1824.] 
» For the Monthly Magazine. 
Description of Comora Isiann, in the 
“Eastern African. Ocean, visited in 
1819, dy Carrain Letizur, of Le 
Lys, in the French Navy. 
OMORA is the largest. island, and 
its elevation the greatest, in this Ar- 
chipelago.. On the top of its highest 
mountain is a volcano, which apparently 
breaks out only every seven years, The 
soil, except at the northern and south- 
ern extremities, is arid; and, covered 
with stones and pebbles: among these 
rocky. substances, they cultivate with 
much toil “articles of sustenance. Co- 
mora ig partly covered with cocoa-trees, 
nearly as fine as those of Anjouan, one 
of the adjacent islands. 
The aboriginal inhabitants appear to 
have been Arabs; the population, which 
amounts to 50,000 inhabitants, could 
not otherwise have so increased in 200 
years, when these islands became theirs 
by conquest. Comora is divided into 
nine kingdoms, generally at war one 
with another; this tends not a little to 
interrupt the commerce with the port 
of Mouroni, the only anchorage-place 
of the island, if, indeed, it deserves the 
name. 
merchandize is disembarked and: ex- 
changed. : 
The king, whom I saluted, on my 
arrival, with seven pieces of cannon, 
gave me a gracious reception, and 
seemed desirous of commencing a trade 
with the French. The town is large, 
and may contain about 12,000 souls, 
Though not so well built as Anjouan, 
which I visited, it is encompassed with 
walls; as that town-is; one half of the 
place is occupied with cottages. The 
inhabitants are taller and more dark- 
complexioned than in the other islands: 
‘their behaviour is very affable; this sur- 
prised me the more; as they had:not, till 
then, séen a European among them. 
In general, the face of the country 
seems parched up; there is no fresh 
water; the rivers are at a great dis- 
tance one from another, and at the place 
where the town is situated, there is only 
a kind of meer or pond. 
If a trade were once established, it 
would be more considerable here than 
at the other islands, as besides cocoa 
and oil that might be made here, there 
is abundance of dastin (some native 
commodity not. explained) which they 
export to Languebar, together with the 
cowries that pass throughout India. To 
the coast of 
Montury Mac. No, 400, 
Comparative Value of Coal and Oil Gas. 
It is, however, the place where ' 
Africa, they send a nut 
321 
which tastes like the chesnut; it grows 
on a tree like the vacoa, and thrives best 
among the rocks.’ To Mozambique, they 
send shells, and to the adjacent: isles, 
millet of a very small kind. 
As to trading in-salt-fish, it could not 
be set up in‘any’ of the Comora ‘islands, 
as no fish is found on the coasts of any 
in the Archipelago. Oysters, however, 
abound in difterent parts of their shores; 
they are small, but excellent. 
—= 
For the Monthly Magazine. 
COMPARATIVE VALUE of COAL and 
OIL GAS. 
N the last number you have given a 
translation of an article from the Revue 
Encyclopédique on the subject of gas- 
lighting. ‘Though the paper contains 
many just reflections on the subject, 
yet it is rather a history of the progress 
of this valuable invention than any thing 
like an analysis of its comparative value, 
with reference to the former modes of 
obtaining artificial light. The author of 
the paper in the Revue, like most of his 
ingenious countrymen, has taken care to 
assign the chief merit of the discovery 
of gas-lighting to his own nation. For 
he says, “‘more than a century ago, 
hydrogen gas was in use at Paris, for the 
first time in laboratories, under the 
name of the Philosophic Lamp. It was 
also at Paris, that Lebon, engineer of 
bridges and causeways, made the first 
experiments on a large scale; with gas 
obtained from the distillation of wood 
in enclosed vessels,” &c. &c. 
The ingenious writer, of course, had 
never heard of the’experiments of Lord 
Dundonald and Dr. Clayton, more than 
half'a century back, on the decompo- 
sition of pit-coal. For he further ob- 
serves, “it was some time after the 
public experiments of the French en- 
gineer, that gas extracted from pit coal, 
was in use at Birmingham; not only for 
lighting up certain manufactories, but 
for feeding the lamps employed in sol- 
dering hardware. ~ About the same time 
Mr. Winsor published a memoir, where- 
in he claimed the merit of the discovery, 
though not with a successful effect.” 
The writer acknowledges the oppo- 
sition that gas lighting has met with in 
France, either from the management of 
those concerns not being so well under- 
stood asin England, or from the rival 
interests being too powerful to allow it 
fair trial—or from both causes com- 
bined. But it is no slight compliment 
R to 
