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strument maker, which he had practised for some years in London, and taken up that of a civil engineer, for which his genius admirably fitted him. Once more, therefore, the Eddystone Lighthouse was destined to have a self-educated architect for its builder.

was

On the 12th of June, 1757, the first stone laid. From this period the work proceeded with great rapidity. On the 6th of August, 1759, all the stonework was completed. On the 9th of October following, the building was finished in every part; and on the 16th of the same, the saving light was again streaming from its summit over the waves. Thus the whole undertaking was accomplished within a space of little more than three years.

Smeaton's Lighthouse has stood ever since, and promises yet to stand many centuries. It is, as has been mentioned, of stone, and is a round building, gradually decreasing in circumference from the base up to a certain height, like the trunk of an oak, from which the architect states that he took the idea of it. Among many other tempests which it has endured unshaken, was one of extraordinary fury, which occurred in the beginning of the year 1762. One individual, Smeaton tells us, who was fond of predicting its fate, declared on that occasion, that if it still stood, it would stand till the day of judgment. On the morning after the storm had spent its chief fury, many anxious observers pointed their glasses to the spot where they scarcely expected ever again to discern it, and a feeling almost of wonder mixed itself with the joy, and thankfulness, and pride of the architect's friends, as they with difficulty descried its form through the still dark and troubled air. It was uninjured, even to a pane of glass in the lantern. In a letter from Plymouth upon this occasion, the writer says, "It is now my most steady belief, as well as every body's here, that its inhabitants are rather more secure in a storm, under the united force of wind and water, than we are in our houses from the former only."

BIOGRAPHY.

JEMMY GORDON.

respectable "Cantab," for insertion in the Every Day Book, with the few particulars ensuing

James Gordon was once a respectable solicitor in Cambridge, till "love and liquor"

"Robb'd him of that which once enriched him,

And made him poor indeed!"

He is well known to many resident and non-resident sons of alma mater, as a declamateur, and for ready wit and repartee which few can equal. One or two instances may somewhat depict him.

Gordon meeting a gentleman in the streets of Cambridge who had received the honor of knighthood, Jemmy approached him, and looking him full in the face, exclaimed,

"The king, by merely laying sword on,

Could make a knight of Jemmy Gordon.'

was convicted of horse stealing, and sentenced to transAt a late assize at Cambridge, a man named Pilgrim portation. Gordon seeing the prosecutor in the street, the Pope of Rome cannot do; you have put a stop loudly vociferated to him, "You, sir, have done what to Pilgrim's Progress!"

different character, who pitied Jemmy's forlorn condiGordon was met one day by a person of rather intion, (he being without shoes and stockings,) and said, "Gordon, if you will call at my house, I will give you air, replied, "No, sir! excuse me; I would not stand in a pair of shoes." Jemmy, assuming a contemptuous your shoes for all the world!"

from a hay-loft, wherein he had retired for the night, Some months ago, Jemmy had the misfortune to fall and broke his thigh; since when he has reposed in a workhouse. No man's life is more calculated

"To adorn a moral, and to point a tale."

N.

These brief memoranda suffice to memorialize a pe culiar individual. James Gordon at one time possesed "fame, wealth, and honours :" now-his "fame" is a hapless notoriety; all the "wealth" that remains to him is a form that might have been less careless; his honour is "air-thin air;" "his gibes, his jests, his flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table in a roar," no longer enliven the plenteous banquet:"Deserted in his utmost need By men his former bounty fed."

the bitter morsel for his life's support is parish dole. "The gayest of the gay" is forgotten in his age-in the darkness of life, when reflection on what was, cannot better what is. Brilliant circles of acquaintance sparkle with frivolity, but friendship has no place within them. The prudence of sensuality is selfishness.

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ADHUC SUB JUDICE LIS EST. Lat. "The contest is still before the judge."-The affair is not yet decided.

ADIEU LA VOITURE, ADIEU LA BOUTIQUE. French Proverb.-"Farewell the carriage and farewell the shop." -The affair is all over.

An etching of the eccentric individual, from whence AD INFINITUM. Lat.-"To infinity."- And thus the present engraving is taken, was transmitted by a the calculation proceeds ad infinitum.

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"Son of Alpin, strike the string. Is there aught of joy in the harp? Pour it then on the soul of Ossian: It is folded in mist. I hear thee, O bard! in my night. But cease the lightly trembling sound. The joy of grief belongs to Ossian, amidst his dark brown years.

