STATUE OF PETER THE GREAT. This superb work of modern art stands in one of the finest squares of St. Petersburgh, and of Europe, according to Sir Robert Ker Porter. It was erected by command of the Empress Catharine, and, like all her other projects, bears the stamp of greatness. The name of the artist is Falconer: "he was a Frenchman; but," adds Sir R. K. P. "this statue, for genius and exquisite execution would have done honour to the best sculptors of any nation. A most sublime conception is displayed in the design. The allegory is finely imagined; and had he not sacrificed the result of the whole to the prominence of his group, the grand and united effect of the statue and its pedestal striking at once upon the eye, would have been unequalled in the works of man. A mass of granite, of a size at present most immense, but formerly most astonishing, is the pedestal. A steep acclivity, like that of a rugged mountain, carries the eye to its summit, which looks down on the opposite side to a descent nearly perpendicular. The figure of the hero is on horseback, supposed to have attained the object of his ambition, by surmounting all the apparent impossibilities which so arduous an enterprise presented. The victorious animal is proudly rearing on the highest point of the rock, whilst his imperial master stretches forth his mighty arm, as the father and protector of his country. A serpent, in attempting to impede his course, is trampled on by the feet of the horse, and writhing in all the agonies of expiring nature. The Emperor is seated on the skin of a bear; and habited in a tunick, or sort of toga which forms the drapery behind. His left hand guides the reins; his right hand is advanced straight forward on the same side of the horse's neck. The head of the statue is crowned with a laurel wreath." It was formed from a bust of Peter, modelled by a young French damsel. The contour of the face, expresses the most powerful command, and exalted, boundless, expansion of thought. "The horse, says Sir Robert, is not to be surpassed. To all the beauties of the ancient form, it unites the easy grace of nature with a fire which pervades every line; and gives such a life to the statue, that as you gaze you expect to see it leap from the pinnacle into the air. The difficulty of keeping so great a mass of weighty metal in so volant an attitude, has been admirably overcome by the artist. The sweep of the tail, with the hinder parts of the horse, are interwoven with the curvatures of the expiring snake; and together compose a sufficient counterpoise to the figure and forepart of the animal." This statue stands upon a rock which was found in a morass near Lachta, in Karelin, at a distance of eleven versts, or about 41,250 English feet. The dimensions of this stone were found to be 21 feet by 42 in length," and 34 in breadth; its weight is calculated at 3,200,000 lbs. or 1,600 tons. The mechanism for its conveyance was invented by Count Carbury, who went by the name of Chevalier Lascuri. A solid road was first made from the stone to the shore; then brass slips were inserted under the stone to go upon cannon balls of five inches diameter, in metal grooves, by windlasses worked by 400 men every day, 200 fathoms towards the place of destination. The water transport was performed by what are called camels in the dockyards of Petersburgh and Amsterdam.-Lon. Mirror. Mr. Everett makes the following patriotick appeal, while speaking of two great men in connexion with each other-Lafayette and Bonaparte: "From this life nothing could draw him. Mr. Jefferson offered to him the place of Governour of Louisiana, then just become a territory of the United States; but he was unwilling, by leaving France, to take a step that would look like a final abandonment of the cause of constitutional liberty on the continent of Europe. Napoleon ceased to importune him, and he lived at La grange, retired and unmolested, the only man who had gone through the terrible revolution, with a character free from every just impeachment. He entered it with a large princely fortune;-in the various high offices which he had filled, he had declined all compensation; and he came out poor. He entered it in the meridian of early manhood, with a frame of iron. He came out of it, fifty years of age, his strength impaired by the cruelties of a long imprisonment. He had filled the most powerful and responsible offices; and others still more powerful-the dictatorship itself had been offered him;-he was reduced to obscurity and private life. He entered the revolution with a host of colleagues of the constitutional party. Of those who escaped the guillotine, most had made peace with Napoleon; not a few of the Jacobins had taken his splendid bribes: the emigrating nobility came back in crowds, and put on his livery; fear, interest, weariness, amazement, and apathy, reigned in France and Europe; kings, emperors, armies, nations, bowed at his footstool; and one man alone-a private man, who had tasted power and knew what he sacrificed, who had inhabited dungeons and knew what he risked; who had done enough for liberty in both worlds to satisfy the utmost requisitions of her friends-this man alone stood aloof in his honour, his independence and his poverty. And if there is a man in this assembly, that would not rather to have been Lafayette to refuse than Napoleon to bestow his wretched gewgaws; that would not rather have been Lafayette in retirement, and obscurity, and yet not proscribed, than Napoleon with an emperor to hold his stirrup; if there is a man who would not have preferred the honest poverty of Lagrange to the bloody tinsel of St. Cloud; that would not rather have shared the peaceful fireside of the friend of Washington, than to have spurred his triumphant courser over the crushed and blackened heaps of slain, through the fire and carnage of Marengo and Austerlitz.