also, in starchmakers' vats, sour water; and dough itself, without any previous production of wine. or of lean animal muscle, or by adding molasses, or the sugar which falls spontaneously from molasses. The varieties of acetick acids known in com- In a few weeks, the vinegar will be formed. The merce are five :-1, wine vinegar; 2, malt vinegar; vinegar from sugar is made as follows:-Ten pounds 3, cider vinegar; 4; sugar vinegar; 5, wood vine-of sugar are added to eight gallons of water, with gar. We shall describe, first, the mode of making yest and raisins or grape cuttings: for the sake of these commercial articles, and then that of extract- flavour, and perhaps to assist in the fermentation, ing the absolute acetick acid of the chymist either twelve pints of bruised gooseberries, or other fruits, from these vinegars or directly from chymical com- are added; and, by a process similar to that for pounds, of which it is a constituent. The following cider, a good vinegar is produced in the course of is the French method of making vinegar :-The the summer. Vinegar obtained by the preceding wine destined for making vinegar is mixed in a large methods has more or less of a brown colour, and a tun with a quantity of wine lees; and, the whole peculiar but rather grateful smell. By distillation in being transferred into cloth sacks, placed within a glass vessels, the colouring matter, which resides in large iron-bound vat, the liquid matter is forced a mucilage, is separated; but the fragant odour is through the sacks by superincumbent pressure. generally replaced by an empyreumatick one. Its What passes through is put into large casks, set up- specifick gravity varies from 1.005 to 1.015. right, having a small aperture in their top. In these A crude vinegar has long been obtained from it is exposed to the heat of the sun in summer, or wood, for the use of the calico printers. It is somethat of a stove in winter. Fermentation supervenes times known under the name of pyroligneous acid. in a few days. If the heat should then rise too high, The following arrangement of apparatus is found to it is lowered by cool air, and the addition of fresh answer very well in its preparation. A series of wine. In the skilful regulation of the fermentative cast-iron cylinders, about four feet diameter and six temperature consists the art of making good wine feet long, are built horizontally in brick-work, so that vinegar. In summer, the process is generally com- the flame of one furnace may play round about two pleted in a fortnight; in winter, double the time is cylinders. Both ends project a little from the brickrequisite. The vinegar is then run off into barrels, work. One of them has a disk of cast-iron well which contain several chips of birch-wood. In fitted and firmly bolted to it, from the centre of about a fortnight, it is found to be clarified, and is which disk an iron tube, about six inches in diamethen fit for the market. It must be kept in close ter, proceeds, and enters, at a right angle, the main tube of refrigeration. The diameter of this tube In England, vinegar is usually made from malt. may be from nine to fourteen inches, according to By mashing with hot water, one hundred gallons of the number of cylinders. The other end of the wort are extracted, in less than two hours, from one cylinder is called the mouth of the retort. This is boll of malt. When the liquor has fallen to the closed by a disk of iron, coated round its edge with temperature of seventy-five degrees, Fahrenheit, four clay-lute, and secured in its place by wedges. The gallons of the yest of beer are added. After thirty-charge of wood for such a cylinder is about eight six hours, it is racked off into casks, which are laid hundred pounds. The hard woods, oak, ash, birch, on their sides, and exposed, with their bung-holes and beech, are alone used. The heat is kept up loosely covered, to the influence of the sun in sum- during the daytime, and the furnace is allowed to mer; but in winter they are arranged in a stove-cool during the night. Next morning the door is room. In three months, this vinegar is ready for the manufacture of sugar of lead. To make vinegar for domestick use, however, the process is somewhat different. The above liquor is racked off into casks placed upright, having a false cover, pierced with holes, fixed at about a foot from their bottom. On this a considerable quantity of rape, or the refuse from the makers of British wine, or otherwise a quantity of low-priced raisins, is laid. The liquor is turned into another barrel