are extremely rare. Mr. Lyell inclines to bursting of the earth's crust, from the seaadopt the very prevalent, but, we think, water subsequently admitted by these ungrounded, notion, that the access of fissures. Nor can we, in fact, understand sea-water to the volcanic focus is a pri- the effect ascribed to the penetration of mary cause of its eruption. It is true that sea-water to heated lava. It is true that the greater number of volcanos are either explosions take place when water is poured islands or in the vicinity of the sea. But upon melted metals or earths under the this arrangement is accounted for naturally pressure of the atmosphere alone; but how by the continents being those portions of different are the circumstances of a subthe earth's surface in which the forces of terranean mass of similar matter, confined elevation and outward eruption have been under an enormous pressure at an intense formerly most successfully developed, and temperature. The formation of fissures in where, therefore, the maximum of repres- the overlying rocks by the increase of its sion is now opposed to the minimum of temperature and expansive force, would subterranean expansive force; while. for be instantly followed, under such circumthe opposite reason, we should look for stances, not by the descent of water or the actual development of this force to the other fluid from above, but by the rapid intervening spaces, where new islands and and violent intumescence and escape of continents are gradually forming in the the compressed matter from below upbed of the ocean. It is exactly because the wards, just as the water confined in a high elevated portions of the earth's crust have, pressure boiler rushes with irresistible vioin remote ages, suffered most from the lence through any opening made for its violence of subterranean energy, that they escape. And all the phenomena of erupare the least exposed to it at present. It tions confirm this idea. With respect to is in those quarters that the subterranean the fact, that some of the products of volheat has exhausted itself, and arrived at canos, as the muriates of soda, &c. are length at an equilibrium, or has been such as are contained in sea-water, it is, driven to take another direction for its to say the least, quite as probable that escape, by the predominance of the forces these ingredients of the ocean were originof repression. But neither are all vol- ally derived from the interior of the globe canos in the vicinity of the sea, nor still through the agency of volcanos aud miless all districts agitated habitually by neral springs, which we know to be daily earthquakes; and it may be said, that even adding to them, as that volcanos derive a single such instance is conclusive against them from the sea. a theory which makes the admission of Mr. Lyell quotes, with approbation, sea-water a necessary cause of subterra- Mitchell's illustration of the cause of nean movements. The volcano of Jorullo earthquakes, by the wave produced in a is in the centre of the high Mexican plat carpet when it is raised at one edge and form, one hundred and twenty miles from then brought down again, so as to allow a the nearest sea. Two active volcanic body of air to pass along to the other side. mountains have lately been observed in But this gives, we think, an exaggerated the Altai chain of Central Asia; Mount and false idea of the nature and cause Elburus, the highest peak of the Caucasian of the wave-like movement of the surface range, has been, at no very distant period; of the land during earthquakes. Such unin eruption; and certainly the midland dulations, though violent, are on a very districts of Persia and Hindostan suffer minute scale, compared to the extent of continually from earthquakes. But this surface affected and the known thickness theory, in truth, runs in a vicious circle, of its solid strata, as appears from the making a cause out of a consequence. If accounts of tall trees whipping their tops it were true, a volcanic eruption or earth- against the ground on either side, the quake should either never begin, or never waves of alluvial matter observed in the cease. Supposing the earth in a state of plains of the Mississippi in 1812, the opencomplete tranquillity, how are fissures to ing and shutting of tissures, the sea-sickbe produced, by which the water of the ness experienced by spectators, &c., all sea may be admitted to the focus of earth- indicating the small dimensions of the raquakes and eruptions? If the increase of dius of each superficial curvature. The subterranean heat, or the contraction of sudden fracture of solid strata by any disthe superficial crust, or any other cause, isruptive force must necessarily produce a allowed to occasion the rending and splitting of the rocks overlying the reservoirs of lava, then is the earthquake and eruption accounted for without the introduction of sea-water. Mr. Lyell cannot be allowed to derive the steam, to whose expausive force he justly attributes the violent vibratory jar to a considerable distance along the continuation of these strata. Such vibrations would be propagated in undulations, which may be expected, when influencing a mass of rocks several thousand feet at least in thickness, to produce on the surface exactly the wave-like motion, the opening and shutting of crevices, the tumbling down of cliffs and walls, and other characteristic phenomena of earthquakes. We do not, therefore, consider that these in any way indicate the floating of the crust of the globe upon some fluid, whose undulations are communicated to it. Were the globe entirely solid to its centre, we conceive similar undulatory vibrations would be perceived along its external surface whenever a sudden disruption was produced in it, either by the expansion of the nucleus within a shell of limited extension, or the converse, namely, the contraction of the crust over a stationary nucleus. And to one or the other of these causes, which would be identical in their effects, we incline to refer all the circumstances of subterranean energy. THE SEA. THE sea-the sea-the open sea! It runneth the earth's wide regions round; I'm on the sea!