thus exposing nearly the whole of the skull. A great quan tity of blood flowed from the temporal artery, which caused him to faint, in this situation he was conveyed to the Infir mary, where the vessel was immediately tied. London Pa

per.

An Inquest was held yesterday at the Nag's Head publichouse at Bushey, on the body of Richard Huntingdon, a navigator, who died from the effects of a boxing-match with one Gabriel Turner, an itinerant tinker, on Friday. The parties' had met together at a kind of fair, and having disputed each other's manhood over their pots, they agreed to meet in a field at six o'clock to fight for a sovereign each. They were attended by seconds, shook hands, &c. and the fight lasted more than an hour; and it consisted chiefly in throwing. At the finish of the thirty-seventh round, the deceased dropped his head upon his second's shoulder, and never raised it after. Mr. Munns, a surgeon, proved that the deceased died of a rupture of one of the vessels in the head; and the Jury returned a verdict of "Manslaughter." St. James's Chronicle.

On Monday afternoon se'nnight, a girl about eleven years of age, while amusing herself by the side of the Earn, immediately below the old bridge, and attempting to take out some water with a watering-pan, was drawn into the river by the force of the current, and carried down to the distance of about half a mile. She was observed by one of her companions, who gave the alarm. to some farm-servants in the neighbourhood, who immediately ran to the child's assistance, and with difficulty rescued her from her perilous situation. She appears to have been supported by her clothes buoying her up on the surface of the water. Dundee Courier.

The prolific powers of fish are scarcely credible.-Immense tracts of the ocean are so thickly and deeply covered with their spawn, that, as the waves break, and ships dash through them, the phosphoric light emitted from the substance which surrounds the animalcula, gives the waters during a dark night the appearance of flames of fire, terrific but harmless. Liewenhoek calculated that a cod fish, of ordinary size, contained more young than there are inhabitants upon the face of our globe. The writer had once the curiosity to count the young in a herring seven inches in length, and found 40,000! these things sink into insignificance before the following, taken from Scoresby's Account of East Greenland, lately pub lished. Perceiving the waters of the sea, to a wide extent and a great depth, to be of a beautiful but deep yellow colour, he had some of the water taken up. Applying a microscope of moderate powers to the same, he found that the colour of the water proceeded from the number of animalcula in it, each so inconceivably small, that a single drop contained

But

56,000! An ordinary sized glass tumbler contained 150 millions of these creatures, which lived, and moved, and sported about each in his place, without disturbing or pressing, upon his neighbour. English Chron.

Reaping Corn. The French claim the credit of a new discovery of great importance to agriculture, in the advantages which, according to them, result from the practice of reaping corn before it is perfectly ripe. This theory, which has just been promulgated by M. Cadet de Vaux, originates with M. dé Salles, of the Agricultural Society of Bezieres. The following are the particulars;-Corn, reaped eight days before the usual time, is, in the first place, secured from the dangers which threaten it at that time: this is only accidental; but, a positive advantage is, that the grain is fuller, larger, finer, and that it is never attacked by the weevil. The truth of these statements has been proved by the most conclusive comparative experiments upon a piece of corn, one half of which was reaped before the usual time, and the other half at the degree of maturity fixed by the ordinary practice. The first portion gave much more corn. Afterwards an equal quantity of flour from the wheat of each portion was made into bread; that of the corn reaped green gave much more bread than the other Lastly the weevil attacked the corn which was cut ripe, the other was exempt from it. The proper time for reaping is that when the grain, on being pressed between the fingers, has a doughy appearance like the crumb of bread just hot from the oven, when pressed in the same manner,

Flax Growing. Mr. Besnaad, of the Linen Board, has been directed to proceed through the province of Ulster, with the Dutch flax farmers recently brought to this country by the trustees of the linen manufacture, for the purpose of showing the mode of pulling and steeping flax as practised in the Netherlands. In Russia and every part of the continent, flax is deprived of the bole before steeping, and it is a fact well known, that Irish flax, generally speaking, is the most irregularly prepared for market of any in Europe. The mellowness, and evenness of every description of continental linen, so well known and admired by those acquainted with that manufacture, is considered to arise from the superior quality of the flax of which it is composed, in the preparation of which the greatest pains are taken. Viewing the treatment of this valuable plant in the Netherlands, in all its bearings, it seems that the great art, (if such it may be called) of producing it of a better quality, and in a more merchantable form, than it is done in Ireland, rests solely on a well regulated system, from which no person deviates, from the sower of the seed to the export merchant-a practice worthy the imitation of every person concerned in the cultivation of flax in this. country. Dublin Evening Post.

