superior in ease, in play, in nature, and in poetry, | PEAT MOSSES.-A scheme has been lately proto any of her earlier productions of similar extent,jected in London for the improvement of Ireland, as to warrant us in fancying that filial affection which is thus graphically described by the correovervalued the assistance of the monitor and guide, spondent of the Inverness Courier:"-" It is whose literary counsels she prized so highly. We briefly this-to convert all the peat bogs into charallude to " Helen" as compared with "Belinda" coal! A society is in course of being organized or "Patronage." It has been impossible to return for the above laudable purpose. A first meeting to this tale, after the pause of some years, without of its projectors and promoters was held here the being surprised by its elegance, its vivacity, the other day, presided over by Lord de Mauley. A skill of its invention, the shrewdness and sweetness Mr. Rogers, said to be an eminent civil engineer, of heart, which it discloses; the knowledge of life, expounded the nature and advantages of the project. the sympathy with progress which it registers. There are in Ireland about three million acres of Here, at least, those whom the very idea of the peat bog. Being situated at various elevations schoolmistress scares, have not to complain of the above the sea-level, they are all capable of being prim presence or the ponderous pressure of the easily and effectually drained. By a process lately pattern woman. Helen's strength (upon which, discovered and patented, the peat-fuel may be conand her sacrifice of herself for her friend, the story densed and hardened, and rendered as dense, and turns) is set in motion at the service of her weak- consequently as portable, as pit coals. All the ness-her immoderate craving for love and sym- aqueous matter, amounting to forty per cent., pathy. Cecilia's falsehood is not excused, but ex- (whether of bulk or weight is not stated,) can be plained, by the deep and reverential affection she squeezed out. In this state it is far superior to bears her husband, which makes her desirous of coals as a fuel for producing steam, because of the blotting out from her own recollection the thoughts diffusive and radiating properties of the heat it of an earlier affection, such as she fears he would gives out. A boiler in a steam-ship or railway have disapproved. Lady Davenant's high-toned engine would last double the time when ministered and intellectual character has a redeeming weakness. to by the beneficent fires of peat instead of the delShe can be credulous, too, as in the case of her eterious ones of coal. There would be little or no page; she can have been womanish, and failing in smoke. Then one at least of the two great evils her duties as a mother, as the early struggles for of life would be avoided-'a smoky house, and a ascendency which her confessions reveal. And scolding wife.' But this is not all-very far from how admirably, as in life, are the strength and it; the peats could be converted into charcoal, of a weakness of these three characters made to play much superior quality than the charcoal of wood, into each other's hands and hearts! Then, for and at about a third of the cost. Then this charsecondary characters, how highly finished are the coal would be of inestimable value in agricultural, persons of the scandalous coterie, and Churchill, manufacturing, sanatory, or domestic points of view. who hovers, like Mahomet's coffin, betwixt their As a fertilizer of the soil, it would supersede guano, poisonous world and "the diviner air" of better bone manure, lime, and farmyard dung. In manfeeling! and Lady Bearcroft, with her liberality, ufactures it would smelt iron, and other metals and and her vulgarity, and her cordiality, and her self- minerals, in the most effective and economical maninterest. Capitally is the interest complicated; ner-rendering them all of three times their present with exquisite neatness "the tow spun off the value. As a disinfecting and deodorizing agent, reel," (and how few novelists, now-a-days, are com- it would put a stop to all contagious and infectious petent to manage a close!) and the sprightliness, diseases. It would sweep away all unpleasant the grace, the depth, are unimpaired by the intru- odors, as its action is both instantaneous and consion of any mechanical process which can be de- tinuous. In the kitchen or parlor fire the diffusive tected. Were we given to prophesy in these days, properties of the heat will be highly appreciated, when the comet is keeping away from us for the and the absence of smoke will withdraw from the express purpose (of course) of rebuking arrogant guidwife all pretexts for being out of temper. I prophecy, and when, at a moment's warning, lit- wonder, however, that its usefulness in the manuerature may rise of form and scope as yet totally facture of gunpowder was not mentioned. Then, undreamed of-we should assert, with the confi- when the bogs are cleared away, the land on which dence of those who know much and risk little, that they stand, the stances, are quite in a condition to the good days of " Helen's" right appreciation, and be excellent arable land, and to be particularly fitted steady popularity as a classic, are only just set in, for the growth of flax. Then this ground is to be if not still to come. lotted out in small patches to industrious tenants, We have written principally of the authoress; and the whole land is to teem with plenty and gladfor to prowl about the private dwelling of a lady ness, as in the happy but fabulous vales of Cashpen in hand," does not altogether suit our humor. mere. To effect this grand purpose, a company That Miss Edgeworth has taken her place with has been formed or projected-capital, £500,000, due distinction in the brightest worlds of London in £10 shares. Annual profits, £160,000-half and Paris, contemporary memoirs have already to the fortunate shareholders, and the other half to told. Byron looked out for her even when Byron's the industrious cotters, for the cultivation of their Gulnares and Zuleikas were the rage in May Fair. allotments. A million of money to be paid annuOne of the happiest months ever known at Abbots-ally in labor; everybody to be employed by taskford (as Mr. Lockhart assures us) was the one which followed her crossing of Scott's threshold. He wrote of her as a Good Fairy-tiny in stature -lively of eye-kind and gay in speech. Nor is the vivacity dimmed even now which has made Miss Edgeworth, throughout her long life and distinguished literary career, not merely "the observed" of mere lion-hunters, and "the discussed" of philosophers and poets, but also "the beloved" of a large and happily-united domestic circle.