every twenty-four hours, in which time it has begun to grow warm. Sometimes the vinegar is fully fermented, as above, without the rape, which is added toward the end, to communicate flavour. casks. Cider is the principal source of vinegar in the northern states. The common family method is as follows:-The vinegar barrel, in summer, is placed in the garret, or on the sunny-side of a building, and in winter in a room where it does not freeze. The refuse cider, already sour, or the daily remnants of the family table, are added to some good vinegar in the barrel, or to the mother of vinegar, as it is called. This mother of vinegar is a white or yellowish ropy coagulum, of a mucilaginous appearance, which is formed in the vinegar, and acts as a ferment upon cider not yet thoroughly acidified. The fermentation is often aided by putting into it a piece of dough, opened, the charcoal removed, and a new charge of wood is introduced. The average product of crude vinegar, or pyroligneous acid, is thirty-five gallons. It is much contaminated with tar, is of a deep brown colour, and has a specifick gravity of 1.025. Its total weight is therefore about three hundred pounds. But the residuary charcoal is found to weigh no more than one fifth of the wood employed. Hence nearly one half of the ponderable matter of the wood is dissipated in incondensable gases. The crude acid is rectified by a second distillation, in a copper still, in the body of which about twenty gallons of viscid tarry matter are left from every hundred. After this treatment, it presents the appearance of transparent brown vinegar, having a considerable empyreumatick smell and a specifick gravity of 1.013. Its acid powers are superiour to those of the best household vinegar, in the proportion of three to two. By redistillation, saturation with quicklime, evaporation of the liquid acetate to dryness, and gentle torrefaction, the empyreumatick matter is so completely dissipated, that, on decomposing the calcareous salt by sulphurick acid, a pure, perfectly colourless, and grateful vinegar rises in distillation. Its strength will be proportional to the concentration of the decomposing acid. The acetick acid of the chymist may be prepared ERN CHRONOLOGY. SPANISH ERA. Spain established a fort at Pensacola. 9, as follows:-1. Two parts of fused acetate of pot- CORRECTIONS AND SUPPLEMENT TO BUTLER'S WESTash, with one of the strongest oil of vitriol, yield, by slow distillation from a glass retort into a refrigerated receiver, concentrated acetick acid. A small portion of sulphurous acid, which contaminates it, 1696. may be removed by redistillation from a little acetate of lead. 2. Or four parts of good sugar of lead, with one part of sulphurick acid treated in the same way, afford a slightly weaker acetick acid. Or, 1715. without distillation, if one hundred parts of welldried acetate of lime be cautiously added to sixty parts of strong sulphurick acid, diluted with five parts of water, and digested for twenty-four hours, and strained, a good acetick acid, sufficiently strong for every ordinary purpose, will be obtained. Acetick acid is composed of In a Acetick acid dissolves resins, gum-resins, camphire, and essential oils. Its odour is employed in medicine to relieve nervous headache, fainting fits, or sickness occasioned by crowded rooms. slightly dilute state, its application has been found to check hemorrhage from the nostrils. Its anticontagious powers are now little trusted to. It is very largely used in calico printing. Moderately rectified pyroligneous acid is much employed for the preservation of animal food. Sulphurick acid is sometimes fraudently mixed with acetick acid and common vinegar, to increase their acidity. This adulteration may be detected by the addition of a little chalk. With pure vinegar, the lime forms a limpid solution, but with sulphurick acid a white insoluable gypsum. Muriate of barytes is a still nicer test. Copper is discovered in vinegars by supersaturating them with ammonia, when a fine blue colour is produced; and lead, by sulphate of soda, hydrosulphurets, and sulphuretted hydrogen. None of these could produce any change on genuine vinegar. Salts consisting of the several bases, united in definite proportions to acetick acid, are called acetates. They are characterized by the pungent smell of vinegar, which they exhale on the affusion of sulphurick acid, and by their yielding, on distillation in a moderate red heat, a very light, odorous, and combustible liquid, called pyro-acetick spirit. They are all soluble in water; many of them so much so as to be uncrystallizable. WESTERN CHRONOLOGÝ. From the Western Messenger. THE ensuing Corrections and Supplement to Western Chronology, published by the writer, at Frankfort, 1837, may be useful to future iuquirers into the history of the Western country. If the Editor of the Western Messenger concurs in this opinion, he can publish the following matter. Respectfully, MANN BUTLER. VOL. IV.