Then speak no ill-but lenient be Be not the first to make it known. No lip may tell how brief its span Original. NEW WORLDS. BY JOHN B. NEWMAN, M.D. SPALLANSANI, in giving an account of one of his wonderful voyages, tells us :-I mounted no hippogriff, neither have I sailed upon the clouds. How I arrived I know not, but I find myself in the centre of a new world. Sights meet my eyes, such as no other traveller, ancient or modern, even Gulliver himself, has recorded, and strange as they may seem in the recital, I can assure you they are perfectly true. I entered a forest, the strange looking trees of which were covered with long tufted flowers, and passed thence into meadows that seemed like enchantments: far as the eye could see, the ground was carpeted with a green turf. Lakes, rivers and oceans were before me. I saw an animal travelling on the shore, of a green color and globular form, resembling the hoop snake of the United States. In the bosom of this green living globe, I counted thirteen other globes, one contained within the other, which seemed like so many generations ready to be evolved in succession, for it was so transparent that an anatomist could easily trace all its internal vital organs, and observe the fulfilment of their functions from digestion to every process of assimilation. While wondering at this, I saw a new being no less extraordinary than the first; it was a tree, which, instead of foliage, was covered with little bells as transparent as crystal. Suddenly one of these little flowers, dropping from its stem into the water, began to swim most gracefully; others followed its example, and they all became, in a short time, little trees similar to the first, covering themselves in turn with bells, and soon divided off into pairs. From observing this, my attention was turned to another inhabitant of this new world, which perpetuated its kind by destroying itself in a surprising manner. Its stomach, at first transparent, became afterwards opaque, swelling like a bubble, and like it, bursting into a hundred pieces as though exploded by gunpowder, a strange method, certainly, of giving birth to a new family. The new-born young thus discharged into light, suffered no possible inconvenience, and went on in their parents' course. By this time I had drawn as near as I dared to the shores of the ocean, which was at a boiling temperature, and from which exhaled a burning vapor, to watch how the inhabitants endured the great heat. They did not suffer from it in the least, but all pursued their various employments without molestation; some travelled slowly, others ran along with a swiftness they never intermitted; some, to expedite their speed, threw forth from their own body a kind of twine, on which they made prodigious leaps, as on a tight rope. While lingering to survey this scene, its pleasant appearance changed, and to my grief, the whole country became involved in the horrors of war. An army of giants appeared on the plains in battle array; they met their enemies, defeated, and then devoured them, marching onward with the still palpitating limbs of their feeble enemies in their mouths. Young and old, feeble and strong, shared equally the same dreadful fate; and I saw them swallow down their unfortunate victims, still struggling for a long time in the transparent stomachs of their gluttonous and revolting devourers. Death, desolation and blood soiled these gloomy and accursed shores; and I saw that war was the same detestable pursuit as in our own world. Sick at heart, I raised my eyes from a compound microscope, and the world, its inhabitants, oceans and plains, all vanished, and to my ordinary sight, there was nothing but one almost imperceptible down of mould and a drop of water, in which some plants had been infused. Those who are interested enough in this subject, and would wish to pursue it farther, will find enough in the works on Natural History to satisfy their curiosity, be it ever so insatiable; but we must be cautious of classing such facts with those of common optical illusions, which discover new worlds of another kind. Patrin observes, that in the sandy deserts of Asia and Africa, he observed a phenomenon rendered singular by the illusive appearance it presents. The traveller in the midst of arid plains, imagines that he sees, at the distance of a few hundred steps, a vast extent of waters, whose shores sometimes appeared covered with trees and verdure. Charmed with this agreeable and unexpected prospect, he presses onward in the hope of finding that refreshment and repose, which, in this scorching climate, he so greatly needs. But as he approaches in the direction of the object, it still retires before him, and finally disappears. Quintus Curtius, who also describes the appearance of this mirage, says, that when the fierceness of the sun heats these deserts, it might be said that the whole country assumed the aspect of a general inflammation. The