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ART. 10. DOMESTIC OCCURRENCES.

NEW-HAMPSHIRE.

HE New-Hampshire Gazette states,

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Tthat the fishing schooners Cyrus ing season of the year 1817,

The following is the amount of fish, brought into Marblehead during the fish.

King of Kittery, Polly and Roxana, of Portsmouth, Eight Sisters of Portland, and one belonging to Fox Islands, all with good fares of fish, have been taken by the British sloop of war Syren, in the bay of Fundy, sent into Digby, and stripped of their sails, &c. but the crew of the Cyrus King got their ship keeper drunk, obtained sails from the custom house, which they bent, cut their cable, warped out of the harbour, got under way, and arrived safe at the Kittery.

The receipts of the treasury of NewHampshire for the year ending May 31, 1818, including the balance of the preceding year, amounted to $88,888 15. This sum was derived principally from the proceeds of the state tax for 1817-dividend

of the following stocks, viz. $95,134 45 U. S. three per cents, $23,732, 76 U. S. Six per cents, $17,605 U. S. Seven per cents, and $25,000 stock of the NewHampshire bank-$100,58 52 principal re-imbursed of the old U. s. six per cent stock-and $6,000, from the United States, on account of the war debt.

The expenses of the government for the year, including salaries of officers of the state, and travel and attendance of the members of the Council, Senate, and House of Representatives

amount to

Paid on account of State Pri

son

Do.

Bounty on Wild Cats and

$25,598 84

Do.

do.

1818,

Difference in favour of last

year,

736,600 159,700

576,900

The islands in the bay of Passamaquoddy, called Moose, Dudley, and Frederick Islands, taken possession of by the British during the last war, were delivered up. to the United States on the 30th of June last.

The following interesting account of the killed and wounded at the battle of Bunker Hill is extracted from a British periodical publication called "Remembrancer" into which it was copied from a R. L. Providence newspaper.

Providence, July 15, 1775.—The following is an exact return of the killed, wounded and missing of the American army in the action of the 17th of June, at Charlestown, viz.

Regiments. Killed and Missing. Wounded.
Col. Stark's N. Hamp. 15

Read's
Gen. Ward's
Col. Scammon's
Bridge's
Gerrish's
Prescot's

Whitcomb's

Fry's
Brewer's
Nixon's
Little's

Woodbridge's

Gardiner's

7,000

State House 30,000

Crows

289 87

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136 56

Taxes out-standing

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Balance in the treasury

23,277 57 Gen. Putnam's

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Doolittle's

Gridley's

4

Capt. Coit

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135 250

The legislature of this state adjourned About 30 missing since returned 30 on Tuesday last.

A bill passed in the House providing that the salary of the Chief Justice should in future be $1500, and the associate Justices $1300 each. The Senate amended it by substituting $1400 for the Chief Justice, and $1200 for the Asso

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the Chapel will occupy two stories, and will finish 60 by 36 feet. The library room is in the third story, of the same length and breadth as the chapel. There are also three lecture rooms, one in each story, 36 by 20 feet. The building is surmounted by an elegant cupola, and is furnished with a clock of superior workmanship, with a dial in front and rear of the building. In point of materials and elegance, this edifice is said to vie with any in the U. S.

The foundation is also laid for rebuilding Philip's Academy which is to be 80 feet by 40, and two stories high.

The Sea Serpent has again made his appearance off Cape Ann.

It is stated that about 50 ships are now absent from Nantucket on whaling voyages.

CONNECTICUT.

In the evening of the 9th May last, a man named Elihu Miller, having "taken a cup too much," wandered to a precipice not far north of Rockway's ferry in Lyme, and not knowing where he was, deliberately walked, or rather reeled to its brink, from which he fell 46 feet perpendicularly among the rocks below. He was found the next morning, taken up and carried home. His life for a while was almost despaired of; but he is now in a fair way of recovery.