Road Making.-About four years ago, Mr. Mac Adam's plan was tried in the street of Dundee, called Blacks Croft. There, the causeway, which had formerly been rough and uneven, was taken up: part of the old causeway was used for a gutter-way on the sides, and the rest was broken small for the road-way in the middle. After the materials were put on and spread, a man was employed to rake, and smooth carefully, even the smallest rut, until the materials had become firm and solid; and ever since this road has been one of the smoothest in the kingdom.-Caledonian Mercury.

The improvement in roads, of late years, is indeed very great; and, for this, the public are indebted to the system of Mr. Mac Adam. Formerly, the plan of travelling was to plough through deep roads with the carriage wheels: but Mr. Mac Adam has shewn us that a road, for the purpose of travelling, is a hard surface put upon the natural materials of the country. We are to travel upon this road, not to plough through it. There need not be a single rut, nor any rough ness to cause a single jolt; a great saving in the labour of horses, and the expense of carriage-wheels. The stones which are to form this surface, or road, are to be broken into small pieces, (as described in our August Number), when they will fit into one another, and adhere, and thus make a firm, compact road. All dirt is to be scraped off, and every rut raked level at first. A few years ago, it was a terror to travel over the rough, stony, shaking roads in many parts of the kingdom; and the reason given for the badness of these roads was, that there were no materials at hand, no gravel. Now, we find, that the very best of materials were actually in the road, namely, stones; and that they required only to be lifted up and broken, to make the road excellent. This has been done in many places, and those roads, formerly so much dreaded, are now among the best in the kingdom. Some people have a dread of any thing that is new, and they chuse to go on still ploughing through the mud, instead of travelling easily over a smooth, hard road. We hope soon to see all our cross roads, as well as main roads, renewed upon the improved plan.

1

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

V.

We return our thanks for the "Farmers," "The History of Thomas Martin," and of " Fanny Mason;" with all of which we have been much pleased: the two last would be a useful addition to the small library which should be in every servants' hall or kitchen.

We have received the communications of Archdeacon Wrangham, "A Friend to his Country;" some" Anonymous Verses," "The History of Jane Price," "Sarah Lightfoot," and T. James Gray and L. L. in our next.

THE

Cottager's Monthly Visitor.

NOVEMBER, 1823.

DO THIS

To do a thing well, we must have our minds earnestly fixed upon that thing. If a man who appears to be at his studies should have his mind wandering to other subjects, his studies will be but of little use. Hence it has been recommended to students to have the words Do THIS written in such a situation in their room, that they might easily catch the eye, and thus remind them of the work which they ought to be attending to. If a school-boy should be thinking of his play, when he ought to be learning his lesson he will probably turn out a very bad scholar. In short whatever we do, if we would do it well, we must do it in earnest; or to use the words of scripture, "Whatever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might."

I would apply these remarks to the great business of every man's life, the preparation of his soul for its everlasting home. This does not require us to give up the business and employments belonging to our stations in this world; on the contrary, a proper discharge of these duties, upon real Christian principles, will always make a very important part of our preparation for the world to come. These things may be done earnestly, and ought to be; but they ought to be done humbly too, in the fear of God, and in dependence on his blessing; they ought to be done, too, with a desire to fulfil the will of God, in properly discharging the duties of that

NO. 35.-VOL. III.

station to which he has appointed us. This does not, I say, exclude earnestness and industry, but it does exclude that over anxiety which fixes all the thoughts upon the business of this passing world, and shuts them out from the all-important concerns of that world which is to last for ever.

But the affairs of this world are too apt to press upon our minds with an overbearing power, and to leave little room for the thoughts of another; and this is indeed a loud call to watchfulness for every Christian during his pilgrimage through this world to the next. And, if there were no rest and respite from our worldly occupations, there would be very great danger of these occupations employing all our thoughts and all our anxieties. Hence, I think, we cannot be too thankful, that our Heavenly Father has appointed one day in every week, in which the cares of this world are to be laid aside, and an opportunity afforded to the mind for employing itself in the concerns of its everlasting state. I do not mean that a man is to give himself wholly to the world for six days in the week, and to expect that he can make his peace by giving one day to the Lord. But I mean that, as the affairs of this world have a tendency to occupy too much of the thoughts of men, it is a great privilege that one day should be given us, when these cares may be laid aside, and our thoughts be left at liberty for the contemplation of those things for which the sabbath was appointed. The public worship of our maker is one of the great privileges and benefits allowed to us on the Sabbath day. Our Church gives us great advantages when we meet together in public: we have prayer; we have praise; we have the reading and the preaching of the word; and all these things, if entered upon with sincerity and an earnest desire of receiving real benefit from them, must, with God's blessing, be the means of promoting our spiritual good. But,