MISCELLANEA.

Lyttelton Times, Volume III, Issue 125, 28 May 1853, Page 11

MISCELLANEA.

Search,for Gold.—-The following account, extracted from Washington Irving's Life of Columbus, may be interesting, at this epoch, to readers in the Australasian colonies, as it relates to the search for gold in the island of Hispaniola, at the commencement of the 16th century:—"A great crowd of adventurers had thronged the. fleet, eager speculators, credulous dreamers, and broken-down gentlemen of desperate fortunes,—all expecting to enrich themselves suddenly in an island, where gold was to be picked up from the surface of the soil, or gathered from the mountain brooks. They had scarcely landed, when they all hurried off to the mines. The roads swarmed like ant-hills, with adventurers of all classes. Every one had his knapsack of biscuit or flour. Those hidalgos or gentlemen who had no servants to carry their burthens bore them on their own backs; and lucky was he who had a horse for the journey. He would .be able to bring back a greater load of treasure. They all set out in high spirits, eager who should first reach the golden land, thinking they had but to arrive at the mines and collect riches ; for they fancied that gold was to be gathered as easily and as readily as fruit from the trees. When they arrived, however, they discovered, to their dismay, that it was necessary to dig painfully into the bOAvels of the earth—-a labour to which most of them had never been accustomed, —that it required experience and sagacity to detect the veins of ore; that, in fact, the Avhole process of mining was exceedingly toilsome, demanding vast patience, much experience, and, after all, being full of uncertainty. They digged eagerly for a time, but found no ore. They grew hungry, threw by their implements, sat down to eat, and then returned to work. It Avas all in vain. Their labour gave them a keen appetite and quick digestion, but no gold. They soon consumed their provisions, exhausted their patience, cursed their infatuation, and in eight days set off drearily on their return along the roads they had lately trod so exultingly. They arrived at St. Domingo without an ounce of gold, half famished, downcast and despairing. Suck is too often the case of those zvho ignorantly engage in. mining — of alt speculations the most brilliant, promising, and fallacious. Poverty soon fell on these misguided men. They exhausted the little property thoy had brought from Spain. Many suffered extremely from hunger, and Avere obliged to exchange even their apparel for bread. Some formed connexions with old settlers on the island, but the greater part were like men lost or bewildered, and just awakened from a dream. The miseries of the mind, as usual, heightened the sufferings of the body. Some wasted away and died broken hearted ; others were hurried off by raging fevers; so that there soon perished upAvards of a thousand men." A Double Crop of Potatoes.—A correspondent asserts that a double crop of potatoes may be obtained by pursuing the following course. When the potatoes are come to maturity, take off the loose earth carefully, without disturbing the old stem ; pick away the potatoes that are fit for immediate use, be careful not to disturb the main stalk, then cover over the small ones that are left, and add a little more earth. In about tAvo months after I will engage to say the latter crop will be more productive than the first.

Scabby Sheep.—Mr. H. Evans, a South Australian settler, had some sheep which were infected with scab ; he cured them by dressing them Avith lime-water. The Government have thought the matter of sufficient importance to publish Mr. Evans' letter in the Gazette, and from it we make the following quotation as to the modus operandi: —" Having found a waterhole in one of my paddocks of the size and depth required, I had two soaking pens large enough to contain thirty sheep each made, and hurdle yards arranged in the same way as for washing. In these pens, the evening before dressing, I directed a cart load of lime to be thrown, and to be well stirred up with a pole ; the next morning another load Avas put in. The sheep were then thrown from the stage into the mixture, and when the first pen was full they passed from it into the second, where they remained till the first was filled again—they were then let out. My object was to keep the sheep jn the mixture as long as they could bear it without drowning, that it might have a better chance of penetrating the skin. After the dressing the sheep began to improve very rapidly in condition, and in eight weeks I was able to sell them for a good price, although before they Avere dressed I considered them nearly worthless."

