1854.] 



MISCELLANEA. 



45 



total eclipse, was seen this ye.'ir by Professor Forbes in Norway. He 

 saj's that the approach of the eclipse had been denoted by the 

 appearance of a great black cloud in the north-west, which gradually 

 rose above the horizon like an approaching storm; but its boundary 

 (for it was merely the shadow in the sky) was too vague to produce 

 the appalling sense of the onward movement of a real substance, with 

 a spiecd exceeding about one hundred fold that of the most rapid rail- 

 way train, and making right for the spectator, as I had observed on 

 the plains of Piedmont on occasion of the total eclipse of 1842. But 

 the restoration of the light, — the new dawn, when the shallow of dark- 

 ness had passed l)y, — was perhaps quite as grand. 



Professor Airey, the Astronomer-Fioyal, has paid a visit to the 

 colliery district of the Tyne, in pursuit of curious aud important 

 asfci'ononiical observations. For that purpose he was taken by Mr. .T. 

 Mather, a scientific gentleman belonging to South Shields, down 

 Horton pit, the deepest in the Tyne, 12G0 feet deep, to examine if it 

 were possible to make arrangements in it for a series of delicate 

 experiments and observations in reference to the pendulum, and the 

 earth's action upon it there, simultaneously with similar ones on the 

 surface, with a view to iletcrminc the weight of the earth and planets. 

 I\Ir. Anderson, and the other proprietors and officers of this splendid 

 mine, gave every facility to the Astronomer-Koyal, and tendered not 

 only the use of the mine, but their own personal services, for any 

 future occasion. Everything at present looks encouraging for these 

 important scientific experiments. 



A valuable discovery has recently been made in Ireland. It is no 

 less than the certain existence of very extensive deposits of ironstone 

 on the estates of Lord Carew, at Dysart, in the Queen's County. Tliis 

 discovery is consi'dered very important, as there is a great demand for 

 ironstone now in England, to supply the furnaces. An extensive field 

 of the same mineral has also been found at Rosedale, ne.ar Pickering, 

 Yorkshire. Samples sent to Newcastle have been found to contain not 

 less than 07 per cent, of pure iron. 



We extract from the August number of the Artizan the following 

 list of steam and sailing vessels, built or building on the Clyde, since 

 Miirch, 1853, for British American marine and lake service: — 



STEAMERS. 



DESCRIPTION. 



TOOT. 



aonSE POWEK. 



OWNERS OK STAHOS. 





Paddle, 



600 



200 



Hon. J. IlaraiUon, Kingston, 



O.W. 



Screw, 



1900 



400 



Liverpool and Canada. 





Screw, 



1000 



400 







Paddle, 



120 



110 



Canada. 





Screw, 



2300 



450 



Liverpool and Canada. 





SAILIXG VESSELS. 



UESORIPTION. 



TONS. HOESE POWEK. 



150 



800 

 800 

 363 

 780 

 85& 

 700 

 800 



OWNERS OR STATION. 



Montreal.- 



Glasgow and Montreal. 

 Liverpool and Montreal. 

 Henderson & Fulton, Montreal. 

 Liverpool and Montreal. 

 Montreal Trade. 

 Montreal Trade. 

 Montreal Ti-ade. 



Witli reference to the question of Copyright, the Athenaiura has a 

 letter on the last decision of the House of Lords, from whicli we take 

 tlie following : — • 



" This last reversal of judgment was made at one o'clock on Tues- 

 day, in the House of Lords — a reversal which, among other things, in 

 efl'ect upsets all jbiierican copyrights, and before six o'clock that day 

 Ihe printers in Loudon were engaged in reprinting cheap editions of 

 .Vnierican Works. Messrs. Low & Co., alarmed for their property in 

 '• Sunny Memoirs of Foreign Lands," ruslied to their printers io order 

 a cheap edition; they found them already engaged for another house ! 

 By aid, however, of Mr. Clowes, Mr. Low hopes to forestall the prin- 

 ters, and we cannot Ijut hope that he will succeed, seeing that lie iiad 

 already embarked capital in the production of the work, in a belief 

 that his property was protected by law. The nmils will carry out bad 

 news to America; between tlie authors of tliat country and the 

 publishers here. Mr. lieutley, we believe, has just concluded a treaty 



with Mr. Prescott, the historian, for Lis " Phillip the Second," at a 

 thousand pounds a volume. It is now waste paper. The American 

 historian is now in the same position as regards England, as the 

 English author is as regards America. Bancroft's volume, also, has 

 ju it appeared in London, though it has not yet been announced by his 

 American publishers. Whatever has been, or is to be, paid for, the 

 English copyright will, of course, be lost to him or to his publishers. 

