Aad, 'midst thy bailet shades, the embosom'd. spire Catch from deep-kindling heavens their earliest fire. Yet are there sweeter sounds; and thou shalt hear Wortby the sacred bowers where man had birth, When holy strains, from life's pure fount which And such shall be thy music! when the cells NOVELTIES OF FOREIGN LITERATURE. VERY useful and interesting has been published at Nuremberg. It is entitled, "Anleitung Zum Anbau Ausländischer Pflanzen," (Directions for the Cultivation of Exotic Plants,) with a Supplement, explaining the method of preserving them from the bad effects of the climate, and on the easiest mode of increasing its heat. After giving their classification, mode of culture, &c. in the first chapter, the author considers the peculiar differences between the German and the more southern climates, their soil and atmosphere, as affecting the growth and formation of the plants: to which he adds remarks on the possibility of their naturalization in northern latitudes. Three supplements follow:1st. Respecting means to facilitate their growth with us. 2d. On the foreign origin of many plants, now commonly grown here. 3d. Observations on hot-houses, and on the manner in which several are now heated by steam. It is altogether deserving the notice of scientific and botanical students. : The first part of "Transactions of the Practical Medical Society of St. Petersburgh, established in 1819, for the purpose of communicating to the whole body the various facts and results obtained by each member's personal experience in the course of his practice. The present volume embraces many valuable and interesting papers on peculiar cases, with the modes of treatment in some of the most dangerous diseases, by the first professors and physicians; such as Bluhm, Milhausen, Wolff, Harder, and Müller.Other societies are, in the same manner, springing up in St. Petersburgh, and different parts of the Russian dominions, which will in a short time to create a rapid diffusion of knowledge, dially wish success. A work, entitled "Spain and the Revolution," published at Leipsic, contains many striking facts and observations relative to that great event. It is divided into five parts, comprehending the theory of revolutions in general:-On the situation of Spain, from the period of 1761 to 1818; on the influence of the new doctrines, leading to the revolution at Aranjuez; on the French invasion; the Junta of Seville; the Cortez; on the return of the King, his rejection of the Constitution, and the fate of the liberals and the serviles, &c. The mere circulation of these facts, independant of any arguments, cannot fail to do good, and produce some sensation even in Germany. Professor AMBROZIO LEVATI, of Milan, has lately produced a work in five volumes, entitled "the Travels of Francesco Petrarca, in France, Germany, and Italy." It is in part taken from historical facts and real incidents in the poet's life, and in part embellished with fictitious narratives. So far, we do not think the author has shown his taste and judgment; as fine and abundant materials were to be found without the least need to have recourse to imaginary adventures, and mingling truth with fable. However delightful such a subject, and however amusing and interesting it may thus be rendered, the author should have previously reflected, what a desideratum a good and faithful life of Petrarch, is, even yet, among the Italians, and how much more honour he might have acquired had he, in preference to the present, undertaken and accomplished it. A publication has appeared at Mentz, Mentz, by M. THÓEST, entitled, "the History of Magic, Demons, Sorcerers, &c." which contains an affecting narrative of numbers that have suffered for the pretended crime of magic. The cases enumerated are proved from unequivocal authority. In these excesses of the magistrates, female sorcerers have been the greatest sufferers. Among other curious articles in the collection, we learn that Christopher de Rantzow, a gentleman of Holstein, whose heated imagination had misled his understanding, consigned eighteen persons to the flames, at one time, the wretched victims of a merciless superstition. In a village called Lindheim, containing about 600 inhabitants, not less than thirty were destroyed by fire, in the narrow space contained between the years 1661 and 1665. In this inhuman plan of treatment, towards an unhappy class of persons, the author points out Wurtzburg as having frequently been subject to well-merited reproach. It appears from the Acta Magica of Naubers, that, between the years 1627 and 1629, 127 individuals perished, in similar instances of cruelty, practised by their brother men. The principal objects of such nefarious dealings were old women or travellers, and frequently poor children from nine to ten years of age. Occasionally, such outrages have been perpetrated on persons of some consequence, proficients in knowledge, above the general apprehension of the age, or such as had acquired property by their industry. Among many others, in the shocking detail, are the respectable names of fourteen vicars, two young gentlemen, some counsellors, the largest or most corpulent man in Wurtzburg, and his wife, the handsomest woman in the city, and a student or scholar engaged in the study of foreign languages. These innocent sufferers were