offered to heart-rending misery a hope that could never subtract an atom from its sum of bitterness. But let us humbly indulge the conviction, that different, very far, different, was the result intended by St. Paul, remembering in the hour of agonizing affliction, that submission is the first duty of a Christian to his Creator, and that Christianity exalts patient submission to cheerful resignation, by inculcating the belief, that those beings whose loss has occasioned the death of earthly happiness, will welcome our admission to perfect and immortal bliss, whose effulgence shall brighten through eternity, for infinity will impart the rays that constitute it.

M. A. R.

MR. TATE'S REPLY to MR. G. M. H.
SIR,

YOUR Corresondent, Mr. G. M. H.

Yuring in your Magazine for the

last month, expressed his incapability of seeing wherein one of the forms of calculation used in this concern is aneant to supersede the old method, I beg leave, through the same medium, to inform him, that it in no respect differs from the usual plan of multiplying the principal by the number of the days, and dividing the product by 7300; except in the substitution of a very easy and ingenious approximation, instead of the above divisor.

With regard to the plan proposed by that gentleman, the rule for which is most inaccurately expressed, it is nothing more than the working of a question in proportion where the interest for 365 days, at 5 per cent, being as many shillings as there are pounds in the principal, is required to find the amount of the same sum for any other number of days; and should the rate be any other than 5 per cent, adding to, or subtracting from the original sum, or either of the products, as many fifths as are requisite to proportion it to the given per centage. This plan, as well as mine, has long been practised in one of the first schools for calculation in the universe-I mean the Stock Exchange; and I gave the preference to the one which I adopted, not only as being more simple, but as in many instances not requiring the expression of half the number of figures, which any of your intelligent readers may determine, unless indeed he possesses the head of a Zerah Colburn, or a Jedediah Buxton, and can perform the division by 365 with the apparent conciseness of Mr. G. M. H.'s performance; and it certainly is a little

singular, that, with the cancelment of a long and troublesome division, he should exhibit his plan to shew the difference in figures.

I shall further intrude upon your time, sir, only to state, that the study of complex arithmetic, as Mr. G. M. H. terms it, is neither my pursuit nor the object of my establishment. The only merit I can claim from my system of calculations, is that of arranging and explaining numerous appropriated plans of calculations, which are practised by the first accountants in various departments of business, and possibly sometimes making a tittle improvement, and that I should probably not have considered it necessary to take any notice of Mr. G. M. H.'s observations, had he not intimated that his abbreviated plan had been imported from abroad, and consequently its affording an opportunity of shewing how very illfounded the opinion is which some persons have imbibed of the calculations used in some places of the continent, far excelling ours in conciseness and simplicity. I am, Sir,

Your very obedient servant, Finishing Academy, W. TATE. Cateaton Street.

IT is generally admitted, that, for the last four hundred years, an extensive portion of the eastern coast of Old Greenland has been shut up by an impenetrable barrier of ice, and, with it, the ill-fated Norwegian or Danish colonies, which had been established there for more than an equal length of time preceding that unfortunate catastrophe, and who were thus cut off at once from all communication with the mother Country-that various attempts have been made from time to time to approach this coast, with the view of ascertaining the fate of the unfortunate colonists, but in vain, the ice being every where impervious; and that, all hope being at length abandoned, that part of this extensive tract of land which faces the east took the appropriate name of lost Greenland.

The event to which we have alluded is the disappearance of the whole, or greater part, of this vast barrier of ice. This extraordinary fact, so interesting to science and humanity, appears to rest on no slender foundation. Both its disappearance from its long long-rooted position, and its re-appearance in a more southern latitude, have been witnessed by various persons worthy of credit. It had been observed in the summer months of the year 1815, and more particularly in those of 1816 and 1817, by ships coming from the West Indies and America, as well as by those going out to Halifax and Newfoundland, that Europ. Mag. Vol. LXXIII. Mar, 1818.

