So satisfied does the writer feel of this peculiar quality in chalk and limestone, that, he imagines that an individual shut up in a close carriage might, by the help of an hygrometer, determine when he passed over strata of chalk or limestone.

VACUUM PRODUCED BY GAS. Mr. Brown's principle of producing a vacuum by the combustion of gas in a cylinder, was lately applied to the propelling a vessel on the Thames. The experiment was made with several nautical and scientific men on board, among whom were Captain Shaw, R.N. Dr. Wilson Phillips, and the inventor, Mr. Brown. The vessel was a large Thames galley; the persons on board were 15 in number; the weight of the engine was 3 cwt. and there was an additional weight of 5 cwt.; yet they made way at the rate of ten miles an hour, against a strong tide. The gas used is produced from water by a strong heat of a coke fire.

OVERLAND NORTH WEST EXPEDITION. Some interesting particulars of this expedition have been received; of which the following is a summary, partly abstracted from a letter in a Quebec paper, written by a gentleman who accompanied Capt. Franklin. It will be seen that Captain Franklin and Captain Beechey were, for several days, within less than 100 miles of each other, on the Arctic shores. Had the former persevered a little further, the two commanders would have had the good fortune to meet, and, to the honour of Britain, the whole expedition would have been crowned with complete success. Though this was not accomplished, much has been done, and the details will doubtless be read with attention.

The grand object of the expedition, besides generally coasting the northern shores of the American continent on the Arctic sea, was to pass from the mouth of the Mackenzie river to Behring's Straits, where Captain Franklin expected to be met by his Majesty's ship Blossom, Captain Beechey, who was directed to make the best of his way to Icy Cape (or farther east, if practicable), with the view of there joining the overland party. (See vol. xcvi. ii. 628.)

In 1825, as has been often repeated, Captain Franklin established his head-quarters at a fort to which his name was given, on Great Bear Lake. He then descended the Mackenzie river, made a short inspec tion of the sea, and returned, while the water was yet open, to his winter quarters. In the meanwhile, the lake itself had been surveyed, and the distance of its eastern point from the Coppermine river ascertained. Thus stood matters till June 1826, when operations were resumed. Dividing the expedition into two parties, Captain Franklin placed himself at the head of that,

[Jaly,

which was destined to take a western course from the mouth of the Mackenzie, and intrusted the other to the charge of Doctor Richardson, his old associate and friend, with instructious to proceed eastward from the same point to the Coppermine river. Each had two boats: Captain Franklin the Lion and Reliance (built of mahogany) with a force consisting of Lieutenant Back, eleven British seamen, marines and landsmen, two Canadian voyagers, and one Esquimaux interpreter-in all sixteen;-Dr. Richardson the Dolphin and Union (one built of mahogany, and the other of fir.on the spot), with Mr. Kendall the assistantsurveyor, one seaman, two marines, six landsmen, and an Esquimaux-in all twelve. On June 21, 1826, the whole started together, and once more descended the Mackenzie, till July 2d, when, in 67 deg. 38. min. N. lat. 133 deg. 58 min. W. long. the letter in the Quebec Gazette thus relates their future progress :—

"At this place, named Parting Point by Captain Franklin, the river divides into a number of widely diverging branches, separated from each other by low and partially flooded lands. It was determined that the two divisions of the expedition should sepa rate here, and that each party should follow the channel which accorded best with their respective routes. Captain Franklin, in the preceding autumn, had descended a middle channel, and reached the seat at Garry's Island, in lat. 69 30 deg. N. long. 185 45 W. He now entered the most westerly arm which winds round the base of the Rocky Mountains, and reached its mouth on the 7th of July. Its outlet is so barred by sand banks, that the crews were com pelled to drag the boats for miles, even at the top of high water. In this unpleasant situation they were visited by a large party of Esquimaux, who at first behaved quietly, and carried on a barter in an amicable man→ ner, but at length, prompted by the desire of plunder, and confiding in the superiority of numbers, on a preconcerted signal, upwards of 200 stout fellows, armed with long knives, rushed into the water at once, and seizing on the boats dragged them on shore. The judicious measures pursued by Captain Franklin, however, well seconded by the prompt obedience and determined conduct of Lieutenant Back and the crews of the boats, rescued the provisions, and all the property of consequence, from the hands of these freebooters, and the boats were ultimately got afloat without a shot having been fired, or any personal injury received on either side. The same party came twice that night and next day with hostile intentions, when the expedition had put ashore to repair the rigging of the boats which had been cut in the affray, but the posture of defence in which Captain Franklin drew up his small force, deterred them from renewing

