fortify his history of this powerful queen and her empire that stretched over the then habitable globe, by a reference to this historical grouping that had come down through centuries to his own time. From a full and laborious research into authentic records, we find that the custom of engraving historical memoranda on rocks prevailed extensively among the nations of antiquity. The Phoenicians, Egyptians, and Arabians certainly practised this mode of commemorating great events. In later times the Danes have done the same engraving in verse on rocks and hewn pillars the mighty deeds of their brave nation and of their an cestors. As a proof that inscriptions thus engraven upon the unyielding marble with immense labor and care, and thus left exposed under the open canopy of heaven to the view of all men, could not, when false, be imposed upon the community as true, we find in Herodotus that Themistocles having cut letters upon stones in memorial of some event, the very next day the Ionians came along and read what had thus been committed to the keeping of the rocks. As no intimation was given that these immediate contemporaries of Themistocles disputed the truth of what he had engraved, the conclusion would be irresistible in the mind of any one who should find these inscriptions, that they were the veritable records of facts. Before adducing any accounts from modern travellers in regard to sculptured and inscribed rocks and mountains, we will notice a few of the earlier travellers. More than twelve hundred years ago, sometime in the sixth century, Cosmas Egyptius travelled in the vicinity of Mount Sinai, and made many observations in regard to the sculptured and inscribed rocks. He declares expressly that the inscriptions are in the ancient Hebrew character, and that some of the Jews then residing in the neighboring region were able to read them. He found that many of these written stones which had been broken off and had fallen from the mountains or ledges, were preserved carefully as valuable relics or memoranda in the dwellings of the Jewish people. Having inquired the meaning of these inscriptions from those who could read them, he states they answered him promptly, that they "signified so and so-such a journey-out of such a tribe-in such a year-in such a month-i. e. such and such things were done." We will barely add, that these accounts were said by the Jews to have been memoranda of journeyings accomplished by the Israelites in their egress from Egypt, and that they were engraved by them at the time when they held their solitary way through that wild country. Two hundred years ago, two travellers, Petrus a Valle and Thomas a Novaria, were on this spot, and transcribed some of the inscriptions. About one hundred years since, a party of travellers visited the same place, and spent an hour on the written mountains. The route of their travel was from Grand Cairo in Egypt to Mount Sinai. Their journal, which was minutely particular, has been translated into English by Dr. Clayton, Bishop of Clogher, in Ireland. This party found the deep-cut, square-looking characters in perfect preservation in the hard marble, about 12 or 14 feet from the ground. They could trace a resemblance to the present Hebrew character-yet could not read them; none about them, either of Arabian or Jewish extraction, could make any sense of them. Dr. Clayton, as we find in Dr. Gill's Dissertation on the Antiquity of the Hebrew Language, was so enthusiastic in the belief that these characters were the earliest letters in the world, and the real primitive Hebrew characters, that he confidently asserted that the original alphabet could be formed from these inscriptions. He made an offer to the London Antiquarian Society to bear a part of the expense from his own purse, if they would send a qualified person to examine the inscriptions and deduce the alphabet from them. This proposition, made about one hundred years ago, was, we believe, not acceded to by the Antiquarian Society. The supposition that important corroborations or refutations of ancient historical records may yet be found amidst the mouldering relics of ancient empires, seems already strongly fortified by the finding of the Rosetta stone in digging a trench for the army of Napoleonthus bringing to the light of day the key that, in the hands of Champoillon. has unlocked the time-worn depositories of mysterious Egyptian lore. The time may come when the modern eye shall scan every rock in that wasted region, and the modern spade go down deep into the driving sands, to search out truth, or to detect error. F. ASTRONOMY. The THE ATTRACTION OF GRAVITATION Keeps all heavy bodies upon the earth, unless moved from it by some other force, and reduces the surface of the water to a form corresponding with the general form of the earth. Now observe; the power of attraction, which makes all bodies near the earth fall towards it, would make the earth fall to the sun, if this attraction were not counteracted by some other power. earth