couragement she showed towards the physician Dioscorides, and the computator of the Julian Kalendar, Sosigenes.

that proclamation for the persecution of | enlightened policy of her house is most the Christians which made itself felt so unexpectedly shown in her getting such terribly, not only here, but in the far a gift for her city, as well as by the enwestern Isle of Britain, in the death of St. Alban at Verulam; and when St. Augustine came to England one of his earliest foundations at Canterbury was a church dedicated to St. Pancras, the noble Roman youth of fourteen, who had perished by the same cruel edict, and whose father owned the land upon which the missioner's monastery at Rome stood. The sanguinary emperor had the people of this city massacred for resisting him, ordering that the slaughter should continue until their blood stained his horse's knees-mercifully a splash or a stumble fulfilled the letter of this command before they were totally exterminated.

It was the kings of Pergamus, who had had to provide this large number of works, who invented the writing upon the less perishable parchment when Ptolemy Epiphanes cut off the supply of papyrus or byblus - necessity proving the mother of a still valued discovery.

We cannot stand upon this Serapeum mound without recalling some of the events which have been connected with it. There will come up to mind the martyrdom of the aged St. Mark the Evangelist about the year A.D. 68, the year when Didymus, the farm-steward, was keeping those accounts upon the back of which has lately been discovered by our British Museum a copy of one of Aristotle's political constitutions. He was dragged along with feline cruelty from his house afterwards the Cathedral, and Quarantine, lying over there to this spot, amid the excited and maddened mob raging to stamp out the faith of the Nazarene, and perhaps at this spot it was that the venerable patriarch of Egyptian Christianity breathed forth his soul to God. Nor can we forget another whose diminutive form and stooping gait proclaim the great Athanasius. With face of angelic sweetness, and

now the

It is perhaps impossible to picture to excess the beauty of the temple and courts of the Serapeum. Ammianus Marcellinus says that it exceeded the Capitol of Rome itself in magnificence, and we have a particular description of it remaining to us in the works of Ruffinus, who relates its demolition in A.D. 389, when a church and martyrium dedicated to St. John the Baptist were erected upon part of its site (Univ. Hist. xvi. 429; Le Beau, v. 353). The Serapeum extended from this mound over the adjoining Arab cemetery; but beyond this column from the quarries of the first cataract and a few broken shafts, we have to reform the halls and courts of imposing splendor and the magnificence and beauty of their con-bald head shaded by a cowl, we can tents from the golden statue of Isis on wards. Attached to this temple was the second great Library of Alexandria, scarcely smaller than the one destroyed a long tragedy," and divided between by the fire in the time of Julius Cæsar. consecration and death into four exiles If one answered to our British Museum, and four returns. Who now, save the the other corresponded to the Oxford theologians, reads the tale of that magBodleian. In the latter we possess nificent life, and who ever thinks as he thirty thousand manuscripts and four stands upon these sand-heaps, that behundred and twenty-five thousand vol-beath them lies the lost part of his Arian umes, but here all were manuscripts, and three hundred thousand of those. The foundation of this great collection was the present of two hundred thousand volumes by Mark Anthony to Cleopatra, in whom the literary and

picture him as hastening by as he turns up his keen, intelligent eyes to behold the mighty temple, he whose life was

66

history? Both his body and that of St. Mark were carried away by Venetian merchants, as is well known, and now rest in the city of Venice.

