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ful event, a traveller gives the following very interesting description.] The summer of 1806 had been very rainy, and on the 1st and 2d September it rained incessantly. New crevices were observed in the flank of the mountain; a sort of crackling noise was heard internally; stones started out of the ground; detached fragments of rocks rolled down the mountain. At two o'clock in the afternoon on the 2d of September, a large rock became loose, and in falling raised a cloud of black dust. Towards the lower part of the mountain the ground seemed pressed down from above; and, when a stick or a spade was driven in, it moved of itself. A man, who had been digging in his garden, ran away from fright at these extraordinary appearances.

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a fissure, larger than all the others, was observed; in sensibly it increased. Springs of water ceased all at once to flow; the pine-trees of the forest absolutely reeled; birds flew away screaming. A few minutes before five o'clock, the symptoms of some mighty catasstrophe became still stronger; the whole surface of the mountain seemed to glide down, but so slowly as to afford time to the inhabitants to go away. An old man, who had often predicted some such disaster, was quietly smoking his pipe, when told by a young man running by, that the mountain was in the act of falling. He rose and looked out, but came into his house again, saying he had time to fill another pipe. The young man, continuing to fly, was thrown down several times, and escaped with difficulty. Looking back, he saw the house carried off all at once.-Another inhabitant, being alarmed, took two of his children, and ran away with them, calling to his wife to follow with the third; but she went in for another, who still remained, Marianne aged five. Just then Francisca Ulrich, their servant, was crossing the room with this Marianne, whom she held by the hand, and saw her mistress. At that instant, as Francisca afterwards said, "The house appeared to be torn from its foundation (it was of wood), and round and round like a tetotum: I was sometimes on my head, sometimes on my feet, in total darkness, and violently separated from the child." When the motion stopped, she found herself jammed in on all

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sides, with head downwards, much bruised, and in extreme pain. She supposed she was buried alive, at a great depth. With much difficulty she disengaged her right hand, and wiped the blood from her eyes. Presently she heard the faint moans of Marianne, and called to her by her name. The child answered that she was on her back, among stones and bushes, which she held fast; but that her hands were free, and that she saw the light, and even something green. She asked whether people would not soon come to take them out. Francisca answered that it was the day of judgment, and that no one was left to help them, but that they would be released by death, and be happy in heaven. They prayed together. At last Francisca's ear was struck by the sound of a bell, which she knew to be that of Stenenberg. Then seven o'clock struck in another village, and she began to hope there were still liv. ing beings, and endeavoured to comfort the child. The poor little girl was at first clamorous for her supper, but her cries soon became fainter, and at last quite died away. Francisca, still with her head downwards, and surrounded with damp earth, experienced a sense of cold in her feet almost insupportable. After prodigious ef forts, she succeeded in disengaging her legs, and thinks this saved her life. Many hours had passed in this situation, when she again heard the voice of Marianne, who had been asleep, and now renewed her lamentations. In the mean time, the unfortunate father, who with much difficulty had saved himself and two children, wandered about till daylight, when he came among the ruins to look for the rest of his family. He soon discovered his wife, by afoot which appeared above ground. She was dead, with a child in her arms. His cries, and the noise he made in digging, were heard by Marianne, who called out. She was extricated with a broken thigh; and, saying that Francisca was not far off, a further search led to her release also, but in such a state that her life was despaired of. She was blind for some days, and remained subject to convulsive fits of terror. It appeared that the house, or themselves at least, had been carried down about 1500 feet from where it stood before. In another place, a child two

years old was found unhurt, lying on its straw mattress upon the mud, without any vestige of the house, from which he had, been separated. Such a mass of earth and stone rushed at once into the Lake of Lowertz, although five miles distant, that one end of it was filled up; and a prodigious wave passing completely over the island of Schwanaw, seventy feet above the usual level of the water, overwhelmed the opposite shore, and, as it returned, swept away into the lake many houses with their inhabitants. Simond.

MR JAMES FERGUSON'S ACCOUNT OF HIMSELF.

