THE DESTRUCTION OF POMPEII.

parties of fugitives encountered each other-some hurIn our last number we presented our readers with a rying towards the sea, others flying from the sea back natter of fact description of the singular disappearance the shore-an utter darkness lay over it, and upon its to the land; for the ocean had retreated rapidly from of Pompeii. We now give a description from the groaning and tossing waves the storm of cinders and Last days of Pompeii," by Bulwer, whose gorgeous rock fell without the protection which the streets and imagination, strong powers of conception and exube- with supernatural fears, these groups encountered each roofs afforded to the land. Wild-haggard-ghastly Fant fancy enable him to throw a thrilling interest other, but without leisure to speak, to consult, to advise ; around almost every scene he undertakes to describe. for the showers fell now frequently, though not conThis scene, as connected with the denouement of tinuously, extinguishing the lights which showed to each his tale, and interwoven with its incidents, is developed band the death-like faces of the other, and hurrying all with peculiar power and effect-we extract from the elements of civilization were broken up. Ever and to seek refuge beneath the nearest shelter. The whole chapter entitled "The Progress of the Destruction." anon, by the flickering lights, you saw the thief hastenThe cloud which had scattered so deep a murkiness ing by the most solemn authorities of the law, laden over the day had now settled into a solid and impene- den gains. If, in the darkness, wife was separated from with, and fearfully chuckling over, the produce of his sudtrable mass. It resembled less even the thickest gloom of a night in the open air than the close and blind dark-husband, or parent from child, vain was the hope of reness of some narrow room.' union. Each hurried blindly and confusedly on. * But, in proportion as the blackness gathered, did the lightnings around Vesuvius thing in all the various and complicated machinery of increase in their vivid and scorching glare. Nor was social life was left, save the primal law of self-preservatheir horrible beauty confined to the usual hues of fire; tion ! no rainbow ever rivalled their varying and prodigal dies. the city of Pompeii was disinterred from its silent tomb,* Nearly seventeen centuries had rolled away, when Now brightly blue as the most azure depth of a southern all vivid with undimmed hues; its walls fresh as if sky-now of a livid and snakelike green, darting rest-painted yesterday,-not a hue faded on the rich mosaick

lessly to and fro as the folds of an enormous serpent now of a lurid and intolerable crimson, gushing forth through the columns of smoke, far and wide, and lighting up the whole city from arch to arch, then suddenly dying into a sickly paleness, like the ghost of its own life!

No

of its floors,-in its forum the half-finished columns as left by the workman's hand,-before the trees in its gardens the sacraficial tripod,-in its halls the chest of treasure,-in its baths the strigil,-in its theatres the counter of admission,-in its saloons the furniture and In the pauses of the showers, you heard the rumbling in its cubicula the perfumes and the rouge of fated the lamp,-in its triclinia the fragments of the last feast, of the earth beneath, and the groaning waves of the tor-beauty, and every where the bones and skeletons of tured sea; or, lower still, and audible but to the watch those who once moved the springs of that minute yet of intensest fear, the grinding and hissing murmur of the escaping gases through the chasms of the distant gorgeous machine of luxury and of life! mountain. Sometimes the cloud appeared to break from its solid mass, and, by the lightning, to assume quaint and vast mimicries of human or of monster shapes, striding across the gloom, hustling one upon the other, and vanishing swiftly into the turbulent abyss of shade; so that, to the eyes and fancies of the affrighted wanderers, the unsubstantial vapours were as the bodily forms of gigantick foes,-the agents of terrour and of death.t

* Destroyed A. D. 79-first discovered, a. D. 1750.

SKETCHES OF THE BRITISH COLONIES. The following "sketches of the British Colonies" we extract from the Liverpoo! Times. This is the first of a series of articles which that paper designs to lay before its readers, on the very interesting subject of the extent of the empire under the control of England. If possible, we shall avail ourselves of the articles as they reach our shores, and lay them regularly before our readers, confident that they will find extraordinary interest in the description of colonies comprising 1,100,000 square miles, and upwards of 200,000,000 of souls, all embraced under the government of one king.

