and the word of God is constantly referred to as the basis of every moral precept. Morning and evening prayer, and religious worship on the Sabbath are conducted in the language of signs.'

Among other instruments of instruction besides those before enumerated may be mentioned stenography, mimography, and syllabick dactylology. Stenography has not as yet been fairly tested. Mimography, which is a species of ideographick writing, representing signs of action, has been, we believe, introduced into but one institution, viz. that directed by M. Pe

Directly representing ideas.

roux, of Nancy. Syllabick dactylology is the art of spelling words by means of consecutive positions of the fingers, corresponding to written syllables. We are not aware that this is used in any existing institution. Alphabetick dactylology however is in all but universal use: and there exists but a single sign dialect in the schools for the deaf and dumb on this continent. We subjoin the following table, which is said to constitute a general summary of the present state of the art of instructing deaf mutes.

Instruments of Instruction.

{Alphabetick.

Stenographick.

Alphabetick

Syllabick.

Classification of words.

Nomenclature.

Its import,

Discourse.

Forms of inflection, or etymology.
Principles of construction, or syntax.

The useful and elegant arts.

History and geography.

The usages of society.

Morals and Religion.

The amount dependant upon the
capacity of the pupil, and the
time devoted to instruction..

Indicative: applicable to present objects.
Descriptive :

66

absent

Illustrative. The use of examples.

Metaphorick-The use of figurative action

Confined to the
material world.

(Inductive analysis, the burden being thrown upon the

Explicative-Definition.

Direct.

learner.

Indirect.

(a priori: synthesis..

a posteriori: analysis. By exclusion.

{By contrast.

Applicable to in

tellectual and
moral notions.

To teach this important and interesting, but difficult art, requires a greater practical knowledge of metaphysicks, a more profound investigation, a more philosophical acquaintance with language, and a more thorough intellectual discipline, on the part of the instructer, than is required in any other branch of education. This, in connexion with the truly unfortunate condition of the deaf and dumb, should afford a two-fold impulse to all, to extend the hand of charity and encouragement to those benevolent institutions. And while the Federal Government boasts its liberal policies, its attention as a sacred duty should not be averted from these laudable charities most singularly worthy of its liberality and fostering care.

It is to be regretted that no work has been written, no general and well defined plan proposed, not even a system of elementary lessons which might be dignified with the name of standard, has been published in this country, notwithstanding the art has been taught among us upwards of twenty years. The methods of instruction in the several institutions in this country, are extremely disuniform and various. The course which each pursues is independent of the other, and is regulated by temporary convenience, or the various results of the speculative inquiries of new teachers, who seem rather to rely upon their own experience than to follow systems generally adopted. The truth is, the method of instructing these unfortunate children of unindulgent nature, is founded upon philosophical principles, and those principles are as susceptible of explication, and a reduction to a uniform system which would be equally applicable in all institutions, as are any other principles that relate to the phi-the publick expense at the New York institution is 96. The exlosophy of mind. We do not perceive why it would not be practicable to have a congress of teachers, or at least some conference between the institutions in this country, in order to devise some general plan of instruction, that ultimately might become uniform and established.

*The whole number of pupils authorized to be educated at the expense of the State, is 120, and the annual provision for their instruction, is $14,400. The number authorized to be instructed at

pense of board and tuition, is $130 each per annum, making a yearly expenditure of $12,480. The whole number of deaf mutes receiving instruction in the State in January last was 168-34 at Canajoharie, and 134 at New York. The number at the New York institution, now, probably exceeds 150. The term of education is five years.

THE DESTRUCTION OF POMPEII.

parties of fugitives encountered each other-some hur-
rying towards the sea, others flying from the sea back
to the land; for the ocean had retreated rapidly from
the shore-an utter darkness lay over it, and upon its
groaning and tossing waves the storm of cinders and
rock fell without the protection which the streets and
roofs afforded to the land. Wild-haggard-ghastly
with supernatural fears, these groups encountered each
other, but without leisure to speak, to consult, to advise ;
for the showers fell now frequently, though not con-
tinuously, extinguishing the lights which showed to each
band the death-like faces of the other, and hurrying all
to seek refuge beneath the nearest shelter. The whole
elements of civilization were broken up. Ever and
anon, by the flickering lights, you saw the thief hasten-
ing by the most solemn authorities of the law, laden
with, and fearfully chuckling over, the produce of his sud-
den gains. If, in the darkness, wife was separated from
husband, or parent from child, vain was the hope of re-
No-
union. Each hurried blindly and confusedly on.
thing in all the various and complicated machinery of
social life was left, save the primal law of self-preserva-
tion!