Kotzebue's Sound. Betwixt them and the main shore there is a very extensive lake of brackish water, which perhaps communicates with the eastern branch of the Mac kenzie, and receives, at least, one other large river. This party subsequently tracked a rocky and bolder shore, rounded Cape Parry in lat. 70 deg. 18 min. N., long. 123 deg. W., Cape Krusenstern in lat. 68 deg. 46 min. N., long. 114 deg. 45 min. W., and entered George the Fourth's Coronation Gulf, by the Dolphin and Union Straits, which brought them nearly to the 113th deg. of West longitude. They then steered for the Coppermine river, and entered it on the 8th of August. They suffered some detention on this voyage from bad weather, and had, on several occasions, to cut a passage through tongues of ice with the hatchet, and to force a way for the boats with much labour and some hazard. Notwithstanding the quantity of ice they encountered thus early in the season, they were convinced that towards the end of August there is a free passage for a ship along the northern coast of America, from the 100th to the 150th degree of west longi

tude; and to the eastward of the Mackenzie there are some commodious harbours, although there are none on the part of the coast surveyed by Captain Franklin to the westward. The whole difficulty in perform ing the north-west passage in a ship seems to be in attaining the coast of the continent through the intricate straits which lead from Baffin's or Hudson's Bays. The flood tide was found setting every where along the coast from the eastward. The rapids, which obstruct the navigation of the Cop permine, prevented them from bringing their boats above eight miles from the sea, and they therefore abandoned them there with the remainder of their stores, tents, &c. a present to the Esquimaux, and set out overland to Fort Franklin, carrying (exclusive of instruments, arms, and ammunition, and a few specimens of plants and minerals), merely a blanket and ten days' provisions for each person. They arrived on the eastern arm of Bear Lake on the 18th of August, and at the Fort on the 1st of September, after an absence of 71 days, in excellent health and condition. The two branches of the expedition have thus surveyed the coast through upwards of thirty-six degrees of longitude, which, together with Captain Franklin's former discoveries, and those of Captain Parry, render the Arctic Sea pretty well known, as far as the 115th degree of west longitude. There remains only eleven degrees of unknown coast betwixt that and Ioy Cape.

Since receiving the above particulars, we have learnt that the Blossom, commanded by Captain Beechey, succeeded in reaching As appointed destination on she side of the Bacho Ocean, and arrived at Kotzebue

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Sound, the appointed place of rendezvous: Here the gallant officer remained, waiting in the hope of meeting the overland exper dition, till the harbour began to freeze; when, to avoid being frozen in, he was reluctantly obliged to hoist his sails and depart. The following is an extract of a private letter from Captain Beechey; and its description of the writer's feelings and disappointments is to our mind as affecting as it is simple and natural :

"San Francisco, Nov. 4, 1826. "With the expectation of being by this time on my way home, I quitted St. Paul's on the 4th of July, and hastened to Kotzebue Sound, performing what I could for hydrography in my way. I waited there four days, and then proceeded to the north→ ward. The weather was fine, and favourable for our purpose; and we executed our work in a much shorter period than I could have expected, and succeeded in penetrating 120 miles farther than the Icy Cape of Captain Cook. Success, in this respect, excited our warmest expectation of similar good fortune in my much-esteemed friend, Captain Franklin; but this was a feeling which gradually subsided, as the time passed away without his arrival. I was myself so sanguine of his success, from what I had seen of the coast about Prince Regent's Inlet, and the facility that was there generally offered to boats proceeding between the land and the ice, that the appearance of every baidar (native boat) that rounded the point of the anchorage gave rise to the most lively hopes; each successive disappointment, however, and the near approach of winter, which had latterly become too evident, greatly tended to deaden those sensations, until every expectation had at length passed away. I determined, however, to wait for him so long as it was possible, without being frozen in. Towards the end of September we were visited by different companies of natives, travelling homewards with their stock of provisions for the winter, which they had been occupied in collecting during the summer months. This, in some degree, broke the monotony of the scene; but their visits latterly became few. and far between,' and we were eventually, left quite alone. At length the edges of the harbour were frozen, and it needed only a day or two of calm weather to render the whole a mass of ice. This was a signal which I dared not disobey; and on the 14th October, with a clear sky, and hard frosty weather, we steered out of the Sound, our minds filled with anxiety for our intrepid countrymen, to whose relief (in the event of their arriving subsequent to our depar ture) we endeavoured to contribute, by leaving a supply of flour on the island for them, and a case of beads, to enable them to purchase the friendship of the neighbouring tribes...