The ashes in many places were already knee-deep; and the boiling showers which came from the steaming breath of the volcano forced their way into the houses, bearing with them a strong and suffocating vapour. In some places immense fragments of rock, hurled upon the house-roofs, bore down along the streets masses of confused ruin, which yet more and more, with every hour, obstructed the way; and, as the day advanced, the motion of the earth was more sensibly felt-the footing seemed to slide and creep-nor could chariot or litter be kept steady, even on the most level ground. Sometimes the huger stones, striking against each other as they fell, broke into countless fragments, emit-uable History of the British Colonies brings together The publication of Mr. Montgomery Martin's valting sparks of fire which caught whatever was combus- and places before the publick for the first time, in a contible within their reach; and along the plains beyond densed form, a vast number of facts relative to the dethe city the darkness was now terribly relieved; for pendencies of this country, in every part of the globe, several houses, and even vineyards, had been set on which previously could only be learnt by the perusal of flames; and at various intervals the fires rose sullenly the almost innumerable volumes of voyages, travels, and fiercely against the solid gloom. To add to this and other works of a similar kind. We have on forpartial relief of the darkness, the citizens had here and there, in the more publick places, such as the porticoes of entertain of the two volumes already published, and mer occasions expressed the high opinion which we temples, and the entrances to the forum, endeavoured to place rows of torches; but these rarely continued work of a few brief, but, we hope, comprehensive sketchwe now purpose to make use of them as the ground long; the showers and the winds extinguished them, es of that immense colonial empire scattered throughout and the sudden darkness into which their sudden birth was converted had something in it doubly terrible and England constantly wave, and on which it may be said every quarter of the globe, over which the colours of doubly impressing on the impotence of human hopes, more truly than of the former empire of Spain, that the the lesson of despair.

Frequently, by the momentary light of these torches,
* Pliny.
† Dion Cassius.

sun never sets in his course.

Following the plan of Mr. Martin, we commence with the extensive British possessions in the East In

dies, extending from the rivers of the Punjab to the Straits of Malacca, and from the snowy mountains of the Hymalaya to the Island of Ceylon. This immense tract of country includes the four presidencies of Bengal, Agra, Madras, and Bombay; the provinces beyond the Ganges conquered from the Burmese; the Island of Ceylon, and the settlements of Penang, Malacca, and Singapore. Its total area is five hundred and twentyone thousand seven hundred and ninety-two square miles; its population ninety-six millions and seventysix thousand native, and sixty-six thousand white inhabitants; its revenue eighteen millions four hundred and fifty-one thousand pounds sterling; the military force which it supports upwards of two hundred and thirty thousand strong, and its exports and imports more than fourteen millions per annum. This empire, which is ten times as large as England, is held directly by the British authorities, whilst another empire, including upwards of six-hundred thousand square miles, and a hundred millions of inhabitants, though nominally independent, and under the rule of the native princes, is in reality as much under the control of England as the ceded and conquered provinces. The total area of the empire governed and controlled by the British is upwards of eleven hundred thousand square miles, and its population not less than two hundred million souls! The Spanish colonies in North and South America, though covering a larger area, never, in the height of their glory and prosperity, contained the fourth part of the population of our Indian empire.

INDIA WITHIN THE GANGES.

The British possessions on the Continent and within the Ganges consist of the four presidencies of Bengal, Agra, Madras and Bombay, each of which we shall briefly describe, beginning with

possess a just and equitable government, protection for their property, and security for their lives. The province of Bahar, higher up the Ganges, has a more diversified surface than Bengal. To the north it extends in long and wide plains, but to the south it is varied by hills and dales, especially in the Rajemal district, where the hills form some of the first scenery on the banks of the Ganges. This province produces great quantities of saltpetre, and indigo is also extensively cultivated. Much of it lies waste, and is covered either with thick jungle or majestick forests. The Ganges, at this distance from the sea, is from three to five miles broad. Ascending the river, we come to the rich province of Allahabad. Here the country is much bolder and more picturesque, and very fine wheat is grown. In the district of Glazepoor millions of roses are cultivated, for the purpose of making attar of roses. Two hundred thousand flowers are required to make the weight of a rupee of attar. The British provinces of Berar to the south are wild, ruggid and hilly, full of deep jungles and impassable ravines, among which the Nerbudda river takes its rise. These provinces cover an area of fifty-five thousand nine hundred square miles, but large districts are unexplored by the British, and little known to the natives. The Malwah territory, belonging to Britain, occupies upwards of eight thousand square miles. It is situated on an elevated plain, two thousand feet above the level of the sea, diversified by hills, and watered by numerous streams, which flow over a rich and fertile soil. It is peopled by the warlike, crafty, and restless Mahrattas.

The total extent of the Bengal presidency is one hundred and fifty thousand square miles, and its total population forty millions of souls.

