utter absurdity of an idea which involves the sup-it here, the very nature of this article forbidding us position of ignition everlasting and rapidly going on without diminution of substance, we are enabled, by the excellence to which the manufacture of astronomical instruments has been brought, to discern certain maculæ (or dark spots) upon his surface, which, of course, could not be there, were the opinion of the ancients correct. Dr. Herschel, that eminent astronomer, whose unwearied industry and admirable telescopes have made him so great a benefactor to science, says "the sun appears to be nothing other than a very large and lucid planet, evidently the first or rather only primary one, in our system; all the rest being truly secondary to it. Its similarity to other globes of the solar system, with regard to its solidity, its atmosphere, and its diversified surface, leads us to suppose that it is most probably also inhabited, like them, by beings whose organs are adapted to the peculiar circumstances of that vast globe." THE MOON. The moon, that mild and beautiful luminary of the night is more completely subjected to the reverent and anxious scrutiny of the lover of science than any other of the heavenly bodies. Viewed with the naked eye she has the appearance of being a circular plane; but viewed by the help of that fine triumph of human ingenuity, the telescope, she is obviously protuberant in the middle-or in other words, her shape is really globular. The spots on the moon, which are partially visible even to the naked eye, are seen both more obviously and in greater number, when viewed through the telescope; and astronomers have long noticed that some of these spots are dark on the side opposite to the sun, and light on the side next; while others are dark on the side nearest to him, and light on that furthest from him. From these facts, so analogous to what we may observe to take place when the sun is shining on our earth, they inferand no good reason has ever been given why the inference is not correct-that these dark spots are, in fact, produced by the lunar inequalities of surface; in other words, by high hills and deep valleys. This opinion is adopted by the poet of the seasons, Thomson "Where mountains rise, umbrageous descend, Being, like our earth, an opaque body, the moon nas no native, no inherent light; but reflects to us light which she herself receives from the sun. And on this account it is that she disappears when she comes between us and the sun : that side which is then turned towards us being also turned from the sun. THE EARTH. Our position in the solar system is very truly affirmed by astronomers to be an extremely favourable one. Less distant from the sun than Saturn, Mars, or Jupiter, and yet, unlike Venus and Mercury, not so near as to feel his power too violently exerted the earth seems to be peculiarly selected as, and fitted for, the residence of man during his state of probation. Speaking of it merely as a planet, and it is only as a planet that our limits will allow us to speak of to speak except in general terms on any of the planets-the first thing we have to remark of it is, its double motion. Every day it revolves on its own axis, and every year it performs its circuit round the sun. To illustrate this motion, the reader has only to suppose an orange turning round on a pivot, and both pivot and orange turning once round a fixed point in the time taken by the orange to turn upon the pivot three hundred and sixty-five times. To these motions we owe the apparent diurnal motion of the heavenly bodies from east to west, and the changes of season to which our earth owes most of its comforts and almost all its delights; and to these and its spheroidal shape are owing the climatal changes of different portions of the earth. But our limits will not allow us further to speak of our own planet. Our engraving represents the relative size of the planets. 1. Saturn. 2. Jupiter. 3. Mars. 4. The Earth and Moon. 5. Venus. 6. Mercury. THE BUTTERFLY. A butterfly of the colour of brick was reposing with expanded wings on a tuft of grass. On being approached he flew off, and alighted at some paces distance on the ground, which, at that place, was of the same colour with himself. On being approached a second time, he again took flight, and perched again on a similar stripe of earth. In a word, it was found impossible to compel him to alight on the grass, though frequent attempts were made to that effect; and though the spaces of earth, which separated the turfy soil, were narrow and few in number. This wonderful instinct is likewise conspicuous in the chameleon, who can assume all colours except red; the power of reflecting which, nature seems to have withheld from this creature, because it could only serve to render him perceptible at a greater distance, and further, because this colour is that of the ground of no species of earth, or of vegetable, on which he is designed to pass his life. But, in the age of weakness and inexperience, nature confounds the colour of the harmless animals with that of the ground, on which they inhabit, without committing to them the power of choice. The young of