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and yet the method is essentially the same as that now in general use in the "district telegraph," whereby either a doctor, messenger, or policeman, may be summoned.

WE have frequently taken occasion, in our reviews of scientific progress in England, to notice the violence with which the journal Nature has expressed its opinions regarding any lack of zeal manifested by the government in the cause of science. The present, however, being a dull season at home, the pen of this editor is forced to seek other objects for denunciation and rebuke, as is illustrated by the following from that journal of June 3d: "We are very much surprised, and on all accounts it is greatly to be regretted, that the Legislature of Massachusetts has rejected the bill for a new survey of the State to which we have already referred. Massachusetts is known all the world over as being one of the most intelligent and best-educated States in the Union. Evidently, however, the State schools are too strong in arithmetic; a Mr. Plunkett brought some extraordinary calculations before the House, showing that the survey would cost nearly a million and a half of dollars, and occupy nearly a hundred years! Besides an advanced and accomplished calculator, the Massachusetts Legislature is also happy in the possession of a funny man,' a Mr. Rice, who seems occasionally to relieve the severity of Mr. Plunkett's extreme calculations by bright flashes of buffoonery. Mr. Rice described the proposed survey as sending young men with muck-rakes to scratch the sterile soil of the State and make pictures.''

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THE sudden death of Joseph Winlock, late director of the observatory of Harvard College, is an event which will be sincerely mourned by the world of science, where he had attained so high and worthy a fame, and by the many associates whom he honored by his friendship. It is seldom that the philosopher creates for himself a fame of such a nature as to attract the attention and command the reverence of the poet; hence the following sonnet by Lowell, composed in memory of the dead astronomer, will be received as a special mark of honor:

Thy soul and stalwart, man of patient will Through years one hair's-breadth on our Dark to gain,

Who, from the stars he studied not in vain,
Had learned their secret to be strong and still,
Careless of fames that earth's tin trumpets fill;
Born under Leo, broad of build and brain,

He watched while others slept, in that hushed fane

Of Science, only witness of his skill:
Sudden as falls a shooting-star he fell.
But inextinguishable his luminous trace
In mind and heart of all that knew him well.
Happy man's doom! To him the fates were
known

Of orbs dim-hovering on the skirts of space,
Unprescient, through God's mercy, of his own!"

ments of our universities are gaining so strong a hold and so high a rank, any movement made in them in favor of some decided reform in the constitution and purposes of their societies would add one more to their many claims for a favorable recognition and increased patronage.

In a recently-published supplement to Petermann's Mittheilungen there is presented, in connection with other valuable statistical information, the following estimate regarding the total population of the globe: The grand total is now given at 1,396,842,000 souls, and the general distribution as follows: Europe, 302,973,000; Asia, 798,907,000; Africa, 206,007,000; America, 84,392,000; and Australia and Polynesia, 4,563,000.

Miscellany:

NOTEWORTHY THINGS GLEANED HERE AND THERE.

FRO

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women not excepted-instinctively regards allunbelievers, not to mention the difficulty, or almost impossibility, of that previous ac quaintance which might awaken a mutual regard between the parties.

Besides this, it is to be remarked that in most European countries the world at large are rather disposed to connive and smile at any "flirtation" which is observed, even though the lady be a married woman; while in Turkey a cawas, a hammal, any man, of even the lowest grade, who should observe a Mohammedan woman speaking in the street to a Frank, or even exchanging the slightest sign of intelli-| gence with him, would literally fall upon her with hand, and foot, and cudgel, and be warmly applauded for such brutality by any casual spectators, especially among the women. No one here understands the remotest approach to raillery on the subject of conjugal infidelity The purely material jealousy of the Turks, and the precautions which it involves, protect them, almost invariably, from any cause of domestic scandal; although jocose allusions to the subject are made familiarly enough in the theatre of our friend Karagheuz, and in the course of the comic disputes incidental to his performances.

