colour. When the tinged card
was placed in carbonic acid gas, the violet rays could not
make it green ; but when made green as before, it was
speedily restored to its original yellow colour by the red
rays. As Dr Wollaston found that the back of a heated
silver spoon restored the green colour as well as the red
rays, we cannot attach any definite meaning to these
experiments.
MM. Gay-Lussac and Thenard discovered a very en-Hydrogen
ergetic chemical action of the solar rays. On exposing and chlo-
to a pencil of solar light a mixture of hydrogen gas andrine-
chlorine, in equal volumes, a detonation of the mixed gases
took place, and hydrochloric acid (muriatic acid) was
formed.
M. Berard repeated the experiments with muriate ofM. Berard.
silver, and with the preceding mixture of gases, which he
placed in the different coloured spaces of the spectrum, and
he found that the chemical action was in every case more
powerful towards the violet extremity and a little beyond
it. M. Berard likewise concentrated the least refrangible
half of the spectrum by means of a lens, and then the most
refrangible half. The latter, though the most intense, pro-
i Mem. de la SocieU d'Arcueil, 1817, tom. iii. A fall account of these experiments, occupying a whole chapter of eighteen pages, will
be found in Biot’s TraitS de Physique, tom iv., p. 600. 2 Brewster s Optics, p. 101.
3 Trail's de VAir et du Feu, sect. 63,
4 Phil. Trans. 1802.
OPT
Prismatic dnced no effect upon the muriate of silver, but the former
Spectrum, blackened it in less than ten minutes.1
''—v/—' Mrs Somerville2 found that the chemical rays passed as
Mrs Somer-freely through blue glass coloured with cobalt, as through
ville. colourless glass. Having dipped a piece of paper in a solu¬
tion of muriate of silver, and cut it into two parts, one of
them was placed under a blue glass, and the other under a
white glass, at the same instant. The one did not become
black more than the other, and there was no difference in
the intensity of their colour.
Dr Young. Dr Thomas Young made a very interesting experiment
with the view of determining if the invisible chemical rays
interfered with the luminous ones. He produced the New¬
tonian rings with a thin plate of air, and having formed an
image of them by means of the solar microscope, he threw
this image upon paper dipped in a solution of nitrate of silver,
and placed it at the distance of about 9 inches from the mi¬
croscope. “ In the course of an hour,” says he, “ portions of
three dark rings were very distinctly visible, much smaller
than the brightest rings of the coloured image, and coin¬
ciding very nearly in their dimensions with the rings of
violet light that appeared upon the interposition of violet
glass. I thought the dark rings were a little smaller than
the violet rings, but the difference was not sufficiently great
to be accurately ascertained. It might be as much as one-
thirtieth or one-fortieth of the diameter, but not greater.”3
A more decisive experiment was afterwards performed by
M. Arago. M. Arago, who formed a set of fringes by the interference
of two solar pencils proceeding from a common origin, and
having kept them very steadily for a long time upon the
same part of a piece of paper rubbed with muriate of silver,
a series of black lines were traced upon the paper, leaving
their intervals smaller than those of the dark and bright
fringes formed by violet light.
Sir John In the summer of 1831 wre had the satisfaction of being
Herschel. shown by Sir John Herschel a very interesting experiment
on the chemical action of the violet rays. When a solu¬
tion of platinum in nitro-muriatic acid4 is mixed with lime-
water, no precipitation to any considerable extent takes place
in the dark, a slight ffocky sediment only being formed after
long standing. But if a fresh mixture, or an old one cleared
by subsidence of this sediment, is exposed to the sun’s rays,
it instantly becomes milky, and a white precipitate is copi¬
ously formed. If the solution of platina is in excess, the
precipitate is of a pale yellow colour. In the common light
of a cloudy day, the same eftect is produced more slowly.
When tubes containing the mixture are exposed within
red fluids, or even yellow ones which absorb the violet rays,
no precipitation takes place.5
As the art of Photography, comprehending the daguer¬
reotype and talbotype, depends on a knowledge of the che¬
mical properties of the spectrum, we must rei’er our readers
to that article for what is practical in the art. It is only to
the chemical properties of the spectrum that we can here
direct the attention of the reader, confining ourselves to
the researches of Sir John Herschel and M. Edmund
Becquerel.
In order to give a distinct account of the results obtained
by Sir John Herschel, we must refer to the luminous spec¬
trum which he actually used in his experiments. Its total
length was 53’92 thirtieths of an inch, the distance of the
violet end from the line D being -f 40‘62, and of the red
extremity from the same line —IS’SO.
1. Nitrate of Silver.—Paper washed wdth a solution, spe¬
cific gravity, IT 32. The colour of the spectrum impressed
upon this paper by the chemical rays was pale brown, in-
I C S. 595
dining to pink, and the most intense part was about the Prismatic
middle of the blue ray. The total length was 85 parts, Spectrum,
and it terminated at the line D. The point of maximum
intensity was 23 parts on the violet side of D.
Nitrate of Silver, ivith Muriate of Soda.—The paper was
first washed with the nitrate, specific gravity, 1T32; then
with the muriate of salt + 19 water; and again with the
nitrate, specific gravity, T096. The spectrum impressed
upon this paper is more variously coloured than any other.
The tint is a pretty high red at —7‘6, beginning to pass
into green at — 3’8, through a kind of livid mixed tint. The
best green, however, which is of a sombre and dull charac¬
ter, is developed a little above ( + ) D, and covers a breadth
of about 4 parts. From that point, with a barely percep¬
tible tinge of dark blue, it becomes rapidly an intense
black, which at + 80 dies away into a purplish-broivn, and
terminates the spectrum at + 90-23; the whole length of
the chemical spectrum, or the discoloured impression, being
+ 97*83 parts.
Nitrate of Silver, as before, with hydro-bromate of potash,
instead of muriate of soda. The spectrum impressed upon
paper thus prepared is a most extraordinary one. The
instant the rays fall upon it, the action begins over its
whole length, and the intensity is the same everywhere, but
just at the extremities, where it gradually dies away. It
extends, too, all the way to the extremity of the visible red
rays. Its tint \s a. grayish-black. At the red extremity a
contrary or oxidizing action now commences, producing
whiteness in the paper, and extends to — 22*67. Hence
the extent of the chemical beyond the luminous spectrum
is — 9*37. The most refrangible extremity of the darkened
portion is + 90*50, the total length of the darkened por¬
tion is 105*55, and the whole length of the paper visibly
affected 116*77.
The chemical and phosphorogenic properties of the spec-E(Jmund
trum have been more recently studied by M. Edmund Becquerel.
Becquerel. He has given measures and drawings of the
chemical spectrum, which acts upon iodide of silver, chloride
of gold, chromic acid, and guiacum. He has also given the
chemical spectra obtained upon iodide of silver by means
of the rays which have passed through colourless screens,
such as sidphate of quinine, creosote, &c., and through
coloured screens, such as yellow and blue glass, and solu¬
tions of tournesol and sulpho-cyanuret of iron. He found
that the chemical rays which extend from the line H to
their extreme limit render artificial phosphor! luminous;
while the rays from H to A extinguish the phosphorescence
thus produced. In Canton’s phosphorus (sulphuret of cal¬
cium) there is a dark space in the phosphorogenic spectrum
nearly bisecting it. With the Bologna phosphorus (sul¬
phuret of barium) there is no dark space, and the spectrum
is shorter. With transparent screens of turpentine and
naphtha the more refrangible half of the phosphorogenic
spectrum is almost extinguished, while with creosote and
sulphate of quinine that hue is completely extinguished.6
Phosphoric light, however produced, I have found to con¬
tain rays of all colours and refrangibilities.7
Magnetic Influence of the Solar Rays.—Though many in- Magnetic
teresting and apparently accurate experiments have con-influence ^
curred to indicate the existence of this property of light,the solar
yet subsequent inquiries have thrown considerable doubtra^S’
upon the conclusions which have been drawn from them.
Dr Morichini, a Roman physician, first succeeded in 1813
in magnetizing small needles, by making the focus of violet
rays collected by a lens pass repeatedly from the middle
to one end of a needle, without touching the other half.
1 Biot’s Traite He Physique, tom. iv., pp. 673, 674. 2 Philosophical Transactions, 1826, part ii., p. 136.
3 Elements of Natural Philosophy, vol. ii., p. 647.
4 The excess of acid must be neutralized by the addition of lime, and the solution well cleared by filtration.
6 See Land, and Edin. Phil. Mag., No. 1, July 1832, p. 58. 6 See Annales de Chim. et de Phys. 1843, tom. ix., pp. 257-323.
7 Brewster’s Optics, p. 103.
596
Prismatic
Spectrum.
OPTICS.
Baumgart¬
ner.
Barlocci.
By continuing this process for an hour, the needle had
acquired distinct polarity.
In 1825 Mrs Somerville repeated, in a different way, the
■ experiments of Morichini. She took a slender sewing-needle
an inch long, quite devoid of magnetism, and having covered
half of it with paper, she fixed it to the panel of the wall
with wax, so that its uncovered half should receive the
violet rays of a spectrum formed by an equiangular prism
of flint-glass, whose refracting faces were each 1"4 by I’l
inches, and which was placed about five feet from the wall.
The needle was placed in a vertical plane nearly perpen¬
dicular to the magnetic meridian, and inclined to the hori¬
zon, and as the sun advanced to the meridian, the needle
was moved parallel to itself, to keep it in the sun’s rays.
In less than two hours, when the sun had just passed the
meridian, the exposed half of the needle attracted the south
and repelled the north pole of the magnetic needle. In
the blue and green rays the needles were magnetized, but
less frequently, and always after a longer exposure, but the
magnetism was always as strong as in the violet. The in¬
digo rays were nearly as efficacious as the violet.
M. Baumgartner of Vienna,1 while repeating the experi¬
ments of Mrs Somerville, found that a steel wire, some
parts of which were polished, while the rest were rough or
without lustre, were magnetized by the action of the white
light of the sun, each polished part exhibiting a north, and
each unpolished part a south pole.
A less equivocal method of proving the magnetic in¬
fluence of white light presented itself to Professor Barlocci.
An armed natural loadstone, capable of carrying a weight of
1£ Roman pounds (a Roman pound is equal to SSO’lYQ
grammes), after three hours’ exposure to strong sunlight,
was able to carry 2 oz. or one-sixth of a pound more, and
after an exposure of 24 hours, its force was almost doubled.
A second loadstone of nearly the same power was put into
a dark place of the same temperature as that of the solar
rays, but acquired no additional strength.
Among the most active labourers in this department of
science we must rank M. Zantedeschi of Padua.2 He had
early obtained results similar to those of Morichini, and he
had remarked that suspended wire needles, devoid of all
magnetism, and having one of their ends exposed to the
white light of the sun under a glass receiver, turned that
extremity to the north in the plane of the magnetic meri¬
dian. In repeating the experiment of Barlocci with artifi¬
cial magnets, M. Zantedeschi found that a horse-shoe mag¬
net, carrying 13^ ounces, carried 3£ oz. more after three
days’ exposure to the sun, and by continued exposure, was
able to carry 31 oz.
A great degree of doubt has been cast upon the conclu¬
siveness of all these researches by a series of well-managed
experiments more recently made by MM. Riess and Moser,
who found that no effect was produced upon magnetic
needles by the action of the sun’s rays.3
Sect. VII.—Recent Discoveries respecting the
Spectrum.
New ana- The analysis of white or compound light by the prism
spectrum6 Was mac'e an^ perfected by Sir Isaac Newton ; but though
the prism could not decompose them, he committed a mis¬
take in concluding that the colours of the spectrum were
simple and homogeneous ; “ that to the same degree of re-
frangibility ever belonged the same colour, and to the same
colour ever belonged the same degree of refrangibility.”
Now, though it is quite true that the green and orange
Zante¬
deschi.
Riess and
Moser.
colours of the spectrum cannot be decomposed by the prism Prismatic
into more simple ones, the one into A/we and and the Spectrum,
other into yellow and red, yet they can be decomposed by
other means. This opinion respecting the compound nature
of the colours of the spectrum, and the inability of the prism
to analyze them, was first maintained by Sir David Brew¬
ster,4 who, with the view of placing it beyond a doubt, un¬
dertook a series of experiments, in which he examined the
effects produced on the solar spectrum by viewing it through
a great number of coloured media, and reflecting it from
coloured surfaces. By these experiments he not only
established the accuracy of his first opinion, that the green
and orange colours of the spectrum were compound, the
one consisting of blue and yellow, and the other of red and
yellow, but was led to the more general result, that the whole
spectrum was compound, consisting of three equal and super¬
posed spectra of red, yellow, and blue light.5 The following
are the general results which he obtained:—
“ 1. White light consists of three simple colours, red, yel¬
low, and blue, by the mixture of which all other colours are
formed.
“2. The solar spectrum, whether formed by prisms of
transparent bodies, or by gratings or grooves in metallic
and transparent surfaces, consists of three spectra of equal
length, beginning and terminating at the same points, viz.,
a red spectrum, a yellow spectrum, and a blue spectrum.
“ 3. All the colours in the solar spectrum are compound
colours, each of them consisting of red, yellow, and blue
light in different proportions.
“ 4. A certain quantity of white light, incapable of being
decomposed by the prism, in consequence of all its compo¬
nent rays having the same refrangibility, exists at every
point of the spectrum, and may at some points be exhibited
in an insulated state.
“ This remarkable structure of the spectrum will be better
understood from figs. 92, 93, 94, representing the three
separate spectra, which are shown in their combined state
in fig. 95.
Red.
Fig. 92.
Yellow.
Fig. 98.
Blue.
Fig. 91.
“ In all these figures, the point M corresponds with the
red, or least refrangible extremity of the spectrum, and N
with the violet or most refrangible extremity; and the ordi-
2 Edinburgh Journal of Science, No. 5, N.S., 1830, p. 76.
4 Edin. Trans., vol. ix., p. 48.
1 Zeitscrift, tom. i., p. 263.
3 Edinburgh Journal of Science, No. 4, p. 225.
6 Edin. Trans., vol. x., p. 123.
OPTICS.
Prismatic nates ax, bx, cx, of the different curves, MRN, MYP\,
Spectrum. MEN, represent the intensity of the red, yellow, and blue
ray at any point x of the spectrum.
“ If the distance in all these spectra be equal, then,
in the combination of them shown in fig. 95, the ordinates
Y
ax, bx, cx will indicate the nature and intensity of the
colour at any point x of the red spectrum. Thus, let
“ The ordinate for red light ax = 30,
yellow bx — 16,
blue cx = 2,
ax + bx + cx = 48 rays,
then the point x will be illuminated with 48 rays of light,
—viz., 30 of red, 16 of yellow, and 2 of blue light.
“ Now, as there must be certain quantities of red and
yellow light which will form white, when combined with
two blue rays, let us assume these, and suppose that white
light, whose intensity is 10, will be formed by 3 red, 5
yellow, and 2 blue rays ; hence it follows that the point x
is illuminated by
“ Red rays 27
Yellow rays  11
White light  10
48 rays.
Or, what is the same thing, the light at x will be orange,
rendered brighter by a mixture of white light. The two
blue rays, therefore, which enter into the composition of the
light at x, will not communicate any blue tinge to the pre¬
vailing colour.
“ If the point x is taken nearer M, and if at that point
the blue rays are more numerous in proportion to the yellow
than 2 to 5,—that is, if they are as 3 to 5,—then there will
be one blue ray more than what is necessary to make white
light with the two yellow and the three red rays, and this
blue ray will give a blue tinge to that part of the spectrum,
or will modify the peculiar colour of pure red light. In
like manner, the blue extremity of the spectrum may have
its peculiar colour modified by an excess of red rays, so as
to convert it into violet light.”
Sir Isaac Newton and Fraunhofer, and many persons
besides, have, from long observation of the solar spec¬
trum, concluded that there is a homogeneous unmixed yel¬
low, and a homogeneous unmixed orange space in the
spectrum. Newton makes the yellow space 40, and the
orange 27, or 67 in all; while Fraunhofer makes the yellow
space 27, and the orange space 27, or 54 parts of a spec¬
trum whose length is 360 parts. Now, Dr Wollaston de¬
clares that a beam of daylight is refracted by the prism into
Jive colours only— red, yello wish-green, blue, violet,—and
he defines their limits with his usual accuracy. Dr Young,
who repeated the same experiments with that exactness
which was peculiar to him, declares that the spectrum formed
in Dr Wollaston’s manner, consists of four colours omsc,—
597
red, green,blue, zx\& violet,—“the colours differing scarcely at Prismatic
all in quality within their respective limits.” Now both these Spectrum,
accurate observers have rejected the yellow and orange v'—
spaces almost entirely, with the exception of the narrow
line of yellow light formerly mentioned, thus running coun¬
ter to all the observations of Newton and Fraunhofer. The
cause of such a difference is this:—The light analyzed by
Wollaston was the blue light of the sky, which had been
deprived, by absorption, of many of its rays having the same
refrangibility as those which fell upon the prism. Dr
Young’s green space was Sir Isaac Newton’s yellow space,
deprived of most of its yellow rays, and the red space ad¬
joining the green was Newton’s orange space, deprived by
the absorption of the atmosphere of almost all its yellow
rays; and the sharp yellow line noticed by Dr Y oung, and
regarded by Dr Wollaston as a mixture of red and green
light, as if these spaces had overlapped a little, is part of
the orange space of Fraunhofer and Newton, deprived of
its red rays. This yellow band can be produced artificially
upon all kinds of white light, and by the absorption of va¬
rious media. Flence it is obvious, that by comparing the
light reflected and modified by the blue sky with the direct
light of the sun, we may obtain irrefragable proof of the
compound nature of the yellow and orange spaces. That
red light exists at the most refrangible extremity, is obvious
from its violet colour; and that blue light exists at the red
extremity, may be proved by the following observation of
Sir W. Herschel.1 He had occasion to view the prismatic
spectrum when reflected from clear turned brass, and he
observes, “ The colour of the brass makes the red rays ap¬
pear like orange, and the orange colour is likewise different
from what it ought to be” Here, then, yellow light was
seen at the very red end of this spectrum, and it was seen
in consequence of blue light having been absorbed by the
brass, because blue light, mixed with the orange observed
by Sir W. Herschel, would alone recompose the original
red. Here, then, there is a proof that blue light, and yel-
low light, and red light, all exist in the same place, at the
least refrangible end of the spectrum. Effects similar to
these may be produced by various coloured media, such as
chemical solutions, or the coloured juices of plants ; and by
such means Sir David Brewster has succeeded in insulating
white light in the spectrum, incapable of being decomposed
by the prism.
The existence of fixed lines in the spectrum, as dis¬
covered by Fraunhofer, was a fact unexampled in science.
Yrarious coloured bodies were known to absorb particular
parts of the spectrum, and their peculiar colour was the
necessary consequence of this absorption. Some of them,
such as smalt-blue glass, produced at a certain thickness
several dark bands in the spectrum, but these bands shaded
oft' by imperceptible degrees, and had no definite boundary.2
In examining the action of all the coloured solid and Action of
fluid bodies which he could command, Sir David Brew'ster nitrous
was led to observe the action of nitrous acid gas on t*16 ^dsggg0n
spectrum.3 With a fine prism of rock-salt, having thejr^ec'
largest possible refracting angle, he formed a spectrum with
the light of a lamp transmitted through a small thickness of
the gas, whose colour was a very pale straw-yellow, and he
was surprised to observe the spectrum crossed with hun¬
dreds of lines or bands, much more distinctly pronounced
than those of the solar spectrum. In the violet and blue
spaces the lines were sharpest and darkest; they were
fainter in the green, and almost imperceptible in the yellow
and red spaces. By an increase in the thickness of the gas,
1 Phil. Trans. 1800, vol. xc., p. 253.
2 A remarkable example of a definite action on a part of the spectrum was discovered by Sir D. Brewster in the triple oxalate
of chromium and potash. It absorbs a very definite band on the least refrangible side of B, a part of the spectrum oyer which it exer¬
cises no general absorptive action. This band lies in the space Ba of Fraunhofer s map, so that if x is its place, B* will be J Ba, or its
index of refraction in the water spectrum is almost exactly l-33070. (See Phil. Trans. 1835, p. 93.)
Phil Trans. 1837, part ii., p. 245; Edin. Trans., vol. xii.
598 OPT
Periodical the lines were better developed in the yellow and red spaces,
Colours. mi(j became broader in the blue and violet, a general absorp-
tion or extinction of the light advancing from the violet
extremity, while a specific absorption was going on on each
side of the lines or bands.
“ The power of heat alone,” says our author, “to render
a gas which is almost colourless as red as blood, without de¬
composing it, is in itself a most singular result, and my sur¬
prise was greatly increased when I afterwards succeeded in
rendering the same pale nitric acid gas so absolutely black
by heat, that not a ray of the brightest summer’s sun was
capable of penetrating it. In making this experiment the
tubes frequently exploded, but by using a mask of mica and
thick gloves, and placing the tubes in cylinders of tinned
iron, with narrow slits to admit the light, there is little
danger of any serious accident.”
As the points of maximum absorption in coloured bodies
were distinctly coincident with some of the principal lines
in the solar spectrum, our author suspected that the same
might be true with regard to the nitrous gas lines, and he
therefore formed the solar and the gaseous spectrum with
light passing through the same aperture, so that the lines
in the one stood opposite to those in the other, and their
coincidence became a matter of simple observation. He
then superimposed the two spectra, when both were formed
by solar light, and thus exhibited at once the two series of
lines and bands, with all their coincidences and deviations.
Action of In his examination of the spectrum, our author was led to
the atmo- the discovery of a system of lines and bands, particularly in
sphere on the red and green spaces, which at other times wholly dis-
the spec- appeared; but by a diligent comparison of these observa¬
tions, he found that these lines and bands depended on the
proximity of the sun to the horizon, and were produced by
the absorptive action of the earth's atmosphere. “ The
atmosphere,” he remarks, “acts very powerfully round the
line D, and in the space immediately on the least refrangible
side of it. It develops a beautiful line in the middle of
the double line D, and by enlarging a group of small lines
on the red side of D, it creates a band almost as dark as
the triple line D itself. It widens generally all the lines,
but especially the darkest one, which I call m, between C
and D. It develops a band on the least refrangible side
of m, and it acts especially upon several lines, and develops
a separate band on the most refrangible side of C. The
lines A, B, and C are greatly widened, and lines and bands
are particularly developed between A and B, and generally
throughout all the red space.
“ The absorptive action of the atmosphere shows itself in
a less precise manner in the production of dark bands whose
limits are not distinctly defined. A very remarkable narrow
one, corresponding to one produced by the nitrous acid gas,
is situated on the most refrangible side of C. Another
very broad one lies on the most refrangible side of D, close
to a sharp and broad band of yellow light, displayed by the
general absorption of the corresponding part of the super¬
imposed blue spectrum. There is also an imperfectly de¬
fined atmospheric action, corresponding to a group of lines
where Dr Wollaston placed his line C.”
Part V.—OX PERIODICAL COLOURS.
Periodical The phenomena of periodical or recurrent colours, as
colours. Dr Young lias very appropriately called them, are among
the most interesting in optics, and have been treated of by
him with great ability under the head Chromatics, though
not in a sufficiently popular and descriptive manner. We
shall therefore endeavour to give as perspicuous an account
as we can of this interesting portion of physical optics.
ICS.
Sect. I.—On the Interference of Light. Periodical
The discovery of the interference of light in its simplest vColou^
form is due to Grimaldi, as we have already seen. He
admitted the sun’s light into a dark room, through two encTof1'
small and equal apertures of a circular form. Two cones light,
of diverging light were thus formed, and by receiving them
on a screen held beyond the place where the cones inter¬
sected each other, two overlapping luminous circles were
seen on the screen. A partially illuminated penumbra
surrounded each of these cones, and at the place where the
rays from each aperture met, the screen was, generally
speaking, more strongly illuminated by the union of the
two lights; but the boundaries of the penumbral portions
which overlap arc much darker than the corresponding
portions of the penumbra which do not overlap, as if the
one light had at this part put out the other. Upon inter¬
cepting the light from one of the apertures, this dark part
became brighter, and upon restoring the light it again
became darker. The result, therefore, was here unam¬
biguous, and justified the observation of Grimaldi, “that an
illuminated surface may be rendered darker by the addition
of light.”
Dr Hooke made a similar experiment, and observed the
darkness produced at the overlapping part of the two cones ;
but this result, remarkable as it was, seems to have excited
no interest during nearly a century and a half, till Dr
Young, who was unacquainted with the experiment ofDrYoung’s
Grimaldi, obtained the same result in a different manner, exPerb
and thus laid the foundation of the most interesting depart- men,i>
nient of physical optics. The following is the experiment
which he gave as “An Experimental Demonstration of the
Interference of Lights “ I made a small hole in a window-
shutter, and covered it with a piece of thick paper, which
I perforated with a fine needle. For greater convenience
of observation, I placed a small looking-glass without the
window-shutter, in such a position as to reflect the sun’s light
in a direction nearly horizontal upon the opposite wall, and
to cause the cone of diverging light to pass over a table on
which were several little screens of card-paper. I brought
into a sunbeam a slip of card about -^th of an inch in
breadth, and observed its shadow either on the wall or on
other cards held at different distances. Beside the fringe
of colour on each side of the shadow, the shadow itself was
divided by similar parallel fringes of smaller dimensions,
differing in number according to the distance at which the
shadow was observed, but leaving the middle of the shadow
always white. Now these fringes were the joint effects of
the portions of light passing on each side of the slip of card,
and inflected or rather diffracted into the shadow. For a
little screen being placed either before the card or a few
inches behind it, so as either to throw the edge of its sha¬
dow on the margin of the card, or to receive on its own
margin the extremity of the shadow of the card, all the
fringes which had before been observed in the shadow on
the wall immediately disappeared, although the light in¬
flected on the other side was allowed to retain its course,
and although this light must have undergone any modifica¬
tion that the proxi¬
mity of the other D
edge of the slip of
card mighthave been ^
capable of occasion¬
ing.”
Although this ex- je
periment is a very
decisive one, yet M.
Fresnel made one still more instructive and general, and
free from any of the objections that might have been urged
1 Phil. Trans. 1804 ; or Elements of Nat. Phil., vol. ii., p. 639.
OPTICS.
599
Dr Lloyd’s
experi¬
ment.
Fig. 97.
Periodical against that of Dr Young. He took two plane mirrors
C-nours. MN (fig. 96), which were inclined at a very great angle, a
_^ - little less than 108°, and having allowed a beam of light Ra,
^ proceeding from a luminous point R, such as the focus
of a small lens, he received tlie reflected rays on a piece of
paper PQ. If the light was homogeneous, there was seen
upon the paper a succession of blight and dark bands alter-
natino-. These bands are parallel to the line of intersec¬
tion of the two mirrors, and they are placed symmetrically
on both sides of a plane passing through the line of inter¬
section of the mirrors, and through a point A bisecting the
distance of the points D, E, the virtual points of divergence
of the two reflected^pencils aG, bG. That these parallel
hands are produced by the mutual interference of the two
beams is at once proved by intercepting one of them, or by
covering one of the mirrors, when the whole series disap¬
pears. It is found also, by measuring the distances of the
same bands from the line of intersection of the mirrors, and
when the paper PQ is placed at different distances from the
mirrors, that their different points lie in hyperbolas whose
foci are D, E, and common centre A.
A still more simple and elegant method of exhibiting the
phenomena of interference has been given by Dr Lloyd
of Dublin, which any j
person may repeat
with a single piece of B
plate-glass. Having
placed horizontally a
piece of black glass
QP (fig. 97), with his
eye behind it at QM, he viewed by very oblique reflection,
when the angle of incidence was nearly 90°, a horizontal
narrow aperture placed at A, a distance of 3 feet from the
reflector QP. The proper degree of obliquity was easily
found by bringing the reflected image of the aperture A to
coincide very nearly with the direct image, in which case
the direction of the reflected plane BPQ bisected the dis¬
tance AA'. When the ray AM, which fell directly upon
the eye at M, interfered with the reflected ray CM, which
reached it by a longer path, they produced a system of
fringes or bands, which were distinctly visible when received
upon an eye-piece placed at a short distance from the re¬
flector. This system of bands was exactly similar to one-
half of the system seen in Fresnel’s experiment. With
compound white light the first band was a bright one and
colourless. This was followed by a very sharply defined
black band; then came a coloured one; and so on alter-
natelv, seven alternations being easily counted, and the
breadth of the bands being, as near as the eye could judge,
the same throughout the series, and increasing with the
obliquity of the reflected beam.
When homogeneous light is used, the bands are alter¬
nately bright and dark, and varying in magnitude with the
refrangibility of the light, as will be afterwards more fully
explained. If the light of the sun is used, the bands may
be distinctly seen upon a white screen placed at MQ. That
they are produced by interference may be easily proved
either by stopping the direct ray AM, or the reflected one
CM, when the whole system of bands disappears.
The leading phenomena of interference may be likewise
exhibited by transmitting the light emanating from a lumi¬
nous point through the two faces of a prism the inclination
of which is about 180°. The pencil or ray passing through
one of the faces will be slightly inclined to the ray passing
through the other at a small angle, and will interfere with
it at their point of concourse, and produce the usual
fringes. This form of the experiment is described by Sir
Isaac Newton, who considered the fringes as produced by
inflection.
Newton’s
experi¬
ment.
In all the preceding experiments, two pencils of light, Periodical
issuing from the same point or luminous origin, are made Colours,
again to meet, the one having arrived at the point of con-
course by a different and a longer path. Now it is obvious
from the experiments, that, when the two portions of light
thus intervening reach the spot where they interfere by
paths exactly equal, they form a bright fringe having the
intensity of its light greater than that of either portion. It
is also evident that other bright fringes are produced when
their paths differ in length ; and if we suppose d to be the
difference of paths by which the second bright fringe is
produced, similar bright fringes will be produced when the
differences in the lengths of the paths are 2(7, 3(7, Ad, 5(7,
6c?, &c. But it is manifest from the preceding experiments
that if the two portions of light interfere at intermediate
points, or when the difference in the length of their paths
is %d; d+ bd; 2d + ; 3(7 + £(7; Ad + bd, &c., the two in¬
terfering portions destroy each other and produce blackness,
as appears from the dark fringes lying between the bright
ones. Here, then, we have a remarkable property of light
established by direct experiment, and well fitted to guide us
in our inquiries into the physical cause of the various phe¬
nomena of light. We shall find the same property showing
itself under various aspects in a succession of interesting
phenomena, which we shall now proceed to describe.
Sect. II.—Ox the Colours of Thin Plates.
The colours of thin plates were first observed by Mr Boyle, Colours of
who remarks that all chemical essential oils, as also goodthm P1^68-
spirits of wine, by shaking till they rise in bubbles, appear
of various colours, which immediately vanish when the
bubbles burst, so that a colourless liquor may be immediately
made to exhibit a variety of colours, and lose them In a
moment, without any change in its essential principles.
Mr Boyle also noticed these colours in soap-bubbles and in Boyle,
turpentine, and he succeeded in blowing glass sufficiently
thin to exhibit them. In 1666 Lord Brereton observed
similar colours produced by the thin plates which are formed
on the surface of glass by the action of the weather. In
the year 1672 Dr Hooke exhibited to the Royal Society aMooke.
soap-bubble with all its colours, in fulfilment of a promise
which he had made at a previous meeting, “ to exhibit some¬
thing which had neither refraction nor reflection, and yet
was diaphanous. ... By means of a glass pipe he blew several
small bubbles out of a mixture of soap and water, when it
was observable that at first they appeared white and clear,
but that after some time, the film growing thinner, there
appeared upon it all the colours of the rainbow, first a pale
yellow, then orange, red, purple, blue, green, with the same
series of colours repeated.” Dr Hooke made considerable
progress in the investigation of this class of phenomena,
and made experiments with thin plates of Muscovy glass
(mica). He found that a faint yellow plate of this substance
laid upon a blue one constituted a very dark purple; and
Sir Isaac Newton,1 in a private letter to Dr Hooke, acknow¬
ledges that Hooke had observed previous to him “ the dila¬
tation of the coloured rings by the obliquation of the eye,
and the apparition of a black spot at the contact of two
convex lenses, and at the top of a water-bubble.”
Sir Isaac Newton, whose investigations we shall presently Newtom
give in his own words, made great progress in discovering
the law of the phenomena; and it is a curious fact, not to
be overlooked by physical inquirers, that his theory of the
phenomena; elaborated with the utmost care, and gener¬
alizing an extensive series of facts, is now exploded, while
the theoretical views of Dr Hooke are almost universally
admitted.
Mr Melville of Edinburgh proposed to make a perma-
* Dated Cambridge, Feb. 5, 1675-6. (Brewster s Memoirs, etc., of Newton, vol. i.)
600
OPTICS.
bubble.
Periodical nent soap-bubble by freezing, but we believe the experi-
Colours. ment hag never yet succeeded. Dr Joseph ^Reade has
however been more fortunate in making what may be
Dr Reade’s called a permanent soap-bubble for illustrating the colours
permanent 0f thin plates, which we saw him exhibit at the meeting of
soap' the Physical Section of the British Association at Liver¬
pool in 1837. The following is his own account of the method
of making it:—“ Having put two ounces of distilled w’ater
into an eight-ounce phial, and having added about the size
of a large pea of Castile soap, I placed the bottle in a sauce¬
pan of boiling water on the fire ; the bottle was speedily
filled with a dense volume of vapour, which expelled all the
air. I now corked it, and after cooling and thus condens¬
ing the vapour, had perhaps as perfect a vacuum as could
be formed, even by the best air-pump. I now held the
bottle laterally between my hands, and by means of a cir¬
cular and brisk motion formed a circular film, on which, by
resting the bottle on an inclined plane, were formed after
a short time all the parallel bands or series of colours in
the following order:—1. A white or silvery segment at top;
2. a snuff-coloured brown, inclined at bottom to a deep
red; 3. blue; 4. yellow; 5. red; 6. blue; 7. green; 8.
red; 9. green; 10. red; 11 green (as at A, fig. 98).
White.
Brown. /
Blue. /
Yellow.
Red.
Blue.
Green.
Red.
Green.
Red.
Green.
Black.
White.
“ After some time a black segment was seen to form at
the top of the white, and continually to increase in size
(fig. 98, B). After a few minutes the parallel bands in¬
creased in breadth, and running into one another, only
three or four distinct bands were seen. Nothing can ex¬
ceed the beauty of these colours, equal to those of the rain¬
bow or the plumage of the tropics : whilst writing this de¬
scription, I have these bands in a bottle before me, feasting
my eyes on their beauty. In a few minutes more this
black segment or aqueous film occupies, perhaps, half the
circular film, and the lower half becomes white tinged with
orange (fig. 98, C).
“ If we now incline the bottle towards the experimenter’s
breast, the saponaceous atoms producing these colours are
seen to float in the region of the black or aqueous ; when
placed again on the inclined plane, they fall to the bottom
of the film. In some time more the entire film becomes
black, and all the colours disappear.
“ Having now placed the bottle in a basin of boiling
water, the evaporation was increased, and the black film
soon became clothed with saponaceous atoms, which being
variously condensed, produced all the colours of the clouds
when the sun is setting on a summer’s evening. On again
placing the bottle on the inclined plane, the parallel bands
were again formed by the attraction of cohesion, and the
colours afterwards gave place to the black film. I held
the bottle laterally between my hands, and by means of a
circular motion washed it, and thus clothed it with sapona¬
ceous atoms, which went through the same process on
placing the bottle on the inclined plane. By means of
washing the film every morning, I preserved it for more
than three weeks.”
Colours of The colours of thin plates are often exhibited in nature
exhibited68 ^le mos*: beautIfld manner. On the surface of little
in nature pools of mossy water, and especially in the proximity of
springs containing iron, we observe thin bright films ge- Periodical
nerally whitish, and often yellow and reddish. Between Colours,
the plates of a mass of mica, or sulphate of lime, or talc,
we observe thousands of open spaces where the rings are
sometimes circular, consisting only of the first tint above
blackness,—viz., the white of the first order, sometimes two,
three, or more colours, according to their size, while at other
times the rings of fringes are extremely numerous and often
irregular. These colours are all produced by thin plates
of air or of vacuity in these fissile minerals, and the colours
may be all changed by admitting water or fluids of different
refractive powers. In some specimens of Labrador felspar
Sir David Brewster has found crystallized cavities so thin,
or with so little depth, as to give the most splendid colours
of thin plates, and to afford one of the finest subjects of
popular display in the microscope.1 The colours produced
by heat on highly-polished steel are all the colours of a
thin plate of oxide; and they are often beautifully dis¬
played on the sides and on the bars of grates.
When glass is exposed to the action of the weather, its Colours of
surface acquires a thin film, which at first can only be ren- decoui-
dered visible by examining the faint light reflected from itp ^ a
when it is in contact with a fluid of nearly the same refrac¬
tive power. It forms most rapidly on the panes of glass in
stable windows, but it is seen in the highest perfection in
the specimens of decomposed glass found among the re¬
mains of Roman buildings. The glass is to a certain depth
entirely decomposed into thin films of extreme beauty, re¬
flecting the most brilliant colours to the eye, and transmit¬
ting tints of the most exquisite brilliancy, and far surpassing
any of the colours produced by art.2 Coloured films of the
richest tints are also seen upon both the faces of cleavage
of a sort of artificial mother-of-pearl, which has been called
nacrite, and described by Mr Horner in the Phil. Trans.
These films are all thin plates of extreme tenuity.
When we breathe upon glass at a proper temperature, Of vapour
and examine with a magnifier the margin of the film
while evaporating, or when we observe the evaporation of
different volatile fluids, we shall perceive many interesting
examples of the colour of thin plates.
One of the finest exhibitions of this kind with which
we are acquainted is that which is produced by the ammo- p^te o? *
nio-sulphate of copper, and which was observed by Sir^j,^
David Brewster. A solution of the ammonio-sulphate of
copper in water is spread upon a clear plate of glass or
any other surface. In the course of an hour or two a
similarly coloured film is formed upon its surface, exhibit¬
ing the colours of thin plates from the white of the first
order upwards. When the solution is strong, or the stratum
of fluid deep, the thickness of the film increases, and the
colours rise to higher orders of a beautiful green and pink
colour. When the colours are such as we would wish to
preserve, an aperture must be made in the film, and by in¬
clining the plate the fluid must be allowed to run out
slowly, leaving the film on the surface of the glass. This
film will become hard and permanent after the aqueous
part of it has been evaporated. The fringes of colour take
the shape of the mass of fluid, or of the piece of glass
whose surface is covered with it.
One of the most extraordinary examples of the colours Black
of thin plates, or rather of the blackness that immediately fibres in
precedes these colours, and one which almost requires the q11*11-12,
evidence of ocular demonstration to credit, is the existence
of filaments, or of a down of quartz so exceedingly minute
as to be incapable of reflecting light. The very remarkable
specimen of quartz in which this was discovered by Sir
David Brewster belongs to the cabinet of the Duchess of
Gordon. The original crystal was inches in diameter,
1 Edin. Trans., vol. xi., p. 322.
2 Phil. Trans. 1837, part ii.
Ibid. 1838, p. 49, and 1837, part ii.
OPTICS.
Periodical and of a light smoky colour, but impervious to light except
Colours. in sman pieces. Mr Sanderson, lapidary in Edinburgh, .had
broken up the crystal for the purposes of his profession, but
the apparent foulness of the fracture induced him to lay it
aside. The following is an account given by Sir David
Brewster, of the principal fracture :—
“ At first sight, the absolute blackness of the separated
surfaces seemed to me, as it did to every one, to be owing
to a thin film of opaque and minutely divided matter that
had insinuated itself into a fissure of the crystal; but this
opinion was immediately overturned when I observed
that both surfaces were equally and uniformly black, and
that they were also perfectly transparent by transmitted
light.
“ Although I had now no doubt that the phenomenon was
entirely of an optical nature, and that the blackness of the
surfaces arose from their being composed of short and slen¬
der filaments of quartz, whose diameter was so exceedingly
small that they were incapable of reflecting a single ray of
the strongest light, yet it became desirable to establish this
curious fact by experimental evidence.
“ Having found that no detergent substances either re¬
moved or diminished the superficial blackness, I subjected
the fragment to the action of cold and hot acids; but the
surface continued unaltered by these operations. I now
immersed the fragment in oil of anise seed, which approaches
to quartz in its refractive power, and upon examining the
light reflected at the separating surfaces of the oil and the
quartz, I found that the blackness disappeared, and that the
fragment, whether seen by reflected or transmitted light,
comported itself like any other piece of quartz of the same
translucency. Upon removing the oil from the surfaces, it
resumed its original blackness, and the filamentous or vel¬
vety nature of the surface was rendered evident to the eye
by the slight change of tint which was produced by press¬
ing the filaments to one side.”
Colours of The colours of thin plates may also be exhibited by press-
thin plates jng together two glass prisms that have moderate refracting
angles. Various coloured fringes or portions* of coloured
rings will be seen by viewing the light reflected from the
surfaces in contact, and, in a much fainter degree, by exa¬
mining the transmitted light. The same phenomena may
be seen with unusual brilliancy by taking a thick piece of
glass, and having made a scratch on one side of it with a
file, apply a heated wire to the scratch, so as to produce a
crack in the glass, which may be extended at pleasure by a
second and third application of the hot wire. If we now
examine the surface of this crack in different directions, we
shall see it covered with coloured fringes, which may be
made to vary in breadth and position, by opening or closing
the crack with the force of the hand.
When we wish to examine and measure the coloured
rings with care, the method used first by Hooke, and sub¬
sequently by Newton, should be adopted. Two convex
lenses of very long focal length are placed the one above
the other, so as to touch at their vertex; or a plano-convex
lens may have its plane side AB laid upon the convex side
CD (fig. 101) of another lens. Sir Isaac Newton used for
the uppermost lens a plano-convex one, wdiose focal length
was fourteen feet, and for the lowermost a double convex
lens, whose focal length was fifty feet. These lenses must
then be held together, and pressed, if necessary, by three
clamp screws, as shown in fig. 99.
The following is the general account
of the phenomenon given by Sir
Isaac Newton, though somewhat
abridged:—
“ Next to the pellucid central spot
made by the contact of the glasses,
succeeded blue, white, yelloio, and
red. The blue was so little in quantity, that I could not
VOL. XVI.
between
lenses.
distinguish any violet in it, but the yellow and red were as
copious as the white, though four or five times more than
the blue. The next order of colours round those in the
second was violet, blue, green, yellow, and red, all of them
copious and vivid except the green. The third order was
■purple, blue, green, yellow, and red, the green being more
vivid than in the last order. The fourth order was only
green and red; the green being copious and lively, being
bluish on one side, and yellowish on the other: the red
was very imperfect. The succeeding rings or orders of co¬
lours were very faint; and after three or four orders, they
ended in perfect whiteness. The form of the whole sys¬
tem of rings, when the lenses were most compressed, so
as to produce the black spot in the centre, as shown in
fig. 100, where a, b, c, d, e; f, g, h, i, k; l, m, n, o, p;
601
Periodical
Colours.
q, r; s, t; v, x; y, z, indicate the different colours begin¬
ning at the centre, viz.—1. black, blue, white, yellow, red;
2. violet, blue, green, yellow, red; 3. purple, blue, green,
yellow, red; 4. green, red; 5. greenish blue, red; 6. green¬
ish blue, pale red; 7. greenish blue, reddish white.
In order to find the interval between the glasses, or the
thickness of the plate of included air (or space) at which
each colour was produced, Sir Isaac measured the diameter
of the first six rings at their brightest part, and found their
squares to be in the arithmetical progression of the odd
numbers 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, &c., and the intervals between the
glasses are obviously in the same progression, one of the
surfaces being plane, and the other spherical. He then
measured the diameter of the rings at their darkest points,
and found their squares to be in the arithmetical progres¬
sion of the even numbers 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, &c.
In order to find the absolute thickness of the plate of air
or space at which these different rings were produced, he
measured the diameter of the fifth ring at its darkest point
as produced by the different object-glasses.
Diameter of Sphericity
of the object-glass.
182 inches
184 inches
Diameter of fifth
dark ring.
100
1774784
5
88850
And dividing these diameters by 5, we obtain the diame¬
ter of the first ring gg^ and gg^ ; but as these
measurements were taken at an angle of incidence of 4°,
the results must be diminished in the ratio of the secant of
4°, or 10029, so that we have 0Qrw,o and ^go, the mean
88952
89063’
of which,
1
89000 nearIy exPresses, in parts of an inch, the
thickness of the air at the darkest part of the first dark
ring at a perpendicular incidence.
By multiplying this interval by the series of odd and even
numbers, 1, 3, 5, 7, &c., and 2, 4, 6, and 8, &c., we obtain
the following measures of all the rings:—
4 G
602
Periodical
Colours.
Effects of
oblique in¬
cidence.
Colours of
soap.
bubbles.
OPTICS.
First Ring,
Second Ring,
Third Ring,
Fourth Ring,
Thickness of the air
at the brightest part.
1
Thickness of the air
at the darkest part.
2 1
178000
3
178000
5
178000
7
178000
4
178000
6
or
17800
178000
8
178000
89000
2
89000
3
89000
4
89000
After measuring the diameters of the rings at different an¬
gles of incidence, Sir Isaac obtained the following results:—
Anglo of Incidence
on the Air.
Deer. min.
0 0
6 26
12 45
18 49
24 30
29 37
33 58
35 47
37 19
38 33
39 27
40 0
40 11
Angle ofRefraction
into the Air.
Degr.
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
65
70
75
80
85
90
Diameter of
the Ring.
10
lOf,
m
10f
hi
12*
14
15i
16*
19*
22f
29
35
Thickness of
the Air.
10
ioa
10|
11*
13
15*
20
23*
28*
37
52*
84tV
122a
From these measures, Newton inferred that the diameter Periodical
of the rings increased with the obliquity of incidence, and Colours,
he inferred that the thickness of the plate of air at which
the same colour was produced was proportional to the sine
of an angle whose sine had to the sine of the angle of
incidence the constant ratio of ^+ m being the index
107
of refraction. MM. Provostaye and Desains have, how¬
ever, found that the thickness is simply proportional to the
secant of the angle of incidence, as indicated by the un-
dulatory theory.1
Sir Isaac next proceeds to describe the rings formed by Rings by
the light transmitted through the two glasses. In this
system of transmitted rings, the order of the colours was1^-
yellowish red; black, violet, blue, white, yellow, red; violet,
blue, green, yellow, red. The colours in these rings are
very faint at a perpendicular incidence, but become brighter
as the incidence increases.
In fig. 101, Sir Isaac has represented the different colours
reflected and transmitted, AB and CD being the surfaces
of the glasses which touch at E, and the lines uniting them
representing their distances in arithmetical progression.
The words above the straight line AB are the colours of
the reflected rings, and those below the circular arch CD
those of the transmitted rings.
When water was introduced between the lenses, the
colours became fainter, and the rings less, and Sir Isaac
found that the intervals were inversely as the indices of
refraction in water and air.
The rings were always larger in the homogeneous red
light of the spectrum than in the violet light, in the ratio of
14^ to 9; and he concluded, from more detailed observa¬
tions, that the thicknesses of the air between the glasses
when the rings were successively formed by the limits of
the seven different colours, red, orange, yellow, green, blue,
indigo, and violet, are to one another as the cube roots of
the squares of the eight lengths of a cord which sound the
notes in an eighth, sol, la, fa, sol, la, mi, fa, sol, that is, in
the cube roots of the squares of the numbers 1, f, f, f, f,
f, A, h or 1, 0-924, 0-885, 0-825, 0-763, 0-711, 0-681,
0"630; that is, if 1 be the interior diameter of any such red
ring formed by the extreme red rays, the cube root of §
will be the interior diameter of a ring at the boundary of
the red and orange, and so on.2
The colours of thin plates of fluid or solid bodies are not
so easily studied as those of air, from the difficulty of pro¬
curing, and working with, such evanescent films. Sir Isaac
Newton, however, studied them in soap-bubbles, which, as
soon as they were blown, he covered with a clear glass. In
this way he observed the colours to emerge like so many
concentric rings surrounding the summit of the bubble. As
the bubble became thinner, by the subsidence and evapo¬
ration of the water, the rings dilated slowly, till they covered
the whole bubble, descending in order to the bottom of it,
where they vanished successively. After all the colours
had emerged at the top, there grew in the centre of the
rings a small round black spot, which continually dilated
itself till it became sometimes more than a half or three
quarters of an inch in breadth before the bubble broke.
Some light was still reflected from the water at this spot,
and Sir Isaac saw within it several smaller round spots much
blacker than the rest, but still capable, like the larger one,
of reflecting faintly an image of the sun.
By observing how much the colours at the same places of
the bubble, or at divers places of equal thicknesses, vrere
varied by the several obliquities of the rings, Sir Isaac ob¬
tained the following thicknesses tof the water requisite to
exhibit one and the same colour at several obliquities:—
Incidence on the Refraction into the Thickness of the
water.
0°...
15 ...
30 ...
45 ...
60 ...
75 ...
90 ...
water. water.
. 0° 0' 10
.11 11 10*
.22 1 10*
.32 2 11*
.40 30 13
.46 25   14*
.48 35  15*
These results harmonize entirely with the rule already given
for thin plates of air.
When the system of rings seen by reflection was examined
by a prism, and perhaps only eight rings visible, Sir Isaac
counted sometimes more than forty on the side of the sys-
1 Comptes Rendus, 1850, tom. xxx., p. 498.
2 It has been noticed by M. Le Blanc, that if the two extreme terms of the preceding numbers, or any other two equidistant from the
extremes, be multiplied together, their product will always be equal to *.
OPTICS.
603
Periodical
Colours.
Solid
bubbles.
Iriscope.
Films on
metals.
Films of de
composed
glass.
tem to which the refraction was made, though he reckoned
by estimation more than a hundred. Soap-bubbles also,
before they exhibited any colours to the naked eye, have
appeared through a prism girded about with many parallel
and horizontal rings, to produce which effect it was neces¬
sary to hold the prism parallel, or very nearly parallel, to
the horizon, and to dispose it so that the rings might be
refracted upwards.
By mixing a little sugar with the solution of soap, we
may blow bubbles of a very large size, which exhibit the
coloured zones in the most perfect manner. If we place
one of these bubbles, when blown, near a fire, so as to eva¬
porate the water, the bubble upon bursting becomes solid,
and falls down in coloured fragments, which are thin films
of sugar and soap.
An excellent method of showing the colours of thin
plates of a solid body, is with a simple apparatus to which
Dr Joseph Reade has given the name of Iriscope. This
instrument consists of a plate of highly polished black glass,
having its surface smeared with a solution of fine soap, and
subsequently dried by rubbing it clean with a piece of
chamois leather. If we now breathe upon the glass surface
through a glass tube, the vapour will be deposited on the
glass, and produce brilliantly-coloured concentric rings, the
outermost of which is black, while the interior ones have
various colours, or no colour at all, according as a greater
or a less quantity of vapour has been deposited. The
colours in these rings, when seen by common light, corre-
Spoil d with Newton’s reflected rings, about to be described,
or those which have black centres; the only difference
being, that in the plate of soapy vapour, which is the thickest
in the middle, the rings in the iriscope have black circum¬
ferences.1 Very beautiful phenomena of this kind may be
observed by laying thin films of fluids upon the surfaces of
fluid or solid bodies, or by stretching similar films of va¬
rious oils, such as oil of laurel, oil of cassia, oil of turpen¬
tine, &c., across circular apertures, such as rings made of
wires. The coloured tints and other phenomena exhibited
by these attenuated films are very remarkable. With oils of
cinnamon, naphtha, spearmint, wormwood, rape-seed, pop¬
pies, nutmegs, bergamot, savine, rosemary, &c., the pheno¬
mena are peculiarly beautiful.2
The colours of thin plates of solid bodies are finely dis¬
played in the films of oxide formed upon plates of lead, and
in the films of certain oxides or salts deposited on the sur¬
face of metals by the voltaic pile. The method of deposit¬
ing such films on plates of steel plunged in acid solutions,
and of producing the beautiful chromatic designs which he
executed, was discovered by Professor Nobili of Reggio.
The colours of thin solid films are displayed with singu¬
lar beauty in the scales of decomposed glass that have been
found among the ruins of Assyrian, Greek, and Roman
buildings. The silex and alkali which form glass have been
placed by fusion in a state of unnatural constraint, and the
particles of each have a tendency to recombine. The action
of moisture, or of air charged with ammonia or other bodies,
assists the particles which compose the glass in separating
from each other. The glass becomes opaque on its two
surfaces, and the opacity gradually advances inward till the
whole of the glass is decomposed. In this state it breaks
with the slightest force, like the thinnest slice of an apple.
In other cases the decomposition begins at a variety of
centres, where, from some cause or other, the particles have
been less firmly coherent; and it goes on in concentric
spheres, separating the glass into thin films of a spherical
form, and of surpassing beauty in point of colour. The
decompositions round two or more centres often unite, and
go on in rings surrounding the centres in question. In stable
windows, or in glass that has been long in salt water, the
decomposition into coloured scales takes place most quickly- Periodical
In the specimens of decomposed glass from Rome and from Colours.
Nineveh, which the writer of this article received from the
late Marquis of Northampton and Mr Layard, centuries
have been required to effect the decomposition.3
Sir Isaac then proceeds to a very important part of the Composi-
subject,—namely, to explain the composition of the colours tion of the
of thin plates, a topic of great interest and extensive appli- ®°|ours of
cation : “ Let there be taken,” says he, “ on any right line in ^ a es'
from the point Y (fig. 102), the lengths YA, YB, YC, YD,
&c in the proportion of the numbers, 6300, 6814, 7114,
8255, 8855, 9243,1000; and at the points A, B, C, D, E, F,
G, &c., let perpendiculars Aa, B/3, Cy, &c., be erected, by
whose intervals the extent of the several colours set under¬
neath against them is to be represented. Then divide the
line Aa in such proportions as the Nos. 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 9, &c.,
set at the points of division, denote, and through these
divisions from Y draw lines II, 2 K, 3L, 5M, 6N.
“ Now, if A2 be supposed to represent the thickness of
any thin transparent body, of which the internal violet is
most copiously reflected on the first ring, then HKwill re¬
present its thickness at which the outermost red is most
copiously reflected in the same series. Also A6 and HN
will denote the thicknesses at which those extreme colours
are most copiously reflected in the second series, and A10
and HQ the thicknesses at which they are most copiously
reflected in the third series ; and so on. And the thickness
at which any of the intermediate colours are reflected most
copiously, will be defined by the distance of the line AH
from the intermediate parts of the lines 2K, 6N, 10Q, &c.,
against which the names of those colours are written below.
“ But, farther, to define the latitude of these colours in
each ring or series, let A1 be the least thickness and A3
the greatest thickness, at which the extreme violet in the
first series is reflected, and let HI and HL be the like
limits for the extreme red, and let the intermediate colours
be limited by the intermediate parts of the lines 11, 3L,
against which the names of those colours are written ; and
so on. But yet with this caution, that the reflections be
supposed strongest at the intermediate spaces, 2K, 6N,
1 See Diil. Trans. 1841, p. 43.
2 Ibid. 1841, p. 53 and note.
3 Brewster’s Treatise on Optics, p. 119.
604
OPTICS.
Periodical 10Q, &c., and from thence to decrease gradually towards
^Colours.^ limits> H, 3L, 5M, 70, &c., on either side; where
you must not conceive them to be precisely limited, but to
decay indefinitely. And whereas I have assigned the same
latitude to every series; I did it, because although the
colours in the first series seem to be a little broader than
the rest, by reason of a stronger reflection there, yet that
inequality is hardly sensible.
“ Now, according to this description, conceiving that the
rays, originally of several colours, are by turns reflected at
the spaces II, L3, 5M, 07, 9P, Rll, &c., and transmitted
at the spaces AHI1, 3LM5, 70P9, &c., it is easy to
know what colour must in the open air be exhibited at any
thickness of a transparent thin body. For, if a ruler be
applied parallel to AH, at that distance from it by which
the thickness of the body is represented, the alternate
spaces 1IL3, 5M07, &c., which it crosseth, will denote the
reflected original colours, of which the colour exhibited in
the open air is compounded. Thus, if the constitution of
the green in the third series of colours be desired, apply
the ruler as you see at tt p cr <?>, and by its passing through
some of the blue at tt, and yellow at cr, as well as through
the green at p, you may conclude that the green exhi¬
bited at that thickness of the body is principally constituted
of original green, but not without a mixture of some blue
and yellow.
“ By this means you may know how the colours from the
centre of the outward rings ought to succeed in order as
they were described. For, if you move the ruler gradually
from AH through all distances, having passed over the
first space which denotes little or no reflection to be made
by the thinnest substances, it will first arrive at 1 the vio¬
let, and then very quickly at the blue and green, which, to¬
gether with that violet, compound blue, and then at the
yellow and red, by whose farther addition that blue is con¬
verted into whiteness, which whiteness continues during
the transit of the edge of the ruler from I to 3, and after
that, by the successive deficiency of its component colours,
turns first to compound yellow, and then to red, and last of
all the red ceaseth at L. Then begin the colours of the
second series, which succeed in order during the transit
of the edge of the ruler from 5 to O, and are more lively
than before, because more expanded and severed. And
for the same reason, instead of the former white there in¬
tercedes between the blue and yellow a mixture of orange,
yellow, green, blue, and indigo, all which together ought
to exhibit a dilute and imperfect green. So the colours of
the third series all succeed in order; first, the violet, which
a little interferes with the red of the second order, and is
thereby inclined to a reddish purple; then the blue and
green, which are less mixed with other colours, and conse¬
quently more lively than before, especially the green: Then
follows the yellow, some of which towards the green is dis¬
tinct and good, but that part of it towards the succeeding
red, as also that red, is mixed with the violet and blue of
the fourth series, whereby various degrees of red, very much
inclining to purple, are compounded. The violet and blue,
which should succeed this red, being mixed with, and hid¬
den in it, there succeeds a green. And this at first is much
inclined to blue, but soon becomes a good green, the only
unmixed and lively colour in this fourth series. For as it
verges towards the yellow, it begins to interfere with the
colours of the fifth series, by whose mixture the succeed¬
ing yellow and red are very much diluted and made dirty,
especially the yellow, which, being the weaker colour, is
scarce able to show itself. After this the several series in¬
terfere more and more, and their colours become more and
more intermixed, till, after three or four more revolutions
(in which the red and blue predominate by turns) all sorts
of colours are in all places pretty equally blended, and Periodical
compound an even whiteness. Colours.
“ And since the rays endued with one colour are transmit-
ted, where those of another colour are reflected, the reason
of the colours made by the transmitted light is from hence
evident.
“ If not only the order and species of these colours, but
also the precise thickness of the plate, or thin body at
which they are exhibited, be desired in parts of an inch,
that may be also obtained by the assistance of the pre¬
ceding observations. For, according to these observa¬
tions, the thicknesses of the thinned air, which between
two glasses exhibited the most luminous parts of the first
six rings, were
1 3 5 7 9 11 t f • h
178000’ 178000’ 178000’ 178000’ 178000’ 178000 Partsotanincn-
Suppose the light reflected most copiously at these thick¬
nesses be the bright citrine yellow, or confine of yellow and
orange, and these thicknesses will be FA, F^, F£, Fo, Ft.
And this being known, it is easy to determine what thick¬
ness of air is represented by G?>, or by any other distance
of the ruler from AH.
“ On these grounds I have composed the following table,
wherein the thickness of air, water, and glass, at which each
colour is most intense and specific, is expressed in millionth
parts of an inch.
The Thickness of Coloured Plates and Particles of Air,
Water, and Glass.
Reflected Tints.
Their colours
of the first
order 
< Very black
Black  
Beginning
black....
Blue  
White  
Yellow  
Orange  
VRed 
of
Of the second
order 
Violet  
Indigo  
Blue 
Green  
Yellow  
Orange  
Bright red.
V Scarlet  
Of the third
order  
Purple 
Indigo ....
Blue  
Green  
Yellow ....
Red 
VBluish red
/Bluish green ...
Of the fourth ) Green  
order ) Yellowish green
(Red  
Transmitted
Tints.
White.
Yellowish red
Black  
Violet 
Blue
White.
Yellow.
Red 
Violet..
Blue
Green.
Yellow ,
Red 
Bluish green
Red 
Bluish green
Of the fifth f Greenish blue...
order 1 Red 
Of the sixth t Greenish blue,
order  [ Red 
Of the seventh ( Greenish blue,
order | Ruddy white ..
Red.
1H
12|
14
16f
18i
19|
21
23f
25*
27*
29
32-
46
52A
58f
65
W ater.
11
3*
5*
6
6f
3f
9f
10*
14
12*
13
I3j
14?
15f
161
174
ISA
304
21 j-
24
25*
26*
27
30*
34*
394
53*
57?
Glass.
4
ill
31
4?
5*
5*
7*
8A
9
9f
10-1
14
14
12?
13* J
14*
15 A
16*
17*
181
20f
22
22f
23*
26
29f
34
38
42
45*
In a paper on the colours of thin plates,1 M. Arago has
Mem. d'Arcueil.
OPT
Periodical given an account of some important discoveries on this
Colours, subject. In viewing the reflected rings through a rhomb
of Iceland spar, having its principal section parallel or per-
A. Arago. pendicular to the plane of incidence, he observed that the
intensity of light in one of the images varied with the angle
of incidence, and that this image vanished at an incidence
of 35°, the maximum polarizing angle for glass. He dis¬
covered the very same property in the transmitted rings.
He found also that when the reflected and the transmitted
systems of rings are superposed, they completely neutralize
each other, forming white light; and hence he concluded
that their colours were complementary, and the intensities
of their illumination equal.
M. Arago next examined the system of rings when formed
between a lens and a metallic reflector. When he observed
them with the rhomb of spar, one of the images vanished as
formerly at 35° of incidence, the angle of maximum polari¬
zation of glass; but above and below that angle he ob¬
served the most singular phenomena. At incidences be¬
low 35° the two images formed by the doubly-refracting
rhomb differed only in intensity, the colours and the diame¬
ters of the rings being exactly the same in both. Above
the polarizing angle, however, the rings in the two images
were of complementary tints, the orders of colours in the
one beginning from a black centre, and in the other from a
white centre. M. Arago also observed that the rings of
the same order of colours in the two images had different
sizes.
Vfr Airy. Without knowing of these discoveries of M. Arago, Mr
Airy,1 about twenty years afterwards, published similar
results respecting the modification of the rings above and
Dr Lloyd, below the maximum polarizing angle ; and Dr Lloyd has
ingeniously observed that an analogous result “ may be
obtained by combining, as in Fresnel’s experiment (fig.
96), a metallic reflector with one of glass. The light being
polarized perpendicularly to the plane of reflection, the
central band will be white, when the angle of incidence is
below the polarizing angle of the glass. At the polarizing
angle the interference bars will vanish altogether ; and be¬
yond that incidence they will reappear with a dark centre
in place of a white one. This method of observation would
seem to be peculiarly adapted to the investigation of the
change of phase produced by metallic reflection at various
incidences.”2
A consideration of Fresnel’s expressions, which had led
Mr Airy to make his experiments with a metallic surface,
led him also to expect that when the rings were formed
between two transparent surfaces of different refractive
powers, and when the light was polarized perpendicularly
to the plane of incidence, the rings should be black-centred
at incidences below the maximum polarizing angle of the
least refractive surface, or greater than that of the highest
refractive surface, and should be wA^e-centred when the
angle of incidence was between these angles. By forming
the rings between plate-glass and diamond, Mr Airy found
ICS. 605
his anticipations correct. In the course of these experi- Periodical
ments he observed that the rings did not disappear at Colours,
the polarizing angle of diamond, but that the first black
ring contracted as the incidence was gradually increased,
and at last took the place of the central white spot. Hence
he concluded that there is still some light reflected at the
maximum polarizing angle of diamond, and that this body
has no angle of complete polarization. (See History, p. 550,
col. 1.)
This interesting subject was studied by Sir David Sir David
Brewster in 1840, and the results communicawd to the Brewster.
Royal Society of London in 1841. Our limits will permit
us only to give the following general expression of the facts
which he observed :—
“ When two polarized pencils, reflected from the surfaces
of a thin plate lying on a reflecting surface of a different
refractive power interpose, half an undulation is not lost,
and white-centred rings are produced, provided the mu¬
tual inclination of their planes of polarization is greater than
90°. When this inclination is less than 90°, half an undu¬
lation is lost, and black-centred rings are produced. When
the inclination is exactly 90°, the pencils do not interfere,
and no rings are produced.” 3
M. Jamin has very recently observed some interesting M. Jamin.
phenomena of the colours of thin plates when the reflected
rings are formed between two prisms, and illuminated with
the light of the spectrum. When the angle of incidence
increases, the rings enlarge, and undergo a singular change.
Each dark ring has in contact with it, externally if it is
violet, a very brilliant fringe, and internally if it is red. As
the angle of incidence increases, there arises in the bright
and very wide space which separates two dark rings, obscure
lines, which are all bordered with a brilliant fringe, and have
the same appearance as the principal ring. Complementary
phenomena are seen in the transmitted rays. These phe¬
nomena disappear only at the angle of total reflection ; but
when the angle of incidence is very near the angle of total
reflection, there is an instant when the reflected and
transmitted rings are so enlarged that they go out of the
field of vision, and there are now seen a considerable num¬
ber of new bright and dark fringes, produced at thicknesses
of the thin plate of air too small for producing the ordinary
rings. M. Jamin remarks that the theory does not afford
any certain explanation of these fringes.4
Sect. III.—On the Diffraction or Inflection of Light.
M. Grimaldi, to whom we owe the discovery of the inter- Diffraction
ference of light, likewise made some important experiments of light,
on what is called the diffraction or inflection of light.
Having admitted a ray of solar light into a dark room,
through a small hole AB (fig. 103), he placed in the conical
beam ABCD an opaque body EF. The shadow of thisp ringes
body was not bounded by the straight lines AEH, BFG, without the
nor by the penumbra IL formed by the lines BEL, AFI, shadow>
1 Cambridge Transactions, 1832. The following note upon this paper we confess ourselves unable to understand “ I have carefully
verified,” says Mr Airy, “ this assertion (that it is indifferent whether the light is polarized before or after reflection), because I think
that it leads to important theoretical conclusions. If polarization were a modification of light (as Dr Brewster and others have sup-
posed), it might be conceived that polarization before incidence might destroy its power of producing rings at a certain angle, or might
change the tints; but when the reflection is performed, and the rings are actually visible to the eye with a dark centre, it seems quite
inconceivable that any modification or physical change in the light should make that centre appear white. . dhe satisfactory explanation
is, that polarization is a resolution of the vibrations into two sets at right angles to each other, performed in such a manner that the two
sets can in general be separately exhibited, and that in this instance only one is transmitted to the eye. . The authors criticized in the
preceding extract,—viz., Malus, Young, Biot, Herschel, and we believe MM. Arago and Presnel, all considered polarization as a modifi¬
cation of common light, and if a modification, certainly a physical change without any reference to theory. In every point of view, in¬
deed, the term is philosophical and unexceptionable. If polarization is a resolution, as Mr Airy affirms, of vibrations in an infinite num¬
ber of planes, into two sets at right angles to each other, which we do not question, this is certainly a pretty considerable modification, and
a very remarkable physical change. As wre have nothing to do with theories in describing phenomena, we must continue to use the
terms which have been regarded as appropriate by our contemporaries.
2 “ Report on Optics,” British Association Reports, Rep. 4, 1836, p. 366.
3 “ On the phenomena of thin plates of solid and fluid substances exposed to polarized light,” Phil. Trans. 1841, p. 43.
4 See Cotnptes Rendus, &c., 1852, tom. xxxv., p. 14.
606
OPTICS.
Periodical but was enlarged to MN, and was much greater than it
Colours, should have been if formed by rays passing in straight lines
-N oa ET V
Fig. 104.
Fig. 106.
Fig. 107.
fine needle, Sir D. Brewster observed some interesting phe- Periodical
f/L
Fig. 108.
past the edges of the body. Without the shadow of the
body there were three fringes of coloured light, the broadest
and most luminous of which, next to the shadow X (fig.
104), was MNO. There was no colour in the middle at
M ; but it was hlue at the side NN, and red at the other
side OO. The second fringe PQR was narrower than
MNO. It was colourless in the middle at P, faintly blue
at QQ, and faintly red at UR. The third fringe STY re¬
sembled the other two, but was the narrowest and the
faintest in its colours. They were bent round the edges of
the body, as shown in fig. 105.
Fringes Grimaldi likewise discovered fringes within the shadow,
within the which were best seen when the body was long, the light
shadow. great, and the distance from the aperture considerable.
These internal fringes in¬
creased with the breadth
of the body, and they
became narrower when
they increased in number.
They were bent round
the angles of the body,
as shown in fig. 106, where
ADBC is the shadow,
and a, b, c, d the inter¬
nal fringes. Short lucid
streaks were seen pro¬
ceeding, as it were, from
the angle D, and return¬
ing to it, as shown in the
figure.
What Dr Young has called the crested fringes of Gri¬
maldi are shown in fig. 107. These fringes are formed by
any body that has a rectangular
termination. At the line which
bisects the right angle there is a
white central fringe, bounded by
hyperbolic curves, whose asymp¬
totes are the diagonal line ; and
on each side of this are two or
three other bands, disposed in hy¬
perbolic curves, which are convex
to the diagonal, and converging in
some degree as they recede from
the angular point.
When the diffracting body tapers like the point of a very
nomena, which will be under- mt m Colours,
stood from fig. 108, which very
imperfectly represents the in¬
ternal and external fringes as
produced by a needle-point like
MN. The external fringes
are represented by mn, m'n\
and are convex outwards, or
parallel to the sides of the point
MN. The internal fringes,
as seen by Grimaldi and Dr Young, are shown by the deep
black lines between A and B. These internal fringes,
however, were observed to extend far beyond the shadow
in fine hyperbolic curves, as shown between o and p, and
o and p. These internal fringes intersect the external ones,
and give them the appearance of screws or twisted cords.
In homogeneous light, where the fringes are alternately
dark and coloured, the dark fringes are dark at their inter¬
sections, and the coloured ones coloured. When the
needle-point is illuminated by the spectrum, and the fringes
viewed by a lens, which is necessary to see them, we re¬
quire to approach the lens to the fringes m!n! on the violet
side of the spectrum, and to withdraw it on the red side,
in order to see them distinctly. When this experiment
is made with great care, twenty external fringes may be
counted on each side of the shadow, which may always be
seen most distinctly by looking through the margin of the
lens. When the diffracting body is an exceedingly small
one with parallel sides, the internal fringes extend far be¬
yond the shadow, mingling with the external ones, and
completely altering their colours and forms.
I he internal fringes beyond the shadow, like those in it,
disappear by intercepting the light with a screen on the op¬
posite side of the diffracting body.
In repeating the experiments of Grimaldi, Sir Isaac Sir Isaac
Newton admitted the sun’s light through a small hole Newton,
in a piece of lead the forty-second part of an inch in
diameter ; he found the breadth of the shadow of a human
hair, which was the 280th of an inch in diameter, to be as
follows:—
Distance of the
paper receiving the
shadow from the hair.
Distance of
the hair from
the aperture.
12 feet  4 inches
12 „   24 „
12   128 .. ,
Breadth
of the
shadow.
.0-01666 inches.
.003572 „
.0125
Upon comparing the breadths of the fringes without the
shadow, and their intervals at different distances, he found
them to be nearly in the same proportion, the breadths of
the fringes being as the numbers 1, k/I /\/—, &c., and
v o v 5
their intervals to be in the same progression. Hence the
fringes and their intervals together were as the numbers 1,
\/\\/\ &c.
When the hair was surrounded with water, the very same
phenomena were seen, and metals, stones, glass, wood, horn,
ice, &c., produced the very same fringes. The following
was the order of the colours, reckoning from the shadow :—
First fringe, violet, indigo, pale blue, green, yellow, red;
second fringe, blue, yellow, red; third fringe, pale blue,
pale yellow, red.
When homogeneous light was used, Sir Isaac found that Fringes in
the fringes were largest in red light, least in violet light, homogene-
and of an intermediate size in green light. In one case the ou9 hfi*14,
distance between the middle of the first fringe on each side
of the shadow was of an inch in red light, and ~ in vio¬
let light.
OPT
i
Periodical From experiments made by Sir Isaac Newton on the
Colours, light which passed by the edge of a knife, and on that which
passed between two knife-edges parallel to each other, he
Jnife concluded that the light of the first fringe passed by the
idges. edge of the knife at a distance greater than the 100th part
of an inch; the light of the secotid at a greater distance
than that of the first; and the light of the third fringe at a
greater distance than that of the second.
Sir Isaac then stuck into a board the points of two knives
with straight edges, so that their edges formed an angle of
1° 47' 26", and from the observations which he made on
the light which passed between them, he concluded that the
light which forms the fringes is not the same light at all dis¬
tances of the paper from the knives, obviously considering
each fringe as produced like caustic curves, by the inter¬
section of the inflected rays. When the fringes formed by
these inclined knife-edges were received on paper held at a
great distance, the fringes formed by the one knife-edge
were bent into the shadow of the other knife, and formed
cubical hyperbolas, whose asymptotes were for one set the
knife-edge which produced the fringes, and a line perpen¬
dicular to the line bisecting the angle formed by the knives.
Dr Thomas Although many attempts were made during the last cen-
Young. tury to complete the unfinished labours of Newton on this
subject, yet no decided discovery was made till the time of
Dr Thomas Young. This distinguished natural philoso¬
pher, in endeavouring to explain the origin of the fringes
which surrounded the shadow of the margin of a small cir¬
cular aperture, conceived that the light nearest its centre
was least inflected, and that nearest its edges most; and
that another portion of light reflected from the margin of
the aperture, and coinciding either exactly or nearly with
the direct light, after a circuitous path, would interfere
with that light, and produce colour. In November 1803
he confirmed this supposition to a certain extent, in so far
as the production of the colours by interference was con¬
cerned, by his discovery of the interference of light, as al¬
ready described.
The fringes formed by inflection, as observed by Dr
Young, are shown in fig. 109, where ABCD is the shadow
& A B E
Fig. 109.
of the inflecting body with its internal fringes, which he
considered as produced by the light passing on each side of
the inflecting body, and bent into the shadow, so as to in¬
terfere in the manner already described. This is clearly
proved to be the case ; but he was less successful in ex¬
plaining the external fringes between AC and GH, and be¬
tween BD and EF. He ascribed them to the interference
of rays reflected from the margin of the inflecting body, with
rays which passed by it directly.
Dr Young examined the crested fringes of Grimaldi in
the same manner as he did the internal fringes ABCD. He
found that, when a screen was placed within a few inches of
the inflecting angle of the body, so as to receive only one of
the edges of the shadow, all the crested fringes disappeared ;
but if the rectangular point of the screen was opposed to the
point of the shadow, so as barely to receive the angle of the
shadow, or its extremity, the fringes were in no way affected.
M. Fresnel. M. Fresnel in France, and M. Fraunhofer at Munich, were
simultaneously engaged in studying the inflection of light,
and each of them published the results of their labours, with¬
out any knowledge apparently that the other had been
similarly occupied. We shall begin by giving an account
of Fresnel’s experiments.
I c s.
607
In place of a small bole, M. Fresnel substituted a lens of Periodical
short focal length, which collected the solar rays into its Colours,
focus, from which they again diverged. When bodies were
placed in this bright light they gave distinct fringes, which
he was able to measure at various distances behind the in¬
flecting body, and at various distances of the inflecting
body from the lens, simply by viewing the fringes with an
eye-glass furnished with a micrometer. In this manner he
measured their breadths within the one or two-hundredth
part of a millimetre. He traced the external fringes up to
their very origin, and by the aid of a lens of a short focus
he saw the third fringe at the distance of less than the one-
hundredth part of a millimetre from the edge of the inflect¬
ing body. He also found that the phenomena varied with
the distance of the inflecting body from the luminous point,
as in the following measures:—
Distance of the Distance behind Angular inflection
inflecting body the body where ofthe red rays
from the focus the inflection of the
of the lens. was measured. first fringe.
4 inches 3 281 feet 12' 6"
19-48 feet 3-281 „   3 55
When the inflecting body was kept at a fixed distance
from the lens, M. Fresnel measured the inflection of the same
fringe at different distances behind the inflecting body, and
the result was, that the successive positions of the same
fringe did not lie in a straight line, hut formed a curve,
whose concavity is turned towards the inflecting body.
The successive positions of the same fringe in all the orders
of colours he found to be hyperbolas, having the radiant point
and the edge of the inflecting body for their common foci.
Contrary to the opinion of Dr Young, M. Fresnel found
that the fringes were independent of the curvature of the
margin of the inflecting body, and that when the margin
was made extremely sharp, the small quantity of light which
it could reflect would be incapable of producing, by its in¬
terference with the direct light, such bright fringes as are
actually observed. To assure himself of this, he took two
plates of steel, the edge of each of which was rounded in
one-half of its length, and sharp in the remaining half; he
placed the rounded portion of one edge opposite the sharp
portion of the other, and vice versa. Hence, if the posi¬
tion of the fringes depended on the form of the surface, the
effect would thus be doubled, and the fringes appear broken
in the middle. They were, on the contrary, perfectly
straight throughout their whole length.1 M. Fresnel was
therefore obliged to suppose that rays that pass at a sensible
distance deviate from their primitive direction, and interfere
with those which pass directly by the edge of the body.
In order to settle this question, M. Fresnel compared the
results of Dr Young’s hypothesis with those of his own, and
he found that the breadth of any fringe of homogeneous
light should be on the two hypotheses as 2 to T8726, and
having measured the diameter of such a fringe, he found his
own hypothesis more correct than Dr Young’s.
In order to exhibit to the eye the hyperbolic form of the
fringes, we have given a representation of them in fig. 110,
where LL' is a lens of short focus, by which the rays of
the sun entering a dark chamber are refracted to a focus
F, from which they again diverge, forming the cone Ymti;
or the lens may be fixed in a large diaphragm DD',
which may stand on the table before the window at which
the sun’s light enters. By means of a coloured glass
VV' placed on either side of the diaphragm, or on either
side of F, the light may be rendered homogeneous. If we
now place a screen of any kind EC at some distance from
F, having its edge somewhat smaller, and free of dust,
and receive its shadow GT' upon a sheet of paper, or any
white ground TT', or on a glass plate roughened with
emery, we shall obtain the section of the fringes formed by
1 Memoire sur la Diffraction p. 370; Prof. Lloyd’s Report, ut anted.
608
OPTICS.
Periodical diffraction. The line FEG, which is the geometrical shadow,
Colours. js not j.|ie rea] shadow. On the side
of it towards GT, the paper will not
appear black, but illuminated with
a visible shade, which goes on de¬
creasing nearly uniformly for a con¬
siderable distance. On the other
side of EG there are several fringes
or alternations of light and darkness.
rYhefirst fringe 13 parallel to the
shadow is bright, then a band S
almost entirely black, which is the
black fringe of the first order, then
a second bright fringe 13', which
is followed by the second black
fringe S'. These alternations con¬
tinue to a great distance from G,
so that even the sixteenth or seven¬
teenth order may be observed, the
bright fringes becoming less coloured, and the black ones
more luminous, till they are no longer visible.
By varying the distance of the paper TT from the screen
EC, or of the screen from the focus F, the same fringes are
produced with certain variations depending on their dis¬
tances, the fringes being propagated in hyperbolas, as shown
in the figure. The fringes are largest in red light RR,
smallest in violet light VV, and of an intermediate size in
green light GG, as represented in fig. Ill, where they are
shown as on each side of the shadow of a human hair HH.
Fig. 111.
The following table shows the angular distances of the
seven first fringes from the inflecting body EC (fig. 110),
and the geometrical shadow :—
For Red Light.
Angles,
FE=100
millimetres.
Angles,
FE=1000
millimetres.
Angles,
FE=10
millimetres.
First order  3' 35" IP 20" 0°35/ 51"
Second order  5 15  16 35  0 52 25
Third order   6 30  20 32  1 4 56
Fourth order  7
Fifth order  8
Sixth order  9
Seventh order  10
32 .
27 .
17 .
3  31 45  1 41 21
.23 50  1 15 21
.26 44  1 24 31
.29 20  1 32 44
Sir John
Hcrschel.
For Violet Light.
First order    2' 58"  9'22" ....0°29'36"
Second order  4 20  13 42  0 43 18
Third order 5 21  16 55  0 53 36
Fourth order  6 13  19 40  1 2 15
Fifth order  6 59  22 5  1 9 48
Sixth order 7 40  24 15  1 16 38
Seventh order 8 18  26 14  1 22 53
When the diverging light passes through a small circular
aperture, very beautiful phenomena are observed, which
were studied about the same time by M. Fresnel and Sir
John Herschel.1 M. Fresnel had deduced the phenomena
fix m theory, and subsequently confirmed his deductions by
ex, teriment. The following is Sir John Herschel’s2 account
of the phenomena:—“ Suppose,” says he, “ we place a
sheet of lead, having a small pin-hole pierced through it, in
the diverging cone of rays from the image of the sun formed
by a lens of short focus, and in the line joining the centres
of the hole and focus prolonged, place a convex lens or eye¬
glass, behind which the eye is applied. The image of the Periodical
hole will be seen through the lens as a brilliant spot, en- Colours,
circled by rings of colours of great vividness, which con-
tract and dilate, and undergo a singular and beautiful alter¬
nation of tints, as the distance of the hole from the luminous
point on the one hand, or from the eye-glass on the other, is
changed. When the latter distance is considerable, the
central point is white, and the rings follow nearly the order
of the colours of thin plates. Thus, when the diameter of
the hole was about l-30th of an inch, its distance (a) from
the luminous point about six feet six inches, and its distance
(b) from the eye-lens twenty-four inches, the series of colours
was observed to be,
“ Order, White, pale yellow, yellow, orange, dull red.
“2c/ Order, Violet, blue (broad and pure), whitish, green¬
ish-yellow, fine yellow, orange-red, very full and brilliant.
“ 3c/ Order, Purple, indigo-blue, greenish-blue, pure bril¬
liant green, yellow-green, red.
“ Ath Order, Good green, but rather sombre and bluish,
bluish-white, red.
“ 5th Order, Dull green, faint bluish-white, faint red.
“6^/i Order, Very faint green, very faint red.
“ Ith Order, A trace of green and red.
“ When the eye-lens and hole are brought nearer to¬
gether, the central white spot contracts into a point and
vanishes, and the rings gradually close in upon it in succes¬
sion, so that the centre assumes in succession the most sur¬
prisingly vivid and intense hues. Meanwhile the rings
surrounding it undergo great and abrupt changes in their
tints. The following were the tints observed in an expe¬
riment made some years ago, the distance between the eye¬
glass and luminous point (« + /») remaining constant, and
the hole being gradually brought nearer to the former:—
24,00
18'00
13-50
10-00
9-25
910
8-75
8-36
8-00
7-75
7-00
6-63
6 00
5-85
5-50
5-00
4-75
4-50
4-00
3-85
3 50
Colour of the Central
Spot.
White.
White.
Y ellow.
Very intense orange.
Deep orange-red 
Brilliant blood-red...
Deep crimson-red 
Deep purple 
Very sombre violet...
Intense indigo-blue...
Pure deep blue 
Sky-blue.
Bluish-white.
Very pale blue.,
Greenish-white ,
Y ellow 
Orange-yellow..
Scarlet 
Red 
Blue  
Dark blue.
Surrounded by
f Rings as in the foregoing de-
| scription.
The two first rings confused,
the red of the 3d, and green
of the 4th orders splendid.
Interior rings much diluted,
the 4th and 5th greens, and
3d, 4th, and 5th reds, the
purest colours.
f All the rings are now much
1 diluted.
The rings all very dilute.
The rings all very dilute.
The rings all very dilute.
The rings all very dilute.
A broad yellow ring.
A pale yellow ring.
A rich yellow.
A ring of orange, from which
it is separated by a narrow
sombre space.
! Orange-red, then a broad space
of pale yellow, after which
the other rings are scarcely
visible.
A crimson-red ring.
{Purple, beyond which yellow,
verging to orange.
Blue, orange.
j Bright blue, orange-red, pale
\ yellow, white.
{Pale yellow, violet, pale yel¬
low, white.
| White, indigo, dull orange,
) white.
White, yellow, blue, dull red.
{Orange, light blue, violet, dull
orange.
1 Sir John Herschel’s experiment was made on the 12th July 1819, but was not published till 1825.
2 Treat, on Light, sect. 729, 730.
OPTICS.
609
Periodical “ The series of tints exhibited by the central spot is
Colours, evidently, so far as it goes, that of the reflected rings in the
colours of thin plates; the surrounding colours are very
capricious, and appear subject to no law.”
We owe also to Sir John Herschel the following beauti¬
ful experiment with two equal apertures placed near each
other. The rings are formed about each as in the case of
one aperture, but these are accompanied with a set of straight
parallel fringes, bisecting the interval between their centres,
and perpendicular to the line joining their centres. Two other
sets of similar fringes appear in the form of a St Andrew’s
cross, forming equal angles with the first set, as shown in fig.
112. When the apertures are unequal, as in fig. 113, these
Fig. 112.
Fig. 113.
M. Poisson.
M. Arago.
Negative
diffraction.
fringesassume the form of hyperbolas, having the apertures in
their common focus. By varying the number and shape of
the apertures, the phenomena became exceedingly beautiful.
M. Poisson deduced from theory that the centre of the
shadow of a small circular opaque disc, exposed to light ema¬
nating from a single luminous point, would be precisely as
much illuminated by the diffracted light as it would be by
the direct light if the disc were removed. By using a
small disc of metal, cemented to a clear and homogeneous
plate of glass, M. Arago confirmed this very remarkable result.
We owe to M. Arago a series of beautiful discoveries re¬
specting the influence of transparent screens in the pheno¬
mena of inflection. When a thick piece of glass is used
as a screen on one side of the inflecting body, the rings
wholly disappear, as if the screen were opaque. If the
screen is very thin, like a film of sulphate of lime or mica,
the fringes still remain visible, but shift their places, and
are moved from the side where the screen is interposed.
If we make this experiment on the fringes produced
by two apertures, we have only to cover one of the aper¬
tures with the screen. The same effect, however, will be pro¬
duced if we cover both apertures with screens of different
thicknesses. In this case the fringes will shift their places
from the thicker plate, without suffering any other change.
This beautiful property has been most" ingeniously em¬
ployed by MM. Arago and Fresnel in measuring the re¬
fractive powers of different gases. For as the displacement
of the coloured fringes depends on the refractive power as
well as thickness of the plate, its refractive power may be
computed from the displacement. In the same manner, if
one of the interfering rays is made to pass through tubes
filled with different gases, while the other does not, the dis¬
placement produced by the gas will give a measure of the
refractive power of the gaseous medium.
In all the preceding phenomena of diffraction the fringes
or the foci of the interfering pencils are seen, in the an¬
terior focus of the lens by which they are viewed and mag¬
nified, as produced at different distances behind the diffract¬
ing body 6 or B (fig. 114). These classes of fringes may
be called positive, because they are formed in space, or upon Periodical
a screen, by rays crossing in a focus, as it were, at different Colours,
distances behind the diffracting body; but I have examined v «-
another class of fringes which may be called negative, be¬
cause they are not brought to a positive focus in space, or
do not interfere till they reach the retina. In order to
see these fringes, place the lens behind the diffracting body
B, so as to see it distinctly, and without fringes. If we
now advance the lens towards B, we shall see fringes formed
round B, and of the same size as if we had withdrawn it as
much behind its first position. The fringe increases as we
advance the lens, and when it touches B, the fringes are
the same nearly as if it had been twice its focal length be¬
hind B. If we wish to see the fringes larger, we must use
a lens with a longer focus; and when the lens touches the
diffracting body, the fringes will be the same as if they were
seen by the lens when placed at twice its focal length be¬
hind B. In all these cases the interfering rays which pro¬
duce the fringes are those which virtually radiate from the
anterior focus of the lens, and which, being refracted into
parallel directions, enter the eye, where they interfere on the
retina. The negative fringes will also be seen if the
lens is placed anywhere between the diffracting body and
the focus F of diverging rays in fig. 114.
In consequence of the rays which produce the fringes
not crossing one another before they enter the eye, the nega¬
tive fringes are much more distinct than the positive ones,
a fact already established by the superior distinctness of
vision in the Galilean telescopes where the rays do not form
a positive image before they enter the eye, and in the Casse-
grainian telescope before they fall upon the eye-piece.
The phenomena of diffraction are beautifully seen by
using a transparent diffracting body, such as lines drawn
upon glass by fluids either pure or holding gums or other
transparent bodies in solution. The colours are so splendid
that an instrument could thus be constructed for giving
new rectilineal patterns of ribbons of all forms and colours.1
The following experiments of Joseph Fraunhofer, made Fraun-
with instruments of extreme accuracy, furnish data of the hofer.
highest importance in physical optics.2
The apparatus employed by Fraunhofer was a repeating
theodolite whose vernier read off to 4". In the centre of
the circle, but above it, this instrument carries a flat circu¬
lar plate 6 inches in diameter, having its axis coincident
with that of the theodolite, and graduated separately to 10".
In the middle of this disc is placed a metallic screen, in which
the necessary apertures are made, and which is in the axis
of the theodolite. The divisions of this disc serve to mea¬
sure, if necessary, the angle of incidence of the rays. A
telescope, having an object-glass of twenty lines in aper¬
ture, and 16’9 inches in focal length, is placed inches
from the centre of this disc. This telescope is placed firmly
on the alidade of the divided circle, whose diameter is 12
inches, and the whole is counterpoised. The axis of the
telescope is exactly parallel to the horizon, as well as to
the plane of this circle. The magnifying power which he
employed was from thirty to fifty times. The instrument
1 Brewster’s Optics, pp. 116, 117.
2 Neue Modifikation des Lichtes durch gegenseitige Einwirkung und Beugurxg der Strahlen, und Gesetze derselben, von Jos. Fraunhofer in
Munchen. Without a date.
4 H
VOL. XVI.
610
OPTICS.
Periodical did not communic ate with the floor of the room, from which
Colours, it was wholly insulated. The heliostate was placed in the
prolongation of the optical axis, at a distance ot 38 feet 7J
inches from the centre of the theodolite. In order to make
the heliostate follow the sun in his hourly motion, the ob¬
server could move the screw of the mirror by means of along
rod of iron, which extends from the heliostate to the theo¬
dolite, and with this apparatus he could also vary at plea¬
sure the intensity of the solar light. The opening of the Periodical
heliostate is vertical, being 2 inches high, and commonly Colours,
from the 50th to the 100th of an inch.
By means of an achromatic microscope, magnifying 110
times, Fraunhofer measured the aperture in the metallic
screen, which he did to the fifty-thousandth, and sometimes
to the hundred-thousandth part of an inch, provided the
body was very fine at its edge.
Fraunhofer’s first observations were made with a single
slit, which was placed before the object-glass of the tele¬
scope, which had been previously directed to the aperture
in the heliostate, so that the aperture was bisected by the
wire of the micrometer. He then saw the fringes shown in
fit:. 115. The middle fringe or band I/L1, bisected by the
micrometrical wire K, was white, becoming yellow towards
L1 and L1, where it was red. In the space L1 L11 there
is a spectrum with very lively colours,—viz., indigo near L1,
then blue, green, yelloiv, and red, near L11. The spectrum
in Ln L111 is much less intense,—viz., blue near L11, and
yellow, green, and red near Lm. The spectrum in the space
L111 LIV is still fainter, being green on the side L111, and
red on the side LIV. A great number of spectra follow
these, becoming fainter and fainter, and losing themselves
in a band of light, which is spread over a great space. All
these spectra on both sides of K are perfectly equal, and
consequently symmetrical. Both the colours and the spec¬
tra shade into one another imperceptibly. The following
table contains the average of the distances L1, L11, Lm, and
L1V, from the central line, all of them being equal, the mea¬
sures being taken from the red extremity of each spectrum ;
so that if we wish to have the angle of deviation of L11 from
K, we have only to multiply the value of L in the table
by 2 ; and so on.
Width of the Breadth of each Product of the
aperture in parts spectrum, or values aperture by the
of a Paris inch. of KL1, KL11, &c. deviation L.
0-11545   O' 37w-66 0-0000210
0-06098   1 11 17 0-0000210
0-03690   1 56-6  0 0000209
0-02346   3 4-43 0-0000210
0-01237   5 48-7  0-0000209
0-01210   6 1-84 0-0000212
0 01020   6 57-3  0-0000206
0-00671  11 6-4  0-0000217
0 00642  11 12-2  0 0000209
0-00337  21 10-3  0-0000207
0-00308  23 32-7  0-0000211
0-00218   3 40  0 0000213
0-00215  35 17  0-0000220
0-00114  1° 4 53  0-0000215
From these observations M. Fraunhofer deduces the
following conclusions:—
1. That the angles of deviation of the luminous rays
which pass through a single aperture are in the inverse
ratio of the width of that aperture.
2. That ivhen a ray is diffracted in passing through
a narrow aperture, the distance of similar rays from the
middle in the several spectra, form in each case an arithme¬
tical progression, ichose difference is equal to the first term.
3. That if y is the aperture, the arches L1, L11, or the
deviation of the inflected rays, are in general for the radius
of a circle equal ,o 1, L, JW000211 0«>00211
r t„ o. 0-0000211, y y ’
I-* — o * - *
By observing whether the micrometer wire appeared or
disappeared in the different spectra, Fraunhofer ascertained
that the spectra nearest K are not composed of homo¬
geneous light, but that the light becomes more and more
homogeneous at greater distances from the axis.
Fraunhofer next proceeds to describe the phenomena
observed when the two edges which form the narrow aper¬
ture are at different distances from the object-glass. When
the effective width of the aperture thus formed is from the
25th to the 50th of an inch, the spectra are the same as
those before described; but when the opening becomes
less, the spectra on one side of the axis become wider
horizontally than those on the other side. When the ap¬
parent aperture is extremely narrow, the spectra on one side
are two or three times wider than those on the other. By
continuing to close the distant edges, the longest spectra
begin to disappear successively, so that the fifth spectrum,
for example, fills almost suddenly the whole field of the
telescope till it ceases to be visible, then the fourth spec¬
trum presents the same phenomena, then the third ; and so
on. During these changes the spectra on the other side
remain unchanged ; but when all the former have vanished,
they also disappear in their turn, not successively, but all
at once, which happens when no light passes between the
edges. The large spectra are always on the side of the
screen which is nearest the object-glass.
When the apertures, both in the heliostate and in front
of the object-glass, are small circular ones, a system of
rings is produced absolutely the same as those of thin
plates, with this difference only, that the centre is white in
place of black. The rings increase in size as the apertures
diminish. By varying the apertures Fraunhofer obtained
the following results :—
1. That the diameters of the coloured rings are in the in¬
verse ratio of the diameters of the apertures.
2. That the distances of the extreme rings (of any given
refrangibility) from the centre, form an arithmetical pro¬
gression, whose difference is smaller than the first term.
3. That if y is the diameter of the aperture in Paris
inches, tve shall have
L =    = L11 - L1 = L111 - L", &c.
7
T t 0-0000257
1-i —
7
pu_0‘0000257 l . an(j so on<
7
The most important and interesting of Fraunhofer’s re-Spectra
searches are those which relate to the spectra produced by produced
gratings, consisting of a number of parallel wires placed
parallel also to the narrow linear aperture in the heliostate. gnro*ves.
He formed these gratings of fine wires stretched across a
rectangular frame ; the two shorter ends of the frame con¬
sisted of two fine screws made with the same die, and
Periodical
Colours.
OPTICS.
611
having 260 threads in an inch. By placing a wire in each and the 100th of an inch wide, and the ifame of wires was Periodical
thread he insured their exact parallelism. The diameter of placed before the object-glass, so that no other lio-ht could Colours,
each wire was 0-002021 of a French inch, and the edge of be admitted but through them. Fraunhofer was astonished
each wire was distant from the adjacent edge 0-003862 of at the phenomena which he saw. He saw the colourless
an inch. The aperture of the heliostate was 2 inches long, line of light A (tig. 116), in the aperture of the heliostate
Fig. 116.
Diffracted
and water
spectra
compared.
exactly as if no wires had been interposed, and at some
distance from it on both sides agreatnumber of coloured spec¬
tra exactly similar to those produced by a good prism. They
w-ere larger in proportion to their distance from the central
bright line, and they diminished in intensity in the
same proportion. A part of these spectra are shown
in fig. 116, where A is the aperture of the heliostate,
absolutely without colours. On each side of A the spectra
are perfectly symmetrical. When the apparatus is well
made, the space AH1 is absolutely black. The first spec¬
trum occupies the space H^1; H1 being the usual limit
of the violet, and C1 that of the red. Between H11 and
Cn there is a second spectrum twice as long as the first,
the order of the colours being the same, but their intensity
a little less. The third spectrum occupies the space be¬
tween C" and FIV, but a part of its violet rays are mixed
with the red of the second spectrum, and also a part of the
red rays of the third with the blue rays of the fourth spec¬
trum. The fourth spectrum is seen between FIV and UIV,
its blue extremity losing itself in the third, and its red ex¬
tremity in ihe fifth spectrum. Many other spectra succeed
these, and when the apparatus is good, thirteen may be
easily reckoned on each side of A.
But what is the most interesting fact, when the appa¬
ratus is good, and the adjustments correct,—the fixed dark
lines in the prismatic spectrum are seen at C1, D1, these
lines being the same as those similarly marked in fig. 87.
It is remarkable, however, that A is not seen, a fact which
M. Fraunhofer neither notices nor explains. The lines,
both great and small, are absolutely the same, both in this
and the prismatic spectrum, though their distances are
widely different.
In a grating in which y, the distance between the wires,
is 0-000628, and 8, or the diameter of the wires, 0-001324,
the following are the distances :—
Distance between the lines Bi and Ci
Ci
D1
Ei
p'
Gi
D1
Ei
Ei
Gi
H‘
Piffracted
Spectrum.
2' 2"’6
4 23-2
4 5-2
2 39-9
3 37-6
2 12-5
Water
Spectrum.
3"-3
41
16
47
67
14
Total length from Bi to Hr ...19 10 19 1-3
The diffracted spectrum is therefore a very extraordinary
one. The green space from E to F is almost exactly the
same in both, but all the less refrangible spaces are greatly
expanded in the diffracted spectrum, and the more refran¬
gible spaces greatly contracted, the red space CD in the
diffracted spectrum being twice as great as in the water
spectrum ; and the violet space in the water spectrum twice
as small.
M. Fraunhofer repeated the above experiments with ten
different gratings, in which the breadth of the wires and
the spaces between them were varied, and he deduces from
them the following laws:—
1. For two different gratings in which the parallel wires
are of the same size and placed at equal distances, the
magnitude of the spectra which arise from the reciprocal
influence of a great number of rays diffracted by narrow
apertures, and, their distances from the axis, are in the in¬
verse ratio of the intervals y + 8 ; that is, the space from the
middle of one of the openings to the middle of the other.
2. In all the perfect mean spectra, or those in which the
fixed lines are seen, the distances between the coloured rays
of the same nature in the different spectra, or between the
same fixed lines in them, form an arithmetical progression,
ichose distance is equal to the first ter in.
3. In gratings in which the diameter 8 of the wires, and
the distance y beticeen them, is expressed in Paris inches,
the first term of the progression for thefixed, lines B, C, D, E,
or those rays which have the corresponding degrees of re-
frangibility, is represented by the following numbers :—
0-00002541 _ _ 0-00002425 _ n _ 0-00002175 _
y+8 ’ y+S ’ y+8 ’
0-00001943 0-00001789 0-00001585
y4-8 ’ y + 8 ’ y + 8 ’
ir_ 0-00001451
y~8 •
If we represent the numerator of each of these expres¬
sions by a, the angle of deviation of one of the same
coloured rays in the first spectrum by 6', in the second by
6", in the third by 6"', w-e have generally
<7= “ 6"= &c.
y + o y + o
If v stands for the number of the spectrum, v being = 0
for the axis, = 1 for the first spectrum, 2 for the second
spectrum, and if we put € = y + 8, we shall have in general,
gO1)- va
The preceding results having been obtained with angles
so small that the arcs and their sines and tangents are
nearly in the same proportion, M. Fraunhofer began a new
series of experiments, with the view of obtaining spectra in
which the angles should be larger, and by which he might
determine whether it was the arcs or their sines or tangents
which had the proportions assigned by the experiments.
This inquiry rendered it necessary to obtain much finer
gratings than those he had used. He therefore coated a
plate of glass with two or three folds of gold-leaf, in order
to have the interstices filled up, and by a peculiar arrange¬
ment he traced upon the glass parallel lines in which e was
=-000114 of an inch. When the lines were drawn closer,
no gold remained upon the glass. With this system the
spectra were larger, and the fixed lines distinctly seen, but
they did not answer his purpose. He therefore thought of
spun glass, which answered as well as wires ; and having
covered a plate of glass with a thin coat of fat, so thin that
it could scarcely be seen, he traced parallel lines upon it,
the intervals of which were only half the size of those on
the gold-leaf. The spectra produced by this system of lines
gave the fixed lines very distinctly, so that their distances
612
OPTICS.
Periodical from the axis could be accurately measured ; but he could
Colours. n0(. succee(l in tracing, either upon a layer of fat or black
Vs—varnish, lines closer than this. He at last succeeded in his
object of tracing a finer system of lines by using a diamond,
with which, by the aid of a machine, he traced lines so fine
upon the surface of glass that they could not be seen by
the most powerful compound microscope. In this way
he obtained a set of several thousand lines, in which
c=0-0001223 of an inch, and which were at distances so
very equal that the fixed lines in the first and second
spectrum were clearly seen.1
With the system when € = 0-0001223, and the number
of lines 3601, the fixed line D is seen double in the first
spectrum.
When the light fell vertically on this grating, Fraunhofer
obtained the following measures :—
N ames of fixed
lines.
Distance of lines in
first spectrum.
Distance of fixed lines
from the axis A.
Fig. 8, Plate 1.
C1 11° 25'20"  C1 from D1
Cn 23 19 42  1° 10' 49"
pv 10 14 31  D1 from E1
D11 20 49 44  1° 5' 31"
E1  9 9 0  E1 from F1
E11 18 32 34 0° 32' 54"
F1  8 26 6  F1 from G1
F\,. 17 3 34 0° 58' 47"
G   7 27 19  G1 from H1
G1’ 15 3 9   0° 34' 43"
Hi  6 52 36
With this grating, the third, fourth, and following spectra
were well seen, but the fixed lines could not be seen with
sufficient distinctness for accurate measurement in those
beyond the first and second.
He therefore used another grating in which e = 0*005919
of an inch ; and when the light fell upon it vertically, he
obtained the following results for the first five spectra with
the lines D, E, and F, for the first four with E, for the first
three with F and G, and for the first two with H.
Names of
fixed lines.
Distance of
fixed lines
from axis.
C1  2° 20'57"
D1  2 6 30
D’l 4 13 7
Dm 6 20 7
DIV 8 27 43
Dv 10 35 53
E1 1 53 7
E11 3 46 17
Ein 5 39 50
EIV 7 33 41
All the observations made with both the systems of lines are
represented by the expression
. ly) va
sm 6   
€
Names of
fixed lines.
Distance of
fixed lines
from axis.
Ev 9° 28' 3"
F1  1 44 19
F11 3 28 45
F111 5 13 23
FIV 6 58 18
G1 1 32 22
G11 3 4 57
Gm 4 37 30
H1 1 27 0
Hn 2 50 11
That is, with rays falling vertically, the sines of the angle
of deviation of any fixed line or ray of definite refrangibility
from the axis in the different spectra which succeed others,
are as the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
The last of these systems of lines has the remarkable
property of having all the spectra on one side of the axis
twice as luminous as those on the other. Fraunhofer sup¬
posed that one of the sides of each line had been sharper
than the other, and confirmed this opinion by tracing lines
on a layer of fat, so that one line was less sharp than the
other, and it produced the same inequality in the intensity
of the light of the spectra on each side of the axis.
If the ray does not fall vertically upon the system of
grooves or lines, but is inclined to it in a plane which in- Periodical
tersects the parallel lines vertically, the same effect is pro- Colours,
duced as if the distance between the middle of the lines, or
c, were diminished in the ratio of the radius to the cosine
of the angle of incidence. Hence the distance of the spec¬
tra from the axis increases as the cosine of the angle of
incidence. If cr therefore is the angle of incidence, then
we have—
• /i(v) va
sm 6 ' = 
€ cos cr
This, however, is only true when the system of lines is
coarse and cr not very large. But in fine systems of lines
it is otherwise—the spectra on both sides of the axis are
no longer symmetrical; and in the system where
c = 0-0001223, when cr is = 55°, we have the deviation
of D' on one side of the axis=15° 16', and on the other
side of the same axis 30° 33'.
Hitherto we have treated of spectra formed by the light Spectra by
transmitted through the gratings, or through plates of glass reflection,
with systems of lines etched upon one of its surfaces. But
M. Fraunhofer examined also the spectra produced by
reflection from the etched surfaces of the glass plates. For
this purpose, he coated the surface of the glass with a black
resinous varnish of the same refractive power as the glass.
Then when light reflected from the system of lines fell on
the object-glass of the telescope, the very same phenomena
appeared as when the light passed through the same system
of lines at the same angle of inclination, spectra not sym¬
metrical being seen. The intensity of the spectra was still
such that the distances of the various lines can be deter¬
mined with great accuracy.
M. Fraunhofer has noticed it as very remarkable that, Polariza-
under a certain angle of incidence, & portion of a spectrum t*011 of
produced by reflection consists of entirely polarized light.
This angle of incidence varies greatly for the different n ht
spectra, and even still very perceptibly for the different
colours of one and the same spectrum. Thus, with the glass
system of lines, where e = 0-0001223, the ray E1 in the
green part of the first spectrum is polarized when cr = 490,
but the same green part of the second spectrum on the same
side of the axis is only polarized when o- = 40°, and the
green part of the first spectrum lying on the opposite side
of the axis is not polarized till cr = 69°. In this last case
the remaining colours of the spectrum are imperfectly po¬
larized. This was less the case in the second spectrum
above mentioned, where the colour still remained polarized
when the angle of incidence was perceptibly altered. In
the spectrum where the green light was polarized at 69°,
the light was at no angle of incidence so completely po¬
larized as in the first spectrum at 49°. With a system of
lines in which c is larger than the one above mentioned,
the green rays in the spectra already referred to are po¬
larized at totally different angles of incidence.
A very singular consequence arises from the formula de¬
duced from theory by M. Fraunhofer, and representing his
experiments. If the distance c between the lines is less
than the length of an undulation, and the light falls ver¬
tically on the grating, so that o-=0, it follows that no co¬
loured ray remains visible, however the light may fall, and
only the white light becomes visible in the axis. Hence
all scratches or inequalities on polished surfaces can pro¬
duce no spectra, or no disturbance in the light which the
surface refracts or reflects, and consequently no imperfec¬
tion in the images which they form. M. Fraunhofer like¬
wise draws the conclusion “ that it would be impossible by
1 M. Fraunhofer remarks that it requires much good fortune, even with s=0’0001223, to find a diamond point which shall trace several
thousands of such lines without being altered, and he had succeeded only in obtaining one system. It is only by trial that a useful
diamond point can be obtained. As every line requires to be drawn singly with great care, the labour of drawing two thousand is
enormous. Fraunhofer drew lines so close that there were 32,000 of them in a Paris inch. By etching the first and last lines of the
system somewhat stronger than the rest, he measured, by a microscopic apparatus, the distance between these two lines, the etching
machine itself reading the lines which were etched. In this way, knowing the number of lines, viz., 3601, and the distance between
the first and last, he obtained t, or the distance between the middle of any two lines.
OPTICS.
613
Periodical any means to render such inequalities (those less than e)
Colours, visible,” and that a microscopic object, the diameter of which
is =e, and consists of two parts, cannot be recognised as
consisting of two parts. “ This,” he adds, “ shows us the
limits which are set to vision through microscopes.” This
result, if clearly established, would be a very remarkable one.
It is very obvious, that if the distances of the etched
lines or the wires in gratings are unequal, the larger
distances c will give smaller spectra, and the smaller dis¬
tances e larger spectra, which will be mixed with each other.
I Fraunhofer, however, conceived it would be interesting to
know what would happen if the intervals c were regularly
unequal, that is, if the inequality in the distances were re¬
gularly repeated in equal parts. With this view, he etched
parallel lines in various ways, regularly unequal upon plates
of glass covered with gold leaf. If the distances between
the lines are expressed by c, €", e"7 and if one of the equal
parts which consists of unequal e’s is expressed by e' +
€" + c'" + €n, then the distances of the various spectra
were found by experiment to be
. rly) va
sin 0 = , —jn .
€+€ +€  +€n
The phenomena of spectra thus produced are chiefly
remarkable on account of their different intensity. With
some systems of lines of this kind, several spectra, or parts
of them, may be wholly wanting, or have so slight an inten¬
sity that they are not easily observed ; whilst the succeeding
ones, ao-ain, become very intense. Owing to this cause,
the fixed lines in these spectra may be observed. In the
usual systems consisting of equal spaces 6, the lines CXI1, FXI1,
or the fixed lines C, F, in the twelfth spectrum can be seen ;
but with a regularly unequal system of lines, where every
division consists of three shades e different among themselves,
and are as 25 : 33: 42, the lines Cx», DXI1, Ex“, and F™
are seen with such distinctness that their distances from the
axis can be accurately measured. The reason of this is,
that with such systems of lines, the tenth and the eleventh
spectra are almost wholly wanting. With this system of
lines indeed, Fraunhofer saw EXXIV, or the line E in the 24th
spectrum, so distinctly that its distance could be measured.
When the gratings and systems of lines are immersed in
fluids the same phenomena are produced, but the distances
of all the spectra from the axis are diminished in the in¬
verse ratio of the
indices of refrac¬
tion.
Fraunhofer has
given also some
fine drawings of a
beautiful class of
phenomena pro¬
duced by the dif¬
fraction of light
passing through
round and quad¬
rangular aper¬
tures,either singly
or arranged re¬
gularly. When
a plate of brass
perforated with /
two equal aper- , ,
tures 0’02227 of /
an inch in diame¬
ter, and 0'03831
distant, is placed Fig.m.
in front of the object-glass, and the aperture of the helio
Apertures.
state round, the extraordinary appearance shown in fig. 117 Periodical
was seen. It consisted of 65 elliptical spectra distributed Colours,
in concentric rings, the outermost of which contains 28
spectra, the next 20, the next 12, and the central one 5.
When the circular apertures are arranged so as to cor¬
respond with the (;
four angles of a
square, the effect
produced is simi¬
lar to fig. 118.
One of the
most splendid
figures of this
kind is produced
by crossing two
gratings with the
wires at right
angles to each
other: a circular
image is covered rigiis.
with narrow spectra radiating from the centre, but occupy¬
ing only parts of different radii. The spectra are rectan¬
gular, of about a line wide, and from five lines to five inches
long. The violet end of each is towards the centre. In
some places the spectra touch and overlap each other, but
the greater number are insulated.
Our limits will not permit us to pursue this curious sub¬
ject any farther, and we must refer our readers to Fraun¬
hofer’s own work,1 and to another published by Schwerd
of Spires in 1835,2 in which he has given drawings of an
immense variety of beautiful phenomena.
As the various phenomena of diffraction observed by
Arago, Fresnel, Young, Fraunhofer, and Schwerd are
susceptible of being explained by the undulatory theory,
even facts of the same class, and having a similar origin,
cannot possess much interest in our inquiries into the
physical causes to which they must be ultimately referred.
We shall now proceed, however, to give an account of a
new series of facts discovered by Sir David Brewster.
In all the phenomena of gratings and systems of lines ob- Rece”t dls*
served by Fraunhofer, the central image of the luminous coverie8‘
aperture in the heliostate is white, a result that might have
been expected, as that light is reflected from the original
surface of the glass, and cannot interfere with any other
light. “ If the lines,” says Fraunhofer, “ were so thick that
one touched another, and consequently had no space be¬
tween them, no light could be regularly reflected from the
etched surface, and would, as from every other polished
surface, be dispersed. Were the intermediate spaces
equally wide as the lines, the etched surface could only re¬
gularly reflect half as much light as an equal surface of glass
that was not etched ; therefore the quantity of regularly
reflected light from an etched surface of glass is in pi-opor-
tion to the quantity of light which is reflected from a sur¬
face of glass of the same size not etched, or as the width of
the spaces between any two neighbouring lines is to the
width of these lines.”3
These conclusions, however irresistible they seem to be,
are very far from being correct; for, upon examining a
series of several systems of lines or grooves cut on steel
for him by the late Sir John Barton, Sir David Brewster
observed, that in several of them the central image hitherto
described as ivhite or colourless had a distinct colour, which
was the same in every part of the system. In one of the
systems, on which there were 1000 lines in an inch, the
central image had its tint a greenish-blue at a perpendicular
1 See Edin. Journal of Science, N.S., No. xiii., p. 101, and No. xiv., p. 251.
2 Die Jjeugungs-ersheinungen, aus dem Fundamental-gesetz dem undulations theorie analytische entwickelt und in Bieldern dargestellt, ''on
F. M. Schwerd, Manheim, 1835. ‘ 3 Fraunhofer, Edin. Jour, of Science, No. xiii., p. 109.
614
OPTICS.
Teriodical incidence, which suffered no change by turning round the
Colours, nor by reflecting the light from different parts of the
system. He found the same colours on various other sys¬
tems of lines, and upon examining them at different angles
of incidence, he found that the tints varied with the inci¬
dence, being a maximum at a vertical incidence, diminishing
as the incidence increased, and disappearing at an angle of
90°. The following were the general results with the
grooves on steel:—
Number of Orders and portions of orders of colours from 0° to 90°
grooves in Gf incidence,
the inch.
500 Citron-yellow of the first order shading to white.
625 One complete order of colours, together with the reddish-
yellow of the second order. The colours very faint.
1000 Four complete orders of colours.
1000 One complete order, with blue, green, and yellowish-
green of the second order.
1250 One complete order, with blue and bluish-green of the
second order. The colours very faint.
2000 One complete order, together with blue, green, and
greenish-yellow of the second order.
2500 One complete order, together with the full blue of the
second order.
3333 Gamboge-yellow of the first order.
5000 One complete order, together with bluish-white of the
second order.
10,000 One complete order, with blue and fainter blue of the
second order.
In the third specimen, with 1000 grooves, mentioned in
this table, the following were the four orders of colour:—
Colours.
White  
Yellow  
Reddish-orange 
Pink 
Junction of pink and blue,
Brilliant blue 
Whitish 
Yellow 
Pink  
Junction of pink and blue,
Blue   
Bluish-green 
Yellowish-green  
Whitish-green  
Whitish-yellow 
Y ellow 
Pinkish-yellow 
Pink-red 
Whitish-pink  
Green  
Yellow  
Reddish 
Angles of incidence.
 90° O'
 80 0£
 77
 76 20
 75 40
 74 30
 71 0
 64 45
 59 45
 58 10
 56 0
 54 30
 53 15
 51 0
 49 0
 47 15
 41 0
 36 0
 31 0
 24 0
 10 0
  0 0
These colours are obviously analogous to those of the
reflected rings in thin plates, though with a white centre,
but they have not the same composition. By turning the
system of lines round in azimuth, the same colours are seen
at the same angles of incidence, and they suffer no change
either by varying the distance of the luminous aperture, or
the distance of the eye of the observer.
Desirious of seeing what effect would be produced when Periodical
the original surface of the steel was almost wholly removed, Colours.
Sir John Barton executed for Sir D. Brewster a specimen v 
with 2000 grooves in an inch, in which this was nearly
effected. Unfortunately, however, the diamond point which
he used broke before he had executed any considerable
space, and the experiments, therefore, with so small a
portion, were less complete than could have been desired.
The specimen, however, gave four orders of colours,
which were developed at greater angles of incidence than
in the preceding table. The following were the results:—
Colours. Angles of incidence.
White  go0 O'
Straw-yellow 
Faint red 
Pink ...i 
First limit of pink and blue  80 0
Blue 
Green 
Yellow 
Red 
Pink  
Second limit of pink and blue 69 40
Blue 
Green 
Yellowish-green 
Yellow 
Orange   
Scarlet 
Purple 
Third limit of pink and blue 48 0
Blue 
Brilliant green 
Yellowish-green 
Yellow  
Reddish 10 0
1 he property established by the preceding experiment is
certainly one of a very remarkable kind. That a pure and
highly-polished metallic surface, which reflects light per¬
fectly white, should actually decompose it when the surface
is reduced to narrow lines, is inconsistent with every doc¬
trine respecting light. Here there are no rays to interfere,
no doubly-refracted pencils, and, in short, none of the ordi¬
nary conditions on which the decomposition of light de¬
pends. That the colour does not arise from light that has
entered a certain way into the body interfering with that
which is regularly reflected, is obvious from the fact, that
in two specimens of 2000 grooves in an inch, impressed on
black wax, the new colours were very distinct, the vertical
tint being a greenish-yellow of the second order in one
specimen, and a gamboge-yellow in the other, in addition
to one complete order of colours at greater incidences.
The following experiments, intended to show the effect
of a variable refracting power in the reflecting surface, are
calculated to give us some insight into the nature of this
new property of light. In the following table Sir David
Brewster has described the changes produced upon the
colours, by placing different fluids on the reflecting sur¬
face :—
No. of grooves
in an inch.
312*
500
625
1000
1250
Maximum vertical tint
without a fluid.
No colour
Citron-yellow of first order 
Reddish-yellow of second order ..
Yellowish-green of second order.
Bluish-green, faint  
Maximum tint with three
different fluids.
1. Water—tinge of yellow.
2. Alcohol—tinge of yellow.
3. Oil of cassia—faint reddish-yellow.
1. Water—tinge of red.
2. Alcohol—diluted pink.
3. Oil of cassia—a bluer pink.
1. Water—faint pink of second order.
2. Alcohol—ditto more pink.
3. Oil of cassia—bluish-pink of second order.
1. Water—pinkish-red, second order.
2. Alcohol—brilliant pink, ditto.
3. Oil of cassia—greenish-blue, third order.
1. Water—yellow, second order.
2. Alcohol—yellower.
3. Oil of cassia—yellowish-pink.
OPTICS.
Periodical
Colours.
615
No. of grooves
in an inch.
2,000
2,500
3,333
5,000
10,000
Maximum vertical tint
without a fluid.
Greenish-yellow, second order.
Blue, second order 
Gamboge-yellow, first order...
Bluish-white, second order 
Fine blue, second order 
Maximum tint with three
different fluids.
1. Water—brownish-red, second order.
2. Alcohol—pinkish-red, ditto.
3. Oil of cassia—greenish-blue.
f 1. Water—dilute-green.
I 2. Alcohol—greenish-white, second order.
{ 3. Oil of cassia—bright gamboge-yellow.
1. Water—pinkish-red, first order.
2. Alcohol—reddish-pink.
3. Oil of cassia—bright blue, second order.
f 1. Water—pale yellow.
| 2. Alcohol—yellow, with tinge of orange.
1 3. Oil of cassia—yellowish-pink, second order.
1. Water—greenish-white, second order.
2. Alcohol—yellowish-white.
3. Oil of cassia—brilliant gamboere-yellow.
Periodical
Colours
Similar results were obtained with grooves impressed upon
wax ; hence it follows that more orders of colours, and higher
tints, at a given incidence, are developed by diminishing
the refractive power of the grooved surface. But one of
the most interesting results in this table is the part in
which the colours are entirely developed by the fluids ap¬
plied to the surface ; and hence if we had transparent fluids
of much higher refractive powers, the colours would be pro¬
duced when the intervals were much larger.
Similar phenomena were developed when the grooves
were impressed on the fusible metal, on tin, and on isin¬
glass. In those on isinglass, the new colours were seen also
in the transmitted central image, and were extremely bril¬
liant ; but they were not decidedly complementary to those^
in the reflected image. The following were the colours of
the reflected and transmitted image in isinglass, beginning
from 90° of incidence :—
Colour of the Colour of the
reflected same image, seen
central image. by transmission.
Yellow  Deep blue.
Orange  Paler blue.
Pink P1ue.
First limit of pink and blue  Blue.
Blue  Pink.
Green  Orange-pink.
Yellow  Orange.
Orange  Yellow.
Pink Yellow.
Second limit of pink and blue  Yellow.
Blue  Yellow.
Sir D. Brewster was now desirous of observing what took
place in the prismatic images, when the colours appeared in
the principal or central image.
Let AB (fig. 119) be the reflected image of a longrect-
angular aperture fi’om the spaces between the grooves, and
ab, db', a"b", d"b"\ the a , ,,
prismatic images ot it; w,
vv, &c., being the violet
sides, and rr, rr, &c., the
red sides of these spectra.
Then, in the
First spectrum ab, the
violet rays are obliterated at
m at an incidence of 74°,
and the red rays at n, at an
incidence of 66°, the inter¬
mediate colours, blue, green,
being obliterated at inter¬
mediate points between m
and n , and at angles of in¬
cidence intermediate be¬
tween 74° and 66°. In the
Second spectrum dl>, the
violet rays are obliterated at J
iri at an incidence of 66° 20',
and the red at n at 54° 45'.
In the
Fig. 119.
Third spectrum d'l)', the violet rays are obliterated at
m at 57°, and the red at n at 41° 35'. And in the
Fourth spectrum d"b"', the violet rays are obliterated at
m" at 48°, and the red rays at n" at 23° 30'.
Another similar succession of obliterated tints takes
place on all the prismatic images at a lesser incidence,
as shown at /iv, juV, the violet being obliterated at /jl, and
the red at v, and the intermediate colours at intermediate
points. In this second succession the line /xv begins and
ends at the same angle of incidence as the line mn in the
third prismatic image d'l)'; and the line \xv on the second
prismatic image corresponds with m'n" on the fourth
prismatic image.
This singular obliteration of the colours is shown more
clearly in fig. 120, where rmvn is a part of one of the pris¬
matic images, rr the red space, gg the green space, bb the
blue, and vv the violet space. The line of obliteration mn
begins at m, the extreme violet being obliterated there, so
that the curve of illumination abm (fig. 121) is just affected
at one extremity m. The line advances into the spectrum,
and at the point corresponding to d (fig. 121) a portion of
the blue and violet is obliterated, as shown by the notch in
the curve; at e, a portion of the green and blue; at A, a
portion of the red and green; and at n the extreme red.
A similar obliteration of tints takes place on the ordinary
image AB.
The first obliteration—viz., that of the violet—takes place
at o (fig. 119), and that of the red at p ; while the inter¬
mediate colours disappear at intermediate points. This first
space of obliteration has no corresponding one at the same
incidence in any of the prismatic images.
The second obliteration of the violet in AB takes place
at q, and that of the red at r, and this corresponds in inci-
616
OPTICS.
Colours.
h
Periodical dence with the obliterations rriri, ruin on the second pris¬
matic image.
The third obliteration of the violet takes place at s, and
that of the red at and this corresponds in incidence with
the four obliterations on the second and fourth prismatic
• . f i in in ,f/ *,r
images—viz.,/xv, /jlv, m n , m n .
In all these phenomena the points m, n, [x, v, &c., are
only the points of minimum intensity, or of maximum ob¬
literation ; for the tints never entirely disappear, and those
obliterated at each line mn form an oblique spectrum con¬
taining all the prismatic colours.
The analysis of these curious and apparently complicated
phenomena becomes very simple when they are examined
under homogeneous illumination. The effect produced in
red light is represented in fig. 122,
where AB is the image of the rect¬
angular aperture reflected from the
faces n of the steel, and the four
images on each side of it correspond
with the prismatic images. All these
nine images, however, consist of ho¬
mogeneous red light, which is ob¬
literated at the fifteen shaded rect¬
angles, which are the minima of the
new series of periodical colours which
cross both the ordinary and the pris¬
matic images. The centres p, r, t,
n, v, &c., of these rectangles cor¬
respond with the points marked with
the same letters in fig. 119; and if
we had drawn the same figure for
violet light, the centres of the rect¬
angles would have corresponded with
o, q, s, m, fi, &e., in fig. 119. The
rectangles should have been shaded
off to represent the phenomena ac¬
curately, but the only object of the figure is to show to the
eye the position and relations of the minima of the periods.
If it should be practicable to remove a still greater por¬
tion of the faces n, the first minimum p (fig. 122), would
commence at a greater angle of incidence ; and other two
rows of minima—namely, rows of five and six—would be
found extending to the fifth and sixth prismatic images.
The arrangement and succession of these is easily deducible
from fig. 122, where the law of the phenomenon is obvious
to the eye.
The following table contains the angles of incidence
reckoned from the perpendicular at which these minima
occur in the extreme rays :—
B
Fig. 122.
Position of the Minima in Red Light.
. T 1st Prism 2d Prism 3d Prism 4th Prism
Ord. Im. Jm. Im. 1m. Im.
First minima,p...76° O' 66° 0' 55° 45' 41° 35' 23° 30'
Second minima,r..55 45 41 35 23 30
Third minima 23 30
Position of the Minima in Violet Light.
^ . T 1st Prism 2d Prism 3d Prism 4th Prism
Ord. Im. Im. Im> Im. Im.
First minima 81° 30' 74° 0' 66° 20' 57° 0' 48° 0'
Second minima...66 20 57 0 48 0
Third minima 48 0
When the steel with 1000 grooves is exposed to common
light, and the incident ray is very near the perpendicular,
the 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th prismatic images are combined
into a mass of whitish light, terminated externally by a
black space. As the angle of incidence increases, the 6th,
7th, 8th, and 9th images are combined into this mass, then
the 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th images, and so on; the black
space which terminates this mass receding from the axis or
image AB (fig. 119), as the obliquity of the incident ray Periodical
increases. Colours.
Having covered the steel plate with water and oil of cas-
sia in succession, the angular distances of the black space
were found to be as follows at the same incidence:—
Air   12° 23'
Water 17 15
Oil of cassia  21 22
the sines of which are inversely as the indices of refraction
of the fluids.
Phenomena analogous to those above described take
place on the grooved surfaces of gold, silver, and calcareous
spar, &c.
In order to study this subject under a more general as¬
pect, it was desirable to examine the phenomena exhibited
by grooved surfaces of different refractive powers. It was
obviously impossible to procure systems of lines upon trans¬
parent bodies in which the grooves should have exactly the
same distance and magnitude; but Sir D. Brewster con¬
ceived it practicable to impress upon different substances
the very grooves which produced the preceding phenomena,
and he succeeded in impressing the system of 1000 grooves
upon tin, realgar, and isinglass.
The following results were obtained with tfm, the colours
being those upon AB, fig. 119:—
White 90° 0'
Yellow 
Pink 
First junction of pink and blue  76 20
Greenish-blue 
Yellow 
Pink  
(Second junction of pink and blue...  57 40
Bluish-green 
Yellow 
Orange  
Pink 
Third junction of pink and blue.
First minimum of red .’  76 0
Second „ „    61 0
The following results were obtained with realgar:—
White 90° O'
Yellow 80 0
Pink    75 30
First junction of pink and blue  73 10
Blue   72 0
Bluish-green     70 15
Yellow     63 0
Bright pink :   54 0
Second junction of pink and blue...   47 0
Bluish-green    41 0
Yellow   36 0
Pink 32 0
More and more pink     
First minimum of red   72 0
Second „ „  61 15
The following results were obtained with isinglass. The
colours were generally the same as in the steel:—
The first limit of pink and blue was at 75° 45'
The blue of second order    73 45
The second limit of pink and blue was at  54 30
In these experiments the tin gave nearly the same results
as the steel; but in the realgar and the isinglass similar tints
were produced at a less angle of incidence than in the steel.
The minima of the periods were exhibited very finely on
the isinglass, and were produced at smaller angles of inci¬
dence.
In a specimen with 1000 grooves upon isinglass, the third
pink, or that seen upon steel at 36°, was the highest; but
after drying, the pink descended to yellow, and subsequently
to green.
If the isinglass is removed from the steel when it is still
soft, the edges of the grooves get rounded and lose their
Periodical
Colours.
Properties
of mother-
of-pearl.
OPTICS.
sharpness, and only one prismatic image is seen on each
side of the ordinary image, as in mother-of-pearl.
The mass of white light is finely seen in the impressions
taken upon tin, but never appears upon isinglass.
The prismatic colours seen on mother-of-pearl are ex¬
actly of the same kind as the prismatic images of grooved
surfaces, with this difference, that a single prismatic image
only is seen on each side of the common colourless image.
The following account of these colours has been given by
Sir David Brewster, who first analyzed them, and discovered
their communicabilify to wax, the fusible metals, &c.:—
Mother-of-pearl, which constitutes the interior lining of
the shell of the pearl oyster, and of various other shells, has
been long employed in the arts for the purposes of use
and of ornament. Every one must have observed the
play of prismatic tints, from which this substance derives
much of its value as an ornament; but the nature and
origin of these tints were never made the subject of inves¬
tigation till Sir David Brewster took up the subject, and
published the results of his observations in the Phil. Trans.
for 1814.
In order to study well the properties of this substance,
we must select a regularly-formed piece or plate of mother-
of-pearl, which is known by the uniformity of its colour in
daylight, and scarcely exhibits in that light any of the
prismatic tints. Let this plate be now ground flat on both
sides (but not polished) upon a hone or piece of slate, or
upon a bit of glass, with the powder of schistus, or with
fine emery. When this is done, hold the plate close to the
eye, and view in it by reflection the flame of a candle, or of
an Argand lamp, or the flame of two or three candles, so
placed as to appear like one, and we shall see a dull and
reddish image, free from all prismatic colours, its dulness
arising from the imperfect polish of the surface. On one
side of, or above or below this image, will be seen a brighter
image, with the colours of the spectrum, nearly as if it had
been formed by a prism.
When the plate of mother-of-pearl is turned round in its
own plane, the prismatic image will follow the motion of
the plate, and revolve round the common image, the blue
rays being nearest the common image, and the red rays
farthest from it. If the plate is so placed that the prismatic
image is in the plane of reflection, and between the common
image and the observer, it will be found that the distance
between the two images increases with the angle of inci¬
dence, being about 2° 7' at an incidence not far from the
perpendicular, and 9° 14' at a very great obliquity. This
distance between the images varies more rapidly when the
plate is turned round 180° in azimuth, so that the common
image is between the prismatic image and the observer;
but in this case we cannot measure the angle accurately
much beyond 60°, when it is nearly 4° 30'.
Beyond the prismatic image, and in the same line with
it and the common image, will be observed a mass of
coloured light, nearly as far beyond the prismatic image as
the prismatic image is from the common image. The dis¬
tance of this patch of coloured light varies according to a
different law from that of the prismatic image, as the rays
which form it have previously suffered refraction. This
mass of light has a beautiful crimson colour at great angles
of obliquity.1
Hitherto we have considered the phenomena only when
the surface has that degree of polish which accompanies
smooth grinding. If a greater degree of polish, however,
is communicated to the plate, the common image becomes
more brilliant, and a new prismatic image starts up, dia¬
metrically opposite to the Jirst prismatic image, and at the
same distance from the common image. This second pris¬
matic image resembles in every respect the first. Its bril-
617
liancy increases with the polish, and when this polish is Periodical
very high, the second prismatic image is nearly as bright as Colours-
the first, which has its brilliancy a little impaired by polish-
ing. This second image is never accompanied, like the
first, by a mass of coloured light. If the polish of the sur¬
face is removed by grinding, the second prismatic image
vanishes, and the first resumes its primitive brilliancy.
When the preceding experiments are repeated on the op¬
posite surface of the plate of mother-of-pearl, the same phe¬
nomena are observed, but in a reverse order, the first pris¬
matic image and the mass of coloured light being now seen
on the opposite side of the plate.
In measuring the angular distances of the prismatic image Its re-
from the common image seen by reflection, Sir David fleeted co-
Brewster had occasion to fix the mother-of-pearl to a gonio-
meter by means of a cement made of rosin and bees’-wax.
Upon removing it from the cement, by insinuating the edge
of a knife, and making it spring off, the plate of mother-of-
pearl left a clean impression of its own surface ; and he was
surprised to observe that the cement had actually received
the property of producing the colours which were exhibited
by the mother-of-pearl. This was at first attributed by Sir
D. Brewster, and others who saw the experiments, to a very
thin film of mother-of-pearl detached from the plate, and
left upon the cement; but subsequent experiments con¬
vinced him that the mother-of-pearl communicated to the
cement its own properties.
The properties of mother-of-pearl may also be communi¬
cated in this way to balsam of tolu, gum-arabic, gold-leaf
placed upon wax, tinfoil, fusible metal composed of bis¬
muth and mercury, and to lead, by hard pressure, or the
blow of a hammer. When the impression is first made upon
the fusible metal, the play of colours is singularly fine;
but the metallic surface soon loses its polish, and the colours
gradually decay.
If dissolved isinglass or gum-arabic, &c., is placed upon
the plate of mother-of-pearl, and allowed to harden upon
it, they will exhibit in the most splendid manner the colours
of the substance; or if we indurate these gums between
two plates of mother-of-pearl, we shall have transparent
films, exhibiting on both sides the play of the prismatic
tints.
If we now examine the prismatic images reflected from
the wax which has received the impression from an unpol¬
ished piece of mother-of-pearl, we shall find that the single
prismatic image which is thus produced is on the right
hand of the common image, whereas it is on the left hand
of the common image in the mother-of-pearl itself.
At different angles of incidence, the two coloured images
formed by the wax follow the same laws as those produced
by the mother-of-pearl; but the mass of green and crimson
tints never appears in the impressions taken from mother-
of-pearl, because they are produced by light which has
penetrated the mother-of-pearl, and has after refraction been
reflected from one or more thin plates which lie between
the strata of which the mother-of-pearl is composed.
In communicating to isinglass or gum-arabic the super- Transmit-
ficial structure of mother-of-pearl, their transparency enablested colours,
us to observe the phenomena of the transmitted colours.
The two prismatic images were both visible—the primary
one being remarkably brilliant, and the second one scarcely
perceptible; but when the light was transmitted through
the gum, the primary image was nearly extinct, while the
secondary one was unusually brilliant and highly coloured,
far surpassing in splendour those which are formed by
transmission through the mother-of-pearl itself. When
both the surfaces of isinglass or gum-arabic have received
the superficial structure of mother-of-pearl, four images
are seen.
4i
vor.. xvi.
l See Th.il. Trans. 1836, p. 55.
618
OPTICS.
Periodical
Colours.
From these facts it is obvious that the principal pheno¬
mena of mother-of-pearl have their origin in a particular
configuration of its surface. By the use of the microscope
Sir David Brewster discovered in every specimen of mother-
of-pearl that gave the prismatic images a grooved structure
upon its surface, resembling the delicate texture of the skin
at the tip of an infant’s finger, or the lines which mark out
islands and coasts upon a map.
In many specimens of mother-of-pearl the grooves are
parallel, but they are often arranged in all possible direc¬
tions like the veins of agate, and in this case the common
reflected image is surrounded with a number of prismatic
images, sometimes arranged in a circular or oval form more
or less regular. Sometimes the spaces between the grooves,
or rather the edges of the strata of the shell, can be seen
by the naked eye, or by a magnifying power of six or eight
times, in which case the prismatic images are less highly
coloured, having whitish light in their centre, and are
placed close to the common image. At other parts of the
same plate more than 3000 grooves may be counted in an
inch, and in some places they cannot be detected by ordinary
magnifying powers.
The direction of the grooves is always at right angles to
the line joining the common image and the prismatic image.
Had the grooved structure appeared only upon its external
surface, the phenomena and the communicable colours
would have disappeared when the surface was ground
down; but the surprising part of the phenomena is, that
if we grind down the external surface with the finest pow¬
ders, and polish it to the utmost degree, we never can
grind out the grooved structure, and replace it by a flat
surface. The edges of the shell break off by the action of the
finest powders, so that the termination of one stratum can¬
not pass into the subjacent stratum without being separated
by a distinct line or edge, formed by the fracture of its thin
marginal parts. As all the strata have thus a prismatic
termination, the mass of green and crimson light is reflected
from near the edge of the surface upon which the super¬
incumbent stratum lies.
Observa- Sir John Herschel discovered in very thin plates of
tions of Sir mother-of-pearl a pair of nebulous prismatic images more
John Her- distant from the central image than the two prismatic
ones above described, and also a pair of fainter nebulous
images, the line joining which is perpendicular to the line
joining the first pair. He saw them by looking through
thin pieces between the 70th and 300th of an inch thick.
They are produced by a veined structure, in which there
were 3700 veins in an inch. They cross the common
grooves at all angles, and are parallel to the plane passing
through the centres of the two systems of the coloured
rings.
In applying apertures of various figures to the mirrors
and object-glasses of telescopes, Sir John Herschel obtained
the following results:—
Effects pro- With the largest circular diaphragm, either near to or
duced by distant from the spectrum or object-glass, the disc and rings
increase inversely as the diameter
of the aperture. When the aper¬
ture was only 1 inch in a telescope
of 7 feet in focal length, the disc of
the star was well defined, and sur¬
rounded with one ring only faintly
tinged with white, faint red, black,
very faint blue, ivhite, extremely
faint red, and black, reckoning from
the centre. With a half-inch aper- Fig. 123.
ture, the rings were invisible, the disc greatly enlarged, the
. ,sliading to the circumference like some comets,
ihis is shown in fig. 123.
winula!l aPertl^res tlle phenomena were highly beau¬
tiful. W hen the outside of the annulus was 3 inches, and
schel.
apertures
of various
shapes.
the inside l£, Capella appeared as in fig. 124, and the double Periodical
star Cantor as in fig. 12o. When gw-’./v/.mmtm Colours,
the breadth of the annular aper¬
ture is diminished, the disc and
the breadth of the rings also
diminish, while the number of
visible rings increases. The
appearance of Capella with an- Fig. 124. Fig. 125.
nular apertures of 5*5 inches exterior and 5‘5 interior, of
0*7 exterior and 02 interior, and of 2‘2 exterior and 2 0
IFlg-12e- Fig. 127. Fig. 128.
interior, is represented in figs. 126, 127, and 128. In the
last figure the disc was reduced to a point, and the rings
were so numerous and close that they could scarcely be
counted. When the breadth of this annulus was reduced
one-half, the rings were invisible.
When two annuli, as shown in fig. 129, were used, large
halos or rings were seen by Sir
John Herschel, as in fig. 130.
With an aperture of the shape of
an equilateral triangle, or the opening
between two concentric equilateral
triangles, the figure was that shown
in fig. 131, in which the small central
disc was extremely bright, and the
field of the telescope black.
When fig. 131 is seen with the Fig. 129.
telescope out of focus, it changes into fig. 132.
When three circular apertures are placed at the angles
of an equilateral triangle, the effect shown in fig. 133 is
produced.
Periodical
Colours.
Colours of
thick
plates.
OPTICS.
619
When three equal and similar annular apertures were
arranged in the same manner, the effect was as in fig. 124.
lljpUM'""”—
Fig. 132.
When this was thrown out of focus, it had the appearance
Fig. 133. I’ig. 134. Fig. 135.
in fig. 134 ; when brought better into focus, it changed into
fig. 135 ; and when in focus, into fig. 124.1
Sect. IV.—On the Colours of Concave Mirrors or
thick Plates.
The colours produced by thick plates were discovered
by Sir Isaac Newton, who has given the following account
of them :2—“ There is no glass or speculum, however well
polished, but besides the light which it refracts or reflects
regularly, scatters every way irregularly a faint light by
means of which the polished surface, when illuminated in
a dark room by a beam of the sun’s light, may be easily
seen in all positions of the eye. The sun shining into my
darkened chamber through a hole in the shutter AB (fig.
136), one-third of an inch wide, I let the intromitted beam
Fig. 13G.
of light RR' fall perpendicularly upon a glass speculum M,
ground concave on one side and convex -on the other, to
a sphere of 5 feet and 11 inches radius, and quick-silvered
over on the convex side ; and holding a white opaque chart
at the centre of the sphere to which the speculum was
ground, in such a manner that the beam of light might pass
through a little hole made in the middle of the chart to the
speculum, and thence be reflected back to the same hole, I
observed upon the chart four or five concentric rings of
colours like rainbows. If the distance of the chart from the
speculum was much greater or much less than that of 6 feet,
the rings became dilute and vanished.
“ The colours of these rainbows succeeded one another
from the centre outerwards in the same form and order with
those transmitted through the two object-glasses.
“ The diameters of the first four of the bright rings, mea- Periodical
sured between the brightest parts of their orbits at the distance Colours,
of 6 feet from the speculum, were !-}-£, 2f, 2-iT-, 3f inches,
whose squares are in arithmetical progression of the numbers
1, 2, 3,4. If the white circular spot in the middle be reckoned
amongst the rings, and its central light, where it seems to
be most luminous, be put equipollent to an infinitely little
ring, the squares of the diameters of the rings will be in the
progression 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, &c. I measured also the diameters
of the dark circles between these luminous ones, and found
their squares in the progression of the numbers 1J, 3^-,
&c.; the diameters of the first four at the distance of 6 feet
from the speculum being 1T%, 2^, 2§, 4^5- inches. If the
distance of the chart from the speculum was increased or
diminished, the diameters of the circles were increased or
diminished proportionally.
“ When the beam of the sun’s light was reflected back
from the speculum, not directly to the hole in the window,
but to a place a little distant from it, the common centre of
that spot, and of all the rings of colours, fell in the middle
way between the beam of the incident light and the beam
of the reflected light, and by consequence in the centre of
the spherical concavity of the speculum, whenever the chart
on which the rings of colours fell was placed at that centre.
And as the beam of reflected light, by inclining the specu¬
lum, receded more and more from the beam of incident
light, and from the common centre of the coloured rings
between them, these rings grew bigger and bigger, and so
also did the white round spot, and new rings of colours
emerged successively out of their common centre, and the
white spot became a white ring encompassing them ; and
the incident and reflected beams of light always fell upon
the opposite parts of this white ring, illuminating its
perimeter like two mock suns in the opposite parts of an
iris. * *
“ The colours of the new rings were in a contrary order
to those of the former, and arose after this manner. The
white round spot of light in the middle of the rings continued
white to the centre, till the distance of the incident and re¬
flected beams at the chart was about £ parts of an inch,
and then it began to grow dark in the middle. And when
that distance was about If of an inch, the white spot was
become a ring encompassing a dark second spot, which in
the middle inclined to violet and indigo. * *
“ When the distance between the incident and reflected
beams of light became a little bigger, there emerged out
of the middle of the dark spot after the indigo a blue, and
then out of that blue a pale green, and soon after a yellow
and red. * *
“ When the distance of the two beams of light at the
chart was a little more increased, there emerged out of the
middle in order after the red, a purple, a blue, a green, a
yellow, and a red inclining much to purple.”
The Duke de Chaulnes3 observed colours analogous to
those of thin plates, when the surface of a mirror was
covered with a thin film of milk after it was dry, or with a
screen of gauze or muslin placed at a small distance in
front of the mirror. Sir William Herschel4 has given an
account of an interesting experiment, in which, by dispers¬
ing hair-powder in the air before a metallic speculum on
which a beam of light is incident, and receiving the reflected
beam on a screen, fine rings of colour are produced; or an
analogous phenomena may be seen by scattering hair-pow¬
der on the face of a common looking-glass.8
Sir David Brewster has remarked,6 that the method which
he has found the most simple for exhibiting these colours,
is to place the eye immediately behind a small flame, from
a minute wick fed with oil or wax, so that we can examine
1 Sir John Herschel’s Treatise on Light, § 769, &c., in which the reader will find the subject more fully treated.
2 This account is abridged from Newton’s Optics, book ii., part iv., p. 264. 3 Mem. de VAcad. de Paris, 1705, p. 136.
4 Phil. Trans. 1807, part ii. 6 See our art. Chromatics, § ix., vc*l. vi. 6 Treatise on Optics, p. 131, § 80.
620
OPTICS.
Periodical them even at a perpendicular incidence. The colours of
Colours, thick plates may be seen even with a common candle held
's—before the eye at the distance of ten or twelve feet from a
common pane of crown-glass in a window that has accumu¬
lated a little fine dust upon its surface, or that has on its
surface a deposition of fine moisture. Under these circum¬
stances they are so very bright, that they may be seen even
when the pane of glass is clean.
Colours of
double
plates of
equal
thickness.
Fig. 137.
Sect. V—On the Colours Produced by Double Plates
of Glass of Equal Thickness.
In 1815 Sir David Brewster published in the
Transactions1 “ An account of a new species of coloured
fringes produced by the reflection of light between two
plates of parallel glass of equal thickness.”
In these experiments he cut the plates of glass AB, CD
(fig. 137) out of the same piece, and having placed between
them a bit of soft bees’-wax, he pressed them together till
they were at the distance of nearly the tenth of an inch,
and slightly inclined to each other as in the figure, till one
or more of the reflected images
of a circular luminous disc seen
in the direction VR by an eye
at V, were reflected from the
bright and direct image formed
by transmitted light. When
this was done, the reflected
image was crossed with about
fifteen or sixteen beautiful pa¬
rallel fringes. The three central
fringes consist of blackish and
whitish stripes, and the exterior
ones of brilliant stripes of red
and green light; and the central fringes have the same
appearance in relation to the external fringes as the inter¬
nal have to the external rings formed by thin plates. If
the two plates of glass are turned round in a plane at right
angles to the incident ray, the reflected images will move
round the bright image, and the parallel fringes will always
preserve a direction at right angles to a line joining the
centres of the bright and reflected images. Hence it fol¬
lows, that the direction of the fringes is always parallel to
the common section of the four reflecting surfaces which
exercise an action upon the incident light.
The position of the plates remaining as before, let the
inclination of the plates, or, what is the same thing, the
distance of the bright and the reflected image, be varied by
a gentle motion of one of the plates, the coloured fringes
will be found to increase in breadth as the inclination of the
plates is diminished, and to diminish as the inclination of
the plates is increased.
If the light of the circular object, instead of falling per¬
pendicularly upon the plates, is incident at different obli¬
quities, so that the plane of incidence is at right angles to
the common section of the plates, no fringes are visible
across any of the images. But if the plane of incidence is
parallel to the common section of the plates, the reflected
images increase in brightness with the obliquity of inci¬
dence, and the coloured fringes become more vivid. When
the angle of incidence increases from 0° to 90°, the images
that have suffered the greatest number of reflections are
crossed by other fringes, inclined to them at a small angle.
At an angle of about 44°, the image formed by four re-
flections is covered with interfering fringes ; but it is not
till the angle of incidence is greater that this is distinctly
seen on the image formed by two reflections.
Hitherto he had observed no fringes upon the first or
bright image, which is composed of light that has not suf¬
fered reflection from the second plate of glass. By con- Periodical
cealing, however, the bright light of the first image, so as Colours,
to perceive the image formed by a second reflection within
the first plate, and by viewing this image through a small
aperture, which he found of great service in giving distinct¬
ness to all the phenomena, he observed fringes across the
first image far surpassing in precision of outline, and in
richness of colouring, every analogous phenomenon which
he had seen. When these fringes were concealed, he also
observed other fringes on the image immediately behind
them, and formed by a third reflection, from the interior
of the first plate. He concealed the second image, upon
which the fringes were extremely bright, and very faint
stripes were seen upon the one immediately behind it.
In examining these phenomena a little more attentively,
he observed that the size of the fringes in the first image
varied with the distance of the eye from the plates, while
those on the second and fourth image diminished with that
distance.
In pursuing this inquiry, Sir David Brewster found that
the production of the fringes depends upon the action of all
the four surfaces of the two plates of parallel glass ; and that
the magnitude of the fringes are inversely as the thickness
of the plates that produce them at a given inclination.
When the eye is placed between the plates and the lu¬
minous object so as to see the first, third, fifth, seventh,
&c., reflected images, the coloured fringes are also seen, and
have the same character as those already described.
In order to explain the changes which the light under¬
goes in its passage through the plates of glass, let AB, CD
(fig. 137) be a section of two plates at right angles to the
common section of their surfaces, and let RS be a ray of
light incident nearly in a vertical direction. This ray, after
passing through the first plate AB, will suffer a small re¬
fraction at P and Q, and emerge in the direction QY parallel
to RS. At the point P, in the second plate CD, the ray
TP will be reflected to a, again reflected to b, and after
suffering a refraction at b and c, will emerge in the direction
cd, forming with RV an angle equal to twice the inclina¬
tion of the plates. A portion of the reflected ray Pa will
enter the first plate at a, and having suffered reflection and
refraction at /3, the reflected portion /3y will reach the eye
at 6. The ray Yabc will likewise suffer a reflection at c
and e, and will reach the eye at g. In like manner, a part
of the ray PQ will be reflected at Q, and move in the
direction Qrsluv, and another part of it in the direction
swxyz, and these rays will suffer several other reflections;
but the images which they form will be so faint, that the
eye will not be capable of perceiving them. When the
observer, therefore, looks at a luminous body, in the direc¬
tion SR, through the glass plates, he will perceive two
images, one of which is a bright image, seen by the trans¬
mitted light QV, and the other is a faint image, seen prin¬
cipally by the reflected light Yabcd, and composed of
several images, formed by the pencils cd, uv, $, zfy, and ig.
The bright image is not crossed by coloured fringes, but
the fringes appear distinctly upon the other image ; and the
light by which these fringes are formed has suffered two
reflections from the exterior surfaces, and two refractions at
the interior surfaces of the plates.
Dr Thomas Young, in the article Chromatics in this
work,2 has given an explanation of these phenomena upon
the principles of interference; and Sir John Herschel has
shown, by an interesting analysis of them, that they are
well fitted for illustrating the "laws of this class of pheno¬
mena, and may be readily explained by interference.3
When two or three plates are combined, as in the form Fringes in
of concave and convex lenses, and are combined as in the achromatic
double and triple achromatic object-glass, a series of beauti-0,,ject-
   glasses.
1 Vol. vii., p. 435.
§ 6, vol. vi.
3 Treatise on Light, §§ 688-696, See also Biot’s Traite de Physique, tom. iv., p. 246.
OPTICS.
621
Periodical ful systems of rings are developed. The method of ob-
Colours. serving these rings, and by which Sir David Brewster dis-
covered them, is shown in fig. 138, where ABCD is the
section of the object-glass, including a meniscus of air. A
small flame S is placed about four or five inches from the
object-glass, and a small screen G is interposed between
the flame and the eye at E, which is kept as close to S as
possible. The distance of the object-glass is then varied,
till the inverted greenish-coloured flame reflected interiorly
from the concave surface A1B seems to cover the whole
area of the object-glass. When this takes place the rings
may, by a slight change in the position of the object-glass,
or by screening the image formed by reflection from A IB,
be seen in the distinctest manner over the expanded
but enfeebled image formed by a second reflection from the
same surface.
When the flame is small, and the eye sees it projected
against the centre of the object-glass, the rings form a con¬
centric system (as shown in fig. 139), approaching closer and
closer to each other, towards
the circumference of the lens.
Two of these rings mmmm,
nnnn, were distinguished
from the rest by their dark¬
ness, and by the whiteness of
the light between them ; and
they are the bounding lines
of four systems of fringes
into which the general system
subdivides itself by oblique
reflection. In order to see this
change, incline the object-
glass so that the point A is
farther from the eye than B,
and so that the eye may receive the obliquely-reflected
rays from every point of the surface A IB. At a slight
deviation from the perpendicular, the rings become smaller
and closer on the side A, and larger and more separated
on the side B. At greater incidences the inner ring aa
(fig. 139) contracts into an irregular crescent aa (fig. 140).
The second and third rings
bb,cc (fig. 139) do the same, as
shown at bb, cc (fig. 140) ; and
at a greater incidence the dark
ring nn (fig. 139) assumes a
similar form nnnn (fig. 140),
and forms the boundary of
the remote central system,
ncbaabcn. In like manner,
the lower part of the ring
nn (fig. 139) has inclosed a
smaller but similar system of
rings, which are shown at
nririri, and may be called the Fig.140.
near central system. While these changes are going on,
the rings without nn (fig. 139) are undergoing analogous,
though opposite, inflections. The outermost, dddd (fig. 139),
divides itself into two unequal portions, which run out into
B
Fig.141.
x, and become exceedingly
the circumference at the points d, d, d] d' (fig. 140). Then Periodical
the next ring,—viz., the dark one mmmm (fig. 139) Colours,
forming the boundary of the remote external system mmm\,
and of the near central system nimniB (fig. 140). The
four groups of rings thus developed assume at greater in¬
cidences the character shown in fig. 141, but they are not
seen all at once ; and in trac¬
ing their form it is necessary
to cause the image on which
they are produced to be re¬
flected successively from dif¬
ferent parts of the lens. The
rings are so closely packed
together, at a distance from
the white centres x, x, to
which they are all related,
that it is extremely difficult to
perceive them in the present
object-glass. At a still greater
angle of incidence, the rays
close in upon the centres x,
close as the points x, x approach to the circumference of
the lens, and the rays become brighter from the increase
of the light at greater obliquities.
In some double object-glasses the rings can only be seen
by looking through the convex crown-glass lens AB. In
one object-glass the four bounding fringes &tx, #(fig. 141)
united and {formed a black cross, as shown in fig. 142.
From a series of experiments, Sir
David Brewster has found that in
the object-glass shown in fig. 138,
the action of the two surfaces 1, 2 of
the convex lens AB, and the inner ni.
surface 3 of the concave one CD,
are necessary to the production of
these fringes, and hence he concludes
that the rings arise from the inter¬
ference of two pencils of light, one
of which has suffered three reflections
within the convex lens AB, and has passed four times
through its thickness, with another pencil which has suf¬
fered ttvo reflections within the convex lens, and one re¬
flection from the inner surface of the concave lens, and
has passed four times through the thickness of the convex
lens, and tivice through the thickness of the meniscus of
air.
In a triple object-glass, which gave a system of rings
similar to that in fig. 141, they were covered with another
system of very minute fringes, parallel to one another, and
to the line joining the centres x and a*.1
Fig. 142.
Sect. VI.—On the Colours of Double Plates of Glass
of Unequal Thickness, and other Analogous Phe¬
nomena.
Mr W. Nicholson observed the colours of thick plates Colours of
in the glasses employed for the sights of sextants, and he double
considered them analogous to those of thin plates. They plates <>f
have been ascribed, however, by Dr Young,2 “ to the rays u/,e<lu:il
twice reflected in the second plate only.” 1 lcknr?8-
Mr Knox of Belfast3 described some interesting phe- Mr Knox,
nomena already briefly noticed by Dr Young in the article
Chromatics. Having formed a system of the rings of
thin plates, by placing a convex lens on a piece of silvered
glass, he observed the common system of reflected rings,
and also the transmitted system reflected to his eye by the
silvered glass. This is shown in fig. 143, vrhere A and B
are the two systems ; but he was surprised to observe be¬
tween them a system of parallel fringes CDEF, passing
1 Edin. Trans., vol. xii., p. 191.
2 Art. Chromatics, vol. vi., § 6. s phiit Trans. 1815, p. 161.
/
622
OPTICS.
P® 143.
Periodical through the intersection of the two circular systems. These
Colours, fringes were equal in number to the number of the rings in
' A and B. They were equi¬
distant, reached the edge of
the lens on both sides, and were
formed at right angles to the
direction of the light, and tocf„
a line forming the centres of ~
the systems A and B.
Mr Knox then tried the Swr
effect of combining two pri- ^
mary systems of reflected rings
in the same manner. With
this view, he placed a double-
convex lens, about 36 inches
in focal length, on a piece of
plate-glass, with its under side
painted black, and upon the lens he placed a piece of plate-
glass. By these means two sets of primary rings were pro¬
duced, whose relative positions could be altered at pleasure.
By using the shadow of a black card, he found that, instead
of parallel fringes as in fig. 143, he had a new species of
rings of a circular form, from two to three times the diame¬
ter of the primary rings from which they originated. These
rings passed, as before, through the intersections of the
primary ones; and the ring which divided the two classes
passed through a point, whose distance from the centre of each
primary set was in proportion to their longest diameters.
These rings, which Mr Knox calls intersectionary ones,
may be made to vary infinitely in their dimensions accord¬
ing as the diameters of the primary sets differ more or less,
being least where that difference is greatest, and increasing
in size as the two primary sets approach to equality, until
at last they become straight lines, when the two primary
sets are equal. The dimensions of the intersectionary rings
will.also, as Mr Knox remarks, ceteris paribus, diminish as
the two primary sets approach, and increase as they recede
from one another.
As these intersectionary rings are almost always accom¬
panied by a second, and sometimes by a third set of equal
or unequal dimensions, Mr Knox supposes that they may
be produced by primary sets, combined with either trans¬
mitted or reflected sets, provided the two between which
they are formed are of unequal dimensions.
Considering the intersectionary fringes as diagonals to
the angles at which they were formed, Mr Knox conjec¬
tured that if he could form rectilineal fringes by flat plates,
and combine them at different angles, he would produce a
third or diagonal set placed between the other two. He
accordingly took a pair of slips of glass, and by applying
two of their ends together, and using some friction, and a
considerable degree of pressure, he formed a fine set of
rectilineal fringes. By applying a third slip of glass longi¬
tudinally to the upper one of the first two, he formed a
similar set of rectilineal fringes at right angles to the first,
and he immediately observed the diagonal fringes, which
he had anticipated, appear in
the angle between the two
primary sets, as shown in fig.
144, where B and C are the
primary fringes, and D the
intersectionary set, divided
into two classes, as shown by
the dotted line. By forming
the second set of fringes at
different angles with the first,
the central band of the inter¬
sectionary fringes always bi¬
sected the angle. It is a
Tig. 144.
curious circumstance, that though the diagonal fringes are Periodical
formed by the crossing of the two primary sets, yet [they Colours,
never appear at the opposite angle A, nor could they be
made to appear in any angle formed by primary fringes,
unless these fringes were so disposed as to have their red
sides turned towards each other.
Dr Young has given an explanation of these curious Dr Young,
phenomena in the article Chromatics,1 to which we must
refer the reader.
Mr Fox Talbot upon superposing two films of blown Mr Fox
glass, and viewing through them a homogeneous yellow Talbot,
flame, and even the light of the sky, observed bright and
dark stripes, or coloured bands and fringes, which were
not produced by either of them separately. These pheno¬
mena, as Sir John Herschel remarks, are obviously refer¬
able to the same principle as the fringes discovered by Sir
David Brewster, “ the interference taking place here be¬
tween rays respectively twice reflected within the upper
lamina, and once reflected at the upper surface of the
lower lamina, the interval between the glasses being sup¬
posed to be exactly equal to the thickness of the upper one,
a condition which is sure to obtain somewhere when the
laminae are curved.”2
Sect. VII.—On the Colours of Fibres formed by
Reflection and Transmission.
Every person must have observed the fine thread or line Colours of
of the spider’s web glittering with the brightest colours fibres,
when the light of the sun is reflected from it to the eye. By
examining these colours attentively, they are found to vary
with the angle of incidence. The only attempt that we
know of to explain this phenomenon that deserves notice
is that of Sir John Herschel:—“ These colours,” says he, Spider’s
“ may arise either from a similar cause (namely, that which web-
produces colour in a single scratch or fissure, or the inter¬
ference of light reflected from its opposite edges), or from
the thread itself, as spun by the animal, consisting of several
agglutinated together, and thus presenting not a cylindrical
but a furrowed surface.”
On the Colours of Fibres by Transmitted Light.
If we take a number of fibres of wool, and fix them in Colours of
parallel directions, as in Fraunhofer’s gratings, they willfibres ^7
of course produce parallel spectra or coloured bands similar ^
to those already described. If we take a mass of the same °
wool, in which the fibres have every possible direction,
they will then exhibit spectra or fringes lying in every
possible direction, or circular ones. As both these results
would be equally obtained if the fibres were cut down into
particles as long as they are broad, we should have parallel
fringes when the particles are arranged in straight lines, and
circular ones when the particles are scattered like dust
upon a plate of glass in all directions. Hence fibres of
minute particles will produce circular fringes, which increase
in diameter as the particles are smaller in diameter.
When we therefore look at a candle placed at a little
distance, through wool, or cotton, or vapour lying upon glass,
or diluted blood or milk, or the seed and farina of plants,
&c., we observe round the image of the candle a light area
terminating in a darh reddish margin. This is followed by
a ring of bluish-green light, and then a red ring, and when
the fibres or particles have a uniform size, the green and
red rings are frequently repeated. It is to Dr Young that
we owe the discovery that the diameter of these rings is
always the same when the size of the particles or fibres is
uniform and equal, and that they vary inversely as the size
1 Chromatics, § 6.
2 Treatise on Light, § 695. See also Biot, Traite de Physique, tom, iv., p. 246.
OPTICS.
623
’Periodical of the fibres or particles. On this principle he constructed
Colours, his Eriometer for measuring the diameter of minute particles
and fibres, such as wool, &c. It was composed of a plate
Dr Young’s of brass, or copper, or even card, with an aperture in the
eriometer. centre about the fortieth of an inch in diameter, and sur¬
rounded by a circle of perforations about half an inch in
diameter, the number of perforations in the circle being
about ten or twelve, and as minute as possible. When the
instrument is constructed on such a small scale, the eye re¬
quires the aid of a lens. The wool, or plate of particles,
is then attached to the end of a slider, and when the light
of an Argand lamp, or two or three candles placed in a line,
so as to unite their flames, is transmitted through the wool
or particles, the slider is drawn out till the first dark red
coloured circle coincides with the circle of perforations, and
the index then shows on the scale upon the slider the
number which indicates the size of the fibres or particles.
The basis of this scale, rather an imperfect one, Dr Young
took from Dr Wollaston’s measure of the magnitude of the
seeds of the puff-ball, or Lycoperdon bovista, which he
found to be the 8500th of an inch in diameter. Dr Young
found the rings formed by these minute seeds to be three
and a half on the scale of his instrument, and hence he
assumes the thirty-thousandth part of an inch (more ac¬
curately the 29750th) as the value of a unit on his scale.
The following results were obtained by Dr Young:—
Table of the Diameter of Fibres and minute Particles.
Milk, diluted, very indistinct, about  3
Lycoperdon bovista, dust of, very distinct  3^
Blood of a bullock, from beef   4J
Human blood, diluted with water  5
Smut of barley (male ear)     6£
Blood of a mare  6J
Human blood diluted with water after standing five days  6£
Blood recently diluted with serum, only  8
Pus  7 J-
Silk, very irregular  12
Wool of the beaver, jointed, very uniform  13
Angola wool, about  14
Vigonia wool    15
Siberian hare’s wool, Scotch hare’s wool, foreign coney wool,
yellow rabbit’s wool, about  15^
Mole’s fur  16
Skate’s blood  16
British coney wool, American rabbit’s wool, about  16 j
Saxon wool, a few fine fibres  17
Buffalo’s wool  18
Wool of the mountain sheep (Ovis montana)  18
Seal wool, finest, mixed, about  18£
Shawl wool     18 or 19
Goat’s wool  19
Cotton, very unequal  19
Peruvian wool, mixed, the finest locks     20
Welsh wool, a small lock of      20
Saxon wool 23 or 24
Wool of an Escurial ram 23 to 24
Southdown wool *  24^
Lioneza wool, 24 to 29 generally 25
Paular wool, 24 to 29 generally 25j
Alpaca wool, about  26
Laurestinus, farina of.  26
Ryeland merino wool    27
Merino Southdown wool....  28
Lycopodium seed, beautifully distinct  32
Southdown ewe wool  39
Coarse wool, Sussex  46
Coarse wool, from same, worsted    60
The diameter of the fibres or particles in the preceding
table may be obtained in parts of an inch by dividing
witrirth of an inch by the numbers opposite them. The
diameter of the particles of the human blood will be Periodical
Ttrihiirth divided by 5, or the 6000th part of an inch. Dr Colours.
Young has ingeniously observed, that if we square the
number belonging to the pound of wool, and subtract
325, the remainder will be nearly the number of pounds
of wool that are worth 100 guineas. In the case of
good Lioneza wool, for example, whose number is 25,
we shall have 25 x 25 — 325 = 300 for 100 guineas, or 7s.
per pound.1
In experiments of this kind it would be better to express
the magnitude of the first ring in parts of the radius, or by
the angle which the whole ring subtends at the eye. Those
who have any of Mr Barton’s scales, with the number of
lines in an inch marked, can easily compare the diameter of
the first ring produced either by fibres or particles, with the
distance of the red spaces in the two first prismatic images ;
and by the rule of proportion he will find the magnitude of
the fibres or particles.
Sect. VIII.—On the Colours of Mixed Plates.
The phenomena of colour observed by M. Mazeas, when Colours of
he pressed between two glasses, suet, Spanish wax, resin, mixed
common wax, and the sediment of urine, are clearly those plates.
of mixed plates, though they have not hitherto been recog- Mazeas.
nised as such. He put between his glass plates a little ball
of suet about one-fourth of a line in diameter, and pressed
it between the two surfaces, warming them at the same time
in order to disperse the suet. He then rubbed them vio¬
lently together in a circular manner, and was surprised on
looking at a candle through them to see it surrounded with
two or three concentric rings, very broad, and with very
lively and delicate colours, namely, a red inclining to yellow,
and a green like that of an emerald. By continuing the
friction, the rings assumed the colours of bhie, yellow, and
violet, especially when he looked through the glasses on
bodies directly opposed to the sun.
M. Mazeas2 shows very clearly that these were not the
colours of thin plates, on account of the distance between
the glasses, and also because the colours disappeared by
melting the suet; but that they were a new species of
colours, which he tried in vain to explain.
M. Dutour3 repeated and varied the experiments ofDutour.
Mazeas, but did not succeed in explaining them.
Dr Thomas Young, apparently without knowing of the Dr Young,
experiments of Mazeas, though they are fully detailed by
Priestley, has described the very same colours under the
name of the colours of mixed plates, and the merit of dis¬
covery of these colours has been ascribed to him by almost
all modern writers. The method of producing the colours
by suet, as given above by Mazeas, is exceedingly simple,
while many persons have failed in repeating the experi¬
ments described by Dr Young. It is to Dr Young, how¬
ever, that we owe the higher obligation of having dis¬
covered the general principle to which these colours must
be referred, though he has not examined the phenomena
with that attention which they merited. The following is
the account which Dr Young has given of the colours of
mixed plates:—
“ I first noticed the colours of mixed plates in looking
at a candle through two pieces of plate-glass with a little
moisture between them. I observed an appearance of
fringes resembling the common colours of thin plates; and
upon looking for the fringes by reflection, I found that these
new fringes were always in the same direction as the other
fringes, but many times larger. By examining the glasses
with a magnifier, I perceived that wherever these fringes
were visible, the moisture was intermixed with portions of
1 See Dr Young’s Introduction to Medical Literature, p. 552.
3 Memoires Presentees, tom. xv., pp. 288, 289; or Priestley On Vision, vol. ii., p. 605.
Memoires Presentees, tom. ii., p. 43.
624
OPTICS.
Periodical air, producing an appearance similar to dew. I then sup-
Colours. posed that the origin of the colours was the same as that
of the colours of halos ; but on a more minute examination
I found that (he magnitude of the portions of air and water
was by no means uniform, and that the explanation was
therefore inadmissible. It was, however, easy to find two
portions of light sufficient for the production of these fringes ;
for the light transmitted through the water, moving in it
with a velocity different from that of the light passing through
the interstices filled only with air, the two portions would
interfere with each other, and produce effects of colour ac¬
cording to the general law. 1 he ratio of the velocities in
water and in air is that of 3 to 4; the fringes ought there¬
fore to appear where the thickness is six times as great as
that which corresponds to the same colour in the common
case of thin plates; and upon making the experiment with
a plane glass and a lens slightly convex, I found the sixth
dark circle actually of the same diameter as the first in the
new fringes. The colours are also very easily produced
when butter or tallow is substituted for water, and the rings
then become smaller on account of the greater refractive
density of the oils ; but when water is added, so as to fill up
the interstices of the oil, the rings are very much enlarged ;
for here the difference only of the velocities in water and
in oil is to be considered, and this is much smaller than the
difference between air and water. It appears to be neces¬
sary, for the production of these colours, that the glasses
be held nearly in a right line between the eye and the
common termination of a dark and luminous object; the
portion of the rings seen on the dark ground is then more
distinct than the remaining portion ; and instead of being
continuations of the rings, they exhibit everywhere oppo¬
site colours, so as to resemble the colours of common thin
plates seen by reflection, and not by
transmission. In order to understand
this circumstance, we must consider,
that where a dark object as A (fig.
145) is placed behind the glasses,
the whole of the light which comes
to the eye is either refracted through
the edges of the drops (as the rays
B, C), or reflected from the internal
surface (as D, E), while the light
which passes through those parts
of the glasses which are on the side
opposite to the dark object consists
of rays refracted as before through
the edges (asF, G),or simply passing
through the fluid (as H, I). The re¬
spective combinations of these por¬
tions of light exhibit a series of co¬
lours of different orders, since the
internal reflection modifies the in¬
terference of the rays on the dark side of the object, in the
same manner as in the common colours of thin plates seen
by reflection. When no dark object is near, both these
series of colours are produced at once ; and since they are
always of an opposite nature at any given thickness of a plate,
they neutralize each other, and constitute white light.
“ In applying the general law of interference to these co¬
lours, as well as to those of thin plates already known, it is
impossible to avoid a supposition which is a part of the
undulatory theory,—that is, that the velocity of light is the
greater the rarer the medium ; and there is also a condition
annexed to this explanation of the colours of mixed plates,
as well as to that of the colours of simple thin plates, which
involves another part of the same theory,—that is, that
where one of the portions of light has been reflected at the
surface of a rarer medium, it must be supposed to be retarded
Fig. 145.
one-half of the appropriate interval; for instance, in the Periodical
central black spot of a soap-bubble, where the actual lengths Colours,
of the paths very nearly coincide, but the effect is the same
as if one of the portions had been so retarded as to destroy
the other. From considering the nature of this circum¬
stance, I ventured to predict that if the two reflections were
of the same kind, made at the surfaces of a thin plate of a
density intermediate between the densities of the mediums
containing it, the effect would be reversed, and the central
spot, instead of black, would become white; and I have
now the pleasure of stating that I have fully verified this
conclusion by interposing a drop of oil of sassafras between
a prism of flint-glass and a lens of crown-glass ; the central
spot seen by reflected light was white, and surrounded by
a dark ring. It was, however, necessary to use some force
in order to produce a contact sufficiently intimate ; and the
white spot differed even at last in the same degree, from
perfect whiteness, as the black spot usually does from per¬
fect blackness. There are also some irregularities attend¬
ing the phenomena exhibited in this manner by different
refracting substances, especially when the reflection is total,
which deserves further investigation.”
We are not aware that these interesting experi- Later ex-
ments of Mazeas and Dr Young have been repeated by peiin.ems,
any modern writer, our treatises on optics containing
merely an abstract of Dr Young’s results. The subject has,
however, been taken up by Sir David Brewster, who found
that the colours of mixed plates, in place of being merely
the result of an experiment, was a natural phenomenon of
a very interesting kind, which frequently presented itself
in the examination of minerals. He was therefore led to
attach a greater interest to the phenomena which they
present.
In order to produce these colours so as to be permanent,
he found that the froth of albumen (the white of an egg
beat up into froth) ground circularly, as it were, between
two thick plates of glass pressed firmly together, when the
circular motion is stopped, exhibits the colours very splen¬
didly. The glasses may then be held together by wax or
by screws. If we desire to have a circular system of rings,
we must use a convex lens in place of one of the plates.
Whipped cream answers also very well; but paste that has
become very smooth by age he found preferable to any other •
substance which he employed. When the experiment is
successfully made, the colours are extremely splendid, the
flame of a candle or other luminous body being of a bright
colour complementary to that of the coloured light which
surrounds it.
Upon looking with a microscope at the albumen or paste
thus pressed into a film, it is found to resemble accurately
the strata of cavities containing the new fluids, and some¬
times water, as in sulphate of lime, &c., the paste being
sometimes found in separate ramified patches of all shapes
surrounded with air, while on some occasions numerous air-
cavities are included in the paste.
Although Dr Young was correct in ascribing the colours
of mixed plates to the interference of rays moving with
different velocities in passing through the two contiguous
media, yet his analysis of the phenomena is imperfect, and
his determination of the interfering pencils incorrect. In
his 39th lecture he ascribes “ the colours seen in the dark
part beyond the object to the light scattered irregularly
from the surfaces of the fluid j”1 and in his description of
fig. 145 above quoted, he specifies as the interfering por¬
tions which produce the colours,—rays reflected from
the internal surface of the cavities with rays refracted
through the edges of the drops, and rays refracted through
the edge with rays simply passing through the fluid. That
the colours of mixed plates are not produced either by re-
Elements of Natural Philosophy, vol. i., p. 470.
OPTICS.
625
Periodical fracted or reflected pencils is at once proved by the fact,
Colours, that the same colours may be produced when the most
refracting medium is terminated by a fine edge, and is itself
a plate with perfectly parallel surfaces, so that there is no
edge to reflect light, and no inclined faces to refract it.
Having obtained this result, Sir David Brewster viewed
the subject in another aspect, and has shown that the phe¬
nomenon is entirely one of inflection caused by the edge
of a transparent inflecting body sufficiently thin to produce
colours by the interference of the retarded light passing
through the body close to its edge, with the light passing
without the body close to its edge. The same pencils which
interfere in the common case of a diffracting body interfere
in the present case ; but the pencils that pass through the
transparent plate are modified by the retardation which
they experience, so as to produce the phenomena of colours.
The oppositely coloured pencils in mixed plates form part
of the system of diffracted fringes, the colour seen upon the
luminous body occupying the shadow of the diffracting edge,
and the opposite colour seen around or beside the candle
occupying the first fringe on each side of the shadow.
The colours in the fringe on the left hand of the shadow
of the diffracting edge are seen by the eye on the right
hand side of the candle, and those in the fringe on the
right hand of the shadow are seen by the eye on the left
hand side of the candle.
All the preceding phenomena may be produced by break¬
ing down a thin transparent plate into minute portions, and
making: these portions to float in a fluid, or placing them
between two plates of glass containing a fluid of nearly the
same refractive power as the solid portions. The solid por¬
tions will thus act like much thinner plates placed in air,
and we shall observe the identical phenomena which take
place with the cavities in paste or albumen. When we
examine with the microscope a very narrow portion of the
solid substance bounded by lines nearly parallel, we perceive
the phenomena of mixed plates under a new aspect. The
space between the shadow of the two edges is filled up
with a bright band of the colour which occupies the two
first external fringes; and as the innermost fringe of each
edge overlap each other, the colour has double the inten¬
sity. The same phenomenon is often seen in the parallel
ramifications, or in the long cavities produced by the paste
or albumen, when the last act of friction was to move one
of the plates of glass in a straight line.
The phenomena of mixed plates have been discovered
by Sir David Brewster in sulphate of lime, in which there
are shallow crystallized cavities in great numbers, forming
regular strata in the mineral. These cavities are filled with
water, and in this case the diffracting edge is the edge of
the cavity, and the light which passes through the water
has its velocity greater than that which passes through the
solid mineral.
In one remarkable circular stratum of cavities, all the
cavities in the centre were the deepest, and gradually dimi¬
nished in depth towards the circumference, till the micro¬
scope could scarcely resolve them. The highest orders of
colours were therefore in the middle of the stratum, and
they gradually descended to a white of the first order, at
the circumference of the circular stratum.1
An interesting experiment, published by Fox Talbot,
Esq.,2 is a phenomenon of mixed plates, in which the
densest of the plates is too thick to produce the colours at
its edge in common light. “ Make,” says he, “ a circular
hole in a piece of card of the size of the pupil of the eye.
Cover one-half of this opening with an extremely thin film
of glass (probably mica would answer the purpose as well,
or better). Then view through this aperture a perfect spec¬
trum formed by a prism of moderate dispersive power, and
the spectrum will appear covered throughout its length Double
with parallel obscure bands resembling the absorptions pro- Refraction,
duced by iodine vapour. The cause of this phenomenon
probably is, that one-half of the light which passes through
the glass film has its undulations thereby retarded by a cer¬
tain quantity.”
This phenomenon, which we have observed under various
modifications, arises from the diffraction of the light passing
on each side of and very close to the edge of the film; for
if we cover this edge even with a fine wire, we obstruct the
diffracted fringes modified by the retardation of the denser
plate, and the phenomenon vanishes. Hence, in order to
see the fringes in perfection, we must make the aperture
no wider than to include the space on each side of the
edge of the film within which the light passes that is con¬
cerned in the phenomenon. As the light here used is
perfectly homogeneous, the bands are alternately coloured
and obscure.
Sir David Brewster has observed the fringes described
by Mr Talbot with thick plates having fine edges, and im¬
mersed in fluids, and even with plates of glass the fifteenth
part of an inch thick, by looking through their edge upon
a highly-dispersed spectrum formed by a large refracting
angle of a prism, and magnified by a powerful telescope.
The perfection of the edge of the film, and an equality of
thickness, are essential to the production of the fringes in
their most interesting form. Sir David Brewster obtained
them by looking through plates of sulphate of lime, where
there were not properly speaking plates of different refrac¬
tive powers, but where the plate suddenly became thicker,
as shown in the annexed figure, where AB, FC is the
plate of sulphate of lime, a » a
which becomes thicker at
F. When the eye looks
through it at the spectrum
in the direction FD, it sees the fringes, which have the
same magnitude as if the plate ADB were removed, and
the eye looked only through the plate CF, in which case
it is clearly a phenomenon of mixed plates.
When these dark lines were produced in great perfec¬
tion, they had a sort of granular structure resembling fine
screws at their edges, and sometimes appearing to inclose
minute specks of light. Several other remarkable pheno¬
mena accompanying these fringes were communicated by
the author to the British Association at Liverpool. This
interesting experiment has been the subject of several
communications to the British Association by Sir David
Brewster, and of two papers by Mr Airy, and one by Pro¬
fessor Stokes, in the Philosophical Transactions.
Part VI.—ON THE DOUBLE REFRACTION OF
LIGHT.
In the preceding part of this article we have supposed Double re-
that when light is transmitted vertically through the sur- fraction,
faces or through the mass of transparent bodies, or when it
passes obliquely and is refracted by the same bodies, it
leaves the surface or emerges from the body in a single
pencil, either perfectly white, or decomposed into a diverg¬
ing beam of coloured light. This supposition is perfectly
correct, under certain circumstances, for gaseous and fluid
bodies, for glass slowly and equally cooled, and for a nu¬
merous class of crystallized bodies, whose primitive form is
either the cube, the regular octahedron, or the rhomboidal
dodecahedron. When these bodies have the same tem¬
perature and density throughout their mass, and are not
exposed to any pressure, a pencil of light will be trans¬
mitted through them single, according to the laws already
explained.
ar
Fi*. 146.
VOL. XVI.
1 See Phil. Tram. 1837, p. 73.
8 Lond. and Edin. Phil. Mag., May 1837, p. 364.
4 K
626
OPTICS.
Double When a pencil of- light falls upon all other bodies, such
Refraction. as artificial crystals, or salts or crystallized minerals, which
'v'-*''' have not the above primitive forms; upon animal substances,
such as bone, horn, shell, hair, crystalline lenses of animal
and elastic integuments ; upon vegetable bodies, such as
particular leaves, stalks, and seeds; upon artificial bodies,
such as gums, resins, jellies, and solid bodies that have a
variable density, during the transient passage of heat, or
f rom rapid cooling, or unequal temperature and pressure:—
when a pencil of light falls upon such bodies, it will be
refracted into two distinct pencils, more or less inclined to
each other according to the mechanical condition of the
body, or to the direction in which the pencil passes through
it. In some minerals and artificial crystals this refraction
of the two pencils is very great, and, generally speaking,
is in such crystals easily observed and measured ; but in
some cases it is not visible unless by transmitting the light
through prisms of the body with large refracting angles;
and in very many cases, the existence of two pencils is in¬
terred only from certain other properties, which always ac¬
company the property of giving double pencils. This se¬
paration of a single pencil into two is called double refrac¬
tion, and the bodies which have such a property are called
doubly-refracting crystals or bodies.
In many regular crystals there is one line through which,
if a single pencil of light is transmitted, it does not ex¬
perience double refraction. This line is called the asms of
the crystal, or the axis of double refraction, and such crys¬
tals are denominated crystals with one axis of double re¬
fraction. In other crystals there are two lines through
which, if the single pencil of light is transmitted, it does
not experience double refraction. Such crystals are de¬
nominated crystals with two axes of double refraction. We
shall treat of these two classes in separate sections.
Sect. I.—On the Law of Double Refraction in
Crystals with One Axis.
Bartholinus discovered the property of double refrac¬
tion in the mineral called Iceland spar, calcareous spar,
or by chemists, carbonate of lime ; and it is well fitted for
exhibiting the phenomena, owing to its perfect transpa¬
rency, and the great separation of the two pencils. This
mineral consists, according to Stromeyer, of 56*15 parts of
lime, and 43‘7 of carbonic acid. It
crystallizes in the form of an obtuse
rhombohedron, as shown in fig. 147,
where ABCB', AB'C'B", &c., are the
faces of the rhombohedron, and AA' ^
the axis of the rhombohedron, or the
line joining its two obtuse angles.
I he following are the dimensions of
the crystal, as given by Malus, who observes that the first
angle, from which all the rest are derived, is within ten
seconds of the truth.
Inclination of the faces ABCB', AB'C'B"  
inclination of the faces ABCB', A'CBC"  
Plane angle between the edges AB, AB'  
.» . ,, „ AB, BC... 
Inclination of the faces to the axis AA'  
Angle between the edges AB, AB', &c., and the
axis AA'  
Inclination of the edges* AB, AB* to the* opposite*
faces AB'C'B", &c ^
’’ . » A'C, A'C" to the opposite
faces A'CBC", &c f.
Length of the diagonal AA', the sides AB, AB'
being unity  
105° 5' 0"
74 55 0
101 55 0
78 4 59
45 23 26
66 44 45
109 8 12
70 51 48
1-2598
. Iceland spar cleaves equally in planes parallel to all
its six faces, it is easy to cut out of any mass of it an ac-
curate rhombohedron in which all the three sides AB, AB'.
AB', are equal; but for the purposes of expe,--,^^ jt is
Fig. 148.
sufficient to have a piece with two smooth and parallel faces Double
formed by cleavage, or ground and polished parallel to the Refraction
cleavage planes. v _
Let AX (fig. 148) be such a piece of Iceland spar, and
ABDC its upper surface. If we place its lower surface
upon a piece of paper
having a black line MN
drawn upon it, and if we
place the eye above the
upper surface, we shall see
the line MN distinctly
doubled ; or if it should
appear single, the two
images will separate by
turning the spar a little
round, and the line will
appear double as at MN
and mn. The one line will be found to coincide with the
other when MN is parallel to AD, the short diagonal of
the rhomboidal face ABDC, and the lines will appear most
separated when MN is parallel, as in the figure, to the long
diagonal BC. If a black spot placed at O is used in place
of a line, it will appear double in every position ; and in
turning the crystal round, the other image E will seem to
revolve round O.
The best way, however, of showing the double refraction
of the Iceland spar is to make a ray of light Rr fall upon
the crystal at r. This ray will be refracted into two pencils
or rays rO, rE, and these will be again refracted at the
second surface of the spar in directions Ee, Oo, parallel to
the original ray Rr. If we measure the angles of refraction
of the fixed ray Oo, corresponding to several angles of
incidence from 0 to 90 , we shall find that these angles are
always to one another in the constant ratio of 1 to 1*654,
and that the refracted ray rO is always in the plane of
incidence. It follows, therefore, that this ray is refracted,
as in water and glass, according to the ordinary law of re¬
fraction discovered by Snellius. Hence it is called the
ordinary ray. But if we make the same experiments on
the other ray rE, we shall find that at an incidence of 0°,
in place of passing on unrefracted, it is actually refracted
6° 12'; that at other incidences its angles of refraction are
not regulated by the law of Snellius, and that the ray rE
is not in the plane of incidence. We conclude, therefore,
that the ray rE is refracted according to some new or ex¬
traordinary law which remains to be investigated; and
hence the ray rE is called the extraordinary ray.
If we grind down the two solid obtuse angles A, A' (fig.
147) so that the ground surfaces are perpendicular to the
axis A A', and if we polish their surfaces, and transmit a ray
perpendicularly through them, so as to be parallel to the
axis AA, we shall find that there is only one refracted ray;
and hence there is no double refraction along the axis.
Now this line A A' is not a fixed axis like that of the earth;
it is merely a. fixed direction, for every line parallel to
AA' enjoys the property of an axis, as there is no double
refraction in lines parallel to AA'.
In order to obtain an accurate idea of the law of extraor¬
dinary refraction, or that by which the extraordinary ray rE
is regulated, let us take a rhomb, such as that shown in fig.
147, and grind it into an accurate sphere, and then polish it.
Let ACBD (fig. 149) be such a sphere, AB being its axis
of double refraction, corresponding with
A A' in fig. 147, and let O be its centre.
If we now bend a piece of sheet-lead or
sheet-copper into an arch ADB, and mak- b
ing a small hole in it opposite to A, and
another opposite to B, cement a handle to
it about D, it will enable us, in the follow¬
ing manner, to detect the general law of Fig. 149.
extraordinary refraction. The use of the two holes in this
OPTICS.
627
Double experiment is to insure that the light admitted through
.efraction. one of them, and emerging at the other, shall pass through
the centre O of the sphere. Let one of the holes be now
placed in the surface of the sphere at A, and the eye at the
other hole at B, the hole will appear single, showing that
the double refraction is there nothing. Let the hole be
shifted gradually from A to C, and the other hole will move
from B to D. In the different positions from A to C, it
will be seen that the hole begins to become double on
leaving A, and that the distance of the two images of it
gradually increases from A to C, where it becomes a maxi¬
mum. The same result will be obtained by making the
hole move from A to D, or in any quadrant of the sphere
passing through the holes A and B. The very same result
will be obtained if the hole moves from B to C, or from B
to D. If we now make one of the holes move along the
equator COD, we shall find that by placing the eye at the
other hole, the distance of the images will be exactly the
same, or the double refraction the same in every part of
the equator. Hence the general law of double refraction in
crystals with one axis is a very simple one: it is nothing at
the poles; it increases gradually from the poles to the
equator, where it is a maximum ; it is the same in the same
parallels of latitude ; and the preceding experiments will
also show that the line joining the centres of the two images
is in the plane of the meridian.
Let the index of extraordinary refraction be now mea¬
sured at the pole A, where it is the same as the ordinary
index, and at the equator C, and it will be found to be
L654, or in, in the former case, and 1’488, or in', in the
latter. Now Huygens was led, by a theory which has
been explained under Chromatics, to the following law,
which he verified by experiment, and which has been
confirmed by the experiments of Wollaston, Malus, and
other philosophers. Upon the axis AB of the sphere
(fig. 149) describe an ellipse AcBe?, whose lesser axis
AB is to its greater axis cd as — is to —r, or as is to
° mm T654
, , -, or as *604 to ’674; and if an oblate spheroid is
1*488
supposed to be generated by the revolution of this ellipse
round its lesser axis AB, the reciprocal of the index of re¬
fraction of the extraordinary ray at any point of the spheroid
will be measured by its radius at that point; that is, if
Raid is a ray incident at b, the radius will be the
extraordinary index of refraction for that ray. If we there¬
fore make
<p= ROA, or the inclination of the incident ray to the axis,
R = cd, the major axis of the spheroid,
r = AB, the lesser axis;
then it may be shown, as Malus has done,1 that
Rr
a ~ V^r2 sin2 <p + R2 cos2 <p) *,
and as the index of refraction of the extraordinary ray is
the reciprocal of this radius, we have
, V(r2 sin2 <p + R2 cos2 <p)
Rr
-> or
, 1 / R2 — r2\ . ,
•'*=7*-Uv) s‘n^
another quantity which depends on the difference between Double
the radius of the sphere and that of the spheroid, the crys- Infraction,
tals in which this happens may be called negative doubly-
refracting crystals.
The preceding law of double refraction was believed by
Malus to be universal, and applicable to all crystals that
had this property. M. Biot, however, discovered that in
quartz or rock-crystal the extraordinary ray had its index
of refraction in greater than the ordinary index m. This
mineral crystallizes in six-sided prisms, as shown in the
annexed figure, terminated by six-sided pyra¬
mids, A and B. If we grind down and polish
the summits A and B of a large crystal, perpen¬
dicular to the axis AB, and if we determine the
index of refraction when the rays pass along
AB, we shall find it to be as Malus found it,
1*5484, and without any double refraction, and
1*5544 in a direction perpendicular to the axis. B
If we now grind the crystal into a sphere rig-iso.
ACBD (fig. 151), and if we perform the very same experi¬
ments with it as we did with Iceland spar, we shall obtain
analogous results. The double refraction will be found to
increase from the poles A, B to the equator CD, and to be
the same in every part of the equator, and in each parallel
of latitude; the only differences between it and calcareous
spar being, that the double refraction is less, and that the
index of refraction of the extraordinary ray is always greater
than that of the ordinary ray.
The extraordinary refraction of quartz will, therefore, as
M. Biot has shown, be represented by a prolate spheroid
generated by the revolution of the ellipse AcBrf, whose
greater axis AB is to the lesser cd as is to
& 1*5484 1*5544
or as *6458 is to *6418. Hence, if R6aO
is a ray incident on the sphere at b, the
radius 7^— will be the index of extraor-
Oa
dinary refraction for that ray. Hence we
shall obtain Oa = // 9 . , 777 -^—r, and
V(^ sin 2<p — R2 cos2 <p)’
2 1
/’ R2 — r2\
V RV2 /
Fig. 161.
sm2 <p.
