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followers; and at a greater distance, a little more on the left, he beholds the magnificent scenery of the Jordan and the Dead Sea.

There are two roads from Jerusalem to Bethany; the one passing over the Mount of Olives; the other, the shorter and easier, winding round the eastern side of it. This village is now both small and poor, the cultivation of the soil around it being very much neglected by the indolent Arabs into whose hands it has fallen. Here are shown the ruins of a house, said to have belonged to Lazarus, whom our Saviour raised from the dead; and,

in the immediate neighbourhood, the faithful pilgrim is invited to devotion in a grotto, which is represented as the actual tomb wherein the miracle was performed. The dwellings of Simon the Leper, of Mary Magdalene, and of Martha are pointed out by the Mussulmans, who traffick on the credulity of ignorant Christians. Nay, they undertake to identify the spot where the barren figtree withered under the curse, and the place where Judas put an end to his life, oppressed by a more dreadful malediction. Monthly Repository.

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HYDRO-OXYGEN MICROSCOPE. Now EXHIBITING AT THE AMERICAN MUSEUM.*

The above engraving is a very faithful representation the appearance of a drop of water, as magnified by the astonishing powers of this Microscope. The images are projected upon a disk of about 240 square feet, and magnified 2,400,640 times.

The great merit and peculiarity of Dr. Weldon's Microscope, consists in the application of artificial light, instead of solar light which has been necessary hitherto, to the purposes of Microscopes. The light used in this instrument, is derived from the application of a flame of oxygen and hydrogen gas united upon lime, and is the most intense light that we are acquainted with. The union of these two flames, which suggests the name of "Hydro-Oxygen," forms the radiant point, from whence the light is collected by several lenses and projected together with the images upon the canThe instrument is a desirable acquisition to science, and the scenes which its immense power presents, are extremely interesting and truly wonderful.

vass.

* See a notice of this exhibition on p. 287 of this Magazine.

| Amid the various articles on the subject, which have recently appeared, we have seen none more just than the following:

"This instrument presents to our view a world of wonders. Its magnifying powers are astonishingly great. The spectators being introduced into a room adapted to the exhibition, the doors and windows are closed to exclude the solar light: the microscope is then opened and an intense light formed by the combustion of oxygen gas, irradiates the instrument, and reflects upon a sheet of canvass of two hundred and forty feet, what we may truly call a new world. A single drop of water is magnified 2.400,640 times. In this ocean, (for such it may be called, in comparison with the incomprehensible diminutive tribes of animalcula which teem in myriads through it) we see various species of living creatures, some apparently as large as a dog. To give an accurate description of their shape is a thing impossible. Some of them appear with horns which they bend to every shape; some seem to have but one leg and a tail, others seem to have three; some have bodies somewhat of the shape of a tadpole; others bear a distant resemblance to the porpoise; some exhibit the shape of a catfish with the

head of the grass-hopper; others resemble nothing under the sun, but are wholly sui generis. This drop or miscropick ocean, extends its forests far and wide; amongst their wide spreading branches, those tribes of oddities, are seen gamboling, freaking, skipping, swimming. While one stands tiptoe on some lofty branch, another is seen pouncing upon him from above, and coming in contact, they glance off, one this way, the other that. Their habits appear to be wholly different from what characterizes the animals of the visible creation. They seem to be entire strangers to any social feelings: each one shuns the approach of another, and the slightest touch makes them spring and dart off, as if it were electrick.

The Hydrophilus, or Water Devil, as he is called, is seen darting through the ocean, devouring all before him.

