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is that you, Maggy?' quoth Jamie Mill, 'weel, I've seen blyther sights than you are at this precious moment; but, black though ye be, I maun have ye out o' that.' And so he crept up the roof and pulled her out of the chimney. When they came round to the door, the house was so deep with water, that there was barely space to thrust our heads between the stream and the lintel, so that I was forced to dip the bit bairnies in the water, before I could get them out. That did gang to my very heart!"

The bridge over the Spey at Fochabers, consisted of four arches. The view from it on the morning of the 4th, presented one vast expanse of dark-brown water, from the foot of the hill of Benagen to the sea, about ten miles in length, and in many places more than two miles broad. The surface was varied only by floating wreck, or by the tops of trees, or roofs of houses, to which, in more than one instance, the miserable inhabitants were seen clinging, while boats were plying about for their relief.

By eight o'clock the flood was seventeen feet up on the bridge, which, however, stood firm, though the water boiled, as it were, in caldrons round the piers. Crowds of people had been on it watching the river during the morning, but it happened that there were but few persons at twenty minutes after twelve, when a crack, no wider than the cut of a sword, opened across the roadway before them, and backwards, parallel with the parapet. With a cry of alarm they sprang forward: the crack yawned wide, before Mr. Russel, one of the number, could step across it. He leaped from the falling ruins, and alighted on the part which was vet firm, with one foot hanging behind him in vacancy. Down went the whole mass of the two arches next the bank. The stream, for a moment, was driven back with impetuous recoil, baring its channel to the very bottom, then again rushing onwards, its thundering roar proclaimed its victory, and not a vestige of the fallen fragments was to be seen.

So great was the body of water that rushed into the sea, that no tide could enter the river, which, at Garmouth, previous to the flood, was not above twenty yards wide. It had now been widened to about four hundred yards, by which the vessels in the harbour were exposed to the greatest danger; many were driven on shore, but fortunately no lives lost.

The scene for miles along the beach was at once animated and terrible. Crowds were employed in trying to save the wood and other wreck, with which the heavy rolling tide was loaded; whilst the margin of the sea was strewed with the carcasses of domestic animals, and with millions of dead hares and rabbits. Thousands of living frogs also, swept from the fields, were observed leaping among the wreck.

A little stream which runs into the Deveron, carried away a mass of basaltic rock, which I measured, eight feet long, five feet wide, and four feet deep, weighing, probably, between seven and eight tons; and removed it full three hundred yards. The inclination of the channel of the stream is considerable: but the rock had not been rolled, for some delicate plants of maiden-hair fern were left growing on its upper surface, unharmed. In its progress, it leaped over a cascade of about thirty feet fall. In this neighbourhood, as in some others, a shock of an earthquake was distinctly felt.

Near the mouth of the Deveron, many vessels seemed so distressed by the storm, that parties of the Whitehills fishermen patrolled the beach during the tempestuous night of the 3rd, to be ready with their help, if help might yet avail. At about one o'clock in the morning, the coal-brig, Success, came ashore among the rocks, and six men and a woman, all in an exhausted state, were safely landed by the intrepid and well-directed exertions of these praiseworthy fellows. So furious was the surf, that it instantly beat the vessel to pieces, and literally pounded her cargo to a powder, that blackened the white waves around.

The river Don, as it approaches the ancient " Brig of Balgownie," becomes narrowed on both sides by the rocks. The waters rose opposite to the centre of the arch, somewhat in the form of an arc. From this height, they poured down in a cascade of many feet, to the lower side of the bridge, where they produced a frightful whirlpool. "I have seen the waves of the Atlantic rolling down the Pentland Firth," says my informant, Mr. George Tulloch, and wasting their gigantic strength on the iron-bound coasts of the north; but even there, my impression of power was less vivid. Nothing seemed to describe it, but

