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A MARVELLOUS STORY.

I was bred up in the dislike of the marvellous, or the stupid wonderful, as my uncle called it. I must relate an anecdote in point. Some gentlemen were dining together, and relating their travelling adventures; one of them dealt so much in the marvellous, that it induced another to give him a lesson.

"I was once," said he, "engaged in a skirmishing party in America; I advanced too far, was separated from my friends, and saw three Indians in pursuit of me: the horrors of the tomahawk in the hands of angry savages, took possession of my mind; I considered for a moment what was to be done; most of us love life, and mine was both precious and useful to my family; I was swift of foot, and fear added to my speed. After looking back-for the country was an open one -I at length perceived that one of my enemies had outrun the others and the well-known saying of Divide and conquer,' occurring to me, I slackened my speed, and allowed him to come up; we engaged in mutual fury; I hope none here (bowing to his auditors) will doubt the result; in a few minutes he lay a corpse at my feet; in this short space of time, the two Indians had advanced upon me, so I took again to my heels,-not from cowardice, I can in truth declare,but with the hope of reaching a neighboring wood, where I knew dwelt a tribe friendly to the English; this hope, however, I was forced to give up; for, on looking back, I saw one of my pursuers far before the other. I waited for him, recovering my almost exhausted breath, and soon this Indian shared the fate of the first. I had now only one enemy to deal with; but I felt fatigued, and being near the wood, I was more desirous to save my own life than to destroy another of my fellow-creatures; I plainly perceived smoke curling up amongst the trees, I redoubled my speed, I prayed to Heaven, I felt assured my prayers would be granted-but at this moment the yell of the Indian's voice sounded in my ears-I even thought I felt his warm breath-there was no choice-I turned round- Here the gentleman, who had related the wonderful stories at first, grew impatient past his endurance; he called out, "Well, sir, and you killed him also?"-"No sir, he killed me.".

Epithets. The meaning of the word Wretch is one not generally understood. It was originally, and is now, in some parts of England, used as a term of the softest and fondest tenderness. This is not the only instance in which words in their present general acceptation bear a very opposite meaning to what they did in Shakspeare's time. The word Wench, formerly, was not used in that low and vulgar acceptation that it is at present. Damsel was the appellation of young ladies of quality, and Dame a title of distinction. Knave once signified a servant; and in an early translation of the New Testament, instead of "Paul the Servant," we read "Paul the Knave of Jesus Christ," "On the other hand, the word Companion, instead of being the honorable synonyme of Associate, occurs in the play of Othello, with the same contemptuous meaning which we now aflix, in its abusive sense, to the word "Fellow;" for Emilia, perceiving that some secret villain had aspersed the character of the virtuous Desdemona, thus indignantly exclaims:

O, Heaven! that such Companions thou'dst unfold.
And put in every honest hand a whip,

To lash the rascal through the world.

From the Cincinnati Register.

Things that I have seen.-I have seen the time when the only boat that floated on the surface of the Ohio, was a canoe, propelled by poles used by two persons, one in the bow and the other in the stern.

I have seen the day when the introduction of the keel boat, with a shingle roof, was hailed a nighty improvement in the business of the west.

I remember the day when the arrival of a Canadian barge (as the St. Louis boats were called at the head of the Ohio) was an important event in the transaction of a year.

I remember the day when a passage of four months from Natchez to Pittsburgh, was called a speedy trip for the best craft on the river, and when the boatmen, a race now extinct, leaped on shore after the voyage, and exhibited an air of as much triumph as did the sailors of Columbus on their return from the new world.

I remember the time when the canoe of a white man dared not be launched on the bosom of the Alleghany.

I remember the time when a trader to New Orleans was viewed as the most enterprising amongst even the most hardy sons of the west; on his return from his six months trip, he was hailed as a traveller who had seen the world.

I remember the day when the borders of the Ohio were a wilderness, and New Orleans was "toto orbe divisa," literally ut off from the whole world.

I have lived to see the day when the desert is flourishing as the rose-when the race of boatmen has become extinct, and their memories only preserved in the traditional tales of our borderers.

