From Chambers' Journal.

PIPES.

water-companies, were formed from the boughs and trunks of trees, hollowed out by means of augers of different sizes, and fitting

WE are going to say a few words concerning pipes, which have latterly thrust them-into one another like the joints of a flute. A selves forward for observation in a rather unusual style in this great city of London, and set our thoughts flowing all about and through them. The reader, we hope, will soon see that the subject is one of no trifling importance, and that it has some interesting aspects.

source of childish interest to us, some forty odd years ago, was to witness the boring of these trees, which were mostly elm, and to carry off the chips for a bonfire to celebrate one of the Duke's victories. When, as was often the case, the boles were not straight, they had to be bored at each end; and if the We might begin our disquisition by re- entire perforation could not be completed minding him that he is himself nothing but that way, a stumpy kind of auger was rama walking and talking tubular machine; that med in as far as it would go, and, being from the hairs of his head to the pores of his wedged into the required position to turn the toes, from his grand aorta to his minutest corner, was worked round, after the manner capillaries, not forgetting his alimentary of a screw with a screw-driver, until the canal with its subservient apparatus, he is passage was effected. These pipes were inbut a conglomerated system of pipe-works. variably laid down with the bark upon them, We might shew, also, that in this he but which helped to preserve them from decay; resembles the vegetable kingdom, which is they were, from motives of safety, laid benothing but one stupendous concatenation neath the foot-pavements, to escape pressure and involution of tubular structures. But in the wagon-way; and, under favorable cirwe scorn to be prosy and plagiaristic under cumstances, they would last as long as the the pretence of being scientific, and shall generation that laid them down. They were therefore leave all that for him to rummage frequently out of repair, however, and testiup at his leisure, should he need the infor- fied that condition by an impromptu fountain mation, and feel the inclination to acquire in the footpath; but they were repaired in a it. The pipes we are going to look at shall few minutes by a handy fellow, who disbe the pipes of man's own manufacture, placed a flag with his pickaxe, turned up with which he has sought to minister to his the earth with his spade, and medicated the own necessities, convenience, or pleasure, or wound in a moment by driving in a peg with to effect for the body social, as far as might a hammer. These wooden pipes answered be, what the wondrous organisms of nature their end very well, while they lasted, in all accomplish for the individual objects of her those places where water was supplied from the works on the continuous system; but where the intermittent plan was followed, as in London, they were the source of endless nuisances and abominations. When the water was turned off, and the air admitted, the damp wood grew mouldy, and rotted, and the next rush of water carried the mildew and the rotten fibre into the vats and cisterns of the inhabitants. Of this we had woeful personal experience some years ago, on the Surrey side of the Thames. How many miles of the old wooden pipes yet continue to do duty underground in the neighborhood of London and elsewhere, we will not undertake to say; but not very long ago, in the neighborhood of Deptford, we came upon the aforesaid handy Jack, armed with his spade and pickaxe, hammer and pegs, and saw him disinter a leaky patient, apply the potent styptic, and cover him up again, quite comfortably-all in three minutes.

care.

We may feel pretty sure that the first pipe used for an artificial purpose was not artificially constructed. Whether it was the bone of an animal, or the shaft of a bamboo, or a reed cut from the swamp-whether it was a rude musical-instrument, or served some simple hydraulic purpose, it would serve no useful end to inquire. That man took to blowing wind-instruments, and dancing to their music, before he learned to lead water through a pipe, seems, judging from the habits of savage tribes in our own day, likely enough; but we will pass the savage era, and look in upon our progenitors, when civilization and social usages had stimulated contrivance, and given birth to new neces

sities.

The applicability of pipes to the purpose of conveying water from some distant natural reservoir to the dwellings of man, must have been a very early discovery; and if we do not find pipes of very great antiquity among the remains of ancient cities, it may be owing to the fact that they were first made of very perishable materials, and are no longer in existence. We know that the first pipes used extensively for that purpose by our own