Is it unprofitable to reflect here, as we did at the Museum site, that per

chance amidst the books of this Sera- | fresh until the British admitted the sea peum, when it became a Christian in order to flood the country around temple, may have existed some of the Alexandria in the time of the wars of works of St. Peter, who had sent St. Napoleon, and although the entrance is Mark here, and came himself likewise, of course now blocked up, it is a salt and if it be accepted that the Babylon he barren waste. It is hard to think of mentioned in his general Epistle (i., v. this marshy swamp as a sheet of silvery 13) is Old Cairo ? We still miss his beauty, with its eight islands set like Revelations, Acts and Gospel, and his emeralds upon its broad face, and with sermons on judgment and preaching, its margin waving with Mareotica cortex mentioned by St. Jerome, Eusebius, (Mart., Ep. iv. 42), the oft-named papyClemens of Alexandria, etc. There is rus. The country houses of the wealthy within our British Museum, a codex of Alexandrian corn-factors and merchants the whole Bible written in Greek, here clustered about it. The Arva mareotica in this city, by a noble Egyptian con- (Ov., Met. ix. 73) were famous; in one vert, it is thought, named Thecla, about of these farms the steward whose pages the time that this Serapeum became a are backed by the Aristotelian work Christian church. It was sent by an mentioned above kept those accounts; old patriarch of the city to Charles I., its oliveyards are often spoken of, and and has in it the epistles of that fourth the white grapes of its vineyards propope of Rome, St. Clement, "whose duced the favorite beverage of Cleopaname is written in the Book of Life," tra, and of which both Horace (Od. i. setting in order the discipline of the 37) and Virgil (Geor. ii. 91) sing. Church of Corinth, and of the second of "Mareotic luxury was a rival to Sybwhich epistles this codex is the only aris in proverb, while the only form extant manuscript copy. We have yet now presentable is that of its shooting to recover a copy of the epistle of Lao- to the sportsman. We are told of two dicea (Coloss. iv. 16), a third Epistle to pyramids that once stood in its midst Corinth of St. Paul (1 Cor. v. 9), a sec-bearing upon their summits two thrones ond to Ephesus (Eph. iii. 3), and a on which were seated colossal statues third to Thessalonica; and since great of Moeris and his wife, and which rose quantities of books from here were three hundred feet above the lapping taken chiefly to Constantinople at the waters at their base; but of these no imperial establishment of that city, it sign remains. may be that whenever science can get a look at the treasury of the sultan, they may still be there, as well as other priceless historic documents long lost to view. The final destruction of the Serapeum Library is that often-disputed but well-known act attributed to the Arab conqueror in the seventh century, who is said to have heated the city baths for six months from its shelves in accordance with the orders of the caliph that, if the books added to the teaching of the Koran they were bad, and if they repeated it they were superfluous. Just across the ridge of rock and sand which, rising, separates it from the blue and dancing waters of the Mediterthe once beautiful Lake of Maris, a deep cutting made by an ancient king to store up the overflow of the beneficent Nile. Its water was

ranean

A few years ago the favorite drive of visitors was to see the obelisks known as "Cleopatra's Needles," but now both of them have gone; they stood before the palace or Sebasteum whose site a stonemason's yard and Ramleh station probably occupy, and the connection of them with the notorious queen is now quite exploded. No one who has stood beside that one still mercifully left at On can but feel anger and regret that they should have been removed to lands where no surrounding is in keeping, and where their rapid destruction is certain; that remaining where those once at Alexandria came from still serves to mark the spot where the great temple stood, and makes one dream dreams of what scenes and persons in the world's story it must have looked down upon, from earlier days than

those when Joseph the Patriarch came | been president of the School of Matheto wed the daughter of the priest here, matics, and who had trained his daughto even later than when its shadow ter to soar to heights which he himself must have fallen upon another Joseph had never attained-might well be and Mary his wife, bearing the child taken as patroness of Girton. One canJesus as they came to its fountain for not but feel a regard for the simplewater. Those at Alexandria had been hearted father who, having himself so removed before that great advent; but strong a sense of the omnipresence of it would have been far more "scien- God, thought that it only needed to tific," and shown far better taste, to constantly recall the fact to men's minds have sent them back for future ages to keep them from evil, and therefore to value on their original sites than to urged the civil magistrates to have have taken them to lands where they written at every street corner "God must rapidly crumble to dust. There sees thee, O sinner!" One cannot but can be no possible excuse made with think that so reverent a philosopher that gone to New York; the only pal- must have brought up Hypatia to share liative with regard to ours on the Em- that reverence too. All unite, indeed, bankment is the forgotten fact that it in praising her virtue and beauty, and was presented by the Egyptian govern- even a gaitered bishop was so enamment to commemorate our triumphs oured of her that he had to write to his over France. That at New York is brother and ask him to salute in his now almost smooth, its inscriptions stead he is no more precise “the obliterated, as that on the Thames most honored and most beloved of God, bank will be in another twenty years. the philosopher," and talks of her Trieste laid some claim to the Amer-divine voice" and "sacred hand." ican one. Its erector, as that of the It cannot be said that the Church did one on the Embankment, was Thothmes the Third, about thirty-five hundred years ago, and, like all the rest of them, it once had its surface highly polished and the hieroglyphics perhaps inlaid with silver-gilt, and its point capped with the same metal. As it rose seventy feet in air, its apex caught the first glance of the sun-god Ra as he rose over the Arabian desert, and then the smooth sides would glitter, and from obelisk to obelisk would the bright glances flash as he rose in the imperial glory and autocracy of his Eastern rule. Think of this, and then look at those sad, wasted, crumbling monuments in London or New York, and answer if wisdom be justified in such ruthless and greedy children as possess them. There was a scene which took place at their feet as they stood before the palace pylon of Alexandria which all know but few associate with them, and yet the sadly thrilling tale of the death of Hypatia is familiar enough. The beautiful daughter of Theon - an old man who had

