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 Complex Networks
Principles, Methods and Applications

Networks constitute the backbone of complex systems, from the human brain to computer
communications, transport infrastructures to online social systems, metabolic reactions
to financial markets. Characterising their structure improves our understanding of the
physical, biological, economic and social phenomena that shape our world.
Rigorous and thorough, this textbook presents a detailed overview of the new theory
and methods of network science. Covering algorithms for graph exploration, node ranking
and network generation, among the others, the book allows students to experiment with
network models and real-world data sets, providing them with a deep understanding of the
basics of network theory and its practical applications. Systems of growing complexity are
examined in detail, challenging students to increase their level of skill. An engaging pre-
sentation of the important principles of network science makes this the perfect reference for
researchers and undergraduate and graduate students in physics, mathematics, engineering,
biology, neuroscience and social sciences.

Vito Latora is Professor of Applied Mathematics and Chair of Complex Systems at Queen
Mary University of London. Noted for his research in statistical physics and in complex
networks, his current interests include time-varying and multiplex networks, and their
applications to socio-economic systems and to the human brain.
Vincenzo Nicosia is Lecturer in Networks and Data Analysis at the School of Mathematical
Sciences at Queen Mary University of London. His research spans several aspects of net-
work structure and dynamics, and his recent interests include multi-layer networks and
their applications to big data modelling.
Giovanni Russo is Professor of Numerical Analysis in the Department of Mathematics and
Computer Science at the University of Catania, Italy, focusing on numerical methods
for partial differential equations, with particular application to hyperbolic and kinetic
problems.
 Complex Networks
Principles, Methods and Applications

VITO LATOR A
Queen Mary University of London

VINCENZO NICOSIA
Queen Mary University of London

GIOVANNI RUSSO
University of Catania, Italy
 University Printing House, Cambridge CB2 8BS, United Kingdom
One Liberty Plaza, 20th Floor, New York, NY 10006, USA
477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, VIC 3207, Australia
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Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge.

It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of
education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence.

www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781107103184
DOI: 10.1017/9781316216002
© Vito Latora, Vincenzo Nicosia and Giovanni Russo 2017
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without the written
permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 2017
Printed in the United Kingdom by TJ International Ltd. Padstow Cornwall
A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Latora, Vito, author. | Nicosia, Vincenzo, author. | Russo, Giovanni, author.
Title: Complex networks : principles, methods and applications / Vito Latora,
Queen Mary University of London, Vincenzo Nicosia, Queen Mary University
of London, Giovanni Russo, Università degli Studi di Catania, Italy.
Description: Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY : Cambridge University
Press, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017026029 | ISBN 9781107103184 (hardback)
Subjects: LCSH: Network analysis (Planning)
Classification: LCC T57.85 .L36 2017 | DDC 003/.72–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017026029
ISBN 978-1-107-10318-4 Hardback
Additional resources for this publication at www.cambridge.org/9781107103184.
Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of
URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication
and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain,
accurate or appropriate.
To Giusi, Francesca and Alessandra
 Contents

Preface page xi
Introduction xii
The Backbone of a Complex System xii
Complex Networks Are All Around Us xiv
Why Study Complex Networks? xv
Overview of the Book xvii
Acknowledgements xx

1 Graphs and Graph Theory 1

1.1 What Is a Graph? 1
1.2 Directed, Weighted and Bipartite Graphs 9
1.3 Basic Definitions 13
1.4 Trees 17
1.5 Graph Theory and the Bridges of Königsberg 19
1.6 How to Represent a Graph 23
1.7 What We Have Learned and Further Readings 28
Problems 28

2 Centrality Measures 31
2.1 The Importance of Being Central 31
2.2 Connected Graphs and Irreducible Matrices 34
2.3 Degree and Eigenvector Centrality 39
2.4 Measures Based on Shortest Paths 47
2.5 Movie Actors 56
2.6 Group Centrality 62
2.7 What We Have Learned and Further Readings 64
Problems 65

3 Random Graphs 69
3.1 Erdős and Rényi (ER) Models 69
3.2 Degree Distribution 76
3.3 Trees, Cycles and Complete Subgraphs 79
3.4 Giant Connected Component 84
3.5 Scientific Collaboration Networks 90
3.6 Characteristic Path Length 94
vii
viii Contents

3.7 What We Have Learned and Further Readings 103

Problems 104

4 Small-World Networks 107

4.1 Six Degrees of Separation 107
4.2 The Brain of a Worm 112
4.3 Clustering Coefficient 116
4.4 The Watts–Strogatz (WS) Model 127
4.5 Variations to the Theme 135
4.6 Navigating Small-World Networks 144
4.7 What We Have Learned and Further Readings 148
Problems 148

5 Generalised Random Graphs 151

5.1 The World Wide Web 151
5.2 Power-Law Degree Distributions 161
5.3 The Configuration Model 171
5.4 Random Graphs with Arbitrary Degree Distribution 178
5.5 Scale-Free Random Graphs 184
5.6 Probability Generating Functions 188
5.7 What We Have Learned and Further Readings 202
Problems 204

6 Models of Growing Graphs 206

6.1 Citation Networks and the Linear Preferential Attachment 206
6.2 The Barabási–Albert (BA) Model 215
6.3 The Importance of Being Preferential and Linear 224
6.4 Variations to the Theme 230
6.5 Can Latecomers Make It? The Fitness Model 241
6.6 Optimisation Models 248
6.7 What We Have Learned and Further Readings 252
Problems 253

7 Degree Correlations 257

7.1 The Internet and Other Correlated Networks 257
7.2 Dealing with Correlated Networks 262
7.3 Assortative and Disassortative Networks 268
7.4 Newman’s Correlation Coefficient 275
7.5 Models of Networks with Degree–Degree Correlations 285
7.6 What We Have Learned and Further Readings 290
Problems 291

8 Cycles and Motifs 294

8.1 Counting Cycles 294
8.2 Cycles in Scale-Free Networks 303
8.3 Spatial Networks of Urban Streets 307
ix Contents

8.4 Transcription Regulation Networks 316

8.5 Motif Analysis 324
8.6 What We Have Learned and Further Readings 329
Problems 330

9 Community Structure 332

9.1 Zachary’s Karate Club 332
9.2 The Spectral Bisection Method 336
9.3 Hierarchical Clustering 342
9.4 The Girvan–Newman Method 349
9.5 Computer Generated Benchmarks 354
9.6 The Modularity 357
9.7 A Local Method 365
9.8 What We Have Learned and Further Readings 369
Problems 371

10 Weighted Networks 374

10.1 Tuning the Interactions 374
10.2 Basic Measures 381
10.3 Motifs and Communities 387
10.4 Growing Weighted Networks 393
10.5 Networks of Stocks in a Financial Market 401
10.6 What We Have Learned and Further Readings 407
Problems 408

Appendices 410
A.1 Problems, Algorithms and Time Complexity 410
A.2 A Simple Introduction to Computational Complexity 420
A.3 Elementary Data Structures 425
A.4 Basic Operations with Sparse Matrices 440
A.5 Eigenvalue and Eigenvector Computation 444
A.6 Computation of Shortest Paths 452
A.7 Computation of Node Betweenness 462
A.8 Component Analysis 467
A.9 Random Sampling 474
A.10 Erdős and Rényi Random Graph Models 485
A.11 The Watts–Strogatz Small-World Model 489
A.12 The Configuration Model 492
A.13 Growing Unweighted Graphs 499
A.14 Random Graphs with Degree–Degree Correlations 506
A.15 Johnson’s Algorithm to Enumerate Cycles 508
A.16 Motifs Analysis 511
A.17 Girvan–Newman Algorithm 515
A.18 Greedy Modularity Optimisation 519
A.19 Label Propagation 524
x Contents