-24 1719. The Spanish settlements at the Assiniais and above. Pensacola taken by the French; retaken by the Spaniards, and again taken by the French-Du Pratz, 189-2. Dumont, 9, 191, 195; but restored to Spain by the peace of 1719. The Perdido was then considered the boundary between Florida and Louisiana. 1762, Nov. 3d. France ceded Louisiana as she held it, to Spain as a fund of compensation for conquests made upon her by Great Britain, particularly in Cuba. 1763, 1766. Feb. 10th. France ccded, by art. 7th, to Fort Bute on the Manshac or Iberville built 356. 1778, June. Spanish troops took fort at Manshac. Dunbar's Journal. 1779, Sept. 7th. Fort Bute on the Manshac or Iberville, surrendered by the British to the Spaniards. Idem. 1781, 21st. The fort at Baton Rouge surrendered by Col. Dickson to the Spanish troops, under Gov. Galvez; including in the capitulation Fort Paumure at Natchez, a Fort on Amite river, and another on Thompson's Creek: Martin's Louisiana, vol. 2, p. 51. April 29th. The American settlers under Col. Hutchins, Winfrey, Bloomart, Bingaman and the Alstons in the Natchez District, attacked and expelled the Spaniards from Fort Paumure at Natchez; but hearing, soon afterward, of the failure of the British arms at Pensacola, submitted again to the Spanish government. See Western Messenger, No: 7, page idem, ante-and Calvin Smith's papers. May 9th. Pensacola surrendered by General Campbell and Gov. Chester, to Gov. Galvez, in the Spanish service; which terminated the British dominion in Florida, including the present State of Mississippi to the Yazoo river, in the North. Idem ante p. 63. Oct. 1. Treaty of St. Ildefenso by which Spain "retroceded to France the colony of province of Louisiana with the same extent i 1st. That it now has in the hands of Spain; 2d. That it had when France possessed it; 1800, 3d. As it ought to be, after the treaties pass- | 1729, Nov. Massacre of the French at Natchez by 1803, Nov. 30. France received Louisiana from 1812, April 14. West Florida from Lake Pontchartrain to the western mouth of Pearl river and South of 31° N. attached by act of Congress to the State of Louisiana. Idem, ante. May 14. The residue of West Florida lying West of the Perdido annexed, by the same authority to the Mississippi Territory. Idem, ante. [Unknown precisely.] Revolt of Spanish subjects at Baton Rouge. 1819, Feb. 22d. Treaty of Washington ceded the Floridas to the U. S. and established the boundaries of Louisiana on the West by the Sabine as far as 32° N,; then due North to Red River and along it to the 100° West from London and 230 West from Washington, to the sources of the Arkansas due North to the 42°, North, thence due West to the Pacific Ocean. Laws of the United States. FRENCH ERA. 1679. La Salle builds a Fort at the mouth of the Miami River. Nouvelle Decouverte 171; and Sonti, as quoted by Mr. Jefferson, says, that the same explorer built Fort Pradhomme in the Chickasaw country, 60 leagues below the Ohio River, 155. 1680. The Chevalier Tonti, a companion of La Salle, built Fort Crevecoeur, on the River Illinois. Hennepin Nouvelle Decouverte, 223. 1685, July. Tonti built a house on the Arkansas and left ten men in it. This became a permanent settlement. Joulet 151, Tonti 225, 2, Dumont, 68. 1715. France established Natchitoches, on Red River and built a fort, 2, Dumont, 65. It was 65 leagues above the mouth of the river. 1718. Fort Rosalie at Natchez built; 2, Dumont, 50. It was afterward called by the British and Spaniards Fort Paumure, and sometimes Fort Carlos, by the latter. Its ruins are still visible (1838) just below the present city of Natchez; though a large portion has fallen with the subsiding of the river bank. Old and New Biloxi settled; 2 Dumont 34, 42 and 43. A cargo of negroes arrived at Old Biloxi. 1719. New Orleans is laid off thirty degrees from the mouth of the Mississippi; some French settlers from Canada had already settled here and the seat of government is fixed here. 2, Dumont, 47. 1720. A Fort on the Missouri was built and garrisoned. Idem. 47. It was called Fort Orleans. Jeffrey 39. 