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Holland is decidedly a country to call forth engineering genius and skill in certain directions. Its shores are lined with great dikes built of Norway granite, timbers, turf and clay, piled to the height of forty feet, and on the top of which two wagons may drive abreast. And these are an absolute necessity to the safety of the country. The canals also are an engineering feature of considerable moment; but it is in the draining of the inland lakes that the most striking work is seen. No less than ninety of these have been converted into arable land up to this time. One of these-the Haarlem lake-covered an area of seventy square miles; and occupied sixteen years in draining. But the draining of the Zuyder Zee will throw even this wholly into the shade, and will be a work worthy to stand beside the greatest engineering victories of the nineteenth century. It covers an area of twelve hundred square miles, but the water is to be removed from only seven hundred and fifty of these; and this will make Holland, as a country, larger by one-eighteenth of its whole area than it is at present. It has been found that the land at the bottom is extremely rich, consisting of a clayey earth, and with his proverbial agricultural skill, the Dutch farmer may yet astonish the world by the abundant productions of the bed of the Zuyder Zee. It is expected that the works will last sixteen years. Pumping is to be kept up for nearly three years. The volume of water to be lifted and discharged is three hundred and six billions five hundred and five millions of cubic feet. Of this gigantic mass of water one hundred and fifty-eight thousand eight hundred and fifty cubic feet will be raised every minute.

It is extremely probable that valu

able facts for the Archeologist will also be discovered by this remarkable enterprise.

A Frisian manuscript of very singular interest, and if, as there is every reason to believe, it is genuine, of great value has recently come to light. It is known as the Oera Linda Book, being so named after the family in which there is positive evidence that it has been an heirloom from time immemorial. The present owner is C. Oera de Linda, the chief superintendent of the Royal Dockyard, at the Helder in Friesland, North Holland. By the influence of a family tradition it has been kept through many generations, although both the language and the writing have been utterly unknown.

A Frisian scholar, Dr. Verweijs, heard of the work some short time since, and obtained permission to examine it. The form of Fries in which it is written is more ancient than the most antique literary monument of the people.

The

book is endorsed by Hiddo Oera Linda, six hundred and twenty years ago, and by Liko Oera Linda at a still earlier date. It is described by the former as a history of his family and of the Fries people. It appears to be an extremely ancient copy of books of great antiquity. The event from which its dates are taken is "The disappearance or submergence of Atland," which is said to be about 591 B.C., and much of its contents refers to dates concurrent with the times of Daniel, and the destruction of the first Temple.

There is one guarantee for the genuineness of this book which is at once the source of its scientific value and the strongest test of its claims. It has been stated that the book has been in the hands of the same

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family for many generations. This has been proved beyond question. The book contains a description of the Lake dwellings of Switzerland and their inhabitants. Now the fact that there ever were such dwellings or such inhabitants was unknown until the year 1853. The winter of that year was intensely cold and dry; and the waters of the lakes fell far below their normal level. The inhabitants of Meilen, on the banks of the lake of Zurich, took advantage of this circumstance, and gained from the lake a tract of ground which they raised and surrounded with banks. In doing this they found evidence of the existence of a whole village having been at one time built in the lake upon piles, and all the evidences of a certain rude civilization were shortly forthcoming. Since that time the ruins of immense numbers of such villages have been found, and these lacustrine dwellings hold a very prominent place in all modern efforts to approximate to a conclusion as to the Antiquity of Man." Now since these dwellings were unknown to history and science alike up to the year 1853, and since this book has been known to be in the Oera de Linda family for several generations certainly, the fact that it describes these dwellings is almost irresistible internal evidence of its truthfulness, genuineness and value. The book is a collection of the writings of different persons; one of these is Apalonia, chief priestess of a place called Lindasburgt, which she minutely describes; as also a European civilization more ancient than that of Greece. Her visit to the piledwellers was made, according to this record, in the middle of the sixth century before the birth of Christ. It was a law amongst the Frisians that the chief priestess must travel a year before she entered on her

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duties; and it was during this time that, as she affirms, she visited these towns built upon the lakes of Switzerland.

....

