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Northern Star (1837-1852), 2nd October 1852, Edition 2 of 2, Page 13, October 2,1852. THE STAR OF FREEDOM . 12...

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      October 2,1852. The Star Of Freedom . 12...

      October 2 , 1852 . THE STAR OF FREEDOM . 125

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      literate .

      Beviews. Mckenzie's School Geography , P...

      BEVIEWS . Mckenzie's School Geography , Part I . London : E . Macken zie , Fleet-street . Althoug h written for the use of schools , this excellent Geograp hical treatise contains a vast amount of informa-J 01 / Wlvich renders it well worthy perusal by those who

      have long passed the age of boyhood , while the smallness 0 f its price puts it within the reach of all . Much information relative to the history and resources of every English town and county is given . If the succeeding parts equal the first , this little work will form a manual of geography that may well vie with the highest priced works . The following extracts will serve to indicate the style of the

      work : — the system op the universe . The Universe , according to William Herschel , is a vast assemblage of Astral Systems ; the dusky spots observed in the re « dons ° of space , by the powers of his immense telescope he discovered to be systems possessing firmaments similar to our own which fact has since been further corroborated and elucidated by Lord Rosse . Thus our solar system and starry heavens must appear to those distant systems but as a misty spec . The whole combine in forming the mighty , sublime , and awe-inspirhi ^ System of the Universe . From patient and profound

      experiments William and John Herschel state , that having gauged our Astral system they rind it to be of an oblong , flatfish shape , divided at one extremity with an apparent partial vacancy in the centre . A section of it somewhat resembles the form of the body of a whale , rather jagged at the underpart and rounded at the upper , having a long forked tail , like that of a swallow . The Milky Way the learned Herschels state to be comprised of an immense collection of stars or suns , some double , supposed to have solar systems resembling our own . Our sun is placed on the south of this gigantic field , and is observed to

      recede from the centre , having a wavy motion like the other suns ; but the regions of space being so incalculable , any effect perceptible on our planet surpasses the powers of a man ' s mind , and becomes the inheritance of a futurity beyond our comprehension . In fact , Time and Space , when , attempted to be measured by man , in the daring task of scrutinizing tho stupendous and illimitable works of God , seem beyond his destined intellectual faculties , and lost in eternity . Maedler , first by theory , and afterwards by patient examination , pointed out that the brilliant star Alcyone , in the beautiful little

      cluster called the Pleiades , or seven stars , now occupies the centre of gravity of our astral system , as the sun does that of our solar system , and that Alcyone is at present the sun about which the universe of stars , composing our astral system , are all revolving . It is termed the Central Sun .

      . The Earth , World , or Globe , is that portion of the universe on the outside , or crust , on which man dwells . It is a primary planet , having one satellite , or attendant , revolving round itthe moon . The waters of the earth , man and his edifices , are held on the surface by a power called gravity , which is constantly pulling them , as it were , towards the centre of the earth , and thus things are kept in their position , and prevented flying

      off . Inform the earth is round , as known by the first disappearance of the lower part of a ship at sea , by sailing in one direction and arriving at the same point from which the vessel started , and from the shadow of the earth on the moon ; but it is not a perfect sphere , being flattened at the poles , and is therefore termed an oblate spheroid . When engineers are about forming those level iron roads ,. called railways , they allow . 7-9 inches in each mile for the curve or bend of the earth ' s surface .

      Were this not done in making canals , all the water would rest at one end ; as in three miles , if a true level , it would have to ascend from the surface of the earth nearly two feet . The most popular illustration of the form of the earth is that of an orange ; but if an insect , proportioned in size to the fruit , as man is to the earth , were placed on the orange , the inequalities of the skin would be greater to the little being than the moun-The world floats

      tains and valleys of the earth are to man . m space as a soap bubble floats in air , but is kept in its circular path by a power called the attraction of gravitation , which holds it the same as if a powerful rope bound it to the sun , while it swings round and round it . The position of the earth , in the solar system , is that of the third planet from the sun , measuring a distance of 95 , 000 , 000 miles . In speaking of the distance of the earth from the sun we give the mean distance ,

      it being sometimes nearer , and sometimes more distant . The orbit of the earth is the path it takes in its annual motion , which is not a circle , but an ellipse , or oval . From this circumstance , and the sun not being in the centre of the earth ' s orbit , it takes seven days longer to pass through one portion of its orhit than through the other . The sun is 1 , 600 , 000 miles from the centre of the curve in which the earth moves , and thus , there is a point at which the earth is 3 , 200 , 000 miles nearer the sun , which is in Mid-winter , than it is when at the opposite of its orbit , at Midsummer ; but this difference is only one-thirteenth of the whole length . The Axis of the earth is an imaginary line around which the earth rotates : its extremities on the earth ' s surface are termed the Poles . It

