From The Examiner. Curiosities of Natural History. Second places have started into existence, and the sea is now found efficacious for nearly all ailments, whether of mind or body, and it often effects a cure when nothing else will; an annual migration, like that of anadromous fishes, of thousands of persons now takes place to those very shores which their grandfathers regarded with a species of horror. without a minister. Now, the sovereign who was so fond of Brighton did not want to be bored with a minister at his elbow; and therefore Brighton was put down as being under the proscribed distance, and the pavilion, etc., started into existence." The following hint may be new and acceptable to some of our sportsmen :— THE place in literature left vacant by the death of Mr. Broderip is likely to be better filled by Mr. Buckland than by any other "In most books, Brighton is stated to be forty furnisher of recreations in Zoology. Less odd miles from London. This we believe not learned in the literature of their subject, but to be strictly correct; but it is made under fifty as hearty in the scientific relish of it, and as the tale, in former times, the king was not almiles from London, because as we have heard copious in anecdote, the Curiosities of Nat-lowed to go more than fifty miles from London ural History gathered into Mr. Buckland's First and Second Series may take their place upon the book-shelf with the well-known and ever popular Zoological Recreations. The new volume is in part à reprint from journals to which good sketches of animal life and zoological anecdotes are welcome, but the republished matter is recast and blended with much that is altogether new in three chapters of naturalist's gossip. Of these one is upon the contents of Dr. Buckland's geological collection in description of its sale, one of the creatures that are to be found in a gamekeeper's museum, and the last is called a Hunt on the Sea-shore. In the main, therefore, this is peculiarly a book of the season, one chief section of it having especial interest for the sportsman, and another for the townspeople who migrate to the sea. At Brighton Mr. Buckland says:"While looking at the machines, I was informed by my companion that the English have not been a sea-bathing nation such a very long time, and that, therefore, bathing-machines are a comparatively modern invention. It is exactly one hundred and ten years ago that a physician, named Russell, wrote a book upon the advantages of washing the body in sea-wateran idea which had not previously entered into the brains of our forefathers. Up to that time, to use the words of my learned informant and friend, Mr. Roberts, of Dover, the sea was judged to have been designed for commerce, "It is often a difficult matter to know which of a lot of birds, pheasants or partridges, hanging in a larder ought to be cooked first. My friend, Mr. Coulston, of Clifton, Bristol, has shown me how to put a date upon each bird without using pen, ink, or pencil, and it is a very simple but useful plan. When the birds fore you with his breast facing you, then begin are brought in after shooting, hold up each beleft, after the manner that children in the nurto count his toes from your right towards your sery play the game of Whose little pigs are these? Let the claws indicate the days of the claw off the first toe you count; if on a Thursweek; if the bird was shot on Monday, pull the day, the claw from the fourth toe, and so on. will bear a mark to show immediately on what When the birds are subsequently examined, each day of the week he was killed. This plan may be known to many, but still I give it for the benefit of those who have never heard of it be fore." The gourmand who has never eaten hedghints:hog may be interested by these culinary : and seaside towns for the residence of merchants and fishermen. At no previous period had there "I have often heard that hedgehogs are good been sea-side visitors. Why should they go to to eat, and that gypsies are very fond of them, the sea-coast, when no motive could be stated, and that they are great proficients in the art of -at a time, too, when Northampton's healthy cooking them. I have lately had the good forclimate was attributed to its distance from the tune to obtain information on this point from a noxious fumes of the sea? There were certainly high authority. In the neighborhood of Oxford watering-places; but these were towns where I met an old gypsy woman, who, although mineral waters existed, such as Bath, Chelten- squalid and dirty, was proud in being able to ham, Harrowgate,' etc. Dr. Russell's brother claim relationship with Black Jemmy, the king doctors took up the cry; sea-bathing suddenly of the gypsies. She informed me that there became the fashion; Dr. Russell was obliged to were two ways of cooking a hedgehog, and come to reside at Brighton; and the fishing vil- seemed much surprised at my question whether lages in various parts of the kingdom became in her tribe ever ate them; as if there could ever undated with visitors. Brighton, being the point exist a doubt. I expressed a wish to know the where the sea could be most easily reached from process, the receipt for which I subjoin in her London, was soon found out, and taken posses-own words: You cuts the bristles off 'em with sion of by a colony of citizens, anxious