In our last number we presented our readers with a matter of fact description of the singular disappearance of Pompeii. We now give a description from the "Last days of Pompeii," by Bulwer, whose gorgeous imagination, strong powers of conception and exuberant fancy enable him to throw a thrilling interest around almost every scene he undertakes to describe. This scene, as connected with the denouement of his tale, and interwoven with its incidents, is developed with peculiar power and effect-we extract from the chapter entitled "The Progress of the Destruction." The cloud which had scattered so deep a murkiness over the day had now settled into a solid and impenetrable mass. It resembled less even the thickest gloom of a night in the open air than the close and blind darkness of some narrow room.* * But, in proportion as the blackness gathered, did the lightnings around Vesuvius increase in their vivid and scorching glare. Nor was their horrible beauty confined to the usual hues of fire; Nearly seventeen centuries had rolled away, when no rainbow ever rivalled their varying and prodigal dies. the city of Pompeii was disinterred from its silent tomb,* Now brightly blue as the most azure depth of a southern all vivid with undimmed hues; its walls fresh as if sky-now of a livid and snakelike green, darting rest-painted yesterday,-not a hue faded on the rich mosaick

lessly to and fro as the folds of an enormous serpent now of a lurid and intolerable crimson, gushing forth through the columns of smoke, far and wide, and lighting up the whole city from arch to arch, then suddenly dying into a sickly paleness, like the ghost of its own life!

of its floors,-in its forum the half-finished columns as left by the workman's hand,-before the trees in its gardens the sacraficial tripod,-in its halls the chest of treasure, in its baths the strigil,-in its theatres the counter of admission,-in its saloons the furniture and the lamp,-in its triclinia the fragments of the last feast, In the pauses of the showers, you heard the rumbling-in its cubicula the perfumes and the rouge of fated of the earth beneath, and the groaning waves of the tor- beauty, and every where the bones and skeletons of tured sea; or, lower still, and audible but to the watch those who once moved the springs of that minute yet of intensest fear, the grinding and hissing murmur of gorgeous machine of luxury and of life! the escaping gases through the chasms of the distant mountain. Sometimes the cloud appeared to break from its solid mass, and, by the lightning, to assume quaint and vast mimicries of human or of monster shapes, striding across the gloom, hustling one upon the other, and vanishing swiftly into the turbulent abyss of shade; so that, to the eyes and fancies of the affrighted wanderers, the unsubstantial vapours were as the bodily forms of gigantick foes,-the agents of terrour and of death.f

The ashes in many places were already knee-deep; and the boiling showers which came from the steaming Dreath of the volcano forced their way into the houses, bearing with them a strong and suffocating vapour. In some places immense fragments of rock, hurled upon the house-roofs, bore down along the streets masses of confused ruin, which yet more and more, with every hour, obstructed the way; and, as the day advanced, the motion of the earth was more sensibly felt-the footing seemed to slide and creep-nor could chariot or litter be kept steady, even on the most level ground.

Sometimes the huger stones, striking against each other as they fell, broke into countless fragments, emitting sparks of fire which caught whatever was combustible within their reach; and along the plains beyond the city the darkness was now terribly relieved; for several houses, and even vineyards, had been set on flames; and at various intervals the fires rose sullenly and fiercely against the solid gloom. To add to this partial relief of the darkness, the citizens had here and there, in the more publick places, such as the porticoes of temples, and the entrances to the forum, endeavoured to place rows of torches; but these rarely continued long; the showers and the winds extinguished them, and the sudden darkness into which their sudden birth was converted had something in it doubly terrible and doubly impressing on the impotence of human hopes, the lesson of despair.

Frequently, by the momentary light of these torches, * Pliny.

t Dion Cassius.

* Destroyed A. D. 79-first discovered, a. D. 1750.

SKETCHES OF THE BRITISH COLONIES. The following "sketches of the British Colonies" we extract from the Liverpoo! Times. This is the first of a series of articles which that paper designs to lay before its readers, on the very interesting subject of the extent of the empire under the control of England. If possible, we shall avail ourselves of the articles as they reach our shores, and lay them regularly before our readers, confident that they will find extraordinary interest in the description of colonies comprising 1,100,000 square miles, and upwards of 200,000,000 of souls, all embraced under the government of one king.

