The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1838-09-18 00:00:00

SELECT EXTRACTS.

QUARRET.S.-All quarrels ought to be studiously avoided,
hut especially conjugal ones, as no one can possibly tell
where they may end : besides, that lasting dislike is often
the consequence of occasional disgust, and that the eup 'of
life is surely bitter enough without squeezing in the hateful
rind of resentoient.—Samuel Jcltson.

Toe CZAR AND HIS ARMY (AFTER REYIEW.—Thnv (the
soldiers) do not salute, but as every division passes, the Em-
peror hails them with the accustomed cheer of " Flow are
Yon, my children ?" to which they iespond, in enthusiastic
roar, "We thank you, our father." The corps having de-
filed, the Emperor again touches, his.hat to all the officers,
saving, " Adieu, messieurs ." and then walking fioni the re-
giment, he exclaims, " 1 ate satisfied with your zeal and con-
duct, my children." " We'll do better the next time," is
then the cry from the hattalians.—The Marquis of London-
derry's Tour to the Northern Courts.
THE EXQUISITRS OF New ZEALAND.—The countenances
of all were entire 4 bedaubed with a solution of the red koko-
teal earth. A few had dipped their heads within a large cala-
letsh, containing this roul4e dissolved in water, which formed
a plaster, whose brilliancy was enhanced by a -stain of the
blue ea: ,h, called purokawohiu; which was used to encircle
the tight eye and hail of the temple. The effect of this latter
pigment was best visible in the dance, a hen at intervals the
white of the eye only is rlisp!ayed. Feathers decorated the
heaths, v;hich been carried to a calved box by oneof the
pat Iv, who bed voile(

a large quantity on the sea beach,
ra the dead tarn, or pnueta, we had passed in our route.
All the finery that had teen bestowed on them by Europeans,
such as cast:utlelotning, which are not repudiated tut) hastily
by their wearers in New Zealand, were sported on this occa-
ston. The sole artiele of dress on one of theseexquisites was

a ta!tered brawn waistcoat, that reached a foot and smile
inches below the throat of the wearer, the nether man being
exposed in puriv raturalibus. Another had put an a shirt,
whose ori,jnai lino had been from times remote undistingui6-
stile, was fastened round the loins by the sleeves,

forming an apron fur the wearer: a native mat covered the
shoulders. One youth had inserted himself into the body of
a woman's gown, which served' as a jetick, his extremities
being incased in an old red baize shirt, toe sleeves of which
answered the purposes of trousers fur the legs. A pair of
duck trousers were tied round the throat of one young chief.
—Polacl.'s Seven hors' Residence in Neu, Zealand.
HEIGHT OF WATER IN THE CANADIAN LAKES.—We
understand that Mr. Alfred Barrett, chief engineer upon the
western section of the Erie Canal, with Mr. D. Jay Brown,
assistaut-engineer, visited Port Dalhousie, at the mouth of
the Welland Canal, last week, to examine the water-marks
made in 1825, and ascertain the comparative height of water
in Lake Ontaria Irons that period to this. On examination
they learned that since the year 1825 that lake had been gra-
duady rising, and within three years past rapidly increasing
in volume, and is now six feet eight inches higher than in
1825. It has lallen since the Ist of July two inches, so that
the entire rise of water has been six feet and ten inches.—
Lake Erie, as near es can be ascertained, from water-marks
at the toot of the lake, and at Black Rock harbour, has risen
only about four t;eet, or something less. And the Niagara
river below, about the sense, the comparative height of the
river and lake not varying over two inches since 1826.—
Lake Erie has apparently fallen eight inches from its great-
est height in June; and from the extraordinary hot weather
to the present summer, and the consequent evaporation go-
ing on, it would not be surprising if the lake should fall 18
or 20 inches by the Ist of December. The lakes appear to
be following the present Year a similar course to what they
did in 1818. after the very bigh stages of water which suc-
ceeded the cold and wet seasons of 1815, 1816, and 1817.
During those threeyears they rose rapidly ;• and in the spring
and early summer of 1818 were much higher than they had
been for many years previous, although not so high as now.
But in the hot summer of 1818 the evaporation reduced the
lakes nearly two feet iu depth, and they continued to fall
gradually its each successive year, till about 1821-2, and there
remained without much change till 1826-7-8; since which
they have been continually gaining in height and volume.—
Buffirlo Curnmercial Advertiser.