A.20 Kruskal’s Algorithm for Minimum Spanning Tree 528

A.21 Models for Weighted Networks 531
List of Programs 533

References 535
Author Index 550
Index 552
 Preface

Social systems, the human brain, the Internet and the World Wide Web are all examples
of complex networks, i.e. systems composed of a large number of units interconnected
through highly non-trivial patterns of interactions. This book is an introduction to the beau-
tiful and multidisciplinary world of complex networks. The readers of the book will be
exposed to the fundamental principles, methods and applications of a novel discipline: net-
work science. They will learn how to characterise the architecture of a network and model
its growth, and will uncover the principles common to networks from different fields.
The book covers a large variety of topics including elements of graph theory, social
networks and centrality measures, random graphs, small-world and scale-free networks,
models of growing graphs and degree–degree correlations, as well as more advanced topics
such as motif analysis, community structure and weighted networks. Each chapter presents
its main ideas together with the related mathematical definitions, models and algorithms,
and makes extensive use of network data sets to explore these ideas.
The book contains several practical applications that range from determining the role of
an individual in a social network or the importance of a player in a football team, to iden-
tifying the sub-areas of a nervous systems or understanding correlations between stocks in
a financial market.
Thanks to its colloquial style, the extensive use of examples and the accompanying soft-
ware tools and network data sets, this book is the ideal university-level textbook for a
first module on complex networks. It can also be used as a comprehensive reference for
researchers in mathematics, physics, engineering, biology and social sciences, or as a his-
torical introduction to the main findings of one of the most active interdisciplinary research
fields of the moment.
This book is fundamentally on the structure of complex networks, and we hope it will
be followed soon by a second book on the different types of dynamical processes that can
take place over a complex network.
Vito Latora
Vincenzo Nicosia
Giovanni Russo

xi
 Introduction

The Backbone of a Complex System

Imagine you are invited to a party; you observe what happens in the room when the other
guests arrive. They start to talk in small groups, usually of two people, then the groups grow
in size, they split, merge again, change shape. Some of the people move from one group
to another. Some of them know each other already, while others are introduced by mutual
friends at the party. Suppose you are also able to track all of the guests and their movements
in space; their head and body gestures, the content of their discussions. Each person is
different from the others. Some are more lively and act as the centre of the social gathering:
they tell good stories, attract the attention of the others and lead the group conversation.
Other individuals are more shy: they stay in smaller groups and prefer to listen to the
others. It is also interesting to notice how different genders and ages vary between groups.
For instance, there may be groups which are mostly male, others which are mostly female,
and groups with a similar proportion of both men and women. The topic of each discussion
might even depend on the group composition. Then, when food and beverages arrive, the
people move towards the main table. They organise into more or less regular queues, so
that the shape of the newly formed groups is different. The individuals rearrange again into
new groups sitting at the various tables. Old friends, but also those who have just met at
the party, will tend to sit at the same tables. Then, discussions will start again during the
dinner, on the same topics as before, or on some new topics. After dinner, when the music
begins, we again observe a change in the shape and size of the groups, with the formation
of couples and the emergence of collective motion as everybody starts to dance.
The social system we have just considered is a typical example of what is known today
as a complex system [16, 44]. The study of complex systems is a new science, and so a
commonly accepted formal definition of a complex system is still missing. We can roughly
say that a complex system is a system made by a large number of single units (individuals,
components or agents) interacting in such a way that the behaviour of the system is not
a simple combination of the behaviours of the single units. In particular, some collective
behaviours emerge without the need for any central control. This is exactly what we have
observed by monitoring the evolution of our party with the formation of social groups, and
the emergence of discussions on some particular topics. This kind of behaviour is what we
find in human societies at various levels, where the interactions of many individuals give
rise to the emergence of civilisation, urban forms, cultures and economies. Analogously,
animal societies such as, for instance, ant colonies, accomplish a variety of different tasks,

xii
xiii Introduction

from nest maintenance to the organisation of food search, without the need for any central
control.
Let us consider another example of a complex system, certainly the most representative
and beautiful one: the human brain. With around 102 billion neurons, each connected by
synapses to several thousand other neurons, this is the most complicated organ in our body.
Neurons are cells which process and transmit information through electrochemical signals.
Although neurons are of different types and shapes, the “integrate-and-fire” mechanism
at the core of their dynamics is relatively simple. Each neuron receives synaptic signals,
which can be either excitatory or inhibitory, from other neurons. These signals are then
integrated and, provided the combined excitation received is larger than a certain threshold,
the neuron fires. This firing generates an electric signal, called an action potential, which
propagates through synapses to other neurons. Notwithstanding the extreme simplicity of
the interactions, the brain self-organises collective behaviours which are difficult to pre-
dict from our knowledge of the dynamics of its individual elements. From an avalanche of
simple integrate-and-fire interactions, the neurons of the brain are capable of organising a
large variety of wonderful emerging behaviours. For instance, sensory neurons coordinate
the response of the body to touch, light, sounds and other external stimuli. Motor neurons
are in charge of the body’s movement by controlling the contraction or relaxation of the
muscles. Neurons of the prefrontal cortex are responsible for reasoning and abstract think-
ing, while neurons of the limbic system are involved in processing social and emotional
information.
Over the years, the main focus of scientific research has been on the characteristics of the
individual components of a complex system and to understand the details of their interac-
tions. We can now say that we have learnt a lot about the different types of nerve cells and
the ways they communicate with each other through electrochemical signals. Analogously,
we know how the individuals of a social group communicate through both spoken and body
language, and the basic rules through which they learn from one another and form or match
their opinions. We also understand the basic mechanisms of interactions in social animals;
we know that, for example, ants produce chemicals, known as pheromones, through which
they communicate, organise their work and mark the location of food. However, there is
another very important, and in no way trivial, aspect of complex systems which has been
explored less. This has to do with the structure of the interactions among the units of a
complex system: which unit is connected to which others. For instance, if we look at the
connections between the neurons in the brain and construct a similar network whose nodes
are neurons and the links are the synapses which connect them, we find that such a net-
work has some special mathematical properties which are fundamental for the functioning
of the brain. For instance, it is always possible to move from one node to any other in a
small number of steps, and, particularly if the two nodes belong to the same brain area,
there are many alternative paths between them. Analogously, if we take snapshots of who
is talking to whom at our hypothetical party, we immediately see that the architecture of
the obtained networks, whose nodes represent individuals and links stand for interactions,
plays a crucial role in both the propagation of information and the emergence of collective
behaviours. Some sub-structures of a network propagate information faster than others;
this means that nodes occupying strategic positions will have better access to the resources
xiv Introduction

of the system. In practice, what also matters in a complex system, and it matters a lot, is
the backbone of the system, or, in other words, the architecture of the network of interac-
tions. It is precisely on these complex networks, i.e. on the networks of the various complex
systems that populate our world, that we will be focusing in this book.

Complex Networks Are All Around Us

Networks permeate all aspects of our life and constitute the backbone of our modern world.
To understand this, think for a moment about what you might do in a typical day. When
you get up early in the morning and turn on the light in your bedroom, you are connected
to the electrical power grid, a network whose nodes are either power stations or users,
while links are copper cables which transport electric current. Then you meet the people of
your family. They are part of your social network whose nodes are people and links stand
for kinship, friendship or acquaintance. When you take a shower and cook your breakfast
you are respectively using a water distribution network, whose nodes are water stations,
reservoirs, pumping stations and homes, and links are pipes, and a gas distribution network.
If you go to work by car you are moving in the street network of your city, whose nodes
are intersections and links are streets. If you take the underground then you make use of a
transportation network, whose nodes are the stations and links are route segments.
When you arrive at your office you turn on your laptop, whose internal circuits form a
complicated microscopic network of logic gates, and connect it to the Internet, a worldwide
network of computers and routers linked by physical or logical connections. Then you
check your emails, which belong to an email communication network, whose nodes are
people and links indicate email exchanges among them. When you meet a colleague, you
and your colleague form part of a collaboration network, in which an edge exists between
two persons if they have collaborated on the same project or coauthored a paper. Your
colleagues tell you that your last paper has got its first hundred citations. Have you ever
thought of the fact that your papers belong to a citation network, where the nodes represent
papers, and links are citations?
At lunchtime you read the news on the website of your preferred newspaper: in doing
this you access the World Wide Web, a huge global information network whose nodes are
webpages and edges are clickable hyperlinks between pages. You will almost surely then
check your Facebook account, a typical example of an online social network, then maybe
have a look at the daily trending topics on Twitter, an information network whose nodes
are people and links are the “following” relations.
Your working day proceeds quietly, as usual. Around 4:00pm you receive a phone call
from your friend John, and you immediately think about the phone call network, where
two individuals are connected by a link if they have exchanged a phone call. John invites
you and your family for a weekend at his cottage near the lake. Lakes are home to a
variety of fishes, insects and animals which are part of a food web network, whose links
indicate predation among different species. And while John tells you about the beauty of
his cottage, an image of a mountain lake gradually forms in your mind, and you can see a
xv Introduction

