Editorial Egyptian travelers have given such marvelous statements of the wonders of ancient ruins, that one is sometimes at a loss to determine how far the excited imagination of the tourist may have given coloring to facts. One thing, however, is certain, that Egyptian art wrought such achievements in architecture as will outlast, even in their decaying grandeur, anything of more mod ern construction. Miscellany. structures, I was led to imagine that the individual blocks of stone were so large that it became a difficult matter to form any clear conception as to the manner in which they were piled one upon another. The blocks of stone, when I had looked well at them, did not convey to my mind any very exalted idea of magnitude; neither could I for the life of me see any real difficulty where laborers, as we read, were numbered by the thou Rev. R. A. Holland thus writes in the Bal- sand, in raising any one of the blocks of timore Methodist of the obelisks: "I had, up to this time, been with the party from the Kassed Kerr, but I wanted silence for meditation, and silence and a party, you are aware, do not easily affiliate. So I strayed off into the court of the great obelisk, passing on my way the court of the smaller obelisk. There were once four obelisks here, two in each court-the two in the first court being of one size, and smaller than the two, also of one size, in the second court. One of each is prostrate now and shattered. It was on a fragment of the fallen obelisk that I sat and held communion with the spirit of Carnak. Right there, just before me, tapered to its pointed summit the Goliath of obelisks, a granite monolith 92 feet high and 8 feet square at the base. Surrounding the obelisk and the court was a peristyle of osiride figures, fifteen feet in stature, according to a rude measurement I made with a stick, and painted from head to foot in gaudiest hues." Per contra, Rev. J. K. Lord communicates his impressions of the pyramids as falling far short of his preconceived ideas. In the Vermont Watchman, he says: "I dare say very many will differ from me in opinion, and say hard things in reference to my lack of taste and want of appreciation of the so-styled wonderful, but I am bold to confess that my first impression on reaching the pyramids of Sakkara was one of disappointment. From what I had read, and from what I had heard tourists relate from time to time regarding the wonderful size of the blocks of stone composing these great stone comprising the mass of the pyramid from the base to the summit. To put this matter to a more practical test, we carefully measured some of the larger blocks in the Gizeh pyramids, and by calculation we found that the heaviest block of stone making up the structure of the pyramid did not exceed two and a half tous, and that by far the greater part were of course much lighter." The New York Herald, boasts, with excusable pride, of its recent achievement in the department of news enterprise. Its special correspondent in Abyssinia, accompanying the army of Gen. Napier, transmitted the intelligence of the English victory at Magdala, with the details of the fight, to London several hours in advance of any other dispatches. The Herald's London agent actually furnished the Times and other London journals with these telegrams, and they were sent all over England duly accredited to the enterprise of the New York Herald. This was a damper on John Bull's hereditary vanity, especially as the triumph occurred on his own ground, and with an expedition controlled entirely in the interests of the British government. In this connection, we may mention the fact that England stubbornly refuses to adopt the Morse system of telegraphy. Morse's instrument has been adopted by all America, Asia, Africa, and continental Europe-by every country in the world but England. England alone, by pure obstinacy, by repugnance to everything which comes from with -out, clings still to the semaphore instruments of Cooke and Wheatstone, and refuses to acknowledge Morse as an inventor at all. In 1856 the nations of Europe met by their Ministers at Paris, and awarded to Morse, as the "inventor of the electric telegraph," the sum of 400,000 francs. England stood aloof, and denied Morse's right to the honor. She preferred to cling to the inferior invention of her own country. The English improved and modified this in various ways; they stumbled and groped along as best they could rather than use the American invention. They tried to introduce their semaphore elsewhere, and to supercede, if possi ble, the Morse instrument where it had been adopted. But they falted completely, and now Morse's instrument, or Morse's recording idea, is used exclusively in every country in the world but England, and it is even penetrating England, for a certain number of his instruments are now in use in that country. THE BIBLE.