The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-05-19
THE JUNE MAGAZINES.
s'PUTNAM,s.n


Prom the article on Ferdinand de Lesseps"
we take this about the work of cutting the Suez
Canal
"Of the immense labor OF the excavations and
dredgings made in this work, chiefly by ma
chimes invented by NJ. Lavallay, one of the con-
tractors, all visitors speak. with admiring Won
der. This, and The erection of the moles, or sea
walls, were the two great difficulties OF the task
accomplished by NJ. de Lesseps; for the mere
cutting ditch through the narrow neck of the
level lsthmus was a small job, and the difficult
ties of the drifting sand, so much discussed, were
as imaginary as those of the difference of level
of the two seas. For the Isthmus is not COM
posed of shifting sands at all; much of it is a
hard, gritty, rocky soil, through which the cut
tings are very laborious. Much of the canal
PASSES through large lakes and only at two
points of the whole line is there any apprehen-
sion about sand at all.
''But to make port on the shifting sandbank,
in shoal water liable to overflow by the sea-
where Port Said stands, rs well as to keep open
the mouth of the canal-bic labor, hoe opus est.'
When the twenty thousand laborers, promised
and given by Said Pacha, were taken away by
the two Sultans, Turkish and English, at Con-
stantinope, human ingenuity aided by steam
came to the rescue of NJ. de Lesseps and NJ. La
vallays iron giants have done well the work of
many thousands of men.
IN. de Lesseps has described this more graphi-
caly than any other could when lecturing at
Paris the other day, on his return from visit
he had just made to his canal Referring to the
results of one months work, from the 18th July
to 18th August last he says-I dare say few
among you will realize what is represented by
this enormous quantity of excavation. Were
this placed in the Place Vendome it would fill
tine whole square, and be five times the height
of the houses Or laid out between the Arc de
Triomphe and the Place de la Concorde, it would
cover the entire length and breadth of the Avenue
des Champs Elysees, while reaching to the
height of the trees on either side. a distance
equal to q mile and quarter In dredging the
Clyde, it took twenty-one years to execute three
and half times the amount the company does
in one month; and at Toulon the same results as
ON the Clyde were obtained in nine years
Mr.. Charles A. Munger discourses thus about
birds in June in the paper entitled "Four Ameri-
can Birds-"-
"The month of beauty, the month of song, the
month of all the months is June. The birds,
with all their wealth of voice and plume, are
with us now, They are calling to us from the
forest, challenging one another in the meadow,
piping in the orchard, flashing through the
shrubbery, building in the porches, dancing in
the threshold, and peering into our dwellings
with disdainiul looks, which seem to say, How
rude, how dull, how gloomy, are yOur honest
Sit down, | pray you, with me in my quiet
library here, this pleasant afternoon,
you about some of our birds, their manners and
their melodies. See, yonder, beneath that glass
case (Which will remove, that you may observe
more closely), where those four specimens of the
taXidermist's skill are perched looking almost
again-they have piped their last; but could you
have heard them quiring their melting madri-
gals, you would have thought some careless
angel had left the gates of heaven ajar. and
strains of the celestial anthem were stealing
upon your ear;-such a quartette would these
dear American birds have sung for you. One
would have carolled to you of the orchard,
another of the meadow, another of the wild
wood, and another of the summer-night. They
are our own birds-the Old World knows them
not-and each in his own sphere is without q
rival"
Mr.. G. P. Putnam, in discussing "Some Things
in London and Paris" gives this account of
visit to Dores studio:-
"'Would you like to visit Gusta1e Dore's
studio ?" Wouldn't L With card from
Hachette's, we were not long in finding it-even
without a number or name to Indicate it-for
probably it is the only isolated studio in Paris
built for the purpose-it must certainly be the
largest An artist who paints pictures 80 feet
long and % feet high must have a studio of his
own; and these are the dimensions of the last
great work of Dore, which we saw on his
ject is Christ coming down from the Judg
ment Hall OF Pilate-sOme twenty or more
life-size figures fill the canvas. The competition
for such q work must be somewhat limited-for
what galleries less extensive than the Louvre
can hold such a canvas? In the spacious studio,
at this moment, there were also more than
dozen large pictures, all recently painted by this
almost miraculous artist (marvellous at least,
so far as facility and amount of work are con-
cerned)-including fgure-pieces from Dante and
from the Midsummer Nights Dredme-Rossini
in his bed after death, and two very beautiful
forest scenes-all these being about six or eight
feet high. One might think that Dore's pencil
drawings might have occupied any one man for
a lifetime but to see these enormous and elabO-
rate works in oil, going on simultaneously, ones
wonder grows in proportion to their square
feet. But for the janitors assurance that no
one but the master himself touched the canvas,
we might guess that large part of the work
was done by pupils. DOre himself is a surprise,
for he is, apparently, still on the sunny side of
thirty-fve. In feature he is not very unlike
Thomas Mast, whose pencil comes nearest on
our side to that of the French prodigy. Mr.
Dore received us with that quiet and unpretend-
ing manner which marks the modesty of true
merit; and though we avoided using minutes that
must be money-and much money-to man
who can do such things as he does, yet he kindly
explained the chief points in his recent works,
in a simple and sensible fashion, and gave us the
impression that he was true son of genius And
yet even a novice may guess that his drawings
are not all faultless."
II