THE GAME OF

From the Polytechnic Review.
CHESS BY THE ELECTRIC
TELEGRAPH.

be instantaneously repeated, at every station, on all the railways in England; for the electric flame fires gunpowder, and the explosion of the powder is at the same instant with the crack of the disWHAT the changes are that are to take place in charge. The expense of Captain Warner's long our social condition by the three great agents lately range is at once spared to the country; instead of brought by science into action-steam, electricity, blowing up a ship at the moderate distance of six and the atmosphere-no human intellect can fore- miles by one of his projectiles, we shall be enabled see. The more immediate effects are just visible. to do so at the distance of a thousand miles. There Of the speed with which we can travel we can is, indeed, no reason why one of the lords of the form at present no exact estimate; but we can admiralty should not himself fire the guns of the prove that we can communicate our ideas by elec- batteries at Portsmouth, whilst calmly and quietly tricity from one spot on the earth round the whole seated at the board in Whitehall. Nor is there globe in one tenth of a second. The game of any reason why the electric current may not be chess lately played at the two termini of the South-made to answer in the more peaceful or even the Western Railway is a popular illustration of what more elegant accomplishments of life. A galcan be effected at present, though it by no means vanic arrangement might be made by which our exhibits the marvellous powers which the electric accomplished pianiste, Madame Dulcken, might, telegraph may yet be brought to show. The only with all that taste and skill which delights her striking feature of this experiment was the regu- London auditory, perform at the same moment for larity and precision with which information of the the gratification and enjoyment of Gosport and moves was uninterruptedly conveyed for a number Southampton, and wherever a few wires could be of successive hours. The descriptions with which conveniently transmitted. We might also observe we have from time to time furnished our readers that the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to of the different electro-magnetic telegraphs, and Animals ought to call upon every butcher to kill the more especially of that of Mr. Wheatstone, have animals used for food by electric galvanism. Each enabled them to understand the mechanism which of these persons should have a small galvanic was brought into action. Owing to the anxiety to battery for this purpose. Not only is all pain promote in the most liberal manner the objects of spared to the poor lamb, "whom thy riot dooms science which the directors of the South-Western to bleed to-day," but the meat is rendered more Railway have always shown, we were enabled to tender, and more delicate. It is more than half a be present at the distant station, Gosport, during century since Franklin commenced those experithe performance of the game, and enjoyed ample ments which the remorseless hand of war put a opportunity of witnessing the simplicity of the stop to, which have been the precursors of the mechanical means which Mr. Wheatstone has wonders of the present day. He proposed to give adopted, the advantageous use he has made of the a feast to electricians, when "a turkey is to be velocity of the electric current, and the distinct and killed for our dinner by the electric shock, roasted lucid means he has employed of displaying the by the electric jack, before a fire kindled by the necessary signals. Of the game played by those electrified bottle; when the healths of all the distinguished professors of Chess, Mr. Staunton famous electricians of England, Holland, France, and Mr. Walker, we have little to say; the battle and Germany, are to be drunk in electrified bumpmay be considered to have been rather one of rapid ers, under the discharge of guns from the electric execution than slow calculation, as the object was battery." Were we to indulge in our prognostics more to test the powers of the telegraph than the of what will yet be done by the powers of electroskill of the players. It was, as might therefore be galvanism, we should be considered as visionary expected, a drawn game. The amateur of this enthusiasts, and the laugh of the uninitiated would beautiful science, however, might have derived a doubtless be loud and long; but already are some more than usual share of information, for, during of the wonders made known, and nothing but the the period when the player was in expectation of a expense attendant upon them prevents them from reply from London, Mr. Staunton went over the being generally brought forward. By its means probable moves which were about to be made by ships may yet be navigated on the ocean, our cities his adversary, and threw out various suggestions illuminated, the weather changed, life protracted, which were in themselves admirable lessons. This some diseases avoided; and we may use the lanfortunately relieved the tedium which would other- guage of him who first by electricity drew lightwise have arisen from the circumstance of being ning from the clouds: "I shall never have done, obliged to wait sometimes more than ten minutes if I tell you all my conjectures, thoughts, and before the determination of the London player was imaginations, on the nature and operations of this made known. This, together with the well known electric fluid." conversational powers and lively observations of Mr. Staunton, distinguished as he is for gentlemanly manners and first-rate ability, enabled us to remain from eleven o'clock until nearly six in the play-room, during which various messages, questions, and answers were unremittingly passed backwards and forwards, without in the slightest degree affecting the telegraphic communication which kept up the game of chess.

