The Press.
London, England, 1857-08-01 00:00:00

The second paper is of a more exclusively practical
charac►er, yet, while professing great familiarity with
Indian affairs, is characterised, we believe, by several
singular blunders :
Had our railroads in India been opened and in working
order, the same mail which brought us news of the mutiny
in Delhi might have also brought the intelligence of its
suppression. In twenty hours troops might have been
conveyed a distance it would take eighty days to march.
Had the Northern Bengal Railway been completed, fresh
English battalions might have been poured down from
Dsrjeelung to Calcutta and the valley of the Ganges ; and
had the Simla Railway been completed, the commander-
in•chief would in six hours have proceeded with his staff
and European forces from Simla to Delhi. Now a fort-
night at least will be spent in concentrating the requisite
forces. The civil engineer, more even than the military,
car. now launch the thunderbolt of war. If the one can
call out those mortal engines whose rude throats do
clamour forth the immortal Jove's dread counterpart, the
other can call out engines as swift, and bring on its iron
car into the field of action a whole regiment swifter than
the chariot armed with scythes could bring two warriors
in ancient times. We may be said to have lost Delhi for
want of the railroad ; we shall, no doubt, recover it, but it
will not be so easy to recover the prestige lost by one fatal
surprise. Our empire in India is an empire of opinion ;
we must not only be the strongest power in India, but
above suspicion of being assaulted. Our Ehrenbreitstein,
or Broad Stone of Honour, cannot be taken and retaken
with safety to our pre-eminence in India.

Is it to be supposed that the mutineers would have
neglected to destroy the rails ? As for pouring fresh
battalions from Dar eelung—which by-tho-bye should
be spelt Darjeeling—why, there is but a single com-
pany at that place, and those are invalids. A fort-
night to concentrate the required forces ! The
newspapers are the best comment on this observa-
tion. A little further on the writer characterises the
mutiny as "the last effort of Hinduism." It is odd,
then, that all the Hindoo princes should be on our
site, and all the Alussulmans against us, and that a
Mussultnan king should have been set up in Delhi.
The article entitled "Oxford, the English Church,
and Mr. Emerson," is a graceful essay, but not much
more. It is very readable and lively, though marked
by one or two little errors which betray the hand of
an outsider. The object of the Oxford First Class
(old style) in Lit. Hum. is evidently not compre-
'tended by the writer. It was never meant as a test
of genius, and in that has usually been considered
to exist its peculiar merit. The Ireland Scholarship
is not confined to Greek ; nor is the Irish Mr.
M‘Donnall the only gentleman who ever carried away
the two prize essays and two prize poems. Henry
Hart 'Millman did the same, and we suspect one or
two besides. In poetry the magazine is rather rich
this month. "The Home of Bethany" is a very
melodious and elegant piece ; and " The Ivory Gate"
is very pretty indeed, but truth compels us to state
that it has appeared before—i.e., in the Idler Maga-
zine, March, 1856.

There is a good article in the August number of
Bentley upon Louis Philippe and his times ; two
poor sporting articles on fishing and shooting; a
continuation of the Palmer story, and a flattering
memoir of Mr. Charles Kean.

The New Monthly contains a clever readable
memoir of Mr. Douglas Jerrold ; a good instalment
of the " History of the Newspaper Press ;" a continua-
tion of the fortunes of Mr. Frederick Lyvett (very
clever) ; "The Baths of Lucca ;" and &paper of poli-
tical imbecility, by Mr. Cyrus Redding.
Paved with Gold gives us a very graphic account of
a prize tight, and begins to broach the question of
the hero's birth and parentage.

'tones of the Valley. By the Rev. W. S. Symonds,
F.G.S. London : Bentley.
A PLEASANT but somewhat technical description of a
geological tour through the Vale of Worcester. Mr.
Symonds writes not so much for the tourist as for
the geologist ; though for Worcestershire tourists
with geological tendencies, the book will be found a
convenient and in some respects a valuable guide.
Here is an interesting fact, showing how careful
should geologists be in accepting plausible theories
not based upon a complete investigation of facts :
It has long bean supposed that flowering•plants did not
exist in the period of the coal formation; and " it has been
questioned whether hitherto the botanist has obtained from
strata older than the \Vealden a single well•determined
specimen of any flowering plants, except Gymnosperms,
such as Conifers and Cycada."
Unfortunately for these carboniferous hobbies, Mr.
Charles Fox Bunbury has obtained the spike of a " very
highly organised flowering-plant in full flower," from the
coal measures of Newcastle. Dr. Hooker considers the
resemblance cf this plant, " Arktholithes Pitcairn e," is
nearest to " Bromeliacese, amongst which the genus Pit-
cambia is ranked." And surely, when chemists tell us that
the green colouring matter of terrestial plants cannot be
firmed in the absence of light; when ouch botanists as
Lindley and Hutton, in their Fossil Flora, insist that
" light is an agent without which no growing plants can
exist at the present day for a single week, even in a low
tetnpersture, without suffering serious injury," the dis-
covery of this singular flowering-plant of the carboniferous
epoch should establish the fact of the presence of sunshine