not appreciate her, as is sometimes assumed. A frenzied band of dervishes, such as this land still produces in the religion of Mahomet, but then nominally Christian, thought they were doing God service by their demon's deed, and the form of one of that God's most beautiful works lay mangled with oyster-shells at the base of these obelisks.

Such are some of the chief memories which must recur to the thoughtful visitor to Alexandria. All up the Nile you will be able to trace the effect of its Ptolemeian rulers; from Dendera's temple which bears the relief, and only existing representation, of Cleopatra, the last of them, up to Pharaoh's bed in beautiful Philæ. Like our own modern Gothic work its chief fault lies in its soullessness; it was a copy of the work of earnest hands by faithless imitators; but here in Alexandria we may believe that Greece built true to her own traditions, and remained true to her own style. All its glory lasted only about four hundred years, for it arose in transition times, days of mental, spirTitual and political disturbance. Chris

tianity, which was the birth of the
individual conscience, was about to
arise; Greek thought had been in the
throes of labor since the days of Plato,
who in his "Republic " had endeavored
to regain it to the quiet assurance which
hitherto had satisfied it that the ós
was the Church of God, and that its
voice was infallibly true. Free thought
was breaking up this contentment.
Rome was rising to outstrip Greece, and
the waves of popular contention were
arising into storm. And thus faded
away this lovely and wondrous city,
whose arts and wealth had surpassed
any the world had known, whose
schools outshone Heliopolis, and whose
luxury and magnificence vied with any-
thing Thebes, or Memphis, or Athens,
or Rome ever possessed in their palm-
iest days. Proteus still retains his sov-
ereignty over Alexandria in a very
marked manner. No one who has ever
been here and studied the history of
the City of the Waters would doubt the
correctness of the Homeric locale of
that god or king. Diodorus and Lu-
cian and the others all try to explain
why he was made to embody prophecy
and change; but they need only to have The value of arsenic as something
had our centuries to look back over to other than a poison or a pigment is
see with our eyes how true the simile of recent discovery. In ancient clas-
was it prophetically incorporated of this sic times, the beauty of orpiment, the
city-changeful in aspect, in character, yellow sulphide, was known, but not
in rulers; changeful in thought, in reli- realgo, the disulphate of arsenic, which
gion, in learning; old and ever young, is of a ruby color. Arsenic as a pig-
young yet ever old, renewing in these ment has been, and, we fear, still is,
days, may we hope, its youth, like the much used in the coloring of wall-
eagles, and finding in Britain the sec-papers-in fact, Kay's orpiment is
ond Alexander to cut the Gordian knot such a valuable pigment artistically,
of its difficulties, and speed it through
future ages upon its course of peace,
prosperity, and glory.

unknown or disregarded by them, or
which has since acquired a new value.
This is notably the case with the arsen-
ical pyrites, or mundic, turned out in
vast quantities from the copper mines
in Devon and Cornwall, principally on
both banks of the Tamar.
At one
time, these mines, rich in copper, were
worked vigorously for that metal, and
the mundic was cast away, forming
enormous "ramps," as they are locally
termed, or mounds of this waste. After
a while the price of copper declined and
the richness of the lodes became less.
Simultaneously a demand sprang up for
arsenic, and now the old copper mines
are worked, not exclusively but mainly
for arsenic. The cost of production is
of course greatly reduced by the fact
that enormous quantities had been
brought up from underground, and had
been thrown out under the previous
system, and these waste heaps were
now reworked for the sake of the ar-
senic. Formerly, "arsenic soot" was
sold from half a crown to fifteen shil-
lings a ton; now its price ranges from
seven pounds to seven pounds ten shil-
lings.

