The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1838-08-24 00:00:00

MECHANICS' INSTITUTION.

LECTURES ON THE STRUCTURE .4ND HISTORY OF THE
ARTICULJTED MOLL USCO US CL.ISSES OF .4NIMALS.

We continue Dr. Grant's lecture of Wednesday week from
our last publication.
The crustaceous animals 'are furnished with masticating
organs, by which they may seize their food whilst swimming
or walking. Their strong mandibles are provided with contri-
vances similar to those of the large polyopterous insects. The
stomach also is near the head of the animal, and is provided
with strong teeth. There are four solid lumps in their sto-
mach to give additional firmness to the teeth, so that a proper

grinning activu may
are well provided with a liver. When we examine it we find
it to be full of little tubes, being in fact composed of a myriad
of them. As the food is intended to undergo mastication,
the stomach is the best place into which to pour the liquid in-
tended to assist digestion. The liver, accordingly, pours its
secretion into it. The blood is conveyed through the respira-
tory organs into the heart, from which it is propelled forwards
and backwards throughout the whole system. As we ascend
upwards in the scale of animals, we find that fewer functions
are given to each organ, and the reverse is the case as we de-
scend to the inferior animals. No less singular than the
power by which the arachnidw and crustaceous animals have
of reproduction is that of the planaria, for, if they are cut in
two, each part will reproduce a portion of its body correspond-
ing to that part which has been separated, and in this manner
the creature will go on multiplying as often as we cut it
asunder.
The crustaceous animals are the spiders and the scorpions
of the deep, for they are organised to consume the living and
the dead—the putrid and the fresh. They afford us a whole-
some nutritious food, yet most of them we know to subsist
upon putrid animal matter. Putrid carcases of fish we often
find surrounded by a host of crustaceous animals which are
partly devouring each other, and partly the flocculi from the
decayed carcases of the fish. They are the very scavengers
of the deep. They do not keep to the bottom of the ocean,
for every stratum of it teems with crustaceous animals up to
its highest surface. Even the very spray itself which is dash-
ed up by the paddles of our steam-packets has been found to
abound with them.

