Travels in Central Asia: Being an Account of a 
Journey from Teheran across the Turkoman Desert 
on the Eastern shore of the Caspian, to Khiva, Bok¬ 
hara and Satnurcand: Performed lu the year 1S63. 
By Anw.Ntus Vamhert, Member or the Hungarian 
Academy of Pesih, by whom he was sent oq this 
scieuitflc mission. Octavo—pp. 493. New York: 
Harper A Brothers. 
It is well for tie progress or human knowledge, that 
the purenits of Art and Science carry with thorn their 
own best rewards; that they possess Intrinsic attrac¬ 
tions, far more stimulating than any expectant long- 
tngg for mere honors or profit. Moreover it is pecu¬ 
liarly fortunate that the most abstruse studies awaken 
the liveliest ardor, and secure the profoundest devotiou 
of the cnrne9t inquirer. The world too often scorns 
what appear to be the insignificant results of such 
labors—and, no doubt, they arc sometimes very triv¬ 
ial; nevertheless the pursuit Is exhilarating, if the 
achievement is paltry. The *■ brush" is the pitiful 
trophy of the successful fox-hnnter; but when the 
"view-hallo" rings in the huntsman's ears, away he 
goes, over five-barred gates and sunken fences—now 
toiling over a stony, upland swell, then bursting 
through a thicket and thundering down a ragged 
precipice. Intent only upon the chase, he imperils his 
life at every bound, and is never txtmblod by any reflec¬ 
tions ns to the value of the spoil. But such ardor Is 
cool when compared with the hot zeal which animates 
the trne scholar as he plods his weary way along the 
devious and dilflcnlL paths of Science and Philosophy. 
No labors tire, no dangers appal him. He claims the 
Antarctic 
Physical Geography, or the science which 
treats of the laws and natural features of 
land and water, atmospheric conditions and 
changes, the phenomena of the tides, climate 
and its effects, animals and plants, has super¬ 
seded, in our schools, to a great extent, the old 
and well nigh useless “Geography” which was 
limited strictly to the merest “ description of 
the earth's surface,’' Physical Geography delves 
beneath the surface, and soars above the crust of 
the earth, embracing in its comprehensive range, 
the specific results of studies in Hydrology, Ge¬ 
ognosy, Geology, Meteorology, Botany, Zoology, 
and Anthropology, 
Climate, one of the most Interesting branches 
of this study, and one a knowledge of which is 
daily felt to be growing more important, treats 
of the degrees of heat and cold, the drouth, the 
humidity and the salubrity which occur upon 
any given portion of the globe. The causes of 
the variation in climate, as stated by Harring¬ 
ton, in his excellent work on Physical Geogra¬ 
phy, are nine in number, and comprehend the 
action ot the sun upon the atmosphere; the ele¬ 
vation of the earth above the level of the ocean; 
the general inclination of the surface, and its 
local exposure; the position of its mountains, 
relatively to the cardinal points; the neighbor¬ 
hood of great seas, and their relative situation; 
the geological nature of the soil; the degree 
of cultivation, and of population, at which a 
country has arrived; and the prevalent winds. 
The direct degree of solar heat which any 
portion of the earth's surface receives, is deter¬ 
mined by the distance of the sun from the 
earth, the more or less oblique manner in which 
the rays strike the surface, the length of the day, 
and the refraction ot the rays In passing through 
the several strata of the atmosphere. It has of 
late been determined that the internal heat 
of the globe produces but little effect upon 
climate. 
Cold increases very perceptibly with the eleva¬ 
tion of the land; and with reference to the effects 
of aspects, Harrington says that a hill inclined 
45 degrees towards the south, when the sun is 
elevated 45 degrees, receives the solar rays per¬ 
pendicularly— whilst upon a plaiu, the same 
rays strike upon the soil under an angle of 45 
degrees, and a hill inclined 45 degrees to the 
north, will be struck by the solar rays in a hori¬ 
zontal direction, which makes them glide along 
the surface. This accounts for the strange phe¬ 
nomenon in the Vallais, m the Alps, where one 
side of a range of hills will be a region of eternal 
ice and snow, and the other covered with vine¬ 
yards and orchards in the^most flourishing con¬ 
dition. 
Mountains act upon climates by attracting 
vapors suspended in fhe tir; and these vapors, 
by their condensation, produce fogs and clouds. 
Again, mountains, by arresting the currents of 
the atmosphere, determine the prevalence of 
particular winds in certain regions. The con¬ 
verse of this is true in the case of valleys. 
