degenerate tavern-goers of modern days. Falstaff and Prince Hal have not left their mantle to Eastcheap; Sir Walter Raleigh's celebrated "Mermaid Club" is unknown; Johnson, and Garrick, and Goldsmith, frequent Fleet-street no more; and even the Wittenagemot of our own days has ceased to enjoy "the feast of reason, and the flow of soul," in their peculiar box at the Chapter Coffeehouse. Our taverns now-a-days are filled with whiskered dandies torturing

themselves into fashion with their long cigars; while the literati confine themselves within the walls of their own dwellings. The age is unquestionably altered; but we imagine that in this respect, at least, matters have not altered for the worse.

It is but justice to add, that the materials of this work are very well arranged, and only require, for refer→ ence, a comprehensive index, which will probably appear at the close of the whole publication.

PURE WATER.

SOME experiments have recently been made in Paris to determine the comparative value of different modes of filtration. The first experiment was made upon about six gallons of water taken from the Seine, into which, for some days previously, a small portion of animal matter had been allowed to become tainted, so as to give a disagreeable taste and smell to the water. A portion of this water was then passed through a bed of charcoal, sand, and pebbles, according to the process adopted at the establishment for the supply of filtered water to the inhabitants of Paris. It was found, when filtered, to be perfectly free from the dirt which it had held suspended, and also very nearly deprived of the bad taste which had been conveyed to it by the animal matter. Its chemical properties, however, seemed to remain unaltered; and the gypsum, which the water of the Seine holds in solution so extensively, remained, (it being proved on analysation,) almost as abundant in the filtered as in the unfiltered water. After this experiment, another portion of the water was filtered through a thin bed of animal charcoal, which was prepared by burning bones

in a close crucible, with a kind of chimney to allow the escape of the gas. The water so filtered came out perfectly bright, entirely free from the odor and taste which it had possessed, and was more brisk and sparkling than the result of the first filtration; no chemical change beyond this, however, seemed to have been produced. A third experiment was then tried with the remaining portion of the water. Into two gallons there was placed about one drachm of powdered alum; the water, after being stirred up, was allowed to remain quiet for twentyfour hours, at the expiration of which it was examined. This water, with the exception of an inch from the bottom of the vessel, was found to be more clear and sparkling than the result of the second filtration; it was perfectly pure in taste and smell, and was more brisk in the mouth than the other.

Towards the bottom was a thick, cloudy, and light sediment, independent of the sand and other heavy particles which had been precipitated. This sediment, on being analysed, gave strong evidence of the presence of putrid animal matter; whilst in the other precipitate were detected several grains of gypsum.

what degree of astringency had been given to the water by the alum which had been introduced, and it was found that at least one-third of the alum had been neutralised, and that the remaining portion had not imparted to the water any astringency which could at all interfere with its valuable properties, or become injurious to the consumers. An equal weight of carbonate of soda, however, was subsequently introduced, so as entirely to neutralise any acidity which might be supposed to be in the water. The introduction of this soda gave no taste whatever to the liquid. The result of this experiment being considered very satisfactory, a simple and cheap filterer was constructed for domestic purposes. It is thus described in the letter from which we have taken the above particulars. Into a wooden cask, of any size, set upright upon a stand, are placed two cocks, one close to the bottom, and the other six inches above it. The cask being filled with water, powdered alum, in the proportion of something less than half a drachm to each gallon, is stirred into the water. No water is drawn out for twenty-four hours; at the end of that time it is taken as wanted from the upper cock; and when no more remains except what is below the upper cock, the water containing the sediment is let off by the lower cock, and the cask is then filled as before, for further use.

GREEN COLOR OF THE SEA.

In the Greenland Seas, about one part of the surface between the parallels of 74 deg. and 80 deg. is of an olive, or grass-green color, which often occurs in long bands, or streams, from a few miles to ten or fifteen miles in breadth, and from two to three degrees of latitude in length. These belts of green water are frequently separated as distinctly from the transparent blue water, as the waters of a large muddy river on entering the sea. This color has been ascertained to be caused by an animal of the medusa kind, from one-twentieth

the surface of which is marked with twelve distinct patches, or nebulæ of dots of a brownish color, disposed in pairs, four pairs, or sixteen pairs, alternately composing one of the nebula. The body of the medusa is transparent. The fibrous or hair-like substances were more easily examined, being of a darker color. They varied in length from a point to one-tenth of an inch, and, when highly magnified, were found to be beautifully moniliform. In the largest specimens these bead-like articulations were about thirty, and the diameter of each about the 8-300th part of an inch. The number of these animalculæ, particularly medusæ, was found to be immense, in olive-green sea-water being about one fourth of an inch asunder. A cubic inch of water will, of course, contain 64; a cubic foot, 110,592; and a cubic mile, 23,888,000,000,000,000. Now, allowing that one person could count a million of these animalculæ in seven days, which is barely within the reach of possibility, it would have required that 40,000 persons should have started at the creation of the world to complete the enumeration of those contained in a cubic mile of sea-water.

