T ber, and tarried with him. The whole and partly with the dust that came from the seeling which fell down. On the Lord's day, at night, when they fell; they were numbered ninety-one dead bodies: but many of them were secretly conveyed away in the night, there being a pair of water-stairs, leading from the garden appertaining to the house, On the morrow, sixty-three. THE MOVING MOUNTAIN. Accounts from Namur say, that It garret, rooms adjoining,door,and top of the stairs, were as full as they could hold. In the garret were set chairs and stools for the better sort: most of the women sate on the floor, but most of the men stood thronged together: in all, about 200 were there assembled. In the midst was a table and a chair for the into the Thames. preacher. When the preacher had the coroner and his inquest coming to discoursed about half an hour, on a view the bodies, found remaining but sudden the floor whereon the preacher and the greatest part of his auditory were, fell down with such violence, as therewith the floor of the chamber under it, where Redyate and his com- the Moving Mountain has made terpany were, was broken down with it, rible progress during the night from so that both the floors, with the beams, the 30th to the 31st of January. girders, joyces, boards, and seelings, has advanced more than six feet; the with all the people on them, fell down communication between that city and together upon the third floor, which Dinant, which is the great road to Paris, was the floor of the French ambassa- is shut up; people must now go by way Fodor's withdrawing-chamber, supported of La Plante, along the Meuse, and in with strong arches. Amongst those case the waters should rise as they did that fell, many escaped; for some of last month, the passage would be imposthe timber rested with one end on the sible. The house of Mr. Stapleaux is walls, and with the other on the third cracked by the pressure of the earth, floor, that yeelded not; and so both and that of Mr. Dutilleux is threatened such as abode on those pieces, and by the neighbourhood of a mass which such as were directly under them, were is sixty feet higher than the roof. thereby preserved. Others there were that were pulled out alive, but so bruised, or so spent for want of breath, that some lived not many hours, others died not many days after. The floor of the chamber immediately over this, where the corps lay, being fallea, there was no entrance into it, but through the ambassador's bed-chamber, the door whereof was closed up with the timber of the floors that fell down; and the walls of this room were of stone, only there was one window in it, with extraordinary strong cross bars of iron, so that though smiths and other workmen were immediately sent for, yet it was an hour before succour culd be afforded to them that were falPassage at length being made, I had access into the room, (saith Dr. Gouge, the relater of this stoTy) and viewing the bodies, observed some (yet but few) to be mortally wounded, or crushed by the timber: others to be apparently stifled, partly with their thick lying one upon another, more than A WHITE FEMALE, PART OF WHOSE SKIN RESEMBLES THAT OF A NEGRO. Hannah West was born of English parents, in a village in Sussex, in 1791. Her parents had nothing peculiar. Her mother is still alive, and has black hair, hazel eyes, and fair skin, without any mark. Her by her first husband; but her mother Hannah was her only child has had eleven children by a second marriage, all without any blackness of the skin. The young woman is rather above the middle size, of full babit, and has always enjoyed good health. hair is light-brown, and very soft; her eyes faint blue; her nose prominent, and a little aqueline; her lips thin; the skin of her face, neck, and right hand, very fair. In every respect, indeed, she is very unlike a negro; it is, consequently, very singular, that the whole of her left shoulder, arm, forearm, and hand, should be of the genuine negro colour, except a small stripe of white skin, about two inches broad. which commences a little below the elbow,and runs up to the arm-pit, joining the white skin of the trunk of the body. CONVEYANCE OF SOUND. The following curious and highly important fact connected with the physiology of the ear, has lately been published by Mr.Swan, of Lincoln. When the ears are stopped, and a watch is brought in contact with any part of the head, face, teeth, or neck; or if a stick, water, &c. be interposed between any of these parts and the watch, the sound will be heard as well as when the ears are open. It is extremely probable that this ingenious suggestion if attended to by the faculty, and aided by proper instruments to increase the effect of sound, would be found of considerable importance to those suffering under temporary deafness; but it must be observed that where the disease is in the nerve, no good can be derived from it. "While I was in the dale below, contemplating the steep acclivity of Topley Pike, I was startled