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Senate. A graphic account of this hazardous exploit, from the pen of Dr. Caruthers, has been long before the world. Nevertheless, many persons who have visited the Bridge, have regarded the story as fabulous, deeming the achievement absolutely impossible. It will be seen, however, by the following brief narrative, with which we have been kindly furnished from an authentic source, that the ascent has been a second time successfully achieved. Certainly he must have steady nerves and indomitable self-reliance who puts life and limb in such imminent peril:

REMARKABLE FEAT.-On Saturday, the 26th of July, there being besides myself, several guests at the tavern of Mr. Luster at the Natural Bridge, we concluded to walk up and view that stupendous prodigy of nature, with which "nought made by human hands can vie," and accordingly, several of us repaired thither, and after being lost in enchantment for some considerable time in gazing upon the far famed attractions, we returned to a small house on the road side, between the bridge and the tavern, where we were favored with an old paper containing an account of the ascension of the bridge by Mr. Piper, many years ago, from the pen of Dr. Caruthers.While some of us, entirely incredulous, were warmly discussing its title to credibility, we were suddenly interrupted by the cry, "Some one is climbing the bridge!" With the avidity of men anxious to maintain their opinion, until convinced of its falsity by occular demonstration, we immediately rushed en masse to the top of the bridge, still inwardly doubting the possibility of what the next moment met our astonished sight; the ascension of the bridge! When we arrived there, we found two gentlemen on the bridge, who pointed us to Mr. Shaver, the hero of the occasion, standing at the distance of 170 feet from the ground, on a bench (as it is termed) apparently too narrow to stand upon even without motion. From the testimony of the gentlemen present, we learned that Mr. Shaver, passing by there in the morning, concluded to attempt the ascension, merely (I sup pose) to gratify his own curiosity or that of others. Without any preparation, he immediately commenced climbing directly under the well-known cedar stump, about ten or fifteen paces higher up the stream than the place from whence Mr. Piper is said to have started, and withal a much more difficult place to ascend, as any one may ascertain by examination. After going perpendicular about 30 feet, he came to a clump of bushes, where he rested a little, and proceeded on to another ledge protruding a little from the main body of rock; thence directly up the steep and rugged ridge lying between the deep ravines on each side of the cedar swamp until he came to the bench where I first saw him.

While upon that bench which is about forty feet from the top, Mr. Shaver inscribed his name in very legible characters, which may be seen by any one from the top of the bridge.

He then advanced up the stream, along the very edge of the awful precipice that overhangs the ravine, until he came around on the opposite side of the stump from where he started. He then came to the last ascent of any danger, and it was truly awful to see a man attempting to climb an overhanging cliff at the distance of 180 feet from the bottom of the dreadful abyss that yawned beneath him, while in ascending his back was in some measure downward, and he had moreover frequently to remove loose stones, in order to secure a hold for his hand. In making the first effort either his strength or resolution failed him, and he returned to the bench and rested. My feelings at this moment were truly indescribable. To see a fellow being poised, as it were, between heaven and earth, with barely a possibility of ascent or descent, clinging to the precarious shrubbery on the side of a lofty precipice, at the base of which I expected every moment to see him dashed to atoms, produced a sensation I cannot describe. Some of the more cautious and prudent of the company proposed sending for ropes by which to draw him up; which was hardly possible under existing circumstances, as perhaps none of us had courage sufficient to venture down the ravine far enough to see him on the side where he then was. We were fearful even to speak to him. Nevertheless, after divesting himself of his boots, and swinging them around his neck with his handkerchief, he made the second effort, in which he happily succeeded amid our happiest congratulations. He was very pale, and in a perfect tremor when he arrived at the top, from which he had not entirely recovered before I took my leave.

The gentlemen present were Messrs. Benjamin A. Holmes, James Campbell, John G. Jefferson, Capt. James A. Gibson, Capt. Joel Lackland, Claudius Tompkins, John Luster, Albert H. Luster, S. H. Luster, and S. H. Carter-who will corroborate the statement. A fool-hardy and vain-glorious risk.-Ed. P. Magazine.

Manner of Threshing in Greece.

It was now the middle of July, and the weather was becoming very hot, so that I could not stir out in the middle of the day without my umberella; but in the morning it was my practice to get up at five o'clock, and stroll with Demotropolos to the columns of the Temple of Jupiter, where, seated on a cool pedestal, on the shady side of the columns, I used to be much entertained at the industry of the Athenians; for all around the base of the columns, for at least one hundred yards, the Athenians have paved it with large stones, and they make use of it as a threshing floor.