The publication of Mr. Montgomery Martin's valuable History of the British Colonies brings together and places before the publick for the first time, in a condensed form, a vast number of facts relative to the dependencies of this country, in every part of the globe, which previously could only be learnt by the perusal of the almost innumerable volumes of voyages, travels, and other works of a similar kind. We have on former occasions expressed the high opinion which we entertain of the two volumes already published, and we now purpose to make use of them as the ground work of a few brief, but, we hope, comprehensive sketches of that immense colonial empire scattered throughout every quarter of the globe, over which the colours of England constantly wave, and on which it may be said more truly than of the former empire of Spain, that the

sun never sets in his course.

Following the plan of Mr. Martin, we commence with the extensive British possessions in the East In

dies, extending from the rivers of the Punjab to the Straits of Malacca, and from the snowy mountains of the Hymalaya to the Island of Ceylon. This immense tract of country includes the four presidencies of Bengal, Agra, Madras, and Bombay; the provinces beyond the Ganges conquered from the Burmese; the Island of Ceylon, and the settlements of Penang, Malacca, and Singapore. Its total area is five hundred and twentyone thousand seven hundred and ninety-two square miles; its population ninety-six millions and seventysix thousand native, and sixty-six thousand white inhabitants; its revenue eighteen millions four hundred and fifty-one thousand pounds sterling; the military force which it supports upwards of two hundred and thirty thousand strong, and its exports and imports more than fourteen millions per annum. This empire, which is ten times as large as England, is held directly by the British authorities, whilst another empire, including upwards of six-hundred thousand square miles, and a hundred millions of inhabitants, though nominally independent, and under the rule of the native princes, is in reality as much under the control of England as the ceded and conquered provinces. The total area of the empire governed and controlled by the British is upwards of eleven hundred thousand square miles, and its population not less than two hundred million souls! The Spanish colonies in North and South America, though covering a larger area, never, in the height of their glory and prosperity, contained the fourth part of the population of our Indian empire.

INDIA WITHIN THE GANGES.

The British possessions on the Continent and within the Ganges consist of the four presidencies of Bengal, Agra, Madras and Bombay, each of which we shall briefly describe, beginning with

possess a just and equitable government, protection for their property, and security for their lives. The province of Bahar, higher up the Ganges, has a more diversified surface than Bengal. To the north it extends in long and wide plains, but to the south it is varied by hills and dales, especially in the Rajemal district, where the hills form some of the first scenery on the banks of the Ganges. This province produces great quantities of saltpetre, and indigo is also extensively cultivated. Much of it lies waste, and is covered either with thick jungle or majestick forests, The Ganges, at this distance from the sea, is from three to five miles broad. Ascending the river, we come to the rich province of Allahabad. Here the country is much bolder and more picturesque, and very fine wheat is grown. In the district of Glazepoor millions of roses are cultivated, for the purpose of making attar of roses. Two hundred thousand flowers are required to make the weight of a rupee of attar. The British provinces of Berar to the south are wild, ruggid and hilly, full of deep jungles and impassable ravines, among which the Nerbudda river takes its rise. These provinces cover an area of fifty-five thousand nine hundred square miles, but large districts are unexplored by the British, and little known to the natives. The Malwah territory, belonging to Britain, occupies upwards of eight thousand square miles. It is situated on an elevated plain, two thousand feet above the level of the sea, diversified by hills, and watered by numerous streams, which flow over a rich and fertile soil. It is peopled by the warlike, crafty, and restless Mahrattas.

The total extent of the Bengal presidency is one hundred and fifty thousand square miles, and its total population forty millions of souls.

AGRA is the second presidency of continental India, and has been recently separated from that of Bengal. It consists principally of the provinces of Agra and Delhi, celebrated as the seats of the Mogul Emperors of India, and of the province of Kumano, amongst the Hymalaya mountains. It is well watered by the Ganges and other rivers, produces wheat in abundance, possesses in general a fertile soil, a mild and temperate climate, and a bolder and more warlike race of merr than Bengal or the lower provinces. The Mahommedans here preponderate in influence, if not in numbers. Delhi, for so many years the Mogul capitol, is greatly decayed; and Agra, also a capitol of the former rulers of India, still more so. The Great Mogul still reigns, though as a mere puppet in the hands of the English. Lodeana, on the frontiers of Runjeet Singh territory, is the most westerly fortress in the hands of the English. It was within this presidency that the sanguinary campaigns between Halkar, Scindia and Lord Lake took place.

