THE CONVICT-ISLAND OF BRAZIL. 33 



sources, and the skill of many hands and brains has united to 

 bring them into suitable community. The functions of artist and 

 artisan have been fulfilled. Now they give place to the office of 

 the critic. 



The result of this co-operative labor is much more than mere 

 decoration. It is a work of art whose capacity for deep and beau- 

 tiful expression we are only beginning to realize. Standing before 

 such a picture-window, one feels anew the spiritual element in all 

 beauty. The thought that has fastened itself to a sunbeam seems 

 singularly alive and pervasive. 



To one who is familiar only with the chromatic efforts of the 

 " glass sinners " this praise may seem extravagant ; but, as we love 

 painting in spite of some pretty poor chromos, and statuary in 

 the face of popular domestic groups turned out by the gross, so is 

 it possible to warmly admire the window of real merit while we 

 deplore its unhappy imitator. At its best one can imagine few 

 objects more beautiful. The varying light and the purity of color 

 in art work of this character are a source of lively pleasure. They 

 appeal to a sentiment which, when present at all, is apt to be a 

 dominant one. Those who entertain it turn away regretfully from 

 so beautiful and so luminous a picture. 



THE CONVICT-ISLAND OF BRAZIL— FERNANDO DE 



NORONHA. 



By JOHN C. BEANNEE, Ph. D. 



rpHE island of Fernando de Noronha * is in the South Atlantic 

 -L Ocean, two hundred and fifty miles south of the equator, 

 about two hundred miles northeast of Cape St. Roque, and near 

 the track of vessels plying between European ports and those of 

 South America lying south of the cape. It belongs to Brazil, and 

 has long been used by that Government for a penal colony. In 

 1876, when a member of the Imperial Geological Survey of Brazil, 

 I visited this island for the purpose of studying its natural history 

 and mapping it. It was no part of my official duty to criticise the 

 administration of the affairs of the island as a prison, yet it was 

 but natural that I should take a deep interest in this administra- 

 tion, and should inform myself, whenever occasion offered, regard- 

 ing the methods employed in dealing with a class of persons so 

 new to me. The commandant and other officers spoke freely 

 whenever they addressed me in regard to administrative meas- 



* The name is also erroneously written — Fernam de Loronha, Fernao de Noronha, Fer- 

 nando Noronha, Ferdinando Noronha, Fernand de la Eogne, etc. 

 tol. xxxv. — 3 



