The Portland daily press., 1879-05-23
FRIDAY MORNING, MAY %.
Magazine Notices.

MdRdHlllO 4NOOASO0s
The opening paper of Scribner's for June, on
The Fine Arts at the Paris Exposition, includes
drawings made specially for the magazine by
Vedder, the sculptor, st. Gaudens, Maitland
Armstrong, c. G. Coleman, and 7. Hovenden.
Mr.. Vedder's contribution is drawing OF his
own much-praised and much-abused Young
Marsyas. Mr.. st. Gauden makes pen-and-lnk
drawing of Duboiss beautiful statue of Faith,
and the Charity of this eminent sculptor is also
engraved contrast to the texture of the
plaster of this is shown on the opposite page in
a cut of Chapu's bronze, Gratitude. The pa
ner has illustration of other American and for
eign art-work, with a superior ground-plan and
views of buildings, the aim being to give an in
telligible description to those who did not visit
the Exposition. With this object in view, the
writer (Mr Russell Sturgis, the architecD de-
votes considerable attention to the land
scape and architecture. The first of several
papers on Edison and his Inventions, by Mr..
Edwin NJ Fox is devoted to the electro-moto-
graph and its applications. This is perhaps
the most complete account of this important
invention, which involves the discovery of an
entirely new property of electricity, viz, that
of destroying friction, and which has lately
been brought to such perfection in its applica-
tion to telephone purposes, that transmission
of the human voice is as accurate and clear as
if the speakers were face to face. The six
years growth of this remarkable invention is
described by Mr.. Fox with much incidental
light on the inventors methods Of work. A
timely paper is Mr.. C. c. Buel's Piercing the
American Isthmus, which appears simulta-
neously with the assembling in Paris of de Les
seps' Congress of Engineers to select route
for the proposed Inter-oceanc Ship Canal. The
writer sketches the romantic history of Isthmus
exploration, and gives the salient features of
the seven or eight rival routes, which are fur
ther illustrated by maps. A first installment
of Madame Bonaparte's Letters from Europe
is contributed by E. L. Didier. These letters
were written between the years 1868; they
are connected by the theme of Nine. Bonaparte s
aspirations for royal marriage for her son, and
give frequent glimnses nf the Ronanartn for':'s-
Lawn Planting for City and Country is the
subject of practical paper by Mr.. Samuel
Parsons, Jr, of Flushing, L. l., and contains
seasonable and valuable suggestions from an
expert nurseryman and landscape gardener.
This paper is illustrated with drawings by Mr..
Vanderhoof. The Mediterranean is the sec
ond of Mr.. Herbert H. Smiths papers on
Brazil. 1t narrates trip from Para up the
lower Amazons, describing its fascinating
scenery, and gives fresh and reliable accounts
of the rubber cacao and herding industries, in
treatment of which the author keeps in mind
the mercantile interests of the United States.
With Stonewall Jackson, by Mr.. A. G. Red
Aof4 4l0o ~foIo 10
side of the second Manassas campaign, in
which the writer was a participant. Various
incidents of the war, such as the night-march,
the going into battle, the forage-raid, etc., are
treated with vigor and freshness, to which are
added several picturesque genre drawings by
the writer himself exhibiting a number of
distinct Southern types. The University of
Berlin, by Professor III, III. Boyesen of Cornell,
is illustrated with portraits of some of the
great men to which the institution owes its
superiority. Mr.. Boyesen gives thorough
exposition of the German university system
and discusses its relations to American educa-
tion. Some Aspects of Matthew Arnold's
Poetry are treated by Mr.. George S. Merriman
in philosophical spirit with frequent quota
tions from his author to sustain his conclusions.
Mr. Arnold's verse is considered chiefly in its
religious bearings and is representative of the
intellectual doubts of the time. The fiction of
this number consists of Mr.. Neelus Peeler's
Conditions Was it Love, or Hatred? by Mr..
Charles de Kay; the concluding part of Miss
Trafton's A Narrow Street, and the eighth in
stallment of Mrs. Burnett's Haworth's The
poetry includes poem entitled Memnon. by
Mr.. Charles G. D. Roberts, Invocation, by
Mr.. Charles de Kay, and others by Mrs. Piatt,
nd Messrs. W. F. Smyth and Irwin Russell.