-The Scriptures have been translated into 148 languages and dialects, of which 131 had, prior to the formation of the British and Foreign Bible Society, never appeared; and 25 of these languages existed without an alphabet, in an oral form. Upward of 43,000,000 of those copies of God's word are circulated among not less than 600,000,000 of people. The first division of the divine oracles into chapters and verses is attributed to Stephen Langston, Archbishop of Canterbury, in the reign of King John, in the latter part of the twelfth century, who divided the Old Testament into chapters, as they stand in our translation. In 1661, Athias, a Jew of Amsterdam, divided the sections of Hugo into verses. A French printer had previously (1661) divided the New Testament into verses as they are at present. The entire Bible contains 66 books, 1,188 chapters, 31,185 verses, and 774,692 words. The name of Jehovah, or Lord, occurs 6,555 verse in the Bible is John xi. 35. The nineteenth chapter of the second Kings and Isaiah thirty-six are the same. There is a Bible in the University of Gottingen written on 5,476 palm leaves. times in the Old Testament. The shortest The magnitude of the operations of the American Bible Society is thus exhibited by the Treasurer's report, read at the recent annual meeting: After the usual devotional exercises, Henry Fisher, Esq., read the Treasurer's report, setting forth the year's operations as follows: Total receipts, $723,106; life directors constituted, 121; life members, 2,313; new auxiliaries recognized, 107; whole number of auxiliaries, 2,032; books printed at Bible House and in foreign lands, 1,305,347, including 315,525 Bibles, 643,336 Testaments, in about 50 different languages and dialects; total issued and circulated in the year, 1,187,194: total in 52 years, 23,855,120 volumes; Bible Society Record circulated, 481,513 copies; books sold, 904,282-value, $490,482; books donated, 105,179-value, $33,285. General result of canvassing-Families visited, 605,357; destitute of the Scriptures, 64,767; supplied, 83,380; refused to receive, 16,312; whole number of families visited in two years, 1,201,605, of whom 101,300 were without Bibles. The Society employs 42 agents, 239 assistants, and 24,480 voluntary local agents, besides about 50 colporteurs in foreign lands. The unequal struggle between the Paraguayans and the allies has been going on for several years. The Paraguayans are nearly exhausted, being cut off from all succor from the outer world; while, on the other hand, the climate and the hazards and cost of transportation have proved exceedingly destructive to the allied armies. A correspondent of the New York San says: "The allies count at present on 35,000 effective men. Recruits go up every week, but they do not increase the numbers, as deaths from all causes are frightful. Lopez has perhaps 20,000 men. His country has no more men to offer, not even to supply the waste of the army. fearful. They have to be carried from ItaThe cost of provisions at headquarters is marches and jungles beset by Paraguayans. piru, about thirty miles, along a road of Coals cost, at Tayi, over $200 (gold) per ton, and cannon balls each are $10 (gold.) When a whole fleet has to be supplied at such rates, or else run the risk of being taken by a fleet of Paraguayan flat-boats, the war becomes both uncertain and expensive." Geologists tell us that the earth, in its grand encyclical periods, has been the abode of classes of animals now extinct, and whose character can only be studied in the rocks and alluvial deposits. A recent writer speaks of this subject as follows: been slow to avail themselves of, and have furnished many graphic descriptive letters to their respective journals. The Herald's correspondent paints the natives in the following colors: "The complexion of the inhabitants has also changed from a deep black to a pale copper hue. The Gallas have well formed bodies, with intelligent features and finely cut lips, which betray a different origin from the black Shohoes and dusky Nubians of North Abyssinia. Those pretending to a knowledge of the physiology of the different races which compose the nations of the Ethiopian empire say that the Gallas are descendants of a race of whites who centuries ago conquered the southeastern provinces of Abyssinia, driving northward before them as they advanced the puerile natives who formerly inhabited it. The statement appears very probable, for, with the exception of their color, they are as finely formed and as intelligently featured as any race of whites on the globe. Their hair, though of a deep "It