2000 acres of vineyards in the neighbourhood of Cincinnati alone; and Ohio now produces yearly 500,000 gallons of wine. The most esteemed grapes are the Catawba and Isabella.-The Academy at Paris offer a prize for an essay on 'Experimental Determination of the Influence exerted by Insects on the Production of Diseases in Plants.' It is wanted for the year 1860.-The zetout eaten by the Arabs in Algeria, is found to be the bulb of Iris juncea, and fifty times more nutritious than the potato. The Société d'Acclimation have introduced it into France, and are trying to cultivate it to a larger size than it arrives at in African soil. The council of the Royal Agricultural Society state in their Report just published that their last year's exhibition at Salisbury was one of the most remarkable assemblages of live-stock ever held in this country.' Chester is to be the place of meeting this year, and it will be characterised by the distribution of a considerable number of local prizes; among which are sums from L.1 to L.10 for dairymaids and cheese-makers. The Society's Journal contains a continuation of Mr Henfrey's paper on Vegetable Physiology, and a report by Professor Simmonds on the Steppe murrain, or Rinderpest—the cattle disease which has for some time past been much dreaded by farmers and graziers. The author suggests an origin in the plague of cattle in Egypt, mentions the murrain of which nearly all the cattle in Charlemagne's dominions died in 810, treats of the symptoms and effects of the disease, and of the precautions to be taken to prevent its importation; and concludes by saying, that 'no definite plan of treatment can be laid down, except it is that of supporting the fleeting vital powers while nature is attempting to rid the system of the poison, and then endeavouring to counteract the ill effects which ensue.'

Dr Stark's address to the Meteorological Society of Scotland bears encouraging testimony to the progress of the science of the weather north of the Tweed. The doctor believes that our prevalent winds have much more to do with the temperature of the island than the Gulf Stream has; he traces the phenomena of atmospheric waves, and discovers the storm period which is one part of their manifestations, from November to March inclusive. Storms, as experience shews, may be looked for about the 20th of November; storms again in February; for the other months, the data are not yet fully made out. He recommends that a barometer should be set up at every fishing-port, under charge of one person competent to note its indications, and advise fishermen accordingly. A fall always tells the passing or approach of the hollow of the atmospheric wave; and it is the hollow, and not the crest, which brings storm and tempest. He touches, too, on the theory of storms, and with a practical application to the seas around our own coasts, and to the Atlantic; we quote the passage for its obvious utility: As our winterstorms,' says the doctor, 'seem to be chiefly dependent on an atmospheric wave stretching in a line from north-east to south-west, and moving with very great velocity from the north-west to the south-east, all our great winter-storms will come in the direction of the line of that wave-that is, either from the southwest or north-east. If the mariner, therefore, with a falling barometer, finds the wind setting in from the south-east, and as it increases in strength, veering towards the south, he may expect the storm to burst over him from south-west. If, on the other hand, with the falling barometer, the wind sets in from the south east, and as it increases in strength, veers towards the east, then he may expect the storm to burst on him from the north-east. In both cases, therefore, he will be brought most speedily out of the storm if he put the head of the ship to the north-west. In every other direction he would only be driving before the storm.'

MY FRIEND.

My Friend has a cheerful smile of his own,
And a musical tongue has he,

We sit and look in each other's face
And are very good company.
A heart he has, full warm and red
As ever a heart I see;

And as long as I keep true to him,
Why, he'll keep true to me.

When the wind blows high, and the snow falls fast,
And the wassailers jest and roar,

My Friend and I, with a right good-will,
We bolt the chamber door:

I smile at him and he smiles at me
In a dreamy calm profound,

Till his heart leaps up in the midst of him
With a comfortable sound.

His warm breath kisses my thin gray hair,
And reddens my ashen cheeks;
He knows me better than you all know,
Though never a word he speaks;
Knows me as well as some had known,
Were things-not as they be :

But hey, what matters? My Friend and I
Are capital company.

At dead of night when the house is still,
He opens his pictures fair,
Faces that are-that used to be-

And faces that never were.

My wife sits sewing beside the hearth
My little ones frolic wild:

Though-Lillian's wedded these twenty year,
And I never had a child.

