SOME one has fumbled, so to speak,—Winter
is here, and the new engineering building is
not under roof, and in a very unfinished con
dition generally. Furthermore, students passing
by upon the walk have for several weeks been star
tled by loud explosions in the cellar. An exam
nation shows that there can be learned as effec
tive a lesson as could be found in any of our text
books; —except—this is a lesson upon how not to
do things. The bases of several of the pillars show
cracks, evidently caused by settling due to shatter
ing of the supporting rock. The freezing of pools
of water which have collected in the excavation
at one or two points will certainly not add to the
stability of the foundation rock, which should
have remained intact and undisturbed.
If there has been necessity for any change of
plans, it is rather unfortunate. Every one must
say however, that the engineering building when
completed will be a grand and fine structure.
IT is said that students of Yale, seeing that there
would be a shortage of tickets for the Yale—
Harvard foot ball game, purchased tickets in
large numbers which they were enabled to sell at
exorbitant prices. It is to be hoped that few op
portunities will be offered for copying an example
which patrons, and admirers of foot ball must
everywhere deprecate.
THE present class in Geology has had the ben
efit of two geological excursions under the
direction of Prof. Buckhout. The itinerary
of the trip to Snow Shoe will be published in the
December Free Lance. It is to be hoped that this
most valuable, and effective means of instruction
will be not only continued in the future, but ex
tended.
WALSH’S Slogan ; Fisher! Fisher! Old King
Fisher ! What’s the matter with Fisher ?
Oh ! he’s all right! Fisher’s the man that
makes the fissures in Lafayette’s ranks !
THE FREE LANCE.
BEYOND THE ALPS LIES ITALY.
At the beginning of the second Punic war Rome
was mistress of all Italy, and we might say that she>
like Alexander the Great, was looking, for more
worlds to conquer. By her peace with Carthage
she had obtained in the island of Sicily her first
province. She now rather unfairly secured poss
ession of the islands of Sardinia and Corsica ; to
which Carthage retaliated by taking the Spanish
town of Seguntum, claimed by the Romans as an
ally. This precipitated a second war which was
carried on, on the part of Rome by Scipio; while
Carthage had for her leader Hannibal who, histo
ry tells us, was one of the greatest captains the
world has ever seen. Hannibal decided to make
one bold and effective stroke by invading Italy
from Spain by land with a force of sixty thousand
men. With this vast army he had to cross the
Pyrenees, traverse what is now southern France
and finally to surmount that then almost unsur
mountable barrier between central Europe and
Italy, the Alps and that, too under the furious as
saults of the barbarous mountaineers. Such an
undertaking would have been conceived by none
but a great soldier and statesman and would not
have been aTEempted but for his oath of vengeance
against the Romans and for a prize anything
less than Italy the garden land of all Europe. But
Hannibal did conceive and did accomplish
the task. The first part of the march presented
no very great difficulties, so we soon find him toil
ing up the narrow Alpine defiles, skirting preci
pices on this hand or avoiding dangers on that, yet
ever on his guard against (his foes.) Like the
true soldier that he was, we find him gaining by
strategy the advantages he could not gain by force ;
and in the hour of greatest peril, encouraging his
soldiers by reminding them that “Beyond the
Alps lies Italy.” In other words he tells them
that if they but persist and surmount the present ob
stacles, they will soon reach that land of milk and
honey, where the sweets of their conquests will be
but heightened by the memory of the difficulties
which they shall have overcome,