Growing among black folks as among white,
Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressmen, Cuff,

I give them the same, I receive them the same.

And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.

All truths wait in all things,

They neither hasten their own delivery nor resist it,
They do not need the obstetric forceps of the surgeon,
The insignificant is as big to me as any,

What is less or more than a touch?

Logic and sermons never convince,

The damp of the night drives deeper into my soul.

I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journeywork of the stars, And the pismire is equally perfect, and a grain of sand, and the egg of the wren,

And the tree-toad is a chef-d'œuvre for the highest,

........

And the running blackberry would adorn the parlors of heaven, And the narrowest hinge in my hand puts to scorn all machinery, And the cow crunching with depressed head surpasses any statue, And a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels." This passage is far from being the most characteristic of the poem, and even in it we have stopped abruptly for one line more, and Yet this will show that the punctuation is as odd as any other feature of the work; for the whole is full of conceits which speak fully as much of coarse vain-glorious egotism as of originality of genius. Any man may be an original, whether in the fopperies of the dress he puts on himself or on his poem. We are not, therefore, disposed to rate such very high, or to reckon Walt Whitman's typographical whims any more indicative of special genius, than the shirt-sleeves and unshaven chin of his frontispiece. If they indicate any thing specially, we should infer that he is a compositor by trade, and, for all his affectations of independence, could not keep "the shop" out of his verse. But that he sets all the ordinary rules of men and poets at defiance is visible on every page of his lank volume; and if readers judge thereby that he thinks himself wiser than all previous men and poets-we have no authority to contradict them. That some of his thoughts are far from vain or common place, however, a few gleanings may suffice to prove; culled in the form, not of detached passages but of isolated ideas,-lines, or fragments of lines:

"The friendly and flowing savage....Who is he?

Is he waiting for civilization or past it and mastering it?"

"The welcome ugly face of some beautiful soul."

"The clock indicates the moment....but what does eternity indicate?"

"Afar down I see the huge first Nothing, the vapor from the nostrils of death, I know I was even there....I waited unseen and always,

And slept while God carried me through the lethargic mist,
And took my time....and took no hurt from the fœtid carbon."

"See ever so far....there is limitless space outside of that, Count ever so much....there is limitless time around that.

Our rendezvous is fitly appointed....God will be there and wait till we come.” These doubled and quadrupled points, let us add, pertain to the original, whatever their precise significance may be. Here again is a grand idea, not altogether new; and rough in its present setting, as the native gold still buried in Californian beds of quartz and debris. Nevertheless it is full of suggestive thought, and like much else in the volume-though less than most,-only requires the hand of the artist to cut, and polish, and set, that it may gleam and sparkle with true poetic lustre :

"A slave at auction!

:

I help the auctioneer....the sloven does not half know his business.
Gentlemen look on this curious creature,

Whatever the bids of the bidders they cannot be high enough for him,

For him the globe lay preparing quintillions of years without one animal or plant,

For him the revolving cycles truly and steadily rolled.

In that head the allbaffling brain,

In it and below it the making of the attributes of heroes.

Examine these limbs, red, black or white....they are very cunning in tendon

and nerve;

They shall be stript that you may see them.

Exquisite senses, lifelit eyes, pluck, volition,

Flakes of breastmuscle, pliant backbone and neck, flesh not flabby, good sized arms and legs,

And wonders within there yet.

Within there runs his blood.. the same old blood..the same red running blood There swells and jets his heart....There all passions and desires....all reachings and aspirations :

Do you think they are not there because they are not expressed in parlors and lecture-rooms?

This is not only one man....he is the father of those who shall be fathers in their turns,

In him the start of populous states and rich republics,

Of him countless immortal lives with countless embodiments and enjoyments. How do you know who shall come from the offspring of his offspring through the centuries?

Who might you find you have come from yourself?"

"Great is life..and real and mystical.. wherever and whoever,

Great is death....sure as life holds all parts together, death holds all parts together;

Sure as the stars return again after they merge in the light, death is greater than life."

Such are some of the "Leaves of Grass," of the Brooklyn poet who describes himself on one of them as:

"Walt Whitman, an American, one of the roughs, a Kosmos!"

But if the reader-recognising true poetry in some of these,-should assume such a likeness running through the whole as pertains to the blades of Nature's Grass, we disclaim all responsibility if he find reason to revise his fancy.

In the two very diverse volumes under review it seems to us that we have in the one the polish of the artist, which can accomplish so much when applied to the gem or rich ore; in the other we discern the ore, but overlaid with the valueless matrix and foul rubbish of the mine, and devoid of all the unveiling beauties of art. Viewed in such aspects these poems are characteristic of the age. From each we have striven to select what appeared most worthy of the space at command, and best calculated to present them to the reader in the most favorable point of view consistent with truth. And so we leave the reader to his own judgment, between the old-world stickler for authority, precedent, and poetical respectability, and the new-world contemner of all authorities, laws, and respectabilities whatsoever. Happily for us, all choice is not necessarily limited to these. The golden mean of poesie does not, we imagine, lie between such extremes. There are not a few left, both in England and in America, for whom old Shakspeare is still respectable enough, and poetical enough,―aye and free enough too, in spite of all the freedom which has budded and bloomed since that year 1616, when his sacred ashes were laid beneath the chancel stone whose curse still guards them from impious hands. Nevertheless we have faith in the future. We doubt not even the present. When a greater poet than Shakspeare does arrive we shall not count him an impossibility.

