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1817.

Indian corn (maize) has fairly silked, and
the farina on the blossom is matured, dust
a small portion of ground plaister on the
tufts of silk. There ought to be no wind,
and perhaps the advantage would be
greater if applied while the dew was on
in the morning. The gentleman stated
that whenever this had been practised the
cobs were crowded with grains to the
very extremity. He likewise observed
that advantage had also been obtained by
dusting the blossoms of potatoes. Per-
haps the same process would be advanta-
geous on the blows of melons, cucumbers,
squashes, pumpions, and even peas and
beans."

I am apprehensive of some mistake in this matter, as nothing has come to my knowledge on the subject since cutting out the above paragraph from the newspaper, in 1812; but if the fact should be so, it is of some moment to agriculture and the sciences to diffuse the information; and it is with a view of soliciting a knowledge of what has been done by those who have made experiments, that I have offered these observations on the subject. If g f gypsum fails of fertilizing the earth on the sea coast, from chemical changes with sea salt, the same effect must take place when it is sprinkled on the blossom or mingled with the dew; for it is well known that dew contains much earthy and saline particles in solution, and is generally more impure than rain; and from experiments which I have made on rain-water, it appears impregnated with salt, and other impurities, at all seasons of the year, in and about NewYork. Hence, if gypsun will fertilize, as above applied in a sea atmosphere, chemists should know it-and this information is to be derived from practical far

mers.

SAMUEL AKERLY.

Further evidence to prove the existence of
the Kraken, in the ocean, and tending to
show that this huge creature is a species
of Sepia or Squid. Being three several
communications of facts, made to Dr.
Mitchill, by William Lee, Esq. Capt.
Riley, and Capt. Neville, in September,
1817, communicated by Dr. Mitchill.
(See our Magazine for JUNE, p. 124,
for Capt. Fanning's Narrative.)
Copy of a letter addressed to Dr. Mitch-
ill, by our late Consul at Bordeaux, now
in the treasury departinent, Wm. Lee,
Esq.

"Washington, Sept. 2, 1817.

"My dear sir, The description given in our newspapers of a Sea-serpent, lately seen for

several days in and about Cape Ann harbour, has brought to my recollection one of this species.

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"On a passage I made from Quebec, in 1787, in a schooner of about eighty tons burden, while standing in for the Gut of Canso, the island of Cape Breton being about four leagues distant, one of the crew cried out, A shoal a-head!'-— The helm was instantly put down to tack ship, when to our great astonishment, this shoal, as we thought it to be, moved off, and as it passed athwart the bow of our vessel, we discovered it to be an enormous Sea-serpent, four times as long as the schooner. Its back was of a dark green colour, forming above the water a number of little hillocks, resembling a chain of hogsheads. I was then but a lad, and being much terrified, ran below until the monster was at some distance from us. I did not see his head distinctly; but those who did, after I had hid myself in the cabin, said it was as large as the small boat of the schooner. I recollect the tremendous ripple and noise he made in the water, as he went off from us, which I compared at the time to that occasioned by the launching of a ship.

of.

"My venerable friend, Mr. your city, was a passenger with me at the time. He will corroborate this statement and probably furnish you with a better description of this monster; for I well recollect his taking his stand at the bow of the vessel, with great courage, to examine it, while the other passengers were intent only on their own safety.

"At Halifax, and on my return to Boston, when frequently describing this monster, I was laughed at so immoderately that I found it necessary to remain silent on the subject, to escape the imputation of using a traveller's privilege of dealing in the marvellons."

On the evening of September 9, capi, James Riley was at my house, and said that he knew capt. Folger, of Nantucket, who was occupied on a whaling voyage in the southern Atlantic Ocean, about 20 years ago. On the cruise, he saw an animal of uncommon size, floating on the sea, off the coast of Brazil. Capt. F. then commanded a very large French built ship, and the floating carcass was four or five times as long as his vessel. It attracted the spermaceti whales, who came to feed upon it, and had eaten away great portions of the flesh. He visited the huge body of the creature, and satisfied himself that it was an enormous craken. He hauled all his boats upon it, and his men ascended it and lived upon it as if it had

been a rock or island. They remained on it and near it for the purpose of killing the whales that came to devour it. In this, they were so successful, that by continuing there they took whales enough to load their vessel and complete her cargo. The back of the kraken was high and dry enough for them to inhabit temporarily, and to look out for their game. And when from this point of observation they discovered a whale coming to make a meal, they launched their boats from the top of the dead kraken, and made an easy prey of him. The substance of the monster's body was skinny, membranous and gelatinous, and destitute of the fat and blubber for which the whale is remarkable.

