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Gentlemen of the Anthology,

Mr. Geo. Higginson has transmitted to me a mineral, sent to him by the superintendant of the iron works of Monkton, in the state of Vermont.

This mineral is the black oxyded Manganese Hay; its colour is a dark greyish black, its texture compact, it is formed in orbicular, or mamillary concretions, the interstices of which are coated with the same substance chrystalized in small rhomboidal, four sided prisms of a lustre and colour like polished steel.

Experiments, to which I have submitted it, indicate that it exists almost free of extraneous matters, and in an high degree of oxydation.

According to the information communicated to me by Mr. Higginson, it forms a powerful stratum of about two or three feet thick, from whence may be inferred that it is sufficient to set America free from the necessity of importing a substance, which is of some importance in several manufactures.

This mineral is accompanied with a yellowish brown clay, strongly impregnated with oxyd of Manganese, which may be employed in the manufacture of pottery ware. I have obtained from it, and shewn to several gentlemen of this town, a kind of pottery very much resembling the black pottery of Wedgewood.

NOTE. Manganese is found also in the vicinity of Boston, fn miles south) but in ton

small a quantity to be considered an object of utility.

S. GODON.

NEW SYSTEM OF NOTATION.

We understand from Mr. Pelham, that his System of Notation applied to Johnson's Rasselas has been several weeks in the press, and will, in afew days be ready for publication. The time, labour, and expense necessary to produce this specimen of a new kind of printing have much exceeded the first calculations. This circumstance, however, we are assured has only increased the author's desire of rendering the work acceptable to his subscribers and the publick, and by no means diminished his attention to the neatness and correctness of the typographical execution.

EDITORS' NOTE.

IN former numbers of the Anthology, we bave published several articles of Intelligence, which we selected from the Medical Reposito ry, a work deserving high commendation, published in New-York. As many of the articles, particularly one respecting Col. Gibbs' grand cabinet of Minerals, and the account of the American Tourmaline, which was mutilated by a mistake of the printers, without the knowl edge of the editors, bave been republished in several nervspapers in various parts of the United States, and the Anthology quoted as their authority, we feel it our duty to make this atknowledgemert.

THE MONTHLY ANTHOLOGY.

FOR

JULY, 1808.

For the Anthology.

INTERMENT OF THE DEAD.

Gentlemen,

THE manner, in which we dispose of the dead, can never be a question uninteresting to the living. Ere long to become members of that tranquil community, we feel unusual solicitude in the inquiry, what is to become of us, at a time when we shall have suffered a change so important. Probably it was intended by the wise economy of Divine Providence, that death should be regarded by mankind as a curious matter of philosophick speculation and an evil that may happen, rather than one to be proved by infallible experiment. We tremble at the thought of sickness and pain, because these our bodies have endured, and by recurrence to memory, we can feel our former sufferings again. Death on the other hand wants that test of reality never having experienced the change, we cannot bring it home to our minds with such distinct perceptions of its nature. Could we feel as forcibly the latter evil as the former, life would pass off in gloomy forebodings, and occupy so large a portion of our thoughts, as to leave no room for considerations, which, Vol. V. No. VII.

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although indispensable, are comparatively insignificant. It is however a departure from the design of this essay to dwell on our fortitude or fears, as they very remotely touch the subject now under consideration.

Our present mode of interring the dead, is liable to a variety of objections, which we shall suggest as they arise, without a strict adherence to methodical arrangement. One of the objects of our solicitude is now, and ever has been, to perpetuate the memory of the dead. For this purpose grave stones are erected, describing the name, character and family of the deceased, and many of them may be said with far more truth than poetry to "Implore the passing tribute of a sigh."

In cities swarming with population, such as London or Paris for instance, they feel peculiar reverence for the repositories of the dead. Westminster Abbey is not more venerable for the sepulchres of kings and heroes, than it is for the antiquity of those mansions. The chisel has lent its assistance; the heroes of England are frowning in marble; but the skill of the most

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consummate artist is incompetent to excite that solemnity of thought, which we derive from consciousness that we are treading on their ashes. At the successful attempt to redeem the memory of the great we are struck with astonishment; but our reflection over their tombs is a tacit satire on the ability of the artist, and admonishes us, that of those great men nothing but the cold memorial exists.

