are in a torpid state, and are seldom known to fly. There are about twenty different rooms that have been discovered, and but three of them that have been explored to the end. This vast cavern is apparently hollow beneath, from the sound that is made by walking through many of the rooms. It would probably take months to explore to the end of all the rooms that have been, and which remain yet to be discovered. The removing of some few obstructions, at a trifling expense, and lighting the cavern, would enable a stage coach to go with safety to the second waterfall, a distance of fifteen miles. 000000 permission from his commanding officer, Count de Rochambeau to make an excursion to New-London.Not satisfied with a view of the remnants of a town which the perfidious Arnold had just burnt and destroyed, he was attracted to Newport, R. I. a town which was then celebrated for its circles of enlightened and modest men and handsome and talented women.— He pleasantly describes his meeting the daughter of an elderly quaker, whose unconscionable gravity seldom allowed him to 'bare his thoughts, and never to bare his head.' Although her father's company was nearly intolerable, notwithstanding his virtues, Polly Leiton we are assured was a charming girl. So much beauty, simplicity, elegance and modesty, were perhaps never before combined in the same person. 'Her gown was white, like herself, whilst her ample muslin neckerchief and the envious cambrick of her cap, which nearly hid her light-coloured hair, and the modest attire in short, of a pious virgin, seemed vainly to enThis is an instrument employed to facilitate arith-deavour to conceal the most graceful figure and the metical calculations. The name may be given with propriety to any machine for reckoning with counters, beads, &c., in which one line is made to stand for units, another for tens, and so on. We have here given the form of an abacus, such as we may recommend, for the purpose of teaching the first principles of arithmetick, the only use, as far as we know, to which such an instrument is put in this country. Its length should be about three times its breadth. It consists of a frame, traversed by stiff wires, on which beads or counters are strung so as to move easily. The beads on the first right hand row are units, those on the next tens, and so on. Thus, as it stands, the number 57048 is represented upon the right hand part of it. THE ABACUS. most beautiful form imaginable. Her eyes seemed to reflect as in a mirrour the meekness and purity of her mind and the goodness of her heart; she received them with an open ingenuity which delighted the Count; and the use of the familiar word thou, which the rules of her sect prescribed, gave to their new acquaintance the appearance of an old friendship.' In their conversations she surprised the Count by the candour and originality of her questions; "Thou hast then" she said, "neither wife not children in Europe, since thou leavest thy country and comest so far to engage in that cruel occupation war?" "But it is for your welfare," replied the Count, "that I quit all I hold dear, and it is to defend your The abacus can never be much used in this country, owing to our various division of weights and measures. We should need one abacus for dollars and cents; another for avoirdupois weight; a third for troy weight, and so on. In China, however, where the whole sys-liberty that I came to fight the English." tem is decimal, that is, where every measure, weight, &c., is the tenth part of the next greater one, this instrument, called in Chinese, Shwanpan, is very much used, and with most astonishing rapidity. It is said that while one man reads over rapidly a number of sums of money, another can add them so as to give the total as soon as the first has done reading. Their abacus differs from the one described above, in having only five beads on each wire, one of which is distinguished from the rest either in colour or size, and stands for five. There is one of these instruments in the East India Company's Museum. The Greeks and Romans used the same sort of abacus, at least in later times. The Russians are also much in the habit of performing calculations by strings of beads. It is probable that the word was originally applied to a board strewed with dust or sand, on which letters were marked in teaching children to read. The word Abax was the Greek term for this instrument. Some etymologists derive the name from the Phoenician Abak, which signifies dust. Lucas de Burgo, an old algebraical writer, says it is a contraction of Arabicus. It is most probable, however, that the first derivation is correct. A chequered board, such as we still sometimes see at the doors of publick-houses, was formerly used in this country as an abacus, and a chess-board would now do very well for the purposes of instruction abovementioned. The multiplication-table is sometimes called the Pythagorean abacus. "The English," she rejoined, "have done thee no harm, and wherefore