to follow a sharp knife after you kills 'em fust, sir; then the fashion and recruit their health at the same you sweals them (Oxfordshire, burns them with time. Besides Brighton, many other watering-straw like a bacon pig), and makes the rind brown, like a pig's swealings; then you cuts 'em down the back, and spits 'em on a bit of stick, pointed at both ends, and then you roastes 'em with a strong flare.' "It appears that hedgehogs are sometimes in season, and sometimes out of season. My informant told me that they are nicest at Michaelmas time, when they have been eating the crabs which fall from the hedges. Some,' she added, have yellow fat, and some white fat, and we calls 'em mutton and beef hedgehogs; and very nice cating they be, sir, when the fat is on 'em.' "The other way of cooking hedgehogs is gone out of fashion. The gysy's grandmother used to cook them in the following manner; but it appears they are best roasted. The exploded fashion is to temper up a bit of common clay, and then cover up the hedgehog, bristles and all, in it,-like an apple in paste, when an apple dumpling is contemplated,-then hedgehog, clay and all, is to be placed in a hole in the ground, and a fire lighted over it; when the clay is found to be burning red, the hedgehog is done and must be taken out of the hole; the clay-crusts of the pie being opened, the hedgehog's bristles are found sticking to it, and the savory dinner is ready. "The fashion of eating hedgehogs was not, in former days confined to gypsies. There was a farmer's family living at Long Compton, near Oxford, who were supplied with hedgehogs by our informant's grandmother; this family used also to breed them, keep and fatten several litters, and,' said the gypsy, they used to eat up every litter they bred, dressing 'em just when they wanted 'em, like they did the fowls.' Sometimes a nest of young hedgehogs is found by the gypsies; if they are too small for eating, they are preserved till fit for use, or, as it is called in Oxfordshire, 'flitted; that is, a string is tied to the hind leg, and the doomed animal is allowed to wander about the length of his tether, picking up what he can get; under this system, if well fed, he will fatten wonderfully." Illustrative of the perils of science is this story of the bubble knowledge sought at the whale's mouth: "Some years before I was born, a large whale was caught at the Nore, and towed up to London Bridge, the lord mayor having claimed it. When it had been at London Bridge some little time, the government sent a notice to say the whale belonged to them. Upon which the lord mayor sent answer, Well, if the whale belongs to you, I order you to remove it immediately from London Bridge.' The whale was therefore towed down the stream again to the Isle of Dogs, below Greenwich. The late Mr. Clift, the energetic and talented assistant of his great master, John Hunter, went down to see it. He found it on the shore, with its huge mouth propped open with poles. In his eagerness to examine the internal parts of the mouth, Mr. Clift stepped inside the mouth, between the lower jaws, where the tongue is situated. This tongue is a huge spongy mass, and being at that time exceedingly soft, from exposure to air, gave way like a bog, at the same time he slipped forwards towards the whale's gullet, nearly as far as he could go. Poor Mr. Clift was in a really dangerous predicament; he sank lower and lower into the substance of the tongue and gullet, till he nearly disappeared altgether. He was short in stature, and in a few seconds would, doubtless, have lost his life in the horrible oily mass, had not assistance been quickly afforded him. It was with great difficulty that a boat hook was put in requisition, and the good little man hauled out of the whale's tongue." The book, as a good specimen of the class to which it belongs, will enrich any collection. NAPOLEON I. HIS TESTIMONY TO THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST.-The following statement is to be found at p. 171, of Arvine's Cyclopædia of Moral and Religious Anecdotes, but without reference to any authority. I should like to be informed whether it rests on any respectable foundation: his disciples adored him. Alexander, Cæsar, Charlemagne, and myself founded empires; but on what foundation did we rest the creatures of our genius? Upon force. But Jesus Christ millions of men would die for him. I die before founded an empire upon Love; and at this hour, my time, and my body will be given back ot the earth, to become food for worms. Such is the "I know men,' said Napoleon at St. Helena fate of him who has been called the Great Napoto Count de Montholon, I know men, and I lcon. What an abyss between my deep misery tell you that Jesus is not a man! The religion and the eternal kingdom of Christ, which is proof Christ is a mystery which subsists by its own claimed, loved, adored, and is still extending force, and proceeds from a mind which is not a over the whole earth!' Then, turning to Genhuman mind. We find in it a marked individ-eral Bertrand, the emperor added, 'If you do uality, which originated a train of words and not perceive that Jesus Christ is God, I did actions unknown before. Jesus is not a philoso- wrong in appointing you a General.'' pher, for his proofs are miracles, and from the first-Notes and Queries. J. H. From The Spectator. THE GREAT DESERTS OF NORTH AMERICA.