pigeons, and of most granivorous fowls, are clothed with a greenish shaggy coat, resembling the mosses of the nest. Caterpillars are blind, and have the complexion of the foliage, and of the barks, which they devour. Nay, the young fruits, before they come to be armed with prickles or inclosed in cases, in bitter pulps, or in hard shells, to protect their seeds, are, during their expansion, green as the leaves which surround them. Some embryos, it is true, such as those of certain pears, are ruddy or brown, but they are then of the colour of the bark of the tree to which they belong. When these fruits have inclosed their seeds in kernels or nuts, so as to be in no farther danger, they then change colour, and severally become yellow, blue, gold coloured, red, or black, and give to their respective trees their natural contrasts. And here we have to, remark a and surprising striking circumstance, that every fruit which changes colour, has seed in a state of maturity. 1789. John Adams, of Massachusetts. 1797. Thomas Jefferson, of Virginia. 1801. Aaron Burr, of New York. 1805. George Clinton, of New York. 1813. Elbridge Gerry, of Massachusetts. 1817. Daniel D. Tompkins, of New York. 1825. John C. Calhoun, of South Carolina. 1833. Martin Van Buren, of New York. 1837. Richard M. Johnson, of Kentucky. SECRETARIES OF STATE. 1789. Thomas Jefferson, of Virginia. 1794. Edmund Randolph, of Virginia. 1795. Timothy Pickering, of Pennsylvania. 1800. John Marshall, of Virginia. 1801. James Madison, of Virginia. 1809. Robert Smith, of Maryland. 1811. James Monroe, of Virginia. 1817. John Quincy Adams, of Massachusetts. 1825. Henry Clay, of Kentucky. 1829. Martin Van Buren, of New York. 1831. Edward Livingston, of Louisiana. 1833. Louis McLane, of Delaware. 1835. John Forsyth, of Georgia. SECRETARIES OF THE TREASURY. 1789. Alexander Hamilton, of New York. 1795. Samuel Dexter, of Massachusetts. 1801. Oliver Wolcott, of Connecticut. 1802. Albert Gallatin, of Pennsylvania. 1814. George W. Campbell, of Tennessee. 1814. Alexander J. Dallas, of Pennsylvania. 1817. William H. Crawford, of Georgia. 1825. Richard Rush, of Pennsylvania. 1829. Samuel D. Ingham, of Pennsylvania. 1831. Louis McLane, of Delaware. 1833. William J. Duane, of Pennsylvania. 1833. Roger B. Taney, of Maryland. 1834. Levi Woodbury, of New Hampshire. SECRETARIES OF WAR. 1789. Henry Knox, of Massachusetts. 1795. Timothy Pickering, of Pennsylvan.a. 1796. James McHenry, of Maryland. 1800. Samuel Dexter, of Massachusetts. 1801. Roger Griswold, of Connecticut. 1801. Henry Dearborn, of Massachusetts. 1809. William Eustis, of Massachusetts. 1813. John Armstrong, of New York. 1815. William H. Crawford, of Georgia. 1817. Isaac Shelby, of Kentucky, (did not accept the appointment.) 1817. John C. Calhoun, of South Carolina. 1837. Joel R. Poinsett, of South Carolina. SECRETARIES OF THE NAVY. 1798. George Cabot, of Massachusetts. 1805. Jacob Crowninshield, of Massachusetts. 1814. Benjamin W. Crowninshield, of Massachu setts. 1818. Smith Thompson, of New York. 1823. Samuel L. Southard, of New Jersey. 1829. John Branch, of North Carolina. 1831. Levi Woodbury, of New Hampshire. 1834. Mahlon Dickerson, of New Jersey. POSTMASTERS-GENERAL. 1789. Samuel Osgood, of Massachusetts. CHIEF JUSTICES OF THE SUPREME COURT. 1789. John Jay, of New York. ATTORNEYS-GENERAL. 1789. Edmund Randolph, of Virginia. 1794. William Bradford, of Pennsylvania. 1795. Charles Lee, of Virginia. 1801. Levi Lincoln, of Massachusetts. 1805. Robert Smith, of Maryland. 1806. John Breckenridge, of Kentucky 1807. Cæsar A. Rodney, of Delaware. 1811. William Pinkney, of Maryland, 1814. Richard Rush, of Pennsylvania. 1817. William Wirt, of Virginia. 1829. John McPherson Berrien, of Georgia. 1831. Roger. B. Taney, of Maryland. 1834. Benjamin F. Butler, of New York. Cincinnatti Gazette. THE raven may be said to be of a social disposition, for, after the breeding season, flocks of forty, fifty, or more, may sometimes be seen, as is observed on the coast of Labrador, and on the Missouri. When domesticated, and treated with kindness, it. becomes attached to its owner, and will follow him about with all the familiarity of a confiding friend. It is capable of imitating the human voice, so that individuals have sometimes been taught to enunciate a few words with great distinctness. POPULAR MEDICAL OBSERVATIONS. [The following article forms the second chapter of Dr. Johnson's "Economy of Health," just published by the Harpers, from the English edition. The author divides the life of man into ten epochs or periods, of seven years each-denominating each one, a Septenniad.] THE FIRST SEPTINNIAD. One to seven years. This can only refer to the common wear and tear of body, and the lights of age and experience-but, even in this point of view, I doubt the dogma of the bard, and apprehend that the said lights would shine full as well through the proper windows of the "soul's dark cottage," as through those cracks and rents that are effected by time and infirmity. I have alluded to the Spartan custom of leaving For some time after man's entrance into the world, the youth, during the first seven years, under the his existence is merely animal, or