ROM the lamented Théophile Gautier's highly entertaining book on "Constantinople" (reviewed in our "Literary department last week) we select the larger freely, take their walks and drives to the Val

part of the chapter on "Women: "

66

The first question invariably addressed to every traveler on his return from the East is, "Well, and the women?" To which each responds by a smile, more or less mysterious according to his degree of fatuity, implying, however, a fair amount of romantic adventures. Whatever it may cost my self-love, I humbly avow that I have, in this particular, no story to tell;" but am compelled, to my great regret, to send forth my narrative devoid of all incident of love or romance. A few such would certainly have served admirably to vary my descriptions of cemeteries, mosques, tekkės, palaces, and kiosks. Nothing is more charming in an Eastern tale than to read how an old woman, in a deserted street, made you a sign to follow her cautiously, and at a distance, and introduced you, by a secret door, into an apartment heaped with all the luxuries of the Orient, where, reclining upon a superb divan, a sultana, gleaming with jewels-which, however, paled beside her superb loveliness-impatiently awaited your coming, and received you with smiles of tenderness and welcome. In due course the adventure should terminate by the sudden arrival of the master, who scarcely leaves you time to fly by the back-door; unless, indeed, a more tragical climax is attained, by a contest from which you barely escape with life, and the plunge into the Bosporus, at dead of night, of a sack which bears some vague resemblance to the human form.

This orthodox narrative of Eastern adventure, slightly varied in details, always passes current, and interests all readers; and, THE students at Caius College, Cambridge more especially, all "fair readers; " and, doubt(England), have recently founded a society on less, it is not entirely without precedent that a basis that might be imitated among our own a young Giaour, handsome, rich, knowing institutions. The organization is designed for thoroughly the language of the country, and the diffusion of scientific knowledge among residing in his own house in the Turkish fashthe members of the college, for the reading of ion, should, with great peril to himself and essays on scientific subjects, and for the hold- absolute danger to the life of the lady, have ing of scientific discussions. Whatever may an intrigue with a Turkish woman; but, if be the view taken by undergraduates, we do such a thing occurs, it is very rarely, indeed, not question that the alumni of American and this for many and obvious reasons. First, colleges are often led to regret that the zeal the bolts and the gratings which intervene bedemanded of them in the support of their so- tween the females and the rest of the world called secret organization had not been put to are tangible and unmistakable obstacles; then better service in advancing their intellectual the difference of religion, and the unconquerculture. And now that the scientific depart-able suspicion with which every Turk-the

It is true that the Turkish women go out

ley of Sweet Waters, to Hyder Pasha, or to the Place of Sultan Bajazet; seat themselves. beside the tombs of the Little Fields of Pera or Scutari; pass entire days at the bath, or in visits to their friends; talk beneath the porticoes of the mosques; lounge in the shops of the Bezetin; and sail, in caïques or steamers, upon the waters of the Bosporus; but they have always some companion, be it a negress, or an old woman in the capacity of duenna, or, if they are rich, a eunuch, often more jealous than his master. If they are not thus accompanied which exception is rare-a child, led by the hand, insures them respect; or even, in default of this protection, the tone of public manners watches over them, and "protects" them, perhaps a little more rigorously than they altogether desire. The excessive liberty of action which they enjoy is only apparent.

Foreigners have sometimes fancied themselves beloved by a Turkish woman, when they have, in fact, confounded the Armenians with the Turks, whose costume they wear, except the yellow boots, and whose manuers and allurements they imitate so closely as to deceive any but a resident of the country. For this it suffices to have an old woman, who arranges her plans with a pretty young Armenian coquette, a rather credulous and romantic young man, and a rendezvous in a lonely house. Vanity does the rest; and the adven-. ture generally terminates in the extortion of a sum of money-an insignificant circumstance, omitted from the subsequent narrative of the deluded Giaour, who imagines in his heroine at least the favorite slave of a pasha, if not one of the harem of the Grand-Seignor himself.

But, in real truth, the actual Turkish life is not less "hermetically sealed" than we have always supposed; and it is very difficult to even conjecture what passes behind those closely trellised windows, the only view through which is that from within, each being furnished with a sort of bull's-eye, to enable those on the inner side to command a perfect view of all that passes without, while they themselves remain rigorously invisible.

Nor is it of any use to think of obtaining information from the natives of the country. As the author says at the commencement of "Namouna "—

"Utter silence reigns throughout this narrative."