being in constant motion round the Sun, (the velocity of which being so great.) if it were not restrained by the attraction of gravitation, would fly off to a greater distance from the sun in the same manner that a stone whirled about in a sling flies off the instant it is discharged from the sling. The two powers are made to balance each other so exactly, that the earth has continued from the creation to revolve about the sun, varying its distance in different parts of its course, but regaining it by fixed laws so that every revolution is the same, and is performed in the same period of time. Of all the phenomena of the heavens, there are few, if any, that engage the attention of mankind more than the eclipses of the sun and moon; and to those who are unacquainted with astronomical principles, nothing appears more extraordinary than the accuracy with which they can be predicted. OF ECLIPSES. By eclipse is meant the privation of the light of some luminary, by the interposition of an opaque or dark body, either between it and the eye, or between 1 and the sun. An eclipse of the sun or moon is caused by the situation of the moon with regard to the earth. passing the sun and earth intercepts his rays. Those The eclipses of the sun take place when the moon of the moon take place when the earth coming between the sun and moon deprive the moon of her light. Hence an eclipse of the sun can take place only when the moon changes, and an eclipse of the moon only when the moon fulls; for at the time of an eclipse, either of the sun or moon, the sun, earth, and moon, must be in the same straight line. the distance of 145,000,000 of miles. He is chiefly remarkable for his dull, red light, which is supposed to have acquired for him the name of the sanguinary god of battles. The ancients represented him riding on a high chariot, drawn by two furious horses, Fear and Terror, driven by his sister Bellona, the goddess of war; he was covered with armour, and held a spear in one hand, and brandished a sword in the other, threatening ruin and desolation to the WORLD. MARS is much smaller than the Earth, being only 4229 miles in diameter at his equator. He revolves round the Sun in 686 days 23 1-2 hours, and on his axis in 24 hours 40 minutes. His orbit lies between that of the Earth and Jupiter, but very distant from both. From the dulness of his appearance, many have conjectured that he is encompassed with a thick, cloudy atmosphere; his light is not near so bright as that of Venus, though he is sometimes, from position, nearly equal to her in size. Mars, when in opposition to the Sun, is five times nearer to us than when in conjunction. This has a very visible effect on his appearance. It is for this reason that we see him at some times small and very dusky, and at others so large and luminous that an uninstructed eye would be likely to take him for another star. The spots of Mars are numerous and very distinct, by which his revolution round his axis has been exactly determined. Mars revolves in his orbit with the velocity of about 55,287 miles per hour, and on his axis at the rate of 556 miles per hour at his equator. Mars increases and decreases like the Moon, except The atmosphere of Mars is supposed to be denser than that he never forms a crescent, as do the inferior planets. Earth is by far the greatest in the whole solar system. that of the Earth. The analogy between Mars and the A spectator in Mars could rarely, if ever, see Mercury, except when passing over the Sun's disk. Venus will appear to him at about the same distance from the Sun as Mercury appears to us. The Earth will appear about the size of Venus, and never above forty-eight degrees from the Sun, and will be by turns a morning and an evening star to the inhabitants of MARS. To this planet, our Earth and Moon appear like two moons, sometimes half or three-quarters illuminated, but never full.-Guide to Knowledge. The great shock was succeeded about noon by another, when the walls of several houses which were still standing were seen to open from the top to the bottom more than a fourth of a yard, and afterwards to close again so exactly as not to leave any signs of injury. Between the first and the eighth of November, twenty-two shocks were reckoned. A boat on the river, about a mile distant from Lisbon, was heard by the passengers to make a noise as if it had run aground, although then in deep water: they at the same time saw the houses falling on both sides of the river, in front of which, on the Lisbon side, the greater part of a convent fell, burying many of its inmates beneath the ruins, while others were precipitated into the river. The water was covered with dust blown by a strong northerly wind, and the sun was entirely obscured. On landing, they were driven by the overflowing of the waters to the high grounds, whence they perceived the sea, at a mile's distance, rushing in like a torrent, although against wind and tide. The bed of the Tagus was in many places raised to its surface; while ships | the largest artillery. Immediately a shock of an earthwere driven from their anchors, and jostled together with quake was felt; and this was succeeded by a second and such violence that their crews did not know whether a third, at the same time that several light flames of fire, they were afloat or aground. The master of a ship, who resembling the kindling of charcoal, issued from the had great difficulty in reaching the port of Lisbon, re- mountains. During these three shocks, the walls of the ported that, being fifty leagues at sea, the shock was buildings moved from east to west. In another spot, there so violent as to damage the deck of the vessel.