The hydraulic press., 1860-06-02


conqnerors and priests, claim high inches
in the worlds temple of fame. And, yet,
what have politicians done in The cause of
civilization and social order? Why, The
man who perfected the steam engine, and
the man who applied it to the purpose of
navigation, have done more for human en-
lightenment and human progress than all the
politicians that ever lived. Who caused the
| vast valley of the Mississippi to TEEN with
intelligent and virtucus humanity2 Not the
| politicians. The steam engine and the steam
boat, the ingenious creations of Watt and
Fulton, have been the great motive agents
that have worked such miracles cf progress,
not alone ia the valley ofthe Mississippi, bat
in California, and in all the American Re-
public, The man who, the other day, in
vented the sewing machine, bestowed boon
upon the world, greater in its consequences
than all the grandiloquent harangues and
pretentious civic reforms of million of
politicians.
In our own California-and especially in
this very quarter of it-who unveiled the
secret of tearing from the bowels of our
gravel ridges their long-hidden boards of
treasure? Not a conquering warrior-not
priest-not a politician. No, Edward E.
Mattison, who first discovered and success
fully applied hydraulics in gold mining,
thereby bringing to the light and adding to
the worlds wealth millions Of dollars that
would otherwise have slept in silence and
darkness, to the crack of doom, was and is
nothing more or less than an honest, unpre-
tending mechanical inventor who thought
so little of his achievement that he never
took the trouble to ask a patent for it. All
the politicians that have risen, and reigned,
and reveled in acknowledgements, sena-
tors, and assemblymen, with all their POM
pous pretensions-have never rendered a
1.-THE of benefit to the State which it has de-
rived from the simple hose and pipe of our
unobtrusively ingenious friend, Mattison.
This article, in its com uencement, was
intended as brief compliment to the utili-
tartan excellence of the Scientific american !;
but, somehow, it has run slightly beyond
! its chalk marks. Nevertheless, there is still
| room for saying that the Scientific american
is periodical that ought to be found in all
the parlors, the libraries, and the workshops
of the Republic; being, as it is, a cheap but
! ever intelligent and entertaining compendium
of all that is useful in the arts and magniff-
cent in science.
THE CATAcoMBs OF PARIs.-More thar
two hundred acres of the portions of Paris
known as the faubourgs of St. German, st.
Marcel, st. Jacques and Chaillot, with all
their streets, houses, gardens, churches,
palaces and teeming population, are under
mined, and known TO rest upon subterranean
arches and columns 70 feet beneath the sur
face. These excavations are ancient stone
quarries, which were worked for fifteen Gen.
turies, and only closed about four hundred
years ago In 1885 they were re-opened to
be used as a place of sepulture for the dead.
The first human remains placed in them
were taken from the Cemetery of the 1nno-
cents, which was a thousand years old. Its
whole surface of fifteen acres in extent had
been raised nearly ten feet above the sur
rounding ground by the accumulation of
human dust. This raised surface was all
removed and dumped into the quarries
through shaft. Subsequently the bones
from this and other cemeteries similarly
emptied were picked out and piled up, the
quarries were solemnly consecrated and be-
came from that time the great Metropolis of
Paris. They contain now the bones of three
millions of human beings. Once year they
are opened to visitors and for examination.
Those who have walked through this dead
Paris underground say it consists of a great
number of narrow streets, six feet high by
eight feet wide, one of them FIVE miles long,
and the whole forming most intricate lab
yrinth. They are lined on each side from
top to bottom with bones piled up like
cord-wood, the long bones Of the arm, leg
and thigh forming the pile behind which
are thrown the smaller bones skulls being
placed in alternate grinning rows through
the wall of bones. for the sake of variety:
Several large rooms, arranged as ehapels, are
also lined with bones, curiously and fantas-
tically disposed, and, in the center, are al
tars surmounted with crosses, the whole
formed of bones, and ornamented with
skulls. Niches are made in the walls, where
vases are constructed of the same dismal ma
terials. A peculiar odor, sort OF moul-
dering smell. pervades this empire OF the
grim monarch-but it can hardly be called
disagreeable.
An egg was recently exhibited In Petalu-
ma which measured, in circumference, eight
and one quarter inches, and trarsyerseiy
ten and iye-eighths inches.
| C.,srzcY ProrpprcrIoH DOwpIevllle