Newfoundland. The ship of the Unitas Fratrum, proceeding to the missions on Old Greenland, was, last year, eleven days beset, on the coast of Labrador, with the ice-bergs, many of which bad huge rocks upon them, gravel, soil, and pieces of wood. The packet from Halifax passed, in April last, a mountain of ice nearly two hundred feet in height, and at least two miles in circumference. By accounts from Newfoundland, Halifax, and other northern ports of America, it would appear, that greater quantities of ice were seen in the months of May, June, and July, than had ever been witnessed by the oldest navigators & and that the whole island of Newfoundland was so completely environed with it, that the vessels employed in the fishery were unable to get out to sea to follow their usual occupations. The source from which these enormous masses proceeded could not be long concealed. It was well known to the Greenland fishermen, that from Staatenhoek, the southern promontory of Old Greenland, an uninterrupted barrier of ice stretched north-easterly, or parallel nearly to the coast, approaching frequently to the very shores of Iceland; and that the small island, situated in lat. 71 deg. 11 min. long. 5 deg. 30 min. W. called Jan Mayen's Island (a sort of land-mark which those engaged in the seal fishery always endea vour to make), had of late years been completely enveloped in ice; and that from this point it generally took a more easterly direction, till it became fixed to the shores of Spitzbergen, from the 76th to the 80th degree of latitude.

The more central parts of this immense area of ice, which occupy the mid-channel between Greenland and Spitzbergen, separate from time to time into large patches, and change their position according to winds and tides; but the general direction in which they move with the current is from northeast to south-west, or directly towards

G g

by Dr. Gregory. It would seem indeed that the northern part of the east coast of Greenland has been approached at various times by different nationsDutch, Danes, and English. Hudson, in 1607, saw the coast nearly in the same latitude as that where Driscole is supposed to have landed; and actually seat a boat on shore in 80 deg. 23 min. It is from Hudson's "Hold with Hope," in about 72 degrees, to Cape Farewell, that the ice fixed itself to the land from which it has recently been detached.

That this is the case we can state from the best authority: -Intelligence was received at Copenhagen, from Iceland, in September last, of the ice having broken loose from the opposite coast of Greenland, and floated away to the southward, after surrounding the shores, and filling all the bays and creeks of that island; and this afflicting visita tion was repeated in the same year: a circumstance hitherto unknown to the oldest inhabitant.

[The writer then attempts to anticipate the effect of this great revolution of nature on the climate of this country:-]

The invention of the thermometer and the registry of the temperature are of too recent a date to enable us to compare the state of the atmosphere, before and after the accumulation of ice on the coast of Greenland! but there are reasons for believing that, previous to the fifteenth century, England enjoyed a warmer summer climate than since that period. It is sufficiently apparent that, at one time, vineyards were very common in England; and that wine, in very considerable quantities, was made from them. Tacitus states, that vineyards were planted by the Romans in Britain; and Holinshed quotes the permission given by Probus to the natives to cultivate the vine, and make wine from it. The testimony of Bede-the old notices of tythe on wine, which were common in Kent, Surrey, and other southern counties-the records of suits in the ecclesiastical courts the inclosed patches of ground attached to numerous abbeys, which still bear the name of vineyards-the plot of ground called East Smithfield, which was converted into a vineyard, and held by four successive constables of the Tower, in the reigns of Rufus, Henry, and Stephen," to their great emolu-ment and profit,, seem to remove all

doubt on this question. The Isle of Ely was named, in the early times of the Normans, Ile de Vignes, the bishop of which received three or four tons of wine, yearly, for his tenth. So late as the reign of Richard II. the little park at Windsor was appropriated as a vineyard, for the use of the castle : and William of Malmsbury asserts, that the vale of Gloucester produced, in the twelfth century, as good wine as many of the provinces of France. "There is no province in England hath so many, or such good vineyards, as this country, either for fertility or sweetness of the grape; the wine whereof carrieth no unpleasant tartness, being not much inferior to French in sweetness." It is remarkable enough, that in a park near Berkeley, in this country, tendrils of vines are found springing up yearly among the grass, from one of which a cutting is now flourishing in the garden of Sir Joseph Banks. But wine is known to have been made in England at a much more recent period. Among the MS. notes of the late Peter Collinson (to whom the European world is indebted for the introduction of some of its choicest plants), is the following memorandum: Oct. 18th, 1765, I went to see Mr. Roger's vineyard, at Parson's Green, all of Burgundy grapes, and seemingly all perfectly ripe. I did not see a green half-ripe grape in all this great quantity. He does not expect to make less than fourteen hogsheads of wine. The branches and fruit are remarkably large, and the vines very strong." These facts completely set aside the idea that the vineyards of England were apple-orchards, and that the wine was cider.

