Part 2

Upon Saint Crispin's day, Fought was this noble fray, Which fame did not delay, To England to carry. O when shall English men, With such acts fill a pen, Or England breed againe Such a King Harry.

[5] A Collection of Poems of the Sixteenth Century.--Communicated by J.F., of Gray's Inn. We thank our Correspondent for the present, and shall be happy to receive further specimens from the same source.

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SPIRIT OF DISCOVERY

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AMERICAN IMPROVEMENTS.

[The very recent publication of the ninth volume of the Encyclopaedia Americana[6] enables us to lay before our readers the following interesting notices, connected with the national weal and internal economy of the United States of North America.]

_Navy_.--Since the late war, the growth and improvement of our navy has kept pace with our national prosperity. We could now put to sea, in a few mouths, with a dozen ships of the line; the most spacious, efficient, best, and most beautiful constructions that ever traversed the ocean. This is not merely an American conceit, but an admitted fact in Europe, where our models are studiously copied. In the United States, a maximum and uniform calibre of cannon has been lately determined on and adopted. Instead of the variety of length, form, and calibre still used in other navies, and almost equal to the Great Michael with her "bassils, mynards, hagters, culverings, flings, falcons, double dogs, and pestilent serpenters," our ships offer flush and uniform decks, sheers free from hills, hollows, and excrescences, and complete, unbroken batteries of thirty-two or forty-two pounders. Thus has been realized an important desideratum--the greatest possible power to do execution coupled with the greatest simplification of the means.

[6] Philadelphia, Carey and Lea, 1832.

But, while we have thus improved upon the hitherto practised means of naval warfare, we are threatened with a total change. This is by the introduction of bombs, discharged horizontally, instead of shot from common cannon. So certain are those who have turned their attention to this subject that the change must take place, that, in France, they are already speculating on the means of excluding these destructive missiles from a ship's sides, by casing them in a cuirass of iron. Nor are these ideas the mere offspring of idle speculation. Experiments have been tried on hulks, by bombs projected horizontally, with terrible effect. If the projectile lodged in a mast, in exploding it overturned it, with all its yards and rigging; if in the side, the ports were opened into each other; or, when near the water, an immense chasm was opened, causing the vessel to sink immediately. If it should not explode until it fell spent upon deck, besides doing the injury of an ordinary ball, it would then burst, scattering smoke, fire, and death, on every side. When this comes to pass, it would seem that the naval profession would cease to be very desirable. Nevertheless, experience has, in all ages, shown that, the more destructive are the engines used in war, and the more it is improved and systematized, the less is the loss of life. Salamis and Lepanto can either of them alone count many times the added victims of the Nile, Trafalgar, and Navarino.

One effect of the predicted change in naval war, it is said, will be the substitution of small vessels for the larger ones now in use. The three decker presents many times the surface of the schooner, while her superior number of cannon does not confer a commensurate advantage; for ten bombs, projected into the side of a ship, would be almost as efficacious to her destruction as a hundred. As forming part of a system of defence for our coast, the bomb-cannon, mounted on steamers, which can take their position at will, would be terribly formidable. With them--to say nothing of torpedoes and submarine navigation--we need never more be blockaded and annoyed as formerly. Hence peaceful nations will be most gainers by this change of system; but it is not enough that we should be capable of raising a blockade: we are a commercial people: our merchant ships visit every sea, and our men-of-war must follow and protect them there.

_Newspapers_.--No country has so many newspapers as the United States. The following table, arranged for the American Almanac of 1830, is corrected from the Traveller, and contains a statement of the number of newspapers published in the colonies at the commencement of the revolution; and also the number of newspapers and other periodical works, in the United States, in 1810 and 1828.

STATES. 1775. 1810. 1828. Maine 29 Massachusetts 7 32 78 New Hampshire 1 12 17 Vermont 14 21 Rhode Island 2 7 14 Connecticut 4 11 33 New York 4 66 161 New Jersey 8 22 Pennsylvania 9 71 185 Delaware 2 4 Maryland 2 21 37 District of Columbia 6 9 Virginia 2 23 34 North Carolina 2 10 20 South Carolina 3 10 16 Georgia 1 13 18 Florida 1 2 Alabama 10 Mississippi 4 6 Louisiana 10 9 Tennessee 6 8 Kentucky 17 23 Ohio 14 66 Indiana 17 Michigan 2 Illinois 4 Missouri 5 Arkansas 1 Cherokee Nation 1

Total 37 358 802

The present number, however, amounts to about a thousand. Thus the state of New York is mentioned in the table as having 161 newspapers; but a late publication states that there are 193, exclusive of religious journals. New York has 1,913,508 inhabitants. There are about 50 daily newspapers in the United States, two-thirds of which are considered to give a fair profit. The North American colonies, in the year 1720, had only seven newspapers: in 1810, the United States had 359; in 1826, they had 640; in 1830, 1,000, with a population of 13,000,000; so that they have more newspapers than the whole 190 millions of Europe.

