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whiting, and on opening it, she found the ring which she had lost seventy years before!"

The following is curious :-"A gentleman of Tewkesbury some time ago purchased a large flounder, of which he partook in company with a friend. After dinner the cook brought a gold ring into the room, which she had found in the belly of the fish; it was nearly black, and had the appearance of a wedding ring."

The subjoined is no less remarkable: "During the passage from Riga to Leith of the brig Harmony, Mack, and while she was becalmed off the Scot's Reef, a young man, employed in unbending the fore-topmast sail, happened to drop his knife overboard. The weather being good, and a number of the finny tribe sporting about the vessel, the lines were thrown out, an excellent take of fish obtained, and among them a large cod, in the interior of which, on its preparation for cooking, the identical knife was found, and restored to its owner, four hours only having elapsed from the time of its fall overboard."

Extraordinary as these recoveries appear, the following, extracted from the Naval and Military Magazine (to the truth of which the Editor observes, he has himself frequently heard gentlemen of the East India Company's service vouch, as also others who were upon the spot, not of the profession), show they are not wholly to be discredited:" It is customary for Indiamen, in their passage through the Downs, to anchor at the Motherbank, and from thence to drop down to St. Helen's Point, and await a wind. A few years since, the fleet then lying at the Motherbank, was, as usual, ordered off to St. Helen's Point, when a young cadet, in one of the vessels, anxious to see the process of 'weighing anchor,' ran hastily to the ship's side, and having unfortunately his pocketbook in his hand at that moment, dropped it overboard! Great was the poor youth's tribulation and dismay; for in that precious case was deposited all the little pecuniary store which was to pay the expenses incident to his voyage and sojourn in India, until the welcome receipt of the batta. However, there was no help for the accident, all the blame of it attached to himself; and as it was impossible to arrest the vessel's career, and fish for a pocket-book in the bottomless abyss,' he was obliged to conceal his chagrin, and reconcile his mind to so heavy a loss as well as he could. That evening the ship anchored at St. Helen's Point; but a fair wind springing up about morning, she prepared, with the rest of the fleet, to sail. On heaving anchor, our unfortunate cadet again stood on deck, watching, with a painful reminiscence, the cable gradually coil round the windlass, and hearing,

·

At every turn the clanging pauls resound.' At length up came the anchor, rushing and splashing through the deep, like one of its VOL. I. D

own monsters, and with it-incredible to relate the lost pocket-book!!

"Improbable as this circumstance may and must appear, it is fact. The friend from whom the writer had it, was at the Isle of Wight at the period of its occurrence, and has, in many instances, been corroborated in the story, on mentioning it before commanders of Indiamen. The circumstance is barely accounted for, by supposing that the current had carried the book alongside the vessel, and lodging, wedged it in the anchor at the moment of its being cast at St. Helen's Point. This incident is decidedly one of that class of strange contingencies which do sometimes happen in this curious worldagainst the occurrence of which exists no positive moral or physical reason-and yet,' upon the befalling of which, reason seems outraged and defied; and the mind slowly admits the most unqualified testimonies as to its veracity."

THE CALENTURE.

"That malady Which calls up green and native fields to view, From the rough deep, with such identity, To the poor exile's fevered eye, that he Can scarcely be restrain'd from treading them." THE calenture, is a disorder too well known to require further description; it is usually attributed to home-sickness, or an intolerable longing for land at least; but does it not rather originate in an acute sense of the prison-like narrowness and restraint of a ship? Does not the horrid certainty that he is immured in a machine, from whence escape is impossible but by death, overwhelmi the unhappy patient? who, having once admitted into his bosom the contemplation of land and liberty, and the reminiscences of home-the desire for them becomes outrageous, and is rendered more and more intolerable by the despair attendant on the knowledge that they are unattainable. It is worthy of remark, that those persons are soonest attacked with this malady who labour under the misfortune of weak and irritable nerves. How the illusion of this singular ocean mirage is produced, must remain a secret with that of other species of delirium, and our nightly dreams; but that it is as complete as any that takes place, "when deep slumbers fall upon man," is an established fact. That those unfortunates, who are suffering the insanity of this disorder, will also, unless narrowly watched, precipitate themselves into the sea, is also notorious: -a relation told me, that upon her once devolved the melancholy task of writing to a young woman, informing her of the death of her husband (to whom she had been married but three weeks), a fine young man, who had drowned himself in the delirium of the malady in question.-Nav. Mag.

