after them. All Almost on the instant, a sledge | reached it after four hours' further march, but was prepared, and the strongest of the three [To be continued.] COTTON IN AFRICA. The In his recent message, President Benson says to the Legislature of Liberia: "It is an unquestionable fact that our interior. tribes manufacture hundreds of thousands of domestic cloths annually, which must consume several million pounds of raw cotton. Thousands of these cloths, through much difficulty, find their way down to the seaboard annually; but if the communication was kept open, and they could be assured of a safe transit, and were encouraged by discreet and influential agents to increased cultivation of that useful article, in a very few years millions of pounds would be brought down annually and exported, as also would other valuable commodities find their way down. Gentlemen, you will perhaps pardon me for being so sanguine and apparently enthusiastic on this subject, when I inform you that I can well remember when not a thousand gallons of palm oil were to be bought annually on the entire line of coast (four hundred miles) between Cape Sebar and Cape Palmas, but by encouragement it bas long since increased to an annual exportation of H From Chambers' Journal. CALIFORNIA GIANTS. If all England have not heard of the Mammoth tree which has of late been exhibited to admiring crowds in London and elsewhere, it is no fault of the newspapers, nor of that numerous band of literary filibusters who are always ready to fight under any banner, and for any captain, if he can only pay them. But all England has not yet heard of the particular place whence the monster came, and will therefore perhaps be willing to read something brief there upon. Imagining ourselves for a moment to be in California, in Calaveras county, we follow the course of an affluent of the Stanislas, which winds serpentlike, and with many an eddy, along one of the valleys that penetrate the Sierra Nevada; and at about fifteen miles from Murphy's, we come to a circular basin sequestered among the hills. Its diameter may be a mile, and its elevation from 4000 to 5000 feet above the sealevel. Here we find ourselves in presence of the giants-real giants of the vegetable kingdom, such as we should never have expected to see in these post-diluvian days. Not without emotion, and a profound sense of admiration, do we gaze upon them. The wind blows cold, and the heights around are covered with snow; but we heed not the blast; the snow brings out the trees in better relief; the sight repays us for all our fatigue, and makes us forget the wearisome return-journey yet to be encountered. It is not an every-day occurrence to stand under the shadow of trees that began to grow about the time that Hannibal was marching victorious upon Rome, and were still in their infancy at the birth of Christianity. What changes have come over the world-how many empires have risen and fallen since first their branches waved in the breeze! There they stand, ninety of them, living witnesses of a past far more remote than the earliest dawn of American tradition. The smallest of these giants is fifteen feet in diameter. They occupy an extent of about fifty acres in the basin above mentioned, where they tower above all others of their species. The tall trees among the latter appear dwarfs in comparison. Long fringes and festoons of yellow moss and lichen hang around their proud trunks; and a parasite growing from their roots-a kind of hypopithys-shoots its graceful stems, adorned with bractea and rose-colored flowers, to a height of ten feet. The place has thus the double charm of beauty and magnificence. It will be understood, of course, that the giants here spoken of are pine-trees. The tops of many are broken and mutilated by the weight of the snow which in winter accumulates on their terminal branches; and some have been injured at the base by the camp-fires of Indians. A few have been so deeply hollowed by repeated burning, that a whole family might lodge with all their household gear in the blackened excavations. The bark generally is marked by deep longitudinal furrows, presenting the appearance of pillars or fluted columns. One has been stripped of its bark to a height of 100 feet; and a spiral row of pegs driven in, forms a not very safe means of ascent around the bare portion, yet the tree flourishes above as vigorously as ever. The proprietor of the neighboring tavern conducts his guests to the site of these prodigies of vegetation, and tells their names-he in most instances having been sole sponsor. First he calls attention to the Big Tree, which is, or rather was, 95 feet in circumference, and 300 feet high; for now it lies prostrate, a monarch pulled down by the hands of republicans. Five men were employed for twenty-five days in felling it. They drew a line all round seven feet from the ground, and along this they bored holes close together to the very centre of the stem with an enormous auger, so that the tree losing its equilibrium, at last fell with a shock that echoed like thunder among the hills. Three weeks more were spent in stripping off the bark for a length of 52 feet only and