Scientific Notes [pp. 318-319]

APPLETOiNS' JO URNAL OF POPULAR
[SEPTEMBER 10,
ress in population, wealth, and organization,
but she is no longer led by the great Napoleon,
nor by his experienced marshals. Her army
as a whole is physically, mentally, and morally, hardly equal to that of Prussia, is not so
well armed, nor so efficiently led. It is therefore not astonishing that the Prussians have
won the first battles, and that the French are
retreating before them.
Edttaic.i~ftLrama.
M R. BOOTH opened his current season
with Jefferson as Rip van Winkle. It
is among the surprising facts of the time that
a play or a performance, once thoroughly fixed
in popular appreciation, may be acted for almost indefinite periods to crowded audiences.
The public appetite seems to grow upon what
it feeds, and, because it has enjoyed once a fine
dramatic presentation, it returns again and
again to repeat the pleasure. This fact refutes
the common charge of public fickleness. Mr.
Jefferson's Rip van Winkle, it is almost needless to say, retains all its beautiful characteristics. It still remains one of the most natural
and artistic renditions on the stage-still delights the critical and entertains the ordinary
mind.
Some of the London actors have so long
been employed on burlesques, that, in attempts
to render legitimate comedy, they transfer
the buffoonery only proper to the former to
characters and language in which it becomes
essentially offensive. Of a representation of
" School for Scandal," at the Strand Theatre,
the Athenceumn says: "Accustomed to see
laughter attend upon insolence and buffoonery,
those taking part in the representation could
not forego a chance of repeating their customary triumphs. While one accordingly dressed
himself like a mountebank, a second converted
Sheridan's dialogue into farce, and a third was
with difficulty prevented from executing, upon
the stage, feats of which the proper home is
the music-hall or the circus. The whole performance was contemptible and deplorable."
The story of Zenobia has never supplied a
good acting play for the stage, although there
have doubtless been a great many attempts by
ambitious youth to frame the strange and glittering history into suitable shape for this purpose. The London E.aminer reviews very
favorably a recent attempt of the kind from
the pen of W. Marsham Adams. With a little
alteration the Examiner thinks it would make
a very effective stage representation. The
blank verse is described as smooth, correct,
with occasional flashes of eloquence and subtleties of expression that are very Shakespearian in their mode.
A Paris paper remarks on the great increase
of late in the salaries of actors. It states
that Fr6d6ric Lemaitre, who used to receive
$200 a month, now gets $3,000; Melinque,
who got $160, nosv gets $1,800; Mdlle. Farguerie got $100, now- gets $500; Bert got $200,
now gets $1,200. At the Variitd, where they
used to pay $1,600 a year, they now pay
$6,000; and, finally, Mdlle. Schneider is paid
at the rate of $20,000 a year.
Wagner's last opera, founded on the legend
of Brunnhilde, has lately been produced at
Munich. Reports speak rather in its favorsome of the scenes, notably one in the second
act, is said to be powerfully dramatic. A large
audience, among which were many foreign
musicians and critical amateurs, assisted at
the first performance, and expressed themselves well pleased.
John Cooper, a veteran actor of the Kemble school, died recently in London, at the age
of seventy-seven. John Kemble was so much
pleased with Cooper's acting that he presented
him at the time of his first appearance, when
only eighteen years of age, with a sword, as a
testimony of his admiration of his performance of Romeo.
Victor Hugo has written an historical comedy called " Madame de Maintenon," and
Erckmann-Chatrian have prepared for the
Thdatre de Cluny a dramatic version of their
"L'ami Fritz." These gentlemenwill probably
find that nowadays writing for the stage is only
successful with those who make it a special art.
The King of Bavaria has purchased all the
rights connected with Richard Wagner's famous trilogy of operas, Walkyre, Rheingold,
and Sieg.fried, the last of which is not yet
completed. For the copyright Wagner is to
receive an annual sum of three thousand dollars.
Mr. Robertson's comedy of "Mr. P." was
so successful last spring in London, and was so
highly praised for its freshness, delicacy, and
charming characterization, that we may well
hope some of our managers will make earnest
effort, and speedily and suitably reproduce it
here during the season just opening.