"Green thorn of the hill of ghosts, that shakest thy head to nightly winds! I hear no sound in thee; is there no spirit's windy skirt now rustling in thy leaves! Often are the steps of the dead in the dark-eddying blasts; when the moon, a dun shield, from the east, is rolled along the sky.

"Ullin, Carril, and Ryno, voices of the days of old! Let me hear you while yet it is dark, to please and awake my soul. I hear you not, ye sons of song; in what hall of the clouds is your rest! Do you touch the shadowy harp, robed with morning mist, where the rustling sun comes forth from his green-headed waves." Ossian.

ANECLOTE.-A hungry Jew paying particular attention to a ham, when asked what he was saying to it, replied, "I was saying, Thou almost persuadest me to be a Christian."

There are no two things so much talked of, and so seldom seen, as virtue, and the funds.

No two things differ more than hurry and despatch. Hurry is the mark of a weak mind, despatch of a strong one. A weak man in office, like a squirrel in a cage, is

labouring eternally, but to no purpose, and in constant motion, without getting on a jot; like a turnstile, he is in every body's way, but stops nobody; he talks a great deal, but says very little; looks into every thing, but sees into nothing; and has a hundred irons in the fire, but very few of them are hot, and with those few that are, he only burns his fingers.-Lacon.

ITEMS OF NEWS.

The lost ten tribes of the Jews have been found in Li Bucharia, some of them attending the last Leipsic as shawl manufacturers. They speak in Thibet the Hindoo language, are idolators, but believe in the Messiah, and their restoration to Jerusalem. They are supposed to consist of ten millions, keep the Kidour, and do not like white Jews, but call out like the other tribes, "Hear, O Israel, there is but one God," are circumcised, have a reader and elders.-Germanic Adv.

The emigration to Detroit for a week has averaged 200 per day; the last six steamboats having left Buffalo with 2080 passengers,

and landed 1200 at Detroit.

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

Book and Job Printing

EXECUTED WITH NEATNESS AND DESPATCH

AT THE OFFICE OF THE FAMILY MAGAZINE.

OR

WEEKLY ABSTRACT OF GENERAL KNOWLEDGE.

VOL. I.

NEW YORK, SATURDAY, JUNE 29, 1833.

NATURAL HISTORY.

NO. 11.

would have answered as well, especially the dog and the sheep, in order to institute a comparison of this very We are compelled once more-and we trust but once kind; and he has completely succeeded in showing that more-to omit our historical and literary departments, the swine, even in countries where we have historical and for the reason given in our last. And, for once, we omit undeniable proofs, as especially in America, of its being our mythology, not having been furnished with an article derived from one common and imported stock, exhibits, on that subject for the present number. We shall en-in its different varieties, distinctions not only as numedeavour to obviate the necessity of similar omissions rous and astonishing, but, so far as relates to the extehereafter, and continu our various departments in un-rior frame, of the very same kind as are to be met with interrupted succession. To supply the place of these in the different varieties of the human species. omissions, we cannot do better than to continue our extracts from Good's Book of Nature, on the subject of the human species.

"In regard to size, the Cuba swine, well known, as he observes, to have been imported into that island from Europe, are at the present day double the height and magnitude of the stock from which they were bred. Whence we may well laugh at every argument in favour of more than one human stock or species drawn from the difference of stature in different nations of men. In regard to colour, they display at least as great a diversity. In Piedmont the swine are black; in Bavaria, reddishbrown; in Normandy, white. Human hair, observes M. Blumenbach, is somewhat different from swine's bristles; yet in the present point of view they may be compared with each other. Fair hair is soft, and of a silky texture; black hair is coarser, and often woolly. In like manner, among the white swine in Normandy, the bristles on the body are longer and softer than among other swine; and even those on the back, which are usually stouter than the rest, are flaccid, and cannot be employed by the brush-makers.