But hey, what matters? when they who laugh
May weep to-morrow: and they
Who weep be as those that wept not-all
Their tears so long wiped away.
Let us burn out, like you, my Friend,
With a bright warm heart and bold,
That flickers up to the last, then drops
Into quiet ashes cold.

And when you flicker on me, my Friend,
In the old man's elbow-chair,
Or-in something quieter still, where we
Lie down, to arise all fair,

And young, and happy-why then, my Friend,
If other friends ask for me,
Tell them, I lived, and loved, and died
In the best of all company!

UNNATURAL DEATHS IN ENGLAND.

The registrar-general, in his last quarterly return, shews that the mortality for all England and Wales is 22 in the thousand, while in 64 districts throughout the country in which the sanitary conditions are the least unfavourable, it is only 17 in the thousand. Without affirming, on physiological grounds, that man was created to live a destined number of years, or to go through a series of changes which are only completed in eighty, ninety, or a hundred years, experience furnishes us with a standard which can only be said to be too high. 17 in 1000 is supplied as a standard by experience. Here we stand upon the actual. Any deaths in a people exceeding 17 in 1000 annually are unnatural deaths. If the people were shot, drowned, burned, poisoned by strychnine, their deaths would not be more unnatural than the deaths wrought clandestinely by disease in excess of the quota of natural death-that is, in excess of seventeen deaths in 1000 living. By this calculation, it would seem that the number of unnatural deaths last year was 96,520.

Printed and Published by W. & R. CHAMBERS, 47 Paternoster Row, LONDON, and 339 High Street, EDINBURGH. Also sold by WILLIAM ROBERTSON, 23 Upper Sackville Street, DUBLIN, and all Booksellers.

ON SQUINTING AS ONE OF THE ARTS. OCCASIONALLY in the world's history arts have been lost. Thanks, however, to man's ingenuity, their number is, on the whole, upon the increase. Sometimes they spring up in a night, invented and patented before morning; sometimes they have a long struggle for existence, but win it in the end. Perhaps the most interesting cases are those where despised merit at length makes good its claim, asserting itself until the Society of Arts is forced to open its ranks for a new member. It seems to us that the claims of squinting, to be considered as such, have never as yet been recognised nor even examined. At the best, it has never taken higher rank than as an accomplishment, giving a very limited pleasure to very few, and utterly barren of other results. Certain new ideas, however, have at length brought it into repute, and made it prominent in society as an intellectual relaxation. Not only so, but the power of judicious squinting-a power susceptible of a high degree of cultivation has become, in the eyes (how we miss the usual phrase, ‘in the hands!') of the philosopher, a valuable instrument of scientific investigation.

These are not paradoxes, but simple matters of fact. If we were not continually being reminded, by the history of science, that the simplest secrets are the last to be discovered, it would astonish us to reflect for how long a time men lived in ignorance of the advantage of having two eyes. They would realise, of course, under the contingency of losing one, the convenience of having the other to fall back upon; but not until the second quarter of this century was it clearly seen what other specific purpose was served by a double organisation; or in what respect, except that of beauty, which is after all conventional, the perfect man was superior to the Cyclop. The history of this discovery is wonderfully interesting. It may thus be shortly written: A few ingenious gentlemen squinted thoughtfully and knowingly for a few evenings, and the problem was set at rest. Science was satisfied, but the art of squinting had yet to be popularised. Science, out of gratitude, lent her aid, and invented a stereoscope; thus making a repetition of the original experiment, to which she was so much indebted, to become a charming recreation for all, and teaching, amongst other things beautiful and instructive, how much is gained by the power of judiciously converging our optic axes.

When a one-eyed man looks, as we have seen one look, into a stereoscope, and declares the effect to be wonderful, we feel for him; but delicacy forbids us to expound to him that he has missed the purpose

PRICE 1d.

of the instrument, nor can ever see its true wonders. When a lady, on the other hand, naïvely declares that the effect is to her improved by closing one eye, we see that she is one who is not living up to her privileges, and proceed gently to shew her that she is sacrificing one of her most important optical advantages. 'Madam,' we say, 'you cannot squint with one eye; and this little instrument was invented simply to assist you to squint-nothing more.' Having startled her to attention, we explain to her that with one eye she was simply looking at a photograph slightly magnified, the objects in which were rendered apparently solid only by the distribution of light and shade, as in an ordinary picture; but that there are two pictures on the slide, which are dissimilar, and that both of these must be seen together, before any real solidity is given. That the lenses do combine these dissimilar pictures into one, is perhaps most simply shewn by covering them over alternately with a piece of white paper on which cross-lines have been drawn; the cross is then seen, on looking into the instrument, to be lying upon the uncovered picture. 'You see then, madam, that one must be placed on the other.' She evidently thinks it in a double sense an imposition.

