vestigated it is found that several words have common roots with words of the Chilha and Gebali dialects. For example I will cite a few words :

It is doubted whether this analogy is a proof of a common origin; but it indicates the ancient connexion between the Guanches and Berbers, a tribe of mountaineers with whom the Numidians, the Getuli, and the Garamanti are confounded, and who extend themselves from the eastern extremity of Atlas by Harutsch and Fezzan, as far as the oasis of Siwah and Augela.*

About eight o'clock I returned to Candelaria, which takes its name from the miraculous appearance of Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria at this place, in 1392. She was picked up on the beach and placed in the chapel, and was believed, by the natives, to be the real Virgin Mary. They looked upon her with profound veneration, and loaded her shrine with many valuable offerings. She remained in that situation until the 8th of November, 1826, when she, with the chapel, was swept away by an awful hurricane and deluge, and has not yet performed the miracle of returning, though many less feasible ones are attributed to her by her devotees. She consisted of a small, black image bedecked with jewels and other trappings, and in fact was nothing more than the figure-head of a vessel, which washed up in that place.

* Vide Adelung und Vater, Mithridates, t. iii. p. 60.

ORIGINAL MISCELLANY.

THE FIRE-KING.-A certain itinerant, who cognominates himself DR. DIVINE, who, for aught we know, may have something to do with what Livy terms patavinity, has recently been cooking beef-steaks in this city, putting a stick of hot sealing wax in his capacious mouth, cooling melted lead on his tongue, and between the acts, discoursing most profound nonsense to those who were wonderstruck at his salamander-like excursions into a huge brick box, termed, by way of eminence, an oven. We went, as many others did, to witness an extraordinary exhibition, in which it would be demonstrated to a moral certainty, that the discoveries of modern science had actually enabled a man to triumph over the devouring element of fire. But the disappointment was indeed a grievous one, when, instead of hearing common sense in good vernacular English, our ears were assailed by the low and vulgar trash of Jim Crow. Certainly, the whole exhibition, dr. and all, was below the notice of a gentleman, and we now distinctly warn all future patrons of this American salamander, not to believe that he is aided by the devil, who would never have anything to do with such a divine, nor for one moment to indulge the idea that he is prodigiously learned in the occult or other sciences.

EXTRAORDINARY POWER OF MEMORY.-Seneca is reported to have been able to repeat two thousand verses at once, in their exact order, and then rehearse them backwards, with so much precision as not to miss a single word or syllable. Cyrus had a memory so exceedingly tenacious, that historians say he could call every soldier in his immense armies accurately by name. Mithridates, who was the ruler of twenty-three nations, speaking different languages, could converse with all of them in their vernacular tongue. A Corsican boy could rehearse forty thousand words, whether sense or nonsense, as they were dictated, and afterwards begin with the last word, and repeat them backwards without a single mistake. Dr. Wallis extracted the cube root of three, even to thirty places of decimals, solely by his memory. Maglia Bethi, an Italian, who read most of the books written in his lifetime, could tell what was the subject of each author, quote the chapters, sec

tions and pages in which any particular subject was expressed; beside this, he could repeat even the writer's own words. A gentleman loaned him a manuscript to examine, and afterwards pretended he had lost it, when, to his utter amazement, Bethi wrote it word for word, by the mere strength of his memory, although he read the article but once. Euler lost his sight in 1783, yet carried on his complicated and abstruse mathematical calculations on the inequalities of the planetary motions, and composed a treatise on algebra, by dint of his astonishing memory. He could, moreover, repeat the Æneid of Virgil from beginning to end, and tell the first and last line of every page in the edition which he had read before he became blind. Whitfield is said to have been so familiar with the scripture, that he could repeat the whole bible without mistake. A physician who died a few years since, in Massachusetts, could repeat the Paradise Lost of Milton in his old age, though he had not read it for twenty years.

STARS. Many stars which were marked by the ancients in their catalogues are no longer seen, but others are visible which were unknown to them. While a very few seem to have receded, others have gradually increased in brilliancy. Some astronomers are af the opinion that the whole of our solar system is moving onward towards the constellation Hercules. If this be true, then it is very certain that the class of magnificent worlds, to which this globe belongs, are revolving, in an orderly manner, round some great central point of attraction, of which the human eye has never had a view. In the course of the last 150 years, some of the fixed stars appear to have moved. The star Arcturus has moved three minutes and three seconds, in seventy-eight years. No fact has been more satisfactorily demonstrated, than that the law of gravity operates, positively, from the sun to the planet Herschel, eighteen hundred millions of miles, and it is therefore probable, that all the heavenly bodies which are discoverable with telescopes of the greatest power, are in subjection to some vast, inconceivably vast central globe, self-balanced somewhere in celestial space; and that may be the resplendent throne of God.