the sublime language of the Psalmist: The floods have lifted up, O Lord! the floods have lifted up their voice! the floods lift up their waves! The Lord on high is mightier than the noise of many waters, yea, than the mighty waves of the ocean.' This old bridge, which stood an assault so terrible, is above five hundred years old, and presents a singular specimen of the Gothic arch. At the head of the Don, a shock of an earthquake was felt, and a singular noise heard, which appeared connected with it. Instances of outbursts of subterranean water were very frequent in the mountains in Braemar. On the north side of the red granite hill of the Muckle Glashault, near Invercauld, are no less than fifteen or sixteen of these openings, varying in breadth from thirty to forty yards. Each of these appears to have had an immense column of water issuing from it, which has cut a track for itself, to the very base of the mountain. The tracks are all of very peculiar formation: their margins or sides are completely defined by a fence of stones, raised considerably above the surface, something like that left by the track of an avalanche. Dr. Robertson, of Craithie, concludes, from the appearances, that the water burst from the mountain in repeated jets, rather than in one continued stream; and such we know to have been the case at Tomanurd, on the Spey, where a similar phenomenon occurred. Mr. Grant, of Culquoich, was passing the hill of Tomanurd, on Tuesday, the 4th of August, and observed a quaking of the earth for sixty or seventy yards round the spot, which continued for some time. At length an immense column of water forced itself through the face of the hill, spouting into the air, and tossing around large stones and great quantities of gravel. Sometimes it ceased altogether, and nothing was heard but the rush as of a considerable river. Again it would burst forth like a geyser, with renewed energy, tearing up whole banks of earth, and hurling them to the distance of 300 yards. The water was quite transparent, and had so much the appearance of boiling, that Mr. Grant at first really imagined it must be warm. There were various conjectures as to the cause of this prodigy. I am rather disposed to think that the hill must contain some subterranean reservoir, which produced the effect by becoming surcharged.

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We cannot doubt that so terrible a judgment was sent by the Almighty Governor of the Universe for some great and beneficial purpose; and the mercy that was mingled with the chastisement, may well teach us the love of that Heavenly Father from whose hand it comes. Amidst all the terrors and dangers of this unexampled calamity, when thousands of lives were placed in jeopardy, the instances of providential deliverance were so numerous, and so extra ordinary, that throughout so great an extent of flooded rivers, we have only the loss of eight human lives to deplore.

[Abridged from the interesting Account of the Floods in Moray, &c by SIR THOMAS DICK LAUDER.]

Nor more necessary are constant supplies of water to the growth of vegetation in the sultry regions of the East, than the influences of divine truth to the existence of human happiness. If a tree, planted by the margin of a refreshing river, is proof against the heat of the sun, or the unfavourableness of the seasons, he, also, who, into a well-prepared heart, receives continual infusions of reli gious wisdom, is flourishing and happy amidst all the inconveniences of life.—BISHOP JEBB.

WHEN We see our enemies and friends gliding away before us, let us not forget that we are subject to the general law of mortality, and shall soon be where our doom will be fixed for ever.-DR. JOHNSON.

Ir is certain, that all the evils in society arise from want of faith in God, and of obedience to his laws; and it is no less certain, that by the prevalence of a lively and efficient belief, they would all be cured. If Christians in any country, yea, if any collected body of them, were what they might, and ought, and are commanded to be, the universal reception of the Gospel would follow as a natural and a promised result. And in a world of Christians, the ex tinction of physical evil might be looked for, if moral evil, that is, in Christian language, sin, were removed.SOUTHEY.

FAMILIAR ILLUSTRATIONS OF NATURAL PHENOMENA.

No. IX. ON THE USE OF THE BAROMETER. WE have seen that the Barometer is an instrument

so constructed as to measure the pressure of the air at any time. That pressure arises from the weight of all the air above the instrument up to the highest part of the atmosphere. And if there are any changes in the air which affect that pressure, the variation in the height of the column of mercury in the Barometer will measure their effect.