We may anticipate some most singular effects will be produced by the electric current. There is no reason why any great event might not be communicated at the same instant throughout the whole kingdom. The salutes fired on the occasion of her majesty's visit to the house of lords might

Letters from New York, second series, by L.
MARIA CHILD. The Boston publisher is J. H.
Francis. 128 Washington Street.

A MOST delightfully written book, on a great variety of interesting subjects. There are passages, richly scattered through it, of wonderfully graceful and highly-wrought skill, beauty, music and pathos of style. Mrs. Child has written much and well. She feels the deepest interest in all that is excellent, benevolent and hopeful in humanity and society, and her power and success, as a writer, are continually increasing.—Christian Register.

These things go to the morality of the office. The following strange fact will, we dare say, be felt by officials to be more discreditable than any little official laxity.

DOWNING STREET GEOGRAPHY.

From the Spectator. Saying nothing of his proof, the chairman of the CAPTAIN GROVER'S " BOKHARA VICTIMS." Stoddart and Conolly committee wrote to call Lord Aberdeen's attention to the case of Wyburd CAPTAIN GROVER is a friend of the late Colonelin connexion with that of Dr. Wolff. The office Stoddart, and of Dr. Wolff, whose return from his grandly, yet blandly, replied-" With respect to dangerous Bokhara expedition has just been matter the statements in your letter that Lieutenant Wyof public gratulation. The gallant captain is also burd was sent on a secret mission to Khiva in the Chairman of the Committee of the Stoddart and year 1835, I am to inform you that THIS OFFICE is Conolly Fund, which body he was a main instru- not aware that Lieutenant Wyburd was sent on ment in organizing; he has been engaged in any mission at all to Khiva." Captain Grover, extensive correspondence upon the subject of the in reply, gave particulars and dates; when "this "Bokhara Victims," especially with the foreign office" had to explain its "error,""-somewhat office; he has travelled to St. Petersburg with a after the fashion of Wotton's celebrated definition view to interest the Russian government in their of an ambassador, substituting at home for liberation; and in addition to all the trouble and abroad," and this office for " country." expense incident to his self-imposed duties, he has been victimized by the foreign office to the tune of four hundred pounds and a pair of gloves. This result was brought about in the following manner. Our agent at Teheran, having an inkling that Dr. Wolff might draw upon him from Bokhara, wrote anxiously to know what he was to do about honoring the bills. The foreign office replied, that he might incur“ any reasonable expenditure" to get the Doctor out of Bokhara; after which, it seems, the excellent enthusiast might have been left to shift for himself in the heart of Persia, but that Captain Grover came forward with a guarantee for a sum not exceeding 5007., by which means Dr. Wolff was enabled to obtain a supply. In course of time, a bill for 4007., endorsed by Mr. Bandinel of the Foreign Office, was presented to Captain Grover, accepted at sight, and honored the next day, though drawn at a month. The captain then wrote to Lord Aberdeen, requesting the return of his guarantee, and somewhat pluming himself upon his four hundred pounds. The office, in a rather paltry mode of evasion, denied that the bill came "officially ;" and a correspondence ensued, strong on the part of the captain, or, in diplomatic style, "seeming, by the tone and language, to cast a slur upon the conduct of her Majesty's government; which," continues the under secretary, has, in fact, been throughout humane and consistent." The captain, however, stuck to his text; and Lord Aberdeen, seeming to get ashamed of the transaction, sent for Captain Grover, tried to talk him over, and offered to pay him his four hundred pounds if he would withdraw his two last letters.

