monly begin their trespasses just as the day begins to dawn. Close mowing and careful raking, will enable him to winter one cow extraordinary. Feeding his hogs by weeds and other vegetable substances, will enable him to pay the shoe-maker. Scraping his 'door and barn 'yards, after rains and showers, will clothe his boy. Saving his early apples, and which are commonly lost entirely, will pay his tailor; his poultry well attended, will pay his maid. His calves will pay his taxes, and some part of his hired labour, if proper care be taken of them. In fine, let a farmer who possesses only fifty acres of good land-who owes no man, and who has a common blessing on the labours of his hands, strictly attend to the management of his affairs, live a life of patient industry, and practise agreeable to the principles of economy, and I think he may live well-may be excused the hardest of labour; leave his hoe and spade to the next generation, by the time he has seen fifty years, when most men begin to think of comfort, ease and independence. Wind and Rain.-"Hark how it howls!" said the monk, taking his own peculiar view as the clamorous raging of the importunate blast compelled attention to its angry murmurs. "Hark how it howls! telling of shipwreck and desolation and death. Wo to the sea-tossed mariner!-Wo to the anxious and expectant wife, that, waiting the sailor's or the fisherman's return, hears the furious voice of the tempest trumpeting his death at the shaking door of her poor cabin!-Wo to the lordly merchant, whose wealth is on the main, and who hears in every gust the tidings of ruined speculations and broken hopes, and bankruptcy and shame! Well has Satan been called the prince of the powers of the air, and never do I hear the equinoctial blasts go howling and revelling through the pathless sky, without thinking it may be that the evil spirits that hover round mankind are then for a season unchained to ride careering over the earth, and in the agony of their joy to work their will of mischief and dismay." We spoke of the rain, and I foolishly enough, in mentioning all the annoyance it had occasioned me, loaded it with imprecations. "Call it not accursed, my son," said the monk-"Oh no! remember that every drop that falls bears into the bosom of the earth a quality of beautiful fertility. Remember that each glorious tree, and herb, and shrub, and flower, owes to those drops its life, its freshness and its beauty. Remember that half the loveliness of the green world is all their gift; and that without them we should wander through a dull desert as dusty as the grave. Take but a single drop of rain, cloistered in the green fold of a blade of grass, and pour upon it one ray of the morning sun-where will you get lapidary with his utmost skill to cut a diamond that shall shine like that? Oh no! Blessed forever be the beautiful drops of the sky, the refreshing soothers of the sealed earth-the nourishers of the flowers-that calm race of beings which are all loveliness and tranquillity, without passion, or pain, or desire, or disappointment-whose life is beauty, and whose breath is perfume."—Henry Masterton. A Picture and a Hint.-"Except on the grand matters of pedigree and match making, my good friend Mrs. Leslie, was a sufficiently common person; rather vulgar and dowdy in the morning; when, like many country gentlewomen of her age and class, she made amends for unnecessary finery by unnecessary stinginess, and trotted about the place in an old brown stuff gown, much resembling the garment called a Joseph, worn by our great-grandmothers, surmounted by a weather-beaten straw-bonnet, and a sun-burnt bay wig; and particularly stately in the evening, when silks and satins made after the newest fashion, caps radiant with flowers, hats waving with feathers, chandalier ear-rings and an emrine-lined cloak, the costly gift of a diplomatic relation-('My cousin, the envoy,' rivalled in her talk even 'my sister the countess'-converted her at a stroke into a chaperon of the very first water. Her daughters, Barbara and Anabella, were pretty girls enough, and would probably have been far prettier had Nature in their case, only been allowed fair play. As it was, they had been laced and braced, and drilled and starved, and kept from the touch of sun or air, or fire, until they had become too slender, too upright, too delicate both in figure and complexion. To my eye they always looked as if they were intended to have been plumper and taller, with more colour in their cheeks, more spring and vigour in their motions, more of health and life about them, poor things! Nevertheless, they were prettyish girls, with fine hair, fine