appears, however, that we are now threatened with another and, in many senses, a more serious case of extinction. There is reason to apprehend, at no great distance of time, the total disappearance from the animal creation of the elephant. This is owing to the enormous destruction of these grand old beasts which has been and is still going on, year after year, for purposes of commerce, for self-protection, and for mere sport. In a single province of Ceylon over three thousand five hundred elephants were killed in three years by the natives for the sake of a few shillings bounty per head. Many thousands are annually destroyed in India and Africa for the sake of the ivory, the demand for which is so great that to supply the manufacturers of Sheffield alone requires the slaughter of over twenty thousand ele-black, is silky and straight, without the phants every year. The elephant is not prolific, its rate of increase being less than that of man. The race cannot, therefore, hold out much longer against such wholesale destruction, and it is by no means improbable that the child is now born who may live to see the last elephant. Nor is this pachyderm though the noblest and one of the most valuable, by any means the only valuable animal slowly but surely dying out. The whale and seal, the buffalo, moose, elk, and deer, are yearly growing more and more rare. It the world, as is not probable, according to Dr. Cumming, should last a thousand years longer, and the same unequal combat between man and brute continues, it is safe to predict that the former will have the universe entirely to himself, or that it will be shared only between him and such of the animal creation as are either too insignificant to excite his anger or covetousness, or too intimately associated with his daily needs and labors to be included in the general destruction." The invasion of Abyssinia by the British army has opened a fine field for newspaper correspondents, which they have not kinky or wavy appearance of that of the Agames, Agows and Shohoes, north of Antalo. Their women, who arrive at puberty at the age of ten, are possessed of the most voluptuous forms-countenances beaming with latent passions-lips just framed to meet amorous kisses-eyes swimming with the humidity of love-that it is just possible that Mahomet, during his invasion of Abyssinua, might have seen these beauteous children of the tropics when he conceived his houris. Fancy a group of these Galla beauties, with arms lovingly entwined around each other, sitting under the soft shade of the evergreens, chanting their welcome to us like cooing doves in the extempore ballads of the native bards, or a band of youths, with their shields and lances in rest, lifting their voices in chorus to a song of joy sung by a blind old warrior; these are the scenes and incidents which tend to cheer our progress and enliven the march on this crusade, and which flatly contradict the exaggerated statements of irresponsible writers in the English newspapers. In fact, the campaign thus far seems more like a prolonged May-day pic-nic, or a pleasure trip to the tropics, with the exception of the difficulties enumerated at length above." tage immediately on receiving them. As it is, I thank you from my heart for your merry mock-bird's song. Thougn they did not seri The difference in the social status of the Northern and Southern States has often been remarked in the question of divorce. This finds another illustration in the follow-ously intend to make me a happy man, they ing: "Twenty-three divorces were granted at the April term, of the Supreme Judicial Court in Worcester, Mass., which closed last week. Decrees of divorces were granted in seven other cases, with the condition that if the opposing party appears by the next term of the Court, the cases may be reopened. Not a single divorce, it is authoritatively stated, has ever been granted in South Carolina since its settlement." The new Constitution provides an accommodating system of divorce; hence we may expect a corresponding change in this particular. HINDRANCES TO MARRIAGE.-The Lady's Own Paper, in commenting upon the discussion that has taken place on the increasing "disuse of marriage," observes: "Viewing the whole subject fairly, it would appear that, however the blame may be bandied about, the main cause why marriages are becoming less and less frequent amongst the upper and and middle classes is, that society is more exacting than it was; we are not content, whether male or female, with the same style of living as the past generation; men are unwilling to commence where their parents commenced, and so society becomes hollow and unsatisfactory; men die before their time by fast living, and maidens are deprived of the household joys for which the true womanly nature pines. Possibly the enhanced price of provisions in the present day, as compared with the past, may also have some bearing on the subject." "THE MERRY MOCK-BIRD'S SONG."