Where valleys are closely sheltered, they so 
strongly concentrate and reflect the rays of the 
sun, that the heat becomes insupportable. 
hen, however, they arc extensive and wide, 
with a gentle declivity which permits the 
water to flow off readily, and admits the winds 
from the north, the temperature will be dry and 
healthy. 
The neighborhood of the sea moderates the 
excesses of temperature. In many of the tropi¬ 
cal isles of Polynesia, for example, the tempera¬ 
ture is never so high as it often is at Quebec, 
where the mercury of the thermometer often 
freezes in winter. 
The geological character of the soil has some 
influence on climate. Some soils are readily 
heated, and others very slowly, by the action 
of solar rays, and there is an equal variation in 
their respective capacities to retain heat Clayey 
grounds which retain much water moderate the 
temperature, while rocky and sandy soils, outhe 
contrary, favor extremes. 
Upon the influence of the labors of man on 
climate, by cutting down forests, draininig 
marshes, diverting water courses from their 
ancient channels, breaking up and cultivating 
the soil, Ac., etc., there are many curious 
and startling facts. In the Cape de Yerd islands 
the destruction of forests has dried up the 
springs, and rendered the air sultry and un¬ 
wholesome ; and many parts of Greece, Persia, 
Italy and other countries, have forfeited their 
delightful temperatures by this process. The 
common notion that the North American win¬ 
ters are warmer, and the summers colder 
than formerly, is overthrown by the evi¬ 
dence of thermometrical registers; and it 
has been discovered that the effects of clear¬ 
ing and cultivating a country are directly the 
reverse. 
The influence of winds upon climate is pretty 
generally understood. All winds in the temper¬ 
ate zones, eomiDg from the neighboring poles 
are cold, and all winds from the equator are hot, 
with some exceptions, occasioned by local cir¬ 
cumstances. The southern wind which visits 
the Cape of Good Hope is cool, while the north¬ 
ern w;ud has the same effect upon Europe. In 
general, the effect of the constant winds is to 
cool the equatorial regions, and warm the polar 
and temperate. 
In the accompanying Chart of Temperature 
and Climate, lines are drawn through all those 
places which have the same temperature. These 
are ealled feotfermal lines. There are other cli¬ 
mate lines, such as those which connect places 
having the mean temperatures of summer or 
winter equal; these are respectively called iso- 
t/ieral and iaochimeral or UocJiimal, If climates 
cooled uniformly from the equator, these lines 
would be parallel, but owing to the several 
causes mentioned above, they assume the posi¬ 
tions indicated in the Chart. 
there, and I seem to read upon his compact fea¬ 
tures the indurate and obstinate will to fight, on 
the line he has selected, the honor of the country 
through any peril, as if he has sworn it by the 
slain man’s bier, his state - fellow, patron and 
friend. 
TUE PRESIDENT AND CABINET. 
But nearer down are the central powers of 
our Government, its President and counsellors. 
President Johnson is facing the middle of the 
coffin upon the lowest step; his hands are 
crossed upon his breast, his dark clothing just 
revealing his plaited shirt, and upon his full, 
pluthoric, shaven face, broad and severely com¬ 
pact, two telling gray eyes rest under a thought¬ 
ful brow, whoso turning hair is straight and 
smooth. Beside him are «x-Vice-President 
Hamlin, whom he succeeded, and ex-Governor 
King, his most intimate friend. The Cabinet 
are behind, us if arranged for a daguerreotypist, 
Stanton, short and quieksilvery, in contrast to 
the tall and snow-tipped shape of Mr. Wells. 
At their side is Secretary Chase, high, dignified 
and handsome, with folded arms, a half-foot 
higher than any spectator, and dividing with 
Charles Sumner, who is near by, the preference 
for manly beamy in age. With Mr. Chase are 
other Justices ot the Supreme Court, and to 
their left, near the feet of the corpse, are the 
Senators, representing the oldest and the newest 
States. 
Italian. I promised her that I would guard her 
day and night during my life, and she reposed 
in my word, which had never been broken. I 
took the body of my wife to Germany, where 
the most aide chemist of the day promised to 
reduce it, by powerful dissolvents and by great 
compression, to a size which could enable me to 
wear it as a souvenir. For eight days he labored 
almost constantly in my presence, and 1 saw the 
dear remains gradually dissolve and intensify till 
tbe residue was the compact mass which you 
see iu the ring, which is my dear wife, whom, as 
I promised, I will never quit day nor night dur¬ 
ing my life.” 