VARIETIES.

Origin of the Word Culprit.-About the derivation of this word there has been much dispute. When a prisoner is brought to the bar, inquiry is made of him whether he pleads guilty or not guilty. On his answering Not guilty, the clerk of the arraigns says (or formerly did say)-" Quil paroit, let it appear so. Hence arose, from the sound of these French words, the vulgar practice of calling a prisoner a culprit: it was mistaken by the crowd for the legal denomination of a criminal. Blackstone supposes the word compounded of two abbreviations: cul for culpable, which the clerk declares the prisoner to be; and prit or prêt (Fr.) for ready to prove him so. Others again derive it from culpa, in a fault, and præhensus, taken.

Peter the Great.-Among the papers which Evelyn communicated to the Royal Society, is a curious letter describing the mischiefs done to his garden at Saye's Court, by the uncommonly severe winter of 1683 and 4. He has lamented in another place the great injury his garden received from the rough usage it underwent during the time he lent his house to the Czar Peter for his residence while studying the art of ship-building at Deptford. That great but rude sovereign, it seems, took a delight in the pastime of being wheeled backwards and forwards in a barrow through Mr. Evelyn's "most glorious and impenetrable holly hedge," which he mentions as the pride of his garden. Evelyn died in 1706, in his eighty-sixth year.

Bird-Catching. The following simple but ingenious method of catching wild fowl is practised in Mexico. The lakes of the Mexican vale, as well as others of the kingdom, are frequented by a prodigious multitude of wild ducks, geese, and other waterbirds. The Mexicans leave some large empty gourds to float upon the water, where those birds resort, that they may be accustomed to see and approach them without fear. The bird-catcher then goes into the water deep enough to hide his body, and covers his head with a gourd; the ducks come to peck at it; and then he pulls them by the feet under water, and in this manner secures as many as he pleases.

North West Passage. It has been frequently asked, what advantage would result to the world from the discovery of a passage round the northern part of America? The fur companies of the north could well answer this query. If a trade could be opened in furs with the natives on the northern coast, most important benefits might arise -the voyage to the East Indies, too, would be shortened one-third, and to our traders

to the western coast it would be exceedingly advantageous.

In a geographical point of view, it would be exceedingly interesting; and such discoveries, Malte Brun justly observes, enhance the dignity of human nature.'

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Custom. We remember to have met with man of much native sagacity, who had been taken a prisoner from the frontier settlements of Kentucky, at nine years of age, and after leading the life of a hunter thirty years among the Indians, in the remote regions of the north-west, returned to Ohio. He had entirely forgotten his mothertongue, and for two or three years after his return, he could not but pity a people compelled to use so clumsy a language as the English appeared to him; but when seven or eight years had elapsed, he was willing to admit, that he thought the whites could speak almost as sensibly as the Indians.-American Review.

French Postage.-Such of our readers as have correspondents on the Continent should be careful to write upon thin post paper when they write to their friends abroad. The thinnest and lightest paper should be used for this purpose, in order to comply with the regulations of the French govern. ment on this head-a regulation rather strange, and inconsistent with the tardy and ponderous nature of the vehicles by which correspondence is conveyed in France. A neglect of this precaution subjects the person to whom the letter is addressed to double or treble postage according to the weight.— Morning Journal.

Recipe for Salting Beef.-Salt and water have a wonderful penchant, chemically ycleped affinity, for each other. Get, therefore, a tub of pure water, rain or river water is best, let it be nearly full, and put the tongs or two pieces of thin wood across it, and set your beef on them, distant about an inch from the water; heap as much salt as it will hold on your beef, let it stand for four-andtwenty hours; you may then take it off and boil it, and you will find it as salt as if it had been in pickle for six weeks.-Gem.

Consumption of Tea.-The British consumer of tea is obliged to purchase the East India Company's tea (Congo) at six shillings to eight shillings per pound, which might be furnished to him by free traders, or Americans, at about the following rate— Congo, at Duty, say 100 per cent, . Profit, 25 per cent.

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17d. per lb.

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38. 21d.

In proof of the serious inroads which the use of tea, at the present exorbitant prices, makes on the earnings of the poor, and the limited incomes of the less indigent classes, we here subjoin some curious calculations, which were made some years ago, and which, though not intended to be applied to this subject, are quite in point.

