music, or art in the house; he is fed well, lodged uncomfortably, and, in the SouthWest, generally in beds full of vermin; he is lighted to bed by the planter himself, who acts as candle-stick to the dip-candle which he carries, without any holder, in his hand; finds his horse very indifferently attended to, and is charged five shillings when he leaves the next morning. Here is his evidence as to the Cotton States :

Virginia and the Border States who have a where he is received at all, his reception is good deal of property either in rich cotton- the same; he is accepted sullenly, as a necestates "down South," or in Northern securi-essary evil; he finds no trace of literature, ties, and who are content to spend their incomes so acquired on their Virginian estates, just as an English gentleman farmer spends instead of gains on his hobby of farming. "This exceptional condition, then, it is obvious on the face of things, is maintained at an enormous expense, not only of money, but of nerve, time, temper, if not of humanity, or the world's judgment of humanity. There is much inherited wealth, a cotton plantation or two in Mississippi, and a few slips of paper in a broker's office in Wall Street, that account for the comfort of this Virginia farmer, as with something of the pride which apes humility, he likes to style himself. And after all, he has no road on which he can drive his fine horses; his physician supposes the use of chloric ether as an anæsthetic agent, to be a novel and interesting subject of after-dinner eloquence; he has no church within twenty miles, but one of logs, attendance on which is sure to bring on attack of neuralgia with his wife, and where only an ignorant ranter of a different faith from his own preaches at irregular intervals; there is no school which he is willing that his children should attend; his daily papers come weekly, and he sees no book except such as he has especially ordered from Norton or Stevens. This being the exception, how is it with the community as a whole ? As a whole, the community make shift to live, some part tolerably, the most part wretchedly enough, with arrangements such as one might expect to find in a country in stress of war. Nothing which can be postponed or overlooked, without immediate serious inconvenience, gets attended to. One soon neglects to inquire why this is not done or that; the answer is so certain to be that there is no proper person to be got to do it without more trouble-or expense-than it is thought to be worth."

The social condition in which Mr. Olmsted found almost all the planters of the Southwest, and most of those of Virginia and the Carolinas, is given with great and telling detail. Sometimes it was the result of real poverty, sometimes only of the vulgar meanness of the class of planters who have risen out of the condition of agents or managers. But both in the Border States and in the Cotton States, Mr. Olmsted's traditional impressions of the refinement and hospitality of the patriarchal state received rude and repeated shocks. In almost every house

"Nine times out of ten, at least, I slept in a room with others, in a bed which stank, supplied with but one sheet, if with any; Í washed with utensils common to the whole household; I found no garden, no flowers, no fruit, no tea, no cream, no sugar, no bread (for corn pone-let me assert in parenthesis, though possibly, as tastes differ, a very good thing of its kind for ostriches-is not bread; neither does even flour, salt, fat, and water, stirred together and warmed, constitute bread); no curtains, no lifting windows (three times out of four absolutely no windows), no couch-if one reclined in the family room it was on the bare floor-for there were no carpets or mats. For all that the house swarmed with vermin. There was no hay, no straw, no oats (but mouldy corn and leaves of maize), no discretion, no care, no honesty, at the ; there was no stable, but a log-pen; and besides this, there was no other out-house but a smoke-house, a corn-house, and a range of nigger houses.

"From the banks of the Mississippi to the banks of James, I did not (that I remember) see, except perhaps in one or two towns, a thermometer, nor a book of Shakspeare, nor a pianoforte, or a sheet of music; nor the light of a carcel or other good centre-table or reading-lamp, nor an engraving or copy of any kind, of a work of art of the slightest

merit."

In addition to this he is generally struck by the moral degradation which free intercourse with the slave cabins ensures for the growing boys or girls of the planter, so much so that he finds all respectable parents are obliged to send them at an early age to the North to be educated, to avoid the brutalizing and impure influences to which they are otherwise exposed.

