not discouraged by the apparent difficulty of reconciling the statements of the ancient writers concerning the temple of Belus, with the situation of this ruin on the western bank, and its distance from the river and the other ruins. That this difficulty is not insuperable has been shown by the writer of the article "Babylon," in the " Penny Cyclopedia ;" and without giving any decided opinion, we cannot but subscribe to the view that the Birs Nemroud must probably be identified with the tower in question, if the latter is to be identified at all.

tense vitrifying heat to which the summit has most evidently been subjected, he has no doubt that the fire acted from above, and was probably lightning. The circumstance is certainly remarkable in connexion with the tradition that the original tower of Babel was rent and overthrown by fire from heaven. Porter thinks that the works of the Babylonish kings concealed for awhile the marks of the original devastation; and that now the destructions of time and of man have reduced it to nearly the same condition in which it appeared after the Confusion. At any rate it cannot now be seen without recollecting the emphatick prophecy of Jeremiah (ch. li. 25 :) "I will stretch out mine hand upon thee, and roll thee down from the rocks, and will make thee a burnt mountain."

SUPPOSED ANCIENT STATE OF THE NORTH
AMERICAN CONTINENT.

We give Mr. Rich's description, referring to Sir R. K. Porter for a more detailed account. "The Birs Nemroud is a mound of an oblong form, the total circumference of which is seven hundred and sixty-two yards. At the eastern side it is cloven by a deep furrow, and is not more than fifty or sixty feet high; but on the western side it rises in a conical figure to the elevation of one hundred and ninety-eight feet, and on its summit is a solid pile of brick, thirty-seven feet high by twenty-eight in breadth, diminishing in thickness to the top, which THERE was read, at a recent sitting of the Geois broken and irregular, and rent by a large fissure logical Society, a paper "On the supposed ancient extending through a third of its height. It is per- state of the North American continent, especially on forated by small square holes, disposed in rhomboids. the extent of an inland sea by which a great porThe fire-burnt bricks of which it is built have in- tion of its surface is conjectured to have been cov scriptions on them; and so excellent is the ce- ered, and on the evidence of progressive drainage ment, which appears to be lime-mortar, that it is of the waters," by Mr. Roy. The author of this nearly impossible to extract one whole. The other communication, having been employed in extensive parts of the summit of this hill are occupied by im- surveys, especially in the lake districts of North mense fragments of brick-work, of no determinate America, found, on drawing out sections for profesfigure, tumbled together, and converted into solid sional purposes, that the country every where exhib vitrified masses, as if they had undergone the action ited successive ridges, which encircled the lakes; of the fiercest fire, or had been blown up with gun- and, upon comparing sections to the north of Lake powder, the layers of brick being perfectly discern- Ontario with others to the south, that the ridges exible." "These ruins," continues Mr. Rich, "stand actly corresponded in elevation. The highest of on a prodigious mound, the whole of which is itself these ridges is two hundred and ninety-six feet in ruins, channelled by the weather and strewed above the level of the sea, or seven hundred and with fragments of black stone, sandstone, and mar-sixty-two feet above that of Lake Ontario; and conble. In the eastern part, layers of unburnt brick, necting this elevation with the physical features of but no reeds, were discernible in any part: possibly the great valleys of the Mississippi and Missouri, the absence of them here, when they are so general- Mr. Roy supposes that the whole of the area ly seen under similar circumstances, may be an bounded on the west by the Rocky mountains, argument of the inferiour antiquity of the building. from the table land of Mexico to the parallel of forIn the north side may be seen traces of building ex-ty-seven degrees of latitude-on the north by the actly similar to the brick pile. At the foot of the mound a step may be traced scarcely elevated above the plain, exceeding in extent by several feet each way the true or measured base; and there is a quadrangular inclosure around the whole, as at the Mujelibe, but much more distinct and of greater dimensions."

barrier separating the headwaters of the lakes from those of the northern rivers, and extending to Cape Tourmanti, below Quebec-and on the east by hills stretching through the United States to the gulf of Mexico, forming one vast inland sea, occupying nine hundred and sixty thousand square miles. Having given the extreme height and supposed extent of the sea, the memoir proceeded to show by what progressive operations the author considers that the boundaries were broken through and the waters drained, till they were reduced to the detached basins forming the Canadian lakes. These details, however, cannot be understood without the aid of diagrams.

It may be observed that the grand dimensions of both the Birs and the Mujelibe correspond very well with that of the tower of Belus, the circumference of which, if we take the stadium at five hundred feet, was two thousand feet; that of the Birs is two thousand two hundred and eighty-six, and that of the Mujelibe two thousand one hundred and eleven, which in both instances is a remarkable approximation, affording no greater difference than is easily accounted for by our ignorance of the exact proportion of the stadium and by the enlargement which the base must have undergone by the crumbling of the materials. Sir R. K. Porter seems to show that three, and part of the fourth, of the original eight stages of the tower may be traced in the existing ruin of Birs Nemroud; and, with regard to the in-honesties.