Nations, both antient and modern, have regarded it as one of their indispensable duties, to dedicate certain portions of their ground to the repose of their dead, and to keep them inviolate. Whatever increase of population may enhance the value of their lands, still they do not think of trespassing on the graves of their countrymen. Every generation augments this veneration in the eyes of the subsequent, until the frequency of interment endangers the health of the survivors.

the living and the dead, that the bones of our ancestors shall be mingled with our own and await the day of resurrection together. These feelings are not the offspring of civilization: nature has impressed them on her children in the wildernes. When the Scythians retreated from Darius, and abandoned their forests without regret, the ambassadours of that barbarous race admonished the haughty monarch not to meddle with the graves of their parents.

To the disgrace of our country it must be confessed, that we appear to be in a manner strangers to those endearments and regards felt by almost all other nations ancient or modern, civilized or savage. We violate without reluctance or remorse the enclosures consecrated to the dead. We traffick in the bones of our ancestors, and barter away their mouldering bodies to nourish the growth of a cabbage or a tulip. We see with unconcern the implements of husbandry pass over their heads, and it is no uncommon thing to behold their sepulchres converted into barns. Posterity will scarcely give credit to the tale, that we have followed our fathers to the grave, shed tears of anguish on the turf, and then disposed of their bones at publick auction. This new article of merchandize, may hereafter turn to some profit, for it has been,"credite posteri !" ascertained that such enclosures are far more propitious to vegetation than others, on account of the substances composing the soil. How much our ancestors may be worth, and how much they ought to be revered by their posterity, bids fair to depend on the small or large extent of ground, which they occupy in their graves. Modern philosophy, which has kindly undertaken the correcIt is a kind of compact between tion of heaven, and would fain make

So strong was this attachment in revolutionary France, that the National Convention to dissipate more effectually the charm, invaded the recesses of their slumbering princes, and plundered those gloomy apart. ments of their silent inhabitants. Louis, our old benefactor, was denied the privilege of decay, and interred in quick lime, that no vestige might be left, where loyalty might repair by stealth and shed a tear over the vicissitude of human great

ness.

In times of pestilence and disease, mortality has been so prevalent, and the grave yard so crowded with victims, that noxious vapours have exhaled from their corruption, which, mingling with the gloom of an inauspicious sky, have enlarged the contagion and made its poison more inveterate.

us feel by metaphysicks, has informed us, that such dust is nothing more than ordinary dust, and has proved the fact by chemical experiment. Let the objection be fairly stated, and it answers itself. Let it be stated then, that the hand, that once loaded us with benefits, is lifeless and incompetent to confer any more, and that of course our gratitude ought to cease, the moment our benefactor is unable to repeat his kind offices.

Accidents have sometimes happened by a premature interment, too alarming to be passed without observation. Medical writers of the first professional eminence have declared all symptoms of death to be equivocal and liable to deception, save one, the offensive nature of the body. Instances of what they are pleased to call suspended animation have happened, where the body is deprived of all its functions and faculties for a season, and appears as perfectly destitute of life asany evidence of that kind is capable of affording. Such a case occurred in a neighbouring state many years ago, and witnesses are now living to attest the truth of the fact. A woman, who had been for a long time labouring under a religious dejection and despondency, fell a victim to that malady : the anguish of her mind preyed upon her body and deprived it of all the exercise of its faculties. She was to appearance dead; for if a mirrour was held to her lips, it retained no evidence of respiration, the limbs were motionless and cold, and the nicest enquiry could not ascertain a single pulsation of the heart. While the body remained in this state, it was made the subject of cruel experiment. Pistols were discharged near her ears, pins thrust under her nails, and various

other modes of torture were devised to gratify inhuman curiosity, and yet no convulsion or tremor of the nerves indicated life. The woman remained in this imbecile state for the space of three weeks, and at the expiration of that term, emerging from that torpidity, gave a distinct narration of the tortures that she had suffered, and declared that at the time they were inflicted, she felt them as exquisitely as she ever could; that all her senses preserved their integrity, although deprived of abil ity to give evidence of their existence.