Pipes of earthenware are among the most frequent memorials of ancient cities; and there is no doubt that they were in extensive use for the purpose of water-conveyance among the Romans. It has been assumed that because the conquerors of the world erected vast aqueducts, they not only missed

plest or the most elaborate means, from the mere turning of a handle and drying in the sun, to the careful casting in moulds and baking in the kiln; they are soft and porous, or hard and solid as a rock; they are impervious to air or water, or they are drilled in myriads of small holes for the percolation of the draining fluid. Fresh uses are discovered for them almost every day; and where their availability will end, no man at the present moment need attempt to divine.*

the hydrostatic paradox, but were ignorant | vert or the open ditch, sealing up the infec of the principles of hydraulics altogether. tious effluvia that else would poison the air We don't know what to say to that. It is we breathe. They are of all sizes, from two true that Rome was supplied with water by inches in diameter, or less, to twenty, or nine aqueducts; but the water was led from more; they are manufactured by the simthem to the dwellings of the citizens by earthenware pipes, which, according to Veginus, delivered not less than 26,000,000 of gallons daily; and it is not easy to see how, with such a delivery to manage, and the experience they must necessarily derive from it, such a people could have escaped a knowledge of the laws of fluids. In making use of earthenware pipes, the ancients probably were impelled as much by economy as any other consideration; but they could not have selected a better medium for the conveyance of water; and it is on all accounts In this iron age, it is the iron pipe that to be regretted that we have not followed asserts its sovereignty over all the rest, and their example. The pipes of iron and lead, claims the most of our attention. Millions through which our water-supply reaches us, of capital, in the shape of iron pipes, lie have been the source of infinite annoyances buried not a yard below the feet of the peand bodily diseases, which we should have destrian as he walks the streets of London. escaped by the use of earthenware. Our The water and the gas companies invariably water-companies have, one and all, ignored pipe with iron, though both might use them, on the ground of their presumed earthenware if they chose. There are befrailty and fragility; and yet we find them tween fifty and sixty miles of streets in Lonlargely in use throughout France and Switzer-don, exclusive of the new suburbs; and land for the underground conveyance of throughout their whole length lie, side by water-one firm of manufacturers having side, beneath the pavements, the huge iron supplied no less than 20,000 miles of earthen-mains of the gas and water companies. ware piping to various corporations within These mains are often doubled, trebled, and the last fifteen years for this identical pur- quadrupled, to meet the requirements of the pose. Our engineers contend that the "hy-district; and it is likely that the fifty miles draulic shock," as they term the sudden rush of streets, added to the additional extent of of water into empty pipes, would shiver suburb, contain not less than 300 miles of them to atoms; and so undoubtedly it would, main pipes, averaging some ten inches in as it does sometimes the strongest iron pipes, were the attempt made to use them under the system of intermittent supply; but the public health demands everywhere a constant supply, under which there need be no recurrence of the destructive hydraulic shock. We can certainly do in this respect what has long been done by our neighbors.

But though we use no earthenware pipes for the service to which they could be most advantageously applied, we yet manufacture them for other purposes, in quantities of which the unobservant public has not the remotest idea. Improvements in agriculture have brought them into demand for the drainage of land; and, buried beneath the grassy meadows and broad arable slopes of Britain, they lie in interminable reticulations, whose extent must be measured by tens of thousands of miles. Again, for thousands more, they lie along the margins of the iron road, to drain the rain-fall from the sleepers and keep the ballast dry. And again, sunk far underground in our populous cities, they pour the sewage of the dwelling into the main drain, or substitute the old brick cul

diameter. Add to these the monster pipes, a yard in diameter, many leagues of which are in the course of laying down, east, west, north, and south of the metropolis, while we write, and some notion may be formed of the mass of iron buried for our convenience beneath the soil of this vast city. In a hundred other cities and towns in the realm, there is the same or a corresponding prodigality in the use of iron pipes; which, with our national predisposition for whatever is durable and substantial, we are continually pressing into service. The manufacture of these indispensable articles may be regarded as a modern species of industry; at any rate, it has grown up, within the memory of persons now living, from a comparatively insignificant trade to one of great extent and importance. The work employs considerable number of hands; and, as the process of casting a large pipe is no trifling pastime, but a work of considerable responsibility, a class of men

In Paris, they are using glazed earthenware pipes for

chimneys: they afford no locus for the deposit of soot, and we were informed that, when exactly vertical, they never require sweeping.