The reasons why slave labor is so costly as to be remunerative only under the special cotton monopoly, are also illustrated in minute and graphic details. In the first place,

slave labor is not only very ignorant and whites to undertake such work, and then, shiftless, but the least danger of its becom- when pressed further with the inquiry, ing otherwise is met with eagerly repressive" Why not send North and get some of our measures. Mr. Olmsted quotes several ob- laborers?" by the direct admission, “ Well, servations on the part of the slave-owners the truth is, I have been used to driving nigto the effect that it did not do for the slaves gers, and I don't think I could drive white to be equal to "taking care of themselves," men. I should not know how to manage and in one place he adds: "I begin to sus- them." The plea is, no doubt, perfectly pect that the great trouble and anxiety of sound. The habit of employing slave labor Southern gentlemen is, how, without quite incapacitates the master for the kind of sudestroying the capabilities of the negro for perintendence which alone would tell upon any work at all, to prevent him from learn- freemen-the authority without arbitrariness, ing to take care of himself." Another source the firmness without menace, the cheerful of failure in slave labor is the strong motive kindness without familiarity, which they have for idleness, and therefore for exaggerating unlearnt in" driving" slaves. or feigning illness. An amusing illustration of this is given :

We have dwelt chiefly on the fruits of the system to the white population of the Slave States, and shown that it pauperizes, as well as vulgarizes and brutalizes them. We might easily extend this demonstration to a length far beyond the limits of any newspaper article, but, in conclusion, let us extract Mr. Olmsted's deliberate and reluctant conclusion as to the influence exerted on the slaves themselves by their contact with the white race. He had, he says, always believed and argued that it was to some considerable extent, a discipline of value :

"Frequently the invalid slaves neglect or refuse to use the remedies prescribed for their recovery. They conceal pills, for instance, under their tongue, and declare that they have swallowed them, when, from their producing no effect, it will be afterwards evident that they have not. This general custom I heard ascribed to habit, acquired when they were not very ill, and were loth to be made quite well enough to have to go to work again. Amusing incidents, illustrating this difficulty, I have heard narrated, showing that the slave rather enjoys getting a "The benefit of the African which is supsevere wound that lays him up: he has his hand crushed by the fall of a piece of tim-posed to be incidental to American slavery, ber, and after the pain is alleviated, is heard is confessedly proportionate to the degree in to exclaim, Bless der Lord-der haan which he is forced into intercourse with a b'long to masser-don't reckon dis chile got no more corn to hoe dis yaar, nohow.'"

But the worst cases of indolence and demoralization of this sort are those in which the slave belongs to one man and is hired by another. Here, the power over him being divided, and his owner not suffering the loss of any indisposition or idleness on the part of the slave, the cases of such feigned illness are innumerable.

ple. Before I visited the South, I had besuperior race and made subject to its examlieved that the advantages accruing from slavery, in this way, far outweighed the occasional cruelties, and other evils incidental tal and moral condition of the negroes, even to the system. I found, however, the menin Virginia, and in those towns and districts containing the largest proportion of whites, much lower than I had anticipated; and as soon as I had an opportunity to examine one of the extensive plantations of the interior, It seems at first sight strange that slave although one inherited by its owner, and the labor being so costly and inefficient, there home of a large and virtuous white family, I was satisfied that the advantages arising to should not, in the Border States at least, be the blacks from association with their white a strong disposition to employ free labor as masters were very inconsiderable, scarcely largely as possible in order to supersede it. appreciable, for the great majority of the field But one of the great vices of the system is hands. Even the overseer had barely acthat while it makes the poorer whites unwill-quaintance enough with the slaves, individuing to do anything for which a slave is usually, to call them by name; the owner could ally employed, it also makes the master most reluctant to employ such aid. The masters answered Mr. Olmsted's inquiries on this head first by stating the reluctance of the