white waterfall cascading down a cliff, and a stream flowing quietly through a green valley.
There is no need to say that “lake”, “waterfall”, “white”, “stream”, “cliff”, “valley” and
“green” form a network of words associations, in which a link exists between two words
if these words are often associated with each other in our minds. Before leaving the office,
you book a flight to go to Prague for a conference. Obviously, also the air transportation
system is a network, whose nodes are airports and links are airline routes.
When you drive back home you feel a bit tired and you think of the various networks
in our body, from the network of blood vessels which transports blood to our organs to the
intricate set of relationships among genes and proteins which allow the perfect functioning
of the cells of our body. Examples of these genetic networks are the transcription regula-
tion networks in which the nodes are genes and links represent transcription regulation of
a gene by the transcription factor produced by another gene, protein interaction networks
whose nodes are protein and there is a link between two proteins if they bind together to
perform complex cellular functions, and metabolic networks where nodes are chemicals,
and links represent chemical reactions.
During dinner you hear on the news that the total export for your country has decreased
by 2.3% this year; the system of commercial relationships among countries can be seen
as a network, in which links indicate import/export activities. Then you watch a movie on
your sofa: you can construct an actor collaboration network where nodes represent movie
actors and links are formed if two actors have appeared in the same movie. Exhausted, you
go to bed and fall asleep while images of networks of all kinds still twist and dance in your
mind, which is, after all, the marvellous combination of the activity of billions of neurons
and trillions of synapses in your brain network. Yet another network.

Why Study Complex Networks?

In the late 1990s two research papers radically changed our view on complex systems,
moving the attention of the scientific community to the study of the architecture of a com-
plex system and creating an entire new research field known today as network science. The
first paper, authored by Duncan Watts and Steven Strogatz, was published in the journal
Nature in 1998 and was about small-world networks [311]. The second one, on scale-free
networks, appeared one year later in Science and was authored by Albert-László Barabási
and Réka Albert [19]. The two papers provided clear indications, from different angles,
that:

• the networks of real-world complex systems have non-trivial structures and are very
different from lattices or random graphs, which were instead the standard networks
commonly used in all the current models of a complex system.
• some structural properties are universal, i.e. are common to networks as diverse as those
of biological, social and man-made systems.
• the structure of the network plays a major role in the dynamics of a complex system and
characterises both the emergence and the properties of its collective behaviours.
xvi Introduction

Table 1 A list of the real-world complex networks that will be studied in this book. For each network, we
report the chapter of the book where the corresponding data set will be introduced and analysed.
Complex networks Nodes Links Chapter
Elisa’s kindergarten Children Friendships 1
Actor collaboration networks Movie actors Co-acting in a film 2
Co-authorship networks Scientists Co-authoring a paper 3
Citation networks Scientific papers Citations 6
Zachary’s karate club Club members Friendships 9
C. elegans neural network Neurons Synapses 4
Transcription regulation networks Genes Transcription regulation 8
World Wide Web Web pages Hyperlinks 5
Internet Routers Optical fibre cables 7
Urban street networks Street crossings Streets 8
Air transport network Airports Flights 10
Financial markets Stocks Time correlations 10

Both works were motivated by the empirical analysis of real-world systems. Four net-
works were introduced and studied in these two papers. Namely, the neural system of
a few-millimetres-long worm known as the C. elegans, a social network describing how
actors collaborate in movies, and two man-made networks: the US electrical power grid and
a sample of the World Wide Web. During the last decade, new technologies and increasing
computing power have made new data available and stimulated the exploration of several
other complex networks from the real world. A long series of papers has followed, with
the analysis of new and ever larger networks, and the introduction of novel measures and
models to characterise and reproduce the structure of these real-world systems. Table 1
shows only a small sample of the networks that have appeared in the literature, namely
those that will be explicitly studied in this book, together with the chapter where they
will be considered. Notice that the table includes different types of networks. Namely,
five networks representing three different types of social interactions (namely friendships,
collaborations and citations), two biological systems (respectively a neural and a gene net-
work) and five man-made networks (from transportation and communication systems to a
network of correlations among financial stocks).
The ubiquitousness of networks in nature, technology and society has been the principal
motivation behind the systematic quantitative study of their structure, their formation and
their evolution. And this is also the main reason why a student of any scientific discipline
should be interested in complex networks. In fact, if we want to master the interconnected
world we live in, we need to understand the structure of the networks around us. We have
to learn the basic principles governing the architecture of networks from different fields,
and study how to model their growth.
It is also important to mention the high interdisciplinarity of network science. Today,
research on complex networks involves scientists with expertise in areas such as mathe-
matics, physics, computer science, biology, neuroscience and social science, often working
 xvii Introduction

10000 800
WS
8000 BA
600

# citations
6000

# papers
400
4000

2000 200

0
1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015
year year
t
Fig. 1 Left panel: number of citations received over the years by the 1998 Watts and Strogatz (WS) article on small-world
networks and by the 1999 Barabási and Albert (BA) article on scale-free networks. Right panel: number of papers on
complex networks that appeared each year in the public preprint archive arXiv.org.

side by side. Because of its interdisciplinary nature, the generality of the results obtained,
and the wide variety of possible applications, network science is considered today a
necessary ingredient in the background of any modern scientist.
Finally, it is not difficult to understand that complex networks have become one of the
hottest research fields in science. This is confirmed by the attention and the huge number
of citations received by Watts and Strogatz, and by Barabási and Albert, in the papers
mentioned above. The temporal profiles reported in the left panel of Figure 1 show the
exponential increase in the number of citations of these two papers since their publication.
The two papers have today about 10,000 citations each and, as already mentioned, have
opened a new research field stimulating interest for complex networks in the scientific
community and triggering an avalanche of scientific publications on related topics. The
right panel of Figure 1 reports the number of papers published each year after 1998 on the
well-known public preprint archive arXiv.org with the term “complex networks” in their
title or abstract. Notice that this number has gone up by a factor of 10 in the last ten years,
with almost a thousand papers on the topic published in the archive in the year 2013. The
explosion of interest in complex networks is not limited to the scientific community, but
has become a cultural phenomenon with the publications of various popular science books
on the subject.

Overview of the Book

This book is mainly intended as a textbook for an introductory course on complex networks
for students in physics, mathematics, engineering and computer science, and for the more
mathematically oriented students in biology and social sciences. The main purpose of the
book is to expose the readers to the fundamental ideas of network science, and to provide
them with the basic tools necessary to start exploring the world of complex networks. We
also hope that the book will be able to transmit to the reader our passion for this stimulating
new interdisciplinary subject.
xviii Introduction

The standard tools to study complex networks are a mixture of mathematical and com-
putational methods. They require some basic knowledge of graph theory, probability,
differential equations, data structures and algorithms, which will be introduced in this
book from scratch and in a friendly way. Also, network theory has found many interest-
ing applications in several different fields, including social sciences, biology, neuroscience
and technology. In the book we have therefore included a large variety of examples to
emphasise the power of network science. This book is essentially on the structure of com-
plex networks, since we have decided that the detailed treatment of the different types of
dynamical processes that can take place over a complex network should be left to another
book, which will follow this one.
The book is organised into ten chapters. The first six chapters (Chapters 1–6) form the
core of the book. They introduce the main concepts of network science and the basic
measures and models used to characterise and reproduce the structure of various com-
plex networks. The remaining four chapters (Chapters 7–10) cover more advanced topics
that could be skipped by a lecturer who wants to teach a short course based on the book.
In Chapter 1 we introduce some basic definitions from graph theory, setting up the lan-
guage we will need for the remainder of the book. The aim of the chapter is to show
that complex network theory is deeply grounded in a much older mathematical discipline,
namely graph theory.
In Chapter 2 we focus on the concept of centrality, along with some of the related mea-
sures originally introduced in the context of social network analysis, which are today used
extensively in the identification of the key components of any complex system, not only
of social networks. We will see some of the measures at work, using them to quantify the
centrality of movie actors in the actor collaboration network.
Chapter 3 is where we first discuss network models. In this chapter we introduce the
classical random graph models proposed by Erdős and Rényi (ER) in the late 1950s, in
which the edges are randomly distributed among the nodes with a uniform probability.
This allows us to analytically derive some important properties such as, for instance, the
number and order of graph components in a random graph, and to use ER models as term
of comparison to investigate scientific collaboration networks. We will also show that the
average distance between two nodes in ER random graphs increases only logarithmically
with the number of nodes.
In Chapter 4 we see that in real-world systems, such as the neural network of the C. ele-
gans or the movie actor collaboration network, the neighbours of a randomly chosen node
are directly linked to each other much more frequently than would occur in a purely ran-
dom network, giving rise to the presence of many triangles. In order to quantify this, we
introduce the so-called clustering coefficient. We then discuss the Watts and Strogatz (WS)
small-world model to construct networks with both a small average distance between nodes
and a high clustering coefficient.
In Chapter 5 the focus is on how the degree k is distributed among the nodes of a network.
We start by considering the graph of the World Wide Web and by showing that it is a
scale-free network, i.e. it has a power–law degree distribution pk ∼ k−γ with an exponent
γ ∈ [2, 3]. This is a property shared by many other networks, while neither ER random
graphs nor the WS model can reproduce such a feature. Hence, we introduce the so-called
xix Introduction

