Experiments have been made on the means of protecting the hands against molten metal. M. Corne, in a paper submitted to the Academy of Sciences, thus details them:
"Having determined on investigating the question, whether the employment of liquid sulphurous acid for moistening the hands would produce a sensation of coldness, when they are immersed in the melted metal, I immersed my hands, previously moistened with sulphurous acid, in the melted lead, and experienced a sensation of decided cold. I repeated the experiment of immersing the hand in melted lead and in fused cast-iron. Before experimenting with the melted iron, I placed a stick, previously moistened with water, in the stream of liquid metal, and on withdrawing it found it to be almost as wet as it was before, scarcely any of the moisture was evaporated. The moment a dry piece of wood was placed in contact with the heated metal, combustion took place. M. Covlet and I then dipped our hands into vessels of the liquid metal, and passed our fingers several times backward and forward through a stream of metal flowing from the furnace, the heat from the radiation of the fused metal being at the same time almost unbearable. We varied these experiments for upward of two hours; and Madame Covlet, who assisted at these experiments, permitted her child, a girl of nine years of age, to dip her hand in a crucible of red hot metal with impunity. We experimented on the melted iron, both with our hands quite dry, and also when moistened with water, alcohol, and ether. The same results were obtained as with melted lead, and each of us experienced a sensation of cold when employing sulphurous acid."
A circular from Prof. Schumacher has brought an announcement of the discovery of a new telescopic comet, by Dr. Peterson, at the Royal Observatory of Altona, on the 1st of May. "Unfavorable weather," says Mr. Hind, writing to the Times, "prevented any accurate observation that evening, but on the following morning at 11 o'clock, mean time, the position was in right ascension 19h 24m 8s, and north declination 71° 19' 34". The comet is therefore situate in the constellation Draco. The right ascension diminishes about 48" and the declination increases about 8' in the space of one day.
The Literary Intelligence of the month comprises the issue of no books of very great pretensions. The Autobiography of Leigh Hunt was just ready for publication, and from the extracts given in the preceding pages of this Magazine, our readers will readily judge it to be a book of more than ordinary interest. It is full of anecdote and incident, often trivial in themselves, but sketched with that naiveté and warmth of manner which constitute the charm of whatever Hunt writes. It will be a favorite with summer readers. Two octavo volumes of Selections from Modern State Trials, by Mr. Townsend, have been published: they comprise only five state trials properly so called, the rest being trials for murder, forgery, dueling, &c. The book is interesting and eminently readable. General Klapka's Memoirs of the War in Hungary have been published, and attract the attention of the critical pen. The author was one of the leading generals in that gallant but unsuccessful struggle; and his opinions of the men engaged in it, and the causes of its failure, are therefore entitled to notice and respect. He regards the raising of the siege of Komorn as the turning point in the campaign. He speaks of Kossuth and Görgey as the two great spirits of the war—the one a civilian, the other a soldier. The Athenæum condenses his views concerning them very successfully. Kossuth, according to him was a great and generous man, of noble heart and fervid patriotism, at once an enthusiast and a statesman, gifted with "a mysterious power" over "the hearts of his countrymen;" possibly, however, of too melancholic and spiritual a temperament for the crisis, and unfortunately a civilian, so that notwithstanding his "marvelous influence to rouse and bring into action the hidden energies of the masses," he could not "give them a military organization;" Görgey, on the other hand, an able, hard-headed soldier, believing only in battalions, and capable of using them well, but wanting enthusiasm, without great principle, without even patriotism, taciturn and suspicious, chafing against authority, and aiming throughout chiefly at his own ends in the struggle, wanting that breadth of intellect or strength of courage that might have made his selfishness splendid in its achievement. Had Kossuth had the military training of Görgey, or had Görgey had the heart of Kossuth; or, finally, had there been a perfect co-operation between the two men and the parties which they represented, Hungary might have been saved. Nor, so far as Kossuth was concerned, was there any obstacle to such co-operation. His disinterestedness, as it led him at last to resign all into the hands of Görgey, would have led him to do so, had it been necessary, at first. But Perezel and the other generals, who were friends of Kossuth, disliked Görgey; never had full trust in him, and even accused him from the first of treachery. Görgey is alive and rich; the earth covers the dead bodies of many of his former comrades, pierced by the bullet or strangled by the ignominious rope, others live exiles in various lands. Of these last is Kossuth. There is something striking in the unanimity with which all testimonies combine as to the nobility of this man. Even Görgey, his foe, once wrote to General Klapka—"Kossuth alone is a classical and generous character. It is a pity he is not a soldier." General Klapka's own book is an involuntary commentary on this one text—"O that Kossuth had been a soldier!"