now the king of the forest has one side flattened to be used as a "bowling alley." To be told that a wagon and horses could travel easily along the overthrown stem, excites no surprise when we know that its diameter at the thickest end is 23 feet seven inches, without reckoning the bark, which would be about three feet more. The stump has also been turned to account; its upper surface is smoothed and polished, and supports a pavilion in which visitors may sit and contemplate the scene around. Having satisfied our curiosity with regard to the Big Tree, we are next conducted to the Miner's cabin, which stands 300 feet high, and is 80 feet in circumference; to the Old Bachelor, the same height, but 20 feet less in girth; the Hermit, so named from standing a little apart from the rest, a handsome fellow, with one side of his trunk scorched, containing, however, according to the calculation of a knowing "lumber-merchant," 725,000 feet of timber. Then we have the Husband and Wife, not more than 250 feet high, leaning towards each other at the summit; and the Three Sisters, growing apparently from the same root-a remarkably fine group. They are all 300 feet high, and 92 in girth; and the midle one has not a branch below 200 feet. Further on, the Mother and Son attract attention-the lady being 325 feet high, and the youth 300; perhaps he has not done growing. In girth they are both alike-93 feet. Then the Siamese Twins and their Guardian; the Old Maid, like the Bachelor, isolated; but her head is bald; and the Bride of California, the Beauty of the Forest, Mister Shelby, and Uncle Tom's Cabin. This latter has a hollow at the bottom of the trunk large enough to seat twentyfive persons, to which you enter through a gap 10 feet high and 2 feet wide. The Horseback Ride is an old hollow trunk fallen down, in whichvisitors may ride on horseback. The Family Group, however, must not be passed over in silence; it comprises twenty-six trees, among which are seen father, mother, and twenty-four children. The father lost his perpendicular years ago, and fell down, and yet he is 110 feet in circumference at his base; he was, as is supposed, when in his prime, 450 feet high. The portion which remains is hollow throughout, and partly buried in the soil, while from underneath bursts a perennial spring, which it covered in its fall. The mother is 327 feet high, and 91 in girth; the children are not quite so large. The Americans, in their fondness for "tall" nomenclature, call these fifty acres of trees the Mammoth Grove. As regards a distinctive botanical term, this colossal species is known by various names: Taxodium sempervirens, Sequoia gigantea, Wellingtonia gigantea, Washingtonia, and others. The last two are modern designations; the second, having been assigned by Endlicher in his Synopsis Coniferarum, should be regarded as definitive. The wood is of a reddish color, and appears to be more elastic than any other yet known. It has, moreover, the property of not splitting in the sun, and is but little liable to decay; the branches are short, and the foliage similar to that of the juniper. It is considered remarkable that so large a tree should bear such small spines, and cones no bigger than a hen's egg. Why these trees should be confined to this particular spot, is a question often asked; but the fact is, they are found in other parts of the Sierra Nevada, particularly in the pass leading to Carson Valley, though not in such numbers or of so great dimensions. The difference is charged to the destructive propensities of the Indians. THE DAY IS DONE. BY H. W. LONGFELLOW. The day is done, and the darkness I see the lights of the village Gleam through the rain and mist, And a feeling of sadness comes o'er me, A feeling of sadness and longing, As the mist resembles the rain. Come, read to me some poem, Not from the grand old masters, Through the corridors of Time. Whose songs gushed from his heart, Such songs have power to quiet The restless pulse of care, That follows after prayer. And lend to the rhyme of the poet The beauty of thy voice. And the night shall be filled with music, TRANSITORY THINGS. If thou hast ever felt that all on earth In faith on Him, and thou shalt never find From the Pennsylvania Inquirer. persons recollect the fearful ravages, by cholera, in the Arch Street Prison (1832.) It broke out VENTILATION, FURNACES, AND SICKNESS. Mr. Editor:-In your paper of Tuesday last on the Sunday morning. Nearly one hundred was an article about the fearful increase of Scar- persons were attacked, but before night seventy let Fever, &c., that the number of deaths from had died. The prisoners were removed, and Not more that disease in Philadelphia, last week, was fifty- few, if any, died from that cause. seven, and that some of our most distinguished absolutely does the stomach require, at due inphysicians have, of late, paid considerable atten- tervals, a regular supply of food, than do the tion to the subject; but thus far it should seem lungs need, all the time, a fresh supply of oxygen. but with little advantage, &c. By inquiry, they Both are equally necessary to the performance Without the due prowill find that there are few cases of