look upon embraces the haunts of Cicero and of stroy the gods and the world together." During this time, all persons were obliged continually to shake off the ashes, which otherwise would speedily have buried them. When daylight returned after this awful eruption, the scene, Pliny tells us, was entirely changed. Cities, towns, vineyards were lost to view, being covered over with a thick incrustation of white ashes, which appeared like a deep fall of snow, but which no succeeding sun could melt. Much of this deposit was so mingled with steam from the burning mountain as to have fallen like liquid mortar; and among the discoveries woman, encased in a kind of mortar of ashes, which presented after so many ages a perfect impression of her form before the flesh had mouldered away. French enterprise has done much in laying open the buried city of Pompeii to the view of the pre-made at Pompeii was that of the skeleton of a sent age; and, by carting away at great expense the ashes by which it had been choked up, has enabled the traveller to walk through streets or roads in which he may behold the almost perfect remains of amphitheatres, temples, baths, domestic residences and villas, besides a street of tombs. The circumstances under which Pompeii and Herculaneum were destroyed are vividly related in some extant letters written by the younger Pliny | to his friend Tacitus. The interest of these letters is increased by the fact that Pliny's uncle perished in the eruption. That writer relates that the catastrophe was preceded by a cloudy appearance above Vesuvius, like that of an enormous pine-tree spreading out above into the shape of branches, and that the elder Pliny, his uncle, having received a note from a friend whose villa was situated at the base of the mountain, conjuring him to come by sea to her rescue, (inasmuch as her escape by land was found to be impossible,) ordered a galley to the spot. On his approach to the shore, cinders, pumice stones, and heated ashes fell thick upon the vessel, and as the sea was rapidly retiring in consequence of the masses thrown from the mountain, he was in imminent danger of being stranded. Unable, therefore, to proceed in that direction, he caused his vessel to be turned aside towards the residence of his friend Pomponianus, whom he found in great alarm at the eruption now raging so terribly. This villa proved, however, no safe resting-place, and perceiving that if they remained longer within doors they would become choked up by the showers of ashes, the whole family, with their visitor, took refuge in the open fields, with pillows tied over their heads to defend themselves from the projected stones. But the mephitic vapours proved too much for the elder Pliny, who was a corpulent old man and inclined to apoplexy. He died of suffocation during the long night produced by the volcanic rain, which hid for three days the light of the sun. Such is the account given by the younger Pliny of the fate of his uncle. He adds to it that the light was, from the commencement of the eruption, almost obscured, and that the houses tottered so much as to compel the inhabitants to leave the town for the country. The darkness soon became total. "Darkness overspread us," says Pliny, "not like that of a cloudy night or when there is no moon, but of a room when it is shut up and all the lights extinct. Nothing was then to be heard but the shrieks of women, the screams of children, and the cries of men; some calling for their children, others for their parents, others for their husbands; and the greater part imagining that the last and eternal night was come which was to de It would be impossible for us to present in a single paper even a catalogue of those objects which modern discovery, digging amidst the ruins of ancient Pompeii, has succeeded in revealing. The fortifications of the city, built of uncemented lava, may be very distinctly traced, its outward wall about twenty feet in height divided from its interior and higher wall by an esplanade of fourteen feet in width. Gates (one of them not very dissimilar to Temple-bar) had formed the openings through this defence into the city, and portcullises closed the apertures. The narrow winding streets still exhibit the ruts made by the constant passage over their lava-paved surfaces of the biga, or twohorse chariot then in use, and even show points where an elevated stone was placed to enable the passenger to cross them dry-shod. There are the remnants of the forum, around which, as was usual in towns in the splendid periods of Roman empire, all the principal buildings were ornamentally clus tered. At Pompeii are also found the remains of public offices, of courts for the administration of justice, the granary, the prison, and several temples dedicated respectively to Venus, to all the minor deities (the Pantheon,) to Mercury, It was in a scene similar to this Athens that the apostle Paul had stood, not long before the catastrophe by which Pompeii was destroyed, and had proclaimed the spirituality, the unity, the superintendence of the God of heaven, with the dread declaration, that as criminals were brought before the public tribunal which stood in the Athenian forum, so should all the world answer before God's universal judgment-seat! And to Jupiter. Near to the forum at Pompeii are the remains of the ancient baths, always conspicuous in classical towns, and evidently regarded by the Pompeiians as erections of no small importance. The observer may distinctly