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Dr. Akerly on Gypsum as a Manure.

(Scirpus monander, Rottbo) which has a three sided chaff and a long triphyllous involucrum. Raf.

2. Bigelowia montana. Raf. Stem angular; leaves oblong, acute enerved; peduncles solitary elongated. A.

Arenaria seu Stellaria (anonmya) Bige low, Caulo anguloso, foliis oblongis acutis eneroibus, pedunculis solitaris elongatis, floribus apetalis.

Obs. Dr. Bigelow is doubtful of the genus of this plant, and has not even named it. It cannot be an Arenaria, whose character is to have entire petals, nor a Stellaria, which must have bifid petals; it must therefore constitute a peculiar genus in the natural family Alsinia, intermediate between the genera Pharnaceum, Ballarion and Arenaria, whose characters will be: Cal. 5 phyllous, no petals, 10 stamens, 3 styles, capsule unilocular, and which is dedicated to Dr. Bigelow, author of the Florula Bostoniensis, &c. Raf.

3. Dimesia monticola. Raf. Exterior valve of the interior glume awned on the back in the lateral male flowers. J.

Holcus monticola. Bigelow. Glumis trifloris, hemaphrodito intermedio diandro, maculis lateralibus triandris, valvula exteriore dorso aristato.

Obs. This plant, together with the

OCT.

Holcus fragrans of Mx. and Pursh, (Dimesia fragrans,) constitutes a new genus, totally different from Holcus, and belonging to the natural family TRIMEIA in the natural order ACHIROPIA of the graftes. Its character will be, exterior glume bivalve triflore, interior glume bivalve, two lateral male flowers with 3 stamens, the middle one hermaphoidite and with 2 stamens. Raf.

4. Melica triflora. Bigelow. Hairy, panicle compact exterior glumes triflore, interior glumes awned, A-. Villosa panicula coarctata, glumes trifforis, corpusculo accessorio, flosiculis aristatis.

Obs. This species must form with the Melica aspera, of Desfontaines, a subgenus distinguished by its triflore glumes, and which I shall name Trianthusa. Raf.

5. Scirpus obtusus. Bigelow. Chaff. cylindrical and spiked, naked; spike lanceolate, scales thick and obtuse at the top, J- Culmo tereti, mido, monostachyo, spica lanceolata, squamis apice carnosis obtusis. Big.

-.

6. Vaccinium gualtheroides. Bigelow. Procumbent, leaves obovate entire, flowers nearly solitary, berries oblong, style persistent. J- Prostratum, foliis obovatis integris, floribus subsolitaris, baccis oblongis stylo coronatis. Big. C. S. R.

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ART. 6. ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE USE OF GYPSUM

AS A MANURE ON THE SEA COAST.

THE general introduction of gypsum

cultivated districts of the U. States, has
heen of the utmost importance to the
Agriculture of the country. Its use, how-
ever, has been limited to the interior, or
at least now within 40 or 50 miles from
the sea board. Its failure to produce fer-
tility, within a saline atmosphere, has been
accounted for upon the principles of che-
mical affinity. (Trans. Agricultural Socie-
ty, N. Y. Vol. I.) Plaister of paris, called
also gypsum,
is sulphuric acid in combi-
nation with lime, forming the chemical
union, making sulphate of lime. The sea
salt contained in the atmosphere is muri-
atic acid in union with soda, forming mu-
riate of soda. When these two ingredi-
ents come together in solution, the sul-
phate of lime or gypsum is converted in-
to muriate of lime by the muriatic acid of
the sea salt. As the action which takes
place in this case must be that of a double
elective attraction, the sea-salt is also

changed and becomes glauber salt or sulphate of soda, by assuming the sulphuric acid of the gypsum. Such have been the manner of accounting

for them.