On Saturday evening, Dr. Grant delivered his sixth lec-
ture upon the molluscous animals, previous to the commence-
ment of which he took a rapid survey of the remarks which
he had made in the preceding lectures upon the articulated
animals.
The moluscous tribe of animals is almost exclusively con-
fined to the ocean and its precincts, which are peopled with
one thousand times more beings than the other portions of
the globe. They are generally attached to rocks at the bottom
of the sea, and consequently depend upon the ocean to bring
their food to them. '1 hey are formed to digest the lowest
forms of organic substances which exist in the sea. The de-
velopment of their nervous system is very remarkable. Their
spinal cord is disposed as a ring around the oesophagus, and
on this ring we can commonly perceive distinct ganglia.
They are therefore called cyclo-gangliated beings. There
are classes in which the visual organs are equivocal, and
others which present no traces of them. This is because it
would be painful for them to see approaching danger, which
they could not avoid by any muscular energy. They have a
complicated digestive apparatus. We find here, for the first
time, as we ascend in the scale of creation frem the monads,
an auricle united with a ventricle to assist the action of the
heart. In the lower tribe of the molluscous animals there are
some which are called acephalous. They have a short sto-
mach, but no head. The term molluscous has been given to
this tribe of animals on account of the softness of their bodies,
for when the exterior shell is removed there appears to be no
internal skeleton such as we see in the lobster, scorpion, and
other animals. These acephalous or headless mollusca com-
prise two very different groups of animals, of which the one
have their shells united with a valve, and the other have a
tough exterior cutaneous covering, in which are two open-
ings, the one for inward current and the other for an outward.
There are a number of different forms of this tunicated
animal. We sometimes find an immense number of them
aggregated together, of a bright red or a black colour. They
cause the currents to pass through their bodies by means of
minute vibratile cilia, and thus are enabled to intercept the
nutritious matters floating along and use them as food. The
bivalved shell fish are called conclifera, on account of there
being two pieces of shell upon their back. This shelly co-
vering is composed of carbonate of lime—is extravascular
and laminated. The carbonate of lime is united with
animal matter, which gives it toughness ; for when it is
deprived of this by means of acids or heat, it presents the
appearance of burnt lime, and is used as burnt lime for the
purpose of manuring the land, and to serve as mortar. The
laminae are always added from within, and form a continued
piece over the exterior of the body. The ligament is a very
important part. Its natural state is one-half open; when the
shells are closed the ligament is on the stretch. When the
animal becomes languid the valve opens, and it always dies
with the valve opened. It is not in the power of the animal
to will that condition which is most fit for respiration, but
that which is most unfit for the condition on which life de-
pends. These conchiferous creatures are important in the
economy of nature. They serve as the components of great
calcaverous rocks, which sometimes appear to be formed of
one description of shell, as if there had been myriads of these
creatures in one locality. Sometimes the upheaving action
from below has raised these shells in a vertical direction.
Their situation plainly indicates to the geologist or zoologist
that there must have been a great disturbing force to dislo-
cate them. Nay, in some situations, the volcanic heat has
been so intense as to dissolve the shells and convert them
into a beautiful limestone, presenting no trace of their origi-
nal form. We see, therefore, that there may have been vast
deposits of shells, which have now assumed the highly crys-
talline character of primitive limestone. A celebrated
French philosopher has attempted to prove that all the lime-
stones which compose the crust of our globe are due to
animal life. During the life of the animal the laminae are
firmly united together. They are soft upon their first forma-
tion, and afterwards crystallize. The oyster lies upon its
left side and keeps its right side free. This it can only do in
the young state, or by an extraordinaty offort when it is old.
Those oysters, which contain the pearls, inhabit deep waters,
and are found at depths varying from 10 to 30 fathoms. The
divers who risk their lives in the eastern climes, where they
are produced, descend these depths iu quest of them from 40
to 50 times a day. This they are enabled to do by discharg-
ing from their lungs every portion of carbon. A single
oyster sometimes contains so many as 200 pearls. These
pearls'are but morbid excrescences formed by the mantle in
the interior of the shell. When particles of sand gain
admittance between the surface of the mantle and the shell,
they are painful sources of irritation to the animal. It cannot
push them out; and how is it to get rid of them? The animal
is stimulated to a more rapid secretion of calcareous matter,
and it coats over the intruders with the same substance which
covers the interior of its shell. There are certain worms
likewise which bore into their shells for the purpose of con-
cealment, as well as for the animal matter which they con-
tain. The animal repairs these apertures, and, in doing so,
forms round nodules, which are struck off, and highly es-
teemed by those engaged in the pearl fishery. The oyster,
being fixed to a rock, has no eves; but the clam, which can
move itself by means of its shells, is furnished with organs
of vision. Many animals are fixed to the rock by means of
a byssus, or beard. In the muscle this is so extremely tough
and indigestible, as to occasion some inconvenience in eat-
ing that animal. We sometimes see that the inhabitants of
these bivalve shells have two auricles and a ventricle. This
arises from the animal being divided into two portions. Not
only is the.auricle divided into two parts, each of which has
the same functions, but it snits the form of some of the inha-
bitants of the bivalve shells to have the ventricle likewise
similarly divided. From the earliest periods of history, we
find this tribe of animals to have been esteemed on account
of the pearls they contain, and our island was once tributary
to ancient Rome to a yearly amount of these precious orna-
ments. At the present day, the shells are used to decorate
the persons of our sable brethren, and manufactured in this
kingdom into an infinite variety of forms for ornamental and
useful purposes.

ANOTHER IRISH LION !