- where the sea-coast could be descried, a great quantity He fancied he had mistaken his reckoning, and struck of smoke, very thick, but somewhat pale, issued from on a rock. the hill named the Fojo. This increased with the fourth The following observations, relative to this fatal earth-shock at noon, and afterward continued to issue in a quake, were made at Colares, about twenty miles from greater or less degree. Immediately as the subterraneLisbon, and within two miles of the sea. On the last day ous rumblings were heard, the smoke was observed to of October, the weather was clear and remarkably warm burst forth at the Fojo; and its volume was constantly for the season. About four o'clock in the afternoon a proportioned to the noise. On visiting the spot whence fog arose, proceeding from the sea, and covering the it was seen to arise, not any sign of fire could be pervallies, which was very unusual at that season of the ceived near it. year. The wind shifted soon after to the east, and the fog returned to the sea, collecting itself, and becoming exceedingly thick. As the fog retired, the sea rose with a prodigious roaring. On the first of November, the day broke with a serene sky, the wind continuing at east; but about nine o'clock the sun began to be obscured; and about half an hour after, a rumbling noise was heard, resembling that of chariots, and increasing to such a degree that at length it became equal to the explosions of After the earthquake, several fountains were dried up; while others, after undergoing great changes, returned to their pristine state. In places where there had not been any water, springs burst forth and continued to flow; several of these spouted to the height of nearly twenty feet, and threw up sand of various colours. On the hills rocks were split, and the earth rent; while toward the coast, several large portions of rock were thrown from the eminences into the sea. this gentlewoman and her majesty's dancing master, and many rich presents to the queen, from her mother, Mary de Medicis, he was taken by the Dunkirkers. Jeffery, thus made of consequence, grew to think himself really so. He had borne with little temper the teazing of the courtiers and domestics, and had many squabbles with the king's gigantic porter. At last, being provoked by Mr. Crofts, a young gentleman of family, a challenge ensued; and Mr. Crofts coming to the rendezvous armed only with a squirt, the little creature was so enraged that a real duel ensued, and the appointment being on a level, Jeffery with the first fire shot his antagonist dead. JEFFERY HUDSON, the famous English dwarf, who, to fetch a midwife for the queen; and on his return with contributed to the amusements of the court of Charles II. was born at Oakham, in Rutlandshire, in the year 1619. When about the age of seven or eight, being then but eighteen inches high, he was retained in the service of the Duke of Buckingham, who resided at Burleigh on the Hill. Soon after the marriage of Charles 1. the king and queen being entertained at Burleigh, little Jeffery was served up to table in a cold pie, and presented by the duchess to the queen, who kept him as her dwarf. Of this scene, which must have been eminently ludicrous, we this week give an original engraving. From seven years of age till thirty he never grew taller; but after thirty he shot up to three feet nine inches, and there fixed. Jeffery took a considerable part in the entertainments of the court. Sir William Davenant wrote a poem called "Jeffreidos," on a battle between him and a turkey cock; and in 1638 was published a very small book called "The New Year's Gift," presented at court from the Lady Perceval to the Lord Minimus, (commonly called little Jeffery,) her majesty's servant, &c. written by Microphilus, with a little print of Jeffery prefixed. Before this period, Jeffery was employed on a negotiation of great importance: he was sent to France This happened in France, whither he had attended his mistress in the troubles. He was again taken prisoner by a Turkish rover, and sold into Barbary. He probably did not remain long in slavery; for at the beginning of the civil war, he was made a captain in the royal army, and in 1644 attended the queen to France, where he remained till the Restoration At last, upon suspicion of his being privy to the popish plot, he was taken up in 1682, and confined in the Gate-honse, Westminster, where he ended his life in the sixty-third year of his age.