In the case of Iceland spar, we have
t»,2=2*736693 -0*536510 sin2 <p ; or
m' = V2-736693 - 0*536510 sin2 <p.
As the index of extraordinary refraction thus found is
always equal to the index of the ordinary refraction, minus
As the index of extraordinary refraction, therefore, is equal
to the index of ordinary refraction, plus another quantity
depending on the difference between the radius of the
sphere and that of the prolate spheroid, crystals which have
this property may be called positive doubly-refracting
crystals.
The following geometrical rule for finding the direction
of the extraordinary ray, when the incident ray forms dif¬
ferent angles with the axis, given by Huygens,2 may be in¬
teresting to some of our readers.
Let CGHF (fig. 152) be what
is called the principal section of
a crystal of calcareous spar, &c., &
or a plane passing through the
axis, which will be in the direc¬
tion CH. Let SK, VK be rays
incident on that plane upon the
surface CG, and equally inclined
to IKL, perpendicular to the
surface at the point of incidence
K ; then if KM is the refracted
ray corresponding to a ray IK
incident perpendicularly, the other rays VK, SK will be re¬
fracted in directions KT, KX, so that TM is equal to XM.
Although the determination of the extraordinarily re¬
fracted ray is very simple, when the crystal is supposed to
Fig. 152.
1 Theorie de la Double Refraction, p. 143.
2 Traite de la Lumiere, sect. 17.
628
OPTICS.
Double be spherical, yet the formula becomes complicated when we
Refraction, suppose the ray incident in any given direction upon a
's—natural surface of Iceland spar. Malus has investigated
such a formula, but our limits will not allow us to give
more than the resulting expression.
Making 6 =the angle of incidence,
6' = the angle of extraordinary refraction,
tt =the azimuth of incidence, or the angle which
the plane of incidence forms with the axis,
w' = the same angle for the extraordinary ray,
X =the inclination of a line perpendicular to the
face of incidence to the axis of the crystal,
A = R2 sin2 X + r2 cos2,
C = sin X cos X (R2 — r2). Then
 R2r2 sin 6 cos x ^ C
tan 6, cos ^ ~ AJ A— W sin2 0(r2 cos2 tt+A sin2 7t)"*"A
„ . , R2 sin 0 sin tt
and tan y sin tt = . — . ^ , o ,, . '" a— -' ".i ~s
V A - R2 sin2 0 (r2 cos2 tt -f A sin2 tt)
When the refracting surface is parallel to the axis (as in
the six-sided prism of calcareous spar), we shall have X = 90,
in which case A = r2 and C = 0. The formula then becomes
r2 sin 0 cos tt
tan 0 cos 7r = 'p:—■ -r—— —
Ry' ] _ sin2 Q (t*2 cos + R2 sin2 tt)
,, . R sin 0 sin tt
tan 0 sin rr= — .
Vl — sin2 0 (r2 cos2 tt + R2 sin2 tt)
and dividing the one equation by the other, we have
, R2
tan tt = —r tan tt.
r2
When the refracting surface is parallel to the axis, and
the plane of incidence perpendicular to the axis, then tt =
it'= 90°, or X = 90; consequently cos tt'= 0, and the first
equation becomes
^ R sin 0 i
tan ff = ■.  -.y» ~~ , and sin 0' = R sin 0.
Vl — R2 sm2 0
When the refracting surface is parallel to the axis, and
the plane of incidence passes through the axis, in which
case the refraction is in the plane of a principal section,
then 7r=7r' = 0°, the second equation becomes
r r s^n ^
tan + 7f_r2 0 ,
or, by substituting r sin 0 for its equal sin 0, we have
r sin 0
tan 0' =
V1 — r2 sin 07
which substituted in the general formula, gives
2
tan 0 ==‘|^ tan 0.
When the refracting surface is perpendicular to the axis
of the crystal, as in the chaux carbonatee basee of Hauy,
then X=0°, and A = rs, and C = 0. Hence
tan0'SinV=Rtjsin0sin^
r*/1 - R2 sin2 9
w\ - R* Sin2 0
and dividing the one equation by the other, we have
tan tt = tan ir, and tt =tt,
which shows that the refracted ray is in the plane of the inci¬
dent ray. Hence we obtain from the preceding equation
tan 0= R* sin 6
»Vl-r3 sin2 0
In order to find the path of the extraordinarily refracted
ray, Huygens has given the following elegant geometrical
construction. Let EBH (fig. 153) be the elliptical section Double
of the oblate spheroid which regulates the double refraction Refraction,
of the crystal, formed by the surface upon which the ray is
incident. Let the ray RC fall upon its centre, and let
BCK be the intersection k,
of the plane of incidence
with the face of the crystal.
Let EMH be a part of the
oblate spheroid within the
crystal or below its surface,
the axis of the spheroid
passing through and having
any inclination to the sur¬
face. Then draw in the Fig. 153.
plane KCR a line CO perpendicular to RC, and having
drawn OK perpendicular to OC, or parallel to CR, make
OK equal to ^or the reciprocal of the sine of the
^ cm incid.
angle of incidence. Through K draw KT perpendicular
to the plane of incidence BRCK, and through Kf draw
a plane which shall touch the spheroid. Let I be the point
where this plane touches the spheroid, then drawing the
line Cl, this line will be the extraordinarily refracted ray.
As there are several researches and instruments in which Doubly-
it may be required to find the focus of the extraordinary refracting
pencil when the doubly-refracting substance has the form ^enses>
of a lens, we shall here give the formula obtained by Malus.
Calling r, r = radii of the anterior and posterior surfaces of
a convex lens,
d = distance of the radiant point,
a —larger semi-axis of the spheroid of double re¬
fraction,
b = shorter semi-axis of ditto,
F = focal length for the ordinary ray,
/= focal length of the extraordinary ray, when
d is infinite, or the rays parallel, and
<p = focal length of the extraordinary ray required.
Then Malus has shown that
_  cirbdrr ,
d{r + r) (262 - a2 - dlb) - dlbrr ’
— brr'
F~(r + r') (1 -0)’
When the radii r, r are equal, or the lens equally convex,
, a^bdr
we have <p= - 2 - a2 - a2 b) - a2 br
cdbr
~ 2 (202 — a2 — a/b)
If we suppose a to be equal to b, or the spheroid to
become a sphere, by which the ordinary refraction is regu¬
lated, we obtain for the ordinary ray
F ——.
2(1-4)
Hence the difference between the ordinary and extra¬
ordinary focal lengths will be
^ „ «2 — 02
2bi — a2 — d?b
If we change the signs of r and f in these expressions,
they will apply to concave lenses.
If we now take Iceland spar, and suppose the lens to be Lenses o
formed of that substance, we have only to substitute in the p^ian
preceding equation the following values of a and 0,1 viz.:—
a = 0-674l7l7 , ™ = 1-65429
0 = 0-6044871; whence m' = l-48330,
we obtain
£>= —r. 8-8228602
F= — r . 0-764180
f-F= -F. 114-4546
1 Malus, Theorie, &c., p. 278, sect. 66,
OPTICS.
629
Double
'fraction
Crystals
vith one
ixis.
In the case of quartz or rock crystal, where
a = 0-645813 1-558176
6 = 0-641776 w =1*548435
we obtain „ „ ^
0=-r. 0-962824 /-F=-F . 0-074846
F= -r. 0-895775
In all lenses of the same substance, the ratio of / to F
will be constant, whatever be the form of the lenses, pro¬
vided the incident rays are parallel. If, in the general
expression of Q, we make d infinite, we have
a“brr
<P=
— Iodoform, S.
— Ruby silver.
— Hyposulphite of lime, B. S.
— „ of strontian, S.
— Sulphate of glucine, S.
— Nepheline.
+ Hydrate of magnesia
(Brucite).
+ Quartz.
+ Amethyst.
(r + ?•') 262 — a2 — a2 6) ’
and making a = 0, we have for the ordinary ray,
brr , ^ ^ _ «2(1—6)
(r + r') (1-5) F 2b- —a1- a^b
F = -
spar).
— Carbonate of lime and iron.
— Carbonate of lime and mag¬
nesia.
— Phosphato-arseniate of lead.
— Carbonate of zinc.
— Nitrate of soda.
— Phosphate of lead.
Rubellite.
Aulunite.
Gmelinite.
Chlorate of soda.
Dioptase. ,
Chabasie Andreasberg, Dx.
+ Succinate of lithine, Dx.
2. Rhombohedron with Acute Summit. (Fig. 155.) ~
— Corundum. — Arseniate of 4- Cinnabar.
— Sapphire. copper. + Eudyalite, Dx.
— Ruby. — Suzannite, Dx. + Pennine D’Ala, Dx.
3. Regular Six-sided Prism. (Fig. 156.)
— loduret of lead.
— ,, of cadmium, Dx.
— Emerald.
— Arseniate of lead.
— Beryl.
— Apatite.
— Muriate of lime.
— „ of strontian.
— Eukolite, Dx.
— Pyrosmalite, Dx.
-f- Willemite, Dx.
+ Leuchtenbergite, ? Dx.
+ Parisite, Dx.
+ Greenockite, Miller.
+ Sulphate of potash, S.
+ Hyposulphate of lead, S.
-r Oxide of zinc, sublimed, Dx.
+ Spartalite, Dx.
+ loduret of silver, Dx.
+ Phenakite.
Double
Refraction.
a result independent of the values of r and r'.1
The focus of the rays refracted extraordinarily by a
doubly-refracting lens, becomes more and more distant, as
the axis of double refraction of the crystal approaches to
the axis of the lens; and the preceding formulae apply
solely to the case where these two axes are parallel, as it is
only in that case that such lenses can be of any use.
List of the Primitive Forms and Crystals which have one
axis of Double Refraction.
From a very extensive series of experiments on the
double refraction of crystallized bodies, Sir David Brewster
was led to the general law, that all crystals whose primitive
form has only one axis of figure, or one pre-eminent line,
round which the matter of the crystals is symmetrically
arranged, had also one axis of double refraction, and that
their axis of figure was likewise the axis of double refraction.
The following are the primitive forms which possess this
geometrical and optical property :—
The rhombohedron with an obtuse summit.
The rhombohedron with an acute summit.
The regular six-sided prism.
The octohedron with a square base.
The right prism with a square base.
Table of Crystallized Minerals and other bodies which have
one axis of Double Refraction.*
In the following table the crystals are arranged under
their primitive forms, so far as these forms have been de¬
termined by crystallographers. I he sign + indicates that
the crystals have positive double refraction, like quartz, and
- that they have negative &o\ib\eTefra.ct\ox\,X\]te Iceland spar,
1. Rhombohedron with an Obtuse Summit. (Fig. 154)
_ Phakolite, Dx. - Ruby silver.
- Nitrate of lithine, Dx. — Levyne.
- Carbonate of lime (Iceland - Tourmaline.
Fig. 151.
Fig. 155.
Fig. 156.
4. Octohedron with a Square Base. (Fig. 157.)
Mellite. + Zircon.
Molybdate of lead. + Oxide of tin.
■ " ' + Tungstate of lime.
Octohedrite.
Muriate of potash.
Cyanide of mercury
JL
+ Metatungstate acid of am¬
monia, Dx.
5. Right Prism with a Square Base.
Fig. 158.
(Fig. 158.)
— Pennine from Zermat, Dx.
— Melinophane, Dx.
— Clintonite, Dx.
— Red ioduret of mercury.
+ Apophyllite of Uton.
+ Oxahverite.
+ Superacetate of copper and
lime.
4- Titanite.
Sulphate of copper & ammonia. 4- Ice> certain crystals.
Subphosphate of potash. Murio-carbonate of lead.
Phosphate of ammonia and 4- Calomel, S.
magnesia. + Phosgenite, Dx.
Sulphate of nickel. 4- Rutile. ,
Sulphate of nickel andcopper. 4- Hydrofluate of the fluorine ot
— Idiocrase.
— Wernerite.
— Paranthine or scapolite.
— Meoinite.
— Somervillite.
— Edingtonite.
— Arseniate of potash.
— Matlockite.
— Arseniate of ammonia.
potassium, Dx.
4- Cyanuret of magnesium and
platinum, Dx.
4- Prussiate of potash, yellow.
4- Urea, Dx.
4- Sarcolite, Dx.
— Hydrate of strontites.
— Chiolite, Dx.
— Gehlenite.
— Dipyre, Dx.
— Mellilite, Dx.
— Apophyllite of Cziclowa
— Chalcolite, Dx.
The following crystals and organized bodies have one
axis of double refraction, but their primitive form has not
been accurately determined.
_ Xanthophilite, Dx  Position of the axis-
— Brandisite 
  Mica from various localities...Perpendicular to laminae.
— Mica, with amianthus Perpendicular to laminae.
— Nacrite (See Phil. Trans., 1 pernendicular to laminae.
1836) J
4- Boracite Axis of rhomb of 90 .
+ Apophyllite (surcompos&e of 'l perpen(iicuiar to the table.
Hauy)  J
4- Sulphate of potash and iron...Axis of six-sided prism.
4- Kalapleite, Dx Axis of hexagonal plates.
4 Chlorite, white, Dx  Do.
Tortoise-shell (Sir J. Herschel)  
1 Mai us, Theorie, &c., p. 278, § 66.
- In this Table the crystals marked Dx. were observed by M. A. Descloiseaux (see Ann. des Mines, vol. xi., p. 261); and those marked
S. by M. Senarmont (see Ann. de Chim. ct de Phiis., 3d series, tom. xxxiii.)
630
Double.
Refraction.
OPTICS.
Fig. 159.
Sect. II.—On the Law op Double Refraction in
Crystals with Two Axes.
When M. Malus published his theory of double refrac¬
tion, and even so late as 1816, all crystals were believed to
have only one axis of double refraction, one of the rays be¬
ing refracted by the ordinary law, and the other by the ex-
traordinary law, above explained. During the examination of
an extensive class of minerals and artificial salts, Sir Da¬
vid Brewster was led to the discovery of crystals with two
axes of double refraction.
The general character of the phenomena presented by
such crystals will be understood from fig.
15 95 where we may suppose, as before,
the crystal to have the form of a sphere.
In place of there being one line along
which there is no double refraction,
there are two such as POjo, P'O//, in
which the incident pencil is not divided
into two. The double refraction in¬
creases on each side of these axes, from
P, to C and A, and from P' to D and A.
The double refraction increases in the very same manner
from jo to C and B, and from p' to D and B, according to a
law which will afterwards be explained.
In continuing his investigations. Sir David Brewster
found crystals in which the axes POjo, P'Ojo' formed
all possible angles with each other from 0° up to 90°, and he
was led also to the important result, that these two axes
were not real axes of double refraction like those in uniaxal
crystals, but were only resultant axes, as he called them, or
axes of compensation. The grounds on which he formed
this opinion were, that these lines POjo, P'Ojo' had no relation
whatever to any fixed or permanentlines in theprimitiveform
of the crystals, like the axes of uniaxal crystals, and that the
double refraction did not altogether vanish along these lines,
as in Iceland spar and other minerals with no axis. He was
led to these results, not by measuring the double refraction
itself, but by the phenomena which will be presently ex¬
plained. At this time it was the opinion of our author, and
afterwards that of M. Biot and other distinguished philoso¬
phers, that in biaxal as in uniaxal crystals, one of the rays
was refracted according to the ordinary law of Snellius,
and the other according to an extraordinary law, and hence
the investigation of the extraordinary law occupied the at¬
tention of our author.
In commencing this inquiry, he assumed as the two real
axes of double refraction, the line AB bisecting the angle
formed by the apparent or resultant axes POja, P'Ojt/, and
another line at right angles to it, viz. either the line CD,
6r the line perpendicular to it passing through O.
If the principal axis AB is positive, then if we assume O
as the second axis, it must be taken positive also; but if CD
is assumed as the second axis, it must be taken negative.
Now, it is obvious that if we take AB as a.positive, and CD
as a negative axis, the double refraction in the direction
AB is the maximum double refraction of the axis CD, be¬
cause the effect of the axis AB is here nothing. In like man¬
ner, the double refraction along CD is a measure of the
maximum double refraction of the axis AB. Hence we
can easily ascertain the relative intensities of the doubly
refracting force of each axis AB and CD. Having done
this, the next step was to compute the double refraction at
the point P produced by the positive axis AB acting alone
as a single axis, and also the double refraction produced at
the same point P, by the negative axis CD. When this
was done, the two double refractions were found to be equal
and opposite, and hence they compensated each other, and
produced an axis Pp, in which there was no double refrac¬
tion, and which was the resultant of the actions of AB and
L/.L/*
In this way, and by experiments which will be related
in a subsequent chapter, our author was led to the follow¬
ing method of finding the general law of extraordinary re¬
fraction in biaxal crystals.
Make b == axis of revolution of the two spheroids.
a, a' = the other axis of the spheroid.
/3, f = the inclination of the incident ray to the
axes of the crystal.
^ == the angle of the doubly refracting forces
emanating from each axis.
C = half the difference of the angle at the base
of the parallelogram of forces.
Then, as the velocity of the ray is inversely as the variable
radius of the spheroid, will be the square of the velocity
of the ordinary ray, and the square of the minimum
velocity of the extraordinary ray, in virtue of the separate
action of each axis, AB and CD. Hence the difference be¬
tween the squares of the velocities of the ordinary and ex¬
traordinary rays will be
/a2=t:52\ .
r^rjsm*/3
aW
(anz±zb2\
V )
sin.3 /3
the sign being positive when the axis is positive, and vice
versa. But as these expressions represent the sides of the
parallelogram of forces, we have
. „ _\ /a,2r±z52
Tang. £=
(alz±zbt . 9„\ (c
sin.2 /3
tang. £ yjt'
z*=£:b*
b*
sin.’/S-f-
a'=tzb2
a,zba
sin.3 /S'.
Consequently the difference between the squares of the
velocities of the ordinary and extraordinary ray produced
by the combined action of the two axes, will be
sin.3 0) (sin.
sin* (C+i^)-
Hence, calling V the velocity required, we have
(—i ^ sm- /3 (sm. yf)
V2= 1
+-
63 —
/
b* 
sin.
:2=t52
and
v-t+
sin*2 Z3) (sin. yf)
sin. (C+W
The form of the compound, or irregular spheroid, may
therefore be computed for all doubly refracting crystals.
The general law of extraordinary refraction which has
now been explained, may b© thus expressed.
The increment of the square of the velocity of the extra¬
ordinary ray produced by the action of two axes of double
refraction, is equal to the diagonal of' a parallelogram
whose sides are the increments of the square of the velocity
produced by each axis separately, and calculated by the law
of Huygens, and whose angle is double of the angle formed
by the two planes passing through the ray and the respec¬
tive axes.
When the two axes are of equal intensity, and of the
same character, the preceding law gives the very same re¬
sults as the law of Huygens does for one axis placed at
right angles to the other two.
From these views it follows as a necessary consequence,
a consequence first deduced from them by M. Biot, that
the difference of the squares of the velocities of the two
rays are proportional to the product of the sines of the
Double
Refraction.
OPTICS.
631
Double angles which each of them make with the two resultant
Refraction. axes p an(j arKi hence making these angles <p and <p',
and V the velocity of the extraordinary, and v that of the
ordinary ray, we shall have V = (y2 -j- a sin. <p x sin. <p') 4?,
a being a constant coefficient.
M. Fres- M. Fresnel was led by theoretical considerations to sup-
nel’s law. pose that in crystals with two axes, the law of double re¬
fraction was still more complicated; and he soon confirmed
the accuracy of his views by direct experiment, and was
thus able to establish a general law which embraced all
crystals with one axis.
Our limits will not allow us to do more than give the fol¬
lowing brief abstract of his labours, which we owe to M.
Pouillet.1
When the light is incident in the plane perpendicular to
AB, fig. 159, that is in the plane of CD, one of the two
rays is regulated by the ordinary law of refraction, whereas
when the ray is incident in the plane AB, perpendicular to
the axis CD, the other of the two rays is regulated by the
extraordinary law of refraction. The formulae by which
Fresnel expressed his law, are as follow :
making V=the velocity of the ordinary ray.
?;=tbat of the extraordinary ray.
A=the angle of the ray with the one axis.
a=the angle of the ray with the other axis.
T)=ordinary velocity in uniaxal crystals, or the
constant velocity in the section perpendicu¬
lar to CD, fig. 15 9j in biaxal crystals,
d'—the extraordinary velocity in uniaxal crystals,
or the constant velocity in the section per¬
pendicular to AB, fig. 159> then
V^D2 D2)sin A)
V*=T>2 + (d2—D2)sin2i(a+A)
In uniaxal crystals, when the two axes are reduced to
one, we have A=a, so that
V2=D2
?;2=D2 + (d2—D2)sin 2A,
that is, the ordinary velocity is constant in all directions and
equal to D, and, as the second equation indicates, the extra¬
ordinary velocity v depends on the angle A, which the ex¬
traordinary ray makes with the axis.
When this ray is in the section perpendicular to the axis,
we have A=90°, and sin.2 A=l, hence Y'—d.
When the ray is parallel to the axis A=0°, and sin.2
ArrO, whence v=D, so that in this direction only the ex¬
traordinary becomes equal to the ordinary velocity.
In biaxal crystals, when the ray is in the section perpen¬
dicular to CD, fig. 159} it is evident that it always forms
equal angles with the axes Yp, Y'p'. Hence A=a, and
sin.2Jf, (a—A)=0, consequently V2=D2, or V=D. In this
way D is the expression of the velocity in this case, and it
is on this account that the term ordinary velocity is applied
to all those which are given by the different values of V.
When the ray on the contrary, is in the section perpen¬
dicular to AB, the sum of the angles A and a is always
equal to two right angles, and sin.i(A + a)=l, whence it
follows that Y2 =.(&•, and Y=d, and it is on this account
that the term extraordinary velocity is applied to all those
that are given by the values of v.
When d is greater than D, the minimum of the ordinary
velocity takes place when a=:A, or when V=D, and the
maximum takes place when a—A is the greatest possible,
which happens in the plane of the axes APCBDP'. The
minimum becomes the maximum, and vice versa when D is
greater than d. The maximum and minimum for the extra¬
ordinary ray take place also, when v—d, and consequently
for the case when the ray is in the plane of the axes, but
they in like manner change their part when d is greater or
less than D.
In every case the difference of the squares of the veloci- Double
ties is expressed by the formula Refraction.
v2—Y2=z(d2—D2) sin. a. sin. A.
That is to say, the two ordinary and extraordinary rava
having a common direction, the difference of the squares of
their velocities are proportional to the product of the sines
of the angles which each of them makes with the two axes.
“ This remark, adds M. Pouillet, had been made by Sir David
Brewster and M. Biot before Fresnel had pointed out the
simple law which embraces the phenomena in all its extent.”
List of the primitive forms of Crystals that have two axes of
double refraction.
From a great number of experiments, Sir David Brew- Crystals
ster found that the property of possessing two axes of dou- with two
ble refraction belonged to all the crystals that are included axes,
in the prismatic system of Mohs, or which have the fol¬
lowing primitive forms of Hauy:—
A right prism, Base a rectangle.
   Base a rhomb.
 Base an oblique parallelogram.
Oblique prism Base a rectangle.
  Base a rhomb.
    Base an oblique parallelogram.
Octohedron Base a rectangle.
  Base a rhomb.
In these solids there is no single line or axis of sym¬
metry.
The following table, which we could have enlarged con¬
siderably, contains most of the crystals with two axes, whose
primitive forms have been determined by crystallogra-
phers:—
1. List of Crystals of known Primitive Forms, and having
Two Axes of Double Refraction.
1. Higlit Quadrangular Prism—Base a Rectangle.
Cymophane, Young.
Peridot, ditto.
Prehnite, ditto.
Stilbite, ditto.
Comptonite, Brooke.
Thomsonite, ditto.
Anhydrite, Boumon.
Tartrate of potash,
ditto.
Staurotide, Hauy.
Datholite, do.
Mica, do.
Position of Principal
Axis.
Axis of right prism.
Perp. to axis.
Parallel to longest
side of prism, or
perp. to best cleav¬
age planes.
Perp. to axis of right
prism.
Perp.to axis of prism.
Axis of right prism.
Perp. to the flat
rhomb, faces.
Position of Second
Axis.
Perp. to the sides.
Axis of right prism.
Axis of right prism,
or perp. to longest
faces.
Axis of that prism, or
other axis.
Axis of the prism.
Perp. to sides of prism
Parallel to a side of
rhomb, prism.
Talc, do.
Axis of right prism.
Axis of right prism.
Spodumene, do. Axis of prism.
Sulphate of barytes, Short diagonal
ditto. rhomb, base.
Sulphate of strontian, Axis of the prism,
do.
Sulphate of soda,
Boumon.
Citric acid, do.
Tartrate of potash and soda, do.
Chromate of lead, do.
Stilbite, Brooke. Perp. to laminae.
Mesotype of Auv- Axis of prism,
ergne, do.
Greater diagonal of it*
rhomb, base.
Diagonalof its rhomb
base.
In plane of laminae,
of Long diagonal, or axis
of prism.
Perp. to axis of prism.
In plane of laminae.
Perpendicular to axis.
1 Ettmens de Physique Experim. liv- viii. cap. 1.
632
OPTICS.
Double 3. Right Quadrangular Prism—Base an Obligue Parallelogram.
Refraction
Names of Minerals. Position of Principal Position of Second
Axis. Axis.
Needlestone ofFaroe, Axis of prism. Perpendicular to axis-
do.
Sulphate of lime, In plane of the lami- Axis of prism.
Hauy. nse.
Epidote, do. In base of prism. Axis of prism.
Axinite, do.
Heulandite, Brooke.
Brevvsterite, do.
Sulphato-carbon of
lead, do.
Acetate of strontian.
Perp. to laminae. In plane of laminae-
4, Oblique Quadrangular Prism—Base a Rectangle.
Names of Minerals.
Muriate of barytes.
Realgar.
Orpiment.
Lepidolite.
Mesotype.
Mesolite.
Serpentine.
Natrolite.
Sulphato-bi-earbo -
nate ot lead.
Phosphate of iron.
Harmotome, Petalite, Chabasie.
Position of Principal
Axis.
In plane of laminae.
Perp. to laminae.
Axis of prism.
Ditto.
Axes of acute rhomb.
In plane of laminae.
Position of Second
Axis.
Perp. to laminae.
Plane of laminae.
Perp. to axis.
Ditto.
In plane of laminae.
Perp. to laminae.
Double
Refraction
10. Crystals, whose primitive form has not been determined, but which
have been found to have two axes, and lohich must belong to the Pris¬
matic System of Mohs.
Borax, Hauy.
Euclase, do.
5. Oblique Quadrangular Prism—Base a Rhomb.
lolite.
Indurated talc.
Carbonate of potash.
Perpendicular to sides
of the prism.
Axis of prism,
other axis.
or
Perp. to axis of prism.
Perp.to axis of prism.
Axis of prism.
Axis of prism.
Axis of prism.
Perpendic. to faces.
Diopside, Hauy.
Euclase, do.
Augite, do.
Glauberite.
Grammatite.
Sulphate of iron, Wollaston.
Super-sulphate of
potash, Bournon.
Acetate of copper,do.
Tartaric acid, do.
Oxalic acid, do.
Sugar, do.
Hydrate of strontian.
Bitartrate of potash.
Sulphate of soda.
6. Oblique Quadrangular Prism—Base an oblique Parallelogram.
Feldspar, Hauy.
Kyanite, do.
Sulphate of copper,do.
7. Octahedron with a Rectangular Base.
Nitrate of potash. Axis of octohedron. Perp. to sides of base
Carbonate of copper.
Sulphate of ammonia
and magnesia.
Axis of prism.
Perp. to plates.
Plane of axis perpen¬
dicular to the flat
tables.
Perp.to axis of prism.
In plane of laminae.
In plane of tables.
Shorter diagonal of Axis of hexagonal
the rhomboidal prism, or longdiag.
base. of rhomb, base.
Sulphate of soda and magnesia.
Sulphate of nickel. Short diagonal of the Axis of prism, or
rhomboidal base. other axis.
Oxy-nitrate of silver. Perp. to rhomb plates Long diagonal of
Nitrate of ammonia. rhomboidal plates.
  of lime.
  of strontian, with water of crystallization.
  of copper.
 of zinc-
 of mercury.
 of bismuth.
Nitrate of lead, certain specimens. Mr. Herschel, Edin. Ph. Jour.
vol. ii. p. 184.
Muriate of mercury.
 of magnesia.
Acetate of lead.
of zinc.
Anagonite.
Carbonate of lead.
Sulphate of lead.
Topaz.
Muriate of copper.
Axis of prism or per¬
pendicular to axis
of octohedron.
In plane of base of
two pyramids.
Axis octohedron.
Long diagonal of
rhomb, base.
Perp. to sides of base
Axis of the octohe¬
dron.
Perp. to sides of rect.
base.
Short diagonal of the
rhomb, base.
8. Octohedron with a Rhombic Base.
Sulphur, Hauy.
Sphene, do.
Carbonate of soda,
do.
Diagonal of base
through o of Hauy,
PI. xxxix.
Axis of octohedron
or other axis.
9. Minerals belonging to the Prismatic System of Mohs, and having
two axes, but not included in any of the above divisions of Hauy.
Sulphate of magne- Cleavable diagonal of Perpendicular to axis,
sia, Mohs. square base. or the other diagonal.
Sulphate of manga¬
nese.
Sulphate of zinc.
Sulphate of ammonia.
Axis of rhomboidal Short diagonal of
rhomboidal base.
Perp to axis.
prism.
Axis of hexahed.
prism.
Sulphate of cobalt.
Carbonate of stron. Axis of prism,
tian, do.
Carbonate of barytes, Axis of prism,
do.
Diallage. Perp. to plates.
Molybdate of am¬
monia.
Perp. to axis.
Perp. to axis.
Plane of plates.
  soda.
  barytes.
Phosphate of soda-
Oxalate of ammonia.
Hyper-oxymuriate of
potash.
Super-oxalate of pot¬
ash-
Super-chromate of
potash.
Crystallized Chelten¬
ham salts.
Murio-sulphate of
magnesia and iron.
Benzoate of ammonia.
Benzoic acid.
Chromic acid-
Spermaceti.
Boracic acid.
Succinic acid.
Super-tartrate of pot¬
ash.
Tartrate of potash
and antimony.
Camphor.
Hydrate of barytes.
Prussiate of potash.
Mother-of-pearl.
Carbonate of ammo-
Hyposulphite of lime.
of ba¬
rytes.
Perp. to broad sides
of prism.
In plane of hexag.
plates.
Perp.to axis of prism.
Perpendic. to rhomb,
plates.
Axis of prism.
Cleavable diagonal of
its square base.
Perp. to lamina.
Perp. to plates.
Perp. to plates.
Perp.to hexag.plates.
Perp. to faces of flat
prism-
Perpendicular to axis
of prism.
Perpendicular to axis
of prism.
Perp. to flat plates.
Perp. to rect.lamina.
Perp. to lamina.
Short diag. of rhomb,
and perp. to best
cleavage.
Sir John Herschel,
Edin. Phil. Jour.
vol. i. p. 15.
Sir John Herschel.
Axis of prism, or
other axis.
Perpendicular to hex¬
ag. plates.
Axis of prism.
Plane of axis in that
diag.
Perp. to axis.
Axis of prism, or
other diag.
In plane of do.
In plane of plates.
In plane of plates.
In plane of plates.
In plane of these faces.
Axis of prism.
Axis of prism.
In ane of plates.
In plane of laminae.
In plane of laminae.
Axis of prism, or
long diag.
OPTICS.
633
Polariza- Sect. III.—Ox CRYSTALS WITH THREE AXES OF DOUBLE
ti0n. Refraction.
Having determined the primitive form to which those
"•yu S8 crystals belong which have one and two axes of double re-
"e fiction, Sir David Brewster found that all those crystals
which have no resultant axes belonged to that class ol
primitive forms which have three rectangular axes of form,
namely, the cube, the regular octahedron, and the rhom-
hoidal dodecahedron, or to the tessular system of Mohs.
Since, however, every real axis of double refraction coin¬
cides with a prominent line in the primitive form of the
crystal, he conceived that those crystals which had no ap¬
parent double refraction had actually three equal rectangu¬
lar axes, the effect of which was to compensate each other
at. every point of the crystal, or, in other words, to have an
infinite number of resultant axes.
In confirmation of these views, Sir D. Brewster found
various indications of positive and negative doubly-refracting
structures in alum, diamond, &c., as if these equal axes had
not exactly compensated each other, either from the three
not being perfectly equal, or from their not being placed
accurately at right angles to each other.
The following is a list, which might be considerably ex¬
tended, of the primitive forms of the crystals that have no
double refraction. .
Primitive Form a CmSc.—-Muriate of soda, munate of
potash, muriate of silver.
Primitive Form an Octahedron.—Diamond, fluor spar,
muriate of ammonia, pleonaste, nitrate of lead, sulphate of
alumina, soda, alum, ruby copper, spinelle, nitrate of stron-
tian octahedral, nitrate of lead, nitrate of barytes, sulphate
of ammonia and chromium, sulphate of ammonia and iron,
sulphate of alumina and ammonia.
Primitive Form a Rhomboidal Dodecahedron.—Garnet,
blende, sodalite, essonite, helvin, lazulite.
There are some crystals, such as arseniate of iron, amphi-
gene, analcime, boracite, aplome, all of which have double
refraction, and therefore cannot belong to the tessular
system.
Sect. IV.—On Crystals with Planes of Double
Refraction.
Crystals In all the crystals to which we have hitherto referred
with planes t]ie double refraction is related to one or more axes; but
of double gir David Brewster has found that in analcime, a mineral
refraction. mnked in the tessuiar system, there are several planes or
sections of the crystal in which there is no double refrac¬
tion, the double refraction increasing with the distance
from these planes according to a law which will be after¬
wards mentioned. When the ray is incident in any dhec-
tion that does not lie in one of these planes, it is sepaiated
into two images by double refraction. 1 his is the only
substance which is known to possess this remarkable
property.
Part VIL—01S THE POLARIZATION OF LIGHT.
Polariza- The light emitted from the sun, from a candle, or from
tion of any self-luminous body, before it has suffered reflection
light. from, or refraction by, any body, is called common light.
If we allow a beam of such light to fall upon any refracting
or reflecting body, whether transparent or metallic, or to
pass by any diffracting body, it will suffer precisely the same
changes, whether its upper, its under, its right or its left
side, or any other side of the beam, is turned towards the
refracting, reflecting, or diffracting body. Hence it fol¬
lows that this beam of light has the same properties in all
its sides.
VOL. XIV.
Now this is not true of all light. If the preceding beam Tolariza-
of common light is reflected at a particular angle, from trans- Uon*
parent bodies, or passes obliquely through a number of re-
fracting surfaces, or is transmitted through certain crystals,
or suffers total reflection from the second surfaces of trans¬
parent bodies, or from the surface of metals ; in all these
cases it has suffered such a change, that it no longer has
the same properties in all its sides, but, on the contrary,
exhibits distinct and remarkable properties in its different
sides, or, what is the same thing, has polarity. This beam
of common light is therefore said to be polarized. The
different kinds of polarization which may thus be impressed
upon common light are three,—viz., plane polarization, cir¬
cular polarization, and elliptical polarization; or the
whole of these three kinds of polarization may be included
in the general name of elliptical polarization, which be¬
comes circular when the two axes of the ellipsis are equal,
and rectilineal ox plane when the minor axis of the ellipse is
infinitely small. We shall now proceed to explain the phe¬
nomena of these three kinds of polarization in their order.
Chap. I.—ON PLANE POLARIZATION.
There are four ways by which common light may be plane po¬
p/awe polarized. larization.
1. By double refraction.
2. By one reflection from transparent bodies.
3. By several refractions through transparent surfaces.
4. By the absorption or dispersion of part of the light.
These various processes exhibit many interesting phe¬
nomena and laws, which we shall proceed to explain.
Sect. 1.—On the Polarization of Light by Double
Refraction.
The polarization of light by the double refraction of rolariza_
Iceland spar was discovered by Huygens. Upon examin- tion by
double re¬
fraction.
Fig. 160.
ing the two pencils Oo, Ee (fig. 148) formed
by double refraction, he found that they had
different properties on different sides, and
that both of them differed from common light,
as well as from one another. He discovered
this difference in the following manner:—
Having taken two pieces of Iceland spar,
he placed them symmetrically, as in fig. 160,
with all the faces of the one parallel to all
the faces of the other, ArX, A'GX' being
the principal sections of two rhombs. A ray
of common light Rr, incident upon the first
crystal at r, is divided into two pencils /’C,
;-D, O being the ordinary and E the extra¬
ordinary ray, as formerly explained. Now
the ordinary ray DG, falling upon the second crystal at G,
and the extraordinary one CF at F, should have been each
subdivided by double refraction into two pencils by that
crystal; but they are not, the ordinary ray
DG being only refracted ordinarily, and
the extraordinary ray CF only extraordi¬
narily, as seen in the figure, where these
rays FH, GK, emerge singly at FI and K,
the one an ordinary and the other an ex¬
traordinary ray. If the upper rhomb re¬
mains fixed while the under one is turned
round 90°, so that its principal section is
perpendicular to that of the upper one, as
shown in fig. 161, the same phenomena will
take place, with this difference only, that the
ray DG, refracted ordinarily by the first
crystal, is refracted extraordinarily by the
second, and the ray CF, refracted extraor-
634
OPTICS.
dinarily by the first crystal, is refracted ordinarily by the
second.
Hence it is manifest that the ray of common light Hr,
and the two doubly-refracted pencils CF, DG have all
different properties. For if Rr were to fall upon the second
rhomb, it would be divided into two pencils; whereas CF
and DG refuse to be so divided, and are each refracted in
different ways by the second crystal.
Now, in every other position of the four rhombs, between
the two where their principal sections are parallel or per¬
pendicular to one another, the two pencils CF, DG are
divided into two pencils, and four separate pencils emerge
from the second rhomb.
In order to understand the phenomena presented by these
four pencils, when the second rhomb performs a complete
revolution behind the first one, let us suppose that the lower
rhomb begins to revolve from the position in fig. 159, which
we shall call 0° of azimuth, and in which case we shall have
two horizontal pencils HE, KO (fig. 161), whose sections1
are shown in the annexed figure at B, oppo- a ® ©
site 0°, A representing the appearance of the
aperture through the first rhomb. When the B *
second rhomb has just begun to move out 0 <
of its position of parallelism to the first, two ‘
extremely faint images begin to appear be- jj © ®
tween the other two; and at 22^-° of azi- © ©
muth they will appear as at C. At 45° of E ® ©
azimuth their intensity will be equal as at ® #
D; at 67^° the two most distant ones will ^
have become the faintest; and at 90° the r •
four images will be reduced to two, this ® •
being the position shown in fig. 160. By con- g @ •
tinuing to turn the second rhomb, other two ^
faint images start up, which at 112^° appear H • ©
as at G; at 135° the four images are equally
bright, as at H ; at 157i0 the two outermost
are the faintest; and at 180° they all co¬
alesce into one bright image, as at K, having
twice the brightness of either of those at A
or F, and /bwr times the brightness of any one of the four
at D or H.
Mai us’ In making the preceding experiment, it will be seen that
law of in- two of the images gradually increase in brightness, while
tensity. other two gradually diminish. Malus investigated the law
of the intensity for these images, both when the pencil of
common light is incident perpendicularly and obliquely.
Our limits will permit us to give only the simplest case,
making
o = ray refracted ordinarily by the first rhomb.
s = the ray refracted extraordinarily by the first rhomb.
oo — the ray refracted ordinarily by the first rhomb, and
ordinarily by the second.
oe — the ray refracted ordinarily by the first rhomb, and ex¬
traordinarily by the second.
ee — the ray refracted extraordinarily by the first rhomb,
and extraordinarily by the second.
eo = the ray refracted extraordinarily by the first rhomb,
and ordinarily by the second.
Q = the quantity of light contained in the incident ray.
(1 —m)Q = the quantity of light absorbed by the first rhomb.
P = the intensity of any of the pencils.
P0 = the intensity of the ordinary emergent ray.
P,, = the intensity of the extraordinary emergent ray.
Then, since the quantity of light contained in the two
emergent rays is equal to the incident light diminished by
the quantity absorbed, we shall have Q— (1 — Q = mQ;
and since the light is equally divided between the two pen¬
cils, we obtain P0 = iwQ, and P^^wQ.
But the quantity of light mQ which falls upon the second
rhomb will be reduced by absorption to mQ, — (l—m) mQ =
© o°
• 22J°
> 45°
©
67*°
90°
112i°
135°
©8® 157J°
: • 180°
Fig. 162.
ni1 Q; consequently, if a is the angle formed by the prin- Polarlza.
cipal sections of the two rhombs, we shall have tion.
First pencil, P00= i(»»2Q cos2 a). ^^ >
Third pencil, Pfe= J(m2Q, cos2 a).
Second pencil, Poe= i(m2Q, sin2 a).
Fourth pencil, Pe0= i(m2Q, sin2 a).
When the principal sections of the two rhombs are parallel,
then a = 0, and sin2 a = 0, consequently Poe = 0, and Peo = 0;
that is, the third and fourth pencils will disappear.
When, on the contrary, the principal sections are at right
angles to one another, a = 90°, and cos2« = 0, consequently
Poo = 0s and P„ = 0; that is, the first and second pencils
will disappear.
When the incident ray is not perpendicular to the surface
of the first rhomb, the intensities of the pencils are functions
of the angles of incidence and the angle which the ray forms
with the principal sections.
All the phenomena above described may be produced by
combining any two positive and any two negative crystals;
but if a positive is combined with a negative crystal, the
same effects will be produced when the principal sections
are at right angles to each other, as when they are parallel
in the other cases.
The difference between common and polarized light, as
evinced by the phenomena of double refraction, is, that the
former may always be divided into two pencils by a doubly-
refracting crystal, whereas the latter is not capable of being
so divided under certain circumstances.
As the four polarized pencils, when united, as at K (fig.
162), produce a pencil of common light, or rather a pencil
which cannot be distinguished from common light, it is
highly probable that the Iceland spar, in converting com¬
mon into polarized light, by refracting it into two pencils,
has not communicated to it any new property, but has
merely separated it into its two elements, just as a prism
separates a pencil of white light into its seven elementary
colours by refraction, these colours again forming white
light by their re-union.
Sect. II.—On the Polarization of Light by
Reflection.
We have already stated, in the History of Optics, the Polariza-
manner in which the celebrated French philosopher Malus tion byre-
discovered the polarization of light by reflection. Upon re- flection•
peating his experiments with a variety of opaque and trans¬
parent bodies, not metallic, such as glass, water, See., he
found that, when light was reflected at a particular angle
from such bodies, it was polarized exactly like one of the
pencils formed by double refraction, the pencil polarized by
reflection having all its properties identically the same with
that of the doubly-refracting crystal. Like the latter, it was
no longer capable of being divided into two pencils by a
rhomb of Iceland spar; and as, in the polarization of light
by the double refraction of one crystal, that property de¬
pends on the angle formed between the principal sections
of the two crystals, as shown in figs. 160 and 161, so in the
present case the polarization depends on the angle formed
between the plane of reflection and that of the principal sec¬
tion of the crystal which polarizes the light. In all such
phenomena, indeed, as Malus remarks, the plane of re¬
flection replaces the plane of the principal section of the
crystal.
If we receive the ray polarized by reflection from water
at an angle of 52° 45' upon any crystal having double re¬
fraction, it will not be divided into two pencils when the
plane of reflection is parallel to the principal section, as if
it had been a pencil of common light; but it will be re-
1 If we place a circular aperture, the size of the little dark circles in fig. 162, at r (fig, 161), the images will have that form.
OPTICS.
635
Polar!za- fracted entirely, according to the ordinary law, as if the
tion. crystal had lost the power of double refraction. If, on the
other hand, the principal section of the crystal is perpen¬
dicular to the plane of reflection, the reflected ray will be
refracted wholly, according to the law of extraordinary re¬
fraction. In all intermediate positions it will be divided
into two rays, according to the same law, and in the same
proportions, as if it had acquired its new character by the
influence of double refraction.
In order to analyse this phenomenon completely, he
placed the principal section of a crystal vertically ; and after
having divided a ray into two by it, he made these two rays
fall on the surface of water at an angle of 52° 45'. The
ordinary ray was partially reflected, like common light, but
the extraordinary ray penetrated the water wholly., and not
a single particle of it was reflected. When the principal
section of the crystal was, on the contrary, perpendi¬
cular to the plane of incidence, the extraordinary ray was
partially reflected, and the ordinary ray was wholly re¬
fracted.
Malus found the phenomena to be the same for all other
transparent bodies, whether solid or fluid; but the angle
at which light experienced this modification was in ge¬
neral greater in bodies which refracted light most. Be¬
low and above this limit the rays were more or less modi¬
fied.
This property of reflected light takes place at a different
angle for pencils reflected at the second surfaces of bodies,
and the sine of the angle at the first surface is to the sine
of the angle at the second as the sine of incidence is to the
sine of refraction. Hence, in parallel plates, either of
glass or other bodies, the two pencils which are reflected
in the same directions from both surfaces have equally re¬
ceived this new property, and the light which has received
it is said to have been polarized hy reflection} M. Malus
found the same property in black bodies, such as black
marble, ebony, &c.1 2
Malus next proceeded to study the phenomena when the
light R, polarized by one plate of glass A, was reflected
from a second plate e/
C (fig. 163), the ray
R A being incident on
the first plate, and
the polarized ray AC
on the second plate,
at an angle of 56°,
the polarizing angle
of glass. In the case Fi£-163-
shown in the figure, the plane of reflection ACE, from the
plate C, is at right angles to the plane of reflection RAC
from the first plate, and in this case the reflected pencil
CE wholly vanished, all the reflected and polarized light
AC having penetrated the glass at C. If we now turn
round the plate C from this point, or zero, into different
azimuths, so that it is always equally inclined to the polar¬
ized ray, a small portion of the ray AC will be reflected
from C, and this portion will increase till it becomes a
maximum, when the plane ACE is parallel to RAC, or in
the azimuth of 90°. By continuing to turn the plate C, the
reflected ray CE will gradually diminish, and when C has
reached the azimuth of 180° its plane of reflection will be
perpendicular to that of A, and the reflected ray CE will
wholly disappear. In advancing from 180° to 270°, CE
will again reach its maximum, and at 360°, when it has re¬
turned to its position, as in the figure, it will again return
to its minimum.
While the reflected pencil CE passes from its minimum
intensity at 0° and 180°, to its maximum at 90° and 270°, Polariza-
Malus supposes the intensity to vary as the square of the tion-
cosine of the angle of azimuth, or of any even power of the ^
cosine. Calling a the angle of azimuth which the plane of
the second reflection makes with a plane perpendicular to
RAC, I the maximum intensity of the reflected pencil,
and P the intensity corresponding to any azimuth a, then
P = I cos2 a. If we make a equal to 0°, 90°, I80u, and
270°, we shall have, when a = 0°, cos a —l, cos2 a—\,
cos4 a= 1, -and consequently P = I, or the reflected pencil
is a maximum. When a = 90°, cos a = 0, cos2 a = 0,
cos4 a = 0, and F=0; that is, the reflected pencil wholly
disappears.
It is obvious, from the arrangement of glasses in fig. 163,
that if the light R proceeds from the sky, an observer with
his eye placed at E will see a black spot in the part of
the sky from which the light R comes, as the whole of the
light penetrates the plate C. If the light R comes from a
house, the house will disappear if it is at a considerable
distance ; and by turning round C, the house will have its
greatest brightness when the two planes of reflection are
parallel. If) in the position when the house was invisible,
we breathe upon the plate C, the house will suddenly be¬
come visible, and will again disappear when the breath has
evaporated. If we now place the plate C at an angle of
52° 45' to the ray AC, the house will be seen ; but if we
again breathe upon C, the house will disappear. The
cause of these phenomena is, that by breathing upon C
we make the reflecting surface an aqueous one, which
refuses to reflect light at an angle of 52° 45, but reflects
it at 56°.
If we place beside each other two sets of reflectors ar¬
ranged in the manner shown in fig. 163, C being inclined
in the one set 56° to A, and in the other set 52 45, and
the plates C, C being near each other, we may, by breath¬
ing upon each at the same time, exhibit the paradoxical
phenomenon of reviving and extinguishing a luminous
image by the same breath, or we may appear to breathe at
the same time light and darkness.3
1. On the Law of the Polarization of Light by Reflection.
After determining the angle at which different bodies ijaw 0f
polarized light, Malus concluded that “ this angle followed polariza-
neither the order of refractive powers nor that of the dis- tion by re-
persive forces, and that it was a property of bodies inde- ection.
pendent of the other modes of action which they exercised
over light.4
In repeating the experiments of Malus, Sir David Brewster Law 0f the
measured the polarizing angles of a great number of bodies, tangents,
but experienced many difficulties in connecting them to¬
gether by a simple law. In some substances the light was
not completely polarized at any angle. In others purple
and blue light was left at the polarizing angles ; and in va¬
rious specimens of glass different parts of the same surface
gave different polarizing angles. The first of these pheno¬
mena he ascribed to the circumstance that the differently
coloured rays of white light were polarized at different
angles; and the second he found to arise from changes
that had taken place on the surfaces of glass by partial de¬
composition, owing to the action of the atmosphere. By
rejecting those substances where the action of the surface
was thus masked or disturbed, he was led to the following
general law, that the index of refraction of any body is the
tangent of its angle of polarization.
The following were the experiments on which this law
was founded:—
1 Theorie de, la Double Refraction, sect. 48. 2 Ibid., sect. 50.
3 This experiment was described by Sir David Brewster in the Edin. Phil. Journal, vol. vii., p. 146. See also his Letters on Natura
Magic, p. 125. 4 Bull, de Scietices de la Soc. Philos., Juin 1811, No. xlv,, tom. ii., p. 284.
636
OPTICS.
Polariza¬
tion.
Names of the Observed Polariz- Calculated Polariz-
.Bodies. ing Angles. ing Angles.
.45° or 47° 45° O' 32"
Air.
Water 52
Fluor spar 54
Obsidian 56
Sulphate of lime 56
Rock-crystal 57
Sulphate of barytes 58
Opal-coloured glass 58
Topaz 58
Mother-of-pearl .58
Iceland spar 58
Orange-coloured glass....59
Spinelle ruby 50
Zircon 63
Glass of antimony 64
Sulphur 64
Diamond   68
Chromate of lead 67
591 53 11
50  55 9
3 56 8
28  56 45
22  56 58
29  58 33
1  58 33
40  58 34
47  58 50
23  58 51
12 59 28
6  60 25
8 63 0
45  64 30
10 63 45
2  68 1
42  68 3
Upon repeating these experiments with homogeneous
light, Sir David Brewster also found that the angle of po¬
larization varied with the refrangibility of the light, and that
the tangent of the polarizing angle was equal to the index of
refraction of the light employed.
Hence we are able to explain why, at the maximum po¬
larizing angle, a portion of unpolarized light must always
remain, and why this portion increases with the refractive
and dispersive power of the body. This will be understood
from the following table :—
Polarizing .. . ..
Angle. Variation.
.53°
.0° 15'
21
24
Water.
Refraction. Colonr of the Light.
1-330 Red 53° 4' \
1*336 Green, or mean ray....53 11 l...(
1-342 Violet 53 19 J
Plate- Glass.
1-515 Red 56 34
1-525 Green 56 45
1-535 Violet 56 55
Oil of Cassia.
1-597 Red 57 57
1-642 Green 58 39 V ...1
1-687 Violet 59 21
Now it is obvious, that when the green or mean, or most
luminous ray, is polarized, and therefore vanishes, neither the
red nor the violet has wholly vanished, and consequently
a portion of unpolarized light, composed of a portion of
these two colours, will still be visible. In oil of cassia
the quantity of light is considerable, and is of a fine blue.
Dr A. See- 1° 1830, Dr A. Seebeck of Berlin published a series
beck’s ex- of very accurate and valuable experiments made by means
periments. 0f an instrument constructed for the purpose, which, if
any doubts had existed about the accuracy of the pre¬
ceding law, were sufficient to remove them. Dr Seebeck’s
principal object seems to have been to obtain accurate
measures of the polarizing angle of different glasses, when
the surfaces were newly polished, in order to reconcile the
law to that class of bodies in which the deviations had
been found to arise from some chemical or mechanical
changes produced upon their surface. The following table
contains Dr Seebeck’s experiments :—
Names of the Bodies. TRefra<> Polarizing Angles.
tion. Observed. Calculated.
Fluor spar, colourless D4341...550 6'7...55° 6'-7
„ greenish-blue 1-4343...55 3-8...55 7 0
Common opal 1-4516...55 29-3...55 26-3
Plate-glass, English, colourless 1-5130...56 36-0...56 32-2
,, colourless 1-5266...56 45-5...56 46-4
Crown-glass, English 1-5321...56 50-2...56 52 0
» ditto 1-5523...57 12-6...57 12-6
Flint-glass, English 1-5783...57 41-0...57 38-5
» ditto 1-6206...58 16-6...58 194
PyfoP6" 1-8131...61 40...61 7-7
Yellow blende 2-3692...67 8-2...67 7-0
Upon examining the polarizing angles of different spe- p0lariza.
cimens of glass at different periods after the surfaces were tion. "
polished, Dr Seebeck confirmed the explanation given by
Sir David Brewster, of the variations in their polarizing
angles.2
When a •pencil of light is polarized by reflection, the sum
of the angles of incidence and refraction is a right angle.
LetMN (fig. 164) be the reflecting surface, and B A a ray
of light polarized by reflection
in the direction AD, and let
AC be the refracted ray.
I hen, since EF, the tangent
of the polarizing angle BAE,
is equal to m, or the index of
refraction, vre have, by the
law of the sines, CL=— =
m -j
BG ^ Tig-164-
gp. But from the similar triangles ABH, AEF, we have
AH, or BG: HB :: EF : rad., and HB = gg; consequently
CL = HB, and the angle BAN = CAK. But EAB + BAN
= 90°; consequently EAB + CAK = 90°. Hence the com¬
plement of the polarizing angle is equal to the angle o
refraction.
When a ray of light is polarized by reflection, the reflected
ray forms a right angle with the refracted ray.
Since the angles DAM, BAN, CAK, are equal to one
another, the angle DAC is equal to the right angle MAK;
hence the reflected ray AD forms a right angle with the
refracted ray AC.
When a pencil of light is incident on the second surface
of transparent bodies, at an angle whose cotangent is equal
to the index of refraction, the reflected portion will be either
wholly polarized, or the quantity of polarized light which it
contains will be a maximum.
As the images formed by the first and second surfaces
of a transparent plate are simultaneously polarized, this
proposition is established by the experimental results in the
preceding table.
The angle of polarization at the second surface of trans¬
parent bodies is the complement of the angle of polarization
at the first surface.
As the angle of incidence at the second surface is equal
to the angle of refraction at the first surface, and as this
latter angle is equal to the complement of the angle of po¬
larization, it follows that the two polarizing angles are com¬
plementary to each other.
When a ray of light is polarized by reflection from the
second surface of transparent bodies, the reflected ray will
form a right angle with the refracted ray.
Let AB (fig. 165) be a ray incident at the first surface
MN, AD the ray polarized at that
surface, AC the ray incident at the
second surface PQ, and CM the
ray polarized at that surface ; then, pB
if CF be the refracted ray, the
angle MCF is a right angle. But Fie. 165.
DAC is a right angle, and on account of the parallelism of
MN, PC, and BA, CF, the angle FCP is equal to DAM;
but MCP is equal to MAC; hence the whole MCF is equal
to the whole DAC, or a right angle.
Cor. 1.—Ihe ray MC, reflected by the second surface,
is at right angles to the ray AB incident on the first sur¬
face.
Cor. 2.—The internal reflected ray CM forms with the
external reflected ray AD an angle equal to the angle of
deviation CAO.
1 Mean of four observations by Malus, Biot, .Arago, and Brewster.
2 See Poggendorf’s Annalen, 1830, No. ix., p. 27 ; or Edin. Jour, of Science, N.S , vol. v., p. 09.
OPTICS.
637
Polariza- Cor. 3.—The ray CF, emerging from the second sur-
tion. face, forms, with the first reflected ray AD, an angle equal
v/-*""'' to the complement of the angle of deviation.
When a pencil of light is incident upon the separating
surface of two media having different indices of refraction
m, m', it will be polarized at an angle whose tangent is equal
to the quotient of the greater index of refraction divided
by the lesser, or —ifm exceeds m'.
J m
This truth is a necessary consequence of the general
law, and was also deduced from direct experiment. If the
uppermost of the two media is a parallel plate, such as
water lying upon a horizontal surface, &c., the separating
surface' of the two media cannot, at any angle of inci¬
dence upon the first surface, completely polarize the in¬
cident light, unless the sine of the angle whose tangent is
is, when multiplied by m, less than unity. Thus, in
m
the case of water and glass the polarizing angle is 68° 47',
but no ray incident upon the water, even at 90°, can fall at
such an oblique incidence upon the glass as 48° 47'. For
sin 48° 47' x ni (or the angle of refraction at an incidence
of 90) is=T0048. When the upper medium has a higher
refractive power than the lower, and lies in a parallel plate
upon it, the same law is applicable, with this difference,
that the ray is now polarized at the second surface of the
denser medium, and the angle of polarization is that whose
771
cotangent is equal to the index of refraction of the
separating surfaces.
Partial po* In the preceding observations, we have considered only the
lurization. light which is incident at thg polarizing angle. It becomes
interesting to inquire, what is the condition of the light which
is incident at angles above and below the polarizing angle.
Malus, Arago, Biot, Fresnel, and other distinguished philo¬
sophers, considered the light thus reflected as consisting of
two pencils, one of which preserved its state of common light,
while the other pencil was polarized in the plane of inci¬
dence. In the year 1815, however, Sir David Brewster
was led, by direct experiments, to a very different opinion,
namely, that the pencil of light which was supposed to have
preserved its character of common light had suffered a
physical change, in its condition, or had acquired in various
degrees a character approaching to complete polarization.
He found, for example, that a pencil of light reflected from
glass, either at 62° 30' or 50° 20', was so far polarized that
it was wholly polarized by a second reflection at either of
these angles ; whereas, had the unpolarized part been com¬
mon light, it could not have been polarized at any angle
but 56° 45'. In like manner, he found that three reflec¬
tions at 65° 33' or 46° 30', and four at 67° 33' or 43° 51',
polarized the whole pencil; and in general he found that
a ray of light partly polarized by reflection at any angle,
will be more and more polarized by every successive re¬
flection in the same plane till its polarization is complete,
whether the reflections are made at angles all above or all
below the polarizing angle.
These views were not acceded to by philosophers, though
founded on direct experiment; and, so late as 1825, Sir
John Herschel, in discussing the question, gives his de¬
cision in favour of the opinion held by the French philo¬
sophers.1 Sir David Brewster was therefore induced to
repeat and extend his experiments, and succeeded in
confirming his original view of the subject. A brief ac¬
count of these experiments will form the subject of the
next section.
2. On the Motion of the Plane of Polarization by Re- Polariza-
flection. tion.
MM. Fresnel and Arago, and Sir David Brewster, were Motion of
engaged about the same time in inquiries upon this subject, the plane
If we suppose a pencil of polarized light polarized in aof polariza-
plane inclined 45° to a vertical line, and if we reflect it attl0n-
different angles from a transparent surface in which the
plane of reflection is perpendicular to the horizon, the
plane of polarization will be gradually reduced from 45° to
40°, 35°, 30°, 25°, &c., as we diminish the angle of inci¬
dence from 90° till we reach the polarizing angle, when
the plane of polarization will be inclined 0°, or will be
brought into the plane of reflection. At angles less than
the polarizing angle the plane continues to turn in the
same direction, till at 0° it is again inclined 45° to a ver¬
tical plane, or to the plane of reflection, having performed
a revolution of 90°, the first 45° during the change of inci¬
dence from 90° to 56° 45', and the other 45° from 56° 45'
to 0°.
M. Fresnel represented these changes by the following
law: i being the angle of incidence, i the angle of refrac¬
tion, x the primitive inclination of the plane of the polarized
ray to the plane of reflection, and </> the inclination to which
that plane is brought by reflection.
rp , . cos (i+i')
Ian d> = tan x —
cos (z — i )
When a’=45°, tan a:=l, and
tan (fi =
cos (i + i')
cos (* — i')
In these formulae founded on the law of the tangents,
i + i! is the supplement of the angle which the reflected
ray forms with the refracted ray, while i — i is the devia¬
tion produced by refraction.
These formulae were verified by M. Arago at ten angles
of incidence upon glass, and four upon water ; but his
experiments were made only in the case where a: = 45 ,
and where tan x disappears from the formula. As Sir
David Brewster’s experiments embrace a wider range of
substances, and also required care where x varies from 0
to 90°, they are a better basis for a law of such extensive
application.
The following are the observations with glass and water
made by M. Arago, in which a: = 45°:—
Glass.
„ Inclination of Plane of Polariza-
Angles ot tion to plane of Reflection. Difference.
Incidence. „ , . . ,
Observed. Calculated.
24 38° 55'  37° 54' -1° l'
39 24 38   24 38 + 0 3
49   11 45   10 52 -0 53
60   5 15  5 29 -0 14
70   19 52  20 24 -0 32
80 32 45 33 25 -0 40
85   38 55   39 19 -0 24
87   40 55  41 36 -0 41
88   41 15  42 44 -1 29
89   44 35 ••• 43 52 +0 43
* Treatiie on Light, sect. 866, 867.
638
OPTICS.
Polariza¬
tion.
Difference.
-0° 31'
Water.
Angles of Inclination of Plane of Polarisa-
Incidence. tion to Plane of Reflection.
Observed. Calculated.
60 10° 20' 10° 51' 
70 25 20  24 48 + 0 32
80 36 20  35 49 +0 21
85 40 50 40 32 + 0 18
The following observations were made by Sir David
Brewster on glass.
Glass.
 45° 0' 45° 0'  0° O'
90°.
88 .
86 .
84 .
80 .
75 .
70 .
65 .
60
56
50
45 .,
40 ..
30 .,
20
10 ..
.43 4  42 49  +0 35
.40 43  40 36  +0 7
.38 47 38 22 -f0 25
.33 13 33 46  —0 33
.28 45  27 41  + 1 4
.22 6 21 3 + 1 3
.14 40 13 53 4-° 4)7
. 6 10  6 16 —0 6
. 0 0  0 0  0 0
. 9 0  9 0  0 0
.16 55 16 31  + 0 24
.22 37  23 1  —0 24
.32 25 33 19 —0 54
.39 0 40 4 _1 4
.44 0 43 49 + 0 11
Diamond.
90°
85
80
75
70
67
60
50
O'.
0 .
0 .
0 .
0 .
43 .
0.
0 .
.45°
.34
.24
.14
. 4
. 0
.12
.24
O'.
30 .
0 .
30 .
30 .
0 .
30 .
0 .
.45° O'.
.33 56.
0° 0
.23
.13
. 3
. 0
.11
.23
12
8
54
0
41
30
. 4-0
. + 0
+1
+ 0
, 0
+0
+ 0
34
48
22
36
0
49
30
Our author also made another series of experiments,
which confirms the general formula. As a: = 45° in the
preceding experiments, he wished to observe the law of
variation for <p when x varied from 0° to 90°. He took a
crj’stal of quartz with a fine natural face parallel to the
axis, and he found, that at an angle of incidence of 75°,
and when x was = 45°, the inclination of the plane of po¬
larisation to the plane of reflection was 26° 20'. We have
cos. {i -4- if)
therefore   — tt = tarn 26° 20', and consequently
the general formula becomes tan. <p = tan. x. tan. 26° 20',
by which the third column in the following table has been
calculated.
Values
of x.
0...,
10...,
20...,
30.. ..
35.. ..
40.. ..
45.. ..
50.. ..
55.. ..
60.. ..
70.. .,
80.. ..
90...,
Inclination of Plane of Polarisation.
Observed. Calculated.
Difference.
.10
.15
.20
0° O'.
4 54..
0..
50.,
0..
0° 0' 0° O'
4 29 + 0 25
10 16 — 0 16
16 2 — 0 12
19 12 4- 0 48
.23 30 22 40 4. 0
.26 20 26 27 — 0
.30 0 30 40 — 0
.35 30 35 23 4- 0
.40 0 40 45 — 0
•53 0 53 49 — 0
•70 0 70 29 — 0
•90 0 90 0 0
50
7
40
7
45
49
29
0
It is a curious circumstance, that at an incidence of 45°
t ie deviation produced by refraction, or i — *', is, in every
substance, the complement of the angle of refraction i! to
45 j and in the action of all_ substances in turning round
the planes of polarisation, at an incidence of 45°, the angle Polarka,
of rotation, when the plane of the polarised ray is z±= 45°, tion.
is equal to the angle of refraction, while the new inclina-''“'v-'-'
tion of the plane of polarisation to the plane of reflection,
or p, is equal to the deviation i — i'.
These phenomena may be represented to the eye as in
%• 166, where MN represents the plane of incidence di¬
vided into ninety equal parts, and ab, ab, ab the planes of
Fig. 166.
polarisation of the same pencil of light incident at the an¬
gles marked upon the curve line. At 90° of incidence, for
example, the pencil A has its plane of polarisation inclined
45° to the plane of reflection M; but at 70° the same plane
is inclined only 21°, and at 56° it is inclined 0°. At 40®
it is inclined 23° in another direction ; at 23° about 38°,
and at 0° it is inclined 45°.
3. On the partial Polarisation of Light, and the Law of
its Intensity.
In order to apply these results, Sir David Brewster con¬
ceives common light to be composed of two pencils A, B,
fig. 166, having their planes of polarisation ab, cd at right
angles to each other, and of equal intensity. Two such
pencils united comports itself under all circumstances ex¬
actly like common light. We are as much entitled to con¬
sider a beam of common light as composed in this manner,
as we are to regard white light as composed of seven differ¬
ently refrangible rays. The prism analyses the one, and
doubly-refracting crystals, and the action of transparent
surfaces, analyse the other, and common light is recom¬
posed by the two oppositely polarised pencils, as much as
white light is recomposed by the union of the seven co¬
loured rays. Considering common light in this manner,
Sir David Brewster was led to obtain an explanation of the
phenomena of polarisation produced by reflexion and re¬
fraction.
A beam of common light will be represented as at AB,
composed of the two beams
A, B, ab and cd being Fig. 167.
the planes of polarisation
of each of them. In or¬
der, however, to analyse
the action of a reflecting
surface in changing the „
physical condition of the beam of common light, we shall
represent it as in fig. 166, where the planes of polarisation
ab, cd are each inclined 45° to the plane of incidence MN.
These two beams are obtained from a rhomb of Iceland
spar, upon one of whose surfaces is placed an aperture of
the size of A or B, and the rhomb is turned round till its
principal section is inclined 45° to the plane of incidence
OPTICS.
Polariza- MN. In this position the double beam or pencil AB
tion. wjp turn its planes of polarization as in fig 136.
At an incidence of 90°, or as near it as possible, no change
is produced in the pencils A, B, the angle oec being still 90°.
At an incidence of 80° the angle aec is reduced from 90° to
66°; at 70° it has been reduced to 40°; and at 56°, the
maximum polarising angle, it has been reduced to 0°, or
the planes of polarization ab, cd being now parallel, or, what
is the same thing, the whole of the reflected pencil being
polarised in the plane of incidence. Below the polarising
angle, the planes ab, cd continuing to turn in the same
direction, are again inclined to each other. At 40°
they are inclined 50° ; at 23° they are inclined 38° ; and
at 0°, or a perpendicular incidence, they are again brought
back to their primitive inclination of 90°, or the state of
common light. The two curves in the figure show the
progressive change which takes place in the planes of po¬
larisation, these planes being a tangent to the curve at the
incidence which corresponds to any particular part of it.
“ Such,” says Sir David Brewster,1 “ being the action
of the reflecting forces upon A and B taken separately,
let us now consider them as superposed and forming na¬
tural light. At 90° and 0° of incidence, the reflecting
force produces no change in the inclination of their axes
or planes of polarisation; but at 56° in the case of glass,
and 67° 43' in the case of diamond, the axes of all the
particles are brought into a state of parallelism with the
plane of reflection; and consequently when the image
which they form is viewed by the rhomb of calcareous spar,
they will all pass into the ordinary image, and thus prove
that they are wholly polarised in the plane of reflection.
“ Hence we see that the total polarisation of the reflect¬
ed pencil at an angle whose tangent is the index of refrac¬
tion, is effected by turning round the planes of polarisa¬
tion of one half of the light from right to left, and of the
other half from left to right, each through an angle of 45°.
Let us now consider what takes place at those angles
where the pencil is only partially polarised. At 80°, for
example, the angle of the planes a 6, c <2 is 66°, that is,
each plane of polarisation has been turned round in oppo¬
site directions from an inclination of 45° to one of 33°
with the plane of reflection. The light has therefore suf¬
fered a physical change of a very marked kind, constitut¬
ing now neither natural nor polarised light. It is not na¬
tural light, because its planes of polarisation are not rect¬
angular ; it is not polarised light, because they are not pa¬
rallel. It is a pencil of light having the physical character
of one half of its rays being polarised at an angle of 66° to
the other half. It will now be asked how a pencil thus
characterised can exhibit the properties of a partially po¬
larised pencil, that is, of a pencil part of whose light is
polarised in the plane of reflection, while the rest retains
its condition of natural light. This will be understood by
placing the analysing rhomb, with its principal section, in
the plane of reflection, and viewing through it the images
A and B at 80° of incidence. As the axis of A is inclin¬
ed 33° to MN or the section of the rhomb, the ordinary
image of it will be much brighter than the extraordinary
image, the intensity of each being in the ratio of cos.2 p to
sin.2 <p, p being the angle of inclination, or 33°, in the pre¬
sent case. In like manner, the ordinary image of B will
be in the same ratio brighter than its extraordinary image,
that is, by considering A and B in a state of superposition,
the extraordinary image of a pencil of light reflected at
80° will be fainter than the ordinary image in the ratio of
sin.2 33° to cos.2 33°. But this inequality in the inten¬
sity of the two pencils is precisely what would be produ¬
ced by a compound pencil, ;part of which is polarised in
the plane of reflection, and part of which is common light.
639
When Malus, therefore, and his successors analysed the Polariza.
pencil reflected at 80°, they could not do otherwise than tion-
conclude that it was partially polarised, consisting partly
of light polarised in the plane of reflection, and partly of
natural light. The action of successive reflections, how¬
ever, afforded a more precise means of analysis, in so far
as it proved that the portion of what was deemed natural
light had in reality suffered a physical change, which ap¬
proximated it to the state of polarised light; and we now
see that the portion of what was called polarised light was
only what may be called apparently polarised ; for though
it disappears, like polarised light, from the extraordinary
image of the analysing prism, yet there is not a single par¬
ticle of it polarised in the plane of reflection.
“ These results lead to conclusions of general importance.
The quantity of light which disappears from the extraor¬
dinary image, is obviously the quantity of light which is
really or apparently polarised at a given angle of incidence;
and if we admit the truth of the law of repartition dis¬
covered by Malus, and represented by Poo = Po cos.2 f,
and Poe = Po sin.2 p, and as we can determine p for sub¬
stances of every refractive power, and for all angles of in¬
cidence, we may consider as established the mathematical
law which determines the intensity of the polarised pencil,
whatever be the nature of the body which reflects it, what¬
ever be the angle at which it is incident, whatever be the
number of reflections which it suffers, and whether these
reflections are all made from one substance, or partly from
one substance and partly from another.
“ Let us suppose that a beam of common light composed
of two portions A, B (fig. 168) pola¬
rised + 45° and — 45° to the plane of
reflection, is incident on a plate of glass
at such an angle that the reflected pen¬
cil composed of C and D has its planes
of polarisation inclined at an angle <p to
the plane MN. When a rhomb of cal¬
careous spar has its principal section in
the plane MN, it will divide the image
C into an extraordinary pencil E and
an ordinary one F; and the same will
take place with D, G being its extraor¬
dinary, and H its ordinary image. If we represent the
whole of the reflected pencil, or C + D, by 1, then C =4,
D = ^, E + F = 1, and G + H = 1. But since the
planes of polarisation of C and D are each inclined <p de¬
grees to the principal section of the rhomb, the intensity
of the light of the doubly-refracted pencils will be as
sin.2 p : cos.2 <p; that is, the intensity of E will be -i sin.2 p,
and that of F, ^ cos.2 p. Hence it follows that the diffe¬
rence of these pencils, or ^ sin.2 p — 1 cos.2 p, will ex¬
press the quantity of light which has passed from the ex¬
traordinary image E into the ordinary one F; that is, the
quantity of light apparently polarised in the plane of re¬
flection MN. But as the same is true of the pencil D, we
have 2 Q sin.2 p — £ cos.2 p) or sin.2 p — cos.2 p for the
whole of the polarised light in a pencil of common light
C + D. Hence, since sin.2 p + cos.2 p = 1, and cos.2 p
= 1 — sin.2 p, we have for the whole quantity of polarised
light
Q. = 1 — 2 sin.2 p.
,, cos. (e + i')
But tan. p = tan. x   ^ ^
cos. (« — t')
And as tan.2 p = and sin.2 a + cos.2 © = 1.
cos. p r y *
we have the quotient and the sum of the quantities sin.e <p
and cos.2 p, by which we obtain
Fig. 168.
1 Phil. Trans. 1830, p. ^\.
OPTICS.
640
Polariza¬
tion.
sin.2 <p —
( cos. (* + * )Y
(tan. x h-. ox)
\ cos. (e — i)J
+ 1
/ cos. (* + * )\
[ tan. x I
_ V cos, (i — t))
( cos (i + i')y
1 + (tan. x y. y )
1 \ cos. (i — i')/
cos. (i + i')y
That is, Q = 1 — 2
(cos. (i + r)y
tan. x    ~)
COS. (l   l')/
tan. x
cos. (i —
cos. (i + *')\2
i — i')J
cos. (i — i7);
“ As the quantity of reflected light is here supposed to
be 1, we may obtain an expression of Q, in terms of the in¬
cident light, by adopting the formula of Fresnel for the in¬
tensity of a reflected ray. Thus,
a
_ L /'sin.2 (i — i') tan.2 (i — i’)
_ j /sin.2 (i
2 \sin.2 (i
(i + i') ‘ tan.2(« + i
/cos. (i + *')\2
v f \—g ^cos- ^
v i + fcos- + oy J *
n)
“ As tan. a; = 1 in common light, it is omitted in the pre¬
ceding formula.
“ This formula may be adapted to partially polarised rays,
that is, to light reflected at any angle different from the
angle of maximum polarisation, provided we can obtain an
expression for the quantity of reflected light.
“M. Fresnel’s general formula has been adapted to this
species of rays, by considering them as consisting of a
quantity a of light completely polarised in a plane making
the angle x with that of incidence, and of another quantity
1 — a in the state of natural light. Upon this principle
it becomes
j   sin.2 (i — *') 1 -j- « cos.2 x
sin.2 (i + *') * 2
, tan.2 (i — i') 1 — a cos.2 x
tan.2 (i — f) 2
“ But as we have proved that partially polarised rays are
rays whose planes of polarisation form an angle of 2a; with
one another as already explained, x being greater or less
than 45°, we obtain a simpler expression for the intensity
of the reflected pencil, viz. the very same as that for po¬
larised light.
j __ sin.2 (i — i')
sin.2 (i + *')
Hence we have
cos.2 x +
tan.2 (i — H)
tan.2 (i + i')
sin.2 x.
Q
  /sin.2 (i
\sin.2 ^ i
i + f)
*') 2 , tan2 (i
— cos.2 a: +
■*7)
(-
tan.2(* i')
cos. (i + *7)\2
^sin^a-j,
ftan.a;—
\ cos. (* V)J
+(
tan. x
cos- (* + *7)
-r i ) y
i — i’)/
cos. (i — i’)
y
“ This formula is equally applicable to a single pencil of
polarised light of the same intensity as the pencil of par¬
tially polarised light. In all these cases it expresses the
quantity of light really or apparently polarised in the plane
of reflection.
“ In order to show the quantity of light polarised at dif¬
ferent angles of incidence, I have computed the following
table for common light, and suited to glass in which m =
1-525.
Angle of
Incidence !,
Angle of
Refraction
0° O'
0 82
12 58
16 5
19 8k
22 6
24 56
27 374
30 9
33 15
34 36
36 28
38 2
39 18
39 54
40 4
40 13
40 35
40 42
40 47
40 51
40 54
40 574
40 58
40 58
Inclination of
Plane of Polarisa¬
tion to Plane of
Reflection, <J>.
45° 0'
43 51
40 13
37 21
33 40
29 8
23 41
17 224
10 18
0 0
5 44
12 45
18 32
26 52
30 44
31 59
33 13
36 22
38 2
39 12
40 22-7
41 32
42 42
43 51
45 0
Quantity of
Light Re¬
flected out
of 1000 Rays.
Quantity of „ ®'at.'0
Polarised I Polarised t
Light Q. Reflected
43-23
43-39
43 41
43- 64
44- 78
46-33
49-10
53-66
61-36
79-5
93-31
124-86
162-67
257-26
329-95
359 27
391 7
499 44
560-32
616-28
676-26
744 11
819-9
904-81
1000 0
0
1-74
7 22
11 6
17-25
24-37
33-25
44 09
57-36
79-5
91-6
112-7
129-80
152-34
457-67
157-69
156 6
145 4
134-93
123-75
108-67
89-83
65-9
36-32
0
0
0-04000
0-16618
0-26388
0-3853
0-5260
0-6773
0-82167
0-9360
1-000
0-9628
0-90258
0-79794
0-59154
0-47786
0-43892
0-40000
0-29112
0-2408
0-2008
0 16068
0-12072
0-0804
0 04014
00000
Polariza.
tion.
“ As the preceding formula is deduced from princi¬
ples which have been either established by experiment
or confirmed by it, it may be expected to harmonize with
the results of observation. At all the limits where the
pencil is either wholly polarised or not polarised at all,
it of course corresponds with experiment; but though,
in so far as I know, there have been no absolute measures
taken of the quantity of polarised light at different inci¬
dences, yet we are fortunately in possession of a set of ex¬
periments by M. Arago, who has ascertained the angles
above and below the polarising angle at which glass and
water polarise the same proportion of light. In no case
has he measured the absolute quantity of the polarised
rays; but the comparison of the values of Q at those
angles at which he found them in equal proportions, will
afford a test of the accuracy of the formula. This com¬
parison is shown in the following table, in which column 1
contains the angles at which the reflecting surface polar¬
ises equal proportions of light; column 2 the values of p,
or the inclination of the planes of polarisation; and co¬
lumn 3 the intensities of the polarised light computed
from the formula.
Angles of
Incidence.
Glass: No. 1.
Inclination of Planes Proportion of
of Polarisation to MN, Polarised Light,
or <p. or Q.
[82° 48' 37° 33' -2572
\24 18 37 21 -2637
No. 2,
No. 3
Water: No. 4.
•{!
•{:
1
82 5..
26 6...
78 20 32
29 42 33
86 31 41
16 12 41
“ The agreement of the formula with experiments made
with as great accuracy as the subject will admit, must be
allowed to be very satisfactory. The differences are with¬
in the limits of the errors of observation, as appears from
the following table:
Deviations from Part of the
.36 47 -2828
.36 0 -3090
38 -4186
1 -4064
54 -1080
27 -1236
Experiment. whole Light.
Glass: No. 1. 0-0065 ^
No. 2. 0-0262 Js
No. 3. 0-0122 ^
Water: No. 4. 0-0156 ^
“ M. Arago has concluded, from the experiments above
stated, that equal proportions of light are polarised at equal
OPTICS.
Polariza- angular distances from the angle of complete polarisation.
tion- Thus, in glass No. 1, the mean of 82° 48' and 24# 18' is
53° 33', which does not differ widely from the maximum
polarising angle, or 55°, which M. Arago considers as the
maximum polarising angle of the glass.1 In order to com¬
pare this principle with the formula, I found, that in wa¬
ter No. 4, the angle which polarises almost exactly the
same proportion of light as the angle of 86° 31', is 15° 10',
the value of <p being 41° 54' at both these angles; but the
mean of these is 50° 50/ in place of 53° 11', so that the
rule of M. Arago cannot be regarded as correct, and can¬
not therefore be employed, as he proposes, to determine
the angle of complete polarisation.”2 (Phil. Trans. 1830.)
4. On the Law of the Polarisation of Light by successive
Reflections.
We come now to show the application of the preceding
law of intensity to the phenomena of the polarisation of
light by successive reflections.
“ When a pencil of common light,” says Sir David
Brewster,3 “ has been reflected from a transparent sur¬
face, at an angle of 61° 3', for example, it has expe¬
rienced such a physical change that its planes of polar¬
isation form an angle of 6° 45' each with the plane of re¬
flection. When it is incident on another similar surface
at the same angle, it is no longer common light, in which
x — 45°, but it is partially polarised light, in which x=G°
45'. In computing, therefore, the effect of the second re¬
flection, we must take the general formula tan. p =r tan. x
/cos. (i -4“
( —’ ■>_-T / ] • but as the value of x is always in the
\cos. (l— *')/ J
same ratio to the value of f, however great be the num¬
ber of reflections, we have tan. 6 = tan.” <p for the inclina¬
tion 4 to the plane of reflection produced by any number
of reflections n, <p being the inclination for one reflection.
Hence, when i is given by observation, we have tan. p
= v'tf. The formula for any number n of reflections is
/cos. (i + *')\n
therefore tan. 6 = ( 7——7.) .
\cos. (* + *')/
641
It is evident that C
^cos. (* + i')j
never can become equal to 0°; that is, that the pencil
cannot be so completely polarised by any number of re¬
flections at angles different from the polarising angle, as it
is by a single reflection at the polarising angle; but we
shall see that the polarisation is sensibly complete, in con¬
sequence of the near approximation of 0 to 0°.
“ I found, for example, that light was polarised by two
reflections from glass at*an angle of 61° 3', and 60° 28' by
another observation. Now, in these cases, we have
0 after 1st * after 2d Q^hv of
Reflection. Reflection.
two reflections at 61° 3'...6° 45' 0°  0*00037
60 28....5 38 0 33 0*00018
The quantity of unpolarised light is here so small as to be
quite unappreciable with ordinary lights.
“ In like manner, I found that light was completely
polarised by five reflections at 70°. Hence, by the for¬
mula, we have
Values of t. Unpolarised Light.
1 reflection at 70o...20° 0' 0*23392
2   7 32 0*03432
3   2 45 0*00460
4   1 0 0*00060
5   0 22 0*00008
The quantity of unpolarised light is here also unapprecia- Polariza¬
ble after the fifth reflection. tion.
In another experiment it was found that light was whol-
ly polarised by the separating surface of glass and water
at the following angles :
Values of Unpolarised Light.
By 2 reflections at 44° 51'...0°56' 0*0005
By 3 42 27....0 26 0*0001
“ In all these cases the successive reflections were made
at the same angle ; but the formula is equally applicable
to reflections at different angles,—
“ 1. When both the angles are greater than the polaris¬
ing angle,—
. Unpolarised
Light.
1 reflection at 58° 2', and 1 at 67° 2'...0° 34' .0*0002
“ 2. When one of the angles is above and the other below
the polarising angle,—
. Unpolarised
Light.
1 reflection at 53°, and 1 at 58° 2'...0° 12'....0*000024
This experiment requires a very intense light; for I find
in my journal that the light of a candle is polarised at 53°
and 78°.
“In reflections at different angles, the formula becomes
cos. (i 4- *') cos. (I + I') T , ., . .
tan. = ;. -A X  ), ■ I and i being the an-
cos. (t — *') cos. (I + I') 0
gles of incidence. In like manner, if a, b, c, d, e, &c. are
the values of p or 0 for each reflection, or rather for each
angle of incidence, we shall have the final angle, or tan. 0
= tan. a x tan. b x tan. c x tan. d, Sec.
“ It is scarcely necessary to inform the reader, that when
a pencil of light reflected at 58° 2' is said to be polarized
by another reflection at 67° 2', it only means, that this is
the angle at which complete polarisation takes place in
diminishing the angle gradually from 90° to 67° 2', and
that even this angle of 67° 2' will vary with the intensity
of the original pencil, with the opening of the pupil, and
with the sensibility of the retina. But when it shall be
determined experimentally at what value of p, or rather
at what value of Q, the light entirely disappears from the
extraordinary image, we shall be able, by inverting the
formula, to ascertain the exact number of reflections by
which a given pencil of light shall be wholly polarised.
“ As the value of Q depends on the relation of i and if,
that is, on the index of refraction, and as this index varies
for the different colours of the spectrum, it is obvious that
Q will have different values for these different colours.
The consequence of this must be, that in bodies of high
dispersive powers, the unpolarised light which remains in
the extraordinary image, and also the light which forms
the ordinary image, must be coloured at all incidences;
the colours being most distinct near the maximum polar¬
ising angle. This necessary result of the formula was
found to be experimentally true in oil of cassia, and va¬
rious highly dispersive bodies. In realgar, for example,
p is = 0 at an angle of 69° 0' for blue light, at 68° 37' for
green light, and at 66° 49' for red light. Hence there can
be no angle of complete polarisation for white light, which
was also found to be the case by experiment; and as Q
must at different angles of incidence have different values
for the different rays, the unpolarised light must be com¬
posed of a certain portion of each different colour, which
may be easily determined by the formula.
“ Such are the laws which regulate the polarisation of
1 Hence we have assumed w = 1 428, the tangent of 55°, in the preceding calculations.
3 It is obvious that the rule can only be true when m = 1 000; so that its error increases with the refractive uower
* Phil. Trans. 1830, p. 80. 1
VOL. XVI. 4 M
642
OPTICS.
Volama- light by reflection from the first surfaces of bodies that are
^on’ not metallic. The very same laws are applicable to their
^ v-*-' second surfaces, provided that the incident light has not
suffered previous or subsequent refraction from the first
surface. The sine of the angle at which p or Q has a
certain value by reflection from the second surface, is to
the sine of the angle at which they have the same value
at the first surface, as unity is to the index of refraction.
Hence p and Q may be determined by the preceding for¬
mulae after any number of reflections, even if some of the
reflections are made from the first surface of one body and
the second surface of another.”
Sect. III.— On the Polarisation of Light by Refraction.
We have already seen that the polarisation of light by
refraction was discovered by independent observations by
Malus, Biot, and Brewster; but the priority of discovery
belongs to Malus, who, from various observations, arrived
at the following conclusion : “ When a ray of light falls
upon a plate of glass at an angle of 54° 35', all the light
which it reflects is polarised in one direction. The light
which traverses the glass is composed, ls£, of a quantity ot
light polarised in a direction opposite to that which is re¬
flected, and proportional to it; and, 2dly, of another por¬
tion not modified, and which preserves the character of
direct light.”
Sir David Brewster made analogous experiments with
thin films of glass, films of mica, folds of gold-beaters’
skin, and films of gold leaf; but he occupied himself chief¬
ly in determining the law of the phenomena depending on
the number of plates through which the light was trans¬
mitted, and found that the number of plates which polarise
a maximum of light by transmission at different angles of
incidence, are to one another as the co-tangents of the angles
of incidence.
In determining this law, our author employed forty-
seven pl’ates of crown-glass, each about three inches long
and one broad, and with these he obtained the following
results
Number of
Plates in each
Parcel.
8
10
12
14
16
18
21
24
27
29
31
33
35
39
41
44
47
100
200
500
1,000
2,000
4,000
14,000
8,640,000
Angles of Inci¬
dence at which
Light is Polarised,
by Calculation.
79° 11'
76 33
74 0
71 30
69 4
66 43
63 21
60 8
57 10
55 16
53 28
51 44
50 5
47 1
45 35
43 34
41 41
22 42
11 49
4 47
24
12
0 36
1
0 1"
Angles of Inci¬
dence at which
Light is Polarised,
by Experiment.
78a 52' 1
76 24
74 2
72 15
69 40
66 43
63 39
61 0
56 58
54 50
53 16
51 0
50 23
46 50
45 49
44 0
42 0
Differences be¬
tween the Calculated
and Observed Angles.
19'—
9 —
2 +
45 +
.36 +
0
18 +
52 -f
12 _
26 —
12 —
44 —
18 +
11 —
14 +
26 +
19 +
• This result was obtained by a parcel
of plates of parallel glass.
If n, n', therefore, represent the number of plates in any
two parcels, and <p, <p the angles at which the pencil was Polariza-
polarised, we have tion'
n:n' =■ cotan. <p : cotan. <p,' and y"'*-'
n X tan. <p = nr X tan. <p'.
That is, the number of plates in any parcel, multiplied by
the tangent of the angle at which it polarises light, is a con¬
stant quantity. From a great number of observations
made with a parcel of eighteen plates, our author found
the constant quantity for crown-glass to be 41*84 when
the light was that of a good wax-candle placed at the dis¬
tance of about twelve feet, so that we have
41*84
tan. ® =  ;
r n
that is, divide the constant quantity by any given number
of plates, and the quotient will be the natural tangent of
the angle at which that number will polarise a pencil of
light.
In this way the second column of the table, which dif¬
fers very little from the observed column, was computed.
From these experiments our author drew the same con¬
clusion as in the case of reflection, respecting the state of
what Malus calls the unpolarised light, namely, that it had
suffered a physical change; and he also showed that light
could be polarised by successive refractions, each refrac¬
tion bringing it gradually nearer and nearer to the state of
complete polarisation.
1. On the Motion of the Planes of Polarisation by Refrac¬
tion.
The first, and we believe the only, experiments that have
been made on this subject, were those of Sir David Brews¬
ter i1 and we shall therefore give an account of his re¬
searches in his own words, abridging it as much as possible.
“ If we take a plate of glass, deviating so slightly from
parallelism between its faces as to throw aside from the di¬
rect transmitted image of a luminous body the faint images
formed by reflection between its inner surfaces, we shall
obtain, even at the greatest obliquities, a pencil of light
free of all admixture of reflected light.
“ Let this plate be placed upon a divided circle, so that
we can observe through
it two luminous discs of Fig. 169.
polarised light A, B (fig.
169) formed by double re¬
fraction, and having their
planes of polarisation in¬
clined + 45° and — 45°
to the plane of refraction.
At a perpendicular inci¬
dence, the inclination of
the planes of polarisation
will suffer no change ; but
at an incidence of 30°
they will be turned round
40', so that their inclina¬
tion to MN or the angle
aec will be 45° 40’. At
45° their inclination will
be 46° 47'. At 60° it will
be 50® 7'; and it will in¬
crease gradually to 90°,
where it becomes 66° 19'.
Hence the maximum
change produced by a sin¬
gle plate of glass upon
the planes of polarisation
is 66° 19'—45° = 21° 19',
an effect exactly equal to
1 Phil. Trans. 1830, p. 133.
OPTICS.
643
Polariza- what is produced by reflection at angles of 39° or 70°. It
lion. js remarkable, however, that this change is made in the op-
' po site direction, the planes of polarisation now approaching
to coincidence in a plane at right angles to that of reflection ;
a difference which might have been expected from the
opposite character of the resulting polarisation.
“ In this experiment the action of the two surfaces is de¬
veloped in succession, so that we cannot deduce from the
maximum rotation of 21° 19', the real action of the first,
or of a single surface, which must be obviously more than
half of the action of the two surfaces, because the planes
of polarisation have been widened before they undergo the
action of the second surface.
“ In order to obtain the rotation due to a single surface,
I took a prism of glass
ABC, having such an Fig. 170.
angle BAC, that a ray
RR, incident as oblique¬
ly as possible, should
emerge in a direction
Rr perpendicular to the
surface AC. I took care
that this prism was well
annealed, and I caused
the refraction to be performed as near as possible to the
vertex A, where the glass was thinnest, and consequently
most free from the influence of any polarising structure.
In this way I obtained the following measures.
Glass.
Inclination of Planes Rotation of
ab, cd, to the Plane Plane for one
of Reflection. Surface.
87° 38' 54* 15' 9° 15'
54 50 47 25 ..2 25
32 20 45 22 0 22
“ I next made the following experiments with two kinds
of glass, the one a piece of parallel plate-glass, and the other
a piece of very thin crown. The latter had the advantage
of separating the reflected from the transmitted light.
Plate Glass. Croton Glass.
Inclination.
Angles of
Incidence.
Incidence. Inclination.
Rotation for
two Surfaces.
Rotation for
two Surfaces.
.. 0° O'
... 2 18
.. 4 19
.. 7 16
42
0
“ In order to ascertain the influence of refractive power,
I stretched a film of soapy water across a rectangular frame
of copper wire, and obtained the following measures:
Water.
Incidence. Inclination. Rotation.
85° 54° 17' ....9° 17'
0° 45° 0'  0° O'.
40 47 28  2 28..
55 49 35  4 35.,
67 52 53  7 53.
80 58 53 13 53.
864 61 16 16 16.
.45° 0' 
.47 18 
.49 19....  4
.58 16  7
.58 42 13
.61 0 16
0
20
30
40
55
80
Metalline Glass.
 45 0 0 0
 45 42 0 42
 46 50 1 50
 48 0 3 0
 51 12 6 12
 62 32 17 32
“ From a comparison of these results, it is manifest that
the rotation increases toith the refractive power.
“ In examining the effects produced at different inci¬
dences, it is obvious that the rotation R varies with the de¬
viation of the refracted ray ; that is, with i — *'. Hence
I have been led to express the inclination <p of the planes
of polarisation to the plane of refraction and the rotation
by the formulae
cot. <p — cos. (i — t'), R = p — 45°.
“ This formula represents the experiments so accurately, Polarisa-
that when the rhomb of calcareous spar is set to the cal- ti01’-
culated angle of inclination, the extraordinary image is
completely invisible.
“ The above expression is of course suited only to the
case where the inclination x of the planes of polarisation
ah, cd (fig. 139), is 45°; but when this is not the case, the
general expression is
cot. 6 — cot. x cos. (i — V).
“ When the light passes through a second surface, as in
a single plate of glass, the value of x for the second sur¬
face is evidently the value of <p after the first refraction ;
or, in general, calling 6 the inclination after any number n
of refractions, and <p the inclination after one refraction,
cot. 9 = (cot. <p)n.
“ When 9 is given by observation we have
cot. <p = cot. 9.
“ The general formula for any inclination x and any
number n of refractions is
cot. 9 = (cot. x cos. (t — *7))"> and
cot. (p = ^^cot. x cos. (7 — i').
“ And when x — 45° and cot. a; = 1, as in common light,
cot. 9 = (cos. (i — *'))">
cot. <p = nAJco^. (i — i').
“ As the term (cos. (i — *'))” can never become equal
to 0, the planes of polarisation can never be brought into
a state of coincidence in a plane perpendicular to that of
reflection.
“ In order to compare the formula with experiment, 1
took a plate of well-annealed glass, which at all incidences
separates the reflected from the transmitted rays, and in
which m was nearly 1*510, and I obtained the following re¬
sults :
Angle* of
Incidence.
Angles of
Refraction.
Rotation Inclination Inclination
observed, observed, calculated.
Difference.
0°
10
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
55
60
65
70
75
80
85
86
90
0° O'
6 36|
13 5
16 15
19 20
22 19
25 10
27 55
30 29
33 52
35 0
36 53
38 29
39 45
40 42
41 19
41 21
41 28
0° 0'
0 13
0 27
0 32
0 40
12 10
15 45
16 39
45° 0'
45 13
45 27
45 32
45 40
46 12
46 30
46 47
47 42
48 5<*
50 7
51 48
53 7
54 55
57 10
60 45
61 39
45° O'
45 6
45 25
45 40
46 0
46 25
46 56
47 34
48 24
48 59
50 36
52 7
53 59
56 18
59 5
62 24
63 9
66 19
+ 0° 7'
+ 0 2
— 0 8
— 0 20
— 0 13
— 0 26
+ o 47
— 0 42
—■0 5
— 0 29
— 0 19
— 0 52
— 1 23
— 1 55
_ 1 39
_ 1 30
« The last column but one of the table was calculated
by the formula
cot. 9 = cos. (cos. (i — ^Oj2)
n being in this case 2. The errors, however, being almost
all negative, I suspected that there was an error of adjust¬
ment in the apparatus; and upon repeating the experi¬
ment at 80°, the point of maximum error, I found that the
inclination was fully 58° 40', giving a difference only of 25
in place of 1° 55'.
“ In these experiments #=45° and cot. a?=l; but in
order to try the general formula when x varied from 0° in
90°, I took the case where the angle of incidence was 80°,
R = p_45°.
644
OPTICS.
and <p = 58° iO7 when x = 45°.
results.
Inclination
observed.
.. 0° 0'....
.. 7 10....
.. 9 40 ....
The following were the
Values of r.
0° 
91
^2 
5
10
Inclination
calculated.
... 0° O'..,
... 7 20 ...
... 8 19 ..
.17 10  16 25  
15  24 42 24 6  
20  32 30 31 19 
25  39 15  37 54  + 1
30  44 10 43 57 0
35  49 38  49 28 + 0
40  54 36 54 31  + 0
Difference.
0° 0'
— 0 10
,+ 1 21
+ 0 45
+ 0 36
+ 1 11
45  58 40
50  63 10
55  66 58
60  70 18
.59 5
.63 19
.67 15
.70 56
65
70
75
80
85
90
.74 8 74 24
.76 56 77 42
.79 20 80 53
.83 23  83 58
.86 23  86 0
.90 0  90 0
21
13
10
5
25
0 9
0 17
0 38
0 16
0 46
1 33
0 35
0 23
0 0
“ The last column but one was calculated by the formula
cot. 6 — cot. x . (cot. 58° 40')1 2.
“ In determining the quantity of polarised light in the
refracted pencil, we must follow the method already ex¬
plained for the reflected ray, mutatis mutandis. The prin¬
cipal section of the analysing rhomb being now supposed
to be placed in a plane perpendicular to the plane of re¬
flection, the quantity of light Q' polarised in that plane
will be
Q' = 1 — 2 cos.2 9,
the quantity of transmitted light being unity. But
cot. = cot. x cos. (* — *'),
cos.2 ©
and as cot. © = . and sin.2 © + cos.2 ® = 1, we have
r sin/ y
the quotient and the sum of sin.2 p and cos.2 p to find them,
„ (cot. # cos. (i — *'))2
Hence cos.2 © =   ;
1 + (cot. a: cos. (* — *'))
and by substituting this for cos.2 <p in the former equation,
it becomes
Q, _ 1 __ 2 Uot.x co^. — '
1 _j_ (cot. x. cos. (* — i'))2
“ Now since, by Fresnel’s formula, the quantity of re¬
flected light is
_ ^ /sin.2 (i — *') tan.2 (i — i')}
2 \sin.2 (i 4- i') tan.2 (i 4- i')
the quantity of transmitted light T will be
T=l-ife
2 \sin.
*')
i')J’
fsin.2 (i — i') tan.2 (i — i')
Hence Q'
'=("1-1
(* + *')
/sin.2 (i —
\si
3V
tan.2 (i 4. *')/
tan.2 (i — i')\ 'N
oJ)
+
(i 4- f) ' tan.2 {1 4- i
(1-2—oh
V 1 4- (cos. (i — iSf*
1 -f- (cos. (* — i'))2
“ This formula is applicable to common light, in which
cot. a: = 1 disappears from the equation ; but, on the same
principles which we have explained in a preceding paper,
it becomes for partially polarised rays and for polarised
light, ^
sin.2 (*-
0-
\sin.2(i -J- i!)
2 (cot, x cos. (i
1 + (cot. x cos. (i
i’) 2
^ cos.2 a: ■
tan.z(*—i
tan.2(* 4-i'
-oh
— 0)v’
“ In all these cases the formula expresses the quantity of Polariza-
light really or apparently polarised in the plane of refrac- tlQn-
tion. v > 
“As the planes of polarisation of a pencil polarised 4- 45®
and — 45° cannot be brought into a state of coincidence
by refraction, the quantity of light polarised by refraction
can never be mathematically equal to the whole of the
transmitted pencil, however numerous be the refractions
which it undergoes ; or, what is the same thing, refraction
cannot produce rays truly polarised, that is, with their
planes of polarisation parallel.”
2. On the partial Polarisation of Light by one or more
Refractions.
“ The analysis given in the preceding paragraphs, of the
changes produced on common light, considered as repre¬
sented by two oppositely polarised pencils, furnishes us
with the same conclusions respecting the partial polarisa¬
tion of light by refraction which we have already deduced
respecting the partial polarisation of light by reflection.
Each refracting surface produces a change in the position
of the planes of polarisation, and consequently a physical
change upon the transmitted pencil by which it has ap¬
proached to the state of complete polarisation.
“ This position I shall illustrate by applying the for¬
mula to the experiments in a preceding page.
“ According to the first of these, the light of a wax-
candle at the distance of ten or twelve feet is wholly po¬
larised by eight plates or sixteen surfaces of parallel plate-
glass at an angle of 78° 52'. Now I have ascertained that
a pencil of light of this intensity will disappear from the
extraordinary image, or appear to be completely polarised,
provided its planes of polarisation do not form an angle of
less than 88|° with the plane of refraction for a moderate
number of plates, or 88^° for a considerable number of
plates, the difference arising from the great diminution of
the light in passing through the substance of the glass. In
the present case the formula gives
cot. 0 — (cos. (i — *'))16 and = 88° 50';
so that the light should appear to be completely polarised,
as it was found to be.
“ At an angle of 61° 0' the pencil was polarised by twen¬
ty-four plates or forty-eight surfaces. Here
cot. 6 = (cos. (i — *'))48 = 89® 36'.
« At an angle of 43° 34'the light was polarised by forty-
seven plates or ninety-four surfaces. Here
cot. 6 = (cos. (i — i'))94 and 6 = 88° 27'.
“ It is needless to carry this comparison any further ; but
it may be interesting to ascertain by the formula the small¬
est number of refractions wdnch will produce complete
polarisation. In this case the angle of incidence must be
90°.
“ Hence, © = 56° 29' and (cos. (* — i')^9 gives 88° 36',
and (cos. (i — *'))10 89° 4'; that is, the polarisation will be
nearly complete by the most oblique transmission through
four and a half plates or nine surfaces, and will be perfect¬
ly complete through five plates or ten surfaces.”
Sect. IV.— Comparison of the Laws of Intensity for
Light polarised by Reflection and Refraction.
“ Having obtained formulae for the quantity of light po¬
larised by refraction and reflection, it becomes a point of
great importance to compare the results which they furnish.
Calling R the reflected light, these formulae become
OPTICS.
Polariza¬
tion.
a
= R (l — 2
(cos. (i + i') \2
cos. (i — i')/
645
xcos. (t + z')\
Vcos. (i — *')/
(cos, (i — i') )!
2 >
and
^ V p + (cos. (i—i'))2)’
“ But these two quantities are equal, and hence we ob¬
tain the important general law, that,—Ai the first surface
of all bodies, and at all angles of incidence, the quantity of
light polarised by refraction is equal to the quantity polar¬
ised by reflection. I have said ‘ of all bodies,’ because
the law is equally applicable to the surfaces of crystallized
and metallic bodies, though the action of their first surface
is masked or modified by other causes.
“ It is obvious from the formula that there must be some
angle of incidence where R = 1 — R, or the reflected
equal to the transmitted light. When this takes place,
we have sin.2 p = cos.2 <p'; that is,
“ The reflected is equal to the transmitted light, when the
inclination of the planes of polarisation of the reflected
pencil to the plane of reflection, is the complement of the
inclination of the planes of polarisation of the refracted
pencil to the same plane ; or, if we refer the inclination of
the planes to the two rectangular planes into which the
planes of polarisation are brought,— The reflected will be
equal to the transmitted light when the inclination of the
planes of polarisation of the reflected pencil to the plane of
reflection is equal to the inclination of the plane of polari¬
sation of the refracted pencil to a plane perpendicular to
the plane of reflection.
“ In the following table, the inclination of the planes of
polarisation of the reflected and the refracted pencil, and
the quantities of light reflected, transmitted, and polar¬
ised, at all angles of incidence upon glass, m being equal
to 1’525, and the incident light = 1000, are given :
0° O'
2 0
10 0
20 0
25 0
30 0
35 0
40 0
45 0
50 0
56 45
60 0
65 0
70 0
75 0
78 0
78 7
79 0
80 40
82 4
84 0
85 0
85 501
86 0
87 0
88 0
89 0
90 0
S g
0° 0'
1 18|
6 32
12 58
16 5
19 84
22 6
24 56
27 374
30 9
33 15
34 36
36 28
38 2
39 18
39 54
39 55
40 4
40 13
40 35
40 42
40 47
40 50|
40 51
40 54
40 574
40 58
40 58
g’S'SH «■
ISil
~!i!
45° 0'
44 57
43 51
40 13 ‘
37 21
33 40
29 8
23 41
17 224
10 18
0 0
5 44
12 45
18 32
26 52
30 44
30 53
31 59
33 13
36 22
38 2
39 12
40 12
40 22 7
41 32
41 23
43 51
45 0
o O
j: 0 °-a
£ 3*
45° O'
45 0-7
45 3
45 13
45 21
45 31
45 44
46 0
46 20
46 45
47 29
47 544
48 42
49 28
50 55
51 48
51 50
52 7
52 274
53 26^
53 57
54 22
54 44
54 48
55 16
55 43
56 14
56 29
■si
£'<a •
■CSX
3
43-23
43-26
43-39
43-41
43-64
44 78
46-33
49-10
53-66
61-36
79-5
93-31
124-86
162-67'
257-56
329 95
333-20
359-27
391-7
499-44
560-32
616-28
666-44
676-26
744 11
819-9
904-81
1000-
o g .
i^i
O' M-tJ
956-77
956-74
956-61
956-59
956-36
955-22
953-67
950-90
946-33
938-04
920-5
906 69
875-14
837-33
742-44
670-05
666-80
640-73
608-3
500-56
439-68
383-72
333-56
323-74
255-89
180-1
95-19
•0-
a m
•S OO*
o-
007
1-73
7-22
11-6
17-24
24-4
32 2
44-0
57-4
79 5
91-6
112-7
129-8
152 3
157-6
157-65
157 6
156-7
145-4
134-93
123-7
11111
108-67
89-8
65-9
36-3
0-
“ It is obvious, from a consideration of the principle of
the formula for reflected light, that the quantity of polar¬
ised light is nothing at 0°, because the force which polar¬
ises it is there a minimum. At the maximum polarising Polariza-
light, Cl is only 79-5, because the glass is incapable of re&- in¬
flecting more light at that angle, otherwise more would
have been polarised. The value of Q, then, rises to its
maximum at 78° 7', and descends to its minimum at 90°;
but the polarising force has not increased from 56° 4-5' to
78° 7', as the value of <f/ shows. It is only the quantity of
reflected light that has increased which occasions a greater
quantity of light to disappear from the extraordinary image
of the analysing rhomb.
“ The case, however, is different with the refracted light.
The value of O' has one minimum at 0°, and another at
90°, while its maximum is at 78° 7'; while the force has
its minimum at 0°, and its minimum at 90°, where its
effect is a minimum only because there is no light to po¬
larise. At the incidence of 78° 7', where the quantities
Q, O' reach their maxima, the reflected light is exactly
one half of the transmitted light; sin.2 = cos.2 <p and tan.
<p' — cos. <p.
“ At 85° 50' 40", where the transmitted light is one half
of the reflected light, the deviation (i — ?') — 45°, and the
quantity of polarised light is one third of the transmitted
light, one sixth of the reflected light, and one ninth of the
incident light. Sin.2 <p': cos.2 <p = reflected light: trans¬
mitted light, and cot. <p = sin. (i — if).
“ At 45° we have (i+*') -j- (i — i')—90° and p'—(i — i'),
tan. (i - + and tan.(i_<')'
v 7 cos. (z — z') v 7 (sin.(z-f i'))2
“ At 56° 45', the polarising angle, the formula for reflect¬
ed light becomes R = (sin.2 (z — z'))2; but at this angle
we have ir — 90° — i. Hence we obtain the following sim¬
ple expression in terms of the angle of incidence, for the
quantity of light reflected by all bodies at the polarising
angle:
R = l(cos.2z)2.”
Sect. V.— On the Action of Single Plates and Single Sur¬
faces in polarising Light by It (flection and Refraction.
In the article Polarisation of Light in this work, M.
Arago has described an elegant experiment, from which he
deduced the conclusion, that the quantity of polarised light
contained in the pencil transmitted by a transparent plate is
exactly equal to the quantity of light polarised at right angles,
which is found in the pencil reflected by the same plate.
Now this law is true only at the maximum polarising
angle, the two pencils being unequal at all other angles of
incidence. The apparent equality observed by M. Arago
seems to have arisen from other light being blended with
the pencils. In order, therefore, to obtain the true law
for single plates, we must determine it for a single surface.
In order to do this, Sir David Brewster employed a
well-annealed prism of co¬
lourless glass, in place of a Fig. 171.
plate of glass, and he made
the ray BI from a sheet of
white paper BA enter the sur¬
face FD perpendicularly at I,
while another ray AS was re¬
flected to the eye from the
surface ED of the prism.
He then made the experi¬
ment with a doubly refract¬
ing prism C in the manner
described by M. Arago, and
obtained the law for a single
surface, viz.
That the quantity of pola¬
rised light in the pencil re
646
OPTICS.
Polariza- fracted by a transparent surface is exactly equal to the
tion. quantity in the pencil reflected by it.
That is, what was supposed to be true of plates is true
only of surfaces.
The action of a single plate on light, involving the com¬
bined action of three refractions and two reflections, with¬
out following the light beyond one internal reflection, is suf¬
ficiently complex, and has been analysed in the following
manner by Sir David Brewster:—
He took a plate of glass of the form MN (fig. 172),
having an oblique face McZ cut upon one of its ends.
Fig. 172.
“ A ray of light RA, polarized + 45° and — 45°, was
made to fall upon it at A, at an angle of incidence of nearly
83°, so that the inclination of the planes of polarization
of the reflected ray AP was about 36|°. Now the ray
AC, after reflection in the direction CS, without any re¬
fraction at B, where it emerges perpendicularly to Me?,
would also have had the inclination of its planes of polari¬
zation equal to 36^° if there had been no intermediate
refraction at A; but this refraction alone being capable of
producing an inclination of 53°, or a rotation of 53° - 45°
= 8°, and this rotation being in an opposite direction from
that produced by the second reflection at C, the inclina¬
tion of the planes of polarization for the ray CS is nearly
44£°, the reflection of C having brought back the ray AC
almost exactly into the state of natural light.
“ Without changing either the light or the angle, I ce¬
mented a prism Mce? on the face Mr?, so that cd was paral¬
lel to c?N, and I found that the second refraction at b,
equal to that at A, changed the inclination of the planes
of polarization to 53° ; that is, the two refractive actions
at A and b had overcome the action of reflection at C, and
the pencil bs actually contained light polarized perpendicu¬
lar to the plane of reflection.
“ When the pencil RA is incident on the first surface at
the polarizing angle or 56° 45', the rotation produced by
refraction at A is about 2°, or the inclination I = 45°
+ 2 = 47° ; but the maximum action of the polarizing
force at C is sufficient to make 1 = 0° whether x is 45° or
47°. Hence CB is completely polarized in the plane of
reflection, and the refractive action at b is incapable of
changing the plane of polarization when 1 = 0°; the rea¬
son is therefore obvious why the two rotations at A and
5, of 2° each, produce no effect at the maximum polarizing
angle.
“ If we now call
<p = inclination to the plane of reflection produced by
the first refraction at A,
= inclination produced by the reflection at C.
<?> = inclination produced by the second refraction at b>
We shall have
cot <p =cos (i — i1). or tan <2= 1—
cos (« — *)
tan =tan * = cos (e‘ + 0
cos (i — i') (cos (* — i') )2’
cot <p" = cot * (cos (i - i') )= (-C0S )3
' cos (?+»')
These formulae are suited to common light, where x
= 45 , but when x varies they become
cot <p = cot x (cos (? — i') ),
, / cos(?+*/)
tan cp =tan x l- r.—7—
^(cos (i — i) y
„ /(cos (?-«'))
cot (p =cot x 1
Polarizs,.
tion.
/(cos (i-i) y\
y cos (i + 1) J
cos (i +1)
Resuming the formula for common light,—viz., cot <p
(cos
it is obvious that when (cos (i — 1) )3
that is, the light is
cos (e + f)
= cos (* + i'), cot <p" = l, and <p" = 45c
restored to common light.
“ In glass where m=T525 this effect takes place at
78° 7', a little below 78° in diamond, and a little above 80°
in water.
“ At an angle below this <p becomes less than 45°, and
the pencil contains light polarized in the plane of reflec¬
tion ; while at all greater angles cp is above 45°, and the
pencil contains light polarized perpendicular to the plane
of reflection. Hence we obtain the following curious
law:—
“ ‘ A pencil of light reflected from the second surfaces of
transparent plates, and reaching the eye after two refrac¬
tions and an intermediate reflection, contains, at all angles
of incidence from 0° to the maximum polarizing angle, a
portion of light polarized in the plane of reflection. Above
the polarizing angle the part of the pencil polarized in the
plane of reflection diminishes till cos {i +1) — (cos i — i) )3,
when it disappears, and the whole pencil has the character
of common light. Above this last angle the pencil contains
a quantity of light polarized perpendicular to the plane of
reflection, vjhich increases to a maximum, and then dimi¬
nishes to zero at 90°.’
“ Let us now examine the state of the pencil CS' after
only one refraction and one reflection. Resuming the for¬
mula tan cp —
cos (* + ?')
(cos (? — i') )v
it is evident that when
(cos
(i -i ) )2 = cos (* + /), <p' = 45°, and the light restored to
common light. This takes place in glass at an angle of
82° 44'. At all angles beneath this the pencil contains
light polarized in the plane of reflection ; but at all angles
above it, the pencil contains light polarized perpendicular
to the plane of reflection, the quantity increasing from
82° 44' to its maximum, and returning to its minimum at
90°.
“ Let us now apply the results of the preceding analysis
to M. Arago’s experiment. Suppose the angle of incidence
to be 78° 7', and let the light polarized by reflection at A
(fig. 172) be = m, and that polarized by one reflection also
— m. Then, since the pencil bs is common light, the po¬
larized light in the whole reflected pencil AP, bs, is = m,
whereas the light polarized by the two refractions is = 2m ;
so that the experiment makes two quantities appear equal
when the one is double that of the other. If the angle
exceeds 78° 7', the oppositely polarized light in the pencil
bs will neutralize a portion of the polarized light in the
pencil AP, and the ratio of the oppositely polarized rays
which seem to be compensated in the experiment may be
that of 3m or even \m to 1. *
“ We may now obtain formulae for computing the exact
quantities of polarized light at any angle of incidence, either
in the pencil CBS or bs.
“ The primitive ray RA being common light, AC will
not be in that state, but will have its planes of polarization
turned round a quantity x by the refraction at A ; so that
cot x=cos (i — i'). Hence we must adopt for the measure
of the light reflected at C the formula of Fresnel for po¬
larized light whose plane of incidence forms an angle x with
the plane of reflection. The intensity of AC being known
from the formula for common light, we shall call it unity,
OPTICS.
647
’olanza-
tion.
then the intensity I of the two pencils polarized-# and
+ # to the plane of reflection will be
I = OT^<:»s!*+Sx7Srisin,a:>and •
sin2 (i + i’)
tan2 (i+i')
cos (i + i') \ 2
Q=I 1-2
(cos (i + i) \
(cos (i - i') f)
/ cos (i + i') \
\(cos (i - i') )7 /
“ In like manner, if the intensity of CB = 1, we have
cos (i + i )
tan x-
(cos (i — i') )2’
and the intensity I of the transmitted pencil bs
T , sin2 (i — i') „ tan2(^-i,) . „ ,
1=1 —. .—ttt cos2 x + 7—,, sin2 x, and
sin2 (i + i')
(
Q =
I 1-2
tan2 (*' + H)
/(cos (i-i!) )3\
\ cos (i + i') )
/(cos i-i') ) \ 2 I
y cos (i + 7) J J
“ The following table, computed from the formulae in
the preceding page, shows the state of the planes of po¬
larization of the three rays AC, CS, and bs.
Angle of In¬
cidence on
the First
Surface.
0° 0'
32 0
40 0
45 0
56 30
67 0
70 0
75 0
78 37
79 0
80 0
83 0
86 30
90 0
Angle of Re¬
fraction at
First Surface,
and Angle of
Incidence on
Second Sur¬
face.
0° 0'
20 33
25 10
27 55
33 30
37 34
38 30
39 46
40 29
40 33
40 42
41 5
41 23
41 58
Inclination
of Plane of
Polarization
of AC, fig. 172.
45° O'
45 34
45 58
46 17
47 22
48 57
49 33
50 45
51 49
51 56
52 16
53 21
54 47
56 29
Inclination
of Plane of
Polarization
of CS, fig. 172.
45° O'
32 20
24 12
17 49
0 0
18 20
23 34
32 22
38 10
38 49
40 27
44 39
50 58
56 29
Inclination
of Plane of
Polarization
of bs, fig 172.
45° 0'
32 51
24 56
18 38
0 0
20 50
27 6
37 48
44 59
45 46
47 46
53 40
60 13
66 19
olariza-
Sect. VI.—On the Polarization of Light by Absorp¬
tion and Dispersion.
In the preceding section we have considered common
Lv'ab- light as consisting of two pencils of polarized light, having
>rption, their planes of polarization at right angles to each other.
The very same results would take place if we considered a
beam of light as consisting of two sets of polarized rays, all
those of one set having their planes of polarization in every
possible direction, and of another set having their planes of
polarization at right angles to those of the former.1 In this
view of the subject common light is polarized when it issues
from the luminous body, and when we polarize it or decom¬
pose it by double refraction, or polarize it completely by
reflection or refraction, we merely separate the one-half of
it polarized + from the half polarized —. This effect its
analogous to the decomposition of white light into is
colours. All the colours exist in the sun’s light, and they
are merely separated by prismatic refraction, or by inter- Polariza-
ference, or by absorption. tion-
Now common light may also be decomposed by disper-
sion and absorption ; that is, if we can contrive any method
of dispersing or absorbing one of the two polarized pencils
of common light, we shall exhibit the other pencil in its
state of natural polarization.
Crystals in which this effect is produced are called singly-
polarizing or singly-refracting crystals. They were first
observed and described by Sir David Brewster in the year
1812.2 The first mineral in which he discovered this pro¬
perty was the agate, in which one of the pencils is dispersed Agate,
into a nebulous mass of light, sometimes of the form of a
crescent, so that the bright image was all polarized in one
plane, like one of the pencils of Iceland spar. The mass
of nebulous light, too, was always polarized in a plane per¬
pendicular to that of the bright image.
The same author discovered a similar property in certain Carbonate
specimens of the carbonate of barytes, which exhibited of barytes,
several interesting phenomena2 in thick crystals of mica,4
and in mother-of-pearl,5 and very curiously in oil of mace,6
and other substances. The same property he found in
various artificial crystals, but particularly in nitre.
Another very beautiful example of polarized nebulous
images was observed by the same author in an artificial
kind of nacre already referred to, in which there are three
nebulous polarized images, with a bright image inclosed in
the middle one of the three nebulous images.7
A similar property was discovered in 1815 in the tour- Tournia_
maline, nearly about the same time, by M. Biot and M. iine.
Seebeck, the priority belonging to the former. This crys¬
tal has double refraction, like all other crystals of the same
class; but when it is cut by planes passing through the
axis of the crystal, and has a certain thickness (about the
25th of an inch, but which varies in different specimens),
it transmits only one of the pencils formed by double re¬
fraction. The pencil polarized in the plane of the principal
section is absorbed, or somehow or other lost, while the one
depolarized at right angles to that section is transmitted.
If we take two such plates of tourmaline, and place them
with their axes parallel, the unabsorbed pencil will be freely
transmitted through both; but if we begin to turn one of
them round, the light will become fainter and fainter, and
the luminous object will vanish entirely when the axes are
at right angles to each other. By continuing to turn, the
image again appears, reaches its maximum when the axes
are parallel, and then vanishes when the axes are at right
angles.
In all the singly-refracting and polarizing crystals above
enumerated, the effects described arise from a certain
degree of imperfection in the structure and combina¬
tion of the elementary crystals, by which one of the po¬
larized pencils is reflected or absorbed; but Sir David
Brewster found that the same property may be commu¬
nicated to any crystal, merely by altering its superficial
conformation.
If we take a hexahedral prism of nitrate of potash, and
observe a luminous object through two of its inclined sur¬
faces that have a good natural or artificial polish, we shall
perceive two distinct and perfectly-formed images. If we
now roughen these two surfaces, and cement upon each of
them a plate of glass by means of balsam of capivi, the
character of the two images will be greatly changed. The
image that has suffered the greatest refraction will be as
distinct as before, but the other image will be either of a
faint reddish colour or wholly invisible, according to the
degree of roughness induced upon the refracting surfaces.
1 Phil. Trans. 1815, p. 149; ibid. 1830, p. 84.
2 Treatise on New Philosophical Instruments, p. 329 ; see also Phil. Trans. 1813, p. 101; ibid. 1814, p. 188.
3 Edin. Trans., vol. vii., p. 289. 4 Phil. Trans. 1814, p. 225. 6 Ibid. 1814. 6 Ibid., pp. 27 and 38.
7 Ibid. 1836, p. 53.
648
OPTICS.
Polariza- When oil of cassia is used, the least refractive image, if
tion. visible before, will now be completely extinguished.
By substituting pure alcohol, or the white of an egg, in¬
stead of the balsam, the least refracted image will become
distinct, and the most refracted image will be either a mass
of nebulous light, or almost invisible.
In order to explain these phenomena, we must recollect
that the index of refraction for the ordinary image of nitre
is 1-511, and that of \lr\e. extraordinary vm&ge 1'328. When
the rough surface of the nitre is covered with balsam of ca-
pivi, which has nearly the same index of refraction as the
ordinary image, the same effect is produced as if the rough
surface had been polished for the ordinary rays. All the
little pits or depressions in the rough surface being filled up
with balsam, the ordinary rays suffer little or no refraction
in penetrating the crystal, and therefore the image which
they form will be as clear and distinct as in the first expe¬
riment. But since the index of refraction for the extraor¬
dinary image is much less than that of the balsam, the rays
of which it is composed will not enter the crystal undis¬
turbed, but will be scattered in the same manner as if its
surface was rough, and had a refractive power correspond¬
ing to the difference between the index of refraction for the
extraordinary ray, and the index of refraction for the bal¬
sam. When water or alcohol is substituted in room of the
balsam, the effects now described are interchanged, the
roughness being removed for the extraordinary rays by the
application of a fluid of the same refractive density, while
the rays that form the ordinary image are dispersed by the
refractions which still exist at the rough surface of the
crystal.
These effects will be better understood by supposing the
crystal to consist of an extraordinary and an ordinary me¬
dium, arranged in alternate strata, or as water exists in wet
hydrophanous opal. When the superficial polish of both
these media is removed, the application of the balsam re¬
stores, as it were, the polish of the ordinary medium, with¬
out restoring that of the extraordinary medium ; while the
application of the alcohol restores the polish of the extra¬
ordinary medium without restoring that of the ordinary
medium.
These results were repeatedly obtained with calcareous
spar, arragonite, nitre, carbonate of potash, and other crys¬
tals {Phil. Trans., 1819) ; and we have now before us a
singly polarizing prism of Iceland spar, made nearly forty
years ago, which answers all the common purposes of a
plate of tourmaline or a parcel of glass plates.
Sect. VII.—On the Depolarization of Light, and the
Colours of thin Crystallized Plates in Polarized
Light.
The phenomena which we are about to describe are
among the most splendid in optics. They were discovered
by independent observation by M. Arago and Sir David
Brewster, the priority of discovery belonging to M. Arago.
The very same colours, indeed, as we shall presently see,
had been observed by Huygens, Robison, Malus, and others,
in Iceland spar; but they were not aware of their nature
and origin.
There are four methods of exhibiting these colours,
which may be used at pleasure, and each of which has its
advantages.
First me- 1. If we take a plate of agate or tourmaline, or He-
thod of rapath’s artificial tourmaline^ or any other of the artificial
the'pheno- s*nS^y"P°lariz‘ng crystals already described, and having cut
mena.      
it into two parts, each of which is at least equal to the dia¬
meter of the pupil of the eye, though this is not absolutely
requisite, fix each of them above an aperture in a piece of
card or brass, so that no light passes at their edges. Let
them be now placed at the distance of an inch or more, the
one near the eye being capable of turning round the axis
of vision ; and let this last be turned into such a position
that the light of the sky, or that of a flame enlarged by a
lens placed near it, is no longer able to penetrate the second
singly-refracting plate.
If we now introduce between the two plates of tourma¬
line, for example, a plate, either thick or thin, of any
doubly-refracting substance, we shall observe very curious
effects. If the plate is thick, such as one of sulphate of
lime, the 30th of an inch and upwards, we shall find that
the insertion of the plate has revived, as it were, the light
which refused to pass through the second plate, and this
light will be white. If we turn the sulphate of lime round,
we shall find four positions, 90° from each other, in which
the revived light is a maximum; and other four bisecting
these, and also 90° from each other, in which the light entirely
vanishes, as before the sulphate of lime had been intro¬
duced.
This property of reviving the light has been called the
depolarization of light, because the sulphate of lime de¬
prives the rays polarized by the first plate of that kind of
polarization which prevented them from penetrating the
second plate.
But if the plate is thin, between the 50th and 75th of an
inch, we shall have precisely the same phenomena, with this
difference only, that the restored light is brilliantly coloured.
The colours vary in intensity, like the white light, disap¬
pearing in the positions 0°, 90°, 180°, and 270°, and reach¬
ing their maximum at 45°, 135°, 225°, and 315°. If we
now turn the plate of tourmaline next the eye round 90°, so
that the axes of the two plates are parallel, and the pencil
polarized by the first freely transmitted by the second, and
if we then introduce the same plate of sulphate of lime as
before, we shall now find that in the four positions of it,
—viz., 0°, 90°, 180°, and 270°, where no light or colours
were formerly, nothing but white light is visible ; but that
at the positions 45°, 135°, 225°, and 315°, where the maxi¬
ma of light and colour took place, we have the maxima of
a colour complementary to that formerly seen, the intensity
of this colour gradually increasing from nothing at 0°,
reaching its maximum at 45°, again diminishing to 90°; and
so on with the other quadrants. These colours are called
the colours of crystallized plates, or the colours of polarized
light.
In the preceding experiment with plates of tourmaline,
we see only one of the two complementary colours, while the
position of the tourmaline remains the same. The disad¬
vantage of using the tourmalines is, that from their brown
colour the brilliancy of the polarized colours is greatly in¬
jured ; and the tourmalines therefore cannot be employed,
either when we wish to have the most brilliant representa¬
tions of the phenomena, or when it is necessary to study the
exact tints developed.
But if we use the plates of agate or of roughened Ice¬
land spar in the same manner, we shall not only have iden¬
tically the same phenomena of colour in the bright and
distinct image formed by the agate with a purer light; but
we shall have the additional phenomenon of this bright co¬
loured image placed in the middle of a nebula or haze of the
complementary colour, so that we here see both the colours
at the same time, and without any of the superadded brown
colour imparted by the tourmaline. If the colour of the
1 These artificial tourmalines are thin crystals of the sulphate of iodo-quinine, which are impervious to light when crossed at right
angles. Dr Ilerapath has made them six-tenths of an inch in breadth.
Polariza-
tion.
OPTICS.
649
ray Rr emerges from
Polariza- distinct image is green, it will be encircled by a haze of
tion. red light; if it is blue, with a haze of orange light; and
so on.
Second me- 2. The second method consists in placing the film of
thod. sulphate of lime GKHL between two bundles of glass
plates A and B, which polarize the light by refraction, as
shown in the annexed figure. A
A, polarized as at st, and
will freely penetrate the se¬
cond bundle 13, and emerge,
as shown at vw, when the
planes of refraction of A and
B are parallel, as in the figure; but not a ray of st will
emerge at v when the planes of refraction are perpendicular
to each other. When we interpose, therefore, the sulphate
of lime GKHL, it will exhibit identically the same pheno¬
mena as between the tourmaline plates, the bundle A cor¬
responding to the fixed plate, and B to the moveable one,
and the planes of refraction corresponding to the axis of
the tourmaline. If we suppose the bundles A and B to be
placed with their planes of refraction perpendicular to each
other, then the position of the plate of sulphate of lime in
which no colour appears, is, when its axis of double refrac¬
tion CD is its principal axis (viz., the line bisecting the
resvdtant axis), if it is biaxal, parallel ox perpendicular to
the planes of refraction. When CD, therefore, or EF (per¬
pendicular to it), is in the plane of refraction of A, or the
plane of primitive polarization, as it is called, not a ray of
coloured light reaches the eye at v, and hence these have
been called the neutral axes of the plate of sulphate of
lime, because they produce no change upon the ray st. On
the other hand, when the lines GH, KL, perpendicular to
each other, and inclined forty-five degrees to the neutral
axes, are in the plane of primitive polarization, the coloured
light depolarized is a maximum, and hence they have been
called the depolarizing axes of the plate GKHL, names
which will be found very convenient in the description of
phenomena.
It is an interesting fact, which was discovered by Sir
David Brewster, that nature actually presents us, in the
case of certain crystals oi' nitre, with the whole of the ap¬
paratus in the space of half an inch. One part of the
crystal has its laminae inclined like the bundle A, while
another part has them lying in a rectangular direction like
B ; so that such a crystal, by merely looking through it
when the opposite faces are either polished by art or by a
cement, exhibits its own coloured rings. Sir John Herschel
subsequently observed the same fact in carbonate of potash,
and proposes to call such crystals idiocyclophanous, or
those which show their own rings.
Third me- 3. The third method is shown in the annexed figure,
thud. where A is a plate of black glass (or a bundle of 8 or 12
plates of thin transparent glass, for the purpose of increas¬
ing the light), which polarizes in a horizontal plane a ray
Rr, incident at an angle of 56°, reflecting it polarized in the
direction rs, where it is received upon a second plate of
black glass B at the same angle of 56°, so as to reflect it to
the eye at O. If the plane of reflection from B is vertical,
so as to be perpendicular to that from A, not a ray of the
pencil Rr will be reflected, but the eye at O will perceive
a large black spot on the part of the sky or other luminous
surface from which the ray Rr proceeds. The plate or
VOL. xvt.
plates at A are called the polarizing plates, and that at B Polariza-
the analyzing plate. tion.
The plate of sulphate of lime is then placed at GKHL,
anywhere between the plates, and it will exhibit the very
same phenomena as between the tourmalines and the
bundles of plates, though with more brilliancy and distinct¬
ness, as there is no brown colour to disturb the tints, and
no haziness, as happens with the second bundle B of plates
of glass. In this method the planes of reflection perform
the same part as the axis of tourmaline and the planes of
refraction in the other cases.
4. The last method which we shall mention is to employ Fourth n e-
rhombs of Iceland spar both for polarizing and analysing thod.
the light. If the Iceland spar is converted into two of
Nicol’s prisms, then each prism performs exactly the same
part as the tourmaline and the reflectors, exhibiting only
one of the complementary colours. This ingenious con¬
trivance, which derives its name from its inventor, William
Nicol, Esq. of Edinburgh, consists of two pieces of calca¬
reous spar cemented together, so as to transmit only one
of the polarized pencils; but the difficulty and expense of
constnicting it well, and the risk of a change in the state
of the cement which unites the two parts, render it desirable
to have a simple, a cheap, and a durable substitute for it.
The polarizer and analyser used by Sir David Brewster in
many of his experiments in elliptical polarization, and in
the action of crystallized surfaces, was a single rhomb of
calcareous spar, having thin plates of colourless glass ce¬
mented to its natural surfaces by Canada balsam, which,
while it removes any imperfection of surface, protects the
surfaces from any accidental injury, or from the deteriora¬
tion of the polish arising from frequently cleaning them.
This rhomb, shown at ABCD, may be of any thickness
suited to the diameter of the pencil of light which we wish
to have. By a rhomb one inch thick, we can obtain a
pencil of light 0T15 of an inch in diameter; by placing an
aperture of that diameter at a, on the
lower side CD, we obtain two pencils
b, c, polarized in opposite planes, and
just touching each other. If we wish
to use only one pencil, we can conceal
b ox c with a wafer, and use the other;
but for the purpose of our present ex¬
periment, they may both be left clear.
If we now construct an exactly similar
or a larger rhomb, without any aperture upon it, and
place the two as we did the tourmaline plates, or in the
position shown in fig. 160, we shall see only two images,
the other two being evanescent. Let the plate of sulphate
of lime be now interposed as formerly, and we shall find
that when its principal axis CD forms angles of 0°, 90°,
180°, and 270° with the plane of the principal section of the
rhombs, no light is depolarized; but that when the axis
forms angles of 45°, 135°, 225°, and 315° with the principal
section, the two evanescent pencils are restored and bril¬
liantly coloured, let us suppose with green light, while the
other two pencils formerly seen are brilliantly coloured with
the complementary red colour. By turning round the rhomb
next the eye, these two colours undergo all varieties of in¬
tensity from their maximum tint to evanescence.
If we now enlarge the aperture a (fig. 17c) in the first
rhomb, so that the two images b, c, in place of being in con¬
tact, overlap each other, we shall have the parts that do not
overlap exhibiting the two complementary colours as before,
while the parts that do overlap form perfectly white light;
thus proving that the two colours are exactly complemen¬
tary to each other.
In order to obtain a large pencil of polarized light b or c,
we must make the rhomb very thick; but there is another
way in which we may obtain the same effect in thin rhombs.
There are particular specimens of the spar which are in-.
4 N
'O G>c
Fig. 175.
650 OPT
Polariza- terrupted with veins, and which will be described in a sepa-
tion. rate section. If we obtain one of these in which the vein
has a certain thickness, it will produce polarized images on
each side of b and c, and these images will be perfectly
white. We may therefore use a much larger aperture cr,
and obtain a very effective apparatus. This, however, will
be better understood afterwards.
In the preceding observations, with the four different
kinds of apparatus, we have supposed the polarizer and an¬
alyser to be fixed, either with their similar planes parallel
or perpendicular to each other, and the plate of sulphate of
lime to be moved round its axis. Let us suppose, however,
that the sulphate of lime is fixed in the position where its
colour {bright red, for example) is a maximum,—that is,
where any of the depolarizing axes GH or KL (fig. 174)
is parallel or perpendicular to the plane Rt\s of primitive
polarization. In this position of GH, let the analysing
plate B be made to revolve round the ray rs, its motion
commencing at 0°, and always keeping the same inclination
to rs—viz. 56°. The bright red visible at 0° will gradually
diminish in intensity as B moves from 0° to 45°, when the
red colour will wholly vanish, and the black spot be seen.
Beyond Ao° a faint green tint will appear, gradually in¬
creasing, and attaining its maximum of brightness at 90°.
At an azimuth greater than 90°, the green becomes paler
and paler, till it vanishes wholly at 135°. Here the red
again begins, and reaches its maximum brightness at 180°.
Similar changes take place while the plate B moves from
180° to its original position at 360° or 0°. Hence it ap¬
pears, that when the sulphate of lime alone revolves, only
one of the complementary colours is visible, whereas, when
the plate B only revolves, both the complementary colours
are visible during each half of its revolution.
When these experiments are repeated with plates of sul¬
phate of lime, or any other mineral having different thick¬
nesses, different colours will be produced, varying with the
thickness; and in every case the two colours which are
produced, either when we use the two polarizing rhombs,
or cause the reflector B to revolve, are always complement¬
ary to each other, or together make white light.
If we remove the plate B, and look through the sulphate
of lime, we shall find that the light which it transmits is
always white, whatever be the position of the sulphate of
lime, whatever be the inclination which the ray Rr forms
with the polarizer A, and whatever be the condition of the
polarizer itself. The decomposition of the white light,
therefore, or its separation into two complementary co¬
lours, must be effected by reflection from the plate B.
Now sulphate of lime is a doubly-refracting crystal, giving
two oppositely polarized images, lying above one another,
and one of its neutral axes CD is the section of a plane
passing through its principal axis of double refraction, while
EF is the section of a plane perpendicular to that section.
Let any of these planes, suppose EF, be placed, as in the
figure, in the plane of primitive polarization Rrs, then the
ray rs will not be doubled, but will pass into the ordinary
ray of the sulphate of lime, and, falling upon B, it will not
suffer reflection. The very same will happen if CD is
brought into the plane of primitive polarization, so that in
these two positions none of the light transmitted through
the sulphate of lime will suffer reflection at B, and reach
the eye at O. In all other positions, however, of the sul¬
phate of lime, it forms two images or pencils of different
intensities; and when either of the depolarizing axes GH
or KL is in the plane of primitive polarization Brs, these two
images or pencils will be of equal intensity, and polarized in
opposite planes. Now, one of these images is red, and the
other green, a fact which will be afterwards explained ; and
as the red is polarized in the plane of primitive polarization,
it will not suffer reflection from B ; while the green, being
polarized in the plane of reflection from B, will be reflected
ICS.
to the eye at O, and is therefore seen alone. From the Polariza-
same cause, when B is turned round 90°, the green will not tion-
suffer reflection from it; while the red will suffer reflection,
and be seen by the eye at O. The plate B has therefore
analysed the compound beam of red and green light by re¬
flecting one and transmitting the other colour.
Now, if the sulphate of lime had been thicker than the
fiftieth of an inch, the two pencils would have been both
white ; and when the plate was moved round, we should
have had a white pencil reflected from B, and undergoing
the very same changes that the coloured one did.
In the preceding experiments, the sulphate of lime has
been supposed to be so thin as to give a red and a green
tint; but if the plate is only 0'00046 of an English inch
thick, it will depolarize no light at all, and the black spot
will be seen in every position of the sulphate of lime. If
the thickness of the plate isO-00124 of an inch, the light
depolarized will be the white, the first order of Newton’s
scale, whose complementary colour is a deep violet; and if
the plate is 0-01818 of an inch, or upwards, it will also
polarize white light, composed of all the colours of the
spectrum. When the plates of the mineral have an inter¬
mediate thickness between 0*00124 and 0*01818, they will
give, at successive thicknesses, all the intermediate colours
in Newton’s table, between the white of the first order and
the white compounded of all the colours. The colours
from the plate B will be those in col. 2 of Newton’s table,
while the colours seen in turning round the plate B will be
the complementary ones in col. 3 of the same table, the one
corresponding to the reflected and the other to the trans¬
mitted tints of thin plates.
By a variety of accurate experiments, M. Biot pointed
out the connection between the colours of polarized light
and of thin plates ; and in the case of sulphate of lime,
the films of which he measured with the spherometer, he
has proved that the thicknesses which produce the different
colours in Newton’s table are proportional to the numerical
value of the tints for glass ; this substance having nearly
the same refractive power as sulphate of lime. If we wish,
for example, to know the thickness of sulphate of lime
which will give the red of the first order of colours; the
number in the last column opposite red is 5£ths ; then,
since the white of the first order is produced by a plate
0*00124 of an inch thick, the number opposite, which is
3fths, we say, as fifths is to of ths, so is 0*00124 to 0*00211,
which is the thickness at which sulphate of lime depolarizes
the red of the first order.
The above phenomena may be beautifully exhibited by Popular
combining pieces of sul|)hate of lime into a coloured Gothic experl-
window, so that when the window is exposed to common or ments*
to polarized light it appears perfectly colourless, but when
seen by reflection it will exhibit all the splendid colours of
the separate films. Though this experiment is well suited
for exhibition, yet the following one, which was also made
by Sir David Brewster, is more instructive. Selecting
a uniform plate of sulphate of lime, about the 25th of an
inch thick, he ground down with the powder of schistus
one of its faces, so as to make it a sort of wedge, in which
the thickness varies from the 25th of an inch down to
the thinnest edge that could be made. The plate was
then placed in water, which acted upon it slowly, making
its edge thinner, and giving a slight polish to its surface.
When this film is placed at GH, in fig. 174, its surface will
be seen covered with coloured fringes, as in fig. 176, parallel
to its edges. At its thin¬
nest edge the colours of
the first order will com¬
mence from black, and
gradually increasing, as 17G-
in Newton’s table, till, at the thick edge AD, we have the
sixth or seventh, or higher orders of colours. Here w*e see
OPT
Polari&a- at once how all the different tints and different orders are
tion. connected with the different thicknesses of the plate.
If we now cut this plate into two equal parts AB, CD,
and cross them as in figure 177, a neio
set of fringes will appear, parallel to a
line joining the points where the two
thinnest and the two thickest edges
intersect,—that is, parallel to NP, one
of the diagonals of the intersectional
square MNOP. The line NP Will be
black, and from NP to M and N the
fringes will be exactly the same as I'ig-177*
those from the thin to the thick edge of the plate.
If the plates AB, CD have their axes at right angles to
each other, there will be only one set of fringes, beginning
at the angle where the two tints are a minimum.
If we grind one side of the plate spherical, so that the
thickness shall vary like the plate of air between a convex
and a plane surface, then, by combining a plate of this kind
with a prismatic plate, or by combining two similar plates,
and by varying their maximum thicknesses, their breadths,
&c., we shall produce, by their parallel or rectangular com¬
bination, intersectional fringes of figures of great variety
and extreme beauty.
If we grind concave surfaces on one of the faces of the
crystalline plate, we shall have circular rings, equidistant if
the concavity is conical, but resembling those of thin plates
if it is spherical. Still more remarkable effects may be
produced by turning beautiful patterns upon the sulphate
of zinc, or etching them either by the action of pure water,
or water slightly acidified. Lines of equal depths will be
all equally coloured, and the slightest differences in depth,
which can be easily regulated by a fine turning-lathe, will
produce a great variety of different colours. Coloured
figures and landscapes may be executed by scraping away
the surface to proper thicknesses. A cipher, too, might be
executed upon a mineral; and if we cover the surface upon
which it is formed with a fluid of the same refractive power
it will be absolutely illegible by common light, but may be
distinctly deciphered when placed between the polarizing
and analysing plates.
A sheet of’ ice irregularly frozen and held in the posi¬
tion just mentioned, exhibits the colours of crystallized
plates in a splendid manner; but if in a severe winter, when
ice can be handled without melting, we take a uniform
plate, and dissolve a pattern upon it by heat,which maybe
applied in many ways, so as to affect only the parts to be
made thinner, we shall observe a phenomenon than which
nothing can be more splendid.
Sect. VIII.—On the System op Bings produced by
Uniaxal Crystals.
Itlngs in In the preceding experiments the crystallized plate is
iniaxal held at such a distance from the polarizing plate that its
:rystals. surface could be distinctly seen by the eye; and it was from
observations made in this manner that M. Biot deduced his
empirical formulae for expressing the variation of the tint,
as depending on the thickness of the crystallized plate, and
on the square of the sine of the inclination of the refracted
ray to the axis of the crystal.
From this mode of observation M. Biot concluded that
arragonite, topaz, sulphate of lime, felspar, sulphate of
barytes, and sulphate of strontian, were all crystals with one
axis of polarization and double refraction. In 1813, how¬
ever, Sir David Brewster was led to an entirely different
mode of observation. He brought the crystal or plate as
close to his eye as possible, and by using a large polarizing
plate, such as a black japanned tray, he was able to see, at
the same instant, the colours produced at various angles of
inclination, in place of determining the loci of these colours,
ICS.
651
as was done in the old way, by a great number of insulated Polariza-
observations. tion.
When, for example, he looked through the ruby, the
emerald, topaz, ice, nitre, and other bodies, he observed
the most beautiful system of rings when the polarized light
passed along the axis of double refraction of these bodies.
The rings in crystals with one axis are essentially different
from those with two axes.
The uniaxal system of rings is represented in figs. 179,
180. Sir D. Brewster discovered them in all the doubly-re¬
fracting crystals with one axis, already mentioned, excepting
in Iceland spar, in which they were first observed by Dr
Wollaston, and independently by M. Biot and Dr Seebeck.
This system of rings is seen along the axis of double refrac¬
tion ; and it has been customary to cut faces upon the obtuse
angles of the rhomb of calcareous spar perpendicular to the
axis, in order to see them. Sir David Brewster, however,
employed the simple method shown
in the annexed figure, which does not
require the aid of the lapidary. Let
CDEF be the principal section of a
rhomb of Iceland spar; cement upon
CD and EF two small prisms DLK,
FGH, having the anglesLDK, GFH
about 45° each; and let this rhomb
be placed between the polarizing and
analysing plates, so that the polarized ray rs passes perpendi¬
cularly through the faces LD, FG. The rhomb must be held
as close as possible to the reflector B (fig. 174), which need
not be larger than the pupil of the eye. When the black spot is
seen on the reflector B, in the apparatus as adj usted, then, when
the rhomb isinterposed,
the observer, with his
eye close to the plate
B, and looking, as it
were, through the re¬
flected image of the
rhomb, will see the
beautiful system of
rings shown in fig.
179, intersected by
a black rectangular
cross, the arms of
which are parallel and
perpendicular to the
plane of primitive po¬
larization. The colours
of the rings, of which seven or eight may be readily seen,
are almost exactly the same as those of the reflected rings
in thin plates, as seen in Newton’s table or scale of colours.
If we turn the rhomb round its axis the rings will
suffer no change, the four arms of the black cross revolv¬
ing round the circumference of the rings, or rather these
four arms remain fixed, and the rings revolve with the
rhomb.
If the rhomb is now fixed so that the rings are distinctly
visible, and if we cause the plate to revolve from zero or 0°,
then the rings will change into the form shown in fig. 180,
Fig. 179.
Fig. 180.
Fig. 181.
in which the black cross is broken up ; and at 45° the rings
652
OPTICS.
Polariza¬
tion.
will appear as in fig. 181, which is the complementary system,
with a white centre exactly similar to the system seen by
transmission in thin plates. These two systems of rings
superposed or placed one above the other, would produce
uniform white light, without any trace ot rings. By con¬
tinuing to turn B (fig. 174), the primary system (fig. 1/9)
will reappear at 90°," 180°, and 270°; and the secondary
system (fig. 181) at 45°, 135°, 225°, and 315°; while the
intermediate system (fig. 180) will be seen at intermediate
azimuths.
It is very interesting to trace the passage of the primary
into the secondary system. When B begins to turn, the
arms of the black cross widen and become less black, and
within them we can see segments of the complementary
rings, whose dark intervals correspond to the bright ones
of the primary rings, and vice versa. As B advances, the
rings of the primary set grow less, and more dilute, while the
others grow larger and brighter, till at 45° the secondary
set is complete. When the light previous to polarization
has passed through ground glass, the diluted primary rings
appear of a gray-white colour, and as if they were nearer
the eye than the rest.
If, in place of the plate B, we use a polarizing rhomb or
an achromatized prism of Iceland spar, and look through it
along the axis of the other rhomb, then, when the plane of
its principal section is parallel or perpendicular to the plane
of primitive polarization, we shall see in one of its two
images the primary system of rings, and in another the
secondary system; and in intermediate positions we shall
see the intermediate system, the one constantly passing into
the other.
When all these experiments are repeated inhomogeneous
light, the system of rings will be smallest in violet and
largest in red light, and of intermediate sizes in intermediate
colours.
If we divide the rhomb of spar (fig. 178) into two parts
by the line MN, and examine the rings through each se¬
parately, we shall find that the rings produced by each
part are larger than those produced by the whole, the
thinnest piece producing the largest rings. Hence
two rhombs united will give a system of rings corres¬
ponding to those produced by one rhomb of the same mag¬
nitude.
Tositive The systems, if formed by zircon, ice, and positive
systems of doubly-refracting crystals, are exactly the same as the pre-
nngs. ceding. But if we unite a positive system with an equal
negative system, they will destroy each other ; and if the
two systems are unequal, we shall have a system equal to
the difference of their effects. These experiments of com¬
bining systems of positive and negative rings, though rather
troublesome, are extremely interesting. When such sys¬
tems are combined, and the space between the crystals that
form them left open, a series of splendid changes are in¬
duced upon the resulting system, by placing one or more
crystallized films in one or more azimuths between
them ; but we shall have occasion to return to this subject
in the section on the multiplication of images by Iceland spar.
In examining the phenomena of the primary rings, it is
obvious that there is no polarization, as there is no double
refraction along the axis of the crystal. The tints polarized
increase with the double refraction, that is, with the inclina-
ition of the polarized ray to the axis of double refraction;
and their numerical value, as given in Newton’s scale, in¬
creases with the square of the sine of that inclination. At
any given inclination to the axis the tint increases with the
thickness through which the polarized ray passes, so that
when we have determined the tint at any given inclination
and thickness, it is easy to find it for another inclination and
■thickness.
In crystals with one axis of double refraction, the lines
sof equal double refraction are circles when the thickness is
equal, as in a sphere; in like manner, the lines of equal Polariza-
tint, or the isochromatic lines, are circles, the tints being a tion.
maximum in the equator, where the inclination to the axis
is 90°. In crystals with great double refraction, the same
tint at the same inclination to the axis is produced at
a much less thickness than in crystals with feeble double
refraction. Quartz, for example, has a very feeble double
refraction, and at the same inclination to the axis it
would require a plate of quartz 115 times as thick as
a plate of Iceland spar to produce the same tint in Newton’s
scale.
In some crystals with one axis, such as quartz, amethyst,
beryl, the system of rings is disturbed by secondary causes,
which we shall have occasion to refer to more fully in
regard to the two first crystals. In other crystals im¬
perfect crystallization is the general cause of these irregu¬
larities.
In Iceland spar, zircon, ice, tourmaline, and various
other minerals, the tints of the rings are very nearly those
of Newton’s scale; but there are other crystals, such as
apophyllite, in which Sir David Brewster and Sir John
Herschel discovered remarkable deviations, which will be
described in a subsequent section.
The intensity of the polarizing force, or the value of the
tint polarized at a given thickness, has been calculated by
different persons for different crystals. The following have
been given by Sir John Herschel for uniaxal crystals :—
Thicknrsses that
produce the
same Tint.
Numerical Value
of the highest
Tint.
Iceland spar 35301 0-000028
Hydrate of strontia  1246 0-000802
.... 851 0-001175
.... 470 0002129
.... 312 0 003024
.... 109 0-009150
... 101 0-009856
41 0-024170
... 33 0-030374
3 0-366620
Tourmaline.
Hyposulphate of lime 
Quartz ; 
Apophyllite, first variety 
Camphor 
Vesuvian 
Apophyllite, second variety.,
„ third variety....
These measures are calculated for the yellow rays.
Sect. IX.—On the System of Rings produced by
Biaxal Crystals.
The biaxal system of rings was discovered by Sir David Biax-d
Brewster while he was looking along one of the axes ot
topaz, when the crystal happened to reflect the light of a
part of the sky which was partially polarized, so that they
were seen without the aid either of a polarizing or an ana¬
lysing plate.
Upon examining other minerals, he discovered that the
possession of two systems of rings was the characteristic of
by far the greater number of crystallized bodies. In some
of the crystals, such as topaz, the lines along which each
system of rings is seen are so much inclined to each other,
that we cannot see the two systems at once; whereas in
others, where the inclination of the lines is small, both the
systems may be distinctly seen at the same time. This
will be understood, in the case of topaz, from fig. 182,
where MN is a plate of topaz with parallel faces of cleav¬
age perpendicular to PQ, the principal axis of double
refraction. If we expose this plate f
to polarized light, so that the
polarized ray passes along the line
ABeE (the plane of incidence being
in one of the two neutral axes of the
plate) ; and if the eye at A receives
this ray without using the analysing
plate, it will -see in the direction of
that ray a system of oval rings of extreme beauty, like that
shown in fig. 183. When the polarized light is transmitted
Polariza¬
tion.
lings in
itre.
OPT
along the line CBJD, equally inclined to the perpendicular
PQ, it will see a similar system. The lines Bt/, Be are
therefore the resultant axes of topaz, along which the double
refraction vanishes. The angle ABC is about 121° 16',
but the inclination of the refracted rays or of the resultant
axes is only 6o°. Similar rings are seen by transmission
in the direction Del, Ee, but only when the analysing plate
is used.
If we now receive the reflected ray upon the analysing
Fit,'- 183. i’ig. 184.
plate at 0°, the system of rings will appear as in fig. 184,
which differs from fig. 183 only in the parts near the major
axis. The colours are the same, but the central spots are
much smaller, and the mass of darkness with which they are
surrounded encroaches considerably upon the blue part of
the first ring. The same system will be seen at 90°, 180°,
227°; but upon turning round the analysing plate, we
shall see, at 45°, 135°, 225°, and 315°, a third set, shown in
fig. 185, which is comparatively faint in its colour, but distin¬
guished by its peculiarities. In its general structure it re¬
sembles the set in fig. 183, but in the
middle of each central spot there is a
darker spot, composed of blue and red
chiefly, with a little green above the
blue, and every ring is divided into two
rings, each of which lias the same co¬
lours as the original ring. This divi¬
sion of the rings occupies only a part of
the semicircumference of each, and is
not seen beyond the third ring. When
the analysing plate begins to move
from 0°, 70°, &c., where fig. 184 is
seen, towards 45°, 135°, &c., two blue
spots, and the division of the rings,
begin to appear at A and A in all the Fig.iss.
rings, and in the two central spots, and move along each
till they reach B at 45°, 135°, See. Continuing to turn the
analyser, the spots and divisions move onward from B to C
m all the rings, &c., and disappear at C at 90°, 180°, &c.
1 his curious system of rings is obviously the.first set in fig.
183, seen at the same time with their complementary rings,
and is a very rare phenomenon.
1 he biaxal system of rings is best seen in nitre or salt-
pelre, in which the inclination of the resultant axes is only
about 5°, or forming an angle of with the axis of the
six-sided prism. When a plate of nitre, about the sixth
or eighth of an inch thick, is placed before a small analysing
plate, and very close to it, and the eye also held as close
to the analysing plate as possible, we shall see the beautiful
biaxal system of rings discovered by Sir David Brewster,
and shown in fig. 186, where the plane passing through the
two axes ol nitre is parallel or perpendicular to the plane
of primitive polarization. At angles inclined 45° to these
planes the rings assume the form shown in fig. 187. In
passing from the one of these states to the other, the rings
assume the forms shown in figs. 188 and 189. The colours
begin at the centres A and B of each system; but at a
ICS.
653
certain distance, varying with the thickness of the plate, the
rings, in place of returning and encircling each pole, en¬
circle the two poles, as an ellipse does its foci. When the
thickness of the plate is very small, the rings enlarge, and
the fifth ring will surround both poles; at a less thickness,
Polariza¬
tion.
Fig. 186. Fig. 187.
the fourth ; and so on, till at a very small thickness the first
ring will surround both poles, and the system then resem-
Fig. 189.
hies much the uniaxal system of rings. If the plate of
nitre is very thick, the rings diminish in size. These
colours deviate more and more from those of Newton’s
scale, and the tints do not begin at the poles A and B, but
at virtual poles in their vicinity. The colours of the rings
within the two poles are red, and beyond them blue, and
the great body of the rings is pink and green. The rings
have been called isochromatic lines, or lines of equal tint;
and the axes passing through the poles A, B, optical axes
or axes of compensation, or resultant axes, because they
have been found not to be real axes, but lines along which
the opposite actions of other two real axes have been com¬
pensated, or destroy one another. In nitre and arragonite,
the two systems of rings may be seen at the same time, as
in fig. 186; but in topaz, mica, sulphate of iron, &c., only
one of them can be seen, as in fig. 183.
We have already given a long list of the various minerals
and crystals which exhibit the biaxal system ot rings, and
also the position of the line which bisects the angular dis¬
tance between the resultant axes, which is the principal
axis of the crystal.
The following table, showing the inclination of the re¬
sultant axes in different crystals, was drawn up from the
observations of Sir David Brewster. Several results
obtained by other observers have been added;—
654
Polariza¬
tion.
OPTICS.
Names of Mineralg.
Bronkite   axis very near. Dx.
Lepidolite (Allenberg) very near.
Fuchsite ditto.
Margarite    ditto.
Gilbertite  ditto.
Antigorite  ditto.
Glucosate of sea salt very small. Dx.
Glauberite —2° or 3 O'
Sulphate of nickel, certain j 3 q
specimens /
Mica, certain specimens.
In fifty-seven specimens
of mica from various
localities examined by M. \ — 6 0
Senarmont, the inclina¬
tion of the axes varies
from 1° or 2° to 77°  f
Nitrate of potash ' — 6 10 Dx.
Carbonate of strontites  — 6 56
Do. do. barytes  — 
Talc 
Carbonate of lead.
7 24
8 3 Dx.
8 16 Mil.
-10 30
Sulphato-carbonate of lead
Carbonate of lead (Lead- ) _po 35 j)x
hillite)  J
Mother-of-pearl  —11 28
Hydrate of barytes  —13 18
Mica, certain specimens, ) -1 j n
about     [j-14 °
r -17 50 Dx.
Arragonite   < —18 12 Hu.
1 -18 18
Pyroxene (Miller)1  +19 30
Prussiate of potash, certain j 1 34.
specimens J
Prussiate of potash, red ... +19 35 Marx
Borax  +28 42
Anhydrite  +28 7
Mica (Biot) —30 to 37 0
Sphene     +30 22 Mil.
Apophyllite, biaxal  —35 8
Sulphate of barytes  +36 48 Dx.
Sulphate of magnesia  —37 24
Spermaceti, about  + 37 40
DichroiteofHaddam,feebly "l
dichroitic  j
Names of Minerals.
Levo-tartrate of ammonia
Dextro-tartrate of am¬
monia 
Tincal, or native borax  —38
Nitrate of zinc, estimated )
at about j
Stilbite  +41
Sulphate of nickel  —42
Tartrate of ammonia  —42
Carbonate of ammonia  —43
I" + 43
Anhydrite ■{ +43
l +44
( —44
Sulphate of zinc  •!
Sulphate of copper about 45
Tartrate of ammonia  45
Mica  —45
Lepidolite  —45
Benzoate of ammonia  +45
Cymophane   +45
Sulphate of magnesia and!
soda J
Sugar, from cane  —47
Hopeite  —48
Sulphate of ammonia   +49
Sulphate of ammonia  +49
Brazilian topaz  +49
Sugar  —50
Sulphate of strontites  +50
Sulphate of magnesia  50
Sulphate of ammonia and |
magnesia  J
Sulphate of potash and man- I ^.5^
ganese  J
Murio-sulphate of magnesia 1
and iron J
Sulphate of ammonia and )
magnesia J
Sulphate of potash and \
cobalt /
Heulandite  +54
Sulphateofpotashandnickel +54
Phosphate of soda  — 55
Comptonite  +56
Phosphate of soda   —56
Arseniate of soda  — 56
2' S.
2 S.
42
4
20 Mil.
24
32 Mil.
48 Her.
41 Biot.
2 S.
28
0
0 Her.
0
0
8
20 Dx.
49
16 Mil.
0
42 Marx
42
50
0
0
52 Mil.
4 S.
6 S.
16
22
11 S.
17 Her.
2 S.
20
6
40 Mil.
40 S.
Polariz;,
tion.
:)
■ 69 57
Names of Minerals.
Sulphate of lime  +57°31'
Felspar  —58 30
Diopside    +58 57
Dichroite or iolite .... .... —60 50
Tartrate of potash, neut., about 62 0
Oxynitrate of silver  +62 16
Formiate of strontian  —62 26
Topaz (Aberdeenshire)  +65 0
Topaz of Brazil, colourless +65 14
Formiate of strontian    —65 26
Sulphate of potash   +66 54
Dichroite of Ceylon  — 69 3
Orthose, Adularia  —69 22
Dichroite of Orijarsoi
strongly dichroitic
Mica — from Oto 70 0
Carbonate of soda  —70 1
Dichroite of Bodenmais  —70 4
Acetate of lead  —70 25
Citric acid  +70 29
Tartrate of potash  —71 20
Sulphate of soda  —73 30
Sulphur  + 70 to 75 0
Benzoic acid  —75 0
Tartaric acid  —79 0
Sulphate of oxide of iron i
and ammonia     J
Tartrate of potash and soda + 80
Carbonate of potash  80 30
Kyanite (disthene)  —81 48
Hyper-oxymuriate of pot- ) , 09 q
ash J +
Muriate of copper  84 30
Epidote  about +84 19
Staurotide  +85 0
Andalusite  +87 34
Peridot  +87 56
Crystallized Cheltenham 1
salts  J
Euclase  +88 20
Hyposulphate of soda  89 20
Succinic acid, estimated at 1 go 0
about J
Sulphate of iron, about ... 90 0
Sulphate of lead + near 90 0
Codeine ...—axes very wide.
Orcine    — ditto.
Dx.
Dx.
Mil.
Dx.
Dx.
Vio.
S.
Dx.
Dx.
Dx.
Dx.
Dx.
Dx.
Dx.
Mil.
79 0 MU.
0
Mil.
88 14
Dx.
Marx
When the index of refraction was not determined, MM. Senarmont and Descloiseaux measured the apparent in¬
clination of the optical axes of the biaxal crystal (or ABC in fig. 182). The following table contains their results:—
Names of Minerals.
Kammererite  below + 20° 0' Dx.
Ripidolite  below +20 0 Dx.
Tabergite about +30 0 Dx.
Sulphite of soda about +38 0 Dx.
Formiate of lime  +40 0 Dx.
Clinochlore, Zillerthal  +43 0 Dx.
Bisulphate of soda...about +43 0 Dx.
Clinochlore, Ural  +50 0 Dx.
Struvite 
Thomsonite, Dumbarton,
about 
Calamine about ' +8', 0 Dx.
Brewsterite about +85 0 Dx.
Clinochlore, Pennsylvania.. +86 0 Br.
+ 59 30 Dx,
+ 79 0 Dx.
Names of Minerals.
Epidote   +87° 5'Mil.
Scorodite  near +90 0 Dx.
Harmotome about +90 0 Dx.
Hyposulphate of soda+100 to 110 0 S.
Prehnite   +119 0 Dx.
Formiate of barytes, + axis very wide. Dx.
Cyanuret of barium and f +axis 1 g
platina   ( very wide. J
Alstonite - axes very near. S.
Damourite  from —10 to 12 0 Dx.
Nitrate of strontian...about —30 OS.
Autunite  about —54 0 Dx.
Formiate of copper  — 55 0 Dx.
Borax  —59 OS.
Names of Minerals.
rtO
CCP
ric | _
-60° O' Dx.
60 0 S.
Scolezite  about
Levo- and dextro-tartaric
acid, about 
Stilbite about —61 0 Dx.
Bicarbonate of ammonia — 67 45 Dx.
Oxalic acid — 68 to 70 0 Mil.
Sub-carbonate of soda  — 69 30 S.
Bimalate of ammonia   —76 20 Dx.
Sulphate of magnesia   —78 40 Dx.
Soibine   —99 30 Dx.
Pyrophyllite  about —110 0 Dx.
Felspar, Moorston  —120 0 Dx.
Datholite  — axes very wide S.
In crystals with two axes it is usual to give the index of refraction for the three rectangular axes, by the action of
which its biaxal system of rings is produced, called its axis of elasticity. These axes have been designated in the
1 Cambridge Trans., vol. v., pp. 431-439, and vol. vii., pp. 209, 215.
OPTICS.
655
Polariza¬
tion.
—
table, p. 558, by the Greek letters a, ft y,—a being the
maximum index of refraction, ft the index, and y the
minimum index,—as obtained by three prisms of which the
edge for a and y is parallel to the lines which bisect the
acute and the obtuse angle ; and for a line perpendicular
to the plane of the axes. If we call A the inclination of
the resultant axes, then we shall have
tan
LA-x
— _ v/ ,
Fig. 190.
N'ft-y2
The numbers in the table have almost all been obtained
by direct observation. The results obtained by Descloi-
seaux are marked Dx.,1 and those by M. Senarmont, S?
In order to explain the biaxal system of rings, and to
discover the law of the tints by which every point of the
complex system of rings can be calculated, Sir David
Brewster considered the optic or resultant axes P, P' as
produced by two or more rectangular axes, the principal
one passing through O, and the other two at AB and CD.
We shall suppose, however,
the most simple case, where
the axes are only two,—viz.,
that at O, and another either
coinciding with AB or CD,
perpendicular to O. Now,
if O is a negative axis, AB
must also be negative; but
if we take CD for the other
axis, it must be positive ; for
as the axis CD compensates
the negative axis O at P,
acting in the same plane, it
must be a positive axis ; for a negative would have united
its effect with that of O. For a similar reason, the axis at
AB must be negative, in order to compensate the negative
axis O in a plane at right angles to it.
Supposing, then, O and AB to be two negative axes, as
in mica, let it be required to determine the system of rings
which they will produce, or the tint at any point F. Now
we may either assume the relative intensities of these axes,
or, what is better, the angle formed by the two poles P, P',
where the actions of the two axes are compensated, as this
angle can be readily measured in any crystal. As the
action of the axis AB (or the tint which it produces) at P
is destroyed or compensated by the action of the axis O,
or the tint which it produces, and as the tint is proportional
to the square of the sine of the angle which the ray makes
with the axis, it is evident that the intensity of the axis
at O must be to the intensity of AB, as 1 to sjniQp‘
For as the tint produced at P by AB at an inclination of
90°, which is its maximum tint, is equal to the tint of O
produced at P at an inclination equal to OP, the maximum
tint produced at O will be found thus : Sin2 OP : rad2 or
sin2 90° = 1: ■. „ y,. We have therefore obtained an
sin2 OP
accurate expression of the relative intensities of the two
negative axes O and AB.
If we had supposed the rings to be produced by a nega¬
tive axis O and a positive one CD (which would equally
account for the phenomena), then the intensity of O will
be to that of CD as cos2 OP is to sin2 OP.
From a great number of observations made at all inclina¬
tions to the resultant axes, and from accurate measurement
of the projected rings, Sir David Brewster found that all
the phenomena of the rings, with all their varieties of form
and curvature, were represented by the following law:—
The tint produced at any point of the sphere, by the joint Polariza-
action of two axes, is equal to the diagonal of a parallelo- tion<
gram whose sides represent the tints produced by each axis
separately, and whose angle is double of the angle formed
by the two planes passing through that point of the sphere
and the respective axes.
In showing the application of this law, let it be required
to find the tint produced at E (fig. 190) by the joint action
of the two axes O and AB, whose relative intensities are
as 1 to . 1 . . Through E draw three great circles AEF,
sm2 OP
CE, and OE; then let
T = tint required at the point E ;
Q =the arch between the point E and the axis O ;
<p =the arch between the points E and C ;
a =the tint produced separately at E by the greater
axis;
b =the tint produced separately at E by the lesser
axis;
if/ =the angle of the forces;
7T = the angle CEF;
to =the angle OEF ;
A = the arch FO, or the angle OAF, or the azimuth on
the great circle CPO passing through the poles P,
P, or centres of the two systems of rings ;
D = the arch FE, or the declination or distance of the
point E from the same great circle ;
£ =half the difference of the angles at the base or at the
diagonal of the parallelogram of forces.
Then we have
cos 0 = cos A x cos D,
<p=90° — D,
tan D
cos w = - -,
tan tj
tan D
tan <p
2 AEO = = 2 (180° — w)=2 w.
Since, then, the tints a, b produced at E by the axes O
and AB are as the squares of the sines of the distance of
E from these axes, or as sin2 OE and sin2 AE, and as the
relative intensities of the axes are as
1 t0 sin2 OP’
we shall have
a = sin2 OE, and 5 = sin2 AE x sin2 OP.
Having thus found the sides of the parallelogram of
forces whose angle is \\i, the diagonal T of this parallelo¬
gram, or the compound tint at E, will be obtained in the
following manner:—
Tan t- a~&tan#, and
a + b
£ + = greater angle at the base.
TT t, asiniP
Hence 1=-——X—-
sin £+ ^
When a — b, T = 2a (cos tt + a>).
When a = 5, and the two axes O and AB equal, tt=w, and
T = 2a (cos 27r).
When twice the angle formed by the planes OE, AE or
xP = 90°, then T = Va2 + b1.
When ^=180°, T = a-b.
When <p = 0° or 360°, T = a + b.
Such is the method of determining the tints, and conse-
1 “ De 1’Emploi des Proprietes Optiques Birefringentes en Mineralogie,” par M. A. Descloiseaux, Ann. des Mines, tom. xi., p. 264.
2 “ Recherches sur lea Propriety Optiques Birefringentes des Corps Isomorphes,” par M. H. De Senarmont, Ann. de Chim. et de Phy¬
sique, 3 series, tom. xxxiii.
656
OPT
Polariza- quently the form of the isochromatic curves in relation to
tion. the real axes to which the forces refer ; but in relation to the
v--^ poles P, P, the law of the tints may be more simply ex¬
pressed by the formula T = < sin PE x sin P E, where t is the
maximum tint at A, which must be previously determined.
This rule was deduced by M. Biot mathematically from Sir
David Brewster’s law, and it was afterwards established ex-^
perimentally by Sir John Herschel, without being aware of
its having been deduced from the general iaw.
The preceding general law is equally applicable when the
rings are formed in homogeneous light.
Sir John Herschel, in examining the system of biaxal
rings, found that they resembled lemniscates, as represented
in the annexed figure. In these curves the rectangle PA x
P'A is invariable throughout each curve, and the value of
this constant rectangle in
Fig. 191.
any one curve \s a x. b, b
being the parameter of the
curve, and a half the dis¬
tance between the poles
P, P'. The quantity a is
of course the same for
each curve, but b in dif¬
ferent curves increases in
the arithmetical progres¬
sion 0, 1, 2, 3, &c., for the
several dark intervals of
the rings, beginning at the poles, and in the progression £,
f, f, &c., for the brightest intermediate spaces.
Many interesting conclusions have been deduced from the
preceding general law by Sir David Brewster. When the
two negative axes O and AB (fig. 190) are of equal intensity,
then their action will be compensated at C and D, and CD
will be a single positive axis of double refraction, and also of
a uniaxal system of rings like those in zircon ; and the iso¬
chromatic curves given by the preceding formulae will be
circles surrounding the axis. Hence it follows, that two ne¬
gative rectangular axes of double refraction and polariza¬
tion compose a single positive axis. If we now suppose a
negative axis at CD, equal in intensity to any of the other
two, it will evidently destroy the positive axis of compensa¬
tion at CD, so that three equal and similar negative axes in
any crystal destroy each other ; and hence our author was
led to the conclusion that all the tessular crystals in which
there was neither double refraction nor polarization had three
such axes. But if the third axis at CD is not equal to O or
AB, and if O and AB are unequal, then we shall have all the
phenomena of a crystal with two axes. In order to compute
the tints thus produced by three unequal axes, let O, AB,
and CD (fig. 190) be three axes, and P, P' the centres of the
double systems of rings which they produce. We have
already shown that the resulting tints of two axes O and AB,
at any part E, is
,p _ a sin if/ ^
sin£ + -*i/'
In order, however, to combine this tint with another, we
must know the direction of it. Since \f/ is the double of the
real angle of the planes in which the forces from O and AB
act, the direction of the new plane in which these forces act
must form an angle with the real direction of O, whose com¬
plement is
"b C 'k i £
2-’°r 4+-2’
or it forms with the real direction of A an angle whose com¬
plement is
Mjli,or±-L
2 ’ 4 2
Hence the direction of the resultant in relation to BE, the
direction of the third force with which it is to be combined, is
known.
ICS.
In order to illustrate this in a case where the truth of the Polariza
result will be immediately seen, we shall take the case of tion.
three equal axes, the general resultant of which is nothing.
In fig. 190, let O, AB, and CD, be the three equal axes,
and E the point where we require to know the effect of their
combined action. Take AE = 70°, CE = 60°, then EG =
30°, EF = 20°, AG = 66° 44', OG = 23° 16', OE = 37° 17 ;
then
« = sin2 AE = 0-883104 54
£ = sin2 CE = 0‘7500 £= 37 12
c=sin2 OE =0*36694 o>= 40 4
a + c = 1 •25004 7r= 77 52
a-c =0-51616.
Combining then O and AB, we shall have
T = 0-7500,
which will be + or positive, as if/ is greater than 180°.
Then ^ + | = 49° 19',
which gives 40° 21' for the direction of the new plane in
which the forces O and A produce the combined tint of
0"7500. But the angle a> or OEG = 40° 41', so that the
resultant lies in the plane CEG ; and hence, if we combine
with this resultant, or +0-7500, the force — 0’7500, produced
by CD, the result will be nothing. This method is also ap¬
plicable to the combination of axes of double refraction, the
numbers corresponding to a, b, c being in that case the dif¬
ference between the squares of the velocities of the ordinary
and extraordinary rays, as produced by each axis separately
at the point E.
The following table of the intensities of the polarizing
force in biaxal crystals has been given by Sir John Her¬
schel :—
Value of the Thicknesses that
highest produce the same
Tint. Tint.
Nitre 7400 0‘000135
Anhydrite, angle of axis 43° 48'. ..1900 0 000526
Mica, angle of axes 45° 1307 0-000765
Sulphate of barytes  521 0 001920
Heulandite (white), angle of axes 1 0,000402
54° 17' J “
The numbers belong to the yellov/ ray.
Sect. A.—On Conical Refraction in Biaxal Crystals.
The phenomenon of conical refraction seen along the axes Conical
of biaxal crystals was deduced by Sir W. R. Hamilton from refraction,
the undulatory theory, and was discovered experimentally
and examined by Dr Lloyd in arragonite. It followed from
the theory, that a single ray proceeding from a point within
the crystal, and emerging at each of the four poles, must be
divided into an infinite number of emergent rays, consti¬
tuting a conical surface; and that a single ray incident
externally would be similarly divided.
In order to examine the emergent cone formed in air, Dr
Lloyd placed a lens of short focus at its focal distance from
the first surface of a plate of arragonite 0-49 of an inch
thick, having its parallel faces perpendicular to the principal
axis of the crystal, and so that the central part of the pencil
might have an incidence nearly parallel to the optical axis.
He then looked through the crystal at the light of a lamp
placed at a considerable distance, and observed a point more
luminous than the space around it, having a sort of stellar
radiation. In order to examine this phenomenon, he placed
a plate of thin metal, having a minute aperture, on the sur¬
face of the crystal next the eye, and adjusted the aperture
so that the line connected with the luminons point on the
first surface might be in the direction of the optical axis.
When the adjustment was complete, there appeared at first
a luminous circle with a small dark space in the centre,
and in this dark central space were two bright points, sepa-
OPTICS.
rated by a narrow and well-defined dark line, as
in figs. 192 and 193. When
the aperture in the plate was
slightly shifted, the phenomena
rapidly changed, assuming suc¬
cessively the forms shown in
figs. 194, 195, 196. In the first
stage of the change the central Flg-192- Fis
dark space became greatly enlarged, and a double
appeared in the centre. The circle was reduced to
shown
sector
about
Fig. 191. Fig. 195. Fig. 1S6.
a quadrant, and was separated by a dark interval from the
sector just mentioned. This is shown in fig. 194. The re¬
mote sector then disappeared, and the circular arch dimin¬
ished, as in fig. 195 ; and as the inclination of the internal
ray to the optical axis was farther increased, these two lu¬
minous portions merged gradually into two doubly-refracted
pencils. This change is shown in fig. 196. In these ex¬
periments the emergent rays were received directly by the
eye placed close to the aperture on the second surface.
Dr Lloyd succeeded in showing the phenomena on ascreen
with the sun’s light, and he found the light sufficiently dis¬
tinct when the diameter of the section was 1 £ inch. Upon ex¬
amining the cone with a tourmaline, Dr Lloyd was surprised
to observe that one radius only of the circular section van¬
ished in a given position of the tourmaline, and that the
ray which disappeared ranged through 360°, as the tour¬
maline was turned through 180°, the rays of the cone being
all polarized in different planes. Upon a more attentive
examination he discovered the remarkable law, “ that the
angle between the planes of polarization of any two rays of
the cone is half the angle between the planes containing
the rays themselves and the axis.” The angle of the cone
was found to be 6° 24', 5° 56', and 6° 22'; the mean of
which is 6° 14'.
When the aperture was considerable, such as that formed
by a large-sized pin, two concentric circles were seen to sur¬
round the axis, the inner one being nearly twice as bright
as the outer one, and consisting of unpolarized light, while
the outer one was polarized according to the preceding law.
By using smaller apertures the inner circle grew less, until
it became a point in the centre of the fainter exterior circle,
which remained fixed. With a still less aperture a dark
space sprung up in the centre, increasing as the aperture
diminished, until, with a very minute aperture, the breadth
of this central space increased to about three-fourths of the
entire diameter. In these cases the appearances are as
Fig. 200.
ing through the optic axes. The line had the appear¬
ance shown in fig. 200, swelling out into the form of an
oval curve round the optical axis. By using a very minute
aperture next the eye,
the phenomenon was
shown in fig.201. When
the plate next the eye
was slightly shifted, so
that the plane passing
the aperture did not co¬
incide with the plane of the optic axes, the curves rapidly
changed, preserving, however, the form ot the conchoid
whose pole was the projection of the axis of the emergent
Fig. 201.
Fig. 202.
cone, and asymptote the line on the first surface,
effects are represented in figs. 202 and 203.
These
Fig. 197. Fig. 198. Fig. 199.
shown in figs. 197 and 198. When the line joining the
luminous point on the first surface was slightly inclined to
the axis, the appearance was that shown in fig. 199.
Dr Lloyd observed an
interesting variation in the
phenomena by substitut¬
ing a narrow linear aper¬
ture for the circular one
on the first surface of the
crystal, this aperture and
the one in the plate next the eye being in the plane pass-
The second kind of conical refraction, deduced theoreti¬
cally by Sir W. R. Hamilton, takes place when a single ex¬
ternal ray is incident upon a biaxal crystal, so that one
refracted ray coincides with an optic axis. In this case
there should be a cone of rays within the crystal, the angle of
the cone in arragonite being 1° 55'. As this cone will have
its rays refracted at emergence, in a direction parallel to
the incident ray, they will form a small cylinder of rays in
air, the character of whose section by the surface of emer¬
gence being only 1° 55' at a distance equal to the thickness
of the crystal.
In order to detect the existence and measure the size of
this cylinder, Dr Lloyd used the light of a lamp placed at
some distance, and he made its light pass through two small
apertures placed in a straight line, the one in a screen near
the flame, and the other in a plate of metal close to the
first circle of the crystal. Under ordinary circumstances,
the incident ray will be doubly refracted within the crystal,
and the two pencils will emerge parallel to the second sur¬
face. Dr Lloyd was able to distinguish these tw o pencils
by means of a lens; and turning the crystal slowly, so as
vary the incidence, he observed a position in which the two
rays changed their relative places rapidly on any slight
change of incidence, and appeared at times to revolve round
one another as the incidence was changed. Being convinced
that the ray was now at the critical incidence, Dr Lloyd
changed the position of the crystal relative to the incident
ray very slowly ; and after much care in the adjustment, he
at last saw the two rays spread into a continuous circle, and
exhibit the phenomena which wre have already described
in his ow n words in our History of Optics.
Dr Lloyd measured the angle of the cone by an indirect
method, and found it 1° 50', differing only 5' from the angle
deduced from theory.1
fleet. XL—On the Effect of Pressure and Heat on
the Double Refraction of Crystals with One, Two,
and Three Axes.
The influence of pressure and heat in modifying the Influenco
doubly-refracting structure of bodies that previously pos-ofPressill’a*
1 See Irish Trans. Ib33, vol. xvii.; and Land, and Edin. Phil. Mag., 1833, No. viii., p. 112, No. ix., p. 207.
4 O
VOL. XVI.
658
OPTICS.
Polariza¬
tion.
sessed that property, and of creating a new doubly-refractive
structure in uncrystallized bodies, was first studied by Sir
David Brewster.1 By applying compressing and dilating
forces to minerals, he succeeded in altering their doubly-
refracting structure in every direction; but the effect was
always most easily seen when it was produced along the
real axis of uniaxal crystals, or the resultant axesofbiaxal
ones, where the effect of the natural forces was either nothing
or compensated. The following were some of the results to
which he was led by applying the forces to parallel sur¬
faces.
Axis of Compression and Dilatation parallel to the Axis of
the Crystal.
Positive crystals.
Negative crystals
Compressed.
Dilated  
Compressed
Dilated 
Tints rise in Newton’s
scale.
Tints descend in New¬
ton’s scale.
Tints descend in New¬
ton’s scale.
Tints rise in Newton’s
scale.
Axis of Compression and Dilatation perpendicular to the
Axis of the Crystal.
Positive crystals.
Negative crystals.
Compressed
Dilated  
Compressed
Dilated 
Tints descend in New¬
ton’s scale.
Tints rise in Newton’s
scale.
Tints rise in Newton’s
scale.
Tints descend in New¬
ton’s scale.
Influence
of heat.
Mitscher-
lich.
Sir John
Herschel.
The axis of compression and dilatation is the line per¬
pendicular to the two surfaces pressed together or drawn
asunder.
The above results were obtained by experiments both
on uniaxal and biaxal crystals.
When the axis of compression was perpendicular to the
axis of double refraction of a uniaxal crystal, it was par¬
tially converted into a biaxal one with two axes, the poles of
the two resultant axes being distinctly visible?
M. Fresnel was, we believe, the first person who observed
the influence of heat in altering the tints of sulphate of
lime perpendicular to the laminae ; but we are not able to
refer to the details of his experiments. Professor Mitscher-
lich, however, has investigated the action of heat upon this
mineral so completely as to include all previous experiments
in his results. Having found that heat acts upon calcareous
spar differently in different directions, expanding it in the
direction of its axis, and slightly contracting it in directions
perpendicular to the axis, he sought to determine if any
variation in the double refraction was produced by heat.
By the method of interferences, and observing the compen¬
sation produced by crossing plates of crystals at different
temperatures, he observed that a change in the double re¬
fraction was produced.
In extending these experiments, Professor Mitscherlich
found that the two resultant axes of sulphate of lime in¬
clined 60° to each other at common temperatures, ap¬
proached each other when heated, till they met, and con¬
stituted one axis of double refraction. By increasing the
heat they again separated in a plane perpendicular to the
lamince. In this experiment the principal axis of double
relfaction which bisected the optic axis gradually increased,
while the second real axis perpendicular to the laminae
diminished and disappeared when the crystal assumed the
uniaxal state. A new axis then sprung up in the plane of
the laminae perpendicular to the principal axis.
Sir John Herschel, in mentioning this remarkable ex¬
periment, states that he observed the tints of a plate of Polariza.
sulphate of lime rise rapidly in the scale when the plate was tion.-
moderately warmed by the heat of a candle held at some
distance below it, and sink again when the heat W'as with¬
drawn. He found, on the contrary, “ that mica similarly
heated undergoes no apparent change in the position of its
axes, or in the size of its rings, though heated nearly to
ignition.”3
The extraordinary experiment of Professor Mitscherlich Later ex.
was repeated by Sir David Brewster with one of the speci- periments.
mens of sulphate of lime in which he discovered one of the
resultant axes of this mineral. The following is the account
which he has given of this experiment, and of the discovery
of a still more curious property in glauberite :4—“ The
specimen of sulphate of lime was about inch thick
in the plane of the laminae ; and the system of rings which
surrounded this axis was exceedingly minute, with the usual
black brush at each end of them. The other system of
rings could not be seen in this specimen, owing to the
manner in which it was cut. Having brought the crystal
to a considerable heat, and exposed it to polarized light, it
was a singular sight to see the system of rings travelling
along towards the line which bisects the optic axes, like a
celestial body passing through the field of a telescope, and
changing their form and size as they advanced. The speci¬
men did not permit me to see the two systems unite, and
still less to see them open out again in a plane at right
angles to the laminae ; but from the degree of heat which
I used, and which drove off the water of crystallization from
part of the specimen, I presume that the complete pheno¬
menon cannot be developed without destroying the consti¬
tution of the crystal—that is, that after the two systems of
rings have opened out in a new plane, they will not return,
by cooling, through their state of union, into their primi¬
tive inclination of 60° in the plane of the laminae.
“ A similar property I discovered in glauberite. This
mineral has at ordinary temperatures the curious property
of tivo axes of double refraction for red light, and only one
axis for violet light. If we apply heat to it, the two optic
axes for red light gradually close, and at a temperature
which the hand can endure, the two systems of rings for
red light have united into one system, so that the crystal
has now only one axis of double refraction for red light.
By continuing to increase the heat, the two axes separated,
and the single system of rings opened out into two systems,
lying in a plane at right angles to that in which they were
placed at first. The heat was now less than that of boil¬
ing water. By increasing it, the inclination of the optic
axes gradually increased.
“ I now applied artificial cold to a crystal of glauberite at
the ordinary temperature of the atmosphere. The inclina¬
tion of the optic axes for red light increased, as might
have been predicted; but, what was very unexpected, a
new axis was createdfor violet light, the plane of the two
violet axes being coincident with the plane of the two red
optic axes at and below the ordinary temperature. An in¬
crease of cold increased the inclination of the optic axes for
all the colours of the spectrum ; the inclination of the axes
being least for the most refrangible, and greatest for the
least refrangible rays.
“ These results appear very complicated when we begin
with the effects at an ordinary temperature, and view them
in the manner in which they w ere observed; but if w e
commence the experiments at a low temperature, such as
the freezing point, the order and connection of the pheno¬
mena will be more easily understood.
“ At 32° glauberite has two axes of double refraction for
rays of all colours, the inclination of the axes for the violet
1 Phil Trans. 1815, pp. 1, 60; 1816, p. 167 ; and Edin. Trans., vol. viii., p. 281. 2 Edin. Trans., vol. viii., p. 285.
3 Treatise on Light, sect. 1113, * Land, and Edin. Phil. Mag., Dec. 1832, vol. i., p. 417.
I
OPTICS.
659
Polariza- rays being least, and that for the red the greatest. As the
tion. temperature rises, the optic axes for all colours giadually
approach, and the axes for violet first unite into one. At
this time the crystal has two axes for all the other colours;
but as the heat increases, all the other pairs of axes unite
in succession, and form a single system of rings. But be¬
fore this has taken place, the axes for violet rays have
opened up again in a plane at right angles to that in which
they originally lay, and they are followed by all the other
pairs of axes; so that at a temperature much below that of
boiling water, each pair of axes appears with different incli¬
nations arranged in a new direction.
“ During all the changes which have been described
above, the crystal lias preserved its constitution ; and by
abstracting the heat, the phenomena are all repeated in an
inverse order.
“ If the crystal should happen to be observed at that
temperature, which very often occurs, when the greenish-
yellow or most luminous rays have the optic axes corre¬
sponding to them united, or form a single system of rings,
then the blue rays will have two systems of rings lying in
one plane, and the red rays also two systems of rings in a
plane at right angles to this. In two rectangular positions—
namely, when the planes of the double axes coincide with
or are at right angles to the plane of primitive polarization,
the black cross will be very distinct; but in intermediate
positions it M ill be much less so, and the uniaxal system of
rings which predominates, from the greater intensity of
their light, will have that indistinctness of character which,
whenever it occurs, indicates a peculiar action of the doubly-
refracting force on the differently-coloured rays. When
the black cross is perfect and equally distinct in all positions,
while the colours of the rings deviate from those of New¬
ton’s scale, then the axes for all colours are obviously coin¬
cident, and the peculiarity in the colour of the rings is
owing to an irrationality in the action of the doubly-refract¬
ing forces on the differently-coloured rays.”
Professor A series of highly valuable experiments on the changes
Kudberg. which temperature produces in the double refraction of
crystals,1 were made by Professor Rudberg of Upsal.
Professor Mitscherlich having only determined the ratio
between the mean double refraction of Iceland spar in a
cold and in a heated state, without ascertaining the separate
variations in each pencil, Professor Rudberg was desirous
of supplying this desideratum.
For this purpose he constructed a box AB, having four
of its faces double, so as to inclose a space M’hich received
through the pipe P, and retained, the steam from a boiler.
This space communicated also with the external air. The
other two faces of the box M ere formed with plates of mica.
The inner box, therefore, con¬
tained only air, which was
heated by the surrounding
steam. A thermometer T
indicated the temperature of
the air. A tube R, passing
through the tM’o lower sur¬
faces of the box, formed a free
communication between the
interior and the exterior air,
so that their elasticity was the
same. Through this tube R,
without touching its sides,
there rose from the centre of
the repeating circle a vertical copper rod, carrying a plate
C, upon which the crystal was placed. This rod was at¬
tached below to another plate of copper, which rested on a
ring of copper, which, having teeth upon its circumference,
could be moved by a screw. By this arrangement he could rolariza-
perform the experiments as readily as if there had been no tion.
heating apparatus to obstruct them. The heating apparatus
was attached by a rod Q of iron rising from the masonry on
which the repeating circle rested.
The experiments were made to determine the index of
refraction of the ray F of Fraunhofer’s spectrum near the
boundary of the green and blue spaces. In this way he
obtained the following results :—
1. Calcareous Spar.—Refracting angle of prism 59° Calcareous
55’9". _ sPar-
a. Ordinary Ray.—The minimum deviation of the line
F produced by the prism was 52° 53' 43". With a differ¬
ence of temperature of 64° (Reaumur we presume), this
ray suffered no change in its deviation ; from which Prof.
Rudberg concludedthe refractive power of calcareous
spar/or the ordinary ray either does not change at all
with the temperature, or decreases with it by a quantity
extremely small. The index of refraction of F at the
ordinary temperature was 1 •66802.
b. Extraordinary Ray.—By the difference of temperature
of 64°, the deviation was increased 2' 26", or 2' 34" when
corrected, which gives for the index of refraction
1-49118 at 64°
1-49075 at ordinary temperature.
0'00043 increase.
