1828.] 



Varieties. 



429 



The Becond objection urged is on public 

 grounds, viz. that a general monopoly of 

 the whole banking business of the country, 

 and an uncontrolled power over the cir- 

 culation of the country, with the means of 

 extending and contracting it at will, would 

 give no steady price to any thing or any 

 property all articles of consumption, and 

 all property of every description, personal 

 or real, varying according to the plenty or 

 scarcity of the circulating medium, regu- 

 lated by the will of twenty-four men.* 

 That to these men will be thus given a 

 power, which might be subversive of the 

 best interests of the country, and dan- 

 gerous even to the government itself. 



The effect of the local branch banks will 

 be gradually to check the due circulation 

 of money in the country, and cramp the 

 means of the agriculturists and manufac- 

 turer : for the private banker finding him- 

 self unequal to compete with the directors 

 of the Bank of England, now issues his 

 notes mere'y for the deposits of cash made 

 with him; and looking to the possibility of 

 another convulsion, he makes no ad- 

 vances on loan, but sends the property to 

 his London correspondent, there to be em- 

 ployed at slender interest, with a power of 

 immediate recall, in case of a run upon 

 him ; and this it is that causes such an 

 immense influx of money to the London 

 bankers, who hold, without the means of 

 employing, that which, by an undue course 

 of things, thus becomes useless to all 

 parties. 



Celestial Maps. From a communica- 

 tion made last month to the Astronomical 

 Society, by Mr. Arrows mith, we learn that 

 he has in preparation two maps of the 

 heavens, the northern and the southern 

 hemisphere, of the unusual size of 39 

 inches in diameter they are intended to 

 revolve in the plane of the equator, a novel 

 arrangement, through which, together with 

 their unrivalled accuracy, they will be 

 rendered as useful in the observatory as 

 ornamental in the library. 



Earthquakes in the West Indies, During 

 the last six months of 1827, no less than 

 ten earthquakes were felt in the Antilles. 

 Eight were only undulatory motions of the 

 earth, slow, and weak. But that of Au- 

 gust 5 consisted of two smart shocks ; and 

 that of November 30 was of similar vio- 

 lence and duration, lasting no less than 

 50 seconds ; for the last 70 years a similar 

 one has not been experienced at Marti- 

 nique ; it occasioned, however, more terror 

 than mischief. At Guadaloupe, where it 

 was felt about a quarter of an hour later 

 than at the other island, its effects were 

 equally severe. 



* In tlic year 1817, it appears that the issue of 

 Bank of England notes was nearly 30 millions ; in 

 1822, a lapse of five years only, it stood at less than 

 17. This will at once shew the unsteadiness of 

 circulation, and how it must operate upon the 

 value of all property. 



Medical Researches. An opinion has 

 long prevailed, that Columbus introduced 

 into Europe from America the disease at 

 present known under the appellation of 

 siphylis. This question, which has been 

 agitated during three centuries, has been 

 at length set at rest by the researches of 

 Dr. Thienne, a physician of Vicenza, who 

 has satisfactorily proved the ravages of this 

 disease long before the birth of Columbus. 

 His investigations have led to some cu- 

 rious results, inasmuch as he has esta- 

 blished a sort of analogy and identity be- 

 tween the elephantiasis, the leprosy, the 

 venereal infection of Canada, the sjbbens 

 of Scotland, the radzyg6 of Norway, the 

 saws of Africa, the pan of America, the 

 malady of Scherlieno in the Tyrol, &c. 



Proportion of Crime. From the records 

 of the Spanish courts of justice, in 1826, 

 as compared with the amount of the popu- 

 lation, it appears that there is one criminal 

 in 885 persons ; in France it has been esti- 

 mated there is one in 1,172, and in Eng- 

 land one in 1,226. If any confidence is to 

 be placed in these results, and we are dis- 

 posed to regard them as an approximation 

 to the truth, what reflections do they not 

 suggest on the state of these countries 

 respectively ! 



Effects of a Thunder Storm at Sea. 

 The following is the substance of a com- 

 munication made to the Academy of 

 Sciences, in Paris, by Captain Scoresby, 

 relative to the effect of a thunder storm on 

 the " New York," a vessel employed in 

 the passage between London and New 

 York, which is usually performed in 25 

 days. The first time the vessel, which 

 had no lightning conductor, was struck, 

 all the partitions were knocked down, but 

 no one was injured. The following day 

 the captain, apprehensive of another storm, 

 had caused a conductor to be placed on the 

 main-mast ; the electrical discharge was 

 made on this conductor, which was entire- 

 ly melted, and fell in drops into the sea. 

 Nearly all the passengers saw a depression 

 take place in the sea, round the place where 

 the electrical current entered the ocean. 

 The upper part of the conductor was four 

 feet long, and five inches and a half in 

 diameter, and the rest of it was three- 

 tenths of an inch in diameter, dimensions 

 evidently too small. An excellent chrono- 

 meter, of which the daily rate never ex- 

 ceeded one-tenth of a second, was so af- 

 fected that it gained 34 minutes in the pas- 

 sage. The cause of this became evident 

 when, upon examination in London, it was 

 found that all the parts of the instrument 

 had become highly magnetised, so that its 

 general movement depended evidently on 

 the position given to it. The second thun- 

 derstroke, like the first, killed no one, but 

 operated a remarkable cure. An old and 

 very stout passenger had been so affected 

 with paralysis in his legs for more than 

 three years, as to be almost deprived of 