I have lived to see two splendid cities, one devoted to manufactures, the other to commerce, spring up, where in my boyhood, nothing appeared like civilisation but the hut of the soldier or of the settler.

I have lived to see a revolution produced by a mechanical philosophy, equal to that effected by the art of printing. It has changed the character of western commerce and almost proved that the poetical wish of "annihilating time and space," was not altogether hyperbolical. By it New Orleans and Pittsburgh have become near neighbors.

I have lived to see the day, when a visit to New Orleans from Cincinnati, requires no more preparation than a visit to a neighboring country town. I remember when it required as much previous arrangement as a voyage to Calcutta.

I have lived to see vessels of 300 tons arriving in twelve or fifteen days from New Orleans at Cincinnati; and I calculate upon living to see them arrive in ten days.

I have lived to see vessels composing an amount of tonnage of upwards of 4,000 tons, arrive in one week at the harbor of Cincinnati.

All these things I have seen, and yet I feel myself entitled to be numbered amongst the young sons of the West.

VARIETIES.

The Indian chief Black Hawk, with his son and the Prophet, left New York on the 22d of June for Albany, ou their way to Detroit. They have visited some of the principal cities of the Union, and will doubtless carry back with them to their tribe an impression, which will prevent any future misunderstanding with the whites.

The New Orleans Bulletin gives an account of the destruction of the steamboat Lioness by fire, on the 19th May, on her passage to Natchitoches, about forty miles above Alexandria. The boat was blown up by gunpowder. The manner in which fire was communicated to the hold is not known. Fifteen or sixteen persons lost their lives-among them the Hon. Josiah S. Johnson, U. S. Senator of Louisiana; B. Q. Biggs and Michael Boyce, Esq. of Alexandria; Mr. Michael Clifford of New Orleans; and Mr. H. Hertz of Texas.

Prince Czartoryski, a Polish exile in London, is reported to have once had an income of £70,000 per annum, all of which he lost in defence of his country-his wife died of grief, and his children had been shot one by one in battle.

Papers from the west and southwest, are all occupied with notices of that wide spreading and fatal malady, the cholera, which seems to exist almost in every direction west of the Alleghanies.

The cholera has again made its appearance at New Orleans as an epidemic, and is carrying off a great many. It is said to be full as fatal as it was last autumn. Persons after they are attacked do not live generally more than eight hours, and some die in two.

The remains of those, who perished in the massacre at Wyoming have been recently discovered. The grave was found by Susquehanna's side," on the present site of New Troy, at a little distance above Wilkesbarre. Subscriptions to a considerable amount have been already collected to erect a monument upon the spot.

A company has been established at Natchez, Mississippi, for the manufacture of the oil of cotton seed, and have erected suitable machinery, by which they are enabled to prepare from one to two thousand gallons a day.

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Sold by all the principal booksellers in the United States.

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The engraving which we here represent to our readers is a view of the Capitol at Raleigh, which was destroyed by fire on the 21st of June, 1831. Canova's beautiful statue of Washington was also much mutilated in the conflagration, although it has since been partially restored by Mr. Hughes, the sculptor. We find the following notice of Raleigh in a letter dated April, 1830.

"Raleigh is a pretty village; its principal street ornamented with trees, with the State House at one end, and the Governor's house at the other. The State House is a handsome building. It was once plain and square, but when they had procured a statue of Washington, they determined to have a building fit to receive it, and the State House was enlarged and altered accordingly. The statue is placed in a small saloon, in the centre of the building, and is visible on entering, in each direction. This saloon is a very neat one, with pilasters and a panelled ceiling, and rises through both stories of the house. On one side of it, on the second story, is the House of Commons; on the other, the Senate Chamber. The former has a very strong resemblance to the Representatives' Chamber at Washington. It is, compared in size with that vast hall, of course, but a small room. On the other side of the house, is the Senate Chamber, a very beautiful circular room-the seats being arranged in circles for sixty-two members, if I remember right. The building is altogether an honor to the state'

The destruction of this noble edifice was nearly total. The building was entirely consumed in about two hours from the period at which the alarm was given. Nothing was saved from the library, nor could any attempt for that purpose be made, by reason of the suffocating smoke which filled the room. The origin of the fire was supposed to proceed from the carelessness of a man, who had been employed to assist in soldering the roof.

