Scientific Notes [pp. 472-473]

APPLETONS' JO URYNAL OF POPULAR
is at once refuted by the fact that Ophelia, on the night of the play scene, speaks of the elder Hamnlet's death as having occurred four months
before. That night Hamlet killed Polonius; the next day he was sent
so Englandj when "two days old at sea," he was transferred by acci,:dent to the deck of a pirate-ship, and, coming home, arrives the very
day of Ophelia's funeral, her death occurring while insane at her father's
recent loss. What Mr. White would extend over ten years did not reach
as many months.
Lord Lytton, in a refusal to have his rhymed comedy of" Walpole"
produced on the stage, asserted that the poem is of a kind without a
previous example in the English language. To this a correspondent of
a London paper replies as follows: " The notes of Southey on his ex cellent' Life of Cowper' remind us that Dodsley's' Old Plays' include
comedies as well as tragedies in rhyme. What is nearer to the present
purpose is, that Hayley wrote a comedy-I think comedies-in rhyme,
one of which was produced by Colman at the iHaymarket Theatre, with
some success. Hayley's plays were published, and the jingle of his
rhymed comedy has remained in my ear during the years which have
elapsed since I read them. If I mistake not, one was called' The Con rmoisseur.' In this, during the explanation of the plot, these lines
occur:
'Poor Bijou, in a fit of amorous hunger,
Has married an old curiosity-monger.'
Another jingle recurs from another of Hayley's rhymed comedies:
'... Sometimes on the road
My dear Mr. Rumble composes an ode.'
' There is nothing new under the sun,' said some one in George Selwyn's hearing.'No,' was the wit's answer;'nor under the grand son.'
In the production of "Macbeth" at Booth's Theatre, the ghost of
tBanquo is only imagined, and not introduced according to the time honored custom. The idea seems to us a good one; the ghost, it will
be remembered, is seen by Macbeth only; it is evidently an illusion of
his excited mind, which this mode of rendering at Booth's well carries
,out. Mr. Booth does not seem to please so well in other Shakesperian
characters as in Hamlet; but his Macbeth is, in many particulars, a very
effective performance. If the burly, personal strength of a rude age is
riot fully realized, the actor succeeds in giving notable force to the char acter, in despite his juvenile figure. Like other of Mr. Booth's performances, it is uneven; but the actor always rises to the great situations.
"The effect of gilding all the decorative statues of sovereigns in the
Royal Gallery at Westminster," says the Athen,ceum, "a costly work,
which has been executed within the past few months, is so far satisfactory that the brilliant white of the marble figures no longer interferes
with the coloring of Mr. Maclise's pictures on the walls, and is splendid
where all is superlatively gorgeous. At present, notwithstanding the
use of gold somewhat dimmed in its brilliancy, the statues look rather
hard and metallic; but-as few things of the sort approach old gilding
in richness and sobriety of color-if the persons in charge can be persuaded to let time take effect on the figures, the result will certainly be
a glorious treat to lovers of color in the coming generation."
A Paris correspondent of the Home Journal says: "Last evening
we heard Mdlle. Nilsson as Ophelia in the opera of' Hamlet.' She has
a very beautiful voice, brilliant, and cold as ice. She is not at all sympathetic, and entirely lacks that fire and abandon which is one of Patti's
greatest charms. As to the Nilsson's personal appearance, she is tall
and fair; but you think her less beautiful at last than first sight, for the
same coldness pervades her person that characterizes her voice, and
makes the music seem to come only from her mouth, instead of bursting
from a' soul' of song."
Mr. Charles Dickens, Jr., has made another successful appearance at
the old theatre at Richmond, in the character of Toby Heywood, in
Douglas Jerrold's comedy of the " Rent Day." There is, by-the-way,
says the Graphic, no truth in the report that Mr. Charles Dickens, Jr.,
intends to adopt the stage as a profession. At the Richmond Theatre
he has performed as one of a company of amateurs, strengthened only
by a few professional ladies.
There has been collected at the India Museum, London, a fine series
of those exquisite and gorgeously-decorated fabrics which show that,
almost alone in modern times, the weavers and embroiderers of India
retain that gift of artistic taste which their ancestors possessed so many
centuries ago. They suffice to prove how much we might learn from
these forms of design, and that we should do well if we studied the
system which has produced such results.