have to be employed upon whom reliance | affirmed, that there are not less than 25,000 can be placed. Iron pipes were originally miles in length of this distributive kind of cast horizontally in moulds of sand, the piping in actual use throughout the area on preparation of which was a work of much which modern London stands: this is more time and care. They are now cast upright, than enough to girdle the world, yet it is in moulds sunk in the ground; and the labor probable that the estimate is not above the attendant on the process is in some meas- truth. The materials of which these serviceure reduced. A year or two ago, an pipes are made comprise not only all the ingenious inventor patented a mode of man- coarser metals, pure or in a mixed state, but ufacturing iron pipes, or pipes of any metal, at least two other substances, India-rubber not so much by casting as by a species of and gutta-percha, which have latterly come churning. Only a single mould was wanted, into use. Such of these smaller pipes as and that, instead of having to be renewed are of iron have to be cast by means similar for each pipe, was available for an indefinite to those employed in the production of the number. The mould, in fact, is a cylinder, larger ones above described; but the imwhich, by means of steam-power applied to mense majority of them are formed of the the proper machinery, is set revolving at the malleable metals, and are manufactured by rate of some thousands of times per minute. powerful steam or hydraulic machinery to By the use of a stop-cock, the molten metal any length that may be required. The is projected into the cylinder through the ancients made their leaden pipes by turning shaft upon which it revolves, and, by the short lengths in a lathe, and afterwards solrapidity of the revolution, is deposited upon dering them together: and this rude mode its interior to any required thickness. The of manufacture is the one still followed by contraction which ensues on the cooling of some of the Scandinavian peoples. A great the metal, enables it to be withdrawn readily improvement on that plan was rolling the from the mould, when the pipe is complete; lead into flat sheets, cutting it in strips, rolland the mould, as soon as it has been artifi-ing these round a steel rod or mandrel, and cially cooled, is again ready for use. Pipes fusing together the parts that overlapped — made in this way were found to be much a plan often practised even now. A second closer in texture, and, therefore, much improvement was to cast a foot of pipe stronger, than those cast in the usual meth- twenty times as thick as it was wanted, and od; and it was calculated that they would draw it through a succession of "collars," bear double the hydraulic pressure of ordi- till it had stretched to twenty times its orig nary pipes. The process was also applica-inal length, and was reduced to its required ble to other purposes - such as the produc- thinness. A different plan is practised at tion of vases, bomb-shell, balusters-any- the present day. The lead, in a semi-fluid thing, in short, for which a hollow circular state, is received in the cavity of a hydraulicmould could be formed. They could be press, and while in the act of cooling and made of any degree of thickness or thinness, hardening, is forced by water pressure and we have ourselves seen sections of a pipe through an orifice in which a mandrel is nearly a foot in diameter, yet little, if any- centrally fixed, and issues in finished pipes, thing, thicker than a bank note. Still, not- which are coiled upon a cylinder to any withstanding the completeness of the theory, length required. By the above means, not it so happens that, from some trifling and only lead, but any of the softer metals, may unaccountable hitch in the machinery, be readily manufactured into pipes of any which has hitherto baffled the ingenuity substance, and of all diameters; and as an of the experimenters, the system of churn- immense quantity of piping is in constant ing metal pipes hangs fire, and refuses to requisition for gas-fittings, the unceasing answer the expectation of its ingenious demand has stimulated competition, and the inventor, and the scarcely less interested article is as cheap as it is easily produced. public. Serviceable gas-piping may be bought at a But the great iron mains, vast and exten- penny a foot: and the London workinan has sive as they are, represent but a small frac- it in his power, for a few shillings, to suptional proportion of the world of metal plant his farthing candle by a blaze that pipes. For every fathom of them that lies shall shame the dull daylight, at a less cost buried in the ground, there are hundreds of in the long-run than his previous outlay for yards of smaller feeders branching off in tallow. Besides the service-pipes of metal, every direction, penetrating every house and however, there are those of gutta-percha workshop, from topmost garret to lowest which are, to a great extent, superseding the cellar, to carry the elements of light and use of lead pipes for conveying water; and cleanliness, as well to the millionaire in his which, being free from poisonous deposits, magnificent mansion as to the weary toilers and the attacks of frost, are infinitely to be of a thousand factories. We have heard it | preferred — and those of vulcanized India