-that man has not an American heart in his bosom. That man is a slave, and fit to be father of slaves. He does not deserve to breathe the pure air, to drink the cold springs, to tread the green fields, or to hear the sabbath bells of a free country. He ought, with all his garters, ribands, and stars upon him, to be bolted down, with a golden chain, to the blazing pavement of a palace court yard, that when his lord and master goes out to the hunt of beasts or of men, he may be there,--the slave,-to crouch down, and let his majesty vault from his shoulder to the saddle." FIRE-DAMP-THE SAFETY-LAMP OF DAVY. tions and experiments, made himself thoroughly acquainted with the enemy he had to vanquish. Having What is generally known under the name of fire done so, he then patiently sat down to devise a remeor choke damp in mínes, is just the coal gas or carbu- dy. Fortunately his efforts were crowned with comreted hydrogen escaping from strata of coal under plete success; and his highly ingenious invention had particular circumstances, and flowing out so as to occu- this rare merit, that it was not the result of happy acpy the space of the mine. When such gas is accumu- cident, or the chance suggestion of the moment, but lated in certain quantities, so as to amount to a half or was perfected from one step to another, by patient exeven less of the air of the mine, on a lighted lamp or periments and philosophick reasoning. Like all other any flame being presented to it, an instantaneous ex- great inventions, when once discovered and explained, plosion takes place. This gas is very prevalent in the the safety-lamp of Sir H. Davy appears a very simple mines of the English districts, but rare in those of apparatus indeed. It consists of a common oil lamp, Scotland. In the chymical process which takes place, over which is screwed a cylindrical frame, covered by which vegetable matter is gradually changed into with an extremely fine wire gauze, the apertures of coal, there appears to be a formation of this carbureted which are not more than one-twentieth of an inch hydrogen; for it has been found, on examining thin square. Every part of this cylinder and of the lamp slices of the more bituminous sorts of coal with a pow- is accurately soldered, so that no air can get admittance erful microscope, that numerous small bubbles of thin to the flame, except through the minute holes of the air are contained within the minute hollow tubes wire gauze. A wire passes upwards from the bottom, which still remain distinct, though somewhat flatten- by which the wick is trimmed, and a tube communied; thus indicating the true vegetable origin of the cating with the well of the lamp opens outside, by substance. When a stratum of coal that has been sub- which oil may be poured in to replenish it, without jected to great pressure, and completely excluded from having occasion to unscrew the gauze cylinder. Furall communication with the external air, is suddenly nished with this lamp, the miner may go with perfect broke in upon by the miner, the compressed air thus safety into places where the choke damp is lodged, and finds an opening, and, rushing out, expands in volume may calmly and without apprehension, pursue his subso as to fill a large space of the shaft or hollow part of terranean labours, day after day, where, if he attemptthe mine; and it will thus continue to do so until the ed to enter with a naked flame, immediate explosion whole of the confined gas makes its escape, or finds an and destruction would take place. Sir H. Davy, in equilibrium of density. There is yet another cause his first experiments, tried the effect of conveying air supposed to give origin to the fire-damp; and this is, for the supply of an inclosed flame, through long tubes the occurrence of what miners call whin dykes, or with an exceedingly small bore, calculating justly, troubles. These are masses of trap rocks, which fre- that flame, in passing through these long minute aperquently come across the coal strata, and completely tures, would lose its heat, and, consequently, its power cut up and derange the levels of the various seams. of communicating flame to the external air or gas. These whin dykes evidently appear to be rocks thrown Having ascertained this important fact, he next tried up from below by the action of internal fire, and at a how short he might venture to make these tubes, and, period after the coal and its accompanying strata had gradually filing them down, he at length discovered been formed. That