The beautiful grove of oaks, of which the Capitol was the centre ornament, did more towards staying the progress of the flames than any human effort. The spectacle of the conflagration is said to have been inexpressibly awful and impressive. The vast building seemed to be in one entire blaze. flames streaming from every window, and a vast column of fire rising from the roof, formed a scene, not easy to be described.

CHILDREN.

Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,

But trailing clouds of glory, do we come,
From God, who is our home.

Heaven lies about us in our infancy!

The

WORDSWORTH

I may begin with the question of Henry IV. of France, when found by an ambassador at romps with his children,-"Are you a father?" If you are, we may go on with the game-if not, you must pass to the next article. A curious thing it

is, this same fact, that children in general are only interesting in the eyes of those who are parents, while brats in particular are held as pests by all but their immediate father and mother. Some lightheaded author has compared the rush of children which takes place at the conclusion of family dinners, to the incursion of the Goths and Vandals. Perhaps it is all true, that children out of place are not agreeable; but is any thing agreeable that is out of place? Children, abstracted from the homely details of their management, and the anxiety which they always occasion, are a delightful study-a study, I maintain, fitted alike to engage the speculations of the philosophic, and the affections of the benevolent mind. I cannot, I must say, form the idea of a man of extended views and sympathies, who does not like children.

Among the grown up part of mankind, there is always abundance of envy, hatred, and all uncharitableness. This fact I consider with reference to the circumstances in which men are placed, and I plainly conceive that where existence is only to be supported by an unceasing struggle, and where self-love is so perpetually receiving injury, it is needless to expect that men should be much better than they are. In children, however, we see no possibility of any rivalship: they are a harmless little people at this moment, and we run no chance of being jostled by them in our course of life, for many years to come. There is, therefore, no reason for envy, hatred, or uncharitableness with them. On the contrary, in our intercourse with children, our self-love is undergoing a perpetual compliment. The appeal which they are constantly making from their own silently confessed weakness to our tacitly acknowledged strength, soothes and delights us. A fellow creature lies unconsciously abandoned to our mercy-unconsciously unable to resist. It asks for nothing, for it cannot; but it does not expect harm: there is the charm. It imputes to us none of our original sins of envy, hatred, and uncharitableness, but seems to take it for granted that we are blanch and stainless like itself. It puts forth its little arms to us, with a perfect confidence in our gentler and better nature, and we feel it impossible to be evil when we are so sincerely understood to be good. We give, then, the love and faith that are demanded, and press the offenceless type of our original and perfect nature, with all the hues and all the odors of paradise rife around it, to our heart of hearts.

SUCCESSFUL COURAGE.

The narrations of a frontier circle, as they draw round their evening fire, often turn upon the exploits of the old race of men, the heroes of the Just days, who wore hunting-shirts, and settled the Country. In a boundless forest full of panthers and bears, and more dreadful Indians, with not a white within a hundred miles, a solitary adventurer penetrates the deepest wilderness, and begins to make the strokes of his axe resound among the trees. The Indians find him out, ambush, and imprison him. A more acute and desperate warrior than themselves, they wish to adopt him, and add his strength to their tribe. He feigns contentment, uses the savage's insinuations, outruns him in the use of his own ways of management, but watches his opportunity, and, when their suspicion is lulled, and they fall asleep, he springs upon them, kills bis keepers, and bounds away into unknown forests,

| pursued by them and their dogs. He leaves them all at fault, subsists many days upon berries and roots, and finally arrives at his little clearing, and resumes his axe. In a little palisade, three or four resolute men stand a siege of hundreds of assailants, kill many of them, and mount calmly on the roof of their shelter, to pour water upon the fire which burning arrows have kindled there, and achieve the work amidst a shower of balls. A thousand instances of that stern and unshrinking courage which had shaken hands with death, of that endurance which had defied all the inventions of Indian torture, are recorded of these wonderful men. The dread of being roasted alive by the Indians called into action all their hidden energies

and resources.

