their mutual interests, they would most willingly have maintained for the public.

NEW REMEDY FOR DEAFNESS.-Glycerine has been highly successful in its results on diseases of the ear, from its possessing the peculiar property of attracting from the atmospheric air moisture, and consequently, never drying or hardening.

We feel confident that in this unfortunate, shortsighted, narrow-minded conflict the British nation is discreditably warring against itself; and having not inattentively watched the practical working of COLOR OF TREE-FROGS.-In the newly erected the system, it has been our humble endeavor-by a Reptile House in the Zoological Society's gardens in the Regent's Park, is a glazed case of the Treefew pen-and-ink-sketches, which we now conclude Frogs of Europe. Although of a bright green -to attract the attention of the public to the mag- when exposed to light, these creatures become nitude of the works of our arterial railways, in almost black in the dark; and for some time after order that from the good sense and good feelings of their new location, the specimens in the gardens the community these new highways may receive presented every possible shade between a dark that fostering protection and genial support with-brown and bright green, owing to their having been out which the fruits of Science cannot be matured. recently kept in a dark place.

CURIOSITIES OF SCIENCE.

ECONOMY OF ELECTRIC LIGHT.-The notion of electricity as a source of illumination was suggested by Davy nearly half a century ago; and the application is, in all respects, practical, save in the matter of expense. Mr. Brande tells us that a mode of procuring cheap electricity must precede the economical use of such illumination; and that, were this obtained, water might be decomposed, and its hydrogen naphthalized, burnt, so as to produce a vivid, bright, and steady flame in its other element, oxygen.

MOLECULAR ACTION.-M. Niepce has discovered that, when a print is held over the vapor of iodine, the iodine is attracted almost exclusively by the ink. By applying an engraving thus saturated with iodine particles to a film of starch spread on a glass surface, he thus obtained, in iodide of starch, a perfect transcript of the original_design.-Communicated by Prof. Dumas to Mr. Faraday.

DANGER FROM STORMS.-We are often told that there is no danger if a certain interval of time can be counted between the flash of the lightning and the report of the thunder; but it is equally true, that if we can count at all, we are safe.

MANUFACTURE OF GLASS.-It is a curious fact in ELECTRICITY OF GRAVE-YARDS.-Sir James the history of discovery, that the manufacture of Murray recommends the advocates of intramural glass was, a few years since, unknown at Sidon, interments to employ accurate electricians, with where it is reputed to have been first invented.— delicate instruments, to measure the terrible gal-Pellatt's Curiosities of Glass-making. vanic derangements of fermenting church-yards as TO DETECT IMPOSITION IN GOLD-DUST.-Place the best proof of the fatality of the practice. Sir a little gold-dust in a glass tube or earthen-ware James refers to an effervescing golgotha, long kept saucer, and pour nitric acid upon it; then hold the in active fermentation in Belfast, near the quays, glass or saucer over a flame, or upon a few embers, and on a level with low-water mark. During until red flames (nitric vapors) arise if it be many years, Sir James had proofs demonstrating pure gold, the liquid will not become discolored; that persons residing in tenements opening into this but if pyrites, or brass filings, should have been Belfast grave-yard could not be efficiently elec-mixed with it, the acid will become turbid, green, trified, because the best machines could seldom and black, discharging bubbles of gas. After the produce sparks of any intensity. He often noticed ebullition has ceased, the residue should be that a magnet capable of sustaining fifty pounds with ease in other situations, could not for a moment suspend an iron of ten pounds in the habitations built close to this devastating place of interment. From these and many other observations, Sir James proved that negative electricity pervaded this vast swamp, and drew away the positive electricity from the living creatures in immediate contact with the damp earth and air of that fatal and extended trough, or galvanic pile.

washed with water, and acid again poured upon it, when the same effect may be observed, but in a less degree; and if the experiment be repeated till all the effervescence ceases, it will finally leave the gold-dust pure.—Professor Ansted, M.A. F.R.S.