these rocks have been in a hot that the thinnest plate of metal, when pierced with and melted state, is apparent from their general aspect small holes, was quite sufficient for the purpose reand composition; but is further proved, from the quired. This immediately led to the trial of wire fact, that, on each side where they come to touch the gauze, and hence his discovery was perfected. When coal seams, the latter are completely charred; in other the safety-lamp is immersed in the highly inflammawords, converted into a coke, or cinder. During this ble air of mines, the portion of air contained within the exposure to great heat, a large quantity of gas must gauze cylinder is immediately exploded, but no comhave been produced, exactly in a similar manner as munication of the explosion is made to the air around, coal gas is artificially made; but owing to the process because the flame of the burning gas, in passing through having taken place deep under ground, this gas has the small apertures of the wire gauze, is cooled down not escaped, but remains shut up in the various crevi- so much that its power of inflaming other air is lost. ces of the strata under a strong pressure, until the ope- When the mixture of inflammable air in mines is only rations of the miner expose the whole. In this way it in moderate proportion, the miner can breathe it with is probable large volumes of fire-damp find their way comparative impunity, and the flame will be supported into the hollows of mines; and it is remarkable, that, without an explosion; but where the gas prevails in in Scotland, where few such whin dykes occur, although greater proportion-and this will take place suddenly, there are numerous other shifts or troubles of the stra- and without previous warning-then the great importta, accidents from choke-damp are rare, or almost un-ance of the safety-lamp is manifest. The miner is known; whereas, in the English districts, where dykes are very numerous, few coal-mines are ever entirely free from the noxious gas. In the neighbourhood of Newcastle, one of those coal seams was lately exposed, which strikingly illustrated the effects of charring, from the protrusion of a mass of rock through the coal; and numerous other instances leave no doubt of the fact. immediately apprised of the circumstance, and he can deliberately explore his way to another part of the mine, whereas, under other circumstances, a sudden explosion, and his inevitable destruction, would have been the consequence. The beautiful simplicity of this contrivance of Sir H. Davy, the perfect manner in which it was found to answer all the purposes required, and the noble phiSince ever coal mines have been extensively wrought lanthropy with which its inventor freely bestowed it the loss of human life from explosions of fire-damp has for the good of society, without fee or reward, could not been very great. Every year had its awful calamities, fail to excite the admiration of all classes of the comand almost every month brought its detail of the suf-munity. But those immediately concerned, the exferings of unfortunate victims, and of the bereavement and misery of many orphan families. At last the feelings of publick humanity were excited to a painful degree, and many proposals and attempts were made to remedy the evil. None of these, however, proved successful, till at length the genius of Sir H. Davy grappled with the subject. With his accustomed energy, he immediately set about considering the whole bearings of the matter; and first of all, by repeated inspec tensive coal proprietors of the English districts, were more particularly interested and excited by the invention, and, accordingly, as a mark of their gratitude and respect for the high talents of the inventor, they resolved on presenting him with a superb service of plate. A subscription of two thousand pounds was immediately formed, a publick meeting was held in the north of England, and, at a dinner given to Sir Humphry, he had the proud satisfaction of receiving the gratefu tribute due to his genius and philanthropy. The lamp is now known all over the mining countries by the name of "the Davy ;" and time has not in the smallest degree tended to lessen the confidence which was originally reposed in its efficacy as a protector of human life. STATISTICKS OF CANTON. Chinese Manners. We have been sent a copy of a slight volume of about 100 pages published in Canton by Mr. Keating, a countryman of ours. It is a description of the city of Canton, accompanied with an appendix of curious and valuable information, respecting the Chinese Empire, and the habits, manners, &c. of its people. The whole thing is a curiosity, and not the least so among its contents is a map of the city of Canton, executed by a native hand-the writer disclaims the title of "artist" for him. It is a fac-simile of one of the native maps, and exhibits fairly enough a good idea of the extent &c. of the city. We give some information abridged from the contents of the volume. The foreign factories are situated a short distance from the south-west corner of the city walls. The rivers and canals which abound around Canton are full of fish, and covered with a great variety