AGRA is the second presidency of continental India, and has been recently separated from that of Bengal. It consists principally of the provinces of Agra and Delhi, celebrated as the seats of the Mogul Emperors of India, and of the province of Kumano, amongst the Hymalaya mountains. It is well watered by the Ganges and other rivers, produces wheat in abundance, possesses in general a fertile soil, a mild and temper ate climate, and a bolder and more warlike race of men than Bengal or the lower provinces. The Mahommedans here preponderate in influence, if not in numbers. Delhi, for so many years the Mogul capitol, is greatly decayed; and Agra, also a capitol of the former rulers of India, still more so. The Great Mogul still reigns, though as a mere puppet in the hands of the English. Lodeana, on the frontiers of Runjeet Singh territory, is the most westerly fortress in the hands of the English. It was within this presidency that the sanguinary campaigns between Halkar, Seindia and Lord Lake took place.

This presidency contains eighty-eight thousand square miles, and thirty-two millions of inhabitants of whom not more than five thousand are Europeans

THE BENGAL PRESIDENCY, which includes the provinces extending along the banks of the Ganges, from the dreary Sunderbunds at its mouth to the point where it quits the newly-formed presidency of Agra on the west. This presidency, the scene of Lord Clive's early victories, is the richest and most thickly-peopled part of British India. It comprises the whole of the province of Bengal proper, a vast and monotonous region, whose immense alluvial plains, covering one hundred thousand square miles, are scarcely diversified by a single hill of any height, except to the east of the Brahmaputra. This region, irrigated by innumerable rivers, and subject in the spring and winter seasons to deluges of rain, teems with life and fertility, and produces luxuriant crops of rice, indigo superiour to that of any other part of India, sugar, now neglected, but capable of great improvement, cotton, tobacco, opium, and every other kind of tropical produce. The shores of the bay of Bengal are fringed with the graceful cocoa-nut palm, whilst the nutmeg, camphor, and pimento grow richly in the botanical garden at Calcutta, and are capable of being cultivated in all parts of the province. Coal MADRAS, the third presidency, formed from the do is found in abundance in the Burdwan district, and is minions of the Nabob of Arcot, the former French used in steam navigation, which promises in a few possessions in the south of India, the provinces wrest years to produce a wonderful social revolution along ed from Heyder Ali and Tippoo Saib, and the souththe shores of the numerous rivers of India. The cli-ern territory of the Mahrattas, stretches along the mate of this rich province is oppressively hot, men and beasts having been known to fall dead in the streets of Calcutta in the months of April and May. From seventy to eighty inches of rain falls during the year, that is about double the quantity that falls in England, and it descends in torrents; and such is the fertility produced by the intense heat and abundance of moisture, that all the cultivated land yields prodigious crops, whilst those which are neglected are covered with a rank and noisome vegetation. The inhabitants of Bengal are mild and timid, but patient and industrious. For ages they have been subject to the tyranny of their Mahommedan conquerours, and now, for the first time in their long and disastrous history,

eastern and western shores of India for many hundred miles. The Coromandel coast is in general flat and sandy, whilst that of Malabar is bold and romantick. presenting every where the richest scenery. The two chains of the Ghauts run through this presidency. They are connected by the Neilgherries, a beautiful and healthy range of hills, recently explored, but al ready greatly frequented by Europeans, on account of their mild and salubrious climate, and their charming scenery.

This presidency contains one hundred and forty thousand square miles, but not more than fourteen millions of inhabitants.

BOMBAY, the last of the four presidencies, includes

Annals of Education.

the north and south Coucan, and the districts of Su- | practice of the best writers, and that the study of these rat, Croach, Ahmedabad and Keira, on the Indian is the best mode of learning them practically. Our Ocean, and the inland provinces of Poonah and Kan- best writers are formed by the study of our best audeish. The face of this presidency is greatly varied, thors. consisting of fertile plains and valleys, separated by mountainous chains, and watered by majestick rivers. Much of it is forest and jungle, and the inhabitants of several districts are wild and recently subdued. The collectors of Poonah and the district of Candeish are, however, full of beauty and fertility.

The extent of this presidency is sixty-four thousand ine hundred and thirty-eight square miles, the popuation eight million souls.

EXHIBITIONS.

ZOOLOGICAL INSTITUTE.

