first and lowest foot of the series was deposited.

There is the Great Cemetery. Layer above layer are spread its graves, over millions of square miles. Tier above tier lie its tenants in one great series, from the lowest to the highest in place, from the earliest to the latest in date. There are buried in darkness the records of all past time. The once soft ooze and silt which enveloped them, has been setting and hardening through unknown ages, until its contents are now hermetically sealed up, as closely and imperishably as the heart of Bruce was bound in its investing mass of hardened bitumen.

These relics lie beyond our grasp. No sounding lead or dredge can reach below the newest and softest layer of their burial clay. They are inaccessible, and while the imagination is excited at the thought of their existence, the mind admits the hopelessness of solving the mystery which surrounds them.

Yet is there no possibility of obtaining some glimpses of these secrets? In some quarter of the globe where volcanic fires burn fiercest, where their forces have depressed the land beneath the sea, and lifted up the ocean-bed to become dry land, perhaps on the coast of Chili or among the islands of the Pacific,-may not the elevation of some old sea-bottom, and its breaking up by clefts and fissures, have exposed some part of this vast necropolis? Is it not practicable to find some such locality, where we may trace back the downward series, and distinguish the remains of later centuries from the deeper buried relics of more distant ages? And, -as the antiquary digging in the mounds near the Ohio or the Dnieper, or in the long-accumlating sands which overspread the shores of the Nile, recognizes in the fashion and workmanship of the articles which he finds, evidence of the character of vanished nations and the civilization of ante-historic periods,-may we not, from the relics of these old ocean-sands, learn whether the living things of the early ages were like those of our own day; or whether a variety of plan and different forms of animated existence have maintained a perpetual change, and the present tenants of earth are but the latest development of one long and varying series?

This is not a dream, but a reasonable speculation. That such remains exist, seems almost certain. That, though inaccessible in their original position, they may by natural causes be brought within our view, is not improbable.

And, to drop at once the theoretical

course of thought which we have been pursuing, and pass abruptly to the statement of proved facts,-they are within our reach. Not only in remote and isolated localities, but almost every where, the successive tiers of this Great Cemetery, with the remains of its innumerable dead, have been uplifted to light and air. Every hill built up of layers of stone is a portion of this universal monument, a remaining mass of vast uplifted tracts of old sea-deposits; which, originally formed from the waste of earlier continents, have since their upheaval been in turn worn into ravines and valleys; and from which our rivers are daily returning their substance to the sea whence they arose, there to entomb anew the forms of later ages.

In spite of an hundred scientific books, and of the boasted diffusion of practical knowledge, this simple assertion will be read by many with entire incredulity. A score of difficulties and objections will suggest themselves, to all of which one answer is sufficient, "Go and see." evidence is open to all, in the gorge of the cascades of Trenton,-along the slaty banks of Lake Erie,-in the ledges of the Genesee,-in almost every quarry between the Hudson and the Rocky Mountains.

The

There are to be examined the actual relics hoarded up by the primeval ocean. There, from its hardened slime and sand, may be collected in abundance the scattered frames and imprints of its tenants. Each stony cast was a living thing when that rock was a loose, soft mass under the water, thousands of feet below its present place.

There in abundance are shells, some entire and closed as when living, others open and flattened out, others still with their valves separated and mixed confusedly together.

There the large and beautiful nautilus lies clenched in the hardened ooze in which it sank, which at the application of the chisel parts off and reveals the graceful outline, the striated surface, and its curiously chambered interior. Within its cavity perhaps lie some tiny contemporaries, forced in with the mud which filled its apartment when first vacated by the death and decay of its builder tenant.

There are spread out the jointed columns and graceful tufted heads of the encrinites, -those singular links between animated beings and lower organic forms, so abundant and varied during early periods, so few and rare in our modern seas. are the vague and half defined impressions of the seaweeds of that ancient ocean There are its corals, perfect in every

.

branch and pore,-some, which were of parasitic character, still attached to the shell on which they began to grow. There are the dissevered joints and plates, sometimes the entire forms, of its crustaceans, their many-facetted eyes yet distinct as when they first admitted the light. There are the oldest of all starfishes, with their symmetrical form and complicated structure perfectly preserved. And there, on the sandy slab which was once the margin of a shoal or beach, and yet retains the ripple-marks of the waves, are plainly visible the trails of shellfish, which crawled upon it, when it was as soft and yielding as it now is hard and unchangeable. We have said that it is a seeming paradox that the wasting and restless sea should be the means of perpetuating the forms of the beginning even to the end ;it is also the strangest of truths, that the print on the tidewashed sands, the very proverbial type and symbol of evanescence, should thus become an imperishable record.