Hence, in the extraordinary ray a rise of temperature of
64° increases the index of refraction 0‘00343.
Professor Rudberg confirmed this result in the presence
of Professor Mitscherlich in 1832.
2. Rock-Crystal.—Refracting angle of prism 45° 20’ 5". Rock -crys-
In both the ordinary and extraordinary ray the devia- taL
tion was decreased by a rise of temperature 42". The in¬
dices for the ray F became in the extraordinary ray r55868,
being 0*00028 more than at the ordinary temperature; and
m the ordinary ray P54944, being 0"00026 less.
3. Arragonite.—With four prisms he obtained the fol- Arragon-
lowing results:— lte*
NoT No-2- No-3- No-4'
Variation of the deviation... —5'8" — 1'53" —4' 3" —2'58"
Variation of refracting angle —00 +0 16 —1 53 —0 48-6
When corrected for the deviation of the plate of mica,
they became
No. 2. No. 3. No. 4.
Variation of deviation  — 1' 47" —3' 57" —2' 52"
Variation of angle  +30 0 —1 44 —0 40
Hence he obtained the following indices of refraction:—•
No. 2. No. 3. No. 4.
At ordinary temperature  1-53478 1-69510 1-69058
At increased temperature  1-53416 1-6842I 1-68976
Changes on index —0-00062 —0-00089 —0-00082
While heat and pressure thus modify the doubly-refract- Regular
ing structure in minerals, they are capable of creating it double re-
with regular axes in several soft substances. This effect fiactlon
is quite different, as we shall soon see, from that which is ^ preg_
produced upon bodies by pressure, where the result is mo- sure.
dified by the external form of the body, and where the
double refraction disappears when the heat or pressure is
removed, or when the body is subdivided. A permanent
change is induced upon the soft solids in question, and,
when subdivided, each part of the mass or plate preserves
the property communicated to it. Sir David Brewster de¬
scribed, in the Philosophical Transactions for 1815, the
original experiment which he made on this subject with a
mixture of rosin and white wax ; but in the same Mork for
1830 he has given a detailed account of his experiments
1 This interesting paper was communicated by the author to Sir David Brewster, and published in the Land, and Edin. Phil. Mag.
Dec. 1832, vol. i., p. 409.
660
OPTICS.
Polariza
tion.
Cause of
double re¬
fraction.
and of the conclusions to which they lead respecting the
origin of the doubly-refracting structure. The follow¬
ing is the fundamental experiment described by our au¬
thor :—
“ I took a few drops of the melted compound (rosin and
bees’-wax), and placed them in succession on a plate of
thick glass, so as to form a large drop. Before it was cold
I laid above the drop a circular piece of glass about two-
thirds of an inch in diameter, and, by a strong vertical
pressure on the centre of the piece of glass, I squeezed out
the drop into a thin plate. This plate was now almost per¬
fectly transparent, as if the pressure had brought the par¬
ticles of the substance into optical contact.
“ If we expose this plate to polarized light, we shall find
that it possesses one positive axis of double refraction, and
exhibits the polarized tints as perfectly as many crystals
of the mineral kingdom. The structure thus communicated
to the soft film by pressure does not belong to it as a whole,
nor has it only one axis passing through its centre, like a
circular piece of unannealed glass. In every point of it
there is an axis of double refraction perpendicular to the
plates, and the doubly-refracting force varies with the in¬
clination of the incident ray to this axis, as in all regular
uniaxal crystals.
“ When the two plates of glass are drawn asunder, we
can remove one or more portions of the compressed plate,
and these portions act upon light exactly like plates of
uniaxal mica or hydrate of magnesia, and develop a double-
refracting force of nearly equal intensity.”
By reasoning from this experiment, our author is led to
the opinion that double refraction is acquired by the par¬
ticles of bodies at the instant of their aggregation, and
arises from the pressures produced in the direction of three
rectangular axes, by the forces of aggregation. When
these forces are very weak, double refraction will not be
produced ; when they are sufficiently strong and of equal
intensity, they will produce tessular crystals; when they
are equal in two rectangular directions, they will produce
uniaxal crystals ; and when they are unequal in all the three
directions, they will form biaxal ones. In this way all the
phenomena of cleavage may be readily explained.
Upon some substances heat performs the same part as
pressure; but our limits will not permit us to detail the
experiments of Sir David Brewster on this subject.
Sect. XII.—On the Deviation of the Polarized
Tints from those of Newton’s Scale.
In all his investigations respecting the colours of thin
plates, M. Biot happened to use only such crystals as gave
polarized tints similar to those of Newton’s scale, and he
therefore considered this to be their character. In 1813,
however, when Sir David Brewster described the rings in
topaz, he not only found these colours to vary in different
azimuths in the same ring, but observed some colours at
the extremity of the optic axes. In his paper on the Laws
of Polarization, in the Philosophical Transactions for 1818,
he remarks, that “ in almost all crystals with two axes, the
tints in the neighbourhood of the resultant axes, when the
plate has a considerable thickness, lose their resemblance
to those in Newton’s scale.”
In examining the colours of the polarized rings in biaxal
crystals, he was led to divide them into two classes, viz.,—
1. Those that had the red ends of the rings inwards,
or between the resultant axes, and the blue ends out¬
wards.
2. Those that had the red ends of the rings outwards,
and the blue ends of the rings inicards.
The crystals in which the deviation is very striking are
given in the following table: —
Class 1.—Red
Nitre.
Sulphate of barytes.
„ of strontites.
Tartrate of potash and soda.
Phosphate of soda.
Arragonite.
ends inwards.
Carbonate of lead.
Sulphato-bicarbonate of lead.
Hyposulphate of strontia
(Herschel).
Tartrate of potash.
Polariza¬
tion.
Class 2.—Red ends outwards.
Topaz.
Mica.
Anhydrite.
Native borax.
Sulphate of magnesia.
Arseniate of soda.
Unclassed.
Chromate of lead.
Muriate of mercury.
„ of copper.
Oxynitrate of silver.
Sugar.
Crystallized Cheltenham
salts.
Nitrate of mercury.
„ of zinc.
„ of lime.
Superoxalate of potash.
Oxalic acid.
Sulphate of iron.
Cymophane.
Felspar.
Benzoic acid.
Chromic acid.
Nadelstein.
Hyposulphate of soda (Her¬
schel).
In examining the rings formed by biaxal crystals, Sir
David Brewster found that the black spot at the point of
compensation was not in the centre of the rings, and the
position of this spot for topaz is given in his table of these
colours. {Phil. Trans. 1814, p. 204.)
It is to Sir John Herschel, however, that we owe the com- gjp jolln
plete investigation of this subject. By using homogeneous HerscheVi
light, he found that the angle of the resultant axes POp, expcri-
POp' (fig. 159) was different for the different colours of the ments.
spectrum, varying, in the case of tartrate of potash and
soda, from 75° 42' in red light to 55° 14' in violet light;
so that with v;hite light we have a system of rings con¬
sisting of five rings of all colours overlapping each other,
and these five constituting an irregular system, unlike those
produced by ordinary crystals.
In crystals where the displacement of the rings is great,
the oval central spot seen in figs. 183, 184, and 185, are
drawn out, as Sir John Herschel remarked, into long spectra
or tails of red, green, and violet light, and the extremities
of the rings are distorted and highly coloured, as in fig. 205.
When we view these spectra with coloured media, they are
• » v
Fig. 206.
found to consist of well-defined spots of the several simple
colours, arranged on each side of the principal section, as
shown in fig. 206.
These results are capable of being rigorously calculated
by the law of resultant axes given by Sir David Brewster,
and may be considered as a proof of that law. If this were
not the case, tartrate of potash and soda would have two
axes for every different ray of the spectrum, and four series
of poles extending each over a space of ten degrees.
\pophyl-
ite.
OPTICS.
661
Fig 207.
In order to show how these phenomena may be calcu¬
lated by two axes, let O and A (fig. 207) be two negative
axes, which in red light compensate each
other at F and F'; then, if O and A had
the same proportional action on the vio¬
let and other rays as on the red rays, F
would also be the point of compensation
for the violet and other rays. In this
case F would be the centre of all the
systems of rings, as in uniaxal crystals,
and the tints those of Newton’s scale.
But if the axis O has a greater proportional action upon the
violet and other rays than A, the point of compensation will
be at /, which will be the centre of the violet system of
rings, the centres of all the other systems being between
F and /’if the action of O upon them is of an intermediate
nature. This is the case with all the crystals in Class 1 of
the foregoing table. On the other hand, if O has a less
proportional action on the violet than on the red, c, c will
be the points of compensation for the violet rays, and the
centres of the two systems of violet rings.
The most remarkable instances of deviated tints are those
discovered by Sir David Brewster in apophyllite, a crystal
with one axis. Sir John Herschel, in examining a number
of apophyllites, found that some specimens exercise negative
action upon the rays at one end of the spectrum, a positive
action upon rays at the other end, and no action at all upon
the mean refrangible rays, the doubly-refracting action
ceasing in the one case in the yellow rays, and in another
in the indigo. In other specimens, the diameter of the
rings was nearly the same for all the colours of the spectrum,
and hence the rings were approaching to a series of black
and white ones. All these phenomena may be separately
calculated by the law of resultant axes already mentioned,
on the supposition that apophyllite has three rectangular
axes of double refraction. Sir David Brewster had dis¬
covered in the tesselated apophyllite portions which had
two axes co-existing with portions that had one axis; and
in his coloured drawings of the phenomena exhibited by
this mineral, he has pointed out a most extraordinary law
of symmetry which regulates its varying double refraction ;
and as he had shown that a double dispersive power existed
in the same crystal, the following explanation of the re¬
markable phenomena of apophyllite approaches to the cha¬
racter of demonstration.
Let O (fig. 208) be the positive axis of uniaxal apophyl¬
lite, and let A and B be two positive
axes which, if equal, would produce a
negative axis at O. But as the real axis
at O is a positive one, the apparent or
finally resultant axis at O will be a single
axis, negative if the negative is the
strongest, and positive if the positive is
the strongest. Let us now suppose that
the two axes at O have equal intensity,
—viz., + O = — O for yellow light ( — O being the resultant
of + A and + B), and that — O acts more powerfully upon
the red rays than + O, while + O acts more powerfully
upon the violet rays. In this case, the two axes +0,-0
will exactly compensate each other. In yellow light a
yellow ray will experience neither double refraction nor
polarization ; whereas in red light, the predominance of
— O will leave a single negative axis for red rays, and pro¬
duce a negative system of rings; and in violet light the
predominance of + O will leave a single positive axis of
double refraction for violet rays, and consequently a posi¬
tive system of rings. This compensation resembles that of
a compound lens, consisting of a convex and concave lens
of equal curvature, of such a glass that their refractive in¬
dex for yellow light is equal, while the index of refraction
for the violet rays is greater in the convex lens, and the
Fig. 208.
index for the red rays greater in the concave lens. Such Polariza-
a lens will converge the violet rays, diverge the red rays, ti011-
and produce no deviations^ all in the yellow ones,—that is,
the same compound lens will be a plane lens in yellow
light, a convex one in blue light, and a concave one in red
light. Hence each order of colours in apophyllite is, as it
were, a secondary or residual spectrum arising from the
opposite action of unequal negative and positive axes.
From the fact of some apophyllites exercising a negative
action, Sir David Brewster stated his expectation that
apophyllites might be found in which the double refraction
is negative for all the rays of the spectrum; and several
years afterwards he discovered the remarkable mineral of
oxahverite, which is an apophyllite with this property.
{Edinburgh Journal of Science, No. xiii., p. 115.)
Sect. XIII.—On Crystals with Planes of Double
Refraction exemplified in Analcime.
Analcime or Cubizite, a mineral ranked among the cubi- Analcime.
cal crystals, was found by Sir David Brewster to be a
singular body in its action upon light, and to exhibit the
extraordinary property of many planes of double refraction,
or planes to which the doubly-refracting structure was re¬
lated in the same manner as
it is to one or tivo axes in
other minerals.
It crystallizes most com¬
monly in the form of the icosi-
tetrahedron, as in fig. 209. If
we suppose a complete crystal
of it to be exposed to polarized
light, it will give the remark¬
able figure shown in fig. 209,
where the dark shaded lines
are planes in which there is
neither double refraction nor m
polarization, the double refraction and the tints commencing
at these planes, and reaching their maximum in the centre
of the space inclosed by three of the dark lines. The tints
are those of Newton’s scale, and are negative in relation to
each of the four axes of the icositetrahedron. When light
is transmitted through any pair of the four planes which
are adjacent to any of the three axes of the solid, it is
doubly refracted, the least refracted image being the extra¬
ordinary one, and consequently the double refraction nega¬
tive in relation to the axes to which the doubly-refracted
ray is perpendicular.
If we suppose the crystal to have the form of a cube,
the planes of double refraction will be,
as in fig. 210, a plane passing through
the two diagonals of each face of the
cube.
The tints vary as the square of the
distance from the nearest plane of
double refraction.
The tints shown in figs. 209 and
210 cannot of course be seen at the
time, but are deduced from observations
Fig. 210.
same time, out are aeciuceci irom ooservations made by
transmitting polarized light in every direction through the
crystal.
Sect. XIV.—On the Double Refraction and Pola¬
rization of Composite Crystals.
In all the crystallized bodies whose action upon light we Composite
have been considering, excepting analcime, the phenomena crystals
are identical in all parallel directions, the smallest fragment
having the same property as the largest, from whatever part
of the crystal it is taken.
In the mineral world, however, and among the products
662
OPTICS.
Polariza- of artificial crystallization, there occur crystals which are
tion. composed of several individual crystals whose axes are not
parallel. These crystals sometimes occur in such regular
symmetrical forms, that mineralogists have long regarded
them as simple forms; and it is probable that they would
have still been viewed in this light il they had not been
exposed to the scrutiny of polarized light.
One of the most remarkable of these composite crystals
is Iceland spar, some specimens of which were observed,
even by Bartholinus and Huygens, to exhibit phenomena
quite different from those already described.
Malus describes the phenomena as produced by fissures
parallel to the surface of the variety of this mineral de¬
scribed by Haiiy under the name of chaux carbonatee
equiaxe. He explains the duplication of the images on
the supposition that there is a fissure or real opening be¬
tween the conjoined faces of the spar, and he ascribes the
varying tints to a cause not adequate to the production of
such splendid phenomena,—to the colouring of the thin
plate of air included in the fissure.
This class of phenomena was particularly investigated
by Sir David Brewster, who found that the fissures de¬
scribed by Malus were thin crystallized lamince of Iceland
spar, having their axes of double refraction inclined to that
of the portions of the crystal which it separated ; that these
laminae varied in thickness, the thinnest producing a large
system of rings, and the thicker plates smaller systems, the
plates being sometimes so thick that no colours whatever
appeared. Hence it was obvious that each crystal of this
kind was a polarizing and an analysing apparatus, the
thin lamince being the plate which exhibited its polarized
tints in this singular position.
In order to understand this remarkable structure, we
have represented the laminae in fig. 211 by the planes
ABCD, ebcg, afhd, parallel to the
edges EG, FH, and also to the long
diagonals of the rhomboidal faces, or
perpendicular to the short diagonal
EF. When we look through a crys¬
tal with only one of these laminae, we
observe the two principal images of
the candle A, B, or luminous body
(fig. 212), while at a vertical incidence
and separated just as they would have
appeared in a common crystal of the
same thickness. But on each side of
this double image is a single-po¬
larized image C and D, C being polarized in the same
plane as B, and D in the same plane as A. Let us suppose
that these phenomena are
> n a b d
seen through a rhomb with
only one plane ABCD (fig.
211), and through the faces
EADG, BFHC. Then, if
we incline the rhomb in dif- F,s' 212'
ferent directions slightly, we shall see the images C, D dis¬
appear when they have a certain distance from A, B. If we
incline the rhomb, bringing EA nearer the eye than GD, the
images C, D will approach to A, B, and the disappearance will
be found to take place nearer and nearer to A, B as the in¬
clination is increased, it being necessary to bring the edge
EG nearer the eye than AD, to make C and D disappear.
While C and D are thus approaching to A, B, they become
less and less coloured till they are all white. If w7e incline
the rhomb in an opposite direction, so that GD is brought
nearer the eye than EA, the images C, D recede from A,
B, and become more highly coloured, the two images A,
B becoming also coloured. The images C, D sometimes
appear doubled when this inclination is going on, but it is
only a duplicity of colour, so to speak, in consequence of
the spectrum being divided by portions of it passing into
Fig. 211.
6
the reflected pencil. When we bring EG nearer the eye Polarlza.
than AD, the colours increase, A and B become also tion.
coloured, and an apparent colorific duplication of the images
C and D takes place. If the rhomb is inclined in an op¬
posite direction, so that AD is brought nearer the eye than
EG, the images C, D become also at first more coloured ;
but by increasing the inclination, the image C recedes
rapidly on the right side from A, B, contracts in breadth,
and becomes prismatically coloured, the spectrum which it
exhibits being subdivided by several black lines or bands,
the parts of the spectrum corresponding to these black
lines or dark bands having passed into the reflected rav.
The spectrum D recedes as rapidly to the left, expanding
in breadth, and even disappearing, as well as the images
A, B.
All these phenomena are more finely seen, and the law
of their changes more easily detected, if, instead of a candle,
we look at a long line of light, such as the narrow opening
between the edges of the window-shutters.
If we look through the faces ADHF, CBEG of the
rhomb, placing a prism of glass with an angle of 12° or 15°
upon one of the faces, to permit the refracted rays to
emerge at a moderate angle of deviation, the prismatic
images formerly described will be large spectra, sub¬
divided by black spaces into 4, 5, 6, &c., coloured images of
the candle, or of the long luminous line, exhibiting one of
the most magnificent phenomena that can be witnessed.
These phenomena vary, of course, with the thickness of
the inclosed laminae, and as the laminae increase in thick¬
ness the subdivisions of the spectral images become more
numerous.
When we reflect light from these laminae ABCD, for
example, by allowing the light to enter by the face BFHC,
and emerge through the face AFHD, the boundary of total
reflection is markedbya series of brilliant rectilineal fringes,
polarized in the same manner as the image C, which is now
the lowermost. When the light is transmitted through
the laminae at the boundary of total reflection, by entering
through the face BEGC, and emerging through AFHD, a
series of rectilineal fringes complementary to the former
reflected series is seen. They also are polarized in the
same plane as C, or the lowermost secondary image, and
become much more distinct, by causing the oppositely-po¬
larized pencil to disappear.
The structure which produces the preceding phenomena,
and the duplication of the images, will be understood
from fig. 213, where ABDC
is the principal section of a
crystal of this kind of Ice¬
land spar, having AD for 3
its axis. One of the lami¬
nae oppositely crystallized is
shown at Mm, N«, but much
thicker than they are gene¬
rally, the angles AmM, D«N
being 141° 44'. A ray of ordinary light R& will be re¬
fracted in the lines be, bd. These rays entering the lamina
MN, will be again refracted doubly; but as the vein is so
thin as to produce the system of uniaxal rings, the colours
will vary with the thickness of the film and the inclination
of the ray to the axis of the lamina. The four pencils will
emerge from the lamina at <?,/, and will be refracted again,
as in the figure, into the pencils em, en, fo, fp, the colours
of en,fo being complementary to those of em, fp.
That the multiplication and colour of the images are
produced bv the causes above explained has been proved
by Sir David Brewster, by actually placing laminae of dif¬
ferent crystals between the prisms AN, BN. In this way,
by introducing different films in different azimuths, most
beautiful combinations may be produced.
If we grind down the angles A and B, so as to have two
Fig. 213.
OPTICS.
663
Polariza- faces perpendicular to the axis AB, the uniaxal system of
tion. rincrs is beautifully modified by the action of the lamina
—' MN ; and that this was the cause of the singular transfor-
[odifica- mations which the rings experienced in different crystals,
onsofthewas proved by the author above quoted, by inserting la-
ngs in minae between two plates of the chaux carbonatee basee of
Haiiy, whose natural faces are perpendicular to the axis.
:eland
Fig. 214.
Fig. 215.
These transformations are exceedingly beautiful. Some
of them are shown in figs. 214, 21o, and 216, one of the
rings consisting of eight dark radii, while the complemen¬
tary system has its inner circle marked with eight dark-
coloured spots. These rings
suffer beautiful changes, both
by the motion of the plane
round its axis when the ana¬
lysing plate is stationary, and
by the motion of the analysing
plate when the rhomb is sta¬
tionary. In studying these
phenomena in a great variety
of crystals intersected with one
or more laminae, Sir David
Brewster noticed a very re¬
markable fact. A rhomb of Fig. 216.
spar which produced in one part of it the transformed sys¬
tems already mentioned, exhibited a singular effect in an¬
other part, where the crystallization appeared perfect and
simple, and where there were decidedly no veins or laminae.
In one position or azimuth of this crystal this portion
gave, as might have been expected, the regular system
of rings with the black cross shown in fig. 179. But upon
turning it round 40°, all the rings became elliptical, as
shown in fig. 217,
the first order of
colours in one
quadrant having
joined the second
order of colours
in the adjacent
quadrant. The
arms of the black
cross took the
contorted posi¬
tion abc, def, the
continuations of it
afterwards,—viz.,
am, cn, do, fp,—
being so very faint as to show the continuity of the elliptical
rings. In this figure the rings of the same order are marked
with the same figure. The very same phenomenon, which
points to important theoretical consequences, was observed
by the same author in another rhomb of spar wholly with¬
out reins, but the rings were not so elliptical as in fig. 217.
1 his composite structure was discovered by Sir David
Brewster in various minerals, and he has described it very
minutely in the case of Brazilian topaz, sulphate of potash,
and apophyllite.
Sir John Herschel, we believe, first noticed this structure
Fig. 217.
in Brazilian topaz, and observed that the central portion Polariza.
of the crystal had a different colour from the external tion-
portion, and that the plane of the principal section of the
different parts made angles of 20° =fc. Sir David Brewster Brazilian
found very remarkable arrangements of the coloured por- topaz,
tions, which he has represented in coloured drawings in
the Cambridge Transactions, vol. ii. In some of these
crystals the structure was tesselated, as in fig. 218, where
ABED, CBEF are the two external tesselae, at one of the
obtuse angles of the
rhomboidal section. d c k aa ii y
I f we suppose that
these tessela? are di¬
vided into four la¬
minae, 1, 2,3,4, and
that MN isthe prin¬
cipal section, or one
of the neutral axes
of the central por¬
tion of the crystal
contiguous to DEF,
then the laminae 1,
1 have their princi¬
pal section in the
direction aa! form¬
ing a very small
angle with MN; the
laminae 2, 2 have FiE- 218-
their principal section in the line bb, and so on to the super¬
ficial laminae 4, 4, which have their principal section in the
direction dd!, inclined from 10°± to 22c± to MN, the in¬
clination varying in different crystals. The lines ad, bb',
&c., are also the principal sections of the corresponding
laminae on the side NC. In like manner, the principal sec¬
tions aa', /3/3', &c., of the laminae in BCFE, are the principal
sections of the coiresponding laminae on the other side AN.
As the laminae, however, are infinite in number, the principal
sections have every possible direction between dd! and 88.
The bipyramidal sulphate of potash, which Count Bour- Sulphate
non supposed to be a simple crystal, of potash,
was found by Sir David Brewster to
be a tesselated crystal, composed of
three pair of crystals of the prismatic
sulphate of potash combined so that
each pair had their principal axis
parallel. When exposed to polarized
light, each pair gave the system of
biaxal rings, and when held at a dis¬
tance from the eye, had the tesselated
appearance shown in fig. 219, each
opposite pair of the triangles having
the same tint. {Edin. Phil. Journal,
The most remarkable of this class of minerals, and in- Apophyl-
deed the most remarkable body in the
whole mineral kingdom, is the tesse¬
lated apophyllite. It crystallizes most
commonly in four-sided rectangular
prisms, like CD (fig. 220). If we
remove the uppermost slice A and
the undermost B to the thickness of
between the 50th and the 100th of
an inch, and examine it either by
the microscope or by polarized light,
we shall find that it is like other
uniaxal plates, giving a single sys¬
tem of rays having the very peculiar
colours which have been already de¬
scribed. A number of veins appear
at the edges, as shown in the figure.
All the other slices lying below this
exhibit the beautiful tesselated figure shown in fig. 221.
lite.
Fig. 220.
OPTICS.
The outer case MONP, which, as it were, binds to¬
gether the internal portions, consists of a great number
of parallel veins or plates, which give the colours of
grooved surfaces. This frame incloses nine different
crystals,—namely, the central lozenge abed, the four
prisms A, 3, C, D with trapezoidal bases, and the foui
triangular prisms ehl, Imn, nhg, gfe, all of which are
separated by distinct lines  -.-ra.,———^ *—-—r^iO
or veins, which are nearly
all visible by the micro¬
scope by a proper method
of illumination. In polar¬
ized li^ht they are all seen
with great facility.
The most extraordinary
fact connected with this
structure is, that the cen¬
tral lozenge has only one
axis of double refraction, p
like the terminal plates A, Fig. 221.
B (fig. 220), while the four prisms A, B, C, D, and the
four triangular spaces, have two axes. In A and D the
planes of the resultant axes are coincident, as in the oppo¬
site triangles of sulphate of potash, and lie in the direction
MN, while the planes of the resultant axes in B and C lie
in the direction OP.
When the plate MONP is exposed to polarized light and
turned round its axis before the analysing plate, the lozenge
abed will be dark in every position of the plate, while the
portions A, B, C, D, will depolarize the light, or be lumin¬
ous, when MO or ON are parallel or perpendicular to the
plane of primitive polarization.
Remarkable as is the structure which we have now de¬
scribed, it is greatly excelled in beauty by another variety
of Faroe apophyllite, in which Sir David Brewster disco¬
vered the most extraordinary organization. He has given an
enlarged coloured drawingof the fine symmetrical tints which
it exhibits in polarized light,in the Edinburgh Transactions;
but we hope its structure may be understood by the follow¬
ing description which he has given of it. The crystals have
a greenish-white tinge, and are aggregated together in
masses. The quadrangular prisms are in general below
one twelfth of an inch in width ; they are always unpo¬
lished on their terminal planes ; they have the angles at the
summit more deeply truncated than the other quadrangular
prisms from Faroe ; they are always perfectly transparent;
and may sometimes be detached in a complete state, with
both their terminal summits.
“ In examining this variety of apophyllite I was enabled,
by the perfection of the crystals, to study their structure
through the natural planes, and at right angles to their axes.
“ When a complete crystal is exposed to polarized light,
with its axes inclined 45° to the plane of primitive polariza¬
tion, and is subsequently examined with an analysing prism,
it exhibits, through both its pair of parallel planes, the ap¬
pearance shown in fig. 222. In turning the crystal round
the polarized ray, all the tints vanish, reappear, and reach
their maximum at the same time, so that they are not the
resvdt of any hemitropism, but arise wholly from a sym¬
metrical combination of elementary crystals possessing dif¬
ferent primitive forms and different refractive and polariz¬
ing powers. The difference in the polarizing powers is well
shown by the variation of tint ; and the difference of refrac¬
tive power may be observed with equal distinctness by
examining the crystal with the microscope under favour¬
able circumstances of illumination, when the outlines of
the symmetrical forms shown in fig. 222 will be clearly visible.
“Inexamining the splendid arrangementof tints exhibited
in the figure, the perfect symmetry which appears in all its
parts is particularly remarkable. The existence of the curvi-
lineal solid in the centre—the gradual diminution in the length
of the circumscribing plates, in consequence of which they ta
per, as it were, from the angles of the
central rectangle to the truncated an¬
gles at the summits—but, above all,
the reproduction of similar tints on
each side of the central figure, and at
equal distances from it, cannot fail
to strike the observer with surprise
and admiration.
“ The tints exhibited by each
crystal vary, of course, according
to its thickness; but the range of
tint in the same plate, and at the
same thickness, generally amounts
in the largest crystals to three of
the orders of colours in Newton’s
scale. The central portion, and the
two squares above and below it,
have in general the same intensity,
while the four segments round the
central portion, and some of the
parts beyond each of the squares,
are also isochromatic. In the cen¬
tral part the colours have a de¬
cided termination ; but towards the
summit of the prism their outline is
less regular, and less distinctly
marked, though this irregularity
has also its counterpart at the other
termination. A part of these irre¬
gularities is sometimes owing to the
longitudinal striae on the natural
faces of the crystal, so that by care¬
fully grinding these off the beauty
and regularity of the figureis greatly
improved.
“ In order to ascertain the order of the colours polarized
by the crystal, and observe in what manner they passed
into one another, I transmitted the polarized light in a di¬
rection parallel to one of the diagonals of the quadrangular
prism, and thus obtained, as it were, a section of the differ¬
ent orders of colours from the zero of their scale. The result
of this experiment, which is shown in fig. 223, was highly in¬
teresting, as it displayed to the eye not only the law
according to which the intensity of the polarizing forces
varied in different parts of the crystal, but also the variation
in the nature of the tints, and the connection between these
two classes of phenomena. At the points in the diagonal
mri opposite to b, a of the crystal, the
tints rose to the seventh order of co¬
lours ; and in other two places opposite
to c, d, they were only to the sixth ; while
near the summits at m, n they descended
so low as the fourth order. Hence it
follows that the four curvilineal seg¬
ments (fig. 222) are next to these in in¬
tensity ; that the central portions of the
squares are again inferior to these; and
that the weakest polarizing force is near
the summit of the prisms. At a, b the
fourth, fifth, and sixth fringes have a
singularly serrated outline, exhibiting in
a very interesting manner the sudden
variations which take place in the polar¬
izing forces of the successive laminae.
“ Having thus described the structure
and properties of the tesselated apo¬
phyllite, it becomes interesting to in¬
quire how far such a combination of
structures is compatible with the ad¬
mitted laws of crystallography. The growth of a crystal,
Polariza.
tion.
Fip. ;s?.
OPTICS.
in virtue of the aggregation of minute particles endowed
with polarity, and possessing certain primitive forms, is easily
comprehended, whether we suppose the particles to exist
in a state of igneous fluidity or aqueous solution. But it is
a necessary consequence of this process, that the same law
presides at the formation of every part of it, and that tne
crystal is homogeneous throughout, possessing the same
mechanical and physical properties in all parallel direc¬
tions.
“ The tesselated apophyllite, however, could not have
been formed by this process. It resembles more a work of
art, in which the artist has varied not only the materials but
the laws of their combination.
“ A foundation appears to be first laid by means of a
uniform homogeneous plate, the primitive form of which is
pyramidal. A central pillar, whose section is a rectangular
lozenge, then rises perpendicularly from the base, and con¬
sists of similar particles. Round this pillar are placed new
materials, in the form of four trapezoidal solids, the primi¬
tive form of whose particles is prismatic ; and in these solids
the lines of similar properties are at right angles to each
other. The crystal is then made quadrangular by the ap¬
plication of four triangular prisms of unusual acuteness,
f he nine solids arranged in this symmetrical manner, and
joined by transparent veins performing the functions of ce¬
ment, are then surrounded by a wall composed of numerous
films, deposited in succession, and the whole of this singu¬
lar assemblage is finally roofed in by a plate exactly similar
to that which formed its foundation.
“ The second variety of the tesselated apophyllite is still
more complicated. Possessing the different combinations
of the one which has just been described, it displays, in the
direction of the length of the prism, an organization of the
most singular kind. Forms unknown in crystallography
occupy its central portion ; and on each side of it particles
of similar properties take their place at similar distances,
now forming a zone of uniform polarizing force, now
another increasing to a maximum, and now a third descend¬
ing in the scale by regular gradations. The boundaries of
these corresponding though distant zones are marked with
the greatest precision, and all their parts as nicely adjusted
as if some skilful workman had selected the materials, mea¬
sured the spaces they were to occupy, and finally combined
them into the finest specimen of natural mosaic.”1
We have represented in figs. 224 and 225 the figure pro¬
duced by polarized light by an internal slice of the barrel
665
Fig. 224.
or cylindrical apophyllite from Kudlisaet, in Disco Island,
brought home by Sir Charles Giesecke. The figures are
from different specimens. The shaded part of them has
only one axis of double refraction, while the four sectors
have two axes, the luminous sectors being analogous to the
prisms A, B, C, D, and the dark figure to the central lo¬
zenge abed, in fig. 221. The mechanical structure of
the cleavage planes resembles the optical figure even after
the planes are ground. {Edinburgh Transactions, vol. ix., Polariza-
p. 328.) • tion.
Sect. XV—On the Absorption of Light by Uncrys¬
tallized Bodies.
W hen a beam of light passes through the most transpa- Absorption
rent media, such as air and water, a certain portion of itof
is lost. This loss of light is particularly apparent in such uncrys-
bodies when a beam of light has traversed a great thick- ^odies^
ness of the gas or the fluid. This loss of .light has been
called absorption, and the light lost is said to be absorbed;
a term which we use at present merely to express a fact.
There are two kinds of absorption which may be noticed:—
1. That in which all the rays of the spectrum are propor¬
tionally absorbed or lost; and, 2. That in which different
quantities of the differently-coloured rays are lost. Those
bodies in which the first kind of absorption takes place are
colourless, and those in which the second kind takes place
are coloured. In black ink, for example, the transmitted
light of the sun is white. In red ink it is red, more of the
most refrangible rays of the spectrum being lost than of the
least refrangible ones.
When a beam of the sun’s light falls upon a piece of
charcoal the light is almost wholly lost or absorbed. Sir
Isaac Newton thought that the light was reflected or re¬
fracted “ to and fro” within such bodies till it was lost;
but still the question meets us, Why is it lost ? If it is
scattered in all directions, it must emerge again from the
charcoal and be visible in some way or other. In order to
meet this and other difficulties, the light is supposed to be de¬
tained within the body, and somehow united to its substance.
In the case of red ink and similar bodies, Sir Isaac New¬
ton conceived that the blue rays which vrere lost were re¬
flected by the particles of the ink, while the red rays were
transmitted, as in the colours of thin plates ; but as we
cannot by any process see these blue rays, we can only say
that they are lost, and the cause of their loss is as difficult
to be found as in the phenomena of imperfect colourless
transparency.
The following are the general phenomena of coloured
absorptions in transparent bodies :—
1. lied transparent solids or fluids absorb, generally
speaking, the blue end of the spectrum.
2. Blue substances absorb, generally speaking, the red
end of the spectrum.
3. Green bodies absorb both the blue and the red ends
of the spectrum.
4. Yellow bodies absorb the blue and part of the green of
the spectrum.
But when we examine more narrowly the action of
coloured bodies on the spectrum, we find that a body may
derive its peculiar tint from absorbing two, three, four, up
to many hundred separate parts of the spectrum, so that
the colour of such a body is the combination of all the
parts of the spectrum which are not absorbed. We may
infer, however, from the general tint of the body, what
parts of the spectrum it has chiefly absorbed. Bed nitrous
gas, for example, must have acted most powerfully upon
the blue end of the spectrum, as we have already seen
that it does.
Two theories of absorption have been published by Sir Sir John
John Herschel and Baron Wrede, founded upon the un- Herschel.
dulatory theory. Sir John Herschel conceives that light
may be lost within bodies by the interference of different
parts of a ray, which, after taking two routes of different
lengths, meet again in a condition to interfere.
1 M. Biot has endeavoured, without success, to explain their structure by what he calls lamellar polarization. See sect, xx., art. viii.,
of the present chapter.
VOL. XVI. 4 P
666
OPTICS.
Polariza- Baron Wrede supposes the particles of a transparent
ti°n. body placed regularly at equal distances, with the ether
diffused between them. (See Taylor’s Scientific Me-
Baron moirs, part iii.) When a ray of light is propagated
Wrede. directly through this medium, a portion of it encoun¬
ters some of the particles, and is reflected backwards,
then forwards again, and emerges along with the direct
ray, so that the reflected and direct portions will be in a
state to interfere and destroy each other. This theory,
which is analogous to Newton’s, or rather the very same as
Newton's, is liable to the objection we have already urged
to every theory in which the light is supposed to be de¬
composed by interior reflections. Now, Baion Wfede s
hypothesis may explain all the phenomena, such as dark
bands and dark lines, which are known to be produced by
thin plates of various thicknesses, as Dr Young has stated j1
and it may even explain those bands and absorptions
more recently discovered in decomposed glass by Sir David
Brewster, where the effects are clearly produced by a
combination of a great number of thin plates,2 but where
the reflected light is as copious as the transmitted light.
But we cannot conceive it at all applicable to the cases of
nitrous gas (to which he has attempted to apply it), and to
solids and fluids, in which all attempts have failed to dis¬
cover any of the reflected rays.
An important “connection between the phenomena of the
absorption of light and the colours of thin plates” has been
pointed out by"Sir David Brewster, in a paper with that
title.3 This connection has been proved by a series of ex¬
periments made with nacrite, a kind of artificial mother-ol-
pearl (including thin plates in its substance), with films of
decomposed glass, and with doubly-relfacting plates, which
give the colours of polarized light. In all these cases, but
more especially in the experiments with decomposed glass,
the characteristic phenomena of absorption are produced.
Our limits will not permit us to describe the methods by
which this result was obtained.
Sect. XVI.—On Dicheoism, and the Absorption of
Common and Polarized Light by Doubly-Refract¬
ing Crystals.
Dichroism. The name of dichroism, or double colours, was given very
appropriately, by M. Cordier, we believe, to a mineral
called iolite, which in common light exhibited two different
colours in different directions. Dr Wollaston and several
mineralogists had observed this double colour in potash,
muriate of palladium, tourmaline, and other crystals. The
origin of this singular property was not known till Sir
David Brewster investigated the subject in iolite, and
showed that it was connected with the doubly-refracting
structure, and never occurred in the tessular crystals which
did not possess double refraction.
The connection of dichroism with double refraction, and
its general laws, will be understood from the following ob¬
servations. In a specimen of yellow Iceland spar the ex¬
traordinary image is of an orange-yelloic colour, while the
ordinary image is yellowish-white. Along the axis of
double refraction the colour of the two pencils is exactly
the same, and the difference of colour increases with the
inclination of the refracted ray to the axis. Hence the dif¬
ference of colour increases in proportion to the difference
of the velocities of the two rays, and is consequently a maxi¬
mum in the equator of double refraction, and is the same
in all parallels; the colour along the axis being the natural
colour of the mineral. This is the invariable law of the
phenomena in uniaxal crystals. The following are the ob¬
servations made by the author referred to : —
Colours of Two Images in Crystals with one Axis. Polama-
Colour when its Axis Colour when its Axis tlOn.
Names of Crystals. is in the Plane of Pri- is Perpendicular to V _ i
mitive Polarization. that plane.
Zircon Brownish-white A deeper brown. Tniaxal
Sapphire Yellowish-green Blue. crystals.
Ruby Pale yellow Bright pink.
Emerald Yellowish-green Bluish-green.
Emerald Bluish-green Y ellowish-green.
Beryl, blue Bluish-white Blue.
Beryl, green Whitish Bluish-green.
Beryl, yellow-green Pale yellow ....Pale green.
Rock-crystal almost
transparent 
Rock-crystal, yellow Yellowish-white Yellow.
Amethyst Blue Pink.
Amethyst Grayish-white Ruby-red.
Amethyst Reddish-yellow Ruby-red.
Tourmaline Greenish-white Bluish-green.
Rubellite Reddish-white Faint red.
Idocrase Yellow Green.
Mellite Yellow Bluish-white.
Phos. of lime (lilac) Bluish Reddish.
„ (olive) Bluish-green Yellowish-green.
Phos. of lead Bright green Orange-yellow.
Calcareous spar Orange-yellow Yellowish-white.
Octohedrite Whitish-brown Yellowish-brown.
Whitish Faint brown.
Sir John Herschel has found this property beautifully
displayed in the sub-oxysulphate of iron, which crystallizes
in six-sided prisms. Along the axis the colour is a deep
blood-red, while through the sides of the prism it is of a
light green colour. Several tourmalines have also been ob¬
served by Sir John to have these same colours along the
axis, and at right angles to it. There can be little doubt
that this property will be found in every crystal of sufficient
thickness that has the property of double refraction. Even
if the crystal is colourless, a slight inequality in the in¬
tensity of the two images may be observed ; and when it is
distinctly coloured, the difference of intensity is very easily
seen, even when the two colours are not of a different kind.
The phenomena of dichroism are best seen in crystals
with two axes of double refraction, and are well exempli¬
fied in iolite, a mineral which crystallizes in six or twelve
sided prisms. These prisms are of a. deep blue colour when
seen along the axis, and of a yellowish-brown colour when
viewed in a direction perpendicular to the axis.
If abed is a section of the prism of iolite in a plane paral¬
lel to the axis of the prism, the transmitted
light will be blue through the faces ab and a
dc, and yellowish-brown through ad, be, m
and in every direction perpendicular to the
axis of the prism. If we grind down the
angles a, c, b, d, so as to replace them with °
faces mn, m'n', and op, o'p', inclined 31° s
4T to ad, or to the axis of the prism ; then, 22g
if the plane abed passes through the re- lg‘
sultant axes of double refraction, we shall observe, by trans¬
mitting polarized light through the crystal in the directions
ac, bd, and subsequently
analysing it, a system of
rings round each of these
axes. The system will ex¬
hibit the individual rings
very plainly if the crystal
is thin ; but if it is thick,
we shall observe, when
the plane abed is perpen¬
dicular to the plane of pri¬
mitive polarization, some
branches of blue and white
light, diverging in theform
of a cross from the centre
of the system of rings, or the poles of no polarization, as
cr
0
Fig. 227.
Fig. 226.
1 Elements of Eat. Phil., vol. i., p. 469.
2 Phil. Trans. 1837. part ii.
Edin. Trans. 1837, pp. 245-252.
OPTICS.
667
Polariza-
tion.
shown at p and p' (fig. 227), where the shaded branches
represent the blue ones. The summits of the blue masses
at p and p' are tipped with purple, and are separated by
whitish light in some specimens, and yellowish light in
others. The white light becomes more blue from p and
p' to o, where it is quite blue, and more yellow from p
and p' to c and d, where it is completely yellow. When
the plane abed is in the plane of primitive polarization, the
poles p, p are marked by spots of white light, but every¬
where else the light is a deep blue.
In the plane cadb (fig. 227), the mineral, when we look
through it at common light, exhibits no other colour but
yellow, mixed with a small quantity of blue polarized in
an opposite plane. The ordinary image at c and d is yel¬
lowish-brown, and the extraordinary image faint blue, the
former receiving some blue rays, and the latter some yel¬
low ones from c and d to a and £>, where the difference of co¬
lour is still well marked. The yellow image becomes fainter
from a and b \.o p and p', till it changes into blue, and the
faint blue image is strengthened by other blue rays, till the
intensity of the two blue images is nearly equal. As the
incident ray advances from c and d to p and p', the faint
blue image becomes more intense, and the yellow one, re¬
ceiving an accession of blue rays, becomes of a bluish-white
colour. The ordinary image is whitish from p and p' to o,
and the extraordinary a deep blue ; but the whiteness gra¬
dually diminishes towards o, where they are both almost
equally blue.
The principal axis of double refraction in iolite is nega¬
tive. The most refracted image is purplish-blue, and the
least refracted one yellowish-brown.
The following table shows the colours exhibited by crys¬
tals with two axes :—
Colours of the two Images in Crystals with two Axes.
Names of Crystals.
Axis of Prism in the
Plano of Primitive
Polarization.
Axis of Prism per¬
pendicular to the
Plane of Primitive
Polarization.
liaxal Mica  Blood-red Pale greenish-yellow.
rystals. Acetate of copper Blue  Greenish-yellow.
Muriate of copper1....Greenish-white Blue.
Olivine Bluish-green Greenish-yellow.
Sphene Yellow  Bluish.
Nitrate of copper Bluish-white Blue.
Cremate of lead Orange Blood-red.
Staurotide  Brownish-red Yellowish-white.
Chloride of gold and ) T ,, ^
sodium    ) Lemon-yellow Deep orange.
Chloride of gold and ) T ,, _
ammonia  j Lemon-yellow Deep orange.
Chloride of gold and 1 T ,, _
potassium J Lemon-yellow  Deep orange.
Augite Blood-red Bright green.
Anhydrite Bright pink Pale yellow.
Axinite Ueddisb-white Yellotyish-white.
Diallage Brownish-white White.
Sulphur Yellow  Deeper-yellow.
Sulph. of strontites....Blue Bluish-white.
„ cobalt Pink  Brick-red.
Olivine Brown Brownish-white.
Murexide2 Red    Yellowish.
Naline Yellow Pink.
In the last eight crystals of the preceding table the tints
are not given in relation to any fixed line.
In Withamite, a crystal whose principal axis is negative
in relation to the axis of the prism, the dichroism is beau¬
tiful, and is exhibited both in common and polarized light.
When common light is transmitted through the two pa¬
rallel faces of the prism, the tint is of a crimson or ame¬
thyst colour, with a mixture of straw colour. Upon turn¬
ing the crystal round, the yellow tint disappears, and the
colour becomes a deep crimson-red. On continuing- to
turn the prism, the colour changes to a straw-yellow, and
at the end of half a revolution the crystal resumes its com¬
pound tint. In the groups of crystals which have pene¬
trated the quartz, some of them occupy accidentally the
position which gives the yellow colour, others that which
gives the red colour, and some that which gives the com¬
pound tint, so that, without a knowledge of their dichroitic
property, the group might have been considered as com¬
posed of three different sets of crystals.3
The following table contains the characters of the two
pencils in crystals the number of whose axes has not yet
been determined.
Phosphate of iron Fine blue  Bluish-white.
Actynolite Green Greenish-white.
Precious opal Yellow Lighter yellow.
Serpentine Dark green  Lighter green.
Asbestos Greenish  Yellowish.
Blue carb. of copper Violet-blue Greenish-blue.
Orpiment  Sulphur-yellow Lighter yellow.
Sir David Brewster found that the dichroism of several
crystals is changed by heat, and that in some cases this
property may be communicated to them.4 In several co¬
loured glasses, too, he found an analogous property, when
they had received the doubly-refracting structure either
temporarily or permanently.5
The curious subject of dichroism has been investigated
with great success by MM. Babinet, Haidinger, and Se-
narmont. M. Babinet found, that all negative crystals,
such as calcareous spar, corundum, including ruby and
sapphire, tourmaline and emerald, absorb in a greater de¬
gree the ordinary ray, with the exception of beryl, apatite,
and some apophyllites; while positive crystals, such as
zircon, smoky quartz, sulphate of lime, and common apo-
phyllite, absorb in a greater degree the extraordinary ray.
M. Babinet found also that certain crystals, such as red
tourmaline and ruby, transmit rays of their peculiar colour
without being polarized, in which cases the black cross of
their system of rings is coloured, and this unpolarized light
exists both in the ordinary and extraordinary ray.
In several minerals three colours have been observed, and
the name trichroilic given them,—a name which has been
abandoned for polychroitic, used by M. Senarmont, and
pleochroitic, adopted by M. Haidinger of Vienna, w ho has
treated the subject with great fulness and ability. We re¬
gret that our limits will not permit us to give any account
of his researches; but the reader w ill find them in Poggen-
dorf’s Annalen,6 and in the Abbe Moigno’s Repertoire
d' Optique Mod erne.1
We have already seen, in the History of Optics, that M. Artificial
Senarmont has succeeded in imparting an artificial poly-polychro-
chroism to crystallized substances. When certain crystalsisin*
are formed in a solution containing a colouring matter suf¬
ficiently subtile, it is distributed almost molecularly in their
interior between the minute laminae of which it” is com¬
posed. In this state it is absolutely foreign to the substance
of the crystals, being chemically inert; and though it may
spontaneously disappear after several successive dissolutions
of the crystallization in pure water, yet it nevertheless
communicates in the highest degree the properties of poly-
chroism, and an energy of absorption comparable, if not
superior, to those of substances naturally coloured, when it
is shown in the distinctest manner.
1 The colours are given in relation to the short diagonal of its rhomboidal bar.
- \\ hen the axis of the prism is in the plane of polarization. 3 Edin. Jour, of Science, April 1825, vol ii n °19
Especially in Brazilian topaz. (See Treatise on Optics, edit. 1853, p. 358.;
8 See Phil. Trans. 1819, p. 11; or Edin. Phil. Jour., vol. ii., p. 346.
* lom. Ixi., pp. 295, 307 ; Ixx., pp. 531, 574; Ixxi., p. 321; and Ixxvi., pp. 99, 294.
T Tom. iv., pp. 1565-1592.
668
Polariza¬
tion.
Action of
crystal¬
lized bo¬
dies on
light.
OPTICS.
In crystals of nitrate of strontian, for example, coloured
with a concentrated tincture of Campeachy wood brought
to a purple tint by a few drops of ammonia, the crystals
resembled chrome colour in their tint, and exhibited the
following phenomena of polychroism:—
1. Common white light developed by transmission at
certain incidences a red colour, and under others, a blue
and violet colour.
2. One of the doubly-refracted pencils was red, and the
other deep violet, according to the thickness; and these
pencils changed their colours in proportion as the crystal¬
lized plate turned in its proper plane.
3. Two similar transparent plates, superposed similarly,
allow a portion of white light to pass in the purple pencil,
and when superposed transversely, they stop it like tour¬
maline, or, at least, reduce to a violet shade so obscure,
that it may be regarded as extinct.
4. If we look along the optical axes of a detached plate,
perfectly pure and homogeneous, we shall see alternately, in
the direction of each axis, a brilliant orange spot crossed
by a hyperbolic branch. These spots spread themselves
to the right and left of the principal section in the form
of curved pencils, half violet and deep blue, and divide the
field of the plate into two regions, when the purple tints
shade off on each side of their common limit. The dark
brushes interrupted by the luminous spot are fringed to¬
wards the point with a little yellow and blue, arising from
the dispersion of the optical axes.
We look forward with much interest to the publication
of M. Senarmont’s laborious researches on this curious
subject.1
Sect. XVII.—On the Action of the Surfaces of
Crystallized Bodies upon Common and Polarized
Light.
It was remarked by Malus, that the action of the sur¬
face of Iceland spar upon light is independent of the posi¬
tion of its principal section, and that its surface acts like
that of any common transparent body.2 In examining,
however, the superficial action of this mineral, Sir David
Brewster discovered that all its surfaces, without excep¬
tion, exercise a remarkable action upon light, and that its
polarizing angle varied in different azimuths, excepting
when the surface was perpendicular to the axis.
If A and A" are the minimum and maximum polarizing
angles,—viz., in azimuth 0°, or in the plane of the principal
section, and in azimuth 90°, or perpendicular to that plane,—
he found that the variation of the polarizing angle was re¬
presented by the following expression, where A' is the
polarizing angle required at the azimuth a:—
A' = A + sin2 a. (A" — A);
in a plane perpendicular to the axis, A" —A = 0, and con¬
sequently no change takes place in the polarizing angle;
in planes inclined 4o° 23' to the axis on the actual faces of
the rhomboid,
A —A =2° 18 ;
and in planes coincident with the axis, A" —A = 4° nearly.
The following were the measures which were obtained
on the natural faces of the rhomb :—
Polarizing Angle.
Azimuth  0° O' 57° 74'
„   50 57   58 32
„   90 0   59 32
On faces nearly parallel to the axes :—
Azimuth  0° O' 54° 18'
„   90 0   58 14
Sir David Brewster also observed that the polarization Polariza-
was more complete in azimuth 0° than in azimuth 90° on tion.
the faces of the rhomb ; but more complete in azimuth
90° than in azimuth 0° in faces parallel to the axis.
As these experiments clearly proved that the forces which
produced double refraction extended beyond the surface of
Iceland spar, our author became desirous of ascertaining
if the light polarized by reflection from the spar suffered
any change from the same cause. He therefore thought of
weakening the force which produces reflection, in order to
allow the interior force to show its weaker influence; and
he accomplished this by placing oil of cassia on its surface,
and examining the light reflected at the separating surface
of the spar and the oil. The experiments which were thus
made, and which are detailed in the Philosophical Trans¬
actions for 1819, completely proved that the interior force
polarized common light out of the plane of reflection, and
modified the law of intensity, according to which light is
reflected at different angles of incidence.
These experiments excited no attention till 1835, when
Professor Maccullagh of Trinity College, Dublin, began to
investigate the laws which regulate the reflection and re¬
fraction of light at the separating surface of two media. He
had anticipated from theory effects the reverse of those de¬
duced from the preceding experiments: and in order to
account for the latter, he was obliged to modify his theore¬
tical views, and was thus led to the result, that when a ray
is polarized by reflection from a doubly-refracting surface,
the plane of polarization deviates from the plane of inci¬
dence, except when the axis lies in the latter plane. The
formula which expresses this deviation represents very ac¬
curately the measures of the polarizing angles in different
azimuths in the natural faces of the rhomb, the only sur¬
face in which the exception is true; but at all other incli¬
nations of the reflecting planes to the axis, the theory and
the formula are in fault, for there is a large deviation when
the axis or principal section of the crystal is in the plane of
reflection.
Professor Maccullagh’s success in deducing theoretically,
the general fact of a deviation increasing as the refractive
power of the medium approached to that of the spar, induced
Sir David Brewster to resume his inquiries, the general re¬
sult of which he communicated to the British Association at
Bristol in 1836, in the following very brief abstract:—
“ When light is reflected at the separating surface of two
media, the lowermost of which is a doubly-refracting one,
the reflected ray is exposed to the action of two forces, one
of which is the ordinary reflecting force, and the other a
force which emanates from the interior of the doubly-re¬
fracting crystal. When the first medium is air, or even
water, the first of these forces overpowers the second ; and,
in general, the effects of the one are so masked by the
effects of the other that I was obliged to use oil of cassia,
a fluid of high refractive power, in order that the interior
force of the calcareous spar which I wished to examine
might exhibit its effects independently of those which arise
from ordinary reflection. The separating surface, there¬
fore, which I used had a small refractive power; and the
reflecting pencil is so attenuated, especially in using po¬
larized light, that it is almost impossible to use any other
light than that of the sun.
“ When a pencil of common light is reflected from the
separating surface of oil of cassia and calcareous spar, the
general action of the spar is to polarize a part of the ray
in a plane perpendicular to that of reflection, and thus to
produce by reflection the very same effect that other sur¬
faces do by refraction.
1 Spe Comptes Rendus, 1854, vol. xxxviii., pp. 101-105.
2 Theorie de la Rouble Refraction, pp. 240, 241; and Biot’s Traite de Physique, tom. iv., p. 339.
OPTICS.
669
“ On the face of calcareous spar perpendicular to the
axis of the crystal, the effect is exactly the same in all azi¬
muths ; but in every other face the effect varies in different
azimuths, and depends upon the inclination of the face to
the axis of double refraction. On the natural face of the
rhomb common light is polarized in the plane of reflec¬
tion, in 0° of azimuth, or in the plane of the principal sec¬
tion ; but at 38° of azimuth, the whole pencil is polarized
at right angles to the plane of reflection ; and in other azi¬
muths the effect is nearly the same as I have stated in my
printed paper.
“ In order, however, to observe the change which is ac¬
tually produced upon light, it is necessary to use two pencils,
one polarized +45°, and the other —45°, to the plane of
incidence. The planes of polarization of these pencils are
inclined 90° to each other, and the invariable effect of the
new force is to augment that angle in the same manner as
is done by a refracting surface, while the tendency of the
ordinary reflective force is to diminish the same angle.
Hence I was led to make an experiment in which these
opposite forces might compensate one another. I mixed
oil of olives and oil of cassia till I obtained a compound
of such a refractive power that its action in bringing to¬
gether the planes of polarization should be equal to the ac¬
tion of the new force in separating them. Upon reflecting
the compound pencil from this surface, I was delighted to
find that the inclination of the planes was still 90°, and I
thus obtained the extraordinary result of a reflecting sur¬
face which possessed no action whatever upon common or
upon polarized light.”
Sect. XVIII.—On the Double Reflection and Po¬
larization of Light by the Surfaces of certain
Minerals.
louble light which transparent bodies reflect from their
ejection. ^rg(. surfhCe does not enter the substance of the body, it
was always supposed to be colourless, whatever was the
colour of the body which reflected it. This supposition
was not confirmed by experiment till chemistry presented
us with various substances in which the light which they
reflected appeared to be distinctly coloured. Having ob¬
served this fact, Sir David Brewster in 1845 examined
the action of this class of crystals upon light, particularly
chrysammate of potash, chrysammate of magnesia, murexide,
and various other crystals in which the coloured reflection
took place. The chrysammate of potash, which crystallizes
in very small, flat, rhombic plates, has the metallic lustre of
gold, from which it derives its name of golden sand.
When the sun’s light is transmitted through the rhombic
plates, it has a reddish-yellow colour, and is wholly polar¬
ized in one plane. When the crystals are pressed with the
blade of a knife on a piece of glass, they can be spread out
like an amalgam. The light transmitted through the thin¬
nest films thus produced consists of two oppositely-polarized
pencils—the one of a bright carmine-red, and the other of
a pale yellow. When the films are thicker, the two pencils
approach to two equally bright carmine-red pencils.
When common light is reflected at a perpendicular inci¬
dence from the surfaces of the crystals or films, it has the
colour and metallic lustre of virgin gold. It becomes less
and less yellow as the incidence increases, till at very great
incidences its colour is a. pale bluish-white. This reflected
pencil consists of two oppositely-polarized pencils—one
polarized in the plane of reflection, and of a pale bluish-
white colour at all incidences ; and the other polarized per¬
pendicularly to the plane of reflection, and of a golden-
yelloiv colour at small incidences, passing successively into
a deeper yellow, greenish-yellow, green, greenish-blue, blue,
and light pink, as the angle of incidence increases. This
very remarkable property is exhibited under the usual mo¬
dification if the surface of the chrysammate is in optical
contact with fluids, or if it is a surface produced by pressure
and traction. The same property is seen when the crystal is
in the act of being dissolved, or when a fresh surface is ex¬
posed by mechanical means. When the chrysammate is
re-crystallized from an aqueous solution, it appears in tufts
of prisms of a bright red colour, the golden reflection being
overpowered by the transmitted light; but when these tufts
are spread into a film by pressure and traction, the golden-
yellow colour reappears. When the crystals of chrysammate
are heated with a spirit-lamp, or above a gas-burner, they
explode with a flame and smoke like gunpowder j1 and, by
continuing the heat, the residue melts, and a crop of colour¬
less amorphous crystals is left.2
This interesting subject has been studied by M. Hai-
dinger under the name of chatoyement metallique. M.
Babinet had found that in all crystals, whether negative
or positive, the most refracted ray, which in the first of these
classes is the ordinary one, is more absorbed than the
extraordinary ox least-refracted ray; while the least-refracted
ray, or the extraordinary one, is the least absorbed in the
other class. Taking as the ground of comparison this law
of Babinet, M. Haidinger found that the direction of the
polarization of the reflected light coincided with the di¬
rection of the polarization of the ray which was most ab¬
sorbed in doubly-refracting crystals.3
Professor Stokes observed the same property of double
reflection and polarization in carthamine, or safflower-red,
and had been led independently to the fact of the orienta¬
tion of the reflected pencils.4
Sect. XIX.—On the Mutual Action of Polarized
Rays.
As this curious subject has been studied only by MM. Mutual
Arago and Fresnel, we shall therefore make no apology for acti01} of
giving an account of the results which they obtained nearly Polarize(i
in the words of M. Fresnel himself:5— ra^s‘
“ In studying the interference of polarized rays, M.
Arago and I found that they exercise no influence upon
one another when their planes of polarization are perpen¬
dicular to each other—that is, that they cannot then produce
fringes, although all the necessary conditions for their ap¬
pearance in ordinary cases be scrupulously fulfilled. Three
principal experiments illustrate this fact. The first, by M.
Arago, consists in making two pencils, emanating from the
same point, and introduced by two parallel slits, traverse
two piles of very thin transparent plates, such as those of
mica or blown glass, wdiich are sufficiently inclined to each
other to polarize almost completely each of the two pencils,
taking care that the two planes are perpendicularly inclined
to each other. In this case no fringes can be perceived,
whatever care may have been taken thus to compensate the
differences of both in varying very gently the inclination
of one of the piles ; but when the planes of incidence of
the piles are no longer perpendicular to each other, they
always cause the fringes to appear. In proportion as the
planes cease to be parallel the fringes become weaker, and
they disappear altogether when they are rectangular. It
1 Sir David Brewster found the same explosive property in aloetinate of potash.
2 Proceedings of Phil. Soc. St Andrews, Jan. 5, Feb. 2, &c., 1846; Report of Brit. Assoc. 1846, p. 7; and Abbe Moigno’s Repertoire, &c.,
vol. iv., p. 1558 ; see also Phil. Mag., March 1854, vol. vii., p. 171.
3 See Poggendorf’s Annalen, tom. Ixx., Ixxi., Ixxvi.; and Moigno’s Repertoire d'Optique, iv. 1564.
4 Phil. Mag., December 1853. 6 Pouillet, Siemens de Physique Experimental et de Meteorologie, liv. viii., chap. iii.
670
OPTICS.
results from these experiments, that rays polarized in the
same plane influence one another, like the rays of light not
modified ; but this influence diminishes in proportion as the
planes of polarization deviate from one another, and be¬
comes nothing when they are rectangular.
“ The following experiment leads to the same results :—
Take a plate of sulphate of lime or of rock-crystal parallel
to its axis, and of a uniform thickness ; cut it in two, and
place each of the halves upon one of the slits of the screen.
I suppose that we have turned the two halves in such a
way that the edges which were in contact before the divi¬
sion of the plate are parallel, and the axes will also be
parallel. But in this case we only perceive a single group
of fringes in the middle of the bright space as it was before
the division of the plates. But if we turn one of these
halves in its plane, thus disturbing the parallelism of their
axes, we make two other groups of fainter fringes spring up,
situated one on the right and the other on the left of the
group in the middle, and which are completely separated
from it, in the white light when the plates of rock-crystal
or of sulphate of lime which are used are only a millimetre
thick. It is to be remarked that the number and breadth
of the fringes lying between the middle of one of these
groups and the central group is proportional to the thick¬
ness of the plates for crystals of the same kind, or whose
double refraction is of the same strength, like rock-crystal
and sulphate of lime. In proportion as the angle of the
two axes increases, these new groups of fringes become
more and more distinct, and attain at last their maximum
intensity when the axes of the two plates are perpendicular
to each other. In this position, the central group, which
had been gradually weakened, has altogether disappeared,
and is replaced by a uniform light. Hence the rays which
produce them, by interference, are no longer capable of
influencing one another.
“ From the position of these fringes, it is easy to see that
they result from the interference of the rays which have
undergone the same kind of refraction in the two plates.
Hence the fringes of the central groups w ere formed by the
superposition of those which arise—1. From the interfer¬
ence of the ordinary rays of the left plate with the ordinary
rays of the right plate; 2. From the interference of the
extraordinary rays of the first plate with the extraordinary
rays of the second. The two eccentric groups, on the con¬
trary, arise from the interference of the rays which have
undergone different refractions in the two plates; and as it
is the ordinary rays which move with the greatest velocity
in sidphate of lime or rock-crystal, we see that if we employ
one of these twro species of crystals, the left group ought to
be formed by the union of the extraordinary rays of the
left plate with the ordinary rays of the right plate, and the
right group by the union of the extraordinary rays of the
right plate with the ordinary rays of the left plate. This
being established, it remains now to determine the direction
of polarization in each of the pencils which interfere, in
order that we may deduce from it what are the relative
directions of the planes of polarization which favour or hinder
their mutual influence. When the plates are one or two
millimetres thick, and one of their edges is cut obliquely
to separate the ordinary and extraordinary rays, w'e find that
they are effectually polarized, the first in the principal sec¬
tion, and the others in a perpendicular direction. When
the axes of the two plates were parallel, the rays which had
experienced the same refractions in the two crystals were
found polarized in the same direction, and those of contrary
colours in rectangular directions. It is thus that the group
of fringes in the middle which proceed from the interference
of rays of the same name had a maximum intensity, and the
two others, which resulted from the interference of the rays
of contrary names, did not appear again. But w'hen the
axes of the two plates formed an oblique angle, of 45° for
instance, the rays of a contrary name, and those of the same
name, could act at the same time one upon the other, since
their polarizing planes were no longer rectangular, and the
three groups of fringes were produced. When, in short,
the axes became perpendicular to one another, the rays of
the same colour wTere polarized in rectangular directions,
and the central group, to which it had given birth, vanished,
w hile the ordinary rays of the left plate were then polarized
parallel to the extraordinary rays of the right plate; and
this is the cause why the right group which they produce
attained its maximum intensity. It is the same with the
left group, arising from the interference of the ordinary
rays of the right plate with the extraordinary rays of the
left plate.
“ The following is a third experiment, which confirms the
results of the first:—Having polished a rhomb of calcareous
spar upon two opposite faces, I sawed it perpendicularly to
these faces, and obtained two rhombs of equal thickness, in
which the routes of the ordinary and extraordinary rays were
exactly parallel at the same incidence. I placed them one
before the other, so that the rays from the luminous point
which had traversed the first rhomb passed perpendicularly
through the second; the principal section of the second
rhomb being perpendicular to that of the first, so that the
four pencils were reduced to two. The ordinary pencil of
the first rhomb was refracted extraordinarily in the second,
and the extraordinary pencil of the first was refracted ordi¬
narily in the second. From this arrangement it followed,
that the difference of the route, proceeding from the differ¬
ence of velocity of the ordinary and extraordinary rays, was
found compensated for by the two emerging pencils. They
crossed each other, too, at a very small angle, and though
the fringes ought to have had a magnitude sufficient to be
seen, yet I never could succeed in making them appear.
“ While I was searching for them with a magnifying glass,
I gently varied the direction of one of the rhombs, in order
to compensate the effect resulting from any difference of
thickness, but I never could perceive any fringes. I easily
succeeded, however, in making them appear by employing
the light which had been polarized before it entered the
rhombs, and in causing it to receive a new polarization after
its emergence. It is then demonstrable that rays polar¬
ized. at right angles cannot exert any sensible influence
upon one another.
“ Another remarkable fact is, that when they have been
once polarized in rectangular directions, it is not sufficient
that they are brought back to a common plane of polariza¬
tion, in order that they may give apparent signs of their
mutual influence. If we cause the rays which have emerged
from the two slits, and which are polarized at right angles,
to pass through a pile of inclined plates of plane glass, no
fringes are perceived, in whatever direction its rays of inci¬
dence are turned. Instead of a pile, we may employ a
rhomb of calcareous spar. If we incline its principal section
at 45° to the plane of polarization of the incident pencils, so
that it divides into two equal parts the angle which they
make with each other, each image will contain the half of
each pencil, and these two halves having the same plane of
polarization in the same image, ought to produce fringes
there, if it is sufficient to bring back the rays to a plane ot
common polarization, to re-establish the apparent effects of
their mutual influence. But the fringes can never be ob¬
tained by this method as long as the rays have not been
polarized in the same plane, before they were divided into
two pencils polarized at right angles.
“ When the light has experienced this previous polariza¬
tion, on the contrary, the interposition of the rhomb makes
the fringes reappear. The most advantageous direction to
give the primitive plane of polarization is that which
divides into two equal parts the angle of the rectangular
planes in which the two pencils are polarized in the second
Polariza.
tion.
Polariza¬
tion.
Production
of double
refraction.
OFT
instance, because then the incident light is equally divided
between them. Suppose that the primitive plane of polari¬
zation is horizontal, it will be necessary that the planes of
polarization impressed upon each of the two pencils be
inclined 45° to the horizontal plane, the one above it and
the other below it, in such a manner that they remain per¬
pendicular. We can obtain this rectangular polarization
either with the help of two little piles, or with two plates
whose axes are rectangular axes, or with a single crystal¬
lized plate. We shall only consider this last case.
“ To divide the light into two pencils, which cross under
a small angle, and which may thus produce fringes, the
apparatus of two glass mirrors blackened behind is generally
better than the screen pierced by two slits, because it pro¬
duces more brilliant fringes. It has, besides, the advantage
of giving immediately to the two pencils the previous po¬
larization necessary to our experiment; it is sufficient for
this purpose that the mirrors be inclined 35° to the incident
rays. We place near them, in the line of the reflected
rays, and perpendicularly to their direction, a plate of sul¬
phate of lime or of rock-crystal parallel to the axis, and one
or two millimetres thick, inclining its principal section 45°
to the plane of primitive polarization, which we have sup¬
posed horizontal. The apparatus being thus placed, we
only see a single group of fringes across the plate as before
its interposition, and it occupies the same place. But if
we put before the magnifying glass a pile of glass plates
inclined in a horizontal or vertical direction, we discover on
each side of the central group another group of fringes,
which is the more distant as the crystallized plate is thicker.
If we replace the pile of plates by a rhomb of calcareous
spar, whose principal section is divided horizontally or
vertically, we shall see in each of the two images the two
systems of additional fringes which the interposition of the
pile of plates has caused to appear, and these two images
are complementary to one another.
“ In this experiment the rays which have experienced the
refractions of opposite names cannot influence each other,
because, in emerging from the same plate in the case we are
now considering, they are found polarized in rectangular
directions; consequently the groups to the right and the
left cannot exist, at least while we have not re-established
the mutual influence of those rays by bringing them to a
common plane of polarization ; this is what is effected by
the interposition of the pile of plates or of the rhomb. The
fringes thus produced are the more distinct, as the two pen¬
cils of contrary names which concur in their formation are
more equal in intensity; and this is the reason why the
direction of the principal section of the rhomb, which makes
an angle of 45° with the axis of the plate, is the most
favourable to the appearance of the fringes. When the
principal section of the rhomb is parallel or perpendicular to
that ot the plate, the rays refracted ordinarily by the plate
pass entirely into one image, instead of being divided be¬
tween the two, and all the extraordinary rays pass into the
other image, so that there can be no more interference be¬
tween them; and the additional groups of fringes disap¬
pear, each image presenting only the fringes which resulted
from the interference of the rays of the same name,—that
is to say, those which compose the central group.”
Sec/. XX. On the Production of Double Refrac¬
tion and Polarization by Heat, Cold, Pressure,
Slow and Rapid Induration, Traction, Electro-
Magnetism, and Laminated Structure.1
I 0 s.
671
heat and cold, compression and dilatation, and by slow and
gradual induration. The phenomena thus produced in po¬
larized light are exceedingly beautiful, and throw much light
on the subject of double refraction.
Polariza¬
tion.
Art. I.— On the Transient Influence of Heat and Cold.
The influence of heat and cold may be exhibited in cylin¬
ders, tubes, spheres, cubes, and rectangular plates of glass,
all the phenomena of which were discovered by Sir David
Brewster.
1. Cylinders of Glass with One Axis of Double Refraction.
1. Negative Axis.—If we take a cylinder of glass ABCD
(fig. 228), from half an inch to an
inch in diameter, or upwards, about
half an inch or more in thickness,
and transmit heat uniformly from its
circumference to its centre, it will .a)
exhibit, when placed between the
polarizing and the analysing plate,
and held about 8 or 10 inches from
the eye, the system of uniaxal rings
shown in fig. 228, exactly similar to
those in fig. 179 ; and by turning round the analysing plate
we shall see the complementary set, as in fig. 181. These rings
will be seen as if they were in the substance of the glass;
and hence, if we cover up any part of the circular surface,
we shall cover up a corresponding part of the system of
rings. The axis of the system, or of double refraction, is
here fixed in the axis of the cylinder, and does not lie in
every direction parallel to that axis, as in regularly-crystal¬
lized bodies.
I he system of rings thus produced is negative, like those
in calcareous spar.
As soon as the heat reaches the axis of the cylin¬
der, the rings become less bright, and they disappear en¬
tirely when the heat is uniformly distributed through the
glass. °
2. Positive Axis.—If we heat a similar cylinder of glass
uniformly in boiling oil or otherwise, and cool it rapidly at
its edges by encircling its margin with a cold and good con¬
ducting material, it will exhibit a similar system, which will
vanish when the glass is uniformly cold. This system of
rings, however, is positive, like those of zircon ; and if it
is placed above the equal negative system, produced as
already described, they will destroy each other. If the two
systems are not equal, we shall have a system equal to their
difference, as in positive and negative uniaxal crystals. In
both these systems the tint at any point varies as the square
of the distance of that point from the axis; so that if T is
the tint at any distance D, the tint t corresponding to any
TD2
distance d, will be t= .2-. If V is the velocity of the
ordinary ray, we shall have the velocity of the extraordinary
ray v='V2 + ad2.
If we transmit polarized light through the cylindrical
surface of these cylinders, we shall observe the phenomena
of biaxal systems exactly the same as in rectangular plates
(fig. 240), the tints being produced by the action of the
positive or negative axis of the cylinder acting in opposi¬
tion to an axis passing through each diameter of the cylin¬
der, drawn perpendicular to any point in the middle line of
the cylindrical surface.
I he various phenomena of double refraction, and the
system of polarized rings, may be produced either tran¬
siently or permanently in glass and other substances by
1 See Phil. Trans. 1816, pp. 46-114, 156-178
2. Oval Cylinders, with Two Axes of Double Refraction.
If we perform the two experiments above described with
Edin. Trans. 1816, vol. viii., pp. 353-371.
672
OPTICS.
Fig. 229.
Polariza- oval cylinders, as in fig. 229, we shall have a system of rings
tion. j.wo axes. a. new axis is deve-  A
''•v'"""’'’ loped perpendicular to the axis of the
cylinder; and in the case of the heated
cylinder, the new axis at O is a posi-Ci
tive one, while in the cooled cylinder
it is a negative one, the neutral black
lines AD^ CB separating the two classes
of tints, and corresponding to the dark
hyperbolic branches in biaxal systems
of rings. The figure referred to is that shown in azimuths
inclined 45° to the plane of primitive polarization; but in
the amizuths of 0° and 90°, the branches AD, CB resume
the form of the rectangular cross.
3. Cubes and Parallelepipeds of Glass with Double
Refraction.
Cubes of Glass.—When the shape of the glass is that of
a cube, as in fig. 230, the
figure which it produces
in amizuth 0° by the two
processes of heating and
cooling is that shown in
the figure, the tints being
negative or positive, ac- Fig.230. Fig. 231.
cording as we apply heat or cold. The complementary
system is shown in fig. 231.
Parallelepipeds of Glass.—In a parallelepiped 0-38 of
an inch square, and 1T1 long, the direct and complemen-
Fig. 232.
Fig. 233.
or positive structure from the internal negative structure, Polariza.
and vice versa. The breadth of the internal annulus ao is al- tion.
ways less than Ao, that of the external one. 1 hey approach
to equality as the bore of the cylinder widens, and the nega¬
tive structure grows very small, as shown in fig. 237, when the
bore diminishes; so that when the bore
becomes infinitely small, the system
becomes either wholly negative or
positive, according as heat or cold
has been used. If when fig. 236 is
fully developed, we cut a notch EF
in the cylinder, we shall have a bi¬
axal system of fringes, in which there
is a positive structure between two
negative ones, or vice versa, as shown
in fig. 238.
The diameter op (figs. 236 and 237) is a geometrical
mean between the interior and exterior diameters of the
tube,—that is, op = V(Aft x ab).
o. Rectangular Plates of Glass with Planes of Double
Refraction.
If a well-annealed parallelepiped of glass EFDC (fig.
239) is submitted to the processes already described, or
even if we lay one edge of it CD on a piece of iron almost
red hot, and place the whole between the polarizing and
IE 1
tary systems at 0° of azimuth are shown in figs. 232 and
233. The first of these consist of a black cross surrounded
with beautiful tringesofcon¬
trary flexure,and four bright
green spots of the third or¬
der. The coloured spots at
the angles of fig. 233 are of
a brilliant pink colour, with
a spot of blue in the middle
of each. When the azi- ~M' Fig- 235‘
muth is 45°, the direct and complementary systems change
into figs. 234 and 235.
4. Cylindrical Tubes of Glass with Two Axes of Double
Refraction.
When the cylinder has the form of a tube, as in fig. 236,
the double refraction is singularly distributed by the appli-
Fig. 239.
analysing plates, so that if the heated edge CD is inclined
45° to the planes of primitive polarization, and the eye can
see the whole surface of the glass, a series of remarkable
phenomena will be produced. The moment the heat enters
the lower surface at CD fringes of brilliant colours are
seen above CD, and almost at the same instant, before the
heat has reached the upper surface EF, or even the central
line ab, similar fringes will appear at EF. Colours, at
first faint blue, then white, yellow, orange, red, &c., of the
first order spring up at ab, and these central colours are
separated from those at the edges by two dark lines or
planes MN, OP, corresponding to the hyperbolic branches
in biaxal crystals, the double refraction between MN and
OP being negative in reference to a line perpendicular to
the fringes, while it is positive without MN and OP. The
tints thus developed are those of Newton’s scale.
If T is the central tint in the line ab, D the distance of
either of the lines MN, OP from ab, the tint t at any other
Td?
distance d will be, £ = T — — „ a formula deduced from
D2
the combination of two axes.
TtZ2
The term —2 represents
the
influence of the principal axis or axes perpendicular to the
line ab at every point of it; but as the axis in the plane of
the plate produces a uniform tint T whose maximum is
in the line ab, wdiere the action of the other axis disap¬
pears, and as these axes oppose each other by acting rect¬
angularly, they will compensate each other in the lines
MN, OP, and the tint at any point must always be equal to
Fig. 236.
cation of heat or cold either to the outside ACBD of the
cylinder, or to its inside acbd, or to both. A black circular
fringe mpno is the central line which separates the outside
the difference of the tints, or to T —
Tdf
D2
The magnitude 2D, or the distance between MN and
OP, is a function of the breadth of the plate B, and 2D:
B = 10: 16*02, and D = *312 B2. (Edin. Trans. \m.Z55.)
OPTICS.
673
Polariza- The fringes seen through the thickness of the plates is shown
tion. in fig. 240,
^ and the ore
seenthrough
the ends in
fig. 241. Fig. 240.
If we wish to find the tints in reference to the lines MN,
OP, let S, S' be the distances from
these lines of any point whose dis¬
tance from ab is d, then we have 8
= 1 — d, 8'= \ —d, and 88' = 1 — d1-, that
is, the tint at any point varies as the pro¬
duct of the distances of that point from Fig.24i.
the planes of the resultant axes MN, OP. If we make
v1 — V2 + a8S', an expression which gives v the velocity of
the extraordinary ray, we shall have the extraordinary re¬
fraction in such plates.
6. Spheres and Spheroids of Glass with Double Refraction.
When equal rectangular plates of similar names,—that Polariza-
is, both negative or both positive,—are crossed, the phe- tion-
nomena of the inter sectional fringes, as they may be called
are shown in fig. 242, where the
isochromatic curves are hyperbolas.
When the plates are of different
names, the one positive and the other
negative, and of the same breadth,
and the same number of fringes, the
isochromatic curves are circles, as in
fig. 243.
When the plates are of different
names, and of different breadths, but
containing the same number of fringes, Fig. 244.
the isochromatic curves will be ellipses, as in fig. 244.
8. On the Effects produced by Altering the Form of, or
Subdividing Plates of Glass under the influence of Heat
or Cold.
Spheres.—If we place a sphere of glass in a glass trough
of hot oil, or otherwise heat it regularly, we shall find that
when the heat is passing to the centre of the sphere, it will
exhibit a positive uniaxal system of rings like that in fig.
228, in every direction in which we transmit the polarized
light; that is, it will have an infinite number of
axes of double refraction.
If a hot sphere of glass is immersed in a glass trough of
cold oil, a similar system of rings will be produced in every
possible direction ; but it will be negative.
Spheroids.—If we substitute oblate and prolate spheroids
in place of the sphere in these experiments, we shall find
that they will have each a positive system of rings round
their axis of revolution. If the polarized light is trans¬
mitted through an equatorial diameter, we shall find that
there are two axes of double refraction, the black cross
opening out when the axis of revolution is inclined 45° to
the plane of primitive polarization.
In the prolate spheroid the black cross opens out in a
different plane.
7. On the Effects produced by Combining Plates of Glass
under the transient influence of Heat and Cold.
If we combine any two plates of the same shape, the
resulting system of fringes will be equal to the sum of their
systems or effects, if the plates are of the same name,—that
is, both positive or both negative,—or to the difference of
their effects, if they are of different names. When the
plates are solids or symmetrical forms, such as cylinders,
cubes, or quadrangular plates, no essential variation of
figure is produced by the combination; but when the
plates are rectangular, very interesting phenomena are ex¬
hibited when plates of the same or of diffevent names are
crossed rectangularly. Sir David Brewster has given for¬
mula; for calculating the forms of the compound or isochro-
Fig. 242. Fig. 243.
matic curves, as he calls them, but our space will only per¬
mit us to exhibit the effects to the eye.
VOI-. XVI.
If we alter the shape of any of the plates above described,
the form of the isochromatic curve is immediately changed.
If we cut any rectangular plate into two by a line passing
through its middle, each of the two plates thus produced
has the property of the whole plate, though the fringes are
less numerous. If a plate ABCD gives the tints shown in
Fig. 245.
fig. 245, OP and MN being the dark neutral lines ; then
if we cut it with a diamond at ab, so as to subdivide it
into two plates, as in fig. 246, each of the plates EFr^,
GHrs will have the same structure as ABCD,—viz., two
neutral lines op, mn, and assume positive and negative
tints.
Art. II.— On the Permanent Influence of Rapid Cooling.
In March 1814 Sir David Brewster found that glass
melted and suddenly cooled, as in the case of Prince Ru¬
pert’s drops, possessed a permanently doubly-refracting
power, and he communicated this fact in a letter to Sir
Joseph Banks, dated April 8, 1814 {Phil. Trans. 1814),
and without knowing that Dr Seebeck had published in
December 1814 similar results with cubes of glass, our
author had discovered that cubes, cylinders, plates, spheres,
and spheroids of glass, exhibiting permanently the pheno¬
mena described in the preceding pages, may be formed by
bringing them to a red A
heat, and cooling them
rapidly and equally on
their edges. A great va¬
riety of beautiful optical
figures, developed in po¬
larized light, may thus b
be obtained by cooling Fig. 247.
the glass on metallic patterns. A very simple effect of
4 Q
674
OPTICS.
Polariza- this is shown in fig. 247, where the plate of glass was cooled
tion. by resting it at its centre on a cylinder of iron.
Art. III.—On the Production of Double Refraction by
Compression and Dilatation.
The effects of compression and dilatation in producing
double refraction were discovered by Sir David Brewster,
and communicated to the Royal Society in 1815. Our
limits will permit us only to give a slight notice of them.
The phenomena both of compression and dilatation or
extension may be well seen by bending, merely with the
force of the hands, a square rod, or a long and narrow plate
of glass, as in fig. 248. When it is held between the po-
Fig. 248.
larizing and analysing plate, eight or ten inches from the
latter, with its edge AB inclined 45° to the plane of primi¬
tive polarization, the whole thickness of the glass will be
covered with two series of coloured fringes, like those in
the figure separated by a dark neutral line MN, where there
is neither compression nor dilatation. The fringes on the
convex side are negative, being produced by the extension
of the glass in the direction ;raA, wB, while those on the
concave side are produced by the compression of the glass
in the directions Cn, D«. The isochromatic curves
marked by similar figures, indicating the orders of the co¬
lours, are bent as in the figure.
When a plate of bent glass producing fringes crosses
another at right angles, the effect at the intersectional space
is shown in fig. 249, where the tint is supposed only to be
the white of the first order.
Fig. 249.
B
Fig. 250.
Cin W3C-
Concave
When a plate of bent glass is crossed with a plate crys¬
tallized by heat, the fringes in the intersectional square will
be parabolas, as shown in fig. 250, whose vertex will be to¬
wards the convex side of the bent plate, if the principal axis
of the other plate is positive, but towards the concave side,
if that axis is negative.
Art. IV.— On the Double Refraction Produced by the
gradual Induration and Difference of Density in Soft
Solids.
The phenomena of luminous sectors, separated by a
black cross at the central part of the uniaxal system of rings,
which Sir David Brewster discovered round cavities in the
diamond, in glass, and in various gums, arise from the gra¬
dual induration of the mass, combined with the elastic
pressure of the air included in the cavities. They are
therefore not properly cases of induration alone.
When isinglass is dried in a circular trough, it exhibits,
by polarized light, the uniaxal system of rings like glass in
fig. 228.
When it is indurated in the form of a rectangular mass, Polariza-
by the exposure of two sides, fringes are produced parallel tion.
to these sides, and biaxal like those in rectangular plates of
heated glass.
A sphere of transparent jelly or isinglass, w'hen allowed
to indurate gradually, will have an axis of double refraction
in every direction, like a sphere of glass heated. In like
manner an indurated spheroid will exhibit the biaxal struc¬
ture of a spheroid of glass.
The most splendid examples, however, of this class of
facts are exhibited in the lenses of fishes and animals, as
shown in figs. 251 and 252. The first of these shows the
n
Fig. 251. Fig. 252.
doubly-refracting structure of the crystalline lens of a cod,
along the axis of vision. The central and the external lu¬
minous sectors have a negative doubly-refracting structure,
while the intermediate ones have a positive structure.1
The figure given by the crystalline lens of a cow is shown
in fig. 252, where there are four series of luminous sectors,
the central ones being positive (marked + ), the next nega¬
tive (marked — ), the next positive, and the last negative?
Art. V.— On the Production of the Doubly-Refracting
Structure in Crystalline Powders by Compression and
Traction.
In spreading out on polished or ground glass, by compres¬
sion and traction, the crystalline powders of chrysammate of
potash axidi other bodies, Sir David Brewster obtained a trans¬
parent film which exhibited the phenomena of double re¬
flection and polarization as perfectly as a large crystal.
The film of chrysammate of magnesia, which is a red powder
with specks of yellow reflected light, exhibits neutral and po¬
larizing axes in the light which they transmit, and doubly-
polarized pencils in the light which they reflect.
The same property was found in a gi'eat number of crys¬
talline powders, and in some soft solids, such as almond,
soap, tallow, bees’-wax, bees’-wax mixed with rosin, and in
oil of mace. For a list of the substances in which this pro¬
perty is produced, and of those in which it is not, with an
attempt to explain the manner in which the crystalline par¬
ticles have their axes brought into parallelism, we must
refer the reader to the original paper.3 We may, however,
observe, that the development of electrical poles in crystals
by heat and friction, and the influence of traction in draw¬
ing prismatic crystals, and those whose length exceeds their
breadth, into parallel positions, may act either separately or
in combination in producing the effects we have been con¬
sidering.
Art. VI.— On the Influence of Electro-Magnetism in Pro¬
ducing Double Refraction, fyc.
In Professor Forbes’s Preliminary Dissertation on
Mathematical and Physical Science, a brief notice has been
given of two important discoveries,—the one by Dr Fara¬
day, the other by Professor Pliicker,—showing the influence
of electro-magnetism in producing double refraction, and its
action upon the optic axes of crystals.
1 See Phil. Tram. 1816, p. 311.
2 Ibid. 1837, p. 253.
3 Edin. Trans. 1853, vol. xx., p. 555; and Phil. Mag. 1853.
OPTICS.
Polariza- An account of this great discovery, and of the researches
tion. of M. Mathiessen of Altona and others, has been given in
's—our article Magnetism, chap, iii., sec. 3.
In the extensive series of experiments by M. Bertin
on Circular Magnetic Polarization, to which we have
done little more than allude in that article, he obtained
many important results, of which we shall now give a brief
notice. In these experiments M. Bertin employed both
the electro-magnet of M. Becquerel and the apparatus of
Ruhmkorff. Becquerel’s improvement of Faraday’s apparatus
consists in making the polarized ray pass not merely near the
line of the poles, but through the line itself, by piercing
the electro-magnet in that direction, which is done by
placing perforated terminations on the two poles.1 This is
proved by the following experiments :2—
Rotation Rotation
Millimetres. with the without the
Terminations. Terminations.
Very thick flint-glass  55-6 21° O' 4° 30'
Faraday’s flint-glass  48-3   25 6   6 30
„ „   183 0   18 20   2 30
Distilled water  130 0   5 30   3 0
„ „   30-0   3 50   0 0
This increase in the rotation is still better obtained with
Ruhmkorff’s apparatus, in which the helices are pierced in
the direction of their axes. By means of one of these ap¬
paratuses, 54 kilogrammes in weight, and with 80 elements of
Bunsen’s battery, M. Bertin was able to show the experi¬
ment at a public lecture.
M. Bertin made a number of experiments to determine
the law of the thickness and of the distance both with one
and with two poles. The following is the law of the dis¬
tance :—
When the distances of the flint-glass from the coil in¬
crease in arithmetical progression, the rotations of the plane
of polarization are in geometrical progression.
If we call A the rotation produced by the flint-glass in
contact with the coil, and if Ar is the rotation produced at
the distance of one millimetre, the action of the coil y at
any distance x, in millimetres, will be y = A.r*.
If each of the different sections of a substance is acted
upon as if it were a single section, then we shall have the law
of the thickness. If in a thickness of e millimetres we
consider e sections of one millimetre, and call c the rotation
produced by each of these sections, when in contact with the
pole; then the rotation y, produced in contact by the thick¬
ness e, will be the sum of the terms of a geometrical pro¬
gression, the first term of which is c, the course r, and the
number of the terms e ; that is, we shall have
whence
which represents the general action of a single pole.
By the formula y = Arx, which gives the action of a
single coil, we have also that of the two electro-magnetic
coils facing each other with the poles of opposite names.
If these two coils are at a distance d, the flint-glass of e
thickness, placed at the distance x from the first, will be
distant d — e — x from the second; and as the two actions add
to each other, the total rotation z will be
The first term of the geometrical progression—namely,
c—|s called by M. Bertin the coefficient of magnetic polari¬
zation, and is calculated by comparing two rotations ob¬
served at short intervals upon two substances placed under
certain circumstances, but always between two poles at the
same distance. These coefficients for different substances
are given in the following table:—■
Coefficient c.
Faraday’s flint-glass 1-20
Guinaud’s do O'ST
Mathiessen’s do 0-83
Common do 0‘59
Bichloride of tin O’TT
Sulphuret of carbon 0-74
Proto-chloride of phosphorus  0-51
Chloride of zinc, dissolved 0-55
Chloride of calcium, dissolved  0'45
Water  0 25
Alcohol, ordinary, of 36° Reaumur 0-18
ASther  045
Art. VII.— On the Influence of Electro-Magnetism on the
Axes of Crystals.
In repeating the experiments of Dr Faraday on dia¬
magnetism, M. Pliicker3 of Bonn was led to a very beautiful
discovery. When a crystal with one optical axis, like diop-
tase, was suspended freely between the poles of an electro¬
magnet, the optical axis placed itself equatorially or perpen¬
dicular to the line joining the poles of the magnet. When
a crystal with two optical axes, like topaz, was similarly sus¬
pended, the line bisecting the optical axes took the same
position. These two crystals are positive; but when the
crystals were negative, the same lines took the axial posi¬
tion ; that is, pointed in a direction parallel to the line joining
the poles of the magnet. “ Hence,” says M. Pliicker, “ in
a crystal which is neither transparent nor shows any trace of
its crystalline structure, we may, by means of a magnet, find
its optical axis or axes, and at the same time we get a new
proof of the connection between light and magnetism.”
These experiments were repeated and confirmed by Dr
Faraday, under M. Pliicker’s “ own personal tuition,” with
tourmaline, staurolite, red ferro-prussiate of potash, and
Iceland spar. M. Pliicker also found that certain crystals,
—uniaxal, like oxide of tin, and biaxal, like kyanite or blue
disthene,—have such a degree of magnetic polarity that they
point to the north by the magnetic power of the earth.
In using crystals of bismuth, antimony, and arsenic, Dr
Faraday obtained results which differed from those pro¬
duced by diamagnetic or by ordinary magnetic action, and
also from those obtained by Pliicker. They indicated a
new force, which he calls magne-crystallic, which in rela¬
tion to the magnetic field is axial, and not equatorial like
that of Pliicker. It does not manifest itself by attraction or
repulsion, but gives position only. The line of force tends
to place itself parallel or at a tangent to, the magnetic curve,
or line of magnetic force passing through the place where
the crystal is situated?*
Results differing from those of Pliicker were subsequently
obtained by Professor Tyndall and M. Knoblauch. Out of
eleven crystals of Iceland spar, five obeyed the law of
Pliicker, and six contradicted it. In continuing their re¬
searches, they found at the conclusion “ that the attraction
or repulsion of the optical axes is a secondary result, de¬
pending first of all upon the magnetism or diamagnetism,
of the substance ; and secondly, upon the manner in which
either force is modified by the peculiar structure of the
crystals.” “ The conducting power,” they add, “ so to
speak, of Iceland spar for both magnetism and diamagnetism
appears to be in directions perpendicular to the lines of
cleavage. M. Pliicker has, in a subsequent paper,5 admitted
the correctness of these views, and says that some of them
had been previously published by himself.
1 Ann. de Chim., &c. 3d series, vol. xvii., p. 437.
-the numbers given by M. Bertin are the total rotations produced in the plane of polarization.
See Phil. Mag., June 1849, vol. xxxiv., p. 450. * Phil. Tran,. 1849, p. 1, &c. 6 Phil. Mag., June 1851, vol. i., p. 447.
OPTICS.
676
* Polariza- Art. VIII.— On the Polarization produced by Laminated
^on- Structure, or Lamellar Polarization.
We have already seen that in certain imperfect crystals
of .nitre there is a laminated structure, in virtue of which the
incident light is polarized as if by a pile or bundle ot plates,
and after passing through the crystal, the emergent light is
analysed by other laminae lying in an opposite plane, and
exhibits the biaxal system of rays produced by that salt.
The same polarization is produced by films ot mica and
decomposed glass ; and this is true lamellar polarization.
M. Biot has given the same name to a supposed struc¬
ture which produces numerous remarkable phenomena of
polarization, which in 1816 Sir David Brewster obseived
in alum, muriate of soda, jluor spar, boracite, leucite, anal-
cime and apophyllite} By a mode of rendering visible
feeble polarized tints which Sir David Brewster had used in
studying these phenomena,2 M. Biot examined the light
polarized by crystals of alum, and concluded that they were
formed by successive laminae superposed upon one another
like a pile of plates, the laminae being parallel to the faces
of the octahedron. The polarized tints were exhibited in
alum containing ammonia, but were not visible in alum
entirely free of ammonia.
M. Biot conceives that the polarization thus produced
differs from that of a pile of glass plates (or of certain
crystals of nitre, or of decomposed glass) in this respect,
that the polarization of the glass plate is not chromatic,
whereas in alum it increases or diminishes the tints of sul¬
phate of lime. “ The difference,” he says, “ depends on this,
that each, fuseau octaedrique carries away from the primi¬
tive polarization a group of luminous elements associated
according to certain conditions of refrangibility, impresses
upon them generally a direction of polarization different
from that of the artificial pile, and communicates to this
group, as well as to the complementary group, certain persist¬
ent dispositions, in virtue of which they ulteriorly polarize
themselves in the thin plates endowed with double refrac¬
tion, as if they had traversed a plate of definite power.” By
supposing apophyllite to consist of laminae perpendicular
to an axis of double refraction, and also of laminae parallel
to the four faces of its pyramidal summit, M. Biot tries to
explain the beautiful symmetrical figure which Sir David
Brewster discovered in this mineral,3 but he has not suc¬
ceeded; and we are convinced that there is no such pro¬
perty of light as its /awie/Zar polarization essentially different
from the polarization of plates, and that of molecular
polarization.4
The Abbe Moigno having taken the same view of the
subject, says,—“ Must we really conclude from this long
study of M. Biot,5 that the superposition of laminae, or, as
M. Biot calls it, the lamellar tissue, exerts a proper action
sui generis, a new kind of special polarization ? We say,
frankly, that we do not think so. It is our profound con¬
viction that the true cause of these anomalies is connected
with the phenomena of imbibition, of temper, &c.; with the
crossing of different crystallographic structures, truncations,
&c.; and with assemblages in mosaic of crystals placed in
varied positions, and arranged in a very complex, though
very symmetrical order.”6
In support of these views we may refer the reader to
the complex structure of jluor spar, one of the regular
octahedral crystals like alum, as discovered by Sir David
Brewster by the reflection of a small pencil of light from
its disintegrated surfaces, and represented in figs. 271, 272, Circular
of this article.7 Polariza¬
tion.
Art. IX.— On the Polarization produced by the Eye.
M. Haidinger of Vienna, among the many important
discoveries which he has made, observed the remarkable
fact, that the human eye has, in its whole structure, or in
the structure of some of its parts, the property of polariz¬
ing light to such a degree as to enable us to determine by
it alone the direction of the plane of polarization.
When we look carefully at light polarized by reflection
or refraction, by double refraction, or by the blue sky at
a point about 90° from the sun, where the polarization
is greatest, we shall perceive along the axis of the eye
two sectors or brushes (houppes, aigrettes) of yellow light,
accompanied with other two sectors of a bluish light, the
first two forming as it were the first and third quadrants of
a circle, and the other two the second and fourth. The
yellow sectors lie in the plane of polarization, and the bluish
ones in a plane perpendicular to it. They are so very faint
that many persons cannot see them. The sectors are seen
by eyes deprived of the crystalline lens. Sir David
Brewster found that they subtended an angle of 4° or 4^°,
almost exactly the same as that of the foramen centrale in
the retina with a yellow margin.
Two explanations have been given of this phenomenon.
In the one, the coloured sectors are supposed to be pro¬
duced by thin depolarizing films, which give a yellow tint
which is subsequently analysed by a polarizing laminated
structure within the eye; and in the other, which is that
of Jamin,8 the yellow light is supposed to be the colour of
light polarized by refraction, and the blue to be the re¬
sult merely of contrast. He considers the cornea alone as
capable of producing the sectors.
In referring the reader for further information to the
works quoted below, we may mention that the thin films
which traverse the vitreous humours in all directions, and
inclose the fluid in separate compartments, may be a
polarizing agent in the production of the coloured sectors.9
Chap. II.—ON CIRCULAR POLARIZATION.
Sect I.—On the Circular Polarization in Rock-
Crystal and Amethyst.
The general phenomena of circular polarization were dis- Circular
covered by M. Arago in 1811. He found that in plates ofpolanza-
rock-crystal the colours polarized along its axis were ^^■tl°^1"rs.
ferent from those which he had studied in plates of other ^ ■crys‘
crystallized bodies. When they were analysed by a prism
of Iceland spar, he found that the two images had comple¬
mentary colours in the ordinary tints, but, what was re¬
markable, they descended in Newton’s scale as the prism
revolved, so that if the tint of the extraordinary image was
red, it became in succession orange, yellow, green, and
blue. Hence he concluded that the differently-coloured
rays had been polarized in different planes in passing along
the axis of the rock-crystal.
M. Biot took up the subject at this point, and investi¬
gated it with his usual ingenuity and success. He found
that while in some crystals of quartz the tints descended in
the scale of colours, by turning the analysing prism from
1 See sect. xiv. of the present chapter. 2 See Edin. Trans. 1816, p. 159. .
3 See Edin. Trans. 1822, vol. ix., p. 270, where a large coloured drawing is given of this phenomenon, of which hg. 222 is jin abridge¬
ment. 4 See Brewster’s Treatise on Optics, chaps, xxxiii. and xxxix. 6 Mem. Instil, tom. xviii., pp. 539-727.
6 Repertoire d'Optique, &c., tom. i., p. 371. 7 Edin. Trans. 1837, vol. xiv., pp. 164-176 ; or Phil. Mag., Jan. 1853, p. 16.
8 Comptes Rendus, &c., tom. xxvi., p. 197.
9 See Moigno’s Repertoire, tom. iv„ pp. 1327-1366 ; Phil. Trans. 1815, p. 151, props, xxiv. and xxv.; Reports of the British Association,
1840 p. 6; and Brewster’s Optics, chap, xxvii.
OPTICS.
i
677
Circular right to left, in others they descended in the scale by
Polariza- turning the prism from left to right. The one he called
turn. left-handed quartz, and the other right-handed quartz. He
took a plate of quartz, for example, -^th of an inch thick,
and having polarized the homogeneous colours of the spec¬
trum, he transmitted them in succession along the axis of
this plate, and obtained the following results:—When the
analysing plate was in 0° of azimuth, the red light polarized
by the plate was a maximum. When the analysing plate
was turned from right to left, the red tint gradually dimi¬
nished, and after a rotation of 17^°, it wholly vanished.
With a plate of ^ths of an inch thick, the red tint did not
vanish till after a rotation of 35°; and so on, every addi¬
tional 25th of an inch of rock-crystal requiring an additional
rotation of 1 7^° to make the tint vanish. A whole inch of
quartz, for example, would require 25 x = , or one
whole turn, and 775° more, to cause the red tint to vanish.
It is obvious that twenty-five plates of quartz, -^th of an
inch thick, would produce the same effect as 1 inch of it.
When right-handed plates, however, are combined with
left-handed ones, the rotation produced is equal to the dif¬
ference of their actions ; thus a plate of left-handed quartz
s^j-th of an inch, combined with a plate ^ths of an inch,
would produce a rotation of only 17^°. The following
table contains the rotations produced upon the other co¬
loured rays of the spectrum, as given by M. Biot:—
Names of the ray.
Extreme red  
Limit of red and orange 
Limit of orange and yellow.
Limit of yellow and green.
Limit of green and blue 
Limit of blue and indigo....
Limit of indigo and violet.
Extreme violet 
Arc of rotation for l-25th
of an inch in quartz.
 17°-4964
 20-4798
 ....22-3138
  25-6752
 300460
 34-5717
 37-6829
 44-0827
M. Biot conceived that this property of quartz belonged
to its ultimate molecules, but Sir David Brewster proved
that this was not the case, by showing that heat deprived
quartz of the property of circular polarization ; and Sir John
Herschel’s beautiful discovery, that it was connected with
the crystallization of the mineral, put this result beyond a
doubt. He found that those crystals in which the plagihe-
dral faces described by Haiiy, went round the crystal from
right to left, exhibited the optical properties of left-handed
crystals, and these crystals in which the plagihedral faces
leant round the crystals from left to right had the properties
of right-handed crystals. Hence he concluded that what¬
ever be the cause which determined the direction of rotation,
the same law acted in determining the direction of the pla¬
gihedral faces.
When Sir David Brewster discovered the system of rings
in quartz, he found the
tints of circular polari¬
zation occupy, as might
have been expected, the
inner circle of the rings,
as shown in fig. 253,
only small portions of
the black cross being
visible ; but these black
portions were larger
as the plate became
thinner.
ngular In examining the
operties structure and properties
umc- tjle amethyst, Sir
David Brewster found Fig. 253.
that this singular mineral was actually composed of the two
different kinds of quartz, viz., the right-handed and the
left-handed. These two kinds of quartz are arranged in
veins, as represented in figs. 254 and 255. In fig. 254 the
shaded veins which correspond to each alternate face of the Circular
pyramid turn the planes of polarization from right to left, Polariza¬
tion.
Fig-254- Fig. 255.
while all the rest of the crystal turns the same planes from
left to right; and what is very interesting, the black lines
where these two structures unite have no action whatever
on the planes of polarization. In some specimens these
opposite veins are so very minute that they destroy each
other’s action upon the polarized ray, and when this hap¬
pens the single system of rings appears with its black cross,
and entirely free of any of the tints of circular polarization.
I he colouring matter of the amethyst is arranged in a very
singular manner in relation to these veins ; and the frac¬
ture across the veins exhibits a beautiful, and sometimes a
regular rippled structure, resembling the engine-turning of
a watch, and affords an infallible mineralogical character of
the amethyst, whether its colour is yellow, orange, olive,
green, blue, or perfectly colourless.
The general structure of well-crystallized amethysts is
shown in fig. 255, which is of the natural size, and is taken
from one of the finest specimens that Sir David Brewster
met with. “ On the three alternate sides of the prism,”
says he, “ viz., MN, OP, and QR, are placed sectors McN,
OcfP, QaR, which are divided into two parts by dark
lines cc, dd. aa, which separate the direct structures of
A, C, and E from the retrograde structures of B, D, and F.
On the other three alternate faces of the prisms are placed
the three veined sectors Mc5aR, Ne5a?0, and Pd5aQ, which
meet at b in angles of 120°, and consist of veins of opposite
structure, alternating with each other, and so minute that
in many places the circular tints are almost wholly extin¬
guished by their mutual action. The direct sectors A, C,
and E, are all connected together by the three radial veins
ba, be, bd, and are therefore to be considered as the ex¬
panded terminations of these veins. The retrograde sectors
B, D, and F are expansions of the first retrograde veins
next to dbc, dba, and abc, and the lines cc, dd, and aa are
continuations of the dark or neutral lines which separate
the first retrograde vein from the direct radial veins.
“ All the sectors A, B, C, D, E, and F, are of a yellow¬
ish-brown colour, and all the rest of the crystal is of a pale
lilac colour, the lilac tints being arranged in the manner
previously described. The phenomena which I have now
mentioned as existing in this specimen are very common in
the amethyst; and I have never yet found a specimen in
which the yellow tints were not confined to those portions
which formed the expanded terminations of veins; a fact
which indicates that this would have been the colour of the
crystal, whether its action were direct or retrograde, and
that the lilac colour affects in general those portions which
are composed of opposite veins.”
The subject of circular polarization received great acces- Fresnel’s
sions from the genius of M. Fresnel. He conceived that discoveries,
a ray passing al «.ig the axis of quartz should be refracted
in two pencils, an 1 he ascertained this to be the case by
the following experimentHe took a prism ACB (fig.
256), of right-handed quartz, having its faces AC, BC
equally inclined to its axis AB, so that a ray PV should
be incident at angles of 75° on either face. As a ray,
however, refracted at R would not emerge at all from the
678
OPTICS.
Circular
Polariza¬
tion.
other side CB, he took another similar prism, but from a
crystal of left-handed quartz, and having cut it into two
, halves, he placed these two halves ACD, BCE, as in the
figure, so that he had an achromatic combination of tlnee
prisms. Now a ray
PQ, incident per¬
pendicularly at Q,
should pass straight
on without deviation,
or double refraction,
Fig. 256.
quartz were like other uniaxal crystals. But if the pen¬
cil PQ suffer any double refraction at Q, this double re¬
fraction will be doubled at R, because ABC has an oppo¬
site kind of double refraction. The same effect takes place
at C, so that the ray PQ at its emergence at Thought to
have a very sensible double refraction, even if that at Q
was very small. Now M. Fresnel found that this double
refraction actually existed, but upon examining the image
he found that they had suffered a new kind of double re¬
fraction, and acquired new properties. In place of their
being polarized in opposite planes, like other doubly-re¬
fracted pencils, which, when examined with a doubly-re¬
fracting prism, give two unequal images, alternating in
brightness during the revolution of the spar prism, they
exhibit the following properties:—
1. Either of the quartz rays, when examined with a spar
prism, gave two images of equal intensity in every position
of the prism. Hence they resemble unpolarized light, as if
they consisted of two rectangularly polarized rays.
2. They differ from unpolarized light in having the fol¬
lowing remarkable and characteristic property. If either
of them be incident at right angles, as shown at RP (fig.
257), upon the face AB of a parallel-
opiped of crown-glass, having its refract¬
ing index Pol, and its angles ABC and
ADC, 54^°, it will suffer two total reflec¬
tions at Q and S, emerging perpendi¬
cularly from the surface DC in the di¬
rection ST. Now this ray ST is found
to be completely polarized in a plane
inclined 45° to the plane of its reflec¬
tions, whatever may be the position of
that plane. If the other ray is incident,
at rp, and is reflected at q and s, so as to
emerge in the direction st, the one ray
ST will be polarized in a plane 45° to
the right, and the other st 45° to the left of the plane of
reflection. Hence they emerge when superimposed in a
state of common light. The two rays RP, rp are said to
be circularly polarized.
3. If a ray thus circularly polarized is transmitted through
a thin crystallized plate, and parallel to its axis, it is divided
by double refraction into two rays of complementary tints,
thus showing a decided difference from a ray of common
light; and these complementary colours always differ from
those that are produced from light polarized and analysed
in the usual way, by an exact quarter of a tint either in de¬
fect or in excess.
4. A circularly polarized ray transmitted again along the
axis of rock crystal, and subsequently analysed, produces,
like common light, no colours, and differs in this respect
from polarized light.
As two circularly polarized rays RP, rp, emerge from
Fresnel's rhomb (as the parallelepiped of glass ABCD, fig.
257, has been called), in rays, ST, st, polarized itz450 to the
plane of reflection, it occurred to Fresnel, and he found it
to be so, that a ray TS polarized 45° to the plane of reflec¬
tion in the rhomb would emerge in the direction PR, as
a circularly polarized ray, possessing all the properties of Circular
one of the rays formed along the axis of quartz. Polariza-
In an extensive series of experiments, of which we shall
give some account in the following chapter, Sir David
Brewster had occasion to examine some of the kindred Later
phenomena of circular polarization. His first experiments expert,
on this subject preceded those of Fresnel. He found thatments-
total reflection produced polarized tints analogous to those
of crystallized laminae, and he supposed that these colours
were produced by the interference of two portions of light,
the one partially reflected in the first instance, and the other
beginning to be refracted, and caused to return by the con¬
tinued operation of the same power.1 In continuing his
experiments, he found that the colours produced by total
reflection did not rise in the scale by successive reflections;
and at the end of 1816 he announced in the Journal of the
Royal Institution,2 that he had discovered “ a new species
of moveable polarization, in which the complementary tints
never rise above the white (the bluish white) of the first
order, by the successive application of the polarizing influ¬
ence,” &c. He determined experimentally the angles at
which this tint was successively produced and destroyed,
and thus discovered some of the leading properties of total
reflection. It was Fresnel, however, that discovered this
new species of polarization to be circular, and made those
other splendid discoveries which we have just detailed.
We owe to Sir David Brewster, however, the discovery ot
the inversion of the spectrum in the phenomena of total
reflection, of which we shall give some account in the next
chapter. .
In giving the name of circular polarization to that which
is impressed on the two rays along the axis of quartz, M.
Fresnel was guided by theoretical considerations. Mr Airy Discovery
has, however"taken a different view of the condition of the Mr
liafit forming these two rays in quartz, and has been led to irF
results of very high interest. The following are the expe¬
riments, which we shall give in his own words, on which he
founded his deductions. They were made with a Fresnel’s
rhomb, fitted up as in the annexed figure, where the rhomb
is shown at rr.
“ 1. If Fresnel’s rhomb, mounted as in fig. 258, be placed
to receive the polarized light, so that the plane of reflection
passes through the divisions 45° and 225°, the calc spar will
Fig.257
Fig. 258.
Fig. 259.
present another appearance (fig. 259). The rings are ab¬
ruptly and absolutely dislocated; those in the upper right
hand quadrant and the quadrant opposite to it are pushed
from the centre by one-fourth of an interval, and those in
the other quadrants are drawn nearer to the centre by the
same quantity. The line separating the quadrants is nowhere
black ; the intensity of its light is uniform, and about equal
to the mean intensity. If the plane of incidence pass through
135° and 315°, the phenomena of adjacent quadrants are
1 See Chromatics, § xv., vol. vi., p. 657: and Phil. Trans. 1830, p. 310.
Vol. iii., p. 213.
Circular
’olariza-
tion.
Fig. 260.
OPT
exactly interchanged. No alteration is made by turning
the analysing plate round the incident ray; the lines divid¬
ing the quadrants are always parallel and perpendicular to
the plane of reflection at the analysing plate.
“ 2. If the plane of reflection in the rhomb pass through
0° and 180°, or through 90° and
270°, the phenomena are precisely
the same, and undergo the same
changes as those in ordinary rings./
If while the plates are crossed, the
rhomb be turned gradually from
the position 0° towards 45°, the
rings are gradually changed, at first
becoming (as far as the eye can
judge) elliptical, and then assum¬
ing the form represented in fig.
260.
“ 3. If a plate of quartz, whether right or left handed,
be interposed between the crossed plates, a set of rings is
seen like those in fig. 253. As far as the eye can judge,
the rings are exactly circular, but there is no black cross,
and the central tint is not black, but removed from it by
a number of tints in Newton’s scale proportional to the
thickness of the quartz. Thus with a thickness of OAS inch,
the central tint is pale pink ; with a thickness 0’38 inch, the
central tint is bright yellowish-green ; with thickness 0'26
inch, it is a rich red plum colour; with thickness 0T7 inch,
it is a rich yellow.
“ The colours then appear to be nearly the same, begin¬
ning from the centre, as in Newton’s scale, beginning with
the tint representing this central tint. At a considerable
distance from the centre four dark brushes begin to be
visible in the same direction as the arms of the black cross
in calc spar.
“ 4. Now (supposing the crystal right-handed), if the plate
of quartz be thin, and the analysing plate be turned, the
upper part towards the observer’s left
hand, a bluish short-armed cross ap¬
pears in the centre, which, on turning
further, becomes yellow, and the rings
are enlarged. On turning still fur¬
ther, the cross breaks into four dots.
The rings are no longer circular, but'
of a form intermediate between a
circle and a square, their diagonals
(as well as the cross) being inclined Fig. 26i.
to the left of the parallel, and perpendicular to the plane
of reflection (see fig. 261). If the analysing plate be
turned the other way, there is no cross; the form of the
rings is changed from circular nearly as in the former
case.
“ 5. If the plate of quartz be thick, the dilatation of
the rings, and the change of form, are all the perceptible
phenomena; and on turning the analysing plate continually
to the left, the rings continually dilate, and new spots start
up continually in the centre and become rings. If the crystal
be left-handed, the remarks in this and the last article apply
equally well supposing the analysing plate turned in the
opposite direction.
“ 6. If Fresnel’s rhomb be placed in the position 45°, and
the light thus circularly polarized pass through the quartz,
on applying the analysing plate instead of rings, there are
seen two spirals naturally inwrapping each other, as in fig.
262. If the rhomb be placed in position 135°, the figure
is turned through a quadrant. If the quartz be left-handed,
the spirals are turned in the opposite direction. The cen¬
tral tint appears to be white. With the rhomb which I
have commonly used (which is of plate-glass, but with the
angles given by Fresnel for crown-glass), there is at the
centre an extremely dilute tint of pink. I think it likely
that this arises from the cross in the angles, as the inten-
ICS.
679
sity of the colours have no proportion to that in other Circular
parts of the spirals. iiillSSiilSilSiE*! Polariza-
The figure was tion-
drawn from the
appearances given
by a plate of quartz
026 inch thick.
“ 7. If two plates
of quartz of equal
thickness, but cut,
one from a right-
handed, and the
other from a left-
handed crystal, be
attached together,
and put between
the polarising and
analysing plates,
the left-handed slice nearest to the polarizing plate, the
appearance presented is that of fio-. 263. Four spirals (pro-
Fig. 262.
Fig. 263.
ceeding from a black cross in the centre, which is inclined
to the plane of reflection) cut a series of circles at every
quadrant. The points of intersection are in the plane of
reflection, and perpendicular to it. This is the simplest
way of describing the form ; but if we followed the colours
which graduate most gently, we should say that the form
of each is alternately a spiral and circular arc, quadrant
after quadrant.
“ At a distance from the centre, the black brushes are
seen. If the combination be turned, so that the right-
handed slice is nearest to the polarizing plate, the spirals are
turned in the opposite direction. This is one of the most
beautiful phenomena of optics. The slices from whose ap¬
pearance the figure was drawn, are each 0T6 inch thick.”
When the temperature of the two plates of quartz is
greatly increased, the system of rings suffers certain changes
which have not yet been carefully examined.
The rotatory force of quartz wras found by M. Dubrun-
faut to be increased 1° 50' by an additional temperature of
70° centigrade. With a spirit-lamp he succeeded in rais¬
ing it ]2°.
The preceding phenomena are described as they appear
when examined with an analysing plate of unsilvered glass.
The following are the theoretical views which Mr Airy
considers as consonant with these experiments. They had
been originally suggested to him by the desire of finding
some connecting link between the peculiar double refrac¬
tion in quartz, and the common double refraction :—
“ 1. I suppose the ordinary rays to consist of light ellip-
680
Circular
Polariza*
tion.
Professor
Maccul-
lagh.
M. Jamin.
OPTICS.
tically polarized, the greater axis of the ellipse being per¬
pendicular to the principal plane ; and the extraordinary
rays to consist of light elliptically polarized, the greater
axis of the ellipse being in the principal plane.
“ 2. I suppose that when the ordinary ray is right-ellip-
tically polarized, the extraordinary ray is left-elliptically
polarized, and vice versd.
“ 3. I suppose that the proportions of the axes of the
two ellipses are the same, each proportion being one of
equality when the direction of the ray coincides with the
axis, and becoming more unequal, according to some un¬
known law, as the direction is more inclined to the axis ;
the minor axes of the ellipses having sensible magnitudes
when the rays are inclined 10 to the axis.
“ 4. I suppose that the course of the rays after refraction
can be determined by the construction given by Huygens
for calc spar, with this difference only, that the prolate
spheroid for determining the course of the extraordinary ray
must not be supposed to touch the sphere for determining
the course of the ordinary ray, but must be entirely con¬
tained within it.”
In a supplement to his investigations, Mr Airy remarks,
that he has not yet ascertained the law which connects the
ellipticity of the rays with the angle that they make with
the axis. He considers, however, the following points as
made out:—
“ One of the rays is certainly right-handed elliptical, and
the other certainly left-handed elliptical. The major axis
of one is certainly perpendicular to the principal plane of
the crystal, and the major axis of the other is certainly in
that plane. Mr Airy remarks, that in some trials for mea¬
suring the ellipticities of the rays, he seems to have arrived
at the conclusion, that the proportion of the axes of the oi--
dinary ray is more nearly one of equality than the propor¬
tion of the axes of the extraordinary ray.”
This subject has subsequently been investigated by Pro¬
fessor Maccullagh, whose object was to pave the way for a
mechanical theory, by showing that all the phenomena may
be grouped together by means of a simple geometrical hy¬
pothesis. Setting out from this hypothesis, he arrives im¬
mediately at all the known laws, and obtains at the same
time a law that was previously unknown, and which is tech¬
nically called the law of ellipticity. By this law Professor
Maccullagh has been able to compute the ellipticities ob¬
served by Mr Airy in rays inclined to the axis of quartz,
from the angles of rotation observed by M. Biot in rays
parallel to that axis.1
In order to explain the phenomena of quartz, it was
necessary to determine the ratio of the axes in each of the
ellipses of the two refracted rays at different inclinations to
the axes, and also the difference of the velocities of the two
rays. This has been done by M. Jamin in an interesting
memoir.2 The following are the ratios of the axes :—
Inclination to
the Axis.
1°  
2  
5 17'....-.
9 15 ....
Ratio of
the Axes.
...1-000
...0-939
.. 0-641
...0-309
Inclination to Ratio of
the Axis. the Axes.
15°28'  0-125
19 42  0-087
24 30  0-052
The following results express in a fraction of the length
of an undulation the difference of velocity of the two ellip¬
tical rays in a plate of quartz cut perpendicular to the axis,
and the 25th of an inch thick.
Inclination to
the Axis.
0°  
5 26' 
11 0 
15 33 
Difference of
Velocity.
 0-120
 0135
 0-273
 0-490
Inclination to Difference of
the Axis. Velocity.
20°27'  0-219
25 17   1-231
30 26  1-774
35 3  2-287
Having obtained these measures, M. Jamin requested M. Circular
Cauchy to apply to them his general theory of double re- Polariza.
fraction. Without knowing the experimental results, this t'on.
distinguished mathematician, whose recent loss science is
now deploring, solved the problem; and M. Jamin, by a
few hours’ calculation, ascertained that the theory repro¬
duced the facts with such marvellous exactness, that it was
not necessary either to modify the formulae, or to endea¬
vour by new experiments to make them coincide with the
theory.
Circular polarization has been discovered by Sir David
Brewster in plates of glass possessing the doubly-refracting
structure. M. Dove of Berlin has found it also in com¬
pressed glass.3
Sect. II.—On the Circular Polarization of Fluids.
Although this remarkable property was discovered in Circular
some fluids by M. Seebeck by independent observation, yet polariza.
M. Biot had anticipated him in it, and has made this sub- ll0.n in
ject so completely his own, by a series of the most elaborate 111 s'
and beautiful researches, that if he had done nothing else
for science, they would have ensured him a high reputation.
We regret extremely that our limits will not permit us to
give anything like a full and satisfactory account of his
discoveries, particularly those contained in his valuable
paper of 1832. We must therefore refer the reader to his
original memoirs, and give in as abridged a form as possible
his leading results.
M. Biot discovered that some fluids turn the planes of
a polarized ray from right to left, and others from left to
right. He found also that the tints rose in the scale, as in
quartz, by an increase in the thickness of the fluid. The
following table contains some of his results :—
I. Fluids that turn the Plane of Polarization from Left
to Right.
Arcs of rotation with
the red rays, with
Fluids. Colours. a thickness of 200
millimetres.
Oil of fennel seeds Palish-green  26°-32
„ caraway seeds Colourless ...131-58
„ lavender  Greenish   4 -04
„ rosemary   6 -58
„ marjoram Orange-yellow  23 -68
„ sassafras  Yellow  7 "06
„ savine  Yellow  14 "12
„ bitter oranges Greenish-yellow 157 "89
„ bergamot ....Colourless  38 "16
„ lemons Colourless 110 -53
Neroli, common Yellow ^ths of oil of oranges.
„ fine Orange-yellow  do.
„ superfine  ...Reddish 5\ths of com. neroli.
II. Fluids that turn the Plane of Polarization from Right
to Left.
Essential oil of turpentine..Greenish  59°-21
Naphtha Greenish  15 -21
Oil of anise seeds Greenish  1 -51
„ mint Limpid  32 -28
„ rhue Yellowish  conjectured.
Oil of mustard and oil of bitter almonds exercise no ac¬
tion upon polarized light.
M. Biot found that in a solution of natural camphor in Camphor
alcohol, in which there was 0‘37117 of camphor in weight
to 1 of the solution, and its density 0-87221, the rotation
for red light, and a thickness of 152 millimetres was 17°'56
from left to right. A solution of artificial camphor in
alcohol, on the other hand, with 0-0917 of camphor to 1
of the solution, and having its density 0"8455, and in a
thickness of 1357 millimetres, produced only a rotation of
Report of the British Association for 1836, p. 18.
2 Comptes Rendus, tom. xxx., p. 99; and Moigno, Repertoire, &c., tom. iv., pp. 1502-1510.
3 This memoir has been translated and published in Taylor’s Scientific Memoirs, vol. i., part i., p. 75,
OPTICS.
1-1052
1-2311
1-3114
1-0537
1-2460
of 152 millimetres
23° 28' 45'
52 7 30
70 11 15
10 21 40
48 30 0
i-34 1-1329 16 47 30
rotation.
83° 94
70-18
59-99
43-32
59-10
Circular 24°, but in the opposite direction, from right to left. In
Polariza- gum from Senegal, of which 47"4 parts was dissolved in
tion. gg.j 0p distilled water, there was a rotation from right to
left of 12° 13' 20", with a thickness of 152 millimetres.
The following table contains the results which our author
obtained from different kinds of sugar:—
From Left to Right.
Proportion of sugar -p. Arcof rotation of red Molecular
in 1 of the solution. Density, light in a, thickness power of
OI mi llimof/roa. a
Sugar of canes, syrup 1 n
of J ,“0
Ditto ditto 0-50
Ditto ditto 0-65
Sugar of milk 0-14
„ starch...* 0-65
Crystallizable prin- 1 ^ ,
ciple of honey J c
Sugar of grapes 
From Right to Left.
The rotation being observed for the yellow rays, and the
thickness of solution 152 millimetres as before.
Sugar of grapes in syrup 10° 0' 0"
Uncrystallizahl eprinciple of honey, alcoholic solution 3 38 20
The same dry  11 15 q
M. Soubeiran found that honey contains three different
kinds of sugar,—one like common sugar; another, which is
liquid, and which turns the planes of polarization to the
left; and a third kind, which gives a rotation to the right.
M. Biot made experiments with various vegetable juices,
all of which give a slight rotation from right to left.
Thickness of fluid. Rotation
Juice of grapes, white 160 millimetres  6°
Do., red and white mixed ....160 „   6-25
Chasselas  160 „   5-50
Muscat 160   5-33
Verjuice  160 „   1-81
Chasselas of Fontainbleau ....160 „   8-00
Common black grape 160 „  10-00
Apples for cider  )f   3.33
lied gooseberries, very ripe... 80 „   1-81
Berries of the service tree....160 „   2-5
M. Biot also found that claret, white champagne, alcohol,
sulphuric ether, citric acid dissolved in the proportion of
30 to 37 of water, sulphuric acid pure and colourless, and
olive oil, produced no effect upon polarized light.
He found, however, that tartaric acid dissolved in the
proportion of 53 of acid to 52 of water produced a rotation
of 8° from right to left.
Dextrine. One 0f t]ie most curious discoveries contained in M.
Biots memoir is that of the powerful rotatory property of
dextrine, an uncrystallizable syrup which is found in the
farina of rice, wheat, and even of ligneous tissue.1 It differs
from gum in producing an opposite rotation, and from sugar
in its superior power of rotation, which is almost triple of
that which is exerted by sugar of canes. It surpasses all
animal and vegetable substances at present known, at equal
densities and thicknesses, in turning round the plane of a
polarized ray,—rock-crystal only being superior to it. The
name of dextrine has been given to it in order to mark the
direction as well as the powerful energy of its force of ro¬
tation.
M. Biot and M. Persoz more recently found a sugar
of starch whose power of rotation is almost equal to that
of crystallized sugar of canes. They also discovered,
that when sugar of canes is dissolved in water mixed with
dilute sulphuric acid, and heated below the boiling point, it
loses its power of turning the planes of polarization from
681
left to right, like sugar of grapes not solidified. Sugar of Circular
staich submitted to the same process did not experience Polariza-
tlus mversion. M. Biot likewise found that the coloration tion-
of liquids did not exercise any influence on their rotatory '
property. J
In a series of experiments on the six vegetable alkalis,
morphine, narcotine, strychnine, brucine, quinine, and cin¬
chonine, dissolved in alcohol or ether, M. Bouchardat found
that all of them except cinchonine had — or left-handed cir¬
cular polarization. I he + rotatory force of cinchonine was
very great. By the intervention of an acid the rotatory force
was modified in all of them except morphine. The in¬
fluence of acids upon narcotine was enormous. Its rotatory
force in alcohol and sulphuric ether is - 1510-4, in al¬
cohol 100°, and in chlorohydric acid it is + 83°. The ro¬
tatory force in brucine is diminished by acids and increased
by ammonia.
When camphoric acid was dissolved in alcohol, and ex¬
amined in a tube of 299 millimetres, its rotation was + 12° to
the right. When the rotation was +38°-875, it was
greatly diminished by saturation with an alkali, and re¬
stored by the addition of an excess of strong acid.
Previous to these experiments tartaric acid was the only
acid known to have a rotatory power; but its great power
of dispersing the colours of the spectrum prevents it from
being employed in the researches of mechanical chemistry,
and consequently M. Bouchardat’s discovery of the rotatory
force of camphoric acid is of great importance.2
The influence of heat on the rotatory force of fluids was Influence
first observed by M. Mitscherlich in solutions of common heat-
sugar. M. Dubrunfaut found that the same effect was pro¬
duced in solutions of dextrine, glucose, and the sugar of
fruits, and that a sufficient quantity could change the direc¬
tion of polarization from left to right. The rotatory force
of cane sugar is diminished 0-0232 by 100° of temperature
from 0° to 100°. Glucose, in solution, has its force dimi¬
nished 0-0462 by the same increase of heat. Dextrine also
loses T^ths of its rotatory force by a rise of temperature.
A very ingenious method of magnifying weak rotatory
forces, such as those of vegetable juices, has been pro¬
posed by M. Botzenbart. It is founded on the law of the
rotation of the plane of polarization by refraction, estab¬
lished by direct experiment by Sir David Brewster.3
hen a polarized ray, which has experienced from the ac¬
tion of a fluid a small rotation, is made to pass through one
or more plates of glass, its initial or primitive rotation will
be greatly magnified. If <p be the initial angle required,
when a is the angle or change produced by one or more
plates by refraction at an incidence i, and if r be the angle
of refraction, and m the number of plates, then we shall have
rp - tan a
Tan <p= ——— -,
cos'1 m(i — r)
Making the index of refraction m of glass 1-5, a^ 30',
and « = 70°, we shall have
@ = 0° 56' 4" for 2 plates.
9=1 44 46 for 4 plates.
<p = Q 4 40 for 8 plates.
If a = 15'and 2 = 70°, then we shall have *
. 0 = 0° 52'24" for 4 plates.
<p=3 2 50 for 8 plates.
Sect. III.—On the Crystallographic Structure
WHICH PRODUCES CIRCULAR POLARIZATION.
\\ hen M. Biot discovered right and left handed quartz,
envelope^ndTeUvt EextuT laUndlT ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ by P°taSh’ °r ^ hot Water' ^ one of which wil1 rupture tha
3 ?;-.fThard1a^rnd‘hat amygdalic acid has thG same rotatory power as the tartaric,
a Phtl. Trans. 1830, p. 136, and p. 642 of this article.
VOL. XVI.
4 u
682
OPTICS.
he made the first step in this inquiry ; and another step was
made when Sir David Brewster discovered that the pro¬
perty of circular polarization did not, as M. Biot supposed,
belong to the ultimate molecules of quartz. An addi¬
tional step was made when Sir John Herschel discovered
the connection between the plagihedral faces of quartz and
the direction of the rotatory force. Another step was taken
in this inquiry when Sir David Brewster discovered that
amethyst was composed of right and left handed quartz, the
rotatory force of the one destroying the equal rotatory
force of the other, ivhile in certain ■portions symmetrically
placed in the crystal, each variety of quartz exercised
separately its full power of rotation. These last portions,
shown at A, B, C, D, E, and F, in fig. 255, are so large in
the specimen from which that figure was drawn, that a
lapidary could have cut them out, and exhibited the plates
A, C, and E as right-handed quartz, and B, D, and F as
left-handed quartz. Nay, if there had been a proper sol¬
vent for amethyst, separate crystals of right and left handed
quartz could have been obtained from the solution. We
mention these facts because a sufficiently important place
has not been assigned to them either by M. Biot or M.
Pasteur in their reports and memoirs on the analogous pro¬
perties discovered by the latter in the tartaric and racemic
acids, and their derivative salts. These properties we shall
now proceed to describe.
The solutions of tartaric acid, with all the tartrates, in
water, turn the planes of polarization from left to right;
but the tartrate of lime in chlorohydric acid turns these
planes to the left. In 1844 M. Mitscherlich showed that
the double tartrates and para-tartrates of soda and am¬
monia have the same chemical composition, the same crys¬
talline form, with the same angles, the same specific weights,
the same double refraction, and consequently the same in¬
clination of their optical axes. Notwithstanding this simi¬
larity, M. Biot found that the whole series of the tartrates
turned the planes of polarization to the right, while the
para-tartrates exercised no rotatory action whatever.
This interesting subject has been successfully studied by
M. Pasteur. He has found that \\\qpara-tartaric acid, which
is exactly the same as the racemic acid, and which differs
from the tartaric only in having an additional atom of
water, is actually composed of two distinct acids, one of
which, the levo-racemic, has a rotatory force from left to
right, and the other, the dextro-racemic, from right to
left, the rotatory force of both being the same. Hence
it follows, that when these two acids are combined, as
they are in the para-tartrate and racemates, the two op¬
posite forces compensate one another. The dextro-race¬
mic acid is therefore identical with the common tartaric
acid, and the dextro-racemates are nothing more than tar¬
trates.
In comparing the rotatory forces of these salts with their
crystalline forms, M. Pasteur has found that the tartrates
ox dextro-racemates have plagihedral forces going from left to
right, while the levo-racemates have their plagihedral forces
going from right to/c/?, and the para-tartrates andracemates,
like amethyst, consist of the two combined. So far, then,
the researches of M. Pasteur are analogous with those
which determined the relations of quartz to amethyst.
The subsequent researches of M. Pasteur, however, are
equally interesting. When crystals are formed, according
to the theory of Haiiy, by the aggregation of infinitely
small solids of the same form, they must necessarily be
symmetrical. Haiiy himself had recognised several excep¬
tions to this law of symmetry; but it is to M. Weiss that
we owe the generalization of these exceptions, to which he
gave the name oihemihedral. In studying the physical re¬
lations of hemihedral crystals, M. Pasteur has divided them Circular
into two great classes, which he calls superposahle and non- Polama.
super posable. W7hen a crystal is hemihedral, we may, in
certain cases, imagine another crystal identical with that
crystal in all its parts, but which is not superposable, just
as our right hand, though identical with the left, is not
superposable xvpon it. On the other hand, all regular tetra¬
hedrons, and all rhombohedrons of the same angle, are super¬
posable hemihedral forms. The two plagihedral varieties of
quartz, the tartrates, the para-tartrates or racemates, aspara¬
gine and aspartic acid, and the combinations of glucose with
sea-salt, are examples of non-superposable hemihedral crys¬
tals, and have all circular polarization. In the superposable
hemihedral crystals, the rotatory polarizing pow,er has never
been found; and there are only two exceptions to its exist¬
ence in the non-superposable hemihedral crystals. These
exceptions, according to M. Pasteur, oxe formiate of stron-
tian and sulphate of magnesia, both biaxal crystals, and
both non-superposable in their hemihedral forms.
In all the crystallizations of the formiate of strontian M.
Pasteur found two species of crystals, the one hemihedral to
the right, and the other hemihedral to the left, perfectly
identical, but not superposable; and yet the solutions ot
neither have circular polarization; though, when crystallized
anew, they again yield the two species of crystals. In ex¬
planation of this unexpected result, M. Pasteur supposes
that the hemihedrism of the formiate does not depend on
the arrangement of atoms in the chemical molecule, but on
tbe arrangement of the physical molecules in the entire
crystal, so that the crystalline structure at once disappears
in the solution, as that of quartz does in fusion. The
want of circular polarization in sulphate of magnesia M.
Pasteur supposes may be owing to its being very nearly
superposable, as the angle of the prism of this sulphate and
its isomorphous bodies is between 90° and 91°; so that the
right rhomboidal prism is very near the prism with a square
base, which is a superposable form, and therefore should
have no circular polarization.
In examining chlorate of soda and other tessular salts, pr j[ar.
Dr Marbach of Breslau found that when dissolved in water bach,
it exhibited no trace of circular polarization. When crys¬
tals, however, were obtained from the solution, he found
that they produced both left-handed and right-handed rota¬
tions. When either of these kinds was dissolved and re¬
crystallized, they produced both left-handed and right-
handed crystals. These crystals are almost always without
hemihedral faces, but yet they sometimes occur; and when
they do, they always possess the character of non-super-
posable hemihedrism. The following are the rotations which
he observed in a thickness of one Paris line or 2'2o6 milli¬
metres :—
Chlorate of soda 
Bromate of soda  
Acetate of uranium and soda
Sulph. antinioniate of soda1...
Rotation.
...8°-2 ...
.6-3
:°o}
Ratio to Quartz.
_L
6'6
 8-6
1
  13-5
M. Marbach has given the following method of making
the crystals assume the hemihedral faces:—“ Cut with
a knife the angles and the edges, and then place the
crystal, thus mutilated, into a saturated solution of the same
salt. The crystal in its growth will form new faces, which
present the non-superposable hemihedrism analogous to the
direction of its circular polarization.”2
In chlorate of soda M. Marbach has never found a single
exception to this law, though he has examined several hun¬
dreds of crystals.
1 2-66 millimetres thick.
2 Poevprtdo'ff’s Annalen, 3d series, tom. clxi., p. 12. 1853 ; Compte* RrnrJux. 1855, tom. xl., p. 795 ; xliii.,p. 705 : xlv.,p. 705.1857.
OPTICS.
683
Elliptical M. Marbach has recently found that the thermo-electric
Polariza- properties of certain bodies are related to the hemihedrism
tion. of their crystals. Sulphuret of iron and gray cobalt are
among the number.
The phenomena of circular polarization have already
had many useful applications. M. Biot and M. Pasteur
have shown, in their valuable memoirs, their application to
crystallography and chemistry. M. Biot has pointed out
their value in determining the state of the sap in grasses and
growing corn at different stages of their growth; and by
the saccharimeter of M. Soleil we can ascertain, with the
minutest accuracy, the quality and quantity of sugar in any
sacchariferous solution.
Sect. IV.—On the Circular Polarization oe Heat.
It has been shown by MM. Biot and Melloni that quartz
exercises upon polarized heat the same rotatory power
which it exercises upon polarized light. In a series of very
interesting experiments MM. Provostaye and Desains have
shown that the essence of turpentine exercises a rotatory
power over the heat which accompanies the extreme red ray
and the green rays of the spectrum. The following are
some of the results which they obtained:—
Essence of Turpentine; Tube 0-05 millimetre long.
Optic rotation of the red luminous ray 14° 0'
Rotation of the calorific ray which accompanies it. 11 26
Essence of Turpentine; Tube OT millimetre long.
Optic rotation of the extreme red ray 28° 0'
Rotation of the calorific ray which accompanies it. 23 30
With a very concentrated solution of cane-sugar in a
tube 0-0.5 millimetre long, they found that
For extreme red light the rotation was 25° O'
For the calorific ray    22 36
When the syrup was divided into two exactly equal
parts, and when one of these parts was replaced in the tube,
and the tube filled up with distilled water, the following re¬
sults were obtained:—
For the extreme red light 12° 30'
For the calorific ray 11 20
Hence it follows that the laws of circular polarization are
identical for light and heat, and that which is true for a ray
of the luminous spectrum is true also for the calorific ray
which accompanies it.1
Chap. III.—ON ELLIPTICAL POLARIZATION.
Sect. I.—On Metallic Polarization.
Metallic The phenomena and laws of elliptical polarization, as they
polarixa- are at present known, have been investigated only by Sir
tion. David Brewster. This species of polarization forms the
connecting-link between plane polarization and circular
polarization, passing nearly into the former when ex¬
hibited by galcena, and into the latter when exhibited by
silver.
Sir David Brewster found at an early period, what Malus
had previously observed, that the light reflected from metals
was polarized in different planes. The former, however, Elliptical
found that the pencil polarized in the plane of reflection Eolariza-
was always more intense than that polarized in a perpen- tion’
dicular plane, and which he conceived had entered the
metal and been partially absorbed. He found the difference
between the intensities of these pencils to be least in silver
and greatest in galaena, metals which had an intermediate
effect being arranged as in the following table :—
Order in which the Metals Polarize most Light in the Plane o
Reflection.
Galaena.
Lead.
Gray cobalt.
Arsenical cobalt.
Iron pyrites.
Antimony.
Steel.
Zinc.
Speculum metal.
Platinum.
Bismuth.
Mercury.
Copper.
Tin-plate.
Brass.
Grain-tin.
Jewellers’ gold.
Fine gold.
Common silver.
Pure silver.
Tot. refl. from glass.
He found also that, by increasing the number of reflec¬
tions, the whole of the light could be polarized in one plane.
The white light of a wax candle, 10 feet distant, is polarized
by eight reflections from steel between 60° and 80°, whereas
it requires more than thirty-six from silver, and in total
reflection where the elliptical polarization becomes circu¬
lar ; and when the two pencils are equal, the total polariza¬
tion of the pencil cannot be effected by any number of re¬
flections.
The action of metals upon polarized light presents us
with a series of very extraordinary phenomena. One of
the first of these which was discovered by our author was
the action of successive reflections from silver and gold
upon polarized light. These reflections are made from two
metallic plates placed between the polarizing and analysing
plate or rhomb, and when the plane of metallic reflections
is parallel or perpendicular to the plane of primitive polari¬
zation, its azimuth will be 0°, 90°, 180°, &c.; and when
it is inclined 45° to that plane, its azimuth will be 45°,
135°, &c.
In azimuth 0° no colours are observed by reflections
from two plates of silver placed parallel to one another, just
as in the case of crystallized laminae whose axes are in 0° of
azimuth.
At 45°, 135° of azimuth, the most brilliant complemen¬
tary colours are seen, either by turning round the analysing
plate, or by using a rhomb of spar that gives two images.
These colours become fainter and fainter while the azimuth
changes from 45° to 90°, or from 45° back to 0°, exactly
like those of crystallized laminae.
When a small number of reflections are used, the tints
are fainter and less brilliant, and they increase with the
number of reflections. There is an angle of reflection,
about 75°, at which the tints are brightest, and they become
fainter as the reflections are performed at greater or at less
angles.
All the other metals in the preceding table, as well as
total reflection from glass, give analogous colours, but
they are most brilliant in silver, and diminish towards
galaena.
Now, it is obvious that at about 75° of incidence (if we
suppose the metal to be steel) the polarized light which it
reflects has acquired some new physical property.
1. It is neither common light nor partially-polarized
light, because if we reflect it a second time at 75° it is
restored to light polarized in one plane.
2. It is not polarized light, because it does not vanish
during the revolution of the analysing rhomb.
In order, then, to discover its nature, let it be transmitted
along the axis of Iceland spar. The common uniaxal
1 See Ann. de Chim., &c., Nov. 1850; and Phil. Mag., June 1851, p. 466.
684
OPTICS.
Elliptical system of rings is changed into that shown in fig. 264,
1>0tionZa" vvhicI‘ is simiIar t0 the effect
produced by crossing the
^ v ^ uniaxal system of rings with
a thin film polarizing the pale
blue of the first order. If we
substitute for the Iceland spar
films of sulphate of lime, we
shall find that their tints are
increased or diminished ac¬
cording as the metallic action
coincides with or opposes that
of the crystal. This experi¬
ment led our author into the
erroneous opinion that metals Fig. 264.
acted like crystallized plates ; but when he found that a
second reflection at 75° destroyed the effect of the first re¬
flection, he saw that this opinion was untenable, and was
led to consider the phenomena as having some resemblance
to those of circular polarization.
\V e have already seen that a circularly-polarized ray
RP (fig. 257) emerges after two total reflections in the
direction ST, polarized 45° to the plane of the two reflec¬
tions in every azimuth. Now, if we reflect a ray of lieht
R (fig. 265), polarized + 45° at Q,
from one plate of silver CD, the
rays QS will have acquired a pro¬
perty analogous to that of circular
polarization; for if it is reflected a
second time at S, the reflected ray
ST will emerge polarized 39° 48' to
the plane of reflection. Now the
difference between this result and
that from total reflection is, that one
reflection from silver impresses the
same character upon light, whereas
in total reflection two reflections are
necessary. Another point of difference is, that when the
ray is restored by the same number of reflections, it is not
wholly restored to a plane — 45°, but only to a plane
— 39° 48. But there is another difference of a very inter¬
esting kind. In circular polarization the ray has the same
properties on all its sides, and the angles of reflection at
which it is restored to polarized light in different azimuths
are all equal to the radii of a circle described round the
rays. “Hence,” says our author, “ without any theoretical
reference, the term circular polarization is, from this and
other facts, experimentally appropriate.1 In like manner,
without referring to the theoretical existence of elliptical
vibrations produced by the interference of two rectilineal
vibrations of unequal amplitudes, wre may give to the new
phenomenon the name of elliptic polarization, because
the angles of reflection at which this kind of light is
restored to polarized light may be represented by the
variable radius of an ellipse.”
Now it is a curious fact, that while silver restores the
ray to angles of 39° 48', other metals restore it to angles
deviating more and more from 45°, as is shown in the
following table :—
Fig. 265.
Inclination
of Restored
. Ray.
Total reflection from glass 45° (T
Pure silver 39 43
Common silver 35 0
Fine gold "35 0
Jewellers’gold 33 0
Grain-tin 33 q
Brass   0
Tin-plate 31 0
Copper 29 0
Mercury 26 0
Platina ...22 0
Inclination
of Restored
Ray.
Bismuth 21° O'
Speculum metal 21 0
Zinc 19 10
Steel 17 0
Iron pyrites 14 0
Antimony 16 15
Arsenical cobalt 13 0
Cobalt 12 30
Lead 11 0
Galaena  2 0
Specular iron  0 0
Hence it appears that the elliptic polarization passes into ElliptiCli
circular nearly in the case of silver, and into plane polariza- Polariza¬
tion in the case of galcena ; the ellipsis becoming nearly a tion.
circle in the former case, and a straight line in the latter.
As light polarized + 45° suffers different degrees of
elliptical polarization by one reflection from metals, and is
restored again to polarized light, though in different planes,
by a second reflection, so it exhibits the same phenomena at
3, 5, 7,9, &e\, in reflections, and is restored to polarized light
by 4, 6, 8, 10 reflections at the same angle. The follow¬
ing table shows the inclination of the plane of polarization
of the restored ray to the plane of reflection, in various
numbers of reflections from silver and steel.
Number of
Reflections.
2 
4 
6 
8 
10 
12 
18 
36 
Inclination of the Plane of the Polarized Ray.
Steel. Silver.
....-17° O' — 38° 15'
»...+ 5 22  + 31 52
....- 1 38  -26 6
....+ 0 30  + 21 7
....- 0 9  -16 56
....+ 0 3  + 13 30
....- 0 0  - 6 42
.... 0 0   0 47
These results show in the clearest manner the reason
why common light is polarized by eight reflections from
steel, and not till after 36 reflections from silver; the planes
of inclination of the two rectangularly-polarized rays re¬
quiring in each case that number of reflections to bring
them into a state of parallelism.
The angle at which elliptical polarization is produced
by one reflection may be regarded, in the present state of
our knowledge of the subject, as the angle of maximum
polarization, and its tangent as the index of refraction of
the metal, as given in the following table:—
Name of Metal. kSI
Grain-tin 78° 30' 4,915
Mercury 78 27  4-893
Galama 78 10  4-773
Iron pyrites 77 30  4-5H
Gray cobalt 76 56  4-309
Speculum metal 76 0  4-011
Antimony melted 75 25  3-844
Steel 75 0  3-732
Bismuth   74 50  3-689
Pure silver 73 0  3-271
Zinc 72 30  3-172
Tin-plate, hammered 70 50  2-879
Jewellers’ gold 70 45  2-864
We may produce elliptical polarization by a sufficient
number of reflections at any given angle, in the same man¬
ner as in plane polarization. The following table contains
the results of observations made with steel:—
Number of Reflections at Number of Reflections Observed Angle
which Elliptical Polariza- at which the Pencil is Re- of
tion is produced. stored to a Single Plane. Incidence.
3, 9, 15, &c 6, 12, 18, &c 86° 0'
2£, 7|, 124, &c 5, 10, 15, &c 84 0
2, 6, 10, &c 4, 8, 12, &c 82 20
14,H, 74, &c 3, 6, 9, &c.  79 0
1, 3, 5, &c 2, 4, 6, &c 75 0
14, 44, 74, &c 3, 6, 9, &c 67 40
2, 6, 10, &c 4, 8, 12, &c 60 20
24, 74, 124, &c 5, 10, 15, &c 56 25
3, 9, 15, &c 6, 12, 18, &c 52 20
At an incidence of 67° 40' elliptical polarization is pro¬
duced by 1^, 4jL, 74 reflections. Hence we draw the in¬
teresting conclusion, that the ray must have completed its
elliptical polarization in the middle of the second fifth
reflections; that is, when it had reached its greatest depth
within the metallic surface. It then begins to resume its
state of polarization in a single plane, and recovers it at the
end of the 3d, 5th, and 7th reflection. Another very in¬
teresting effect is produced when one reflection is made on
one side of the polarizing angle, and the other reflection on
the other side. A ray that has been partially elliptically
1 See Sir John Ilerschel’s Treatise on Light,, f 1050.
OPT
I
Elliptical polarized by one reflection at 85° does not, as in plane po-
Polariza- larization, acquire more by a reflection at 54°, but it retraces
tion- its course, and recovers its state of single polarization.
We have seen that by two reflections there is only one an¬
gle—viz., 73° for silver—at which the elliptically-polarized
ray can be restored to plane polarization. At three reflections
there are two angles—viz., 63° 43', and 79° 40'—at which the
restoration can take place ; at/owr reflections, three angles ;
and so on. This phenomenon is exhibited to the eye in fig.
266, where the concentric arches I-I, 1I-II, &c., repre¬
sent the quadrant of incidence from one, two, &c., reflections,
B being the point of 90° and C that of 0°. The print D
on the line A is the point or line of maximum elliptic po¬
larization,—viz., 73° for silver ; and the figures 1, 2, 3, 4, 5,
indicate the points or nodes of restoration, and their dis¬
tances from C the corresponding angles of incidence at
which the restoration takes place. The loops or double
curves lying between the points 1, 2,3, &c., are drawn to
give an idea of the intensity of the elliptic polarization,
which has its minimum at 1, 2, 3, &c., and its maximum at
the white intermediate parts. These points of maximum
intensity do not bisect the loops, or are not equidistant from
the minima ; but such is their relation that the maximum
for n reflections is the minimum for 2n reflections. These
phenomena lead us to the explanation and analysis of the
complementary colours which accompany elliptical and cir¬
cular polarization.
Sect. II.—On the Coi.ours of Elliptical and
Circular Polarization.
U mtica!^ When the preceding experiments are made with homo-
iml circu- geneous light, we find that the points and angles of resto-
ar polari- ration vary for the differently coloured rays. Thus in silver
:ation. we have the maximum polarizing angle as follows :—
Corresponding Index
of Refraction.
For red light  75£   3-866
For yellow light  73   3-271
For blue light   70J   2’824
Hence it is obvious, that at the point of restoration, where
the blue rays are restored and vanish, the red rays are not
restored, and consequently will appear when the principal
section of the analyzing rhomb is in the plane of reflection.
Here, then, we have the cause of the phenomena of the
complementary colours seen in reflection from metals.
1 hey are analogous to the colours in oil of cassia and
chromate of lead at the maximum polarizing angle.1
I c S. 685
But the remarkable result of the preceding measures is, Elliptical
that in metallic as well as in total reflection the index of Polariza-
refraction is less for blue than for red light ; or, in the tlon•
language of the undulatory theory, the refractive in-
dex increases with the length of the wave. In a commu¬
nication to the Royal Irish Academy,2 on the propaga¬
tion of light in uncrystallized media, Dr Lloyd has ob¬
tained an expression for the velocity of the propagation of
light, each of its terms consisting of two parts with oppo¬
site signs, one of which is due to the action of ether and
the other to that of the body. Conceiving, therefore, that
there may be bodies in which the principal term is nothing,
the principal part of the expression will be that derived
from the second term ; and if that term be taken as an
approximate value, it will follow that the refractive index
of the substance must be in the subduplicate ratio of the
length of the wave nearly. “ Now,” says Dr Lloyd, “ it
is remarkable that this law of dispersion, so unlike any¬
thing observed in transparent media, agrees pretty nearly
with the results obtained by Sir David Brewster in some of
the metals. In all these bodies, the refractive index (in¬
ferred from the angle of maximum polarization) increases
with the length of the wave. Its values for the red, mean,
and blue ray in silver are 3*866, 3*271, 2*824, the ratios
of the second and third to the first being *85 and *73. Ac¬
cording to the law above given, these ratios should be
*88 and *79.”
Professor Maccullagh has3 endeavoured to represent
the phenomena described in the preceding pages by
empirical formulae, in the same manner as Fresnel re¬
presented those of total reflection. The following is a brief
abstract of Professor Maccullagh’s researches, which we
shall give in his own words :—
“ The author observes that the theory of the action of
metals upon light is among the desiderata of physical op¬
tics, whatever information we possess upon this subject
being derived from the experiments of Sir David Brew¬
ster. But, in the absence of a real theory, it is import¬
ant that we should be able to represent the phenomena
by means of empirical formulae; and accordingly the
author has endeavoured to obtain such formulae by a me¬
thod analogous to that which Fresnel employed in the
case of total reflection at the surface of a rarer medium,
and which, as is well known, depends on a peculiar interpre¬
tation of the sign f — For the case of metallic re¬
flection the author assumes that the velocity of propa¬
gation in the metal, or the reciprocal of the refractive
index, is of the form
m (cos x + V' - 1 sin x) ;
without attaching to this form any physical signification,
but using it rather as a means of introducing two con¬
stants (for there must be two constants, m and x> ft>r
each metal) into Fresnel’s formulae for ordinary reflection,
which contain only one constant,—namely, the refractive
index.
“ Then if i be the angle of incidence on the metal,
and i the angle of refraction, we have
sin i = m (cos x + */ “ 1 sin x) sin
and therefore we may put
cos i=ni (cos x — V — 1 8111 X) cos
if wt'4 cos4 e = 1 — 2m2 cos 2x sin2 i + m4 sin4 i,
r m oiii am i
and tan 2x =  5 —r-»-v
A 1 — wr cos 2x sin2 i
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
“ Now, first, if the incident light be polarized in the plane
1 For a full analysis of these phenomena, see Phil. Trant. for 1830, p. 319.
3 Proctcding* of Royal Irith Academy, Oct. 24, 1836.
a Jan. 9, 1837.
686
OPTICS.
Elliptical 0f reflection, and if the preceding values of sin cos i be
°tk)i)Za" su^slil;uleci *n Fresnel’s expression
sin {i — i)
sin (i + i') ’
for the amplitude of the reflected vibration, the result may
be reduced to the form
a (cos 8 — V — 1 sin 8), . . . . (5)
if vve put taniA=-^r, (6)
m
tan S = tan 2i//’sin (x + x') .... (7)
a2_ 1 ~~sin 2x1/ cos (x + xO _ ^ (8)
1+sin cos + * w
Then, according to the interpretation before alluded to, of
V — 1, the angle 8 will denote the change of phase, or the
retardation of the reflected light; and a will be the ampli¬
tude of the reflected vibration, that of the incident vibra¬
tion being unity. The values of m\ for any angle of
incidence, are found by formulae (3), (4)—the quantities m,
X, being given for each metal. The angle x is very small,
and may in general be neglected.
“ Secondly, when the incident light is polarized perpen¬
dicularly to the plane of reflection, the expression
tan (i — i)
tan (i + i)
treated in the same manner, will become
d (cos 8' — a/ — 1 sin 8')
if we make tan ij/ = mm,
(9)
(10)
01)
(12)
tan S' = tan 2i// sin (x — x')> • •
a/2 = 1 - sin 2^'cos (x-x') .
1 + sin 2i//cos (x — x) ’
and here, as before, S' will be the retardation of the reflect¬
ing light, and d the amplitude of its vibration.
“ The number may be called the modulus, and
the angle x the characteristic of the metal. The modulus
is something less than the tangent of the angle which Sir
David Brewster has called the maximum polarizing angle.
After two reflections at this angle, a ray originally polarized
in a plane inclined 45° to that of reflection will again be
plane-polarized in a plane inclined at a certain angle <£
(which is 17° for steel) to the plane of reflection; and we
must have
tan .
(13)
slowly up to a large angle of incidence (less than 75°), and Elliptic
then increases up to 90°, where there is total reflection. Poland
This singular fact, that the intensity decreases with the tion.
obliquity of incidence, was discovered by Mr Potter,1 whose
experiments extend as far as an incidence of 70°. Whether
the subsequent increase which appears from the table in¬
dicates a real phenomenon, or arises from an error in the
empirical formulae, cannot be determined without more ex¬
periments. It should be observed, however, that in these
very oblique incidences Fresnel’s formulae for transparent
media do not represent the actual phenomena for such
media, a great quantity of the light being stopped, when
the formulae give a reflection very nearly total.
£’ The value of 8' — 8, or the difference of phase, increases
from 0° to 180°. When a plane-polarized ray is twice
reflected from a metal, it will still be plane-polarized if the
sum of the values of S' — S for the two angles of incidence
be equal to 180°.
“ It appears from the formulas, that when the charac¬
teristic x is very small, the value of 8' will continue very
small up to the neighbourhood of the polarizing angle. It
will pass through 90° when mm’ = I; after which the change
will be very rapid, and the value of 8' will soon rise to nearly
180°. This is exactly the phenomenon which Mr Airy
observed in the diamond.
“ Another set of phenomena to which the author has
applied his formulae are those of the coloured rings formed
between a glass lens and a metallic reflector; and he has
thus been enabled to account for the singular appearances
described by M. Arago in the Memoires d’Arcueil, tom. 3,
particularly the succession of changes which are observed
when common light is incident, the intrusion of a new ring,
&c. But there is one curious appearance which he does
not find described by any former author. It is this : Through
the last twenty or thirty degrees of incidence the first dark
ring, surrounding the central spot, which is comparatively
bright, remains constantly of the same magnitude, although
the other rings, like Newton’s rings formed between two
glass lenses, dilate greatly with the obliquity of incidence.
This appearance was observed at the same time by Dr
Lloyd. The explanation is easy. It depends simply on
this circumstance (which is evident from the table), that
the angle 180° —S', at these oblique incidences, is nearly
proportional to cos i.
“ As to the index of refraction in metals, the author con-
M
lectures that it is equal to  .”
^ cos x
Also, at the maximum polarizing angle we must have
S'-8 = 90° (14)
And these two conditions will enable us to1 determine the
constants M and x for any metal, when we know its maxi¬
mum polarizing angle, and the value of ; both of which
have been found for a great number of metals by Sir David
Brewster. The following table is computed for steel,
taking m = 3^, x = 54°:—
0°
30
45
60
75
85
90
27°
23
19
13
7
2
0
27°
31
38
54
98
152
180
•526
•575
•638
•729
•850
•947
•526
•475
•407
•308
•240
•491
K*2 + «'2)
•526
•525
•522
•518
•545
•719
The most remarkable thing in this table is the last co¬
lumn, which gives the intensity of the light reflected when
common light is incident. The intensity decreases very
Sect. III.—On the Colours of Metals.
In the year 1817 M. Benedict Prevost made a series ofcoloursof
interesting experiments on the colours produced in metals metais.
by successive reflections of white light between two parallel
plates. He found that the colours became brighter and
deeper with the number of reflections. After ten reflections
silver assumed a tint analogous to that of bronze, gold and
copper became of a fine purple colour, and, in general, all
the metals experienced analogous changes.2
In the experiments of Sir David Brewster, already de¬
scribed, the same phenomena were seen in the different
metals which he employed; but no attempt was made to
employ their results in explaining the colours of metals.
It was left to M. Jamin to do this both by theory and ex¬
periment, and the methods by which he made this fine
discovery are given in his paper published in the Memoires
des Savans Etrangers for 1847.
In his beautiful theory on elliptical polarization, founded Theory of
on the experiments already detailed, M. Cauchy repre- Caurhy-
sented the phenomena by very complicated formulae, of
1 See Edin. Jour, of Science, N.S., Oct. 1830, vol. iii., p. 278.
2 Ann. de Chimie, &c^ tom. iv., pp. 192-201, and 436-443.
OPTICS.
687
SlHptical which the following are the principal results, as enumerated
Polariza- by M. Jamin :—
tion. very oblique incidences, all well-polished metals
are absolutely white.
2. When illuminated by polarized light in the plane of
incidence, they have a very pale tint of their own colour,
marked by a large proportion of white light.
3. When illuminated by light polarized perpendicular to
the plane of incidence, their tint is brighter, and less mixed
with white.
4. At a perpendicular incidence, the proper colour of
the metal, without being changed in its nature, does not
vary with the azimuth of the incident ray.
The formulae of Cauchy are founded on two data ob¬
tained from Sir David Brewster’s experiments:—1. The
angles of incidence at which a completely polarized ray is
restored to its polarized state after two reflections between
two parallel metallic mirrors. 2. The azimuth of this po¬
larized light when that of the incident ray is 45°. In
silver, for example, Sir David Brewster found that when
the angle of incidence was 73°, and the azimuth of the po¬
larized pencil 45°, the angle of restoration was 39° 48',
having experienced a rotation of 4o° —39° dS^d0 12'.
Other metals give different degrees of rotation. Platina,
for example, is 45° —22° = 230.
As the two data above mentioned vary with the refran-
gibility of the rays, the reflected light must generally be
coloured. M. Jamin has therefore calculated the intensity
of each reflected colour, and determined the colour arising
from their combination by the method of Biot.1 The results
are given in the following tables:—
5. That all those of the second class, though most fre¬
quently white, may have any colour in the spectrum.
6. In several metals the observed and the calculated
tints are the same.2
In concluding our account of the phenomena of Physical
Optics, we could have wished to have given a popular ac¬
count of the undulatory theory of light, and of the explana¬
tion which it affords of a great variety of the most interest¬
ing phenomena in Optics. This, however, has been done
to such an extent by Dr Thomas Young, in the article
Chromatics in this work, and in the article Polarization
by M. Arago, that we would not be justified in entering
again upon the subject. (See Professor Forbes’s Prelimi¬
nary Dissertation, chap, v.)
Explana¬
tion of
Natural
Phenomena
Undula¬
tory
theory.
Part VIII.—ON THE APPLICATION OF OPTICS TO
THE EXPLANATION OF NATURAL PHENOMENA.
As several of the subjects which belong to this branch of
Optics have been treated pretty fully in other parts of this
work, we must confine our attention to topics which have
not been previously discussed.
Sect. I.—On the Rainbow.
A general description of the rainbow has already been Rainbow,
given among the optical phenomena in Meteorology. In
order to explain the progress of the rays of light which
form the two bows, let R, R, R, R (fig. 267), be parallel
rays proceeding from the sun, situated at the back of the
One Reflection.
D Q
Copper  69° 56' Orange, very red....O'llS
Brass 103 13  Yellow 0-112
Bell metal  83 10  Orange-yellow 0-065
Speculum metal  67 25  Orange, very red ...0’027
Zinc 180 67  Blue 0 021
Silver  89 0  Orange-yellow 0 013
Steel White O’OOO
Ten Reflections.
D Q
Copper   42° 29' Red, average... 0-812
Brass   62 50  Orange, very red...0-349
Bell metal  40 40  Red 0-767
Speculum metal  53 59  Red orange 0-291
Zinc 267 58  Blue indigo 0-188
Silver  84 32  Orange-yellow 0-124
Steel White 0-000
%
In these tables, D represents the angular distance in
Newton’s circular spectrum from the extremity of the red
space of the calculated tint, and Q the quantity of coloured
light in the reflected pencil,- which is 1 ; the quantity of
white light being 1 — Q.
In these researches M. Jamin was led to the following
laws, some of which, as will be seen from the preceding ar¬
ticle, were long before discovered by Sir David Brewster:—
1. rl hat the angles of restoration diminish from the red
to the violet.
2. That the azimuth of restoration in some metals in¬
crease from the red to the violet, while in others they
diminish.
3. In speculum metal the azimuths diminish from the red
to the green rays, and increase from the green to the violet.
4. 1 hat all the metals of the first class have necessarily
the less refrangible colour, always becoming red after nu¬
merous reflections.
fall perpendicularly, and nearly so, will be transmitted
through the drop, and of course never reach the observer
at O. Other rays, however, especially those which fall ob-
liquelyi vvill be separated into the prismatic colours at the
first refraction, and will subsequently be reflected once,
twice, and more times, within the drop, and emerge after
one, two, or more reflections in different directions. Nowr,
it is obvious that there will be some position of the drops,
such as E, F, at which rays that have suffered one reflec¬
tion will reach the eye of the observer at O. Drops above
these will throw the rays which they refract after one re¬
flection above O, and drops below these will throw the same
rays below O. In like manner, there must be some posi¬
tion, as at H and G, at which other drops in which the light
that has suffered two reflections will fall upon the eye at O ;
the drops above these throwing the rays above, and the
drops below them throwing the rays below O. Now, each
drop forms by refraction a prismatic spectrum, or coloured
1 Traite de Physique, tom. iii., p. 445.
2 See Comptea Rendus, tom. xxv., p. 714; Moigno’s Repertoire d’Optique, tom. iv., pp. 1397-1437 ; Phil. Trans, 1830, p. 319.
688
OPTICS.
Explana* and elongated image of the sun. The rays RE, RF, which
tion of reach the eye at O, must fall upon the lower drops E, F on
Natural thejr upper side, as shown in the figure, and consequently
cnomena ^ may ije f'ouncl by tracing the rays through the drops) the
' spectrum which they form will have the red rays upper¬
most, asatr, near F, and the violet rays downwards, as atv,
near E ; and as the same effect will be produced from all the
other drops which reflect the sun’s rays to the point O, there
will appear to an eye at O a coloured bow, such as we see
it in the heavens, with all the colours of the spectrum, as if
they had been formed from the sun’s image by a prism of
water that produced the same degree of refraction. In like
manner, the rays that enter the lower side of the drops will
form an inverted spectrum, after two reflections, in which
the red rays are below, and the violet ones above; and as
this spectrum is much fainter, it will give a second coloured
bow, fainter than the first, and having its red side below,
and its violet side above. The following are the dimensions
of the two bows :—
Radius of the red edge of the inner how  42° 2'
Radius of the tiioZet edge    40 17
Breadth of the inner how  1 45
Radius of the violet edge of the outer bow  54 7
Radius of the red  50 57
Breadth of the outer bow  3 10
Distance between the hows  8 55
Dr Halley has shown that the solar rays which suffer
three reflections will form a bow round the sun at the dis¬
tance of 40° 28', and that those which suffer four reflec¬
tions will form a bow at the distance of 45° 33' from the sun ;
but the light which reaches the eye after so many reflections
is too faint to be seen, and these bows have consequently
never been discovered.
Supernumerary bows of red and green light, to the num¬
ber oi three, have been seen in contact with the violet arch
of the inner bow, and we have seen them also on the out¬
side of the outer or secondary bow. The cause of these
is not known, but a very ingenious explanation of them has
been given in Chromatics, vol. xi., p. 634, sect. iii.
Polariza- Sir David Brewster, upon examining the two rainbows
tion of the wjth a rhomb of Iceland spar, found that they consisted
rainbow. vv]10]iy 0f light polarized in the plane of reflection within
the drop, or in planes coincident with the radii of the bow.
The two bows present a case of conical polarization, the
part of the bow vanishing as the principal section of the
rhomb becomes parallel to its radius. It is strange that the
polarization of the bow, and consequently of light, had not
been discovered when it happened to be seen by reflection
on panes of glass, or other reflecting substances, lying with
their planes of reflection perpendicular to the planes of re¬
fraction within the drop, and near the angle of maximum po¬
larization. The polarization of the rainbow was observed
also by M. Biot.
Sect. II.—On Halos and Parhelia.
Halos and The name of halos and parhelia have been given to circles
parhelia. r0und the sun and moon, some of which are extremely com¬
plicated and beautiful. The general theory of this class of
phenomena has been given by Dr Young in the article
Chromatics, sect. ii.; and a description of the phenomena
themselves, in the article Meteorology, by Sir John
Herschel, vol. xiv., pars. 227-232.
Artificial The production of halos, which have their origin in the re¬
halos. fraction and reflection of light by crystals of ice floating in the
atmosphere, may be illustrated by the following method given
by Sir David Brewster. A few drops of a saturated solu¬
tion of alum, spread over a plate of glass so as to crystallize
rapidly, will cover the glass with an imperfect crust, which
is composed, when examined by the microscope, of flat oc- Explana.
tahedral crystals, scarcely visible to the eye. If the ob- tion of
server places his eye behind this plate, and close to its Natural
smooth side, he will see the sun or the candle encircled with Phenoinena
three fine halos placed at diflerent distances. The interior
one, which is the whitest, is formed by the refraction of the
rays through two of the faces that have the least inclination
to each other, and consequently give a spectrum in which
the colours are not greatly dispersed ; and as a similar pair
of refracting planes lie in every direction, there will be a
spectrum in every direction, and consequently a rainbow of
a circular form. The second halo, which is blue without
and red within, with all the intermediate prismatic colours
more highly dispersed, is formed by a pair of faces more in¬
clined. The third halo, which is larger and more brilliantly
coloured, is produced by a third pair of refracting planes
having a greater refracting power, and consequently giving
a higher dispersion. When the granular crystals have
double refraction, and when they crystallize with their axes
perpendicular to the plates, combinations of greater variety
and beauty will be produced.
The phenomena presented by halos have been recently Op'iwii
studied with much attention as a branch of what has been nuteoro-
called optical meteorology. It has now been placed beyond a H'D
doubtthat ice belongs to the rhombohedral system of crystals,
and crystallizes in six-sided prisms with angles of 60° ; and as
such crystals actually float in the atmosphere, the form and
the luminous condition of halos can be calculated and as¬
certained with as much exactness as other optical phe¬
nomena.
In an able and elaborate work on halos, published about
ten years ago, M. Bravais1 has treated the subject in the
most satisfactory manner. Two remarkable halos have at¬
tracted the notice of observers,—viz., the halo of 22° and
the halo of 46°. The first of these is produced by the re¬
fraction of the incident rays by the angles of 60° of the
prisms of ice, and the second by the refraction of the twelve
dihedral angles of 90°, formed by the six faces of the prisms
with their two bases or summits. In order to compare this
theory with observation, M. Bravais obtained the following
indices of refraction for the different colours of the spec¬
trum :—
Index of
Refraction.
Extreme red  R3043
Limit of orange and
red  1-3078
Limit of yellow and
orange  l-3088
Index of
Refraction.
Limit of green and
yellow  1-3100
Limit of blue and
green  1-3133
Limit of violet and
blue  1-3162
With these measures he obtained the following magnitudes
of the different rings of the halos :—
Halo of 22° Radius.
Radius of
Ring.
Red ring  21° 37'
Orange do  21 43
Halo of 46° Radius.
I
Radius of
Ring.
Yellow ring  21° 48'
Green do  21 57
Radius of
Ring.
Red ring  45° 6'
Orange do  45 25
Yellow do  45 38
Radius of
Ring.
Green ring  46° 3'
Blue do  46 50
The following explanation of the different parts of the
meteor has been given by M. Bravais :—
1. The halo of 22° is produced by the dihedral angles of
60° of prisms of ice that have no particular mode of orien¬
tation.
2. The parhelion of 22° is produced by the same angles
when the axes of the prisms become vertical.
1 Mimoire sur les Halos, Paris, 1847, pp. 266, 4to j see also Moigno’s Repertoire, &c., tom. iv., 1627-1638.
OPTICS.
68!)
Explana- 3. The circumzenithal or upper tangential arc of the
tion of halo of 46° is produced by the angles of 90° when the prisms
are vertical.
4. When the axes take indeterminate directions they
form across the same angles the halo of 46°.
5. The upper and lower tangential arcs of the halo of
22° are produced by the angles of 60° when the axes of the
prisms are horizontal. When the sun is from 35° to 40°
high, these arcs form an elliptical halo with its large axis
horizontal, circumscribing the halo of 22°.
6. The parhelic circle, a white horizontal belt, sometimes
incomplete, passing through the sun, is produced by reflec¬
tion from the vertical faces of the prism whose axes are ver¬
tical or horizontal.
7. The extraordinary halos (extraordinary circumzeni¬
thal arcs) are produced by the faces of the pyramids, either
truncated or complete, which terminate the prism.
8. The parhelia on the parhelic circles at different dis¬
tances from the sun, are produced by compound crystals
(asterial hexagons) of ice or snow, or by asterial dodecagons
of different kinds.
9. The vertical luminous columns which appear above
the rising sun are produced by internal reflections from the
base or summit of the prisms when vertical, these prisms
oscillating slightly round the vertical. The lustre and
length of the columns are increased by 3, 5, and 7 reflec¬
tions, while 2, 4, and 6 reflections produce masses of light
accompanying the sun from 20° to 30° of altitude. A lu¬
minous cross is produced when these masses of light are
combined with portions of the parhelic circle.
The false suns which have been so frequently observed,
and the anthelia and other phenomena, may be explained
by means of crystals of ice more or less perfect.
M. Bravais has not made any reference to the possible
production of luminous appearances round the sun by the
internal condition of the crystals of ice. We have found
in pieces of ice crystalline cavities, sometimes empty and
sometimes filled with water, which, like the tubes in certain
specimens of Iceland spar, may produce optical phenomena;
and it is quite possible that the surfaces of the crystals may
not only be striated, as M. Bravais supposes, but may be
disintegrated, and produce surfaces such as those described
in the following section.
In order to reproduce halos and other optical phenomena
artificially, M. Bravais constructed an apparatus, which is
shown in fig. 268, where P is an equilateral hollow glass
prism, with angles of 60°. It
is filled with water by an ori¬
fice O in its tubular axis, and
is made to revolve by a piece
of clock-work round a vertical
axis A. When it is made to
revolve a hundred times in a
second, and is illuminated by
the sun, or by a lamp at pro¬
per distances, it will reproduce
a large number of the pheno¬
mena already described.
The nature and origin of
halos is indicated by the state
of the light of which they are
formed. We owe to M.
Arago the important observation that the light of halos is
polarized by refraction.1
'fhe following observations w’ere made by M. Bravais :—
1. I he parhelic circle consists of a circle formed by ex¬
ternal reflection superposed upon a circle formed by inter¬
nal reflection.
Polar! za-
ion of the
ight of
i&los.
Fig. 2GS.
The first of these is polarized in a plane passing through Explana-
the luminous source—that is, horizontally or negatively. It tion of
is a maximum towards 70°, the polarization disappearing at Natural
0° and 180°. Phenomena
In the second circle no polarization is seen in the part of
the circle produced by total reflection, but it is very strong
and horizontal or negative in the part formed by partial re¬
flection, the maximum being at and beyond 30°. Hence,
when the two circles form the parhelic circle, there should
be a maximum at 75°, and another towards 100° or 120°.
2. The halo of 22° is feebly polarized by refraction, the
opposite polarization of the atmosphere by reflection re¬
ducing it considerably.
3. The tangent arcs of the halos of 22° and 46° ought to
be polarized tangentially.
4. The parhelion of 46° ought to be polarized verti¬
cally.
5. The polarization of the anthelia ought to be horizontal
and strong.
6. The luminous columns ought to be polarized verti¬
cally, and strongly at their extremities.
These theoretical results, and others, have been confirmed
by experiments with the apparatus above described, but,
with the exception of M. Arago’s observations on the actual
polarization of halos, the condition of the light of real halos
remains to be investigated. M. Bravais, however, has made
new observations on the halo of 22°. The tangential po¬
larization is always strong at its upper and lower points, and
it extends 5° or 6° beyond the halo, there being a neutral
ring at 27°, beyond which the polarization is normal. The
polarization within the halo suffers remarkable changes.
M. Bravais found it nothing in the upper part on the 4th
October 1847; horizontal in its lateral parts on the 8th
September, and on the 5 th, 10th, and 16th of October, 1847;
and at other times vertical. These remarkable changes
arise from extensive changes in the polarization of the at¬
mosphere.2
Among the phenomena of optical meteorology may be Converg-
ranked those of diverging and converging beams. The ing beams,
phenomenon of diverging beams is so common in sum¬
mer, when the sun is near the horizon, and its cause so
obvious, that it is unnecessary to say more about it than
that it arises from portions of the sun’s rays passing through
openings in the atmosphere, the adjacent portions being
stopped by clouds. The phenomenon of converging beams
is of rare occurrence. It is seen in the horizon opposite to
the sun, and the beams converge to a point as far beneath the
horizon as the sun is above it; so that they appear to diverge
as it were from another sun placed in the antesolar point.
Sometimes the beams appear to be black, the dark spaces
between the luminous radiations appearing the more dis¬
tinct of the two. The phenomenon is one of perspective.
If the N. pole of a terrestrial globe is placed 10° above the
horizon, and is supposed to send out radiations in the plane of
each of its 15 meridians, they will all meet or converge to
its south pole, 10° below the horizon.3
As explanatory of phenomena yet unex¬
plained, or which may yet be discovered in
optical meteorology, we may describe the very
curious luminous circles produced by looking
at the sun or a candle through certain speci¬
mens of Iceland spar. In one position of the
rhomb the two rings or circular bands A, B
(fig.269), are equal, passing through their point
of contact S, which consists of the two super¬
posed images produced by double refraction.
Upon inclining the rhomb, the circle A be- Fig. 269.
comes less and less, while B becomes larger and larger, till A
Luminous
circles in
Iceland
spar.
1 M. Bravais calls this tangential polarization, in opposition to normal, or polarization by reflection.
2 Brewster s Treatise on Optics, p. 391. 3 See Edin. Jour, of Science, April 1832, vol. vi., pp. 25, 256.
VOL. XVI. . 4 g
690
OPTICS.
Explana- disappears in S. Continuing the inclination in the same
tion of direction, A reappears within the ring B, but always
Natural touching S, and becomes larger and larger along with B till
enomena |VV0 a|most form a straight line, and bend in the
opposite direction. The two rings are the two images
formed by double refraction, and are oppositely polarized.
They are produced by reflection from the cylindrical sur¬
faces of minute tubes in the mineral, of which there are
several thousands in an inch. We have found similar rings
in beryl. The two are oppositely polarized, and aie pro¬
duced by the cylindrical surfaces of tubular cavities which
contain, or have contained, the two new fluids called by
Dana Brewstoline and Amethystoline, found in topaz,
amethyst, and other minerals.1
Circular As compound crystals of snow, called lateral,2 are sup-
crystals. posed by M. Bravais to produce some of the luminous por¬
tions of halos, there may be other crystalline groups in the
air formed of other substances than water, which may pro¬
duce luminous phenomena. The subject of circular crys¬
tals, therefore, becomes an interesting branch of optical
meteorology ; and when we consider how many substances
exist in the air in a state of minute subdivision, and may
therefore combine in single crystals, as well as in crystal¬
line groups, it is hardly philosophical to assume that the
various complex phenomena produced by the sun’s light are
owing solely to crystals of ice and snow. 1 he most beau¬
tiful halos may be produced by various bodies, whose sepa¬
rate crystalline particles arrange themselves in radial lines
round a centre, and these halos are sometimes polarized
tangentially or by refraction, like those in the atmosphere.
These halos are finely seen in oil of mace, properly melted
and cooled between plates of glass. Our limits will not
permit us to treat of this subject. It may be sufficient to
state that Sir David Brewster has given a list of seventy
circular crystals, about thirty of which are positive, and forty
negative.3
We have endeavoured, by looking through hoar-frost
upon glass, to produce halos actually resembling those seen
in nature; but we have not succeeded, though we have no
doubt that it may be effected by causing vapour deposited
under a variety of circumstances to be frozen in different
ways.
Sect. III.—On the Figures produced by Reflection
whole of the original surface of the crystal which reflects Explana.
it having been removed, and numerous facets variously tion of
inclined to it developed. PhNatural
By dipping the surface thus disintegrated into a saturated ^ enomena
solution of alum, particles of alum will replace those which
were removed, till, by repeated immersions, the surface ABC
will become a perfect surface, reflecting, as it did at first, a
bright image of the candle,—the particles of alum flying
into their proper places with inconceivable rapidity.
An octahedral face oi' fluor spar, acted upon for a few days
by sulphuric acid, will
display the remarkable
figure shown in fig. 271,
the parts of which are de¬
veloped in the following
order :—A, B, C, mno, ef,
gh, ik; then six curves
proceeding from the image
ef, gh, ik, as in fig. 272,
and having a new round
image within their con¬
cavity. Three insulated
images appear also at l,
m, n, 120° distant. The
figure ah, ac, be was observed on a natural cleavage surface
of fluor spar ; and the
same was produced upon
another cleavage surface
by grinding it upon a
rough hone. The figure
ah, ac, be is sometimes
seen along with the new
figure, as in fig. 272.
Different figures are
produced on the faces of
the cube, and singular
varieties may be deve¬
loped by increasing the
strength of the acid and
the duration of its action.
Figures analogous to those described may be seen on
the natural cleavage planes of various crystals, such as
Brazil, topaz, fluor spar, hornblende, axinite, horacite, dia¬
mond, garnet, amethyst, oligist iron ore, muriate of soda,
&c. One of the most curious of these figures is shown in
1 See Phil. Mag. 1848, vol. xxxiii., p. 489.
2 Mr Glaisher has published an immense number of drawings of these singularly beautiful crystals.
3 See Phil. Tram. 1815, and Edin. Tram. 1853, vol. xx., p. 607.
^ 4
OPTICS.
691
Explana- Sect. IV.—On THE UNUSUAL REFRACTION AND ReFLEC-
Natural TION 0F THE AtmospheRE.
Phenomena Qne t|ie mogt interestjng applications of optical sci-
ence is the explanation which it affords of the extraordinary
refraction Phenomena w,lich arise f’rom difference of density in dif¬
ferent parts of the atmosphere. On this subject we shall
confine ourselves at present to an account of the most ex¬
traordinary of all the phenomena of this kind which have
been observed and correctly described. It was observed by
Dr Vince, on the 6th of August 1806, about seven o’clock
in the evening. Between Ramsgate and Dover there is a
hill, over which the tops of the four turrets of Dover Castle
are usually seen to a person at Ramsgate. At the time
above mentioned, however, Dr Vince, when at Ramsgate,
not only saw the four turrets v, x, iv, y, but the whole of the
castle, m, m, s, r, appearing as if it were situated on the side
of the hill next to Ramsgate, and rising as much above the
hill AB as usual, as it it had been brought over and placed
on the Ramsgate side of the hill (fig. 274). This appear-
Fig. 274.
a steep hill about 500 feet above the valley of New Radnor. Explana-
About two o'clock, when the sun was bright and the day tion of
sultry, she picked some wild flowers on the top of the hill Natural
and then descended to a spot from which she could see the PheDOniena
carriage with her friends whom she had left. After wavin';
her victorine, which she held in her hand, to her friend^
she perceived, upon turning round, a figure standing a few
yards from her upon a wet spot, from which a little thin
mist was rising. The figure stood directly opposite to her,
wavering a little; and she did not recognise it to be her
own image till she noticed that, like herself, it held a vic¬
torine and a bunch of flowers in its hand. The dress of
the figure resembled her own, and the flowers were similar
to those which she had gathered ; and the picture was so
distinct that she could even see her own face. The effect,
she said, was the same as if she had stood before a looking-
glass, the figure moving its hand when she moved hers.
The two ladies in the carriage at the bottom of the hill saw
the image of the lady; and they asked her, when she joined
them, who was her companion on the hill !
In the ordinary cases of mirage from unusual refraction, Lateral
the refracted image is seen above the real one, either in- mirage,
verted or erect, or both ; but cases of lateral mirage have
occurred, in which the image is on the right or left side of
the object. When any part of the ground has been heated
by the sun, it forms in the atmosphere, on cooling, a column
of heated air, which produces the phenomena of unusual
refraction at its junction with the colder air around it.
From this cause, ships on the Lake of Geneva have been
seen doubled, and sailing at a considerable distance from
each other; and persons walking have been seen in dupli¬
cate.
ance continued about twenty minutes. Between Ramsgate
and the land from which the hill rises there is about six
miles of sea, and from thence to the top of the hill about the
same distance, the height of the eye above the surface of
the sea being about 70 feet. It is a very singular circum¬
stance in this phenomenon, that the image of the castle
was so very strong and well defined that the hill itself did
not appear through the image.
In ordei to explain this phenomenon, Dr Vince supposes
AB (fig. 275) to represent the castle, FC the cliff of
T
Fig. 275.
Ramsgate, B I'D the hill, DC the sea, E the place of the
spectator, 1 the top of the hill, AywE a ray of light coming
from the top of the castle to the observer, and BxwV ano¬
ther ray coming from the bottom of the castle, and TxzTL
a ray from the summit of the hill, reaching the eye at E, in a
direction between those of the other two rays; then it is
obvious that such a disposition of the rays will produce the
observed appearance. In order to give such a refraction,
the density of the air between yvV and xwV must have
vaiied with great rapidity, so as to increase the curvature
of the ray 1 .rzE, after it cuts BicE in x, in order to make
the ray IxzV fall between the other two rays. (See Edin¬
burgh Transactions, vol vi., p. 245.)
Some of the cases of mirage ascribed to unusual re¬
daction.have been produced by reflection from dense mist
or fog in the atmosphere. Dr Buchan has described, in
the Philosophical Iransactions, a remarkable case of this
kind ; and another of peculiar interest was observed in
Radnorshire on the 21st August 1851. A young lady,
having left her party, ascended to the top of the Mynydot,
Sect. V.—On the Colours of the Atmosphere.
As the earth’s atmosphere acts upon light like all other Colours of
transparent bodies, and is continually changing its chemical,the a-mo-
mechanical, and hygrometrical condition, its action is mag- 8Phere-
nified in very different ways under different circumstances.
As the colour of the sky is absolutely black on the tops of
the highest mountains, its blue colour in the regions which
we inhabit is owing to the action of the atmosphere.
That the blue light of the sky is light that has suffered
reflection from the particles of our atmosphere is proved
by the fact observed by Sir David Brewster, that this blue
light is polarized in a plane passing through the observer’s
eye and the sun. This fact is well illustrated by the dis¬
covery which we owe to the same author, of atmospheric
lines in the spectrum formed by the blue sky. These lines
are principally in the red or more refrangible spaces, as
already described, and hence the prevailing light is blue.
The splendid colours which mark the rising and the set¬
ting of the sun, varying from the deepest red to orange,
yellow, and even green, arise from the same cause; for
when we analyze these various lights with the prism, we
find that they are owing to different parts of the spectrum
having been absorbed by the atmosphere.
The phenomenon of blue shadows is finely seen when the Blue sha-
sky is particularly blue. It arises solely from the shadows dows*
being illuminated by the blue sky, while the part round the
shadow is illuminated by the sun, or by the light of a candle.
If the light of the sun passes at the time through vapours,
so as to make it yellow or orange, the contrast of the sha¬
dow is still more striking and beautiful. The light of a
candle which contains a great excess of red light, and which'
may be made to contain more by letting it burn with a long
wick, exhibits along with the light of the sky the pheno¬
menon of blue shadows in great perfection.
Much light, has been thrown upon the subject of Professor
the colours of the atmosphere by Professor Forbes, in an Forbes’s
able and interesting memoir, read to the Royal Society exPeri*
J J merits.
692
OPTICS.
Explana- 0f Edinburgh in 1839.1 In a previous communication he
Natural ^rawn ^ie following conclusions from a series of im-
PhenoinenaPortarit experiments “ On the Colour of Steam under cer-
v , ^ , tain circumstances :—
“ 1. Steam, in its purely gaseous form, is colourless,—at
least at small thicknesses.
“ 2. The orange red colour of steam by transmitted light
appears to be due to a particular stage of the condensing
process. Before condensation, it is colourless and trans¬
parent ; it is next transparent and smoke-coloured ; finally,
it becomes colourless at small thicknesses, and absolutely
opaque at greater.
“ 3. The state of tension of the steam seems only to affect
the phenomena so far as it renders the critical colorific stage
of condensation more or less completely observable.
“ 4. The absorptive action of steam on the spectrum is
not exerted in the same way as that of other gaseous
coloured bodies, such as nitrous acid gas and iodine vapour.
It cuts off, however, totally the same part of the spectrum as
nitrous acid does. Its phenomena, perhaps, have a greater
analogy to those of opalescence than any other.”
As the phenomena thus described do not require steam
of high tension for their production, Professor Forbes
“ thought it probable that the tints of sunset and artificial
light seen through certain fogs may be owing to the absorp¬
tive action of watery vapour in this critical condition.”2
This ingenious theory of atmospheric colour is ably sup¬
ported in his second paper, in which Professor Forbes dis¬
cusses the various opinions on the colour of the sky and of
the clouds which have been hitherto maintained.
An instrument called a Cyanometer has been invented
for measuring the blue colour of the sky.
Sect. VI.—On the Polarization of the Atmosphere.
Polariza- The polarization of the atmosphere,—that is, of the blue
tion of the sky entirely free of clouds,—was observed and described
atmos- different philosophers both in France and England,
p ere. Whatever reflects and refracts light necessarily polarizes it
at an angle dependent on the index of refraction. Hence
it follows, that the polarizing angle of air is a little above
45°; and consequently, that, in the vicinity of the sun, and
in the region opposite to him, the polarization should be a
minimum, and a maximum in every part of a great circle
distant a little more than 90° from the sun.
Owing to the quantity of light polarized by refraction at
every point where it is polarized by reflection, and to se¬
condary reflections within the atmosphere, the polarization
is never complete in the great circle of 90° from the sun. It
is equal only to a rotation of 30° of the plane of polarization,
or what is produced by one reflection at an angle of 6o^Q
from a surface of glass whose index of refraction is 1'483.
Arago’s The first important step in studying this subject was made
neutral by M. Arago, who discovered in the region opposite the
point. gun a neuirai point in which there was no polarization. It
was situated 25° or 30° above the antisolar point, or the
point 180° from the sun. Sir David Brewster found, that
when the sun was in the horizon, rising or setting, this
neutral point was I850 above the antisolar point in the op¬
posite horizon. When the sun is 11° or 12° above the
horizon, and the antisolar point of course as much below
it, the neutral point is in the horizon, and therefore only
11° or 12° above the antisolar point. As the sun descends
to the horizon, and the antisolar point rises, the distance
of the neutral point from the latter gradually increases from
its maximum 11° or 12°, till it becomes 18^° when the sun
is in the horizon, and increases to 25° when the sun is so
far below the horizon as just to render the point visible. In Explana.
the latitude of St Andrews this neutral point is above the tion of
horizon all the day between the middle of November and Natural
the end of January ; and in the rest of the year it never r,,lenomena
rises till the sun is within 11° or 12° of the horizon, and
never sets till the sun is 11° or 12° above the horizon.
On the 8th of June 1841, Sir David Brewster discovered Secondly
a secondary neutral point accompanying that of Arago. Itneutral
is best seen above the sea horizon. On the 21st April 1842,P0^
the secondary neutral point was 2° 50' high when the pri¬
mary neutral point was 15° above the horizon. These two
neutral points were separated by negative or horizontal bands
of negative polarization. When Arago’s neutral point rises,
it does not first appear in the horizon, but 1^° above it.