We never yet knew a man disposed to scorn the humble who was not himself a fair object of scorn to the humblest. A man of a liberal mind has a reverence for the little pride that seasons every condition. and would deem it sacrilege to affront, or abate, the respect which is maintained with none of the adventitious aids, and solely by the observance of the

which produces fruits in great abundance, brings with it a variety of diseases: this season was represented by that venomous animal the Scorpion who wounds with the sting in his tail as he recedes. The fall of the leaf was the season for hunting, and the stars which marked the sun's path at this time were represented by a huntsman or Archer, with his arrows and weapons of destruction.

The Goat, which delights in climbing and ascending some mountain or precipice, is the emblem of the winter solstice, when the sun begins to ascend from the southern tropick, and gradually to increase in height for the ensuing half year.

Aquarius, or the water-bearer, is represented by the figure of a man pouring out water from an urn, an emblem of the dreary and uncomfortable season of winter. The last of the zodiacal constellations was Pisces, or a couple of fishes tied back to back, representing the fishing season. When the severity of the winter is over, the fields do not afford sustenance, but the seas and rivers are open and abound with fish.

The Chaldeans and Egyptians were the original inventors of astronomy, and they registered the events in their history, and the mysteries of their religion among the stars by emblematical figures. The Greeks displaced many of the Chaldean constellations, and placed such images as had reference to their own history in their room. The same method was followed by the Romans: hence the accounts given of the signs of the zodiac and of the constellations are contradictory and involved in fable.

AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES.

ings which our forefathers endured will be the page of history. But this can never so vividly realize to our minds the thrilling scenes of Indian days through which they passed, as to look on the very buildings in which they defended themselves from the attacks, and to see the very prints of the tomahawks of the savage foe. We therefore hope that measures may be taken to preserve this old fort from ruin, that we may still point to it as a relick of the first settlement.

All that relates to the first settlement of the country is interesting, and still more so the facts connected with the history of the aborigines before the discovery, a race that inhabited this land, hundreds and thousands of years ago. It is stated that an old burying ground has been found in White county Tennessee, near the town of Sparta, in which numerous skeletons are found from seven to nine feet long, deposited in coffins of stone. These coffins too, are covered with various hieroglyphicks and inscriptions, which the learned have not yet been able to translate. They are generally very imperfect, and the lines can scarcely be decyphered. In the same neighbourhood are said to be found also three burying grounds, containing skeletons buried in the same manner, only nineteen inches long. One of them had ninety-four pearl beads around the neck. The graves are about two feet deep. Of these last, Jefferson speaks, in his "Notes on Virginia," which state, at the time he wrote, enclosed in its boundaries all the territory of what is now Tennessee. Mr. Jefferson does not however, say "stone coffins," but that the graves themselves were enclosed with slabs of stone, two at the sides, about twenty-four inches in length; two at each end about one foot long, and one at the bottom and top. The skeletons are found about two feet below the surface of the ground and their remarkable preservation is attributed to the saline qualities of the earth in which they are deposited, being near the salt works of that state.

THE NOBLE SAILOR.-MRS. SIGOURNEY.

in New York, December, 16th 1835.]

It was a fearful night,

The strong flame fiercely sped,
From street to street, from spire to spire,
And on their treasures fed;
Hark! 'tis a mother's cry,

High o'er the tumult wild,

As rushing toward her flame-wrapt home,
She shriek'd-" My child! my child!"
A wanderer from the sea,

A stranger mark'd her wo,
And in his generous bosom woke
The sympathetick glow.

NEAR the cove at the mouth of West river, in Vt. are what are termed the "Marked Rocks." They are so called from being covered with curious and antique hieroglyphicks. In this vicinity, two human skeletons were lately found by Mr. Hollan Pettes, while he was ploughing. One was considera- [The occurrence here related took place during the great conflagration bly decayed, and the other in a remarkable state of preservation. The latter is now in the possession of Dr. Gilbert, of Brattleboro'. The beautiful valley of Connecticut was a favourite haunt of the Indians-the rich meadows yielding a crop of corn with little labour, and the river and its tributaries, and the woods which skirted them, furnishing him with plenty of fish and game, and many Indian implements have been found in that neighborhood, particularly upon what is called the "Dummer farm." It was there that the first settlement was made in Vermont, and near there still stands Fort Dummer, one of the most interesting relicks of Indian days, now extant in that region. From this fort Mrs. How was carried captive by the savages, to Canada. The story is familiar to most readers, and especially to all those who received the rudiments of their education while the old "American Preceptor" was the principal reading book in the New England schools, in which the account is given at length. A worthy descendant and namesake of the heroine of the story occupies the fort as a dwelling. The fort is fast decaying, and all the interesting and venerable relicks of days of yore will soon fall away and the only memento of the hardships and sufferVOL. II.-54

Swift up the burning stairs
With darting feet he flew,
While sable clouds of stifling smoke
Concealed him from the view.

Fast fell the blazing beams
Across his dangerous road,
Till the far chamber where he grop'd
Like fiery oven glow'd.
But what a pealing shout!

When from the wreck he came
And in his arms a smiling babe,
Still toying with the flame.
The mother's raptur'd tears
Forth like a torrent sped

Yet ere the throng could learn his name,
That noble tar had fled.
Not for the praise of man
Hid he this deed of love,
But on a bright, unfading page,
'Tis register'd above.