shouldst thou care about our liberty? We ought never to interfere in other people's business unless it be to reconcile them together and prevent the effusion of blood." "But," said the Count, "my King has ordered me to come here and engage his enemies and your own." "Thy King then, orders thee to do a thing which is unjust, inhuman, and contrary to what thy God ordereth. Thou shouldst obey thy God and disobey thy king, for he is King to preserve and not to destroy.I am sure that thy wife, if she have a good heart, is of my opinion." POLLY LEITON AND COUNT SEGUR. While the French auxiliaries during our Revolusion were laying at Hartford, Count Segur obtained "What," asks the Count enthusiastically, "could I reply to that angel? For, in truth, I was tempted to believe that she was a celestial being. Certain it is, that, if I had not then been married and happy, I should, whilst coming to defend the liberty of the Americans, have lost my own at the feet of Polly Leiton." PRECOCIOUS WITs.-I asked two little village boys, one seven, the other eight years old, what they meant to be when they were men. Says one, "I shall be the doctor of the village." And you, what shall you be? said I to the other. "Oh! if brother's a doctor, I'll be cure. He shall kill the people, and I'll bury them, so we shall have the whole village between us.”—Bulwer's France. THE RUINS OF AMERICA. There may be no such ruins in America as are found in Europe, or in Asia, or in Africa: but other ruins there are, of a prodigious magnitude-the ruins of a mighty people. There may be no places of pilgrimage in America, unless it be some lonely battleground, already forgotten by the neighbourhood, overgrown with a forest, and overshadowed by a perpetual deep darkness, or covered, far and wide, with a sea of weltering herbage-the frightful vegetation of death; no places that have been sanctified by song or story, ages after ages, with beautiful tradition, or heroick poetry, save here and there a small spot of earth shut in by the great hills, or fortified by the everlasting rocks, where the red man withstood the white man, while the noise and the flash of the terrible weapons with which the latter shot fire into the heart of the former, appeared to the savage to be that very noise and brightness which he had seen set fire to the woods about his path, tear up the earth under his feet, and shatter the very sky over his head; or some other shadowy quiet place or smooth hill-top, where the men of the revolution made war upon their fathers and brothers-upon the most powerful nation of the earth, while her ships covered the sea, and her armies were on the march in every quarter of the globe. &c. Sept. 1834. There may be no piles of barbarian architecture, each Extract from Mr. Moore's Address before the General Trades' Union, a wilderness of turrets, towers, and battlements, rockWhat can be more humiliating to the Philosopher, ing to the sea breeze, or overshadowing the high places of power in America; no half-buried city like the pil- tion that a majority of mankind rather seek to kill time or discouraging to the philanthropist, than the reflec lared and sculptured treasuries of the art which encumber the earth, and choke up the rivers of the old than improve it! It is generally those who need inworld, or come and go with the tide-appear and dis-struction most, that strive least to obtain it; and hence appear, day after day, along the sea-shore of states that the more ignorant a man is, the less does he appreciate have perished for ever; cities buried by the volcano or that is acquainted with the delights of knowledge, with the value and importance of the winged hours. Who, the earthquake, overthrown by the savage, swept over the value of reflection, and the charms of contempla by the sea, or swallowed by the sand of the desert, yet tion, but must hear with deep regret those who have crowded with strange beauty, and full of glorious wreck; no prodigies of the mist of that beautiful dim vapour, the tardiness of time and sighing for the future? And never endeavoured to profit by the past, complaining of the twilight of another world, the atmosphere of tradition, through the bannered palaces, the rocky fortresses, why should man seek to pass his time in idleness, and the haughty piles of Europe, loom with a most un- or in vain and unprofitable pursuits? Why neglect earthly grandeur. But if there are no such things into cultivate the mental faculties which God has given America, there are things which are to be found no- him? He can plead no excuse in extenuation. Neiwhere else on earth now-the live wreck of a prodi-ther nature nor circumstance can furnish him with a gious empire that has departed from before our face with-sufficient apology for such delinquency. If deprived in the memory of man; the last of a people who have of the advantages of an early education, the more anxious and industrious should he be to obtain one. no history, and who but the other day were in