RECIPE FOR SALTING BEEF.

Salt and water have a wonderful penchant, chemically ycleped'affinity, for each other. Get, therefore, a tub of pure water, rain or river water is best, let it be nearly full, and put the tongs, or two pieces of thin wood across it, and set your beef on them, distant about an inch from the water; heap as much salt as it will hold on your beef, let it stand for four-and-twenty hours, you may then take it off and boil it, and you will find it as salt as if it had been in pickle for six weeks.

A SUCKING BUTTERFLY.

Few of the parts of insects are well understood, on account of their minuteness, as well as from their want of analogy with the parts of vertebrate animals. The organs of taste in in

sects are accordingly, for the most part, but imperfectly known. In some classes, the mechanism of the apparatus for tasting is more evident, and exhibits a wise and wonderful contrivance. Reaumur, one of the best naturalists the world ever produced, observed a butterfly, which he had in his study, alight upon a piece of lump sugar, unwind its spiral tongue, (lingua tubulosa, Kirby,) and begin to feed on it. Now it was evident, that it could not draw up any sugar through its long narrow tube, till it was dissolved; and, by careful observation, he found that it actually discharged upon the sugar a drop of liquid, which dissolved a portion of the sugar, and fitted it for being sucked up. We have observed the house fly feed upon sugar in a similar way; but we have not realised Reaumur's observation of the ejection of a liquid to dissolve the sugar. M. Lamarck thinks that we cannot properly call this sucking, as insects do not breathe through the mouth ("Animaux sans Vertebres"); but may they not, even in this case, have the power of exhausting the air in the tube, in a similar way as fish diminish the air in the swimbladder, which certainly is not by breathing.

NATURAL PHENOMENON.

A substance was recently presented to the French Academy of Sciences, which had been forwarded to the government, as having fallen from the sky in Persia, at the commencement of this year. This species of celestial manna was found in such great quantities, that the earth for a considerable distance was entirely covered with it. In some places it was five or six inches in depth. The cattle, and particularly the sheep, eagerly fed upon this singular production, which was also converted into bread for the support of the inhabitants. Such was the information which a Russian general, who had witnessed the phenomenon, communicated to the French consul in Persia. Upon examination, this substance was found to be a sort of lichen, already described by botanists.

These mosses, found in very great abundance, must have been carried by the wind to the places where their sudden appearance was remarked. A similar phenomenon was noticed, in the same regions of Persia, in the year 1824.

which appear to be

MONTAIGNE AND THE STONE.

Be

It is believed, says Montaigne, that I derived the affliction of the stone from my father, though I was born above five-and-twenty years before the disease seized him, which happened in the sixty-seventh year of his age, and at last brought him to a very painful death. At my birth, he was in the most vigorous and healthful state of body; and I was his third child. Now, I would ask, where this tendency to stone lurked all the while, and how it could be so concealed as not to affect me before I was five-and-forty? sides, among so many brothers and sisters, I am the only one of the family, up to this hour, who has been affected with the malady. He that can satisfy me on this point, I will believe him in as many other miracles as he pleases, provided always he does not, as usual, give me, for current pay, a doctrine more intricate and fantastic than the thing itself. I also inherit from my father, an antipathy to the art of physicians. He lived seventyfour years; my grandfather, sixtynine; and my great-grandfather, almost four-score years, without ever tasting any sort of physic. I may, however, fall into such phrenzy that I dare not be responsible for my future conduct; but then, if any one ask me how I do, I may answer as Pericles did, "Judge by this," showing my hands clutched up with six drachms of opium.

RUSSIAN SURVEY.

As a proof of the great interest which the Emperor Nicholas attaches to the advancement of science throughout his immense territories, a grand Topographical, Mineralogical, and Statistical Survey of the whole empire is now in progress on a uniform and large scale, under the superintendence

INTEMPERANCE.