As much superfluous money is expended in tea and sugar in this kingdom as would maintain four millions of subjects in bread. -Essay on Husbandry.

The entertainment of sipping tea costs the poor each as follows: Tea

Sugar

Butter

Fuel and wear of tea equipage

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Tea, therefore, when used twice a day, amounts to about 77. 12s. a head per annum. The same writer estimates the bread necessary for a labourer's family of five persons, at 141. 5s. 9d. per annum. By which it appears, that the yearly expense of tea, sugar, &c. for two persons exceeds that of the necessary article of bread sufficient for a family of five persons.-Essay on the Tea Plant.

The consumption of tea in Great Britain fluctuates continually, but may be averaged at twenty-four millions of pounds annually. The high price of tea obviously places it out of the power of the lower, and many of the middling classes of the people, the demands of whose families are constantly increasing upon them, to indulge in the beverage of good tea; and the privation is rendered so much the greater, because what was at first a luxury, has now, by the force of custom, become a necessary of life, and the habits of even the lowest classes require the use of tea. This indulgence, however, the present exorbitant price of the article necessarily precludes them from, except it be in so diluted a state as to make it little better than

mere water.

Were the sums drawn from the population of the country in this way, thrown into the Exchequer, the tax might be a source of less dissatisfaction. But that two millions sterling -the difference between the purchase of tea in China, and its sale price in England should annually be expended to paniper the appetites of a greedy monopoly, is an oppression which no poor man should quietly endure, nor any rich man, though he may not feel its weight, silently connive at.-Oriental Herald.

A collection of Sir Walter Scott's novels has been published in Germany in the English language, in 126 pocket volumés, including his last tales, and another edition translated into German, in 95 volumes.

A German translation of Lord Byron's works has also recently been published in 31 volumes. An edition in 18 small volumes of Sir W. Scott's Life of Napoleon, with plates, has been published by the same bookseller (Schumann Zwickau), for the low price of six rix dollars, which is about onesixth of the price it was published at in London.

At Frankfort, Weimar, and Leipsig, our best English works are often reprinted, and sold for a mere nothing. At the former place, Dr. Granville purchased Matilda, delightfully printed as a pocket volume, for one-fifth of the price at which it is sold in London. At Leipsig all Moore's poetical works, including Lalla Rookh, the Loves of the Angels, the Fudge Family, the Irish Melodies, &c. have been printed in one volume 8vo. which sells for seven shillings! They would cost as many pounds in England.

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The Earth.-M. L. Cordier, professor of Geology in the Garden of Plants, has published a memoir, in which he endeavours to prove that the earth is a cooled star, which has been extinguished only at its surface, and that its interior is still in a state of fluidity; that the mean thickness of the crust of the earth does not exceed twenty leagues (sixty miles); that, according to observations which have been made in the caves under the Observatory at Paris, the heat increases so fast, that, at the depth of about a mile and a half under Paris, we should reach a temperature equal to that of boiling water; and that this solid crust is of very unequal thickness in different countries, bringing the fluid matter nearer the surface, and imparting in consequence a higher temperature to the soil, and a climate to the country. New Monthly Magazine.

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Broken-winded Horses.-The public are frequently imposed upon by horse-dealers selling broken-winded horses, which are termed "roarers ;" and which defect they contrive temporarily to conceal from the purchasers in the following manner

They thrust a quantity of leaden shot, intermixed with a portion of lard, down the horse's throat, which so operates upon the lungs, that it keeps the breath of the horse in order for more than twenty-four hours, so as the most ingenious dealer cannot detect the disease. If the animal can be sold during this time, well and good; if not, a dose of castor oil removes the shot, &c. The next day the shot is again applied, and so every alternate day the horse is fit to be exposed for sale, which, in the end, seldom fails to entrap a purchaser.-Morning Herald.

The Souvenir.-It is stated in the preface of the Souvenir, that such is the expense of the publication, that a "circulation of less

than from eight to nine thousand copies would entail a loss upon the proprietors;" and it is added, in a note, that if the copyright and copper-plate printing be taken into consideration, one hundred guineas was the lowest cost of each of the engravings, and that some of them indeed were from one hundred and fifty to one hundred and seventy guineas each.