posses- And if so fortunate as to have acquired more informasion of a quarter of the whole earth. Names. tion than his neighbours, the more liberal he should be in the dispensation of his knowledge. Placed in a world, rite with interest, replete with curious varieties, and pregnant with unexplored phenomena, man is Perpendicular height. Whole descent. urged by every motive, by every inducement, to ac TABLE OF CATARACTS, IN AMERICA. Tequendama, S. America Shawenegan, L. C. 600 Wilberforce, Hood River, U. C. 100 Pusambio, S. America Missouri Passaic, N. J. Cohoes, Mohawk, N. Y. Claudiere, L. C. 600 600 250 200 281 150 250 400 70 352 70 70 70 130 60 60 Great Falls, Potomac 76 quaint himself as far as possible, with the nature and designs of that creation of which he forms so interesting and important a feature. He is called upon by every consideration, to devote his time and his energies to the ascertainment and development of those truths, whether physical, political or moral, which concern the welfare of man: and he who neglects to perform those duties, contravenes, as far as in him lies, the purposes of his creation. Á blind veneration for antiquity, originating in the credulity and indolency of the human mind, is one great source of errour and ignorance. Men find less trouble and labour in adopting the opinions of others, than in investigating and forming opinions of their own; and hence their willingness to follow in the footsteps of their ancestors. So long as men act upon the principle, that the antiquity of an opinion, or the universality with which it has been received, is an indubitable evidence of its truth, so long will they maintain and propagate errour and falsehood. Would men but reflect, that the indolent and ignorant have ever outnumbered the reasoning and intellectual; and that the more an cient an opinion, the nearer it approaches to the legend ary and fabulous times, they would not so readily elephant; and yet, strange and paradoxical as it ma estimate its worth by the number of votaries, or the antiquity of its existence. Shall I be told, that but comparatively few are capable of becoming habitual thinkers and correct reasoners-that nature has withheld her intellectual gifts from the great majority of her children, and decided that they should be governed and controled by a chosen and favoured few? Let no man so far presume to question the justice and goodness of the Universal Parent. I am aware, however, that there exists a disparity in the minds and capacities of men; and I am also aware, that that disparity arises in a great degree from the volition of the creature. Such is the habitual negligence of men, and so prone are they to trifles, that a majority of them feel a deeper interest in the displays of necromancy, than in the demonstrating certain words to the parrot or the jackdaw. Withtions of philosophy; and would listen with greater attention to the ravings of a fanatick, or the pratings of a parrot, than to the thunders of Sinai, or a voice from heaven. And why this abuse of reason, this poverty of mind and dereliction of thought? Does the cause necessarily exist in man's nature and constitution? By no means-but in his habits and his will. The majority of distinguished individuals, owe their elevation to the moral qualities, rather than to native superiority of intellect. The truth of this position is strikingly exemplified in the life and achievements of CARSTEN The value of our acquirements depends, not so much NIEBUHR. Born a peasant in a remote corner of an upon their extent or variety, as upon the manner and obscure province, far removed from all the facilities of capacity with which they are applied. When men acquiring information-poor and an orphan-gifted but learn how to think, they soon begin to think correctly. moderately by nature-with a memory not remarkably No precocity of genius-no expansion of native intelretentive, and his ability of acquiring knowledge the lect-no acquisitions of knowledge, can render men most common-yet, notwithstanding all these unpropi- wise and useful, without they know how to direct their tious circumstances, he became by dint of perseverance powers and use their wisdom. How strong the proand indefatigable industry, one of the most distinguish-priety then, nay, how imperative the duty, especially ed men of his age. His memory will survive and in a government like ours, where the publick voice is flourish-be honoured and revered, whilst science has a omnipotent, where the destinies of the republick are friend, or virtue an admirer. committed to the hands of its citizens, where govern are accountable for the administration of its affairs, that all should be acquainted with its character and genius, and capable of investigating the causes that may secure its stability, or accelerate its destruction. Of what benefit would the native genius of a New-ment is a deposit intrusted alike to all, and where all ton or a Liebnitz have been to themselves, or to the world, without the