Her language is thus translated: "My journey was along the Rhine, on this side going up, and on the other down. The higher I went the poorer the people seemed to be. .. Above the Rhine, among the mountains, I have seen Marsaten. The Marsaten are people who live on the lakes. Their houses are built upon piles for protection from the wild beasts and wicked people. There are wolves, bears, and horrible lions. . . The Marsaten gain their livelihood by fishing and hunting. The skins are sewn together by the women and prepared with birch bark. The small skins are as soft as a woman's skin. . . . they were good simple people. Their wool and herbs are bought by the Rhine people and taken to foreign countries by the ship captains. Along the other side of the Rhine it was just the same . . . . There was a great river or lake; also therewith people living upon piles but they were not white people, they were black and brown men, who had been employed as rowers to bring home the men who had been making foreign voyages and had to stay there till the fleet came home."

In the subsequent records of the book by other authors, two later visits to these lake dwellings are recorded. It is a matter of great interest to have these facts presented in such a manner. That the manuscript is genuine and is a compilation from very ancient records there seems, in the opinion of the most competent and critical judges, very little if any grounds for doubting; and there will, in the event of the confirmation of this, be a definite datum for inferring the age of the Lake-dwellers, and so a help towards a more correct conclusion as to the real date of man's appearance in Europe.

It is very noteworthy that Lieut. Cameron, who has just returned to this country after a remarkably successful exploration of a portion of interior Africa, saw tribes there living in the same way.

Prof. Preyer of Jena has been making a series of experiments to determine the lowest and highest limits of pitch within which it is possible for the human ear to perceive musical tones. The minimum limit for the average ear he found to lie between sixteen and twentyfour vibrations per second. The

maximum limit was forty-one thousand per second. But there are many persons who are deaf to even twelve thousand vibrations per second. Thus the capacity to hear largely governs the capacity to appreciate music. The author also considers the philosophy of silence; and defines it as a state of uniform minimum excitation of the auditory

nerve-fibres, and in opposition to some leading physiologists regards it as a positive sensation. He points out that the auditory apparatus, like the retina, never sinks below the zero of sensation; and therefore in the state known as silence the fluid contents of the labyrinth of the ear, and the flow of blood through the vessels, must give rise to sensations, but sensations of which we are unconscious, or rather which we do not observe, because of their uniformity, constancy and low degree of intensity. Indeed silence varies in intensity just in proportion as the attention is concentrated. But it is quite plain that complete absence of sensation could be subject to no variation.

BOOK JOURNAL.

Memorials of the Wesley Family. By GEORGE J. STEVENSON. London: S. W. Partridge and Co. 1876.

It is well known that Mr. Wesley, at his death, left a mass of letters and other papers in the hands of three executors, intending that they should select and publish any they deemed suitable for that purpose. His design was never accomplished. Portions of these papers have been used by Mr. Kirk and Mr. Tyerman, but the bulk of them have not been given to the public, and came, either as copies or originals, into Mr. Stevenson's hands. Apart from the interest attaching to the family whence sprang John and Charles Wesley, the family itself was a remarkable one.

It occurred to Mr. Stevenson that a history of the family, tracing it as far back as inquiry could reach, and coming down to the present time, would be acceptable to the religious world, and would allow him to work up much of the new material in his possession. Of course the idea was taken from Adam Clarke's "Memoirs of the Wesley Family." The result is the present volume.

We are so grateful for these biographies, at once fuller and more acurate than those of Dr. Clarke, that we gladly leave unnoticed certain minor literary blemishes of which, indeed, the writer is conscious, and for which he apologisesand forget that their style is plain, even to the very verge of baldness. We can

not but regret, however, the form which the work assumes-the separate memoir of each of the Wesleys. It necessitates continual repetition of the same facts, and destroys the unity of the work. In our judgment, the preferable, though far the more difficult, course would have been to weave the various threads into a connected narrative. Mr. Stevenson's "Memorials " are a storehouse

of information, trustworthy and, to the large majority of readers, fresh. No one can study these pages without gaining a clear conception of the personality of those who formed the Wesley family. We hope the book will find its way into the library of many who belong to the Church which Mr. Wesley founded, and many who share in the undiminished interest which everything relating to one of England's noblest households must have for every intelligent Christian. Methodist Revival Missions: a Small Handbook. By WALFORD GREEN and JOHN HUGH MORGAN.

This little book is the very grammar of Scriptural and sensible revivalism. It breathes throughout the spirit "of power and of love, and of a sound mind." It is admirable both in style and spirit. It should be studied by every one who wants to know how to go about a series of special services in a believing, businesslike and effective manner.

HAYMAN BROTHERS AND LILLY, 19, CROSS STREET, HAtton garden, E.C.

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