AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 381 



the people of the city of Agrgcntuui, in Sicily, provided him with views of their 

 most beautiful daughters, naked, to draw from. He selected five of them 

 and thus drew his Juno. Some persons admired his picture of a chiM loith 

 a hunch of grapes because the birds pecked at the grapes. But Zeuxis 

 said he was mortified at that, because if he had done justice to the child 

 the birds would not have dared to come near enough to it to peck the 

 grapes in its hands. He painted Alexander the Great holding a thunder- 

 bolt in his hand, for the temple of Diana in Ephesus. That picture was 

 valued at over $9,000. Zeuxis used a subtle varnish that gave great lus- 

 ter to his paintings. 



The art of design is, in other words, drawing, which is indispensible in 

 almost every human work ; a building, a fence, a vehicle, a ship, dress, 

 cloth, implements, from a spade to a steam engine, everywhere the art of 

 drawing is demanded. It is a great business in all civilized nations, and 

 that nation which excels in it leads all others in the sale of her manufac- 

 tures and works of all sorts. Schools to teach design are necessary. This 

 Club should do all in its power to stimulate its growth among us, so that 

 in due time American works may bear the palm of excellence in design 

 and perfection of mechanism. Already the art is exerted here admirably 

 in drawing machinery, in which very valuable work Europe is also ex- 

 cellent, and we are now following rapidly in painting, engraving, sculp- 

 ture, &c. 



The secretary calls the attention of the club to the Atlantic cable, which 

 has realized the difficulties which the club anticipated long ago, regretting, 

 as all men must, the failure of such an enterprise, stamped as one of the 

 noblest and most bold of any scientific problem ever solved by men, enti- 

 tled to all the merit that the utmost success could have gained. The club 

 will recall their suggestion of the surest path for the World's telegram, 

 that by Behring's straits, as it appears by the map, drawn from iiuthentie 

 data by the club, that course is now under exploration by the Emperor 

 of Russia, as the club then supposed it would. The narrow water, there 

 dividing the two great continents, is only 200 feet deep, hardly 50 miles wide, 

 and no ice islands can injure the cables, because the current is perpetual 

 through the straits from the Pacific ocean to the Arctic. That the effort 

 made to lay a cable under 2,000 miles of ocean, was a giant work, and the 

 men who did it had merited all the praise the world had given them. They 

 had deserved success ! The miracle all but done ! 



We are glad to see that Frenchmen view it thus, and we give their own 

 language as follows : 



"Ainsi done la pose du cable telegraphique est maintenantun fait accom- 

 pli. Qu'un accident en occasion la rupture, on que des defectuosites 

 du genre de celles qui retardent aujourd'hui les communications entre 

 I'Amerique et I'Europe se decouvre dans sa structure, dans le premier cas, 

 le succes qui a couronne les efforts de la compagnie ne pourra manquer 

 d'accompagna ceux que Ton fera desormais dans le meme but, et, dans le 

 seconde cas, le genie inventeur de I'epoque trouvera certainment mille 