All these relics which occur within the limits of New-York, collected with the utmost patience, studied with the minutest care, scrupulously compared with both living and fossil analogues from all explored regions, grouped together in their natural association, accurately described and figured, form the subject and contents of the work referred to at the head of this article. Belonging to some of the earliest deposits of the Great Cemetery, they are of the most interesting and instructive character, and form, so far as yet finished, the most valuable collection of their kind yet made in any country. The form of the territory comprised within the state of New-York displays the order and succession of the layers which underlie it with remarkable clearness, while the relics imbedded in them are abundant and well preserved. So fortunate an opportunity for research occurring within this State, has been prosecuted with a liberality of patronage honorable to an enlightened commonwealth, and with an ability honorable to the earnest students of nature to whom the task has been committed; and the result is a contribution of the first value to the great cause of "the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men.'

multitude of facts from which to restore the age of the Cæsars-so the descriptions and illustrations of this and similar works will supply materials from which the infinitely older story of the earth's progress will one day be compiled.

It is not our purpose in this brief article to speak of the details of these volumes. The most cursory reader will be impressed with the evidence of care and accuracy presented in the minute descriptions of some seven hundred different species of fossils which they comprise, and the constant reference to European works in which information illustrative of the subject may be obtained. The engravings, (over two hundred plates, comprising on an average six or eight figures each), not only present striking pictorial representations, but show every detail of structure, and the very texture of the specimen, so that the plate will sometimes bear magnifying almost like the original. A little examination of the illustrations of the corals and crinoids of the Niagara rocks, and of the trilobites of these and of the Trenton limestone, will show how high a degree of artistic excellence has been attained.

We have spoken of this work as a valuable contribution to the general and catholic cause of science. It is worth a few minutes' reflection, to note from how many quarters contributions of the same character, drawn from widely-separated portions of the same vast field, are being added to the common stock of knowledge.

Among the old deposits known to be of similar antiquity with those of New-York (the unbroken continuity of which to the Mississippi has been traced by Hall, Owen, Whitney, and others), are, first, those so early explored in the southwest of England by Sir Roderick Murchison, and afterwards in the same region and in Ireland by the British Geological Survey. In the north of Russia, Murchison and Deverneuil have found strata with similar remains extending for hundreds of leagues. The existence of extensions of the same deposits has long been known in Scandinavia and near the Rhine. Barrande now sends the most ample illustrations of a vast series of the same age in Bohemia; and even from the Cape of Good Hope, and the stony layers of the Table Mountain, are brought relics similar to, if not identical with, those of the slates of Central New-York. The separate investigations of all these scattered observers are gradually consolidating into a general system, which not only restores the living

forms of the earliest period, but displays their prevalence over half the globe.

Among the higher and more recent layers of the same great magazine of the past, similar explorations lead to a like result. The beautiful vegetable remains of the coal rocks, in which every leaf is perfect in all its nervures and furrows, (for the leaf proves to be no more a consistent emblem of evanescence than the footprint in the sand!) are traced in our own land, in Oregon, in the now ice-bound ledges of Melville Island, in Europe, in the East Indies, and in China.

The later generic forms of the Jurassic period were not less cosmopolites in their day, for they are identified in the Alps, the Andes, and the Himalayas.

And in a still newer department of the vast series, our explorers are now annually bringing from the Upper Missouri numbers of skulls and bones, which, compared with those collected by Cuvier in the quarries of Paris, prove that at the

same period the "mighty rhinoceros wallowed at will" among a herd of nameless associates, at the remote points where now are the ravines of Nebraska, and the fertile meadows on the Seine,

Fifty years since, but a glimmer of light hung around a few celebrated localities, where the relics of extinct races were too conspicuous to be overlooked barely enough to excite curiosity, and faintly suggest the possibility of further discovery. We now see the darkness of the past dissolving, and the outlines of the long-vanished world with its tenants gradually and dimly appearing. Every year return the ardent explorers, reporting further progress than before, bringing more remains discovered, more lost forms restored, more truths established. And every ensuing year will show a still further advance, and a fuller and clearer revelation of the mysteries hidden for myriads of ages, in the faithful repositories of the Great Cemetry.

were so much alike, one day with another, that we were indebted to the town for whatever of novelty or excitement relieved our sojourn in the vicinity of San Antonio. Of excitement there was certainly no lack, whether due to rumor or reality; and fact and fiction generally vied with each other in giving zest to the entertainment.

