The Sun.
London, England, 1863-08-08 00:00:00

DISTRIBUTION OF RAILWAYS,

A curious paper has just been submitted to the Academy
of Sciences by M. Lalanne, showing that the apparently
fortuitous distribution of railways over the surface of a large
country is in reality subject to certain laws, which may be
stated as follows:-1. The meshes of a network of railways,
as their number increases, tend to assume a triangular
form ; 2. These triangles have a tendency to form groups of
six each round a central point, which therefore is the
nucleus of a hexagon; 3. When a pentagon happens to re-
place the hexagon, there generally is a heptagon some-
where, which makes up the deficiency, so that the number
six really represents the average number of lines start-
ing from each point; 4, There are certain exceptional
points, such as the capital of the country, towards which
more than six lines con verge ; in this case the number of
lines does not exceed twelve ; 5. In those districts where
the network is still incomplete, there are centres from which
only three lines diverge instead of six ; in that case they
make equal angles with each other, thus leaving space for
the three remaining lines. This strange regularity, now ob-
servable in the networks of France, England, and North
America, depends upon a primordial law which Ruffen calls
the reason of reciprocal obstacles. Rivers, mountains,
forests, or even the mere inequality in the productive force of
different soils, have contributed towards the formation of
these regular meshes. Among the consequences which M.
Lalanne deduces from this theory of his, there is this :
that the distance between two agglomerations of popula-
tion of the same order and near each other must be en
exact multiple of the distance between two agglomera-
tions of an inferior order. Thus, the average distance be-
tween two capitals of departments in France. is 87 kilo-
metres; that between two contiguous chefs-leux d'arron-
dissements is 43} kilometres ; and between two contiguous
cantons, 14i kilometres ; so that the distance between
two prefectures is equal to twice the distance between two
sub-prefectures, six times that between two cantons, and
24 times the average distance between two communes.

Wise Criticisms—Enough to Make the
Judicious Grieve !

Here are a few extracts of certain marvellous
samples of Shakspearian criticisms !
" Nothing can match such absurdities as certain verdicts
on Shakspeare in the' Diary' of Samuel Pepys. The Mid-
summer Night's Dream' he declares to be ' the most in-
sipid, ridiculous play he had ever seen.' Pepys, on a rainy
day we presume, read Othello ;' but having lately read
" The Adventures of Five Hours," " Othello" seemed a
mean thing.' The virtuoso Evelyn is as go d a judge of
Shakspeare as the tailor's son, or the eighteenth-century
commentators. In 1661 Evelyn saw " Hamlet, Prince of
Denmark," played ; but now, the old plays begin to dis-
gust this refined age since his Majesty has been so long
abroad' Another polite writer, the author of the ' Charac-
teristics,' told his countrymen that ' the British muses
were in their infant state '—i.e., Shakspeare and Milton,
to say nothing of Chaucer and Spencer, or any of the dra-
matic poets —' without anything of shapeliness or person,
lisping in their cradles, with stammering tongues, which
nothing but their youth and rawness can excuse.' We have
not space or inclination to glance at many similar heresies
of the same kind—such as Pope's notion that ‘Ferrex and
Porrex ' was a better model for dramatic composition than
Shakpeare's plays, or Rymer's sweeping condemnation of
his barbaric productions.

" Addison condemned Shakspeare as very faulty in hard
metaphors and forced expressions,' and joins him with
Nathaniel Lee as affording instances of the false sublime.'
The public after the Restoration, actually could not brook
Shakspeare unaltered, but must needs have him, as they
imagined, civilised and improved.' "

" Steele, in the Tatler, cites a speech of Macduff's from
memory, and cities it erroneously, betraying ignorance of the
existence of Lady Macbeth, and complaining that all Shak-
speare's female characters make so small a figure.' "