A SINKING CITY.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VI, Issue 158, 6 July 1871, Page 4

A SINKING CITY.

It is asserted upou ihe most reliable information, that, according to present indications, the great city of the Czar of all the Russias, St. Petersburg, in fifty years will have ceased to exist. Startling as this may souud, the fact is based upon reliable scientific examinations of the soil upon which the city ia buill, which is found to be sinking, imperceptibly to be sure, but with premonitory and fearful regularity. So fully is this fact established, that already steps are being taken prior to the peimauent removal of the Court. Moscow, from its central position, would seem to offer the most preferable future location for the Seat of Government ; but there are many reasons for believing that a preference may be shown for the fortified city of Kiev, which has the advantage of climate, is near the Black Sea, and is a step forward towards the Mecca of Russia's Czar, Constantinople. It may be that it was the anticipated removal of the Court thjkt recently led the Czar to elevate Kiev, or Kiew, to the dignity of the third capitai-'pf Russia \n Europe. Although .not*' so centrally situated as Moscow, 'being 670 miles south of St. Petersburgb, and 490 miles south-west of Moscow, it is beautifully situated on the banks of the Dnieper. It is an ancient and extensive city, with a noble University, and the venerable cathedral of St. Sophia, dn, 1 is at preseut the official residence of the Governor ol Little Russia, a district including eight provinces, with an aggregate population of 13,000,000. Yet the suggested future capital of Russia, Kiew, } has only a population of 50,000. While objected to only on account of its i. geographical positic 1, iLtjnust be home in mind that the prCM is even still more remote^rom the centre of \ the Empire, being sit mted in the northwestern extremity. The cause of this gradual sinking of the great city is easily accounted for from the pages of hißtory, which tells us that it was built in the reign of Peter the Great, upon piles driven into a swamp.V s

Hyper-Punctuation. — A printer in Edinburgh was in the habit of introducing a much greater number of cdyoraas t^an it .'appeared to the author the sens! required. ■ The case was provoking, but did not produce a formal remonstrance, until the printer himself afforded the learned editor ■ an opportunity of signifying his dissatisfaction with the plethora of punctuation under which his compositors were made to labor, The worthy printer, one day coming to a passage which he could not understand, very naturally took it \nto his head that it was unintelligible, and transmitted it to his employer, with a remark on the margin, that " there appeared some obscurity in it." ..The sheet was immediately returned with this reply : — " Mr. Jeffrey sees no obscurity here, except such as arises from the d d quantity of commas, which Mr. Wilson seems to keep nin a pejtperbpx i Jwide him, for the purpose of dujrting 'all SftisJ proofs with." The number of weddings in lEngland during May and June was 43,393—aa average of a little more than 500 a day.

The 9th New York Regiment of the Line has been " presented " with a band of one hundred musicians by the commander, Colonel Fisk, junior. — Musical Standard. A bachelor sea captain was complaining that he couldn't get a satisfactory chief officer, when a young lady remarked that she would like a situation as first mate. The captain took the hint, and the girl. Another Daniel. — The Sandwich Islanders have been talking of intervening between France and Prussia. The ministerial journal of Honolulu concludes its strong leader in these words : — Hoonohonobo ka papapo o ka huakahoo loowa ko keaho o ka pupo c kawa knio o ka ha. — It would be a sight to see the expression of dear old Bismarck's genial face when he reads it, and passes it on to good-natured Moltke.