-I'm on the sea! I am where I would ever be ; If a storm should come and wake the deep, 1 love-Oh! how I love to ride I never was on the dull, tame shore, The waves were white, and red the morn, I have liv'd since then, in calm and strife, The Friendship's Offering for 1831. THE PRESENT FASHION IN DRESS. EITHER all fashions are absurd, or else there is no real absurdity in fashion. It is the mistiming of things that makes the ridiculous. He who is called mad for wearing an eccentric dress, is only so in not waiting till every body else is equally mad. An umbrella bonnet should not, therefore, despise one the size of a pinched farthing: "they're all of them queens in their turn." Time was, when the beauty of the female figure was estimated by the smallness of the shoulders and the largeness of the hoop; but now, under the hideous regimen of the gigot sleeves, a fair lady's shoulders are wider than those of any of Barclay and Perkins's draymen. The lord and master standing by her side, bears about the same proportion to her that a figure of one does to a cypher. She is all nothing! Yet, the ambition of the sex is gratified by the appearance of magnitude, even though they must know that the men are aware of its being mere wind and buckram. A male, of the finest dimensions, passes the Park entrances with ease, while the huge little creature on his arm either has to go edgewise, or crumple through, to the detriment of many yards of silk, in consequence of a monstrous fashion, so graceless and ugly in itself, that it could only have been invented in order that the first who followed it might take advantage of the convenience to smuggle lace. The "bishop sleeves" are much better; yet even these are unspeakably troublesome, being continually trailed across the ragouts at dinner, or dipped in the slop-basin at tea. It is well if they do not take fire in snuffing the second candle. Alas! and has the poetry of the female figure fled for ever? Shall we think of the graceful undulating forms of beauty, the sylphid symmetry of limbs, the buoyancy of elastic loveliness, and nature's real elegance, pure, glowing, and spontaneous in every motion, only as dreams that are passed? Are these bright visions of our youth no more to be realised? Must a married man never expect to see his wife grace his board in her own proper person, which, as far as he can judge, cannot fail to be considerably different from the egregious outline she now presents? Must a bachelor never more hope to see a sweet woman in her natural shape? "There were angels in those days," when, in the fragrance of the noontide groves, the heart might beat a joyous measure, "To sport with Amaryllis in the shade, Or with the tangles of Newra's hair." a But now Amaryllis is cased in pasteboard, "Out upon thee, fie upon thee, bare face!" We have never been so truly out of temper with head-dresses as in the pit of the Italian Opera, when a lady in one of the stalls, with a head like a large bush in blossom, happened to be directly in a line with our vision to the outrage of our excited feelings, and the waste of our half-guinea. If Pasta comes next season, this really ought to be put a stop to. indited it; but I must frankly confess that if this rule in mortal man's existence be invariable, some villain destiny has brought the two extremes (the two childhoods) of my particular life together, and I am afraid intends to defraud me entirely of the middle term: for (shall I confess it ?) F am at forty in some respects as great a child as I was at ten. Wordsworth has very truly said, after Dryden, that "The child is father to the man;" and it is only to be regretted that the child-father cannot keep the man his son under more subjection in his riper years. Indeed, it would be well for us it our pursuits as men were as innocent as our pursuits as children-our crimes would then be as venial, and their punishment as merciful. One moment to be fixed in breathless awe with her powerfully expressive coun- I love childish shows-those "trivial, tenance, wrought up with the demon or the fond records””—and my Lord Mayor's divinity of human passion; and the next, Show usually finds me a gaping observer to have it obscured by a bunch of greens, of the wonder of the 9th of November. or something far more nonsensical, if not And yet the whole design of the pageant so vulgar-is a thing beyond endurance. is so incongruous, from the mixture of Real refinement in social life consists in barbaric pomp (its men in armour) with having a courteous sympathy with the feel- modern refinement (its men in broad clothy ings of others; and to outrage them for a -so cheerless, from the season, and its freak of vanity, is moral vulgarity. Many sure circumstances of fog, frost, or drencha woman, who sells cauliflowers, would ing rain, under on or more of which it act with far more consideration and yearly takes place, that, instead of bedecency. Perhaps the lady may replying a gratification to the eye, it passes be"Pray, sir, cannot you hear through my head-dress?" True, we go to the opera chiefly for the music; but, even without allusion to our second Siddons, the eye is curious to inform itself of the visible figure and features of the object which is so powerfully exciting the feelings. It is the same