Mr. Klaproth, in an Essay on the Au thority of the Asiatic Historians, places the beginning of oriental native authentic history as follows: The Arabians in the 5th, the Persians in the 3d, the Turks in the 14th, the Mongols in the 12th, the Hindus in the 12th, the Tibetians in the 1st century of the Christian era; the Chinese in the 9th, the Japanese in the 7th, the Armenian in the 2d, the Georgian in the 3d century before that era. The doubtful history of the most ancient peoplo, except the Jews, ascends only to a little more than 3000 years before our era, or to the great Flood. Mr. Klaproth considers that the expectation of deriving more materials for the ancient history of mankind than we find in the Mosaical books, or among the Babylonians, Egyptians, or Greeks, is very much overrated; and that in China principally some materials for the ancient history of Eastern Asia are to be expected; but that for the history of the three centuries before Christ, and thence to the present period, much may certainly be found among the Asiatics. FRANCE. M. Champollion, has made further discoveries in the Phonetic hieroglyphics of the Egyptians. Hitherto his discoveries had enabled him to decypher inscriptions only of the Greek and Roman epochs but he is now able to ascend to the age of the Pharaohs. He states himself to have discovered the age of all inscriptions bearing royal names; to have obtained more than forty names of Pharaohs; and to have fixed the extreme limit of all known Egyptian monuments at the nineteenth century before the Christian era. The French Clerical Almanack states, that in the Budget for the year 1822-3, the sum of 29,520,003 francs was set apart by the government for the maintenance of the clergy. In addition to this, the communes voted 6,407,727, and the councils of the department 1,162,618 francs; so that the funds appropriated to the clergy amount to about 1,463,5897. sterling. The aggregate number of the actual clergy is 35,676. The number of candidates for holy orders, in the seminaries, and in the theological colleges, amounts to 29,379. 1. families, making in all 220 persons, publiely embraced the Reformed Religion ng the Seignorial Chapel of Steyneyg; after, which the adults received the holy com munion, according to the rites of the Protestant church. The ceremony, it is added, took place in the midst of a vast assemblage of persons of different religious denominations, without the smallest inter ruption or disorder. ITALY. On the 27th of September, the Cardinal Della Genga was elected pope. He has assumed the title of Leo the Twelfth He was born on the 2d August, 1760, at the Castle de la Genga, and was Nuncio fourteen years in the electorates of the Rhine. At the period of the persecutions exercised by Bonaparte against his church, he was obliged to quit Rome with the other prelates and cardinals. At the restoration, he was the cardinal selected by the late pope to congratulate Louis XVIII. on his return. SOUTH AFRICA. We have had occasion to mention among South-African superstitions the profitable trade of the “ Bain-makers.**.* A missionary writes, that no Rain-maker has been employed this season; the natives being now convinced that such men are deceivers, whose object is to wheedle them out of their cattle, under pretence that they can withhold and give rain at their pleasure. The missionaries conceive this to be an important step to greater conquests. Rain-makers had been employed from time immemorial. UNITED STATES. The following is an extract from a speech of Mr. Colden, of New York, on the bill for the occupation of Columbia River. It exhibits a curious illustration of the proverbial genius of our Transatlantie friends in magnificent scientific specu-" lations. "Sir, I do verily believe, that, in twenty years, or if not in twenty, in fifty years, a person setting out from London to go to India, will find New York, Albany and Sandusky, post towns on his route. By pursuing, continually, nearly a west course, he will cross the Atlantic, reach Albany, follow the New-York Canal, embark on Lake Erie, pass through the Ohio Canal, and pursue the Ohio, Mississippi, and Missouri, to the foot of the Rocky Mountains, over which he will traverse a turnpike of only seventy-five miles, which will bring him to the waters of the Columbia: upon these he will reach the Pacific; and from thence he will cross a ferry to the over. Asiatic continent; a ferry of some two or three thousand miles, 1 admit, but one which, in reference to steam-boat navigation, for which those seas are particularly adapted, would be no more than so many hundred miles would have been some few years since. By pursuing this course, the traveller will have about 120 degrees of longitude to traverse. Whereas, if he proceeded east from London, he could not reach the eastern coast of Asia, without traversing 240 degrees of longitude; and if he pursued the usual route, by doubling either of the Capes, to the difference of longitude must be added the degree of latitude he must necessarily twice pass Is it not reasonable then to suppose, that at some period, not very remote, the eastern trade may be pursued in the course I have designated? And will not the measure which is contemplated by the bill, accelerate the arrival of that period? Sir, I am aware that by many these will be considered as extravagant