BY ELIZA MARY HAMILTON.

the death knell to a monarchy of ages, tol. At the thirteenth meeting of the British Assothe dynasty of the Capets, as well as to his ciation for the advancement of Science, Major own domestic joys and family bliss: for the L. BEAMISH, F. R. S., read a paper. On the ap

parent fall or diminution of water in the Bal. Revolution of July 1830 has been any thing tic, and elevation of the Scandinavian Coast.'but a blessing to the then Duke of Orleans. During a journey to Stockholm in the early part of

the present summer, the author had occasion to see and hear much respecting the diminution of water in the Baltic, a practical and personal evidence of which he experienced in the harbor of Traveinunde, on the 4th of May, by the sudden fall of

water at the port, which iook place very rapidly, LINES,

and to great extent. The steamer, which ought to have left Travemunde on the 18th, was detained

by this cause until the 21st. It is well known, (Written at the request of a relativa, on the death of a dear that, although without tide, the Baltic is subject to friend in Honiton, February, 1813.]

periodical variations of depth, but the water has From Tait's Magazine.

fallen during the present summer, to a degree far

below these ordinary variations : and the fact was Ou! blessed are the dead in Christ!

considered so remarkable as to be thought worthy Why will we mourn for them !

of being brought before the notice of the Swedish No more the stormy billows here

Academy of Sciences, by Baron Berzelius, in July With weary heart ihey stem !

last. This fall or diminution of water was already No more they struggle here below

perceptible in the summer of 1842, since which, To guide, through many a gulf of woe,

ihe Baltic has never returned to its mean height: Their being's fragile bark,

but, on the contrary, has diminished, and there But, harbored in eternal rest,

seems now no probability that the former level, or By far off islands of the blest,

the height of 1841, will be again attained. Meantime, Calm on a sunlit ocean's breast,

no perceptible change has taken place in the waAnchor their fearless ark.

ters of the North Sea, and the unscientific observer

asks, what has become of the waters of the Baltic ? Seem they to sleep? 'tis but as sleeps The answer is probably to be found in a simultaThe seed within the earth,

neous phenomeuon apparent on the Swedish coast, To burst forth to the brilliant morn

the gradual elevation of which has been satisfacOf a more glorious birth ;

torily proved by the personal observation of Mr. Seem they to feel no breath of love

Lyell. Recent observation, however, would seein That o'er their icy brow will move

to show, that this elevation does not proceed at any With tearful whispers warm?

regular or fixed rate, but, if he might use the ex'Tis that upon their spirit's ear

pression, fitfully, at uncertain periods, and at a rate All Heaven's triumphant music clear far greater than was at first supposed. At the same Is bursting, where there comes not near meeting, when Baron Berzelius drew the attention One tone of sorrow's storm !

of the Swedish Academy to the diminution of wa

ter in the Baltic, a communication was made from Oh! give them up to Him whose own

an officer who had been employed on the southThose Jear redeemed ones are ! Lo! on their wakening souls He breaks,

west coast of Sweden, in the Skägard of Bohuslän, " The bright and morning star!"

north of Gottenburg, giving evidence of the recent

elevation of that part of the coast, and stating, that His are they now for evermore, The mystery and the conflict o'er,

during the present summer, fishermen had pointed

out to him, near the Maloström, at Oroust, shoals The Eiernal city won !

which had never before been visible. The elevaAs conquerors let them pass and go

tion of the Swedish coast forms a striking contrast Up from the fight of faith below,

with the unchanged position of the contiguous coast The peace of God at last to know

of Norway, which, as far as observation has been In kingdoms of the sun!

hitherto extended, has suffered no change within “ Lift up your heads, ye heavenly gates!

the period of history, although marine deposits, Ye everlasting doors give way!"

found upon the Norwegian hills, at very consideraAnd let the Lord of Glory's train

ble elevations above the level of the sea, prove Throng the bright courts of day!

that those parts were formerly submerged. More We follow, too, ye lov'd ones gone !

accurate information, however, will, before long, be We follow, faint but fearless, on

obtained on this interesting point, as a commission To meet you where the Lamb, once slain,

has been appointed by the Norwegian government, Amidst Üis ransom'd church on high

to investigate the subject, and marks have been set Shall dwell—and wipe from every eye

up on the coast, wbich will, in a few years, atiord The tears that, through eternity,

the desired information ; meantime the Scandina. Shall never flow again !

vian peninsula presents an extraordinary phenomenon; the western, or Norwegian side, remaining

stationary, while the south and easi, or Swedish UNIFORM RATE OF Postage:—We learn from St. sides, are rising, and that, as the author had enPetersburg, Aug. 31, that, on the proposition of the deavored to show, at no inconsiderable rate.-. Ithesenate, the emperor has issued a ukase establishing a uniform postage throughout Russia and the Grand Duchy of Finland, no matter what the distance may be; so that henceforth the tax on letters will Alexis OLENIN, President of the Academy of yary in charge only according to their weight. Ga. Fine Arts at St. Petersburg, died at the end of liguani.

