indeed very good, but too expensive to be generally adopted. The tarring of tiles has been proposed; and this process appearing to me easily practicable and not expensive, I determined to make trial of it on one of my roofs, which required a great deal of repairing. Providing some of the largest brushes I could obtain, I and an assistant set ourselves to coat the upper side of my tiles with tar liquified over a gentle fire, and kept moderately hot. Four persons were employed to hand us the tiles, and when tarred, to lay them in the sun to dry; which took three or four days, it being then the spring of the year. It is proper to say, that I had set apart the best tiles, or those which appeared the most thoroughly baked; and that I exposed the others to the sun, that they might be warmed, and receive the coat of tar more easily. After the process, these appeared as if coaled with a reddish-brown varnish. Four hours were sufficient for the preparation of two thousand.

tar.

Near my house was a tile kiln, just ready to draw. As soon as it was sufficiently cool to allow the tiles to be handled, I had as many taken out, as left in the interior of the kiln sufficient room for a few people to coat them with While two of these were tarring the tiles, three others were employed to give them, receive them when tarred, and lay them in a corner of the kiln, where the heat was reduced to that of a vapour bath. When the kiln was quite cold, the tiles were perfectly dried, but they had not such a shining coat as the former, because the great heat had caused the tar to penetrate into their substance. Their pores were completely stopped, and they were rendered impenetrable by water, as I found by experience. The five persons I have mentioned, tarred four thousand tiles in six hours. Both these experiments did not consume a barrel of tar.

The roof, for which these tiles were used, is open to the north, and exposed to all the violence of winds and storms. It was repaired in 1799, and not one of the tarred tiles is injured or decayed. They are covered with a very fine moss, and their surface is in as good a condition as if the tar had just been laid on. On the other band, several of those, which, as I said before, I had set apart, supposing they would resist the weather, without any preparation, because they were thoroughly burned, are cracked, broken at the corners, or splintered on the surface.

Some persons say that tarred tiles would be more durable, if they were powdered with iron filings and charcoal dust; but, I conceive, these substances would render the surface rough, and thus detain the water, while those, coated with varnish, would let it run off.

I am of opinion, however, that a mixture of lime and tar would be more beneficial. I think too that fats in general, whale oil, or the dregs of our oils, would be equally adapted to the purpose, and still cheaper.

ANNOTATION.

Few people in London or its vicinity, where tiles are the common covering of houses, but must have experienced great inconvenience from roofs leaking,

and the consequent trouble and expense of frequent repairs. Sometimes, indeed, this is owing to the badness of the mortar employed; but is most commonly the consequence of a few tiles being cracked to pieces by frost, after they had imbibed water. The method, above recommended, would appear to be a sufficient remedy for this; and the expense attending it is not an object at all comparable with the comfort and advantage of a secure roof. I am not certain whether the count be speaking of plain tiles, or pantiles; but, taking them to be plain, the least favourable supposition, and the size of ours, a roof of twenty-four by twenty-five, which would be that of a house of middling size, would take about four thousand. Now, two thirds of a barrel of tar, at 21. 6s. a barrel, the highest price in the market at the present time, come to 17. 108. 8d; and the labour, at the rate of six men for eight hours, the longest time in the two experiments above, at 58. a day, will be 14. 4s; so that the whole additional cost of a moderate sized roof would not exceed 21. 158. This must very soon be reimbursed, by the saving in the repairs of the roof alone; and all the inconvenience, beside the injury done to the ceiling and goods, would be avoided. If coal tar were used, which, I should imagine would perfectly answer the purpose, supposing such a roof to require a hundred weight, this now sells for 18s. so that the cost would be only two guineas.

LONDON BREWERS.

MR. OLDSCHOOL,

Many of your readers, fond of barley wine, and greedy of foreign information, are solicitous, from year to year, to ascertain the quantum of strong beer annually brewed in the first twelve breweries in London. I herewith send you a schedule, upon whose accuracy you may rely. The quantity of strong beer or porter produced, is computed, from the 5th of July, 1809, to the 5th of July, 1810; and I have only to add my hope that Philadelphia will soon emulate so wholesome an example; a circumstance by no means to be despaired of, when we reflect upon the zeal and ability of her capitalists, and her exuberance of the best materials for the composition of a salutary beverage.

Given by the Duke of Orleans, at his seat of Villers Cotteret, to Lewis XV, aj.

ter his coronation at Rheims.

Statement of the articles consumed or employed on the occasion.

