ing remarked that horses rarely take fright at night, imagined that all that was necessary to check a horse running away was to cause him to be visited with temporary blindness; and, to do this, he contrived, by a spring connected with the reins, to cover the eyes suddenly. This was done when the animals were at the top of their speed, and the result was their instantaneous stoppage; for the light being suddenly excluded, horses no more rush forward, he says, without seeing their way, than would a man afflicted with blindness.-A letter was read from M. de Humboldt on the boring for an Artesian well in Westphalia. It is intended, says the writer, to bore to a depth of 2,000 mètres (a mile and a quarter English), and at that depth it is supposed that the water will be of the great heat of 70° Centigrade. The borers have reached a depth of 622 mètres. To that depth the augmentation of temperature had not followed the ordinary law, which, according to M. de Humboldt, was owing to the cooling of the column of air by the waters of filtration from above; but once arrived at 622 mètres, the ascensional force was so great as to drive back the water of the upper sources, and the ordinary law was re-established. M. Arago took this occasion to announce the intention of the government to make an Artesian well in the Jardin des Plantes of a depth of 900 mètres, viz. 200 mètres more than that of Grenelle. The water from the Artesian well of the Jardin des Plantes will, it is supposed, be of a temperature of 31° Centigrade, and will be employed to serve to heat the hot-houses of the gardens, and supply the hospitals of La Pitié and and La Salpetrière, and thus effect a great economy as to fuel. - HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. From the garden at Syon was a very remarkable cut specimen of Elate sylvestris, one of those noble palm trees which can only be cultivated in large conservatories. This plant possesses little beauty in its flowers; but produces panicles bearing a multitude of very pretty, oblong, orange-coloured berries, with a very curious flat stem, strong and tough, differing much from the usual form, and presenting a good subject for physiological investigation. Mr G. Sheills, gardener to Lord Blantyre, sent from Glasgow black Hamburg grapes weighing 1lb. 7 oz. and 1lb. 8 oz., that had been grown on a flued wall in the open air, where, notwithstanding the unpropitious weather in spring and in the early part of summer, they finely swelled and beautifully coloured. Mr Sheills states "that the vines produce an abundant crop and ripen their fruit in good time, and that some of the bunches which are not so ripe as those sent are twice as large, but that the berries are not quite so well swelled." From B. Maud, Esq., were specimens of grapes grown on a wall protected by a glass-case, which is fixed close to the face of the wall, with a hole in the end to allow the vine to pass without being bruised. The bunches, although beautifully coloured, were not large, but those unprotected in this manner_are miserable little things. -From G. T. Lay, Esq., interpreter to her Majesty's mission, China, was fruit of the Wung Kwo or Shan Le, the red fruit, or wild apple of the Chinese, which appears to be a kind of Crataegus. These unfortunately were much decayed and shrivelled up, so that it was impossible to say what the quality once had been. It is stated by Mr Lay that the pulp is made into red translucent cakes, which are very pleasantly tasted, and may be eaten freely without fear of indigestive flatulency or fulness. The fruit is reputed medicinal by the Chinese in bowel complaints among children. Mr Green sent some excellent fruit of Williams's Bon Chrêtien pear, also two Catillac pears. Mr Green states that "the tree on which these grew was formerly a Catillac, and that it grew very vigorously, as this sort usually does, but did not bear well; the fruit was also small and cracked, in consequence of which the tree was headed back, and grafted with Williams's Bon Chrêtien, which has always produced fine fruit ever since it came into bearing." He also states that "the two Catillac pears sent grew upon a branch of the same tree, which was allowed to remain where one of the grafts had failed; this branch, ever since the grafts began to bear, has borne abundantly, and the fruit has been of much finer quality than what it was before the other sort was worked upon the tree." To make British Champagne.-To one pint of grapes (when picked and bruised) add one quart of water; let it stand twenty-four hours, then strain it, and to every gallon of liquor put three pounds and a half of lump-sugar. Tun it the following day, and hang an ounce of isinglass in the cask; in two or three days stop it down close-bottle it as soon as the sweetness is sufficiently off. Safety Boat.