SCENES AT MR. LINCOLN’S FUNERAL 
MRS. LINCOLN. 
There is one at an upper window, seeing all 
this through her tears, to whom the beautiful 
noon, with its wealth of zephyrs and sweets, 
can waft no gratulatlon. The father of her 
children, the eoufidant of her affection and 
ambition, has passed from this life into immor¬ 
tality, and lies below—dumb, cold, murdered. 
The feelings of sympathy for Mrs, Lincoln is as 
wide-spread as the regret of the new Chief Mag¬ 
istrate. Whatever indiscretions she may have 
committed in the abrupt transition from plain¬ 
ness to power, are now forgiven and forgotten. 
She and her sons are the property of the nation, 
associated with its truest glories and its worst 
bereavement. 
home friends around the bier. 
Close by the corpse sit the relatives of the 
deceased, plain, honest, hardy people, typical as 
much of the simplicity of our institutions, as of 
Mr. Lincoln’s self-made eminence. No blood 
relatives of Mr. Lincoln were to be found. It is 
a singular evidence of the poverty of his origin, 
and therefore of his exceeding good report, that, 
excepting his immediate family, uouo answering 
to his name could be discovered. Mrs. Lincoln’s 
relatives were present, however, in some force. 
Dr. Lyman Beecher T«dd, Gen. John B. S. 
Todd, C. M. Smith, and N. W. Edwards, the 
late President’s brother-in-law. Plain, self- 
made people were here, and were sincerelT 
affected. Captain Robert Lincoln sat, daring 
the services, with his face in his handkerchief, 
weeping quietly, and little Tad., his taee red and 
heated, cried as If his heart would break. Mrs. 
Lincoln, weak, worn and nervous, did not enter 
the East Room, nor follow the remains. She 
was the Chief Magistrate’s lady yesterday; 
to-day, a widow, bearing only an Immortal 
name. 
GEN. GRANT. 
There are many bright stare twinkling in con¬ 
tiguous shoulder-bars, but sitting in a chair 
upon the beflowered carpet is Ulysses S. Grant, 
who has lived a century in the last three weeks, 
and comes to-day to add the lustre of his iron 
face to this thrilling and saddening picture. He 
wears white gloves and sash, and is swarthy, 
nervous aud almost tearful, his feet crossed, his 
square, receding head turning now here, now 
THE GONDOLA. 
In Venice, says George Augustus Sala, the 
gondola is the unique and invariable maritime 
craft to be met with. You will see one gondola 
full of garden stuff, and another piled tip with 
batcher’s meat. In one a carpenter’s bench is 
set up, and the carpenter is sawing or planing 
away, while his shavings or his sawdust are 
blown overboard into the canal and drift away 
with the tide. The very beggars have gondolas, 
and cripples propel themselves with the oar 
between their stumps, asking, iu the soft musi¬ 
cal Venetian dialect, for alms as they row past 
you. The bricklayers’ laborers row to their 
work, and the washerwomen ply their vocation 
in gondolas. Artists sketching in them you may 
olteu see; likewise women at needle-work and 
children at play, aud notaries’ clerks copying 
crabbed deeds. They arc cleanly and isolated 
congeners of the Sampans in the Chinese 
waters. Finally, so far as my late at night 
experience extends, the gondoliers appear to 
sleep in their boats, and to have and to desire 
no other domicile. There are said to be as 
many gondolas in Venice as there are drosch- 
kics in $t. Petersburg — nearly four thousand. 
smiui yet great ueneiaetion restored, but went 
away with great possessions, educed from the 
sympathetic pockets of bystanders. 
THE RUSSIAN NOBLEMAN’S RING 
S ^nin J - , B i? llERnE ! lT Spencer. Author of 
? f r ?£ re f,'; “ Essays, Morel, Polit- 
lca 1 and .l.oBthetlc,” " Education/ "First Priuel- 
ples, Ac. New York: D. Appleton Jfc Co. 
J me books ol .Mr, Spencer aro coumiaudlng atten¬ 
tion, both In England aud America, by tholr clearness, 
ability, Independence 0 f thought, and earnestness! 