One of the Irish correspondents of the London newspapers
has just discovered "in the romantic woods about Buttevant"
what he enthusiastically denominates "the Lion of Ireland!"
—totally forgetting in his ecstasy that Daniel himself is not
yet defunct ;—but we beg pardon—Daniel is not properly
the Lion, but the Dragon of Ireland—the great Dragon of
Derrinane ! and far more pestilent even than the great
Dragon of Wantley which More of More-hall so whimsically
demolished. But let us return to the Lion which has just
been "discovered in the romantic woods about Buttevant."
This Lion then be it known is not a lion—not a real genuine
roaring lion upon four legs—but a steam-drag upon four
wheels; and only hear how ecstatically our contemporary's
Irish correspondent describes his discovery of it:—
" On approaching Buttevant Castle one is struck with its
beautiful and romantic situation. You reach its hospitable
entrance through an avenue of evergreens; and perhaps
forget in the beauty of the scenery before you (at least so it
was with us) that you have come to see a piece of mechanism
manufactured there entirely by Irish mechanics. We had
forgotten; but we were awakened to the object of our visit
by a gate opening as we passed the back of the castle, and
discovering to our astonished gaze, amidst the din of anvils
and the bellows' blast, the lion and its inventor—Sir James
Anderson ! We were astonished. Though living within
twenty miles of Buttevant Castle, we, like the rest of the
world, were left almost in ignorance of what he was doing.
He (Sir James) worked in silence, and oft, perhaps, in sor-
row, until his task was done; and ere it was done—to use his
own emphatic and most expressive words—' spending two
apprenticeships and one fortune in building twenty-nine un-
successful drags to succeed in the thirtieth !'—Hear this, ye
who would persevere not!—hear this!!"
"The astonished narrator then goes on to detail the powers
this newly discovered drag—or as he persists in calling it this
lion; though as it is evidently a drag, and intended to drag
things along the road we do not see why he should not call it
a drag-on. He says "We (that's himself) do not profess to
be an engineer, but the simplicity of its mechanism is such
that a child may see its capability (that's the lion;) and we
confess that had we not known the fact, we should have
doubted that such exquisite workmanship could have been
executed !here. (How complimentary to his fine country-
men !) We (that's himself again) are not boastful, but we
can with truth aver that we never saw anything equal to it
from the best factories in England. (And no doubt he has
seen everything! Neither is it like anything hitherto at-
tempted, inasmuch as it is a machine to do the work of horses!
(There Mr. Hancock of the Mile-end road what do you think
of that?) The vehicle for passengers is to be attached to it.
(Like that which some five or six years ago used to ply be-
tween Waterloo-bridge and Walworth, perhaps.) No noise
is heard, no smoke, no unpleasant odour perceived, and the
gallant panting steed (that's the lion, alias the dragon) can,
gallop to his journey's end untired and untiring ! How ad-
mirable this arrangement ! Let us look a little forward and
we shall see Bishop Brinkley's prophecy realised—' Sir,'
said that eminent divine—' Sir, mark me;—ere long we shall
see a pan of coals—yes, sir, a pan of coals, brought to use in
place of a feed of oats.' Nobody in stupid old England ever
invented such a prophecy as that.) And who can doubt it?
On every road the carriages (that's the lions')—our own
native turf or coal can be used to boil us into a gallop; and we
may almost name the day that we can breakfast in Cork and
dine in Dublin !" Nay we shouldn't at all wonder if some
day this new Irish lion runs off the hill of Howth with such
astonishing velocity that its own impetus will carry it high
and dry across the Irish channel slap into the heart of Liver-
pool! Let the Liverpuddleans look out.
"Who in our county, nay in Ireland, is it," concludes the
astonished narrator, breaking out into a fine burst of admira-
tion—" Who in our county, nay in Ireland, is it that will not
feel proud, that we the despised and look'd down upon,'
shall, after all, be the first to give the world one of his great-
est benefits—that we, 'the wild and untaught Irish,: should
have accomplished that with all the talents of our sister na-
tions have for years and years been unable ta overcome? As
a nation we should be proud of the accomplishment of so
great a good, How much more so should be Sir James An-
derson, the individual who had done the good!!"
And how if it should turn out after all that Sir James An-
derson is no Irishman at all, but just a cannie Scot ;—a third
or fourth descendant of the famous "John Anderson my Jo,"
wha dwelt in Aberteldie!—Morning Herald.

STEERING VESSELS BY ATMOSPHERICAL
PRESSURE.

It does seem strange to us that no one has ever thought of
steering as well as propelling vessels by steam. 'the present
mode of steering large vessels is very defective, as any one
may see by the efforts which the steersman has occasionally
to make in managing the rudder. It sometimes requires
the utmost efforts of two men to command it, and in very
large vessels even four men are occasionally employed; and
after all, it is no very uncommon thing for the wheel to
overpower them all. Now, all these struggles with the con-
stant varying resistance of the helm, may be completely
superseded, at least in steam vessels, and the whole opera-
iion of steering, even in the largest vessels, and during the
• 1 " n man dnintt