Captain Neville, being on a voyage from London to Archangel, in the year 1803, saw floating on the ocean in about the latitude of 68, a mass of solid matter of a dirty whitish colour, which when he descried it, and for some time after, was believed to be an island of ice. On approaching it, however, he ascertained it to be an animal substance of an irregular figure, as if lacerated, decayed, and eaten

away.

The remnant of the carcass was nevertheless full as large as the brig in which he sailed; whose capacity was one humdred and eighty-nine tons, and length seventy feet.

This enormous body was the food of animals both of the air and of the water. For, as he sailed within a few rods of it, he saw great numbers of gulls and other sea-fowls, sitting on it and flying over it; those which were full, retiring, and the hungry winging their way to it for a repast. He also beheld several cetaceous creatures swimming round it; some of them were whales of a prodigious magnitude, exceeding the vessel in length. Others were smaller and seemed to belong to the grampus and porpoise tribe. He considered them all as regaling themselves with its flesh.

Near one extremity of this carcass, he distinguished an appendage or arm hanging down into the water, which from his acquaintance with the sepia, he concluded to be that of a squid; being probably the only one left after the rest had putrified or been devoured.

Such was likewise the opinion of a navigator of much experience and long observation in the scenery of the north Atlantic then on board; who remarked that the corrupting lump was intolerably fetid and offensive to man; and would, if the brig was suffered to run against it, impregnate her with foulness and stench for

the whole voyage. She was accordingly kept to windward for the purpose of avoiding it; but the smell was, notwithstanding, extremely nauseous and disgusting.

On conversing with mariners in the White Sea, such occurrences were spoken of by them, as too common to excite much attention or any doubt..

Afterwards, while at Drontheim in Norway, capt. N. discoursed with practical men concerning things of this kind. The prevailing idea was, that such drifting lumps were by no means uncommon: that they were bodies or fragments of huge squids; that these were sometimes borne away by the Maelstrom current, and ingulphed and dashed to pieces by its whirlpools; and thus these broken trunks and limbs sometimes cast on shore and sometimes tossed about on the sea.

It is supposed that squids and whales inhabit the same tracts of ocean; because the former furnishes food for the latter, at least for the cachalats, orco, and other toothed and voracious species.

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We have lately had two or three new and important operations. About a week since, Mr. Cooper tied the aorta just above its bifurcation, in a man who was labouring under an immense aneurismal tumour of the left external iliac artery. The aneurism was too high and large to admit either of the external or common iliac being secured, and as the sac had sloughed and hæmorrhage hađ begun, it was thought justifiable to pass a ligature around the aorta itself. It was a dangerous, but it was a dernier resort. An incision was made three or four inches long, through the parietes of the abdomen, on the left side of the umbilicus; the intestines were pushed aside, and the vessel detached from the surrounding parts and membranes by the fore finger of the right hand, which was kept under the artery till the common aneurismal needle was introduced, when one ligature was applied. The ends of the ligature were brought out at the external wound, the integuments were placed in contact, and then secured by a quill suture.

Previously to the operation an attempt

was made to suppress the hæmorrhage by pressing on the abdomen, but this failed. The operation did not produce any extraordinary pain. The man lived two days after it-on dissection it appeared that no part of the intestines, and no veins had been included in the ligature. The aorta had been rendered completely impervious by it-there was no evidence of peritoneal inflammation, and nothing, besides the aneurismal tumour, appeared unnatural within the cavity of the abdomen. It may be proposed as a question, what was the immediate cause of the man's death? Mr. Cooper suggested no explanation. The patient seemed in tolerable good health previous to the operation. I do not know how we shall account for his sinking so suddenly, unless we call in the aid of the old doctrine of sympathy. According to that, the general system received so violent a shock from the operation, that it was unable to rally its vital forces; it made an attempt at resistance, but finding itself unequal to the task, it sunk under the effort.

By the same reasoning we explain why there were no appearances of peritoneal inflammation; the constitution was so paralized, that it could not react, it could not exert sufficient power to institute an inflammatory process.

Though this experiment has failed, yet as a fact, it is very interesting in a surgieal and physiological point of view. It shows that the vessel can be tied in the living body-and what is curious, that little alteration was made in the pulse at the wrist, by thus cutting off the circulation from the inferior half of the system. It might have been conjectured, that symptoms of congestion in the head and breast would have arisen, but none such occurred. The most prominent change produced was a pain in the abdomen, which the patient compared to a sensa tion of burning lead being in his belly. The artery was tied in the evening at 10, and this pain had chiefly subsided the next morning. But I will not be longer tedious in the detail of the case; you will probably soon see the particulars pubished in a more interesting form.