      would be more correct to term them Poles of Rotation , since the discovery of the ^ orth Magnetic Pok , by Commander Boss , in 1831 , which is about 1 , 200 geographical miles distant from the true Pole . The latitude of the spot is 70 deg . 5 min . 17 sec . ; its longitude 96 deg . 46 iniii . 45 sec . west , and the dip of the needle 89 deg . 59 min ., being thus within one minute of the verticle . The axis is not perpendicular to the plane of the earth ' s orbit , having an inclination of 23 deg . 28 min . The earth has two motions , one on its owm axis , which it performs daily , in 23 hr . 56 min . 4 sec , which time is called a sidereal day ; this diurnal motion causes day and night . The earth

      turns from west to east , while we think the sun moves from cast to west , which is a mere deception of the senses ; as , when on a pier , and a vessel leaves it , we think the pier is moving , not the vessel . Thus , the phrases the sun is rising , and the sun is s ° tting , are wrong ; it is the earth turning its surface towards the sun , and from it . The other motion ot the earth is its annual circuit round the sun , which is accomplished

      in 365 days . 6 hours , 9 minutes , 11 ' 5 sec , or one year : this , with the inclination of the earth ' s axis , causes the change of the seasons . The size of the earth in circumference , or round it , is about 24 , 930 English miles , and its diameter , or through its centre 7 , 916 miles ; but the flatness at the poles , and the bulging out at the equator , causes a difference of about 26 uules , that is , measuring from pole to pole through the centre ° f the earth is less , by 26 miles , than measuring from one point

      Beviews. Mckenzie's School Geography , P...

      of the equator to its opposite . The surface or face of the earth is computed at 197 , 829 , 150 square miles , of which 128 , 636 , 819 is covered . by water , and 74 , 112 , 331 by land . The earth is encompassed , like the down on a peach , by a fluid substance called the atmosphere , or air , which we breathe . The atmosphere causes the rays of the sun to be refracted or bent , which is the reason of our twilight , or partial light , after the sun has disappeared below the horizon . This aerial ocean is about 45

      miles high : it presses upon the surface of the earth with a weight of 15 lb . per square inch , but its density or weight becomes rapidly less as it ascends from the surface . Of the air , man breathes upwards of 57 hogsheads in a day , and it presses on his body with a weight of about 14 tons . On the earth its pressure is equal to 2 , 160 lb ., or about one ton for every foot , or for the whole earth 12 , 043 , 468 , 800 , 000 , 000 , 000 lb . When the barometer falls 2 inches over 100 miles , it is equal to the removal of 1 , 858 , 560 , 000 tons of pressure .

      Catherine Sinclair ; Or The Adventures O...

      Catherine Sinclair ; or the Adventures of a Domestic in Search of a Good Mistress . By a Servant of Servants . London : W . Tweedie , Strand . " This little volume is a reprint from an American work , by Mrs . Little . The idea of the book was , as she says in her preface , suggested to her by the title of that very absurd publication of the brothers Mayhew , " The Greatest Plague in Life , or the adventures of a Lady in search of a good Servant . " Mrs . Little ' s work is , however , of a very different nature from that of Mayhew . Catherine Sinclair is an orphan girl who maintains her two little brothers by

      her industry . She passes through many trials , consequent upon the bad qualities of her mistress , but her uprightness and steadfast virtue is proof against them all . After encountering bad mistresses of every shade , she at length meets with one worthy of love and admiration , and at hist she finds a reward for all her years of suffering in her marriage with a young man whom she loves , an enthusiastic abolitionist lecturer . Though there are many opinions expressed in this work which we can by no means endorse , we can bear witness to the good intentions of the writer , who seeks , by means of this simple tale , to inculcate lessons of purest morality and virtue .

      The Life And Adventures Of Benjamin Embl...

      The Life and Adventures of Benjamin Embleton . Edited by J . P . Kobson . Newcastle-upon-Tyne : T . Dodds . In this the autobiography of Benjamin Embleton , we have another chapter added to the " short and simple annals of the poor . " There is always something pleasing in the history of the joys and sorrows , the sufferings and hopes of a working man , detailed by a working man himself . It is therefore that few will not take pleasure in reading this simple history of a simple , yet checquered life . His early

      associations , his labours m the mines , his perilous life upon the ocean his first love vows , the fickleness of his mistress , his own unhappiiiess , and his subsequent love and espousal of another , have more than the charms of romance , for we feel that we have presented to us a picture of real life—the life that is lead by the people , and that the events that are recounted are such as are occurring day by day around us . We feel assured that none will consider thrown away half an hour employed in the perusal of the " Life and Adventures of Benjamin Embleton . "

      . The Fee-Losophy Of Toothache. By An Ol...