However, our present purpose is not with the stereoscope, except in so far as it is an appliance which enables thousands daily, without their knowing it, to practise an art whose claims we happen now to be taking under our especial patronage. Squinting, in fact, opens a new source of pleasure, and puts us in possession of a new power absolutely unattainable by any other process. It was invented long since, this art of seeing double; but probably, from being known to be a power often developed under discreditable circumstances, and obtained, it would seem, only in exchange for other more valuable faculties, it has fallen into disrepute, and is rarely practised in sober society. Now, however, that in these our times its practice has become with artificial aid an almost universal recreation, its advocacy can be open to no suspicion.

We are familiar, and men have long been so, with the idea of machinery superseding manual labour; but few realise the fact, that the purpose of an optical instrument can be to save muscular exertion; and yet we may reasonably enough imagine what would have been the consequences of the non-invention of the stereoscope. The wonderful results brought to light by squinting would for a time have remained known only to the philosophers. Those few who could appreciate the scientific import of those experiments, to which we have before made reference, would

have repeated them with their proper eyes, and communicated the results to one another. Soon, however, the general world would have caught up the interest; a mania would have set in, and the optic muscles of society at large would have had a hard time of it. Fortunately, a philosopher appeared as a Deus cum machina, and saved them; so that now those who want only to enjoy the results, and are content to wonder, are spared the necessity of subjecting their optic axes to a tedious drill.

In this case there is a royal road, cheap and expeditious enough. But it is, as it were, a railway cut through a tunnel and between close embankments, and those who travel by it see nothing by the way; so that, for so short a distance, we advise those who like exercise and roadside interest, to walk it.

It was announced, at the time of the first introduction of the stereoscope, that the same results might be produced without the instrument as with it, by the simple convergence of the eyes to a point in front of and between the two diagrams. There were few, however, who tried the experiment with success, and fewer still who arrived at any conclusion as to how the appearance of solidity was produced by these means. Squinting, in fact, with precision is a difficult matter. With most persons, the attempt to bring the eyes to a point at a distance of eight inches in front of the nose, would probably be not attended with immediate success; and to bring that point back or throw it forward an inch at the word of command would require some practice. The fingers, however, must learn to measure on the violin lengths which are calculable with mathematical nicety, before the right note can be sounded; and so, all the other arts presuppose the exercise of a certain amount of mechanical dexterity. If any possess, or have eighteenpence to spare upon, the well-known stereoscopic slides which consist of mathematical figures in white lines on a black ground, let him endeavour as hereunder written. Holding one about a foot from him, and directly in front, let him place the point of a pencil in the centre between the two diagrams, and then move it gradually towards his eyes, steadily looking at it. At first, the two diagrams will be seen as four, for no single object appears single to us unless we are looking directly at it, as may be verified by holding a printed page about half a foot behind a candle and trying to read it through the flame, when the flame will be seen double. As the pencil, however, approaches, a point will soon be reached when the four diagrams will have become three, the two middle ones approaching one another, and at last coalescing. Here stop, and looking still at the pencil, suddenly withdraw it, and leave the eyes fixed upon the point where it was. A stereoscopic image is now visible to those who will take a little trouble to see it. Not the same, however, as the same slide will give through the stereoscope, but that reversed. Sixteen out of the twenty-five which form the set are reversible without distortion; the others are simply thrown into Chinese perspective. As we are concerned only to view the middle one, the outside diagrams of the three are in our way; can we not get rid of them? The triple appearance is simply accounted for: the right eye looking at the left-hand picture still sees the other one-just as, though looking at one candle, we still are conscious of another, if it happens to be near it-and the left eye, again, though it is looking across at the other picture, still sees out of its corner that which is immediately in front of it. To shut the obtrusive images out, all that is wanted is a card with a hole in it about an inch square: this held with the middle point of the hole where the pencil was before it was withdrawn, will let the stereoscopic image through, and stop the two others.