-Cabinet of Curiosities. NATURAL HISTORY. PHRENOLOGY. We will now, as we proposed in our last, proceed to the consideration of the merits of the phrenological system. It has been already remarked, that the substance of this system is, that the brain is divided into a certain number of departments, each of which is appropriated to a certain faculty or propensity of the mind; and that there are corresponding appearances in the skull itself, by which an idea may be formed of a person's character. To this it may be added, that when a department is strongly marked, or very prominent, the faculty or propensity to which it belongs is understood to be proportionably strong or predominant; and when the reverse is the case, the reverse is understood of the corresponding faculty or propensity. The most superficial observer can but have noticed the general resemblance which obtains between the features of the face and the natural cast of the mind. It is true that circumstances may have a temporary influence, and divert the spirit from its natural bias; and in such an event we may be misled in making an estimate of one's character from the appearance of his face; and there may likewise be exceptions to the general rule made by nature herself in the plenitude of her freaks and eccentricities: but as a general rule it will hold good, that the features of the face are an index of the mind. But the brain is the seat of the mind, and the skull is much more closely connected with it than is the face. It seems therefore in the highest degree rational to conclude, that the resemblance under consideration-the resemblance for which phrenologists contend-obtains in this instance. So much for the probabilities of the case. Let us next consider its evidences. this principle, but speaking of all men as born with equal mental faculties and moral susceptibilities, and maintaining that the differences observable between them were owing either to education or to accidental circumstances, he laid aside all reliance upon their theories, and devoted himself to the study of nature. "He visited prisons, and resorted to schools; he was introduced to the courts of princes, to colleges, and the seats of justice; and wherever he heard of an individual distinguished in any particular way, either by remarkable endowment or deficiency, he observed and studied the developement of his head. In this manner, by an almost imperceptible induction, he conceived himself warranted in believing, that particular mental powers are indicated by particular configurations of the head." Anatomical investigations next occupied his attention, and he made several important discoveries respecting the structure of the brain and nerves. The fibrous constitution of the brain has by him and Dr. Spurzheim been demonstrated to the satisfaction of all anatomists, even of them who continue opposed to the peculiar doctrines of phrenology. Dr. Gall did not, as he has been falsely represented, first map out a head and assign a faculty to each part, according to his fancy or caprice; on the contrary, he remarked an agreement between certain mental faculties or moral dispositions, and certain forms of the cranium, and they were located one by one as they were presented to his observation. Dr. G. Spurzheim began the study in 1800 as a student of Gall, and has been an indefatigable labourer in the field of phrenological investigation, and a strenuous and successful advocate of truth and humanity. He has lectured in France, Great Britain, Ireland, and the United States. He arrived in New York in July, 1832, and proceeded to Boston, where, after lecturing several weeks, he terminated his valuable life. Worthy of all eulogium and of all regret, he sleeps in our land: but bequest to the friends of wisdom and virtue. His powers of analysis were great; and much of the order and harmony of the science may be fairly attributed to him. Nor were his moral sentiments less valuable or endearing. In this country (and I am proud to mention the fact) he was received with enthusiasm, entertained with cordiality, and lamented with sincere esteem, as well as heartfelt sorrow. "Requiescat in pace." Phrenology is not, as some suppose, a mere specula-his works survive, and may be considered as a valuable tive theory. It is founded on observation and demonstration. Numerous cases have been examined, and it has been uniformly found that individuals of similar dispositions resemble one another in configuratiou of cranium; and likewise, that persons remarkable for any particular faculty or propensity, are also distinguished by an unusual prominence of a particular portion of the skull. It is in this way that the science of phrenology has been established. We extract the following from Dr. Judson's "Alphabet of Phrenology," recently published in this city. It is a brief history of the science, and may be appropriately