Kitabı oku: «Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850.», sayfa 26
Since the apparatus of Mr. Brooke for the self-registration of the magnetic changes has been in operation at Greenwich, the time of Mr. Glaisher and his assistants has been more at liberty for other branches of their duties. These are numerous enough. Thermometers and barometers have to be watched as well as magnets. To these instruments the same ingenious photographic contrivance is applied.
The wooden building next to the magnet-house on the southwest contains a modification of Mr. Brooke's ingenious plan, by which the rise and fall of the temperature of the air is self-registered. Outside the building are the bulbs of thermometers freely exposed to the weather. Their shafts run through a zinc case, and as the mercury rises or falls, it moves a float having a projecting arm. Across this arm is thrown the ray of prepared light which falls then upon the sensitive paper. Thus we see the variations of the needle and the variations in heat and cold both recording their own story, within these humble-looking wooden sheds, as completely as the wind and the rain are made to do the same thing, on the top of the towers of the Observatory. The reward given to the inventor of this ingenious mode of self-registration has been recently revealed in a parliamentary paper, thus: "To Mr. Charles Brooke for his invention and establishment at the Royal Observatory, of the apparatus for the self-registration of magnetical and meteorological phenomena, £500." Every year the invention will save fully £500 worth of human toil; and the reward seems small when we see every year millions voted for warlike, sinecure, and other worse than useless purposes.
Photography, however, can not do all the work. Its records have to be cheeked by independent observations every day, and then both have to be brought to their practical value by comparison with certain tables which test their accuracy, and make them available for disclosing certain scientific results. The preparation of such tables is one of the practical triumphs of Greenwich. Many a quiet country gentleman amuses his leisure by noting day by day the variations of his thermometer and barometer. Heretofore such observations were isolated and of no general value, but now, by the tables completed by Mr. Glaisher, and published by the Royal Society, they may all be converted into scientific values, and be made available for the increase of our weather-wisdom. For nearly seventy years the Royal Society had observations made at Somerset House, but they were a dead letter – mere long columns of figures – till these tables gave them significance. And the same tables now knit into one scientific whole, the observations taken by forty scientific volunteers, who, from day to day, record for the Registrar-General of births and deaths, the temperature, moisture, &c., of their different localities, which vary from Glasgow to Guernsey, and from Cornwall to Norwich.
What the Rosetta stone is to the history of the Pharaohs, these Greenwich tables have been to the weather-hieroglyphics. They have afforded something like a key to the language in which the secrets are written; and it remains for industrious observation and scientific zeal to complete the modern victory over ancient ignorance. Already the results of the Greenwich studies of the weather have given us a number of curious morsels of knowledge. The wholesale destruction of human life induced by a fall in the temperature of London has just been noticed. Besides the manifestation of that fact, we are shown, that instead of a warm summer being followed by a cold winter, the tendency of the law of the weather is to group warm seasons together, and cold seasons together. Mr. Glaisher has made out, that the character of the weather seems to follow certain curves, so to speak, each extending over periods of fifteen years. During the first half of each of these periods, the seasons become warmer and warmer, till they reach their warmest point, and then they sink again, becoming colder and colder, till they reach the lowest point, whence they rise again. His tables range over the last seventy-nine years – from 1771 to 1849. Periods shown to be the coldest, were years memorable for high-priced food, increased mortality, popular discontent, and political changes. In his diagrams, the warm years are tinted brown, and the cold years gray, and as the sheets are turned over and the dates scanned, the fact suggest itself that a gray period saw Lord George Gordon's riots; a gray period was marked by the Reform Bill excitement; and a gray period saw the Corn Laws repealed.
A few more morsels culled from the experience of these weather-seers, and we have done.
Those seasons have been best which have enjoyed an average temperature – not too hot nor too cold.
The indications are that the climate of England is becoming warmer, and, consequently, healthier; a fact to be partly accounted for by the improved drainage and the removal of an excess of timber from the land.
The intensity of cholera was found greatest in those places where the air was stagnant; and, therefore, any means for causing its motion, as lighting fires and improving ventilation, are thus proved to be of the utmost consequence.
Some day near the 20th of January – the lucky guess, in 1838, of Murphy's Weather Almanac – will, upon the average of years, be found to be the coldest of the whole year.