* THE Abbé Domenech has published, in two volumes, illustrated with fifty-eight woodcuts, three plates of ancient Indian music, and a map of the country described, the result of his personal observations and ethnographical studies on the Indians of the great deserts of North America, after a seven years' residence among them. The work is full of interest; it impresses us generally with a conviction of the good faith, simple heartedness, perseverance, industry, and comprehensiveness of observation which distinguish its excellent author. The descriptive parts, in particular, are very well done; being at once picturesque and exact; vivid enough to suggest the scenical reality and sympathetic enough to present "the mysterious reflection of the mind, which seems to appeal to us from the landscape," without any sacrifice of scientific accuracy. that which joins Asia and America, at Behring's Straits; or else the two lines of islands the Kouriles, situated between Japan and Kamschatka, and the Aleeutines, which join Kamschatka to the Alascan peninsula in Russian America, near the 55° latitude North." Other emigrants, it is supposed by the abbé, came from the east by the north of Europe, though Ireland, Iceland and Greenland, as others again reached Central America by the Canary Islands, "availing themselves of trade-winds and strong submarine currents." In proof of the origin thus assigned to the Indians of America, the abbé refers to the analogy which exists between the Mexican calendar and the calendars of nations of Tartar derivation, showing, as Humboldt observes, that the inhabitants of these two continents drew their astrological notions from a common source. In Mexico too, as in Eastern Asia, such names as tiger, dog, monkey or rabbit, were given to the days of the week. Another argument in favor of this identification is derived from affinity of idioms, which although composed of dissimilar words, agree closely in grammatical construction. The abbé has divided his work not only into chapters but into parts. We shall pass lightly over the first and second divisions, the subjects of which are "Ancient emigration" and "American origins." In these The third part of the work before us bears two sections there is much ethnological and as its characteristic heading, the word “Decosmological speculation, evincing some read- scriptions." The central portion of North ing and study, and possibly containing val- America is divided into distinct zones. "The uable matter. In the present state of the one to the east is covered with thick forests, various branches of knowledge which relate which extend almost without interruption to such disquisitions, it must be left to the from the Atlantic to the valley of the Misprofessed ethnologist to decide on the suc- sissipi, and even to a distance of three huncess or failure of our author, in his remote dred miles beyond that river." At Texas inquiries into the origin of the American the forests are replaced by prairies which Indians, his anthropological classification, "ascend from south to north to the hyperor his theory of the influence of climate.borean regions and are afterwards lost to Where we feel ourselves competent to pro- the west in the waters of the Pacific Ocean. nounce an opinion, as in questions of pure It is this zone, divided in all its length by exegesis, we profoundly disagree with the abbé. How far certain documentary prepossessions may bias his scientific conclusions, we leave to the determination of better instructed minds than our own. Starting with the unity of the human race and rejecting the hypothesis of a separate creation as well as every "other extraordinary theory," our author regards the Indians as members of the family created by God in Eden-"the degenerate descendants of emigrants from the old world, who at successive and very remote periods came over to America, voluntarily or accidentally," either in groups or separately. Two main routes are indicated by which these emigrants might have passed over into America. "The great route principally traversed is *Seven Years' Residence in the Great Deserts of North America. By the Abbé Em. Domenech, Apostolical Missionary, etc. In two volumes. Published by Longman and Co. the range of the Rocky Mountains and of the Sierra Nevada, that is the least known, although it is the most curious and interesting of the New World;" and it is of this zone that the Abbé Domenech proposes to himself especially to treat. The deserts of the south follow the prairies of Texas. "The prairies are cut up by countless rivers and streams, which are skirted by a double border of forests, composed of cedars, magnolias, sycamores, plane-trees, ebony," tuliptrees, maples, pines, acacias, oaks, etc. Some of them are sixty miles in length. They present the appearance of an ocean of dark stunted herbs, where nothing marks a beginning or an end. The traveller journeys through these wildernesses for days together, "without hearing the warble of the birds, without seeing any thing but the yellow grass, flowers faded by the heat, deer lying carelessly about, and pricking up their ears as they look at you with astonishment; time blanched bones, some rare tumuli, or sepulchral mounds, gilded by the last rays of the setting sun, or drowned in