configuration model which generalises ER random graph models to incorporate arbitrary

degree distributions.
In Chapter 6 we show that real networks are not static, but grow over time with the
addition of new nodes and links. We illustrate this by studying the basic mechanisms of
growth in citation networks. We then consider whether it is possible to produce scale-free
degree distributions by modelling the dynamical evolution of the network. For this purpose
we introduce the Barabási–Albert model, in which newly arriving nodes select and link
existing nodes with a probability linearly proportional to their degree. We also consider
some extensions and modifications of this model.
In the last four chapters we cover more advanced topics on the structure of complex
networks.
Chapter 7 is about networks with degree–degree correlations, i.e. networks such that the
probability that an edge departing from a node of degree k arrives at a node of degree k′
is a function both of k′ and of k. Degree–degree correlations are indeed present in real-
world networks, such as the Internet, and can be either positive (assortative) or negative
(disassortative). In the first case, networks with small degree preferentially link to other
low-degree nodes, while in the second case they link preferentially to high-degree ones. In
this chapter we will learn how to take degree–degree correlations into account, and how to
model correlated networks.
In Chapter 8 we deal with the cycles and other small subgraphs known as motifs which
occur in most networks more frequently than they would in random graphs. We consider
two applications: firstly we count the number of short cycles in urban street networks of
different cities from all over the world; secondly we will perform a motif analysis of the
transcription network of the bacterium E. coli.
Chapter 9 is about network mesoscale structures known as community structures. Com-
munities are groups of nodes that are more tightly connected to each other than to other
nodes. In this chapter we will discuss various methods to find meaningful divisions of
the nodes of a network into communities. As a benchmark we will use a real network, the
Zachary’s karate club, where communities are known a priori, and also models to construct
networks with a tunable presence of communities.
In Chapter 10 we deal with weighted networks, where each link carries a numerical value
quantifying the intensity of the connection. We will introduce the basic measures used to
characterise and classify weighted networks, and we will discuss some of the models of
weighted networks that reproduce empirically observed topology–weight correlations. We
will study in detail two weighted networks, namely the US air transport network and a
network of financial stocks.
Finally, the book’s Appendix contains a detailed description of all the main graph algo-
rithms discussed in the various chapters of the book, from those to find shortest paths,
components or community structures in a graph, to those to generate random graphs or
scale-free networks. All the algorithms are presented in a C-like pseudocode format which
allows us to understand their basic structure without the unnecessary complication of a
programming language.
The organisation of this textbook is another reason why it is different from all the other
existing books on networks. We have in fact avoided the widely adopted separation of
xx Introduction

the material in theory and applications, or the division of the book into separate chap-
ters respectively dealing with empirical studies of real-world networks, network measures,
models, processes and computer algorithms. Each chapter in our book discusses, at the
same time, real-world networks, measures, models and algorithms while, as said before,
we have left the study of processes on networks to an entire book, which will follow this
one. Each chapter of this book presents a new idea or network property: it introduces a
network data set, proposes a set of mathematical quantities to investigate such a network,
describes a series of network models to reproduce the observed properties, and also points
to the related algorithms. In this way, the presentation follows the same path of the current
research in the field, and we hope that it will result in a more logical and more entertaining
text. Although the main focus of this book is on the mathematical modelling of complex
networks, we also wanted the reader to have direct access to both the most famous data
sets of real-world networks and to the numerical algorithms to compute network proper-
ties and to construct networks. For this reason, the data sets of all the real-world networks
listed in Table 1 are introduced and illustrated in special DATA SET Boxes, usually one
for each chapter of the book, and can be downloaded from the book’s webpage at www.
complex-networks.net. On the same webpage the reader can also find an implemen-
tation in the C language of the graph algorithms illustrated in the Appendix (in C-like
pseudocode format). We are sure that the student will enjoy experimenting directly on real-
world networks, and will benefit from the possibility of reproducing all of the numerical
results presented throughout the book.
The style of the book is informal and the ideas are illustrated with examples and appli-
cations drawn from the recent research literature and from different disciplines. Of course,
the problem with such examples is that no-one can simultaneously be an expert in social
sciences, biology and computer science, so in each of these cases we will set up the relative
background from scratch. We hope that it will be instructive, and also fun, to see the con-
nections between different fields. Finally, all the mathematics is thoroughly explained, and
we have decided never to hide the details, difficulties and sometimes also the incoherences
of a science still in its infancy.

Acknowledgements

Writing this book has been a long process which started almost ten years ago. The book has
grown from the notes of various university courses, first taught at the Physics Department
of the University of Catania and at the Scuola Superiore di Catania in Italy, and more
recently to the students of the Masters in “Network Science” at Queen Mary University of
London.
The book would not have been the same without the interactions with the students we
have met at the different stages of the writing process, and their scientific curiosity. Special
thanks go to Alessio Cardillo, Roberta Sinatra, Salvatore Scellato and the other students
and alumni of Scuola Superiore, Salvatore Assenza, Leonardo Bellocchi, Filippo Caruso,
Paolo Crucitti, Manlio De Domenico, Beniamino Guerra, Ivano Lodato, Sandro Meloni,
xxi Introduction

Andrea Santoro and Federico Spada, and to the students of the Masters in “Network
Science”.
We acknowledge the great support of the members of the Laboratory of Complex
Systems at Scuola Superiore di Catania, Giuseppe Angilella, Vincenza Barresi, Arturo
Buscarino, Daniele Condorelli, Luigi Fortuna, Mattia Frasca, Jesús Gómez-Gardeñes and
Giovanni Piccitto; of our colleagues in the Complex Systems and Networks research
group at the School of Mathematical Sciences of Queen Mary University of London,
David Arrowsmith, Oscar Bandtlow, Christian Beck, Ginestra Bianconi, Leon Danon,
Lucas Lacasa, Rosemary Harris, Wolfram Just; and of the PhD students Federico Bat-
tiston, Moreno Bonaventura, Massimo Cavallaro, Valerio Ciotti, Iacopo Iacovacci, Iacopo
Iacopini, Daniele Petrone and Oliver Williams.
We are greatly indebted to our colleagues Elsa Arcaute, Alex Arenas, Domenico
Asprone, Tomaso Aste, Fabio Babiloni, Franco Bagnoli, Andrea Baronchelli, Marc
Barthélemy, Mike Batty, Armando Bazzani, Stefano Boccaletti, Marián Boguñá, Ed
Bullmore, Guido Caldarelli, Domenico Cantone, Gastone Castellani, Mario Chavez, Vit-
toria Colizza, Regino Criado, Fabrizio De Vico Fallani, Marina Diakonova, Albert Dí
az-Guilera, Tiziana Di Matteo, Ernesto Estrada, Tim Evans, Alfredo Ferro, Alessan-
dro Fiasconaro, Alessandro Flammini, Santo Fortunato, Andrea Giansanti, Georg von
Graevenitz, Paolo Grigolini, Peter Grindrod, Des Higham, Giulia Iori, Henrik Jensen,
Renaud Lambiotte, Pietro Lió, Vittorio Loreto, Paolo de Los Rios, Fabrizio Lillo, Carmelo
Maccarrone, Athen Ma, Sabato Manfredi, Massimo Marchiori, Cecilia Mascolo, Rosario
Mantegna, Andrea Migliano, Raúl Mondragón, Yamir Moreno, Mirco Musolesi, Giuseppe
Nicosia, Pietro Panzarasa, Nicola Perra, Alessandro Pluchino, Giuseppe Politi, Sergio
Porta, Mason Porter, Giovanni Petri, Gaetano Quattrocchi, Daniele Quercia, Filippo Radic-
chi, Andrea Rapisarda, Daniel Remondini, Alberto Robledo, Miguel Romance, Vittorio
Rosato, Martin Rosvall, Maxi San Miguel, Corrado Santoro, M. Ángeles Serrano, Simone
Severini, Emanuele Strano, Michael Szell, Bosiljka Tadić, Constantino Tsallis, Stefan
Thurner, Hugo Touchette, Petra Vértes, Lucio Vinicius for the many stimulating discus-
sions and for their useful comments. We thank in particular Olle Persson, Luciano Da
Fontoura Costa, Vittoria Colizza, and Rosario Mantegna for having provided us with their
network data sets.
We acknowledge the European Commission project LASAGNE (multi-LAyer SpA-
tiotemporal Generalized NEtworks), Grant 318132 (STREP), the EPSRC project GALE,
Grant EP/K020633/1, and INFN FB11/TO61, which have supported and made possible
our work at the various stages of this project.
Finally, we thank our families for their never-ending support and encouragement.
Life is all mind, heart and relations
Salvatore Latora
Philosopher
1 Graphs and Graph Theory