The Skeleton Larve of the gnat is so pellucid that its whole internal structure is quite visible. The motion of the heart and lungs, and the circulation of the blood are distinctly seen, together with the muscles, which are the organs of its wonderfully rapid and peculiar

motion.

as ever. M. Sue mentions instances of the same animals living eighteen months sealed up in boxes, without nutriment. M. Herisant covered a box, containing three toads, with a coating of plaster, and on opening it eighteen months afterwards, one was still alive. Land tortoises lived eighteen months with Redi; and Baker kept a beetle in a glass confinement for three years, when it escaped. Dr. Shaw mentions two Egyptian serpents, which had been preserved for three years, in a bottle closely corked; yet when he saw them, they had cast their skins, and were as lively as if they had just been caught. Latreille stuck a spider to a piece of cork, and precluded it from communication with any thing else for four months, at the end of which time it seemed as lively as ever. Bruce kept two cerastes (horned snakes) for two years, without giving them any thing. He did not observe that they slept in the winter season; and they cast their skins, as usual, on the last day of April. In the Philadelphia Magazine for 1816, are many accounts of lizards having been found imbedded in chalk-rock, apparently dead and fossilized, which re-assumed living action on exposure to the atmosphere. On their detection in this state, says the Journal of Science, the

The point of the finest needle looks like the end of a club, while the sting of the bee slopes off into imper-mouth is usually closed with a glutinous substance, and ceptibility.

The interstices of the finest lace appear wide enough for the body of a man to pass through them: the threads themselves are like cables.

The softest down of the thistle appears stiff and thick as the quills of a porcupine.

Who can view this astonishing display of the Divine power without being transported with wonder, love, and praise! All nature teems with God-If we extend our view to the starry regions that are above us, the mind is lost in wonder there.

closed so tenaciously, that they often die of suffocation in the very effort to extricate themselves from this material. Walker found a toad perfectly alive in the midst of a full grown elm, which had been cut down, exactly occupying the cavity which it appeared gradually to have scooped out as it grew in size, and which had not the smallest external communication by any opening that could be traced. In the Encyclo. Brit. various instances are mentioned of toads having been found alive, imbedded in the middle of trunks of trees and blocks of marble, so large and massy, that The sun, which appears, (owing to the immense dis- they must have been in such situations for at least a tance at which he is placed) but as a small object, is century. In making an excavation for the Hudson and however, one million three hundred thousand times lar-Erie canal, a toad was found several feet below the ger than the earth. Great as is this magnitude, its loss would be as little noticed by an intelligence that could grasp the whole creation, as the loss of a drop of water from the ocean would be noticed by our eye.

Between the two extremes stands man, with all the self-importance of monarch of this sublunary world. On viewing these microscopick myriads, imperceptible to the naked eye, this thought suggests itself to the mind-" If there were sensitive beings created by God, whose bodies bore the same relation of magnitude in regard to us, as our bodies bear with respect to the animalculæ, which we have just described, man, then in comparison to those beings, would dwindle into animalculæ unnoticed and unseen. Myriads of us then, might be inhaled into the vortex of his capacious lungs, unseen, unfelt, unknown to him.

surface, in the centre of a vast rock; when exposed to the air, it revived, made a few hops, and expired.

There is a singular history of Cicely de Ridgeway, preserved among the Records of the Tower of London, which states, that in the reign of Edward III., having been condemned for the murder of her husband, she remained for 40 days without either food or drink. This was ascribed to a miracle, and the king condescended in consequence to grant a pardon. The Cambridgeshire farmer's wife was buried under a snow storm, and continued twelve days without tasting any thing but a little of the snow which covered her. Dr. Eccles makes mention of a beautiful young lady, about sixteen years of age, who, in consequence of the sudden death of an indulgent father, was thrown into a state of tetanus, (a rigidity of all the muscles of the How humiliating is the thought! and yet how true body and especially those of deglutition,) so violent the possibility! If so diminutive are we, if so much as to render her incapable of swallowing for two long more magnificent than the atoms that float along the and distinct periods of time; in the first instance for air, when compared to a mere creature, however bulk-thirty-four, and in the second, which occurred shortly ier his body in regard to ours, what must we appear in that capacious eye on whose bright optick all creation is less than the point of the sting of a bee, less than imperceptibility itself!"

