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MISCELLANEOUS ARTICLES OF LITERARY AND
PHILOSOPHICAL INTELLIGENCE.

Domestic.

WE learn that proposals are
issued by Mr. Woodward,
of Philadelphia, for publishing a
fourth volume, as a supplement to
the third volume of the works of
Dr. Witherspoon, already printed,
agreeable to his original proposal.
This supplementary volume will
contain Dr. W's “Lectures on
Theology,” and several pieces never
before published.

Dr. Barton has published his
“Memoir concerning the Disease
of the Goitre, as it prevails in dif-
ferent parts of North-America,” in
a pamphlet containing about ninety
pages 8vo.

Culture of the Vine in the U. States.

During fifteen years, Peter Le-
gaux, of Springmill, thirteen miles
N. N. W. of Philadelphia, has been
engaged in cultivating vines. He
propagates the kinds which, in
France, produce the Champagne,
Burgundy, and Bourdeaux wines;
and that which, at the Cape of
Good Hope, affords the Constantia
wine. In the year 1793, he had
his first vintage from the three for-
mer, which are now naturalized to
the American soil. Mr. Legaux
declares it as the result of his ex-
perience, that the 40th degree of

latitude N. on the atlantic side of
America, in point of vegetation
and general temperature, is like
the 48th or 49th in Europe. His
vines have so thriven and increased,
that they have afforded not only
liquors to drink, but, at this time,
they abound with shoots for cut-
tings, to plant and rear other vine-
yards. For the purpose of encou-
raging the cultivation of vines, the
Legislature of Pennsylvania, on the
7th of March, 1800, passed an act,
appointing fifteen Commissioners
to procure subscriptions for raising
a capital in shares, to be applied to
the furtherance of this object. After
one thousand shares are subscribed,
the company is to be incorporated.
Each share is fixed at twenty dollars.
The Commissioners express their
conviction, that the Americans have
it in their power to supply them-
selves with wine of their own
growth, equal in strength and fla-
vour, and superior in wholesome-
ness and purity, to any which they
can import. The means by which they
are attempting to accomplish
this are, first, by raising in their
own vineyards a constant supply
of the plants, of the best species of
vines, to be distributed abundantly,
and on easy terms, throughout the
country. Secondly, by training

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a number of vine-dressers, who,
having acquired the necessary skill,
shall be capable of attending to,
and teaching the cultivation of the
vine, in any part of the country to
which they may be called; and
giving instruction in the arts of
making wine, brandy, and vinegar,
from the juice of the grape.

Perpetual Sea-Log, for determining,
with greater certainty, the Longi-
tude.

A machine has been invented,
by Mr. Gould, for measuring, with
more correctness than by the com-
mon log, the velocity of a ship's
passage through the water. It is
constructed entirely of brass, and
consists of a hollow cylinder, thro'
which the water can flow with the
greatest ease; in the centre of which
is hung an axis, with three arms
and wings, fixed to such a degree
of obliquity, that they are made to
revolve by the pressure of the water
on their sides as it passes through.
The motion thus produced is com-
municated to a connection of wheels
and pinions, turning slower and
slower, in rates so proportioned,
that one revolution of the first mea-
sures 1-10th of a sea-mile—of the
second, one whole mile—of the
third, ten miles—and of the fourth,
one hundred miles, &c. in a deci-
mal ratio. This invention is said
to obviate all objections made to
the common log, except as to the
measurement of currents, and to be
little liable to get out of order. As
it is kept continually overboard, all
that is necessary is to take it in for
inspection at every new course. A
patent has been obtained for it.

Patent for diminishing Expense and
Friction in Machines, by means of
Lead.

Letters patent have been recently
obtained by William Shotwell, of
Bridgetown, New-Jersey, for his
discovery of a repulsive power in

lead, and in alloys of lead and tin,
whereby they are less subjected to
wear and waste by friction than
iron and the harder metals are.
The patentee proposes to avail him-
self of this repellant quality of lead,
to lessen attrition and cost in the
blocks of pullies, in the boxes of
carriage-wheels, in the supports for
mill-gudgeons, and in similar cases.
Experiments which have been
made, warrant the belief that Mr.
Shotwell's discovery may be ap-
plied to a multitude of useful pur-
poses.