In drawing a comparison between the newspapers of the three freest countries, France, England, and the United States, we find, as we have just said, those of the last country to be the most numerous, while some of the French papers have the largest subscription; and the whole establishment of a first-rate London paper is the most complete. Its activity is immense. When Canning sent British troops to Portugal, in 1826, we know that some papers sent reporters with the army. The zeal of the New York papers also deserves to be mentioned, which send out their news-boats, even fifty miles to sea, to board approaching vessels, and obtain the news that they bring. The papers of the large Atlantic cities are also remarkable for their detailed accounts of arrivals, and the particulars of shipping news, interesting to the commercial world, in which they are much more minute than the English. From the immense number of different papers in the United States, it results that the number of subscribers to each is limited, 2,000 being considered a respectable list. One paper, therefore, is not able to unite the talent of many able men, as is the case in France. There men of the first rank in literature or politics occasionally, or at regular periods, contribute articles. In the United States, few papers have more than one editor, who generally writes upon almost all subjects himself. This circumstance necessarily makes the papers less spirited and able than some of the foreign journals, but is attended with this advantage, that no particular set of men is enabled to exercise a predominant influence by means of these periodicals. Their abundance neutralizes their effects. Declamation and sophistry are made comparatively harmless by running in a thousand conflicting currents.

_Paper-making_.--The manufacture of paper has of late rapidly increased in the United States. According to an estimate in 1829, the whole quantity made in this country amounted to about five to seven millions a year, and employed from ten to eleven thousand persons. Rags are not imported from Italy and Germany to the same amount as formerly, because people here save them more carefully; and the value of the rags, junk, etc., saved annually in the United States, is believed to amount to two millions of dollars. Machines for making paper of any length are much employed in the United States. The quality of American paper has also improved; but, as paper becomes much better by keeping, it is difficult to have it of the best quality in this country, the interest of capital being too high. The paper used here for printing compares very disadvantageously with that of England. Much wrapping paper is now made of straw, and paper for tracing through is prepared in Germany from the poplar tree. A letter of Mr. Brand, formerly a civil officer in Upper Provence, in France (which contains many pine forests), dated Feb. 12, 1830, has been published in the French papers, containing an account of his successful experiments to make coarse paper of the pine tree. The experiments of others have led to the same results. Any of our readers, interested in this subject, can find Mr. Brand's letter in the _Courrier Francais_ of Nov. 27, 1830, a French paper published in New York. In salt-works near Hull, Massachusetts, in which the sea-water is made to flow slowly over sheds of pine, in order to evaporate, the writer found large quantities of a white substance--the fibres of the pine wood dissolved and carried off by the brine--which seemed to require nothing but glue to convert it into paper.

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THE NATURALIST

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THE CUTTLE-FISH

Is one of the most curious creatures of "the watery kingdom." It is popularly termed a fish, though it is, in fact, a worm, belonging to the order termed _Mollusca, (Molluscus_, soft,) from the body being of a pulpy substance and having no skeleton. It differs in many respects from other animals of its class, particularly with regard to its internal structure, the perfect formation of the viscera, eyes, and even organs of hearing. Moreover, "it has three hearts, two of which are placed at the root of the two branchiae (or gills); they receive the blood from the body, and propel it into the branchiae. The returning veins open into the middle heart, from which the aorta proceeds."[7] Of Cuttle-fish there are several species. That represented in the annexed Cut is the common or officinal Cuttle-fish, (_Sepia officinalis_, Lin). It consists of a soft, pulpy, body, with processes or arms, which are furnished with small holes or suckers, by means of which the animal fixes itself in the manner of cupping-glasses. These holes increase with the age of the animal; and in some species amount to upwards of one thousand. The arms are often torn or nipped off by shell or other fishes, but the animal has the power of speedily reproducing the limbs. By means of the suckers the Cuttle-fish usually affects its locomotion. "It swims at freedom in the bosom of the sea, moving by sudden and irregular jerks, the body being nearly in a perpendicular position, and the head directed downwards and backwards. Some species have a fleshy, muscular fin on each side, by aid of which they accomplish these apparently inconvenient motions; but, at least, an equal number of them are finless, and yet can swim with perhaps little less agility. Lamarck, indeed, denies this, and says that these can only trail themselves along the bottom by means of the suckers. This is probably their usual mode of proceeding; that it is not their only one, we have the positive affirmation of other observers."[8] Serviceable as these arms undoubtedly are to the Cuttle-fish, Blumenbach thinks it questionable whether they can be considered as organs of touch, in the more limited sense to which he has confined that term.[9]

