ing to it there is a staircase, which twists round the body of the tree. At certain seasons of the year, divine service is performed in this chapel.

all constitute one species, derived from one common

source.

It is worthy of observation, that those who find an inThe summit has been broken off many years, but superable obstacle in the way of their admission of manthere is a surface at the top of the trunk, of the diam- kind to be all of one descent, find none at all in tracing a eter of a very large tree, and from it rises a pointed roof, gradation between man and beast-between beast and covered with slates, in the form of a steeple, which is vegetable-between vegetable and mineral-in fine, besurmounted with an iron cross, that raises itself, in a tween a man and a stone! No difficulty in the way at truly picturesque manner, from the middle of the leaves, all! The gradation is palpable! There are mongrel like an antique hermitage, above the surrounding wood. links to this chain in very great abundance! Semi-manThe cracks which occur in various parts of the tree, semi-beast, semi-beast-semi-vegetable, and semi-vegeare, like the fracture whence the steeple springs, closely table-semi-mineral non-descripts, are to be found by the covered with slates, which, by replacing the bark, doubt-wholesale. Ledges and ditches and hedges and barriers less contribute to its preservation. Over the entrance to the chapel an inscription appears, which informs us that it was erected by the Abbé du Détroit, curate of Allonville, in the year 1696; and over the door of the upper room is another, dedicating it “To our Lady of Peace." The oak is a tree which grows but slowly in its youth, and to about forty years of age, it increases the most. After this period, it becomes less rapid in its growth, and abates progressively. According to M. Bosc, an oak of a hundred years old is not commonly more than a foot in diameter. It is well-known, however, from the spreading forth of the boughs, how much the growth depends upon the soil. If the calculation given by M. Bosc seems too small for the first century of the life of an oak, it becomes, on the contrary, too great, if applied to the centuries which follow, on account of the gradual wakening vegetative powers, the natural effect of age.

Following this clue, the Oak of Allonville, giving in the middle portion of its trunk a diameter of more than eight feet, must, according to this computation, be above eight hundred years of age; even supposing, (which is by no means allowable,) that it has always continued increasing a foot in a century. Certainly, this tree, the summit of which was majestically reared toward the clouds of old, and which has been shortened and contracted on every side, cannot for ages have grown in such proportion. One cannot but think, that its increase has been scarcely perceived for the hundred and twenty-five years since it has been converted into a chapel, by the happy thought of M. l'Abbé du Détroit. One must not then give to the tree of Allonville less than 800 or 900 summers. Perhaps in its youth it lent its shade to the companions of William the Conqueror, when they assembled to invade the British shore. Perhaps the Norman troubadour, on his return from the first crusade, there often sang to his admiring fellow countrymen the exploits of Godfrey and of Raymond.

are leapt with the greatest facility; and not only are all men, but all things, recognised as one. Mountains become mole hills in the twinkling of an eye, and ordinary difficulties totally disappear. A few vertebræ more or less, an extra pouch connected with the larynx, or hands instead of feet, constitute no obstacle at all to the admission of the orang and pongo into the human family, in the estimation of those who deem a thick lip or a tawny skin a demonstration, that the one possesing it cannot be a man! To exhibit fully the marvellous faith which some of those individuals possess, and to shew that they are of all men the least deserving of the name of Sceptics-in some respects to say the least-we will make a brief extract from Good's Book of Nature, with which we will close at the present time.

"The Mosaic statement," (that the whole human race originated from one source,) "has met with two distinct classes of opponents. The one has regarded this statement as altogether untrue, and never intended to be believed; as a mere allegory or fiction; the other has rather complained that the statement is inexplicit, than that it is untrue. At the head of the former class stand the names of some of the first natural historians and scholars of modern times, as Linnæus, Buffon, Helvetius, Monboddo, and Darwin. And from whom do these philosophers, thus departing from the whole letter and spirit of the Mosaic history, pretend to derive the race of man? The four former from the race of monkeys; and the last, to complete the absurdity, from the race of oysters; for Dr. Darwin seriously conjectures, that as aquatic animals appear to have been produced before terrestrial, and every living substance to have originated from a form or nucleus exquisitely simple and minute, and to have been perpetually developing and expanding its powers, and progressively advancing towards perfection, man himself must have been of the aquatic order on his first creation: at that time, indeed, imperceptible from his exility, but in process of years, or rather of ages, acquiring a visible or oyster-like form, with little gills, instead of lungs, and, like the oyster, produced Al-spoutaneously, without distinction into sexes; that, as reproduction is always favourable to improvement, the aquatic or oyster mannikin, by being progressively accustomed to seek its food on the nascent shores or edges of the primæval ocean, must have grown, after a revolu tion of countless generations, first into an amphibious, and then into a terrestrial animal; and, in like manner, from being without sex, first also into an androgynous form, and thence into distinct male and female.

