The general colour is grey, or, rather, the Royal Academy of Sciences, Turin, in black, and the colouring matter is mostly the sitting of the 5th of December, 1866, carbon. Very few fossils were met with, having been destroyed by the subsequent crystallization. The disturbances which have created Mont Cenis and made it emerge from the bottom of the sea have produced many cracks and faults. But all these faults have been filled up with quartz in a perfect manner in relatively modern times. The infiltration amounts practically to nothing. The only spring which was discovered is situated near Modane, and gives only seven gallons per minute. The water is cold. The contractors were obliged to send to Modane and Bardonnèche for the water required for drinking, and for grinding the stone. Mont Blanc, although 4,800 metres above the level of the sea, is only 3,500 above its own base. The vertical section of the perforated strata is thus equal to two Mont Blancs; and it is something like one whole Himalaya. M. Sismonda, Professor of Geology at Turin, presented to a paper entitled Nuove osservazioni geologiche sulle rocce anthracitifere delle Alpi, at the end of which was printed a map drawn by M. Sismonda twenty-five years ago, and exhibiting the theoretical succession of strata. Everything was found in the place where it was supposed to be by M. Sismonda. No artesian well has ever given an opportunity of comparison with the perforation of Mont Cenis, as the deepest bored by European engineer is only 1,000 metres, and by the Chinese only 3,000 metres. The Academy listened during more than an hour to the lecturer. M. Faye presented to the learned Perpetual Secretary the hearty thanks of the Academy, and expressed a wish that a series of pendulum experiments should be conducted on the top of Mont Cenis as well as in the central part of the tunnel, to test the effect of the mass of the mountain on the time of the oscillations. AN interesting description of the salt lakes of Australia is given by a writer in the Sydney Empire, who, speaking of the salt lakes and mineral springs on the Paroo, says: -"These wells are a real curiosity to many, if not to all. Mounds of earth rise about ten or fifteen feet over the surface, no doubt thrown up by the force of the water; they form a kind of oasis in the wilderness, and have saved the lives of many a weary wanderer. These mounds can be seen for miles. The water is very clear and soft. It is impregnated with magnesia, soda, and alum. It is very palatable to drink, and I think very wholesome. The water does not flow after touching the surface; but as soon as it overflows the fort-like basin sinks into the earth. The alum and soda crack under your feet as you walk round these wells like frozen snow Sand-storms occasionally set in with great violence, sweeping along and drifting like snow; but in this it differs, that nothing is proof against its penetrating propensity. It enters your eyes, your nose, your mouth, your ears; even your very skin seems gritty from it, and everything is covered with it. It enters all culinary matters, so that while it lasts you are continually eating, drinking, and wearing sand. As an instance, the first evening I entered the Faroo, one of the sand-storms set in, and after viewing one of those beautiful clear lakes, in which we thought we could quench our thirst, having had nothing to drink since the morning, what was our surprise, I might almost say despair, to find that the water was salt as brine. The driving sand beat with such fury that we could not see each other on the road. Our party numbered five, and I took the bridle and saddle off my horse and let him go shift for himself. I lay down, putting the saddle between myself and the storm for shelter. The morning at last came, and I found at about five miles distant my party, horse and water." CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES.- Mr. Dall called the attention of the members to some shells of oysters that had been transplanted from the Eastern States, and which during the last twelve months had been growing in the waters of the bay. The recent growth of these oysters had been modified in a manner so that they corresponded very closely to that of our native oyster. In the eastern oyster the shell is white and smooth, whilst our bay oyster has the shell much corrugated, of a brown colour, and frequently with purple stripes between the ridges. Now the recent growths of the shell of these transplanted eastern oysters exhibit the same corrugations as our native, the colour is decidedly more brown than in the east, and purplish stripes are frequently found between the corrugations. Nature. NUMBERS OF THE LIVING AGE WANTED. The publishers are in want of Nos. 1179 and 1180 (dated respectively. Jan. 5th and Jan. 12th, 1867) of THE LIVING AGE. To subscribers, or others, who will do us the favor to send us either or both of those numbers, we will return an equivalent, either in our publications or in cash, until our wants are supplied. PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY LITTELL & & GAY, BOSTON. For Eight DoLLARS. remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage. But we do not prepay postage on less than a year, nor