M. Babinet discovered a second neutral point at 18^° Babinet’s
above the sun when rising or setting. It is never seen soneutral
distinctly as that of Arago. When the sun is in the zenith, Point‘
this neutral point coincides with the sun; and as the sun’s
altitude diminishes, it retires from the sun, becomes 13°
distant at an altitude of 65°, and it reaches the distance of
18^° at sunrise or sunset. The secondary neutral point,
which must accompany that of Babinet, has not yet been
observed. Calling x the distance of this point above the
sun, and A the sun’s altitude, we have x~ 18£° cos A.
A third neutral point, indicated by theory, was discovered Brewster s
beneath the sun by Sir David Brewster. This point is veryne^tral
difficult to be seen. It is invisible in our latitudes in thePoint’
months of November, December, and January, unless when,
early in November and late in January, a higher degree of
polarization in the sky brings it above the horizon at noon.
When the sun is in the zenith, it coincides with his centre ;
and at an altitude of 45° it is nearly 7° distant from him.
The secondary neutral point which must accompany it has
not yet been seen, and is not likely to be discovered in this
climate. The distance x of this neutral point below the
sun will be # = -—- C0S ", z being the zenith’s distance of
tan z ’ &
the neutral point.
When the sun is in the zenith, and the neutral points of
Babinet and Brewster united in his centre, the system of
lines of equal polarization will be analogous to those of
uniaxal crystals; but in all other positions of the sun, the
lines of equal polarization will resemble those in biaxal
crystals, the line joining the sun and the antisolar point
corresponding with the line which bisects the optical or
resultant axes of biaxal crystals, the neutral points corre¬
sponding with the centres of the systems of biaxal rings.
In anormal condition of the atmosphere, the phenomenaof
atmospherical polarization maybe represented by the formula,
R = 30° (sin D sin D'),
in which R is the rotation or degree of polarization at any
point of the sphere whose distance from the two neutral
points is D and D'.
By this formula, the lines of equal polarization would have
the form of lemniscates, as in biaxal crystals, and the maxi¬
mum polarization would be in the horizon, and not in the
zenith, which is contrary to observation. By making a
correction depending on the zenith distance Z and the azi¬
muth A, the formula becomes
R = 33 (sin D') — 6° 34' (sin Z sin A).
A map of the lines of equal polarization will be found in
Johnston’s Physical Atlas, part vii.3
Sect. VII.—On the Colours of Natural Bodies.
The splendid colours which appear in the natural world Colours of
   natural
1 Edin. Trans., vol. xiv., part ii., pp. 375-391; or Phil. Mag., June 1839, vol. xiv., p. 419.
2 Phil. Mag., Feb. 1839, vol. xiv., pp. 121-126.
3 See also Phil. Mag., Dec. 1847, vol. xxxi., p. 444; and Moigno's Repertoire, &c., tom. iv., pp. 1639-1648.
bodies.
OPT
Explana- have long attracted the attention of philosophers; but no
tion of person ever had the courage to give a philosophical theory
Natural 0f t]lem but Sir Isaac Newton. When he had completed
’henomena ana]ySis 0f t]ie colours of thin plates, he conceived that
they furnished the true cause of the colours of natural bodies.
If we take a thin film of mica, a few millionths of an inch
in thickness, it appears to the eye of a bright blue colour.
Sir Isaac Newton maintained, that if this film could be cut
into a great number of minute parts of the same thickness
as itself, these particles would “ keep their colour, and a
heap of them constitute a mass or powder of the same colour
which the plate exhibited before it was broken.” A plate
of mica of a different thickness would be green, another
yellow, and another red-, and all these, if broken down into
particles “ of the same thickness with the plates,” would of
course, according to our author, give a green, a yelloxo, or
a red mass.
We have already seen that different thicknesses of a trans¬
parent plate like mica give various orders of colours, each
having a different tint corresponding with a particular thick¬
ness. Considering, then, the particles of all bodies whatever
as transparent, and as having different sizes, they will produce
colours corresponding to these different sizes; and conse¬
quently we shall have as great a variety of tints in nature
as there are varieties in the sizes of the particles of bodies.
A difficulty, however, here presents itself. The colours
arising from thin plates vary rapidly by inclining them to
the incident light, whereas those of coloured media suffer
no such change. Hence Sir Isaac Newton was driven to
the supposition that the particles of bodies have such an
enormous refractive power, that the paths of the rays re¬
fracted by a parallel film will not differ much in length from,
and consequently not be very oblique to, a perpendicular
line. After explaining this theory, Sir Isaac ventures to
affix to different natural colours the order to which they
belong, the very tint of that order, and consequently the
thickness of the particles which produce the colour. He
says, for example, that the green colour of all vegetables,
the most general tint in nature, is a green of the third order,
and that the blue colour of the sky is a blue of the first order.
Now, we know the composition of a green of the third order,
and of a blue of the first order, as given by Sir Isaac New¬
ton himself. The green of the third order “ is principally
constituted of original green, but not without a mixture of
some blue and yelloiv that is, it consists of all the rays
of the green space, with the least refrangible rays of the
blue space, and the most refrangible rays of the yellow space,
and it does not contain a single ray of indigo, violet, orange,
or red light.
reen Such being the case, it occurred to Sir David Brewster
flours of that the green colour of plants could be accurately analyzed
lants. by tjie prjsm . anc] having extracted, by means of alcohol, the
green juice of a great variety of vegetable bodies, he ana¬
lyzed their colours by the prism. In all such bodies he
found the composition of this green colour to be identically
the same; but it had no relation whatever to the green of the
third order. It contained portions of all the colours of the
spectrum; and the prismatic spectrum seen through these
green juices was divided unequally into six luminous bands
of various breadths, separated by dark intervals.1 In the
same manner he found that the blue colour of the sky was
not a blue of the first order.
From a series of experiments in which the same author
has been engaged, he has been led to the conclusion that
absorption is the cause of this extensive class of colours;
ICS. 693
and that all the colours of natural bodies arise from the in- Explana-
terference of light, by which certain rays are extinguished. tion of
When the interference takes place as in thin plates, be- Natural
tween the light reflected from the two surfaces, and be- ^benomena
tween the direct transmitted ray and other transmitted
rays which suffer reflection within the thin plates, we have
two colours complementary to each other; but even in this
case, when the number of films is great, as in decomposed
glass, the transmitted colours lose all their resemblance to
the colours of thin plates, while the reflected tints are ex¬
ceedingly brilliant and metallic in their lustre.2
In coloured fluids and coloured glasses, and coloured
gaseous media, the interference arises from rays that ac¬
quire different velocities in passing through the coloured
medium, one part of the intromitted light passing through
the particles, and the other through the intervening spaces.
Hence there are no reflected tints in such coloured media.3
Sect. VIII.—On the Colours of Dispersed Light
within Solid and Fluid Bodies.
In various solid and fluid bodies, coloured light is reflected Colours of
from their interior when a colourless beam of light is trans- disPersed
mitted through their mass. This light is produced by dif- |a°gpjj jlth"
ferent causes, often by vacuities of various forms sufficiently an(i fluid
small to reflect the colour of thin plates, as in Labrador bodies,
spar, tabasheer, opals (precious and hydrophanous), and nu¬
merous chemical solutions. The colours, however, of which
we mean to treat at present are of a different description,
and have a different origin.
The internal dispersion of light within /7wor spar (from
which this class of dispersed colours has received from Pro¬
fessor Stokes the name of fluorescence) was first observed
by Sir David Brewster, who described it in 1838 to the
meeting of the British Association at Newcastle.4 The
light itself had been observed by others, but it was be¬
lieved to be external, and was ascribed by Sir John Pler-
schel to a structure of “ the surface of the spar, whether
natural or artifical, which could not be removed by any
polishing.”5 By examining various specimens Sir David
Brewster not only found that the predominant blue light
in the spar from Alston Moor came from the interior of the
mineral, but that different strata dispersed light of different
colours,—blue light from some strata, pink from others, and
white from others, alternating with strata which dispersed no
light at all. The same property of dispersing light of dif¬
ferent colours he found in various coloured glasses, espe¬
cially in yellow Bohemian glass, called canary glass, which
dispersed a fine green colour, and in some specimens of
colourless plate and colourless flint-glass. The most beauti¬
ful example of the phenomenon he found in an alcoholic solu¬
tion of the green leaves of plants (the common laurel leaf,
for example, cut into shreds), which dispersed from its
interior a blood-red light. The same property he found in
guiacum, and in solutions of Colchicum autumnale, and sul¬
phate of strychnine?
Chemists had long ago noticed the blue colour of a weak
solution of sulphate of quinine, but Sir John Herschel7 was
the first person who examined it experimentally. He gave
it the name of epipolism, from cmiroX-q, a surface, believing
it to be produced solely by the action of the surface. Upon
examining it with a prism, he found it to consist of a
“ small per centage of rays extending over a great range
of refrangibility.”
1 See Edin. Trans., vol. xii. 2 phiL Trans 1837> p 245i
3 See Brewster’s Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton, vol i., chap. viii. 4 Report, &c., 1838, p. 10.
6 Treatise on Light, § 1076. 6 £vfcn. Trans. 1846, vol. xvi., p. HI.
7 “ On a case of Superficial Colour presented by a Homogeneous Liquid internally Colourless,” PhiL Trans. 1845, part ii., p. 143 ; and
“ On the Epipolic Dispersion of Light,” ibid., p. 147. 1
694 OPT
Explana- By transmitting a condensed beam of convergent light
tion of through a vessel containing a solution of sulphate of quinine,
Phenomena ^‘r Davicl Brewster found that the reflection was not super-
v > j ficial but internal,as in fluor spar; and upon analysing it with
*'v ^ a prism, he found that the blue light gave a continuous
spectrum deprived of the less refrangible red, nearly of the
whole orange, and all the yelloiv. A rich and broad band
of fine green light, slightly fringed with red, passed into a
copious indigo and violet, without the intermediate blue,
the green extending over the blue and yellow spaces.1
In studying the nature of this internal dispersion, Pro¬
fessor Stokes of Cambridge has made the important dis¬
covery that the chemical rays in the spectrum between G
and H produce in the quinine solution “ light of a sky-blue
colour, which emanate in all directions from the por¬
tion of the fluid which was under the influence of the
incidental rays.” The fixed lines in the violet space, and
in the region of invisible rays beyond the violet are
represented in dark lines corresponding with those on E.
Becquerel’s map of the fixed lines in the chemical spectrum.
Regarding this blue light as the invisible rays rendered
visible by internal dispersion, Professor Stokes came to
the conclusion that the dispersing cause had changed the
refrangibility of the exciting rays, and given them all the
different colours of the spectrum?
We have already seen that E. Becquerel found that the
chemical rays beyond H rendered artificial phosphorus
luminous, while those from H to A extinguished the phos¬
phorescence thus produced.
Sect. IX.—On the Eye and on Vision.
The eye In our article on Anatomy,3 we have already given a full
and vision, description of the organ of vision, and Plate XXXIII., fig.
3, exhibits a fine section of the eye after Soemmering.
The following dimensions of the eye have been given by
Dr Thomas Young, the measures being taken with great
care from his own eye:—
100ths of an inch.
Length of optical axis .'  91
Vertical chord of the cornea  45
Versed sine of ditto  11
Horizontal chord of the cornea  49
Aperture of the pupil seen through the cornea 27 to 13
Diminished in consequence of the magnifying power of the
cornea 25 to 12
Radius of the anterior surface of the crystalline lens  30
Radius of the posterior surface  22
Distance of the optical centre from the anterior surface of the
lens     10
Distance of the optical centre of the lens from the cornea  22
Focal length of the cornea for objects 10 inches distant 115
Joint focus of cornea and lens 91 — 22 =  69
Principal focal distance of lens 173
Distance of the centre of the optic nerve from the point oppo¬
site the pupil  11
Range of the eye, or field of vision 110
The following measures of the crystalline lens and cornea
were taken by Sir David Brewster and Dr Gordon from
the eye of a female above fifty years of age, a few hours
after death :—
Diameter of the crystalline 0-378
Diameter of the cornea 0‘400
Thickness of the crystalline ; 0T72
Thickness of the cornea   0,042
The following measures of the refractive powers of the
humours of the eye were taken by the same authors from
the same eye :—
_ Index of Refraction.
Refractive power of water 1-3358
Ditto of aqueous humour 1-3366
Ditto of vitreous humour 1-3394
ICS.
Index of Refraction. -r,
Refractive power of outer coat of crystalline 1-3767 -^xplana-
Ditto of middle coat of ditto 1-3786 ^on °f
Ditto of central part of ditto 1-3990 Natural
Ditto of the whole crystalline 1-3839 enomena
The following measures may be occasionally useful:—• V “
Index of Refraction.
From aqueous humour into the crystalline 1-0466
Do. do.,taking the mean index of the crystalline...1-0353
From the crystalline into the vitreous humour 0-930
If we execute a large diagram of the eye, and by means vision
of the above indices of refraction trace the progress of pa¬
rallel rays from the cornea to the retina, we shall find that
they converge to points in or near to that membrane. The
increase of density in the crystalline lens towards its cent e
is calculated to correct the spherical aberration by bringing
the central rays to the same focus with the marginal rays ;
but there is no provision in the eye for correcting the aber¬
ration of colour, because the purposes of vision do not re¬
quire it to be corrected. It may be readily proved by trac¬
ing the rays diverging from both extremities of any object
to the retina, and it may be also shown by direct experi¬
ment, that an inverted image of the object is formed upon
that membrane. Now it is a law of vision, that when-a ray Law of
of light falls upon any point of the retina, the mind infers vision,
that the ray proceeded from a point in some line perpendi¬
cular to that point of the retina. Hence, as rays from the Qauge
upper part of an object fall upon the lower part of the retina, erect vi¬
and vice versa, such rays will seem to proceed from theup-sion.
per part of the object, and all points of an object will be
seen in the direction of the rays which issue from them,
and consequently the object itself must appear erect, though
its image is inverted.
As it is a law of vision that an object seen with a single Single vi.
eye is seen in a fixed direction, arising from the form of the sion with
retina as a whole, or from the form of its individual parts,two eJes-
then if rays from the same object fall upon another eye, or
upon a hundred other eyes which have the power of placing
the retina of all the eyes so as to see the same object in the
same direction, then the object thus seen must appear
single. The only difference will be, that the object will be
seen twice as bright with two eyes, and a hundred times as
bright with a hundred eyes. If we place a hundred shil¬
lings in the same straight line, an eye whose axis coincides
with the axis of the cylinder which they compose will only
see one shilling, and the same effect would be produced if
the shillings were transparent. If the hundred eyes were
placed with their axes in a hundred different directions, a
hundred objects will be seen. Small objects are seen
double, and even triple, with one eye when the crystalline
lens is not uniform in its refractive power.
The subject of binocular vision will be treated of under
the article Stereoscope.
The defect of squinting may arise from several causes. It Origin of
may be an original defect, in which the axis of the eye, or squinting,
the light in which objects are seen most distinctly, does not
pass through the centre of the pupil. In this case it is
incurable ; but it is, generally speaking, a disease arising
from an imperfection in one eye, from its having a different
focal length from the other, from its giving a less distinct
vision of objects, or from its muscles not being able to
direct it as quickly as the other to visible objects. The
consequence of this is, that as the observer can do without
it, and uses only his best eye, the imperfect one does not
follow the movements of the other, and therefore squints.
When we wish to see any object very distinctly, we inva- indistinct-
riably direct it to the axis of the eye, and it is a curious fact ness of
that there is no retina at the point where the axis meets the oblique vi-
back of the eye, the foramen corresponding to the 810n•
extremity of the axis. When the eye thus sees an object
1 Edin. Trans. 1846, vol. xvi., p. 111.
2 Phil. Trans. 1852, pp. 463-562.
3 Vol. ill., p. 43.
OPTICS.
< icasional
ijjiensibil-
of the
Jtina in
(llique
ion.
Sxplana- with perfect distinctness, every other point of the same ob-
tion of ject; js seen indistinctly, and there is no adjustment of the
Tenomona e^e distinctness of vision can be obtained at any
_ j distance from the axis of the eye, the only way of seeing
*distinctly being to direct the axis to the point we wish to
examine.
distinct The opinion that the retina, though sensible to light, does
eTas^ f n0t £'ve Perfect,y distinct vision, is favoured by the fact,
e optic01 tllat when tlie ima&e any object falls upon the round
irve base of the optic nerve (shown in Plate XXXIII., fig. 3 of
Anatomy), the object is not distinctly visible. This may be
easily proved by fixing on the wall of a room, at the height
of the eye, three wafers, each two feet distant. Stand in
front of the middle wafer with one eye shut, and beginning
near the wall, withdraw gradually from it (continuing to
view the left hand wafer it the right eye is open, and the
right hand wafer if the left eye is open), till the middle
wafer vanishes. This will be found to take place at five
times the distance from the wall at which the wafers are
placed,—that is, at the distance of ten feet in the present
case. If we use three candles, the middle one will not
vanish like the wafer, but will become a cloudy mass of light.
The occasional insensibility of the retina to objects
seen obliquely was discovered by Sir David Brewster,
ItinaTn W^° ^ias blustrated it in the following manner:—If we
one eye on a particular point, such as the head of a pin
stuck into a green cloth, and lay down a quill or strip of
paper upon the green cloth, some inches distant from the
pin, and then keep looking steadily at the pin’s head, part
of the quill, or the whole of it, will occasionally disappear,
as it it had been wholly removed from the cloth. In a short
time it will reappear, and again vanish. The very same
effect is produced, though less readily, when both eyes are
used, and when aluminous body is used in place of the quill.
In this case the luminous body does not disappear, but ex¬
pands into a mass of nebulous light, which is of a bluish
white colour, encircled with a bright ring of yellow light.
1 f ht e But though we cannot see objects distinctly by oblique
c objects9 vision; yet they appear much brighter, and minute objects,
especially luminous ones, are more easily seen, by turning
the axis of the eye away from them. Various astronomers
have found that very faint stars, and the satellites of Saturn,
which disappear when the eye is turned fully upon
them, may be distinctly seen by directing the eye to an¬
other part of the field. This effect seems to arise from the
expansion and enlargement of luminous points seen
obliquely.1
( the seat it }las i0I)g heen disputed, but the question has not been
c vision, agitated in modern times, whether the retina or the
choroid coat behind it is the seat of vision. The insensi¬
bility of the base of the optic nerve, and the fact that vision
is most distinct where there is no retina, are arguments in
favour of the choroid coat being the seat of vision, as
Mariotte believed. The transparency of the retina, and
the opacity of the choroid coat, were considered as addi¬
tional arguments in favour of tliat opinion. Dr Knox has
shown that in the eye of the cuttle-fish there is a membran¬
ous opaque pigment in front of the retina; so that in this
case the retina must receive the influence of light from the
vibrations of this membrane, just as it may receive them in
other cases from the same membrane placed behind it.
Some light has been recently thrown upon this subject
by an experiment which we owe to Sir David Brewster, in
which the foramen in the retina can be rendered distinctly
visible. If, when the eye has been for some time in a state of
repose, either by shutting it or remaining a short time in the
dark, we direct it to a feebly-illuminated surface, we shall
see, upon opening it, a dark brown or reddish circular spot
695
perior
ightnesi
objects
n ob-
uely.
1 See Lend, and Edin. Phil. Mag., Sent. 1832, p. 169.
3 Report of Brit. Assoc. 1852.
which quickly disappears, and which may be renewed by Explana-
again closing and opening the eye. If, in place of being tion °f
rested, the sensibility of the eye had been reduced by Natural
exposure to much light, the circular spot would have been Phenomena
bright, and more luminous than the illuminated surface.
As the choroid coat lies behind the retina, and gives the
vision of objects, whose images fall upon the foramen of the
retina, it follows from the first experiment that the retina
is more quickly affected with light than the choroid coat,
and from the second, that the choroid coat is more readily
impressed with light. The diameter of the foramen is
about the 35th of an inch, and the angle subtended by the
dark circular spot is about 4^°, which corresponds with the
other measure.2
In a very remarkable case, where the retina had been
permanently rendered insensible by a blow on the head, Sir
David Brewster found that vision was perfect over the
space occupied by the foramen centrale; that is, when the
image was received on the exposed part of the choroid.
When a person was near the patient, he could only see his
nose, or eye, or mouth, or a small portion of his face or
figure; but he could recognise a friend at a distance
when the whole of his face was included within a cone
which bore to the foramen an angle of 4^0.3 The very same
result was obtained in another case where the retina was
only temporarily insensible.
The insensibility of the retina to direct impressions of insensibili-
faint light was discovered by Sir David Brewster,4 who ty of the
found that when the eye directed its axis to objects faintly eye to di-
illuminated, it could not keep up a sustained vision ofrect \m'
them. They disappeared and reappeared, and the eye was f
thrown into a state of painful agitation. am
When we shut the eye quickly alter looking at an object, Duration
we see it for an instant (about the seventh part of a second) of impres-
in its own colours ; but this impression is instantly followed sions on
by an image of the object in its complementary colours.tlle retina*
If we look at a window at the end of a long passage, we
first see, after shutting our eyes, a picture of the window,
with black bars and white panes; but after the seventh of
a second the picture is one with white bars and black panes.
When we whirl a burning stick, we see a complete circle
of red light, although the burning end of the stick can only
be in one part of the circle at the same instant.
When objects are placed at different distances, the focus Accommo-
or point of distinct vision in the eye must vary. We feel dation of
that the eye has the power of adapting itself to thesethe eJe to
different distances so as to make the picture on the retina djfferent
always distinct. How this is done has been long a matter dlstaDces-
in dispute. There can be no doubt, however, that the first
step in the process is the variation of the pupil, which seems
by a mechanism at the base of the iris to increase the
distance of the lens from the retina.
At the age of about forty the eye loses this power of Longsight-
adaptation in consequence of the flattening of the crys- edness.
talline lens, which renders it necessary to use a convex
glass, which just compensates the flatness of the lens, and
permits the eye to adjust itself as formerly. The opposite shortsieht-
state of the eye, not produced by age, but rather diminished edness!
by it, is common even in young persons, arising either from
a too great convexity or refractive power in the lens, or too
great convexity in the cornea. In this state of the eye, the.
image is formed in front of the retina and a concave lens
is necessary to correct it. This is called short-sightedness,
which almost always decreases by age, in consequence of
the crystalline-lens becoming flatter.
When the eye looks steadily at a bright-coloured red Ocular
wafer, and then looks at the white paper on which the wafer spectra, or
lies, it will see for a while a green one, the green being the accidental
——— —   colours.
2 Report of Brit. Assoc. 1848, pp. 48, 49.
4 Edin. Jour, of Science, No. vi., p. 288.
1
696
OPTICS.
Optical accidental colour, or the complementary owe to the red.
struments. rn.    rn>*ilnr snertrn.m. as it has no
WCUlUcniUV UUlULll) vil LHC. ^ —
The green image is called an ocular spectrum, as it has no
real existence. The accidental colours and the original
colours are the same as those given in Newton s Table, p.
604, where the reflected tints correspond with the original
or red colour of the wafer, and the transmitted ones to the
accidental colour, or vice versa ; so that we can determine
from that table the accidental colours of any coloured
obiect upon which the eye may look steadily.
When the eye looks at the sun, or a bright image ot it,
the ocular spectrum is not black, but of various colours m
succession, each colour being surrounded with a rim of its
accidental colour. _ . , ™ .
The following beautiful experiment, showing the ettect
produced 0f ];o-ht in diminishing the sensibility of the retina to par-
by the un- ticu]ar colours, we owe to Mr Smith, surgeon at Fochabers.
equal ac- Ho]d a g].p of white paper vertically about a foot from the
liehton the eye, and direct both eyes to an object beyond it, the slip
° .11   J Ul~ i mo AnimllV W HI tP.
Colours
produced
eyes,
will’ appear double, and the two images equally white.
Let a candle be brought near the right eye, so as to act
strongly upon it without affecting the left, then the left
image of the paper, or that seen by the right eye, will grow
green, and the right hand image, or that seen by the left
eve, wdll grow red, forming a beautiful contrast of colours.
If the candle is brought round to the left eye, the images
will first become of the same whitish colour, and then the
right hand one will become green, and the left hand owe red}
Insensibi- The insensibility of the eye to particular colours is far
lity of the from being uncommon. Professor Dugald Stewart, Dr Dal-
eyetopar- ton> an(j ^Mr Troughton were unable to distinguish the
ticular co- i ^  i m All rpfl nhiprfs
lours.
colours at the red e°nd of the spectrum. All red objects
appeared green, owing to the insensibility of their retinas
to red colours. This subject has already been treated of in
our article on Colours, vol. vii., p. 153. (See Dr George
Wilson’s interesting volume On Colour Blindness.)
Part IX.—DESCRIPTION OF OPTICAL
INSTRUMENTS.
1.
2. On the Camera Obscura. Optical In.
We have already explained the principle of the camera v
obscura in treating of the images formed by convex lenses.
The instrument is indeed nothing more than a convex lens
placed in a suitable box, on the side or bottom ot which an
image of external objects is formed by the lens.
A convenient portable camera obscura for drawing ob¬
jects is shown in fig. 277. The
external object or landscape is
reflected down into the lens AB
by an inclined mirror CD. The
rays thus falling vertically upon
the lens are refracted to their
foci, and form a distinct image of
the landscape on the paper placed
at EF. On one side of the box
there is an opening through which
the observer introduces his head
and hand, care being taken, by a
curtain of black cloth behind him,
to exclude all extraneous light
Fig. 277.
M. Cauchoix of Paris has found
that the best form of the lens for a camera is a meniscus
having its convex surface towards the image, and its con¬
cave surface towards the object, and their radii of curvature
as 5 to 8.
As an instrument essential in photography, the camera
obscura has become one of the most important of
our optical instruments, both in a scientific and commercial
point of view. The most distinguished professional
opticians have vied with each other in bringing it to per¬
fection ; and from the condition of a toy, it ranks in im¬
portance with the microscope and the telescope. In the
article Photography will be found drawings and descrip¬
tions of the most approved cameras.
Optical in- The great number of optical instruments which have
struments. been described in different parts of this work renders it
scarcely necessary to treat this subject in the geneial
article. Under the articles Burning Glasses, Camera
Lucida, Kaleidoscope, Micrometer, Microscope, Pho¬
tometers, and Telescope, the reader will find some of
the information which he might have expected here. There
are instruments, however, so intimately connected with
optics, and not previously described, which we must shortly
notice, namely, the Cylindrical Mirror, the Camera Obscura,
the Magic Lantern, and the Phantasmagoric Machine.
3. On the Magic Lantern.
The magic lantern, an invention of the celebrated Magician.
Athanasius Kircher, is shown in fig. 278. It consists merely tern.
Fig. 278.
Cylindrical Mirror.
Cylindrical We have already (see p. 556) described the principle of
mirrors, cylindrical mirrors. If we
suppose one of these mirrors,
AB, fig. 276, to be placed on
a table with the portrait of
any person laid before it on
the table, the reflected pic¬
ture of the portrait in the
cylindrical mirror will be dis¬
torted. If we take an accu¬
rate drawing of this distorted
picture, and lay it before a
cylindrical mirror, as shown
at MN, where the human
form can scarcely be recog¬
nised, we shall see in the
cylindrical mirror its image reduced to symmetry.
of a lens AB, which forms on the wall of a dark room a pic¬
ture of any object plac¬
ed before it, and at a
greater distance than
its anterior principal fo¬
cus. The light of an Ai
S condensed state by the illuminating lens D (figs. 279,280)
Fig. 279.
upon transpa¬
rent varnished
pictures painted
on long sliders
(fig. 281). The
lens AB forms a
Fig. 280.
lens jad luim&a, = . r
large circle of light upon the wall, which, if it is not smoo
Fig. 281.
1 An analysis of this and similar experiments will he found in the Land, avd JEdin. Phil, ^^ag. 1832, p. 219
OPTICS.
697
Optical In-and white, should be covered with a white, smooth cloth, and
struments. the images of’the coloured figure appear within this circle.
matric lantern is the same as a solai microscope, the
sun being used for the source of light in the latter case, and
natural objects in place of pictures. The solar camera
microscope, invented by Dr Croring, and fully described in
our article Microscope, vol. xiv., p. 791, and the oxyhy-
drogen microscope, described in the same article, may be con¬
sidered as the most perfect magic lanterns that have been
constructed, there being no difficulty in adapting them to give
magnified representations of minute transparent paintings.
4. On the Phantasmagoric Apparatus.
Optical In-
rumcnts.
The apparatus for the phantasmagoria, or the raising of ~v—
spectres, is nothing more than a magic lantern mounted Phantas-
upon wheels, which, in place of throwing its pictures magoric
upon an opaque white ground, upon which the spectator apparatus,
looks, throws them upon one side of an imperfectly
transparent screen, the spectator viewing them on the
other side of the screen. The direct light of a lamp A,
(fig. 282), and the light reflected from the concave mirror
B, is thrown upon the two illuminating lenses C, D, which
condense it, and thus strongly illuminate the spectres and
figures painted upon sliders at E. These sliders are placed
a little before the anterior focus of the magnifying lens F,
which forms a highly-magnified picture of the figures on
the transparent screen at G. When this apparatus is mounted
upon a carriage with wheels, as at H, it may be made to ap¬
proach to, or recede from, the screen G, in consequence of
which the figures may be made to contract into dwarfs, dis¬
appearing in a point of light, or swell out into giants of enor¬
mous magnitude. In order, however, to have the pictures
distinct at different distances of the apparatus from the screen,
an adjustment is necessary, to make the distance EF
increase as the apparatus approaches to G, and diminish
as it recedes from it. With this view, the lens F is fixed
to a slider, which may be drawn out by the general frame
H. When this frame H is drawn away from the screen,
the point K is brought lower by means of the rod IK, con¬
nected with another rod KN fixed to the frame of the
screen at N, where there is a joint or centre of motion.
The descent of the point K causes another lever KL to
move the horizontal slider (which carries the lens F) in
such a manner as to keep the screen always in the focus
of F, and consequently the picture upon it always distinct.
When the frame H, on the other hand, advances to the
screen, the point K rises, and the lens F is again adjusted
by the motion of the slider. When the images diminish
and appear to vanish, the support of the lens F permits the
screen M to fall and intercept part of the light. The
screen M may have a triangular opening, so as to uncover
the middle only of the lens F. In this adjusting apparatus
the rods KN and KL must be equal, and the point I must
be twice the focal length of the lens F before the object,
L being immediately under the focus of the lens. The
object of the screen M is to diminish the illumination of
the objects as they get smaller and appear to retire from
the spectator, because in the instrument they actually
become brighter.
When M. Robertson exhibited this remarkable instru¬
ment, living persons were often strongly illuminated and
introduced into the picture. The effect of life, however,
was better given when the shadows of living objects only
were introduced.
VOL. XVI.
5. On the Thaumatrope or Wonder- Turner.
The Thaumatrope or wonder-turner, invented by Dr Thauma-
Paris, is a circular card with two strings made to whirl it
rapidly round one of its diameters. If we draw a cage on turner *
one side of the card, and a bird on the other, and whirl the
card round, we shall see the bird within the cage, the retina
retaining the impression of both pictures, even when none
of them are seen, which is the case when the edge of the
card is directed to the eye.
6. On the Phenakistoscope or Magic Disc.
This instrument was, we believe, originally invented by Phenakis-
Dr Roget, and improved by M. Plateau, at Brussels, and toscope or
Dr Faraday. It consists of a circular disc from six to mRSlc dl8C
twelve inches in diameter, with rectilineal apertures on its
margin in the direction of its radii. A series of figures—
of a rider, for example, leaping a fence—is drawn on the
circumference of a circle parallel to the rim of the disc.
The first figure represents the rider and horse standing be¬
fore the fence, and the last figure represents them stand¬
ing over the fence when the leap is completed. Between
these two figures there are several others, representing
the rider and the horse in different parts of the leap. The
observer then stands in front of a looking-glass, with the
disc in his left hand, attached to a handle, and by a piece
of simple mechanism he whirls it rapidly round, looking at
its image in the glass through the notches in its margin.
He is then surprised to see the horse and his rider actually
leaping the fence, as if they were alive, and returning and
leaping again as the disc revolves. If wre look over the
margin of the disc, at the reflected picture on the face of
the disc, all the figures are effaced, and entirely invisible ;
but when we look through the notches, we only see the
figure of the horse and the rider at the instant the notch or
aperture passes the eye, so that the picture instantaneously
formed on the retina is not obliterated by preceding or
subsequent impressions. Hence the eye receives in suc¬
cession the pictures of the horse and rider in all the atti¬
tudes of the leap, which are blended, as it were, into one
action. The apparent velocity with which the horse and
4 T
698
OPT
ORA
Optimism rider advances (supposing the disc always to have the same
velocity) depends on the proportion between the number
v rac G‘ j of apertures in the margin of the disc and the number of
figures of the horse and rider.
If we use a disc with three concentric circles of aper¬
tures, each containing different numbers—8, 10, and 12,
for example ; then, considering that these apertures revolve
in the opposite direction in the reflected image, it is obvious
that when we look through the circle of 10, which moves
from left to right at the image of 10, revolving in the
mirror from right to left, these opposite motions will
destroy each other, and the circle of 10 apertures will
appear to stand still in the picture. On the other hand,
the circle of 12 apertures will always gain upon the one
of 10, from which we look, and will appear to move from
left to right with the difference of the velocities of the
two, while the one of 8 will move backwards with the same Oracle,
difference. i^
If we whirl a disc containing any word or figure upon it,
without using a reflector, all is confused, and we cannot read
the word or see the figure. Let it be whirled, however, in
the dark, and let a spark of electricity, or the light of a little
inflamed gunpowder, or of a percussion-cap, illuminate the
disc, which it does only for an instant, and during that short
instant the word or figure will be seen to stop, and we shall
read the one and see the other with great distinctness.
(For further information on the subject of this article,
see Astromomy, vol. iv., p. 51, chap. iv.; Achromatic
Telescopes, Burning Glasses, Camera Lucida, Chro¬
matics, Colours, Kaleidoscope, Meteorology, Mi¬
crometer, Microscope, Photography, Photometer,
Stereoscope, and Telescope.) (d. b.)
OPTIMISM is that philosophical doctrine which, start¬
ing from the absolute perfection of Deity, attributes to the
universe, his work, the greatest possible perfection. This
theory is to be found in some form or other in almost all
the great speculative schools of antiquity, and especially
among the philosophers of the Academy, of the Porch, and
of Alexandria. Anselm and Aquinas were its chief advo¬
cates in the middle ages; its grandest developments, how¬
ever, belong to modern times, and, in particular, to the
schools of Descartes and Leibnitz. The splendid scheme
of optimism advocated by the latter in his Essais de The-
odicee is well known. (See Dissertation First, part ii.)
OR (Fr. gold), one of the metals used in blazonry.
(See Heraldry.)
ORA, an old Saxon coin. (See Coinage.)
ORACLE (Latin, oraculum, from oris, of the mouth)
is a term applied in ancient divination to the response of a
deity, to the deity responding, or to the place where the
response is delivered. The gavreiov and xprjo-nqpLov of the
Greeks were employed with nearly the same latitude of
meaning; for they were used both for oracular responses
and for the seat of the oracle. The origin of the belief in
oracles may no doubt be traced to that desire to penetrate
the mysteries of the future so characteristic of man in all
stages of his development. And not only were oracular
responses sought after as a means of gratifying this universal
curiosity; they were also prized for the divine sanction
which they lent to the undertakings of men. Jove, as the
father and ruler both of gods and men, was, to the mind of
a Greek or a Roman, the ultimate source of all divine re¬
velations. But so far was he removed above the little affairs of
men, that other lesser deities, and even heroes, had to be em¬
ployed to transmit his will to earth. The oracles of Zeus were
accordingly few, while those of other gods were very
numerous.
The most elaborate oracular system of ancient times was
to be found among the Greeks. What with Sibylline
books, auguries, haruspices, and the like, the Roman did
not find it necessary to call in the aid of oracular responses
to disclose to him the future. The most celebrated oracles
of the former people were those of Apollo. There are on
record no fewer than twenty-two oracles at which this
deity was consulted. These were Delphi, Abac in Phocis,
Ptoon in Thebes, Ismenion in Bceotia, Hysise in Attica,
Fegyra in Boeotia, Eutresis near Leuctra, Orbiae in Euboea,
the Lyceum at Argos, the Acropolis of Argos, Didyma
in Miletus, Claros in Colophon, Grynea among the My-
rinaeans, Lesbos, Abdera, Delos, Patara in Lycia, Telmes-
sus, Cilicia (two), Hybla in Caria, and Hiera Kome on the
River Maeander. Of these oracles to Apollo, by far the
most famous was that of Delphi. (For a full account of this
celebrated oracle, see the article Delphi.)
The revelations of Apollo were for the most part given
by inspiration, while those of Jupiter were merely signs,
which mortals had to interpret as best they could. (For the
oracles of Zeus, see Dodona and Olympia.) There was
also an oracle to Jupiter Ammon in Libya, which had a
considerable reputation (Herod, ii. 29, &c.; also iv. 181).
At Patrae in Achaia oracles were given by Demeter or
Ceres concerning the recovery or death of the sick. In
the centre of the market-place at Pharae, in the same district,
stood an altar to Hermes or Mercury, at which that deity
was supposed to give responses to questions whispered in
his ear. At Charax in Caria, was an oracle of Pluto and
Cora, with a cave adjoining, in which sick persons slept and
had cures revealed to them in their dreams.
In addition to those oracles of the lesser deities, the
Greeks also consulted the oracles of certain heroes of dis¬
tinction. Such were the oracles of Amphiaraus, near
Thebes, and at Oropus (Herod, viii. 134); of Amphilochus
at Mallos in Cilicia ; of Trophimus at Lebadeia in Bceotia
(Pausanias ix. 37, &c.); of Chalcas in Daunia; of Alsculapius
at Epidaurus, and elsewhere; of Hercules at Bura in Achaia;
of Pasiphae at Thalamiae; and of Phrixus in Iberia.
While the Greeks, as a rule, had recourse to oracles to
discover the will of the gods, the Romans, on the other
hand, trusted more to augury and the Sibylline books,
for their knowledge of the future. The only Roman oracles
with which we are acquainted were those of Faunus, near
the Tibur, and on the Aventine; of Fortuna at Antium,
Praeneste, and elsewhere ; and of Mars at Tiora Matiena.
Oracular responses were given for the most part in Ionic
hexameters, partly because the answers of the deity were
thus rendered more venerable, and partly because verse
had the advantage of being easily remembered. These
oracular verses, however, exhibited occasional metrical
defects,—and this even at the oracle of Apollo—which
provoked the satirical remark, that the god of verse was
sadly deficient in poetical accomplishment himself. To
prevent this scandal, it is said that the responses were sub¬
sequently given in prose, and in the Doric dialect. These
responses, as might naturally be expected, were notorious for
their want of meaning, obscurity, or equivocation. Ample
latitude was generally given for personal preference in in¬
terpreting them, and when they were at all intelligible,
they generally displayed such an exquisite ambiguity that
it was impossible tor mortals to tell what they meant, or for
the event to turn out different from some of their possible
interpretations. The modes in which these deliverances
were given were very various. At Delphi, they were ut¬
tered by the Pythia; at Dodona, they issued from a hollow
rock; at the oracle of Jupiter Ammon, they were pro¬
nounced by the priests, who were very numerous. Painted
dice were sometimes employed, as at Bura; and lots, some¬
times consisting of lettered sticks of oak, were made use of,
as in the case of the Italian oracle of Praeneste. A very
ORA
Oran, frequent mode of oracular communication was through
dreams, visions, and preternatural voices.
The Urim and Thummim, and the Bath Kol of the
Jews, are supposed by many to have borne a peculiar re¬
semblance to the heathen oracle. (See Kitto’s Cyclopcedia
of Biblical Literature^
It was during the most flourishing period of Grecian
history that oracles were held in greatest reverence and
esteem. Every enterprise, no matter how private or trifling,
had to receive the divine oracular sanction before it could
be engaged in. Gradually, however, these mysterious de¬
liverances lost their hold upon the public faith. The scep¬
tical few always secretly ridiculed them as the offspring of
subtle, unscrupulous priests. The philosopher smiled at
them as a fresh illustration of human folly ; and the poli¬
tician, who held them in secret contempt, yet regarded
them with public favour as a means of advancing his own
designs. (See Cicero, Be Divinatione.) “ On what ac¬
count, Labienus,” says Cato, in that celebrated passage of
Lucan’s Pharsalia, lib. ix., “ would you have me consult
Jove ? . . . . Let us not ask him to repeat to us what he
has sufficiently written on our hearts. Truth hath not re¬
tired into these deserts: it is not recorded on the sands of
Libya. Let the irresolute and unstable have recourse to
oracles ; for my part, I can extract the most steadfast resolu¬
tion from everything in nature. Death comes to the cow¬
ard as well as the brave. Jupiter can tell us no more.”
While some have believed in the genuine divinity of ora¬
cular responses, and others have scouted them as the inven¬
tions of designing men, a third party have attributed them to
the influence of the devil. The latter view was entertained
by the Christian fathers; the second is maintained by Hiill-
mann (Wurdigung des Delphischen Orakels, Bonn, 1837),
at the present day; while the first finds a partial advocate
in Klausen. (See art. “ Orakel” in Ersch and Gruber’s En-
cyclopadie). Much controversy has also been created re¬
specting the period at which oracles ceased altogether to
give forth their deliverances. Eusebius advanced the
opinion, and the majority of Christian writers have followed
him, that all oracles became silent at the birth of Christ.
Milton has adopted this view in his grand Hymn of the
Nativity. But traces remain of their having been consulted
as late as 358 A.d. ; and edicts are known to have been
issued against them by the emperors Theodosius, Gratian,
and Valentinian. Oracles had long before lost their hold
on the public, however, and what faint traces of the super¬
stition still lurked in remote corners gradually disappeared
before the superior light of Christianity.
(On the general subject of Greek and Roman oracles,
see Wachsmuth, Hellen. Alt., vol. ii.; Hartung, DieRelig.
der Homer ; Niebuhr’s History of Rome; and the Encyclo¬
pedic Moderne. Also the works of Daniel Clusens (1673),
Anton Van Dale (1683), E. Dickinson (1686), Fontenelle
(1687), J. C. Bulenger (1699), and Clavier (1819). On
the Delphic oracle, see the works of C. F. Wilster, Pio-
trowski, and W. Gotte; also those of Hiillmann and Klausen,
already referred to. On the oracle at Dodona, see the
works of Cordes, Arneth, and Lassaulx.)
ORAN, a seaport-town of Algeria, capital of a military
division and of a prefecture, stands at the head of a bay on
the Mediterranean, 209 miles W.S. W. of Algiers ; N. Lat.
35. 44., W. Long. 0. 41. It is built on the two slopes of a
ravine, which is traversed by a stream, here crossed by two
bridges. As it is for the most part of modern origin, the
streets are regular, and lined with handsome buildings.
The defences of the place consist of three forts, which com¬
mand the roadstead of Oran, and the road to the neigh¬
bouring harbour of Mers-el-Kebir, one of the best on this
coast. The parish church was originally a Mohammedan
mosque; and another church, now connected with an hos¬
pital, was built by the Spaniards in the time of Charles V.
ORA
There are also an arsenal, artillery and cavalry barracxs, and
some fine gardens. The roadstead at Oran is bad and un¬
sheltered ; but the harbour]of Mers-el-Kebir is only 3 miles
to the north of the town. By means of this port a con¬
siderable trade is carried on with Morocco and Spain.
Oran was taken by the Spaniards in 1509, and occupied by
them till 1708. They again obtained possession of the
town in 1732; but in 1790 it was much injured by an
earthquake, and more so by the Moors, who besieged the
town, and compelled the Spaniards to surrender it. When
the French, in 1830, established themselves here, it was in
a very ruinous condition. It is now, however, the second
Christian city in Algeria, with a population of 20,775, of
whom 13,560 are Europeans.
ORANGE, a town of France, capital of an arrondisse-
ment of the same name, in the department of Vaucluse, in
the middle of a beautiful and fertile plain, about 3 miles
from the left bank of the Rhone, and 13 north of Avignon.
Many of the houses are handsome ; but the streets are nar¬
row, crooked, and not well kept. There are several ele¬
gant public fountains, well supplied with water. The
most remarkable and splendid buildings are those which
have remained from the time of the Romans, under whom
Orange was known by the name of Arausio. About one-
fourth of a mile from the town stands a triumphal arch in
very good preservation, built of limestone of a deep yellow
tint, in the Corinthian style of architecture. It has one
central archway, with two smaller ones at the sides, and is
profusely adorned with sculptures of naval trophies. No in¬
scription can be traced on the arch, except the single word
“ Mario,” which has led to the supposition that it was
erected to commemorate the victory of Marius over the
Teutones at Aix in 102 b.c. ; but it is with probability be¬
lieved that the arch is of much later date. The Roman
theatre stands on the slope, and at the foot of a hill at the
other end of the town, and is of semicircular form. The
chord of the semicircle is formed by a colossal wall 121
feet high, 334 long, and 13 thick. The exterior of this
wall forms a magnificent front of five stories, with a large
central archway supported by Corinthian pillars. In the
interior are to be seen all the parts of an ancient theatre,
though entirely stripped of its ornaments. Near the theatre
are the remains of an ancient circus; and many sculp¬
tures, pillars, and slabs of marble have been found in
the town. There are still some traces of the walls that
surrounded the ancient Arausio, which, from the extent
of these defences, may have contained a population of
40,000. The modern town contains a court of the first
instance, a council of prudhommes, a public library, col¬
lege, &c. In the middle ages, Orange was the capital of
a small independent principality, which belonged to several
families, and finally to that of Nassau. The territory was
ceded to France by Frederick William of Prussia at the
treaty of Utrecht; but the title has still continued in the
family of Nassau, and is now borne by the heir to the
throne of Holland. Orange has manufactures of silks, cot¬
tons, handkerchiefs, serge, &c.; and there is some trade in
corn, wine, brandy, oil, honey, and wool. Pop. (1856) of
the town, 9685; of the arrondissement, 75,260.
Orange River, or Gariep, a river of South Africa,
bounding Cape Colony on the north, rises about 10,000
feet above the level of the sea, in S. Lat. 28. 40., E. Long.
28. 30., and flows first S.W., then N.W., and finally west¬
ward, in an irregular course, till it falls into the Atlantic,
S. Lat. 28. 30., E. Long. |16. 30. Gold and copper ore
have been found near its banks. The Orange River re¬
ceives several tributaries, both from the north and from the
south. The largest of these is the Ky-Gariep, Vaal, or
Yellow River, from the north, which has a longer course
than the Orange River itself. The Kuruman, and the
Borradaile or Fish River, also join it from the north; and the
700
Orange
River So¬
vereignty
II
Oravicza.
0 R .A
O R C
Hartebeest or Visch River from the south. The length of the
river, from the source of the Vaal to the sea, is 1000 miles.
Orange River Sovereignty, a tract of country lying
between the rivers Orange and Vaal, to the N.E. of Cape
Colony, having an extent of 60,000 square miles. It was
made a British territory in 1848, but was abandoned in 1854.
ORANGE, the fruit of the sweet-orange tree (Citrus
aurantium, Risso, Nat. Ord. Aurantiacece). This now
well-known fruit is by no means an old inhabitant of Europe.
Its native country is India, and perhaps China, but its intro¬
duction into Europe is possibly due to the Moors, who cer¬
tainly introduced and planted extensive groves of the bitter
orange at Seville and other places in Spain. The sweet
orano-e bears the climate of the south of Europe exceed-
ino-ly well, and in consequence has been most assiduously
cultivated in Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Sicily. The lesult
has been the production of a great number of varieties, no
less than nineteen of which have been described by Risso,
the historian of the cultivated orange. The foliage of the
orange is very beautiful, and forms a large round head to
a short but well-formed stem, which is for 5 or 6 feet free
from branches. The flowers are white and unattractive,
but have a most delicious fragrance; so also has the fruit,
both in its green and ripe state. The odour of the fruit
resides in the outer coating of the rind, which when ripe is
of a golden-yellow colour; this is technically called the
Jlavedo. It is usual for the orange tree to have almost con¬
stantly flowers, with green and ripe fruit at the same time.
For the oils obtained from the orange, see Oils. The
cultivation of the orange constitutes a most important
branch of industry in Italy, Spain, Portugal, and the Azores,
which countries supply the greater portion of this fruit con¬
sumed in Europe. Many of the plantations in Spain are of con¬
siderable a^e ; but the oldest are those formed by the Moors
in the neighbourhood of Seville of the bitter orange (Citrus
Bigaradia, Rissso), the fruit of which is sold under the
name of “ Seville oranges” for the manufacture of marma¬
lade and other confections. The rind is also used in
medicine as an agreeable tonic. When intended for
export to other countries, the fruit is gathered a little
before it is ripe, and each orange is wrapped either in
thin paper or the spathes of Indian corn, and afterwards
packed in chests or boxes,—the former containing about 800,
and the latter 300. The chief places of import in this
country are London, Liverpool, and Hull; and the quantity
imported is immense. In 1857 we received from Portugal
229,116 bushels; the Azores, 274,200 bushels; Malta,
2430 bushels ; Spain, 68,436 bushels; Two Sicilies, 112,510
bushels ; Gibraltar, 3550 bushels ; and from other countries
2600 bushels ;—in all, 692,842 bushels, as nearly as can be
ascertained; but there is some uncertainty as to the exact
quantity, owing to oranges and lemons being given to¬
gether in the government returns. The duty on oranges
is at present (1858) 8d. per bushel. A curious and de¬
licious variety of the orange is grown in Brazil, and oc¬
casionally sent in small quantities to this country; its rind
does not perfectly inclose the pulp, as in the common orange,
but breaks up into several portions at the top of the fruit,
which is lemon-shaped, and very large. It is the Larangeira
embeguda, or “ navel-orange” of orange cultivators, (t.c.a.)
ORATORIO, in music, a kind of sacred drama, in
which the poetry is derived from some Scriptural subject,
and is set to music in recitatives, airs, duetts, trios, quar-
tetts, &c., and choruses, accompanied by an orchestra,
sometimes an organ, and introduced by an instrumental
overture. The origin of the oratorio is not clearly esta¬
blished. Amongst the most remarkable oratorios of modern
times is Haydn’s “ Creation.” (g. f. G.)
ORATORY. See Rhetoric.
ORAYICZA, a town of Hungary, in the Banat, circle
of Lugos, 53 miles S.S.E. of Temesvar. In the vicinity
are mines of gold, silver, copper, iron, and coal. The town
is the seat of a board of mining for the Banat, and of some
weaving establishments. Pop. 4840.
ORB, a town of Bavaria, circle of Lower Franconia, 41
miles N.N.W. of Wurtzburg. It has rich salt mines, pro¬
ducing annually upwards of 1800 tons of salt; numerous
mills, mineral springs, and an active transit trade. Pop. 4500.
ORCAGNA, or Orgagna, Andrea, a celebrated Italian
artist, was the son of Clone, a well-known goldsmith, and
was born at Florence in the former half of the fourteenth
century. His artistic talents were displayed at once in
painting, sculpture, architecture, and poetry. He was first
engaged, along with his brother Bernardo, in decorating
churches. His chief pictures were “ The Triumph of
Death,” and “ The Last Judgment,” both of which exist at
the present time in the Campo Santo at Pisa, and bear
testimony to the spirited and fertile invention of the artist.
Then turning his attention to sculpture and architecture,
he erected and ornamented the finely-proportioned Loggia
di Lanzi and the church of Or San Michele, two edifices
which are still seen in his native city. Meanwhile his
leisure hours had been occupied in making verses ; and he
now continued to dabble in poetry till his death, at the age of
sixty. (Vasari’s Painters^ Sculptors, &c.; and Lanzi’s
History of Painting.)
ORCHARD. See Horticulture.
ORCHESTRA (Gr. opxncrrpd) was the place allotted to
the chorus in the Greek theatres ; but it signifies in modern
times that place occupied by the instrumental band in a
theatre, or by the instrumental and vocal performers in a
concert-room. The word orchestra is also used as synony¬
mous with band. In the Leipsic Musical Gazette, passim,
there are plans and descriptions of some of the most cele¬
brated orchestras—that of the Grand Opera at Paris, of
a grand amateur concert at Vienna, of the San Carlo
Theatre at Naples, of the Scala Theatre at Milan. (See
also Burney’s account of the great Handel commemoration
in Westminster Abbey in May 1784 ; and the published
accounts of the Handel commemoration in the Crystal
Palace in 1857. For remarks on orchestral instrumenta¬
tion, see article Music.) (&•
ORCHESTRINO, a modern musical instrument, so
called by its inventor Poulleau. It was shaped like a piano¬
forte, had similar finger-keys, and its sounds were produced
by the friction of a circular bow upon the strings. It imi¬
tated the tones of the violin, the viola, the violoncello, the
the viol d’arnour, the double-bass, &c. I he construction
of the bow (of hair, &c.) is said to have been very curious
and ingenious. (g. f* g0
ORCHESTRION, a musical instrument invented by
the Abbe Vogler about 1789. It was a kind of portable
organ, about 9 feet in height, breadth, and depth. Its
power was that of an organ of 16-feet pipe, and it had a
mechanism to swell or to diminish all the sounds within its
compass. Another instrument of the same name, invented
in 1796 by Kunz, a Bohemian, consisted of a pianoforte
combined with some organ-stops. (g. f. g.)
ORCHILLA WEED, the commercial name applied to
several species of Rocella (Nat. Ord. Lichenes). Ihe
most common is R. tinctoria, De Cand., which, although
found growing on the rocks of European coasts even as far
north as Britain, is chiefly collected on the tropical coasts
of Lima and Angola. From the same localities, and also
now in considerable quantities from India, R. fuciformis is
also collected and exported. These are often mixed with
other species, as R. dichotoma, R. pygmcea, R. flaccida, &c.
These lichens are foliaceous, branched like a stag’s horn, but
generally flat. Their colour is a greenish-gray ; and they
have a peculiar and agreeable odour, resembling primroses,
when in large quantities. When reduced to a pulp, and
mixed with an ammoniacal liquor, they yield, after macera-
Orb
Orchilla,
0 R c
Orchome- tion and fermentation, a beautiful purple colour, which is
nus. called orchil or archil. Beckmann {History of Inventions)
^ narrates the accidental discovery of the colouring properties
of this plant by a Florentine merchant, which serves to
explain the fact that this rich dye was so long a secret,
known only to the Florentines. It is more than probable,
however, that the Phycos thalassion of Theophrastus and
Dioscorides, used in their time for dyeing wool, and col¬
lected for that purpose in the Greek islands, was one of
the species of Kocella. This dyeing material varies very
much in price. It has been sold as high as L.1000 per ton ;
but it now ranges from L.30 to L.70. The quantity im¬
ported in 1857 was 998 tons, the greater part of which was
from Portugal and Lima. (t. c. a.)
ORCHOMENUS, a city of Bceotia, and the capital of
the powerful tribe the Minyae, was situated near the west¬
ern shore of the Copaic Lake, on a hill which overlooked
the windings of the Cephissus. Its original inhabitants are
said to have been Thessalian emigrants, and its ultimate
name was derived from Orchomenus, one of the kings of
the Minyans. The city seems to have been powerful and
important from the very first. Its wealth was likened by
Homer to that of the Egyptian Thebes ; its contingent of
ships to the Trojan war amounted to thirty ; it seems at one
time to have had jurisdiction over the towns of the neigh¬
bourhood ; and even when, shortly after the destruction of
Troy, it was forced into the Boeotian confederacy, it was
second among the allies to Thebes alone. The decline
of Orchomenus may be said to have commenced in 395 b.c.,
when, averse to the democratic government of the Thebans,
it took the field with Sparta in support of oligarchy. It is
true that its cause triumphed at the battle of Coronea in
394 b.c., and that its independence was secured by the
peace of Antalcidas in 387 b.c. Yet Thebes had contracted
a deadly enmity against its former tributary, and only
waited for an opportunity to inflict revenge. In 371 B.c.
the victory of Leuctra, which restored to the Thebans
their supremacy over Bceotia, afforded this opportunity.
Orchomenus was destroyed, and its inhabitants were sold
for slaves. It rose again not long afterwards, only to be
destroyed in 346 b.c., by its implacable foes; and al¬
though its walls were rebuilt once more by the command
of Philip of Macedon, it had sunk into ruins in the time of
Strabo. When visited by Pausanias, the remains of Or¬
chomenus contained a temple of Bacchus; the tomb of
Hesiod ; the tomb of Minyas, an ancient king of the town,
who gave his name to the Minyans ; and a temple in which
a famous festival in honour of the Graces had been wont
to be held. The fortifications can still be traced near the
village of Skripu. (Muller’s Orchomenos und die Minyer ;
Leake’s Northern Greece ; and Mure’s Tour in Greece.)
Orchomenus, an ancient city of Arcadia, stood in a
plain surrounded by hills which separated its territory from
that of Mantineaon the S., and those of Pheneus and Stym-
phalus on the N. Its founder is said to have been Orcho¬
menus, the son of Lycaon. Its situation, in the midst of a
well-watered valley, and its acropolis, upon a high and im¬
pregnable hill, seem to have rendered it in early times a
very important city. Homer calls it “ rich in flocks ; ” and
several of its kings are said to have spread their rule over
all Arcadia. But during the Peloponnesian war, when its
acropolis had probably fallen into ruins, and wdien its last
king, Pisistratus, had been murdered by an oligarchical fac¬
tion, Orchomenus began to decline. About 367 b.c. three
of its tributary towns were depopulated to furnish inhabi¬
tants to the newly-founded city of Megalopolis ; in 313 b.c.
it was taken by the Macedonian general Cassander; and
ever afterwards it continued to be bandied about between
different belligerent powers. Yet, in the time of Pausanias,
Orchomenus was still inhabited, and at the present day
its ruins are seen near the village of Kalpaki.
0 R D 7oi
ORDEAL, a term applied to an ancient form of trial, Ordeal,
derived from the Anglo-Saxon ordirae/, compounded, accord- v ,,
ing to Spelman and Ducange, of or, great, and duel, judg¬
ment. Lye and Bosvvorth derive it from or, without, and
dael difference ; signifying thus a judgment without a differ¬
ence or distinction of persons, or, in other words, an impar¬
tial judgment. It agrees with the German urtheil. (See
Hickes, Dissert. Epistol., p. 149.) It consisted in an
appeal to the immediate interposition of Divine power,
being particularly distinguished by the appellation of
judicium Dei; and was sometimes called purgatio vul¬
garis, to distinguish it from canonical purgation, which was
by oath.
That the purgation by ordeal, of some kind or other, is
very ancient, admits not of a doubt; and that it was uni¬
versal in the times of superstitious ignorance, seems to be
equally certain. Perhaps the earliest trace of this practice
is to be found in the book of Numbers, chap, v., where
Hebrew wromen suspected of incontinency had to drink the
“ waters of jealousy” as a test of their innocence. The
ordeal of the “red drink,”employed by the inhabitants of
the Gold Coast in Africa, resembles this Jewish custom not
a little. (See Kitto’s Biblical Cyclopcedia.) It appears
even to have been known also to the ancient Greeks ; for
in the Antigone of Sophocles a person suspected by Creon
of a misdemeanour, declares himself ready “ to handle hot
iron and to walk over fire,” in order to manifest his inno¬
cence, which, the scholiast tells us, was then a usual mode
of purgation. And Grotius gives many instances of water-
ordeal in Bithynia, Sardinia, and other places. It seems,
however, to have been carried to a greater height amongst
the Hindus than ever it had been in any nation or amongst
any people, however rude or barbarous; for in a paper in
the Asiatic Researches (vol. i., p. 389), communicated by
Hastings, we find that the trial by ordeal amongst that
people is conducted in nine diffei'ent ways : by the balance;
by fire; by water; by poison; by the cosha, or the water in
which an idol has been washed; by rice; by boiling oil;
by red-hot iron ; and by images. Two kinds of this trial
were more common than the rest, at least in Europe,—viz.,
fire-ordeal and water-ordeal. The former was confined to
persons of high rank, the latter to the common people. Both
these might be performed by deputy ; but the principal
was bound to answer for the success of the trial, the deputy
only venturing some corporal pain, for hire, or perhaps for
friendship ; hence the origin of the expression “ to go
through fire and water” tor one. “ Fire-ordeal,” says
Blackstone {Comm., vol. iv.,c. 27), “was performed either
by taking up in the hand, unhurt, a piece of red-hot iron,
of one, tw o, or three pounds weight; or else by walking,
barefoot and blindfold, over nine red-hot ploughshares,
laid lengthwise at unequal distances; and if the party escaped
unhurt, he was adjudged innocent, but if it happened other¬
wise, as without collusion it usually did, he was then con¬
demned as guilty. However, by this latter method Queen
Emma, the mother of Edward the Confessor, is mentioned
to have cleared her character when suspected of familiarity
with Alwyn, Bishop of Winchester.” “The water-ordeal
w as performed either by plunging the bare arm up to the
elbow in boiling water, and escaping unhurt thereby; or
by casting the person suspected into a river or pond of cold
water, and if he floated therein without any act of swim¬
ming, it was deemed an evidence of his guilt, but if he
sunk he was acquitted.”
The origin of this mode of trial may be traced to neces¬
sity as well as to superstition. At the time in which it origi¬
nated in England, as well as in other countries of Europe,
it w'as no easy matter for an innocent person, when accused
of guilt, to get himself cleared by the then established mode
of trial. It was therefore natural for superstition to fly to
heaven for those testimonies of innocence which the ab-
702 0 K D
0 R D
Orders.
surdity of human laws often prevented men from obtaining
in the ordinary course of affairs. In this way, doubtless,
did the trial by ordeal commence ; and being thus begun
by necessitous superstition, it was fostered by impious
priestcraft and unjust power. (See Jury Trial.) Besides
the particular methods of trial which we have already men¬
tioned, there were some few more common in European
countries; as the judicial combat, the ordeal of the cross,
and the ordeal of the corsned.
The judicial combat was exceedingly common in Ger¬
many in very remote ages; but it is not mentioned in any
of the Anglo-Saxon laws, and it does not appear to have
been much used in England until after the Conquest. It
was so much the custom in the middle ages of Christianity
to respect the cross, even to superstition, that it would
indeed have been wonderful if the same ignorant bigotry
had not converted it into an ordeal; and accordingly we
find it used for this purpose in so many different ways as
almost to preclude description. The corsned, or the con¬
secrated bread and cheese, was the ordeal to which the
clergy commonly appealed when they were accused of any
crimes. If the culprit swallowed the bread and cheese
freely, he was declared innocent; but if it stuck in his throat,
he was pronounced guilty. In the reign of Edward the Con¬
fessor, as historians assure us, Godwin, Earl of Kent,.in ab¬
juring the death of the king’s brother, appealed to this ordeal,
and was choked by the corsned. (Blackstone, vol. iv.)
Besides these, there were a variety of other ordeals prac¬
tised in Christian countries, many of which retain the same
names which were used amongst pagans, and differ only
as to the mode in which they were performed. In all
nations of Christians where these trials were used, we find
the clergy engaged in them. Indeed, in England, as late
as the time of King John, we find grants to the bishops
and clergy to use the judicium ferri, aquce, et ignis ; and
both in England and Sweden the clergy presided at this
trial, and it was only performed in the churches, or in other
consecrated ground. But we find the canon law, at a
very early period, declaring against trial by ordeal, or vul¬
garis purgatio, as being the work of the devil. A decree to
this effect was issued in the eighteeenth canon of the fourth
Lateran Council, November 1215. “ Upon this authority,
though the canons themselves were of no validity in Eng¬
land, it was thought proper,” says Blackstone (as had been
done in Denmark above a century before), to disuse and
abolish this trial entirely in our courts of justice by an act
of Parliament 3 Henry III., according to Sir Edward Coke,
or rather by an order of the king in council. Spelman thinks,
however (Glossary under Judicium Dei), that this law was
merely temporary. It is clear that it must have fallen into
disuse in England about the middle of the thirteenth cen¬
tury, as it had in most European nations long before. (Sel-
don’s Notes to Eadmer ; see also Palgrave’s Rise and Pro¬
gress of the English Commonwealth, vol. i., p. 256.)
That much priestly jugglery was practised in con¬
nection with ordeals there can be no manner of doubt.
Artificial preparations were known and used which
enabled the suspected to undergo the most unheard-of
trials without injury. With the scientific knowledge of
the present day this seems in no way so miraculous as it
must have done to the ignorant of those early times.
When the ordeal was abolished, and this art rendered use¬
less, the clergy no longer kept it a secret.
ORDERS. In no Reformed church are there more than
three orders, namely, bishops, priests, and deacons. In the
Roman Catholic church there are seven, exclusive of the
episcopate, all of which the Council of Trent enjoins to be
received and believed, on pain of anathema. They are dis¬
tinguished into petty or secular orders, and major or sacred
orders.
The petty or minor orders are four; those of door¬
keeper, exorcist, reader, and acolyte. Persons in petty Orders
orders may marry without any dispensation. In effect, the ||
petty orders are looked on as little other than formalities, Ordination,
and as degrees necessary to arrive at the higher orders.
The Greeks disavow these petty orders, and pass imme¬
diately to the subdiaconate; and the Reformed churches
to the diaconate. Their rise Fleury dates in the time of
the Emperor Justinian. There is no call nor benefice re¬
quired for the four petty orders; and even a bastard may
enjoy them without any dispensation, nor does a second
marriage disqualify.
Orders, Religious, in the Romish Church, are generally
reckoned three,—viz., the monastic, the military, and the
mendicant. (Respecting these, see Monachism, Knights
and Knighthood, Mendicants, and Jesuitism.)
Orders, Holy. See Ordination.
ORDERICUS, Vitalis, author of a very valuable his¬
tory of England and Normandy during the eleventh and
twelfth centuries, was born at Attingesham (Atchani), a
village on the Severn, near Shrewsbury, on the 17th of
February 1075. Our information respecting his life is con¬
fined entirely to his own writings. His father, Odelerius,
quitted his native city of Orleans to accompany Roger de
Montgomery into England, and received from that lord a
grant of lands near Shrewsbury, where he built a monas¬
tery, to which he retired in 1110. The child received the
name of Ordericus after the priest who baptized him. At
the age of five years he was sent to school at Shrewsbury,
where he remained under the care of Siward, a priest, till
his tenth year. His father then gave him in charge to Ray-
nold, a monk, who conveyed him to the abbey of St
Evroult, in the diocese of Lisieux in Normandy, and dedi¬
cated the boy to a monastic life. Ordericus received the
tonsure in 1085, and assumed the name of Vitalis in honour
of the saint whose memory was solemnized on the day of
his admission to the monastic order. He attained after¬
wards to the rank of priest. The remainder of his days were
devoted to the peaceful performance of the duties of his
order, and to the composition of his Ecclesiastical History
of England and Normandy. The rules of the cloister
were not compatible with the gratification of his strong in¬
clination for travel; yet he was permitted occasional ab¬
sence for the purpose of collecting materials for his History.
With this intention, he visited Croyland Abbey and Wor¬
cester on two separate occasions, besides making various
journeys to different parts of Normandy. In 1141 he draws
his History to a close, “ worn out by age and infirmities.”
He was then in his sixty-seventh year, and must have died
soon after. Although removed from his native country
while yet a mere child, he never ceased to glory in the
name of Englishman, and describes himself in the title of
his great work as Vitalis Angligena.
His History, which consists of thirteen books, seems to
have been written in a very irregular manner. What stand
now as books first, second, and seventh, were composed
after the rest of the work had been completed. M. Guizot
says of it in his Introduction to the French edition, “On more
than one occasion his materials seem thrown together pell-
mell, as chance or opportunity brought them into the
author’s power. But this irregular surface covers a mine
of real wealth. No book contains so much and such valu¬
able information on the history of the eleventh and twelfth
centuries—on the political state, both civil and religious,
of society in the west of Europe—and on the manners of
the times, whether feudal, monastic or popular.” The entire
work of Vitalis was first printed in the collection of Du¬
chesne in 1619; a French version of it by Dubois ap¬
peared in 1826 ; another, by Le Provost and Delisle, 1838-
54; and an excellent English version, by T. Forester, was
published in 4 vols. by Bohn, London, 1853-56.
ORDINATION is the solemn setting apart to the work
OEDINATION.
703
rdination.of the Christian ministry in a congregation, or the act of
—investing with the sacred office in the Christian church.
The form in which this rite is administered is substantially
the same in all sections of the church; but the rite has a
very different signification, and is viewed with very different
feelings, in different communions. These differences are
determined chiefly by the views entertained of the nature
of the sacred office itself, and of the relation of those in¬
vested with it to each other. Where a gradation of rank
and authority obtains within the clerical body, and where
the Christian ministry is regarded as a priesthood, it is ob¬
vious that ordination must have a very different meaning
from what is attached to it by those who hold the parity
of the clergy, and regard their functions as purely minis¬
terial, and in no respect sacerdotal. In the former case
ordination will mean to confer orders (conferre ordines);
in the latter it cannot mean more than to receive into the
body {cooptare in ordinem).
We shall best consult, we believe, the wishes of our
readers if, without entering polemically into this thorny
question, we place before them, from authentic sources, a
statement of the opinions entertained by the leading sec¬
tions of the church regarding ordination.
By the Homan Catholics ordination is regarded as a
sacrament, and in its highest degree it is the investing with
the priestly office and the conferring of priestly powers.
To this there are several preliminary steps, which ascend
in the following order:—The ostiariate, the lectorate, the
exorcistate, the acolythate, the subdiaconate, and the dia-
conate1 (Concil. Trident. Sess. 22, c. 2. Comp. Concil.
Carthag. iv. c. 3—c. 9, in Caranza, Summa Cone., p. 167.)
Through each of these steps the candidate ought regularly
to pass; but in practice this rule is not always strictly fol¬
lowed, inasmuch as, when the service of the church requires,
it is assumed that the proved fitness of a candidate for the
higher stage renders it unnecessary that he should formally
pass through the lower stages (Schnappinger, Doctrina
Dogmatum Eccl. Christ. Cathol., vol. ii., p. 194). Ordi¬
nation can be administered only by a bishop, who is a
successor of the Apostles, and in whom resides the faculty
of communicating ecclesiastical authority and sacerdotal
power. By imposition of hands upon the candidate, accom¬
panied with the words, “ Accipe potestatem offerendi sacri-
ficium pro vivis et mortuis in nomine Patris, Filii, et Spiritus
Sancti,” the bishop performs the act of ordination ; and the
individual so ordained becomes thenceforward endowed
with the Holy Spirit, and capable of offering the sacrifice of
the altar, and of remitting or binding sins. The character
thus impressed upon him is indelible; the priest can never
again become a laic, even though he may cease to discharge
the functions of his office. A recent expositor of Roman
Catholic theology has thus stated the effect of ordination in
relation to the three superior grades of the clergy:—“ The
working of ordination is the sacerdotal grace, ‘the power of
the Holy Ghost, and that in such a way as that the fulness
of the priesthood shall belong to the episcopate, on which
account bishops are the chief servants and organs of grace,
and they who communicate the Holy Ghost in confirma¬
tion and ordination; a lesser portion falls to the priests, to
whom is given the power of offering sacrifice and absolving;
whilst on the deacons comes only a beginning and shadow
of the priesthood, to whom are committed only the preach¬
ing, the preparation and distribution of the eucharistic
offering, and the dispensing of baptism.” (Klee, Kath.
Dogmalik, iii. 338.)
In the Greek Church, ordination is regarded in much
the same light as in the Romish church. “ The priest¬
hood,” says the Confessio Orthodoxa, p. 173, “inasmuch
as it is a sacrament (pvar^piov), was appointed to the Ordination.
Apostles by Christ; and ordination (xetporovia) takes place 's—v'—/
by the imposition of their hands even unto our day,
the bishops having succeeded them for the communica¬
tion of the holy mysteries, and the ministry of the salva¬
tion of men.”
In the Anglican Church, there are some whose views of
ordination very slightly differ from those avowed by the
Romanists (see Tracts for the Times, No. 4, and No. 54,
&c.) But the judgment of the church, as such, is more
justly expressed in the following statement. Ordination is
‘ a privilege peculiar to the character of a bishop, who is a
governor in the church of God; whereby he conveys
authority to some to preach the gospel, and to administer
the sacraments, who are called presbyters, and from whence
is derived our word priest; and to others to be assistants
to himself and the presbyters in their spiritual administra¬
tions, who are called deacons ; which is performed by prayer
and the imposition of hands—a solemn ceremony of bless¬
ing and devoting persons to the sacred function.” (Nelson’s
Companion for the Festivals and Fasts of the Church of
England, p. 526, 22d edit.) The Church of England for¬
mally repudiates the sacramental character of orders in her
25th article, but attaches importance to ordination, as need¬
ful for the maintenance of that “reverend estimation” in
which the ministerial office ought to be held in the church.
The right of ordaining is vested in the bishop, who is bound
to satisfy himself that the candidate is “ a man of virtuous
conversation, and without crime,” and that he is “ learned
in the Latin tongue, and sufficiently instructed in holy
Scripture.” No one can be ordained a deacon under
twenty-three years of age, unless he have a Faculty; and
every one who is to be admitted a priest must be full four-
and-twenty years old. The canonical seasons for ordina¬
tion are the Sundays immediately following the four ember
days; that is, the second Sunday in Lent, the Sunday after
Whitsunday, the Sunday after the 14th of September, and
the Sunday after the 13th of December {Can. 31); but on
urgent occasions, according to the discretion of the bishop,
ordination may be administered on any other Sunday or
holy day, provided it be done “ in the face of the church.”
The parties to be ordained are presented to the bishop by
the archdeacon or his deputy, who is bound to attest their
meetness for the office to which they aspire. After admi¬
nistering to each the oath of allegiance, and exacting from
them an avowal of their conviction that they are moved
by the Holy Ghost to take on them the sacred office, a
profession of their belief in the canonical Scriptures, and a
promise to read them diligently to the people, as well as to
live so as to be an example to the flock, the bishop ordains
them by laying his hands severally on the head of each,
and pronouncing over each the formula of authorization to
discharge the functions of the office to which he is set apart.
In the case of deacons, this authorization is limited to the
reading of the gospel in the church, and the preaching of
the same if licensed thereto by the bishop himself. In
ordaining priests, the bishop says, “ Receive the Holy Ghost
for the office and work of a priest in the church of God now
committed unto thee by the imposition of our hands. Whose
sins thou dost forgive they are forgiven, and whose sins thou
dost retain they are retained. And be thou a faithful dis¬
penser of the Word of God and of his holy sacraments ; in
the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Ghost. Amen.” After this, the bishop delivers to every
one of them, kneeling, the Bible into his hand, saying,
“ Take thou authority to preach the Word of God, and to
minister the holy sacraments to the congregation where
thou shalt be lawfully appointed thereunto.”
1 Whether all of these are to he counted sacramental is a point not fully settled in the Romish Church. Bellarmine refers to the
different views, and concludes,—“Absolute tamen probabilior sententia est, quae ordines omnes sacramenta esse docet quam ea quae
negat.” {Sacr. Ord., c. 5.)
704 O li D
Ordination. The Lutherans repudiate alike the sacramental character
of ordination and the priesthood of the clergy. Preserving
as a sacred truth the idea of the universal priesthood of the
people of God in a spiritual sense, they deny the existence
of any essential distinction between the clergy and the
laity, and regard the sacred office as simply a ministry, not
in any particular congregation, but in the church at large ■
a ministry the special function of which is to preach the
Word of God, to administer the sacraments, and to remit
or retain sins (see Apol. Confess. Aug., art. 7, art. 10, art.
14; Conf. Aug., art. 5). Ordination is with them, con¬
sequently, simple consecration or designation to the minis¬
terial office, and may be performed by an elder or pastor
(Art. Smalcald, p. 352); though, for the sake of order, it
is usually administered by a superintendent or prelate in
the presence of other pastors (see Gerhard, Loc. Theoll.,
xii. 145, 159). In administering it, prayer and imposition
of hands are used, the latter being regarded not in any sense
as a sacramental symbol, but merely as a venerable usage,
which has descended from apostolic times, and as useful for
admonition (Gerhard, xii. 163). “ We have followed this
usage,” says Reinhard (Dogmatik, p. 635), “ not from
superstition, as if by it some special sanctity were imparted,
but simply that the party who undertakes the office of a
public teacher may be admonished of the importance of his
office, and may be indicated to the congregation as one in
whom it may repose trust.”
The doctrine of the Reformed Church respecting ordi¬
nation does not essentially differ from that of the Lutheran.
Persons duly appointed, whether by the choice of the people
or by a patron, and found duly qualified, after examination
by the pastors of the district, are publicly ordained by prayer
and the laying on of hands. According to* Calvin himself,
“ though there is no direct injunction of the imposition of
hands, yet the rite having always been observed in apos¬
tolic times, deserves to be retained, and is useful as tending
to commend to the people the dignity of the ministry, and
to remind him who is ordained that he is not his own, but
is bound to the service of God and the church.” He is
doubtful, however, whether a plurality of pastors be indis¬
pensable for the ordaining of a minister, and he adduces the
case of Timothy, as one in which ordination was adminis¬
tered by the Apostle alone (1 Tim. i. 5) ; the statement in
2 Tim. iv. 14 being understood by him “ non quasi Paulus
de seniorum collegio loquatur, sed . . . quasi diceret, Fac
ut gratia, quam per manuum impositionem recepisti, quum
te presbyterum crearem, non sit irrita.” (Inst., lib. iv.
c. 3, § 16.)
According to the Presbyterians, ordination is “ the
solemn setting apart to some public church office,” and is to
be performed, with authority of the Presbytery, by prayer
and imposition of hands. The doctrine of the Church of
Scotland, as expounded by Dr Hill, is, that “ every one
who is ordained by the laying on of the hands of the office¬
bearers of the church becomes a minister of the church
universal. He is invested with that character, .... and
by this investiture he receives authority to perform all the
acts belonging to the character.” The business of the
church, he adds, “ is to convey the powers [of the minis¬
terial office] to those whom she finds qualified. By ordina¬
tion they become ministers of the church universal;” and
he carefully distinguishes between this and the election or
appointment by which a man becomes the minister of a
particular congregation ; “ this assignation of place being
merely a matter of order, which is not essential to his cha¬
racter.” (Lectures in Divinity, vol. ii., p. 439, 440, third
edit.) In the United Presbyterian Church, this local assig¬
nation enters as an important element into the effect of
ordination : the party is ordained “ to the office of the holy
ministry, and to the pastoral inspection of the congregation
by whom he has been chosen and regularly called.” (Rules
0 R E
and Forms of Procedure, &c., p. 47.) In administering Ordnance
ordination, a minister, who is either the existing moderator ||
of the Presbytery, or one appointed to act as such for the f*re8-
occasion, presides; a sermon is preached, in some cases by ''"“V”'*''
the moderator, in others by some minister appointed by the
Presbytery; certain questions are then put to the candidate,
bearing on his religious belief, ecclesiastical relations, and
official engagements ; and on receiving satisfactory answers
to these, the presiding minister engages in prayer, and by
imposition of hands, in which all the members of the pres¬
bytery present join, ordains the candidate ; after which the
latter receives the right hand of fellowship from his brother
ministers, and suitable addresses are delivered to minister
and people on their respective duties.
By the Independents, or Congregationalists, strenuous
objection is taken to the doctrine that ordination is the in¬
vesting of a man with the character of a minister of the
church universal. Such an “ individuum vagum, or pastor
at large,” they hold to be “ irregular and cross to the order
of the gospel,” being a pastor without a flock, an officer
without an office, a ruler without subjects. (Hooker and
Cotton’s Survey of Church Discipline, part ii., chap, ii.,
p. 60 ; 4to. 1648.) They regard “ ordination not as a de¬
signation to the work of the ministry (of which they find
no examples in the New Testament), but as a solemn ap¬
pointment to office in a Christian church” (Fuller, Works,
v. 280); and, consequently, when a minister changes his
place of service it would be according to their principles
that he should be re-ordained in his new sphere. In prac¬
tice, however, this latter course is not always followed; nor
are all agreed as to the necessity of ordination even in the
first instance. The views chiefly prevalent among English
and Scottish Independents are expressed in the following
article of the Declaration of Faith, Church Order, and
Discipline of the Congregational or Independent Dissenters,
issued in 1833:—“ They believe that church-officers, whe¬
ther bishops or deacons, should be chosen by the free voice
of the church; but that their dedication to the duties of
their office should take place with special prayer and by
solemn designation, to which most of the churches add the
imposition of hands by those already in office.” The order
usually adhered to in this service is as follows:—First, a
sermon is preached, which is generally devoted to an ex¬
position and defence of Congregational church polity ; then
certain questions are proposed to the candidate regarding
his personal religious history, his views of divine truth, his
motives for desiring the work of the ministry, and his in¬
tentions as to the actual discharge of the functions of the
ministry in the sphere to which he has been called; the
ordination prayer is then offered, usually by the minister
who puts the questions, and, when imposition of hands is
used, by all the ministers present uniting with him in this
act; after which the ministers give to the newly ordained
pastor the right hand of fellowship. Some minister of ex¬
perience then gives the charge to the pastor, and another
addresses the people on their respective duties; and the
service concludes, as it began, with prayer and praise. By
some it is held that the right of ordination rests with the
officers of the individual church in which the party to
be ordained is to officiate, and, in the absence of such,
with the private members (Davidson, Ecclesiastical Polity
of the New Testament, p. 241, ff.); but these extreme
views are not generally entertained by Congregational¬
ists. (w. L. A.)
ORDNANCE, a general name for all sorts of great guns
used in war. (For the various officers of the Ordnance, see
Akmy, and Navi*.)
ORES are the mineral bodies from which metals are
extracted. Metals exist in ores,—(1.) In the metallic state,
when they are either pure or combined with each other,
as in the state of alloy; (2.) Combined with oxygen in the
0 II E
)rebro state of an oxide; (3.) Combined with sulphur in the state
II of sulphuret; and (4.) With acids, forming salts. (See
rcgoTK AND MlNiXG.)
0REBRO, a town of Sweden, capital of a lan of the
same name, stands near the western extremity of Lake
Hielmar, 100 miles W. of Stockholm. The streets are
wide and clean, and the houses neatly built of wood, painted
of a red colour, with white doors and window-frames. In
the principal church, which is a handsome edifice, there
are numerous interesting monuments, and the grave of
Engelbrecht Engelbrechtson, the Swedish patriot, killed in
1436. I he town contains also a fine ancient castle, a
town-hall, assembly-house, hospital, &c., and the old house
is still to be seen where Gustavus Vasa and Charles IX.
lived, and where Bernadette was elected Crown Prince of
Sweden in 1810. Manufactures of linen and woollen stuffs,
waxcloth, hosiery, paper, and tobacco, are carried on here;
and there is a large printing-house, where many of the best
Swedish works are printed. A considerable trade is car¬
ried on with Stockholm through Lake Hielmar, the canal
of Arboga, and Lake Malar. Pop. 5807.
1 he lan of Orebro is 98 miles in length from N. to S.,
and 57 in width at the broadest part, and has an area of
3250 square miles. It is hilly towards the north, and
throughout the rest of its surface of an undulating nature.
It abounds in lakes and rivers, and in the hilly region
there are rich mines of iron and other minerals, and exten¬
sive forests, which furnish the principal articles of export
from the ian. Cattle of good breed are reared in the pas¬
ture-grounds. The principal crops are, rye, barley, oats,
and potatoes. Pop. (1850) 137,660.
OREGON, a territory of the United States of North
America, lies between N. Lat. 42. and 46. 18., W. Lon.
108. 44. and 124. 28.; and is bounded on the N. by the
territory of Washington, from which it is separated by the
Columbia River and the 46th parallel of latitude ; E. by Ne¬
braska, from which it is separated by the Rocky Mountains;
S. by the territory of Utah and state of California; and W.
by the Pacific. Its length from E. to W. is about 665
miles ; breadth, 279 miles ; area, 105,030 square miles. Be¬
sides the Rocky Mountains on the eastern frontier, Oregon
is traversed by two other ranges having the same general
direction from N. to S., and dividing the territory into three
distinct regions. The most westerly of these is the Cas¬
cade Coast, or, as it is sometimes called, the President’s
Range, at a distance varying from 80 to 150 miles from the
coast. It is very lofty, having many peaks from 12,000 to
14,000 feet above the sea, and quite continuous, except
where it is interrupted by the Columbia at the north fron¬
tier of Oregon. This mountain chain extends beyond the
limits of Oregon, from Russian America in the north to the
peninsula of California in the south. It almost entirely
cuts off the communication between the coast and the in¬
terior, as there are but few passes, and these are so beset
with difficulties as to be almost impracticable. The highest
point in these mountains is Mount Hood, 18,361 feet above
t ie level of the sea. Ihe Blue Mountains, though having
t ie same general direction as the two ranges between which
they stand, are more irregular and interrupted than either
the Rocky Mountains or the Cascade range. They branch
oft fiom the Rocky Mountains in British America, stretch
southwards through Washington and Oregon, and finally
extend into the state of California, where they take the
name of Sierra Nevada. 1 hey send off branches on the
east to the Rocky Mountains, and on the west to the Cas-
cade range. Of the three regions into which Oregon is
divided by these mountain chains, that which lies between
the Cascade range and the ocean is the only agricultural
part of the country, and is watered by the Willamette,
Umpqua, and Rogue rivers, all of which rise in the Cascade
Mountains, and fall, the first into the Columbia, and the two
vcl. xvi.
O K E 705
others into the Pacific. Many branches and offsets from Oregon.
the main ridge diversify this country, and these are covered v '
with forests of oak, pine, fir, spruce, ash, and other kinds of
timber, with a thick undergrowth of hazels, briars, &c.
I here are also in this region many valleys and prairies,
where the soil is rich and loamy, furnishing good land for
cultivation, and excellent pasturage. The coast of Oregon,
which is in general bold and steep, is rendered dangerous
for navigation by the heavy surf which continually breaks
against every part of it. Of the few promontories which
diversify the uniformity of its outline, the most noteworthy
are capes Lookout, Foulweather, and Blanco or Orford.
There are no considerable inlets of the sea; and as the
mouths of the small rivers here are generally obstructed by
sand-bars thrown up by the violence of the waves, the har¬
bours are few and insignificant. Those in the estuary of
the Columbia, and that which lies at the mouth of the
Umpqua, are the most important seaports of Oregon. The
middle region of the territory, lying between the Cascade
and the Blue Mountains, is of a different nature, and more
suitable for pastoral than for agricultural purposes. The
surface is undulating, and in general elevated about 1000
feet above the sea. With a large extent of barren and
lonely deserts in the south, this region contains throughout
a great part of its area fine pasture-grounds, and is watered
by the Fall River, an affluent of the Columbia from the
south, and by several smaller streams. The most easterly
region of the territory, extending from the Blue to the
Rocky Mountains, is for the most part barren and rocky,
so as to be quite incapable of improvement either for
agiicultural or pastoral pursuits, except in the immediate
vicinity of the rivers. In some parts the surface is covered
with wood, and it is broken by numerous mountain ridges
and isolated hills. 1 he Salmon River Mountains traverse
this country from E. to W.; and the principal rivers are
the Salmon River, to the north of this range; and on the
south the Snake River, into which the former flows, and
which discharges their united waters into the Columbia.
In the Rocky Mountains, within the territory of Oregon,
there is but one pass, the South Pass, at the extreme S&.E.,’
7489 feet in elevation. This forms the great thoroughfare
to Utah and California from the east, and by this path the
stream of emigration enters these countries. In geological
character, the whole country between the Cascade ancl the
Rocky Mountains is of primitive formation. Traces of vol¬
canic agency occur in many places, and in some parts there
are extensive beds of lava, in which the rivers have worn
channels for themselves. In the western region formations
of later eras are general, but in the southern part even of
this region primitive rocks occur. Of the mineral wealth
of the territory comparatively little is yet known; but gold
has been found in the Cascade range and in the rivers that
descend from it. Indeed the whole country to the west of
the Blue Mountains is believed to abound in this metal.
The valley of the Willamette is also rich in coal. The
western region of Oregon enjoys a mild and temperate
climate. I he summers are warm and dry, and the winters
neither long nor severe, the difference between the ex¬
tremes of heat and cold not being so great as in places of
the same latitude on the American shores of the Atlantic.
A considerable amount of rain falls, chiefly in winter; but
the snow only lies for a short time. At Oregon city, not
far south of the Columbia, the mean temperature of the
whole year is 54°; of spring, 54°; of summer, 70°; of au¬
tumn, 54£° ; and of winter, 40°. In the central region the
climate is colder and more variable, but the atmosphere is
healthy and bracing. In the eastern region the climate is
very variable, and hardly any rain or snow falls. The
forests of Oregon abound in many kinds of wild animals,—
as elks, deer, antelopes, bears, wolves, foxes, beavers, &c.
The eastern region of Oregon contains manv buffaloes
‘4 TI
706
ORE
Oregon. Fur-bearing animals, which were formerly very abundant,
are now falling otf in numbers, and constitute no longer a
profitable pursuit. Ducks, geese, and other waterfowl are
extremely numerous in spring and autumn on the rivers and
lakes. In all these, as well as in the sea off the coasts, fish of
many kinds are found; such as salmon, sturgeon, cod, carp,
See., as well as crabs, oysters, mussels, and other shell-fish.
The only part of Oregon that has yet been settled and
cultivated is that which lies to the west of the Cascade
Mountains. In 1850 the territory contained (exclusive ot
the counties of Clark and Lewis, which then belonged to
Oregon, but have since been formed into the territory of
Washington), 115,691 acres of cultivated and 247,212 ot
uncultivated land in farms. The whole value of the farms
was in that year L.492,927 ; and that of the farming imple¬
ments and machinery L.34,112. There were produced m
Oregon in the year ending June 1, 1850, 200,148 bushels
of wheat, 2913 of maize, 54,524 of oats, 29,536 lb. of
wool, 3822 bushels of pease and beans, 58,429 of potatoes,^
LI5 964 worth of market-garden produce, 209,564 lb. of
butter, and 35,930 lb. of cheese. Of live stock there were
in the territory in the same year 66/9 hoises, 414 asses
and mules, 34,334 horned cattle, 4024 sheep, and 28,729
swine; the whole being valued at L.350,651. The only
mining operation carried on in Oregon is gold-digging,
which is pursued in the valleys in the south-west of the
territory. Nor are the manufactures of the country of
much importance, being confined to such articles as are
required to supply the wants of a scattered agricultural
people. Some trade, however, is carried on in the expor¬
tation of timber, leather, beef, pork, salmon, onions, pota¬
toes, butter, cheese, &c. A line of steamers plies between
San Francisco and the Columbia. The exports of Oregon
for the year ending June 30, 1856, amounted in value to
L.1296; and the imports to L.565. According to the con¬
stitution of Oregon, promulgated in 1848, the executive
power is in the hands of a governor, appointed for a period
of four years by the president of the United States, and
removable at will by the same authority. Hie legislatuie
consists of a council of 9 members, and a house cf re¬
presentatives of not less than 18, or more than 30; both
elected by the people, the former for three years, and the
latter for one. The right of voting and of eligibility as a
member of the legislative body belongs to every white
male of full age in the territory who is either a citizen of
the United States, or declares upon oath his intention to
become such; but the legislature may introduce new limi¬
tations in the franchise. By a vote of the people in June
1857 a convention was appointed to prepare a constitution
for Oregon as a state, which was to be submitted to the
people for ratification. At the same time the questions con¬
nected with slavery, as regards Oregon, were to be decided
by popular vote; and if the constitution be latificd, provi-
sion is made for the election of a state government and
representatives in Congress, June 7, 1858. The number
of churches in Oregon, according to the census ot 1850,
was eight, having an aggregate accommodation for 2633;
and property amounting to L.15,315. Little progiess has
yet been made in education, as indeed little could have
been expected from the scanty population; but certain
lands have been allotted for the endowment of a university,
and of the public land, two sections in each township are
reserved for educational purposes, an amount which will
yield a large sum, being double what is allowed in the
other new states. There were in Oregon in 1850, 29
academies and schools, with 44 teachers, and 898 pupils.
In the same year the total number of adults in the territory
unable to read and write was 156. Oregon is gradually
rising to wealth and prosperity by the steady labour and
industry of the inhabitants; while at the same time the
means for the religious and intellectual advancement of
ORE
the people are by no means neglected. The discovery of
the coast of Oregon is an honour disputed by the British
and Spanish nations; for it was visited by navigators from
both countries in the sixteenth century. Ferrelo, a Spaniard,
is said to have reached as far N. as Lat. 43. in 1547; while
in 1579 Drake arrived at the 48th parallel. The estuary
of the Columbia was first entered in 1792 by Captain
Baker, an Englishman, and Captain Gray, an American;
and on account of the priority of the entrance of the latter,
the American government laid claim to the entire country
watered by that river and its affluents. These conflicting
pretensions gave rise to many serious and long-continued dis¬
putes between the three powers, which were finally settled
only by the treaty of 1846, by which all the country south
of N. Lat. 49. was ceded to the United States. The whole
of this country was originally comprised in the territory of
Oregon, but has since been divided into those of Oregon
and Washington. Pop. (1850), exclusive of the present
territory of Washington, 12,093; (1853), 33,324; (1857),
estimated at 43,000.
OREL, or Orlov, a government of European Russia,
lying between N. Lat. 51. 55. and 54., E. Long. 32. 40.
and 38. 50., is bounded on the N. by the governments of
Kaluga and Tula, E. by Tambov, S.E. by Voronetz, S. by
Kursk, and W. by Tchernigov and Smolensk. Length
from N.W. to S.E. 262 miles ; breadth, varying from 28 to
112 miles; area, 18,258 square miles. Though elevated
throughout, the surface is not broken by any mountains;
only some chains of limestone hills, and heights along the
river-banks, intersect the country, forming in some places
deep and picturesque valleys. Nearly a third part of the
o-overnment is covered with forests ; but there are very few
barren, heathy, or marshy tracts. The principal rivers are
the Desna, a tributary of the Dnieper, which flows in a
southerly direction across the west of Orel; the Oka, which
flows through the centre and north of the government to
join the Volga; and in the east the Sosna, an affluent of the
Don, flowing N.E. There are also numerous smaller
streams; but no lakes of any size. The soil is for the
most part light and sandy, but well suited for all kinds
of grain, which it produces in larger quantities than the
wants of the inhabitants require. The climate of Orel is
temperate and healthy. Agriculture is extensively carried
on; all kinds of corn, hemp, flax, hops, and tobacco are
grown. The extent of arable land in the government in
1849 was 5,608,392 acres ; of meadow land, 918,274 acres;
of wood, 2,599,206 acres; and of waste land, 2,239,696
acres. Gardening is carried on here to a large extent, and
is better understood than in any other part of Russia ; and
fruits and vegetables are grown in large quantities. The
trees most common in Orel are, limes, birches, alders, as¬
pens, firs, elms, &c. Foxes and hares are abundant, and
are frequently hunted. The rearing of cattle is well at¬
tended to in Orel. Of horses, which are of excellent breed,
suited either for riding or for farm labour, the government
contained in 1849, 590,955 ; of horned cattle, 368,824 ;^of
sheep, 1,038,721; of swine, 53o,/60 ; and of goats, 21/1.
Great numbers of bees are kept. Many valuable minerals
are obtained here, such as iron, lime, mill-stones, grind¬
stones, alabaster, &c. Few manufactures are carried on, as
the peasants make for themselves those articles that they
need. There were, however, in 1848 thirteen beet-root
sugar manufactories, using 4435 tons of beet-root, and pro¬
ducing 2660 cwt. of sugar. Orel contains also a few other
manufactories, where coarse woollen and linen stuffs, cord¬
age, earthenware, soap, iron, &c., are produced. 1 lie trade
is considerable, consisting in the exportation of grain,
flour, hemp, spirits, honey, iron, hardware, and other
articles. The imports from foreign countries all enter the
government by way of Moscow. The inhabitants are fruga
and industrious ; but ignorant, and strongly prejudiced m
ORE
favour of old customs. The majority belong to the Greek
Church ; hut there are about 650 Roman Catholics, and a
few Protestants and Mohammedans. Education is in a very
low state, though nominally under the management of the
university of Moscow. Pop. 1,406,571.
Orel, the capital of the above government, stands at the
junction of the Oka and the Orlik, 201 miles S.S.W. of
Moscow. It is defended by an ancient fort; and has a very
gloomy appearance, with narrow, ill-paved streets, and
wooden houses. There are here fine public gardens, well
laid out, and commanding an extensive view. The town
was destroyed by fire in 1848, when more than 1237
houses, four bridges, and many granaries full of corn and
provisions, were burnt. On that occasion the emperor dis¬
tributed 50,000 rubles (L.7812) among the poorer people
who suffeied by this calavnity. Orel contains numerous
churches, several schools, and benevolent institutions. Ma¬
nufactures of linen, leather, tallow, and other articles, are
carried on ; but the place is chiefly important for its trade,
vyhich is much facilitated by the advantageous position of
the town, in the middle of a fertile country, and on a navi¬
gable river. It is a great central mart for the com¬
merce between the Black Sea, the Baltic, and the Caspian.
Corn wine, provisions, cattle, hemp, tallow, leather, See.,
are the articles of trade ; and both Moscow and St Peters-
burg are supplied with corn and provisions to a large extent
from Orel. Several annual fairs are held here, which are
well attended. Pop. (1851) 25,630.
ORELLANA, Francisco, the first European navi¬
gator of the River Amazon, was born at Truxillo in Spain
about the beginning of the sixteenth century. While still
a young man, he emigrated to the recently-discovered
continent of America. His services were first employed
by rrancisco Pizarro in the successful expedition against
1 eru in 1531. He then joined a band of adventurers
who, under the command of Gonzalez Pizarro, the brother
of the Peruvian conqueror, were bent upon carrying Euro¬
pean discovery into the interior of the continent. Starting
horn Quito, the capital of the republic of Escuador, the ex-
ploreis with exceeding difficulty reached the course of the
Napo, a tributary of the Maranon. Famine compelled them
to stop. Through the energy and courage of Orellana a
vessel was built, manned, and despatched down the river,
under his command, to procure provisions. No sooner had
he sailed aw ay, than he formed the bold resolution of con¬
tinuing the expedition on his own responsibility, and with
the force now under his command. At length, in August
1541, the solitary crew, after they had measured a con¬
tinent, and encountered the most unheard-of privations,
came in sight of the open ocean. Orellana took the first
opportunity of hastening to Spain to recount his adven-
tuies. Ihe government believed his accounts of the tribe
of female warriors that dwelt by the river he had discovered,
and of the temples roofed with gold that he had seen.
Accordingly the river was called the Amazon ; and a com¬
mission was given to the discoverer to establish colonies in
i- a/aeVV J ^ Dorado.” Orellana returned, only to die, in
lo49.
ORENBURG, a government of Russia, partly in Europe
and partly in Asia, lying between N. Eat. 47. and 56., E.
Long. 50. 20. and 64. 20.; and bounded on the N. by
t he government of Perm, N. W. by Viatka, W. by Kasan and
Samara S.W. by Astrakhan, S. by the Caspian, S.E.
am E. by the Kirghiz steppes, and N.E. by Tomsk and
I obolsk. Its length from N.W. to S.E. is 800 miles;
breadth about 4o0 miles ; area, exclusive of the Kirghiz
steppes, 122,122 square miles. The surface of the country
has a very different aspect in different parts. The Ural
Mountains traverse it in an irregular line, but generally
10m JN. to S., dividing the area into two very unequal por¬
tions that to the W. being much the larger. The southern
ORE
707
portion, which is occupied by the Ural Cossacks, consists Orenbur
of a barren treeless steppe ; but farther to the north on the ' 
Asiatic side of the Ural chain, there is a large plain, with
numerous swamps, morasses, and small lakes. To the
west of. the mountains, again, the country is undulating ;
with varied and picturesque scenery. The formation of the
Ural Mountains at the base is granite; but above this
there are quartz and calcareous rocks. Many large
caverns occur in these mountains. Gold is found in the
chain, and constitutes one of the chief sources of mineral
wealth to the government. The country west of the
mountains is watered by the affluents of the Caspian Sea;
of which the principal is the Ural, flowing southwards
from the mountains, and receiving in this government the
Samara and other tributaries. This river forms part of the
oundary between Europe and Asia. The western portion
of Orenburg is watered by the Biela, Samara, and other
streams which flow into the Volga, and thus into the
Caspian. The rivers to the east of the Ural range are the
.Tobol, Abuga, Oui, and Mijas, which flow northwards to
the Arctic Ocean. The greater part of the surface has a
fertile soil, especially in the N.W.; a large part of the
government is covered with thick forests; and a still larger
portion consists of natural pasture-grounds, on whTch
large herds and flocks wander. The climate is excessive
in. heat and cold, especially to the east of the Ural Moun¬
tains, where it is more rigorous than in the west. The
southern steppes are very hot in summer, and these regions
are afflicted by. excessive drought and swarms of locusts.
Agriculture is in a flourishing state, on account of the
richness of the soil. The arable land amounted in 1849
to 5,780,326 acres, the meadow land to 10,851,906 acres
the wood to 29,612.4)89 acres, and the waste land to
48,451,163 acres. The amount of agricultural produce in
the government in the same year was 38,112,219 bushels
of corn, and 1,459,259 of potatoes. The principal crops
raised are rye, barley, oats, buck-wheat, and millet. The
inhabitants possess great numbers of horses, cattle, and
sheep, in which the chief wealth of Orenburg consists
There were here in 1849, 2,075,220 horses, 1,089,859
honied-cattle, 2,321,934 sheep, and 207,143 swine. Be-
si es the gold of the Urals, otljpr minerals, such as copper,
iron, salt, See., are found, and the working of these em¬
ploys a large number of hands. Great quantities of fish are
obtained in the River Ural. Manufactures are not carried
on to any very great extent, being chiefly confined to smelt¬
ing, founding, and other operations connected with the
mines. 1 here are also, however, numerous tanneries, dis¬
tilleries, potash-factories, and a manufactory of arms. The
women of the province show great skill in weaving and
dyeing; and they make worsted shawls and similar articles,
like those that are made in the Orkney and Shetland
islands. The number of manufactories in Orenburg in
1849 was 244, employing 17,104 hands. Of these there
were 63 tanneries, 61 potash-factories, 43 tallow-meltino-
houses, 40 tile-kilns, 17 smelting-houses and foundries;
besides other establishments. An extensive commerce is
carried on in the government, with the wandering tribes,
the Kirghizes, and the people of Bokhara. Horses, cattle,
fms, &c., aie obtained from the nomad tribes in exchange
for manufactured articles, brass, copper, iron, &c.; and
silks, cotton, shawls, indigo, tea, and other goods are brought
to Orenburg by the caravans from Bokhara. Mineral pro¬
duce is exported from Orenburg to the other parts of Euro-
Pp.an 1Jlus?ia; and especially to the shores of the Baltic,
ihe Kirghizes and Cossacks in Orenburg are not subject
to the civil government; but are under a military governor,
whose principal duty is to superintend the line efforts by
which the frontier towards Turkestan is secured. These
extend in a line at the distance of 3 miles from each other
from the River Tobol to the Caspian. Besides adherents
708 ORE
Orenburg 0f the Greek church, there are in the government numer-
I] ous Roman Catholics, Protestants, Mohammedans, and
Ortah. Pagans. Exclusive of the country inhabited by the Cos-
sacks, Orenburg is divided into nine circles, and contained,
in 1851, 1,712,728 inhabitants, including 242,661 Cossacks.
Orenburg, a town, formerly the capital of the above
government, stands on the Ural, 465 miles N.E. of Astra-
khan, and 657 S.W. of Tobolsk. It is of an oval form,
with wide and regular, but ill-paved streets; and presents
an active and agreeable appearance. It is surrounded by
fortifications; and the most of the houses are of wood,
thou oh a few are built of stone. It has a cathedral and
other Greek churches, Roman Catholic and I ictestant
places of worship, and two mosques. The town has also
two bazaars, a European and an Asiatic, each on the side
of the river belonging to their respective countries. The
former contains 180, and the latter 492 shops. Manufac¬
tures of woollen cloth, leather, soap, and tallow, are carried
on here. Orenburg is the chief emporium for the Russian
trade with Central Asia. Caravans arrive here yearly from
Bokhara, with jewels, gold, silk, cotton, &c.; and from the
Kirghizes with cattle and hides ; while many merchants
from China and India bring hither their goods. It is the
principal military station on the Kirghiz frontier. Pop.
16,000.
ORENSE. See Galicia.
ORESTES, the hero of several old Greek tragedies, was
the only son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra. The events
of his history appear under various modifications in the
Chcephorce and Eumenides of JEschylus, in the Electro, of
Sophocles, and in the Orestes and Iphigenia in Tauris of
Euripides. The following account, however, contains the
essential incidents of the story. On the murder of Aga¬
memnon by Clytemnestra and her paramour ASgisthus, the
boy Orestes was saved by his sister Electra, and was en¬
trusted to the protection of his uncle Strophius, King of
Phocis. There he was educated, and formed a friendship
with his cousin Pylades, which became proverbial. At the
end of eight years a response of the Delphic oracle sent
him home to Mycenae to revenge his father’s death. Gain¬
ing admittance into the palace by stratagem, he slew Cly¬
temnestra and iEgisthus with his own hand, and thus entailed
upon himself the severest woes. The Eumenides imme¬
diately appeared, and in punishment for the murder of his
mother, remorselessly hunted him from country to country.
They had tortured him into frenzy when he found himself
at Delphi. The oracle there, by informing him that he
would free himself from his dread persecutors by bringing
awav the statue of Diana from Tauris in Scythia, only sent
him into new troubles. He and his friend Pylades were on
the point of being sacrificed to Diana, according to the
custom of the country, when his sister Iphigenia, the
priestess of the goddess, discovering them, assisted them
to escape, and gave them the object of their visit. 1 he
sorrows of Orestes were thus ended, and the remaindei of
his life was prosperous. 4 he hand of Hermione, the
daughter of Menelaus and widow of Neoptolemus, was
conferred upon him ; the death of his father-in-law left him
in possession of his paternal kingdom of Mycenae; the
Lacedaemonians voluntarily became his subjects; and the
Arcadians and Phocians became his allies. He died at an
advanced age in Arcadia, in consequence of a bite from a
snake. His bones were afterwards removed from fegea
to Sparta.
ORFAH, or Urfah (anc. Edessa), a town of Asiatic
Turkey, in the pashalic of Diarbekir, and 80 miles S.W. of
the town of that name. It is built on the lower part of two
hills, and in an intervening valley; and is surrounded by a
lofty and strong wall, about 7 miles in circuit. The streets
are narrow, but clean and well paved ; and there are nume¬
rous bazaars, and some good caravansaries. Among its
O R F
numerous mosques there is one very splendid building, with Orfila.
several medresses or colleges attached to it. Coarse woollen
and cotton stuffs are manufactured here; the corn grown
in the vicinity is exported to Syria; and manufactured
goods are imported by way of Aleppo from Great Britain.
Pop. about 30,000.
ORFILA, Mathieu-Joseph-Bonaventure, the founder
of modern toxicology, and one of the most eminent of the
French school of medicine during its brightest period, w-as
by birth a Spaniard, and native of Minorca. An island
merchant’s son looked naturally first to the sea for a pro¬
fession ; but a voyage at the age of fifteen to Sardinia,
Sicily, and Egypt, did not prove satisfactory. He next
took to medicine, which he studied at the universities of
Valencia and Barcelona with so great applause, that the
local government of the latter city granted him a pension,
to enable him to follow his studies at Madrid and Paris,
preparatory to appointing him professor. He had scarcely
settled for that purpose in Paris, when the outbreak of the
Spanish war, in 1807, threatened destruction to his pro¬
spects. But he had the good fortune to find a parent in
a merchant uncle at Marseilles, and a patron in the good
and great Vauquelin the chemist, who braved the wrath of
Napoleon against the Spaniards, claimed him as his pupil,
guaranteed his conduct, and saved him from expulsion from
Paris. Four years afterwards, he graduated in his twenty-
fourth year, and immediately became a private lecturer on
chemistry in the French capital. The peace of 1814 re¬
opened to him his native country, to which he considered
himself bound to offer his services. Barcelona, however,
impoverished by more than its own share of the miseries
and devastation of war, was obliged to decline his offer.
The talent and energy even of an Orfila could scarcely
have withstood the deadening influence of Spanish rule in
the days of Ferdinand VII. So apparently thought Orfila
himself. For, when invited at a later period by that monarch
to fill the vacant chemical chair of Proust at Madrid, he
resolved to adhere to France, which became the land of
his adoption by letters of naturalization. From that period
he had a long career of distinction and unbroken prosperity.
In 1819 he was appointed professor of medical jurispru¬
dence, and four years later succeeded his aged patron,
Vauquelin, as professor of chemistry in the faculty of me¬
dicine at Paris. In 1830 he was nominated dean of that
faculty, a high medical honour in France. Under the
Orleans’ dynasty, honours w’ere lavishly showered upon
him; for he became successively member of the Council of
Education of France, member of the General Council of the
Department of the Seine, and commander of the Legion of
Honour. But the republic of 1848 put an end to these
adventitious distinctions, and reduced him to his simple
professorship. His fame and happiness would have pro¬
spered better had he never aimed higher; for as a man in
authority, he was eminently unpopular; and as a man ol
business, he was of necessity withdrawn in some measure
from his proper pursuits as a cultivator of science. Chagrin
at the treatment he experienced at the hands of the go¬
vernments which succeeded Louis Philippe is supposed to
have shortened his life. He died, after a short illness, in
March 1853, in his sixty-sixth year, and in the lull posses¬
sion of his faculties and reputation. Only the evening be¬
fore his death, he delivered a lecture with his usual anima¬
tion ; and a few days previously, he read a scientific paper
before the Academy of Medicine.
Orfila’s chief publications are four in number,—on Ge¬
neral Toxicology; on Medical Jurisprudence; a treatise
on Chemistry ; and a treatise on Medico-legal Exhuma¬
tions. But the medical journals team with valuable papers
from his pen, chiefly on subjects connected with medical
jurisprudence. His fame will ever rest mainly on his
Traits de Toxicologic Generate^ first published in 1814,
♦
O R F
Orford when he was only in his twenty-seventh year. It is a vast
mine of experimental observation on the symptoms of
Orgjin. poisoning of all kinds; on the appearances which poisons
—v-—' leave in the dead body; on their physiological action ; and
on the means of detecting them. When one rises from a
perusal of the earliest edition of that work, and considers
how vast a proportion of it was at the time entirely new,
it is not easy to say whether it is with greater wonder at
the immense mass of information he so quickly collected,
and, indeed, called into existence, or at the deplorable con¬
dition in which toxicology, especially in its relations to the
Jaw, must have stood before his researches. Few branches
of science, so important in their bearings on every-day life,
and so difficult of investigation, can be said to have been
created, and raised at once to a state of high advancement
by the labours of a single man.
Orfila was superb as a lecturer. Possessed of a diction
and method eminently lucid, a magnificent voice nicely
toned by a musical ear and practice (it is said he was so
admirable a vocalist, that he might have made his fortune
as a baritone); discussing a subject of novel and intense
interest, and of his own creation ; and with an audience of
a thousand pupils before him, the most distant of whom he
reached with conversational facility; nothing could be more
attractive than his lectures on medical jurisprudence, as
the writer heard them in 1821. In his frequent appear¬
ances as a witness on great criminal trials, he was no less
conspicuous for the perfection of his preliminary inquiries,
the luminous delivery of his statements in evidence, and
his unflinching steadiness under cross-examination. Woe
to the criminal whose guilt depended on the ability of
Orfila to prove it!
The usage he received in his latter years from the ruling
dynasty of France did not take away from his attachment
to the medical school of Paris, the scene and source of all
his triumphs. In his will he left a fund of no less than
120,000 francs (L.5000), to establish prizes in the Academy
of Medicine and the School of Pharmacy. According to
the fashion of F ranee, in bidding adieu to her great men in
science, his funeral was an ovation; and no fewer than six
orations were pronounced over his grave in name of various
scientific and professional bodies. (r. c.)
ORFORD, a decayed municipal borough and market-
town of England, county of Suffolk, at the confluence of
the Aide and the Ore, 16 miles E. by N. of Ipswich, and
80 N.E. of London. The church is a fine old building,
with a square embattled tower; and there is also here a
town-hall, and the remains of an ancient Norman castle.
The inhabitants support themselves chiefly by the oyster
fisheries in the neighbouring rivers. On account of the
sea having receded from the land, the harbour of Orford
has been destroyed; and this has led _o the decay of the
place. Pop. 10^5.
ORGAN, by far the most noble and imposing of all mu-
sica. instruments. It is quite inconsistent with the de¬
sign and limits of this work for us to enter into all the de¬
tails of the nature and structure of the organ. They w ould
fill a volume, and require many illustrative plates. We
shall, however, endeavour to give such a general idea of
the nature of the instrument as may satisfy those readers
who are not professionally interested in the subject; and
we assure them that their own inspection of the mechanism
of an organ (which is easily attained in every large town)
will afford them more clear and satisfactory knowledge
than hundreds of pages written in explanation of its con¬
struction. For minute details, we refer to LArt du Fac-
teur dOrgues, by F. Redos de Celles, published at Paris
in 1766 and 1778, in folio, with 137 plates. This is con¬
sidered, even now, as the best and most complete wmrk
on organ-building. It is a pit}' w7e have none such in the
English language. See also the Abbe Vogler’s German
O it G 709
works upon organ-building, and G. Serassi’s Lettere sugli Organ.
Organi, printed at Bergamo in 1816; together with Re-
ports of the French Institute upon M. Grenie’s improve¬
ments on the organ. We suspect that the general want
of improvement in organ-building in Great Britain may be
traced to the absence of such works, and some others, in
our own language, for the instruction of our organ-build¬
ers. This may also explain, in some degree, why almost
all the best organs in England were constructed by fo¬
reigners. Recently, however, we are happy to perceive a
spirit of emulation arising amongst our native organ-build¬
ers ; and we have little doubt that the ingenuity and supe¬
rior workmanship of British artisans will soon enable us to
vie with, or excel, the best organ-builders of the Continent.
But, to do this, we must cast aside all national prejudices as
to organs, &c. and meet foreigners upon a fair and liberal
ground of competition.
The earlier history of the organ is extremely obscure.
A small and imperfect instrument, somewhat on the prin¬
ciple of the organ, may have been known to the ancients ;
but surely nothing like our great church-organ. We read
of ancient hydraulic and pneumatic organs ; but such dis¬
tinction is so far erroneous, inasmuch as organ-pipes could
not be made to sound by having water forced through
them. The water must have been a moving power only,
to impel the ivind into the pipes. It would seem that the
Greek and Latin terms and organum, translated
by the English word organ, originally signified an instru¬
ment or machine of any kind, and were afterwards applied
to musical instruments of all kinds. “ Organa dicuntur
omnia instrumenta musicorum," says St Augustin. Still
later, according to St Isidore, these names, o^yam and or¬
ganum, were applied to none but wind-instruments. In
modern times the term organ, in a musical sense, came to
signify only the instrument which we now know under that
name. The passage in Eginhard’s Annals which has been
interpreted the sending of a?i organ by Constantine Co-
pronymus to King Pepin in the year 757, may more pro¬
bably mean “ various musical instruments,” since the words
are, “ Constantinus Imperator Pipini regi multa misit mu-
nera, interque et organa," &c. A writer of the sixteenth
century has ventured to describe the supposed organ sent
to King Pepin ; and, by force of imagination, makes it out
to have been a grand organ with pedals. In Luitprand’s His¬
tory (book vi. c. 2) there is a curious passage regarding an
instrument sent to the Emperor Constantine in 950:—
“ Erat Regia ornata sumtuosissime, ibi aenea inaurata ar¬
bor ante ipsius imperatoris solium effulgebat, expansis
magnum in modum ramis aereis atque inauratis; in his
Irequentissimse variarum specierum aves arte confictaj,
quarum singulae speciei proprias voces cantusque emitte-
bant, incredibili arte.” In the second volume of Gerbert
(De Cantu et Musica Sacra, plate xxviii.) will be found
a representation of a tree of this kind with birds upon it.
'ihe Chronicle of Albericus adds to the singing of the
birds before Constantine, “ the roaring of enormous gilded
artificial lions.” (See Gerbert, vol. ii. p. 151.) That such
birds can be made, is certain from Maillardet’s beautiful
little artificial bird, which started up out of a gold snuff¬
box, fluttered its wings, and sang w ith a pipe so clear and
loud as to fill a large room. It would appear that,, in the
rude instruments called organs in the eleventh and twelfth
centuries, the pipes were disposed in such a manner that
every sound in its finger-key compass caused the fifth and
the octave of that sound to be heard above it. Such a
succession of fifths and octaves was called “ organum ,” no
doubt par excellence. From this and the old and extraor¬
dinary specimens of Biscantus, or Discantus, given by Ger¬
bert and others, and alluded to in our article Music (page
623), we are inclined to believe that the modern mixture-
stops of the organ have originated. We leave the consi.
ORGAN.
710
v Organ, deration of the ancient organs to antiquaries, and now pro-
> ceed to the modern organ, which seems to have assumed
something of its present form in the fifteenth century.
The mechanism of the modern organ has been much im¬
proved at different times by different builders. The fa¬
mily of the Antegnati, of Brescia, were amongst the earliest
famous organ-builders in Italy in the fifteenth and six¬
teenth centuries. In the eighteenth century there were in
Italy many celebrated organ-builders, amongst whom Se-
rassi of Bergamo, and Callido of Venice, each constructed
upwards of three hundred organs.
Most of our readers probably know already that the
great organ is a complex wind-instrument, consisting of a
great number of pipes of different sizes, formed of wood
and of different kinds of metal, some of which are flute-
pipes or mouth-pipes, and others reed-pipes ; whilst all of
these are made to sound by means of compressed air applied
to them through certain channels, by bellows worked ei¬
ther by human force or by mechanism. There are differ¬
ent kinds of organs, from the Lilliputian bird-organ up to
the great church-organ. We pass over the minor ones, in¬
cluding the chamber-organs and the smaller chapel-organs,
and proceed to the great church-organ. We need not de¬
scribe its front, nor the case in which its mechanism is con¬
tained. The great church-organ has usually three rows of
finger-keys, placed above each other like steps. In some
j ©f the largest organs there are four, or even five such rows
of keys. Besides these, there are rows of pedals, or foot-
keys, which act upon the larger pipes of the organ. The
bellows communicate, by a wind-trunk, with wind-chests,
or reservoirs of air, whence the wind is distributed to the
various pipes of the organ when the finger-keys or the
foot-keys (pedals) are pressed down. Attached to the up¬
per part of each wind-chest is a sound-board, as it is rather
improperly called. This sound-board consists of two parts,
an upper and an under board, the latter of which is much
thicker than the other. Both of these are formed of planks
of wood laid horizontally side by side, and accurately join¬
ed together at their edges. In the under side of the lower
board several rectangular grooves or channels are cut paral¬
lel to each other, and carried along nearly the whole length
of the board, and as far as there are stops in the organ. In
these channels are fixed bars of wood, so as to render each
channel or partition completely separate from every other.
In the upper side of this board are cut a number of other
rectangular channels or grooves running across the board,
and at right angles with the under grooves. Into these
upper grooves are exactly fitted wooden sliders, or regis¬
ters, which run the whole length of the grooves. These
sliders can be drawn out so far or pushed in at pleasure,
by a mechanism attached to the draw-stops that are placed
on the right and left in front of the organ. Holes corre¬
sponding with the number or rows of organ-pipes placed
above the sound-board, are pierced through the latter into
the above-mentioned channels, and also through the slid¬
ers or registers, in such a manner that when the latter are
drawn out, their holes correspond with those of the sound¬
board, and allow the air from the wdnd-chest to pass through
them and through the other holes in the sound-board;
trhilst, on the contrary, when the sliders are pushed in,
they completely prevent any air from passing from the
wind-qhest to the pipes above the sound-board. Above
all, and corresponding with the upper holes of the sound¬
board, are placed the pipes, fitted in by their conical feet
to what are called the stock-boards. There are rows of
thin boards, called racks, which are sustained by pillars of
wood, and which receive the upper part of the feet of the
pipes in holes made for the purpose. Opening into the
wind-chest, and fixed upon the under side of the sound¬
board, are spring-valves, which are connected, by a parti¬
cular mechanism, with the finger-keys and pedals j and
which, when the sliders are drawn out, and the keys and Organ,
pedals pressed down, are made to open, and so to admit —v-*.
the air from the wind-chest into the channels or partitions
belonging to the different rows of pipes constituting the
various stops of the organ. The pedals and the finger-
keys communicate with these spring-valves by means of an
apparatus of trackers, cranks, and rollers, acting upon pull¬
down wires that pass through the bottom of the wind-chest,
and are attached to these valves. The draw-stop move¬
ment, by which the sliders are drawn out or pushed in,
consists of a similar mechanism. In some organs these
sliders are superseded by another contrivance. Thus, in
what are called by the Italians somieri a vento, the open-
ing of a given stop or register is not effected by drawing
out a wooden slider, so as to make its apertures correspond
with those in the sound-board; but by pulling open, all at
once, in the channels of the sound-board, as many small
valves as there are pipes to that given stop. These small
valves are made to open by pulling out a draw-stop, and
to shut by pushing it in again. They are considered to
have many advantages over the ordinary slider, as being
more durable, and less subject to the influence of changes
of the weather.
A stop is called simple if it consists of one row of pipes,
and compound if it consists of more than one row. As to
the different rows of finger-keys, each communicates with
what is really a separate organ, or collection of pipes, with
its peculiar wind-trunk, wind-chest, sound-board, &c. These
different organs are generally three, and are called the
great organ, the choir-organ, and the swell-organ. The
middle row of keys is connected with the great organ, the
lower with the choir-organ, and the upper with the swell-
organ. The swell-organ has its pipes enclosed in a wooden
box furnished with a sliding door, or a hinged door, which
is gradually opened or shut by mechanism moved by the
performer’s foot applied to a pedal. All these different
organs, constituting the great church-organ, are supplied
with air by the same bellows, and by suitable wind-trunks
connected with the bellows. The bellows now generally
used are horizontal ones, instead of the old ones resem¬
bling blacksmiths* bellows. For some improvements in
the sound-board and its appurtenances, see Serassi’s Let-
tere sugli Organi.
We have already mentioned, that the pipes of an organ
generally consist of mouth-pipes and of reed-pipes. With
regard to the mouth-pipes, their nature may be pretty
well understood by any one acquainted with the upper
part of the common English flute, or the flageolet. The
reed-pipes are explained in a subsequent part of this arti¬
cle. \V hat we have said regarding sonorous tubes in the
article Music, pages 608, 613, 615, may assist the reader
in understanding our notices of organ-pipes. Organ-pipes
are either open, or stopped, or half-stopped. The stopped
ones have a plug or tompion inserted into their upper end,
and pushed down or pulled up to regulate the pitch. The
half-stopped ones have a kind of chimney at the top.
Some of the middle-sized ones are partly stopped, and
have also on each side of the mouth a kind of ear of metal,
by bending of which outwards or inwards, the pitch of the
pipe may be regulated. The largest pipes are square ones
of wood, and belong to the pedals. In some great organs,
the largest open pipe is thirty-two feet in length. The other
pipes are made of wood or of metal. It has been observed
by organ-builders and others, that the quality of tone
(timbre) of pipes depends much upon their proportions in
length and width, the material of which they are made,
&c.; and also upon the form of their open top, by which
the wind escapes. We shall have occasion to notice this
again, when describing some of Grenie’s improvements.
A reed-pipe, with a conical tube which has a bell-shaped
end, as in fig. 1, gives the most brilliant sound. If the pipe
ORGAN.
711
Organ, have a reversed conical top, as in fig. 2, the sound be-
—comes dull. If two similar truncated
cones placed base to base be fixed to Fig-I- Fig’2. Fig. 3.
the wider end of a long conical tube,
as in fig. 3, a reed-pipe so formed will
give fulness and strength to the sound.
Theory affords no satisfactory expla¬
nation of these facts. The timbre of
the stopped and of the half-stopped
pipes is softer and duller than that of
the open ones. Pipes of pure tin have
long been known to possess a timbre
more clear and penetrating than those
made of tin mixed with lead. Some years ago, a Bohe¬
mian organ-builder made some of his pipes of zinc, which
was said to answer better than even tin. No doubt vari¬
ous simple and compound metals, and various other sub¬
stances that have not yet been used in the making of or¬
gan-pipes, might be employed with advantage to produce
a still greater variety of timbres and effects ; and for the
same purpose, various modifications of the ordinary forms
of pipes might also be employed.
The pipes and stops of an organ differ in number and kind
according to the size of the organ, the fancy of the builder,
and the taste of the public. In some Dutch, German, and
Italian organs, there seems to be a superfluity of stops. An
immense organ at Weingarten, in Germany, is described as
having sixty-six stops and 6666 pipes. The great organ at
Haarlem contains sixty stops, and its largest pipe is thirty-
two feet in length. For an enumeration of the stops of three
of Silbermann’s organs at Dresden, we refer to a Ramble
among the Musicians of Germany, published at London in
1828 (pp. 193, 194, 195). One of the largest organs in
Italy is said to be that built in 1733, by Azzolino della Ci-
aja, for the church of the Cavalieri di S. Stefano at Pisa.
It is said to have four rows of finger-keys, and more than
100 stops. Another remarkable one is in the church of
S. Alessandro in Colonna, at Bergamo. It was built by
Serassi in 1782, and has three rows of finger-keys, and
about 100 stops. In it the first and second rows of keys
serve for the great organ, and the second organ or choir-
organ, built together in the same part of the church. By
mechanism, which passes under ground, and extends to a dis¬
tance of about 115 feet English, the third row of keys is con¬
nected with a third great organ placed in another part of the
church, and directly opposite to the first great organ. Not¬
withstanding such a distance from the keys, the third or¬
gan obeys them as readily as the first one does. Its low¬
est pedal-pipes consist not only of mouth-pipes, but also
of reed-pipes. The following is a brief description of an¬
other organ built by Serassi in 1796. “ Two rows of fin¬
ger-keys, the upper for the great organ, the ripieno of which
consists of the following stops: Two principal soprani;
two principal basses ; octave, twelfth, fifteenth, twenty-
second, twenty-sixth, twenty-ninth, two thirty-thirds, two
thirty-sixths, and twelve deep bass stops belonging to the
chromatic scale, with the octaves of these, all, however,
governed by one register. The different stops belonging
to the great organ are, the sesquialtera ; two cornets ; flute
in octave ; flute in twelfth ; German-flute ; vox humana ;
viola ; bassoon ; English horn ; trumpets ; trombones ; cym¬
bals ; kettle-drums, and bass-drum, the last being man¬
aged by a pedal. The lower row of manuals or finger-
keys serves for the second organ, or choir-organ. It has
its ripieno, composed of principal, octave, fifteenth, nine¬
teenth, twenty-second, twenty-sixth, and twenty-ninth ;
and has, besides, the stops of cornet, flute in octave, vox
humana, and violoncello. By means of a pedal moved by
the right foot, all the stops of the first organ can be open¬
ed or shut at once.”
Of the different stops or registers of an organ, some de¬
rive their names from the instrument the tone of which
they imitate, and some from the relation in pitch which theys
bear to the sounds of the diapason stop, as octave, twelfth,
fifteenth, seventeenth, and so on. We subjoin a brief
account of the most usual organ-stops. I. Open diapason ;
consists of metal mouth-pipes open at the upper end, and
extends through the whole scale of the organ, as its name
diapason imports. II. Stopped diapason; mouth-pipes
generally of wood, and their pitch an octave below that of
the open diapason. They are stopped at the upper end.
III. Double diapason ; wooden mouth-pipes, open at the
upper end, and their pitch an octave lower than those of the
open diapason. They are generally confined to the two low¬
est octaves of the organ’s compass. In some of the largest
organs, the gravest sound of these is rendered by an open
pipe thirty-two feet in length. YV. Principal; metal mouth-
pipes, the pitch of which is an octave above the open dia¬
pason. The principal is the first stop tuned ; and then,
from it, all the other stops. V. Dulciana ; a metal mouth-
pipe stop, tuned in unison with the open diapason. The
sweetness of its tone originates in the length and narrow¬
ness of its pipes. VI. Twelfth ; metal mouth-pipes tuned
a twelfth above the open diapason. VII. Fifteenth ; metal
mouth-pipes tuned an octave above the principal. There
are, in some organs, stops named tierce or seventeenth, la-
rigot or nineteenth, tiventy-second, twenty-sixth, twenty-ninth,
thirty-third. Sic., tuijed respectively at these intervals above
the open diapason. VIII. Flute; metal and wood mouth-
pipes, in unison with the principal. IX. Trumpet; reed-
pipes of metal, in unison with the open diapason. X. Cla¬
rion or octave trumpet-stop; metal reed-pipes tuned an
octave higher than those of the trumpet stop. XI. Bas¬
soon ; reed-pipes, in unison, as far as their compass reaches,
with pipes of the open diapason. XII. Cremona, or pro¬
perly krum-horn; reed-pipes, in unison with the open dia¬
pason. XIII. Oboe ; reed-pipes, in unison with the open
diapason. XIV. Vox humana ; reed-pipes, in unison with
the open diapason, and intended to imitate the human voice,
a function which in general they perform very unpleasingiy.
Amongst the compound stops used in organs are, I. The
sesquialtera, consisting of four or five rows of open mouth-
pipes at the intervals of seventeenth, nineteenth, twenty-
second, twenty-fourth, or twenty-sixth, above the open dia¬
pason. II. The cornet, a stopped diapason, principal, twelfth,
fifteenth, and seventeenth. III. Mixture or furniture sto}),
consists of several ranks of pipes nearly the same as those
of the sesquialtera, but some of them of a higher pitch.
Vogler denounces the mixture-stops as “ insignificant?
We have sometimes heard a harsher term applied to them.
In Costanzo Antegnati’s Arte Organica we find the
following exposition of the series of registers or stops of the
organs then used in Italy.
1st Stop,
Organ.
XIX. XXII. xxvi.
In order to enable the reader to form a clearer idea of
the distribution of the pipes of an organ, we subjoin a
sketch of a row of the usual pipes of the great organ (as
contradistinguished from the choir and swell organs), and
as these pipes stand upon and are inserted in the top of
the sound-board. To simplify the diagram, the rack-board
and pillars are not represented here. The letter t indi¬
cates the trumpet; ff, furniture ; sss, sesquialter; 15, fif¬
teenth ; 12, twelfth; p, principal; sd, stopped diapason ;
od, open diapason; SB, the top of the sound-board. The
other rows of pipes are, of course, to be imagined as placed
behind those pipes here represented, and as extending,
in their respective ranks, the whole length of each stop
712
Organ.
O 11 G A N.
or register, in lines at right angles with the line formed
by the row of pipes shown in the diagram.
Fig. 4.
o <7
<£
\/A
n
Fig. 5.
Fig. 6.
Not many years ago, M. Gre-
nie, a French amateur of music,
introduced several important im¬
provements in the construction of
reeds for organ-pipes. (See the
Reports of the French Institute,
&c.) His reed (AB in the an¬
nexed figure 5) wras made of wood
or copper, square-edged, and of
the form of a parallelopipedon.
[In order to show the difference
between the construction of M.
Grenie’s reed and the common
organ-pipe reed, w’e add a dia¬
gram of the latter, fig. 6.] The
tongue was a thin plate of brass,
of an even surface, and cut in
a rectangular shape, so as to fit
almost exactly the grooved face of the reed. A strong
wdre-spring cc kept down this tongue firmly upon the reed,
at the proper length, so as to regulate the tongue’s vibra¬
tions. The result of such a construction is, that when
this reed, enclosed in its tube, is made to sound by air
forced into the porte-vent DBF, by the aperture at F, the
air thus introduced not obtaining admittance into the reed
between the tongue and the sides of the reed-groove, im¬
pels the tongue into the latter. A little air having been
♦bus admitted into the reed-channel, the elasticity of the
tongue makes it resume its former position, so as again to
exclude the air. The velocity which the tongue had ac¬
quired in its first vibration causes it, when returning, to
pass beyond the limit of its former position, to which it is
again brought back by the resistance of the air, and by
its owrn elasticity, and whence the impulse of the current
of air from the porte-vent again forces it into the reed-
channel. The advantages of this construction are, that
the tongue does not strike against the edges of the reed,
as in the common reed-pipes, which thereby produce a
harsh and uneven tone ; and that its movements are smooth
and regular, since it has nothing to encounter in its vibra¬
tions but the air itself. The sound of M. Grenie’s reed-
pipes is said to be, in the most acute as well as in the
gravest of them, as sweet and pure as that of flute-pipes.
M. Grenie adapted the degree of strength and rigidity of
each tongue to the breadth of the reed-channel which it
had to cover, so that the stream of air could never throw
it into vibrations around its axis. The strength of thes
spring-wire also kept the length of the vibrating portion
of the tongue unchanged; so that, whatever the force of
the wind, the tone never altered its pitch. Only the in¬
tensity of the sound was affected by the greater or less
impulse of air. By means of a pedal, the performer moved
a spring-bellows, and, by thus regulating at pleasure the
force of the wind, could obtain a crescendo and dimi¬
nuendo in all the reed-pipes, as perfect as that of the hu¬
man voice, or of instruments modified in their sounds by
the lips and breath of the performer.
The air which causes these reeds to vibrate passes out
through open pipes, bevelled off into a cone,
and terminating in a hemisphere, fig. 7. This
form is said to give roundness and strength to
the tone.
M. Grenie, when constructing his reed-pipes,
was for a long time checked by a very curious
phenomenon. He was at first occupied with
the gravest octave of which the sound C is
in unison with an open flute-pipe of eight feet;
and had constructed a certain number of pipes,
in giving wind to all his reeds by pipes of the
same length, fig. 8. But when he had reached the first
notes of the tenor compass, still con¬
tinuing to construct his porte-vents in
the same manner, the reed would not
sound at all. He in vain increased and
diminished the wind, in vain length¬
ened and shortened the tongue; the
reed remained mute, or produced only
very bad sounds. At last, after many
attempts, M. Grenie thought that the
length of the pipe which conducts the
wind to the reed might have some un¬
known influence upon its vibration. He therefore substitut¬
ed for his fixed tubes two pipes, of which the one was made
to slide within the other, so that he could gradually vary
the whole length. He tried this change of length until
the reed produced a clear, pure, and sustained sound. He
found also, that in order to obtain the tenor sounds in all
their fulness, it was necessary to make the porte-vent
much longer than for the sound immediately preceding,
and this length always went on diminishing for the most
acute octaves, as is represented by fig. 9. Then the tops
Fie. 9.
Fig. 8.
of the pipes formed the curve C C' C". This seemed to
indicate that, by prolonging that curve, one would obtain
the most favourable dimensions for those pipes of the
first octave which M. Grenie had at first made of equal
lengths. But, to his great surprise, he found that there
Organ.
0 R G
0rJ?a“* was no advantage whatever in doing so; but that, on the
contrary, the sounds became very dull and irregular. He
therefore reasonably adhered to his first construction, which,
nevertheless, he still purposed to improve, by afterwards
making all his porte-vents sliding tubes, so that each of
them might have the most favourable length given to it.
He has since constructed, on this same model, open reed-
pipes of sixteen feet, which sound with very remarkable
distinctness, strength, and regularity. In this case the
tongue is a flat slip of copper, in length 0-24*0 of a metre,
in breadth 0-035 of a metre, in thickness 0-003 of a metre ;
equal respectively to 9-449040, and 1-377985, and 0-118113
English inches and decimal parts. Its vibrations are so
powerful, that they cause the pipe in which it is placed,
the porte-vent over which it is mounted, and all neighbour¬
ing elastic bodies, to tremble. Of course, in order to make
it sound, a powerful and well-managed bellows-force is
necessary. That which M. Grenie employed was perfect
in regularity and power. It had a double current of air,
and was worked by one handle. M. Grenie obtained a
patent for his improvements. He considered the mixture-
stops in common organs as productive of nothing but bad
effects, and therefore excluded them from his organ. (See
report by Cherubini, Catel, Baillot, &c. in 1811.) We have
given so full an account of Grenie’s improvements, in order
to excite the attention of British organ-builders to this
subject, and induce them to discover many more improve¬
ments of which our organs are unquestionably susceptible.
One of the greatest steps to improvement in English
organ-building was made upwards of twenty years ago, by
Messrs Flight and Robson of London, in the construction
of their magnificent organ, called the Apollonicon. It was
exhibited to the public, and attracted vast numbers of vi¬
sitors. The ingenuity of its mechanism, the excellence of
its workmanship, the fineness of its tone, and the novelty
and grandeur of its effects, were universally acknowledged,
i his fine instrument was played either by means of the re¬
volutions of three large cylinders, or else by means of six
different sets of finger-keys acted upon simultaneously by
six different performers. 1 he Apollonicon was about twen¬
ty-four feet high and twenty broad. We heard it in 1817,
and were much struck by its varied and powerful effects.
However, the room in which it was placed was neither suf¬
ficiently large, nor so proportioned in form, as to display
the powers of this organ to the best advantage. This fine
instrument alone is sufficient to bear us out in what we
have said at the beginning of this article, as to the cer¬
tainty of English organ-builders being able to rival, or to
excel, the foreign ones, if they choose to exert themselves.
Several methods have been proposed in England to ren¬
der the intonation of the organ less imperfect, by dividing
the octave into a greater number of intervals than the usual
twelve : amongst others, that employed in Hawke’s patent
organ, described in the thirty-sixth and thirty-ninth volumes
of the Philosophical Magazine. Hawke divided the octave
into seventeen intervals. Loeschman’s patent organ was
another of this kind. He divided the octave into twenty-
four intervals, which were produced by six pedals and
twelve finger-keys. (See description in vols.xxxvii.xxxviii.
of Philosophical Magazine.) In 1810, the Rev. Henry Lis¬
ton, a clever and ingenious Scottish clergyman, obtained
a patent for an instrument, constructed by Messrs Flight
and Robson, which he named the Enharmonic Organ.
(See vol. xxxvii. of Philosophical Magazine.) Another
organ, similar to the one last mentioned, was made for Mr
Liston by the same builders. (See Philosophical Magazine,
vol. xxxix.) It had eleven pedals, six of which were the
same as those in Loeschman’s organ. In the second organ
built for Mr Liston, there was a contrivance for an occa¬
sional alteration of the pitch of the pipes, in the requisite
degree, by means of flat metallic plates, wliich, when acted
VOL. xvi.
o R G
713
upon by the pedals, were brought, at due distances, over Organo-
the tops of the open pipes, or opposite to the mouths of Lvricon.
the stopped pipes, so as to flatten the pitch when this
change was required.
ihe object of Mr Liston’s organ was to supersede tem¬
perament ; but although its ingenuity and its effects were
admired by many of the best musicians in London, the
complexity of its manuals and pedals prevented it from
ever being generally adopted. And this has been the fate
of all such instruments, in modern as well as in ancient
times; for attempts of a similar kind were made, cen¬
turies ago, to introduce such minute subdivisions of the
octave into keyed instruments. The Spanish writer Sa¬
linas, in his work De Musica (lib. iii. c. 27), speaks dis¬
paragingly of an instrument called an Archicymbalum,
which had been constructed in Italy above forty years
before the publication of his work in 1577, and in which
every tone was divided into five parts. “ Non silentio prse-
termittendum arbitror instrumentum quoddam, quod in
Italia, citra quadraginta annos fabricari coeptum est, ab
ejus autore, quisquis ille fuit, Archicymbalum appellatum.
In quo reperiuntur omnes toni in quinque partes divisi: ex
quibus tres vindicat sibi semitonium majus, et duas semi-
tonium minus, a quibusdam magni nominis musicis in pre-
tio habitum, et usu receptum : eo quod omnis in eo sonus
habet omnia intervalla, atque omnes consonantias (ut sibi
videntur) inferne, et superne, et post certam periodum ad
eundem, aut equivalentem sibi sonum post 31 intervalla
reditur, &c. In the latter part of the last century, F. X.
Richter, chapel-master in the cathedral of Strasburg, usu¬
ally composed upon a clavichord, which had twenty-one
sounds to the octave, and which then seemed to be upwards
of two hundred years old. Richter died in 1789, aged
eighty.
An Enharmonic Organ was built by Messrs Robson,
London, in 1856. It is, according to its inventor, an at¬
tempt to determine the just division of the canon or musical
string in one key, and then apply the same proportions over
again, beginning from some of the previously determined
divisions. The result is the production of 38 manuals in
the octave, divided among three finger boards, and extend¬
ing to 20 keys. I he inventor has published an account of
it (Wilson, Royal Exchange, London), with an appendix,
tracing the identity of design with the enharmonic of the
ancients.
(For some hints regarding the proper use of the organ,
see the article Music. Those who wish to extend their
knowledge of this subject will find abundance of informa¬
tion upon the history and the construction of the organ,
and the art of playing it, in works published in Germany,
France, and Italy. 1 he German works are the most nu¬
merous. See in particular :—G. C. F. Schlimbach, Utber
die Struktur, 1'*rItoItung, Stimmung und Erilpung dev Or-
gel, Durchgesehen und Vermehrt von C. F. Becker, mit
5 kpfrt., gr. 8, Leipsic, 1S43 ; 7he Organ, its History and
Construction, by Dr Rimbault and E. J. Hopkins, Esq.,
London, 1856; C. FI. Rink, Practische Orge^schule, in 6
parts, Leipsic, v. y., one of the best practical works on or¬
gan-playing.) (g.f.g.)
ORGANO-LYRICON, a musical instrument invented
at Paris in 1810, by M. de Saint Pern. Its height is about
eight feet two inches English, its breadth six feet six and
a half inches, its depth about four feet four inches. It
consists of a piano-forte, coupled with twelve different wind-
instruments, viz., three kinds of flutes, an oboe, a clarinet,
a bassoon, horns, trumpet, and fife. It has two rows of
fingei-keys. Ihe lower row belongs to the piano-forte;
but, by an ingenious mechanism, and according to the de¬
pression of the keys by the performer, it may be made to
sound either the piano-forte alone, or a flute, or an oboe,
or to unite them all. ’Ihe upper row of finger-keys has
4 x
714
O R G
Orgia no action on the piano-forte; but, by management of the
pressure, it. causes the German flute or the oboe to sound,
Oribasius. ant[ produces rinfoTzi by the gradual re-union of several
wind-instruments. Independently of these functions, this
row of finger-keys is destined for a great church-organ
placed above it. The correspondence between the two
rows of finger-keys is such that they may, at the will ot
the performer, act together or separately, or even par¬
tially. The finger-keys are singularly light in their touch,
even at their maximum of depression. At the bottom of
the instrument there are pedals for the double bass, and for
other combinations. The wind-chests are numerous, and
of such capacity that the wind of the large bellows which
fill them cannot produce in them any augmentation injunous
to the purity of the timbre and the trueness of the intona¬
tion. In this instrument, by means of ingenious con¬
trivances, the inconveniences of an irregular supply of wind
have been carefully avoided. A double pedal lor the. right
foot enables the performer to work the bellows himself
when he is alone. An adjacent pedal, turned the opposite
way, enables an assistant to do this. But to avoid the
trouble of these pedals, M. de Saint Pern placed in an
adjoining room a large piece of clock-work, moved by a
weight of fifty pounds, which served instead of a bellows-
blower. The performer has beside him a mechanism that
communicates with the clock-work, and, by means of a
click and spring, leaves the weight going, or stops it at
pleasure. (See report read to the French Institute on the
10th of September 1810; also report of the French Con¬
servatory of Music, 12th August 1810, where it is said
that “ M. de Saint Pern’s organo-lyricon might, in a large
room or a chapel, hold the place of an orchestra, and imitate
nearly all the effects of one.” (g. f. G.)
ORGIA. See Bacchus.
ORI A, a town of Spain, in Andalusia, province of
Almeria, 32 miles N. of that town. It is ill and irregularly
built; and contains a church, several hermitages, and a
school. The inhabitants are engaged in agriculture, and
linen manufactures. Pop. 5600.
Oria, or Uritania, a town of Naples, province of
Brindisi, and 22 miles W.S.W. of that town, has a pic¬
turesque site on a steep hill, surmounted by an ancient castle.
It contains a cathedral, and is the see of a bishop. In the
vicinity are extensive olive plantations, gardens, orchards,
and vineyards. Trade is carried on in honey and wax.
Pop. 4820.
ORIBASIUS, a celebrated Greek physician, was born
in the former half of the fourth century at Pergamum, in
Mysia, the birthplace of Galen. He studied medicine
with success under Zeno of Cyprus, and soon acquired a
great professional reputation. The chief cause, however,
of the good fortune of his life was the steady friendship of
Julian. On being elevated to the rank of Caesar, that
prince took the young physician along with him into Gaul,
made him his confidant as well as his medical adviser, and
employed him to write an epitome ot Galen. After he had
been proclaimed emperor in 361, he appointed him quaestor
of Constantinople, and entrusted him with the vain enter¬
prise of restoring the Delphic oracle, dhe death of Julian,
in 363, left Oribasius exposed to the malice of his enemies.
His goods were confiscated, and he was exiled to some
barbarous country. Yet the imperturbable fortitude which
he then began to manifest soon led to his triumphant recall.
He set himself actively to practise his profession ; the
barbarians, astonished at his skill, scarcely refrained from
paying him divine honours ; his countrymen soon repented
of having banished such an able physician, and so mag¬
nanimous a man; and in the course of a few years he was
recalled and restored to his former position of wealth and
esteem. The rest of his life was employed in writing, amid
other engagements, a synopsis of his epitome of Galen, for
OKI
the use of his son Eustathius. The date of his death is Origen.
unknown. He was still living when Eunapius, the chief
authority for his biography, about 395, insei ted his Life in
the Vitce Philosophorum et Sophistarum.
Of the several works which Oribasius is said to have
written, three alone remain, either entire or fragmentary.
His Swayary<H Tarpucai, Collecta Medicinalia, originally
in seventy books, now exists in the shape of twenty-five
whole, and two fragmentary books. Although professedly
an epitome of Galen, it contains many valuable extracts
from other writers whose works are now lost. His Swoi^is,
consisting of nine books, and his EaTropicn-a, consisting of
four books, were published at Venice in Latin, by J. Bapt.
Rasarius, the former in 1554, and the latter in 1558. Ihe
same editor also translated nineteen books of the other work
of Oribasius, and published all these translations together
in three volumes, 8vo, Basle, 1557.
ORIGEN (OptyeV^s) was the son of an excellent Christian
named Leonides, and was born in Alexandria about a.d. 186.
His boyhood gave full promise of saint-like piety and great
intellectual attainments. He loved to read the Scriptures,
to commit large portions of them daily to memory, and to ask
his father to explain the difficult passages. The good
Leonides was wont of an evening to visit the couch of his
sleeping child, and, uncovering the little bosom, to kiss it
with the reverential thought that the Holy Spirit might
dwell there. Although a pupil for some time of Clement
of Alexandria, the boy did not permit the rationalistic
teachings of his master to cloud the simple piety of his heart.
When he heard in his sixteenth year that his father was
apprehended for the truth, all the devotion of a martyr was
stirred within him: he wrote to Leonides,—“ See that you
do not change your mind on our account;” and had not
force been employed to detain him at home, he would have
gone to meet death along with his parent.
All this promise began to be fulfilled in Origen when
the martyrdom of his father had cast him destitute upon the
world. At first he earned a livelihood by giving lessons
in the Greek language and literature. Then, in course of
time, being appointed to the gratuitous office of catechist
by Demetrius, Bishop of Alexandria, he devoted himself
with self-sacrificing ardour to the duties of a Christian
teacher. All other employments were set aside: a choice
collection of ancient authors was sold to supply the bare
necessaries of life: the most pinching asceticism was prac¬
tised : the moral precepts of the Bible were obeyed to the
very letter; and in the height of his reckless fanaticism,
he even “made himself an eunuch for the kingdom of
heaven’s sake.” With the same devotedness did the youth¬
ful missionary discharge his public duties. In controversy,
his fervid and affectionate address melted the stubborn
prejudices of many a philosophic heathen: in the persecu¬
tion under the government of Aquila, he communicated his
pious heroism to his young converts ; and when any of these
were summoned to martyrdom, he appeared on the scaffold
to cheer their departing spirits.
It was this same proselytizing ardour that now began to
change the direction of Origen’s theological studies and
opinions. He saw that it was necessary to understand fully
the tenets of the pagan philosophy before he could fully
refute them. To learn these tenets, therefore, he set him¬
self with all his one-sided intensity, and with a fixed deter¬
mination to sympathize with whatever he might find
beautiful and true. In Arabia, whither he was invited by
the governor of that province ; in Palestine, whither he fled
to escape the massacre of Caracalla ; at Antioch, where he
had an interview with Mammsea, the mother of the Emperor
Alexander Severus; at Caesarea, where he was ordained
a priest by the bishops of Palestine; and in Greece, whither
he was sent, about 229, to refute heretics, every opportunity
was taken to converse with learned heathens. At home the
O E I G E N.
UJ
Origen. tuition of the younger catechumens was given over to his
—friend Heraclas; his own attention was directed to deliver¬
ing a course of lectures on the points of congruity between
philosophy and Christianity ; and from the distinguished
heretics who did not disdain to sit at his feet he was ever
ready to receive as well as to communicate instruction. In
this manner was he gradually led to appropriate many of
the dogmas of the old heathen philosophers. At the same
time, it was necessary to show how these dogmas could be
reconciled with the doctrines of the true religion. To this
task, therefore, in the midst of his multifarious duties, he
had applied himself, furnished with all external facilities of
study by his friend and convert, the wealthy Ambrose, and
carried forward by that force of unyielding application which
gained for him the epithets of the “adamantine,” the
“brazen-bowelled” Origen. By the year 229 several of
his commentaries, his Treatise on the Resurrection, his
Stromata, and his work On Principles, had been completed.
In all these, but especially in the last, he made the daring
attempt to harmonize Platonism and Christianity, and to
build up by means of the two a system of religious doctrine.
There existed from all eternity, he held, one original essence
and source of existence called the Father; co-eternal
and co-equal with Him was the Son, the Logos ceaselessly
proceeding from the everlasting mind, the ineffable bright¬
ness ever emanating from the Divine glory; and joined
with these two persons in trinal unity, although created like
all other spirits by the Son, was the Holy Ghost. Since
the exercise of creative power is essential to the being of
the Godhead, there also existed from all eternity a succes¬
sion of worlds. To fill these worlds, a number of intelli¬
gences were created. These were clothed with bodies of
an ethereal rarity, for God alone is incorporeal; and they
were all created alike, for God cannot be the author of
inequality. Free-will was bestowed upon them, and the
exercise of this soon began to lead them into depravity, and
to alter in various degrees their original conditions. They
were degraded into souls, were imprisoned in gross material
bodies, and, according to their different degrees of de¬
generacy, became angels, men, or demons. The Logos then
undertook to restore them by revealing himself. To men
he made this revelation by uniting himself with the most
perfect intelligence, and by connecting himself through that
medium with a body of flesh; and to angels and demons
he employed in a similar manner modes suited to their
different states and capacities. Thus, all created spirits,
including Satan himself, will eventually be restored ; a new
state of probation will then commence; they will fall again
through the exercise of free-will; and the succession of
worlds as places of reformatory punishment will require to
be continued.
1 he adoption of a doctrinal system so seemingly contra¬
dictory to Scripture as this forced Origen ,to assume a
new style of biblical interpretation. It was impossible,
he held, that such sublime spiritual truths, when stated
abstractly, could be understood by the generality of men;
they must therefore from necessity have been clothed by
the sacred writers in palpable figures and allegories; and,
accordingly, there is often a mystical meaning lying con¬
cealed behind the letter of holy writ. The very attention
which Origen bestowed upon the construction of this
erroneous allegorizing method led him at the same time to
render a great service to the cause of hermeneutics. He
found it necessary in many cases to adopt the bare letter
of the word: this induced him to lay down an accurate
distinction between the verbal and spiritual sense ; and he
thus had the merit of establishing a new and improved school
of grammatical interpretation.
It is likely that these opinions contributed in some degree
to exasperate the series of troubles that began to harass him
about 229. After this date his life is the picture of a great
Christian teacher labouring patiently for the reward of a
good conscience amid the persecuting malice of an ungrate¬
ful world. Demetrius, Bishop of Alexandria, offended at
the ordination of Origen by the bishops of Palestine, raked
up every private scandal that might be thrown against his
reputation, and procured his banishment from Egypt. Yet
the uncomplaining exile, setting up his humble household
among his friends in Caesarea, continued his biblical labours
without remission. The thunders of excommunication soon
followed him thither, and awoke a stormy controversy on
his account between the churches of Rome and Alex¬
andria, on the one hand, and the churches of Palestine,
Phoenicia, Achaia, and Arabia, on the other. Yet the
enthusiastic teacher was meanwhile lecturing on theology,
philosophy, logic, natural science, geometry, astronomy, and
ethics, with an eloquence “ unspeakably winning, hallowed,
and passing lovely.” The persecution of the Emperor
Maximinus in 235 drove him to seek refuge in Cappadocia,
in the house of a wealthy lady named Juliana. Yet the
two years of his concealment were employed in the com¬
pilation of his Hexapla, a work which exhibited in six,
eight, or nine parallel columns, according as the case re¬
quired, the various copies of the Old Testament. In the
Decian persecution, which began in 249, he was cast into
a dungeon in Tyre, and subjected to the most exquisite and
protracted inquisitorial tortures. Yet not only did the
old man vindicate the sufficiency of his Christian faith by
his pious endurance, but he also wrote letters to console
and confirm his fellow-sufferers. These accumulated
toils and hardships at length undermined the health of
Origen; and in the course of two or three years after his
liberation from prison, he died about 254, and was buried
at Tyre.
The works which Origen left behind him were so nu¬
merous that they were estimated by Epiphanius to amount
to six thousand. By far the greater part is lost. Some of
them, such as the treatise On Prayer, the Exhortation to
Martyrdom, and the apologetic pamphlet Against Celsus,
are extant; others, such as the Hexapla, and the Commen¬
taries on the books of the Old and New Testament, exist
in fragments; and others, such as his work On Principles,
are preserved by Rufinus in Latin translations, which pro¬
fessedly attempt to improve the originals, both by omissions
and interpolations. The best edition of the fragments of
the Hexapla is that of Montfaupon, in 2 vols. fob, Paris,
1713. The collected works of Origen were published in
Latin at different times during the sixteenth century, by
Merlin, Erasmus, Panzer, and Genebrard. The standard
edition is that of Charles and Vincent Delarue, in 4 vols.
fob, Paris, 1733-59. Several fragments of Origen appeared
for the first time in the 14th volume of Gallard’s Bibliotheca
Patrum, published in 1781. A list of his works is given
in the Bibliotheca Grceca of Fabricius. (For the biography
of Origen, the standard authority is the Historia Eccle-
siastica of Eusebius. See also, among many other works,
Huet’s Origeniana; Neander’s Church History; and
Origenes, Darstellung Seines Lebens und Seiner Lehre
von Ernst Rudolph Redepenning, in 2 vols. 8vo., Bonn,
1841-46.)
The opinions of Origen gave rise many years after his
death to a great controversy in the church. It was begun
in the fourth century by a party accusing him of being the
founder of Arianism ; then a faction of the Egyptian monks
came forward in his defence; and the dispute was brought
to a head by Rufinus adopting the latter side, and Jerome
adopting the former. From this time, the Origenists,
though soon suppressed in the Western Church, began to
rise into importance in the East. In the fifth century they
had secured a firm footing in Egypt, Syria, and the adjacent
countries ; and in the sixth century they had acquired great
influence in the palace of the Emperor Justinian. Their
716 OKI
Orihuela. doctrines, however, were finally condemned ; and their sect
„ II was broken up by a general council, held at Constantinople
Orinoco, in 5,13. F ^
^ ORIHUELA, a town and episcopal see of Spain, situ¬
ated in the kingdom and province of Valencia, on its S.
boundary, at the foot of a limestone ridge of moderate
height, and on both sides of the Segura, which crosses it from
W. to E., the communication being maintained by two
bridges. The town is not fortified, but there are extensive
ruins of a fort on the hill commanding it; and the entrance
to the town, on the side of Valencia—the Puerto del Co-
legio, is a fine lofty arch, surmounted by a stone figure and
the city arms. The episcopal palace, erected by Osorio,
the bishop, in 1733, has a front of 600 feet in the Calle
Mayor, and on the other side is washed by the Segura, by
whose inundations it has been much damaged at various
times, and is in a ruinous condition ; it contains a public
library. Among the other principal buildings are,—a large
barracks at the Murcia gate, also partly ruined, and a new casa
consistorial, in which the municipal archives, containing a
great number of curious and important documents of national
history are preserved. The cathedral is an ancient Gothic
structure, erected on the site of a mosque ; it was enlarged in
1829. and tastelessly decorated. There are three other parish
churches. The most ancient of the convents is that of the
friars of St Augustine. That of the Franciscans, on the
Murcia Road, is a building of different epochs, with a fine
large garden. There is a Carmelite convent in the centre of
the town, and six other convents of less note, among which
may be reckoned, as a kind of convent, the Colegia Patriarcal
de Predicadores, at the E. entrance, with a fine church and
library. There are three convents of nuns and three of
ermitas within the town, the most remarkable being that of
our Lady of Monserrat, whose image is carried in proces¬
sion to the cathedral in times of public calamity. The
university of Orihuela, founded in 1568 by Fernando de
Loanees, Archbishop of Valencia, was suppressed in 1835,
and part of its revenue applied to the foundation of a college
in the university of Valencia. Other educational establish¬
ments are,—the theological seminary of San Miguel, founded
in 1733 by the bishop Gomez de Teran, containing a fine
library and the archives of the diocese ; the normal school
of the province; and six public elementary schools, besides
private institutions. There is an hospital; also a poor-house,
founded in 1743 by the bishop just named, and enlarged in
1818 ; it is capacious and well endowed. Opposite to it
stands the maternity hospital, founded in 1764. Agricul¬
ture is the principal occupation of the inhabitants, but there
are manufactures of woollen and linen cloths, leather, som¬
breros, and saltpetre; also silk and cotton dye-works. There
is a daily corn-market, and a weekly market for all goods
on Tuesday, which is well attended. Orihuela is a Roman
town, as is testified by ruins and by coins discovered; but
unless it be the Orcelis of Pliny there is no mention of it
in ancient geography. It was a place of some importance
in the Moorish invasion, and was held in 713 successfully
by Theodoric against Abd-el-Aziz after the battle of the
Guadalete. It was conquered in 1265 by Don Jaime of
Aragon for his father-in-law, Don Alonso, King of Castile.
The city was sacked in 1520 in the civil war at that time
racing, and again in the war of the succession, 1706. In
1648 it was devastated by the plague; in 1651 by an inun¬
dation of the river; in the earthquake of 21st March 1829
many houses were destroyed and churches damaged. In
the last civil war the city was distinguished by its Carlist
tendencies, and was held for some time in 1837 by the Car-
list general Forcadell. Pop. in 1849, 17,452.
ORINOCO, a large river of Venezuela, South America.
Its source has never yet been visited by European travellers;
for although both Baron Humboldt in 1800, and Schom-
burgk in 1838, penetrated very near the place where it
O R I
takes its rise, yet both these travellers were prevented from Orinoco,
reaching it by the treacherous outrages of the Kirishana
savages who inhabit the district adjacent to the source.
The latter of these travellers, however, reduced the limits
within which the actual head is to be found to a space of 30
miles. The reports of the Indian tribes on the banks of
the river agree in placing the source of the Orinoco in the
Parima Mountains, on the borders of Brazil and Venezuela,
not far from that of the Parima, which flows in an opposite
direction, between 3° and 4° N. Lat., and about 64° W.
Long. It flows at first W.N.W., and receives from the N.
the Paramu, a river remarkable for the number and height
of its falls. Below its confluence with this river the Orinoco
is broad, but shallow, and much interrupted by sand-banks.
It flows sluggishly through a low, flat region, broken only
by a few scattered hills densely wooded. About 13 miles
below the village of Esmeralda, the most remote Christian
settlement on the river, the Orinoco divides itself into two
branches ; one of which, taking the name of the Cassiquiare,
or Cassisiare, flows S.W., and, after a course of 120 miles,
joins the Rio Negro near San Carlos; while the other branch,
retaining the name of Orinoco, continues to pursue a N.W.
direction. The former of these thus forms a sort of natural
canal, joining the waters of the Orinoco with those of the
Amazon, of which river the Rio Negro is an affluent; and,
as the waters of the Amazon are only separated from those
of the Paraguay in the south by a portage of three miles,
there is, with this exception, a continuous communication
by navigable rivers from Buenos Ayres in S. Lat. 35. to
the mouths of the Orinoco in N. Lat. 9. Below its bifur¬
cation the Orinoco skirts the base of the Parima Moun¬
tains, and receives the Ventuari from the right, and still
further down the Guaviare from the left. After its confluence
with these rivers, in W. Long. 68., it changes its direction,
and flows for some distance due north, skirting the western
foot of the Parima Mountains. In this part of its course the
navigation is interrupted by the rapids, or Raudales, as
they are called, of Maypures and Atures, the former 80,
and the latter 116 miles below the confluence of the
Guaviare with the Orinoco. The river is here more than
8000 feet broad, but is so broken up by an immense num¬
ber of small islands and rocks, as to leave, in many places,
a channel no broader than 20 feet. Between these islands
there are numerous cascades, not exceeding 9 feet in height;
but, as the great body of water flows through these narrow
openings with great three and rapidity, any attempt to as¬
cend the rapids in boats must inevitably be followed by the
destruction of the boat and great danger to the lives of the
daring navigators. Below this point the navigation is not
again interrupted; but at the confluence of the Meta, a tri¬
butary w’hich joins the Orinoco from the W., there is a whirl¬
pool which occasions considerable delay to the voyager.
From its bifurcation to the confluence of the Meta, the
Orinoco forms the boundary between Venezuela on the E.,
and New Granada on the W. To the north of this point
the river takes a curve towards the N.E., and, after re¬
ceiving the Apure from the left, it flows nearly due E. to
the Atlantic. About 130 miles from the sea it forms a
delta, by sending to the N. a branch which divides itself
into several streams, called the JBocas Chicas, or small
mouths, and falling partly into the Gulf of Paria and partly
into the Atlantic. These, though many of them are navigable
and of considerable size, are much less than the main
stream, which is called the Boca de Navios, and is divided,
for the distance of about 40 miles, by a line of islands in
the middle, into two channels, each about two miles wide.
At the great mouth of the river the breadth is upwards of
60 miles, and there extends across the navigable channel in
the centre a sand-bar with 17 feet of water. The length
of the Orinoco is estimated at 1600 miles, for about half of
which distance it is navigable. It receives more than 400
O R I
Orion navigable tributaries, the largest of which have been already
|| noticed. At a distance of 560 miles from the sea this
Drissa. great river exceeds 3 miles in breadth. The tide reaches
as far as Bolivar, more than 250 miles from its mouth ; and
at this place the breadth is 4 miles, and the depth 65
fathoms.
The area of the country watered by the Orinoco and its
tributaries is estimated at 200,000 square miles. This re¬
gion is entirely occupied by the llanos, or levels of Vene¬
zuela—immense flat plains, stretching from the coast chain to
the Parima Mountains, and from the Atlantic to the Andes,
rising in some parts of the coast to the height of 1300 feet;
but in many places hardly at all above the level of the sea.
The greater part of these plains is entirely destitute of
trees ; but the region on both sides of the Guaviare, and
thence northwards along the left bank of the Orinoco to the
Meta, is covered with dense forests. In the dry season the
open plains present an arid and barren appearance, but
when the rain falls they are suddenly covered with luxuri¬
ant vegetation ; the rivers overflow, cover the plains with
vast sheets of w ater, and sometimes extend even into the
forests. 1 he rising of the Orinoco begins in the end of
March, proceeds slowly at first till it attains its greatest
height in July and August, and then, more slowly than it
rose, decreases. Its greatest height on an average at Bo¬
livar is 24 or 25 feet, but in the upper part of its course it
attains a height of about 30 feet, and in one contracted
channel it is said to rise 120 feet above its ordinary level.
ORION, a hero of ancient classical mythology, was, ac¬
cording to the ordinary account, a son of Hyricus and a
native of Hyria in Bceotia. His gigantic height and his
prowess as a hunter soon led him into a series of adventures.
Arriving in the course of his travels at Ophiusa, he fell in
love with Merope, the beautiful daughter of (Enopion, and
agreed as a price for her hand to exterminate all the wild
beasts in the island. The rugged hunter, however, when
he had performed his task, was too precipitate in exacting
the reward. The offended father, in revenge, put out his
eyes as he lay in a drunken sleep. The blinded giant, on
returning to consciousness, was informed by an oracle that
he might recover his sight by exposing his empty sockets
to the rays of the rising sun. Wandering eastward through
the sea, and directing his course towards a far-ringing anvil,
he soon found himself in the forge of Vulcan, in the island
of Lemnos. One of the workmen undertook to be his
guide ; and, sitting upon his shoulders, directed his footsteps
to a place where his eyes were suddenly cured. Orion
now hastened back to Ophiusa to take vengeance upon
(Enopion. Not finding him, however, he repaired to Crete,
and entering the hunting train of Diana, he continued in
that position till his death. How that event happened it is
not agreed among authors. The ordinary legend is that he
was shot by one of his mistress’s arrows for an offence which
is differently represented by different writers.' Another
opinion reports him to have been killed by a scorpion. At
any rate, it is the common belief that he was changed on his
demise into a constellation. As his rising was generally
supposed to bring storms, he came to be called the “ shower-
bringing,” “cloudy,” or “rainy” Orion.
ORISSA, an extensive province of Hindustan, in the
Deccan, between N. Lat. 17. 16. and 22. 23. E. Long.
81. 35. and 87. 20. It has Bengal for its boundary to the
N., to the S. the River Godavery, to the E. the Bay of
Bengal, and to the W. the province of Gundwana. It may
be estimated from N.E. to S.W. at 400 miles in length by
(0 in average breadth. Ihis province, in the interior, is
of a rude and barbarous aspect, consisting for the most
part of rugged hills, uninhabited jungles, and deep water¬
courses. It is surrounded by pathless deserts, forests, or
valleys; and the atmosphere is pestilential. At present the
British rule over nearly one half of this extensive region
o R K 717
and the remaining part, is possessed by tributary zemindars, Oristano
who pay a fixed rent to the British, under whose jurisdiction II
they live. The woody and interior division of the country 0rkney
belongs to them ; whilst the other division, belonging to the Island8,
British, comprehends all the low lands extending along the
coast, a tract generally plain and fertile, but not well culti¬
vated or peopled. The low lands along the Bay of Bengal
abound with wild animals, such as hogs, deer, tigers, and
jackals; and the high lands are infested by such numbers
of wild animals, that in many places they are regaining
possession of the country from which they were driven by
the progress of cultivation. Fish swarm in the rivers, which
are also infested with reptiles and alligators; and in the
plains and jungles are innumerable noxious insects. The
chief rivers are the Godavery and Mahanuddy, besides in¬
numerable mountain streams of a short, course. The in¬
habitants of Orissa belong to four principal tribes:—1.
I he Urias, Orias, or Odras, who occupy the plains and
valleys, especially towards the W. 2. The Coles, also
called Hos, in the N., a tribe in a half savage condition,
remarkable for honesty, truthfulness, and good nature. 3.
The Khonds, in the centre of the country, who have made
some progress in civilization; but practise abominable
superstitious rites, with human sacrifices, which have been
attempted, but hitherto in vain, to be suppressed by the
British government. 4. The Saurias, or Sauras, in the S.,
who, though in general peaceable and harmless, are addicted
to the same superstitions as the Khonds, and are even more
wild and savage than they. A race of Hindu princes
governed the country till 1592, when they were conquered
by the viceroy of Akbar, to whose dominion the country
was annexed as a dependent government. From disjointed
fragments of its history, and from existing relics, it appears
to have been a flourishing empire, even before the Moham¬
medan invasion; but it soon afterwards fell into decay.
Pop. about 4,534,813.
ORIS IA NO, a town of the island of Sardinia, capital
of a province of the same name, in the division of Cagliari,
stands in the midst of salt marshes, about a mile from the
left bank of the Tirsi, about 3 miles from the W. coast of
the island, and 30 N.N.W. of Cagliari. It has a low and
unhealthy situation, and a very desolate appearance, which
is not at all in keeping with the turreted wall which sur¬
rounds the town, or the handsome houses which still bear
the arms of the Spanish nobles who lived here when Sardinia
was a dependency of Spain. It seems probable that in
former times the salt marshes here were not so extensive as
they now are; so that the site of the town would not have been
originally an unfavourable one. Out of several churches,
the only noteworthy one is the cathedral, a modern building,
which contains several good paintings. There is an old
palace, once the residence of the judges of Arborea, a
convent, several schools, and an hospital. Manufactures of
ironware, cutlery, arms, and other implements, are carried
on. Pop. 6000.
ORIZABA, a town of Mexico, department of Vera Cruz,
65 miles S.W. of the town of Vera Cruz. It stands in a
valley overgrown with forests, and has broad and well paved
streets. Manufactures of leather and coarse cloth are carried
on here. Pop. 15,500.
About 5 miles N. of the town stands the Peak of Orizaba,
an extinct volcano, which has a height of 17,388 feet above
the sea. It was first ascended in 1848 by Lieutenant
Reynolds, and other American officers, having before been
supposed inaccessible ; and since that time the summit has
been repeatedly reached.
ORKNE\ ISLANDS, or Orcades, a group of islands in
the North Sea, which, with the sister group of the Zetlands,
form one of the counties of Scotland. They are separated
from Caithness by the Pentland Firth, a strait of about 8
miles in breadth, and are situated between the parallels
718
ORKNEY.
Orkney 58. 44. and 59. 24. N. Lat., and between 2. 24. and 3. 20.
Islands. Long. In number they amount to sixty-seven, of which
twenty-seven are inhabited, and the others, known by the
name of holms, are employed principally as grazing grounds
for sheep and black cattle. The islands are divided into
two groups, called—in reference to Pomona,1 the principal
island—the North and South Isles. The following are the
names of the inhabited islands, with their population, ac¬
cording to the census taken in 1851 :—
SOUTH ISLES. Pop.
South Ronaldshey 2438
Walls and Hoy 1555
Flotey and Farey  — 441
Burrey   559
Grasmsey  286
Swaney and the Skerries.... 57
Copenshey  11
Hundey    5
Cavey  24
Lambholm  13
NORTH ISLES. Pop.
Sandey 2004
Westrey and Papa Westrey.2459
Stronsey and Papa Stronsey.1211
Rousey and Enhallow  961
Shapinshey  899
Edey and Pharey 1016
North Ronaldshey  526
Eagleshey  192
Weir  62
Gairsey  41
5389
9371
Pomona, or the Mainland, has a population of 16,695;
and thus the whole number of inhabitants amounts to 31,455.
The number in 1831 was 28,847.
In the absence of an accurate survey it is impossible to
give anything like a correct estimate of the extent of the
country. We have heard the number of square acres fixed
at 150,000, and we have heard that number doubled. The
very irregular form of the islands, penetrated by arms of
the sea in all directions, easily accounts for this diversity
of opinion.
The general appearance of the islands is bleak, and upon
the whole uninteresting. The want of wood, and the tracts
of waste uncultivated land, though these are diminishing in
number and extent, present a somewhat forbidding aspect.
Orkney is divided into twenty-two parishes, forming three
presbyteries and one synod. There are also fourteen Free
Church congregations, thirteen congregations in connection
with the United Presbyterian Church, and three Indepen¬
dent congregations, in Orkney. Together with Zetland,
these islands constitute one sheriffdom, or stewartry, under
the jurisdiction of a sheriff-depute and two substitutes,
whose courts are held at Kirkwall and Lerwick. Till the
passing of the Reform Bill, Orkney alone had the privilege
of returning a member to Parliament—the landholders of
Zetland, owing to the want of a separate valuation of their
estates, having no vote in the election. In 1857 the parlia¬
mentary constituency amounted to 617 ; and of these there
were 422 voters belonging to Orkney, and 195 to Zetland.
Of the land-tax payable for the county, two-thirds are le¬
vied from Orkney, and one-third from the northern division
of the stewartry.
We shall now proceed to notice the principal islands, and
to point out the most remarkable objects in them.
The most southerly is South Ronaldshey, containing 24
square miles, and a population that has increased during
the last twenty years by 200, chiefly employed in agricul¬
ture, and the cod, herring, and lobster fisheries. There
are two excellent harbours in this island—Widewall Bay
on the west, and St Margaret’s Hope on the north. The
antiquities of the island are,—several Piets’ houses, three
or four monumental stones of large size, and the Howe of
Hoxa, an ancient stronghold.
To the north-west of South Ronaldshey lies Hoy, in many
respects the most interesting of all the smaller islands. It
contains the Ward or Wart Hill, rising to the height of
almost 1600 feet, the loftiest mountain in Orkney; the
towering precipices of Rorey and Rackwick, washed by
the fury of the Western Ocean; the huge isolated rock
called the Old Man of Hoy ; the Meadow of the Kaim; Orkney
the beautiful vale of Berrydale, through which flows a Islands,
stream whose banks are fringed with birches, creeping
juniper, and willows; and the “ Dwarfie Stone,”—ob¬
jects which will repay a lengthened visit. Forming part
of the island of Hoy, but constituting a different parish,
is Walls, or Waas, distinguished chiefly for its excellent
harbour, Long Hope, which is partially defended by a
small battery and a couple of martello towers. Burrey,
situated to the north of South Ronaldshey, and separated
from it by a channel of a mile in breadth, has an area of
only 3 square miles, but produces grain, green crops, and
good pasture, and has moreover a valuable rabbit-warren.
Farther north is the largest island of the group, Pomona,
or Mainland, extending to 30 miles in length, and contain¬
ing upwards of 200 square miles. The towns of Kirkwall
and Stromness are in this island. (See articles Kirkwall
and Stromness.) Excepting Kirkwall, Stennis on the
Mainland has the greatest claims on the attention of the tra¬
veller and the antiquary. Here are the “ Stones of Stennis,”
two collections of what at one time must have been upright
pillars, forming a circle and a semicircle. Many of these stones
are now overthrown ; but the circle, when complete, seems
to have been formed of sixty pillars, of which thirteen still
remain erect and perfect; ten more are prostrate, though
unbroken, and the fragments of thirty others are still visible.
The stones vary from 10 to 16 feet in height, and from
2^ to 5 feet in breadth. The entire circle is surrounded
by a trench about 20 feet in width, and the diameter of the
included space cannot be less than 300 feet. There have
been many conjectures as to the purpose of these erections;
and it is by no means certain by whom they were raised.
One opinion is that they are of Druidical, and another that
they are of Scandinavian origin. A not improbable con¬
jecture is, that the circle was dedicated to the sun, and
the semicircle to the moon, the frequent objects of Scan¬
dinavian worship. Of these stones the most interesting
was one which stood near to, but did not form part of the
circle. It was perforated by a small hole, through which
the heads of children were passed in order to secure them
against palsy in after-life ; and through that hole also lovers’
hands were joined in token that the vows there made should
be faithfully kept. These contracts were deemed peculiarly
binding, and the promise of Odin was regarded by an Ork¬
ney man as of too solemn a nature to be trifled w ith. The
malice or stupidity of a stranger, who rented a neighbour¬
ing farm, induced him in 1814 to overthrow and break to
pieces this curious relic of ancient times. In front of the
circle lies a large horizontal stone, conjectured to have been
used for sacrificial purposes; and it has been thought that
it was on this altar that Einar, Jarl of Orkney, son of Ronald,
about the year 893, or, according to other accounts, 930,
stretched Halfdan, the son of Harold the Fair-haired, King
of Norway, and tearing out his lungs, presented the reeking
gift to his god.
In the adjoining parish of Sandwick, the grandeur of the
rocks must attract the notice of the visitor; and one huge
archway, formed by the restless fury of the waves, called
the Hollow Row, or Hole of Row, is specially deserving of
attention.
Robert Stewart, Earl of Orkney, had a palace in Birsey,
the next parish on the N.W., the ruins of which still
remain. Brand, who visited the country in 1700, says:—
“ The palace is two stories high; the upper hath been
prettily decored, the ceiling being all painted, and that
for the most part with schems, holding forth Scripture his¬
tories,—as Noah’s flood, Christ’s riding to Jerusalem,—and
the Scripture is set down beside the figure. It was inha¬
bited within these twenty years, but is now fast decaying.”
1 For some conjectures as to the origin of this name, see the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, vol. i., p. 16.
O R K
Orkney About forty years ago, the writer of this article saw the
Islands, palace. All the decorations, the roof, and a great part of
the walls, were then gone ; and the clergyman of the parish
informed him that the ruins had long been regarded as a
common quarry, whence any intending builder drew mate¬
rials for the erection of his house. It was over the gate¬
way of this building that the inscription was placed, which,
owing to a grammatical error, was seized on as affording
evidence of the treasonable designs of the family on the
trial of Patrick, Earl Robert’s son: “ Dominus Robertus
Stuartus, filius Jacobi quinti rex Scotorum, hoc opus in-
struxit.” The two islands of Shapinshey and Rousey, each
containing from 10 to 12 square miles, lie to the N. of the
Mainland. The former is flat; in the latter the highest
hills, save those of Hoy, are found. In Shapinshey, great
improvements in various ways have lately been effected,
and the resident proprietor has erected a stately mansion-
house, the largest in the county. Rousey presents to the
antiquary for his investigation, tumuli, Piets’ houses, stand¬
ing stones, and a number of ancient graves. Planting has
recently and to some extent, and not without a very con¬
siderable measure of success, been attempted in the island.
To the E. of Rousey is the beautiful islet of Eagleshey, the
favourite summer residence of the ancient jarls, and at a
later period, of the bishops of Orkney. It was here that St
Magnus, the tutelar saint of the islands, was basely murdered
by his cousin Hacon in 1110. On the highest part of the
island stands the ancient chapel dedicated to St Magnus.
Beyond these, to the N.E., lie Stronsey, where there is an
extensive fishing station, and Edey, that can boast of a burgh
of barony. Still farther N. lie Sandey on the E., and
Westrey on the W. The former, because of its produc¬
tiveness, has been called the granary of Orkney; it is a flat,
low-lying island ; and, till the erection of a lighthouse on the
point of Start in 1806, proved fatal to many a vessel.
Westrey is, with the exception of Sandey, the largest of
the North Isles. In it are the remains of the strong castle
of Noltland, begun by Thomas Tulloch, Bishop of Orkney,
between 1422 and 1448, and whose initials, T. T., are to
be seen on the pillar that supports the great staircase. The
castle vvas never completed; and a traveller, who describes
it under the date of 1529, says—“ Est excellentissima arx,
sive castellum, sed nondum tamen adhuc completa.” In
consequence of sand blowing, a number of graves, contain¬
ing, among bones, the ’v.nains of various weapons, have
been uncovered. Tl.i.se places of sepulture are generally
formed of five stones, four standing on their edges and rest¬
ing on the fifth. Separated from Westrey by a firth of a
mile in breadth, is the small island of Papa Westrey, with
its beautiful fresh-water loch, in the midst of which is a
small island, on which a chapel dedicated to St Tredwall
stood. The most northerly of the islands is North Ronald-
shey, containing an area of from four to six square miles.
It was on a reef near this island that the “ Suetia” of Got-
tenburg, an Indiaman, valued at half a million sterling, was
wrecked in 1740; and here too, four years afterwards,
another Indiaman, “ The Crown Prince of Denmark,” with
thirty chests of treasure, was cast away.
The geology of the islands, though not presenting much
variety, is interesting, and worthy of attention from the
vast numbers of ichthyolites to be found. There is a cen¬
tral nucleus or backbone of granite or gray gneiss, extend¬
ing for about six miles, around which, or diverging from
which, runs an immense development of the Devonian for¬
mation, or lower Old Red Sandstone. As is almost invariably
the case, the sandstone is found disrupted and distorted by
the upheaved trap, and the picturesque grandeur of the
iron-bound coast is much owing to the washing away of
the softer and interposed materials, leaving the more con¬
servative whin dykes (greenstone, basalt, porphyry, &c.)
pierced and perforated and hollowed out into a thousand
N E Y. 719
fantastic, but not the less magnificent shapes. The Astero- Orkney
lepis, that gives the title to one of his best known works, Islands,
was found by Mr Hugh Miller in the immediate neighbour- v — Y-*u7
hood of Stromness.
The Orkney flora is known to consist of 545 species,
and there can be little doubt that additions will be made to
this number as more careful examinations are made. The
only Orkney plant new to the British flora is the Chara
aspera, first seen by the Rev. Charles Clouston, minister of
Sandwick. Considerable attention, and not without results,
has lately been paid to the algae and fucoid plants.
The Fauna Orcadensis of Low enumerates—of quadru¬
peds, 11 genera; of birds, 34 genera; of reptiles, 2 genera;
and of fishes, 33 genera.
The following remarks on the climate of Orkney, by the
Rev. Charles Clouston, contain matter at once new and
interesting, and we allow his observations to speak for them¬
selves, merely adding, in a sentence, that an Orkney sum¬
mer has many and peculiar charms,—the length of day, the
duration of twilight, the rapid vegetation, and above all,
the stillness of the sleeping ocean on a calm evening,
compensate in no small degree for the absence of other
beauties.
The following table gives the mean monthly and annual
temperature of Orkney, deduced from observations made
twice a-day for thirty-one years ; the first six at the manse
of Stromness, about half a mile from the sea, and not 100
feet above its level, and the remaining twenty-five at that
of Sandwick, 2 miles from the sea, and 100 feet above its
level; also the mean monthly and annual state of the ba¬
rometer for nineteen years at the manse of Sandwick; and
the mean monthly and annual quantity of rain that fell at
the same place for the last seventeen years:—
Strangers naturally form a very wrong and unfavourable
opinion of the climate of Orkney, and its peculiarities are only
beginning to be understood by even the best informed of its own
inhabitants. From these observations it has been ascertained, that
the mean annual temperature of Orkney is not only equal to that
of the north and middle of Scotland, but even to that of the
southern border ; for, on comparing the Orkney table of tempera¬
ture for the last thirty-one years, with one for twenty years kept
by that accurate observer Dr Dunbar of Applegarth, Dumfries¬
shire, we find the mean temperature of Orkney to be 460-26, and
that of Applegarth 460,24—the ditference being in favour of
Orkney, but so minute, that they may be considered equal. While,
however, this station in Dumfries is between 4° and 5° colder than
Orkney in December and January, its temperature gradually rises,
till, in July, which is the warmest month in both places, it is
above 3° warmer than Orkney. The mildness of the Orkney
winter is indeed so great, that the mean temperature of December,
January, and February there, is higher than that of several parts
of England.
This arrangement may be pleasant or favourable to animal life;
but it is far from being favourable to vegetation, as the luxuriance
of the common crops depends on the temperature of three or four
months in summer while they are in the ground, and not at all
on that of the rest of the year. This equability of temperature
injurious as it is to the growth of common annual crops, is doubly
so to such perennials as trees, as there is neither such extrema
720
Orkney
Islands.
O R K N E Y.
heat in summer as to mature the wood of the young branches,
which are therefore killed in winter; nor such extreme cold in
winder as to lay vegetation completely asleep. _ Evergreens are
particularly sickly in Orkney. The sea-spray in winter, w nc
frequently'loads the air, and falls and crystallizes on their leaves,
renders them much more liable to be ° ^ onTO
trees, some of which grow under shelter to the height of 20 or 30
^ The difference between the mean temperature of February,
which is the coldest month (38-18), and that of Ju y- ^'ch s tim
warmest (55°-20), is only about 17°; and during all the period of
observation, the mean temperature of any month never fell so low
as the freez ng point, except in February 1838 and February 1855,
when it was respective!)' 31°-31 and 310-64; and lt never rose so
high as 60°, except in 1852, when it was 61 -36.
In Britain generally, and particularly in the inland parts, the
greatest heat occurs about the middle of July> the ?^fatesJ
cold about the middle of January; and the months equidistant
from these are most nearly of equal temperature as February and
December. In Orkney, however, February is the coldest month,
though onlv 0°-17 colder than January ; and August is just the same
decimal of a degree colder than July. Indeed, in the course of
these thirty-one years, January has been colder than February
sixteen years, and August has been hotter than July twelve years ;
so that January and February may be considered equally cold,
and July and August equally warm ; and the months equidistant
from them on each side will be found to correspond most nearly in
temperature, as March and December, and again, June and Sep¬
tember These facts are undoubted ; and meteorologists agree in
ascribing this retardation of the period of extreme heat and cold to
the influence of the surrounding ocean, which is neither so quickly
heated in summer, nor cooled in winter, as the surface of the land.
Durino- these thirty-one years the thermometer was once observed
as low as 14’° on 16th March 1845, and once as high as 75 on
5th June 1846, but this was without the aid of registering ther¬
mometers, which have only been used for about two years.
The mean state of the barometer for the last nineteen years is
29'762 inches • or, when corrected to 32° and sea-level, to enable us
to compare it with other places, 29 839 inches. This does not differ
materially from its mean height in other parts of Scotland; the
mean of about fifty places published by the Scottish Meteorological
Society, being for 1856, 29-869 inches, and for 1857, 29-894 inches;
the mean of both being 29-881 inches, while the mean of Orkney
was for 1856,29-898 inches, and for 1857, 29-881 inches; the
mean of both being 29 889 inches, or a minute decimal of -008
above the other districts. So far as yet ascertained, therefore, they
may be considered equal.
The barometer generally attains its greatest height in May, and
gradually descends on each side, the only exception being Septem¬
ber, when it takes a step upward, probably indicating the period
of the Orkney “ peerie summer.” The gradual descent from the
maximum height becomes prominent only in a long series of obser¬
vations. The same tendency may be perceived in the tables pub¬
lished in the New Statistical Account of Sandwick and of St
Andrews though the descent is not so regular, and in the latter
the greatest height is in June. On the 24th January 1840 the
mercury was as low as 27-69 inches, and on 1st February 1841, as
high as 31-76 inches ; giving a range during these nineteen years of
4-07 inches. _
The average annual quantity of rain that fell at Sand wick
Manse, during the last seventeen years, is 36-66 inches. This is
more than 10 inches above Dr Barry’s estimate, which had been
assumed as correct by others, without actual measurement. The
paucity of observations in other places renders it impossible to say
at present whether this is above or below the average for Scotland;
and, indeed, much would depend on the situation of those places
from which that average was struck. It will probably be found
equal to the average fall in the interior of Scotland and England,
below what is stated to fall on the west coast, and above that on
the east. If an extensive table now before us is to be relied on, it
is about equal to the fall in Applegarth, Liverpool, and Swansea,
which is 34 inches; Dumfries and Manchester, 36; Langholm,
Dover, and Selborne, 37 ; Aberdeenshire, 38 : while it is decidedly
above Edinburgh, which is 26 inches; York, 22, and London, 20.
and below Glasgow, which is 40 inches; Ayrshire, 42; Mhite-
haven, 48 ; Restwick, 67 ; and Easthwaite, 86. From the reports
of the Meteorological Society, published for 1856 and 1857, it ap¬
pears that the average of all their stations for these two years was
31-78 inches; while the average of Orkney for the same years was
only 29-66 inches, which makes Orkney appear particularly dry ;
but it would be unfair to found such a conclusion on such a limited
period of observation. They must rather be considered as excep¬
tional years, being the driest in Orkney during the period of regis¬
tration, so that the crops were injured by excessive drought, while
there was excessive rain in more southerly districts, from which the Orkney
crops there suffered severely. May has the least rain, as well as Islands
the highest barometer; and the preceding months, embracing the v,
previous December, have more rain the more they precede it.
Again, the quantity gradually increases in the succeeding months
till October, which is decidedly the wettest, only indicating the
“peerie summer” in September by a somewhat smaller fall than
during the “ Lammas speats” in August.
The direction and force of the wind has also been noted every
morning and evening for thirty-one years. The W. used to be con¬
sidered the most prevalent wind in Orkney, but from this it appears
not to have been so for the period noted. It blew from the W., SAY,,
S., and S.E., 6710 days; while, from the opposite four points, it blew
little more than half that time, or 3947 days. The \Y . wind, in¬
deed, prevails more than that from any other cardinal point, but
the S.E. prevails above it; for if we do it equal justice with the
W., by adding 236 days of E.S.E. which were given to the E., and
250 days of S.S.E. which were given to the S., we find 2474 days
of S.E. wind against the 2081 days of W., or 393 days in favour of
the S.E. There seems to be a group of years when the S.E. is in
excess, and then a group when the W. is so. In the first decade
it exceeds the W. very little; in the second a great deal; in the
third the W. not only seems to prevail, but the restoration of the
intermediate points to the S.E. still leaves it in the minority.
The institution of the Scottish Meteorological Society, and the
publication of their reports by their able secretary, Dr Stark, pro¬
mise to illustrate the meteorology of Scotland ; from the great num¬
ber of observers using similar instruments, placed in similar posi¬
tions, and at the same hours, thus furnishing excellent means of
comparison.
In comparing the climate of Orkney with that of Scotland in
general, it would, indeed, be absurd to form a decided opinion
from the observations of one year; but it would be as absurd to
shut our eyes to the light which they afford us, when they corro¬
borate and illustrate our former observations, and throw much light
on other points not previously observed. The difference in the state
of the barometer by these tables is too trifling to deserve notice.
