the labour alone upon that pyramid would equal sev-| easily ascended by a winding staircase of Parian en millions three hundred thousand dollars. There marble. The height of the Washington monument have been various statements in relation to the size at Baltimore, is one hundred and fifty three feet. of these immense structures. Herodotus gives 800 feet as the height of the largest one, and says that this also is the length of its base on each side. Strabo makes it 625, Diodorus, 600 feet. French ascertained it to be 480 feet wide. The largest was built by Cheops and is supposed to contain the bones of that king.

The

The Egyptian Pyramids are quadrangular and hollow, having a broad base, contracting gradually towards the top, sometimes terminating in a point, sometimes in a plain surface. They are built of large though not very hard limestone. There are about forty of them all; these are included within the space of a few miles in the vicinity of Memphis. The group near Gizeh, is the most remarkable.

The outlines of the highest of these pyramids are given in the cut; this one is about five hundred feet high. In the centre, and next in height, is the Mausoleum near Delhi, in Hindostan, which rises two hundred and forty-two feet. Bunker Hill monument is next in height, and is intended to be two hundred and twenty feet. London monument, erected in commemoration of the celebrated gunpowder plot projected to blow up the house of parliament, is next as to height, and reaches two hundred and two feet. The leaning tower, at Pisa, in Tuscany, Italy, is the next highest of the group, and is of very great antiquity. Authorities differ as to its precise height, though it is probably about two hundred feet. Its inclination is fourteen feet from a perpendicular. It is of a cylindrical form, and consists of eight circles of columns, supporting arches, which are smaller and more numerous as you ascend. The proportions are considered very graceful. Trajan's column, at Rome, is the lowest of the group, and is one hundred and forty feet high. It was erected in honour of Trajan, one of the most worthy of the Roman emperours, to commemorate his victories over the enemies of the empire. He reigned in A. D. 90, and was a correspondent of Pliny. The column is

How small a portion of our life it is that we really enjoy. In youth, we are looking forward to things that are to come; in old age, we are looking backwards to things that are gone past; in manhood, although we appear indeed to be more occupied in things that are present, yet even that is too often absorbed in vague determinations to be vastly happy on some future day, when we have time.-Lacon.

MEMORY.

There is an isle! where ling'ring plays
The sunlight of those earlier days,
When o'er the soul's most sadden'd feeling
Some joyous future would be stealing,
And every passing moment brought

Some rapt'rous sense-some glowing thought-
Effacing that which went before,

Like waves upon the moonlight shore,
Which come and die-so quick-so bright--

That to the wilder'd brain the sight

Conveys th' idea, from this its seeming,

"Tis but the same wild wave thus beaming.

The breeze may blow, the waves may roll,

That isle is centred in the soul!

Nor tempest's chill can ever tear

The flowers which bloom for ever there.
'Tis Memory!

Moments there are !-when we must brood
O'er broken vows in solitude;

Then, who does not delight to turn

A tearful eye to Friendship's urn!

As, through the shades of Time, he traces
Those long-beloved 'familiar faces,'

Whose fond affections used to cast

A radiant halo o'er the past.

And there are hours! when earth and sky
Whisper the sad heart mournfully;
When cheerless as the winter's snow
Were life, did not that light still glow.

For, as upon the crumbling pile

The moonbeams rest with sadd'ning smile-
So, gently on the heart's decay
Will shine the pure and quiet ray

Of Memory!

The feeling tear! that crystal gem
Set in the warm heart's diadem,
Were but a cold, a senseless thing,
Did it not sparkle from the spring
Of Memory. And, dark the mind!
The senses dull! the soul confined!
Did deep Oblivion's stream surround
That little consecrated ground.
What feelings were there, then to bind
Our social hearts to human kind?
For who would idly seek to cherish
Joys that he knows must surely perish?
Like those, whose life, as many deem,
Depends upon the sunny beam,

Yet die when in their beam you've laid them,
Destroyed by the same beam that made them.
So would our joyous hours depart,
And leave no incense on the heart-
No Memory.