A New Trojan Horse.-The equestrian statue of George III. about to be erected at Windsor, is of such magnitude, that twelve of Mr. Westmacott's men have at one time together taken lunch in the interior of the horse, the door through which they entered being the saddle place.—Times.

Improvement in the Stamping of Newspapers. The quantity of newspaper stamps issued from Somerset House exceeds 100,000 per day. These are worked by ten machines, each requiring the attendance of three men, and six additional ones to wet the paper for the whole. The process of wetting may now be dispensed with altogether, a machine having been invented by Mr. Boyce, foreman at Messrs. Poucheé's type foundry, which works them dry, producing a far better impression, and a considerable saving of time to the proprietors of newspapers, who were before obliged to give forty hours notice when they required stamps, in order to give time for the wetting and stamping. By the new machine 36,000 may be worked off in six hours.-Weekly Free Press.

Green Colour of the Sea, produced by Animalcule. In the Greenland seas, about one part of the surface between the parallels, of 74 deg. and 80 deg. is of an olive, or grassgreen colour, which often occurs in long bands, or streams, from a few miles to ten or fifteen miles in breadth, and from two to three degrees of latitude in length. These belts of green water are frequently separated as distinctly from the transparent blue water, as the waters of a large muddy river on entering the sea. This colour has been ascertained to be caused by an animal of the medusa kind, from one-twentieth to one-thirtieth of an inch in diameter, the surface of which is marked with twelve distinct patches or nebulæ of dots of a brownish colour, disposed in pairs, four pairs, or sixteen pairs, alternately composing one of the nebula. The body of the medusa is transparent. The fibrous or hair-like substances were more easily examined, being of a darker colour. They varied in length from a point to onetenth of an inch, and, when highly magnified, were found to be beautifully moniliform. In the largest specimens these bead-like articulations were about thirty, and the diameter of each about the 8-300th part of an inch. The number of these animalculæ, particularly medusa, was found to be immense, in olivegreen sea-water, being about one-fourth of

an inch asunder. A cubic inch of water will, of course, contain 64; a cubic foot, 110,592; and a cubic mile, 23,888,000,000,000,000. Now, allowing that one person could count a million of these animalculæ in seven days, which is barely within the reach of possibility, it would have required that 40,000 persons should have started at the creation of the world to complete the enumeration of those contained in a cubic mile of sea-water. -Athenæum.

Typolithography.-A remarkable specimen of printing from types transferred to stone has lately appeared. It is a publication by Ridgway, of a tabular system of gardening, printed at the typolithographic press, Howard-street, on an imperial sheet. One side, which may be called the front, is entitled "The Gardener's Remembrancer, and Apiarian's Monthly Calendar, and consists of instructions for the management of bees, gardens, green-houses, hot-houses, &c. during each month of the year. The months are arranged circularly around a figure of the sun in the centre. The reverse of the sheet, which is divided into two tables, under the titles of "The Gardener's Vegetable Seed Calendar," and "The Gardener's Fruit Calendar," contains directions for the cultivation of the kitchen and fruit garden, in grafting, &c. These tables, we understand, are drawn up by a gentleman of Suffolk, who has had much experience in gardening; but, independently of their use, the work presents an interesting example of the manner in which typolithography may be applied, and the progress which the art has made. The impression of the types is as clear and distinct as in the finer descriptions of letter. press printing. It is one of the advantages of typolithography, that any embellishments or graphic illustrations may be embodied in the letter-press; but in this instance embellishment has been very sparingly introduced. The ground on which the types of the titles are placed has a novel and striking effect, and something of the kind, we think, might be advantageously employed in the ornamental title-pages of books.-Times.

Lord Norbury's Last.-Why should we not also have what the newspapers call Lord Norbury's last!-It seems that Mr. Dawson has some property in Dublin, on which a fish-market had been held from time immemorial. Not long ago he caused it to be all newly fitted up, with convenient and showy stalls. But the Nereids of Dublin being Catholics, none of them would support the speculations of one they considered an Orangeman, and not one of the fine stalls was let. In one week however, after the speech at Derry, not one remained unlet. Upon this being told to Lord Norbury, he answered "Aye-I thought that speech was all from sel-fish motives.-London Magazine.

DR. HERSCHEL'S HYPOTHESIS OF THE SUN BEING INHABITED.

(From the Philosophical Transactions.)