Orkney was a little below the average for Scotland in 1857, but it
was more above it the previous year. The columns for registering
thermometers prove the equability of the Orkney climate much
more clearly than the previous table of temperature by the com¬
mon thermometer. It may be seen that in one part of acotland
the greatest heat of summer was 25^° above that of Orkney, and the
greatest cold of winter 21° below it, thus showing a much wider
range of temperature ; but that is not a fair comparison, as it re¬
fers to only a single observation at one place only. June, July, and
August are, at an average, 70"6 hotter during the day, and seven
months are colder during the night throughout Scotland than in
Orkney, while the latter has a smaller daily range of temperature
every month, and in June the difference is 10°. By these obser¬
vations, the temperature of Orkney seems to be about half a degree
lower than the other districts; but it was at least equal in 18o6.
The mean temperature of Orkney for 1857 is proved to be 47 -4 by
the entire agreement of the self-registering thermometers, the dry
bulb one, and that 12 inches deep in the soil. The temperature of
the deepest spring may also be considered a proof of its correct¬
ness, and of that of the mean annual temperature formerly stated ;
for though it is not much influenced by the remarkable mildness of
the latter months of the year, yet it is nearly half a degree higher
than the mean annual temperature. The hygrometer, which is
Mason’s, shows 0°-3 less evaporation in Orkney than in the other
districts. In noticing the deductions calculated from Glaisher’s
tables, we may pass without remark the minute difference in the
•< dew point,” and in the “elastic force of vapour but we cannot
thus pass the very unexpected result of this first year’s observa¬
tions, that the humidity of the atmosphere in Orkney is exactly
equal to the average of Scotland. These islands have always been
characterized as damp. The surrounding water led us readily to
believe it. Salt and sugar are so apt to become damp, and steel to
rust, that few could anticipate such a result. We were, however,
in some measure prepared for it, as, during the latter halt of the
previous year, when these hygrometric observations were first made,
the humidity in Orkney was only 84°-l, while the average of Scot¬
land was 84°-8. The quantity of salt in the atmosphere, from the
sea spray, may probably account for these effects of humidity. The
number of rainy days in Orkney was 198, giving an average of 16
to each month; while in the average of all the districts it was only
163, giving an average of 14 to a month. That the difference should
be on this side might be anticipated from the latitude of Orkney, and
the peculiarity of its situation; and we believe that this difference
will be rather increased than diminished by a long series of observa¬
tions ; for, in 1856 the number was 212 in Orkney, and only 160
over Scotland, giving 52 more to Orkney. The mean pressure of
the wind in Orkney seems to have exceeded that in the other dis-
O R K
Orkney tr!cts a decimal of -19; but as no anemometer has been used,
Islands can only i56 viewed as an approximation to the truth.
' j From observations made at least once a week, and generally more
"r v frequently, we find that the mean temperature of the sea for the
year is 49°-6, or 2°-2 above that of the air and the soil, and nearly
3° above that of our best springs. It is even above the mean tem¬
perature of any year yet recorded, and a little above the mean tem¬
perature of the sea around the coast of Scotland. This seems one
of the strongest proofs that the Gulf Stream reaches the shores of
Orkney, or that some stream from a warmer climate, by whatever
name it may be called, raises the temperature of the sea beyond what
it could be raised by the power of the sun in Orkney, and higher
than it raises the air, the soil, or the springs. .
The aurora borealis is sometimes very brilliant in Orkney, and
frequently gives mere or less light during the winter nights.
Sun-pillars are occasionally seen about sunset and sunrise in spring.
They were first remarked in 1852, when they were particularly
fine, and appeared six times at sunset in April alone.
Water-spouts are very rare. The writer has only seen one,
which passed over the sea, about a mile east of Stromness on 12th
September 1839, and the upper portion caught his attention in
Sandwick, 6 miles off, appearing like a dark funnel-shaped cloud,
hanging down from other dark clouds.
The Orkney crops of the more hardy kinds of grain, as oats,
here, and barley, are equal to those of other parts of Scotland. Its
potatoes are famous in the southern markets for seed, as the Ork¬
ney reds, grown in Orkney, are less apt to take the disease when
planted in the south than any other variety; but green crop is that
in which it particularly excels. The gardeners are scarcely be¬
hind those in the south, for the more hardy kinds of vegetables,
fruits, and flowers. Apples do not grow well as standards, but
thrive pretty well as wall-trees. Pears and cherries grow, but
are not very productive. Black currants thrive even better than
in the south. Red and white currants and strawberries grow very
well, but gooseberries do not always ripen. All the more hardy
annuals and perennials met with in the south also adorn the Ork¬
ney gardens.
The history of the islands will not detain us long. They
seem to have been originally peopled by a Scandinavian
tribe ; but little certain is known till the year 870, when
the Norwegian chiefs who had fled from home because of
the victories of Harold the Fair-Haired, arrived there.
Harold pursued them six years afterwards, defeated them,
and appointed Ronald, Count of Moere, jarl of Orkney.
He was succeeded, after an interval and some changes, by
his son Einar; while another son of his, Rolla, wrested Nor¬
mandy from Charles the Simple, King of France, and, be¬
coming duke of that province, was the great-great-great¬
grandfather of William the Conqueror. The descendants
of Ronald ruled as jarls for more than four hundred years,
when the male line terminated in the person of Magnus,
the fifth earl of that name. He died about 1325, leaving
one daughter, Matilda, who became the wife of Malise, Earl
of Stratherne, and had issue Isabell, who married Sir Wil¬
liam St Clair, Baron of Rosslyn; and the son of this mar¬
riage, Sir Henry, was the first of the Scottish earls of
Orkney. His title was admitted by Hacon VI., King of
Norway, in 1379. By a treaty entered into before this
period between the courts of Norway and "Scotland, the
former ceded to the latter Man and the Western Islands,
for the payment of a certain yearly sum called the “ Annual
of Norway.” This tribute, not having been regularly ren¬
dered, soon amounted to a large sum ; and after much ne¬
gotiation on the matter, it was arranged that the arrears of
the “Annual” should be held as discharged ; that James HI.
should marry Margaret of Norway ; that her dowry should
be 60,000 florins ; and that Orkney should be impignorated
to Scotland for five-sixths of that sum—the islands to be
redeemed on payment of the money. This treaty was en¬
tered into in 1468. The marriage-portion was never paid ;
and it has given rise to much controversy whether the claim
of Norway to these islands has been ever formally relin¬
quished. This is a question that need not be considered
here, as it has been for centuries practically resolved. The
earldom remained in the family of St Clair till 1471, when
it and the title were merged in, or rather were united to,
VOL. XVI.
N E Y. 7,21
the crown of Scotland, never again to be alienated except Orkney
in favour of a lawful son of the king. For almost a century Islands,
the crown lands were leased to various tenants, till at length,
in May 1564, Queen Mary granted a charter to Lord
Robert Stuart, her father’s son by Dame Euphemia Elphin-
stone, constituting him Earl of Orkney. Afterwards, by
her marriage contract with Bothwell, dated May 1567, Mary
bound herself to create her husband Duke of Orkney, and
to put him in possession of the islands. He appears never
to have been infeft, or at all events a month after the mar¬
riage he fled, and the dukedom was at an end. Earl Robert
had no concern with Orkney from 1567 to 1581 ; but in
the latter year he had another grant of the earldom made
to him. This was revoked by King James upon his at¬
taining his majority in 1587. Again a further grant was
executed in favour of him and his heirs in 1591, which in
1592 was confirmed by Parliament. Earl Robert died in
that year, and the earldom was once more resumed by the
crown ; and once more, in March 1600, Patrick, son of
Robert by the Lady Jean Kennedy, got a grant in his
favour; and in May of the same year he obtained a grant
of the bishopric. Earl Patrick’s many crimes brought him
to the scaffold in 1615 ; and after his death the Orkneys
were again unalienably annexed to the Crown, and again
they were alienated in 1643. This deed was declared null
and void in 1669; and once again, in 1707, they were
mortgaged to the Morton family, burdened with an annual
payment of L.500 to the crown. In 1742 this mortgage
was declared irredeemable ; and Lord Morton, in 1766,
sold his right for L.60,000 to Sir Lawrence Dundas, in
whose family (now Earldom of Zetland) the property still
remains.
Of the trade and manufactures of Orkney, it is not easy
to give anything like an accurate estimate. In 1853 the
number of vessels was 43, and the tonnage 2485. In
1856 there were 48 vessels, and the tonnage amounted to
3039 ; and this irrespective of a large unregistered flotilla of
smaller crafts. The traffic in steam-vessels not entered
in the Orkney custom-house is large, and increasing year
by year. The tonnage of the coasting trade in 1856 was
27,680 tons imported, and 29,388 exported. The exports
consist chiefly of grain, fish, cattle, sheep, butter, hides,
&c. Till a recent period, the principal manufacture in
the islands was kelp, which at one time brought L.12,
L.16, or even L.20 a ton. The greatest quantity ever
made in one year was in 1826, when 3500 tons were
manufactured, which, on an average, sold at L.7 a ton.
In 1837 there were 800 tons of drift-weed kelp made, selling
at about five guineas a ton, and 300 tons of cut-weed kelp,
averaging per ton half as much.
In 1833 there were forty vessels of about thirty tons, each
engaged in the cod-fishery, and they caught and cured about
560 tons of fish. In 1857 there were 318 boats of 10 tons
or upwards, and the weight of the fish cured had swelled to
16,424 cwts. In addition to this there were 18 larger ves¬
sels, whose united produce amounted to 2731 cwts of salted
fish. In 1857 there were 380 herring-boats engaged in
that trade ; and there were cured and packed on shore
14,075 barrels, besides 700 barrels sold while fresh. During
the same year, there were 117 lobster-boats. Sandey fur¬
nished the greatest number (23), and Shapinshey the
smallest (2). It is estimated that the steamers last year
carried from Kirkwall 2703 black cattle, and that 586 went
by the sailing-vessels. About 800 went from Stromness.
There are two licensed distilleries in Kirkwall; and in
1857 there were made 11,135 gallons of whisky in Kirkwall,
and 5385 in Stromness, yielding, at 8s. a gallon, to the
revenue a duty of L.6608.
In conclusion, we would remark, that the improvements
introduced during the last twenty, and especially the last
ten years, are most striking. In the Mainland and North
4 Y
722 0 R L
Orleans. Islands more than 4000 acres of waste land are said to have
been reclaimed during the last five years. 1 he vast agri¬
cultural capabilities of the county are becoming known,
and are being rendered available. Draining is extensively
resorted to. Roads are being made under the sanction of
an act of Parliament. An Orkney man is ceasing to be the
amphibious animal his father was. Regard is had to the
division of labour. The farmer is contented to plough his
fields, leaving it to the fisherman to plough the main. The
improvements in progress, and contemplated, will most ma¬
terially ameliorate and enrich the county.
The lower classes are orderly, industrious, and far from
being ill-informed. The upper classes, as a body, are not
infertor to their equals in station in any part of Scotland.
More frequent intercourse with the mainland of Scotland is
rubbing off certain peculiarities; but we rejoice to know that
the character which Orkney possesses for kindness, courtesy,
and generous attention to strangers, remains unchanged.
ORLEANS, a city of France, capital of the department
of Loiret, stands on the slope of a hill on the right bank
of the Loire, 34 miles N.E. of Blois, and 68 S.S.W. of
Paris. Though large and presenting a fine appearance
from a distance, it is, with the exception of a few modern
streets, not well built; and has not that bustle and anima¬
tion which might be expected from its size and population.
The river is crossed by a handsome bridge, which was
built in 1761. It is 1089 feet long, and consists of 9
arches, the centre one of which has a span of 108 feet.
From this bridge the principal street of Orleans extends
northwards through the town to the Barriere de Paris, at
the most northerly extremity. The length of this street is
about three-fourths of a mile; and in the middle of it is the
Place du Martroy, of an irregular shape, which contains a
bronze statue of Joan of Arc, with four bas-reliefs, also in
bronze, representing the principal events in her life. From
this to the Loire, the street which is called the Rue Royale,
is one of the handsomest in France; the part north of the
Place du Martroy, which is called the Rue de Banier, is
also a fine street. Another broad street has been opened
up through an old and crowded part of the town, leading
eastward from the main street to the cathedral, which is
the principal building in Orleans, and is thus seen to greater
advantage than it could be when blocked up by the sur¬
rounding buildings. To these modern streets the more
ancient parts of the town present a striking contrast; as
the streets in the latter are irregular and ill paved, and the
houses for the most part built of wood. The cathedral is
remarkable, as having been built in a pure Gothic style in
the seventeenth century, at a time when that kind of
architecture had entirely fallen into disuse. It was begun
by Henri IV. in 1601; but has only recently been finished.
The west front is very much admired; it has three pointed
portals, and is flanked by two towers of great elegance and
beauty, each 280 feet high. Among the other ecclesiasti¬
cal buildings of the town, the church of St Agnan,—a fine
Gothic edifice, that has lost both its nave and steeple,—and
that of St Pierre le Puellier, the most ancient in Orleans,
possess the most interest. The old town-hall, which has
recently been repaired, has long been used as a gallery of
paintings and museum of antiquities. The court of jus¬
tice is a building in the Doric style, with four columns in
front. Besides these public buildings, Orleans contains
several houses that are interesting from their historical as¬
sociations. Such are the houses of Joan of Arc, of Francis
I., of Agnes Sorel, of Diana of Poitiers ; some of which are
remarkable for their architecture and ornaments. Orleans
also contains a theatre, barracks, prison, hospital, several
schools, scientific society, botanic garden, and public library.
It is the see of a bishop ; and has a court of appeal for three
departments, an inferior court, council of prucChommes, and
chamber of commerce. There was formerly here a uni-
0 R L
versity, at which Calvin, Beza, and other great men studied. Orleans
The manufactures of Orleans are numerous, but not of very ||
great importance. They consist of woollen and cotton ^ Orley.
stuffs, hosiery, hats, leather, refined sugar, beer, vinegar, iron- “
mongery, tools of various kinds, earthenware, &c. The
trade of the place is extensive; but in recent times has
been on the decline. Corn, wine, timber, wool, cheese,
and the produce of the manufactures are the chief articles
of trade. The situation of the town on the Loire, here
navigable for small steamers, and at the junction of three
railways, which communicate with Paris, Nantes, Bour-
deaux, Lyons, and other places, give Orleans great import¬
ance in commerce. Both sides of the Loire are here lined
with handsome quays ; and on the south bank stands the su¬
burb of Olivet. Besides this, there are numerous other
suburbs, and many country houses in the neighbourhood.
The old fortifications, which have been levelled with the
ground, are now replaced by finely planted public walks.
Orleans is generally believed to be the same as the ancient
Genabum, a town of the Celtic people Carnutes, which was
taken and burnt by Caesar in 52 b.C. It was afterwards
called Aureliani, from which the modern name has been
derived. In 451 a.d. Orleans was besieged by Attila, but in¬
effectually, as the place was relieved after a brave defence by
iEtius. It subsequently fell into the hands of the Franks, and
was made the capital of one of their small kingdoms. Under
the Capetian kings, Orleans was one of the most important
of their possessions on account of its military strength ; and
it was only by this town that the French kings exercised
any control over the south of France. The most import¬
ant event connected with Orleans in modern history, is its
siege by the English in 1429; and its deliverance by Joan
of Arc. She entered the town in spite of the besiegers,
and brought a supply of provisions from Blois to the garri¬
son, then sallying out at the head of the French troops,
having crossed the river in boats, she led on the attack on
a fort erected by the English on the other side. This was
compelled to surrender, and on the following day the be¬
siegers destroyed their remaining forts, and raised the siege.
In the civil wars of the sixteenth century, Orleans was
besieged in 1563 by the Duke of Guise, who was assas¬
sinated before the walls; and it suffered much then and
subsequently from religious dissensions. Orleans gave the
title of Duke to a branch of the family of Valois, to which
Louis XII. belonged. Pop. (1856) 43,256.
Orleans, the name of an island in the St Lawrence,
Lower Canada, below Quebec. It is 25 miles in length,
by 5 in breadth; and being fertile and covered with fine
woods, it forms an agreeable place of residence, and is much
frequented.
ORLEANS, House of, a branch of the royal family of
France. Besides those who succeeded to the king by title,
the following are the Dukes of Orleans who play a promi¬
nent part in the history of their country. Louis, the second
surviving son of Charles V., who was born in 1371, became
regent to his brother Charles VI. in 1393, and was mur¬
dered by the Duke of Burgundy in 1407; Philippe, the
celebrated regent, who was born in 1674, succeeded to
the regency after the death of Louis XIV. in 1715, and
died in 1723; and Louis Philippe Joseph, the father of the
late French king, Louis Philippe, who was born in 1747,
renounced his family title for the assumed name of Egalite,
during the revolutionary turmoils of 1792, and was guil¬
lotined in the following year. (See France.)
Orleans, New. See New Orleans.
ORLEY, Bernard Van, an eminent painter, was born
in Brussels about 1490. After studying at Rome under
Raphael, he returned to settle in his native town, bringing
back with him much of the taste and the grand style of the
Italian masters. In a short time he had risen to profes¬
sional eminence. Margaret of Austria, the ruler of the
O R L
Orloff Netherlands, appointed him her painter; he executed seve-
H ral pictures for churches both in Antwerp and Brussels;
Orme. an(} hjg pencil was employed by Charles V. in painting, as
cartoons for tapestries, several hunting pieces representing
the emperor and his nobles in the Forest of Soignies. At
the time of his death, about 1560, his pictures had amounted
to a large number. A list of them, and of the places in
which they are to be seen, is given in Stanley’s enlarged
edition of Bryan’s Dictionary of Painters and Engravers.
Two other artists called Orley—namely, Richard Van and
Jan Van—were also natives of Brussels.
ORLOFF or Orlov, Gregort, a favourite of Cathe¬
rine II. of Russia, was born in 1734, and having entered
the Russian army, served in the Seven Years’ War. He
had a handsome figure, a genteel bearing, an unscrupu¬
lous conscience, and all the other accomplishments essential
to a tuft-hunter. Accordingly, he had not been long in St
Petersburg when the Grand Duchess Catherine made
him her favourite paramour, and her accomplice in her ambi¬
tious plots. His fortune rose still higher, when his mistress
in 1762 had assassinated her husband, Peter III., and had
mounted the throne. Dignities and riches were lavished
upon him; he was allowed to wear the picture of the
empress in his button-hole; and a medal was struck, and
an arch erected in honour of his having stayed a plague at
Moscow in 1771. Yet by this time the minion, in his
pampered insolence, was bringing about his own disgrace.
I he proposal of Catherine to marry him privately would
not satisfy him. He would be her acknowledged husband
and her associate in the throne, or at least he would be made
the king of some such country as Astrakhan. This arro¬
gance gradually estranged the empress, until in 1772 she
took advantage of his absence, on an embassy to the Turks,
to supplant him by a new favourite. From this time OrlofF
seems to have been the victim of disappointed ambition.
Although honoured with the title of prince, supplied with
large grants of money, and latterly re-admitted to the court,
he could not tolerate the sight of his successful rival. He
sought to forget his chagrin in foreign travel. Madness,
however, seized him, and brought him to the grave in 1783.
OrlofF had by Catherine a son named Bobrinski.
Orloff, Alexis, a brother of the preceding, was born
in 1737, and became a soldier by profession. His Herculean
strength and stature, and his reckless audacity, rendered
him a valuable tool for his brother in the revolution of
1762. He engaged to be one of the assassins of Peter III.;
and it is said that it was his hands that strangled the un¬
fortunate monarch. The after services of Orloff in the cause
of the Empress Catherine were of the same unprincipled
stamp. It is true that in command of the Russian fleet in
1770 he burned the Turkish squadron in the Bay of Tches-
me, and thus won many notable honours and the title of
Tchesmenski. But most writers attribute his victory en¬
tirely to the counsels of the Englishman Elphinstone. He
was certainly more in his element when soon afterwards
he sought out the youthful Russian princess Tarakanova
at Rome, decoyed her on board a vessel, and sent her
home to spend her days in a dungeon. The public life of
Orloff closed at the death of Catherine and the accession
of Paul. After having been compelled to attend at the
disinterment, and to assist at the funeral of Peter III., he
was glad to escape from further punishment into Germany,
and to remain away from Russia till the commencement of
the next reign. His death took place at Moscow in 1808.
1 here were three other brothers who took part in the
plots, and shared the prosperity of the two above men¬
tioned.
ORLOP, in nautical language, the lower deck of a ship-
of-the-line, or that on which the cables, sails, &c., are
stowed.
ORME, Robert, author of a History of British India,
O R M
was born at Anjengo, in Travancore, in 1728. He was
educated at Harrow school, and after spending a year in a
counting-house in England, he went to Calcutta in 1742
and engaged in commercial pursuits. His energy and in¬
telligence soon attracted notice; and for a number of years
he rendered essential service in connection with the govern¬
ment of India. Failing health, however, compelled him
to return to England in 1758. He settled in London,
and employed himself for the two succeeding years upon
his Military History. The first volume appeared in 1763,
and was received with great approbation. The East India
Company not only granted him free access to their re¬
cords, but appointed him their historiographer, with a salary
°f L-400 a-year. He was chosen a fellow of the Society
of Antiquaries in March 1770; and was on familiar terms
with the leading men of his time. After the publication
of the second volume of his History in 1778, he continued
to amuse himself with literary pursuits of a more general
nature. In 1792 he retired to Ealing, where he died on
the 13th January 1801.
Good sense and sound judgment were the principal fea¬
tures of his mind. His works are more distinguished by
simplicity, clearness, and precision, than by any very
powerful eloquence, or a very nice discrimination of char¬
acter. His works are,—A General Ideal of the Government
and People of Indostan, written in 1752, and printed
among his posthumous works; History of the Military
Transactions of the British Nation in Indostan from the
year 1745; the first volume, published in 1763, extends
to 1756; and the second, published in 1778, carries the
history down to the peace of 1763 ; Historical Fragments
of the Mogul Empire, from the year ] 659, 8vo, London,
1782; first published anonymously, but acknowledged and
reprinted in 4to in 1805, together with the Origin of the
English Establishment at Broach and Surat, the General
Idea of the Government and People of Indostan, and a
Life of the author. Several hundred volumes of Orme’s
manuscript collections, together with some scarce printed
tracts relating to oriental history, are preserved in the library
of the East India Company.
ORMEA, a town of the Sardinian States, division of
Coni, on the left bank of the Tanaro, 16 miles S. of Mon-
dovi. It has an ancient castle, and is surrounded by ruinous
old walls; the parish church is a large and handsome building.
Candles and woollen cloth are made here; there are also
saw-mills, and a trade in timber, rural produce, &c. Pop.
4750. V
ORME’S HEAD, Great, a promontory of Wales,
county of Carnarvon, 4 miles N.W. of Conway, forming,
along with Little Orme’s Head, 4 miles E.S.E., a rocky
inlet of the Irish Sea, called Orme’s Bay. It consists of a
limestone peninsula, 676 feet high, on which stands Lland-
dudno church.
ORMOND, Duke of. See Butler, James.
ORMSKIRK, a market-town of England, county of
Lancaster, 12 miles N. by E. of Liverpool, and 42 S. by
W. of Lancaster. It is clean and well built. From the
market-place in the centre, in which stands a town-hall,
four well-paved streets diverge at right angles. The church,
a large building, which was rebuilt in 1729, has a tower
and a spire separated from one another. It contains the
tombs of the Earls of Derby. There are also places of
worship in the town and neighbourhood belonging to Me¬
thodists, Independents, Unitarians, and Roman Catholics.
Ormskirk has several schools, literary societies, a savings-
bank, dispensary, almshouses, &c. The place is famous for
the gingerbread made here; but the chief occupations of
the people are handloom-weaving, rope-making, and brevv-
ing. Near this place, in 1644, the Royalists were defeated
by the Parliamentary troops wit! great slaughter. Pop.
(1851) 5548. r o s p
72a
Ormea
724 OEM
0 E N
ORMUZ, or Hormuz, a small island at the mouth of the
Persian Gulf, near its northern shore; N. Lat. 27. 5., E.
Long. 56. 29. It is about 10 miles distant from the conti¬
nent, a rugged, bare, and sterile rock, without any vegetation,
and about 12 miles in circumference. It has several high
peaks covered with a transparent ice-like incrustation of
salt. Other parts of the island consist of soil of a dark red
colour produced by the oxide of iron, with which the whole
is impregnated; while other portions are yellow with sulphur,
or grey with copper. The shape and geological structure
of the peaks seem to indicate that it is of volcanic forma¬
tion. Of the town on the northern side, which once con¬
tained about 40,000 inhabitants, nothing now remains but
a mass of scattered ruins; among which the remains of aque¬
ducts and walls still attest its former greatness. There is,
however, a good harbour and a fort, which stands on a pro¬
montory separated from the island by a moat. Ormuz
was taken possession of by the Portuguese in 1507; and
was made by them an emporium for the trade of India and
the East. It thus became a place of deposit for the valu¬
able products of India, the jewels of Bokhara, and the
manufactured goods of Europe and Asia. The town
speedily rose, and the island attained to great importance
under the Portuguese sway. It is to this period of its
prosperity that Milton refers, when he speaks of the wealth
of Ormuz in these lines:—
“ High on a throne of royal state, which far
Outshone the wealth of Ormuz and of Ind ;
Or where the gorgeous East, with richest hand,
Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold,
Satan exalted sat.”—Paradise Lost, b. ii.
It was taken from the Portuguese, and the town was
demolished, in 1622, by Shah Abbas, King of Persia, assisted
by a British squadron of ships. On the introduction of the
Mohammedan religion into Persia, the disciples of Zoroaster
took refuge in the rocky caves of Ormuz; whence they
emigrated to Bombay, and now form the people called
Parsees. The island still belongs to Persia; but it is
rented by the Imam of Muscat, who keeps a small force
here to defend the fort and harbour. There are no springs
of fresh water in the island, which is supplied by rain water
caught in reservoirs made by the Portuguese.
ORNE, a department of France, lying between N. Lat.
48. 12. and 48. 58., E. Long. 1. 0., and W. Long. 0. 47.
It is bounded on the N. by the department of Calvados,
E. by those of Eure and Eure-et-Loire, S. by Sarthe and
Mayenne, and W. by Manche. Its length from E. to W.
is 84 miles; breadth, on an average, 28 miles; area, 2346
square miles. It is crossed from E. to W. by a chain of
hills, which separate the waters of the Loire from those of
the English Channel. The highest summits of these hills
are only about 1368 feet above the level of the sea. The
principal rivers are,—the Orne, from which the department
takes its name, the Toucques, and the Dives, all flowing
northwards from the hills into the English Channel; the
Huine, Sarthe, Varenne, and Mayenne, which flow to the
south, and discharge their waters into the Loire. None of
the rivers are navigable in the department. Orne contains
numerous lakes; but they are all small and insignificant.
The character of the surface and of the soil is very various
in different parts, bearing in some places evident traces of
volcanic action. The extent of arable land in the depart¬
ment is 822,890 acres; of meadows, 323,730 acres; of
wood, 177,922 acres ; and of waste land, 42,318 acres. The
state of agriculture is not very highly advanced, and the
arable land is not of any great fertility; so that notwith¬
standing its extent, the quantity of corn produced falls short
by about a third of the demands of the population. Oats,
buckwheat, potatoes, rye, hemp, and flax, are the principal
crops raised ; in some places also beetroot is grown for the
manufacture of sugar. The climate of Orne is temperate,
but very damp; in spring and autumn much rain falls; and
though the summer is mild and dry, during the winter
snow, rain, and foggy weather prevail almost without inter¬
mission. No wine is made in this country; but there are
very many apple and pear trees, in many places lining the
roads, and affording quantities of cider and perry, the fa¬
vourite beverages of the inhabitants. The pastures are
very good, and many cattle from the neighbouring depart¬
ments are sent here to be fattened. They, as well as the
sheep of Orne, are numerous and of good breed ; the horses
also, especially those of the plain of Alen^on, being of the
purest Norman breed, are highly esteemed. The depart¬
ment contains about 135,000 head of cattle, 215,000 sheep,
30,000 pigs, 52,000 horses, &c. Iron mines are worked
in some parts of the department, and among the mineral
productions are granite, marble, building stone, porcelain,
clay, &c. The principal branches of industry carried on are
the working of iron and the weaving of cloth ; there are
49 smelting furnaces and forges for iron, besides cutleries,
needle-manufactories, and establishments for making cloth,
paper, glass, and lace which is highly esteemed. The articles
of commerce, besides the produce of the manufactures, con¬
sist of corn, honey, cider, flax, wax, horses, cattle, poultry,
timber, &c. The department forms part of the diocese of
Seez ; and for public instruction contains 4 colleges, a
normal school, 3 upper communal schools, and 623 ele¬
mentary schools. The capital is Alenfon, and the depart¬
ment is divided into four arrondissements as follows:—
Cantons.
Alenjon  6
Argentan 11
Domfront  8
Mortagne 11
Total 36
534
Pop. (1856.)
72,492
102,074
137,392
118,169
430,127
Orne, a river of France, giving its name to the above
department, in which it rises, not far from Seez. It flows
northwards to the borders of the department of Calvados,
then turns N. by E., and falls into the English Channel,
after a course of 90 miles. It receives the Noireau, the
Aize, and the Oden, and is navigable as far as Caen, 10
miles from its mouth.
725
ORNITHOLOGY.
History. Ornithology, from og,tg, bird, and \6yos, discourse, is
——y'-^that department of Zoology which treats of the history
and attributes of the feathered race. Birds form the se¬
cond great division of the animal kingdom, being usually
placed immediately after the Mammalia, and antecedent
to the reptile class. They may be defined as vertebrated,
oviparous animals, covered with feathers, organized for
flight, and enjoying a double system of circulation and re¬
spiration ; that is, their whole blood, like that of quadru¬
peds, must visit the lungs and return to the heart before
it is propelled to the extremities,—and the entire system is
provided with reservoirs of air, in addition to the lungs
properly so called.
The vast extent which the science of Ornithology has
acquired in recent times renders a full exposition impos¬
sible within our necessarily prescribed limits ; but we shall
endeavour at least to indicate the majority of the more
- important groups, to figure and describe in each some in¬
teresting species, and by frequent reference to such au¬
thors as have most successfully treated of the different
branches in detail, enable such of our readers as desire a
more elaborate view, to follow out the subject for them¬
selves. We presume it matters not with which depart¬
ment we commence. Let us begin, then, with the Bib¬
liography, which, however, need not detain us long.
Few if any important works have been transmitted to
us from antiquity. In the third book of Aristotle’s His¬
tory of Animals (Hsg/ Zuw 'Itfrogta, the period being about
350 years before the Christian era) we find recorded
sundry observations, but brief and superficial, on the fea¬
thered race.1 His division seems to be into such as have
hooked claws, such as have separated toes, and such as
are web-footed ; and he observes, that the first have the
breast the most robust. He describes the differences in
the structure of the feet, and notices, that although the
generality have three toes in front, and one behind, yet a
few have only two toes in front. The bill supplies the
place of lips and teeth, and passages in different parts of
the head supply the place of the external organs of the
senses of smell and sound. The eyes are furnished with
a membrane like that possessed by lizards, but want eye¬
lashes. No bird with hooked claws has likewise spurs
upon its legs. These are a few examples of Aristotle’s
style of observation on the class in question.
Pliny was born about the twentieth year of the Chris¬
tian era. The tenth book of his Historia Naturalis treats
in part of birds, but in a very meagre and immethodical
manner. He tells us of the raven and the phoenix, of the
owl, the ibis, and the nightingale, of capons, and the cock¬
fights of Pergamus, and of the character and conduct of
various other birds.
hor 1500 years from the time of Pliny we have no re¬
corded observations on Ornithology deserving of the read-
ei s recollection. About the middle of the 16th century
Conrad Gesner, a native of Zurich, and a noted French¬
man called Pierre Belon, each published works in part
devoted to Ornithology. The writings of Gesner {Histo¬
ria Animalium, 3 vols. folio) exhibit a cumbrous erudition,
with a sprinkling of original observation, but are chiefly
extracted from ancient authors. Baron Cuvier regarded
him as an excellent compiler. His arrangement is alpha¬
betical. Belon s most successful efforts were in the ich-
thyological department, but even in his Hisloria Avium, History.
1 vol. folio, 1551, we may trace an improved spirit of ob-
servation, although the basis of his classification would
scarcely suffice to support a system now-a-days. He di¬
vides the class of birds into six primary divisions. Is/,
I he birds of prey, among which, misled probably by some
false analogy of plumage, he includes the cuckoo. 2d,
The Palmipedes. 3d, The Grallae, including, however, the
king-fisher, bee-eater, and other anomalous species. 4>lh,
All the species which place their nests upon the ground,
—an extraordinary bond of union, which of course brings
together the pheasant, the lark, and the woodcock. Ne¬
vertheless, our author does not confound them in his lesser
groups, bth, The omnivorous and insectivorous birds,
among which are placed the pigeons. &th, The insecti¬
vorous and granivorous species, which habitually frequent
shrubs and hedges.
Another noted writer of the sixteenth century was Ulys¬
ses Aldrovandi of Bologna, whose works amount to thirteen
volumes folio ;—the majority of them, however, were not
published till after his death in 1606. The first three,
which treat of birds (as well as one on insects), made
their appearance in his lifetime, that is, from 1599 to 1603.
They contain some amusing information, amid a vast mass
of learned rubbish borrowed from his predecessors. Profes¬
sor Savi, however, characterised the ornithological portion
as “ un monumento glorioso del suo instancabile zelo, delle
sue estese cognizioni ornithologiche, e della sua universale
erudizione.” It is at the same time entirely deficient in
scientific precision, and contains, amid much truth, a sad
intermixture of unmeaning fable. The edition with
which we are best acquainted is that of Bologna, 1634-.
About nearly the same period a treatise was published
by Gommer de Luzaney, with the title of De I'Autour-
serie, which contains some good figures of the birds of prey
used in falconry. One of the earliest sketches of the
history of European birds is that given by Schwenkfeld, a
Prussian naturalist, in a volume entitled Theorio-Trophe-
um Silesice, 1603. The arrangement is alphabetical.
Olina’s Uccelliera, which contains tolerable figures of a
few species not previously published, appeared at Rome
in 1622. It is a small affair, restricted to the description
of very few species, but contains accurate and interesting
records of their history and mode of capture, as practised
by the Italians, with whom la caccia, very different from
that of Melton Moubray, is a noted passion. A swarthy,
fire-eyed hunter of sixty-five is as proud of a string of
dead linnets as any young Scotchman of sixteen may be
of his first well-filled bag of grouse or black game.
We have next a dissertation on storks, cranes, and
swallows, by J. G. Swalbacius (Spire, 1630) ; a natural
history of Nurenberg (Antwerp, 1633) ; a description of
the birds of the West Indies, by De Laet (Leyden, same
year) ; a history of the birds of Brazil, by Marcgraaff (in
his Hist. Rerum Nat. Brasilia, Amsterdam, 1648); and
of those of Mexico, by Hernandez (in his Nova Plant.
Animal, et Min. Mexicanorum Hist. Rome, 1651). A
Scoto-Pole of the name of Johnston published about this
period (some years elapsing during the completion of the
various parts) his Historia Animalium, of which the second
portion treats of birds. He is a follower, not so much
of nature, as of Belon, and other authors of the pre-
As in some of our preceding treatises on Natural History in this work (see, for example, the article Mammalia, vol.
w e lave entered at greater length into the general character of the most ancient writers, our present notices are therefore
xiv.p. 121)
extremely
726
ORNITHOLOGY.
History.
ceding century, and was himself followed by Ruysch,
whose Theatrum Universale Animalium Omnium may be
regarded as a second edition of Johnston’s work. The
Natural and Medical History of the East Indies, by Bon-
tius, appeared in 1658, and contained descriptions of va¬
rious birds at that time new. Soon afterwards Perrault,
Borrichius, and Bartolinus, began to furnish the earliest
modern contributions to the anatomy of the feathered
race.
Willughby’s Ornithologia (a posthumous work, believ¬
ed to have been greatly amended and increased by Ray)
was published in 1676. The first edition is in Latin, but
an English translation, enlarged, made its appearance two
years after. Ray’s own Synopsis Methodica Avium (et
Piscium) was likewise published posthumously, under the
care of Dr Derham, in 1713. The writings of these au¬
thors are remarkable, as manifesting an approach to a
more natural system of arrangement than had hitherto
prevailed ; but as they have been so frequently analysed,
we deem it unnecessary to occupy our space with any de¬
tailed exposition of their views. Baron Cuvier has term¬
ed Ray “ le premier veritable methodiste pour le regne
animal, guide principal de Linnaeus dans cette partie.”
In Sir Hans Sloane’s Voyage to Jamaica, &c. (1707-25),
we have notices of various birds, accompanied by rather
poor engravings; but the work was of great use to science
in England, by the attention and emulation which it ex¬
cited in regard to natural objects, of which the author had
brought together upwards of 36,000, besides 200 volumes
of preserved plants. His collections formed the original
basis of the British Museum. A showy but inaccurate
work by Marsilli (1726) is devoted to an interesting sub¬
ject, the birds of the banks of the Danube. Albin’s Na¬
tural History of Birds, in 3 vols. 4to (1731-38), contains
above three hundred coloured figures of no great merit.
Yet it was afterwards reprinted in French, with additions,
at the Hague. About the same period was published
Catesby’s Natural History of Carolina, Florida, and the
Bahama Islands, in 2 vols. folio, and appendix (1731-43),
with numerous coloured plates of birds and other beings.
Frisch’s excellent work on German birds ( Vorstellung der
Vogel JDeutschlands) was commenced at Berlin in 1734,
and was not completed when the author died. It was
continued by a stranger, and a collected edition of the
whole work, with two hundred and fifty-five plates, was
published in 1763. Although by no means highly finish¬
ed, these engravings are accurate, and exhibit a good deal
of the truth of nature. The arrangement is defective,
and retrogrades from that of Ray. Seba’s great, or rather
large work, the Locupletissimi rerum naturalium Thesauri
accurata descriptio, was being carried on during this period
at Amsterdam, in four volumes folio (1734-65). It is un¬
worthy of being quoted, except in reference to the plates.
By this time the illustrious reformer of systematic na¬
tural history had made his appearance as an author; the
first edition of the Systema Natures, consisting of only
fourteen pages folio, having been published at Leyden in
1735, when Linnaeus was not more than eighteen years of
age. It ran through twelve editions in little more than
thirty years; the twelfth impression, the last which the
author could himself revise, appearing at Stockholm in
1766-68. The influence exercised by the writings of the
great Swedish naturalist is too important to admit of our
proceeding farther without exhibiting a view of his clas¬
sification, so far at least as concerns the feathered race.
The following table presents an outline of the Linnaean
arrangement of birds, which he divides into six primary
groups called orders.
a tooth-like process near the tip; the feet short, robust, History,
with acute hooked claws.
Genus Vultur. Vultures. Beak hooked ; head bare : eight
species.
Falco. Eagles and hawks. Beak hooked; head fea¬
thered : thirty-two species.
Strix. Owls. Beak hooked, feathers at its base di¬
rected forwards: twelve species.
Lanius. Shrikes. Beak straightish, notched: twenty-
six species.
Order II. Pic.®. The bill cultriform, with the back
convex ; the feet short, rather strong.
Genus Psittacus. Parrots. Beak hooked ; upper mandible
furnished with a cere : forty-seven species.
Rhamphastos. Toucans. Beak very large, hollow, con¬
vex, serrated; both mandibles incurved at the tip:
eight species.
Buceros. Hornbills. Beak convex, curved, cultrate,
large, serrated j forehead covered by a horny plate :
four species.
Buphaga. Beef-eaters. Beak straight, somewhat quad¬
rangular ; the mandibles bulging : one species.
Crotophaga. Plantain-eaters. Beak compressed, half
egg-shaped, arched, keeled on the back : two species.
Corvus. Crows. Beak convex, cultrate; nostrils co¬
vered by recumbent bristly feathers: nineteen species.
Coracias. Rollers. Beak conical, convex, straight,
acute ; upper mandible slightly longer, and indistinct¬
ly notched: twenty species.
Gracula. Grakles. Beak cultrate, convex, somewhat
bare at the base : eight species.
Paradisea. Birds of Paradise. Beak covered with the
downy feathers of the forehead ; feathers of the sides
long: three species.
Trogon. Curucuis. Beak shorter than the head, cul¬
trate, hooked, serrated: three species.
Bucco. Barbels. Beak cultrate, laterally compress¬
ed, notched at the tip, incurved, opening to beneath
the eyes: one species.
Cuculus. Cuckoos. Beak roundish; nostrils with a
prominent margin: twenty-two species.
Yunx. Wrynecks. Beak roundish, sharp pointed;
nostrils concave : one species.
Picus. Woodpeckers. Beak angular, straight, the
tip wedge-shaped; the nostrils covered with recum¬
bent bristly feathers: twenty-one species.
Sitta. Nut-hatches. Beak awl-shaped, roundish,
straight: three species.
Todus. Todus. Beak awl-shaped, a little flattened,
obtuse, straight, with spreading bristles at the base:
two species.
Alcedo. King-fishers. Beak three-cornered, thick,
straight, long : fifteen species.
Merops. Bee-eater. Beak curved, compressed, keel¬
ed: seven species.
Upupa. Hoopoes. Beak arcuate, convex, a little com¬
pressed, rather obtuse: three species.
Certhia. Creepers. Beak arcuate, slender, acute:
twenty-five species.
Trochilus. Humming-birds. Beak slender, longer than
the head, its tip tubular: twenty-two species.
Order III. Anseres. Web-footed water-fowl. Bill
smooth, covered with epidermis, enlarged at the tip; the
toes united by a web, the legs compressed and short.
Order I. Accipitres, or birds of prey. The bill more Genus Anas. Swans, geese, ducks. Beak lamellated at
or less curved, the upper mandible dilated, or armed with the margin, convex, obtuse: forty-five species.
ORNITHOLOGY.
History. Genus Mergus. Mergansers. Beak denticular cylindrical,
'■"■■“'v'"—^ the tip hooked : six species.
Alca. Auks. Beak short, compressed, convex, fur¬
rowed, the lower mandible with a prominent angle :
five species.
ProceUaria. Petrels. Beak a little compressed ; the
upper mandible hooked, the lower channelled and
compressed at the tip: six species.
Diomedea. Albatrosses. Beak straight; upper man¬
dible hooked at the tip, lower abrupt: two species.
Pelecanus. Pelicans, solan-geese, cormorants. Beak
straight, the tip hooked, unguiculate : eight species.
Plotus. Darters. Beak straight, sharp-pointed, den¬
ticulate : one species.
Phaeton. Tropic birds. Beak cultrate, straight, acu¬
minate : two species.
Cobjmbus. Divers. Beak slender, straight, sharp-point¬
ed : eleven species.
Larus. Gull. Beak straight, cultrate, the tip slightly
hooked, the lower mandible with an angular pro¬
minence : eleven species.
Sterna. Terns or sea-swallows. Beak slender, nearly
straight, acute, compressed : seven species.
Pynchops. Skimmers. Beak straight; upper mandible
much shorter, lower abruptly terminated: two species.
Order IV. Grall^e. Waders or shore-birds. Bill
somewhat cylindrical; the feet long, bare above the tarsus,
and formed for wading.
Genus Phcenicopterus. Flamingoes. Beak incurvated as
if broken, denticulate ; feet webbed: one species.
Platalea. Spoon-bills. Beak flattish, the tip dilated,
rounded, and flat: three species.
Palamedea. Screamers. Beak conical; the upper man¬
dible hooked : two species.
Mycteria. Jabiru. Beak acute; lower mandible tri¬
gonal, ascending ; upper three-cornered, straight: one
species.
Cancroma. Boat-bills. Beak bulging; the upper man¬
dible resembling a boat with the keel uppermost: two
species.
Ardea. Herons and cranes. Beak straight, acute, long,
a little compressed, with a furrow from the nostrils to
the tip: twenty-six species.
Tantalus. Ibis. Beak long, slender, arcuate; face
bare: seven species.
Scolopax. Snipes and curlews. Beak long, slender, ob¬
tuse ; face feathered: eighteen species.
Tringa. Sand-pipers, or shore-larks. Beak roundish,
as long as the head; nostrils linear; feet with four
toes: twenty-three species.
Charadrius. Plovers. Beak roundish, obtuse; feet
with three toes ; twelve species.
Jlecurvirostra. Avosets. Beak slender, recurved, point¬
ed, the tip flexible : one species.
Hcematopus. Oyster-catchers. Beak compressed, the
tip wedge-shaped : one species.
Fulica. Coots. Beak convex; upper mandible arch¬
ed over the lower, which has a prominent angle:
seven species.
Parra. Jacanas. Beak roundish, rather blunt; fore¬
head wattled ; wings spurred: five species.
Rallus. Rails. Beak thicker at the base, compressed,
acute: ten species.
Psophia. Trumpeter. Beak conical, convex, rather
sharp ; the upper mandible longer : one species.
Otis. Bustards. Beak with the upper mandible arch¬
ed : four species.
Struthio. Ostrich and cassuary. Beak somewhat co¬
nical ; wings unfit for flying : three species.
Order V. Gallinaj. Poultry and other gallinace- History.
ous birds. Bill convex, the upper mandible arched over ' v——
the lower, the nostrils arched with a cartilaginous mem¬
brane. Feet with the toes separated, and rough beneath.
Genus Didus. Beak contracted in the middle, with two
transverse rugae; the tip of both mandibles bent in¬
wards : one species, now extinct.
Pavo. Pea-fowl. Head covered with feathers, those of the
rump elongated, with eye-like spots: three species.
Meleagris. Turkeys. Head covered with spongy ca¬
runcles ; the throat with a longitudinal membranous
wattle: three species.
Crux. Curassoes. Beak with a cere at the base; head
covered with recurved feathers: five species.
Phasianus. Domestic fowls and pheasants. Sides of
the head bare : six species.
Numida. Guinea-fowls. Carunculated wattles on each
side of the face ; head with a horny crest: one species.
Tetrao. Grouse and partridges. Bare papillae near the
eyes: twenty species.
Order VI. Passeres. Passerine birds, and others. Bill
conical, sharp pointed; feet slender, the toes separated.
Genus Columba. Pigeons. Beak straight; nostrils with
a tumid membrane : forty species.
Alauda. Larks. Beak slender, pointed; tongue slit;
hind claws very long: eleven species.
Sturnus. Starlings. Beak slender, pointed ; flattened
towards the point: five species.
Turdus. 1 brushes. Beak subulate, compressed, notch¬
ed : seven species.
Ampelis. Chatterers. Beak awl-shaped, depressed at
the base, notched ; seven species.
Loxia. Gross-beaks, bullfinches, &c. Beak conical,
bulging at the base: forty-eight species.
Emberiza. Bunting. Beak somewhat conical; lower
mandible broader : twenty-four species.
Tanagra. Tanager. Beak notched, awl-shaped, coni¬
cal at the base : twenty-one species.
Motacilla. Wagtails and warblers. Beak awl-shaped;
tongue jagged; claw of the hind toe of moderate
length: forty-nine species.
Pipra. Manakin. Beak awl-shaped, feathers at its
base directed forwards; tongue abrupt: fourteen spe¬
cies.
Hirundo. Swallows. Beak very small, depressed at the
base, incurved; the mouth wider than the head:
twelve species.
Caprimulgus. Goat-suckers. Beak very small, incurv¬
ed, depressed at the base ; large bristles; the mouth
very wide : two species.
The amount of species in the class of birds with which
Linnaeus had to form his system did not greatly exceed
nine hundred. Yet with what admirable tact has he seized
upon the characteristic forms which so long served as the
nuclei around which so many other species were assem¬
bled ! It is true that his arrangement, like all other in¬
ventions of human genius, is liable to many objections, and
may not suit the subject in the wide extent acquired in re¬
cent times;—but when we see how closely his ordinal di¬
visions accord even with the most elaborate arrangements
of modern days, and how gracefully his generic groups may
now be formed into more extended families, each retain¬
ing such strong affinities in its constituent parts, we the
more incline to marvel at the two following circumstances ;
—1st, That Linnaeus himself should have so far advanced*
before his age, and anticipated the labours of posterity;
2d, that that posterity, or such portion of the same as in-
728
ORNITHOLOGY.
volumes 4to (1743 and after years), made known in a History,
rough but recognisable style, many new and interesting
species. “ C’est le recueil,” says Cuvier, “ le plus riche
pour les oiseaux apres les planches enluminees de BufFon.”
During the same period a letter was published at Pappen-
heim, on the birds of the Black Forest, by J. H. Zorn,
Epistola de Avibus Germanice, prccsertim Sylvce Hercynia,
which contains many excellent observations ; and the cor¬
respondence was afterwards extended by Briickmann in his
Aves in Germania obvice Epistolar. Itinerar. cent. ii. epist.
18, and Aves Sylvce Hercynice, ibid, epist. 17. In Ander¬
son’s Natural History of Iceland and Greenland (1750), we
have among the earliest authentic notices of the Zoology
of these northern regions. Klein and Maering each pub-
the eannets^ with aTaVe and pointed bill, and the lished systematic works, but based on very artificial prin-
b , i, i-Mi ..  :— r-lnloo at tViie pnnrh. In Brown’s Civil and Natural His-
History. cline not seldom to sneer at his unprecedented and even
now unequalled labours, should not perceive that it is to
his system they are indebted for almost all that is of any
value in their own. But on this subject we shall not here
enlarge.
It has been sometimes remarked, that the characters
given by Xfinnaeus to his orders are totally inapplicable to
many of the species which each contains. Thus the vul¬
tures, it is said, which belong to the first order, have no
projecting processes on the upper mandible ; the parrots,
which are referred to the second, have the bill hooked, not
cultriform, and bear no resemblance to the other species,
among the Anseres, which are characterised as having the
bill smooth, covered with epidermis, and enlarged at the
tip, are
divers, terns, and gulls, with bills not at all answering to ciples, at this epoch.
the description given ; among the Grallse, with a cylindri¬
cal bill, are the ostrich, with a short depressed one, the
canchroma, with one resembling a boat, the spoon-bill, the
heron, the flamingo, and others, the bills of which differ
from each other as much as from those of the snipes and
curlews ; the character given to the bill of the Gallinae
agrees with that of many Passeres; and the wag-tail, the
swallow, the tit-mouse, the red-breast, and numerous other
small birds, have bills very different from those of the gold¬
finch, bunting, bullfinch, and cross-bill, which, neverthe¬
less, are all defined under the same order, and by a similar
phrase.1 We believe the truth to be, that the more natu¬
ral an order is, the greater the difficulty becomes of ex¬
pressing its characters in a single line, in accordance with
the briefness of the Linnaean method,—because none of
these characters, taken in disconnection, remain unmodi¬
fied throughout the extended series of beings which they
are intended to define. There is always a blending or
transition towards other groups, so that the character ex¬
pressed in words must be regarded as applying in force
rather to certain species which exemplify the whole, and
towards which the others tend, than to the entire as¬
semblage. Now the Linnsean genera are often natural
as family groups, though their constituent portions may
not accord with the definition ; and as they become ex¬
tended, or rather filled up, by the discovery of new
species, the difficulty increases. Many of the modi¬
fying species, or connecting links, were totally unknown
in the time of the great Swedish observer, who seized
chiefly upon the more prominent and tangible points;
and the necessity of forming new subdivisions in no way
invalidates his claims upon the gratitude of all lovers of
the lucidus ordo. At the same time his early disciples
erred (though less grossly than many of the later rene¬
gades) in viewing all living things as merely destined to
clothe with flesh and blood the gigantic frame-work which
he had erected,—as if his exposition of the system of
nature were in fact itself that system,—as if the highest
attainments of any one, however gifted, in either art or
science, were ever more than the passionate expression of
some dim vision of truth, perceived through the influence
of the love of knowledge. With all the lights of modern
method, and the vaunted improvements in classification,
see we not still “ through a glass darkly ?’’ Have not
some of those who talk slightingly of the Swedish sage
never contrived to see through the glass at all ?
During the thirty years which elapsed between the first
and twelfth editions of the Systema Natures, several im¬
portant additions were made to Ornithology from other
quarters. Edwards, especially, in his Natural History of
Birds, and other rare undescribed Animals, and in his
Gleanings in Natural History, amounting in all to seven
tony of Jamaica, there are several ornithological contribu¬
tions ; and we may here name another excellent English
\xox]t,¥>ox\vLse,s Natural History of Cornwall, which appear¬
ed at Oxford in 1758. In 1760 Brisson published his great
systematic Ornithologie, in six volumes 4to, still of value
for the minute though laborious exactness of the descrip¬
tions. His method is founded entirely on the form of the
bill and feet, the number of the toes, and the manner in
which these are united, with or without membrane, to
each other. The Ornithologia Borealis of Brunnich ap¬
peared at Copenhagen in 1764.
The Storia Naturale degli Uccelli, printed at Florence
in 1767, is the most extensive of all the Italian works on
Ornithology, after that of Aldrovandi. It is frequently
named by Temminck and other modern writers, most of
whom, however, from their vague references, may be safe¬
ly inferred to quote at second hand. It consists of a large
collection of plates both of indigenous and exotic birds,
executed with sufficient exactness, considering the slight
practice which obtained in those days in the representa¬
tion of natural objects. The position of most of the figures,
as Signor Savi remarks, is forced and unnatural; and we
may see at once that the artist was guided more by his
own fancies than the accustomed observance of living na¬
ture. “ Illuminatio non semper optima, nec optimus sem¬
per avium situs,” are the observations made by Bcehmer.*
The plates were engraved from drawings in the collection
of a Florentine patrician, the Marchese Giovanni Gerini,
a passionate lover of Ornithology, who passed much of his
time in collecting, and causing to be described and figured,
whatever birds he could procure from every clime and coun¬
try. After his death some learned men, unfortunately not
much skilled in Ornithology, supposing either that general
erudition might suffice for science, or that the superficial
study of a few books might compensate the want of laborious
observations carried on from year to year, undertook to pub¬
lish Gerini’s uncompleted work, to fill up the voids which
he had left, and even to alter what he had already done.
They thus compiled a superficial text, in which they con¬
fused the classification, mistook the species, omitted seve¬
ral of the most interesting, and neglected the localities,—so
that a work which, in the hands of an able editor, might
have added a new glory to the already illustrious literature
of Italy, became nothing more than a disorderly collection
of figures. It is, however, of some value, chiefly as con¬
taining representations of species not previously known,
such as Falco cenchris, Fringilla cisalpina, Sylvia provinci-
alis, melanocephala, and melanopogon. Sterna leucopiera,kc.
From the year 1767 onwards, Pallas, in his Spicilegia
Zoologica, the narrative of his various Travels, and the Acta
of the Royal Academy of St Petersburg, contributed to Or¬
nithology, as to most other branches of zoological science;
Macgillivray’s Lives of Zoologists, vol. i. p. 279.
8 Bibliotheca Scriptorum Historice Naturalis, &c. tom. iii. p. 502.
ORNITHOLOGY.
History, and about the same time the industrious Pennant was ac-
lively engaged in his important labours. His numerous
well-known works need not be here particularised. The
great collection published at Nuremberg by Schligmann in
1768, though amounting to nine volumes folio, including
an indifferent text, seems chiefly copied from preceding
works, such as those of Catesby and Edwards. In 1770
and following years, Noseman, in conjunction with Sepp
the engraver, published, in Dutch, his History of the Birds
of the Low Countries. The concluding fasciculi are by
Ilouttuyn. Baron Cuvier thinks the figures “ remarkable
for their elegance.” Mr Swainson regards them as “ poor
and unnatural.” The year 1770 is farther marked as an
important epoch, by the appearance of the first two volumes
of the Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux, by Buffon. That
illustrious writer was the first to clothe the descriptive
portion of the science with colours as bright and varied as
those which beautify the fairy forms of which he treats,
but which had hitherto been viewed as it were only by
the half-closed eye of the technical describer. The Planches
Enhiminees, afterwards published by Daubenton the youn¬
ger, in illustration of Buffon’s work, amount to above a
thousand plates of birds, being the greatest and most
important collection yet achieved in this department. In
1774 we have the Elementa Ornithologica, by Schccffer,
whose system rests entirely on the legs and feet of birds,
the primary sections being divided into nudipedes and
plumipedes, while the orders and genera are determined by
the number, position, and connection of the toes. He
never employs the bill when he can help it; from which
we may infer the nature of the work, and its probable uti¬
lity to the student.
1 he Voyages aux Indes, &c. by Sonnerat (1775 and suc¬
ceeding years), contains figures and descriptions of many
new exotic species. Scopoli’s Introductio ad Historiam Na-
turalem, published at Prague in 1777, exhibits a systematic
distribution of birds, based on the form of the scales which
cover the tarsi. Thus the species which, like the gene¬
rality of the accipitrine kinds, parrots, the gallinse, grallse,
and palmipedes, have those parts covered by small poly¬
gonal scales, form the section called retepedes ; while the
others, which have the tarsi protected in front by semicir¬
cular plates, bordered behind on each side by a longitu¬
dinal furrow, constitute the scutipedes. The general result,
however, of this view is by no means successful. In 1776
Francesco Cetti published his Uccelli di Sardigna, a small
octavo volume, containing descriptions of only a portion of
the Sardinian birds, but valuable, from its notices of their
habits, and the description of various new species.
Latham’s General Synopsis commenced m 1781. How¬
ever faulty in relation to the present state of the science,
it was a work of great merit for its time, and contains, un¬
der not very appropriate names, by no means inaccurate
descriptions of many rare birds, some of which have since
been published, by more recent writers, as entirely new.
Under this head we may mention both the Index Orni-
thologicus of the same author (1790), and his greatly en-
1 urged and more modern work, the General History -of
Birds, ten volumes 4to, 1821—24, which combines the two
preceding (with their supplements); but is, we regret to
say, a mere combination of those rather obsolete mate¬
rials, without critical discrimination, or any correction of
the ancient errors. Ihere is great increase without much
progression. Nearly contemporaneous with Latham’s first
work, we find contributions to Ornithology by Gilius,
Men hem, and Jacquin. About 1783 Mauduit commenced
the Ornithology of the Encyclopedic JMethodique, for which
Lonnaterre formed the system of classification which ac¬
companies the volume of indifferent plates. Of the de¬
scriptive portion an excellent modern continuation, if not
completion, has been published by M. Vieillot, in three vo-
729
VOL. XVI.
lumes 4to, 1823 Sparmann, a pupil of Linnmus, and a History.
well-known traveller, published in 1786 the Museum Carl-" 
sonianum, in which several new species are represented
and described. In 1787 R. L. Desfontaines (in the d/e-
moires de VAcademic des Sciences') contributed some no¬
tices of birds which frequent the coasts of Barbary ; and,
in the same year, Martinet, who had acted under the
younger Daubenton as a superintendent of the Planches
Enluminees, took it into his head to publish, on his own
account, a collection of figures and descriptions of birds,
amounting to no less than nine volumes octavo. Their
number was not more alarming than their nature.
In 1789 and following years, J. F. Gmelin published
the thirteenth edition of the Systema Naturae of Linnaeus.
“ Son travail,” says Baron Cuvier, “ tout indigeste et de-
nue de critique et de connaissance des choses, est cepen-
dant necessaire, comme la seule table un peu complete
de ce qui a ete fait jusque vers 1790.” About a volume
and a half is devoted to Ornithology. White’s Journal of
a Voyage to JSew South Wales appeared in 1790, forming
an interesting addition to the natural history of a country
which still offers a vast field for zoological research ; and
soon afterwards Shaw announced his Zoology of New Hol¬
land, which advanced no farther than a few fasciculi. We
have likewise in 1790 the Fauna Groenlandica of Otho
Fabricius, a work of great merit for the time, and still
holding a high place in the estimation of the naturalist,
from the accuracy of its descriptions, although in some in¬
stances the names are misapplied. In 1792 M. Beseke
published in German his materials for the Natural His¬
tory of the Birds of Courland. The w orks by Lord, Hayes,
Lewin, and others, which appeared about this epoch, in il¬
lustration of the birds of Great Britain, were so soon af¬
terwards superseded by the admirable and unequalled wood
engravings by the inimitable Bewick, that it is scarcely ne¬
cessary to bring their names to the reader’s recollection.
We may close our imperfect sketch of the Ornithology of
the eighteenth century by the mention of Cuvier’s first
work, the Tableau Elementaired'Histoire Naturelle (1798),
which contains the methodical distribution of birds, which
he afterwards completed in his Regne Animal.
We may commence the present century with the title
of Daudin’s work, the Trade Elementaire et complet d’Or-
nithologie, two vols. 4to, 1800. It is an unfinished compi¬
lation, of no great merit, containing only the accipitrine
birds, and a portion of the Passeres. Although Le Vaillant
commenced his magnificent series of ornithological illus¬
trations during the preceding season, and continued them
at intervals for several years, wc shall here group together
the most important, for the convenience of the reader : 1st,
Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux de IAfrique, six vols. 4to,
1799-1800. The plates amount to 300, but are in¬
ferior to those of the other works of the same author.
2d, Histoire Naturelle d’une Partie d’ Oiseaux Nouveaux et
Rares de VAmerique et des Indes, one volume 4to, 1801.
This volume illustrates the Buceridce or horn-bills, and the
Ampelidm or fruit-eaters. 3d, Histoire Naturelle des Perro-
quets, 2 vols. 4to, 1801-5. Almost all the plates (139
in number) of this exquisite work are from drawings by
Barrabaud, an almost unrivalled artist in the ornithological
department. 4th, Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux de Paradis,
et des Rolliers, suivie de celle des Toucans et des Barbus, 2
vols. folio, 1806. “ Equally splendid,” says Mr Swainson,
“ with the preceding. The size and extraordinary plu¬
mage of the paradise birds require a scale fully equal to
the dimensions of this volume, which exceeds any other of
the author’s in the beauty and splendour of its contents.”
We believe that the two volumes, though generally regard¬
ed as one series, were published separately, with distinct
titles. 5th, Histoire Naturelle des Promerops, et des Gue-
piers, 1 vol. folio, 1807. Ihis rare and beautiful volums
4 z.
730 ORNITHOLOGY.
Histo^. sometimes occurs alone, sometimes as forming volume
third of the preceding series. A complete collection of
Le Vaillant’s works forms of itself a noble gallery of or¬
nithological portraits. The letter-press, more especially
that of the Oiseaux d'Afrique, is also of great value, and
will be studied with additional advantage by those familiar
with the delightful narrative of his first and second Tra¬
vels into the Interior of Africa, 1790-95.
As belonging to the same class of works, and also of ex¬
cellent execution, may be mentioned Desmarets Histoire
Naturelle des Tangaras, des Manakins, etdes Todiers, 1 vol.
folio, 1805. M. Vieillot, who died in 1828, after a very
active career in Ornithology, is the author ot the following
works, all of a sumptuous character, and of considerable
value in their wav, though inferior in beauty to those of the
two preceding authors. Histoire Naturelle des plus beaux
Oiseaux Chanteurs de la Zone Torride, 1 vol. folio, 1805 ;
Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux de TAmerique Septentrionale,
2 vols. folio, 1807 ;—Galerie des Oiseaux, 4 vols. 4to,
1826, an extensive series of figures, chiefly from the col¬
lection of the museum in the Garden of Plants. M. Vieil¬
lot is likewise the continuator of Audebert’s Histoire des
Oiseaux dores, ou d rejlets metalliques (2 vols. folio, com¬
menced in 1802) ; and has written largely on systematic
Ornithology in the Encyclopedic JHethodique (Ornitholo-
gie, by the Abbe Bonnaterre, continued by M. Vieillot,
3 vols. 4to, besides the plates, Paris, 1823); and in the
Nouveau Dictionnaire d'Histoire Naturelle. Lastly, he in¬
dicated various new groups, or at least a variety ot groups
under new names, in his Analyse d'une Nouvelle Ornitholo-
gie Elementaire, Paris, 1816 ; a work which seems to have
occasioned great offence to M. Temminck,1 and some dis¬
satisfaction to Baron Cuvier.2
Alexander Wilson’s admirable American Ornithology, or
Natural History of the Birds of the United States, was pub¬
lished in nine volumes quarto (including Mr Ord’s Supple¬
ment) between 1808-14. It still maintains its character as
a work of the highest value, and although it has been since
surpassed by other works in elegance of design and beauty
of colouring, its descriptive or narrative portion has been
scarcely equalled. Of this most remarkable production
several editions have been published in America, and two
in this country, viz. one by Professor Jameson, in a cheap
and commodious form (four small volumes of Constable’s
Miscellany, No. 68—71, 1831), with the advantage of a
systematic arrangement of the original materials,—another
by Sir William Jardine (in three large 8vo volumes, 1832),
with plates, and consequently of higher price, but enriched
by numerous notes of great value.
We may here name the General Zoology, in fourteen
volumes octavo, 1800-26, commenced by Dr Shaw, and
concluded by Mr Stephens. The last seven volumes are
devoted to Ornithology. Most of the plates are copies. II-
liger’s excellent Prodromus Mammalium et Avium was pub¬
lished at Berlin in one volume octavo, 1811. It establishes
several new and important genera.
The first edition of the Regne Animal of Baron Cuvier
(four vols. 8vo) appeared in 1817 ; the second (in five vols.
8vo) was published in 1829. We need say nothing of the
surpassing excellence of a work which cast the whole sub¬
ject of Zoology into a new and more natural form, nor of
the unequalled labours of the illustrious author, by whom
the structure and characters of so many important groups
nave been brought from darkness into light. The general
features of his system have, with few exceptions, been
steadily adhered to throughout the zoological treatises of
this Encyclopaedia, and (which is more to be admired) do History,
equally pervade and illumine the labours of many modern
authors who yet place themselves in opposition to his doc¬
trines, and seem to have forgotten, or been blinded by, the
dazzling source from which they drew their “ golden light
as if the false though gorgeous glory of a cloud could of it¬
self adorn the beauty of the azure heavens,—as if the re¬
flection of a sparkling river were any thing more than the
borrowed lustre of the “ Great Apollo.” Let the reader
rest assured, that however praise-worthy may be the skill
and devotedness of our ingenious system-makers, or how¬
ever valuable may be the materials which they have brought
to bear upon isolated portions of nature’s most majestic
kingdom, they are yet separated, by the will of God, in head
and hand, “ longissimo intervallo,” from their great master.
This is no reason, but the reverse, for their ceasing to
exercise their useful talents and natural powers of obser¬
vation with assiduity and patience, as becomes alike the
aspiring philosopher and the humble Christian ;—but let
no man mistake “ the spirit he is of,” nor suppose an owl
an eagle, seeing that not in every acceptation of the phrase
is it true, that “ a living dog is better than a dead lion.”
The natural history of the birds of Germany has been
amply and successfully illustrated by the well-known works
of Naumann (father and son), by those of Bechstein, and
of Messrs Meyer and Wolf. We owe to M. Leisler a
Sunplement to the work of Bechstein (Hanau, 1812—13),
and of Naumann’s Naturgeschichte der Vcgel Beutschlands,
a second edition (in octavo), with beautifully-coloured plates,
was commenced in 1820, and continued by his son till 1846.
Meyer and Wolf’s Taschenbuch der Deutschen Vogel-
kunde amounts to a number of volumes, and is filled with
excellent observations ; while their large illustrated work
on German birds, commenced so far back as 1804, and
now brought to a conclusion, is one of the most beauti¬
ful with which we are acquainted. M. Brehm published
his Beitrage zur Deutschen Vogelkunde in 1820-22, in three
large volumes, filled with minute details, which exhibit an
accurate practical knowledge of the science. The author’s
views of species are peculiar. His Lehrbuch der Natur¬
geschichte aller Europdischen Vogel (two volumes) was pub¬
lished in the following year. In this, too, he surely describes
local races, or accidental varieties, as distinct species. To
M. Brehm we likewise owe several fasciculi of a work com¬
menced in 1824, and published at intervals, under the title
of Ornis. It consists of memoirs and memoranda, by va¬
rious authors, relating chiefly to Ornithology. Lastly, we
may here name his Handbuch der Naturgeschichte aller Vo¬
gel Deutschlands (Ilmenau, 1831), forming a goodly volume
of 1100 pages octavo (with plates), which, M. Temminck
remarks, may be reduced to at least one half, by suppress¬
ing the numerous indications of what the author calls sub¬
species. His system is partitioned into twenty-three orders,
variously subdivided, and containing 196 genera.
Some important additions have been made of late years
to the Ornithology of northern countries. The birds of
Sweden are described by Professor Nilson of Lund, in
his Ornithologia Suecica, Copenhagen, 1817-21. The •
same author published a Skandinavische Fauna in 1824;
and a much more sumptuous work appeared at Lund in
1832, under the title of llluminerade figurer till Skandi-
naviens Fauna, mit text. The first volume contains, be¬
sides quadrupeds, seventy-five figures of birds. In 1822
M. Boie gave forth his Tagebuch gehalten auf einer Reise
durch Norwegen, in which, along with the narrative of his
travels, he furnishes many valuable observations on the
* See his Observations sur la Classification Methodique des Oiseaux, &c., 1817 J and Manuel d' Ornithologie, Introduction to the second
edition, p. x.
2 Regne Animal, second edition, tom. i., note to Preface, p. 23.
ORNITHOLOGY.
History, history and manners of the birds of Norway. The same commenced the Iconogrqfia della Fauna Italica—a.
'“■‘“V""-' author published a work under the title of Ornithologische sumptuous lithographic work, in large quarto devoted to
Beitrage, in 1824. M. Faber’s excellent little volume, the Italian zoology,—consisting of thirty numbers forming three
Prodromus der Islandischen Ormthologie, appeared in handsome vols. royal quarto, with magnificently-coloured
1822. It contains most interesting accounts of the birds plates, published at Rome, 1834-1842. Though not re-
of Iceland, especially the aquatic kinds; and not less va- lating to Italy, we may here mention our author’s other
luable is his later publication, Tiber das Leben der hoch- works, viz. American Ornithology., or the Natural History of
nordischen Vogel, 1825, in which we have many acceptable Birds inhabiting the United States, not given by Wilson
observations on the geographical distribution, and the with coloured figures, three volumes quarto, Phi!adelphia,
modes of life, of northern species. While on the subject of 1825-28 (only the land-birds have yet been published)
northern birds, we need scarcely recall to the reader's re- Observations on the Nomenclature of Wilson’s Ornithology,
membrance the various appendices to the Voyages of Philadelphia, 1828;—and Genera of North American Birds,
Parry and Franklin ; likewise Sabine’s Memoir on the with a Synopsis of the species found within the territory of
Buds of Greenland t (Linn. Trans, vol. xii.); or the the United States, New York, 1828 (published in the An-
beautitul work by Dr Richardson and Mr Swainson on the nals of the Lyceum of that city). The birds of Liguria
birds of Northern America, which constitutes the second are enumerated and briefly described, particularly the im-
vo ’J?16 0 1 le Fauna Boreali-Americana, 1831. mature conditions of the plumage, by Girolamo Calvi in his
We have few systematic works devoted to the Ornitho- Catalogo d’Ornitologia di Genova, 1828.
logy of the more southern countries of the European con- One of the most important works with which we are
tinent. We are ourselves acquainted only by name with acquainted on the birds of Italy, is the Ornitologia Tos-
the Ormtologia dell’ Europa Meridionale (dedicatio sig- cana of Professor Savi, in three vols. 8vo, with additional
nata 1772), in fol. max., by Clement Bernini, a teacher of synoptical tables, Pisa, 1827-31. Though more specially
drawing. 1 he birds of France in general are described by devoted to the birds of Tuscany, it also contains descrip-
M. Vieillot in the corresponding portion of \\\eFau?ie Fran- tions of all the other Italian species, and may be regarded
paise, an octavo work, still in course of publication; and those as a most valuable addition to our knowledge of the
of Provence in particular, by M. Polydore Roux in his Or- feathered tribes of Europe. The southern position and de-
nithologie Proyen^ale, 1825. Of a more general character, lightful climate of the Italian Peninsula induce the wan-
though not without its bearings on our present subject, is dering wings of many species elsewhere rarce aves to wend
fat Bistoire Naturellede VEurope Meridionale by their way towards the olive groves and richly laden fig-
of Nice, in five volumes 8vo, 1826. We have already had trees of that favoured land,—thus connecting the Ornitho-
occasion to name the Storia Naturale degli Uccelli, pub- logy of Europe with that of Africa and other sultry re¬
lished at Florence in 1767 ; and Cetti’s more restricted one, gions.
Gli Uccclli di Sardigna, 1776. In more recent times We may be thought, in some of our preceding notices,
(1811), Professor Bonelli of Turin published a to have entered too minutely into the enumeration of de-
Oiseaux du Piemont, containing two hundred and sixty- scriptive local works, but we have been guided in so do-
two species. In 1822, Giambatista Baseggio inserted in ing by two considerations : ls£, That none of our English
the twenty-eighth volume of the Biblioteca Italiama an writers ever make any allusion to Italian Ornithology, ex¬
enumeration of the birds observed by him in the neigh- cept by casual reference to Carlo Bonaparte; and, 2dly,
bourhood of Bassano, amounting to a hundred and thirty- that Buffon has recorded as his opinion, that “ le seul
seven species. In 1823, Fortunate Luigi Naccari printed moyen d’avancer 1’ornithologie historique, seroit de faire
at_ 1 revise his Ornitologia Veneta, ossia Catalogo degli 1’histoire particuhere des oiseaux de chaque pays ; d’abord
Uccelli della provincia di Venezia, in which he notices de ceux d’une seule province, ensuite de ceux d’une pro-
two hundred and six species. In the same year Savi the vince voisine, puis de ceux d’une autre plus eloignee; re-
younger published, at Pisa, his Catalogo degli Uccelli del- unir apres cela ces histoires particulieres pour composer
la Provincia Pisana, e loro Toscana Sinonimia. The spe- celle de tous les oiseaux d’une meme climat; faire la meme
cies are classed in accordance with M. Temminck’s sys- chose dans tous les pays et dans tous les differens climats;
tern, and amount to two hundred and twenty. From 1819 comparer ensuite ces histoires particulieres, les combiner
to 1826, Professor Ranzani of Bologna gave forth his ex- pour en tirer les faits, et former un corps entier de toutes
cellent Elementi di Zoologia, of which the third volume, ces parties separees.”1
consisting of nine parts, is devoted to the natural history The Natural History of British Birds, by Donovan, in ten
of birds. It is, however, a general system, treating of volumes octavo, is a work of no great merit. Its period
exotic as well as of indigenous kinds ; yet a good deal may of publication extends from 1799 to 1816.
be gleaned from it regarding the Italian species. A work To no one of our recent writers is Ornithology more
of more special interest is the Specchio comparative delle deeply indebted than to M. Temminck. His Histoire Na-
Ornithologie di Roma e di Filadelfia, by Carlo Bonaparte, turelle GeneratedesPigeons et des Gallinacees, three volumes
commonly called the Prince of Musignano. In this slight octavo, appeared in 1813-15. The portion which concerns
but highly interesting volume (republished in the Nuovo the pigeons was also published in folio, with beautiful co-
Giornale de' Letterati of Pisa), the author compares the loured plates, by Madame Knipp. His Manuel d’Ornitho-
Ornithology of two distant regions of Europe and America, logic, ou Tableau Systematique des Oiseaux qui se trouvent en
lying, however, under nearly the same latitude, and re- Europe, 1815, consisted at first of a single octavo volume;
cords his observations on their history and manners. Of but a greatly improved and extended edition in two vo-
the species of the Roman territory we had previously lumes appeared in 1820. Whatever difference of opinion
scarcely any knowledge, and the Prince makes us ac- may prevail in regard to the author’s system, naturalists
quainted with not fewer than two hundred and forty- are agreed that this is by far the most vaulable work we yet
seven. By the same author we have also O&servazioni possess on the birds of Europe. Its main excellence con-
sulla Seconda Edizione del Regno Animate del Baron Cu- sists in the attention bestowed upon the sexual distinc-
vier, inserted in the tenth and eleventh fasciculi of the tions, and the successive changes of plumage from youth
Annah di Storia Naturale of Bologna; and he afterwards to age. The first volume contains, under the title oTAna-
1 Hutoire Nat. des Oiseaux, Plan de 1’Ouvrage.
o -<|
732 ORNITHOLOGY.
History, lyse du Systkme Generals d' Ornithologie, a classification of
'"■‘“V""*’'' birds in general. Instead of a third edition of his Manuel,
the author published in 1835 a third part, as a supplement
to the first volume, and a few years afterwards he gave
out a fourth part, or supplement to the second vo¬
lume. These parts contain the corrections and additions
rendered necessary by the lapse of many years. But M.
Temminck has not confined his attention to the birds of
Europe. In 1820 he commenced (in conjunction with M.
Meiffren de Laugier) his Planches Coloriees, a work in¬
tended as a continuation and completion of the well-known
Planches Enluminees of Buffon. It is printed in both a
quarto and a folio form, and now amounts to one hundred
and two parts, which concludes (so far, at least, as the
first great series is concerned) what was originally de¬
signed by the author. It forms five volumes, com¬
posed in all of five hundred and ten plates, exhibiting
seven hundred and fifty-five figures of birds, the majority
unknown to prior writers. Each plate is accompanied by
corresponding letter-press, containing the generic charac¬
ters, the description of the species figured, and in many
instances by general observations on the distribution and
construction of groups. The two concluding numbers
contain a general index, as well as the tables and titles
of the volumes. Now that this work has been completed, we
trust M. Temminck will be encouraged to proceed to ano¬
ther series, as we know his materials are abundant, if not
inexhaustible. It would in truth be desirable that some
such established work should be generally regarded as a
proper medium for the publication of new or rare subjects
in Ornithology, for it is the bane of natural history in ge¬
neral, that every year should be distinguished by the ap¬
pearance of numerous abortive attempts, which each suc¬
ceeding season condemns to oblivion. Thus the tax be¬
comes both heavy and unproductive, yet we fear that na¬
tional pride and personal vanity will long prevent the in¬
troduction of a better system. We do not mean to say
that we possess not among ourselves individuals compe¬
tent to do the subject justice, but assuredly there is much
labour lost by a want of concentration.
In connection with the labours of the last-named author,
we may here mention M. Werner’s lithographic work, en¬
titled Atlas des Oiseaux d'Europe, pour servir de comple¬
ment au Manuel d'Ornithologie de M. Temminck, in two
thick vols. 8vo, with 530 plates, 1848. M. Temminck had
figured a few European novelties in his Planches Coloriees,
but he appears to have remitted most of his rare indigenous
kinds to M. Werner; and we are happy to find that he
has communicated, so far as the publication of his
European species is concerned, with our zealous and intel¬
ligent countryman Mr Gould. This leads us to record the
title of one of the most sumptuous and beautifully execut¬
ed works within the whole range of ornithological illustra¬
tion, viz. The Birds of Europe, by John Gould, F.L. S.
now completed in five volumes royal folio. The plates are
chiefly from lithograph drawings by Mrs Gould, but many
are also by Mr Lear, one of the best ornithological drafts¬
men the world has yet seen. Mr Gould’s other works, all
of recent date, and of the same form and character as the
preceding, are as follow:—a Century of Birds, from the
Himalaya Mountains ;—a Monograph of the Toucans ;— History.
a Monograph of the Trogons;—and, a Synopsis of the
Birds of Australia.1 The latter is in a more portable form
than the others; but it is the author’s intention to illus¬
trate the Ornithology of New Holland in the same moda
as that in which he has treated the birds of Europe
To M. Lesson the Ornithologist stands indebted for se¬
veral publications, both of a sumptuous and useful charac¬
ter. The last edition of his work on humming-birds bears
the following title : Les Trochilides, ou les colibris et les
oiseaux mouches, suivi d’un index general, dans lequel
sont decrites et classees methodiquement toutes les races et
especes du genre Trochilus, Paris, 1832, with seventy co¬
loured plates. Conjointly with M. Garnot, he pub¬
lished some figures of birds in the Zoological Atlas toDu-
perrey’s Voyage autour du Monde, as well as in his own
Centurie de Zoologie. His other works specially devoted
to our present subject are,—Manuel d’ Ornithologie, two
volumes 18mo, 1829 ; Traite cVOrnithologie, two volumes
8vo (with 119 plates), 1831 ; and Histoire Naturelle des
Oiseaux de Paradis, des Sericides, et des Epimaques, one
volume 8vo (with 41 coloured plates), 1835.
Mr Swainson’s beautiful ZoologicalIllustratio7is(Y‘\rst.Se¬
ries, 3 vols. 8vo, 1820-23, Second Series 3 vols. 8vo, 1832-3)
contain representations of many rare and remarkable birds,
and yield to none with which we are acquainted, either in
elegance or accuracy. By the same author (conjointly
with Dr Richardson) we have, as already noted, the Fau¬
na Boreali-Americana, Part Second; and (without other
aid than his own delightful pencil) several fasciculi of the
Birds of Brazil. More recently Mr Swainson has en¬
tered into a minute as well as extended exposition of the
Natural History and Classification of Birds, in two vo¬
lumes (1836-7), which form the ornithological portion of
Dr Lardner’s Cyclopaedia. These will amply repay the
most attentive study.
The birds of South America, which, like all the pro¬
ductions of that splendid country, are extremely gorgeous,
have been here and there illustrated in various works,
and are partially so by Mr Swainson in one of those just
named. In Azara’s Voyages dans VAmerique Mei'idion-
ale (1809, 3d and 4th volumes) there are descriptions of
many hundred species from Paraguay and La Plata. The
ornithological portion of the French edition was translat¬
ed, with notes, by Sonnini.2 A great mass of Brazilian
species is described and figured in Spix’s Avium Species
Nome, &c. 2 vols. 4to, 1824-26; while the habits of se¬
veral of the more curious birds of Demerara are record¬
ed in Mr Waterton’s eccentric and well-known Wan¬
derings.
The Ornithology of North America has been illustrat¬
ed in an extremely full and satisfactory manner. Indeed,
of the feathered tribes of no country out of Europe, equal
in extent, do we possess so ample and accurate a know¬
ledge as we do of those of the United States. We have
already mentioned the immortal work of Alexander Wil¬
son, and its excellent continuation by Charles Lucien Bo¬
naparte ; but at present we have to record the title of a
much more magnificent publication than either, we mean
The Birds of America, engraved from Braivings made in
1 See list of recent works on Ornithology at the end of this article.
8 The truly important works of Don Felix Azara seem better known to European readers by the French translations than the
original Spanish publications. He devoted all his leisure hours, whilst in South America, to the pursuits of natural history, from the
year 1782 to 1801. He then transmitted the manuscript of his Apuntamientoa para la Historia Natural de los Quadrupedal del Paraguay
to his brother Don Josef Nicolas, who handed it over to a French professor, M. Moreau de Saint Mdry, by whom it was translated,
and published under the now well-known title of Essai sur VHistoire Naturelle des Quadrupedet du Paraguay, 2 vols. 8vo, Paris, 1801.
The original, however, appeared at Madrid in the following year, with corrections and additions by the author. In 1802 he likewise
pubhshed his ornithological work under the title of Apuntamientospara la Historia Natural de los Pajaros del Paraguay y Buenos Ayres ;
and this portion of his labours forms the two concluding volumes of the French translation, entitled Voyages dans VAmerique Meri¬
dionals de 1781 jusqu en 1801, 4 vols. 8vo, Paris, 1809.
ORNITHOLOGY.
History, the United States, by John James Audubon, F. R. S., &c.
*—/   3 vols. folio, London, 1831-37 ; an undertaking which far
exceeds in size and splendour all its predecessors in this,
or indeed in any other department of Zoology. The di¬
mensions of the work, as we have elsewdiere noticed, are
such as to enable the author not only to represent the
largest birds of the United States, of the size and in the
attitudes of living nature, but to figure a great proportion
of them in family groups, so admirably conceived and skil¬
fully executed, as really to form historical pictures of the
highest interest to the general observer, and of the great¬
est utility to the student of Ornithology. The completion
of each volume of plates is immediately followed by a large
octavo volume of descriptive and general history of all the
species therein contained. Mr Audubon far excels Wil¬
son as an ornithological draftsman, and often equals him
in his lively, eloquent, and interesting details of the life
and manners of the feathered tribes. His descriptive vo¬
lumes are entitled Ornithological Biography, or an Ac¬
count of the Habits of the Birds of the United States. They
amount to five in number; and were published at Edin¬
burgh between the years 1831 and 1839. The entire work
is characterized by unusual excellence both in science and art.
An extremely useful and well-concocted wTork, of less
ambitious form than the preceding, is the Manual of the
Ornithology of the United Stales and of Canada, by
Thomas Nuttall, F. L. S., in two compact octavo volumes,
Cambridge and Boston, 1832—34. The author made a
scientific tour, some years ago, through the great western
territories, including an extended range of the Rocky
Mountains, with the design of extending his acquaintance
with natural science.
Although we have hitherto confined our bibliographical
notices chiefly to the works of foreign writers, we have
done so not in consequence altogether of our own poverty,
but rather for the more ample information of the English
reader, who may be supposed to require less assistance in
regard to British authors. We have scarcely even named
the British Birds of the unequalled Bewick. We name
it, and nothing more, believing that every one who de¬
lights to see nature in art, is familiarly acquainted with a
work which may be keenly relished without any arduous
study, but which those who study most will best appreciate
and enjoy. Although the descriptive portion is written with
accuracy and intelligence, we doubt not it would be ad¬
vantageous to the author’s family, and prove a labour of
love to one or more of the many skilful Ornithologists of
the present day, that the plates should be re-arranged in
conformity with modern views, the supplement incorporat¬
ed, the synonyms increased, and such rational alterations
or additions effected, as would render it the manual of
British Ornithology, if not for all time coming, yet for
many future years. If accompanied by portions of the
author’s autobiography, so much the better. We regret
that the latter, so racy and original, should have not yet
seen the light. The most recent and complete edition of
Bewick’s Birds is that of 1832. A very beautiful pre¬
face is prefixed to the one published in 1826.
1 he most original descriptive works on the birds of Bri¬
tain are Montagu’s Ornithological Bictionary, 2 vols.
8vo, 1802, and Supplement to the same, 1 vol. 8vo, 1813.
Ihesewere not only excellent works on British bird 5
simply as such, but valuable additions to the actual history
of European species,—the chief merit of many of our other
publications consisting in their applying the knowledge
acquired by foreign writers to our indigenous kinds ;
whereas Montagu rather gave than borrowed, his obser¬
vations being almost entirely original. His volumes are
now extremely rare in their first form ; but a new edition,
combining both works in one, was brought out in 1831,
with notes, by Mr Rennie.
Dr Fleming, in his History of British Animals, one vol. History,
octavo, 1828, enumerates and describes the birds of Bri-'^-v'—-
tain. Of this work, which has been very useful to some
who say rather too little about it, we should desire to see
a new edition, remodelled in accordance with the altera¬
tions and additions rendered necessary by the lapse of
years. It is a publication of great merit.
The letter-press to Mr Selby’s folio Illustrations of Bri¬
tish Ornithology (we mean the second edition, in two vols.
8vo, 1833) forms the best completed work we yet possess
in accordance with the modern method of arrangement.
Jointly with Sir William Jardine, Mr Selby has also
brought out many fasciculi of Illustrations of Ornithology
(small folio), in which are figured various interesting and
curious forms of foreign species; and his well-instructed
coadjutor was editor (and of several volumes author) of the
NaturahsCs Library, in which a due portion is success¬
fully devoted to the history and representation of the
feathered tribes. Both publications have done much to
extend the knowledge of natural history.
One of the most valuable and carefully constructed
works with which we are acquainted is the Systema Avi¬
um of Dr Wagler, pars prima, Stuttgard, 1827. It con¬
sists of a series of monographs, not in systematic order,
but including several extensive and difficult genera, such as
Picus, Columba, &c. The author unfortunately died not
long ago, in consequence of a gun-shot wound accidentally
inflicted by himself while sporting, and the non-comple¬
tion of his work may be regarded as a great loss to Orni¬
thologists. Various additional though detached portions
of it, however, may be found in the Isis, a German perio¬
dical published at Frankfort. Wagler is also the au¬
thor of a valuable descriptive summary of the parrot
tribe, under the title of Monographia Psittacorum, one
vol. 4to, Munchen, 1835. Our best previous treatise on
that gorgeous family was published by the lamented Kuhl,
in the Nova Acta of Bonn, vol. x. Of illustrated works on
the subject, we have already mentioned that of Vaillant;
and the English reader need scarcely be reminded of the
extreme beauty of Mr Lear’s more recent Illustrations of
the Psittacidce, in one vol. royal folio.
A considerable flock of ornithological authors has re¬
cently appeared above the horizon, to enlighten, however,
rather than obscure our vision. We shall name a few.
Outlines of the Smaller British Birds, by R. A. Slaney,
Esq. 12mo, 1833.
Familiar History of Birds, by the Rev. Edward Stan¬
ley, 2 vols. 12mo, 1835.
Manual of British Vertebrate Animals, by the Rev.
Leonard Jenyns, 1 vol. 8vo, 1835.
Feathered Tribes of the British Islands, by Robert Mu-
die, 2 vols. 8vo, 1836.
History of the rarer British Birds, intended as a sup¬
plement to Bewick, by T. C. Eyton, Esq. 1836.
Of these, and other contemporary writers, the reader
will find more ample notice in Mr Neville Wood’s Orni¬
thologist's Text-Book of 1836.
The following works relate particularly to the more mu¬
sical of the feathered tribes : Harmonia Ruralis, or Natu¬
ral History of British Song Birds, by James Bolton, folio,
1794 ;—British Warblers, by Robert Sweet, F. L. S. 8vo,
1823-32 ;—Treatise on British Song Birds, by Patrick
Syme, Esq. 8vo, 1823 ;—British Songsters, by Neville
Wood, Esq. 8vo, 1837 ;-—Cage Birds, their Natural His¬
tory, Management, &c. (translated from the German), by
J. M. Bechstein, 12mo, 1837.
The late Mr Yarrell commenced his excellent History of
British Birds in 1837, illustrated by a woodcut of each spe¬
cies, and numerous vignettes. The illustrations are for the
most part remarkably accurate as ornithological represen¬
tations, and of extreme beauty in a pictorial point of view.
ORNITHOLOGY.
734
Structure. The thirty-seventh part, completing the work, and forming
three handsome volumes, Was published in 1843. In the se¬
cond edition of 1845, the author, besides other additions,
published a supplement containing an account of the spe¬
cies obtained since the publication of the first edition.
Last in our list, though the reverse of lowest in our es¬
timation, stand Dr Macgillivray’s characteristic volumes
the Rapacious Birds of Great Britain (1836), and the
History of British Birds, Indigenous and Migratory (vol.
1st, 1837). In regard to these two works, readers may pro¬
bably differ in their appreciation of some insulated passages,
critical or otherwise, not essential to the exposition of the
subject in hand ; but we think all must agree that they are
written in a clear, vigorous, and original manner, and de¬
void of that vapid spirit of compilation which pervades the
labours of so many of the ingenious author’s predecessors
and contemporaries.1
We shall not here enter into any detailed exposition of
the internal structure of birds. Our space would not ad¬
mit of our doing so in a manner likely either to satisfy our¬
selves or to instruct our readers. The subject is of too
great importance to be superficially treated, and a deeper
scientific examination is not to be looked for here. We
regret to say, there is much reason to accuse the naturalist
of confining his attention to the external characters of liv¬
ing beings, which, though important portions of the ani¬
mal economy, are nevertheless only portions, though too
often looked upon as all in all. It is no reason for ne¬
glecting the internal structure, that a knowledge of such
structure is not required to comprehend the modern sys¬
tems. This, we must admit, is true; but the systems are
thereby so much the more defective. An assured anato¬
mical basis will never cause confusion or contrariety in
any good arrangement formed on the groundwork of ex¬
ternal characters ; for the best of these are sure to conform
themselves with all the important modifications of internal
structure, while the sooner a bad arrangement is under¬
mined the better. At the same time, that Zootomist would
know little of the practical importance of external forms
who should not endeavour to connect these with his de¬
monstration of more recondite characters. In truth, how¬
ever desirable it may be to know the whole of the animal
structure, whether external or internal, we must in rela¬
tion to museum specimens and to zoological collections in
general, necessarily have recourse to superficial, or at least
external characters, because none other are visible, or in¬
deed exist, in the subjects of natural history as usually
preserved ; and we should debar a vast multitude from a
most delightful study of graceful forms and gorgeous plum¬
age, if we could learn nothing important of beast or bird
without prying into all the hidden wonders of its interior.
Whatever progress comparative anatomy may in future
make, we trust the Zootomist will ever bear in mind that
the establishment of good external characters is a matter
of the highest and most indispensable importance to the
present state and future progress of natural history, of
which the practical pursuit will ever mainly depend upon
the class of characters in question. As we cannot here
enter into the anatomical department of our subject, we
shall give, in the subjoined note, the names of a few works
likely to interest and instruct the reader.2 A few para¬
graphs will suffice for all we have ourselves to say, before
entering upon our systematic portion.
Ihe bill, composed of the upper and under mandible,
varies almost infinitely in its form in the different genera,
in the determination and construction of which it affords Structure,
characters of the highest importance. As its modifications
will be specially alluded to in our notices of the minor
groups, and are moreover accurately represented in the
plates which accompany the present treatise, we need not
here fatigue the reader by an unnecessary enumeration.
A portion at the base of the upper mandible, usually con¬
taining the nostrils, and sometimes covered with hairs or
feathers, sometimes partially or entirely bare, is called the
cere. It is very obvious in most birds of prey, but imper¬
ceptible in many other species. When we expand the
mandibles, we of course perceive the opening to the ali¬
mentary canal or digestive organs, which usually consist
of the following portions.
The pharynx follows immediately after the cavity of the
mouth. It leads into the oesophagus or gullet, which in
many species swells into what is called the crop, by some
regarded as the first stomach. This is followed by a se¬
cond enlargement, produced, however, rather by a thick¬
ening of the coats than by any increase of capacity within,
named the proventriculus. It contains numerous glandular
sacs interposed between its muscular and mucous coats,
which secrete a gastric juice to aid the process .of di¬
gestion. This proventriculus leads to the gizzard or true
stomach, by some regarded as the third stomachic expan¬
sion. Here the function of digestion is completed. The
entrance from the stomach to the small intestine is named
the pylorus, of which the structure is frequently valvular.
The first fold of the small intestine is named the duode¬
num, and after receiving the pancreatic and biliary ducts,
it forms various convolutions, and terminates in the rec¬
tum or large intestine. The cceca are usually placed at the
commencement of the latter ; its termination is named the
cloaca.
These parts, it will be borne in mind, are variously mo¬
dified in the different tribes. In some the expansion called
the crop is wanting, or not to be distinguished from the
other upper portions of the oesophagus ; and the powerful
muscles which constitute the peculiar strength of the giz¬
zard in granivorous birds are very feeble in the carnivo¬
rous and fish-devouring kinds. In some the intestine is
long and narrow, in others short and wide, while the caeca
exhibit a corresponding range, being in certain kinds ex¬
tremely long, in others merely rudimentary.
Birds are remarkable for the energy of their respiratory
functions. Although their lungs are rather small, they
are perforated in such a way as to communicate with mem¬
branous cells distributed through various parts of the body,
and even communicating with the interior of the bones, so
that the atmospheric air not only comes in contact with
the pulmonary vessels, but with a great proportion of the
circulating system. Thus birds have been said to respire
by the branches of the aorta, as well as by those of the
pulmonary artery. It is thus that the most rapid exercise
of the faculty of flight impairs not their power of breath¬
ing ; and the best-trained hunter that ever bounded re¬
joicingly over the fences of Leicestershire is far sooner
blown than a field sparrow.
The trachea or wind-pipe is composed of bony rings.
The upper larynx is of comparatively simple structure,
and of less importance than among the mammiferous class;
but farther down, and close upon the bifurcation of the
trachea, is the lower larynx, the true organ of the voice in
birds. The vast bulk of air contained in the interior cells
no doubt contributes to the strength of their vocal powers,
while the muscles of the inferior portion of the larynx, and
1 For the more recent publications on Ornithology, see the end of the present article.
2 Q'xywc's Lemons d'Anatotnie Comparee; Carus’s Introduction to Comparative Anatomy, translated from the German by Mr Gore
(there is a better and more recent French edition of this work) ; Meckel’s Traiti Gineral d'Anatomic Compane ; Grant’s Outlines qf
Comparative Anatomy ; Mr Owen’s article Aves, in Todd’s Cyclopaedia of Anatomy and Physiology ; and the Introduction to Macgillivrajr’s
History of Biitish Birds, vol. i.
O IIN 1 T H O L O G Y.
Structure, the length, diversified form, and varied movements of that
s-—~v organ, bestow upon it a great facility of modulation.
The anterior limbs of birds, corresponding to the fore
► legs of quadrupeds, have been converted into wings for the
purposes of that aerial locomotion commonly called flight.
It is true that some birds cannot fly, that is, leave not the
surface of the earth; but these are exceptions to the ge¬
neral rule, and even among such exceptions the great ma¬
jority use their wings as a propelling power, whether cours¬
ing amid dry and barren deserts, or submerged beneath
the waves. The bony portions of the wings consist of the
humerus, the cubitus, the carpal and metacarpal bones,
and fingers. We shall briefly describe these parts in so far
as they are connected with the imposition of the plumage,
and consequently with the external characters of the
feathered race. The reader, if he so inclines, may here
consult Plate III., figures 3 and 4. The humerus or arm
bone (c) is joined to the body by means of a part of its
own upper surface, which articulates with a correspond¬
ing cavity between the coracoid bone (b) and the scapula
or shoulder-blade («). It is directed backwards in repose,
and in a position more or less parallel with the spine. The
other extremity of the humerus articulates with the cubitus
or fore-arm, which is composed of the bones called the
ulna (d) and radius (e), and is so jointed as to fold when
at rest in a direction parallel to that of the arm. The car-
pus consists of two small bones (jff) placed between the
outer extremity of the cubitus and the metacarpus. The
latter (o') usually consists of two bones united at both ends.
From the anterior edge of the portion next the carpus,
there projects a small bone, considered as analogous to the
first digit or thumb, pollex (h); to the extremity of the
outer portion of the metacarpus are usually attached two
other digital bones («j) ; and to the extremity of its inner
portion is frequently appended a smaller bone of corre¬
sponding nature. These are the fingers of birds.
Now, the connection of the plumage the nreceding
parts is as follows. Here consult Plate III., figures 1, 2,
and 5. The small elongated tuft of stiffish feathers which
clothe the upper exterior margin of a bird’s wing, in¬
creasing in size downwards, pointing towards the base of
the outer primaries, and commonly called the alula, or spu¬
rious wing (see S. W. in figs. 1, 2, and 5), springs from the
portion we have called the thumb. The primaries or
greater quill-feathers of the wings, that is, the ten outer¬
most feathers, and which constitute the more or less pointed
terminal portion (see figs. 1, 1 to 10, and figs. 2 and 5, at P.
P.), spring from the digital and metacarpal bones. The
secondaries, or lesser quill-feathers (figs. 1, 1 to 6, and figs. 2
and 5, at S. S.), which, when the wing is closed, usually
cover a portion of the primaries, take their origin from the
cubitus or fore-arm ; while a third series, inconspicuous in
most birds, though very obvious in others, and named the
tertials or tertiary feathers (fig. 2, T. T.), are derived from
the humerus or arm bone. Above these, and lying over
that portion of the wing which joins the body (or, as it were,
between the wing and back), are the scapulars (fig. 2, Sc.),
usually of an elongated form, and often distinguished from
the surrounding plumage by a difference of tint or mark¬
ing. Lastly, various ranges of feathers which clothe the
upper portion of the wings from the carpal joint backwards,
covering the base of the primary and secondary quills, and
spreading across from the spurious wing to the scapulars,
are named the icing coverts, and are distinguished, accord¬
ing to their position, as the smaller coverts (figs. 1 and 2,
at Sm. C.), which clothe the upper portion of the wing;
the secondary coverts (figs 1 and 2, at S. C.), which pro¬
tect the base of the secondaries ; and the primary coverts, Structure,
(figs. 1 and 2, at P. C.), which perform that office to the
primaries. The feathers which clothe the under surface
of the wings are named the under coverts of those parts ;
and the terms upper and under tail-coverts signify the
feathers which cover the base of the tail, above or below.
But we need scarcely occupy our pages with the numerous
particulars which might be brought forward, and which
occupy so prominent a space in many ornithological vo¬
lumes. The terms in most cases explain themselves.
When we speak of the crest of a bird, we of course mean
to indicate the feathers on its head ; and the upper, central,
or lower portions of the back, can be respectively nothing
more nor less than one or other of these portions. When
we mention the point of the bill, we literally mean the
point, and there is no word in the English nor in any other
language which can express it more clearly. Neither do we
think it necessary, in an English work, to give a corre¬
sponding Latin phrase for every term we use, more espe¬
cially as many of these terms cannot be correctly Latinized,
and in fact have never occurred at all in any books in that
language. Their confinement, therefore, in a circumflex-
ual prison, amid the unembarrassed freedom of the English
tongue, is a sad and cruel mockery “ of things attempted
yet in prose or rhyme and we believe is but seldom prac¬
tised by those who got through Ruddiman respectably in
early life. We therefore deem it worse than useless to
present an endless catalogue of terms in Ornithology, fol¬
lowed by explanations more obscure and ambiguous than
the technicalities themselves; but shall rather endeavour
either altogether to avoid unknown tongues, or, by the
context, to render our meaning obvious to each capacity.1
Those minute discriminations, so often insisted on, are
in truth but seldom necessary in the description of a bird’s
external aspect, especially of its feathered portions, be¬
cause large spaces of the plumage have frequently an
identical character both in texture and colour. Thus,
if the entire head is either black, white, brown, or any
other single colour, it would be a waste of words to de¬
scribe it in any other way than simply as being of that
colour; that is, it would be unnecessary to say that the
frontal, vertical, occipital, auricular, and ocular feathers of
the head were coloured after such a fashion ; but if one
colour prevails over another, and yet is traversed, or in
any way varied by other colours, the precise region,
whether frontal or occipital, in which the variation hap¬
pens should be stated. We would almost say, that our
nomenclature of the parts themselves depends to some ex¬
tent on the distribution of the colours. Thus, of birds with
a black abdomen and a scarlet breast, we can easily con¬
ceive, that even of the same species two individuals may
so considerably differ in the proportional extent of the
supposed colours, that the black in one instance shall en¬
croach upon what corresponds to the scarlet of the other,
or vice versa ; but still the phrases “abdomen black, breast
scarlet,” would suffice for both, though not proportionally
the same in each. The fact is, that many of the special
regions of a bird are by no means precisely marked, or at
least are seldom seen to be so, unless we strip it of its
plumage,—an untoward act, however, for one who desires
to stuff or otherwise preserve its skin ; and therefore some
latitude must be allawed in our expression of the external
parts.
The next portion to be briefly described is the leg or hin¬
der limb. This is divisible into the femur, tibia, tarsus,
and toes. (See Plate III., fig. 3.)
The femur, or thigh-bone (fi), is cylindrical, somewhat
1 A very ample and interesting account of the diversified form of bills, feet, and feathers, will be found fn Mr Swainson’
Hutory and Classification of Birds, vol. i., illustrated by numerous wood-cuts from the elegant pencil ofHhe author.
s Natural
736
ORNITHOLOGY.
Structure
curved, usually very short, and always so concealed with¬
in the body as not to be apparent as an external portion
of the limb. The next division is the leg or tibia (m),
frequently but erroneously called the thigh, probably
from its being the uppermost apparent portion. It is
usually covered with feathers, though sometimes bare on
its lower portion. Then follows the tarsus (ri), that long,
slender, exposed portion, so conspicuous in almost all the
species, varying considerably among accipitrine birds, ra¬
ther short in web-footed water-fowl, and greatly length¬
ened in the majority of shore-birds or waders. Its upper
knobby portion, where it articulates with the tibia, is the
true heel, although generally in colloquial, and not sel¬
dom in descriptive language, termed the knee. The pro¬
minences of its lower extremity articulate with the toes.
The latter parts usually amount to four; the hind toe, how¬
ever, is wanting in many species, and the ostrich is general¬
ly supposed to have only two toes, although Dr Riley has
demonstrated the existence in that bird also of a rudimen¬
tary inner toe. The hind toe is by some regarded as the
first, the inner as the second, the middle as the third, and
the outer as the fourth toe ; and in this order there is a
progressive increase in the number of the joints of which
each is composed,—the first having two, the second three,
the third four, and the fourth five bones. The surface
of the tarsus, toes, and sometimes of the base of the tibia
when that part is exposed, is covered either with plated or
reticulated scales, of various forms in different species;
and the tarsus is moreover often armed with one or more
spurs,—which, however, belong to the cutaneous rather
than the osseous system. A general notion of the latter,
as it exists in the class of birds, may be acquired by an
inspection of the skeleton of the golden eagle just referred
to (Plate III., fig. 3). We shall here add nothing more
upon the subject.
The position, and therefore to a certain extent the na¬
ture, of many modern genera, of which we are unable
from want of space to give the characters, will be seen in
the tabular views with which we terminate the present
treatise. A considerable discordance still prevails in re¬
gard to the nature and amount of the generic groups in
Ornithology,—some writers advocating a numerous sub¬
division, and consequent restriction, of characters ; while
others adhere, perhaps too tenaciously, to old associa¬
tions, which naturally tend to the augmentation of spe¬
cies, in other words, to the extension rather than the in¬
crease of genera. The former plan is rendered neces¬
sary to a great extent by the vast additions which have
been made to our knowledge of groups and of typical spe¬
cies within the present century, and might be deemed
advisable among the larger genera even as a mere matter
of convenience ;—its abuse in the hands of unskilful or in¬
experienced persons being of course no legitimate argu¬
ment against it. There is, however, a great deal that is
arbitrary and unsettled in whatever principle may be sup¬
posed to guide the modern naturalist in the formation of
his generic groups. The simplicity and ease of applica¬
tion which characterised the former artificial systems have
been lost in their attempted demolition, while the recon¬
structions now arising (in spite of the abundant though
not always acknowledged appropriation of some useful old
materials) are not yet so complete and commodious as to
afford the same accommodation to the benighted student.
Order will no doubt some day spring from chaos, and even
already, amid the darkness of the upheaving waters, are
many sunny spots of terra firma towards which we fondly
steer, “ well pleased that now our sea should find a shore.”
Naturalists, however, need by no means quarrel with each
other, as if there was a certain good to gain, or some great
physical truth to be established. “ All the great business
of genera and species,” says Locke, “ amounts to no more Genera,
but this, that men make abstract ideas, and, setting themv-«-
in their minds with names annexed to them, do thereby
enable themselves to consider things, and discourse of
them, as it were in bundles, for the easier and readier im¬
provement and communication of their knowledge, which
would advance but slowly were their words and thoughts
confined only to particulars.” “ The reason,” he says
again, “ why I take so particular notice of this is, that we
may not be mistaken about genera and species, and their
essences, as if they were things regularly and constantly
made by nature, and had a real existence in things,—when
they appear upon a more wary survey to be nothing else
but an artifice of the understanding, for the easier signi-
fying such collections of ideas, as it should often have oc¬
casion to communicate by one general term, under which
divers particulars, as far forth as they agreed to that ab¬
stract idea, might be comprehended.”
The following observations by Mr Vigors may be intro¬
duced with propriety in this place, as according closely
with our own views on the subject of generic divisions.
“ But though nature nowhere exhibits an absolute divi¬
sion between her various groups, she yet displays suffi¬
ciently distinctive characters to enable us to arrange them
into conterminous assemblages, and to retain each assem¬
blage, at least in idea, separate from the rest. It is not,
however, at the point of junction between it and its ad¬
joining groups that I look for the distinctive character.
There, as M. Temminck justly observes, it is not to be
found. It is at that central point which is most remote
from the ideal point of junction on each side, and where
the characteristic peculiarities of the groups, gradually
unfolding themselves, appear in their full development; it
is at that spot, in short, where the typical character is
most conspicuous, that I fix my exclusive attention. Upon
these typical eminences I plant those banners of distinc¬
tion, round which corresponding species may congregate
as they more or less approach the types of each. In
my pursuit of nature, I am accustomed to look upon the
great series in which her productions insensibly pass into
each other, with similar feelings to those with which I
contemplate some of those beautiful pieces of natural
scenery, where the grounds swell out in a diversified in¬
terchange of valley and elevation. Here, although I can
detect no breach in that undulating outline over which the
eye delights to glide without interruption, I can still give
a separate existence in idea to every elevation before me,
and assign it a separate name. It is upon the points of
eminence in each that I fix my attention, and it is these
points I compare together, regardless, in m3' divisions, of
the lower grounds which imperceptibly meet at the base.
Thus also it is that 1 fix upon the typical eminences that
rise most conspicuously above that continued outline in
which nature disposes her living groups. These afford me
sufficient prominency of character for my ideal divisions ;
for ideal they must be, where nature shows none. And
thus it is that I can conceive my groups to be at once
separate and united ; separate at their typical elevations,
but united at their basal extremes.
“ It is difficult to convey, in terms sufficiently explicit,
an accurate definition of abstract notions like the present.
We may see the subject clearly ourselves, but not be able
to communicate it by words sufficiently intelligible, unless
to those who may happen to view it in the same light as
ourselves. I shall therefore take a familiar illustration,
which comes home to the feelings of every man, and where
it will be immediately apparent that strongly marked di¬
visional groups may be kept apart from each other in our
conceptions, although we can recognise no absolute boun¬
dary lines by which we can say the}' are separated.
“ Let us take, for instance, that period of time which ift*
ORNITHOLOGY.
737
Raptores. volves the annual revolution of the earth round the sun,
and let us divide it into the usual departments which we
call seasons. Every man can picture to his own mind the
decided characters by which these divisions of the year are
parted from each other; he can mark out by definite dis¬
tinctions those striking periods where the year bursts forth
into bud, where it opens into flower, where it ripens into
fruit, and where it lapses into decay. He can ascertain
the nature of the impressions which each season forces
upon his own feelings, he can communicate such sensa¬
tions to others, and he can embody those natural periods,
of whose separate existence he feels conscious, into sepa¬
rate and well-characterised divisions, to which he can re¬
fer, without fear of being misunderstood, under the distinct
appellations of spring or summer, of autumn or of winter.
But can he at the same time point out the actual limits of
these natural departments of the year ? Can he fix, for
instance, in that intervening interchange of season, where
the rigour of winter silently and imperceptibly relaxes into
the mildness of spring,—can he fix, I say, upon the exact
period when the former terminates, and the latter begins ?
Can he assert at one moment t*hat he is within the pre¬
cincts of one season, and that, even while he speaks, he
has passed into the confines of the other. He may, it is
true, assign artificial limits to each department, and may
calculate with mathematical precision the months, the
days, the hours, of which it consists. He may even as¬
sign reasons for his arbitrary divisions, and prove their pro¬
bable approximation to the regular interchange of nature.
And this is precisely as far as the Zoologist can go. But
this is all that is in his power. He never can feel or assert
that the character of one season is lost at one particular
moment, and gives place to the character of that which
succeeds. Here, then, we have four decided divisions, per¬
fectly distinct in themselves, yet to which we are unable
to affix the limits. So it is with the groups of Zoology.
They exhibit separate divisions, distinguished by separate
characters, but run'ning into each other without any as¬
signable limits ; and any man may draw his imaginary
line across that ‘ border country,’ that ‘ land debateable/
which stretches between the conterminous regions, accord¬
ing as it suits his fancy or his peculiar views, or as it may
accord with the greater or less preponderance of those
minor landmarks which serve as an inferior mode of de¬
marcation in the absence of all natural boundaries.”1
We shall now proceed with our proposed exposition of
the various orders.
Order I.—-RAPTORES, OR BIRDS OF PREY.2
Raptorial birds, under which term we include the tribes
usually known by the general names of vultures, eagles,
hawks, buzzards, kites, and owls, are distinguished by a
strong, sharp-edged, acutely-pointed bill, more or less
curved, but always hooked at the extremity of the upper
mandible, which is covered at the base by the membrane
called the cere. The nostrils are usually open. The legs,
with few exceptions, are plumed as far as the top of the
tarsus; the latter part itself is usually bare, but is entirely
covered with feathers in most of the nocturnal kinds, and
partially so in several of the diurnal. The toes are always
four in number, very free in their movements, the outer
sometimes versatile; and the whole, with rare exceptions,
are furnished with strong, sharp, curved, prehensile claws.
All raptorial birds feed on animal substances,—the ma¬
jority on living prey. Representing in their own class the
ferine species among quadrupeds, they subdue their weak- Raptores.
er brethren by force more frequently than guile; and if
not more tyrannical than tigers, they at least exercise a
more extended sway, for the fields, the woods, and waters,
the barren mountains, and resounding shore, are all alike
subjected to their fierce control. Their power of flight is
remarkable for its surpassing strength and long endurance.
They occur in some form or other under every clime, and
their external aspect varies greatly, both in size and shape,
from the ponderous eagle and condor of long extended
wing, to the finch-falcon of Bengal, which is scarcely
larger than a sparrow. But, generally speaking, raptorial
birds are of considerable bulk, as might be anticipated
from the necessity under which they lie of subduing an
active and not always unresisting prey. Their forms, how¬
ever, are often graceful, their actions energetic, their eyes
bold and bright, and their plumage beautifully varied ;—
but they are more remarkable for chaste and subdued co¬
louring, for sober shades of intermingled black and brown,
than for those brilliant or gorgeous hues which characterise
so many of the feathered tribes.
Their dispositions naturally fierce or unaccommodating,
if not contentious, their ravening appetites, and dangerous
weapons, induce them but seldom to associate with each
other. We shall not here describe them, after the manner
of many authors, as gloomy and mistrustful,—for what
cause has an eagle, rejoicing in his strength, and winging
his way from distant isles o’er waters glittering with re¬
dundant life, or hovering on the side of some majestic
mountain, of which the purple heath is one wide store¬
house of the best of game,—what cause has he for gloom ?
Or why should he mistrust, whose sail-broad vans might
almost carry him across the vast Atlantic, or assuredly in
a few brief hours transport him from his bold but barren
eyrie, to richer pastures, reverberating with the varied
voices of defenceless flocks? We believe there is nothing
mournful or disconsolate in beings which pursue the un¬
fettered exercise of natural instinct. Such fearful attri¬
butes are but reflections from the melancholy mind of man
(whose morbid reason often casts a gloom across the bright¬
est sun), but cloud not in reality the face of nature. Birds
of prey, however, are not gregarious,—although, “ where
the carcass is, there will the eagles be gathered together.”
For eagles we presume to read vultures, the scavengers of
the raptorial order, which in sultry regions are highly use¬
ful in clearing all decaying offal from the earth. With
these exceptions, the others may be said to dwell in single
pairs,—at times in solitude. They build their rude but
sufficing nests amid precipitous rocks, on ancient ruins,
and occasionally among forest trees, while a few take up
their station on the ground. They seldom lay more than
four eggs, and many only rear a pair of young. These are
at first extremely helpless, and covered for a time with
down. The females, in the generality of species, are con¬
siderably larger than the males. The plumage of the
sexes often differs greatly, and in such cases the offspring
for one or more seasons resembles the mother.
The voice in the raptorial order is almost always harsh and
unmusical, sometimes more plaintive in the hooting kinds,
complaining by night from ivy-mantled tower or ancient
tree; and only one species, a hawk from Africa, has
been ever said to sing. The uses to the human race of
birds of prey are not remarkable. The scavengers above
alluded to are beneficial in their way, but the same can
scarcely be alleged of such as carry off our lambs or poul¬
try ; and we are not aware that either their flesh or fea¬
thers are of much avail. More might have been said of
certain members of the order, had not the practice of
1 Zoological Journal, No- ii. p. 196.
5 a
VOL. XVI.
* Accipithes, Linn.; Rapaces, Temtn.
38
ORNITHOLOGY.
Uaptores. falconry, with other chivalrous uses, been about to pass
away.
SECT. I.—DIURNAL BIRDS OF PREY.
Cere usually naked, or partly covered by setaceous fea¬
thers. Nostrils open. Eyes of medium size, lateral.
Head rather small, and elongated ; face not surrounded by
a completed disk of projecting feathers, as in owls. Ster¬
num strong and solid. Stomach membranous. Intes¬
tines not greatly extended. Caeca short. Toes naked.
Of this section Linnaeus and the other naturalists formed
only two genera, Vultur and Falco, which some regard as
forming two large families, subdivided into numerous mi¬
nor groups. There is, upon the whole, a well-marked
character, or at least a strong physiognomical distinction,
between the Vulturidce and Falconidce ; but this is more
easily seen than expressed, or, when expressed, is often
erroneously so. Thus a strong alleged distinction is the
nearly naked head of the former ; but the lammer-geyer
(G. barbatus) has that part as densely plumed as any
eagle. However, the nails are generally blunt, and the
feet comparatively feeble.
FAMILY I VULTURIDAS.1
The birds of this family are of large size and gluttonous
habits. They prefer animal substances in a state of de¬
composition to living prey, and are frequently gregarious.
The bill is never notched, and the feet and claws are more
feeble and less curved than among the Falconidae. Though
indolent, especially after meal time, they are distinguished
by great powers of flight. Their bodies in repose assume
a more or less horizontal position. Their flesh is disgust¬
ing as an article of food, but their down has been occasion¬
ally made use of for domestic purposes.
Genus Vultur, Cuv. Bill large and strong, compress¬
ed, straight at the base, convex and rounded at the
point. Nostrils naked, rounded, obliquely pierced. Head
and neck bare of ordinary feathers, but covered by a short
down. A collar of long soft feathers at the base of the neck.
The true vultures, as now restricted, belong to the an¬
cient world. Their flight, though slow, is powerful and
long sustained. They frequently rise, by repeated gyra¬
tions, to a great height in the air, and descend in a simi¬
lar manner. They assemble in troops, and feed for the
most part on carcasses; yet the Dalmatian shepherds are
said to dread their inroads among their sheep and lambs.
They build among inaccessible rocks, and feed their young
by emptying the unsavoury contents of their own crops.
It does not appear that they can transfix or carry off their
prey by means of their talons, as do hawks and eagles.
We have two species in Europe, the cinereous vulture
{V. cinereus, Linn., Plate IV., figure 1), called arrian
on the Pyrenees, and the griffon or fulvous vulture (V.
fulvus, Linn.) Both birds occur in Spain and the
Tyrol, but are scarcely ever seen in Switzerland, and are
rare in Germany. The nidification of the cinereous vul¬
ture is still unknown. It probably never breeds in Eu¬
rope, but rather in the mountainous countries of Asia,
where it is known to occur abundantly. The fulvous vul¬
ture is more courageous than the preceding, and more
inclined to seize on living prey. It is common in the
neighbourhood of Gibraltar, abounds in Dalmatia during
winter, and has been observed to breed in Sardinia on
lolty trees. It lays two eggs, of a greenish white, with a
rugose surface. It is widely spread over the continent Raptores.
of Africa. Several other species are found in the warmer
regions of the old world.
Genus Sarcoramphus, Dumeril.2 Bill thick, straight
from the base, but strongly curved at the extremity, the
margin of the upper mandible having a somewhat sinuous
or S-like outline. Nostrils longitudinal and oblong.
Head and neck bare, wattled, surmounted by a fleshy
crest.
This genus is confined to America, and consists of three
species, the famous condor of the Andes (S. condor), the
king-vulture (S. papa), and the Californian vulture (S.
californianus). The condor inhabits the loftiest of the
Andes, and in its aerial flights is supposed to attain to
a station far above that of every other living creature.
According to Humboldt, it soars to an elevation nearly
six times greater than that at which clouds are usually
suspended in the sky. At the vast height of almost six
perpendicular miles, the condor is seen majestically sail¬
ing through the ethereal space, watchfully surveying the
airy depth in quest of his accustomed prey. When im¬
pelled by hunger, he descends to the nearest plains which
border on the Cordilleras ; but his sojourn there is brief,
as he seems instinctively to prefer the desolate and lofty
mountains. The barometer amid such aerial haunts at¬
tains only to the height of sixteen inches. These rocky
eyries (of which the plain is elevated about 15,000 feet
above the level of the sea) are known vernacularly by the
name of condor nests. There, perched in dreary solitude,
on the crests of scattered peaks, at the very verge of the
region of perpetual snow, these dark gigantic birds are
seen silently reposing like melancholy spectres. Hardly
an instance is known of their assaulting even an infant,
though many credulous travellers have given accounts of
their killing young persons of ten or twelve years of age.3
The history of the condor, like that of its Patagonian
neighbours of the human race, has in fact been much ob¬
scured by exaggeration. An inspection of its feet and
claws suffices to show that it is not gifted with great
prehensile power, and could scarcely carry off the most
ill-conditioned child, though not seldom accused of such
evil practices. Condamine informs us that he has often
seen condors hovering over flocks of sheep, some of which
they “ would have carried away, had they not been
scared by the shepherdsand this vague supposition is
stated as a fact in their natural history I It is a bird of
powerful wing, but of vulturine habits, feeding much on
dead animal matter, but not unfrequently joining together
in the attack of cattle, especially of such as are in any way
enfeebled. Although the usual station of the condor is
mountainous, it often descends, as we have said, to feed
among the plains and valleys; and a female, now in the
French museum, was found at sea, sitting on the dead
body of a floating whale. It breeds amid the inaccessible
peaks of the Andes, making no nest, but depositing its
eggs upon the arid rock. It is a large bird, of from three
to four feet in length, with an extent of wing very various¬
ly stated, but probably sometimes reaching from ten to
twelve feet. The female is of a much browner hue, and
wants the caruncles. She is less in size than the male,
an unusual circumstance in this order, although we sus¬
pect that the greater bulk of that sex is a feature chiefly
characteristic of the hawks and eagles.
“In riding along the plain,” says Sir Francis Head, “ I
passed a dead horse, about which were forty or fifty con¬
dors ; many of them were gorged and unable to fly; se¬
veral were standing on the ground devouring the carcass;
1 On the modern groups into which this family is divisible, the reader may consult a paper by Mr Vio-ors in the Zoological Jour,
ml. No. vm. p. 36«. j i r j 0 o
Vultur, Linn. Cuv. ; Cathartei, Illiger, Temm. * Nuttall’s Manual of Ornithology, i. p. 36.
ORNITHOLOGY.
739
Raptores. the rest hovering above it. I rode within twenty yards of
them ; one of the largest of the birds was standing with
one foot on the ground, and the other on the horse’s
body ; display of muscular strength as he lifted the flesh,
and tore oft'great pieces, sometimes shaking his head and
pulling with his beak, and sometimes pushing with his leg.
Got to Mendoza, and went to bed. Wakened by one of
my party who arrived ; he told me, that seeing the con¬
dors hovering in the air, and knowing that several of them
would be gorged,1 he had also ridden up to the dead
horse, and that as one of these enormous birds flew about
fifty yards off, and was unable to go any farther, he rode
up to him ; and then, jumping off his horse, seized him by
the neck. The contest was extraordinary, and the ren¬
contre unexpected. No two animals can well be imagin¬
ed less likely to meet than a Cornish miner and a condor,
and few could have calculated, a year ago, when the one
was hovering high above the snowy pinnacles of the Cor¬
dillera, and the other many fathoms beneath the surface
of the ground in Cornwall, that they would ever meet to
wrestle and ‘ hug’ upon the wide desert plain of Villa-
Vicencia. My companion said he had never had such a
battle in his life ; that he put his knee upon the bird’s
breast, and tried with all his strength to twist his neck ;
but that the condor, objecting to this, struggled violently,
and that also, as several others were flying over his head,
he expected they would attack him. He said, that at last
he succeeded in killing his antagonist, and with great pride
he showed me the large feathers from his wings; but
when the third horseman came in, he told us he had found
the condor in the path, but not quite dead.”2
The king-vulture (S. papa, Plate IV., figure 3)
is a much more gaily adorned species, the fleshy por¬
tions of its head and neck being red, orange, and purple.
rl he upper parts of the plumage are of a pale reddish-white
or clay colour, the collar at the base of the neck is bluish-
gray, the quill-teathers and tail black (the former with
paler edgings), and the under parts of the body white.
This beautiful bird is found in America, from the 30th
degree of north latitude, to about the 32d in the southern
hemisphere ; that is, it occurs in Mexico, Paraguay, Gui¬
ana, llrazil, and Peru ; but most abundantly beneath the
torrid zone. According to Azara, it makes its nest in
hollow trees, and lays two eggs. It is supposed to derive
its name from its habit of driving off the common vultures
of America, called turkey buzzards, from their prey. The
female king-vulture is of somewhat smaller size than the
male. The ruff, and all the upper parts of her plumage,
are brownish black, and her bill is destitute of caruncles.
Genus Cathartes, Illiger. Bill much more slender
than in the preceding genera ; the upper mandible inflat¬
ed above the nostrils, encroaching as it were upon the
forehead, curved at the point, the margins nearly straight;
the under mandible slender, slightly inflated, and obtuse
at the terminal portion. Cere extended. Nostrils broad,
quadrangular, longitudinal, very open. Head and neck
naked, without caruncles. Tongue fleshy, fringed. Tarsi
naked, rather feeble; claws short, curved, blunt. Tail-
feathers twelve.
1 his genus, as now restricted, is likewise confined to
America. It consists of two species, the common turkey
buzzard fso called in the United States), C. aura, Plate
IV., fig. 2, and the carrion-crow (of the same country),
C. atratus. The former is abundant both in North
and South America, and extends, in the central districts Raptores.
of the fur-countries, as far north as the 54th degree. It
is partially migratory, even in the middle states, retiring
southwards on the approach of winter. A few remain
throughout the year in Maryland, Delaware, and New
Jersey ; but none are known to breed in any of the Atlantic
States to the north of the one last named. In the interior,
however, they reach a much higher latitude during their
summer migrations, probably owing to the greater heat of
that season in the inland districts. A few make their ap¬
pearance on the banks of the Saskatchewan when the
month of June is far advanced, and after all the other
summer birds have arrived and settled in their leafy ar¬
bours. Though gregarious in more southern countries,
where they fly and feed in flocks, towards their northern
limits seldom more than a pair are seen together. They
feed on carrion, which they discover at a great distance,
it is now said, by the sense of sight alone. They some¬
times eat with such gluttonous voracity as to be unable to
rise from the ground. They have been accused of at¬
tacking pigs, beginning the assault by picking out their
eyes. But Mr Waterton, during his residence in Deme-
rara, could not ascertain that they destroyed even living
reptiles. He killed lizards and frogs and placed them in
their way, but they took no notice of them till they began
to emit a putrid effluvia. He differs from Mr Audubon
in his ideas regarding the relative superiority in these
birds of the organs of sight and smell. The one thinks
the eyes have it, the other the nose. The turkey buzzard
hatches her eggs in some swampy solitude, on a truncat¬
ed hollow tree or excavated stump or log, laying them on
the rotten wood. This species roosts at night on trees,
but more seldom than the other kind in flocks. In winter
they sometimes pass the night in numbers on the roofs of
houses in the suburbs of the southern cities, probably in¬
duced to do so by the warmth which emanates from the
chimneys. On fine clear days, even in the winter season,
they amuse themselves by soaring majestically into the
air, rising rapidly in large gyrations; and ascending be¬
yond the thinnest fleecy clouds, they almost disappear
from mortal view. In South America they will sometimes
accompany the condor in his loftiest flights, rising, all
fetid though they be, above the region of the purest Alps ;
and thus exhibiting an emblem of the mind of man, so
often sunk in Epicurus’ sty, yet for a time so raised by
god-like genius, as not seldom to perceive “ far off the
crystal battlements of heaven.”
The other species of this genus is the black vulture, or
carrion-crow of the United States, C. atratus. It is rather
less than the preceding, measuring about twenty-six inch¬
es in length, the general colour of the plumage dull black,
with a dark cream-coloured spot on the primaries. It is
more impatient of cold, and prevails chiefly about the
larger maritime cities of South Carolina, Georgia, and Flo¬
rida. They seem, from Mr Douglas’s account, to proceed
further north on the western side of the Rocky Mountains.
Although they rise at times to a considerable elevation,
their flight is less easy and graceful than that of the tur¬
key buzzard. They are much more familiar, and in
Charleston and Savannah may be seen walking the streets
as demurely as domestic fowl.. They sometimes become
individually known ; and a veteran with only one leg was
observed to visit the shambles, and claim the bounty of a
gentle butcher, for upwards of twenty years.
all been caught in this manner! and hadVeen'hung o^rThoraM^Ld^^^^^
Coach" a dol ar, who immediately left me to consider what I could do with three such enomous birds." 8 6 ^
* Hough Notes across the Pampas.
740 ORNITHOLOGY.
Raptores. Genus Neophron, Sav. Cathartes, Illig. Percnopte-
'—"‘Y—' rus, Cuv. Bill long, slender, rounded, inflated at the
curvature of the upper mandible, which is much hooked
at the extremity. Nostrils median, oval, longitudinal,
open. Cere covering two thirds of the bill. Face, cheeks,
and throat naked, also a space extending down the middle
of the neck. Tongue oblong, linear. Tail of fourteen
feathers.
These birds are inhabitants of the ancient world. They
are less powerful than the true vultures, and of smaller
size, but are still more useful in their scavengerial func¬
tions, their love of putrid flesh, and of all impurities, be¬
ing insatiable. The rachamach of Bruce, or gingi vul¬
ture of Sonnerat (Neophron percnoplerus, Sav.), affords a
characteristic example. (See Plate IV., figure 4.) It is
equal in size to a raven, the throat and cheeks na¬
ked, the feathers of the head and back of the neck long,
narrow, and pointed. The plumage of the male is white,
except the quill-feathers, which are black; that of the fe¬
male and young is brown. This species has been described
under a great variety of names. It occurs in several parts
of Europe, more especially in Spain, Italy, and the Island
of Elba. It is likewise widely distributed over Africa,
where it is known to the Hottentots by the name of hou-
goop. It was held in great respect by the ancient Egyp¬
tians, and is frequently represented on the monuments of
that mysterious people. It is said to follow caravans
through the desert, for the sake of devouring every dead
or unclean thing. We may add, that it has occurred once
or twice in England.
Genus Gypaetos, Storr. Bill strong, straight, curved
at the point, and somewhat inflated at the curvature.
Cere basal, covered by strong bristly feathers pointing
forwards. Nostrils oblique, oval, concealed by bristles.
Tongue thick, fleshy, bifid. Head feathered. A tuft of
bristly or hair-like feathers beneath the bill. Tarsi short,
thick, feathered. Tail-feathers twelve.
This genus contains only a single species, the cele¬
brated lammer-geyer, or bearded vulture of the Alps (G.
barbatus). (See Plate IV., figure 5.) It is one of the
largest, or at least the longest-winged, of all the Eu¬
ropean birds of prey, haunting the highest mountains, and
preying on lambs, goats, chamois, marmots, &c. Its
strength and prowess are probably exaggerated, for al¬
though its powers of wing are undoubtedly great, its legs
and talons are proportionally more feeble than those of
eagles and falcons. It is said not unfrequently to secure
its alpine prey by descending upon it suddenly with rush¬
ing wing, and driving it over a precipice, devouring the
shattered limbs at leisure. It builds among inaccessible
precipices, and lays two eggs. It is now one of the rarest
of the birds of Europe, though formerly not uncommon
among the mountains of Tyrol, Switzerland, and Germany.
The peasant sportsmen of the last century often killed
them, and one, Andreas Burner by name, is quoted by M.
Michahelles as having shot sixty-five with his own hand.
1 hough a bird of rare occurrence, the bearded vulture is
very extensively distributed. In Europe it haunts the
steeps of the Pyrenean Mountains, and the central Alps
from Piedmont to Dalmatia ; it is described by MM. Larey
and Savigny as occurring in Egypt, and by Bruce as an
inhabitant of Abyssinia; it has been received both from
Northern Africa and the Cape of Good Hope, by M. Tem-
minck ; in Asia it is known to cast its cloud-like shadow
over the vast steppes of the Siberian deserts; while not
many years have elapsed since Professor Jameson re¬
ceived it from the snow-capped ranges of the Himalaya Raptore?.
Mountains. v'—-v"*-
The bird described by Bruce under the title of Abou
Duck'n, or Father Long-Beard, is certainly identical with
the lammer-geyer, although we have been sometimes puz¬
zled to reconcile the comparatively feeble feet of the beau¬
tiful series submitted to our examination by Professor
Jameson, with the meat-bearing prowess of the Abyssinian
instance. On the loftiest summit of the mountain of La-
mallon, while the traveller’s servants were refreshing them¬
selves after the fatigues of a toilsome ascent, and enjoying
the pleasures of a delightful climate and a good dinner of
goat’s flesh, a lammer-geyer suddenly made his appearance
among them. A great shout, or rather cry of distress,
attracted the attention of Bruce, who, while walking to¬
wards the bird, saw it deliberately put its foot into a pan
containing a huge piece of meat prepared for boiling.
Finding the temperature, however, somewhat higher than
it was accustomed to among the pure gushing springs of
that rocky and romantic region, it suddenly withdrew, but
immediately afterwards settled upon two large pieces which
lay upon a wooden platter, and transfixing them with its
talons, carried them off. It then disappeared over the edge
of a “ steep Tarpeian rock,” down which criminals were
sometimes thrown, and whose mangled remains may be
supposed to have first induced the bird to select the spot
as a place of sojourn. The traveller, in expectation of an¬
other visit, immediately prepared his arms, and it was not
long before the gigantic creature re-appeared.
As when a vulture on Imaus bred,
Whose snowy ridge the roving Tartar bounds,
Dislodging from a region scarce of prey,
To gorge the flesh of lambs or yeanling kids
On hills where flocks are fed, flies towards the springs
Of Ganges or Hydaspes, Indian streams ;
But on his way lights on the barren plains
Of Sericana, where Chineses drive
With sails and wind their cany waggons light:—
So landed with far-stretched fanning pinions our lammer-
geyer, within ten yards of his expected savoury mess,
but also within an equal distance of Bruce’s practised
rifle, which instantly sent a ball through its ponderous
body, and the magnificent bird sunk down upon the grass,
with scarce a flutter of its outspread wings.
We may here close our brief notice of the first great
family of the raptorial order, merely remarking farther,
that the species last alluded to, though not so regarded by
any of our systematic writers, appears to us to bear a great
resemblance to the kites.
FAMILY II.—FALCONIDA:.
This extensive family corresponds to the ancient unre¬
stricted genus Fcdco, now greatly subdivided by modern
naturalists, but not yet very satisfactorily arranged.1 It
contains a vast assemblage of eagles, hawks, buzzards,
kites, &c., all characterized by a more or less curved bill,
of which the upper mandible is strongly hooked ; by ob¬
vious or open nostrils, pierced in an almost always naked
cere ; and by curved retractile pointed talons. The head
is never bare of feathers, as in most of the preceding fa¬
mily, and the eye-brows are usually bony and projecting.
The geographical distribution of the Falconidae, consi¬
dered in their generality, is universal, one or more species
being found in all known countries from Spitzbergen to
Lat^m’s^vX^m’2471Chw tt6 daJS °a Itin"aeus did not excee(1 thirty-two different kinds, amounts, in the last edition of Dr
to the rank of synonyms.7' ^ n° d°Ubt 11 n°W exceeds 300 sPecies> even although many of Latham 's names are reducible
ORNITHOLOGY.
Raptores. New Holland, and several particular kinds having a very
's—' wide range, not only longitudinally across the whole tem¬
perate and northern parts of Europe, Asia, Africa, and
America, but latitudinally through almost every clime.
Most of them are, to a certain extent, migratory in their
habits, although their movements are by no means so re¬
gularly periodical as are those of more laborious wing. In
fact, the birds of this family, surpassing all others both in
the duration and rapidity of their flight, are scarcely amen¬
able to those natural laws which, in so many instances, ap¬
pear to regulate or restrict the location of other tribes ;
and hence we find, that if a mural precipice, an insulated
crag, the mouldering wall of a ruined castle, or the tor¬
tuous branch of some ancient and umbrageous forest tree,
has been successfully sought for in spring as a secure re¬
treat for the purposes of nidification and the rearino- of
their young, the other seasons of the year are usually spent
in a life of wandering rapine. When we consider the facts
which have been recorded of the flight both of hawks and
pigeons, the migratory movements of birds in general be¬
come much less a subject of wonder (excepting always the
beautiful instinct by which they are directed), than they
would at first appear. It is well known that a falcon be-
longing to Henry II. of France, which had been carried to
Fontainebleau, made its escape, and was retaken next day
in the island of Malta, where it was recognised by the
rings on its legs. According to Colonel Montagu, it must
have flown with a velocity equal to fifty-seven miles an
hour, supposing it to have been on wing the whole time.
“ But as such birds never fly by night, and allowing the
day to have been at the longest, or containing eighteen
hours of light, this would make seventy-five miles an hour.
It is probable, however, that it neither had so many hours
of light in the twenty-four to perform the journey, nor
that it was retaken the moment of its arrival ; so that we
may fairly conclude that much less time was occupied in
performing that distant flight.” Another falcon having
been sent from the Canary Islands to the Duke of Lermos^
then in Andalusia, was found in Teneriffe sixteen hours
after it had taken its flight from Spain. In regard to this
instance the calculation is more simple, and less likely to
prove erroneous, because, supposing the bird to have fol¬
lowed anything like a direct course, its flight from the
coast of Andalusia to its native island would lie through¬
out over the waters of the ocean, and must therefore have
been continuous. Now the distance being not less than
752 miles, that space divided by sixteen, the number of
hours employed would give an average of forty-seven miles
an hour for the whole course. At this rate, if a falcon
were to leave the rock of Gibraltar on a Monday morning,
it might enjoy eight hours repose, and yet reach Edin¬
burgh Castle in the course of Tuesday forenoon. Pigeons
have been shot in the far-inland forests of America with
theii stomachs full of fresh rice, which, to have resisted
the digestive process, must have been swallowed not many
hours preceding, but could not have been obtained within
eight hundred miles of the place where they were killed.1
It thus appears probable, that the most extended migra¬
tory movement which any species is required to perform,
may in the greater number of cases be accomplished in a
couple of days,—more frequently in the course of a few
hours.
The numerous species by which this great family is con¬
stituted, though rarely adorned by those brilliant colours
which characterize so many of the gentler tribes, are per¬
haps of all the feathered race the most remarkable for
beauty of form and elegance of proportion. Their eyes
741
are usually large and lustrous; their limbs, even when Baptores.
light, very strong and muscular, and armed with formi-'
dable claws with which they pounce their prey. Their
general aspect (especially that of the true falcons), when
compared with other birds, is well expressed by the word
noble; and a single glance suffices to show that a combi¬
nation of fierceness, energy, and couragq, must form their
predominating character. Like most other animals, how¬
ever, whether human or brute, they are by no means in¬
sensible to kindness ; and their instinctive sagacity, when
directed by the skill and perseverance of man, has for ages
been rendered subservient to his amusement in the sports
of the field. But the princely art of falconry, whether
from the progress of agriculture, the consequent minuter
subdivision of land, and the increase of inconvenient bar¬
riers by the fencing of enclosed grounds,—or the tastes of
men of rank and fortune having followed in another di¬
rection, has now almost entirely fallen into disuse. The
species most generally trained for the purpose in this coun-
try appears to have been the peregrine falcon, but many
other kinds are used in eastern regions; and even pon¬
derous eagles are sometimes made subservient to the hu¬
man wall. Few things indeed more strongly illustrate the
subduing influence of reason over instinct, than that a
coarse illiterate groom, by tossing up a shapeless lure, should
thus entice a proud rejoicing falcon from his airy height,
and render him so submissively obedient as to forsake his
soaring flight, and all his bright survey of field and river,
and close contentedly his yet unwearied wings, to perch
for hours upon a brawny arm, his lustrous eye encapped in
velvet hood, and limbs “by jessies bound.”
We must be very brief in our indications of the minor
groups; and of several subgenera, as they are called, we
can do nothing more than give the names. We do not here
adopt the division of noble and ignoble birds of prey, which
we deem a distinction wdthout a difference, seeing that some
of the long-winged hawks are difficult to train, while seve¬
ral of the short-winged kinds are made with ease submis¬
sive to the human race.
'The genus Daptiuus of Vieillot (Caracara, Cuv.) is
formed by the Falco aterrimus of Temm. (P/. Col. 37 and
342). The cheeks and front of the throat are bare of fea¬
thers. The cere is haired. The adult plumage of the species
named is black, with a white band spotted with black at
the base of the tail; the bare portion of the face is flesh-
coloured, the cere and legs yellow, the bill lead-coloured.
The total length is about fifteen inches. It occurs in Gui¬
ana and Brazil. Its habits are unknown.
The genus Ibycter of the same author ( Caracara, Cuv.)
has the cere smooth, and the upper part of the neck, as
well as the cheeks, bare of feathers. The stomach is also
bare and prominent. The tarsi are short, strong, and re¬
ticulated. We believe there is only a single species of
this genus also, the lb. leucogaster of Vieillot (Gal. pi. 6),
or Falco formosus of Latham. Its bill is feeble, and but
slightly hooked, and its habits offer a corresponding non¬
conformity with the usual manners of the raptorial order.
It is of a mild and peaceable nature, living, it is said, chief¬
ly on fruits and seeds, with the addition of a few insects,
such as ants and locusts. It builds on trees, and utters
from time to time a harsh discordant cry. It inhabits
Guiana and Brazil, and, exhibiting some of the habits of
the toucans, is called by the negroes the capitaine des gros
bees.
The genus Caracara, Cuv. (Polyborus, Vieih), has
the face only partially naked. The C. Braziliensis
(Plate IV., figure 6) is extremely common in Paraguay.
bui “°1» ™ a species of con, which does „o. grow
ORNITHOLOGY.
742
Raptores. It lives in pairs, flies rapidly, and preys on birds and small
v'-~v ' quadrupeds, as well as on insects and reptiles. The fe¬
male is said to build upcn the ground when in the pampas,
and on trees when located in wooded countries. This ac¬
commodating habit is known to prevail among many other
birds.
The three preceding genera, which some regard as form¬
ing the tribe of Caracaras, are all native to the new world,
and may be said to form a link with the vultures, both in
regard to the bareness of the face, and their alleged ten¬
dency to prey on carrion.
We now proceed to the tribe of eagles, of which the
bill is very robust, comparatively straight at its basal and
middle portion, and suddenly curved at the extremity. It
includes the species most celebrated for their strength and
courage. Their strong limbs, curved talons, and broad ex¬
pansive wings, enable them to carry off well-grown lambs,
and other bulky prey. They are therefore dreaded by
shepherds and such pastoral people, as robbers of the first
rank, and a high premium is placed upon their heads ac¬
cordingly.
In the genus Aquila properly so called, the bill is
shorter than the head, straight, curved at the tip, the edge
of the upper mandible with a slight festoon; the nostrils
are oblong and oblique ; the cere haired ; the tarsi short,
and covered with feathers. The well-known golden eagle
(A. chryscetos') affords a characteristic example. This fine
British species is widely spread over Europe and America.
In our own country it builds on the ledges of mountain
precipices—on the Continent its nest is frequently found
in forests; for example, in that of Fontainebleau. It is com¬
mon in the northern and central parts of Europe, but rarer
in the south. It is, however well known in Italy. We
have seen it sailing over the deep basin of the vale of
D’Uomo d’Ossola, and high above the highest snowy peaks
which glitter around the majestic passes of the Simplon.
In America it breeds among the subalpine districts which
skirt the Rocky Mountains, being seldom seen farther east¬
ward. It is regarded by the aborigines as an emblem of
strength and courage, and the Indian warrior as well as the
highland chieftain glories in his eagle plume. These birds
sometimes soar to a vast height, but they seem to do so
rather as a kind of sporting exercise, than with a view to
search for prey. When employed in hunting, they keep
far nearer the earth, sweeping up the valleys, and skirting
the sides of heath-covered mountains. The golden eagle
is becoming rarer in Scotland every year. Many ancient
eyries are pointed out to travellers by gray-haired shep¬
herds, where the bird itself is now no longer known, and in
no lengthened period we may expect its extirpation. Se¬
veral other kinds of feather-footed eagles are known to
naturalists, such as the Aquila imperialis, a common Egyp¬
tian species, not unfrequent in the eastern countries of Eu¬
rope,—and l\\c Aquila Bonelli, a recent acquisition, native
to the mountains of Sardinia, and no doubt inhabiting other
alpine lands. Aquila fucosus is a New Holland species,
very common near Port Jackson, and remarkable for its
fine wedge-shaped tail.
In the genus HALiiETUs, or sea-eagle, the bill is nearly
as long as the head, and the tarsi are bare of feathers, ex¬
cept at the top. Their habits resemble those of the eagles
proper, but they prey more on fish, and will feed more rea¬
dily on tainted flesh. Species occur in Europe, Asia, Africa,
America, and Australia. Our own white-tailed eagle (//.
albicilla, Plate IV., figure 8) affords a good example.
“On observing a person walking near their nests,”
says Mr Macgillivray, “ they fly around him at a respect- Itaptores.
ful distance, sailing with outstretched wings, occasionally
uttering a savage scream of anger, and allowing their legs
to dangle, with outspread talons, as if to intimidate him.
I have observed them thus occupied, when on the edge of
a precipice five hundred feet high, with a very steep slope
above me, bounded by rocks, and from which I could not
have made my escape had the birds been resolute. Al¬
though on such occasions they are in general extremely
cautious, notwithstanding their manifest anxiety for the
safety of their young, yet I once saw an eagle come within
an hundred yards, when it was brought down with buck¬
shot by a friend whom I had accompanied to the place.”1
The same writer observes, that he has never heard of the
sea-eagle attacking those employed in robbing its nest; but
that he has been credibly informed of its having attempt¬
ed to molest individuals whom it chanced to find among
its native crags, in perilous places. In the Hebrides it is
itself frequently assailed by the skua-gull; and we have
ourselves more than once seen it attacked by the raven.
In our present group are many other species, such as
the beautiful Halicetus kucogaster of New Holland, and
the bald or white-headed eagle of America, H. leucocepha-
lus. The latter is often seen sailing through and around
the gigantic column of spray which rises from that “ hell
of waters,” the cataract of Niagara. Though a bird of
powerful wing, he seems to have fallen somehow into lazy
habits, or at least prefers the produce of others’ labours to
his own. “ Elevated,” says Wilson, “ on the high, dead
limb of some gigantic tree, that commands a view of the
neighbouring shore and ocean, he seems calmly to contem¬
plate the motions of the various feathered tribes that pur¬
sue their busy avocations below,—the snow-white gulls
slowly winnowing the air,—the busy tringae coursing along
the sands,—trains of ducks streaming over the surface,—
silent and watchful cranes intent and wading,—clamorous
crows,—and all the winged multitudes that subsist by the
bounty of this vast liquid magazine of nature. High over
all these hovers one whose action instantly arrests his
whole attention. By his wide curvature of wing, and sud¬
den suspension in air, he knows him to be the fish-hawk,
settling over some devoted victim of the deep. His eye
kindles at the sight, and balancing himself with half-open¬
ed wings upon the branch, he watches the result. Down
rapid as an arrow from heaven descends the object of his
attention, the roar of its wings reaching the ear as it dis¬
appears in the deep, making the surges foam around. At
this moment the eager looks of the eagle are all ardour;
and levelling his neck for flight, he sees the fish-hawk once
more emerge, struggling with his prey, and mounting in
the air with screams of exultation. These are the signals
for our hero, who, launching into the air, instantly gives
chase, and soon gains on the fish-hawk ; each exerts his
utmost to mount above the other, displaying in these ren¬
contres the most elegant and sublime aerial evolutions.
The unencumbered eagle rapidly advances, and is just on
the point of reaching his opponent, when with a sudden
scream, probably of despair and honest execration, the lat¬
ter drops his fish :—the eagle poising himself for a moment,
as if to take a more certain aim, descends like a whirlwind,
snatches it in its grasp ere it reaches the water, and bears
his ill-gotten booty silently away into the woods.”2 When
forced to hunt for themselves, they often attack young
pigs, lambs, and sickly sheep.
In the genus Pandion the bill is much shorter than the
head; the tarsi are short and naked, covered all round with
1 Rapacious Birds of Britain, p. 60.
8 American Ornithology, vol i. p. 23. We quote Professor Jameson’s systematic edition, in four small volumes (Constable’s Miscellany,
1831). The student of American Ornithology will find some valuable notes by Sir YViliiam Jardine, in another Edinburgh edition,
in three vols. large 8vo, 1832
ORNITHOLOGY.
743
liaptores. imbricated scales; the claws are large and rounded on the
under surface, the outer toe very versatile ; and the second
feather of the wing the longest. Our British osprey, or
small fishing eagle, is the Pandion halicetus. It breeds in
the vicinity of many of our northern sea-lochs, often on the
chimney-top of ruined castles by the shore. It destroys
a vast quantity of fish, which it secures by thrusting its
talons through their hacks during a sudden momentary
plunge beneath the waves. It is remarkably abundant in
North America; and Wilson observes that it permits the
purple grakles to build their nests amid the interstices of
the sticks of which it has framed its own. He adds, that
it never picks up any fish which it may chance to drop either
on land or water. We know not if this trait applies to those
of the “ old country.” We once saw an osprey drop a large
sea-trout, which it certainly did not attempt to recover;
but then there happened at the same time to be an excel¬
lent shot, with a double barrel, within a rather dangerous
distance of the same. The osprey occurs in New Holland,
and is elsewhere very widely spread.
The genus Circ^tus of Vieillot is in a manner inter¬
mediate between the fishing eagles, the ospreys, and the
buzzards. We may mention as an example the bird called
jean-le-blunc by the French (F. Gallicus, Gmelin), a com¬
mon continental species.
In Harpyia, Cuv. the bill is very strong, and com¬
pressed, the upper mandible dilated on the margins, and
much hooked. The head is crested, the tarsi thick, the
wings rather short. The harpies are large birds of prey,
which dwell chiefly in the forests of Guiana, making their
nests on trees, and committing great depredations. The larg¬
est is the H. destructor of Daudin (Plate IV., figure
7), said to be capable of cleaving a man’s skull by a
single blow of its beax. We doubt if any one ever tried.
However, it carries off young fawns, and sloths of a year
old. It is a rare bird, lately imported to the Zoological
Gardens of London, and well exemplified by the specimen
in the Edinburgh Museum.
In the genus Morphnus of Cuv. (Spizcetus, Vieillot),
the wings are shorter than the tail, the tarsi are length¬
ened (in some feathered), and the toes feeble. The spe¬
cies are extremely beautiful, and richly varied in their
markings. They are chiefly found in South America.
We have figured as an example (see Plate IV., figure
9) the Morphnus cristatus {F. Guianensis, Daud.),
which strongly resembles the great harpy just mentioned
in its general aspect, but is at once distinguished by its
smaller size and longer tarsi. We may mention as an in¬
stance of those with plumed tarsi, the Falco cristatelius
of Temm. PL Col. 282, which is a native of India and
Ceylon.
In Cymindis, Cuv. and Temm. the tip of the upper man¬
dible torms a lengthened curve, with a very acute point.
'Ihe nostrils are obliquely cleft, almost closed; the cere
narrow. The tarsi are very short, and reticulated; the
wings rather long. The species are South American, and
we know of nothing remarkable in their habits. See Cy-
mindis uncinatus, Illiger, PL Col. 103. The extremely
hook-billed species ((7. hamatus, PL Col. 61) now forms
the genus Rostrhamus. Its nostrils are rounded, the
space before the eye is bare, and the tarsi are scutellated.
Its habits are unknown.
Naturalists differ greatly in their distribution of the pre-
ceding genera. Mr Swainson thinks Circcetus is a sub¬
generic form of Gypogeranus, and he places Cymindis with
the Caracaras, and certain other groups, in his sub-family
Cymindime or kites, and locates Morphnus (Spizcetus,
Yieil.) with the buzzards.
V e now proceed to a third tribe, consisting chiefly of
the sparrow-hawks and goshawks. The bill is curved al- Raptores.
most from the base, convex, the upper mandible dilated ^
on the sides, the lower short and obtuse. The nostrils
are nearly oval; the tarsi rather long and slender ; the
claws broad and sharp. The wings have the fourth fea¬
ther the most extended, and are shorter than the tail. The
species are numerous, and occur in all parts of the globe.
The larger, which are also proportionally the more robust,
with thicker tarsi and shorter wings, have by many Orni¬
thologists been considered as constituting a separate ge¬
nus, to which the name of Astur is applied. That rare
British bird the goshawk (Astur pulumbarius) may be
named as a good example, while the smaller and more
slender kinds included in the genus Nisus are represent¬
ed by our sparrow-hawk (iV. communis, the Falco nisus of
Linn.). The transition from one to the other is however
very gradual, and some deem their separation unwarrant¬
able. Even the two British species, though usually re¬
garded as the types of their respective sections, do not dif¬
fer so much as to render the propriety of their separation
very apparent, even were no other species known. They
are all extremely active, as daring as the true falcons, and
prey exclusively on living objects, which they seize with
admirable dexterity. Their flight is generally low, and as
they pass over the fields or woods, they dart upon their
prey, whether it be in the air, among branches, or couch¬
ed upon the ground.1 The goshawk, though a short¬
winged species, was formerly held in great estimation for
the purposes of falconry. It is one of the most generally
diffused of all the accipitrine birds, but is now very rare
in Britain. A beautiful white species (Astur albus) is
found in New Holland. Of the sparrow-hawks we shall
allude merely to the Nisus musicus of Africa, commonly
called the chanting falcon. It is the only raptorial bird
in any way gifted with the powers of song ; but we must
not suppose that its notes at all resemble the harmonious
tones of the nightingale, or those of even our less accom¬
plished songsters. Its voice is merely a little clearer than
usual, although it seems impressed with a high idea of its
own powers, and will sit for half a day perched upon the
summit of a tall tree, uttering its incessant cry.
A fourth tribe contains the kites, which are likewise sub¬
divided into several minor groups, all agreeing in their
comparatively feeble bills and feet, their short tarsi, and
long extended wings. The tail is forked. They are gifted
with great powers of flight, but are neither strong nor
courageous, seldom pounce on heavy game, sometimes
contrive to prey on fish, and have never the slightest ob¬
jection to chickens.
In the genus Milvus of Cuv. is included our common
kite (M. regalis, Vieil.; Falco milvus, Linn.). The tarsi
are scutellated in front, and tolerably strong. This beau¬
tiful bird is rare in many districts of Scotland, and is
scarcely ever seen in the Lothians. We have received it
from Argyllshire, but do not think it occurs in the West¬
ern Isles. We have often, in the North of England, ad¬
mired its wheeling flight, circling through the air with no
perceptible motion of its long expanded wings, and sailing
over that enchanting land of lakes and mountains, with
such majestic sweeps as if it were itself “ sole king of
rocky Cumberland.” The kite is distributed over all Eu¬
rope, but is unknown in America. Other species of the
genus occur in Asia, Africa, and New Holland.
In the genus Elanls of Savigny the tarsi are very
short, reticulated, and half clothed with feathers. The
wings are long, the tail but slightly forked. It contains
F. dispar and melunapterus, two species which some re¬
gard as one and the same. They feed on small birds, in¬
sects, and reptiles, and occasionally devour dead animals.
1 Rapacious Birds, p. 231.
744
ORNITHOLOGY.
Ttantores. If identical, the species must exist in America, Africa
v'—""V”"*"'' (occasionally in Europe), and the East Indies. I he swal¬
low-tailed kite {M. furcatus) forms the genus Nau-
CLERUS of Vigors. (See Plate V., figure 1.) The form is
slender, the tail very long and greatly forked. I he spe¬
cies just named is white, with back, wings, and tail black,
glossed with green and purple. It inhabits America, at
least as far south as Buenos Ayres, and also passes the
summer and breeds in the warmer parts of the United
States. Tempted by the abundance of the fruitful valley
of the Mississippi, a few are seen to wander as far as the
Falls of St Antony, in the forty-fourth degree. Audubon
states, that in calm warm weather they soar to an immense
height, pursuing the large insects (probably libellula?)
called musquito hawks, using their tails with an elegance
peculiar to themselves, and performing the most singular
evolutions. The Mississippi kite (F. plumbeus, Latham)
constitutes the genus Ictinia of the modern systems.
It is of a blackish ash colour, the head and under parts of
a much paler ashy hue. Wilson frequently observed this
hawk in the course of his perambulations, sailing about in
easy circles, at a considerable height in the air, and gene¬
rally in company with Turkey buzzards, with whose mode
of flight its own exactly corresponds. It is not easy to say
why two birds, whose food and manners are in other re¬
spects so different, should so frequently associate in their
airy gambols. Though the Mississippi kite feeds chiefly
on reptiles and insects, it is a bold and energetic bird.
The specimen obtained by Wilson, though wounded, and
precipitated from a stunning height, exhibited great
strength, and a most unconquerable spirit. He no sooner
approached to pick it up, than the bird immediately gave
battle, striking rapidly with its claws, wheeling round and
round as it lay, “ partly on his rump,” and defending itself
with vigilance and dexterity. Notwithstanding all the
aggressor’s caution, it struck its hind claw into his hand,
with such force as to penetrate into the bone. “ Anxious
to preserve his life, I endeavoured gently to disengage it;
but this made him only contract it the more powerfully,
causing such pain that I had no other alternative but that
of cutting the sinew of his heel with my penknife.” The
whole time he lived with Wilson he seemed to watch his
every movement, erecting the feathers of his head, eyeing
him with fierceness, and no doubt regarding him (and with
some show of justice) as the greater savage of the two.
In a fifth tribe we may place the honey-hawks, buzzards,
and harriers, small groups connected, in a variety of ways,
bv the usual interlacements, with several of the preceding
tribes. The buzzards, for example, both in form and
plumage, resemble small eagles, though their bills are more
curved from the base ;x the harriers in some measure con¬
nect the buzzards with the accipitrine hawks (gen. Nisus
and Astur); while the honey-hawks {Pernis) unite the
buzzards to the kites. The natural affinities of groups are
in truth so multiplied and complex, that we need scarcely
wonder that even those who have most devoted them¬
selves to explore such Cretan labyrinths, should have often
failed in their supposed elucidation:—so much the worse for
those who have never found the thread.
In the genus Pernis, Cuv. the lore, or space between
the bill and eye, is closely covered by small, compact,
rounded feathers, the nostrils are narrow, and the tarsi
short, stout, and reticulated. The British bee-hawk {P.
apivorus), or honey-buzzard as it is usually called, though
it cares less for the honey than for those that make it, is
of this genus. We have no other indigenous, or indeed
European species; but a beautiful crested kind (P. Raptores.
cristata, Cuv., Plate V., figure 2) occurs in Java
and the East Indies. P. Elliott is also native to the latter
country.
In the genus Buteo, Bechstein, the cutting margin of
the upper mandible is more flexuous or tooth-like, the gape
wider, and the space between the eye and the cere is co¬
vered by the same setaceous plumage which usually pre¬
vails in that part, the nostrils are rounded, and the tarsi
scutellated in front. The buzzards are a numerous genus,
distributed over most parts of the world. We have only
two British species, the common buzzard (Buteo vulgaris),
and the rough-legged kind (B. lagopus). The latter is a
rare or rather accidental visitor, its proper districts being
the northern parts of Europe and America. We think
buzzards are most abundant in wooded countries. They
fly more sluggishly than hawks, and generally rather low,
but at times they ascend to a great height, sweeping round
in easy circles, and uttering a frequent shrilly cry.
In the genus Circus the bill is slender and compressed,
the cere large, the cheeks encircled by a kind of recurved
ruff, and the tarsi long, slender, and scutellated before
and behind. We have three British species, the moor
harrier (C. aeruginosas), the common ringtail or hen-har¬
rier (C.cyaneus, male,—C. pygargus, female), and Monta¬
gu’s harrier ((7. cineraceus). All these birds roost and
breed upon the ground, fly low, and frequent mountainous
or marshy places. They prey upon whatever small-sized
creatures they can master, whether beast, bird, reptile, or
insect. The hen-harrier is supposed to occur in almost all
parts of the world, but the identity of the American and
European specimens has not been definitely determined.
We have figured a foreign species as an example in
Plate V., figure 5. It is the Circus palustris of Tem-
minck ( C. superciliosus of some other authors), and a na¬
tive of Brazil.
We now arrive at the falcons properly so called, or
those which have been sometimes distinguished by the
appellation of noble birds of prey, probably on account of
certain members of the group, such as the peregrine and
jer-falcon, being held in high esteem as accessaries in the
sports of the field. We cannot say that we have been led
to our present arrangement by an impression that it is
more natural than any other, for we have already left the
point which would have conducted us more insensibly in¬
to the ensuing nocturnal group of owls ; but we do not
think it is liable to more grave objections than are many
others. Indeed the circular or recurrent nature of the
actual affinities of natural groups renders their true expo¬
sition, so far as any consecutive system is concerned, im¬
possible ; for, instead of advancing, we must necessarily
terminate where we began, and therefore either retrace a
portion of our circle, or break or bend it, before we can
proceed to another. Without, therefore, desiring the
reader to suppose that the harriers in any special way
conduct him to the falcons, we shall give a brief notice of
the latter.
The falcons are chiefly distinguished by the strong,
tooth-like notching ot the bill, which in the preceding
groups is either entirely absent, or shows itself only in the
form of a more or less distinct festoon.* The first quill-
feather is always long, the second longer than the third
and fourth, so that the wing acquires a sharp or pointed
form, instead of the rounded outline of the so-called ig¬
noble tribes ; and the points of the wings, when closed,
usually attain to the end of the tail.
1 Mr Macgillivray mentions, that the digestive organs of the common buzzard so greatly resemble those of the golden eagle, a
a figure of the one might serve for that of the other. _ . , . , .
1 It is, we believe, in vain that naturalists attempt exceptionless precision in their generalities ; for, in this very group, t ic jer-
falcon, in one sense the noblest of all, frequently wants the tooth, and exhibits a bill festooned like the eaale’s.
ORNITHOLOGY.
745
Raptores. In the restricted genus Falco, then, the bill is short, may, it has a strong, well-curved bill, a crested h^d n Rant
    but strong, conical, curved from the base, sharply hooked lengthened neck, and long, slender, crane-like lees It i P
at the extremity, and almost always toothed as well as the only one of its genus, and has been designated bv l
pointed; the nostrils are rounded, the cere bare, or mere- varietv of namps. Snmp p«ll P     i  ..
pointed ; the nostrils are rounded, the cere bare, or mere¬
ly encroached upon by the bristly feathers of the lore.
The tarsi are rather short and strong, and covered with
scales of somewhat variable form, but usually rounded or
angular. The wings are long and pointed. We have four
variety of names. Some call it the messenger, because it
runs with great rapidity, which few actual messengers ever
do; others name it the secretary, because it has a pen¬
like plume behind its ear, where a secretary’s pen should
never be ; while its frequent title of serpent-eater is pro-
111 u v- 1° • ?i riicvci uc , wiuie us irequent title or serpent-eater is pro¬
well-known British spec.es the peregrine falcon (^ere- bably better earned, by its useful habit if devouring those
yrinus), the hobby (F. subbuteo), the merlin (F. czsalon), dangerous reptiles. Its diet, however, seems to be of a
and the kestr.l (F. tinnunculus). Besides these we rather miscellaneous nature, as Le Vaillant found in the
may name the jer-falcon (F. islandicus, Plate V., figure stomach of a single specimen twenty-one young tortoises
4) as an occasional, and the orange-legged hobby (F. three snakes, and eleven lizards, besides which there was
vespertmus) as an accidental visitor. The jer-falcon, a large ball in the stomach, formed entirely of the scales of
in spite of its alleged want of teeth, is one of the bold- tortoises, the vertebrae of snakes and lizards, the legs of lo-
est and most powerful of the class. This fine species costs, and the wing-cases of coleopterous insects. ‘‘ In his
seems now confined almost entirely to the most northern habits,” saysMr Bennet, “he partly resembles both the eagle
parts of Europe and America. It is well known in Ice- and the vulture, but difters from them most completely in tlie
land and Greenland, and was often seen by Dr Richard- nature of his prev, and in his mode of attacking it L ke
son during h.s journeys over the “ barren grounds” of the former, he always prefers live flesh to carrbn; buUhe
North America, where it preys habitually on ptarmigan, food to which he is most particularly attached consists of
not, however, despising plovers, ducks, and geese. “ In snakes and other reptiles, for the destruction of which he
the middle of June, he observes, “ a pair of these birds is admirably fitted by his organization. The length of his
attacked me as I was climbing in the vicinity of their legs not only enables him to pursue these creatures over
nest, which was built on a lofty precipice on the borders the sandy deserts which he inhabits, with a speed propor-
ot Point Lake, in latitude 651°. piiey flew in circles, tinned to their own, but also places his more vulnerable
uttering loud and harsh screams, and alternately stooping parts in some measure above the risk of their venomous
with such velocity that their motion through the air pro- bite ; and the imperfect character of his talons, when com-
duced a loud rushing noise; they struck their claws with- pared with those of other rapacious birds, is in complete
in an inch or two of my head. I endeavoured, by keep- accordance with the fact, that his feet are destined rather
iiig the barrel of my gun c ose to my cheek, and sud- to inflict powerful blows than to seize and carry off his
denly elevating its muzzle when they were in the act of prey. When he falls upon a serpent, he first attacks it
sti iking, to ascertain whether they had the power of in- with the bony prominences of his wings, with one of which
stantaneously changing the direction of their rapid course, he belabours it, while he guards his body by the expan-
and found that they invariably rose above the obstacle sion of the other. He then seizes it by the tail and
with the quickness of thought, showing equal acuteness of mounts with it to a considerable height in the air from
vision and power of motion. Although their flight was which he drops it to the earth, and repeats this process
much more rapid, they bore considerable resemblance to until the reptile is either killed or wearied out; when he
he snowy owl Upon the whole, we think that Great breaks open its skull by means of his beak, and tears it in
Britain and Ireland are just as well quit of such a fierce pieces with the assistance of his claws, or, if not too large
intruder Ihe Doctor adds, that when the jer-falcon swallows it entire. Like the eagles, these birds live in
pounces down upon a flock of ptarmigan, the latter en- pairs, and not in flocks; they build their aiery, if soil may
deavour to save themselves by diving instantly into the be termed, on the loftiest trees, or, where these are want-
loose snow, and making their way beneath it to a consi- ing, in the most bushy and tufted thickets. They run
derable distance. .... . . r , wilh extreme swiftness, trusting, when pursued, rather to
A few species, in which the toothing of the upper man- their legs than to their wings; and as they are generally
dible is double, form the genus Bidens of Spix, syno- met with in the open country, it is with difficulty that
nymous we presume, with Harpagus of Vigors. Such are they can be approached sufficiently near for the sportsman
bidentatus, Lath., F diodon, lemm. PI. Col. 198. In to obtain a shot at them. They are natives of the south
Ierax of Vigors, the upper mandible seems as strongly of Africa, and appear to be tolerably numerous in the
and sharply bidentated as in the preceding, but the under neighbourhood of the Cape, where, it is said, they have
one is simply notched, as in the true falcons, and the been tamed to such a degree as to render them useful in-
second quill-feather of the wing is the longest. This ge¬
rms includes the beautiful little finch-falcon pf Bengal, F.
ccerulescens, the smallest of the hawk tribe. An elegant
crested kind from Pondicherry serves as a type to the ge¬
nus Lophotes.
We snail conclude this section by a brief indication of who disturb it by their brawls.”1 2
that remarkable bird, the secretary, or serpent-eater of
Southern Africa—the Gypogeranus serpentarius of Ti-
liger. (See Plate V., figure 9.) Its affinities have been
in no way satisfactorily illustrated, and each author has hi¬
therto placed it according to his own fancy. Baron Cuvier
mates of the poultry-yard, in which they not only destroy
the snakes and rats which are too apt to intrude upon
those precincts, but even contribute to the maintenance of
peace among its more authentic inhabitants, by interpos¬
ing in their quarrels, and separating the furious combatants
SECT. II.—NOCTURNAL BIRDS OF PREY.
The great raptorial division called owls are usually dis-
brTthe
Uh flUf ga llnaceous accipiter, in strange company circle of feathers forming a facial collar, to^hich they
'Tm hc°rned SCreamer (Pal^m^a cnstata) of Brazil ; owe the most marked and peculiar feature of their nhvsi-
wlule Mr Swainson is now satisfied that it^is no other than ognomy. The bill is curved almost from the base where
the rasonal type of the aquiline circle. Be this as it it is greatly enveloped by setaceous feathers, which fre-
1 Fauna Boicali.Americana, part ii. p. 28.
VOL. XVI.
* Tower Menagerie, p. 211.
5 a
746 ORNITHOLOGY.
Raptores. quently cover or conceal the cere and nostrils. The eyes
  v-*" are large, and so placed that vision is directed rather for¬
wards than laterally, and are furnished with a nictitating
membrane. The tarsi, and even the toes, are closely
covered by short downy or hairy feathers. The outer toe
is versatile ; the claws extremely sharp. The plumage is
remarkable for its great softness. The concha of the ear
is for the most part very large ; and from this we may in¬
fer that the sense of hearing is acute.
The greater proportion ot the species hunt by night, or
during the sweet but sombre hours of twilight. Their
flight is light, buoyant, noiseless, and performed by slow
but regular flapping of the wings. Their food, like that
of most birds of prey, is various; but we believe they pre¬
fer mice and similar small quadrupeds, probably because
the habits of these minute creatures are, like their own,
nocturnal. Owls are solitary, seldom more than a pair
being found together, although the woodcock owl (Utus
brachyotus) is found during autumn in small conjoined fa¬
mily flocks of ten or twelve together; and the Arkansa
owl of America is likewise in a manner gregarious. “ There
is something,” says Wilson, “ in the character of the owl
so recluse, solitary, and mysterious, something so discord¬
ant in the tones of its voice, heard only amid the silence
and the gloom of night, and in the most lonely and seques¬
tered situations, as to have strongly impressed the minds
of mankind in general with sensations of awe and abhor¬
rence of the whole tribe. The poets have indulged free¬
ly in this general prejudice ; and in their descriptions and
delineations of midnight storms, and gloomy scenes of na¬
ture, the owl is generally introduced to heighten the hor¬
ror of the picture.”
The systematic arrangement of these nocturnal birds of
prey is as yet unsatisfactory. The following is a brief
view of Baron Cuvier’s system.
The genus Otus has two well-marked aigrettes, or
tufts of feathers, on the front of the head, capable of
being depressed or raised at pleasure, and the conch of
the ear extends semicircularly from the beak almost to
the top of the head, and is furnished in front with a mem¬
branous opercle. Two British species maybe here placed,
the long-eared or horned owl commonly so called (Strix
otus), and the short-eared owl (Strix brachyotus). The
genus Ulula consists of species resembling the preceding
in the bill and auditory opening, but not possessed of ai¬
grettes. Such is the great northern species (& Laponi-
ca, Gm.). The genus Strix properly so called has also
large ear-openings, and wants the aigrettes, but is distin¬
guished by the bill being comparatively straight at the
base, and curved towards the extremity. The facial disk
is strongly marked, the tarsi are feathered, and the toes
are haired. Example, Strix flammea, our barn or white
owl. In the genus Syrnium, the facial disk is formed of
decomposed or unwoven feathers, the collar is also large,
and the aigrettes wanting, but the toes are feathered.
(See Plate V., figure 6.) The brown or wood owl of
Britain (/S', aluco and stridula, Linn.) is placed here
The genus Bubo has the facial disk less marked, the ai¬
grettes conspicuous, and the toes feathered. The great
eagle owl of Europe (i?. maximus, S. bubo, Linn.) affords
a good example. It inhabits the larger forests of Russia,
Hungary, Germany, and Switzerland, becoming very rare
in France, disappearing altogether in Holland, and visit¬
ing Great Britain as it were by chance. Here also may
be placed the great horned owl of America, S. Virgi-
niana (Plate V., figure 8), which occurs in almost
every quarter of the United States, and spreads into
the far fur-countries of the north, wherever there is tim¬
ber of sufficient size to serve the purposes of nidification.
His favourite residence, however, according to Wilson, is Raptores
the dark solitudes of deep swamps, covered by a growth
of gigantic timber, from whence, so soon as evening dark-,
ens, and the human race retire to rest, he sends forth his
unearthly bootings, startling the way-worn traveller by his
forest fire, and “ making night hideous.” “ Along the moun¬
tainous shores of the Ohio, and amidst the deep forests of
Indiana, alone, and reposing in the woods, this ghostly
watchman has frequently warn'ed me of the approach of
morning, and aroused me by his singular exclamations,
sometimes sweeping down and around my fire, uttering a
loud and sudden waugh o ! waugh o ! sufficient to have
alarmed a whole garrison. He has other nocturnal solos,
no less melodious, one of which very strikingly resembles
the half-suppressed screams of a person suffocating or
throttled, and cannot fail of being exceedingly entertain¬
ing to a lonely benighted traveller in the midst of an In¬
dian wilderness.”1 The genus Noctua consists of species
in which the tufts or aigrettes are wanting, the concha of
the ear small, with an ordinary-sized opening. The facial
disk is likewise small and incomplete. This gives the
countenance a more hawk-like physiognomy; and in ac¬
cordance with this expression, we find the habits of the spe¬
cies naturally more diurnal than those of many other owls.
We here place the northern Harfang, or great snowy owl
(Strix nyctea, Linn.), one of the most beautiful of the
group, an occasional visitant of Great Britain, and not
very unfrequent in the Orkney and Shetland Islands. It
is a common inhabitant of the arctic regions of both the
old and new world, from which it migrates on the ap¬
proach of winter, but without passing to the southward of
the colder portions of the temperate zone. It frequently
hunts by day; and indeed if it did not so, what would be¬
come of it in those far northern countries where a “ sleep¬
less summer of long light” knows not for months the re¬
freshing influence of nocturnal darkness ? It preys not only
on quadrupeds and birds, but frequently strikes its talons
into fish, and bears them astonished from their moist abode
into the leafy recesses of the forest. There are few things
more out of place than a trout on the top a large tree. Its
own flesh is said to be white and well flavoured ; and when
in good condition, is eaten both by the native Indians and the
white residents in the fur-countries. Several of the small¬
er owls are included in the present genus, such as Strix
passerina, Linn. In the genus Scops (Plate V., figure
7) the toes are naked, and the head furnished with
tufts; and in certain peculiar foreign species of consider¬
able size, the tarsi (a very unusual character) are bare
and reticulated. These have been formed of late into a
genus called Ketupa. Example, Strix Ketupa, Horsfield,
Temm. PL Col. 74.
One of the most curious of owls, in its habits, is the
burrowing species of the new world—Strix cunicularia of
Bonaparte. Its particular genus has not yet been deter¬
mined. These birds inhabit the burrows of the marmot,
and consequently dwell in open plains. They seem to enjoy
even the broadest glare of the noon-day sun, and may be seen
flying rapidly along in search of food or pleasure during
the prevalence of the cheerful light of day. They mani¬
fest but little timidity, allow themselves to be approached
sufficiently close for shooting, and though some or all may
soar away, they settle down again at no great distance. If
further disturbed, they either take a more lengthened
flight, or descend into their subterranean dwellings, from
whence they are dislodged with difficulty. When the
young are only covered with down, they frequently ascend
the entrance to enjoy the warmth of the mid-day sun ; but
as soon as they are approached, they quickly retire within
their burrow’. In North America the burrowing owl feeds
1 American Ornithology, i. p. 101.
ORNITHOLOGY.
747
Insessores. chiefly on insects—in the West Indies (if the species are
'■“‘"V—-'identical), on rats and reptiles.
Order II.—INSESSORES or PERCHING BIRDS.1
This is the most numerous order of the class of birds,
and, as Cuvier has observed, is distinguished chiefly by ne¬
gative characters; for it embraces all those various groups
which, sometimes possessing but little in common, are yet
in themselves neither raptorial, scansorial, grallatorial, na¬
tatorial, nor gallinaceous. At the same time they exhibit
a general resemblance to each other in structure, and pre¬
sent such gradual transitions from group to group, as to
render definite subdivisions by no means easy.
They are said to possess not the violence of birds of
prey,—meaning thereby our preceding accipitorial order.
Yet a fly-catcher crushing the body of a slender-limbed and
delicate gnat, a blackbird pertinaciously dragging a reluc¬
tant worm from its subterranean dwelling, or a sparrow
with his bill as full of tortuous caterpillars as it can con¬
tain (to say nothing of the butcher-bird, which is said to
impale his prey alive upon “ the blooming spray”), is as¬
suredly as raptorial or predaceous as need be well desired.
Neither can the division of the smaller birds into granivo-
rous and insectivorous be strictly maintained, though we
doubt not that the strong, conical billed species eat most
greedily of seeds and grain, while those of softer and more
slender bill are chiefly avidous of insect life;—but all pre¬
cise divisions, founded on the 1 )ve of any special diet, must
be received with reservation,—seeing that almost all passe¬
rine birds feed both themselves and young in spring and
early summer with what may be correctly called animal
food (that is, insects and worms), while in autumn and
throughout the winter season they just as generally (and
for the best of reasons) have recourse to all manner of
seeds and grain. The tender-billed birds are certainly
more dependent on insect food than the others, and it is
consequently among them that we find the greater propor¬
tion of our migratory species; for as the increasing dull¬
ness of autumn depopulates the busy world of insect life,
so our finest songsters (the familiar red-breast forming a
delightful exception) take then their departure for other
climes, not so much by reason of the immediate influence
of cold upon themselves, as because they find their accus¬
tomed food becoming daily less abundant. Such of the
insectivorous tribes as remain with us throughout the year
assuredly combine the graminivorous diet with their more
favourite food, just as the hard-billed species sustain them¬
selves during spring and summer by the capture of insects.
In tropical countries, where the seasons are less strongly
or differently marked, and the death-like torpidity of our
northern winters is unknown, this periodical change of food
may probably either not obtain, or be less perceptible in
its occurrence; but as we know that over a great part of
the globe it is true, that for one portion of the year most
insect-eating birds feed on seeds, and that for another por¬
tion of the year most seed-eating birds feed on insects, we
may be permitted to doubt the propriety of rigorously di¬
viding the great body of passerine species into insectivo¬
rous and granivorous sections. We admit that, either
from the nature of things, or the feebleness of human lan¬
guage, the terms applied to the greater divisions of natural
history ought not to be construed according to their strict¬
est literal interpretation, as they are frequently of a con¬
ventional character, and have in some cases been substi¬
tuted for numerical signs, as more easily held in remem¬
brance ; but it is nevertheless to be greatly desired, that
those who are influential in the nomenclature of science Insessores.
should avoid bestowing appellations which convey an erro-'^~y^-'
neons idea of the objects intended to be expressed.
The feet of the insessorial order are especially formed
for perching, the hind toe springing from the same plane
as the anterior ones,—a structure which gives them great
power in grasping. Their legs or tarsi are always of mo¬
derate length, and the claws not strongly curved. The
form of the bill is too various to be generalized; and the
same may be said of the length of the wings, of which the
comparative breadth generally bears relation to the habit
of life of each particular tribe. The stomach is in the
form of a muscular gizzard, generally preceded by a greater
or less expansion in the shape of crop, and there are usu¬
ally two very small cmca. The lower larynx is very com¬
plicated, especially among the various tribes of songsters.
We must now rest satisfied with these brief and barren
generalities. “ The great order of Passeres or Insessores of
authors,” Mr Macgillivray observes, “ is so heterogeneous
in its composition, that all who have attempted to charac¬
terize it, whether in few or in many words, have utterly fail¬
ed; for this plain reason, that its various groups are as un¬
like to each other as they are to the Raptores or Rasores,
and that in fact the only common features which they ex¬
hibit are those of the general organization of birds. A
hornbill and a humming-bird, a parrot and a wren, a king¬
fisher and a swallow, a starling and a toucan, not to men¬
tion others still more dissimilar, are surely as unlike each
other as a hawk and a shrike, a pigeon and a plover, or a
flamingo and a pelican.”2
The first principal division of the passerine birds con¬
sists of those genera in which the external toe is united
to the internal by not more than one or two of the joints,
and contains the four great tribes of Dentirostres, Fissiros-
tres, Conirostres, and Tenuirostres.
Tribe 1st.—Dentirostres.
Bill with a marginal notch towards the extremity of the
upper mandible.
The dentirostral tribe is composed chiefly of insectivo¬
rous groups, and, according to the modern views, contains
the following five families, viz. Laniadce, Merulidce, Syl-
viadee, Ampelidce, and Muscicapidce. We do not think the
general reader, with whose tastes the treatises in our En¬
cyclopaedia are for the most part made to conform, would
be benefited by our entering into the complexities of these
circular arrangements, or by an extended exposition of the
innumerable minor groups of which the families are com¬
posed. We shall therefore here content ourselves by no¬
ticing the principal generic groups which form as it were
the groundwork on which the more elaborate systems have
been erected, and with which it is necessary to become
familiar in their more general and comprehensive form,
before their minuter subdivisions (to be elsewhere studied)
can be understood. The genera are chiefly determined
by the form of the bill, which is strong and compressed
among the shrikes and thrushes, depressed in the fly¬
catchers, rounded and thickish in the tanagers, slender and
pointed in the warblers,—but in each and all exhibiting
different degrees of the typical character, or a tendency to
transition, which admits of various systematic views.
Mr Swainson divides the Laniadae or shrikes into five
sub-families, viz. Laniance, or true shrikes ; Thamnophili-
nce, or bush-shrikes ; Dicrurince, or drongo shrikes; Ceble-
pyrincE, or caterpillar catchers ; and Tyrannince, or tyrant
shrikes; and each of these contains a great variety of ge-
Pic.« and Passeres, Linn.
* British Birds, vol. i. p. 311.
748
ORNITHOLOGY.
Insessores. nera and subgenera. We shall here follow the outlines
of Baron Cuvier’s system, which we shall illustrate by oc¬
casional figures.1
In the genus Lanius, the bill is of moderate size, but
strong, somewhat triangular at the base, and laterally com¬
pressed. In the European species (which we call butcher¬
birds) the upper mandible is somewhat arched. Ihree of
these (Lan. excubitor, colurio, and rufus') are natives ot
England, but the first and last are very rare. The food
of butcher-birds consists chiefly of insects, but they at¬
tack occasionally the smaller kinds ot birds and quadru¬
peds. Their mode of flight is irregular, the tail being
kept in constant agitation. Ihe sexes differ from each
other in their plumage, and the immature birds bear a
resemblance to the adult females. In most of the species
the moult is single, in others double, that is, certain parts
of the plumage are changed twice a year. Our great ci¬
nereous shrike (L. excubitor) destroys its larger prey by
strangulation, and transfixing it after death upon a thorn,
tears it into smaller parts at leisure. This wise but some¬
what savage instinct seems implanted in the bird to make
amends for the comparative weakness of its feet and
claws. “ This singular process,” says Mr Selby, “ is
used with all its food. I had the gratification of witness¬
ing this operation of the shrike upon a hedge accentor
(.-f. modularis) which it had just killed; and the skin ot
which, still attached to the thorn, is now in my possession.
In this instance, after killing the bird, it hovered with
the prey in its bill for a short time over the hedge, ap¬
parently occupied in selecting a thorn fit for its purpose.
Upon disturbing it, and advancing to the spot, I found
the accentor firmly fixed by the tendons of the wing at
the selected twig. I have met with the remains of a
mouse in the stomach of a shrike ; and Montagu mentions
one in which he found a shrew.”2
We have figured, in illustration of the genus Lanius,
the species called Jiscal {L. collaris) by Vaillant. (See
Plate VI., figure L) When this bird sees a locust, man¬
tis, or small bird, it springs upon it, and immediately im¬
pales it on a thorn, with such dexterity, that the spine
always passes through the head. It is a bold, vindictive,
noisy, and even cruel bird, for it seems to kill many more
victims than it actually requires for food. These are found
transfixed on many a neighbouring bush and tree, the
major part often so destroyed by dryness as to be totally
unfit for food.
Some foreign species, in which the upper ridge of the
bill is straight, and the point only curved, form the genus
Thamnophilus of Vieillot. The Thamnophili inhabit
chiefly the tropical regions of the new world, but some
of the species have an extensive range, from Canada as
far southwards as Paraguay. In Tham. guttatus of Spix
the bill is very strong, and the inferior mandible inflated.
In others it is straight and slender, with its base adorned
with reversed setaceous feathers. Such is L. plumatus,
an African species, which forms the genus Prionops of
Vieillot.
In the genus Vanga (Plate VI., figure 3) the bill
is large, greatly compressed throughout, the point of
the upper mandible suddenly curved, the under mandible
bent upwards. Example, Lan. curvirostris, Gmelin. In
Ocypterus, Cuv. the bill is conical, rounded, scarcely
arched towards the point, the termination very sharp and
fine, slightly notched. The legs are rather short, and
the wings long, from which characters the species have
obtained the name of swallow butcher-birds ; but they are
as courageous as other shrikes, and do not fear to attack Insessores.
even crows. The species are numerous along the shores's—
and islands of the Indian Seas, where they exhibit great
agility in the capture of their insect prey. Ex. Lan. leu-
corhynchos, Gm. In Baryta of Cuv. the bill is large,
conical, straight, round at the base, and encroaching on
the forehead by a circular notch; the ridge is rounded,
the sides compressed, the point curved. The nostrils are
small and linear. The species of this genus, as well as
those of Vanga, are by some combined with the crows,
as part of the conirostral tribe. We may name, as an ex¬
ample, the piping grakle of the older writers (Coracias ti-
bicen, Lath.), a native of New Holland, where it is known
by the name of Jarra-war-nang. It preys on small birds,
and is said to have a melodious voice, resembling the tones
of a flute. The genus Chalyb^eus, Cuv. has the bill re¬
sembling the preceding, but rather thicker at the base,
and the nostrils are pierced in a broad membranous space.
(See Plate VI., figure 6.) The species are natives of
New Guinea, and are remarkable for their beautiful tints
of burnished steel. C. paradisceus has the feathers on
the head and neck like frizzled velvet, and was first de¬
scribed by Sonnerat as a bird of paradise,—Par. viridis,
Gmelin. In Psaris of Cuvier the bill is conical, thick,
round at the base, but not encroaching on the front,
slightly compressed, and curved at the extremity. The
genus is founded on the Cayenne shrike of Latham, La¬
nius Cayanus, Linn.3 It now contains many species, all
classed by Mr Swainson among the Muscicapidae or fly¬
catchers. Their habits are said to resemble those of the
butcher-birds. The genus Grauculus, Cuv. has the bill
less compressed than in Lanius, the upper ridge sharp, equal¬
ly curved throughout its whole extent, the commissure or
cutting edges also slightly bent. The hairs which sometimes
cover the nostrils ally these species to the crows, from
which they are distinguished by the notching of the bill.
Their prevailing hues are ash-colour, and they are native
to the Indian islands. Cuvier here places the beautiful
Irena puella of Dr Horsfield, a Javanese species, of a
fine velvet black, the back splendid ultramarine blue.
It is ranged by others with the Orioles. To the same ge¬
nus he likewise refers the Papuan and New Guinea crow
(6’. papuensis and Novce Guinea), and the Piroll of Tem-
minck, of which the male and female differ so remarkably,
the former being of a glossy blue, the latter greenish.
This last species forms the genus Ptilonorhynchus of
Kuhl,—Kitta of M. Lesson. It is the satin-bird of the co¬
lonists of Port Jackson, a solitary, fearful creature, which
seldom leaves the cover of the umbrageous woods. The
Australian natives call it cowry.
In Bethylus, Cuv., the bill is thick, short, bulged,
slightly compressed towards the end. Its type is the mag¬
pie-shrike of Latham, L. picatus, an inhabitant of Guiana
and Brazil. (Plate VL, figure 2.) In Falcunculus the
bill is much compressed, almost as high as long, the oil¬
men arched. It contains the Lanius frontatus of New
Holland. The genus Pardalotus (which M. Lesson
places with the tit-mice, and Mr Swainson with the mana-
kins) is likewise constituted by a New Holland species,
the Pipra punctata of Shaw. The bill is short, obtuse,
convex, and slightly compressed.
All the preceding genera of the dentirostral tribe are
supposed by Baron Cuvier to be more or less allied to
Lanius of Linnaeus. A great diversity of opinion, how¬
ever, exists regarding their natural distribution; and in
the most recent systems they will be found differently
1 For more minute details, the student may consult Mr Swainson’s “ Inquiry into the Natural Affinities of the Laniadae or
Shrikes," Zooloff/cal Journal, No iii. p. 289.
8 Illuttrations of British Ornithology, vol. i. p. 149. * See Zool. Journal, No. vii. p. 354, and No. viii. p. 483.
O R N I T H O L O G Y.
H<iessore». and variously disposed; according to the views of each par-
ticular author.
Many of the genera next ensuing are more allied to the
fly-catchers, Muscicapidce; but not a few are classed by
recent writers among the Laniadce and Ampelidce. The
bill is of medium size, broad at the base, horizontally de¬
pressed, almost straight, generally wider than high, the
point more or less hooked and notched. The mouth is
garnished with bristly feathers projecting forwards. Their
food varies according to their size and strength,—the
more powerful species seizing occasionally on small birds
as well as insects, the more feeble being satisfied with the
latter kind of prey.