I will relate one case of this sort, because I knew the party, by name Baptiste Roy, a Frenchman, who solicited, and, I am sorry to say, in vain, a compensation for his bravery from Congress. It occurred at "Côte sans Dessein," on the Missouri. A numerous band of northern savages, amounting to four hundred, beset the garrison-house, into which he, his wife, and another man, had retreated. They were hunters by profession, and had powder, lead, and four rifles in the house; they immediately began to fire upon the Indians. The wife melted and moulded the lead, and assisted in loading, occasionally taking her shot with the other two. Every Indian that approached the house was sure to fall. The wife relates, that the guns would soon become too much heated to hold in the hand; water was necessary to cool them. It was, I think, on the second day of the siege that Roy's assistant was killed. He became impatient to look on the scene of execution, and see what they had done. He put his eye to the port-hole, and a well-aimed shot destroyed him. The Indians perceived that their shot had taken effect, and gave a yell of exultation. They were encouraged, by the momentary slackening of the fire, to approach the house, and fire it over the heads of Roy and his wife. He deliberately mounted the roof, knocked off the burning boards, and escaped untouched from the shower of balls. What must have been the nights of this husband and wife? After four days of unavailing siege, the Indians gave a yell, exclaimed that the house was a "grand medicine, meaning that it was charmed and impregnable, and went away. They left behind forty bodies to attest the marksmanship of the besieged, and a peck of balls collected from the logs of the house.-Flint's Mississippi.

GINGER.

Ginger is a native of the southeast of Asia anu the adjacent isles. It was naturalized in America very soon after the discovery of that country by the Spaniards; indeed, at so early a period that it is scarcely believed to be an exotic, and is supposed to have been found indigenous in the Western World. Acosta relates that a person named Francisco de Mendoza first transplanted it from the East Indies into New Spain, where its cultivation was diligently pursued by the Spanish Americans to no small extent, as, from the testimony of the same author, 22,053 cwt. were exported thence to Europe in the year 1547.

The plant is now cultivated in great quantities in the West Indies, especially in the island of Jamaica. Ginger is imported into this country under the

form of dried roots, and as a preserve. We receive it both from the East and West Indies, but that from the latter is much superior in quality to the former.

The ginger plant has a perennial root, which creeps and increases under ground in tuberous joints, from each of which arises in the spring a green reed-like stalk of about two feet and a half in height, having narrow and lanceolate leaves. The stem is annual; the flowering stalk rises directly from the root, ending in an oblong scaly spike; from each of these scales a single white and blue flower is produced. The ginger of commerce is distinguished into black and white; but the difference of color depends wholly on the modes of preparation. For both of these kinds the tubers are allowed to be ripe, that is, the roots are taken up after the annual stalks are withered. For the black, they are scalded in boiling water and then dried in the sun; and for the white, they are scraped clean and dried carefully without being scalded. The best and soundest roots are selected for the latter process, and therefore white ginger is, independent of the manner of preparation, superior to the black, and it always bears a much higher price in the market. When a preserve is to be made of the roots, they are dug up in the sap, the stalks not being then more than five or six inches long. For this purpose the young roots are scalded, then washed in cold water and afterwards carefully peeled. This process lasts for three or four days, during which period the water is frequently changed. When the cleansing is complete, the tubers are put into jars, and covered with weak syrup of sugar. After a day or two the weak syrup is removed, and replaced by a stronger; and the shifting is two or three times repeated, increasing the strength of the syrup each time. The preserve thus formed is one of the finest that is made; and the removed syrups are not lost, but fermented into a pleasant liquor, which gets the name of "cool drink,"

The manner of cultivating ginger is extremely simple, requiring little skill or care; it is propagated with as much ease and nearly in the same manner as potatoes are in this country.

STUDY.