April, aged upwards of 70.-Ibid.

ndum.

1843.]

FACTS ON SUICIDE.

From Chambers's Edinburgh Journal.

FACTS ON SUICIDE.

indirect and accidental. In opposition to the ar-
guments derived from agricultural districts and
laborers in towns, there is the fact, that suicide is
more frequent among several classes of artisans
than it is among better educated people. If the
progress of civilization is to be charged with the
increase of suicide, we must therefore understand
by it the increase of tailors, shoemakers, the
small trades, the mechanical occupations, and
the incidental evils to which they are exposed,
rather than the advancement of truth, science,
literature, and the fine arts."*

THE 29th number of the British and Foreign Medical Review extracts some facts respecting suicide from the Third Annual Report of the Registrar-General. Suicide is most prevalent in London, the proportion, there, for a year, be"Next to this ing 109 to 100,000 inhabitants. discreditable pre-eminence stands the south-eastApparently to show the distinction between ern counties, bordering on the metropolis, where it is 8-4 to 100,000; the range in other parts of England is from 6-8 to 74, which is the propor- the influence of education, abstractly considered, tion in the western counties; whilst in Wales and circumstances with which a certain amount it is but 2-2. The proportion throughout Eng- of education is occasionally associated. Mr. Farr land and Wales is 63; and the total number in mentions the facts, that about 2:0 to 10,000 perThe greatest number of sons assured in the Equitable Society, and 7-8 the year was 2001. suicides occurred in the spring and summer, in 10,000 dragoons and dragoon-guards, have We can see no reason for supposing that eduwhen crimes attended by violence, and also at- been ascertained to commit suicide every year. tacks of insanity, are also most common. Thus, in April, May, and June, there were 563; in July, cation gives a tendency to suicide; but those August, and September, 539; in January, Feb-districts in which education, indicated by the ruary, and March, 484; and in October, Novem- proportion of the population who can write, is ber, and December, 465." [November thus ap- most diffused, contain the most numerous class pears by no means the peculiarly suicidal month of artisans occupied within doors. Now, there which proverbial observation would make it.] is in such persons, as compared with a sailor or "The suicides in males were considerably more agricultural laborer, a low state of health, and a than double those in females; for of the 2001 morbid sensibility, which may give a proneness examples of this crime, 1387 occurred in the for- to self-destruction. As a general rule, these mer, and 614 in the latter sex, the proportions trades are least exposed to accidents; and Mr. "The tendency to suicide," Farr remarks, that the mind, left unexcited by being as 23 to 10. We would say rather, that the individadds the reviewer, "is least among persons car- natural dangers, imagines and creates causes of rying on occupations out of doors, and greatest death. among artisans who are weakly from birth, are ual rendered morbid, moody, and sensitive by confined in-doors, have their rest disturbed, or seclusion from free air, variations of temperahave little muscular exertion. The statistical ature, muscular exertion, and light, sees in the illustration of this point shows that 1 in 9382 circumstances around him, viewed through the masons, carpenters, and butchers, committed diseased condition of mind which these very suicide in the year; and 1 in 1669 tailors, shoe- circumstances have engendered, a reason why makers, and bakers; the tendency to suicide in life is no longer desirable, and, consequently, an the first class being as 1 to 5.6 in the second. A incentive to the act of suicide. similar result is obtained by comparing the suicides in the class of laborers with those among artisans and tradespeople; for the tendency to suicide is more than twice as great among artisans as it is among laborers; in the former class, the proportion being 60 to 10,000; in the latter, but 2.9 to the same number. In the miscellaneous class, designated by Mr. Rickman, 'capitalists, bankers, professional, and other educated persons,' the proportion is 4.9 to 10,000."

