sudden and extraordinary rise of water occasioned by the thaw and great rain of Thursday last. March 15. This morning (Sunday) about two o'clock the ice in the Schuylkill gave way, but soon after it lodged, and formed a dam, which overflowed suddenly the grounds about the middle ferry, and carried off every thing but the brick house, drowning several horses and cattle, and forced the family to secure themselves in the second story till daylight, whither they were followed by a horse, that had sought refuge in the house. The waters did not subside till four o'clock on Monday afternoon.* In the Pennsylvania Gazette of the 27th of March, 1784, the particulars of this event are related in the form of two chapters in Chronicles, in scripture style. 1796. March 18. A lower tide than recollected for many years-say since the 26th of December, 1759, when it was lower,—it was owing to a hard gale the night of the 16th instant, and since continued at northwest. The flood tide was two feet lower than a common ebb; the bar visible nearly across; several chimnies blown down. 1804. April 22 and 23. A very great fresh in the Delaware and Schuylkill, attended with very high tides, occasioned by very heavy rains. 1804. March 20. The ice gorged above the city, on coming down Schuylkill in a heavy fresh, which occasioned the water to rise to so great a height, that a man on horseback, with a common riding whip, from the *There were twenty-one persons in the house at the time, of whom only two are now living. Market street wharf on this side the river, could but just reach the top of the ice piled on said wharf. The ice and water found its way round the Permanent bridge on the west side, overflowing the causeway between the road and the bridge, to a depth that required boating for passengers for some hours. 1805. This summer, Schuylkill lower by three inches than had been known for seventy years; caused by the long and great drought.. 1810. January 19. Lowest tide for fourteen years. 1822. February 21. The ice and water came over Fairmount dam to a depth of nine feet, and brought with it the Falls bridge, entire, which passed over the dam without injuring it, and went between the piers of the Market street bridge. At this fresh, the general body of water far exceeded the fresh in 1804; as the rising so much then, was owing to the ice gorging above. The fresh of 1822, from Reading down, is considered to have possessed the greatest body of water and ice ever known; at that place the river rose twelve feet high. 1824. April 7. During the last four months, twenty freshets have occurred in Schuylkill. In 1825, the 29th of July, a very great and sudden land flood was experienced in and around Philadelphia; the effect of a great discharge of rain. When the extreme lowest tides have occurred in the Delaware, at the city, there have been some rocks exposed near Cooper's upper ferry, which are never seen, even in part, at other times. They were first observed bare in 1769,-then again, in 1796,-and also, again in 1810, generally on the 17th of March. These low ebbs have usually occurred in March, and have been much promoted by strong and continued northwest winds. Those rocks have been seen as much as seven or eight feet out of the water; on such occasions they have always been permanently marked with the initials and dates of visiters, &c. The rocks, in 1810, were but two feet out of the water. 1827. October. Unusually high tides about full moon. November 14. Lowest tide recollected for many years; rocks on Jersey channel exposed to view. 1829. March 6. The ice and fresh came over Fairmount dam five feet six inches in depth, with a very powerful flow of water, and, perhaps owing to the addition of a very strong northwest wind, the awful rushing of the waters over the dam appeared, to an observer of both freshes, much more terrifically sublime than that in 1822, although at that time the depth was three feet six inches more than the recent one, flowing over the dam. It is most gratifying to know that the Schuylkill navigation and canals, and the Union canal, with their locks and dams, sustained both these freshes, which have occurred since these valuable works were formed, without any injury of importance. FIRST MEDICAL LECTURES. Dr. William Shippen had the honour to introduce at Philadelphia the first public lectures, in the year 1762, began at his house with only ten students. His first pub lic advertisement read thus-viz. "Dr. Wm. Shippen's anatomical lectures will begin to-morrow evening, at his father's house in 4th st-Tickets for the course five pistoles each." With such a small beginning he lived to enlarge his theatre-to address a class of two hundred and fifty persons-to see medical lectures diffused into five branches, and Edinburgh itself rivalled here at home!--he died in 1808. But who knows the locality of the first lecture room! Or does any body care to transfer their respect for the man, to the place where he began his career! It was on the premises now Yohe's hotel, in north Fourth street a little above High street-then sufficiently out of town, with a long back yard leading to the alley opening out upon High street along the side of Warner's bookstore--by this they favoured the ingress and egress of students in the shades of night. It was at first a ter rific and appalling school to the good citizens. It was expected to fill the peaceful town with disquieted ghosts; mobbing was talked of, and not a little dreaded. It was therefore pretended that they contented themselves with the few criminal subjects they could procure; which was further countenanced by a published permission to him, by authority, to take the bodies of suicides. As the dead tell no tales, the excitement of the day subsided, and the affair was dropt in general parlance, -save among the boys, with whom it lingered long "And awful stories chain'd the wondering ear! The tales had not subsided when I was a boy, when 1 for want of facts we surmised them. The lonely desolate house is yet standing by the stone bridge over the Cohocksink, on north Third street, which all the boys of Philadelphia deemed the receptacle of dead bodies, where their flesh was boiled, and their bones burnt down for the use of the faculty! The proofs were apparent enough:-It was always shut upshowed no out-door labourers-was by a constant stream of running water to wash off remains-had "No Admittance," for ever grimly forbidding at the door; and from the great chimney about once a fortnight issued great volumes of black smoke, filling the atmosphere all the country round with a most noisome odour-offensive and deadly as yawning graves themselves! Does nobody remember this? Have none since smiled in their manhood to find it was a place for boiling oil and making hartshorn-took thus far out of town to save the delicate sensations of the citizens, by the considerate owner, Christopher Marshall! The whole mysteries of the place, and the supposed doings of the doctors, was cause enough for ghost's complaints like these: "The body-snatchers they have come And made a snatch at me; It's very hard them kind of men Won't let a body be! Do'nt go to weep upon my grave They hav'nt left an atom there But more certain discoveries were afterwards made at Dr. Shippen's anatomical theatre in his yard. Time, |