I In the genusTYRANNus, Cuv., thebill is straight, length¬
ened, strong, the culmen rounded, the point suddenly
hooked. (See Plate VI., figure 5.) The species consist
chiefly of Linnaean fly-catchers, with a few shrikes. They
are all native to America, and, as their name implies, are
fierce and domineering in their disposition. They will de¬
fend their young against the boldest aggressor, and have
been seen to drive from their nesting-places even the largest
birds of prey. As an example, we may here name the
king-bird, or tyrant fly-catcher, of the new world, T. in-
trepidus. This species is one of the most remarkable for
the boldness and intrepidity which he displays in his at-
! tacks on the strongest of the feathered race. During the
earlier months of summer, indeed, his life is one continued
scene of broil and battle. According to Wilson, hawks
and crows, the bald eagle, and the great black eagle, all
equally dread an encounter with this dauntless creature,
who, as soon as he perceives a bird of prey, however power¬
ful, in his neighbourhood, darts into the air, and quickly
ascending above his supposed enemy, pounces with vio¬
lence upon his back, and continues his attack till his own
domains have been departed from. He is likewise in some
measure obnoxious to the human race, on account of his
lote of bees ; for he will take post on a fence or garden-tree
in the vicinity of hives, and make continual sallies on the
industrious tenants, as they pass to and from their never-
ceasing labours. His great American biographer, how¬
ever, is of opinion, that whatever prejudice may prevail
against him for such depredations, he is on the whole
greatly the friend of man, by destroying multitudes of in¬
sects, whose larvae prey on the produce of the field and
garden. The tyrant has been immortalised in verse as w ell
as prose:
Far in the south, where vast Maragnon flows,
And boundless forests unknown wilds enclose.
Vine-tangled shores and suffocating woods,
Parch’d up with heat, or drown’d with pouring floods;
"Where each extreme alternately prevails,
And nature sad their ravages bewails;
Lo ! high in air above those trackless wastes,
With spring’s return the king-bird hither hastes;
Coasts the famed gulf, and from his height explores
Its thousand streams, its long indented shores,
Its plains immense, wide opening on the day,
Its lakes and isles, where feather’d millions play :
All tempt not him ; till gazing from on high,
Columbia’s regions wide below him lie;
There end his wanderings and his wish to roam.
There lie his native woods, his fields, bis home;
Down, circling, he descends from azure heights,
And on a full-blown sassafras alights.
Fatigued and silent, for a while he views
His old-frequented haunts, and shades recluse ;
Sees brothers, comrades, every hour arrive, 
Hears, humming round, the tenants of the hive ;
Love fires his breast,—he woos, and soon is blest,
And in the blooming orchard builds his nest.
rio
The king-bird migrates in summer at least as far north Insessores.
as the fifty-seventh parallel. It reaches Carlton House in
the month of May, and retires southward in September.
A new species has been of late years discovered on the
banks of the Saskatchewan, but nothing is yet known of
its habits. It is described by Mr Swainson under the title
of Tyrannus borealis. It is considerably smaller than the
preceding, and may at once be distinguished by its forked
tail, not tipped with white.1 The other species are nu¬
merous.2
A still more extensive genus is that named Muscipeta,
Cuv. The bill is long, much depressed, twice as broad
as high even at the base, the culmen usually very blunt,
the margins forming an oval curve, the point feebly
notched, and the base covered by long, setaceous feathers.
The general form of the species is feeble compared with
that of the preceding, and they prey exclusively on in¬
sects. They are extremely beautiful, often adorned by
crests upon the head, or by gracefully elongated feathers
in the tail. The majority are native to Africa and India.
The paradise fly-catcher of Le Vaillant may be named as
an example.
In the genus Peatyrhynchus of Desm., the bill is
short, and still broader and more depressed than in the
preceding. Z5. cawm>?«w.s inhabits Brazil. These birds are
by some conjoined with Todus, to which they are assured¬
ly allied. Certain species, of which the feet and legs are
long and slender, and the tail extremely short, form the
genus Conophaga of Vieillot. The fly-catchers properly
so called, genus Muscicapa, Cuv., have the beard or bill-
feathers less extended than in Muscipeta, and the bill itself
is narrower, the ridge or culmen is distinctly marked, the
margins straight, the point slightly bent. The species
are peculiar to the ancient continent, and not more than
four or five occur in Europe. Of these, two are British,
M. grisola, or the spotted fly-catcher, a well-known and
common species ; and M. luctuosa, or the pied fly-catcher,
which is very rare. We have seen it on the banks of the
Eden in Cumberland. Both are birds of passage. The
species of this genus take their insect prey upon the wing,
darting upon it at intervals from some favourite twig.
The males and females differ considerably in their mark¬
ings, especially in spring and summer, although the former
sex (at least in M. albicollis, Temm.) are scarcely to be dis¬
tinguished from the latter throughout the winter season.
'fhe modifications in the form of the bill in this extensive
genus have led to the formation, so far as concerns exotic
species, of a vast number of sectional groups, or subge¬
nera, the characters of which we cannot here detail.
We now arrive, in accordance with Baron Cuvier’s sys¬
tem, though not, we fear, by natural transition, at the
genus Gymnocephalus, of which the beak resembles that
of Tyrannus, except that the ridge is more arched, and a
great portion of the face is bare of feathers. (See Plate
VI., figure 8.) There seems to be only a single species,
commonly called the bald crow ((?. calvus), a bird
about the size of a rook, of a uniform tobacco-brown colour,
the feathers of the wings and tail black. It is called oiseaa
mon prere by the Creoles of Cayenne, probably from its
capucin aspect. Its bald front bestows upon it a very
singular physiognomy. Vaillant regards the absence of
feathers on that part as accidental; and he mentions in a
note,3 that he received a specimen from Cayenne, in which
the face was plumed. But M. Lesson states that he has
examined more than twenty specimens, and has always
found the face unfeathered.
The genus Cephalopterus, on the contrary (see Plate
1 See Fauna Boreali-Americana, part ii. pi. Ixxxv.
5 Consult Mr Swainson’s “ Monography of the Tyrant Shrikes of America,” Journal of the Royal Institution, No. xl.
8 Ilistoire des Oiseanx de Paradis, t. i. p. 109.
ORNITHOLOGY.
750
Insessores. yj^ f]gure 4^ ^35 front adorned by a very pecu-
liar tuft of feathers, which, rising upwards, and then
spreading around and drooping downwards, shades the
head, as it were, beneath a parasol. Another expanded
and lengthened set of plumes hangs in an apron-like fashion
from the breast. The prevailing plumage is deep black,
the parts first mentioned having a metallic lustre. The
bill of the only species known (C. ornatus) is robust, the
mandibles nearly equal, the upper being convex, without
notch, and scarcely bent at the extremity. This bird was
brovght to Paris, from the Lisbon Collection, by M. Geoff.
St Hilaire, and was believed to have been sent originally
from Brazil. As that country, however, has been so much
explored without the Cephalopterus having ever since been
met with, it is more likely, M. Temminck thinks, to have
been obtained in the less-frequented countries of Peru, or
the coast of Chili. On the other hand, M. Lesson alleges,
that he was informed by a well-instructed Portuguese, that
the bird in question came from Goa. It is the Coracina
cephaloptera of M. Vieillot. We have no doubt it is a South
American species.
From these singular birds we proceed to the Cotingas
or chatterers, genus Ampelis, Linn., a varied and beauti¬
ful family, now partitioned into several minor groups. They
have all the depressed bill of the fly-catchers in general,
but it is rather shorter in proportion, broadish, and slightly
arched.
Those in which the bill is the strongest and most point¬
ed, with dilated margins, are characterized by an insecti¬
vorous regime. These are the piahaus of South America,
genus Querula, Vieil. The species fly in troops through
the forests. Here are placed the Cotinga rouge of Vail-
lant, or Ampelis phcenicia, also the Ampelis cinerea and
Muscicapa rubricollis of Gmelin. In the ordinary Cotin¬
gas (or genus Ampelis properly so called) the bill is more
feeble, little elevated, deeply cleft. The species inhabit
moist places, and are remarkable for the rich and lustrous
plumage of the males during the breeding season. We
here place the Ampelis pompadoura, carnifex, and cotinga,
Linn. In the genus Bombycilla, Brisson, which includes
our European or Bohemian chatterer, the head is orna¬
mented by an elongated crest, and the majority of the spe¬
cies have the secondary feathers of the wings terminated
by a small oval expansion, resembling a bit of scarlet
sealing-wax. These birds prefer wild fruits to insects.
The appetite of the American species (A. Americana) is
stated by Mr Audubon to be of so extraordinary a nature
as to prompt it to devour every fruit and berry in its way.
In this manner it will gorge itself to such excess as to be
sometimes unfit to fly, and may then be taken by the
hand. “ I have seen some which, though wounded and
confined to a cage, have eaten apples until suffocation de¬
prived them of life.”1 Our author adds, however, that they
are also excellent fly-catchers, spending much of their time
in pursuit of winged insects. They become very fat during
the fruit season, and are then so tender and juicy as to be
much sought for as an article of epicurean diet. They
inhabit the United States throughout the year. The
habits of the European wax-wing (A. garrula) are much
less known. It not unfrequently visits Britain during win¬
ter, and is supposed to breed within the arctic circle. It
likewise inhabits North America, but has not been ob¬
served to the southward of the fifty-fifth parallel. Dr
Kichardson observed a flock of three or four hundred on
the banks of the Saskatchewan in May. During their
trips to Britain they feed, when they can get them, on the
berries of the mountain ash ; and Sir William Jardine found
the stomachs ot one or two killed near Carlisle to be cram¬
med with holly berries. A third species was some time ago Insessore*
discovered by Dr Seibo.d in Japan. It is the B. phcetii-
coptera of Temminck, and wants the wax-like appendages
to the wings.
In the genus Casmarhynchus, Temm., the bill is re¬
markably broad, greatly depressed, soft and flexible at the
base, of a harder consistence, and somewhat compressed
towards the extremity. The nostrils are large and open,
and placed far forward on the bill. As an example, we
may name that singular bird the araponga ( Cas. nudicollis,
lemm. PL Col. 368-83), a Brazilian species, remarkable
for the metallic resonance of its cry, which sounds like
the clinking of a blacksmith’s hammer. By reason of this
peculiarity, it is known to the Brazilians by the name of
O. ferrador, or the blacksmith. The adult male is pure
white, the face and front of the neck nearly bare, of a
green colour, sprinkled with a few small black feathers.
The female is green, spotted on the under parts with
white, the upper plumage of the head nearly black. The
young at first resemble the mother, and adolescent males
are found with a mingled plumage of green and white. An¬
other species, of nearly corresponding plumage, is distin¬
guished by a long, fleshy, sometimes slightly feathered
caruncle, hanging from the basal front of the upper mandi¬
ble. It is erectile, and sometimes projects upwards. This
is the Ampelis carunculata of the older systematic writers.
We presume it to be also the Campanero of the Spaniards,
called dara by the Indians, and bell-bird by the English.
“ It is about the size of a jay,” says Waterton. “ His
plumage is white as snow. On his forehead rises a spiral
tube nearly three inches long. It is jet black, clothed all
over with small white feathers. It has a communication
with the palate, and when filled with air looks like a spire ;
when empty, it becomes pendulous. His note is loud and
clear, like the sound of a bell, and may be heard at the
distance of three miles. In the midst of these extensive
wilds, generally on the top of an aged mora, almost out of
gun reach, you will see the campanero. No sound or
song from any of the winged inhabitants of the forest, not
even the clearly pronounced ‘ Whip-poor-will,’ from the
goat-sucker, causes such astonishment as the toll of the
campanero. With many of the feathered race, he pays the
common tribute of a morning and an evening song; and
even when the meridian sun has shut in silence the mouths
of almost the whole of animated nature, the campanero
still cheers the forest. You hear his toll, and then a pause
for a minute; then another toll, and then a pause again ;
and then a toll, and again a pause. Then he is silent for
six or eight minutes, and then another toll, and so on.
Actason would stop in mid chase, Maria would defer her
evening song, and Orpheus himself would drop his lute, to
listen to him, so sweet, so novel, and romantic is the toll
of the beautiful snow-white campanero. He is never seen
to feed with the other Cotingas, nor is it known in what
part of Guiana he makes his nest.”2 In a third species
(Amp. variegata, Gmel. PI. Col. 51, Plate VI., figure
10) the front of the throat is all beset with numerous
fleshy worm-shaped appendages. All these birds are
vaguely said to feed upon insects, but on no authority that
we can find. “ Could we but know,” says Mr Swainson,
“ the habits and economy of these singular birds, which,
had they not been seen, might be thought fabulous, what
an interesting page of nature’s volume would be unfold¬
ed ! Yet at present we only know that they live in the
deepest and most secluded forests of tropical America,
where they subsist upon an infinite variety of fruits un¬
known to Europeans. They are much oftener heard than
seen, since their notes are particularly loud, and are ut-
1 Ornithological Biography, vol. i. p. 227.
Wanderings in South America, p. 121.
ORNITHOLOGY.
Insrssores. tered morning and evening from the deepest recesses of the
''“""'v'-"’"'' forests. We have sometimes caught a distant view of them,
perched upon the topmost branches of the loftiest trees.’’1
In the genus Procnias (now more restricted than by
Hoffmansegg) the bill is likewise very broad, and deeply
cleft, but the structure is firmer, and the upper mandible
more convex. The nostrils are basal. Example, P. ven-
iralis, llliger, PL Col. 5.
In the not very closely allied genus Ceblepyris, Cuv.
which Mr Swainson classes as the most aberrant division
of the shrikes, the bill resembles that of the Cotingas, but
the shafts of the rump-feathers are sharp pointed. These
birds inhabit chiefly Africa, and prey on caterpillars. Ex¬
ample, C. phcenicopterus, Temm. PL Col. 71.
The genus Gymnodera, Geoff, (which forms a portion
of the Coracirue of Vieillot), has the bill stronger than in
any of the preceding Ampelidce, the neck is partially bare,
and the head covered with velvety feathers. There does
not seem to be more than one species (G. nudicollis), de¬
scribed by Shaw under the name of bare-necked grakle.
It was classed by Gmelin and Latham as a crow,—the
Corvus nudus of their respective works.
The Drongos (genus Edolius, Cuv.) have the bill par¬
tially depressed and notched, and its upper ridge sharp ;
but it is distinguished by both mandibles being slightly
arched through their whole extent, and the nostrils are
covered with feathers. The species are rather numerous,
and are characteristic of the tropical countries of the East.
The Malabar shrike of Shaw (Edolius renrifer, Temm. see
Plate VI., figure 7), affords a good example. The posi¬
tion of this genus ought certainly to be in closer approx¬
imation to the Laniadce than it is in the arrangement
of Baron Cuvier. Their habits are insectivorous, and some
of the species are said to warble as sweetly as the nightin¬
gale. They usually dwell together in society, pursue bees
with great avidity, and are often seen to combine in large
groups on the outskirts of the forests during morning and
evening. The species we have figured is a native of Java
and Sumatra.
In the genus Phibalura of Vieil. the ridge of the bill
is arched, as in Edolius, but shorter, broad at the base,
somewhat dilated laterally, and slightly notched. The
only known species is a beautiful South American bird
(Ph. jlavirostris, Vieil.; Ph. cristata, Swain., Zool. Illust.
pi. xxxi.), which appears to occur chiefly in the mining dis¬
tricts of Brazil. It was very rare some years back, but
has now become comparatively common in collections, in
consequence of recent importations.
We come now to an extensive group, the ancient Ta-
nagers, genus Tanagra of Linn., which, like most of the
other genera, has in recent times been numerously sub¬
divided. The bill is convex, sub-triangular at the base,
the upper mandible slightly arched, curved at the point,
notched, the margins flexuous and enlarged; the nasal fossae
are deep and large, and closed by a membrane ; the nos¬
trils are rounded. The wings are rather short. The Ta-
nagers are characteristic of America. They feed both on
grain and insects, and are remarkable for the beauty and
brilliancy of their plumage. The following are the princi¬
pal subdivisions. In Euphonia, Desm. ( Tangaras bouv-
reuils, Cuv.), the bill is short, and exhibits, when viewed
vertically, an enlargement at the base on either side. The
tail is also short in proportion. Examples,— Tan. violacea,
Lath.,—Pipra musica, Gmel.,— Tan. diademata, PI. Col.
243,—and Tan. chlorotica, Gmel. (See Plate VI., figure
9.) In the genus Saltator, Vieil. (Tangaras gros~
bee, Cuv.), the bill is conical, thick, inflated, as broad as
high, the culmen rounded. Such are Tan. magna, atra,
7&L
fammiceps, &c. In the restricted genus Tanager (pro-Insessores.
perly so called) the bill is short, though longer than in 'v—^
Euphonia, as broad as high, slightly compressed. Exam¬
ples, T. tricolor, thoracica, auricapilla, &c. In the genus
Tachyphonus, Vieil. (Tangaras loriots, Cuv.), the bill is
more lengthened, conical, compressed, arched, sharp point¬
ed. Examples, T. cristata, nigerrima, &c. In the genus
Pyranga, Vieil. (Tangaras cardinals, Cuv.), the bill is
strong, lengthened, the point but slightly curved, the mar¬
gin of the upper mandible often strongly toothed. The
wings are rather long. The habits of several of the spe¬
cies of this genus are better knowm than those of the pre¬
ceding, in consequence of their more hardy constitution,
which enables them to spend the summer months in North
America. One of the most beautiful of these is the scar¬
let tanager (Tanagra rubra, Linn.). Among all the birds
that inhabit the woods of the United States, there is none,
according to Wilson, that strikes the eye of a stranger, or
even of a native, with so much brilliancy as this. Seen
among the green leaves, with the light falling strongly on
his plumage, he appears most beautiful. His whole plu¬
mage, with the exception of the w ings and tail, is of the
most vivid carmine red. The wing-coverts, posterior se¬
condaries, and middle tail-feathers, are black, and form a
rich contrast to the other portions of the plumage. After
the autumnal moult the male becomes dappled with
greenish yellow. The colour of the female is green above
and yellow below; her wings and tail are brownish-black,
edged with green. Though this lovely species sometimes
builds in orchards, and visits cherry trees for the sake of
their fruit, it does not frequently approach the habitations
of man, but prefers the solitude of the umbrageous w'oods,
where, in addition to fruits, its food consists of wasps, hor¬
nets, and humble-bees. The scarlet tanager comes just
within the limits of the fur-countries, but is unknown as
yet beyond the forty-ninth degree. His nest, placed up¬
on the horizontal branch of a tree, is built of broken flax
and dry grass, so thinly woven that the light is easily seen
through it. The eggs are only three in number, of a dull
blue, spotted with brown ; but the bird is supposed to breed
more than once a year. The genus Pyranga contains also
Tan. (estiva and other species.
We conclude our notice of the Tanagers by a brief in¬
dication of the genus Ramphoceles, Vieih, of which the
bill is strong, compressed, with the sides of the lower man¬
dible so enlarged as to spread backwards towards the
cheek. Such is Tanagra Jacapa of Gmelin, a South Ame¬
rican species, represented in Plate VII., fig. 2.
Our next group consists of birds more or less allied to
thrushes. In all, the bill is compressed and arched, but
the upper mandible is but slightly hooked, and the notch¬
ing feeble. As in other extensive assemblages of species,
however, the structure is considerably varied. The natu¬
ral regimen is mingled, consisting both of wild fruits,
worms, and insects. A few species are gregarious, the
majority solitary. Of ten or twelve kinds which inhabit
Europe, we have six in Britain, viz. the missel-thrush ( T.
viscivorus), the song-thrush (T. musicus), the field-fare
( T. pilaris), the red-wing (T. iliacus), the blackbird ( T.
merula), and the ring-ouzel (T. torquatus). The aspect
and general habits of most of these are too familiar to re¬
quire illustration. The blackbird and the thrush are two
of our most delightful and accustomed songsters.
When snow-drops die, and the green primrose leaves
Announce the coming flower, the merle’s note
Mellifluous, rich, deep-toned, fills all the vale,
And charms the ravished ear. The hawthorn bush.
New budded, is his perch ; there the gray dawn
1 Natural History and Classification of Birds, vol. ii. p. 75.
ORNITHOLOGY.
7‘po
Insessores. He hails, and there, with parting light, concludes
s—— vHis melody. I'here, when the buds begin
To break, he lays the fibrous roots, and see
His jetty breast embrowned; the rounded clay
His jetty breast has soiled: but now complete,
His partner and his helper in the work,
Happy assumes possession of her home :
While he upon a neighbouring tree his lay,
More richly full, melodiously renews.
    ..The thrush’s song
Is varied as his plumes; and as his plumes
Blend beauteous, each with each, so run his notes,
Smoothly, with many a happy rise and fall.
Sometimes below the never-fading leaves
Of ivy close, that overtwisting binds
Some'riven rock, or nodding castle wall,
Securely there the dam sits all day long;
While from the adverse bank, on topmost shoot
Of odour-breathing birch, her mate’s blythe chaunt
Cheers her pent hours, and makes the wild woods ring.1
The missel-thrush is the largest and strongest of the
genus, at least in Europe. He is a bold, pugnacious bird,
guarding his nest with great success from the intrusive
magpie. His song is loud and clear, but monotonous;
something like an ineffectual attempt to combine the tones
of the thrush and blackbird. Yet Colonel Montagu ad¬
mired it greatly. The ring-ouzel affects mountainous and
barren places." The field-fare and red-wing are only seen
with us in winter, and are known to breed in the more
northern parts of Europe. The former sings well, and we
have somewhere seen it called the nightingale of Norway.
One of the most noted of the foreign species of the ge¬
nus is the mocking-bird of America, T. polyglottus, Linn.
It measures about nine inches in length, is cinereous above,
whitish below, with the tips of the wing-coverts, the base
of the primaries, and the lateral tail-feathers white. This
unrivalled Orpheus and great natural wonder of the Ame¬
rican forests inhabits the whole northern continent from
the state of Rhode Island to the larger islands of the West
Indies, and, continuing through the equatorial regions, is
found as far south as Brazil. Neither is it confined to the
eastern or Atlantic states, being known to exist in the
wild territory of the Arkansa, more than a thousand miles
from the mouth of Red River. It breeds around the fur
western sources of the Platte, near the very base of the
Rocky Mountains ; and Mr Bullock observed it on the
table-land of Mexico. The mocking-bird may be regard¬
ed as a permanent (we mean stationary) inhabitant ot the
milder regions of the western world, though such as are
bred to the north of the Delaware seem to move south¬
wards before the approach of winter.2 The period of in¬
cubation varies with the latitude. A solitary thorn, an
almost impenetrable thicket, an orange tree, cedar, or
holly bush, are favourite places ; and during this important
period neither man nor beast can approach without being
attacked. Cats are especially persecuted ; yet his chief
and most vengeful rage is directed against the black snake,
a mortal enemy. The male bird darts upon the insidious
reptile with the greatest courage, and by violent and in¬
cessant blow's upon the head, sometimes deprives him of
life. The boasted fascination of his race, his lurid eye,
his sharp envenomed fangs, avail not when competing
w ith the love of offspring, that pure and beautiful affec¬
tion, the least selfish of all instinctive feelings. “ The
plumage of the mocking-bird,” says the first great histo¬
rian of the American feathered tribes, “ though none of
the homeliest, has nothing gaudy or brilliant in it; and
had he nothing else to recommend him, would scarcely
entitle him to notice; but his figure is well proportioned,
and even handsome. The ease, elegance, and rapidity of
his movements, the animation of his eye, and the intelli-Insessores
gence he displays in listening and laying up lessons, from '''—'v-w
almost every species of the feathered creation within his
hearing, are really surprising, and mark the peculiarity of
his genius. To these qualities we may add that of a voice
full, strong, and musical, and capable of almost every mo¬
dulation, from the clear mellow tones of the wood-thrush
to the savage scream of the bald eagle. In measure and
accent he faithfully follows his originals. In force and
sweetness of expression he greatly improves upon them.
In his native groves, mounted on the top of a tall bush or
half-grown tree, in the dawn of dewy morning, while the
woods are already vocal with a multitude of warblers, his
admirable song rises pre-eminent over every competitor.
The ear can listen to his music alone, to which that of all
the others seems a mere accompaniment. Neither is this
strain altogether imitative. His own native notes, which
are easily distinguishable by such as are well acquainted
with those of our various song birds, are bold and full, and
varied seemingly beyond all limits. While thus exerting
himself, a bystander, destitute of sight, would suppose that
the whole feathered tribes had assembled together on a
trial of skill, each trying to produce his utmost efforts, so
perfect are his imitations, He many times deceives the
sportsman, and sends him in search of birds that perhaps
are not within miles of him, but whose notes he exactly
imitates ; even birds themselves are frequently imposed on
by this admirable mimic, and are decoyed by the fancied
calls of their mates, or dive with precipitation into the
depth of thickets, at the scream of what they suppose to
be the sparrowhawk.”3
The mocking-bird sometimes breeds in captivity. Many
years ago a Mr Klein, of Philadelphia, partitioned off a
space of twelve feet square w ithin doors, lighted by a pret¬
ty large wire-grated w indow. In the centre he placed a
cedar-bush, five or six feet high, in a box of earth, and
scattered about a sufficient quantity of materials suitable
for building. A male and female mocking-bird were in¬
troduced, and soon began to build. When the nest was
completed the female laid five eggs, all of which she hatch¬
ed, and she fed the young with great affection till they
were nearly able to fly. Business, unfortunately, called
the proprietor from home for a fortnight, and the care of
the colony being left to the domestics, the result may be
anticipated. On his return the young were utterly dead,
and the parents nearly famished.
Several African species allied to our present group
dwell together like starlings, in numerous chattering flocks,
pursuing insects, and committing great depredations in
gardens. Several are remarkable for the lustrous splen¬
dour of their plumage. Such are Turdus auratus and
nitens of Gmelin. The Senegal species, called the glossy
thrush, T. ceneus, is characterized by the magnificent
length of its caudal plumes. These richly attired species
belong to thegenusLampuotornis, Temm. Other species,
in which the bill is slender and lengthened (as in the Bra¬
zilian thrush of Lath.), form the genus Ixos of the last-
named author; while the genus Enicurus (more nearly
related, however, to the fly-catchers) consists of one or
two species with a stronger bill, the tail long and forked.
Such is E. coronatus, Temm. PI. Col. 113 ; and E. velatus,
ibid. 160, from Java. Grallina of Vieillot is constitut¬
ed by a New Holland species with a straight, lengthened,
rather rounded bill, and long legs. The plumage is black
and white. Ex. G. melanoleuca, Vieil. The genus Tri-
chophorus, Temm. is composed of species of which the
bill is very strong, and garnished at the base with long,
projecting bristles, which sometimes prevail also on the
1 Grahame’s Birds of Scotland.
8 Nuttall’s American Ornithology, i. 321.
3 Wilson’s American Ornithology, ii. 92.
ORNITHOLOGY.
[nscasores. occiput. The manners of these birds are as yet unknown.
They live in Western Africa. Ex. TV. barbatus, Temm. PL
Col. 88.
The ant-thrushes, Myothera, Illiger, come next in
order. They are chiefly distinguished by their long,
slender tarsi, and short tails. (See Plate VII., figure
1.) The species of the ancient world, inhabitants for the
most part of India, the eastern islands, and New Holland,
are characterized by brilliant and contrasted colouring.
These are the Breves of Buffon, the short-tailed crows of
English writers. They form the genus Pitta of Vieillot
and Temm., of which the bill is strong but thrush-like (T*.
cyanurus, brachyurus, &c.) ; while Myothera, as now re¬
stricted, contains the American species, of much more
sober plumage, with the bill more abruptly hooked, and
the tooth stronger. The species dwell among the enor¬
mous ant-hills of the western world, keeping much upon
the ground. Ihey seldom fly, and certain kinds are re¬
markable for their deep sonorous voices. The largest,
longest legged, and most singular in its general aspect,
known under various names, such as long-legged crow,
king-thrush, &c. (Corvus yrallarius, Shaw; Turdus rex-,
Linn.), constitutes the genus Grallaria of the modern
systems. It is a native of Guiana. The beautiful New
Holland bird, with a bill like a thrush, but shorter, the
legs long, the nails almost straight, and the lengthened
tail-feathers terminated by sharp points, forms the genus
Orthonyx, and is placed by Cuvier immediately after
the preceding group of ant-eating thrushes.
I he genus Cinclus, Bechstein, characterized by an al¬
most straight, compressed, sharp-pointed bill, comprises
our well-known water-ouzel, C. aquaticus. This inte¬
resting bird is frequent along the banks of rivers, but
seems to prefer those of a somewhat rocky, alpine charac¬
ter. It lives in pairs, keeping always close by the stony
margin of its chosen stream. The nest, according to Sir
William Jardine, is formed exactly like that of our common
wren, with a single entrance, and is composed of ordinary
mosses, without much lining. It is usually placed beneath
some projecting rock, not many yards above the water,
“ and often where a fall rushes over, in which situation the
parent birds must dash through it to gain the nest, which
they do with apparent facility, and even seem to enjoy it.
At night they roost in similar situations, perched with
the head under the wing, on some little projection, often
so much leaning as to appear hanging with the back
downwards. I recollect a bridge over a rapid stream,
which used to be a favourite nightly retreat, under an
arch; I have there seen four at a time sitting asleep in
this manner, and used to take them with a light. Before
settling for their nightly rest, they would sport in the
pool beneath, chasing each other with their shrill and ra¬
pid cry, and at last suddenly mount to their perch; when
disturbed, they return again in five minutes.”1 During
winter they migrate to the lower streams ; but in summer
are most abundant on the alpine tributaries. They feed
on small fish and insects, and are remarkable for their
power of walking, with the assistance of their wings, be¬
neath the surface. There is an American species (C7.
Americanas), of somewhat larger size, and of a uniform
brownish slate colour. It extends along the range of the
Rocky Mountains, from Mexico to Lake Athabasca. There
is also an Asiatic species, figured by Mr Gould,* under the
title of C. Pallasii, a name formerly bestowed on a bird
supposed to come from the Crimea.
Mr Brehm has described another species by the name
of black-bellied wrater-ouzel (C7. melanogaster). It inha-
753
bits the north-eastern parts of the European continent, Wssore*
visiting in severe winters the coasts of the Baltic, where
it is neither shy in its habits, nor distrustful of the pre¬
sence of man. We are rather inclined, however, to dis¬
trust some of Mr Brehm’s species.
The genus Philedon of Cuvier has the bill slightly
arched throughout its whole length, compressed, broad¬
ened at the base; the nostrils are large, protected by a
cartilaginous scale, and the tongue terminates in a sort of
tuft. Hence the species are by many classed among the
honey-sucking or tenuirostral tribes. Many of them are
remarkable for some particular garniture about the base
of the bill, and are found in New Holland and the eastern
islands. The genus is very extensive, but not very natu¬
rally composed, as it consists of species brought from a
variety of other genera, such as Certhia, Merops, Gracu-
la, Sturnus, &c. Some have a fleshy wattle depending
from the lower mandible, as in Phil, carunculatus of New
Holland (which forms the genus Creadon of Vieillot).
In others the head is partially bare of feathers, as in the
goruk, likewise a native of New Holland, a bold and rest¬
less bird, which feeds both on insects and honey, and
often puts to flight whole droves of blue-bellied parra-
keets. . Some have neither bare skin nor wattles, but
are distinguished by a peculiar frizzled character of parts
of the plumage. Ihe poe bee-eater of Cook’s voyage
(Phil. Cincinnatus) is of this kind. It is a beautiful bird,
of a glossy blackish green, with a band of white across
the upper portion of the wing, and a pendent tuft oflong,
twisted, white feathers on each side of the neck. It is a
native of New Zealand, and was formerly in great request,
as contributing to ornament the feathered mantles worn
by chiefs and persons of distinction. The species is also
said to sing well, and is moreover highly esteemed as an
article of food.
In the genus Eulabes, Cuv. (Mainatus, Brisson; Gra-
cula, Vieil.), the bill is strong, compressed, high, the
culmen arched, the sides dilated towards the gape. A
portion of the cheek is bare, and a fleshy appendage
stretches towards the occiput from either eye. Here are
placed the famous mina birds, of which two species seem
to have been confounded by Linnaeus under the title of
Gracula religiosa. The specific name was first applied
by misapprehension, in consequence of a Musulman wo¬
man refusing, on account of some religious scruple, to al¬
low a European artist to make a drawing of one of these
birds, which she had in captivity. Some uncertainty
seems still to pervade the naming of the species. The
Indian kind (G. Indicus, Cuv.) is somewhat larger than a
blackbird, the plumage of a fine silky black, with a white
spot upon the central edge of the wings, the bill and feet
yellow. This bird is easily tamed, and becomes extreme¬
ly familiar in confinement. It is probably the most ac¬
complished linguist of all the feathered tribes, and may
be taught to pronounce long sentences in the most clear
and articulate manner. It is consequently held in high
esteem, and is frequently brought alive to European
countries, although it must be confessed that the purity
of the English tongue is not always exhibited by the re¬
sult of its maritime education. The food of the mina in
a state of nature is said to consist both of fruits and in¬
sects. It greatly loves bananas, and in this country has
no objection to either grapes or cherries. The larger
species G. Javanus, Cuv.) equals the size of a jay. (See
Plate VIL, figure 3.) The bill is broader, more hook¬
ed at the end, but without the notch. Now M. Les¬
son gives the name of Sumatranus to this species, and
‘Note to "Wilson and Bonaparte’s American Ornithology, vol. iii. p. 401.
* Century of Birds from the Himalaya Mountains.
5 0
754 ORNITHOLOGY.
Insessores. says that the Javanese, who esteem it highly, and part habits are familiar, their docility remarkable, and their Insessores,
v V   with it unwillingly, obtain it only by navigation. The In- powers of imitation almost unparalleled. The only Euro-
dian species he has named Javanus, but without assigning pean species hitherto classed with the grakles is the beauti-
any special reason for such transmutations. The plumage ful rose-coloured ouzel (P. roseus), which occurs in several
is the same in both. Old Edwards seems long ago to of the warmer countries of Asia and Africa, is not unfre-
have indicated the two kinds. “ The greater minor,” quent in Spain and Italy, and shows itself in other parts
says he, “ for bigness equals a jackdaw or magpie ; the of Europe, more rarely as we proceed northwards. Even
lesser hardly exceeds a blackbird, so that the one is at in Tuscany and the Lombardo-Venetian territory it is es-
least twice as big as the other.” The bird described by teemed unusual. A few are recorded to have built their
Bontius as an Indian starling was a mina. It imitated nests in the Florentine district in 1739. We do not know
man’s voice more accurately than a parrot, and “ was that they have been since observed to breed in Europe,
oftentimes troublesome with its prattle.” They were very common in Dalmatia in 1832; and in the
In the genus Gracula, Cuv. {Pastor, Temm.), the bill year following one was shot in Ross-shire.
is compressed, straight, or but slightly arched, the notch In the genus Pyrrhocorax, Cuv. the bill is compres-
feeble, and the commissures form an angle as in the star- sed, arched, rather slender, slightly notched, the nostrils
lings. This restricted genus contains several interesting covered with feathers. We have two European species,
species, such as the pagoda-thrush (G. pagodarum), so according to Temminck’s views, viz. the alpine crow of
called from its frequent occurrence among the pagodas of Latham {P. pyrrhocorax), and our own red-legged crow
Malabar and Coromandel. According to Sonnerat, it is (P. graculus). The former inhabits the highest of the
often kept caged for the sake of its song. The paradise Northern and Helvetian Alps, seldom showing itself du-
grakle of Latham {Par. tristis, Linn.) also pertains to this ring the summer season at any distance from the regions
genus. It is well named Gracula gryllivora by Daudin, of perpetual snow ; the latter is also mountainous, but more
and is remarkable, as its name implies, for the destruction widely spread over countries of less elevation. It is not
of locusts. We abridge the following particulars from unfrequent along many of the rocky coasts of England and
Buffon. The island of Bourbon, where this species was Wales, is frequent in the Isle of Man, and occurs occa-
formerly unknown, was once overrun to an alarming ex- sionally along the western shores of Scotland, and in Co¬
tent by locusts, which had been accidentally introduced lonsay and other islands. Baron Cuvier places this bird
from Madagascar. The governor-general and the inten- alongside the hoopoes, as a tenuirostral genus called Fre-
dant of the island, alarmed at the desolation which was gieus.
taking place, deliberated on the best means of extirpation, In the genus Oriolus the bill resembles that of the
and with that view they introduced several pairs of the so- thrushes, but is more powerful. The legs are shorter, and
called paradise grakle from India. The plan promised to the wdngs rather more lengthened. As now restricted,
be successful; but unfortunately some of the colonists ob- this genus contains only the species of the ancient conti-
serving the birds eagerly thrusting their bills into the soil nent, those of America {Icterus, Cassicus, &c.) being in-
of the newly-sown fields, imagined they were in quest of eluded among the conirostral tribes. The golden oriole
grain, and spread a report that the grakles, so far from {Oriolus galbula) is one of the most beautiful of European
proving beneficial, were likely to be highly detrimental to birds. It occurs occasionally in Britain. It breeds in
the country. The case was argued in due form. It was many parts of the European continent, arriving in spring
stated on the part of the grakles, that they ransacked the and departing in autumn. It builds on the tops of trees,
new-ploughed fields, not for grain, but insects ; but the op- its nest being attached to and partly suspended from a
posite view prevailed, and two hours after the edict of forked branch. This species feeds on fruits and insects,
proscription passed, not a living individual was to be found and is particularly fond of figs. The Italian peasants sup-
in the island. A speedy repentance followed this intern- pose its cry to signify “ Contadino, e mature lo fico?” Its
perate and hasty execution, the locusts regained their as- own flesh is of most excellent flavour, especially in au-
cendency, and soon becoming more injurious than ever, tumn, when having for a time fared sumptuously on the
the grakles were again introduced, after an absence of best of fruits, it has become extremely fat. The rich plu-
nearly eight years. Their preservation and extension maged regent bird of New South Wales (Nmcu/ws cAn/so-
now became an affair of state, laws were enacted in their cephalus, Swainson) is by some regarded as an oriole,
favour, and the physicians (we presume, from policy) de- The genus Gymnops, Cuv. possesses the strong bill of
dared their flesh unwholesome. An opposite inconve- the orioles, but a great part of the head is bare of feathers,
nience, however, is said to have since arisen. The birds In some of the species there is a prominence on the base
having prodigiously increased in numbers, and being no of the beak. Such are the knob-fronted bee-eater of
longer adequately sustained by insect food, have had re- White1 {Merops corniculatus), figured by Vaillant under
course to grapes, dates, and mulberries, and have even pro- the nameofcorbicalao^is.cfHmer^MeetfefesiWes, pi. 24),
ceeded to scratch up rice, maize, wheat, beans, and other and the cowled bee-eater {Merops monachus, Latham),
useful produce; they enter pigeon-houses, and attack both The tongue is said to be tufted like that of Phikdon.
eggs and young ; and thus, after destroying the destroyer, To the genus Gymnops Cuvier also refers the bald grakle
they have themselves become a greater pestilence than that {G. calva, Linn, and Lath.), a remarkable species, native
which they extirpated. There is perhaps some exaggeration to the Philippine Islands, where it is said to build in the
in the concluding parts of this statement, as M. Duplessin, hollows of the cocoa-nut tree. It feeds on fruits, and is
who resided several years in the island, states that the laws extremely voracious.
for its preservation are still in force. We may add, that In the genus Menura, Shaw, the bill is straight, some-
this bird is of the same lively and imitative disposition as what triangular at the base, compressed, the nostrils
the mina, and is easily taught to speak. When kept near lengthened, central. Region of the eyes bare. Feet large
a farm-yard, or other place resorted to by different kinds and strong. The only known species of this singular and
of creatures, it spontaneously acquires the various cries somewhat anomalous genus, the lyre-tail of New Holland
of dogs, ducks, geese, sheep, pigs, and poultry. The man- {M. lyra or superba), is characterized by the great ex-
ners of the genus in general resemble those of the star- tension and peculiar structure of the tail-feathers. (See
ling. They fly in troops, searching for insect prey ; their Plate VII., figure 4.) It is equal in size to a pheasant.
Voyage to Botany Bay, p. 190.
ORNITHOLOGY.
nsessores. The general plumage is brown. The tail of the female is
—of the ordinary structure. This bird inhabits rocky dis¬
tricts. Though placed in its present station by Cuvier, it
certainly seems more allied to the gallinaceous than the
passerine order. Its history, however, is still obscure, and
its anatomical structure, we believe, has not yet been in¬
vestigated.
From the last-named genus, it would appear an abrupt
and bold transition to the feeble-bodied, soft-billed stone-
chats, warblers, wagtails, and other Sylviadce, all of which,
however, Baron Cuvier has here grouped as intermediate
between Menura and Pipra. They form a very nume¬
rous assemblage, all characterized by a rather straight
and slender bill, but varying, on the one hand, by the de¬
pression of the mandibles, towards the fly-catchers, and
on the other, by its compression and curvature, towards
the straight-billed butcher-birds. The Sylviadae or war¬
blers are divided by Mr Swainson into the five following
sub-families, viz. 1st, Saxicolinoe, or stone-chats, in which
the bill is depressed at the base, the gape furnished with
diverging bristles, the feet lengthened, the tail rather
short, the head large ; 2d, Philomelince or nightingales, in
which the general structure is larger and more robust than
in the typical warblers, and the feet more formed for perch¬
ing ; 3d, SylviancB or true warblers, of which the size is
very small, the structure weak, the bill very slender,
straight, with the under mandible much thinner than the
upper ; 4th, Pariana or tit-mice (placed by Cuvier in the
conirostral tribe), in which the bill is either entire or very
slightly notched, and more or less conic, the hind toe large
and strong, and the lateral toes unequal; 5th, Motacillime
or wagtails, in which the bill is lengthened, straight, and
slender, the legs long, and formed for walking, the hind
toe elongated, and the tail narrow and lengthened.1 Mr
Swainson has elsewhere remarked, that the Sylviadfe might
be termed “ ambulating fly-catchers,” since, when viewed
collectively, they are only separated from the Muscicapi-
nce by a different mode of feeding, indicated by the supe¬
rior length and structure of their feet,—these parts being
adapted for constant locomotion, either among branches
or upon the ground ; while in the true fly-catchers the feet
are short, small, and feeble, in accordance with the seden¬
tary habits of the species. “ Comparing the warblers, on
the other hand, with the thrushes, we see that the best
distinction between the two groups lies in the very cha¬
racter which assimilates the Sylviadce to the fly-catchers,
namely, the basal depression of the bill. We allude, of
course, to typical examples; since all these distinctions are
softened down, in proportion as the three groups approxi¬
mate.2 We shall now proceed with our exposition of Ba¬
ron Cuvier’s system.
Ihe genus Saxicola, Bechstein, has the bill slightly
depressed and broadened at the base. The species of this
genus seem confined to the ancient continents and New
Holland. They feed on insects, build on the ground or
among heaps ot stones, and usually frequent rather wild
and barren places. We have three British species, the
wheat-ear or white-rump (S. cenanthe), which is migratory,
and arrives with us in early spring, frequenting commons
and mountain pastures, but also occurring in more culti¬
vated places, though always preferring open districts; the
whin-chat (&. rubetra), likewise migratory, but later in its
arrival, ,and frequenting moorlands and commons covered
with furze or low brushwood, where it is almost always seen
to alight upon the topmost spray; and the stone-chat (S. ru-
btcola), which resides in Britain throughout the year, and
is often found in moistish places. Of these the white-rump
is the most esteemed as food, being compared by many
to the ortolan. It is much sought after in Italy, that “ land
of song, vvhere, by the strangest mal-association, a man Insessores.
no sooner hears a feathered warbler sing than he desires to '
shoot and eat it. Even in the southern parts of Britain it is
much esteemed; and Pennant tells us, that as many as 1840
dozen have been taken in a single season at East Bourne,
in Essex. In the south of Europe it is usually captured by
means of a peculiar net, and the lure of a living owl; with
us a noose of horse-hair placed between two upraised or
inclined portions of turf, between which the bird attempts
to pass jn search of insects, is found sufficient. In regard
to the stone-chat, Temminck mentions that, though sta¬
tionary in Africa, in Europe they are birds of passage. It
is singular in this case that they should remain through¬
out the year in Britain. The fact that they do so, how¬
ever, is undoubted, as we have ourselves shot them on the
Pentland Hills when the ground was covered with snow.
Signor Savi mentions that they are stationary in Tuscany,
although “ per il tempo del caldo maggiore dell’ estate, e
dell autunno, molti abbandonano le pianure, e si retirano
sii i monti per cercare luoghi pin freschi.’’3
In the genus Sylvia of Wolf and Meyer (Ficedula,
Bech.) the bill is merely a little narrower at the base than
in the preceding. The generic title, however, has been
variously applied of late, by different writers, to their re¬
stricted groups,—Mr Selby using it to designate our willow
and wood wrens, while Cuvier makes it contain, among
others, the four following British species, viz. the red¬
breast (S. rubecula), the blue-throat (S. suecica), the com¬
mon red-start (S.phcenicurus), and the black red-start (S.
tithys). Of these, the second and fourth can scarcely be
regarded as otherwise than of accidental occurrence in
England, and have never been seen in the northern quar¬
ters of the island. The red-breast is perhaps the most be¬
loved of British birds, and is remarkable for its combina¬
tion of familiarity and independence. When left to its
“ own sweet will,” it enters houses freely in cold or snowy
weather, will perch night after night on corniced book¬
case, or seek repose upon the golden scallop of a picture
frame ; but it hates all forwardness in others, and will not
voluntarily come in contact with any hand, however beau¬
tiful. It hops delighted, singing as it goes with low and
plaintive note, along the comfortable carpet, or darting up
suddenly towards the window-frame, will utter a louder
gush of angrier melody on seeing some orange-breasted
brother, perched on leafless spray, still braving the increas¬
ing darkness. For a time, just before nightfall, he seems
himself to suffer from some uneasy instinct, or probably
desires, from habit, to secure his usual perch in old fan¬
tastic yew or thick screened holly; but, on second thoughts,
he soon assumes some quiet corner, above the reach of cu¬
rious children’s hands. Not seldom when the evening
fire burns brightest, he descends on muffled wing, his large
and liquid eye dilated less with fear than quiet wonder,
and after a brief survey, he re-ascends his place of safety.
Although this bird remains about our doors throughout
the summer, building near out-houses and in orchards, yet
Some red-breasts love amid the deepest groves
Itetired to pass the summer days. Their song
Among the birchen boughs, with sweetest fall
Is warbled, pausing,—then resumed more sweet,
More sad, that to an ear grown fanciful,
The babes, the wood, the men, rise in review,
And robin still repeats the tragic line.
We have a notion, that in Scotland the female red-breast
is migratory. At least, in the vicinity of Edinburgh, we
recognise her not throughout the long-enduring winter.
All the individuals then about our gardens sing and Jig/it,
till, in the month of March, some strangers show them¬
selves, but do not sing, and ^re immediately followed and
Xat. Hitt, and Clatsif. of Birdt, ii. 23ff,
3 Fauna Boreali-Americana, part ii. p. 20.
Ornitologia Totcana, i. 23b
756 O R N IT H O L O G Y.
Insessore<!.yeJ by the resident males, at which time they (the sup-
'"-■•V"’'"''' posed females) utter a low hissing note, and flutter their
wings like young dependent birds. This we have often
seen, and vouch for.
The red-start is a rarer species. It haunts retired well-
wooded lanes, where the timber is in a better state than the
stone dikes ; for it highly approves of the latter when old,
moss-covered, and full of holes. It is a bird of passage,
and although greatly less familiar than the red-breast, we
have seen it build beneath the cottage eaves. It is an ac¬
tive, restless bird, easily recognised by its snow-white fore¬
head, black throat, ashy back, and fine reddish orange
breast and rump, to sayr nothing of the constant vibratory
motion of the tail.
The blue bird of America {Sylvia siahs) has the whole
of the upper plumage of a fine blue, while the throat,
neck, breast, and flanks, are bright orange brown. In ge¬
neral character and movement this bird resembles the Euro¬
pean red-breast, and may be said to be as familiarly known
in summer to the children of America as the robin is to
ourselves. Wilson informs us that its society is much
courted by the inhabitants of the country, and that few
farmers neglect to provide for him a snug little summer¬
house, ready fitted, and rent free. He is migratory over
the northern districts, but a few remain throughout the
winter in some parts of the United States. A more re¬
cently described species, nearly allied to the preceding,
was procured by Dr Richardson at Fort Franklin, and is
named by Mr Swainson Erythaca arctica. Its colour is a
fine ultra-marine blue above, beneath greenish blue, whit¬
ish on the lower part of the abdomen, and under tail-co-
verts. It seemed to be merely a summer visitant of the
fur-countries, and no other knowledge of its haunts or ha¬
bits has been yet obtained.
The genus Curruca, Bechstein, has the bill straight,
slender throughout, a little compressed anteriorly, the upper
mandible slightly curved towards the point. It contains that
prince of European songsters, the nightingale ( C. luscinia),
a bird of shy and unobtrusive disposition, seldom seen in
open places, but loving the protection of a close entangled
undergrowth of brakes and bushes. Its powers of song
are generally admitted to be unrivalled, although the effect
is no doubt enhanced by the solemn stillness of the sum¬
mer night, when every other voice has sunk to rest,—for
then
The wakeful bird
Sings darkling, and in shadiest covert hid
Tunes her nocturnal notes.
The words of the divine Milton are sacred ; yet we know
not that the female sings. It is a curious coincidence, how¬
ever, that she should be asserted so to do by Pliny. Our
British nightingales never venture farther north than Don¬
caster, although in Sweden and the northern parts of Ger¬
many they are less restricted in their summer movements.
To this genus belong several other excellent British song¬
sters, such as the rich-voiced black-cap (C. atricapilla),
the greater petty-chaps ( C. hortensis), and the white-throat
or muggy {C. cinerea). These, as well as the following,
are called abroad fauvettes.
A few species which affect damp underwood and reedy
marshes, such as the grasshopper warbler (S. locustella),
the sedge-warbler {S. phragmitis), and the reed-wren ( S.
arundinaced), constitute the genus Salicaria of Mr Sel¬
by. To the same little group, we doubt not, belongs the
beccamoschino of the Tuscans ( Sylvia cisticola, Temm.), re¬
markable as exhibiting the propensities of a tailor-bird.
The nest is placed near, but not upon the ground, usually
in a bush of lengthened herbage, the leaves and stalks which
form the external covering being drawn together, while a Jnsessores
flooring for the nest is made somewhat lower down, by
curving the leaves across. The beauty of the structure
consists in this, that the latter are not supported by their
mutual interlacement, but are sewed together, sometimes
by spiders’ webs, sometimes by thread-like portions of va¬
rious plants. The interior is chiefly composed of vegetable
down. The nests constructed in April are much less fi¬
nished than those of August, owing to the absence, in the
earlier month, of several materials which greatly conduce
towards their elegance and solidity.1
Another limited genus, called Accentor, has the bill
also slender, but rather more conical than the other Sylviae,
with the edges slightly bent inwards. The species are
much more hardy than the preceding (all of which are
birds of passage) ; and our only British representative, com¬
monly called the hedge-sparrow (A. modularis), remains
with us throughout the winter. It seems characteristic of
the northern parts of Europe, being seldom seen in France
except during winter; and the few that occur in Italy are
known to breed among the mountains, only descending to
the plains when the summer heat is over. With us what
school-boy knows not its mossy, twig-entangled nest, and
pure unspotted eggs of greenish blue ? A larger and still
hardier species is the alpine warbler (A. alpinus), of the
accidental occurrence of which in the garden of King’s
College, Cambridge, an instance is recorded by Mr Selby.
This bird is an inhabitant of the most mountainous regions
of Europe, and particularly affects those districts which
are of an abrupt and rocky character. It is common among
the Alps of Switzerland, and may be usually seen in the
environs of the convent of St Bernard. In summer it
ascends to a great elevation, where it breeds beneath the
ledges of the rocks, laying four or five eggs of a greenish-
blue colour. As winter advances, and the snow begins to
gather amid the desolate steeps, it descends towards the
vales and middle regions of the mountains, where it sub¬
sists upon the seeds of alpine grasses, and of other plants.
In summer it destroys grasshoppers, and various insects,
and their larvae.2
In the genus Regulus, Cuv., the bill is still slender,
but conical, sharp pointed, and the sides, when viewed
from above, are slightly concave. The species are much
more active and arboreal than those last named. We may
mention as an example our beautiful golden-crested wren
{R. auricapillus, Selby; Mot. regains, Linn.), the smallest
of British birds. It inhabits woods and forests, and flits
rapidly from tree to tree, examining the leaves and branches
in search of insects. Its manners resemble those of the
tit-mice, in company with which it often travels. Mr Selby
has recorded, that after a severe gale from the north-east,
thousands of these tiny creatures were seen to arrive upon
the sea-shore and sand-banks of the Northumbrian coast,—
many of them so fatigued as to be unable to rise again
after alighting on the ground. In this genus Cuvier re¬
tains our willow or yellow wren, and lesser petty-chaps
{M. trochilus and hippolais), which most other modern
writers keep apart in their restricted genus Sylvia, bestow-
ino- other titles {Erythaca, Phcenicura, Philomela, &c.) on
the genus which Cuvier has so called. These transpositions
are the bane of Ornithology. Several true Reguli inhabit
North America.
Our common (kitty) wren forms, with certain foreign
species, the genus Troglodytes of Cuv. The bill is
rather more slender than in Regulus, and slightly arched.
The generic name of Motacilla, of such extensive
application in the older systems, is now restricted to tlie
wag-tails, such as M. alba and cinerea, Linn. Our yellow
1 Nuovo Giorn. de' Letterati, t. vi. (where the nest is figured) ; and Omitologia Toicana, t. L p. 282.
8 illustration! of British Ornithology, vol. i. p. 247.
ORNITHOLOG Y. 757
nsessores. species, which differs from the others in being a bird of
passage, is moreover distinguished by an arched and
lengthened hind claw, and forms the genus Budytes, Cuv.,
founded, perhaps, upon a character of no great importance.
All the wag-tads are peculiar to the ancient continent.
The genus Anthus, Bechstein, so long united to the
true larks, has the bill straight, slender, rather subulate to¬
wards the point, the base of the upper mandible carinated,
the tip slightly bent, and emarginated. The hind claw is
more or less produced. We have three British species, the
rock or shore pipit (A. aquaticus), the tit-lark or meadow
pipit (A.pratensis), and the tree pipit (A. arboreus). Rich¬
ard’s pipit (A. Richardi, Vied.) may be included in our list
of accidental visitants.
The great tribe of Dentirostres is terminated by Cuvier
with certain groups which differ from all the preceding by
the closer union of the outer and middle toes, which are
joined together for a considerable space, after the manner
of the syndactylous tribes.
Of these groups the first is composed chiefly of the
manakim (Genus Pipha, Linn.), in which the bill is short,
compressed, higher than broad, notched, the nasal fossaj
large, the nostrils concealed by feathers. The tail and
legs are short. They may be subdivided as follows.
In the genus Rupicola of Brisson the species are of
considerable size, and their heads are ornamented by a
double crest of vertical feathers. The only species known
are South American, and are distinguished by the name of
rock manakins. P. aurantia, Y\e\\. (Pipra rupicola, Gm.),
is of a brilliant orange colour, with peculiar frizzled fea¬
thers on the wings and tail. It is one of the most beauti¬
ful of birds, lives on fruits, scrapes in the ground like the
Gallinae, and constructs its nest among the deep caverns of
the rocks. It is shy and mistrustful, and flies with great
rapidity. The female, which is of a brown colour, lays two
I eggs of the size of those of a pigeon. The immature birds
are also brown. This species inhabits the rocks by the
rivers of Guiana. Not far from the banks of the river
Oyapoc, to the windward of Cayenne, is a mountain which
contains an immense cavern. There also, according to
Waterton, the cock of the rock is plentiful. He is of a
gloomy disposition, retiring during the day among the
darkest rocks, and only coming out to feed a little before
sunrise and at sunset. The South American Spaniards
call him Gallo del Rio Negro, supposing that he is only
met with in the vicinity of that far inland stream; but he
is common in the interior of Demerara, amongst the huge
rocks in the forests of Macoushia, and has been shot south
of the line, in the captainship of Para. R. Peruviana is a
icarly allied species, of somewhat larger size, but wanting
ihe frizzled character of the wing and tail feathers. It
inhabits Peru. The female is still unknown. Our author
here places the beautiful green species 1’rom Java and Su¬
matra (Calyptomena viridis of Horsfield), which he thinks
differs trom the other Rupicolae chiefly in the crest not
being fan-shaped. (See Plate VII., figure 7.) The true
manakins (genus Pipra, Cuv.) are of much smaller
size. They likewise inhabit America, where they dwell in
the deep and humid forests, feeding, it is said, both on
fruits and insects. They are in general distinguished by
the rich and varied colouring of their plumage. We have
figured as an example a beautiful Brazilian species, the
Pipra pareola. (See Plate VII., fig. 5.)
The terminal group of the Dentirostres is formed by the
genus Eurylaimus, Horsfield, in which the bill is much
stronger and broader than in any of the preceding, being
in some of the species so greatly depressed and expanded
at the base, as to exceed the breadth of the head. The
upper overlaps the under mandible. These birds are pe¬
culiar to India and the great eastern islands, and now
amount to five or six in number, which, however, offer such
disparity in the structure of the bill, as to render subdivi-Insessores.
sion unavoidable. This has been in part effected; the
genus Cymbirhynchus, Vigors, containing Eu. nasutus,
while the specific name of another (Eu. corydon), remark¬
able for the extraordinary expansion of the upper mandible,
is used generically by M. Lesson, the species itself being
termed Temminckii. (See Plate VIL, figure 8.) We
know little of the manners of any of these birds. When
actually ascertained, they may probably be found to offer a
considerable disresemblance. They have hitherto been
generally found in wild and desert places, by the banks of
rivers, and are supposed to feed both on fruits and insects,
—a frequent, if not a safe conclusion on the part of na¬
turalists, regarding almost every unknown species which
happens to be neither a goose nor an eagle.
Tribe 2d.~Fissirostres.
This restricted tribe consists of the swallows, swifts, and
goat-suckers, and is characterized by the bill being short,
broad, depressed, slightly curved, without any tooth, and
so deeply cleft as to give peculiar wideness to the gape,—
a structure of great use to birds which prey so exclusively
on insects taken on the wing. Their insectivorous regi¬
men induces migratorial habits, and all the species leave
ourselves and other northern nations so soon as the sear
and yellow leaves of autumn betoken the approach of frost,
and the consequent decrease or extirpation of insect life.
Like the raptorial order, or birds of prey properly so called,
the fissirostral tribe is capable of a binary division into
diurnal and nocturnal species.
Swallows, in general (Hirundo, Linn.), are remarkable
for their close-set, usually glossy plumage, the great lengtli
of their wings, their swift, powerful, easy, and long-con¬
tinued flight. They occur in almost every region of the
globe. In the restricted genus Hirundo, Cuv., the toes
are disposed as in the majority of birds, that is, three an¬
terior and one posterior. In some of the species the legs
and feet are clothed with feathers, the hind claw is slightly
disposed to turn forwards, the tail is forked, and of medium
size. Such is our martin or window-swallow (H. urbica)
which forms so cheerful a feature in many of our villages
and country dwellings, building beneath the eaves of
houses, or the upper angles of windows. It is glossy bluish-
black above, the rump and all the lower regions white. In
others the legs and feet are naked, the tail forked, and of
great length. Such is our chimney-swallow (H. rustica),
which usually builds in out-houses, and leaves the top of
its nest uncovered. Its upper parts, and the higher por¬
tion of the breast, are black ; the forehead and throat deep
orange-brown, the lower portions of the body white. This
species usually appears a few days earlier in April than the
preceding. Although the migratory movements of both
these birds may be still regarded as mysterious, there is
now no doubt of the fact that they do migrate. It appears
from the observations of M. Natterer, that they moult in
February, that is, during their absence from this, the land
of their nativity,—a fact which would of itself suffice to
overthrow the idea of their long-protracted winter sleep.
It is also in respect to other purposes as usual well ordain¬
ed, for if the heavy moult which befalls so many species
during spring or autumn, were equally to affect these long¬
winged birds, their flight from foreign lands, or journey
thither, might be procrastinated, or prevented altogether.
Swallows are probably the most purely and exclusively in¬
sectivorous of all birds, and even if they could themselves
withstand our winter’s cold, they would soon perish mi¬
serably from want of food.
This extreme sensibility of course renders it difficult
to keep swallows caged, or otherwise confined, through¬
out the winter season. Yet several instances are known
758
ORNITHOLOGY.
Insesaorea. of tlieir surviving that inclement period. The following
Y is given by Mr Bewick, on the authority of the late Sir
John Trevelyan. The experiments were made by a Mr
Pearson. “ Five or six of these birds were taken about
the latter end of August 1784, in a bat-fowling net, at
night; they were put separately into small cages, and fed
with nightingale’s food. In about a week or ten days
they took the food of themselves: they were then put
altogether into a deep cage, four feet long, with gravel
at the bottom ; a broad shallow pan with water was placed
in it, in which they sometimes washed themselves, and
seemed much strengthened by it. One day Mr Pearson
observed that they went into the water with unusual eager¬
ness, hurrying in and out again repeatedly with such swift¬
ness as if they had been suddenly seized with a frenzy.
Being anxious to see the result, he left them to them¬
selves about half an hour, and on going to the cage again
found them all huddled together in a corner apparently
dead; the cage was then placed at a proper distance from the
fire, when two of them only recovered, and were as healthy
as before—the rest died ; the two remaining ones were al¬
lowed to wash themselves occasionally for a short time
only; but their feet soon after became swelled and inflam¬
ed, which was attributed to their perching, and they died
about Christmas. Thus the first year’s experiments were
in some measure lost. Not discouraged by the failure of
this, Mr Pearson determined to make a second trial the
succeeding year, from a strong desire of being convinced
of the truth respecting their going into a state of torpidity.
Accordingly, the next season having taken some more birds,
he put them into the cage, and in every respect pursued
the same methods as with the last; but to guard their feet
irom the bad effects of the damp and cold, he covered the
perches with flannel, and had the pleasure to observe that
the birds throve extremely well. They sang their song
through the winter, and soon after Christmas began to
moult, which they got through without any difficulty, and
lived three or four years, regularly moulting every year at
the usual time. On the renewal of their feathers, it ap¬
peared that their tails were forked exactly the same as in
those birds which return hither in the spring, and in every
respect their appearance was the same. These birds were
exhibited to the Society for promoting Natural Historj',
on the 14th February 1786, at the time when they were
in a deep moult, during a severe frost, when the snow was
on the ground. They died at last in the summer, from
neglect during a long illness which Mr Pearson had, who
concludes this interesting account with the following words:
‘ January 20,1797.—I have now in my house, No. 21 Great
Newport Street, Long-Acre, four swallows in moult, in
as perfect health as any birds ever appeared to be in
when moulting.’”1 Our only other species is the sand-
swallow, or bank-martin (I/, riparia), of smaller size and
browner colour. It is the earliest of the genus ; but be¬
ing more locally distributed, its arrival in many districts
is not so speedily observed.
Among the foreign species, one of the most remarkable
is //. esculenta, a small brown swallow, from the Indian
Archipelago. Its nest, formed chiefly of a peculiar kind
of sea-weed, is very mucilaginous when cooked; and its
restoratory virtues are held in such high esteem, that it has
become with eastern nations, especially the Chinese, a
most important article of commerce. The best kinds (such
as are white and transparent, and of a uniform and delicate
texture) sell at from a thousand to fifteen hundred dollars
the peckul (not more than twenty-five pounds). The
Dutch alone were in use to export from Batavia about a
thousand peckuls every year; but of these, a great pro-Insessores.
portion was brought from the islands of Cochin-China,
and others to the eastward. However, these nests are
nowhere more abundant than about Croee, near the south
end of Sumatra. They weigh each about half an ounce, and
resemble a small saucer in shape, with one side flattened,
by which they adhere to the rocky walls of caverns. Their
texture resembles that of isinglass, or fine gum-dragon.
When about to be used they are soaked, then pulled to
pieces ; and after being mixed with ginseng, are put into
the body of a fowl, which is stewed all night with a suffi¬
cient quantity of water. When dissolved in broth they
are said to give it a delicious flavour.2 Naturalists are not
agreed as to the exact mode of formation of these nests.
Some suppose them the result of a glandular secretion.
Alexander Wilson says, that the aculeated swallow (H.
pelasgia) of America fastens together the twigs which
compose its nest by means of a strongly adhesive gummy
matter, secreted by two glands placed on each side of the
hinder portion of the head.3
The swifts belong to the genus Cypselus of Illiger, dis¬
tinguished by the extreme shortness of the legs, and the pe¬
culiar character of all the four toes being directed forwards.
The middle and outer toes have only three articulations.
Of all the feathered race, these are perhaps the most vigo¬
rous and unwearied flyers. Even in the skeleton, the short¬
ness of the humerus, the breadth of its apophyses, the
oval form of the fourchette, and the sternum unnotched
below, indicate a structure admirably suited to sustain
aerial motion; and when to these we add the enormously
lengthened primary feathers of the wings, we have a fly¬
ing machine of the most powerful kind. We doubt not
that during every summer evening in which these sable
creatures pursue their gladsome gambols through the un¬
resisting air, they travel many hundred miles. It is easy
to observe, that they are often on the wing incessantly for
hours together, careering in fine weather in vast and in¬
tersecting circles, screaming after each other in no melo¬
dious strains, and flying at such a maddening rate as if
flight were the only faculty worthy of exercise in earth or
heaven ; and we are sure that the same genius for arith¬
metic which enables a school-boy to ascertain how many
grains of barley would surround the world, might, if ap¬
plied to every minute’s flight of this surprising bird for
one “ purpureal eve,” elicit a result in distance which
would astonish even a railway engineer. Our common
swift is the Cypselus murarius of Temm. (Hirundo apus,
Linn.). These birds, as well as swallows, seem in many
instances to return to the same spot for a series of years.
Dr Jenner took two claws from the foot of twelve swifts.
Several were re-taken in the course of one or two seasons;
and at the expiration of seven years, one was brought in
by a cat. A larger species (C. alpinus, Temm.), frequent
among the Alps of Switzerland and the Tyrol, and well
known at Gibraltar, has occurred occasionally in Ireland.
There are a great many foreign species, both of swifts and
swallows.
In the genus Capiumulgus, Linn., the gape is still
wider, and the beak is bristled at the base with stiffish
hairs. The wings are very long, the legs short, the tarsi
usually feathered, the toes united at the base by a mem¬
brane, slightly connecting even the hinder toe, which
is somewhat versatile; the middle toe is often toothed on
its inner edge (see Plate VII., figure 6 a); and the
outer one, by a conformation of rare occurrence amongst
birds, has only four articulations.
The Caprimulgi or goat-suckers (an absurd and fabu-
- Bewick’s British Birds, i. 254.
? See Shaw’s General Zoology, vol. x. p. Ill ; and Sir G. Staunton’s Embassy to China, vol. i. p. 288, and vol. ii. p. 5. This spe¬
cies seems described under the name of H. fuciphaga, in Act. Holm. t. xxxiii. p. 151. F 1
* American Ornithology, vol. ii. p. 24.
a American Ornithology, vol. ii. p
ORNITHOLOGY.
isessores. ]ous term, which however, serves the best purpose of a
^ name, in being generally understood to relate to the spe¬
cies in question^ are solitary Dirds, which feed voracious¬
ly on insects, and fly about during the evening twilight,
encroaching in mid-summer on the clear and stilly hours
of night. Our only British species (C. Europceus') is a
bird of passage ; and in its beautifully brindled plumage of
ashy-gray, brown, and black, with here and there a patch
of white, presents a characteristic example of the genus.
It frequents commons, heaths, and uncultivated tracts, es¬
pecially where interspersed with brushwood. When on the
wing, it utters occasionally a sharp hawk-like cry ; but Cu¬
vier surely errs when he asserts that “ 1’air qui s’engouffre,
quand ils volent, dans leur large bee, y produit un bour-
donnement particulier.” If he alludes to the peculiar pur¬
ring and prolonged sound which some compare to that of
a spinning-wheel, there is no doubt of its being produced
when the bird is at rest, on the top of a wall, or among a
heap of stones. When perched upon a branch or paling,
its position is peculiar. It rests horizontally in the same
direction as that by which it is supported, instead of across
or at right angles. Its flight, when pursuing moths and
beetles, is very easy and graceful. The species of this
genus are widely distributed. Three occur in North Ame¬
rica; several in the southern parts of the new world ; in
New Holland they are well known ; Africa produces some
remarkable kinds; and those of Java and the East have
been described by recent naturalists. Out of these, how¬
ever, several subordinate genera have been created. The
strong-billed species, which want the membrane between
the toes, and the dentation of the middle claw, form the
genus Podargus. They are natives of New Holland and
the eastern islands. (See Plate VII., figure 6.) The
great species from Guiana, which has the sides of the
upper mandible dilated into a blunt tooth, constitutes the
genus Nyctibius of Vieillot. A very peculiar species
(Guacharodecaripe), which feeds on fruits, and dwells gre¬
gariously in caverns, where the young are much sought
after on account of their delicious fat, forms the genus
Steatornis of Humboldt.1 It is the only frugivorous
night-flying bird with which we are acquainted.
Although the general title of goat-sucker is so fami¬
liar to our ears, we confess we were never aware of how
it had originated,—deeming it some accidental and un¬
meaning application,—till we had read the following pas¬
sage in Mr Waterton’s work. “ When the moon shines
bright, you may have a fair opportunity of examining the
goat-sucker. You will see it close by the cows, goats,
and sheep, jumping up every now and then under their
bellies. Approach a little nearer,—he is not shy,—‘ he
fears no danger, for he knows no sin.’ See how the
nocturnal flies are tormenting the herd, and with what
dexterity he springs up and catches them, as fast as they
alight on the belly, legs, and udder of the animals. Ob¬
serve how quietly they stand, and how sensible they
seem ol his good offices; for they neither strike at him,
nor hit him with their tail, nor tread on him, nor try to
drive him away as an uncivil intruder. Were you to dis¬
sect him, and inspect his stomach, you would find no milk
there. It is full of the flies which have been annoying
the herd.”2 Many an hour, during the long still summer
evenings, have we watched the flight of our only British
species, while it hawked for moths along the fringed mar¬
gins of the rocky woods, or glanced more openly across
the dewy meadows which bank the crystal basin of the
“ beautiful Winander,”—but we never saw it hovering
around or near to any kind of cattle. We doubt not, how¬
ever, that the same habit, as noted by Mr Waterton, must
have been observed in Europe, and has, through miscon¬
ception, originated the vernacular name.
Tribe 3d—Conirostres.
In this tribe are comprehended a considerable variety
of genera, exhibiting not a little disparity in size, struc¬
ture, and habits, but agreeing in their bills being compa¬
ratively strong, more or less conical, and without notch.
Several of the species, such as crows and magpies, are
omnivorous; but, generally speaking, when compared with
either of the two preceding tribes, the diet of the Coniros¬
tres may be termed granivorous.
The first little group is constituted by the larks, genus
Alauda, Linn., of which the greater number have the
bill straight, moderately thick, and pointed. (See Plate
VIII., figure 1.) Though their flight is occasionally lofty
and sustaineo, and the sky-lark (A. arvensis) obtains its
name
From warbling high
His trembling thrilling extacy,
As, lessening from the dazzled sight,
He melts in air and liquid light,—
yet they haunt, and build their humble nests, habitually
in fields of grain or grassy meadows. Even the wood-lark
(A. arborea), although it perches and sometimes sings on
trees, rears its young upon the ground. The shore-lark
of Pennant (A. alpestris, Gmel.) is common to the north¬
ern parts of Europe, Asia, and America.
In the genus Parus, Linn., the bill is small, short, coni¬
cal, straight, beset at the base with hairs, and the nostrils
concealed by feathers. The species commonly called tit¬
mice are lively, active little birds, usually observed flying
with eagerness from tree to tree in search of insects, scal¬
ing the branches in all directions, and seemingly quite re¬
gardless whether their heads or their heels are uppermost.
Their nests are usually placed under cover, either in the
crevice of a wall or the hollow of an old tree, and the
number of eggs which they lay exceeds that of most Pas-
seres. They eat grain and seeds, as well as insects. The
species are distributed over the whole world, with the ex¬
ception of New Holland, South America, and the islands
of the South Pacific Ocean. Although of rather gay and
beautiful plumage, they are more numerous in temperate
and northern countries than between the tropics. We
have seven species in Britain, of which the bearded tit¬
mouse (P. biarmicus) is scarce, and partially distributed,
and the crested species (i3. cristatus') so extremely rare as
to be regarded as accidental. From the small size, rapid
movements, and usually arboreous habits of all these birds,
their doings can scarcely be observed with advantage during
the umbrageous summer. But when the woods have either
lost their leafy glory, or the dry red foliage hangs unresis-
tant of the slightest breath, then are these vivacious crea¬
tures seen to congregate in little flocks, sometimes seve¬
ral species joining together, and cheering each other on
with frequent shrilly cries. In their foraging excursions
they likewise visit our gardens, shrubberies, and cottage
doors, plundering the farm-yards, eating potatoes with the
pigs and poultry, and greedily searching out an old mar¬
row-bone, or (if in Scotland) a sheep’s head of the preced¬
ing Sunday. The suspended nests of some of the foreign
species are extremely elegant, and even that of our own
long-tailed species is an object of great interest and beauty.
Mr Selby describes it as usually fixed in one of the smaller
forks of a tree branch, but occasionally amid the closer
screen of a fir, or the centre of a thick bush of woodbine
or thorn. It is of a longish oval form, composed of different
759
Insessores.
1 Acad, des Science^ Mars 1817, Nouv. Bull 1817, p. 51.
Wanderingt in South America, p. 143.
ORNITHOLOGY
Insessores. lichens and wool firmly and curiously interwoven, and lined
V ’ v-*-' with a profusion of feathers. A small hole is left on two
opposite sides of the nest, not only for ingress and egress,
but also to prevent the bird during incubation from being
incommoded by its long tail, which then projects through
one of the orifices. The eggs are white, with fine red¬
dish-brown specks upon the larger end, and usually amount
to ten or twelve.1 The Pams pendulinus, a species of
the southern parts of Europe, constructs a purse-shaped
dwelling, suspended from the flexible brandies of aquatic
plants, or interlaced among the waving reeds. This hang-
i.est tit-mouse is often seen among the marshes of Bologna,
where the peasantry seem to regard it with the same kind¬
ly affection as we do our red-breast.
The genus Emcrriza, Linn., is distinctly characterized
by its rather short, straight, conical bill, and the curved
form of the gape, produced by a narrowing of the sides of
the upper mandible, and a corresponding enlargement of
the under one. Instead of being as usual concave within,
the upper mandible has a hard, rounded knob in the in¬
side, or what is called a tuberculous palate. The species
commonly known by the name of buntings feed chiefly on
seeds and grain. The ortolan (Z?. hortulana), a native of
the central and southern provinces of Europe, has been
occasionally killed in England. It is much esteemed in
Italy and elsewhere as an article of food. It is frequent¬
ly lean when first netted; but if left undisturbed and well
fed, it will not only fatten rapidly, but even in many in¬
stances die of repletion. The snow-bunting, and a few
other kinds, distinguished chiefly by the elongation of the
hind claw, form the genus Plectrophanes of Meyer, now
called lark-buntings by our English writers.
The great genus Fringilla of Linn, has the bill also
conical, and more or less thickened at the base; but the
commissure is not angularly curved, as in the preceding
group. Numerous subdivisions have been made of this
genus in modern times. Of these the following may be
taken as examples.
In Ploceus, Cuv., the bill is rather square at the base,
but sharp-pointed; the upper mandible somewhat dilated.
The species are known by the name of weavers, on ac¬
count of the art with which they join together the mate¬
rials of their nests. Several species are gregarious, even
during the breeding season, hanging their nests close to¬
gether in the same tree; and as each on building a new
nest forms it in close connection with the old, the final
result is, that an apparently solid mass is at length collect¬
ed, consisting of numerous apartments, each tenanted by
a pair of birds, but having the external appearance of one
gigantic dwelling. Cuvier here places the species known
in the older systems as the Philippine gross-beak, Loxia
Philippina, Linn. This bird is known in India by the
name of baya, and may be rendered so tame as not only
to perch upon the hand, but to fetch and carry at com¬
mand. It builds a very curious nest, in the shape of a
long cylinder, swelling out into a globose form in the mid¬
dle, and composed of the fine fibres of leaves and grass,
fastened by the end to a lofty' branch, generally of the
Palmyra or Indian fig-tree. The eggs are said to resem¬
ble pearls, with the white part transparent even when
boiled, and are accounted delicious eating. This species
is alleged to feed on fire-flies. Another x'emarkable Plo¬
ceus is the sociable gross-beak, or republican, Loxia soda,
Latham. It is an inhabitant of the interior of the Cape
country,and is thus described in Paterson’s Travels: “ Few
species of birds live together in such large societies, or
have such an extraordinary mode of nidification, as these;
they build their nests on the mimosa trees, which grow to
a very large size, and appear to be well calculated for the Insessorej
purpose, as the smoothness of their trunks prevents the v>»i
birds from being attacked by monkeys, and other noxious
animals. The method in which their nests are made is
very curious. On one tree there could not be less than
from eight hundred to a thousand under one general roof.
I call it a roof, because it resembles that of a thatched
house, and projects over the entrance of the nest below
in a very singular manner. The industry of these birds
seems almost equal to that of the bee. Throughout the
day they appear to be busily employed in carrying a fine
species of grass, which is the principal material they em¬
ploy for the purpose of erecting this extraordinary work,
as well as for additions and repairs. Though my short
stay in the country was not sufficient to satisfy me by ocu¬
lar proof that they added to their nest as they annually
increased in numbers ; still, from the many trees which "l
have seen borne down by the weight, and others which I
have observed with their boughs completely covered over,
it would appear that this is really the case. When the
tree which is the support of this aBrial city is obliged to
give way to the increase of weight, it is obvious that they
are no longer protected, and are under the necessity of
rebuilding in other trees. One of these deserted nests I
had the curiosity to break down, to inform myself of the
internal structure of it, and found it equally ingenious
with that of the external. There are many entrances,
each of which forms a regular street, with nests on both
sides, at about two inches distance from each other. The
grass with which they build is called the Boshman’s grass,
and I believe the seed of it to be their principal food,
though, on examining their nests, I found the wings and
legs of different insects. From every appearance, the nest
which I dissected had been inhabited for many years, and
some parts of it were more complete than others. This,
therefore, I conceive to amount nearly to a proof that the
animals added to it at different times, as they found neces¬
sary, from the increase of the family, or rather of the na¬
tion or community.”2
The genus Pyrgita, Cuv., contains the sparrows proper¬
ly so called, of which the common house species (P. do-
mestica) affords a familiar example. This bird is charac¬
teristic of the temperate and more northern parts of Eu¬
rope, and is scarcely known in Italy to the south of Pied¬
mont, being replaced by a closely-allied species, P. dsal-
pina, which is the Passer volgare of Italian authors. Al¬
though M. Temminck thinks that the manners of the lat¬
ter are less domestic than those of our more northern kind,
and that its love of fields and country places ally it rather
to the P. montana, we doubt not that all who have lived
in Italy will be of a contrary opinion,—in agreement with
the following beautiful passage by Professor Savi, which
we shall not injure by translating. “ Sembra che quest’
uccello non possa vivere se non con I’uomo. Eccetuate
quelle region! alpestriove regnanoperpetuamente i ghiacci,
in qualunque altro luogo in cui I’uomo si e stabilito, la Pas-
sera 1’ha accompagnato ; e indifferente alia prospera, o con-
traria fortuna, essa ha posta dimora nella dimora di lui. In
riva delli stagni, in mezzo alia quiete tie’ boschi delle Ma-
remme, sulla povera ed umile capanna d’un piscatore o
d un pecorajo, ban domicilio le passere, le quali trovano
il loro cibo nella sementa di grano del piccolo campo, ne’
frutti dell’ orticello, nello scarso becchime gettato alle gal-
line o a’ piccioni. E nel modo stesso voi le vedete nel con-
tro delle piu grandi e clamorose citta, porre il nido fra gli
ornati d’una grandiosa cattedrale, o su i tetti d’un giardin
di delizia, e cercare le granella o miche di pane in mezzo
alle piazze piu popolate. Ma se I’uomo cessa d’abitare
1 Brilith Ornithology, 1. 241.
* General Zoology, vol. ix. p. 303.
ORNITHOLOGY.
nsMsore*. quella capanna, o quella citta, la passera anche essa Tabban-
^ dona. Chi, girando nolle maremme, passa per antiche e dis-
abitate abbazie, per fortilizi, o ville in rovini, vedra dalle
finestre pin elevate di quelle, fuggire de’ piccioni insalva-
tichiti, udira gridar la civetta che abita fra li spacchi de’
muri vestiti d’ellera e parietaria, vedra la ballerina conti-
nuare a fabbricarvi il nido, ma in vano egli la cerchera il vo¬
latile parasite dell’ Europeo, quella specie d’uccello che pri-
ma per il numero ogni altro ne superava in quel luogo.
Cosl nel modo stesso che una figura geometrica vista sulla
sabbia fu giudicata dal naufraga Filosofo per un segno certo
della vicinanza deH’uomo, per un tal segno ancora puo
ritenersi la presenza delle passere.”1 In regard to our.own
species, Savi observes, “ non mi e noto se ne stiano anche
in Lombardia, ma so di certo che alcuno giammai ne e stato
visto in Toscana.” According to Temminck, the boundary
of the latter species is the great chain of the Alps, on the
southern slopes of which it disappears in favour of the cis¬
alpine kind. But it is our common British sparrow which
occurs about Trieste, and through the north of Dalmatia,
although separated from the region of P. cisalpina oi\\y by
the waters of the Adriatic. “ I costumi,” adds the Ita¬
lian author, “ di queste due specie sono precisamente gli
stessi. lo ho accuratamente ed in varj tempi osservate
le abitudini della F. domestica, tan to in Svizzera che nel
settentrione della Francia, e posso assicurare che le stesse
sono di quelle della nostra specie Italiana.”2
In the restricted genus Fringilla, Cuv., the bill is ra¬
ther less arched than in the sparrows, and a little stronger
and more lengthened than among the linnets. Cuvier in¬
cludes in it the chaffinch (F. ccelebs), the mountain-finch or
brambling {F. montifringilla), and the snow-finch (F. ni¬
valis). The latter is scarcely ever found except in the
near vicinity of ice and snow, and may be regarded (in
common with Accenter alpinus) as the most mountainous
of all the smaller birds of Europe. Yet though wild and
solitary in our estimation, from associating it with the
desolate scenery of the rock-surrounded glaciers, it is beau¬
tiful to see how, in the neighbourhood of the lonely shep¬
herd chalets of the Alps, it loves to humanise its feelings;
and how, among the few sad dwellings of the Mount Cenis,
and other lofty passes, it perches on the roofs of houses,
hops about the beaten foot-paths, and builds among dis¬
mantled yet protecting walls. In winter it seeks subal-
pine regions, or the snow-covered valleys of Piedmont, but
scarcely ever migrates to the lowest plains. It is unknown
in Tuscany.
In the genus Carduelis, Cuv., the bill is more exactly
conic, without bulging in any portion, and is rather length¬
ened. We may name as an example, our beautiful, live¬
ly, and intelligent goldfinch (C. elegans, Steph.,—F. car¬
duelis, Linn.), a bird widely distributed over Europe, and
extending from the sultry shores of the Mediterranean to
the plains of Siberia. It occurs in Holland only as a bird
of passage. The siskin (F. spinus) is by some considered
as a Carduelis, while others place it with the group which
follows, viz. genus Linaria, Bechstein, in which the bill
is equally conical, but not so long. Here we place our
gray linnets and red-poles, among which the more or less
decided crimson tinting of the breast and forehead, accord¬
ing to age and season, has occasioned some confusion. Our
common or gray linnet (F. cannabina, Linn.,—F. linota,
Gmel.) is, in the perfect nuptial plumage, synonymous with
the rose-linnet and greater red-pole. Our lesser red-pole
is the iP. linaria of Linn.; and the only other British spe¬
cies is the twyte or mountain-linnet, F. monlium, Gmel.,
formerly regarded as a bird of passage, but now known to
breed in the northern counties of Scotland, if not else¬
where in Britain. We have caught the young ones, half-
761
fledged, among the Grampian Mountains. The amountInsessores.
of foreign species is considerable. Of these, one of the
most remarkable for its musical powers is the well-known
canary (i^. canaria, Linn.), a native of the Cape de Yerd
and other islands, where its natural plumage is green. It
breeds readily in confinement with the linnet, goldfinch,
siskin, and other species.
_ The genus Vidua, Cuv., contains some remarkable spe¬
cies, with the bill more inflated at the base than the pre¬
ceding, but chiefly characterized by the extreme elonga¬
tion of the caudal plumage of the males. They inhabit
India and Africa, and were placed by Linnaeus among the
buntings.
The genus Coccothraustes, Cuv., containing the
gross-beaks, has the bill very conical, but of extreme thick¬
ness at the base, and rapidly tapering to the point. The
cuhnen is rounded, the commissure slightly arched. The
species occur in America, as well as in the ancient con¬
tinents. The haw-finch ( C. vulgaris,—Loxia coccothraus¬
tes, Linn.) visits the southern parts of Britain occasional¬
ly during winter, and is even said to have been found
breeding in Windsor Forest. It feeds upon the larger kinds
of seeds and berries, which it is enabled to bruise and
break at pleasure, by means of the great strength of its
bill. The evening gross-beak (C. vespertina, Cooper)
is a beautiful American species, with the frontal feathers
and a line above the eye yellow, the crown, wings, and
tail black, the secondaries and inner wing-coverts white,
the bill pale yellow. This newly-discovered bird inhabits
the solitudes of the north-western interior, being met with
from the extremity of the Michigan territory to the Rocky
Mountains, and it is not uncommon towards the upper end
of Lake Superior and the borders of the Athabasca Lake.
To the east of these regions it appears to be only a tran¬
sient visitor during spring and autumn. Our homely and
heavy-headed green linnet ( C. chloris, Fleming), of which
the mature male is a rich and beautifully plumaged bird,
belongs to our present genus. It is probable that the
Fringilla incerta of Risso, figured by M. Roux (in his
Ornithologie Provcn^ale), is nearly allied. It is one of the
rarest of the European birds, appearing occasionally du¬
ring the autumn in Provence, and likewise occurring in
the vicinity of Palermo.
In the genus Pitylus, Cuv., are contained a few spe¬
cies (almost all, we believe, from South America), in which
the bill, though thick, as in the preceding, is rather com¬
pressed, arched above, and has sometimes a projecting
angle in the middle of the margin of the upper mandible.
Such are the Loxia grossa, Portoricensis, &c.
In the genus Pyrrhula, in which the bill is shorter and
greatly bulged, we have the bullfinches, of which our British
species, P. vulgaris, Temm.,—L.pyrrhula, Linn., is a well-
known example. It is very generally distributed through
out our wooded districts, but is nowhere very abundant,
and may be called scarce in several quarters of the island.
In the genus Loxia of Brisson, as now restricted, the
bill is compressed, and the two mandibles so curved and
deflected, that when closed they cross each other. This
extraordinary structure is supposed to afford the species
great facility in stripping the scales from the well-protect¬
ed seeds of the various kinds of pine-trees. The cross¬
bills are few in number, and occur both in Europe and
America. Their habits as breeding birds are little
known, but the period of incubation must be very early, as
L. curvirostra sometimes visits this country in small flocks
as early as June, lemminck says, somewhat vaguely, in
regard to the parrot-billed species (L. pytiopsittacus), that
it “ niche en hiver dans nos climats, sur les branches de
sapin; en Livonie Tespece niche des les mois de Mais.”
voi.. XVI.
Ornxtologia Toscana, t. ii. p. 100.
Ibid. p. 106.
O I>
762
ORNITHOLOGY.
Insessores. Their chief haunts are probably within the arctic circle.
vIn America they are believed to breed about Hudson’s
Bay, being seen in the United States only from Septem¬
ber to April. It thus appears, at all events, that they do
not there breed during the winter season.
The great pine gross-beak (Loxia enucleator, Linn., by
some regarded as a bullfinch) may be here named as be¬
longing to the genus Corythus of Cuvier. It is a north¬
ern species, occurring in the colder regions both of Europe
and America. Although Pennant mentions having met
with it in the woods of Invercauld in the month of August,
we are not aware of its having ever since been seen in
Scotland.
In the genus Colius, Gmelin, the bill is short, thick,
conical, somewhat compressed, both mandibles arched, and
of nearly equal length. The feathers of the tail are long
and graduated, and the plumage, for the most part fine
and silky, is usually ash-coloured. The hind toe can as¬
sume a forward direction, almost as in the swifts. (See
Plate VIII., figure 3.) The species are found in In¬
dia and Africa. Prior to the time of Vaillant, we knew
little of their habits. They are now known to be grega¬
rious, endowed with but feeble powers of flight, but almost
as skilful as parakeets in climbing. They are not at all
addicted to insect food ; but their love of fruits, and the
tender buds of trees, makes them very injurious wherever
land is under horticultural care. They not only dwell
together in society, but build their nests in little groups
upon the same thorny bush. They are moreover distin¬
guished by a singular custom of sleeping close together,
suspended head downwards from the branches. The spe¬
cies here represented (Plate VIII., figure 2) is C. leu-
conotus, Lath. ((7. erythropus, Gmel.), supposed to be iden¬
tical with C. capensis, Linn.
The genus Buphaga of Brisson has the bill square at
the base, and rather gibbous towards the point, which is
abbreviated. The species, only two in number, are insec¬
tivorous, and have derived the name of beef-eaters from
their habit of picking larvae from the hides of the larger
kinds of cattle, thus freeing them from noxious parasites.
The South African species (jB. Africdna, Linn.) was ob¬
served by Vaillant in the country of the Namuquas in
small flocks. He found it shy, and difficult to be ap¬
proached. The other species referred to this genus is the
B. erythrorhyncha of Temm., common in the north-eastern
countries of Africa, where it follows caravans for the sake
of picking insects from the woolly backs of camels, and
other beasts of burden. It is singular, that although hi¬
therto unknown in Southern Africa, it should have been
received from Madagascar.
i In the genus Cassicus of Cuv. the bill is much more
exactly conical, thick at the base, extremely sharp point¬
ed, the commissure forming an angulated line as in the
starlings. These are American birds of gregarious habits,
which feed both on fruits and insects, and frequently ex¬
hibit such surprising skill and ingenuity in the structure
of their nests, that an old lady once gravely asked an Ame¬
rican Ornithologist whether he did not think they might be
taught to darn stockings. In the genus Cassicus pro¬
perly so called, the base of the bill ascends upon the fore¬
head, so as to encroach broadly upon the frontlet feathers.
Here are contained the largest species. The one we
have figured (C. cristatus, Plate VIII., figure 5) is from
Cayenne. In the genus Icterus the bill is arched, and Insessore*
does not extend upon the forehead except by a sharp
notch.1 With the Icteri Cuvier combines the purple
grakle, or crow blackbird of America ( Quiscalus versicolor
of Vieillot), between which and the fish-hawk a singular
understanding seems to be kept up. The nest of the lat¬
ter is of large dimensions, often from three to four feet in
breadth, and from four to five feet high, composed exter¬
nally of large sticks or faggots, among the interstices of
which several pair of crow blackbirds will construct their
nests, while the hawk sits hatching over all. These birds
are very injurious to the crops of Indian corn, and some¬
times collect in prodigious flocks, descending on the fields
like a blackening tempest. They occupy a great extent
of territory, being widely spread from Hudson’s Bay to
within the tropics. They are migratory in the colder
districts, and on their first arrival feed on insects as well
as seeds.2 According to Dr Richardson, their first appear¬
ance on the plains of the Saskatchewan is very striking.
They arrive from their southern winter quarters in the be¬
ginning of May, the males and females in separate flocks
of from twenty to a hundred, which perch in crowds upon
the leafless branches of the trees, their plumage shining
with metallic splendour.
The genus Xanthornus (Jes carouges) scarcely differs
from the preceding, except that the bill is straight. Here
Cuvier places many of the American orioles, such as the
red-shouldered species ( O. phceniceus, Linn.). These “ red¬
winged starlings,” as Wilson calls them, are generally mi¬
gratory in the states north of Maryland, but are found
during winter in immense flocks along the lower parts of
Virginia, both Carolinas, Georgia, and Louisiana, particu¬
larly near the sea-coast, and in the vicinity of large fields
of rice and corn. “ In the months of January and Febru¬
ary, while passing through the former of these countries, I
was frequently entertained with the aerial evolutions of
these great bodies of starlings. Sometimes they appeared
driving about like an enormous black cloud carried before
the wind, varying its shape every moment; sometimes
suddenly rising from the fields around me with a noise
like thunder ; while the glittering of innumerable wings of
the brightest vermilion amid the black cloud they formed,
produced on these occasions a very striking and splendid
effect. Then descending like a torrent, and covering the
branches of some detached grove, or clump of trees, the
whole congregated multitude commenced one general con¬
cert or chorus, that I have plainly distinguished at the
distance of more than two miles; and when listened to at
the intermediate space of about a quarter of a mile, with a
slight breeze of wind to swell and soften the flow of its
cadences, was to me grand, and even sublime. The whole
season of winter, that with most birds is past struggling to
sustain life in silent melancholy, is with the red-wings one
continued carnival. The profuse gleanings of the old rice,
corn, and buck-wheat fields, supply them with abundant
food, at once ready and nutritious ; and the intermediate
time is spent either in aerial manoeuvres, or in grand vocal
performances, as if solicitous to supply the absence of all
the tuneful summer tribes, and to cheer the dejected face
of nature with their whole combined powers of harmony.”3
In this genus some have also placed the noted cow-pen
bird of Catesby (Icterus pecoris. Bon.; Emb.pecoris, Wil¬
son), of which the most remarkable feature consists in its
1 For a detailed classification of the Icteri of Brisson, see Mr Visjors’s “ Sketches in Ornithology,” Zoological Journal, No. vL
p. 182. > fe >
s Great confusion exists in the nomenclature of these birds, and of their congeners the troupials, hang-nest orioles, and other
American species, chiefly in consequence of the transposition of names. Almost every author has composed his groups of different
materials, and of course has applied his designations differently. The genus Quiscalus of Vieillot contains four well-ascertained spe¬
cies, Q- major, versicolor, ferrugineus, and laritus.
3 American Ornithology, vol. i. p. 193.
ORNITHOLOGY.
763
Insessores. depositing, like our European cuckoo, its eggs in the nests
  s-'-'of other birds. The circumstances by which Wilson first
became acquainted with this peculiar habit are as follows.
He had in numerous instances found in the nests of three
or four particular species, one egg much larger and dif¬
ferently marked from those beside it. He at length de¬
tected the female of this cow-bunting, as he calls it, in the
act, that is, sitting in the nest of the red-eyed fly-catcher,
(her eyes might well be red, if she had ever fondly hoped
for a legitimate posterity), which happens to be a very
small one, and singularly constructed. Suspecting her
purpose (and truly her position was more than suspicious),
he cautiously withdrew without disturbing her, and had the
satisfaction to find on his return, that she had left an egg
exactly like that just alluded to. He afterwards, in many
instances, found the young cow^bunting in the nest of these
and of other birds, and also observed the latter followed
by a foster child calling most clamorously for food. The
cow-bird is gregarious and migratory, entering the middle
and northern states about the end of March or beginning
of April, and passing northwards as the season becomes
milder. It arrives in the fur-countries in May, ranges to
the sixtieth parallel, departs in September, and collects in
large flocks in Pennsylvania during the following months,
after which it retires to winter in the more southern states
and Mexico. Its food consists of grain, grass, and worms,
particularly certain intestinal ones, which it finds in the
dung of cattle. The cow-bunting never pairs, and a state of
general concubinage seems to prevail amongst them. Bred
up as foundlings in the nests of other birds, and fed by
foster parents,—owing their existence and preservation
to a system of cunning deception, and commencing their
career by the destruction of the natural inmates of that
mossy dwelling in which they passed their own delusive
infancy,—what hopes can here be cherished of the hallowed
growth of home affections ? When the female is disposed
to lay, she appears restless and dejected, and separates
herself from the unregarding males, who care not for pos¬
terity. Stealing through the woods and thickets, she pries
insidiously into every bush and branch for a nest that suits
her fancy, and into it she darts in absence of the owner,
and in a few minutes is seen to rise upon the wing, re¬
lieved from all maternal care. If the egg be deposited
alone, that is, in a previously empty nest, it is almost uni¬
formly forsaken; but if the nursing mother has any of her
own she immediately begins to sit. The red-eyed fly¬
catcher ( Vireo olivaceus) proves a most assiduous foster¬
parent. In the beautiful basket-like nest of one of these
birds, Mr NuttalS found an egg of each species, and the
female fly-catcher already sitting. He removed her own
eSS> and left that of the stranger. She soon returned,
and, as if sensible of wdiat had happened, gazed stead¬
fastly, shifted the egg, sat on it for a time, moved off, re¬
newed her observation, and at length settled down upon
her nest. Two or three days after, however, she was
found to have left the premises. Yet another bird for¬
sook two eggs of her own, because that of the cow-bird
was taken away,—which proves that there is no account¬
ing for tastes. The blue bird, which exhibits a strong
attachment to its breeding places, affords one of the few
examples of a species not refusing to lay after the stran¬
ger’s egg has been first deposited. Mr Pickering observ¬
ed two nests of the blue-eyed yellow warbler, in which,
previous to their own laying, an egg of the cow-bird had
been deposited, and finding themselves unable to eject it,
the warblers buried it in the bottom of the nest, by build¬
ing over it an additional story I The egg of the cow-bird,
perhaps from being larger, and coming thus into closer
contact with the body of its nurse, is sooner hatched than
the others. The produce of the latter, though often stifled, Insessore*
are sometimes reared along with the intruder. If the na-'s—^w
tural offspring die, they are found lying at some distance
from the nest, and not directly beneath it, which shows
that they are carried out by the parents, and not heaved
over by the giant intruder, as in the case of our European
cuckoo. When fully fledged, the cow-bird soon deserts
his foster-parents, and skulks for a time about the woods,
till he instinctively joins a few of his own blood, and then
he seeks his food more boldly (five or six together), in the
fields and lanes.1 This bird measures about seven inches
in length. The head and neck are blackish-brown, the
rest black, glossed above with green, and on the breast
with violet.
The Baltimore oriole is another beautiful species of Ic¬
terus,—I. Baltimorm. The male is orange, with the head,
neck, upper part of the back, and greater portion of the
wings, black. It winters in South America, but makes its
appearance in the United States in spring, where its ar¬
rival is hailed as the sure harbinger of warmth and sun¬
shine. Full of life and activity, it is seen vaulting like a
fiery sylph among the boughs of lofty trees, vanishing
with restless inquietude, and again flashing quickly into
sight from amidst some wreath of waving foliage, showing
like a living gem amid the green adornment of the leafy
forest. The most remarkable instinctive feature of this
bird is displayed in the structure of its nest, which con¬
sists of a pendulous cylindrical pouch of six or seven inches
in depth, usually suspended almost from the extremity of
some lofty drooping branch. The materials, according to
Wilson, are flax, hemp, cow-hair, and wool, woven into a
complete cloth, the whole being tightly sewed through
and through with long horse-hairs, several of which mea¬
sure two feet in length. The bottom is composed of thick
tufts of cow-hair, also sewed, and strengthened with strong
horse-hair. The materials, however, vary, and so solici¬
tous is the bird to procure the best that can be possibly
obtained, that during the building season the women in
the country are under the necessity of narrowly watching
their thread when bleaching.
The genus Oxyrhynchus, Temm., has the conical sharp-
pointed bill of the Icteri, but it is shorter than the head.
Example, O. cristatus, Swainson’s Illustrations, vol. iii. pi.
49,—a Brazilian species. The genus Dacnis of Cuvier is
formed by the Motacilla cayana of Linn.
The genus Sturnus, Linn., also resembles the Icteri ;
but the bill is depressed towards the extremity. There
are two European species, one of which, our common star-
ling (S. vulgaris), is well known in many parts of Britain,
and is remarkable for its gregarious habits, and singu¬
lar aerial movements. Its glossy black and purple plu¬
mage, starred with little spots of white, render it a very
ornamental bird ; and the great facility with which it may
be taught to speak makes it much sought after as a domes¬
ticated species. S. unicolor inhabits Sardinia and the South
of Europe.
Baron Cuvier concludes the conirostral tribe with three
well-marked groups, the crows, the rollers, and the birds
of paradise.
In the genus Corvus, Linn., the bill is strong, straight,
rather long, compressed towards the point, the nostrils
covered by stiff, reversed feathers. The plumage, though
generally dense and dark, is soft and lustrous, and the
species bear so great a resemblance to each other, that, as
Dr Macgillivray observes, the most unpractised observer
can scarcely fail to distinguish a crow. They also exhibit
corresponding instincts, being, if not shy, at least cunning1
and watchful. I hey are omnivorous in the fullest sense
of the term, and will poke their beaks into every thing
1 Nuttall, vol. i. p. 178.
ORNITHOLOG Y.
704
Inses&oi-es. they can find, ffom a boiled potato to a dead horse.
~'Y“ When searching for food, they betake themselves to
open places, walk in a sedate manner, keep a good look
out, and on the least appearance of danger fly off to a dis¬
tance. Their flight is also sedate, moderately rapid, and
performed by regular beats. Their cry varies from a
hoarse croak to a caw or chatter, and some of them are
musical. They nestle in high places, trees, towers, build¬
ings of various kinds, or rocks; and produce from three to
nine eggs, which are deposited very early in the season.
They repose at night in similar places, and when alarmed
by day generally take themselves to heights. Some spe¬
cies are gregarious, others unsocial,—the latter being the
more carnivorous ; but even they are observed to associate
together when a large quantity of food attracts them to a
particular place. The sexes do not differ much in exter¬
nal appearance; the male, however, being in general more
robust, and having the plumage more glossy. Moulting
takes place in the summer months, and is very gradual.
Those which are more carnivorous have the faculty of dis¬
covering carrion at a great distance, in the same manner as
the vultures, which they in some degree resemble in their
habits. They are all easily tamed, and may be taught to
imitate the human voice so far as to produce a few articu¬
late sounds. In a state of domestication they are much
addicted to pilfering, their depredations not being confined
to articles of food, but extending to objects in no respect
useful to themselves.”1
Five species of crow occur in Britain, all permanent
dwellers, viz. the raven (C. corax'), the carrion-crow ((7.
corone), the hooded crow ( C. cornix), the rook (C. frugi-
legus), and the jackdaw (C. monedula). We shall not de¬
scribe the external aspect of these birds, which, we doubt
not, are familiar to our readers. The raven in a state of
nature is remarkable for his great cunning and sagacity,
while in the domesticated condition he is extremely fro¬
licsome and full of humour. We have seen one that, while
engaged in amusing himself with a poodle dog, and unable
to keep pace with his four-footed play-fellow, would seize
him by a lock of hair, and hold on tenaciously while the
dog was careering at full gallop; and his numerous devices,
with a view to conceal the remnants of his own food, or
appropriate that of others, were varied and unceasing.
Ihis species is widely spread over the temperate and north¬
ern parts of Europe and America, and in the minds of the
ignorant is usually regarded with some degree of supersti¬
tious terror. In summer, when the sky is serene, he flies
in circles in the higher regions of the clear blue sky, and
his deep and solemn croak may be heard at a great dis¬
tance ; but he is said to be sometimes also seen in the
midst of thunder-storms, with the electric fire streaming
from the point of his bill!—an extraordinary phenomenon
certainly (if true), sufficient to terrify the superstitious, and
to stamp its subject with the character of a restless and in¬
destructible demon.
The carrion-crow, and the hooded species, are so like in
Size ar,d structure, that it would be scarcely possible to
distinguish them, but for the partially gray plumage of the
latter ; and as a black and a gray crow are often seen to¬
gether, some naturalists incline to the belief that they are
actually the same. Their geographical distribution, how¬
ever, seems to differ; the gray kind, though common in
Britain and the continental countries of Europe, being
unknown in America, where, at the same time, the car¬
rion-crow is described as identical with our own ; while,
on the other hand, we find the latter extremely rare in
the north of Italy, where the hooded crow abounds. The
^aCrr^avv an(l)he rook seem unknown in the western world.
The magpies (genus Pica, Cuv.) are of smaller dimen¬
sions than the crows properly so called, and their tails, m-Insessores
stead of being either round or square, are long and gra-
duated. Their dispositions, however, are equally omnivo¬
rous, and they are distinguished by the same sly and fur¬
tive cunning. There is only a single European species,
our common British kind (C.pica, Linn.), which occurs
all over Europe, and is well known in North America, and
some parts of Asia. Many beautiful species occur in Chi¬
na, and other eastern countries, such, for example, as the
red-billed pie, P. erythrorhyncha, Gould. Its size exceeds
that of our common kind, and the great length of its tail
bestows upon it a still more slender and elegant aspect.
The prevailing colours are blue, with bars of black and
white. It is often kept in aviaries, where it is highly es¬
teemed, on account both of its docility and beauty. This
species likewise inhabits the Himalaya Mountains, and
there is reason to believe that it is fierce and tyrannical
in a state of nature. Mr Shore states, that one which he
kept in captivity, although it refused other food, pounced
ferociously upon living birds, which were presented by way
of experiment, and eagerly devoured them. When seen
amid the foliage of trees, it forms an ornamental and con¬
spicuous object, flitting from bough to bough, its long and
flowing tail waving in the wind, and its whole form full of
vivacity and grace.2 The Chinese magpie (P. sinensis),
made known by the researches of General Hardwicke,
seems widely extended over tracts of land of very various
character as to height and situation. It inhabits the higher
portions of the Himalayas, the plains at the base of those
mighty mountains, and a great part of the Chinese empire.
The beautiful jays (genus Garrulus, Cuv.) are very
nearly allied to the magpies, but the tail is not so length¬
ened, and the culmen of the under mandible is rather more
convex. Our British species ( G. garrulus) is one of the
most ornamental of our indigenous birds. It dwells in
woods, beyond the outskirts of which it seldom wanders.
Its food consists of insects, fruits, and forest seeds. Spe¬
cies of this little group are found in every quarter of the
known world except New Holland. The blue jay of Ame¬
rica (G. cristalus, Plate VIII., figure 4) is an almost
universal inhabitant of the western woods, frequenting
the thickest settlements, as well as the deepest recesses
of the unpeopled forest,—where his harsh voice often
alarms the watchful deer, to the mortification of the dis¬
appointed huntsman. This species is a bitter enemy to
owls, one of which he no sooner discovers than he sum¬
mons the whole feathered fraternity to his assistance, and
the united mob proceed to vent their indignant spite
against the blinking solitary, in the most w rathful and un¬
measured manner. But this jay himself cannot be held
guiltless of the most owl-like depredations,—for he be¬
comes in his turn the very tyrant he detested, and sneaks
through wood and thicket, plundering every nest his pok¬
ing bill can reach to, gobbling up the eggs, tearing the
callow young to pieces, and spreading not only fear, but
death, and sorrow, its sad concomitant, around him. An¬
other very ornamental species—
Proud of caerulean stains
From heaven’s unsullied arch purloined,
is that mentioned by Pallas as having been shot by Steller
when Behring’s crew landed upon the coast of America.
It is the Corvus Stelleri of Latham, by whom it wfas first
described from a specimen in Sir Joseph Banks’s collection
from Nootka Sound. A larger and most magnificent bird
is the Columbia jay (Garrulus Bullokii, Wagler,— G. gu-
bernatrix, Temm.), figured in Mr Audubon’s splendid work.
The colour is bright blue, with a lofty crest of separate
plumes, the throat and breast black, the abdomen whitish
* Macgillivray’s British Birds, i. 496.
8 Century of Birds from the Himalaya Mountains, plate xli.
ORNITHOLOGY.
iifessores. and two of the central tail-feathers extending far beyond
^ the others. It occurs chiefly in Mexico and California.1
In the genus Caryocatactes, Cuv., both mandibles are
equally pointed, and straight to the tips. The only spe¬
cies known in Europe, called the nut-cracker (C. nucifra-
ga), is an occasional visitant of Great Britain. Two others
have of late years been discovered in Asia, one of which
is figured by Mr Gould. They are all believed to inhabit
forests, especially those of mountainous countries, whence
at certain seasons they emigrate in large flocks. In their
climbing tendencies they make an approach to the habits
of the woodpeckers.
The limited genus Temia, Vail, with the lengthened
tail and general proportions of the magpies, has the bill
elevated, the upper mandible bulged, and its base covered
by short velvety feathers. Example, Corvus varians, Lath.
(Phenotrix temict, Ilorsfield), of which the general plu¬
mage is bronzed green, the head black. It occurs in Java
and elsewhere.
In the genus Glaucopis, Forster, the bill resembles
that of the preceding; but its base bears a pair of fleshy
caruncles. G. cinerea is the only known species. It is a
native of New Zealand, and was discovered during Captain
Cook s voyage. Its flesh is excellent. It is the cinereous
wattle-bird of Shaw. M. Temminck joins this and the
preceding genus into one.
In the genus Coracias, Linn., containing the rollers,
the bill is strong, compressed towards the point, which is
slightly curved, and the nostrils are oblong, not covered
by the feathers, but placed at their margin. The feet are
short and strong. These birds are confined to the ancient
continents, and are remarkable for their beauty of plu¬
mage, of which the colours are usually different shades of
purple, blue, and green. They are said to be wild and
unsociable, feeding on insects, and keeping themselves
concealed in the retirement of thick forests. The Euro¬
pean species (Coracias garrula, Linn.) has been some¬
times seen in Britain. A specimen in the Edinburgh
Museum was killed at Dunkeld. Although rare in France,
it is by no means uncommon in Sweden, where we would
not expect to find a species characteristic of the south of
Europe, and which is believed to winter in Barbary and
Senegal. It is not unfrequent in the gardens of Rome,
and is common in the Morea. It becomes very fat in au¬
tumn, and is much sought after during that season as an
article of food, especially by the inhabitants of the Cy¬
clades. Several other kinds occur in Africa and the East.
Of these the Abyssinian species is distinguished by the
elongation of the lateral feathers of the tail. The Mada¬
gascar roller, and some allied kinds, distinguished by a
shorter, more arched, and greatly broader bill, belong to
the genus Colaris, Cuv., synonymous with Eurvstomus
of M. Vieillot.
I be genus Paradisea, Linn., with which we conclude
our abridgment of the conirostral tribe, contairis the fa¬
mous birds of paradise, so noted during our early inter¬
course with eastern countries. The bill is straight, com¬
pressed, rather strong, unnotched, the nostrils surrounded
by a close tissue of feathers of a velvet texture, sometimes
resplendent with metallic lustre. (See Plate VIII.,
fig. 8.) These birds are native to New Guinea and tlm
neighbouring islands, and in consequence of the delicately
graceful structure of their plumage, and the pure and beau¬
tifully blended colours by which they are adorned, the spe¬
cies in general may be regarded as the most highly prized
of all the feathered race. Their history was long obscure
as night, and even now we have but few features of their
character developed by the actual observation of trust¬
worthy witnesses. We cannot be here expected to throw
765
any new light upon the subject; but we shall give a por-Insessores.
tion of the information which we have acquired from vari- ^
ous authors.
In the second edition of Pennant’s Indian Zoology, there
is a general description of the genus from Valentyn and
other writers, by Dr J. R. Forster, preceded by a learned
disquisition on the fabulous phoenix of antiquity, a bird of
the size of an eagle, decorated with gold and purple plumes,
and more particularly described by Pliny as being charac¬
terized by the splendour of gold around the neck, with the
rest of the body purple, the tail blue varied with rose-
colour, the face adorned with combs or wattles, and the
head furnished with a crest. This excellently adorned
phoenix Dr Forster very properly supposes to have been
no other than a symbolical Egyptian illustration of the
annual revolution of the sun, and the conversion of the
great year, which, according to Manilius, corresponds with
the supposed life of the phoenix, and from which period
the same course of seasons and position of the heavenly
bodies are renewed. Now, though it is certain, as D‘r
Forster observes, that the birds of paradise were never
known to ancient writers, and that whatever the Egyp¬
tian priests delivered concerning their fabulous phoenix
has no apparent agreement with the birds in question, yet
it is remarkable enough that the names applied to them,
both by Indian and European nations, attribute something
of a supposed celestial origin. Dr Shaw, however, thinks
that this notion has in all probability arisen merely from
their transcendent beauty, and the singular and delicate
disposition of their plumage. The Portuguese who navi¬
gated to the Indian islands called them Passaros da Sol,
in like manner as the Egyptians regarded their imaginary
bird as symbolizing the annual revolution of that great
luminary. The inhabitants of the island of Ternate call
them Manuco-Dewata, or the Birds of God.2
The great bird of paradise (Paradisea apoda, Linn.,
so called from its supposed want of legs), the first of the
genus made known to Europeans, was imported about the
year 1522, by Antony Pigafetta, who accompanied Ma¬
gellan in his voyage round the world. Pigafetta was sa¬
tisfied by ocular demonstration from the first, that this
bird, like every other, was supplied with legs, but that the
natives cut them off, as parts of no importance. In con¬
sequence, hovyever, of this prevailing if not universal mu¬
tilation, a notion soon obtained in Europe that the bird
was naturally destitute of these common-place but useful
organs, and that consequently it floated for ever in the air,
winnowing with loving wings the gentle breezes, or at times
suspending itself for a few brief moments from some lofty
sun-illumined tree, by the two peculiar lengthened filaments
with which it is adorned. In accordance with this belief,
it was of course consistent to suppose, that whatever indi¬
viduals were obtained “ on this dim spot which men call
earth,” had fallen from their aerial heights immediately be¬
fore their dissolution. Even Aldrovandus, the most zeal¬
ous naturalist of his age, having himself seen only such
specimens as had been mutilated in the usual manner, ac¬
cuses Pigafetta of audacious falsehood in asserting that
the bird was naturally furnished both with legs and feet;
and the great Scaliger, himself a naturalist of no mean or¬
der, gave equal credit to this foolish fancy.
The true residence or breeding-place of these birds
seems to be Papua or New Guinea, from whence they
make occasional excursions to some smaller neighbourin<>-
islands. They fly in flocks of about thirty or forty, led, it
is alleged, by a single bird which the natives call their
king, but which is said to be of a different species. It is
further pretended, that when this bird settles, the whole
flight settle also, in consequence of which they sometimes
The Birds of America, plate xevi.
* Shaw’s General Zoology, vol. vii. p. 479,
ORNITHOLOGY.
766
Insessores.perish, being unable to rise again owing to the peculiar
structure of their wings. They also always fly against
the wind, lest their flowing plumage should be discom¬
posed. While flying they make a noise like starlings,
but their common cry rather resembles that of a raven,
and is very audible in windy weather, when they dread the
chance of being thrown upon the ground. In the Aru
Islands they are seen to perch on lofty trees, and are va¬
riously captured by the inhabitants, wTith bird-lime, snares,
and blunted arrows. T. hough many are taken alive, they
are always killed immediately, embowelled, the feet cut
off, the plumed skins fumigated with sulphur, and then dried
for sale. The Dutch ships frequenting the sea between
New Guinea and Aru, a distance of about twenty miles,
not unfrequently observe flocks of paradise birds crossing
from one to the other of these places, but constantly against
the wind. Should a gale arise, they ascend to a great
height, into the regions of perpetual calm, and there pur¬
sue their journey. With respect to their food we have
little certain information from the older authors, some of
whom assert they prey on small birds, a supposition which
Dr Shaw inclines to think is favoured by their strength of
bill and legs, and the vigour with which they act in self-
defence. They are also said to feed on fruits and berries;
and Linneeus says they devour the larger butterflies,1
We owe the following observations to M. Gaimard, one of
the naturalists who accompanied the expedition of Cap¬
tain Freycinet, and who having had an opportunity of seeing
several living birds of paradise in the island of Waigiou,
has furnished us with some interesting details. He says that
they appear to prefer to all other places the most dense and
secluded portions of the forests. When the heavens are
clear, they perch habitually on the summits of the tallest
trees. They fly with rapidity, but in an undulating man¬
ner, as is usual with birds which are adorned with long
decomposed or disunited feathers; and he confirms the
old account, that the luxuriant length of their superb plu¬
mage induces them always to fly in the direction from which
the wind proceeds. “ Cette manoeuvre,” he observes, “ est
pour eux tres-naturelle, puisqu’elle maintient les longues
plumes appliquees centre le corps; dans une direction con-
traire, le vent ne manquerait pas d’etaler et de relever ces
plumes, et il en resulterait necessairement un grand em-
barras dans le jeu des ailes.” Their total disappearance
on the approach of any storm or tempest shows their con¬
scious weakness. In other respects, however, they are
courageous, and even vindictive, pursuing fiercely any sup¬
posed enemy, however superior to themselves in strength
of bill and talons. There is no instance, Captain Freycinet
supposes (we now know he does so erroneously), of their
being ever reduced to the domestic state; and they are
never found caged by any natives of the Papous, where
they are by no means rare, and where their skins form the
principal object of commercial exchange between the in¬
sular inhabitants and the Chinese Indians or eastern Euro¬
peans. Authors (we speak not of those who assert that birds
of paradise are nourished by dew, or by the perfume which
exhales from fruits and flowers) have assigned different
diets to these birds. Some say that they search for fruits
and nectarous juices; others that they capture insects,
and such small prey. There is truth in both statements,
for it seems ascertained that they feed alike on fruits and
insects. As to all those anxious interesting cares which
precede, accompany, or follow incubation,—these and many
other important particulars in their history are still un¬
known. The natives of New Guinea, in preparing the
skins, content themselves by removing the fleshy mass of
the body, and cutting off the two wings and legs. They
then pass a piece of stick through the mouth downwards
to the tail. Few of the museums of Europe contain any Insessorej.
other specimens than these mutilated remains, which the'"“"V''-'
gorgeous flowing feathers of the sides render still worthy
of admiration, however unfit to convey a true idea of the
natural state.
We shall next extract some interesting information from
a work by M. Lesson, one of the few European naturalists
who have had an opportunity of beholding these extraordi¬
nary creatures in their native haunts. “ Les paradisiers
ou du moins I’emeraude, seule espece sur laquelle nous pos-
sedons des renseignemens authentiques, vivent en bandes
dans les vastes forets du pays des Papous, group d’iles
situees sous I’equateur, et qui se compose des lies Arou,
de Waigiou, et de la grande terre nommee Nouvelle-Gui-
nee. Ces sont des oiseaux de passage qui changent de dis¬
trict suivant les moussons. Les femelles se reunissent en
troupes, s’assemblent sur les sommites des plus grands ar-
bres des forets, crient toutes a la fois pour appeler les
mdles. Ceux-ci sont toujours solitaires au milieu d’une
quinzaine de femelles qui composent leur serail, a la ma-
nidre des gallinacees.
“ J’extrairai de mon journal inedit les details suivans,
relatifs aux oiseaux de paradis : ils ont ete ecrits sur les
lieux. Journal Ms., t. vi. p. 19 et suiv. Les oiseaux de
paradis, a 1’exception de deux especes, nous etaient ap-
portes par les Papous, ce qui etablit entre eux et nous un
commerce actif d’echange. Je me procurai I’emeraude, le
manucode, le loriot paradis orange, le sifilet, le superbe,
les epimaques promefils, et a paremens Irises, le magni-
fique, et le rouge. La quantile que les naturels de ces con-
trees apportaient a bord de la corvette la Coquille doit
faire supposer que ces oiseaux, si estimes en Europe, y sont
singulierement multiplies. Le manucode se presenta deux
fois dans nos chasses, et nous tuames le male et la femelle.
Cette espece parait monogame, ou peut-etre n’est elle iso¬
lee par paires qu’au moment de la ponte. Dans les bois cet
oiseau n’a point d’eclat; son plumage rouge de feu ne le de-
cele point, et sa femelle n’a que des teintes ternes. II aime &
se tenir sur lesarbres de teck, dont le large feuillage 1’abrite,
et dont le petit fruit forme sa nourriture. II a 1’iris brun,
et les pieds d’un bleu d’azur tres tendre. Les Papous le
nomment saya. Des les premiers jours de notre arrivee
sur cette terre de promission (la Nouvelle-Guinee) pour
le naturaliste, je fus a la chasse. A peine avais-je fait
quelques centaines de pas dans ces vieilles forets, filles du
temps, dont la sombre profondeur est peut-etre le plus
magnifique et le plus pompeux spectacle que j’aie jamais
vu, qu’un oiseau de paradis frappa mes regards; il volait
avec grace et par ondulations; les plumes de ses flancs
formaient un panache gracieux et aerien, qui, sans hyper¬
bole, ne ressemblait pas mal a un brillant meteore. Sur-
pris, emerveille, eprouvant une jouissance inexprimable, je
devorais des yeux ce magnifique oiseau; mais mon trouble
fut si grand que j’oubliai de le tirer, et que je ne m’aper-
£us que j’avais un fusil que lorsqu’il etait deja bien loin.
On ne pourrait guere avoir une idee exacte des paradis
d’apres les peaux que les Papous vendent aux Malais, et
qui nous parviennent en Europe. Ces peuples chasserent
primitivement ces oiseaux pour decorer les turbans de leur
chefs. Ils les nomment mamAe/bre dans leur langue; et
les tuent pendant la nuit, en grimpant le long des arbres
ou ilsse couchent, et les tirant avec des fleches faites exptfcs
et tres courtes, qu’ils fa9onnent avec le rachis des feuilles
d’un latanier. Les campongs ou villages de Mappia et
d’Emberbakene sont celebres par la quantite des oiseaux
qu’ils preparent, et tout I’art des habitans se borne a leur
arracher les pieds, a les ecorcher, a leur fourrer un ba-
tonnet a travers du corps, et a les dessecher a la fumee.
Quelques uns plus adroits, et sollicites par les trafiquans
Shaw’s General Zoology, vol. vii. p. 462-4.
ORNITHOLOGY. 7d7
bassores. Chinois, les dessechent avec les pieds. Le prix d’un oiseau plusieurs substances dans son etat de liberte. Je puis Insessore*.
de paradis chez les Papous de la cote est au moins d’une affirmer qu’il vit de graines de teck, et d’un fruit nomme
piastre, et ces peoples preferent 1’argenta tout autre objet, amihou, blanc rose, de saveur fade et mucilagineuse, de la
meme a du fer travaille. ^ grosseur d’une petite figue d’Europe, et qui appartient a
“ Nous tuames, pendant notre sejour a la Nouvelle- un arbre du genre Jicus. Ces fruits plaisent a beaucoup
Guinee, une vingtaine de ces oiseaux, que je preparai d’oiseaux, car ils sont aussi recherches par les calaos, les
pour la plupart. Ils appartenaient a diverses personnes de manucodes, et les cassicans cahbe et phonygame.
1’expedition, et notamment au capitaine. Je n’en avais “ J’ai vu deux oiseaux de paradis conserves dans une
point encore, lorsque M. Berard, lieutenant de vaisseau, cage, depuis plus de six mois, par le chef des coramercans
zeld pour les colleetions que je formais en simple particu- Chinois, a Amboine. Ils etaient toujours en mouvement,
Her, et a mes frais, pour le Museum, et pour remplir la et on les nourrissait avec du riz bouilli; mais ils aimaient
promesse que j’avais faite au ministere, en m’embarquant, surtout les cancrelas (blatla), Ce Chinois me les fit 500
de recueillir les objets d histoire naturelle, voulut bien francs piece; alors, sans argent, et n’ayant point de credit
m en remettre un pour la collection. Depuis, j’en achetai dans cette i!e, je ne pus reclamer ma solde, et ce fut en
C°nC^ ^ T>n ^orn.me ^e. ^ eclu>Page> que je lui payai vain que j’offris des objets de valeur a ce trafiquant opu-
150 francs. Jen tuai ensuite un avec un grand nombre lent, il fut sourd a mes prieres. Pourquoi, sur 1’argent
de femelles: on les yoit au Museum. que nous possedions a bord, pour frais accidentels, et
“L emeraude en vie est de la taille du geai de France ; qu’on a retourne a Paris, ne pas avoir achete, pour le
son bee et ses pieds sont bleuatres; 1’iris est d’un jaune destiner a la France, un de ces magnifiques oiseaux,
eclatant; ses mouvemens sont vifs et agiles; il ne se qui serait peut-etre mort en route, mais dont les habitudes
perche communement que sur le sommet des plus grands vivaces, et analogues a celles de nos pies, nous donnaient
arbres. Lorsqu il en descend, e’est pour manger les fruits tant de chances de succes P”1
de quelques arbres moyens, ou lorsque le soleil, dans toute We shall conclude our miscellaneous extracts in illus-
sa force, lui fait un besoin de chercher de I’ombrage. Il tration of these birds, by a quotation from a recent English
affectionne certains arbres, et fait retentir les environs de writer. The principal object of attraction to strangers at
sa voix per^ante. Son cri lui devint fatal, parce qu’il Macao used to be the splendid aviary and gardens of
nous indiqua les allures de cet oiseau. Nous 1’epiames, Mr Beale, who, after a residence of forty years in that
et cest ainsi que nous parvimes a en tuer; car, lors- country, devoted his leisure to the cultivation of many of
qu un paradisier male est perche, et qu’il entend bruiser the most delightful productions of nature, and among these
dans le silence de la foret, il se tait et ne bouge plus. Son not the least remarkable was the bird of paradise, as
cri dappel est un voike, voike, voike, voiko, fortement arti- thus described by Mr Bennet. “ The specimen in the
cule. ^ La femelle a le meme cri, mais elle le pousse d’une possession of Mr Beale is a fine male, Pavadisea apoda of
maniere bien plus faible. Celle-ci, dechue du brillant Linnaeus, the P. major of Shaw. He was at the time I
plumage de son epoux n’a que de sombres atours. Nous beheld him arrayed in his full and splendid plumage; he
en rencontrions a chaque arbre des vingtaines reunies, is enclosed in a large and roomy cage, so as not by con-
tandis que les males, toujours solitaires, n’apparaissaient finement to injure in the slightest degree his delicate and
que rarement. ^ elegant feathers. This beautiful creature has been in
“ G’est au lever du soleil et a son coucher que 1’oiseau Mr Beale’s possession nine years, and was originally
de paradis va chercher sa nourriture. Dans le milieu du procured from the island of Bouro (one of the Molucca
jour, il se tient cache sous le large feuillage du teck, et n’en group), which is situated in about latitude 3° SCf south,
sort point. Il semble redouter faction des rayons brulans and longitude 126° 30'east....The neck of this bird is of
dp cet astre, et ne point vouloir s’exposer aux atteintes a beautiful and delicate canary-yellow colour, blend-
dun rival. Nous apprimes, par une longue experience, a ing gradually into the fine chocolate colour of the other
imiter la ruse de ce bel oiseau; mais le zele des tueurs de parts of the body ; the wings are very short, and of a cho-
paradisiers etait si grand que personne ne voulait tirer sur colate colour. Underneath them, long, delicate, and
aucun autre oiseau de peur de les effaroucher, et que, re- gold-coloured feathers proceed from the sides in two
duit a peu pres a mes seules ressources, le tribut que beautiful and graceful tufts, extending far beyond the
quelques personnes me donnaient de leur chasse fut bien tail, which is also short, of a chocolate colour, with two
diminue; plus curieux, dans finteretde la science, d’un petit very long shafts of the same hue proceeding from the
volatile inedit, que de posseder plus ou moins de depouilles uripigium. At the base of the mandibles the delicate
d’une espece connue, bien que prisee, je ne guettai des plumage has during one time (according as the rays of
paradis que pendant quelques jours, et tuai d’ailleurs toute light are thrown upon it) the appearance of fine black
espece qui arrivait at ma portee. velvet, and at another a very dark green, which contrasts
“ Pour chasser les oiseaux de paradis, les voyageurs admirably with the bright emerald of the throat....The
^ 11 ^ c x r i c i f v* I o NT /a v ^ 11 /“v f ■ 'i. i 4- r-t»—« —    1 _ _ _     A ? 1 _ 1       (y 1 * 1 . it i *1. i v
recherchent a cause de leur fruit (notre sejour a eu lieu look; dances about when a visitor approaches the cage, and
du 26 Juillet au 9 Aout), avant quatre heures et de- seems delighted at being made an object of admiration ;
mie du matin, et de rester immobile jusqu’a que quelques its notes are very peculiar, resembling the cawing of the
males, presses par la faim, viennent sur les branches qu’on raven, but its tones are by far more varied. During four
aura juge a distance convenable. Il est indispensable de months of the year, from May to August, it moults. It
posseder un fusil a tres longue portee, et charge a gros washes itself regularly twice daily, and after having per-
plombs, car il est fort difficile de tuer roide un emeraude, formed its ablutions, throws its delicate feathers up nearly
et s il n’est que blesse, il est bien rare qu’il ne soit pas over the head, the quills of which feathers have a peculiar
perdu pour le chasseur, dans des fourrees tellement structure, so as to enable the bird to effect this object,
epaisses, qu on ne peut y reconnaitre son chemin sans une Its food, during confinement, is boiled rice mixed up with
boussole. . , , soft egg, together with plantains, and living insects of the
“ Le paradisier petit emeraude mange sans doute de grasshopper tribe ; these insects, when thrown to him,
1 Manuel d'Ornithologie, 1.1. p. 387.
ORNITHOLOGY.
^nsessores. ^}ie contrives to catch in his beak with great celerity ;
^ it will eat insects in a living state, but will not touch them
when dead.
“ I observed the bird, previously to eating a grasshopper
given him in an entire or unmutilated state, place the in¬
sect upon the perch, keep it firmly fixed with the claws,
and divesting it of the legs, wings, &c. devour it, with the
head always placed first It rarely alights upon the
ground, and so proud is this creature of its elegant dress,
that it never permits a soil to remain on it; and it may be
frequently seen spreading out its wings and feathers, and
regarding its splendid self in every direction, to observe
whether it is in an unsullied condition.”1
Dr Shaw alludes to an instance of the bird of paradise
having been brought alive to England. It had, however,
entirely lost the beautiful floating feathers which render its
body apparently so light and buoyant, and did not long sur¬
vive its arrival in our murky clime.
Although there are not above seven distinct species of
these birds, they have been formed into no less than four
separate genera by M. Vieillot. The most anciently known
is the kind called in English books the great or common
bird of paradise, Vemeraude of the French, P. apoda, Linn,
to which most of the preceding memoranda may apply.
(See Plate VIII., figure 6.) It is of a cinnamon colour,
the upper part of the head and neck yellow, the front and
throat emerald green, or black. It is the male of this
species which bears the long, floating, yellow plumes so
prized as articles of commerce, with a view to ornament
in dress. Although the body is no larger than that of a
thrush, the total length is two feet. In the red paradise
bird (P. rubra) the head and throat are emerald-green,
the back and front of the neck orange yellow and velvety,
the throat chesnut or cinnamon colour, and the long fea¬
thers of the flanks brilliant carmine red. The two pecu¬
liar barbless shafts which proceed from the base of the tail,
are broad, flattened, twisted, and of a brownish-red colour.
These belong to the restricted genus Paradisea.
The six-shafted paradise bird (P. seocsetacea, Shaw,—
P. aurea, Gmel.) is black, with the throat of golden green,
and three prolonged setaceous feathers proceeding from
behind each eye, and terminating in a little expanded disk
of golden green. It forms the genus Parotia of Vieillot.
We shall merely add, that P.superba constitutes the genus
Lophorina,—P. regia that called Cicinnurus,—and P.
nigra, Gmel., another named Astrapia. The whole are
figured by Buffon, Vaillant, or Vieillot, and their singular
forms, gorgeous colouring, and exquisite structure of plu¬
mage, render them deserving of the most attentive con¬
sideration on the part of all admirers of nature.
Tribe 4th.—Tenuirostres<
Baron Cuvier here places a variety of generic groups
which agree chiefly in possessing a slender lengthened bill,
sometimes straight, sometimes considerably curved. Ac¬
cording to the structure of the tongue, which in several
genera is not yet distinctly known, they feed either on in¬
sects or the nectarous juices of fruits and flowers,—a few,
such as the humming-birds, combining both these habits.
In the genus Sitta the bill is straight, pointed, com¬
pressed at the extremity, and the tongue short and corne¬
ous. The species called nut-hatches climb along the bark
of trees with extraordinary facility, not only upwards, like
the woodpeckers, but downwards, and in all directions.
-The European species (S. Europea), though a constant re¬
sident in Britain, is rather rare in most localities. It breeds
in hollow trees, not seldom using the deserted habitation
of a woodpecker, the opening into which it contracts by
means of a wall of clay. The female sits very close during Insessorej
incubation, and instead of flying off' when approached, she“vw
will utter a hissing sound, and make a show of striking
at the intruder with her bill and wings. Sir W. Jardine
someyearsago enjoyed an opportunity of observing a brood
which had been taken young. They became remarkably
tame, and when released from their cage, would run over
their owner in all directions, poking into seams and pockets,
as if in search of food upon some goodly tree, and uttering
from time to time a low and plaintive cry. In climbing,
they rest much upon the tarsus, but never use the tail.
Several true nut-hatches occur in North America, but Pen¬
nant erred in supposing that the European species was
likewise indigenous to the new world.
In the genus Xenops of Illiger, the bill is rather more
compressed, and the under ridge more convex, while in
Anabates of Temm. it is the upper ridge which increases
in convexity, so as to approach to that of the thrushes; but
the tail in some of the species is long and wedge-shaped,
and exhibits a worn appearance, as if it were occasionally
used in climbing.
In the genus Synallaxis, Vieil., the bill is straight, not
much lengthened, considerably compressed, slender and
pointed, and the tail is generally long and acuminate. (See
Plate VIII., figure 7.) We know little of the habits of
these birds, except that they are insectivorous, and dwell
in forests. Most of the species are from South America,
and to these it is probable that the generic term should
be restricted.
The old genus Certhia of Linnaeus was characterized
by an arched bill, but the species possessed but little else
in common, and have been therefore formed into several
minor groups. The true or restricted creepers (Certhia,
Cuv.), so called from their habit of running round the trunks
of trees, have the bill of medium length, curved, compress¬
ed, slender, sharp pointed. The tail is wedge-shaped, and
composed of stiff, deflected feathers. Our well-known Bri¬
tish species (C. familiaris) is the only example of the ge¬
nus found in Europe, and it is in fact doubtful whether
there is any other elsewhere. The North American creeper
seems identical, but the numerous other birds described
as creepers do not belong to the genus Certhia. The so¬
litary type alluded to is a retired inhabitant of the woods,
in no way conspicuous in colour, though pleasingly mottled
above with black, brown, and grayish white; and being of
small size, and seldom showing itself in open places, is
deemed rarer than it really is. Fhough of a somewhat
lengthened form, it is probably, with the exception of the
golden-crested wren,, the smallest bodied British bird. It
is said to feed entirely upon insects, although as a winter
resident in many frost-bound regions, we shall not aver
that it never swallows seeds. It builds in the hollows of
trees, and may be often seen during the delightful autumn,
when the rustling woods are fragrant with fallen leaves,
flitting from the top of one trunk to the bottom of another,
which it ascends by a kind of spiral progression, and then
darting downwards to a neighbouring tree, it thus busily
pursues from time to time its interrupted flight. This bird
chiefly shows itself in our shrubberies and wooded plea¬
sure-grounds in winter.
In the genus Dendrocolaptes, Hermann, the tail re¬
sembles that of the preceding, but the bill is much stronger,
and enlarged at the base. In certain species it is greatly
curved. (Plate VIII., figure 9.) These birds are Ame¬
rican, and are usually characterized by a reddish plumage.
In Tichodroma, Illiger, the tail does not present a worn
appearance at the point, although the best known, if not
the only species, runs up rocks with great agility. The
bill is long, slender, triangular, and depressed at the base
1 Wanderings in New South Wales, &c. vol. ii.
ORNITHOLOGY.
769
T|,e European species, called by us the wall-creeper (T. the uniformity presented by all these circumstances in ar
'  phcemeoptera, Temm,—ftrf/ua murarm, Gmel.), inhabits variety of individuals, that we are enabled to trace out the
the southern countries of Europe, where it dwells among
lofty and precipitous rocks. It is well known among the
Swiss Alps, and the mountainous parts of Spain and Italy,
where it is said to prey much on spiders and their eggs.
In the genus Nectarinia of Illiger, the bill is arched,
pointed, and compressed, resembling that of the creepers,
with which the species were so long conjoined ; but they
do not climb, and their habits, if the name is properly
applied, are not so much insectivorous as honey-sucking.
They are all exotic. The term guil-guit is given by the
exact limits ot specific identity. Several species of Cinnyris
occur in India, but the greater proportion are of African
origin, and may be said to form the most signal and ad¬
mired feature in the Ornithology of that country.
In the greater number the tail is equal. Of these we may
name the superb creeper ((7.SM/>er6a), described and figured
in the magificent work of M. Vieillot. Its length is six
inches; the crown of the head, upper part of the neck,
smaller wing-coverts, back, and rump, are bright-greenish
gold; across the upper part of the breast runs a bar of
French to certain small species, of which the plum/ge of bright gilcied ^benS
the males is very rich and lustrous. Their tongue is bifid are deep brownish crimson ; the wings and tail are blackish
and lamentary. Such are Certhia cyanea, cerulea, &c. brown, the legs are also brown, the bill is black. This
of whiX?!,? t°f T !nd ]aSS ad°rn.ed P]u™age> and beautiful species was discovered at Malimba, in Africa, by
of which the tongue is^ short and cartilaginous, have been M. Perrein. Another highly adorned species, such “ as
separated from the others. Such is a South American
species, the Merops rufus of Gmelin, as large as a night¬
ingale, of a reddish colour above, the throat whitish.& It
constructs a covered nest, and serves as the type of Tem-
minck’s genus Opetiorhynchus 1
limners love to paint, and 'ladies to look upon,” is the
Certhia splendida of Shaw ( C. afra and lotenia, Linn. ?).
It usually occurs in woody places, and, in addition to its
splendid plumage, is said to be worthy of admiration for its
musical powers, its song being by some esteemed equal
The genus DiGSiuM of Cuv. has the bill longer than the to that ofihe righiingal^ Th^id breaSclS
ba^P ’ TiarP’ C^rved’ dreTd> and 1broadened at the (C* maculata) also dwells in the forests of Malimba, and
base. 1 he specms arc of small size,and usually or^ment- frequently approaches the habitations of the natives al-
ed with portions of scarlet. They are natives of the East lured by the flowers of the Cytisus cajan, commonly called
Indies. In Melithreptus of Vieillot, the bill is extreme- the congo pea, which, according to Dr Shaw, is much cul-
ly long, and curved almost into a semicircle. Of this form tivated by the negroes.
the hook-billed creeper, Certhia vestiaria, Shaw, affords a In some of these birds the central feathers of the tail are
good example. (1 late IX., figure 2.) It is a native of .engthened in the males. Such is C. violacea, a Cape spe-
the Sandwich Islands, where it is much valued on account cies, which likewise dwells in woods, and is said to build a
nest of a singularly elegant construction. In a few the
bill is almost straight, as in C. rectirostris, Vieillot. Our
restricted limits will not admit of our expatiating on this
delightful group.
The genus Arachnothera of Temm. has the long ar¬
cuated bill of the souimangas, but it is of stronger struc¬
ture, and wants the dentations, and the tongue is short and
cartilaginous. The species (such as A. longirostra and
inornata, Temm. PL Col 84, figs. 1 and 2), so far as yet
known, inhabit the Indian islands, and prey on spiders.
The genus Trochilus, Linn., contains the true hum¬
ming-birds, a numerous group of fairy and fantastic forms,
which inhabit both continents of America, and some neigh¬
bouring islands, but are altogether unknown in the ancient
of its plumage, which affords the principal material in the
formation of those gorgeous scarlet mantles worn by chiefs
and persons of distinction.
The souimangas (a Madagascar name, signifying sugar
eaters, genus Cinnyris, Cuv.) have the bill long, slender,
and finely toothed along the edges. The tongue is capa¬
ble of considerable extension, and terminates in a small
bifurcation. The species are widely dispersed over all the
southern regions of the old world (Africa, the Indian
Archipelago, &c.), and seem in those countries to represent
the beautiful humming-birds of the western world. Indeed
these tribes greatly resemble each other both in form and
habits. The souimangas are subject to a double moult,
which occasions a considerable diversity in the plumage
even of the same species, according to the season of the
year; and hence our knowledge of this, as of several other
sumptuous groups, though sufficiently voluminous, is pro¬
bably not yet remarkable for its accuracy. Several splen¬
did works, however, have been devoted, either in whole or
in part, to its illustration.2 * * * The nuptial plumage is remark¬
able for its golden lustre, and the richness and variety of
its innumerable iridescent hues; but after the termina¬
tion of the breeding season, a much more humble garb is
assumed, and many a bizarre appearance is presented by
the intermediate links of that changeable costume which
connects the holiday-suit of spring with the more quaker-
like attire of autumn. Hence the difficulty of distinguish¬
ing in many birds, between a specific difference and an in¬
dividual variation, more especially where foreign species
are concerned ; for in such instances we have seldom a
prolonged opportunity of verifying our observations on ex¬
ternal characters, by an examination of natural habits and
instinctive modes of life. Yet it is only by ascertaining
world. The bill is long and slender, but in its range
throughout the entire species exhibits considerable modi¬
fication, being in some nearly straight, in others curved,
and in a few turned upwards. Such as are characterized
by an almost straight bill constitute the genus Ornismya,
Lesson {Orlhorhynchus, Lacepede), Plate IX., figure
1 ; while those in which it is more or less bent remain
under the ancient name of Trochilus, Jbid. fig. 6. The
tongue is long and extensile, and is usually described as
being composed of two muscular tubes united for the great¬
er part of their length, and broadening towards the point
into a spoon-like portion. Sir W. Jardine, on relaxing a
specimen of T. moschitus, observed the appearance of a fim¬
briated opening at the tip, the outer margin of each divi¬
sion being beset with recurved, sharp-pointed, pliable spines,
while in all that Mr Swainson examined the two filaments
were perfectly flat. Their feet are extremely small, their
wings long and narrow, their tails comparatively broad,—
whilst their shortened humerus and very large unnotched
I he generic name of Nectannia was bestowed by Illiger upon those foreign creepers known by the terms euit-indts and soidman
ga, but it has been applied more exclusively by Cuvier to the former, and by Temminck to the latter. The sou man as nnTl?;
other hand, fall into Cuvier’s genus Cinnyru, while the guit-guits are placed in the genus Ccereba by Temm. These transpositioSs aa
we have already remarked, are extremely perplexing. 1 s J j-nese transpositions, as
J. XaiHant, Nat. de. Oueaux d'Afrique, 5 vols in 4to, 1799, and subsequent years,—and Audebert, Oueaux dorb ou a reRcu
alhVtc, 2 vols. fol. Pans, 1802. A continuation of the latter work has been published by M. Vieillot. ’ f
YOL. XVI.
0 E
770
ORNITHOLOGY.
Insessores. sternum exhibit osteological features in relation to the
power of flight resembling those of swifts. The beauty of
their plumage, if equalled, is certainly unsurpassed among
the feathered tribes.
Humming-birds, in general, may be said to inhabit
chiefly the intra-tropical regions of America, including the
West Indies; but that they are capable of sustaining a
considerable reduction of temperature, and of spreading
themselves into comparatively rigorous climes, is evident
from the observations of Captain King, who in his survey
of the southern coasts met with numerous examples of
these diminutive creatures flying about in a snow-storm
near the Straits of Magellan, and discovered two species in
the remote island of Juan Fernandez. Two other hardy
species had been long known to migrate during summer far
into the interior of North America, viz. the ruff-necked hum¬
ming-bird ( T. rufus), discovered during Cook’s voyage in
Nootka Sound, and since traced by Kotzebue to the 61st
degree of north latitude, along the western shores; and the
ruby-throated humming-bird ( T.colubris), which was found
breeding by Mr Drummond near the sources of the Elk
River, and is known to reach at least as far north as the
fifty-seventh parallel. Mr Bullock also discovered several
species at a high elevation, and of course a coolish tempe¬
rature, on the lofty table-lands of Mexico, and in woods in
the vicinity of the snowy mountains of Orizaba. The best
and most ample history of these “ feathered gems” may be
gathered from the pages of Wilson and Audubon, while the
superb adornment of their beautifully pencilled plumage, so
rich in its varied combination of lustrous green and gold,
may be studied with advantage in the sumptuous pages of
M. Lesson.1 They are of a most lively and active disposi¬
tion, almost perpetually upon the wing, and darting from
flower to flower with the busy rapidity rather of a bee than
a bird. In the uncultivated districts of the country they in¬
habit the forests, but in peopled regions they flock without
fear into the gardens, poising themselves in the air, while
they thrust their long extensile tongues into every flower
in search of food. According to Bullock, they will remain
suspended in a space so small that they have scarcely
room to move their wings, and the humming noise which
they produce proceeds entirely from the prodigious ve¬
locity with which they vibrate these tiny organs, by means
of which they will remain in the ah almost motionless
for hours together. An older writer, Fermin, a physi¬
cian of Surinam, compares this action to that of the
bee-like flies which in still and sultry weather we of¬
ten see hovering in the vicinity of still waters; and Wil¬
son says, that when a humming-bird arrives before a
thicket of trumpet-flowers in bloom, he suspends himself
so steadily that his wings become “ invisible, or like a mist.”
They often enter windows, and after examining any fresh
bouquets with which fair hands may have decked the
table, they will dart like sun-beams out by an opposite
door or window. During the breeding season they be¬
come jealous of encroachment, and exhibit great boldness
in defence of their supposed rights. When any one ap¬
proaches their nest, they will dart around with a humming
noise, frequently passing within a few inches of the intru¬
der’s head. A small species called the Mexican star ( T.
cyanopogon) is described by Mr Bullock as exhibiting
great intrepidity while under the influence of anger. It
will attack the eyes of the larger birds, striking at them
with its sharp, needle-like bill; and when invaded by one
of its own kind during the breeding season, their mutual
wrath becomes immeasurable, their throats swell, their
crests, tails, and wings expand, and they fight in the air
ti 1 one or other falls exhausted to the ground. Indeed
old Fernando Oviedo gives a still more alarming state- Insessore^
ment of their fiery temper. “ When they see a man
climb ye tree where they have their nests, they flee at his
face, and stryke him in the eyes, commying, goying, and
returnyng with such swiftness, that no man woulde ryghtly
believe it that hath not seen it.”2
Although humming-birds may frequently suck the juices
of flowers, those naturalists err who allege that they sup¬
port themselves exclusively on that natural nectar. “ For
myself,” says Wilson, “ I can speak decisively on the sub¬
ject : I have seen the humming-bird for half an hour at a
time darting at those little groups of insects that dance in
the air in a fine summer evening, retiring to an adjoining
twig to rest, and renewing the attack with a dexterity
that sets all our other fly-catchers at defiance.” Mr Bul¬
lock thinks it probable that all the species eat insects, and
he had repeated ocular proof that many of them feed on
flies, which they both caught themselves, and used to
steal from spiders’ webs. It was only the smaller kinds,
however, that they dared to molest, for the stronger spid¬
ers showed fight, on which the besiegers would shoot off
with the rapidity of a sun-beam, and could scarcely be
discovered but by the luminous glow of their refulgent
colours. It may easily be conceived that creatures of such
resplendent plumage, in spite of their irascible temper and
pugnacious habits, are universal favourites wherever they
appear; and that in “ the sweet serenity of a summer
morning,” their visits to the dewy flower-beds of a cottage
dwelling are surely welcomed with delight.
When morning dawns, and the blest sun again
Lifts his red glories from the eastern main,
Then through the woodbines, wet with glittering dews,
The flower-fed humming-bird his round pursues ;
Sips with inserted bill the honey’d blooms,
And chirps his gratitude as round he roams;
While richest roses, though in crimson drest,
Shrink from the splendour of his gorgeous breast.
What heavenly tints in mingling radiance fly 1
Each rapid movement gives a different dye ;
Like scales of burnished gold they dazzling show,
Now sink to shade—now like a furnace glow !
In the summer of 1803 a nest of young humming-birds
was brought to Alexander Wilson. They were nearly fit
to fly ; in fact, one of them did fly out of the window the
same evening, and falling against a wall, was killed upon
the spot. The other refused food, and in consequence of
this foolish obstinacy its life next morning was nearly ex¬
tinct. A lady in the house undertook to be its nurse, and
placing it in her bosom, it immediately began to revive,
which showed its good taste and natural sense of comfort.
She then kindly dissolved a little sugar in her mouth, and
thrusting its bill into the same, the creature sucked with
great avidity. In this manner it was brought up until fit
for the cage. Wilson kept it for three months afterwards,
supplying it constantly with loaf-sugar dissolved in water,
which it preferred to honey and water. He also gave it
fresh flowers every morning, sprinkled with the sugary li¬
quid. It appeared quite gay, active, and full of spirit,
hovering from flower to flower as if in its native wilds
(alas ! it still was caged), and always expressed by its mo¬
tions and chirping the greatest pleasure at the sight of
every fresh supply of flowers. “ Numbers of people,”
says our author, “ visited it from motives of curiosity, and
I took every precaution to preserve it if possible through
the winter. Unfortunately, however, by some means it
got at large, and, flying about the room, so injured itself
that it soon after died.”
Most of the preceding notices apply to the ruby-throat¬
ed humming-bird (71. colubris, Linn.), the species of which
1
2
Histoire NatureUe des Oiseaux Mouches ;—Hist. Nat. des Colibris ;
History of the West Indies, translated by Richard Eden, p. 199.
—Hist. Nat. des Trochilides.
ORNITHOLOGY.
771
isessores, the particular habits and general economy have been the
~ most minutely studied. It sometimes makes its appearance
in Louisiana as early as the 10th of March, and shows itself
some weeks later in the northern states, varying not only
with the latitude, but the temperature of each season. Its
nest is described by Mr Audubon as being of the most
delicate nature, the external parts formed of a light-gray
lichen found on the branches of trees, or on decayed fence-
rails, and so neatly arranged round the whole nest, as well
as to some distance from the spot to which it is attached,
as to seem part of the branch or stem. These little pieces
of lichen, he and others allege, are glued together with the
saliva of the bird ; but whether this fact has been proved by
observation, or is only a natural inference from the actual ap¬
pearance of agglutination, we cannot say. The next coat¬
ing, however, consists of a cottony substance, and the in¬
nermost of all of silky fibres obtained from various plants,
and extremely soft and delicate. In this delightful little
bed the female lays only two eggs, of an almost oval form,
and colour of pure white.1 Not more than ten days are
required for hatching; the young are ready to fly in seven
or eight days; they are fed or cherished by the parents
for nearly another week; and Mr Audubon is of opinion
that they are no sooner able to provide for themselves
than they associate with other broods, and perform their
migrations apart from the old birds, as he has sometimes
observed twenty or thirty young humming-birds resorting
to a group of trumpet-flowers when not a single adult male
was to be seen.2 The migration of birds, as Dr Rich¬
ardson has well observed, has in all ages been an object
of pleasing speculation to the philosopher; but in no in¬
stance does it appear more wonderful than when contem¬
plated in relation to these tiny tribes. The lofty and sus¬
tained flight of the eagle and albatross seems only com¬
mensurate with their gigantic size, and the irresistible
sweeping of their mighty pinions; “ but how is our admi¬
ration of the ways of Providence increased, when we find
that one of the least of its class, clothed in the most deli¬
cate and brilliant plumage, and apparently more fitted to
flutter about in a conservatory than to brave the fury of
the blast, should yield to few birds in the extent of its mi¬
grations.”3
The only instance with which we are acquainted of a
humming-bird having been brought alive to England, is
that mentioned by Latham. A young gentleman, a few
days before sailing from Jamaica, observed a female of
Trochilus mango sitting on her eggs. He secured the
bird, cut off the twig, and brought the whole on board his
vessel. The mother was fed with honey and water, and
during the voyage hatched two young ones, which surviv¬
ing their parent, were landed in England and lived for
some time in the possession of Lady Hammond, from
whose mouth they readily sipped nectar. The longest
survivor, however, died in about two months after its ar¬
rival. These frail creatures are in fact far too impatient
of continuous cold to endure the climate of Britain during
winter. We shall conclude by observing, that the species
are very numerous, and, like the generality of extensive
groups, have been of late partitioned into many minor ge¬
nera by M. Lesson, and others who have devoted them¬
selves to their consideration. The range of size, as well
as of character, is considerable,— Trochilus miniums, which
is no larger than an able-bodied bee, is the least of all the
feathered race,—while Trochilus gigas, a “ triton ’mong
the minnows,” is the largest of humming-birds, and al¬
most equals the dimensions of a swallow.
In proceeding with our exposition of the tenuirostral
tribes, we now approach the Hoopoes, in close approxima¬
tion to which is placed the genus Fregilus of Cuvier, con-Insessores.
taining only a single European species, the Corvus gracu--v-'-
lus, or red-legged crow of British writers, which we have
already briefly noticed as a Pyrrhocorax. It is in truth so
nearly allied to the Alpine crow ((7. pyrrhocorax), or
choucard des Alpes, both in structure and habits, and is
so often seen in company with that species, that wherever
the one may be placed, the other should not be far dis¬
tant. M. Temminck, indeed, places them in the same ge¬
nus, although the bill of the red-legged bird (or Cornish
chough) is longer than the head, more subulate and slen¬
der at the point, and without any notch. Cuvier regards
the Corvus affinis of Latham, and another species from
New Holland, as both belonging to the genus Fregilus.
The true hoopoes (genus Upupa) are all distinguished
by a crest upon the head, composed of a double row of
lengthened plumes, and capable of being raised at plea¬
sure. The only European species ( U. epops, Linn. Plate
IX., figure 3) is a summer bird of passage on the Con¬
tinent, where it travels northward even as far as Swe¬
den. It never breeds in Britain, though it sometimes ac¬
cidentally occurs there. We had one sent us a few years
ago from the county of Fife. This bird is called buh-
bola by the Italians, most probably from its peculiar cry.
It keeps itself concealed among the trees; but is constant¬
ly heard repeating the syllable bu, bu, bu, bu, bu, with
such a strong sonorous voice, that it may be heard at a
great distance. Its song properly so called is only utter¬
ed during the honey-moon. Although the hoopoe lives
and builds in woods, it may be often seen, in search of in¬
sect food, in fields and pastures. The nest is generally
placed either in the natural hollow of a tree, or in the
deserted excavation of a woodpecker. It is composed out¬
wardly of feathers, and is lined with the hair of cows and
horses. The eggs are grayish white, finely spotted with
brown. This bird is very common in Egypt. A nearly
allied species (U. Capensis) is found at the Cape, and oc¬
curs also in the East Indies ; but we presume M. Savi is in
error when he says the genus is likewise known in Ame¬
rica.
The genus Promerops of Brisson has also an elongat¬
ed slender bill, finely pointed, laterally compressed, some¬
what convex above, with the nostrils open and cleft lon¬
gitudinally. The tail is very long and graduated, and the
tongue is extensile and bifurcated, so that the species are
able to absorb the nectarous juices of flowers. The title
seems now restricted to the African species, of which the
only one distinctly known is the Cape promerops (P. Ca¬
pensis, Merops coffer, Gm.), of a grayish brown above,
with a white throat, bordered by two dark lines, the breast
reddish, the abdomen yellow. The tail is of great length
during the completed plumage ; but the long, ribbon-like
feathers are often absent, which greatly alters the exter¬
nal character of the bird. (See Plate IX., figure 5.)
In the magnificent and somewhat disputed genus Epi-
machus, Cuv., the bill, though more robust in some of the
species, resembles that of the two preceding genera ; but
the base, or region of the nostrils, is beset with short,
rounded, scale-like feathers, after the manner of the birds
of paradise, which they somewhat resemble, moreover, in
the great extension of certain portions of their plumage.
They are also native to the same countries. The Epima-
chus magnificus has the general plumage of a rich velvet
black, the head and throat lustrous, with changing tints of
green and blue. The tail is of ordinary length and struc¬
ture, but the sides are singularly ornamented by long ex¬
tended filamentous feathers. (See Plate IX., figure 7.)
The female is much less adorned, being, according to M.
2
1 Dr Richardson describes the eggs as of “
Ornithological Biography, vol. i. p. 2ol.
a reddish white colour, and obtuse at both ends.”
3 Fauna Borcali-Americana, part ii. p. 323.
772
ORNITHOLOGY.
Insessores. Lesson, reddish above and gray below, streaked with from its being absent in some of the component members Insessores
''brown. The Epimachus superbus is likewise of a velvet of a natural family, and present in others. We may illus-' —
black, glossed in various parts with golden green and pur- trate this by an example. In the South American genus
pie, the flank feathers greatly developed, and terminated Ampelis there are genuine specice, in some of which the
by a brilliant edging. The tail is of such enormous length outer and middle toes are united, while in others they are
(Plate IX., figure 4) that the total extent of this species free. This is well seen in the beautiful Ampelis carnifex, in
is nearly four feet. The female (Upupa fusca of which these parts are joined together, while in the closely
Gmelin ?) is described as reddish on the wings and tail, the allied species A. pompadoura they are disunited. Having
body of a mingled black and brown. The two preceding
kinds inhabit New Guinea. I he JPavctdiseci alba of the older
systems is by some referred to our present genus, which
has also been made to contain a beautiful New Holland
species, known to the natives by the name of rifle-bird,
and described by Mr Swainson under the title of Ptilorus
paradiseus. It is the Epim. regius of Lesson and Gar¬
net,1 and was previously figured by Mr Wilson as Epim.
Brisbanii, in honour of General Sir Thomas ‘Brisbane,
by whom it is believed to have been first transmitted
to this country.2 If not a true Epimachus, it certainly
greatly resembles that genus, having the form and colour¬
ing of E. magnificus, and the same tendency (though less
strongly developed) to an elongation of the lateral plumes.
The obscure black and brown plumage of the female like¬
wise corresponds to what M. Lesson regards as the sexual
distinctions of the other species. We have had recent in¬
formation, which confirms our former views, that it is not
of honey-sucking propensities. It rather exhibits a ten¬
dency to scansorial habits; and in its search for insects
its bill may be heard from some distance tapping the bark,
like that of a woodpecker.
All the preceding groups of the Passerine Order
belong to Cuvier’s first primary division, which, as we said
at starting (see page 747), is characterized by never hav¬
ing the outer united to the inner toe by more than the
length of one or two phalanges.
Those which follow, on the contrary, forming the second
and much less numerous primary division of our present
order, have the outer toe almost as long as the middle
one, and united to it as far as the base of the terminal
articulation. Such a principle of division might, a priori,
be inferred to lead to some serious mal-arrangement of
the groups; for it is extremely unlikely that so trifling
a character should be found in uniform accordance with
other and more influential attributes, and the slightest
study or most superficial inspection of this the Syndac-
tylousDivision of Baron Cuvier’s passerine order will suffice
to show that the said division is in many points extremely
heterogeneous and unnatural. To prove this to the satis¬
faction of any one at all conversant with the character of
the prevailing forms in Ornithology, it will suffice merely
to enumerate its component parts, viz. the bee-eaters (A/e-
rops), the motmots (Prionites), the king-fishers (Alcedo),
the todies (Todus), and the horn-bills (Buceros). It is
indeed surprising that any one so gifted with the power of
philosophical observation, so qualified by his profound ac¬
quaintance with comparative anatomy to trace the natural
relations of living creatures, and so signally successful in
his usual generalizations, should either have brought to¬
gether, or permitted to remain in juxtaposition, so dis¬
cordant a group. The regulating character supposed to
be competent to amalgamate these discordant materials is
alleged to consist simply in the close adherence of the
outer and middle toe throughout a considerable portion of
their length, that is, as far as the penultimate joints. Now,
that this character by itself is of no avail in the forma¬
tion of natural groups, is evident from two considera¬
tions :—IsZ, From its being found in numerous genera, which
are admitted to bear no affinity to each other;—2dly,
called the reader’s attention to this inconsistency, we shall
proceed to a brief sketch of the different generic groups
above named.
In the beautiful genus Merops, Linn., the bill is elon¬
gated, somewhat triangular at the base, slightly arched,
sharp pointed. The wings are long, and narrow at the
extremity. The feet are short. The flight of these birds,
commonly called bee-eaters, is easy and buoyant, resem¬
bling that of the swallow. The species are numerous in
Africa and the East; but only one is accustomed to show
itself in Europe, the Merops apiaster, or common bee-eater
of English writers (to whom, however, it is one of the
rarest of the feathered race), an elegantly-formed and
richly-plumaged bird (Plate X., figure 2). It arrives in
the southern countries of the Continent in March, and
departs in September. It flies in flocks, usually at a con¬
siderable elevation, and utters with hoarse and guttural
voice, in startling disaccordance with its slender aspect, a
continual cry of gra, gra, gra. It builds in deep horizontal
holes in sandy banks, which it excavates in whole or in part,
working vigorously with feet and bill, and kicking out the
dry earth behind it with great dexterity. It lays six or
seven eggs, white, lucid, and almost spherical. When the
young are partly fledged, but not yet fit to fly, they creep
to the mouth of their holes, where they seem to enjoy the
happy summer light and genial sunshine ; but on the least
alarm they trundle stern foremost into their inner chambers,
where they lie concealed until tranquillity again prevails. So
accustomed do they seem indeed to this peculiar movement,
that when taken from the nest, and placed in any more ex¬
posed position, they seek to escape by running backwards.
In fact, for a time they seem unable to walk in any other
direction. All these birds are exclusively insectivorous,
and prey almost entirely on the hymenopterous tribes.
Although they often take their food upon the wing, thev
also gather it from the ground; and whenever they espy
the small hole which leads into the nest of wasp or bem-
bex, they place themselves close beside it, and snap up
the industrious tenants on their exit or arrival. The Ita¬
lian contadini regard the cry of the bee-eater as a sign
of rain when they hear it uttered from a great height.
The appearance of this beautiful bird in England is acci¬
dental. We may add, that none of the species occurs in
America.
In the genus Prionites, Illiger, the feet and form are
similar, but the bill is much stronger than in the preced¬
ing, the margins of both mandibles are crenelated (see
Plate X., figure 3), and the tongue is feathered. These
birds are natives of South America. The plumage of
their head is loose, like that of our common jay, the tail
is long and graduated, and in adult birds the two central
feathers are often bare or barbless for a space not far from
the extremity. They prey on insects, occasionally attack
small birds, and build their nests in the hollows of trees.
Example, the blue-crowned motmot, Eamphastos momota,
Gmelin.
The genus Alcedo, containing the king-fishers, has the
legs still shorter than the bee-eaters, and the bill long,
straight, angular, and pointed (Plate X., figures 1 and 4).
As originally constituted, it contained a numerous assem¬
blage of species from various countries of the world, of shape
1 Voyage de Duperrey, pi. xxviii.
2 llluitrations of Zoology, vol. i. pi. xi.
ORNITF
uessores. and proportions rather awkward than elegant, but almost all
remarkable for great splendour of plumage. The size and
length of the bill are usually disproportioned to the body,
and the feet and legs seem of a diminutive and apparently
inconvenient form ; but the shining silky lustre of the fea¬
thers, and their rich and infinitely varied hues of the most
brilliant green and blue, contrasted with different shades of
orange, black, and brown, render the genus one of the most
showy and attractive within the entire range of the ornitho¬
logical system. The Alcedo ispida(oxvc common king-fisher)
is the only species which occurs in Europe, and it yields to
few of its brethren in its lustrous beauty. It is one of the
rarest, and certainly the most highly adorned, of all our
resident species. It haunts the banks of lakes and rivers,
building in hollows near their margin, and preys chiefly on
small fish, on which it darts with the rapidity of an arrow,
plunging its little gem-like body for one flashing moment
in the crystal stream.
Certain modifications observable in the form of the bill,
and accompanied, as usual, by a corresponding change of
habits, have induced the division of the original genus.
For example, we owe to Dr Leach the formation of the
genus Dacelo, of which the type is the giant king-fisher
of New Holland (A. gigantea of Latham). The bill is
very strong, curved at the extremity, and bulged beneath.
These species (called martin-chasseurs by the French)
inhabit forests, and build their nests, not in the excavated
banks of rivers, but in the hollows of lofty trees ; whereas
the true kmg-fishers (martin-pecheurs) are never found at
any distance from the “ pure element of waters.” The
former also feed on insects rather than fish, and, the larger
kind especially, are clothed in a dingier and less adorned
plumage.
The one above alluded to (Z>. gigantea) is described
by Mr Bennet as well known to the colonists of New
South Wales by the name of laughing or feathered jack¬
ass,—a designation which occasioned a lady at home to
declare, that of all the wonderful productions of Australia,
she thought nothing could equal the “ feathered donkey.”
Its peculiar gurgling laugh, commencing in a low and
gradually rising to a louder tone, is often heard by travel¬
lers, proceeding from the branch of some lofty tree, where
the bird is watching for its prey. It is said that one sel¬
dom laughs without being accompanied by another, ap¬
parently anxious to join in a duet. This bird is respected
by Australian gardeners for destroying grubs, &c.; and
Mr Bennet reports, that it also deserves protection on ac¬
count of its devouring mice and venomous reptiles. “ A
gentleman told me he was perfectly aware of the bird de¬
stroying snakes, as he had often seen them carry the rep¬
tiles to a tree, and break their heads to pieces with their
sharp, strong beaks.” “ One of these birds, seen upon the
branch of a tree near a river, looking so stupid, and nod¬
ding as if asleep, was shot, and it was then found that this
peculiar manner proceeded from its having swallowed a
small snake, which had got into the stomach, throat, and
bill, but had not yet accommodated itself in the former
cavity.”1
A rare and remarkable species, from the Moluccas,
with a shorter bill than usual, and a much longer tail,
sometimes called the ternate king-fisher (A. dea, Linn.),
forms the genus Tanysiptera of Mr Vigors,—while a few
small species which either want the inner toe, or possess it
in a very rudimentary state, constitute the genus Ceyx of
Lacepede. The latter occur in India. Example, A. tri-
bachys, Shaw. (Plate X., figures 5 and 11.)
The genus Todus contains some small American birds,
supposed to resemble the king-fishers in their general
form, their feet, and lengthened bills; but the latter or-
0 L O G Y. 773
gan is horizontally depressed, and obtuse at the extremi- Insessores
ty, the tarsi are more elevated, and the tail shorter. Their v''—'
habits are insectivorous, and the species, very few in num¬
ber as the group is now restricted, are by most Ornitho¬
logists arranged among the Muscicapidce, near the genera
Platyrhynchus and Muscipeta. The best-known, if not
the only species, is the green tody (T7. viridis, Linn.).
It is found in the Antilles, and some of the equatorial re¬
gions of South America, where it hunts insects like a fly¬
catcher, but builds in holes in banks, after the manner of
a king-fisher. Its nest is placed in a little chamber at the
termination of a tortuous gallery, and both sexes are re¬
markable for their strong attachment to their young. This
delightful bird is named ground-parrakeet by the Creoles
of St Domingo. Though not very rare, it usually dwells
in wild and solitary places, which is probably the reason
of its being by no means frequent in the collections of Eu¬
rope. The male utters an agreeable song during the pair¬
ing season, but at other times the green tody is a very
silent bird. Its flight is straight and rapid, and it sits at
times both on stones and trees. (Plate X., figures 6, 7,
and 9.)
The genus Buceros, which includes the calaos or horn-
bills, is the last of the great passerine order in the ar¬
rangement of Baron Cuvier (Plate X., figures 8 and
10). It certainly differs greatly from those near which he
makes it stand, nor does it amalgamate much better with
its neighbours in more recent systems. The species are
natives of Africa and India, and are characterized by their
enormous bills, toothed along their edges, and frequently
surmounted by an additional horny structure, which be¬
stows on them a very striking and peculiar physiognomy.
These excrescences vary considerably with the age of the
individual, and are scarcely perceptible in the young birds.
The horn-bills may be said to resemble the toucans in their
heads, the crows in their general habits, and the syndac-
tylous tribes in the form of their feet. Their tongue is
very small. These birds may be regarded as omnivorous,
as they feed indifferently on fruits, mice, small birds, rep¬
tiles, and even carcasses. They exhibit an awkward and
uncommon aspect while in the act of flying, in consequence
of the great size of their beaks and lengthened tails, and al¬
together their appearance is extremely uncouth. Perhaps
one of the most singular features in their economy consists
in their feeding greedily, and without injury, on the seeds
of nux vomica?-
The African horn-bill {B. Africanus) is entirely black,
and nearly as large as a turkey. The crowned species (B.
coronatus) is a much smaller bird, scarcely equalling the
size of a magpie. Le Vaillant saw a flock of more than
five hundred of these birds, in company with crows and
vultures, preying on the remains of slaughtered elephants.
It is figured by Mr Swainson in tbe third volume of the
first series of his beautiful Illustrations. A large and re¬
markable Indian species - was several years ago described
by Mr Hodgson. It measures four feet five inches from
tip to tip of the wings, and is three feet six inches in
length. Its body exceeds that of the largest raven, but
is very lean and incompact. It is believed to feed chiefly
on fruits, although it will seize upon reptiles when press¬
ed by hunger. Its freedom from any offensive smell, and
the excellence of its flesh, which is much esteemed as an
article of food, go far to prove that its habits are chiefly
frugivorous. In a domestic state it will eat meat either
raw or dressed. Mr Hodgson’s specimen, however, was
fed mostly on boiled rice, mixed with ghee, and made into
large balls. It was never observed to take any water.
Whenever it swallowed a mouthful which on second
thoughts it considered as somewhat too large, it imme-
1 Wanderings in New South Wales, i. 222.
* Edinburgh Cabinet Library, British India, iii. 90.
/* O R N I T
Scansores. diately disgorged it for the sake of a little additional mas-
v—> tication.1
Order III—SCANSORES or CLIMBERS.
This somewhat heterogeneous group, continued by Ba¬
ron Cuvier as a separate order, forms, in the systems of
our own more recent writers, merely an additional tribe in
the primary division of the passerine or insessorial order.
As the zoological treatises in our present work have been
hitherto made conformable to the general principles which
regulate the arrangement proposed by the great French
anatomist, we shall not here swerve from our previous
practice, although we doubt not, that among some recent
alterations for the worse, there may also be found not a
few for the better. We fear, however, that it may be
some time before the Scansores, even of the modern sys¬
tems, can be regarded as composed of very closely allied
groups,—at least so long as people feel averse to see any
natural connection between a creeper and a cockatoo. Be
this as it may, our present order is composed of species
the great majority of which possess two toes before and
two behind; that is, one of the three anterior toes com¬
monly so called, is either reversible at pleasure, or is per¬
manently thrown backwards, so as to give great power and
tenacity of grasp during their infinitely varied movements
over the rugged bark or smoother branches of the forest
trees, on which they chiefly dwell. By this peculiar struc¬
ture many species are enabled not only to ascend with ease
a perpendicular trunk, but to suspend themselves from the
lower surface of a branch while searching for their favou¬
rite food, which consists of fruits or insects, according to
the form of the bill, so greatly diversified in the scansorial
order. In the parrot tribe the foot is also used in the
conveyance of food to the mouth, and generally as a nre-
hensile organ of a very perfect kind.
We are aware that more than one excellent Ornitholo¬
gist has objected to the title of this order, as incapable of
being strictly applied to the whole of the genera of which
it is composed. It is no doubt true that many of the spe¬
cies (such as the cuckoo), in which the toes are in pairs,
or yoke-footed, cannot climb, while it is equally evident
that several other species (such as the creeper, C.familia-
ris, the already alluded to very distant connection of the
cockatoo) are excluded from this order by reason of the
structure of their feet, in spite of which, however, they
contrive to climb unceasingly; and that under these cir¬
cumstances the denomination cannot be rigorously applied
as alike characteristic of what it contains, and as correct¬
ly exclusive of what it does not contain. But we believe
the same objection may be made to apply at least with
equal force to various parts of every other system yet pro¬
posed. The ordinal characters, considered in their tota¬
lity, are seldom so natural, yet extended, as to admit of no
exception ; and it is extremely questionable whether a title
should be immediately changed upon the discovery of
every species which may not coincide with its most rigo¬
rous interpretation. In truth, this could not in many cases
be effected merely on the consideration of a single charac¬
ter, without producing greater inconveniences than those
which it is desired to obviate. Among scansorial birds,
for example, we have several species with only three toes,
and which it would therefore be unreasonable to expect
should conform to the ordinal character of having two toes
before and two behind. But in spite of that partial defi¬
ciency, they are, in every essential particular, “ true to their
order.”
H O L O G Y.
The bill in the scansorial tribes varies so greatly in the Seansore*
different genera, from the straight, lengthened, angular
mandibles of the woodpeckers, to the deep, curved, com¬
pressed organ of the parrots, that we must omit all consi¬
deration of it in the ordinal characters, although the study
of its form is essential in relation to the minor divisions.
Ihe species of this order are, with few exceptions, inha¬
bitants of the forests, and usually build their nests in the
hollows of ancient trees. Their powers of flight are not
remarkable. The European genera are almost entirely
insectivorous; the parrot tribe feed on fruits; the toucans
exhibit a tendency to the carnivorous habits of the acci-
pitrine tribes ; while other genera sensibly enjoy a mingled
or miscellaneous diet.2
The genus Galbula, Brisson, has a straight, elongated,
sharp-pointed bill, with the upper edge rather sharp ; the
legs are very short, and the anterior toes much united.
(Plate XI., figure 1.) The plumage of these birds usually,
known under the name of Jacamars, is remarkable for its
metallic lustre. The species inhabit South America, where
they occur among trees in moist and marshy places. Exam¬
ples, G.paradisea and viridis, Lath. They generally sit, ac¬
cording to Mr Swainson, on low naked branches in the forest
paths, from whence they dart upon butterflies, spearing
them with their long bills ; and their haunts, indeed, may
be frequently discovered by the ground being strewed with
the beautiful wings of their mangled victims, the bodies of
which they alone devour.3 “ A bird called jacamar,”says
Waterton, “ is often taken for a king-fisher, but it has no
relationship to that tribe; it frequently sits in the trees
over the water, and as its beak bears some resemblance to
that of the king-fisher, this may probably account for its
being taken for one ; it feeds entirely upon insects ; it sits
on a branch in motionless expectation, and as soon as a
fly, butterfly, or moth passes by, it darts at it, and returns
to the branch it had first left. It seems an indolent, se¬
dentary bird, shunning the society of all others in the fo¬
rest. It never visits the plantations, but is found at all
times of the year in the woods. There are four species of
jacamar in Demerara; they are all beautiful; the largest,
rich and superb in the extreme. Its plumage is of so fine
a changing blue and golden green, that it may be ranked
with the choicest of the humming-birds. Nature has de¬
nied it a song, but given it a costly garment in lieu of it.
The smallest species of jacamar is very common in the dry
savannas. The second size, all golden green on the back,
must be looked for in the Wallaba forest. The third is
found throughput the whole extent of these wilds; and
the fourth, which is the largest, frequents the interior,
where you begin to perceive stones in the ground.”4 An
Indian species (M. Lesson, however, assigns it to Cayenne),
of which the bill is shorter, thicker, and somewhat arched,
forms the genus Jacamerops of Le Vaillant (see Plate
XI., figure 2); and another from South America, with
only three toes (G. tridactyla, Vieil.), constitutes the
genus Jacamar-alcyon (Plate XI., figure 3). These
names, however unmusically composed, point out the na¬
tural relationship of our present group to the bee-eaters
and king-fishers, with which (as fissirostral birds) they are
combined in some modern systems.
The genus Picus, Linn., contains the well-marked, nu¬
merous, and extensively distributed tribe of woodpeckers,
which occur in all the great divisions of the earth, with
the exception of New Holland. The vast and solitary fo¬
rests of North and South America ai’e, however, their chief
dominion, the greatest number, both there and in the old
world, being found within the tropics. The bill is rather
long, straight, angular, somewhat compressed or w'edge-
* Transactions of the Physical Class of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, part i. p. 178.
Wilson s Illustrations of Zoology, vol. i. art. Scansores.
3 Nat- Hist, and Class, of Birds, ii. 154.
4 Wanderings, p. 137.
ORNITHOLOGY.
775
nsores. shaped at the extremity, and admirably fitted for splitting
■^v^^the bark or excavating the decayed portions of trees. The
tongue is long, and capable of great protrusion, in conse¬
quence of its muscular basis, and the length of the horns
of the os hyoides. It is not only furnished with little spines
pointing backwards, but is covered by a glutinous mois¬
ture secreted by the salivary glands, which aids in the
capture of the smaller insects, the larger, it is said, being
usually transfixed by the point itself. The tail-feathers
are very stiff and elastic, and greatly aid the motion of the
feet in climbing, being pressed upon the bark, so as in some
measure to support the body. Woodpeckers are shy and
solitary birds. During the breeding season they dwell in
pairs, and are only met with in small family flocks through¬
out the autumn. With the exception of the parrots, they
form the most extensive group among scansorial tribes,
between one and two hundred species being known to na¬
turalists. We have only four in Britain, viz. the green
woodpecker (P. viridis), our most common species; the
great black woodpecker (P. martins), which is a much
rarer bird ; the great spotted woodpecker (P. major) ; and
the lesser spotted kind (P. minor). Besides these, several
others occur on the continent of Europe.
In whatever clime or country woodpeckers are found,
they are characterized by strong affinities of form and co¬
lour, and constitute a very natural group, although some
slight modifications of the bill have given rise in recent
times to the formation of a few subgenera.
Buffon has drawn a melting picture of the miseries of a
woodpecker’s life. According to the views of the always
eloquent, but frequently erroneous and sometimes incon¬
sistent Frenchman, no bird which earns its subsistence by
spoil leads a life of such painful and uninterrupted labour.
Nature appears to have condemned it to incessant toil,—
for while other species freely employ their courage or ad¬
dress, and either glide along on fearless rapid wings, or
lurk insidiously in closer ambush, the woodpecker is con¬
strained to drag on a miserable existence in boring through
the scaly bark and tough unyielding fibres of the hardest
trees. Necessity admits no intermission of its labours,—
no interval of sweet repose. Not even the darkness of the
night, nor sleep, that “ soft restorer,” who throws her
balmy mantle over such a mass of human misery, brings
any solace here,—for the nocturnal hours are spent in the
same constrained and painful posture as are those of day.
It never shares in the joyous sports of the other inhabi¬
tants of the woods, and so far from joining in their glad re¬
sponses, it rather deepens the natural sadness of the forest
glades by its wild and melancholy cries. Now, what is
all this but the most fantastic coinage of the brain ?—as if
the blessed beings which people this gladsome world en¬
dured the primal curse, and shared the self-inflicted ruin
of our race ! as if their joyful hearts were ever pressed by
sorrow, or responded in wailing sadness to the woes of
man ! Spirit of Eblis ! not yet has thy malign' influence
so encroached upon the “ Benigner Power.” Is there any
thing on earth for which we may not cry alas ! saving only
the omnipotent goodness of God, who careth “ for all his
creatures,”—and amid the unmeasured wretchedness which
springs from human folly, the wan faces of our fellow-men
pent up in close-built cities, the drunkard’s hollow eyes, his
shaking limbs, and tattered garments (and all the horrid
ills that vice is heir to), what is more inspiring than to see
even a fragment of the face of nature,—some little open
plot of garden ground, where in spring the blackbird still
may sing his evening hymn, or the autumnal red-breast
cheerily announce approaching winter ? Is there sorrow
there or suffering, save what may spring from some dark
spirit in the mind of man, the “ immortal rebel ?” When
Buffon himself, a great interpreter of nature, in spite of
all his fitful fancies, yielded up his life to God who gave
it, did the lilied fields of France reflect the sun’s warm Scansoree.
rays less brightly, or her sylvan choristers welcome with
sadder note the rosy day-break of the ensuing morn ; or
when that more wretched hour arrived (which the hoarv
but irreverent parent was saved the pain to see) when hfs
son’s fair locks, dishevelled but not dishonoured, were
streaming on the blood-stained floor of that insatiate scaf¬
fold, what cared the gladsome birds in field or tree ? It
would indeed be but a doleful thought, if misery such as
man so often meets with among human kind, and which he
is therefore prone to picture, were to spread itself from
his own sad bosom into the depth of darkly shaded forests,
where so many gorgeous feathered inmates dwell, or among
ocean rocks amid upheaving waters, or wave-worn caves,
or crystal rivers with their golden sands.
Let those who dwell with pity on the fate of our condemned
bird go with us to America, and listen to the high-toned note
of Pious principalis (the name itself might “ threaten and
command”), echoing from the giant trunk or moss-grown
arm of some colossal tree, or watch his varied movements,
while from gnarled stems he drives off impetuously broad
flakes of flashing bark, which so accumulate around the base
of pine or cypress, as if a human carpenter had there set up
his habitation. Or if we cannot go to America, let us read
a great observer’s history of another species. “ No sooner,”
says Audubon, “ has spring called them (the golden-winged
woodpeckers) to the pleasant duty of making love, than
their voice, which by the way is not at all disagreeable
to the ear of man, is heard from the tops of high decayed
trees, proclaiming with delight the opening of the welcome
season. Their note at this period is merriment itself, as
it imitates a prolonged and jovial laugh, heard at a con¬
siderable distance. Several males pursue a female, reach
her, and to prove the force and truth of their love, bow
their heads, spread their tails, and move sideways, back¬
wards and forwards, performing such antics as might in¬
duce any one witnessing them, if not of a most morose
temper, to join his laugh to theirs. The female flies to
another tree, where she is constantly followed by one, two,
or even half a dozen of these gay suitors, and where again
the same ceremonies are gone through. No fightings oc¬
cur, no jealousies exist among these beaux, until a marked
preference is shown to some individual; when the reject¬
ed proceed in search of another female. In this manner all
the golden-winged woodpeckers are soon happily mated.
Each pair immediately proceed to excavate the trunk of a
tree, and finish a hole in it sufficient to contain themselves
and their young." They both work with great industry and
apparent pleasure. Should the male, for instance, be em¬
ployed, the female is close to him, and congratulates him
on the removal of every chip which his bill sends through
the air. While he rests he appears to be speaking to her
on the most tender subjects, and when fatigued is at once
assisted by her. In this manner, by the alternate exer¬
tions of each, the hole is dug and finished. They caress
each other on the branches, climb about and around the tree
with apparent delight, rattle with their bill against the tops
of the dead branches, chase all their cousins the red-heads,
defy the purple-grakles to enter their nest, feed plentifully
on ants, beetles, and larvae, cackling at intervals, and ere
two weeks have elapsed, the female lays either four or six
eggs, the whiteness or transparency of which are doubtless
the delight of her heart. If to raise a numerous progeny
may contribute to happiness, these woodpeckers may be
happy enough, for they have two broods each season.
Even in confinement the golden-winged woodpecker never
suffers its naturally lively spirit to droop. It feeds well,
and by way of amusement will contrive to destroy as much
furniture in a day as can well be mended by a different
kind of workman in two. Therefore, kind reader, do not
any longer believe that woodpeckers, I mean those of
776
ORNITHOLOGY.
Scansores. America, are such stupid, forlorn, dejected, and unprovid-
ed-for beings, as they have hitherto been represented.”1
The other species to which we have above alluded is
the beautiful ivory-billed woodpecker (Picus principalis,
Linn.), of which the broad extent of dark and glossy plu¬
mage, with the wTell-defined snowy markings of the neck
and wings, relieved by the rich tracery of the carmine crest,
and brilliant yellow eye, in some way so reminded the en¬
thusiastic Audubon of the noble productions of a great
Flemish painter, that whenever he saw one of these gor¬
geous birds flying from tree to tree, he would exclaim,
“ There goes a Vandyke.” The ivory-billed woodpecker
confines its rambles to a comparatively small portion of the
United States, and is never observed in the middle por¬
tions of the Union, where the nature of the wood does not
appear to suit its habits. “ Descending the Ohio,” says
Mr Audubon, “ we meet with this splendid bird for the
first time near the confluence of that beautiful river and
the Mississippi; after which, following the windings of the
latter, either downwards towards the sea, or upwards in
the direction of the Missouri, we frequently observe it.
On the Atlantic coast, North Carolina may be taken as
the limits of its distribution, although now and then an in¬
dividual of the species may be accidentally seen in Mary¬
land. To the westward of the Mississippi, it is found in
all the dense forests bordering the streams which empty
their waters into that majestic river from the declivities of
the Rocky Mountains. The lower parts of the Carolinas,
Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi, are how¬
ever the most favourite resorts of this bird, and in those
states it constantly resides, breeds, and passes a life of
peaceful enjoyment, finding a profusion of food in all the
deep, dark, and gloomy swamps dispersed throughout them.
I wish, kind reader, it were in my power to present to
your mind’s eye the favourite resort of the ivory-billed
woodpecker. Would that I could describe the extent of
those deep morasses, overshadowed by millions of dark
gigantic cypresses, spreading their sturdy moss-covered
branches, as if to admonish intruding man to pause and
reflect on the many difficulties which he must encounter
should he persist in venturing farther into their almost in¬
accessible recesses, extending for miles before him, where
he would be interrupted by huge projecting branches, here
and there the massy trunk of a fallen and decaying tree,
and thousands of creeping and twining plants of number¬
less species! Would that I could represent to you the
dangerous nature of the ground, its oozing, spongy, and
miry disposition, although covered with a beautiful but
treacherous carpeting, composed of the richest mosses,
flags, and water-lilies, no sooner receiving the pressure of
the foot than it yields, and endangers the very life of the
adventurer, whilst here and there, as he approaches an
opening, that proves merely a lake of black, muddy water,
his ear is assailed by the dismal croaking of innumerable
frogs, the hissing of serpents, or the bellowing of alligators!
Would that I could give you an idea of the sultry pesti¬
ferous atmosphere, that nearly suffocates the intruder dur¬
ing the meridian beat of our dogdays, in those gloomy and
horrible swamps! But the attempt to picture these scenes
would be vain. Nothing short of ocular demonstration can
impress any adequate idea of them.
“ The flight of this bird is graceful in the extreme,
although seldom prolonged to more than a few hundred
yards at a time, unless when it has to cross a large river,
which it does in deep undulations, opening its wings at
first to their full extent, and nearly closing them to re¬
new the propelling impulse. The transit from one tree
to another, even should the distance be as much as a hun ¬
dred yards, is performed by a single sweep, and the bird
appears as if merely swinging itself from the top of the Scansores
one tree to that of the other, forming an elegantly curved
line. At this moment all the beauty of the plumage is ex¬
hibited, and strikes the beholder with pleasure. It never
utters any sound whilst on wing, unless during the love
season; but at all other times, no sooner has this bird
alighted, than its remarkable voice is heard, at almost
every leap which it makes, whilst ascending against the
upper parts of the trunk of a tree, or its highest branches.
Its notes are clear, loud, and yet rather plaintive. They
are heard at a considerable distance, perhaps half a mile,
and resemble the false high note of a clarionet. They
are usually repeated three times in succession, and may
be represented by the monosyllable, pait, pa,it, pait. These
are heard so frequently, as to induce me to say that the
bird spends few minutes of the day without uttering them ;
and this circumstance leads to its destruction, which is
aimed at, not because (as is supposed by some) this spe¬
cies is a destroyer of trees, but more because it is a beau¬
tiful bird, and its rich scalp, attached to the upper man¬
dible, forms an ornament for the war-dress of most of our
Indians, or for the short pouch of our squatters and hunt¬
ers, by all of whom the bird is shot merely for that pur¬
pose.
“ Travellers of all nations are also fond of possessing
the upper part of the head and the bill of the male; and
I have frequently remarked, that on a steam-boat’s reach¬
ing what we call a ivooding-place, the strangers were very
apt to pay a quarter of a dollar for two or three heads of
this woodpecker. I have seen entire belts of Indian chiefs
closely ornamented with the tufts and bills of this species,
and have observed that a great value is frequently put
upon them. The food of this species consists principally
of beetles, larvae, and large grubs. No sooner, however,
are the grapes of our forests ripe, than they are eaten by
the ivory-billed woodpecker with great avidity. I have
seen this bird hang by its claws to the vines, in the posi¬
tion so often assumed by a tit-mouse, and, reaching down¬
wards, help itself to a bunch of grapes with much apparent
pleasure. Persimons are also sought for by them, as soon
as the fruit becomes quite mellow, as are hag-berries. The
ivory-bill is never seen attacking the corn, or the fruit of
the orchards, although it is sometimes observed working
upon and chipping off the bark from the belted trees of the
newly-cleared plantations. It seldom comes near the
ground, but prefers at all times the tops of the tallest trees.
Should it, however, discover the half-standing broken
shaft of a large dead and rotten tree, it attacks it in such
a manner as nearly to demolish it in the course of a few
days. I have seen the remains of some of these ancient
monarchs of our forests so excavated, and that so singu¬
larly, that the tottering fragments of the trunk appeared
to be merely supported by the great pile of chips by
which its base was surrounded. The strength of this
woodpecker is such that I have seen it detach pieces of
bark seven or eight inches in length at a single blow of its
powerful bill, and by beginning at the top branch of a
dead tree, tear off the bark, to an extent of twenty or
thirty feet, in the course of a few hours, leaping down¬
wards with its body in an upward position, tossing its head
to the right and left, or leaning it against the bark to as¬
certain the precise spot where the grubs were concealed,
and immediately after renewing its blows with fresh vi¬
gour, all the while sounding its loud notes, as if highly
delighted.
“ When wounded and brought to the ground, the ivory-
bill immediately makes for the nearest tree, and ascends
it with great rapidity and perseverance, until it reaches
the top branches, when it squats and hides, generally with
Ornithological Biography, voi. i. p. 191.