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The first effect which we will notice is that occasioned by the wind. If a bent tube, A B C, partly filled with a coloured fluid, and open at both ends, be held with the two legs, A B, C B, vertical, the fluid will stand at the same level, P, Q, in each tube. In this case, the pressure of the atmosphere upon P and Q is the same; the height of the columns of fluid, P B, QB, is also the same; so that the whole pressure at B is equal in each leg of the tube, and the fluid will remain at rest.

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Now suppose a person blows briskly with a pair of bellows, or by the force of his own lungs, across the mouth of one leg of the tube at A, the fluid P in that leg instantly rises, and the reason is this; the side-way motion of the air, across the mouth of the tube, A P, diminishes the pressure of the air upon the fluid at P, while the pressure at a remains the same; a, therefore, will be pressed down, and P will rise, until the pressure of the fluid in PB is as much greater than that in Q B, as the pressure of the air at P is less than that at Q. Any one may see the effect of lateral motion in a fluid to diminish its pressure downwards, by simply observing the surface of a stream which is in rapid motion, as through the arches of a bridge. It will be observed, that the surface of such running water is not horizontal; it is highest where the current is most rapid, which is generally near the middle of the stream.

When, then, the wind is blowing rapidly in any part of the earth, even if there were no alteration in the quantity of air over the place where the current of air is moving with the greatest velocity, the downward pressure of the air would be diminished, and the mercury in the Barometer would fall. And if, as is probably the case, the causes which produce a gale of wind at the surface of the earth, begin to act in the upper regions of the air before their effects are sensible below, the fall in the mercury of the Barometer will predict the gale of wind.

This is, accordingly, one of the most valuable uses of the instrument. Between the tropics, and at the surface of the sea, there is very little change, generally, in the height of the Barometer; but the sudden and violent squalls which are so dangerous to the seaman, are almost invariably predicted by the rapid fall of the mercury in the Barometer, so that the constant observation of that instrument is a most important part of the navigator's duty. Many most valuable lives, and property of immense amount, have been preserved by timely warning thus given by the Barometer.

We may observe that, in order to render the Barometer fit for use at sea, where it is constantly in motion, a very ingenious contrivance is employed. If the tube, which contains the mercury, were of the same size throughout as in the common Barometer, the tube would soon be broken by the mercury

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Another important use of the Barometer is to measure heights. Since the whole pressure of the air, which is measured by the height of the mercury in the Barometer, arises from the weight of all the air which is above it, it is plain that, if the instrument is raised above its former position, part of the air, which caused the pressure upon the mercury, will be now beneath the instrument, and the pressure will be diminished by the quantity which was occasioned by the weight of that part of the air.

The celebrated Pascal was the first person who established this fact by experiment. In his time, it was not completely established that the mercury in the Barometer was sustained by the pressure of the air. He argued, that, if that were the case, and he ascended a mountain, the pressure of the air between the bottom and the top of the mountain would be taken off from the mercury, which would consequently stand at a less height. He tried the experiment, on the mountain called the Puy de Dôme, and found that the mercury did stand considerably lower at the top of the mountain than at the bottom.

Any one, who possesses a Barometer, may satisfy himself of this fact, by observing accurately the height of the Barometer, at the top and at the bottom of a hill fifty or sixty feet high, or even in a lower and in an upper room of a house of three stories. An elevation of one hundred feet occasions a depression in the column of mercury of about a tenth of an inch, a quantity which is very perceptible, without any contrivance for measuring minute differences.

If the air were, like water, nearly incompressible, a vertical column of one hundred feet in length would have the same weight, at whatever altitude in the atmosphere it was taken. But since air is compressible, that nearest to the surface of the earth, being pressed by the weight of all the air above it, is the heaviest, and causes the greatest pressure; and it grows lighter and lighter as we rise higher from the earth. Hence if, after having risen to the height of one hundred feet, we again rise through an equal space, we shall take off from the mercury in the Barometer the pressure of a column of air, which weighs less than the first column of the same length; so that the mercury will not sink so much for this second elevation as for the first. And thus, for

equal elevations above the earth, the corresponding depressions of the mercury become less and less.