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work, and paid weekly for his labor. Such is one of the Utopian views exhibited in the ever-varying phantasmagoria of Irish history and speculation. If all this peat and charcoal speculation can do so much for Ireland, what may it not also do for Scotland?" Quite right to ask this question. Scotsmen, look to your bogs; and do not allow these sources of wealth to lie any longer neglected.

Chambers' Journal.

MARGARET ARNOLD.

A letter from Arnold to Miss Shippen, which has been published-written from the camp at RarWE give below an extract from Mrs. Ellet's itan, February 8th, 1779, not long before their marnew work, "The Women of the Revolution," riage, shows the discontent and rancor of his heart, assured that it will interest those of our readers in the allusions to the president and council of Pennwho have not the volumes at command. Pre-sylvania. These feelings were probably expressed freely to her, as it was his pleasure to complain of of which no one suspected him till the whole cominjury and persecution; while the darker designs, munity were startled by the news of his treason, were doubtless buried in his own bosom.

sex.

suring that they are already familiar with the history of many of the ladies whose biographies Mrs. Ellet has given, we have selected that of one whose name has been wrongfully, we are persuaded, associated with treachery and unpatriotic Some writers have taken delight in representing sentiments. It is a pleasure to find our country- Mrs. Arnold as another Lady Macbeth-an unscruwoman thus vindicated, and by one of her own pulous and artful seductress, whose inordinate vanand ambition were the cause of her husband's ity Mrs. Ellet has here displayed true, gener-crime; but there seems no foundation even for a ous, and womanly feeling, and the record of the supposition that she was acquainted with his purunhappy life and lonely death of Mrs. Arnold can- pose of betraying his trust. She was not the being not but move our deepest sympathy.-N. Intel. he would choose as the sharer of a secret so perilous; nor was the dissimulation attributed to her consistent with her character. Arnold's marriage, it is true, brought him more continually into familiar association with the enemies of American liberty, and strengthened distrust of him in the minds of those who had seen enough to condemn in his previous conduct; and it is likely that his propensity for extravagance was encouraged by his wife's taste for luxury and display, while she exerted over