LONDON BRIDGE.

In excavating the foundation of the New London Bridge, a considerable quantity of Roman coins, gold, silver, and brass, have been found, and one small silver statue, which has been deposited in the British Museum. A leaden figure of a horse was lately brought up, and is now in the possession of Mr. Knight, engineer. The execution of the head is admirable. The same gentlemen has, amongst a considerable collection of remains, a curious specimen of ancient glazed tile, a number of rare Saxon coins, and a considerable quantity of countere and gun-money. The workmen, who at first considered all the coins they met with as being merely old halfpence, which were worth nothing because they would no longer pass, soon discovered their error, and have now all become connoisseurs. Mr. R. L, Jones, the Chairman of the Bridge Committee, has zealously obtained all he could, with the liberal intention of presenting his set to the Corporation, to form the nucleus of a collection in the new City Library. He bas, besides, amongst a number of indifferent Bains found some time since, one Roman cain, with the inscription PLON (Pecunia Landini) which is supposed to have been struck in the metropolis. The most frequent of the Roman coins are those of Antoninus Pius. Saxon and old English coins have been found in great abundance, together with many ancient implements, warlike, sagerdatal, and domestic. To guard against impositions and the dispersion of the articles found, the workmen have, we understand, been directed to deposit all they discover with Mr. Knight. When the fact of the discovery is properly authenticated, they receive a fair compensation for the treasure, whatever it may be.

FOSSIL REMAINS.

In Part I. p. 555, we noticed some interesting Fossil Remains having lately been discovered near Maidstone in Kent. The quarries where the remains were found ap-, pear to have been worked for many centunien, and there is a tradition that many of the materials of Westminster Abbey, and other ancient buildings in London, were brought from thence. The stone is called Kentish Rag: it consists of a succession of beds of limestone and coarse flint, dispersed in irregular series through a matrix of sand and sand-stones its geological position is in the lowest region of the green sand formatian immediately above the weald clay. The remains in question consist of the jaws, teeth, and broken portions of the skull, together with bones of the fore and hind legs of a very large hymne, and a few other teeth

and bones, apparently of the ox and horse. All these were found nearly together, within the space of a few feet, in one of the nuinerous cracks or fissures (locally called vents) that intersect the strata at this place, and are usually from one to twenty feet broad; on the sides of many of these vents are hollow apertures of various sizes, some of which occasionally expand themselves into caves; two such caves have lately been discovered in the quarries on the north side of the valley at Boughton Mount. These fissures or vents are cut through the strata from the bottom of the quarries to the surface, and are filled with diluvial loam, interspersed with fragments of the adjacent rocks and numerous chalk flints; these last must have been drifted hither from some distant hills, and have fallen into the fissures at the same time with the loam. This loam, at its upper extremity, becomes united to that which covers the surface of the quarry and the adjacent fields, The bones were discovered at about 15 feet deep, in one of these fissures; and from the manner in which they were scattered amongst the loam and stony fragments, they appear to have been drifted to their present place at the same time with the diluvial matter amongst which they lay, occupying a position precisely similar to the bones of hyænas and other animals that were' discovered in the fissures of the breakwater limestone rock near Plymouth, imbedded in similar diluvial loam and pebbles. It is highly probable that at Boughton, as was the case at Plymouth, the caves communicating with these fissures will be found to contain an abundance of similar bones.

T

ANCIENT ENGLISH COINS.