physical. He guidance of the parents, who permitted the physical cries, feeds, and sleeps. His intellectual functions powers of their offspring to develop themselves withare nearly null; while those of the little bodily fab-out control. What is the case with us? During a rick are in a state of the most intense activity. considerable portion of that period the youth" is got Gradually the senses awake, and the avenues of out of the way," and imprisoned in a scholastick hotcommunication between the surrounding world and bed or nursery, where the "young ideas," instead of the living microcosm are opened. External impres- being left to shoot out slowly, are forced out rapidly, sions are conveyed to the censorium or organ of the to the great detriment of the intellectual soil, thus mind, and there produce sensations, which become exhausted by too early and too frequent crops. progressively more distinct, and, by frequent reiteration, lay the foundation of memory and association. During the first septennary period, REFLECTION can hardly be said to take place. Nature is busily employed in building up the corporeal structure-and the mind is occupied, almost exclusively, in storing up those materials for future thought, which the vivid senses are incessantly pouring in on the sensory of the soul. These few facts (and they might be multiplied to any extent) may furnish important hints to the parent, the pedagogue, and the philanthropist. It is during the first and second Septenniads that the foundations of health and happiness, of physical force, intellectual acquirements, and moral rectitude, are all laid! Yet the arch enemy of mankind would have found it difficult to devise a system or mode of education for body and mind, better calculated to mar each and every of the above objects, than that which is adopted by the wise men of the earth at this moment. The first and second Septenniads are probably the most important to the interests of the individual and of society, of the whole ten. It is while the wax is ductile that the model is easily formed. In the early part of childhood, and even of youth, every fibre is so full-so exuberant of vitality, that the rest is pain, and motion is pleasure. In infancy the ORGAN of the mind presides over, and furnishes energy to, every other organ and function in the body. At this period, be it remembered, these organs and functions are in the greatest degree of growth and activity; and therefore the brain (or organ of the mind) requires to be at liberty to direct its undivided influence to their support. If it were possible to bring intellectual operations into play in the mind of the infant, the brain could not supply the proper nervous power for digestion, assimilation, and nutrition; and the whole machine would languish or decay. Now these facts apply, more or less, to a great part of the first SEPTENNIAD-or even of the second-and here we have the true physiological cause and explanation of the havock which is produced in youthful frames by premature exertion of the intellectual faculties! Nor is it the body exclusively that suffers from precocious culture of the mind. The material tenement of the soul can not be shattered without injury to its spiritual tenant. It may be true, in some figurative sense, that It has been shown that the organ of the mind, in the first stages of our existence, is exclusively occupied with its animal functions. It soon, however, is able to allot a portion of its power to the operations of the immaterial tenant. If this power were more gradually and gently exercised than it now is, we would have stronger frames and sounder minds. We might unite, in a considerable degree, the strength of the savage with the wisdom of the sage. As education, in this as well as in the two succeeding Septenniads, is both physical and moral, we shall adopt this division of the subject. PHYSICAL EDUCATION OF THE FIRST SEPTENNIAD. 1. FOOD.-It is fortunate for man that nature furnishes him with sustenance during the first nine months of his existence. The milk of a healthy nurse is a more salutary and scientifick compound of animal and vegetable nutriment than he ever afterward imbibes. He has hardly left his mother's bosom, however, before the work of mischief commences, which seldom ceases till he approaches a second childhood, or has suffered severely by the imprudence of his parents and the early indulgence of his own appetites! Nature furnishes teeth, as solid food becomes necessary; and the transition from milk to meat should not be too abrupt. The teeth are protruded slowly and successively; and, during this period, milk and farinaceous food should preponderate over that which is purely animal. But errours of diet, in the first Septenniad, do not consist so much in the quantity of food as in the provocative variety with which the infantile and unsophisticated palate is daily stimulated. The rapid growth of infancy requires an abundant supply of plain nutritious aliment; but it is at this early period that simplicity in kind, and regularity in the periods of meals, would establish the foundation for order and punctuality in many other things, and thus conduce to health and happiness through life. As the first nutriment which nature furnishes is a compound of animal and vegetable matters, so should it be for ever afterward. In youth, and especially during the first Septenniad, milk and farinaceous substances should form the major part of the diet, with tender animal food once a day. As the teeth multiply, the proportions of the two kinds of sustenance ought gradually and progressively to vary. 2. CLOTHING.