little else ; an meceirwilling the needful movements ti tie
rudder; at least the application of his finger and thumb
would be all that was required in the way of corporeal
agency. And not only might everything like effort on the
part of the helmsman be spared,lbut a promptness and de-
cision might be given to all the movements of the helm far
beyond what can be secured by muscular strength acting
upon a lever power. We do not propose that the steam
should be directly applied for this purpose. A small air-
pump should be attached to the engine, which, through the
medium of an intervening pipe, would operate upon a
cylinder furnished with a piston, the valves of which would
be managed by the steersman. There is nothing new in
this mode of communicating power. It was suggested many
years ago, and employed, on a small scale, by a gentleman
i❑ London, whose name we forget, and we believe it is now
put in practice in various situations. Its simplicity recom-
mends it strongly. To see what command the helmsman
furnished with such a power, would have over his rudder'
we have only to look at the engineer regulating the valves o'f
a railway engine—with what ease he manages the move_
ments of the carriage in all respects in speed, direction
and duration.
But it may be urged, in objection to this mode of working
the rudder of a vessel, that a uniform pressure could not well
be employed to control any unvary resistance; but this ob-
jection would be removed by the adoption of the new mode
recently introduced, of conveying the power of the wheel to
the rudder, by means of a screw and bevelled wheels, in place
of a chain or rope working round its axle.
We intend to get a model of this contrivance, if it can be
called such, made, and exhibited in the office, which will be
worth a whole volume of explanation.
This use of the weight of the atmosphere in working the
rudders of vessels need ❑ot be confined to steam-vessels; for,
whenever more than one man is required to work the wheel,
the muscular strength of the extra hands should not be ap-
plied to the wheel itself, as it would be far more efficiently
and conveniently employed in working a small air-pump in
connexion with what may be called a pilot cylinder ; but more
of this hereafter.—Correspondent of the Glasgow Courier.

SELECT EXTRACTS.

THE BEGGAR'S OPERA.—The celebrated police magistrate,
Sir John Fielding, once told Hugh Kelly, the dramatist, on
a successful run of the Beggar's Opera, that he expected. in
consequence of it, a fresh cargo of highwaymen at his office.
Upon Kelly's expressing his surprise at this, Sir John as-
sured
him, that, ever since the first representation of that
piece, there had been, on every successful run, a proportion-
ate number of highwaymen brought to the office, as would
appear by the books any morning he chose to look over them.
Kelly did so, and found the observation to be strictly correct.
THE MARRIAGE LAW IN RUSSIA. —T he marriage law and
right of succession, particularly as regards the imperial fa-
mily, are rigidly enforced in Russia. Constantine was firmly
attached, and had privately united himself, to a lady of great
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never aspire to tine throne.
but true to the object of his affections, he sacrificed ambition
at the shrine of love, preferred a voluntary retirement to the
splendour of a crown, and signed the transfer of his claims
to a younger brother. At the death of Alexander, when the
mutiny broke out among the troops in Petersburg, his name
was unfairly made the watchword of revolt ; the soldiers
were instructed by their leaders to cry out, " Constantine
and the constitution." When asked the meaning of this
cry, the ignorant and deluded men thought it was " Constan-
tine and his wife." At that moment, it is said that he wished
to avail himself of the impulse; but it was too late, the
energy and bravery of Nicholas had decided the day.—
Raikes's City of the Czar.
MA HOMMED AN CEMETERIES.—About half a mile from the
the town of Calcutta is an extensive cemetery, pertaining to
mussulman community, denominated the " Cossye Bugaun."
This spot of ground contains nearly 20 acres, and is beauti-
fully shaded by aspiring bamboos, lofty and spacious cedars,
and other sombre trees, whose dense 'foliage casts a doleful
gloom around this hallowed sanctuary. The tombs and se-
pulchres of the Mahommedans are, all of them,:so constructed
as to admit of a taper being burned in every night—a cus-
tom which is religiously observed by the surviving rela-
tives of the deceased parties, with a view to keeping away the
carrion beasts. Various tanks are interspersed throughout
the cemetery, to admit of those who may attend the funerals
of the departed to undergo the ceremony of ablution. In
villages remote from large and populous towns, some shaded
spot is chosen by them for their funeral obsequies, generally
under the spreading and pensive branches of the tamarind
tree, which is regarded in the same light by them as is the
yew in this country. Thus in the most quiet and sequestered
places the lonesome and contemplative traveller may detect
two or inure Mahommedan sepulchres which have been
erected some hundreds of years, and which, very probably,
might contain the dust of men who were mighty in their day,
but who there remain entombed, without a letter or a symbol
to denote their distinction.