Mr. Farr does not grant much force to the
opinion of certain theoretical writers, that sui
cide is most common where education is most
diffused. He admits that in England suicide is
most frequent in the metropolis, the south-east-
ern counties, and the northern counties, where
the greatest number can write; and is the least
frequent in Wals, where the proportion of per-
sons signing the marriage register with a mark
(the Registrar-General's test of deficient edu-
But he remarks very
cation) is the greatest.
particularly regarding these facts:-

"There is a general, but no constant relation,
between the state of education thus tested
and the commission of suicide. It may be ad-
mitted that there is some relation between the
development of the intellect and self-destruction;
but the connexion must be in a great measure

Regarding this crime, Mr. Farr suggests"That some plan for discontinuing, by common consent, the detailed dramatic tales of murder, suicide, and bloodshed in the newspapers, is well worthy the attention of their editors. No fact is better established in science than that suicide, and murder may perhaps be added, is often committed from imitation. A single parasome particular chance, but apt expression, graph may suggest suicide to twenty persons; seizes the imagination, and the disposition to repeat the act in a moment of morbid excitement proves irresistible. Do the advantages of publicity counterbalance the evils attendant on one such death? Why should cases of suicide be recorded in the public papers any more than cases of fever?" The reviewer does not agree in this view, thinking that the certainty of publicity may act more powerfully as a preventive; but we do not concur in his opinion. He quotes, with approbation, the following passage from Mr. Farr's letter:--"It may be remarked, that the artisans most prone to suicide are subject to peculiar visceral congestions; that suicide is most common in unhealthy towns; and that the influence of medicine on the mind, and on the

* Letter to the Registrar-General, pp. 80-1.

tem :

unstable or ungovernable impulses which are Waves.-The Report of the Committee on osten the harbingers of suicide, is incontestable. Waves, of the British Association for the advanceTo place the shoemaker, tailor, baker, or printer, ment of Science, was presented by Mr. S. Russell, in the same favorable circumstances with res- along with a short account of the researches with pect to air and exercise as carpenters and ma- former report

. He had reduced the whole subject of

which he had been engaged since the period of the sons, would be impossible. But the workshops of all artisans admit of immense improvements inquiry into a more systematic and complete form in ventilation. Cleanliness is greatly neglected. and had found that the arrangement adopted had

than it had at an earlier period in these inquiries, Neither the men nor all the masters appear to the effect of removing many of the seeming be aware that the respiration of pure air is in contradictions of wave phenomena, by showing dispensable; that the body requires as much that phenomena formerly identified were actually care as the tools, instrumenis, and machines, and the result of conditions essentially distinct from that without it, neither the body nor the mind each other, and that there exist orders of waves can be kept in health and vigor. The new heretofore confounded, but now ascertained to difparks and public walks will afford the artisan fer in their origin, nature, and successive phases of an opportunity of refreshing his exhausted limbs existence. These different orders he had separately and respiring the fresh air; and the health and examined; he had determined their characteristic temper of the sedentary workman may be much properties, and registered their phenomena, and ameliorated by affording facilities in towns for proposed to arrange them in the following sysathletic exercises and simple games out of doors,

Orders: waves of translation of oscillationwhich, while they bring the muscles into play,

Characters : unbend, excite, and exhilarate the mind. Morai capillary waves-corpuscular waves. causes, and the regulation of the mind, have solitary-gregarious. Species : positive or negaperhaps more influence on the educated classes; forced; of which distinctions the instances are :

tive-stationary or progressive. Varieties : freebut all must derive benefit from out-door exercise."

wave of resistance, tide wave, aerial sound wave, steam ripple, wind waves, ocean swell, dentate waves, zephyral waves, water sound wave.

The phenomena of these different orders had been examined, and in their mode of genesis, their laws of motion, their form, the nature of the forces by which they are transmitted, their duration, and the manner of their final extinction, they were

found to differ essentially from each other. These A PILGRIM OF NATURE.

various properties were then illustrated by a few

examples. In the first order, the velocity is de. From Tait's Magazine.

pendent on depth and height alone; in the second,

on length alone, being perfectly independent of You boast of the grandeur of cities in vain

depth and height; in the third case it is constant; To one who loves valleys, wild mountain, and and constant also in the fourth case. In the first,

also, the nature of the motion of each individual Have you beauties to vie with the river and rill? particle of water during wave transmission is, that Have you fragrance, like morning's, on heath and the particle describes a semi-circle or semi-ellipse,

plain :

CARDWELL AND AKERMAN ON COINS.