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To speak to a Turk of the women of his sehold is to commit the grossest possible trach of etiquette and politeness. It is fortiden to make the slightest allusion, even Lantly, to this delicate subject; and, of rs, all such phrases as "How is your wife :-lay?" (commonplace as they are to us) are banished from conversation. The most eriously bearded and turbaned Turk would like a school-girl if he heard an inquiry trageously improper.

The embassadress of France, wishing to cake a present to Redschid Pasha of some suere Lyons silks for the ladies of his harem, et them to him with this brief note: 26 Pray apt some silks, which you will know better

any one how to use." To have expressed a plainly the object of the gift would have bad taste, even in the eyes of Redschid despite his familiarity with French ners; and the exquisite tact of the marmess caused her to adopt a form of expresca so gracefully vague as could not wound the sensitive susceptibility of an Oriental. It is, therefore, easy to understand that it a'd be singularly unbecoming to ask from Trk any details as to the habits or customs the harem, or the character and manners of de women. Even though he may have known

familiarly at Paris, have taken two hunred cups of coffee and smoked an equal numer of pipes on the divan with you, he will, vertheless, if you question him on this substammer and hesitate, and evade your inaries in every possible manner. Civiliza

in this particular, has not advanced a le step. The only method to employ, in really to obtain any authentic informais to request some European lady, who is introduced and has access to the harems, recount to you faithfully that which she has

For a man, he may as well abandon at me the idea of knowing any thing more of Terkish beauties than he is able to gather

the glimpses which he may snatch by prise from beneath the awning of an araba, ugh the window of a talika, or beneath She shade of the cypresses of the cemetery, at moment when heat or solitude has caused omentary and partial withdrawing of the

Still if one approaches too boldly, even der such circumstances-and especially if see chance to be any Turk within hearingdraws upon himself a shower of such comments as the following: "Dog of a Chrisfan! miscreant! Giaour! May the birds of he air soil your beard! May the plague dwell your house! May your wife be childless!"

last being a Biblical and Mohammedan ediction of the utmost severity. It may, bewever, be suspected that this fury is more fected than real, and is, in great part, a piece of acting" for the gallery;" for a woman, even gha Turk, is seldom displeased at being admired; and among the Moslem women the Ecret of their beauty, no doubt, weighs somehat upon their minds (as any other secret ld do upon any female mind), and they are not sorry to have an occasional confidant that sex which is best able to appreciate the

Vst of the disclosure.

By the Sweet Waters of Asia - by leanimmovably against a tree or the fountain, the attitude of one who is lost in profound of more than one lovely face but imperfectly -I have been able to catch a glimpse mcealed by a thin veil of gauze half with

, and more than one snowy throat gleamaz between the folds of a half-open feredge, File the eunuch was walking at a little disace, or gazing upon the steamboats on the

Bosporus, assured by my assumed air of drowsiness and abstraction.

The Turks, however, see no more of them than the Giaours do. They never pass beyond the selamlick, even in the houses of their most intimate friends; and they are acquainted with no women but those of their own harems. When the inmates of one harem visit those of another the well-known custom of placing the slippers of the visitors upon the threshold of the harem which they are visiting at once announces the presence of strangers, and interdicts the entrance of the odalick, even to its own master, who thus finds him self, at any moment, shut out from a part of his own house. An immense female population, anonymous and unknown, circulates through this mysterious city, which is thus transformed into a sort of vast masquerade, with the peculiarity that the dominoes are never permitted to unmask. The father and the brother are the only males who are allowed to behold the faces of the daughters and sisters, who rigidly veil themselves for any relative of remoter degree; and thus a Turk may, in his whole life, have seen but half a dozen faces of Moslem women!

The possession of large and numerous harems is restricted to viziers, pashas, beys, and other persons of either great wealth or high rank, for their maintenance is enormously expensive, especially as each female who becomes a mother is entitled to her separate apartments and her own suite of slaves. The Turks of middle rank have rarely more than one wife (although legally entitled to espouse four), together with perhaps three or four purchased female slaves; and for them the rest of the sex remains in the condition of a myth or chimera. It is true that they can compensate themselves by looking at the women of other races-the Greeks, Jewesses, and Armenians, together with the few European ladies who extend their travels so far; but of the females of their own people they know absolutely nothing beyond the walls of their own harems.