of boats continually passing to and from the neighbouring villages. Southwards the waters are about one-third of all the district that is visible. Ricefields and gardens occupy the lowlands, with here and there a few hills and small groves of trees to diversify the surface. More than 4000 years, according to their chronology, Canton was called "the splendid capital;" and about twelve centuries before the Christian era this district first began to pay tribute to the Emperors of China. In November, 1650, the Tartars took and plundered Canton, and killed all they laid hands upon, the numbers lost during the siege and sack amounting to 700,000; out of the ruins thus made arose the modern city, and the Tartars took up their quarters in the old city, where their descendants still live. The author estimates the circuit of the wall, including both old and new cities, at not more than six miles English, as he has walked the distance, at a quick step, in little less than two hours. The walls are composed partly of stone and partly of bricks, and great inroads have been made on them by the elements, so as to be able to afford little resistance to a modern foe. They rise nearly perpendicularly, and vary in height from 25 to 35 or 40 feet, and their thickness is from 20 to 25. A line of battlements, with embrasures at intervals of a few feet, are raised on the top of the wall round all the city: these the Chinese call "city men." The city gates are 16 in number, but four lead from one part of the city into the other, leaving only twelve outer gates. A few soldiers are stationed at each to watch them by day and close and guard them by night. The suburbs are nearly as populous as the city itself. The streets are about 600, and among their names are enumerated "Dragon-street," "Flying-dragon ditto" "Martial dragon," "Golden flower-street," and many more of a similar kind. Several of the streets are long, but most of them short and crooked; in width they vary from two to sixteen feet, and they are flagged with great stones, chiefly granite. The greater part of the visiters, &c. are brought into the city by ditches or canals; these run through and round the city, and are called by the Chinese its "veins," as we say of the Parks that they are the "lungs of London." There are several bridges, some of stone, built over the canals. With the Chinese, according to Mr. Keating, the left takes precedence of the right as the place of honour, and white instead of black is the appropriate badge of mourning; from the structure of their compass, which they call "a chariot," pointing to the south, they number the cardinal points as in the following verse"Yue nan pih, yue se tung," "south and north, west and east." In passing through the streets the spectator is struck with the great difference in the buildings; a few only are rich, and the external appearance of their houses does not at all exceed in elegance those of the middling classes; but the poorer people dwell in most miserable places-mere mud hovels-low, narrow, dark, and uncleanly, and without any division of apartments. "It is surprising that people can live and enjoy health, and even long life, in these circumstances." (Use is every thing no doubt.) "To pass through the streets or lanes of such a neighbourhood is sufficient to reconeile a person to any ordinary condition of life." The general abodes stand close in the streets, and have usually but a single entrance, which is closed by a bamboo screen suspended from the top of the door; there are only three rooms, two for sleeping for the sexes separately, and a common dining room. The rent of one of these houses is four or five dollars a month. The residences of those in easy circumstances are surrounded by a wall 12 or 14 feet high, that rises in front close on the street, giving it a cheerless aspect enough. The houses of a few of the most opulent in Canton are in no respect inferiour, except perhaps, in the space they occupy, to the Imperial Palaces. Very few of the houses or temples have more than one story, and they generally have terraces ou the roofs. A spacious hall, called Wan Shew Kang, is dedicated in honour of the Emperor in the capital of every province of the empire. The walls and all the appurtenances of these halls are yellow, the Imperial colour, and annually, three days before and three days after the Imperial birth-days, all the officers of government, civil and military, together with the principal inhabitants, assemble in it and there pay him adoration. The same solemnities are required on these occasions as would be were he present. No seats are allowed in the sacred place, and every one who goes thither takes with him a cushion, upon which he sits cross-legged on the ground. The police is vigilant and efficient on the 'wholethey have constables, thief-takers, and a nocturnal watch, who are distinguished by bells; and in winter, when fire is as much to be dreaded as thieves, watchtowers are built on bamboo poles high above the roofs of the houses, thus constituting a double watch. Riotous assemblies are usually quickly dissolved by a rigorous application of the bamboo or whip. Justice is often administered in the most summary