where we have to pay commission for forwarding the money. Price of the First Series, in Cloth, 36 volumes, 90 dollars. Any Volume Bound, 3 dollars; Unbound, 2 dollars. The sets, or volumes, will be sent at the expense of the publishers. PREMIUMS FOR CLUBS. For 5 new subscribers ($40.), a sixth copy; or a set of HORNE'S INTRODUCTION TO THE BIBLE, unabridged, in 4 large volumes, cloth, price $10; or any 5 of the back volumes of the LIVING AGE, in numbers, price $10. In thy undying tone; Lo! on the yielding sand I lie alone, The sinking sea sighs forth its sad despair Hushed is the sea bird's melancholy cry. For night approaches with the step of age, When youth's sharp griefs are softened to a sigh, And the dim eye afar beholds the page And the white cliffs around me draw their That holds the records sad of sorrow's former screen And part me from the world. Let me disown For one short hour its pleasures and its spleen, And, wrapt in dreamy thoughts, some peaceful moments glean. No voice of any living thing is near, Save the wild sea-bird's wail; That seems the cry of sorrow deep and drear, Now in the air with broad, white wing they sail, The sea approaches, with its weary heart An earnest grief, too tranquil to depart, Yet its glad waves seem dancing merrily! For hope from them conceals the warning tone; Gaily they rush toward the shore to die. All their bright spray upon the bare sand thrown, While still around them wails the sad and ceaseless moan. And thus it is in life, and in the breast Each one in turn just shows its gleaming crest On life's bare sands each cherished vision lies, Numbered with those that will return no more; Their early love-youth's dearly cherished ties Bright dreams of fame, lie perished on the shore, While the worn heart laments what grief can ne'er restore. Yet still the broken waves, retiring, strive Again their crests to rear, Seeking in sparkling beauty to revive As in their first career; They strive in vain - their lustre bright and clear Forsakes them now, with earth all dim and stained; And thus the heart would raise its visions dear, And shape them new from fragments that re mained, But finds their brightness gone, by earth's cold touch profaned. Long have I lingered here, the evening fair From The Edinburgh Review. SUPPRESSED AND CENSURED BOOKS.* THE history of the books which have been suppressed or censured in England is curious and interesting; and although we have no book in our language which rivals the Dictionary of literary martyrdom, published in France at the commencement of the present century by M. Peignot, we have collected some materials on the subject which may interest our readers. The burning of heretical books is by no means, as might be supposed, a Christian invention. It is questionable whether the writings of Protagoras were really destroyed at Athens for their atheistical tendencies, but the existence of the report shows that the idea, at all events, was not alien to Greek sentiment, and the judicial murder of Socrates is a proof that the State was no stranger to the worst acts of intolerance. The destruction of Christian books formed part of heathen persecution; Diocletian, especially, in A.D. 303 ordering all such writings to be surrendered to the magistrates and committed to the flames. To Osius, Bishop of Cordova, the friend of Athanasius and Constantine, is ascribed the introduction of the practice among Christians. It was probably by his advice that the Emperor commanded all the writings of Arius to be burnt, and anyone found in possession of them after the publication of the edict to be put to death. In 435 an Armenian Council ordered the destruction of the writings of Nestorius, whilst the Constantinopolitan one of 680 showed the same marks of attention to those of the "infallible" Pope Honorius. Various devices were employed in England for the repression of heresy and false teaching. At first it was altogether a question of Church discipline, the bishops having sole jurisdiction in such cases; the punishments also were ecclesiastical-penance and excommunication. But in 1382 the State began to interfere. The occasion arose from the dangerous doctrines Wyclif had set afloat on the subject of property-Wat Tyler's insurrection being • Dictionnaire critique, littéraire et bibliographique des principaux livres condamnés au feu, supprimes ou censures. Par G. PEIGNOT. Paris: 1806. an illustration of the extremes to which the Lollards were carrying that teaching. The insurrection itself began, indeed, upon other grounds, nor does it seem that Wyclif himself was in any way concerned with it; but Friar John Balle, whose famous text at Blackheath was, "When Adam dalve and Eave span, Who was then a gentleman?" confessed before his death that he had been for two years a pupil of Wyclif, and had no doubt derived thence, in part at least, his revolutionary principles. The bishops had no longer the power to suppress these inflammatory doctrines, for the preachers of them kept moving from one diocese to another, and denied at the same time the jurisdiction of the Ecclesiastical Courts. Parliament accordingly passed an Act, directing the authorities "to arrest all such preachers, and to hoid them in arrest and strong