and visionary ideas. But, let me ask, are they more extravagant than it would have been, only ten years ago, to have predicted that the waters of the great lakes would be emptied into the Atlantic, at New-York; that the course of the Hudson would be turned, and part of her waters sent to seek the ocean through the Gulf of St. Lawrence that, by artificial means, this great continent would be divided into islands, the borders of which are more extensive than all the shores of Europe, and these islands infinitely better adapted to navigation and commerce than if they were surrounded by oceans?" : NORTH AMERICA. The following are a few brief memoranda from the details of Captain Parry's second Polar Expedition. In 1821 the expedition explored Repulse Bay, Sir Thomas Roe's Welcome, Middleton's Frozen Strait, and the neighbourhood, and, finding no passage to the northward and westward, wintered in the southern bay of an island called Winter Island, in lat. 66 deg. 11. min., long. 83 deg. In 1822 it pursued the attempt to the northward, and examined all the inlets towards the west, till it arrived at a strait which separates the northern coast of America from what Captain Parry considers to be clusters of islands, extending northward towards the scene of his former voyage. They here found the ice fixed in that peculiar manner which indicates that it is perpetual, and not separated in any season, or under any circumstance. The expedition was therefore obliged to winter in lat. 69 deg. 20 min., long. 81 deg. 50 min. In the summer of the present year, finding the ice still fixed so as to preclude all hope of any farther progress, Captain Parry thought it advisable to give up the attempt, and return to England. During the winter of 1821 they saw no direct traces of human habitation; the land and the ice appeared one snowy and desolate surface. A few sea fowl, similar to those of southern latitudes, were ocea sionally seen: white bears were also now and then observed prowling upon the ice; the flashing of the aurora borealis was constantly as low as the horizon. The scientific department of the expedition was closely prosecuted during the winter season. The last winter of the expedition was peculiarly severe: the ships were inclosed in a compaet field of ice of forty or fifty miles in extent, from November 1822 till the 11th of August of the present year, when, by a sudden and violent gale, the whole area of the field of ice was put in motion, and the ships were extricated from their perilous anchorage, after having to saw their way through about five miles of ice. The natives of these regions are represented as being peaceable and good-natured. One tribe lived together on terms of perfect liberty and equality: in a second there was an angekok, or conjuror, who exercised a degree of authority. There are no signs of the worship of a Supreme Being among them, and they do not appear to have a perfect idea of one; nor have they apparently any religious rites at marriages or burials. They appear to have some crude notions of a future state; but all their ideas on these matters were. so blended with superstition, that they hardly deserve to be mentioned. Two wives were possessed by several of the natives. The stature of the males is about five feet four, five, or six inches; and none exceeded five feet ten inches. Their colour is a dirty looking yellowish white, and their proportions by no means robust. The huts are made of square blocks of solid snow, with a key-block at the top of the rotunda. The window is a piece of flat transparent ice. Round the interior runs a seat of the same material as the walls, upon which the skins of animals are thrown for seats and beds. Beds are made of a plant, on the floor. The houses are without any artificial warmth, except what is produced by a sort of oil lamp, in which they use pieces of dry moss for wicks. reticule, made of duck's feet, curiously disposed in a neat circular shape, and the toes hanging out like tags or tassels; small bottles of matting woven closely; teeth of foxes and wolves, strung on fish fibres, for female ornaments; and images of bone, rudely resembling the human shape. SOUTH AMERICA. A proposal is stated to have been made to the Columbian Government for uniting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans by means of a canal from the river Atrato, which PITCAIRN'S ISLAND. In the winter of 1822-3, native dwellings or huts constructed of bone were seen. The Esquimaux often eat flesh in a raw state; but it is sometimes cooked, by means of a lamp of oil, with a number of floating moss wicks. Their food consists chiefly of seal and wolves' flesh. Their dresses are made entirely of skins, chiefly those of the rein-deer. Every family has a sledge, and generally five or six dogs, with which they travel with great ease, and hunt. They entertain a belief in certain spirits or superior beings; but their notions concerning them are ex-flows into the former, with the San Juan, tremely rude and vague. The angekok, which falls into the latter. or conjuror, before mentioned, was prevailed upon to exhibit his powers in the captain's cabin. He was accompanied by his wife, and began his operations by having every glimpse of light excluded. He then stripped himself naked, and lay down upon the floor, and pretended that he was going to the lower regions