sky was darkened by the vapors which arose from the burning soil, and the sandy plain had the appearance of a vast and profound sea. Many times in the same way were the French troops deceived after they had entered the sandy deserts of Egypt, and saw beautiful rivers and lakes, bordered with fine ranges of trees, and pleasant islands with villages upon them, which, as they hastened to approach, vanished. The dry prairies of the Upper Missouri show this to perfection. They are not seen alone on land, but most frequently on the sea, where mariners have named them fog banks. To his great joy, the sailor recognizes land before he expects it, the shore, with its welcome rocks, ravines, mountains and trees, presents itself to view, and for it he immediately makes. It flees before him, and finally disappears. When Captain Cook was seeking the Isle of Pepys, near the Straits of Magellan, in 400 S. L., he judged he saw land, and coasted along the supposed shores upwards of three hours, and not till then discovered that it was a phantom. And three times was he deceived in the same way in the Southern hemisphere. While the French navigator, Peyrouse, was in latitude 44°, near the shores of Tartary, he remarks, that at four in the evening, the most beautiful sky succeeded to the thickest fog. We imagined we saw the continent; and in the South, a great country which appeared to join Tartary in the West, leaving between it and the continent an opening of fifteen degrees. We distinguished the mountains, ravines, in short, all the details of a land view, and could not conceive how we had entered into this Strait. On ordering the vessel to be directed towards the southeast, and this supposed land, all soon disappeared, and I became convinced it was a fog bank, the most extraordinary that I had ever seen which occasioned this error. The celebrated Fata Morgana belongs to this class. Swinburn, an English traveller, quotes Angelluca as describing one of which he was an eye witness. The sea, he remarks, became suddenly as in flames, and appeared in a line ten miles distant, like a chain of mountains of an obscure tint, while the waters of the shores of Calabria were apparently united, and appeared like a highly polished mirror beaming against a curtain of hills. Upon this glass was seen painted a range of many thousands of pilasters, all alike in height, distance, and degree of shade and light. A moment after, these pilasters were transformed into arcades, like the aqueducts of Rome. Upon the summit of these arcades was a sweeping line of cornices, surmounted with a multitude of castles, which immediately afterwards transformed themselves to towers. These, in turn, became colonnades, then ranges of windows, and finally, pines and cypresses all of equal elevation. A great part of the mass of tradition current among the lower orders, has taken its rise from optical illusions of this description. Men of gigantic stature are seen in the air; ships sailing against the direct current of the wind, like the one Cotton Mather saw in Boston harbor, with all its sails set; and that one in the Southern Ocean, which has originated the story of the Flying Dutchman. In the northern parts of Africa, Diodorus Siculus observed very remarkable ones. He tells us, in all seasons, when there is no wind, the air appears full of the figures of animals, of which some seem motionless, and others having the power of voluntary motion. They appear of an extraordinary size, and nothing is more capable of frightening those who are not habituated to this strange spectacle. Patun saw the same in the Steppes of Northern Asia, which correspond to our prairies, and the imitations at times appeared so perfect that he began to fear that they were phantoms of his own imagination. To satisfy himself on this head, he asked his guides and the inhabitants of the country what they saw in the clouds, and the answers of these simple people described appearances similar to those he himself saw. In a subsequent number we will give an explanation of these mysterious appearances. PASSING AWAY. BY G. H. COLTON. I ASKED a dark Stream, swiftly gliding Dost thou still onward pass? Winds, flowers woo thee! Stay, oh, stay!" "I in the ocean depths must lie, Thou hastest to eternity: O mortal man, our lot is one Passing away!" 1 asked the Wind, the waters wooing, Inconstant lover! stay, oh, stay!" Thou ever chasest happiness: I asked a Shadow flitting over A field where sweetest sunlight shone: "O fleeting Shadow, restless rover No sooner come than gone! Lo! gladness to the earth is born, Bright gems of beauty, rich and rare, With her returns the gentle shower, The bursting bud, the opening flower, Life's fleeting hours with bird and bee, O'er fragrant meadow, vale and lea, Aurora paints the blushing morn, Then sing Her welcome to each woodland green, Let nature all rejoice, While life anew bedecks the scene, And whispers in a voice, 'Tis Spring! |