66

His lordship again warmly urged me to withdraw the letters. I positively and firmly declined; telling his lordship, that if he were as happy at saving the 4007. as I was in paying them, and being the humble instrument of restoring Dr. Wolff to his country, then indeed we were two happy men. I felt too indignant at the insult that had been offered to me to hear his lordship's reply, and hastened as quickly as possible from his lordship's presence.'

In his haste and anger forgetting his gloves, which remain as a sort of spolia opima for the foreign office.

This was not the only occasion on which the veteran was too hard for "this office." A Lieutenant Wyburd is among the missing in Central Asia: Captain Grover had learned that he had been appointed on a secret mission to Khiva by Sir John Campbell, in a despatch sent to the East India Company, but of which the foreign office had notice and a copy. Upon this private knowledge of the country, the old soldier laid an ambush, into which the unwary diplomatists fell.

In the case of my unfortunate friend, [Stoddart,] (the man is now a convicted scoundrel) reach no sooner did Saleh Mahommed's lying statement Downing street, when these gentlemen, without even taking the trouble to send to the Royal the world Bokhara was situated, officially anGeographical Society to inquire in what part of nounced that Colonel Stoddart had died at "Bokhara in Persia!" I can assure the reader that I will be found in the "Monthly Army list" for am not joking now; the above melancholy fact March, 1843. Fearing that this display of ignoList," I wrote to the secretary-of-war, in which I rance might be perpetuated in the "Annual Army expressed to him my desire to avert such a misfortune, and respectfully informed him that Bokhara was an independent nation, more than twice as big do with Persia than with Russia or China. as England and Wales, and that it had no more to

I received in reply a letter of thanks, and an intimation that the word "Persia" would be left And so it was! out in the "Annual Army List."

reader reflect for a moment; it is like saying he The blunder will appear more ridiculous if the died at England in France-not the mere misplacing of a city, but letting one country drop down upon another.

Before we leave the offices, we add an instance of official prophecy against fact; remarking that Wolff's statement, whether Stoddart and Conolly our author still doubts, notwithstanding Dr. have really been executed.

DEAD AS A STOCK-FISH.

I extract the following from a printed report of what took place at a meeting of the Royal Geographical Society, on the 11th October, 1844.

"Mr. Murchison, the President, in the Chair."

:

"At the close of the discussion on Dr. Beke's paper, the president, seeing Captain Grover among them, called the attention of the meeting to the great probability of the existence of Colonel Stoddart, a valued member of their society he (the president) recollected when Captain Ross had been above three years blocked up in the ice, going to the admiralty with some scientific men, to urge the authorities to take measures to ascertain the fate of that officer and his gallant band: the reply he received was this—'It is well for you scientific gentlemen to form an opinion on a subject with which you are totally unacquainted; we can

tell you that Captain Ross is as dead as a stockfish.'"

From the Spectator.

THE MORALE OF PEEL.

SIR ROBERT PEEL has propounded what is really

politicians, in and out of Parliament, have flown

to discussing the statesman, Peel himself, with all the eagerness, the nice curiosity and cruel anatomizing, of naturalists over a newly discovered

It may be inferred from our account of The Bokhara Victims that it in some measure partakes of the character of grievance-mongery. It is, a minor measure, a matter of detail in carrying out however, an amusing book, from the active, the Irish policy which he evidently contemplated straightforward, uncompromising character of the from the first on reëntering office in 1841, though author, which displays itself in every sentence, that policy was for a time disguised by the inaptirendering weariness impossible. It is curious, tude of his Lord-Lieutenant until Lord Heytesbury But from discussing this measure, and something more, for the insight it gives into was sent over. official doublings and trickery; yet we must say for the foreign office, that it has a better and more gentlemanly tone about it than the colonial. It stands forth externally plausible, though rather scurvy inwards. Its communications to Captain Grover are patient, considerate, and full; and we think that Lord Aberdeen was only moved by a sense of kindness towards Captain Grover at last, and at first by a mistaken feeling towards red-tape forms, touching the four hundred pounds and Dr. Wolff. The letters of the officials as well as their whole conduct are very clever; and any one save an old campaigner, not to be done by words, would have gone away, doubtful perhaps, yet certainly tickled by diplomatic suavity.

creature.