1721. Dela Harpe and Dumont with twenty-two men ascended the Arkansas; they mention the Salt Springs, marble minerals, &c., 2 Dumont 57. AMERICAN ERA. 1751, Feb. and Nov. Christopher Gist, sent by the Ohio Company, to explore the country down the Ohio; he descended to the Falls, now the seat of Louisville, Ky., explored the country on the Miami, not Scioto, as erroneously stated by the writer in Western Chronology, (supposed to be the greater river of that name) and ascended 150 miles up the stream to a town of the Twigtwees, or Ottawas, on the north bank. The town consisted of four hundred inhabitants. Papers of Col. Mercer quoted in the Washington Writings, vol. 11. pp. 37, 480, article, Ohio Company. The above correction is due to an admirable article on Ohio, in the North American, for July, 1838. THE POWERS OF MEMORY AND TOUCH. LAST Monday night, a truly singular display of natural capabilities took place at the Argyle Rooms, in Regent street. The Rabbi Hersh Danemark, a professor of Hebrew and rabbinical literature, from Stutchim, in Poland, appeared on a small platform before an auditory, apparently very familiar with the Hebrew language and literature. He was accompanied by professor Breslau as interpreter, who stated the rabbi's willingness to recite any portion of the Talmud which might be demanded by any one among his auditory, who would merely state the number of the page and line at which he wished him to commence. The rabbi is a middle-sized man, rather slender, with a sallow drooping cast of countenance, terminated by a small sharp beard. His eye is dark, and little seen, but always quick and confident; his forehead retreating, and his head particularly high in the regions of veneration, firmness, self-esteem, and love of approbation. The perceptive organs are well developed: order is particularly full, but number is moderate, and, stranger still, the position of the eyes affords no indication of any remarkable fulness of language. His coal-black hair was nearly covered by a velvet cap. One nicely curled lock fell down on each side, and served as a substitute for whiskers. He declares himself to be twenty-four years old, but looks 28 or 30. He wore a silk pelisse, or surplice, which reached to his feet, fastened round his waist by a gold-wrought girdle. He replied to the, and Sampson, Mr. Leo, reader to the Western Synquestions put by numbers of his auditory, in a loud, agogue, and Mr. Lindenthal, Secretary to the new confident voice, walking to and fro on his little stage, synagogue. often stopping to command silence among his noisy audience, and continuing to chant his question, with a rapidity which his rival professors, who undertook the task of reading, seemed scarcely able to keep pace with. His rough pronunciation and voluble delivery more resembled the continuous outpouring of waters which had burst their bonds than anything we ever heard. The audience was by no means so numerous as might be expected from the nature of the announcement, which, in addition to the wonders of memory, led the publick to expect some astonishing exhibitions of the powers of sight. The latter display was, however, confined to the rapid inspection and estimate of the number of lines in any printed page presented to his view. This operation he certainly accomplished in a quick and surprising exact manner, guessing off hand, in perhaps half the time that even very ready reckoners could, to within one line in fifty or sixty, but his performance, clever as it was, scarcely deserved to be mentioned in connexion with the almost miraculous retention and precision of memory evinced by his repetition of the Talmud. The rabbi declares that he possesses certificates from the emperour of Russia, the king of Prussia, the king of Saxony, and Prince Paskewitch, the king of Prussia, &c. At Warsaw, it appears, he exhibited one of his extraordinary efforts of memory. The books used in this examination were seven The muster roll of more than two hundred soldiers volumes of the Talmud, of the Berlin and Frankfort was called over, when he immediately repeated it edition, supplied by an individual present desirous of forward and backward, without an errour. It would be endless to detail the queries and replies that occurred during the examination of an hour and a half, and which fully satisfied all present that he had seven volumes folio of the Talmud (notes, text, and cominentary,) by heart, not merely consecutively, but in any order; that he knew the contents of every line taken numerically on every page, and in short, knew the place of every word, in every one of its