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The wife of Benedict Arnold was Margaret Shippen, of Philadelphia. One of her ancestors, Edward Shippen, who was mayor of the city in the beginning of the eighteenth century, suffered severe persecutions from the zealots in authority at Boston, for his Quakerism; but, successful in his business, he amassed a large fortune, and, according to tradition, was distinguished for "being the biggest man, having the biggest house and the biggest car-him no saving influence. In the words of one of riage in Philadelphia." His mansion, called "the governor's house,' Shippen's great house," and the famous house and orchard outside the town," was built on an eminence, the orchard overlooking the city; yellow pines shaded the rear, a green lawn extended in front, and the view was unobstructed to the Delaware and Jersey shores. A princely place, indeed, for that day-with its summer-house and gardens abounding with tulips, roses, and lilies! It is said to have been the residence for a few weeks of William Penn and his family. An account of the distinguished persons who were guests there at different times would be curious and interesting.

his best biographers, "he had no domestic security for doing right-no fireside guardianship to protect him from the tempter. Rejecting, as we do utterly, the theory that the wife was the instigator of his crime-all common principles of human action being opposed to it-we still believe that there was nothing in her influence or associations to countervail the persuasions to which he ultimately yielded. She was young, gay, and frivolous; fond of display and admiration, and used to luxury; she was utterly unfitted for the duties and privations of a poor man's wife. A loyalist's daughter, she had been taught to mourn over the pageantry of colonial rank and authority, and to recollect with pleasure the pomp of those brief days of enjoyment, when military men of the noble station were her admirers. Arnold had no counsellor on his pillow to urge him to the imitation of homely republican virtue, to stimulate him to follow the rugged path of a revolutionary patriot. He fell; and though his wife did not tempt or counsel him to ruin, there is no reason to think she ever uttered a word or made a sign to deter him."

Edward Shippen, afterwards Chief Justice of Pennsylvania, was the father of Margaret. His family, distinguished among the aristocracy of the day, was prominent after the commencement of the contest among those known to cherish loyalist principles; his daughters were educated in these, and had their constant associations with those who were opposed to American independence. The youngest of them-only eighteen years of age-beautiful, brilliant, and fascinating, full of spirit and gayety- Her instrumentality in the intercourse carried on the toast of the British officers while their army oc- while the iniquitous plan was maturing, according cupied Philadelphia-became the object of Arnold's to all probability, was an unconscious one. Major admiration. She had been "one of the brightest Andre, who had been intimate in her father's famiof the belles of the Mischianza ;" and it is some-ly while General Howe was in possession of Philawhat curious that the knight who appeared in her honor on that occasion chose for his device a bay leaf, with the motto, "Unchangeable." This gay and volatile young creature, accustomed to the dis play connected with "the pride of life," and the homage paid to beauty in high station, was not one to resist the lure of ambition, and was captivated, it is probable, through her girlish fancy, by the splendor of Arnold's equipments, and his military ostentation. These appear to have had their effect upon her relatives, one of whom, in a manuscript letter, still extant, says :-"We understand that Gen. Arnold, a fine gentleman, lays close siege to Peggy-thus noticing his brilliant and imposing exterior, without a word of information or inquiry as to his character and principles.

delphia, wrote to her from New York, in August, 1779, to solicit her remembrance, and offering his services in procuring supplies, should she require any, in the millinery department, in which he says, playfully, the Mischianza had given him skill and experience. The period at which this missive was sent-more than a year after Andre had parted with the "fair circle" for which he professes such lively regard-and the singularity of the letter itself, justified the suspicion which became general after its seizure by the Council of Pennsylvania-that its offer of service in the detail of capwire, needles, and gauze, covered a meaning deep and dangerous. This view was taken by many writers of the day; but, admitting that the letter was intended to convey a mysterious meaning, still it is not conclusive

evidence of Mrs. Arnold's participation in the de- tinuance of the war. She accordingly departed to sign or knowledge of the treason, the consumma-join her husband in New York. The respect and tion of which was yet distant more than a year. forbearance shown towards her on her journey The suggestion of Mr. Reed seems more probable through the country, notwithstanding her banish-that the guilty correspondence between the two ment, testified the popular belief in her innocence. officers under feigned names having been com- M. de Marbois relates that when she stopped at a menced in March or April, the letter to Mrs. Ar- village where the people were about to burn Arnold may have been intended by Andre to inform nold in effigy, they put it off till the next night. her husband of the name and rank of his New And when she entered the carriage, on her way to York correspondent, and thus encourage a fuller join her husband, all exhibition of popular indignameasure of confidence and regard. The judgment tion was suspended, as if respectful pity for the of Mr. Reed, Mr. Sparks, and others who have grief and shame she suffered, for the time overcame closely investigated the subject, is in favor of Mrs. every other feeling. Arnold's innocence in the matter.