The sentiment of love and the delicacies of courtship are, necessarily, almost unknown to the Moslemah. A Turk who wishes to marry has recourse to some woman of mature age, who exercises the profession of a matrimonial negotiator. This woman frequents the baths, and gives him a ininute description of the personal charms of a certain number of Asmés, Rouchens, Nourmahals, Leilas, and other beauties of marriageable age, taking proper care, of course, to adorn with the greatest profusion of metaphors the portrait of the young girl whom she herself favors, or whom it is her interest to select. The effendi becomes a lover on the strength of her description; sprinkles with bouquets of hyacinths the path by which his veiled idol must pass; and, after the interchange of a few glances (his share of which is limited to such glimpses of a pair of eyes as he can snatch through the close-drawn veil), demands the maiden of her father, offering her a dowry proportioned to his passion and his fortune; and at length sees | removed, for the first time, in the nuptialchamber itself, the yachmack which has hitherto concealed the fair one's features from his

longing gaze.

These marriages by procuration do not appear to give room for much more of mistake or deception than those which take place among us.

THE entertaining writer in Fraser upon "German Home-Life" devotes her last ar

ticle to "Language." Her comments upon the difficulties of titles are amusing:

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At the language of official life, at the ridiculous titles official people claim, we have already glanced. The exactions in this direction are almost sufficient to frighten a simpleminded person out of society. Have you given the right man the right title? Is he a Geheimerath, or a wirklicher Geheimerath? Was that prince who affably condescended to address you a Royal, or a Transparent, or a Serene Highness? You have just addressed a lady (who has no right to the title) as Excellenz, and made her your implacable enemy for life. You have occasion to write to a Roman Catholic clergyman, and you forever offend him by addressing him as Ew. Hochehrwürden, which is a Protestant title, instead of Ew. Hochwürden, the correct Catholic style. How are you to know that privy councilors and presidents exact the predicate Hochwohlgeboren, which belongs of right to the nobility (second class), and how can you guess that a count must be addressed as High-born" (Hochgeboren), or even, under some circumstances, as Erlaucht, a baron as 66 High-well-born" (Hochwohlgeboren), and that the common herd exact Wohlgeboren, as well as their own patronymic, on the letters you address to them? It once occurred to the writer of these pages to have occasion to send to a little Jew shopkeeper for a reel of silk or a skein of wool. The nearest townlet was ten miles distant, and, being unwilling to trust her commission to the rustic messenger, she wrote a note, dictated by a kind relative, to the shopkeeper in question. Left to herself, she addressed it to Herr Meyer, linen-draper, adding the name of the town, and deposited the letter on the hall-table. "What will you then insult the people?" cried a critical and choleric cousin, snatching up the poor little missive; "you blame yourself" (Du blamirst Dich), "my best one, by such ignorance of the forms!" and, stripping off the offensive cover, he reinclosed it, writing in a fine, flourishing hand, "To the Wellborn Mr. Jacob Meyer, Merchant" (Kaufmann). I felt quite ashamed to inclose the twopencehalfpenny that was to cover my debt in the face of such a grandiloquent address as this; the very poetry of commerce could do no more than build up such a structure on the foundation of the little Hebrew huckster's obscure shop.

Altogether the address upon a German letter is a serious affair, and cannot be attempted in any light spirit of enterprise. You have to consider your declensions, and to call to mind all the social and official prerogatives of the person you are addressing. No such slipshod, easy familiarity as General Smith or Colonel Jones can be tolerated. You must begin in one corner of the envelope, and, if you wish to be decent, end in the other, as: Seiner Hochgeboren

dem Grafen
Adalbert von Kanonen-Donner,
General-Major, Inspekteur
der K. K. Artillerie, etc., etc.,
Hieselbst,

or wherever else he may be; and, if your friend hold a civil appointment, a far more elaborate address will probably adorn the superscription.