There is, however, a rule, by which tables are constructed, showing what is the elevation corresponding to different depressions of the mercury in the Barometer, after applying the corrections for the change of temperature: and by the use of these tables, heights may be measured with very considerable exactness. It is by this method that persons in a balloon can tell with great precision their elevation above the earth: and the heights of mountains, and other places of less elevation, can be found by the same means. The method might, indeed, be employed much more extensively than it has ever yet been. If the height of the mercury in the Barometer were observed with accuracy in different places, for a considerable time, for instance, during a year, and the mean height ascertained, after making allowance for the difference of temperature, the difference in the level of the places of observation would be found with great accuracy.

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The changes of the height of the mercury in the Barometer also indicate, in some degree, the changes of the weather. The causes which influence these atmospheric changes, are too little understood to enable us to reduce such observations to any certainty. Still, as a general rule, it will be found that a rising barometer is accompanied with fair weather, and a falling barometer with stormy weather. The marks, however, of " Fair,” “ Set-fair," Rain," "Stormy," and the like, which are sometimes placed upon Barometers, cannot be depended upon. When the Barometer stands at the point marked "Rain," but is rising, it is more likely to introduce fine weather, than if the Barometer stands at "Fair," and is falling. The direction of the wind also influences the Barometer materially. In this country, the Barometer usually stands higher when the wind blows from a northern quarter, than when it blows from a southern one.

The Barometer shows very clearly what an enor mous pressure our own bodies are constantly sustaining from the atmosphere, without our being sensible of it. The pressure upon every square inch of our body, at any time, is exactly equal to the weight of a column of mercury, an inch square, and of the same height as that in the Barometer at the time. When the Barometer stands at thirty inches, this pressure is about 15 lbs. upon each square inch, so that an ordinary man sustains, on his whole body, a pressure of about 30,000lbs., or 1000 lbs. for each inch of the mercury. If the mercury in the Barometer, therefore, falls one inch, the pressure which such a man sustains, is diminished by about 1000lbs.; if the mercury falls the tenth of an inch, the pressure is diminished by 100lbs., and in the same proportion for other changes.

The reason why we are insensible of this great pressure is, that it is equally exerted upon every part of our body, above, below, and on all sides: so that the atmosphere acts not as a weight, pressing down, but as an elastic brace, encompassing our limbs, and tending to strengthen the vessels against the internal pressure arising from the blood, and other fluids which they contain.

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THE SERPENT'S BATH.

A LEGEND OF THE DUCHY OF NASSAU

ONCE upon a time, it seems, there was an heifer, with which every thing in nature seemed to disagree. The more she ate the thinner she grew-the more her mother licked her hide, the rougher and the more staring was her coatnot a fly in the forest would bite her-never was she seen to chew the cud-but hide-bound and melancholy, her hips seemed actually to be protruding from her skin. What was the matter with her no one knew-what could cure her no one could divine-in short, deserted by her master and her species, she was, as the faculty would term it, given up.

In a few weeks, however, she suddenly reappeared deer-skin sleek as a mole's-breath sweetly smelling of among the herd, with ribs covered with flesh-eyes like a milk-saliva hanging in ringlets from her jaw! Every day seemed to confirm her health; and the phenomenon was so striking, that the herdsman having watched her, discovered that regularly every evening she wormed her way in secret into the forest, until she reached and refreshed herself at a spring of water-haunted by harmless serpents, when full grown about four feet in length. The circumstance, it seems, had been almost forgotten by the peasant, when a young Nassau lady began to show exactly the symptoms of the heifer. Mother, sisters, friends, father, all tried to cure her, but in vain; and the physician actually

Had ta'en his leave with sighs and sorrow, Despairing of his fee to-morrow, when the herdsman, happening to hear of her case, pre vailed upon her at last to try the heifer's secret remedy; she did so, and, in a very short time, to the utter astonishment of her friends, she became one of the stoutest young women in the duchy. What had suddenly cured one sick lady was soon deemed a proper prescription for others, and all notice and repute. I may observe, by-the-by, that even to cases meeting with success, the spring gradually rose into this day, horses are brought by the peasants to be bathed, and I have good authority for believing, that, in cases of slight consumption of the lungs (a disorder common enough among horses), the animal recovers his flesh with surprising rapidity. Nay, I have seen even pigs bathed, though I must own that they appeared to have no other disorder except hunger.-Quarterly Review.

