Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 128.djvu/266

256 raging fires, which may burst out at any moment. As far as human science can predict, an eruption will take place before long. It is not improbable that the unusual quantity of rain which has fallen this year may have precipitated the phenomena I have reported, for Prof. Phillips, in his "Vesuvius," says, "Internal fissures arising from some kind of accumulating pressure, the necessity of earthquakes following upon such a process in a volcanic region will be apparent. For thus the heated interior becomes opened to the admission of water; the generation of steam — the sudden shock — the far-extended vibratory motion, are consequences of a slow change of dimensions, in presence of internal heat and admitted water." H. W.

 

  – It is worthy of notice that among the feathered and four-legged animals domesticated by the ancient Egyptians, ducks are not represented; moreover, it may be observed that there are no data to show that the domestic fowl was known to the ancient Egyptians. The object so called on the cartouche of the builder of the Great Pryamid resembles a chick, both in appearance and figure, but it might be the young of the quail, which is still plentiful throughout the cultivated districts. There is a picture on one of the tombs, and another in the British Museum, where geese, quail, and evidently ducks, are being salted and preserved for future use. Pigeons, both wild and domesticated, have been plentiful in Egypt from very early times. The common rock-pigeon (C. livia) is generally distributed, and its compeer of the dovecot often returns to the rocky wilds. Every town of any pretensions has a public pigeon-house, more on account of the economic value of the manure than for the birds. At Sioot it is a lively scene to sit in your boat and watch them swarming about the houses and settling on the tops of palm-trees, or, like sea-gulls, hovering over the river for the purpose of picking up refuse thrown overboard. The traveller inquisitive on points connected with natural history will do well to examine the walls of the Theban temples. On that of Medinet Haboo, there is observed a very vivid representation of the coronation of the warrior monarch, Rameses III. (B.C. 1300.) Here, among all the state display of the times, are shown priests in their robes letting off carrier-pigeons, which seem to be conveying tidings of the event to distant points—indeed, Egyptiologists assert that there are notices in ancient papyrus manuscripts of tamed pigeons having been used in Egypt as articles of food no less than three thousand years, and upwards, before the birth of Christ, thus testifying to the long domestication of the pigeon. The turtle-dove (T. Senegalensis) is universally distributed over the habitable parts of Egypt and Nubia, and breeds in the middle of the large towns. When the ancients wished to represent a "widow woman," they drew a black dove; neither the above nor the pigeon have been found embalmed. The monkeys were sacred to the god Thoth, secretary to Osiris, the Jupiter of the old Egyptians. One species is evidently the dog-faced ape (Simia hamnadryas) a native of Ethiopia, from whence it was probably obtained; it appears constantly in the hieroglyphic writings, as well as in pictures and statues, the visage in the latter being often half-dog, half-monkey. The other is the little green monkey of Ethiopia; both are common in museums. The presence of the camel in Egypt during the sojourn of Abraham is a matter of history, and yet, strange to say, it has never been met with in the paintings or hieroglyphics. The feathers of the ostrich are seen on the heads of the gods, and were, no doubt, brought from the south by the tribes as tribute, or obtained during conquests. The elephant also appears in pictures; but none of these seem to have been either sacred or emblematic of a deity. Colburn's New Monthly Magazine.

Communistic principles which are so alarmingly in the ascendant in Scandinavia may perhaps be explained by the low state of the higher education, a fact which has received a strong confirmation in the statistics lately published of the condition of the various universities. The retrograde tendency is shown in the most startling form in the University of Christiania, where the number of students, over 1,000 at the end of the corresponding term last year, now scarcely exceeds 800. In Sweden the contempt for literature has not passed so far as in Denmark or Norway; but in one university at least (Lund) we find a serious diminution in the number of students. The sentimental teaching given at the popular Höfolkeskoler, consisting chiefly of ballads and the elements of rhetoric, may foster patriotism, but is no adequate substitute for a university education. Academy.