ALFRED E. P. RAYMUND DOWLING.

that the paper-stainers can hardly do without it, if purchasers will have æsthetic greens and yellows. And here, before proceeding any further with the manufacture of arsenic, the writer desires to place before the reader a certain experience of his own with regard to From Chambers' Journal. wall-papers colored with orpiment. THE MANUFACTURE OF ARSENIC. Some years ago he went to one of the THE utilization of waste is one of the most noted of firms for æsthetic papers great lessons we are learning at the wherewith to cover the walls of his close of the nineteenth century. What house. A few years after, his children our fathers and grandfathers threw were afflicted with obstinate sores about away, that we find profitable to work the mouth, the wrists, and the ankles. for something it contains which was The village doctor was called in, an

old-fashioned practitioner, who gave | cent. of arsenic, and from twenty-five doses and prescribed diet, with no good to thirty per cent. of iron. It has a result. Then all at once it occurred to the writer to have the wall-papers analyzed. They were found to be charged with arsenic; the gum fastening the color to the paper had yielded, and the arsenical dust was flying about and lodging everywhere. The children were removed, and recovered.

silvery lead look, with yellow stains in it where is copper. The first process consists in dividing the copper ore from the mundic. For this purpose all the rock brought up from the mine is broken into pieces of the size of a nut; then this, as well as the refuse, is "jigged," that is to say is subjected to shaking in sieves, which let the small particles fall through, and reserve only the nuggets. The small matter is not, however, wasted; it is subjected to washing in "strips," where the water deposits first the mundic, as heaviest, then the copper ore, and lastly the refuse. The refuse, however, is not dismissed till it has been again jigged and washed, so that every particle of copper and of mundic has been saved froni it. What passes away is then mere earthy matter.

The question naturally arises: Is the manufacture of arsenic prejudicial to the health of the workers? To a certain extent it must be so; but it is not so to anything like the extent that might be supposed. The best means of resisting arsenic is by the use of soap and water. The workmen engaged in the manufacture have their mouths and noses muffled, to prevent their inhaling the dust. They wash and completely change their clothing on leaving work, and they enjoy complete freedom from zymotic diseases, as all germs are killed, The lumps of broken stone cannot be either by the arsenic dust, or by the separated thus easily by water; they sulphurous acid given off by the manu- have to be assorted by hand. For facture. The time of greatest mischief this purpose girls are employed, locally is the summer, when the men perspire; called "bâl maidens," from the Cornish then the arsenic adheres, and pro- word "bâl," which signifies a mine. duces sores. Moreover, where there is These girls, five in a row, recline on a wound, if arsenic enters it, it will not sloping shelves of board, with a table heal till the bone has been reached. before them and a trough. On each The best remedy for sores produced by side of the table are three wooden arsenic is fuller's earth. The men be-boxes. With a curved iron tool the lieve that the arsenic produces short- girls rake the stones to them and sort ness of breath and asthma; but this is them, according to color. The yellow really the result of their having to work and "peacock copper is thrown into all day with their noses and mouth cov- the trough under their noses. The ered by woollen mufflers. mundic is tossed adroitly into the nearest box on right or left; the "elvan," or inferior, into the second; and the rubbish into the third.

Let us now look at the manufacture, and for that purpose we will take the Devon Great Consols Mine, where the largest amount of arsenic is made. Before the table flows a stream of This occupies a tongue of land about water. The stones are brought in barwhich the river Tamar forms a loop. rows from the jiggers, and are tipped It is completely barren on its top, all into the water. Then a young man vegetation being killed by the fumes of with a fork dips them out and throws sulphurous acid. The mine was worked them upon the table, and so continufor copper between 1844 and 1862 with ally supplies the bâl maidens with mawonderful results. The lode was thirty terial for selection. The boxes have feet wide, and ran for a mile. After to be examined by the overlooker, that, it gave out, and has been worked to make sure that the girls have not mainly for arsenic since 1874.

Arsenical mundic contains

been careless and have thrown away

from good stuff. Then the copper ore is

twelve and a half to seventeen per sent away to Wales to be smelted. As