ORNITHOLOGY.
cansores, great effect. Whilst ascending, it moves spirally round
    the tree, utters its loud pail, pait, pait, at almost every
hop, but becomes silent the moment it reaches a place
where it conceives itself secure. They sometimes cling
to the bark with their claws so firmly, as to remain cramp¬
ed to the spot for several hours after death. When taken
by the hand, which is rather a hazardous undertaking,
they strike with great violence, and inflict very severe
wounds with their bill as well as claws, which are ex¬
tremely sharp and strong. On such occasions, this bird
utters a mournful and very piteous cry.’n
A few species in which the bill is obviously arched
form the genus Colaptes of Mr Swainson. They seem,
moreover, distinguished by the broad, bright-coloured shafts
of the quill-feathers. Such is the gold-winged woodpeck¬
er (P. auratus) already alluded to. These birds perch
more frequently than the genuine woodpeckers, that is,
grasp or encircle the smaller branches, and they also often
feed upon the ground. A Brazilian species is even nam¬
ed P. campestris, from its habit, of searching about in
fields and plains for insects in the dung of cattle, or on
ant-hills, where it finds an ample supply of favourite food.
This form occurs also in Africa. Certain three-toed
species were formed into the genus Picoides by Lace-
pede. (Plate CCCXCV. fig. 3.)
I he genus Yunx of Linn., containing the wrynecks, re¬
markable for their beautifully brindled plumage, is of very
limited extent. The sole European species (Pwraa: tfor-
quilki) is in Britain a rare but regular summer bird of pas¬
sage, breeding in hollow trees, laying numerous eggs, and
feeding on insects. The genus Picumnus of Temm. is
nearly allied, but is distinguished by its extremely short
tail. Example, P. abnormis, Temm. PI. Col. 371, fig. 3,
which comes from Java. Picus minutus, which some au¬
thors place here, is by others regarded as a Yunx.
In the genus Cuculus of Linn, were originally placed
a number of different insectivorous birds, commonly called
cuckoos, which agreed in the general form of the feet,
the lengthened tail, the bill of medium size, rather deeply
cleft, somewhat compressed, and slightly curved. But
they have since been formed into numerous minor groups,
the most marked and conspicuous of which we shall here
briefly notice.
The true cuckoos, genus Cuculus, Cuv., have the bill
of moderate strength, the tarsi short, and the tail of ten
feathers. As an example, we name our common British
species, C. canorus, so remarkable for its singular and
somewhat anomalous habit of depositing its eggs in the
nests of other birds, a fact now so well known, and so
frequently recorded, that we need not here dilate upon
the subject, however curious in itself. The nest of the
hedge-sparrow (Accentor modularis) is that most usually
chosen in the south of England,—that of the yellow-ham¬
mer (Emb. citrinclla), the wagtail (Mot. alba), and the
777
meadow titlark (.4. prulemis), being, however, likewise Scansorei.
devoted to the purpose. “ In Northumberland,” says Mr'
Selby, “ constant experience tells me, that the nest of
the last-mentioned bird is the one almost always chosen.
Taking advantage of the absence of its dupe during the
time of laying (which generally occupies four or five days),
the cuckoo deposits its egg among the rest, abandoning
it from that moment to the care of the foster-parent. As
the same period of incubation is common to both birds,
the eggs are hatched nearly together, which no sooner
takes place than the young cuckoo proceeds instinctively
to eject its young companions and any remaining eggs
from the nest. To effect this object, it contrives to work
itself under its burden (the back at this early age being
provided with a peculiar depression between the shoul¬
ders), and shuffling backwards to the edge of the nest,
by a jerk rids itself of the incumbrance; and this opera¬
tion is repeated, till the whole being thrown over, it re¬
mains sole possessor. This particular tendency remains
for about twelve days, after which the hollow space be¬
tween the shoulders is filled up; and when prevented
from accomplishing its purpose till the expiration of that
time, as if conscious of inability, it suffers its companions
to remain unmolested.”2
Various supposed reasons have been assigned for this
anomalous, and we might almost say unnatural, instinct.
Some have attributed it to the displacement of certain
viscera (the gizzard is said to be situate farther back than
in most other birds), which unfits them for the purposes
of incubation, while others imagine that the early period
at which cuckoos migrate from this country (they are ge¬
nerally off by the beginning of July) makes it necessary
that they should leave their offspring to the care of foster-
parents.3 But anatomical investigation has not proved
any thing sufficiently peculiar in their structure to warrant
the first conclusion ; and as to the second, it seems to us
not so much a deduction from a regulating and causative
fact in their history, as the statement of an additional cir¬
cumstance which renders that history still more singular,
and which naturally leads to the question, not easily an¬
swered, of why do they migrate so early ?4 In short, we
know nothing at all about the matter, further than that
the cuckoo of Europe, like the cow-bunting of America,
always lays eggs, but never hatches them. The same
custom is alleged, we think upon a narrow and ill-consi¬
dered generalization, to characterize the other kinds of
cuckoo. It may be a practice common to several species,
but the rare black and white spotted cuckoo ( CWw/ms Pi-
sanus, Gm., an odd name for an African bird, which hap¬
pened once upon a time to visit Tuscany) is stated by the
authors of the Storia degli Uccelli to have built a nest in
the woods of Pisa, and reared four young ones. This spe¬
cies is extremely rare in Europe. It is known, however,
in the Genoese territory,5 and the young have been occa-
Ormthological Biography, i. 341. * British Ornithology, vol. i. p. 398. 3 British Ornithology, vol i. p. 399.
Besides, in Italy and other southern parts of Europe, this migration does not take place till September, and yet the habits of the
bird are precisely the same. “ Quelli uccellini,” says Savi, “ nel covo de’ quali il cuculo ha lasciato 1’uovo, non vi fanno attenzione;
come uno de loro seguitano a covarlo, e quando e nato imboceano e custodiscono il piccolo cuculo, con lo stesso amore, e con la cura
medesima de’ figli propri. Ma ben presto egli paga d’ingratitudine le premure dell’amorosa sua balia : crescendo molto piii de’ com-
pagm, dopo poco tempo il nido e per lui troppo stretto : allora ricorre a un barbaro espediente per procurarsi un alloggio piii comodo
&c....“ Kipete quest’ operazione successivamente, in ragione che cresce, e che gli altri compagni lo mcomodano, di modo che alia
tine rimane solo nel nido usurpato. Cosi quei miseri uccelli che construirono il nido e che han fatto da balia al cuculo, sono da lui
priyati ad uno ad uno di tutti i figli.” Itegarding the movements of the parent bird in Italy, he observes, “ E uccello migratono s
arnva nell Aprile, e parti in Settembre. Appena arriva comincia a cantare, e quantunque il suo verso non abbia alcuna varieta non
ostante la voce essendo dolce e rotonda, si sente con piacere. Grandissimo e il numero che ne rimane in Toscana : non vi e bosco in
monte 0 in piano, che in primavera ed in estate, non risuoni dal cu cu, cu cu, di questo uccello. Nel Settembre comincia a muoversi
per emigare: allora in alcuni anni se ne vede passare una quantita grandissima per la pianura Pisana. Nel Settembre del 1823 eli
alben dello stradone che da Pisa va al Parco lleale di S. Itossore, attraversando vastissime praterie, ne furono pieni per una diecina
di giorm. Volavano 1 cuculi da una pianta all’ altra, andavano a posarsi un poco sul prato, ritornavano sugli alberi, ma di la non si
anontanavano, benche continuamente Ibssero molestati dai non pochi cacciatori che vi erano acccorsi. Quest! uccelli volano con grande
e.sPesso’ particularmente andando a posarsi, senza muovere le ali, come sogliono fare i Falchi.” (Ornitologia Toscana, t. i. n. 152 1
* Cam, Catalogo d'Ornitologia di Genova, p. 55. 51 v
VOL. XVI. ,
5 y
778 ORNITH
Scansores. sionally killed in the south of France.1 Many beautiful
" v^y cuckoos are found in foreign countries.
Those of North America belong to the genus Coccyzus
of Vieillot, and are distinguished by a greater length
of tarsus. (Plate XI., figure 4.) They seem to delight
more in deep woody solitudes than the true cuckoos, the
latter being often found on hilly pastures and open heathy
ground, if fringed with wood. A stranger who visits the
United States for the purpose of examining their natural
productions, and passes through the woods in May or June,
will sometimes hear, as he traverses the borders of deep,
retired, high-timbered hollows, an uncouth guttural sound.
He will frequently hear this without being able to discover
the source from which it comes, as the yellow-billed cuckoo
( Coccyzus Americanus) is both shy and solitary, and always
seeks the thickest foliage for concealment. This bird is of
a grayish brown, with bronzed reflections, beneath white,
the inner vanes of the primaries reddish cinnamon colour,
the lower mandible white, and the length from bill to tail
about twelve inches. Considerable discussion has taken
place among philologists regarding the native languages of
North and South America,—remarkable, we are led to un¬
derstand, for their great number and striking dissimilarity.
We know not what may be the intention of the yellow¬
billed cuckoo in speaking as he does, or whether he is dis¬
tinctly comprehended by his neighbours; but the follow¬
ing is Mr Nuttall’s account of the elements of his conver¬
sation : “ The male frequently betrays his snug retreat by
his monotonous and guttural kow how how how, or hoo
hoo koo hoo, and ho huh, ho huh, hoo hoo koo huh, hoo ho
hoo, koo ho hoo, uttered rather plaintively, like the call of
a dove. At other times the kow how how how, and ’tk
’tk ’tk ’tk ’tak, or ’kh ’kh ’kh^’hh ’hah, kow kow koto kow,
beginning slow, rises, and becomes so quick as almost to
resemble the grating of a watchman’s rattle, or else, com¬
mencing with this call, terminates in the distant cry of
koto kow kow.” From this peculiar iteration (Shakspeare
would have called it “ damnable,” a word we sometimes
hear in pulpits, but ourselves but seldom use), the species
in question has received the name of fow-bird, and we do
not wonder at it. It may be satisfactory to know, that the
St Domingo cuckoo (Cf. Dominicus, Nut.) although it
sometimes cries both kow kow kow kow and ’kh ‘kh ’kh ’kh
’kh ’kak, yet often utters, in a raucous guttural voice, espe¬
cially preceding rain, a word which sounds like orrattottoo
or worrattottoo, exactly which has not been yet determined.
In the genus Centropus of Illiger the bill is compress¬
ed and carinated, and the nail of one of the hind toes is
long, straight, and pointed, like a lark’s. The tail is greatly
elongated. The species are native to India and Africa,
where they build in hollow trees, and feed on locusts and
other insects. Such_are Cuculus JEgyptius, Senegalen-
sis, Bengalensis, &c. The genus Leptosomus of Vieil¬
lot is constituted by the great Madagascar cuckoo (C.
cafer, Lath.—Lep. viridis, Vieil.), the female of which, as
described by Bufibn, is according to M. Lesson a distinct
species—Lept. crombus. These birds are said to be fru-
givorous. (Plate XI., figure 5.)
In the genus Indicator, Vail., the bill is short, high, al¬
most conical. (Plate XI., figure 6.) The tail consists of
twelve feathers, and is somewhat graduated, and at the same
time a little forked. The skin is described to be so hard
and tough as to resist the assaults of most hymenopterous in¬
sects ; but bees, which they incessantly torment, are said to
sting them in the eyes. The species, few in number, are
known by the name of honey-guides, and inhabit Africa.
O L O G Y.
The one mentioned by Sparrman is said to attract the no- Scansorea.
tice of the Dutch and Hottentots by a shrill cry of cher,
cher ; and when it perceives itself observed, it flutters on¬
wards to the hive of a wild bee, in hopes of partaking of the
plundered honey. “ I have had frequent opportunities,”
he observes, “ of seeing this bird, and have been witness
to the destruction of several republics of bees, by means of
its treachery. I had, however, but two opportunities of
shooting it, which I did, to the great indignation of my
Hottentots.” It may be here noticed, we hope without
offence, that naturalists themselves seem not seldom to
belong to that irritabile genus, of which poets are usually
supposed to form the greater portion. Though Dr Sparr¬
man asserts that he was a frequent eye-witness of the cu¬
rious instinctive habits,*; of the honey-guide, yet Vaillant
doubts if that traveller ever saw the bird at all. He says
that the account is merely a repetition of a fable believed
and repeated by credulous people at the Cape, and that it
is erroneous to suppose that the bird seeks to draw man
after it for the purpose of sharing the plundered sweets,
the fact being, that it calls not the man, but that the latter
knows, by attending to the cry of the honey-guide while
searching for its natural food, that he will be sure ere long
to find the stores of the industrious insect. According to
Bruce, the moroc, for so this singular species is sometimes
named, occurs in Abyssinia; and he too throws discredit
on Sparrman’s statements,—his own being but ill received
by not a few. However, Sir John Barrow, a careful and
accurate inquirer, though not a professed naturalist, con¬
firms it by stating that people in the interior of the South
of Africa are too well acquainted with the moroc to have
any doubts, either as to the bird itself, or its singular in¬
stinctive habits.
The Barbacous of Vaillant (genus Monasa, Vieil.) are
South American birds, with rather conical elongated bills,
slightly arched towards the tip, and furnished at the base
with setaceous feathers. (Plate XI., figure 7.) Such
are Cue. tranquillus and tenebrosus of the older systems,
and the Bucco albifrons of Spix. We believe they are in¬
sectivorous. The Malcohas of Vaillant, again (genus Phce-
NlCOFHiEUS, Vieil.), are Asiatic species, of which the
most anciently known is native to Ceylon. (Plate XII.,
fig. 1.) We here place the Cuculus curvirostris of Shaw,
Latham’s red-headed cuckoo, C. pyrrhocephalus of Forster,
&c. and certain recent species described by Dr Horsfield
and Sir Thomas Raffles. The preceding groups were all
regarded as cuckoos by the older authors.2
The genus Scythrops of Latham, however, has a much
stronger bill than any of these, marked by two slight lon¬
gitudinal furrows. There is a naked space around the eye,
and the nostrils are rounded. Only a single species is yet
known, Sc. Novce Hollandice, Lath., sometimes called the
channel bill, a most peculiar looking bird, of the size of a
crow, gray above, beneath dingy white. (Plate XIL, fig.
2.) In its bill it almost assimilates to the toucans, but its
tongue is simple. Though it is mentioned both by White
and Phillips, we know as yet but little of its habits. It
occurs in New Holland, where it is sometimes seen in small
flocks, but more usually injpairs, frequenting trees, and ut¬
tering during flight a loud and screaming cry, not unlike
the crowing of a cock. Its food is said to consist both of
fruits and insects. It also occurs in the Celebes, where its
voice presages rain.
The genus Bucco of Linn., is characterized by a thickish
conical beak, bulged laterally from the base, and furnished
with five fasciculi of barbs directed forwards. The wings
1 Roux, Ornithologie Proven^ale, p. 105.
2 For the various modifications of form exhibited by the Cuculidas, and the numerous minor groups which have thence resulted, see
M. Lesson s Traite d’’Ornithologie, and a paper by Mr Swainson in the Magazine of Zoology and Botany.
ORNITHOLOGY.
Icansores. are short, and the flight heavy. The species feed on fruits
■“■‘V™"1'''and insects, and occasionally attack small birds. They
build their nests in hollow trees. Cuvier divides them into
three minor groups. The .Barfo'cans of Buffon (Pogonias,
Illiger) have one or two strong teeth on each side of the
upper bill, of which the ridge is arched and blunt. The
barbs are very strong. (Plate XII., figure 3.) The spe¬
cies occur in Africa and India, and are more frugivorous
than their congeners. Example, P. sulcirostris, Leach,
Zool. Misc. xi. 76. The Barbus (genus Bucco, as re¬
stricted) have the bill simply conic, slightly compressed,
the culmen blunt, and a little raised about the centre.
The species live in pairs during the breeding season,
and in small flocks at other times. They occur in both
continents, and are adorned with lively colours,—Bucco
grandis, viridis, flavifrons, &c. Lastly, the Tamatias,
genus Tamatia, Cuv., have the bill more elongated and
compressed, with the extremity of the upper mandible
curved downwards. Their thick heads, large bills, and
short tails, give them.a stupid aspect. They inhabit
South America, feed on insects, and are of solitary ha¬
bits. Example, T. melanoleucos, melanotis, &c. They
are known by the English name of puff-birds ; and Mr
Swainson describes them as sitting for hours together on
a dead or withered branch, from which they dart from
time to time on such unwary insects as approach within
their reach. He adds, that the hermit-birds (genus Mo-
nasa), already mentioned, do the same, and frequently
rise up perpendicularly into the air, making a swoop, and
returning again to their former station. Similar manners
belong to the jacamars, though their flight is weaker.
In the genus Trogon the bill is also bearded, but short,
and broader than high, the upper edge rounded. Their
little feet are often feathered almost to the toes, and their
soft, full, lax plumage, and lengthened tails, bestow upon the
species a peculiar aspect. (Plate XII., figure 4.) These
birds abound in South America, where they conceal them¬
selves in the central solitudes of umbrageous forests, and,
except during the breeding season, dwell insulated and
alone. They will sit motionless for half a summer’s day,
often upon a withered branch, and if not concealed by some
accidental intervening mass of foliage, they fall an easy prey
to the keen-eyed hunter, who eagerly searches for birds not
less remarkable for the delicacy of theirflesh than thebeauty
of their plumage. During the morning and evening hours,
Mr Swainson informs us, they become more active; ven¬
turing at these times into the open parts of the forest,
and, taking a shady station, dart upon winged insects,
particularly beetles. At other times they feed upon fruits,
especially the rich purple berries of the different melastomae,
“ at which,” says Mr Swainson, “ they invariably dart, pre¬
cisely as if they were insects capable of getting away.”
It has been remarked by the woodland hunters, that the
skins of these birds are of such delicate texture as to be
with difficulty preserved in a natural or complete condi¬
tion. It is probably for this reason that in museums they
exhibit a heavy, shapeless aspect, redeemed, it is true, by
the gorgeous colours or metallic splendour of their plu¬
mage. The most magnificent of the genus is the quezal
or golden trogon (T. pavoninus, Temm.), a rare and re¬
markable species, of which neither delineation nor descrip¬
tion can convey an adequate idea. The greater propor¬
tion of the plumage is apparently composed of burnished
gold. The head ornamented by a brilliant crest of de¬
composed barbs, the wing-coverts falling in flakes of gol¬
den green over the deep purplish-black of the primary
and secondary quill-feathers, the rich carmine of the lower
parts bestowing a warmth and depth of effect which no
Venetian painter ever equalled, and the long waving and
779
!&ra'!iC ff th“s of*6 “'-f vf‘f’ exten^ing about Scansore*.
three times the length of the whole body, present a com-v
bination of beauty almost unexampled in the feathered
tribes. The first specimens seen in this country were
brought, we believe, by Mr Schenley from Vera Paez, in
central America. They are celebrated in the Mexican
mythology, and are much sought after as head-gear by
the Peruvian damsels. Trogons, of other kinds, occur also
in the Indian islands, and the warmer continental regions
of the old world.1 &
The genus Crotophaga, Linn., is recognised by its
thick, compressed, arched bill, without dentation, elevated,
or surmounted by a vertical cutting crest. (Plate XIL,
fig. 5.) Ihe species called anis or keel-birds inhabit South
America and the West Indies. They are of a familiar and
gentle disposition in confinement, easily tamed, and maybe
taught to speak. Their plumage is black, with metallic re¬
flections. They build in bushes (some say upon the ground),
and several pairs will lay and hatch together in the same
nest, which is made of size proportioned to the partnership.
They feed on insects, keep much upon the ground, where
they also attack maize and rice. M. Lesson says that C.
major dwells more habitually on large trees, while C. minor
prefers the savannahs and marshy meadows. Mr Swain¬
son never saw the common ani perch on any thing higher
than a bush.
The genus Ramphastos, Linn., is distinguished by its
enormous bill, which in some instances is almost equal in
size to the body. It is, however, extremely light, and
cellular within, arched towards the extremity, and irregu¬
larly toothed along the margins.2 The tongue is long, nar¬
row, and barbed on each side, like a feather. These birds,
commonly called toucans, inhabit South America, where
they live habitually in woods, and prey on fruits, eggs,
and new-hatched birds. The species are pretty numerous,
and almost all distinguished by brilliant colouring, which
however is somewhat too strongly contrasted, and conse¬
quently deficient in that fine gradation or harmonious
blending which beautifies less gorgeous tribes. We have
never chanced to see them in the living state, but in mu¬
seums they present a somewhat awkward aspect, from
their disproportioned bills, short feet, and lengthened tails.
Their sense of smell is said to be extremely acute,—a fa¬
culty by some attributed to an extended ramification of
nerves within the nasal portion of the bill. The genus is
now divided into two: Is^, The toucans proper (genus
Ramphastos (Plate XII., figure 6), which have the
largest bills, with the ground colour of the plumage usu¬
ally black, the throat, breast, and rump being more gaily
ornamented with white, yellow, and red. 2dly, The ara-
caris (genus Pteroglossus, Illiger, Plate XII., figure
7), in which the bill is smaller than the head, and the
ground colour of the plumage generally green, with red
or yellow on the throat and breast. A live specimen
of Ramphastos tuccmus, of which the manners have been
described by Mr Vigors, was extremely fond of fruit,
both fresh and dried. These it generally held for a short
time in the extremity of the bill, touching them with ap¬
parent delight with its slender feathered tongue, and then
tossing them into its throat by a sudden upward jerk.
Its tendency to prey on animals was, however, strongly
evinced by the excitement produced by the sight of a liv¬
ing bird ; and the carnivorous propensities of another in¬
dividual are curiously related by Mr Broderip. A gold¬
finch (though, we repeat, we approve not of the fact), in¬
troduced into the toucan’s cage, was seized and com¬
pressed so suddenly, that the poor little songster had only
time to utter a short, squeak before it was dead, with its
bowels protruding. The toucan then hopped with it to
1 Mr Gould published a Monograph of the Trogonidce, with sumptuous coloured plates.
2 On dissection, Professor Traill found it occupied by numerous blood-vessels and expansions of the olfactory nerve.
780 ORNITHOLOGY.
Scansores. another perch, and began to strip off its feathers. When
l^v-^/it was nearly naked, it broke the bones of the wings and
legs, taking them in its bill, and giving them a strong la¬
teral wrench. Having reduced the little victim to a shape¬
less mass, it first swallowed the viscera, and then the re¬
maining parts, piece after piece, not even rejecting the
legs and bill. Mr Broderip adds, that he has sometimes
observed it return its food from its crop, and swallow it
again, after a second mastication.
The genus Psittacus, Linn., comprehending the almost
innumerable tribe of parrots, lories, parrakeets, maccaws,
and cockatoos, has the bill thick, hard, solid, rather short,
rounded on all its outlines, deep, curved, and generally
■' sharp-pointed. The tongue is almost always thick, round,
and fleshy, and the lower larynx furnished on each side
with three peculiar muscles, which probably contribute to
7J the great facility with which these birds acquire the arti-
culate intonation of the human voice. Their strong and
powerful jaws are brought into action by muscles more
numerous than usual. Their natural food consists of fruits
and seeds. They climb trees with the greatest facility,
and suspend themselves indifferently from feet or bill.
Their voices are harsh and discordant, their forms often
elegant, their plumage usually of great richness. They
form indeed a magnificent family, abundant in almost
every region of the torrid zone, and in the new world ex¬
tending from the shores of the Ohio to the Straits of Ma¬
gellan,—thus presenting a vast and varied assemblage of
species from every country of the world, excepting the
comparatively cold and cloudy clime of Europe. The gor¬
geous maccaws are characteristic of South America, the
cockatoos of New Holland and the Asiatic islands, the
lories of the East Indies and the Moluccas; whilst several
groups of parrots, parrakeets, &c. are widely distributed
over various regions of the earth. Above two hundred
different kinds are known to naturalists.
It was the opinion of Buffon that none of the parrot
tribe extended either northwards or southwards beyond
the twenty-fifth degree, on either side of the equator.
Having apparently resolved, a priori, on these lines of cir-
cumvallation, he despised, as Pennant observed, the au¬
thority of the Dutch navigator Spilbergen, who was eye¬
witness to the woods of Terra del Fuego, th^very south¬
ern boundary of the Straits of Magellan, in south latitude
44°, being full of them. He might also have cited the evi¬
dence of Captain Hood, who saw a parrot at Port Famine;
and of Commodore Byron, who notwithstanding the cold¬
ness of the climate observed parrots innumerable in the
woods of that same harbour. They were found by Captain
Cook in New Zealand, by Captain Furneaux at Van Die¬
men’s Land, and by the learned Forster in the raw wet cli¬
mate of Dusky Bay. The emerald parrot, Psit. smaragdinus,
Gmel., was discovered in great numbers by Captain King,
among thick underwood, in the Straits of Magellan, south
latitude 531° ; and others are well known to occur in Mac-
quarrie Island, which lies in latitude 54£° south. A spe¬
cies inhabits North America, extending even beyond the
Illinois River to the neighbourhood of Lake Michigan, in
the forty-second degree of north latitude. It was seen by
Alexander Wilson in the month of February, flying in
flocks along the banks of the Ohio, during a storm of snow,
and yet in full rejoicing cry. These, and many similar facts,
are now well known to naturalists.
The modern subdivisions of this great natural family
are too numerous and minute to be here recorded.1 * We
must therefore satisfy ourselves with a brief indication of
the principal groups. W’e presume nobody at this time
of day, under the pretence of popular reading, desires to
be edified by anecdotes of parrots, so we shall devote the Scansorei.
little space we can afford for miscellaneous matters, to''-’'V'^
a few notices of some of the species which have bred in
Europe. Of these we may here mention, as the prin¬
cipal, the great blue and buff maccaw (P. ararauna); the
gray parrot (P. eryihacus); the sinciale, ring-necked, and
pavouan parrakeets (Z3. sincialo, torquatus, Guianensis) ;
and the black-capped or Philippine lory (P. tricolor).
The general belief is that the parrot tribe will not breed
in Europe ; but knowing several instances to the contrary,
we wish to impress upon the public the probability that
many more would occur were the experiment tried with
frequency and judgment.
The gorgeous maccaws form the genus Macrocercus of
Vieillot. The face is either naked, or merely striped with
feathery lines. The tail is very long, wedge-shaped, and
sharp-pointed. (Plate XIII., figure 1.) These birds, the
largest and most magnificent of the parrot tribe, inhabit
South America. The great scarlet maccaw (Psittacus ara-
canga, Lath.), when in perfect plumage, sometimes mea¬
sures above three feet in length, the tail of course included.
The prevailing plumage is scarlet, as its name implies, the
wings blue, the wing-coverts varied with yellow, the cheeks
white and wrinkled. It is certainly a sumptuous creature,
but after all rather too like a richly liveried footman,—an
association somewhat strengthened by its being so often seen
as an inhabitant of lordly mansions, and surrounded by other
menial bipeds, almost as gorgeous as itself. Our feelings
would no doubt have been different had we ever witnessed
their natural evolutions. “ It is a grand sight in Ornitho¬
logy,” says Waterton, “ to see thousands of aras flying
over your head, low enough to let you have a full view of
their flaming mantle.” How delightful would it have been,
on some bright and dewy morning, to have accompanied
Lord Anson to view a magnificent rapid in the island of
Quibo. A fine river of transparent water there precipi¬
tates.itself along a rocky channel, forming numerous falls,
and the great disrupted rocks which form its boundary on
either side are crowned with lofty forest trees. “ While
the commodore and those who were with him attentively
viewing the place, were remarking the different blendings
of the waters, the rocks, and the woods, there came in
sight as it were still more to heighten and animate the
prospect, a prodigious flight of maccaws, which hovering
over this spot, and often whirling and playing on the wing
about it, afforded a most brilliant appearance by the glit¬
tering of the sun upon their varied plumage ; so that some
of the spectators cannot refrain from a kind of transport
when they recount the complicated beauties which oc¬
curred at this extraordinary water-fall.” The blue and
yellow species (P. ararauna, Linn.) is little inferior to the
preceding, either in size or sumptuousness. It is less com¬
mon, and seems to have been first described by Aldrovan-
dus, from a specimen which he saw in the palace of the
Duke of Mantua. It is said to be also less easily reclaim¬
ed as a domestic bird,—yet we have not seldom enjoyed
the society of a very fine example which made its way
familiarly (such is its custom in the afternoon) amid the
varied horticultural produce which graced the dessert of Dr
Neill. Many other splendid species are described and
figured in the works of naturalists.
In the genus Aratinga of Spix, the bill is slender,
dentated; the orbits of the eyes naked, the cheeks rarely
so; the tail lengthened, wedge-shaped, the intermediate
feathers prolonged. The species are peculiar to the new
wrorld. Such are Ar. Carolince-Augustce, chrysocephahis,
&c. To these the genus Psittacara of Vigors seems
allied, the bill, however, being shorter and stouter, and
1 Two of the most complete and scientific treatises that can be found on the parrot tribe are,—Conspectut Ptittacorum, ab H. Kuhl,
Ph. Dr. &c., in Nova Acta Acad. Nat. Cur. tom. x. p. 1; and Wagler’s Monographia Psittacorum.
ORNITHOLOGY.
781
•leansores, the upper mandible compressed at the tip. The head is
—“v—''feathered, but the orbits are naked. The species, such as
P. squamosus, &c. are likewise natives of South America.
The genus Pal^jornis of Vigors has the bill rather
thick, the culmen of the upper mandible rounded, the
lower broad, short, emarginate. The middle feathers of
the tail are greatly lengthened. The most anciently know n
of the parrot race belong to this genus, such as the Alex¬
andrine parrakeet, and other long-tailed species, distin¬
guished by their elegance of form, their ruby-coloured
bills, their semicircled necks, and the rich verdure of
their plumage. The one just named is native to India
and Ceylon, and derives its designation from the fact, real
or supposed, of its having been first transported from Asia¬
tic countries by Alexander the Great. Its most distin¬
guishing characters consist in the broad black patch which
occupies the fore-part of the throat, and extends laterally in
tw'o narrow processes on each side of the neck; a black
line stretches from the base of the beak to the eyes, and
there is a deep purplish-red patch at the base of the wings.
Its bill is larger than that of the rose-coloured parrakeet
(P. torquatus), which, however, it greatly resembles in its
general aspect. The last-named species is wddely spread
over India, and as far eastward as Manilla. It appears,
indeed, to be identical with another species extremely
abundant on the African coasts, and well known in France
under the title of perruche de Senegal. In so far as any
conclusion can be drawn from the vague and brief de¬
scriptions handed down by ancient writers, it would appear
that this species was, as it still continues to be, more fre¬
quent in the days of antiquity than any of its congeners. No
allusion is made by these authors to those specific marks by
which the Alexandrine parrakeet is so clearly distinguish¬
ed, and the general description applies very closely to the
rose-necked kind. That the latter was extensively known,
and held in high esteem on account of the brilliancy of its
plumage, the docility of its manners, and its successful
imitative powers, is proved by innumerable passages in
the classical writers of antiquity, more especially from the
earliest times of the Roman empire, to a very late period
of its annals.1 The Alexandrine parrot is generally sup¬
posed to have been brought to Europe from the island of
Ceylon, the ancient Taprobane. In the reign of Nero,
the Romans introduced other species from different quar¬
ters of Africa.2 They were highly prized by that luxu¬
rious people, who lodged them in superb cages of silver,
ivory, and tortoise-shell; and the price of a parrot in those
days frequently exceeded that of a slave.3 Nor did Ovid
think it beneath him to write a lengthened elegy on the
death of Corinnass favourite,—a bird which, in the love it
bore its mistress, seems to have emulated that of the
dying Greek for his country :—
Clamavit moriens lingua, Corinna, Vale.4
In the same group is generally included that beautiful
and richly varied species from the Molucca Islands, called
the blue-bellied parrakeet, Ps. cyanogaster, Shaw. Its
tongue, in common with that of several New Holland par-
rakeets, is finely ciliated at the tip on either side. Hence Scansores.
the formation in their favour of Mr Vigors’s genus Tri- v—/
choglossus. Vailliant, during his residence at the Cape,
had an opportunity of studying the manners of a pair of
the species just named, which had been imported from
Amboyna. They bred during their confinement in the
menagerie of M. Van Bletemberg, then governor of the
Cape. The female deplumed her beautiful breast, and
after having collected the feathers into a heap, deposited
two round white eggs, on which she sat most assiduously,
the male feeding her at intervals, by disinterestedly dis¬
gorging what he had swallowed, and presenting the same
to his spouse. The young were produced at the end of
nineteen days, and in the space of a few more became co¬
vered with a gray cinereous down, which was by degrees
succeeded by green feathers on the body, and by blue ones
on the head. At the end of three weeks they left the
nest, and perched upon the neighbouring sticks, where
the male and female fed them in concert, as above de¬
scribed, after the manner of pigeons. The parent birds
continued to tend them in this manner for six months,
and often afforded a very interesting scene,—the young
being frequently seated beyond the female, and the male
not being able to reach them, first presented the food to
his mate, who immediately delivered it to her young.
These, though of different sexes, were perfectly alike till
the first moulting, at which time red feathers bordered
with green began to appear upon the breast, and the male
became distinguished by the blue patch upon the ab¬
domen.5
In the genus Platycercus, Vigors, the tail is broad,
depressed, and somewhat rounded. The species inhabit
New Holland, and the islands of the South Pacific and In¬
dian Oceans. Examples PL Pennantii, Tabuensis, &c.
Among the perruches ordinaires of Cuvier (a portion of
the genus Conurus, Kuhl), distinguished by a regularly
graduated tail, without any disproportionate prolongation
of the central feathers, we have the Carolina parrot of
Wilson (Ps. Carolinensis, Linn.), a green plumaged bird,
with yellow head and neck, the forehead and cheeks orange.
Of more than two hundred species now known to belong
to the parrot tribe, this is the only one which inhabits the
United States, where, it is chiefly restricted to the warmer
portions,—venturing but rarely beyond Virginia. West
of the Alleghanies, however, circumstancesinduce it to visit
much higher latitudes,—so that, following the great valley
of the Mississippi, it is seen to frequent the banks of the
Illinois, and occasionally to approach the southern shores
of Lake Michigan. Straggling parties have even been
sometimes observed in the valley of the Juniata, in Penn¬
sylvania ; and a flock, to the great surprise of the Dutch in¬
habitants of Albany, are said to have appeared in that vi¬
cinity. This species constantly inhabits and breeds in the
southern states, and is so far hardy as to make its appear¬
ance, commonly in the depth of winter, along the woody
banks of the Ohio, the interior of Alabama, and the banks
of the Mississippi and Missouri around St Louis and other
places, when nearly all other southern birds have migrated
1 Ancient writers are unanimous in their statements that parrots came to us first of all from India. Aristotle calls the Psittacus
“ ro ojvsavand Arrian also makes it a native of the East {Hist. Jnd. cap. xv.). The parrots of Africa became first known to
the Romans in the time of Nero. (Plin. Nat. Hist. lib. vi. c. 29.) For the classical history of these birds, see Mr Vigors’s “ Sketches
in Ornithology,”—Zoological Journal, vol. ii. p. 37-
* See Zoological Gardens, vol. ii. p. 96.
3 The splendour of a parrot’s cage is thus described by Statius:—
At tibi quanta domus, rutila testudine fulgens,
Connexusque ebori virgarum argenteus ordo,
Argutumque tuo stridentia limina cornu,
Et querulae jam sponte fores : vacat ille beatus
Career.—Sylv. bb. ii.
4 Edinburgh Cabinet Library, Africa, p. 480. 5 Shaw’s Generdl Zoology, vol. viii. p. 414.
782
ORNITHOLOGY.
Scansores. before the storms of that inclement season.1 We may
s,—"V""'”'' judge of the abundance of this species, even up to a recent
period, from the statement of Vaillant, who assures us that
he saw a package containing above 6000 skins, which had
been sent to a plumassier at Paris, for the formation of
ornamental dresses.2 Mr Audubon, however, discovered
that their numbers were rapidly diminishing, and that in
some districts where, not many years ago, they were plenti¬
ful, scarcely one was to be seen. “ I should think,” he adds
(speaking of his own time), “ that along the Mississippi there
is not now half the number that existed fifteen years ago.”
To illustrate the habits of these birds, we give the follow¬
ing account from the work of an English gentleman who
settled in America. “ The Carolina parrakeets in all
their movements, which are uniformly gregarious show a
peculiar predilection for the alluvial, rich, and dark forests
bordering the principal rivers and larger streams, in which
the towering cypress3 and gigantic sycamore4 spread their
vast summits, or stretch their innumerable arms, over a
wide waste of moving or stagnant waters. From these, the
beech, and the hack-berry,5 they derive an important supply
of food. The flocks, moving in the manner of wild pigeons,
dart in swift and airy phalanx through the green boughs
of the forest; screaming in a general concert, they wheel
in wide and descending circles round the tall button-wood,
and all alight in the same instant, their green lustre, like
the fairy mantle, rendering them nearly invisible beneath
the shady branches, where they sit, perhaps arranging
their plumage, and, shuffling side by side, seem to caress
and scratch each other’s heads with all the fondness and
unvarying friendship of affectionate doves. If the gun
thin their ranks, they hover over the screaming, wounded,
or dying, and returning and flying around the place where
they miss their companions, in their sympathy seem to lose
all idea of impending danger. More fortunate in their ex¬
cursions, they next proceed to gratify the calls of hunger,
and descend to the banks of the river or the neighbouring
fields in quest of the inviting kernels of the cockle burr,6
and probably of the bitter weed,7 which they extract from
their husks with great dexterity. In the depth of winter,
when other resources begin to fail, they, in common with
the yellow-bird and some other finches, assemble among
the tall sycamores,8 and, hanging from the extreme twigs,
in the most airy and graceful postures, scatter around
them a cloud of down from the pendant balls, in quest of
the seeds which now afford them an ample repast. With
that peculiar caprice, or perhaps appetite, which charac¬
terizes them, they are also observed to frequent the saline
springs or licks, to gratify their uncommon taste for salt.
Out of mere wantonness, they often frequent the orchards,
and appear delighted with the fruitless frolic of pluck¬
ing apples from the trees, and strewing them on the ground
untasted. So common is this practice among them in
Arkansas territory, that no apples are ever suffered to
ripen. They are also fond of some sorts of berries, and
particularly of mulberries, which they eat piecemeal in
their usual manner, as they hold them by the foot. Ac¬
cording to Audubon, they likewise attack the outstanding
stacks of grain in flocks, committing great waste ; and on
these occasions, as well as the former, they are so bold
or incautious as readily to become the prey of the sports¬
man in great numbers. Peculiarity of food appears wholly
to influence the visits and residence of this bird, and in
plain, champaign, or mountainous countries, they are
wholly strangers, though common along the banks of all
the intermediate water-courses and lagoons.
“Of their manners at the interesting period of propagation Scansorej,
and incubation we are not yet satisfactorily informed. They
nest in hollow trees, and take little if any pains to provide
more than a simple hollow in which to lay their eggs, like the
woodpeckers. Several females deposit their eggs in the same
cavity ; the number laid by each is said to be only three,
which are nearly round, and of a light-greenish white.9
They are at all times particularly attached to the large sy¬
camores, in the hollow trunks of which they roost in close
community, and enter at the same aperture, into which
they climb. They are said to cling close to the sides of
the tree, holding fast by the claws and bill; and into
these hollows they often retire during the day, either in
very warm or inclement weather, to sleep or pass away
the time in indolent and social security, like the Rupicolas™
of the Peruvian caves, at length only hastily aroused to
forage at the calls of hunger. Indeed, from the swiftness
and celerity of their aerial movements, darting through the
gleaming sunshine, like so many sylvan cherubs, decked in
green and gold, it is obvious that their actions as well as
their manners are not calculated for any long endurance,
and, shy and retiring from all society but that to which
they are inseparably wedded, they rove abroad with inces¬
sant activity, until their wants are gratified, when, hid from
sight, they again relapse into that indolence which seems
a relief to their exertions.”11
The pavouan parrakeet (Ps. Guianensis, Lath.) belongs
to our present group. This species is native to Cayenne,
and the Antilles, where it is not uncommon, often flying
about in flocks, frequenting the wooded savannahs, and
feeding by preference on the berries of Erythrina coral-
lodendron. Its length is about twelve inches, its prevail¬
ing plumage green, the cheeks and sides of the neck being
speckled with bright red, which becomes more conspicu¬
ous as the bird advances in age; the smaller wing-coverts
are bright red, the greater yellow, and both the quill and
tail feathers are dusky yellow beneath. The bill is whit¬
ish, the legs and feet gray. We owe to M. Gabriac the
following interesting particulars regarding the breeding of
a pair of this species in the domestic state. Two cages
were prepared for their reception in the month of April.
They.were placed contiguous, but communicating only by
a small door, and the one enjoyed the “ blessed light of
day,” while the other was kept covered, so that no light
could enter but by the mutual door. The latter also con¬
tained an abundant supply of saw-dust. The birds were
placed in the open apartment, which was the larger of fhe
two, and they speedily showed symptoms of tender attach¬
ment to each other. They long declined, however, to en¬
ter the darkened dwelling, although the female put in her
head, withdrew it again, advanced part of her body, then
returned tail foremost,.—but finally, after several days of
hesitation, she entered the mysterious chamber. There
she expressed her satisfaction by little kindly cheerful
cries, and often called in the male, who exhibited every
proof of affection. She soon began to scrape about, and
arrange a kind of nest, and on the I8th of May she layed
her first egg, succeeded at intervals of three days by a se¬
cond, third, and fourth,—after which she sat assiduously.
The male took no share in the hatching, but he kept con¬
stantly close by the nest, as if to cheer her sedentary hours.
He did not however allow his affection to his wife to inter¬
fere with his duty to his hoped-for family. If the female,
who never left the nest but to solace herself with meat
and drink, appeared to devote too much time to that indul¬
gence, he remanded her back by a little blow with his
I Nuttall’s American Ornithology, vol. i. p. 546. 4 Platanus ocddentalis. 7 Ambrosia, species.
- Hist. Nat. des Perrorpaets. 5 Celtis occidentalis. 8 Platanus occidentalis.
3 Cupressus disticha. Xanthium strumarium. 9 Audubon, Orn. Biog. i. p. 139.
10 Coc& o/ the rock of Peru, which is also somewhat related, apparently, to the parrots. (Note by Mr Nuttall.)
II Nuttall’s Manual of Ornithology, i. 456.
ORNITHOLOGY.
'■ansores. beak, which occasionally produced something approaching
u*“'‘to a quarrel. At the termination of twenty-five days, there
being no appearance of progeny, the eggs v/ere purposely
withdrawn and broken, and were found to contain young
in different stages of development, but all dead. This re¬
sult was attributed to stormy weather, which had pre¬
vailed during incubation. Fortunately a second laying,
accompanied by the same circumstances as the first, com¬
menced on the 14th of July, and after twenty-three days,
counted rigorously, the young appeared from each egg in
a succession corresponding to the order of laying. They
were at first covered by a grayish down, and were cherish¬
ed with the tenderest solicitude by the parents, who on
the approach of any threatened danger defended them
with the greatest courage. It was in truth a curious sight
to see two creatures before so kind and tenderly affec¬
tionate to those around them, so grateful for their food,
and so solicitous of human kindness, converted bv the
strength of this new passion into little tigers, and so in¬
ti actable as to attend no longer to fair hands or gentle
voices. This natural wildness showed itself also strongly
in the young ones, who recognised alone their parents,
and bit and scratched at all the world besides.
A few species have the tail square, with the central fea¬
thers prolonged, and these in Ps. setarius, Temm. PI. Col.
15, are bare of barbs, except at the tip.
The great mass of parrots properly so called, belonging
to the restricted genus Psittacus, have the bill rather
strong, the face clothed with feathers, the head large,
without crest, the body thick, and the tail rather short and
square. Green is the prevailing colour of the plumage,
and the species are native to various countries both of the
old woild and the new. One of the best known, and
most remarkable for its easy docility, the distinctness of
its articulation, and general loquacious powers, is the com¬
mon gray parrot, Ps. erythacus, of which the tail is red,
and the orbits white and naked. It is an African species,
and one of the earliest and most frequently imported. It
has been known to breed in Europe,—a French gentleman
at Marmande having had a pair which produced young
ones for five or six years successively. They made their
nest in spring, in a cask filled with saw-dust, the number
of eggs being four, of which one was always unproductive.
According to Labat a similar instance had previously oc¬
curred at Paris. Our present square-tailed group is very
numerous.
The lories (genus Lorius, Vig.) have the bill rather
attenuated, the upper mandible much arched, compressed,
the lower lengthened, and nearly entire. The tongue is
described as bristly and tubular. The tail is rather short,
slightly graduated. Various shades of red form the pre¬
vailing colour of the plumage. The species inhabit the
East Indies and the Asiatic islands. Example, Ps. uni¬
color, garrulus, &c.
Certain short-tailed species, of small size, which inhabit
the tropical countries of both the new and old world, form
the genus Psittaculus of Kuhl. Such are Ps. passerinus,
tui, &c. They are erroneously called parrakeets by some
of our English writers, a name which would confound them
with the long-tailed species already alluded to, and more
generally recognised under that title. The vast extent of
the parrot tribe renders subdivision extremely desirable as
a matter of convenience ; but it must be confessed that a
mere difference in size and colour is not of itself sufficient
to authorize the separation of groups, or the formation of
genera.
The genus Microglossus, Vieil., is, however, better
founded. The bill, especially the upper mandible, is very
large and strong, the head ornamented by a crest of nar-
783
row feathers, and the face naked. The tongue is cylin- Scansoran
dncal, lengthened, and tubular, capable of beino- eTreat]v
protruded from the mouth, and ending in a kind'of corne¬
ous gland, cloven at the tip. (See Plate XIII., figures 5 i
and 6.) The legs are more naked than usual, and the tarsi,
on which they occasionally rest while walking, very short
and square. The tail is square or even. We are not ac¬
quainted with more than two species, both from eastern
countries. The black or giant cockatoo (Ps. yiyas), called
by old Edwards “ a parrot of the first magnitude,” and Ps.
aterrimus of Gmelin, are the birds alluded to. Their sy¬
nonymy seems confused. They inhabit New Guinea and
the isle of Waigiou ; and Edwards’s figure was taken from
a living specimen in Ceylon, but whether indigenous or
imported does not appear. Vaillant observes of one of
the species (his ara noir d trompe), that in cold weather
it covered the bare space on each side of its face by low¬
ering over them the feathers of the crest.
Ihe great New Holland species, called the Banksian
cockatoo, discovered in the course of Captain Cook’s first
circumnavigation, forms, with others, the modern genus
Calyptorhynchus. (Plate XIII., figure 2.) These large
dark-coloured species are as yet but ill defined. They are
said to live on roots ; but Mr Bennet alludes to one which
feeds on the larvae of insects, as well as on the seeds of
Banksia, Hakea, and even of Xanthorrhcea, or grass tree $
and in the travels of that gentleman we find the following
passage, which relates to a certain locality in New Holland.
Black and white cockatoos had lately become very nu¬
merous about this part of the country : the former appear¬
ed to have been attracted by some trees that had been
felled when clearing a spot of land for cultivation,—as these
birds visit the dead or fallen trees to procure the larvm of
insects that breed in them. I have seen, more than once,
small trees lying prostrate, occasioned by the powerful bills
of the large black cockatoos, who, observing on the trunk,
externally, indications of a larva being within, have diligent¬
ly laboured to extract it; and should the object of their
seal ch be situated (as often occurs)far in, before they reach
it the trunk is so much cut through, that the slightest puff
of wind lays it prostrate.”1
I he white-plumaged cockatoos, with conspicuous crests,
tinged in part with orange, red, or yellow, pertain to the
genus Plyctolophus, Vieil. (Plate XIII., figure 3.)
Ihey inhabit New Holland and the eastern islands, and are
remarkable for their great docility. They are said to pre¬
fer the vicinity of marshy places.
A beautiful small parrot, with longer legs than usual,
and straighter claws, forms the genus Pezoporus, Illiger.
It is green and yellow, spotted with black, the frontlet
red, the tail long and graduated. The outer hind claw is
very long. This singular bird, commonly called the ground
parrot (P. terrestris, Shaw,—P.formosus, Latham), differs
from its congeners in hardly ever perching upon trees. It
remains upon the ground in sedgy plains, or runs among
the long grass, almost after the manner of a rail. fPlate
XIII., figure 4.)
At the conclusion of the scansorial order Cuvier has
placed two genera which have certainly but little in com¬
mon with the preceding groups, and which some consider
as allied to the gallinaceous order, while others have placed
them in the conirostral tribe of Passeres,—we mean Cory-
thaix and Musophaga. In both the bill is rather short,
the upper mandible bulged or rounded, the feet have a
short membrane between the toes, and although these are
not placed exactly in pairs, yet the outer toe is versatile
to a considerable degree. The nostrils are simply pierced
in the corneous portion of the bill, the margins of which
are dentated. In the plantain-eaters (genus Musophaga
1 Wanderings in New South Wales, &c. i. 182.
/
784 O IIN I T H O L 0 G Y.
Rasores. isert> p]ate XIII., figure 8) the base of the bill forms
a raised expanded disk upon the forehead. Ihe violet
plantain-eater (iHf. violacea) is a bird of great beauty, the
general plumage being of a rich glossy violet black, the
crown and primaries crimson, the bill yellow tipt with red,
and a clear white stripe beneath the eye. It occurs in
the province of Acra, in Guinea, and in other parts of
Western Africa, and feeds on the fruit of the musa or
plantain tree. The touracos (genus Cokythaix, Illiger,
Plate XIII., figure 7) want the expansion at the base
of the bill, and have the head adorned by an elongat¬
ed crest. Several beautiful species belong to this genus,
such as the Cuculus Persa of Linn., a native of the Cape,
 of a fine green colour, with a portion of the quill-fea¬
thers crimson. Vaillant informs us that there are great
numbers of these birds in the country of the Kottinquas,—
that they are very difficult to shoot, as they perch only on
the summits of the tallest trees, and rarely suffer any one
to approach within gun-shot,—but that they are easily
caught alive in snares baited with such fruits as are in
season. He adds, that they are excellent eating. Another
species of this genus, which it is delightful to look upon,
is the Pauline touraco, C. Paulina, also a native of South¬
ern Africa. M. Vieillot, who had occasion to examine
one alive in Paris, informs us that its manners were mild
and familiar, that it lived on succulent fruits, and was fond
of sugar. Its habits were active, its voice sonorous, and
apparently ventriloqual.
Order IV.—RASORES.1
GALLINACEOUS OR RASORIAL BIRDS.
The species of this order, by far the most valuable to the
human race of all the feathered tribes (how many, regard¬
less of Ornithology, yet dwell with pleasure on a roast¬
ed turkey), are characterized by a rather short and con¬
vex bill. The upper mandible is somewhat curved, and
furnished with a cere, sometimes naked, sometimes fea¬
thered. The head is generally small in proportion to the
body. The nostrils are placed on each side of the bill,
and usually in a fleshy protecting membrane. The tarsi
are for the most part elongated. The toes are four in
number, three of which are anterior, and united by a mem¬
brane more or less extended, at their bases; the fourth,
posterior, is articulated higher than the others, and is in
some cases very small, or even entirely wanting.
This order, as we have elsewhere noticed, contains se¬
veral of the most ornamental, and a great majority of the
most highly prized and useful species of the feathered
race. While the peacock and golden pheasant stand un¬
rivalled alike for elegance of form and beauty of plumage,
the turkey and domestic fowl, the grouse quail and par¬
tridge, lay claim to more substantial though less sentimen¬
tal regard, as conducing in no small degree to the social
enjoyments of civilized life. Gallinaceous birds are gene¬
rally distinguished by a bulky form, and a heavy and some¬
what laborious flight. In fact, the sternum or breast-bone
is so deeply notched on either side as to diminish the sup¬
port afforded to the action of the pectoral muscles; and the
power of the wings, and consequent duration and velocity
of their movements, suffer a corresponding diminution.
With the exception of the alectors or curassoes, few
of the gallinaceous species build on trees (in which they
differ remarkably from the preceding orders), though all
delight in basking on the ground, and scraping in the dry
and sultry soil, for which purpose they are provided with
muscular limbs and feet. They live upon all sorts of grain
and seeds,—occasionally upon berries, or the buds of shrubs Rasores.
and trees,—and, the younger birds especially, show them-v—
selves sufficiently eager and expert in the capture of in¬
sect prey. The females lay a great number of eggs, in a
rude and carelessly constructed nest; and the newly-pro¬
duced offspring, unlike the callow nestlings of the other
orders, though they remain for some time associated with
their parents, run swiftly, and pick freely from their first
exclusion. The males, particularly towards the breeding
season, are quarrelsome and courageous,—indulging in
frequent and sometimes fatal contention. They are often
furnished with spurs. In the satyr pheasant both sexes
are so armed, and the males are moreover provided with a
couple of horns. In the polyplectron the tarsi of the male
are doubly armed, there being two spurs on each leg.
In their general form and habits, the particular structure
and functions of the digestive system, and the great bene¬
fits which they confer upon the human race, birds of this
order have been observed to bear a considerable resem¬
blance to the ruminating or herbivorous quadrupeds. Like
these, their stomach is of a more complex character,
consisting of a dilated membranous pouch or crop, and
a muscular gizzard,—in the former of which their food is
rendered moist and pulpy, in the latter it is bruised and
broken, and otherwise prepared for the production of the
life-sustaining chyle; whereas in accipitrine birds the
crop is either inconspicuous or non-existent, and the sto¬
mach, if not membranous, at least has its muscular coating
very thin. The intestine in gallinaceous birds is rather
long and wide, of nearly uniform diameter, and provided
with two enormous ca?ca. Their flesh, we need scarcely
say, is very delicate, and highly esteemed as a pleasing
and nutritious food. It varies considerably in colour,—
that of the turkey and common poultry being white, of the
moor grouse brownish red, while the breast of the black¬
cock presents two distinct layers of red and white, the one
imposed upon the other. We allude at present to its cu¬
linary aspect.
Naturalists have erred in assigning the polygamous ha¬
bit as a general characteristic of our present order The
instinct to pair, or habit of monogamy, is no doubt be¬
stowed only on those species to which it is necessary for
the sustentation of their young, and differs considerably in
the nature and permanence of the attachment, accord¬
ing as the nest is placed above or upon the surface of the
ground. All birds which build on trees, as was long ago
observed by Lord Kames, are hatched blind, or extreme¬
ly defective in the sense of sight, and almost without fea¬
thers,—thus requiring the sedulous care of both parents.
But the generality even of gallinaceous birds, which breed
upon the ground, do likewise pair, though the hatching of
the eggs is entirely confided to the female, who completes
her task by leading the young towards their proper food,
which they are able to select for themselves, being active,
completely formed, and well feathered, from their first ex¬
clusion. What is indeed more beautiful than the fond
affection of these devoted creatures, teaching in the blind¬
ness of instinctive love, a lesson to proud but cold huma¬
nity? Who knoweth not (now divinely told) how the
hen “ doth gather her brood beneath her wings how she
shelters them from the nipping blast, expanding her downy
breast and feathery pinions, till she becomes a populous
tabernacle, a living temple of maternal love, beset with
small protruding bills, and bright but gentle eyes; how
she will dare, with upraised ruffled plumes, the fiercest on¬
set of the direst foe,—the callous school-boy with his
threatening club, the snarling cur-dog with his ivory fangs,
the insidious weasel, creeping serpent-like through tangled
herbage, or the bolder bird of prey, “ lord of the lion
1 GALLiNiE, Linn.
ORNITHOLOGY.
asores. heart and eagle eye,” descending swift and sure, like thun-
"V*""7 der-bolt from heaven! What are each or all of these in
dread array, with death itself, to her at other times a fear¬
ful creature, but now pervaded by the deep intensity of
mother love ? Who knoweth not these things may have
wandered far through wood and wilderness, up vast and
lonely mountains, in moist and green savannahs, o’er dry
and desert sands,—but he has never turned a kindly and
considerate eye towards perhaps the too familiar features
of some lowly farm-stead close by his early home. Yet to
such thoughts the mind, in those that loved them once, not
seldom turns. The hoary worn-out warrior, with “ scars
entrenched,” and decked with emblems of the blood-stain¬
ed field, the smooth but hollow statesman, gorgeous on
gala days in regal throngs,—the lawyer with insidious
tongue, by which the worse is made the better reason,—
the nabob “ with visage discomposed,” sallow as his gold
(his heart as pure ?),—the soft physician, with stilly foot
and ever ready palm,—the merchant prince dreaming of
“ lyre and Sidon,” of freighted vessels, and “ the injuri¬
ous sea, —think they not often of their boyish years, when
one bright summer day seemed like a century of such de¬
light as all their best planned schemes of proud ambition
since then have yielded never? But in these fantastic
thoughts forget we not our gallinaceous order ?
The male, though somewhat less assiduous than the fe¬
male, continues to manifest a certain degree of parental
solicitude, by uttering the alarm note on the approach of
birds of prey, or other dangerous foes. Black game and
wood grouse, however, do not seem to pair at all, but in the
genial spring a male assembles round him a certain num¬
ber of devoted females, which afterwards deposit their
eggs, and rear their young altogether independent of the
male parent. These birds are therefore polygamous in
the proper acceptation of the term. Indeed, even among
herbivorous quadrupeds pairing is rare, because the female
can suckle her young while she herself is feeding;—but
the monogamous habit probably obtains among most carni¬
vorous quadrupeds, and certainly among all carnivorous
birds, because incubation leaves the female no sufficient
time to hunt for food,1 and because young birds cannot
bear a long fast, and therefore require the assistance of
both parents while unable to provide for themselves.
An extraordinary circumstance has been observed in
the females of certain genera of this order, viz. an assump¬
tion of the male plumage after a certain period of life.
We believe it to be a fact in the natural history of com¬
mon poultry, that all hen-birds which either by accident
or design have been allowed to attain the age of sixteen
years complete, have been observed to assume the plumage
of cocks! The same change has been seen to take place
both in the female pheasant and the pea-hen, but at more
indeterminate periods of life, and less in connection with
an advanced age. Though these facts have not escaped
the observation of the philosophical naturalist, yet the
different circumstances attending their occurrence have
not been detailed with sufficient frequency or fulness to
admit of any satisfactory theory being offered in their ex¬
planation.2 We shall conclude these general remarks by
observing, that the gallinaceous order, with the exception
of the pigeon tribe, and the genus Opisthocomus (Chaozin,
Buffon), which certainly offer some very anomalous cha¬
racters, is naturally and consistently composed. We shall
now proceed to a brief notice of the principal genera.
The biids known by the general name of Alectors are
species of large size from South America, somewhat allied
to turkeys. Their tails are broad and rounded, and com¬
posed of large stiff feathers. They inhabit woods, living
on fruits and buds, perching and building their nests on
785
trees, and dwelling gregariously in love and amity. They Basorea.
are known under the by no means euphonious names of ^
hoccos and jaeous (words which we shall not pronounce ex¬
cept when necessary), and are arranged as follows by Ba¬
ron Cuvier. The hoccos properly so called, which are also
known as curassoes (genus Crax, Linn., Plate XIV.,
fig. 1), have the bill strong, and its base surrounded by a
skin sometimes of lively colour, and containing the nostrils.
The head is ornamented by a tuft of long, narrow, recurved
feathers. The most common kind is the Crax alector, or
crested curasso, which was at one time almost completely
acclimated in Holland, where they were as prolific as com¬
mon poultry. It is so frequent in the woods of Guiana as
to form, according to M. Sonnini, the surest resource
of every hungry traveller whose stock of provisions may
be found exhausted, and who has therefore become de¬
pendent on his gun. They are gregarious, and even when
a considerable number have been shot, the rest will re¬
main quietly perched, as if unconscious of the surrounding
slaughter. Several other species are described in syste¬
matic works. C. globicera is distinguished by a large
rounded tubercle on the base of the upper mandible.
In the genus Our ax, Cuv., the bill is shorter and thicker,
with its basal membrane, as well as the greater portion of
the head, covered with short, velvety feathers. (Plate
XIV., figure 2.) Here is placed the Ourax pauxi
{Crax pauxi, Linn.), or galeated curasso, a large turkey¬
like bird, with plumage of a shining black with green re¬
flections, the abdomen and under tail-coverts white. At
the base of the beak is a great oval tubercle, of a pale
blue colour, and as hard as stone. The structure or posi¬
tion of the windpipe is peculiar. “ Sa trachee,” says Cu¬
vier, “ descend dehors, le long du cote droit jusqu’en ar-
riere du sternum, se recourbe vers le cote gauche, et re-
vient en avant pour rentrer dans la poitrine par la four-
chette. Tous ces anneaux sont comprimes.” This species
is a native of Mexico, where it lives gregariously, perching
on trees, but building usually on the ground, and leading
about its young after the manner of the pheasant and com¬
mon hen. It is easily domesticated.
The guans or yacous, genus Penelope of Merrem, have
the bill more slender than the preceding, with a bare space
around the eye, and on the lower part of the throat,—the
latter generally capable of inflation. The individuals of
the same species seem to vary considerably, so that many
doubtful kinds have been described by naturalists. The
guan, commonly so called {Pen. cristata, Gmelin), is the
largest of the genus, measuring about thirty inches in total
length. The whole upper surface of the body is of a dusky
black or bronze colour, glossed with green and olive. The
feathers on the back of the head form a thick erectile crest.
The fore part of the neck and breast are spotted with white,
each feather being surrounded by a white border. The
naked part of the throat is bright scarlet, with a depend¬
ing fold of the same colour. The manners of this bird re¬
semble those of the curassoes. They search for food along
the ground, but perch and build upon the tops of trees.
They are less gregarious, generally keeping together in
pairs, and remarkable, it is said, for the strictest constancy,
and their strong attachment to each other,—being thus
deserving of the name they bear, that of the devoted con¬
sort of Ulysses.
The genus Ortilda of Merrem sca.cely differs from
the preceding, except in having a much smaller portion bare
around the eye and throat. We are acquainted with only
a single species, the Phasianus motmot of Gmelin {Phas.
parragua, Lath.). Its voice is very strong, and the wind¬
pipe descends beneath the skin towards the abdomen, and
then remounts into the chest. The plumage is of a bronzed
See Karnes's Sketcha.
VOL. XVI.
* Wilson s Illustrationi of Zoology, yol. i. Order G allinac.
5 Q
r86 0 R N X T II 0 I, 0 G Y.
Rasores. brown above, and ashy-white below, the crest red. It in-
‘“•■‘y—habits Brazil, Paraguay, and Guiana. Two other species
are described by M. Lesson, Ort Goudotii and squamala,—
the former inhabits the mountains of Santa Fe de Bogota,
the latter is native to Brazil.1
The genus Opisthocomus of HofFmansegg (Sasa of
Vieil.) is associated in our present system with the preced¬
ing alectors. The only known species (Phasianus crista-
lus, Lath.) has the bill short and thick, the nostrils pierced
in its corneous portion, without the usual surrounding mem¬
brane. The head bears a crest of long, slender, decomposed
feathers, and the toes (in which character it also differs
from all the genuine gallinaceous kind) have no connect¬
ing membrane at the base. The bird occurs in Guiana,
where it is usually seen perched in places subject to inun¬
dation. It lives chiefly on the leaves and seeds of a species
of arum. Its flesh has a strong smell of castoreum, and is
used only as a bait for fishes. “ II forme,” says Baron
Cuvier, “ un genre tres distinct des autres gallinacees, et
qui pourra devenir le type d’un famille particuliere quand
on connaitra son anatomie.”2 Its true situation in the na¬
tural system seems at present quite uncertain, but, from its
great diversity in different works, must assuredly in some
be most erroneous.
In the genus Pavo of Linn., the bill, of moderate size,
is bare at the base, the nostrils lateral, sub-basal, open.
The head is crested, the cheeks are naked, or nearly so.
The tarsi are rather long, and armed with a conical spur.
The upper coverts of the tail are of singular length and
magnificence. The tail itself is erectile and wedge-shaped.
The wings are rather short. This genus, as now restricted,
contains only two species. The common peacock (Pavo
cristatus, Linn.), so much admired for the surpassing splen¬
dour of its plumage, and now so familiarly known as a do¬
mestic bird, has probably been reduced to a state of de¬
pendence, if not of servitude, for some thousand years.
The earliest notice we possess of it is contained in the se¬
cond book of Chronicles. “ For the king’s ships went to
Tarshish with the servants of Hiram: every three years
once came the ships of Tarshish, bringing gold, and silver,
ivory, and apes, and peacocks.” The introduction of this
beautiful bird to the western countries of Europe has never
been clearly traced,—but every step of its progress has no
doubt been owing rather to the agency of man than the in¬
stinct of nature. Its inborn tendency would clearly have
been to return to whence it came,—to seek again the per¬
petual sunshine, and ever-verdant forests of Asia, the
banks “ of Ganges or Hydaspes, Indian streams.” It ap¬
pears to have been unknown even in Greece during the early
manhood of Alexander the Great, by whom it was first
observed with no less wonder than delight in the progress
of his southern expedition, and then transmitted to his na¬
tive country. There, however, it must have multiplied
speedily, as Aristotle, who died in a year or two after “ the
great Emathian conqueror,” mentions the peacock as a
well-known bird. It is now distributed among most civi¬
lized nations, beautifying with lustrous train our verdant
lawns, and arching its proud emblazoned neck among the
“ ancestral trees” of many lordly dwellings. The cry of
the peacock, unless when mellowed by distance, is harsh
and unmusical, but extends far and wude. Indeed the notes
of all birds, whether musically toned or inharmonious, are
very clear and forcible. The voice of a blackbird may be
heard as far as that of a man,—the clanging cry of the
stork has been calculated to fill a circumference of nearly Uasore*.
half a league, and the harsh scream of the peacock extends
as far as that of an elephant.3 Mr Waterton observes, that
the singular metallic note of the campanero or bell-bird of
America is audible from a distance of three miles.
The only other species of this genus (as now restricted)
is the Japan or Javanese peacock (P. Japonensis, Briss.,—
P. Javanicus, Horsfield), of which we have elsewhere
figured both the adult male and young, under the name
of Aldrovandine peacock, from the specimens in the Edin¬
burgh Museum.4 It occurs in Japan, Java, and other
eastern and southern regions of Asia. The particular
markings and general distribution of the colours in the
train scarcely differ from those of the better-known species;
but the Aldrovandine bird may be distinguished at first
sight from the common kind, by a difference in the form,
colour, and consistence of the cervical feathers; by the
shape and structure of the occipital crest, of which the
plumes are lance-shaped, or broadly linear, and barbed
throughout their entire length, instead of being merely
tufted at the extremities; by the dissimilar plumage of the
wing-coverts, and the number of feathers in the tail, which
in the former consists of twenty, in the latter of only
eighteen.
The genus Polyplectron, Temm., contains a few spe¬
cies formerly classed with the preceding, but of smaller
size, and distinguished by a pair of spurs on each tarsus.
Such is the beautiful Thibet peacock (Pol. Thibetanus), the
peacock-pheasant of Edwards, of which a great proportion
of the plumage is ornamented by large and very brilliant
spots of greenish blue, changing with the varying light to
gold and purple, and surrounded by circles of black and
yellowish white. The male is about the size of the golden
pheasant. The plumage of the female is less brilliant,
and her tail shorter. The colour in the young of both
sexes is earthy gray, with large spots and small lines of
brown. This species is of easy domestication, and not re¬
markable for shyness even in a state of nature. It is na¬
tive to the mountains of Thibet, and is said also to occur
in China. At least it is frequent in the aviaries of that
leaf-soaking people.
The genus Lophophorus, Temm., distinguished by its
tufted hanging crest, and strongly bent and broadly mar¬
gined bill, contains that splendid bird the Impeyan phea¬
sant (Loph. refulgens), of which the colours of the plumage
are so exceedingly brilliant from their metallic lustre, and
so variable according to the direction of the light or the
position of the spectator, that they cannot be expressed
by words, and even the skill of the most accomplished
painter would in vain attempt to equal the bright original.
Purple, green, and gold, are the prevailing hues. The fe¬
male, however, is almost entirely' destitute of metallic splen¬
dour. This bird inhabits the mountains in the northern
parts of Hindustan. Lady Impey endeavoured to trans¬
port it alive to England, but it died on the passage. It is
known to the natives by the name of monaul, which signi¬
fies the bird of gold.
The genus Meleagris, Linn., distinguished by its bare
and wattled head and neck, and broad erectile tail, con¬
tains the valuable but unromantic turkey', M. gallo-pavo,
Linn., a heavy and ungraceful bird, as it exists in the poul¬
try-yards of Britain, but of a richer plumage and more
powerful wing in its native wooded wilderness. “ The wild
turkey,” observes Mr Nuttall, “ once prevalent throughout
1 Dictionnaire des Sciences Nat. t. lix. p. 195. 2 Re^ne Animal, t. i. p. 473, note.
3 We have few opportunities (fortunately) afforded us in this country of judging of the strength of voice in wild beasts. Our own
experience extends oniy to the following homely fact, which, however, it may be worth while to mention. During the residence m
Edinburgh of Mr Wombwell’s and other travelling menageries, we have endeavoured to test the extension of the lion’s voice from
different quarters. We have often heard it very distinctly on a still evening, about feeding time, from the top of Craigleith quarry,
distant from the menagerie (on the Mound, Princes Street) about two miles and a half.
4 Illustrations of Zoology, vol. i. pi. 14, 15.
ORNITHOLOGY.
wsores. the whole continent of North America, from Mexico and
the Antilles to the forests of Lower Canada, is now, by
the progress and density of population, chiefly confined to
the thickly woodtxl and uncultivated tracts of the western
I states, being particularly abundant in the unsettled parts
of Ohio, Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana, and throughout the
vast forests of the great valleys of the Mississippi and Mis¬
souri. On the banks of the latter river, however, where
the woods disappear beyond the confluence of the Platte,
the turkey no longer appears, and the feathers of the wings,
I for the purpose of pluming arrows, form an article of small
commerce between the other natives and their western
countrymen. For a thousand miles up the Arkansas and
Red River, in the wooded alluvial lands, they are not un¬
common. They are likewise met with in small numbers
Iin Tennessee, Alabama, and West Florida. From the At¬
lantic states generally they are now nearly extirpated. The
wild turkey is neither gregarious nor migratory, but from
the necessity of wandering after food; it is otherwise re¬
sident throughout the whole of the vast region it inhabits,
including the greatest diversity of climate ; and it is pro¬
lific in proportion to its natural resources, so that while in
the United States and Canada it only breeds once in the
year, in Jamaica and the other West India islands it is
said to raise two or three broods in the same period. In
quest of mast, they therefore spread themselves through
the country, and insensibly assemble in considerable num¬
bers to the district where their food abounds. These
movements are observed to take place in October (the tur¬
key moon of the aborigines). The males, or gobblers as
they are often called, from their note, are now seen apart
from the other sex, in companies varying from ten to a
hundred. The females move singly, or accompanied by
their almost independent brood, who all at first shun assi¬
duously the persecuting society of the selfish male. Yet
after a while, when their food proves abundant, separate
mixed flocks of all ages and sexes often promiscuously
join in the bounteous repast. Their migration, very un¬
like that of the rapid pigeons, is made almost entirely on
foot, until their progress is perhaps arrested by a river.
Their speed, however, is very considerable, and when sur¬
prised, they more commonly trust to their legs than their
wings, running nearly with the velocity of a hound. On
meeting with an impediment of this kind, after consider¬
able delay, they ascend to the tops of the tall trees, and, at
the cluck of the leader, they launch into the air for the op¬
posite shore. The transit is a matter of little difficulty,
though considerable labour, for the older birds; but the
younger and less robust sometimes fall short of the bank,
and are either drowned or attain the land by swimming.
After crossing, it is remarked that they often become an
easy prey to the hunter, as they seem bewildered by the
new country in which they have arrived, or more probably
are fatigued by the novelty and extent of their excursion.
After long journeys and privations, particularly ‘in frosty
weather, or while the ground is covered with snow, they
are sometimes reduced to the necessity of making their
appearance near farm-houses, where they now and then
even associate with the poultry, and enter the stables and
cribs after grain. In this desultory and foraging manner
they spend the autumn and winter.
“ According to the latitude, and the advancement of
the season, though always very early in the spring, they
begin to be actuated by the instinct of propagation. The
males commence their gobbling, and court the society of
their retiring mates. The sexes roost apart, but in the
same vicinity, and at the yelp of the female the gobbling
becomes reiterated and extravagant. If heard from the
ground, a general rush ensues to the spot, and whether the
hen appears or not, the males, thus accidentally brought
together, spread out their train, quiver and depress their
rigid wings, and strutting and puffing with a pompous gait, Rasores.
often make battle, and directing their blows at the head,
occasionally destroy each other in a fit of jealousy. Ab
with our domestic fowls, several hens usually follow a fa¬
vourite cock, roosting in his immediate neighbourhood,
until they begin to lay, when they withdraw from his re¬
sort to save their eggs, which he would destroy if disco¬
vered.
“ The females are therefore seen in his company only
for a few hours in the day. Soon after this period, how¬
ever, the male loses his ardour, and the advances of affec¬
tion now become reversed, the hen seeking out the society
of her reluctant mate. In moonlight nights the gobbling
of the male is heard, at intervals of a few minutes, for
hours together, and affords often a gratifying means of
their discovery to the wakeful hunter. After this period
the males become lean and emaciated, so as to be even
unable to fly, and seek to hide themselves from their mates
in the closest thickets, where they are seldom seen. They
now also probably undergo their moult, and are so dry,
lean, and lousy, until the ripening of the mast and berries,
as to be almost wholly indigestible, and destitute of nutri¬
ment as food. So constant is this impoverished state, that
the Indians have a proverb, ‘ As lean as a turkey in sum¬
mer.*
“ About the middle of April, in Kentucky, the hens be¬
gin to provide for the reception of their eggs, and secure
their prospects of incubation. The nest, merely a slight
hollow scratched in the ground, and lined with withered
leaves, is made by the side of a fallen log, or beneath the
shelter of a thicket, in a dry place. The eggs, from ten to
fifteen, are whitish, covered with red dots. While laying,
the female, like the domestic bird, always approaches the
nest with great caution, varying the course at almost every
visit, and often concealing her eggs entirely by covering
them with leaves. Trusting to the similarity of her home¬
ly garb with the withered foliage around her, the hen, as
with several other birds, on being carefully approached,
sits close without moving. She seldom indeed abandons
her nest, and her attachment increases with the growing
life of her charge. The domestic bird has been known
not unfrequently to sit stedfastly on her eggs until she
died of hunger. As soon as the young have emerged from
the shell, and begun to run about, the parent, by her cluck,
calls them around her, and watches with redoubled suspi¬
cion the approach of their enemies, which she can perceive
at an almost inconceivable distance. To avoid moisture,
which might prove fatal to them, they now keep on the
higher sheltered knolls; and in about a fortnight, instead
of roosting on the ground, they begin to fly at night to
some wide and low branch, where they still continue to
nestle under the extended wings of their protecting parent.
At length they resort during the day to more open tracts,
or prairies, in quest of berries of various kinds, as well as
grasshoppers and other insects. The old birds are very
partial to pecan-nuts, winter grapes, and other kinds of
fruits. They also eat buds, herbs, grain, and large insects ;
but their most general and important fare is acorns, after
which they make extensive migrations. By the month of
August the young are nearly independent of their parent,
and become enabled to attain a safe roost in the higher
branches of the trees. The young cocks now show the
tuft of hair upon the breast, and begin to strut and gobble,
and the young hens already pur and leap. One of the
most crafty enemies which the wild turkey has to encoun¬
ter is the lynx or wild cat, who frequently seizes his prey
by advancing round, and waiting its approach in ambush.
Like most other gallinaceous birds, they are fond of wal¬
lowing on the ground, and dusting themselves.
“ When approached by moonlight, they are readily shot
from their rousting-tree, one after another, without any
788 ORNITHOLOGY.
Rasores. apprehension of their danger, though they would dodge or
fly instantly at the sight of the owl. The gobblers, during
the season of their amorous excitement, have been known
even to strut over their dead companions while on the
ground, instead of seeking their own safety by flight. In
the spring, the male turkeys are called by a whistle made
of the second joint bone of the wing of the bird, which
produces a sound somewhat similar to the voice of the fe¬
male ; and on coming up to this call they are consequent¬
ly shot. They are likewise commonly caught in quadran¬
gular pens made of logs crossing each other, from which
is cut a slanting covered passage sufficient to allow the
entrance of the turkey. Corn is then scattered in a train
to this cage for some distance, as well as within; and
the neighbouring birds, in the surrounding woods, hav¬
ing discovered the grain, call on each other by a cluck¬
ing, and entering one at a time, they become secur¬
ed in the pen, as, for the purpose of escape, they constant¬
ly direct their view upwards, instead of stooping to go out
by the path by which they had entered. The male wild
turkey weighs commonly from fifteen to eighteen pounds,
is not unfrequently as much as twenty-five, and some¬
times, according to Audubon, even thirty-six. The hen
commonly weighs about nine pounds; and the usual
price for a turkey from the Indians is twenty-five cents.’’1
The only other species of turkey is a very rare and
beautiful bird (M. ocellata, Cuv.), of which, we believe,
only a single specimen is yet known. It was captured by
the crew of a vessel who were cutting wood in the Bay
of Honduras, and was brought alive to the Thames, for pre¬
sentation to Sir Henry Halford, but met with an accident
which caused its death. It afterwards became the pro¬
perty of Mr Bullock ; and on the dispersion of his collec¬
tion, was purchased by the French government for the
Paris Museum. It is nearly equal in size to the common
turkey. The tail is less ample, but its colours are more
varied and beautiful, almost rivalling those of the peacock
in its little mirrors of sapphire, surrounded by circles of
gold and ruby.2
The species known to us by the name of Guinea fowls,
form the genus Numida, Linn. The head is bare, the
top in some crested, and the throat wattled. They are
all either from Africa or Madagascar.
The great genus Phasianus, Linn., including our cocks
and pheasants, has the cheeks more or less bare of fea¬
thers, usually covered by a scarlet skin, and the tail-fea¬
thers so placed as to slope downwards, roof-like, from
either side. The group was soon found to be too exten¬
sive and varied in its component parts to accord with the
preciser views of modern times, and several subdivisions
have been in consequence effected.
. The restricted genus Gallus, for example (Plate
XIV., figures 3 and 3 a), of which the head is gene¬
rally surmounted by a lleshy vertical crest, the base of
the lower mandible furnished with two flattened wattles,
and the tail-feathers, fourteen in number, rising in two
almost upright planes, with ample coverts in the male sex,
contains, among other remarkable species, our domestic
cock and hen ( Gallus domesticas—Phasianus gallus, Linn.).
The general attributes or special qualities of this brave, vi¬
gilant, and invaluable species, need not be here recorded ;
and indeed a volume would scarcely suffice to describe its
numerous variations, from the pure undaunted blood of
Derby, fearless of death, to the crested dung-hill breed,
almost equally pugnacious, and by no means cowardly, yet
apt to turn tail on the sudden touch of unexpected steel.
In our present paragraph we avail ourselves in part of
a recent brief compendium. The cocks with ample crests,
and five toes,—the rumpless cock, and those of many- Rasores.
mingled colours,—appear to have arisen chiefly from the ''—V"1*
various and prolonged circumstances attending domestica¬
tion, and the intentional crossing of the breeds. The
most picturesque are those with superabundant crests, and
full auricular plumes. The crest is composed of narrow,
hackled feathers, which grow erect from the head, but
fall down in graceful curves, sometimes of such length as
to shadow or overhang the eyes. In some districts this
breed is much cultivated, being esteemed in proportion
as the colours of the body and crest can be made to form
the most conspicuous contrast, the body black, the crest
white, and vice versa. Other admired fancy breeds are
the Dutch pencilled fowl, which are pure white, with black
spots ; the Siberian fowl, with long tufts of hanging feathers
springing from the lower jaw ; and the Barbary fowl, of a
pale dun colour, with the feathers of the neck extremely
ample, and spotted with black. But a more singular ano¬
maly is exhibited by those with five toes, commonly called
dorkings, from being bred in most abundance in the neigh¬
bourhood of Dorking, Surrey. This race is easily conti¬
nued, and is much esteemed for the table, being white
and large. Dr Latham records one which weighed near¬
ly fourteen pounds. A still more remarkable race is that
without a tail, the rumpless or Persian cock, as it is some¬
times celled, which actually wants a portion of the caudal
vertebrae. These are usually regarded as mere varieties,
for the most part, probably, of accidental origin. There
are, however, three races of cocks, of a very marked cha¬
racter, although their claim to actual specific distinction
cannot be yet made out. The first is Gallus morio, of
which the periosteum of the bones is black, and the comb,
wattles, and skin, of a dull purple. It has received the
name of negro or blackamoor cock, but is scarcely ever
seen in the poultry-yards of this country. The other two
races are more frequent, and are known as the silky cock
(G. lanatus), and the Friesland cock (Gr. crispus). M.
Temminck is inclined to regard the former as a distinct
species. It occurs in China and Japan, where it is sold
as a rarity to Europeans. In this country it crosses easily
with the white domestic breed, and a mixed race is pro¬
duced with the feathers still silky, but less disunited. It
is singular that the skin and periosteum of this kind are of
the same sable hue with those of G. morio, although the
flesh is remarkable for its whiteness. The size is rather
small, the plumage of the purest white, the comb and
wattles purple. The Friesland cock evidently belongs to
the opposition, having all the feathers turned the wrong
way, or standing nearly at right angles with the body.
The general colour of the plumage of this kind is also
white, but it varies like that of other captive races. It
occurs in the domesticated state in Java and Sumatra;
but M. Temminck thinks it is also a distinct species, pe¬
culiar in the wild state to some unexplored quarter of the
Indian islands.3 We doubt that nature, in her first in¬
tent, should ever have produced such an oddity.
Many fanciful and superstitious feelings are still main¬
tained regarding the domestic cock, and his nocturnal
crowing ; and even his more familiar morning salutation is
supposed to dispel all spirits, “ whether in sea or fire, in
earth or air.’’
Some say that ever ’gainst that season comes
Wherein our Saviour’s birth is celebrate,
The bird of dawning singeth all night long ;
And then, they say, no spirit walks abroad ;
The nights are wholesome ; then no planets strike;
T\To fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm ;
So hallowed and so gracious is the time.
2 Min. du Museum, vi. pi. 1; and PL Col. 112*
* Naturalist’s Library, vol. iii. p. 173.
1 Manual, vol. i. p. (J40.
ORNITHOLOGY.
?s. Of the numerous benefits which the goodness of God
“"'has enabled man to derive from the wide circle of the
feathered race, there is probably none which surpasses,
either in extent or utility, the domestication of these most
familiar birds. Of so long standing, however, has been the
subservience of the race to man, that no authentic tradi¬
tionary traces now remain of its original introduction to any
of the more ancient kingdoms of the earth,—its existence
under human guardianship seeming indeed coeval with
the most antique records. It may therefore be regarded
as one of those particular and providential gifts, which,
like the faithful and accommodating dog, was at an early
period of the world added to the fortunes of the first fa¬
milies of the human race, and has since followed man in
his wonderful and far-spread migrations through every
clime and country. For some thousand years the observ¬
ers of nature were ignorant of any wild species which, even
in a remote degree, resembled any variety of the domes¬
tic breed,—and from the era of Herodotus to that of Son-
nerat, the domestic cock and hen might have been re¬
garded as birds, the living analogues of which were no
longer known to exist in a natural and unsubdued condi¬
tion.
In consequence of the remote obscurity in which the
subject is thus involved, few points in natural history have
occasioned more inconclusive speculation, or are even now
more difficult to solve with certainty, than the source
from which we have primarily derived our different races
of domestic poultry. That they came originally from Per¬
sia, has been inferred from the circumstance of Aristo¬
phanes calling the cock “ the Persian bird.” Such an
origin, however, is improbable, when we consider that the
researches of modern travellers, and indeed of all who
have visited that country since the revival of learning,
have failed to discover there any species of wild poul¬
try,—no gallinaceous bird being found in Persia more
nearly allied to the genus Gallus, than a species of />o-
phophorus. If, however, it is merely meant that the Greeks,
during the intercourse, hostile or otherwise, which existed
between them and the Persian nation, may have obtained
a breed previously domesticated, the idea is less objec¬
tionable ; for it is known that in a domestic state poultry
have existed in Persia from a very remote antiquity.
It appears from an ingenious dissertation by the late
Dr Scot of Corstorphine, to have been the opinion of that
learned Hebraist, that poultry were unknown to the Jews,
or at least that they are not distinctly alluded to in the
Old Testament. It cannot, however, admit of a doubt,
that they were w’ell known over many parts both of Eu¬
rope and Asia for several hundred years before the Chris¬
tian era. When Themistocles took the field to combat
the Persians, he alluded, while haranguing his troops, to
the invincible courage of the feathered biped. “ Observe
with what intrepid valour he fights, inspired by no other
motive than the love of victory ; whereas you have to con¬
tend for your religion and your liberty, for your wives and
children, for the tombs of your ancestors and it was on
this occasion that the Athenians achieved one of the most
memorable victories recorded in history. According to
A51ian, it was in commemoration of this signal event, and
of the ornithological image by which the courage of the
soldiery had been excited and sustained, that the Athe¬
nians instituted those annual games of which cock-fighting
formed so conspicuous a feature. Now Themistocles died
in the sixty-fifth year of his age, and about the 449th
year preceding the Christian era, and must consequently
have been contemporary with Nehemiah the prophet; and
as the Old Testament history does not conclude till about
twenty years after the death of Themistocles, it may be
789
inferred, that if the later of the sacred historians do not Rasores.
mention poultry, it must be from some other cause than'
ignorance of their existence,—seeing that as the early
Greek nations had received them prior to that period,
either from Persia or the more south-eastern countries of
Asia, they could scarcely have remained unknown in the
intermediate regions inhabited by the Jews. For tlitse and
other reasons, which it would here be tedious to detail, we
do not agree with Dr Scot.
In regard to the natural origin of these domestic birds,
the first approximation to the truth (and we deem it but
an approximation) resulted from the discovery by Son-
nerat of a species of wild poultry native to the mountains
of the Ghauts, in India. Ihis is the Gallus Sonneratii of
systematic naturalists, better known to British residents
by the now familiar name of jungle-cock. Our knowledge
of gallinaceous birds, however, has so greatly increased
during recent years, and so many additional species have
been discovered, that we are able to proceed upon much
more certain ground than were the naturalists of the last
century. The jungle-cock is not only no longer the only
claimant to the long dormant title which, under whatever
name of honour, may be due to the species so greatly be¬
neficial to the human race, but other aspirants have come
forward with such better-founded claims, that his may
fairly be regarded as altogether set aside. In fact, seve¬
ral important characters of the jungle-cock have never
been traced in any of the domestic varieties, and many of
these latter present features which, if not incompatible
with, at least bear no resemblance to any attributes of
the supposed original. We may here observe, that the
naturalybrm and structure of any portion of the animal or¬
ganization are much less easily effaced or altered than the
more superficial character of colour; and hence, if a par¬
ticular species of bird be naturally distinguished by a pe¬
culiar consistence as well as colour of plumage, the influ¬
ence of those causes which produce variation less fre¬
quently affect the former than the latter. Reasoning
therefore a priori, it would be more natural to expect
that if the jungle-cock were the parent of our domestic
breeds, such breeds, however they might vary in the co¬
louring of their plumage, would at least at times exhibit
those marked and peculiar characters of form and struc¬
ture by which the feathers of the supposed original are
distinguished. This, however, is not the case. Amid the
infinite varieties which occur among our domestic poultry,
the plumage of none is found characterized by those horny
lamina, or expansions of the shaft, which form so marked
a feature in the plumage of the jungle-cock, and which
assuredly would have either continued a permanent fea¬
ture, or been occasionally manifested in one or other of
our domestic breeds, had these been derived from the spe¬
cies in question. We may mention another circumstance
on which we believe we were ourselves the first to insist.1
The native tribes of Indians inhabiting the districts where
the jungle-cock abounds rear a breed of poultry which
differs as much from the supposed original as our own, and
which never intermingles with the forest brood.
According to M. Temminck (and in this we quite agree
with that industrious and observant naturalist), the species
to which our domestic races are most nearly allied, are
the Jago cock of Sumatra {Gallus giganteus), a wild spe¬
cies of great size, and the Bankiva cock of Java, another
primitive species, which occurs in the forests of the last-
named island (see Plate XIV., figures 3 and 3 a.) There
are several circumstances which render the claims of these
two birds much stronger than those of the jungle-cock. Is*,
Their females bear a strong resemblance to our domestic
hens ; 2dly, the common village cock, in its most ordi-
See our Essay “ On the Origin of Domestic Poultry,” in the Wemerian Memoirs, vol. vi. p. 402.
790
ORNITHOLOGY.
Rasores. nary condition, is intermediate, in respect to size, between
“ these two species; 3d7?/, the nature of the plumage, which
in its form, consistence, and distribution, is absolutely the
same as in the common cock, greatly strengthens the sup¬
position ; \thhj, it is in these species alone that we find the
females, as well as males, provided with a fleshy crest and
small wattles,—characters which likewise distinguish both
sexes of our common poultry, although they are for the
most part but slightly developed in the females. Now the
female jungle-cock possesses neither comb nor wattles.
It may be stated as a curious though well-known fact, that
when Captain Cook first visited the South Sea Islands, he
found them well stocked with domestic poultry; and the
more recent as well as more ample narratives of the mission¬
aries have confirmed the statements of the great navigator re¬
garding the practice of cock-fighting in Otaheite, and other
islands of Polynesia. Mr Ellis describes the Faa-ti-to-raa-
moa, or literally the causing fighting among fowls, as the
most ancient game of the Tahitians; and he informs us, that
according to the tradition of the natives, poultry have ex¬
isted in the islands as long as people,—that they either
came with the first colonists, or were produced by Taaroa
contemporaneously with men. Long before the first fo¬
reign vessel was seen off their shores, they were in the
practice of training and fighting cocks. However, they
never trimmed, as we do, their flowing plumes, but were
proud to see the beautiful and gorgeous combatants with
ample natural wings, full-feathered necks, and lengthened
tails. We may observe, that the breed of these islands do
not appear to have been what in this country we would
denominate game ; for Mr Ellis (in his Polynesian Re¬
searches) incidentally mentions, that as soon as one bird
avoided another, he was considered as vi, or beaten, and
victory was declared in favour of his opponent. It is in¬
deed a singular circumstance that this barbarous practice
should have pervaded so many unconnected nations, both
savage and civilized. It has entirely ceased among the in¬
habitants of the Friendly and Society Islands since the
establishment of Christianity, although still pursued by the
practical heathen of other and more ancient Christian lands.
We ourselves, to our shame be it spoken, once fought a
main of cocks with an English clergyman who afterwards
rose to a high and conspicuous station in the church. We
believe, indeed, that he became a bishop,—haply forgetful
of us and of our famous Faa-ti-to-raa-moa.
In the genus Phasianus properly so called, the sides
of the head around the eyes are covered for a space by a
naked warty skin. The tail is very long and slender, each
feather laterally inclined or roof-shaped, and the central
pair usually much prolonged. The common pheasant of
our coverts (P/i. colchicus) is the most familiar example.
This bird is now well known in most of the temperate parts
of Europe, though originally introduced from the banks of
the Phasis (now the Rioni), a river of Chalcis in Asia
Minor. Need we describe his glowing bright attire?
Splendid his form, his eyes of flaming gold
Two fiery rings of living scarlet hold ;
His arching neck a varying beauty shows,
Now rich with azure, now with emerald glows.
His swelling breast with glossy purple shines,
Chesnut his back, and waved with ebon lines ;
To his broad wings gay hues their radiance lend,
His mail-clad legs two knightly spurs defend.
The variety called the ring-pheasant (Ph. torquatus), cha¬
racterized by a more or less completed circle of white
around the lower portion of the neck, is by some regarded
as a distinct species. The gold and silver pheasants of our
aviaries (PA. pictus and nycthemerus), and several other
still more magnificent birds, on the beauty of which we
regret we cannot here dilate, pertain to our present genus.
One of the most singularly superb of all the gallinace- Rasores.
ous order, we mean the argus pheasant, now forms a se-v'—“y~^<
parate genus under the name of Argus. Of this rare and
remarkable hud^A. giganteus, Temm.) China and the ad¬
joining provinces of Tartary have been assigned as the na¬
tive country by various writers. This, however, requires
confirmation, as all the specimens of which the origin is
accurately known have been brought from the great east¬
ern islands and peninsula of Malacca. There is a passage
in Marco Polo’s Travels, which may perhaps be construed
as relating to the bird in question. In his description of
the kingdom of Erginal (a district of Tangout, in the north¬
west of the empire), he observes, “pheasants are found in
it that are twice the size of ours, but something smaller
than the peacock. I he tail-feathers are eight or ten palms
in length.” “ This,” observes Mr Marsden, the learned edi¬
tor of the English edition, “ is probably the Argus phea¬
sant, which although a native of Sumatra (where I have
frequently seen it alive), is said to be also found in the
northern part of China.”1 Though of late years well
known in the Basses-cours of Batavia (from which M. Tem-
minck received a splendid series), we are not aware that
the Argus has been ever imported alive into Europe. It
would certainly prove a more magnificent addition than
any which has been made to our aviaries in modern times.
The great apparent size of this bird arises chiefly from the
peculiar formation of the wings, of which the secondaries
are three times the length of the primaries, being nearly
three feet long. In consequence of the unwieldy extent
of that portion of the wing which is not under the imme¬
diate influence of muscular action, this magnificent bird is
alleged to be almost destitute of the power of flight. Its
progress, however, when running on the ground, is greatly
accelerated,—the expanded secondaries, according to M.
Temminck, acting as powerful and capacious sails, and
furnishing a very fleet and effectual mode of transporta¬
tion. The body, when stripped of the feathers, scarcely
exceeds that of a barn-door fowl, but in its “high an&plvmy
state” it measures in total length about five feet three
inches,—the tail-feathers being themselves nearly four feet
long. The female is, as usual, less adorned. Her second¬
aries want the peculiar breadth and extension, as well as
the beautiful eye-like markings which adorn the male. In
consequence, however, of this homely appearance, she is
less frequently sought for in her native forests, and is thus
(in collections) by far the rarer of the two. M. Temminck,
for example, thought himself fortunate in finding a brace
of females among thirty males.
In the genus Eupi.ocomus, Temm., the head is crested,
the tail much broader than in the true pheasants, and some¬
times forked. The beautiful Macartney cock, or fire-back¬
ed pheasant (Eu. ignitus), is the most characteristic, if not
the sole example. It was met with by Sir George Staun¬
ton in a menagerie at Batavia, and is believed to be a na¬
tive of Sumatra.2
The horned pheasant of Edwards and Latham has been
made by Cuvier to constitute the genus Tkagopan. The
head, though crested, is elsewhere almost naked; a little
slender horn projects backward from behind each eye, and
a loose and pendent skin, inflatable at pleasure, hangs
from the base of the lower mandible (see Plate XIV.,
fig. 4). The group now consists of about four species, all
remarkable for their richly varied and beautifully spotted
plumage. They are bulkier birds than pheasants, with
rounded tails of ordinary length. The females of such as
are known are brindled with brown and black. We have
yet learned nothing of the habits or natural economy of the
Tragopans, although their external aspect has been render¬
ed familiar in elegant representations by Mr Gould.3 The
Travels, pp. 225-9.
Embassy to China, pi. xiii.
3 Century of Birds from the Himalaya Mountains.
ORNITHOLOGY
ores, first discovered species ( T. satyr us), though usually brought
' from Nepaul, has been ascertained also to inhabit Thibet;
and Chinese specimens from the mountain province of Yun¬
nan were seen by Mr Bennet in Mr Beale’s aviary at Ma¬
cao.1
The genus Cryptonyx, Temm., has a bare space around
the eye, the tail of medium size and flat, and the tarsi
without spurs ; but the most peculiar character consists
in the hind toe being destitute of claw. The best-known
species is C. coronatus, or rouloul of Malacca (see Plate
XIV., figure 5). The female is described by Latham
under the title of Tetraoviridis. It inhabits deep forests,
is wild and cunning in a state of nature, and in confine¬
ment impatient of restraint.
The great genus Tetuao of Linn, has also been greatly
subdivided in recent times. All the species seem to agree
in having a bare band above the eye.
The restricted genus Tetrao has the legs covered with
feathers, and without spurs. In some the toes are naked,
and the tail either forked or rounded. Such is the great
wood grouse or capercailzie (T. urogallus), the largest
and finest example of the gallinaceous order indigenous to
Europe. In Britain it has been long extinct in the wild
state (although of late several times imported with a view
to re-establish the breed), and now occurs chiefly in Scan¬
dinavia, although not unknown among mountainous and
woody regions southwards, as far as the Alps of Savoy and
the Veronese. Although rather difficult to rear in Britain,
the capercailzie is often domesticated in Sweden, where it
becomes so tame as to eat familiarly from the hand.
Though naturally shy and wary, they sometimes, even in
their unreclaimed condition, manifest a singular and un¬
accountable degree of boldness. Mr Brehm mentions a
cock bird that inhabited a wood near Renthendorf, through
which there was a roadway, and whenever any one passed
through, it would fly towards him, peck at his legs, and
strike him with its wings. The black-cock ( T. tetrix) is a
smaller, but very beautiful species, of hardy habits, and much
on the increase in many parts of Britain, where it prefers
alpine pastures, with a sprinkling of natural wood, inter¬
mingled with moist places covered by long coarse herbage.
It is widely dispersed over the northern and temperate
parts of Europe, and spreads somewhat farther south than
the preceding, being found, though rarely, on the Apen¬
nines. We know that it breeds among the lofty hills above
Albenga, near the Colie de Tende. Other species of bare¬
toed grouse occur in Europe, and a still greater number in
North America. For the history of the latter we must
refer to the well-known works of Alexander Wilson, C.
L. Bonaparte, Audubon, Richardson, and others.
01 the feather-footed game-birds (genus Lagopus), the
most noted for gastronomic excellence is our common red
grouse, or moor-game (Zr. Scoticus), so highly prized and
eagerly pursued by sportsmen. This well-known species
restricts itselt chiefly to the sides of sloping mountains,
and those extensive tracts of elevated land called moors,
where it is careless of other shelter than that afforded by
the natural roughness of the ground, and its plentiful co¬
vering of heath, or other alpine plants of still more lowly
growth. The most singular fact in its history is its re¬
striction to Great Britain and Ireland,—all other parts of
the world, from “ Indus to the pole,’’ being sought in vain
for a single example. In this little group we also place
the ptarmigans, distinguished from the other grouse by the
assumption of a snow-white plumage during winter. These
birds seem to prefer, in comparatively temperate climates,
such as that of Scotland, the bare and stony sides or sum¬
mits of the highest mountains; but under the rigorous
temperature of Greenland, and the most northern portions
of America, they are chiefly found in the vicinity of the
sea-shore, by the banks of rivers, and among the willow
and other copse woods of the lower and more sheltered
vales. The species of Europe and America are not yet in
all respects sufficiently characterized and distinguished.
The genus Pterocles, Temm., has a naked space
around the eye, but not of a scarlet colour, as in grouse ;
the toes are bare, the hind one very small, and the tail
pointed (Plate XIV., figure 6). These birds, called gan-
gas, or sand-grouse, live in sandy plains and deserts in
the warmer regions of Asia and Africa, although two spe¬
cies, Pt. arenarius and setarius, Temm., inhabit some of
the southern countries of Europe, especially Spain. The
latter is the pin-tailed grouse of Latham, Tetrao alchata,
Gmelin.
Ihe genus Perdix of Brisson contains the partridges,
distinguished by having the legs or tarsi bare, as well as
the toes. The tail is also very short, although of greater
length among the kind called francolins, and other foreign
species. Of these several are armed with spurs ; and one
especially, the sanguine partridge (P. cruentata, Temm.),
has sometimes three or four spurs on each leg. The fran¬
colins perch on trees. The partridges properly so called
always rest upon the ground. Their bill is not so strong,
and their spurs, if they have any, are very short, or simply
tubercular. Four or five sorts are found in Europe, al¬
though the common gray partridge (P. cinerea) is our only
truly indigenous kind. The red-legged partridge (P.
rubra), which in Italy is the most frequent, has been in¬
troduced of late years into the south of England, where it
continues to breed spontaneously in a state of nature.
Many other species occur in foreign countries.
Ihe quails (genus Coturnix) are of smaller size than
the preceding, the tail is still shorter, the spurs are
wanting, and there is no coloured space above the eye.
Ihe only British species is the common quail ((7. Euro-
pe.us), a well-known bird of passage, generally but not
abundantly distributed over the island. In Scotland it is
even scarce, although we have found it occasionally near
Edinburgh, as well as in Ross shire, and along the coasts
of Aberdeen and Kincardine. The whole migrate from
the colder and temperate parts of Europe during autumn,
and re-appear in spring, in certain places, in enormous
numbers. Along the Neapolitan coasts, for example,
100,000 have been taken in a single day. In some of the
southern countries of Europe, however, many quails remain
throughout the winter. In Portugal they are even more
numerous during that season than in summer ; and Signor
Savi says, in regard to those of Italy, “ Sono le quaglie
uccelli viaggiatori, giacche la massima parte lasciano 1’Eu-
ropa, traversano il mare, e vanno a passare il verno in
Aflrica, ed in Asia; ma di Toscana, come pure dalle altri
parti meridionali, non partono tutti, anzi una gran quar.tita
ne resta per le stoppie delle nostre Maremme, ove trovano
e molto nutrimento e dolce clima. Negli ultimi giorni
d Aprile si rimetteno in moto ; quelle die avevan passate
il mare lo passan di nuovo, e quelle che eransi ritirate no*
siti aprici si spargon per tutti i campi e prati.”2 A vast
number of quails of various kinds are found in foreign
countries. A beautiful small species (Z. excalfactoria,
lemm.,—-P. Chinensis, Lath.) is very abundant in China,
where it is bred in the domestic state, and kept in cages
for the singular purpose of warming people’s hands in win¬
ter. It is also patronised on account of its pugnacious
disposition, being fought with its own kind, as common
cocks are in this country.
The American quails now form the genus Ortyx, anu
are in some measure intermediate between the true quails
and partridges. The bill is thick and strong, but short
791
Itasores.
1 Ornitologia Toscana, tom. ii. p, *00.
*
Wanderings, &c. vol. iu p. 61.
792 ORNITHOLOGY.
Rasores. and rounded ; the tail more lengthened than in those of
'v-*-' tlie old continent. One species, O. Californica, has the
head ornamented by a beautiful slender recurved crest.
(See Plate XIV., figure 7.) Several other kinds were
recently discovered and described by the lamented Douglas,
the botanical traveller and collector, whose tragical fate in
the Sandwich Islands caused the most sincere regret in the
scientific world. They differ from the ordinary quails in
usually perching upon trees at night. The Virginian Ortyx,
O. borealis, has of late been reared in several parts of Eng¬
land, and may be said to be naturalized in Sussex. It
is considerably larger than the common quail.
The genus Ortygis of Illiger resembles the quails in
general form, but the bill is somewhat compressed. The
toes are so deeply divided, as scarcely to exhibit a vestige
of the usual intervening membrane, and the hind toe is
wanting. The species are of small size, and occur in In¬
dia, Africa, and New Holland. They are of polygamous
habits, and dwell in barren places on the confines of de¬
serts, seldom taking wing except when closely run. One
of these birds is also much used by the Malays and other
eastern nations for fighting with its kind. (See Plate
XIV., figure 9.)
A bird of a very anomalous aspect and character, called
the heteroclyte grouse (Tetrao paradoxus of Pallas), now
forms the genus Syrrhaptes of Illiger. The bill is rather
slender and compressed, straight, but as usual somewhat
bent towards the tip. The tarsi are short and densely
clothed with feathers; the toes are also very short and fea¬
thered, and connected together almost to the claws. The
hind toe is not wanting, but seems buried in the feathers.
The wings and tail are very long, and are both terminated
by lengthened slender-pointed plumes. The only known
species (named S. Pallasii by M. Temminck), inhabits the
deserts of Tartary, near the shores of Lake Baikal. Owing
to the peculiar structure of its feet, it can scarcely move
upon the ground; but its flight is brisk and raoid, though
seldom long sustained.
The last group we shall here mention contains the Tina-
mous—genus Tinamus, Lath.,— Crypturus, Illig. (Plate
XIV., figure 8.) The bill is lengthened and slender,
slightly arched, blunt-pointed, grooved on each side, the
nostrils central, deepening obliquely backwards. The
wings are short, the tail almost rudimentary. The pal-
mation at the base of the toes is very short; and the
hind toe, reduced almost to a little spur, does not reach
the ground. The bare space around the eye is very cir¬
cumscribed. These birds abound in the Brazilian and
other tropical forests of America, where they run swiftly,
seldom fly, conceal themselves among long herbage, and
perch (as some say) upon the lower branches of trees.
They live on fruits and insects, and their flesh is much es¬
teemed. Rather than exercise their natural powers of
flight, they will sometimes foolishly allow themselves to be
killed in great numbers with a stick. They are also hunted
with dogs. They build upon the ground, and their eggs
are remarkable among those of gallinaceous birds for their
brilliant tinting, some being bright blue, others of a bril¬
liant violet colour. The different species of Tinamous ex¬
hibit a great diversity in size, from that of a pheasant to
a very small quail; and “as for their flesh,” says Mr Swain-
son, “ we have often tasted it, and consider it, both in
whiteness and flavour, infinitely above that of the partridge
or pheasant. We believe these birds never perch, as some Rasores.
suppose, but that they live entirely among herbage, prin- 's—
cipally in the more open tracts of the interior.”1
The great family of the pigeons (Columba, Linn.)
comes next in order in Baron Cuvier’s arrangement, and
in that indeed of most of our systematic writers. There
are several circumstances, however, which make it doubt¬
ful whether the pigeons should not form either a separate
order of themselves, or undergo some other change in
their position. As compared with ordinary gallinaceous
birds, every one will admit that they present numerous
and striking disparities. Their powers of flight, for ex¬
ample, if equalled are not surpassed even by those of the
falcon tribe, their habits are monogamous, their haunts
very generally arboreal, their eggs few in number, and
hatched by the male as well as female, the young are at
first extremely helpless, and are fed for a length of time
from the crop of both parents,—in all these points, and
many more, they differ remarkably from other gallinaceous
birds. Professor Savi, we observe, places the pigeons in
his concluding tribe of Passeres ( Uccelli silvani), as a con¬
necting link with the gallinaceous order, and for reasons
closelv corresponding with those we have just assigned.2
Dr Macgillivray was the first to observe that “ the beauti¬
ful, very extensive, and generally distributed family of
birds commonly known by the names of pigeons, doves, and
turtle-doves, appears to form an order of itself, separated by
well-defined limits; but yet, as in other cases, presenting
modifications of form indicative of its affinity to contermin¬
ous groups. The peculiar shape of the head and bill, more
than any other external feature, serves to render the dif¬
ferent species readily cognizable as belonging to a single
tribe ; for, whatever may be the size, colour, or even shape,
of a pigeon, it cannot be mistaken. But the relations of
the family, it would appear, are not so readily perceived,—
some of our most approved systematists having associat¬
ed them with the passerine, others with the gallinaceous
birds,—while a few consider them as constituting a dis¬
tinct group. Linnaeus included them all under the single
genus Columba, which has merely been sectioned by M.
Temminck, and from which M. Vieillot has only separat¬
ed two genera under the names of Treron and Lophyrus;
while Mr Swainson and other Ornithologists have convert¬
ed it into several generic groups, such as Vinago, includ¬
ing the thick-billed species, Ptilonopus, Columba, Turtur,
Ectopistes, Peristera, and others, characterized by differ¬
ences in the wings and tail; and Lophyrus, formed, by
Vieillot, of the great crowned-pigeon. The latter seems
to connect this family with the Cracinae, which belong to
the gallinaceous order, while other groups manifest an af¬
finity to the partridges and allied genera. The pigeons
vary much in form, some having the body full, others
slender ; while the tail is very short, moderate, or greatly
elongated. In all, however, the head is small, oblong,
compressed, with the forehead rounded; a circumstance
depending partly upon the form of the skull, and partly
upon the absence of feathers at the base of the bill. The
latter organ is characterized more especially by having
the nasal membrane bare, generally scurfy, fleshy, and
tumid, with the narrow longitudinal nostrils placed un¬
der its anterior margin. It varies in size, but the upper
mandible has its ridge always obliterated at the base by
the encroachment of the nasal membranes, and its extre-
1 Nat. Hist, and Class, of Birds, vol. ii. p. 16‘8.
“ Questa tribii forma il passagio dai Silvani ai Gallinacei, giacche i Piccioni, quantunque somigliano piix ai primi che ai secundi,
pure nan caratteri comuni agli uni ed agli altri. Somigliano i Silvani, perche avendo ali grand! e coda larga, volano facilmente, con
velocita, ed a grand! distanze ; sono monogami: nascono nudi, e per un tempo assai lungo (almeno per tutte le specie nostrali) non
essendo capaci ne di moversi, ne di cercare il cibo, han bisogno d’esser covati, e imbeccati da’ loro genitori: fanno il nido sugli al
ben, o nolle buche. Somigliano poi i Gallinacei per avere un gozzo molto dilatabile, e dove gli alimenti si trattengono e provano una
certa preparazione alia digestione: i semi, di cui quasi esclusivamente si cibano, li inghiottono senza sbucciarli, o rompeili, e final-
mente, come i Gallinacei, hanno lo sterno doppiamente scavato.” (Ornitologia Toscana, tom. ii. p. 152.)
ORNITHOLOGY.
793
•Itasores. mity horny, arched, or convex, more or less compressed,
—y—with a blunt thin-edged point. The tongue is fleshy, ta¬
pering to a point, and triangular in its transverse section.
The throat is very narrow. The oesophagus is of mode¬
rate width, but expanded, or opening into a large crop,
placed on the lower part of the neck and the fore part of
the breast, and terminates below in an oblong proventri-
culus, completely surrounded with large oblong glandules.
The stomach is a powerful gizzard of a somewhat rhom-
boidal form, and furnished with two very thick lateral
muscles inserted into two tendinous centres, with an infe¬
rior thinner muscle inserted into the same tendons. The
intestine is long and slender ; the caeca very small and cy¬
lindrical ; the rectum very short, and but slightly enlar¬
ged. The tarsi are generally short and stout, either scu-
tellate or feathered. The foot is of that kind equally adapt¬
ed for walking and perching, having three toes before and
one behind; the middle toe considerably longer than the
two lateral, which are nearly equal, and the hind toe di¬
rected backwards, and shorter than the lateral. They are
covered above with numerous short scutella, laterally mar¬
gined, beneath flat and papillate. The claws are short,
compressed, moderately arched, rather blunt. The plu¬
mage is various, so that no general character can be derived
from it, farther than that the feathers have the tube very
short, the shaft commonly thick, and are entirely destitute
of the accessory plumule, which is largely developed in
the gallinaceous birds. The wings are for the most part
large, more or less pointed, with the second, third, and fourth
quills longest; but the primary quills vary in form, and pre¬
sent several very curious modifications. The tail is even,
rounded, cuneate, or graduated.”1 The skeleton, Dr Mac-
gillivray further remarks, differs very materially from that
of gallinaceous birds, and the intestine is much longer,
the difference, however, in the other Gallinse being made
up by the great development of the caeca, which in pigeons
are merely rudimentary, that is, extremely small, and secret¬
ing only a mucous fluid. We may add the following im¬
portant character, that the hind toe is articulated on the
same plane with the three anterior ones, instead of being
placed higher up, as in the rest of the gallinaceous order.
Although their legs are short, pigeons walk with great ease
and considerable celerity.
These beautiful birds abound in most of the temperate
and tropical regions of the earth, being, however, both
more numerous and more gorgeously attired in the latter,
where they often rival even the tribe of parrots in the
splendour of their plumage, and literally realize the de¬
lightful expressions of the Holy Scripture—“as the wings
of a dove covered with silver, and her feathers with yel¬
low gold.” The old genus Columba is one of the most
cosmopolite with which we are acquainted, being found
diffused alike through Europe, Asia, Africa, and America ;
and even in the forests of the far-distant Southern Ocean,
their radiant plumage
Fills many a dark obscure recess
With lustre of a saintly show.
In no tribe of the feathered race do we meet with more
to delight the eye by its richness and diversity. “ In some,”
says Mr Selby, “ the plumage shines with a dazzling and
metallic gloss, varying in tint with every motion of the
bird, and which vies in lustre with that of the diminutive
and sparkling humming-birds. In texture the plumage is
generally close and adpressed, and the feathers feel hard
and firm to the touch, from the thickness and strength of
the rachis. or shaft. Upon the neck they assume a variety Itasores.
of forms, in some species being rounded and stiff, and dis-
posed in a scale-like fashion ; in others of an open, dis¬
united texture, or with the tips divided and curiously
notched ; and in the hackled and Nicobar pigeons they are
long, acuminate, and laciniated, like those of the domestic
cock ; and, we may add, that in nearly all they are so con¬
stituted as to reflect prismatic colours when held at various
angles to the light.”2
The vast variety of species and numerous sub-genera of
which the Columbidce are now composed render a full ex¬
position impossible. We must, indeed, rest satisfied with
a very brief notice of a few remarkable kinds. We have
four species of pigeon in Britain, and we are not aware
that more occur in Europe.
ls£, The ring-dove, cushat, or wood-pigeon, C. palum-
bus, Linn., a large, beautiful, and well known species, very
generally distributed over the more or less wooded dis¬
tricts of our island, but avoiding bare and rocky regions.
It breeds on trees in single isolated pairs, but is often gre¬
garious to a great extent in winter. It is a wary bird, of
powerful wing, not easily approached even in the forest
glades, yet not seldom building in groves or groups of
trees in the immediate vicinity of human dwellings; and
we have seen a gentle pair sitting for hours upon the
branches of an almost leafless sycamore in early spring,
preening their feathers in assured confidence, within a few
footsteps of our cottage door. Indeed we have often no¬
ticed, as others must have also done, what may be called
the discrimination of birds, in relation both to persons and
to places. We allude to what we should call their ac¬
commodating rather than their natural instincts,—how, for
example, after a season or two of observation or experi¬
ence, they will congregate around a spot where no rude
hands disturb their mossy dwellings, nor climbing urchin
shows his visage grim among the umbrageous boughs.
This is beautifully exemplified (and on a greater scale
than in a cottage garden) among the gladsome palace-
groves of the Tuileries and Luxembourg in Paris, where,
notwithstanding the gay and giddy stream of human life
which flows for ever through those royal walks, the wood-
pigeon builds her frequent nest, though far her flight to
rural solitudes for every offering which she brings her
much-loved young. This species generally breeds twice
a year.
2c%, The rock or wild pigeon, C. livia, Briss., a smaller
species, totally regardless of all the leafy glories of the
forest, but loving devotedly the craggy cliffs and hollow
caverns by the ocean-shore. This species is believed to
be the original of our common domestic breed, of which
the numerous and extraordinary, yet, with proper care,
permanent varieties, are among the more puzzling pro¬
blems of Ornithology.3
3rf, The smaller wood-pigeon, erroneously called the
stock-dove, C. anas, Linn. This bird is much more li¬
mited in its distribution than either of the preceding, being
as yet unknown in Scotland, and frequenting chiefly the
southern and midland counties of the sister kingdom. It
is almost entirely confined to wooded districts, its habits,
according to Mr Selby, being strictly arboreal; yet Mr
Salmon records it as abounding in heaths and rabbit war¬
rens in the neighbourhood of Thetford, to which it an¬
nually resorts for the purpose of nidification.4
ith. The turtle-dove, C. turtur, Linn., a small and delicate
species, unknown in “ bleak Caledonia,” but a constant
summer bird in Kent, and other counties of the south of
1 British Birds, vol. i. p. 249. * Naturalist's Library, vol. v. p. 88.
J For the domestic breeds, see Temminck’s Hist. Nat. Gin. des Pigeons et des GaUinacics, MM. liortard and Corbie’s Monographic
des Pigeons Domestiques, the Pigeon Fancier, and other works.
4 Magazine of Natural History, vol. ix. p. 520.
VOL. XVI. 5 H
794 ORNITHOLOGY.
Rasores. England, where it breeds in woods. It is sometimes seen
'“-'v'"—-' towards the end of summer in little flocks of a score or
two together. This bird leaves Britain in the course of
the autumn, and does not to our knowledge remain in any
part of Europe throughout the winter season.
Of the exotic pigeons one of the most remarkable is the
goura, or great-crowned nigeon, Lophyrus coronatus, Vieil-
lot. (See Plate XV., figure 1.) It is by far the largest
of the tribe, measuring nearly two feet and a half in length.
It inhabits Java, New Guinea, and most of the Molucca
Islands, and is occasionally brought alive to Europe, where,
however, the climate is too moist and variable to admit of
its ever attaining to a good old age.
One of the most magnificent of the tribe is the hackled
pigeon ((7. Francice), distinguished by the irregular form
of the feathers on the head, neck, and breast, which are
long and narrow, and terminate in a shining appendage
resembling in consistence, though not in colour, the tips
of the wing-feathers of the waxen chatterer. It inhabits
Southern Africa and the island of Madagascar. Another
singular species is the parabolic pigeon ((7. arquatrix),
discovered by Vaillant, and figured in his splendid work on
the birds of Africa. The flight of this bird is very re¬
markable. It never proceeds in a straight line, but on
commencing its route describes a parabola, and continues
forming a series of arcs during the whole time, frequently
uttering a peculiar cry. It inhabits the forests of Anteni-
quois, and is so bold as to persecute the white eagle.
The carunculated pigeon (C. carunculata, Temm.) is
placed by Mr Selby with the ground doves, genus Geo-
philus of that author. This little group is not only dis¬
tinguished by a greater length of tarsus and other organic
characters, but by a striking departure from the general
economy of the Columbidse, the number of eggs not being
confined to two, but extending to eight or ten. Incuba¬
tion also takes place upon the ground ; and the young, like
those of the true gallinaceous birds, are produced from the
egg in so matured a state as to follow their parents from
the first. They live entirely on the ground, but roost at
night on trees and bushes. The carunculated species just
referred to is observed by M. Temminck to show a strong
resemblance to the gallinaceous tribes both in aspect and
manners. The fleshy scarlet lobes around the eyes and
throat correspond, it is supposed, to the wattles of domes¬
tic poultry. It builds its nest in slight depressions on the
ground, of twigs and stems of grass, and lays from six to
eight eggs, which are sat upon alternately by male and fe¬
male. The young are able to follow their parents as soon
as hatched, and are led about by them, and brooded over
with extended wings. Their first food consists chiefly of
the larvae of ants and other insects, and when greater
strength is gained, of seeds and berries. The beautiful
Nicobar pigeon ((7. Nicobarica, Lath.) has been likewise
referred to the same genus. Though of a heavy form and
ungraceful carriage, it yields to none of its tribe in splen¬
dour of plumage, of which the prevailing hue is rich metal¬
lic green, with various reflections of copper and purplish
red. It is generally described as residing habitually upon
the ground, where it runs with great celerity,—perching
on the lower limbs of trees at night. Yet Mr Bennet al¬
ludes to this species as usually seen perched on trees, even
on the loftiest branches,—where, he adds, it rears its
young “ similar to all the pigeon tribe.”1 It inhabits Ni¬
cobar, Java, Sumatra, and other eastern islands.
We have already alluded briefly to the turtle-dove. The
most common kind in cages, in this country, is not the
English species, but that called the laughing or collared
turtle, T. risorius (torquatus, Briss.). It is bred with great
facility in Britain, but the winter cold would probably be Gralla.
too much for it out of doors; and it seems, moreover, to tores.
want that instinct of local attachment which induces our^^Y™^
common pigeon to continue in the place where it was born
and bred. In its natural state this species occurs in vari¬
ous parts of Africa.
Somewhat resembling the turtles in the length of its
wings and tail is the famous passenger pigeon of America,
of whose rapid flight and countless congregations we have
such graphic accounts in the delightful pages of Wilson
and Audubon. This bird is the Columba migratoria of
authors, and is placed by Mr Swainson in his genus Ecto-
pistes. It may be presumed to be sufficiently common in
North America, from a fact, or rather calculation, given by
Alexander Wilson. He estimated a flock which continued
to pass above him for the greater part of a day, to have
been a mile in breadth, and 240 miles in length, and to
have contained (three birds being assigned to every square
yard), at least two thousand two hundred and thirty million
two hundred and seventy-two thousand pigeons ! Mr Audu¬
bon confirms his predecessor’s account by a narrative still
more extraordinary ; and adds, that as every pigeon con¬
sumes fully half a pint of food (chiefly mast), the quantity
necessary for supplying his flock must have amounted to
eight millions seven hundred and twelve thousand bushels
per day !2 We wonder, after this, that any farmer should
ever dare to migrate to America.
The genus Vinago of Cuvier consists of pigeons with
strong solid compressed bills, short tarsi, and broad distinct¬
ly bordered feet. They inhabit forests, live on fruits and
berries, and occur in the tropical regions of the old world.
Their prevailing colours are various shades of green and
yellow, contrasted with purple or reddish brown. The
Columba aromatica of Latham is a Vinago. (See Plate
XV., figure 3.)
We shall now close our brief sketch of the gallinaceous
order.
Order V.—GRALLATORES.3
SHORE-BIRDS, OR WADERS.
The characters of this order, so far as they can be for¬
mally stated, are as follows. The shape of the bill is in¬
determinate. The legs are long and slender, and more
or less bare above the tarsus. There are three anterior
toes, more or less united at their bases by a membrane or
rudimentary web. The hind toe is wanting in one division
of the order.
Among the extensive and varied tribes which constitute
the grallatorial order, the bill, as we have just intimated,
is formed after so many different models (though always
in beautiful accordance with the habits of each particular
group), that its structure cannot be generalised, or senten-
tiously expressed. The structure of the feet and legs is
also admirably adapted for the exercise of their peculiar
habits of life, being so lengthened as to admit of the species
wrading to a considerable depth without wetting their fea¬
thers, and of running with great rapidity along the mar¬
gins of lakes and rivers, or the sea’s more sandy shores.
It is to this length of limb that they owe the name of Oral-
latores, as if they went on stilts. The French title of
echassiers is also derived from the resemblance which the
legs bear to the echasses, so frequently used by the natives
of the landes of Aquitaine. A too exclusive attention,
however, to this character seems to have misled some mo¬
dern naturalists, who have included several very remotely
* Wanderings, &c. vol. ii. p. 64.
* See his interesting account of the passenger-pigeon, in Ornithological Biography, vol. i. p. 319-26.
*
3 GhallvE, Lina.
ORNITHOLOGY.
Gralla- allied genera under one order. Indeed a considerable di-
tores. versity of opinion exists as to what ought to form the com-
ponent parts of the grallatorial order. By means of the
flamingoes and others, they are closely allied to the nata¬
torial or web-footed birds,—while a dismemberment, partly
from the latter order, partly from the original Grallae, has
been advocated in favour of the Grebes, Phalaropes, &c. as
a separate and intermediate division under the name ofPiw-
natipedes.
The Grallatores seek their food in marshes, and along
the banks of rivers and the shores of lakes. They also
frequent the sea-coasts, where many kinds, especially in
autumn, congregate in numerous flocks. But although the
habits of the majority are littoral, many haunt habitually
the arid deserts, the green and sedgy meadows, or the up¬
land moors. Who knows not the plover’s wailing cry among
the desolate mountains,—the curlew’s shrilly voice, “ a
viewless spirit of the elements,” far up amid those scenes
of pastoral melancholy, where the lonely rocks seem some¬
times silent as gigantic spectres, and anon resound with
varied and innumerable bleatings, as some gray-haired
shepherd, “ loving the land which once he gloried in,” his
dog his sole companion, gently leads along the fleecy
people ? In truth we often seek in vain to generalise the
habits of the feathered race. In our systems we can give
them both a local habitation and a name, but in nature
they have wings, and like the wind travel where’er they
please, and no philosopher either from field or college can
say from whence they come, or whither they are going.
The food of our present order varies according to the form
of the mandibles. Such species as are provided with a
long, hard, sharp-pointed bill, as in the heron tribe, live on
fish and reptiles; the species in which that organ is softer
and more flexible feed on worms and insects, whilst a more
limited number, for example the land-rail (Rallus crex).
are partly granivorous, and consequently affect a drier soil.
The jacana (P. chavaria) is said to feed on grass. The
habits of many species are migratory ; and it has been re¬
marked, that the young and old birds always perform their
journeys in separate assemblages. A great proportion of
the order congregates in the southern countries of Europe
before the arrival of winter,—a season which many of them
are supposed to spend in Africa. A few are winter birds
of passage, that is to say, the temperate countries of Eu¬
rope form their southern boundary, and during the breed¬
ing season they seek the colder regions of the north. The
woodcock breeds in Scandinavia, where the observant
traveller may frequently see it, not as with us the har¬
binger of storms, but darting across his dappled dusty
path “in the leafy month of June.” However, in several
parts of the north of Scotland, woodcocks are now very
frequent throughout the summer season, rearing their ab¬
surd-looking, long-billed progeny along the banks of the
Dee, or in the well-wooded valleys of the eastern parts of
Ross-shire. The smaller species, such as rails and sand¬
pipers, run with great celerity ; the paces of the larger
kinds are more measured and sedate. During flight the
legs in many kinds are extended on a line with the body.
In some entire genera, and in certain species of other ge¬
nera, the moult is double, that is, takes place both in spring
and autumn, and occasions a great disparity between the
plumage of the winter and summer seasons. The attire of
the sexes is for the most part not very dissimilar. An ap¬
parent non-conformity may be said to exist in a few of the
species, between the structure of the feet and the func¬
tions of these organs, which would disenable us from indi¬
cating, a priori, the habits of such species merely from an
inspection of their organization. For example, the water-
hen (Fulica chloropus) is an excellent and constant swim-
795
mer, and much more strictly aquatic than the avocet or Gralia-
flamingo, yet its toes are long and deeply divided, and fur- tores,
nished with an extremely narrow rudimentary web, while
the last-named species, though semi-palmated, never volun¬
tarily venture beyond their depth.
The migratory movements of the Grallatores are proba¬
bly determined in a great measure by the necessity of ob¬
taining suitable nourishment. The rigour of a Scandina¬
vian winter, which entirely congeals the surface of the
moist forest-lands of Sweden and the swamps of Lapland,
drives the woodcock to seek its food in the comparatively
milder copses of Britain and Ireland; while the landrail,
which is with us a native or summer bird, migrates in au¬
tumn to more southern regions, where it is probably known
only as a winter visitant. Analogous facts have been ob¬
served in various parts of the world. Thus in regard to
North America, the Grallatores, feeding by preference in
marshy and undrained lands, frequent the Saskatchewan
prairies only in the spring; and as soon as the warm and
comparatively early summer has rendered the soil too dry
for their accustomed purposes, they retire to their breed¬
ing places within the arctic circle. “ There,” says Dr
Richardson, “ the frozen sub-soil, acted upon by the rays
of a sun constantly above the horizon, keeps the surface
wet and spongy during the two short summer months,
which suffice these birds for rearing their young. This
office performed, they depart to the southward, and halt
in the autumn on the flat shores of Hudson’s Bay, which,
owing to the accumulations of ice drifted into the bay
from the northward, are kept in a low temperature all the
summer, and are not thawed to the same extent with the
more interior arctic lands before the beginning of autumn.
They quit their haunts on the setting in of the September
frosts, and passing along the coasts of the United States,
retire within the tropics in the winter.”1
The majority of the Grallatores are swift and powerful
flyers, being provided with rather long, acutely-pointed
wings; but to these attributes we have a few strong and
singular exceptions in such birds as the ostriches and cas-
suaries, which have scarcely any wings, and cannot fly
at all.
Baron Cuvier .has established the five following tribes
among the Grallatores, viz. Brevipennes, Pressiros-
TRES, CULTRIROSTRES, LoNGIROSTRES, MacRODACTYLES.
Tribe 1st.—Brevipennes.
The small number of gigantic birds which constitute our
present tribe differ greatly, not only from the other Gral-
1m, but from all known species; ls£, in the extreme short¬
ness of their wings, which, though no doubt useful in their
way, are altogether destitute of power to raise their bo¬
dies from the earth ; and, 2dly, in the sternum or breast¬
bone being destitute of a ridge or keel. The muscles of
the breast are also extremely slight and thin. “ II pa-
rait,” says Cuvier, “ que les forces musculaires, dont la
nature dispose, auraient ete insuffisantes pour mouvoir des
ailes aussi etendues que la masse de ces oiseaux les aurait
exigees pour se soutenir en 1’air.”2 This is not expressed
according to the English mode of thought and feeling, but
it may pass for what it means. To make amends, how¬
ever, for this supposed incapacity of nature, we find that
the muscles of the legs have received an enormous deve¬
lopment, which enables the species to run almost with the
rapidity of race-horses, and to be thus independent of aerial
flight. In some of our modern systems these birds form
the family Struthionida, and are placed in the gallinaceous
order.
In the genus Struthio, which contains the true ostrich,
1 Fauna Boreuli-Americana, part ii. Introduc. p. xix.
* Rigne Animal, tom. i. p. 494.
ORNITHOLOGY.
796
Gralla- the wings are adorned by loose flexible plumes, and though
v t0reS‘ t sma^ extent, are still sufficient to afford effectual aid in
running. The toes, at least externally, are only two in
number.
The only known species is the ostrich commonly so
called [Struthio camelus, Linn., Plate XV., figure 5),
a bird which forms one of the most remarkable cha¬
racters in the Ornithology of Africa, to which country it
is believed to be almost entirely peculiar. It presents the
tallest, and in many other respects the most singular ex¬
ample of the feathered race. It measures from six to seven
feet in height; its head is very flat, extremely small, and
almost naked; as is also the upper portion of the neck,
which is very slender, and nearly three feet long. The
general plumage of the male is black, varied with white
and gray, the fine full feathers of the wings and tail being
either black or white. Our engraving will best explain its
outer aspect. The female is brown or ashy-gray upon the
body ; the young are likewise of the latter hue, and have
at first the head and neck densely clothed. The ostrich
inhabits the deserts of Arabia, and a vast extent of open
sandy plains in Africa, from Barbary to the Cape of Good
Hope. Being consequently native to one of the most an¬
ciently peopled countries of the earth, it has excited the
attention of mankind from the remotest periods of anti¬
quity. It is frequently mentioned in the book of Job, and
in other portions of the Old Testament. Herodotus among
the early Greek writers was well acquainted with its his¬
tory and appearance, and in after times it was not only
frequently exhibited by the Romans in their games, but
the brains of hundreds at a time were scooped out as a
choice delicacy for the luxurious table of Heliogabalus.
The ostrich is gregarious and polygamous. The female
deposits her eggs, weighing nearly three pounds, in the
sand. These, in equatorial regions, are hatched by the
heat of the sun, with little or no attention on the part of
the mother; but on either side of the tropics are said to
be incubated in the usual fashion. This gigantic bird
feeds naturally on seeds and herbage; but its taste is so
obtuse, and its swallowing propensities so universal, that
there are few substances, however incongruous or indi¬
gestible, which it declines. It is said by some to be the
swiftest of all running creatures, and Adanson seemed sa¬
tisfied that those he saw at Podor, a French factory on
the southern side of the Niger, would have distanced the
fleetest race-horse that was ever bred in England. There
is no doubt that the peculiar construction of birds, in rela¬
tion both to the respiratory and circulating systems, is
such as to admit of their keeping in much better wind
than is possible for any quadruped; and when, as in the
case of the species in question, great muscular power is
superadded, the natural result must be prodigious swift¬
ness.
The nandou or American ostrich now forms the genus
Rhea, of which it is the sole species, characterized by
having three toes, the wings terminated by a little spur,
and the tail wanting. It is not above half the size of an
ostrich, of a whitish-gray, lead coloured on the back, the
head covered with close-set blackish feathers, almost as
stiff as hair. This bird inhabits the pampas of Paraguay,
in troops of a few dozen, and extends almost as far south
as the Straits of Magellan. It is a gentle, innocent crea¬
ture, of herbivorous habits, easily tamed if taken young,
and laying an enormous number of eggs. As several fe¬
males sometimes sit together, it is probable that the num¬
ber of seventy or eighty eggs, alleged to have been found
in a single nest, are not the produce of one bird, but ra¬
ther the result of a kind of joint-stock incubating com- Gralla
pany. Its flesh is eaten by the Indians, and its feathers, tores,
from their peculiar structure, make very good hair-brooms. ^ r
In the genus Casuarius, the wings are still shorter than
in either of the preceding, and seem of no use even in rim¬
ing. They consist, in fact, merely of a few hard, stiff,
sharp-pointed, barbless shafts. The head is surmounted by
a bony crest, and the bill is laterally compressed (see Plate
XV., figure 2) 1 he sole species is the common cas-
suary ((7. galeatus, Vieil.), a bird first imported to Europe
by the Dutch in 1597. Like the rest of its tribe, it is ex¬
tremely large, measuring about five feet in height. Its plu¬
mage is very peculiar, being long, narrow, decomposed, and
hair-like, and the plumule, or short inner feather (which
exists in almost all birds except pigeons), is of nearly equal
length with the outer portion, so that an appearance is pro¬
duced of there being a double feather to each quill. The
prevailing colour is blackish. The cassuary inhabits the
Moluccas, Ceram, Bourou, and especially New Guinea.
These birds usually live in pairs, and the female lays three
eggs, of a greenish hue, and punctured surface. They run
with great swiftness, and defend themselves from dogs and
other animals, by kicking like horses. The inner claw is
very large and strong.
Ihe emeu, or New Holland cassuary, forms the genu*
Dromecius of Vieillot. The bill is much depressed, the
head feathered, without osseous crest, the throat naked.
The claws are of nearly equal length. The general co¬
lour is dull brown mottled with dingy gray ; the young
are striped with black. Jhe plumule is equally extended
as in the preceding species. (See Plate XV., figure
6.) Next to the ostrich, the emeu is the tallest bird we
know. Its flesh affords admirable eating,—“ truly exqui¬
site,” says Peron, “ and intermediate, as it were, between
that of a turkey and a sucking pig.” Mr Cunningham com¬
pares it to beef, which is also an excellent thing. This
bird is widely spread over the southern parts of New Hol¬
land and the adjacent islands. It is tamed with great ease,
and of late years has frequently bred in Britain.
In the genus Apteryx of Shaw,1 the bill is slender and
of considerable length, the legs short, with three anterior
toes, and a posterior spur to represent the hallux. The
wings are rudimentary. The only known species was ob¬
tained a number of years ago on the south coast of New
Zealand, by Captain Barclay of the ship Providence, and
was presented by him to Dr Shaw. It equals a goose in
size. This bird, of which the history was long obscure,
was several years ago received in London.2
The last ornithological form to which we shall allude
under our present tribe is the mysterious Dodo (Didus
ineptus), a bird which some regard as an extinct, others
as a fabulous, species. In neither supposition would it fall
within the limits of our present treatise, which seeks to
present a sketch, however imperfect, of living nature ; and
we shall therefore not occupy our narrow limits by a sub¬
ject of “ doubtful disputation,” on which we cannot our¬
selves throw any light, having neither been in the Mauri¬
tius, nor studied the works of Clusius and the early Dutch
navigators.3
Tribe 2d.—Pressirostres.
This tribe consists of the bustards, plovers, and other
species which, like all the preceding, either want the hind
toe, or have it so short as not to touch the ground. The
bill is of medium size, but of sufficient strength to pierce
the ground in search of worms and insects, the feebler
1. Naturalist's Miscellany, pi. 1057-8. * Yarrell, in Zool. Trans, i. pi. 10.
Whoever desires it, will find a summarv view of authorities regarding the dodo, by Mr T. S. Duncan, in the Zoological Journal,
No* xn. p* 554
ORNITHOLOGY.
3ralla- species often frequenting moist meadows and tilled ground
tores. jn search of food. The stronger billed kinds feed also on
v grain, &c.
The genus Otis, Linn., possesses the bulky massive
form of the gallinaceous order, and the upper mandible is
somewhat arched ; but the bare space above the tarsus,
the want of the hind toe, and the general structure both
outward and internal, connect them more closely with the
Grallatores. The great bustard ( Otis tarda) is the largest
of the European birds, and one of the rarest of our Bri¬
tish species. It sometimes weighs nearly thirty pounds,
and is now believed to be confined exclusively to Nor¬
folk. We have another species called the little bustard
(O. tetrax), also very rare. Many fine species occur in
Africa and the East. (See Plate XV., figure 4.)
The genus Charadrhjs, Linn., likewise wants the hind
toe. The bill is compressed, and somewhat enlarged to¬
wards the tip. It contains the various species commonly
called plovers, and may be divided into two. (Edic-
nemus, Temm., in which there is an inflation towards the
terminal portion of the bill in both mandibles, and the
nasal fossae are less prolonged. These are the larger spe¬
cies, of which the great plover (CEdic. crepitans), or thick-
knee’d bustard of our English writers, affords a good ex¬
ample. It is a migratory bird, of rare occurrence, confin¬
ed chiefly to our southern and eastern counties, which it
visits about the end of April. It is as yet unknown in
Scotland. This bird is a nocturnal feeder, and preys
principally upon insects. 2d, Charadrius, in which the
bill is inflated only above, and two thirds of its length on
each side are occupied by the nasal fossae, which renders
the organ comparatively feeble. The species are grega¬
rious, and, like the gulls, beat the moist soil with their pat¬
tering feet, to terrify the incumbent worms. “ The mem¬
bers of this genus,” says Mr Selby, “ are numerous, and
possess a very wide geographical distribution, species be¬
ing found in every quarter of the globe. Some of them,
during the greater part of the year, are the inhabitants
of open districts and of wild wastes, frequenting both dry
and moist situations, and only retire towards the coast
during the severity of winter. Others are constantly re¬
sident upon the banks or about the mouths of rivers,
particularly where the shore consists of small gravel or
shingle ; such are most of the smaller species. Except
during the season of reproduction, most of them live in
societies, larger or of less amount, according to the spe¬
cies. Their migrations are also performed in numerous
bodies, the old birds usually congregating by themselves,
and preceding the young in their periodical flights. They
run with much swiftness, as might be expected from the
simple structure of their feet; and from the shape and
dimensions of their wings, they fly with strength and ra¬
pidity. They live on worms, insects, and their larvae,
&c. and most of them are nocturnal feeders, as indicated
by their large and prominent eyes. They are'subject to
the double moult, and the change at the different seasons
is in many species very marked. Their nest is on the
ground, and their eggs are always four in number. The
flesh of the larger species, and such as inhabit the plains
of the interior, is delicate and high flavoured; but in
many of the smaller kinds, that live on the coast, or on the
banks of rivers, it is not so palatable.”1 The beautilul gold¬
en plover (Char, pluvialis) is the best-known example to
which we need refer. The prevailing plumage of the up¬
per parts is brownish, or very deep hair-brown, each fea¬
ther being tipped and otherwise spotted with yellow. The
chin and throat are white, the fore part of the neck, breast,
&c. ash-gray, streaked with darker gray, and tinged w ith
797
yellow. During the breeding season, the cheeks, chin, Grafla-
throat, fore part of the neck, centre of the breast, and ab- tores.
domen, are of an intense black, and in this state it has been
erroneously regarded as a distinct species. To the same
group belong the dotterel (Char, morinellus), the ring-
plover (Char, hiaticula), and many other kinds, exotic and
indigenous. Several of the foreign plovers have sharp spurs
upon the anterior margin of the wing, as well as fleshy flat¬
tened lobes upon the head.
The genus Vanellus of Bechstein differs but little
from the plovers, except in the possession of a small hind
toe. We here place our elegant crested lapwing, or green
plover (V. cristatus), commonly called in Scotland the
pees-weep. The gray plover (C. squatarola, Linn.) forms
the genus Squatarola of Cuvier, distinguished, like the
preceding, by a very small hind toe; but the bill is more
bulged beneath towards the extremity, and the nasal fossae
are short.
Ihe genus HjEmatopus, Linn., commonly known by
the name of oyster-catcher, has the bill rather long,
straight, pointed, compressed. The hind toe is wanting.
Our British species (H. ostralegus), breeds along the
rocky ledges of friths and bays, and is said to open oyster
and other shells by means of its bill. We could never
detect it in the performance of this feat, and we rather
doubt the fact, till assured of it by a credible eye-witness.
Oysters are by no means easily opened, even with a knife.
Several nearly allied species have been discovered of late
years in Asia, Africa, and America. One is found in New
Holland.
In the genus Cursorius the bill is slender, rounded,
somewhat arched, without furrow. The legs are long,
the hind toe wanting. Five or six species occur in Afri¬
ca and Asia, and of these, C. Isabellinus, Meyer, some¬
times accidentally appears in the south of Europe. A few
specimens have been even seen in Britain.
The genus Microdactylus, Geoffroy (Dicholophus,
Illiger), has the bill stro-nger and more curved, with a
wider gape. The legs are of great length, the toes slight¬
ly palmated at the base, the hinder one very small, and
not reaching to the ground. The only known species is
a singular South American bird called the ^ariama or
crested screamer (AT. cristatus, Geoff.,—Palamedea cristata,
Gm.). It is larger than a heron, the plumage reddish
gray waved with brown, the forehead ornamented by a
crest of recurved slender feathers. (See Plate XV., figure
3.) The plumes of the head and neck are also de¬
composed. The ^ariama inhabits elevated plains in Brazil
and Paraguay, where it feeds on serpents and other rep¬
tiles, as well as on insects and their larvae. It flies feebly,
owing to the shortness of its wings, but runs with consi¬
derable swiftness. When pursued, it is apt to conceal it¬
self by squatting in some cunning corner. Its flesh af¬
fords excellent food, and it is sometimes reared by the
Spaniards in a domestic state. The female lays only two
eggs.
Tribe 3d.—Cultrirostres.
In this tribe the bill is usually strong, of considerable
length, •straight, cutting, sharp-pointed. In many spe¬
cies the trachea undergoes a peculiar duplication in the
male sex. The caeca are short. Cuvier divides the tribe
into three lesser groups,—the cranes, the herons, and the
storks.
The cranes properly so called (genus Grus) have the
bill longer than the head. The most noted species is the
common crane of Europe (G. cinered), a migratory bird,
1 British Ornithology, vol. ii p. 230.
798
ORNITHOLOGY.
Grail a-
tores.
»
well known in Britain during former ages, and still breed¬
ing in the northern and eastern countries of Europe.
Part loosely wing the region, part more wise,
In common, ranged in figure, wing their way,
Intelligent of seasons, and set forth
Their airy caravan high over seas
Flying, and over lands with mutual wing,
Easing their flight; so steers the prudent crane
Her annual voyage, borne on winds, the air
Flotes as they pass, fann’d with unnumber’d plumes.
In our own island the appearance of this bird now-a-days
may be regarded as accidental. It is a very large species,
measuring above four feet in height. The prevailing plu¬
mage is of a deep ash-gray, the face and throat black, the
rump and tertial feathers very long, loose, flowing, decom¬
posed.
The whooping crane of the new world (Grus Americana)
has a pure white plumage, with black primaries. (See
Plate XVI., figure 1.) This stately bird, when standing
erect, measures nearly five feet in height, and is the largest
of the feathered inhabitants of the United States (bating
Lynch law and the use of tar). It is widely spread over
North America, from which it usually retires in winter to
the West Indies, although a few hybernate in the warmer
parts of the Union, or even linger throughout that inclement
season in the swamps of New Jersey, near Cape May. When
wounded this crane defends itself with vigour, and has been
known to strike its bill through a person’s hand with the
strength and sharpness of a dagger. It builds upon the
ground, and sometimes congregates in vast flocks, the cla¬
mour of which is more easily imagined than described. It
was heard with astonishment by Captain Amidas, the first
Englishman wrho ever landed in North America, when he
visited the island of Wokokou, off the coast of North Caro¬
lina. “ Such a flock of cranes,” says he, “ (the most part
white) arose under us, with such a cry, redoubled by many
echoes, as if an army of men had shouted all together.” The
bustle of their great migrations, and their passage, as of
mighty armies, fill the mind with wonder. Mr Nuttall, while
descending the Mississippi in December, observed the
whooping cranes in countless thousands, as if assembled
from all the swamps and marshes of the north and west,—as
if the entire continent was giving up its quota to swell the
mighty host. Their flight took place during the night, down
the great aerial valley of the river, whose southern course
conducted them every instant towards more genial climes.
“ The clangour of these numerous legions passing along,
high in the air, seemed almost deafening; the confused cry
of the vast army continued with the lengthened procession,
and as the vocal call continued nearly throughout the whole
night without intermission, some idea may be formed of the
immensity of the numbers now assembled on their annual
journey to the regions of the south.” Several other fine
cranes inhabit America, as well as Africa, and the East.
The beautiful Balearic crane (A. pavonina, Linn.) be¬
longs to the genus Anthropoides of Vieillot. (Plate
XV., figure 9.) It occurs in Africa and in some of
the Mediterranean islands. The Demoiselle (A. virgo), re¬
markable for its peculiar and what may be almost called
affected gestures, is nearly allied. It is likewise of African
origin, as is also the Stanley crane (Anth. Stanleyanus),
belonging to the same restricted group, and more recently
described by Mr Vigors.1
In the genus Psophia, which contains the South Ame¬
rican trumpeters, so called from their peculiar voices, the
bill is less elongated, and the head and neck clothed with
short down-like feathers. P. crepitans is easily domesti¬
cated, and becomes much attached both to places and to
persons. It is even said to act as a guard or conductor to
domestic poultry. It flies indifferently, but runs with
great swiftness. (Plate XV., figure 7.) There are only two
species.
The genus Aramus of Vieillot is constituted by the
courliri of Buffon, or scolopaceous heron, of which the
bill, slenderer and more deeply cleft, is inflated towards the
tip. The toes, all rather long, have no palmation. The
only known species (Ar. scolopaceus) inhabits Cayenne,
Brazil, and Paraguay, spreading into Florida and other
southern parts of the Union. It is a shy and solitary bird,
dwelling in pairs, and crying in a loud sonorous voice, con¬
tinually by night and day, carau, carau. It runs swiftly,
and builds upon the ground, but often lights on trees. It
is not fond of wading.
A still more singular bird, classed by Linnaeus with the
herons (Ardea helias), is the caurale snipeof Latham, which
now forms the genus Eurypyga of Illiger. “ C’est un
oiseau,” says Cuvier, “ de la taille d’un perdrix, a qui son
cou long et menu, sa queue large et etalee, et ses jambes
peu elevees, donnent un air tout different de celui des au-
tres oiseaux de rivage. Son plumage, nuance par bandes et
par lignes, de brun, de fauve, de roux, de gris, et de noir,
rappelle les plus beaux papillons de nuit. On le trouve
le long des rivieres de la Guiane.”2
The second group of the cultrirostral tribe, composed
chiefly of the herons, is more strictly carnivorous than the
preceding.
The first genus is Cancroma, Linn., composed likewise
of a single species called the boat-bill—C. cochlearia. The
bill is comparatively short, but very broad, boat-shaped,
with the upper mandible overlapping the lower. It inha¬
bits the moist hot regions of South America, frequenting
the banks of rivers, preying on fish, and building its nest
on low bushes. It is of an irritable passionate nature, and
when enraged raises the feathers of its crest, so as to al¬
ter its usual aspect surprisingly. As it scarcely ever fre¬
quents the sea-coast, its alleged propensity to feed on crabs
is probably ill founded. The boat-bill varies considerably
in plumage, but it does not appear that there is more than
one authentic species.
The genus Ardea, Cuv., contains the true herons. The
bill is as long or longer than the head, strong, hard, straight,
compressed, sharp-pointed; the masticating edges sharp,
the culmen rounded. The eyes are encircled by a bare
skin, which extends to the base of the bill. The herons
form a considerable group, almost all of which, according
at least to our particular taste, are remarkable for beauty
of plumage. They seldom, however, exhibit a preponde¬
rance of the brighter or more gaudy colours, such as red
or yellow, being chiefly distinguished by a delicate har¬
monious blending of pearly-gray and brown, black, white,
pale blue, slate-colour, and other sober hues. The forms
of the plumage are graceful and elegant. Long pendent
plumes frequently ornament the hinder portions of the
head and neck, the lower part of the breast, and the dorsal
region. The body is usually small and light, the limbs long
and delicate, the toes narrow and taper, and the neck thin,
pliant, and extremely graceful. Many species formerly re¬
garded as true herons are now excluded from the modern
genus. The habits of the heron tribe are fully as aquatic as
those of the majority of Grallatores. They usually walk,
or rather wade, along the shores of lakes, rivers, stagnant
marshes, or the land-locked waters of narrow seas, in search
of their natural food, which consists of fish, frogs, several
marine and fresh-water shells, slugs, worms, and various
insects. During flight they extend their legs backwards
instinctively, as if to counterbalance the weight of the an¬
terior extremity, and by a duplication of the neck they
lower the head between the shoulders. In some instances
Gralla-
tores.
1 Zuol. Journal, voL ii. p. 234, pi. viii.
* Rtgne Animal, tom. i. p. 509.
ORNITHOLOGY.
799
la¬
res.
they are gregarious, in others solitary. In the former case
they build in trees,—in the latter, more frequently among
reeds or rushes. Several species afford an excellent
though now much-neglected article of food, and were not
only prized as such in England in the olden time, but were
objects of still higher interest and regard, as affording the
finest display of strength and intrepidity in the practice of
the noble art of falconry. Birds of this genus occur in al¬
most every quarter of the known world. The species
which inhabit high northern latitudes, such as Kamts-
chatka and the shores of Hudson’s Bay, migrate south¬
wards before the arrival of winter. Such as breed in warm
or temperate climates are more stationary.
Our common or long-necked heron (Ardea major et
cinerea, Linn.) affords a familiar example of the genus.
“ Yon Cassius hath a lean and hungry look,” yet when ex¬
amined close at hand he is an elegant and beautifully plu-
maged species. The heron usually builds on the tops of
lofty and umbrageous trees, yet in an island of Loch Conn
we have seen its nest on pollards not more than ten feet
high; and we lately noticed a large heronry among the
precipitous cliffs which overhang the sea about a mile out¬
side the entrance to the Cromarty Frith, upon the northern
shore. We have several other British herons, the majo¬
rity of which, however, must be regarded rather as strag¬
glers or accidental visitors, than as truly indigenous spe¬
cies. The egrets are beautiful crested herons, with the
plumage usually pure white, and in part decomposed, or
very loose and flowing. Of these, the little egret (Ardea
garzetta, Linn.) is common in Turkey, and the east of Eu¬
rope, as well as in many parts of Asia, Africa, and the
islands of the Mediterranean. It is frequently alluded to
in the ancient household books of England; and in the re¬
corded bill of fare of the famous feast of Archbishop Ne¬
ville, in the reign of Henry IV., a thousand are said to
have been served up at a single entertainment. It is in¬
deed extraordinary that a bird now so rare in all the west¬
ern countries of Europe, should have been at any time so
superabundant in Britain; and Dr Fleming has judicious¬
ly suggested that the lapwing, which is so beautifully
crested, may have been indicated under the old title of
egritte. The true egret is not even alluded to as an indi¬
genous bird so far back as the time of Willughby and
Kay. The great egret {Ardea egretta, Temm.) is well known
in Poland and Hungary, but scarcely ever shows itself in
the western parts of the European continent.
The bitterns have the plumage of the neck extremely
full and elongated. Their colours are usually brownish
yellow, radiated or spotted with black. They form the
modern genus Botaurus. The night-herons constitute
another generic group, under the title of Nycticorax.
The term, which signifies night-raven, has been no doubt
applied from the circumstance of their feeding at night,
and remaining in a state of comparative rest and inactivity
throughout the day. The European species {Ardea nycti-
corax, Linn.,—Nyc. Europeus, Stephens) is more common
in America than in the old world. New Holland and Af¬
rica each possesses a species. In form, Sir William Jar-
dine observes, these birds are intermediate to the bitterns
and true herons ; the bill is short, and stronger in propor¬
tion than in either, and the hind head is adorned with
(generally three) narrow feathers in the form of a crest.
They feed by twilight, or in clear nights, and take their
prey by wary watching, like the herons. They are grega¬
rious and build on trees, and are noisy and restless during
the period of incubation. The prevailing colours are ash-
gray and black, or pale fawn and chesnut. The young are
always of a dingier hue than their parents, and have their
feathers marked with whitish spots.
The remaining genera of the Cultrirostres form Cuvier s Gralla-
third group. tores.
In the genus Ciconia, Cuv., the bill is large, without
nasal groove or furrow, the nostrils pierced near the base,
and towards the dorsal portion. The tarsi are reticulated,
and the anterior toes strongly palmated, especially the ex¬
ternal. The mandibles are broad and light, and when
struck together produce a frequent and peculiar snapping
sound, almost the only one they ever utter. The best-
known European species is the white or common stork
(Ciconia alba), a bird somewhat smaller than the crane,
but larger than the heron. The bill and legs are red, the
whole plumage pure white, except the greater coverts,
scapulars, and quill-feathers, which are black. It is a com¬
mon summer bird in several European countries, espe¬
cially Holland, where it is esteemed and protected, and
has become so familiar as to build on the tops of houses
even in the centre of large towns. Its periodical migrations
have long excited the admiration of naturalists by their
extent and regularity. They are indeed beautifully and
wisely directed. “ Yea, the stork in the heavens knoweth
her appointed times ; and the turtle, and the crane, and
the swallow, observe the time of their coming.” The species
appears to have been regarded with peculiar favour in al¬
most all ages and countries. By the ancient Egyptians it
was looked upon with a reverence only inferior to that
which they paid to the mystical ibis ; the same feeling still
preponderates in many parts of Africa and the East; while
nearer home the Dutch are remarkable for their affection¬
ate attachment to this “ household bird.” On the other
hand, the stork itself appears to reciprocate this friendly
feeling. Undismayed by the presence of man, it builds its
capacious nest upon the house-top, or on the summits of
“ ancestral trees” in the immediate vicinity of human dwell¬
ings, or even environed by the busiest haunts of men. “ It
stalks,” says Mr Bennet, “ perfectly at ease along the busy
streets of the most crowded town, and seeks its food on
the banks of rivers, or in fens in close vicinity to his abode.
In numerous parts of Holland its nest, built on the chim¬
ney top, remains undisturbed for many succeeding years,
and the owners constantly return with unerring sagacity
to the well-known spot. The joy which they manifest in
again taking possession of their deserted dwelling, and the ^
attachment which they testify towards their benevolent
hosts, are familiar in the mouths of every one. Their af¬
fection for their young is one of the most remarkable traits
in their character. It is almost superfluous to Repeat the
history of the female which, at the conflagration of Delft,
after repeated and unsuccessful attempts to carry off her
young, chose rather to perish with them in the general
ruin than to leave them to their fate ; and there are many
other and well-authenticated proofs of a similar disposition.
They generally lay from two to four eggs, of a dingy yel¬
lowish white, rather longer than those of the goose, but
not so broad. The incubation lasts for a month, the male
sharing in the task during the absence of the female in
search of food.”1
Of the foreign species, the gigantic stork (C. argala)
is well known in India by the name of adjutant. It mea¬
sures upwards of six feet in height. A nearly allied spe¬
cies is the marabou of Africa {C. marabou, Temm.), very
common in many parts of the interior. According to Ma¬
jor Denham, it is protected by the inhabitants on account
of its services as a scavenger. Its appetite is most vora¬
cious, and nothing comes amiss to its omnivorous propen¬
sities. Mr Smeathman has given a long account of a bird
of this kind which regularly attended at the dining table,
and frequently helped itself to what it liked best. It one
day darted its enormous bill into a boiled fowl, which it
Zoological Gar dent, ii. 21.
ORNITHOLOGY.
800
Gralla- swallowed so instantaneously that all hope of rescue was
tores, in vain. On another occasion it actually bolted a cat.
^ The genus Mycteria, Linn., contains the birds called
jubirus. They scarcely differ from the storks, except in
the bill exhibiting a slight curvature upwards. rl he spe¬
cies, if correctly referred to by naturalists, though few in
number, inhabit widely distant regions,—M. Americana
being native to Cayenne, M. Australis to New Holland,
and M. Senegalensis to Western Africa. Is the latter sy¬
nonymous with Dr Ruppell’s saddle-billed stork, C.ephip-
piorhyncha ?
The genus Scopus is composed of a single species, S.
umbretta, Linn., an African bird, of the manners of which
we are still entirely ignorant. In English books it is called
the tufted umber. Its generic title (Sxoffo;) is Greek for
sentinel. It is probably watchful and solitary.
The genus Anastomus, of which the Pondicherry and
Coromandel herons of Latham serve as examples, is pecu¬
liar to the East Indies. These species present a remark¬
able peculiarity in the structure of the bill. The mandibles
touch each other only at their points and bases, thus leav¬
ing a gaping intervening space. An. Coromandelianus is
common on the banks of the Ganges, and other eastern
rivers, and likewise frequents the Coromandel coast during
the months of September, October, and November, feed¬
ing on fish and reptiles. A more recently discovered spe¬
cies is An. lamelligerus of Temm. (PI. Col. 236), a native
of the Cape.
The genus Dromas of Paykull has the bill compressed
and swollen at the base beneath, with the commissures
close. The only known species is D. ardeola, Temm. PI.
Col. 362, an African bird, with white plumage, the back
and pinions, as well as the legs and bill, being black. It is
of rare occurrence, but rather extended distribution, spe¬
cimens having been obtained both from the shores of the
Red Sea and the Senegal coast. “ L’ardeole,” says M.
Lesson, “ tient des cedicnemes par son bee, et memes des
sternes, de 1’avocette, par son plumage et les tarses. C’est
un veritable oiseaux de transition dans I’etablissement des
families.’’1 Some recent writers regard this bird as iden¬
tical with the corrira so long ago described by Aldrovandi2
as an Italian species, but not since seen either in Europe
or elsewhere. The descriptions however do not accord.
Bechstein, Vieillot, and others, think the Italian corrira
a fictitious species, made up from the body of an avocet
and the legs of a thick-knee’d plover ; but Professor Ran-
zani is of opinion, that as its name is a vernacular one, and
there is no proof that Aldrovandi possessed any stuffed
birds (none being mentioned in the catalogue of his mu¬
seum, and the art in those days being almost unknown), a
well-known living species must have been alluded to. In¬
deed it appears that Charleton, at least seventy years after
the printing of the Italian author’s third volume, received
a specimen from Merret of what he considered as the bird
in question.3 “ Non vi ha al certo,” observes Ranzani,
“ alcun giusto motive di rivocare in dubbio, che al tempo
di Aldrovandi si trovasse ne’ luoghi vallivi del territorio
Bolognese un uccello steganopodo, il quali venisse da’ cac-
ciatori chiamato corrira, perche correva velocemente.” “ E
quantunque,” he afterwards adds, “ oggidi niuno de’ molti
cacciatori Bolognesi da me consultati conosca la corrira,
non cesserd io per questo dal fame le piu diligenti ricerche,
potendo benissimo accadere, ch’essa torni alcuna volta a
visitare i nostri terreni vallivi.”4
In the genus Tantalus, Linn., the bill, nostrils, and
feet resemble those of the storks, but the back of the
upper mandible is rounded, its point curved a little down¬
wards, and sligntly notched on either side. A portion of Gra.ia-
the head, and sometimes of the neck, is bare of feathers, tores.
The species, formerly confounded with the ibises, are of^—V"*-
large size, and inhabit Asia, Africa, and America. The
best known is Tantalus loculator, called the wood ibis in
the United States. It is white, with the face and head
greenish blue, the quill and tail feathers black, with co¬
loured reflections. It measures above three feet in length,
and the bill itself is about nine inches long, very broad at
the base. The wood ibis is a solitary indolent bird, sel¬
dom associating in flocks, but resting alone, like a feather¬
ed hermit, listlessly on the topmost limb of some tall de¬
cayed cypress, with his neck drawn in upon his shoulders,
and his enormous bill resting like a scythe upon his breast.
Thus pensive and lonely, he has a grave and melancholy
aspect, as if ruminating in the deepest thought; and in
this sad posture of gluttonous inactivity (for in truth he
has only over-eaten himself) he passes much of his time,
till aroused by the cravings of hunger. He feeds on
snakes, young alligators, fish, frogs, and other reptiles, and
wisely migrates southwards on the approach of winter.5
In the United States the principal residence of this bird
is in the inundated wilds of the peninsula of East Florida.
The Tantalus ibis of Linn, is an African species, long er¬
roneously regarded as the bird so highly venerated by the
Egyptians ; but it scarcely occurs in the country of the py¬
ramids, being usually imported from Senegal. The other
species of this genus are T. leucocephalus, from Ceylon and
Bengal; and T. lactea (Temm. PI. Col. 352), from Java.
The last genus we shall mention of our present tribe is
Platalea, Linn., containing the birds called spoon-bills,
which, like the preceding, are also few in number. The
chief character is constituted by the rounded flat enlarge¬
ment or dilatation at the extremity of the bill, from which
they derive their English name. They inhabit marshy
and muddy places, where they grope about with their
spoons in search of worms and mollusca. They are gre¬
garious and migratory, build on trees, occasionally among
rushes, and occur in Europe (PI. leucorodia), Africa (PI.
nudifrons), and America (PL ajaja). The last-named
species, called the roseate spoon-bill, is a beautiful bird,
the ground-colour white, but richly tinged with rose-colour,
deepening in part into carmine-red. The feet are half
webbed, and the toes are very long. (See Plate XVI.,
fig. 2). This bird is more maritime in its habits than the
European kind, and wades about the coast in quest of shell¬
fish and small crabs. According to Captain Henderson
(in his account of Honduras), it occasionally both swims
and dives. Although it now and then straggles up the
Mississippi towards Natchez, into Alabama, and even as
far north as the banks of the Delaware, it is a truly tropi¬
cal bird, frequent in Jamaica and other islands of the West
Indies, as well as in Mexico, Guiana, and Brazil. In a
southerly direction, it is said to spread as far as Patagonia.
Tribe 4th.—Longirostres.
In this tribe the bill may be characterized as lengthened
and feeble. The species belong chiefly to the old genera
Scolopax and Tringa of Linn. They bear a general resem¬
blance in their forms and habits, and frequent moist places,
where their slender bills can probe for worms and insects,
without the risk of fracture.
In the genus Ibis, Cuv., the bill is long, arched, broad,
and squarish at the base, with the point depressed, obtuse,
rounded, and the upper mandible deeply furrowed through¬
out its whole length. The nostrils are narrow and oblong,
1 Traite. d'Orn'ithologie, p. t)Jl. 3 Exerciiationes de differentiis Animalium, Oxonii, 1677> P* 102-3.
* Ornithologia, t. iii. p. 288. 4 Etementi di Zuvlogia, t. iii. parte ix. p. 300-2.
5 Nuttall’s Manual, vol. ii. p. 83.
ORNITHOLOGY.
trail*- and pierced through the membrane of the furrow near its
,res> base. The forehead and lores are bare of feathers.
^ The species of this remarkable genus are distributed
over the warmer zones of all the four quarters of the
globe, the green or glossy ibis {Ibis falcinellus), being it¬
self found in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, and oc¬
casionally in Great Britain. The sacred or Egyptian ibis
(Ibis religiosa, Cuv.,— Tantalus Ethiopicus, Latham) is a
bird of a more striking and peculiar aspect, though undis¬
tinguished by much diversity in the colours of its plumage.
It measures about two feet six inches in length. The head
and neck are, in the adults, bare of feathers, presenting
nothing but a dark cutaneous surface. The prevailing
colour is white, with long funereal-looking nlumes of a
purplish black colour, proceeding from beneath the ter¬
tiary wing-feathers, and hanging down not ungracefully
on either side. The legs and feet are deep lead-colour.
Among the ancient Egyptians, a people prone to award
divine honours to the brute creation, the ibis was regarded
as an object of superstitious worship, and its sculptured
outline frequently occurs among the hieroglvphical images
which adorn the walls of their temples. The conserva¬
tion of its mystical body occupied the assiduous care of
their holiest priests while living, and exercised the gloomy
art of their most skilful embalmers when dead. To slay
or insult it would have been deemed a crime of the dark¬
est hue, and sufficient to call down upon the offender the
immediate vengeance of heaven. The incarnation of their
gods was effected through the medium of this sacred bird,
and the tutelary deity of Egypt was supposed to be thus
imaged to the eyes of adoring mortals when he descended
from the highest heavens. The embalmed bodies of this
species are still found in the catacombs, and other places
of ancient sepulture ; and the antiquary and the natural¬
ist marvel alike at the wonderful art which, for some
thousand years, has handed down unimpaired to a far-re¬
moved posterity the form and features of so frail a crea¬
ture. Ihe perfection of an unknown process has almost
defied the ravages of time, and through its intervention
the self-same individuals exist in a tangible form, which
wandered along the banks of the mysterious Nile in
the earliest ages of the world, or “ in dim seclusion
veiled,” inhabited the sanctuary of temples, which though
themselves of most magnificent proportions, are now
scarcely discernible amid the desert dust of an unpeopled
wilderness.
'Ihe natural and mythological histories of this remark¬
able bird are so closely combined by ancient authors, that
it is scarcely possible to gather from their statements any
rational meaning. Those, indeed, whose province it is to
illustrate the history of mankind, by explaining the rise
and progress of superstition, and the frequent connection
between certain forms of a delusive worship, and the phy¬
sical conditions of clime and country, may find in the dis¬
torted history of Egyptian animals an ample field for the
exercise of such ingenious speculations ; but the* Zoologist
has to do rather with things as they are, than as they
were supposed to be,—and his province is to explain (or
attempt so to do) the works of the God of nature as they
exist in their most beautiful and harmonious simplicity,
undeformed by the multitudinous fables of a remote an¬
tiquity. We need not, then, to inquire whether the basi¬
lisk be born from an egg produced in the body of the ibis,
by a concentration of all the poison of all the serpents
which it may have swallowed in the course of a long and
reptile-eating life;—nor whether the casual touch of its
lightest plume still suffices not only to enchant and ren¬
der motionless the largest crocodile, but even to deprive
it at once of life;—nor whether the ibis itself, according
to an expression of the priest of Hermopolis, sometimes Gralla-
attains to so great an age that “ it cannot die,” unless tores.
when, removed from the sustaining soil of its beloved v v—
Egypt? it sinks beneath the nostalgia of a foreign land!
For we know that the basilisk does not exist; that youn^
ibises have been seen flapping themselves across the out¬
stretched bodies of sleeping crocodiles, which afterwards
sought the waters of the Nile with their accustomed ala¬
crity ; and that the age of the sacred bird, though from
the skill of the embalmers it may be said to be “ in death
immortal,” does not exceed that of the rest of its con¬
geners.
The sacred ibis is usually observed either in pairs, or
in small groups of eight or ten together. They build
their nests on palms and other elevated trees, and lav two
or three whitish eggs. They do not breed in Egypt, but
arrive in that country when the waters of the Nile begin
to swell. This apparent connection (as of cause and ef¬
fect) between the presence of these birds and the ferti¬
lizing flow of the mighty and mysterious river, probably
gave rise to their worship as divine agents in immediate
connection with those grander processes of nature by
which the surface of the earth was regulated, and sustain¬
ed in a fit condition for the health and prosperity of the
human race. A slight knowledge of natural history would
indeed have sufficed to show, that such divine honours had
not been awarded as a consequence of their destruction
of serpents and other venomous reptiles; for the modern
Egyptians confirm the views of Colonel Grobert, that the
ibis does not prey on serpents at all, but feeds very much
after the manner of the curlew, on insects, worms, small
fishes, and molluscous animals.1
A smaller sized though much more splendidly attired
species, is the scarlet ibis (/. ruber) of America. This
brilliant bird is confined to the new world, where it is
chiefly tropical, abounding in the West Indies and the
Bahama Islands, and stretching southwards of the equator
at least as far as Brazil. In the course of the summer (ge¬
nerally in July and August) it migrates into Florida, Ala¬
bama, Georgia, and South Carolina, retiring into Mexico
and the Carribbean Islands on the approach of the winter
season. It is gregarious, feeding along the sea-coast, the
shores of estuaries, and the banks of rivers, on small fry,
shell-fish, insects, and worms. Although they often perch
on trees (where the contrast of their fiery plumage with
the surrounding foKage is said to produce a most resplen¬
dent effect), they build their nests upon the ground. The
young for several seasons exhibit obscure shades of brown,
they afterwards become spotted with red, and then assume
the splendid attire of the parents, which is a uniform and
dazzling scarlet, with the exception of the extremities of
the first four primaries, which are of a rich bluish black.
Pennant says that the scarlet ibis has been domesticated in
Guiana; and Dr Latham possessed one which was brought
alive to England, and lived for some time with his poul¬
try. It is clear from the statements of American writers,
that it is, at least in temperate countries, a bird of pas¬
sage, although Cuvier observes, “ que cette espece ne
voyage point.” When taken young it is easily tamed, and
submits to domestication without repining. Delaet says
it has even propagated in captivity; and M. Delaborde
has given the history of an individual which he kept for
above two years, feeding it on bread, raw or cooked meat,
and fish. It was fond of hunting in the ground for worms,
and was in use to follow the gardener in expectation of that
favourite food. It roosted at night upon the highest perch
in the poultry-house, and flew out at an early hour of the
morning, sometimes to a great distance from home. Our
climate is probably too cold and variable for a bird which
5 I
VOL. XVI.
1 Wilson’s Illustrations of Zoology, vol. i. pi. xix.
802 ORNITHOLOGY.
Gralla- on the approach of winter always migrates southwards,
tores, otherwise it would assuredly form a splendid (it is even
said a savoury) addition to our stock of domestic fowls.1
In the genus Numenius, Cuv., the bill is arched, as in
the preceding, but still more slender, and rounded through¬
out its entire length, instead of being square at the base.
The extremity of the upper mandible extends beyond the
under one, and projects a little over it at the base. There
is an obvious palmation at the root of the toes.
To this genus belong the curlews,—well-known birds, of
shy and wary habits, which, according to the season, haunt
either the hilly pastures or the sandy shores. The North
American species (N. longirostris, Wilson) is remarkable
for the extraordinary length of its bill. (See Plate XVI.,
fig. 3.) The common curlew of Britain (N. arquata) seems
to inhabit exclusively, during the breeding season, our up¬
land moors and pastures, and descends to the sea-coasts in
winter. The smaller British species, called whimbrel (A7.
phceopus), seems scarcely known in England during sum¬
mer, but is then frequent in the north of Scotland, where
it breeds. It is distinct from any of the American curlews,—
with one of which, however, it has sometimes been con¬
founded. A nearly allied species, first described by M. Vieil-
lot under the title of Niimenius tenuirostris, as a native of
Egypt, has been ascertained by C. L. Bonaparte to exist in
great numbers along the banks of the Tiber, where it occurs
during winter. It has also been discovered byr Signor Savi
in the neighbourhood of Pisa, by Dr Pajola in the Venetian
territory, and by Professor Bonelli in Piedmont. We doubt
not it occurs occasionally in most parts of Europe (espe¬
cially the eastern countries), although it escapes detection
in consequence of its strong resemblance to the common
whimbrel. Its distinctive phrase is—Numenius pileo ci-
cerino e nigro maculate: pennis longioribus ilium candi-
dis, immaculatis.2 The small esquimaux curlew (W. bo¬
realis, Lath, and Richardson) passes over a vast extent
of territory in its migrations,—breeding in the barren
lands within the arctic circle, and spending the winter in
Brazil.
In the genus Scolopax, Cuv., containing the snipes and
woodcocks, the bill is very long, but straight, and pervaded
almost throughout its entire length by a nasal furrow.
The upper mandible is slightly inflated at the tip, which
is rather soft, and extremely delicate in its perceptions.
The feet are not palmated. The head is compressed, the
eyes large, and situate far back upon the head,—“ ce qui,”
says Cuvier, “ leur donne un air singulierement stupide,
qu’ils ne dementent point par leurs mceurs.” Now, though
the birds in question may want those accommodating in¬
stincts which elevate the character of many other species al¬
most into a semblance of reason, we are not aware that they
are in any way of defective intellect, that is, that their pro¬
ceedings are at all discordant with self-preservation, the
enjoyment of their natural propensions, or the continuance
of their kind ; and as to the position of the eye, whatever
may be its physiognomical effect, is it not admirably adapt¬
ed to their general modes of life, and their particular habit
of plunging their bills into the mud.of marshes, enabling
them so to do, and yet to keep a sharp look-out around
them ? Depend upon it, their eyes are in the right place,
and their large size cannot be otherwise than advantageous
to birds which feed by night.
We have five British species of Scolopax, of which the
woodcock ($. rusticola) is the chief, a bird much admired
by epicures, who eat him, entrails and all,—a dirty practice,
we opine : but, de gustibus non disputandum est. During
the day this species usually frequents the closest brakes, Gralla.
where the ground, from depth of shade, is nearly free from tores,
herbage. They abound most in thickets by the sides of
open glades, or where roads intersect; for by these they
pass to and from their feeding ground at evening and the
dawn of morn. “ Unless disturbed,” says Mr Selby, “ they
remain quietly at roost upon the ground during the whole
day; but as soon as the sun is wholly below the horizon,
they are in full activity, and taking flight nearly at the same
instant, leave the woods and cover for the adjoining mea¬
dows or open land, over which they disperse themselves,
and are fully engaged in search of food during the whole
night. Advantage has long been taken of this regular
mode of going to and returning from the feeding grounds
by the fowler, in those districts where woodcocks are
abundant, by suspending nets across the glades, or by the
sides of hedges, where they are observed to pass conti¬
nually ; and though the adoption of the fowling-piece has
in general superseded the modes of capture formerly prac¬
tised, great numbers are still taken in this manner in De¬
vonshire and Cornwall. Another method of entrapping
woodcocks (as well as snipes) is by the springe, which is
set in places where those perforations made by the bill of
the woodcock in search of food, and technically called
borings, are observed to be most frequent. It is formed
of an elastic stick, of which one end is thrust into the
ground, the other having affixed to it a noose made of
horse-hair; the stick being then bent down, this noose is
passed through a hole in a peg fastened to the ground,
and is kept properly expanded by means of a fine trigger,
so set as to be displaced by the slight pressure of the
bird’s foot. To conduct them to this trap, a low fence of
twigs, or of stones placed so closely together as to leave
no passage through the interstices, is extended to some
distance on each side of the springe, and generally in an
oblique direction; over which obstacle, however trifling,
it seems the birds never attempt to hop or fly, but keep
moving along it, till they approach the part occupied by
the noose of the springe: upon attempting to pass through
this apparently open space, they displace the trigger, and
are almost invariably caught by the noose, and retained
by the spring of the stick against the opposing peg. Day
being the woodcock’s time for repose, it sits very close,
and is not easily fiushed; the sportsman then requiring
the aid of the busy spaniel, or the bush in which it is en¬
sconced to be actually beaten by an attendant, before it
will take wing. It rises, however, with much quickness,
and threads its way through the branches with great ra¬
pidity, until the underwood and trees are fairly cleared,
when its flight becomes measured, and offers an easy aim
to the sportsman. When roused, it seldom flies to any
great distance, but alights in the first thicket that attracts
its attention, closing its wings, and dropping suddenly
down, and in such cases it is not unusual for it to run a
little way before it squats. Just before rising, upon be¬
ing disturbed, or when running, it jerks its tail upwards,
partly expanding it, and fully showing the white that dis¬
tinguishes the under surface of the tips of the tail-fea¬
thers. In feeding, the woodcock inserts its bill deep into
the earth in search of worms, which are its favourite
and principal food. This instrument is most admirably
calculated for the offices it has to perform when thus im¬
mersed in the soil; for, in addition to its great length, it
possesses a nervous apparatus distributed over a great por¬
tion of its surface, and especially on such parts as are
likely to come first into contact with its prey, giving it
Gardens and Menagerie of the Zoological Society. We do not know how it has happened that the wood-cut of the scarlet ibis in the
wor jus re erred to is copied into Mr Nuttall’s excellent Manual of American Ornithology, under the name of wood ibis, Tantalus
loculator, a bird which belongs to a different genus.
Ormtologia Toscana, tom. ii. p. 324.
ORNITHOLOGY.
803
the sense of touch in the highest perfection ; and to enable
it to secure the object thus detected by the discriminat¬
ing sensibility of the bill, it is further provided with pe¬
culiar muscles (common, I believe, to all the members of
the genus), which by compression of the upper or basal
part of the bill, are brought into action so as to expand
the tips of both mandibles sufficiently wide to lay hold of
and draw forth the hidden treasure. The digestion of this
bird is rapid, and the quantity of worms it can devour in
the course of a night is astonishing. I have known one
that consumed at a meal (that is, within the night) more
large earth-worms than half filled a garden-pot of consi¬
derable size. It may, however, by management, be brought
to eat other food ; as Montagu mentions one that was in¬
duced to feed on bread and milk, by worms cleanly washed
being put into a mess of that kind ; and by this practice
being persisted in, the bird soon acquired a relish for this
new sort of aliment, and, with the addition of a few worms,
throve well upon it.”1 We have already mentioned that
the woodcock is now of frequent and constant occurrence
as a breeding bird in several of the northern parts of Scot¬
land.
Our other species of this genus are the common snipe,
S', gallinago, Linn., which also occurs m the temperate
parts of Asia; and the jack-snipe, S. gallinula, a winter
visitant, which breeds, though sparingly, in the north of
Scotland. Besides these, we have as occasional visitants,—
the great or solitary snipe, S. major, Gmeh, which haunts
the vast marshes of the north of Europe,—and a species
of which only one or two examples have been as yet dis¬
covered (it was first shot in Queen’s county, Ireland, we
believe in 1822), named S. Sabini, by Mr Vigors.2 Al¬
though some of these birds have an extended geographical
distribution, the great similarity of several species, both in
size and plumage, has caused misapprehension. There is
now no doubt that the species of Europe and America are
quite distinct. The lesser woodcock, S. minor, is a beauti¬
ful bird, well known in the United States. The brown
snipe of Pennant (-S', grisea, Gmel.) forms the genus Ma-
croramphus, Leach. Its toes are webbed at the base.
The genus Rhynchaia, Cuv., has the bill very similar to
that of the snipes and woodcocks, but it is slightly arched
towards the tip, and wants the furrow on that part. The
toes have no palmation. The species are more richly co¬
loured than their congeners, and, in consequence of their
occasional variation, have been as yet but indifferently dis¬
tinguished. The Cape species so called (i?. capensis,—Scol.
capensis, Gm., Plate XVI., figure 4), occurs in Java and
the East Indies; while R. variegata, by some regarded as
its young, has been received both from China and the south
of Africa. A very distinct species, however (B. hilarea),
described by M. Valenciennes, has been discovered in South
America.3
In the genus Limosa of Bechstein, the bill is still longer
than among the woodcocks, straight, or even slightly turned
upwards, and pervaded by lengthened grooves, although
the terminal single groove is wanting. The tip is blunt
and depressed. There is a palmation at the base of the
outer toes. The general form of the species is more slen¬
der, and the legs longer, than in the immediately preceding
groups. They haunt more habitually saline marshes and
the sea shore.
We here place the birds called godwits, of which we have
two British species,—the black-tailed godwit, L.melanura,
Leisler and Temm. {Scot, cegocephala, Linn.), and the red
godwit, L. rufa, Briss. (^Scol. Lapponica, Linn.). Ot both
of these birds the synonyms, till lately, were greatly con¬
fused, owing to the double moult to which they are sub¬
ject, and which, producing a remarkable change in the nup- Gralla-
tial plumage from that of autumn and winter, led to a cor- tores,
responding multiplication of names,—each kind being de-
scribed as two species, according to the season in which it
was observed. Although the bill in the godwits possesses
much of the general form of that of the woodcocks, it wants
the extraordinary plexus of nerves, and therefore does not
become rugose by exsiccation after death, but continues
smooth and polished. It is also more solid, less flexible, and
thicker towards the base. These birds inhabit marshes, and
the banks and mouths of rivers, where the mud is soft and
deep, and there they probe with their long extended bills
in search of worms and insects. When thus engaged, they
are frequently seen with their heads entirely under water;
and we accordingly find them provided with that peculiar
gland above the eye, of which the function appears to be
to lubricate and defend that delicate and important organ
from the irritating effect of saline waters.4 The females
considerably exceed the males in size. Several fine god¬
wits, distinct from those of Europe, occur in North America;
and a semi-palmated species, with a strongly recurved
bill (Scol. terek, Lath.), is found both in India and Van
Diemen’s Land, and seems in some of its characters to lead
towards the avocets.
In the genus Tringa of Temm., Selby, &c. (Calidris
and Pelidna, Cuv.), the bill equals or is longer than the
head, is straight or slightly arched, compressed at the
base, the tip blunt, smooth, and dilated, semi-flexible, and
furrowed throughout its length. The legs are of medium
length, very slim, the feet four-toed, divided to the base,
slightly margined, with the hind toe scarcely reaching to
the ground.
The elegant and interesting species which compose this
rather numerous genus are commonly known by the name
of sea-larks or sandpipers, a term likewise bestowed upon
the Totani. Many of them breed by the margins of lakes
and rivers in the interior, although the majority congregate
in autumn in numerous flocks along the sea coast. They
moult twice a year, and their spring and summer plumage
is generally very different from that of autumn and winter.
This has occasioned great confusion in the history of seve¬
ral species. The sexes present no great disparity in point
of plumage, but the females are of larger size. We coin¬
cide in Mr Selby’s opinion, that the new genera Calidris
anA. Pelidna, which Baron Cuvier has proposed in place of
Tringa, are not so distinct or well defined as to warrant their
adoption, being in fact only such slight modifications of form
as might naturally be expected in birds placed at the ex¬
tremes of the group to which they belong, and of which the
intimate connection is shown by the intervention of species
of intermediate form, leading gradually, almost impercep¬
tibly, from one to the other. Besides, if these two generic
groups are adopted, it would appear that Tringa would
cease to exist as a recognised title, which is surely not in S
accordance with established rule. The species of our
present genus are very widely distributed, and several are
identical in Europe and America.
The dunlin or purre, T. variabilis, Temm. (T. alpina and
cinclus, Linn.), is a strictly indigenous bird in Scotland,
where it breeds both near the margins of our inland waters
and along the sea-shore,—residing with us throughout the
year. In America it penetrates during the summer season
to the utmost habitable verge of the arctic circle, breeding
on the desolate shores of Melville Peninsula. It likewise
inhabits Greenland, Iceland, Scandinavia, and probably
most of the coasts of Europe. We know that at least during
winter it frequents the Italian shores. In the southern
hemisphere it sometimes wanders as far as the Cape of
1 British Ornithology, vol. ii. p. 110.
8 Linn. Trans, vol. xiv. p. 556.
3 Ferrussac’s Bulletin des Sciences, 2d cah.
4 Selby’s British Ornithology, vol. ii. p. 94.
804 ORNITHOLOGY.
Gralla- Good Hope, and has been met with both in the West Indies
tores, and South America. When flying in great autumnal flocks,
its aerial movements are extremely beautiful, each indivi¬
dual of the vast assemblage yielding so instantaneously to
the same impulsion as to exhibit alternately the upper and
the under surface of the body, so that we have for a time
a living moving cloud of dusky brown, and then a brilliant
flash of snowy whiteness.
The larger species, called the knot ( T. canutus, Linn.),
has also a vast range in a northerly direction. It passes
the summer within the arctic circle, breeding in Melville
Peninsula, and in Hudson’s Bay, as far south as the fifty-
fifth parallel. It lays four eggs of a dun colour, spotted
with red, upon a tuft of withered grass. The knot win¬
ters in Britain, but many proceed much farther south, as
we know they occur towards the end of autumn in the
Venetian territory. The great mass of the North Ame¬
rican knots pass over the United States, and spend the
winter within the tropics. The other British species
are T. rufescens, Temminckii, minuta, maritima, and sub-
arquata.
The genus Arenaria, Bechstein, closely resembles the
sandpipers of the genus Tringa, but is distinguished by
the entire absence of the hind toe. The only known spe¬
cies is the sanderling (A. calidris), one of our winter birds
of passage, which breeds in the remotest northern re¬
gions, forming a rude grassy nest among the desolate
marshes, and laying four dusky coloured eggs, spotted
with black.
The genus Falcinellus, Cuv. (composed of Scol.pyg-
mcea, Linn.), has the bill considerably arched, and the hind
toe wanting. The only known species is an African bird,
which occasionally makes its appearance in Europe. M.
Temminck seems to think it should be regarded rather
as a synonym than a distinct actual species.
The genus Machetes, Cuv., bears a great resemblance
to Tringa, except that there is an obvious palmation at
the base of the toes. It contains only one species, com¬
monly called the ruff {T. pugnax, Linn.), well known in
the Lincolnshire fenns and the London markets (see Plate
XVI., fig. 5). It is a summer bird of passage, arriving in
the fenny districts of England in the month of April, and
departing towards the end of September. The ruff, as its
specific name implies, is a remarkably pugnacious species,
a disposition which probably arises from its polygamous ha¬
bits, in which it differs from its congeners. Some people
say there are more males than females. Be this as it may,
as soon as these birds arrive, each male fixes upon a small
hillock or dry grassy spot among the marshes, where he
keeps turning about till he has almost trodden it bare ; but
the moment a female makes her appearance, a general com¬
bat commences, the male birds lowering their heads, ex¬
panding their neck-feathers, and flying at each other with
the action of fighting cocks. These battles are obstinate
and long continued, and whoever proves the victor for the
time obtains the female. They disperse at night for the
sake of feeding, but every morning soon after daybreak
each male returns to his hillock, where the same scenes
of rivalry and love take place, and continue till their pas¬
sionate fervour is abated, towards tbe end of June. The
plumage of the ruff presents an almost infinite variety,
scarcely two individuals being ever found precisely the
same. The lengthened feathers of the head and neck
are produced in spring, and shed towards the close of
summer ; and during autumn and winter the plumage be-
^*^eren^ from that of the breeding season, that
e birds would not be recognised as the same by any one
previously ignorant of such mutation. Their flesh is high¬
ly esteemed as a delicate and nutritious food. Though Grall
these birds extend northwards as far as Iceland, and the tores'
colder parts of Russia, they never visit Scotland, the v .
marsh of Prestwick Car, near Newcastle, appearing to
be their British boundary. They occur, though rarely,
in North America. Though their natural food is worms
and water insects, they fatten soon in confinement on
boiled wheat, or bread and milk mixed with bruised hemp-
seed.
Ihe genus Heteropoda of Nuttall has the bill straight,
rather enlarged and punctate at the extremity, the tarsus
of moderate length, the three anterior toes connected at
the base by a membrane. Example, Tringa semipalmata,
Wilson. In the genus Hemipalma, Bonaparte, the bill
is much larger than the head, partly arched, dilated, and
studded at the tip with minute tubercles. The tarsus is
very long, and the toes are usually connected by a mem¬
brane as far as the first articulation. The species are call¬
ed stilt sandpipers, of which H. himantopus was discover¬
ed by C. L. Bonaparte and Mr Cooper. Both these genera
are American.
In the singular genus Eurinorhynchus, Wilson, the
bill is short, thin, depressed, spoon-shaped, the tarsi short,
slender, reticulated. The only known species is a very
rare and remarkable bird, E. griseus, native, it is suppos¬
ed, both to Europe and America.1 It was formerly class¬
ed with the spoon-bills (Platalea pygmea, Linn.), though
scarcely larger than a sparrow. There is a specimen in
the French Museum, which was accidentally killed near
Paris. The plumage is gray above, white beneath.
In the genus Phalaropus of Brisson, the bill, though
more flattened, resembles that of Tringa, but the toes
are margined by a broadish membrane. In their habits the
species are more aquatic than most of their congeners; for
though they cannot dive, they float buoyantly on the sur¬
face, or even make their way by swimming with almost
the ease of the regularly web-footed birds. The gray
phalarope or scallop-toed sandpiper (JPhal. lobatus, Flem.)
is found occasionally in Britain during winter. It breeds
habitually within the arctic circle, in Hudson’s Bay,
among the North Georgian Islands, and along the sterile
shores of Melville Peninsula. According to Mr Bullock,
it is not uncommon in the marshes of Sunda and Westra,
the most northerly of the Orkney Isles. When seen
swimming in pools, it is continually dipping its bill into
the water, as if feeding on some minute aquatic creature.
The plumage varies greatly with the season, and a variety
of names have been bestowed in consequence of these mu¬
tations. The red phalarope ( Tringafulicaria, Linn.) re¬
presents the summer plumage. It was seen by our north¬
ern navigators on the 10th of June, in latitude 68°, swim¬
ming at its ease though several miles from land, but sur¬
rounded by mountains of ice.
In the genus Strepsilas, Illiger, the legs are rather
low, the bill short, and the toes without palmation as in
Tringa, but the bill is conical and pointed, with the nasal
fissure extending only one half its length. The hind toe
nearly touches the ground. The only known species,
St. interpres (of which St. morinellus is the young) is a
winter bird of passage on the mainland of Britain, though
it breeds and remains throughout the year among the
Shetland Isles. The turnstone, as it is vernacularly called,
is one of the most generally distributed of birds, being
found at some season or other in almost every region of
the globe. The English name is derived from its habit of
turning over little stones along the shore in search of food,
which it is enabled to do by its bill being proportionally
stronger and stiffer than that of its congeners.
1 Acad. Suec. 1816, pi. vi.
O ii i\ 1 T H O L O G Y.
■tiralla- In the genus Totanus, Cuv., the bill is slender, round,
tores, pointed, firm, the upper mandible slightly arched, with the
nasal groove not extending above half its length. The
form is light and active, the legs rather long, the toes
webbed at the base, more especially between the outer
and middle toe. In birds of this genus, as Mr Selby has
observed, the comparatively hard and sharp-pointed bill
indicates a corresponding change in habits and economy;
so that instead of seeking their food by probing in the
sand or softer mud, they search for it along the pebbly
banks of lakes and rivers, or the ocean’s gravelly shore.