The following method of applying gypsum on the sea coast, makes up for the unsuccessful experiments heretofore performed with it as a manure; and if future practice should corroborate the present statement, it would leave a doubt of the correctness of the theory which accounts for the preceding results in failing to produce fertilizing effects. As the air, rain, and dew have the same saline impregnation within a sea atmosphere, the same chemical changes should take place in whatever way the plaister is applied to produce fertility. The following notice was taken from a New-York daily paper of August, 1812. (The Public Advertiser.)

"A gentleman of respectability and intelligence, of Long-Island, lately communicated that the following process is rapidly prevailing in his neighbourhood, and in many parts of New Jersey. When the

ndian corn (maize) has fairly silked, and he farina on the blossom is matured, dust small portion of ground plaister on the ufts of silk. There ought to be no wind, and perhaps the advantage would be greater if applied while the dew was on in the morning. The gentleman stated that whenever this had been practised the cobs were crowded with grains to the very extremity. He likewise observed that advantage had also been obtained by dusting the blossoms of potatoes. Perhaps the same process would be advantageous on the blows of melons, cucumbers, squashes, pumpions, and even peas and beans."

I am apprehensive of some mistake in this matter, as nothing has come to my knowledge on the subject since cutting out the above paragraph from the newspaper, in 1812; but if the fact should be 30, it is of some moment to agriculture and the sciences to diffuse the information; and it is with a view of soliciting a knowledge of what has been done by those who have made experiments, that I have offered these observations on the subject. If gypsum fails of fertilizing the earth on the sea coast, from chemical changes with sea salt, the same effect must take place when it is sprinkled on the blossom or mingled with the dew; for it is well known that dew contains much earthy and saline particles in solution, and is generally more impure than rain; and from experiments which I have made on rain-water, it appears impregnated with salt, and other impurities, at all seasons of the year, in and about NewYork. Hence, if gypsum will fertilize, as above applied in a sea atmosphere, chemists should know it-and this information is to be derived from practical farSAMUEL AKERLY.

mers.

Further evidence to prove the existence of the Kraken, in the ocean, and tending to show that this huge creature is a species of Sepia or Squid. Being three several communications of facts, made to Dr. Mitchill, by William Lee, Esq. Capt. Riley, and Capt. Neville, in September, 1817, communicated by Dr. Mitchill. (See our Magazine for JUNE, p. 124, for Capt. Fanning's Narrative.) Copy of a letter addressed to Dr. Mitchill, by our late Consul at Bordeaux, now in the treasury department, Wm. Lee, Esq.

"Washington, Sept. 2, 1817. "My dear sir,

The description given in our newspapers of a Sea-serpent, lately seen for

several days in and about Cape Ann harbour, has brought to my recollection one of this species.

"On a passage I made from Quebec, in 1787, in a schooner of about eighty tons burden, while standing in for the Gut of Canso, the island of Cape Breton being about four leagues distant, one of the crew cried out, A shoal a-head !'The helm was instantly put down to tack ship, when to our great astonishment, this shoal, as we thought it to be, moved off, and as it passed athwart the bow of our vessel, we discovered it to be an enormous Sea-serpent, four times as long as the schooner. Its back was of a dark green colour, forming above the water a number of little hillocks, resembling a chain of hogsheads. I was then but a lad, and being much terrified, ran below until the monster was at some distance from us. I did not see his head distinctly; but those who did, after I had hid myself in the cabin, said it was as large as the small boat of the schooner. I recollect the tremendous ripple and noise he made in the water, as he went off from us, which I compared at the time to that occasioned by the launching of a ship.

of

"My venerable friend, Mr. your city, was a passenger with me at the time. He will corroborate this statement, and probably furnish you with a better description of this monster; for I well recollect his taking his stand at the bow of the vessel, with great courage, to examine it, while the other passengers were intent only on their own safety.

"At Halifax, and on my return to Boston, when frequently describing this monster, I was laughed at so immoderately that I found it necessary to remain silent on the subject, to escape the imputation of using a traveller's privilege of dealing in the marvellous."