Before General Wool's arrival, an expedition had been planned, to effect the conquest of Mexico, with about nine hundred men. Things having somewhat changed since the time of Cortez, the leader had returned without the anticipated spoils. Three companies of the command, however, had remained near the Presidio de Rio Grande, and on the 5th of September, an officer arrived from that point, with the intelligence that the detachment had been compelled to withdraw. Two or three hundred armed Mexicans very

the Texans across the river, and captured the supplies which had been accumulated on the southern bank. According to report, the affair was the closest approximation to a victory that the Mexicans made during the war, the Texans having retired in such hot haste, that, although the enemy had no means of crossing the river, and though their firing had been fatal to one poor mule, every thing was destroyed or left behind that might by possibility encumber the fugitives in their flight. Horses were saddled at the report of the first gun, and the redoubtables ready to start at the earliest glimpse of a sombrero.

The result of the court-martial was what had been foreseen, and the facility with which the American mind can adapt itself to any contingency, was happily illustrated in the course of the trial. Here was a purely military tribunal, constituted of men taken at random from the various pursuits of life-farmers, laborers, physi

cians, merchants, and lawyers. but no practical military men-and called upon to decide intricate questions of fact and law, according to a code with which hardly one could have had any previous acquaintance; yet the proceedings were marked by dignity, decorum, and impartiality. Technical distinctions, legal evasions, or judicial minimums, may possibly sometines have taken the place of what in ordinary military courts is regulated by the usage of service, but it may safely be affirmed that the sound, practical common sense of the members, reached a correct conclusion. Nor is it improbable that among the learned Thebans, thus assembled, one of whom is not less celebrated in the literary than in the legal world, and whose shrewdness and acumen were conspicuous during the trial,-the judge advocate-unread in the pages of Coke, Chitty, or Blackstone-may have felt himself, in what the adjutant-general of the army calls, an anomalous position."

There are more things in heaven and carth than were dreamed of in the philosophy of Horatio, and a rare thing sometimes turns up even now, foreign to the philosophy of Horatio's successors. What would the fair Ophelia have thought of straps to her pantalettes? Yet this fanciful idea found illustration in the streets of San Antonio, among other pleasing varieties in costume. The arrangement may have reference to exercise on horseback, the damsels riding after the manner of some oriental ladies, not sidewise, but otherwise; or possibly in this warm region of rarified atmosphere, the specific gravity of the material, may give it a tendency in the wrong direction, and hence, &c.

This mongrel population, realizes any ideal embodiment of laziness and vagabondism, of which the elements of loaferism may be considered capable. The huts in which the people vegetate, appear to be the first fruits of the rudest civilization, and it is not known, even by old residents from the United States, how, or why the natives subsist. They neither sow nor reap; visible occupation they have none; they are too lazy even to live by fishing. The essence of their vitality is probably found in red pepper or chili. Every dish with them is a stew, and this is the staple of all the stews, which are usually fabricated in quantities to supply the family a week. During this period the overt efforts of men and women are limited to roaming about the streets, with their children

sometimes almost, and sometimes altogether naked, or puffing their cigarritas -made of paper and tobacco-at their own doors. Their entire lives are continuous episodes of viciousness and indolence. A fearful number of the females are given over to hopeless prostitution; there are no well defined distinctions of class, and vice and virtue are indiscriminately thrust into the same wretched kennel.

So

Fandangoes were a frequent source of trouble, in consequence of the mixed character of our troops, and on one occasion, a very serious disturbance had its origin at one of these fashionable assemblies. much of martial law had been introduced into that obsolete mass of mud, masonry, and mankind, as the establishment of a nightly patrol for the preservation of order, there being no civil police; and hearing an unusual demonstration at the nightly gathering, a sergeant and file of men repaired to the spot. A gentleman just discharged from a Texas company, beautifully excited by whiskey, with all his latent chivalry roused to fever heat, was found making night hideous with a party of his drunken associates. The sergeant of the guard, after repeated admonitions to him to be silent, without effect, proposed arresting him and transferring him to the guardhouse. But the gallant son of the south, "ardent as a southern sun " and stiff potations "could make him," declined acceding to so fair a proposition, and threatened to shoot the first man who should attempt to execute it. He was taken at his word, and the sergeant being the "first man," received a pistol ball in his knee. The bone was much shattered, and though amputation did not follow, the man was made a cripple for life.* The chivalric brawler, as soon as he had perpetrated the act, began begging most piteously for his life, fearing that he might be sacrificed at once to the just indignation of the Illinois volunteers. They did not, however, extend to him this sort of summary justice, but kept him in custody, until General Wool directed his delivery to the sheriff. Proper deference to the civil authority, doubtless indicated this disposition of the case, though the immediate consequence thereof was perhaps unfortunate. Much of the civil power of Texas was at that time in the transition state from Lynch to Littleton, and this was too large a demand upon its authority. After three weary days of ermined industry, of

