PARLEY'S MAGAZINE. In one of our numbers we inserted a picture of the Astor House in New York, and gave an account of it. The owner of that house is JOHN JACOB AsTOR. He was born a poor boy, in a German village, on the banks of the Rhine. Having early imbibed the idea that he should one day be wealthy, he left his home while yet a mere stripling and went to London. From London he came, at the close of the American revolution, to this country, and engaged in the business of buying and selling furs, from which he at length realized a splendid fortune. MR. ASTOR has at least one quality of a great man; he is never discouraged by what people call ill luck. He held, that, in order to effect great things, we must attempt great things, and that we can do almost any thing we desire. For himself, at any rate, he always felt confident he should succeed in his undertakings; and it was to this confidence, no doubt, that he owed much of his success. It is not a little remarkable that, while he was yet almost a stranger in New York, and in very narrow circumstances as to property, as he was one day walking past a row of houses just erecting in Broadway, which were the talk and boast of the city, on account of their superior architecture, he said to himself; "I'll build, one day or other, a greater house than any of these, in this very street." He has done it. Now this very same determination to do something and be somebody in the world, if carried into other matters as well as into getting property and building fine houses, would do immense good. It would make men, and women too, as much greater in goodness than Mr. Astor, as he is greater than most of those around him. But now to our story. Mr. Washington Irving, the beautiful and favorite American writer, has lately written a work called ASTORIA; its name being taken from a spot on the Columbia river, which was settled by the agents of Mr. Astor, and called ASTORIA, in honor of its great projector. In this interesting book, Mr. Irving has given the adventures and travels of a company of men sent out by and at the expense of Mr. Astor; part of them through the American continent over the Rocky Mountains, and the other part by water to the Pacific Ocean, to find the Columbia river, at which place both parties were to unite, build forts and trading houses, and collect furs of the Indians. The party who crossed the Rocky Mountains met with singular and surprising adventures, and suffered hardships of the most distressing kind, hunger, thirst, and death itself-living a whole year upon wild meat which they collected as they journeyed through the wilderness. 100 ANECDOTES OF THE GRIZZLY BEAR. Among the animals which they en- hired men of the party was one William Cannon, who had been a soldier a one of the frontier posts, and entered into the employ of Mr. Hunt (the leader of the party) at Mackinaw. He was an inexperienced hunter and a poor shot, for which he was much bantered by his more adroit comrades. Piqued at their raillery, he had been practising ever since he had joined the expedition, but without success. In the course of the present afternoon, he went forth by himself to take a lesson in reverie, and to his great delight had the good fortune to kill a buffalo. As he was a considerable distance from the camp, he cut out the tongue and some of the choice bits, made them into a parcel, and slinging them on his shoulders by a strap passed round his forehead, as the voyagers carry packages of goods, set out all glorious for the camp, anticipating a triumph over his brother hunters. In passing through a narrow ravine he heard a noise behind him, and looking round beheld to his dismay a grizzly bear in full pursuit, apparently attracted by the scent of the meat. Cannon had heard so countered was the Grizzly Bear. We have put a fine likeness of him on our second page; and here follows one or two anecdotes about him, collected from the above mentioned work of Mr. Ir. ving. The "party" mentioned in the anecdotes was the very party mentioned in the last paragraph. The Grizzly Bear of Missouri lurks in caverns, or holes which he has digged in the sides of hills, or under the roots and trunks of fallen trees. Like the common bear he is fond of fruits, and mast, and roots, the latter of which he will dig up with his fore claws. He is carnivorous also, and will even attack and conquer the lordly buffalo, dragging his huge carcass to the neighborhood of his den, that he may prey upon it at his leisure. The hunters, both white and red men, consider him the most heroic game. They prefer to hunt him on horseback, and will venture so near as sometimes to singe his hair with the flash of the rifle. The hunter of the grizzly bear, however, must be an experienced hand, and know where to aim at a vital part; for of all quadrupeds he is the most difficult to be killed. He will receive repeated wounds without flinching, and rarely is a shot mortal unless through the head or heart. That the dangers apprehended from the grizzly bear, at the night encampment, were not imaginary, was proved on the following morning. Among the much of the invulnerability of this tremendous animal that he never attempted to fire, but slipping the strap from his forehead, let go the buffalo meat and ran for his life. The bear did not stop to regale himself with the game, but kept on after the hunter. He had nearly overtaken him when Cannon reached a tree, and throwing down his rifle scrambled up it. The next instant Bruin was ANECDOTES OF THE GRIZZLY BEAR. 101 at the foot of the tree; but as this spe- himself on his fore paws, slowly withcies of bear does not climb, he content- drew. He had not gone many paces beed himself with turning the chase into a fore he again turned, reared himself on blockade. Night came on. In the his hind legs, and repeated his menace. darkness Cannon could not perceive Day's hand was still on the arm of his whether or not the enemy maintained young companion, he again pressed it his station; but his fears pictured him hard, and kept repeating between his rigorously mounting guard. He passed teeth, "Quiet, boy !