in the writer's garden; they feed on decomposed vege- | France, Spain, and Italy, a large species (Scolopendra table matters. There is a singular little creature, the Jule à queue en pinceau, found in hothouses, under frames, under the bark of aged trees, and in the fissures of walls, which was placed by Linnæus in the genus Scolopendra; it belongs, however, to the present section, and constitutes the genus Pollyxenus of Latreille. At first sight it appears very like the larva of that beetle well known from its destructive habits in museums, viz. the Anthremis Musæorum: it is oblong in form, with tufts of little scales along the sides, and a pencil of hairs at the tail. There are twelve pairs of limbs. It is the only known species, and was termed Scolopendra lagura by the older writers. It varies in size from a line to two lines and a quarter in length; the body is brown; the head black; the caudal pencil of hairs white. Like the Juli, in general it feeds on decomposed vegetable substances. In one important point, however, it differs from the true Millepedes: the body is not invested with firm shelly plates, but is soft, and covered by a membranous investment. Like the Woodlouse, it is gregarious, numbers collecting together in the same hiding-place. We may here observe that the common Millepede and Pill Millepede are gregarious; but, as far as our own observations go, not the Polydesmus complanatus or flat-backed Millepede, which, in some respects, approaches in its manners as it does in its appearance to the predatory Centipedes, which are solitary, like carnivorous beings in general. The second family of Myriapods (Chilopoda, Latreille) comprehends the Centipedes, &c. Of these voracious creatures several species are well known in our island, but it is in the hotter regions of the earth that they are the most numerous and attain to the largest dimensions. In the Centipedes or Scolopendra the body is long and flattened, and covered above by a series of dorsal plates, and below by a separate series, the sides being simply membranous. This provision admits of snakelike flexibility and of that rapidity of motion for which these Centipedes are so notorious. They are in fact daring and active carnivorous animals, preying upon insects and worms. Night is their season of activity; during the day they lie concealed under stones, beams of timber, in holes amidst brick-work, or even in the ground. Fitted for a life of rapine, they are very formidably armed; our British species indeed, though not very pleasing in appearance, are at all events not to be dreaded; but when we go into warmer climates, we find these creatures terrific from the wounds they inflict. If we examine them, we see that the mouth is not only provided with horny jaws as in insects, but with two terrible fangs jointed in the middle, sharp at the points, and perforated near the tip by a minute orifice through which a poisonous fluid is instilled into the wound, and which, in some species of large size tenanting India, South America, &c., often produces the most severe consequences, if not death. We have measured a specimen twelve inches in length and one inch and a quarter across the largest back plates; but if Ulloa be not indulging in extravagance, it was a pigmy to those of which he talks, and which he says measured a yard in length and five inches in breadth, inflicting a mortal wound. Let not our reader suppose that we give full credence to this statement; but be this as it may, the annoyance which these creatures cause to Europeans visiting intertropical climates is of no trifling account. They creep into houses, lurk under articles of furniture and behind wainscots, hide themselves in drawers and similar places, and sometimes in beds, to the disgust and apprehension of all not familiarized with their presence. In the south of cingulata, Latr.) is very common. In our country, among the species of small size which are indigenous, the most common is the forked Centipede, Lithobius forficatus (Scolopendra forficata, Linn.); it is found in the earth under stones, and is quick and active in its movements. The limbs are fifteen on each side. The general colour is tawny red. Length about an inch and a quarter, sometimes more. A group of Centipedes, distinguished by the generic title of Geophilus, presents us with several species remarkable for their great length and slenderness and the number of their limbs, which exceed forty-two on each side. They are tortuous in their movements, and by no means so rapid as the ordinary Centipedes; they live in the earth, and make their way through the minutest fissures or apertures with the utmost facility. Of the slender animals of this genus most, if not all, are phosphorescent, and gleam in the dark, though not so intensely as the Glow-worm. The Geophilus electricus may be often seen at night during the summer months on the grass of lawns or on garden