I cannot forbear mentioning to you another surgical operation, which, though old in its form, is new in its application. Mr. C tied the femoral artery in the usual place, in a boy affected with the disease commonly called the Barbadoes leg. His object here was to lessen, suddenly, the quantity of arterial circulation in the Limb, and thus to give the absorbents an VOL. I. NO. VI.

opportunity of removing the secreted
matter, faster than it could be deposited
by the arteries. He had been induced
to believe, from observing the languor of
the circulation in the leg, after the ope
ration for poplitial aneurism, that in the
present instance, it would be so long be
fore the circulation would be completely
restored by anastomosis, that the absor-
bents, having the balance of action in
their favour, would not only maintain it,
so as to remove the present enlargement,
but also, to prevent any future accumu-
lation. When the operation was per-
formed the right leg was ten inches larger
in circumference than the left. In about
a fortnight afterwards, it had become
diminished to nearly the same size with
the healthy limb. This was very grati
fying to Mr. Cooper; the absorbents had
performed the labour he had projected
for them-they had removed the ori-
ginal deposition; it remained now to be
proved, that they could prevent any
future enlargement. The boy was dis
charged from the hospital, and in about a ·
month he returned with his leg as large as
it had been before. This sequel had been
anticipated by some, but the prospect of
introducing a useful improvement seemed
to Mr. Cooper sufficiently encouraging to
make the attempt. I admire his enter-
prise; it bears him along to the noblest
achievements; he is not retarded by the
obstacles which dishearten and disarm
common men: Even in his failures I sec
a grandeur of design, which marks the
greatness of his character; they seem to
arise out of circumstances which no hu
man power can either prevent or con-
trol. I shall leave London with regret.
that I lose forever afterwards the instruc
tion of so great a man.

With sentiments of respect and esteem,
I remain truly yours,

JAMES KENT PLATT.

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were as follows. The palsy had incapacitated the plaintiff for the grocery business, in which he was engaged, and his wife had by her industrious management of it, acquired four hundred and seventy dollars. The defendant, who was well acquainted with the plaintiff, and informed that his wife had that amount of money in her possession, advised her not to part with it until he should point out a person to whom it might be safely intrust ed, and at the same time cautioned her never to deposite money in any of the banks, as there was not one of them good for any thing On the 23d of February, 1816, the defendant came with Wooster to the wife of the plaintiff, and advised her to loan Wooster that amount. Wooster was at this time an utter stranger to the plaintiff and his family. The defendant received the money, and Wooster gave his note with Grimshaw's endorsement at 60 days. It appeared that the defendant and Wooster were confederated for this kind of deception, and had successfully practised it on several occasions-that Wooster, though at that time possessed of a considerable stock of crockery, was in bad credit, and that before he failed in July following, had confessed a judgment in favour of the defendant for eight thousand dollars, under which the defendant sold and appropriated to his use all the property at that time in the possession of Wooster.

Wilkins objected among other things that all evidence of fraudulent representation was met and rebutted by the fact, that the defendant endorsed the note of

Wooster, and thereby made himself liable for the amount, and therefore the suit ought to have been brought against hima as endorser of the same.

Price contended that the objection was not placed upon the ground on which the plaintiff was entitled to recover. Deceit and damage were the foundation of this action, and if the plaintiff had sustained a loss by this false representation of the defendant, it was immaterial by whom the note was endorsed. Inquiries as to the credit of third persons were frequently made with confidence in the veracity, rather than the pecuniary circumstances of the informant ; and if a man not worth a cent should be inquired of as to the insolvency of his neighbour, his worthless liability for the amount, could never excuse a misrepresentation made with the intent and effect of prejudicing another.

The Court charged the jury, that if they were of opinion that the defendant knowing Wooster to be insolvent, represented him to be a man of good credit, and the plaintiff advanced and lost his money by means of such representation, there could be no doubt of the plaintiff's right to recover. In a community like ours, it was all important to restrain and punish all fraudulent designs on the fair dealer. From all the evidence, he had no doubt that Grimshaw knew the circumstances of Wooster to be desperate--that he misrepresented them to the plaintiff and that Wooster thus obtained the money in question.

The Jury immediately gave a verdict for the plaintiff for $522 26.

ART. 7. ORIGINAL BIOGRAPHY.

Biographical Memoir of the late Solomon Schaeffer, Pastor of the Evangelical Laviheras Church in Hagerstown, State of Maryland.

[CONCLUDED.]

