The work on Aerostation, by Mr. Green, recently published in Philadelphia, has been much noticed in Europe, where—particularly in France—the subject has attracted large attention, in consequence of the death of Gale, (formerly a player at our Bowery Theater,) near Bordeaux, and the recent wicked and ridiculous ascents with horses, ostriches, &c. from the Hippodrome in Paris, and some experiments in ballooning at Madrid. In an interesting paper in the Revue des Deux Mondes, for the fifteenth of October, we have an account of numerous theories, experiments, and accidents, constituting an entertaining resumé of the whole matter. Few instances of intrepidity, danger, and escape, excite livelier emotion than the crossing from England to France by Blanchard, and Dr. Jeffries, an American, on the seventh of January, 1785. When, by the loss of gas, the balloon descended rapidly over the channel, and approached near the surface of the sea, after everything had been thrown out, even to their clothes, Jeffries offered to leap into the sea, and by thus lightening the balloon further, afford Blanchard a chance of safety. "We must both be lost as the case is," said he; "if you think your preservation is possible, I am ready to sacrifice my life." The French military ascents are particularly described. Companies of aeronauts were formed and trained, and Bonaparte took one of them with him to Egypt, but the British captured all the apparatus for the generation of gas. The First Consul caused ascents in picturesque balloons to be made on occasions of public rejoicing for victories, in order to strike the imaginations of the Egyptians, and an aerostatic academy was established near Paris. The writer mentions that Lieutenant Gale, like poor Sam Patch, so famous for a similar absurdity, and for a similar and not less miserable end, had drank too much brandy for self-possession in a dangerous predicament. He thinks that the problem of the direction or government of balloons cannot possibly be solved with the mechanical means which science now commands; and that, as they may be usefully employed for the study of the great physical laws of the globe, all experiments should be restricted to the object of advancing science. He dwells on what might be accomplished toward ascertaining the true laws of the decrease of temperature in the elevated regions of the air, of the decrease of density of the atmosphere, of the decrease of humidity according to atmospheric heights, and of the celerity of sound. After all the experiments, and all that has been written upon the subject, we are confident that the direction of a balloon is quite impossible, except by a process which we have never yet seen suggested; that is, by the rapid decomposition of the air in its way, so that a tube extended in the direction in which it is desired to move, shall open continually a vacuum into which the pressure of the common atmosphere shall impel the carriage.
The Journal des Debats announces for publication two works from the pen of Guizot. The hero of the first is General Monk. Its title is The Downfall of the Republic in England in 1660, and the Reestablishment of the Monarchy: A Historic Study. It may be regarded as new, though part has been published before in the form of articles in the Revue Française. These articles appeared in 1837. M. Guizot has carefully revised them, and added a great deal of new matter. The work is also to be enriched with a number of curious documents never before published, such as a letter from Richard Cromwell to General Monk, and seventy dispatches from M. de Bordeaux, then French Ambassador at London, to Cardinal Mazarin. These dispatches have been found in the archives of the Foreign Office at Paris. The work has a new preface, which the Debats says will prove to be no less important in a political than a historical point of view. The second book is that so well known in this country upon Washington. We do not understand that anything new is added to it. It was in the first place issued as the introduction of the translation into French of Sparks's Life of Washington, which the French journalist says is the most exact and complete work yet published on the war of independence and the foundation of the United States. "Monk and Washington," adds the Debats: "on the one side a republic falling and a monarchy rising again into existence, on the other a monarchy giving birth to a republic; and M. Guizot, formerly the prime minister of our monarchy, now amid the perplexities of our own republic the historian of these two great men and these two great events! Were contrasts ever seen more striking, and more likely to excite a powerful interest?"
This is very well for the Debats. But the omissions by Mr. Sparks—sometimes from carelessness, sometimes from ignorance, and sometimes from an indisposition to revive memories of old feuds, or to cover with disgrace names which should be dishonored; and his occasional verbal alterations of Washington's letters prevent that general satisfaction with which his edition of Washington would otherwise be regarded. We are soon to have histories of the Revolution, from both Sparks and Bancroft, in proper form. The best documentary history is not, as the Debats fancies, this collection of Washington's letters, but Mr. Force's "Archives,"—of which, with its usual want of sagacity or regard for duty, Congress is publishing but one tenth of the edition necessary, since every statesman in our own country, and every writer on American history at home or abroad, needs a copy of it, and from its extent and costliness it will never be reprinted.
The Rabbi Cahen has published at Paris the Book of Job, which concludes his learned version of the Hebrew Bible.
Works on the German Revolution and German Politics.—An excellent book on the Prussian revolution is now being published at Oldenburg. It is from the pen of Adolf Stahr, a writer of remarkable force and clearness. He belongs to the party most bitterly disappointed by the turn affairs have taken in Germany. We mean the democratic monarchists, who labored under the illusion that they might see Prussia converted into a sort of republic with a hereditary chief, like Belgium. They desired a monarchy, with a parliament elected by universal suffrage, and democratic institutions of every kind. Stahr's book breathes all the bitterness of their rage at the success of absolutism in snatching from them every slightest vestige of hope. His book is published serially, four parts having already been issued. As a record of facts it deserves the praise of great industry and lucidity in collection and arrangement, while on every page there glows in suppressed eloquence the indignation of a generous and manly heart. Of course Stahr cannot be called a historian in the usual sense of the term. He is rather a political pamphleteer, maintaining at length the ideas and chastising the foes of his party.
Another and a more permanently valuable work on this subject is the Revolutions-Chronik (Revolutionary Chronicle) of Dr. Adolf Wolff, published by Hempel of Berlin. This is a collection of authentic documents, such as proclamations, placards, letters, legislative acts, &c., connected with the revolution. They are not only arranged in due order, but are combined with a clear and succinct narrative of the events and circumstances to which they relate. We know of no man more competent than Dr. Wolff to the successful execution of so important an undertaking. Without being a partisan, his sympathies are decidedly on the popular side, and the clearness of his judgment cannot be blinded by any of the feints and stratagems in which the period abounded. He is now engaged upon the revolution in Prussia, but intends to treat all the manifestations of the time throughout Germany in the same thorough and reliable manner. His work will be invaluable to future historians of this eventful period; at the same time it reads like a romance, not only from the nature of the events, but from the spirit and keenness of the style.