-A trial was made of the safety paddle-box boats invented by Commander Smith, under that officer's superintendence. The time occupied in lowering down, on board one of the West Indian mail steamers, both boats, was eight minutes. When in the water, 167 men entered the boat, which was as many as she would stow; she seemed to have buoyancy enough for a much greater number. The ship's complement is 320; thus the two life boats alone would stow more than the whole ship's company, and there are her whole set of ordinary boats besides. Arms. Az., a chev. erm. between three trefoils, slipped ar. Supporters. Dexter, an eagle, close, sa. ; sinister, a falcon, close, ppr. beaked and legged or, each collared chained gold. "Always ready." Motto. "Toujours pret." THE NOBLE HOUSE OF CLAN- This noble family springs from Sir John Meade, Knt., of Ballintobber, county of Cork, who was Attorney-General to James the Second, when Duke of York (grandson of Sir John Meade, Knt., and Catherine his wife, daughter of Sir Dominic Sarsfield, Bart., Viscount Kilmallock). He was created a Baronet of Ireland, May 29, 1703. Sir John married Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Pierce and Viscount Ikerrin, by whom he had two sons, who survived him, and four daughters. On his death he was succeeded by Sir Pierce, his eldest son, who, dying unmarried, was succeeded by his brother, Sir Richard. He died in April, 1744, and was succeeded by his son John, who was born only a few days before his father's death. On the 17th Nov., 1766, Sir John was elevated to the peerage of Ireland, with the dignities of Baron Gilford and Viscount Clanwilliam. On the 20th July, 1776, he was created Earl of Clanwilliam. He died October 19, 1800, and was succeeded by his eldest son, Richard, second Earl. He was united, October 6, 1793, to Caroline, Countess of Thunn, by whom he left a son, Richard, who succeeded him, and two daughters. He subsequently married Margaret Irene, daughter of John Sarney, Esq., and widow of John Harcourt, Esq., of Ankerwycke and of Molyneux, Lord Shuldham. He died two months after his second marriage. The present peer was born August 15, 1795, and married, July 3, 1830, Elizabeth, second daughter of George, the late Earl of Pembroke, and has issue. The next heir to the title was born in October, 1832. This Earl succeeded his father as third Earl, September 3, 1805. He obtained the Barony of the United Kingdom by patent of creation, in January, 1828. His titles are these: Viscount Clanwilliam, county Tipperary; Baron Gilford, county Down, in the peerage of Ireland; Baron Clanwilliam, of Clanwilliam, county Tipperary, in the peerage of the United Kingdom. Reviews. Popular Cyclopædia of Natural Science. Parts V and VI. Orr and Co. We have seen no cyclopædia more beautifully and at the same time more conveniently got up; not only are the paper and printing all that could be desired, but its form is such that it may be most commodiously perused; and instead of having to rise to seek out the particular volume of plates and the particular illustration the reader wishes to study, it is snugly laid on the page before him, and the same moment which wakes curiosity furnishes the means of gratifying it. The engravings are numerous, well imagined, and ably executed. We could fill our pages, over and over again, with extracts of interest, but only give what follows as a specimen of the anxiety shown to afford knowledge without parade or that affected jargon which Voltaire justly reproved as the unwelcome companion of science. He who wishes to impart information largely should aim at perspicuity, not at fine language: the latter will only excite the wonder of the ignorant; the former will command the admiration of the reflecting and the intelligent -of those whose applause ought "to outweigh a whole theatre of others." That Mr Carpenter understands this will, we think, appear from the subjoined paragraphs: "When the trunk of a nerve supplying a muscle is irritated by pricking, pinching, &c., in the body of a living animal, or in one recently dead, the whole muscle is thrown into contraction; and this contraction is peculiarly strong when a current of electricity is transmitted along the nerve. In cold-blooded animals, whose muscular fibre retains its vital properties for a much longer time after death than that of warm-blooded, this contraction may be excited by a very feeble current of rated from the body for twenty-four hours electricity, in a limb which has been sepaor more; and it was owing, in fact, to this circumstance that the peculiar form of elec tricity which is now termed Galvanic or Voltaic, was discovered. The wife of Gal vani, who was Professor of Medicine at Bologna, being about to prepare some soup from frogs, and having taken off their