CHARACTERISTICS OF GOLD.-Gold can be distinguished by its relative weight or specific gravity, and by its relative hardness, from other bodies which resemble it. It is described generally as VAST HYDRAULIC PRESS. The largest of the soft, completely malleable and flexible, but more Bramah's hydraulic presses, (the hoisting appa-harder than tin and lead. It is useful to know accurately as softer than iron, copper, or silver, but ratus in the construction of the Britannia railway facts of this kind, as a simple experiment, that can bridge,) is a noble instrument. It has a cylinder be made with instruments at hand, is often more eleven inches thick, with a piston or ram twenty valuable than a much more accurate examination inches in diameter, and the lift a span of six feet. The weight of the cylinder is sixteen tons of the Thus, if it is found that a specimen (perhaps a small requiring materials not immediately available. whole machine forty tons. This one alone has scale or spangle) is readily scratched by silver, power enough to lift the whole, a weight, it is escopper, or iron, and scratches tin and lead, it may, timated, equivalent to that of 30,000 men. It if of the right color and sinking rapidly in water, would spout the water pressed into its cylinder to a be fairly assumed to be gold.—Professor Ansted. height of nearly 20,000 feet, according to Mr. Clark, the engineer, or more than five times the THE LARGEST LUMP OF GOLD.-We believe the height of Snowdon, or 5,000 feet higher than Montlargest lump of gold ever found, to be that obtained Blanc. And yet, any one man can "put a hook in 1843, in the mines south of Miask, and now at into the nose of this leviathan," and, alone with St. Petersburg, the weight of which is no less than him, with the utmost facility and precision, guide seventy-eight pounds avoirdupois-its value, thereand control his stupendous action. fore, about 3,000l.-Professor Ansted.

From the Maryland Colonization Journal. were much interrupted by the colonies, and finally ABOLITION OF THE SLAVE TRADE OF GALLINAS. 1832; while those at New Cesters and Trade Town

extirpated by the purchase of Grand Bassa in The advices from Africa, published in our last were more or less connected with and dependent number, contain the gratifying and important intel- upon those at Gallinas. ligence, that the long blockade of Gallinas by the The Gallinas river enters the Atlantic in latiBritish cruisers has induced the slavers at that tude about 71°, between Grand Cape Mount and place to break up their barricoons, deliver up their Cape St. Ann, near one hundred miles north-west slaves to the commodore, and to take passage for of Cape Messurado or Monrovia. The name of themselves and effects on board her majesty's ves- the river is given to the cluster of slave factories sels for Sierra Leone. This is the initiative step near its mouth. This place possesses no peculiar to the entire abolition of that traffic on the wind- advantages for any species of commerce, and derives ward coast ; the next, and not less important, is its importance, exclusively, from the establishmen the purchase of the territory by the government of the slave factories there. The land in the ri. of Liberia. That the slaves are given up, the cinity is very low and marshy, the river winds barricoons destroyed, the slavers themselves re- sluggishly through an alluvion of Mangrove marsh, moved, and every vestige of this accursed traffic forming innumerable small islands. The bar at obliterated, avails nothing, unless proper and sure its mouth is one of the most dangerous on the measures are taken to prevent a reëstablishment coast, being impassable at times in the rainy season. of the business the moment the coast guard is aban- It is located in what is termed the Vey Country, doned ; and we doubt not, from the tenor of the the people of which are distinguished for their advices above referred to, that ere this, either by cleanliness, intelligence, and enterprise in trade. purchase or conquest, Gallinas and its dependencies How long Gallinas has maintained its importance are a part and parcel of the commonwealth of as a slave mart, we are unable to say, but at the Liberia—this measure, only, will ensure it against time of our first visit to Liberia, in 1831, its repua reënactment of the scenes of distress and horror tation was very extended and its influence most which have heretofore rendered that place so infa- deeply felt in the colony. It was estimated that