his own chattels, or whether it was another not determine if he were addressing one of man's property, he said, when by chance he came upon a negro off the work. Much less did the slaves have an opportunity to culti

vate their minds by intercourse with other Nor is this a mere opinion. The detailed white people. Whatever of civilization, and evidence of the book supports it in full, as of the forms, customs, and shibboleths of indeed it does almost every opinion which Christianity, they were acquiring by exam- Mr. Olmsted advances on this painful subple, and through police restraints, might, it occurred to me, after all, but poorly comject. We know of no book in which signifipensate the effect of the systematic with- cant but complex social facts are so fairly, drawal from them of all the usual influences minutely, and intelligently photographed— which tend to nourish the moral nature and in which there is so great intrinsic evidence develop the intellectual faculties, in savages of impartiality-in which all the evidence as well as in civilized free men. This doubt, given is at once so minute and so essential, as my Northern friends well know, for I had and the inferences deduced so practical, habitually assumed the opposite, in all pre-broad, and impressive.

vious discussions of the slavery question,

was unexpected and painful to me.'

coast could be illuminated with sunlike brilliancy, and with absolutely no expenditure of fuel; the very same mechanical power of the ocean, which in its brute force would dash the helpless vessel to pieces against the rocks, being bound and coerced like the genii in Eastern tales, and transformed by man's intellect into a lumi nous beacon to warn the mariner against the approach of danger.-London Weekly Review.

THE FALL OF THE APPLE. The Manchester folks are buying up all the apples, so that we are threatened with a cider famine. It

seems

SITTING by the sea-shore a few days since, we | tle exercise of ingenuity, every lighthouse on the could not help noticing the vast reservoir of mechanical power existing in the ocean. We do not refer to the noisy dash of the waves as they break upon the beach, but to the infinitely mightier, although silent and progressive, energy exerted in the gradual rise and fall of the tides. Compared with the stupendous power capable of being utilized for man's benefit, and present in the rise or fall of millions upon millions of tons of water through a space of ten or twenty feet four times a day, all the steam, water, or wind power in the world, together with the united muscular force of every living being, human and animal, sink into utter insignificance. We will try to form some idea of this power. Let us suppose that by the action of the tides the difference of level of the surface of the ocean at a certain spot is twenty-one feet between high and low water: omitting for the present all consideration of the power of the subjacent liquid, what is the mechanical value of a space of 100 yards square of this water? 100 yards square by 21 feet deep equals 70,000 cubic yards of water, which is lifted to a height of 21 feet, or to This is not the first time in the history of the 1,470,000 cubic yards lifted to a height of one world that the apple has been the fruit of misfoot. Now, since one cubic yard of water weighs chief or discord, or that a question of momenabout 1,683 pounds, 1,470,000 cubic yards weigh tous gravity has turned upon its fall. How2,474,010,000 pounds, which is lifted in six ever, we are very sorry, for apple juices are hours. This is equivalent to lifting a weight of good for something more than what is drily 412,335,000 foot pounds in one hour; and since stated in the above paragraph; for do they not one horse-power is considered equivalent to rais-in warm weather supply, also, a "de-cidering 1,800,000 foot pounds per hour, we have locked up in every 100 yards square of sea surface, a power equal to a 230 horse-power steamengine, acting, be it remembered, day and night to the end of time, requiring no supervision, and costing nothing after the first outlay but the wear and tear of machinery.

"That the Manchester calico-dyers and printers have discovered that apple juices supply a desideratum long wanted in making fast colors for their printed cottons."

atum" in quenching a pedestrian's thirst? Since they are to be used for the future only for printing, we suppose we shall find their taste and quality principally displayed in Gros-de-Napples !-Punch."

By means of appropriate machinery connected with this tidal movement, any kind of work MR. MURRAY has in the press, among other could be readily performed. Water could be novelties for the coming season, "The Story of hoisted or air compressed to any desired extent, Lord Bacon's Life," in which all the known 60 as to accumulate power for future use, or for materials for an estimate of the Great Philosotransport to distant stations. Light of surpass-pher will be brought together, and an answer ing splendor could be generated by means of will be made by way of narrative-to the mismagneto-electric machines; and with a very lit-representations of the critics of his career.