trace the arrangements made for conducting and heating the water, and the separate apartments, floored with mosaic, in which men and women severally made their ablutions. The very pegs are extant on which the bathers hung their clothes. These ancient Romans, whom every classical schoolboy is taught to look upon as impersonations of the sublime, were but ordinary mortals after all! A handsome and large chamber, called the tepidarium, throngh which the warm moist atmosphere well known in oriental baths was diffused, so as to prepare for the greater heat of the hot bath, is also in a state of considerable preservation. Another room remains re in which were performed the shampooing opera- | tions still practised in the east. inventions notwithstanding! If, in constructing our present streets, we imagine that we have made On the other side of the forum stand the places great advances upon more ancient days, Pompeii of public entertainment. The walls yet retain the may teach us that there were trottoirs and curb23 stone staples in which was fixed the apparatus stones before we were thought of! The fresco employed to screen spectators from the heat of the paintings, which we attempt to revive, were known noon-day sun. A remote corner of the city ex-long before Michael Angelo and Raphael painted hibits the amphitheatre, where the Romans grati- the Vatican, with the addition that in the Roman fied their almost incredible passion for the combats city they could resist, during 1800 years, the action of human beings with each other, or with beasts first of fire, then of damp. The chequers of a moof prey; with all the extensive preparations requi- dern alehouse are but reproductions of antiquity. site for confining the beasts until the appointed Our saloop and coffee apparatuses had their protomoment of combat. Here, if conquered, the gla- types centuries ago in the thermopolia of the andiator appealed to the mercy of the spectators, and cients. Pompeiians, as well as ourselves, could make if they turned down their thumbs it was the sen- use of artificial doors where it was not convenient tence of death; and here, if conqueror, he obtained, to have real ones. If we paint on our shops the if a slave, his freedom, or, if a freed man, was well-known words, "Purveyor to her Majesty and rewarded by a sum from the public treasury; or Prince Albert," it was done before us. "The received the palm-branch, which constituted one scribe Issus beseeches M. C. Vatia, the Edile, to of the highest honours-a token employed by patronize him: he is deserving." Howsoever we the sacred writers, to commemorate the victors in may pride ourselves on the invention of glass, a conflict which consists not in warring against many fragments of that material, in some cases flesh and blood, whether of beasts or of men, bat coloured and fashioned for drinking, are found in in the conquest of self and sin and the spiritual the ruins of the buried city. Steelyards and scales agencies with which every believer is surrounded. are shown to be but the modern appropriations of Sculptures found within the ruined city forcibly ancient discoveries. Mirrors reflected the counteillustrate some of these gladiatorial combats. nances of ancient, as they do of modern, beauties. Callipers and compasses were as well known in that day as in the present. Censers then sent up their fragrant odours before the shrines of religious worship; though the false notions the ancients entertained of Deity rendered the offering a less mockery than it is when the spirituality of the Holy One is so widely known. The illustrated placards which adorn our city walls exhibit an idea at least as old as the times of Vespasian. Locks were elaborate in their construction before Bramah offered his rewards and American pick-locks accepted them. Paintings were in advance of Van Eycke himself, and caricatures amused the Pompeiians as much as they do ourselves. Sausages were eaten at the foot of Vesuvius before Germany gave them a name. Then as now, old garments were scoured by careful housewives till they resembled new. An ancient water-tap yet remains to prove how similar it was to the device of our own times. Gilded pills, otto of roses, lanthorns, extinguishers, braziers, frying-pans, tweezers, bells, slit money-boxes, pins, combs, with many other articles, some of which have the date of their invention assigned to a much later period, are distinctly ascertained to have been in use before they were imbedded in volcanic ashes eighteen centuries ago. Such discoveries may well tempt us to say, with the Gascon, "These ancients have stolen all our fine thoughts!" Pompeii was well supplied with public fountains, spouting out their water from leaden or bronze heads, as is common in modern times, fitted up with leaden conduits to convey the necessary supply. The private houses of Pompeii, like those occupied by Roman citizens in general, were seldom used simply for purposes of habitation, but had their lower parts formed into shops, constituting a considerable source of revenue to the owners. One of these houses exhibits the remains of a cook's shop, open during the day to the street, with its oven and convenience for provisions, cooked and uncooked. Some of these residences show the marks of having been once superbly decorated, though exposu to the atmosphere has already destroyed pors of these valuable remnants of d ancient art. The most perfect and curious of these houses is that which bears the name of