manner, particularly in minor offences, where the same hour sees the man apprehended, punished, and set free. The forms of trial are very simple; there is no jury nor pleading. The criminal kneels before the magistrate, who hears the witnesses and passes sentence: he is, then remanded to prison or sent to the place of execution. An acquittal is rare. There are four jails, which are called te-ys-hell, or literally "earth's prison." All capital offenders suffer just without the southern gates near the river; hundreds die there annually. When brought to the fatal spot, they kneel with their faces towards the Emperor's court, and bending forward in the attitude of submission and thanksgiving, suddenly expire beneath the sword of the executioner. Mr. Keating attributes the safety as well as the glory of the Chinese empire to its literary institutions, which he calls "the pillars that give stability to the government." All posts except the empire itself are open to, and attained only by literary men, and the most care ful publick examinations take place annually in Canton and Pekin; and to qualify the young for these examinations, and thereby prepare them for rank and office in the state, is a leading object of the higher schools and colleges among the Chinese. (From the London Sun.) Children are not generally sent to school until they | DESTRUCTION OF BOTII HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT. are seven or eight years old; they enter usually for a whole year, and whether they attend or not must pay for that time. In every school there is a tablet with the name of Confucius inscribed, with an altar beneath, on which incense and candles are continually kept burning. When the scholar first enters the room in the morning he bows before the tablet and then to his teacher; the last for respect, the first for devotional worship. Of the population of Canton not more than half are able to read. Perhaps not one boy in ten is left entirely without instruction: the direct reverse is the case with the females. There is scarcely a school for the latter in the whole city. "The religious institutions of the Chinese present for contemplation a dark and melancholy picture." One of the temples in Canton is called "The temple of glory and filial duty; this is one of the largest, and has 3500 acres of land belonging to it, which are leased out for the support of its inmates, about two hundred in number; it was built two hundred and fifty years after Christ, and has been often repaired and supplied with new recruits of idols, with which it abounds in all its numerous halls. The other temples (there are 124 in all) are full of idols and all manner of abominations; their outer courts the retreats of vagabonds and gamesters, "while their inner apartments are usually inhabited by those miserable beings who, having abandoned society and their better reason too, drag out an ignorant, idle, and misanthropick life." There are several nunneries in Canton, about 100 priests, who are maintained at a great annual expense. Budha is one of their greatest idols, and he is generally made of enormous dimensions, in the attitude of a half-naked, gross, well-fed lounger. The most celebrated of the temples is the far famed "Hinam jos-house," or temple of Hinam, which was originally a private garden; then "the temple of ten thousand autumns," dedicated to Budha. This is a place of frequent resort for strangers visiting Canton; it occupies altogether about eight English acres; in the great hall are three stately images representing the past, the present, and the future Budha, and here the priests have their daily vespers at five o'clock. The bodies of the priests after death are burned here, and the ashes deposited once a year in a mausoleum set apart for the purpose, and until this annual period comes they are kept in small jars. At present (March 1834) there are about 175 priests in this temple alone. Besides the 124 publick temples there are a great number of altars dedicated to the gods of the land and of grain, of the wind and clouds, of thunder and rain, and of hills and rivers, &c. At these, as in all the temples, sacrifices and offerings of animals, fish, fruit, sweetmeats, &c. are presented by all classes, publick and private. On the birth-days of the gods and at other times, processions are fitted out at the various temples, and the images are borne in state with musick, flags, and other insignia through the most publick streets. They have three religious creeds, Budhism, Taunism, and the doctrines of Sage. The charitable institutions are few in number, small in extent, and of recent origin; a foundling hospital for 200 or 300 children, a retreat for poor aged and infirm or blind people, and an hospital for lepers, are the principal if not the only establishments of the kind in existence. A dispensary was attempted, bu after a short trial abandoned. With the exception of the Russian caravans which traverse the northern frontiers of China, and the Portuguese and Spanish ships which visit Macao, the whole trade between the Chinese empire and the nations of the west centres in Canton. Lon. Globe. The total destruction of both Houses of Parliament by fire, Oct. 