At the period when every thing belonging to religion was condemned, the Revolutionists, having come to lonville to burn the oak, were vigorously opposed by the country people, and the sanctuary was preserved. Saturday Magazine.

NATURAL HISTORY.

WE will now resume the subject of natural history, after a suspension of two weeks, rendered necessary by press of other matter.

In our brief survey of man thus far, we have found five distinct classes, differing from one another in some leading particulars, yet not in so great a degree as to preclude the idea of their belonging to one race. We have seen a connection, a gradation, a blending between these different classes, insomuch that it has been not a little difficult to draw the line, and to define precisely where one class terminated, and another began. For though we have observed a marked difference between the central points (so to speak) of each portion or class, yet have we likewise seen, that the extremes meet; which has forced upon us the conclusion, that there is no radical difference between these different classes, but that

It is not necessary to notice this dream of a poetising philosopher, which had also been dreamed of long before his own day, any further than to remark, that it is in every respect inferior to the opinion of two of the most celebrated schools of ancient Greece, the Epicurean and the Stoic, who, though they disagreed on almost every other point, concurred in their dogma concerning the origin of man, and believed him to have sprung, equally with plants and animals of every kind, from the tender soil of the new-formed earth, at that time infinitely more powerful and prolific; produced in myriads of little wombs, that rose like mole-hills over the surface of the ground, and were afterwards transformed, for his nourishment, into myriads of glandular and milky bulbs, so as to form

a marvellous substitute for the human breast.

MONROVIA, May 4, 1829. REV. SIR: I am happy to inform you that I arrived safely in Africa, with my wife, and found the people generally in good health. You will please inform all my friends that I am in the land of my forefathers, and that I shall expect my friends in America to use their influence to get my children for me, and I shall be happy if they succeed. You will please inform my children, by letter, of my arrival in the Colony.

afterwards, Mr. Gurley received the following note from to its merits; for indiscriminate praise makes one's commenda. him:tions of little value. The Family Physician is a monthly periodical, published at We think it calcuNo. 6, Courtlandt street, at $1,25 per annum. lated to be eminently useful; and it is certainly very interesting. Its object is not so much to make people their own physicians, as to give them those general ideas of diseases, medicines, preventives, &c. which will guard them against the quackery of empirics, and give them the proper confidence in the prescriptions of the medical fraternity who understand their calling. It is well sustained in point of talent, and, as far as we can judge, in point of medical knowledge. On the whole, we consider it among the most valuable periodicals of the times.

As soon as the rains are over, if God be with me, I shall try to bring my countrymen to the Colony, and to open the trade. I have found one of my friends iu the Colony. He tells me we can reach home in fifteen days, and promises to go with me. I am unwell, but much better.

THE CARPENTERS' TURN OUT.

I am, with much respect, your humble servant, While we were engaged in perusing the No. of the medical ABDUHL RAHHAHMAN. work above mentioned, with a view to a notice of it in the MagaThis note was received in July, but probably not be-zine, our attention was arrested by the movement of a procession fore the writer of it was no more among the living. He directly by the door of our office. On inquiry, we ascertained it to be a procession of the journeymen carpenters of this city, who died of a trifling but neglected disorder, on the 6th of had struck for higher wages-twelve and a half cents more a day that month, not less to the regret of the colonists, who having heretofore received but one dollar and thirty-seven and a had become much attached to him, than of all who had half cents. The procession extended to a great length. We were known him in this country, and respected and loved him informed by one of the individuals composing it, that it consisted of twelve hundred and fifty men. They walked two by two, and even in the capacity of his bondage. had for their banners the flag of the United States. They made an imposing appearance, both as to number and respectability.

Honour to the memory of Abduhl, and peace to his ashes. He was a barbarian, and a slave; but, in his honesty and humanity, the "noblest work of God." He was man's victim, but nature's nobleman.

The Colonizationist.

POETRY.

NAPOLEON AT REST.