seven thousand pages 1* The proof was that he permitted any body to stick a pin through any number of leaves, and then freely and unerringly told the word punctured on any given page! testing his powers; but the rabbi declared his willingnsss to answer questions according to any edition that any body might present to him. He professes to know thus by rote the Mishava also--in short, 8,000 pages of Hebrew, which he can repeat in any quantity, and commencing in any place that anybody pleases. But perhaps a more singular capability than even this extraordinary power of memory, was developed in a subsequent illustration of the rabbi's powers. He requested any person merely to insert his fingers into one of the thick volumes of the Talmud, and several times astonished his assistants by informing them what words were touched by their fingers in these blind and random sortes Talmudiana. The writer of this notice made one among these essayists, and observed that the rabbi also inserted his fingers, and felt carefully, though quickly, the marginal commentaries adjacent to the edge of the leaf, and then boldly pronounced the number of the page on the passage thus hit upon! No sense but that of touch (that we are aware of) could have possibly aided in his divination of these still unopened pages. Several of the spectators (who certainly did not look beneath the surface) exclaimed in astonishment at his surprising power of sight, in being able to count the leaves in a mass, off hand by their edges. We, however, felt tolerably certain that the exercise of very susceptible powers of feeling was the modus operandi in this particular. We should have been happy to bear testimony to the correctness of the rabbi's powers of divination in those oracular doings, but not being versed in Hebrew literature, (and equally ignorant of Chaldee, Persian, Arabic, Russ and Polish, the only tongues which the rabbi spoke,) we were obliged to rest content with the satisfaction displayed by the erudite individuals who had taken an active part in the examination of the rabbi-among whom were professor Breslau A volume of the Talmud, contains on an average, from eight hundred to a thousand pages, each page averaging from sixty to seventy lines of text, as many of comment, and as many of notes. LOST AT SEA.-By J. O. ROCKWELL. WIFE, who in thy deep devotion Hope no more-his course is done. Children who as sweet flowers growing, For your father lost and gone? Sweetly by a beam of gold. Those shut eyelids in their sleep So we left him; and to tell thee Of our sorrow and thine own, That thy heart blood wildly flows, That ye are an orphan race? USEFUL KNOWLEDGE. SILVERING. COPPER may be silvered over, by rubbing it with the following powder :-Two drachms of tartar, the same quantity of common salt, and half a drachm of alum, are mixed with fifteen or twenty grains of silver, precipitated from nitrick acid by copper. The surface of the copper becomes white when rubbed with this powder, which may afterward be brushed off and polished with leather. A cheap silvering is prepared as follows:-Half an ounce of silver that has been precipitated from aquafortis by the addition of copper, common salt, and muriate of ammonia, of each two ounces, and one drachm of corrosive muriate of mercury, are triturated together, and made into a paste with water; with this copper utensils of every kind, that have been previously boiled with tartar and alum, are rubbed, after which they are made redhot, and then polished. The intention of this process appears to be little more than to apply the silver in a state of minute division to the clean surface of the copper, and afterward to fix it there by fusion; and, accordingly, this silvering may be effected by using the argentine precipitate, here mentioned, with borax or mercury, and causing it to adhere by fusion. The dial-plates of clocks, the scales of barometers, and other similar articles, are silvered by rubbing upon them a mixture of muriate of silver, sea-salt, and tartar, and afterward carefully washing off the saline matter with water. In this operation, the silver is precipitated from the muriatick acid, which unites with part of the coppery surface. It is not durable, but may be improved by heating the article, and repeating the operation till the covering seems sufficiently thick. The silvering of pins is effected by boiling them with mercury or tin and tartar. dropped upon it, and with a piece of cotton wool, or hare's foot, it is spread all over the foil; then, the marble slab being kept nearly with the