Graphs are the mathematical objects used to represent networks, and graph theory is the
branch of mathematics that deals with the study of graphs. Graph theory has a long his-
tory. The notion of the graph was introduced for the first time in 1763 by Euler, to settle
a famous unsolved problem of his time: the so-called Königsberg bridge problem. It is no
coincidence that the first paper on graph theory arose from the need to solve a problem from
the real world. Also subsequent work in graph theory by Kirchhoff and Cayley had its root
in the physical world. For instance, Kirchhoff’s investigations into electric circuits led to
his development of a set of basic concepts and theorems concerning trees in graphs. Nowa-
days, graph theory is a well-established discipline which is commonly used in areas as
diverse as computer science, sociology and biology. To give some examples, graph theory
helps us to schedule airplane routing and has solved problems such as finding the max-
imum flow per unit time from a source to a sink in a network of pipes, or colouring the
regions of a map using the minimum number of different colours so that no neighbouring
regions are coloured the same way. In this chapter we introduce the basic definitions, set-
ting up the language we will need in the rest of the book. We also present the first data set
of a real network in this book, namely Elisa’s kindergarten network. The two final sections
are devoted to, respectively, the proof of the Euler theorem and the description of a graph
as an array of numbers.

1.1 What Is a Graph?

The natural framework for the exact mathematical treatment of a complex network is a
branch of discrete mathematics known as graph theory [48, 47, 313, 150, 272, 144]. Dis-
crete mathematics, also called finite mathematics, is the study of mathematical structures
that are fundamentally discrete, i.e. made up of distinct parts, not supporting or requiring
the notion of continuity. Most of the objects studied in discrete mathematics are count-
able sets, such as integers and finite graphs. Discrete mathematics has become popular in
recent decades because of its applications to computer science. In fact, concepts and nota-
tions from discrete mathematics are often useful to study or describe objects or problems
in computer algorithms and programming languages. The concept of the graph is better
introduced by the two following examples.
1
Exploring the Variety of Random
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HARPER'S
NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE.

No. XI.—APRIL, 1851— Vol. II.

 Washington Irving
[From a Daguerreotype by Plumbe.]

T here is a freshness about the fame and the character of Mr.

Irving, no less than about his writings, which enables us to
contemplate them with unabated delight. Few men are so identified
personally with their literary productions, or have combined with
admiration of their genius such a cordial, home-like welcome in the
purest affections of their readers. We never become weary with the
repetition of his familiar name; no caprice of fashion tempts us to
enthrone a new idol in place of the ancient favorite; and even
intellectual jealousies shrink back before the soft brilliancy of his
reputation. In the present Number of our Magazine, we give our
readers a portrait of the cherished author, with a sketch of his sunny
residence, which we are sure will be a grateful memorial of one, to
whom our countrymen owe such an accumulated fund of exquisite
enjoyments and delicious recollections. We will not let the occasion
pass without a few words of recognition, though conscious of no
wish to indulge in criticisms which at this late day might appear
superfluous.

The position of Mr. Irving in American literature is no less peculiar

than it is enviable. With the exception of Mr. Paulding, none of our
eminent living authors have been so long before the public. He
commenced his career as a writer almost with the commencement
of the present century. The first indications of his rich vein of humor
and invention that appeared through the press, were contained in
the Jonathan Oldstyle Letters, published in the Morning Chronicle in
1802, when he was in the twentieth year of his age. His health at
this time having become seriously impaired, he spent a few years in
European travel, and soon after his return in 1806, he wrote the
sparkling papers in Salmagundi, which at once decided his position
as a shrewd observer of society, a pointed and vigorous satirist, a
graphic delineator of manners, and a quaint moral teacher, whose
joyous humor graciously attempered the bitterness of his wit. It was
not, however, till the appearance of Knickerbocker, that his unique
powers, in this respect, were displayed in all their vernal bloom,
giving the promise of future golden harvests, which has since been
more than redeemed in the richness and beauty of the varied
productions of his genius.

The lapse of years has brought no cloud over the early brightness of
Mr. Irving's fame. He has sustained his reputation with an elastic
vigor that shows the soundness of its elements. At the dawn of
American letters, he was acknowledged to possess those
enchantments of style, that betray the hand of a master. His rare
genius captivated all hearts. His name was identified by our citizens
with the racy chronicles of their Dutch ancestors, and soon became
associated with local recollections and family traditions. Born in a
quarter of the town, whose original features have passed away
before the encroachments of business, he has witnessed the growth
of his fame with the growth of the city. The memory of Diedrich
Knickerbocker is now immortalized at the corners of the streets, and
in our most crowded thoroughfares. Even the dusty haunts of
Mammon are refreshed with the emblems of a man of genius who
once trod their pavements.

With his successive publications, a new phase of Mr. Irving's

intellectual character was displayed to the public, but with no
decrease of the admiration, which from the first had stamped him as
a universal favorite. The Sketch Book, Bracebridge Hall, and Tales of
a Traveler revealed a magic felicity of description, with a pathetic
tenderness of sentiment, that gave a still more mellow beauty to his
composition; while his elaborate historical work, The Life of
Columbus, established his reputation for unrivaled skill in sustaining
the continuous interest of a narrative, and in grouping its details
with admirable picturesque effect. His later productions, illustrative
of Indian life, and his still more recent works on the history of
Mahomet and the biography of Goldsmith, are marked with the
characteristic traits of the author, proving that his right hand has lost
none of its cunning, nor his tongue aught of its mellifluous
sweetness.

It is highly creditable to the tastes of the present generation, that

Mr. Irving retains, to such a remarkable degree, his wonted
ascendency. Other authors of acknowledged eminence have arisen in
various departments of literature, since he won his earlier laurels,
and many of them since he has ceased to be a young man, but they
have not enticed the more youthful class of readers from the
allegiance which was paid to him by their fathers. The monarch that
knew not Joseph has not yet ascended the throne. Indeed many of
the most true-hearted admirers of Mr. Irving were not born until long
after the Sketch Book had made his name a household word among
the tasteful readers of English literature. This enduring popularity
could not spring from any accidental causes. It must proceed from
those qualities in the author, which are the pledge of a permanent
fame. If a foretaste of literary immortality is desirable on earth, we
may congratulate Mr. Irving on the possession of one of its most
significant symbols, in the unfading brilliancy of his reputation for
little less than half a century.