If there's a musick can control
The softer breathings of the soul-
Whose magick chords have power to bare
The mysteries recorded there;

It is the deep-the moral tone,

Which springs from Memory's Harp alone,
When, mingling with its solemn lays,
Are voices heard of bygone days.

As o'er the cold and icy lake

The winds of Spring their pinions shake-
Making that chilly depth to soften,
Where they have dipp'd their wings so often;
So will the heart again expand,
Touched by that sweet song from the Land

Of Memory.

The invention consists of a stock, as shown in the annexed figure, similar to that of a musket, but made of a light wood, and cut out hollow near the butt for the purpose of still farther reducing the weight.

On the upper part is a broad ring fastened with a pin. The telescope is put through this ring, and lies in the groove of the stock, being kept from slipping by the elasticity of the lining of the ring, which consists of a piece of list wrapped round it.

With the butt resting against the shoulder, and the hand applied beneath the ring as a support, the telescope may be held at least as firmly as by both hands in the usual way; and even those who have not lost an arm will find an advantage in the use of this holder, if their hands are affected with any material degree of tremour.

APPARATUS FOR DRAWING OFF WATER.

Mr. George Henekey, has invented an apparatus for drawing off water, and other liquors, from the

surface.

Water is generally drawn off from a tank or reservoir, by a cock near the bottom of one of the sides. The consequence of this is, that if part of the water be turbid, as it occupies the lower part of the reservoir, it is sure to be drawn out for use before the clear water, which lies above it.

a

In the accompanying figure, g is a flexible hose, descending to the bottom of the reservoir, and there METHOD OF COMMUNICATING FROM A STRANDED united with the discharge cock, thereby allowing no water to pass through this latter but what comes from the hose: f, is a short open pipe of thin copper, tied to the upper end of the hose: e, is a union joint, by means of which the hose is suspended to the cross bar, cd, of the float: a a, is the float, consisting of a hemispherical cap of sheet copper, the upper part of which, b, is an air-tight cavity, sufficient to buoy up both the cap and the hose. The margin of the cap is a little below the surface, h h, of the water in which it floats, so as to prevent any dust or floating particles getting access to the mouth of the hose. By this arrangement it is manifest, the water is at all

times drawn off near its surface.

Mr. Henekey imagines that the same contrivance might probably be adopted with advantage in the management of various other fluids, such as oil, of which the lighter and clearer part is more valuable than the dregs, and which are generally separated by putting the fluid into a cistern with cocks at different heights for the purpose of drawing off the upper part in proportion as it becomes clear. The ingenious inventor has applied his apparatus to a watertank with very satisfactory results.

TELESCOPE HOLDER.

Captain Lord John Hay, R. N. has lately invented a telescope holder, to enable a naval officer, like himself, who has had the misfortune to lose an arm, to take a steady hold of a telescope of the size of those in general use on board ship.

A number of ingenious persons have devised plans for carrying a line from a ship to the shore, and several curious contrivances have been made for causing the kite to drop to the ground when it has reached it. Mr. Ward, an English gentleman much interested in mechanical pursuits, has proposed the following method, wherein the kite only is used as the means of suspending and conveying a second line, and therefore admits of several trials being made with it, in case the former ones should have failed of success.

no

At some feet below the kite, Mr. Ward attaches to its string a loop, from the end of which a pulley, c, is suspended. Over this pulley is hung a second string, with a weight, d, fastened to it, the other end, b, of the string being on board the ship. When the kite has been drifted by the wind over the land, more line is given out, and the kite becomes a stationary point, from which the weight attached to the end of the line b is allowed to drop, and thus to form a communication between the ship and shore. The kite must be constructed large enough to carry, without difficulty, both the lines and the weight d; and this latter must be sufficient to overpower the weight of the line b, as well as the friction of the pulley c. Indeed, if the distance between the ship and the shore be considerable, such as four or five hundred yards, it will be prudent to give out the line b somewhat quicker than the line a, so as to keep a decided excess of weight on the land side of the pulley c. To prevent the line b from swagging, Mr. Ward recommends to attach to the kite line, two or three light metallick rings, and pass the weight line through them: this, however, would render the apparatus somewhat more complicated, and would increase the friction.