fever in of the vital functions. summer, compared with winter, and one of the vision of both, health cannot be preserved ́nor principal reasons is an entire want of ventilation life maintained. But as some stomachs can much in most of our dwellings, especially in sleeping longer than others sustain the privation of food, apartments; and more so since the introduction so the lungs of particular individuals are more of furnaces for warming dwellings exclusively, capable than others of continuing to inhale a deand the entire abolition of open fires, grates, &c. teriorated atmosphere. Dr. Ure says that the Ventilation is a matter entirely overlooked in the great principle of ventilation, is never to present construction of buildings, and yet it is one of the same portion of air to the lungs twice over, the most important for health. The positive, for that to do so, predisposes the system to disas well as the negative, effects of breathing un- ease, and no one is free from danger in setting renewed air, can hardly be better illustrated than or sleeping in unventilated apartments. During by the well known case described by Howard, the years of 1855 and 1856, I visited the Hosin his work on Lazarettos, of the imprisonment pitals in France, Naples, Rome, Ancona, Trieste, of one hundred and forty-six captives in the Vienna, Prague, Leipsic, Dresden, Berlin, Black Hole of Calcutta. When the prisoners Munich, Paris, London, Edinburgh, Dublin, and had remained there ten hours, but twenty-six the different provinces, and in many of them I were found alive, and most of the others suffered found little or no arrangement for ventilation, with malignant fevers. Another case among but wherever attention was paid to ventilation, the less delicate organization of the inferior there was a marked difference in the looks of the animals may be mentioned. Not long since, patients. The most deplorable lot of miserables the Managers of the Zoological Gardens of I saw, was at Ancona, on the Adriatic, and London caused to be erected a large new habita- Heidleburgh on the Rhine, and from inquiry, tion for Jocko, closed every where with glass, the patients were dying daily, I should say from and warmed with furnaces. Into this well im- poison. I have no doubt, from nearly 35 years' agined structure sixty healthy monkeys were experience that the present mode of warming put, and for a day or two there was fine fun; buildings of any size by hot air furnaces, is the ever introduced. Years ago, but poor Jocko could not stand it. They began greatest curse to sicken, and at the end of four weeks, but ten persons if they had a furnace put up in a dwellof the sixty were alive, when the cause was found ing, could never think of giving up open fire out, and the building ventilated. By removing places for wood or grates. These afforded good part of the glass covering, the monkey's recovered, ventilators. Now a house is warmed, and not a and became perfectly healthy. From the Re- fire place in one half the houses to be found, not gister of an extensive Hospital at Dublin, it ap- even for a sick chamber. In the few houses pears that, by means of a thorough ventilation in this city, where they still have open fire places, alone, the proportion of deaths among patients burning wood and coal, you will not find the inof the same description was at once reduced from mates complaining of loss of appetite, fulness in one in six to one in twenty. So, too, it is agreed the head, nausea, cold feet, loss of sleep, and among all medical writers, that the higher rate, many other evils which will be the case as long among women than among men, of deaths by as buildings are unventilated. Many persons pulmonary consumption, must be ascribed to the are led to the conclusion, that in order to free more in door life prevalent among the women. a room of its foul air, it is sufficient to make an The difference has been found in Massachusetts, opening in the ceiling, for the vitiated air, beby a Register kept there in 1845-46, to amounting heated, will ascend. An opening of this to sixty-three per cent. in favor of the male sex. (See Dr. Jarvis' Physiology.) Some two or three years since, there was scarcely an emigrant ship that arrived at any of our ports, but had more or less deaths, and in some cases a fearful waste of life by fevers. As soon as a law was passed obliging the owners of emigrant ships to ventilate their vessels this evil was abated. Many kind will accomplish but little, its effects depending on the relative and constantly varying condition of the air within and without. Most of those patent ventilators, except in certain kinds, are useless, depending in some degree, where they are placed on roofs, &c. The principles of ventilation are very simple; millions of dollars have been expended in the different mines in Europe in trying experiments, and now the matter is so simplified, that a small fire will expel the foul air; even a steam jet or a body of grates will effect what machinery failed to do. I have a letter, an official one, given me at the House of Commons, London, last year, by the gentleman having charge of the building, stating that there was expended by