Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub
[blocks in formation]

I offer for your acceptance a specimen of the perennial flax, and a few of my own observations upon its growth, qualities, &c. Perhaps by allowing it to lie on your table, it may attract the attention of others, and elicit something worthy the notice of the agriculturist. Not having the annual flax at hand, I am unable to point out all the differences between them; the principal, which recollection furnishes, are the larger size of the blossom, less size and darker colour of the seed of the perennial.

With this you will find a small parcel containing flax and tow of this species, with some of the common for comparison, the person who prepared it, says it is equal to hemp in strength.

This specimen is a second years growth, in its more perfect state, 60 stalks are produced from one root. I had a solitary plant in my garden, nine years old, destroyed by accident, without previously showing any indication of decay. To me it has long been interesting, from a belief in its productiveness, strength and utility, at least in the manufacture of cordage. I know not if it has obtained any notice by the agriculturist; the only article I have seen on the subject, was published in the Georgetown Federal Republican, about midsummer, 1815, under the title of Siberian flax. I believe it has been observed native in the Missouri country. It is mown about the season of pulling the annual; product equal in quantity and suitable for all the uses, excepting the finer textures, and this too, perhaps, by cutting it earlier. In sowing, I presume, a tenth part of the usual quantity of seed would be sufficient.

[merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

Its stems are from 2 1-2 to 3 feet high, straight, cylindrical, smooth, green, leaved, branching at their upper part into a corymbus. Its leaves are lanceolated, or linear-lanceolated, pointed, green, sparse and numerous. The blossoms are very large, blue, peduncled, and situated on the branches, some laterally and others almost to the top. The calyxes are short, composed of fine scales or leaflets, of which the two exterior ones are oval, inclined to a point, and the three others, the inferior ones, are obtuse, almost round, scarious upon the edges.

This plant grows naturally in Siberia, and perhaps in other parts of Europe. It has been cultivated in the Parisian garden. A filament is derived from it, capable of being manufactured into thread and cloth, after the manner of common flax; but the fabrics are neither so fine nor beautiful. The greater part of botanists, have mistakenly quoted the Linum alpinum as a synonyme.

Pursh mentions, (1 Flora, &c. p. 210,) a perennial Linum, under the name of L. Lewisei, as found in the valleys of the rocky mountains, and on the banks of the Missouri. It bears, he observes, large blue flowers,-is a very good perennial, and might probably be worthy of cultivation.

The specific character he gives is, that the leaflets of the calyx are ovato-acuminate; petals cuneate rounded at the points; leaves sparse, lanceolato-linear mucronate; high numerous stems.

On the Goats of Caramania. Read at the Sitting of July 13th, 1818.

To the Lyceum of Natural History, assembled in the New-York Institution. GENTLEMEN,

I offer for your examination a hat, made of the far of the goats brought from Bosrah on the Euphrates, by our enterprising fellow citizen, Henry Austin, Esq. in 1816.

It was manufactured by Messrs. Kimberly and Moody of New-Haven; and is light, easy, and comfortable to the head. You will find the hat soft, shining and silky. Specimens of the fabric are in the possession of a few gentlemen in this city. The generosity of the proprietor was limited by the moderate quantity of the material which his very small flock of the creatures has, as yet, afforded.

Be pleased to accept my gratulation, to you, and particularly to rural economists, on the acquisition of this valuable animal. Every friend to the prosperity of the coun

1818.

try, will rejoice to hear that the climate favours their health and that they increase and multiply.

Naturalists appear to be uncertain whether this quadruped is a sheep or a goat. Sir Thomas Pennant describes the Caramanian beast affording the fine fleece as a sheep; and observes that the wool is reserved entirely for the priests and their order. It is stated to be more excellent than that of Cashmere or of Bucharia. The coat of the broad-tailed sheep of Thibet is not superior.

The ancient Caramania, you recollect, is the modern Kerman, a region situated northeast of the Persian gulf, and reaching from Gombroon toward Schiraz and Ispahan. I hope this importation may lead to a profitable manufacture; and who indeed can now doubt it?

S. L. MITCHILL, President.

[ocr errors]

An Account of the Impression of Fish in the By Rock of Oneida County, New-York. Samuel L. Mitchill. Read before the Lyceum of Natural History, July 13, 1818. Among other considerations leading to a belief that the ancient dam of the Mohawk river, at the little Falls, formerly raised the water high enough to overflow all the country where Rome, Utica, NewHartford, Vernon, and Oneida now stand, is that of the numerous organic remains discovered on the dry grounds of that elevated region at this day.