GREAT FASTING.

afterwards, for fifty-four days: during "all which time, her first and second fastings, she declared," says Dr. Eccles, "she had no sense of hunger or thirst; and when they were over she had not lost much of her flesh." In the Phil. Trans. for 1684, is an account of four men who were compelled to subsist upon water Aede kept a civet cat ten days, wild pigeons thirteen, alone for twenty-four days, in consequence of their a wild cat the same time, and an eagle twenty-eight having been buried in a deep excavation by the fall of days without food. Buffon had an eagle that lived a superincumbent stratum of earth under which they five weeks, a badger a month, and several dogs thirty-were working, and it being this length of time before six days without nourishment. Leewenhoeck possess- they were extricated. The water which they drank ed a scorpion which lived three months, and vipers of was from a spring near at hand; and they drank of ten months, in a state of perfect abstinence. Vaillant it freely, but tasted nothing else. A still more extrahad a spider that lived ten months without food, when its strength was sufficient to kill another as large as

itself.

Hunter enclosed a toad between two stone flower pots, and at the end of fourteen months it was as lively

ordinary account is recorded in the same journal for 1742, and consists of the history of a young man, who, at the age of sixteen, from having drunk very freely of cold water when in a violent perspiration, was thrown into an inflammatory fever, from which he escaped with

difficulty, and with such a dislike to foods of all kinds, that for eighteen years, at the time this account was drawn up, he had not tasted any thing but water!! Hildanus assures us that Eva Flegen fasted for sixteen years, during which she abstained entirely from liquids as well as solids!!

Hallet, and other physiologists, have collected various instances of a similar kind; many of them of a much longer duration of abstinence; but in general they are too loosely written and attested to be entitled to full reliance. Those we have given, however, have been drawn up with the most scrupulous caution, and supported by the best kind of concurrent evidence. N. B. Times.

THE PASSAGE OF THE JURA.

SWITZERLAND.

The Jura mountains form the imposing barrier between France and Helvetia on one hand, and Germany and Helvetia on the other. The following description of the passage of the Jura from the pen of Dr. Beattie, it is believed is not exaggerated:

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materially, and presents itself in striking and mutual contrast. On the Savoy side of the lake, it is bold, variegated, and abrupt: beetling cliffs overhang, and green promontories jut out into the lake. Terraced vineyards occupy the acclivities, and cornfields the valleys and gentler slopes; while towns, hamlets, isolated chateaux, and villas rise in white clusters along the shore, or sprinkle the heights in picturesque and solitary beauty. Beyond these, vineyards and cornfields merge into green pastures; the cheerful cottage is superseded by the chalet; valleys are contracted into deep ravines; orchards are succeeded by ridges of dark pines, and every thing demonstrates a new and less kindly region. Higher still, cataract and avalanche claim undisputed possession: man retires from the vain and ineffectual struggle, and the process of vegetation is suspended. The chaos of the Alps commences, and numerous aiguilles, stationed like advanced outposts, lead in lofty succession to the sovereign Blanc, whose unchangeable aspect presents one of the boldest emblems of eternity which the material world can supply. The opposite, or Lausanne side, exhibits nothing of this sublimity; but it offers every combination of the beautiful and picturesque, while at the same time, it The Jura, unlike the other and loftier mountains is the granary, as well as the garden, of Switzerland. of Switzerland, is clothed from base to summit with From the Jura to the Lake, though comprising a disluxuriant pine forests. Here, you observe them advan-tance of only three leagues, it embraces every feature cing in isolated promontories and outposts; there, that the human eye delights to contemplate-a natugrouped into a congeries of hills, or shooting up in rally favoured, fertile, and highly cultivated soil; an serrated and precipitous ridges; but towards the base, appearance of universal cheerfulness and comfort; an variegated by intricate and romantick valleys, and la- industrious and healthful population, fully alive to the byrinths of rich meadow land, which give striking blessings of independence, and indefatigable in every ornament and relief to the sombre forests in which the means best calculated to render such blessings perwhole chain is enveloped. This passage of the Jura manent. abounds in every variety of scenery ;-the simple and picturesque, the savage and the sublime, follow one another in such rapid succession, and are assembled in such remarkable juxtaposition, as to defy all description or classification. The ascent is full of interest, and the impression not a little strengthened by the sense of personal risk which the traveller must at times encounter before he can accomplish his task. Winter is the season when it is to be seen in all its wildest magnificence, for then the snow-sledges supersede almost every other vehicle of locomotion, and, preceded and followed by horses and mules in long procession, with a constant tinkling of bells, present at first sight a most novel and picturesque effect.

