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teachers.

SCRAPS OF CURIOUS INFORMATION.

That there is merriment-genuine human-like merriment-in many of the lower animals, no one can doubt who has ever watched the gambols of the kid, the lamb, the kitten, or the dogs, which

"Scour away in long excursion,

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Archipelago, where they abound, the ma- | atmospheric air, are as heavy as one cubic trons are often observed, in the cool of the foot of water. The bones of birds are evening, sitting in a circle round their hollow, and filled with air instead of little ones, which amuse themselves in marrow. The flea jumps 200 times its various gambols. There is a regard, how- own length, equal to a quarter of a mile ever, to discipline: and whenever any for a man. The Romans lay on couches foolish babe behaves decidedly ill, the at their dining tables on their left arms, mamina will be seen to jump into the eating with their right. The walls of throng, seize the offender by the tail, and Nineveh were 100 feet high, and thick administer exactly that extreme kind of enough for three chariots abreast. Babychastisement which has so long been in lon was 60 miles within the walls, which vogue among human parents and human were 76 feet thick and 300 feet high. The earth is 7,916 miles in diameter, and 24,880 miles round. Forests of standing trees have been discovered in Yorkshire, England, and Ireland, imbedded in stone. A man is taller in the morning by half an inch than he is at night. The atoms composing a man are supposed to be changed every forty days, and the bones in a few months. Fossil remains on the Ohio proves that it was once covered by the sea. When the sea is of a blue color, it is deep water; when green, shallow. Bookkeeping, by double entry and decimal arithmetic, was invented in 1501. Pocket watches were first introduced into England, from Germany, in 1501. The color of the mourning dress among the Chinese and Siamese, is white; with the Turks blue and violet; Ethiopians gray; Peruvians mouse-color; Japanese white; Persians brown, and Egyptians yellow. The human body can be brought to endure a heat of 280 degrees of Fahrenheit. The experiment, has been tried successfully in this country. In the year 1510 a shower of stones fell at Padua, Italy. One of these stones weighed 120 pounds.

And worry other in diversion." But there is something to be observed in these sports still more human-like than mere sport. The principle of make-believe, or jest as opposed to earnest, can be discerned in many of their merry-makings.

The kindly social acts of animals, among themselves and toward mankind, is also an interesting subject of observation. A few months since some workmen, engaged in repairing the cathedral of Glasgow, observed an unusual concourse of sparrows coming regularly to a hole in one of the slanting walls, and there making a great ado, as if feeding some birds within. Curiosity being at length excited, the men proceeded to examine the place, and found that a mother-bird, after the flight of her brood, had got her leg entangled in some of the threads composing her nest, so that she was kept a prisoner. The leg was A box 24 inches by 16 inches square, visibly swollen by the chafing produced and 22 inches deep, will contain a barrel, by her efforts to escape. In this dis-or 10,752 cubic inches.-A box 16 inches tressing situation the poor bird had been condoled with and fed by her fellows, exactly as a human being might have been in similar circumstances.

SCRAPS OF CURIOUS INFORMATION.

THE atmospheric pressure on the surface of the earth is near 15lbs. per square inch. The weight or pressure of water, is about seven ounces per square inch for every foot of its depth-845 cubic feet of

by 16 8-10 inches deep, will contain a bushel, or 2,150 4-10 inches.-A box 12 by 11 2-10 inches square and 8 inches deep, will contain a half a bushel, or 1,075 cubic inches.-A box 8 inches by 8 4-10 inches square and 8 inches deep, will contain 1 peck, or 237 8-10 cubic inches. A box 8 by 8 inches square, and 4 2-10 inches deep, will contain one half peck or 268 8-10 cubic inches.A box 4 inches by 4 inches square, and 42-10 inches deep, will contain one quart, or 67 2-10 cubic inches.

THE END OF FOUR GREAT MEN.

THE four great personages who occupy the most conspicuous places in the history of the world, were Alexander, Hannibal, Cæsar, and Bonaparte.

ALEXANDER, after having climbed the dizzy heights of his ambition, and with. his temples bound with chaplets dipped in the blood of countless millions, looked down upon a conquered world, and wept that there was not another world for him to conquer, set a city on fire, and died in a scene of debauch."