The foundation of primitive rock, underlaying the whole superstratum, as far as explored, may be judged of, from the silicious hornblend of the Falls, and of Upon the granular quartz at Utica. this, the secondary layers of limestone, iron ore, and argillaceous shist repose.

The latter of these often exhibits, when fractured, the forms of beings that once possessed life. One of the most remarkable of them, is the impression of a fish, resting in a mass of clay slate, from the town of Westmoreland, a few miles north of Hamilton College. It was brought by our worthy colleague, Mr. Clarkson. It is tolerably distinct, except a part of the tail, which is wanting. The length of the figure which remains, is nearly four inches, and the greatest breadth rather more than an inch and a half. The head and shoulders are very stout, but taper away rapidly towards the tail. It evidently belongs to the silure or cat-fish family. Modern ichthyologists have made a number of new sections out of this large genus. La Cépéde distinguishes by the name of Malapterures, the individuals

ho differ from the true silures, by the

291

absence of a rayed dorsal fin, and the
want of spines to the pectoral fins.

There is but a single species known,
and that is the famous silure of the Nile,
and of the Senegal, which possesses elec-
trical properties, like the torpedo and the
gymnatus.

The appearance of this impression warrants the conclusion, that the skin was destitute of scales, and that the pectoral fins had either no rays or soft ones. The figure was made by the back of the fish, for the depressions in the stone corresponding to the prominencies of the eyes, and elevations in the stone, corresponding to the sinkings near the shoulders, are very plain.

But, although the fossil fish of Westmoreland agrees with the electrical silure in so many particulars, it has two essenThe Westtial marks of difference. moreland fish appears to have had eight beards or cirrhi to his chin, while the other had but six; and while the living African fish has a smooth and even skin, the New-York fossil one is separated into plates, like those of an insect or crustaceous animal, reaching from side to side, quite across the back. Eleven entire plates, and part of the twelfth, can be counted. They are not so broad near the head and thorax as they are on approaching the tail, for between the pectoral fins they fall short of a quarter of an inch, while on approaching the caudal fin, they gradually enlarge until they exceed that measure.

By conjecture, the lost part of the tail did not amount to more than two inches and a half. The counter part of the specimen, ed, does not seem to have been preserved. on which the belly of the fish was impress

It is not known whether there was an adipose fin on the tail, or not: I mean that fin which is usually denominated the second dorsal. There is no trace of it in the stone. Yet, there is so much of the tail left, that I doubt whether the place of its insertion, (if there was an adipose fin,) has been broken away; should that have been the fact, the want of this appendage, will form another point of discrimination between the fossil fish of In the present state of our knowledge, Westmoreland and the electrical silure. it would be presumptuous to affirm that this belonged to any species of fish now known to be alive. And until further inquiry shall show that individuals of this sort yet inhabit the waters, the species under consideration must be ranked with those numerous tribes which their creator has permitted to become extinct.

[graphic]

To the Editors of the American Monthly

Magazine.

I noticed in your number of May, an article respecting the salivation of horses and neat-cattle, and believing the cause there assigned not to be, if correct, the only one, I have thought proper to express to you a few observations which I have made on the subject. The disagreeable salivation to which horses are subject in this country, usually commences about the close of July or the beginning of August, and continues six or eight weeks: it is within this period that the Lobelia Inflata flourishes; this plant is peculiarly acrid and directly stimulating to the salivary glands of horses. It is to this plant that we must attribute the evil, for except in those pastures where it may be found, horses are not subject to this complaint. Any person may discover its effects by feeding it to horses; a single plant will generally excite salivation for several hours. It is much to be regretted that a plant which holds so high a rank in the Materia Medica, as does the Lobelia, should prove so great an evil to the noblest of brute animals, and could any means be devised to prevent its farther spread, or ameliorate its baneful effects, it would be a circumstance truly fortunate. S. W. G.

So long ago as the year 1814, the following queries were prepared by the late John H. Eddy, of this city. He had them printed in the form of a circular, and a number of copies were sent to various gentlemen in different parts of the country to which they relate. Few communications, however, were received in reply; and the multiplied avocations of Mr. Eddy compelled him to postpone the prosecution of his inquiries to a period of greater leisure. But an untimely death, arresting him in the midst of his labours, has torn him from science and his country, and left the task to other hands. With the view of reviving inquiry upon this subject, we publish the circular drawn up by Mr. Eddy, and solicit the attention of the scientific to the topics therein suggested. Any communications, addressed to the Editors, will be gladly received, and immediately placed in the possession of one who will turn them to good account.

