Shinar's mount, a mound in peerless garden, the hanging garden of Babylon, one of the wonders of the world. Euphrates, the large river on which Babylon stood. It ran through the city. Babel's king, Nebuchadnezzar. Sir Henry Layard in his work Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon, 1853, says: "Near the northern edge of the ruin (called the Kasr or Palace) is the solitary tree Athelé, well-known to the Arabs, and the source of various traditions. No other tree of the same kind exists, according to the tradition, in the whole world. It is, however, I believe, a species of tamarisk, whose long feathery branches tremble in the breeze with a melancholy murmur well suited to the desolate heap over which it may have waved for a thousand years." Vol. ii. p. 507. SIR HUMPHRY DAVY. 1. Chemical science has advanced more rapidly than any other branch of experimental philosophy within the last century. Its applications to various industrial arts become every year more numerous and more important, so that its progress is, to a considerable extent, identified with our manufacturing and commercial prosperity. Few men have contributed more to the advancement of this science than Davy, who devoted to it the labours of his entire life. 2. He was the son of a carver in wood, and was born at Penzance, December 17, 1778. From his childhood he showed a remarkable quickness in acquiring knowledge and a decided love of literature. He practised oratory, wrote poetry, and composed romances, and, at the same time, evinced a taste for experimental science. The latter circumstance probably induced his family to bind him apprentice to Mr. Borlase, a surgeon and apothecary in the town of Penzance, who had a great taste for chemical experiments, and devoted to them the leisure moments left him by his profession. 3. Young Davy devoted himself to similar pursuits with the most extraordinary enthusiasm. He abandoned all the enjoyments and relaxations usual in youth, showed an aversion to festive society, and, when not engaged in active researches, seemed absorbed in contemplation. He had to contend against many disadvantages. The books at his command were few; his master had no philosophical apparatus, and the instruments he employed being of his own contrivance and manufacture were of the rudest possible description. The gallipots and phials of his master's shop were, however, put into requisition, and with these he pursued researches which involved some of the most difficult problems in chemical analysis. At length he became possessed of a case of surgical instruments which had been saved from the wreck of a vessel. This was to him a real treasure at the time, and enabled him to pursue a series of experiments into the nature of heat, light, and their combinations. 4. The results of his investigations were published in a work edited by Dr. Beddoes, of Bristol, in 1799, and attracted much notice, as Davy's conclusions were quite opposed to Dr. Black's theory of heat, which was at that time popular in the scientific world. 5. The ardour with which Davy pursued his investigations greatly annoyed many of his neighbours, for chemistry produces many results offensive to the sense of smell, and when incautiously pursued, exposes men to danger from the bursting of the vessels they employ, or the combustion of the substances they use. His master, too, began to complain that metals, minerals, and vegetable substances absorbed the attention which should have been bestowed on his patients, many of whom remonstrated against the neglect of their real or fancied complaints for pursuits which they probably regarded as idle and useless. 6. The reports respecting the young man's vagaries, as they were deemed, reached the ear of Mr. Davies Gilbert, himself an enthusiastic lover of science. He sought young Davy's acquaintance, was struck with the extent of his acquirements, gave him the use of an excellent library, and introduced him to Dr. Edwards, who possessed a well-furnished laboratory. Mr. Gilbert after wards compared Davy's pleasure, when surrounded with a set of fine philosophical instruments, to the delight of a child introduced to a magazine of toys. The air-pump, known to him previously only by descriptions and engravings, more especially fixed his attention. He probably revolved in his mind the problems which he hoped to investigate by its aid, and was the more interested as some of his earliest researches were directed to the investigation of the nature of the air secreted in the vessels of marine plants. 7. He was soon after engaged as assistant to Dr. Beddoes, in the Pneumatic Institution at Bristol, and, being thus set free from the medical profession, he devoted his whole time to the cultivation of science. The inquiry which he pursued with the most ardour, was the effect of various gases and gaseous exhalations on life and health. Berthollet the younger, a chemist of high repute, had voluntarily sacrificed his life in the same investigation. He inclosed himself in an atmosphere destructive of life, wrote down his successive sensations with equal accuracy and coolness, and thus continued until the pen dropped from his hand and he fell lifeless. Davy exhibited an almost equal desperation, of which he has given the following account:-"My friend, Mr. James Tobin, being present, after a forced exhaustion of my lungs, the nose being accurately closed, I made three inspirations and expirations of the hydro-carbonate. The first inspiration produced a sort of numbness and loss of feeling in the chest and about the pectoral muscles. After the second, I lost all power of perceiving external things, and had no distinct sensation except that of a terrible oppression on the chest. During the third, this feeling subsided,-I seemed sinking into annihilation, and had just power enough to cut off the mouthpiece from my unclosed lips. A short interval must have passed, during which I respired common air, before the objects around me were distinguishable. On recollecting myself I faintly articulated, 'I do not think I shall die.'" 8. The publication of these researches, and the success of the young chemist in his examination of the nature of galvanism and the structure of plants, made his name known to the leading men of science; and in 1801, on the recommendation of Count Rumford, he was appointed assistant lecturer at the Royal Institution. Davy's lectures became exceedingly popular. 9. His fame soon spread abroad. The Board of Agriculture engaged his services as professor of chemistry; and the Royal Society, of which he became secretary in 1807, frequently applied to him to deliver the annual Bakerian lecture. But these engagements did not divert his attention from experimental research. 10. His discoveries in chemical and electrical science were announced every year, to the surprise and admiration of philosophers; but his highest fame arose from his determination of the laws of voltaic electricity, by which he might be said to have created an entirely new branch of science. 11. Though England was then at war with France, the Imperial Institute of Paris awarded him a prize of three thousand francs, which he accepted, declaring that "if governments are at war men of science are not." Honours now began to be proffered him from various quarters. The University of Dublin created him a Doctor of Laws; he was knighted by the Prince Regent; and elected an honorary member of most of the learned bodies in England and on the Continent. 12. After the return of Napoleon from Elba in 1814, Sir Humphry Davy, anxious to visit the extinct volcanoes in |