frequently put to the torture. But what must our feelings and principles incline us to think of an enormity here brought to recollection, in the instance of a poor girl that suffered so late as in the year 1749? Statistics of the Prussian Dominions. These extend from the frontiers of Russia to those of France, and consist of an assemblage of slips and samples of almost all the German nations. By the war of 1806 the monarchy lost one-fifth part of its population; but, 2 by the peace of 1815, a considerable part of those losses was recovered, and the acquisition of the countries on the Rhine proved a source of aggrandizement, forming a striking contrast, as to statistical calculations, to the arid tracts beyond the Vistula. All the Prussian states, at present, are divided into ten provinces, and these are subdivided into twenty-seven districts of Regency, and 338 circles. The surface, not including the lakes, comprehends 13,744 square leagues, of twenty-five to a degree. The population, including the military, may be rated at 10,976,252, which allows 798 to a square league. The inhabited houses are estimated at 1,570,805, including the cities, towns, or villages. The cities or principal towns, in number 1027, are divided into four classes. Those of the first rank are Berlin, Breslau, Dantzic, Cologne, Konigsberg, Magdeburg, Stettin, Aix-laChapelle, Elberfeld, and Bremen. The towns of the second rank are 133 in number, twenty-seven of which are in the countries on the Rhine, while the three great provinces of the east, that is, Eastern and Western Prussia and Posen, have only sixteen. The towns of the third class, in number 401, are such as have a population exceeding 1500 individuals. Of those of the fourth rank, in number 483, we find 244 of a population inferior to 1500, and the other 239 are below a thousand. Throughout the Prussian states, according to the census of 1819, the number of horses was 1,332,276; of horned cattle, 4,275,705; of sheep, 9,065,720. With respect to the productions of the soil, the means and materials of industry, commerce, and other resources, that constitute the riches of a state, the Board of Statistics at Berlin intend hereafter to publish the requisite details. Brief Analysis of the Report presented to the Minister of Interior, by the French Medical Commission sent to Barcelona. In general, according to the concentrated view which these physicians give of the contagion, it is no other than the yellow fever; as such, they have always considered it, though they may not declare this positively. They maintain, that the malady did not take its rise in Barcelona, that it did not originate in the filthiness of the streets, or the unhealthful ་ ལུས་། healthful condition of the harbour; that, during their residence, they could never trace any infectious scent; that in the streets the best aired and kept the cleanest, the disorder raged the most; and that 300 fishermen, lodged in the most unhealthy quarter of the city, had escaped the dreadful scourge, merely from living in seclusion. In short, they represent Barcelona, where the plague first made its appearance, as one of the most healthy places they have known. According to the physicians, the contagion was brought over in vessels from the Havannah. Among other instances, they refer to one called the Grand Turk, the captain of which having brought his family on-board for a day or two, saw them all perish, on their return to Barcelonetta. In the Spanish polacre, Nuestra Señora del Carmen, a poor passenger taken onboard for charity, from Alicant, died the day after his landing at Barcelona. The French brig, the Josephine, from intercourse with other vessels in the road, was so infected as to endanger the lives of the second captain, the lieutenant and the sailors, and it be came necessary to place the vessel in quarantine. Hereupon, the local authorities gave orders for removing the sick into lazarettos, and for removing some suspected ships to a distance, and for sinking others, but this order the people refused to obey. At one time they carried away, by violence, some sick men that the soldiers were conveying to the lazarettos. The plague then continued its ravages, till the officers of government, and half of the inhabitants, were obliged to flee. During 100 days, from the last week in August to the 2d of December, of 70,000 inhabitants that remained, one-third had caught the fever, and 1700 died. Children of tender age, women, persons in easy circumstances, those subject to excessive perspiration, or such as had been infected before, suffered the least, but these exceptions were not absolute, especially in the last case. The French physicians, in tracing the contagion from street to street, and from house to house, found the slightest communication frequently sufficient to transmit the infection. All the sequestered places, as the citadel, the prisons, &c. were secure. The malady is considered to be transmissible, by contact, either with persons or with household goods, merchandize, &c. and at short distances, by the air that environs the objects of infection. M. Rochoux, a member of the same medical commission, (sent into Spain by the French government,) has not concurred with the testimony of his colleagues, in their researches to detect and explain the contagion; but, though he separated from