Peculiarity of the Male Parent mani-
festing itself in his Offspring.

A man lately resided in New-
York, who, besides the four fingers
belonging to the human hand, pos-
sessed, on each hand, a fifth, which
was connected with the hand at the
junction of the little-finger to the
metacarpal bone. From this spot
it grew out laterally at about a right
angle from the outside of the hand
and from the little-finger. It was
smaller than that finger, but was
furnished with a nail. The wife
of this man was a healthy woman,
without any bodily peculiarity; yet,
the children she bore, though
healthy and well-made in other re-
spects, had the monstrous appendages
to their hands, in the same places,
and after the same manner, that
their father had.

Specimen of Sulphureous Minerals
from the Solfatarra.

The Mineralogical Society of
New-York has received several spe-
cimens from Italy, which illustrate
the formation of strata of gypsum.
1. Amorphous native brimstone.
2. Crystallized sulphur. 3. Brim-
stone mingled with calcareous earth,
in the form of a sulphure of lime,
or calcareous hepar. 4. Oxygen-
ated sulphur combined with lime
into a true plaster-stone, or gypsum.
In this latter are still to be seen bits

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of sulphur in their native state, not
yet acidified, and filling up the
holes of the plaster of Paris. Thus,
in this series of specimens, can it be
seen how strata of carbonate of lime,
or common limestone, in the Sol-
fatarra, shall, by the oxygenation
of the sulphur in its immediate vi-
cinity, part with its fixed air by the
powerful attraction of another acid,
and turn to a sulphate of lime, or
plaster of Paris.

Facts in Natural History—noted dur-
ing the Summer and Autumn of
1799, by S. L. M.

1. A Locust-Tree putting forth Blos-
soms a second time, after having
been struck with Lightning.

A locust-tree (robinia pseud-aca-
cia), after flowering-time, was
struck with lightning. The stroke
was very violent, and, apparently,
deprived it of life. The leaves
withered, and the foot-stalks drop-
ped off. After some days, how-
ever, the tree shewed tokens of re-
turning animation, and new buds
began to unfold. From these buds
a fresh crop of leaves proceeded;
and, what was exceedingly remark-
able, such was the peculiar condi-
tion of this tree, that a second set of
blossoms made their appearance, many
weeks after the first had withered
and been shed by this and the neigh-
bouring ones. Since this second ex-
ertion, which, it was apprehended,
would have exhausted the remain-
ing powers of the tree, it continu-
ed to sprout and grow annually, and
was in a thrifty condition three
years after the accident.

2. Regeneration of the Bark of Ap-
ple-Trees.

In general, to strip off the bark
of trees is to kill them: and yet
there is a time of the year when
apple-trees (pyrus malus) may be
peeled from their roots to their
boughs, on all sides, without sus-

taining any damage from the ope-
ration. The experiment was made
this season (1799), upon one of
my apple-trees, whose whole body
was deprived of its covering of
bark, and whose branches, never-
theless, retained all their leaves and
fruit. It is now two months since
the tree was laid bare, and an en-
tire new coat of bark has been
formed, which invests the wood on
every side; and it appears as healthy
and vigorous as ever. The season
for doing this, is when the days
are longest—that is, towards the
end of June. A tree, peeled last
summer, has lived over the long
and severe winter of 1798–9, and
is in no respect injured. Another,
which was denuded in June, this
year, has re-produced its bark com-
pletely (September), and is as full
of fruit and leaves as if nothing had
been done to it. There is no doubt
that an orchard might be treated in
this manner with perfect safety, if
the operation was well-timed. The
farmers say it will make old trees
young again. But I own, though
I have several times been witness
of the harmlessness of the practice,
it looks to me still like a very vio-
lent and hazardous remedy. The
experiment, however, demonstrates
a most remarkable power in the
vegetable economy. Whether other
trees may be thus decorticated with
safety, I have not yet learned.