His falchion waved along the Nile,
His host he led through Alpine snows;
O'er Moscow's towers, that blazed the while,
His eagle-flag unrolled-and froze!
Here sleeps he now alone!-not one

Of all the kings whose crowns he gave,
Bends o'er his dust; nor wife nor son
Has ever seen or sought his grave.
Behind the sea-girt rock, the star
That led him on from crown to crown

Has sunk, and nations from afar

Gazed as it faded and went down.

High is his tomb: the ocean flood,

Far, far below, by storms is curled—

As round him heaved, while high he stood,
A stormy and unstable world.

Alone he sleeps: the mountain cloud,

That night hangs round him, and the breath
Of morning scatters, is the shroud

That wraps the conqueror's clay in death.
Pause here! The far off world at last
Breathes free; the hand that shook its thrones,
And to the earth its mitres cast,

Lics powerless now beneath these stones.
Hark! Comes there from the pyramids,
And from Siberian wastes of snow,
And Europe's hills, a voice that bids

The world be awed to mourn him?-No!

The only, the perpetual dirge

That's heard here is the sea-bird's cry-
The mournful murmur of the surge,

The clouds' deep voice, the wind's low sigh.

ITEMS OF NEWS.

J. PIERPONT.

Durant, the æronant, made an ærial excursion on Wednesday afternoon last. In two minutes, he lost sight of the earth. In six, he rose to the top of the clouds, into clear sunshine. He continued to ascend thirty-nine minutes, and supposes he reached a height of 16,000 feet, or three miles. At this height, the cold was intense. He was absent from the earth upwards of an hour and a half, and finally alighted in Westchester Cc. 11 miles from our City Hall. John Randolph, the eccentric man, the distinguished orator, the wondrous genius, sleeps in death. He departed this life at Philadelphia on Friday of last week, aged 59 years, 11 months, and 21 days.

It is stated that Randolph, the assailant of the President, has embarked for Liverpool.

ARTIFICIAL EYES.

We have seen a specimen of the skill of Dr. I. Francis of this city, in the insertion of an artificial eye in a socket formerly occupied by a real one. The imitation of the natural eye was so good, that we should not have suspected the individual had ever been deprived of an eye, had we not been informed of the fact. Any one who has been so unfortunate as to be disfigured by the loss of an eye, would find it well worth his while to apply to Dr. F. by whom he could be restored to every thing but sight. His office is at No. 7 Chambers st. near Chatham.

LOCAL AGENTS FOR THE FAMILY MAGAZINE.
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ONE HUNDRED AGENTS

Could be advantageously employed in different sections of the Union, in obtaining subscribers for this Magazine. It is not of a local character, but is calculated for general circulation; and hence subscribers may as well be obtained in one part of the country as another. Good encouragement will be given to agents; and a number to the amount of one hundred at least, could be furnished by us with profitable employment.

PUBLISHED AT 222 WILLIAM STREET.

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Letters should be addressed thus: Editor of the Family Magazine, 222 William Street, New York.

OR

WEEKLY ABSTRACT OF GENERAL KNOWLEDGE.

VOL. I.

NEW YORK, SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 1833.

HISTORY.

THE history of the human race before the flood. is at the most but very brief. We wish, therefore, in order to render it as interesting to the reader as possible, to make the most of the scanty materials in our possession relative to that period. We trust we shall on this account be excused for lingering a little, and dilating on this remote portion of time.

NO. 8.

heroes that reigned in Egypt before him, were, as Manetho rightly conjectures, antediluvians; and we have to inquire how their reigns took up two hundred and seventeen, and four hundred and forty-three, in all six hundred and sixty years.

"It was a usual and customary thing, for the ancient writers to begin their antiquities with some account of the origin of things, and the creation of the world. Moses did so in his book of Genesis; Sanchoniatho's Phoenician history began in the same manner; and it appears from Diodorus that the Egyptian antiquities did the origin of things, and the nature of the gods; then so too. Their accounts began with speculations about follows an account of their demi-gods and terrestrial deities; after them come their heroes, or first rank of