BIOGRAPHY.

ETHAN ALLEN, BRIGADIER GENERAL U. S. A. Ethan Allen,* was born in Roxbury, Litchfield county, Conn. in the year 1739. His parents afterwards emigrated to Vermont. At the commencement of the lived in Salisbury; at an early age he himself disturbances in this territory about the year 1770 he took a most active part in favour of the green mountain boys, as the settlers were then called, in opposition to the government of New-York. An act of outlawry against him was passed by this state, and fifty pounds were offered for his apprehension; but his party was turbed by any apprehensions for his safety; in all the too numerous and faithful to permit him to be disstruggles of the day he was successful; and he not only proved a valuable friend to those whose cause he had espoused, but he was humane and generous called to take the field, he showed himself an able leader and an intrepid soldier.

towards those with whom he had to contend. When

The news of the battle of Lexington determined colo

This sketch of the life of Col. Allen, is taken from the

American Biographical and Historical Dictionary, By William
Allen, D. D. President of Bowdoin College-Second Edition-
Boston, William Hyde & Co. 1832. 8vo. p. p. 800.-A work, by the

After pursuing for some leagues, a steep, rugged, and circuitous route, winding at one time, along a deep ravine, or the deserted bed of some ancient torrent; at another, under the threatening verge of precipitous rocks, we reach the immediate frontiers of Helvetia. From La Vattay, a town shut up in the deep obscurity of pine forests, and enjoying most perfect seclusion, a shelving, terraced road conducted us up the Dole, whose isolated summit presents one of the boldest features in the Jura. Here, at an immense elevation above the valley, a new world opened upon us, and we unexpectedly found ourselves on the almost perpendieular side of the mountain. The pine-covered precipices upon which we stood gave us a full command of the wild undulating forest scenery around, which plunged, as it were, into an extensive plain, where gleaming spires, villages, and chateaux, swam beneath us like a floating cloud. Stretching away in far perspective to the shores of the Leman-from which a pale, transparent vapour crept slowly upward, dilating as it ascended-the vast forms of confused and blending mountains towered range above range in shadowy grandeur: while, loftier still, and lifted into the serene purple of an evening sky, the eternal ALPS burst the notice took in that controversy. There are also many suddenly upon our view, and, by an irresistible fasci-interesting and amusing anecdotes told of Col. Allen, which are nation, held us for a time in fixed and silent admiration. As we descend the Jura, the scenery which characterizes the shores of the classick Leman, differs

Or Dolay;-4000 ft. above Lake Geneva.

way, that we would take occasion to recommend, as the most interesting, full and authentick of any work of its kind ever published in America. This edition contains upwards of 1800 biographical articles. This sketch of Col. Allen more nearly answers our purpose than any written one we could conveniently. find: yet it is not full in its details of the difficulties of the Green Mountain Boys as to the New Hampshire Grants, with Governour Tryon, or of the highly conspicuous part which the subject of

familiar, many of them, to most people, but which we have not found time to imbody. We have been unable to procure a portrait of the Col., and indeed we are not aware that there is any

extant.