We have already alluded to the use made by Mr. Irving of the

historical legends of our country. Nor is this his only claim on the
American heart. He is peculiarly a national writer. He has sought his
inspirations from the woods and streams, the lakes and prairies of
his native land. No poet has been more successful in throwing the
spell of romance around our familiar scenery. Under his creative pen
the lordly heights of the Hudson have become classic ground. The
beings of his weird fancy have peopled their forest dells, and
obtained a "local habitation" as permanent as the river and the
mountains. His love of country is a genial passion, inspired by the
reminiscences of his youth, and quickened by the studies of his
manhood. He is proud of his birthright in a land of freedom. His
protracted residence abroad has never seduced him from the ardor
of his first attachment to the American soil. His favorite writings are
pervaded with this spirit. Yet he betrays none of the prejudices of
national pride. His patriotism is free from all tincture of bigotry. He
scorns the narrowness of exclusive partialities. With genuine
cosmopolitan tastes, he gathers up all that is precious and beautiful
in the traditions, or manners, or institutions of other lands, finding
materials for his gorgeous pictures in the ancestral glories of English
castles, and the splendid ruins of the Alhambra, as well as in the
quaint legends of Manhattan, and the adventures of trapper life in
the Far West. This singular universality has given him the freedom of
the whole literary world. As he every where finds himself at home,
his fame is not the monopoly of any nation. He has his circle of
admirers around the hearth-stones of every cultivated people. Even
the English, who are slow to recognize a melody in their own
language when spoken by a transatlantic tongue, have vied with his
countrymen in rendering homage to his genius. His evident mastery,
even in those departments of composition which have been the
favorite sphere of the most popular English writers, has softened the
asperity of criticism, and won a genial admiration from the
worshipers of Addison, Goldsmith, and Mackenzie. In this respect Mr.
Irving stands alone among American writers. Cherished with a glow
of affectionate enthusiasm by his own countrymen, he has secured a
no less beautiful fame among myriads of readers, with whom his
sole intellectual tie is the spontaneous attraction of his genius.

His universality is displayed with equal strength in the influence

which he exerts over all classes of minds. He has never been raised
to a factitious eminence by the applauses of a clique. His fame is as
natural and as healthy as his character, owing none of its lustre to
the gloss of flattery, or the glare of fashion. His themes have been
taken, to a great extent from common life. He has derived the
coloring of his pictures from the universal sentiments of humanity.
He is equally free from cold, prosaic, common-place hardness of
feeling and from sickly and mawkish effeminacy. He loves to deal
with matters of fact, but always surrounds them with the light of his
radiant imagination. He exalts and glorifies the actual, without losing
it in the clouds of a vaporous ideal. Refined and fastidious in feeling,
he retains his sympathy with the most homely realities of life,
chuckles over the luscious comforts of a Dutch ménage, and
professes no philosophical indifference to the savor of smoking
venison in an Indian lodge. With the curious felicity of his style, he
uses no strange and far-fetched words. Its charm depends on the
beauty of its combinations, not on the rarity of its language. He
employs terms that are in the mouths of the people, but weaves
them up into those expressive and picturesque forms that never
cease to haunt the memory of the reader. Accordingly, he is
cherished with equal delight by persons of every variety of culture.
His fascinating volumes always formed a part of the traveling
equipage of one of the most celebrated New-England judges, and
they may be found with no less certainty among the household
goods of the emigrant, and the resources for a rainy day on the
frugal shelves of the Yankee farmer. They still detain the old man
from his pillow, and the schoolboy from his studies. Under their
potent charm, the merchant forgets his Wall-street engagements;
the preacher lingers over their seductive sentences till the Sunday
becomes an astonishment; the statesman is beguiled into oblivion of
the salvation of his country; and the advocate is absorbed in the
fortunes of some "roystering varlet," till his own forlorn client loses
all chance of recovering his character.

The writings of Mr. Irving are no less distinguished by the

truthfulness and purity of their moral tone, than by their delightful
humor, and their apt delineations of nature and society. It is small
praise to say that he never panders to a vicious sentiment, that he
makes no appeal to a morbid imagination, and has written nothing
to encourage a false and effeminate view of life. His merits, in this
respect, are of a positive character. No one can be familiar with his
productions, without receiving a kindly and generous influence. His
goodness of heart communicates a benignant contagion to his
readers. His mild and beautiful charity, his spirit of wise tolerance,
the considerateness and candor of his judgments, the placable
gentleness of his temper, and the just appreciation of the infinite
varieties of character and life are adapted to mitigate the harshness
of the cynic, and even to quell the wild furies of the bigot. His
sharpest satire never degenerates into personal abuse. It seems the
efflorescence of a rich nature, susceptible to every shade of the
ludicrous, rather than the overflow of a poisonous fountain,
spreading blight and mildew in its course. If he laughs at the follies
of the world, it is not that he has any less love for the good souls
who commit them, but that with his exuberant good-nature he has
no heart to use a more destructive weapon than his lambent irony.
With his fine moral influence, he never affects the sternness of a
reformer. He is utterly free from all didactic pedantry. We know
nothing that he has written with a view to ethical effect. He reveals
his own nature in the sweet flow of his delicate musings, and if he
does good it is with delightful unconsciousness. He would blush to
find that he had been useful when he aimed only to give pleasure,
or rather to relieve his own mind of its "thick coming fancies."

In describing the position of Mr. Irving in the field of American

literature, we have incidentally touched upon the characteristics of
his genius, to which he is indebted for his high and enviable fame.
We need not expand our rapid sketch into a labored analysis. Indeed
every just criticism of his writings would only repeat the verdict that
has so often been pronounced by the universal voice.

Nor is it exclusively as a writer that Mr. Irving has won such a

distinguished place in the admiration of his countrymen. While proud
of his successes in the walks of literature, they have regarded his
personal character with affectionate delight, and lavished the
heartfelt sympathies on the man which are never paid to the mere
author. The purity of this offering is the more transparent, as Mr.
Irving has never courted the favor of the public, nor been placed in
those relations with his fellow-men, that are usually the conditions of
general popularity. He has wisely kept himself apart from the
excitements of the day; with decided political opinions, he has
abstained from every thing like partisanship; no one has been able
to count on his advocacy of any special interests; and with his
singular fluency and grace of expression in written composition, he
has never affected the arts of popular oratory. His habits have been
those of the well-educated gentleman—neither cherishing the
retirement of the secluded student, nor seeking a prominence in
public affairs—throwing a charm over the social circles which he
frequented by the brilliancy of his intellect, the amenity of his
manners, and the ease of his colloquial intercourse—but never
surrounded by the prestige of factitious distinction by which so many
inferior men obtain an ephemeral notoriety. His appointment as
Minister to Spain has been his sole official honor; and this was rather
a tribute to his literary eminence than the reward of political
services. On his return from Europe in 1832, after an absence of
nearly twenty years, he was received with a spontaneous welcome
by his fellow-citizens, such as has been seldom enjoyed by the most
successful claimants of popular favor; and from that time to the
present, no one has shown a more undisputed title to the character
of the favorite son of Manhattan. In his beautiful retreat at
Sunnyside, "as quiet and sheltered a nook as the heart of man could
desire in which to take refuge from the cares and troubles of this
world," he listens to the echoes of his fame, cheered by the
benedictions of troops of friends, and enjoying the autumn maturity
of life with no mists of envy and bitterness to cloud the purple
splendors of his declining sun.

It is understood that Mr. Irving is now engaged in completing the

Life of Washington, a work of which he commenced the preparation
before his residence in Europe as Minister to the Spanish Court. We
are informed that it will probably be given to the public in the course
of another season. It can not fail to prove a volume of national and
household interest. The revered features of the Immortal Patriot will
assume a still more benignant aspect, under the affectionate and
skillful touches of the congenial Artist. With his unrivaled power of
individualization, his practiced ability in historical composition, and
his acute sense of the moral perspective in character, he will present
the illustrious subject of his biography in a manner to increase our
admiration of his virtues, and to inspire a fresh enthusiasm for the
wise and beneficent principles of which his life was the sublime
embodiment. There is a beautiful propriety in the still more intimate
connection of the name of Washington Irving with that of the Father
of his Country. It is meet that the most permanent and precious
memorial of the First Chief of the American Republic should be
presented by the Patriarch of American Letters. It would be a fitting
close of his bright career before the public—the melodious swan-
song of his historic Muse.

SUNNYSIDE,
THE RESIDENCE OF WASHINGTON
IRVING.
 William Cullen Bryant.

T he birthplace of Mr. Bryant, in a secluded and romantic spot

among the mountains of western Massachusetts, seems to have
been selected by Nature as a fit residence for the early unfolding of
high poetic genius. Situated on the forest elevations above the
beautiful valley of the Connecticut in the old county of Hampshire,
surrounded by a rare combination of scenery, in which are
impressively blended the wild and rugged with the soft and graceful,
adorned in summer with the splendors of a rapid and luxuriant
vegetation, in winter exposed to the fiercest storms from the
northwest which bury the roads and almost the houses in gigantic
snow-drifts, inhabited by a hardy and primitive population which
exhibit the peculiar traits of New England character in their most
salient form, the little town of Cummington has the distinction of
giving birth to the greatest American poet.