Dr. Reid, Barry, Stevenson and others, £282,000 (pounds, not dollars.) The further they went, the worse they got. There were two steam engines, twelve horse power, one of twenty to drive fans, one of which was thirty feet diameter. The whole of this costly affair is abandoned and taken out of the building, and an apparatus costing £6000 answers a better purpose. The plan is that of ventilating the deep mines in Cornwall. Once more at the great fair in London, 1850, there were a number of furnaces, stoves, &c., exhibited there, and this led many persons to adopt that mode of warming houses, and the iron men did a rushing business in making them for their customers, but the furnaces made but a short run. John Bull found he was retrograding, losing his appetite, head bad, and fifty complaints. The stove and furnaces went down quicker than they went up, and they returned to their open coal fire, and Johnny became in a good humor, and doctors less feed. Now I wish you to understand I do not condemn furnaces, if properly put up in connection with perfect ventilation, and for a perfect ventilation there should be just as much air passing through the room in midwinter as midsummer, and when this is done you will find no more fever in winter than in summer. Very respectfully, JOHN SKIRVING. The Austrian government are about despatching one of their vessels, the "Novara," for a scientific expedition around the globe, an undertaking which excites much remark in Austria, and causes the Augsburger to wish that one or two frigates might be attached to the expedition in order to make an impression on the Chinese and Japanese, and perhaps gain from them similar commercial privileges to those already conceded to the United States and England. This, it is thought, would be more desirable, in view of the opening of the canal of Suez, aud would be even more readily granted by the Chinese and Japanese to an unpretending maritime power, like Austria, than to their grasping and formidable brethren of England and America. Sandwich Islands will furnish most interesting examples of active volcanoes. The geologist and zoologist of the expedition are respectively Messrs. Hochsteter and Frauenfield. The department of commercial economy, history, and ethnography belongs to Dr. Scherzer, who enjoys at present a great reputation in Austria for his accurate knowledge of the modern languages and literature, his experience of the world, and his prepossessing manners and address. The Augburger Gazette concludes by hoping that many other distinguished savans of the nations will attach themselves to the expedition, and ventures the assurance that any such would be warmly welcomed by the Austrian government.-N. Y. Evening Post. CHILDREN, BE PROMPT. Never say, when told to do anything, "In a minute," or "by and by." This leads to a bad habit, which, if not overcome, will prevent all confidence in you as you grow up. You will then put off duties you owe to your neighbor in the same way, and lose his confidence. Many men lose the respect of their neighbors, not so much because they mean to do wrong, as through carelessness. "By-and-by," and "To-morrow," have ruined thousands, robbed them of their character, and made them anything but blessings in a neighborhood. Little confidence can be placed in their word, not because they mean to tell falsehoods, but because of their carelessness. No obligation is fulfiled when it should be. And it is sometimes so in their own affairs. They lose days and weeks because business is not attended to when it ought to be. A tool is lost, because not promptly put back when done with. Fulfil promptly every promise made. Put off not an hour. PHILADELPHIA MARKETS. FLOUR AND MEAL.-The market for Flour is still dull. Good is offered at $6 25. Sales of better brands for home consumption at $6 37 a 6 44, and extra and fancy brands at $6 62 a 8 25. There is very litle export demand. Rye Flour is worth $375 per barrel. Corn Meal dull, at $3 00 per bbl. for fresh ground. Sales of prime Pennsylvania red are making at $1 45 a 1 46 and $1 60 a 1 62 for good white. Rye is inactive; sales of Penna. at 81c. Corn sells at 60 a 65c. GRAIN. Wheat is dull, and prices favor buyers. ENESEE VALLEY BOARDING SCHOOL FOR commence on the 2d of 3d mo. next, and continue fourteen weeks. TERMS.-$12 per term for tuition, board and washfuel, pens and inks, for particulars address the Principal for a circular. STEPHEN COX, Principal. Scottsville P. O., Monroe Co., N. Y. While, however, as the expedition at presenting, stands, politico-commercial ends are not to be overlooked, great attention is to be paid to scientific research in the rich fields offered by the islands of the East Indian Ocean. The Nicobar Islands are to be examined with an eye to geology; the zoologists, ethnographists, and botanists are to revel in the treasures of Borneo, Celebes, and the Moluccas; while the Philippines and Friend desirous Green desi ous of open Meeting, Fallsington, may hear of a desirable situation by applying previous to the 15th of next month. THWAITE, Jr., or MARK PALMER, Fallsington P. O., For further particulars address either WM. SATTERBucks Co., Pa. 1st mo. 10, 1857. |