HANNIBAL, after having, to the astonishment and consternation of Rome, passed the Alps, and having put to flight the armies of the mistress of the world, and stripped "three bushels of golden rings from the fingers of her slaughtered knights," and made her foundations quake, fled from his country, being hated by those who once exultingly united his name to that of their God, and called him Hani Baal, and died at last by poison administered with his own hand, unlamented and unwept, in a foreign land.

CESAR, after having conquered eight hundred cities, and dying his garment in the blood of one million of his foes, after having pursued to death the only rival he had on earth, was miserably assassinated by those he considered his nearest friends; and in that very place, the attainment of which had been his greatest ambition.

BONAPARTE, whose mandates kings and popes obeyed, after having filled the earth with the terror of his name-after having deluged Europe with tears and blood, and clothed the world in sackcloth, closed his days, in lonely banishment, almost literally exiled from the world, yet where he could sometimes see his country's banner waving over the deep, but which did not nor could not bring him aid.

Thus these four men, who seem to stand the representatives of all those whom the world call great-these four men, who each in turn made the earth tremble to its very centre, by their simple tread, several ly died-one by intoxication, or as was supposed, by poison mingled in his wine -one a suicide-one murdered by his friends-and one a lonely exile. "How are the mighty fallen!"

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early times; but for its connexion with correct me

chanics we are indebted to the monks of the middle ages. The word horologium was in use among the ancients, which fact has led many to infer that mechanical contrivances similar to our clocks, were then in use. This inference is doubtless erroneous, since no ancient writer ever alludes to an instrument of that kind. The pillar, the engraved dial, the clepsydre, and the hour-glass, were the only horologii known prior to the sixth or seventh century.

Pillars, the length, inclination and return of whose shadows, indicated the progress of time upon the level surface around their bases, were doubtless the first timemeasurers. It is believed (although we have no positive evidence of the fact) that the obelisks of Egypt were used for this purpose; and some have hazarded the opinion that the pyramids were also put to the same use, as their four sides correspond precisely with the cardinal points of the compass. It is certain that pillars were used in Greece for this purpose; and as Augustus thus used the Egyptian obelisks which he carried to Rome, this fact may be taken as circumstantial evidence, that for this purpose they had been devoted when first reared.

These huge dials were succeeded by those of a more portable kind. The invention of the dial proper, is conceded to the Babylonians, although the first mention of one on record, refers to a famous one that belonged to Ahaz the Jewish king, who reigned about seven hundred years B. C. "And Isaiah the prophet cried unto the Lord: and he brought the shadow ten degrees backward, by which it had gone down in the dial of Ahaz." 2 Kings xx. 11. As the Jews were by no means an inventive people, it is sup

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posed that Ahaz procured this horologium at Damascus, where he obtained an altar and other curious things.

Of the construction of this dial we have no certain means of determining, but it is probable that it was similar to that introduced to the knowledge of the western nations by Berosus the Chaldee. The Rabbins says that it was a concave hemisphere, in the middle of which was a globe, whose shadow fell upon twenty-eight lines engraved upon the cavity. This description accords with that of one attributed to Moses and Apion. He says that Moses made a cavity and near it set a pillar, the shadow of whose top fell into the cavity and passed round it with the sun, thus marking the hours. Josephus pronounces this relation of Apion, false. Anaximander, who first introduced the dial into Greece, obtained a knowledge of it in Chaldea, about the time of the Jewish captivity. The dial of this traveller not only marked the hours, but the equinoxes, the solstices, and by their means, the seasons. Such dials were used by the Egyptians, and though chiefly employed as equinoctial dials in astronomical calculations, yet they were used for horary indications. All of these were hollow or hemispherical, as represented in fig. 1 of

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our engravings.

This dial was found at Ravenna, about one hundred years since, and appeared mounted on the shoulders of a Hercules.

Figure 2 represents a large marble sundial once upon the point of a rock near the monument of Thrasyllus at Athens. It is supposed by some to represent the one whose invention is attributed to Berosus, beforenamed, who lived in the time of Alexander; while others, guided by the meager remarks of Vitruvius (who, in

Fig. 4.

IV MA AP MA FE TA VAY SE OC WO

Fig. 5.