-Because we come naked into the "The soul's dark cottage, batter'd and decay'd, Admits new lights through chinks which time has made." world, it does not follow that we should remain so. 152 Nature supplies animals with coats, because the pa-ed in this country, where it would prove extremely rents of animals have no manufactories of linen and salutary. Excepting in infancy, there is no occasion woollen. The dress with which nature clothes the for the CALIDO-FRIGID application to the whole body, young animal is nearly uniform over the whole body; by means of immersion or sponging: at all periods but not so that which man, or rather woman, con- of life afterward, the mere sponging of the upper structs for the infant. Some parts are covered five- parts of the body, already mentioned, (to which I fold-some left naked. In many of the most civili- would add the feet,) first with hot, and then immedized countries of the world, the child is placed in ately with cold water, will be quite sufficient to pre"durance vile”—in bondage-or at least in bandage vent a multitude of ills, a host of infirmities—and, the moment it sees the light! This practice, which let me add, a number of deformities to which flesh commences in ignorance, is continued by fashion, is heir, without this precaution. till it ends in disease, and entails misery and sufferings on the individual and the offspring, from generation to generation. But more of this hereafter. If many of our disorders are produced through the agency of improper food or deleterious substances on the internal organs, so a great number of maladies are induced through the medium of atmospherick impressions and vicissitudes on the external surface of the body. These cannot be counteracted or rendered harmless by either very warm or very light clothing. The great antidote to alternations of climate consists in early and habitual exposure to transitions of temperature, drought, humidity, &c. This may be safely effected at all periods of life, from in- fancy to old age; and the practice, which is both easy and pleasant in operation, would save annually an immense waste of life, and a prodigious amount of sufferings in this country. It is simply the alternate application of warm and cold water (by immersion or sponging) during the first year or two to the WHOLE BODY, and afterward to the face, neck, and upper parts of the chest every morning. The application of cold water alone will not be sufficient. There must be the sudden and rapid succession of heat and cold-which I would term the CALIDO-FRIGID FORTIFIER, or prophylactick. This process not only imitates and obviates the atmospherick vicissitudes of our own climate, but is, in itself, salutary in any climate. The hot water excites the surface to which it is applied, and fills the capillary vessels with blood. The cold water braces the vessels thus distended, without repelling the fluid too forcibly towards the interiour, or producing a chill-since the heat and excitement of the surface secure us against a sudden retrocession. As to clothing during the first Septenniad, I shall say little more than that it should be warm, light, and loose. It will be time enough-alas! too soon -to imitate the Egyptian mummy, when girls become belles, and boys beaux. I beg, for the first and second Septenniads at least, full liberty for the lungs to take air, the stomach food, and the limbs exercise, before they are "cribb'd, cabin'd, and confined," by those destructive operatives, the milliner, the tailor, and the bootmaker, cum multis aliis, who rank high, among the purveyors or jackalls to the doctor and the undertaker! Much stress has been laid upon the use of flannel in all periods of our life. If the preservative against vicissitudes of climate to which I have alluded be employed, flannel will seldom be necessary, except where the constitution is very infirm, or the disposition to glandular affections prominent. At all events it should be very light, and worn outside of the linen, in this tender age. 3. EXERCISE. During the first Septenniad, exercise may be left almost entirely to the impulses of Nature. The great modern errour is the prevention of bodily exercise by too early and prolonged culture of the mind. In the first years of life, exercise should be play, and play should be exercise. Towards the end of the first Septenniad, some degree of order or method may be introduced into playful exercise, because it will be essential to health in the second and third epochs. Even in this first epoch, exercise in the open air should be enjoined, as much as the season and other circumstances will permit. The windows of the nursery ought to be open during the greater part of the day, and nursery-maids and mistresses who cannot