14,039 livres six sous were expended in sea and fresh water fish, (about 585 pounds sterling.)

100,809 lbs of butcher's meat.

29,045 heads of game and poultry.

3,071 lbs. of ham.

10,552 bbls. of bacon and hog's lard.

36,464 eggs.

6,060 lbs. of common butter.

600 lbs. of Vanvres ditto.

150,096 lbs. of bread.

80,000 bottles of Burgundy and Champagne.

200 hhds of common wine.

800 bottles of old hock.

1,400 bottles of English beer and cider.

3,000 do. of liqueurs of all sorts.

8,000 lbs. of sugar.

2,000 lbs. of coffee, besides tea.

1,500 lbs. of sweetmeats.

65,000 lemons and oranges, (sweet and sour.)

800 pomegrantes.

150,000 apples and pears of all sorts.

15,000 lbs. of sweetmeats, preserved and candied.

2,000 lbs. of sugar plums.

4,000 lbs. of wax lights.

30,000 china plates and dishes for dessert.

20,00 pieces of crystal dishes for sweetmeats and lustres.

115,000 decanters and glasses.

50,000 pieces (plates, dishes, tureens, &c.) of silver and gilt silver

3,500 table cloths.

900 dozen napkins.

2,000 dozen of aprons were used by the cooks and others.

FOR THE PORT FOLIO.

STRICTURES ON VOLNEYS "VIEW OF THF SOIL AND CLIMATE OF THE UNITED STATES."

If you deem the succeeding remarks worthy of publication, you will please to insert them in the Port Folio, and oblige their author.

D.

It is not designed by the writer of the following observations, to attempt a regular criticism upon Volney's "View of the Soil and Climate of the United States." The correction of some of the errors, in those portions of that ingenious work, which relate to the Western Country, and the addition of a few facts are all to which he aspires. At the same time he cannot refrain from expressing his high sense of the merits of that systematic and useful performance; and his regret that it, and other works of a similar kind are not more generally perused by the inhabitants of the country to which they relate. But the taste of our citizens at large. is not for physical disquisition. Any work that is purely physi.cal, however preeminent its merits may be, will have in this country a very limited number of readers; and it is only by connecting it with theology, ethics, politics, or belles lettres, that its general celebrity can be insured. This connection is sometimes natural and convenient; but in a country so new, so interesting, and intrinsically so little known as ours, inquiries into the productions, the laws and the operations of nature are of the first importance, and should have popular sanction, without the aid of a connexion with popular and fashionable topics.

It is remarkable that the existence, in the western territories,

except about Pittsburg, of argillaceous slate (argilla fissilis Linnæi) should be entirely unnoticed by so minute an observer as Mr. Volney. It has at least an equal share with limestone in forming the foundation, on which the superficial strata of many parts of this country rest. It may be said, in some places to be a stratified bed, in which the tabular limestones are immersed, horizontally. The exact extent of the region which has this structure is not yet ascertained. To the south it is very limited; so that Kentucky, and probably Tennessee are, emphatically, limestone countries. Yet still there is more or less slaty matter between the great calcareous layers. To the west it is much more extensive, being diffused, I believe, throughout the Indiana and Illinois Territories. It is at least certain, that in many parts of those territories, the quantity of limestone is vastly less, than in the districts south of the Ohio; while the proportion of siliceous and argillaceous matter is probably greater, than in any other part between the mountains and the Mississippi. From the former of those regions I have, through the politeness of Mr. William Harris of this town, received beautiful specimens of crystalized quarzt, in hexangular pyramids, and in six sided prisms terminating at each end in six sided pyramids. The same gentleman has also brought from that quarter, specimens of efflorescing pyrites; rhomboidal crystals of the carbonate of lime; two or three varieties of iron ore; granite and sileceous and argillacous sandstone. From the Illinois territory I have also received cubical lead ore (galena), and a specimen of what probably is fluor spar. It is in a short, purple, four sided prism terminated at each end by three sided pyramids: the sides of both the prism and pyramids are unequal. As most of these productions are generally found in schistous rather than calcareous tracts, it is highly probable that slate abounds considerably in that quarter, and indeed specimens of it have been brought from thence by the gentleman just mentioned.

To the north, slate and limestone conjointed, it is supposed, make up the foundation of the country as far as Lake Eric; which is bottomed, Mr. Volney thinks, upon a "dark coloured schist." To the east and north-east the slate probably extends, combined with more or less limestone, to the Alleganies, and the falls of Niagara. At the latter of these places it has been described,