In society a married lady is always addressed with the prefix of gnädige, or gnädigste Frau (gracious, or most gracious lady). If she have a title, it is not customary to use the family names in speaking to her; Frau Grüfin or Frau Baronin being deemed sufficient. Many persons use meine Gnädigste ("my

have been often exaggerated, these Apennine
country-people are, on the other hand, no taci-
turn race. They are cunning to mould to their
use the lithe tongue of their land, to adorn it
with expletives, and to point it with gesticula-
tion; and it is even this habit of noisy vocif-

their character-so little truly deserved-for
curbless passions and vindictively cruel pro-
pensities. They are a kindly people enough
in their mutual relations, and formed, indeed,
by their very nature for warm, social life.
They have need of a certain amount of free,
neighborly intercourse, such as a quiet and
colder temperament can scarcely understand;
and hence it is that the life of an Italian com-
munity is to be learned in its open thorough-
fares rather than its individual homes-as in
the comparatively secretive life of northern
lands. We must seek on cottage door-steps,
in market-places, and piazzas, where men and
women mix freely together, the true color of
this Apennine people.

most gracious"), without further designation.
Among female friends the formula is some-
what less ceremonious, liebe Gräfin, or Ge-
neralin, or Geheimeräthin, being sufficient.
Young ladies are not addressed as "Miss" So-
and-so, but by gentlemen invariably as mein
gnädiges Fräulein. In Vienna the title Com-eration which has perhaps won them abroad
tesse, in contradistinction to Gräfin, is only
employed toward unmarried ladies. It is not
customary to say "Colonel Rag" 66
or Major
Famish" Herr Oberst and Herr Major are
the correct forms; Herr Hauptmann and
Herr Lieutenant. In speaking of these gen-
tlemen you may, of course, mention the fam-
ily names of both the Rags and the Famishes.
I may give an illustration of my meaning in
the following experiences: I was equally well
acquainted with a Baron Wolff and a Baron
Behr, both members of well-known Courland
families, but I never could remember which
was which. It was of no great consequence,
as safety was afforded in the convenient Herr
Baron; but on more than one occasion it so
happened that I had to speak of these gentle-
men when others of the same rank were pres-
ent. I was obliged to particularize, and I
made a shot at the Wolff. The next time I
took desperate aim, and it was at the Behr. I
fancied Fate had favored me, until a cloud on
the countenance of the latter gentleman in-
formed me I had blundered. Meeting him a
few days later in a shady avenue, he accosted
me with a stiffness that was barely tempered
by its cold civility. "I have perceived, my
most gracious," he said, "that you are in the
dark as to my insignificant personality (meine
unbedeutende Persönlichkeit). You have on sev-
eral occasions spoken of me in my presence
as Baron Wolff: now, allow me to tell you
that the Wolves are not to be compared with
the Bears!" Crushed as I was by his morgue
and magnificence, I could not but smile (as I
muttered out my confused apologies) at the se-
rious tone of his reproof.

Fatiguing alike, however, to alien ears and sense is the vicious abuse of the adverbial and adjectival form in the language of every-day life. An adjective and a note of admiration will serve, for instance, to express the feelings of a family all round. The emotions of a group surveying the beauties of Saxon Switzerland or the Rhine will be rendered as follows:

MAMMA. "Reizend!"
SOPHIE. "Himmlisch!"
ADELHEID. "Wunderschön!"
HELGA. "Bezaubernd!"
CHARLOTTE. "Entzückend!"

And so on da capo, ad infinitum. At first, especially if the group be one of pretty girls, each shrieking out her little note of spasmodic admiration in a higher key than the last, you will think this pretty animation very naïve and charming, but by degrees it will pall upon you; you will wish that they could be persuaded to utter a few consecutive sentences; or you will regret that they should have begun with the climax. It is a common mistake to suppose that German travelers are morose; they are the most talkative of companions; they talk pro bono, and, like Tennyson's brook, though men may come, and men may go, they seem able to go on forever!