bear the air are very unfit for the physical education of children. MORAL EDUCATION OF THE FIRST SEPTENNIAD. It may be asked, "How does this protect us from the introduction of cold air into the lungs ?" I answer, that Nature provides against this daily and hourly contingency. The temperature of the atmoThe first seven years of life must not be given up spherick air is brought to a par with that of the body while passing down through the air-tubes, and before entirely to the physical development of the constituit reaches the air-cells of the lungs. For one cold tion; though that is a most important part of the pathat is caught by inhaling cold air, one hundred colds rent's duty. A great deal of moral culture may be are induced by the agency of cold and moisture on effected in this period; but I apprehend that it ought the surface of the body. CALIDO-FRIGID LAVATION to be very different in kind, in mode, and in degree, or sponging, abovementioned, secures us effectually from what it is at present. During several years from faceaches, earaches, toothaches,* and head- of this first Septenniad, the children of the lower, aches; besides rendering us insusceptible of colds, and even of the middle classes, are cooped up in a coughs—and, in no small number of instances of crowded and unwholesome schoolroom, for many CONSUMPTION itself. The practice is common in hours in the day, to the great detriment of their Russia and some other countries; and the principle health and morals, and with very little benefit to is well understood by the profession in all countries; their intellecual faculties. Among the higher clasbut the adoption of the practice is exceedingly limit-ses it is not so bad; yet there the children are too The mouth should be rinsed with hot water and then immediately with cold, every morning throughout the year. If this shop. were regularly done from infancy, the dentist might shut up much drilled by tutor or governess, and by far too little exercised in body. The principle which I advocate is this: that during the first and even during the second Septenniad, from the amount of elementary learning required should to enforce, with all their energy, the most rigid sysbe less, and the daily periods of study shorter:-that tem of ORDER, REGULARITY, and PUNCTUALITY, sport and exercise should be the regular and unfail- the very earliest period of infancy up to the age of ing premium on prompt and punctual acquisition of discretion. Half, and more than half of our miserthe lessons prescribed-in short, that elementary ies, crimes, and misfortunes, in after life, are attribeducation should be acquired "cito, tuté, ac jucundé" utable to the misplaced indulgence or culpable neg-instead of being a wearisome task, irksome to the ligence of our parents. "Spare the rod and spoil mind, and injurious to the body. the child," is a maxim that was founded in experience, though it has been nearly exploded by speculative philanthropists not deeply versed in the knowledge of man. The rod, in most cases, may be spared; but, if order and obedience cannot be enforced by other means, the rod should be applied. But if I declare myself adverse to the system of precocious exercise of the intellect, I am an advocate for early moral culture of the mind. It is during the first years of our existence that the foundation of habits and manners is laid; and these will be good or bad afterward, according to their foundations.. ORDER is truly said to be "Heaven's first law"and so it should be the first injunction on childhood. The brightest talents are often rendered useless by the want of order and system in our amusements, studies, and avocations. The best temper or the purest intention will not compensate for want of regularity, industry, and punctuality. HABIT is the result of impression, rather than of reflection; and youth is the age for receiving impressions, rather than for exercising the judgment. ORDER may be instilled into the juvenile mind long before that mind is capable of perceiving the utility of the discipline; in the same way that the rules of grammar are learned before the application of these rules can be even imagined by the pupil. From long study, and, perhaps, a considerable knowledge of human nature, I would earnestly exhort parents, guardians and tutors, PUNCTUALITY. The whole material world, and, as far as we can judge, the whole universe, are subjected to, and governed by, certain laws of periodicity, which preserve order and harmony every where. Our mental and corporeal constitutions are controlled by similar laws of periodicity, and we should subject all our actions, passions, pleasures, and labours of laws, in imitation of those which Nature has established. Thus, in infancy and youth, the sleep, exercise, play, mealsevery thing, in short, which is done, should be done at regular and stated periods, and the habit of regularity, thus early established, would become a second nature, and prove a real blessing through life. There is not a single office, profession, or avocation, from the high duties of the monarch down to the vile drudgery of the dustman, that does not owe half its honours, respectability, and success to |