      . THE FEE-LOSOPHY OF TOOTHACHE . BY AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE . I believe the venerable father of our Semitic Chancellor of the Exchequer has omitted to chronicle the toothache amongst his " Calamities of Authors , " which fact I shall certainly re ¦ member against the old gentleman in my forthcoming work on the Blunders of Literature . " Now , if there be one calamity more monstrous than the rest , that , like Aaron ' s rod it swallows up all others in its hungry hugeness , it is the toothache . I am an author , and belong to that department of literature yclept " light . " No matter how heavy-hearted I may be , I can't

      afford to indulge in the luxury of grief . I must appear like the clown in the play , with a happy smile of greeting , and a merry joke to crack , though jaws be aching , and heart be breaking , because it is my province to make merry , and my business to amuse ! Now , who can be amusing with the toothache ? Who can be sparklingly witty , and give hirth to brilliant fancies , that shall upspring like butterflies from summer flowers , while this infernal toothache is running up and down the octave of throbbing , gnawing , piercing , darting , gnawing , harrowing , thrilling , leaping , maddening pain , each one of which ( as my

      friend , the eloquent Bard of Bombast would say ) , is working with all the activity of a scalded fiend to keep the requisite torture at red-heat ? For twenty-four hours has this old enemy of mine , like some terrible Inquisition , racked and torn me with its harpy host of horrible inventions for inflicting the highest amount of suffering in the shortest possible space of time , until I , who have known what it is to fight poverty ' s grim combat with daily death , and have borne the ache of " Want ' s fell tooth'' unblenchingly , am dead beaten by this " hell of a ' diseases , " and chew the cud of my misery , while grovelling on my face , as anguished as a hedgehog rolled up the wrong way .

      " In multiplicity of council there is wisdom , " says some one , who never had such a toothache as mine , nor was pestered with the thousand and one " certain cum" as I have been , or he would have hesitated before he had written such a sentence . Everybody can tell me of a remedy for their toothache ; but what I want is the cure for mine . I have drunk spirits and masticated spices enough to embalm a mummy . " Drops of Brandy , " have been injected into my ear , not in the shape o the time of . that name , but the genuine liquified fire , until my

      brain swims . The smoke of my torments has ascended from numberless cigars ; one by one have I put out their leaves , aud the only . fruit , has been , like the dead-sea apples -ashes . The only thmg which has afforded me momentary relief lias been Burns ' s hearty " curse on thy envenomed stang , " which has heen hot as ginger in my mouth , but the toothache is not to be frightened away with curses , nor charmed away with prayer or blessing . And then one ' s friends are so superfluously kind , and so impertinently attentive , its unbearable . Who wants kindness or attention with the toothache ? One does not need

      burthens added to the unbearable . Only—if one did not get every attention and condolence ! Lachrymose lamentations are of small avail ; but who can be heroic , and bear the toothache with stoical indifference ? One can understand the hero ism of martyrs , who have put on the furnace-flames of martyr dom as lightsomely as a bridal-robe , and ascended its chariot

      . The Fee-Losophy Of Toothache. By An Ol...

      of fire with rejoicing , because , inspired with their faith , they have been exalted beyond the reach of bodily pain . But I should like to see the martyr that can be heroic with the toothache ; that is , with my toothache . If I had seen the tombstone of that hero of whom it was written , " Here lies a man who never knew fear , " instead of exclaiming with the monarch , " then he never snuffed a candle with his fingers , " I should have said , with exultation , " he never knew what it was to have my toothache . " And , it strikes me , that if the cunning devil

      , when he held his torturing hour over poor Job , had sent him the plague of such a toothache as mine , even his renowned patience might . have succumbed . It has often occurred to me , that countless stretchings on the rack and breakings on the wheel might have been spared if tyrants and torturers had onlyfstudiedthe science of toothache , possessed themselves with the power of inflicting it at will ; and I have speculated grimly as to the chances of " suicide under temporary insanity , " in numerous instances meaning a " shuffling off this mortal coil " to escape from the terrors of toothache . If it be true that

