Dr. Buckland relates that in certain places liable to earthquakes, their extent has been measured by _bowls of treacle_, the inclination of the treacle in the bowl showing the quantum of shock; and elsewhere (by a watchmaker) in Scotland, by placing a clock against each of the four walls of an apartment, and marking the centre of the disk of the pendulum with chalk: when the shock took place, the derangement caused the pendulum to strike against the back and front of the clock-case, when, of course, a mark would be left indicative of the phenomenon, though not of its amount. ------------------ THE DRUMMOND LIGHT. The importance of simplicity in inventions for popular use, has been shown in the late Lieutenant Drummond's apparatus for illuminating lighthouses with his oxyhydrogen light; that is, a stream of oxygen and another of hydrogen, directed upon a ball of lime. Experimentally, the light has succeeded beyond the expectation of the inventor; but the machinery or apparatus remains to be simplified before it can be worked by the keepers of lighthouses. ------------------ ST. PIERRE'S "PAUL AND VIRGINIA." Baron Humboldt, in his _Cosmos_, vol. ii., pays the following eloquent tribute to that small production of the creative imagination to which Bernardin de St. Pierre owes the fairest portion of his literary fame--Paul and Virginia--a work such as scarcely any other literature can show. "It is," says Humboldt, "a simple, but living picture of an island in the midst of the tropic seas, in which, sometimes smiled on by serene and favouring skies, sometimes threatened by the violent conflict of the elements, two young and graceful forms stand out picturesquely from the wild luxuriance of the vegetation of the forest, as from a flowery tapestry. Here the aspect of the sea, the grouping of the clouds, the rustling of the breeze in the bushes of the bamboo, and the waving of the lofty palmo, are painted with inimitable truth. "Bernardin de St. Pierre's master-work, Paul and Virginia, accompanied me into the zone to which it owes its origin. It was there read for many years by my dear companion and friend, Bonpland, and myself; and there (let this appeal to personal feelings be forgiven) under the silent brightness of the tropical sky, or when, in the rainy season, on the shores of the Orinoco, the thunder crashed, and the flashing lightnings illuminated the forest, we were deeply impressed and penetrated with the wonderful truth with which this little work paints the power of nature in the tropical zone in all its peculiarity of character.