 We can form no estimate of the number of xVmerican books copy- 

 righted in England, but they must form no insignificant part of the 

 book trade of Great Britain. The English sales have certainly been 

 greatly relied upon by American >vriters, aud this decision will cut off 

 a very substantial portion of tiie income of several of the more eminent 

 of them." 



Silliman's journal for September contains an article on the Coast 

 Survey Report for 1853, in which some curious facts respecting the 

 distribution of public documents, are brought to light. Every one is 

 aware that for many years a most wanton system has been pursued in 

 the distribution of valuable scientific, historical and documentary 

 works, published by the authority of Congress, and at the expense 

 of Government. Unfortunately, the scientific value of materials pub- 

 lished in the documentarj' series whether of Congress or of State legisla- 

 tures, isvery mnch impaired by the unsystematic and injudicious plan of 

 distribii iion actually pursued. Men of science, to whom particular 

 reports would be of direct practical use, are often entirely unable to 

 procure copies of them, while many men of more political importance, but 

 who will never even look into thorn, have these same reports profusely 

 lavished upon th m. Valuable documents which are reported to appli- 

 cants as all exhausted, do wholesale duty as wrapping paper for 

 Washington grocers and market men, at a standard price of four cents 

 a pound, maps and plates included. This subject of documentary dis- 

 triljution deserves the serious attention of Congress, and it would not 

 seem a vain hope that some system could be devised which would be 

 indefinitely superior to that now prevailing, as well in respect to securing 

 rigid responsibilitj- for documents as property, and in promoting the 

 economy, order and convenience of their practical distribution, as in 

 the more important point of securing something like fitness in sending 

 special documents to their appropriate recipients. Distributing Owen's 

 Geological Report to a dry goods importer and the Treasury report on 

 commerce, to a geologist, would seem too great an absurdity to exist 

 if we did not know that hundreds of truly valuable volumes are 

 annually thus wasted. 



" The Metallic Wealth of the United States described and compared 

 with that of other Countries," from the pen of S. D. AVhitney, contains 

 many valuable facts concerning the disti-ibutiou of mineral wealth in 

 the United States. The following note of the estimated amount and 

 value of metals produced throughout the world in 1854, is taken from a 

 review of Mr. Whitney's work in the September number of Sillinuin's 

 Journal: — 



"The metals selected are gold, silver, mercury, tin, copper, zinc, 

 lead and ii-on. The aggregate of these are as follows : — 



Gold. Silver. Mercury. Tin. Copper. Zinc. Lead. Iron, 

 lbs. tro}-. lbs. U'oj'. lbs. av. tons. tons. tons. tons. tons. 

 481,950 2,905,200 4,200,000 13,660 56,900 60,550 133,000 5,817,000 



The product of the United States in gold is set down at 200,000 

 pounds, Australia and Oceanica at l.')0,()00, and Russia at (10,000, 

 Mexico and South America 47,100. Of silver, the New 'World sup- 

 plies 2,473,700 pounds, leaving only the small residue of 491,500 lbs. 

 for all other countries. Of mercury, Spain gives the worM 2,500,000 

 lbs. and the United States 100,000 lbs. England and Australia fur- 

 nish over half of all the copper produced by the world: the present 

 product of the United States being in Uiis metal only 3,500 tens. 

 Prussia and Belgium furnish four-fifths of all the zinc used in the 

 world (viz. llj,000 -j- 33,000 tons.) Lead is distributed between Great 

 Britain, Spain and the United States in the ratio of 4, 2, 1 (viz. 01,000, 

 30.000 aud 15,000 tons each.) England furnishes more than lialf the 

 Iron of the world, 3,000,000 ton.s, and the United States 1.000,000 

 tons. France is the next most productive country in iron, 000,000 

 tons. Russia produces but 200,000 tons, and Sweden 150,000 tons, 

 (|uantitics bearing a very small relation to the celebrity of jiroduct of 

 those countries. 



STANXo-PLiJMB.vTEn Irox. — Sovcral important experiments on lite 

 preservation of iron from oxiihition and decay having been made by the 

 Rev. N. Calhin, of Maynooth college. 



who lias introduced many ini- 