aid of method and mental industry? Not by intuition, but by the deductions of reason, was the latter enabled to discover the order of fluxions, or the differential calculus-and the former, the laws of universal gravitation. It was industry and mental discipline, that enabled the immortal Tully to sustain for a season, the fortunes of degenerate and sinking Rome-that enabled NAPOLEON to control the destinies of Europe-and FRANKLIN to follow nature to her hiding place, and pluck the master-secret from her bosom. FIRE-SHIPS. These are generally old vessels filled with combustibles, and fitted with grappling-irons, to hook enemy's ships, and set them on fire. The following is a description of the fire-ships which were of such essential service to the Greeks, in their recent war with TurAll men, when their jealousies and prejudices are key. The vessels usually employed for this service,' quiescent, admire genius, and willingly do homage to says Emerson, 'are old ships, purchased by the govintellectual greatness-nay, regard the master spirits ernment. Their construction as fire-ships is very simof intelligence, as beings almost superhuman; and ple, nothing more being wanted than active combushence, the ancients deified their sages and benefactors- tion. For this purpose, the ribs, hole and sides of the and hence, the moderns speak of PLATO, as the divine-vessel, after being well tarred, are lined with dried of GALILEO and KEPLER-of LA GRANGE and LA furze, dipped in pitch and lees of oil, and sprinkled PLACE of MILTON and SHAKSPEARE-of JEFFERSON and with sulphur; a number of hatchways are then cut FRANKLIN, as "the immortal."—And is it not extraordi- along the deck, and under each is placed a small barnary, that men should idolize qualities in others, which rel of gun-powder; so that at the moment of conflagrathey neglect to cultivate in themselves? Is it not tion, each throws off its respective hatch, and giving strange, that the love of mental ease should, so often, ample vent to the flames, prevents the deck being too nay, so generally, triumph over all the aspirations of a soon destroyed by the explosion. A train which pasgenerous ambition-over every impulse, every desire for ses through every part of the ship, and communicates intellectual eminence? with every barrel, running round the deck, and passing Most men are willing to admit, (and feel a secret out at the steerage window, completes the preparation pride in the admission,) that when God said "let us below; whilst above, every rope and yarn is well covmake man in our own image," he meant that the ered with tar, so as speedily to convey the flames to resemblance should consist in the intellectual character the sails; and at the extremity of each yard-arm, is atand qualifications of man. Admitting the correctness tached a wickered hook, which, being once entangled of this interpretation, it follows, that in proportion as with the enemy's rigging, renders escape after coming we advance in knowledge, in that ratio do we approx-in cont ct, almost a matter of impossibility. The imate to the character and likeness of our Creator. And of consequence, as we remain stationary, or retrograde, do we assimilate to the brutes that perish. There are none but would startle with horrour at the reflection, that they resembled in form and face, the ape or the train, to prevent accidents, is never laid till the moment of using it; when all being placed in order, and the wind favourable, with every sail set so as to increase the flames, she bears down upon the enemy's line, whilst the crew, usually twenty-five or thirty in number, have no other defence than crouching behind | long before she comes in contact, precipitate themselves the after bulwarks. When close upon the destined into the sea, and attempt to reach the other vessels, ship, all hands descend by the stern into a launch fitted scarcely one remaining to the last moment, to attempt out for the purpose, with high gunwales and a pair of to save the devoted vessel. Sometimes, however, small swivels; and at the moment of contact, the train armed boats are sent off from the other vessels of the is fired by the captain, and every hatch being thrown fleet; but they have never yet been able, either to preoff, the flames burst forth, at the same instant, from vent the approach of the fire-ship, or seize on the crew stem to stern; and ascending by the tarred ropes and while making their escape; and though fire-ships are sails, soon communicate with the rigging of the ene- in other countries considered a forlorn hope, such is my's vessel, who have never yet, in one instance, been the stupidity and terrour of the Turks, that it is rarely able to extricate themselves. In fact, such is the ter- that one of the brulottiers is wounded, and very selrour with which they have inspired the Turks, that they dom indeed that any lose their lives. The service, seldom make the slightest resistance. On the distant however, from the risk to which it is exposed, is