walks, palely glistening like a luminous thread as it winds its tortuous way. The long-horned Geophilus (G. longicornis) is another species by no means uncommon; it is larger than the G. electricus, and broader in proportion. Under the genus Scutigera are placed certain strangelooking Centipedes, found in the south of France, in southern Europe, Madeira, &c., remarkable for the length of their limbs. None have yet been found on our island. The back is plated with eight scales, thickened behind and notched; the body beneath is divided into fifteen semirings, each carrying a pair of legs, with long and slender terminal joints; the eyes are large and compound; the antennæ long. The European species, Scutigera coleoptrata, is very active, running with great quickness; it conceals itself behind the beams and wood-work of houses, emerging at night, and traversing the floors in quest of food. India and America have their respective species, and they are among those unwelcome intruders which annoy the European, who is not easily reconciled to the presence of centipedes, scorpions, and scutigeræ in his apartments. The subjects represented in the engraving are1, the Pill Millepede (Glomeris marginata); 2, the common Millepede (Julus terrestris); 3, the flat Millepede (Polydesmus complanatus): 4, the Pollyxenus, or brush-tailed Millepede-a, magnified; b, the natural size; 5, the long-horned Centipede (Geophilus longicornis); 6, the common Centipede (Lithobius forficatus); 7, the Scutigera coleoptrata. Mogadore.-Mogadore, or Suera, as the Moghrebins call it, the port of the town of Marocco, lies on the seashore between Cape Cantin and Cape Gher. It was founded in 1760. Mogadore is built on a low shore, consisting of moving sand, which extends from five to fifteen miles inland, where a fertile country begins. It is regularly built, the streets being straight, but somelarge buildings in the African style. The town is divided into what narrow. The Europeans settled here have erected several two parts, one of which is called the Fortress, and contains the custom-house, the palace of the Pasha, the other public buildings, and the houses of Europeans; the other part is only inhabited by Jews. The harbour is formed by a small island, lying south-west of the town, and about two miles in circumference. At low tides there are only ten or twelve feet water in the harbour, and large vessels are obliged to auchor without, at a distance of two miles. The commerce of this place with London, Amsterdam, Cadiz, Leghorn, Genoa, the Canary Islands, Hamburg, and the United States of America, is considerable. The thousand, according to Graberg.—Penny Cyclopædia. population is ten thousand, according to Jacksou; or seventeen [Andrea del Sarto, and Group from the Madonna del Sacco.] ESSAYS ON THE LIVES OF REMARKABLE PAINTERS.-No. XXXI. ANDREA DEL SARTO. ANDREA Vannucchi was the son of a tailor (in Italian Sarto), hence the appellation by which he was early known, and has since become celebrated: he was born in 1478, and, like many others, began life as a goldsmith and chaser in metal, but soon turning his attention to painting, and studying indefatigably, he attained so much excellence that he was called in his own time "Andrea senza errori," that is, Andrea the Faultless. He is certainly one of the most fascinating of painters, but in all his pictures, even the finest, while we are struck by the elegance of the heads and the majesty of the figures, we feel the want of any real elevation of sentiment and expression. It would be difficult to point out any picture of Andrea del Sarto which has either simplicity or devotional feeling. A man possessed of genius and industry, loving his art, and crowned with early fame and success, ought to have been through life a prosperous and a happy man. Andrea was neither:-he was miserable, unfortunate, and contemned through his own fault or folly. He loved a beautiful woman of infamous character, who was the wife of a hatter; and on the death of her husband, in spite of her bad reputation and the warnings of his best friends, he married her: from that hour he never had a quiet heart, or home, or conscience. He had hitherto supported his old father and mother: she prevailed on him to forsake them. His friends stood aloof, pitying and despising his degradation. His scholars (and formerly the most promising of the young artists of that time had been emulous for the honour of his instructions) now fell off, unable to bear the detestable temper of the woman who governed his house. Tired of this existence, he accepted readily an invitation from Francis I., who, on his arrival at Paris, loaded him with favour and distinction; but after a time, his wife, finding she had no longer the same command over his purse or his proceedings, summoned him to return. He had entered into such engage ments with Francis I. that this was not easy; but as he pleaded his domestic