3. Retrograde Motion of Sap in a
Wild Cherry-Tree.

On my farm, two wild cherry-
trees (prunus virginiana) grew
within two feet of each other. The
body of one of these trees was fork-
ed, and a branch of the other grew
between the ramifications. In the
progress of vegetation the three
boughs came into contact, and
grew fast together. The inoscula-
tion was so complete, that the fo-
reign branch appeared to have
united firmly with the tree by

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which it was embraced at the bifur-
cation. To show whether or not
this was truly the case, the tree
with which the branch of the other
had formed this connection, was
girdled, or deprived of a ring of
bark near its root. The part of
the tree below the girdle died, and
the roots soon became juiceless;
but the top continued to grow, and
to bear leaves and fruit for several
years after; its nourishment being
furnished wholly from the foster-
branch deriving sap from its own
neighbouring trunk, and supplying
the tree with which it was now con-
solidated. But this was not all:
the distance from the place of the
branch's insertion in the body of the
tree to the place where it was gir-
dled, was about eight feet; yet,
down to that place, or a little above
it, the body continued to live and
grow, and to put forth shoots.
This must have been caused by a
retrograde motion of the sap,
through all that distance from the
point of the union between the
branches above. Something of the
same kind has been known to hap-
pen in other trees.

4. On the Multiplicative Power of
Fishes.

In 1790, Uriah Mitchill, Esq.
High Sheriff of Queen's County,
and myself, went to Rockonkoma
Pond, in Suffolk County, a distance
of about forty miles, in a waggon.
The object of our journey was to
transport, alive, some of the yellow
perch, with which this body of
water abounds, to Success Pond,
in the town of North-Hempstead.
We took about three dozen of
those which had been wounded
most superficially by the hook, and
were so fortunate as to dismiss all
of them but two, into Success Pond,
in a condition vigorous enough to
swim away. We were enabled to
do this by filling a very large churn
with the water of Rockonkoma

Pond, and putting so few fishes into
it, that there was no necessity of
changing it on the road, and after-
wards driving steadily on a walk
the whole distance, without stop-
ping to refresh either man or horse.
In two years these few fishes mul-
tiplied so fast, and became so nu-
merous, that they might be caught
with the hook in any part of the
water, which is about a mile in cir-
cumference! What prodigious in-
crease in their new situation!
Whereas, if they had remained in
the water of their nativity, already
stocked very full, their offspring
would have been comparatively in-
considerable. So true it is of these,
as well as of human and other ani-
mals, that nothing limits their in-
crease and multiplication but the
want of subsistance. When Success
Pond is supplied with as many yel-
low perch as it can feed, either there
will be fewer eggs spawned and
hatched, or, of these little creatures,
a smaller proportion, will become
grown fishes. A vast number of
them, like the children of the Chi-
nese and other fully-stocked nations,
must perish for want of food, and
thereby their multiplication must
be limited.

Professor Rush has lately suc-
ceeded in curing a boy of epilepsy,
by giving him two grains of sac-
charum saturni (acetate of lead)
three times a day. He has, besides,
suspended the fits for several weeks,
by the same dose of that medicine,
in two patients in the Pennsvlvania
Hospital. By creating some disorder
in the bowels, the remedy was pre-
vented from being increased in the
latter cases, and the ultimate success
of it was thereby, in all probability,
disappointed.

Mr. Lindley Murray, a native of
this city, now a resident at York, in
Great-Britain, has published several
elementary works, which have re-

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ceived very merited commendation
from the British reviewers. Among
these we particularly notice his
“English Grammar,” which is well
calculated to aid those in the study
of the English language who have
not acquired a knowledge of Greek
and Latin; and is useful to all who
wish to possess an accurate know-
ledge of the English tongue. For
the use of younger classes, Mr. Mur-
ray has published “An Abridge-
ment of the English Grammar.”
Connected with his scheme of in-
struction, Mr. M. has also publish-
ed a book of “Exercises,” and a
key or explanation of the same, and
a very judicious and useful com-
pilation, entitled, “The English
Reader,” or Pieces in Prose and
Poetry, &c.

These useful performances we
should be glad to see introduced
into the schools of the United States,
and generally used in the instruction
of youth.