The Nevada journal., 1858-11-05

A Cry SAVED BY A Possibilities
Campbell, when asked for toast in a
society of authors, gave the memory of
Napoleon Bonaparte: significantly add
ing, "he once hung bookseller" On
a nearly similar principle would be dis
posed to propos among geologists CRATE
full bumper in honor of the revolutionary
army that besieged Maestricht. The
city some seventy or eighty years ago,
had its Jealous naturalist in the person
of NJ. Hoffman, a diligent excavator in
the quarries of St. Peters mountain,
long celebrated for its extraordinary fos-
sils. Geology, as science, had no ex-
stence at the time; but Hoffman was
doing in quiet way, all he could to give
it beginning he was transferring,
from the rock to his cabinet, shells, and
corals, and crustacea, and the teeth and
scales of fishes, with now and then the
vertebrae, and now and then the limb
bone, of reptile. And he honestly re-
numerated all the workmen he employed
and did 10 manner of harm to any one,
no one needed him. On one eventful
morning, however, his friends, the quar-
riers. laid bare most extraordinary fos-
sill: the occipital plates of an enormous
saurian. some four and half feet long,
bristling over with teeth, like cherdur
dc frise: and after Hoffman, who had
got the block in which it lay embedded,
cut out entire, and transferred to his
house, had spent week after week in
painfully relieving it from the mass, all
Maestricht began to speak of it as some
thing really wonderful. There is ca
thedral on St. Peters mountain-the
mountain itself is church land and the
lazy canon awakened by the general
talk, laid claim to poor Hoffman's won
derful fossil as his property. He was
lord of the manor; he said, and the noun
tain, and all that it contained belonged
to him. Hoffman defended his fossil as
best he could in an expensive lawsuit /;
but the Judges found the law against
him ; the huge reptile head was declared
to he " treasure trove" escheat to the
lord of the manor, and Hoffman, half
broken hearted, with but his labor and
the lawyers bill for his pains, saw it
transferred by rude hands from its place
in his museum, to the residence of the
grasping churchman The huge fossil
had experienced the fate Of DR.. Chal-
mers' two hundred churches. Hoffman
was philosopher, however and he con-
tinued to observe and collect as before,
but he never found such another fossil !;
and at length, in the midst of his iugen-
ious labors. the vital energies failed
within him and he broke down and died.
The useless canon lived on. The
French Revolution broke out the Re-
publican army invested Maestricht ; the
batteries were opened, and shot and shell
fell thick on the devoted city. But in
one especial quarter there alighted nei-
ther shot nor she'll. All was safe around
the canon's house. Ordinary relics
would have avaiIed him nothing in the
circumstance-no not " the three kings
of Cologne" had he possessed them, or
the jaw bones of the eleven thousand
virgins" but there was virtue in the jaw
bones of the Mossaurus, and safety in
their neighborhood. The French sarans,
like all he other sarans of Europe, had
heard of Hoffman S fossil, and the French
artillery had been directed to play wide
of the place where it lay. Maestricht
surrendered; the fossil was found Sc
creted in vault, and sent away to the
Jardin des plontes, at Paris, maugre the
canon, to delight there the heart of Gu
vier and the French, generously ad-
dressing themselves to the heirs of Hoff-
man as its legitimate owners, made over
to them a considerable sum of money as
its price. They reversed the finding of
the Maestricht judges and all, save the
monks of St. Peters have acquiesced in
the justice of the decision.
Hugh Miller.
The ACTOR Becoming "REsPEcT
ABLE ."-Parliament once held an actor,
in Great Britain, to be " vagabond' in
law. 1t hasjust been decided by Lon
don court that an actor is not " laborer.'
Now what is he A non-laborer in
England is gentleman. The actor in
that country has at length risen, then to
the dignity of his profession. He islands
nanumit:ed from the ancient sarcasm.
He is recognized, at last, as one of the
more respectable members of society,
and it remains with himself alone, whe-
ther or not he shall maintain the credit :;
whether, like Macready and Kemble. he
shall succeed in holding on to the honor
able position awarded him, or like Char