position, and promised, and even took an oath on the Gospel, that he would return in a few months, bringing with him his wife, the king gave him licence to depart, and even intrusted him with a large sum of money to be expended in certain specified objects. Andrea hastened to Florence, and there, under the influence of his infamous wife, he embezzled the money, which was wasted in his own and his wife's extravagance. He never returned to France to keep his oath and engagements. But though he had been weak and wicked enough to commit this crime, he had sufficient sensibility to feel acutely the disgrace which was the consequence; it preyed on his mind and embittered the rest of his life. The avarice and infidelity of his wife added to his sufferings. He continued to paint, however, and improved to the last in correctness of style and beauty of colour. In the year 1530 he was attacked by a contagious disorder; abandoned on his death-bed by the woman to whom he had sacrificed virtue, fame, and friends, he died miserably, and was buried hastily, and almost without the usual ceremonies of the church, in the same convent of the Nunziata which he had adorned with his works. Andrea del Sarto can only be estimated as a painter by those who have visited Florence. Fine as are his oil-pictures, his paintings in fresco are still finer. One of these, a Repose of the Holy Family, has been celebrated for the last two centuries, under the title of the Madonna del Sacco, because Joseph is represented leaning on a sack. There are engravings of it in the British Museum. [St. Joachim.] The cloisters of the convent of the Nunziata, and a building called the Scalzo, at Florence, contain his most admired works. His finest picture in oil is in the Florence Gallery, in the cabinet called the Tribune, where it hangs behind the Venus de' Medici. It represents the Virgin seated on a throne, with St. John the Baptist standing on one side and St. Francis on the other; a picture of wonderful majesty and beauty. In general his Madonnas are not pleasing; they have, with great beauty, a certain vulgarity of expression, and in his groups he almost always places the Virgin on the ground either kneeling or sitting. His only model for all his females was his wife; and even when he did not paint from her, she so possessed his thoughts that unconsciously he repeated the same features in every face he drew, whether Virgin, or saint, or goddess. Pictures by Andrea del Sarto are to be found in almost all galleries, but very fine examples of his art are rare out of Florence. The picture in our National Gallery, attributed to him, is very unworthy of his reputation. Those at Hampton Court are not better. There is a fine portrait at Windsor. In the Louvre is the picture of Charity, No. 85, painted for Francis I. when Andrea was at Fontainebleau in 1518, and three others. Lord Westminster, Lord Lansdowne, Mr. Munroe of Park Street, and Lord Cowper in his collection at Panshanger, possess the finest examples of Andrea del Sarto which are in England. At Panshanger there is a very fine portrait of Andrea del Sarto by himself: he is represented as standing by a table at which he has been writing, and looking up from the letter which lies before him. The figure is half-length, and the countenance noble, but profoundly melancholy. One might fancy that he had been writing to his wife. THE ENGLISH AND IRISH ORDNANCE THERE are occasionally notices in parliament, either in the form of "estimates" or of answers to questions, of the Ordnance Survey. What this survey may mean, and how parliament comes to be connected with it, are matters not by any means generally known. A few explanatory details, sufficient to give a general underderstanding of the object in view, may not be misplaced. An ordnance survey, or a trigonometrical survey (for the two names signify the same thing), is a minute examination of the surface of a country for the purpose of laying down an exact delineation of its geographical features; the positions of its mountains, valleys, lakes, rivers, forests, marshes, &c.; the heights of its mountains; the contour of its coasts; the artificial boundaries of the country into counties, hundreds, baronies, &c. :--this is the grand object of such a survey. It is an Ordnance survey, because in this country it is superintended and carried on by officers of the Board of Ordnance; it is a Trigonometrical survey, because it is effected chiefly by the measurement of triangles, according to the rules of trigonometry. For no other purpose whatever is a country so thoroughly examined as for this survey. Not only is every plain, every mountain, every valley visited, but every field and hedge is brought under the immediate cognizance of the surveyors. The result may either be the determination of a number of distinct positions, which admit of being described in a book, or the marking of all the boundaries and