Having thus given a description of the carvings of this splendid cabinet, let me turn your attention to the enrichments in needlework, worked on black velvet, from nature, by Miss Kingsbury. The mottoes in frame for the different seasons are worked in floss silk of various colors; the inside doors--five in number--with wild flowers; and in front are rich specimens of raised embroidery, extending to the inside, and protected with plate glass. Miss Kingsbury is a young lady of Taunton, who has made this kind of work her peculiar forte.
Above the doors, also, are knitted flowers in Berlin wools, which fill the dome head, and are protected with bent plate glass. Almost every flower, as they bloom, are to be distinguished in these rich bouquets, with which the honeysuckle and passion flower are beautifully entwined.
Now, what think you of such a cabinet as this? Well, Charley, there are scores and scores of objects as much deserving a full description as this.
The department of machinery and steam power is entirely beyond my ability to speak of in proper terms. I have little mechanical genius, and I never am more out of my element than When surrounded by fly wheels, cylinders, and walking beams.
If our friend Ike had been here, lie would have been perfectly at home; and his pleasure and profit in this department would have surpassed any I could experience. I have only glanced at a few of the wonderful things in this wonderful place, and yet I have far exceeded the bounds of an ordinary letter.
One evening this week we spent very pleasantly at the Royal Polytechnic Institution for the advancement of the arts and sciences in connection with agriculture and manufactures. There is a large theatre, where all sorts of lectures are delivered, at various hours, upon philosophical and other subjects. Lecturers occupy the theatre in succession, and take up about half an hour. These are generally men of respectable abilities. The building is full of curiosities. We saw the model of the human ear, about one hundred and forty times larger than the natural organ. We saw a diving bell in the great hall, which is frequently put into action, and visitors are allowed to descend. That evening several made the experiment. The interior of the bell is lighted by thick plate glass. A very large number of models are to be seen, and there is much to interest the spectator. We heard a fine lecture respecting the experiment of Foucault, by which the diurnal rotation of the earth is said to be rendered visible to the eye. Foucault is a young Parisian, who, whilst engaged in some investigations with a pendulum in his mother's cellar, made this discovery, as he claims it to be. We saw the experiment repeated here on the same scale as it has recently been shown at the Pantheon at Paris. A brass sphere, weighing about five pounds, was suspended from the lofty ceiling by a piece of music wire, and made to vibrate in one plane over a table graduated into degrees. After a few vibrations, the direction of the pendulum appeared to be changed, as though the table had moved round on its owns axis.