In the middle of May there are generally some days of cold, so severe as to be unexplainable. Humboldt mentions this fact in his Cosmos; and various authors have tried to account for it – at present in vain. The favorite notion, perhaps, is that which attributes this period of cold to the loosening of the icebergs of the north. Another weather eccentricity is the usual advent of some warm days at the beginning of November.
Certain experiments in progress to test the difference between the temperature of the Thames, and of the surrounding atmosphere, are expected to show the cause of the famous London fog. During the night the Thames is often from ten to seventeen degrees warmer, and in the day time from eight to ten degrees colder than the air above it.
If the theory of weather-cycles holds good, we are to have seasons colder than the average from this time till 1853, when warmth will begin again to predominate over cold. A chilly prophecy this to close with, and therefore, rather let an anecdote complete this chapter on the Weather-Watchers of Greenwich.
Among other experiments going on some time ago in the observatory inclosure, were some by which Mr. Glaisher sought to discover how much warmth the earth lost during the hours of night, and how much moisture the air would take up in a day from a given surface. Upon the long grass, within the dwarf fence already mentioned were placed all sorts of odd substances, in little distinct qualities. Ashes wood, leather, linen, cotton, glass, lead, copper and stone, among other things, were there to show how each affected the question of radiation. Close by upon a post was a dish six inches across, in which every day there was punctually poured one ounce of water, and at the same hour next day, as punctually was this fluid remeasured to see what had been lost by evaporation. For three years this latter experiment had been going on, and the results were posted up in a book; but the figures gave most contradictory results. There was either something very irregular in the air, or something very wrong in the apparatus. It was watched for leakage, but none was found, when one day Mr. Glaisher stepped out of the magnet-house, and looking toward the stand, the mystery was revealed. The evaporating dish of the philosopher was being used as a bath by an irreverent bird! a sparrow was scattering from his wings the water left to be drunk by the winds of Heaven. Only one thing remained to be done; and the next minute saw a pen run through the tables that had taken three years to compile. The labor was lost – the work had to be begun again.
DOING
Oh, friend, whoe'er thou art, who dost rejoice
In the sweet tones of thy melodious voice;
Which to thy fancy are so rich and clear,
Falling like music, on the list'ning ear,
Of thee I ask,
What hast thou done of that thou hast to do?
Art silent? Then I say,
Until thy deeds are many let thy words be few.
Oh, man, whoe'er thou art, within whose breast
The glowing thoughts disdain ignoble rest;
Whose soul is laboring with a monstrous birth
Of winged words, to scatter through the earth
Of thee I ask,
What hast thou done of that thou hast to do?
Art silent? Then I say,
Until thy deeds are many let thy words be few.
Oh, brother mine, who would'st reform mankind
Purging the dross, and leaving all refined;
Preaching of sinless love, sobriety,
Of goodness, endless peace, and charity,
Of thee I ask,
What hast thou done of that thou hast to do?
Art silent? Then I say,
Until thy deeds are many let thy words be few.
Speech without action is a moral dearth,
And to advance the world is little worth:
Let us think much, say little, and much do,
If to ourselves and God we will be true;
And ask within,
What have I done of that I have to do?
Is conscience silent – say,
Oh! let my deeds be many and my words be few.
J. G. L. Bulleid.
[From Household Words.]
YOUNG RUSSIA
Certain social theorists have, of late years, proclaimed themselves to the puzzled public under the name and signification of "Young." Young France, Young Germany, and Young England have had their day, and having now grown older, and by consequence wiser, are comparatively mute. In accordance with what seems a natural law, it is only when a fashion is being forgotten where it originated – in the west – that is reaches Russia, which rigidly keeps a century or so behind the rest of the Continent. It is only recently, therefore, that we hear of "Young Russia."
The main principles of all these national youths are alike. They are pleasingly picturesque – simperingly amiable; with a pretty and piquant dash of paradox. What they propose is not new birth, or dashing out into new systems, and taking advantage of new ideas; but reverting to old systems, and furbishing them up so as to look as good as new. Re-juvenescence is their aim; the middle ages their motto. Young England, to wit, desires to replace things as they were in the days of the pack-horse, the thumb-screw, the monastery, the ducking-stool, the knight errant, trial by battle, and the donjon-keep. To these he wishes to apply all possible modern improvements, to adapt them to present ideas, and to present events. Though he would have no objection to his mailed knight traveling per first-class railway, he would abolish luggage-trains to encourage intestine trade and the breed of that noble animal the pack-horse. He has, indeed, done something in this monastic line; but his efforts for the dissemination of superstition, and his denunciations of a certain sort of witchcraft, have signally failed. In truth, the task he has set himself – that of re-constructing society anew out of old materials – though highly archæological, historical, and poetic, has the fatal disadvantage of being simply impossible. It is telling the people of the nineteenth century to carry their minds, habits, and sentiments back, so as to become people of the thirteenth century; it is trying to make new muslin out of mummy cloth, or razors out of rusty nails.