The question before Parliament is Maynooth, but the subject of investigation is Peel; and a sudden furor has bitten divers persons to hunt him down. The measure is one desiderated by many; but even of those, some are seized with a new scruple, and like the hungry squire that took the bread of Lazarillo de Tormes, they fastidiously ask if the hands are clean that give it. Peel, they say, has no right to offer this measure, because he never offered it before, and because it is inconsistent with various things that he has said in past years. In proof, Mr. Disraeli has raked up Hansard; and Mr. Macaulay has made a searching historical retrospect, and shown how the statesman has avowed opinions in opposition which preclude him from endowing Maynooth without forfeiting "consistency." His defenders scarcely mend his case, though they have severally a double or alternative line of defence. They say, which is true, that he has always shown himself liberally disposed to the Catholics, even before 1829. Sir Robert is much too decorous a gentleman to have been a harsh or illiberal minisions for the time. But then his defenders say ter, whatever may have been his theoretical opinthat he has always upheld, at any sacrifice, the Established Church; as when he went out of

The subject of the book also is important, and there is a chance that its importance may be lost sight of in its oddities. Captain Grover affirms, more especially as regards Stoddart, that the victims were British envoys, sent by public authority on public business, and then abandoned to their fate, without even an attempt at rescue. On the contrary, the government seem to have totally cast them off, lest, if they admitted their character, they might be "embarrassed" in having to claim them. Upon this point the proof in the volume does not seem to be clear. The case of Stoddart rests upon the statement of Captain Grover; and Conolly, though an envoy as far as Khiva, appears to have gone on to Bokhara sua sponte. Government, in a despatch by Lord Eloffice in 1835. These two lines of defence anlenborough, called them "travellers;" and we suppose they are ready to maintain that view.swer each other, mutually destructive, like two Our own opinion is decided, that all these unfortu- negatives resistance of Catholic Emancipation nate gentlemen were in the employ of govern- Emancipation in 1829; flight from the appropriain 1828 is answered by acceptance of Catholic ment; but we are not so clear that they were employed under circumstances that gave them a right tion-clause in 1835, by the embracing of Mayto protection as envoys-that is, to a war on their nooth in 1845. As to this measure, it is asked account. The employment of secret agents who whether, if he had now been in opposition, Sir go on a mission understanding that they take their Robert would not have opposed the very bill he chance of disavowal, like the employment of spies proposes? The affirmative rises to every man's or the encouragement of conspirators in war, may lips. What right, then, has he to propound it in be a wrong thing abstractedly; but if it be had office? That is the question which is thrown recourse to, the persons engaged must follow in his teeth, and on which his stay in office hinges the laws of the business they engage in, and threateningly. risk the consequences; for in Napier's words, Sir Robert Peel is not a man of principles. He men cannot be ordered on such services-they can conduct. But when any great question lies before is a man of honesty in motive and deed; a man of only be tempted. We do not say that such was him for judgment, he does not "bottom" it-he the case-we only think it was; but we do not see how the doubt is to be cleared up. Even does not trace it to its elements and deduce the first were a parliamentary inquiry granted, we suspect principles. In politics he is a manufacturing, not the fact might not easily be established; for this an experimental chemist. This condition of his kind of engagement implies secrecy, and the proofs of an adverse view, should such exist, would not be produced by the foreign office; though, if Captain Grover's information is correct, enough might be forthcoming to convict Lord Palmerston of neglect, and Colonel Stoddart of indiscretion and of obstinacy in not departing with the Russian embassy.