It was here that he was first inspired with a sense of the glory and
mystery of Nature—first learned to "hold communion with her visible
forms," and to lend his ear to her "various language"—first awoke to
the consciousness of the "vision and the faculty divine," which he
has since displayed in such manifold forms of poetic creation. It was
under the shadow of his "native hills"—

"Broad, round, and green, that in the summer sky

With garniture of waving grass and grain,
Orchards, and beechen forests basking lie,
While deep the sunless glens are scooped between
Where brawl o'er shallow beds the streams unseen"—

in the "groves which were God's first temples," where the "sacred
influences"

"From the stilly twilight of the place,

And from the gray old trunks, that high in heaven
Mingled their mossy boughs, and from the sound
Of the invisible breath, that swayed at once
All their green tops, stole over him"—

that the spirit of the boy-poet was touched with the mystic
harmonies of the universe, and received those impressions of
melancholy grandeur from natural objects, which pervade the most
characteristic productions of his genius.

Mr. Bryant's vocation for poetry was marked at a very early age. The
history of literature scarcely affords an example of such a
precocious, and, at the same time, such a healthy development. His
first efforts betray no symptoms of a forced, hot-bed culture, but
seem the spontaneous growth of a prolific imagination. They are
free from the spasmodic forces which indicate a morbid action of the
intellect, and flow in the polished, graceful, self-sustaining
tranquillity, which is usually the crowning attainment of a large and
felicitous experience. Among his earliest productions were several
translations from different Latin poets, some of which, made at ten
years of age, were deemed so successful, as to induce his friends to
publish them in the newspaper of a neighboring town. These were
followed by a regular satirical poem, entitled "The Embargo," written
during the heated political controversies concerning the policy of Mr.
Jefferson, many of whose most strenuous opponents resided at
Northampton (at that time the centre of political and social influence
to a wide surrounding country), and from the contagion of whose
intelligence and zeal, the susceptible mind of the young poet could
not be expected to escape. This was published in Boston, in 1808,
before the author had completed his fourteenth year. Its merits were
at once acknowledged; it was noticed in the principal literary review
of that day; it was read with an eagerness in proportion to the
warmth of party spirit; and, indeed, so strong was the impression
which it made on the most competent judges, that nothing but the
explicit assertions of the friends of the writer could convince them of
its genuineness. It seemed, in all respects, too mature and finished a
performance to have proceeded from such a juvenile pen. This point,
however, was soon decided, and if any remaining doubts lingered in
their minds, they might have been removed by the production of
"Thanatopsis," which was written about four years after, when the
author was in the beginning of his nineteenth year.

This remarkable poem was not published until 1816, when it

appeared in the North American Review, then under the charge of
Mr. Dana, who has himself since attained to such a signal eminence
among the poets and essayists of America, and between whom and
Mr. Bryant a singular unity of intellectual tastes laid the foundation
for a cordial friendship, which has been maintained with a warmth
and constancy in the highest degree honorable to the character of
both parties. Meanwhile, Mr. Bryant had established himself in the
profession of the law, in the beautiful village of Great Barrington,
exchanging the mountain wildness of his native region, for the
diversified and singularly lovely scenery of the Housatonic Valley,
where he composed the lines "To Green Elver," "Inscription for an
entrance to a Wood," "To a Waterfowl," and several of his other
smaller poems, which have since hardly been surpassed by himself,
and certainly not by any other American writer.

The "Thanatopsis," viewed without reference to the age at which it

was produced, is one of the most precious gems of didactic verse in
the whole compass of English poetry, but when considered as the
composition of a youth of eighteen, it partakes of the character of
the marvelous. It is, however, unjust to its rich and solemn beauty to
contemplate it in the light of a prodigy. Nor are we often tempted to
revert to the singularity of its origin, when we yield our minds to the
influence of its grand and impressive images. It seems like one of
those majestic products of nature, to which we assign no date, and
which suggest no emotion but that of admiration at their glorious
harmony.

The objection has been made to the "Thanatopsis," that its

consolations in view of death are not drawn directly from the
doctrines of religion, and that it in fact makes no express allusion to
the Divine Providence, nor to the immortality of the soul. These
ideas are so associated in most minds with the subject matter of the
poem, that their omission causes a painful sense of incongruity. But
the writer was not composing a homily, nor a theological treatise.
His imagination was absorbed with the soothing influences of nature
under the anticipation of the "last bitter hour." In order to make the
contrast more forcible, the poem opens with a cold and dreary
picture of the common destiny. Earth claims the body which she has
nourished; man is doomed to renounce his individual being and
mingle with the elements; kindred with the sluggish clod, his mould
is pierced by the roots of the spreading oak. The sun shall no more
see him in his daily course, nor shall any traces of his image remain
on earth or ocean.

But the universality of this fate relieves the desolation of the

prospect. Nature imparts a solace to her favorite child, glides into his
darker musings with mild and healing sympathy, and gently counsels
him not to look with dread on the mysterious realm, which is the
final goal of humanity. No one retires alone to his eternal resting-
place. No couch more magnificent could be desired than the mighty
sepulchre in which kings and patriarchs have laid down to their last
repose. Every thing grand and lovely in nature contributes to the
decoration of the great tomb of man. The dead are every where.
The sun, the planets, the infinite host of heaven, have shone on the
abodes of death through the lapse of ages. The living, who now
witness the departure of their companions without heed, will share
their destiny. With these kindly admonitions, Nature speaks to the
spirit when it shudders at the thought of the stern agony and the
narrow house.

The stately movement of the versification, the accumulated grandeur

of the imagery, the vein of tender and solemn pathos, and the spirit
of cheerful trust at the close, which mark this extraordinary poem,
render it more effective, in an ethical point of view, than volumes of
exhortation; while, regarded as a work of art, the unity of purpose
with which its leading thought is presented under a variety of
aspects, gives it a completeness and symmetry which remove the
force of the objection to which we have alluded.

In a similar style of majestic thought is the "Forest Hymn," from

which we can not refrain from quoting an inimitable passage,
descriptive of the alternation between Life and Death in the
Universe, which seems to us to open the heart of the mystery with a
truthfulness of insight that has found expression in language of
unsurpassable energy.

"My heart is awed within me, when I think

 Of the great miracle that still goes on
In silence, round me—the perpetual work
Of thy creation, finish'd, yet renew'd
Forever. Written on thy works, I read
The lesson of thy own eternity.
Lo! all grow old and die—but see, again,
How on the faltering footsteps of decay
Youth presses—ever gay and beautiful youth,
In all its beautiful forms. These lofty trees
Wave not less proudly that their ancestors
Moulder beneath them. O, there is not lost
One of earth's charms: upon her bosom yet,
After the flight of untold centuries,
The freshness of her far beginning lies,
And yet shall lie. Life mocks the idle hate
Of his arch-enemy, Death—yea, seats himself
Upon the tyrant's throne—the sepulchre,
And of the triumphs of his ghastly foe
Makes his own nourishment. For he came forth
From thine own bosom, and shall have no end."

The soft and exquisite beauty of the lines entitled "To a Waterfowl"
is appreciated by every reader of taste. They belong to that rare
class of poems which, once read, haunt the imagination with a
perpetual charm. A more natural expression of true religious feeling
than that contained in the closing stanzas, is nowhere to be met
with.

"Thou 'rt gone, the abyss of heaven

Hath swallow'd up thy form; yet, on my heart
Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given,
And shall not soon depart.

"He who, from zone to zone,

Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,
In the long way that I must tread alone,
 Will lead my steps aright."