near 10,000 slaves were, about that period, annuTo enable those, not familiar with the slave ally shipped from this place alone. The business marts on the west coast of Africa, to estimate the was done, mainly, through the agency of several importance of the annexation of Gallinas to Liberia, merchants or factors established there, the prinit is necessary to give a brief sketch of their loca- cipal of which was Pedro Blanco, a Spaniard. tion and extent, and of the late history of Gallinas. This man's influence was unbounded among the Previons to the founding of the colonies of Liberia, native tribes on that section of the coast, and we the slave trade was rife throughout the whole of fear, at one time, extended to members of the colwhat is termed the Grain Coast ; in fact, from the ony of considerable respectability. He was a man Gambia to Cape Palmas, an extent of over 1,500 of education, having the bearing and address of a miles of coast line, excepting only Sierra Leone Spanish Grandee or Don, which was his usual and its immediate dependencies. The very heart appellation. He lived in a semi-barbarous manner, of this extensive slave mart was Gallinas, to which at once as a private gentleman and an African only Cape Messurado was second in importance. prince. He had at one time a sister residing with - That the small band of colonists, which boldly lo- him. He maintained several establishments, one | cated themselves on this beautiful headland in 1821, on an island near the river's mouth, which was should have been able to maintain their position his place of business or of trade with foreign vesamidst the powerful combined influence and action sels that came to Gallinas to dispose of merchanof slavers’ gold and savage natives, will ever re- dise; on another island, more remote, was his main a marvel in the history of that colony. But dwelling-house, where he kept his private office, they did maintain, not only their existence, but his books, dined, took his siesta, slept, &c.; here, their integrity and fair fame, and although it re- we believe, his sister also resided. On a third quired many years in its accomplishment, and all was his seraglio of native wives, each in their of blood and treasure which they had to give, the several dwellings, after the manner of native chiefs. Liberians succeeded effectually in eradicating this Independent of all these were his barricoons of traffic from the limits of their territory. After slaves, of greater or less extent, as circumstances the firm establishment of the colony, the slave required. It may readily be supposed that with trade on the windward coast, or to the north and the wealth accruing from a long and successful west of Cape Palmas, was mainly confined to some prosecution of the slave trade, his power among Portuguese settlements at Bissaos, the Rio Grande, the natives was equal to that of any despot; and the Nuez and Pongos, Gallinas and its vicinity, the following incident, related to us by one of his Grand and Little Bassa, New Cesters and Trade partners, proves that he occasionally exercised it. Town. The Bissaos and the river factories to the Having occasion one day to travel on the sea beach windward of Sierra Leone were never very pros- some distance from Gallinas, near the island of perous, the slavers finding it extremely difficult to Sherbro, where he was unknown, he approached escape from them without being intercepted by the the hut of a native, with the view of taking rest British cruisers. The small factories at the Bassas and refreshment. He asked the owner of the house, who was squatted in the door, to hand him gether in squads of twenty or thirty. We never fire to light his cigar. The man bluntly refused, saw a more painfully interesting sight than the upon which, Blanco drew back, took a carbine long rows of these bright-eyed little fellows from one of his attendants, and shot him dead upon doomed to the horrors of a middle latitude pasthe spot. The narrator of the story apologized for sage, probably in a three and a half feet between Blanco by saying, that to deny a Spaniard fire decks. Another peculiar feature of the place for lighting his cigar or pipe is the grossest insult was the collection of long canoes and boats, all that can be offered him.

kept ready for the dispatch of slaves the moment We have ever understood that Blanco was one an opportunity should occur. Probably 1,000 of the kindest masters to his slaves, taking every slaves could be shipped in four hours, all things care of their health and comfort, never suffering favorable. In case the coast is clear of armed any improper intimacy between his numerous vessels, and a slaver appears in the offing, her sig, agents and the females, and permitting no flogging nal is at once recognized. She is signalized, in or harsh treatment.

return, to come in, and if she is watered and proWe first visited Gallinas in 1837, at a time visioned for the voyage, and deck laid, which is when the trade at this place was on the decline usually the case, she does not even come to anchor, and Blanco was about leaving the coast. The but stands close in to the bar, where she is met oy first peculiarity we noticed, in entering the river, the whole fleet of canoes and boats, the contents was the arrangement of watch-boxes, or look-outs, of which are speedily put on board ; she then consisting of seats protected from the sun and stands off or up the coast again, the canoes return rain, erected some fifty or one hundred feet from to the barricoon for more slaves, again to meet the ground, either on poles fixed in the earth, or outside the bar as before. Sometimes, however, on some insulated, high tree ; from one of which they are not so fortunate, even when not inolested the horizon was constantly swept by a good tele- by a man-of-war. The bar at the river mouth is scope, to give prompt notice of the approach of not unfrequently dangerous, even in the dry seaany vessel, and long experience rendered these son, and in the anxiety to ship the slaves they run men very expert in determining the character of great hazards, and many a boat-load of poor any visitor, whether neutral, friend or foe. wretches becomes food for sharks, who always