O Church-choirs in this city," says the Evening Post, "will, in May
next, suffer the usual variety of changes. Already pertinacious sovranos are busily engaged in seeking engagements, while music com
mittees are trying to find that rara avis, a first-class ternor. In several
prominent up-town churches, where quartet-choirs-excellent ones, too
-have been in vogue, the boy-choir system will be adopted."
Six unedited compositions of Haydn, which were discovered by
chance in a convent near Biberach, are about to be published at Munich.
They are written for four voices, and their authenticity cannot be
doubted.
Beautiful examples of photography in permanent pigments are given
in the first number of the Photographic Art Journal just issued in
London.
,SteififirD lifts.
R. B. A. GOULD, of Cambridge, Mass., lately gave a lecture in
New York on the constitution of the sun, firom the report of
which we take the following passages:
"It was once thought that an exterior shell, surrounding the true
body of the sun, was the source of his light and heat, and that within
this shell was a comparatively cool, dark body, which might possibly
be inhabited by beings not very unlike ourselves. Now that we know
the case to be otherwise, and that the interior of the sun must be at
a temperature surpassing that of the fiercest fires which can be pro duced by human art, the question of habitability loses its significance,
except perhaps from a theological point of view...
"The nucleus, although we speak of it as black, and although it ap pears intensely so in contrast with the glowing radiance of the sur rounding portions, is in itself by no means devoid of brightness. It
has been well said by Winnecke, that were the lighlt of the whole sun
to be extinguished, excepting the portion radiating from the nucleus
of a spot, our eyes would scarcely be able to endure the dazzling
beams. Herschel's estimate has generally been considered too low,
yet it would give the dark nucleus of a spot a luminous intensity nearly
two thousand five hundred times greater than that of the full moon."
The idea that the sun is a burning mass is also, it seems, held to be
without foundation:
" The sources of the light and heat of the sun-the only two of his
marvellous properties apparent to the ordinary observer-are problems
of the greatest difficulty. I will only say here that the most vivid
light developed by human art, when interposed between the eye and
the sun, appears like a black spot upon the solar disk. The highest
temperature yet produced by man is that evolved by the combustion of
charcoal in oxygen, which Bunsen estimates at ten thousand degrees C.,
or eighteen thousand degrees F.; and this is about five-sevenths of the
lowest reasonable estimate for the temperature of the solar surface.
Coal burning at the rate of one pound to the square foot in about two
seconds would attain this temperature, and Rankine has estimated that
in the furnaces of powerful locomotive-engines, a pound of coal to each
square foot of grate-surface is consumed in from thirty to ninety seconds, yielding a heat from one-fifteenth to one-forty-fifth as intense as
that at the surface of the sun.
" Adopting this estimate that a heat equal to that emitted by the sun
might be attained by the combustion of coal at this rate of one-half
pound per second to the square foot, it is easy to find how long the
whole mass of the sun would last, were it composed of coal burning at
that rate, and furnished moreover with an unlimited supply of oxygen
to support the combustion. Performing the calculation, we find that
the entire sun would be consumed in a little more than four thousand
years, that is, within a period no longer than that over which human
history extends."
From this it follows that there need be no fear that the sun will ever
cease to give out light and heat:
" The great fact, to which I have more than once alluded, that the
sun is practically our only source of earthly power and energy, gives a
peculiar interest to the question whether his brilliancy and thermal energy are undergoing any perceptible diminution. That they are diminishing we must assume on general principles, inasmuch as we know to
what an inconceivable extent he is radiating force in the various forms
of heat, light, and chemical power, and force once emitted from a
source of such superior energy is not returned to it again, while a new
creation of force by natural agencies is just as impossible as a new
creation of matter. But whether any diminution of radiant energy
in consequence of the enormous expenditure is perceptible oy our
means of investigation is a most natural and important question, and
to this it must be answered that ino appreciable decrease has been
detected."'
But the point of most interest is that which shows how scientific men
are gradually coming to the conclusion that there is some interior source
of power in the sun not yet discovered.
" The facts being now mamlifest that the forces radiating from the sun
cannot be due to combustion, inasmuch as this would be inadequate
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