On the evening of September 9, capt. James Riley was at my house, and said that he knew capt. Folger, of Nantucket, who was occupied on a whaling voyage in the southern Atlantic Ocean, about 20 years ago. On the cruise, he saw an animal of uncommon size, floating on the sea, off the coast of Brazil. Capt. F. then commanded a very large French built ship, and the floating carcass was four or five times as long as his vessel. It attracted the spermaceti whales, who came to feed upon it, and had eaten away great. portions of the flesh. He visited the huge body of the creature, and satisfied hini'self that it was an enormous craken. He hauled all his boats upon it, and his men ascended it and lived upon it as if it had

been a rock or island. They remained on it and near it for the purpose of killing the whales that came to devour it. In this, they were so successful, that by continuing there they took whales enough to load their vessel and complete her cargo. The back of the kraken was high and dry enough for them to inhabit temporarily, and to look out for their game. And when from this point of observation they discovered a whale coming to make a meal, they launched their boats from the top of the dead kraken, and made an easy prey of him. The substance of the monster's body was skinny, membranous and gelatinous, and destitute of the fat and blubber for which the whale is remarkable.

Captain Neville, being on a voyage from London to Archangel, in the year 1803, saw floating on the ocean in about the latitude of 68, a mass of solid matter of a dirty whitish colour, which when he descried it, and for some time after, was believed to be an island of ice. On approaching it, however, he ascertained it to be an animal substance of an irregular figure, as if lacerated, decayed, and eaten away.

The remnant of the carcass was nevertheless full as large as the brig in which he sailed; whose capacity was one hundred and eighty-nine tons, and length seventy feet.

This enormous body was the food of animals both of the air and of the water. For, as he sailed within a few rods of it, he saw great numbers of gulls and other sea-fowls, sitting on it and flying over it; those which were full, retiring, and the hungry winging their way to it for a repast. He also beheld several cetaceous creatures swimming round it; some of them were whales of a prodigious magnitude, exceeding the vessel in length. Others were smaller and seemed to belong to the grampus and porpoise tribe. He considered them all as regaling themselves with its flesh.

Near one extremity of this carcass, he distinguished an appendage or arm hanging down into the water, which from his acquaintance with the sepia, he concluded to be that of a squid; being probably the only one left after the rest had putrified or been devoured.

Such was likewise the opinion of a navigator of much experience and long observation in the scenery of the north Atlantic then on board; who remarked that the corrupting lump was intolerably fetid and offensive to man; and would, if the brig was suffered to run against it, impregnate her with foulness and stench for

the whole voyage. She was accordingly kept to windward for the purpose of avoiding it; but the smell was, notwithstanding, extremely nauseous and disgusting.

On conversing with mariners in the White Sea, such occurrences were spoken of by them, as too common to excite much attention or any doubt.

Afterwards, while at Drontheim in Norway, capt. N. discoursed with practical men concerning things of this kind. The prevailing idea was, that such drifting lumps were by no means uncommon; that they were bodies or fragments of huge squids; that these were sometimes borne away by the Maelstrom current, and ingulphed and dashed to pieces by its whirlpools; and thus these broken trunks and limbs sometimes cast on shore and sometimes tossed about on the sea.

It is supposed that squids and whales inhabit the same tracts of ocean; because the former furnishes food for the latter, at least for the cachalats, orco, and other toothed and voracious species.

IMPORTANT SURGICAL INTELLIGENCE.

Extract of a letter from James Kent Platt, M. D. a young physician, from NewYork, who is now in attendance at the London Hospitals, to Dr. David Ho

sack.

MY DEAR SIR,

London, June 17, 1817.