The English, Irish, and Scottish Bars. —The English bar embraces nearly 2000 members, the Irish about 600, and the Scottish about 400. In each of the three countries one of the sons of every family of consequence amongst the gentry usually hecomes a member of the bar, and not a few of the younger scions of noble families also attach themselves to the same profession. Within the last 50 years, hoAvever, great changes have taken place as to the objects aimed at by many of those belonging to the classes referred to, in being called to the bar. Formerly the bar was embraced by persons belonging to the higher classes solely Avith the view of being followed out for the sake of the emoluments and honours which resulted from the attainment of professional eminence ; but now that such eminence is attained with difficulty in proportion to the increased number of persons springing from the middle classes—Avho, since the dawn of modern commercial prosperity, have gained admission to a profession which formely was confined to the the higher—a new aim has come into operation, other than professiohai distinction—an aim which, in former times, had no existence. The bar is now adopted by the class alluded to, for the most part for the simple object of gaining a certain-status .which birth alone, now-a-days, does not confer ; or, in other words, the son of" a noble family, being a lawyer, has a higher position in-society than one who is not a lawyer, even'although professionally he may have" no distinction whatever. Besides, merely as a lawyer in name, Avithout undergoing the tear and wear of professional strife, he has a better chance, aided by powerful family connexions, of obtaining some lucrative Government post, than if he were not a member of the legal profession. Hence it is that the modern rule of necessarily possessing some qualification for any appointment for which a man may be desirous, is beginning to be complied Avith by those Avho formerly could gain such appoietments without any qualification whatever; aud Avhile Ave observe that at the present day there are fewer actual legal practitioners belonging to the families of the aristocracy and gentry than formerly, there are nevertheless a greater number of competitors for subordinate offices connected Avith the higher classes than at any previous period— competitors Avho are laAvyers in name, though totally removed from actual practice. To be a lawyer, even though only nominally, is supposed to denote some acquaintance with matters of history, and politics—branches of study highly necessary to every one having an eye to any department of the public service; and it is to gain a qualification for office that seven out of every ten men go to the English bar—three only out of the ten, however, being animated with an eager desire to attain professional distinction, and these three being generally the poorest of the whole. There are about 600 actual practitioners out of the 2000 members at the English bar, including the equity and common law departments; about 200 at the Irish bar out of the 600 members, and about 120 at the Scotch out of the 400 members ; the proportion of men at each avlio settle doAvn to positive practice being nearly the same in the several countries as compared with the whole actual number called.

A Bied 20 Feet High.—Not many years ago a sailor presented at the British Museum a huge marrow-bone, which be desired to sell, and Avhich he had brought from New Zealand. The officers of that institution not usually dealing in that class of marine stores, referred him to the College of Surgeons, where, they said, he Avould find a gentleman—one Professor Owen—who had a remarkable predilection for old bones. Accordingly, the sailor took his treasure to the professor, Avho, finding it unlike any bone even he had any knowledge of, sent the man away rejoicing Avith a full pocket—rejoicing himself in the acquisition of a neAV subject for scientific inquiry. Although the bone had manifestly contained marrow, and was therefore unlike the bones of birds in general, Mr. Owen concluded, from certain structural evidences, that this bone had belonged to a hird, and a bird of a species hitherto unknown. Those avlio have ever experienced the flutter which the clue to any discovery of a scientific character occasions will at once understand the excitement Avhich was felt by the little world of naturalists to whom the professor displayed his new bone. It Avas immediately figured and lithographed, and copies, with certain instructions for finding other such bones, we're sent out to New Zealand, to be distributed Avherever Europeans had trod among the ferns of that colony. Years passed. By-and-bye a very big box arrived in Lincoln's-inn-fields, London, containing congeners of the sailor's marrowbone; some of them upwards of a yard long. Professor Owen set to work, and built up from these bones, not one, but five (ultimately eleven) distinct species of an extinct animal hitherto utterly unknown to natural history. It must have been unable to fly (hence the marroAV, instead of air, in the bones), and must have had uncommon pedestrian powers (hence the necessity for marrow). The structure of the beak and neck indicates that its poAver of wrenching and grubbing up roots must have been tremendous. Its food Avas fern-roots which, in New Zealand, are so farinaceous that the natives make bread of them to this day. It has been named the dinornis, because it is the most stupendous of birds (deinos, fearfully great, omis, bird). The disappearance of the dinornis is easily accounted for. When the progenitors of the present" native tribes first landed from" the South Seas, the dinornis must have been their only animal food ; for in New Zealand no quadrupeds are indigenous. As it took no longer than a century for the Dutch to extirpate the dodo from the Mauritius, a couple of centuries would have quite sufficed to kill and cook the dinornis off the face of New Zealand. When these birds had been all eaten up, the Maoris took to killing and cooking one another. The next great zoological excitement to be looked for is a real, live dinornis. If one of these gigantic birds be ever found, and brought to the Regent's Park, the hippopotamus may accept the Chiltern Hundreds and retire from the representation of the Nile, disgusted at the lead that Avill be taken by the hon. member from New Zealand.— Household Words.