"EVEN when accident, or a cause we cannot discover, has produced a preternatural conformation or defect in a particular organ, it is astonishing to behold how readiy it is often copied by the generative principle, and how tenaciously it adheres to the future lineage. A preternatural defect of the hand or foot has been propagated for many generations, and has in numerous instances laid a foundation for the family name. The names of Varus and Plautus among the ancient Romans afford familiar exemplifications. Hence, hornless sheep and | hornless oxen produce an equally hornless offspring; the broad-tailed Asiatic sheep yields a progeny with a tail equally monstrous, and often of not less than half a hundred pounds weight; and dogs and cats with mutilated tails not unfrequently propagate the casual deficiency. "There is a very peculiar variety of the sheep kind The whole difference between the cranium of a negiven in the Philosophical Transactions for 1813, by gro and that of a European, is in no respect greater than Colonel Humphreys, of America, and which the Ameri- that which exists between the cranium of the wild boar can naturalists have called, from its bowed or elbowy and that of the domestic swine. Those who are in pos legs, ovis Ancon; but the common people the otter session of Daubenton's drawings of the two, must be sen breed,' from its resemblance to the general form of the sible of this the first moment they compare them togeotter, and a rumour that it was at first produced by an ther. The peculiarity among the Hindoos of having the unnatural intercourse between individuals of the two dis-bone of the leg remarkably long, meets a precise parallel tinct kinds. Its size is small, the full weight being about 45lbs. with loose articulations, crooked fore-legs, and great feebleness of power; whence it walks with difficulty, and is therefore quiet, and not fond of rambling. Accident seems to have produced this kind first, but the form has been most correctly preserved in the progeny; and so tenaciously, that if a common sheep and ancon sheep of either sex unite, the young will be either a perfect ancon, or have no trace of it; and if two are lambed at the same time, and one be of one variety and the other of the other, each is found to be perfect in its way, without any amalgamation.

"In like manner, in all probability, from some primary accident resulted the peculiar shape of the head and face in most nations as well as in most familes; and hence, too, those enormous prominences on the hinder parts of one or two of the nations at the back of the Cape of Good Hope, of which an instance was not long since exhibited in this country with some degree of outrage on moral feeling.

"Man, then, is not the only animal in which such variations of form and feature occur, nor the animal in which they occur either most frequently or in the most extraordinary and extravagant manner.

"M. Blumenbach, who has pursued this interesting subject with a liveliness the most entertaining, and a chain of argument the most convincing, has selected the swine genus from among many other quadrupeds that

in the swine of Normandy, which stand so high on their hind quarters, that the back forms an inclined plane to the head; and as the head itself partakes of the same direction, the snout is but little removed from the ground.

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In some countries indeed, the swine have degenerated into races that in singularity far exceed the most extravagant variations that have been found among the human species. What can differ more widely than a cloven foot and a solid hoof? yet swine are found with both: the variety with the solid hoof was known to the ancients, and still exists in Hungary and Sweden: and even the common sort that were carried by the Spaniards to the isle of Cuba in 1509, have since degenerated into a variety with a hoof of the same solid kind, and of the enormous size of not less than half a span in diameter.

"How absurd, then, to contend that the distinctions in the different varieties of the human race must have proceeded from a plurality of species, while we are compelled to admit that distinctions of a similar kind, but more numerous and more extravagant, have proceeded from a single species in other animals!

"It may appear singular, perhaps, that I have taken no notice of the wide difference which is supposed to exist in the intellectual faculties of the different varieties of man. To confess the truth, I have purposely omitted it; because, of all arguments that have ever been offered to support the doctrine of different species, this appears

to me the feeblest and most superficial. It may suit the narrow purpose of a slave-merchant,-of a trafficker in human nerves and muscles,-of a wretch who, in equal defiance of the feelings and the laws of the day, has the impudence to offer for sale on the polluted shores of our own country, in one and the same lot, as was the case not long since, a dead cameleopard and a living Hottentot woman:-it may suit their purpose to introduce such a distinction into their creed, and to let it constitute the whole of their creed; but it is a distinction too trifling and evanescent to claim the notice of a physiologist for

a moment.

"The variable talents of the mind are as propagable as the variable features of the body,-how, or by what means, we know not,-but the fact is incontrovertible. Wit and dulness, genius and idiotism, run in direct streams from generation to generation; and hence the moral character of families, of tribes, of whole nations. The understanding of the negro race, it is admitted, is in many tribes strikingly and habitually obtuse. It has thus indeed been propagated for a long succession of ages; and, till the negro mind receives a new turn, till it becomes cultivated and called forth into action by some such benevolent stimulus as that which is now abroad generally, and especially such as is afforded it by the African Institution of our own country, (an establishment that ought never to be mentioned without reverence,) the same obtuseness must necessarily continue, and by a prolongation of the habit, may, perhaps, even increase. But let the man who would argue from this single fact, that the race of negroes must be necessarily an inferior species, distinct from all the rest of the world, compare the taste, the talents, the genius, the erudition, that have at different periods blazed forth in different individuals of this despised people, when placed under the fostering providence of kindness and cultivation, with his own or those of the generality of his own countrymen, and let him blush for the mistake he has made, and the injury he has committed.

