OR

WEEKLY ABSTRACT OF GENERAL KNOWLEDGE.

NEW YORK, SATURDAY, AUGUST 10, 1833.

the celebration of the mass. They were more numerous than the churches of London and Westminister taken collectively; and the lofty steeples in most instances fell with the roof, insomuch that few escaped. The first shock, as has been noticed, was extremely short, but was quickly succeeded by two others; and the whole, generally described as a single shock, lasted from five to seven minutes. About two hours after, fires broke out in three different parts of the city; and this new calamity prevented the digging out of the immense riches concealed beneath the ruins. From a perfect calm, a fresh gale immediately after sprang up, and occasioned the fire to rage with such fury, that in the space of three days the city was nearly reduced to ashes. Every element seemed to conspire towards its destruction; for, soon after the shock, which happened near high water, the tide rose in an instant forty feet, and at the castle of Belem, which defends the entrance of the harbour, fifty feet higher than had ever been known. Had it not subsided as suddenly, the whole city would have been submerged. A large new quay sunk to an unfathomable depth, with several hundreds of persons, not one of the bodies of whom was afterwards found. Before the sea thus came rolling in like a mountain, the bar was seen dry from the shore.

The terrors of the surviving inhabitants were great and multiplied. Amid the general confusion, and through a scarcity of hands, the dead bodies could not be buried, and it was dreaded that a pestilence would ensue; but from this apprehension they were relieved by the fire, by which these bodies were for the greater part .consumed. The fears of a famine were more substantial; since, during the three days succeeding the earthquake, an ounce of bread was literally worth a pound of gold. Several of the corn magazines having been, however, fortunately saved from the fire, a scanty supply of bread was afterwards procured. Next came the dread of the pillage and murder of those who had saved any of their effects; and this happened in several instances, until examples were made of the delinquents. [To be Continued.]

LITERATURE.

For the Family Magazine,
LANGUAGE,

Perhaps the most remarkable written rocks or mountains are in the wilderness of Sinai, at a place called Faran or Paran. Here are numerous inscriptions written in a large distinct character, and engraved in the face of the living marble with infinite labor twelve or fourteen feet from the ground. These inscriptions are particularly mentioned in the Prefetto of Egypt, as well as by modern travellers. A patient attempt to draw off and decypher these inscriptions was made by a European traveller about six hundred years ago, sometime in the twelfth century.

Maillet, a French traveller, in his letters, represents the existence of similar inscriptions on the rocks in the Plain of Mummies in Egypt. Maundrell adds his confirmation to the same facts in another part of country. Buckingham, a gentleman of poetical and philosophical celebrity now in England, during his travels in Turkish Arabia but a few years since, discovered abundant and wonderful specimens of ancient historrial and literary engraving upon the ever-during rocks.

To say no more of the abundant and interesting authorities we have at hand, we think our readers will not find their time misspent in following us through this hitherto almost entirely neglected region in the history of literature.

In the prosecution of our subject, the ancient historians, poets, and orators will come under consideration next in course to that of ancient, monumental, or hieroglyphic writing or pictures. F.

NATURAL HISTORY.

PHYSIOLOGY.

From the Brain arise nine pairs ofNERVES; some in solid cords, others in separate threads which afterwards unite in cords. Of these, some have their origin in the cerebrum, some in the cerebellum, some in the tuber anuulare, and some in the medulla oblongata. From these, the nerves supplying the organs of smell, sight, taste hearing, and feeling, in part, are derived. The nerves are called pairs, not because they proceed together from the brain and spinal marrow, but because they proceed from the opposite lobes of the brain, or from opposite sides of the spinal marrow, and supply similar parts on each side of the body with nerves. And hence it often happens in paralysis or palsy, that on one side of the body all the nerves perform their office imperfectly, while on the other The early practice of inscribing important sentences side no diminution of nervous energy is evinced. A nerve upon rocks or tablets of stone, is one that enables the is a long white medullary cord. The uses of the nerves modern student to approach the subject of ancient are to convey impressions to the brain from all parts literature with more confidence than could alone be of the body, over which they are spread, and to impart inspired by the mutilated fragments of writing that have motion, by exciting the muscles, to the whole system come down to us through multifarious channels. The It is the opinion of some philosophers, that the nerves mountain was the earliest book; its rocks the earli- contain a subtil fluid, by means of which impressions are est leaves on which the characters of written lan- immediately carried to the brain; this fluid has, how guage were engraved. The characters on the written ever, never been seen; others think that sensation is pro mountains are of the most ancient form,-and what-duced by what has been termed vibration; but the plain ever may be their meaning, they cannot be charged to the account of a generation of men who have lived since the light of history has so far illuminated the path of nations as to give the student a clear view of the course of human events.

truth is, we are at present ignorant of the means by which sensation and muscular motion are produced, fur ther than that we know both are the effect of the agency of the nerves.