It is stated in a North-Hampton paper of the 30th ult. that swarms of Locusts are now visiting the town of Hadley, and extending their ravages along the east bank of Connecticut River, 20 or 30 miles south of that town. "Many of the forest trees are already apparently dead; and the progress of the Locusts is as distinctly marked as the progress of a fire. The female Locusts are armed with a sting of nearly the third of an inch in length, and of the stiffness and point of a wire sharpened. They attach themselves to the under side of the small limbs, and commence the process of stinging. Their progress is to the extremity of the limb, which is as distinctly marked as it could be by obliquely puncturing the limb with an awl and so raising the awl at each puncture as to crack the bark in a regular, continued, and unless impeded by some obstruction, nearly a right line. There are about three incisions to an inch, each penetrating to the heart of the limb, which is filled with small worms, or eggs, of the colour and appearance of very small kernels of rice, but distinctly visible to the naked eye.

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On Saturday the 4th inst. the freemen of the state assembled in their respective

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NEW-YORK.

A very large sword fish was taken on the 10th of June, by capt. Comstock, of the smack David Porter, about 30 miles south of Sandy Hook. He is between 11 and 12 feet long, the largest part of the body 4 feet round, his sword 4 feet long, eyes 9 inches in circumference, and weighs about 300 pounds. He is to be seen at Scudder's Museum.

It is estimated that two thousand houses, which will cost five millions of dollars, are going up in New-York. The present population is supposed to be 125,000.

The remains of the much lamented gen. Montgomery, have been removed from Quebec, under the direction of his nephew col. Livingston, to the city of New-York, where they were committed to the tomb on the 8th of July, 1818, with all those demonstrations of respect which his character and patriotic services were eminently calculated to inspire. The funeral service was read by bishop Hobart, and an impressive eulogy delivered by the Rev. Dr. Mason.

The Hessian Fly-We are extremely sorry to say, is committing great ravages in the wheat fields in the vicinity of Albany. In some neighbourhoods in Bethlehem, Guilderland, &c. it is not expected that so much will be obtained from the crops as the seed sown. The scason has, moreover, been too warm and wet for spring wheat and other small grains, which were not in general sown in the 15th or 20th of May. The fly has also made its appearance among the barley.

Grass promises to be very abundant, and farmers have begun to cut clover. Corn, considering how late it was planted, looks remarkably well.

PENNSYLVANIA.

Dr. Coxe of Philadelphia, has been appointed by the Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania, Professor Materia

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It would appear doubtful from the following extract from an Illinois newspaper, whether the act of Congress for the admission of that territory into the union can at present take effect, seeing that the population falls below the estimated amount of forty thousand souls, and that the act of Congress requires, as a preliminary to the formation of a state constitution," that it shall appear, from the enumeration directed to be made by the legislature of the said territory, that there are, within the proposed state, not less than forty thousand inhabitants."

TENNESSEE.

The southern campaign has closed, and major gen. Jackson and suite, arrived at Nashville on June 28th.

LOUISIANA.

New Orleans, when ceded to the United States in 1803, contained 9000 inhabitants-it now has from 32 to 35,000. The product of sugar and cotton, &c. in the parts adjacent has risen higher proportionally than the population of the capital.

The question of Fulton and Livingston's privilege is again agitated, by a suit brought in the federal court of NewOrleans, against the steam-boat Constitution. We wait with anxiety the result of a question involving the most prominent interests of Western America.

Thomas B. Robertson, Esq. of New Orleans, has resigned his seat in the House of Representatives of the United States; Edward Livingston, Josiah S. Johnson, and Thomas Butler, Esqrs. atc put in nomination to fill the vacancy.

A vessel from Pensacola, entered at the Custom-House of New-Orleans on the 8th of June, with a clearance signed "James Gadsden, acting collector of the port of Pensacola."

ART. 11. ANALECTA.

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IF you consider the following observations on flax-steeping worthy of a place in your valuable Magazine, I will thank you to insert them. They are the substance of answers furnished by me to inquiries made upon that subject by G. Thomson, Esq. of the Trustees Office, Edinburgh.