mind may be learned from any of his great speeches. His views and measures never have taken their rise in principles: they have been suggested to him by circunstances; and if he has used principles at all, it has been at second hand, from the received authorities, by way of illustration or apology to weigh with other people. Had he been a man of principles, he would have foreseen in 1829 the Maynooth bill of 1845, and would have enunciated the latent fact. But he looked no further than 1829. He does not view any course

more intent in the case than there is a conscious purpose in the passing to-day. Therefore he is trusted to do work which would not be put into other hands. When Catholic emancipation became inevitable, Peel was allowed to do it, because they knew that he would not get intoxicated over his job and go on to some Maynooth measure. Now we have come to Maynooth, and if anybody do that work it will be Peel; because endowment of the Catholic priesthood will not be smuggled through along with endowment of the college. Peel is a steady man; somewhat reserved, and apt to go faster than his gravity implies; but still he takes one step at a time; and the conservatives, once called obstructives, know it.

of action from the à priori station, and therefore morrow will come after to-day; but there is no does not see the ulterior consequences in perspective. He looks across the vista, "taking things as he finds them," and seeing only what must be done at the time. In discussion on the measure of the moment, he uses, with excellent practical effect, the current arguments, the reasons that are uppermost in his mind. But he does this in a journeyman style, not with scientific generalizations; so that if you analyze Peel's speeches at any one time, it is easy enough to find passages which are on the surface inconsistent with what he says at other times. And for lack of the "bottoming" and generalizing faculty, he cannot explain away the dissonance. If it is to be done at all, somebody else must do it for him. He knows the flaw well enough, and has said so more than once; but he simply acknowledges, and cannot remedy That is not in his department. Thus, in all probability, had he been in opposition, he would have resisted this Maynooth bill; because in opposition he is reduced to mere reasoning upon a matter he would have come to it with an adverse bias; and as he does not generalize, the objections evident to his ingenious and workmanlike scrutiny would not have been counteracted by looking at it in "the long run." As his mind does not spontaneously take a perennial view of passing affairs, but merely jots down a tally of work done by the job, and is satisfied if it is well done, so he does not very strongly feel the reproach of some "inconsistency" between remote acts. The careless way in which he has alluded to such lapses proves his want of acute perception on that score. But it is less a fault in moral feeling than a defect in a particular faculty of intellect.

it.

It is to be noted that all Peel's evil deeds have been done in opposition, his good works in office. He went into opposition to resist emancipation and appropriation; in opposition he resisted the reform bill, tripped up the whig budget, talked big about "rebellious" Canada, abetted Lord Stanley's Irish registration bill in office he has achieved emancipation, accomplished two new free-trade-ward tariffs, sanctioned " responsible government" in Canada, quashed the registration bill and made some changes in an opposite sense, appointed Lord Heytesbury vice Earl De Grey, passed the charitable bequests act and the dissenters' chapels acts, and now proposes to endow Maynooth College. He talked foolishly in opposition, and entered office practically to refute himself. His has been a process of gradual development. Under favorable circumstances, that is in action, he has exhibited a steady progress from one class of opinions, among which he emerged into public life, towards another; so that the tory subordinate has practically become the most efficient liberal leader. It has been less a series of tergiversations than a steady process of conversion; lacking, however, the faculty of generalizing exposition to give coherence and symmetry to the aspect of the entire process. Lord Worsley makes a merit of saying that "he will not reject the measure because ministers have not heretofore acted up to their present professions;" a strange kind of toleration for improving scholarship! It is as if a teacher were to say to the top boy in the class, "I will not, because last year your composition was not so good as it is now, send back your thesis."