The SPINAL MARROW, or medulla spinalis, is There is a sublimity in the idea of one's taking a continuation of the medulla oblongata from the head mountain-one of the noblest of nature's creations- through the centre of the spine, which consists of a seand hewing it down into proportion, and then illustrating|ries of bones called vertebræ supporting the body. From it like a tablet with pictorial representations of monarchs the spinal marrow are given out thirty pairs of nerves and mighty deeds, as well as brief, condensed records these, in conjunction with those arising from the brain of dates, transactions, and sententious wisdom. To communicate energy and feeling to the whole body build a monument whose foundation should take deep and also, by their extreme sensibility, convey to the brain hold of the central fabric of the earth, and be nursed at the mind or soul, the slightest as well as the strongest the living fountains which feed the oceans-around impressions made upon the different organs; hence our whose summit the clouds should gather in tempestuous pleasures and our pains, our hopes, our fears, and our gloom, and then to commit to its unwasting, indurated affections. sides the inscriptions in which were centered somewhat of the deathless mind,-are fitting actions for immortality, and look more like eternity than any other earthly

transactions,

That the Brain, as a whole, is the organ of though. the seat of the understanding, and the place where the emotions of the mind or soul arise, we cannot doubt it is also the centre of sensation and muscular motion,

N. B. The organs are situated in the above plate as in Dr. Spurzheim's, but they are numbered differently, to correspond with the arrangement of Dr. Judson's Phrenology.

In our next, we shall consider this subject more at length, in which we shall go somewhat into the merits of the system.

ASTRONOMY.

ROTUNDITY OF THE EARTH.

gators and travellers. When navigators depart from a coast, they observe that edifices and mountains sink by degrees, and at length disappear as if immersed in the THE Earth, it will be remembered, is a vast solid bo- ocean. This effect is not to be ascribed to distance, dy, of a shape nearly round, like an immense ball; and which causes objects to appear smaller; for, when we although it appears to be permanently at rest, it is in lose sight of land from a ship's deck, we preceive it fact in constant motion. It is so large that its surface, again by ascending the masts. The same takes place except where it is irregular by hills and mountains, ap- with respect to the ship as seen from the shore. It depears to be flat. About two-thirds of the Earth are cov-clines by little and little, and finally disappears, descendered with water, whose surface is rounded to conforming below the horizon like the Sun at its setting. with the general shape of the Earth. On this surface These phenomena, which are observed in all directions, we can sail round the world in all parts of it, and in all prove, that the surface of the sea is conevx, and that it is directions. All this is easily and readily solved by navi-by its interposition that distant objeccts are concealed.

If the earth were a plain surface, a single mountain tower elevated above it would be perceived from every quarter, at least if the spectators were not so far off as to render its dimensions invisible on account of the distance; and this would not be the case, except at very great distances. The bases of elevated objects would not 'disappear before their summits. They would not seem to sink by degrees; and when they disappeared from the deck of a vessel, they would not be visible from the top of the mast.

The horizon of the sea, which seems to terminate its surface, is only an apparent limit with respect to the situation of the observer, and is produced by the convexity of the surface of the water. Navigators, whom we see depart from the shore, seem to us to go beyond that Imit, but their horizon moves on with them. When they have disappeared from our view, we may ascend a mountain near the shore, and see again for some time the same vessel which had before appeared to sink in the waters. It would be a bold and important undertaking to acertain what becomes of this apparent horizon as we advance towards it continually in the same direction. Ferdinand Magellan, a Portuguese, was the first who executed this enterprise. He embarked from a port in Portugal, and directed his course towards the west. After a long voyage, he descried the continent of America, which had been previously discovered by other navigators, pursuing the same route. Not finding an opening to enable him to continue his course in a westerly direction, he sailed along the course towards the south, till coming to its southern extremity he sailed round it, and found himself in the great Southern

Ocean. Then he pursued his course towards the west: after some time he arrived at the Molucca Islands, and sailing continually towards the west, he made Europe from the east, and thus arrived at the place from which he set out. This great achievement, since repeated by several navigators, as Sir Francis Drake, Lord Anson, Cooke, &c. &c. proves that the whole surface of the water and land is convex, returning into itself; that the heavens do not touch any part of it; and that in whatever country we travel, the general system of stars is seen to revolve round the Earth in consequence of its diur nal motion. From this it is plainly shown, that the heavens do not rest on the horizon of the sea, as one might be led to believe from a hasty observation; and by this, we also acertain that the Earth has nothing to rest on, but is suspended in open space by the hand of the CREATOR,

Here it may be well to explain what is meant by the relative terms up and down. On whatever part of the earth we may be situated, the direction towards the sky or heavens is called up, and the direction towards the centre of the earth is called down. So that, with regard to open space, what is up from any given point of the earth's surface, is down from the opposite point thereof; which point is on the opposite side of the earth, and is called our antipodes, where people are walking on heads in an opposite direction towards the sky, in the the earth with their feet towards our feet, and their same manner as we are at the present moment. Anti signifies against; podes, feet.-Guide to Knowledge.

SHEELINS IN JURA, AND A DISTANT VIEW OF THE PAPS. The cut before us, with the following_description, is taken from "Pinkerton's Voyages and Travels." It is thrown into the form of a diary, as will be seen by the style in which it is written.