Some reside habitually in inland districts, while others
prefer the sea-coast, or migrate thither during the autum¬
nal season. The British species are the dusky sandpiper,
T. fuscus, Leisler ; the redshank, T. calidris, Bechst.; the
green sandpiper, T. ochropus, Temm.; the wood sandpiper,
T. glareola, Temm.; the common sandpiper, T. hypoleucos,
Temm.; and the greenshank, T. glottis, Bechst. Besides
which, the spotted sandpiper, T. macularia (a very com¬
mon species in North America), &c. are of occasional oc¬
currence. Regarding the last-named species, Mr Bartram
informed Alexander Wilson, that he saw one of these birds
defend her young for a considerable time from the repeat¬
ed attacks of a ground squirrel. The scene of action was
on the river shore. The parent had thrown herselfj with
her two young behind her, between them and the land ;
and at every attempt of the squirrel to seize them by a
circuitous sweep, she raised both her wings in an almost
perpendicular position, assuming the most alarming aspect
possible, and rushing forwards on the squirrel, which for a
time drew back intimidated; but soon returning, was met
as before by the affectionate but infuriated bird, her wings
and whole plumage bristling up to twice their natural size.
This interesting, but, for one of the parties, fearful play,
continued for about ten minutes, when the strength of the
bird began to flag, and the attacks of the quadruped be¬
came more audacious, on which Mr Bartram interfered,
“ like one of those celestial agents,” says Wilson, “ who in
Homer’s time so often decided the palm of victory” ! The
green-shank ( T. glottis), though usually regarded as mere¬
ly a passenger in spring and autumn, is now known to breed
in Scotland. It inhabits the northern parts of both conti¬
nents, but is rarer in the new world than the old. Mr Au¬
dubon traced it as far south as the Tortugas, near the ex¬
tremity of East Florida, and Latham received it from Ja¬
maica. It also occurs in Bengal. Our common red-shank
(T7. calidris) is found occasionally in North America. A
large species well known in the western world by the name
of willet, and characterized by all the anterior toes being
conspicuously webbed at the base, forms M. Bonaparte’s
genus Catoptrophorus. This bird not only wades, but
swims. It is the semi-palmated snipe (Scol. scmi-palma-
tas) of the older systems.
The genus Lobipes of Cuvier combines the bill of the
preceding genus ( Totanus) with the lobated toes of Pha-
laropus. We may mention as an example the red-necked
phalarope,— Tringa hyperborea, Linn. (Lob. hyperborea,
Cuv.), a species not uncommon among our northern islands,
where it swims with great ease,—resembling when in the
water a beautiful miniature representation of a duck. It like¬
wise breeds all along the forlorn shores of arctic America,
resorting to Hudson’s Bay in autumn. Another species
(Z. Wilsonii) seems confined to the new world, where it
breeds on the banks of the Saskatchewan, and occurs at
least as far south as Mexico. It does not advance to so
high a northern latitude as the hyperborean species, being
as yet unknown beyond the fifty-fifth parallel. It forms
an artless nest within the shelter of some grassy tuft, lay¬
ing two or three pear-shaped eggs, of a tint between yel¬
lowish gray and cream colour, interspersed with small
roundish spots, and a few larger blotches of umber-brown
805
towards the obtuser end. It can only be regarded as a Gralla-
straggler in the United States. This bird forms the sub- torea.
genus Holopodius of Bonaparte, the basal web between''““'v'"-*''
the inner and middle toe being less than in the preceding
species. The synonyms of both are still somewhat con¬
fused.
The genus Himantopus, Brisson, has the bill round,
slender, pointed, the nasal furrow extending only half its
length. But the principal and most peculiar character
consists in the enormous length of the leg and tarsus, from
which the species have derived the title of stilts, or long-
legged plovers. The toes are united by a basal web, larger
on the outer than the inner portion of the foot. These birds
have a greater predilection for the borders of the sea, and
for brackish lakes, than for the banks of rivers or pure
fresh-water lakes. Their movements are rapid on the
wing, but their gait is somewhat staggering, from the dis¬
proportionate length of their legs. The kind which occurs
in Europe (Him. melanopterus, Meyer), called the black¬
winged stilt, has been known to breed in France, and ac¬
cidentally visits England, but its chief resorts are the great
salt marshes of Hungary and Russia. It is often seen in
Italy in little flocks in spring, travelling northwards. It
likewise occurs in Asia, Africa, and America ; but the spe¬
cies of the new world, described by Wilson, is the Him. ni-
gricollis of Vieillot. We shall here quote his account of its
manners and mode of nidification, as the history of the Eu¬
ropean stilt, in these particulars, is scarcely known. “ This
species arrives on the sea-coast of New Jersey about the
25th of April, in small detached flocks of twenty or thirty
together. These sometimes again subdivide into lesser
parties; but it rarely happens that a pair is found soli¬
tary, as during the breeding season they usually associate
in small companies. On their first arrival, and indeed dur¬
ing the whole of their residence, they inhabit those parti¬
cular parts of the salt marshes pretty high up towards the
land, that are broken into numerous shallow pools, but are
not usually overflowed by the tides during the summer.
These pools or ponds are generally so shallow that with
their long legs the avocets can easily wade them in every
direction ; and as they abound in minute shell-fish, and
multitudes of aquatic insects and their larvae, besides the
eggs and spawn of others deposited in the soft mud below,
these birds find here an abundant supply of food, and are
almost continually seen wading about in such places, often
up to the breast in water.
“ In the vicinity of these bald places, as they are called,
fifty yards off, among the thick tufts of grass, one of these
small associations, consisting perhaps of six or eight pair,
takes up its residence during the breeding season. About
the first week in May they begin to construct their nests,
which are at first slightly formed of a small quantity of old
grass, scarcely sufficient to keep the eggs from the wet
marsh. As they lay and sit, however, either dreading the
rise of the tides, or from some other purpose, the nest is
increased in height with dry twigs of a shrub very com¬
mon in the marshes, roots of the salt grass, sea-weed, and
various other substances, the whole weighing between two
and three pounds. This habit of adding materials to the
nest after the female begins sitting, is common to almost
all other birds that breed in the marshes. The eggs are
four in number, of a dark yellowish clay colour, thickly
marked with large blotches of black. These nests are
often placed within fifteen or twenty yards of each other;
but the greatest harmony seems to prevail among the pro¬
prietors. While the females are sitting, the males are
either wading through the ponds or roaming over the ad¬
joining marshes; but should a person make his appear¬
ance, the whole collect together in the air, flying with
their long legs extended behind them, keeping up a con¬
tinual yelping note of click, click, click. Their flight is
ORNITHOLOGY.
Gralla- steady, and not in short, sudden jerks, like that of the
tcres* plover. As they frequently alight on the bare marsh, they
Y v drop their wings, stand with their legs half bent, and
trembling, as if unable to sustain the burden of their bo¬
dies. In this ridiculous posture they will sometimes stand
for several minutes, uttering a curring sound, while, from
the corresponding quiverings of their wings and long legs,
they seem to balance themselves with great difficulty.
“ Thissingular manoeuvre is, no doubt, intended to induce
a belief that they may be easily caught, and so turn the
attention of the person from the pursuit of their nests and
young to themselves. rlhe red-necked avocet practises the
very same deception, in the same ludicrous manner, and
both alight indiscriminately on the ground or in the water.
Both will occasionally swim for a few feet, when they
chance in wading to lose their depth, as I have had seve¬
ral times an opportunity of observing.”1
The singular birds called avocets form the genus Rk-
curvirostra, Linn. Their feet are almost as fully pal-
mated as those of certain Natatores, yet they are gene¬
rally classed among the Grallatores, by reason of their
lengthened tarsi, and legs bare above the knee. The bill
also has the same lengthened, slender, pointed form, and
smooth elastic structure, which characterize our present
order, with which the birds in question agree in their ge¬
neral mode of life. The character which distinguishes
them from all other birds is the extraordinary upward cur¬
vature of the bill (See Plate XVI., figure 6.) The avocets
live either in pairs or small companies in the midst of
marshes, where they wade about with great ease, and to a
considerable depth, in consequence of their bodies being
raised so high above the surface. Though web-footed,
they do not swim except by compulsion ; yet one which
Wilson wounded attempted repeatedly to dive, but the
water was too shallow for his purpose. They run rapidly,
and their flight is powerful and long sustained. Their
nests are described as small cavities in the earth, lined
with a few weeds, or merely the bosom of the bare sand;
sometimes, however, they are raised several inches above
the surface, as if to avoid the effects of moisture or inun¬
dation. The European species (H. avocetta, Linn.) is not
uncommon along the eastern coasts of England south of
the Humber. It breeds in the fenny parts of Lincolnshire
and Norfolk, as well as in Romney Marsh in Kent. They
assemble during winter in small flocks, frequenting the
oozy shores about the mouths of rivers, where they scoop
out small worms and mollusca. Buffbn indulges in one of
his characteristic vagaries while discussing the singular
bill of this bird, which he supposes to be “ one of those
errors or essays of nature, which, if carried a little further,
would destroy itself; for if the curvature of the bill were
a degree increased, the bird could not procure any sort of
food, and the organ destined for the support of life would
infallibly occasion its destruction.” This essay of nature
is, however, as it happens, a most successful one ; for by
means of its lengthened legs and upturned bill, the avo¬
cet feeds with facility in muddy marshes, where if other¬
wise organized it would probably starve. If a devoted
servant of God, while tonsorially engaged on some beau¬
tiful Sabbath morning, were to move the edge of his glit¬
tering blade an inch nearer his carotid artery, he would
die, leaving behind him, in all probability, a disconsolate
widow, and a large family of small children; but as he
takes especial care to move his useful weapon in another
direction, the artery remains intact, and the crime of sui¬
cide unaccomplished. We doubt not that the curvature
of the bill in question could not have been better project¬
ed even by Buffbn himself, although he was addicted in
his youth to mathematics. The American avocet (JR.
Americana, Linn., Plate XVI., figure 6) has the head and Gralla-
neck pale rufous, and the bill takes a downward curve to- v tore8-
wards the extremity. Though abundant on the banks of
the Saskatchewan, as far as the fifty-third parallel, it does
not seem to proceed into the more northern regions. Be¬
sides these species, there are the K. alba of Latham (i?.
orientalis, Cuv.), from India ; and the R. rubricollis, Temm.,
a native of New Holland. Our indigenous species also oc¬
curs both in Asia and Africa.
FAMILY V._MACRODACTYLES.
The prevailing character of this group consists in the
extremely long narrow form of the toes, which are with¬
out any connecting web. Nevertheless the species run
with great ease in moist places, and some of them swim
very swiftly. The bill, more or less compressed laterally,
varies in length in different genera, but is never so deli¬
cately slender as among the preceding family. The body
in these birds is much compressed, a form determined in
a great measure by the narrow nature of the sternum.
The wings are of medium length, or short; and the power
of flight, though necessarily efficient in such as are birds of
passage, is on the whole restricted, or but sparingly exer¬
cised. The posterior toe is of considerable length.
The first genus, called Parra by Linnaeus, contains
the jacanas, by some named spur-winged water-hens. The
bill is rather longer than the head, nearly straight, laterally
compressed, and somewhat enlarged both above and below
towards the extremity. There is usually a small fleshy shield
upon the base of the forehead. The toes are of great length,
very narrow, unwebbed, and the claws, especially the hin¬
der one, very long and sharp (See Plate X VI., fig. 7.) The
anterior angle of the wing is armed with a spur. The jaca¬
nas occur in the warmer countries of the world—in Ben¬
gal, Java, the Celebes, China, South America, and parts of
Africa. They inhabit marshy places, and run with great
facility over the surface of aquatic plants, their long, ex¬
tended toes spreading over so much space as to prevent
their sinking in the water. They feed on insects, build
their nests among the moist herbage, and lay four or five
greenish eggs spotted with brown. Their flight, though
low, is rapid. They are shy and silent birds, except at
night, when their voices are often heard among the marshes.
The Chinese jacana of Latham {Parra sinensis, Gmelin)
is found both along the marine shores and the moist plains
of the interior. This species, as Mr Gould observes, is
distinguished not more by grace and beauty of form, than
by its admirable adaptation to the particular localities to
which nature has allotted it. Formed for traversing the
wide morass, or lotus-covered surface of water, it supports
itself upon the floating weeds and leaves by its extraordi¬
nary extent of toes and unusual lightness of body. Like
our common water-hen, of whose habits and manners it
partakes largely, it is no doubt capable of swimming, al¬
though the long and pendent tail-feathers seem an incon¬
venient appendage for such a purpose. Its powers of flight
appear deficient, the quill-feathers being terminated by a
slender process proceeding from the tip of each shaft.
This singular bird has been long known as a native of the
low lands of India and other eastern countries, but was
not till lately ascertained to occur in the Himalaya, where
it inhabits lakes and swamps among the hills.2 Another
eastern species {P. gallinacea, Temm. PL Col. 464) is
provided with a crest, but wants the spurs upon the wings.
In the genus Palamedea, Linn., the bill is rather short,
conical, compressed, convex, and curved at the extremity.
There is a bare space around the eyes, the wings are am-
1 American Ornithology, vol. iii. p. 76.
* Century qf Birds from the Himalaya Mountains.
ORNITHOLOGY. ' 807
Gralla- pie, furnished with strong spurs. The tarsi are short and
tores, thick, the toes and daws long. Some systematic writers
  ' include in this genus only a single species, P. cornuta,
Linn., called kamichi or the horned screamer, a South
American bird, larger than a goose, with a slender move-
able horny projection on the forehead. Though this bird
affects inundated places, its toes are without palmation.
In its general aspect, and several of its special habits, it
exhibits an approach to the gallinaceous order; and al¬
though its stomach is but slightly muscular, it lives much
on grain and herbage.1 It is also easily reduced to the
domestic state; and although it lays only two eggs, the
young speedily follow the parents.
It is by no means easy to conjecture' the natural uses
of these formidable weapons on the wings of this and se¬
veral other species. One would suppose them intended
to wage war among their kind,—yet the birds so endowed
are for the most part peaceable, and averse to broil and
battle,—even in most instances of a timid and fearful na¬
ture ; and in the case of several of the plover tribe, there
is no appreciable difference in the habits of the armed and
unarmed kinds. All who have studied the manners of the
kamichis agree that they are the gentle inhabitants of
moist savannahs, or the shores of those extensive rivers
which intersect the southern portion of America, and that
there is nothing pugnacious in their temper. Yet they
are “ doubly armed,” the margin of each wing bearing a
pair of very large spurs, thick at the base, but tapering
sharply to a point, and, no doubt, when driven forcibly for¬
ward by the muscular action of a powerful wing, capable
of inflicting such a blow as would at once deprive most
small animals of life.
Another bird, by some referred to our present genus,
is Pal. chavaria, Temm. (LY. Col. 219), the Parra chava-
ria of Linn., known in some English works as the faithful
jacana. Instead of a horn, its head is ornamented by a
feathered crest, and there is an obvious palmation between
the outer and middle toes. , For these and other reasons
it forms the genus Chauna of Uliger. Its head and upper
neck are clothed with down, the latter being surrounded
by a black collar. The rest of the plumage is lead colour
and blackish, with a white spot upon the front of the wings,
and another on the base of the primaries. Linnaeus, on
the authority of Jacquin, gives the following history of this
bird :—“ It inhabits the rivers, lakes, and marshes, near the
river Sinu, about thirty leagues from Carthagena, in South
America. It feeds on vegetables; its gait is solemn and
slow, but it flies easily and swiftly ; it cannot run unless
assisted by the wings at the same time. When any part
of the skin is touched by the hand, a crackling is felt,
though it is very downy beneath the feathers; and this
down adheres so closely ns to enable the bird at times to
swim, notwithstanding the length of its legs and of its
cleft feet; which latter enable it also to walk on the aqua¬
tic plants of the pools. It has two strong and pointed
spurs on the bend of the wing, which are, however, hid¬
den when the latter is closed, but when expanded they
become formidable weapons, aided by the strong and
lengthened wing ; and by means of them it is able to drive
off birds as big as the carrion vulture, and even that bird
itself. The natives, who keep poultry in great numbers,
have one of these tame, which goes along with the flock
about the neighbourhood to feed during the day, when
this faithful shepherd defends them against birds of prey:
it never deserts the charge committed to its care, although
able to fly, but returns home with them safe in the even¬
ing. It is so tame as to suffer itself to be handled by a
grown person, but will not permit children to attempt the
same. Its voice is clear and loud, but far from agreeable.”2
Baron Cuvier here places the genus Megapodius, Quoy Gralla-
et Gaim., of which the bill is slender, straight, flattened, lores,
and enlarged at the base, restricted at the centre, and in- ''“"'v-—
flated towards the point. The tail is small and wedge-
shaped. The general form is massive, the plumage usual¬
ly brown, without lustre. The species inhabit New Gui¬
nea, the Marianne Islands, &c. and are described in the
voyages of Freycinet and Duperrey. They are remark¬
able for the largeness of their eggs. Some authors place
them with the genera Crax and Penelope^ rather than in
the grallatorial order.
The extensive genus Rallus, Linn., is in one or other
of its forms known in almost every country of the world.
With Bechstein, we would restrict the title to such as have
the bill longer than the head, rather slender, compressed
at the base, with the tip cylindrical, and slightly curved.
As a British example may be mentioned our common
water-rail (i?. aquations')., a shy and solitary bird, which
resides throughout the year in Britain. It is extensively
spread over Europe, but does not occur in America. The
land-rails form the genus Crex, Bechstein, and have the
bill shorter than the head, thick at the base, somewhat
cultrate, and compressed. The wings are armed with a
small concealed spine. Besides the well-known corn-crake
(C. pratensis), a summer bird of passage, of which the de¬
ceptive note is heard so often during evening twilight, we
have the spotted crake, C. porzana, Baillon’s crake, C.
Baillonii (Olivaceous gallinule of Mont.?), and the little
crake, C. pusilla. The Carolina rail seems a Crex in the
form of its bill, though its aquatic habits assimilate it to
Rallus. It assembles during autumn in vast numbers on
the reedy shores of the larger rivers in the middle and
southern states of North America, and affords abundant
occupation to sportsmen. Any active and expert marks¬
man may kill ten or twelve dozen in a few hours. It win¬
ters to the south of the Union. The diet of the different
species probably varies with time and place. The Ame¬
rican bird just named is very fond of rice. Our own spe¬
cies feed both on grain and insects. Sir W. Jardine found
a short-tailed field-mouse in the stomach of a land-rail.
This bird is called king of the quails in some continental
countries, in consequence of its arriving and departing
with these birds.
The old genus Fulica, Linn., has, like the preceding,
been also subdivided, in accordance with the form of the
bill and lobation of the toes. For example, the genus
Gallinula of Briss. and Lath, has the bill resembling
that of Crex, but there is a flat fleshy shield upon the fore¬
head. The toes are long, and bordered by an extremely
narrow lateral margin. We here place our British galli¬
nule, familiarly known by the name of water-hen, G. chlo-
ropus, Lath. This bird, though with us a permanent re-
sidenter, is migratory in all the more northern parts of
Europe. It occurs both in Asia and Africa, but not in
America, as some erroneously suppose. It swims and
dives well, though its feet might, a priori, be deemed but
little fit for such aquatic service. The water-hen is of
rather familiar habits, that is, a pair are sure to make
their appearance as soon as any small artificial piece of
water has been formed, even in the closest proximity to
human dwellings. It builds by the water-side, and lays a
great number of eggs, from eight to ten, which it is said
to cover carefully during its occasional absence in search
of food. The purple and Florida gallinules ( G. Martinica
and guleata) occur in North America; and a Javanese spe¬
cies (G. ardosiaca) is described by M. Vieillot.
In the genus Porphyrio of Brisson, the bill is higher
in relation to its length than in the preceding. The
toes are extremely long, with scarcely a perceptible bor-
1 flajon, Mem. tur Cayenne, t. ii. p. 284.
3 Shaw’s General Zoology, voL xii. p. 272.
808 ORNITHOLOGY.
Gralla- der; and the frontal disk, sometimes rounded, sometimes
tores. Square above, is of considerable size. The species are
Y *~ remarkable for richness of colouring. P- hyacinthinus,
Temm. (Fulica porphyria, Linn.), is an African species,
not unfrequent in Sicily and Sardinia.
The genus Fulica, as now restricted, is chiefly distin¬
guished from its congeners by a scallop-shaped or broadly-
festooned membrane on each side of the toes. It con¬
tains the coots, of which F. atra, Linn., our common coot,
affords a good example. This bird, as generally distri¬
buted in Britain throughout the summer season as the
water-hen, leaves the northern portions of the island on
the approach of winter. It dislikes being approached in
open water, though a good diver, and quickly betakes it¬
self to some protecting cover of reeds or other water-plants
on every slight alarm. The cinereous coot of the western
world (F. Americana, Gmel.) is a distinct species, though
not so regarded by Alexander Wilson. It is widely spread
over a vast extent of territory, from the steaming marshes
of Jamaica to the cool and grassy lakes which skirt the
plains of the Saskatchewan.
Baron Cuvier terminates his systematic exposition of
the grallatorial order by three genera of a somewhat ano¬
malous nature, which certainly do not amalgamate either
with their neighbours or each other.
The genus Chionis of Forster has the bill short, strong,
compressed, the nostrils tubular, and protected by hard,
elevated, and compressed folds, which envelope the base.
(Plate XVL, fig. 8.) The front of the head and part of the
face are naked, the wings long, the feet short. There is
only a single species known. It is called the sheath-bill,
Ch. Forsteri, or necrophaga, or vagmalis, and is of snowy
whiteness, and of the size of a pigeon. A great diversity
of opinion exists regarding its position; some writers re¬
moving it into the ensuing order, while Mr Swainson places
it among the Columbidae. It inhabits New Zealand, Ker¬
guelen’s Land, Staten Land, and other countries of the
southern hemisphere, where it is said to frequent the sea¬
shore in flocks, feeding on mollusca and carrion, which lat¬
ter renders its flesh offensive to the taste. It was dis¬
covered during Cook’s circumnavigation.
The genus Glareola, Gmel., contains the pratincoles,
or sea-partridges as they are sometimes called. The bill
is short, compressed, somewhat arched throughout, and
rather deeply cleft. The wings are of great length, and
very sharp pointed, somewhat resembling those of swal¬
lows. The legs are of medium length, and there is a
slight palmation between the outer and middle toes. The
tail is usually forked. These birds fly in numerous noisy
flocks, and feed on insects, “ particulierement des mouches
et autres insectes ailes qui vivent parmi les joncs et les
roseaux; il se lance” (M. Temminck alludes particularly
to the European species) “ sur ces insectes avec une rapi-
dite etonnante, et les saisit au vol ou a la course.”1 The
pratincoles inhabit the temperate and warmer regions of
the old world, and are unknown in America. The col¬
lared or Austrian species (G. torquata, Meyer) is com¬
mon in the south-eastern countries of Europe, and has
been killed occasionally in Britain.2 G. lactea, Temm.,
inhabits Bengal ;3 G. grallaria of the same author is na¬
tive to New Holland.
Lastly, the genus Phcenicopterus, Linn., contains
those extraordinary birds called flamingoes. The bill is Palmi.
higher than wide, dentated, conical towards the point, the Pecks-
upper mandible suddenly bent from its centre downwards
upon the under one, which is the broadest. The neck and
legs are of extraordinary length, and the anterior toes are
united by a broad palmation. Mr Swainson regards this
genus as the grallatorial type of the Anatidce, and he con¬
sequently places it in the natatorial order, which we are
just about to enter. The only species known in Europe is
Ph. ruber, Linn., a bird well known in Sicily and Calabria,
and very abundant in Sardinia, especially among the la-
gunes and marshes in the neighbourhood of Cagliari.
Large flocks occur almost every year along the southern
coasts of France, and a few sometimes stray as far north¬
wards as the banks of the Rhine. It is common in many
countries of Africa and Asia; but the American species,
regarded as synonymous by Wilson, is a distinct kind, men¬
tioned long ago as such by Molina. (See Plate XVI., figure
9.) It is theP/<. Americanus of Mr Nuttall, and the bird
alluded to by Thomas Campbell in his Gertrude of Wyo¬
ming :—
Then, where of Indian hills the daylight takes
His leave, how might you the flamingo see
Disporting like a meteor on the lakes.
Another western kind occurs in South America (P/<.
ignipalliatus, Isid. Geoff.),4 while a fourth (Ph. minor)
is native to the Cape and Senegal.5 These birds in ge¬
neral inhabit solitary sea-coasts in most of the warmer
regions of the earth, where they associate in flocks, and
migrate in bodies formed into an angular phalanx, like
wild geese. They feed upon mollusca, insects, and spawn,
which they fish up by means of their lengthened necks,
sometimes turning their bill upside down, to take advan¬
tage of its peculiar, and apparently inconvenient form.
They are said to be extremely shy and watchful (although
Dampier and his two companions succeeded in killing
fourteen at once6), and place sentinels, which on the ap¬
proach of threatened danger, give alarm by a loud and
trumpet-like cry. They also breed together in inundated
marshes, raising their nests to a considerable height, by
collecting the mud into a pyramidal hillock with their
toes, after which they brood and hatch their eggs in what
may be called a standing posture, their feet and legs be¬
ing often in the water. The young are only two or three
in number, and run almost as soon as excluded from the
shell. They sleep standing upon one leg, with the neck
folded back upon the body, and the head reclined beneath
the wing. They run swiftly, but never swim from choice.7
The tongue of the European flamingo was much admired
by ancient epicures; and Apicius, that “ deepest abyss
of wastefulness,” as Pliny calls him, is supposed to have
been the first to discover its exquisite flavour.
Order VI.—PALMIPEDES, or WEB-FOOTED
BIRDS.8
The birds of this order are especially characterized by their
peculiar adaptation for swimming, their feet being gene¬
rally short and placed far behind, their tarsi short and com¬
pressed, and their anterior toes connected by membranes,
1 Manuel, ii. p. 502.
a Bullock, in Linn. Trans, xi. 177*
3 See Planches Col. 399;—also Leach in Linn. Trans, xiii. pi. 12.
4 Annul, des Sciences Nat. xvii. 454.
* Temminck, PI. Col. 419.
6 Voyage, i. 70.
7 Nuttall’s Manual, ii. 70.
8 Natatohes, llliger.
ORNITHOLOG Y.
809
telmi- or inlayed by lateral lobes. Their plumage is close, often
edes. glossy, and imbued with an oily fluid, which repels the
vwater; and their skin is moreover covered with a dense
layer of down, which prevents the rapid escape of the heat
generated in their bodies. They are the only birds whose
neck exceeds their legs in length, the reason of which ar¬
rangement is, that while swimming on the surface of the
water they have often to search for their food at some depth.
Their sternum is elongated so as to cover the greater part
of the viscera, and has only a lateral notch, or oval fora¬
men, so that a large surface is afforded for the insertion of
the pectoral muscles. Their oesophagus is always wide,
their gizzard generally muscular, and their intestine fur¬
nished with two rather long caeca. Their windpipe varies
in form, but the inferior larynx is simple, although in one
family it has a curious bony and cartilaginous dilatation.
This order has been divided into four families ;
1. The Brachypterce, or short-winged sea-birds, having
the wings very short, and the feet placed so far behind
that they are obliged to assume a nearly erect posture when
on shore.
2. The Longipenno!, or long-winged sea birds, having
the wings extremely long, the hind toe free or wanting,
and the bill horny.
3. The Totipalmce, of which the hind toe is connected
with the rest by a common web, the wings long, and the
bill horny.
4. The Lamellirostres, whose bill, which is thick and co¬
vered with a soft skin, has the edges furnished with trans¬
verse horny plates or teeth.1
FAMILY I—BRACKYPTER^E, OR DIVERS.
The organization of these birds renders them more aqua¬
tic than those of any other family. Many of them reside
almost entirely on the waters, fly little, and walk with diffi¬
culty, their feet being placed very far behind. Their wings
are generally extremely short, and their flight, although
sometimes rapid, is neither undulated nor buoyant. In
some species they are reduced to mere organs of natation,
the quills not being developed. All the species are furnished
with a dense and short plumage, swim and dive with re¬
markable agility, and pursue their prey under the surface,
employing their wings as well as their feet to aid their
progress. They are generally distributed, migrate exten¬
sively, and breed in society, often on rocky islands or abrupt
cliff’s. This family may be divided into three tribes.
Is/. The divers,—Colymbidce, are characterized by their
straight, compressed, pointed, smooth bill, linear and lateral
nostrils, narrow wings, and short tail. In some the feet
are lobed, in others webbed.
The grebes, genus Podiceps (Plate XVII., fig. 1), re¬
semble the coots in the form of their feet, their anterior
toes, instead of being connected by webs, being merely
dilated by means of lateral lobes. Their body is generally
short and depressed ; their neck long and slender ; their
bill straight, compressed, tapering, and pointed ; their nos¬
trils linear and pervious. The legs (tibiae) are entirely
concealed in the abdomen ; the tarsi are extremely com¬
pressed ; and the claw of the middle toe is flattened and
dilated. The plumage is remarkably soft, silky, and often,
especially on the lower part, has a shining gloss. Their
wings are very narrow, and their tail is generally reduced
to a slight tuft of scarcely distinguishable feathers. These
birds when on shore are obliged to stand in a nearly erect
posture ; but although they walk with difficulty, their flight
is rapid, and their motions on the water extremely quick. Palmi.
They dive and pursue their way under water with extreme pedes,
agility, and when apprehensive of danger generally disap-
pear under the surface, instead of flying off. Their food
consists of small fishes, Crustacea, mollusca, and insects,
as well as seeds of aquatic plants; and they nestle in marshy
places, laying several eggs, generally of a white colour.
Their plumage varies so much, according to age and sex,
that the species have been erroneously multiplied by au¬
thors. Four species inhabit Europe, of which two may be
particularly mentioned.
The great crested grebe, Podiceps cristatus, is of the size
of a mallard, blackish brown on the upper parts, with a
white band on the wing, and of a silvery white beneath.
The adults have a double black crest, and a large reddish
ruff or tippet margined with black, on the upper part of the
neck. This species inhabits the northern part of both con¬
tinents, where it breeds, and whence it migrates southward '
on the approach of winter. The nest is made of rushes
and flags, or other aquatic herbage; and the eggs, three
or four in number, are of a greenish white. Several au¬
thors allege that the female sometimes succours her young,
when fatigued or in danger, by carrying them on her back
or beneath her wings. From their surprising agility in
diving they are not inappropriately named water-witches
and dippers in America. The skins are dressed and made
into muffs and tippets.
The little grebe, or dobchick, Pcdiceps minor, is the
smallest of the species, not exceeding ten inches in length.
It is not uncommon in most parts of Europe, as well as in
the north of Asia, and the country around Hudson’s Bay.
In large rivers and lakes individuals are said to be some¬
times devoured by pike and other fishes. In the adult the
upper parts are deep black, the lower silvery gray, the
throat black, and the neck ferruginous.
The finfoots, Podoa, Illig., have the feet lobed like the
coots and grebes ; but their tail is more developed, and
their claws more pointed. (Plate XVII., fig. 2.) To this
genus have been referred the African finfoot, P. Senegalen-
sis, and the Surinam species, P. Surinamensis, which latter,
however, is by some considered as belonging to Anhinga.
The divers properly so called, genus Colymbus, greatly
resemble the grebes in form, but differ from them in hav¬
ing the toes regularly webbed, and the tail moderately de¬
veloped. Their body is elongated, and somewhat depressed;
their neck long, their head small, oblong, and compressed ;
their bill rather long, straight, and tapering to a point;
their plumage short and close; their wings of moderate
length, but very narrow. These birds are peculiarly aqua¬
tic, and while in search of food remain often longer sub¬
merged than on the surface, to which they seem occasion¬
ally to come merely for the purpose of respiring. They
feed on fishes of various kinds, but generally of small size,
as well as on Crustacea. Like the grebes, they dive when
alarmed, and are not easily raised from the water, although
their flight, which is direct, is very rapid. On land they
stand erect, and walk with difficulty. They are generally
solitary, breed on the margins of lakes in the arctic re¬
gions, and lay two or three very elongated, dark-coloured,
and spotted eggs. Their flesh is dark-coloured and unsa¬
voury. Of this genus the more remarkable species are the
following.
The great northern diver, Colymbus glacialis, is about
two feet and three quarters long, with the upper parts
black, spotted with white ; the head and neck glossy black,
with green reflections, the lower parts white; the tail has
twenty feathers. This species is generally distributed in
1 For some interesting general observations on certain genera of this order, the reader may consult “ Remarks on the Pelagic Birds,
and on certain other Palmipedes, considered especially as regards their habits and their geographical distribution in the Oceans of the
Globe,” published in Freycinet’s Voyage autour du Monde,—Pariie Zoologique, par MM. Quoy and Gaimard.
VOL. XVI. 5 K
810
ORNITHOLOGY.
Palmi- the'cold and temperate climates of the northern hemi-
Pe —‘ > spliere* It breeds in the arctic regions, generally on the
margin of- lakes, or on islands, laying three eggs of a
dull olive tint spotted with dusky. “ Far out at sea in
winter,” says Nuttall, “and in the great western lakes,
particularly Huron and Michigan, in summer, I have
often heard, on a fine calm morning, the sad and wolfish
call of the solitary loon, which like a dismal echo seems
slowly to invade the ear, and rising as it proceeds, dies
away in the air. This boding sound to mariners, suppos¬
ed to be indicative of a storm, may be heard sometimes
for two or three miles, when the bird itself is invisible, or
reduced almost to a speck in the distance. The abori¬
gines, nearly as superstitious as sailors, dislike to hear
the cry of the loon, considering the bird, from its shy and
extraordinary habits, as a sort of supernatural being. By
the Norwegians its long-drawn howl is, with more appear¬
ance of reason, supposed to portend rain.” The flesh of
this bird is dark and unpalatable; but its skin, with the
feathers on, is used by various barbarous tribes as an arti¬
cle of clothing.
Two other species, of inferior size, the red-throated di¬
ver, C. septentrionalis, and the black-throated, C. arcticus,
inhabit the same regions, and are nearly similar in ha¬
bits. Both these birds breed in some of the northern parts
of Scotland.
The guillemots, genus Uria, have the bill of moderate
length, robust, straight, compressed, and pointed; the
nostrils nearly basal, lateral, linear, and partially covered
by short feathers. The head is rather large and oblong,
the neck short. The legs are placed far back, and their
feet differ from those of the divers in wanting the hind
toe. Their wings are short, narrow, and pointed; but
they fly with considerable speed, and their tail is very
short and rounded. These birds migrate in small flocks,
and collect in vast assemblages to breed on the abrupt
precipices and rocky islands of the northern seas, whence
they again retire towards the end of autumn. They form
no nest, but deposit their single egg, which is pyriform
and of great size, on the bare rock.
The common guillemot, Uria troile, is somewhat less
than the mallard, and has the bill longer than the head;
its upper parts are black, the lower white, as are the tips
of the secondary quills ; in summer the head is brown, and
the adult has a black stripe behind the eye. This spe¬
cies is very abundant along the northern coasts of Eu¬
rope and America, and nowhere more so than in the Bri¬
tish seas.
i Another species, about the same size, but distinguishable
by having the bill shorter and much more robust, is the
thick-billed guillemot, Uria Brunnichii, which also occurs
in the northern seas of both continents, but does not ex¬
tend so far south as the former.
The Greenland dove, or little guillemot of authors, has
been considered by some as constituting a distinct genus,
to which Cuvier has given the name of Cephus. It is
about the size of a large pigeon, and is entirely black, ex¬
cepting a large white space on the middle of the wing, and
the feet, which are red. This species, unlike those men¬
tioned above, breeds under stones or in the crevices of
rocks, wjiere it lays two or three light-coloured eggs,
spotted with dusky. It is frequent in the northern seas,
and breeds on the Scottish coasts in great numbers.
2ef The auks,—Alcadce, which form the next group, are
very closely allied to the guillemots, from which they are
easily distinguished by their extremely compressed and
vertically elevated bill, which is usually transversely fur¬
rowed. The toes are entirely webbed, but the hind toe
is wanting, as in the guillemots, which they further re¬
semble in their habits and distribution. This tribe may
be divided into several subordinate genera.
The puffins, genus Fratercula, have the bill shorter Palmi.
than the head, and as high at the base as it is long, a cir- pedes,
cumstance which gives these birds an extraordinary ap-
pearances-and'has given rise to the appellations of coulter-
nebs and parrot-bills, vulgarly applied to them. At the
base of the bill there is generally an elevated fold of bare
skin ; and the nostrils, which are close to the margin, are
mere slits. The puffins fly with rapidity, in a direct line,
at the height of only a few feet over the waves ; swim and
dive with extreme dexterity; and nestle in the crevices
of rocks, or more generally in holes formed by themselves
in the turf.
The species best known and most extensively distribut¬
ed is the common puffin, Fratercula arctica, which is of
the size of a pigeon or jackdaw, with the upper parts dusky,
the lower white, a broad black band round the neck, the
bill red, with three grooves across each mandible. It is
abundant on the northern coasts of Europe and America,
where it breeds in burrows formed by itself in the soil of
unfrequented islands and headlands, making no proper
nest, and laying a single whitish and pyriform egg.
Another species, having a still more singular appear¬
ance, on account of two tufts of silky feathers on its head,
inhabits the shores of Kamtschatka, the Kurile Isles, and
others lying between Asia and America. The skins are
employed by the natives as an article of clothing.
Some species having the bill less elevated, somewhat
quadrangular, and notched near the tip, have been distin¬
guished by M. Temminck under the generic name of Pha-
leris. Of these may be mentioned the Ph. psittacula,
and Ph. cristatella, both inhabitants of the north-western
coast of America, Kamtschatka, and the Kurile Isles.
The auks properly so called, or restricted genus Alca,
have the bill more elongated, and in shape somewhat re¬
sembling the blade of a common pocket-knife, its base being
feathered as far as the nostrils. As an example of the er¬
rors into which persons little conversant with living birds
may fall, may be adduced the following statement of Cu¬
vier with regard to the auks: “Their wings are decidedly
too small to sustain them, and they do not fly at all.” So
far is this from being the case with our common species,
that it flies with as much celerity as the guillemot and
puffin, and in its ordinary flight outstrips the gulls and
terns, although these birds fly with greater buoyancy.
The statement, however, is correct as applying to the
great auk, which might perhaps with propriety be referred
to a separate genus.
The species so common on our coasts, as well as on
those of Europe and North America, is the razor-billed
auk, Alca torda, which is about the size of the common
guillemot, and similarly coloured, being black above and
white beneath, with a white band on the wing, and a line
or two of the same colour on the bill.
The great auk, Alca impennis, is the largest bird of this
family, equalling a goose in size. Its colour is similar to
that of the common species; but its bill, which is marked
with eight or ten grooves, is entirely black, and it has an
oval white spot between the bill and the eye. Its wings
are reduced to a kind of paddles, and are similar to those
of the penguins, so that it does not possess the faculty of
flying. It inhabits the highest latitudes of the globe, but
is extremely rare, so that specimens are of very unfre¬
quent occurrence in collections, and the only one in this
country is that of the British Museum. A few instances
have occurred of its being seen on the northern coasts of
Scotland. In the northern seas this remarkable bird
seems to represent the species of the next group, which
belong to the other extremity of the globe.
3d. The penguins,—Aptenodidcs, are entirely destitute
of the faculty of flying, their wings being converted into
small, oblong, flattened paddles or fins, covered with mi-
ORNITHOLOGY.
811
Imi- nute scale-like feathers. Their body is elliptical and de- two feet long, with the upper parts, a band on the breast, Palmi-
des. pressed, their neck of moderate length, their head oblong, and a collar on the middle of the neck, black, inhabits pedes,
their bill of moderate length, generally slender and point- Terra del Fuego, the Straits of Magellan, and other parts
ed, the upper mandible covered with feathers for a third of the antarctic regions, where they are very numerous,
of its length, or as far as the nostrils, whence a groove ex- This species, like the gorfou, and probably all the birds of
tends to the tip. Their legs are very short, and placed so this tribe, has a habit of leaping several feet out of the
far behind that they cannot support themselves on land, water, either when about to dive, or when it meets with
even in a vertical position, without resting on their tarsi, any obstacle on the surface,
which are flattened behind, somewhat like the foot of a
quadruped. Their life is chiefly spent on the ocean, and
as they possess the faculties of swimming and diving in FAMILY II LONGIPENN-ffi.
the highest degree of perfection, they are the most truly
aquatic of all birds, and the analogues of the swallows, To this family belong those wandering sea-birds which,
which are the most aerial. If any bird approaches nearly having a flight characterized by extreme buoyancy and
in structure and habits to a quadruped, the penguins rapidity combined, are met with on all parts of the ocean,
may claim kindred with the seals, which they greatly re- frequently at the greatest distance from land. Their wings
semble in their mode of life, going on shore merely to are always very long, although often extremely narrow;
breed, and dragging themselves over the rocks in a similar and their tail is proportionally developed. Their hind toe
manner. „ is small and free, or wanting; their bill pointed or hooked
The penguins peculiarly so named, genus Aptenodytes, at the tip, but without lamellae; their inferior larynx has
, as restricted, have the bill rather long, slender, and point- only one muscle on each side; their oesophagus is wide,
ed, the upper mandible slightly arched towards the end, their stomach muscular, their caeca short. They are inca-
and covered with feathers at the base; the nostrils linear, pable of diving and pursuing their prey under the surface,
with the nasal groove extending to the tip. but they swim with ease, and sit lightly and gracefully on
The Patagonian or great penguin, Aptenodytes Pata- the water. Some of them obtain their food by dipping or
gonica (Plate XVIL, fig. 4), is nearly of the size of the plunging from on wing, others by picking it up as they
great auk, of a dark-grayish blue above, white beneath, swim, while several wander to great distances in quest of
the head black, and a yellow curved band on the fore dead animals of all kinds, and are in fact the vultures of
neck. It occurs in great flocks on the coasts of the Falk- the sea.
land Isles, New Guinea, New George, the Straits of Ma- The petrels, Procellarice, have their bill hooked at the
gellan, and other antarctic lands; feeds on fish, crusta- tip, which seems as if formed of a separate piece articu-
cea, and mollusca ; and is employed by the natives as an lated to the rest (Plate XVII., figures 5, 6, and 9); their
article of food, although its flesh is dark-coloured and rank, nostrils placed close together, and enclosed by a tube which
The gorfous, genus Chrysocoma, have the bill short, lies on the back of the upper mandible; and their hind
strong, and somewhat conical, with the point a little arch- toe reduced to a knob with a claw upon it. These birds,
ed. (Plate XVII., fig. 3 A) The groove from the nostril although many of them are very small, reside on the open
ends about a third from the tip. In other respects they ocean, where they are met with by voyagers in the most
do not differ materially from the penguins. tempestuous as in the calmest weather. Their food con-
The leaping gorfou, Chrysocoma saltator, is a handsome sists of Small fishes, Crustacea, and especially oily sub¬
bird, of the size of a domestic duck, with the head and stances of all kinds; and most of them when seized, whe-
upper parts grayish black, the lower white, and the head ther, on being wounded or on being dragged from their
ornamented with a large crest, of which the central part holes, disgorge an oleaginous matter, or squirt it through
is erect and dusky, the lateral portions deflected, and of their nostrils. They are incapable of diving, and seldom
a yellow colour. It is common in the Falkland Islands swim, but are generally seen flying or gliding over the sur-
and other parts of the sou thern seas ; and, like the Pata- face of the waves, mounting upon their ridges and descend-
gonian penguin and other birds of this group, is said to be ing into the hollows, often so close as to seem walking on
so stupid as to allow itself to be assailed without attempt- the water. Hence the name Petrel, or Little Peter, be¬
ing to escape. It is extremely expert at diving; and like se- stowed upon them, in allusion to St Peter’s progress on the
veral birds of different families, such as the cormorants and waves. In stormy weather they frequently fly in the Wake
darters, is often observed, while about to plunge beneath of a ship, to shelter themselves from the wind. On account
the surface, to leap several feet out of the water,—whence of this habit they are held in aversion by sailors, who, ima-
our sailors have named it the hopping penguin, or jump- gining them to be predictive of tempests, and in league
ing Jack. The word gorfou is a corruption of goir-fugel, with the mysterious source of evil, bestow on them the
or gare-fowl, applied in Ferroe and the north of Scotland opprobrious appellation of Mother Carey’s chickens. I heir
to the great auk, Alca impennis. ' flight is rapid and buoyant; they breed in holes and cre-
Several other species of this genus are known, and in- vices of the rocky coasts; and are more numerous in the
habit the same seas, such as the Papuan gorfou, Chr. Pa- antarctic than in the northern seas.
pua ; the collared, Chr. tor quota ; the red-footed, Chr. Those which have the lower mandible truncate are more
catarructes; and the little gorfou, Chr. minor. peculiarly named petrels, genus Procellaria.
Thesphenisques, genus Spheniscus, form a group cha- Of these the largest is the giant petrel, Procellaria gi-
racterized by their straight, compressed bill, which is irre- gantea, which has a length of about three feet and a half,
gularly grooved at the base, and has the tip of the upper and is of a dusky colour above, whitish beneath, with the
mandible curved, while that of the lower is obliquely trun- bill and legs yellow. It is of frequent occurrence in the
cate, as in the cormorant. (Plate XVII., figure 3 a.) southern seas, is observed to be most lively in stormy
The Cape sphenisque, Spheniscus demersus, is about weather, and feeds on fishes, and the carcasses of seals,
twenty inches long, black above, white beneath, with the birds, and other animals.
throat and cheeks black, a white line over each eye, and The*pintado, or Cape petrel, Procellaria Capensis, is
a black band across the fore part of the neck, and extend- about fourteen inches long; "variegated with browh and
ing along each side of the body. It occurs in the vicinity white, and occurs in large flocks in the antarctic seas, par-
of the Cape of Good Hope, where it nestles in the rocks, ticularly in the vicinity of the Cape of Good Hope. Like
Another species, Spheniscus Magellanicus, upwards of most of the other species, it flies very low, feeds on fish
812
Palmi¬
pedes.
ORNITHOLOGY.
and the carcasses of cetaceous animals, and when caught
squirts out a quantity of oil from the nostrils.
In the arctic seas a very abundant species is the fulmar
petrel, Procellaria glacialis, which is nearly of the size of
the herring gull, and has the upper parts of a light bluish-
gray, the head and lower parts white. It is extremely
voracious, and although its principal food consists of fish,
it devours indiscriminately any floating animal substance,
and follows in flocks the track of a wounded whale, until
the huge animal is exhausted, when it alights on the car¬
cass, and devours the blubber until satiated. This bird is
one of those most familiar to the sailors of the whale-ships,
on which it constantly attends, to pick up any offal that is
thrown overboard, and come in for its share of the plunder
when a whale has been captured. It breeds abundantly
in the island of St Kilda, the inhabitants of which obtain
a large quantity of oil from the stomachs of the individuals
which they catch for that purpose.
Of the smaller dark-coloured species may be mentioned
the common or storm petrel, P. pelagica, which is not
larger than a lark, and in its flight resembles a swallow
(Plate XVII., figure 5) ; Leach’s petrel, P. Leachii ; and
Wilson’s petrel, P. Wilsonii. Respecting the latter, we
may quote the following passage from the description given
of it by M. Audubon, in his Ornithological Biography.
“ But now, ever flapping its winglets, I have marked the
little bird, dusky all over save a single spot, the whiteness
of which contrasts with the dark hue of the waters, and
the deep tone of the clear sky. Full of life and joy, it
moves to and fro, advances towards the ship, then shoots far
away, gambols over the swelling waves, dives into their
hollows, and twitters with delight as it perceives an object
that will alleviate its hunger. Never fatigued, the tiny
petrels seldom alight, although at times their frail legs
and feet seem to touch the crest of the foaming wave. I
love to give every creature all the pleasure I can confer
upon it, and towards the little things I cast over the stern
such objects as I know they will most prize. Social crea¬
tures I would that all were as innocent as you! There
are no bickerings, no jealousies, among you; the first that
comes is first served: it is all the result of chance; and
thus you pass your lives. But the clouds gather, the gale
approaches, and our gallant bark is trimmed. Darkness
spreads over the heavens, and the deep waters send back a
blacker gloom, broken at intervals by the glimmer of the
spray. You meet the blast, and your little wings bear
you up against it for a while; but you cannot encounter
the full force of the tempest; and now you have all come
the nostrils opening, not by a common orifice, but by two
distinct apertures. (Plate XVII., fig. 9.)
Of this genus may be mentioned the cinerous puffin- '
petrel, Puffinus cinereas ; the Manks petrel, Pr. anglorum ;
and the dusky petrel, Pr. ohscura.
In the genus Haladroma of Illiger, the throat is di¬
latable like that of the cormorants, and the hind toe is
entirely wanting as in the albatrosses. In the genus Pa-
chyptila of the same author, the bill is enlarged at the
base, and its margins are garnished interiorly with fine
delicately-pointed vertical lamellae. (See plate XVII.,
fig. 6.)
The albatrosses, genus Diomedea, are the largest and
most powerful of all the feathered wanderers of the ocean.
Their bill, which is large, strong, and sharp-edged, is
terminated by a strong hook ; their nostrils, which are tu¬
bular, are placed apart; and their feet are destitute of
the hind toe. Their plumage is full, soft, and elastic, and
their wings, although narrow, are exceedingly long. They
are thus equally organized for swimming and flying, and
are met with in all parts of the intra-tropical and southern
oceans, sometimes following a ship in full sail for many
days, to pick up the refuse thrown overboard. They fl)
with surprising buoyancy and speed, and are able to bear
up against the most violent tempests. When fatigued or
satiated they rest upon the waters. Their food consists
of the carcasses of all sorts of animals, as well as live fishes,
Crustacea, mollusca, and other creatures, and their voracity
is such that sometimes having gorged themselves to ex¬
cess, they are unable for a time to fly, and may be caught
or destroyed. Under these circumstances, however, birds
generally disgorge the contents of their gullet and sto¬
mach, and by thus lightening themselves, are enabled to
escape.
Of the different species of this genus, that which is the
best known, as well as the largest, is the wandering alba¬
tross, Diomedea exulans. It is as large as a swan, being
four feet in length, and measuring ten feet between the
tips of its extended wings ; its upper parts dusky, the low¬
er white, the neck and sides transversely streaked with
brown, the primary quills black, the bill yellowish white,
the feet flesh-colour. This celebrated bird is principally
met with in the seas adjacent to the Cape of Good Hope,
and in those that separate the American continent from
the Asiatic. It is extremely voracious, feeding on fishes,
mollusca, and the carcasses of whales and other animals
It is said that when it cannot swallow a large fish at once,
it introduces part of it, and waits until it is digested be-
close beneath me, where you glide over the curling eddies fore swallowing the rest. Its flesh, although hard and dry.
caused by the motion of the rudder. You shall have all
possible attention paid you, and I will crawl to the cam-
boose, in search of food to support your tiny frames in
this hour of need. But at length night closes around,
and I bid you farewell....The gale is over ; the clear blue
of the sky looks clearer than ever, the sun’s rays are
brighter, on the quiet waters the ship seems to settle in tute an extensive group
repose, and her wings, though widely spread, no longer found in all parts of the
is eaten by the inhabitants of Kamtschatka, who use its
bones for tobacco-pipes and needle-cases.
From the albatrosses to the larger birds of the next ge¬
nus the transition is but slight, both as regards form and
habits.
The gulls, genus Larus, Plate XVII. fig. 8, consti-
of which representatives are
lobe. They are characterized
swell with the breeze. At a distance around us the dusky by their longish, compressed bill, of which the upper man-
wanderers are enjoying the bright morning; the rudder- dible is arched towards the end, while the lower is there
fish, yesterday so hvdy, has ended its career, so violently furnished with an angular prominence. The nostrils,
7hn * ,1 thG WaTS aSain.st *he vessel5 and aow which are placed near the middle, are linear-oblong and
VariL ? ga e/. arTnC* VV*1 floats oa the usur^e. pervious. Their body is generally light, the neck of mo¬
tile fri& ° Y ^ er t ey n , lere a small ciab, theie derate length, their head ovate and rather large, their legs
raLe °faSfa?lant* L°W °VT the deep 5ey of ordinary length, and their hind toe very small, or some-
a^e theh '“f f?8 ran on the ^ers. hew times obsolete. Some of the species are met with in
It is needle?’^ S^t theiv ^easure, at this moment. the open ocean5 but it is chiefly along the coasts, and
will return to my t“sk»0 fPecial,y "ear the mouths of rivers, that they are most
The miffin rwLio8 " r> i /• frequently seen, and in stormy weather thev often make
^.?e.nuU* P™F.IN0S.' are separated/rom over the land in Ja|.ch of wormS) lartK> -
the rest nn lu ~ incursions over the land
i t rest on account of their having the extremity of the rnrrjnn
lower mandible decurved as well - ~ ■ - carrion.
/
and
, . ,, . - ,   Their food consists chiefly of small fishes,
as that of the upper, and crustacea, and mollusca ; but to the larger species hardly
Palmi¬
pedes.
ORNITHOLOGY.
’almi- any animal substance comes amiss. They breed along the
^edes. shores, on unfrequented islands and headlands, laying in a
hollow on the ground from two to four eggs, spotted with
dusky.
Among the larger species, some are remarkable for the
dark or blackish hue of their back and wings; but in ge¬
neral the colour of those parts is a light-grayish blue,
while that of the lower is pure white. One species, the
ivory gull, Larus eburneus, has the plumage entirely of the
latter colour when in the adult state. The greater black-
backed gull, Larus marmus, the smaller black-backed
gull, Larus fuscus, and the thick-billed gull of New Hol¬
land, Larus melanoleucos, afford examples of the first kind
above alluded to. The largest known species is the bur¬
gomaster, Larus glaucus, of a light-grayish blue above,
white beneath, with the tail and tips of the wings also
white. It inhabits the arctic regions of Europe and Ame¬
rica, seldom making its appearance in the temperate cli¬
mates. One of the most common species on our coasts is
the herring gull, Larus argentatus, which remains with
us throughout the year. A gradual transition is observ¬
able from these larger species, which assimilate to the alba¬
trosses, to the smaller, which are intimately connected with
the terns.
Some species having very peculiar characters, have been
separated from the gulls, and formed into a genus apart.
These are the jagers, genus Lestris, which have the tip
of the upper mandible hooked, and the nostrils larger and
placed nearer the end of the bill than those of the gulls.
Their tail is generally pointed, their wings long, and their
flight is extremely rapid. Although they occasionally fish
for themselves, they obtain their food chiefly by attacking
various species of gulls and terns, which they teaze to make
them disgorge their food, which they then swallow.
Of this genus the more remarkable species are the skua,
Lestris catarractes, which is nearly equal in size to the
great black-backed gull ; the pomarine jager, L. pomari*
nus; and Richardson’s jager, L. Jiichardsonii, which is
common on our coasts in autumn, and breeds in the Shet¬
land Islands and Hebrides.
The terns, genus Sterna, are generally of small size,
and remarkable for their slender body, long and narrow
wings, and forked tail. Their feet are extremely short,
and their bill longish, compressed, and pointed. They very
seldom swim, but, when fatigued or satiated with food, re¬
pose on the rocks or sands. Their flight is extremely
buoyant, and they usually obtain their food by plunging
after it into the water from on wing. From their form
and the peculiar mode of flying, they have also obtained
the name of sea-swallows.
The most common species on the coasts of Europe are
the arctic tern, Sterna arctica ; the common tern, St. Hi-
rundo; and the little tern, St. minuta ; but several other
species occur there.
The noddies, genus Anous, differ from the terns in hav¬
ing the tail even at the end, and nearly equal with the
wings. Their bill also is more like that of the smaller
gulls. They are said to be so stupid as to allow themselves
to be killed without attempting to fly off; but this only
happens in places where they have not been accustomed
to meet with man.
The species best known is the black noddy, Anous
niger (Sterna stolida, Linn.), which is very common in the
tropical seas, and is of a sooty-brown, excepting the top of
the head, which is grayish white. It often settles on the
rigging of vessels, when the sailors sometimes catch it at
night while asleep.
The skimmers, genus Rhynchops, (Plate XVII., fig. 7),
are very nearly allied to the terns, but are distinguished
from all other birds by the extraordinary form of their bill,
of which the upper mandible is considerably shorter than
813
the lower, and grooved beneath, so as to receive the edge Palmi-
of the latter, which is extremely thin. They procure their pedes,
food in the same manner as the terns, skimming along the
surface of the water, and dipping their bill into it to seize
a small fish, as opportunity occurs.
The only species whose habits are known is the black
skimmer, Rhynchops nigra, which is about twenty inches
long, its bill and feet red, its upper parts black, the lower
white, its wings considerably longer than the tail. It oc¬
curs along the coasts of America, from New York to Bra¬
zil, breeding on the sandy shores in June, and continuing
in flocks all the year.
FAMILY III—TOTIPALMJE.
The birds of which this family is composed are those to
which the palmipede is more peculiarly applicable ;
for not only are their anterior toes connected by webs or
membranes, as in the other tribes, but their hind toe is
similarly connected with the inner. Their tarsi are gene¬
rally short, their wings and tail long, their neck elongated,
and their bill rather slender, somewhat conical, but gene¬
rally hooked at the joint. They swim, and for the most
part dive, with admirable dexterity, generally fly with
great celerity, feed entirely on fishes and other marine ani¬
mals, and are remarkable among web-footed birds for fre¬
quently perching on trees.
The pelicans, Pelecani, comprehend those which have
at the base of the bill a space destitute of feathers. The
skin of their throat is extensile, their tongue very small,
their gullet of great width, their caeca small, their nostrils
mere slits, sometimes obsolete.
The pelicans properly so called, genus Pelecanus, Plate
XVII., fig. 10, are distinguished from all other birds by
the singular structure of their bill, of which the upper man¬
dible, however, presents nothing very remarkable, while
the lower has its rami extremely slender and elastic, with
a large dilatable membranous bag attached to it. They
are birds of large size, with wings of moderate length, the
tail rounded, the feet short, and the claws curved.
The most remarkable species is the common pelican,
Pelecanus onocrotalus (above referred to), which is as large
as a swan, and entirely of a white colour tinged with red,
excepting the alula and primary quills, which are black.
Its length is nearly six feet, and its extended wings mea¬
sure about fifteen. Its upper mandible is flattened, with
a hook at the point; and the sac appended to the lower
mandible extends about nine inches down the neck, and
may be dilated so as to hold a man’s head with ease. This
pelican occurs in the tropical and warmer temperate re¬
gions of the old continent, and is common in the eastern
countries of Europe. Its principal food is fish, which it
catches with great dexterity, by plunging after it from on
wing. In fishing it fills the gular pouch, and does not im¬
mediately devour its prey, but when it has obtained a suf¬
ficiency, returns to the shore, and swallows it at leisure.
The female forms a large nest of grass in a marshy place,
and lays two or three white eggs, similar to those of a
swan.
The brown pelican, P. fuscus, of a grayish-brown colour,
and nearly four feet in length, is common in most parts of
America, and especially in the West Indies. A very large
species, P. australis, of a white colour, with the upper part
of the back, the quills, and tail, black, inhabits New Hol¬
land.
The cormorants, genus Phalacrocorax, resemble the
pelicans in their general form, but are destitute of the
large gular sac, having merely a bare dilatable mem¬
brane at the base of the lower mandible. They differ far¬
ther in not procuring their prey by plunging after it from
814 ORNITHOLOGY.
Palmi- on wing, their mode of fishing being similar to that of the
pedes, divevs.
Ihe common cormorant, Phalacrocorax carbo, is nearly
as large as a goose, and has a brownish-black colour, with
a white spot on the thigh, and streaks of the same colour
on the head and neck. It nestles in the cavities of rocks,
or on trees, laying three pale-green eggs, crusted with white
calcareous matter ; and is common in the northern parts of
both continents. It is stated that this species was formerly
trained in England for the purpose of catching fish. “ When
they come to the rivers,” says Willughby, “ they take off their
hoods, and having tied a leather thong.round the lower part
of their necks, that they may not swallow down the fish they
catch, they throw them into the river. They presently
dive under water, and there for a time, with wonderful
swiftness, they pursue the fish, and when they have caught
them, they rise presently to the top of the water, and
pressing the fish lightly with their bills, they swallow them,
till each bird hath in this manner swallowed five or six
fishes; then their keepers call them to the fist, to which
they readily fly, and, little by little, one after another,
vomit up all their fish, a little bruised with the nip they
gave them in their bills. When they have done fishing,
getting the birds on some high place, they loose the string
from their neck, leaving the passage to the stomach free
and open ; and for their reward they throw them part of
the prey they have caught, to each, perchance, one or two
fishes, which they by the way, as they are falling in the
air, will catch most dexterously in their mouths.”
A very common species on our coasts is the crested
cormorant, Phal. cristatus, which is of a dark-greenish
colour, with a recurved frontal tuft, and resembles the
preceding in its habits, breeding in the rocky caverns of
islands and headlands. Many other species occur in differ¬
ent parts of the world, the genus being generally distri¬
buted.
The frigate-birds, genus Tachypetes, differ from the
cormorants in having the tail forked, the wings extremely
* elongated, the feet very short, with their webs emarginate,
and the tip of both mandibles decurved. Their flight is
extremely rapid and buoyant, and they prey upon fishes,
which they capture by plunging after them from on wing,
or obtain by forcing the gannets to disgorge. Only one
species is well known.
The common frigate-bird, Tachypetes aquilus, is of a
dusky colour, more or less variegated with white on the
neck, and sometimes measures ten feet between the tips
of its extended wings. It inhabits the tropical regions, and
is found in great abundance on the island of Ascension.
Its principal food consists of flying-fishes, which it cap¬
tures during their aerial excursions. The following ac¬
count of this remarkable species, generally known to na¬
vigators by the name of the man-of-war, or frigate, is
given by Mr Audubon. “ This bird is possessed of a
powrer of flight, which I conceive superior to that of per¬
haps any other bird. However swiftly the Cayenne tern,
the smaller gulls, or the jager, move on wing, it seems a
matter of mere sport to it to overtake any of them. The
goshawk, the peregrine, and the gyr-falcon, which I con¬
ceive to be the swiftest of our hawks, are obliged to pur¬
sue their victim, should it be a green-winged teal or pas¬
senger-pigeon, at times for half a mile, at the highest
pitch ot their speed, before they can secure them. The
bird of which I speak comes from on high with the velo¬
city of a meteor, and on nearing the object of its pursuit,
which its keen eye has spied while fishing at a distance,
darts on either side to cut off all retreat, and with open
bill forces it to drop or disgorge the fish which it had just
caught. See him now ! yonder, over the waves leaps the Palmi.
brilliant dolphin, as he pursues the flying-fishes, which he Pedes.
expects to seize the moment they drop into the water.
The frigate-bird, who has marked them, closes his wings,
dives towards them, and now ascending, holds one of the
tiny things across its bill. Already fifty yards above the
sea, he spies a porpoise in full chase, launches towards the
spot, and in passing seizes the mullet that has escaped
from its dreaded foe ; but now, having obtained a fish too
large for his gullet, he rises, munching it all the while, as
if bound for the skies. Three or four of his own tribe
have watched him, and observed his success. They shoot
towards him on broadly extended pinions, rise in wride cir¬
cles, smoothly, yet as swiftly as himself. They are now
all at the same height, and each, as it overtakes him,
lashes him with its wings, and tugs at his prey. See !
one has fairly robbed him, but before he can secure the
contested fish it drops. One of the other birds has caught
it, but he is pursued by all. From bill to bill, and through
the air, rapidly falls the fish, until it drops on the waters,
and sinks into the deep. Whatever disappointment the
hungry birds feel, they seem to deserve it all.”1
The boobies, or gannets, genus Sula, have the bill
straight, conical, a little compressed, and with the point
somewhat deflected, the edges serrate, or cut into by short
parallel lines. The throat and the space around the eyes
are bare; the claw of the middle toe serrate, the wings
long and very narrow, and the tail cuneate or tapering.
They hover over the water when fishing, and plunge head¬
long after their prey, resting a few moments on emerging
before they resume their flight.
The common gannet or solan goose, Sula bassana,
occurs on the coasts of Europe and North America, and
breeds in vast numbers on remote and rocky islands. The
Bass Rock at the entrance of the Frith of Forth is a well-
known haunt of this species, as are Ailsa Craig in the
Clyde, St Kilda, and Suliskerry. The nest is very bulky,
and composed of sea-weeds ; the single egg not larger than
that of a domestic duck, and of a white colour ; the young,
at first covered with snow'-white down, is when fledged
of a dark-brown colour, spotted with white. Although the
flesh of this species is rank and oily, it was formerly con¬
sidered a kind of delicacy, and is still sparingly used in
the south of Scotland.
The booby gannet, Sula Candida, is inferior in size to
the species just mentioned, which it closely resembles in
form and habits. It is common on the coasts of the warm¬
er parts of America, particularly in the Bahama Islands
and the Brazilian seas. Although it sometimes nestles on
the ground, it generally builds on trees, and reposes there
at night. It is said to be a very stupid bird, allowing it¬
self to be knocked on the head or seized, without attempt¬
ing to escape,—whence the name of booby, commonly
given to it by the sailors, who frequently employ it as an
article of food, although its flesh is dark-coloured and dis¬
agreeable.
The darters, genus Plotus, resemble the cormorants
in the form of their body and feet, but are more slender,
and have a very elongated neck, with a small head, and a
straight, slender, and pointed bill. Like the cormorants,
they swim deep in the water, but with agility, and in div¬
ing spring fairly out of it to plunge headlong after their
prey. They inhabit the warm countries of America.
The black-bellied darter, Plotus melanogaster, Plate
XVIII., figure 1, is upwards of three feet long, of a dusky
colour, with the neck and back streaked with white. The
white-bellied darter, P. anhinga, is about the same size,
but has the lower parts white. It inhabits Brazil and
* Ornithological Biography*
ORNITHOLOGY.
hlmi- other parts of America, roosting at night on trees, whence,
:?des. should one approach, they drop into the water as if dead;
and on emerging at a distance, show only their long slen¬
der necks and heads, which bear so much resemblance to
those of serpents, that this species is frequently named the
snake-bird.
The tropic birds, genus Phaeton, which form the last
group of this section, bear a considerable resemblance to
the gannets, but are readily distinguished by the two
extremely elongated feathers of their tail, on account of
which the French give them the not inappropriate name
ofpaille-en-queue. Their head is entirely feathered ; their
bill straightish, tapering, pointed, and denticulated on the
edges; their feet are short, and their wings long. The
flight of these birds is rapid and buoyant, and they are
often seen far out at sea. As they seldom extend their
range beyond the tropics, their occurrence apprises navi¬
gators of their entrance into the warmer regions. They
perch and nestle upon trees.
Two species are distinguished ;—the common, or white¬
tailed tropic bird, Phaeton cethereus; and the red-tailed
species, Ph. phcenicurus. The former is white, with the
ocular region and shoulders black, the primary quills of
the same colour, and the bill red. It inhabits the Atlantic
Ocean. The latter is of a pale rose-colour, or reddish
white, with the ocular region and wing-coverts deep black,
and the two elongated feathers of the tail red. It occurs
in the Indian and African Seas, at Madagascar, the Cape
of Good Hope, the Isle of France, and many of the South
Sea islands.
FAMILY IV—LAMELLIROSTItES.
The birds of this family are readily distinguished from
those of the preceding by the peculiar structure of the
bill, which has its margins furnished with horny lamellae, or
dentiform processes, and its surface covered with soft skin,
in place of the horny envelope which is spread over that
of the other Palmipedes. The tongue, which is broad and
fleshy, has its margins also lamellate ; the gizzard is ex¬
tremely muscular, although not of large capacity, and the
caeca are rather long. Another remarkable distinction is
found in the lower larynx, which generally has a very ex¬
traordinary dilatation in the males. Their body is usually
somewhat depressed, their wings of moderate length, their
feet short, and their neck more or less elongated, some¬
times of extreme length. They swim with ease, but walk
in a constrained and vacillating manner ; and are for the
most part phytophagous, though many feed on mollusca,
Crustacea, and fishes. They occur in all parts of the
globe,—some being maritime, but the greater number
lacustrine or fluviatile, that is, frequenting lakes or rivers.
They are naturally arranged into two groups;—the one
{Analidce) comprising the swans, geese, and ducks ; the
other {Mergidce) composed of the mergansers.
The great group of Anatidce includes all those web¬
footed birds which have their bill large and broad, covered
with a thin membrane, and having its edges furnished with
transverse or oblique lamellae, the object of which seems
to be to allow the water to escape when the bird has
seized its food. Vegetable substances, especially seeds,
roots, and blades”of grasses, form the principal nourish¬
ment of many of the species ; but others feed on fishes,
moiiusca, insects, and worms. The piscivorous species
dive in pursuit of their prey, while those which feed on
vegetable matter either procure it on shore, or along the
margins of the water, or, while floating on the surface, ob¬
tain it from some depth by means of their long neck. The
flesh of many of these birds is much esteemed, but is not
*o readily digestible as that of the waders and gallinaceous
815
order. Many of them moult twice in the year, and after Palmi-
the summer change the males assume in part the colours pedes,
peculiar to the females, which, on the contrary, exhibit no
variation. They generally breed in marshy places, and
deposit numerous eggs. The young, which are at first
covered with stiffish down, are capable of walking and
swimming immediately after birth.
The characters by which the subdivisions of this group
are distinguished are derived chiefly from the form of the
bill. In the swan that organ is as broad at its fore part
as at the base, where its height is greater than its breadth,
and the nostrils are placed about the middle. In the
geese, the bill is shorter than the head, higher than broad
at the base, and narrower towards the end. Lastly, in the
ducks properly so called, the bill is at least as broad at its
extremity as at the base, where it is broader than high
the nostrils are placed on the back of the bill near the
base. In the swans the neck is extremely long, in the
geese of moderate length, and in the ducks generally rather
short.
The swans, genus Cygnus, are the largest birds of the
family, and are characterized by the elegance of their form,
and the graceful ease with which they glide over the sur¬
face of the water, although on land their motions are more
constrained. Their body is large, their neck extremely
elongated, their head oblong, their wings large, and their
feet short and strong. They live chiefly on the seeds and
roots of aquatic plants, and nestle among the feeds by the
margins of lakes and rivers. They are strictly monoga¬
mous, and the young swim and walk immediately after
exclusion.
The wild swan, Cygnus ferus, has the bill yellow at the
base, and black towards the end, the plumage pure white,
but in the young of a gray colour. It is readily distin¬
guished from the domestic swan by having the base of the
bill flattened above, and by the curvature formed by the
wind-pipe, which enters into a cavity in the crest of the
sternum, from which it is reflected anteriorly, and then
passes into the thorax. This species inhabits the northern
regions of both continents, whence it migrates southward
on the approach of winter, remaining in the temperate
countries until the i-eturn of spring. The female lays from
five to seven or eight eggs, of a whitish colour tinged with
olive, and is said to incubate six weeks. The flesh and
eggs are highly esteemed, and the skins are prepared with
the down to be made into garments. The down itself
forms an article of commerce, which is in considerable de¬
mand in the colder countries of Europe. The song of the
swan is familiar to all the lovers of poetry ; but, like many
equally accredited facts, has no real existence; for the cry
of this bird, although clear and shrill, is never modulat¬
ed into harmony. When heard at a distance, however,
especially from a flock on wing, it is extremely pleasing.
Another fable regarding the vast strength of wing of this
bird was long believed,—a blow from it being alleged
as sufficient to break a man’s thigh. “ It is high time,”
says Montagu, “ such absurdities should be erased in this
philosophic age, and that the mind of man should reason
before he continues to relate such accounts, only calcu¬
lated to frighten children. Let the bones of the wing of
the swan be examined, and compared with the thigh of a
man, or even of his arm, and it will be evident that it
would be as impossible for a swan to break a man’s arm,
as it would be to break his head with a reed. The bone
of a man’s arm would bear a pressure fifty times as great
as the bone of a swan’s wing; how, then, is the inferior in
size and strength to break the superior, without at least
being itself fractured? It should also be recollected, that
a bird is incapable of striking with any degree of force
while all its quill-feathers are perfect, the resistance of
the air against such a surface being too great to allow of
816
Palmi-
pedes.
O R N I T H 0 L O G Y.
its moving with sufficient velocity to inflict any sensible
pain
A species very nearly allied to the above is Bewick’s
swan, Cygnus Bewickii, which was first distinguished as a
species by Mr Yarrell and Mr Richard Wingate of New¬
castle. It has the bill black, with its base orange yellow,
the plumage white, and the tail of eighteen feathers,
whereas there are twenty in that of the common wild
swan. The curvature of the trachea is also different, and
the size of the species is about a third smaller. It inha¬
bits the arctic regions of both continents, migrating south¬
ward in winter.
The mute or tame swan, Cygnus olor, has the bill red, its
edges, the nail at its tip, and a large knob at the base of the
upper mandible, black ; the plumage white, the tail of twen¬
ty-four feathers. In this species the trachea has no extra
thoracic curvature. The tame swan is said to be found in
its wild state in the eastern countries of Europe and Asia.
It is generally distributed over Europe in a domesticated
state, forming a great ornament to our rivers and artificial
pieces of water. It makes its nest of grass, among reeds,
and deposits seven or eight eggs of a greenish-white co¬
lour, which are hatched in seven or eight weeks. The
young are of a gray colour, and were formerly much es¬
teemed as an article of food.
The black swan, Cygnus atratus, of which the general
colour of the plumage is brownish black, with part of the
wings white, and the bill red, inhabits various parts of New
Holland, and is now not uncommon in a domesticated state
in this country. (See Plate XVIII., figure 5.)
Intermediate between the swans and geese are several
species, such as the Guinea goose, slnas cygnoides of Lin¬
naeus, and the spur-winged or Gambia goose, Anas Gam-
bensis of the same author,—which, although less elegant
than the swans, are yet nearly allied to them in the form
of their bill.
The geese, genus Anser, are distinguished, as has been
already said, by the form of their bill, which is short, and
narrowed towards the point. Their feet are also pro¬
portionally longer than those of the ducks, so that they
have a greater facility in walking. They swim less, how¬
ever, and are incapable of diving. They live in flocks,
feed on gramineous plants and seeds, migrate in large bo¬
dies, which during their flight are usually disposed in di¬
vergent lines, and breed in marshy places, laying nume-
rous eggs. Those species which have the bill more slen¬
der and somewhat cylindrical, are separated by some au¬
thors to form the genus Bernicla. Three species of
geese properly so called, and two of bernicles, are not
uncommon during winter in this and other countries of
Europe.
That to which the origin of the domestic goose is attri¬
buted, the gray lag, or common wild goose, Anser ferus, is
nearly thiee feet long, with the bill large and of an orange
colour, the feet flesh-coloured, and the plumage light gray
and clove brown ; the rump and lower parts white. It was
formerly very abundant in this country, where it resided
all the year, but is now met with only in small flocks in
the winter season, although a few individuals have recent¬
ly been found to breed in the north of Scotland—for ex¬
ample, in the islets of the lochs of Sutherland.
The bean goose, Anser segetum, is a little smaller, with
the bill more elongated, and of an orange colour, with its
base and the nail black; the upper part ash-gray tinged
with brown, the rump dark brown, the abdomen and lower
tau-coverts white. This species is much more plentiful
with us than the last, appearing in large flocks in Novem¬
ber, and retiring northward in April and May.
The white-fronted goose, Anser albifrons, has the bill
and legs orange, the plumage gray on the upper parts, on
the lower white, and a patch of the same colour on the
forehead.
Ihe common bernicle, Anser leucopsis, which has the
forehead, cheeks, and throat white, with the crown of the
head, the neck, and the breast black, is not unfrequent on
the western coast of Britain in winter; and the brentgoose,
Anser torquatus, characterized by having the head, neck,
and breast black, with a white patch on each side of the
neck, is also common in many parts, especially along our
eastern shores. The former of these species was long be¬
lieved, even by the learned, to be the produce of a species
of cirripodous animal, the Lepas anatifera of Linnams, the
long feather-like branchiae of which gave rise to this ab¬
surd fable.
Another species of bernicle was observed, on Captain
Parry s second voyage, on Melville Peninsula, and named
by Dr Richardson, in the Fauna Boreali-Americana, in ho¬
nour of Mr Hutchins, from whom Pennant and Latham
derived most of their information respecting the birds of
Hudson s Bay. It is about twenty-five inches in length
with a very short black bill; the head, neck, rump, and
tail pitch-black, and a white kidney-shaped patch upon the
throat.
From the bernicles and geese some authors distinguish,
under the generic name of spurwing, Chenalopex, the
species usually named the Egyptian goose, which has the
bill longer than the bernicles, and has the wings armed
with a spur upon the bend. It inhabits various parts of
Africa, especially Egypt and the Cape of Good Hope,
whence it has been introduced into this country.
I he next genus, Cereopsis, is formed by a New Hol¬
land species, resembling the bernicles in form, but with
the bill smaller, and having at its base a membrane ex¬
tending over the forehead. The palmation of the feet is
not so full as usuaD (Plate XVIII,, figure 2.)
The ducks, properly so called, have the legs much shorter
than the geese, and placed farther back, the neck shorter,
and the body more depressed. Their trachea also has a
large dilatation at its bifurcation.
Some of them, having the hind toe margined with a
membrane or lobe, the tarsi more compressed, the head
larger, and the wings shorter, feed on fishes and other
aquatic animals, and are less expert at walking, but dive
with greater agility. These species have been variously
grouped by authors into numerous genera, of which the
following are among the more remarkable.
The scoters, genus Oidemia, have the bill short and
broad, with an elevated tumour or knob at the base, but
towards the tip much depressed and flattened, the nail ob¬
tuse and roundish; the lamellae widely set, and scarcely
projecting ; the nostrils oval and sub-medial, the tail short
and graduated.
To this genus belong the velvet scoter, Oidemia fusca ;
the black scotei, O. nigra j and the surf scoter, O. perspi-
cillata ; which occur along the coasts of the northern tem¬
perate regions in winter, feeding on fishes, and especially
mussels and other testaceous mollusca. Like that of the
other sea-ducks, their flesh is held in little estimation, be¬
ing dark-coloured and tough, with a fishy flavour.
The garrots, genus Clangula, have the bill shorte
than the head, elevated at the base, narrowed towards the
end; the lamella numerous, but not projecting ; the nos¬
trils roundish, and medial; the tail of moderate length, and
graduated.
Ihe golden-eye, Clangula chrysophthalma, which is
white, with the head, the back, and the tail black, a small
^ Ornithological Dictionary *
■ For the history of the only known species, CVr. Now Holland^, see Zoological Garden,, vol. ii. p. 315.
ORNITHOLOGY.
817
•des.
spot before the eye, and two bands on the wing, white,
breeds in the arctic regions of both continents, and appears
on the estuaries and lakes of the more temperate countries
in winter. The female is of a gray colour, with the head
brown.
To this genus belongs the harlequin-duck, Clangula his-
trionica (P\a.te XVIII., fig. 3, which is distinguished by
having a large patch of white on the lore, a spot on the ear,
a longitudinal band on the sides of the neck, a transverse
band on the neck, and another on each side of the breast,
white; with the speculum or wing-spot blue, and the legs
dusky. It derives its name from the singularity of its mark¬
ings, and inhabits the northern parts of both continents.
The pochards, genus Fuligula, have the bill as long as
the head, broad and much depressed anteriorly, and a little
dilated towards the tip ; the upper lamellae not projecting
beyond the margin ; the nostrils oblong, sub-basal; the
wings and tail short, the latter rounded. This section con¬
tains a great number of species, most of which are mari¬
time and piscivorous, although the flesh of many is consi¬
dered palatable, and that of one, the canvass-backed duck,
has been celebrated by the epicures of the western world.
The red-headed pochard, Fuligula ferina, of which the
head and neck are bright chesnut, the breast black, the
sides and scapulars marked with undulated lines of black
and grayish white, is not uncommon on the coasts of Europe
during the winter, and is not unfrequently seen in our
markets.
Another common species is the scaup-pochard, Fidigula
marila, which has the head and neck black glossed with
green, the back and scapulars whitish with undulating black
lines, and the alar speculum white.
The canvass-backed pochard just alluded to, Fuligula
valisneria (Plate XVIII., figure 4), resembles the red¬
headed species, and is characterized by having the fore¬
head and cheeks dull brown; the head and upper part of
the neck fulvous, the lower part with a black belt; the
back, scapulars, and belly white, marked with narrow
black lines. These birds arrive in the United States from
the arctic regions about the middle of October, and fre¬
quent the large rivers and lakes, where they feed chiefly
on the roots of a grass-like plant, the Valisneria spiralis.
Although extremely shy, vast numbers of them are killed
on account of the delicacy of their flesh. Towards even¬
ing they collect into large flocks, so extensive as some¬
times to cover several acres, and, when rising simultaneously
on wing, to produce a noise like thunder.
The eiders, genus Somateria, have the bill more elon¬
gated than that of the garrots, tumid and elevated at the
base, and extending over the forehead in the form of two
narrow processes ; the lamellae large and distant; the nos¬
trils small, oval, and medial; the wings and tail short.
The males are distinguished by their greater size and su¬
perior beauty. Only two species of this genus are known,
both inhabiting the northern and temperate regions of Eu¬
rope and America.
The common or St Cuthbert’s eider, Somateria mollis-
sima, is characterized by having the bill furnished at its
base with lateral prolongations, in the form of two narrow
flat lamellae. The male has the lower parts black, the up¬
per parts and the neck white, the top of the head violet-
black, and the cheeks pale green. The female has the
whole plumage reddish brown, with transverse black bars.
This species is extremely abundant in Iceland, Lapland,
Greenland, Spitzbergen, and the countries bordering on
Hudson’s and Baffin’s Bays; but it is also common in ail
the northern parts of Europe and America. The female
lays five or six pale greenish-gray eggs, and lines her nest,
which is composed of sea-weeds and other maritime plants,
with the fine and elastic gray down, which she plucks from
her breast for that purpose. This down is carefully collected
VOL. XVI.
in northern countries,—each nest being generally robbed Palmi-
twice in the season. One female is stated to yield half a pedes,
pound of down, which, however, is reduced to one half by s'—
being cleaned. It is extremely soft and warm, and so elas¬
tic that two handfuls are sufficient to fill a quilt five feet
square. In 1750, the Iceland Company at Copenhagen
sold so much of this article as produced 3747 rix-dollars,
in addition to what was sent directly to Gluckstadt. Be¬
sides supplying this valuable down, the eiders afford an es¬
teemed article of food to the Greenlanders, who moreover
convert their skins into warm and comfortable under gar¬
ments. Although the species occurs in Britain, it is no¬
where so plentiful as to afford enough of down to render it
available as an article of commerce.
The king-eider, Somateria spectabilis, which has the la¬
teral prolongations at the base of the bill in the form of
two elevated, compressed tubercles, is very similar to the
other species, and inhabits the same countries, breeding
in the same manner, and lining its nest with down of equal
quality, plucked from its own plumage. The skins are
formed into winter garments by the inhabitants of Siberia
and Kamtschatka ; but as this species is not so numerous
as the other, its down is not of equal importance in a com¬
mercial point of view.
Other groups of ducks have the hind toe not bordered
by any membrane, the head smaller, the feet narrower,
the neck longer, the bill less tapering, and the body more
slender. They feed chiefly on vegetable substances, al¬
though they also devour fishes, insects, worms, and mol-
lusca. In this section, likewise, various generic divisions
have been made.
The shovellers, genus Rhynchaspis, have the bill longer
than the head, with the upper mandible semi-cylindrical,
and enlarged at the end, and the lamellae so long and slen¬
der as to resemble filaments.
Tho common shoveller, Rhynchaspis clypeata, inhabits
various parts of the north of Europe and America, and is
sometimes met with in England. It is about twenty inches
in length, with the head and neck glossy-green, the back
brown, the breast and abdomen brownish red, and the small¬
er wing-coverts pale blue.
Another species, the fasciated shoveller, Rhynchaspis
fasciata, of a rusty-brown colour, transversely^ striped with
white beneath, and having the tip of the bill membranace¬
ous, is a native of New South Wales.
The shielducks, genus Tadorna, have the bill tumid
and elevated at the base, where there is a small tubercle,
but much flattened towards the point; the lamellae short
and distant; the nostrils oval and medial.
The common shieldrake, Tadorna Bellonii, which is one
of the most beautiful species of this family, is not very un¬
common in some parts of Britain, and occurs also on the
coasts of the northern and western countries of Europe. It
is characterized by having the head and upper part of the
neck greenish black ; the back, wing-coverts, and flanks
white; the scapulars black, and a broad band on the breast
ferruginous. The female nestles in a rabbit-burrow, or
other hole in the sandy pastures on the sea-shore, gene¬
rally forming her nest of down plucked from her breast,
and laying from eight to twelve white eggs. Instances
have occurred of its breeding with the common duck; and
Montagu states that it bears confinement well, appearing
to enjoy perfect health, provided access to a pond is al¬
lowed it.
The musk-ducks, genus Cairina, have the bill also
furnished with an elevated tubercle at the base ; the edges
of the mandibles sinuated ; the face and lores covered with
a bare tuberculated skin ; and the wings furnished with a
knob or spur at the bend.
The common musk-duck, Cairina moschata, which is
now generally distributed over Europe in a domesticated
5 L
818
Palmi¬
pedes.
ORNITHOLOGY.
elate, is a native of ftie warmer parts of America. In its
natural state it has the plumage entirely of a black colour,
glossed with green and blue, excepting the wing-coverts,
which are white.
The pintails, genus Dafila, have the bill destitute of
tubercle at the base, narrow, somewhat cylindrical, with
its edges dentato-laminate ; the nostrils are basal, and the
tail elongated, and tapering to a point.
The common pintail, Dajila acuta, has the head umber-
brown, with a longitudinal white line on each side of the
occiput and hind neck ; the back and flanks undulated with
black and grayish white ; the lower parts white ; and the
two central tail-feathers black. It breeds in the arctic re¬
gions of Europe, Asia, and America; retires southward in
winter ; is very shy and vigilant; and is much esteemed as
an article of food.
The ducks, strictly so called, genus Anas, are distin¬
guished by having the bill simple at the base, as long as
the head, depressed, broad, and obtuse ; the nostrils oval
and small; the tail moderate, even, or rounded, often with
the middle feathers and their coverts recurved.
Of this genus, the most common species in Europe is
that which is supposed to be the original of the domestic
duck, and which with us is named the wild duck or mal¬
lard, Anas boschas. The male is a very beautiful bird,
having the head and upper part of the neck deep green,
the latter with a white ring; the four middle tail-feathers
recurved ; the upper parts marked with fine undulated
grayish-brown and white lines, the breast deep chesnut,
the lower parts grayish white, undulated with grayish-
brown lines; the alar spot green, edged above and be¬
low with white. It inhabits all the northern countries of
the globe, and is common in Britain, where it breeds,
forming its nest of withered plants in marshy places, and
laying from ten to fifteen bluish white eggs. Instances
have occurred of its occupying the deserted nest of a crow.
Its flesh is justly held in great estimation, and vast num¬
bers are shot and caught in decoys. The following ac¬
count of the method employed in capturing wild ducks in
the fens of Lincolnshire is given by Bewick.
“ In the lakes where they resort, the most favourite
haunts of the fowl are observed: then in the most seques¬
tered part of this haunt they cut a ditch about four yards
across at the entrance, and about fifty or sixty yards in
length, decreasing gradually in width from the entrance
to the farther end, which is not more than two feet wide.
It is of a semicircular form, but not bending much for the
first ten yards. The banks of the lake, for about ten
yards on each side of this ditch (or pipe, as it is called),
are kept clear from reeds, coarse herbage, &c. in order
that the fowl may get on them to sit and dress themselves.
Across this ditch, poles on each side, close to the edge of
the ditch, are driven into the ground, and the tops bent to
each other, and tied fast. "Ihese poles at the entrance
form an arch, from the top of which to the water is about
ten feet. I his arch is made to decrease in height as the
ditch decreases in width, till the farther end is not more
than eighteen inches in height. The poles are placed
about six feet from each other, and connected together bv
poles laid lengthwise across the arch, and tied together.
Over them a net with meshes sufficiently small to prevent
the fowl getting through is thrown across, and made fast to
areed fence at the entrance, and nine or ten yards up the
ditch, and afterwards strongly pegged to the ground. At
the farther end of the pipe a tunnel-net, as it is called, is
fixed, about four yards in length, of a round form, and
ept open by a number of hoops about eighteen inches in
diameter, placed at a small distance from each other to
keep it distended. Supposing the circular bend of the
pipe to be to the right, when you stand with your back to
the lake, on the left-hand side, a number of reed-fences'
are constructed, called shootings, for the purpose of screen¬
ing from sight the decoy-man, and in such a manner that
the fowl in the decoy may not be alarmed when he is driv¬
ing those in the pipe: these shootings are about four
yards in length, and about six feet high, and are ten in
number. From the end of the last shooting a person can¬
not see the lake, owing to the bend in the pipes: there is
then no farther occasion for shelter. Were it not for
these shootings, the fowl that remain about the mouth of
the pipe would be alarmed, if the person driving the fowl
already under the net should be exposed, and would be¬
come so shy as to forsake the place entirely. The first thing
the decoy-man does when he approaches the pipe, is to take
a piece of lighted turf or peat, and hold it near his mouth,
to prevent the fowl smelling him. He is attended by a dog
taught for the purpose of assisting him ; he walks very si¬
lently about half-way up the shootings, where a small piece
of wood is thrust through the reed fence, which makes an
aperture just sufficient to see if any fowl are in ; if not, he
walks forward to see if any are about the mouth of the pipe.
If there are, he stops and makes a motion to his dog, and
gives him a piece of cheese or something to eat; upon
receiving it, he goes directly to a hole in the reed-fence,
and the fowl immediately fly off the bank into the water;
the dog returns along the bank between the reed-fences
and the pipe, and comes out to his master at another hole.
The man now gives him another reward, and he repeats
his round again, till the fowl are attracted by the motion
of the dog, and follow him into the mouth of the pipe.
This operation is called working them. The man now re¬
treats farther back, working the dog at different holes till
the fowl are directly under the net; he now commands
his dog to lie down still behind the fence, and goes for¬
ward to the end of the pipe next the lake, where he takes
off his hat, and gives it a wave between the shooting; all
the fowl under the net can see him, but none that are in
the lake can. The fowl that are in sight fly forward, and
the man runs forward to the next shooting and waves his
hat, and so on, driving them along till they come to the
tunnel-net, where they creep in: when they are all in
he gives the net a twist, so as to prevent their getting
back ; he then takes the net off from the end of the pipe
with what fowl he may have caught, and takes them out
one at a time, and dislocates their necks, and hangs the net
on again, and all is ready for working again. In this man¬
ner five or six dozen have been taken at one drift. When
the wind blows directly in or out of the pipes, the fowl
seldom work well, especially when it blows in. If many
pipes are made in the lake, they are so constructed as to
suit different winds.”1 The better to entice the fowl into
the pipe, hempseed is strewed occasionally in the water.
I he season allowed by act of parliament for catching
these birds in this way is from the latter end of October
till February.
I he Chinese duck, Anas galericulata, with a pendent
crest, and the inner wing-feathers enlarged and raised in
a vertical direction, is an extremely beautiful species, a
native of China and Japan.
Ihe summer duck, Anas sponsa, which also has a pen¬
dent crest, is not less beautiful. (Plate XVIII., figure 8.)
It inhabits Mexico and other parts of North America,
migrating northward in summer, rarely visiting the sea¬
shore or salt marshes, but frequenting the muddy creeks,
ponds, and mill-dams of the interior.
Ihe tree duck, Anas arborea, of a gray colour, the ab-
Palmi.
pedes.
1 British Birds, vol. ii. p. 294.
ORNITHOLOGY.
Mger's domen spotted with black and white, and the head
ystem. slightly crested, inhabits the warmer parts of America,
^^and is remarkable for building in the holes of decayed
trees.
The gadwall or gray, j4nas strepera, the Dominican
duck, A. Dominicana, the Spanish duck, A. viduata, and
many other species, belong to this genus,—which might
include the teals, although these are separated by several
authors.
The wigeons, genus Mareca, may be distinguished
from the ducks, as they have the bill shorter than the
head, higher than broad at the base, depressed and nar¬
rowed towards the end; the lamellae slightly projecting;
the tail short and acute. They are, however, very inti¬
mately allied to the pintails.
Of this genus one of the best examples is the common
wigeon, Mareca Penelope, which has the forehead yellow¬
ish white, the rest of the head and the neck chesnut-red,
the back and flanks undulated with black and white. The
male of this species has been known to pair with the fe¬
male pintail, and produce a hybrid brood. It also pairs
with the common duck. Wigeons are abundant in winter
in many parts of Britain, and are very much esteemed for
the table.
The teals, genus Querquedula, are distinguished
from the other groups by their diminutive size. Their
bill is narrower than that of the wigeons, proportionally
longer, and has its base more elevated. The species are
generally very beautiful.
The garganey teal, Querquedula circia, of a gray colour,
variegated with black, and having a white streak above
the eyes, with a green spot on the wing, inhabits the more
temperate parts of Europe, and is abundant in Holland
during its winter migration.
The common teal, Querquedula crecca, which has the
head brownish red, the body transversely undulated with
dusky, a white line above and another beneath the eye,
and the alar spot black and green, is plentiful in many
parts of Europe and North America; while the blue¬
winged teal, Q. discors, characterized by the light blue
colour of the wing-coverts, is peculiar to the latter conti¬
nent, as is likewise the American teal, Q. Carolinensis.
The second principal group named Mergidce, consist-
ing of the genus Mergus of Linnaeus, includes the re¬
maining birds of the great family of Lamellirostres, which
are usually designated by the vernacular name of mer¬
gansers. They differ from the ducks in having their bill
slender, almost cylindrical, and furnished on the margins
with dentiform points directed backwards, and resembling
the teeth of a saw. (Plate XVIII., figure 6.) Their sum¬
mer residence is in the colder regions of both continents,
whence they migrate southward on the approach of win¬
ter. Their body is elongated and depressed, their feet
short and placed far behind, their wings rather long and
narrow, their neck of moderate length. They fly with ra¬
pidity, swim and dive with the greatest facility, and gene¬
rally feed on fishes. In their habits they are interme¬
diate between the ducks and divers; but in their organi¬
zation and plumage they are more nearly allied to the for¬
mer. Their tracheae, besides having an exceedingly large
dilatation at its bifurcation, is also enlarged previous to its
entrance into the thorax. In accordance with their pisci¬
vorous propensities, their gullet is wider than that of the
ducks, and their gizzard less muscular.
Three species occur in the temperate parts of Europe.
The goosander, Mergus merganser, of which the male is
black, with the lower parts buff-coloured, and the head
purplish green, with a slender elongated crest; the red¬
breasted merganser, M. serralor, about the size of the mal¬
lard, also crested, the male black above, white beneath,
with the head dark green; and the smew, M. albellus,
which is smaller than the golden-eye, varied with black
and white, and having a large compressed white crest.
All these occur also in the northern parts of America,
which has moreover a species peculiar to itself, the hooded
merganser (M. cucullatus, Plate XVIII., figure 7), of a
blackish colour above, white beneath, with a semicircular
black crest, white on each side. The females and young
of all the species differ greatly in colour from the adult
maies. (j# w )
THE ORDERS, FAMILIES, AND GENERA, OF BIRDS, ACCORDING TO THE SYSTEM OF ILLIGER.
Order I.—Scansores.
819
llliger’s
System.
Family Psittacini  Gen. Psittacus, Pezoporus pedester).
Family Serrati  Gen. Rhamphastos, Pteroglossus (rrngov, penna, yAotfffa, lingua), Pogonias (vuyuviat,
barbatus), Corythaix (xoguda/£, galea, cristam movens), Trogon, Musophaga.
Family Arnphiboli  Gen. Crotophaga, Scythrops, Bucco, Cuculus, Centropus (x£nr£/y, stimulus, calcar;
flrous, pes).
Family Sagittilingues  Gen. Yunx, Picus.
Family Syndactyli  Gen. Galbula.
Order II.—Ameulatores.
Family Angulirostres  Gen. Alcedo, Merops.
Family Suspensi  Gen. Trochilus.
Family Tenuirostres  Gen. Nectarinia {nectar Jlorum haurientes'), Tichodroma (rsi^o;, murus, boo/iot, cursitana),
Upupa.
* Prodromut Mammalium et Avium, Berlin, 1811.
ORNITHOLOG Y.
Gen. Certhia, Dendrocolaptes IHiger'i
Gen. Xenops (%ms, inusitatus, novus, vultus), Sitta, Buphaga, Oriolus, Cassicus, System.
Sturnus.
Gen. Turdus, Cinclus, Accentor, Motacilla, Muscicapa, Myiothera (fiuia, musca, Sjjoaai,
venor, caplo), Lanius, Sparactes (ffwagaxr^f, lanio, lacerator), Todus, Pipra.
Gen. Parus, Alauda, Emberiza, Tanagra, Fringilla, Loxia, Colius, Glaucopis, Phyto-
toma.
Gen. Prionites (vgiun, serra), Buceros.
Gen. Corvus, Coracias, Paradisea, Cephalopterus, Gracula.
Gen. Ampelis, Procnias.
Gen. Hirundo, Cypselus, Caprimulgus.
Order III.—Raptores.
Gen. Strix.
Gen. Falco, Gypogeranus (yu^, vultur, yiganof, grus\ Gypaetusu
Gen. Vultur, Cathartes (xadugrtis, purgator).
Order IV.—Rasores.
Gen. Numida, Meleagris, Penelope, Crax, Opisthocomus (HofFmansegg, 06-
dpite comatus), Pavo, Phasianus, Gallus, Menura, Tetrao, Perdix.
Gen. Ortygis (ogrv%, coturniz), Syrrhaptes (euppavmv, consuere).
Gen. Columba.
Gen. Crypturus (xevrrvv, occultare, caudd).
Gen. Didus.
Order V.—Cuhsores.
Family Proceri  Gen. Casuarius, Struthio, Rhea.
Family Campestres  Gen. Otis.
Family Littorales  Gen. Charadrius, Calidris, Himantopus, Haematopus, Tachydromus (ra^uJ^ao;, velociter
currens), Burhinus.
Order VI.—Grallatores.
Gen. Chionis.
Gen. Glareola, Cereopsis, Dicholophus (<h%a, bifariam ; Xofo;, crista), Palamedea, Chauna
fungosus, inflatus, inanis), Psophia.
Gen. Grus, Ciconia, Ardea, Eurypyga (suguj, latus, iruyjj, anus, cauda), Scopus, Cancroma,
Anaslomus.
Gen. Tantalus, Ibis.
Gen. Numenius, Scolopax, Ereunetes explorator), Actitis (axr/r/f, in littore
degens), Strepsilas {er^av, vertere, Xuz, tapis), Tringa.
Gen. Parra, Rallus, Crex.
Gen. Fulica, Podoa (xovz, pes, wa, limbus, fimbria), Phalaropus.
Gen. Corrira, Recurvirostra, Platalea, Phaenicopterus.
Order VII.—Natatores.
Family Longipennes  Gen. Rhyncops, Sterna, Larus, Lestris (XjjffTgrc, prcedatrix).
Family Tubinares  Gen. Procellaria, Haladroma (aXa^o^a;, in mare cursitans), Pachyptila (vciyyt, densus,
crr/Xov, pluma), Diomedea.
Family Lamelloso-dentati... Gen. Anas, Anser, Mergus.
Family Steganopodes  Gen. Pelecanus, Halieus (ccXeus, piscator), Dysporus, Phaeton, Plotus.
Family Pygodopes  Gen. Colymbus, Eudytes (iw, bene, facile, iuryjg, urinator), Uria, Mormon (/m^uop, larva),
Alca.
Family Impennes  Gen. Aptenodytes.
Family Vaginati 
Family Alectorides...
Family Herodii 
Family Falcati 
Family Limicolce 
Family Macrodactyli.
Family Lobipcdes 
Family Hygrobatce...
Family Gallinacei
Family Epollicati..
Family Columbini.
Family Crypturi..
Family Inepti 
Family Nocturm...
Family Accipitrini.
Family Vulturini..
820
Illiger’s Family Pygarrhichi.
t System. Family Gregarii....
Family Canori 
Family Passerini....
Family Dentirostres.
Family Coraces 
Family Sericati 
Family Hiantes 
ORNITHOLOGY.
'em-
inck’«
.d Vi-
s’s Sys-
em*.
Order I.—Rapaces.
Genera.—Vultur, Cathartes, Gypaetus, Gypogeranus,
Falco, Strix.
Order II.—Omnivores.
Genera.—Opisthocomus, Buceros, Prionites, Corvus,
Nucifraga, Pyrrhocorax, Barita, Glaucopis, Gracula, Bu-
phaga, Bombycivora, Ptilonorhynchus, Coracias, Colaris,
Oriolus, Icterus, Sturnus Pastor, Paradisea, Lamprotornis.
Order III.—Insectivores.
Genera.—Turdus, Cinclus, Menura, Pitta, Myothera,
Tamnophilus, Vanga, Lanins, Psaris, Sparactes, Ocypte-
rus, Criniger, Edolius, Cebiepyris, Coracina, Ampelis, Cas-
marhinchos, Procnias, Rupicola, Phibalura, Pipra, Parda-
lotus, Todus, Piatyrhinchos, Muscipeta, Muscicapa, Ma-
lurus, Sylvia, Saxicola, Accentor, Motacilla, Anthus.
Order IV.—Granivores.
Genera.—Alauda, Parus, Emberiza, Tanagra, Ploceus,
Loxia, Psittirostra, Pyrrhula, Fringilla, Phytotoma, Colius.
Order V.—Zygodactyli.
821
Tem-
minck’s
and Vi-
gors’a Sy«-
ORDER IX. CoLUMBAS. v .
Genus.—Columba.
Order X—Gallinji.
Genera.—Pavo, Gallus, Phasianus, Lophophorus, Poly-
plectron, Meleagris, Argus, Numida, Pauxi, Crax, Pene¬
lope, Tetrao, Pterocles, Syrrhaptes, Perdix, Cryptonyx,
Tinamus, Hemipodius.
Order XI.—Alectorides.
Genera.—Psophia, Dicholophus, Glareola, Palamedea,
Chauna.
Order XII—Cursores.
Genera.—Struthio, Rhea, Casuarius, Otis, Cursorius.
Order XIII.—Grallatores.
First Family.
Genera—(Edicnemus, Calidris, Falcinellus, Himanto-
pus, Haematopus, Charadrius.
THE ORNITHOLOGICAL SYSTEM OF M. TEMMINCK.1
First Family.
Genera.—Musophaga, Indicator, Cuculus, Coccyzus,
Centropus, Phcenicophaus, Leptosomus, Scythrops, Ptero-
glossus, Ramphastos, Crotophaga, Trogon, Capito, Bucco,
Pogonias, Psittacus.
Second Family.
Genera.—Picus, Yunx.
Second Family.
Genera.—Vanellus, Strepsilus, Grus, Aramus, Ardea,
Ciconia, Anastomus, Scopus, Phcenicopterus, Recurviros-
tra, Cancroma, Platalea, Tantalus, Ibis, Numenius, Trin-
ga, Totanus, Limosa, Scolopax, Rynchaea, Eurypyga, Ral-
lus, Gallinula, Parra, Porphyrio.
Order XIV.—Pinnatipedes.
Order VI.—Anisodactyli.
Genera.—Oxyrincus, Orthonyx, Dendrocolaptes, Xe-
nops, Anabates, Opetiorynchos, Certhia, Cereba, Trochi-
lus, Nectarinia, Climacteris, Tichodroma, Upupa, Epi-
machus, Drepanis, Meliphaga.
Order VII.—Alciones.
Genera.—Merops, Alcedo, Dacelo.
Order VIII.—Chelidones.
Genera.—Hirundo, Cypselus, Caprimulgus.
Genera.—Fulica, Podoa, Phalaropus, Podiceps.
Order XV.—Palmipedes.
Genera.—Coreopsis, Chionis, Rynchops, Sterna, Larus,
Lestris, Procellaria, Pachyptila, Haladroma, Diomedea,
Anas, Mergus, Pelecanus, Carbo, Tachypetes, Sula,
Plotus, Phaeton, Uria, Phaleris, Mormon, Alca, Sphenis-
cus, Aptenodytes.
Order XVI.—Inertes.
Genera.—Apteryx, Didus.
THE CLASSIFICATION OF BIRDS, AS PROPOSED BY MR VIGORS.*
Order I.—Raptores, 111. (Accipitres, Linn.)
1st Family.  ?—Gen. Gypogeranus, 111. (Serpen-
tarius, Cuv.; Ophiotheres, Vieill.).
2d Family. VulturidjE.—1.  Gen. Cathartes,
111. (Catharista, Vieill.); 2.   Gen. Sarcoramphus,
Dum. (Cathartis pars, 111.; Gypagus, Vieill.); 3. 
Gen. Gyps, Sav.; Vultur, Auct. (Aigypius, Sav.); 4.
• Gen. Gypaetus, Storr. (Phene, Sav.) ; 5. Gen.
Neophron, Sav. (Cathartis pars, Temm.).
3d Family. Falconid^e, Leach.—1. Sub-fam. Aqui-
lina. Gen. Ibycter, Vieill.; Daptrius, Vieill.; Polybo-
rus, Vieill. ; Pandion, Sav.; Haliaeetus, Sav.; Aquila,
Auct.; Harpyia, Cuv. ; Physeta, Vieill.; Morphnus,
Cuv. (Spizaetus, Vieill.); Cymindis, Cuv.; Asturina,
Vieill. 2. Sub-fam. Accipitrina. Gen. Daedalion, Sav.;
Astur, Auct. (Sparvius, Vieill.); Accipiter, Auct.; Har-
pagus ; Gampsonyx. 3. Sub-fam. Falconina. Gen. Hie-
rax, Vig.; Falco, Auct. 4. Sub-fam. Futeonina. Gen.
Ictinia, Vieill.; Circus, Auct.; Pernis, Cuv.; Buteo,
Auct. 5. Sub-fam. Milvina. Gen. Elanus, Sav.; Nau-
clerus, Vig.; Milvus, Auct.
4th Family. Strigid^e, Leach.—1. Sub-fam. Noc-
tuina. Gen. Surnia, Dum.; Noctua, Sav. 2. Sub-fam.
Bubonina. Gen. Scops, Sav.; Bubo, Cuv. 3. Sub-
fam. Asionina. Gen. Asio, Antiq. (Olus, Cuv.). 4.
Sub-fam. Strigina. Gen. Ulula, Cuv.; Strix, Auct. 5.
Sub-fam. Syrniana. Gen. Syrnium, Linn.
5th Family. ?
From the Manuel d'Ornithologies i. xlviii. 1820.
* In the Zoological Journal, No. vii. p. 392. 1825.
822
ORNITHOLOGY.
yigors’s Order II.—Insessores. ('Picae. Passeres, Linn.)
System. v 7
—Tribe I.—Fissirostres, Cuv.
1st Famii.y. Meropid.se.—Gen. Merops, Linn. (Api-
aster, Briss.).
2d Family. Hirundinidas.—Gen. Cypselus, 111.
(Apus, Cuv.; Micropus, Meyer); Hirundo, Auct.
3d Family. Caprimulgidje.—Gen. Caprimulgus,
Auct.; Podargus, Cuv.; iLgotheles, Vig. and Hors.;
Steatornis, Humb.; Nyctebius, Vieill.
4th Family. Todid.e—Gen. Eurylaimus, Horsf.;
Eurystomus, Vieill. (Colaris, Cuv.); Todus, Auct.
5th Family. Halcyonid^e.—Gen. Alcedo, Linn.
(Ispida, Briss.); Halcyon, Swains.; Dacelo, Leach; Ta-
nysiptera, Vig.; Galbula, Briss.; Capito, Vieill. ? Mo-
nasa, Vieill.?
Tribe II.—Dentirostres, Cuv.
1st Family. Muscicapid^e.—Gen. Platyrhynchus,
Desm.; Muscicapa, Auct.; Muscipeta, Cuv.; Onychor-
hynchus, Fisch.; Vireo, Vieill. ? Icteria, Vieill. ?
2d Family. Laniadjj,— 1. Sub-fam. Tyrannina,
Swains. Gen. Tyrannus, Cuv.; Tityra, Vieill. (Psaris,
Cuv.); Gubernetes, Such. 2. Sub-fam. Zh'cnmVia, Swains.
Gen. Artamus, Vieill. (Ocypterus, Cuv.); Dicrurus,
Vieill. (Edolius, Cuv.); Trichophorus, Temm.? Irena,
Horsf. 3. Sub-fam. Laniana, Swains. Gen. Sparactes,
111.; Lanius, Auct.; Falcunculus, Vieill.; Cyclarhis,Swains.;
Lanio, Vieill. ? 4. Sub-fam. Thamnophilina, Swains.
Gen. Vanga, Cuv.; Thamnophilus, Vieill.; Malaconotus,
Swains.; Formicivora, Swains.; Drymophila, Swains.;
Laniarius, Vieill,; Prionops, Vieill. 5. Sub-fam. Campe-
phagina, Swains. Gen. Grauculus, Cuv.; Campephaga,
Vieill. (Ceblepyris, Cuv.).
3d Family. Merulidje.—1. Sub-fam. Mijotherina,
Swains. Gen. Urotomus, Swains.; Myothera, 111. (Myr-
mothera, Vieill.) ; Pitta, Vieill.; Grallaria, Vieill.; Co-
nophaga, Vieill.; Cinclus, Bechst. ? (Hydrobata, Vieill.) ;
Chamaeza, Vig. 2. Sub-fam. Merulina. Gen. Merula,
Ray; Sphecotheres, Vieill. ? 3. Sub-fam. On'o/ma. Gen.
Oriolus, Auct. 4. Sub-fam. Cossyphina. Gen. Cossy-
pha, Vig.; Timalia, Horsf. ? 5. Gen. Petrocincla, Vig.
4th Family. Sylviadje.—1.  ? Gen. Hylo-
philus, Temm.; lora, Horsf,; Accentor, Bechst.; Pru¬
nella, Gessn. ? 2. ? Gen. Brachypteryx, Horsf.;
Curruca, Bechst.; Ficedula, Bechst.; CEgithina, Vieill. ?
3. Sub-fam. Sylviana. Gen. Sylvia, Auct.; Melizophilus,
Leach ; Synallaxis, Vieill.; Malurus, Vieill.; Troglodytes,
Cuv.; Regulus, Cuv.; Tyrannulus, Vieill. 4. Sub-fam.
Motacillina. Gen, Motacilla, Auct ; Budytes, Cuv.;
Enicurus, Temm.; Anthus, Bechst.; Corydalla, Vig.;
Megalurus, Horsf. 5. Sub-fam. Saxicolina. Gen. Saxi-
cola, Bechst. (CEnanthe, Vieill.).
5th Family. Pipridas—Gen. iEgithalus, Vig.; Pa-
rus, Linn.; Megistina, Vieill.; Pardalotus, Vieill.; Pipra,
Linn. (Manacus, Briss.); Rupicola, Briss,; Calyptome-
na, Raffles ; Phibalura, Vieill.; Bombicilla, Briss.; Am-
pelis, Auct. (Cotinga, Briss.; Tersa, Vieill.); Procnias,
Hoffm. ; Casmarhynchus, Temm. (Ampelis, Vieill.) ;
Querula, Vieill.; Coracina, Vieill. (Cephalopterus,Geoff.);
Pachycephala, Swains.
Tribe III.— Conirostres, Cuv.
1st Family. Fringillid^e.—1. Sub-fam. Tanagrina?
Gen. Euphonia, Vieill.; Nemosia, Vieill.; Tachyphonus,
Vieill. ; Saltator, Vieill. ; Tanagra, Auct.; Pyranga,
Vieill.; Ramphopis, Vieill.; Arremon, Vieill. ; Dulus,
Vieill. ? Pipilo, Vieill. 2. Sub-fam. Alaudina. Gen.
Emberiza, Linn.; Passerina, Vieill.; Alauda, Auct.; Mi-
rafra, Horsf. 3. Sub-fam. Carduelina. Gen. Carduelis,
Briss.; Ploceus, Cuv. (Agelaii pars, Vieill.). 4. Sub-
fam. Passerina. Gen. Fringilla, Auct.; Passer, Auct Vigors'i
(Pyrgita, Cuv.). 5. Sub-fam. Pyrrhulina? Gen. Lina- System,
ria, Bechst.; Vidua, Cuv.; Pyrrhula, Briss.?
2d Family. Sturnid.®.—1. Sub-fam. Icterina. Gen.
Xanthornus, Cuv. (Yphantes, Vieill.); Icterus, Cuv. (Pen-
dulinus, Vieill.) ; Sycobius, Vieill. ? Quiscalus, Vieill.;
Cassicus, Daud.; Lei’stes (Agelaii pars, Vieill.). 2. Sub-
fam. Sturnina. Gen. Sturnella, Vieill.; Sturnus, Linn.;
Amblyramphus, Leach; Dilophus,Vieill.? 3 ? Gen.
Lamprotornis, Temm.; Acridotheres, Vieill. (Gracula,
Cuv.). 4.- ? Gen. Pastor, Temm. (Psaroidos,Vieill.);
Grallina, Vieill.? 5. ? Gen. Buphaga, Linn.
3d Family. Corvids, Leach 1 ? Gen. Crac-
ticus, Vieill. (Barita, Cuv.); Nucifraga, Briss. 2. Sub-
fam. Corvina. Gen. Pica, Briss.; Garrulus, Briss.; Cor-
vus, Auct. 3. Sub-fam. Coraciana. Gen. Coracias, Linn.
(Galgulus, Briss.); Gracula, Auct. (Eulabes, Cuv.); Pti-
lonorhynchus, Kuhl; Glaucopis, Forst. (Callaeas, Lath.);
Crypsirina, Vieill. (Phrenotrix, Horsf.). 4. Sub-fam. Pa-
radiseana. Astrapia, Vieill.; Parotia, Vieill.; Paradisea,
Linn. (Manucodiata, Briss.); Lophorina, Vieill.; Cicin-
nurus, Vieill.; Epimachus, Cuv. ? 5. ? Gen. Fregi-
lus, Cuv. (Coracias, Briss.) ; Pyrrhocorax, Vieill,
4th Family. Bucerida*:, Leach.—Gen.Buceros, Linn.
(Hydrocorax, Briss.) ; Momotus, Briss. (Prionites, 111.;
Baryphonus, Vieill.).
5th Family. Loxiadas—Gen.Phytotoma.Gmeh; Coc-
cothraustes, Briss.; Pytilus, Cuv.; Loxia, Briss.; Psitti-
rostra, Temm.; Colius, Linn.? Cissopis, Vieill. (Bethy-
lus, Cuv.); Strobilophaga, Vieill. (Corythus, Cuv.).
Tribe IV.—Scansores, Auct.
1st Family. Ramphastidje.—Gen. Scythrops, Lath.;
Ramphastos, Linn. (Tucana, Briss.); Pteroglossus, 111.
2d Family. Psittacidas, Leach.—1. Sub-fam. Psit-
tacina. Gen. Psittacus, Auct.; Androglossa. 2. Sub-
fam. Plyctolophina. Gen. Plyctolophus, Vieill,; Calypto-
rhynchus, Vig. and Hors.; Microglossum, Geoff. 3. Sub-
fam. Macrocercina. Gen. Macrocercus, Vieill. 4. Sub-
fam. Palceornina. Gen. Psittacara; Nanodes, Vig. and
Hors.; Platycercus ; Pezoporus, 111.; Palaeornis, Vig.; Tri-
choglossus, Vig. and Hors.; Lorius, Vig.; Brotogeris, Vig.
5. Sub-fam. Psittaculina. Gen. Psittacula, Kuhl.
3d Family. Picid.e.—Gen. Pogonias, 111.; Bucco,
Auct.; Picus, Linn.; Colaptes, Swains.; Yunx, Linn.
(Torquilla, Briss.).
4th Family. Certhiad.*.—Gen,. Dendrocolaptes,
Herm. (Dendrocopus, Vieill.); Certhia, Auct,; Climac-
teris, T.emm.; Orthonyx, Temm.; Tichodroma, 111. (Pe-
trodroma, Vieill.) ; Upupa, Linn.; Sitta, Linn.; Xenops,
Hoffm.; Orthotomus, Horsf.; Neops, Vieill.; Mniotilta,
Vieill,; Thriothurus, Vieill.; Pyrrota, Vieill. ? Opetiorhyn-
chus, Temm.; Oxyrhynchus, Temm.
5th Family. Cuculidas, Leach.—Gen. Coccyzus,
Vieill,; Leptosomus, Vieill.; Cuculus, Auct.; Indicator,
Vieill.; Centropus, 111. (Corydonyx, Vieill.); Saurothera,
Vieill.; Phaenicophaus, Vieill.; Crotophaga, Linn.; Tro-
gon, Linn.; Corythaix, 111.? (Opaethus, Vieill.); Muso-
phaga, Isert. ?
Tribe V.— Tetiuiroslres, Cuv.
1st Family. Nectariniada: ?-~Gen. Nectarinia, 111.;
(Caereba, Vieill.); Dacnis, Cuv.; Furnarius, Vieill.?
2d Family. Cynnyrid.®.—Gen. Cinnyris, Cuv. (Mel-
lisuga, Vieill.) ; Dicaeum, Cuv.; Drepanis, Temm.
3d Family. Trochilid.®.—Gen. Trochilus, Auct.
(Polytmus, Briss.); Mellisuga, Briss. (Orthorhynchus,
Lacepede).
4th Family. Promeropid.e.—Gen. Promerops, Briss.
(Falcinellus, Vieill.).
5th Family. Meliphagid-e.—Gen. Meliphaga, Lewin
ORNITHOLOGY. 823
Sttinson’s (Philedon, Cuv.; Philemon, Vieill.); Melithreptus, Vieill.;
stem. Creadion, Vieill.; Mimetes, King? Sericulus, Swains.?
Ptiloris, Swains.; Pomatorhinus, Horsf. ? Prinia, Horsf. ?
Order III.—Rasores, 111. (Gallinm, Linn.)
1st Family. Columbidae, Leach. — Gen. Treron,
Vieill. (Vinago, Cuv.); Columba, Auct.; Ptilinopus, Swains.;
Lophyrus, Vieill.
2d Family. Phasianidae.—Gen. Meleagris, Linn.
(Gallopavo, Briss.) ; Pavo, Linn.; Diplectron, Vieill. (Po-
lyplectron, Temm.); Gallus, Briss.; Monaulus, Vieill.
(Lophophorus, Temm.); Phasianus, Auct.; Argus, Temm.;
Numida, Linn. (Melegris, Briss.).
3d Family. Tetraonid^e, Leach.—Gen. Liponyx,
Vieill. (Cryptonyx, Temm.) ; Odontophorus, Vieill.; Co-
turnix, Cuv.; Perdix, Briss.; Ganga, Vieill. (Pterocles,
Temm.) ; Tetrao, Auct.; Lagopus, Vieill.; Syrrhaptes, 111.
(Heteroclitus, Vieill.); Ortygis, 111. (Ortygodes, Vieill.;
Hemipodius, Temm.); Tinamus, Lath. (Crypturus, 111.;
Cryptura, Vieill.).
4th Family. Struthionid^e.—Gen. Rhea, Briss.;
Struthio, Linn.; Casuarius, Briss.; Dromiceius, Vieill.; Di-
dus, Linn. (Raphus, Briss.) ; Otis, Linn.
5th Family. Cracid-E.—Gen. Ourax, Cuv. (Pauxi,
Temm.); Crax, Linn.; Penelope, Merr.; Ortalida, Merr.;
Opisthocomus, Hoffm. ? (Orthocorys, Vieill.) ; Menura,
Lath,; Megapodius, Temm.
Order IV.—Grallatores, 111. (Grallae, Linn.)
1st Family. Gruide.—Gen. Psophia, Linn.; An-
thropo'ides, Vieill.; Balearica, Briss.; Grus, Pall.; Caria-
ma, Briss. (Dicholophus, 111.; Zophorhynchus, Vieill.; Ma-
crodactylus, Geoff.).
2d Family. Ardeide, Leach.—Gen. Aramus, Vieill.;
Eurypyga, 111. (Helias, Vieill.); Ardea, Auct.; Canchro-
ma, Linn. (Cochlearius, Briss.); Phsenicopterus, Linn.;
Platalea, Linn. (Platea, Briss.); Ciconia, Briss.; Mycte-
ria, Linn.; Scopus, Briss.; Anastomus, 111. (Hians, La-
cep.) ; Tantalus, Linn.; Ibis, Lacep. (Falcinellus, Bechst.).
3d Family. Scolopacide.—Gen. Numenius, Briss.;
Totanus, Bechst. (Actitis pars., 111.) ; Recurvirostra,
Linn. (Avocetta, Briss.); Limosa, Briss. (Actitis pars.,
111.; Limicula, Vieill.); Ereunetes, 111. ; Macroramphus,
Leach? Scolopax, Auct.; Rusticola, Vieill.; Rynchaea,
Cuv. (Rostratula, Vieill.); Machetes, Cuv. (Actitis pars.,
111.); Pelida, Cuv.; Phalaropus, Briss. (Crymophilus,
Vieill.); Lobipes, Cuv. (Phalaropus, Vieill.); Iringa,
Auct. (Actitis pars., 111.) ; Phaeopus, Cuv.
4th Family. Rallide, Leach.—Gen. Parra, Linn. Swainson’*
(Jacana, Briss.); Palamedea, Linn. (Anhima, Briss.); System.
Chauna, 111. (Opistolophus, Vieill.) ; Glareola, Briss.;
Rallus, Auct.; Chionis, Forst.? (Vaginalis, Gmel.); Crex,
Bechst. (Ortygometra, Steph.); Gallinula, Briss.; Por-
phyrio, Briss.; Podoa, 111. (Heliornis, Vieill.); Fulica,
Auct.
5th Family. Charadriade, Leach.—Gen. Hsema-
topus, Linn. (Ostralega, Briss.); Calidris, 111. (Arena-
ria, Briss.); Falcinellus, Cuv.: Erolia, Vieill.? Curso-
rius, Lath. (Tachydromus, 111.); Strepsilas, 111.; Squa-
tarola, Cuv.; Vanellus, Briss. (Tringa, 111.); Pluvianus,
Vieill.; Charadrius, Auct. (Pluvialis, Briss.); Burhinus,
111.? Himantopus, Briss. (Macrotarsus, Lacep.) ; CEdicne-
mus, Cuv.
Order V.—Natatores, 111. (Anseres, Linn.)
1st Family.—Anatide, Leach.—1. Sub-fam. Ameri¬
nd. Gen. Anser, Briss.; Bernicla, Steph.; Cheniscus,
Brookes’s MS.; Chenalopex,Steph.; Plectropterus, Leach.
2. Sub-fam. Cereopsina. Gen. Cereopsis, Lath. 3. Sub-
fam. Anatina. Gen. Tadorna, Leach ; Cairina, Flem.;
Anas, Auct.; Dafila, Leach; Mareca, Steph.; Quer-
quedula, Ray; Rhynchaspis, Leach. 4. Sub-fam. ?
Gen. Clangula, Flem.; Harelda, Ray; Fuligula, Ray;
Mergus, Linn. (Merganser, Briss.); Somateria, Leach;
Oidemia, Flem.; Biziura, Leach. 4. Sub-fam. Cygnina.
Gen. Cygnus, Meyer.
2d Family. Colymbide, Leach.—Gen. Podiceps,
Lath. (Colymbus, Briss. 111.) ; Colymbus, Auct. (Mer¬
gus, Briss.; Eudytes, 111.).
3d Family. Alcade.—Gen. Uria, Briss.; Cephus,
Cuv.? Mergulus, Ray; Phaleris, Temm. (Alca, Vieill.);
Fratercula, Briss. (Mormon, 111.; Larvae pars, Vieill.) ;
Alca, Auct. (Larvae pars, Vieill.); Spheniscus, Briss.;
Catarractes, Briss. (Eudytes, Vieill.); Aptenodytes,
F orst.
4th Family. Pelecanide, Leach.—Gen. Onocrota-
lus, Briss.; Phalacrocorax, Briss. (Carbo, Meyer; Hali-
eus, 111.; Hydrocorax, Vieill.); Sula, Briss. (Dysporus,
111.; Morus, Vieill.); Tachypetes, Vieill.; Phaeton, Linn.
(Lepturus, Briss.) ; Plotus, Linn. (Anhinga, Briss.).
5th Family. Laride, Leach.—Gen. Sterna, Linn.;
Rhynchops, Linn. (Rygchopsalia, Briss.); Larus, Auct.;
Stercorarius, Briss. (Lestris, 111.; Praedatrix, Vieill.) •
Diomedea, Linn. (Albatrus, Briss.); Haladroma, 111.
Procellaria, Auct.; Pachyptila, 111.; Puffinus, Ray; Tha-
lassidroma, Vig.
THE ORDERS, FAMILIES, AND SUB-FAMILIES OF BIRDS, ACCORDING TO THE SYSTEM OF MR
’ SWAINSON.1
Order I.—Raptores. Rapacious Birds.
Family Vulturide. Vultures.
Family Falconide. Falcons.—Sub-families: Aquili-
nae, Eagles ; Cymindinae, Kites ; Buteoninae, Buzzards ;
Falconinae, Falcons ; Accipitrinae, Hawks.
Family Strigide. Owls.
Order II.—Insessores. Perching Birds.
Tribe I.—Dentirostres.
Family Laniade. Shrikes.—Sub-families : Lanianae,
True Shrikes ; Thamnophilinae, Bush Shrikes; Dicrurinae,
Drongo Shrikes; Ceblepyrinae, Caterpillar-catchers; Ty-
ranninae, Tyrant Shrikes.
FamilyMerulide. Thrushes.—Sub-families: Brachy-
podinae, Short-footed Thrushes; Myotherinae, Ant Thrush¬
es ; Merulinae, True Thrushes; Crateropodinae, Babblers;
Oriolinae, Orioles.
Family Sylviade. Warblers.—Sub-families : Saxico-
linae, Stonechats ; Philomelinae, Nightingales; Sylvianae,
True Warblers ; Parianae, Tit-mice ; Motacillinae, Wag¬
tails.
Family Ampelide. Fruit-eaters, or Chatterers.—Sub-
• From the Natural History and Classification of Bird,, vol. ii. p. 205, published in Dr Lardner's C^^ Cyclopedia yo\. xcii. 1837.
The accessible form of this recent work renders it less necessary that we should give a full exposition ot its systematic portion, and
the ereat amount of its ueneric groups renders their insertion somewhat incompatible with those prescribed limits which in truth we
have already exceeded. But we take it for granted, that everv sincere lover of Ornithology will possess himself of Mr bwainson *
volumes, to which any abstract we could offer would do injustice.
824
ORNITHOLOGY.
Euronp ^mi^ies: Leiotrichanae, Silky Chatterers ? Vireoninae,
. ^ J. (jreenlets and Thick-heads; Bombycillinae, Swallow-chat¬
terers ; Ampelinae, Typical Chatterers; Piprinae, Ma-
nakins.
Family Muscicapid^e. Fly-catchers.—Sub-families:
Querulinm; Psarianas, Black-caps; Fluvicolinae, Water-
chats ; Muscicapinae, Fly-catchers; Eurylaiminae, Broad-
bills.
Tribe IV.— Tenuirostres. Suctorial Birds.
Family Meliphagid.®. Honey-suckers.
Family Cinnyridas. Sun-birds.
Family Trochilid.*. Humming birds.
Family Promeropid.*. .Hoopoes.
Family Paradisiad.e. Paradise Birds.
Tribe II.—Conirostres.
Family Corvidae. Crows.—Sub-families : Corvinae,
Typical Crows; Garrulinae, Jays; Glaucopinae, Wattle-
crows; Coracinae, Fruit-crows; Frigilinae.
FamilySturnidae. Starlings.—Sub-families: Sturninae,
Typical Starlings; Lamprotorninae, Grakles; Scaphidurinae,
Boat-tails; Icterinae, Hang-nests; Aglainae, Maizers.
Family Fringillidae. Finches Sub-families: Coc-
cothraustinae, Hard-bills ; Tanagrinae, Tanagers ; Fringil-
linae, Ground-finches ; Alaudinae, Larks ; Pyrrhulinae,
Bullfinches.
Family Musophagid^:. Plantain-eaters.—Sub-fami¬
lies : Phitotominae, Plant-cutters; Colinae, Colies; Muso-
phaginae, Plantain-eaters.
Family Bucerid.®. Genus Buceros.
Tribe III.—Scansores.
Family Ramphastide. Toucans.
Family Psittacide. Parrots.—Sub-families: Macro-
circinae, Maccaws ; Psittacinae, Parrots ; Plyctolophinae,
Cockatoos ; Lorianae, Lories ; Platycircinae, Loriets.
Family Picide. Woodpeckers—Sub-families : Pi-
cianae, True Woodpeckers; Buccoinae, Barbuts.
Family Certhiade. Creepers Sub-families: Cer-
thianae, True Creepers; Anabatinae, Tree-runners; Sit-
tinae, Nut-hatchers; Troglodytinae, Wrens; Buphaginse,
Ox-peckers.
Family Cuculide. Cuckoos—Sub-families: Cucu-
linas, Parasitic Cuckoos ; Coccyzinae, Hook-billed Cuckoos;
Leptostominae, Long-billed Cuckoos; Indicatorinae, Ho¬
ney-guides.
Tribe V.—Fissirostres. Fissirostral Birds.
Family Meropide. Bee-eaters.
Family Halcyonide. King-fishers.
Family Trogonide. Trogons.
Family Caprimulgide. Night-jars.
Family Hirundinide. Swallows.
Order III.—Rasores. Rasorial Birds.
Family Pavonide. Peacocks and Pheasants.
Family Tetraonide. Partridges and Grouse.
Family Struthionide. Ostriches.
Family Columbide. Pigeons.—Sub-family: Colum-
binae.
Family Megapodiade. Great-foots.
Order IV.—Grallatores. Waders.
Family Ardeade. Herons and Cranes.
Family Tantalide. Ibis.
Family Rallide. Rails.
Family Scolopacide. Sand-pipers and Snipes.
Family Charadriade. Plovers.
Order V—Natatores. Swimmers.
Family Anatide. Ducks.—Sub-families: Phaenicop-
tinae, Flamingoes; Anserinae, Geese and Swans; Anatinae,
River-ducks; Fuligulinae, Sea-ducks; Merganin®, Mer¬
gansers.
Family Colymbide. Grebes and Divers.
Family Alcade. Auks.
Family Pelecanide. Pelicans.
Family Laride.1 Gulls.
ENUMERATION OF THE BIRDS OF EUROPE.9
Order I.—Raptores.
Vultur fulvus, Linn.
V. cinereus, Linn.
Neophron percnopterus, Sav.
Gypaetus barbatus, Storr.
Aquila imperialis, Briss.
A. chrysasta, Briss.
A. Bonelli.
A. naevia, Meyer.
A. pennata, Steph.
Haliaeetus albicilla, Selby.
H. leucocephalus, I
Sav. J
Pandion haliaeetus, Sav.
Circaetus brachydactylus, I
Vieill. J
Griffon Vulture.
Cinereous Vulture.
Egyptian Neophron.
Lammer-geyer.
Imperial Eagle.
Golden Eagle.
Bonelli’s Eagle.
Spotted Eagle.
Booted Eagle.
Sea-Eagle.
White-headed Eagle.
Osprey.
Short-toed Eagle.
Buteo vulgaris, Bechst.
B. lagopus, Flem.
Pernis apivorus, Cuv.
Astur palumbarius, Bechst.
Falco islandicus, Lath.
F. lanarius, Linn.
Falco peregrinus, Linn.
F. subbuteo, Linn.
F. rufipes, Bechst.
F. aesalon, Temm.
F. concolor, Temm.
F. tinnunculus, Linn.
F. tinnunculoides, Natt.
Milvus vulgaris, Flem.
M. ater.
Nauclerus furcatus, Vig.
Elanus melanopterus, Leach.
Common Buzzard.
Rough-legged Buzzard.
Honey Buzzard.
Goshawk.
Jer-Falcon.
Lanner Falcon.
Peregrine Falcon.
Hobby.
Red-footed Falcon.
Merlin.
Lead-coloured Falcon.
Kestril.
Lesser Kestril.
Kite.
Black Kite.
Swallow-tailed Kite.
Black-tailed Kite.
tuous work, the nu'niber^f Euroi^an^bird^mTv^n10111^6^^ ^ V°1UmeS r0'Val folio’ 1837; According to the author of this sump.
Of the latter, about 170 are permanent resident* n'V ^ •St,atef t0 aln.10l!,nt to 402 sPecies, of which 310 may be regarded as British,
and forty-five are winter birds of passao-e whb-h Ji .°,Ur ls,lan(i> e'ght.V-fiv6 are summer birds of passage, which visit us from the south,
may probably be regarded as accidental stm^W ^w fr0m seems to leave ten species unaccounted for: these
states the total number of species actually k iTied nr ^ ^ that Mr D°ubleda^’ in his. Nomenclature of British Birds (1036),
setsorcs 117, the Hasores seventeen the Cratl tn ,caPture< ln Britain as amounting to 323, of which the Raptores are thirty, the In.
seventeen, the Grallutores sixty.six, and the Natatores ninety-three.
ORNITHOLOGY.
Bids of Circus rufus, Briss.
Irope. C. cyaneus, Meyer.
C. paliidus, Sykes.
C. cineraceus, Meyer.
Strix flammea, Linn.
Bubo maximus, Sibb.
B. ascalapbus, Sav.
Otus vulgaris, Flem.
O. brachyotus, Cuv.
Scops Aldrovandi, Will, and)
Ray. j
Surnia cinerea.
S. nyctea, Dum.
S. Uralensis, Dum.
S. funerea, Dum.
Ulula nebulosa, Cuv.
Syrnium aluco, Sav.
Noctua nudipes, Wils.
N. ? tengmalmi, Selby.
N. passerina.
Marsh Harrier.
Hen Harrier.
Pallid Harrier.
Ash-coloured Harrier.
Barn Owl.
Great-horned or Eagle Owl.
Eastern Great-horned Owl.
Long-eared Owl.
Short-eared Owl.
Scops-eared Owl.
Great Cinereous Owl.
Snowy Owl.
Ural Owl.
Hawk Owl.
Barred Owl.
Tawny or Wood Owl.
Little Owl.
Tengmalm’s Owl.
Sparrow Owl.
Order II.—Insessores.1
Caprimulgus Europaeus, 1
Linn. J
C. ruficollis.
Cypselus murarius, Temm.
C. alpinus, Temm.
Hirundo rustica, Linn.
H. rufula, Temm.
H. rupestris, Linn.
H. urbica, Linn.
H. riparia, Linn.
Merops apiaster, Linn.
Coracias garrulus, Linn.
Alcedo ispida, Linn.
A. rudis, Linn.
Muscicapa luctuosa, Temm.
M. albicollis, Temm.
M. parva, Bechst.
M. grisola, Linn.
Collurio excubitor, Vig.
C. meridionalis, Vig.
C. minor, Vig.
Lanius collurio, Linn.
L. lafus, Briss.
Oriolus galbula, Linn.
Merula vulgaris, Ray.
M. torquata, Briss.
M. migratoria, Swains.
Turdus atrogularis, Temm.
T. pilaris, Linn.
viscivorus, Linn,
musicus, Linn,
iliacus, Linn.
Naumannii, Temm.
pallidus, Pall.
Whitei, Eyton.
Sibericus, Pall.
Cinclus aquaticus, Bechst.
C. melanogaster, 1
Brehm. J
C. Pallasii, Temm.
Petrocincla saxatilis, Vig.
P* _ cyanea, Vig.
Saxicola cachinnans, Temm.
S. leucomela, Temm.
S. cenanthe, Bechst.
stapazina, Temm.
S* aurita, Temm.
T.
T.
T.
T.
T.
T.
T.
European Goat-sucker.
Red-collared Goat-sucker.
Swift.
White-bellied Swift.
Chimney Swallow.
Rufous Swallow.
Rock-Martin.
Martin.
Sand-Martin.
Bee-eater.
Roller.
Kingfisher.
Black and White Kingfisher.
Pied Fly catcher.
White-collared Fly-catcher.
Red-breasted Fly-catcher.
Spotted Fly-catcher.
Great Shrike.
Great Gray Shrike.
Lesser Gray Shrike.
Red-backed Shrike.
Wood-Chat.
Golden Oriole.
Black Ouzel or Blackbird.
Ring-Ouzel.
Migratory Ouzel.
Black-throated Thrush.
Fieldfare.
Missel-Thrush.
Song-Thrush.
Redwing.
Naumann’s Thrush. *
Pallid Thrush.
White’s Thrush.
Siberian Thrush.
Water-Ouzel.
Black-bellied Water-Ouzel.
Pallas’s Water-Ouzel.
Rock-Thrush.
Blue Thrush.
Black Wheat-ear.
Pied Wheat-ear.
Wheat-ear.
Russet Wheat-ear.
Black-eared Wheat-ear.
Saxicola rubetra, Bechst. Whinchat.
S. rubicola, Bechst. Stonechat.
Phoenicura ruticilla, Swains. Redstart.
Ph. tithys, Jard. 1
and Selb. J
Ph. suecica, Jard. 1
and Selb. J
Erythaca rubecula, Swains.
Accentor alpinus, Bechst.
A. modularis, Cuv.
A. montanellus, 1
Temm. J
Locustella fluviatilis.
L. avicula, Ray.
L. luscinoides.
L. certhiola.
Salicaria turdoides, Selb.
S.
S.
825
Birds of
Kuroj e.
Black Redstart.
Blue-throated Warbler.
Robin.
Alpine Accentor.
Hedge Accentor.
Mountain Accentor.
Reed Locustelle.
Brake Locustelle.
Willow Locustelle.
Creeping Locustelle.
Great Sedge Warbler,
olivetorum,Strickl. Olive-tree Salicaria.
arundinacea, Selb. Reed Wren.
S. palustris.
S. phragmitis, Selb.
S. melanopogon.
S. aquatica.
S. galactotes.
S. cisticola.
S. ? Cetti.
S. ? sericea.
Philomela luscinia, Swains.
Ph. turdoides, Blyth.
Calliope Lathamii.
Curruca Orphea.
C. atricapilla, Bechst.
C. hortensis, Bechst.
C. Rupellii.
C. melanocephala, |
Lath. J
C. leucopogon.
C. cinerea, Bechst.
C. garrula, Bechst.
C. conspicillata.
C. sarda.
C.
Marsh Warbler.
Sedge Warbler.
Moustached Warbler.
Aquatic Warbler.
Rufous Sedge Warbler.
Fan-tail Warbler.
Cetti’s Warbler.
Silky Warbler.
Nightingale.
Thrush Nightingale.
Gorget Warbler.
Orpheus Warbler.
Black-cap.
Garden Warbler.
Ruppell’s Warbler.
Sardinian Warbler.
Sub-alpine Warbler.
Common White-throat.
Lesser White-throat.
Spectacle Warbler.
Marmora’s Warbler.
Barred Warbler.
nisoria.
Melizophilus provincialis, | Dartford Warb,er
Troglodytes Europaeus, Cuv. Wren.
Sylvia trochilus, Gmel.
S. rufa, Lath.
S. sibilatrix, Bechst.
S. icterina, Vieill.
S. hippolais, Temm.
S. Nattereri, Temm.
Anthus Richardi, Vieill.
A. pratensis, Bechst.
A. rufescens, Temm.
A. aquaticus, Bechst.
A. arboreus, Bechst.
A. rufogularis, Temm.
Motacilla Yarrellii.
M. lugubris, Pall.
M. alba, Linn.
M. neglecta, Gould.
M. boarula, Lath.
Regulus ignicapillus, Cuv.
R. vulgaris, Cuv.
R. modestus.
Parus major, Linn.
P. lugubris, Natt.
P. Sibericus, Gmel.
P. bicolor, Linn.
Willow Wren.
Chiff-Chaff.
Wood Wren.
Yellow Willow Wren.
Melodious Willow Wren.
Natterer’s Warbler.
Richard’s Pipit.
Meadow Pipit.
Tawny Pipit.
Rock or Shore Pipit.
Tree Pipit.
Red-throated Pipit.
Pied Wagtail.
White-winged Wagtail
White Wagtail.
Gray-headed Wagtail.
Gray Wagtail.
Fire-crested Wren.
Golden-crested Wren.
Dalmatian Regulus.
Great Tit.
Sombre Tit.
Siberian Tit.
Toupet Tit.
1 Including the Scansobes of the preceding Treatise.
VOL. XVI.
5 M
826
Birds of
Europe.
ORNITHOLOGY.
Parus cyanus, Pall.
P.
P.
P.
P.
P.
caeruleus, Linn,
ater, Linn,
palustris, Linn,
cristatus, Linn,
caudatus, Linn.
A.
A.
Calamophilus biarmicus, 1
Leach. J
CEgithalus pendulinus, Vig.
Bombycivoragarrula, Temm.
Alauda tartarica, Pall,
calandra, Pall,
brachydactyla, )
Temm. J
A. alpestris, Linn.
A. cristata, Linn.
A. arvensis, Linn.
A. arborea, Linn.
Certhilauda bifasciata.
Plectrophanes Lapponica,)
Selb. j
PI. nivalis,Meyer.
Emberiza miliaria, Linn.
E.
Azure Tit.
Blue Tit.
Cole Tit.
Marsh Tit.
Crested Tit.
Long-tailed Tit.
Bearded Tit, or Reed Bird.
Penduline Tit.
Waxen Chatterer.
melanocephala, )
Scop. J
E. citrinella, Linn.
E. aureola, Pall.
E. cirlus, Linn.
E. hortulana, Linn.
E. rustica, Pall.
E. lesbia.
E. cia, Linn.
E. pithyornus, Pall.
E. caesia, Cretz.
E. palustris, Savi.
E. schoeniculus,Linn.
Pyrgita domestica, Cuv.
P. montana, Cuv.
P. Hispaniolensis, Cuv.
P. cisalpina, Cuv.
P. petronia.
Fringilla coelebs, Linn.
F. montifringilla, )
Linn. f
F. nivalis, Linn.
F. ? hyemalis.
Linaria cannabina, Swains.
L. montana, Ray.
L. canescens.
L. minor, R.ay.
Serinus flavescens.
Carduelis elegans, Steph.
C. spinus, Steph.
C. citrinella.
Coccothraustes vulgaris, 1
Briss. J
C. chloris, Flem.
Loxia pityopsittacus, Bechst
L. curvirostra, Linn.
L. leucoptera, Gmel.
Corythus enucleator, Cuv.
C. longicauda.
Erythrospiza erythrina, Bon
E. rosea.
E. githaginea.
Pyrrhula vulgaris, Temm.
Sturnus vulgaris, Linn.
S. unicolor, Marm.
Pastor roseus, Temm.
Nucifraga caryocatactes, )
Briss. (
Calandra Lark.
Short-toed Lark.
Shore-Lark.
Crested Lark.
Sky-Lark.
Wood-Lark.
Bifasciated Lark.
Lark-heeled Bunting.
Snow-Bunting.
Common Bunting.
Black-headed Bunting.
Yellow Bunting.
Yellow-breasted Bunting.
Cirl Bunting.
Ortolan Bunting.
Rustic Bunting.
Lesbian Bunting.
Meadow-Bunting.
Pine-Bunting.
Cretzschmar’s Bunting.
Marsh-Bunting.
Reed-Bunting.
Common Sparrow.
Tree-Sparrow.
Spanish Sparrow.
Alpine Sparrow.
Doubtful Sparrow.
Chaffinch.
Mountain or Bramble Finch.
Snow-Finch.
Winter-Finch.
Common or Brown Linnet.
Mountain Linnet or Twite.
Mealy Redpole.
Lesser Redpole.
Serin Finch.
Goldfinch.
Siskin or Aberdevine.
Citril Finch.
Hawfinch.
Green Grosbeak.
.Parrot Crossbill.
Common Crossbill.
White-winged Crossbill.
Pine Grosbeak.
Siberian Grosbeak.
Scarlet Grosbeak.
Rosy Grosbeak.
Vinous Grosbeak.
Bullfinch.
Starling.
Sardinian Starling.
Rose-coloured Pastor.
Nut-cracker.
Garrulus glandarius, Briss.
G. infaustus, Temm.
Pica caudata, Ray.
P. cyanea, Wagl.
Pyrrhocorax Pyrrhocorax, 1
Temm. J
Fregilus graculus, Cuv.
Corvus corax, Linn.
C. corone, Linn.
C. cornix, Linn.
C. monedula, Linn.
C. frugilegus, Linn.
Picus martius, Linn.
P. viridis, Linn.
P. canus, Gmel. ^
P. leuconotus, Bechst.
major, Linn
P. medius, Linn.
P. minor, Linn.
Apternustridactylus, Swains.
Yunx torquilla, Linn.
Sitta Europcea, Linn.
S. Syriaca, Ehrenb.
S. Asiatica, Temm.
Certhia familiaris, Linn.
Upupa epops, Linn.
Tichodroma phcenicopte-’J
ra, Temm. j
Cuculus canorus, Linn.
C. glandarius, Linn.
Coccyzus Americanus, Vieill.
Jay.
Siberian Jay.
Magpie.
Azure-winged Magpie.
Alpine Chough.
Chough.
Raven.
Carrion Crow.
Hooded Crow.
Jackdaw.
Rook.
Great Black Woodpecker.
Green Woodpecker.
Gray-headed Green Wood¬
pecker.
White-rumped Woodpecker.
Great Spotted Woodpecker.
Middle Spotted Woodpecker.
Lesser Spotted Woodpecker.
Three-toed Woodpecker.
Wryneck.
Common Nuthatch.
Dalmatian Nuthatch.
Asiatic Nuthatch.
Common Creeper.
Hoopoe.
Wall-Creeper.
Common Cuckoo.
Great Spotted Cuckoo.
American Cuckoo.
Birds of
Europe.
Order III.—Rasores.
Columba palumbus, Linn.
C. (Enas, Linn.
C. livia, Linn.
C. turtur, Linn.
Phasianus colchichus, Linn.
Tetrao urogallus, Linn.
T. hybridus, Sparrm.
T. tetrix, Linn.
Bonasia Europsea.
Lagopus Scoticus, Lath.
L. mutus, Leach.
L. rupestris, Leach.
L. saliceti, Swains.
L. brachydactylus.
Pterocles arenarius, Temm.
P. setarius, Temm.
Francolinus vulgaris, Briss.
Perdix rubra, Ray.
P. petrosa, Lath.
P. saxatilis, Meyer.
P. cinerea, Lath.
Coturnix dactylisonans, 1
Meyer. J
Hemipodius tachydromus, {
Temm. j
Glareola torquata, Briss.
Cursorius Isabellinus, Meyer.
Otis tarda, Linn.
O. houbara, Linn.
O. tetrax.
Wood-Pigeon.
Stock-Dove.
Rock-Dove.
Turtle-Dove.
Common Pheasant.
Capercailzie, or Cock of
the Wood.
Hybrid Grouse.
Black Grouse.
Hazel Grouse, or Gelinotte.
Red Grouse.
Common Ptarmigan.
Rock Ptarmigan.
Willow Ptarmigan.
Short-toed Ptarmigan.
Sand-Grouse.
Pin-tailed Sand-Grouse.
European Francolin.
Red-legged Partridge.
Barbary Partridge.
Greek Partridge.
Common Partridge.
Quail.
Andalusian Turnix.
Collared Pratincole.
Cream-coloured Courser.
Great Bustard.
Ruffed Bustard.
Little Bustard.
Order IV.—Grallatores.
Grus cinerea, Bechst. Common Crane.
G. leucogeranus, Temm. White Crane.
Anthropoides virgo, Vieill. Numidian Demoiselle.
Ardea cinerea, Lath. Common Fleron.
ORNITHOLOGY.
Ardea purpurea, Linn.
A. comata, Pall.
A. alba, Linn.
A. garzetta, Linn.
A. russata, Wagl.
Nycticorax Europaeus, Steph.
Botaurus stellaris, Steph.
B. lentiginosus, Steph.
B. minutus, Selby.
Ciconia alba, Bellon.
C. nigra, Bellon.
C. Maquari, Temm.
Platalea leucorodia, Linn.
Phoenicopterus ruber, Linn.
OEdicnemus crepitans,Temm.
Himantopus melanopterus, 1
Meyer. j
Squatarola cinerea, Cuv.
Vanellus cristatus, Meyer.
V. Keptuschka,Temm.
Pluvianus spinosus.
Charadrius pluvialis, Linn.
C. morinellus, Linn.
C. hiaticula, Linn.
C. minor, Meyer.
C. Cantianus, Linn.
C. pyrrhothorax, }
Temm. /
Haematopus ostralegus, Linn.
Ibis Falcinellus, Temm.
Numenius arquata, Lath.
N. Phaeopus, Lath.
N. tenuirostris, Sav.
Limosa melanura, Leisl.
L. rufa, Briss.
L. terek, Temm.
RecurvirostraAvocetta,Linn.
Totanus fuscus, Leisl.
T. calidris, Bechst.
T. semipalmatus, 1
Temm. j
T. glottis, Bechst.
T. Bartramius, Temm.
T. stagnatilis, Bechst.
T. ochropus, Temm.
T. glareola, Temm.
T. hypoleucus, Temm.
T. macularius, Temm.
Strepsilas collaris, Temm.
Scolopax rusticola, Linn.
S. major, Linn.
S. Sabini, Vig.
S. gallinago, Linn.
S. gallinula, Linn.
Macroramphus griseus, 1
Leach. J
Calidris canutus, Briss. 1
and Cuv.J
Machetes pugnax, Cuv.
Tringa rufescens, Vieill.
T. pectoralis, Bonap.
T. subarquata, Temm.
T. variabilis, Meyer.
T. Schinzii, Bonap.
T. platyrhyncha,Temm.
T. minuta, Leisl.
T. Temminckii, Leisl.
T. maritima, Brunn.
Arenaria calidris, Meyer.
Phalaropus hyperboreus, 1
Lath. j
Purple Heron.
Squacco Heron.
Great Egret.
Little Egret.
Rufous-backed Egret.
Common Night-Heron.
Common Bittern.
Freckled Bittern.
Little Bittern.
White Stork.
Black Stork.
Maquari Stork.
Spoonbill.
Common Flamingo.
Thick-kneed Bustard.
Long-legged Plover.
Gray Plover.
Lapwing.
Keptuschka Lapwing.
Spur-winged Plover.
Golden Plover.
Dotterel.
Ring-Dotterel.
Little Ring-Doiterel.
Kentish Plover.
Red-chested Dotterel.
Oyster-Catcher.
Glossy Ibis.
Common Curlew.
Whimbrel.
Slender-billed Curlew.
Black-tailed Godwit.
Bar-tailed Godwit.
Terek Godwit.
Avocet.
Spotted Redshank.
Redshank.
Semipalmated Sandpiper.
Greenshank.
Bartram’s Sandpiper.
Marsh Sandpiper.
Green Sandpiper.
Wood Sandpiper.
Common Sandpiper.
Spotted Sandpiper.
Turnstone.
Woodcock.
Great Snipe.
Sabine’s Snipe.
Common Snipe.
Jack Snipe.
Gray Snipe.
Knot.
Ruff.
Buff-breasted Sandpiper.
Pectoral Sandpiper.
Pygmy Curlew.
Dunlin or Purre.
Schinz’s Sandpiper.
Broad-billed Tringa.
Little Sandpiper.
Temminck’s Tringa.
Purple Sandpiper.
Sanderling.
Red-necked Phalarope.
Phalaropus platyrhynchus, 1
Temm. j
Fulica atra, Linn.
Rallus aquaticus, Linn.
Porphyrio hyacinthinus,Tem.
Gallinula crex, Lath.
G. chloropus, Lath.
Zapornia porzana.
Z. Baillonii, Leach.
Z. pusilla, Steph.
Gray Phalarope.
Coot.
Water-Rail.
Hyacinthine Porphyrio.
Land-Rail.
Common Gallinule.
Spotted Crake.
Baillon’s Crake.
Little Crake.
827
Birds of
Europe.
Order V.—Natatores.
Anser hyperboreus, Pall.
A. ferus, Steph.
A. segetum, Steph.
A. albifrons, Steph.
A. leucopsis, Bechst.
A. ruficollis, Pall.
A. brenta, Flem.
Chenalopex iEgyptiaca, )
Steph. j"
Cygnus mansuetus, Gmel.
C. ferus, Ray.
C. Bewickii, Yarr.
Tadorna vulpanser, Flem.
T. rutila, Steph.
Mareca Penelope, Selby.
Rhynchaspis clypeata, Steph,
Anas Boschas, Linn.
Querquedula Crecca, Steph.
Q. glocitans, Vig.
Q. circia, Steph.
Dafila caudacuta, Leach.
Chauliodes strepera, Swains.
Fuligula ferina, Steph.
F. leucophthalma,)
Steph. /
F. rufina, Steph.
F. cristata, Steph.
F. marila, Steph.
F. dispar, Steph.
F. marmorata.
Somateria mollissima, Leach.
S. spectabilis, Leach.
Oidemia perspicillata, Flem.
O. fusca, Flem.
O. nigra, Flem.
Clangula vulgaris, Leach.
C. Barrovii, Sw. and ^
Rich. j
C. histrionica, Leach.
Harelda glacialis, Leach.
Undina leucocephala.
Mergus merganser, Linn.
M. serrator, Linn.
M. cucullatus, Linn.
M. albellus, Linn.
Podiceps cristatus, Lath.
P. rubricollis, Lath.
P. cornutus, Lath.
P. auritus, Lath.
P. minor, Lath.
Colymbus glacialis, Linn.
C. arcticus, Linn.
C. septentrionalis, ^
Linn. j
Uria troile, Linn.
U. lachrymans, Lapyl.
U. Brunnichii, Sab.
U. grylle, Lath.
Alca impennis, Linn.
Snow-Goose.
Gray-Lag Wild Goose.
Bean Goose.
White-fronted Goose.
Bernicle Goose.
Red-breasted Goose.
Brent Goose.
Egyptian Goose.
Domestic Swan.
Whistling Swan or Hooper.
Bewick’s Swan.
Common Shieldrake.
Ruddy Shieldrake.
Wigeon.
, Shoveller Duck.
Common Wild Duck.
Common Teal.
Bimaculated Teal.
Gargany Teal.
Pin-tail Duck.
Gadwall.
Red-headed Pochard.
White-eyed or Castaneous
Duck.
Red-crested Duck
Tufted Duck.
Scaup Pochard.
Western Duck.
Marbled Duck.
Eider Duck.
King Duck.
Surf Scoter.
Velvet Scoter.
Black Scoter.
Golden Eye.
Barrow’s Duck.
Harlequin Duck.
Long-tailed Duck.
White-headed Duck.
Goosander.
Red-breasted Merganser.
Hooded Merganser.
Smew.
Great crested Grebe.
Red-necked Grebe.
Horned Grebe.
Eared Grebe.
Little Grebe, or DabchicL
Northern Diver.
Black-throated Diver.
Red-throated Diver.
Foolish Guillemot.
Bridled Guillemot.
Brunnick’s Guillemot.
Black Guillemot.
Great Auk.
828
Biblio¬
graphy.
ORNITHOLOGY.
Alca torda, Linn.
Mergulus alle, Bon.
’ Mormon fratercula, Temm.
M. glacialis, Leach.
Pelecanus onocrotalus, Linn.
P. crispus, Feld.
Phalacrocorax carbo, Steph
Ph.
gracnlus,
Briss.
Ph. pygaemus,
Stepli.
Ph. cristatus,
Steph. and Flem. j
Ph. Desmarestii.
Sola Bassana, Briss.
S. melanura, Temm.
Sterna Caspia, Pall.
S. cantiaca, Gmel.
S. Anglica, Mont.
S. hirundo, Linn.
S. Dougallii, Mont.
S. minuta, Linn.
S. stolida.
Viralva nigra, Leach.
V. leucoptera, Leach.
V. leucopareia, Steph
Razor-billed Auk.
Little Auk.
Puffin.
Northern Puffin.
Pelican.
Dalmatian Pelican.
Common Cormorant.
Black Cormorant.
Little Cormorant.
Green Cormorant.
Desmarest’s Cormorant.
Solan Goose.
Black-tailed Gannet.
Caspian Tern.
Sandwich Tern.
Gull billed Tern.
Common Tern.
Roseate Tern.
Little Tern.
Noddy Tern.
Black Tern.
White-winged Tern.
Moustache Tern.
Xema ridibunda, Boie.
X. atricilla.
X. melanocephala, Boie.
X. minuta, Boie.
X. Sabinii, Leach.
Larus marinus, Linn.
L. fuscus, Linn.
L. glaucus, Brunn.
L. islandicus, Edm.
L. argentatus, Brunn.
L. rissa, Linn.
L. eburneus, Gmel.
L. canus, Linn.
L. Audouinii, Temm.
Lestris catarractes, Temm.
L. pomarinus, Temm.
L. Richardsonii, Swains.
L. parasiticus, 111.
Puffinus Anglorum, Ray.
P. obscurus.
P. cinereus, Steph.
Procellaria glacialis, Linn.
Thalassidroma Leachii.
Th. pel
Th.
dngica, )
Selby. J
? Bulwerii.
Laughing Gull.
Black-winged Gull.
Black-headed Gull.
Little Gull.
Sabine’s Gull.
Great black-backed Gull.
Lesser black-backed Gull.
Glaucous Gull.
Iceland Gull.
Herring Gull.
Kittiwake Gull.
Ivory Gull.
Common Gull.
Audouin’s Gull.
Skua.
Pomarine Gull.
Richardson’s Lestris.
Parasitic Gull.
Manks Shearwater.
Dusky Shearwater.
Cinereous Shearwater.
F'ulmar Petrel.
Fork-tailed Petrel.
Common Storm-Petrel.
Bulwer’s Petrel.
Biblio.
graphy
LIST OF CHIEF WORKS ON ORNITHOLOGY PUBLISHED SINCE 1842.
Agassiz (L.), Nomina Systematica generum Avium, tam viventium
quam fossilium. 4to. Soloduri, 1842.
Audubon (J. J.), The Birds of America, from drawings made in
the United States and their Territories. 7 vols. 8vo. New
York, 1840-1844.
Bailly (J. B.), Ornithologie de la Savoie. Paris, 1853.
Blyth (Kdw.), papers on Indian Birds in the Journal of the
Asiatic Society of Bengal ; and Catalogue of the Birds in the
Museum of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. Calcutta, 1849.
Bonaparte (C. L.), Nouvelles Especes Ornithologiques (Comptes
Rendus, 1849, &c.) ; and New Species of Birds described
(and several figured), in the Illustr. Proc. Zool. Soc. of London,
and in Cabanis’ Journal.
■  and II. Schlegel, Monographic des Loxiens. 1850.
4 to.
  Conspectus Systematis Ornithologiae, in several large
sheets.
 Conspectus generum Avium. 2 tom. 8vo. Leyden, 1850-
1857. (Vol. 2 left unfinished by the death of the author.)
Bourcier, New Humming-Birds, in the Annales de la Societe
d’Agric. de Lyon. Vol. 10. And Revue Zool. Cuvierienne.
Brandt (Prof.), On Birds of Russian Possessions in Asia, in the
Bulletin de PAcademie de St Petersbourg.
Brehm (Chr. L.), Monographic der Papageien (the Parrot family).
Folio.
Burmeister (Dr), Systematisches Uebersicht der Thiere Brasiliens.
2 th. (Birds).
  papers on Brazilian Birds, in Cabanis’ Journal.
Cabanis (J.), Journal fur Ornithologie. 8vo. Cassel, 1853, &c.
 (^r)i Museum Heineanum.
Cassin (J.), Illustrations of the Birds of California, Texas, Oregon,
and British and Russian America. 8vo. Philadelphia, 1854,
&c.
   various papers on New Species of Birds (Caprimulgidae,
&c.), in the Proceedings of the Academy of Nat. Sciences of
Philadelphia.
Chenu (Dr), and 0. Des Muro, Oiseaux, in the Encyclopedic
d’Histoire Naturelle. 6 vols.
Degland (C. D.), Ornithologie Europeenne. 2 vols. 8vo. Paris
and Lille. 1849.
D Orbigny, Voyages dans PAmerique Meridionale. Several new
species described and figured in this work, with the eggs of
140 species.
’ Ornithology, in Sagra’s Hist. Nat. de File de Cuba.
Dubois (G. K), Planches Coloriees des Oiseaux de la Belgique et
de leurs CEufs. Brussels.
Du Bus (B. Vicomte), Esquisses Ornithologiques, ou Descriptions
et 1 igures d'Oiseaux, nouveaux ou peu connus. 4to. Brus¬
sels.
D'Urville (Dumont), Voyage au Pole Sud.
Falconry in the British Isles. By F. H. Salvin and W. Brodrick.
Falconry in the Valley of the Indus. By R. F. Burton.
Fraser (Louis), Zoologia Typica. 1 vol. folio. 1845. And many
papers on African Birds and general Ornithology in the Pro¬
ceedings of the Zoological Society of London.
Galinier et Ferret, Voyage en Abyssinie. Birds, by Guerin
Meneville.
Gambel (VV.), contributions to American Ornithology (Proc.
Acad. Nat. Sc.) Philadelphia, 1848, &c.
Gay (Claudio), llistoria fisica y politica del Chile. Paris, 1847.
Text 8vo, plates folio.
Giraud (J. P.), The Birds of Long Island. 1 vol. 8vo. New
York, 1844.
Gosse (P. 11.), The Birds of Jamaica. London, 1847.
 Illustrations of the Birds of Jamaica. Large 8vo. Lon¬
don, 1849.
Gould (John), Birds of Australia. Folio. 1837-1848 ; and two
Supplements since published.
 Introduction to the Birds of Australia. 8vo. 1848.’
 Monograph of the Trochilidae or Humming-Birds. Lon¬
don, 1850. Folio. (In progress.)
  A Monograph of the Ramphastidae or Toucans. Lon¬
don, 1852. Folio.
 A Monograph of the Ortyginae or Partridges of America.
London, 1844. Folio.
 The Birds of Asia. Lond. 1850. Folio. (In progress.)
■ Birds Collected on Voyage of H.M.S. Sulphur.
Gray (George Robert), The Genera of Birds, illustrated with
plates by D. VV. Mitchell. 3 vols. folio. 1844-49.
 Catalogue of the Genera and Sub-genera of Birds con¬
tained in the British Museum. 1855.
 Birds of New Zealand, in the Zoology of H.M.SS. Erebus
and Terror. 4to. 1844, &c.
  Catalogue of Occipitrine Birds in the British Museum.
1848.
  Catalogue of Passeres (Fissirostres) in British Museum.
1848.
 Catalogue of Ramphastidae in British Museum. 1855.
 Catalogue of Columbae in British Museum. 1856.
 Author of many papers on Birds in the Illustrated Pro¬
ceedings of Zool. Society of London.
Hamel (Dr Jj, Der Dodo, die Einsiedler, und der Erdichtete
Nazarvngel. St Petersburg.
IlARTLAUB(Dr G.), Memoirs on Ornithology in Guerin Meneville’s
Revue Zoologique de la Societe Cuvierienne, in the Archiv
fur Naturgeschichte, Cabanis’ Journal, and Naumannia.
  System der Ornithologie West Africa’s. 8vo. Bremen,
1857.
/
ORNITHOLOGY.
IIartlaub (Dr G.), Beitrag zur Ornithologie West Africa’s, in the
IlamburLT Abhandlungen, vol. 2.
Hewitsun (W. C.), Coloured Illustrations of the Eggs of British
Birds, with Descriptions of their Nests and Midiacation.
2 vols. 8vn (3d edition). 1856.
Hodgson, On Nepalese llirds, in Annals and Mag. of Nat. Hist.,
vol. 13, and Proc. Zool. Soc. London, and Journal of Asiatic
Society of Bengal.
HOLLBoLLA on Greenland Birds, in Kroyer’s Tijdskrift iv.
Hombron and Jacquinot, Voyage au Pole Sud. Plates folio,
textSvo. Paris, 1853.
IIorsfiei.D (Dr.), an.l Moore, Catalogue of Birds in the Museum
of the East India Company. Vol. 1.
Jardine (Sir W., Bart.), Contributions to Ornithology. 8vo.
1848, &c.
  Natural History of Nectariniadae or Sun Birds (Naturalist’s
Library).
Jekdon (T. C.), Illustrations of Indian Ornithology. 8vo.
Madras, 1843.
Kaup (Dr), Monographien der genera der Falconidae und Strigidae,
in the Isis.
  System der Falken und Eulen (Arch. f. Nat., 1851;
and Museum Senckenbergianum, 1845).
Lafresnaye (Baron), many papers on new species and genera
of Birds, in Guerin Meneville’s Ilevue Zoologique de la
Socieie Cuvierienne.
Layard, Birds of Ceylon, in Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist.
Lefevre, Voyage en Abyssinie. Vol. 6, Birds, by Prevost and
0. Des Murs.
Lembeye (J.), Aves de la Isla de Cuba. Havana, 1849.
Lesson (R. P.), memoirs on various new species of Birds in the
Revue Zool. Cuv.
Macgillivray (Prof. Win.), History of British Birds, Indigenous
and Migratory, &c. Vols. 4 and 5, 1852 (Grallatorial and
Aquatic Birds, concluding the work).
Malherbe (Alfred), Faune Ornithologique de la Sicile. 8vo.
Metz, 1843.
  Nouvelle Classification des Picinees (Woodpeckers), in
Mem. Acad. Sc. Metz.
Melville. (See Strickland.)
Meyer (II. L.), Coloured Illustrations of British Birds and their
Eggs. 6 vols. 8vo. London, 1854-56.
Morris (F. 0.), British Birds. 8vo. London, 1851, &c.
Murs (0. Des), Iconographie Ornithologique: Nouveaux recueil
general de planches peints d'Oiseaux, destine a servir de suite
et de complement aux planches enlumin^es de Buffon et aux
planches colorizes de MM. Ternminck et Laugier De Char-
trouse. Paris, 1845.
 papers on the Eggs of Birds (Ovographie Ornitholo¬
gique), in the Revue Zool. Cuv. (See Chenu, Prevost.)
Muhle (H. Graf von der), Beitrage zur Ornithologie Griechen-
lands. Leipzig, 1844.
Muller (S.), and Schlegel, Birds of the Indian Archipelago, in
the great work on the possessions of the Dutch in these parts.
Naumann (A.), Naturge-chichte der Vogels Deutschlands. 11, 12,
and part of 13th vols. (Leipzig, 1842-1846), by his son J. F.
Naumann.
Naumannia, Archiv fur die Ornithologie, von E. Baldamus.
Stuttjrard, 1849, &e.
Owen (Prof.), On Dinornis, an extinct genus of Tridactyle
Struthious Birds, with descriptions of portions of the skeleton
829
of five species which formerly existed in New Zealand. There Index,
are six memoirs, which include descriptions «.f the genera v '
Palapteryx, Notornis, Nestor, in Transactions of the Zoological * v~'“J
Society of London. Vols. 3 and 4.
Owen (Prof.), on the Anatomy of Apteryx Australis (Trans. Zool
Soc. London, vols. 2 and 3).
Peale (Titian), Birds in the United States Exploring Expedition
commanded by C. Wilkes. Philadelphia, 1848.
Peters, Birds of Mozambique.
Prevost and Des Murs, New Birds, described and figured in the
Voyage de la Venus, and in Lefevre’s Voyage en Abys¬
sinie.
Pucheran (Dr), Birds described in Dumont D'Urville’s Voyage
au Pol Sud et dans 1'Oceanie sur les corvettes I’Astrolabe et la
Zelee.
  Alemoires sur les Types des Oiseaux du Musee de Paris
(Arch, du Museum, and Rev. et Mag. de Zoidogie).
Reich enbach, Avium Systema Naturale.
Rupfell (Dr F..), Systematische Uebersicht der Vogel Nord-ost
Afrikas. Frankfort, 1845. 8vo.
  Birds of North-East Africa, in the Museum Senckenber¬
gianum. Vol. 3.
Schlegel (H.), Faunna van Nederland. Vogels. Leiden, 1854.
(See Bonaparte and Temminck.)
Schomburgk (R.), Reisen in Guiana. Birds, by Cabanis, in vol. 3.
Sclater (P. L.), many papers on Ornithology in the Illustrated
Proceedings of the Zoological Society, and Annals of Nat.
Hist., and Edin. New Phil. Journal.
•  Monograph of the Birds forming the Tanagrine genus
Calliste, illustrated by coloured plates of all the known
species.
Smitm (Dr Andrew), Illustrations of the Zoology of South Africa.
4 to. 1838.
St Hilaire (Isidore Geoffroy), On (Epyornis Maximus, ac extinct
bird from Madagascar.
Strickland (H. E.), and Melville (Dr R. G.), the Dodo and its
Kindred; or the History, Affinities, and Osteology of the
Dodo, Solitaire, and other Extinct Birds of the islands
Mauritius, Rodriguez, and Bourbon.
 many papers on Birds in the Annals of Natural History,
and Proceedings of the Zoological Society, and Jardine s
Contributions to Ornithology.
  Ornithological Synonyms, a posthumous work, edited by
Mrs S. and Sir W. Jardine, Bart. Vol. 1. 8vo. 1855.
Sundevall (Prof), on African Birds in the Stockholm Ofvers of
Kongl. Vetensk Acad. Forh. 1849.
Temminck and Schlegel, Birds of Japan, in Siebold's Fauna
Japonica.
Thienemann (F. A. L.), Rhea, a journal devoted to Ornithology.
 Fortpflanzungeschichte der Gesammten Vogel.
Thompson (Wm.), Natural History of Ireland. Vols. 1 and 2
contain Birds. London, 1849.
Townsend (Dr), papers on North American Birds in the Journals
of the Academy of Sciences of Philadelphia.
Tschudi, Avium Conspectus quae in Republica Peruana reperiun-
tur et pleraque observatae vel collectae sunt in itinere. Wieg-
mann, arch. 10.
  (J. V.), Fauna Peruana. 1844-46.
Verreaux (J.), New African Birds, in the Rev. and Mag. de
Zoologie, and Cabanis’ Journal fur die Ornithologie.
Yarrell (Wm.), Supplement to the History of British Birds.
INDEX.
Paste
Abou-duck'n  740
Accentor 756
Adjutant 799
Aluuda 759
Albatross 812
Alca 810
Alcedo 772
Alectors 785
Ampelis 750
Anabates 768
Anas 818
Anastomus 800
Anous 813
Anser 816
Anthropoides 798
Anthus 757
Aptenodytes 811
Page
Apteryx 796
Aquila 742
Aracaris 779
Arachnothera  769
Aramus 798
Araponga 750
Aratinga 780
Ardea 798
Arenaria 804
Argus 790
Arrian 738
Astrapia 768
Astur 743
Auks 810
Avocels 806
Barbacous 778
Paee
Barbicans 779
Baryta 748
Baya 760
Beccamoschino 756
Bee-eater,
common  772
cowled 754
knob-fronted 754
poe 754
Beef-eaters 762
Bell-bird 750
Bethylus 748
Bernicla 816
Bidens 745
Birds,
structure of. 734
plumage of..., 735
Paso
Birds,
of Europe, List of. 824
of paradise 765
BIRDS OF PREY 737
Diurnal 738
Nocturnal 745
Bitterns 799
Blackbird 751
Black-cap 756
Blackcock  791
Blue bird 756
Blue throat 755
Boat-bill 798
Bombycilla 750
Boobies 814
Botuurus 799
Brachypter^ 809
830
ORNITHOLOGY.
Index. Page
, Erambling 761
v ^ Brevipennes 795
Bubo   746
Bucco 778
Buceros 773
Budytes 757
Bullfinch 761
Buntings 760
Buphaga 762
Bustard 797
Butcher-birds  748
Buteo 744
Buzzards 744
Cairina 817
Galaos 773
Caloptrophorus 805
Calyptorhynchus 783
Campanero 750
Canary 761
Cancroma 798
Capercailzie 791
Caprimulgus 758
Caracara 741
Carduelis 761
Cariama 797
Caryocatactes 765
Casmarhynchus 750
Cassicus   762
Cassuary 796
Casuarius   ib.
Cathartes 739
Catoptrophorus  805
Ceblepyris 751
Centropus 778
Cephalopterus 749
Cephas 810
Cereopsis 816
Certhia 768
Ceyx 773
Chaffinch 761
Chalybaeus 748
Charadrius 797
Chatterers 850
Chauna 807
Chenalopex 816
Chionis 808
Chrysocoma 811
Cicinnurus 768
Ciconia   799
Cinclus 753
Cinnyris  769
Circastus  743
Circus 744
Clangula 816
CLIMBERS 774
Coccothraustes   761
Coccyzus 778
Cock,
Bankiva 789
domestic 788
Jago   789
jungle  ib.
Macartney 790
Cockatoos 783
Colaptes 777
Colaris   765
Colius..... 762
Columba .....792
Colymbus 809
Condor  738
CONIROSTRES 759
Conophaga  .749
Conurus 781
(loots 808
Coracias 765
Cormorants  813
Corn-crake 807
Corrira 800
Corvus 763
Corythaix 783
Corythus 762
Cotingas 750
Page
Coturnix 791
Cow-penbird  762
Cowry 748
Cranes 797
Crax  785
Creadon 753
Creepers 768
Crex  807
Cross-bills 761
Crotophaga 779
Crow,
bald 749
carrion  744
hooded ib.
red-legged 771
Cryptonyx 791
Cuckoos .• 777
Cuculus  ib.
CULTRIROSTRES 797
Curassoes 785
Curlews  802
Curruca 756
Cursorius 797
Cushat 793
Cygnus 815
Cymbirhynchus 757
Cymindis 743
Cypselus 758
Dacelo 773
Dacnis 763
Dafila 818
Daptrius  741
Dendrocolaptes 768
Dentirostres 747
Dicaeum 769
Diomedea 812
Divers 809
Bobchick   ib.
Dodo 796
Dotterel 797
Dromas 800
Dromecius 796
Drongos 751
Ducks 816-818
Dunlin 803
Eagles   742
Ectopistes 794
Edolius 751
Egrets 799
Eiders   817
Elanus 743
Emberiza 760
Emeu 796
Enicurus 752
Epimachus 771
Eulabes 753
Euphonia 751
Euplocomus 790
Eurinorhynchus 804
Eurylaimus 757
Eurypyga 798
Falcinellus 804
Falco 745
Falconid^: 740
Falcons 745
Falcunculus • 748
Field-fare 751
Finches  761
Finfoots 809
Fissirostres 757
Flaningoes 808
Fly-catchers 749
Francolins 791
Fratercula 810
Fregilus 754-771
Frigate-birds 814
Fringilla 760
Fulica 807
Fuligula 812
Fulmar 812
Page
Galbula 774
GALLINACEOUS] ’
BIRDS ) 784
Gallinula 807
Gallinules  jb.
Gallus 788
Gangas  791
Gannets  814
Gar rots 816
Garrulus 764
Geese  816
Geophilus 794
Glareola   808
Glaucopis 768
Goatsuckers 758
Godwits  803
Goldfinch  761
Goosander 819
Gorfous 811
Goura 794
Grackle,
bald 754
bare-necked 751
paradise 754
piping 748
Gracula  ib.
Grallaria 753
GRALLATORES 794
Grallina  752
Grauculus 748
Grebes 809
Greenshank 805
Griffon 738
Gross-beak
evening 761
pine  762
Philippine  760
sociable  ib.
Grouse,
heteroclyte 792
pin-tailed 791
red  ib.
sand  ib.
wood  ib.
Grus 797
Guan 785
Guillemots 810
Guinea-fowl 788
Guit-guit 769
Gulls 812
Gymnocephalus 749
Gymnodera 751
Gymnops 754
Gypaetos 740
Hasmatopus 797
Haladroma 812
Haliaetus 742
Harfang 746
Harpies 743
Harpyia 743
Harriers 744
Hawfinch 761
Hawks 743
Hemipalma 804
Herons  798
Heteropodo 804
Himantopus 805
Hirundo  757
Hobby • 745
Hoccos ; 785
Holopodius 805
Honey-guides 778
Hoopies 771
Hornbills 773
Humming-birds 770
Ibis 800
Ibycter 741
Icterus 762
Ictinia   744
lerax  745
Indicator 778
INSESSORES 747 Inde*
Ixos 752
Jacamars 774
Jacamar-alcyon  ib.
Jacamerops  ib.
Jacana   807
Jackdaw 764
Jacous 785
Jagers 813
Jarra-war-nang 748
Jays  764
Jean-le-blanc 743
Kamichi 807
Keel birds 779
Kestril 745
Ketupa 746
King-bird ..  749
King-fishers 772
Kites 743,744
Knot 804
Kow-bird 778
Lagopus 791
Lamellirostres 815
Lammer-geyer 740
Lamprotornis  752
Lanius 748
Lapwing 797
Larks 759
Larus 812
Leptosomus 778
Lestris 813
Limosa 803
Linaria 761
Linnets 761
Lobipes 805
Longipenn.® 811
Longirostres 800
Lophophorus 786
Lophorina 768
Lophotes  745
Lories 783
Lorius ib.
Loxia 761
Lyre-tail 754
Maccaws 780
Machetes 804
Macrocercus 780
Macrodactyles 806
Macroramphus 803
Magpies 764
Malcohas 778
Manakins 757
Marabou 799
Mareca 819
Martin 758
Megapodius 807
Meleagris 786
Melithreptus 769
Menura 754
Mergansers 819
Mergus  ib.
Merlin t 745
Merops 772
Microdactylus 797
Microglossus  783
Milvus 743
Min a-bird .753
Mocking-bird 752
Monasa 778
Monaul 786
Morphnus 743
Motacilla 756
Muggy   ib.
Musicapa 749
Muspipeta  ib.
Musk-duchs 817
Musophaga 783
Mycteria  800
Myothera 753
ORNITHOLOGY.
831
Page
Nandou 796
Nauclerus *44
Nectarinia 769
Neophron 740
Nightingale 756
  743
Noctua 746
Noddies 81.!3
Numenius ....802
Numida 788
Nutcrackers 765
Nut-hatches 768
Nyctibius 759
Nycticorax 799
Ocypterus 748
(Edicneraus 797
Oidemia 816
Opetiorhynchus 769
Opisthocomus 786
Oriole,
Baltimore 763
golden 754
red-shouldered 762
Oriolus 754
Ornismya 769
ORNITHOLOGY  725
History of. 725
Illiger's system of 819
Linnaeus’s 726
Swainson’s  823
Temminck's   821
Vigors’s  ib.
Orthonyx 753
Ortilda 785
Ortolan 760
Ortygis 792
Ortyx 791
Osprey 743
Ostrich 796
Otis  797
Otus 746
Ourax 785
Ouzel 754
Owls 746
Oxyrhynchus 763
Oyster-catcher 797
Pachyptila ..812
Palaeornis 781
Palamedea 806
PALMIPEDES  808
Pandion  742
Paradisea 745
Pardalotus 748
Parotia 768
Parra 806
Parrakeets 782
Parrots 783
Partridges 791
Par us 759
Pavo   786
Peacocks  ib.
Pelecanus 813
Pelicans  ib.
Penelope 785
Penguins  810
PERCHING BIRDS 747
Perdix 791
Pernis 744
Petrels 811
Pettychaps 756
Pezoporus 783
Phaeton 815
Phalacrocorax 813
Phalaropes 804
Phalaropus  ib.
Phaleris 810
Phasianus 788
Pheasants 790
Page
Phibalura 751
Philedon 753
Phoenicophseus 778
Phoenicopterus 808
Piahaus 750
Pica 764
Picoides 777
Picumnus  ib.
Picus 774
Pigeon 792
carunculated 794
great-crowned  ib.
hackled  ib.
Nicobar  ib.
parabolic  ib.
passenger  ib.
rock 793
wood  ib.
Pin-tails 818
Pipit 757
Pipra  ih.
Pitta  753
Pitylus 761
Plaintain-eaters 784
Platalea 800
Platycercus 781
Platyrhynchus 749
Plectrophanes 7 60
Ploceus 760
Plotus 814
Plovers 797
Ply ctolophus 783
Pochards 817
Podargus 759
Podiceps 809
Podoa  it*'
Pogonias 779
Polyplectron 786
Porphyrio 807
Pratincoles 808
Pressirostres 796
Prionites 772
Prionops 748
Procellaria 811
Procnias 751
Promerops 771
Psaris 748
Psittacara   780
Psittaculus 783
Psittacus 780, 783
Psophia 798
Ptarmigans 791
Pterocles  ib.
Pteroglossus 779
Puff birds  ib.
Puffins 8-10
Puffinus 812
Purre 803
Pyranga 751
Pyrgita 760
Pyrrhocorax 754
Pyrrhula 761
Quails   797
Querquedula 819
Querula 750
Quezal   779
Rachamach  740
Rallus 807
Ramphastos 779
Ramphoceles   751
RAPTORES 737
RASORES 784
Raven 764
Recurvirostra 806
Redbreast 755
Redpole 761
Redshank 805
Redstart 755
Page
Redwing 751
Regent-bird 754
Regains 756
Rhea 796
Rhynchaea 803
Rhynchaspis 817
Rhynchops 817
Rifle-bird 772
Ring-dove 793
Ring-ouzel 751
Rollers  765
Rook 764
Rostrharaus 743
Rouloul   791
Ruff 804
Rupicola 757
Salicaria 756
Saltator 751
Sanderling 804
Sand-pipers 803, 805
Sarcoramphus 738
Satin-bird  748
Saxicola   755
SCANSORES 774
Scolopax   802
Scops 746
Scopus 800
Scoters 816
Screamer 807
Scythrops 778
Secretary 745
Sheath-bill 808
Shielducks 817
Shovellers  ib.
Shrikes 748
Siskin  761
Sitta 768
Skua 813
Snipes 803
Solan-goose 814
Somateria 817
Souimangas 769
Sparrow,
hedge 756
house  760
Spheniscus 811
Spoon-bills  800
Spur-wing   816
Squatarola 797
Starling ...763
Steatornis 759
Sterna 813
Stone-chat 753
Storks 799
Strepsilas 804.
Strix   746
Struthio 795
Sturnus 763
Sula 814
Swallows 737, 738
Swans 815
Swifts 758
Sylvia 
Synallaxis 
Syrnium 
Syrrhaptes 
755
768
746
792
Tachypetes 814
Tachyphonus 751
Tadorna  817
Tamatia 779
Tamatias  ib*
Tanagers 751
Tanagra  ib*
Tantalus 800
Tanysiptera 773
Teals 819
Temia 765
Tenuirostres..    768
Page Index.
Terns 813 y
Tetrao 791 "
Thamnophilus 748
Thrush,
ant  753
glossy 752
missel 751
pagoda 754
song 751
Tichodroma 768
Tinamous 792
Tinamus   ib.
Tit-mice 759
Todius 773
Totanus 805
TOTIPALM.E 813
Toucans 779
Touracos 784
Tragopan 790
Trichoglossus 781
Trichophorus 752
Tringa 803
Trochilus 769
Troglodytes 756
Trogon 779
Tropic-bird  815
Turkey 786
Turkey-buzzard 739
Turnstone 804
Turtle-dove   793
Twyte 761
Tyrannus 749
Ulula 746
Upupa 771
Uria   810
Vanellus 797
Vanga  748
Vidua 761
Vinago 794
Vulturid.®  738
Vultur  ih.
Vulture,
bearded 740
black 739
Californian 738
cinereous  ib.
fulvous 738
gingi 740
king 739
WADERS 794
Wagtail  756
Warblers  ih.
Water-hens 806, 807
Water-ouzel 753
Water-rail 807
Wattle-bird 765
Wax-wing 750
WEB-FOOTED \
BIRDS J  
Wheat-ear 755
Whimbrel 802
Whinchat 755
White-throat 756
Wigeons   819
Willet 805
Woodcock 802
Woodpeckers * 774
Wren  756
Wry-neck 777
Xanthornus 762
Xenops 768
Yacous 785
Yunx 777
i9
END OF VOLUME SIXTEENTH.
PRINTED BY NEILL AND CO
OLD F1SHMARKET, EDINBURGH.
Bablisked- "by A& C. Black:, Ediiilnrgh .
O UNIT HO LOGY
PLATE m.
VOL. XVI.
j
*
S. Secondaries. T. Tertuds.
Wing of Starling ^Stumus vulgaris.
Sm. C. Smaller Coverts. S. C. Secondaty Coverts.
S. If. Spurious Wiry. P. C. Primary Coverts.
1 to W, Primaries. 1 to 6, Secondaries.
Qj/uinipi Uvia
ct. Scapula, b, tip of Coracoid bone., c.Humerus, d, Ulna.,
e, Radius. Cf Carpus, yp. Metacarpus. h.Pollex. ip Dibits.
/. Scapula, b, Coracoid, bone
'rC/aviclc. c. c. Humerus,
l.d.lflna. e„ e. Radius.
. Carpus, p.p. Metacarpus,
i. Pollex. i, i Diaits.
icrri—ColiJinJia livia.
S. If. Spurious Winp.
S. S. Secondaries.
P. P Primaries.
Skeleton, of Golden Eagle _ Acgida ch/ysaetns.
j V It Mfiegil/iyrqy.
fh v. AiXmtm,. Smlp1
TtLbniahfid. by -A. & C.^la-ck. EcLizCb-argh .
S\ A ”...V
: •- ' '* - i t ; 1
■■
r
I
1 pv/jr/
ORNITHOLOGY.
PL A TK JV.
iyjlj)
CafAartes m/vi/
Vj/lti/r
cisiert'/ss.
Sarcoramphus papa
Gy par/as bar&atus
Neophron percnopjterus.
Caraaira £razfINnsis
^Morphnus cristntus.
Ilaliajtus albidlln
ffarpvia destructor.
i'ublxaied "by/ £: C JjXaxdc EimbuirA.
■
i
ORNITHOLOGY
PLATE V.
k ■ •> ■
1//J.VUS
furcatus.
Perms fris/a/a.
ffear/ of Falco.
Islandiais
, Vi 7 '/ua/n pagodantm
Orri/s s//j
C>) pogemmis scrpcnturius
Jiubo Vu'p/jij/jmLs
AJc/nwi. Sculp1.
sli e3. by A. hC.IBlack, lldiJi'bnx^!i
\XVL
].
picatus
Lanzas coUari
'razums
£mk of C/wlybmw
ILeat/ of Gymzwcepkolas
Cephafnptems ornatus
Erl ol/ns remifir
Tanpara chlorotzai
Published by A.& C.BlachEdmbiLrgb.
i asrnarln ’/alms varlrpatus.
(n’o.. Wanna, Sculp?
XVI.
Oj'
ORNITHOLO GY.
PLATE VI/
ORNITHOLOGY.
PLATE VZ/l.
PuMislel ty A.& C.Black,Edinburgh.
PLATE IX.
Geo. A ikrrum, Sculp T
Tubliakei *by A- & C31ack,E4nilniEgh..
fV
VI.
O RNITHOLO GY.
PLATE X.
TnhTi slip.a "by A k C.Black, Ean£bTir|k
Geo. Aikman... $cui[>
7.
ORN1THOLOGT
PLATE XL.
XvX k/ffjwi'
Galbula rutUnmia
Jacamerops
grandis.
Foot of Picoides.
Hill of Lcptosomus.
MT'
Coayzus cristaius.
muioi
[otK/sa
difo/tty
PiiliUalic'i V A- * C. BUck, Edinlnirgh.
ORNTTHOLO GY
PL ATE XU.
Pogonuis major.
1 inrairovh/rjis suprrriliosus.
ScyPropXjNfmr Poll/uu lue
('m top hag a ant
Trogon viridis
Ptrroglossus aracan
Ramphastns toco.
hihlis]ii«'l hy A. & C.BlaA, Kdiuliurfh..
TuHislEKl "byiLA C.]31adk.I!dmbm:^i:
&eo. Aiknum, Sculp f
(r alius BanJava
Malt.
Bfead of Ourax
t alius BanJaxu, Female
Pterocles arenarius.
Cr\/ft vi i: t • con v/atu. v
Tin/unus rufeseens.
Orfyqis pm/mix
('ahronlii'ii
w-
ORNITII OLOGY.
PLATE IX1X
IPiibHsIiel "by A. h. C- 31a ck, Elmbux^li.
Geo. Aiknum. Sculpt
PLATE XV.
#'UVK • ' ■''
AntlirovoiJfs fxn oniwi.
Tablisied ~by'JL& (Black, lEdmlritti^b-
'. Aikuuin. Sculp]
■ .-.-r,l ■•>• .
m
PLATE XVI
L
ORNITHOLOGY.
Grus Aimricajui
Nu/fwwis 16
PlataZea ajaja
Recun 'irostm ATumama
. UacJuies nut/na \ \
R/ivnc/um mi/uv/s/s
—
(Ziionis vaqimilis.
--
Pnrrn albinuai.
lilhlisiLeiL IjyA. & (’. lila-ck, Ed nil hix-^l.
OR NITHOLOGY
PLATE XML.
/.tinis iihtriims.
I‘rh-cnnus <>iii>rwt(dus.
Tabliiihed.fryA.& C.Slack,Edinbnrgi..
ProceUaritt pda/jira.
IbJjja Surinameiis is.
i Lp/erwdytrs j latapomra.
' reo.. Ukuuut Sculpt
Fu Jujuhr, Yalismeri .
ORNITHOLOGY.
PLATE XVIII.
VI.
PuKLisKed hy A. & C. Black. Edinimxgli.
PlotLLS melamqos/pr.
■-
Cereopsis Novce Ilo/JjtnJj/r.
♦