"Young Russia" is an equal absurdity, but from a precisely opposite cause; for, indeed, this sort of youth out of age is a series of paradoxes. The Russian of the present day is the Russian of past ages. He exists by rule – the rule of despotism – which is as old as the Medes and Persians; and which forces him into an iron mould that shapes his appearance, his mind, and his actions to one pattern, from one generation to another Hence every thing that lives and breathes in Russia being antique, there is no appreciable antiquity. The new school, therefore – even if amateur politics were allowable in Russia, which they are not, as a large population of exiles in Siberia can testify – has no materials to work upon. Stagnation is the political law, and "Young Russia" dies in its babyhood for want of sustenance. What goes by the name of civilization, is no advance in wealth, morals, or social happiness. It is merely a tinsel coating over the rottenness and rust with which Russian life is "sicklied o'er." It has nothing to do with a single soul below the rank of a noble; and with him it means Champagne, bad pictures, Parisian tailors, operas, gaming, and other expenses and elegancies imported from the West. Hundreds of provincial noblemen are ruined every year in St. Petersburg, in undergoing this process of civilization. The fortunes thus wasted are enormous; yet there is only one railroad now in operation throughout the whole empire, and that belongs to the Emperor, and leads to one of his palaces a few miles from the capital. Such is Russian civilization. What then is "Young Russia" to do? Ask one of its youngest apostles, Ivan Vassilievitsch.
This young gentleman – for an introduction to whom we are indebted to Count Sollogub – was, not long ago, parading the Iverskoy boulevard – one of the thirteen which half encircle Moscow – when he met a neighbor from the province of Kazan. Ivan had lately returned from abroad. He was a perfect specimen of the new school, inside and out. Within, he had imbibed all the ideas of the juvenile or verdant schools of Germany, France, and England. Without, he displayed a London macintosh; his coat and trowsers had been designed and executed by Parisian artists; his hair was cut in the style of the middle ages; and his chin showed the remnants of a Vandyke beard. He also resembled the new school in another respect: he had spent all his money, yet he was separated from home by the distance of a long – a Russian – journey.
To meet with a neighbor – which he did – who traveled in his own carriage, in which he offered a seat, was the height of good fortune. The more so, as Ivan wished to see as much of Russian life on the road as possible, and to note down his impressions in a journal, whose white leaves were as yet unsullied with ink. From the information he intended to collect, he intended to commence helping to re-construct Russian society after the order of the new Russiaites.
The vehicle in which this great mission was to be performed, was a humble family affair called a Tarantas. After a series of adventures – but which did not furnish Ivan a single impression for his note-book – they arrive at Vladimir, the capital of a province or "government." Here the younger traveler meets with a friend, to whom he confides his intention of visiting all the other Government towns for "Young Russia" purposes. His friend's reply is dispiriting to the last degree.
"There is no difference between our government towns. See one, and you'll know them all!"
"Is it possible?"
"It is so, I assure you. Every one has a High-street one principal shop, where the country gentlemen buy silks for their wives, and Champagne for themselves; then there are the Courts of Justice, the assembly-rooms, an apothecary's shop, a river, a square, a bazaar, two or three street-lamps, sentry-boxes for the watchmen, and the governor's house."
"The society, however, in the government towns must be different?"
"On the contrary. The society is still more uniform than the buildings."
"You astonish me: how is that?"
"Listen. There is, of course, in every government town a governor. These do not always resemble each other; but as soon as any one of them appears, police and secretaries immediately become active, merchants and tradesmen bow, and the gentry draw themselves up, with, however, some little awe. Wherever the governor goes, he is sure to find Champagne, the wine so much patronized in the province, and every body drinks a bumper to the health of the 'father of the province.' Governors generally are well-bred, and sometimes very proud. They like to give dinner-parties, and benevolently condescend to play a game of whist with rich brandy-contractors and landowners."
