MISCELLANEOUS.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume IX, Issue 907, 12 April 1854, Page 3

MISCELLANEOUS.

The Russian Navy at Japan — Maritime Policy of the Czar. — The presence of a considerable Russian fleet among the natives of the Japanese islands had created quite a sensation in that quarter of the world, tt appears to have been understood at Amsterdam that the Russian government had resolved to resist the attempt of the Americans against Japan, and that this fleet was intended for that purpose. And we are further informed that " the Dutch government are said to be pleased at this determination on the part of the cabinet of St. Petersburg, as the Americans also threaten the Dutch Archipelago," Now, it is quite possible that the Dutch government, whirh for a long time pa^t has had the monopoly of the Japanese trade, may feel some jealousy touchinir the desigus of the United States — it is quite possible that the Dutch cabinet may entertain the fear that the mission of Commodore Perry to Japan is to annex that empire to this country, and that he is also instructed to appropriate some of the best islands of the Dutch Archipelago on his return home, according to the principles of "manifest destiny," with "all the modern improvements.'* But the Emperor Nicholas has other objects to compass besides watching the movements of Commodore Perry. The vast Russian empire in Asia is without a sea port. Its great rivers emptying into the Arctic Ocean are useless from being locked up at their estuaries in perpetual ice. The Czar wants one outlet into the Pacific for his Asiatic territories ; and the 1 iver Seghalim, emptying into the Sea of Ochotsk.and open at its m<>uth all the year round, offers the very place for a Pacific seaport which he desires. True, it belongs to China; but all that is required to secure it is a proclamation from the deck of a ship of war to that effect, and the erection of a small fortification commanding the mouth of the river. The present revolution in China offers a strong temptation for this seizure, and for the extension of the Russian doctrine of annexation indefinitely to the southward. Such, perhaps, is the ultimate design of the Russian fleet in the waters of Japan. At all events, Commodore Perry has shown that it is extremely absurd on the pan of the Russian squadron to attempt to keep up with his movements. But the policy of Rus c i»i is to stretch her arms to the sea in every possible way. At present, though all powerful on the continent, she is comparatively weak upon the ocean from her insulated position. Hence the real secret of the pertinacity of her claims upon Turkey. The Czar desires the command of the eastern straits of the Mediterranean from the immense commercial and naval advantages which such occupation would bestow. Nor is Denmark, with her seaports

in the west, perfectly safe against the great plan of Nicholas, which is simply bv the appropriation of the territories of her neighbours on all sides, to render the strength of Russia as sr»"» at upon the waiter «s upon the land. This policy is indispensable to the fulfilment of the programme of Peter the Great, which contemplates the absolute power of peace or war over the whole continent of Europe. We think, therefore, that instead of the "Russians watching the movements of Commodore Perry, he had better watch theirs, in reference to the integrity of the Chinese Empire.— New York Herald. The English Climate. — The English cl'matc, and especially the London fops, have a powerful influence on the moral faculties of the natives, and rven strangers cannot escape that influence. Nothing can better explain the two fading fpature* of the English character — their silent sadness and energy. Under their skif» you lose the two faculties that are dearest to man — the faculty of thinking and the fjcult" of en* joying. All the springs of intelligence are relaxed : you are serious without reflection ; you are gradually dravtn into and tossed about in an ocean of horror and slow despair ; the mind becomes nomindfjl of itself, and you feel ii vanish and dissolve into thin air ; you are thoughtful without thinking ; you dream youtself into a void : from the depths of your mind ascend vapours which have no shop*-— desires void of colouting — mtlimurs which have no meaning, like the silent voices of nighi— -ihe voices of still*/ n^ss, caused hy the absence of movement atvi litiht ; in fine you welter, in nothing. At th s juncture you are sived by a manly and energetic reaction } the mind becomes alive to the dangers of its situation, and protests against them ; it go«s, so in s»y, out of i'self, and sallies forih in search of the outer woild. which it handles and analyzes to make quite sure of its existence. After which, it takes greedily hold of that outer world, and from the profoundest rep« cc and the most hopeless apathy, the mind leaps at once into the crudest reality. An a'most frenzied activity is alone capable of reacting against the sullen torpor which is created by this climate. Hence the practical matter*of-fact turn of the English. Under their sky, a man must either work, or die, or emigrate, if poor ; or travel, if rich.