THE CUTTLE-FISH.

The jaws of the Cuttle-fish, it should be observed, are fixed in the body because there is no head to which they can be articulated. They are of horny substance, and resemble the bill of a parrot. They are in the centre of the under part of the body, surrounded by the arms. By means of these parts, the shell-fish which are taken for food, are completely triturated.

[7] Cuvier.

[8] Nat. Hist. Molluscous Animals, Mag. Nat. Hist. vol. iii. p. 527.

[9] Manual Comp. Anat. p. 263.

We now come to the most peculiar parts of the structure of the Cuttle-fish, viz. the _ear and eye_, inasmuch as it is the only animal of its class, in which any thing has hitherto been discovered, at all like an organ of hearing, or that has been shown to possess true eyes.[10] The ears consist of two oval cavities, in the cartilaginous ring, to which the large arms of the animal are affixed. In each of these is a small bag, containing a bony substance, and receiving the termination of the nerves, like those of the vestibulum (or cavity in the bone of the ear) in fishes. The nature of the eyes cannot be disputed. "They resemble, on the whole, those of red-blooded animals, particularly fishes; they are at least incomparably more like them than the eyes of any known insects; yet they are distinguished by several extraordinary peculiarities. The front of the eye-ball is covered with a loose membrane instead of a cornea; the iris is composed of a firm substance; and a process projects from the upper margin of the pupil, which gives that membrane a semilunar form."[11] The exterior coat or ball is remarkably strong, so as to seem almost calcareous, and is, when taken out, of a brilliant pearl colour; it is worn in some parts of Italy, and in the Grecian islands by way of artificial pearl in necklaces.

[10] In all other worms the eyes are entirely wanting, or their existence is very doubtful. Whether the black points at the extremities of what Swammerdam calls the horns of the common snail, are organs which really possess the power of vision, is still problematical.

[11] Blumenbach, Man. Comp. Anat. p. 305.

Next we may notice the curious provision by which the Cuttle-fish is enabled to elude the pursuit of its enemies in the "vasty deep." This consists of a black, inky fluid, (erroneously supposed to be the bile,) which is contained in a bag beneath the body. The fluid itself is thick, but miscible with water to such a degree, that a very small quantity will colour a vast bulk of water.[12] Thus, the comparatively small Cuttle-fish may darken the element about the acute eye of the whale. What omniscience is displayed in this single provision, as well as in the faculty possessed by the Cuttle-fish of reproducing its mutilated arms! All Nature beams with such beneficence, and abounds with such instances of divine love for every creature, however humble: in observing these provisions, how often are we reminded of the benefits conferred by the same omniscience upon our own species. It is thus, by the investigation of natural history, that we are led to the contemplation of the sublimest subjects; thus that man with God himself holds converse.

BONE, OR PLATE.

The "bone" of the Cuttle-fish now claims attention. This is a complicated calcareous plate, lodged in a peculiar cavity of the back, which it materially strengthens. This plate has long been known in the shop of the apothecary under the name of Cuttle-fish bone: an observant reader may have noticed scores of these plates in glasses labelled _Os Sepiae_. Reduced to powder, they were formerly used as an absorbent, but they are now chiefly sought after for the purpose of polishing the softer metals. It is however improper to call this plate bone, since, in composition, "it is exactly similar to _shell_, and consists of various membranes, hardened by carbonate of lime, (the principal material of shell,) without the smallest mixture of phosphate of lime,[13] or the chief material of bone."

[12] According to Cuvier, the Indian ink, from China, is made of this fluid, as was the ink of the Romans. It has been supposed, and not without a considerable degree of probability, that the celebrated plain, but wholesome dish, the black broth of Sparta, was no other than a kind of Cuttle-fish soup, in which the black liquor of the animal was always added as an ingredient; being, when fresh, of very agreeable taste.--_Shaw's Zoology_.