skins, laid them on a table in his study, near the conductor of an electrical machine, which had been recently charged; and she was much surprised, upon touching them with a scalpel (which must have received a spark from the machine) to observe the muscles of the frog strongly convulsed. Her husband, on being informed of the circumstance, repeated the experiment; and found that the muscles were called into action by electricity communicated through the metallic substance with which the limb was touched. "The experiment was repeated in various ways by Volta, who was Professor of Natural Philosophy at Pavia; and he found that the effects were much stronger when the connecting medium through which the electricity was sent consisted of two metals instead of one; and from this circumstance he was led to the discovery that electricity is produced by the contact of two different metals, -a discovery which has since been so fruitful in most important results. The following simple experiment puts this in a striking point of view:-If the skin of the legs of a frog recently killed be removed, and the body be cut across, above the origin of the great (sciatic) nerves going to the legs, if the spine and nerves be then enveloped in tin-foil, and the legs be laid upon a plate of silver or copper,-convulsive movements in the muscles will be excited, every time that the metals are made to touch each other, so as to complete the electric circuit. "Similar experiments have been tried with the Voltaic battery upon the dead bodies of criminals recently executed. If one wire be placed upon the muscles which it is desired to call into action, and the other upon the part of the spine from which the nerves proceed, movements of every kind may be produced; and the application of electricity in this manner, so as to renew the motions of the diaphragm, is probably the best means of restoring vital activity, after it has been suspended by drowning or suffocation. No agent more effectually imitates the natural action of the nerves, in exciting the contractility of muscles, than electricity thus transmitted along their trunks; and it has been hence supposed, by some philosophers, that electricity is the real agent by which the nerves act upon the muscles,-more especially since it is certain that, in those animals which generate large quantities of electricity, the nerves have a great share in this peculiar operation. But there are many objections to such a view; and this very important one among the rest, that electricity may be transmitted along a nervous trunk which has been compressed by a string tied tightly round it, whilst the passage of ordinary nervous power is as completely checked by this process, as if the nerve had been divided. We have already seen, too, that electricity transmitted along the sensory nerves, excites the peculiar changes in the brain by which sensations are produced; and thus it appears that, in their effects, as well as in their mode of action, there is more analogy between electricity and nervous agency, than there is between any other two powers of animated and inanimated nature." We may add the following:stinct among vertebrated animals, we cannot "As an illustration of pure untaught inwhich a little fish, termed the Chaetodon rosselect a better example than the mode in tratus obtains its food. Its mouth is prolonged into a kind of beak or snout, through which it shoots drops of liquid at insects that may be hovering near the surface of the water, and rarely fails in bringing them down. Now according to the laws of optics, the insect, being above the water whilst the eye of the fish is beneath it, is not seen by it in its proper place; since the rays do not pass from the insect to the fish's eye in a straight line. The insect will appear to the fish a little above the place which it really occupies; and the difference is not constant, but varies with every change in the relative positions of the fish and the insect. Yet the wonderful instinct with which the fish is endowed, leads it to make the due allowance in every case; doing that at once for which a long course of experience would be required by the most skilful human marksman under similar circumstances." "The nest of the Baya, a little Indian bird allied to our bulfinch, has the form of a bottle; and it is suspended from a twig of such slenderness and flexibility, that neither monkeys, serpents, or squirrels can reach it. That it may be still more secure against the attacks of its numerous enemies, the bird forms the entrance of the nest on its under side, so that it can itself only reach it by the aid of its wings. This curious habitation is constructed of long grass; and several chambers are found in its interior, of which one serves for the female to sit on her eggs, whilst another