Searching the records of antiquity, we find diverse fragments of heathen authors which tend to throw some additional light on that obscure and ancient period. Moses is not the only writer who treats of antediluvian history, as some perhaps may suppose; and extravagant as they seem to consider him, he is moderation itself compared with some others. Berosus, the Chaldean historian, for instance, computes the lives of the Ante-men; and last of all their kings. Now if their kings diluvians by a term of years called sarus. Each sarus began from the Flood; if their heroes and demi-gods was six hundred and three years; and he supposes that reached up to the beginning of the world; then the acsome of them lived ten, twelve, thirteen, and even eigh-count they give of the reigns of gods before these, can teen sari, or ten thousand, eight hundred, and fifty-four be only their theological speculations put into such order years. He says there were ten kings of Chaldea before as they thought most truly philosophical. The subthe flood, viz. Alorus, Alasporus, Amelon, Amenon, stance of what they offer is, that the supreme God is Metalarus, Doarus, Aedorachus, Amphis, Oliartes, and eternal,-to his reign they assign no time; that the sun, Xisuthrus. Sanchoniatho, the Phoenician historian, moon, and stars ran their courses thousands of years says, that the first mortals were Protogonus and Eon; before man was upon the Earth; into this notion they that by these were begotten Genus and Genca; the chil-six hundred and sixty years before the Flood; and very were led by their astronomy; that Egypt was peopled dren of these were Phos, Pur, and Phlox; and of these

of kings down to Nectanebus.

were begotten Cassius, Libanus, Antilibanus,and Brathys. probably it might not be peopled sooner, considering that Memrumus and Hypsuranius were descended from these, mankind began in Chaldea, and that first the plantation and their children were Agreus and Halieus; and of went eastward with Cain, and that Seth and his family these were begotten two brothers, one of them named settled near home. Amongst these first inhabitants of Chrysor and Hæphæstus; the name of the other is lost. Egypt, there were eight demi-gods, and fiften heroes, i. e. From this generation came two brothers, Technites and three and twenty persons illustrious and eminent in their Autochthon, and of them were begotten Agrus and Aggenerations. After the Flood reigned Menes, whom rotes; Amynus and Magus were their children, and Mi-Moses called Mizraim, and after Mizraim, a succession sor and Sydec were descended of Amynus and Magus. The son of Misor was Taautus or Tyoth. This is the Phoenician genealogy of the first ages of the world, and it requires no great pains to show how far it agrees with the accounts of Moses. The first mortals mentioned by Sanchoniatho, and called Protogonus and on, were undoubtedly Adam and Eve; and his Misor, the father of Taautus, is evidently the Mizraim of Moses. From Protogonus to Misor, Sanchouiatho computes eleven generations, and from Adam to Mizraim, Moses makes twelve; so that Sanchoniatho falls short of Moses only one generation, and this, we conceive, happened by his not having recorded the Flood.

"The Egyptian dynastics are, by all that have treated of them, allowed to give an account, first of their gods; secondly, of their demi-gods and heroes; thirdly of their kings; and in this order the historians agree to treat of the Egyptian antiquities. The substance of the Egyptian accounts is, that there were thirty dynasties in Egypt, consisting of one hundred and thirteen generations, and which took up the space of thirty-six thousand five hundred and twenty-five years. That after this period was run, then there reigned eight demi-gods in the space of two hundred and seventeen years. After them succeeded the Cycli Cynici, i. e. according to Manetho, a race of heroes, in number fifteen, and their reigns took up four hundred and forty-three years; then began the reigns of their kings, the first of whom was Menes. Menes, therefore, by Syncellus called Mestraim, being the Mizraim of Moses, the eight demi-gods and fifteen

"Manetho wrote his history by order of Ptolomy Philadelphus, some time after the Septuagint translation was made. When the Hebrew antiquities were published to the world, the Egyptians grew jealous of the honour of their nation, and were willing to show that they could trace up their memoirs even higher than Moses could carry those of the Israelites; for this end Manetho made his collection; it was his design to make the Egyptian antiquities reach as far backwards as he could, and therefore as many kings' names as he could find in their records, so many successive monarchs he determined them to have had; not considering that Egypt was at first divided into three, and afterwards into four sovereignties for some time, so that three or four of his kings many times reigned together. When he got up to Menes, then he set down the names of such persons as had been famous before the times of this their first king; and then, it being a point of his religion that their gods had reigned on Earth, and their astronomy teaching that the reigns of the gods took up the space of 36,525 years, he added these also, and by this management his antiquities seem to reach higher than the accounts of Moses; when in reality, if rightly interpreted, they fall short of Moses by such a number of years as we may fairly suppose might pass before mankind could be so increased as to people the Earth from Chaldea, the place where Adam and Eve lived, unto Egypt."

We shall furnish more of these Antediluvian fragments ere we complete this portion of history.

MYTHOLOGY.

JUNO.

