INTERESTING FACTS.

on the first conviction, a small hole was bored in the upper shell, and a cord of two or three yards THE first decked vessel ever built within the in length was attached to it, and he tethered out limits of the old United States, was construct-in a convenient place a few rods distant from the ed on the banks of the Hudson, by Adrian vegetables, and marked on his breast-plate "S. Block, in the summer of 1614. She was called H. W. 1828." The next day it was discovered a yacht, and her first voyage was made through that he had made his escape, having gnawed off Hurl Gate into the Sound, and as far east as his "tether string." A few days after this he Cape Cod, by the Vineyard passage. It was in this was again detected in the same place of his forvoyage that Block Island was first discovered. mer trespass, and to secure him from further depWithin the first forty-six years after the settlement redations, a small ring of iron wire was linked of Massachusetts, there were built in Boston and into the hole of the shell, a more substantial cord its vicinity 730 vessels, varying from six to 230 attached to it, and the prisoner again placed upon tuns in burden. One of these, the Blessing of the his tether. This, however, proved insufficient for Bay, a bark of fifty tuns, was built in 1631. his safe-keeping. The new cord was soon severThe celebrated English patriot and divine, Hughed, and the vagrant carrying off with him his iron Peters, caused a vessel of 300 tuns to be. con- ring and a small part of the cord, made his esstructed at Salem in 1641. The first schooner ever launched is said to have been built at Cape Ann in 1714. In 1713, Connecticut had but 2 brigs, 20 sloops, and a few smaller craft, employing but 120 seamen; while Massachusetts, about the same time, had 462 vessels, the tunnage of which was 25,406, and employed 3,493 seamen. The first ensign ever shown by a regular American man-of-war, was hoisted on board the frigate Alfred, in the Delaware, by the hands of Paul Jones, in the latter part of December, 1775. What this ensign was is not precisely known, as the present national colors were not formally adopted until

1777.

cape.

In June, 1829, "Monsieur Tonson came again!" and was detected in his old line of business. A trial for his crimes was instituted, the evidence against him was too clear to admit of doubt; he was found guilty, the number of peapods, cucumbers, and melons, of different kinds, which he had champed and ruined, was ascertained as nearly as might be, whereupon the court, consisting principally of the females of the family, sentenced him to be immediately put to death by decapitation. But the poor convict had one friend in the court that exerted his influence, and finally obtained a commutation of his punishment from death to transportation, without limit of time. Pursuant to this order, he was conveyed to a small pond, about a quarter of a mile from the garden, the scene of his transgressions; but not pleased with his accommodations among frogs and other creeping things, soon found his way back to his old friends and their garden. He was then carried nearly half a mile in an opposite direction, and thrown into a small muddy brook, environed with bogs and sedge-grass. In June, 1832, who should appear but our old visiter again, with his marks and iron ring? What should now be done? The majority of the court denounced him as an outThe Constellation was the first of the new built law, and utterly beyond the reach of mercy. His vessels that went to sea, under Captain Truxton. friend and advocate, however, urged in behalf of She sailed June, 1793, and was followed by the the convict that the sentence of transportation United States, and a little later, by the Constitu- was without limit of time, and assured the court tion, both these latter sailing in July the same that if a convenient opportunity should offer, he year. The first prize under our present naval would send him next to Botany Bay; but if not, organization was the French privateer La Croy- he would pledge himself to carry him to a place able. She was a schooner of 14 guns, and was so distant that little fear could be entertained of captured by the sloop-of-war Delaware, Capt. De- his returning to his old haunts. Upon these terms catur. The above historical facts we have glean-a respite was obtained, and his sponser caused ed from Mr. Cooper's excellent Naval History of the United States. Boston Morning Post.

The first regular American cruiser that went to sea was the Lexington, a little brig of 14 guns, commanded by Capt. John Barry, of Philadelphia. She sailed some time in the winter of 1775. The first American man-of-war that got to sea after the adoption of our present form of government, was the Ganges. She was originally an Indiaman, but was purchased by the government, and converted into a cruiser, having an armament of 24 guns. She sailed in May, 1798, under the command of Captain Richard Dale, who was first lieutenant of the Bon Homme Richard, when that ship captured the Serapis.

SACRIFICE OF A LAND TORTOISE.