About a mile from the river's mouth we found follow such boats and canoes in great numbers. ourselves among a cluster of islands, on each of We have heard from Kroomen, who perform the which was located the factory of some particular boat-work at Gallinas, many harrowing tales of slave merchant. The buildings generally con- shipping slaves from that place, too painful to sisted of a business-room, with warehouse attached, report, or even to recall to memory. In fact, all filled with merchandise and provisions, and a bar- connected with this trade is painful and distressing ricoon for the slaves ; the whole built by setting to humanity, and this Gallinas, of all other places rough stakes or small trees into the ground, these on the coast of Africa with which we have been being wattied together with withes and covered acquainted, has been the scene of its greatest horwith thatch ; that containing the slaves being rors. What imagination can conceive the thoumuch the strongest and generally surrounded by, sandth part of the misery that has been endured or connected with, a yard, in which the slaves were by human beings on this little cluster of bushy permitted to exercise daily. We think there islands ? Of the five or ten thousand, who are were some ten or twelve of these establishments annually brought to this place, each and every at that time, each containing from 100 to 500 one has to mourn a home made desolate, a family slaves. We believe one contained near 1,000, dismembered, the blood of kindred flowing. Of which, it was expected, would be shipped daily. this number, how many sink in these wretched Each barricoon was in charge of from two to four barricoons from distress of mind at their wretched white men, Spanish or Portuguese, and a more condition, from disease and famine ; how many pitiable looking set of men we never met with. are sacrificed in their hurried shipment by the ravThey had all suffered more or less from the fever, enous sharks; how many sink under the most were very weak, much emaciated or swollen by protracted agonies in that confinement between dropsy or diseased spleens, and none of them par- decks, the air of which is putridity itself; and, ticularly clean. The slaves were as well taken of the miserable survivors, the attenuated, excocare of as could be expected, when provisions riated wretches, who are still destined for the were plenty in the country ; but, in case of shambles, how few but would exclaim, “ Thrice scarcity, they suffered severely. Many instances and four times happy are those who sink under the have occurred wherein whole barricoons of slaves knife of the midnight assassin, or were consumed have been let loose for want of food ; and it may in the conflagration of their palm-covered cotwell be supposed their owners would allow them tages !" to suffer severely before giving them up. For But Gallinas is destroyed ; as a slave-mart it this reason, and because they can be stowed more has ceased to exist ; from its marshy islets the closely in a vessel, children are generally preferred fiat shall no more go forth to spread fire and lo adults. We recollect going into one yard sword throughout a peaceful land ; the marauding where there were some 300 boys, all apparently chief has bound his last victim; the haggard, between ten and fifteen years of age, linked to-Lazarone slaver has riveted his last fetter ; the

i

1849 AND 1850.

From the Spectator.

CLOSING in peace, as it opened in war, the year 1849 has witnessed events second in importance only to those of 1848; though it has not brought us to that European settlement which the tumult of last year seemed to necessitate.