A small cardboard box about the size and shape of an ordinary stereoscope, with such a screen as we have described fixed permanently in it at the proper distance-which may readily be found by experiment and two holes at the top for the eyes, will, we may promise our readers, fully repay the small investment of ingenuity and trouble required for its construction. If across the aperture of the screen a thread is stretched with a small knot in the centre, it will generally direct the eyes even of the uninitiated squinter at once to the precise point at which the stereoscopic effect starts into view. We have thus not only put ourselves out of all obligation to lenses, but we have obtained a most curious and interesting result. The solid image we now see differs, as we have said, from that which the same diagrams produce for us when looked at through the ordinary stereoscope. It seems nearer to the eyes, and smaller than before, and is, besides, reversed, concavities having become convex, a raised pyramid shewing like a hollow box, and a railway tunnel being turned inside out, as one might serve a stocking. Does any one ask the reason, he is in a fit state to receive further instruction. Perchance, friend, thou knowest not the distinction between fore and aft squinting. The former of these mysteries of the art we have already descanted upon; the latter, though not generally open to neophytes, we are not unwilling to divulge.

There are, we imagine, few persons who can readily converge their eyes to a point further from them than two objects, as two candles, so as to see an image of a third candle between them. It is not, however, by any means an unattainable feat. The first condition of success is that the two objects be nearer together than the two eyes. The ordinary stereoscopic slides are unfit for the purpose of these further experiments, corresponding points upon them being not closer to one another than two inches and a half. Some of those geometrical diagrams which we have mentioned are, however, so simple that they may readily be drawn to a diminished scale. With a pair so drawn, the attempt may be made. A hint to success may be furnished from these considerations. We shall want, as before, to banish the two side-images; but as the eyes are now not to cross in front of the diagrams, the left-hand diagram must be concealed from the right eye, and conversely, so that the eyes may look straight forward at the pictures in front of them respectively. To do this at once will therefore simplify the problem. Place the two diagrams nearly close together upon the table; hold a card vertically as a wall of partition between them, so that the eyes may look each down a different side of the card. Soon a single picture will be seen, or rather, we should say, a solid image produced by the combination of the two pictures. This image will be the same as is produced in the ordinary stereoscope by the same diagrams placed in the same way: so that, if we construct a small box with a vertical wall of partition permanently fixed in it, we have a home-made stereoscope without lenses; its only imperfection being that it is not adapted for viewing pictures of the size of those with which photography now so abundantly supplies us. These may be used with the box we first described, and since that will reverse them, strange and highly curious results will sometimes be produced. The foreground of a landscape, for instance, may retire into the distance, and the objects in the background come forward, while a street may be thrown into perspective that agrees better with Hogarth's caricature than with the rules of the Academy. If we cut a slide in two, however, and make the diagrams change sides, our first box will unite them into a true solid image, while a box of the construction last described would, if the distance between our eyes

Above, around, on every side, are evidences of the piety and liberality of the princely votaries to the shrine, whose offerings were pointed out with conscious pride by the young priest who had attached himself to our party. The figure of the Madonna and Child, rudely carved in cedar, and said to be the workmanship of St Luke, is absolutely covered with gems. The two heads are encircled with tiaras of immense value, and the black velvet in which the shapeless trunk of the image is enswathed, is scarcely discernible amid the ear-rings, necklaces, and chains of the most sparkling brilliants overlaying it. Each jewel, and candlestick, and lamp, has its donor and its history, all duly registered in printed catalogues annexed to the authenticated relation of the house and its mysterious flittings. This book sets forth how, in the year 1294, the Santa Casa, where the Virgin had meekly dwelt, and watched the childhood of her son, was first lifted from its foundations by angel hands, and borne from Palestine to Dalmatia. After a short interval, the same supernatural agency transported it across the Adriatic to a hill in the vicinity of Ancona; thence, after one or two brief haltings, it was finally conveyed to Loretto, where the speedy erection of a church over the precious deposit, attested the piety of the inhabitants, and secured them the continuance of its presence.

