Chapter 23 of 23

NOTES TO THE SECOND VOLUME

Notes — Scheherazade

(*1) The coralites.

(*2) “One of the most remarkable natural curiosities in Texas is

a petrified forest, near the head of Pasigno river. It consists

of several hundred trees, in an erect position, all turned to

stone. Some trees, now growing, are partly petrified. This is a

startling fact for natural philosophers, and must cause them to

modify the existing theory of petrification.—Kennedy.

This account, at first discredited, has since been corroborated

by the discovery of a completely petrified forest, near the head

waters of the Cheyenne, or Chienne river, which has its source in

the Black Hills of the rocky chain.

There is scarcely, perhaps, a spectacle on the surface of the

globe more remarkable, either in a geological or picturesque

point of view than that presented by the petrified forest, near

Cairo. The traveller, having passed the tombs of the caliphs,

just beyond the gates of the city, proceeds to the southward,

nearly at right angles to the road across the desert to Suez, and

after having travelled some ten miles up a low barren valley,

covered with sand, gravel, and sea shells, fresh as if the tide

had retired but yesterday, crosses a low range of sandhills,

which has for some distance run parallel to his path. The scene

now presented to him is beyond conception singular and desolate.

A mass of fragments of trees, all converted into stone, and when

struck by his horse’s hoof ringing like cast iron, is seen to

extend itself for miles and miles around him, in the form of a

decayed and prostrate forest. The wood is of a dark brown hue,

but retains its form in perfection, the pieces being from one to

fifteen feet in length, and from half a foot to three feet in

thickness, strewed so closely together, as far as the eye can

reach, that an Egyptian donkey can scarcely thread its way

through amongst them, and so natural that, were it in Scotland or

Ireland, it might pass without remark for some enormous drained

bog, on which the exhumed trees lay rotting in the sun. The roots

and rudiments of the branches are, in many cases, nearly perfect,

and in some the worm-holes eaten under the bark are readily

recognizable. The most delicate of the sap vessels, and all the

finer portions of the centre of the wood, are perfectly entire,

and bear to be examined with the strongest magnifiers. The whole

are so thoroughly silicified as to scratch glass and are capable

of receiving the highest polish.— Asiatic Magazine.

(*3) The Mammoth Cave of Kentucky.

(*4) In Iceland, 1783.

(*5) “During the eruption of Hecla, in 1766, clouds of this kind

produced such a degree of darkness that, at Glaumba, which is

more than fifty leagues from the mountain, people could only find

their way by groping. During the eruption of Vesuvius, in 1794,

at Caserta, four leagues distant, people could only walk by the

light of torches. On the first of May, 1812, a cloud of volcanic

ashes and sand, coming from a volcano in the island of St.

Vincent, covered the whole of Barbadoes, spreading over it so

intense a darkness that, at mid-day, in the open air, one could

not perceive the trees or other objects near him, or even a white

handkerchief placed at the distance of six inches from the

eye.“—Murray, p. 215, Phil. edit.

(*6) In the year 1790, in the Caraccas during an earthquake a

portion of the granite soil sank and left a lake eight hundred

yards in diameter, and from eighty to a hundred feet deep. It was

a part of the forest of Aripao which sank, and the trees remained

green for several months under the water.”—Murray, p. 221

(*7) The hardest steel ever manufactured may, under the action of

a blowpipe, be reduced to an impalpable powder, which will float

readily in the atmospheric air.

(*8) The region of the Niger. See Simmona’s Colonial Magazine.

(*9) The Myrmeleon—lion-ant. The term “monster” is equally

applicable to small abnormal things and to great, while such

epithets as “vast” are merely comparative. The cavern of the

myrmeleon is vast in comparison with the hole of the common red

ant. A grain of silex is also a “rock.”

(*10) The Epidendron, Flos Aeris, of the family of the

Orchideae, grows with merely the surface of its roots attached

to a tree or other object, from which it derives no

nutriment—subsisting altogether upon air.