With all his faults and inconsistencies, Peel has achieved so much, that when deeds are in question he is the man to whom all parties look up. The conservatives chose him for their leader; and though they now talk of dismissing him, there is not one among them that would venture to answer the question, "Whom will you have instead?" The whigs, in the person of Lord John Russell, have addressed him as the man to do the work of free trade and Irish conciliation, if he only avow the will. Nay, he is doing what the whig writer, Sydney Smith, on his death-bed, exhorted him to do-he has 66 summoned up all his political courage; he has "run some risk of shocking public opinion;" and if he has not proposed pay- Peel is, in fact, the embodied reflex of the public ment of the Roman Catholic priests, he has done mind of England. He is feeble to originate great something like it, and his friends say that that is strokes of statesmanship, or to recognize on mere coming. Radical Mr. Ward cheerfully moves his reason shown; he is strong to see what must be own dilettante theoretical legislation out of the done, and to consummate. If he has made a misway of Peel's solid practical handicraft. And see take now, and has supposed that a thing must and how Mr. O'Connell compares Peel's completeness can be done which must not and cannot, it is beof work with whig botching. Why is it that a cause he was deceived, naturally enough, by the man at whom all are ready to carp is "sent for" opinion among active and demonstrative politicians at every emergency? Because he is a cool, able in parliament, in "society," and the press. By workman-not a crotchety ratiocinator, but a man whom is he opposed? By all extremes-ultra of action-not a man of principles, but a man of tory and ultra-radical, high church and disresults. He never aims at some 66 far-seeing" im- senters; each section assailing him because he is practicable end; he does not measure you for a not a bigot to either view. The conservatives, suit of clothes with a quadrant. His attention is after four years of power, forget how they could not distracted from the job that is set before him; never do without him. If he fail, it will be behe thinks of nothing else till that be done; and he cause the conflict of opinion is so complicated and talks for the time, like all journeymen, just as if balanced that it cannot decide itself. If it could there were nothing else to be done in the world. do so, he would act effectually; for he is, not the On account of this strict and limited range of work-leader of public opinion, but the minister of popu ing, he is seldom suspected of meaning more than lar decisions.

is professed at the moment. What he does may Meanwhile, the contest itself, whatever its issue, involve more something else may ensue, as to- is not one of the least signal events in which

Robert Peel has been instrumental. It has shaken the Egyptians of the eighteenth dynasty brought the new conservative party to its foundations, and the manufacture of glass to a much higher point a yawning schism is seen to divide it. It has not of perfection than ourselves. In fact, after the left the whig party untouched by the convulsion. decline of the art, Egypt became to Rome what Parties are once more "resolved to their ele- Venice became afterwards to Europe. The greater ments," to fall into new combinations: perhaps part of the supply of glass in his time, was conpartly into the old affinities. But in the process, sidered by Pliny to derive its good quality from old prejudices have been shaken, the dross of old the ashes of a peculiar genus of kelp, growing in toryism has been precipitated, the mixture for abundance by the Lake Mareotis and the Red Sea. daily use has been cleared. Old dogmas have been That kelp, reduced to a kind of green ash, is rejostled from their embedded places, and washed presented by Rosellini as brought by the workmen away to lie at least among unsettled doubts; in baskets to the glass manufactories, and also to mooted questions have fallen into firm resting- the potteries, where a vitreous process was eviplaces; and henceforth opinion sets forward from dently employed for the purpose of glazing the new starting-points. It is not the first nor the earthen vessels. It would appear, both from proofs second time that as much has been done for public that remain and cotemporary records-provided full opinion, perhaps unconsciously, by a man who reliance can be placed on the latter-that Winckeldeals little in mere opinion. It is, too, a gratify-man's somewhat startling allegation comes very ing feature in these changes, that they are not near the truth. The Egyptian glass-blowers and simply triumphs of one party over another, but glass-cutters of Thebes imitated amethysts, rubies, wholesale moves forward of entire parties, with a and other precious stones, with wonderful dextergeneral concurrence. The very converts vaunt ity, and, besides a great proficiency in the art of the conversion. Mr. Charles Wynn is right in staining glass, to which reference has been made, saying that "tory" and "whig" are names for must have been aware of the use of the diamond things which have gone; and to no one man is in cutting it and engraving it. In Mr. Salt's colthat great push forward so much due as to Robert lection in the British Museum, assignable to the Peel. era of Thothmes the Third, there is a piece of glass beautifully stained throughout, (like that described by Rossellini,) and skilfully engraved with his heraldic emblazonment, precisely on the principles of modern heraldry; or, as the double A STRIKING fact is proved by the extant relics oval shields containing the names and titles of of the glass manufactures of ancient Thebes in the kings have (for some reason unexplainable by British Museum, as well as other museums, and Champollion) been called "cartouches." The proby the illustrations of Rosellini (copied from the fusion of glass in ancient Egypt is attested by sevTombs of Thebes) of the laboratories of the glass-eral trustworthy authorities. The historical relablowers, and the workshops of the glass-manufacturers of Thebes, during the early eras of the eighteenth dynasty (1700 or 1600 B. c.)