where the spirits dwell. His incantations consisted of hardly articulate sounds, not appearing to have any meaning attached to them he also practised a kind of ventriloquism, and modulated his voice so as to give it the effect of nearness and greater distance, in the depths to which he wished it to be believed he had de scended. After about twenty minutes, on the re-admission of light, the actor gave an account of his adventures, and of what the spirits had told him. As a proof of the truth of his facts, and the reality of his colloquies, he produced several strips of far, which one of the spirits, he said, had fastened on the back of his skincoat since he went down; which, indeed, his wife had been busily stitching on dur ing the dark performance. : The voyagers were enabled to pick up a copious vocabulary of their language: some of the journals contain above five hundred words. The Esquimaux's knowledge of figures is very limited-five and ten being their most obvious enumerations. To express the former, one hand is held up; for the latter, both: but, when the sum exceeds that number, the Esquimaux calls on a neighbour to help him out, by holding up one or two hands, as the occasion requires. Several specimens of fossils and minerals have been brought home. Among them are,a piece of iron pyrites, with which the natives strike sparks among dry moss, to light their fires; the yolk of a sea-bird's egg, prepared by the Esquimaux to keep for food, as hard and transparent as amber; a model of a canoe; a female's A gentleman, who visited Pitcairn's Island last December, states, that there were residing on the island 54 persons, of whom 49 were the offspring of the mutineers of the Bounty. John Adams, the patriarch of this interesting population, still lives, and continues to train them up in principles of piety and virtue. Their condition presents a delightful picture of social happiness. The Bible is their directory, and most of those who are above ten years of age can read it. A considerable part of their time is employed in offering up praises to the Almighty. Nearly the whole of the Sabbath is spent in prayer, singing, and reading the holy Scriptures. Every morning, at four o'clock, they assemble in their respective habitations, for family devotion. At eleven, all the families meet together on a green, in the front of their dwellings, when John Adams reads prayers and portions of the Scriptures, and one or two Psalms are sung. Before sun-set, they assemble again. Afterwards, they have family prayer, sing the Evening Hymn, and retire to rest. The number of ships which touch at the island, both English and American, is now much more numerous than formerly; and John Adams is apprehensive that this may lead to an intercourse injurious to the morals and happiness of his colony. He wishes a person of weight and excellence of character to settle in the island during his lifetime, to promote the education, religious improvement, and social welfare of the people. This person he desires, should be an Englishman, a minister, and should be recommended by the London Missionary Society. INDIA. Several oil and coal gas apparatus have been imported into India. Suspension bridges are about to be thrown over many of the small rivers and mountain-torrents; and various other important scientific improvements are in rapid progress throughout the country. A medical association has been esta blished, under the designation of "The Calcutta Medical and Physical Society;" the object of which is to collect from all parts of India theoretical and practical information on medical questions, and particularly on diseases incident to the climate. The transactions of the Society are to be occasionally published. LIST OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. THEOLOGY, Discourses suited to the Administration of the Lord's Supper, agreeably to the Forms of the Scottish Church; by the Rev. J. Brown, Edinburgh. 12mo. 5s. On Religion, and the Means of its Attainment; by the Rev. J. Brown. Is. 6d. Report of the Speeches delivered before the Presbytery of Glasgow on the Motion for Inducting the Rev. Dr. M'Farlane into the Ministry of the High Church of that City. 8vo. 1s. 6d. Aids to Reflection, in a series of Pru dential, Moral, and Spiritual Aphorisms, extracted chiefly from the works of Archbishop Leighton; with Notes and Remarks; by S. T. Coleridge. The Approach of the Latter Days, in four Dissertations on the following subjeets: The Sword, Pestilence, Famine, and Antichrist: reprinted from a work published in 1713. 8vo. 7s. A Letter to Sir E. Knatchbull, on his accepting the Office of President at Maidstone Church Missionary Association; by the Rev. G. R. Gleig. Scientia Biblica, being a copious Col lection of Parallel Passages printed at length for the illustration of the New Testament, with the Text in Greek and English, &c. Part I. price 3s. to be completed in about 16 Parts. Practical Remarks on the Prophecies, with reference to efforts to spread the Gospel, and to personal edification; by the Rev. E. Bickersteth. A Sermon, preached at St. Chad's, Shrewsbury; by the Rev. E. Bather. 8vo. Is. 6d. An Enquiry into the Accordancy of War with Principles of Christianity, &c, 8vo. 5s. MISCELLANEOUS. School Hours, or Exercises and Prize Poems. 12mo. 5s. Universal Stenography; by W. Harding. 