Boulogne was taken by our Henry VIII. in the year 1544, and given up to France on the 24th of March, 1550, for the small sum of three hundred thousand crowns. The trade of this place was very considerable, not only in the time of the Romans, but in the middle ages. We learn from se veral authors, that gallies of fifty oars could stretch with perfect security along the banks of the harbour; but now a Gravesend boat is in danger of being stranded at the mole. It was under the monarchy, the capital of a district called the Boulonois, entirely independent of the general government of Picardy; but much of its dignity has been impaired since the revolution. In the year 1478 Lewis XI. surrendered this country to the Virgin Mary, declaring that he and his successors should hold it from her, immediately as her vassals, on the condition of paying to her, on their accession to the throne, a golden heart by way of homage. Lewis XIV. actually paid 12,000 livres in pursuance of this condition, for himself and his predecessors. At a short distance, on the road to Calais, is a mineral spring of some celebrity. Its waters are of a ferruginous quality, and it is therefore called La Fontaine de Fer. The port of Boulogne is at present considered as the principal rendezvous for the French flotilla of gun-boats, destined to co operate in the threatened invasion of this country, COMMERCE, USEFUL ARTS, &c. A NEW commerce is about to be opened with the subjects of the Emperor of Germany, which may have some important effects upon the trade with other countries. The house of Baron Telner, at Vienna, has shipped for England a very considerable quantity of wines, the growth of Hungary, and the circle of Austria. If these importations should prove of the first quality, for the Hungarian wines are undoubtedly the very finest of all Europe, it may shake the fashion of French and Portuguese wines, and open a very con siderable branch of commerce with the interior of the Austrian dominions. By improving our native flocks with a judicious fixture of the Spanish wool, Lord Somerville has this season sold the wool of his flock (including Veder and Chilver hogs), to Staplers in Somersetshire, at one guinea per fleece, which also proved an excellent bargain to the purchasers, the average eight being upwards of six pounds and a half per fleece, A gentleman lately arrived from Charlestown, South Carolina, reports, that the rearing of silk-worms in that country, which has declined for some years, will probably be revived with great effect in in Georgia, by a number of emigrant Piedmontese lately landed at Savannah, well versed both in the filature and manufacture of silk. On the above report, it is well deserving remark, that if the silk business in Georgia had been prosecuted for some years past, with the spirit it deserved, in a country so favourable to the production of this material, it must ere this day have rivaled Italy, as we find it recorded, that in the year 1762, there was brought to the filature, not less than 15,000lb. weight of silk cocoons. A gentleman of Chilton, in Durham, proposes to shew the next produce, when arrived at three years old, of five cows, now in his possession against the next produce at the same age of any other five cows in any other man's possession for one thousand guineas. A letter received from Glasgow inform us, that there are some small harpoons making in that city for the purpose of killing porpoises off the Western Highland Isles. These fish yield from one to six barrels of oil each, and are so slow in motion, that yawls with four oars can easily come up with them. It is but within these few months that this kind of fishing has been attempted, which promises to turn out very lucrative. The greatest quantity of porpoises were seen in the months of June and July, and numbers of them have been taken. LIVERPOOL. The increased prosperity of this city and port, says an intelligent correspondent, is the admiration of every stranger who visits this place. It consists at present of no less than five hundred and eighty streets, lanes, and courts, whilst immense buildings are going forward; and some idea may be formed of its flourishing come merce from the vast numbers of merchant vessels cleared out from thence. It appears from the customhouse books, that from the 24th of June 1800 to the 24th of June 1801, five thousand and sixty ships arrived there of the united burthen of 489,719 tons, which paid dock-dues to the amount of 28,3651. 18s. 2d. THE SECRET SHORT HAND. Of this new and singular invention, the Moniteur expresses itself in the following terms: "Citizen Blanc offers to the world a mysterious language, which every person can learn, and yet which each learner can keep secret to all but himself. It appears, that of 400 scholars, each taking the same oral lesson from the preceptor, each may retire and write okygraphically to his father or his friend, and that none of his fellow-students can decypher one syllable of that which shall be perfectly understood by the person to whom it is addressed." A carriage A carriage, moved by mechanism within itself solely, was a few days since conducted, in three hours and a half, from Paimbœuf to Nantes, in France, which is a space of ten leagues. One of the last French papers contain the following method for preserving corn that has been lodged by rain: "As soon as the corn is beat down, it should