The Portland daily press., 1881-11-09

is necessary to keep the predatory gentry at
distance. Those employed earn only thirty
sous day, it is true; but this trihing expense,
added to all the losses and perils of the busi-
ness, makes the enterprise risky one. So at
least said broad-browed savant who sat at
the head of the table and explained the mat
ter to mature, severe and black-haired sa-
vante at his side. Two young artists from
Paris, three English tourists Of whom two
were ladies, and the third bashful
gentleman who inadvertently ate nearly all
the bivalves which had suggested the discourse,
and eight or ten silent but appreciative guests,
made up the company. And the poor little mot
tied French oyster, tasting as If it had always
resided in some rusty brass kettle from which
it had issued for the first time, found nothing
but eulogists around that board II is dread
full truth,-the generous portly succulent
American oyster is despised in Fraucel 1t is
regarded as insipid, while the brassy taste of
the native variety is attributed to it for right
eousness, as faith was attributed to one of old.
Yet during the empire a young naval lieuten-
ant, Mr.. De Broca, was sant by Napoleon Ill.
to the United States to study the oyster fishery
with view to planting some experimental
beds on this coast: for it is recognized that IN
quantity, at least, leaves the French
oyster much to be desired The
experiment did not succeed, but Mr.. De
Broca, who is an able man and descendant
of one Of the officers associated with La Fay
ette in the Revolutionary war, wrote book
which is wholly devoted to our oyster and 9TH
er fisheries and is perhaps the most complete
account of that branch of industry which ex-
ists Even in this exhaustive treatise the
American mollusk does not get full justice for
its sapid qualities, but is treated rather as a
make-shift in time of dearth. The force of
national prejudice can go no further; but It
Mr.. De Broca had succeeded in his experiment
and the American oyster had been naturalized,
there can be no doubt that its merits would
have soon forced recognition.
: From oysters the conversation turned to
oGIvEs;
and the savant explained with his knife on the
cloth that the ogive of the fifteenth century
was thus and that of the sixteenth, so, while
that of the seventeenth was quite otherwise
The savante, who had suffered sort OF moral
eclipse while the oyster was on the table, but
who like Fitz Boobies sweetheart, had eaten
six bad ones, came out very strong on ogives
and made controversial diagrams on the cloth
with her knife Talk to her about ogivesl She
was one of those people-there must be twenty
thousand of them in Europe--who make ogive-
hunting business The Gothic arch-that is
their life, their pleasure, their all. The learned
lady waxed so eloquent that sh. brought the
two painters-two specimens of what the Paris
ians call rapin, or kind of Bohemian-to her
support. Then all talked at once and inter-
rupted each other, as French people will, polite
as they are and asked each others pardon,
and gestculated and grew furious about her
esy of the savdnt touching the Roman ptesn
ciiatre and deplorable error OF one OF the
rapins in regard to medieval gargoyles. The
battle, having ragged over wide territory and
embraced all possible styles of architecture,
was hotly engaged about the Renaissance. The
old cider which, perhaps alone of all the land
ladies' in the country, Mother Pichon serves
instead of wine,-for Breton cider is another
speciality, and vies with that of Normandy
had impaired new fury to the archaeological
controversy SO that words become undistin-
guishable in the confusion of the combat and
went out just as the sun was setting to see
THE MENHIRs.
Perhaps you think I am going to describe
them. Not at all, since your readers know
that they are simply granite powders set up
on end, and that this sort of prehistoric monu-
ment reaches the clmax of its interest when
one bowlder is set opposite another, and
third one is laid across their tops. making
doln,en. At Carnac proper there are very few
dolmens but happily there is tunsutets or
mound, called Noun st. Michel, crowned by
a little chapel, overlooking the solemn plain
about which the tall menhirs are scattered.
This tumulus has been examined care
fully by rich and learned English
man who spent his life in digging the
soil about Carnac and the neighboring village
of Plouharnel, and who, of course found "Ro-
man remains" A mound without such re-
mains is very poor mound, indeed, but the
poorer the remains, the richer the mound. In
the present instance the common traveller finds
his enthusiasm kindle with extreme difficulty
in presence Of a wall Of mingled brick and
stone, around which are scattered few broken
tiles But that difficulty did not exist in the
mind of the discoverer, who wrote a costly vol
ume with plentiful engravings, devoted to the
results of his excavations.
The size of the menhirs of Carnac is not
what renders them especially remarkable!
The "Giant", which figure in all the engrav-
ings, is, perhaps, twenty feet high. Did the
PRESS not say recently that the Jockeys
Cap" granite bowlder near Fryeburg, is one
hundred and fifty feet high? And have not all
of us New England Yankees seen stones as
large as this "Giant, to admire which people
come from all parts of the world? So that if
Mark Twain we're here he would parody him
self and drive these sober Celts wild with per-
plexity by asking them something like this:
'.Are these pebbles the largest stones you have9
If yoa have any sizable rocks about here should
be glad to have you trot them out, Just to re-
mind me of home. In America the children
play at quoits with such as these you show
mel"
But it is certainly remarkable that prehis--
toric people found means to lift masses which,
though relatively small, are yet of immense
weight when compared with the unaided force
of man. In the middle ages several thousan0
of these monuments were counted in the ten
lines which extend over the plains of Carnac.
But the most curious question of all is what
led men to expend such an incalculable amoun
of energy in arranging these great stones in ant
upright position and in parallel lines? To an
swer this inquiry several Systems" have been
framed by the learned, according to one of which
these stones are the ruins of temple devoted
to dragon worship Others will have it that
the alignments are but the approaches to an
ancient fortified camp. A distinguished Amer
lean archaologist adheres to theory still
more singular, declaring that these monoliths
are relics of the phallic worship which pre-
vailed so widely in the ancient world. But
the only explanation which is at the same time
amusing and credible is that which is given by
the people of the country; and il they do not
know, who does? These truthful historians will
assure you that the good St. Conely, the same
still exercises the profession Of veterinary who
surgeon, being one day hard pressed by the Ro-
mans who were steadily driving him toward
the sea, happened to think of an easy way of
escape by merely raising his hand towards the
heavens and commanding his pursuers to be-
come stone, which they obligingly did at once.
T he extreme facility with which the primitive