5s. Delineations of Fonthill and its Abbey; by J. Rutter. 4to. 11. 5s-large paper, 21. 10s. Illustrations of Fonthill Abbey, Wilts; by J. Britton, F.S.A. Imp. 4to. The Bible Atlas, or Sacred Geography; by R. Palmer on twenty-six plates. lús, coloured, or 12s. plain. Dublin Problems: a collection of Questions proposed for the Gold Medal at the General Examinations from 1816 to 1822' inclusiye. 8vo. 6s. 6d. Algebra, Theoretical and Practical; by J. R. Young. 8vo. 12s. Sir R. Naunton's Court of Queen Elizabeth, her Times and Favourites. 12s. 6d. demy, 21s. Subterraneous Surveying; by T. Fenwick. 8vo. 12s. Provence and the Rhone; by J. Hughes, 8vo. 12s. Elements of the History of Civil Government; by the late J. Tyson. Imaginary Conversations of Eminent Men; by W. S. Lander. 2 vols. 8vo. RELIGIOUS INTELLIGENCE, NEW CHURCHES. THE Third Annual Report of the Commissioners for building new churches was presented to Parliament, and ordered to be printed, the day before the close of the session. The following is an abstract of its contents:-It commences by a brief recapitulation of the Report made in the preceding year; from which it appears, that in the interval between the two, ten new churches had been completed, capable of affording accommodation to 4081 persons in pews, and to 9949 poor persons in free seats. Six of these ten had been already consecrated. The Report then proceeds to detail what progress had been made since the preceding year. From this and the schedules annexed, we learn that nine churches had been consecrated; that the number already built can afford accommodation to 7116 persons in pews, and to 14,399 in free seats. The number of churches or chapels, the building of which is now in progress, is forty-four. Of these, the far greater part will be of the Gothic order; some with tower and, pinnacles; some with tower and spire; and some with tower only. There are to be a few of the Doric, Corinthian, and Ionic orders. The whole will be capable of affording accommodation to 34,563 persons in pews, and to 39,842 in free seats. The contracts for building them (including incidental expenses and commission) amounts to 498,6817. 19s. 4d.; or, in round numbers, to half a million sterling. Specific grants have been made for four of them, amounting to about, 30,000l. Of the forty-four thus in progress, it is stated, that twelve will be finished in the course of the present year; twenty-seven in the year 1824; and five in the year 1825.. In addition to these, it appears, that plans for churches or chapels in nine parishes have been approved of; but the works have not yet commenced. These will be capable of affording accommodation to 5542 in pews, and to 5125 in free seats. The estimated expense is 42,0401. Specific grants have been given towards the erection of three of them, to the amount of 85551. Plans for the erection of sixteen new churches or chapels were before the Board of Commissioners, and not decided upon when the Report was laid before the House. These, it is said, will, if adopted, afford accommodation to 11,321 persons in pews, and to 14,139 in free seats. The estimated expense will be 206,2007. Grants have been made by the Board for five of them, amounting to 34,553. There are besides, twelve places in which it is intended to build new churches or chapels, of which the plans had not been received by the Commissioners at the date of the Report. These, it was thought, would be able to accommodate 9900 in pews, and 8600 in free seats, The probable expense will be about 90,000. If the forty-four churches now in progress, and those decided upon and in contemplation, be finished, they will be capable of affording accommodation to 68,442 persons in pews, and to 82,105 in free seats; total, 150,547. The estimated expense of the whole is 834,921. (The cost of the churches already completed is not stated in the Report before us.) The dioceses in which these new buildings will be situated, and the number in each, are thus given :-In the diocese of London, twenty-four; in that of Chester, nineteen; York, fifteen; Winchester, nine; Litch field and Coventry, six; Worcester, two; Durham, two; Bristol, Lincoln, and Rochester, one each. CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 263. EXTENT OF CHARITABLE SO- The astonishing extent of the annual subscription charities and societies in London may be inferred from the following recent classification :-Societies for Religious Instruction, 37; Lying-in Charities, 14; General Hospitals, 8; Hospitals for particular Complaints, 20; Schools for the Education of the Poor, 20; Parochial Charity Schools, 28; Schools of Instruction and Industry, 33; Societies, Schools, and Asylums, belonging to particular Professions, 35; Philanthropic Reform Societies, 10; Societies for Relief of the Distressed, 25; Dispensaries, 21; Societies for the Destitute, 7; Benefit Societies, 4; Local Charities for Districts, or Counties, &c. 10; Societics of a public nature, 37: making a total of 315. This list, however, which we have taken from a little work lately published, entitled "Account of the Annual Subscription Charities in London," is very far from being complete, particularly in the article of Charity Schools. Those of our readers who wish for a vade mecum to these cha rities may usefully consult this publication, or Highmore's larger work on the same subject.... 5 D |