• HA LLEY's Costar.—at the late meeting of the British As-
sociation of Science, at Newcastle. Sir-William Herschel
made the following remarks on this comet:—" One of the
most interesting series of observations, of a miscellaneous
kind, I had to make at the Cape of Good Hope, was that of
Halley's comet. This carnet is the great glory of modern cal-
culation. To see the predicted return of such a body now
verified for the second time, true to a single day—nay, to a
few hours—of his appointed time, after an absence of seventy-
five or seventy-six years, during which it has been subjected
to the unceasing perturbations of all the planets, and especi-
ally persecuted by Jupiter and Saturn, those great ambling
blocks of comets, is really superb. However. w I have
now to relate refers to a very singular and instruct, e fact in
its physical history. I saw the comet for the first time, after
its perihelion passage, on the night of the 25th of January.
Mr. Meeker saw it on the 24th, From this time we, of course,
both observed it regularly. Its appearance at List was that
of a round, well-degned disc, having near its centre a very
small bright object exactly like a small comet, and surrounded
by a faint nebula. This nebula, in two or three more nights,
was absorbed into the disc, and disappeared entirely. Mean-
while, the disc itself dilated ait li ext raordinary rapidity; and
by measuring its diameter at every favourabie opportunity,
and laying down the measures by a projected curve, I found
the curve to be very nearly a straight line, indicating a uni-
form late of increase; and by tracing back this line to its
intersection with its axis, I was led, at the time, to this very
singular conclusinta—viz. that on the list of January, at 2h.
r, to. the disc must have been a point—or ought to have no
magnitude at all ! in other words, at that precise epoch some
very remarkable change in the physical condition of the comet
must have cemmenced. Well! all this was speculation. lint
here conies the mutter inflect I refer to, and which, observe,
was communicated to use no longer ago than last month by
the venerable Olbers, whom I visited in my passage through
Bremen, and who was so good as to show me a letter he had
just received from M. Boguslawski, professor of astronomy at
Breslau, in which he states that he had actually procured on
observation of that comet on the night of the 2,lst of January.
Well. then, how di : it appear ?. why, as a star of the sixth
magnitude—a bright concentrated aoint, which showed no
disc, with a magaifying pager of 140! And that it actually
wits the comet, and no star, he satisfied himself, by turning
his telescope on that imitit where he I:ad seen it. ft was gone l
Moreover, he had taken care to secure, by actual observation,
the place of the car he observed; that place agreed to exact
precision with his computation : that star was the comet, in
short. Now, &think this observation every way remarkable.
First, it is tecoarklble for the fact, that M. Boguslawski was
(late to observe it atall on the 21st. This could not have been
done, had he nut been able to direct his telescope point blank
on the spot, by calculation, since it would have been impossi-
ble in any other way to have known it from a star. And, in
fact, it was this very thing which caused Maclear and myself
to miss Im:ruling ear:ter observations. I inn sure that I must
often have swept, tinth a night-glass. over the very spot where
it sti,od in the mornings uefere sunrise. And never was
astonishment greater than mkt, at seeing it riding high iu the
sky, broadly visible to the naked eye, when pointed out to me
by Mr. Maclear, who L;aw it with no less amazement on the
24th. The next remarkable feature is the enormously rapid
slate of dilatation of the disc and the absorption into it of all
trace, of the surrounding nebula. Another is the interior
cometic nucleus. All these phenomena, while they contradict
every other hypothesis that has ever been advanced, so far as
I can see, are quite in accordance with the theory on- the sub-
ject, which I suggested on the occasion of some observations
of Biela's comet,—a theory which sets out, from the analogy
of the precipitation of mists and dews from a state of transpa-
rent vapour on the abtraction of heat. It appears to trio, that
the nuitlens and grosser parts of the comet Must have been
entirely evaporated during its perihelion, anti reprecipitated
during, its recess from the sun, as it came into a colder region ;
and that the first moment of this precipitation was "precisely
that I have pointed out as the limit of the existence of the
disc,—viz. on the 21st of January, at two p. m. or perhaps an
hour or two later."—.4thenceum.
DISCOVERY OP A MARINE SAURIAN AritNiat..—For the
last twenty years, anatomists have agreed that the extinct
saurians must have inhabited the sea, although no living ma-
rine reptile was known. They argued, that, as there are
now Chelonians, like the tortoise, living in fresh water, and
others,. as the turtle, frequenting the ocean, so there may
have been formerly some saurians proper to salt, others to
fresh water. The recent diseovery, however, of a maritime
saurian, has now rendered it unnecessary to speculate on
such possibilities. This creature was found on the Galapa-
gos Islands, during the visit of H. M. S. Beagle to that archi-
pelago in 1835; and its habits were then observed by Mr.
Darwin. The islands alluded to are situated under, the equa-
tar, nearly six hundred miles to the westward of the Coast of
South Aa.erica. They are volcanic, some of them being
three thousand or four thousand feet high; and one of them,