BRYANT'S RESIDENCE, AT
ROSLYN, (HEMPSTEAD HARBOR) L.
I.
But we have no space to dwell upon the attractive details of Mr.
Bryant's poetry, though it would be a grateful task to pass in review
the familiar productions, of which we can weary as little as of the
natural landscape. It needs no profound analysis to state their most
general characteristics. Bryant's descriptions of nature are no less
remarkable for their minute accuracy than for the richness and
delicacy of their suggestions in the sphere of sentiment. No one can
ever be tempted to accuse him of obtaining his knowledge of nature
at second hand. He paints nothing which he has not seen. His
images are derived from actual experience. Hence they have the
vernal freshness of an orchard in bloom. He is no less familiar with
the cheerful tune of brooks in flowery June than with the voices and
footfalls of the thronged city. He has watched the maize-leaf and the
maple-bough growing greener under the fierce sun of midsummer;
the mountain wind has breathed its coolness on his brow; he has
gazed at the dark figure of the wild-bird painted on the crimson sky;
and listened to the sound of dropping nuts as they broke the solemn
stillness of autumn woods. The scenes of nature which he has loved
and wooed have rewarded him with their beautiful revelations in the
moral world. Her dim symbolism has become transparent to the
anointed eye of the reverent bard, and initiated him into the
mysteries which give a new significance to the material creation.

It is true that the staple of his poetry is reflection, rather than

passion, reminding us of the chaste severity of sculpture, and not
appealing to the fancy by any sensuous or voluptuous arts of
coloring. But a deep sentiment underlies the expression; and he
touches the springs of emotion with a powerful hand, though he
never ceases to be master of his own feelings. The apparent
coldness of which some have complained, may be ascribed to the
frigidity of the reader, with more truth than to the apathy of the
writer. With its highly intellectual character, the poetry of Mr. Bryant
is adapted to win a more profound and lasting admiration than if it
were merely the creation of a productive fancy. It may gain a more
limited circle of readers (although its universal popularity sets aside
this supposition), but they who have once enjoyed its substantial
reality will place it on the same shelf with Milton and Wordsworth,
with a "sober certainty" that they will always find it instinct with a
fresh and genuine vitality.

The influence of this poetry is of a pure and ennobling character;

never ministering to false or unhealthy sensibility, it refreshes the
better feelings of our nature; inspiring a tranquil confidence in the
on-goings of the Universe, with whose most beautiful manifestations
we are brought into such intimate communion. Its most pensive
tones, which murmur such sweet, sad music, never lull the soul in
the repose of despair, but inspire it with a cheerful hope in the issues
of the future. The "inexorable Past" shall yet yield the treasures
which are hidden in its mysterious depths, and every thing good and
fair be renewed in "the glory and the beauty of its prime."

"All shall come back, each tie

Of pure affection shall be knit again;
Alone shall Evil die,
And Sorrow dwell a prisoner in thy reign."

As a prose writer, Mr. Bryant is distinguished for signal excellencies

both of thought and expression, evincing a remarkable skill in
various departments of composition, from the ephemeral political
essay to the high-wrought fictitious tale, and graphic recollections of
foreign travel. The superior brightness of his poetic fame can alone
prevent him from being known to posterity as a vigorous and
graceful master of prose, surpassed by few writers of the present
day.
 THE CRYSTAL PALACE.

I n the early months of last year the Great Exhibition had become
as nearly a "fixed fact" as any thing in the future can be. The
place where and the building in which it was to be held, then
became matters for grave consideration. The first point, fortunately,
presented little difficulty, the south side of Hyde-park, between
Kensington-road and Rotten-row, having been early selected as the
locality.

The construction of the edifice, however, presented difficulties not so

easily surmounted. The Building Committee, comprising some of the
leading architects and engineers of the kingdom, among whom are
Mr. Barry, the architect of the new Houses of Parliament, and Mr.
Stephenson, the constructor of the Britannia Tubular Bridge,
advertised for plans to be presented for the building. When the
committee met, they found no want of designs; their table was
loaded with them, to the number of 240. Their first task was to
select those which were positively worthless, and throw them aside.
By this process the number for consideration was reduced to about
sixty; and from these the committee proceeded to concoct a design,
which pleased nobody—themselves least of all. However, the plan,
such as it was, was decided upon, and advertisements were issued
for tenders for its construction. This was the signal for a fierce
onslaught upon the proceedings of the committee. For the erection
of a building which was to be used for only a few months, more
materials were to be thrown into one of the main lungs of the
metropolis, than were contained in the eternal pyramids of Egypt.
Moreover, could the requisite number of miles of brickwork be
constructed within the few weeks of time allotted? and was it not
impossible that this should, in so short a time, become sufficiently
consolidated to sustain the weight of the immense iron dome which,
according to the design of the committee, was to rest upon it?

The committee, fortunately, were not compelled to answer these and

a multitude of similar puzzling interrogatories which were poured in
upon them. Relief was coming to them from an unexpected quarter:
whence, we must go back a little to explain.

On New Year's Day, of the year 1839, Sir Robert Schomburgk, the
botanist, was proceeding in a native boat up the River Berbice, in
Demerara. In a sheltered reach of the stream, he discovered resting
upon the still waters an aquatic plant, a species of lily, but of a
gigantic size, and of a shape hitherto unknown. Seeds of this plant,
to which was given the name of "Victoria Regia," were transmitted to
England, and were ultimately committed to the charge of Joseph
Paxton, the horticulturist at Chatsworth, the magnificent seat of the
Duke of Devonshire. The plant produced from these seeds became
the occasion, and in certain respects the model, for the Crystal
Palace.

Every means was adopted to place the plant in its accustomed

circumstances. A tropical soil was formed for it of burned loam and
peat; Newcastle coal was substituted for a meridian sun, to produce
an artificial South America under an English heaven; by means of a
wheel a ripple like that of its native river, was communicated to the
waters of the tank upon which its broad leaves reposed. Amid such
enticements the lily could not do otherwise than flourish; and in a
month it had outgrown its habitation. The problem was therefore set
before its foster-father to provide for it, within a few weeks, a new
home. This was not altogether a new task for Mr. Paxton, who had
already devoted much attention to the erection of green-houses;
and within the required space of time, he had completed this house
for the "Victoria Regia," and therein, in the sense in which the acorn
includes the oak, that of the Crystal Palace.
 THE GREAT EXHIBITION BUILDING.
While Mr. Paxton was planning an abode for this Brobdignagian lily,
the Building Committee of the Exhibition were poring wearily over
the 240 plans lying upon their table. They had rejected the 180
worthless ones, and from the remainder had concocted, as we have
said, with much cogitation and little satisfaction, their own design.
Such as it was, however, it was determined that it should be
executed—if possible.

This brings us down to the middle, or to be precise, to the 18th of

June, on which day Mr. Paxton was sitting as chairman on a railway
committee. He had previously made himself acquainted with the
case laid before them, and was not therefore under the necessity of
now devoting his attention to it. He took advantage of this leisure
moment to work out a design for the Exhibition Building, which he
had conceived some days previously. In ten days thereafter
elevations, sections, working plans and specifications, were
completed from this draft, and the whole was submitted to the
inspection of competent and influential persons, by whom it was
unanimously announced to be practicable, and the only practicable
scheme presented.

This design was then laid before the contractors, Messrs. Fox and
Henderson, who at once determined to submit a tender for the
construction of a building in accordance with it. In a single week,
they had calculated the amount and cost of every pound of iron,
every pane of glass, every foot of wood, and every hour of labor
which would be required, and were prepared with a tender and
specifications for the construction of the edifice. But here arose a
difficulty. The committee had advertised only for proposals for
carrying out their own design; but, fortunately, they had invited the
suggestion on the part of contractors, of any improvements upon it;
and so Mr. Paxton's plan was presented simply as an "improvement"
upon that of the committee, with which it had not a single feature in
common. This, with certain modifications, was adopted, and the
result is the Crystal Palace—itself the greatest wonder which the
Exhibition will present—the exterior of which is represented in our
accompanying Illustration.

The building consists of three series of elevations of the respective

heights of 64, 44, and 24 feet, intersected at the centre by a
transept of 72 feet in width, having a semicircular roof rising to the
height of 108 feet in the centre. It extends in length 1851 feet from
north to south, more than one-third of a mile, with a breadth of 456
feet upon the ground; covering 18 superficial acres, nearly double
the extent of our own Washington-square; and exceeding by more
than one half the dimensions of the Park or the Battery. The whole
rests upon cast-iron pillars, united by bolts and nuts, fixed to flanges
turned perfectly true, so that if the socket be placed level, the
columns and connecting-pieces must stand upright; and, in point of
fact, not a crooked line is discoverable in the combination of such an
immense number of pieces. For the support of the columns, holes
are dug in the ground, in which is placed a bed of concrete, and
upon this rest iron sockets of from three to four feet in length,
according to the level of the ground, to which the columns are firmly
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