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 tide washed 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."

These handsome volumes are in fact a collection of authentic monumental inscriptions; not indeed a history, but a magazine of historical facts. And as the splendid works depicting the remains of Roman art disinterred from the ashes of Vesuvius, furnish the historian with a

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.

LADIES-NIGHT AND MORNING—

THE ordinary incidents of Camp Crockett

-guard duty, drills, and paradeswere 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

unexpectedly made their appearance, drove 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 earth 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.

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. So 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

incurred in the attempt to divorce that union which God himself hath made; the union of soul and body.

The choice of position, and the giving of the word, were determined by the toss of a dollar: on such chances man chooses to fix the destiny of human life! The parties were stationed at a distance of ten paces from each other, back to back; the fire of both to be delivered between the words "Fire!-one-two-three." As the principals take their positions, a cloud suddenly appears in the east, and the rising sun is veiled before such a scene. But there is one solitary star yet blazing above the horizon, and perhaps many of those who saw it at that moment were reminded of the lines here so sadly, but truthfully, illustrated:

"Between two worlds life hovers like a star,

"Twixt night and morn upon the horizon's verge." The word was distinctly and deliberately given the challenger fired immediately, and without effect; his antagonist appeared startled for an instant by the shot, recovered himself in time, and discharged his pistol as the word "three" fell from the lips of the second. A moment later, and it is said the fire would have placed him beyond even the pall and panoply of the "code of honor." His opponent stood erect for an instant, his face assumed a pallid hue, and an expression of extreme agony; he took one step forward, and sunk to the ground. His friends rushed to him, and bore him away. It was found that the ball had entered the right side just above the hip, and passed out in front: the wound was not mortal.

I have no disposition to indulge in any reflections, common-place as they must be, over the scene of which I have given but a brief and imperfect description. The facts in themselves suggest more thought than can be written. Like ninety-nine cases out of the hundred, of resorts to this Draconian code, the verdict is against the injured or challenging party. In this instance, we have seen an individual subjected to a most cruel and mortifying assault, and in the effort to obtain "satisfaction by the laws of honor "-for the laws of the land afford no compensation for wounded pride and insulted feelings, if society would not laugh to scorn the innocent victim who might seek such redress-be is severely, if not mortally wounded, by the same hand. He is thus compelled by the tribunal to which he has resorted, to wash out the injury which he has received with his own blood, while the transgressor not only leaves the field

unscathed, but perhaps revels in the eclat of being a "capital shot." Such is the restitution which this last relic of barbarism and chivalry yields to wanton insult and personal outrage. And thus right and justice become shuttlecocks, to be bandied about by the criminality of society, and thus is human life sported with by the hypocrisy, the weakness, and the charlatanry of enlightened civilization, not subject to the teachings and restraints of Christianity.

Duties of all sorts were multiplied as the time of departure drew near, and increased activity prevailed throughout all the departments. General Wool's long experience as inspector-general of the army, seems to have given him a knowledge of the details of service, scarcely to be acquired in any other capacity; and this knowledge was in daily requisition in the organization and preparation of his troops for the campaign. With a view to a proper determination of the extent of his resources, he appears to have established a complete surveillance over every corps and department of his command, requiring the most minute details to be given him of the daily condition and progress of affairs in the various supply branches of the service, and which, from the grumbling that was not always whispered, many staff gentlemen did not seem to digest with peculiar delectation.

The genius of a commander may be displayed not only in his capacity to grasp at once the complicated materials, and comprehend the varied machinery of an army, but in the facility with which he traces out the details, and discovers the lesser wants, which are lost sight of by the incompetent officer. But it is not to be presumed that the most insignificant matters of execution require his personal attention, or that such attention is given them, if the proper industry and capacity exist in other quarters. General ideas and directions in relation to these matters, ought, it is supposed, properly to come from head quarters; but the chief of an army should not be harassed with the issue of a ration of beans, or of a cartridge, the purchase of a few bushels of corn, or the expenditure of a few feet of plank: these matters might be intrusted to qualified officers of the proper departments. The necessity that has apparently compelled General Wool to take these affairs to a certain extent, into his own hands, is to be regretted, as there are those who are not indisposed to complain, under a small pretext, of improper interference with their own duties. Some who appear to