I was born in the year 1710, a few miles from Keith, a little village in Banffshire in the north of Scotland, and can with pleasure say that my parents, though poor, were religious and honest; lived in good repute with all who knew them; and died with good characters. As my father had nothing to support a large family, but his daily labour, and the profits arising from a few acres of land which he rented, it was not to be expected, that he could bestow much on the education of his children; yet they were not neglected; for, at his leisure hours, he taught them to read and write. And it was while he was teaching my elder brother to read the Scotch Catechism, that I acquired my reading. Ashamed to ask my father to instruct me, I used, when he and my brother were abroad, to take the catechism and study the lesson, which he had been teaching my brother; and, when any difficulty occurred, I went to a neighbouring old woman, who gave me such help, as enabled me to read tolerably well, before my father had thought of teaching me. Some time after, he was agreeably surprised to find me reading by myself; he thereupon gave me further instruction, and also taught me to write, which, with about three months I afterwards had at the grammar-school at Keith, was all the education I ever received.—My taste for mechanics arose from an odd accident. When about seven or eight years of age, a part of the roof of the house being decayed,my father, desirous of mending it, applied aprop

and lever to an upright spar, to raise it to its former situation; and, to my great astonishment, I saw him, without considering the reason, lift up the ponderous roof as if it had been a small weight. I attributed this, at first, to a degree of strength, that excited my terror, as well as wonder; but, thinking further of the matter, I recollected that he had applied his strength to that end of the lever which was farthest from the prop; and finding, on inquiry, that this was the means, whereby the seeming wonder was effected, I began making levers (which I then called bars), and, by applying weights to them different ways, I found the power, gained by my bar, was just in proportion to the lengths of the different parts of the bar, on either side of the prop. I then thought it was a great pity, that, by means of this bar, a weight could be raised but a very little way. On this, I soon imagined that, by pulling round a wheel, the weight might be raised to any height, by tying a rope to the weight, and winding the rope round the axle of the wheel; and that the power gained must be just as great, as the wheel was broader than the axle was thick; and found it to be exactly so, by hanging one weight to a rope put round the wheel, and another to the rope that coiled round the axle; so that, in these two machines, it appeared very plain, that their advantage was as great, as the space gone through by the working power exceeded the space gone through by the weight; and this property, I also thought, must take place in a wedge for cleaving wood: but then I happened not to think of the screw. By means of a turninglathe, which my father had, and sometimes used, and a little knife, I was enabled to make wheels, and other things necessary for my purpose. I then wrote a short account of these machines, and sketched out figures of them with a pen, imagining it to be the first treatise of the kind, that ever was written; but found my mistake, when I afterwards showed it to a gentleman, who told me that these things were known long before, and showed me a printed book, in which they were treated of: and I was much pleased, when I found that my account (so far as I had carried it) agreed with the principles of mechanics in the book he showed me. -But as my father could not afford to maintain me,

while I was in pursuit only of these matters, and I was rather too young and weak for hard labour, he put me out to a neighbour to keep sheep, which I continued to do for some years; and in that time, I began to study the stars in the night. In the daytime, I amused myself by making models of mills, spinning-wheels, and such other things as I happened to see. I then went to servea considerable farmer in the neighbourhood, whose name was James Glashan. I found him very kind and indulgent; but he soon observed, that, when my work was over, I went into a field, with a blanket about me, lay down on my back, and stretched a thread with small beads upon it, at arm's length, between my eye and the stars, sliding the beads upon it, till they hid such and such stars from my eye, in order to take their apparent distances from one another, and then laying the thread down on a paper, I marked the stars thereon by the beads, according to their respective positions, having a candle by me. My master at first laughed at me, but, when I explained my meaning to him, he encouraged me to go on; and, that I might make fair copies in the daytime, of what I had done in the night, he often worked for me himself. I shall always have a respect for the memory of that man.-One day he happened to send me with a message to the Reverend Mr John Gilchrist, minister at Keith, to whom I had been known from my childhood. I carried my star-papers, to show them to him, and found him looking over a large parcel of maps, which I surveyed with great pleasure, as they were the first I had ever seen. He then told me that the earth is round like a ball, and explained the map of it to me. I requested him to lend me that map, to take a copy of it in the evenings. He cheerfully consented to this, giving me, at the same time, a pair of compasses, a ruler, pens, ink, and paper: and dismissed me with an injunction, not to neglect my master's business by copying the map, which I might keep as long as I pleased. For this pleasant employment my master gave me more time, than I could reasonably expect; and often took the thrashing-flail out of my hands, and worked himself, while I sat by him in the barn, busy with my compasses, ruler, and pen.

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