Henry Noel Humphreys

“ So thin and delicate is the fabric of Etruscan jewellery of this class, that it appears impossible that the specimens should have been perfectly preserved for so many centuries; it is only in the undisturbed solitude of the tomb that such delicately wrought ornaments could have remained uninjured, and when discovered, after their interment of two or three thousand years, it is only by their immediate removal from the tombs to the safe keeping of our great modern museums, that their future preservation can be ensured. ”

“ THE FLOOR OF THE OCEAN. The wonders of the ocean floor do not reveal themselves to vulgar eyes. As the oracle was inaudible to sacrilegious listeners, and as none but poetic ears heard the cadenced beating of the feet that danced to unearthly music, near the fountain haunted by the Muses of classic fable—so, none but the initiated can see the myriad miracles that each receding tide reveals on the ocean floor. ”

“ Modern researches have, in fact, yielded to us a rich harvest of knowledge in the shape of exquisite remains of former phases of civilisation, some of the specimens of the ancient art of the jeweller being as perfect as the day on which they were wrought in those antique workshops which, with the artificers who once made them resound with the busy clink of the hammer and of other tools, whose forms and uses have been so long forgotten. ”

“ I know of a recent instance in which an amateur of dahlias, naturally wishing to produce dahlia flowers of a blue colour, hitherto found imposible, placed half a pound of French ultramarine about the tubers of a white dahlia when he planted them, in full confidence that a plant bearing flowers of a resplendent azure would be the necessary result. It is, I presume, useless to record the occurrence of a bitter disappointment to the ingenious amateur. Certain plants are, however, strikingly influenced in the colour of their flowers by the nature of the soil in which they are grown. ”

“ The marine Aquarium is, as yet, a plaything, a mere toy; but it is destined to become a far more important means of advancing science, and ministering to popular instruction, amusement, and wonder, than is yet dreamt of. It has yet to do for the ocean that which our menageries and vast gardens, devoted to the service of natural history, have done for the forests and mountains of the terrestrial portion of our planet. ”

“ If, then, the ordinary aspects of Nature may not be fully interpreted by the untutored eye, how should her more hidden mysteries be felt or understood, or even guessed at? And, in fact, they are not, or the visitor to the sea-side, looking over that wide tremulous expanse of water that covers so many mysteries, would feel, like the child taken for the first time within the walls of a theatre, an intense anxiety to raise the dark-green curtain which conceals the scene of fairy wonders he is greedily longing to 4behold and enjoy. ”

“ But peculiar disturbing causes occasionally divert the system of transformation from its proper course, and instead of the central portion of the leaf-germs forming themselves into pistil and stamens, and the surrounding leaf-germs into petals and calyx, the whole of the leaf-germs that should have formed various parts of the flower, become petals only, and thus is produced that luxuriant and beautiful monstrosity, that double flower, the ancient glory of gardens, the large double rose. ”

“ They had faded into a mythic kind of historical existence, which modern writers would have been rash to invest with a more virtually historical character before the palpable discoveries of recent years had revealed to us those ancient Etruscans, in their very habits, as they lived—still, though in the tomb, wearing their bronze armour, their gold jewels, and their robes of state, and surrounded by their favourite weapons, within those subterraneous chambers, still perfect after the lapse of ages, even to the curious paintings on the walls and roofs ”

“ Do not the sublime aspects of the ocean—the sound of its deep, ceaseless voice—the eternal on-coming of its waves, now in calm undulations, and now in hurtling wildness against the base of those cliffs whose white brows are wreathed with perennial flowers—suggest other matters both for reflection and amusement? ”

“ In some of these Etruscan sepulchres, the dead who had lain undisturbed perhaps for thirty centuries, were found still wearing almost the aspect of life, and still clothed in the dresses they had worn when living. The bodies—that crumbled on the first rude touch—were still decorated with these gold jewels of the tomb, massive in appearance but thin as gauze, and which were manufactured expressly to replace the more solid ones, which were in some cases removed after the ceremony of interment was over. ”

“ THE VEGETATION OF THE MARINE AQUARIUM. As the forest must be planted before its denizens can luxuriate in its shades, so the submarine shrubbery of the Aquarium must be perfected before the aquatic animals can be introduced. For it has been shown, in tracing the history of the experiments which resulted in the establishment of the principles that regulate the formation of Aquaria, that it is by plants only that a supply of oxygen can be kept up, sufficient for the health and existence of all forms of animal life beneath the water. ”

“ The Avena fatua, a troublesome grass-weed, is the parent of our cultivated oat, which has been long well known; as on poor land, and with poor cultivation, the useful monstrosity of its enlarged seed soon degenerates, and the cultivated plant, in a few receding generations, reverts to its original form.
Rye is the cultivated form of Secale cereale. As is well known, it is a very inferior grain to wheat, and no amount of artificial treatment would ever improve it far beyond its present cultivated form. Its sole advantage is its hardiness, as it will grow well where wheat would perish. ”

“ We shall yet have tropical Aquaria, in which the temperature and qualities of the sea between the tropics will be so successfully imitated, that the glorious shells of those regions will be exhibited in living motion to our greedily-curious gaze; and fish 110gleaming with unusual dyes—metallic azure, and silvery crimson—will dart and glide in our tropic-tempered tanks, as in their own tropic ocean, for our delight and gratification. ”

“ Horticultural skill has found the means of perpetuating such aberrations, either by cuttings from the deformed plant, in which case the malformation always remains of the same degree; or, otherwise, by seed from the aberrating plant, in which last case new varieties of deformity are often obtained. For instance, a certain portion of the seeds, actuated by the peculiar vital principle of the parent plant, will, in most instances, produce plants exhibiting in a greater or lesser degree the same kind of departure from their typical habit of growth, as that exhibited by their immediate parents. ”

“ Those who cannot see Nature, who cannot see more than an unclean thing in the little creeping beetle, are like one gazing at a carved Egyptian record, who perceives, in the hieroglyphic scarabæus, simply the sculptured figure of a beetle, and no more—they are in a state of “Egyptian darkness” as regards one of the highest and most enchanting fields of human research. ”

“ The production of pleasing floral deformity has indeed become so profitable, when judiciously turned to account by experienced dealers, that it is sought for, by every means, with the greatest avidity. By the careful watching of many thousands of seedlings from some plant of which it is wished to procure a double variety, a slight disposition in some one individual to become double may, after the careful watching of perhaps millions of specimens, be at last detected; and if this disposition be only shown by the transformation of a single stamen into a minute and imperfect petal, it is enough. ”

“ And then the high waving fronds of the grandly 13graceful Porphyra vulgaris, the deep carmine of the Iridæa edulis, the nacreous tinges of the Chondrus crispus, and the blood-red of the splendid Rhodymenia lacinata, with its embroidered and lace-like edges; these, with the gorgeous tufts of the rich purple Bangia, and other objects which form the elements of still life in a submarine landscape, surely cannot be surpassed, either for magnificence of colour or variety of structure. ”