SOMETIME in June, 1828, an animal known by that name was found in my garden, in the act of treating himself to green peas and cucumbers, among which he had feasted several days, but the trespass had been attributed to the hens and chickens. Being unwilling to put him to death

him to be transported to Suffield, and there left in
a grass-field a little north of the meetinghouse.
In June, '33, we had another family visit from our
old acquaintance. I wrapped him up in a piece of
old carpet, so that he could have no means of no-
ticing objects, carried him to Poquonoc, and threw
him into a small stream in an alder-swamp near
Rainbow Mills. But "true as the needle to the
pole," he renewed his visit in 1835; and this sum-
mer (1838) he obliged us with another call, and I
suppose is yet in my garden. He appears in fine
health, plump and lusty, but has no discernible
increase in size.
SAMUEL WOODRUFF.
Hartford Courant.

THE MINERAL KINGDOM.

PRECIOUS STONES.

AGATE.

AN ornamental stone, classed by mineralogists among the earthy minerals. The northern part of Great Britain furnishes very beautiful examples of the agate-hence their name of Scotch pebbles.

Moss Agate.

stances of a violet blue. A single specimen of the latter color, which is very rare, was sold for fifteen hundred ducats at Vienna. The topaz occurs in Europe, Asia, and America. Those found in Brazil, which are so much esteemed in commerce, are dug in the district of Villa-Rica.

JASPER.

There are five varieties of this mineral commonly found in the cabinets of collectors. Egyptian jasper, striped jasper, porcelain jasper, common jasper, and agate jasper. The first kind is found in several parts of Africa, and whatever may have been its original formation, it is now frequently discovered in detached masses imbedded in sand.

There are some fine specimens of the second kind in the Pentland Hills, near Edinburgh, and also in Germany, which is also the case with the remaining varieties; but the last is more generally found in the agates of the Lothians.

The jaspers vary considerably in their color, and also in their value, as the latter depends very much on the beauty of their teints. The red EgypThe agate is said to have derived its name from the Achates, a river in Sicily. Its chymical char- tian jasper frequently passes into flint, from which, acter is principally marked by the large quantity and inferior degree of hardness. Some of the however, it may be distinguished by its opacity of silica which it contains. The same stone some- largest and most beautiful snuff-boxes are formed times contains parts of different degrees of trans- of this mineral; so that it is common in Egypt lucency, and of various shades of color; and the for the political expectants of the pacha to calendless combinations of these produce the beau-culate the value of an appointment by the size of tiful and singular figures for which, together with the jasper-box, which are its first fruits. the high polish they are capable of receiving, agates are prized as ornamental stones. Although occasionally found in other rocks, they are most usually met with in that variety of the trap-rocks called Amygdaloid or Mandelstein, forming detached rounded nodules, not cemented to the base or mass of the rock, but easily separable from it, and having generally a thin layer of green earth interposed, and a rough, irregular exterior. In other cases the agate runs in veins for a consid

erable distance.

There are many varieties of the agate; but one of the most beautiful is the moss agate, in which jasper of various colors, as brown, yellow, and red, appears as it were, floating in a basis of chalcedony. It exactly resembles moss, and when its arborisations are distinct, it has a very beautiful appearance. The engraving above is copied from a specimen in the collection of the British Mu

seum.

THE SQUIRREL.

A LATE number of the Dublin Medical Press contains a very interesting acount of the habits of the common squirrel. The writer, evidently a highly-educated man, having procured one from a bird-fancier, and having with some difficulty succeeded in taming him, had him in his possession for nearly a year. During this period he ascertained two circumstances connected

with the natural history of these animals, viz:their hybernation, and that they are carnivorous. of these facts the first has been doubted, and the second hitherto altogether unknown. "It was not until I had this interesting creature in my possession nearly nine months," says the writer, This stone is sometimes cut into snuff-boxes that I discovered that I had previously been and ring-stones: the larger masses are hollowed entirely ignorant of, viz:-that the squirrel is in into mortars, and sometimes cut into elegant va- part, by preference, carnivorous. This from the ses. It was much prized by the ancients, who have left us several fine works of art formed of this stone. In the royal cabinet at Dresden there are some beautiful vases of agate. At Oberstein on the Rhine the amygdaloid rocks are regularly quarried for the agates they contain, and these are cut and polished, and exported to other countries. The manufacture of the agates is carried on to a very considerable extent.

TOPAZ.

