Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

WEEKLY GHAT WITH CORRESPONDENTS LlT are afraid our little friend, xTTj Lout a C., of Davenport Fe male College, Lenoir, N.C., Y3y will never forgive us for so long delaying to notice her T pretty little letter of Oct. 3. We beg to assure her that the delay was unintentional; her letter was put upon the wrong file, and was overlook ed. She says: ‘’Dear Mr. Burke : My brother takes your nice little paper, and I read it every week, and like it very much. I see in one of the late numbers that you offer ‘The Rock of Ages’ as a premium. The artist who designed and painted that beautiful picture is our rector, the Rev. Mr. Oertel, who preaches for us every Sunday, and attends to our Sun day-school in the mornings, and the colored school in the afternoons, and will not take one cent for his services. “ ‘ The Rock of Ages’ was first called ‘ Faith,* and there is a large oil-painting of it, also one of ‘Hope,’ and one of ‘ Charity,’ which have been on exhibi tion in London and Paris, but have now just reached New York, to be ex hibited there this winter. “ He has just finished five large pic tures : one of our Saviour as a High priest, which is more than eight feet high; the other four are Angels, two representing the Cherubim, and two the Seraphim, which are life-size. They were exhibited here, with many other pictures, four days, and were sent on to be put in the Church of the ‘ Hea venly Rest’ —anew church in New York city. More than six hundred people went to see them, and were delighted with them. If you ever come to this little mountain village, you must visit Mr. Oertel’s studio. “I am nearly twelve years old, and am a day-scholar at the Davenport Fe male College.” If we ever visit Miss Lout a’ s pretty mountain home, it will afford us great pleasure to visit the studio of so ta lented and good a man as we feel sure Mr. Oertel must be. The picture al luded to—“ Rock of Ages”—is one of the finest we have ever seen. Miss Mary E. Bradford, of Moreau ville, Avoyelles Parrish, La., sends us an account of a narrow escape of her father and brother, and two young men, their neighbors, from alligators, recently. They were taking a row on a large lake that is situated near her father’s place. She says: BURKE’S WEEKLY FOR BOYS AND GIRLS. “This lake is about five miles long, and about four miles wide, and is full of the finest fish I have ever seen. My father kills them with a harpoon, when we need them, and he has killed some that weighed 80 pounds. In the centre of this lake there is a large cluster of cypress trees, the tops of which rise a few feet above the surface of the water. It is in the tops of these trees that the waterfowls build their nests, and almost every limb on them bears a nest of some kind. Throughout the summer these nests contain eggs or young birds, and around them the alligators concen trate for the purpose of devouring the young birds that may unluckily fall into the water. “To this place my father and bro ther, and their two young friends, went for the purpose of enjoying the sport of harpooning fish. “They had scarcely reached the spot, when they were attacked by about fifty immense alligators. They were attack ed on all sides, and a life and death struggle ensued, which lasted about thirty minutes. Had it not been for a couple of axes, which had been provi dentially put into the boat, there is but little doubt but that they would all have been lost. Once the boat was very nearly upset by five or six large alliga tors attempting to climb into it; and my brother would have been dragged from the boat by one of largest of the bloodthirsty creatures, if it had not been for a timely blow dealt by one of his friends, with one of the axes, which sent the fellow lifeless to the bot tom of the lake. As soon as they had succeeded in repulsing their enemies, the party lost no time in hastening to the shore, where they all landed in safety.” Writtenfor Burke’s Weekly. EVENINGS AT GLENWOOD. w* - ■ iJL HAVE already alluded several times,” said Mr. Cranford, “to * the Illustrated Library of Wonders , a series of books that cannot be too highly commended. One of the latest volumes issued of this series is a reprint of an English work on Light houses and Lightships, which is full of information in regard to the subject treated of. That branch of Natural Philosophy now under discussion na turally leads us to speak of the light house, as it is indebted to the lens for the means of its great usefulness to the seafaring world. “ Arthur, can you tell me what light houses are? ” “ They are towers erected along the sea-coast, with lanterns in their tops, which are lighted at night, as a guide to ships at sea.” “Are they" of modern origin?” “ The present form of lighthouse is of comparatively modern origin, but ‘ there seems some reason to believe that long before Greece became a mari time nation, light-towers had been built by the Lybians and the Cuthites along the coast of Lower Egypt.’ ”* “ One of the most famous lighthouses of antiquity was situated on the little island of Pharos, near Alexandria in Egypt, which was included by ancient writers among the Seven Wonders of the World. Iu olden times, lighthouses were illuminated by fires, built of wood, coal, or some bituminous substances; but at a later period, these methods of * “Lighthouses and Lightships,” Scribner & Cos., N.Y. illumination were superseded by oil lamps placed in front of concave reflec tors, which served to concentrate the the rays, and thus heighten their illu minating effect. But the reflectors used, being made of metal, were soon tarnished, and the light afforded be came feeble, and failed in its object. “ Various means were resorted to to overcome these difficulties, all of which are fully set forth in the volume already alluded to ; but in 1822, Jean Augustin Fresnel, a distinguished French engi neer, who had devoted much time to the subject, invented anew system of illumination, which is now being adopt ed in all civilized countries. “Abandoning the reflectors, which became tarnished by the influence of sea fogs, he substituted for them plano convex lenses, in the principal foci of which he placed powerful lamps with four concentric wicks, each of which, for the quantity of oil consumed, and the amount of light given out, was found to be equivalent to seventeen carcel-lamps.* The difficulty of con structing large plano-convex lenses, together with their great absorption of light, led finally to the adoption of a particular system of lenses, known as echelon lenses. “A lens of this kind consists of a plano-convex lens, about a foot in dia meter, around which are disposed seve ral annular lenses, which are also plano-convex, and wbojrc ci'rvati.TQ 1 -H --so calculated that each one shall have the same principal focus as the central lens. A lamp being placed at the prin cipal focus of this refracting system, the light emanating from it is refracted into an immense beam of parallel rays. “ Besides this refracting system, seve ral ranges of reflectors are so disposed as to reflect such light as would other wise be lost, to increase the beam of light formed by refraction. “ By this double combination, an im mense beam of light is afforded, which renders the light visible for fifteen or twenty leagues ; but this beam is only visible in a single direction. To reme dy this defect, Fresnel united eight systems similar to that just described, which combination presents the appear ance of a pyramid of glass, nine or ten feet in height. “ The engraving represents a section of the lantern of a lighthouse of the first order, which was actually constructed by M. Sautter, and exhibited at the great ‘ Universal Exposition’ of France, in 1855. “In order to illuminate all points of the horizon, the system is made to re volve on a vertical axis by clock-work. The clock-work is shown at M in the figure, and the weight at P. To pre vent friction, the system turns upon six wheels, or rollers, shown in the figure to the left of M. “ In consequence of this rotation, an * A lamp in which the oil is raised through tubes by clock-work. 189