We have lately had two or three new and important operations. About a week since, Mr. Cooper tied the aorta just above its bifurcation, in a man whe was labouring under an immense aneurismal tumour of the left external iliac artery. The meurism was too high and large to admit either of the external or common iliac being secured, and as the sac had sloughed and hæmorrhage had begun, it was thought justifiable to pass a ligature around the aorta itself. It was a dangerous, but it was a dernier resort. An incision was made three or four inches long, through the parietes of the abdomen, on the left side of the umbilicus; the intestines were pushed aside, and the. vessel detached from the surrounding parts and membranes by the fore finger of the right hand, which was kept under the artery till the common aneurismal needle was introduced, when one ligature was applied. The ends of the ligature were brought out at the external wound the integuments were placed in contact, and then secured by a quill suture.

Previously to the operation an attempt.

a

was made to suppress the hemorrhage by pressing on the abdomen, but this failed. The operation did not produce any extraordinary pain. The man lived two days after it-on dissection it appeared that no part of the intestines, and no veins had been included in the ligature. The aorta had been rendered completely impervious by it-there was no evidence of peritoneal inflammation, and nothing, besides the aneurismal tumour, appeared unnatural within the cavity of the abdomen. It may be proposed as question, what was the immediate cause of the man's death? Mr. Cooper suggested no explanation. The patient seemed in tolerable good health previous to the operation. I do not know how we shall account for his sinking so suddenly, unless we call in the aid of the old doctrine of sympathy. According to that, the general system received so violent a shock from the operation, that it was unable to rally its vital forces; it made an attempt at resistance, but finding itself unequal to the task, it sunk under the effort.

By the same reasoning we explain why there were no appearances of peritoneal inflammation; the constitution was so paralized, that it could not react, it could not exert sufficient power to institute an inflammatory process.

Though this experiment has failed, yet as a fact, it is very interesting in a surgical and physiological point of view. It shows that the vessel can be tied in the living body-and what is curious, that little alteration was made in the pulse at the wrist, by thus cutting off the circulation from the inferior half of the system. It might have been conjectured, that symptoms of congestion in the head and breast would have arisen, but none such occurred. The most prominent change produced was a pain in the abdomen, which the patient compared to a sensation of burning lead being in his belly. The artery was tied in the evening at 10, and this pain had chiefly subsided the next morning. But I will not be longer tedious in the detail of the case; you will probably soon see the particulars published in a more interesting form.

I cannot forbear mentioning to you another surgical operation, which, though old in its form, is new in its application. Mr. C tied the femoral artery in the usual place, in a boy affected with the disease commonly called the Barbadoes leg. His object here was to lessen, suddenly, the quantity of arterial circulation in the limb, and thus to give the absorbents an VOL. I. NO. VI.

opportunity of removing the secreted matter, faster than it could be deposited by the arteries. He had been induced to believe, from observing the languor of the circulation in the leg, after the operation for poplitial aneurism, that in the present instance, it would be so long before the circulation would be completely restored by anastomosis, that the absorbents, having the balance of action in their favour, would not only maintain it, so as to remove the present enlargement, but also, to prevent any future accumulation. When the operation was performed the right leg was ten inches larger in circumference than the left. In about a fortnight afterwards, it had become diminished to nearly the same size with the healthy limb. This was very gratifying to Mr. Cooper; the absorbents had performed the labour he had projected for them-they had removed the original deposition; it remained now to be proved, that they could prevent any future enlargement. The boy was discharged from the hospital, and in about a month he returned with his leg as large as it had been before. This sequel had been anticipated by some, but the prospect of introducing a useful improvement seemed to Mr. Cooper sufficiently encouraging to make the attempt. I admire his enterprise; it bears him along to the noblest achievements; he is not retarded by the obstacles which dishearten and disarm common men: Even in his failures I see a grandeur of design, which marks the greatness of his character; they seem to arise out of circumstances which no human power can either prevent or control. I shall leave London with regret that I lose forever afterwards the instruc tion of so great a man.

With sentiments of respect and esteem, I remain truly yours,

JAMES KENT PLATT.

LAW INTELLIGENCE.
New-York Mayor's Court.