It seems therefore a dictate of humanity, wherever instances of sudden death occur, to wait for infalli ble evidence of dissolution, before the body is consigned to the grave. No reasonable man can doubt that instances of premature interment have happened, where the body has awakened to endure suffocation. In large and populous cities groans have been heard by the terrified watchman to issue from adjacent tombs, which he ridiculously supposed to have proceeded from disembodied spirits. On the disinterment of some bodies, they have been found in horrible and uncouth attitudes, exhib. iting alarming evidence of revival in the grave, and enduring a death more dreadful than imagination can represent. Fancy is here excluded by fact. Suppose, and it is not an improbable thought, that the mind awakens with all its functions unimpaired to contemplate the gloom of its condition, its darkness its solitude, its narrow apartment, and inevitable death, and we feel an involuntary tremor, lest such an allotment may be ours.

The moment and the mode of our parture from time into eternity, is by a benevolent Providence, for wise purposes, coricealed from our vision. Whether we ourselves are to endure

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this death is deposited amongst the other arcana of futurity. Every living man has then an interest in the decision of this inquiry; it involves a fact in which he may be a sufferer, and he owes it to himself to do all in his power to ensure security. It is hardly necessary to represent surviving sympathies, to suppose that a wife or a child, in whom our hopes of terrestrial happiness concentered, was, on a disinterment, discovered to have been buried before life had departed. We should then reproach ourselves with the thought that we had anticipated the approach of the King of Terrours and become the involuntary destroyers of a life, which we held as precious as our own.

If such premature interment was accompanied at the time with a knowledge of the fact, the laws of our country affix the brand of murder on the deed. It may be said, such instances are rare, and we hope for the honour of humanity that they are; but how is this fact susceptible of proof. Researches are seldom made amongst the repositories of the dead; but numberless instances may occur, and we remain in total ignorance of them. The usual mode of interment in the grave precludes the possibility of hope, that any exertions on the part of those thus confined could effectuate escape, or obtain assistance from others, or that surviving friends could have the most distant conception of their sufferings. Considering then how seldom a deed of this nature can be known, and yet that such have been known, does it not afford a legitimate presumption, that others, and is it too much to say many others have been committed.

The ancient mode of burning the dead and preserving their ashes, at first sounds horrible in our ears. The pain endured by a living body

under the same operation is associated with our abhorrence, and fastidiously applied to a corpse. When we come to scrutinize these feelings more nicely, we shall find them too capricious and inconstant to be denominated the natural impulses of the heart. Although it appears a sort of parricide in us to commit the lifeless body of a parent to the flames, yet we know, that by our mode of interment it must infallibly undergo a change far more offensive. This circumstance excites such horrour and disgust, that, in speaking or writing on the subject, we aban-. don the notorious fact by common consent, adopt the idea of the ancients, as the least offensive of the two, and substitute the term ashes instead of putrefaction. The following lines in Blair's poem entitled "The Grave" are subject to critical reprobation, because they are a just delineation of nature :

-"On Beauty's cheek "The high-fed worm, in lazy volumes roll'd,

"Riots unscar'd."

This we conceive to be an evidence, that a sympathy thus at war with itself, is not the product of nature, but of habit. It is a direct acknowledgment, that the ancient disposal of the dead has more delicacy than the modern, since we are compelled to resort to their mode, and to employ figuratively now, whai was a matter of fact then, before we can bear the contemplation of the thought. The ancients spake the language of truth, and our feelings attest it, when they expressed the greatest horrour and concern at the consequences of the modern mode of interment.

Achilles, anxious as he was to revenge the death of Patroclus in battle, is still restrained from indulging

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