A volume of selections from papers contributed to the Edinburgh Review, by Mr. Henry Rogers, has been published. They relate chiefly to questions of religious interest, or have an indirect bearing upon religious philosophy. Comparing them with the similar papers of Sir James Stephen, a critical journal says, the author is less wide and comprehensive in his range, in expression less eloquent and original, but more practical in his views. He attacks the two extremes of Tractarianism and Skepticism; gives large and sound expositions of Dr. Whately's views of criminal jurisprudence; and attempts special biographical sketches, such as Fuller's, Luther's, Pascal's, and Plato's.
The fourth volume of Southey's Life and Correspondence has been issued, and sustains the interest of this very attractive work. Southey's Letters are among the best in the language, easy, unaffected, full of genial, intelligent criticisms upon men, books, and things; and abounding in attractive glimpses of the lives and characters of the eminent literary men who were his contemporaries. The new volume mentions that after Southey's acrimonious letters to Mr. William Smith, M.P. for Norwich, appeared, he was offered the editorship of the London Times, with a salary of £2000, and a share of the paper, but declined it.
The readers of the Excursion will remember that it was announced as the second part of a poem in three parts, called the Recluse. The first part was biographical, "conducting the history of the author's mind to the point when he was emboldened to hope that his faculties were sufficiently matured for entering upon the arduous labor which he had proposed to himself;" and the third part consisted mainly of meditations in the author's own person. It is now stated that the poem has been left in the hands of the author's nephew, Rev. Dr. Christopher Wordsworth, with directions that it should be published after his decease, together with such biographical notices as may be requisite to illustrate his writings. It is in fourteen cantos. A meeting of the personal friends and admirers of Wordsworth has been held, to take steps to erect a monument to his memory.
There have been published a large number of books of travel, among which the following are mentioned:—Lord Chesney has issued the first portion of his narrative of the Government Expedition to the Euphrates; and a certain Count Sollogub has recorded his traveling impressions of Young Russia, in a lively little book called The Tarantas. An English artist, lately resident in America, has described his Adventures in California; and Mr. Robert Baird, a Scotch invalid traveling for health, with strong party prepossessions, but shrewd observant habits, has published two volumes on the West Indies and North America in 1849. Also, pictures of travel in the Canadas, in a book called the Shoe and Canoe, by the Secretary to the Boundary Commissioners, Dr. Bagley; a very curious and complete revelation of Eastern life, in a Two Years' Residence in a Levantine Family, described by Mr. Bayle St. John; a peep into Nuremberg and Franconia, by Mr. Whiting; a summer ramble through Auvergne and Piedmont, by the intelligent Secretary of the Royal Society, Mr. Weld; the record of a brief holiday in Spain, Gazpacho, by a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge; Notes from Nineveh, by a clergyman who has lately had religious duties in the East; and a satisfactory and compendious compilation called Nineveh, and Persepolis, by one of the officials of the British Museum.
An article in the Quarterly Review, on the Flight of Louis Philippe and his Family, in the Revolution, has attracted a good deal of attention in Paris. It was written by Mr. Croker, from materials supplied by the ex-king himself, and denounces Lamartine and the leading actors of the revolution, with the utmost bitterness. Lamartine has written a reply to it, the chief object of which is to refute one of the principal assertions of Mr. Croker, by proving that he, Lamartine, not only did not take measures to prevent the flight of Louis Philippe and the members of his family, but that he actually exerted himself actively to have them placed out of the reach of danger. Ledru Rollin has occupied his leisure, during his exile in London, by writing a book on the Decadence of England, which abounds in the most extravagant statements and predictions. It is denounced, in the strongest terms, as a worthless compound of malice and credulity.