—keep quiet!-keep the night therefore in the tree, a prey to quiet!" though the latter had not made dismal fancies. In the morning the a move since his first prohibition. The bear was gone. Cannon warily descend- bear again lowered himself on all fours, ed the tree, gathered up his gun, and retreated some twenty yards farther, and made the best of his way back to the again turned, reared, showed his teeth, camp without venturing to look after his and growled. This third menace was buffalo meat. too much for the game spirit of John Day. "I can stand this no longer!" exclaimed he, and in an instant a ball from his rifle whizzed into the foe. The wound was not mortal; but luckily, it dismayed instead of enraging the animal, and he retreated into the thicket. Day's young companion reproached him for not practising the caution which he enjoined upon others. "Why, boy," replied the veteran, "caution is caution, but one must not put up with too much even from a bear. Would you have me suffer myself to be bullied all day by a varmint ?" Another anecdote of an adventure with a grizzly bear is told of John Day, a Kentucky hunter, but which happened at a different period of the expedition. Day was hunting in company with one of the clerks of the Company, a lively youngster who was a great favorite with the veteran, but whose vivacity he had continually to keep in check. They were in search of deer, when suddenly a huge grizzly bear emerged from a thicket about thirty yards distant, rearing himself upon his hind legs with a terrific growl, and displaying a hideous array of teeth and claws. The rifle of the young man was levelled in an instant, but John Day's iron hand was as quickly upon his arm. "Be quiet, boy! be quiet," exclaimed the hunter, beSnow is very useful in cold tween his clenched teeth, and without countries. It keeps the roots of plants turning his eyes from the bear. They and grasses warm. It also furnishes a remained motionless. The monster re- convenient path for easy and expegarded them for a time, then lowering ditious travelling. AIR. The air is for breathing, &c. 102 THE GOOD PHYSICIAN. BIOGRAPHY. [In the Annals of Education for February, is an account of the philanthropic Dr. Pugnet of Bienne, in Switzerland, whose history, much abridged, here follows.] THERE now lives in Bienne, in Switzerland, a singular man, a physician, by the name of Pugnet. He is quite aged, for he was already a full grown man before the French revolution; which broke out, as perhaps you know, above forty years ago. He was no sooner a physician than he was seen among the poor as well as the rich, attending to all who needed his aid, for the mere pleasure of doing them good. I suppose he must have inherited property for his support from his father, or some other ancestor, or else I do not see how he could have labored without pay. But so it was; it was to do them good that he attended them, and not to get their money. When Bonaparte with a large French army marched into Egypt, this young physician and surgeon accompanied them, and attended the sick and suffering. While in Egypt, he was three times attacked with that terrible disease of the eyes called the ophthalmia; from which his sight received an injury from which it has never entirely recovered. However, he continued in the army, and when it marched into Syria, he followed. Here the plague broke out among the soldiers, but Pugnet did not shrink from his duty, even for fear of this terrible scourge. In a monastery at Mount Carmel, he had the care of 300 sick persons at once, with scarce time for sleeping or eating; and with nothing to sleep on, when he could get a moment's relief, but a little dirty straw spread on the stone pavement. “When this ill fated army," says the Annals of Education, "were compelled to retreat, (from Syria) he assumed the most dangerous post, with the sick and feeble who brought up the rear. His unremitting attention to them, under these circumstances, attracted the admiration of Bonaparte, and led him to ask an aid-de-camp for the name of this young man. The whistling of balls from a neighboring skirmish rendered the reply inaudible, and for the moment effaced the incident from his recollection; to be recalled, however, at a later period." On their return to Egypt, meetings were held in Cairo by some of the French officers and surgeons, for the discussion of various subjects, among which was the subject of the plague. At these meetings Bonaparte was sometimes the chairman. One day when a committee had been appointed to bring in a report on the plague, of which committee Dr. Pugnet was a member, he refused to act on it. The reason was that some of its members differed so much from himself in opinion about the disease that he thought it useless to attempt to agree. Bonaparte, then the chairman, was angry at Dr. Pugnet for this refusal, and blamed him severely; and not only |