the bluish vapors of the atmosphere. To the west of Texas are to be seen two plains, stretching from east to west, whose undulations resemble "the little waves caused by the ebb and flow of the tide." Here infrequent mesquites with their gnarled branches display their dark green foliage; or a capriciously distributed cluster of acacias "appear like motionless shadows bending over a petrified sea covered with algae." These regions, moreover, are fertile, abounding in grass and flowers. Partridge, quail, wild turkeys, and deer are found here. Unfortunately rattlesnakes, scorpions, and tarantulas, equally affect these green domains. They are seen in the plains, in the woods, on the borders of the rivers, in fact everywhere, and were it not for the slow movements of these and other venomous reptiles and insects, "the history of the deserts would be but a long martyrology." The greatest annoyance, however, is the tick, or prairie bug, who creeps, clings, nestles, sucks wherever he can, and irritates the traveller incessantly. The greatest privation is the want of water. Animals perish with an exhausting thirst; withered skeletons of white people are seen near springs, to which they had not sense or strength to crawl. Here, too, the arrow and lance of the Comanches, exasperated by American ill-treatment, destroy their many victims. Passing over the deserts of the south-east, the south-west, and the west, and omitting all notice of California, with the historical, legendary, or descriptive comments of our author, we arrive at the borders of the Great Salt Lake, with its seventy miles of length, its elevation 4,200 feet above the level of the sea, and its seven islands. The waters of this lake leave traces of salt all over the soil. No fish can live in them; and fresh meat steeped in them for twelve hours, requires no other conserving preparation. To the east of the lake lies an extensive plain, covered in part with artemis, mire, or salt. From its centre rise numerous mountains like islands planted in a sea of saltpetre. "Beyond this point commences the desert of the Seventy Miles." "The malediction of heaven seems to weigh heavily on the solitude, which reminds one of the desolate shores of the Dead Sea, where Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed. To the east there appeared inaccessible mountain ridges, and blood-colored rocks dotted with green spots: on their flanks undulated dark clouds: whilst thick vapors moved above their summits, like the smoke of a volcano upon an azure sky. Light mists produced at twilight, hovered amid its vague glimmer, and danced over the waters, looking like crape tinged with the most lovely pink; this crape spread over the horizon a transparent veil that shed upon nature the charm of a faint light, which, as it gradually rose to the summit of the mountains, assumed a more sombre hue, an indescribable, dismal appearance, that filled the soul with sadness and the eyes with tears. This immense valley, of a lugubrious and funereal aspect, recalls to mind that of Jehoshophat, the valley of graves. An imposing silence continually reigns around this described lake, which might well be called the "Lake of Death." On its sterile strand, on the porphyry of its banks, you never hear the patter of the rain, the whistle of the wind, the leaves the swallow's rapid flight through the air. All falling from the trees, the chirp of the birds, nor is calm and gloomy like the vaults of a gigantic scpulchre. One would say that God, in a day of wrath, had cursed these solitudes on account of the crimes of their inhabitants, whose ashes lay mouldering for many centuries beneath tho sands of the deserts." "The situation The Closely following this striking scenical delineation, we find a very interesting sketch of the Mormon settlement. of the Mormon capital is admirable." Two years after its foundation it was already four miles in length by three in width. streets, which, with a breadth of forty-three yards, have on each side a footpath of six or seven yards wide, run at right angles to each other. The houses are requried, by municipal regulation, to be erected at a distance of seven yards from the footpaths. The intermediate space is planted with trees and shrubs. Before each door irrigating pipes are passed, which furnish abundant supplies of water for the gardens. To the east and north the city is commanded by a chain of mountains, whose graceful peaks are lost in the clouds, and which descend to the plains by gradations forming beautiful verdant terraces. To the west the town is watered by the Jordan, while innumerable torrents supply tiny brooks and streams that run along the thoroughfares and water the gardens. The foundation of several other towns, Paysan, Monte, the City of the Cedar, is also "Before many laid in the Great Basin. years have elapsed," says the Abbé Domenech, "all these establishments will [we believe] be joined by an uninterrupted chain of farms and villages, and from the Pueblo de los Angeles or of San Diego to the Great Salt Lake, the route will pass between rows of houses and cultivated fields." Our author testifies to the rapid progress of the Mor mons in the useful arts and industries-a progress which will make them ere long commercially independent of the United States for all fabrics and manufactures whatever. He pronounces