17, will mark the commencement of a new era in the history of England. The future historian, when he comes to this resting place, will suspend his narration to dwell with melancholy pleasure on the glories of which these now smoking ruins were a witness to recall the hallowed recollections of the triumphs of freedom obtained within those walls, and perhaps to date from the downfall of this venerable their impress on the character of a great people. We pile changes the most momentous which have stamped saw the fire from every point to which an approach to it could be made, and never before did we behold a spectacle so awfully grand-so sublimely terrifick. On Westminster Bridge, and more than a mile beyond it, whither the wind blew for about two hours after the breaking out of the flames, it literally rained fire. The crowds of people who flocked from all directions were immense, and but one feeling of sorrow seemed to pervade the people-all were united in a wish to preserve these monuments of the freedom of Britainthese theatres upon which were acted whatever is greatest, noblest, and most glorious in her past records. Much was done; and to the cheerful and timely exertions of such persons the country is indebted for the preservation of Westminster Hall and the adjoining Law Courts. It is impossible to contemplate these splendid ruins edifices, sacred to liberty and the past, cannot be esti- The of November last. The disk of the sun was so nearly Beginning of the eclipse, at 1 h. 6 min. Digits eclipsed, 10 deg. 46 min. on the southern limb of the sun. Among the most curious and interesting peculiarities of the American Indians, is their methods of disposing of their dead. The modes are different in different tribes, varying according to their religious notions, accidental caprice, or their attachment to the person of the deceased. Among the Esquimaux the corpse is deposited, with the head to the westward, in a sort of coffin formed of loose planks, and placed upon a platform of driftwood, which is sometimes raised to the height of two feet. A hive-shaped covering, made of spars of drift wood put together closely, is erected over this to secure the body from the depredations of wild beasts; it gives way however finally to the rapacity of foxes and wolves. The body is generally dressed in a frock made of eider-duck skins, and covered with hides of deer. Sometimes the coffin and planks are omitted, and the corpse then rests simply on the drift wood. Among some of the tribes of the United States, the dead are buried several feet under ground, with their dresses and all their implements of war and hunting by their side. These things are thrown into the grave in the belief that the deceased will have use for them in the hunting grounds of the other world. Other tribes place them in the earth in an erect posture, all accoutred and prepared for immediate action, which they think will be necessary, soon as the deceased reach the country of souls. Among the Chippeways, one mode of burying the dead, is, to place the coffin, or box containing their remains on two cross pieces nailed or tied with wattap to four poles, as is designed to be represented by the above engraving. The poles are sometimes ten feet high. They plant near these poles, the wild hop, or some other kind of running vine which spreads over and covers the coffin. The reason they give for thus disposing of their dead, is, that they dislike to hasten them out of sight by putting them under ground. That it is a comfort to them to see the box that contains the remains of their departed friends. The Chippeways declare, that all Indians when they die, go to a large village, towards the setting sun, that has no end to it-Jeebyug-aindahourkee-ewaud, or the country of souls. Some say they get there directlyothers have to encamp several nights by the way before they reach it. The Great Spirit however accord ing to their belief, does not live in this great village, but he lives in the sky. These notions of the untu tored Indian, evidence the universality of Religion; and if men's feelings were not sufficient they prove that the human mind is as prone to religion, as sparks are to fly upward. JOURNAL OF THE FRANKLIN INSTITUTE This popular journal continues to be published monthly, under the auspices of the Franklin Institute of Philadelphia. We select the following from the notices of new patents, embraced in the last number, which we presume our readers may read with pleasure and profit. For colouring Lamp Oil, of different tints, Ezra Bourne, city of New-York, March 4. To render the oil red, alkanet root is to be put into it, and to remain until the colour is sufficiently deep. For green, verdigris is to be used, grinding it, and allowing poured into a cask, and the oil eventually strained. it to be rubbed up with a portion of oil; this may be Cinnamon and cloves are to be used for a cinnamon colour: the colouring matter being exacted by a mixture of oil and spirits of turpentine. A deeper colour may be obtained by oil of pimento. The foregoing contains the whole substance of the specification, the modes of colouring not being claimed. From our brass lamps we could have supplied to the |