FROM a very charming paper in Fraser on "Peasant-Life in North Italy," we quote a well-drawn picture of the parish priest:

Italians love a goodly portion of gossip and loitering; and if foreign sayings about Italian impetuosity, and easily moved Italian feelings,

Mark them now as they stand about the parish church. Mass is just over-for it is one of the smaller festas-and the peasants are split into divers knots, where the interests peculiar to various ages and callings are ardently being discussed. Some of the people live on the far confines of the parish, and it is not often these meet with neighbors out of other hamlets-hence is there much to ask and to be said. The old priest comes forth now from the sacristy, and threads his way among the crowd. He has put off the most conspicuous part of his canonical apparel, and wears only a long black coat, with knee-breeches, black stockings, and buckles to his shoes; in his hand the three-cornered, ecclesiastical hat, which is in strict etiquette on a feast-day. To one side of the quadrangle a group of youths and maidens are gathered, and hither first the pastor turns his attention. They make way for him, and do not shrink or turn aside shamestricken at his coming, as boys and girls would surely do in England when caught at their play by the minister. The maidens turn to

him instead, eagerly demanding his opinio perhaps on some free and foolish raillery, laughing with him at the discomfiture of son too forward suitor, while the men are prom and outspoken with their lightsome jokes ar taunts. He laughs, too, and retaliates, beir no way prudish in his talk. Of what use wou it be, were the good man inclined ever so mu to seek for the flaws and the specks upon t gray and homespun garments of his parishio ers? Though his person be held in ever great respect throughout the parish, thoug his voice be listened to in meekness and awe within the holy precincts, and his com sels highly valued, and his upbraidings r garded at the confessional, without his offi the priest's power is a mere name, and well} knows it. It is fortunate perhaps for him tha in most country parishes at least, he h learned to adapt himself to his standing. H own upbringing has probably not been suc as to render him peculiarly sensitive to t mere outward grossuess of speech, which generally the worst feature about this fran and merry people. Who that is Italian, t birth and by nature, could have grown to thus susceptible? A country parish priest, all events, is not, and, as a rule, he gets well, descending, when out of his religion duties, to the work and the interests of th peasants about him, happy enough, doub less, in his own way, and careless of any gre show of respect. Now he joins another part and this time the group is one of old or se soned men, whose interests are wrapped up i the crops and the coming fair. Hear him, with avidity he discusses the country's prof pects, or reconnoitres cautiously that he ma know the better how to buy and to sell wit advantage on Monday next. Here is no moor struck priest, but a man of the world-poo parsimonious, and prudent; poor, but not a ways stingy, not always grasping because h too-though pinched and care-worn far mor than the greater number of his people wh have their own lands and crops-he, too, ha the proverbial buon cuore of the Italians.

Notices.

ART-WORKERS IN SILVER.—THE GORHAM COMPANY, established 1831. Bridal Christening, Birthday, and Household Silver. The most extensive and brilliant collection to be found in th city. Salesrooms, No. 1 Bond Street, near Broadway.

SCIENTIFIC BOOKS.-Send 10 cents for General Catalogue of Works on Architec ture, Astronomy, Chemistry, Engineering, Mechanics, Geology, Mathematics, etc. D. VAN NOSTRAND Publisher, 23 Murray Street, New York.

APPLETONS' JOURNAL is published weekly, price 10 cents per number, or $4.00 per annum, in advance (postage prepaid by the publishers). The design of the publishers and editors is to furnish a periodical of a high class, one which shall embrace a wide scope of topics, and afford the reader, in addition to an abundance of entertaining popular literature, a thorough survey of the progress of thought, the advance of the arts, and the doings in all branches of intellectual effort. Travel, adventure, exploration, natural history, socia themes, the arts, fiction, literary reviews, current topics, will each have large place in its plan. The JOURNAL is also issued in MONTHLY PARTS; subscription price, $4.50 per annum, with postage prepaid. D. APPLETON & Co., Publishers, New York.

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. (Established May, 1872.) Conducted by Prof. E. L. Youmans. THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY was started to promote the diffusion of valuable scientific knowledge, in a readable and attractive form, among all classes of the community, and has thus far met a want supplied by no other periodical in the United States. The great feature of the magazine is, that its contents are not what science was ten or more years since, but what it is to-day, fresh from the study, the laboratory, and the experiment; clothed in the language of the authors, inventors, and scientists themselves, who comprise the leading minds of England, France, Germany, and the United States. THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY IS published in a large octavo, handsomely printed from clear type, and, when the subject admits, fully illustrated. Terms: $5 per annum (postage prepaid), or 50 cents per Number. APPLETONS' JOURNAL and THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, together, for $8 per annum, postage prepaid. D. APPLETON & Co., Publishers, New York.

