Iowa voter. [volume] (Knoxville, Iowa) 1867-1874, 1870-08-18

am told, in this State, but
thus far all OF them have been found be-
low the coil. I think DIR. Lardner men,
lions case where he supposed the trees
to have been pushed MP from below oy
some convulsion after petrifcation &C.
CURED. but I have never heard OF any
other discovery Of such trees lying on the
surface
"On Sunday two gentlemen visited the
locality, and reported they had found
more than forty Of the same trees within
3 mile. I have not doubt of il, - OF the
twelve saw found the last two acci-
dentally, when coming of the ground"
Efncieney Of the French and Prnssian
Armies.
The London Times, in leading article,
thus compares the strength OF the two
European powers now arrayed against
each other:
"The chief difference lies in this, that
France brings an army into the 6eld,
Prussia only an armed people. France
has her practical military schools always
open in her african colony. Prussia has in
recent times seen no wars, except In two
brilliant but short campaigns, in which
her militia had rather an opportunity of
displaying their courage than leisure for
acquiring experience. Service In the
army is still in France to great extent
trade apart; military duty does not fall
equally on rich and poor; it leads to little
or no amalgamation among classes; II
binds the conscript for long period OF
wears. It fosters an esprit de corps, and
makes his barrack the soldiers home.
Estranged thus from common life. the
soldier can be turned into more efficient
fighting machine; and France musters
under her standards an army OF veterans,
Injured to the hardships Of actual cam
paigning. On the other hand, the
army in Prussia is recruited equal
ly from all orders of society. The
amalgamation Of high and low in the
ranks raises the tone of the whole service;
it precludes all antagonism between the
country and its defenders 1t is not the
armv, but the whole nation, that takes
the field. The front line in Prussia. or
what is called the regular army, is formed
of raw soldiers; but in the rear of it are
the men OF the reserve and the Landwehr,
who have gone through their three years
training, and have been kept up to high
degree Of efficiency by yearly drill-men
Of mature age, whose cool courage is in
tended to temper the inconsiderate ardor
and impetuosity Of youth 1t has been
the fashion to expect prodigies from the
dash and headlong fury Of mere striplings.
But the fact is, that true courage, like all
other physical and moral faculties. ripens
with time, and the real strength OF q
Prussian force grows with the prolopga-
thion of the struggle in which it is en-.
gagged in proportion as the ban and the
Gr71ere ban of the reserve comes forth to
swell the conscript mass. Independently,
then, of all difference Of national temper
ament, IL would seem to follow, from the
peculiar organization Of the two armies,
that the French should have the advan.
tage at the outset, and the Prussians at
the later period Of the campaign; for the
strength of the former lies in its first, that
of the latter in its second.
"The favor shown by the French mill
tary authorities to the corps T. elite has a
tendency to drain the line of its best men.
Engaged in their Algerian campaigns, in
which war is principally series of rapid
marches and fierce skirmishes, the French
have invented the Zouave, and there Is
no prodigy of valor that may not be ex-
pected from him and from the Imperial
Guard. But the contest that awaits them
on the Rhine il not mere affair OF sur
prise and incursion. It will be the shock
of vast masses in the open field. Skin
mishers can do little more than show the
way to such an engagement; the temper
of the whole army will be on its trial, and
its combined effort will be all the more
irresistible the less its component parts
have been strengthened at the expense Of
the whole. The Algerian. element in the
French army has also had an unfavorable
effect ON the training of the others, es-
pecially in the higher ranks. The ten
dency of the service against the MOOrs
and Arabs is to attach an exaggerated i'm
portsnce to fexts of personal bravery, and
to lead to the rapid promotion either OF
ignorant men from the ranks, or ofyoung
ensigns or sub-lieutenants, hastily sent
forth in patches from the military
schools. No one can dispute the useful
ness of Algeria to France as military
school but the war that can be learned
there Is only war on small scale; and
vet there are some even Of the MaYshals of
France who have gone through no other
apprenticeship. Till within few years,
indeed, It was thought that the Generals
who had seen service in Algeria excelled
those of other countries, who, In many
instances, knew nothing of war except
what they could learn from books; but
since Duppel and Sadowa we have learned
to respect mere theorists and TO do JUS
tice to that man in spectacles who from
his cool cabinet at Berlin played out the
campaign in Bohemia as q game on .
chessboard, and laid his finger on the spot
In which, at given moment, he meant TO
checkmate Austria with a precision hardly
to be attained by q whole life's practice.
We are, indeed, very far from aupposing
that France does not possess military
leaders to match Count Moltke and his
subordinates, but we have not forgotten
how in the Crinles and in Lombardy
French victories were usually described
as soldiers battles and, until some new
leader with q real genius for war on a
great scale appears, it will be hard to
drive from mems minds the idea that the
az far az generalehip 10 con-
cerned, Is on Prussia's side"
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Clean MIX.
A correspondent Of the Conaregationalist