introduced in this place : The honour of the discovery is unquestionably due to Dr. Gall of Vienna. Dr. Spurzheim and Mr. Combe merit the praise of having been the most successful cultivators of the science. In 1816, Mr. George Combe became a convert, and he has published a treatise on phrenology, which is one of the best written and most interesting books in the English language. The Phrenological Journal and Miscellany has also contributed to the wide diffusion of knowledge on this increasing, and, as I firmly believe, enduring science. Dr. Charles Caldwell of Kentucky, and others in this country, have given it their decided approbation; and we may confidently say, that the subject has received an impulse which will render its continuance perpetual, its Dr. Gall, from an early age, was disposed to observation. He noticed the fact, that his brothers, and sisters, and schoolfellows, were each distinguished by some pe-progress certain, and its triumph complete. culiarity of talent or disposition. He found that the scholars with whom he had the greatest difficulty in competing, were those who learned by heart with much facility; and such individuals frequently gained from him, by their repetitions, the places of honour and commenda ion to which he had justly gained a title by the merit of his original compositions, His schoolfellows so gifted were observed to possess prominent eyes, and subsequently, in similar cases, he found this to be uniformly true. This fact, we are told, suggested to him the propriety of looking to the heads around him for other organs, either of intellect or of sentiment. From the first he referred the cause to the brain, and not to the bones of the head, as it has been absurdly represented by the opponents of the system. Phrenology does not assert that the mind is material, or that it cannot exist and act separate from the body. It only states, that while united with the body, it employs material organs for its manifestation. Dr. Gall studied the metaphysical writers with but little satisfaction. Being fully convinced there was a natural difference between individuals as to talents and dispositions, and finding those writers not acknowledging We may then believe that the mind uses the eye to see, the ear to hear, the hand to feel, and the brain to think; and if so, why not one part of the brain to enjoy the pleasures of friendship, another part to raise the emotion of benevolence, and still another to quicken the energy of resentment? The brain is, therefore, a congeries of organs: these are numerous and multiform: phrenology collects and arranges them into three great classes. The first class embraces those organs which give rise to the animal propensities, and are nine in number. The second class contains those of the moral feelings or sentiments, nine or ten in number. The third class comprehends the intellectual organs or faculties, which are subdivided into the knowing and the reflecting organs. POETRY. MOUNT WASHINGTON; The loftiest Peak of the White Mountains, N. H. MOUNT of the clouds, on whose Olympian height The tall rocks brighten in the ether air, And spirits from the skies come down at night, To chant immortal songs to Freedom there! Thine is the rock of other regions, where The world of life which blooms so far below Sweeps a wide waste; no gladdening scenes appear, Save where, with silvery flash, the waters flow Beneath the far off mountain, distant, calm, and slow. Thine is the summit where the clouds repose Or, eddying wildly, round thy cliffs are borne; When Tempest mounts his rushing car, and throws His billowy mist amid the thunder's home! Far down the deep ravines the whirlwinds come, And bow the forests as they sweep along; While, roaring deeply from their rocky womb, The storm comes forth-and, hurrying darkly on, Amid the echoing peaks, the revelry prolong! And when the tumult of the air is fled, And quenched in silence all the tempest flame, Mount of the clouds, when winter round thee throws Thy towers in bright magnificence appear! Till summer robes thee in her tints of blue; When lo! in softened grandeur, far, yet clear, Thy battlements stand clothed in heaven's own hue, To swell as Freedom's home on man's unbounded view! G. Mellen. MISCELLANY. PTOLEMY'S MIRROR. We read in several ancient authors, that Ptolemy Ev ergetes caused to be placed in the tower of Pharos, at Alexandria, a mirror which represented accurately every thing which was transacted throughout all Egypt, both on water and on land! Some writers affirm, that with this mirror an enemy's fleet could be seen at the distance of 600.000 paces; others say 500 parasangs, or more than 100 leagues! Abulfeda, in his description of Egypt, says that the mirror was of Chinese iron, and that soon after Mahometanism prevailed, the Christians destroyed it by stratagem. Buffon thinks that by Chinese iron, Abulfeda meant polished steel; but there seems more plausibility in the conjecture of an acute anonymous writer, (Phil. Mag. 1805,) who supposes