them too powerful to fear the few soldiers that could be sent to intimidate them, and predicts that for a long time to come they will remain the sovereign masters of the territory of the Utah. The Mormon Church which in 1830 had only six members now numbers upwards of 100,000. From the descriptive portion of this work, we come to the archæological section. For "from Florida to Canada, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, the American soil is strewn with gigantic ruins of temples, tumuli, entrenched camps, fortifications, towers, villages, circuses, towers of observation, gardens, wells, artificial meadows, and high roads of the most remote antiquity." Pipes, sculptures, statuettes, mummies, serve to illustrate an extinct civilization. Who were the architects of the American monuments described by our traveller? Humboldt conjectures them to be the work of Scandinavians from the eleventh until the fourteenth century; but Domenech offers an ingenious proof of the untenableness of this supposition. The second volume of the Seven Years' Residence treats of the historical traditions and peculiarities of the Indians, sketching the characteristics of their different tribes, or of some of them at least, for they seem inexhaustibly numerous; describes also their individual qualities; presents us with a sketch of their languages and literature; portrays their manners and customs; depicts their holiday occupations and industrial pursuits and discusses their religious creeds and ceremonials. Uncorrupted by the vices of civilization, the real Indians are still simple and right-hearted, hospitable, truthful, slaves to their words, courageous but implacable in their vengeance, sincerely religious but profoundly superstitious. The degenerate Indians, however, have become false, supicious, avaricious, hard-hearted, and cruel. As an instance of Indian cunning we may cite the following story: "An Indian, after hearing a Protestant preach on the text, Make vows to heaven and keep them, went up to the preacher after the sermon and said, 'I have made a vow to go to your house.' A little surprised, the minister answered, Well, keep your vow.' On arriving at the house the Indian said, 'I have made a vow to sup with you.' This was also granted, but when, after supper, the Indian added, Í have made a vow to sleep in your house,' fearing there would be no end to the rows of his attontive auditor, the preacher replied, It is easy leave to-morrow morning,' to which the Indian so to do, but I have made a vow that you shall consented without hesitation." This proof is supplied by the trees which have grown on the rnins of these monuments, and the number of whose concentric circles, corresponding to the numbers of the years during which they have existed, warrants us in concluding that these relics of the past were abandoned 900 or 1,000 years ago-consequently at a period anterior to that assigned by Humboldt for their erection. The abbe's own opinion is, that they were constructed by a numerous and civilized people; and as he does "not think it possible that such a people can have existed durAccording to M. Domenech, all the saving so many centuries and passed quite un- ages of the New World believe in the existperceived from the earth, he' firmly believes ence of a Supreme Being, whom they call in its decline and fusion with the actual race the Good or Great Spirit, and adore as the of Red Indians, who wander and vegetate Creator. They believe also in the existence in the solitudes of the wilderness, as an ex-of an Evil Spirit, the antagonist of the Good ample to the world of the vicissitudes of nations and empires." Spirit, not, however, as an independent principle but as a subordinate power, like the These poor Red Indians afford an emphatic Devil of the Christian theology. It is imillustration of the "natural selection" or possible, we suppose, at present to settle the "vo victis" theory of existence. "Two cenquestion of Indian monotheism. In a work turies ago, the Indians of North America reviewed in a previous number of the Specnumbered about 16,000,000 or 17,000,000 tator, the German traveller, J. G. Kohl, souls, without including those of Mexico; while admitting that the Ojibbeways mensince that period, civilization has deprived tion one Great Spirit in their festivals, inthem of two-thirds of their territory. Iron timates that he does not fare much better weapons, fire, brandy, small-pox, and chol- than the "Optimus Maximus" of the Roera, have also made upwards of 14,000,000 of victims among them." The present Indian population, including the Indians in the British possessions, is estimated by our author and other writers at 2,000,000. In the Annals of the Propaganda of the Faith it is stated to be 4,346,803; while Mr. Schoolcraft, again, after various corrections and additions of his statistics, gives us as his definitive total, no more than 423,229. mans. It is not at all clear to us, that the Indian creed can be regarded as really or originally monotheistic. In some instances it may approximate to the monotheistic type, but this approximation may be attributed to European influences. Gehza Manitoo is certainly not the only Manitoo, though he is the supreme Manitoo. Of the immutability or divine perfection of the judgments of the *See Spectator, No. 1646, January 14, 1860. |