them, his attention was no less engaged in the speculation. The facts, experiments, and arguments, which he collected, he has presented to the public, in a "Dissertation on the Yellow Typhus." He allows it to be of a contagious nature; a deleterious principle, readily transmissible by contact with individuals, or articles of clothing and merchandise. He also recommends insulation, and considers it as a preservative, but differs from his associates on two essential points, the nature and the origin of the malady. He insists that it is not the yellow fever of the West Indies, but a species of typhus, analogous to that which often breaks out in prisons and hospitals. He calls it the yellow fever, being, like other descriptions of typhus, a local malady not brought to Barcelona, but formed and propagated there by a train of cir cumstances. M. Rochoux endeavours to shew, that the contagion appeared first in the shipping, and thence spread into the city and Barcelonetta, with more or less malignity, as the distance was greater, or otherwise, from the point of departure. He denies that it was imported from the Havannah, alleges that it is unknown in the island of Cuba, and that it was known in Europe prior to the discovery of America; in favour of this opinion, he quotes Hippocrates. To the above he adds, as facts, that the symptoms of this disease have been well marked and related, as produced' at Barcelona, in the 14th, 15th, and 16th, centuries. The causes of the contagion the doctor discovers in the unhealthful condition of the port; and he points out the connexion between the disease, and the great number of vessels crowded together, in circumstances constantly found to be dangerous in hot seasons. NEW CAL NEW PATENTS AND MECHANICAL INVENTIONS. To BENJAMIN THOMPSON, of Ayton Cottage, Durham; for a Method of facilitating the Conveyance of Carriages along Iron and Wood Railways, Tramways, and other Roads.Oct. 24, 1821. THE HIS invention consists in the application or use of two or more fixed or stationary steam or other engines, placed upon the railway, tramway, or road intended to be used, at such a distance from each other as the nature of the line chosen shall render most convenient, and in such a manner, as that the action of such, steam, or other engines, shall be interchangeable and reciprocal, in the mode herein-after mentioned. There are various modes in use by which animal and mechanical powers are made available for the purpose of conveying carriages upon rail and tramways, where the trade or carriage is principally, or altogether, in one direction. Fixed engines are employed to draw loaded carriages up inclined planes, the empty car riages being enabled by their gravity, and the declination of such planes, to run down the same, and take out the rope from the engine along with them. Self-acting inclined planes are made use of where it is expedient to pass loaded carriages down declivities sufficiently great to allow their pulling upward an empty set of carriages at the same time. And, where neither the acclivity nor the declination of a road is such as to admit of one or the. other of these methods being adopted, then horses are used for the purpose of drawing the carriages, and in some, although very few instances, loco-motive engines. Endless chains have also been applied, but, owing to the great friction, and consequent waste of power, attendant on them, their use. has been very circumscribed, and their application limited to comparatively very short distances. These modes, combined or separately, according to circumstances, have hitherto afforded the means by which rail and tramways have been travelled. Mr. Thompson's method might in most cases, and with considerable advantage, supersede them all. Whether the line of road rises or falls, much or little, is level or undulating, matters not; the carriages, loaden or empty, are made to pass in both direc tions, with a uniformity of progress, and at the same time with a dispatch not heretofore known. A road on which this invention is to be applied, must be divided into stages, attention being given in determining their distances, to the nature of the line, in regard to curves or bends, and to the undulation of the surface. The nearer it approaches to a level, and the fewer, as also the easier, the bends are, the better will it allow of the stages being extended. On the other hand, should the line prove to be a very uneven. one, with frequent and short bends, then the intervals or spaces, between stage and stage, will necessarily be required to be shortened accordingly. The engines are severally to be furnished with two rope-wheels, and a rope to each, of a length and strength suitable to the stage upon which they are to be used. The rope-wheels must be so constructed as to allow of a ready connexion, or the contrary, with their respective engines, so as to be capable of being acted upon by them, or of turning round, independently, at the will of the engine man. This may be readily accomplished by any one of the modes in use with millwrights for throwing machinery into or out of gear, with a moving power. In cases of greater inequality of surface, the saving would be in a still greater ratio. A further and very important reduction in the cost of a new road, would result from its adoption. In the formation of a road