A mineral which derives its name from Topazos, a small island in the Red sea. It is principally found of a wine-yellow color, but is in some in

formation of their teeth, and structure of their digestive organs, appears strange, and I should be glad to have it explained; for, although I am relating the habits of an individual, yet by subsequent, careful, and numerous experiments, I ascertained this propensity to belong to the whole tribe of British squirrels. The following is the manner in which this fact fell under my notice :About eight or nine months after I got this squirrel, I found in one of my daily walks a magpie; and, pitying the poor creature, I brought it home, having set the wings as well as I couldthat is to say, placed the edges of the bone as close to one another, and tied the injured pinion

PANACEA FOR POVERTY.

to the bird's side in as favorable a position for permitting union as I could-I placed the bird in a large wicker cage, and hung it up in the THE great calamity of the poor is not their povsame apartment with the squirrel. For the first erty, understanding this word in the usual sense, week the effect of his wound and the pain it but the tendency of their social rank, to degradaoccasioned, kept the stranger pretty silent; but tion of mind. When I compare together different as his health and spirits returned, his constant classes as existing at this moment, in the civilized cries attracted the attention of my little passion- world, I cannot think the difference between the ate favorite, who, from that moment, appeared to rich and poor, in regard to mere physical sufconceive a violent desire to reach the magpie's fering, so great as is sometimes imagined. Vastly cage. This, however, hung far beyond his more in this community die from eating too much reach, and the smoothness of the wall against than from eating too little; vastly more from exwhich it was placed presenting no facilities for cess than from starvation. So as to clothing; climbing, set the squirrel's reaching the cage many shiver from want of defences against the out of the question. His anxiety, and frequent at- cold; but there is vastly more suffering among tempts to do so, however, attracted my attention, the rich from absurd and criminal modes of dress and I at length released the object of his curios- which fashion has sanctioned, than among the ity, as I conceived it, from the cage, and suffered poor from deficiency of raiment. Our daughters them both to be at liberty in the room at once. are oftener brought to the grave by their rich atWhat was my surprise when the result was an tire than the beggars by their nakedness. So the instantaneous attack on the squirrel's part, and poor are often overworked, but they suffer less that of so fierce and determined a nature that than many of the rich who have no work to do, the magpie's death would have been a speedy no interesting object to fill up life, to satisfy the but a cruel one, had I not interfered, and for infinite craving of man for action. a second time rescued my prisoner from danger. According to our present modes of education, However, although I prevented my squirrel's indulging his taste for flesh in this instance, I procured him other birds, which he speedily despatched, and instantly devoured. They appeared in fact to be his natural prey, for, while flesh was to be got, dozens of nuts, even though ready broken for him, might be neglected at the bottom of the cage he commonly slept in; and the dexterity he showed in stripping his prey of their feathers, proved that this description of food was no novelty. I observed that his practice was to commence at the inferior portion of the trunk, neglecting the extremities until nothing else remained, and rejecting the head altogether.

After this I used to present him with butcher's meat, either raw or dressed, which he took readily, unless seasoned. Even the presence of salt was sufficient to ensure its refusal. As winter approached, I was curious to observe in what manner my little companion would be affected by the natural changes of the season: and for that purpose I never put a fire in his room; and as the season (which it will be remembered was a very cold one) advanced, he began to collect a store of nuts, and the remains of birds, in a corner of his box, as also to prepare a comfortable nest of moss, wool, &c., with which I supplied him; and one morning, on visiting him, I found him curled up, with his long tail coiled around him, cold, insensible, and to all appearance dead. In order to satisfy myself of the hybernation of squirrels, (a fact denied by some,) as well as to see whether that hybernation would be complete in a state of captivity, I suffered him to remain in the said torpid condition for nearly a fortnight; at the end of which time I removed him, cage and all, to an apartment with a good fire in it. The consequence of this was, that in a few hours he revived, and the first thing he did was to attack his hoard of provisions, which he devoured voraciously; still, however, showing a strong preference for the flesh.

how many of our daughters are victims to ennui, a misery unknown to the poor, and more intolerable than the weariness of excessive toil. It is not then the physical suffering of the poor, but their relation to the rest of society, the want of means of inward life, the degrading influence of their position to which the chief misery is to be traced. Let not the condition of the poor be spoken of as necessarily wretched. Give them the Christian spirit and they would find in their lot the chief elements of good. Nor let it be said that the poor cannot enjoy domestic happiness for want of the means of educating their children. A sound moral judgment is of more value in education than all wealth and all talent. For want of this, the children of men of genius and opulence are often the worst trained in the community. What present do civilization and science make to the poor? Strong drink, ardent spirits, liquid poison, liquid fire a type of the fire of hell.