TO RAILWAY TRAVELERS.-In order to save trouble and anxiety in reference to which route to select previous to commencing your journey, be careful and purchase a copy of APPLETONS' RAILWAY GUIDE. Thousands and tens of thousands of Railway Travelers would as soon think of starting on their journey without their baggage as without a copy of the GUIDE. Price, 25 cents. D. APPLETON & Co., Publishers, New York.

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NARROW paths lead from such wretched

cottages as were described in the preeeding paper to each separate tree. As soon as the dry season arrives the time of opera

tion is at hand. The inmate of the palace | milky-white sap, which instantly commences
just described betakes himself, hatchet in
hand, into the seringal to chop little holes in
the bark. Conduits of bamboo carry the

to exude, into clay bowls, while a bandage is fastened under the wound in the trunk to prevent any overflow of the precious gum.

"

Thus the collector travels from trunk to trunk, each laborer having a certain number of trees assigned him by the proprietor of the camp. The process in many respects is like that seen in the sugar-camps of the maple-woods of the North. Let the reader release his recollections of the maple-sugar frolics of his boyhood from the association with frosty mornings, bare landscapes, and meadows as yet partly brown with the touch of winter, and transfer his thought to the splendid river-valleys of Brazil, glowing with intense heat, painted with a rich depth of greenery, and made picturesque with the manifold sights and sounds of tropical life.

The caoutchouc-gatherer travels his appointed round, and pours the contents of the bamboo-canes into a large calabash provided with straps of liana, that useful parasitic vine which fulfills a thousand useful functions for the South American. This vessel is emptied at home into one of the large turtle-shells, so necessary to tropical housekeeping, serving as they do for basins, troughs, vats, etc.

Now a new operation must commence without delay, for caoutchouc is a peculiar substance, and must be warily handled. The seringueiro instantly sets about the smoking process, lest the quality of the product should become inferior by the separation of the resinous elements of the sap.

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An earthen jar without bottom and with a narrow neck to serve as a chimney is set over a fire of dry urucury or uauassú palmnuts. These furnish the only fuel which can be used, for the smoke has a peculiar chemical quality shared by no other woods. The vapor has the strange effect of instantly coagulating the caoutchouc-sap, which in this state resembles rich, yellow cream.

The workman sits beside the little earthen chimney through which rise dense clouds of a smothering but aromatic white smoke. The operation is mostly performed in the open air, to give free egress to the dense va por, which would otherwise choke the work.

man.

Travelers describe the sight as highly picturesque when seen at night, which is generally the time of the smoking process.

The sombre depths of the tropical forest in the background, lighted up by the glow of the flame, the tawny Indian bending over the thick smoke, which rises up like a pillar, his copper skin glistening with the heat, and brought out in clear relief by the light of the fire, while he anxiously watches the process of coagulation-the picture is as if one were viewing the mystical rites of some sorcerer of old myth or fairy tale brewing a magic potion, or completing a spell to call up dark spirits from below.

From his calabash, the seringueiro pours a little of the caoutchouc-milk on a sort of light wooden shovel, always careful by a deft management to distribute the fluid evenly over the surface to insure a uniform action of the smoke. Thrusting the shovel into the thick white vapor over the neck of the jar, he turns it to and fro with great rapidity, till the milk is seen to consolidate and assume

*Two species of the attalea palm, the latter with gigantic bifurcated leaves.

the whitish-yellow tinge which defines the close of the process.

Thus he puts layer upon layer, until at last the caoutchouc on both sides of the shovel has reached several inches in thickness, when he thinks the plancha has reached a sufficient amount. It is cut from off both sides of the shovel and suspended on a tree. When it feels the effects of the sun, the water evaporates through the as yet unsolidified pores. About five or six pounds of good, solid product is thus prepared in an hour. The plancha, from its initial color of silvergray, turns shortly into a deep yellow, and thence into the well-known dark brown of the rubber as it is exported. There is a wide variation in the quality of the seringa. The best is perfectly uniform in texture, dense, and quite free from bubbles. This grade obtains a double price over the most inferior quality, the so-called sernamby, or cabeca de negro (negro's head), which latter is made of the drops collected at the foot of trees with the remains of the milk scraped out from the bottom of the calabashes. The rubber of the East Indies is very similar in color and texture to this sernamby, and has about the same market value-like it, being often found mixed with sand and small pieces of bark.

