Notes On Literature, Science, And Art.

It was on the 29 th of September , 1513 , that Vasco Nunez de Balboa discovered the South Sea , to which Magelhaens , eight years later , gave the name of the Pacific Ocean , on account of the calm weather that he found there ; and we find Drake , the "singe " -er of the Spaniards' beards , the first Englishman to reach its shores , when the future poet for all time , William Shakspere , was a lad of nine yearsromping among the wild flowers of Welcombeand in the

, , quiet streets of Stratford-on-Avon . From that time to our own day , various proposals have been made to cut a canal through the Isthmus of Panama , so as to connect the two oceans of the Atlantic and the Pacific , ancl so shorten the sea route . M . de Lesseps , whose persevering ingenuity accomplished the Suez Canal a few years ago , is now organising a scheme to carry out the dream of more than three centuries and a half ; so slow is the march of

Progress . Forty-seven miles of land only separate the two oceans where the railway , opened throughout for traffic January 28 th , 1855 , now runs . The Scientific American , however , is reviving a plan published in its columns thirtyfour years ago as quite practical and less expensive than the canal , which is to haul the laden vessels from sea to sea across the Isthmus on a ship railway . The late Horace Day , Captain Eads , and several eminent engineers have long

been convinced of the practicability and economy of the ship railway , which they have asserted could be constructed at one-third of the cost of the canal , capable of conveying the largest vessel , with its crew and cargo , from the moment it is taken charge of in one sea to its safe delivery in the other , in twenty-four hours . Verily , if all nations would agree to spend the ' money , mental ability , and physical strength , now worse than wasted in war , over developing the arts of peace , and so trul y civilising the world , what a paradise we could soon make of it . Every grand idea is but a day-dream until reduced to practice .

Whilst the French are contemplating admitting the cooling waters of the Mediterranean Ocean into a large , low-lying , arid tract of land in the northwestern part of Africa , so as to render Algeria both more commercially valuable and healthy , our American cousins , whose energy is indomitable , are contemplating the cutting of a short canal to convey the waters of the Pacific into an ancient sea-bed , now a dry desert , between the State of Arizona and Southern California , which is said to lay a hundred yards below the level of

the Pacific , and to measure two hundred miles in length by fifty miles in breadth . Its western side is onl y forty-five miles distant from the Gulf of California , ancl as there is a lake twenty miles long about midway , the canal to be cut would only be some twenty-five miles . The work could be accomplished in six months , and the expense is only estimated at £ 200 , 000 . Besides its great uses for navigation ancl as an immense fish-pond , its effect on the climate of the adjoining States would probably be very beneficial .

The Freemason—but for which we "Britishers" would know almost nothing of the doings of the Craft throughout the world—contains an account , contributed by Bro . A . Fabien , of the initiation of a candidate for Freemasonry in France , " altogether in the bosom of the air , in the basket of the grand balloon of Paris , " written up in the "Aerostatic Lodge , " b y 48 ° of latitude N . and 29 ° of longitude W . of the meridian of Paris , " at 900 metres of altitude above the profane world , " August 12 th , 1879 . " We explain to

him , " writes Bro . Fabien , " that if he thus dominates the profane world which he sees very far off at his feet , it is an emblem of the height to which Masonry seeks to elevate the souls of men above all human passions . " The duty of the T yler in keeping off all cowans and intruders from Freemasonry must have been far from irksome . The French correspondent of The Freemason does not inform us whether the brethren adjourned from labour to refreshment up aloft , and , if so , how the viands tasted " altogether in the bosom of the air . " Well , Bro . Fabien ' s communication is much more interesting than the dull