Wellnigh half a century has elapsed since the discovery of the beautiful Venus of Milo (the exact year was 1825), and yet now, for the first time, the endless discussions regarding two doubtful and interesting points in its history have been set at rest.  These two points are—­first, the original pose of the statue; and, secondly, the reason of its being armless.  After so many years of dispute over these questions, it occurred at length to M. Jules Ferry to do what of course ought to have been done long ago—­namely, go to the very spot whence the statue was exhumed, and there talk with all the surviving witnesses of the exhumation.  M. Ferry not long since put his idea into execution, went to Milo, took into consultation with him M. Brest, son of the consul who procured the statue for France, and found and cross-questioned two Greeks who were present at the unearthing of the statue.  M. Ferry has collected the details of his labors in an elaborate communication to the Academie des Beaux Arts, but a brief indication of the results obtained may be made as follows: 

First, then, the Venus was found in 1825 at the foot of a little hill, where it had been covered up by successive crumblings of the earth above.  The proprietor of the ground, wishing to clear a little more of the soil for his planting, chanced to strike the statue with his shovel.  “It was on its base, erect,” said the two Greek peasants to the French minister.  “With one hand she held together her draperies, and in the other an apple”—­the same, doubtless, that Paris had just given her.  Such, very briefly, is the clear, short, definite, decisive story which puts an end to ten thousand disquisitions and hypotheses about the pose.  The evidence thus given is that of people who actually saw what they describe.  But, secondly, what of those “long-lost arms”? and how came they to be lost?  The body of the Venus was formed of two blocks, and the arms were afterward fastened upon the trunk.  When discovered, it was intact.  M. Brest, the French consul, instantly bought the Venus for five hundred dollars, while the Turkish government on its part hurried off a small vessel to bring it away, offering the owner of the farm fivefold the French price, or something like two thousand five hundred dollars.  A French aviso, sent by M. de Riviere, the ambassador at Constantinople, arrived on the scene at the very moment when the Turks had got possession of the statue, and were embarking it on their vessel.  A dispute arose at once, and in the material as well as legal confusion the arms of the Venus, which had been detached for safer transportation, were missed.  The people of the neighborhood got up a story that the arms were carried off by the Turkish vessel out of chagrin and spite, but this seems to be mere surmise where all else is clear.

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