The natural and proper condition of water is freshness-the state in which it falls from the clouds. It is by accident that it acquires the saline or any other impregnation. This is indicated, if it were by nothing else, in the varying degree of the saltness even in the ocean; for the sea is saltest between the tropics, where the evaporation is greatest, and least salt at the poles, owing to the infusion of the melted ice. We need not, therefore, be surprised at finding that the detached seas and salt lakes are of a different degree of saltness from the mean of the ocean, or that they are different among themselves. It is surprising, however, to find so heavy a charge of this article in the Dead Sea as one fourth of its whole mass. So extraordinary a fact was sure to excite great attention in early ages, though, as we now see, it is out-paralleled in the Lake of Eltonsk. Travellers tell that they have been able to discover no trace of animal life in the Dead Sea. They find themselves so buoyant in it, owing to its great specific gravity, that they can scarcely swim, it being difficult to keep both arms and legs under the surface at once. The skin smarts from the contact of the waters, and they come out with a sensible incrustation of salt all over. 'The stories told, however, of birds not being able to fly over the lake, owing to the fumes arising from it, are of the class of imaginary tales engendered by marvellous appearances. Sulphur and asphalt or bitumen are among the foreign substances contained in the water of the Dead Sea. The Caspian, in like manner, presents upon its western banks springs of naphtha. All of these are simple natural circumstances, easily to be accounted for by the character of the country drained into these detached seas.

are not sure if the baron includes in this calculation the space and precincts of the Lake of Aral, which is now believed to be about the same level with the Caspian, and only divided from it by a very low tract.

Nearly about the same time when the Russian savans were engaged in this investigation, several gentlemen of different countries, almost simultaneously, and quite independently of one another, made the discovery that there was a similar depression in the area of the Dead Sea. One of these gentlemen, Dr. Von Schubert, says, in a narrative which he has published-" We were not a little astonished at Jericho, and still more at the Dead Sea, to see the mercury in our barometer ascend beyond the scale. We were obliged to calculate the height by the eye, and although we reduced the height as much as possible, owing to the extremely unexpected nature of the result, yet the level of the Dead Sea, hence deduced, was at least 640 English feet under that of the Mediterranean. We endeavored to explain away this conclusion in every possible way.

An

I could not have ventured to make public so extraordinary a measurement after my return home, although the measurement of the height of the Lake of Tiberias corresponded with it, had it not been that some of my friends published a notice of it in the Allgemeine Zeitung.' interest being now excited in the subject, several other measurements were made, but none of a satisfactory nature, till Lieutenant Symonds, in 1841, executed a trigonometrical survey of the space between Jaffa and the Dead Sea, and ascertained the latter to be depressed below the Mediterranean no less than 1311 feet! The area occupied by and surrounding the famed Asphaltite Lake, including a large portion of the valley of the Jordan-the scene of some of the most remarkable events in history-thus appears to be a kind of pit, for so it may well be called. Even the Lake of Tiberias, seventy miles up the valley of the Jordan, was discovered by Lieutenant Symonds to be 328 feet be

Till no distant period, it was supposed that there was a subterranean communication between the Caspian and the Black Sea, forming a secret outlet for the large quantities of water brought into the former by the Wolga and other rivers. As evidence in favor of this supposition, it was observed that the sea-calves, dolphins, and other marine mam-low the level of the ocean. malia of the Mediterranean and Black Sea, were From these discoveries it results that there is no identical in species with those found in the Caspian. It was thought that these animals had found their way into the Caspian through the subterranean passages. Such notions are now wholly given up by men of science.