While some are lost in dissipation and thoughtlessness, there are others whose minds are absorbed in diligent and laborious study. And, indeed, he

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who has no taste for intellectual pleasures, seems to be but a small remove from the animal tribes. He who cannot bear thinking, or at least has no disposition for investigation, but takes things merely from the report of others, or as they are imposed upon him by custom or prejudice is a mere slave, and hardly can be wise. It is a remark worthy attention, that "Thinking has been one of the least exerted privileges of cultivated humanity. It must be confessed there is too much truth in the observation. That all men think, is not denied; but, alas! few think with propriety, few bend their thoughts to right objects, few divest themselves of the shackles of ignorance and custom: to be, however intelligent, to be candid, to be useful, a man should give himself to application. In a word, he who would be happy in himself, respectable in society, and a blessing to the world, should persevere in the study of those subjects which are calculated to enlarge the mind, meliorate the disposition, and promote the best interests of mankind."

Demosthenes's application to study was surprising. To be the more removed from noise, and less subject to distraction, he caused a small chamber to be made for him under ground, in which he shut himself up sometimes for whole months, shaving on purpose half his head and face, that he might not be in a condition to go abroad. It was there, by the light of a small lamp he composed the aumirable Orations, which were said, by those who envied him, to smell of the oil, to imply they were too elaborate. "It is plain," replied he, "your's did not cost you so much trouble." He rose very early in the morning, and used to say, that "he was sorry when any workman was at his business before him." He copied Thucydides' History, eight times, with his own hand, in order to render the style of that great man familiar to him.

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THE WORM AND THE FLOWER.

BY J. MONTGOMERY.

You're spinning for my lady, Worm,
Silk garments for the fair;
You're spinning rainbows for a form
More beautiful than air;
When air is bright with sun-beams,
And morning mists arise

From woody vales, and mountain streams,
To blue autumnal skies.

You're training for my lady, Flower!
You're opening for any love
The glory of her summer bower,
While sky-larks soar above.
Go, twine her locks with rose-buds,
Ör breathe upon her breast;
While zephyrs curl the water-floods,
And rock the halcyon's nest.
But Oh! there is another worm
Ere long will visit her,
And revel on her lovely form

In the dark sepulchre:
Yet from that sepulchre shall spring
A flower as sweet as this:
Hard by the nightingale shall sing,
Soft wings its petals kiss.
Frail emblems of frail beauty, ye,
In beauty who would trust?
Since all that charins the eye must be
Consigned to worms and dust.
Yet, like the flower that decks her tomb,
Her soul shall quit the clod,

And shine in amaranthine bloom
Fast by the throne of God!

THE COUNTRY.

It has been very well said by a celebrated author, that "great cities are the graves of the human species." Another author has observed that if the havoc committed upon the human race by the unwholesome atmosphere and pernicious habits of great and populous places were equally made in the country, the human kind could only be perpetuated by a continual series of special miracles. Great cities would, in fact, very soon be depopulated, were not the havoc which death makes in them continually repaired by the influx of population from the country. The atmosphere of populous places is, in truth, being perpetually poisoned and corrupted. Putrid animal and vegetable substances necessarily abound in them; high walls and crowded houses obstruct the free passage of the air; and while miasmata thus created and confined are poisoning the atmosphere, thousands of human beings are breathing it, and, of course, adding to its impurity. It is impossible that such a state of things should be otherwise than unfavorable to human health, and destructive of human life.

In the country, on the other hand, every circumstance is favorable to man. The air, the scenery, the nature of his occupations, the habits of life which those occupations superinduce, and the exemption from the perpetual strife and agitation which are almost inseparable from a town life, render his life not only much more pleasant but much more healthful, and, upon the average, much more extended.

Had we all a free choice as to a town or a country life, few, we apprehend, would hesitate as to embracing the former. But such is not, and cannot be the case. Towns are necessary. The residents in the country need a thousand things which can only be produced by the association of great numbers of men. Husbandmen are necessary to cultivate the earth; but they must have tools, and apparel, and furniture, and houses, and these can only be produced by the residents in towns.