with all possible dispatch be collected into sheaves, and instead of being piled upon one another, each sheaf should be set on end, the blade being uppermost. Several of these sheaves should be tied together tight, near the blade, so as to make the whole mass smaller at the top than at the bottom. They are again to be tied quite close to the top, and the ears then opened out like an umbrella, so as to form a kind of gutter for the water to run off. Whereas in the ordinary mode of piling up the corn together, the water lodges, and it is necessary constantly to open the sheaves in order to dry them. A new mode of mounting window-sashes has been lately invented, and found a general adoption in America. It discards the troublesome apparatus of lines, weights, and pullies. The new-invention merely consists in this :-Three or four holes are bored in each side of the ascending sash, into which common bottle corks are inserted, leaving a projection of one-sixteenth of an inch beyond the surface. This simple contrivance is found to answer every purpose, as the elasticity of the cork is of itself sufficient to keep up the sash at any required height. The following Questions are proposed to Philosophers by the Royal Society of Copenhagen : 1. "Is oxygen, or any gas containing it, absolutely necessary to the growth and expansion of the chick in the egg of the com mon domestic hen, or of any other fowl?-Or, is it possible for that growth and expansion to take place in any gas unfit for respiration? and what is that gas? 2. "What influence has Electricity, positive or negative, on the state of the air; and on the capacity of the atmosphere to take up water in the state of gas or vapour? "For the best answer to each of these questions will be given a prize of a gold medal, worth one hundred Danish crowns. The memoirs must be sent in before the end of September 1802." The French Minister of the Interior has offered two prizes, the one of 40,000, and the other of 20,000 livres, to whoever shall produce the two best specimens of machinery for combing, carding, and spinning wool, so as to fit it for the looms. These prizes are not to be voted before the 20th of August, 1802. M. ZINCK, the co-regent of Hesse Harburgh, has invented an instrument of music, to which he has given the name of Harmonica Celestina. This instrument is in the shape of a spinnet, ог or small harpsichord, with three rows of keys. As he has only used it in public to execute some pieces of music, the German Journalists do not give any details respecting its interior mechanism. He draws from it the sounds of the organ, the flute, the piano-forte, and several bowed instruments, and of that called the harmonica. He can derive these sounds either singly or collec tively at pleasure. The purchaser of his instrument, which is capable of 100 changes, is the Empress of Germany. A curious experiment, for lifting ships in dock to put on a new keel, was lately tried on the Canopus, of 84 guns, in PlymouthDock, by Mr. Sibbins, the builder's first assistant. By means of wedges driven against the blocks on each side the keel, and the use of the catapulta, or battering ram, applied to them, the blocks are forced out much easier, and with less danger. Fewer shores are required to support the ship, which also strains less, and hangs as it were in slings; by this simple operation, 40 men, in 12 hours, can perform as much work as used to take, on the old principle, 300 men three days. Although some ships, on the old method of knocking out the blocks under the keel, have settled from 8 to 10 inches, the Canopus only settled one quarter of an inch by the new method. AN EXTRAORDINARY PILGRIMAGE. PILGRIMAGES GRIMAGES were the devotion of the sixteenth century. A queen of France, it is supposed Catherine de Medicis, made a vow, that if some concerns which she had undertaken, terminated successfully, she would send a pilgrim to Jerusalem, who would walk there, and every three steps he advanced, he should go one back at every third step. It was doubtful whether there could be found a man sufficiently strong to go on foot, and of sufficient patience to go back one step at every third. A citizen of Verberie offered himself, and promised to accomplish the queen's vow most scrupulously. The queen accepted his offer, and promised him an adequate recompense. He fulfilled his engagement with the greatest exactness, of which the queen was well assured by constant enquiries. The citizen, who was a merchant, received on his return a considerable sum of money, and was ennobled. His coat of arms were a cross and a branch of palm-tree. His descendants preserved the arms; but they degenerated, by continuing that commerce which their father quitted, This anecdote has related in the Nouvelle Histoire du Duché de Valois. The author mentions it as a proof that the most respectable customs are sometimes as much exposed to ridicule as real abuses. VOL. 2.-NO. 8. POPULA POPULATION. The Authorities for the following Estimates are, Büsching, Crome, Lopez, D'Aranda, Necker, Menelle, Jageman, Modena..... 320,000 Electorate of Treves Africa & Egypt 5,000,000 16,250,000 305,000 German Empire+ 26,000,000 *Including Austria Netherlands, Lombardy, Tuscany, &c.-The present population of the Hereditary States is infinitely short of this estimate. + According to Büsching, 25,000,000; to Crome, 27,401,000; and to Gatterer, 24,000,000. LAW |