legal labor and judicial incubation, the blind representatives of a legal fiction, recognized by courtesy as a court, arrived at the sage conclusion that the man ought to be "bound over.' The recognizance was supposed to be imaginary, and thus the "bright particular star" of this southern constellation, was again permitted to shed forth his lambent rays with undiminished effulgence over the society of which he was so eminently the ornament.

Our experience of the health of San Antonio and its vicinity, was very much at variance with the reports we had received of its salubrity, before our arrival. Burials occurred in camp almost daily. Of one company, numbering about eighty, upwards of forty were, at one time, on the sick report. Regulars and volunteers, officers and men, suffered alike. Many were compelled to resign or to get their discharge on account of sickness. Notwithstanding the thousand and one reports industriously circulated by Texans and Texan editors, about the health of this place, as surpassing that of any portion of the North American continent, and notwithstanding certain facetious gentlemen have laid a very heavy tax upon their humor and their brains, to prove that a residence there is almost equivalent to taking a bond of fate, and that the spring of Ponce de Leon is no longer a fable since the elixir vitæ is found near the head waters of the San Antonio; it is a fact that in the army assembled there of less than three thousand men, the average number of sick was very near four hundred. Nor can it be urged that the illness of these people was due to their want of acclimation, or to the exposures and irregularities of camp life; for this proportion was probably not greater than that among the older inhabitants of the town. Indeed, there, it is said, coffins were called for faster than the lumber could be procured for their fabrication, and the cracked bells of the old Catholic church, were almost daily heard tinkling the morning and evening requiem over the departed. Yet this was in the most salubrious part of Texas; that portion to which all eyes are directed by the inhabitants, whenever any thing is insinuated prejudicial to the country. Health blooms there, every stranger is assured, in perennial freshness and vigor; and the invalids of every clime, and victims of every disease, are invited to resort thither, as to the fountain visited of old by the angel, and be healed. They come, and find the fruits are but apples on the Dead Sea's shore.

On the 12th, an unfortunate difficulty

occurred between two of our Illinois physicians; one a surgeon regularly appointed by the president, the other an acting surgeon temporarily commissioned by the governor of Illinois, to accompany the regiments until superseded in the regular way. The latter had just been relieved from duty, and deeming himself wronged in some manner by his successor, he assaulted him, according to report, with his cane. "Satisfaction" must of course be had, "in the mode usually adopted by gentlemen," and to establish an approximate equality between the two, the one being a large and the other a small man, an appeal must be made to the ordeal of gunpowder. The challenge passed on Saturday; the parties met the following Monday. The secret was tolerably well kept; but murder will out.

In the midst of a cluster of live oaks, about a mile from Camp Crockett, and in the vicinity of the river, was the spot selected for the trial. There was but a brief interval between the arrival of the antagonist parties on the ground, which was a few minutes after five o'clock. The stars were yet visible, and twinkled merrily in the heavens. The waning moon gave a fitful light, as she emerged from the flying clouds, by which she was at intervals obscured. In the indistinctness of the darkness that precedes the dawn, the figures moving among the trees appeared like phantoms. Yet the snapping of a broken limb, the rustling of the dry leaves, the neighing of a horse, or the clatter of his equipage, and the low hum of human voices, in earnest and deliberate converse, gave evidence of flesh and blood realities. Perhaps it was fancy, but men's motions seemed cautious and subdued, even to stealthiness, as if conscious of being engaged in unholy means for the accomplishment of unholy purposes. Each one of the parties, nevertheless, was calm, collected, and determined, and appeared satisfied that his position was the true one; that it was the only alternative permitted him. Wo know that this view has been taken by many, otherwise gifted with clear perceptions of the right, and fearless in its defence, but who have sacrificed the noblest part of their integrity to the tyranny of a false and unnatural state of society, which takes to its bosom the wrongdoer, and visits but too often the injured party with undying scorn, unless he dares to violate the command of his Maker, and seek to imbrue his hands in another's blood, There is no thought of the great tribunal for the final adjudication; of the vast and awful responsibility