from my reverie by the sound of a coachman's horn, which came gently upon the ear, when I was least prepared to expect such a greeting. Shortly a stage-coach appeared, which seemed actually to issue from the clouds, and I observed it pass rapidly along the side of the hill, where the eye could scarcely discern the trace of a road, and where to all appearance a human foot could with difficulty find a resting-place. Had I supposed this vehicle to have contained in it beings like myself, I might have shuddered with apprehension, but the coach, from its great height above me, looked so like a child's toy, and the sound of the horn was so soft and unobtrusive so unlike the loud blast of a stagecoachman's bugle-and altogether the place was so unfitted for the intrusion of such an object, that it appeared more like a fairy scene, or a picture of imagination, than any thing real and substantial." *For a notice of the first part of this work, seeAth. vol. 5, p. 387. The feelings here are naturally expressed; and by reversing the picture, a very different order might be indulg ed. We have looked from the height of a mountain down upon the grandest procession of pomp and royalty; and it is not in language to denote how mean and trifling the little puppet-shew looked when thus connected with the stupendous glories of the surrounding scenery. EPITAPHS. At Bakewell there is an ancient ruin in the Church-yard; but its modern tombs afford us more curious matter, "On a black marble tablet, which is inserted on a grave-stone near the east end of the church, there is the following inscription to the memory of a child aged two years and eight months. As a specimen of country church-yard poetry it has a claim to more than common consideration. "Reader! beneath this marble lies young, Were all united in this child. Wouldst thou his happier state explore? "Near the same place, on the contrary side of the pathway, there is an epitaph of a different character, in which the writer has eulogised the very extraordinary vocal powers of the parishclerk. Some of the rhymes are managed with a Hudibrastic felicity, and on reading the inscription I was induced to give it a place in my note-book. This person's name was Roe; his fath er filled the situation of parish clerk before him, and if his grave-stone flatters not, with equal ability, it tells us in humble prose, that "the natural powers of his voice in clearness, strength, and sweetness, were altogether unequalled;" a commendation which is reiterated in verse on the neighbouring tomb-stoue. "The vocal powers here let us mark, JOHN DALE AND HIS WIVES. At the end of the same church, on a table monument, another inscription occurs still more amusing, if I may be permitted to use a phrase so little in harmony with those feelings which generally accompany a contemplation of the last resting-place of those who have gone before us to "that bourne from whence no traveller returns." An old man and his two wives occupy this tomb, where undisturbed by the jealous cares of life, they sleep together lovingly, so says the legend which nearly covers one side of the tomb "Know, posterity, that on the 8th of April, in the year of Grace 1757, the rambling remains of the abovesaid John Dale were in the 86th year of his pilgrimage laid upon his two wives. "This thing in life might cause some jealousy, MRS. RADCLIFFE'S MATERIALS FOR THE We shall now conclude with a brief allusion to Haddon Hall, which it seems might have served for the study of Cedric's residence in Ivanhoe. "The gallery which occupies nearly the whole of the south part of Haddon, is a noble apartment: its style of architecture fixes the date of its erection in the time of Elizabeth, in whose reign this venerable structure passed from the Vernons into the possession of Sir John Manners, who was the second son of the first Earl of Rutland. In the windows of the gallery are the arms of both families in stained glass, and the boar's head and the peacock, their respective crests, liberally ornament this part of the house. This room is one hundred and ten feet long and seventeen wide, and the whole of the floor is said to have been cut out of one oak tree, which grew in the park. In the dining hall there is an elevated platform, a general construction in ancient halls, which is still retained in many colleges, wherein the high table is placed, at which the lord of the mansion presided at the head of his household and his guests. A gallery, which on festive occasions was appropriated to mirth and minstrelsy, occupies two sides of this apartment. On the wainscot, near the principal entrance, we observed an iron fastening of a peculiar structure, which was large enough to admit the wrist of a man's hand, and which we were informed had been placed there for the purpose of punishing trivial offences. "It had likewise another use,and served to enforce the laws and regulations adopted among the servants of this establishment. The man who refused duly to take his horn of ale, or neglected