PANSAM. ED. on its principal entrance, perhaps the residence of the Edile Pansa. It was evidently a majestic structure, and is entirely surrounded by streets. From the appearance of a cross upon the walls of one of the shops on the ground floor, it has been conjectured by Mazois that its occupier was a Christian. The house presents the atrium, or principal hall, with its cistern of water, exhibiting still the remains of a jet d'eau in its centre. In the kitchen can be discerned the various furnaces used for cooking and stewing; and there was found in it a painting representing the household gods worshipped as the protectors of provisions, with the implements used in preparing them, and not unlike in general character to the brownies and fairies of modern date. In the garden of another house may be seen the remnants of a summer-house intended for an occasional banquet, with the table and couches of stone, on which, when covered with mattresses, the guests might recline. These disinterments make strange work with modern self-esteem. Things, which we had fondly thought were the inventions of a recent age, are proved by these researches to be no very modern It is gratifying to turn to some things, however, which mark very distinctly the processes of modern improvement. What advances may we observe in the construction of our towns, as well as in many of the domestic arts of life, since the days of Pompeii! No slave now exhibits his African features in attendance on his master. What progress has navigation made since the time in which ships were impelled by the long lines of oars, worked by hard hands at the command of despotic masters and unskilled sailors! Spectators no longer crowd with avidity to witness the bloody scenes exhibited in gladiatorial conflicts! The elaborate instruments of an odd and fatiguing penmanship, which was too slow for the enlightenment of men, have been long superseded by an invention which has dispersed over almost all lands the knowledge of science and of truth. The apparatus for the worship of "the gods many and lords many" have yielded to the knowledge of a purer faith, then beginning to be taught, but very inadequately known! Our days have incomparable advantages. We have, therefore, more for which we must give account! Some of the remnants of this Roman city are extremely affecting. The accompanying engraving is from a bas-relief at Pompeii, and is supposed to represent a mother hastening in grief to bind a funeral fillet about the head of her child, who had perished in some previous earthquake, and whose skeleton had been just discovered. The represen were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in RAILWAY SIGNALS AND COLOUR NOTWITHSTANDING mechanical improvements and Colour blindness has now for a considerable pe- tation is in sad accordance with the last crisis of Can we fail to be reminded of the words of one who had, at the time of the destruction of Pompeii, just left the world which he came from heaven to visit that he might teach and save it? When describing the future destruction (which took place only nine years before the swallowing up of Pompeii) of Jerusalem, and when employing it as an emblem of the suddenness with which the judgment of the last day shall come, he says: "Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left. There shall be two in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left. For as in the days that were before the flood they undistinguishable from its complementary colour TER bers of his family, are also examples of the defect now under notice. They see blue at the more refrangible end of the spectrum, and yellow throughout the rest of its extent. ing the many recent catastrophes from false signals, or misapprehension of those shown, it is evident what directors ought to do. Signal men, engineers, railway policemen, and guards, must in future not only be interrogated as to their character and qualifications, but also regarding their eyesight. Besides, there must be a strict scrutiny of the whole of our existing staff. Directors need not be over-squeamish on this point. It is better that a man otherwise well fitted for service should have his pride hurt, than that his defect should be first discovered amidst the agonies and wild confusion of a railway disaster. Red, green, and white being the colours used as signals on railways, it becomes interesting to inquire how far the prevalence of colour blindness may lead to misconstruction of their meaning. The question again arises-to what extent does this malady prevail? Although our information is still very defective, the answer is sufficient to startle us. According to Prevost, it occurs in one male among twenty. Leebeck found five cases among forty youths in Berlin. In his own chemistry classes, where from mistakes as to precipitates and the like he had long previously suspected it, Dr. Wilson found, last winter, two well-marked cases; five other cases have likewise made themselves known to him. One of his pupils has four relatives possessing the same peculiarity of vision as himself. Amongst some 150 students, Professor Kelland, of Edinburgh University, has also found three examples of marked colour blindness. To these Dr. Wilson adds, on less definite authority, at least twenty additional cases as existing in Edinburgh, and several in other places. "With three exceptions," he says, "the whole of the cases known to me occur in persons of the male sex; and frequently in members of professions