Their mode of threshing is peculiar. They fix in the ground a large pott, which rises about five feet out of the ground, and to this they fasten a long rope, nailed on at the bottom. To this rope is attached twelve

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horses abreast; the rope leading to the halter of the nearest is about twenty feet, and another shorter rope communicates to the halter of another horse, and so on, till all the horses are fastened in this manner, four feet from each other, and all abreast.

The driver then smacks his whip, and off they bound over the corn strewed over their feet; the further horse being obliged to gallop, while the nearer horse merely goes at a gentle trot. In five or six minutes the nearest horse, by the coils of the rope round the post, is drawn close to it; and no more rope remaining, they are all brought to a stand still. The horses are then unyoked, their heads turned the reverse way, and the horse which was previously the nearest, and who before only had to trot gently, is now placed farthest from the post, and forming the extremity of the circumference, is, in his turn, obliged to go full gallop, and in this manner the corn is threshed.

This is certainly a most expeditious mode, and in two or three hours the horses were unyoked, the stubble cleared away, and the wheat was remaining on the stones. It is afterwards swept together into an heap, and an upright screen is made use of, against which they dash the corn, the wheat falling through, and the husks remaining outside. The sitted wheat is then collected, placed in bags, and the horses are laden with it, and carry it away wherever it may be desired. I went repeatedly, during the latter end of July, to see this operation.

There were several large stacks of wheat piled around; and one person had the use of each threshing ground one morning, another the next; but the place was large enough for two or three similar operations to go on at the same time. [Cochran's Wanderings in Greece.]

The

MOVEMENTS ON THE WESTERN MOUNTAINS AMONG THE FUR TRADERS.-The present, it appears, has been a very favorable year for obtaining robes and furs; the winter was mild and there was very little snow. company (a part of whom have arrived at St. Louis under Mr. Viunet) had collected about six hundred packs of buffalo robes and a quantity of beaver; they started from Fort Laramie (the upper fort) with four Mackinaw boats and four hundred packs of buffalo robes, and descended the Platte river about ninety miles, when the water became so low that they were compelled to abandon their voyage; they landed their peltries at the Cedar Bluffs, and sent back to the fort for wagons.

Whilst there, Colonel Kearney with two hundred and fifteen dragoons arrived on the 17th of June. He sent out a deputation to a Sioux village to invite the Indians to a talk. The Sioux could not be found; he then went on to Fort Platte, (the lower fort,) and there had the Sioux Indians assembled, held a talk with them, and entered into an agreement, or treaty with them to regulate their conduct with the whites. He at night fired his artill

ery, discharged a bomb and some rockets in the air, and surprised and astonished the Indians exceedingly.

Col. Kearney intended to go to the Chimney, thence to the South-pass, and from that point to Fort William on the Arkansas.

Whilst the traders were waiting at the Cedar Bluffs, 550 wagons of Oregon emigrants passed them. They had gotten along very well; the Pawnees had shot a few of their cattle, and caught a few of their men strag gling from camp, and had stripped them, but did no further injury.

On the day of June, the traders started from the Cedar Bluffs toward Missouri, with 10 wagons, 123 packs of buffalo robes, and 6 packs of beaver, and came in rapidly without difficulty. They met with no Indians, saw plenty of buffalo, and came to the mouth of Kansas, 175 miles, in 28 days. On a part of the route they were straitened for provisions.

Mr. Cabanne is behind on the Wapello, which is aground. When they left, there were 55 men at Fort Platte, and 35 at Fort John.

In the Indian country they fell in with Antonio Rubidoux, who had been trading with the Snakes and Yutaws. He had with him 40 or fifty horses and mules, and seven or eight thousand dollars worth of peltries. He had been successful in trading with the Indians; the Yutaws had once robbed his fort when left in the custody of some Spaniards, but they were generally very friendly with him. He stopped with his brother at St. Joseph.-Selected.

He Never Speaks Kind to Me.-Conversing the other day with an interesting little girl between the age of six and seven, I took occasion to impress upon her mind the debt of gratitude that was due from her to her own parent whom every body loves. I was perfectly thunderstruck with her answer. Looking me full in the face with her soft blue eyes, she replied, "He never speaks kind to me." Perhaps the Christian father, harassed with the cares of life, was unconscious that he had roughly checked the fond attention of his child; but could cares or the interruptions of his child, excuse unkindness or a total want of tokens of endearment? Will the fathers examine their habits on this point?- Warsaw Visitor.

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AN AFRICAN SCARECROW.