THE INDIAN ICHNEUMON.

THE Indian Ichneumon is a small creature, in appearance between a weasel and a mungoose. It is of infinite use to the natives, from its inveterate enmity to snakes, which would otherwise render every footstep of the traveller dangerous. The proofs of sagacity which I have seen in this little animal are truly surprising, and afford a beautiful instance of the wisdom with which Providence has fitted the powers of every animal, to its particular situation on the globe. This diminutive creature, on seeing a snake ever so large, will instantly dart on it and seize it by the throat, provided he finds himself in an open place, where he has an opportunity of running to a certain herb, which he knows instinctively to be an antidote against the poison of the bite, if he should tried at Columbo, to ascertain the reality of this circumhappen to receive one. I was present at an experiment stance. The Ichneumon, procured for the purpose, was first shown the snake in a close room. On being let down to the ground, he did not discover any inclination whatever to attack his enemy, but ran prying about the room, to might get out. On finding none, he returned hastily to discover if there was any hole or aperture by which he his master, and placing himself in his bosom, could not by any means be induced to quit it, or face the snake. On being carried out of the house, however, and laid near his antagonist in an open place, he instantly flew at the snake and soon destroyed it. He then suddenly disappeared for a few minutes, and again returned as soon as he had found the herb and eaten of it. This useful instinct impels the animal to have recourse to the herb on all occasions, where it is engaged with a snake, whether poisonous or not. The one employed in this experiment was of the harmless kind, and procured for the purpose. PERCIVAL'S Ceylon

LONDON:

JOHN WILLIAM PARKER, WEST STRAND. PUBLISHED IN WEEKLY NUMBERS, PRICE ONE PENNY, AND IN MONTHLY PARTS FRICE SIXPENCE, AND

Sold by all Booksellers and Newsvenders in the Kingdom.

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VOL. IV.

GLOUCESTER CATHEDRAL.

THE City of Gloucester is said to have been called by the ancient Britons CAERGLOW, The Fair City, from its fine, healthy situation, and the beauty of its buildings. This name was changed by the Romans into Glevum, or Gleva, to which the Saxons, as was their frequent custom, added cester, which means a castle or fortification, and called it Glev-cester, whence its present name is easily derived.

The Cathedral is an ancient and noble fabric. Its tower is considered one of the handsomest and most curious pieces of Gothic architecture in England. Our readers will perceive by the engraving, that it consists of two stories, of equal height, and that it is richly ornamented. The upper story terminates in a parapet with battlements, and from the corners rise light and graceful pinnacles, but of great strength.

Before, however, we enter into the particulars of the present building, we will furnish a short account of the ancient Abbey, on the site of which the Cathedral stands. Wulphere, the first Christian king of Mercia, began the Abbey of St. Peter's, Gloucester; and Ethelred, his brother and successor, who was afterwards a monk, carried on and finished it about the year 680. It was originally governed by abbesses, the first of whom was Kyneburg, the wife of Aldred, king. of Northumberland. After the death of the third abbess, which happened in 767, and during the wars which followed between the rival kings of Wessex and Mercia, the nuns left their monastery. It continued desolate till about 823, when it was restored. King Canute, in 1022, having turned out the secular monks, placed in it monks of the Benedictine Order, appointing Edric the first Abbot. Next to him, Aldred, Bishop of Worcester, greatly added to the monastery, having pulled down the old church, and built a new one nearer the walls of the town. In 1087 this new Minster, as it was called, was burnt, with a large portion of the city, by the adherents of Robert, Duke of Normandy. But though it was quickly restored, it was again burnt in 1101, a casualty which occurred repeatedly afterwards; but it was, probably, on no occasion entirely destroyed to the ground.