eyes, fine teeth, and an expression of native good humour, which, by great luck, their preposterous education, had not been able to eradicate." -Match Making. Music an Aid to Study." I have a passion for instrumental music, but I admire little the human voice, which appears to me, with all our exertions, a poor instrument. Sense and sentiment too are always sacrificed to dexterity and caprice. A grand orchestra fills my mind with ideas-I forget every thing in the strain of invention. A prima donna is very ravishing, but while I listen, I am a mere man of the world, or hardly sufficiently well bred to conceal my weariness. "The effect of music upon the faculty of invention is a subject on which I have long curiously observed, and deeply meditated. It is a finer prelude to creation than to execution. It is well to meditate upon a subject under the influence of music, but to execute, we › should be alone, and supported only by our essential and internal strength. Were I writing, music would produce the same effect upon me as wine. I should, for a moment, feel an unnatural energy and fire, but, in a few minutes, I should discover, that I 150 Notices and Advertisements. shadowed forth only phantoms, my power of expression would die away, and my pen would fall upon the insipid and lifeless page.— The greatest advantage that a writer can derive from music is, that it teaches most exquisitely the art of development. It is in remarking the varying recurrence of a great composer to the same theme, that a poet may learn how to dwell upon the phases of a passion, how to exhibit a mood of mind under all its alterations, and gradually to pour forth the full tide of feeling.-Contarani Fleming. Genius of Auctioneers.—“It is not uninteresting to attend auctions here (London); first, on account of the multitude of extremely rare and valuable things, which from the wonderful activity of life and the constant vicissitudes of fourtune are daily brought into the market, and often sold very cheap; and secondly, for the ingenuity and eloquence of the auctioneers, of which I have already made honorable mention. They embroider their orations with more wit gratis, than ours would be willing to furnish for ready money. "This morning I saw the sale of an Indian cabinet, the property of a bankrupt Nabob, which contained some curious and beautiful works of art. The possessor of these treasures,' said the orator, 'has taken much trouble for nothing; for nothing to himself, I mean, but a great deal to you, gentlemen. He had once doubtless more money than wit, but has now, as certainly, more wit than money.' 'Modesty and merit,' observed he afterwards, 'go together only thus far, both begin with an m.' And in this style, and with such 'jeux de mots,' he continued.—'What enables the poor to live?' concluded he. Charity or liberality do but little towards it. Vanity, vanity is the thing,-not theirs, poor devils, but that of the rich. If you then, gentlemen, will but display a little of this praiseworthy vanity, and buy, you will earn a blessing even without meaning it." "—Tour of a German Prince, p. 69–70. BATHS AND MINERAL WATERS.-In Two Parts-Part I. A full account of the hygienic and curative powers of cold, tepid, warm, hot and vapour baths, and of sea bathing. Part II. A history of the chemical composition and medicinal properties of the chief Mineral Springs of the United States and of Europe. By JOHN BELL, M. D. Lecturer on the Institutes of Medicine and Medical Jurisprudence, &c. &c. p. p. 532 12mo. This work is for sale by T. Desilver, Jr. No. 247 Market street; Gregg & Elliot No. 9 North Fourth street; and Carey & Hart, corner of Fourth and Chesnut streets. Bell & Condie on Cholera-Second Edition, published by Thomas Desilver, Jr. WALDIE'S SELECT CIRCULATING LIBRARY.-This is a work, useful, entertaining and cheap. For five dollars per annum, the price of the subscription, the reader will obtain a collection of select novels, travels and contemporary history, which five times the sum would not purchase in the common way. Subscriptions received by Adam Waldie, Carpenter near Seventh street. THE JOURNAL OF HEALTH AND RECREATION-is published monthly, at the rate of $1 25 per annum. Each number to consist of 32 pages 8vo. The work will contain numerous engravings in illustration of the subject matter. Address S. C. ATKINSON, No. 12 Hudson's Alley, Philada. The physical qualities of Egypt are not less remarkable than its stupendous works of art and its early civilization. It presents itself to the eye of the traveller as an immense valley, extending nearly 600 miles in length, and hemmed in, on either side, by a ridge