AMONG the celestial bodies the Sun is certainly the first which should attract our notice. It is the fountain of light which illumines the earth! It is the cause of that heat which maintains the productive power of nature, and makes a fit habitation for man! It is the central body of the planetary system; and what renders a knowledge of its nature still more interesting to us, is, that the numberless stars which compose the universe appear, by the strictest analogy, to be similar bodies. Their innate light is so intense, that it reaches the eye of the observer from the remotest regions of space.

That our Sun has an extensive atmosphere cannot be doubted; and that this atmosphere consists of various elastic fluids, that are more or less lucid and transparent, and of which the lucid one is that which furnishes us with light, seems also to be fully established by all the phenomena of its spots, of the faculæ, and of the lucid surface itself.

There is no kind of variety in these appearances, but what may be accounted for with the greatest facility, from the continual agitation which we may easily conceive must take place in the regions of such extensive elastic fluids. It will be necessary, however, to be a little more particular as to the manner in which I suppose the lucid matter of the Sun to be generated in its atmosphere. This lucid matter is neither liquid nor an elastic fluid, as is evident from its not instantly filling up the cavities of the spots, and of the unevenness of the mottled parts. It exists, therefore, in the manner of lucid clouds, swimming in the transparent atmosphere of the Sun; or rather of luminous decompositions taking place within that atmosphere. An analogy, drawn from the generation of clouds in our own atmosphere, seems a very proper one, and full of instruction. Our clouds are, probably, decompositions of some of the elastic fluids of the atmosphere itself, when such natural causes, as in this grand chemical laboratory are generally at work, act upon The following observations were made with an improved apparatus, and under the most favourable

circumstances

The Sun is mottled every where.

The mottled appearance of the Sun is owing to an inequality in the level of the surface. The Sun is equally mottled at its poles and at its equator; but the mottled appearances may be seen better about the middle of the disc than towards the circumference, on account of the Sun's spherical form.

The unevenness, arising from the elevation and de

pression of the mottled appearance on the surface of the Sun, seems, in many places, to amount to as much, or to nearly as much, as the depression of the penumbræ of the spots below the upper part of the shining substance, without including faculæ, which

are protuberant.

VOL. I.

E

them; we may therefore admit, that in the very extensive atmosphere of the Sun, from causes of the same nature, similar phenomena will take place; but with this difference, that the continual, and very extensive decomposi tions of the elastic fluids of the Sun are of a phosphoric nature, and attended with lucid appearances, by giving out light.

I allude

The exceeding subtilty of light is such, that in ages of time its emanations from the Sun cannot very sensibly lessen the size of this great body. To this may be added, that, very possibly, there may also be ways of restoration to compensate for what is lost by the emission of light; though the manner in which this can be brought about should not appear to us. Many of the operations of nature are carried on in her great laboratory, which we cannot comprehend; but now and then we see some of the tools with which she is at work. We need not wonder that their construction should be so singular as to induce us to confess our ignorance of the method of employing them, but we may rest assured that they are not a mere lusus naturæ. to the great number of small telescopic comets that have been observed; and to the far greater number that still are probably much too small for being noticed by our most diligent searchers after them. This throws a mystery over their destination, which seems to place them in the allegorical view of tools, probably designed for some salutary purposes to be wrought by them; and whether the restoration of what is lost to the Sun by the emission of light, the possibility of which we have been mentioning above, may not be one of these purposes, I shall not presume to determine. The motion of the comet, discovered by Mr. Messier, in June, 1770, plainly showed how much its orbit was liable to be changed, by the perturbations of the planets; from which, and the little agreement that can be found between the elements of the orbits of all the comets that have been observed, it appears clearly that they may be directed to carry their salutary influence to any part of the heavens.

My hypothesis, however, does not lay me under any obligation to explain how the Sun can sustain the waste of light, nor to show that it will sustain it for ever; and I should also remark, that, as in the analogy of generating clouds, I merely allude to their production, as owing to a decomposition of some of the elastic fluids of our atmosphere, that analogy, which firmly rests upon the fact, will not be less to my purpose, to whatever cause these clouds may owe their origin. It is the same with the lucid clouds, if I may so call them, of the Sun. They plainly exist, because we see them; the manner of their being generated may remain an hypothesis; and mine, till a better can be proposed, may stand good; but whether it does or not, the consequences I am going to draw from what has been said will not be affected by it.

No. 2. NOVEMBER 8, 1828.

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