TO MY FIRST-BORN. Flower of the desert, open to the light, And gales too keen around thy beauties play, The wanderers love thee who have seen thy birth, Some hand may pluck thee, or the winds may rave, Sweet flower! if fond affection's wish be thine, If fervent prayers can reach thy maker's shrine, 'Till better climes and milder, purer, air, Shall see thee grow more safe, more strong, more fair. THE PICTORIAL BIBLE. Charles Knight, London. IN the first number of the " Miscellany" we directed public attention to this work, as eminently deserving patronage and support. Since that time it has been regularly published. One volume is completed, and is altogether a splendid specimen of typography and wood engraving. The notes continue to be judicious; free from controversy, and directed to the illustration of difficult or obscure passages. We give a few extracts from Part 12. KEEPING SHEEP. "It is to be observed that the Oriental flocks, when they belong to nomades, are constantly kept in the open country, without being folded at night. This is also the case when the flocks belonging to a settled people are sent out to feed, to a distance of perhaps one, two, or three days' journey, in the deserts or waste lands, where they possess or claim a right of pasturage. This seems to have been the case with the flocks fed by David. And as such flocks are particularly exposed to the depredatory attacks of the regular nomades, who consider the flocks of a settled people as more than even usually fair prey, and contest their right to pasture in the deserts-the shepherds, when they are in a district particularly liable to danger from this cause, or from the attacks i wild beasts, and doubt whether themselves and their dogs can afford adequate protection, drive their flocks at night into caves, or, where there are none, into uncovered enclosures, which have been erected for the purpose at suitable distances. These are generally of rude construction, but are sometimes high and well built enclosures or towers (generally round), which are impregnable to any force of the depredators, when once the flock is within them. Such towers also occur in districts where there are only small dispersed settlements and villages, and serve the inhabitants not only for the protection of their flocks, but as fortresses in times of danger, in which they deposit their property, and perhaps, when the danger is imminent, their females and children. When no danger is apprehended, or none from which the protection of the shepherds and dogs is not sufficient, the flocks are only folded when collected to be shorn. They are then kept in a walled, but still uncovered, enclosure, partly to keep them together, but still more under the impression that the sweating and evaporation which result from their being crowded together, previously to shearing, improve the quali ty of the wool. Those poor villagers who have no large flocks to send out to the wilderness pastures, with a proper appointment of shepherds, but possess a few sheep and cattle, which feed during the day in the neighbouring commons, under the care of children or women, and who cannot provide the necessary watch and protection for them at night,drive them home, and either fold them in a common enclosure, such as we have mentioned, in or near the village, or pen them separately, near their own dwellings. Pens or cotes of this class serve also for the lambs and calves, while too young to be kept out with the flocks, or to be trusted into a common inclosure. Our woodcut represents a village with such pens or cotes near the dwellings, which are merely huts, made of mats on a frame-work of palm branches; which we conceive to answer well to the "tabernacles" (booths), "shepherds' cottages," and other humbler habitations, noticed in Scripture. This village is of a class belonging to a people (Arabs) who, like the Israelites, have relinquished the migratory life; but who still give their principal attention to pasturage, and do some little matters in the way of culture. imagine that the villages of the Hebrews, when they first began to settle in Palestine, were of a very similar description." We ON THE SAW. "Probably the jaw-bone of a fish suggested the first idea of a saw. So the Grecian fable states, in which the process of this invention is described. This fable, in its various versions, ascribes the invention to the famous artist Daedalus, who having found the jaw-bone of a fish was led to imitate it by filing teeth in iron, and thus forming a saw. The process is very probable; but there is nothing to say for the claim which the Greeks make to the honour of this invention. It does not appear to have been known to them in the time of Homer; for the reader will have observed that in the minute account (quoted in p. 136) of the proceedings of Ulysses in building his boat, there is not the least mention of a saw, although if such an instrument had been then known, Calypso could as easily have supplied it as she did the axe, the adze, the augers, and whatsoever else he required. The Greeks probably, in common with