possible means of exit for the waters thrown into the Caspian and Dead Sea besides evaporation. Great as is the volume brought in by the rivers, the sun in those warm latitudes is sufficiently powerful to withdraw it again, thus keeping down the surIt has long been known, however, that the Cas- face at a certain general level, lower than that of pian stands at a lower level than the ocean. Hal- the main sea. It is believed that the reason of the ley, the English astronomer, of the reign of Charles saline taste of such isolated masses of water-and II., speculated upon the depression in which it rests in this category the ocean itself might be included having been produced by the stroke of a comet.-is, as long ago suggested by Buffon, their being When, about 1732, some barometrical observations the ultimate place of deposit for the particles of indicated its being fully 300 feet below the ocean level, the idea was put aside as "evidently absurd ;" but, some years afterwards, other observers finding reason to come to the same conclusion, it began to be the subject of serious inquiry. After many experiments by different persons, most of which came to widely different results, the depression of the Caspian below the level of the sea was ascertained by levelling, in 1837, to be about 83 or 84 feet. This is a very remarkable fact, from its being of a nature not previously imagined as possible. But it is not alone the area of the Caspian which is concerned. The eastern and northern shores being almost level for a large space, it appears, from a calculation of Baron Humboldt, that the extent of continental land depressed below the level of the ocean, is not less than 18,000 square marine leagues, being more than the area of France. We

salt washed by the rivers out of the land during their courses. A Caspian is, in this respect, to be regarded as a coördinate of the great ocean itself, albeit on a comparatively small scale. An English lake which received a rivulet, and had no outlet, would be another example; and even in such a sheet of water a charge of salts would perhaps in time be acquired.

Sir Roderick I. Murchison, in his late laborious work on the Geology of Russia in Europe, describes the character of the great basin occupied by the Aral and Caspian. Excepting a tract (the UstUrt) interposed between these seas, which is a plateau of miocene limestone ranging under 731 feet above the level of the Caspian, this large region may be generally described as "a desiccated seabottom * entirely composed of sand, with occasional heaps of fine gravel rarely

of the evaporative over the filling power, such as we may believe now exists, would be sufficient, in the course of time, to reduce the great sea of a former age, to the present pair of detached lakes.

Sir Roderick I. Murchison, speculating on this subject, says-"Whilst we specially invite attention to the grandeur and peculiarity of this former internal sea, we think that its diminution to the size of the present Caspian and Aral Seas is mainly due to oscillations of its former bottom. The erupCaucasus, and the Balkan of Khwarezm, are fortunately at hand to explain that, as igneous matter in many forms has sought an issue at many points in those contiguous mountains, partially raising up sedimentary deposits, and changing their mineral aspects and condition, so probably have internal, widely-acting, expansive forces, derived from the same deep-seated source, heaved up, in broad horizontal masses, to the different levels at which we now find them, the beds of the former great Caspian Sea. Such elevations would very naturally, we contend, be accompanied by adjacent depressions; and thus we would explain the low position of the Caspian Sea, and such portions of land about it, as are admitted by all observers to lie beneath the surface of the ocean."