prison, till they will justify themselves to the law and reason of Holy Church." Still the mischief continued, and in 1401 a far more severe Act was passed, so well known as the Act "de hæretico comburendo." The "protomartyr of Wycliffism," as Dean Milman calls him,* was W. Sawtree, at one time the priest of St. Margaret's, in King's Lynn, but then a preacher at St. Osyth's in the city of London. Before coming to London he had been convicted of denying transubstantiation, a circumstance which, on his second trial, he had the audacity to say had never occurred. He was condemned as a relapsed heretic, and handed over to the civil authorities. "Sawtree," says Dr. Shirley, "is usually spoken of as the first victim of the statute de hæretico comburendo. But it is remarkable that the writ for his execution appears on the Rolls of Parliament before the Act itself. This order may be merely a matter of arrangement, but it is observable that if the Act had been already passed, the writ would have been iswould never have appeared on the Rolls at all. sued, as a matter of course, to the sheriff, and It appears probable therefore that Sawtree suf * History of Latin Christianity, vol. viii. p. 211, 3rd ed. † Pref. to Fasciculi zizaniorum Magistri Johannis Wyclif cum tritico, in Rerum Britannicarum medii ævi Scriptores. (London: 1858.) fered under a special Act, proposed perhaps by the clerical party in order to ascertain the feeling of Parliament as to the larger measure that followed." destruction before leaving the printers. Cochlæus tells us in his "History of Martin Luther" that, whilst at Cologne superintending the printing of the works of Abbot Rupert, he had information that two Englishmen were bringing out a work that would convert all England to Lutheranism. By inviting the printers to his lodgings and plying them with wine, he extracted from them the intelligence that the book was the New Testament. He The last instances of the execution of heretics occurred in 1612, when Bartholomew Legate was burnt at Smithfield for holding opinions very similar to those of the Unitarians of our own day a like punishment being given that same year to Edward Wightman, at Litchfield, for holding no less than nine "damnable heresies." gave immediate information to one of the Popular feeling, however, seems to have Cologne magistrates, and had the office become so strong upon the subject, that searched. But Tyndal and his companions this method of repressing false doctrine had taken the alarm, and carried off the was never resorted to again. sheets, which had been printed as far as The book against which the most unceas-signature K, the edition consisting of ing crusades were made was the English 3,000 copies. It had marginal notes and a translation of the Bible. Ten years after prologue, the Cologne one containing the Wyclif had finished his translation, in 1380, text only. an attempt was made in the House of Hearing of these proceedings, the EngLords to pass a bill for suppressing it. lish bishops took immediate action, and On that occasion, however, John of Gaunt, subscribed among themselves to purchase Duke of Lancaster, stoutly declared that as many copies as possible, especially of he would "maintain our having this law the Antwerp edition, Archbishop Warham in our own tongue, whoever they should being apparently the prime mover in the be that brought in the bill," and the matter, though Tonstall, Bishop of Lonattempt failed for the time. Afterwards, don, was the means of its being carried however, the reading or possession of that out.* The details will be found in Foxe. version was made a capital crime, and there are many instances on record where the extreme punishment was inflicted. A large number of copies were secured, on the On December 2, 1525, Edward Lee, afterwards Archbishop of York, writes to the King from Bordeaux, telling him that "An Englishman, your subject, at the solicitation and instance of Luther, with This burning is alluded to in a very whom he is, hath translated the New scurrilous publication which appeared Testament into English, and within a few probably soon afterwards, though the date days intendeth to return with the same of its appearance is very uncertain, called imprinted into England."* The English- "Rede me and be nott wrothe, man was Tyndal, and his translation the For I saye no thynge but trothe," first ever printed in English. Two edi- the authorship of which is usually attribtions apparently were struck off in 1525-uted to W. Roye, a friar observant of the the first at Cologne, the second at Worms, Franciscan order at Greenwich. It conand a third at Antwerp in 1526. Of the first, a fragment of thirty-one leaves in the Grenville Library is the only one known; of the second, a perfect copy except the title is in the Baptist Museum, Bristol; of the third, no copy is known to exist. The earliest had a narrow escape from Ellis's Letters, 3rd Ser. vol. ii. p. 71. sists mainly of a ribald attack upon the "caytyfe" Wolsey, who spared neither pains nor expense to destroy the work. In 1546 a second edition, considerably altered, was published by Jerome, a friend of Roye, in which the abuse of the Cardi * Froude, vol. ii. p. 42, note. † Ibid. pp. 43-45. |