-The Evening Post published the following letter from Fitz-Greene Halleck in reply to a poem addressed to him by Miss Campbell some years since, which seems to have touched the poet's heart. It is worthy of preservation. "Dear Miss Campbell: Were it not that the delightfully flattering lines with which you have favored me date 'Bissextile,' I should have taken post-horses for Abbi Cot have certainly made me a very proud one. I have attempted some verses in the style of your own beautiful lines, and I hope you will laugh gently at their imperfections, for they are the first, with a trifling exception, that I have written for years. Would they were better worthy of their subject! A new edition of the humble writings which have been so fortunate as to meet with your approbation has recently been published here. It is, to use the printer's phrase, ' prettily got up.' Will you pardon the liberty I take in asking you to accept a copy from me, in consideration of the beauty of its type and the vastness of its margin, and may I hope for a return to this letter, informing me by what conveyance I can have the honor of forwarding it to you? "I am, dear Miss Campbell, very gratefully, or, if you are in good earnest, as I very much fear you are not, I am, dearest Ellen, very affectionately yours, 46 'FITZ-GREENE HALLECK." But the playful offer of the "heart and hand" of the pretty Quakeress was not soon forgotten, as appears in a note to the writer, dated in 1858: "Your allusion to the Ohio river surprises and delights me, and of the lady, the heroine of one of my life's most cherished romances, whose memory has heretofore been numbered among the dearest of my inconsiderable joys." Alas! the "merry mock-bird's song" is heard no more, and the Bard of Alnwick is gathered to his fathers. HOW TO PROLONG LIFE.-For many years there prevailed in China an extraordinary superstition and belief that the secret sect of Tao had discovered an elixir which bestowed immortality. No less than three emperors died after swallowing a drink presented to them by the attendants of the palace as the draught that was to confer never-ending life. "The best method of prolonging life happy," said a wise mandarin to one of these infatuated princes, "is to control your appetites, subdue your passions, and practice virtue." Monthly Gleanings. Since January 1, Philadelphia has exported 8,000,000 gallons of petroleum. - Geneal Simon Bolivar Buckner has become one of the editors of the Louisville (Ky.) Courier. -Since the assassination 50,000 photographs of the Hon. T. D. McGee have been issued by one house in Montreal. -M. Alex. Dumas is accused of asking correspondents to return his letters, and he sells them to dealers in autographs, and makes $100 or $150 a year by the trade. -It is officially announced that the rail. way over Mount Cenis will be opened in May. The line will be worked by twelve engines, each weighing twenty tons. -Mr. Bonner, of the New York Ledger, gives his income for last year at $238,000. The income returns at Nashville show a falling off of more than fifty per cent, from the assessments of last year. -The bed of the Muskatatak Creek, North Vernon, Ind, is full, so to speak, of petrified mud-turtles. -A mining shaft in Nevada has already attained a depth of 1,200 feet, the deepest on the Pacific slope. The Union Pacific Railroad is now open to Fort Saunders, 580 miles west of Omaha. Ten thousand men are at work, and it is expected that not less than 300 miles of track will be laid this year. -The Rev. Barnas Sears agent for the Peabody Educational fund is visiting different parts of Alabama, consulting with citizens about establishing free common schools. - The appropriations of Bristol, Maine, for public schools have been so liberal this year that pupils have been furnished with books and stationery without any charge. -The Sherman House at Chicago, which was to be the headquarters of Radical delegates does not admit colored persons. The Louisiana delegation will have to quarter elsewhere. In Belfast, Me., are said to be two beau tiful twins so perfectly alike that their mother herself only distinguishes them by embroidering on the ribbons around their waists the names, Martha and Mary. -Ferdinand de Lesseps, the projector of the Suez canal (and a cousin, as is not generally known, of the Empress Eugenie,) is now in Paris, and predicts that that enterprise will be finished, and the canal open for the passage of ships from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea, in October, 1869. |