LATIN WORKS.-A collection of standard Latin works is now being published at Turin, by Pomba. In 1832, ninety-six volumes were completed.

RAT-CATCHING.-Formerly, rat-catching in England, was a profitable business, and even now, is by no means a starving trade. The mode of conducting the process is this:-Having bargained with the owner of the premises, as it respects the number of rats to be captured, and the price per head, the operator props open the mouth of a bag, by what is called a figure four, which he controls with a string. All the doors being opened, the rats and mice rush towards the sack, from every point of compass, as though driven onward by some irresistible force. If the number is sufficient, the string is jerked, the figure four falls, and the wonder-working man goes leisurely to a tub, and drowns them all together.

Now the inquiry naturally arises, what determines these shy, timid animals to leave their hiding places at the first invitation, and by what power are they collected in the bag? In answer, it is said, that on a bit of hard crust is dropped a little oil of rhodion and anise, which give off such a fascinating odor, that, regardless of every danger, they make a simultaneous movement towards the seducing treasure, at the hazard of their lives.

CHARACTERISTIC FASHIONS.-The Omaguas of South America flatten their children's faces by closely lacing a board on either side of the head. They also pierce the nostrils, lips and cheeks, in order to insert feathers or fish-bones, as ornamental appendages. Formerly, nearly all the inhabitants of the Friendly Islands cut off one, and sometimes both little fingers. In the northern parts of China, we are assured by a late traveller, the women pursue various methods in order to diminish the size of their eyes. Narrow eyes, a flat nose and long pendulous ears are the externals of beauty. The New-Hollanders extract, almost universally, the two front teeth of the upper jaw.

Sir Joseph Banks was present at the tattooing the back of a girl, thirteen years old, at Otaheite, by an instrument with twenty-four points, which were thrust all at once, so far into the skin, as to bring blood every time. She screamed most violently, so painful was the operation; but two women who were present, chid and beat the poor child to keep her still.

MILKY WAY.-Sir William Herschel says that when viewing a certain portion of the milky way, in the course of seven minutes, more than fifty thousand stars passed across the field of his tele

scope.

LOCUSTS-Mr. Madox, in his recent travels through Egypt, says, April 8th, an immense host of locusts showed itself, during the last three or four days, apparently coming from the east. The number of these insects absolutely obscured the atmosphere, which otherwise was clear and serene; though the vibratory motion of their wings in the brilliant sunshine had a peculiar and rather pleasing effect. They flew heavily, and frequently struck against the houses, and falling on the ground, the fowls and dogs devoured them with much avidity, particularly the latter, who ate them so voraciously that they made themselves sick. These locusts were of the form and size of large grasshoppers, and many alighted on the neighboring grounds to deposite their eggs upon the verdure. The governor, however, most providently sent people to collect and destroy them, which was effected by burying them deep in the ground, or by burning them in heaps. I afterwards saw innumerable swarms of these insects floating on the sea, and covering the whole line of coast.'

STRENGTH OF HUMAN MUSCLES.-Robert Francais Damiens, who attempted the assassination of Louis XV, in 1757, after suffering the most unheard of tortures, was sentenced to be drawn in quarters by four horses. But although they exerted their entire strength, by drawing in four directions upon his limbs, for fifty minutes, the muscles were not torn from their attachments; and being still alive, the executioners were obliged to cut the tendons with a knife, in order to answer the law, which was that the criminal's body should be drawn in quarters. Precisely the same course was resorted to in the case of Ravaillac, who assassinated Henry IV, the horses being unable to dismember the criminal's body.

MENTAL CULTURE; OR THE MEANS OF DEVELOPING THE HUMAN FACULTIES.-Within a few days a volume with the foregoing title has been put into our hands, which should find a place in the parlor of every reading family. The author is J. L. LEVISON, and the volume is the only index we have to the author's vast fund of intellectual philosophy. It would be injustice to the ingenious writer to present our readers detached portions, and the smallness of this journal precludes the possibility of publishing the whole. Under such circumstances, therefore, we strongly recommend this highly valuable book to all persons interested in the education of youth. It is published by Allen and Ticknor, of Boston.