The Sun.
London, England, 1830-06-10 00:00:00

PANORAMA OF AMSTERDAM.

Mr. Burford's new Panorama of this fine old
commercial city was yesterday opened for a private
view. As a wwk of art, it surpasses the best of its
predecessors. The point from which the view is
taken is on the Spaarndam-bridge, and commands
the city on the one side, and the river and the dis-
tant country on the other. Towards the city the
view is of necessity not very extensive, and presents
only the fronts of the buildings which skirt the
water, with the openings of some of the principal
streets, anti the churches and towers which extend
above the roofs of the houses. The scene is, how-
ever, a very striking one. The character of the
buildings is not wholly unknown in England,
although the modern changes of taste in domestic
architecture have made it somewhat obsolete. They
are large houses built of brick, or of brick and stone
intermixed ; many of them are ornamented with
sculptures; the outsides and the window-frames are
generally painted with gay colours; and the heavy
crane, and warehouse doors, which may be seen in
most of them, point out distinctly the care with
which their thrifty founders pursued their trade at
the same time that they decorated their habitations.
The chimneys are remarkably high, of grotesque
forms, and commonly surmounted by weathercocks.
The spires and towers form very agreeable and
striking features in the scene. On the other side of
the view the Lust-haus-row, gaudily decorated and
painted, and built on piles driven into the water,
and flanked by a row of equally gay yachts, add to
the variety of the spectacle. The distance is filled
in by the river Y and the shipping which occupies
its surface, and the new canal extending as far as
Nieuwendam. The Panorama is well painted on the
whole, and, in some respects, the finishing has been
carried to a remarkable perfection. The principal
fault in it is a somewhat exaggerated effect of sun
light, which nevertheless adds to the power of the
Panorama as a painting.

VISCERAL DISEASE from GIN-DRINKING.

(From the Lancet.)
The following observations on the post-mortem
appearances which were found in a gin-drinker
who died of visceral disease, were delivered by

Dr. Elliotson on the same occasion as the clini-

cal lectures on hydrophobia, which we published
in No. 351, and reported so fully, that we had

not room to add the present case. The lecture
did not belong to the winter course, which we
have hitherto been publishing, but the interest
at present attaching to the subject of hydro-
phobia, induced us to print it at once.
A man died, Gentlemen, within these few
days, who was admitted in August by Dr.
Roots for me, in my absence. I found the

icket at the foot of the bed marked morbus

hepatis and lienis, and I could not but coincide
with the diagnosis. The liver was felt distinct,
hard and enlarged, low down on the right side ;
and on the left the spleen was felt equally aug-
mented and indurated. The margin of the in-
durated and enlarged liver on either side is
horizontal ; of the spleen chiefly vertical. There
were ascites, edema of the legs, great paleness
and puffiness of the whole body, and a scro-
fulous aspect. The man was only between 20
and 30 years of age, but had been a cad, and in,
the habit of drinking several glasses of gin daily
before breakfast, besides taking his draughts with
scrupulous regularity the rest of the day. Under
nutritious diet, and for some time, I was of late
obliged to allow him wine, diuretics, and a steady
course of iodine, taken internally and rubbed in
evernally. I removed his ascites and anasarca,
and the spleen and liver diminished considerably.
Within these three weeks, however, for no ob-
vious reason, he began to sink. He had long
suffered from diarrhoea, which catechu restrained ;
but this did not explain his debility. A sufh
cient explanation is before you, in the state of the
kidneys, though I do not believe he could
have lived many years with so much disease of
the liver as you see.
The diagnosis was correct. The liver was
reduced into that state, called in this country a
gin liver; filled with minute light-brown tuber-
cle; which Andral considers only so many little
hypertrophies of the biliary portion. The left
lobe is shrunk to less than a quarter of its na-
tural size ; the right greatly enlarged. Both are •
hard, and of a light brownish yellow colour.
The right has grown particularly at one spot,
near its margin in front, so that you see a round
swelling there; and even in the corresponding
part of the left there is a similar growth and
swelling ; notwithstanding its generally shrunk
state. The irregular shrinking and growth of
the organ have displaced it, so that instead of
lying straight across the abdomen, it lies ob-
liquely across the right lobe, being far lower,
and almost under the left. The spleen is very
large, but of a healthy aspect within, only very
hard. The outer coat of the spleen is greatly
thickened, very dense, and perfectly white. I
never saw it more diseased. The rest of the.
peritoneum is here and there in a minor degree
of the same state, whence the ascites is ac-
counted for. The kidneys are in a state of con-
siderable suppuration ; in one are two cavities
filled with turbid white serum, and scrofulous
clots ; and a third is full of soft puttylike stuff
of the same nature, and such as I doubt not
both the other cavities originally contained. In
the other kidney, several much larger cavities
exist, filled with pus, interspersed with similar
white clots. These cavities have all a lining
membrane ; some are distinct, and none com-
municate with the pelvis. As this could not
have been a painful disease, and there was no
escape for the contents of these abscesses into the
urinary passages, nothing led during life to a
suspicion of the real disease. One or two slight
ulcerations existed in the upper part of the
ileum ; and one or two small crude tubercles in
the lungs.

IMPROVEMENTS IN RAIL-ROADS.—It is
with pleasure we notice that the improvements introduced
by the march of mechanical intellect in the North of Eng-
land are rapidly extending themselves in this part of the
country. Last week an improved railway and self-acting
inclined plane, of nearly half a mile in length, were opened
in the immediate neighbourhood of Swansea, which appear
to merit the inspection of the scientific and curious in
these matters. The plane is much flatter than any thing
before seen in this part of the country, being at an incli-
nation of only about two inches in a yard ; it is remarkable
for having in its length two curves, somewhat in the shape
of the letter S, which the engineer thought necessary to
adopt to avoid a deep ravine en one side and a hill on the
other. The rails are of cast iron, on their edge, are dove-
tailed at each end, and wedged into cast iron pedestals,
which are again secured by bars of iron transversely across
the road; forming, in fact, at each interval, two pedestals
in one casting, which serve to connect the two parallel
rails and to keep the road always in guage,—a most de-
sirable object; these pedestals are secured in the usual
manner to large solid blocks of stone. This inclined plane
connects the Pentre Colliery, the property of the Landow
Colliery Company, with the Swansea Canal, and has been
formed at considerable expense, the embankment tieing in
some parts above twenty feet high. It is perfectly asto-
nishing to see with what rapidity and precision it does its
work, ten tons of coal being passed at a time over the space
of nearly half a mile in two minutes, being at the• rate of
15 miles par hour. Thus this simple arrangment would
enable the proprietors, if their demand required it, allow-
ing an interval of three minutes each time for casting off
si.d re-connecting empty and full waggons, to send down
120 tons of coal in an hour. In this rich mineral district
it would seem due advantage has not yet been taken of the
descending levels from many of our most valuable mines.—
Cambrian.