Nor is England the only country that has lost its wines by deteriora tion of climate; as the following fact, on which we can depend, testifies :"Between Namur and Liege, the Meuse flows through a narrow valley, which, for picturesque scenery and high cultivation, is perhaps unequalled by any country in the world. The richest cornfields and plantations of tobacco, and other luxuriant vegetables, occupy the space on both sides close to the river; while hop plantations and a series of vineyards are seen creeping towards the very summit of the rocks on the left bank, The vineyards appeared to be in a most luxuriant state when I saw them (in September, 1817), but there was not a single bunch of grapes on

any of them. I had conversation with many of the people, who all assured me, that formerly they made most excellent wine, both red and white; but that for the last seven years they had not made a single bottle; yet they still went on from year to year in the cultivation of the vine, in the hope that favourable seasons might again return to what they had known them; or, which would be still better, to what they are said to have been some forty or fifty years ago." But to us, at least, a prospect far more gloomy than the mere loss of wine had begun to present itself, by the increasing chilliness of our sum mer months. It is too well known, that there was not sufficient warmth in the summer of 1816 to ripen the grain; and it is generally thought, that if the ten or twelve days of hot weather at the end of June last had not occurred, most of the corn must have perished. This come more home to the business and bosoms of the present generation, than the loss of "those golden days when Bacchus smiled upon our hills." It was sufficiently alarmning to be told that "Pomona is about to desert our orchards; and that on ground where the clustering vine once flourished, the apple has, of late years, scarcely ripened," and that "it is now sixteen years since the orchards have afforded a plentiful crop" that "at no very remote period, our posterity may, in all probability, be in the same situation in regard to cider that we are now placed in with respect to wine; when the apple-tree, like the vine, will only afford a penurious supply of sour fruit, and will be cultivated in forcing houses to supply the tables of the

rich."

From these melancholy forebodings, however, we feel ourselves considerably relieved by the removal of the principal cause, in the destruction of the vast fields of ice, of which we have been speaking; and think it is not unreasonable to presume, that our summer cliinate (and winter too, when the wind blows from the western quarter) may henceforward improve; for though we are aware that the changes of temperature depend on a variety of causes, yet the single effect of an atmosphere chilled and condensed over a surface of at least 50,000 square miles of ice, rushing directly upon the British Islands from the westward, may have been equal in its diminishing power to all

the rest. That cause being now removed, we are disposed to join in the recommendation of the Latin poet"Insere nunc, Melibae, pyros, pune ordine viteis."

We subjoin the following article, extracted from the Literary Gazette of the 28th of February.

"Extract from an unpublished Letter of the Naturalist M. Von Chamisso, the Companion of Otto Von Kotzebue. It is addressed to a Friend in Berlin, "We have," he writes, "experi enced none of the dangers and hardships in the North for which I was prepared, and our voyage was like a party of pleasure. In Bebring's Straits there is no strong current. Along the American coast there extend large sand. banks before the higher land ;-the sea is here shallow, and the whole Strait along this coast may perhaps be one day filled up by them, so as to render it possible to go to America by land.

us.

"The difference in the depth found by Cook and by us, is altogether too great to be ascribed to this gradual filling up; but Cook only saw the American coast at a distance, and marked it as uninterrupted on his map; whereas the lower land is broken by many creeks, and in the 63° of north latitude we penetrated into Kotzebue's Sound to the length of Norton Sound, from the back of which we were not far distant: here a chain of original land surrounded On the south side of the entrance, we, however, left one inlet into the low land unexplored, which, as is said by the natives, leads, in nine days of their navigation, into the open sea. According to our experience, it may be hoped, that it would be possible to penetrate into the Icy Sea without doubling the Icy Cape, which consequently (like the Terra del Fuego) would be separated from the main land. Then, depending on the accounts of Mackenzie and Hearne, we might penetrate through Repulse Bay into Hudson's Bay. This would be highly interesting to geography and the knowledge of the earth, but not open any new road to naviga. tion. But as the intrepid adventurer who should undertake it, would find the sea open for two months at the most, he must be prepared to winter several times in these high latitudes. Besides, the fogs which hang over the sea during the summer months, would