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The Abbots had great power, and sat in the House of Lords as Peers of the Realm, Under them were numerous officers belonging to the monastery, and the number of monks residing in it, in 1104, amounted to a hundred. It is recorded, that on the occasion of the horrible murder of Edward the Second at Berkeley Castle, in 1327, the Abbot (Thokey), hearing of it, assembled his convent, and accompanied by them in their full robes, and by the greater portion of the inhabitants of Gloucester, went in a procession to Berkeley, and brought away the corpse of the murdered king. afterwards privately, and decently, buried in the Abbey. His son, Edward the Third, erected a fine monument to his memory, and founded a chantry on the spot where he was buried. The circumstance of Edward's having been so cruelly butchered in Berkeley Castle," which fills one of the most painful and affecting pages of the history of England, proved, in its result, a source of extraordinary profit to the Abbey of Gloucester. The city was hardly large enough to contain the numbers of people who arrived with offerings at the ill-fated monarch's shrine; and from that period may be dated the origin of the Cathedral as it now appears. The cross-aisle was built by Abbot Wygemore (1330), out of these oblations.

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Succeeding Abbots continued to add to the work, particularly Walter Froucester, who died in 1412, after having made the spacious and handsome cloisters; and Abbot Seabroke, who pulled down the old tower, and began to build the present beautiful one; he also paved the choir. He died in 1457, and was buried in the chapel on the south-west end of the choir, where his monument appears, with his figure in alabaster. In this Abbot's time, the New Inn, in Northgate Street, was built by one of the monks, who had an underground passage made from the Inn to the Abbey, which passage still remains, but is The inn was built for the walled up at both ends. benefit of the Abbey, and for the reception of pilThe last Abbot was William Parker, who grims. was elected in 1514; before quitting his office, he vastly improved the Cathedral, and the premises attached to it. His monumental effigy, with the mitre and crosier, may be seen in the chapel on the north side of the choir. The establishment continued to be governed by Abbots, till the Reformation in the reign of Henry the Eighth, when its income, according to Dugdale, was upwards of 19007. At the suppression of the Abbey, Henry made Gloucester a Bishopric, and the Abbey Church became a Cathedral.

The second person consecrated Bishop of Gloucester, after the Reformation, was JOHN HOOPER, who subsequently became Bishop of Worcester, But this did not holding both dioceses together. last long; as on the accession of Mary, Hooper was marked out for the first sacrifice, by Gardiner and Bonner, who disliked him, on account of his former opposition to them. Accordingly, after remaining for some time in prison, he was brought before Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, and several others, at St. Mary Overy's Church, (now St. Saviour's Southwark,) and there condemned as an heretic. This was in January, 1554-5. He was soon removed to Gloucester, and on February 9th, this martyr to the truth was burnt, near an elm-tree without the gate, on the north-west side of the lower churchyard.

The dimensions of the Cathedral, as stated by Dugdale are as follow:

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To each of these we will shortly advert in their order. The NAVE of this beautiful Church consists of a middle-aisle and two side-aisles, separated from the middle by two rows of pillars, eight on each side, seven of which are round, and are about seven yards in circumference; the eighth is fluted. On entering the CHOIR from the nave, the view is exceedingly fine, This part of the structure, indeed, includes every perfection to which Gothic architecture had attained during the fifteenth century. In 1741, during the removal of an old stone screen, which divided the nave from the choir, the bodies of three Abbots were discovered, in stone coffins, part of the gloves and dress still remaining. In 1820, the present screen was added, and certain judicious alterations and improvements were adopted.

Extending from one side of the choir to the other is the famous WHISPERING-GALLERY, built in the form of an octagon. If a person whispers at one side, every syllable may be clearly heard on the other side, which is seventy-five feet distant, although the passage is open in the middle, and there are large

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