of hills and a vast expanse of desart. Viewed as an alluvial basin, it · owes its existence entirely to the Nile, which flows through it from south to north, conveying annually to the inhabitants the main source of their agricultural wealth, salubrity to their climate, and beauty to their landscape. The breadth of the cultivated soil varies, of course, according to the direction of the rocky barriers by which its limits are determined,-spreading, at some parts, into a spacious plain, upwards of 100 miles broad, while at others it contracts its dimensions to less than two leagues. The mean width has been estimated at about nine miles; and hence, including the whole area from the shores of the Delta to the first cataract, the extent of land capable of bearing crops has been reckoned to contain ten millions of acres. It is an observation as old as the days of Herodotus, that Egypt is the gift of the Nile. This historian imagined that all the lower division of the country was formerly a deep bay or arm of the sea, and that it had been gradually filled up by depositions from the river. He illustrates his reasoning on this subject by supposing that the present appearance of the Red Sea resembles exactly the aspect which Egypt must have exhibited in its original state; and that, if the Nile by any means were admitted to flow into the Arabian Gulf, it would in the course of twenty thousand years, convey into it such a quantity of earth as would raise its bed to the level of the surrounding coast. I am of opinion, he subjoins, that this might take place even within ten thousand years; why then might not a VOL. IV.-T. 151 152 Medical Geography of Egypt. bay still more spacious than this be choaked up with mud, in the time which passed before our age, by a stream so great and powerful as the Nile?* The men of science who accompanied the French expedition into Egypt undertook to measure the depth of alluvial matter which has been actually deposited by the river. By sinking pits at different intervals, both on the banks of the current and on the outer edge of the stratum, they ascertained satisfactorily,-first, that the surface of the soil declines from the margin of the stream towards the foot of the hills; secondly, that the thickness of the deposite is generally about ten feet near the river, and decreases gradually as it recedes from it; and, thirdly, that beneath the mud there is a bed of sand analogous to the substance which has at all times been brought down by the flood of the Nile. This convex form assumed by the surface of the valley is not peculiar to Egypt,-being common to the banks of all great rivers where the quantity of soil transported by the current is greater than that which is washed down by rain from the neighbouring mountains. The plains which skirt the Mississippi and the Ganges present in many parts an example of the same phenomenon. This source of fertility to Egypt depends exclusively, as every reader knows, upon the periodical rains which drench the tableland of Abyssinia and the mountainous country which stretches from it towards the south and west. The ancients, some of whom indeed entertained very absurd notions respecting the cause of this phenomenon, were generally in the right as to its physical origin,-expressing their belief that the annual overflow of the Nile was closely connected with the climate of Ethiopia, that receptacle of clouds and vapour. Plutarch states most distinctly that the increase of the Egyptian river is owing to the rains which fall in Abyssinia. Even the Arabs had arrived at the same conclusion long before any European found his way into the country.* More than seven hun dred years ago, a failure in the inundation was announced to the farmers of Egypt by a clerical envoy from the chief city of Ethiopia; who, after having stated that the season in the hill country had been unusually dry, advised them to expect and prepare for the unwonted lowness of the Nile, which actually occurred. It is impossible to find any where among terrestrial objects a more striking instance of the stability of the laws of nature than the periodical rise and fall of this mighty river. We know, by the testimony of antiquity, that the inundations of the Nile have been the same with respect to their height and duration for thousands of years; which, as Humboldt remarks, is a proof well worthy of attention, that the mean state of humidity and temperature does not vary in that vast basin. The rise of the water is so regular that the inhabitants of Lower Egypt look for its arrival with the same Euterpe, chap. ii. + History of Egypt by Abdollatiph, quoted by Shaw, vol. ii. p. 215. |