[13] Mr. Hatchett, in Philos. Trans.

EGGS.

Lastly, are the _ovaria_, or egg-bags of the Cuttle-fish, which are popularly called _sea-grapes_. The female fish deposits her eggs in numerous clusters, on the stalks of fuci, on corals, about the projecting sides of rocks, or on any other convenient substances. These eggs, which are of the size of small filberts, are of a black colour.

The most remarkable species of Cuttle-fish inhabits the British seas; and, although seldom taken, its bone or plate is cast ashore on different parts of the coast from the south of England to the Zetland Isles. We have picked up scores of these plates and bunches of the egg-bags or grapes, after rough weather on the beach between Worthing and Rottingdean; but we never found a single fish.

The Cuttle-fish was esteemed a delicacy by the ancients, and the moderns equally prize it. Captain Cook speaks highly of a soup he made from it; and the fish is eaten at the present day by the Italians, and by the Greeks, during Lent. We take the most edible species to be the _octopodia_, or eight-armed, found particularly large in the East Indies and the Gulf of Mexico. The common species here figured, when full-grown, measures about two feet in length, is of a pale blueish brown colour, with the skin marked by numerous dark purple specks.

The Cuttle-fish is described by some naturalists, as naked or shell-less. It is often found attached to the shell of the Paper Nautilus, which it is said to use as a sail. It is, however, very doubtful whether the Cuttle-fish has a shell of its own. There is a controversy upon the subject. Aristotle, and our contemporary, Home, maintain it to be parasitical: Cuvier and Ferrusac, non-parasitical; but the curious reader will find the _pro_ and _con._--the majority and minority--in the _Magazine of Natural History_, vol. iii. p. 535.

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NOTES OF A READER.

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SERVANTS IN INDIA.

[Captain Skinner, in his _Excursions in India_, makes the following sensible observations on the tyranny over servants in India:]

There are throughout the mountains many of the sacred shrubs of the Hindoos, which give great delight, as my servants fall in with them. They pick the leaves; and running with them to me, cry, "See, sir, see, our holy plants are here!" and congratulate each other on having found some indication of a better land than they are generally inclined to consider the country of the Pariahs. The happiness these simple remembrances shed over the whole party is so enlivening, that every distress and fatigue seems to be forgotten. When we behold a servant approaching with a sprig of the _Dona_ in his hand, we hail it as the olive-branch, that denotes peace and good-will for the rest of the day, if, as must sometimes be the case, they have been in any way interrupted.

Even these little incidents speak so warmly in favour of the Hindoo disposition, that, in spite of much that may be uncongenial to an European in their character, they cannot fail to inspire him with esteem, if not affection. I wish that many of my countrymen would learn to believe that the natives are endowed with feelings, and surely they may gather such an inference from many a similar trait to the one I have related. Hardness of heart can never be allied to artless simplicity: that mind must possess a higher degree of sensibility and refinement, that can unlock its long-confined recollections by so light a spring as a wild flower.

I have often witnessed, with wonder and sorrow, an English gentleman stoop to the basest tyranny over his servants, without even the poor excuse of anger, and frequently from no other reason than because he could not understand their language. The question, from the answer being unintelligible, is instantly followed by a blow. Such scenes are becoming more rare, and indeed are seldom acted but by the younger members of society; they are too frequent notwithstanding: and should any thing that has fallen from me here, induce the cruelly-disposed to reflect a little upon the impropriety and mischief of their conduct, when about to raise the hand against a native, and save one stripe to the passive people who are so much at the mercy of their masters' tempers, I shall indeed be proud.

[Again, speaking of the condition of servants, Captain Skinner remarks--]

It is impossible to view some members of the despised class without sorrow and pity, particularly those who are attached, in the lowest offices, to the establishments of the Europeans. They are the most melancholy race of beings, always alone, and apparently unhappy: they are scouted from the presence even of their fellow-servants. None but the mind of a poet could imagine such outcasts venturing to raise their thoughts to the beauty of a Brahmin's daughter; and a touching tale in such creative fancy, no doubt, it would make, for, from their outward appearances, I do not perceive why they should not be endowed with minds as sensitive at least as those of the castes above them. There are among them some very stout and handsome men; and it is ridiculous to see sometimes all their strength devoted to the charge of a sickly puppy;--to take care of dogs being their principal occupation!