listening to an instrumental solo: unless we can see the person performing, we are by no means satisfied or comfortable, This is to be attributed to the insufficiency of the sense of hearing (with some few fine exceptions) to convey a definite impression to the understanding: the heart beats, and it is the brain wishing to know why it is, and how it is, that creates anxiety to see the performer. We wish to bring all our senses to bear upon the interpretation. fore us like the mockery, and not the majesty of pomp. Yet for this brief glory, good men, and therefore good citizens, have struggled " through evil report and good report," and having enjoyed it, have sat down contented for the rest of their lives. There are much worse ambitions; and it is well, perhaps, that this is so shortlived the best governors of Rome were her consuls for a year. My first "lord mayor's show" occurred in that happy period of life, boyhood, when we are soonest "pleased with a feather." To be sure, a dense and thoroughly English fog, one "native and to the manner born"-one of unadulterated Essex home-manufacture, did, both on its going forth and on its return, make "darkness visible," obscured the glories of the day, and, accompanied with a sleety sort of drizzle, rendered the paths of honour as slippery as the sledge at Schaffhausen. But what to me, then, were these accidental drawbacks upon the great occasion! True, I had seen what I went out to see as "through a glass darkly; but that which I saw not, my imagination exhibited-all the rest was 66 leather and "The priest continues what the nurse began And thus the child imposes on the man." prunella." The obscured glories of that day haunt me like a vision;" and I have assisted at Lord Mayor's Show since, without an undefinable sense of something to be seen which I had somehow not seen. 66 I shall not soon forget that first illusion. It was, of course, a dull, dirty November day. The rains, which at that season nsually drench one half the world, leaving the other half parching with thirst, had first washed the city, and then left it one weltering kennel of mud. However, on the morning of the day big with the fate of Watson or of Staines (I forget which), the clouds contented themselves with a sleety sort of drizzle, a kind of confectionary rain, which, under pretence of powdering you all over with a sort of candy of ice, soaked your broadcloth through and through. At ten, the thick air, instead of melting into "thiu air," grew palpable to feeling as to sight:" it was sullenly stationary at éleven, and there was not the sixteenth of a hope that it would clear off. The "clink of hammers accomplishing the knights" (who needed it), and "closing their rivets up," gave note of preparation. In a few minutes more a foggy, half-suffocated cry was heard," a wandering voice," from one end of Milk-street to the other "They come! they come?" "Where? where?" was the response; and the glorious vision that I was to have seen passed unbeheld away, with all its banners, bannerets, bandy drummers, footmen, knights, coaches, carts, commoncouncilmen, tumbrels, and common stagewaggons, through an admiring mob, equally imperceptible. The darkness swallowed all. Having by some mysterious instinct, with which nature, when she located that people of Britain called cockneys, on the northern shore of the Thames, must have abundantly gifted them, found their unseen way to Blackfriars, the Right Honourable and his retinue took water, and felt out their way by the piles standing along the shore, to Westminster, where, "all well," the common-serjeant, with an instinct natural to a lawyer, made Westminster Hall, and led the splendid annual" within its legal gates. Certain mummeries being gone through, as well as the official labours of a hearty refection, the corporative capacity" of London paddled its way patiently from Westminster, clearing the small craft with a nautical skill never sufficiently to be wondered at and admired; and miraculously weathered Blackfriars Bridge, in total safety, thanks to the skill of the pilot at the helm of city-admiralty affairs, to whom the dark dangers of both shores VOL. VI. F were as familiar as posts and corners to a blind man. Here the day, as if it relented in its spiteful intention of damping the general joy and the corporative glory, smiled a momentary smile; and the fog dissipating, within the circumference of fifty yards, it was perceived that the brave pageant was again marshalled; and Solomon, in all his glory, for some moments seemed something less than Staines.. It was but in mockery of the hopes of man; for ere the word forward!" could be given, the Sun, who had been struggling in vain to get a glance into the city, all at once gave it up as hopeless, and retired to Thetis' lap, in the afternoon, instead of the evening. And now all was "dark as Erebus, and black as night." Genius, what a gift is thine! Some more enlightened citizen darkling without, but bright within, suggested the bare possibility of procuring a dozen or two of links, and like a gallant soldier adventuring with a forlorn hope, himself led the way to the nearest oilman's. The "ineffectual fire” was procured; and never was it more necessary, for thicker rolled the fog, dimmer and more dubious grew the way, and more and more like night became the day. "Forward!" was again the cry, and the procession moved through the mud and mob, in a manner truly moving. And first came, beating out the way, to keep the press at peace, the city-peace officers, breaking it all the way they went. After these followed a number of matronly old gentlemen called bachelors, in blue gowns, and in woollen night-caps of blue and white, carrying themselves under the