TH THE ministrations of Mr. S. were eminently blessed to the congregations under his care, and obviously contributed to the increase of the spiritual family of Christ. Great numbers were annually added to the church, and confessedly not without advancement in the heavenly life. By these means the congregations were in an increasing and flourishing state. Notwithstanding this well known and acknowledged truth, some of the clerical brethren, as well as others, still upbraided him for preaching în the English language. But he was sup

ported by a consciousness of rectitude, and a persuasion that he was in the path of duty; and was thereby at no loss for a reply.

He urged in substance: "that the Gospel was calculated to benefit mankind at large; that the word of God was not to be bound to any tongue or people. Jesus Christ commissioned his disciples to preach the Gospel to every kindred, and nation. Do we not, said he, celebrate in our Church the great miracle on the day of Pentecost, when the Lord poured out his Spirit upon the Apostles, and gaye

1817.

them power to speak in various tongues? They were thus endowed, and immediately fitted to disseminate evangelical truths among all nations; and beginning at Jerusalem, they proceeded to found the Christian Church in every quarter of the habitable globe. Had they pertinaciously adhered to the ungenerous sentiment which some would now exalt into a maxim, that only one language should be the vehicle of the glad tidings from above to sinful men, then truly, the operation of the Gospel would be confined to circumscribed limits indeed." On these grounds Mr. S. declared: "that whenever warranted by the will of God, and existing circumstances were favourable, it was his determination to embrace every opportunity, and to apply all means by which he might in any wise gain souls unto God, and by all means to save some. "I must work (he said) while it is day, I know not how soon the night may come when no man can work. Whilst I depend upon the grace and mercy of my Divine Master, I shall endeavour to be prepared when he shall summon me to render an account of my stewardship."Who would not applaud such a resolution?

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To convince such of the Lutherans who objected to his conduct, of their inconsistency; to show them the absurdity of their prejudices, and how little their sentiments coincided with the principles of the great Reformer, (whose principles were those of the Bible,) he referred them to the following extract, from the works of that distinguished author.*

"It is by no means my intention to say that I expect the Latin language to be used in our religious worship; the whole of my design is the improvement of our youth. And were it in my power, and the Greek and Hebrew were as common with us as the Latin, and contained such excellent church music, and psalmody as the Latin does, it would be my wish to use all the four languages alternately, Sunday after Sunday, so as to sing and read in German, Latin, Greek and Hebrew. I do not in any wise hold with those who confine themselves to one language only, and despise all others; for I wish in such manner to raise our people and youth as to become serviceable to Christ, in other quarters, and be able to converse with the inhabitants of foreign countries; otherwise we shall fall into the predicament of the Waldenses, in

*Luther's Works: Altenburg Edition. Tom. ii. p. 464.

Bohemia, who have kept their faith 90
long a prisoner to their language, that
they cannot converse with any one, so as
to be understood, unless he first learn their
tongue. The Holy Spirit did not thus
conduct in the beginning of Christianity.
He did not tarry at Jerusalem until the
whole world should there collect to learn
the Hebrew language; but he endowed
the Apostles with divers kinds of tongues,
to enable them, wherever they came, to
preach the Gospel of Christ. This ex-
ample I would rather follow, and it is just
that our youth should be exercised in dif-
ferent languages, not knowing what par
ticular purpose the Lord may call them
to fulfil."

Various were the trials which beset the path of this faithful servant of Christ; yet was it "as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day."

In his conduct he was upright. His piety was pure-his character spotless. His manner was rather reserved, but candid. He was studious, almost to excess, yet agreeable to all who enjoyed his com

pany.

He did the work of an evangelist, and made full proof of his ministry. His duties were discharged with conscien tiousness and fidelity. The poor, the rich, and all, within the widening field of his useful and benevolent labours, found in him not only the faithful Pastor and friend, but the practical observer also of that beautiful evangelical precept: Love thy neighbour as thyself. Long will he live in their grateful and affectionate remembrance.

His sermons evinced that biblical criticism was his peculiar province. At the same time they breathed such a spirit of piety, such a tender concern for the moral and religious improvement, and for the eternal salvation of his hearers, as gave them an immediate access to the heart. With this were combined the advantages of a graceful and dignified person, an excellent voice, a perspicuous style, an original and unaffected manner, and a persuasive eloquence in both the languages in which he officiated. His administration of the Apostolic rite of confirmation was always peculiarly solemn and impressive.

These devout occasions left not a mere transient glow. Of this many pious Christians are ready to bear witness, who in their lives and conversation before God acknowledge, that their hearts are yet warm with the religious impressions which then they first received.

Among Mr. Schaeffer's manuscripts

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