Litchfield enquirer. [volume] (Litchfield, Conn.) 1829-current, 1849-06-28
The Poetry Of Science.

Hunts recent publication, the =" Poetry
of Sciences glances at some of the re-
cent marvels of fact, which have taken
the place in the popular mind of the an
Gent marvels of the imagination;
"Science," it says, "has gone down
into the mines and coal pits, and before
the safety lamp the Gnomes and Gent of
these dark regions have disappeared.
But in their stead, the process by which
metals are engendered in the course of
ages; the growth of plants which hun
dreds of fathoms under the ground, ard
in black darkness, have still sense of the
suns presence in the sky, and derive
some portion of the subtle essence of
their life from his influence; the histo-
ries of mighty forests and great tracts of
land carried down into the sea, by the
same process which is active in the Mis-
sissippi and such great rivers at this
hour; are familiar to us. Sirens, mer-
maids, shining cities glittering at the bot
tom of the quiet seas, and in deep lakes
exist no longer; but in their place, SCI
ence, their destroyer, shows us coasts
of coral reef constructed by the labors
of minute creatures; points to our chalk
cliffs, and limestone rocks, as made of the
dust of myriads of generations of infn-
itesimal beings that have passed away
reduces the very element of water and its
constituent airs, and re-creates it at her
pleasure. Caverns in rocks, checked
with rich treasures, shut up from all but
the enchanted hand, science has blown
to atoms, as she can rend and rive the
rocks themselves; but in those rocks she
has found and read aloud, the great sto-
ry book in which is found the history of
earth, even when darkness sat upon the
face of the deep. Along their craggy
sides she has traced the footprints Of
birds and beasts, whose shapes were
never seen by man. $
From within them she has brought the
bones and placed together the skeletons
of monsters that would have crushed the
noted dragon of the fable at blow.
The stars that stud the armament are
watched no more from lonely towers by
enthusiasts or impostors, believing, or
feigning to believe, those great worlds
are charged with the small destinies of
individual men down here; but two as
tronomers, far apart, each looking from
his solitary study up into the sky, OBJ
serve in a known star, a trembling which
fore-warns them of the coming Of some
unknown body through the realms of
space, whose attractions at certain Pc
Rod Of its mighty journey, causes that
disturbance. In due time it comes, and
passes out Of the disturbing path; the
new one, evermore associated with the
honored names of LIE Verrier and Ad-
ans. is called Neptune! The astrologer
has faded out of the castle-turret room,
(which overlooks a rail road now, and
forbodes no longer that because the light
of yonder planet is diminishing, my lord
will shortly die: but the professor of an
exact science has arisen in his stead to
prove that ray of light must occupy
period of six years in travelling to the
earth from the nearest fixed stars ard
that If one of the remote fixed stars were
"blotted out" of heaven to-day, sever
al generations of this earth must perish
out of time, before the fact of its obliter-
alton could possibly be known to human
eye" sr.
Pressure OF THE SEA.-If piece Of
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