Apples for Human Food.—The importance of apples, as food, has not hitherto been sufficiently estimated in this country, nor understood. Besides contributing a large portion of sugar, mucilage, and other nutritive matter, in the form of food, they contain such a fine combination of vegetable acids, abstractive substances, and aromatic principles, with the nutritive matter, as to act powerfully in the capacity of tonics, refrigerants, antiseptics ; and, when freely used at the season of their ripeness by rural labourers and others, they prevent debility, stengthen digestion, correct the putrefactive tendencies of nitrogenous food, avert scurvy, and probably maintain and strengthen the powers of productive labour. The operatives of ConiAA'all consider ripe apples nearly as nourishing as bread, and more so than potatoes. In the year 180], a year of scarcity, apples, instead of being converted into cider, were sold to the poor ; and the labourers asserted they could stand their work on baked apples without meat, whereas a potato diet required either meat or fish. The French and Germans use apples extensively ; indeed, they rarely sit down in the rural districts without them in some shape, even at the best tables. The labourers and mechanics depend on them to a very great extent, as an article of food, and frequently dine on sliced apples and bread. Stewed with rice, red cabbage, carrots, or by themselves, Avith a little sugar and hiiik, they make a pleasant and nutritious dish.

Extraordinary Phenomenon. —" A Lover of Natural History," who was in Roraney Marsh on Tuesday, the 17th January, about 5, p.m., gives the following:—" I saAV what appeared to be a column of smoke approaching me, about a quarter of a mile off. On the column reaching me I found it Avas composed of the red ant flies; I think the column was a good; quarter of a mile in length, and about from 50 to 100 yards in circumference; it quite darkened the sky. After it passed me it Avent over the river Rother, into which millions and millions of the flies fell, and Avhen I crossed it the water was quite black. I Avatched the column for a mile and a half, and notwithstanding the numbers left in the river, and on the trees, hedges, &c, over Avhich it passed, the column appeared undiminished, and like a wreath of dark smoke. The extraordinary thing is, that the ant flies throughout the Avhole marsh, 30 miles in length (as I hear it was so throughout the marsh), should all have taken wing at the same time and collected together in such vast numbers. A man Avho was collecting ants' eggs for me informs me that he found himself covered Avith them, running up to the top of the strands of grass, and then taking wing. After the flight he hardly found one ant fly in the nests. Other persons Avho saAV the flight, and who I do not believe intended to exaggerate, considered the length of the column to be a mile. The wind was in the East, the temperature very sultry, and there Avas every appearance of a thunder ■torm. Had not my man observed the ant flies rise from the ground, I should have thought they came from the Continent. The column travelled at the rate of five or six miles an hour." Those persons fond of natural history will find an interesting account of these flights, and the reason, in the 2nd volume of " Kirby and Spence," p. 50, 51, 52.— Sussex Empress.