the metal to have been what is known to us by the name of tutanag, a Chinese metallic compound, which might be valued then as it is now for the high polish it receives. The existence of this wonderful mirror has been very generally treated as a fiction. Some celebrated opticians, who have been so far staggered by the positive terms in which the fact stands recorded, as to hesitate about dis crediting it entirely, think that, at all events, it could be nothing else than the effect of magic. Such is the opinion of Father Kircher, among others, who includes it among "those delusions of the devil which we should shun with all our might; and, after the example of our Holy Mother church, condemn and execrate." Experience, however, has taught us, that many facts, once reckoned chimerical by a number of learned men, having been better examined by other learned men, have been found not only possible, but in actual existence. Father Abbat, in his Amusements Philosophiques, a work first published at Marseilles, in 1763, but now extremely scarce, has a very acute and ingenious dissertation, in which he endeavours to show, that to a certain extent, the fact is in itself "neither impossible nor difficult, but, on the contrary, very probable." "If this mirror," says Abbat, "existed, it is probable that it was the only one of its kind, and that no other means had been then found of viewing distant objects distinctly. It must, therefore, have been considered as a great wonder in those times, and must have filled with astonishment all who saw its effects. Even though its effects had not been greater than those of a small telescope, it could not fail to be regarded as a prodigy.Hence it is natural to think, that those effects were exaggerated beyond all probability, and even possibility, as commonly happens to rare and admirable machines and inventions. If we abstract then from the accounts of the Mirror of Ptolemy the evident exaggerations of ignorance, nothing will remain but that at some distance, provided nothing was interposed between the objects and the mirror, those objects were seen more distinctly than with the naked eye; and that with the mirror many objects were seen which, because of their distance, were imperceptible without it." Here is nothing but what is both possible and probable; and nobody, we think, after perusing Father Abbat's proofs and illustrations, needs blush for his philosophy in acknowledging a belief in the actual existence of the long reputed fable of Ptolemy's Mirror.-Cabinet of Curiosities. HINDOO SUPERSTITION.—At the late annual meeting of the London Missionary Society, the Rev. Dr. Doran, Jate Church Missionary at Travancore, said: In a journey through the peninsula of India, he saw one day a female about fifteen years of age lying dead on the threshold of her parents' door, and the body was yet warm. He asked what had occasioned the death of the girl. and learned that she had been bitten by a Cobra Capello, a snake whose bite generally produces death in twenty minutes. It had taken up its abode in the house, and had that day happened to creep out of its hole, and bit the deceased girl. He asked if the snake had been killed, on which the mother replied with a degree of horror in her countenance, that if this snake were killed, every other member of her family would die. The fact was, the snake had been worshipped as the household god! A PRODIGY OF PROFANENESS. Be AMONG the outre characters of Ayr, fifty years ago, there was none so remarkable as an oldish little man, who was ordinarily called the Devil Almighty. He had acquired this terriffic soubriquet from an inveterate habit of swearing, or rather from that phrase being his favorite oath. He was no ordinary swearer, no mincer of dreadful words, no clipper of the king's curses. ing a man of vehement passions, he had a habit, when provoked, of shutting his eyes and launching headlong into a torrent of blasphemy, such as might, if properly divided, have set up a whole troop of modern swearers. The custom of shutting his eyes seems to have been adopted by him as a sort of salvo to his conscience: he seemed to think that, provided he did not "sin with his eyes open," he did not sin at all; or it was, perhaps, nothing but a habit.—Whatever might be the cause or purpose of the practice, it was once made the means of playing off upon him a most admirable hoax. Being one evening in a tavern along with two neighboring country gentlemen, he was, according to a concerted scheme, played upon and irritated; of course, he soon shut his eyes, and commenced his usual tirade of execration and blasphemy. As soon as he was fairly afloat, and his eyes were observed to be hard shut, his companions put out the candles so as to involve the room in utter darkness. In the course of a quarter of an hour, which was the common duration of his paroxyms, he ceased to speak, and opened his eyes, when, what was his amazement, to find himself in the dark. "How now?" he cried, with one of his most tremendous |