"Freidig of Vienna was an excellent architect, and a capital performer on the violin; Hannibal was not only a colonel of artillery in the Russian service, but deeply skilled in the mathematical and physical sciences; so, too, was Lislet, of the isle of France, who was in consequence made a member of the French Academy; and Arno, who was honored with a diploma of doctor of philosophy by the University of Wurtemberg, in 1734. Let us add to these the names of Vasa and Ignatius Sancho, whose taste and genius have enriched the polite literature of our own country; and, with such examples of negro powers before us, is it possible to do otherwise than adopt the very just observation of a very quaint orator, who has told us that the 'negro, like the white man, is still God's image, although carved in ebony?'

"Nor is it to a few casual individuals among the black tribes, appearing in distant countries, and at distant eras, that we have to look for the clearest proofs of human intelligence. At this moment, scattered like their own oases, their islands of beautiful verdure, over the eastern and western deserts of Africa, multitudes of little principalities of negroes are still existing,-multitudes that have, of late years, been detected and are still detecting, whose national virtues would do honour to the most polished states of Europe: while at Timbuctoo, stretching deepest towards the east of these principalities, from the western coast, we meet, if we may credit the accounts we have received, with one of the wealthiest. perhaps one of the most populous and best governed cities in the world; its sovereign a negro, its army negroes, its people negroes; a city which is the general mart for the commerce of western Africa, and where trade and manufactures seem to be equally esteemed and protected.

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We know not the antiquity of this kingdom: but there can be no doubt of its having a just claim to a very high o gin: and it is possible that, at the very period in which ur own ancestors, as described by Julius Cæsar, ked and smeared over with paint, or merely

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"What has produced the difference we now behold? What has kept the Bambareens, ke the Chinese, nearly in a stationary state for, perhaps, upwards of two thousand years, and has enabled the rude and painted Britons to become the first people of the world-the most renowned for arts and for arms-for the best virItues of the heart and the best faculties of the under standing? Not a difference in the colour of the skin;but, first, the peculiar favour of the Almighty: next, a political constitutition, which was sighed for, and in some degree prefigured, by Plato and Tully, but regarded as a master-piece, beyond the power of human accomplishment; and, lastly, a fond and fostering cultiva tion of science, in every ramification and department."

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Allusion having been made in the foregoing article to the city of Timbuctoo, we thought it an appropriate time to introduce a view of it, together with a description, which we take from Harper's Family Library.

"IN 1824, M. Caille repaired again to the Senegal,and resumed his schemes of discovery. With the aid of M. Roger, the governor, he passed nearly a year among the tribe of the Moors called Braknas, and conceived himself to have acquired such a knowlodge of the manners and religion of that race as to fit him for travelling in the character of a converted Mohammedan on a pilgrimage to Mecca. Having returned to St. Louis, he solicited from two successive governors the sum of 600 francs, with which he undertook to reach Timbuctoo; but a deaf ear was turned to his application. He then repaired to Sierra Leone, and made the same request to General Turner and Sir Neil Campbell; but these officers could not be expected, without authority from home, to bestow such a sum on a foreigner possessing no very striking qualifications. They received him kindly, however, and gave him appointments, out of which he saved about £80; when, stimulated by the prize of 1000 francs offered by the French Society of Geography to any individual who should succeed in reaching Timbuctoo, he formed the spirited resolution to undertake this arduous journey with only the resources which the above slender sum could command.

"On the 19th April, 1827, M. Caille set out from Kakundy with a small caravan of Mandingoes. His route lay through the centre of the kingdom of Foota Jallo. This was a very elevated district, watered by the infant streams of the Senegal and Niger, which descend from a still higher region toward the south. It was a laborious route to travel, being steep, rocky, traversed by numerous ravines and torrents, and often obstructed by dense forests. It presented, however, many highly picturesque views; while the copious rivulets diffused a rich verdure over extensive tracts, on which the Foulahs fed numerous flocks, which, with a little rice they contrived to raise, sufficed for their subsistence. Fruits of various kinds, yams, and other vegetables are also cultivated with success. Their rude agriculture, however, is conducted chiefly by slaves, who are in general treated well, living in villages by themselves."