For the Family Magazine. This female deity, the queen of heaven, the wife and sister of Jupiter, may be regarded, from the moral qualities ascribed to her, not only as the “Regina Deorum," the queen of the gods, but also the impersonation of the | female character, as understood by the ancients.

cruelty on his illegitimate son, Hercules, by suspending her from the heavens with a golden chain, having tied a heavy anvil to her feet. Irritated by this infamous punishment, Juno instigated a conspiracy among the gods to dethrone and imprison her lord. Thetis delivered Jupiter from this combination by the aid of the tremendous Briareus. Apollo and Neptune were banished from heaven, as some say, for the part they took in this conspi

Juno was the daughter of Saturn and Ops-and consequently sister to Jupiter, Pluto, Neptune, Vesta, Ceres, &c. She was born on earth, although a celestial god-racy. dess. Her nativity was either at Argos or Samos, and her education was entrusted, according to Homer and Ovid, to Oceanus and Tethys.

Cows

Juno was worshipped by sacrifices offered in great solemnity, at Argos, Samos, Carthage, and afterwards at Rome. The burnt offerings on her altars, on the first day of each month, were a ewe lamb and a sow. were not offered, because she is said to have assumed the form of that creature when the gods retreated before the Giants into Egypt. The goose, the hawk, the peacock, among birds, were sacred to her, and among flowers, the dittany, the lily, and the poppy.

There is much sublimity in the fabled account of the marriage of Jupiter and Juno. At these august nuptials, all the gods from the empyrean regions, the demons from Tartarus and the Stygian pools, all the race of mankind, and all the brute creation, were assembled. We scarcely know of a more sublime gathering described in the entire range of heathen mythology. The genius of The power of Juno was extended over gods and men; a Homer or a Milton would alone do justice to the ma- she even had the privilege of occasionally hurling the jesty of the idea. Bright spirits, clad in the beautiful thunder of Jupiter. Minerva was sometimes her mesrobes of immortality, may be supposed to form the mag-senger, but her most devoted servant among the clestials nificent centre of this stupendous painting; next are seen, in wide and sweeping circles, the "gorgons and chimeras dire," the gigantic and monstrous creations of the world below; and then, in still wider sweep, are gathered the denizens of the world-while far behind, lengthening over thehills to the blue edge of the horizon, the tribes of earth, air, and ocean, come swarming on like the clouds of heaven propelled to one common centre by an impetuous whirlwind.

Yet but little happiness was destined to flow from these pompous nuptials. Heaven, earth, and hell were soonconvulsed by the bickerings, jealousies, and strifes of "the father of gods and men" and his proud and transcendently beautiful wife.

was Iris, who always went on her errands to stir up dis-
cord and strife. This messenger, however, had a more
interesting office deputed to her by her mistress; it was
her task to hover over the couches of dying women, and
cut from their heads a lock of hair, thus enabling the
spirit to release itself from the painful struggles of the
last conflict. Juno sent this messenger to the dying
Dido:-

"Tum Juno omnipotens longum miserata dolorem,
Difficilesque obitus, Irim demisit Olimpo,
Quæ luctantem animum nexosque resolveret artus."

Virgil.

Then mighty Juno, to relieve her pain,
Sent Iris swiftly from Olympus down,
To loose the writhing cords of life, and gain
The fated lock pressed by her queenly crown.
Free translation.

Juno had some children as the fruits of her marriage, and others not so directly derived from that event. The earliest of Grecian poets, Hesiod, makes her the mother of Mars, Hebe, Lucina, and Vulcan. Her mind is deThe prominent traits of character developed by Juno scribed as being lacerated and excited to madness by the were jealous.y, cruelty, and pride. Jupiter loved Io, the repeated and daily debaucheries of Jupiter. She was at daughter of Inachus, and Juno came so near to making length driven to such a state of desperation as to renounce a discovery of them together, that Jupiter turned Io into his bed, and to retire to Eubæa. To bring about a re- a white cow; but the crafty goddess suspecting the deconciliation, Jupiter had recourse to the advice of Ci- ceit, asked Jupiter to present her the cow, over which tharon; and to fraudulent artifices, for the purpose of she immediately placed the hundred-eyed Argus as a gaining forgiveness. However, the reconciliation thus watch, and fed her with bitter herbs. Jupiter sen: Mereffected was not harmonious, and often would the celes-cury to release her, and he, under the disguise of a sheptial regions ring with the clamor of domestic discordnot sparing blows and violence. Jupiter retaliated her

herd, came to Argus, and with the sweet music of his pipe, lulled him to sleep, when he cut off his head. Juno