other features in such a manner as to facilitate the construction of a map; both objects may be combined, but generally speaking it is understood that the main object of such a survey is the preparation of maps of such undoubted accuracy as to serve as standards in all investigations which concern the geographical and territorial divisions of a country. It must not be imagined that such a survey is the work of a year or two merely, or of a dozen years. Nothing but a surveying force amounting almost to an army would be adequate to the trigonometrical survey of a country in a few years. Half a century has been already expended in the survey of Great other, and if the distance from one to a second (say from the church to the hill) can be accurately measured, then the distances from the church to the obelisk and from the hill to the obelisk can be determined without measurement. there are instruments, such as the theodolite, which will measure all the angles of the triangle formed by the three objects; these angles, together with the known length of one side of the triangle, when brought to bear in certain trigonometrical calculations, will give the exact lengths of each of the other two lines. Each of these sides may then be made the known side of a new triangle, by bringing in some new conspicuous object, such as a second obelisk or a second church; and thus the triangulation, or formation of new triangles, goes on, until the whole country is covered with a network of lines, the length About a century ago, when the English government of every one of which is known with the most rigorous had to watch narrowly the proceedings of the Young accuracy, although none of them may have been accuPretender and his friends in Scotland, it was deemed rately measured except the first one. It requires an important to establish military posts, and to open roads extension beyond our every-day ideas to conceive a of communication through the remotest parts of Scot-line whose length is accurately known without being land; and a body of infantry having been encamped actually measured; but this is the very gist of the with a view to facilitate this object, Lieutenant-Gene- subject. ral Watson, who was then officially employed as deputy quartermaster-general, conceived the idea of making a map of the Highlands. This was the first germ of the trigonometrical survey of later times. The Duke of Cumberland, who commanded the troops in Scotland, approved of the idea, and employed General Roy to carry it out. The survey was commenced; and as its promised utility was seen to be great, it was extended beyond the limits at first intended, and by degrees included the whole of Scotland. The breaking out of the Seven Years' War, however, by distracting the attention of the government from home improvements, put a stop to the survey, and the map resulting from the labours already bestowed was never published. The survey answered the purpose for which it was immediately intended, in assisting the works of the government engineers, but it was not minute or complete enough for other purposes. As everything depends on the original or base line, the slightest error in the length of this line will affect every single calculation afterwards; and the more so, the farther it is removed from the beginning, since the error will multiply itself in every successive triangle. Hence the determination of this line is the primary and the most important part of the surveying operations. In the common measurements by a rule or a string or a chain, for manufacturing or commercial purposes, a sufficient approach to correctness is obtained; but in a base-line for a survey, where an error of one inch in a mile would be serious, the difficulties of ensuring accuracy are almost inconceivable. Every substance employed as a measure will expand and contract by variations of heat: every rod which seems straight to the eye has some flexure or other; and every observer has peculiarities of eye or of discrimination which may lead him to results not quite accordant with those of other observers. When the Seven Years' War was concluded, the project was started of making a general survey of the We shall thus be prepared to believe that the accuwhole island on an improved scale and with more per- rate measurement of a base-line was the object of fect instruments. Nothing was, however, done in the General Roy's first attention. He selected Hounmatter for some years; but it was afterwards revived slow Heath as the spot where this line should be made. by indirect means. It is a point of importance to His measuring instrument consisted of three deal rods, astronomers that the exact positions of their observa- on which lengths of twenty feet were laid off by Ramstories, with reference both to one another and to their den, and a standard rod, with which the former were respective latitudes and longitudes, should be laid from