After bis

nel Allen to engage on the side of his country, and dered. A moment afterwards a furious savage rushed inspired him with the desire of demonstrating his towards him, and presented his firelock with the attachment to liberty by some bold exploit. While his intent of killing him. It was only by making use of mind was in this state, a plan for taking Ticonderoga the body of the officer, to whom he had given his sword, and Crown Point by surprise was formed by Capts. as a shield, that he escaped destruction. This rash Edward Mott and Noah Phelps of Hartford, Con. They attempt was made without authority from Gen. Schuymarched privately, April 29th, with sixteen unarmed ler. He was kept for some time in irons, and then men. Arriving at Pittsfield, the residence of Col. James sent to England as a prisoner, being assured that the Easton and John Brohn, Esq.-they communicated the halter would be the reward of his rebellion, when he project to them and to Col. Ethan Allen, then at Pitts- arrived there. On his passage, handcuffed and fetterfield. These gentlemen immediately engaged to co-ed, he was shut up with his fellow prisoners in the operate and to raise men for the purpose. Of the Berk- cable tier, a space of twelve feet by ten. shire men and the green mountain boys 230 were arrival about the middle of Dec. he was lodged for a collected under the command of Allen, and proceeded short time in Pendennis castle, near Falmouth. On to Castleton. Here he was unexpectedly joined by the 8th of Jan. 1776 he was put on board a frigate, and Col. Arnold, who had been commissioned by the Mas- by a circuitous route carried to Halifax. Here he re sachusetts committee to raise 400 men, and effect the mained confined in the jail from June to October, when same object, which was now about to be accomplished. he was removed to New-York. During the passage to As he had not raised the men, he was admitted to act this place, Captain Burke, a daring prisoner, proposed as an assistant to Colonel Allen. They reached the to kill the British captain and seize the frigate; but lake opposite Ticonderoga Tuesday evening, May 9, Colonel Allen refused to engage in the plot, and was 1775. With the utmost difficulty boats were procured, probably the means of preserving the life of Capt. Smith, and eighty-three men were landed near the garrison. who had treated him very politely. He was kept at The approach of day rendering it dangerous to wait for New-York about a year and a half, sometimes imprisonthe rear, it was determined immediately to proceed. ed, and sometimes permitted to be on parole. The commander-in-chief now addressed his men, re- here, he had an opportunity to observe the inhuman While presenting, that they had been for a number of years a Scourge to arbitrary power, and famed for their valour, In one of the churches, in which they were crowded, manner, in which the American prisoners were treated. and concluded with saying, "I now propose to advance he saw seven lying dead at one time, and others biting before you, and in person conduct you through the pieces of chips from hunger. He calculated, that of wicket gate, and you that will go with me voluntarily the prisoners taken at Long Island and Fort Washingin this desperate attempt, poise your firelocks." At ton, near two thousand perished by hunger and cold, the head of the centre file he marched instantly to the or in consequence of diseases occasioned by the impu gate where a sentry snapped his gun at him and retreat-rity of their prisons. ed through the covered way; he pressed forward into the fort, and formed his men on the parade in such a manner as to face two opposite barracks. Three huzzas awaked the ga rison. A sentry, who asked quarter, pointed out the apartments of the commanding officer; and Allen with a drawn sword over the head of Captain De la Place, who was undressed, demanded the surrender of the fort. "By what authority do you demand it?" in-patriotism and military talents he was very soon apquired the astonished commander. said Allen, "in the name of the great Jehovah and of not appear, however, that his intrepidity was ever again "I demand it," pointed to the command of the state militia. It does the continental congress." The summons could not brought to the test, though his patriotism was tried by be disobeyed, and the fort with its very valuable stores and forty-nine prisoners was immediately surrendered effect a union of Vermont with Canada. Sir H. Clinan unsuccessful attempt of the British to bribe him to on May 10th. There were from 112 to 120 iron cannon from six to twenty-four pounders, two brass cannon, reason to suppose, that Ethan Allen has quitted the ton wrote to lord Germaine, Feb. 1781; "there is every fifty swivels, two mortars, ten tons of musket balls, rebel cause." three cartloads of flints, ten casks of powder, thirty new chester, Feb. 12, 1789. His daughter Pamela married He died suddenly at his estate in Colcarriages, one hundred stand of small arms, thirty bar- E. W. Keyes, Esq. in 1803. Another daughter enter rels of flour, and eighteen barrels of pork. Crowned a nunnery in Canada. He had lived for a time in Point was taken the same day, and the capture of a Sunderland. It was his project to make a city Versloop of war soon afterwards made Allen and his brave gennes, a mile square. party complete masters of lake Champlain. May 18th Arnold with thirty-five men surprised the fort of St. John's, Canada, taking fourteen prisoners, a sloop and two brass cannon. Allen, arriving the same day with ninety men, resolved, against the advice of Arnold, to attempt to hold the place. But he was attacked the next day by a larger force from Montreal, and compelled

to retreat.