weight of years and beer with great difficulty, but their flagging banners with more. Three times the word to halt ran along the line; but these venerables were either so deaf that they did not hear the command, or hearing it, mistook its tenor, and thought it but superfluous idleness to bid those to halt who already halted. Next to these "most potent, grave, and reverend” seniors, came the under city-marshal on horseback-an attendant picking out the way for him. Then a band of musicians, when their asthmas would permit them, playing very pathetically (as if in mockery of those who could see nothing), "See, the conquering hero comes." Two trumpeters now tried to rend the air, and between them a kettle-drum sounded, as if muffled, for both catgut and parchment had relaxed under the moist fingers of the morn, and their mimic thunder was now mute. After these came a juvenile as an ancient herald, bare-headed; and then a standard-bearer, in half-armour, which was no doubt exceedingly sparkling and burnished in the morning, but now, like Satan, had lost its "original brightness," and looked like glory for awhile obscured." Certain half-famished squires dogged his heels, their upper halves perspiring to parboiling under the warmth of flannel-lined armour, but their lower man sitting as cold in their saddles as Charles at Charing Cross. Next came an ancient knight in a suit of scale-armour, looking like an amphibious fish on horseback, and just as wet as one; and two other trumpeters, exploding something like the choke damp of mines out of their trumpets in "strains it was a misery to hear." And now, another knight, in the iron armour of King Harry, came toppling along, to show the admiring age how much the strength of man was decreased since the days of sack and Shakspeare: for now he bent on this side, and now on the other, like a reed shaken by the wind. You might have thought him the most courteous of knights, and these deviations from the perpendicular but knightly recognitions of the damsels he would have titled for, if need were, in the listed field. His trumpeters tore the air to tatters about him, and he passed away, like the shadow of the strength and the youth of chivalry. Eureka! eureka! The crushing car of the Juggernaut of the show now rolled along, kneading the mud under its golden wheels. The mobility darted inquiring looks in at the open windows, which the mace-bearer and sword-bearer completely filled, and saw they could not see the mayor for the mist, which enveloped him as with an extra civic garment, Up went a shont, however, that seemed to stagger the state-coach; for it swaggered from the left to the right of Bridge Street, as if undecided on which side to spill its righthonourable contents: but the mace-bearer shifting his seat a little, she righted with a heavy lurch, as a broad-bottomed Dutch brig adjusts herself in a gale. Next came the retiring Mayor, some distance in the rear, and in much seeming hurry to overtake his successor, as if he felt he was too late even for the late Lord Mayor. It was now no very easy task to tell an alderman's coach from his coal-waggon, save by the polite difference between the oaths of the driver of one and the other. The elder aldermen were, however, distinguishable by their asthmas, the younger by their sneezing. After these came the ominous browed Recorder; then the Sheriffs, brilliant and benighted; then that love and loathing of good and bad apprentices-the kindly veteran Chamber Jain; then the Remembrancer; and the Foreign Ambassadors, wondering every one, save him of Holland, at the climate. Then the judges enveloped in wig and darkness; and after them, several understood persons of distinction, who could by no means be distinguished. By the time that the head and tail of the procession had wound round St. Paul's, like the serpent round the Laocoon, and had reached Cheapside, the last link was burnt out; and the tinery of the first footmen was as dingy and undiscernible as the fluttering rags of the merry bootless and shoeless boys who shouted before them, as if they would have drowned the clamour of Bow-bells with their "most sweet voices." Such was "my first Lord Mayor's Show," and "let it be the last:" the undeceiving of all my imaginations of it I have not yet forgiven in the Lord Mayors' Shows of other years. INCREASED TEMPERATURE OF THE earth is not a perfect sphere, but an oblate spheroid, or sphere flattened at the poles. The equatorial diameter exceeds the polar by twenty-five miles, or the one is to the other as three hundred and twelve to three hundred and eleven. Newton calculated the ellipticity, deducing it from the supposition that it was owing to the centrifugal force of the earth in a liquid state, at one-fiftieth, which is about onethird greater than the truth. It can be demonstrated, that if the earth were a homogeneous liquid body, its ellipticity would really amount to the quantity assigned by Newton. But if the earth, instead of being homogeneous, increases in density from the circumference to the centre, then the ellipticity would be less. Mathematicians have demonstrated, that were the density to increase so as to be infinitely great at the centre, then the ellipticity would be a minimum, and would amount only to one-five hundred and seventy-eight. From Maskelyne's observations at Schieballion, it follows that the mean deusity of the earth is almost double that of the rocks at its surface. Hence the density at the central parts must be higher than the mean. Now, since the ellipticity is intermediate between tentwenty-three and one-five hundred and seventy-eight, there is strong presumption that its form approaches very nearly to + From the Edinburgh Review.-No. CHI. |