This singular way of scaring away birds from cornfields, is drawn and described by Lander, in his travels in Africa. He observed stages erected in the cultivated fields near Yaourie, along the banks of the Niger, while he was on his boat-voyage down that great river, whose mouth he discovered in the year 1830.

Among the most important branches of reading which the trash of the day throws into the background, is that of voyages and travels: a department always regarded by sensible men as highly interesting and instructive. If justly so considered a thousand, or an hundred or fifty years ago, how much is its importance now increased, since so many volumes have been added to our libraries.

The following is Mr. Lander's description of the Scarecrow above depicted.

"On all the borders of the numerous branches of the Niger, as well as on its small islands, vast quantities of corn were growing; and it being near the time of harvest, it was nearly ripe, and waved over the water's edge very prettily. Platforms were everywhere erected to the height of, or rather above the corn, which grows as high as ten or twelve feet. People were stationed on these to scare away the numeroue flights of small birds, which do great mischief, and would, without this precaution, destroy the hopes of the cultivator. A boy or girl, and in many cases a woman with a child at her breast, and even a whole family together, we observed on the platforms, amusing themselves in this manner, without the slightest shade or covering of any kind to shelter them from the fierceness of the sunbeams. Standing erect and motionless, many of them looked like statues of black marble rather than living human be ings; but others, particularly the women, disregarding their duty, were industriously employed in plaiting straw, supplying the wants of their children, manufacturing mats, dressing provisions, &c. In order the more effectually to frighten away the birds, several of the watchers were furnished with slings and stones, in the use of which they seem to be very skilful; besides these, pieces of rope

were fastened from the platform to a tree at some distance, to which large calabashes were suspended, with holes in them, through which sticks were passed, so that when the rope is pulled they make a loud clattering noise. The calabashes are sometimes fastened whole to the rope, containing about a handful of stones, which answer the purpose of making a noise when put in motion as well as the sticks. To this is often added the hallooing and screaming of the watchers, which is dismal enough to frighten an evil spirit, and it rarely fails to produce the desired effect."

"The inhabitants of many of the numerous walled towns and open villages on the banks of the Niger, and also of the islands, we find, are for the most part Cumbrie people-a poor, despised, and abused, but ini dustrious and hard working race. They are but too often oppressed and persecuted by their more fortunate and powerful neighbors, who affirm that they are fitted by nature only for slaves, and are therefore invariably treated by them as such.

"The Cumbrie also inhabit many parts of Haussa and other countries; they speak different languages, but they have all the same pursuits, superstitions, amusements, and peculiar manners, to which they firmly and scrupulously adhere, both in good and bad fortune, in sickness and in health, in freedom and slavery, at home and in foreign countries, notwithstanding the scorn and derision to which it subjects them; and they are known to cherish and maintain them to the end of life, with as much pertinacity as the Hebrew does his faith and national customs. Inheriting from their ancestors a peaceful, timid, passionless, incurious disposition, they fall an easy prey to all who choose to molest them; they bow their necks to the yoke of slavery without a murmur, and think it a matter of course; and perhaps no people in the world are to be found who are less susceptible of intense feeling and the finer emotions of the human mind, on being stolen away from their favorite amusements and pursuits, and from the bosom of their wives and families, than these Cumbrie people, who are held in such general disesteem. Thousands of them reside in the kingdom of Yàoorie and its provinces of Ergarski; and most of the slaves in the capital have been taken from among them."

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THE LEXINGTON SAILED.-The store ship Lexington left the Brooklyn navy yard this morning, and proceeded to her destinationthe Gulf of Mexico. She has on board 600 troops; 250 six-chambered rifles, 500 single do.; 1,200 muskets; and a large quantity of ammunition.-Brooklyn Eagle.

HUDSON.-The census of Hudson, just completed, shows that the number of inhabitants is 5,557, being a decrease of 114 since 1840.

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TRANSFORMATIONS OF THE WATER BEETLE.

How little does the careless observer of insects imagine, of the curious facts which the attentive students of nature have discovered in the nature and habits of the various animated beings around us! Yet how important it is for us, parents, and for all other teachers of the young, that we should direct the attention to some of them, or at least show that the subject is worthy of regard and of study! Consider that the hours of leisure are the hours of temptation; and that intelligent minds attracted by taste, and guided by habit, will not be exposed to the whole force of those evil influences which ruin so many of the ignorant and ill-trained around us.

It is with the hope of giving at least an useful bias of this kind to some minds, and to encourage and assist parents in thus directing and instructing their children in the great book of creation which God has spread open to all eyes, that we present in all the numbers of this magazine some of the interesting wonders of nature.