At Niblo's Theatre in this city the painters
and gilders have freshened and redecorated the
interior, but the stage-manager hopes to deserve success by such worn-out plays as " The
Duke's Motto " and " The Black Crook," and
such a leading attraction as "Lotta."
The entire original manuscript of four of
J. Fenimore Cooper's novels-" The Deerslayer," "The Pathfinder," " The Two Admirals," and "Mercedes of Castile "-in the author's own autograph, was recently sold in
London. The manuscript of one of Mr. Dickens's early sketches, sold recently, brought
one hundred and twenty-five dollars.
A Benedictine, named Baschet, already
known for his researches in the archives of
Venice, has published a work on the history
of the secret tribunal of that city, in which he
has drawn largely upon the dispatches of the
ambassadors of the Venetian Republic. The
book has rather a tendency to whitewash the
Inquisition.
The Primate of the Swedish Church, the
Archbishop of Upsal, Mgr. Reuterdahl, has
just died, at the age of seventy-five years. He
was a distinguished theologian and historian,
and had written some remarkable works.
George Eliot, whom many critics are now
disposed to place at the head of English fiction,
is engaged upon another novel. Whether historical, like " Romola," or of modern life, like
" Adam Bede," is not stated.
The author of " Aunt Margaret's Trouble,"
said to be a daughter of Dickens, has a novel,
called "Anne Furness," running through the
pages of the Fortnig~htly Reeview.
When Tennyson was eighteen years old, he
wrote a poem called "The Lover's Tale." A
copy of it, bound up with an early edition of
his poems, was recently sold by a London
auctioneer for twenty-three dollars.
Miss Helen Taylor is said to be editing the
posthumous works of Buckle.
dmentific Xotes.
HE REV. MR. FARRAR has, in the last
number of Fraser's lfagazine, an able
article on Galton's "Hereditary Genius." Mr.
Farrar concludes his review by saying: "We
have freely canvassed both the conclusions at
which Mr. Galton has arrived and the evidence
on which they are founded, and we have endeavored to show that the value of his inferences is at present rather theoretical than
practical. But we must not conclude without
reiterating our sincere respect for the ability,
the candor, the industry, and the versatility of
mind, which he has brought to bear upon the
discussion of the question. His book is eminently suggestive, even to readers who will
differ widely from his views; it contains a
great deal of which the value and importance
are unaffected by his main theory, and we believe that it will always hold a place deservedly
prominent in the literature of the important
subject to which it is devoted."
The original sketches by Seymour, Brown,
and Leech, for "Pickwick" and "Nicholas
Nickleby," were sold by auction, in London,
on the 26th of July. There are eighty-seven
original sketches, with manuscript notes for
corrections by Charles Dickens. At the same
time the auctioneer sold the original manuscript, by Mr. Dickens, of "Mr. Robert Bolton, the Gentleman connected with the Press,"
and full reports of the first and second meetings of the Mudfog Association, written for
Bentley's Miscellany.
F the revolution of the earth on its axis were
to be suddenly stopped, the temperature
of every thing would be raised to such a degree as to be incapable of existing in any other
form than vapor. When a bullet strikes the
target, it becomes so hot that it cannot be held
in the hand. Its velocity is at the rate of
twelve hundred feet a second. But what must
be the heat produced when a body like the
earth, moving at the rate of ninety million feet
a second, is suddenly arrested! It would soon
be converted into a sea of fire, and all life would
become extinct.
Mr. Charles T. Brown, of the Geological
Survey of Demerara, has found a magnificent
fall on the Potaro River, hitherto unknown.
The river passes over a table-land, composed
of slightly-inclined beds of sandstone and conglomerate, thirteen hundred and seventy-five
feet above the level of the sea, and descends
perpendicularly in an unbroken fall of about
nine hundred feet. The river is about three
hundred feet wide, and its greatest depth is
from ten to fifteen feet.
Along the Sierra Nevada, close to the line
of snow, a plant grows of sizes varying from
an inch to two inches in thickness and height
to the dimensions of the largest cabbages. It
is known as the snow-cactus, and depends for
moisture upon the melting snow. It has been
recently proposed to treat this plant as a tablevegetable, and it is said that, boiled and served
up like asparagus, it is found equally succulent
and satisfactory.
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