New-York, March 14, 1814. THE unexampled progress of cultivation and improvement in that part of the state of New-York, lying west of the meridian of the village of Utica, and the

surprising increase of its population and produce, present a subject of inquiry highly interesting, not only as affording a basis for a correct calculation of the future advance of our interior settlements to the west, where land and the titles to it are good, and thus affording a glimpse of the scene our country is one day, we may hope, destined to present, but it has opened to the observation of the geographer and the geologist, a number of very curious particulars in its general topography, which do not to my knowledge exist, at least in so remarkable a degree, or to so great an extent, in any other part of the United States. To collect facts relative to these, and by comparing these facts with each other, and judging by the rules of analogy drawn from similar appearances in other parts of the globe, to endeavour to discover the probable cause of the singular features I have mentioned, has induced me to take the liberty of addressing you, and to beg the favour of you to answer the queries inclosed, as far as your knowledge extends, and as much in detail as you conveniently can. But before proceeding to the queries I will add some conjectures of my own, drawn from the very limited means of information I at present possess.

It is well known that there are at the Little Falls of the Mohawk River, evident marks of the rocks having been formerly washed by the waves, or by a current of water one hundred feet above the present surface at the head of the falls. Now it appears, by the levels taken by the surveyors employed by the Commissioners on the Grand Canal, that the surface of the water at that place, is less than sixty feet lower than at Rome, therefore it seems to me there can be no doubt, that when the waters washed the top of the hill at the falls, the country above, along the valley of the river as far as (and much farther than) Rome, must once have been the bottom of a large lake, bounded on each side at no great distance by the uplands, and presenting in shape a long narrow arm, similar to the present lakes Cayuga and Seneca; and as there is a gradual descent in the country west of Rome, as far as Three-River Point, and the elevation from that Point to the falls of the Seneca river near Scawyace, is very inconsiderable, it seems to me equally undoubted, that the waters once reached so far, including the present Ca yuga, Cross, Onondaga, and Oneida lakes, the last of which I imagine was near the centre. I suppose this great lake to have been bounded on the east by the hill at

the falls, on the south by the uplands giving rise to the head waters of the Sus quehannah, on the north by the elevation of the great step from the lower falls on Gennesee to Oswego Falls, and on the east by the uplands between the head waters of Mud Creek and Gennesee River. Its extent up the valley of Mud Creek I dont pretend to conjecture, but suppose its length from east to west may have been about a hundred and twenty miles, and its breadth in general about twenty-all the country within these limits is a flat, surrounded by much higher land, and its soil, and likewise its small and almost imperceptible horizontal inclination is, I believe, precisely similar to the muddy bottoms of the lakes I have mentioned. But the circumstance which seems to me most strongly to corroborate my opinion, is the known decrease in the waters of these lakes, and, of course, diminution in their extent, and the time probably is approaching when they will be entirely drained, and when the land left by the water is covered with timber, (which would soon be the case if left to nature,) it will present a country similar in appearance to that on the south side of Oneida Lake, the Cayuga marshes, &c. with creeks meandering through it like the Seneca River, Oneida, Cowaselon and Wood Creeks, &c. &c.

Please favour me with your ideas on the subject, when convenient, and send me by mail, as far as may be in your power, answers to the following queries.

JOHN H. EDDY. No. 220 William-street. 1st. Do you know of any additional circumstances confirming the above supposition, such as traces of water at other places much above its present level, and near the supposed boundary I have sketched out?

2d. Are there any traditions among the Indians, that the country was formerly covered with water?

3d. Do you know how far the ridge, on which the ridge road is constructed from Lewistown to the lower falls of Gennesee, extends to the eastward of Gennesee River, and do you know of any other remarkable ridge or steps, similar to that which occasions the falls of Niagara and Oswego? state its height, direction, extent and composition.

4th. What is the composition of rocks in your neighbourhood and how do they lie?-in strata or otherwise? inclined or horizontal?

6th. What shells are found?" on the surface or what depth? are they similar to the shell-fish at present existing in the adjoining waters, or are they of unknown species? are they found in the hills, or in the valleys, or in both?

7th. Have any bones of animals been found?-of what kind?—in the hills, or in the valleys, or in both?

8th. Do you know of any petrifactions in your neighbourhood?-of what kind? and do they resemble things now existing, or are they of unknown substances, are they found in the hills, or in the valleys, or in both?