reapproach of the fire-ship they maintain, for some min-warded with higher pay than what is given to ordinautes, an incessant random cannonade; but, at length, ry seamen. a sand bank forming part of the coast of the Arctic Ocean. In the month of march of that year, the Tungusian carried away the two tusks, which he sold for fifty rubles, about fifteen pounds sterling. It has been demonstrated by Cuvier, that this animal was of a different species from the mastodon, or American mammoth. Its bones have been found in the alluvial soil near London, Northampton, Gloucester, Harwich, Norwich, in Salisbury plain, and in Two years afterwards this animal still remained on other places in England; they also occur in the north the sand-bank, where it had fallen from the ice; but of Ireland; and in Sweden, Iceland, Russia, Poland, its body was then greatly mutilated. The peasants Germany, France, Holland, and Hungary, the bones had taken away considerable quantities of its flesh to and teeth have been met with in abundance. Its teeth feed their dogs; and the wild animals, particularly have also been found in North and South America, the white bears, had also feasted on the carcase; yet and abundantly in Asiatic Russia. Pallas says, that the skeleton remained quite entire, except that one of from the Don to the Tchutskoiness, there is scarcely the fore legs was gone. The entire spine, the pelvis, a river that does not afford the remains of the mam- one shoulder blade, and three legs, were still held tomoth, and that they are frequently imbedded in al-gether by their ligaments, and by some remains of the luvial soil, containing marine production. The skeletons are seldom complete; but the following interesting narrative will show that, in one instance, the animal has been found in an entire state. In the year 1799, a Tungusian fisherman observed a strange shapeless mass projecting from an ice-bank, near the mouth of a river in the north of Siberia, the nature of which he did not understand, and which was so high in the bank as to be beyond his reach. He next year observed the same object, which was then rather more disengaged from among the ice; but was still unable to conceive what it was. Towards the end of the following summer, 1801, he could distinctly see that it was the frozen carcase of an enormous animal, the entire flank of which, and one of its tusks, had become disengaged from the ice. In consequence of the ice beginning to melt earlier, and to a greater degree than usual, in 1803, the fifth year of this discovery, the enormous carcase became entirely disengaged, and fell down from the ice-crag on skin; and the other shoulder blade was found at a short distance. The head remained, covered by the dried skin, and the pupil of the eyes was still distinguishable. The brain also remained within the skull, but a good deal shrunk and dried up; and one of the ears was in excellent preservation, still retaining a tuft of strong bristly hair. The upper lip was a good deal eaten away, and the under lip was entirely gone, so that the teeth were distinctly seen. The animal was a male, and had a long mane on its neck. The skin was extremely thick and heavy, and as much of it remained as required the exertions of ten men to carry away, which they did with considerable difficulty. More than thirty pounds weight of the hair and bristles of this animal were gathered from the wet sand-bank, having been trampled into the mud by the white bears, while devouring the carcase. The hair was of three distinct kinds; one consisting of stiff black bristles, a foot or more in length; another of thinner bristles, or coarse flexible hair, of a reddish brown colour; and the third of coarse reddish-brown | comparative anatomy. This allegation seems to us wool, which grew among the roots of the hair. These to be rather ad captandum, and is certainly unjust. afford an undeniable proof that this animal had be- Mr. Peale had the remains of the animal before him, longed to a race of elephants inhabiting a cold region, and was himself endowed we believe with good eyes with which we are unacquainted, and by no means fitted to dwell in the torrid zone. It is also evident that this enormous animal must have been frozen up by the ice at the moment of its death. and employed a faithful pencil. With the exception therefore of the position of the tusks, which might or might not have been an original errour, we cannot On page 248 of this Magazine we gave a represen- perceive how Mr. Peale could have erred in the delintation of the Mammoth of the North, in which the eation of this animal's anatomical construction. We tusks were turned downwards. Some have thought have seen, we repeat, the skeleton of the Mastodon; the representation in this respect incorrect. Baron and we can assert that the Saturday Magazine has Cuvier on examining a specimen of these remains betrayed a greater ignorance of the American Mastowhich was taken to England by Mr. R. Peale, con- don than Mr. Peale