He Is a scholar and a thinker- which all sholars arc 
not. Receiving a fine education from his father—a 
U-aclu-f’-ho spent some years with his uj.de, Rev 
CWh s A of the Episcopal 
church, a cnltnated scholar, noted ror hi* liber-d nnli> 
imo and philanthropic labor*. Herbert 
itself* h *w' k ,’!!?“* r l tAch c * n be mad by 
Ua* change from simple to complex^ 
lu 0Wtr t higher, as the Divine Intent! 
working everywhere on and np, by the wmafantYW. 
eternal laws. « the cenirnl idea or hts ntiilo- 
which he i* presenting with signal 
abi lity. Not agreeing with the - Positive Philosophy" 
miot?,“. TB ’ a !t '5°“ du * l0l >e ot l htm whom V 
“iisht deem blind m their conBi-r\ati*| U he simnlv »nrt 
serenely qtter* Ids own thoughtboS®Rfrtahls 
own views. No thoughtful person, capahio nTcaml.w 
and dlBoiriiiiiiiatiim, can fail to gain emiovim-nt -mrl 
profit from his books, whether accepting or’uot all liis 
conclusion* ur arguments. not an ms 
The heading of some chapters will give an id. -iof 
the drif, of .His work •• Mutations of MunU 
Constancy of the Divine Rale,’’—“ Right to Frceimm 
or Action,”--Personal Rlgbte,” - " I’ronmv re 
Land. —"Fallacy of Communism,*’ —"Ai«hl ,,f 
1 rem. Tty In Idea/ Rights of CmidVcn,"-" W le 
Natural' p 1 ’ D , t ? tv State,"-” iinpaUe&e of 
inaV” VnT 8 ?* 8 ’ - Ignorant '’lasses not most crim- 
' handsome volume or 1»0 pages i* pub- 
y Al ’ l ’ I - KTuN & Co., with steel portrait of Mr 
bi'UNccn -“d for side by Ktlklk & Avkry 
The following extraordinary story, in circula¬ 
tion in Paris, is given to the world on good au¬ 
thority : 
A Russian nobleman, extremely wealthy and 
very reserved and melancholy, has appeared of 
late in the best circles, to which he had most 
distinguished introducers. The Russian became 
remarkable for wearing a ring of colossal propor¬ 
tions, covering nearly the entire finger, and of 
singular appearance, the centre being composed 
of a substance resembling jet, which was set in 
gold. No one ventured to ack the character of 
the ring or the cause of its being worn, and plac¬ 
ed the wearer, a studiously quiet man, in the 
light of being an eccentric individual. A lady, 
however, who was piqued to know something 
about the matter, at last mustered the requisite 
courage, and said:—“Monsieur, every one is 
very much struck with the singular character of 
the ring you wear, and I tor one would like to 
know its origin. The Russian made a nervous 
twitch with his hand us though he would like to 
hide it, when he replied, “Madam, the ring is 
not a jewel, as you supposed, but a tomb,” The 
carious gathered around while he continued:— 
“The jet substauce is the body of my wife; 
9he had a horror of a tomb in Russia; she was I 
REMINISCENCE OF JOHN PHENIX. 
The great beauty of the humor of “John Phe- 
uix” (Lieut. Derby) was thatl here was not a parti¬ 
cle of ill nature about it. He was not oue of those 
sour, discontented, satirical, practical jokers, so 
naturally aud justly tabooed iu society. Good 
uature and good fellowship he cherished; and 
beyond these, save in the way of harmless mirth, 
ho never swerved. It was not in him. 
Ills power of face was something wonderful, 
as is sufficiently attested by the follow ing au¬ 
thentic anecdote. He was sitting on one occa¬ 
sion, iu the guests’ lolling room of a New York 
hotel, confronting on Broadway, when a little 
beggar girl came in, and with the keen discern¬ 
ment of little people iu general, noticed his 
child-loving, benevolent countenance, and ap¬ 
proached him aud asked alms. Shewn* veryyoung, 
iunoeeut looking, and had none of the juveuile 
whine and presidency of most young mendi¬ 
cants whom one meets in the streets aud in the 
hails of our public hotels. Phcuix at once as¬ 
sumed a mournful expression of face and began 
to talk, as it were, confidentially aud very affec- 
Db. Johnson used to say that a habit of look¬ 
ing at the best side of every event is better than 
a thousand pounds a year. Bishop Hall quaintly 
remarks:—“For every bad there might be a 
worse; and when a man breaks his leg, let him 
be thankful that it was not his neck.” When 
Fendon’s library was on fire, “ God be praised,” 
he exclaimed, “ that it is not the dwelling of 
some poor man!” This is the true spirit of 
submission; one of the most beautiful traits thai 
can possess the human heart. Resolve to s»e 
this world ou the sunny side, aud you have *1 
most half won the battle of life at the outset 