9th. What trees or plants are peculiar to the respective soils of the valley of the lake I have supposed, and the uplands? (Note, the botanical names of trees and plants should be mentioned, if in your power, the English names being applied to very different species in different parts of the country.)

10th. Do you know of any means of ascertaining, or estimating, the age of the forest trees which grow on the old Indian fortifications?

11th. Do you know at what rate per annum the lakes in your neighbourhood decrease? or how much have they decreased within your knowledge, or that of creditable people?

12th. Are there any Indian hieroglyphics extant in your neighbourhood? can you send me a copy, with the meaning if it can be obtained-or drawings and plans of any Indian antiquities?

13th. I have heard that the Indians on the Mississippi, whose language is totally different, can yet understand each other very correctly by means of signs; is it so with those in your neighbourhood, and can you describe their method?

14th. What effect has the clearing and settling the country had on the climate— do the streams diminish, and in what degree?

15th. What is the present variation of the magnetic needle with you, and what has it been formerly, and at what places observed?

16th. It has been remarked in Europe that the variation was affected by an earthquake, can you recollect about the time of the late earthquakes, which extended (I believe) northeasterly from the Mississippi, about two years ago, that there was any change in the variation, and how much?

17th. Have you ever observed the Aurora Borealis, or northern lights, in

5th. What strata are observed in the your neighbourhood? when and where? earth in digging wells, &c.

and describe the phenomena-can you re

collect any change in the variation at the time? this has been observed in Europe. 18th. What do you suppose may be the average elevation of the hills in your neighbourhood above their base?

19th. Send me a description, and (if convenient) a drawing of any singular and unaccountable natural feature in the country, or of any extraordinary phenomena. 20th. How far can the great step, which occasions the falls of Niagara, be traced into Canada, and in what direction-the same of the ledge which occasions the rapids at Black Rock.

21st. Latitudes and longitudes of any part of the country will be very important in constructing a correct map of the state, and if you can furnish me with any useful observations, they will be highly acceptable, please to describe the observation, and the instruments used.

The Columbian Printing-Press. While the United States are not inferior to any other nation in original inventions, they undoubtedly far surpass many of them in those improvements which are calculated to become truly useful. Our pin and card factories, which heretofore in Europe required the labour of so many workmen, in this country, under the guidance of genius, not only attract the man of business, but have become the resort of the inquisitive and the curious. The use of steam, as applied to vessels, and the great number of patents annually issued, speak so loudly in proof of the assertion, that it would be superfluous to enlarge on this subject. These remarks were intended to introduce an eulogium, which it seems experienced printers have seen fit to pronounce on the Columbian printing press; and it is sin.cerely hoped it may prove a benefit to all concerned. It may not be amiss, previous to giving this article, to take a compara

tive view of those now in use.

Many new models of printing presses have been produced in this country-but most of them have failed: and some may have been condemned prematurely. In England, the Stanhope press has generally been preferred, and the profession, in this country, duly appreciate its merits. In Scotland, what is called the Ruthven press is in considerable use, and some have been imported, one of which is in operation in Philadelphia. The power is given by a compound lever; and instead of acting above the platen, it is fixed beneath the bed. An objection to this is, that the platen traverses, instead of what

in other presses is called the carriage; by which means the workman has to go through a movement to which he is entirely unaccustomed; the platen having to be pulled over, and pushed from the form, with an exertion, each of which would give the Columbian press sufficient force to make the impression. The pull is made by a bar fixed where the rounce of the common press is situated, and requires power equal to the running in one on the old plan. Even if it would work with the same facility as those now in use, we think insurmountable objections would be raised to the manner of its movements. The difficulty of drilling men from old and approved customs into new, and, at most, doubtful systems, is sure to prove a present detriment, without the certainty even of a future benefit. In England there has been a steam press introduced, on which principle two newspapers in London are now printed; but from the enormous expense, and the inutility of them in America, it must be a long time before it will be advantageous or necessary to use them here.

The following cut exhibits an accurate view of Mr. Clymer's press.

[graphic][merged small][merged small]

New-York, June 17, 1818. The undersigned, who have actually used, or witnessed the operations of the Columbian printing press, invented by Mr. Clymer of Philadelphia, most cheerfully embrace an opportunity to speak of it to their brethren in the profession, who, from their local situations, have not yet experienced the advantages resulting from it. Setting aside the benefit arising from the ease and facility of working this press, the obtaining two parallel and accurate surfaces, is particularly worthy of consideration;-for, by this, an even

« ForrigeFortsæt »