The Wilmingtonian., 1884-06-21

compiled for THE WIIMINGTONIAN)
There exists not alone in the human con-
science or in thy omniscience of the Creator
but in external material nature an inefiace-
able imperishable record, possibly legible even
of created Intelligence, of every act done,
every word uttered, nay, of every wish and
purpose and thought conceived by mortal
men from the birth of our first parent to the
final extinction of our race, so that the phys
zeal traces of our most secret sins shall last
until time shall be merged in that eternity
of which not Science but Religion alone
assumes to take eognizance.( Babbdge-
Bridgewater Treatise)
Great cities of the past generally lie many
feet below the streets of the modern cities
occupying their sites, not by reason of the
sinking OF the olden structures but by con
tnual increase of deposits of rubbish and
the waste matter of human labor on the sur
face around them. Roman London Is
twenty feet below the London of to-day.
The Appian Way, from Rome to Albano, in
which ST. Paul was beheaded, was feet
below the surface before the recent eXcava-
tions revealed it anew to the gaze of the
wondering traveller. The present streets of
Rome are 20 feet above those of the Ancient
city The same evidences of the tendency
/ of matter to~6 ccumulate round centres of
| civilization or scenes of busy industry Is
seen all over tho world. On the Atlantic
Coast of the United States heaps of oyster
shells of great height and extending for
miles together, have been proved to be the
work of the Indians who had used the
| bivalves for food. But all these evidences
of the busy activity of the Silent Majority
vanish into insignifcance when compared
with the relics of the labor of the jewellers
in the olden lands of Greece and Egypt
| Every traveller has seen the Monte Testaccio
| at Rome, mountain built entirely of the
shells of molluscs consumed by the Romans;
but in the older cities of Magma Gr9cia the
heaps of broken pottery and household
articles surpass all belief. So vast are these
Accommodations that they have been dignified
with the name of the Keramic formation. ln
Egypt the Nile, as it slowly changes its bed,
exposes on its banks masses of pottery so
vast that the population of the world during
the whole historical period would seem to
have chosen this valley as general deposiG-
AIRY Tor its broken vessels. In Denmark the
Kitchen Middens, " ii formation of the same
character, extend for hundreds of miles, and
are from $50 to 200 feet wide and s feet
high.
To the natural philosopher and descrip-
tive poet the painter and the sculptor, as
well as to the common observer the power
most important to cultivate, and at the same
time hardest to acquire, is that of seeing
what is before them. Sight is faculty;
seeing an art. The eye is a physical but not
self acting apparatus, and in general it sees
only what it seeks. Like mirror it reflects
objects presented to it, but it may be as
insensible as a mirror, and itdoes not neces
sarily observe what it reflects.
In the material eye you think sight lodgeth.
The eye is but an organ. Seeing streameth
From the souls nmostdcpths The fine perceptivt
[ Nerve springeth from the brains mysterious work
shop.
Could that old world which man has over
thrown be rebuilt: could human cunning
+ rescue its wasted hillsides and its deserted
plains from isolated races or nomadc pop
ulaiions, from barrenness, from nalxedness
from insalubrity, and restore the ancient fer
Utility and healthfullness of the Etruscan sea
, coast, the Campagna, and the Pontine Mar
shes, of Calabria, of Sicily, of the Pelopon
/ nesus, of insular and continental Greece O.
, Asia Minor: of the Slopes of Lebanon ant
r Hermon; of Palestine; of the Syrian Desert
of Mesopotamia and the Delta of the Euph
, rates; ofzNumidia and Mauritania th,
tbrongiaak mill{ ns. of Europe might still
, fihd IooffF0n Jne Elstern Continent. and tn,
! main current Of emigration be turned towarC
) the rising instead Of the setting sun. Or
l HdTSh.