rubber. These last are much in vogue iron. The iron rods of various diameters among artists and artisans who work by gas- are obtained from the foundry, and permalight, and to whom the convenience of mov-nently swaddled in a brass pipe by the foling the light by which they work is indis- lowing simple means : — A sort of night-cap pensable a convenience which can hardly of brass is fitted on to one end of the rod, be attained by any other means. which is griped fast by a vice; a steel collar, as much larger than the rod as will allow for a decent brass covering, lays hold of the night-cap, and at a signal from the fitter, is pulled by steam-power over the whole length of the rod, kneading the cold metal firmly upon its entire surface with as much ease, and in about the same time, as you draw on your stocking on getting out of bed. We have seen ten feet of a rod, an inch in diameter, thus coated with brass in seven seconds or thereabouts. So great is the pressure attendant on this process, that rough rods thus coated with brass can be separated from it in no other way than by melting in the furnace.

But we have not done with piping yet. There are in existence in this country tens of thousands of miles of piping which the unsuspicious public does not know to be piping at all. In our churches, chapels, theatres, and public institutions of all sorts, as well as to a great extent in our private houses to say nothing of our ginshops, where, perhaps, it is seen to the greatest perfection we are greeted with the spectacle of shining, brilliant brass-work. Brass rods, brass rails, brass lamps and chandeliers, brass bedsteads, are all of them conveniences in great favor; and beautiful things some of them are, and very much do they tend to the general comfort and convenience. But if they were all what they appear to be, and are generally taken to be that useful compound of zinc and copper would have risen by this time to the rank of one of the precious metals. The fact is, that all these splendid fabrics of pillars and rods are not brass, but brazen they are pipes, and extremely thin pipes, of brass, containing rods of rough and solid

We do not pretend that we have got to the end of the pipes: we have a notion, in fact, that the thing is not to be done; but we have got to the end of our tether, and must leave the above hints for the reader's consideration intending, if the editor will permit, to light a pipe of tobacco at some future time.

From The Spectator.
ILLUSTRATED POEMS.

The second book is the acme of the pretty. The binding is pretty-almost beautiful; Mr. usual in his wood-cuts; pretty is their demi-tint Birket Foster, always pretty, is prettier than of color; pretty are the type and paper; and pretty the poems all bearing upon Sabbath joys, thoughts, and observances. The title is a prettified affectation; and the editor italicizes in all round to every one coöperating in the entera note preliminary the prettiest of compliments prise. It may be in the necessary conditions of the attempt that the poets are mostly of the second order, Mrs. Hemans, Grahame, Mrs. Sigthat a mild monotony pervades the drawing-room ourney, Bishop Mant, Barton, and so on; and Nature of the designs.

Or the three poetico-pictorial volumes noted below, the first is a dainty gift-book edition of Keat's transcendent poem. Could one stop here, all were well enough; but, in such a case, one must go further, and, doing so, perceive that, in point of art, the thing is quite a mistake. This is a case of the kind to which we adverted in speaking of the illustrated edition of Longfellow, —a case of intense individuality on the poet's part, such as will make the work of almost any pictorial designer out of keeping, if not impertinent. Even independently of this, the present instance is an unlucky one. Mr. Wehnert is an artist of ability, who for some years past has left off doing his best: here he has done his volume to Mr. Foster's etchings in the next volThe step from Mr. Foster's wood-cuts in this worst and he owes nothing to the engravers ume is the step from drawing-room Nature to who have put his score of drawings upon the wood. However, had Mr. Wehnert done his young-ladies'-album Nature. We tire of this best in his best days, the result would have been has anything to tell you about Nature, hear him, smug neatness and vapid elegance. If a man the same in kind, though not in degree: a ca- and profit from the hearing; but if he has only pacity for designing unaccompanied by a Protean to tell you that he, the artistic So-and-So, is imagination, an impatience of formula, and the pleased to find Nature "sweetly pretty," by all most trembling sensitiveness to beauty, is no pre-means entreat him to go about his business. text for making free with Keats.

The Eve of St. Agnes. By John Keats. Illustrated by Edward H. Wehnert. Published by Cundall.

Sabbath-Bells chimed by the Poets. Illustrated by Birke Foster. Published by Bell and Daldy.

The Traveller; a Poem, by Oliver Goldsmith. Illustrated with Etchings on Steel by Birket Foster. Published by Bogue.

Oliver Goldsmith in this holiday attire is exactly the Goldsmith who strutted about town to air his handsome suit of clothes, and not the one who wrote the Vicar of Wakefield, or even The Traveller.