JOHN P. CLEMENTS vs. ISAAC
GRIMSHAW.

PRICE, for the Defendant.
WILKINS, for the Plaintiff.

This was a special action on the case against Grimshaw, tried at the September term of this court, before his Honour the Recorder, for falsely and deceitfully. recommending one Abel Wooster to the plaintiff as a man of property; whereby the plaintiff was induced to give credit to Wooster, and afterwards lost his debt. The facts as they appeared on the trial 3 L

were as follows. The palsy had incapacitated the plaintiff for the grocery business, in which he was engaged, and his wife had by her industrious management of it, acquired four hundred and seventy dollars. The defendant, who was well acquainted with the plaintiff, and informed that his wife had that amount of money in her possession, advised her not to part with it until he should point out a person to whom it might be safely intrusted, and at the same time cautioned her never to deposite money in any of the banks, as there was not one of them good for any thing On the 23d of February, 1816, the defendant came with Wooster to the wife of the plaintiff, and advised her to loan Wooster that amount. Wooster was at this time an utter stranger to the plaintiff and his family. The defendant received the money, and Wooster gave his note with Grimshaw's endorsement at 60 days. It appeared that the defendant and Wooster were confederated for this kind of deception, and had successfully practised it on several occasions-that Wooster, though at that time possessed of a considerable stock of crockery, was in bad credit, and that before he failed in July following, had confessed a judgment in favour of the defendant for eight thousand dollars, under which the defendant sold and appropriated to his use all the property at that time in the possession of Wooster.

Wilkins objected among other things that all evidence of fraudulent representation was met and rebutted by the fact, that the defendant endorsed the note of

Wooster, and thereby made himself liable for the amount, and therefore the suit ought to have been brought against him as endorser of the same.

Price contended that the objection was not placed upon the ground on which the plaintiff was entitled to recover. Deceit and damage were the foundation of this action, and if the plaintiff had sustained a loss by this false representation of the defendant, it was immaterial by whom the note was endorsed. Inquiries as to the credit of third persons were frequently made with confidence in the veracity, rather than the pecuniary circumstances of the informant; and if a man not worth a cent should be inquired of as to the insolvency of his neighbour, his worthless liability for the amount, could never excuse a misrepresentation made with the intent and effect of prejudicing another.

The Court charged the jury, that if they were of opinion that the defendant knowing Wooster to be insolvent, represented him to be a man of good credit, and the plaintiff advanced and lost his money by means of such representation, there could be no doubt of the plaintiff's right to recover. In a community like ours, it was all important to restrain and punish all fraudulent designs on the fair dealer. From all the evidence, he had no doubt that Grimshaw knew the circumstances of Wooster to be desperate-that he misrepresented them to the plaintiffand that Wooster thus obtained the money in question.

The Jury immediately gave a verdict for the plaintiff for $522 26.

ART. 7. ORIGINAL BIOGRAPHY.

Biographical Memoir of the late Solomon Schaeffer, Pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Hagerstown, State of Maryland.

[CONCLUDED.]

THE HE ministrations of Mr. S. were eminently blessed to the congregations under his care, and obviously contributed to the increase of the spiritual family of Christ. Great numbers were annually added to the church, and confessedly not without advancement in the heavenly life. By these means the congregations were in an increasing and flourishing state. Notwithstanding this well known and acknowledged truth, some of the clerical brethren, as well as thers, still upbraided him for preaching the English language. But he was sup

ported by a consciousness of rectitude, and a persuasion that he was in the path of duty; and was thereby at no loss for a reply.

He urged in substance: "that the Gospel was calculated to benefit mankind at large; that the word of God was not to be bound to any tongue or people. Jesus Christ commissioned his disciples to preach the Gospel to every kindred, and nation. Do we not, said he, celebrate in our Church the great miracle on the day of Pentecost, when the Lord poured out his Spirit upon the Apostles, and gave

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