From The Athenæum.

Egyptian Hieroglyphics; being an Attempt to explain their Nature, Origin, and Meaning. With a Vocabulary. By Samuel Sharpe. Moxon & Co.

of hieroglyphic writing there seems to have been greater simplicity; and Mr. Sharpe observes, that the great kings who ruled in Thebes when Egypt was in its purest state used only three or four characters within the first oval, and, perhaps, six within the second; whilst for the Ptolemies, in the age of decadence, as many as thirty characters were crowded within the oval ring :—

THIS work, by the accomplished historian of Egypt, gives a further proof of the depth of his researches, and of the extent of the materials within his grasp. Uninviting as sheets of hieroglyphics are found to be by the general mass of readers, this little vol-lished which were certainly sculptured before "Although several inscriptions are pubume will do much, by its clearness and sim- the time of Moses, yet all of them contain plicity, to remove all objections, and to cre- many words spelt with letters; none of them ate an interest where none existed before. are sufficiently ancient to show the original Mr. Sharpe's Vocabulary consists of upwards introduction of letters among the symbols. of two thousand groups of hieroglyphic signs, But, as none of them contain any peculiarietc., forming phrases, and arranged, not ac- ties which would lead us to suppose that they cording to any alphabetical system or classi- were among the first specimens of carved fication of the objects represented, but ac- research may throw light upon this interesthieroglyphics, it seems probable that future cording to the resemblance of their mean- ing subject, by making us acquainted with ings, so as to form a regular succession of inscriptions of a more primitive form. It is ideas. The book is, therefore, hardly avail- not impossible that we may find inscriptions able as a dictionary, but it becomes espe- in which we may perceive the absence of letcially valuable as showing the consistency ters felt as a want, and the mode in which with which the ancient Egyptians employed inscriptions, however, the number of words that want was first supplied. In the later certain figures for particular ideas, and re-written by means of letters certainly intained them through their various modifications. The names of the gods are placed first, then the temples, priests, service, etc.; then kings, kingdoms, countries, time, astronomy, calendar, and so on. In each instance a special authority is cited, so as to refer the reader at once either to the Rosetta Stone, Tablet of Abydos, or to some particular and published inscription, by which he may satisfy himself or pursue the subject still further. Nothing can be fairer. The introduction, which occupies a consid-sis on Homer's Iliad,' has saved for us a "Tzetzes the grammarian, in his 'Exegeerable portion of the book, contains a full fragment from the lost work of Chæremon but concise history of our acquaintance with on hieroglyphics. It is too valuable to be hieroglyphics, of the value of the various statements transmitted to us by the Greek and Latin authors, ana, finally, gives us a lucid account of the peculiarities of the old Egyptian system of writing.

Even in the outset Mr. Sharpe's observations on the alphabet, although very simple, have a peculiar interest. We learn that, in almost all cases, the reader of Egyptian letters, in following the order of the words, meets the faces of the animals and the points and openings of the other letters. In the Hebrew, Greek, Arabic, and even in our own printed alphabet, the reader follows the backs of the letters. In the earlier stages

creased, as also the number of letters used to form a word; and, indeed, the number of letters, and the complexity of the words, may at all times be admitted as strong evidence in proof of the modernness of an inscrip

tion."