From that time the cottage of Nazareth went on increasing in fame and riches; miracles were wrought by its influence, and princes and pontiffs contended who should do it honour, until 1797, when the sun of its prosperity became clouded. The pitiless exactions of the French compelled Pius VI. to have recourse to the treasures of the Madonna di Loretto to meet his conquerors' demands; and in the following year, the fierce invaders captured the town, and sent the venerated image to Paris. It was restored, however, a few years afterwards, to the joy of all sincere adherents to the church, and was solemnly crowned by Pius VII. with those same diadems whose rainbow lustre dazzles the beholder.

at the poor wretch as we passed, and said in answer to my appealing glances: 'It is only a great penance; you may be sure she richly deserves it: there are many who come here in this way to expiate their sins;' and then walked on, leading the way to the treasury, as if the subject were too commonplace for further consideration.

The Sala del Tesoro is a magnificent hall richly painted in fresco, the ceiling representing the death of the Madonna, surrounded by the apostles, and the walls furnished with immense presses with glass-doors, in which are deposited the numerous and yearly increasing offerings to the shrine. Many of these are of great value, although of course not equalling the splendour of those displayed upon and around the image. Some evidence considerable eccentricity in the donors, such as the king of Saxony's wedding-suit, a full court costume of gold and silver brocade, estimated at I forget how many thousand crowns; others, again, are of a devotional type-silver statuettes of saints, crucifixes, and church vessels; but the majority of gifts comprise necklaces, gold chains, rings, brooches, watches, cups, flagons, silver hearts-contributions from every nation and every class—from the gemmed sevigné that lately sparkled in the saloons of the quartier St Germain, to the coral pendants a poor contadina has proffered in gratitude for last year's vintage.

At a moderate computation, the present collection would amply stock a score of jewellers' shops; nevertheless, as a gray-haired sacristan informed us with a sigh, it is not worthy to be named in the same breath with the glories of the ancient treasury.

Thence we were reconducted to the church, to see the mosaic pictures in the side-chapels, full-sized admirable copies of celebrated masters, and of course most valuable from the tedium and minuteness requisite in their execution. Besides these there are some originals by Guercino, and other celebrated artists, their subjects mostly referring to different passages in the life of the Virgin, as supplied by legends of the east, the writings of Dionysius the Areopagite, and other traditional sources. But of all the monuments of the piety or ostentation of the Roman pontiffs, who for centuries lavished large sums on the adornment of this edifice, nothing can compete with the marble casing that encloses the Santa Casa. This costly monument of the best times of Italian art,

The well-known story of a channel being worn on the pavement immediately surrounding the Holy House, by the knees of pilgrims, is not in the least exaggerated. There are two distinct furrows in the marble, traced there by the thousands who have yearly dragged themselves, in this attitude of devotion, for a given number of times around its walls. At the moment of our visit, several peasant-women were thus shuffling along, seemingly without much inconvenience, with the exception of one, whose attitude and appearance produced a painful impression on my mind. She was working her way round on her hands and knees, drawing as she went a line with her tongue upon the pavement. I know not how long she had been in that position, but it was horrible to view: her face was black and swollen; her eyes starting from their sockets; the veins on her forehead standing out like tight strained cords, and mingled blood and saliva flowing from her mouth. Our conductor looked unconcernedly

and in its execution the most eminent sculptors seem to have vied in leaving worthy memorials of their skill. Designed by Bramante-Sansovino, Bandinelli, Giovanni da Bologna, besides others scarcely less illustrious, were employed on the bass-reliefs, and those groups of prophets and sibyls, which in majestic beauty still rivet the admiration of the beholder. There is a figure of Jeremiah, by Sansovino, at the angle of the western façade, the sublime mournfulness of which haunts me even now.

We were still engaged in our survey, when we were joined by my cousins' friend the canonico, panting for breath, who had come to remind us of our engagement. Accordingly, we adjourned en masse to his habitation, situated in a very miserable narrow street, or rather lane; and climbing up a steep, dark, and indescribably dirty staircase, arrived at last at the ultimo piano, where the door was opened with many courtesies by a middleaged, demure-looking personage, introduced by the canonico as La Signora Placida, his niece and housekeeper.

The entrance-hall was in the usual style of dwellings of this description, with four carved-back settles or benches, some undistinguishable oil-paintings in frames that had once been gilded, a clothes-horse, a broom, and dust-pan-whose offices were mere sinecures, to judge by the appearance of the floor-and so on.