288 



* KNOWLEDGE 



[Nov. 9, 1S33. 



be a fourth, or fifth, or sixth, or nth dimension. So 

 long as their existence is past in the world we know of 

 and not in the " limbo of imaginary intersections " of 

 which they love to speak, our mathematicians might con- 

 descend to do what Newton, Lagrange and Laplace, Euler, 

 Adams, Leverrier, and Delaunay, have done with zeal and 

 fervour, — viz., to advance, as far as in them lies, the ma- 

 thematics of actual relations. To do this well will tax all 

 their powers. 



Lead-Smelting in Cyprus. — The Cypriot peasant, when 

 in pursuit of moufion, the wild sheep of the island, makes 

 the slugs for his flint-gun in the forest in the following 

 primitive manner : — He takes two solid pieces of the bark 

 of pitu's mariiimus, one about 18 in. long and 4 in. wide, 

 the other much smaller. In the first he cuts a straight 

 groove, a foot long, and just large enough to hold a cedar 

 pencil. This is his mould, which he places horizontally on 

 the ground by filling the groove with water, and then prop- 

 ping the bark with stones until the water is level. The 

 water he then throws away. In the smaller piece of bark 

 he scoops out a round hole, about 3 in. across and an inch 

 deep. This is his sraelting-pot, or furnace, and he cuts a 

 slot from the cavity at one side to " run " the lead through. 

 Into this cavity he puts some bits of red cinder from his 

 wood fire. Over them he puts a few ounces of small shot, 

 and this, again, he covers up with more of the red coals. 

 Then using his mouth as a bellows, he blows vigorously 

 upon the mass (all the Cypriot shepherds have splendid 

 lungs) until, in a very short time, the shot is melted. He 

 then pours it into the mould (which has had time to dry), 

 and so produces a foot-long pencil of lead. This he rolls 

 between two flat stones until it is quite even. Next he 

 cuts it into short bits, which he again rolls, with a circular 

 motion, between the stones, and thus obtains about forty 

 slugs, or little bullets, nearly as perfectly round as the 

 buckshot of commerce. 



Although boring for coal has been carried out in several 

 places in China, and working has been attempted in some 

 of these, there is only one colliery at present in complete 

 working order in the Celestial Empire. This is at Kaiping 

 not far from Pekin, the colliery plant of which has been 

 illustrated in our pages. The coal is said to belong to the 

 true carboniferous system, and the bed dips to the south 

 some 45 degs., forming a large basin under the Gulf of 

 Pehchihli. No fear is entertained that the measures will 

 run short. So far as has been ascertained, the coal-bearing 

 stratum is about 1,000 ft., containing thirteen seams. 

 During the winter months, 200 tons per day of the inferior 

 kinds of coal can be sold to the natives in the vicinity, 

 who use it for pottery, brick, and lime kilns ; indeed, one 

 of the most important results achieved by the opening of 

 the colliery has been the revival of several industries in 

 the vicinity which were languishing or extinct, on account 

 of the surface coal of the district being mostly worked out, 

 and the price of coal being too high to be used with profit. 

 In connection with the colliery is a small railway, the only 

 one in China. Its length is but six and a-half miles, and 

 at the terminus the coal is placed in barges and carried 

 down by canal. After a little opposition, the locomotives 

 were allowed to run freely. But ironworks, which it was 

 also intended to start, could not get over the superstitious 

 opposition raised on the score of the proximity of the 

 Imperial tombs, and the consequent geomantic disturbances 

 caused by sinking shafts, &c. The iron ore is said to exist 

 in enormous quantities, but it is not easy to work owing 

 to the amount of silica present. — EngiiKering. 



RICHTER'S DREAM. 



IEECENTLY quoted De Quincey's version of Richter's 

 Dream, as I am in the habit of reciting it at the 

 close of my lectures on the " Star Depths " and on the 

 " Birth and Death of Worlds." A correspondent has 

 kindly sent me the following copy of De Quincey's trans- 

 lation of Richter's Dream (vol. 13), which is very dif- 

 ferent from the other, justifying fully, I think, the words 

 with which I introduce Richter's Dream, — " as translated, 

 or rather as transformed and purified by our own prose 

 poet, De Quincey : — 



DREAM UPON THE UNIVERSE. 



I had been reading an excellent description of Kriiger's 

 upon the old vulgar error which regards the space from 

 one earth and sun to another as empty. Our sun, together 

 with all its planets, fills only the 31,419,4G0,000,000,000th 

 part of the whole space between itself and the next solar 

 body. Gracious heavens ! thought I, in what an un- 

 fathomable abyss of emptiness were this universe swallowed 

 up and lost, if all were void and utter vacuity except the 

 few shining points of dust which we call a planetary 

 system ! To conceive of our earthly ocean as the abode 

 of death, and essentially incapable of life, and of its 

 populous islands as being no greater than snail-shells, 

 would be a far less error in proportion to the 

 compass of our planet than that which attributes 

 emptiness to the great mundane spaces ; and the error 

 would be far less if the marine animals were to ascribe life 

 and fulness exclusively to the sea, and to regard the 

 atmospheric ocean above them as empty and untenanted. 

 According to Herschel, the most remote of the galaxies 

 which the telescope discovers lie at such a distance from 

 us that their light, which reaches us at this day, must 

 have set out on its journey two millions of years ago ; and 

 thus, by optical laws, it is possible that whole squadrons of 

 the stariy hosts may be now reaching us with their beams, 

 which have themselves perished ages ago. Upon this scale 

 of computation for the dimensions of the world, what 

 heights and depths and breadths must there be in this uni- 

 verse — in comparison of which the positive universe would 

 be itself a nihility were it crossed, pierced, and belted about 

 by so illimitable a wilderness of nothing ! But is it possible 

 that any man can for a moment overlook those vast forces 

 which must pervade these imaginary deserts with eternal 

 surges of flux and reflux, to make the very paths to those 

 distant starry coasts voyageable to our eyes ■ Can you lock 

 up in a sun or in its planets their reciprocal forces of 

 attraction 1 Does not the light stream through the im- 

 measurable spaces between our earth and the nebula which 

 is furthest removed from us 1 And in this stream of light 

 there is as ample an existence of the positive, and as much 

 a home for the abode of a spiritual world, as there is a 

 dwelling-place for thy own spirit in the substance of the 

 brain. To these and similar reflections succeeded the fol- 

 lowing dream : — 



Methought my body sank down in ruins, and my inner 

 form steppe<l out apparelled in light ; and by my side there 

 stood another form which resembled my own, except that 

 it did not shine like mine, but lightened unceasingly. "Two 

 thoughts," said the form, " are the wings with which I 

 move : the thought of Here and the thought of There. And, 

 behold ! I am yonder," pointing to a distant world. " Come, 

 then, and wait on me with thy thoughts and with thy flight, 

 that I may show to thee the universe under a veil." And I 

 flew along with the Form. In a moment our earth fell 

 back, behind our consuming light, into an abyss of distance; 

 a faint gleam only was reflected from the summit of the 