other neighbouring nations, borrowed the saw from the Egyptians, to whom it was known at a very early period, as is proved by its apperance on their ancient sculptures, from which we have se lected a specimen as furnishing the most appropriate illustration which can possibly be obtained. The ultimate improvement which the saw received in ancient times, approximates it very nearly to the state in which we continue to use it. In the 'Antiquités d'Herculanum,'tom. i. pl. 100, there is an engraving, after an ancient painting, which shows this in a very interesting manner. Beckmann has very accurately described it:Two genii (or winged Cupids) are represented at the end of a bench, which consists of a long table that rests upon two four. footed stools. The piece of wood that is to be sawn through, is secured by cramps. The saw with which the genii are at work has a perfect resemblance to our frame saw. It consists of a square frame, having in LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC INSTITUTION. 59 the middle a blade, the teeth of which stand perpendicularly to the plane of the frame. The piece of wood that is to be sawn extends beyond the end of the bench, and one of the workmen appears standing, and the other sitting on the ground. The arms in which the blade is fastened, have the same form as that given to them at present. In the bench are seen holes in which the cramps that hold the timber are stuck. The cramps are shaped like the figure 7; and the ends of them reach below the boards that form the top of the bench.' ('Inventions,' vol. i. p. 366.) Montfaucon gives, from Gruter, representations of two kinds of saws. One of them is without a frame, but has a handle of a round form and the other has that high frame of wood which we see in the saws of our stone-sawyers. This reminds us to observe that Beckmann, following Pliny, cannot find an instance of cutting stone with saws earlier than the fourth century B. C.; overlooking the text 1 Kings vii. 9, where it is said that some parts of Solomon's palace were constructed with "costly stones, according to the measure of hewed stones, sawed with a saw." : On the subject of saws we have only further to observe, that those now used in the East differ from ours in having the points of the teeth inclined towards not from the handle; so that the sawyer makes his impression on the wood not in thrusting the saw from him, but in pulling it towards him. It is remarkable that this is also the saw of ancient Egypt, which is often repeated in sculptures, in the form which our wood-cut exhibits." LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC INSTITUTION. The following are the principles on which it is proposed to establish an Institution for the promotion of Literature and Science, in the town of Luton: 1. That this institution be denominated" The Luton, Literary and Scientific Institution:" and that the payment of subscriptions as they become due, be the qualification for membership, subject nevertheless to the provision of the 8th clause. 60 LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC INSTITUTION. 2. That the business of the institution be conducted by a committee of persons to be elected at an annual meeting of the subscribers; a treasurer and secretary to be appointed by and among themselves, for the time being. 3. That the property be vested in trustees, being members of the institution, elected by a majority of the subscribers, and the vacancies by death and otherwise, as they occur, be filled up in the same manner. 4. That a library be forthwith formed of such works as shall be approved of by the committee. 5. That a reading room be opened, and the most popular reviews, magazines, price- currents, and leading daily papers, be introduced under the sanction of the committee. 6. That, at stated times, discussions take place under restrictions and regulations; and lectures on the various branches of literature, science, and the arts, be delivered either by the members, or any other person the committee may think proper to engage. 7. That when the funds of the institution will admit, apparatus necessary for the illustration of lectures be purchased, to be used under the direction of the committee. 8 That all persons presenting the institution with a donation of £20. or with apparatus, books, &c. which are approved of by the committee, to the value of £20.: or being subscribers of £2. 2. per annum, be entitled to all the privileges of the institution :—that persons presenting donations to the value of £10. or subscribing £1. 1s. per annum, be entitled to the use of the books at their own houses, or to the use of the library and reading room at the institution at all hours of the day :- -that persons presenting donations of £5. to the institution, or, subscribers of 10s. 6d. be entitled to the use of the library and reading room, from six to ten o'clock in the evening only. All the members to be admissible to the lectures and discussions. 9. No subject to be introduced either in the lectures, or discussions, relating to political or religious controversy. |