Although in the accompanying diagram the pulley

WINTER.

"This is the eldest of the seasons; he
Moves not like spring with gradual steps, nor grows
From bud to beauty, but, with all his snows,
Comes down at once in hoar antiquity."

is represented as almost close to the kite line, it is in greenhouses where they are sheltered from the to be understood that, in practice, the distance between weather, the leaves will still fall when the proper the two must be considerably increased. In an ex-season arrives. And even in this particular, the periment made by the inventor, with a kite contain-providence of God is eminently conspicuous. He ing 3 feet surface, and the weight, or bag d, weighing has wisely ordained that nothing in this earth should 4 ounces, the kite was found to fly best, when the be wasted, but that all its component parts should be line by which the pulley was suspended was ten active in producing and reproducing the necessaries yards long. The weight was raised and lowered by of our subsistence and use. Therefore when, to our means of the line b, without any difficulty, and weak judgments, it would seem that the vegetable without the least tendency in the two lines to get productions of nature have served their extreme foul of each other, or in the pulley to twist or become purpose, and that their remnants can be of no further oblique. use, and must perish for ever; yet, even then, they possess an active property, and in returning to the dust, they afford nourishment to other similar formations. So it is with the dead leaves-they fall, wither, and rot; and when rotten, they become excellent manure for the ground, and thus diffuse a vivifying essence for future plants, and for fresh leaves in due season. And this is the secret process "Now comes the season when the humble want, of Nature. Every thing becomes useful; all her And know the misery of their wretched scant: parts perform repeatedly the same offices; we conGo ye, and seek their homes, who have the power, And ease the sorrows of their trying hour."-ANON. sume, and are consumed, and nothing is lost; because all return to the general mother, Earth, and are Thus do, and enjoy the bright reward which con- again employed by her in her ceaseless_process. science and the secret pleasure of well-doing will But to return to our seasonable subject. When all infallibly afford. When the hoary winter hath bound nature is thus apparently dreary and desolate, the fast the ground, and the wretchedness of the inclem- days are too short and inclement to admit of much ent season visiteth the poor and humble, and the enjoyment in the open air; yet winter is by no churlish frost and the bitter storms prevent the labour means devoid of natural beauties, and sources of of the industrious man, and deprive his dependant gratification to man. The appearances of the season family of their accustomed pittance; then be ye, present much for his contemplative admiration. with whom the ability dwells, still found in the hab- When the eye is reluctantly opened in the morning, itations of poverty, dispensing a portion of your plen- and the warm couch is quitted by its shivering tiful substance among the poor ones of the world. tenant, what a curious spectacle is presented to his The blessing of the lowly, the cry of gratitude, and view! A rough and whitish film encrusts the winthe consolation of the righteous heart and the ap-dows; icicles of various sizes, brilliant in their plauding conscience, shall abundantly sanctify your transparency, depend from the eaves and window charitable doings; and ye may well be assured, frames, and the frosted glass seems to be graven thatwith figures and landscapes, and various indescribable "There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth; To him who gives, a blessing never ceaseth." vagaries of art. The trees, naked and bare, are encased in a glittering cuticle of frost; the lawns and The winter season is supposed to commence about the paths are smoothly spread with a snowy carpet; the second week in December, and to comprise the and the little brooks are hardened into a crystal remainder of that month, the whole of January and mass. Every thing is fixed in its frosty beauty, and February, and part of March. Its indications are a cold purity pervades the whole frame and system many, and visible. The sun gradually absents itself from us, and every thing becomes changed. The beautiful fruitfulness of the earth gives place to barren poverty and cheerlessness of appearance. The loveliness of the blossoming fruit-trees and shrubs, the variegated verdure of the meads and woods, the golden harvest fields, the umbrageous foliage of the trees, in short, all the charms of spring, and the glories of summer, and the sober radiance of autumn, have all vanished from our sight,-instead of which, one monotonous dreariness pervades the face of nature, and every thing beyond our firesides or our threshold looks sombre and repulsive.

