To account for the presents state of Spain and Turkey, there is but little need of calling in religion exclusively in either case; as ample causes, common to the progress and decline of all nations, are numerous and apparent, and d can be easily adduced to determine why two nahave betions, with so many advantages, come feeble and contemptible. la, in Africa, and its last rays shed a melan them, none can be either happy, powercholy gloom on the surrounding objects. ful, or respected. ispitorio Opposite the bay, rising in majestic height, and frowning with age, stood the Calpe of an antiquity. No blooming orange groves, or fruitful gardens, embellished the Rock of Gibraltar, as in the reign of the Caliph Valid. The ruins of Cartea lay at the bottom of the beach; Algeciras, now one fourth the size and splendour of former times, was on the right; the Convent bell was chiming the Oriciones; and the lazy peasant, following his mule, laden with charcoal and brushwood, was retiring to his home, after a day of unprofitable listlessness. Every thing around me gave tokens of decaying power; of a retrogade of national strength, and national character; the fields looked green; nature had remained true to her general course-man only had changed.'". measure We have often expressed our regret that history is so little studied in the United States, and that even those who do make that part of literature their study, are too exclusive in their choice of subjects. The history of Greece and Rome, and that of Great Britain, form the far greater part of the historical knowledge of even those who are generally best read. ad. The history of France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Russia, and Turkey, is almost unknown. We, therefore, regard with a partial eye all works calculated to give to the mind of our citizens a wider, and, of course more fruitful range of inquiry than has hitherto been laid open to their view. a Men are far too apt to consider their prosperity and security permanent; and are unwilling to concede, even in imagination, that causes which have ruined others, can so severely affect themselves. The study of history, by keeping the examples before the mental eye, tends imperceptibly to inspire caution, and to create distrust in any permanency of þuman happiness, except from a perpetuity of the same causes that first produced that happiness. 576 The Turks have been to the Mahometan, what the barbarians in the north of Europe and Asia were to the Christian world. The latter has recovered in some rom the shock; the former still from The notices of the relations of the Uniremains in a state similar to that in which, ted States with the Barbarys powers, five centuries past, stood France, Germa- which are scattered over the volume beny, and indeed, except Italy, the whole fore us, deserve the most serious attention of Christendom. In each case similar of our government and citizens. Barbacauses produced similar effects. With rians and savages can be only managed prudence and tolerance; good laws well by the "Ratio Ultima Regum," and are established and administered; armies well always civil when overawed by superior organized and officered; finances drawn power. This secret seems to have been from the superabundance of commerce, first disclosed on this barbaric coast, by not wrung from the last fruits of industry, the thunder of American cannon; though and judiciously applied; with these requi- its principles have since been acted upon sites any nation will prosper-without by other nations, That the civilized world, so long able to chastise and restrain these piratical vagabonds, should have patiently borne their depredations and insults, is one of those problems in human conduct that can only receive a "satisfactory solution, by a disclosure of the worst passions of the human heart. We sincerely hope an eternal period is now put to the slavery of the most innocent a and polished of our species. And we also hope that this infamous and degrading system, which reached the vitals of civilized Europe, will not be connived by governments who have so clamor ously demanded the abolition of the slave trade. We hope that if Africa is protected against the avidity of Europe, and of nations descended from that quarter of the globe, that those nations may be also protected from the ferocious avarice and cruelty of Africans. naked, are slaves, they are marched before the Bey, and each person is examined, touching their country; sometimes the Consuls examine a number, to ascertain whether they have national el they are stripped of valuable protection. Half clothing before they land, they have a coarse robe of hair cloth thrown to them. Here stands an aged man, with silvery locks, who, in his little pleasure vessel, was sailing tears coursing down his furrowed cheeks, from Genoa to Nice; thus snatched from children, home and country, bare headed and with bare feet, is waiting to hear his fate; he is ordered to work in the Dey's garden. There, in rags, but with a countenance beaming with intelligence, and shaded with a manly frown of indignation, stands a Count of the holy Roman Empire, once secretary to the Consistory, and the intimate friend of the sovereign Pontiff. Where is that power which once made monarchs tremble? Where are those Bulls which, like the law of the Medes and Persians, were all controlling and effective? Gone-not even possessing sufficient influence to break the chains of a captive nobleman. He is ordered to work on the fortifications, being hale and strong, and the whip of his taskmaster soon awakens him from his painful reverie. That female, who is wringing her hands in agony, in tattered garments, is the wife of a rich merchant in Naples, and her two beautiful daughters, in tears and in despair, near her, vainly attempting to administer comfort, have just left their seminaries of learning in France; accomplished and engaging, they were about to return to their native city, of which they contemplated being the pride and ornament. The mother is ordered to the harem, to be employed in the lowest