to perform the duties of his office, bad his hand locked to the wainscot somewhat higher than his head, by this iron fastening, when cold water was poured down the sleeve of his doublet as a punishment for his offence. One of the old servants of the family, who attended upon strangers when I first visited Haddon, when pointing out the uses to which this curious relique of former times was applied, facetiously remarked, that it grew rusty for want of use.' "Mrs. Anne Radcliffe, who was a native of Derbyshire, often visited Haddon Hall, for the purpose of storing her imagination with those romantic ideas, and impressing upon it those awful pictures which she so much delighted to pourtray: some gloomy scenery of her "Mysteries of Udolpho" was studied within the walls of this ancient structure." of the most STAG COMEDIAN. Cerf Acteon.-A stag, to which the name of Acteon has been given, has made his debût at Franconi's Circus in Paris. He performs the same feats as a well-managed horse; beats time in the midst of fire-works, &c. This spectacle attracts crowds to the Cirque; curious to see so timid an animal taught the bearing of the most courageous. Longevity.-Etienne Delametairie, born blind, died lately in the hospital at Bourges, aged 103 years and 18 days. For more than a century he was an inhabitant of a world he never saw. Like many of his darkling companions in the brute creation, he was employed for sixty years in turning a grindstone. CONVERSION OF RAGS INTO SUGAR. Dr. Vogel, Member of the Royal Academy of Sciences, has submitt d to a careful examination in the laboratory of the Acade. my of Munich, the surprising discovery of of Mr. Braconnot of Nancy, of the effects of concentrated sulphuric acid on wood and linen. He has not only fully confirmed this discovery, so as to lay before the Academy an essay on the subject, and show the products resulting from the original experiments, but also extended his own experiments, with equal success, to other similar vegetable substances, such as old paper, both printed and written upon, and cut straw. By diluting the sulphuric acid with a due addition of sawdust, cut linen, paper, &c. were converted into gum and saccharine matter. It must excite great interest in all reflecting minds, to see an indissoluble, tasteJess substance, like the filaments of wood, converted, by chemical re-action, into two new bodies, and chemistry thus exercise a power, which, but lately appeared to belong to nature alone, and in particular to vegetation. For this artificial formation of sugar and gum, now discovered, must not be confounded with the extraction of these two substances from bodies in which they already existed, a process which has been known from time immemorial. What has now been discovered, is a transformation, a metamorphosis, of which the most genious chemist had previously no idea; and it affords a new proof of the boundless extent of the domain of practical chemistry. A paper upon Dr. Vogel's repetition and investigation of Mr. Braconnor's experiments, and those added by himself, is promised in one of the next numbers of the Journal of Arts and Manufac tures, published by the Bavarian Polytechnic Society. Munich, Jan. 1820. NEW THEORY OF THE PLANETARY SYSTEM. A curious commentary, or rather an attack, upon the received system of the plane tary motions, has recently been published, in a small pamphlet, by Captain Burney, which is likely to excite the attention of the scientific world, and may lead to the discovery of very unexpected astronomical facts. The author deduces the motion of the whole of our system from the progressive motion of the sun itself; a qual ity which, he says, must be equally possessed by all the heavenly bodies, resulting from the universally acknowledged laws of gravitation. He argues, a priori, that from progressive motion rotation is produced, and, a posteriori, that a body in free space, having rotation round its own axis, is a clear indication of its being in progressive movement. This be corroborates by the general belief now entertained that our sun and planets are advancing towards the constellation Hercules. The opinion that the sun has progressive motion was not entertained long after its rotatory motion was discovered. Captain B. states his conviction, that if from the discovery of the sun's rotation and the acknowledged universality of gravity, its progression had been inferred, when Kepler first suggested that the planets moved round the sun by means of its atmosphere, the system of this philosopher would have obtained immediate and lasting credit, and that the hypothesis of these bodies being continued in motion by an original projectile impulse would not have been resorted to in accounting for the phenomena of their motions. NEW METHOD of CURING DEAFNESS. Important Invention in Acoustics.