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In the year 1793, Lord George Murray, in England, invented the six shutter Telegraph, or six square boards turned by pulleys connected with cranks below, in such a manner that either the whole surface or the edges of them might be exhibited to the eye according to the required signals. This was constructed upon the principle of representing letters of the alphabet, or the lettering plan, as it is called.

In 1816, Sir Home Popham, of the British Navy, invented what he called the Semaphore Telegraph, which was immediately adopted by the English Board of Admiralty, and continues in use to the present time. It consists of an upright post, or mast, with two arms moving vertically on their respective centres, one at the top of the mast, and the other half way down; each arm being made to perform an entire revolution, and being turned with facility and despatch, so as to take any position that may be required; differing, however, from each other in principle of motion, degrees of power, and mechanical contrivance. These signals express either letters or numerals, according to the system previously agreed upon.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

THE BUFFALO.

THE young of our buffalo, or bison, have been repeatedly put among the tame cattle at Quebec, and after exhibiting, on all occasions, symptoms of their original wildness, have commonly died in a few years. It is supposed that the climate is there too cold for them. This difficulty cannot exist here. Before the cultivation of the country they were in immense herds in the western parts of the state of New York, frequenting the salt licks, and roving over the wide-spreading, luxuriant prairies of the Genessee, and they have given their name to a celebrated stream which runs into Lake Erie near its outlet. It has been domesticated in South Carolina, but appears to retain some of its primitive wildness.

CURIOUS ANECDOTE OF A TOAD.

In the first place, we thank the author of the following communication for the article, but at the same time assure him that he or the observer must have been deceived. We have an indistinct recollection of reading a similar account in some fof the old books of natural history, and really supposed, for a time, that this was only a new presentation of the old story; but having abandoned that notion, we give it to our readers as it was received,-desiring at the same time, that any other facts, of a similar character, may be transmitted by our distant friends.

[Furnished for the Tracts and Lyceum.]

Observing a notice in the Tracts and Lyceum for January, 1834, of an attack of a spider upon a young rat, I would notice a circumstance which took place a few years since, as it serves to show the sagacity as well as the medical skill of the reptile tribe.-A toad was observed to be engaged in battle with a large spider, which remained stationary while the toad would make a pass at him and snap with its jaws in the same manner in which they are observed to do when taking small insects for food; and when making those passes, the spider would ward off the blow and occasionally bite the toad. The toad, on receiving the wound, would hop off a short distance where there was a plant growing which is usually known by the name of plantain, and would nibble the leaves apparently to apply an antidote for the poison received from the fangs of the spider, and then return to battle again. This being near by a work-shop, several persons were attracted to the spot. After this process had been carried on for some time by the toad, that is, alternately fighting the spider and biting the plantain leaf, one of the gentlemen very cautiously, while the toad was thus disputing the field, pulled up the plantain-leaf and took it away. The toad was again wounded, and straightway proceeded to his old physician; but on arriving at the spot, discovered the loss of his antidote; and if ever dismay was exhibited in a reptile, it was now to be seen. The toad, for a few moments, hopped one way and another with all his powers in search

of another plantain, but found none; and immediately the poison from the spider took effect; and he kept in search of a remedy, but his hops were weaker and weaker, and in a very few minutes he expired.

Dunstable, (N. H.) Jan. 9, 1834.

I. G.

GOVERNOR HUNTER.

SWIFT's Discourse on the Mechanical Operation of the Spirit was supposed to be addressed to Governor Hunter. In the fifteenth volume of Swift's Works there are two letters from the Dean to him. In the first epistle Swift says:-'Sometimes Mr. Addison and I steal to a pint of bad wine, and wish for no third person but you; who, if you were with us, would never be satisfied without three more.' In the second letter he says, 'I am very much obliged to you for the favor of a kind reproach you sent me in a letter to Mr. Addison, which he never told me of till this day, and that accidentally; but I am glad at the same time that I did not deserve it, having sent you a long letter in return to that you was pleased to honor me with, and it is a pity it should be lost; for, as I remember, it was full of the diei fabulas, and such particularities as usually do not find place in newspapers.' These quotations indicate the great intimacy between Hunter and those distinguished men.

The same volume contains two letters from Hunter to Swift, dated New York, 1st and 14th of March, 1712-13, both breathing great discontent and uneasiness with his situation. In the last he says, 'Here is the finest air to live upon in the universe, and, if our trees and birds could speak and our assemblymen be silent, the finest conversation too. Fert omnia tellus; but not for me; for you must understand, according to the custom of our country, the sachems are of the poorest of the people. I have got the wrong side of Sir Polidore's office; a great deal to do, and nothing to receive. In a word, and to be serious at last, I

have spent three years of life in such torment and vexation that nothing in life can ever make amends for it.'

Hunter was afterwards appointed Governor and Captain General of Jamaica, in the room of the Duke of Portland, who died there in 1726.

A COMPLIMENT FROM MR. PITT.

THE statesmen who appeared at the dawn of the revolution attracted the admiration of Europe; and the masterly state papers which our state convention and the general congress promulgated, breathed the genius of Greece, and the invincible spirit of Rome, and covered with glory the American name. When,' said the elder Pitt, when your Lordships look at the papers transmitted us from America-when you consider their decency, firmness and wisdom, you cannot but respect their cause, and wish to make it your own. For myself, I must declare and avow that in all my reading and observation-and it has been my favorite study-(I have read Thucidydes, and have studied and admired the master states of the world,) that, for solidity of reasoning, force of sagacity, and wisdom of conclusion, under such a complication of difficult circumstances, no nation or body of men can stand in preference to the general congress at Philadelphia.'

FOSSIL SHELLS.

THE fossil shells and petrifactions which have been discovered all over the world, on the loftiest mountains as well as in the bowels of the earth, are justly considered as the most interesting phenomena of nature. Linnæus says that 'the innumerable petrifactions of foreign animals, and of animals never seen by any mortal in our day, which often lie hid among stones under the most lofty mountains,

are the only remaining fragments of the ancient world! Buffon denominates them the monuments, and Pallas styles them the medals, of nature. Dr. Barton has expressed this idea in the following impressive language:-I consider the petrifactions and impressions which are found on many of our mountains, as some of the most interesting medals of the revolutions which our country has undergone.'

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FIRST NOTICE OF THE BONES OF THE MASTODON.

IN the year 1748, M. Fabri, who had made great excursions into the northern parts of Louisiana and the southern regions of Canada, informed Buffon that he had seen heads and skeletons of an enormous quadruped, called by the savages the father of oxen; and that the thigh-bones of these animals were from five to six feet in length.

In Siberia a similar animal was supposed to exist under ground, and many fables were related respecting it under the Russian name of mammoth. Notwithstanding these traditions and reports, the attention of the philosophers of Europe was not fully drawn to this subject until 1765, when Mr. George Croghan saw, in the vicinity of a large salt marsh, on the country bordering on the Ohio, immense bones and teeth, and he sent some of them to England, where they immediately became the subject of speculation and discussion. Before this similar bones were discovered in the Russian dominions.

FIRST BOTANIC GARDEN IN THE UNITED STATES.

THE first institution in the United States established as a repository of the native vegetable productions of this country, and for the purpose of naturalizing such foreign plants as are distinguished by their utility either in medicine, agriculture, or the arts, was the Elgin Botanic Gar

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