When in Dumbartonshire in 1801, reducing to practice the process of bleaching by steam, I had a few spindles of yarn given to me to prepare for weaving. There was, in the sleekness of the thread, something that attracted my attention. Having soaked it over night in warm water to prepare it for steaming, I was much surprised at the change of colour, and the quantity of colouring matter dissolved in the water. It was then washed, wrung, and soaked in a weak alkaline ley, and laid for steaming over some brown linens. After steaming the usual time, the covers were taken off. The yarn was found to have attained a degree of whiteness I never had before observed under similar circumstances. It was washed in the stream so long as any colouring matter came from it, and laid to the grass for two days. I remember well the colour was such as to impress me with a strong belief that some great and important discovery might be the result of accurately following up the process this flax had gone through; and I immediately made inquiry of the lady to whom the yarn belonged, who informed me she had it from a person she named, in the neighbourhood: to this individual I made the same application, and traced the yarn to have been purchased at a Kilmarnock fair.

Here the matter rested till the next season of lint pulling. I had a particular wish to trace, if possible, the matter to its source, and conceived the best plan would be to traverse that part of the country, from Stir ling towards Kilmarnock. My time was far too limited; but I saw as much as to satisfy myself that the secret with regard to the bleaching, lay entirely in pulling the flax before it was too ripe; and I also found that this great advantage might again be lost by improper watering.

I saw the flax in all its stages, from the pulling to the drying after watering; and upon inquiry I uniformly found the greenest pulled was intended for the finest purposes, and that the whitest flax, after drying, had been watered in the burn. They were very particular in watering, and did not allow it to remain so long in the water as I had been led to believe necessary, from the practice here; nor did they spread it on the grass

after watering, as is the mode in this quarter, but dried it all from the water, by what is termed hutting.

As bleaching alone was my object, my inquiries respecting the different shades of colour after watering were very particular; and I uniformly found that the white flax had been watered in the burn, and the darkcoloured in ponds dug where water could be most conveniently obtained. When I mention a burn, it must be understood to be a stream so small as to require a dam being necessary to receive the water into a temporary pond to cover the flax.

The succession of clean water, I conceive, prevents the deposition of colouring principles, to be hereafter mentioned, by washing or carrying them away, after being extracted from the flax, which I had after wards an opportunity of proving, in a pond so constructed, which produced remarkably white flax, while the same flax, from several stagnant ponds dug in the same ground, filled with water from the same spring, was very dark in the colour.

In following up these observations, my situation in life did not then admit of experiments to the extent the importance of the subject would have required. I shall, however, narrate these, so far as they extended. The result satisfied me, that the watering of flax must vary with local circumstances, and every where depend on the means afforded by springs, streams, moss, or marsh, that may be in the neighbourhood of the flax-field, so long as the present mode of culture is followed; and the colour of the flax after watering very much depend on the following causes:

The ripeness of the flax before pulling. The state of putridity of the stagnant water.

The minerals the water may contain

Whether it is steeped in a pond dug, or one formed by damming a small stream or rill. Or, if a succession of parcels of flax (which is sometimes the case) be watered in the same pond, where every succeeding parcel must partake of the contaminating dye produced by the fermentation of the former.

In the course of my observations, I found the quantity and solubility of the colouring matter in proportion to the degree of ripeness; and in the ripest, on a principle I never till then knew to have an existence in flax, viz. iron, which may be said to abound in ripe flax.

In unripe flax I found the colouring matter soluble in water; but this matter became less and less soluble, till the water made little or no impression upon it. The time necessary for flax to macerate must in some measure depend on the weather, but more on the state of ripeness than most practitioners seem to be aware of.

In unripe flax the juices are in a mucilaginous state; hence its solubility in water. If flax is watered in an unripe state, the mucilage, from its solubility, tends greatly to facilitate the process of watering, by promoting the fermentation. But if the flax is allowed to stand on the ground till it has attained a rusty-brown colour, and the seed fully ripened, the juices of the plant are then changed from mucilage to resinous matter, and certainly no longer soluble in water, so far as the resin is concerned, unless assisted by solvents.