argillaceous and loamy, and almost everywhere strewed over with shells, or the débris of species, some of which are now living in the adjacent Caspian Sea." This superficial formation rests on the flanks of the miocene limestone of the Ust-Urt, showing that it was deposited in a sea which insulated that district; and this sea appears to have been one precisely resembling the present Caspian, for the fossil shells are wholy of the kinds (cardium, mytilus, adacnè, &c.) which live in brackish seas, resembling these also in their being of a very limit-tive rocks which range along the Crimea, the ed number of species, while numerous as individuals; in which respect, it may be remarked, brackish seas differ from ordinary seas where the species are usually of great variety. Sir Roderick, therefore, believes that the great steppe of Astrakhan, and all the rest of that extensive low tract, forming what may be called the Aralo-Caspian basin, was, in comparatively modern geological times, but before the age of history, covered by a brackish sea. forming a sort of inner Mediterranean, and fully equalling that sea in extent. This tract is indeed only saved from being so at this moment by the strength of the evaporative power were that diminished to any serious extent, the large rivers now flowing into the Aral and Caspian (the Oxus, Jaxartes, Wolga, &c.) would undoubtedly raise a single sheet of water by which this extensive por- We must profess ourselves to be at a loss to pertion of Western Asia would be overflowed. It may ceive occasion for such upheavals and depressions be a curious subject of reflection to the inhabitants of the surface as are here called forth.* There is of Astrakhan, that their city is only saved from nothing in the configuration of the district which permanent and hopeless inundation by the power we may not suppose to have coëxisted with the of the sun's rays. So equally would this tract former greater height of the Aralo-Caspian Sea, become the seat of a prolongation of the Mediter- so that only the connection with the Mediterranean ranean, a true saline sea, if the ground intervening basin be higher than the position of the shells so between it and the Black Sea, or the Sea of Azov, often alluded to-a point upon which we have every were to be from any cause broken down or lowered. reason to conclude affirmatively. Sir Roderick's It becomes an interesting subject of speculation contending for depressions, seems uncalled for, -By what means, and in what circumstances, have when we consider that there are many lakes deeper the Caspian and Aral been drained or emptied down than the neighboring seas, and that in their cases to their present diminished forms and extent? It we should equally find a subaerial depression, if is first necessary to keep in view that Caspian shells the evaporative power were only in excess over being found on a sort of under-cliff of the Ust-Urt that by which the lake is fed. The bottom of Loch from 150 to 200 feet above the Aral, (which it over- Ness, for instance, is 700 or 800 feet below the looks,) we must presume that the Aralo-Caspian level of the sea. Were it placed in a sufficiently basin had once a greater height of water by at least torrid climate, we should have it transformed into that amount. The question arises-By what height a comparatively small salt lake, occupying the botof country is the Aralo-Caspian basin divided from tom of a vale precisely like that of the Jordan and that of the Black Sea?-the only point in which a Dead Sea. Lake Superior, in North America, the connection has been presumed to have existed. surface of which is 627 feet above the sea, has a We obtain some light on this subject from the ob- bed 336 feet below that level. Here an increased servations of Pallus, who describes a cliff, like the evaporative power would have exactly the same border of an ancient sea, extending between the effect. Such depressions of the surface apart from extremity of the Ural Mountains and a point near the bed of the ocean, are common had this been the upper extremity of the sea of Azov: this is said to kept in mind, and had the main fact connected with average about 300 feet of elevation above the Aralo- salt lakes been held in view-namely, their issuing Caspian basin. It would obviously, if there were no in evaporation-such men as Humboldt, Arago, lower point of connection, form a boundary for a and Murchison could not have failed to see that all lake or detached sea sufficient in height to deposit the recourse to such extraordinary means as upheavals shells on the under-cliff overlooking the Aral. We and depressions might have been spared. Such are not so clearly informed as to the height of the motions of the surface are no doubt amongst the ground intervening more directly between the Cas- most indubitable of the facts educed by geology pian and Black Sea; but such information is scarce-from the history of the past; but it was in earlier ly necessary, as the brackish character established ages than those of the superficial formations that for the ancient Caspian by its shells shows it to they were at their maximum of intensity. There have been divided from the Black Sea by a height *The value of Sir Roderick's statement depends altosufficient to cut off all connection between their re-gether upon the character of the eruptive rocks." If spective waters. When we ask more strictly by what these are very modern, as lavas and trachytes, &c.; if they means has the ancient Caspian Sea been reduced? have acted upon the miocene rocks of the district, so as it becomes important to know that there is evidence to control and otherwise derange their natural horizonfor the fact, generally believed amongst the neigh-tality; or if they have in the least affected the character of the superficial masses containing the shells, then to a boring people, that the waters are continually certainty volcanic forces have had to do with the severance though slowly diminishing. A small overbalance of the Caspian and Black Sea.-Note by a Friend.