In lately digging a field near Hallyclare (says the Northern Whig) there was found an earthen vessel, containing upwards of 1000 silver pennies of King Edward I. and II,, the greater part of which had been coined in London, York, and Canterbury. Among them there were a number stamped: in the following places Newcastle, Durham, Lincoln, Bristol, St. Edmundsbury, Hadley, Exeter, Chester, and Oxford. There were also a few Irish pennies, with the triangle, coined in Dublin and Waterford. From the time that we may fairly infer these coins were in circulation, and the tract of country in which they were found-lying between the ancient city of Connor and the venerable fortress of Carrickfergus→→it is. highly probable that they had been hidden daring the invasion of Lord Edward Bruce in 1815, and perhaps buried during the retreat of the English away from the former plade, where they had been defeated on the 10th of September, the fugitives retreating

sides of the building; in the corners are three small rooms. In the middle, one or two niches have been examined, in which were found statues of Tiberius and Livia. Unluckily these statues, though very beautiful, are without arms. In that of Tiberius some traces are still discoverable of the red of the toga with which he was clothed. The principal wall is ornamented with paint ings, very well preserved, which represent the history of Romulus and Remus, at the moment when they were suckled by the wife of the shepherd Faustulus. In the gallery which conducts to the Pantheon, and in the room which served as a robing room, are tablets of marble with different numbers. In the nnmerous paintings of this edifice are representations of hunts, marine monsters, and different animals. Attached to the building is a court, surrounded by a portico, supported by elegant columns, whose pediments are of white marble. In the midst of this portico rise eight pedestals, which probably supported a small rotunda, similar to that which is seen at Puzzoli, in the Temple of Serapis.

ANCIENT CITY NEAR BHURTPore.

Of the city of Futtehpur Sikri, which

was.

built by Akber, and appears never to have been of very great extent, little now exists except a mass of ruins, enclosed within walls equally decayed. The northern portion, formed of a series of low hills, is covered by the relics of Akber's palace, and the Dergah, or Shrine, of Sheikh Sellim Chishti, the saint, whose prayers and surpassing piety procured the monarch the much coveted blessing of a son and suc

cessor.

The palace of the Emperor consists of a succession of buildings, scattered over a considerable extent of ground, and presents nothing grand or striking. The different structures are all on a very small scale, and apparently little adapted to an imperial residence. Many of them, however, are of peculiar construction, and the ornamental architecture is elaborate and curious. They are especially worthy of notice as marking an era in the arts in India, and indicating the transition about to take place from the genuine Hindu to the Indo-Persic or Saracenic style of building. Indian architecture: combines rudeness and delicacy in a peculiar manner, The edifices are built in square

[July,

massive blocks, where strength depends upon the quantity of matter less than upon its disposition. Some of the roofs at Futtehpur Sikri are formed of immense slabs of stone, laid, without beams, from wall to wall; others are formed of similar slabs laid aslope, and meeting in the centre as in a pitched roof. The door and window frames are all square, the buildings angular, and such columns as occur are short and ponderous. Combined with this Cyclopean style, if it may be so termed, there is extreme delicacy and minuteness in detail, and the walls and cornices are covered with scrolls and flowers of an almost microscopic delineation, and most complex and laborious execution. In the building immediately adjoining, a wholly different style prevails,

and the shrine of the saint, with its carved arches, corridors, cupolas, aud minarets, corresponds with the general character of Mohammedan architecture as it occurs throughout Persia, whence it seems to have been

imported in full perfection into Hindoostan by the Mogul princes, and especially Ak→ ber's predecessor Hoomayoon.inch more

The Dergah of Sheikh Chishti is, perhaps, the finest specimen of Mohammedan architecture in India. It is situated on the summit of a hill, from the brow of which a lofty gateway, to which a long flight of steps ascends, commands a distant view of

the Taj on one side and Bhurtpore on the other. Like all buildings of this description it is a quadrangular enclosure, but it is much more than the usual extent, measuring about 500 feet from wall to wall. The court within the enclosure is paved with stone; an arcaded virauda extends round three sides, whilst that opposite to the main entrance is occupied by the tombs of the family and descendants of the saint. His own tomb is a low building of white marble projecting into the centre of the square; the walls and windows of the shrine are carved with the greatest delicacy, like network or lace, and a screen, curiously wrought with mother-o'-pearl, protects the marble sarcophagus within from profane approach. The memory of the Sheikh is still held in great veneration, and many persons come daily in pilgrimage to his shrine. They tie small threads or offer flowers on the tomb, making, at the same time, presents to the Khadims, or servants of the establishment, and they anticipate that the saint's interces`sion will procure them health, or longevity, or children, or whatever may be the object of their desires. Hindoos form a full pro portion of the pilgrims, and it is a curious circumstance that a similar superstition in vests the sepulchral monuments of the Taj with imaginary sanctity, offerings of a like character, and with similar objects, being presented, especially by Hindoos, at the tombs of the despot Shah Jehan, and the lovely Light of his Harem.