(*11) The Parasites, such as the wonderful _Rafflesia

Arnaldii_.

(*12) Schouw advocates a class of plants that grow upon living

animals—the Plantae Epizoae. Of this class are the Fuci and

Algae.

Mr. J. B. Williams, of Salem, Mass., presented the “National

Institute” with an insect from New Zealand, with the following

description: “‘The Hotte, a decided caterpillar, or worm, is

found gnawing at the root of the Rota tree, with a plant

growing out of its head. This most peculiar and extraordinary

insect travels up both the Rota and Ferriri trees, and

entering into the top, eats its way, perforating the trunk of the

trees until it reaches the root, and dies, or remains dormant,

and the plant propagates out of its head; the body remains

perfect and entire, of a harder substance than when alive. From

this insect the natives make a coloring for tattooing.

(*13) In mines and natural caves we find a species of

cryptogamous fungus that emits an intense phosphorescence.

(*14) The orchis, scabius and valisneria.

(*15) The corolla of this flower (Aristolochia Clematitis),

which is tubular, but terminating upwards in a ligulate limb, is

inflated into a globular figure at the base. The tubular part is

internally beset with stiff hairs, pointing downwards. The

globular part contains the pistil, which consists merely of a

germen and stigma, together with the surrounding stamens. But the

stamens, being shorter than the germen, cannot discharge the

pollen so as to throw it upon the stigma, as the flower stands

always upright till after impregnation. And hence, without some

additional and peculiar aid, the pollen must necessarily fan down

to the bottom of the flower. Now, the aid that nature has

furnished in this case, is that of the Tiputa Pennicornis, a

small insect, which entering the tube of the corrolla in quest of

honey, descends to the bottom, and rummages about till it becomes

quite covered with pollen; but not being able to force its way

out again, owing to the downward position of the hairs, which

converge to a point like the wires of a mouse-trap, and being

somewhat impatient of its confinement it brushes backwards and

forwards, trying every corner, till, after repeatedly traversing

the stigma, it covers it with pollen sufficient for its

impregnation, in consequence of which the flower soon begins to

droop, and the hairs to shrink to the sides of the tube,

effecting an easy passage for the escape of the insect.”—_Rev. P.

Keith-System of Physiological Botany_.

(*16) The bees—ever since bees were—have been constructing their

cells with just such sides, in just such number, and at just such

inclinations, as it has been demonstrated (in a problem involving

the profoundest mathematical principles) are the very sides, in

the very number, and at the very angles, which will afford the

creatures the most room that is compatible with the greatest

stability of structure.

During the latter part of the last century, the question arose

among mathematicians—“to determine the best form that can be

given to the sails of a windmill, according to their varying

distances from the revolving vanes, and likewise from the centres

of the revolution.” This is an excessively complex problem, for

it is, in other words, to find the best possible position at an

infinity of varied distances and at an infinity of points on the

arm. There were a thousand futile attempts to answer the query on

the part of the most illustrious mathematicians, and when at

length, an undeniable solution was discovered, men found that the

wings of a bird had given it with absolute precision ever since

the first bird had traversed the air.

(*17) He observed a flock of pigeons passing betwixt Frankfort

and the Indian territory, one mile at least in breadth; it took

up four hours in passing, which, at the rate of one mile per

minute, gives a length of 240 miles; and, supposing three pigeons

to each square yard, gives 2,230,272,000 Pigeons.—“_Travels in

Canada and the United States,” by Lieut. F. Hall._

(*18) The earth is upheld by a cow of a blue color, having horns

four hundred in number.”—Sale’s Koran.

(*19) “The Entozoa, or intestinal worms, have repeatedly been

observed in the muscles, and in the cerebral substance of

men.”—See Wyatt’s Physiology, p. 143.

(*20) On the Great Western Railway, between London and Exeter, a

speed of 71 miles per hour has been attained. A train weighing 90

tons was whirled from Paddington to Didcot (53 miles) in 51

minutes.