1778, and after having repaired to head quarters, and Col. Allen was exchanged for Col. Campbell, May 6, offered his services to General Washington in case his health should be restored, he returned to Vermont. His arrival on the evening of the last of May gave his friends great joy, and it was announced by the discharge of cannon. As an expression of confidence in his

they never felt the influence of education. Though he General Allen possessed strong powers of mind, but nct seem to have been much influenced by considerawas brave, humane, and generous; yet his conduct does tions respecting that holy and merciful Being, whose character and whose commands are disclosed to us in the scriptures. His notions with regard to religion their own wisdom than seek instruction from heaven, were such, as to prove that they, who rather confide in may embrace absurdities, which would disgrace the understanding of a child. He believed, with Pythagoras, that man after death would transmigrate into beasts, birds, fishes, reptiles, &c., and often informed his friends, that he himself expected to live again in the form of a large white horse.

In the fall 1775 he was sent twice into Canada to observe the dispositions of the people, and attach them, if possible, to the American cause. During this last tour Colonel Brown met him, and proposed an attack on Montreal in concert. The proposal was eagerly embraced, and Colonel Allen with one hundred and ten men, nearly eighty of whom were Canadians, crossed the river in the night of Sept. 24. In the morning he waited with impatience for the signal from Colonel his strange opinions very strongly. Being called to The following anecdote shows, that he did not hold Brown, who agreed to co-operate with him; but he the chamber of a dying daughter, who had been inwaited in vain. He made a resolute defence against an structed in the principles of Christianity by his pious attack of five-hundred men, and it was not till his own wife, she said to him, "I am about to die; shall I beparty was reduced by desertions to the number of thirty-lieve in the principles you have taught me, or shall I one, and he had retreated near a mile, that he surren- believe in what my mother has taught me ?" He be

came agitated; his chin quivered; his whole frame He died of apoplexy. A plain marble slab covers shook; and he replied; "believe what your mother has his remains, on which is the following inscription: taught you."

Besides a number of pamphlets in the controversy with New-York, he published in 1779 a narrative of his observations during his captivity, which was afterwards reprinted; a vindication of the opposition of the inhabitants of Vt. to the government of New-York, and their right to form an independent state, 1779; and Allen's theology, or the oracles of reason, 1786. This last work was intended to ridicule the doctrine of Moses and the prophets. It would be unjust to bring against it the charge of having effected great mischief in the world, for few have had the patience to read it.

THE

CORPOREAL PART

OF

GEN. ETHAN ALLEN,

Rests beneath this stone,

The 12th day of February, 1789
Aged 50 years.

His spirit tried the mercies of his God,
In whom he believed, and strongly trusted.

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BATTLE BETWEEN THE INDIANS AND POLES. It appears from a letter received this week from a respectable Polish emigrant, at New Orleans, that about twenty of his countrymen, not meeting with any means of support, and totally without funds, departed from New Orleans for Mexico, by land, through the Texas country. Having no guide, nor knowledge of the wilderness route, they became utterly lost, when they were fiercely attacked by a numerous body of Indians. The Poles had but few guns, but maintained a long and bloody conflict, until they had killed a large number of their enemy. They, however suffered severely, having had two of their number slain, and the remainder wounded. Only one Pole was able to reach New Orleans.-Louisville Journal.

CURIOUS EPITAPH.

The following is a copy of the inscription on the tombstone of William French, who was massacred by the King's men at Westminster, in the New Hampshire Grants, just before the battle of Lexington.

"In Memory of William French
Son of Mr. Nathaniel French Who
Was shot at Westminster March ye 13th
1775 by the hands of Cruel Ministereal
tools of Georg ye 3d in the Corthouse at
a 11 a Clock at Night in the 224 year of

his age

Here William French His Body lies For Murder his blood for Vengeance cries King Georg the third his Tory crew tha with a bawl his head Shot threw For Liberty and his Countrys Good he.Lost his Life his Dearest blood."

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