Albemarle island, seventy-five miles lung. The climate is
mild; very little rain faits; and, in the whole archipelago,
there is only one rill of fresh water that 'reaches the coast:
The soil is, for the most part, dry and harsh, and the vege-
tation scanty. The birds, reptiles, plants, anti insects are,
with very few exceptions, of species found nowhere else in the
world, although all partake, in their general form, of an
American character. Of the matt-samba, says Mr. Darwin,
.one species alone appears to be indigenous, namely, a large
aura peculiar kind of mouse; but the number of lizards, tor-
toises, and snakes, is so great, that it may be called .a land
of re/stiles. The variety, indeed, of species is small; but the
individuals of each are in wonderful abundance. There is a
turtle, a large tortoise (Testudo Indicus,) four lizards, and,
about the same number of snakes. but uo tregs outset's. Two
of the lizards belong, to the family Iguanidce of Bell, and to a
peculiar genus (Ambly 41-ynclins) established by that natural-
ist; and so named from their obtusely-truncated head and
short snout. Ot these lizards, one is terrestial in its habits,
and burrows in the ground, swarming everywhere on the
land; having a round tail and a mouth somewhat resembling
in form that of the tortoise. The other is aquatic, and has
its tail flattened laterally, for swimming. "'lbis marine
saurian," says Mr. Darwin, "is extremely common on all
the islands throughout the archipelago. It lives exclusively
on the rocky sea beaches, and I never saw one even ten
yards in-shore. The usual length is about a yard, but there
are some even four feet long. It is of a dirty black colour,
sluggish in its movements on the laud; but, when in the wa-
ter, it swims with perfect easq and quickness, by a serpentine
movement of its body and flattened tail, the legs during this
time being motiouiess and closely collapsed on its sides.
Their limbs and strong claws are admirably adapted for crawl-
ing over the rugged and fissured masses of lava which every-
where form the coast. In such situations, a group of six or
teven of these hideous reptiles may oftentimes be seen on the
black rocks, a few feet above the surf, basking in the sun
with eutstreched legs."—Lyell's Elements of Geology.
Power: ne Russ! s.—Some grave politicians who under-
value the power of Russia, anil think that Messrs. Roths-
child are the arbiters of peace or war, significantly allude to
what they call her vulnerable point ; they talk of her financial
embarrassments, and assert that the want of money will pre-
vent a collision. Perhaps these reasoners are not aware that,
personally, the Emperor of Russia possesses, in territorial
property alone, a revenue ten times more considerable than
any civil list in Europe; that, speaking financially, Russia
has nothing to lose and every thing to gain, from the moment
that the seat of war is carried beyond the frontiers; besides,
that her internal administration is less expensive than any
other; that her levies of troops are collected with a surprising
economy fur the crown, and at the cost of the landed pro-
prietors; that every military expedition, once out ohs country
like Russia, is a speculation which can hardly fail to turn
out profitable to the empire, as there is scarcely on record a
treaty of peace signed between that power and her adver-
saries by which clue did not u titwit,ly gain some augmenta-
- tiers to her own territory.—Ratices's Cite of the Czar.
PARTRIDGE SIIOoTING IN SOUTH AhtERICA.—The large
partridge of South America is about the size of a plump
barn-door fowl. When it rises, this partridge takes a per-
pendicular flight of about forty yards, and then darts off with
"mails/ions velocity in a direction uudeviatingly horizontal.
When shot in this fatter direction of its flight, it falls with
such a headlong and precipitate impulse, as to make it bound
to some distance from the spot at which it first touches the
around. Of all the shooting, grouse, woodcock, pheasant,
"salackcock, partridge, snipe, ptarmigan, there is none equal
in intensity of delight and excitement to this of the large
South Am.erican partridge. He is called, par e:ccellence,
" perdriz grande," or large partridge. his scenlts so strong
that from the moment your dog comes upon it, the agitation
of his frame is all but hysterical. The bird, before he will
rise, runs at a prodigious rate; anti if your dog, in coming
aeon him, as an' English dog does when he has traced a
covey, should stop and tie clown, you would never get a shot.
The bind is off the moment his quick ears or his natural in-
stinct has told him his pursuers are near; not off by flight,
but by a race which commences in suspicion and fear, and
terminates in absolute precipitation. So that for the chance
of shooting your bird, you are obliged to encourage your dog
to go in arum him, to follow up yourself the game with un-
eemitting alacrity, and topay, with palpitating satisfaction.
after perhaps a ten minutes' run, for the achievement of
bringing down, in all his irresistible career of flight, the
goodly prize you have so breathlessly pursued.—Robertson's
Paraguay.

In Russia no military man wears coloured clothes. A
young friend of mine asking a Russian officer if he always
wore his uniform, his answer was, " I was born and shall die
in it."--rThe Marquis of Londonderry's Tour to tige Northern
Courts.

INSECTS OF THE Gor.n COAST.—A new species of the Go-
liathus beetle is an object of commercial as well as entomo-
logical value, as much as £5O having been given fora speci-
men. Formerly £2O to £25 was an ordinary price.

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