After spending nearly a year in passing through various districts, and having been also delayed five months by illness, he arrived at Jenne, a city of 8 or 10,000 inhabitants. The narrative goes on.

"On the 23d March, M. Caille left Jenne, near which he embarked on the Joliba, which was there half a mile broad, in a vessel of sixty tons burden, but of very slight construction, and bound together with cords. Such barks, impelled without sails, and deeply laden, cannot proceed with safety when the waters are agitated by a brisk gale; therefore much time is consumed in the voyage. On the second of April, the river opened into the great lake Dibbie, here called Debo, in sailing across which, notwithstanding its magnitude, land was lost sight of in no direction except the west, where the water appeared to extend idnefinitely like an ocean.

"After quitting this lake, the Niger flowed through a country thinly occupied by Foulah shepherds, and by some tents of the rude Tuaricks. On the 19th of April, he arrived at Cabra, the port of Timbuctoo, consisting of a long row of houses composed of earth and straw, extending about half a mile on the bank of the river. The inhabitants, estimated at about twelve thousand, are entirely employed in lading and unlading the numerous barks which touch at the quay.

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"THE array of the Caboceers, or great war chiefs, was at once brilliant, dazzling, and wild. They were loaded with fine clothes, in which variously coloured threads of the richest foreign silks were curiously interwoven; and both themselves and their horses were covered with decorations of gold beads, Moorish charms, or amulets, purchased at a high price, and the whole intermingled with strings of human teeth and bones. Leopard's skins, red shells, elephants' tails, eagle and ostrich feathers, and brass bells were among the favourite ornaments. On being introduced to the king, the English found all these embellishments crowded and concentrated on his own person and that of his attendants, who were literally oppressed with large masses of solid gold. Even the most common utensils were composed of that metal. "In the evening of the 10th April, Caille, with some At the same time, the executioner, with his hatchet on companions, rode from Cabra, and entered Timbuctoo. his breast, and the execution-stool clotted with blood. He describes himself as struck with an extraordinary gave a thoroughly savage character to all this pomp and joyful emotion at the view of this mysterious city, The manners of the king, however, were marked by a so long the object of curiosity to the civilized nations of dignified courtesy; he received the strangers cordially Europe. The scene, however, presented little of that and desired them to come and speak their palaver in the grandeur and wealth with which the name has been as-market place. On the presents being carried to the sociated. It comprised only a heap of ill-built earthen houses, all around which were spread immense plains of moving sand of a yellowish-white colour, and parched in the extreme. The horizon is of a pale red-all is gloomy in nature-the deepest silence reigns-not the song of a single bird is heard; yet there was something imposing in the view of a great city thus raised amid sands and deserts by the mere power of commerce.

palace, he expressed high satisfaction, as well as great admiration of the English workmanship.

"After several other interviews, he entered on the subjects under discussion, which related to some annual payments formerly made to the Fantees for permission to erect forts, as well as for the ground on which they stood; and the king now demanded as conqueror of the country that these payments should be transferred to "There are seven mosques at Timbuctoo, of which himself. The claim was small, and seems according to the principal one is very extensive, having three galle-African ideas to have been reasonable; but Mr. James ries 200 feet long, with a tower upwards of 50 feet high. The population is estimated at 10,000 or 12,000. The people are chiefly negroes of the Kissour tribe, but bigotted Mohammedans. Osman, the king, was an agreeable looking negro of 55, to whom the traveller was introduced, without being aware that he was only viceroy, or at least tributary, to the sultan of Masina. It is the depot of the salt conveyed from the mines of Taudeny, and also of the European goods brought by the

thought himself bound to remain intrenched in the rules of European diplomacy, and simply replied that he would state the demand to the governor of Cape Coast. The king then told them that he expected they had come to settle all palavers, and to stay and be friends with him; but now he found that their object was to make a fool of him. Considering himself insulted, he broke through the ceremonious politeness which he had before studiously maintained. He called out, The white men join with the Fantees to cheat me, to put shame on my face.' Mr. James remaining firm, the king became more incensed, and exclaimed, The English come to cheat We take the following article from Harper's Family me; they come to spy the country; they want war, they Library. It relates to the king and war-chiefs of Coo-want war!' The king's wrath was, however modera ed massie, the capital of Ashantee, in Western Africa. through the means of Mr. Bowdich, and a satisfacten This city is four miles in circumference, "built not in- treaty concluded."

caravans."

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