Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 125.djvu/78

64  and a half she was to have a complete constitution. The Bill for the Transmission of Powers was taken up as soon as the Senate Bill had been disposed of, and was carried clause by clause in the same edifying manner. M. Raoul Duval tried to sow discord in this model majofity by proposing to insert a declaration that the sovereignty of the nation resides in the universality of the citizen; but the Left could hear this fine-sounding principle openly challenged in the tribune, and yet vote against its introduction into the Bill. An attempt was then made to shut out members of the families that have reigned in France from becoming presidents of the republic. This was evidently aimed at the Duke of Aumale, and if it had been carried there is no saying what might not have been the effect on the Orleanist section of the majority. This was the last test the Left had to endure, and they stood it nobly. By five hundred and forty-three votes to forty-one the Assembly rejected "this law of ostracism and distrust."

After the Left had yielded so much, they might have been allowed to date the new republic from the 24th of February. But the Right Centre was as unbending upon this point as upon every other. The Left are to have a republic — thus much is conceded — but they are neither to christen it, nor to fix its birthday, nor to determine what it shall be like, nor to have any hand in administering it. The republic of 1875 is to be the Consarvative republic; its anniversary is to be kept on the 25th of February, not on the 24th; it is to have a strong executive and a strong Second Chamber; its ministers are to be Republicans of the extremely mild type of M. Dufaure and M. Buffet. These are the terms on which the Right Centre have consented to unite with the Left, and it is the most extraordinary event in an extraordinary career that M. Gambetta should have been able to procure their acceptance. It is too soon to speculate on the future of this wonderful coalition; there are not even the materials for forming an opinion upon its past history. Two factions hitherto supposed to be irreconcilable, have agreed to take a house together. Each certainly wishes to be master, but which it is that expects to be master, and what grounds there are for such expectation, must for the present remain doubtful. All that can be said is, that as the Left have sacrificed most, they probably think that they have most to gain.

 

  additions to our knowledge of the fauna of the Mammoth Cave have recently been made by Mr. F. W. Putnam, of Salem, U.S., who, as a special assistant on the Kentucky State Geological Survey, of which Prof. N. S. Shaler is the director, had great facilities extended by the proprietors of the cave, and he made a most thorough examination of its fauna, especially in relation to the aquatic animals. Mr. Putnam passed ten days in the cave, and by various contrivances succeeded in obtaining large collections. He was particularly fortunate in catching five specimens of a fish of which only one small individual had heretofore been known, and that was obtained several years ago from a well in Lebanon, Tennessee. This fish, which Mr. Putnam had previously described from the Lebanon specimen under the name of Chologaster agassizii, is very different in its habits from the blind fishes of the cave and other subterranean streams, and is of a dark colour. It lives principally on the bottom, and is exceedingly quick in its motions. It belongs to the same family as the two species of blind fishes found in the cave. He also obtained five specimens of four species of fishes that were in every respect identical with those of the Green River, showing that the river fish do at times enter the dark waters of the cave, and when once there apparently thrive as well as the regular inhabitants. A large number of the white blind fishes were also procured from the Mammoth Cave and from other subterranean streams. In one stream the blind fishes were found in such a position as to show that they could go into daylight if they chose, while the fact of finding the Chologaster in the waters of the Mammoth Cave, where all is utter darkness, shows that animals with eyes flourish there, and is another proof that colour is not dependent on light. Mr. Putnam found the same array of facts in regard to the crayfish of the cave, one species being white and blind, while another species had large black eyes, and was of various shades of a brown colour. A number of living specimens of all the above-mentioned inhabitants of the waters of the cave were successfully brought to Massachusetts after having been kept in daylight for several weeks, proving that all the blind cave-animals do not die on being exposed to light, as has been stated.