The

shark at the bar mouth has fed on his last slave- | longer period, or had it been even in its presgang; and this land, heretofore, detested and sure; but pressed into a single season, it struck detestable, is henceforth to form a part of the free the imagination and stimulated exertion. and independent republic of Liberia. In the fall two kinds of political agitation that are going of Gallinas and the annexation of its territory to on as we take our farewell of 1849 accord with the Liberian republic, we see the absolute extinc- the actual state of the people. Agricultural distion of the slave trade from Sierra Leone to the tress combines with the natural tendency to reCape Palmas. That the Liberian government is action in bringing about the movement for renewed competent to prevent its reëstablishment now, in "protection." In vain Earl Fitzwilliam argues the day of her strength and independence, fostered at Huntingdon that renewed protection is imposby powerful nations, we have a sufficient guaranty, sible; the farmers who find it difficult to pay by what she has done at Messurado, Bassa and rents out of current prices wish to believe Earl Trade Town in time of her infancy and weakness. Stanhope, and to think that prices may be made higher. They prefer that even to Mr. Disraeli's ingenious invention of an agricultural agitation for the juncture to obtain a diminution of the local burdens: Mr. Disraeli's notion is too much of a refinement for the agricultural mind; and so it remains a sort of literary project, to which the agricultural ear listens with a polite disguise of its inattention. Sir Robert Peel has just come forth with a letter to his tenants, backing up his policy by proposals for equitable adjustment of relations between landlord and tenant, on the basis of a lower level of prices-though not so low a level as the present, which is brought about not only by the removal of restrictions, but by the undue stimulus of high prices in the years of scarcity. To landlords he furnishes a sensible example in the fulfilment of duties towards wellconducted tenants; to tenants he conveys an intelligible hint on the manner in which farming at a profit may be reconciled with the altered commercial polity of the nation. The other of the two political agitations corresponds with the rising wages and quiescent politics of the working class, and with the ascendency of the middle class it is the movement for creating a new county freehold constituency, to be purchased out of the savings of the working class, and to be used for the objects of the middle class, especially that

At home, quiet has been unbroken, save by the growing cry of "agricultural distress," and some winter indications of maddening wretchedness among the rural laborers: politically, the quiet amounts to dulness. In many respects the period bears the marks of a transition state-the suspense, the conflicting hopes, the doubts. Free trade has had its swing; the promised "prosperity" has not yet fully come, but it is still said to be coming; and several signs of it are tangible enough. In the factory districts all is bustle and activity; mills are constantly at work, stocks are low, wages are up, and speculation is looking forward to a harvest of affluence next year. If California has not sent heavy cargoes to swell the immense store of bullion in the Bank of England, it may have helped to spare American demands upon that establishment; the insecurity of the European Continent has contributed to turn the golden stream to London; the depression and hesitation of the two years now closing have checked" financial reform" to some success in which Mr. investment, and aided to heap up the hoard; there Cobden's reputation has been so openly pledged. it lies, more gold than the moneyed wisdom of the That Cobden is an indefatigable man, witness his eity knows what to do withal; and speculation agitating speeches at Leeds and Bradford last week. fastens its greedy eyes upon the mass, seeking The two agitations have a marked and characterwhat it may devour. We might forget that there istic distinction. The Cobden movement essenwas such a thing as distress, were it not that tially belongs to the trading towns, is based upon the agricultural meetings, like that at Bland- material realities, accords with the tendency of ford, still repeat the complaint of farmers and the times, is calculated to force official attention to landowners; and that recent inquiries have laid its subject, and is by its nature likely to have bare the existence of a chronic poverty which some result which may pass for success. The seems to lie beyond the reach of "prosperity."other agitation is a shadow of the past, belongs to In that respect the deadly epidemic of the year a declining or evanished influence, and can have has worked a permanent good, by forcing atten- no result. And so the year closes, not without tion to the state not only of our sanatory regu-anticipation of some dire portents; for a prophet lations but of our poor: hence the two social not yet extinct has foretold extraordinary tides in movements that especially distinguish the year the Straits between Great Britain and the Continow closing the broad inquiry into the con- nent; and the rationalizers of the day have predition of the poor, and the general effort at san-sumed some sanction for astrology in practical atory reform. The victims of pestilence have science, insomuch, it is said, that officials have fornot perished in vain an equal number might tified the lowlying public offices against the exhave died from similar causes, without attracting pected floods. But Sir William Hamilton, the attention, had the mortality been spread over a Astronomer-Royal at Dublin, has declared that

there is no scientific reason to expect a rising of Lord Grey is the blister of colonies—he makes the waters ; and so the portent of the day must them all rise, and delach themselves from the be due to non-natural causes, unless it prove non- body of the empire; which is at the same time existent.

