The Museum [pp. 411-412]

LITERA TURE, SCIENCE, AND ART.
LE atifers f tituert ani Art.
YE have received, from a Paris correspondent, the subjoined ac count of the Annual French Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpes: "This season, the number of works submitted to the jury
ounted to the enormous figure of seven thousand, of which, how:r, only two thousand four hundred and fifty-two were admitted to
exhibition-a fact sufficiently indicative of a highly-advanced state
art in this country. Of course, among such a collection, there is a
-at deal of what is worthless; still the experience of every year shows
t the standard of excellence is slowly but surely increasing, and the
.ouragement now given to works of high-class art has drawn into the
'd superior talents and capacity. To give any thing like a compre;sive view of the works exhibited, in a limited space, would be an
possibility; and perhaps the only way of appreciating fairly the merof the whole will be to fix our attention on the productions of a few
the best artists, who are the recognized leaders of their various arts.
.e great wuork of M. Chenavard, one of the best exponents of modern
in France, is pronounced by competent critics to be the finest he has
produced, and is probably the best painting exhibited this season,
regards comprehensiveness and greatness of sustained effort. The
bject treated is "Divina Tragcedia," or end of religions. The end
ancient religions and the entry into heaven of the Christian Trinity
represented by Death striking the gods who are destined to perish,
led by the Angel of Justice and Mind. In the centre, the new God
)ires on the cross on the Father's bosom, whose head is veiled in
)uds; while above, in the seraphic heavens, the blessed long sepa'ed meet again, embracing each other. A few winged cherubs bear
a features of Death, which is everywhere present. Behind the central
oup appear on one side Adam and Eve, and on the other the Virgin
ary with the Child Jesus, representing the Fall and Redemption;
hile, lower down, under the rainbow whereon the Father sits, on one
Ie Satan wrestles with the Angel, and on the other the vulture de,urs Prometheus chained to the rock. At the bottom, old Maia, the
dian, weeps over the bodies of Jupiter-Ammon and Isis Cyb6le, her
.temporaries, who have died in the act of shaking hands. On the
it, Minerva, accompanied by the serpent consecrated to her honor, is
,ned w ith the head of Medusa, whose blood has given birth to Pegas mounted by Hercules, a popular emblem of the poetic strength of
tiquity. The demi-god is astonished in presence of the entirely mor strength of the new God. Diana-Hecate lets fly her last arrows
ainst Christ. Behind, Apollo flays Marsyas alive, typifying, apparf,ly, the triumph of Understanding over Bestiality. In the shade,
din advances, leaning on an ash-tree branch, listening to two crows,
,e relating the past, the other predicting the future, followed by the
eer-furious wolf Fenis. Near Odin, his son Hemdall sounds his horn,
summon the other Northern divinities; above, are the inexorable
ates, under the changing star; and higher up, the immortal Androgyis, symbol of the harmony of two natures or contrary principles, coved with the Phrygian bonnet, and seated on her chimera. On the
ght, Thor, armed with his ponderous hammer, gauntlet, and baldrick,
zrcely combats the monster Jormungardour, a struggle which will only
ad with the world, the monster being emblematic of good and evil.
~acchus and Love form a triad with Venus, whom they bear away
,leep. Behind, Mercury carries away Pandora, who has fainted while
pening the fatal box. Above, Death, the Angel, and Mind hurl into
'le abyss the Egyptian Typhon with his dog's head, the black Demiuras, the lion-bodied Persian, besides winged planets and flaming stars.
l the lower right angle, a spectator, placed upon a segment of the earth
,t front of the city of Rome, indicates the place of vision. While the
Lyle of M. Chenavard shows that, in developing his powers, he has
~ken for his model the works of Raphael and Michael Angelo, the eru.ition displayed in the present effort forcibly reminds us of the peculiar
— atures of some of the German masters. The title, " End of Religions,"
:hich troubled some of the managing committee, might, with equal pro-riety, be changed to " Triumph of Christianity," since it was in presne of Christ triumphing in death that the last defenders of vanquished
paganism vanished. His identifying of Hercules with poetry is not
.recise]y correct, he being rather the warlike and civilizing genius of an;quity-the benefactor of humanity, devoted to its happiness and pros,erity. Poetic genius would have been most worthily represented by
apollo, who is always associated with inspiration and the Muses.