"That's a common thing," remarked Ivan Vassilievitsch.
"Do not interrupt me. Besides the governor, there is in nearly every government town the governor's lady. She is rather a peculiar personage; generally brought up in one of the two capitals, and spoiled with the cringing attentions of her company. On her husband's first entry into office, she is polite and affable; later, she begins to feel weary of the ordinary provincial intrigues and gossips; she gets accustomed to the slavish attentions she receives, and lays claim to them. At this period she surrounds herself with a parasitical suite; she quarrels with the lady of the vice-governor; she brags of St. Petersburg; speaks with disdain of her provincial circle, and finally draws upon herself the utmost universal ill-feeling, which is kept up till the day of her departure, when all goes into oblivion, every thing is pardoned, and every body bids her farewell with tears."
"Two persons do not form the whole society of a town," interrupted again Ivan Vassilievitsch.
"Patience, brother, patience! Certainly there are other persons besides the two I have just spoken of: there is the vice-governor and his lady; several presidents, with their respective ladies, and an innumerable crowd of functionaries serving under their leadership. The ladies are ever quarreling in words, while their husbands do the same thing upon foolscap. The presidents, for the most part, are men of advanced age and business-like habits, with great crosses hanging from their necks, and are, during the day time, to be seen out of their courts only on holidays. The government attorney is generally a single man, and an enviable match. The superior officer of the gens-d'armes is a 'good fellow.' The nobility-marshal a great sportsman. Besides the government and the local officers, there live in a government town stingy landowners, or those who have squandered away their property; they gamble from evening to morning, nay, from morning to evening too, without getting the least bit tired of their exercise."
"Now, about their mode of living?" asked Ivan Vassilievitsch.
"The mode of living is a very dull one. At exchange of ceremonious visits. Intrigues, cards – cards, intrigues. Now and then, perchance, you may meet with a kind, hospitable family, but such a case is very rare; you much oftener find a ludicrous affectation to imitate the manners of an imaginary high life. There are no public amusements in a government town. During winter a series of balls are announced to take place at the Assembly-rooms; however from an absurd primness, these balls are little frequented, because no one wants to be the first in the room. The 'bon genre' remains at home and plays whist. In general, I have remarked, that on arriving in a government town, it seems as if you were too early or too late for some extraordinary event. You are ever welcomed: 'What a pity you were not here yesterday!' or, 'You should stay here till to-morrow.'"
In process of time Ivan Vassilievitsch and his good-natured fat companion, Vassily Ivanovitsch, reach a borough town, where the Tarantas breaks down. There is a tavern, and here is a description of it.
"The tavern was like any other tavern – a large wooden hut, with the usual out-buildings. At the entrance stood an empty cart. The staircase was crooked and shaky, and at the top of it, like a moving candelabrum, stood a waiter with a tallow candle in his hand. To the right was the tap-room, painted from time immemorial to imitate a grove. Tumblers, tea-pots, decanters, three silver and a great number of pewter spoons, adorned the shelves of a cup-board; a couple of lads in chintz shirts, with dirty napkins over their shoulders, busied themselves at the bar. Through an open door you saw in the next room a billiard-table, and a hen gravely promenading upon it.
"Our travelers were conducted into the principal room of this elegant establishment, where they found, seated round a boiling tea-urn, three merchants – one gray-haired, one red-haired, and one dark-haired. Each of these was armed with a steaming tumbler; each of them sipped, smacked his lips, stroked his beard, and sipped again the fragrant beverage.
"The red-haired man was saying,
"'I made, last summer, a splendid bargain. I had bought from a company of Samara-Tartars, some five hundred bags of prime quality, which I purchased from a nobleman who was in want of money, but such dreadful stuff it was, that if it had not been for the very low price, I would never have thought of looking at it. What did I do? I mixed these two cargoes and sold the whole lot to a brandy-contractor at Ribna, for prime quality.'
"'It was a clever speculation,' remarked the dark-haired.
"'A commercial trick!' added the gray-haired.
"While this conversation was proceeding, Vassily Ivanovitsch and Ivan Vassilievitsch had taken seats at a separate little table; they had ordered their tea, and were listening to what the three merchants were saying.
"A poor-looking fellow came in, and took from his breast-pocket an incredibly dirty sheet of paper, in which were wrapped up bank-notes and some gold, and handed it over to the gray-haired merchant, who, having counted them over, said,
"'Five thousand two hundred and seventeen roubles. Is it right?'