In every poor man's neighborhood flows a Lethean stream which laps him for awhile in oblivion of all his cares and sorrows. The power of this temptation can be little understood by those whose thirst for pleasure is regularly supplied by a succession of innocent pleasures, who meet soothing and exciting objects wherever they turn. The uneducated poor, without resource in books in their families, in a well-spread board, in cheerful apartments, in places of fashionable resort, and pressed down by disappointment, debt, despondence, exhausting toils, are driven by an impulse dreadfully strong, to the haunts of intemperance; and there they plunge into a misery sorer than all the tortures invented by man. They quench the lights of reason, cast off the characteristics of humanity, blot out God's image as far as they have power, and take their place among the brutes. Terrible misery! and this comes too from the very civilization in which they live. They are victims to the progress of science and the arts; for these multiply the poison which destroys

them. They are victims to the rich; for it is the capital of the rich which erects the distilleries, and surrounds them with temptations of self-murder. They are victims to the partial advancement of society, which multiplies gratifications and allurements, without awakening proportionate moral power to withstand them.

soms:

MISSISSIPPI STEAMBOATS.

A WRITER in the Ladies' Companion for August, furnishes the following information respecting the steamboats of the Mississippi, which teresting to all, inasmuch as from it they can will be new to most of our readers and inWe are hoping to form new men and women gather a pretty correct idea of the expenses of by literature and science; but all in vain. We steamboating at the west, and the immense trav shall learn in time that moral and religious cul- el which must necessarily take place on the westture is the foundation and strength of all true cul-ern waters to maintain the enormous number of steamers which constantly float upon their botivation; that we are deforming human nature by the means relied on for its growth, and that the poor who receive a care which awakens their consciences and moral sentiments, start under happier auspices than the prosperous, who place supreme dependance on the education of the intellect and taste. It is the kind, not the extent of knowledge, by which the advancement of a human being must be measured; and that kind which alone exalts a man, is placed within the reach of all. Moral and Religious Truth-this is the treasure of the intellect, and all are poor without it. This transcends physical truth as far as heaven is lifted above the earth. Dr. Channing.

In a long and interesting article on the valley of the Allegany river, in the Pittsburgh Advocate, the lumber annually sent to market from that river above Teonista, is estimated at one hundred and thirty-five millions feet; below and including Teonista, the quantity it is said cannot be less than forty millions of feet-a total of one hundred and seventy-five millions of feet, which, at twelve dollars per M., the estimated average price, would produce two millions one hundred thousand dollars. The supply is far from being exhausted, and immense forests are yet untouched. The iron business in the valley is yet in its infancy, but still is an item not to be overlooked. There are twenty-three furnaces for the smelting of ore, and three forges for the manufacture of bar-iron; twenty-one of the former and all of the latter are in Venango county. Some of these make one thousand tuns of pig metal, per annum, and it is supposed they will average seven hundred tuns per annum, making a total of sixteen thousand tuns, which at forty dollars per tun, produces six hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

INDIANA.

A steamboat of three hundred and twenty-five tuns, costs, completely fitted out, from forty to fifty thousand dollars. A boat of this tunnage will carry five hundred tuns down stream. It will carry fifteen hundred bales of cotton on deck. From Memphis to New Orleans, the freight of cotton is two dollars per bale; from Vicksbugh and vicinity, one and a half; all points between Natchez, one dollar. The furnaces consume three to four dollars a cord are paid. The price of twenty-four cords of wood a day, for which from wood is increasing every year, and is higher in Lower than in Upper Mississippi. The charge for freight is, from New Orleans to St. Louis, on groceries and heavy articles, seventy-five cents per hundred; from New Orleans to Louisville, fifty cents. There are a great number of boats in. the latter trade, and therefore the competition is closer. The expenses, which also show the number of officers and employees of the steamer above mentioned, are as follows:Cost of the boat,

$40,000

Total amount of wages per month, $2,225 00 The daily expenses of the boat for wood are ninety-five dollars; and we have, besides, to conIr is a remarkable fact, that the farmers insider the cost of the table. There is on board fifty-eight counties in Indiana can transport their productions from their own doors by water in flat boats to market. Sixteen are bounded or intersected by the Wabash; ten by the north branch of White river; twenty by the south and its forks; fourteen by the Ohio and its little tributaries; five by lake Michigan and St. Joseph's, and others by other branches and creeks. From all parts of the state, farmers and mechanics can prepare their freight, and in the winter season float off to New Orleans or other markets, and return in season for another year's labor.

A good education is a better safe-guard for liberty than a standing army or severe laws.

every steamboat a barkeeper, who receives no wages, but pays the rent of his bar (which is an affair in the gift of the captain) by gratuitously supplying the officers, the table, and the boat's crew with spirits. The office is a profitable one. A barkeeper told me that he had taken four hundred dollars in one trip from Louisville to New Orleans. The amount of drinking on board western steamboats is enormous. Passengers are driven into the habit by mere listlessness.

Inquietness of mind cannot be prevented without first eradicating all our inclinations and passions, the winds and tides that preserve the great ocean of human life from perpetual stagnation.