drudgery for its licentious tenants; the daughters are separated, sent to the houses of favourite ministers, to be daily tortured with impure solicitations, probably Ican imagine nothing more terrific to the assaulted with violence, and ever solicited peaceful mariner, or to the enterprising mer- to abandon their faith. The seamen are chant, than when an Algerine rover bears chained, fed on black bread, and compelled down upon their unarmed vessels, boards, to work bare headed in the scorching sun, bwith sword in hand and shrieking imprecaon roads, houses, or ramparts. Ye monarchs tions, their sunburnt and black complexions, of Europe, who on beds of down and in savage by their eyes of fire, and robes of velvet, fare sumptuously-who can quivering lip of indignation, seizing on the ti-Order your armies to take the field and fight mid crew, dragging from their retreat the trembling and distracted females, tearing their jewels and ornaments from them, and throwing them all, neck and heels, like dogs in their boat, to be transported to their corsair, where, half starved, spit upon, and insulted, they are confined until they arrive under the frowning battlements of that city intended for the grave of their liberty. “When a vessel arrives at Algiers with We would recommend a perusal of the following extract from Mr. Noah's Travels, to those of our readers whose sympathies for injured Africans have been strongly excited and foudly proclaimed. We detest the name of slavery and oppression; we abhor the oppressor, and pity the oppressed; but we also contemn that mistaken humanity, which lavishes its feelings upon one class of objects, and leaves others, equal or more deserving, to suffer and weep unregarded. S74 1 against your neighbours, for something, or for nothing how could you be insensible to the groans of your subjects? You should have pawned the jewels in your crowns to release your suffering people, if your power could not break their chains. Here would have been a contest which would have immortalized your efforts-for this alone could any alliance be termed holy.” (To be continued.) Tw and bouding te wai 309 has bedeild sa svod A sand beviso97 ART. 3. MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY101 sit ai,noy Description of a new Genus of Fluviatile Bivalve Shell, of the family of Brachiopodes; NOTREMA FISSURELLA; in a Letter to Dr. S. L. Mitchill, Prof. of Nat. Hist. &c. New-York. DEAR SIR, THE Greek. head in the centre above, retractible, jut- Obs. It is found on the rocks of the HERE is a small family of bivalve shells, which have received the name of Brachiopodes, distinguished by having tentacula. It contained, in my Analysis of Nature and in Cuvier's Regne Animal, only three genera, lingula, orbicula and terebratula, all maritime; this last, which is very numerous, particularly in fossil species, has lately been divided by Sowerby, who has established the genera Productus and Spirifer; and I have added another fossil genus, Apleurotis, distinguished from it by being elongated, obliquated, and auriculated on one side only, in a memoir presented to the Academy of National Sciences of Philadel- On some New Genera of American Plants. phia. In my travels on the Ohio, I have ascertained another genus belonging to that family, which is very similar to the genus Orbicula; but it is fluviatile, and the larger or upper valve is perforated in the middle as in Fissurella, and operculated. I have not seen the living animal myself; but Mr. Audubon of Hendersonville, a zealous observer, has drawn it, and it appears, to have a head with two eyes and no tentacula jutting out of the perforation. It would therefore deviate from the character of the family; it may, probably, at a future period become the type of another; but the shell is so very similar to Orbicula that I unite them now, proposing however for it a sub-family, under the name of Notremidia, which may become the family name when other similar genera shall have been detected. Description) -NOTREMA. Generic character. Fluviatile bivalve shell, inequivalve upper valve larger, nearly round, perforated in the middle, opening operculated lower valve lateral very small inequilateral Body flat beneath, C Extract of the third Letter of C. S. Ru FINESQUE, to Mr. DECANDOLLE, Professor of Botany at Ginevra, and author of the new Species Plantarum, dated Philadelphia, 25th Feb. 1819. Translated from the French, angeus Na 1. Many of our botanists, such as Bigelow, Elliot, Nuttall, Eaton, Barton, Torrey, &c. are engaged in describing our plants, or compiling and translating former descriptions, under the old sexual system. They have detected also some new genera and many new species, which you will see in their works, which I send you with my notes on some of their mistakes.For my part, I content myself at present with collecting materials for a general natural classification of our plants, and insastertaining new genera and species, which I now and then publish. I have sent you, as you requested, an account of my new species belonging to your first natural class. I shall now continue to acquaint you with some of my unpublished improvements in our genera, hoping that you have already internal gibbosities which alternate with the five lobes of the corolla; the stamens in the tube, the style is very short, the stigma simple and obtuse, and the seeds shining. You will easily perceive that this plant has, therefore, the corolla and seeds of Lithospermum; the calix, stamens, style, and stigma of Myosotis, and quite peculiar characters in the gibbose scales of the corolla, It must therefore be deemed a peculiar genus, which I have called Cyphorima, which means gibbose fossules. It belongs to the same natural family of course. 4. The Ilex Canadensis of Michaux, has been deemed of a doubtful genus by him and his copyists. Having had the opportunity of seeing the male and female trees in full blossom, in June 1817, on the Catskill mountains, I have ascertained that it is not an Her, and does not even belong to the same natural family, but to the natural tribe of Rhamnides, where it forms quite a new genus, which I have called Nemopanthus (fascicularis) mean received those I have published, and sent you, in the Flora of Louisiana, and in my Tracts. 