which might seem to necessitate for their successful prosecution the nicest sense of colour. Thus, on my list I find four well-known painters, three surgeons, two stationers, two dyers, a shawl-manufacturer, a clothier, a paper-maker, and an enamel maker. It will thus be seen, that although it would be unwise to generalize widely from the few statistical observations yet made on colour blindness, the number of persons subject to it is, according to all pub-nately he purchased a very bright red, excessively lished accounts, so high, that among the servants on every railway line cases may be expected to show themselves." Professor Allen Thomson, of Glasgow University, who, some ten years ago, investigated this subject, has also arrived at a conclusion similar to Dr. Wilson's," namely, that it rendered the employment of coloured signals on railways perilous to the safety of the public." Even those in non-official stations have been sometimes long in learning the true nature of their affection. It was first revealed to a surgeon, by his inability to distinguish the scarlet berries of the rowan, or mountain-ash, from the leaves of the tree. "What is that funny green thing?" said another in his childhood, as, suiting the action to the word, he forthwith took up a red-hot cinder. A stationer, afflicted with a similar infirmity, would persist in offering blue sealing-wax when asked for red; another person in the same trade knew no difference between pink and pale-green tissue papers; and so many blunders did he make in satisfying parties regarding the colours of book bindings, that his master forbade him to take any orders in reference to them. An excellent artist would in a landscape colour the waves of the sea bright pink; while a distinguished connoisseur, possessing a capital eye for form, and whose collection of paintings and engravings was wont to be visited by many, betrayed when at school his defect, by colouring the flowing mane of a horse bright red! A gentleman went, a few years ago, to a draper's shop, to buy some green baize; unfortu But some one says that, supposing a guard or engine-driver possessed of this peculiarity of vision, he has merely to read the signals not as they actually appear, but according to what he knows to be their true interpretation. The "stop" signal, red, will appear green, and vice versa. Facts, however, do not coincide with this hypothesis; for in the cases examined by Dr. Wilson, and also in those encountered by Professor Kelland, there was not merely false vision of colours, but literally colour blindness. Green was not merely affirmed to be red, and red green, but all colours were doubted, and the same colours were on different occasions named differently. Indeed, so uncertain were three of them as to their inferences of tints, that, in a court of justice, they were unable to swear to any colour. Therefore, white and black would be the only colours which these, as railway signal men, could with confidence and ease distinguish. Thus do Daltonians-to repeat that term not merely misconstrue certain of the primary colours, but dimly apprehend all. With these facts before us, and also remember painful to his eyes by lamplight, although agreeable enough by daylight. While in Paris, another procured for himself, as he thought, a green cap, but it turned out to be a bonnet rouge; and he startled a lady who commissioned him to procure for her a green dress by bringing a red one. Thus, a person may grow up from childhood to manhood, and it may be years ere he discover this peculiarity of vision. All these facts, then, cry out for an inspection of eyesights. Not only, however, are railway signals liable to be misconstrued by Daltonians, but it would appear sometimes also by those possessed of perfect vision. In a recent letter to the "Athenæum," Mr. W. H. Tyndall has pointed out, that the red and green danger signals, when seen together in certain circumstances, may be and were on actual trial mistaken for white. He says: "Some weeks since, I made an experiment on one of the metropolitan railways, with a green and a red signal lamp. A man was stationed at the end of a tunnel about 400 yards long, and directed to wave the two lights together: the pointsman at the other end, not knowing anything of the nature of the experiment, was asked what light waved. He was satisfied it was white, and could not be persuaded that two lights, a red and a green, were really used, although the matter was afterwards explained to him. I did not then pursue the experiment; trains were expected to pass, and it was important not to interfere with the ordinary lights. It is not improbable that some of the accidents which have occurred in 1 railway travelling have arisen from the colours of the lights shown being indistinctly seen; perhaps from a confusion of rays from two or both the lamps. In some cases, most contradictory evidence has been given as to the colour shown." Thus, then, have we made out good cause for inquiry into our system of signals. Let us hope that the discussion of these researches will not be confined to scientific societies and literary journals, but that they also will be deeply pondered at shareholders' meetings and directors' boards. To those learned in the mysteries of engineering and locomotives, and deeply versed in the maintenance of plant and permanent way, the writer pretends not to offer counsel: will they, however, allow him to make but one remark? Let one system of signals be submitted