---It may be justly remarked in regard to all the scienproaching their height in rendering their apces that industry and ingenuity are now application successful for the use of society. The only neglected branch of surgery which remained some time ago nearly untouched, is that which regards the ear and its operations. Mr. Curtis, aurist to his Royal Highthis branch exclusively, placed it on the ness the Prince Regent, has, by taking up same footing as the other divisions of surgical science, by instituting as a school of practice the Royal Dispensary for Diseases of the tempting every mode of improvement in the Ear, where he has an extensive field for attreatment of deafness, which either experiprinciple he has made a valuable improveence or analogy can point out. It is on this ment on an instrument used by the Sear Gengot of Versailles, as described by Gaungeot, for injecting liquids into the eustachian tube, from the back part of the mouth, in cait produces no pain, and supersedes the neses of deafness of long standing. The use of cessity of puncturing the tympanum. ORIGINAL ANECDOTES, &c. Two English gentlemen, some time since, visited the field of Bannockburn, so celebrated for the defeat of Edward's army. A sensible countryman pointed out to them the positions of the hostile nations---the stone where Bruce's standard was fixed during the battle, &c. Highly pleased with his attention, the gentlemen on leaving him, pressed hisacceptance of a crown-piece. “Na, na,” said the honest man, returning the money, paid dear aneugh already for seeing the field "keep your crown-piece, the English hae of Bannockburn." Natural History, at Wetterau, reared and One of Plato's Infants.---A Professor of feathers. It has been held that no bird could kept for three years a canary bird without exist in that state. in Dublin. A person named Smyth, seventy An infamous transaction lately took place years of age, who had been twelve years churchwarden of the parish of St Michan, Dublin, has lately been convicted of a robbery of the most atrocions description. After a charity sermon, while employed with others in the vestry-room, counting the contributions, he was seen to pass bank-notes at various times from one hand to the other, put them into his pocket. He was searched, squeeze them into a small compass, and then and from 201. to 301. found on him; his defence was, that he was in a state of insanity at the time. He has been transported for seven years. POMPEII, which was en tombed in a softer substance, is getting daily disencumbered, and a very considerable portion of this Grecian city is unveiled. We entered by the Appian way, through a narrow street of marble tombs beautifully executed, with the names of the deceased plain and legible. We looked into the columbary below that of Marius Arius Diomedes, and perceived jars containing the ashes of the dead, with a small lamp at the side of each. Arriving at the gate, we perceived a centry-box, in which the skeleton of a soldier was found with a lamp in his hand: proceeding up the street beyond the gate, we went into several streets, and entered what is called a coffee-house, the marks of cups being visible on the stone: we came likewise to a tavern, and found the sign (not a very decent one) near the entrance. The streets are lined with public buildings and private houses, most of which have their original painted decorations fresh and entire. The pavement of the streets is much worn by carriage wheels, and holes are cut thro' the side stones for the purpose of fastening animals in the market place; and in certain situations are placed stepping stones, which give us a rather unfavorable idea of the state of the streets. We passed two little beautiful temples; went into a surgeon's house, in the operation room of which G ATHENEUM VOL. 7. chirurgical instruments were found; en tered an ironmonger's shop, where an anvil and hammer were discovered; a sculptor's and a baker's shop, in the latter of which may be seen an oven, and grinding mills, like old Scotch-querns. We examined likewise an oilman's shop, and a wine shop lately opened, where money was found in the till; a school in which was a small pulpit with steps up to it, in the middle of the apartment; a great theatre; a temple of justice; an amphitheatre, about 220 feet in length; various temples; a barrack for soldiers, the columns of which are scribbled with their names and jests; wells, cisterns, seats, tricliniums, beautiful Mosaic; altars, inscriptions, fragments of statues, and many other curious remains of antiquity. Among the most remarkable objects was an ancient wall with a part of a still more ancient marble frieze, built in it as a common stone; and a stream which has flowed under this once subterranean city, long before its burial; pipes of Terra Cotta to convey the water to the different streets; stocks for prisoners, in one of which a skeleton was found. All these things incline one almost to look for the inhabitants, and wonder at the desolate silence of the place. The houses in general are very low, and the rooms are small, I should think not above ten feet high. Every house is provided with a well and a cistern. |