time to time compared. These rods were so down with rigorous accuracy; and General Roy under-strengthened as to be rendered as inflexible as possible. took a series of surveys and measurements with a view to attain this accurate determination of the relative positions of Greenwich Observatory and other observatories near London. Cassini, an eminent astronomer on the Continent, about the same time proposed to the English government a survey for the purpose of determining the relative positions of the Paris and Greenwich observatories; and as the Royal Society warmly supported this proposal, the government undertook to defray the necessary expense, and intrusted General Roy with the management of the enterprise. This was the commencement of the real trigonometrical survey, for it matters not whether two points selected be observatories, churches, or the summits of mountains; if it be wished to determine their exact distance and relative positions, the mode of obtaining the requisite measurements will be the same. It will perhaps seem strange to those unaccustomed to the subject, that the accurate measurement of one line should form the groundwork for the whole of the measurements throughout a country-yet so it is. If a church, a hill, and an obelisk are visible from each The weather, however, proved very wet and unfavourable; and the deal rods were subject to so much expansion and contraction, that their length on one day was no criterion as to their length on another. Whereupon General Roy resolved to employ glass rods as being less subject to expansion. Three hollow glass tubes, perfectly straight, were accordingly prepared; they were twenty feet long by an inch in diameter. They were graduated by Ramsden, and were inclosed in cases so as to prevent them from bending, but not from expanding or contracting. In the month of August, 1784, the measurement was effected with these glass rods. The distance measured, or the length of the base-line, was about twenty-seven thousand feet (rather over five miles); and the length as measured by the glass rods differed by about twenty inches from that given by the deal rods-a trifling quantity, as it may appear to most persons, but of importance in reference to the object in view. Many minute corrections were made, and the final result stated to so minute a quantity as the ten-thousandth part of a foot. A base-line being thus formed, the triangulation commenced. The summits of lofty hills, obelisks, and church steeples, lighthouses, and artificial beacons, | in Staffordshire, produced in a style of unparalleled were selected as points for triangles, and the various minuteness and accuracy, and purchasable for less than angles and lines were determined one by one. The two shillings. French astronomers made observations across the Channel to the English coast; the English observers did the same in respect to France; and thus the two countries were included in the same triangulation. The immediate object was answered, by determining, within a near approach to accuracy, the relative positions of the observatories at Paris and Greenwich. General Roy died in 1790; and soon afterwards a regular survey of England was commenced under the orders of the Ordnance Office. The first thing was, to remeasure the base-line on Hounslow Heath. This was effected by means of two steel chains of exquisite construction, graduated to a certain length. The length was found slightly different from that deter. mined by General Roy, and the new length was thenceforward adopted. Then commenced the triangulation. Elevated spots, such as Beachy Head, Dunnose, Hanger Hill, &c., were chosen as stations, and the distances of these, one from another, were determined by observation and calculation. Year after year something was added to the results obtained: at one time a new base was measured, to verify the old one; at another time arcs of the meridian were determined, and new districts of the island were gradually brought within the scope of survey. Colonel Colby was placed at the head of the survey in 1809, a position which he has occupied ever since, working out this great object as rapidly as the funds placed at his disposal would admit. When the country was parcelled out into certain great triangles, these were subdivided into smaller ones, and these into smaller again, so that at length every minute spot was laid down and calculated to its true position. It was an astronomical operation to determine the latitude and longtitude of particular spots, and all the resources of mathematical and geodesical science were requisite in determining the great triangles accurately; but when these were once determined, the smaller triangulation approached nearer to the character of landsurveying, and required skill of a less exalted kind, such as is noticed in some of our former Numbers. It was part of the plan of the Ordnance Survey to have correctly