.pollo, indeed, is not forgotten, but he is engaged in the repulsive attiude of flaying alive his rival Marsyas, and rather shocks our traditionmy feelings with the impression that, in this attitude, he is sadly out of
lace-he, who is the orthodox personification of poetic genius in aniquity. Many of the groups are powerfully delineated, and show in
very touch the hand of a master; others, again, are deficient in precison and certainty, and of inferior merit as regards coloring, which,
however, is not at all surprising in a work of this magnitude. Barring
a few defects, the effort, as a whole, betokens talents of a very high order, combined with painstaking skill and unwearied industry. He has
aimed high, and we cannot say unsuccessfully, since he has produced an
historical painting in the fullest sense of the word, certainly unsurpassed
by any in the exhibition, which cannot fail to be a source of gratification
to all lovers of art in Paris. Surrounded by much that is silly and commonplace, his work shows the distinction that may yet be achieved by
a superior mind in the higher walks of art."
The firing of coal-mines which are filled with combustible materials,
gaseous and solid, is easily understood; but, how a silver-mine, like
those of Nevada, can get on fire, as has recently been the case, is not so
obvious. This is readily explained, however, by a reference to the conditions of their excavation and working. The Comstock Mine, having
been opened at various places for the distance of about two miles, and
the excavations below the surface made by one company being frequently connected with those made by another, a miner can oftentimes
pass from the former into the latter. The mine averages from forty to
sixty feet in thickness, and pitches into the earth at an angle varying
from sixty to eighty degrees. As most of tmhe vein-matter between the
upper or hanging wall of the ledge and the foot-wall has been removed
to the depth of eight hundred to one thousand feet, the superincumbent
mass of country-rock that overlies the hanging wall would cave in, were
that wall not supported and upheld by enormous timbers. As the mine,
is pumped comparatively dry, these timbers season after a time. The
miner carries a candle, with a wire thrust through it, which he uses as a
handle, and also as a means of fastening the candle to wood or timber.
or into the crevices of rocks. A candle, thus placed too near a piece of
wood or timber, doubtless set it on fire, and, before the fire could be ex tinguished, it sent its smoke and flames into the adjacent mines. There
was no evidence of any fire-damp, no smell of gases, no volcanic or
earthquake action, none of the symptoms of the fire having been caused
by internal heat.
It is proposed, by Rear-Admiral Jachmann, of the Prussian Navy, to
construct, between the Jahde, the Weser, and the Elbe, a kind of rail way composed of a great number of parallel rails bearing a dock capa ble of transporting the heaviest iron-clads from one river to another.
In the event of a blockade by a foreign fleet, this ingenious mech anism would enable the Federal fleet to assemble at any point
against the aggressors. This project, however, is only the reduc tion of M. Dupeyrat's idea, whose inventive boldness and technical
knowledge did not recoil before the difficulty of transporting ships
by land from the Channel seaports to those of the Mediterranean, and
vice versa.
It is a remarkable fact, says the Engineer, that the lavas of Vesuvius
contain a greater amount of minerals than, perhaps, any others in the
world. Hiiuy mentions, that out of three hundred and eighty simple min erals known to him, no less than eighty-two have been found on Vesuvi us; and of these several are peculiar to the locality. Sir Charles Lyell
expresses the opinion that these have not been thrown up in fragments
from some older formation, through which the gaseous explosions have
burst, but have been sublimed in the crevices of lava, "just as several
new earthy and metallic compounds are known to have been produced
by,ftmneroles since the eruption of 1822."
Horse-eating does not appear to be making much progress in France,
notwithstanding the exertions of the authorities to push the sale of
horse-flesh. The poor people do not believe in the fancy accounts, got
up by the medical non-eaters, of the nutritious qualities of the animal,
and still prefer their beef and mutton, at whatever price it may be.
Statistics just published show that the amount of horse-flesh sold for
human food throughout the whole of France does not exceed four tons
per day, which is about the thirtieth part of the supply.
HE polish of which the surfaces of certain bodies, such as steel, the
diamond, and other precious stones, are susceptible, is an evidence at
once of the limited sensibility of our organs, and the unlimited divisibility of matter. This polish is produced, as is well known, by the
friction of emery-powder or diamond-dust, and, consequently, each individual grain of such powder or dust must leave a little trench or trace
upon the surface submitted to such friction. It is evident, therefore,
that, after this process has been completed, the surface which presents
to the senses such brilliant polish, and apparently infinite smoothness,
is, in reality, covered with protuberances and indentations, the height
and depth of which cannot be less than the diameter of the particles of
powder by which the polish has been produced.
The old habit of mixing up theology and mechanics is illustrated by
a curious relic which was presented by Mary, Queen of Scots, to her
maid of honor, Mary Seaton. The watch is of silver, in the form of a
skull. On the forehead of the skull is the figure of Death, with his
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