We copy the following description of the figures given above from one of Volumes on Insects, in Harpers' Family and School Libraries:

Among those insects which reside in stagnant water during their metamorphoses, we select the water-beetle (Dytiscus marginalis,) to show its peculiar transformation. The larvæ proceed from eggs left in a singularly formed nidus of a silky substance, which is allowed by the parent to float on the surface of the water: the part above is long and tapering, as if to serve as a mark of some distinction. After the period of ten or twelve pays, they put on the form shown in the under figure. They are of a yellowish brown color, measuring two inches and a half in length, and rather transparent; the body is covered with strong shields: the end of the abdomen is furnished with two long appendages, fringed on their sides with fine hairs. When the larva wishes suddenly to change

its position in the water, or dart from the approach of some larger insect or animal, which might devour it, the insect gives a prompt vermicular movement to its body, striking the water with its tail, the fringe of which then becomes very useful to the animal, since the tail is thereby rendered more fit to resist the water, and to cause the insect to advance. The head is rather flat, armed in front with a pair of very strong, long, and curved jaws, which, when magnified, appear to have at their apex an aperture or an oblong hole, through which the insect sucks, by little and little, all the solid parts of its prey, which generally consist of other larvæ.

They are even bold enough to attack waternewts and tadpoles, and have been known to seize a young tench of three inches in length, and to kill it in the space of a minute: they are, therefore, considered as one of the most mischievous animals that can infest a fishpond. The singular form of the larva caused it to be considered by ancient authors as analogous with the shrimp tribe, and it has actually been referred to that series of crustaceous insects under the denomination of Squilla aquatica. When arrived at its full growth, the larva forms itself an oval hollow cocoon, made of soft earth or clay, collected from the banks of the water it inhabits; in a few days it changes into a chrysalis, which is of a white color. After the space of three weeks it undergoes the last metamorphosis, as represented in the right-hand figure.

The perfect insect is rather more than an inch long, of a blackish olive color, with the outer margins of the neck and wings bordered with yellow. The two sexes of this insect are easily distinguished from each other. The male is known not only by the smoothness of the wing cases, but also by the breadth of the fore feet, which are abbreviated and dilated, convex beneath, and serve sucker; while all the feet of the female are similar to one another, and the wing-cases are deeply impressed with a series of longitudinal furrows.

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THE SHIP WORM.Teredo Navalis.)

This is the destructive little animal which has caused the rapid decay, and sometimes the sudden foundering of many a valuable ship at sea; and whose depredations have driven the ship-builder to many, and expensive precautions to secure the noble products of his skill from its attacks. It is chiefly to protect the planks and timbers from this apparently insignificant creature, that sheets of copper are now in general use to cover all that part of the hull that is under water. In our cut, the animals are represented as if living out of the wood, merely to show their shape. They are always buried in it.

The ship-worm has a long and soft body, furnished with two thin, semi-circular, shelly scales at the head, and with a fragile, shelly tube about its body, which increases with it in length and breadth, as it extends its size and its ravages at equal pace. When it first enters the wood, (which must be under salt water, and within certain seas or climates,) it is scarcely as large as a pin; but it sometimes increases to the diameter of nearly half an inch, and the length of a foot. It bores a smooth hole before it as it proceeds, which has the appearance of being made with a sharp auger; and we should presume that the wood must be cut away by the two shelly scales before mentioned, were they not altogether too thin and brittle to perform such a task. Some writers suppose the animals to be furnished with a strong acid, with which they dissolve or soften the woody fibre.

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It is remarkable that the ship-worms never interfere with each other in their work. though many of them are often crowded together in a very small space, they never cross one-another's track, and seldom or never allow the thin walls left between their galleries to be broken through. We have a block in our collection of curiosities, about the size of a man's fist, which has the appearance of an old honeycomb, and feels about as light as a sponge. In the Naval Lyceum at Brooklyn are several more remarkable specimens, taken from some of our ships returned from cruizes in the tropics.

Although the injuries committed by this little animal on ships and piles driven into the sea are very great, especially among the latter in the dikes of Holland, the benefit they do is incomparably greater, in aiding the process. of decay in fallen trees and floating timber, in salt marshes, bays, &c., in hot climates where they abound.

QUEBEC.-The number of emigrants arrived at Quebec this year to 23d August, was 22,805, being an increase of 5,695 upon the corresponding period last year. Tonnage arrived to same da e 297,176 tons, being an increass of 127,595 tons.

A CREDITABLE STATE OF FACTS.-Among the many good institutions of Massachusetts there are none that present a more pleasing state of facts than the Savings Banks of the State. The last returns of the Institution now show 49,699 depositors, and $8,261,345 on deposite.

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