This presidency contains eighty-eight thousand square miles, and thirty-two millions of inhabitants, of whom not more than five thousand are Europeans

THE BENGAL PRESIDENCY, which includes the provinces extending along the banks of the Ganges, from the dreary Sunderbunds at its mouth to the point where it quits the newly-formed presidency of Agra on the west. This presidency, the scene of Lord Clive's early victories, is the richest and most thickly-peopled part of British India. It comprises the whole of the province of Bengal proper, a vast and monotonous region, whose immense alluvial plains, covering one hundred thousand square miles, are scarcely diversified by a single hill of any height, except to the east of the Brahmaputra. This region, irrigated by innumerable rivers, and subject in the spring and winter seasons to deluges of rain, teems with life and fertility, and produces luxuriant crops of rice, indigo superiour to that of any other part of India, sugar, now neglected, but capable of great improvement, cotton, tobacco, opium, and every other kind of tropical produce. The shores of the bay of Bengal are fringed with the graceful cocoa-nut palm, whilst the nutmeg, camphor, and pimento grow richly in the botanical garden at Calcutta, and are capable of being cultivated in all parts of the province. Coal MADRAS, the third presidency, formed from the do. is found in abundance in the Burdwan district, and is minions of the Nabob of Arcot, the former French used in steam navigation, which promises in a few possessions in the south of India, the provinces wrestyears to produce a wonderful social revolution along ed from Heyder Ali and Tippoo Saib, and the souththe shores of the numerous rivers of India. The cli-ern territory of the Mahrattas, stretches along the mate of this rich province is oppressively hot, men eastern and western shores of India for many hundred and beasts having been known to fall dead in the miles. The Coromandel coast is in general flat and streets of Calcutta in the months of April and May. sandy, whilst that of Malabar is bold and romantick, From seventy to eighty inches of rain falls during the presenting every where the richest scenery. The two year, that is about double the quantity that falls in chains of the Ghauts run through this presidency. England, and it descends in torrents; and such is the They are connected by the Neilgherries, a beautiful fertility produced by the intense heat and abundance and healthy range of hills, recently explored, but alof moisture, that all the cultivated land yields prodi-ready greatly frequented by Europeans, on account of gious crops, whilst those which are neglected are cov- their mild and salubrious climate, and their charming ered with a rank and noisome vegetation. The inhab- scenery. itants of Bengal are mild and timid, but patient and industrious. For ages they have been subject to the tyranny of their Mahommedan conquerours, and now, for the first time in their long and disastrous history,

This presidency contains one hundred and forty thousand square miles, but not more than fourteen millions of inhabitants.

BOMBAY, the last of the four presidencies, includes

Annals of Education.

the north and south Coucan, and the districts of Su- | practice of the best writers, and that the study of these rat, Croach, Ahmedabad and Keira, on the Indian is the best mode of learning them practically. Our Ocean, and the inland provinces of Poonah and Kan- best writers are formed by the study of our best audeish. The face of this presidency is greatly varied, thors. consisting of fertile plains and valleys, separated by mountainous chains, and watered by majestick rivers. Much of it is forest and jungle, and the inhabitants of several districts are wild and recently subdued. The collectors of Poonah and the district of Candeish are, however, full of beauty and fertility.

The extent of this presidency is sixty-four thousand nine hundred and thirty-eight square miles, the population eight million souls.

THE STUDY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.

EXHIBITIONS.

ZOOLOGICAL INSTITUTE.

The splendid establishment of this name, now open to the publick at No. 37 Bowery, is well worth the visits of every lover of Natural History. In the neatness and convenience of the interiour arrangement, and the variety and beauty of the animals, it surpasses every thing of the kind we have seen in the country. The building fronts fifty feet on Bowery, and extends one hundred and 75 feet in depth. Through a spacious and well lighted hall, you enter what may be appropriately termed the principal Saloon. This is lighted by day through numerous sky lights; and in the evening by three costly chandeliers depending from the ceiling, and handsome lamps at the sides. The animals are contained in dens on each side, num

elegant rooms, fitted up as ladies' and gentlemen's

Saloons.