In this stage, instead of having a large portion of mucilage to expedite the fermentation, the resin defends the flax for a time against the effects of the water, and the fermentation must proceed by slow degrees; consequently the time necessary to steep flax must vary according to the ripe or unripe state of the flax when pulled. What would sufficiently water unripe flax, would hardly penetrate the outer rind of the ripe; and the time required for the ripe would entirely destroy the other.

The choice (where the choice can be made) of the water, and the ground into which ponds are to be dug, or the rill or stream into which the flax is to be laid, is certainly of the highest importance, for the colour, quantity and quality of the flax.

That very great improvements may be made in the mode of separating the flax from the rind and boon, so as to render that process less offensive, far safer, and equally effectual, I have no doubt whatever. But before promulgating any speculative theory on a subject of such importance to the nation, would it not be laudable in the Honourable Board of Trustees to cause a full series of experiments on a fair scale, to be made and followed up by some persons of skill and observation, which would set the matter at rest, solve all doubts on so important a process, and furnish the farmer and flax-grower with such instructions that he could not err.

The presence of iron in the plant was discovered in my attempts to bleach flax, by different modes, to ascertain whether there existed any other principle beside mucilage, resin and oil, in what stage the juices became insoluble in water, and to what extent these substances existed, with a view to ascertain the safest strength of alkaline applications to be used in the different processes of bleaching. Alkalies are the common solvents used by bleachers; but I did not conceive them altogether adapted to my present purpose. I took alcohol, and succeeded in bleaching to a very beautiful whiteness flax in its unripe state and in its early stages; but as the flax ripened, its power fessened. I exposed full ripe flax to the action of alcohol, both in a liquid state and in the state of vapour, till I satisfied myself of having extracted all the resinous matter;-still a colour remained. I subjected it to the action of an oxymuriate, and was astonished to see

the presence of iron so strongly indicated. I took another quantity of this full ripe flax, and boiled it in a ley of prussiate of potash, prepared by calcination of common potash with green whins: from this it was washed, and immersed in oxymuriate of lime, which produced a beautiful light blue. This experiment I repeated till I produced, by ap parently the same process, on the unripe flax a beautiful white, and on the full ripe, a fine, full, Prussian blue. This explained in a most satisfactory manner many of the phenomena of bleaching I never before could comprehend, and appeared to me a most wonderful work in nature,--the formation of a metal in the juices of a plant, whose existence was not detected, by the same means, in the same plant, only fourteen to twenty days younger than where its presence became so manifest.

Tan also exists in flax, and is very soluble in water.

In steeping flax, the water in the pond becomes impregnated with tan. The process of fermentation comes on, in the progress of which the iron is acted upon. The iron and tan combine, precipitate, and form an almost idestructible dye.

Thus, by inattention to the steeping of flax, the labour and expense of bleaching are greatly increased. The linen loses much of its strength and durability by the necessary process of bleaching, and destroying a colour which, by due care, might be prevented from ever fixing itself.

With esteem, I remain, Dear Sir, yours sincerely, GAVEN INGLIS. Strathendry Bleachfield, Dec. 10, 1817.

The following account of a METEOR is from the pen of PROFESSOR HALL of Middlebury College.

A Meteor of uncommon magnitude and brilliancy was observed, on Friday evening, the 17th inst. by a number of the inhabitants of this and the adjacent towns. It made its appearance, according to the most accurate chronometers, at twenty minutes after nine. A gentleman of this village, standing in his garden, which inclines to the southeast, happened to be looking towards his house, which was northeast from him, and was surprised by a dazzling light of a peculiar hue, proceeding, as he supposed, from the building. Turning his eye round, he saw the object from which the light emanated. The luminary was then, by estimation, 35 or 40 degrees above the horizon, and in an easterly direction from this borough.

It appeared of different magnitudes of different individuals. Some affirm, that its apparent diameter was equal to that of the full moon, which was then rising, but a few degrees from it. Others are of opinion, that it was not more than half as large. If either of these suppositions be near the truth, it

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