engraved maps of the whole of the kingdom. This plan has been gradually carried out during the time that Colonel Colby has been at the head of the survey. There is a regular establishment of draughtsmen and engravers in the pay of government, who have been for many years engaged in preparing for publication the maps resulting from the survey. All the maps are in uniform style. They contain every road, pathway, stream, hill, &c. in the kingdom, and are beautiful specimens of close engraving. The scale is uniformly that of one inch to a mile; and it is printed in sheets in such a manner that these might be placed edge to edge, without any repetitions; so that the whole of England and Wales would form a splendid map thirty feet high by twenty-four or five in width. All the southern part of the kingdom has been published for many years; but much yet remains to be done in the north, near Scotland; while Scotland itself is yet wholly unpublished. These maps are each somewhere about thirty inches long by twenty-four in width; and the government has established an office where they are sold at about seven or eight shillings each. Some of them are divided into quarters, which sell at about two shillings cach; and purchasers have thus sometimes the opportunity of procuring a portion of the map, relating to a particular spot, at a very cheap rate. Thus, one of these quarter-sections, measuring about fourteen inches by twelve, contains the whole of the Pottery district In 1840 there were eighty of these large plates completed and published, and several more in hand; since which time a further advance has been made. Circumstances led to the withdrawal of the surveying staff from Scotland to Ireland some years ago, and the operations in the former country were for a time suspended. They were renewed however in 1838; and will be followed at some future time by the publication of engraved maps of Scotland. It has been proposed to effect this on the magnificent scale of six inches to the mile, for reasons which will be better understood when we have spoken of the Irish Ordnance Survey. Meanwhile we may state that down to the year 1841, about 340,000l. had been spent on the survey in England, Scotland, and Ireland. The sale of the inaps is solely as a national benefit; it is not intended to pay the expenses of the survey. Great indeed would be the selling price, to effect this. [To be continued.] THE HAREEM OF IBRAHIM PASHA. [From The English woman in Egypt, by Mrs. Poole.] THE chief residence of his ladies is the Kasr edDubárah, a fine house situated on the west of Cairo, on the eastern bank of the Nile, and justly their favourite retreat. After riding through the plantations of Ibraheem Pasha, which almost surround the palace, we arrived at the great gates of the Kasr, through which we entered a long road within the high walls covered with trellis closely interwoven with vines. At the end of this we dismounted, and walked on a beautiful pavement of marble through several paths, until we arrived at the curtain of the hareem. This being raised, we were immediately received by a young wife of Mohammad 'Alee, who addressed my friend Mrs. Sieder in the most affectionate terms, and gave us both a most cordial welcome. In a moment a crowd of ladies assembled round us, vying with each other in paying us polite attention; and having disrobed me, they followed us (the wife of the viceroy with us leading the way) to the grand saloon. This is a very splendid room, paved with marble, as indeed are all the passages, and, I imagine, all the apartments on the ground-floor: but as several are entirely covered with matting, I cannot assert this to be the case. The pavement in the saloon is simply white marble, the purest and best laid I have seen in the East. The ceiling (which is divided into four distinct oblong compartments) is painted admirably in stripes of dark and light blue, radiating from gilded centres, from each of which hang splendid chandeliers containing innumerable wax-lights. The corners and cornices are richly decorated. The pavement under the two centre compartments is not matted, but the two ends, to the right and left on entering, are covered with fine matting, and fitted with crimson divans. The windows are furnished with white muslin curtains edged with coloured fringe, some pink and some blue. All the looking-glasses (of which there are perhaps six in the saloon) are furnished with festoons and curtains of pink and blue gauze. There is one table with a cover of pink crape embroidered in stripes of gold, and having upon it a large glass case of stuffed birds. On either side of the door are fanciful stands for large square glass lanterns, composed of pillars, round which are twined artificial flowers. The win dows are European in form, and the hareem blinds are composed of tasteful iron-work; I can scarcely say filigree, the pattern is too bold. The entire interior |