horizon, the mercury is poured all over the foil, which is covered with a fine paper; two weights are placed near its lower end, to keep the glass steady, while the artist draws the paper from between the silver foil and the glass. This must be done with great care, so that no air-bubbles be left. After the paper is drawn out, weights are placed upon the glass to press out the superfluous mercury, and make the foil adhere. Another method is, to slide the glass over the foil without the assistance of paper. To make shell silver, silver leaf is ground with gum-water, or honey: the gum, or honey, is washed away, and the powder which remains is used with gum-water, or white of eggs, laid on with a hair pencil. SOLDER. It is a general rule, with respect to solder, that it should always be easier of fusion than the metal intended to be soldered. Technically, the soft solder is that which the plumber makes use of on account of its melting easily. This solder is composed of tin and lead, in equal parts, fused together, after which it is run into moulds, in shape not unlike a common gridiron. In this state it is sold by the pound by the manufacturer. In the operation of soldering, the surfaces of the metal intended to be joined are scraped and rendered very clean; they are then brought close up to each other, and, to secure them, they are held by one plumer while another lays a little resin or borax about the joint. This is done to defend the metal, while soldering, from oxidation. The heated solder is then brought in a ladel and poured on the joint to be soldered, and is smoothed and finished by rubbing it about with a heated grozing-iron, and when complete it is filed or scraped off, and made even with the joint aud contiguous surface of the lead. The solder for copper differs considerably from that we have just described. Mirrors or globes are silvered by an amalgam consisting of one part by weight of bismuth, half a part of lead, the same quantity of pure tin, and two parts of mercury. The solid metals are to be first mixed together by fusion, and the mercury added The hard solder is made with eight parts of copwhen the mixture is almost cold. A very gentle per and one of zinc, the copper being first melted heat is sufficient to fuse this amalgam. In this state in a crucible, during which operation the zinc is it is poured into a clean glass globe, intended to be also heated. When the copper is melted the zinc silvered, by means of a paper funnel, which reaches is thrown hot into it; the crucible is then covered, to the bottom. At a certain temperature it will stick and the whole well shaken together. In about two to the glass, which by a proper motion may thus be minutes the metal is poured out, through the twigs silvered completely, and the superfluous amalgam of a birch-broom placed over a proper vessel filled poured out. The appearance of these toys is varied with water. The metal is, by this process, divided by using glass of different colours, such as yellow, into small grains, after which it is well washed and blue, or green. To silver looking-glasses, the fol-kept for use. This solder is very fusible, and at the lowing articles are necessary :-First, a square mar- same time malleable. ble table, or smooth stone, well polished, and ground An alloy, composed of three parts of copper and extremely true, with a frame round it, or a groove one of zinc, also makes a good solder. In general cut in its edges, to keep the superfluous mercury from running off; secondly, leaden weights covered with cloth, to keep them from scratching the glass, from one pound weight to twelve pounds each, according to the size of the glass laid down; thirdly, rolls of tin foil; fourthly, mercury. The artist then proceeds as follows:-The tin foil is cut a little larger than the glass, and laid flat upon the stone, and with a straight piece of hard wood, about three inches long, stroked every way, that there may be no creases or wrinkles in it: a little mercury is then the solder is harder or softer, in proportion to the quantity of copper employed. The more copper is used the harder is the solder, but less fusible. Tho highest degree of hardness is produced when ten parts of copper are united with one part of zine; but this is also the least fusible. Solders of different degrees of fusibility are often required, particularly in cases where several pieces are to be soldered one to the other. The least fusible solder is employed in the first place; and the other by degrees in proportion to the number of pieces to be soldered. By |