Happily, the dispositions and tastes of men are as various as the circumstances in which they are placed by their Creator. The dwellers in the free air and beautiful scenery of the country would shrink from being compelled to pass their lives amid the smoke and bustle of a populous town. The inhabitants of the town, contrariwise, would tremble at the darkness and stillness which mark the night-time in the country, and would be rendered uneasy by that very calm, which, to a lover of nature, is so exceedingly delightful and inspiring. All this is ordained for the wisest purposes, and for our happiness and welfare. All are thus rendered contented with their condition, and efficient in their employment.

But the pure air of the country, and its exceedingly beautiful scenery, have so excellent an effect upon the human health, and upon the human heart, that we recommend our readers never to neglect a proper opportunity of inhaling the one and beholding the other. The busiest and most important avocations afford some few snatches of leisure; and these can never be better or more wisely employed than in seeking the beauties of nature in their native haunts. During three-fourths of the year the country presents a perfect succession of beauties to the eye of taste, and of enjoyments to the wellattuned soul; and there are few indeed who cannot contrive to quit the busy hum and bustle of the town for a brief space, during one or the other of those periods. To those who are but inattentive

observers of nature, the country cannot fail to present innumerable objects of interest and contemplation.

EFFECTS OF EXPANSION.

A cannon ball, when heated, cannot be made to enter an opening, through which, when cold, it passes readily. A glass stopper sticking fast in the neck of a bottle, may be released by surrounding the neck with a cloth taken out of warm water, or by immersing the bottle in the water up to the neck: the binding ring is thus heated and expanded sooner than the stopper, and so becomes slack or loose upon it. Pipes for conveying hot water, steam, hot air, &c., if of considerable length, must have joinings that allow a degree of shortening and lengthening, otherwise a change of temperature may destroy them. An incompetent person undertook to warm a large manufactory, by steam, from one boiler. He laid a rigid main pipe along a passage, and opened lateral branches through holes into the several apartments, but on his first admitting the steam, the expansion of the main pipe tore it away from all its branches. In an iron railing, a gate which, during a cold day may be loose and easily shut or opened, in a warm day may stick, owing to there being greater expansion of it, and of the neighboring railing, than of the earth on which they are placed. Thus also the centre of the arch of an iron bridge is higher in warm than in cold weather: while, on the contrary, in a suspension or chain bridge the centre is lowered. The iron pillars now so much used to support the front walls of houses, of which the ground stories serve as shops with spacious windows, in warm weather really lift up the wall which rests upon them, and in cold weather allow it again to sink, or subside, in a degree considerably greater than if the wall were brick from top to bottom. The pitch of a piano-forte is lowered in a warm day, or in a warm room, owing to the expansion of the strings being greater than the wooden frame-work; and in cold the reverse will happen. A harp, or piano, which is well tuned in a morning drawing-room, cannot be perfectly in tune when the crowded evening party has heated the room. Bell-wires too, slack in summer, may be of the proper length in winter. There exists a most extraordinary exception, already mentioned, to the law of expansion by heat and contraction by cold, producing unspeakable benefits in nature, namely, in the case of water. Water contracts according to the law only down to the temperature of forty degrees, while, from that to thirty-two degrees, which is its freezing point, it again dilates. A very curious consequence of this peculiarity is exhibited in the wells of the glaciers of Switzerland and elsewhere, namely, that when once a pool, or shallow well, on the ice commences, it goes on quickly deepening itself until it penetrates to the earth beneath. Supposing the surface of the water originally to have nearly the temperature of the melting ice, or thirty-two degrees, but to be afterwards heated by the air and sun, instead of the water being thereby dilated or specifically higher, and detained at the surface, it becomes heavier the more nearly it is heated to forty degrees, and therefore sinks down to the bottom of the pit or well; but there, by dissolving some of the ice, and being consequently cooled, it is again rendered lighter, and rises to be heated as before, again to descend; and this circulation and digging cannot cease until the water has bored its way quite through.-Arnott

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