From the Quarterly Review.

1. Lectures on the Coinage of the Greeks and Romans; delivered in the University of Oxford, by Edward Cardwell, D. D., Principal of St. Alban's Hall, and Camden Professor of Ancient History. pp. 232.

1832.

some choice unique, with the sole view of reflecting on himself an ignis-fatuus of learned notoriety. He is not to be taunted as a keen critic in rust,' nor to be dubbed a jealous snatcher from time's own teeth of morsels fit only for oblivion: and he will scorn to be accounted one of those greedy shareholders in the numismatic lottery, who have in their eyes the goodness of a bargain rather than the educational 2. A Numismatic Manual. By John Yonge ideas floating round antiquity itself-who Akerman, F. S. A. &c. pp. 420. 1840. 3. A Descriptive Catalogue of Rare and Un-regard the accident of rarity rather than 3. A Descriptive Catalogue of Rare and Un- the quality of interest, and who are edited Roman Coins, from the Earliest scarcely gifted with intelligence capable Period of the Roman Coinage to the Ex-of higher flights than pricing a catalogue tinction of the Empire under Constantinus or watching for a fortunate investment. Paleologus; with numerous Plates from These sutlers and lucre-led camp-followers, the Originals. By John Yonge Aker- encumbering the march of antiquarianism man, F. S. A., &c. 2 vols. pp. 1018.

1834.

Ex-scarcely

เ

among the ruins of old time, all these and similar characters the true numismatWHEN Some uninitiated modern, not yet ist will disavow; and (with a humble savinfected with the virus of virtu, sees the ing-clause for his own human infirmity) will collector doting on his coins, and hears protest against any sympathy with their him discoursing of their preciousness, he feelings, or participation in their motives. is quite at a loss to account for an interest Far higher would he claim to be regarded, so deep shown about rusty copper, and anand let us hear him in his foolishness,eloquence so profuse displayed upon anti-as the meditative poet, as the clear-sighted quated money lost by thriftless housewives historian, as the entertained connoisseur in the times of old. It seems to him in the in art, and the well-taught student of hunature of a new sense, or likelier, of a new manity. The true collector, says Addison, non sense. He cannot comprehend an en- does not look upon his cabinet of metals thusiasm, apparently both hot and strong, as a treasure of money, but a store of for hoarding coins no longer current, nor knowledge; seeing he may find as much can he estimate a mode of valuation so thought on the reverse of a coin as in a glaringly inadequate as that which the an- canto of Spenser.' The true collector is tiquary sets upon his mouldered pence; not the demented antiquist' of a wrathnay, when he spends an instructive hour in ful Pinkerton, the pseudo-doctor who would Leigh Sotheby's prince of auction-rooms, value mystery above knowledge, who preand is then and there made cognizant, by the fers the obscurity of rust to a legible intestimony of his own eyes and ears, of the scription, and justifies his ignorance of the startling price given for some drachma or present by doubting of the past; but rather denarius of more than common interest, he the good, the honest-hearted antiquary,' complacently thanks his own good sense, credulous, if you will, as old Herodotus, but that it has hitherto preserved him from the as brimfull of his simple charity and unfolly of walking forth a numismatic maniac. compromising truthfulness, who seeks by Still, in sober cheerfulness, there are any means to add the history of men and many excuses to be urged on behalf of the ages past away, to a close and sociable accoin-enthusiast. He is neither a miser who quaintance with modern times and manworships money for its own dull sake, nor a ners. He looks upon his coins as silent madman who endows it with imaginary at- monitors, teaching many things. Delicately tributes. He is nothing of the mere deal- traced upon those small green fields, he can er, who seeks his mercenary gain in pur- discern and read a thousand poetical imperchasing rare specimens at common prices, sonations; within their magic circles he dis-the matter-of-fact trader in antiquity, covers the historic record, and inspects whose first object it is to lay out his capi- the contemporary portraiture of deeds and tal shrewdly, so that from the field of pros- those who dared them centuries ago. He tituted knowledge he may reap the harvest can show to the artist and the sculptor the of vulgar cash: nor yet will he confess to time-hallowed perfection of design and the spirit of restless Curio,' which regrouping, and microscopic modelling he joices in the selfish possession of a Pertinax, can take the architect aside, and exhibit to and will outbid national museums to secure him triumphal arches, temples, fountains,