JENNY LIND IN SACRED MUSIC.

last, but shown also in other ways, is her earnestness. Not only in the tones of her voice and in the expression of every word, but in her looks, her air, her abstraction from every surrounding object, we perceive that her whole soul is rapt in the thoughts

AFTER a long absence, "Jenny Lind," now Madame Goldschmidt, has again come among us, but not in her former character of a great actress and dramatic singer. Notwithstanding every solicitation and induce- and feelings to which she gives utterance. ment to the contrary, she has steadily adhered In this we recognize a peculiarity of John to her resolution of abandoning the stage. Braham, the greatest of oratorio-singers, To the opera, doubtless, this has been a who was never known in the orchestra to heavy loss; but we are not sure that it has utter a light word or use a careless gesture. not been compensated by at least equal gain Jenny Lind's severe taste and purity of style to music in general, and particularly to the form a great feature of her sacred singing. highest of its branches, the oratorio. From On the Italian stage she yielded to none of the accounts of her recent German career it her compeers in the richness and brilliancy appears that she has been devoting her powers of her extemporaneous embellishments, bechiefly, if not exclusively, to sacred music; cause she knew that there the florid style in which she has made as great an impression was appropriate and necessary. But she is as she formerly did in the secular drama. a German musician, with the true German In following the same career she has now come to England; where, from the beginning she has made, it is evident that her course will be equally brilliant.

On Monday last, Madame Goldschmidt sang at Exeter Hall in The Creation, and on Monday next she sings in Elijah. She had appeared in these oratorios a short time before she left England on both occasions to great audiences, who heard her with admiration and delight; but, perhaps as we had been accustomed to look upon her in another light, and she was moreover about to leave us with less of that critical attention to her peculiar qualities as a sacred singer than she will receive now that she comes before us as the exponent of the lofty conceptions of Handel, Haydn, and Mendelssohn. From her performance in The Creation we certainly derived a still higher degree of enjoyment than we had done before, and had, we thought, a more distinct discernment of the sources of that enjoyment of that combination of qualities which raises her above all other sacred singers we have ever heard.

ever

Her voice, in the first place, is as fine as as sweet, as powerful, as mellow, as resonant, and as faultlessly in tune. Nor has she lost anything of her facile and brilliant execution. But there are other oratorio-singers one at all events-who possess all these gifts, and in a scarcely inferior degree. But in the human voice there is a quality which cannot be described by the above or any other epithets- an unspeakable something in its very tone which makes the heart-strings vibrate in unison-an appeal to our sympathies which is at once acknowledged; we are moved because the sound is full of emotion. Every one has felt this from the voice of a singer, and it has never been more deeply felt than from the voice of Jenny Lind. Another quality, akin to the

respect for the text of the great masters. She knows that their language does not demand the foreign aid of ornament; that their grand and beautiful ideas are best developed by the simplest delivery, with no other embellishments than those which the heart dictates. From the lips of such a singer, a gently-breathed appogiatura, an almost imperceptible dwelling on an emphatic note, a slight retardment or acceleration of the measure, an energetic burst of sound, or a "dying fall," speak to the soul with resistless effect. Their power is instantaneous, though it requires reflection to discover where it lies. In this magic influence of the voice of truth and nature consists the most striking of Jenny Lind's peculiarities. Her simplicity would seem something obvious and easy, whereas it is the consummation of art; and probably there never was a singer to whom Carissimi's famous exclamation, “O, questo facile, quanto è difficile! may be more justly applied. One more characteristic of her singing may be called its geniality. Her voice blends sweetly with the others; and, perfect as she is, it is a positive advantage to sing with her. We were greatly struck with this in the most dramatic part of the work, the tender duet at the conclusion between the primeval pair. The respectable but undramatic performer who took part in it sang with better effect, and probably greater satisfaction to himself, than he ever did before. As Malibran often did on the stage, Jenny Lind, without lowering herself, actually raised her companion; and this duet was one of the most delightful and warmly-applauded things of the evening.

Mr. Benedict had got together a respectable orchestra and chorus, and conducted the performance with his usual ability.

It is almost unnecessary to add, for the general excitement caused by Madame Goldschmidt's arrival, the eager demand for ad