put into a state of hot water by the operation. Europe is more tranquil-on the surface-than it was at the commencement of the year. In England and the United States of America are France, Prince Louis Napoleon has maintained at issue about the island of Tigre ; and if the his seat as president, and has thus far successfully dispute is to go forward according to rule, those coquetted with events and parties. If he is a great countries must come to war. What is the puppet in the hands of others, he makes a profit island of Tigre to them?—Properly nothing. out of that function. Some things indicate that Who then brought about the quarrel ?-Mr. Squier he is in that state : the only view at all original and Mr. Chatfield. Who are they, that they which he has exhibited has been his inclination should have it in their power to embroil two towards an associative organization of labor ; but mighty nations ?--Mr. Chatfield is a very respeche seems free to indulge that disposition only in table person, consular representative of England trifling efforts. He is reported to have promised to the government of Nicaragua. Mr. Squier is the other day the abolition of passports ; but pass- an American citizen, of more than American literports are not abolished. His indiscreet tongue re-ary tastes, a descendant of that Squier to whom ceives some private castigation and correction. Cromwell wrote the letters of which Mr. Carlyle However, he has made both ends meet, and France published interesting fragments in a popular magis not more unsettled in December, 1849, than she azine : he has done his state good service, by very was in December, 1848, perhaps less so. Germany fruitful antiquarian aid to exploring expeditions ; is not more settled-her federal condition still a and he has been repaid by his grateful country theory, Prussia and Austria still at loggerheads, with a sort of honorable exile to Nicaragua. Schleswig-Holstein still provisionally governed. Here, instead of devoting himself to the composiKing Frederick William seems just now to be tion of “ Tristia,” he magnanimously displays his stealing a march upon Austria in the most cun- diplomatic zeal ; and we all know into what des ning manner, by developing truly “constitutional” | perate courses literary men may be hurried when government in his own territories ; a policy which, they are called to action. They take history to be if carried out, must in the end compel Austria to the reflex of events, and, è converso, imagine that follow his lead. Italy has been reconquered, and events must exhibit the concentrated force of hisis still unsettled : but here also Victor Emmanuel tory—that they must do a chapter in the time that is pursuing a similiar course ; he opens his Par- it would take to write one. So Mr. Squier has liament under an escort of armed national | been doing a Yankee-Cromwellian chapter on the guards, and delivers a royal speech in which Eng- shores of Central America. lish commonplaces assume an aspect of startling The precise points and facts of the dispute are innovation, considering the geographical point : not yet explained beyond doubt; but it appears to Victor Emmanuel therefore seems to be raising be all along of the Panamà canal. Indeed, there up in Italy that power which is so peculiarly is no reason why that unsubstantiated project fitted to the age, and is so much stronger than should not serve for starting-point as well as any despotism-constitutional monarchy. Hungary other. Manifestly, Mr. Squier is bitten with the is reconquered, but sulky, and evidently unsubdued Jeffersonian idea of blocking out European monin spirit. Russia helped to conquer her, but has archism by a republican process of squatting. done nothing further to consolidate Austrian power; The patronage of the future canal is not yet filled which remains where it was, unaugmented amid np : the European idea, shared by Mr. Abbott growing powers. The conflict of Despotism and Lawrence, American minister at London, is to Constitutionism has been extended to Turkey, not secure the neutrality of the canal by a great inas an internal but as an external question : Russia ternational act of comity: Mr. Squier wishes to is pressing unjustifiable demands for the betrayal establish a powerful local influence for his repubor expulsion of refugees, and England is said to lic, and obtains the island of Tigre ; the republic have committed a breach of treaty in her zeal on of Nicaragua playing into his hands, as the quid the other side, by invading the neutral waters of pro quo for his support against England's client the Dardanelles. Through all these conflicts the King of Mosquito. Mr. Chatfield raises Russia keeps up a prudent reserve-by some as- claims for compensation to certain “ British subcribed to wisdom, by more to timidity, and by jects," and seizes the ceded island by force of others with greater reason to an astute cunning British arms. The two diplomatists fall to disbent on ulterior projects of aggrandizement. puting who had hold of the island first, and call

The British colonies are in that disaffected con- upon their respecțive governments to back them. dition which the year has rendered so familiar : Will those august bodies du so? Personal and Sir Charles Grey still shilly-shallies in Jamaica ; political grounds may conspire to procure support Lord Elgin still skulks in contumacious Canada ; in Washington for the excellent antiquarian ; from the Cape, this last week of the year brings Lord Palmerston has earned the reputation of standus news how Sir Henry Smith still holds out ing manfully by his subordinates. This foolish against the domestic blockade of the official larder. / squabble is one result of that secret diplomacy