of Nature. Winter is indeed her season of rest. During the preceding months she has diligently laboured in fulfilling the operations appointed her by the beneficent Creator, and is producing her treasures for the benefit of mankind. The spring has generated, and the summer has matured, and the autumn has yielded to the gatherer, all the genial fruits of the earth; every portion of the past season has added to our comforts and pleasures; the meadows have been clothed with verdure, the trees with blossoms, foliage, and fruit; and the fields have glowed with ripe grain; and now, exhausted by the multiplicity and extent of her exertions, Nature reposes from her One of the earliest forerunners of winter is the toil, and relaxes that she may gather strength for the universal fall of the leaf. The proud monarchs of seasonable repetition of her labours. But her repose the forest, the humble plants of the garden, and the is not absolute inactivity; she is still silently and lowly hedge bushes, all descriptions indeed of fruc-secretly preparing for another spring; the corn, which tifying nature, lose their leafy ornaments, as the the industrious farmer has providently deposited in cold season approaches, with but few exceptions. the ground, already germinates; and the fibres of Soon as the chilly frost or the cold dews invade the plants, which are hereafter to luxuriate in, and them, the vegetables are stripped of their honours, beautify our meadows and gardens, are beginning to because the cold stagnates the sap which nourishes be developed. The advantages of winter are indeed them; yet this cannot be the sole cause; for even not a few; although it is too common in this season

The length of the second's pendulum may be demonstrated to be exactly in proportion to the force of gravity at the place of observation.

to hear discontented murmurings and useless praises | The various expansion of metals, respecting which of the past seasons, and spring, summer, and autumn scarcely two pyrometers agree; the changeable nawhen they are departed, are extravagantly regretted. ture of the atmosphere; the uncertainty as to the But these are unjust in the extreme, and proceed true level of the sea; the extreme difficulty of measfrom the restless, unsatisfied temper of man, who is uring accurately the distance between the point of too apt to slight the blessings he enjoys, and pine suspension and the centre of oscillation, and even of for those he has lost, but which, when present, he finding that centre. Besides these, another source did not sufficiently value. So far, indeed, from winter of errour has been lately discovered, which seems being, as it is falsely supposed, inimical to our health to remove all hope of perfect accuracy; viz. the vaor enjoyment, it possesses considerable advantages, riety of terrestrial attraction, from which cause the and is, in fact, beneficial to us. The heat of summer motions of the pendulum are also liable to variation, and the moisture of autumn, load the air with noxious even in the same latitude. In perusing his revapours, which the frost and cold of winter disperse, searches, Captain Kater discovered that the motions whereby the air is purified, and the tendency to pu- of the pendulum are effected by the nature of the trefaction in the atmosphere, and in the humours of strata over which it vibrates. the body, which such heated vapours engender, is destroyed, and our health thereby invigorated after the lassitude produced by the warmer seasons. If the evaporations of the earth were always to descend in the form of rain, the soil would become too wet and soft, and the influence of the warm moisture would too much relax our bodies, and increase the corporeal humours. But the cold hardens and invigorates the earth, braces the human body, promotes the due circulation of the blood, and purifies it in its course, whereby the appetite is properly regulated, the spirits cheered, and the whole system healthfully maintained. Let us then never repine at the seeming discomforts of winter, since they are in fact eminently necessary to us, and to all nature-very beneficial to our health, and the cause of our due enjoyment of the pleasures and blessings of life during the other seasons. Every season has its appointed uses and advantages; and we may be well assured that no ordinance of nature is vain, or unnecessary to our welfare.