From the Polytechnic Review.

GLASS-MAKING IN ANCIENT EGYPT.

tion that the embalmed bodies of Cyrus and Alexander were deposited in glass coffins in Egypt has been, indeed, considered as a fable; but it may be It exposes the error of the ordinary ideas in- said to be analogically proved by recent discoveries dulged by historians and antiquarians on the sub- of portions of granite sarcophagi which are covered ject. It is common to assert that, with the excep- with a coating of stained glass, through which the tion of some glass vessels at a great price, glass hieroglyphics on the stone appear. Diodorus was little known, and little used, till the time of Siculus says, that entire coffins were commonly Augustus, and was never employed in windows made of glass in Upper Egypt. This would detill after the fall of the Roman empire. The cir-monstrate an extraordinary profusion; but cercumstance of pieces of glass of good manufacture tainly an equal of the dearest glass manufactures having been found at Pompeii ought to have may be practically proved. Vast numbers of imithrown light upon this allegation, derived from an tative precious stones, in glass, made by the jewambiguous assertion of Pliny. The fact is, that ellers of ancient Egypt, are to be found in all the glass and porcelain, of an equally good quality as museums of Europe. Among them are false emthat in common use in modern times, was made eralds of considerable size, in which the artisans sixteen or seventeen hundred years a. C. in Upper of hundred-gated Thebes appear to have princiEgypt. It appears, also, to have been made in pally excelled. There is little doubt that many profusion. This is a second allegation, supported of the large emerald basins used in the early by adequate proof. But a third, of a more start- Christian churches were of their manufacture. ling character, has been added. It is affirmed that The extensive character of the manufacture may the glass-blowers of Thebes were greater profurther be inferred from a circumstance recorded ficients in their art than we are. They possessed by Pliny, that in the Temple of Jupiter Ammon the art of staining glass, which, although not there was an obelisk of emerald, that is to say, of wholly lost, is comparatively but little known, and practised only by a few. Among the illustrations of Rosellini is a copy of a piece of stained glass which was found at Thebes. It comprises various colors, which he describes as struck through the whole vitrified structure, and refers to other instances of ancient Egyptian stained glass which he has seen, in which the colored design is equally struck through squares of glass an inch thick, thoroughly incorporated with the vitreous structure, and appearing the same on the obverse as on the reverse side. It was in consequence of being aware of this fact, that Winckelman asserted that

glass in imitation of emerald, sixty feet high. The emerald hue which the glass-manufacturers of Egypt gave to glass, appears, from chemical analy-sis, to be imparted by oxide of copper, and the reds used on ordinary occasions in staining plate-glass appear to have been given by minium. All these facts prove the extensive knowledge of chemistry among the natives of old Thebes..

*Real precious stones, natives of India, and brought: doubtless by the alleged railroad from Cosseir in the Red species of topaz,) are found in the tombs of the era of. Sea, (amethysts, hæmatites, and lapis lazuli, and a Thothmes the Third.