aqueducts, amphitheatres, circi, hippo- art; he finds them charged, on obverse or dromes, palaces, basilicas, columns, obe- on reverse, with legends of heroic valor,— lisks, baths, sea-ports, pharoses,' and other with names and types of cities to their glorious edifices, which have long since modern sites unknown, with head-dresses, in substance crumbled into dust, and the jewelry, highly-wrought arms, embroidershadows whereof, thus only fixed for ever ed robes, and, above all, with exquisite deon a coin, may help him in his structure lineations of human beauty; he perceives of to-day, and teach him to venerate the upon them also the likeness of strange mighty builders of antiquity. He can, for creatures, as the rhinoceros, the giraffe, the his own high intellectual pleasure, make crocodile, the Tyrian murex, and the cuttleacquaintance with a world of miniature fig- fish; as well as those more fabulous aborures, many and minute as the fairy forms tions, a sphinx or a minotaur, a pegasus, a in a midsummer night's dream, shaped phoenix, a chimæra. He may, guided by a each and all in elegance and beauty; fig- Gnossian didrachmon, roam now-a-days the ures, or profiles of ideal deifications, all labyrinth of Crete, and find it a maze differthe more interesting from having probably ing only from that in the Harrow Road by been copies of then existing works by being square instead of circular: taught by Phidias, Apelles, Parrhasius, or Praxiteles, a Cydonian obolus, he may perceive that or some other Promethean quickener of the Rome, ever plagiarizing upon Greece, stole stucco, or the canvas, or the Parian stone; the idea of wolf and twins from the young and he can at sight borrow from these lit- Miletus and his foster-mother Lupa: and, tle people of the mint, faultless conceptions warned by certain well-known of the excellent in form, and graceful ease drachms, bearing a crafty snake that in composition. He can amuse and in- emerges from a hamper, he may note therestruct, nay, elevate, his mind, with ingen in a fitting prototype for the hanaper office ious allegories, deep myths of eternal truth, and chancery litigation. Yet more to the and the manifold embodying of abstract at- purpose, for it tends to his deeper knowtributes. For example, let him look for a ledge of mankind, man's noblest study, he minute on these few reverses of the Roman sees the medal pictured in all faithfulness large brass, he sees Valor standing fully with many ancient customs, as sacrifices, armed, Honor robed and chapleted, triumphs, congiaries, allocutions, decurHappiness crowned with obliviscent pop- sions, lectisterniums, consecrations, hopies, Concord with extended hand, and mages, and other antiquated names and the horn of plenty in her bosom,-Hope ceremonies, that we should not have had so tripping lightly, and smiling on a flower- just a notion of, were they not still prebud,-Peace offering the olive-branch, served on coins.' So, from learning ancient Fortune resting on a rudder,- Military manners, he learns man, even down to this Faith stretching forth his consecrated our day and not less, in the flattering standard, Abundance emptying her cor- titles showered upon tyrants, who, being nucopia, Security leaning on a column, such as Nero, Domitian, or Caracalla, are Modesty veiled and sitting,-Piety taking her gift to the altar,-Fruitfulness in the midst of her nurslings,-Equity adjusting her scales, Victory with wings and coronal and trumpet, Eternity holding the globe and risen Phenix, or, better, seated on a starry sphere,-Liberty with cap and staff,-National Prosperity sailing as a good ship before the favoring gale, and Public Faith (look to this, Columbia!) with joined hands clasping between them the palms of success and the caduceus of health.

These, and such as these, unillumined eyes might only deem fit for some old Prætorian to have therewith paid his tavern reckoning, or at best for some curious modern to use as markers at his whist: to the enlightened they are replete with classical interest, heraldic device, geographical knowledge, evidences of early civilization, and curious objects both of nature and of

sure to go forth severally dubbed 'pius, felix, augustus,' and 'the father of his country,' or, in the lying epithets of warlike triumph applied to effeminate cowards, who, being such as Commodus and Caligula, unblushingly take the names of Dacian, or German, or Britannic conqueror, he may trace the sycophancy of men in all ages to their worst and unworthiest oppressors; nay, he may find Greece, the Roman's slave, fawning in the depths of her degradation on an emperor as her 'god' supreme, on a senate as 'the conclave of divinities.' Moreover, he can study the physiognomy, or, if he be so minded, even the more dubious phrenology, of magnates and leaders and liberators, and others the giants of old time-may speculate on their seeming dispositions, and compare the characters which history has given them with the lineaments of their acknowledged likeness; lineaments