THE CYCLOID.

A Cycloid is the path which any point of a circle, moving along a plane, and round its centre, traces in the air; so that a nail on the felloe of a cart wheel moves in a cycloid, as the cart goes along, and as the wheel itself both turns round its axle, and is carried along the ground.

A body moving in a cycloid by its own weight or swing, together with some other force acting upon it, will go through all distances of the same course in exactly the same time; and, accordingly, pendulums are contrived to swing in such a manner that

they shall describe cycloids, or curves very near cycloids, and thus move in equal times, whethe: they go through a long or a short part of the curve.

Winter, too, has its amusements. No rational If a body is to descend from any one point to being need be at a loss to occupy and to enjoy every acting on it together with its own weight, the line another, not in the perpendicular, by means of some moment of his valuable, but fleeting time, in every in which it will go the quickest will be the cycloid, season. The delight and improvement to be derived from books, judiciously selected-the lasting ad- not the straight (though the last is the shortest of all vantages of acquiring knowledge-the pleasure and lines that can be drawn between two points).

TAIN MEASURE OF TIME.

benefit of social converse, where reason and information furnish an infinite fund of enjoyment-the wonders of science, and the study of nature and of THE EARTH'S ANNUAL REVOLUTION AN UNCERmen, together with the charms of many other rational amusements, which cannot here be specified, are Notwithstanding the earth's annual revolution surely available, in some degree, and must undoubt-round the sun, we cannot ascertain its real duration, edly be most gratifying to every sober mind. For for although this should continue 365 days without all these pleasures winter affords opportunity; and change, every day, every hour, and every second may we doubt not, that by pursuing some of them, or by be proportionally shorter, without our being able to blending them, young readers will, throughout the discover it. La Place computes that since the time wintry season, enjoy a constant source of happiness, of Hipparchus the year has become some few secand receive abundant advantage.

"Winter! I love thee, for thou com'st to me
Laden with joys congenial to my mind;"
Books, that with bards and solitude agree,
And all those virtues which adorn mankind."

"Although the softer beauties of the year
Are fled and gone, kind Heaven has not denied
Our books and studies, musick, conversation,
And evening parties for our recreation;
And these suffice for seasons snatched away,
Till SPRING leads forth the slowly length'ning day."

LENGTH OF THE PENDULUM.

The following are some of the difficulties that occur in ascertaining the exact length of the pendulum :

onds shorter. Possibly the change was greater at first, diminishing, as the earth's orbit approached a true circle.

GREAT WEIGHT OF THE SOLAR INHABITANTS.

As the diameter of the sun (883,000 miles) is 111 times greater than that of the earth, a body at its surface would fall through 450 feet in a second of time; so if there be any human inhabitants residing there, each individual of moderate size must weigh at least two tuns.

The bulk of the sun is 1,300,000 greater than that of the earth.

WOMEN-MARRIAGE.

to the calculation, shall have passed away, when There are those who deem political subjects be- the "great globe itself," with orbits that shall have yond the sphere of a woman's, certainly of a young been for a long time fearfully contracting, will reach woman's mind. But if our young ladies were to its goal, and be absorbed by the sun and consumed give a portion of the time and interest they expend by solar fire! Then will have arrived the awful on dress, gossip, and light reading, to the comprehension of the constitution of their country, and its consummation of that prediction-the earth "shall political institutions, would they be less interesting melt with fervent heat," the heavens depart, "as a companions, less qualified mothers, or less amiable scroll that is rolled together, and a mighty voice women? "But there are dangers in a woman's ad- proclaim, There shall be time no longer." venturing beyond her customary path." There are, and better the chance of shipwreck on a voyage of high purpose, than expend life in paddling hither and thither on a shallow stream, to no purpose at all. The Linwoods-Miss Sedgwick.