Malachite* — One very strange circumstance connected with malachite is, that it is not a stone or a marble of any kind \ it has neither lime, nor clay) nor flint, nor sand in its composition —^nothing which can be consideied as a necessary or integrant part of stone or marble or alabaster. It is a salt. A sore puzfc'e this will be 10 those (and their name is legitn) who recognise salt only as a condiment to be added in little crumblets to savoury mouthfuls ; but the learned chemists have a W4y of applying the teirfl salt, which it is worth while to know. When an acid is combined wi'h a metal, or the oxide of a metal, or an Blkali, or an earth, the compound becomes a sail — the che* mists say so, and therefore of course it must be so. Now the delicate white granular substance which we can buy for da ly use at three pounds for a penny, and which we should be perfecily willing to buy at a shilling a pound if we could not obtain it for less, is a salt because it is com* posed of muriatic acid and the alkali so 'a (or more strictly chlorine and sodium); and by the same token malachitp is a salt because it consists of carhbnic add ahcl oxide of copper. We need not carry our chemistry further than this ; suffice it to say that malachite is really and truly carbonate of copper ; but malachite is believed to acquire its remarkable and beautiful appearance by being formed in drop*, a sedimentary deposit analacrous to stalactite and stalagmite. It is supposed by Sir Roderick Murchison that the carhonale was once a liquid, and that it gradually solidified by slow dropping-=-just as is the case at the petrifying dripping well near Knaresborougb. Every mass of it seems to have been grouped round a centre, in more or less concentric layers; and according to the varying richness of the solution at different times, so do the concentric layers exhibit a lighter and a darker tint of green. A beautiful theory is i his ; for it explains not only the globular or roundpd form of the masses, but also the rich play of green tints observable in all specimens of m.'l.iclme. It is a necessary consequence, or rathei a necessary preliminary, that ores of copper should exist near the localities whence malachite is obtained; for i. is a solution of the carbonic metal which produces the gem (if malachite may be called a gem, which it almost deserves to be.) It is not disseminated in large masses, like a metallic ore ; it seems rather to have trickled into clehs and cavities, which determine its dimension*. Rarely can a piece be obtained weighing so much as twenty pounds. It is softer than marble, v,ery much heavier, brilliant in its lustre, an'l almost silky in the delicate gtaam of its green streak-*; yet these qualities are marred by the extreme difficulty of woiking it. Fragile ami yet obstinate, it sorely tries the patience of the workman. A Russian, however, is accustomed to patience; and he has conquered hi his time more obstinate things than malHchite. Another curious circumstance connected with ma* lachite is the extremply limited number of spots where it has been found. Siberia and Australia are nearly the only two which can be named. In Australia the discovery has been very recent ; hut in Siberia malachyte has long been known. Until within a few year«, the largest mass obtained weighed about a hundred poods (a pood equals thirty-six English pounds) ; it was obtained from the copper mine of M. Tourchaninoff, at Goumecheff (oh ! these Russian names) anil is deposited in one of the National Museums. But this has been beaten into insignificance by a recen discovery, to which are due the magnificent specimens of malachite drought to England. The Messrs, DemMoff, of St. Petersburgh, are the owners of some copper ininrs in the Ural mountains; and while the miners wpre in search of the metallic ore, they on one fortunate day lighted on a mass of mahchite, weighing not less I than three thousand poods. The miners were able to detach this in one block, and they then met with anoiher thousand poods weight, filling up clefts and crevices in the surrounding rock. What a treasure this ; considering that a fair specimen of malachite will bring 1 fifteen sellings prr English pound ! There is supposed to be a still larger deposit of malachite near the spot whenre this mass was obtained : precious nujrgets (albeit green) which may by ai d by put money into the pockets of the proprietors. But like other treasures, malachite requires the hand of man before it becomes practically valuable. The lirse masses crumble in 'he air, generally into pieces

