Alexandria gazette. [volume] (Alexandria, D.C.) 1834-1974, 1875-12-07

THE GARDEN OF THE GoDs.-Passing
through this majestic gateway you fod your
self in the weirdest Of places; your red road
winds along over red grounds thinly grass
grown, among low cedars, pines and frs and
through wild confusion of red rocks rocks
of every conceivable and incouceivabe shape
and size, from pebbles up to gigantic boulders,
from queer grotesque little monstrosities, look.
Ing like seals, fishes, cats, or masks, up 10
colossal monstrosities looking like elephants,
like huge gargoyes, like giants. like sphinxes
eighty feet high, all bright red, all motionless
and silent, with strange look of having been
stopped and held back in the very climax of
some supernatural catastrophe.
The Stiffness, the absence Of living things,
the preponderance of grotesque shapes, the ex-
preston OF arrested action, give to the whole
place, in spite of its glory Of coloring, spite of
the grandeur of its vistas ending in snoW-cov.
cred peaks only six miles away, spite Of it's
friendly and familiar cedars and zines, spite of
an occasional fragrance of cemats or smile of
daisy or twitter. of q sparrow, spite of all
these, certain uncannyness of atmosphere
which is at first oppressive. | doubt if one
ever loved the Garden OF the Gods at first
sight. One must feel his way to its beauty and
rareoess, must learn it like new language
even if one has known natures tongue we'll,
he will be helpless foreigner here. have
fancied that its speech was to the speech of
ordinary nature what the Romany is among
the dialects of the civilized, fierce, wild, free
defantly tender; and believe DO son of the
Romany folk has ever lived long among the
worlds people without dropping and piniDg.-
Il. H. an December Atlantic.
JNruprro or, nrrr On D.J:..t. ~.
organization of the brain must be, it is surpris.
ing to read of the hard knocks it can bear, not
only without injury, but even to it's advantage.
One man who lost half bis brain through sup.
puration of the skull preserved his intellectual
faculties to the day of his death; and the brains
of soldiers have been known to carry bullets
without apparent inconvenience, and to under
60 operation for the extraction of the foreign
bodies without loss of power. A physician,
who was afflicted with an abnormal cerebral
growth which pressed upon the cavities of the
brain, 80 as to paralyze one side of his body
and render him speechiess, retained possession
OF his reasoning and calculating powers until
he died. One ofthree brothers, all idiots, af-
ter receiving severe injury on the head, gain
cd his senses, and lived to be clever barrster.
A stable boy of dull capacity, and subject to
hts, had his wits sharpened by the kick of a
Nurse, which necessitated the abstraction of
portion of his brain aud DO less parsonage
than Pope Clement VI owed the improvement
OF his memory to slight concussion of the
6ralu. % the other hand, it is fact that the
brains of persons with thoroughly disordered
minds, as rule, present no; abnormal appear
ance after death, which is not to be wonde, ed
at' Or. Walker declares, when it is found that
symptoms of disordered brain are often pro-
auced by very slight alteration 10 the consti-
luton OF the blood. Chambers Journal. ].