      ' Poets Icivn in suffering what they teach in song , " what an almighty fund of inspiration there must lie hidden in this worst of mortal ills , the extraction of which would transcend the beat of those poetasters who make a Pegasus of the nightmare , or the alchemy of those experimental philosophers who produced sunbeams out of cucumbers ! Let our expiring geniuses look to it , the subject may open up a new vein , which may prove a very Australia in the poetical gold-diggings , ft is a marvel to me that no more is thought about

      the toothache by mankind at large , and the community m general . ' its only the toothache , " is the universal comment , as though that " only" was not the sum total of corporeal suffering . It must have been popular because so general , and tolerated because so familiar ^ I suppose we grin and bear it because , like the eels with skinning , we are used to it . " Its very bad , but you must bear up ; " and then your comforter will leisurely proceed to unfold his manifold experiences , with all the volubility of a mother of a large family , as though a recital of the peculiar horror of his torments was calculated to

      mitigate the misery of yours ! or as though it was a positive virtue to " bear up" under the circumstances . No , there is no merit in silently enduring the toothache ; the man who couim do so must be a perfect brute , without nerves , or a being in whom sensation was fossilized . Besides , what object have you in shrouding yourself in your pain , like a Greek in his mantle , and of proudly disdaining act or word ? It was all very well with the young Spartan—who must have been a black " broth of a boy "—to let the fox tear out his entrails rather than be found out : his fortitude was sublime . But the case is different

      with the toothache , which does not irresistably compel you to keep it secret , but inspires you with the most vehement intention of let-ling everybody know it . There are sorrows that mollify , enlarge , and ennoble one ' s nature , which rises from them like the land of Egypt from the overflowings of the river Nile , irrigated and more fruitful ; and there are pains and sufferings which sublime one ' s nature , and lift it up to the heroic level ot a noble endurance ; but the toothache shuts one up like a hedgehog in water , and sets one bristling with mortal enmity to everybody . It developes selfishness to a superlative degree . It conquers and kills us by its miserable insignificance , as the torture by the falling drops of water frets to madness and

      murder by its remoteness . The toothache is the most subtlety malicious , and the most devilishly insidious of all enemies and diseases . If it would but assume some tangible and palpable shape , we might grapple with it , and pluck out the heart of its mystery ; but no , it works like the maggot in the kernel of the nut , or the mole in the darkness of the earth , and we arc subjugated we know not how , and stricken we know not whence ; and like blind Polypheme groping about the cave of the Cyclops , mad with agony , and vainly endeavouring to seize the invisible foe , we are driven to admit that the bravery of man is not proof against the toothache , which " doth make cowards of us all . "

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      One Of England's Forgotten Worthies. In ...

      ONE OF ENGLAND'S FORGOTTEN WORTHIES . In August , 1591 , Lord Thomas Howard , with six English line-of-battle ships , six victuallers , and two or three pinnaces , were lying at anchor under the island of Florez . Light in ballast and short of water , with half their men disabled by sickness , they were unable to pursue the aggressive purpose on which they had been sent out . Several of the ships' crews were on shore : the ships themselves " all pestered and rum maging , " with everything out of order . In this condition they

      were surprised by a Spanish fleet consisting of fifty three menof-war . Eleven out of the twelve English ships obeyed the signal of the Admiral , to cut or weigh their anchors , and escape as they might . The Twelfth , the Revenge , was unable for the moment to follow ; of her crew of 190 , 90 being sick on the shore , and , from the position of the ship , there being some delay and difficulty in getting them on board . The Revenge was commanded by Sir Richard Grenville , of Bideford . a man well known in the Spanish seas , and the terror of the Spanish sailors ; so fierce he was said to be , that mythic stories passed from lip to

      lip about him , and , like Earl Talbot , or Coeur de Lion , the nurses at the Azores frightened children with the sound of his name . " He was of great revenues , " they said , " of his own inheritance , but of unquiet mind , and greatly affected to war , ' and from his great propensities for Wood eating , he had volunteered his services to the Queen ; " of so hard a complexion was he , that I ( John Huighen yon Linschoten , who is our authority here , and who was with the Spanish fleet after the action ) have told b

      been y divers credible persons who stood and beheld him , that he would carouse three or four glasses of wine , and take the glasses between his teeth and crush them in pieces and swallow them down . " Such he was to the Spaniard . To the English he was a goodly and gallant gentleman who had never turned his back upon an enemy , and remarkable in that remarkable time for his constancy and daring . In this surprise at Florez he was in no haste " to fly . He first saw all his sick on board and stowed away on the

      ballast , and then , with no more than 100 men left him to fight and work the ship , he deliberately weighed , uncertain , as it seemed at first , wha t he intended to do . The Spanish fleet were by this time on Ids weather bow , and he was persuaded ( we here take his cousin Raleigh ' s beautiful narrative , and follow it in his words ) " to cut his mainsail and cast about , and trust to the sailing of tho ship . " . " But Sir Richard utterly refused to turn from the enemy , alleging that he would rather choose to die than to dishonour himself , his country , and her Majesty ' s ship , persuading his company that he would pass through the two squadrons in despite of them , and force those of Seville to give him way , which

  • Citation
    • Northern Star (1837-1852), Oct. 2, 1852, page 13, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/ns/issues/ns2_02101852/page/13/