6f two to four pounds weight ; and the question j arises bow to work so very biittle a material. It •is not altogether a new art ; for museums and • royal palaces in many parts of Europe, contain -specimens of inlaying or veneering with malachite. 'But when Messrs. N Demidoff made their grand discovery, an incentive wns given towards the • adoption of larger rnechauical appliances. They • determined to establish a manufactory of their own at St.'Petersburgb, which they placed under 'the care of M. 'Leopold ftoffriand, who left no ■ means untried to obtain a mastery over the mate- • rial, and make it applicable to ornamental purposes. How he succeeded in bis task, the malachite doors at the' Crystal "Palace testified ; and • what difficulties he has had to surmount, the fol1 lowing details will show. In the first place, then, it must be borne in mind that the malachite is *used, not in mass, but as a thin veneeer. The > pieces are cut by saws into veneers varying from - a quarter to a twelfth of an inch in thickness. To - effect this the block is cemented upon a carnage which has a traversing motion along a little railway ; and the malachite is kept forcibly pressed against the edge of a vertical circular -saw; fine sand and water are continually applied to the cut, until the slice of malachite is at length - severed from the block. Thus is the block sliced away, not quite so quickly but much more carefully than the housewife's quartern loaf. Where - a curved surface is to be covered with malachite, the saws for cutting the veneer are bent to a ■ corresponding curvature; and an extremely delicate and precarious process of cutting then ensues. The slices being cut, their junction into a uuiform plane is the next point attended to. Here the most -unwearied attention is called for. In every piece of malachite, the dark tnd light streaks of green form graceful curves, varying infinitely •in appearance. Now, it would not satisfy an artistic eye, to see pieces joined together edge to edge without any reference to varying tints of the surface; there would be a mottled, confused, in- - definite jumble of bits of curves and bits of tints. • The workman, consequently, selects his pieces with especial reference to their streakings, and -combines them edge to edge ra such a way as to -carry out somewhat-like a principle of design — not stiff and formal, but just sufficient to satisfy the eye by a kind of intelligibility of arrangement. 'This is very difficult to accomplish, on account both of the smallness of the pieces and the variation of their shape. -Every little fragment has its • edges cut by means of -a copper wheel. For each joint there must bs two or three little copper grinding wheels employed, one to give the convexities or protuberances to one edge, and : the other to impart the concavities or depressions to the other edge. It is in these joinings that M. Joffmnd has made the most marked improvements. Before the establishment of the manufactory at St. Petersburgh, all malachite •■veneering had straight edges to the separate pieces, and very little attention was paid to the veins or markings ; but the curved joinings now -afford many facilities for producing elegance and symmetry in marking. The fixing of these numberless little pieces upon tht ground-work which is to support them is not so difficult an art as those which precede it ; but still it requires care and attention. This ground-work or • substratum may be stone or marble ; *but it is generally iron or copper. The malachite is cemented down-piece by piece, each in its proper position. Small interstices are left here and there, which are aftewards filled up with greeu breccia — plaster coloured with powdered mala--cbite, and speckled with minute fragments. r< When the whole is filled up, the surface is ground with sand, to bring it to a proper level ; ;and after this it is polished. Those who remem*ber (and few will forget) the gorgeous malachite .productions in the Russian department at the Crystal Palace will be able to form some faint conception of the difficulties entailed in their exe•cution. 'Every pound of malachite becomes re- • duced by weight to half a pound by the time it 'has reached the form of veneer, and further reduced to a quarter of a pound by the waste unavoidable in adjusting and fitting. The veneered surface thus assumes a value of about three guineas a pound ; and as there are at least two pounds and a half to the square-foot, this gives a valut of seven or eight guineas for a square 'foot of malachite veneer, for material alone, irrespective of the value of the labour bestowed upon ■it. Some of the churches in St. Petersburgh are • said to have fluted columns of malachite, which present an exquisitely beautiful appearance ; but nothing ever seen out of Russia has ever equalled tht wonderful productions wh'ch wert sent over to us in eighteen hundred and fifty-one. There were transmissions of this remarkable material from a few other quarters. Thus, a Derbyshire firm, accustomed to woiks in gems and •stones, prepared marble slabs with a surface of 'malachite ; and a South Australian firm showed that the celebrated Burra Burra copper mines are capablt of yielding fine malachite; and a firm exhibited a beautiful silver casket with four tablets of malachite; and some of the •mining companies of Ruiflia exhibited masses of the substance just as they had been obtained from their rocky bed. But all these sant into •insignificance before the gorgeous productions of the Messrs. Demidoff. Who can forget the chimney-piece, and the round, aud oval, and' -square tables, and the chairs, and the tazza, and •the vases, and the pedestals, and the clock, and above all, who can forget the doors $ These doors, suitable for the folding-doors of a grand -saloon, and measuring together about 14 feet in height, Uy .7 in width, were made of metal, cohered with malachite veneer about a quarter of an •inch in thickness — much thicker than is ordinarily used. The cement with which the veneer was fastened to the metal was made with fragments of the malachite itself, so as to correspond with it in colour. It was stated by the Messrs. Demidoff that those two doors employed thirty men upwards of a year to tit, finish, and polish the malachite veneer ! One feels almost inclined to ask whether, after all, they were worth so much labour ; but this is a delicate politico-economico-«stbetico-social question, which must not be hastily answered. The malachite productions altogether were valued at the large sum of eighteen thousand guineas.