is occupied by the male, who solaces his companion with his song, whilst she is occupied in maternal cares. Another curious nest is that of the Sylvia sutoria, or tailor-bird, a little Eastern bird allied to our linnet; which, by the aid of filaments of cotton drawn from the cotton-plant, sews leaves together with its beak and feet, in such a manner as to conceal the nest which they enclose from the observation of its enemies." The Electrical Magazine. No. II. October, 1843. Conducted by Mr Charles V. Walker. London: Simpkin and Co., and H. Baillière. Paris: J. B Baillière. THE 'Electrical Magazine' has appeared most opportunely to supply a blank in scientific literature which had been long felt by those who peculiarly devoted themselves to the science of electricity; and in the hands of the gentleman whose name appears on the title-page, there is every promise of its being a well-conducted periodical. It is doing for electricity the part which the scientific memoirs have done for science in general, namely, presenting translations of the most important papers which appear on the continent. Many pages in each number are devoted to this object; then follow original contributions, among which, in No. II, are some valuable facts on voltaic electricity, communicated by Professor Grove, and a full account of Armstrong's Hydro-electric Machine, by the Editor. Then follows a well-digested abstract of 'Faraday's Researches on the Electricity of Steam; which, in conjunction with the preceding, conveys to the reader the most important features in this new branch of electrical research. Several of the recent electrical publications are fully and ably reviewed. In one case, that of Mr Snow Harris's book On Thunder Storms,' the reviewer must have felt the peculiarity of his position, inasmuch as he was endeavouring to pass impartial judgment on the writing of one from whose theoretical views he so lately had occasion to differ. He has, however, treated the matter very candidly, and with much delicacy. In the contest relating to telegraphs, the advocate and the two champions have respectively received their share of censure. For a notice. of the contents of the present number, we must refer to our advertising columns. Each number concludes with a collection of facts and anecdotes in electricity, which are very well selected, and furnish many practical hints. LAYS OF REBELLION. IN furtherance of the Repeal insurrection, The work that should to-day be wrought The help that should within be sought, And trust ourselves alone. Too long our Irish hearts we schooled, By dreams of English justice fooled, Our hope and strength, we find at last, Aye! bitter hate, or cold neglect, Is all we've found or can expect, We aliens of the west. No friend, beyond her own green shore, Yet stronger is her trust, therefore, In her brave sons alone. The following is more inoffensively sen- Shall they bury me in the deep, Where the wilder breath Shall they bury me in the Palace Tombs, No! on an Irish green hill-side, To freshen the turf: put no tombstone there, BRADY, THE BUSHRANGER; Macabe, who had either voluntarily or accidentally become detached from his comrades, was traversing the bush, attended by a lad who carried his swag (Anglice, plunder). This youth, while threading the steps of the dreaded bushranger, suddenly resolved to essay his detruction-animated, no doubt, by the hope of the great reward offered for him, dead or alive. Being possessed of a loaded pistol, he cautiously produced it, then stepping up The Exterminator's Song' opens thus: behind the brigand, placed it against his 'Tis I am the poor man's scourge, And where is the scourge like me? My land from all Papists I purge, Who think that their votes should be free- My agent the last penny wrings; For I am the poor man's scourge! head, and fired. What was his horror and dismay when, instead of falling dead at his feet, he beheld Macabe, firm and erect, turn upon him with fury in his visage. 66 "Ay, ay, my lad," exclaimed the out.. law," are these your tricks? I'll engage to teach you better manners for the future." So saying, he laid hold of his selfelected executioner, but not, as the reader may suppose, to put him to death. The robber satisfied his vengeance by tying up the aggressor to a tree, flogging him soundly, and bidding him beware of such practices in future. Macabe owed his escape to the circumstance of the bullet having worked out of the pistol whilst in the lad's pocket. He was shortly thereafter taken, and executed early in 1826. During the March of that year, Brady and his band, to the number of fourteen or fifteen, made their appearance in the environs of Launceston. At this time they were all well mounted. Having got possession of a boat, they proceeded down the river Tamar to inspect a brig