Our labours in the instruction of the deaf mute first led us to see clearly a truth, for which we had long been groping, when we were expected in ordinary schools to 'transfuse' the theories and rules of Murray into the brains of boys, with all the pompous array of names by which the branches of instruction are designated. Spelling, Reading, Defining, Grammar, and Composition, Etymology, Syntax, and Prosody, mean nothing more than 'the study of the English Language.' It is a false refinement, in our view, which has thus divided a simple and comparatively easy and interest-bered, and their names painted above. The dens aping study into several dry and difficult branches, each pear to be firmly built in the wall; but they are one of which sometimes costs more labour than the movable and distinct. The floors of all the cages are whole actually requires, when pursued in a simple method. After attempting to pursue this same artifi- slightly inclined planes; and behind them runs a gutcial course with the deaf mute, and finding it insup- ter also inclined, at the upper end of which is a pump, portably wearisome, and absolutely stupifying to the affording an abundant supply of water, which keeps intellect, the simple plan of nature was adopted. The the cages clean and inoffensive. Over the dens, is a pupil was taught to write sentence after sentence, was told the meaning of the words in a simple phrase, the promenade or gallery, with seats stuffed, and handmode of spelling them, and their proper order, and was somely covered with crimson moreen. At the lower required to write a new phrase composed of the same end is the orchestra of the very excellent band; while, words, and thus like the gentleman who had spoken at the upper end, the Rhinoceros, flanked by two Eleprose all his life without knowing it,' these ignorant phants, and surmounted by three cages, containing deaf mutes were soon familiar with Spelling, Reading, African Leopards, Lion, Lioness and two Bengal Defining, Grammar and Composition; and attained a degree of accuracy which surprised all who witnessed Tigers, form the most prominent point in the coup it, without being aware of the number of their stu-d'œil upon entering. Behind the orchestra are two dies. On visiting the best schools of Switzerland we found this same plan adopted. A class of little boys were called upon to speak a phrase; they were taught orally to spell the words which composed it: they wrote it, and thus spelled it again: they were then called upon to read it; and to repeat it, and to spell the words again and then to speak and write a new phrase, and to explain the words. On this plan, while these simple children only supposed they were learning German, or rather learning to express their thoughts, they were HYDRO OXYGEN MICROSCOPE. acquiring five distinct studies besides Chirography! At No. 108 Broadway is an exceedingly interestAnd they acquired them in fact and not in name. Weing exhibition of the wonderful powers of the mireceived a letter from a boy of nine years of age, croscope. The light used in this instrument is detaught in this manner, which surpassed in all its rived from the application of a flame of oxygen characteristicks those of our schoolmates at fourteen and hydrogen united upon lime, and equals the most years of age, and some of those of our fellow students brilliant solar light. The specimens which are illusat college. trated are projected on a disk containing 240 square feet of canvass. A drop of water magnified by it 2,400,640 times, presents a most singular scene, wherein insects before unseen present themselves in gigantick proportions and most singular conformations, engaged in as great a variety of sports and pastimes as well as contentions and war, as is common to those beings that boast a huger shape. The skeleton larvæ of the gnat, which is transparent, is magnified to such a degree that the peristaltick motion of the intestines, the circulation of the blood, and the motion of the chest in the act of breathing are distinguishable. The pores in the wood of so minute a tree as the rose tree, are magnified so as to appear one or two inches each in diameter-the eye of a fly is made to appear like a monstrous honey comb, several feet in extent. The

We ought to add, that in this mode of instruction, where the examples of a particular inflection or combination of words became sufficiently numerous, the pupils were taught to remark the general form or principle which pervaded them, and thus imbibe, imperceptibly, all the theory of language which the young or ignorant can comprehend.

We leave our readers to decide which plan is the most rational and simple. We will only assure them, that so far as our observation has extended, this produces greater accuracy in far less time than the ordiWe beg them to recollect the key to all just views on this subject-that language was established before grammarians or lexicographers existed that its rules and principles are to be found in the

nary course.

The list of animals embraces amid the great variety a male and a female Zebra, the untameable Gnu, the Buffalo, the white Bear, the Ostrich, two Emeus, the Cassowary, the Vulture and the Anaconda, which we mention as rather rare specimens.