July 1. Ride along the shore of the sound: take boat at the ferry, and go a mile more by water: see on the Jura side some sheelins or summer huts of goatherds, who keep here a stock of eighty, for the sake of the milk and cheeses. The last are made without salt, which they receive afterwards from the ashes of sca-tang, and the tang itself which the natives lap in it. Land on a bank covered with sheelins, the habitations of some peasants who attended the herds of milch cows. These formed a grotesque groupe; some

were oblong, many conic, and so low that entrance is forbidden without creeping through the little opening which has no other door than a faggot of birch twigs placed there occasionally they are constructed of branches of trees covered with sods; the furniture a bed of heath placed on a bank of sod, two blankets and a rug, some dairy vessels, and above, certain pendent shelves made of basket-work to hold the cheese, the produce of the summer. In one of the little conic huts, I spied a little infant asleep, under the protection of a faithful dog.

Cross, on foot, a large plain of ground, seemingly improvable, but covered with a deep heath, and perfectly in a state of nature. See the arctic-gull, a bird un

known in South Britain, which breeds here on the ground; it was very tame, but, if disturbed, flew about like the lapwing, but with a more flagging wing. After a walk of four miles, reach the Paps: left the less to the south-east, preferring the ascent of the greatest, for there are three; Beinn-a-chaolois, or the mountain of the sound; Beinn-sheunta, or the hallowed mountain; and Beinn-an-air, or the mountain of gold. We began to scale the last, a task of much labour and difficulty, being composed of vast stones, slightly covered with mosses near the base, but all above bare, and unconnected with each other. The whole seems a cairn, the work of the sons of Saturn; and Ovid might nave caught his idea from this hill, had he seen it.

ed Colonsay and Oransay Mull, Jona, and its neighbouring groupe of isles; and still further, the long extents of Tirey and Col just apparent.

On the summit are several lofty cairns, not the work of devotion, but of idle herds, or curious travellers. Even this vast heap of stones was not uninhabited: a hind passed along the sides full speed, and a brace of ptarmigans often favoured us with their appearance, even near the summit.

The other paps are seen very distinctly, each inferior in height to this, but all of the same figure, perfectly mamillary. Mr. Banks and his friends mounted that to the south, and found the height to be two thousand three hundred and fifty-nine feet; but Beinn-an-àir far over-topped it; seated on the pinnacle, the depth below was tremendous on every side.

The stones of this mountain are white, (a few red,) quartzy, and composed of small grains; but some are brecciated, or filled with crystalline kernels, of an amethystine colour. The other stones of the island that fell under my observation, were a cinereous slate veined with red, and used here as a whet stone; a micaceous sand stone; and between the small isles and Ardofin, abundance of quartzy, micaceous rock-stone.

Affectasse ferunt regnum celeste Gigantes. Altaque congestos struxisse ad sidera montes. Gain the top, and find our fatigues fully recompensed by the grandeur of the prospect from this sublime spot; Jura itself afforded a stupendous scene of rock, varied with little lakes innumerable. From the west side of the hill ran a narrow strip of rock, terminating in the sea, called the side of the old hag. To the south appeared Ilay, extended like a map beneath us; and beyond that, the north of Ireland; to the west, Gigha and Car, Cantyre and Arran, and the Firth of Clyde, bounded by Airshire; an amazing tract of mountains to the The following cut, together with the annexed descripN. E. as far as Ben-lomond; Skarba finished the nor- tion of the island of Ilay, in Scotland, is from the same thern view; and over the Western Ocean were scatter-work as the foregoing.

The isle of Ilay, Isla, or, as it is called in Erse, lle, is of a square form, deeply indented on the south by the great bay of Loch an-daal, divided from Jura on the northeast by the sound, which is near fourteen miles long, and about one broad. The tides the most violent and rapid; the channel clear, excepting at the south entrance, where there are some rocks on the Jura side.

a ruinous distillation prevails here, insomuch that it is supposed that more of the bear is drank in form of whiskey, than eaten in the shape of bannocs. Wheat has been raised with good success in an enclosure belonging to the proprietor; but in an open country, where most of the cattle go at large, it is impossible to cultivate that grain, and the tenants are unable to inclose. Much flax is raised here, and about 2000l. worth sold out of the island in yarn, which might be better manu

The length of Ilay, from the point of Ruval to the Mull of Kinoth, is twenty-eight miles: it is divided into the parishes of Kildalton. Kilarow, Kilchoman, and Kil-factured on the spot, to give employ to the poor natives. menie. The latitude of Freeport 55° 52′ 29 N. The face of the island is hilly, but not high: the loftiest hills are Aird-inisdail, Diur-bhein, and Sgarb-bhein. The land in many parts is excellent, but much of it is covered with heath, and absolutely in a state of nature.

The produce is corn of different kinds; such as bear, which sometimes yields eleven fold, and oats six fold;

A set of people worn down with poverty; their habitations scenes of misery, made of loose stones, without chimnies, without doors, excepting the faggot opposed to the wind at one or other of the apertures, permitting the smoke to escape through the other, in order to prevent the pains of suffocation. The furniture perfectly corresponds; a pothook hangs from the middle of the