UNDER the most elegant mansions in Hamburg are to be found wine-cellars; while apartments for drinking, bacchanalian carousing, and the sale of all kinds of spirits, are to be seen in every direction; and some of them are resorted to by the very lowest of the tippling tribe. It has been remarked somewhere, in reference to these petty traders in this Stygian comfort, that there is not a more miserable shift for a livelihood than their calling. Whoever would be successful in the exercise of it, must, indeed, be of a watchful and suspicious, as well as of a bold and resolute temper, that he may neither be imposed on by sharpers, nor bullied by the oaths of coachmen and soldiers. He ought to be a dabbler in jokes and loud laughter, and have all the winning "ways and means" to allure customers, and be well versed in sallies the mob make use of to banter prudence and frugality; be obsequious to the most despicable; be able to endure with patience and good humor the vilest language of drabs; and without a frown bear with all the squalid noise and impertinence that the utmost indigence and laziness can produce in the most shameless and aban

doned vulgar. On the subject of tippling, it may be added, that nothing is more destructive to the health or industry of the poor: it charms the inactive, the desperate, and the crazy of either sex, and makes the starving look on his rags with stupid indolence. In a word, such a propensity falls under the description of a fiery lake, that sets the very brain in flames, burns up the entrails, scorches every internal part, and is at the same time a Lethe of oblivion, in which the wretch drowns his cares. Moreover, this liquid poison makes him quarrelsome, renders him a perfect savage,—and, alas! it has often been the cause of his shedding the blood of his fellow-creatures! Would that we could say that this degrading and immoral practice-one that entails such a train of distress and misery on the lower orders and their families-pernicious alike to both body and mind-were confined to the city of Hamburg. It is absolutely idle for us to talk of the spread of intelligence among society, while so great a portion of the population abandon themselves to a habit that is not only highly pernicious and destructive in itself, but the propagator of wretchedness and crime.

WANTS A WIFE.

She must bee middel eaged and good tempered widdow, or a Maid, and pursest of propertey, and I wood far reather have a Wife that is ever so plain then a fine Lady that think herself hansom; the Advertiser is not rich nor young, old nor poor, and in a very few years he will have a good incumb. Can be hiley reckamended for onestey, sobrieaty, and good temperd, and has no in combranc, is very actif, but not a treadesman, have been as Butler and Bailiff for meney years in most respectable families, and shood I not be so luckey as to get me a wife, wood be most willing to take a sitteyeashan once moor, wood prefer living in the countrey, under stands Brewing feamosley, is well adapted for a inn or public hous. Please to derect W. W., 268, Berwick-street, Oxforde-roade, or aney Ladey may call and have a interview with the widdow that keeps the hous, and say wher and when we can meet each other. All letters must be pd, no Ofice-keeper to applygh. My fameley ar verey well off and welthey, far above the midling order.

WRITING DOWN A FACE.

"I once," says a late traveller in Italy, "asked a Neapolitan fisherman to sit for me to paint him. He did not in the least understand the nature of my proposition; but after some difficulties on his side, and many assurances on mine that I would not hurt him, he consented, and followed me. When I had finished, his astonishment at beholding his portrait was amusing; and, descending with me to the street, I heard him exclaim to his comrades, that Signore has written down my face.' So high is their idea of writing, that they can imagine no superior or more lofty name, for what appears to them a similar sort of conjuration."

OLD WINE.

The passion for old wines has sometimes been carried to a very ridiculous excess, for the "thick crust," the

many proofs of the decomposition and departure of some of the best qualities of the wine. Had the man that first filled the celebrated Heidleburg tun been placed as sentinel, to see that no other wine was put into it, he would have found it much better at twentyfive or thirty years old, than at one hundred, had he lived so long, and been permitted now and then to taste it.

At Bremen there is a wine-cellar, called the Store, where five hogsheads of Rhenish wine have been preserved since 1625. These five hogsheads cost 1,200 francs. Had this sum been put out to compound interest, each hogshead would now be worth above a thousand millions of money; a bottle of this precious wine would cost 21,799,480 francs, or about 908,3117., and a single wine-glass 2,723,808francs, or about 113,4921.

STATUE TO THE KING.

Chantrey is now at Brighton, superintending the erection of the public statue of his Majesty. The figure, which is of heroic size, looks to the sea; one foot is in advance, the right hand held gently out, and over the whole is thrown a robe, which reaches to the pedestal. The statue is of bronze, a clean solid cast, which seems to have come perfect from the mould, and is the first work which the artist has executed in metal. Mr. Chantrey is said to have several other bronze statues in progress, all of heroic dimensions: one of his Majesty, for Edinburgh; one of Pitt, for London; one of Watt, for Glasgow; one of Canning, for Liverpool; and one of Sir Thomas Monro, for the East Indies.

FRENCH PERIODICALS.

The circulation of newspapers in France since the peace has increased at least two-fold; and in some of the provinces the number of political and scientific journals is in the proportion of five to one of what it used to be. An official return is preparing of all the periodical works now published in