METEOROLOGICAL SKETCHES:

BY AN OBSERVER.
(Concluded from page 74.)

WATER-SPOUTS AND WHIRLWINDS. The character of these meteors has already been described in a measure, in our account of hail and thunder-storms. The identity of whirlwinds and water-spouts, was maintained by Franklin, and although at a later period this has been called in question, it appears to have been done without sufficient reason.

From the equal distribution of the atmosphere as the oceanic envelope of our earth, it results that no movement of great violence can take place in any of its parts, except by means of a direct circuit of rotation in the form of a vortex or active whirlwind.

A vortex will not be regularly formed, nor continue itself in action, without the aid of an external propelling force and a constant spiral discharge from that extremity of its axis towards which is the tendency of motion. Both these conditions, it is believed, are fulfilled to the letter in the case of a common whirlwind or water-spout. The air at the upper extremity of the whirling column, owing to its elevation, is rarer than at the base, and the column itself, particularly in its central portions, is mechanically rarefied by the centrifugal effect of its own whirling motion. We have thus a sort of rarefied chimney into which the denser air at the base of the column is continually forced, by the pressure of the surrounding atmosphere; not to ascend in a separate current as in the common chimney, but entering into the organization of the whirling vortex, to supply the place of the preceding portions of air which are winding inwards and upwards to be again discharged at the upper extremity. The condition of force by which the propulsion is maintained, is found in the pressure of the surrounding atmosphere upon all sides of the mechanically rarefied column, and if the expansive whirling motion be sufficiently active to produce nearly a vacuum at the centre, the external propelling force will be nearly fifteen pounds to the square inch; and as the whirling column turns within its own compass like a top or any other rotative body, this force is quite sufficient to account for all the violence that is ever produced.

Were there no vorticular or whirling action already excited, and no discharge from the upper extremity of the vortex, the external pressure could not produce continued rotation; but this movement and upward discharge having once commenced, from any cause, the particles near the exterior of the column, like those of water in a funnel, yield at a little more than a right angle, to the external pressure, in their spirally approximating course towards the rarefied centre. By the slowness of this central approximation as compared with the whirling action, the intensity or magnitude of the external pressure becomes gradually merged in the velocity of the rotative action. As the area of the spiral circuit decreases rapidly as we approach the centre, it follows that the velocity of the whirling movement must be proportionably increased, as we perceive it to be in the funnel and in all regular formed vortices. Thus, if the rotative velocity near the exterior of a whirling column be at the rate of but ten miles an hour, at one third nearer the centre the

velocity must be more than doubled, and at two thirds of the distance from the first named point to the centre, the absolute whirling velocity must be increased nine fold, which in this case is equal to ninety miles an hour; and in consequence of the reduced diameter of the circuit of gyration at the last point, the number of revolutions must here be as four hundred, to one at the point first mentioned. The increased ascending velocity, however, is not here taken into account, which may perhaps reduce the number of comparative revolutions in the central portions of the column. The extraordinary condensing and electric effects which often attend or follow these active whirlwinds, have been cursorily noticed under the head of thunder-storms.

It is not intended to dwell here upon the causes by which whirlwinds and spouts are excited or first set in motion, but local disturbances in a heated stratum, at the points where the same is beginning to be penetrated by the colder air of a higher stratum, are probably the chief exciting causes, as in thunder-storms. The agency of heat may also be effective in continuing the upward discharge and vorticular organization, in cases where there is great disparity in the temperatures of the air at the upper and lower extremities of the whirling mass or column, but it is to the mechanical expansion caused by the centrifugal action and the powerful impulse of the external atmospheric pressure, that the increased and powerful activity of the whirlwind is chiefly to be referred.

The term water-spout is undoubtedly a misnomer, as there is no effect produced of which this term is properly descriptive, although the term air-spout would not be greatly inappropriate. The visible column of condensed vapour which often appears in the rarefied centre of the vortex when the latter is not enveloped in cloud, has probably given name to this meteor. But the water of the sea is not taken up by the spout or whirlwind, except in a slight degree and in the form of fine spray, like other light matter which is swept from the surface. This cloudy stem or column frequently appears and disappears, while the action of the whirlwind continues without any important change. Owing to this fact, observers sometimes believe that they witness the commencement of a water-spout, or tornado, when the same has previously been in action for one or more hours, and when the cloudy pipe or pillar happens to disappear, the spout is supposed to have 'burst,' while, often, it has undergone no important change, except, perhaps, a slight decrease in its activity. The active and violent portion of the whirlwind surrounds the spout invisibly, and is probably of much greater diameter at a distance from the surface of the earth than at the base of the spout. Thus, when a spout or whirlwind has passed near a ship, the upper spars have been converted into wreck while no violence of wind was felt on the deck.

Water-spouts follow the course either of the surface wind or of the higher current with which they may communicate, or their course may be modified by both these influences without being absolutely determined by either. They abound most, however, in those calm regions which are found at the external limits of the trade winds, and in the regions near the equator.

It has been common to ascribe whirlwinds and water-spouts, as well as larger whirlwind storms, to