Littell's Living Age/Volume 129/Issue 1664/Miscellany
Worse than being on a Jury. — The conclave of Gregory X. lasted two years, during which the Church of Rome was without an infallible head. Clement IV., the predecessor of Gregory, died at Viterbo, and the cardinals, not being able to agree upon the choice of a successor, were preparing to leave the town, when St. Buonaventura, the disciple of St. Francis of Assisi, persuaded the inhabitants to shut their gates, and not to let the cardinals go till a pope was made. The people took the saint's advice, and not only shut the gates of the town, but set a guard over the cardinals at the doors of the palace in which they met, and informed them that they could not even leave the palace until they had elected their pope. However, even then the cardinals could come to no agreement; they went on from month to month and month to month, still voting without producing the requisite majority, till one day the Cardinal del Porto exclaimed that the Holy Ghost could never come down and inspire their choice as long as they had a roof over their heads. The people of Viterbo took this profane joke seriously, and unroofed the palace. This measure, again, was still ineffectual, and the cardinals, it seemed, would never have arrived at any determination had the device not been hit upon of diminishing the supplies of their tables. This measure succeeded. Hunger effected more than rain or wind had done, and Gregory X. was elected. Gregory X., on his election, issued the bull that all future popes should be elected in conclave — that is, by an assembly of cardinals locked up together, and subject to specified restrictions as to diet and attendance until the election was over.
The Mountain Observatories in the United States. — In the Austrian Journal for March 15, Dr. Hann gives some interesting notes on the results furnished by the Signal Office in its annual reports for the two stations, Mount Washington, six thousand feet, and Pike's Peak, fourteen thousand feet above the sea. He complains, with justice, of the very scanty amount of information published for the stations. The temperature at Mount Washington resembles that at Hoch Obir in Carinthia, which is at a slightly higher level, and is also somewhat warmer. Pike's Peak enjoys a climate much like that of Nova Zembla, and if we compare it with Etna, at a similar elevation to its own, the chief difference to be found is in the greater heat of the summer at the American station. The decrease of temperature with height for Pike's Peak, Colorado Springs, and Denver, leads to the interesting result that this is least in cold weather, so that we cannot look to the descent of air from the upper regions of the atmosphere as accounting for intense cold. Dr. Hann reflects very severely on the practice of reducing barometer readings to sea-level, which for such a height as fourteen thousand feet is calculated to mislead entirely. In conclusion he expresses his sincere regret that the observations are not published in extenso.
An interesting work has lately been published at Caracas (Venezuela), entitled "The Basque Element in the History of Venezuela." The author, Don. Aristides Rojas, traces, in pure and idiomatic Castilian, the history of the early Basque immigrants, whom he characterizes as "warlike, proud, generous, simple, holding fast their secular traditions, primitive and austere customs and untrammelled independence, their civil liberty and deference to the popular will." The book was written at the instigation of the University of Caracas, to commemorate the erection in that city, some few years since, of a statue to Simon Bolivar, of Bolibar, as Señor Rojas prefers to designate "the liberator of America" (the B being Euscaro, and the V Latin). The introduction of the Basque element, according to Señor Rojas, dates back to the reign of Philip the Fifth, when the "Guipuzcoan Company" was established, and sent its pioneers to clear the forests, plant the virgin soil, and fight the Dutch. In allusion to the descendants of these colonizing Basques, Señor Rojas observes: "Still there was something greater than the reclamation and cultivation of the soil, greater than the glory and vanities of the world; that something was the family, the domestic hearth. Herein is the great virtue of the Basque wherever you find him: perseverance in right and well-doing, honour in his trading and rigid home sanctity, these are the inheritance of his ancestors;" these virtues characterizing their descendants to the present day. Venezuela was one of the first of the Spanish-American colonies to cast off the yoke of the mother country, and the whole history of this event in connection with Bolivar is descanted upon at length by Señor Rojas.
Letters received in Sydney from Signor d'Albertis, the Italian naturalist, we learn from the Times, who has been for some time resident on Yule Island, on the coast of New Guinea, give further accounts of the belt of coast land, twenty to twenty-five miles in width, of which he is able to speak, and so much of the land beyond this limit as was visible from the summit of a hill about 1,200 feet high. From this eminence he saw a large extent of plains, indented with lagoons, with the river Amama (the Hilda of the "Basilisk") flowing downward from a northerly direction to its junction with the Nicura, which discharges its waters into the sea. Apparently, this stream is deep enough to be navigable far into the interior, but its channel is seriously obstructed by fallen timbers. He ascended the Nicura River for a distance of eighteen or twenty miles, and found it fringed with mangroves for the first ten miles, after which these gave place to splendid thickets of the Nipa palm, while the eucalyptus and the grass-tree flourish at some distance from the stream. He crossed the Amama several times, and describes it as flowing through a large and fertile valley, apparently uninhabited, and well adapted for pastoral purposes. Nowhere did he find the natives possessing any knowledge of gold, silver, or any other metal. He confirms what has been said by Mr. Wallace and other travellers as regards the island being peopled by two races, the one mentally and physically superior to the other; the invaders having driven the indigenous tribes into the interior. The earlier inhabitants of New Guinea have darker skins than their conquerors, are shorter in stature, and their countenances are more prognathous than those of the coast tribes. The western side of New Guinea appears to be chiefly inhabited by the indigenous Papuans, and the eastern by a superior race.