2. I have have long ago d dedicated to De Witt Clinton, governor of of the State of New-York, , and an eminent American philosopher, author of several geological, hydrological, and philosophical essays, &c. a fine new genus of monocotyle plants of the natural tribe of Asparagoides, which is found in the northern parts of this continent, from Labrador to the mountains of Catskill and Alleghany, and has been united, without any reason, to the genera Dracena by Aiton, Persoon, Wildenow, &c. who call it Dr. borealis, while Michaux, Pursh, Nuttall, &c. have removed it to the genus Convallaria, calling it C. umbellulata. It is a well known axiom that when plants are removed at random from one genus to another, it is always found at last, that they really belong to neither, and the rule has not failed in this instance. I call this plant Clintonia ciliata, it differs from all the genera of its natural tribe by having a camping filiform peduncles. Its generic diagnulated six-parted corolla or perigone, a compressed style and a bilobed stigma; but particularly a bilocular berry with many seeds attached to the central septa. The genus Dracena differs from it by having an open corolla, a triangular style, and a trilocular berry with few seeds: the ge Convallaria (or rather Sigillaria Raf. Smilacina of Derf) by an open corolda, a cylindrical style, and a trilocular berry and my g. Styrandra (Convallaria bifolia, &c.) by having a four-parted corolla, four stamens and a round style. The Clintonia ciliata forms as yet a genus of a single species, or a peculiar habit, and distinguished at first sight by its smooth zelliptical radical leaves, ciliated on the (margin, sande scapus bearing a few fasciculated drooping yellowish flowers. 7 do3.The Lithospermum latifolium, of *Linnæus, must form a peculiar genus intermediate between this and myosotis. It has an unequal five-parted calix, a funnel shaped corolla with a short tube and a plicate limb, while the opening has five external fossules corresponding with five nosis is as follows: Divical. m. fl. calix five-parted equal, corolla missing, five stamens hypogynous alternating with the sepals of the calix and equal. F. fl. calix four-parted, ovary ovate, stigma sessile, four-lobed, berry four-locular, fourseeded. Leaves fasciculated deciduous, flowers fasciculated, axillary, the male on very long peduncles. havis. Ja -polsys 5. It is well known that the Rhus suaveolens or aromaticum has an inflorescence totally different from the congenerous species. Having observed many shrubs of that species in full blossom on the mountains of Pennsylvania, in May 1818, I detected various other characters, which separate it from the g. Rhus, such as its being trivical, having glandular bilobed appendages to the petals, &c. these, united with the peculiar inflorescence, induces me to propose a new genus for it, which I call Lobadium, meaning lobed glands. The specific name suaveolens, not being very accurate, since the leaves only have a scent, while the wood and flowers stink, I propose to call it Loba ART. 4. History of the British and Foreign Bible Society, Abridged. By a Member of the Parent Society, and Citizen of the State of New-York." TH THIRD YEAR. (Continued from page 284.) (From May 1, 1806, to May 1, 1807.) HE conductors, in their address to the public on the third anniversary, after forcibly and pathetically urging the almost universal desolation and impoverish ment produced by the war, as motives which should influence every devout Christian to hasten to the relief of his desponding countrymen, with the reviv ing consolations of God's Word, remark; "That however commendable it is to lay the foundations of a Christian Institution, it is still more so to raise it to its full scope of utility." In Prussia, notwithstanding the overwhelming circumstances in which it had been placed by the war, the Society récently formed at Berlin, with assistance procured from Dantzic, by the exertion of the Rev. Mr. Ewald, Rector of the Holy Trinity in that city, proceeded with the edition of the Bohemian Bible of 3000 copies. In the mean time a temporary supply of as many Testaments, together with the Book of Psalms, had been furnished to the Bohemian Protestants from Halle, through the munificence of a Prussian officer; an instance which, with various others, will demonstrate that the power of religion is confined to no condition or employment in life. The attention of the Society also, through the indefatigable exertions of its foreign Secretary, Mr. Steinkopff, and his 3 2 we have nest to zealous correspondents in Prussia, had been directed to Konigsberg, and the From eastern provinces of the kingdom. information transmitted through Doctor Knapp, from the Rev. Mr. Glogau and the Rev. Dr. Wald, as well as other sources, the whole of Lithuania, though destitre of religious instruction, appeared extremely disposed to receive it, and from the very warm manner in which the Prussian divines just named approved of the Bible Society, its solicitude became strongly excited to afford relief in that quarter, when the proper season and opportunity might offer themselves. In the order of time we notice a chain of unforeseen, and apparently unimportant circumstances, which led to the signal events in the North, hereafter to be related. The Rev. John Paterson and the Rev. Ebenezer Henderson, two natives of Scotland, who had devoted themselves to the Missionary cause, being shut out by the Company's regulations in India, from our own possessions, had proposed to embark from Copenhagen, for the Danish settlement at Tranquebar. Disappointed however in that object, whilst in Copenhagen, they were forcibly struck by the picture given them of the state of Iceland, by Justiciary Thorkelin, privy keeper of the Royal Archives, a native of that remote island. He represented but w that not above 40 or 50 copies of Bible were to be found |