to competent scientific approval, and then adopted by every line in the kingdom. Why such an endless diversity as at present? Although not given to travel, in the course of our short pilgrimages we have been often struck by the fact of this diversity. We knew almost every new line of railway we entered on, just as surely as if we had crossed the borders of a foreign country, by the new sign-language employed. All the lines starting from Edinburgh, we believe, have a different code of signals. Seven or eight years ago, when each railway was a separate and isolated line, this arrangement might have been tolerated; but now, when junctions and cross lines unite our country in one great arterial system of iron roads, public safety demands that a uniform code be employed. From the facts above stated it will be evident, that at night we must trust less to the colour of the lamps than to their shape; (this remark, by the way, applies also to the use of signals at sea.) The day station signal, for instance, employed on the north-western line, in which the red signal is on a longer post than the green one, appears the most unobjectionable of those now in use. This too, however, may have its disadvantages. At present we are content merely to draw attention to the subject. Dr. Wilson, we understand, still continues his researches, and will gladly receive any details of yet unpublished cases of colour blindness. He draws particular attention to the fact, that only some six cases of this defect are as yet on record as occurring in the female sex. * THE LAIRD OF DUDDINGSTON'S THE following curious anecdote of General Dalzell, so generally known in connection with his persecutions of the Covenanters, is extracted from a work recently published, entitled "Family Romance; or, Episodes in the Domestic Annals of the Aristocracy." Lord Dundee has found many admirers, but no voice has ever yet been raised in favour of another noted persecutor of the Covenanters, General Thomas Dalzell. Yet, in this stern executor of the behests of his sovereign, there were gleams of kindly and amiable feeling, with which the exercise of his authority was occasionally tempered. • Dr. Wilson's address is 24, Brown-square, Edinburgh. Thomas Dalzell was the son of the laird of Binns, an estate which had not been long in his family. He was early imbued with the most de voted sentiments of loyalty to the king, and all his influence as a country gentleman was exerted in behalf of Charles the First. After the execution of that monarch, he allowed his beard to grow, in token of mourning; and, until the close of his life, he never suffered it to be shaved or trimmed, but used a large comb, which is still preserved as a relic in the family. Disgusted with the Commonwealth, Dalzell sought military service abroad. He entered into the Russian army, and soon obtained high rank. He was lieutenant-general to the czar Ivan, and distinguished himself in the wars which that monarch waged against the Tartars. He was a stern, commanding old soldier, with high notions of military discipline, strict and conscientious views of what he considered his duty and loyalty to his master, which could not be shaken. Although his rank was high, and his power was great at the court of the czar, he could not resist the impulse of his loyal feelings, which urged his return to his native country on the restoration of the Stuart line; and he came back to Scotland, an old and war-worn veteran, to consecrate his latter days to the service of the son of that master whom he had dutifully defended when alive, and for whom he had never ceased to mourn. A curious story is related of General Dalzell, which is noticed by a popular historian of the present day. In the course of his continental service he had been brought into the immediate circle of the court of the emperor of Germany, possibly having been despatched on some diplomatic mission by the czar to the successor of the Caesars. He had the honour to be a guest at a splendid imperial banquet, where, as a part of his state, the German emperor was waited on by the great feudal dignitaries of the empire, one of whom was the duke of Modena, the head of the illustrious house of Este. Thus the veteran Scot was seated at a table, which, for form's sake, was served by princes. After his appointment, by king Charles the Second, as commander-in-chief in Scotland, he was one day invited by the duke of York to dine with him and the duchess of Modena. As this was what might be called a family dinner, the duchess manifested some degree of repugnance to admit the general to such an honour; whereupon the veteran remarked that this was not his first introduction to the house of Este, for that he had formerly known her royal highness's father, the duke of Modena, and that his highness had stood behind his chair, while he sat by the empe ror's side! After his period of foreign service, Dalzell returned with great wealth and honour to Scotland, where, during the remainder of his life, he united the functions of a country gentleman and improver of his paternal estate with those of a stern and severe military commander. King Charles II appointed him commander-in-chief in Scotland. He exercised this authority strictly, perhaps unmerci fully, while he resided at his beautiful seat of Binns, which he embellished with handsome buildings and fine woods and gardens. His long residence in foreign countries, his outlandish ap pearance and habits, his venerable, white, flowing |