The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1852-03-08
LOCAL MATTERS.


ATHENEum. Dr.. KanSs Second Lecture The
lectureroom of the Athennum was disd with
brilliant and attentive auditory, Friday evening
last The ladies In particular favored the young
and gallant surgeon with an audience of sparkling
eyes and approving smiles Of 80 extended and melt
ing character as certainly seemed to impart a
magical warmth to his stories of the wonders OF
the ice regions One feature alone of his discourse
married its effect. and that was the broad vein of
,echnecaiities that enveoped portions susceptible
of more clear recital and far more interesting when
clothed in homespun, unadulterated English. Lee
lures to be heard with profit by the people, must be
like the editorials that are read-uttered in the
plainest language with which scientific and valua-
BILE truths possibly be expressed When the
masses become astronomers, biologists, botanists,
geologists naturalists and profoundly -versed at
that, displays of scientific terms, their Latin or
Greek synonyms may be Instructive. Lecture
goers do not always carry dictionaries or perfect
memories with them. But to the lecture-for
which we can spare only brief notice. A sketch
of the fate of the various expeditions that had
| sayed the discovery of Northwest passage, was
followed by narration of the progress of the
Grinnel Expedition from the point at which he had
left il in his first lecture down to the period of its
return homevoyage. The peculiar phenomena of
the Arctic regions then described at length,
among them the aurora Boreatis, a species of con-
densed nebulosty floating in huge bands of waving
light; the parAelioR, mock meteor; and
the refraction, an exaggerated form of mirage, or
| the fata morgana. striking and peculiar species
here described by the lecturer. At times, like
spectoral phantoms, then a huge black globe anon
throwing forth showers of pale coruscaons to re-
turn Immediately to the form of gigantic pair of
dunbbelles. The glaciers and the ice bergs of the
frozen regions were next referred to- the perilous
position of the expedition before it returned home
among the floating mountains" of the sea being
thrillingly described.
The lecturer concluded his remarks by referring
to the action of the expeditions sent after Sir
John Franklin. What though they had been defeated
in their final objecta Still, they had met with en-
couraging traces of the missing expedt on, and
search could not, would not be abandoned. The
pride of a heroic nation could never consent to
yield upto death the children she had sent forth to
peril, without fully tracing out their pathway of
dangerous duty if it were only to gather their bones
into a common grave The strongest, most exalt
ed, and epnobling of human sympathies, also, en-
| couraged US to work out the mysterious problem
of Franklin's fate.
COUNTERFEIT BILLs.-On Saturday uegroman
handed SlOO bill, purporting to be the North
ern Bank Of Kentucky to white man, asking him
to give him 81 so for it. The white man suspect
ing the negro at of dishonesty, determined to
have him arrested, and went off to find an officer,
telling the negro to wait until he came back with
the necessary change. The negro said he had ano
Their of the bills The gentleman found officer
Pearce and the twain went in search of the negro,
but on arriving at the place where he had offered
the bill for sale he had disappeared. The bill is
evidently counterfeit, and wears the following ap-
pearance: