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tlpsof their heels like a brace of elderly crabs. \V r ell Lord Charles, having deposited his tom noddy at the bar, struts back again to deposit the mace on the table, and again retreats as p e f ore —thus making six journies up and down the house, and occasionally six differ ent times in the course of a night. Foreigners who come into the speaker's and stranger’s galleries, and inquire all about the forms of our popular assembly, can’t un derstand the thing at all, (nor, indeed, for the matter of that, can natives either,) for it is the most incomprehensible enigma, that the bro ther of the Premier —the brother also of one of our millionaire dukes, and above all a Russell —should'perform these degrading du ties. But Lord Chartes seems to have a gen ius for the post. He looks uncommonly like a buffer in a reduced family—a little taller than Lord John, and rather better looking.— He has a decided talent for walking, or rath er moving backwards and forwards, with his heels close together; and should his commis sion-creating relatives start a dancing acade my under the sanatory act, the chances are that he’ll be made president of the fifth posi tion. • Ii AN ACUTE LADY. Lady Browne and I were as usual going to the Duchess of Montrose at seven o’clock.— The evening was very dark. In the close lane under the park-pale, and within twenty yards of the gate, a black figure pushed by between the chaise and the heuge on my side. I suspected it was a highwayman ; and so I found did Lady Browne, for she was speak ing and stopped. To divert her fears, I was just going to say, “Is not that the apotheca ry going to the duchess'?” when I heard a voice cry, “ Stop !” and then the figure came back to the chaise. I had the presence of mind, before 1 let down the glass, to take.out my watch and stuff it within my waistcoat under my arm. He said, “Your purses and watches'?” I replied, “I have no watch.” “Then your purse.” I gave it to him; it had nine guineas. It was so dark that I could not see his hand, but felt him take it. He then asked for Lady Browne’s purse, and said, “ Don’t be frightened ; I will not hurt you.” I said, “No, you won’t frighten the lady.” He replied, “No, I give you my word I will do you no hurt.” Lady Browne gave him her purse, and was going to add her watch ; but he said, “lam much obliged to you ; I wish you good night!” pulled off his hat, and rode away. “ Well, said I, La dy Browne, you will not be afraid of being robbed another time, for you see there is nothing in it. “ Oil! but I am,” said she ; “ and now I am in terror lest he should re turn, for I have given him a purse with only bad money, that I carry on purpose.” — Hor ace Walpole. A MUSICAL HORSE. A correspondent of the Providence , ( R . I.) Journal furnishes the following interesting account of a musical horse: “A physician called daily to visit a pa tient opposite to my place of residence. We had a piano in the room on the street, on which a young lady daily practised for sev eral hours in the morning. The weather was warm and the windows were open, and the moment the horse caught the sound of the piano, he would wheel about, cross the street, place himself as near the window as possi ble, and there, with ears erect, and eyes di lating, would he quietly stand and listen till his owner came for him. This was his dai ly practice. Sometimesthe young lady would stop playing when the doctor drove up. The horse would then remain quietly in his place but the first stroke of a key would arrest his attention, and half a dozen notes would in variably call him across the street, I wit nessed the effect several times. One other remarkable circumstance was, that the doc tor was a very worthy and prominent mem ber of the society of Friends.' 1 ' 1 DEACONS OF THE OLD SCHOOL. In the days of Bailie Nichol Jarvie's fath er, the office of Deacon was esteemed no mean distinction. Two worthy incumbents, pot far from the town of Ayr, happened to be invested with the above-named dignity on the same day. The more youthful of the two ffew home to tell what an important prop of the civil edifice he had been allowed to be come, and searching the “hut and the ben” in vain, run out to the brye, where, meeting the cow, he could no longer contain his joy, but in the fullness of his heart clasped her around the neck, and it is even said, kissed her, exclaiming, “O, Crummie, Crummie, ye’re nae longer a common cow, ye’re the deacon's cow!” © © HJI? S3 Hi IE El Ba QIFS B A ©A&IE IT ITS ♦ The elder civic dignitary was a sedate, pious person, and felt rather blate” in show ing to his wife that he was uplifted above this world’s honors. As he thought, howev er, it was too good a piece of news to allow her to remain ignorant of, he lifted the latch of his own door, and stretching his head in wards, “Nelly!” said he, in a voice that made Nelly all ears and eyes, “Giff anybody comes spirein’ for 1 the deacon,’ I’m just owre the gate at John Thompson’s!” fHjilosopljg for tljc People. THE BAROMETER. It has been already explained, that in the same state of the atmosphere the height of the mercury in the barometer will be different, according to the elevation of the place in which the barometer is situated. Thus two barometers, one near the level of the Hudson and the other on the heights of West Point, ■will differ by half an inch ; the latter being half an inch lower than the former. If the words, therefore, engraved upon the plates, are to be relied upon, similar changesof wea ther could never happen at these two situa tions. But what is even more absurd, such a scale would inform us that the weather at the’topof a high building, such as Trinity Church, New York, must always be different from the weather in Wall street, at its foot. The variation in the altitude of the barom eter in a given place, together with the cor responding vicissitudes of the w T eather, have been regularly recorded for very long periods. It is only by the exact comparison of such results, that any general rule can be found. The rules best established by such observa tions are far from being either general or cer tain. It is observed that the changes of wea ther are indicated, not by the actual height of the mercury, but by its change of height. One of the most general, though not abso lutely invariable rules is, that when the mer cury is very low, and therefore the atmos phere very light, high winds and storms may be expected. The following rules may generally be re lied upon, at least to a certain extent: 1. Generally the rising of the mercury in dicates the approach of fair weather; the falling of it shows the approach of foul wea ther. 2. In sultry weather, the fall of the mercu ry indicates coming thunder. In winter, the rise of the mercury indicates frost. In frost, its fall indicates thaw; and its rise indicates snow. 3. Whatever change of weather suddenly follows a change in the barometer, may be expected to last but a short time. Thus, if fair weather follow immediately the rise of the mercury, th*re will be but very little of it; and in tne same way, if foul weather fol low the fall of ’he mercury, it will last but a short time. 4. If fair weather continue for several days, during which the mercury continually falls, a long succession of foul weather will pioba bly ensue ; and, again, if loul weather con tinue for several days, while the mercury continually rises, a long succession of fair weather will probably succeed. 5. A fluctuating and unsettled state in the mercurial column, indicates changeable wea ther. The domestic barometer would become a much more useful instrument, if, instead of the words usually engraved on the plate, a short list of the best established rules, such as the above, accompanied it, which might be either engraved on the plate, or printed on a card. It would he right, however, to express the rules only with that degree of probability which observation of past phenomena has justified. There is no r<*ile respecting these effects, which will hold good with perfect certainty in every case. — Dr. Lardncr's Lec tures. THE ATMOSPHERE AND VEGETA TION. “The atmosphere supplies the vegetable creation with the principal part of its food: plants extract inorganic substances from the ground, which are indispensable to bring them to maturity. The black and brown mould which is so abundant, is the produce of de cayed vegetables. When the autumnal leaves —the spoil of the summer—fall to the ground, and their vitality is gone, ihey enter into com bination with the oxygen of the atmosphere, and convert it into an equal volume of car bonic acid gas, which consequently exists abundantly in every good soil, and is the most important part of the food of vegetables. This process is slow, and stops as soon as the air in the soil is exhausted; hut the plough, by loosening the earth, and permitting the at mosphere to enter more freely, and penetrate deeper into the ground, accelerates the de composition of the vegetable matter, and con sequently the formation of carbonic acid. In loosening and refining the mould, the common earth-worm is the fellow-laborer with man— it eats earth, and, after extracting the nutri tious part, ejects the refuse, which is the finest soil, and maybe seen lying in heaps at the mouth of its burrow. So instrumental is this reptile in preparing the ground, that it is said there is not a particle of the finer vege table mould that has not passed through the intestines of the worm ; thus the most feeble of living creatures is employed by Providence to accomplish the most important ends. The food of the vegetable creation consists of car bon, hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen, all of which plants obtain entirely from the atmo sphere, in the form of carbonic acid gas, wa ter and ammonia. They imbibe these three substances, and, after having decomposed them, they give back the oxygen to the air, and consolidate the carbon, water and nitro gen into wood, leaves, flowers, fruit, etc. “When a seed is thrown into the ground, the vital principle is developed by heat and moisture, and part of the substance of the seed is formed into roots, which suck up wa ter mixed with carbonic acid from the soil, decompose it, and consolidate the carbon.— In this stage of their growth, plants derive their whole sustenance from the ground. As soon, however, as the sugar and mucilage of the seed appear .above the ground, in the form of leaves or shoots, they absorb and de compose the carbonic acid of the atmosphere, retain the carbon for their food, and give out the oxygen in the day, and pure carbonic ac id in the night. In proportion as plants grow, they derive more of their food from the air and less from the soil, till their fruit is ripen ed, and then their whole nourishment is de rived from the atmosphere. Trees are fed from the air, after their fruit is ripe, till their leaves fall; annuals, till they die. Air-plants derive all their food from the atmosphere. •‘ln northern and mean latitudes, winter is a time of complete rest to the vegetable world, and in tropical climates the vigor of vegeta tion is suspended during the dry, hot season, to be resumed at the return of the periodical rains. Almost all plants sleep during the night: some show it in their leaves, others in their blossom. The mimosa tribe not only close their leaves at night, hut their foot stalks droop; in a clover field, not a leaf opens till after sun-rise. The common daisy is a fa miliar instance of a sleeping flower; it shuts up its blossom in the evening, and opens its white and crimson tipped star, the ‘day’s eye,’ to meet the early beams of the morning sun ; and then also 1 winking Mary-buds be gin to ope their golden eyes.’ The crocus, tulip, convolvulus, and many others, close their blossoms at different hours towards eve ning, some to open them again, others, never. The condrille of the walls opens at eight in the morning, and closes for ever at four in the afternoon. Some plants seem to be wide awake all night, and to give out their per fume then only, or at nightfall. Many of the jessamines are most fragrant during the twilight; the olea fragrans, the daphne ado rata, and the night stock, reserve their sweet ness for the midnight hour, and the night flowering cereus turns night intoday. It be gins to expand its magnificent sweet-scented blossoms in the twilight, it is full blown at midnight, and closes, never to open again, with the dawn of day: these are ‘the bats and owls of the vegetable kingdom.’”— Mrs. Somerville's Physical Geography. Animai. Life. —The length of an animal’s life is sometimes proportioned to the duration of the vegetable that nourishes it. A number of caterpillars come into life, and die with the leaves on which they feed. There are in sects that exist only five hours —such as the ephemera. This pecies of fly, about half the size of the littie finger, is produced from a flu viatic worm, that is found at the mouths of rivers, particularly at the water’s edge, in the mud, where it digs for its subsistence. — This worm lives three years; at the end of this period, about Midsummer-day, it changes almost suddenly into a fly, which appears in the world at six o’clock in the evening, and dies at eleven at night. The Secret of Chinese Carving. —The means by which the concentric balls which come from China can be carved one within the other, has long been matter of dispute.— No joining is to be discovered, but a recent traveller states positively that each ball is constructed of two pieces, the edges of which so finely scraped down, that the edge of one hemisphere is made to overlap its coun terpart with the greatest nicety. Thus one ball is easily enclosed within another. The joinings are then united by a peculiarly strong cement, aided by the employment of steam and pressure. He said that any one who wishes to make the expensive trial, will soon ascertain the fact by applying a very powerful heat to one of these balls, which will open at the joints in due time. — The Builder. <EI)c tUorkinfli Ulan. THE BEST FORM FOR STRENGTH. From experiments, it has been deduced that the strength of any material depends chiefly on its depth, or on that dimension which is in the direction of its strain. A bar of tim ber one inch in breadth, and two inches in depth, is four times as strong as a bar of only one inch deep; and it is twice as strong as a bar two inches broad and one deep—that is, a joint or lever is always strongest when laid on its edge. Hence it follows, that the strong est joist that can be cut out of a round tree is not the one which has the greatest quantity of timber in it, but such that the product of its breadth by the square of its depth shall be the greatest possible. Again, from the same experiments it is found, that a hollow tube is stronger than a solid rod containing the same amount of matter. This property of hollow tubes is also accompanied with greater stiffness. Hence we find the bones ot men and animals are formed hollow, which renders them incomparably stronger and stiff er, gives more room for the insertion of mus cles, and makes them lighter and more agile than if they were constructed of solid matter. In like manner the bones of birds, which are thinner than those of other animals, and the quills in their wings, acquire by their thin ness the strength which is necessary, while they are so light a9 to give sufficient buoy ancy to the animal in its flight to the aerial region. Our engineers and carpenters have* of late, begun to imitate nature in this res pect, and now make axles and many other parts of machinery hollow. Nature is the best rule to guide the me chanic and engineer in selecting the best forms to combine strength with lightness of material. Wooden Gunpowder. —From sundry re cent experiments, the fact is established that fine saw-dust or rasped wood, steeped in a mix ture of concentrated sulphuric and nitric acids, and afterwards washed and dried, will explode similar to common gunpowder, and, if rightly managed, with much greater force. The great est wonder about it is, that the fact had not been discovered earlier. Daniel’s Patent Planing Machine.— We are confident that it is not generally known among our mechanics, who are engaged in the various branches of wood-work, that good Pla ning Machines can be had for a very small sum, which would be a great saving to them both in time and money. There have been so many law-suits and difficulties about machines for planing wood, that there seems to be a gen eral fear of using them, though evidently at a great sacrifice of interest. There is one Pa tent for a Planing Machine, however, which w* know to be free from all these troubles. We allude to Daniel’s invention, and we would re commend its general use throughout the coun try, for it is one of the greatest labor-saving inventions in existence. We are the more cer tain that our remarks in this particular are correct, because we have one of these machines in our possession for sale, and have tested it by the most thorough trial, and a minute exami nation of its parts. The machine we have for sale is a noble one, and will last many years. Attached to a saw-mill, or in a carpenter’s shop, a lufnber-yard, or wherever planing is required, it can be used to great advantage.— Scientific American. Golden Yellow. —M. Guimet gives the following receipt for making a yellow color, of a golden tint, much more intense than the well known Naples yellow. Take of antino ndate of potassa (carefully washed) one part, and of minium two parts, grind and mix them well into a paste ; then dry the paste and re duce it to a powder; and, lastly, expose ths powder for four or five hours to a rod heat, ta- I king care not to raise the temperature so high j as to disengage the oxygen from the lead *ni antimony. . Bells.— The nearer bells are hung to the surface of the other thing 9 being equal, the farther tlrey can be heard. Franklin has remarked, that many years ago the inhabitants of Philadelphia had a bell imported from Eng land. In order to judge of the sound, it was elevated on a triangle, in a street of the city* and struck, us it happened, on a market day, when the pc ;Je, coming to market, were sur prised on hearing the sound of a bell at a greater bstance from the city than they had i ever l ptu .1 ;.nv hell before. The circumstance 261