In proceeding to the evidence borne by the Greeks and Romans upon the signification of Egyptian hieroglyphics, Mr. Sharpe gives us the following quotation :—

omitted. Some of his explanations confirm those given in the Vocabulary. . . . The words of Tzetzes are as follows: ... 'For joy they paint a woman playing on a drum, and for misfortune, an eye weeping; for not rising, a snake coming out of a hole; for having, two empty hands outstretched; for setting, the same going in; for return to life, a frog; for the soul, a hawk; the same for the sun, and for God; for a child-bearing woman and mother, and time, and heaven, a vulture; for a king, a bee; for birth, and self-born, and male, a beetle; for the earth,

a

cording to them all government and guard; bull. The foreparts of a lion signify aca lion's tail, necessity; a stag, the year, and a palm-branch the same; a boy signifies in

crease; an old man, decay; a bow, sharp force; and there are a thousand other such.""

The work entitled "The Hieroglyphics of Horapollo Nilous," professedly translated from the Coptic into Greek, by one Philip, is next commented upon at considerable length :

have derived the name phoenix, dovi a palmtree, for their fabled bird.

Nor should the following be omitted:"Chap. 32. When they would represent delight,' they write the number sixteen. Note. We have a coin of Hadrian, with the figures Sixteen over a reclining figure of a river god, to denote that sixteen cubits was the height of rise in the Nile at all times

wished for. We have other coins on which

the river god is surrounded by sixteen little naked children or Cupids; and it would almost seem that the Alexandrian artist had, in this case, had in his mind the similarity in sound, in the Latin language, between Cupids and cubits."

"Out of the one hundred and eighty-nine groups which Horapollo undertakes to explain, it would be difficult to point out forty in which he has a knowledge of the true meaning; and in most of these he is remarkably mistaken in the reasons which he assigns for the meaning. He is not aware that the characters represent sounds, but supposes them all to be figurative or alleThere is, also, a very interesting table of gorical. We are told by Suidas that Horapollo was a grammarian of the reign of The hieroglyphic letters, showing, in the first inodosius, who, after teaching for some time stance, those which had been borrowed by in the schools of Alexandria, removed to the Hebrews, and, secondly, those adopted Constantinople; but we may fairly doubt by the Greeks. The Egyptian letter T, repwhether our author is the person he is speak-resented by a hand, called Teth, is clearly ing of." imitated in the Hebrew, where the thumb Mr. Sharpe, however, by his quotations and bent fingers are still traceable. The Hefrom the author, and by the illustrations brew Aleph, &, and the Greek A are also dewhich he himself adduces from the well-rived from the Egyptian eagle. The Greek known and genuine monuments of Egypt, shows that Horapollo was not altogether misinformed; and we feel a regret that, in a review like the present, it would not be consistent to follow him more minutely. The following examples of his quotations and notes may suffice:

"Chap 56. When they wish to signify a king that governs absolutely, and shows no mercy to faults, they draw an eagle. Note. The eagle and globe is the usual title of a king. The eagle is an A, the globe is Ra, making the word king; and, with article prefixed, the well-known word Pharaoh. Chap. 57. When they wish to signify a great cyclical renovation, they draw the bird phoenix."

Mr. Sharpe in his note upon this refers to a coin of the Emperor Antonius with the word AION, an age or period, written over an ibis. This marks the conclusion of a great year, on which occasion the ibis or phoenix was said to return to earth. In hieroglyphics, a palm-branch is the word 66 year; "and from this the Greeks seem to

Delta, ▲, is only a simplification of the Egyptian symbol of the human shoulder with two arms raised to a point; and the Hebrew k,, is derived from the human arms raised vertically in the Egyptian, but modified, by being turned on end, by the Hebrews. The Egyptian headdress becomes the letter N both with the Hebrews and Greeks, and the letter S, in like manner, grows in both languages from a peculiar form adopted in the hieroglyphics. It is entertaining enough to follow out these various changes and adoptions, but without the types and hieroglyphics themselves no adequate idea can be given. On glancing down the columns of these symbolic figures, given in the plates, and finding how thoroughly particular forms and objects are thus classified and kept together, we feel that the author has really adopted the best possible system both for reference and for general reading; and we must, in conclusion, express our admiration at the very clear and characteristic manner in which the illustrations have been drawn.