"'Quite right, sir.'
"'It shall be delivered according to your wish.'
"'Ivan asked why the sender had not taken a receipt?'
"The red and dark-haired merchants burst out laughing; the gray-haired got into a passion.
"'A receipt!' he cried out, furiously, 'a receipt! I would have broken his jaw with his own money, had he dared to ask me for a receipt. I have been a merchant now more than fifty years, and I have never yet been insulted by being asked to give a receipt.'
"'You see, sir,' said the red-haired merchant, it is only with noblemen that such things as receipts and bills of exchange exist. We commercial people do not make use of them. Our simple word suffices. We have no time to spare for writing. For instance, sir: here is Sidor Avdeivitsch, who has millions of roubles in his trade, and his whole writing consists of a few scraps of paper, for memory's sake, sir.'
"'I don't understand that,' interrupted Ivan Vassilievitsch.
"'How could you, sir? It is mere commercial business, without plan or façade. We ourselves learn it from our childhood: first as errand boys, then as clerks, till we become partners in the business. I confess it is hard work.'"
Upon this text Ivan preaches a "Young Russia discourse."
"'Allow me a few words,' he said with fervor. 'It appears to me that we have in Russia a great number of persons buying and selling, but yet, I must say, we have no systematic commerce. For commerce, science, and learning, are indispensable; a conflux of civilized men, clever mathematical calculations – but not, as seems to be the case with you, dependence upon mere chance. You earn millions, because you convert the consumer into a victim, against whom every kind of cheat is pardonable, and then you lay by farthing by farthing, refusing yourselves not only all the enjoyments of life, but even the most necessary comforts… You brag of your threadbare clothes; but surely this extreme parsimony is a thousand times more blamable than the opposite prodigality of those of your comrades who spend their time among gipsies, and their money in feasting. You boast of your ignorance, because you do not know what civilization is. Civilization, according to your notions, consists in shorter laps of a coat, foreign furniture, bronzes, and champagne – in a word, in outward trifles and silly customs. Trust me, not such is civilization… Unite yourselves! Be it your vocation to lay open all the hidden riches of our great country; to diffuse life and vigor into all its veins; to take the whole management of its material interests into your hands. Unite your endeavors in this beautiful deed, and you may be certain of success! Why should Russia be worse than England? Comprehend only your calling; let the beam of civilization fall upon you, and your love for your fatherland will strengthen such a union; and you will see that not only the whole of Russia, but even the whole world will be in your hands.'
"At this eloquent conclusion, the red and the dark-haired merchants opened wide their eyes. They, of course, did not understand a single word of Ivan Vassilievitsch's speech.
"'Alas, for Young Russia!' Ivan dolefully remarks in another place:
"I thought to study life in the provinces: there is no life in the provinces; every one there is said to be of the same cut. Life in the capitals is not a Russian life, but a weak imitation of the petty perfections and gross vices of modern civilization. Where am I then to find Russia? In the lower classes, perhaps, in the every-day life of the Russian peasant? But have I not been now for five days chiefly among this class? I prick up my ears and listen; I open wide my eyes and look, and do what I may, I find not the least trifle worth noting in my 'Impressions.' The country is dead; there is nothing but land, land, land; so much land, indeed, that my eyes get tired of looking at it: a dreadful road, wagons of goods, swearing carriers, drunken stage inspectors; beetles creeping on every wall; soups with the smell of tallow candles! How is it possible for any respectable person to occupy himself with such nasty stuff? And what is yet more provoking, is the doleful uniformity which tires you so much, and affords you no rest whatever. Nothing new, nothing unexpected! To-morrow what has been to-day; to-day what has been yesterday. Here, a post-stage, there a post-stage, and further the same post-stage again; here, a village elder asking for drink-money, and again to infinity village elders all asking for drink-money. What can I write? I begin to agree with Vassily Ivanovitsch; he is right in saying that we do not travel, and that there is no traveling in Russia. We simply are going to Mordassy. Alas! for my 'Impressions.'"
Whoever wants to know more of this amusing Young Russian, must consult "The Tarantas." We can assure the reader that the book is fraught with a store of amusement – chiefly descriptions of town and country life in Russia – not often compressed into the modest and inexpensive compass of a thin duodecimo.