D. W.

SCIENTIFIC AND LITERARY NOTES.

GEOLOGY AND MINERALOGY.

ORIGIN OF ROCK CLEAVAGE.

Few subjects connected with the physics of Geology have attracted of late years more attention than that of rock cleavage. Long considered, in accordance with the views of Sedgwick, as the result of a peculiar crystalizing force produced by electrical action or by heat, its origin has more recently been attributed, and evidently with truth, to the effects of mechanical causes. In other words, cleavage in rocks may be regarded as the result of enormous or long-continued pressure, exerted at right angles to the direction of the cleavage planes. Amongst those who have chiefly labored in support of this latter view, the late President of the Geological Society of London, Daniel Sharpe, with Mr. Sorby, and Professor Tyndall, may be especially cited. Observations of great interest on this subject will be found in some of the recent numbers of the Philosophical Magazine.

MEAN DENSITY OF THE EARTH.

According to the computations of the Astronomer Royal, based on his late pendulum experiments at the Harton Coal Pit, South Shields, the mean density of the Earth is equal to 6.566. This value is about one degree higher than any previously obtained.

The Rev. Samuel Haughton of Trinity College, Dublin, in a paper communicated to the Philosophical Magazine for July, 1856, has deduced from these experiments, by another mode of calculation, the value 5.480.

The officers engaged on the Trigonometrical Survey of the United Kingdom, have also taken up the question of the Earth's density. Observations on the deflection of the plumb-line at Arthur's seat, Edinburgh, conducted by Colonel James, R. E., and re-calculated by Captain A. R. Clarke (proceedings of the Royal Society, May 8, 1856,) give for the Earth's mean density, the value 5.316. A further set of observations on the Stack Mountain, Sutherlandshire, pointed out by the late Dr. Macculloch as the best adapted in all Scotland, for the estimation of the Earth's density by the deflection of the plumb-line, are also promised.

We have collected the above, and other earlier results, into the following table: A. Estimated by Plumb-line Deviation.

1. From Dr. Maskelyne's observations on the Schehallien Mountain in

2. From Colonel James' Observations on Arthur's Seat

(The first calculations gave 5.14.)

B. Estimated by the Ball Apparatus.

4.9999

5.316

5. By Reich, in Freiberg (1837).....

6. By Baily (mean result of over 2,000 observations)..

C. Estimated by Pendulum Movements upon and beneath the Earth's surface. 7. By Airy, (Astronomer Royal)......

8. Do. Do. (computed by the Rev. G. H. Haughton).

MINERALOGICAL NOTICES.

6.566 5.480

Lake Superior Copper.-M. Hautefeuille (Comptes Rendus, July 21, 1856) has detected the presence of Mercury in the argentiferous copper of Lake Superior. A sample of 200 kilogrammes, shewed, according to his analyses, the following composition :

Stafsfurtite. The so-called compact boracite, from the salt beds of Stafsfurt, near Magdeburg, is considered by G. Rose (Pog. Ann. 1856, No. 5) to be distinct in its crystalline structure from the ordinary or monometric boracite, although according to Karsten's analysis it agrees with this in composition. It dissolves, however, with rapidity in heated hydrochloric acid (the solution depositing hydrated B03 on cooling;) and it fuses likewise with great ease. These effects may arise, nevertheless, from admixtures. G. Rose has bestowed upon it the name of Stassfurtite, but its assumption as a distinct species is at least premature.

Carnallite.-A soluble substance occurring with the above, has been analysed by Oesten in the laboratory of H. Rose. In its composition it is essentially a dou ble chloride of potassium and magnesium after the formula (K Cl + 2 Mg Cl) +12HO. H. Rose has named it Carnallite, in honor of Herr Von Carnall, of the Prussian mines.

Tachhydrite.-Rammelsberg has examined a kindred salt from the same locality as the above. His analysis leads to the formula (Ca. Cl. + 2 Mg. Cl.) + 12HO. He has called the substance Tachhydrite, in allusion to its rapid deliquescence when exposed to the air. It occurs in rounded yellow masses, transparent to transludecent, and distinctly cleavable in at least two directions.

Voigtite. This mineral (see above, p. 484) is named after M. Voigt, of the Saxe-Weimer mines.

Leucophane and Melinophane.-Rammelsberg (Pog. An. 1856, No. 6) has analysed specimens of these minerals, and proved their mutual identity. He deduces from his analyses, the formula Na Fl + (3 CaO, 2 SiO3 + Be203, SiO3.) For descriptions of these substances, see Dana's System of Mineralogy, 4th Ed., vol. 2, p. 182-3.

Vanadinite.-Rammelsberg has also given an analysis (with notice of the crystalline form) of Vanadinite from the limestone of Mount Ovir, near WindischKappel in Carinthia. The substance is isomorphous with the pyromorphite group of minerals. System. Hexagonal. Prism, on pyramid - 130°; over polar edge =142o 30'; a (vert. axis.) to ā, as deduced from the latter angle=727 10. Sp. gr. 6.886. Formula, as given by Rammelsberg, [Pb Cl + 3 (3 FbO

=

P*