probably could have displayed in cluded from analogy, that this animal commonly call-reference to the fossil remains of any country. ed the Mastodon, differed from the Elephant in no other material respect than in the formation of the teeth. Some English writers, upon the strength of this, have represented the Siberian Mammoth, of whose skeleton a figure is hereto prefixed, to be identically the same animal as to formation. KISSES. A kiss is said to be the sweetest pledge of tenderness and friendship; and as we have never seen it defined, we will call it, a labial contaction followed by a smack! In our country at least, kisses are not wantonly dispensed; they are the peculiar treasure of the ladies, and are awarded by them in such a sparing manner, that the lucky one who receives them may deem himself an honoured favourite.-It is not here a general method of salutation or of welcome; and unless it be upon New Year's day, it is seldom bestowed save as a pledge of affection. In Russia, however, according to Sir Robert Ker Porter this seal of friendship is daily appropriated to as common and publick use, as the shaking of the hands among us. 'It is not sufficient that the fair sex salute each other, or touch your cheek: but no bearded boor meets his fellow, but forty smacks are heard, as though each were sucking cider through a vent-peg. Every man, young, old, lame, blind, or ever so disgusting, when he kisscs the hand of any woman, let her delicacy be ever so nice, or her rank exalted, she must return the salute on his cheek.' This is done at every interview, although little intimacy may exist between the parties: about the conclusion of the six weeks' fast, the custom of kissing is most generally indulged in; then society is but one scene of kissing strife! The English Saturday Magazine would likewise make it the same animal as the Mastodon of Ohio. That Magazine asserts this upon a comparison of the figures of the two skeletons as respectively furnished by Mr. Peale and Baron Cuvier. The difference of the two animals, however, even on a comparison of these engravings are more obvious than that Magazine seems to have supposed. Although we are willing to concede to that Magazine, notwithstanding Mr. Peale's opinion to the contrary, that from considerations of comparative anatomy the tusks of this animal undoubtedly turned upwards, yet, we are constrained to aver, and we do it from personal examination of the skeleton of the Mastodon of the States, that if the representation of the Siberian remains are correct, the declaration of its identity with the former is wrong; and we feel prepared to say that the differences between the two specimens are nearly as great as those between a horse and a cow. No one seems better qualified to give a competent description of the remains of the American animal than Mr. Peale, who collected the bones, put them together for publick exhibition and drew a representation of them with his own hand. He describes the American Mastodon as distinct from Indeed the custom is systematick in that country, and all other fossil remains ever found, and therefore dis- the various kinds of kisses are arranged into four classtinct from those of the Siberian Mammoth. The ma-es. First, the kiss religious. This is the highest in terial difference consists in the formation of the teeth: its distinctive characteristicks from those of the Siberian Mammoth consist not only the teeth but in its general osteological conformation—the bones are larger and more clumsily shaped--the joints of the legs are different, those of the Mastodon being hinged, while those of the Siberian Mammoth are ball and socket. It differs likewise in the feet, the Siberian Mammoth being as is represented hoofed or solipeda, and the Mastodon digitigrade, or having toes or split hoofs, similar to the elephant. There are likewise differences in the size of the skeleton and length of the ribs ; besides numerous other minor differences which sufficiently distinguish the Mastodon of America not only from the Siberian Mammoth but from all other fossil remains yet discovered. The Saturday Magazine charges Mr. Peale with an insufficient knowledge of VOL. II. 40 degree, and is of widest privilege, being used only at sacred periods; but during the holy seasons, under its passport, the veriest clown may find his way to the cheek of the loveliest or most illustrious woman in the empire. Second, the kiss of love! This is declared to be the sweetest, and it is the rarest; but it is said to have many a counterfeit, for its soft touch unites in one moment lips, heart, and soul. It is spoken of as of divine origin, and its delicate nature never allows it to be practised in publick. Third, the kiss platonick, or the kiss of friendship. This Sir Robert thinks almost as dear as the former, though not quite so sweet! Lastly, the kiss promiscuous. This species seems to be one of cold formality, and Sir Robert would protest against it as well as all the others, since they dete |