named the 'Glory,' which was then ready for sea. To effect the seizure of some vessel and fly the colony had all along been the aim and object of Brady, and scarcely had he reached the vicinity of the coast ere he ascended a lofty hill, to look out for this much-coveted prize, with which he feasted his eyes for so long a space, that he did not rejoin his comrades for many hours. Now that he was embarked upon the liquid element, he repeatedly rowed round the vessel, advising his associates to board her. A consultation thereupon ensued, Brady retiring to the stern sheets of the boat with this observation "However eager I may be, settle it amongst yourselves. Don't let my voice avail anything." The wind being foul, the bushrangers decided upon not attempting her capture. One of their number named Goodwin, who had been tried by a court martial for negligence in suffering the escape of a prisoner, was now violently laid hold of and thrown overboard, to sink or swim, as he best might such being the sentence they thought proper to inflict. Goodwin reached the shore in safety, becoming an illustration of the proverb-" He that is born to be hanged will never be drowned." were made to shoot him. Captain Smith implored them to desist, painting forcibly the misery they would entail upon White's unoffending wife and children. Moved by Smith's entreaties, White's life was spared; but, not many months thereafter, that wretched man, in a fit of intoxication, placed the muzzle of a musket under his chin, and having attached a cord in the shape of a stirrup to the trigger, he discharged the weapon with his foot, plastering the walls of a roadside inn with his blood and brains. Having abandoned every idea of capturing the Glory,' the bushrangers despatched a man named Watson to Launceston, with an intimation that they meant to attack Mr Dry, and then the gaol of Launceston, where they would liberate the prisoners, seize upon Jefferies and Perry, whom they would torture and shoot. This Jefferies was a ruffian who called himself a bushranger, a name which Brady considered he assumed but to disgrace. On one occasion, meeting a poor woman with her child, he deliberately seized the babe by the heels and dashed out its brains. He then outraged the mother with fiendish barbarity in a manner not to be described. Brady's menace was treated with sovereign contempt: the result proved it merited more serious attention, its first part having been performed to the letter, and Mr Dry's mansion thoroughly ransacked. Intimation of the truth having been conveyed to Colonel Balfour, he reached the scene of action with a dozen soldiers and several volunteers, entering the main door of the house as the bushrangers retired by the back. At this time it was perfectly dark; an ineffectual fire was kept up for some time, but at length silence reigned, and the colonel, unable to see his enemy, concluded they had effected their retreat. Dividing his force, he hastened to the defence of Launceston, a measure seemingly necessary from the fact of Brady's having detached Bird, Dunne, and a portion of the band, to threaten that place. Upon the colonel's departure, Brady commenced plundering Mr Wedge's hut, adjoining Mr Dry's outbuildings. Doctor Priest, commanding the military left behind, proposed charging; this having been heard by the bushrangers, was responded to by a volley, which killed the doctor's horse and wounded himself in the kneea wound which, in consequence of his refusal to submit to amputation, shortly proved mortal. Official accounts declared the ruffians owed their escape to the darkness of the night: truth leads to the belief that the troops were completely outgeneralled. Colonel Balfour's cap having fallen into Brady's possession, it was worn by the robber with much ostentation, who arrogantly styled himself Commandant of Launceston. During their progress on the Tamar they captured a boat in which were Captains White, of the Government brig 'Duke of York,' and Smith, of the private trader 'Brutus.' Mistaking Smith for Colonel Balfour of the 40th regiment, they knocked him down, but were no sooner made aware of their error than they apologized for their conduct. White had the reputation of being an overbearing and cruel tyrant. As a midshipman of the Unicorn' frigate, he murdered one of his men, whilst the ship was on the Leith station. Having miraculously escaped hanging, he was transported for life to Van Diemen's Land, whose local government entrusted him with the command of the Duke of York.' In this command he showed, or was alleged to have shown, great inhumanity to his convict sailors, a (reputed) fact of which the bushrangers were cognizant, and for which they now proceeded to take summary vengeance. White was peremptorily ordered to go upon his knees, and preparations |