The splendid establishment of this name, now open to the publick at No. 37 Bowery, is well worth the visits of every lover of Natural History. In the neatness and convenience of the interiour arrangement, and the variety and beauty of the animals, it surpasses every thing of the kind we have seen in the country. The building fronts fifty feet on Bowery, and extends one hundred and 75 feet in depth. Through a spacious and well lighted hall, you enter what may be

The dens ap

THE STUDY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. Our labours in the instruction of the deaf mute first led us to see clearly a truth, for which we had long been groping, when we were expected in ordinary schools to 'transfuse' the theories and rules of Murray into the brains of boys, with all the pompous array of appropriately termed the principal Saloon. This is names by which the branches of instruction are desig-lighted by day through numerous sky lights; and in nated. Spelling, Reading, Defining, Grammar, and the evening by three costly chandeliers depending Composition, Etymology, Syntax, and Prosody, mean from the ceiling, and handsome lamps at the sides. nothing more than 'the study of the English Language.' It is a false refinement, in our view, which has thus The animals are contained in dens on each side, numdivided a simple and comparatively easy and interest-bered, and their names painted above. ing study into several dry and difficult branches, each pear to be firmly built in the wall; but they are one of which sometimes costs more labour than the movable and distinct. The floors of all the cages are whole actually requires, when pursued in a simple method. After attempting to pursue this same artifi- slightly inclined planes; and behind them runs a gut cial course with the deaf mute, and finding it insup- ter also inclined, at the upper end of which is a pump, portably wearisome, and absolutely stupifying to the affording an abundant supply of water, which keeps intellect, the simple plan of nature was adopted. The the cages clean and inoffensive. Over the dens, is a pupil was taught to write sentence after sentence, was told the meaning of the words in a simple phrase, the promenade or gallery, with seats stuffed, and handmode of spelling them, and their proper order, and was somely covered with crimson moreen. At the lower required to write a new phrase composed of the same end is the orchestra of the very excellent band; while, words, and thus like the gentleman who had spoken at the upper end, the Rhinoceros, flanked by two Eleprose all his life without knowing it,' these ignorant phants, and surmounted by three cages, containing deaf mutes were soon familiar with Spelling, Reading, African Leopards, Lion, Lioness and two Bengal Defining, Grammar and Composition; and attained a degree of accuracy which surprised all who witnessed Tigers, form the most prominent point in the coup it, without being aware of the number of their stu-d'œil upon entering. Behind the orchestra are two dies. On visiting the best schools of Switzerland we found this same plan adopted. A class of little boys were called upon to speak a phrase; they were taught orally to spell the words which composed it: they wrote it, and thus spelled it again: they were then called to read it; and to repeat it, and to spell the words again and then to speak and write a new phrase, and to explain the words. On this plan, while these simple children only supposed they were learning German, or rather learning to express their thoughts, they were acquiring five distinct studies besides Chirography! And they acquired them in fact and not in name. We received a letter from a boy of nine years of age, taught in this manner, which surpassed in all its characteristicks those of our schoolmates at fourteen years of age, and some of those of our fellow students at college.

upon

We ought to add, that in this mode of instruction, where the examples of a particular inflection or combination of words became sufficiently numerous, the pupils were taught to remark the general form or principle which pervaded them, and thus imbibe, imperceptibly, all the theory of language which the young or ignorant can comprehend.

elegant rooms, fitted up as ladies' and gentlemen's

Saloons.

The list of animals embraces amid the great variety a male and a female Zebra, the untameable Gnu, the Buffalo, the white Bear, the Ostrich, two Emeus, the Cassowary, the Vulture and the Anaconda, which we mention as rather rare specimens.

HYDRO OXYGEN MICROSCOPE.

At No. 108 Broadway is an exceedingly interesting exhibition of the wonderful powers of the microscope. The light used in this instrument is derived from the application of a flame of oxygen and hydrogen united upon lime, and equals the most brilliant solar light. The specimens which are illustrated are projected on a disk containing 240 square feet of canvass. A drop of water magnified by it 2,400,640 times, presents a most singular scene, wherein insects before unseen present themselves in gigantick proportions and most singular conformations, engaged in as great a variety of sports and pastimes as well as contentions and war, as is common to those beings that boast a huger shape. The skeleton larvæ We leave our readers to decide which plan is the of the gnat, which is transparent, is magnified to such most rational and simple. We will only assure them, a degree that the peristaltick motion of the intestines, that so far as our observation has extended, this pro- the circulation of the blood, and the motion of the duces greater accuracy in far less time than the ordi- chest in the act of breathing are distinguishable. The We beg them to recollect the key to all pores in the wood of so minute a tree as the rose tree, just views on this subject-that language was estab-are magnified so as to appear one or two inches each lished before grammarians or lexicographers existed in diameter-the eye of a fly is made to appear like a that its rules and principles are to be found in the monstrous honey comb, several feet in extent. The

nary course.

1