it is generally necessary to make deep cuts and raise high batteries, in order to obtain a uniformly rising, falling, or level surface; and it frequently happens, too, that the direct line of way must be materially diverged from to favour that purpose. Mr. Thompson's plan dispenses with such nice attention to regularity, the engines being capable of surmounting acclivities, and the wheel which gives out the following, or passive rope, affording the means of restraining the too rapid progress of the waggons down, a declivity. In short, there is no country, however uneven or variable its surface, but that may, by his method, be traversed. For conveying of minerals underground, where the unevenness of the strata and their general disposition to undulation do nof allow of a uniformly ascending, de#cending, scending, or level road, Mr. Thompson's invention is peculiarly applicable. His method of facilitating the conveyance of earriages along iron and wood rail-ways, tram-ways, and other roads, consists in the reciprocal action of two engines, standing at the extremities of a stage, or portion of road to be travelled over, one engine drawing the carriages forward in a direction towards itself, and along with them a rope from the other engine; which rope, in its turn, pulls the same or other waggons, by means of the other engine, back again, and also a rope therewith; thus, by the alternately active and passive agency of two ropes, are the powers of fixed engines made to act in opposite directions, thereby causing a road to be traversed both ways, by loaden or empty carriages, and at any desired speed. It is the reciprocal and interchangeable application of power, as hath been described, which he claims as his invention. Upon the waggon-way from Ouston Colliery, in the county of Durham, seven miles from Newcastle, leading to the river Tyne, four miles below that place, and in length seven miles and a quarter, a stage has been selected, upon which this new method of conveyance has been put in force. The distance of the two engines from each other is 2,315 yards; the upper end whereof is a steep inclined plane, 323 yards long, up which the carriages are drawn by the Ayton engine; and the remaining portion, which is 1,992 yards, has been heretofore worked by ten powerful horses, the ascent of it being 654 feet, but not a regular acclivity. The engine at the lower end was for the purpose of drawing loaden waggons up an inclined plane, extending 387 yards in the contrary direction, or towards the colliery. Six loaden waggons, coupled together, carrying the same number of Newcastle chaldrons, or 15 tons 18 cwt. of coals, pass upward at a speed of 104 feet per second, or seven miles an hour, with the greatest ease and certainty, affording a dispatch by no means derived previously from the use of animal power. The two extremities, visible to each other, are furnished with flags, to give alternate signals of the readiness of the waggons to proceed. When the atmosphere is hazy, and the flags cannot be seen, signals are made MONTHLY MAG. No. 373. by drawing forward the rope three or four yards, with the engine, at that end from which the waggons are intended to go, and which is instantly perceived at the other end. And in the dark (for the work is daily prosecuted during five or six hours' absence of light at this period of the year,) signals are given by a fire kept at each end for lighting the workmen, which is shut from, or opened to, the view of the opposite extremity by means of a door. A person accompanies the waggons constantly, seated in a chair fixed securely upon the fore end of one of the soles of the leading waggon of the set, which is easily removed from one to another. The use of such attendant is to disengage the hauling-rope from the waggons, by means of a spring-catch, in the event of any sudden emergency, such as the breaking of a wheel or rail, or the hazard of running down any object, the stage in question lying over a common. The methods of Blenkinsop, Chapman, and Brunton, (says Mr. Thompson in his observations in the Repertory,) are grounded on principles that supply the means of surmounting tolerably steep acclivities-all others depend on the resistance offered by the iron rails or plates to the surfaces of the wheels for the application of power to the purpose of locomotion ; and it becomes an object, consequently, in those cases, to create as much friction as possible at the contaction of the wheels with the rails or plates. A quarter of an inch rise in every yard of way may, however, be considered as the greatest acclivity they can be rendered capable of overcoming with a load. The friction thus occasioned, and otherwise, together with the movement of the machine itself, causes so extravagant a dissipation of power as to leave, comparatively, but a small portion effective of that which the engine really applies; so that it is not safe to calculate on its yielding regularly more than about thirty-five per cent. of the force exerted. One supernumerary engine to every three, or at the most four, will be found necessary, together with the incessant and vigilant care of a superintending mechanic, to secure a tolerable degree of certainty. The application of fixed reciprocating engines requires no more than a single way; sidings or passings being neces I i sary |