(*21) The Eccalobeion

(*22) Mäelzel’s Automaton Chess-player.

(*23) Babbage’s Calculating Machine.

(*24) Chabert, and since him, a hundred others.

(*25) The Electrotype.

(*26) Wollaston made of platinum for the field of views in a

telescope a wire one eighteen-thousandth part of an inch in

thickness. It could be seen only by means of the microscope.

(*27) Newton demonstrated that the retina beneath the influence

of the violet ray of the spectrum, vibrated 900,000,000 of times

in a second.

(*28) Voltaic pile.

(*29) The Electro Telegraph Printing Apparatus.

(*30) The Electro telegraph transmits intelligence

instantaneously—at least at so far as regards any distance upon

the earth.

(*31) Common experiments in Natural Philosophy. If two red rays

from two luminous points be admitted into a dark chamber so as to

fall on a white surface, and differ in their length by 0.0000258

of an inch, their intensity is doubled. So also if the difference

in length be any whole-number multiple of that fraction. A

multiple by 2 1/4, 3 1/4, &c., gives an intensity equal to one

ray only; but a multiple by 2 1/2, 3 1/2, &c., gives the result

of total darkness. In violet rays similar effects arise when the

difference in length is 0.000157 of an inch; and with all other

rays the results are the same—the difference varying with a

uniform increase from the violet to the red.

“Analogous experiments in respect to sound produce analogous

results.”

(*32) Place a platina crucible over a spirit lamp, and keep it a

red heat; pour in some sulphuric acid, which, though the most

volatile of bodies at a common temperature, will be found to

become completely fixed in a hot crucible, and not a drop

evaporates—being surrounded by an atmosphere of its own, it does

not, in fact, touch the sides. A few drops of water are now

introduced, when the acid, immediately coming in contact with the

heated sides of the crucible, flies off in sulphurous acid vapor,

and so rapid is its progress, that the caloric of the water

passes off with it, which falls a lump of ice to the bottom; by

taking advantage of the moment before it is allowed to remelt, it

may be turned out a lump of ice from a red-hot vessel.

(*33) The Daguerreotype.

(*34) Although light travels 167,000 miles in a second, the

distance of 61 Cygni (the only star whose distance is

ascertained) is so inconceivably great, that its rays would

require more than ten years to reach the earth. For stars beyond

this, 20—or even 1000 years—would be a moderate estimate. Thus,

if they had been annihilated 20, or 1000 years ago, we might

still see them to-day by the light which started from their

surfaces 20 or 1000 years in the past time. That many which we

see daily are really extinct, is not impossible—not even

improbable.

Notes—Maelstrom

(*1) See Archimedes, “De Incidentibus in Fluido.”—lib. 2.

Notes—Island of the Fay

(*1) Moraux is here derived from moeurs, and its meaning is

“fashionable” or more strictly “of manners.”

(*2) Speaking of the tides, Pomponius Mela, in his treatise “De

Situ Orbis,” says “either the world is a great animal, or” etc

(*3) Balzac—in substance—I do not remember the words

(*4) Florem putares nare per liquidum aethera.—P. Commire.

Notes — Domain of Arnheim

(*1) An incident, similar in outline to the one here imagined,

occurred, not very long ago, in England. The name of the

fortunate heir was Thelluson. I first saw an account of this

matter in the “Tour” of Prince Puckler Muskau, who makes the sum

inherited ninety millions of pounds, and justly observes that

“in the contemplation of so vast a sum, and of the services to

which it might be applied, there is something even of the

sublime.” To suit the views of this article I have followed the

Prince’s statement, although a grossly exaggerated one. The germ,

and in fact, the commencement of the present paper was published

many years ago—previous to the issue of the first number of Sue’s

admirable Juif Errant, which may possibly have been suggested

to him by Muskau’s account.

Notes—Berenice

(*1) For as Jove, during the winter season, gives twice seven

days of warmth, men have called this element and temperate time

the nurse of the beautiful Halcyon—Simonides