The plancha is often rolled and condensed by a sort of kneading into a solid ball, which is one of the most common forms of commercial rubber. Another shape, by no means common in the Pará market, is that of the bottle. The caoutchouc-sap in this case is prepared over an earthen mould with an open neck, which is afterward broken and removed piece by piece. These rubber bottles oftentimes come ornamented in the most curious fashion, frequently quite artistic. While the rubber is yet soft, the Indian artisan, with wooden tools, will engrave on its surface figures of birds, beasts, plants, even of rude landscapes, with an eye to natural effect and proportion highly creditable to his power of imitation. Since the demand for caoutchouc has become so great, these rubber bottleswhose preparation, of course, demands much time and labor-have become more scarce. A quarter of a century since, before the Amazon and its tributaries were ploughed by steamboats and barges, the whole of the seringa product was borne hundreds of miles on the backs of mules and porters. The latter were used mostly to carry the rubber bottles, each one hanging by itself from a pole borne by the carrier lest two should come in contact, and the figures be blotted or erased on the yet soft and sticky rubber. For their own use the Indian workmen mould the caoutchouc into various shapes with not a little ingenuity. The squirt or syringe, which is indispensable to a familiar social custom in Brazil-at least among the half-civilized riverines-gave, indeed, the ordinary native name to the product of the caoutchouc-tree. It is common for the Indians after a feast to blow water into each other's faces through long rubber-pipes, in obedience to some savage superstition connected with aboriginal religious rites, a babit yet in vogue even among those who have been converted to the worship of the Virgin Mary by the good Jesuit fathers. Hence seringa, from the Por

tuguese seringat (syringe). One of the earliest forms in which India-rubber came to America was as manufactured over-shoes, then known as Pará shoes. Of course, at that time the attention of civilized countries had not yet been called to the enormous importance of caoutchouc and its almost endless capacity for transformation into different shapes. Consequently there was no attempt at manufacture except in the native home of the gum, where the crude process, hundreds of years old, was known and practised. The rubber shoes, which then formed an article of export, were made, like the bottles, over rude clay moulds. A Boston merchant, in 1826, conceived the ingenious idea of sending out improved lasts, of assorted sizes, made of clay, to the Indian collectors in the seringa districts. He thus built up a great trade in this special article, and is said to have acquired large wealth. But at last his rivals discovered this neat commercial artifice and followed the example, which destroyed the monopoly.

When the balls and planchas of rubber are received at Pará, each one is cut through by way of testing the quality. By this means any bubbles are discovered, or such adulteration as is often effected with the milk of the mangaba, that fine shrub with rich, dark, glossy leaves so often made to do service in civilized conservatories and saloons under the name of the India-rubber tree. The spurious caoutchouc made of the milk of the mangaba has little of the toughness and elasticity of the genuine article, but for certain purposes that of making hardened caoutchouc, for example-the milk of the inferior tree has a certain value. As the price is much less than that of the seringa, the manufacture of the mangaba resin has its inducements, and under proper treatment it might be made to have a standard commercial value.

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Not unfrequently the seringueiro settlements attain considerable size where the rubber-forests are unusually rich and extensive, the Mojo workmen occupying hovels, while the proprietor rules with a lordly sway, and lolls at ease through the long summer days in his hammock, with naught to do but count the rich gains which his humble laborers roll up for him. For the most part, however, these enterprises are carried on by employers who do not fare much better than the Mojos, the hope of future wealth counterbalancing the inconveniences of the present. Many of the seringueiros are from Bolivia and Peru, while occasionally there may be found those of European race. The latter are mostly nomadic and restless sailors, deserters from ships at Pará, or natural-born wanderers who have drifted by some strange chance up into the seringa forests, where the temptation of making money without much labor easily induces a permanent settlement. A recent German explorer through the regions of the Upper Madeira gives a curious illustration of this in the case of a fellow-countryman. The latter had come over from Holstein twenty years ago, enrolled himself as a soldier, and fought against Rosas in the La Plata states. Thenceforward he led a sort of Robinson Crusoe life in the valley of the Ma

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