Our fifth illustration represents a singular kind of dial which was used by both the Greeks and Romans. How antique its origin is, we can not determine. This was found at Herculaneum, in 1754, and in 1755, a similar one was dug up at Portici. The one represented in our engraving, is in the form of a ham, the tail serving as a gnomon or object for casting a shadow, and having at the extremity a hook or ring for suspending it. The dial is on the back of the ham, where seven vertical lines are engraven, under which, in abbreviation, are the names of the twelve months, commencing with January. Six horizontal lines intersect the vertical ones and show the extent of the shadows cast by the gnomon on the sun's entering each sign of the zodiac. The hours of

the day are also pointed out by these intersections, the shadow descending with the rising and ascending with the setting

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sun.

Our next illustration represents a compound dial, which exhibits dials on four different faces of the stone. It was found at one of the ancient cross-ways of Athens, where it is supposed to have been erected for the public good. It is now in the British Museum among the collection of antiquities known as the Elgin marbles.

We have space only to give the general rules to be observed in the construction of dials, which are applicable to them all. Suppose 12 planes, making with each other, angles of fifteen degrees, passing through the axis of the earth and dividing the sphere into 24 equal parts, one of these planes being the meridial of the place of the observer; commence from the meridian and moving toward the west, number these planes 1, 2, 3, 4, &c., up to twelve, which will be the lower meridian of the place; commencing from this point, number as before, 1, 2, 3, &c., to 12, which will now fall on the upper meridian. These will form a series of horary circles, in passing from one of which to the next, the sun will occupy one hour. At noon it will be on the meridial numbered 12; an hour previous it was on the last horary circle preceding, and it was 11 o'clock; an hour after, it will be on another circle representing 1 o'clock and thus it proceeds till the time of setting, and commences again at its rising. Suppose now an opaque plane, passing through the centre of the earth, and intersected by the

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twelve planes in as many diverging straight | style. In the earliest water-clocks, which lines, and mark these lines with the num- were in principle of action similar to the bers belonging to their respective planes. hour-glass, the indication of time was This opaque plane will represent the face effected by marks corresponding to either of a dial, the straight lines will form the the diminution of the fluid in the containhorary lines marked on its surface, and ing vessel, during the time of emptying, the style, or gnomon, will represent the or to the increase of the fluid in the reaxis of the earth, and will project its ceiving vessel during its time of filling; shadows successively on each of the hour but it was found that the water escaped lines, the number affixed to which will much more rapidly out of the vessel when show the hour of the day. This is the it was full, than when it was nearly empty, theory of dials; and one calculated for owing to the difference in the pressure of any given place, will serve for any other the atmosphere, and it required great inplace under the same meridian, provided its genuity in adjusting the marks upon the position in the latter place be parallel to index, so as to correspond with this variaits position in the former place.

The most simple method for measuring time, next to the dial is the hour-glass, which was doubtless used prior to the more complicated clepsydræ.

Hour-glasses are made of various forms for the purposes of ornament, but the interior construction of all is necessarily the same. It represents two cylindrical cones of glass, joined at the apex. At the point of conjunction there is a small aperture, just large enough for a certain sized sand in a given quantity to pass through within the space of an hour. This sand is put into one of the cones, and when it has all run out into the other, completing the measurement of the hour, the glass is reversed, and the sand again commences its descent.

The Clepsydra or water-clock was brought into use by the Greeks at an early period, probably about the time of Pythagoras. They were first constructed by the philosophers for the purpose of determining,

tion.

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Clepsydræ.

The construction of a clepsydræ for

by measuring time precisely, some of the most correct measurement of time is their problems; such as the time required shown in our engraving. The cylinder for a certain body of a given weight to A on which twelve hours are marked, is pass through a medium of given distance hollow, and serves for a reservoir to conand density. Their correctness caused tain the water. At the bottom is an aperthem to be used afterward for the measure- ture through which the water passes into ment of time. Ctesibius of Alexandria, the pipe B; this pipe has a very small who flourished about two hundred years orifice whence the water escapes with a prior to the Christian era, spent much certain rapidity, and falls into the cup betime in bringing this instrument to per- low, having an opening at the bottom fection, yet he did not advance it to that similar to the reservoir. From this cup point of usefulness to which the Greeks the water flows into the receiving cylinafterward carried it. der C in which it rises to a given height each hour. A piece of cork with a wire D attached is placed in this cylinder, and floats on the surface of the water. To

The utile portion of the clepsydræ is simple, but the ornamental parts were often made in a complicated and expensive

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