As the cause of humanity, and the advance of civilization, depend mainly on the purity of the institution of marriage, I shall not have written in vain, if I have led one mind more highly to appreciate its responsibilities, and estimate its results; its effect not only on the happiness of life, but on that portion of our nature which is destined to immortality if I persuade even one of my young countrywomen so to reverence herself, and so to estimate the social duties and ties, that she will not give her hand without her heart, nor her heart till she is quite sure of his good desert who seeks it. And, above all, I shall not have written in vain, if I save a single young creature from the barter of youth and beauty for money, the merely legal union of persons and fortunes multiplying among us, partly from wrong education, and false views of the objects of life, but chiefly from the growing imitation of the artificial and vicious society of Europe.

It is only by entering into these holy and most precious bonds, with right motives and right feelings, that licentious doctrines can be effectually overthrown, and the arguments of the more respectable advocates of the new and unscriptural doctrine of divorce can be successfully opposed.

That such will be the fate of the earth, is an old

suggestion of the astronomers. But supposing it a
fanciful one, a mere dreary chimera of an astronom-
ical imagination, we never expected to see it demon-
strated by mathematical calculation. We recollect
that one of our college friends embellished his com-
mencement address with the idea. He contrasted
human destiny with that of the ocean, and spoke thus
of the latter :-

"Fixed are the limits of his long career-
Himself to wreck and ruin is allied!-

The powers that wheel him through the changing year
In vast successive orbits round the solar sphere,"
"Shall sunward urge him to his fiery doom,

When all the countless sands of Time are run-
When Earth has faded from the nuptial bloom
With which the glory of her reign begun.
Still near and nearer, towards the central Sun,
Attraction curves them in the circling sweep
Of orbits less'ning to their final one,

And like the vessel in the Maelstroom-deep
Into the burning mass they sink to endless sleep."

Can we any longer think this prediction a mere fanciful suggestion? Are we not endangering our reputation as individuals of acute apprehension and sound judgment by doubting the truth and precision of this calculation? Do we not predict eclipses, the transits of planets, and the revolution and return of comets after their wanderings of nearly a century, with a certainty that always proves unerring? If we

We boldly then advise our young friends so far to cultivate the romance of their natures (if it be romance to value the soul and its high offices above all earthly consideration) as to eschew rich old roue bachelors, looking-out widowers with large fortunes, and idle, ignorant, young heirs; and to imitate our may judge from later manifestations, is it not believed heroine in trusting to the honourable resources of to be highly probable that a telescope might be manvirtue and talent, and a joint stock of industry and ufactured, which should bring the moon within the frugality, in a country that is sure to smile upon apparent distance of a hundred yards? Nothing these qualities, and reward them with as much worldly prosperity as is necessary to happiness, and

safe for virtue.

Southern Rose.

THE EART SHALL MELT WITH FERVENT

HEAT."

Mr. Gruithuzen, a celebrated astronomer of Munich, has been recently engaged in some novel astronomical calculations, which have led to startling results. He has announced the precise duration of the earth; the continuance and the end of Time; the years of the old, hoary headed fellow, with his rapid wings and unpitying scythe, are exactly numbered, and we can now conceive when he shall exist no longer. Just one million and fifty thousand years, according

in this age seems impossible; almost all things have ceased to be surprising. Therefore, do we deem it dangerous to doubt that any thing uncommon has happened, or that any thing extraordinary has been done. James the first, suppressed Dr. Cowell's Interpreter, because it was "too curious in its researches." "This later age and times of the world wherein we are fallen, is so much given to verbal profession, as well of religion, as of all commendable moral virtues, but wanting the actions and deeds agreeable to so specious a profession, as it hath bred such an unsatiable curiosity in many men's spirit, and such an itchingin the tongues and pens of most men, as nothing is left unsearched to the bottom both in talking and writing. For from the very highest mys