SELECTED ARTICLES.

Oamaru Mail, Volume I, Issue 176, 13 November 1876, Page 3

SELECTED ARTICLES.

CitJSSS litf JAi'AN. The Westminster papers for August contains a* very inturestmg letter on Jjipiiujse Chess, from Mr. W. B. Mason, wu«> furnished iv letter some time sincu on the same subject;. Tne as to the origin oil chess is discussed in t ie present lottur, ami the conclusion arrived at is that the game whs brought into J.ipan by the first occupiers J t .e country. He says : " la the Japanese proper yon behold the type of Tartar, the Malay, ami tue ,fow. At all events tie came from the East we know not when— Lt us say at the dispersion of the Tower of Babel—and in his nomadic wanderings over the vast Asiatic continent, he finally made his abode in this sunny land, bringin;,' with him his native langour, his native taste for fine arts, his religions, and his rtevfcatious, of which Chess would appear to be one." V» are tempted to giv<s ~ is description of in Japan :—" in almost every household the tiny table has it appointed place. The Japanese iudwtgtS but little in out-door spurts ; in visiting a friend he sits, for hours round the hibaehi, or charcoal tire-box, smoking the inevitable pipe, drinking the inevitable tua, and playing chess. The game is not cuuhnect tt> the male members of the family, for alt understand it, from the bright-eyed iiaurwme yonder, who wilt soon take more inUrest in a mate of another sort from that which s ie has- just given her brother, of the mature ago of seven years l In fact, one of my moat delightful experiences of these favored regions was watching a. game played betwe-n two young native ladies, under a moonlight that bathed every surrounding object with a flood of silvery brightness. tlenerally, the Japanese play tot* OjUiek to pfcvy welt; they rarely stop- to pondtr over their moves, and, bting a good-natured race, they do- not take defeat in oar s rions matter-of-fact style. Few foreign. r» know the Japanese game, which, as i pointed out in -v previous paper, differs in many respects from ours, the c.itf dUUeutty apparently presenting itself in the arbitrary written characters needed to distinguish the various piece l ?. Tuese, however, are easily mastered compared to the numerous r»mih\at';ou» wit i whhh the game abo« ids, being on t! e wuole decidedly more intricate and 'ngeruous than the European method, and affording ample soope for brilliant problematic combinations. The principal dilt'ervnees between the t.vo may be summud op as follows : t. A board of 8.1 squire.* instead of &t. '-. The absence of a or a piecj its equivalent in power. Yari, a Spear, W..080 movements resemble thosj of the Rook, being the strongest on the board. !J. The practice of replacing on t.ie board, according t» certain rules, a piece which has already been captured, so that ona has virtually to be on his guard against an nnuuun as welt sis a visible tnvmy. 4. Fawns do not capture diagonally. *>. A system not unlike " crowning"" in draughts, wi.jjh sovor.U of the pieces undergo. ft. Tue uniform wedg shape of the piece. 7. The ftbeuncj of " Castling/' And the fact of the readiness with which the Japanese can grasp our mode, in the face of tua difficulty we experience in mastering fcli.urs, seems to me a proof of the higw standard of their game." m BAUD MtKVEY. No sovereigns were coined at the Royal Mint in London in 187». a thing wide:* has not happened in any one of the preuuditt.* seven years. But theiM were 2', 151,009 sovereigns coinjJ and issued at the Sydney branc:i of the R >yal Mint, and 1,880,099 at tit» Al«tbour.ie broach ; and

no less than £2.726,000 in Australian gold coin was sent into the Mank of England, available for issue here. There were 516,240 half-sov«.reigm coined at our Itoyjil Mint in the ytar. Al»i gj amount of light gold'coin, wUt.d.-iwu tr,»m ch relation, was sent by the U,:*'- '■;' Kru'aud I to the iViint for to the amount of hea'ly £(500,000 were struck in the year, and t u? issue exceeded £700,000, one-tenth of which was transmitted to the Colonics. 2»o crowns were coined. The coinage of half-crowns, which wast resumed in 1874, continued in 1875, and in the latter year above 1,600,000 were issued. Above 1,100,000 uVrina were cone t iti 187 a, and 4,330,000 shillings and 3,255,000 sixpences. Above 3,000,000 threepenny-pieces were issued ; but the demand, for these coins has diminished. The Bank withdrew from circulation in the year worn stiver coin of the nominal value of £143,000, and returned it to the Mint for recotnage; and a further amount of I £II,OOO was withdrawn in Stotlan.l, and | nearly £21,000 in Australia. Owing to the low price of silver, the profit on the silver coinage alone retched £01,757, w,ieh is mote than tic whole expenses of the Mint. The profit on tae bronze coinage account is still greater. The bronze coinage of the year was very large, and there seem* to be a ska ty increase in the demand for it. Tuere were nearly 12,000,000 pence coined, and about half as many halt-pence. It became necessary to have 31 tons struck under contract by Messrs. It- ilea' on and Sons, of Birmingham ; these coins bear the Mint mark '* H" on the reverse. The Deputy Master of the Mint stating the above figures in Li* report, expre-sjshis 'egtet thtt t ;e Mint, with its obsolete structure and inefficient machinery, has been unable to tXiCttte even the comparatively limited amount of co.nage required. He is able to state that counterfeit coining has of late diminished. Ttie only really successful imitations are made of gi'ded platinum, sometimes, with a rim of pure pure gold, and are of correct weig'tt, and uave a gold " rin„\" but when the gold w*ar» otf, tlie platinum is disclosed. In moat cas«-a, however, the beat teat for a suspected coin is to it against a piece which is evidently genuine ; the instrument called a "* detector," used for bending ctn, not prove thataoin is not genuine, tu-it .er do. a *' ringing it," cur genuine coins may easily be r»n k er>.d dumo> f>y a truck. Counterfeit silver coins are moat easily detected through the difficulty of initiating t.te '* milting" or "lettering" on the edg„\.— (ktpiLd tend Labor. AN AHTIFiUIAL EYE. Among t!.e curious developments of settnee (says Pithtie OpUtUm) is the recent production, by i>r. C. W. Siemens, of an a.titicial eye (hat is sensitive to light. We wish we could add that it gives* vision to t .c blind, but we cannot, though perhaps it contain* a genu of promise in that direction. Ti.e n.w eye is composed of an ordinary glass len* T backed by an arcificiat ret.na of selenium. Tats mineral resetubtts and htallied tosnlpUur. It is distilled from hoiks that contain sulphur in conjunction with metal, such as iron pyrites, a compound of sulphur and iron. Mr. May, a telegraph clerk, tmploVod at t.te Valentin station of the Atlantic cable line, first observed in 1073, that the electrical rest ttance of sekniuni was instantly alcered by tight, the resistance being diminished by increase of light. Dr. Siemens made use of tlits peculiarity of selenium in the construction of hb novel eye. An electrical circuit is arranged, of which a bit of selenium forms a part, and constitutes the retina. Wueti a strong ligat is admitted into the lens and falls upon the selenium retina, the enmnt of electricity flows, and by acting upon small magnets, may be made to work the artificial lids of the eye, opening or closing them according to the intensity of the light. It is well known taat the vibration of musical sounds may, by an ordinary conductingwtru be electrically transmitted and suc-c-.39?xx11y delivered to the ear. It remains to be determined whether light, vibrations can, by means of selenium and electricity, be transmitted to ttie brain in t..e aba.nce of the natural eye.